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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8092-0.txt b/8092-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f600f92 --- /dev/null +++ b/8092-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5774 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sisters, by Tremendous Trifles, by G. K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Tremendous Trifles + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: June 13, 2003 [eBook #8092] +[Most recently updated: April 27, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: An Anonymous Volunteer + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + + + + +TREMENDOUS TRIFLES + +By G. K. Chesterton + + + + +PREFACE + + +These fleeting sketches are all republished by kind permission of the +Editor of the DAILY NEWS, in which paper they appeared. They amount +to no more than a sort of sporadic diary--a diary recording one day in +twenty which happened to stick in the fancy--the only kind of diary the +author has ever been able to keep. Even that diary he could only keep +by keeping it in public, for bread and cheese. But trivial as are the +topics they are not utterly without a connecting thread of motive. +As the reader’s eye strays, with hearty relief, from these pages, it +probably alights on something, a bed-post or a lamp-post, a window +blind or a wall. It is a thousand to one that the reader is looking at +something that he has never seen: that is, never realised. He could not +write an essay on such a post or wall: he does not know what the post +or wall mean. He could not even write the synopsis of an essay; as “The +Bed-Post; Its Significance--Security Essential to Idea of Sleep--Night +Felt as Infinite--Need of Monumental Architecture,” and so on. He could +not sketch in outline his theoretic attitude towards window-blinds, even +in the form of a summary. “The Window-Blind--Its Analogy to the Curtain +and Veil--Is Modesty Natural?--Worship of and Avoidance of the Sun, +etc., etc.” None of us think enough of these things on which the eye +rests. But don’t let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? +Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that +run across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular +athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured +cloud. I have attempted some such thing in what follows; but anyone else +may do it better, if anyone else will only try. + + + CONTENTS: + + I Tremendous Trifles + II A Piece of Chalk + III The Secret of a Train + IV The Perfect Game + V The Extraordinary Cabman + VI An Accident + VII The Advantages of Having One Leg + VIII The End of the World + IX In the Place de la Bastille + X On Lying in Bed + XI The Twelve Men + XII The Wind and the Trees + XIII The Dickensian + XIV In Topsy-Turvy Land + XV What I Found in My Pocket + XVI The Dragon’s Grandmother + XVII The Red Angel + XVIII The Tower + XIX How I Met the President + XX The Giant + XXI The Great Man + XXII The Orthodox Barber + XXIII The Toy Theatre + XXIV A Tragedy of Twopence + XXV A Cab Ride Across Country + XXVI The Two Noises + XXVII Some Policemen and a Moral + XXVIII The Lion + XXIX Humanity: An Interlude + XXX The Little Birds Who Won’t Sing + XXXI The Riddle of the Ivy + XXXII The Travellers in State + XXXIII The Prehistoric Railway Station + XXXIV The Diabolist + XXXV A Glimpse of My Country + XXXVI A Somewhat Improbable Story + XXXVII The Shop of Ghosts + XXXVIII The Ballade of a Strange Town + XXXIX The Mystery of a Pageant + + + + + +I. Tremendous Trifles + +Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly in the +front garden, because their villa was a model one. The front garden was +about the same size as the dinner table; it consisted of four strips of +gravel, a square of turf with some mysterious pieces of cork standing up +in the middle and one flower bed with a row of red daisies. One morning +while they were at play in these romantic grounds, a passing individual, +probably the milkman, leaned over the railing and engaged them in +philosophical conversation. The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, +were at least sharply interested in his remarks. For the milkman (who +was, I need say, a fairy) did his duty in that state of life by offering +them in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. And +Paul closed with the offer with a business-like abruptness, explaining +that he had long wished to be a giant that he might stride across +continents and oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas in an afternoon +dinner stroll. The milkman producing a wand from his breast pocket, +waved it in a hurried and perfunctory manner; and in an instant the +model villa with its front garden was like a tiny doll’s house at Paul’s +colossal feet. He went striding away with his head above the clouds to +visit Niagara and the Himalayas. But when he came to the Himalayas, +he found they were quite small and silly-looking, like the little cork +rockery in the garden; and when he found Niagara it was no bigger than +the tap turned on in the bathroom. He wandered round the world for +several minutes trying to find something really large and finding +everything small, till in sheer boredom he lay down on four or five +prairies and fell asleep. Unfortunately his head was just outside the +hut of an intellectual backwoodsman who came out of it at that moment +with an axe in one hand and a book of Neo-Catholic Philosophy in the +other. The man looked at the book and then at the giant, and then at the +book again. And in the book it said, “It can be maintained that the evil +of pride consists in being out of proportion to the universe.” So the +backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, working eight hours a +day for about a week, cut the giant’s head off; and there was an end of +him. + +Such is the severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly +enough, made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long wished to +be a pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he immediately became +one. When the transformation was over he found himself in the midst of +an immense plain, covered with a tall green jungle and above which, at +intervals, rose strange trees each with a head like the sun in symbolic +pictures, with gigantic rays of silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward +the middle of this prairie stood up a mountain of such romantic and +impossible shape, yet of such stony height and dominance, that it looked +like some incident of the end of the world. And far away on the faint +horizon he could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more +mystical, of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. +He set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has not +come to the end of it yet. + +Such is the story of Peter and Paul, which contains all the highest +qualities of a modern fairy tale, including that of being wholly unfit +for children; and indeed the motive with which I have introduced it is +not childish, but rather full of subtlety and reaction. It is in fact +the almost desperate motive of excusing or palliating the pages that +follow. Peter and Paul are the two primary influences upon European +literature to-day; and I may be permitted to put my own preference in +its most favourable shape, even if I can only do it by what little girls +call telling a story. + +I need scarcely say that I am the pigmy. The only excuse for the scraps +that follow is that they show what can be achieved with a commonplace +existence and the sacred spectacles of exaggeration. The other great +literary theory, that which is roughly represented in England by Mr. +Rudyard Kipling, is that we moderns are to regain the primal zest by +sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical +variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. Let it +be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; and the +two alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling’s school advises us +to go to Central Africa in order to find a man without a frock coat. The +school to which I belong suggests that we should stare steadily at the +man until we see the man inside the frock coat. If we stare at him long +enough he may even be moved to take off his coat to us; and that is a +far greater compliment than his taking off his hat. In other words, +we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually +before us, force them to turn into adventures; force them to give up +their meaning and fulfil their mysterious purpose. The purpose of the +Kipling literature is to show how many extraordinary things a man may +see if he is active and strides from continent to continent like the +giant in my tale. But the object of my school is to show how many +extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man may see if he can spur +himself to the single activity of seeing. For this purpose I have taken +the laziest person of my acquaintance, that is myself; and made an idle +diary of such odd things as I have fallen over by accident, in walking +in a very limited area at a very indolent pace. If anyone says that +these are very small affairs talked about in very big language, I can +only gracefully compliment him upon seeing the joke. If anyone says that +I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess with pride that it is +so. I can imagine no more successful and productive form of manufacture +than that of making mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not +unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a +pigmy like Peter to discover that. + +I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, in getting +to the top of everything and overlooking everything. Satan was the +most celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took Jesus to the top of an +exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. +But the joy of Satan in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, +but a joy in beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like +insects at his feet. It is from the valley that things look large; it is +from the level that things look high; I am a child of the level and have +no need of that celebrated Alpine guide. I will lift up my eyes to the +hills, from whence cometh my help; but I will not lift up my carcass +to the hills, unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything is in an +attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. I +will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like +flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never +starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder. + + + + +II. A Piece of Chalk + +I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer +holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing +nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a +walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. +I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, +belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), +and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown +paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook +the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She +seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be +wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to +do; indeed, it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental +capacity. Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of +toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only +wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in +the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a +question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing +comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I +wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, apparently +supposing that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown paper +wrappers from motives of economy. + +I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not +only liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness in paper, +just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, +or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal +twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured +chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and +blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of +divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; +and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and +possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how +primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one’s +pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the +infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely +about the things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and +the age of the great epics is past. + +..... + +With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, I went out +on to the great downs. I crawled across those colossal contours that +express the best quality of England, because they are at the same time +soft and strong. The smoothness of them has the same meaning as the +smoothness of great cart-horses, or the smoothness of the beech-tree; +it declares in the teeth of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty +are merciful. As my eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly +as any of its cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. The +villages in the immense valley were safe, one could see, for centuries; +yet the lifting of the whole land was like the lifting of one enormous +wave to wash them all away. + +I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place +to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven’s sake, imagine I was going to +sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind +old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in +robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred +or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colours on brown paper. +They are much better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much +easier to draw. When a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a +mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs +of quadrupeds. So I drew the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly +walking before me in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and +silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all the +beasts. But though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the +landscape, it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the +best out of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about +the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care +very much about Nature because they did not describe it much. + +They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but +they sat on the great hills to write it. They gave out much less about +Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white +robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had +stared all day. They blazoned the shields of their paladins with the +purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. The greenness of a thousand +green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The +blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the +Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo. + +..... + +But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began +to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that +a most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, +but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted +with all the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art +of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I +cannot avoid remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the wise +and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white +is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and +affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so +to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows +white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities +of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is +exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality +is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the +avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like +pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or +sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive +thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. + +Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something +flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colours; but +He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when +He paints in white. In a sense our age has realised this fact, and +expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that +white was a blank and colourless thing, negative and non-committal, then +white would be used instead of black and grey for the funeral dress of +this pessimistic period. We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of +spotless silver linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. +Which is not the case. + +Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk. + +..... + +I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town nearer than +Chichester at which it was even remotely probable that there would be +such a thing as an artist’s colourman. And yet, without white, my absurd +little pictures would be as pointless as the world would be if there +were no good people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for +expedients. Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and +again, so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine +a man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. +Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt +water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense +warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely out of white +chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped +and broke a piece off the rock I sat on; it did not mark so well as the +shop chalks do; but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance +of pleasure, realising that this Southern England is not only a grand +peninsula, and a tradition and a civilisation; it is something even more +admirable. It is a piece of chalk. + + + + +III. The Secret of a Train + +All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a loose +memory. I will not merely say that this story is true: because, as you +will soon see, it is all truth and no story. It has no explanation and +no conclusion; it is, like most of the other things we encounter in +life, a fragment of something else which would be intensely exciting if +it were not too large to be seen. For the perplexity of life arises from +there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested +properly in any of them; what we call its triviality is really the +tag-ends of numberless tales; ordinary and unmeaning existence is like +ten thousand thrilling detective stories mixed up with a spoon. My +experience was a fragment of this nature, and it is, at any rate, not +fictitious. Not only am I not making up the incidents (what there were +of them), but I am not making up the atmosphere of the landscape, which +were the whole horror of the thing. I remember them vividly, and they +were as I shall now describe. + +..... + +About noon of an ashen autumn day some years ago I was standing outside +the station at Oxford intending to take the train to London. And +for some reason, out of idleness or the emptiness of my mind or the +emptiness of the pale grey sky, or the cold, a kind of caprice fell upon +me that I would not go by that train at all, but would step out on the +road and walk at least some part of the way to London. I do not know +if other people are made like me in this matter; but to me it is always +dreary weather, what may be called useless weather, that slings into +life a sense of action and romance. On bright blue days I do not want +anything to happen; the world is complete and beautiful, a thing for +contemplation. I no more ask for adventures under that turquoise dome +than I ask for adventures in church. But when the background of man’s +life is a grey background, then, in the name of man’s sacred supremacy, +I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. When the heavens fail man +refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have written on it, in letters +of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing shall happen, then the +immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises up and decrees that +something shall happen, if it be only the slaughter of a policeman. But +this is a digressive way of stating what I have said already--that +the bleak sky awoke in me a hunger for some change of plans, that the +monotonous weather seemed to render unbearable the use of the monotonous +train, and that I set out into the country lanes, out of the town of +Oxford. It was, perhaps, at that moment that a strange curse came +upon me out of the city and the sky, whereby it was decreed that years +afterwards I should, in an article in the DAILY NEWS, talk about Sir +George Trevelyan in connection with Oxford, when I knew perfectly well +that he went to Cambridge. + +As I crossed the country everything was ghostly and colourless. The +fields that should have been green were as grey as the skies; the +tree-tops that should have been green were as grey as the clouds and as +cloudy. And when I had walked for some hours the evening was closing in. +A sickly sunset clung weakly to the horizon, as if pale with reluctance +to leave the world in the dark. And as it faded more and more the skies +seemed to come closer and to threaten. The clouds which had been merely +sullen became swollen; and then they loosened and let down the dark +curtains of the rain. The rain was blinding and seemed to beat like +blows from an enemy at close quarters; the skies seemed bending over and +bawling in my ears. I walked on many more miles before I met a man, and +in that distance my mind had been made up; and when I met him I asked +him if anywhere in the neighbourhood I could pick up the train for +Paddington. He directed me to a small silent station (I cannot even +remember the name of it) which stood well away from the road and looked +as lonely as a hut on the Andes. I do not think I have ever seen such a +type of time and sadness and scepticism and everything devilish as that +station was: it looked as if it had always been raining there ever since +the creation of the world. The water streamed from the soaking wood of +it as if it were not water at all, but some loathsome liquid corruption +of the wood itself; as if the solid station were eternally falling to +pieces and pouring away in filth. It took me nearly ten minutes to find +a man in the station. When I did he was a dull one, and when I asked him +if there was a train to Paddington his answer was sleepy and vague. As +far as I understood him, he said there would be a train in half an hour. +I sat down and lit a cigar and waited, watching the last tail of the +tattered sunset and listening to the everlasting rain. It may have +been in half an hour or less, but a train came rather slowly into the +station. It was an unnaturally dark train; I could not see a light +anywhere in the long black body of it; and I could not see any guard +running beside it. I was reduced to walking up to the engine and calling +out to the stoker to ask if the train was going to London. “Well--yes, +sir,” he said, with an unaccountable kind of reluctance. “It is going +to London; but----” It was just starting, and I jumped into the first +carriage; it was pitch dark. I sat there smoking and wondering, as we +steamed through the continually darkening landscape, lined with desolate +poplars, until we slowed down and stopped, irrationally, in the middle +of a field. I heard a heavy noise as of some one clambering off the +train, and a dark, ragged head suddenly put itself into my window. +“Excuse me, sir,” said the stoker, “but I think, perhaps--well, perhaps +you ought to know--there’s a dead man in this train.” + +..... + +Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities +and nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt, to be finally +overwhelmed with this sensational touch, and to have insisted on +getting out and walking. As it was, I regret to say, I expressed myself +politely, but firmly, to the effect that I didn’t care particularly if +the train took me to Paddington. But when the train had started with +its unknown burden I did do one thing, and do it quite instinctively, +without stopping to think, or to think more than a flash. I threw +away my cigar. Something that is as old as man and has to do with +all mourning and ceremonial told me to do it. There was something +unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, in the idea of there being +only two men in that train, and one of them dead and the other smoking +a cigar. And as the red and gold of the butt end of it faded like a +funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic moment of a procession, +I realised how immortal ritual is. I realised (what is the origin and +essence of all ritual) that in the presence of those sacred riddles +about which we can say nothing it is more decent merely to do something. +And I realised that ritual will always mean throwing away something; +DESTROYING our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods. + +When the train panted at last into Paddington Station I sprang out of +it with a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier and officials +guarding the rear part of the train; no one was allowed to press towards +it. They were guarding and hiding something; perhaps death in some too +shocking form, perhaps something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up +with human mystery and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of +sanctity; perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough +into the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces. +Nor have I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I +wandered or what frightful thing was my companion in the dark. + + + + +IV. The Perfect Game + +We have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to +him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernatural. My +own position is the opposite of this. I believe in the supernatural as a +matter of intellect and reason, not as a matter of personal experience. +I do not see ghosts; I only see their inherent probability. But it is +entirely a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions; +my nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. But +upon people of this temperament one weird incident will often leave a +peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance that ever occurred +to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted in nothing less than my +playing a game, and playing it quite well for some seventeen consecutive +minutes. The ghost of my grandfather would have astonished me less. + +On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my +inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had +imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, +and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant +side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. I played +it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had a +semi-philosophical argument which lasted through the entire contest. It +is deeply implanted in my mind that I had the best of the argument; but +it is certain and beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. + +“Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!” I cried, patting him affectionately on the +head with a mallet, “how far you really are from the pure love of the +sport--you who can play. It is only we who play badly who love the Game +itself. You love glory; you love applause; you love the earthquake voice +of victory; you do not love croquet. You do not love croquet until +you love being beaten at croquet. It is we the bunglers who adore the +occupation in the abstract. It is we to whom it is art for art’s sake. +If we may see the face of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) +we are content to see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is +called amateurish; and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs +is but the French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, +the most disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates +(I allude to the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, +impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within the pedantic +boundaries of the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek honour in the ends +of the earth; they turn up in the flower-beds and the conservatory; they +are to be found in the front garden and the next street. No, Parkinson! +The good painter has skill. It is the bad painter who loves his art. The +good musician loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With +such a pure and hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game +itself. I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or tape, +as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, the four +seas of Britain. I love the mere swing of the mallets, and the click of +the balls is music. The four colours are to me sacramental and symbolic, +like the red of martyrdom, or the white of Easter Day. You lose all +this, my poor Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence of +this vision by the paltry consolation of being able to go through hoops +and to hit the stick.” + +And I waved my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety. + +“Don’t be too sorry for me,” said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. “I +shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more a man likes +a game the better he would want to play it. Granted that the pleasure +in the thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure of success come +naturally and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your own simile of the +Knight and his Lady-love. I admit the gentleman does first and foremost +want to be in the lady’s presence. But I never yet heard of a gentleman +who wanted to look an utter ass when he was there.” + +“Perhaps not; though he generally looks it,” I replied. “But the truth +is that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The +happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which +can be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, +the jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the love +of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not true +that the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger will +be the game. It is logically possible--(follow me closely here, +Parkinson!)--it is logically possible, to play croquet too well to enjoy +it at all. If you could put this blue ball through that distant hoop as +easily as you could pick it up with your hand, then you would not put it +through that hoop any more than you pick it up with your hand; it would +not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly you would not play at +all. The moment the game is perfect the game disappears.” + +“I do not think, however,” said Parkinson, “that you are in any +immediate danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not think +your croquet will vanish through its own faultless excellence. You are +safe for the present.” + +I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired +myself, and resumed the thread of my discourse. + +The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this +time it was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four more +fundamental principles, and my companion had gone through five more +hoops, the dusk was verging upon dark. + +“We shall have to give this up,” said Parkinson, as he missed a ball +almost for the first time, “I can’t see a thing.” + +“Nor can I,” I answered, “and it is a comfort to reflect that I could +not hit anything if I saw it.” + +With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness +towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. +Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, +indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball. + +Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball +again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was the +right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot. + +Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that +impossible ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I supposed +was the vague direction of the quite invisible stick. And in the dead +silence I heard the stick rattle as the ball struck it heavily. + +I threw down my mallet. “I can’t stand this,” I said. “My ball has gone +right three times. These things are not of this world.” + +“Pick your mallet up,” said Parkinson, “have another go.” + +“I tell you I daren’t. If I made another hoop like that I should see all +the devils dancing there on the blessed grass.” + +“Why devils?” asked Parkinson; “they may be only fairies making fun of +you. They are sending you the ‘Perfect Game,’ which is no game.” + +I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness, in which +the faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across the grass +as if it burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball +somewhere--somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull click +of the balls touching, and ran into the house like one pursued. + + + + +V. The Extraordinary Cabman + +From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the +narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to +insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. +I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed +by some practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; +therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, +which occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it +apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon +despair. + +On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little +restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My +best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable +believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate +and terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to +this: that the question is whether a man can be certain of anything +at all. I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, +furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually +to entertain certainty, what is this certainty which it is impossible +to entertain? If I have never experienced such a thing as certainty I +cannot even say that a thing is not certain. Similarly, if I have never +experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not +green. It may be as green as possible for all I know, if I have really +no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the +room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And +the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as +to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening +of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the +sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening’s sake, opening +infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened +my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing +it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly +silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever. + +..... + +Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for +it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in +the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow +become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the +corner of Leicester-square to the members’ entrance of the House of +Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. +Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a +discussion between us which still continues. + +It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of +detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few +hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I had to visit. I +then got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but +not with the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is +not unknown among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no +human, cabman. He looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, +clearly quite genuine. “Do you know, sir,” he said, “you’ve only given +me 1s.8d?” I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. “Now you +know, sir,” said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, “you know +that ain’t the fare from Euston.” “Euston,” I repeated vaguely, for the +phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. “What on +earth has Euston got to do with it?” “You hailed me just outside Euston +Station,” began the man with astonishing precision, “and then you +said----” “What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?” I said +with Christian forbearance; “I took you at the south-west corner of +Leicester-square.” “Leicester-square,” he exclaimed, loosening a kind of +cataract of scorn, “why we ain’t been near Leicester-square to-day. You +hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said----” “Are you mad, or am +I?” I asked with scientific calm. + +I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of +creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was +not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and +humble, and with great big blue eyes protruding like a frog’s, if ever +(in short) a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the +face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the +street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one +second the old nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What +was certainty? Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the +dull rut of the sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future +life. The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we possess a +past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically considered, except +a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The +cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate details of the gesture, the +words, the complex but consistent course of action which I had adopted +since that remarkable occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston +Station. How did I know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not +hailed him outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite +equally firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, +and a member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment the +universe and the stars swung just a hair’s breadth from their balance, +and the foundations of the earth were moved. But for the same reason +that I believe in Democracy, for the same reason that I believe in free +will, for the same reason that I believe in fixed character of virtue, +the reason that could only be expressed by saying that I do not choose +to be a lunatic, I continued to believe that this honest cabman was +wrong, and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner +of Leicester-square. He began with the same evident and ponderous +sincerity, “You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said----” + +And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful +transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like +a lamp from the inside. “Why, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I beg +your pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I +remember now. I beg your pardon.” And with that this astonishing man let +out his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. +The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, +is strictly true. + +..... + +I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the +mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his +face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac +about him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me +from my adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended +earlier in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that +my sense of reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained +erect. + + + + +VI. An Accident + +Some time ago I wrote in these columns an article called “The +Extraordinary Cabman.” I am now in a position to contribute my +experience of a still more extraordinary cab. The extraordinary thing +about the cab was that it did not like me; it threw me out violently in +the middle of the Strand. If my friends who read the DAILY NEWS are +as romantic (and as rich) as I take them to be, I presume that this +experience is not uncommon. I suppose that they are all being thrown out +of cabs, all over London. Still, as there are some people, virginal and +remote from the world, who have not yet had this luxurious experience, I +will give a short account of the psychology of myself when my hansom cab +ran into the side of a motor omnibus, and I hope hurt it. + +I do not need to dwell on the essential romance of the hansom cab--that +one really noble modern thing which our age, when it is judged, will +gravely put beside the Parthenon. It is really modern in that it is +both secret and swift. My particular hansom cab was modern in these two +respects; it was also very modern in the fact that it came to grief. +But it is also English; it is not to be found abroad; it belongs to a +beautiful, romantic country where nearly everybody is pretending to be +richer than they are, and acting as if they were. It is comfortable, and +yet it is reckless; and that combination is the very soul of England. +But although I had always realised all these good qualities in a hansom +cab, I had not experienced all the possibilities, or, as the moderns put +it, all the aspects of that vehicle. My enunciation of the merits of a +hansom cab had been always made when it was the right way up. Let me, +therefore, explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom cab for the +first and, I am happy to believe, the last time. Polycrates threw one +ring into the sea to propitiate the Fates. I have thrown one hansom +cab into the sea (if you will excuse a rather violent metaphor) and the +Fates are, I am quite sure, propitiated. Though I am told they do not +like to be told so. + +I was driving yesterday afternoon in a hansom cab down one of the +sloping streets into the Strand, reading one of my own admirable +articles with continual pleasure, and still more continual surprise, +when the horse fell forward, scrambled a moment on the scraping stones, +staggered to his feet again, and went forward. The horses in my cabs +often do this, and I have learnt to enjoy my own articles at any angle +of the vehicle. So I did not see anything at all odd about the way +the horse went on again. But I saw it suddenly in the faces of all the +people on the pavement. They were all turned towards me, and they were +all struck with fear suddenly, as with a white flame out of the sky. And +one man half ran out into the road with a movement of the elbow as if +warding off a blow, and tried to stop the horse. Then I knew that +the reins were lost, and the next moment the horse was like a living +thunder-bolt. I try to describe things exactly as they seemed to me; +many details I may have missed or mis-stated; many details may have, +so to speak, gone mad in the race down the road. I remember that I +once called one of my experiences narrated in this paper “A Fragment of +Fact.” This is, at any rate, a fragment of fact. No fact could possibly +be more fragmentary than the sort of fact that I expected to be at the +bottom of that street. + +..... + +I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that +the converted do not understand their own religion. Thus I have always +urged in this paper that democracy has a deeper meaning than democrats +understand; that is, that common and popular things, proverbs, and +ordinary sayings always have something in them unrealised by most who +repeat them. Here is one. We have all heard about the man who is in +momentary danger, and who sees the whole of his life pass before him +in a moment. In the cold, literal, and common sense of words, this is +obviously a thundering lie. Nobody can pretend that in an accident or +a mortal crisis he elaborately remembered all the tickets he had ever +taken to Wimbledon, or all the times that he had ever passed the brown +bread and butter. + +But in those few moments, while my cab was tearing towards the traffic +of the Strand, I discovered that there is a truth behind this phrase, +as there is behind all popular phrases. I did really have, in that short +and shrieking period, a rapid succession of a number of fundamental +points of view. I had, so to speak, about five religions in almost as +many seconds. My first religion was pure Paganism, which among sincere +men is more shortly described as extreme fear. Then there succeeded a +state of mind which is quite real, but for which no proper name has ever +been found. The ancients called it Stoicism, and I think it must be what +some German lunatics mean (if they mean anything) when they talk +about Pessimism. It was an empty and open acceptance of the thing that +happens--as if one had got beyond the value of it. And then, curiously +enough, came a very strong contrary feeling--that things mattered very +much indeed, and yet that they were something more than tragic. It was +a feeling, not that life was unimportant, but that life was much +too important ever to be anything but life. I hope that this was +Christianity. At any rate, it occurred at the moment when we went crash +into the omnibus. + +It seemed to me that the hansom cab simply turned over on top of me, +like an enormous hood or hat. I then found myself crawling out from +underneath it in attitudes so undignified that they must have added +enormously to that great cause to which the Anti-Puritan League and I +have recently dedicated ourselves. I mean the cause of the pleasures of +the people. As to my demeanour when I emerged, I have two confessions to +make, and they are both made merely in the interests of mental science. +The first is that whereas I had been in a quite pious frame of mind the +moment before the collision, when I got to my feet and found I had got +off with a cut or two I began (like St. Peter) to curse and to swear. +A man offered me a newspaper or something that I had dropped. I can +distinctly remember consigning the paper to a state of irremediable +spiritual ruin. I am very sorry for this now, and I apologise both to +the man and to the paper. I have not the least idea what was the meaning +of this unnatural anger; I mention it as a psychological confession. It +was immediately followed by extreme hilarity, and I made so many silly +jokes to the policeman that he disgraced himself by continual laughter +before all the little boys in the street, who had hitherto taken him +seriously. + +..... + +There is one other odd thing about the matter which I also mention as +a curiosity of the human brain or deficiency of brain. At intervals of +about every three minutes I kept on reminding the policeman that I had +not paid the cabman, and that I hoped he would not lose his money. He +said it would be all right, and the man would appear. But it was not +until about half an hour afterwards that it suddenly struck me with a +shock intolerable that the man might conceivably have lost more +than half a crown; that he had been in danger as well as I. I had +instinctively regarded the cabman as something uplifted above accidents, +a god. I immediately made inquiries, and I am happy to say that they +seemed to have been unnecessary. + +But henceforward I shall always understand with a darker and more +delicate charity those who take tythe of mint, and anise, and cumin, +and neglect the weightier matters of the law; I shall remember how I +was once really tortured with owing half a crown to a man who might +have been dead. Some admirable men in white coats at the Charing Cross +Hospital tied up my small injury, and I went out again into the Strand. +I felt upon me even a kind of unnatural youth; I hungered for something +untried. So to open a new chapter in my life I got into a hansom cab. + + + + +VII. The Advantages of Having One Leg + +A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and +casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either +insolent or weak, said at last, “I think one can live through these +great sorrows and even be the better. What wears one is the little +worries.” “That’s quite right, mum,” answered the old woman with +emphasis, “and I ought to know, seeing I’ve had ten of ’em.” It is, +perhaps, in this sense that it is most true that little worries are most +wearing. In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a +truth, contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. +People who have both small troubles and big ones have the right to say +that they find the small ones the most bitter; and it is undoubtedly +true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible can feel a +faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and all +its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I +am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is +sometimes used or abused by people, because they have nothing but the +very smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the +crumpled rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she +would wear the crown of thorns--if she had to. The gentleman may permit +himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much +better if it were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that +the grasshopper on man’s shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much +respect to the gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather +have an elephant when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We +may concede that a straw may break the camel’s back, but we like to know +that it really is the last straw and not the first. + +I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, +so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that +if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To +talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest +way to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about +little ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very +often has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very +clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified in asking +that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. I do not deny that +molehills can sometimes be important. Small annoyances have this +evil about them, that they can be more abrupt because they are more +invisible; they cast no shadow before, they have no atmosphere. No +one ever had a mystical premonition that he was going to tumble over a +hassock. William III. died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose +that with all his varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a +mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask +a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, +and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive +poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental +limitations that are always falling across our path--bad weather, +confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments +or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding +unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding +punctuality when we don’t. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn +from all these that I sing--I sing with confidence because I have +recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise +from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only +alternative course of standing on one leg like a stork--a stork is a +poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it. + +To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing +itself symbolise something other than isolation. If we wish to see what +a house is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish +to depict what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or +on a dark sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that +humanity means; so long as he is solitary he means human society; so +long as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another +figure and the picture is less human--not more so. One is company, two +is none. If you wish to symbolise human building draw one dark tower on +the horizon; if you wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the +sky. Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we call our day +there is but one star in the sky--a large, fierce star which we call the +sun. One sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower Of +Giotto is sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row +of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; +the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in +following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the +single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of +all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. To express complete and +perfect leggishness the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the +tower in the wilderness. As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is +that which stands most alone. + +This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric +column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate +use of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its +legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic +consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few +days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness or dislocation +of the one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and +classic beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. +George Meredith’s novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in +the stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more +literal exactitude, “He has a leg.” Notice how this famous literary +phrase supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable +thing. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect +picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She +delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact +that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, +a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. +Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. That having had one +good leg he should have another--this would be to use vain repetitions +as the Gentiles do. She would have been as much bewildered by him as if +he had been a centipede. + +All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender +of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all +desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it +may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight +sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division +between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to +realise that it might be lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong +and splendid a foot is; in the other I can realise how very much +otherwise it might have been. The moral of the thing is wholly +exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and +beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. If you +wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a +moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully and wonderfully God’s image +is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realise the splendid vision of +all visible things--wink the other eye. + + + + +VIII. The End of the World + +For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious town +of Besançon, which stands like a sort of peninsula in a horse-shoe of +river. You may learn from the guide books that it was the birthplace of +Victor Hugo, and that it is a military station with many forts, near the +French frontier. But you will not learn from guide books that the very +tiles on the roofs seem to be of some quainter and more delicate colour +than the tiles of all the other towns of the world; that the tiles look +like the little clouds of some strange sunset, or like the lustrous +scales of some strange fish. They will not tell you that in this +town the eye cannot rest on anything without finding it in some way +attractive and even elvish, a carved face at a street corner, a gleam of +green fields through a stunted arch, or some unexpected colour for the +enamel of a spire or dome. + +..... + +Evening was coming on and in the light of it all these colours so simple +and yet so subtle seemed more and more to fit together and make a fairy +tale. I sat down for a little outside a café with a row of little toy +trees in front of it, and presently the driver of a fly (as we should +call it) came to the same place. He was one of those very large and dark +Frenchmen, a type not common but yet typical of France; the Rabelaisian +Frenchman, huge, swarthy, purple-faced, a walking wine-barrel; he was +a sort of Southern Falstaff, if one can imagine Falstaff anything but +English. And, indeed, there was a vital difference, typical of two +nations. For while Falstaff would have been shaking with hilarity like +a huge jelly, full of the broad farce of the London streets, this +Frenchman was rather solemn and dignified than otherwise--as if pleasure +were a kind of pagan religion. After some talk which was full of the +admirable civility and equality of French civilisation, he suggested +without either eagerness or embarrassment that he should take me in his +fly for an hour’s ride in the hills beyond the town. And though it was +growing late I consented; for there was one long white road under an +archway and round a hill that dragged me like a long white cord. We +drove through the strong, squat gateway that was made by Romans, and I +remember the coincidence like a sort of omen that as we passed out of +the city I heard simultaneously the three sounds which are the trinity +of France. They make what some poet calls “a tangled trinity,” and I am +not going to disentangle it. Whatever those three things mean, how +or why they co-exist; whether they can be reconciled or perhaps are +reconciled already; the three sounds I heard then by an accident all +at once make up the French mystery. For the brass band in the Casino +gardens behind me was playing with a sort of passionate levity some +ramping tune from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was going on +I heard also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible +loyalties and men always arming in the gate of France; and I heard also, +fainter than these sounds and through them all, the Angelus. + +..... + +After this coincidence of symbols I had a curious sense of having left +France behind me, or, perhaps, even the civilised world. And, indeed, +there was something in the landscape wild enough to encourage such +a fancy. I have seen perhaps higher mountains, but I have never +seen higher rocks; I have never seen height so near, so abrupt and +sensational, splinters of rock that stood up like the spires of +churches, cliffs that fell sudden and straight as Satan fell from +heaven. There was also a quality in the ride which was not only +astonishing, but rather bewildering; a quality which many must have +noticed if they have driven or ridden rapidly up mountain roads. I mean +a sense of gigantic gyration, as of the whole earth turning about one’s +head. It is quite inadequate to say that the hills rose and fell like +enormous waves. Rather the hills seemed to turn about me like the +enormous sails of a windmill, a vast wheel of monstrous archangelic +wings. As we drove on and up into the gathering purple of the sunset +this dizziness increased, confounding things above with things below. +Wide walls of wooded rock stood out above my head like a roof. I stared +at them until I fancied that I was staring down at a wooded plain. Below +me steeps of green swept down to the river. I stared at them until I +fancied that they swept up to the sky. The purple darkened, night drew +nearer; it seemed only to cut clearer the chasms and draw higher the +spires of that nightmare landscape. Above me in the twilight was +the huge black hulk of the driver, and his broad, blank back was as +mysterious as the back of Death in Watts’ picture. I felt that I was +growing too fantastic, and I sought to speak of ordinary things. I +called out to the driver in French, “Where are you taking me?” and it +is a literal and solemn fact that he answered me in the same language +without turning around, “To the end of the world.” + +I did not answer. I let him drag the vehicle up dark, steep ways, until +I saw lights under a low roof of little trees and two children, one +oddly beautiful, playing at ball. Then we found ourselves filling up the +strict main street of a tiny hamlet, and across the wall of its inn was +written in large letters, LE BOUT DU MONDE--the end of the world. + +The driver and I sat down outside that inn without a word, as if all +ceremonies were natural and understood in that ultimate place. I ordered +bread for both of us, and red wine, that was good but had no name. On +the other side of the road was a little plain church with a cross on top +of it and a cock on top of the cross. This seemed to me a very good end +of the world; if the story of the world ended here it ended well. Then +I wondered whether I myself should really be content to end here, where +most certainly there were the best things of Christendom--a church and +children’s games and decent soil and a tavern for men to talk with men. +But as I thought a singular doubt and desire grew slowly in me, and at +last I started up. + +“Are you not satisfied?” asked my companion. “No,” I said, “I am not +satisfied even at the end of the world.” + +Then, after a silence, I said, “Because you see there are two ends of +the world. And this is the wrong end of the world; at least the wrong +one for me. This is the French end of the world. I want the other end of +the world. Drive me to the other end of the world.” + +“The other end of the world?” he asked. “Where is that?” + +“It is in Walham Green,” I whispered hoarsely. “You see it on the London +omnibuses. ‘World’s End and Walham Green.’ Oh, I know how good this is; +I love your vineyards and your free peasantry, but I want the English +end of the world. I love you like a brother, but I want an English +cabman, who will be funny and ask me what his fare ‘is.’ Your bugles +stir my blood, but I want to see a London policeman. Take, oh, take me +to see a London policeman.” + +He stood quite dark and still against the end of the sunset, and I could +not tell whether he understood or not. I got back into his carriage. + +“You will understand,” I said, “if ever you are an exile even for +pleasure. The child to his mother, the man to his country, as a +countryman of yours once said. But since, perhaps, it is rather too long +a drive to the English end of the world, we may as well drive back to +Besançon.” + +Only as the stars came out among those immortal hills I wept for Walham +Green. + + + + +IX. In the Place de La Bastille + +On the first of May I was sitting outside a café in the Place de +la Bastille in Paris staring at the exultant column, crowned with a +capering figure, which stands in the place where the people destroyed a +prison and ended an age. The thing is a curious example of how symbolic +is the great part of human history. As a matter of mere material fact, +the Bastille when it was taken was not a horrible prison; it was hardly +a prison at all. But it was a symbol, and the people always go by a +sure instinct for symbols; for the Chinaman, for instance, at the last +General Election, or for President Kruger’s hat in the election before; +their poetic sense is perfect. The Chinaman with his pigtail is not +an idle flippancy. He does typify with a compact precision exactly +the thing the people resent in African policy, the alien and grotesque +nature of the power of wealth, the fact that money has no roots, that it +is not a natural and familiar power, but a sort of airy and evil magic +calling monsters from the ends of the earth. The people hate the mine +owner who can bring a Chinaman flying across the sea, exactly as the +people hated the wizard who could fetch a flying dragon through the air. +It was the same with Mr. Kruger’s hat. His hat (that admirable hat) was +not merely a joke. It did symbolise, and symbolise extremely well, the +exact thing which our people at that moment regarded with impatience and +venom; the old-fashioned, dingy, Republican simplicity, the unbeautiful +dignity of the bourgeois, and the heavier truisms of political morality. +No; the people are sometimes wrong on the practical side of politics; +they are never wrong on the artistic side. + +..... + +So it was, certainly, with the Bastille. The destruction of the Bastille +was not a reform; it was something more important than a reform. It was +an iconoclasm; it was the breaking of a stone image. The people saw the +building like a giant looking at them with a score of eyes, and they +struck at it as at a carved fact. For of all the shapes in which that +immense illusion called materialism can terrify the soul, perhaps the +most oppressive are big buildings. Man feels like a fly, an accident, +in the thing he has himself made. It requires a violent effort of the +spirit to remember that man made this confounding thing and man could +unmake it. Therefore the mere act of the ragged people in the street +taking and destroying a huge public building has a spiritual, a ritual +meaning far beyond its immediate political results. It is a religious +service. If, for instance, the Socialists were numerous or courageous +enough to capture and smash up the Bank of England, you might argue for +ever about the inutility of the act, and how it really did not touch the +root of the economic problem in the correct manner. But mankind would +never forget it. It would change the world. + +Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, +for the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable +things--marriage, for instance. And architecture approaches nearer than +any other art to being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get +rid of. You can turn a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a +nuisance to turn that Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. You +can tear a poem to pieces; it is only in moments of very sincere emotion +that you tear a town-hall to pieces. A building is akin to dogma; it +is insolent, like a dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims +permanence like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture +of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is +obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see +anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that +does not change like the clouds of the sky. But along with this decision +which is involved in creating a building, there goes a quite similar +decision in the more delightful task of smashing one. The two of +necessity go together. In few places have so many fine public buildings +been set up as here in Paris, and in few places have so many been +destroyed. When people have finally got into the horrible habit of +preserving buildings, they have got out of the habit of building them. +And in London one mingles, as it were, one’s tears because so few are +pulled down. + +..... + +As I sat staring at the column of the Bastille, inscribed to Liberty and +Glory, there came out of one corner of the square (which, like so many +such squares, was at once crowded and quiet) a sudden and silent line of +horsemen. Their dress was of a dull blue, plain and prosaic enough, +but the sun set on fire the brass and steel of their helmets; and their +helmets were carved like the helmets of the Romans. I had seen them +by twos and threes often enough before. I had seen plenty of them in +pictures toiling through the snows of Friedland or roaring round +the squares at Waterloo. But now they came file after file, like an +invasion, and something in their numbers, or in the evening light that +lit up their faces and their crests, or something in the reverie into +which they broke, made me inclined to spring to my feet and cry out, +“The French soldiers!” There were the little men with the brown faces +that had so often ridden through the capitals of Europe as coolly as +they now rode through their own. And when I looked across the square I +saw that the two other corners were choked with blue and red; held +by little groups of infantry. The city was garrisoned as against a +revolution. + +Of course, I had heard all about the strike, chiefly from a baker. He +said he was not going to “Chomer.” I said, “Qu’est-ce que c’est que le +chome?” He said, “Ils ne veulent pas travailler.” I said, “Ni moi non +plus,” and he thought I was a class-conscious collectivist proletarian. +The whole thing was curious, and the true moral of it one not easy for +us, as a nation, to grasp, because our own faults are so deeply and +dangerously in the other direction. To me, as an Englishman (personally +steeped in the English optimism and the English dislike of severity), +the whole thing seemed a fuss about nothing. It looked like turning out +one of the best armies in Europe against ordinary people walking +about the street. The cavalry charged us once or twice, more or less +harmlessly. But, of course, it is hard to say how far in such criticisms +one is assuming the French populace to be (what it is not) as docile as +the English. But the deeper truth of the matter tingled, so to speak, +through the whole noisy night. This people has a natural faculty for +feeling itself on the eve of something--of the Bartholomew or the +Revolution or the Commune or the Day of Judgment. It is this sense of +crisis that makes France eternally young. It is perpetually pulling down +and building up, as it pulled down the prison and put up the column +in the Place de La Bastille. France has always been at the point of +dissolution. She has found the only method of immortality. She dies +daily. + + + + +X. On Lying in Bed + +Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if +only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. +This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the +premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several +pails of Aspinall and a broom. Only if one worked in a really sweeping +and masterly way, and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip +down again on one’s face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some +strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid +it would be necessary to stick to black and white in this form of +artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would +be of the greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of +a white ceiling being put to. + +But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have +discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in +a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really +allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, “Il me faut des géants.” + But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern rooms +such as we all live in I was continually disappointed. I found an +endless pattern and complication of small objects hung like a curtain of +fine links between me and my desire. I examined the walls; I found them +to my surprise to be already covered with wallpaper, and I found the +wallpaper to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing +a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one +arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious +or philosophical significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my +nice walls like a sort of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to +wallpapers, I think, when it says, “Use not vain repetitions, as the +Gentiles do.” I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, +rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish +Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I +suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. Everywhere that I went forlornly, +with my pencil or my paint brush, I found that others had unaccountably +been before me, spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with +their childish and barbaric designs. + +..... + +Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this +occasion when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying +on my back in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my +vision, that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition +of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom. But alas! +like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; +it looks more austere and more distant than the blue sky outside the +window. For my proposal to paint on it with the bristly end of a broom +has been discouraged--never mind by whom; by a person debarred from all +political rights--and even my minor proposal to put the other end of +the broom into the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been +conceded. Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that +all the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces +and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. I am +sure that it was only because Michael Angelo was engaged in the ancient +and honourable occupation of lying in bed that he ever realized how the +roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made into an awful imitation of a +divine drama that could only be acted in the heavens. + +The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is +hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to +mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous than +the exultation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the +expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties +and tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse than the modern +weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor +morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad +taste than of bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, +for cleanliness is made essential and godliness is regarded as an +offence. A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long as +he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met Ibsenite +pessimists who thought it wrong to take beer but right to take prussic +acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; notably such matters +as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, as it ought to be, as +a matter of personal convenience and adjustment, it has come to be +regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to get up +early in the morning. It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but +there is nothing good about it or bad about its opposite. + +..... + +Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get +up the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its +mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. +A man’s minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, +creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his +ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; +but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and +rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes +in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the +top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let +them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. This alarming growth of +good habits really means a too great emphasis on those virtues which +mere custom can ensure, it means too little emphasis on those virtues +which custom can never quite ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of +inspired pity or of inspired candour. If ever that abrupt appeal is made +to us we may fail. A man can get use to getting up at five o’clock in +the morning. A man cannot very well get used to being burnt for his +opinions; the first experiment is commonly fatal. Let us pay a little +more attention to these possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. +I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an +almost terrible virtue. + +For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic +caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like +journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, +for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that +the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution +I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it +without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, +of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it +without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he +does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific +explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac. + + + + +XI. The Twelve Men + +The other day, while I was meditating on morality and Mr. H. Pitt, I +was, so to speak, snatched up and put into a jury box to try people. +The snatching took some weeks, but to me it seemed something sudden and +arbitrary. I was put into this box because I lived in Battersea, and +my name began with a C. Looking round me, I saw that there were also +summoned and in attendance in the court whole crowds and processions of +men, all of whom lived in Battersea, and all of whose names began with a +C. + +It seems that they always summon jurymen in this sweeping alphabetical +way. At one official blow, so to speak, Battersea is denuded of all its +C’s, and left to get on as best it can with the rest of the alphabet. A +Cumberpatch is missing from one street--a Chizzolpop from another--three +Chucksterfields from Chucksterfield House; the children are crying out +for an absent Cadgerboy; the woman at the street corner is weeping +for her Coffintop, and will not be comforted. We settle down with a +rollicking ease into our seats (for we are a bold, devil-may-care race, +the C’s of Battersea), and an oath is administered to us in a totally +inaudible manner by an individual resembling an Army surgeon in his +second childhood. We understand, however, that we are to well and truly +try the case between our sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the +bar, neither of whom has put in an appearance as yet. + +..... + +Just when I was wondering whether the King and the prisoner were, +perhaps, coming to an amicable understanding in some adjoining public +house, the prisoner’s head appears above the barrier of the dock; he +is accused of stealing bicycles, and he is the living image of a great +friend of mine. We go into the matter of the stealing of the bicycles. +We do well and truly try the case between the King and the prisoner in +the affair of the bicycles. And we come to the conclusion, after a brief +but reasonable discussion, that the King is not in any way implicated. +Then we pass on to a woman who neglected her children, and who looks as +if somebody or something had neglected her. And I am one of those who +fancy that something had. + +All the time that the eye took in these light appearances and the brain +passed these light criticisms, there was in the heart a barbaric pity +and fear which men have never been able to utter from the beginning, but +which is the power behind half the poems of the world. The mood cannot +even adequately be suggested, except faintly by this statement that +tragedy is the highest expression of the infinite value of human +life. Never had I stood so close to pain; and never so far away from +pessimism. Ordinarily, I should not have spoken of these dark emotions +at all, for speech about them is too difficult; but I mention them now +for a specific and particular reason to the statement of which I will +proceed at once. I speak these feelings because out of the furnace of +them there came a curious realisation of a political or social truth. I +saw with a queer and indescribable kind of clearness what a jury really +is, and why we must never let it go. + +The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards +specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers because +they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, trained +dancers because they dance better, specially instructed laughers because +they laugh better, and so on and so on. The principle has been applied +to law and politics by innumerable modern writers. Many Fabians have +insisted that a greater part of our political work should be performed +by experts. Many legalists have declared that the untrained jury should +be altogether supplanted by the trained Judge. + +..... + +Now, if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, I do +not know that there would be any fault to find with this. But the true +result of all experience and the true foundation of all religion is +this. That the four or five things that it is most practically essential +that a man should know, are all of them what people call paradoxes. That +is to say, that though we all find them in life to be mere plain truths, +yet we cannot easily state them in words without being guilty of seeming +verbal contradictions. One of them, for instance, is the unimpeachable +platitude that the man who finds most pleasure for himself is often the +man who least hunts for it. Another is the paradox of courage; the fact +that the way to avoid death is not to have too much aversion to it. +Whoever is careless enough of his bones to climb some hopeful cliff +above the tide may save his bones by that carelessness. Whoever will +lose his life, the same shall save it; an entirely practical and prosaic +statement. + +Now, one of these four or five paradoxes which should be taught to every +infant prattling at his mother’s knee is the following: That the more a +man looks at a thing, the less he can see it, and the more a man learns +a thing the less he knows it. The Fabian argument of the expert, +that the man who is trained should be the man who is trusted would be +absolutely unanswerable if it were really true that a man who studied +a thing and practiced it every day went on seeing more and more of its +significance. But he does not. He goes on seeing less and less of its +significance. In the same way, alas! we all go on every day, unless we +are continually goading ourselves into gratitude and humility, seeing +less and less of the significance of the sky or the stones. + +..... + +Now it is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of +men. But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can to +other terrible things; he can even grow accustomed to the sun. And +the horrible thing about all legal officials, even the best, about all +judges, magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, is not +that they are wicked (some of them are good), not that they are stupid +(several of them are quite intelligent), it is simply that they have got +used to it. + +Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they see is +the usual man in the usual place. They do not see the awful court of +judgment; they only see their own workshop. Therefore, the instinct +of Christian civilisation has most wisely declared that into their +judgments there shall upon every occasion be infused fresh blood and +fresh thoughts from the streets. Men shall come in who can see the court +and the crowd, and coarse faces of the policeman and the professional +criminals, the wasted faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the +gesticulating counsel, and see it all as one sees a new picture or a +play hitherto unvisited. + +Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining +the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to +trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who +know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt +in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system +discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up specialists. But when +it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of +the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember +right, by the Founder of Christianity. + + + + +XII. The Wind and the Trees + +I am sitting under tall trees, with a great wind boiling like surf about +the tops of them, so that their living load of leaves rocks and roars in +something that is at once exultation and agony. I feel, in fact, as if +I were actually sitting at the bottom of the sea among mere anchors and +ropes, while over my head and over the green twilight of water sounded +the everlasting rush of waves and the toil and crash and shipwreck of +tremendous ships. The wind tugs at the trees as if it might pluck +them root and all out of the earth like tufts of grass. Or, to try yet +another desperate figure of speech for this unspeakable energy, the +trees are straining and tearing and lashing as if they were a tribe of +dragons each tied by the tail. + +As I look at these top-heavy giants tortured by an invisible and violent +witchcraft, a phrase comes back into my mind. I remember a little boy of +my acquaintance who was once walking in Battersea Park under just such +torn skies and tossing trees. He did not like the wind at all; it blew +in his face too much; it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his +hat, of which he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about +four. After complaining repeatedly of the atmospheric unrest, he said at +last to his mother, “Well, why don’t you take away the trees, and then +it wouldn’t wind.” + +Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. Any +one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were +indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the +air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and +excusable than the belief that it is the trees which make the wind. +Indeed, the belief is so human and excusable that it is, as a matter +of fact, the belief of about ninety-nine out of a hundred of the +philosophers, reformers, sociologists, and politicians of the great age +in which we live. My small friend was, in fact, very like the principal +modern thinkers; only much nicer. + +..... + +In the little apologue or parable which he has thus the honour of +inventing, the trees stand for all visible things and the wind for the +invisible. The wind is the spirit which bloweth where it listeth; the +trees are the material things of the world which are blown where the +spirit lists. The wind is philosophy, religion, revolution; the trees +are cities and civilisations. We only know that there is a wind because +the trees on some distant hill suddenly go mad. We only know that there +is a real revolution because all the chimney-pots go mad on the whole +skyline of the city. + +Just as the ragged outline of a tree grows suddenly more ragged and +rises into fantastic crests or tattered tails, so the human city rises +under the wind of the spirit into toppling temples or sudden spires. No +man has ever seen a revolution. Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood +pouring down the gutters, the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, +a prison in ruins, a people in arms--these things are not revolution, +but the results of revolution. + +You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind. So, +also, you cannot see a revolution; you can only see that there is a +revolution. And there never has been in the history of the world a real +revolution, brutally active and decisive, which was not preceded by +unrest and new dogma in the reign of invisible things. All revolutions +began by being abstract. Most revolutions began by being quite +pedantically abstract. + +The wind is up above the world before a twig on the tree has moved. So +there must always be a battle in the sky before there is a battle on the +earth. Since it is lawful to pray for the coming of the kingdom, it is +lawful also to pray for the coming of the revolution that shall restore +the kingdom. It is lawful to hope to hear the wind of Heaven in the +trees. It is lawful to pray “Thine anger come on earth as it is in +Heaven.” + +..... + +The great human dogma, then, is that the wind moves the trees. The great +human heresy is that the trees move the wind. When people begin to +say that the material circumstances have alone created the moral +circumstances, then they have prevented all possibility of serious +change. For if my circumstances have made me wholly stupid, how can I be +certain even that I am right in altering those circumstances? + +The man who represents all thought as an accident of environment is +simply smashing and discrediting all his own thoughts--including +that one. To treat the human mind as having an ultimate authority is +necessary to any kind of thinking, even free thinking. And nothing will +ever be reformed in this age or country unless we realise that the moral +fact comes first. + +For example, most of us, I suppose, have seen in print and heard in +debating clubs an endless discussion that goes on between Socialists and +total abstainers. The latter say that drink leads to poverty; the former +say that poverty leads to drink. I can only wonder at their either of +them being content with such simple physical explanations. Surely it +is obvious that the thing which among the English proletariat leads to +poverty is the same as the thing which leads to drink; the absence +of strong civic dignity, the absence of an instinct that resists +degradation. + +When you have discovered why enormous English estates were not long +ago cut up into small holdings like the land of France, you will have +discovered why the Englishman is more drunken than the Frenchman. +The Englishman, among his million delightful virtues, really has this +quality, which may strictly be called “hand to mouth,” because under +its influence a man’s hand automatically seeks his own mouth, instead of +seeking (as it sometimes should do) his oppressor’s nose. And a man who +says that the English inequality in land is due only to economic causes, +or that the drunkenness of England is due only to economic causes, is +saying something so absurd that he cannot really have thought what he +was saying. + +Yet things quite as preposterous as this are said and written under the +influence of that great spectacle of babyish helplessness, the economic +theory of history. We have people who represent that all great historic +motives were economic, and then have to howl at the top of their voices +in order to induce the modern democracy to act on economic motives. The +extreme Marxian politicians in England exhibit themselves as a small, +heroic minority, trying vainly to induce the world to do what, according +to their theory, the world always does. The truth is, of course, that +there will be a social revolution the moment the thing has ceased to be +purely economic. You can never have a revolution in order to establish a +democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. + +..... + +I get up from under the trees, for the wind and the slight rain have +ceased. The trees stand up like golden pillars in a clear sunlight. +The tossing of the trees and the blowing of the wind have ceased +simultaneously. So I suppose there are still modern philosophers who +will maintain that the trees make the wind. + + + + +XIII. The Dickensian + +He was a quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw +hat; with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, but +with a quite unmilitary stoop and very dreamy eyes. He was gazing with a +rather gloomy interest at the cluster, one might almost say the tangle, +of small shipping which grew thicker as our little pleasure boat crawled +up into Yarmouth Harbour. A boat entering this harbour, as every one +knows, does not enter in front of the town like a foreigner, but creeps +round at the back like a traitor taking the town in the rear. The +passage of the river seems almost too narrow for traffic, and in +consequence the bigger ships look colossal. As we passed under a timber +ship from Norway, which seemed to block up the heavens like a cathedral, +the man in a straw hat pointed to an odd wooden figurehead carved like a +woman, and said, like one continuing a conversation, “Now, why have they +left off having them. They didn’t do any one any harm?” + +I replied with some flippancy about the captain’s wife being jealous; +but I knew in my heart that the man had struck a deep note. There has +been something in our most recent civilisation which is mysteriously +hostile to such healthy and humane symbols. + +“They hate anything like that, which is human and pretty,” he continued, +exactly echoing my thoughts. “I believe they broke up all the jolly old +figureheads with hatchets and enjoyed doing it.” + +“Like Mr. Quilp,” I answered, “when he battered the wooden Admiral with +the poker.” + +His whole face suddenly became alive, and for the first time he stood +erect and stared at me. + +“Do you come to Yarmouth for that?” he asked. + +“For what?” + +“For Dickens,” he answered, and drummed with his foot on the deck. + +“No,” I answered; “I come for fun, though that is much the same thing.” + +“I always come,” he answered quietly, “to find Peggotty’s boat. It isn’t +here.” + +And when he said that I understood him perfectly. + +There are two Yarmouths; I daresay there are two hundred to the people +who live there. I myself have never come to the end of the list of +Batterseas. But there are two to the stranger and tourist; the poor +part, which is dignified, and the prosperous part, which is savagely +vulgar. My new friend haunted the first of these like a ghost; to the +latter he would only distantly allude. + +“The place is very much spoilt now... trippers, you know,” he would say, +not at all scornfully, but simply sadly. That was the nearest he would +go to an admission of the monstrous watering place that lay along +the front, outblazing the sun, and more deafening than the sea. But +behind--out of earshot of this uproar--there are lanes so narrow that +they seem like secret entrances to some hidden place of repose. There +are squares so brimful of silence that to plunge into one of them is +like plunging into a pool. In these places the man and I paced up and +down talking about Dickens, or, rather, doing what all true Dickensians +do, telling each other verbatim long passages which both of us knew +quite well already. We were really in the atmosphere of the older +England. Fishermen passed us who might well have been characters like +Peggotty; we went into a musty curiosity shop and bought pipe-stoppers +carved into figures from Pickwick. The evening was settling down between +all the buildings with that slow gold that seems to soak everything when +we went into the church. + +In the growing darkness of the church, my eye caught the coloured +windows which on that clear golden evening were flaming with all the +passionate heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian arts. +At length I said to my companion: + +“Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant for the +angel at the sepulchre.” + +He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows. + +“I daresay,” he said. “What is there odd about that?” + +After a pause I said, “Do you remember what the angel at the sepulchre +said?” + +“Not particularly,” he answered; “but where are you off to in such a +hurry?” + +I walked him rapidly out of the still square, past the fishermen’s +almshouses, towards the coast, he still inquiring indignantly where I +was going. + +“I am going,” I said, “to put pennies in automatic machines on the +beach. I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my +photograph taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer out of its original +bottle. I will buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat. I am ready +to listen to a concertina, and but for the defects of my education +should be ready to play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, +if the donkey is willing. I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was +commanded me by the angel in the stained-glass window.” + +“I really think,” said the Dickensian, “that I had better put you in +charge of your relations.” + +“Sir,” I answered, “there are certain writers to whom humanity owes +much, whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective a +type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain +perishing associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the spirit +of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even for the shade of Thackeray +in Old Kensington. But let us have no antiquarianism about Dickens, for +Dickens is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward, but forward; +he might look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury, but he +would love to look at them. He might lash our democracy, but it would +be because, like a democrat, he asked much from it. We will not have all +his books bound up under the title of ‘The Old Curiosity Shop.’ Rather +we will have them all bound up under the title of ‘Great Expectations.’ +Wherever humanity is he would have us face it and make something of it, +swallow it with a holy cannibalism, and assimilate it with the digestion +of a giant. We must take these trippers as he would have taken them, and +tear out of them their tragedy and their farce. Do you remember now what +the angel said at the sepulchre? ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? +He is not here; he is risen.’” + +With that we came out suddenly on the wide stretch of the sands, which +were black with the knobs and masses of our laughing and quite desperate +democracy. And the sunset, which was now in its final glory, flung far +over all of them a red flush and glitter like the gigantic firelight +of Dickens. In that strange evening light every figure looked at once +grotesque and attractive, as if he had a story to tell. I heard a little +girl (who was being throttled by another little girl) say by way of +self-vindication, “My sister-in-law ’as got four rings aside her weddin’ +ring!” + +I stood and listened for more, but my friend went away. + + + + +XIV. In Topsy-Turvy Land + +Last week, in an idle metaphor, I took the tumbling of trees and the +secret energy of the wind as typical of the visible world moving under +the violence of the invisible. I took this metaphor merely because I +happened to be writing the article in a wood. Nevertheless, now that I +return to Fleet Street (which seems to me, I confess, much better and +more poetical than all the wild woods in the world), I am strangely +haunted by this accidental comparison. The people’s figures seem a +forest and their soul a wind. All the human personalities which speak or +signal to me seem to have this fantastic character of the fringe of the +forest against the sky. That man that talks to me, what is he but an +articulate tree? That driver of a van who waves his hands wildly at me +to tell me to get out of the way, what is he but a bunch of branches +stirred and swayed by a spiritual wind, a sylvan object that I can +continue to contemplate with calm? That policeman who lifts his hand +to warn three omnibuses of the peril that they run in encountering my +person, what is he but a shrub shaken for a moment with that blast +of human law which is a thing stronger than anarchy? Gradually this +impression of the woods wears off. But this black-and-white contrast +between the visible and invisible, this deep sense that the one +essential belief is belief in the invisible as against the visible, +is suddenly and sensationally brought back to my mind. Exactly at +the moment when Fleet Street has grown most familiar (that is, most +bewildering and bright), my eye catches a poster of vivid violet, on +which I see written in large black letters these remarkable words: +“Should Shop Assistants Marry?” + +..... + +When I saw those words everything might just as well have turned upside +down. The men in Fleet Street might have been walking about on their +hands. The cross of St. Paul’s might have been hanging in the air upside +down. For I realise that I have really come into a topsy-turvy country; +I have come into the country where men do definitely believe that the +waving of the trees makes the wind. That is to say, they believe +that the material circumstances, however black and twisted, are more +important than the spiritual realities, however powerful and pure. +“Should Shop Assistants Marry?” I am puzzled to think what some periods +and schools of human history would have made of such a question. The +ascetics of the East or of some periods of the early Church would have +thought that the question meant, “Are not shop assistants too saintly, +too much of another world, even to feel the emotions of the sexes?” But +I suppose that is not what the purple poster means. In some pagan cities +it might have meant, “Shall slaves so vile as shop assistants even be +allowed to propagate their abject race?” But I suppose that is not what +the purple poster meant. We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what +it does mean. It does really mean that a section of the human race +is asking whether the primary relations of the two human sexes are +particularly good for modern shops. The human race is asking whether +Adam and Eve are entirely suitable for Marshall and Snelgrove. If this +is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine what would be. We ask whether +the universal institution will improve our (please God) temporary +institution. Yet I have known many such questions. For instance, I have +known a man ask seriously, “Does Democracy help the Empire?” Which is +like saying, “Is art favourable to frescoes?” + +I say that there are many such questions asked. But if the world +ever runs short of them, I can suggest a large number of questions of +precisely the same kind, based on precisely the same principle. + +“Do Feet Improve Boots?”--“Is Bread Better when Eaten?”--“Should +Hats have Heads in them?”--“Do People Spoil a Town?”--“Do Walls +Ruin Wall-papers?”--“Should Neckties enclose Necks?”--“Do Hands Hurt +Walking-sticks?”--“Does Burning Destroy Firewood?”--“Is Cleanliness Good +for Soap?”--“Can Cricket Really Improve Cricket-bats?”--“Shall We Take +Brides with our Wedding Rings?” and a hundred others. + +Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport or in +intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from the +purple poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by half of the +earnest economists of our times. All the questions they ask are of this +character; they are all tinged with this same initial absurdity. They do +not ask if the means is suited to the end; they all ask (with profound +and penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited to the means. They do +not ask whether the tail suits the dog. They all ask whether a dog is +(by the highest artistic canons) the most ornamental appendage that can +be put at the end of a tail. In short, instead of asking whether our +modern arrangements, our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete +institutions are suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy +human life, they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion +at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; and then they +only ask whether that healthy human life is suited to our streets and +trades. Perfection may be attainable or unattainable as an end. It may +or may not be possible to talk of imperfection as a means to perfection. +But surely it passes toleration to talk of perfection as a means to +imperfection. The New Jerusalem may be a reality. It may be a dream. But +surely it is too outrageous to say that the New Jerusalem is a reality +on the road to Birmingham. + +..... + +This is the most enormous and at the same time the most secret of the +modern tyrannies of materialism. In theory the thing ought to be simple +enough. A really human human being would always put the spiritual +things first. A walking and speaking statue of God finds himself at +one particular moment employed as a shop assistant. He has in himself +a power of terrible love, a promise of paternity, a thirst for some +loyalty that shall unify life, and in the ordinary course of things he +asks himself, “How far do the existing conditions of those assisting in +shops fit in with my evident and epic destiny in the matter of love and +marriage?” But here, as I have said, comes in the quiet and crushing +power of modern materialism. It prevents him rising in rebellion, as he +would otherwise do. By perpetually talking about environment and visible +things, by perpetually talking about economics and physical necessity, +painting and keeping repainted a perpetual picture of iron machinery +and merciless engines, of rails of steel, and of towers of stone, modern +materialism at last produces this tremendous impression in which the +truth is stated upside down. At last the result is achieved. The man +does not say as he ought to have said, “Should married men endure being +modern shop assistants?” The man says, “Should shop assistants marry?” + Triumph has completed the immense illusion of materialism. The +slave does not say, “Are these chains worthy of me?” The slave says +scientifically and contentedly, “Am I even worthy of these chains?” + + + + +XV. What I Found in My Pocket + +Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have made +the Empire what it is--a man in an astracan coat, with an astracan +moustache--a tight, black, curly moustache. Whether he put on the +moustache with the coat or whether his Napoleonic will enabled him not +only to grow a moustache in the usual place, but also to grow little +moustaches all over his clothes, I do not know. I only remember that he +said to me the following words: “A man can’t get on nowadays by hanging +about with his hands in his pockets.” I made reply with the quite +obvious flippancy that perhaps a man got on by having his hands in other +people’s pockets; whereupon he began to argue about Moral Evolution, so +I suppose what I said had some truth in it. But the incident now comes +back to me, and connects itself with another incident--if you can call +it an incident--which happened to me only the other day. + +I have only once in my life picked a pocket, and then (perhaps through +some absent-mindedness) I picked my own. My act can really with some +reason be so described. For in taking things out of my own pocket I had +at least one of the more tense and quivering emotions of the thief; I +had a complete ignorance and a profound curiosity as to what I should +find there. Perhaps it would be the exaggeration of eulogy to call me a +tidy person. But I can always pretty satisfactorily account for all my +possessions. I can always tell where they are, and what I have done with +them, so long as I can keep them out of my pockets. If once anything +slips into those unknown abysses, I wave it a sad Virgilian farewell. +I suppose that the things that I have dropped into my pockets are still +there; the same presumption applies to the things that I have dropped +into the sea. But I regard the riches stored in both these bottomless +chasms with the same reverent ignorance. They tell us that on the +last day the sea will give up its dead; and I suppose that on the same +occasion long strings of extraordinary things will come running out of +my pockets. But I have quite forgotten what any of them are; and there +is really nothing (excepting the money) that I shall be at all surprised +at finding among them. + +..... + +Such at least has hitherto been my state of innocence. I here only wish +briefly to recall the special, extraordinary, and hitherto unprecedented +circumstances which led me in cold blood, and being of sound mind, to +turn out my pockets. I was locked up in a third-class carriage for a +rather long journey. The time was towards evening, but it might have +been anything, for everything resembling earth or sky or light or shade +was painted out as if with a great wet brush by an unshifting sheet of +quite colourless rain. I had no books or newspapers. I had not even a +pencil and a scrap of paper with which to write a religious epic. There +were no advertisements on the walls of the carriage, otherwise I could +have plunged into the study, for any collection of printed words is +quite enough to suggest infinite complexities of mental ingenuity. When +I find myself opposite the words “Sunlight Soap” I can exhaust all the +aspects of Sun Worship, Apollo, and Summer poetry before I go on to the +less congenial subject of soap. But there was no printed word or picture +anywhere; there was nothing but blank wood inside the carriage and blank +wet without. Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can be, +uninteresting. So I stared at the joints of the walls and seats, and +began thinking hard on the fascinating subject of wood. Just as I had +begun to realise why, perhaps, it was that Christ was a carpenter, +rather than a bricklayer, or a baker, or anything else, I suddenly +started upright, and remembered my pockets. I was carrying about with +me an unknown treasury. I had a British Museum and a South Kensington +collection of unknown curios hung all over me in different places. I +began to take the things out. + +..... + +The first thing I came upon consisted of piles and heaps of Battersea +tram tickets. There were enough to equip a paper chase. They shook +down in showers like confetti. Primarily, of course, they touched my +patriotic emotions, and brought tears to my eyes; also they provided me +with the printed matter I required, for I found on the back of them some +short but striking little scientific essays about some kind of pill. +Comparatively speaking, in my then destitution, those tickets might +be regarded as a small but well-chosen scientific library. Should my +railway journey continue (which seemed likely at the time) for a +few months longer, I could imagine myself throwing myself into the +controversial aspects of the pill, composing replies and rejoinders pro +and con upon the data furnished to me. But after all it was the symbolic +quality of the tickets that moved me most. For as certainly as the cross +of St. George means English patriotism, those scraps of paper meant all +that municipal patriotism which is now, perhaps, the greatest hope of +England. + +The next thing that I took out was a pocket-knife. A pocket-knife, I +need hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral meditations +all to itself. A knife typifies one of the most primary of those +practical origins upon which as upon low, thick pillows all our human +civilisation reposes. Metals, the mystery of the thing called iron and +of the thing called steel, led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream. +I saw into the intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among +all the common stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent +battle, in which stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered +against something shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. +I heard all the hammers on all the anvils of the earth. I saw all the +swords of Feudal and all the weals of Industrial war. For the knife is +only a short sword; and the pocket-knife is a secret sword. I opened it +and looked at that brilliant and terrible tongue which we call a blade; +and I thought that perhaps it was the symbol of the oldest of the needs +of man. The next moment I knew that I was wrong; for the thing that came +next out of my pocket was a box of matches. Then I saw fire, which is +stronger even than steel, the old, fierce female thing, the thing we all +love, but dare not touch. + +The next thing I found was a piece of chalk; and I saw in it all the art +and all the frescoes of the world. The next was a coin of a very modest +value; and I saw in it not only the image and superscription of our own +Caesar, but all government and order since the world began. But I have +not space to say what were the items in the long and splendid procession +of poetical symbols that came pouring out. I cannot tell you all the +things that were in my pocket. I can tell you one thing, however, that I +could not find in my pocket. I allude to my railway ticket. + + + + +XVI. The Dragon’s Grandmother + +I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. I do not +mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated in them--that he +did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into a coach. He did, indeed, +entertain this curious disbelief. And, like all the other people I +have ever met who entertained it, he was wholly unable to give me an +intelligent reason for it. He tried the laws of nature, but he soon +dropped that. Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary +experience, and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted +pumpkinity. But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we +adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply the attitude we +adopt towards all unusual occurrences. If we were certain of miracles +we should not count on them. Things that happen very seldom we all leave +out of our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. I do not +expect a glass of water to be turned into wine; but neither do I expect +a glass of water to be poisoned with prussic acid. I do not in ordinary +business relations act on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but +neither do I act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost +heir of the Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is not that the +natural order is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet +on uncommon incidents than on common ones. This does not touch the +credibility of any attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned +into a coach. If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car +with my own eyes that would not make me any more inclined to assume +that the same thing would happen again. I should not invest largely in +pumpkins with an eye to the motor trade. Cinderella got a ball dress +from the fairy; but I do not suppose that she looked after her own +clothes any the less after it. + +But the view that fairy tales cannot really have happened, though crazy, +is common. The man I speak of disbelieved in fairy tales in an even more +amazing and perverted sense. He actually thought that fairy tales +ought not to be told to children. That is (like a belief in slavery +or annexation) one of those intellectual errors which lie very near to +ordinary mortal sins. There are some refusals which, though they may be +done what is called conscientiously, yet carry so much of their whole +horror in the very act of them, that a man must in doing them not only +harden but slightly corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of +milk to young mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. +Another is the refusal of fairy tales to children. + +..... + +The man had come to see me in connection with some silly society +of which I am an enthusiastic member; he was a fresh-coloured, +short-sighted young man, like a stray curate who was too helpless even +to find his way to the Church of England. He had a curious green necktie +and a very long neck; I am always meeting idealists with very long +necks. Perhaps it is that their eternal aspiration slowly lifts their +heads nearer and nearer to the stars. Or perhaps it has something to +do with the fact that so many of them are vegetarians: perhaps they are +slowly evolving the neck of the giraffe so that they can eat all the +tops of the trees in Kensington Gardens. These things are in every sense +above me. Such, anyhow, was the young man who did not believe in fairy +tales; and by a curious coincidence he entered the room when I had just +finished looking through a pile of contemporary fiction, and had begun +to read “Grimm’s Fairy tales” as a natural consequence. + +The modern novels stood before me, however, in a stack; and you can +imagine their titles for yourself. There was “Suburban Sue: A Tale of +Psychology,” and also “Psychological Sue: A Tale of Suburbia”; there was +“Trixy: A Temperament,” and “Man-Hate: A Monochrome,” and all those nice +things. I read them with real interest, but, curiously enough, I grew +tired of them at last, and when I saw “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” lying +accidentally on the table, I gave a cry of indecent joy. Here at least, +here at last, one could find a little common sense. I opened the book, +and my eyes fell on these splendid and satisfying words, “The Dragon’s +Grandmother.” That at least was reasonable; that at least was true. “The +Dragon’s Grandmother!” While I was rolling this first touch of ordinary +human reality upon my tongue, I looked up suddenly and saw this monster +with a green tie standing in the doorway. + +..... + +I listened to what he said about the society politely enough, I hope; +but when he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe in fairy +tales, I broke out beyond control. “Man,” I said, “who are you that you +should not believe in fairy tales? It is much easier to believe in Blue +Beard than to believe in you. A blue beard is a misfortune; but there +are green ties which are sins. It is far easier to believe in a million +fairy tales than to believe in one man who does not like fairy tales. I +would rather kiss Grimm instead of a Bible and swear to all his stories +as if they were thirty-nine articles than say seriously and out of +my heart that there can be such a man as you; that you are not some +temptation of the devil or some delusion from the void. Look at these +plain, homely, practical words. ‘The Dragon’s Grandmother,’ that is all +right; that is rational almost to the verge of rationalism. If there was +a dragon, he had a grandmother. But you--you had no grandmother! If you +had known one, she would have taught you to love fairy tales. You had no +father, you had no mother; no natural causes can explain you. You cannot +be. I believe many things which I have not seen; but of such things +as you it may be said, ‘Blessed is he that has seen and yet has +disbelieved.’” + +..... + +It seemed to me that he did not follow me with sufficient delicacy, so I +moderated my tone. “Can you not see,” I said, “that fairy tales in their +essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting +fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? +Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild +and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of +routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the +fairy tale is--what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The +problem of the modern novel is--what will a madman do with a dull world? +In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. +In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and +suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos. In the +excellent tale of ‘The Dragon’s Grandmother,’ in all the other tales of +Grimm, it is assumed that the young man setting out on his travels +will have all substantial truths in him; that he will be brave, full +of faith, reasonable, that he will respect his parents, keep his word, +rescue one kind of people, defy another kind, ‘parcere subjectis et +debellare,’ etc. Then, having assumed this centre of sanity, the writer +entertains himself by fancying what would happen if the whole world went +mad all round it, if the sun turned green and the moon blue, if horses +had six legs and giants had two heads. But your modern literature +takes insanity as its centre. Therefore, it loses the interest even of +insanity. A lunatic is not startling to himself, because he is quite +serious; that is what makes him a lunatic. A man who thinks he is a +piece of glass is to himself as dull as a piece of glass. A man who +thinks he is a chicken is to himself as common as a chicken. It is only +sanity that can see even a wild poetry in insanity. Therefore, these +wise old tales made the hero ordinary and the tale extraordinary. +But you have made the hero extraordinary and the tale ordinary--so +ordinary--oh, so very ordinary.” + +I saw him still gazing at me fixedly. Some nerve snapped in me under the +hypnotic stare. I leapt to my feet and cried, “In the name of God +and Democracy and the Dragon’s grandmother--in the name of all good +things--I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more.” Whether +or no it was the result of the exorcism, there is no doubt that he +definitely went away. + + + + +XVII. The Red Angel + +I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad +for children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him I can +never count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest letter +saying that fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even if +they are true. She says that it is cruel to tell children fairy tales, +because it frightens them. You might just as well say that it is cruel +to give girls sentimental novels because it makes them cry. All this +kind of talk is based on that complete forgetting of what a child is +like which has been the firm foundation of so many educational schemes. +If you keep bogies and goblins away from children they would make them +up for themselves. One small child in the dark can invent more hells +than Swedenborg. One small child can imagine monsters too big and +black to get into any picture, and give them names too unearthly and +cacophonous to have occurred in the cries of any lunatic. The child, to +begin with, commonly likes horrors, and he continues to indulge in them +even when he does not like them. There is just as much difficulty in +saying exactly where pure pain begins in his case, as there is in ours +when we walk of our own free will into the torture-chamber of a great +tragedy. The fear does not come from fairy tales; the fear comes from +the universe of the soul. + +..... + +The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are +alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They +dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be +alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics +worship it--because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible +for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy +tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is +in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales +do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the +child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby +has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What +the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. + +Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series +of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, +that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that +there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and +stronger than strong fear. When I was a child I have stared at the +darkness until the whole black bulk of it turned into one negro giant +taller than heaven. If there was one star in the sky it only made him a +Cyclops. But fairy tales restored my mental health, for next day I read +an authentic account of how a negro giant with one eye, of quite equal +dimensions, had been baffled by a little boy like myself (of similar +inexperience and even lower social status) by means of a sword, some +bad riddles, and a brave heart. Sometimes the sea at night seemed as +dreadful as any dragon. But then I was acquainted with many youngest +sons and little sailors to whom a dragon or two was as simple as the +sea. + +Take the most horrible of Grimm’s tales in incident and imagery, the +excellent tale of the “Boy who Could not Shudder,” and you will see what +I mean. There are some living shocks in that tale. I remember specially +a man’s legs which fell down the chimney by themselves and walked about +the room, until they were rejoined by the severed head and body which +fell down the chimney after them. That is very good. But the point +of the story and the point of the reader’s feelings is not that these +things are frightening, but the far more striking fact that the hero was +not frightened at them. The most fearful of all these fearful wonders +was his own absence of fear. He slapped the bogies on the back and asked +the devils to drink wine with him; many a time in my youth, when stifled +with some modern morbidity, I have prayed for a double portion of his +spirit. If you have not read the end of his story, go and read it; it is +the wisest thing in the world. The hero was at last taught to shudder +by taking a wife, who threw a pail of cold water over him. In that one +sentence there is more of the real meaning of marriage than in all the +books about sex that cover Europe and America. + +..... + +At the four corners of a child’s bed stand Perseus and Roland, Sigurd +and St. George. If you withdraw the guard of heroes you are not making +him rational; you are only leaving him to fight the devils alone. For +the devils, alas, we have always believed in. The hopeful element in the +universe has in modern times continually been denied and reasserted; but +the hopeless element has never for a moment been denied. As I told “H. +N. B.” (whom I pause to wish a Happy Christmas in its most superstitious +sense), the one thing modern people really do believe in is damnation. +The greatest of purely modern poets summed up the really modern attitude +in that fine Agnostic line-- + +“There may be Heaven; there must be Hell.” + +The gloomy view of the universe has been a continuous tradition; and the +new types of spiritual investigation or conjecture all begin by being +gloomy. A little while ago men believed in no spirits. Now they are +beginning rather slowly to believe in rather slow spirits. + +..... + +Some people objected to spiritualism, table rappings, and such things, +because they were undignified, because the ghosts cracked jokes or +waltzed with dinner-tables. I do not share this objection in the least. +I wish the spirits were more farcical than they are. That they should +make more jokes and better ones, would be my suggestion. For almost all +the spiritualism of our time, in so far as it is new, is solemn and sad. +Some Pagan gods were lawless, and some Christian saints were a little +too serious; but the spirits of modern spiritualism are both lawless and +serious--a disgusting combination. The specially contemporary spirits +are not only devils, they are blue devils. This is, first and last, the +real value of Christmas; in so far as the mythology remains at all it +is a kind of happy mythology. Personally, of course, I believe in Santa +Claus; but it is the season of forgiveness, and I will forgive others +for not doing so. But if there is anyone who does not comprehend the +defect in our world which I am civilising, I should recommend him, for +instance, to read a story by Mr. Henry James, called “The Turn of the +Screw.” It is one of the most powerful things ever written, and it is +one of the things about which I doubt most whether it ought ever to +have been written at all. It describes two innocent children gradually +growing at once omniscient and half-witted under the influence of the +foul ghosts of a groom and a governess. As I say, I doubt whether Mr. +Henry James ought to have published it (no, it is not indecent, do not +buy it; it is a spiritual matter), but I think the question so doubtful +that I will give that truly great man a chance. I will approve the thing +as well as admire it if he will write another tale just as powerful +about two children and Santa Claus. If he will not, or cannot, then the +conclusion is clear; we can deal strongly with gloomy mystery, but not +with happy mystery; we are not rationalists, but diabolists. + +..... + +I have thought vaguely of all this staring at a great red fire that +stands up in the room like a great red angel. But, perhaps, you have +never heard of a red angel. But you have heard of a blue devil. That is +exactly what I mean. + + + + +XVIII. The Tower + +I have been standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great +Belfry Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought (though +not, perhaps, said), that it is built in defiance of all decencies of +architecture. It is made in deliberate disproportion to achieve the one +startling effect of height. It is a church on stilts. But this sort of +sublime deformity is characteristic of the whole fancy and energy +of these Flemish cities. Flanders has the flattest and most prosaic +landscapes, but the most violent and extravagant of buildings. Here +Nature is tame; it is civilisation that is untamable. Here the fields +are as flat as a paved square; but, on the other hand, the streets and +roofs are as uproarious as a forest in a great wind. The waters of wood +and meadow slide as smoothly and meekly as if they were in the London +water-pipes. But the parish pump is carved with all the creatures out of +the wilderness. Part of this is true, of course, of all art. We talk of +wild animals, but the wildest animal is man. There are sounds in music +that are more ancient and awful than the cry of the strangest beast +at night. And so also there are buildings that are shapeless in their +strength, seeming to lift themselves slowly like monsters from the +primal mire, and there are spires that seem to fly up suddenly like a +startled bird. + +..... + +This savagery even in stone is the expression of the special spirit in +humanity. All the beasts of the field are respectable; it is only man +who has broken loose. All animals are domestic animals; only man is ever +undomestic. All animals are tame animals; it is only we who are wild. +And doubtless, also, while this queer energy is common to all human art, +it is also generally characteristic of Christian art among the arts +of the world. This is what people really mean when they say that +Christianity is barbaric, and arose in ignorance. As a matter of +historic fact, it didn’t; it arose in the most equably civilised period +the world has ever seen. + +But it is true that there is something in it that breaks the outline +of perfect and conventional beauty, something that dots with anger the +blind eyes of the Apollo and lashes to a cavalry charge the horses +of the Elgin Marbles. Christianity is savage, in the sense that it is +primeval; there is in it a touch of the nigger hymn. I remember a debate +in which I had praised militant music in ritual, and some one asked me +if I could imagine Christ walking down the street before a brass band. +I said I could imagine it with the greatest ease; for Christ definitely +approved a natural noisiness at a great moment. When the street children +shouted too loud, certain priggish disciples did begin to rebuke them in +the name of good taste. He said: “If these were silent the very stones +would cry out.” With these words He called up all the wealth of artistic +creation that has been founded on this creed. With those words He +founded Gothic architecture. For in a town like this, which seems to +have grown Gothic as a wood grows leaves, anywhere and anyhow, any odd +brick or moulding may be carved off into a shouting face. The front of +vast buildings is thronged with open mouths, angels praising God, or +devils defying Him. Rock itself is racked and twisted, until it seems to +scream. The miracle is accomplished; the very stones cry out. + +But though this furious fancy is certainly a specialty of men among +creatures, and of Christian art among arts, it is still most notable in +the art of Flanders. All Gothic buildings are full of extravagant things +in detail; but this is an extravagant thing in design. All Christian +temples worth talking about have gargoyles; but Bruges Belfry is a +gargoyle. It is an unnaturally long-necked animal, like a giraffe. The +same impression of exaggeration is forced on the mind at every corner of +a Flemish town. And if any one asks, “Why did the people of these flat +countries instinctively raise these riotous and towering monuments?” the +only answer one can give is, “Because they were the people of these +flat countries.” If any one asks, “Why the men of Bruges sacrificed +architecture and everything to the sense of dizzy and divine heights?” + we can only answer, “Because Nature gave them no encouragement to do +so.” + +..... + +As I stare at the Belfry, I think with a sort of smile of some of my +friends in London who are quite sure of how children will turn out +if you give them what they call “the right environment.” It is a +troublesome thing, environment, for it sometimes works positively +and sometimes negatively, and more often between the two. A beautiful +environment may make a child love beauty; it may make him bored with +beauty; most likely the two effects will mix and neutralise each other. +Most likely, that is, the environment will make hardly any difference at +all. In the scientific style of history (which was recently fashionable, +and is still conventional) we always had a list of countries that had +owed their characteristics to their physical conditions. + +The Spaniards (it was said) are passionate because their country is +hot; Scandinavians adventurous because their country is cold; Englishmen +naval because they are islanders; Switzers free because they are +mountaineers. It is all very nice in its way. Only unfortunately I am +quite certain that I could make up quite as long a list exactly contrary +in its argument point-blank against the influence of their geographical +environment. Thus Spaniards have discovered more continents than +Scandinavians because their hot climate discouraged them from exertion. +Thus Dutchmen have fought for their freedom quite as bravely as Switzers +because the Dutch have no mountains. Thus Pagan Greece and Rome and many +Mediterranean peoples have specially hated the sea because they had the +nicest sea to deal with, the easiest sea to manage. I could extend the +list for ever. But however long it was, two examples would certainly +stand up in it as pre-eminent and unquestionable. The first is that the +Swiss, who live under staggering precipices and spires of eternal snow, +have produced no art or literature at all, and are by far the most +mundane, sensible, and business-like people in Europe. The other is that +the people of Belgium, who live in a country like a carpet, have, by an +inner energy, desired to exalt their towers till they struck the stars. + +As it is therefore quite doubtful whether a person will go specially +with his environment or specially against his environment, I cannot +comfort myself with the thought that the modern discussions about +environment are of much practical value. But I think I will not write +any more about these modern theories, but go on looking at the Belfry +of Bruges. I would give them the greater attention if I were not pretty +well convinced that the theories will have disappeared a long time +before the Belfry. + + + + +XIX. How I Met the President + +Several years ago, when there was a small war going on in South Africa +and a great fuss going on in England, when it was by no means so popular +and convenient to be a Pro-Boer as it is now, I remember making a bright +suggestion to my Pro-Boer friends and allies, which was not, I regret to +say, received with the seriousness it deserved. I suggested that a band +of devoted and noble youths, including ourselves, should express our +sense of the pathos of the President’s and the Republic’s fate by +growing Kruger beards under our chins. I imagined how abruptly this +decoration would alter the appearance of Mr. John Morley; how startling +it would be as it emerged from under the chin of Mr. Lloyd-George. But +the younger men, my own friends, on whom I more particularly urged +it, men whose names are in many cases familiar to the readers of this +paper--Mr. Masterman’s for instance, and Mr. Conrad Noel--they, I felt, +being young and beautiful, would do even more justice to the Kruger +beard, and when walking down the street with it could not fail to +attract attention. The beard would have been a kind of counterblast to +the Rhodes hat. An appropriate counterblast; for the Rhodesian power in +Africa is only an external thing, placed upon the top like a hat; the +Dutch power and tradition is a thing rooted and growing like a beard; +we have shaved it, and it is growing again. The Kruger beard would +represent time and the natural processes. You cannot grow a beard in a +moment of passion. + +..... + +After making this proposal to my friends I hurriedly left town. I went +down to a West Country place where there was shortly afterwards an +election, at which I enjoyed myself very much canvassing for the Liberal +candidate. The extraordinary thing was that he got in. I sometimes lie +awake at night and meditate upon that mystery; but it must not detain us +now. The rather singular incident which happened to me then, and which +some recent events have recalled to me, happened while the canvassing +was still going on. It was a burning blue day, and the warm sunshine, +settling everywhere on the high hedges and the low hills, brought out +into a kind of heavy bloom that HUMANE quality of the landscape which, +as far as I know, only exists in England; that sense as if the bushes +and the roads were human, and had kindness like men; as if the tree were +a good giant with one wooden leg; as if the very line of palings were a +row of good-tempered gnomes. On one side of the white, sprawling road a +low hill or down showed but a little higher than the hedge, on the +other the land tumbled down into a valley that opened towards the Mendip +hills. The road was very erratic, for every true English road exists +in order to lead one a dance; and what could be more beautiful and +beneficent than a dance? At an abrupt turn of it I came upon a low white +building, with dark doors and dark shuttered windows, evidently not +inhabited and scarcely in the ordinary sense inhabitable--a thing more +like a toolhouse than a house of any other kind. Made idle by the heat, +I paused, and, taking a piece of red chalk out of my pocket, began +drawing aimlessly on the back door--drawing goblins and Mr. Chamberlain, +and finally the ideal Nationalist with the Kruger beard. The materials +did not permit of any delicate rendering of his noble and national +expansion of countenance (stoical and yet hopeful, full of tears for +man, and yet of an element of humour); but the hat was finely handled. +Just as I was adding the finishing touches to the Kruger fantasy, I was +frozen to the spot with terror. The black door, which I thought no more +of than the lid of an empty box, began slowly to open, impelled from +within by a human hand. And President Kruger himself came out into the +sunlight! + +He was a shade milder of eye than he was in his portraits, and he did +not wear that ceremonial scarf which was usually, in such pictures, +slung across his ponderous form. But there was the hat which filled the +Empire with so much alarm; there were the clumsy dark clothes, there was +the heavy, powerful face; there, above all, was the Kruger beard which +I had sought to evoke (if I may use the verb) from under the features +of Mr. Masterman. Whether he had the umbrella or not I was too much +emotionally shaken to observe; he had not the stone lions with him, or +Mrs. Kruger; and what he was doing in that dark shed I cannot imagine, +but I suppose he was oppressing an Outlander. + +I was surprised, I must confess, to meet President Kruger in +Somersetshire during the war. I had no idea that he was in the +neighbourhood. But a yet more arresting surprise awaited me. Mr. Kruger +regarded me for some moments with a dubious grey eye, and then addressed +me with a strong Somersetshire accent. A curious cold shock went through +me to hear that inappropriate voice coming out of that familiar form. +It was as if you met a Chinaman, with pigtail and yellow jacket, and he +began to talk broad Scotch. But the next moment, of course, I understood +the situation. We had much underrated the Boers in supposing that the +Boer education was incomplete. In pursuit of his ruthless plot against +our island home, the terrible President had learnt not only English, but +all the dialects at a moment’s notice to win over a Lancashire merchant +or seduce a Northumberland Fusilier. No doubt, if I asked him, this +stout old gentleman could grind out Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, +and so on, like the tunes in a barrel organ. I could not wonder if +our plain, true-hearted German millionaires fell before a cunning so +penetrated with culture as this. + +..... + +And now I come to the third and greatest surprise of all that this +strange old man gave me. When he asked me, dryly enough, but not without +a certain steady civility that belongs to old-fashioned country people, +what I wanted and what I was doing, I told him the facts of the case, +explaining my political mission and the almost angelic qualities of the +Liberal candidate. Whereupon, this old man became suddenly transfigured +in the sunlight into a devil of wrath. It was some time before I could +understand a word he said, but the one word that kept on recurring was +the word “Kruger,” and it was invariably accompanied with a volley of +violent terms. Was I for old Kruger, was I? Did I come to him and want +him to help old Kruger? I ought to be ashamed, I was... and here he +became once more obscure. The one thing that he made quite clear was +that he wouldn’t do anything for Kruger. + +“But you ARE Kruger,” burst from my lips, in a natural explosion of +reasonableness. “You ARE Kruger, aren’t you?” + +After this innocent CRI DE COEUR of mine, I thought at first there would +be a fight, and I remembered with regret that the President in early +life had had a hobby of killing lions. But really I began to think that +I had been mistaken, and that it was not the President after all. There +was a confounding sincerity in the anger with which he declared that he +was Farmer Bowles, and everybody knowed it. I appeased him eventually +and parted from him at the door of his farmhouse, where he left me +with a few tags of religion, which again raised my suspicions of +his identity. In the coffee-room to which I returned there was an +illustrated paper with a picture of President Kruger, and he and Farmer +Bowles were as like as two peas. There was a picture also of a group of +Outlander leaders, and the faces of them, leering and triumphant, were +perhaps unduly darkened by the photograph, but they seemed to me like +the faces of a distant and hostile people. + +I saw the old man once again on the fierce night of the poll, when he +drove down our Liberal lines in a little cart ablaze with the blue Tory +ribbons, for he was a man who would carry his colours everywhere. It +was evening, and the warm western light was on the grey hair and heavy +massive features of that good old man. I knew as one knows a fact of +sense that if Spanish and German stockbrokers had flooded his farm +or country he would have fought them for ever, not fiercely like an +Irishman, but with the ponderous courage and ponderous cunning of the +Boer. I knew that without seeing it, as certainly as I knew without +seeing it that when he went into the polling room he put his cross +against the Conservative name. Then he came out again, having given his +vote and looking more like Kruger than ever. And at the same hour on +the same night thousands upon thousands of English Krugers gave the +same vote. And thus Kruger was pulled down and the dark-faced men in the +photograph reigned in his stead. + + + + +XX. The Giant + +I sometimes fancy that every great city must have been built by night. +At least, it is only at night that every part of a great city is +great. All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps +architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. At +least, I think many people of those nobler trades that work by night +(journalists, policemen, burglars, coffee-stall keepers, and such +mistaken enthusiasts as refuse to go home till morning) must often have +stood admiring some black bulk of building with a crown of battlements +or a crest of spires and then burst into tears at daybreak to discover +that it was only a haberdasher’s shop with huge gold letters across the +face of it. + +..... + +I had a sensation of this sort the other day as I happened to be +wandering in the Temple Gardens towards the end of twilight. I sat down +on a bench with my back to the river, happening to choose such a place +that a huge angle and façade of building jutting out from the Strand +sat above me like an incubus. I dare say that if I took the same seat +to-morrow by daylight I should find the impression entirely false. In +sunlight the thing might seem almost distant; but in that half-darkness +it seemed as if the walls were almost falling upon me. Never before have +I had so strongly the sense which makes people pessimists in politics, +the sense of the hopeless height of the high places of the earth. That +pile of wealth and power, whatever was its name, went up above and +beyond me like a cliff that no living thing could climb. I had an +irrational sense that this thing had to be fought, that I had to fight +it; and that I could offer nothing to the occasion but an indolent +journalist with a walking-stick. + +Almost as I had the thought, two windows were lit in that black, blind +face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge face of a sleeping +giant; the eyes were too close together, and gave it the suggestion of a +bestial sneer. And either by accident of this light or of some other, I +could now read the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; +it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything that I +should like to pull down with my hands if I could. Reared by a detected +robber, it is framed to be the fashionable and luxurious home of +undetected robbers. In the house of man are many mansions; but there is +a class of men who feel normal nowhere except in the Babylon Hotel or +in Dartmoor Gaol. That big black face, which was staring at me with its +flaming eyes too close together, that was indeed the giant of all epic +and fairy tales. But, alas! I was not the giant-killer; the hour had +come, but not the man. I sat down on the seat again (I had had one wild +impulse to climb up the front of the hotel and fall in at one of the +windows), and I tried to think, as all decent people are thinking, what +one can really do. And all the time that oppressive wall went up in +front of me, and took hold upon the heavens like a house of the gods. + +..... + +It is remarkable that in so many great wars it has been the defeated +who have won. The people who were left worst at the end of the war +were generally the people who were left best at the end of the whole +business. For instance, the Crusades ended in the defeat of the +Christians. But they did not end in the decline of the Christians; they +ended in the decline of the Saracens. That huge prophetic wave of Moslem +power which had hung in the very heavens above the towns of Christendom, +that wave was broken, and never came on again. The Crusaders had saved +Paris in the act of losing Jerusalem. The same applies to that epic of +Republican war in the eighteenth century to which we Liberals owe our +political creed. The French Revolution ended in defeat: the kings came +back across a carpet of dead at Waterloo. The Revolution had lost its +last battle; but it had gained its first object. It had cut a chasm. +The world has never been the same since. No one after that has ever been +able to treat the poor merely as a pavement. + +These jewels of God, the poor, are still treated as mere stones of the +street; but as stones that may sometimes fly. If it please God, you and +I may see some of the stones flying again before we see death. But here +I only remark the interesting fact that the conquered almost always +conquer. Sparta killed Athens with a final blow, and she was born again. +Sparta went away victorious, and died slowly of her own wounds. The +Boers lost the South African War and gained South Africa. + +And this is really all that we can do when we fight something really +stronger than ourselves; we can deal it its death-wound one moment; it +deals us death in the end. It is something if we can shock and jar the +unthinking impetus and enormous innocence of evil; just as a pebble on +a railway can stagger the Scotch express. It is enough for the great +martyrs and criminals of the French revolution, that they have surprised +for all time the secret weakness of the strong. They have awakened and +set leaping and quivering in his crypt for ever the coward in the hearts +of kings. + +..... + +When Jack the Giant-Killer really first saw the giant his experience was +not such as has been generally supposed. If you care to hear it I will +tell you the real story of Jack the Giant-Killer. To begin with, the +most awful thing which Jack first felt about the giant was that he was +not a giant. He came striding across an interminable wooded plain, and +against its remote horizon the giant was quite a small figure, like a +figure in a picture--he seemed merely a man walking across the grass. +Then Jack was shocked by remembering that the grass which the man was +treading down was one of the tallest forests upon that plain. The man +came nearer and nearer, growing bigger and bigger, and at the instant +when he passed the possible stature of humanity Jack almost screamed. +The rest was an intolerable apocalypse. + +The giant had the one frightful quality of a miracle; the more he became +incredible the more he became solid. The less one could believe in him +the more plainly one could see him. It was unbearable that so much of +the sky should be occupied by one human face. His eyes, which had stood +out like bow windows, became bigger yet, and there was no metaphor that +could contain their bigness; yet still they were human eyes. Jack’s +intellect was utterly gone under that huge hypnotism of the face that +filled the sky; his last hope was submerged, his five wits all still +with terror. + +But there stood up in him still a kind of cold chivalry, a dignity of +dead honour that would not forget the small and futile sword in his +hand. He rushed at one of the colossal feet of this human tower, and +when he came quite close to it the ankle-bone arched over him like a +cave. Then he planted the point of his sword against the foot and leant +on it with all his weight, till it went up to the hilt and broke the +hilt, and then snapped just under it. And it was plain that the giant +felt a sort of prick, for he snatched up his great foot into his great +hand for an instant; and then, putting it down again, he bent over and +stared at the ground until he had seen his enemy. + +Then he picked up Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw him +away; and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were flying from +system to system through the universe of stars. But, as the giant had +thrown him away carelessly, he did not strike a stone, but struck soft +mire by the side of a distant river. There he lay insensible for several +hours; but when he awoke again his horrible conqueror was still in +sight. He was striding away across the void and wooded plain towards +where it ended in the sea; and by this time he was only much higher than +any of the hills. He grew less and less indeed; but only as a really +high mountain grows at last less and less when we leave it in a railway +train. Half an hour afterwards he was a bright blue colour, as are the +distant hills; but his outline was still human and still gigantic. Then +the big blue figure seemed to come to the brink of the big blue sea, and +even as it did so it altered its attitude. Jack, stunned and bleeding, +lifted himself laboriously upon one elbow to stare. The giant once more +caught hold of his ankle, wavered twice as in a wind, and then went over +into the great sea which washes the whole world, and which, alone of all +things God has made, was big enough to drown him. + + + + +XXI. A Great Man + +People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always +seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils +from private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous +but blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for +exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything +so valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never +gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million +times in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to +meet him in real life. The Yellow Pressman seems to have no power of +catching the first fresh fact about a man that dominates all after +impressions. For instance, before I met Bernard Shaw I heard that +he spoke with a reckless desire for paradox or a sneering hatred of +sentiment; but I never knew till he opened his mouth that he spoke with +an Irish accent, which is more important than all the other criticisms +put together. + +Journalism is not personal enough. So far from digging out private +personalities, it cannot even report the obvious personalities on the +surface. Now there is one vivid and even bodily impression of this kind +which we have all felt when we met great poets or politicians, but which +never finds its way into the newspapers. I mean the impression that +they are much older than we thought they were. We connect great men with +their great triumphs, which generally happened some years ago, and many +recruits enthusiastic for the thin Napoleon of Marengo must have found +themselves in the presence of the fat Napoleon of Leipzic. + +I remember reading a newspaper account of how a certain rising +politician confronted the House of Lords with the enthusiasm almost of +boyhood. It described how his “brave young voice” rang in the rafters. +I also remember that I met him some days after, and he was considerably +older than my own father. I mention this truth for only one purpose: all +this generalisation leads up to only one fact--the fact that I once met +a great man who was younger than I expected. + +..... + +I had come over the wooded wall from the villages about Epsom, and down +a stumbling path between trees towards the valley in which Dorking lies. +A warm sunlight was working its way through the leafage; a sunlight +which though of saintless gold had taken on the quality of evening. It +was such sunlight as reminds a man that the sun begins to set an instant +after noon. It seemed to lessen as the wood strengthened and the road +sank. + +I had a sensation peculiar to such entangled descents; I felt that the +treetops that closed above me were the fixed and real things, certain as +the level of the sea; but that the solid earth was every instant failing +under my feet. In a little while that splendid sunlight showed only in +splashes, like flaming stars and suns in the dome of green sky. Around +me in that emerald twilight were trunks of trees of every plain or +twisted type; it was like a chapel supported on columns of every earthly +and unearthly style of architecture. + +Without intention my mind grew full of fancies on the nature of the +forest; on the whole philosophy of mystery and force. For the meaning of +woods is the combination of energy with complexity. A forest is not +in the least rude or barbarous; it is only dense with delicacy. Unique +shapes that an artist would copy or a philosopher watch for years if he +found them in an open plain are here mingled and confounded; but it is +not a darkness of deformity. It is a darkness of life; a darkness of +perfection. And I began to think how much of the highest human obscurity +is like this, and how much men have misunderstood it. People will tell +you, for instance, that theology became elaborate because it was dead. +Believe me, if it had been dead it would never have become elaborate; it +is only the live tree that grows too many branches. + +..... + +These trees thinned and fell away from each other, and I came out into +deep grass and a road. I remember being surprised that the evening was +so far advanced; I had a fancy that this valley had a sunset all to +itself. I went along that road according to directions that had been +given me, and passed the gateway in a slight paling beyond which the +wood changed only faintly to a garden. It was as if the curious courtesy +and fineness of that character I was to meet went out from him upon the +valley; for I felt on all these things the finger of that quality which +the old English called “faërie”; it is the quality which those can never +understand who think of the past as merely brutal; it is an ancient +elegance such as there is in trees. I went through the garden and saw +an old man sitting by a table, looking smallish in his big chair. He +was already an invalid, and his hair and beard were both white; not like +snow, for snow is cold and heavy, but like something feathery, or even +fierce; rather they were white like the white thistledown. I came up +quite close to him; he looked at me as he put out his frail hand, and +I saw of a sudden that his eyes were startlingly young. He was the one +great man of the old world whom I have met who was not a mere statue +over his own grave. + +He was deaf and he talked like a torrent. He did not talk about the +books he had written; he was far too much alive for that. He talked +about the books he had not written. He unrolled a purple bundle of +romances which he had never had time to sell. He asked me to write one +of the stories for him, as he would have asked the milkman, if he had +been talking to the milkman. It was a splendid and frantic story, a sort +of astronomical farce. It was all about a man who was rushing up to the +Royal Society with the only possible way of avoiding an earth-destroying +comet; and it showed how, even on this huge errand, the man was tripped +up at every other minute by his own weakness and vanities; how he lost +a train by trifling or was put in gaol for brawling. That is only one +of them; there were ten or twenty more. Another, I dimly remember, was +a version of the fall of Parnell; the idea that a quite honest man might +be secret from a pure love of secrecy, of solitary self-control. I went +out of that garden with a blurred sensation of the million possibilities +of creative literature. The feeling increased as my way fell back into +the wood; for a wood is a palace with a million corridors that cross +each other everywhere. I really had the feeling that I had seen the +creative quality; which is supernatural. I had seen what Virgil calls +the Old Man of the Forest: I had seen an elf. The trees thronged behind +my path; I have never seen him again; and now I shall not see him, +because he died last Tuesday. + + + + +XXII. The Orthodox Barber + +Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love +of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it +would, if they had it. There is a very real thing which may be called +the love of humanity; in our time it exists almost entirely among what +are called uneducated people; and it does not exist at all among the +people who talk about it. + +A positive pleasure in being in the presence of any other human being is +chiefly remarkable, for instance, in the masses on Bank Holiday; that is +why they are so much nearer Heaven (despite appearances) than any other +part of our population. + +I remember seeing a crowd of factory girls getting into an empty train +at a wayside country station. There were about twenty of them; they all +got into one carriage; and they left all the rest of the train entirely +empty. That is the real love of humanity. That is the definite pleasure +in the immediate proximity of one’s own kind. Only this coarse, rank, +real love of men seems to be entirely lacking in those who propose +the love of humanity as a substitute for all other love; honourable, +rationalistic idealists. + +I can well remember the explosion of human joy which marked the sudden +starting of that train; all the factory girls who could not find seats +(and they must have been the majority) relieving their feelings by +jumping up and down. Now I have never seen any rationalistic idealists +do this. I have never seen twenty modern philosophers crowd into one +third-class carriage for the mere pleasure of being together. I have +never seen twenty Mr. McCabes all in one carriage and all jumping up and +down. + +Some people express a fear that vulgar trippers will overrun all +beautiful places, such as Hampstead or Burnham Beeches. But their fear +is unreasonable; because trippers always prefer to trip together; +they pack as close as they can; they have a suffocating passion of +philanthropy. + +..... + +But among the minor and milder aspects of the same principle, I have no +hesitation in placing the problem of the colloquial barber. Before any +modern man talks with authority about loving men, I insist (I insist +with violence) that he shall always be very much pleased when his barber +tries to talk to him. His barber is humanity: let him love that. If he +is not pleased at this, I will not accept any substitute in the way of +interest in the Congo or the future of Japan. If a man cannot love his +barber whom he has seen, how shall he love the Japanese whom he has not +seen? + +It is urged against the barber that he begins by talking about the +weather; so do all dukes and diplomatists, only that they talk about +it with ostentatious fatigue and indifference, whereas the barber talks +about it with an astonishing, nay incredible, freshness of interest. It +is objected to him that he tells people that they are going bald. +That is to say, his very virtues are cast up against him; he is blamed +because, being a specialist, he is a sincere specialist, and because, +being a tradesman, he is not entirely a slave. But the only proof of +such things is by example; therefore I will prove the excellence of the +conversation of barbers by a specific case. Lest any one should accuse +me of attempting to prove it by fictitious means, I beg to say quite +seriously that though I forget the exact language employed, the +following conversation between me and a human (I trust), living barber +really took place a few days ago. + +..... + +I had been invited to some At Home to meet the Colonial Premiers, and +lest I should be mistaken for some partly reformed bush-ranger out +of the interior of Australia I went into a shop in the Strand to get +shaved. While I was undergoing the torture the man said to me: + +“There seems to be a lot in the papers about this new shaving, sir. It +seems you can shave yourself with anything--with a stick or a stone or a +pole or a poker” (here I began for the first time to detect a sarcastic +intonation) “or a shovel or a----” + +Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing about the +matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical vein. + +“Or a button-hook,” I said, “or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram or a +piston-rod----” + +He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, “Or a curtain rod or a +candle-stick, or a----” + +“Cow-catcher,” I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic +duet for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told +me. He explained the thing eloquently and at length. + +“The funny part of it is,” he said, “that the thing isn’t new at all. +It’s been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before. There is +always a notion that the razor might be done without somehow. But none +of those schemes ever came to anything; and I don’t believe myself that +this will.” + +“Why, as to that,” I said, rising slowly from the chair and trying to +put on my coat inside out, “I don’t know how it may be in the case of +you and your new shaving. Shaving, with all respect to you, is a trivial +and materialistic thing, and in such things startling inventions are +sometimes made. But what you say reminds me in some dark and dreamy +fashion of something else. I recall it especially when you tell me, +with such evident experience and sincerity, that the new shaving is not +really new. My friend, the human race is always trying this dodge of +making everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts +off one thing it shifts on to another. If one man has not the toil of +preparing a man’s chin, I suppose that some other man has the toil of +preparing something very curious to put on a man’s chin. It would be +nice if we could be shaved without troubling anybody. It would be nicer +still if we could go unshaved without annoying anybody-- + + “‘But, O wise friend, chief Barber of the Strand, + Brother, nor you nor I have made the world.’ + +“Whoever made it, who is wiser, and we hope better than we, made it +under strange limitations, and with painful conditions of pleasure. + +“In the first and darkest of its books it is fiercely written that a man +shall not eat his cake and have it; and though all men talked until the +stars were old it would still be true that a man who has lost his razor +could not shave with it. But every now and then men jump up with the new +something or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, +that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there is no real +difference between being shaved and not being shaved. The difference, +they say, is only a difference of degree; everything is evolutionary +and relative. Shavedness is immanent in man. Every ten-penny nail is +a Potential Razor. The superstitious people of the past (they say) +believed that a lot of black bristles standing out at right angles to +one’s face was a positive affair. But the higher criticism teaches us +better. Bristles are merely negative. They are a Shadow where Shaving +should be. + +“Well, it all goes on, and I suppose it all means something. But a +baby is the Kingdom of God, and if you try to kiss a baby he will know +whether you are shaved or not. Perhaps I am mixing up being shaved and +being saved; my democratic sympathies have always led me to drop my +‘h’s.’ In another moment I may suggest that goats represent the +lost because goats have long beards. This is growing altogether too +allegorical. + +“Nevertheless,” I added, as I paid the bill, “I have really been +profoundly interested in what you told me about the New Shaving. Have +you ever heard of a thing called the New theology?” + +He smiled and said that he had not. + + + + +XXIII. The Toy Theatre + +There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; +and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys takes so +very much more time and trouble than anything else. Playing as children +mean playing is the most serious thing in the world; and as soon as we +have small duties or small sorrows we have to abandon to some extent +so enormous and ambitious a plan of life. We have enough strength +for politics and commerce and art and philosophy; we have not enough +strength for play. This is a truth which every one will recognize who, +as a child, has ever played with anything at all; any one who has played +with bricks, any one who has played with dolls, any one who has played +with tin soldiers. My journalistic work, which earns money, is not +pursued with such awful persistency as that work which earned nothing. + +..... + +Take the case of bricks. If you publish a book to-morrow in twelve +volumes (it would be just like you) on “The Theory and Practice +of European Architecture,” your work may be laborious, but it is +fundamentally frivolous. It is not serious as the work of a child piling +one brick on the other is serious; for the simple reason that if your +book is a bad book no one will ever be able ultimately and entirely to +prove to you that it is a bad book. Whereas if his balance of bricks +is a bad balance of bricks, it will simply tumble down. And if I know +anything of children, he will set to work solemnly and sadly to build it +up again. Whereas, if I know anything of authors, nothing would induce +you to write your book again, or even to think of it again if you could +help it. + +Take the case of dolls. It is much easier to care for an educational +cause than to care for a doll. It is as easy to write an article on +education as to write an article on toffee or tramcars or anything else. +But it is almost as difficult to look after a doll as to look after a +child. The little girls that I meet in the little streets of Battersea +worship their dolls in a way that reminds one not so much of play as +idolatry. In some cases the love and care of the artistic symbol has +actually become more important than the human reality which it was, I +suppose, originally meant to symbolize. + +I remember a Battersea little girl who wheeled her large baby sister +stuffed into a doll’s perambulator. When questioned on this course of +conduct, she replied: “I haven’t got a dolly, and Baby is pretending to +be my dolly.” Nature was indeed imitating art. First a doll had been a +substitute for a child; afterwards a child was a mere substitute for a +doll. But that opens other matters; the point is here that such devotion +takes up most of the brain and most of the life; much as if it were +really the thing which it is supposed to symbolize. The point is that +the man writing on motherhood is merely an educationalist; the child +playing with a doll is a mother. + +Take the case of soldiers. A man writing an article on military strategy +is simply a man writing an article; a horrid sight. But a boy making a +campaign with tin soldiers is like a General making a campaign with live +soldiers. He must to the limit of his juvenile powers think about the +thing; whereas the war correspondent need not think at all. I remember +a war correspondent who remarked after the capture of Methuen: “This +renewed activity on the part of Delarey is probably due to his +being short of stores.” The same military critic had mentioned a few +paragraphs before that Delarey was being hard pressed by a column which +was pursuing him under the command of Methuen. Methuen chased Delarey; +and Delarey’s activity was due to his being short of stores. Otherwise +he would have stood quite still while he was chased. I run after Jones +with a hatchet, and if he turns round and tries to get rid of me the +only possible explanation is that he has a very small balance at his +bankers. I cannot believe that any boy playing at soldiers would be as +idiotic as this. But then any one playing at anything has to be serious. +Whereas, as I have only too good reason to know, if you are writing an +article you can say anything that comes into your head. + +..... + +Broadly, then, what keeps adults from joining in children’s games is, +generally speaking, not that they have no pleasure in them; it is simply +that they have no leisure for them. It is that they cannot afford the +expenditure of toil and time and consideration for so grand and grave a +scheme. I have been myself attempting for some time past to complete +a play in a small toy theatre, the sort of toy theatre that used to be +called Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured; only that I drew and coloured +the figures and scenes myself. Hence I was free from the degrading +obligation of having to pay either a penny or twopence; I only had to +pay a shilling a sheet for good cardboard and a shilling a box for bad +water colours. The kind of miniature stage I mean is probably familiar +to every one; it is never more than a development of the stage which +Skelt made and Stevenson celebrated. + +But though I have worked much harder at the toy theatre than I ever +worked at any tale or article, I cannot finish it; the work seems +too heavy for me. I have to break off and betake myself to lighter +employments; such as the biographies of great men. The play of “St. +George and the Dragon,” over which I have burnt the midnight oil (you +must colour the thing by lamplight because that is how it will be seen), +still lacks most conspicuously, alas! two wings of the Sultan’s Palace, +and also some comprehensible and workable way of getting up the curtain. + +All this gives me a feeling touching the real meaning of immortality. +In this world we cannot have pure pleasure. This is partly because +pure pleasure would be dangerous to us and to our neighbours. But it is +partly because pure pleasure is a great deal too much trouble. If I am +ever in any other and better world, I hope that I shall have enough +time to play with nothing but toy theatres; and I hope that I shall have +enough divine and superhuman energy to act at least one play in them +without a hitch. + +..... + +Meanwhile the philosophy of toy theatres is worth any one’s +consideration. All the essential morals which modern men need to learn +could be deduced from this toy. Artistically considered, it reminds us +of the main principle of art, the principle which is in most danger +of being forgotten in our time. I mean the fact that art consists of +limitation; the fact that art is limitation. Art does not consist in +expanding things. Art consists of cutting things down, as I cut down +with a pair of scissors my very ugly figures of St. George and the +Dragon. Plato, who liked definite ideas, would like my cardboard dragon; +for though the creature has few other artistic merits he is at least +dragonish. The modern philosopher, who likes infinity, is quite welcome +to a sheet of the plain cardboard. The most artistic thing about the +theatrical art is the fact that the spectator looks at the whole thing +through a window. This is true even of theatres inferior to my own; even +at the Court Theatre or His Majesty’s you are looking through a window; +an unusually large window. But the advantage of the small theatre +exactly is that you are looking through a small window. Has not every +one noticed how sweet and startling any landscape looks when seen +through an arch? This strong, square shape, this shutting off of +everything else is not only an assistance to beauty; it is the essential +of beauty. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. + +This especially is true of the toy theatre; that, by reducing the scale +of events it can introduce much larger events. Because it is small it +could easily represent the earthquake in Jamaica. Because it is small it +could easily represent the Day of Judgment. Exactly in so far as it is +limited, so far it could play easily with falling cities or with falling +stars. Meanwhile the big theatres are obliged to be economical because +they are big. When we have understood this fact we shall have understood +something of the reason why the world has always been first inspired by +small nationalities. The vast Greek philosophy could fit easier into +the small city of Athens than into the immense Empire of Persia. In the +narrow streets of Florence Dante felt that there was room for Purgatory +and Heaven and Hell. He would have been stifled by the British Empire. +Great empires are necessarily prosaic; for it is beyond human power to +act a great poem upon so great a scale. You can only represent very big +ideas in very small spaces. My toy theatre is as philosophical as the +drama of Athens. + + + + +XXIV. A Tragedy of Twopence + +My relations with the readers of this page have been long and pleasant, +but--perhaps for that very reason--I feel that the time has come when I +ought to confess the one great crime of my life. It happened a long time +ago; but it is not uncommon for a belated burst of remorse to reveal +such dark episodes long after they have occurred. It has nothing to do +with the orgies of the Anti-Puritan League. That body is so offensively +respectable that a newspaper, in describing it the other day, referred +to my friend Mr. Edgar Jepson as Canon Edgar Jepson; and it is believed +that similar titles are intended for all of us. No; it is not by the +conduct of Archbishop Crane, of Dean Chesterton, of the Rev. James +Douglas, of Monsignor Bland, and even of that fine and virile old +ecclesiastic, Cardinal Nesbit, that I wish (or rather, am driven by +my conscience) to make this declaration. The crime was committed in +solitude and without accomplices. Alone I did it. Let me, with the +characteristic thirst of penitents to get the worst of the confession +over, state it first of all in its most dreadful and indefensible form. +There is at the present moment in a town in Germany (unless he has died +of rage on discovering his wrong), a restaurant-keeper to whom I still +owe twopence. I last left his open-air restaurant knowing that I owed +him twopence. I carried it away under his nose, despite the fact that +the nose was a decidedly Jewish one. I have never paid him, and it is +highly improbable that I ever shall. How did this villainy come to occur +in a life which has been, generally speaking, deficient in the dexterity +necessary for fraud? The story is as follows--and it has a moral, though +there may not be room for that. + +..... + +It is a fair general rule for those travelling on the Continent that the +easiest way of talking in a foreign language is to talk philosophy. The +most difficult kind of talking is to talk about common necessities. The +reason is obvious. The names of common necessities vary completely +with each nation and are generally somewhat odd and quaint. How, for +instance, could a Frenchman suppose that a coalbox would be called a +“scuttle”? If he has ever seen the word scuttle it has been in the +Jingo Press, where the “policy of scuttle” is used whenever we give +up something to a small Power like Liberals, instead of giving up +everything to a great Power, like Imperialists. What Englishman in +Germany would be poet enough to guess that the Germans call a glove a +“hand-shoe.” Nations name their necessities by nicknames, so to +speak. They call their tubs and stools by quaint, elvish, and almost +affectionate names, as if they were their own children! But any one can +argue about abstract things in a foreign language who has ever got as +far as Exercise IV. in a primer. For as soon as he can put a +sentence together at all he finds that the words used in abstract or +philosophical discussions are almost the same in all nations. They are +the same, for the simple reason that they all come from the things that +were the roots of our common civilisation. From Christianity, from +the Roman Empire, from the mediaeval Church, or the French Revolution. +“Nation,” “citizen,” “religion,” “philosophy,” “authority,” “the +Republic,” words like these are nearly the same in all the countries in +which we travel. Restrain, therefore, your exuberant admiration for the +young man who can argue with six French atheists when he first lands at +Dieppe. Even I can do that. But very likely the same young man does not +know the French for a shoe-horn. But to this generalisation there +are three great exceptions. (1) In the case of countries that are not +European at all, and have never had our civic conceptions, or the old +Latin scholarship. I do not pretend that the Patagonian phrase for +“citizenship” at once leaps to the mind, or that a Dyak’s word for “the +Republic” has been familiar to me from the nursery. (2) In the case of +Germany, where, although the principle does apply to many words such +as “nation” and “philosophy,” it does not apply so generally, because +Germany has had a special and deliberate policy of encouraging the +purely German part of its language. (3) In the case where one does not +know any of the language at all, as is generally the case with me. + +..... + +Such at least was my situation on the dark day on which I committed my +crime. Two of the exceptional conditions which I have mentioned were +combined. I was walking about a German town, and I knew no German. I +knew, however, two or three of those great and solemn words which hold +our European civilisation together--one of which is “cigar.” As it was a +hot and dreamy day, I sat down at a table in a sort of beer-garden, and +ordered a cigar and a pot of lager. I drank the lager, and paid for +it. I smoked the cigar, forgot to pay for it, and walked away, gazing +rapturously at the royal outline of the Taunus mountains. After about +ten minutes, I suddenly remembered that I had not paid for the cigar. I +went back to the place of refreshment, and put down the money. But the +proprietor also had forgotten the cigar, and he merely said guttural +things in a tone of query, asking me, I suppose, what I wanted. I said +“cigar,” and he gave me a cigar. I endeavoured while putting down the +money to wave away the cigar with gestures of refusal. He thought that +my rejection was of the nature of a condemnation of that particular +cigar, and brought me another. I whirled my arms like a windmill, +seeking to convey by the sweeping universality of my gesture that my +rejection was a rejection of cigars in general, not of that particular +article. He mistook this for the ordinary impatience of common men, and +rushed forward, his hands filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing +them upon me. In desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the +more cigars I refused the more and more rare and precious cigars were +brought out of the deeps and recesses of the establishment. I tried in +vain to think of a way of conveying to him the fact that I had already +had the cigar. I imitated the action of a citizen smoking, knocking off +and throwing away a cigar. The watchful proprietor only thought I was +rehearsing (as in an ecstasy of anticipation) the joys of the cigar he +was going to give me. At last I retired baffled: he would not take the +money and leave the cigars alone. So that this restaurant-keeper (in +whose face a love of money shone like the sun at noonday) flatly and +firmly refused to receive the twopence that I certainly owed him; and +I took that twopence of his away with me and rioted on it for months. I +hope that on the last day the angels will break the truth very gently to +that unhappy man. + +..... + +This is the true and exact account of the Great Cigar Fraud, and the +moral of it is this--that civilisation is founded upon abstractions. The +idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed by physical motions at +all, because it is an abstract idea. And civilisation obviously would be +nothing without debt. So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific +sociology (which does not exist) come and tell you that civilisation is +material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourselves how many of +the things that make up our Society, the Law, or the Stocks and Shares, +or the National Debt, you would be able to convey with your face and +your ten fingers by grinning and gesticulating to a German innkeeper. + + + + +XXV. A Cab Ride Across Country + +Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there lies +a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, but of +eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, which asked the present writer +to come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address. + +Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon, +owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws and +customs have fallen in connection with the seventh day. It is not +Puritanism; it is simply anarchy. I should have some sympathy with the +Jewish Sabbath, if it were a Jewish Sabbath, and that for three reasons; +first, that religion is an intrinsically sympathetic thing; second, that +I cannot conceive any religion worth calling a religion without a fixed +and material observance; and third, that the particular observance of +sitting still and doing no work is one that suits my temperament down to +the ground. + +But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it does not +let a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him up when it has forced +him to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism does not forbid us to ask a man +in Battersea to come and talk in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his +getting there. I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with +joys, with flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. I can +understand that a deity might be worshipped with sorrows. But I cannot +imagine any deity being worshipped with inconveniences. Let the good +Moslem go to Mecca, or let him abide in his tent, according to his +feelings for religious symbols. But surely Allah cannot see anything +particularly dignified in his servant being misled by the time-table, +finding that the old Mecca express is not running, missing his +connection at Bagdad, or having to wait three hours in a small side +station outside Damascus. + +So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph +service at all to this place; I found there was only one weak thread +of train-service. Now if this had been the authority of real English +religion, I should have submitted to it at once. If I believed that +the telegraph clerk could not send the telegram because he was at that +moment rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, I should think all telegrams +unimportant in comparison. If I could believe that railway porters when +relieved from their duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of +worship, I should say that all lectures and everything else ought to +give way to such a consideration. I should not complain if the national +faith forbade me to make any appointments of labour or self-expression +on the Sabbath. But, as it is, it only tells me that I may very probably +keep the Sabbath by not keeping the appointment. + +..... + +But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there was +only one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could even get +within several hours or several miles of the time or place. I therefore +went to the telephone, which is one of my favourite toys, and down which +I have shouted many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon +art and morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered +that one could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be +cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the +advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer +words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a +taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. I have not a word to say in +general either against telephones or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two +of the purest and most poetic of the creations of modern scientific +civilisation. Unfortunately, when the taxi-cab started, it did exactly +what modern scientific civilisation has done--it broke down. The result +of this was that when I arrived at King’s Cross my only train was gone; +there was a Sabbath calm in the station, a calm in the eyes of the +porters, and in my breast, if calm at all, if any calm, a calm despair. + +There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my breast on first +making the discovery; and it was turned to blinding horror when I learnt +that I could not even send a telegram to the organisers of the meeting. +To leave my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; to +leave them without any intimation was simply low. I reasoned with the +official. I said: “Do you really mean to say that if my brother were +dying and my mother in this place, I could not communicate with her?” He +was a man of literal and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was +dying. I answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health, +but that I was inquiring upon a question of principle. What would happen +if England were invaded, or if I alone knew how to turn aside a comet or +an earthquake. He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible +spirit, but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this +particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element of the +outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang up ungovernable, +and I decided that I would not be a cad merely because some of my remote +ancestors had been Calvinists. I would keep my appointment if I lost all +my money and all my wits. I went out into the quiet London street, where +my quiet London cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty +morning. I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the +London driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. And he did. + +..... + +I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful whether, even in a +motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver, +not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road. +I urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, but +he said (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate sense of +adventure) that he would rather do it when we arrived--if we ever did. I +was by no means so delicate; I bought a varied selection of pork-pies +at a little shop that was open (why was that shop open?--it is all a +mystery), and ate them as we went along. The beginning was sombre and +irritating. I was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a +baby; with the motor for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday. +And the sight of the northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did +not decrease, my gloom: Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness in its +squalor; Battersea and Camberwell have an indescribable bustle of +democracy; but the poor parts of North London... well, perhaps I saw +them wrongly under that ashen morning and on that foolish errand. + +It was one of those days which more than once this year broke the +retreat of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. We +were already clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace +through a borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, when +the grey showed golden patches and a good light began to glitter on +everything. The cab went quicker and quicker. The open land whirled +wider and wider; but I did not lose my sense of being battled with +and thwarted that I had felt in the thronged slums. Rather the feeling +increased, because of the great difficulty of space and time. The faster +went the car, the fiercer and thicker I felt the fight. + +The whole landscape seemed charging at me--and just missing me. The +tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; the very trees +seemed like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving it by a hair’s +breadth. Across some vast, smooth valley I saw a beech-tree by the +white road stand up little and defiant. It grew bigger and bigger with +blinding rapidity. It charged me like a tilting knight, seemed to hack +at my head, and pass by. Sometimes when we went round a curve of road, +the effect was yet more awful. It seemed as if some tree or windmill +swung round to smite like a boomerang. The sun by this time was a +blazing fact; and I saw that all Nature is chivalrous and militant. We +do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we should rather seek the nobler sort +of war; and see all the trees as green banners. + +..... + +I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was deciding to leave. +When my cab came reeling into the market-place they decided, with +evident disappointment, to remain. Over the lecture I draw a veil. +When I came back home I was called to the telephone, and a meek voice +expressed regret for the failure of the motor-cab, and even said +something about any reasonable payment. “Whom can I pay for my own +superb experience? What is the usual charge for seeing the clouds +shattered by the sun? What is the market price of a tree blue on the +sky-line and then blinding white in the sun? Mention your price for that +windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks in the garden. Let me pay you +for...” Here it was, I think, that we were cut off. + + + + +XXVI. The Two Noises + +For three days and three nights the sea had charged England as Napoleon +charged her at Waterloo. The phrase is instinctive, because away to +the last grey line of the sea there was only the look of galloping +squadrons, impetuous, but with a common purpose. The sea came on like +cavalry, and when it touched the shore it opened the blazing eyes and +deafening tongues of the artillery. I saw the worst assault at night on +a seaside parade where the sea smote on the doors of England with the +hammers of earthquake, and a white smoke went up into the black heavens. +There one could thoroughly realise what an awful thing a wave really is. +I talk like other people about the rushing swiftness of a wave. But the +horrible thing about a wave is its hideous slowness. It lifts its load +of water laboriously: in that style at once slow and slippery in which +a Titan might lift a load of rock and then let it slip at last to be +shattered into shock of dust. In front of me that night the waves were +not like water: they were like falling city walls. The breaker rose +first as if it did not wish to attack the earth; it wished only to +attack the stars. For a time it stood up in the air as naturally as a +tower; then it went a little wrong in its outline, like a tower that +might some day fall. When it fell it was as if a powder magazine blew +up. + +..... + +I have never seen such a sea. All the time there blew across the land +one of those stiff and throttling winds that one can lean up against +like a wall. One expected anything to be blown out of shape at any +instant; the lamp-post to be snapped like a green stalk, the tree to be +whirled away like a straw. I myself should certainly have been blown out +of shape if I had possessed any shape to be blown out of; for I walked +along the edge of the stone embankment above the black and battering sea +and could not rid myself of the idea that it was an invasion of England. +But as I walked along this edge I was somewhat surprised to find that +as I neared a certain spot another noise mingled with the ceaseless +cannonade of the sea. + +Somewhere at the back, in some pleasure ground or casino or place of +entertainment, an undaunted brass band was playing against the cosmic +uproar. I do not know what band it was. Judging from the boisterous +British Imperialism of most of the airs it played, I should think it was +a German band. But there was no doubt about its energy, and when I came +quite close under it it really drowned the storm. It was playing such +things as “Tommy Atkins” and “You Can Depend on Young Australia,” and +many others of which I do not know the words, but I should think they +would be “John, Pat, and Mac, With the Union Jack,” or that fine though +unwritten poem, “Wait till the Bull Dog gets a bite of you.” Now, I +for one detest Imperialism, but I have a great deal of sympathy with +Jingoism. And there seemed something so touching about this unbroken and +innocent bragging under the brutal menace of Nature that it made, if I +may so put it, two tunes in my mind. It is so obvious and so jolly to +be optimistic about England, especially when you are an optimist--and +an Englishman. But through all that glorious brass came the voice of the +invasion, the undertone of that awful sea. I did a foolish thing. As I +could not express my meaning in an article, I tried to express it in +a poem--a bad one. You can call it what you like. It might be called +“Doubt,” or “Brighton.” It might be called “The Patriot,” or yet again +“The German Band.” I would call it “The Two Voices,” but that title has +been taken for a grossly inferior poem. This is how it began-- + + “They say the sun is on your knees + A lamp to light your lands from harm, + They say you turn the seven seas + To little brooks about your farm. + I hear the sea and the new song + that calls you empress all day long. + + “(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie + Dying in swamps--you shall not die, + Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust, + Your poor are chased about like dust, + Emptied of anger and surprise-- + And God has gone out of their eyes, + Your cohorts break--your captains lie, + I say to you, you shall not die.)” + +Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there is an English +country that the Imperialists have never found. The British Empire +may annex what it likes, it will never annex England. It has not even +discovered the island, let alone conquered it. I took up the two tunes +again with a greater sympathy for the first-- + + “I know the bright baptismal rains, + I love your tender troubled skies, + I know your little climbing lanes, + Are peering into Paradise, + From open hearth to orchard cool, + How bountiful and beautiful. + + “(O throttled and without a cry, + O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die, + The frightful word is on your walls, + The east sea to the west sea calls, + The stars are dying in the sky, + You shall not die; you shall not die.)” + +Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the +peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. It +is their fault if the last verse was written a little rudely and at +random-- + + “I see you how you smile in state + Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar, + You need not tell me you are great, + I know how more than great you are. + I know what William Shakespeare was, + I have seen Gainsborough and the grass. + + “(O given to believe a lie, + O my mad mother, do do not die, + Whose eyes turn all ways but within, + Whose sin is innocence of sin, + Whose eyes, blinded with beams at noon, + Can see the motes upon the moon, + You shall your lover still pursue. + To what last madhouse shelters you + I will uphold you, even I. + You that are dead. You shall not die.)” + +But the sea would not stop for me any more than for Canute; and as for +the German band, that would not stop for anybody. + + + + +XXVII. Some Policemen and a Moral + +The other day I was nearly arrested by two excited policemen in a wood +in Yorkshire. I was on a holiday, and was engaged in that rich and +intricate mass of pleasures, duties, and discoveries which for the +keeping off of the profane, we disguise by the exoteric name of Nothing. +At the moment in question I was throwing a big Swedish knife at a tree, +practising (alas, without success) that useful trick of knife-throwing +by which men murder each other in Stevenson’s romances. + +Suddenly the forest was full of two policemen; there was something about +their appearance in and relation to the greenwood that reminded me, +I know not how, of some happy Elizabethan comedy. They asked what the +knife was, who I was, why I was throwing it, what my address was, trade, +religion, opinions on the Japanese war, name of favourite cat, and so +on. They also said I was damaging the tree; which was, I am sorry to +say, not true, because I could not hit it. The peculiar philosophical +importance, however, of the incident was this. After some half-hour’s +animated conversation, the exhibition of an envelope, an unfinished +poem, which was read with great care, and, I trust, with some profit, +and one or two other subtle detective strokes, the elder of the two +knights became convinced that I really was what I professed to be, that +I was a journalist, that I was on the DAILY NEWS (this was the real +stroke; they were shaken with a terror common to all tyrants), that +I lived in a particular place as stated, and that I was stopping +with particular people in Yorkshire, who happened to be wealthy and +well-known in the neighbourhood. + +In fact the leading constable became so genial and complimentary at last +that he ended up by representing himself as a reader of my work. And +when that was said, everything was settled. They acquitted me and let me +pass. + +“But,” I said, “what of this mangled tree? It was to the rescue of that +Dryad, tethered to the earth, that you rushed like knight-errants. You, +the higher humanitarians, are not deceived by the seeming stillness +of the green things, a stillness like the stillness of the cataract, a +headlong and crashing silence. You know that a tree is but a creature +tied to the ground by one leg. You will not let assassins with their +Swedish daggers shed the green blood of such a being. But if so, why am +I not in custody; where are my gyves? Produce, from some portion of your +persons, my mouldy straw and my grated window. The facts of which I have +just convinced you, that my name is Chesterton, that I am a journalist, +that I am living with the well-known and philanthropic Mr. Blank of +Ilkley, cannot have anything to do with the question of whether I have +been guilty of cruelty to vegetables. The tree is none the less damaged +even though it may reflect with a dark pride that it was wounded by a +gentleman connected with the Liberal press. Wounds in the bark do not +more rapidly close up because they are inflicted by people who are +stopping with Mr. Blank of Ilkley. That tree, the ruin of its former +self, the wreck of what was once a giant of the forest, now splintered +and laid low by the brute superiority of a Swedish knife, that tragedy, +constable, cannot be wiped out even by stopping for several months more +with some wealthy person. It is incredible that you have no legal claim +to arrest even the most august and fashionable persons on this charge. +For if so, why did you interfere with me at all?” + +I made the later and larger part of this speech to the silent wood, for +the two policemen had vanished almost as quickly as they came. It is +very possible, of course, that they were fairies. In that case the +somewhat illogical character of their view of crime, law, and personal +responsibility would find a bright and elfish explanation; perhaps if I +had lingered in the glade till moonrise I might have seen rings of tiny +policemen dancing on the sward; or running about with glow-worm belts, +arresting grasshoppers for damaging blades of grass. But taking the +bolder hypothesis, that they really were policemen, I find myself in +a certain difficulty. I was certainly accused of something which was +either an offence or was not. I was let off because I proved I was a +guest at a big house. The inference seems painfully clear; either it is +not a proof of infamy to throw a knife about in a lonely wood, or else +it is a proof of innocence to know a rich man. Suppose a very poor +person, poorer even than a journalist, a navvy or unskilled labourer, +tramping in search of work, often changing his lodgings, often, perhaps, +failing in his rent. Suppose he had been intoxicated with the green +gaiety of the ancient wood. Suppose he had thrown knives at trees and +could give no description of a dwelling-place except that he had been +fired out of the last. As I walked home through a cloudy and purple +twilight I wondered how he would have got on. + +Moral. We English are always boasting that we are very illogical; there +is no great harm in that. There is no subtle spiritual evil in the fact +that people always brag about their vices; it is when they begin to brag +about their virtues that they become insufferable. But there is this to +be said, that illogicality in your constitution or your legal methods +may become very dangerous if there happens to be some great national +vice or national temptation which many take advantage of the chaos. +Similarly, a drunkard ought to have strict rules and hours; a temperate +man may obey his instincts. + +Take some absurd anomaly in the British law--the fact, for instance, +that a man ceasing to be an M. P. has to become Steward of the Chiltern +Hundreds, an office which I believe was intended originally to keep down +some wild robbers near Chiltern, wherever that is. Obviously this kind +of illogicality does not matter very much, for the simple reason that +there is no great temptation to take advantage of it. Men retiring from +Parliament do not have any furious impulse to hunt robbers in the hills. +But if there were a real danger that wise, white-haired, venerable +politicians taking leave of public life would desire to do this (if, +for instance, there were any money in it), then clearly, if we went on +saying that the illogicality did not matter, when (as a matter of fact) +Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was hanging Chiltern shop-keepers every day and +taking their property, we should be very silly. The illogicality would +matter, for it would have become an excuse for indulgence. It is only +the very good who can live riotous lives. + +Now this is exactly what is present in cases of police investigation +such as the one narrated above. There enters into such things a great +national sin, a far greater sin than drink--the habit of respecting a +gentleman. Snobbishness has, like drink, a kind of grand poetry. And +snobbishness has this peculiar and devilish quality of evil, that it is +rampant among very kindly people, with open hearts and houses. But it is +our great English vice; to be watched more fiercely than small-pox. If a +man wished to hear the worst and wickedest thing in England summed up in +casual English words, he would not find it in any foul oaths or ribald +quarrelling. He would find it in the fact that the best kind of working +man, when he wishes to praise any one, calls him “a gentleman.” It never +occurs to him that he might as well call him “a marquis,” or “a privy +councillor”--that he is simply naming a rank or class, not a phrase +for a good man. And this perennial temptation to a shameful admiration, +must, and, I think, does, constantly come in and distort and poison our +police methods. + +In this case we must be logical and exact; for we have to keep watch +upon ourselves. The power of wealth, and that power at its vilest, is +increasing in the modern world. A very good and just people, without +this temptation, might not need, perhaps, to make clear rules and +systems to guard themselves against the power of our great financiers. +But that is because a very just people would have shot them long ago, +from mere native good feeling. + + + + +XXVIII. The Lion + +In the town of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We +talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is the +man in the street. Things quite central for him are connected with these +lamp-posts and pavements; everything from his meals to his martyrdoms. +When first an Englishman looks at a French town or village his first +feeling is simply that it is uglier than an English town or village; +when he looks again he sees that this comparative absence of the +picturesque is chiefly expressed in the plain, precipitous frontage +of the houses standing up hard and flat out of the street like the +cardboard houses in a pantomime--a hard angularity allied perhaps to +the harshness of French logic. When he looks a third time he sees quite +simply that it is all because the houses have no front gardens. The +vague English spirit loves to have the entrance to its house softened by +bushes and broken by steps. It likes to have a little anteroom of hedges +half in the house and half out of it; a green room in a double sense. +The Frenchman desires no such little pathetic ramparts or halting +places, for the street itself is a thing natural and familiar to him. + +..... + +The French have no front gardens; but the street is every man’s front +garden. There are trees in the street, and sometimes fountains. The +street is the Frenchman’s tavern, for he drinks in the street. It is his +dining-room, for he dines in the street. It is his British Museum, for +the statues and monuments in French streets are not, as with us, of the +worst, but of the best, art of the country, and they are often actually +as historical as the Pyramids. The street again is the Frenchman’s +Parliament, for France has never taken its Chamber of Deputies so +seriously as we take our House of Commons, and the quibbles of mere +elected nonentities in an official room seem feeble to a people whose +fathers have heard the voice of Desmoulins like a trumpet under open +heaven, or Victor Hugo shouting from his carriage amid the wreck of the +second Republic. And as the Frenchman drinks in the street and dines in +the street so also he fights in the street and dies in the street, so +that the street can never be commonplace to him. + +Take, for instance, such a simple object as a lamp-post. In London +a lamp-post is a comic thing. We think of the intoxicated gentleman +embracing it, and recalling ancient friendship. But in Paris a lamp-post +is a tragic thing. For we think of tyrants hanged on it, and of an +end of the world. There is, or was, a bitter Republican paper in Paris +called LA LANTERNE. How funny it would be if there were a Progressive +paper in England called THE LAMP POST! We have said, then, that the +Frenchman is the man in the street; that he can dine in the street, and +die in the street. And if I ever pass through Paris and find him going +to bed in the street, I shall say that he is still true to the genius +of his civilisation. All that is good and all that is evil in France is +alike connected with this open-air element. French democracy and French +indecency are alike part of the desire to have everything out of doors. +Compared to a café, a public-house is a private house. + +..... + +There were two reasons why all these fancies should float through the +mind in the streets of this especial town of Belfort. First of all, it +lies close upon the boundary of France and Germany, and boundaries are +the most beautiful things in the world. To love anything is to love its +boundaries; thus children will always play on the edge of anything. +They build castles on the edge of the sea, and can only be restrained by +public proclamation and private violence from walking on the edge of the +grass. For when we have come to the end of a thing we have come to the +beginning of it. + +Hence this town seemed all the more French for being on the very +margin of Germany, and although there were many German touches in +the place--German names, larger pots of beer, and enormous theatrical +barmaids dressed up in outrageous imitation of Alsatian peasants--yet +the fixed French colour seemed all the stronger for these specks +of something else. All day long and all night long troops of dusty, +swarthy, scornful little soldiers went plodding through the streets with +an air of stubborn disgust, for German soldiers look as if they despised +you, but French soldiers as if they despised you and themselves even +more than you. It is a part, I suppose, of the realism of the nation +which has made it good at war and science and other things in which what +is necessary is combined with what is nasty. And the soldiers and the +civilians alike had most of them cropped hair, and that curious kind of +head which to an Englishman looks almost brutal, the kind that we call a +bullet-head. Indeed, we are speaking very appropriately when we call it +a bullet-head, for in intellectual history the heads of Frenchmen have +been bullets--yes, and explosive bullets. + +..... + +But there was a second reason why in this place one should think +particularly of the open-air politics and the open-air art of the +French. For this town of Belfort is famous for one of the most typical +and powerful of the public monuments of France. From the café table at +which I sit I can see the hill beyond the town on which hangs the high +and flat-faced citadel, pierced with many windows, and warmed in the +evening light. On the steep hill below it is a huge stone lion, itself +as large as a hill. It is hacked out of the rock with a sort of gigantic +impression. No trivial attempt has been made to make it like a common +statue; no attempt to carve the mane into curls, or to distinguish +the monster minutely from the earth out of which he rises, shaking the +world. The face of the lion has something of the bold conventionality +of Assyrian art. The mane of the lion is left like a shapeless cloud of +tempest, as if it might literally be said of him that God had clothed +his neck with thunder. Even at this distance the thing looks vast, and +in some sense prehistoric. Yet it was carved only a little while ago. +It commemorates the fact that this town was never taken by the Germans +through all the terrible year, but only laid down its arms at last at +the command of its own Government. But the spirit of it has been in +this land from the beginning--the spirit of something defiant and almost +defeated. + +As I leave this place and take the railway into Germany the news comes +thicker and thicker up the streets that Southern France is in a flame, +and that there perhaps will be fought out finally the awful modern +battle of the rich and poor. And as I pass into quieter places for the +last sign of France on the sky-line, I see the Lion of Belfort stand at +bay, the last sight of that great people which has never been at peace. + + + + +XXIX. Humanity: an Interlude + +Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, +the City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything noble +cut out, and everything nasty left in. No one can understand Paris and +its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance +and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but +it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses +is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but +quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they +are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. For +the indecency of many of their books and papers is not of the sort which +charms and seduces, but of the sort that horrifies and hurts; they are +torturing themselves. They lash their own patriotism into life with the +same whips which most men use to lash foreigners to silence. The enemies +of France can never give an account of her infamy or decay which does +not seem insipid and even polite compared with the things which the +Nationalists of France say about their own nation. They taunt and +torment themselves; sometimes they even deliberately oppress themselves. +Thus, when the mob of Paris could make a Government to please itself, it +made a sort of sublime tyranny to order itself about. The spirit is the +same from the Crusades or St. Bartholomew to the apotheosis of Zola. +The old religionists tortured men physically for a moral truth. The new +realists torture men morally for a physical truth. + +Now Brussels is Paris without this constant purification of pain. Its +indecencies are not regrettable incidents in an everlasting revolution. +It has none of the things which make good Frenchmen love Paris; it has +only the things which make unspeakable Englishmen love it. It has +the part which is cosmopolitan--and narrow; not the part which is +Parisian--and universal. You can find there (as commonly happens in +modern centres) the worst things of all nations--the _Daily Mail_ from +England, the cheap philosophies from Germany, the loose novels of +France, and the drinks of America. But there is no English broad fun, +no German kindly ceremony, no American exhilaration, and, above all, no +French tradition of fighting for an idea. Though all the boulevards look +like Parisian boulevards, though all the shops look like Parisian shops, +you cannot look at them steadily for two minutes without feeling the +full distance between, let us say, King Leopold and fighters like +Clemenceau and Deroulède. + +..... + +For all these reasons, and many more, when I had got into Brussels I +began to make all necessary arrangements for getting out of it again; +and I had impulsively got into a tram which seemed to be going out of +the city. In this tram there were two men talking; one was a little +man with a black French beard; the other was a baldish man with bushy +whiskers, like the financial foreign count in a three-act farce. And +about the time that we reached the suburb of the city, and the traffic +grew thinner, and the noises more few, I began to hear what they were +saying. Though they spoke French quickly, their words were fairly easy +to follow, because they were all long words. Anybody can understand long +words because they have in them all the lucidity of Latin. + +The man with the black beard said: “It must that we have the Progress.” + +The man with the whiskers parried this smartly by saying: “It must also +that we have the Consolidation International.” + +This is a sort of discussion which I like myself, so I listened with +some care, and I think I picked up the thread of it. One of the Belgians +was a Little Belgian, as we speak of a Little Englander. The other was a +Belgian Imperialist, for though Belgium is not quite strong enough to be +altogether a nation, she is quite strong enough to be an empire. Being +a nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being an empire only +means kicking your inferiors. The man with whiskers was the Imperialist, +and he was saying: “The science, behold there the new guide of +humanity.” + +And the man with the beard answered him: “It does not suffice to have +progress in the science; one must have it also in the sentiment of the +human justice.” + +This remark I applauded, as if at a public meeting, but they were much +too keen on their argument to hear me. The views I have often heard +in England, but never uttered so lucidly, and certainly never so fast. +Though Belgian by nation they must both have been essentially French. +Whiskers was great on education, which, it seems, is on the march. +All the world goes to make itself instructed. It must that the more +instructed enlighten the less instructed. Eh, well then, the European +must impose upon the savage the science and the light. Also (apparently) +he must impose himself on the savage while he is about it. To-day one +travelled quickly. The science had changed all. For our fathers, +they were religious, and (what was worse) dead. To-day humanity had +electricity to the hand; the machines came from triumphing; all the +lines and limits of the globe effaced themselves. Soon there would not +be but the great Empires and confederations, guided by the science, +always the science. + +Here Whiskers stopped an instant for breath; and the man with the +sentiment for human justice had “la parole” off him in a flash. Without +doubt Humanity was on the march, but towards the sentiments, the +ideal, the methods moral and pacific. Humanity directed itself towards +Humanity. For your wars and empires on behalf of civilisation, what were +they in effect? The war, was it not itself an affair of the barbarism? +The Empires were they not things savage? The Humanity had passed all +that; she was now intellectual. Tolstoy had refined all human souls with +the sentiments the most delicate and just. Man was become a spirit; the +wings pushed.... + +..... + +At this important point of evolution the tram came to a jerky stoppage; +and staring around I found, to my stunned consternation, that it was +almost dark, that I was far away from Brussels, that I could not +dream of getting back to dinner; in short, that through the clinging +fascination of this great controversy on Humanity and its recent +complete alteration by science or Tolstoy, I had landed myself Heaven +knows where. I dropped hastily from the suburban tram and let it go on +without me. + +I was alone in the flat fields out of sight of the city. On one side +of the road was one of those small, thin woods which are common in all +countries, but of which, by a coincidence, the mystical painters of +Flanders were very fond. The night was closing in with cloudy purple +and grey; there was one ribbon of silver, the last rag of the sunset. +Through the wood went one little path, and somehow it suggested that it +might lead to some sign of life--there was no other sign of life on the +horizon. I went along it, and soon sank into a sort of dancing twilight +of all those tiny trees. There is something subtle and bewildering about +that sort of frail and fantastic wood. A forest of big trees seems +like a bodily barrier; but somehow that mist of thin lines seems like a +spiritual barrier. It is as if one were caught in a fairy cloud or could +not pass a phantom. When I had well lost the last gleam of the high +road a curious and definite feeling came upon me. Now I suddenly +felt something much more practical and extraordinary--the absence of +humanity: inhuman loneliness. Of course, there was nothing really lost +in my state; but the mood may hit one anywhere. I wanted men--any men; +and I felt our awful alliance over all the globe. And at last, when I +had walked for what seemed a long time, I saw a light too near the earth +to mean anything except the image of God. + +I came out on a clear space and a low, long cottage, the door of which +was open, but was blocked by a big grey horse, who seemed to prefer to +eat with his head inside the sitting-room. I got past him, and found +he was being fed by a young man who was sitting down and drinking beer +inside, and who saluted me with heavy rustic courtesy, but in a strange +tongue. The room was full of staring faces like owls, and these I traced +at length as belonging to about six small children. Their father was +still working in the fields, but their mother rose when I entered. She +smiled, but she and all the rest spoke some rude language, Flamand, I +suppose; so that we had to be kind to each other by signs. She fetched +me beer, and pointed out my way with her finger; and I drew a picture +to please the children; and as it was a picture of two men hitting each +other with swords, it pleased them very much. Then I gave a Belgian +penny to each child, for as I said on chance in French, “It must be that +we have the economic equality.” But they had never heard of economic +equality, while all Battersea workmen have heard of economic equality, +though it is true that they haven’t got it. + +I found my way back to the city, and some time afterwards I actually +saw in the street my two men talking, no doubt still saying, one that +Science had changed all in Humanity, and the other that Humanity was now +pushing the wings of the purely intellectual. But for me Humanity was +hooked on to an accidental picture. I thought of a low and lonely house +in the flats, behind a veil or film of slight trees, a man breaking the +ground as men have broken from the first morning, and a huge grey horse +champing his food within a foot of a child’s head, as in the stable +where Christ was born. + + + + +XXX. The Little Birds Who Won’t Sing + +On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that in a few hours +I should be in England, my eye fell upon one of the details of Gothic +carving of which Flanders is full. I do not know whether the thing is +old, though it was certainly knocked about and indecipherable, but at +least it was certainly in the style and tradition of the early Middle +Ages. It seemed to represent men bending themselves (not to say twisting +themselves) to certain primary employments. Some seemed to be +sailors tugging at ropes; others, I think, were reaping; others were +energetically pouring something into something else. This is entirely +characteristic of the pictures and carvings of the early thirteenth +century, perhaps the most purely vigorous time in all history. The great +Greeks preferred to carve their gods and heroes doing nothing. Splendid +and philosophic as their composure is there is always about it something +that marks the master of many slaves. But if there was one thing +the early mediaevals liked it was representing people doing +something--hunting or hawking, or rowing boats, or treading grapes, or +making shoes, or cooking something in a pot. “Quicquid agunt homines, +votum, timor, ira voluptas.” (I quote from memory.) The Middle Ages +is full of that spirit in all its monuments and manuscripts. Chaucer +retains it in his jolly insistence on everybody’s type of trade and +toil. It was the earliest and youngest resurrection of Europe, the time +when social order was strengthening, but had not yet become oppressive; +the time when religious faiths were strong, but had not yet been +exasperated. For this reason the whole effect of Greek and Gothic +carving is different. The figures in the Elgin marbles, though often +reining their steeds for an instant in the air, seem frozen for ever at +that perfect instant. But a mass of mediaeval carving seems actually +a sort of bustle or hubbub in stone. Sometimes one cannot help feeling +that the groups actually move and mix, and the whole front of a great +cathedral has the hum of a huge hive. + +..... + +But about these particular figures there was a peculiarity of which I +could not be sure. Those of them that had any heads had very curious +heads, and it seemed to me that they had their mouths open. Whether or +no this really meant anything or was an accident of nascent art I do not +know; but in the course of wondering I recalled to my mind the fact that +singing was connected with many of the tasks there suggested, that there +were songs for reapers and songs for sailors hauling ropes. I was +still thinking about this small problem when I walked along the pier +at Ostend; and I heard some sailors uttering a measured shout as they +laboured, and I remembered that sailors still sing in chorus while they +work, and even sing different songs according to what part of their work +they are doing. And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was +over, the sight of men working in the English fields reminded me +again that there are still songs for harvest and for many agricultural +routines. And I suddenly wondered why if this were so it should be quite +unknown, for any modern trade to have a ritual poetry. How did people +come to chant rude poems while pulling certain ropes or gathering +certain fruit, and why did nobody do anything of the kind while +producing any of the modern things? Why is a modern newspaper never +printed by people singing in chorus? Why do shopmen seldom, if ever, +sing? + +..... + +If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while +auditing and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all the +separate things that have to be done in a boat, why are there not songs +for all the separate things that have to be done in a bank? As the train +from Dover flew through the Kentish gardens, I tried to write a few +songs suitable for commercial gentlemen. Thus, the work of bank clerks +when casting up columns might begin with a thundering chorus in praise +of Simple Addition. + +“Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o’er. Hear the +Stars of Morning shouting: ‘Two and Two are four.’ Though the creeds and +realms are reeling, though the sophists roar, Though we weep and pawn +our watches, Two and Two are Four.” + +“There’s a run upon the Bank--Stand away! For the Manager’s a crank and +the Secretary drank, and the + + Upper Tooting Bank + Turns to bay! + Stand close: there is a run + On the Bank. + Of our ship, our royal one, let the ringing legend run, + That she fired with every gun + Ere she sank.” + +..... + +And as I came into the cloud of London I met a friend of mine who +actually is in a bank, and submitted these suggestions in rhyme to him +for use among his colleagues. But he was not very hopeful about the +matter. It was not (he assured me) that he underrated the verses, or in +any sense lamented their lack of polish. No; it was rather, he felt, an +indefinable something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we +live that makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks. And I think +he must be right; though the matter is very mysterious. I may observe +here that I think there must be some mistake in the calculations of the +Socialists. They put down all our distress, not to a moral tone, but +to the chaos of private enterprise. Now, banks are private; but +post-offices are Socialistic: therefore I naturally expected that the +post-office would fall into the collectivist idea of a chorus. Judge of +my surprise when the lady in my local post-office (whom I urged to sing) +dismissed the idea with far more coldness than the bank clerk had done. +She seemed indeed, to be in a considerably greater state of depression +than he. Should any one suppose that this was the effect of the verses +themselves, it is only fair to say that the specimen verse of the +Post-Office Hymn ran thus: + + “O’er London our letters are shaken like snow, + Our wires o’er the world like the thunderbolts go. + The news that may marry a maiden in Sark, + Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park.” + +Chorus (with a swing of joy and energy): + + “Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park.” + +And the more I thought about the matter the more painfully certain it +seemed that the most important and typical modern things could not be +done with a chorus. One could not, for instance, be a great financier +and sing; because the essence of being a great financier is that you +keep quiet. You could not even in many modern circles be a public man +and sing; because in those circles the essence of being a public man is +that you do nearly everything in private. Nobody would imagine a chorus +of money-lenders. Every one knows the story of the solicitors’ corps of +volunteers who, when the Colonel on the battlefield cried “Charge!” all +said simultaneously, “Six-and-eightpence.” Men can sing while charging +in a military, but hardly in a legal sense. And at the end of my +reflections I had really got no further than the sub-conscious feeling +of my friend the bank-clerk--that there is something spiritually +suffocating about our life; not about our laws merely, but about our +life. Bank-clerks are without songs, not because they are poor, but +because they are sad. Sailors are much poorer. As I passed homewards I +passed a little tin building of some religious sort, which was shaken +with shouting as a trumpet is torn with its own tongue. THEY were +singing anyhow; and I had for an instant a fancy I had often had before: +that with us the super-human is the only place where you can find the +human. Human nature is hunted and has fled into sanctuary. + + + + +XXXI. The Riddle of the Ivy + +More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, a +friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded with +half-packed luggage. + +“You seem to be off on your travels,” he said. “Where are you going?” + +With a strap between my teeth I replied, “To Battersea.” + +“The wit of your remark,” he said, “wholly escapes me.” + +“I am going to Battersea,” I repeated, “to Battersea viâ Paris, Belfort, +Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained +simply the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once +more I find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, +somewhere in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little +island which I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great +white cliffs. Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch +travellers tell me that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour +that somewhere in the heart of it there is a beautiful place called +Battersea.” + +“I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you,” said my friend, with an air +of intellectual comparison, “that this is Battersea?” + +“It is quite unnecessary,” I said, “and it is spiritually untrue. I +cannot see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or any England. I +cannot see that door. I cannot see that chair: because a cloud of sleep +and custom has come across my eyes. The only way to get back to them is +to go somewhere else; and that is the real object of travel and the real +pleasure of holidays. Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see +France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? +I shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking. I am +seeking Battersea. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on +foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a +foreign land. Now I warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and +heavy, and that if you utter that word ‘paradox’ I shall hurl it at your +head. I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical. It is +not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go to England is to +go away from it.” + +But when, after only a month’s travelling, I did come back to England, I +was startled to find that I had told the exact truth. England did break +on me at once beautifully new and beautifully old. To land at Dover is +the right way to approach England (most things that are hackneyed are +right), for then you see first the full, soft gardens of Kent, which +are, perhaps, an exaggeration, but still a typical exaggeration, of the +rich rusticity of England. As it happened, also, a fellow-traveller with +whom I had fallen into conversation felt the same freshness, though for +another cause. She was an American lady who had seen Europe, and had +never yet seen England, and she expressed her enthusiasm in that +simple and splendid way which is natural to Americans, who are the most +idealistic people in the whole world. Their only danger is that the +idealist can easily become the idolator. And the American has become +so idealistic that he even idealises money. But (to quote a very able +writer of American short stories) that is another story. + +“I have never been in England before,” said the American lady, “yet +it is so pretty that I feel as if I have been away from it for a long +time.” + +“So you have,” I said; “you have been away for three hundred years.” + +“What a lot of ivy you have,” she said. “It covers the churches and +it buries the houses. We have ivy; but I have never seen it grow like +that.” + +“I am interested to hear it,” I replied, “for I am making a little list +of all the things that are really better in England. Even a month on +the Continent, combined with intelligence, will teach you that there are +many things that are better abroad. All the things that the DAILY MAIL +calls English are better abroad. But there are things entirely English +and entirely good. Kippers, for instance, and Free Trade, and front +gardens, and individual liberty, and the Elizabethan drama, and hansom +cabs, and cricket, and Mr. Will Crooks. Above all, there is the happy +and holy custom of eating a heavy breakfast. I cannot imagine that +Shakespeare began the day with rolls and coffee, like a Frenchman or a +German. Surely he began with bacon or bloaters. In fact, a light bursts +upon me; for the first time I see the real meaning of Mrs. Gallup and +the Great Cipher. It is merely a mistake in the matter of a capital +letter. I withdraw my objections; I accept everything; bacon did write +Shakespeare.” + +“I cannot look at anything but the ivy,” she said, “it looks so +comfortable.” + +While she looked at the ivy I opened for the first time for many weeks +an English newspaper, and I read a speech of Mr. Balfour in which +he said that the House of Lords ought to be preserved because it +represented something in the nature of permanent public opinion of +England, above the ebb and flow of the parties. Now Mr. Balfour is a +perfectly sincere patriot, a man who, from his own point of view, thinks +long and seriously about the public needs, and he is, moreover, a man +of entirely exceptionable intellectual power. But alas, in spite of +all this, when I had read that speech I thought with a heavy heart that +there was one more thing that I had to add to the list of the specially +English things, such as kippers and cricket; I had to add the specially +English kind of humbug. In France things are attacked and defended for +what they are. The Catholic Church is attacked because it is Catholic, +and defended because it is Catholic. The Republic is defended because +it is Republican, and attacked because it is Republican. But here is the +ablest of English politicians consoling everybody by telling them that +the House of Lords is not really the House of Lords, but something quite +different, that the foolish accidental peers whom he meets every night +are in some mysterious way experts upon the psychology of the democracy; +that if you want to know what the very poor want you must ask the very +rich, and that if you want the truth about Hoxton, you must ask for it +at Hatfield. If the Conservative defender of the House of Lords were +a logical French politician he would simply be a liar. But being an +English politician he is simply a poet. The English love of believing +that all is as it should be, the English optimism combined with the +strong English imagination, is too much even for the obvious facts. In a +cold, scientific sense, of course, Mr. Balfour knows that nearly all the +Lords who are not Lords by accident are Lords by bribery. He knows, and +(as Mr. Belloc excellently said) everybody in Parliament knows the very +names of the peers who have purchased their peerages. But the glamour +of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring himself and reassuring others, is +too strong for this original knowledge; at last it fades from him, +and he sincerely and earnestly calls on Englishmen to join with him in +admiring an august and public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten +that the Senate really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; +and adventurers whom he has himself ennobled. + +“Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick,” said the American lady, “it +seems to cover almost everything. It must be the most poetical thing in +England.” + +“It is very beautiful,” I said, “and, as you say, it is very English. +Charles Dickens, who was almost more English than England, wrote one of +his rare poems about the beauty of ivy. Yes, by all means let us admire +the ivy, so deep, so warm, so full of a genial gloom and a grotesque +tenderness. Let us admire the ivy; and let us pray to God in His mercy +that it may not kill the tree.” + + + + +XXXII. The Travellers in State + +The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught a train; it was a +train going into the Eastern Counties, and I only just caught it. And +while I was running along the train (amid general admiration) I noticed +that there were a quite peculiar and unusual number of carriages marked +“Engaged.” On five, six, seven, eight, nine carriages was pasted the +little notice: at five, six, seven, eight, nine windows were big bland +men staring out in the conscious pride of possession. Their bodies +seemed more than usually impenetrable, their faces more than usual +placid. It could not be the Derby, if only for the minor reasons that +it was the opposite direction and the wrong day. It could hardly be +the King. It could hardly be the French President. For, though these +distinguished persons naturally like to be private for three hours, they +are at least public for three minutes. A crowd can gather to see +them step into the train; and there was no crowd here, or any police +ceremonial. + +Who were those awful persons, who occupied more of the train than a +bricklayer’s beanfeast, and yet were more fastidious and delicate than +the King’s own suite? Who were these that were larger than a mob, yet +more mysterious than a monarch? Was it possible that instead of our +Royal House visiting the Tsar, he was really visiting us? Or does the +House of Lords have a breakfast? I waited and wondered until the train +slowed down at some station in the direction of Cambridge. Then +the large, impenetrable men got out, and after them got out the +distinguished holders of the engaged seats. They were all dressed +decorously in one colour; they had neatly cropped hair; and they were +chained together. + +I looked across the carriage at its only other occupant, and our eyes +met. He was a small, tired-looking man, and, as I afterwards learnt, a +native of Cambridge; by the look of him, some working tradesman there, +such as a journeyman tailor or a small clock-mender. In order to make +conversation I said I wondered where the convicts were going. His mouth +twitched with the instinctive irony of our poor, and he said: “I don’t +s’pose they’re goin’ on an ’oliday at the seaside with little spades +and pails.” I was naturally delighted, and, pursuing the same vein of +literary invention, I suggested that perhaps dons were taken down to +Cambridge chained together like this. And as he lived in Cambridge, and +had seen several dons, he was pleased with such a scheme. Then when we +had ceased to laugh, we suddenly became quite silent; and the bleak, +grey eyes of the little man grew sadder and emptier than an open sea. I +knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same, because all +modern sophists are only sophists, and there is such a thing as mankind. +Then at last (and it fell in as exactly as the right last note of a tune +one is trying to remember) he said: “Well, I s’pose we ’ave to do it.” + And in those three things, his first speech and his silence and his +second speech, there were all the three great fundamental facts of the +English democracy, its profound sense of humour, its profound sense of +pathos, and its profound sense of helplessness. + +..... + +It cannot be too often repeated that all real democracy is an attempt +(like that of a jolly hostess) to bring the shy people out. For every +practical purpose of a political state, for every practical purpose of a +tea-party, he that abaseth himself must be exalted. At a tea-party it +is equally obvious that he that exalteth himself must be abased, if +possible without bodily violence. Now people talk of democracy as +being coarse and turbulent: it is a self-evident error in mere history. +Aristocracy is the thing that is always coarse and turbulent: for it +means appealing to the self-confident people. Democracy means appealing +to the different people. Democracy means getting those people to vote +who would never have the cheek to govern: and (according to Christian +ethics) the precise people who ought to govern are the people who have +not the cheek to do it. There is a strong example of this truth in my +friend in the train. The only two types we hear of in this argument +about crime and punishment are two very rare and abnormal types. + +We hear of the stark sentimentalist, who talks as if there were no +problem at all: as if physical kindness would cure everything: as if +one need only pat Nero and stroke Ivan the Terrible. This mere belief in +bodily humanitarianism is not sentimental; it is simply snobbish. For +if comfort gives men virtue, the comfortable classes ought to be +virtuous--which is absurd. Then, again, we do hear of the yet weaker and +more watery type of sentimentalists: I mean the sentimentalist who +says, with a sort of splutter, “Flog the brutes!” or who tells you +with innocent obscenity “what he would do” with a certain man--always +supposing the man’s hands were tied. + +This is the more effeminate type of the two; but both are weak and +unbalanced. And it is only these two types, the sentimental humanitarian +and the sentimental brutalitarian, whom one hears in the modern babel. +Yet you very rarely meet either of them in a train. You never meet +anyone else in a controversy. The man you meet in a train is like this +man that I met: he is emotionally decent, only he is intellectually +doubtful. So far from luxuriating in the loathsome things that could be +“done” to criminals, he feels bitterly how much better it would be if +nothing need be done. But something must be done. “I s’pose we ’ave to +do it.” In short, he is simply a sane man, and of a sane man there is +only one safe definition. He is a man who can have tragedy in his heart +and comedy in his head. + +..... + +Now the real difficulty of discussing decently this problem of the +proper treatment of criminals is that both parties discuss the matter +without any direct human feeling. The denouncers of wrong are as cold as +the organisers of wrong. Humanitarianism is as hard as inhumanity. + +Let me take one practical instance. I think the flogging arranged in our +modern prisons is a filthy torture; all its scientific paraphernalia, +the photographing, the medical attendance, prove that it goes to the +last foul limit of the boot and rack. The cat is simply the rack without +any of its intellectual reasons. Holding this view strongly, I open the +ordinary humanitarian books or papers and I find a phrase like this, +“The lash is a relic of barbarism.” So is the plough. So is the fishing +net. So is the horn or the staff or the fire lit in winter. What an +inexpressibly feeble phrase for anything one wants to attack--a relic of +barbarism! It is as if a man walked naked down the street to-morrow, and +we said that his clothes were not quite in the latest fashion. There is +nothing particularly nasty about being a relic of barbarism. Man is a +relic of barbarism. Civilisation is a relic of barbarism. + +But torture is not a relic of barbarism at all. In actuality it is +simply a relic of sin; but in comparative history it may well be called +a relic of civilisation. It has always been most artistic and elaborate +when everything else was most artistic and elaborate. Thus it was +detailed exquisite in the late Roman Empire, in the complex and gorgeous +sixteenth century, in the centralised French monarchy a hundred years +before the Revolution, and in the great Chinese civilisation to this +day. This is, first and last, the frightful thing we must remember. +In so far as we grow instructed and refined we are not (in any sense +whatever) naturally moving away from torture. We may be moving towards +torture. We must know what we are doing, if we are to avoid the enormous +secret cruelty which has crowned every historic civilisation. + +The train moves more swiftly through the sunny English fields. They have +taken the prisoners away, and I do not know what they have done with +them. + + + + +XXXIII. The Prehistoric Railway Station + +A railway station is an admirable place, although Ruskin did not think +so; he did not think so because he himself was even more modern than the +railway station. He did not think so because he was himself feverish, +irritable, and snorting like an engine. He could not value the ancient +silence of the railway station. + +“In a railway station,” he said, “you are in a hurry, and therefore, +miserable”; but you need not be either unless you are as modern as +Ruskin. The true philosopher does not think of coming just in time for +his train except as a bet or a joke. + +The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to be late +for the one before. Do this, and you will find in a railway station +much of the quietude and consolation of a cathedral. It has many of the +characteristics of a great ecclesiastical building; it has vast arches, +void spaces, coloured lights, and, above all, it has recurrence or +ritual. It is dedicated to the celebration of water and fire the two +prime elements of all human ceremonial. Lastly, a station resembles the +old religions rather than the new religions in this point, that people +go there. In connection with this it should also be remembered that all +popular places, all sites, actually used by the people, tend to retain +the best routine of antiquity very much more than any localities or +machines used by any privileged class. Things are not altered so quickly +or completely by common people as they are by fashionable people. Ruskin +could have found more memories of the Middle Ages in the Underground +Railway than in the grand hotels outside the stations. The great palaces +of pleasure which the rich build in London all have brazen and vulgar +names. Their names are either snobbish, like the Hotel Cecil, or +(worse still) cosmopolitan like the Hotel Metropole. But when I go in a +third-class carriage from the nearest circle station to Battersea to the +nearest circle station to the DAILY NEWS, the names of the stations are +one long litany of solemn and saintly memories. Leaving Victoria I come +to a park belonging especially to St. James the Apostle; thence I go to +Westminster Bridge, whose very name alludes to the awful Abbey; Charing +Cross holds up the symbol of Christendom; the next station is called a +Temple; and Blackfriars remembers the mediaeval dream of a Brotherhood. + +If you wish to find the past preserved, follow the million feet of the +crowd. At the worst the uneducated only wear down old things by sheer +walking. But the educated kick them down out of sheer culture. + +I feel all this profoundly as I wander about the empty railway station, +where I have no business of any kind. I have extracted a vast number of +chocolates from automatic machines; I have obtained cigarettes, toffee, +scent, and other things that I dislike by the same machinery; I have +weighed myself, with sublime results; and this sense, not only of the +healthiness of popular things, but of their essential antiquity and +permanence, is still in possession of my mind. I wander up to the +bookstall, and my faith survives even the wild spectacle of modern +literature and journalism. Even in the crudest and most clamorous +aspects of the newspaper world I still prefer the popular to the proud +and fastidious. If I had to choose between taking in the DAILY MAIL and +taking in the TIMES (the dilemma reminds one of a nightmare), I should +certainly cry out with the whole of my being for the DAILY MAIL. Even +mere bigness preached in a frivolous way is not so irritating as mere +meanness preached in a big and solemn way. People buy the DAILY MAIL, +but they do not believe in it. They do believe in the TIMES, and +(apparently) they do not buy it. But the more the output of paper upon +the modern world is actually studied, the more it will be found to be +in all its essentials ancient and human, like the name of Charing Cross. +Linger for two or three hours at a station bookstall (as I am doing), +and you will find that it gradually takes on the grandeur and historic +allusiveness of the Vatican or Bodleian Library. The novelty is all +superficial; the tradition is all interior and profound. The DAILY MAIL +has new editions, but never a new idea. Everything in a newspaper that +is not the old human love of altar or fatherland is the old human love +of gossip. Modern writers have often made game of the old chronicles +because they chiefly record accidents and prodigies; a church struck +by lightning, or a calf with six legs. They do not seem to realise that +this old barbaric history is the same as new democratic journalism. It +is not that the savage chronicle has disappeared. It is merely that the +savage chronicle now appears every morning. + +As I moved thus mildly and vaguely in front of the bookstall, my eye +caught a sudden and scarlet title that for the moment staggered me. On +the outside of a book I saw written in large letters, “Get On or Get +Out.” The title of the book recalled to me with a sudden revolt and +reaction all that does seem unquestionably new and nasty; it reminded +me that there was in the world of to-day that utterly idiotic thing, +a worship of success; a thing that only means surpassing anybody in +anything; a thing that may mean being the most successful person +in running away from a battle; a thing that may mean being the most +successfully sleepy of the whole row of sleeping men. When I saw those +words the silence and sanctity of the railway station were for the +moment shadowed. Here, I thought, there is at any rate something +anarchic and violent and vile. This title, at any rate, means the most +disgusting individualism of this individualistic world. In the fury of +my bitterness and passion I actually bought the book, thereby ensuring +that my enemy would get some of my money. I opened it prepared to find +some brutality, some blasphemy, which would really be an exception to +the general silence and sanctity of the railway station. I was prepared +to find something in the book that was as infamous as its title. + +I was disappointed. There was nothing at all corresponding to the +furious decisiveness of the remarks on the cover. After reading it +carefully I could not discover whether I was really to get on or to +get out; but I had a vague feeling that I should prefer to get out. +A considerable part of the book, particularly towards the end, was +concerned with a detailed description of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. +Undoubtedly Napoleon got on. He also got out. But I could not discover +in any way how the details of his life given here were supposed to help +a person aiming at success. One anecdote described how Napoleon always +wiped his pen on his knee-breeches. I suppose the moral is: always wipe +your pen on your knee-breeches, and you will win the battle of Wagram. +Another story told that he let loose a gazelle among the ladies of his +Court. Clearly the brutal practical inference is--loose a gazelle among +the ladies of your acquaintance, and you will be Emperor of the French. +Get on with a gazelle or get out. The book entirely reconciled me to +the soft twilight of the station. Then I suddenly saw that there was a +symbolic division which might be paralleled from biology. Brave men are +vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness +in the middle. But these modern cowards are all crustaceans; their +hardness is all on the cover and their softness is inside. But the +softness is there; everything in this twilight temple is soft. + + + + +XXXIV. The Diabolist + +Every now and then I have introduced into my essays an element of +truth. Things that really happened have been mentioned, such as meeting +President Kruger or being thrown out of a cab. What I have now to relate +really happened; yet there was no element in it of practical politics or +of personal danger. It was simply a quiet conversation which I had with +another man. But that quiet conversation was by far the most terrible +thing that has ever happened to me in my life. It happened so long ago +that I cannot be certain of the exact words of the dialogue, only of its +main questions and answers; but there is one sentence in it for which I +can answer absolutely and word for word. It was a sentence so awful that +I could not forget it if I would. It was the last sentence spoken; and +it was not spoken to me. + +The thing befell me in the days when I was at an art school. An art +school is different from almost all other schools or colleges in this +respect: that, being of new and crude creation and of lax discipline, +it presents a specially strong contrast between the industrious and the +idle. People at an art school either do an atrocious amount of work or +do no work at all. I belonged, along with other charming people, to the +latter class; and this threw me often into the society of men who were +very different from myself, and who were idle for reasons very different +from mine. I was idle because I was very much occupied; I was +engaged about that time in discovering, to my own extreme and lasting +astonishment, that I was not an atheist. But there were others also at +loose ends who were engaged in discovering what Carlyle called (I think +with needless delicacy) the fact that ginger is hot in the mouth. + +I value that time, in short, because it made me acquainted with a good +representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are two +very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. The +first is the fact that there is one real difference between men and +women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in +threes. The second is that when you find (as you often do) three young +cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk together every +day you generally find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for +some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. In these small +groups devoted to a drivelling dissipation there is almost always one +man who seems to have condescended to his company; one man who, while he +can talk a foul triviality with his fellows, can also talk politics with +a Socialist, or philosophy with a Catholic. + +It was just such a man whom I came to know well. It was strange, +perhaps, that he liked his dirty, drunken society; it was stranger +still, perhaps, that he liked my society. For hours of the day he would +talk with me about Milton or Gothic architecture; for hours of the night +he would go where I have no wish to follow him, even in speculation. He +was a man with a long, ironical face, and close and red hair; he was +by class a gentleman, and could walk like one, but preferred, for some +reason, to walk like a groom carrying two pails. He looked like a sort +of Super-jockey; as if some archangel had gone on the Turf. And I shall +never forget the half-hour in which he and I argued about real things +for the first and the last time. + +..... + +Along the front of the big building of which our school was a part ran +a huge slope of stone steps, higher, I think, than those that lead up to +St. Paul’s Cathedral. On a black wintry evening he and I were wandering +on these cold heights, which seemed as dreary as a pyramid under the +stars. The one thing visible below us in the blackness was a burning and +blowing fire; for some gardener (I suppose) was burning something in the +grounds, and from time to time the red sparks went whirling past us like +a swarm of scarlet insects in the dark. Above us also it was gloom; +but if one stared long enough at that upper darkness, one saw vertical +stripes of grey in the black and then became conscious of the colossal +façade of the Doric building, phantasmal, yet filling the sky, as if +Heaven were still filled with the gigantic ghost of Paganism. + +..... + +The man asked me abruptly why I was becoming orthodox. Until he said it, +I really had not known that I was; but the moment he had said it I knew +it to be literally true. And the process had been so long and full that +I answered him at once out of existing stores of explanation. + +“I am becoming orthodox,” I said, “because I have come, rightly or +wrongly, after stretching my brain till it bursts, to the old belief +that heresy is worse even than sin. An error is more menacing than +a crime, for an error begets crimes. An Imperialist is worse than a +pirate. For an Imperialist keeps a school for pirates; he teaches piracy +disinterestedly and without an adequate salary. A Free Lover is worse +than a profligate. For a profligate is serious and reckless even in his +shortest love; while a Free Lover is cautious and irresponsible even in +his longest devotion. I hate modern doubt because it is dangerous.” + +“You mean dangerous to morality,” he said in a voice of wonderful +gentleness. “I expect you are right. But why do you care about +morality?” + +I glanced at his face quickly. He had thrust out his neck as he had a +trick of doing; and so brought his face abruptly into the light of the +bonfire from below, like a face in the footlights. His long chin and +high cheek-bones were lit up infernally from underneath; so that +he looked like a fiend staring down into the flaming pit. I had an +unmeaning sense of being tempted in a wilderness; and even as I paused a +burst of red sparks broke past. + +“Aren’t those sparks splendid?” I said. + +“Yes,” he replied. + +“That is all that I ask you to admit,” said I. “Give me those few red +specks and I will deduce Christian morality. Once I thought like you, +that one’s pleasure in a flying spark was a thing that could come and +go with that spark. Once I thought that the delight was as free as the +fire. Once I thought that red star we see was alone in space. But now +I know that the red star is only on the apex of an invisible pyramid of +virtues. That red fire is only the flower on a stalk of living habits, +which you cannot see. Only because your mother made you say ‘Thank you’ +for a bun are you now able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars +of an instant or for the white stars of all time. Only because you were +humble before fireworks on the fifth of November do you now enjoy any +fireworks that you chance to see. You only like them being red because +you were told about the blood of the martyrs; you only like them +being bright because brightness is a glory. That flame flowered out of +virtues, and it will fade with virtues. Seduce a woman, and that spark +will be less bright. Shed blood, and that spark will be less red. Be +really bad, and they will be to you like the spots on a wall-paper.” + +He had a horrible fairness of the intellect that made me despair of +his soul. A common, harmless atheist would have denied that religion +produced humility or humility a simple joy: but he admitted both. He +only said, “But shall I not find in evil a life of its own? Granted that +for every woman I ruin one of those red sparks will go out: will not the +expanding pleasure of ruin...” + +“Do you see that fire?” I asked. “If we had a real fighting democracy, +some one would burn you in it; like the devil-worshipper that you are.” + +“Perhaps,” he said, in his tired, fair way. “Only what you call evil I +call good.” + +He went down the great steps alone, and I felt as if I wanted the steps +swept and cleaned. I followed later, and as I went to find my hat in the +low, dark passage where it hung, I suddenly heard his voice again, but +the words were inaudible. I stopped, startled: then I heard the voice of +one of the vilest of his associates saying, “Nobody can possibly know.” + And then I heard those two or three words which I remember in every +syllable and cannot forget. I heard the Diabolist say, “I tell you I +have done everything else. If I do that I shan’t know the difference +between right and wrong.” I rushed out without daring to pause; and as +I passed the fire I did not know whether it was hell or the furious love +of God. + +I have since heard that he died: it may be said, I think, that he +committed suicide; though he did it with tools of pleasure, not with +tools of pain. God help him, I know the road he went; but I have never +known, or even dared to think, what was that place at which he stopped +and refrained. + + + + +XXXV. A Glimpse of My Country + +Whatever is it that we are all looking for? I fancy that it is really +quite close. When I was a boy I had a fancy that Heaven or Fairyland or +whatever I called it, was immediately behind my own back, and that this +was why I could never manage to see it, however often I twisted and +turned to take it by surprise. I had a notion of a man perpetually +spinning round on one foot like a teetotum in the effort to find that +world behind his back which continually fled from him. Perhaps this is +why the world goes round. Perhaps the world is always trying to look +over its shoulder and catch up the world which always escapes it, yet +without which it cannot be itself. + +In any case, as I have said, I think that we must always conceive of +that which is the goal of all our endeavours as something which is in +some strange way near. Science boasts of the distance of its stars; +of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. +But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost +menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. Always +the Kingdom of Heaven is “At Hand”; and Looking-glass Land is only +through the looking-glass. So I for one should never be astonished if +the next twist of a street led me to the heart of that maze in which all +the mystics are lost. I should not be at all surprised if I turned one +corner in Fleet Street and saw a yet queerer-looking lamp; I should not +be surprised if I turned a third corner and found myself in Elfland. + +I should not be surprised at this; but I was surprised the other day at +something more surprising. I took a turn out of Fleet Street and found +myself in England. + +..... + +The singular shock experienced perhaps requires explanation. In the +darkest or the most inadequate moments of England there is one thing +that should always be remembered about the very nature of our country. +It may be shortly stated by saying that England is not such a fool as +it looks. The types of England, the externals of England, always +misrepresent the country. England is an oligarchical country, and it +prefers that its oligarchy should be inferior to itself. + +The speaking in the House of Commons, for instance, is not only worse +than the speaking was, it is worse than the speaking is, in all or +almost all other places in small debating clubs or casual dinners. Our +countrymen probably prefer this solemn futility in the higher places of +the national life. It may be a strange sight to see the blind leading +the blind; but England provides a stranger. England shows us the blind +leading the people who can see. And this again is an under-statement +of the case. For the English political aristocrats not only speak worse +than many other people; they speak worse than themselves. The ignorance +of statesmen is like the ignorance of judges, an artificial and affected +thing. If you have the good fortune really to talk with a statesman, you +will be constantly startled with his saying quite intelligent things. It +makes one nervous at first. And I have never been sufficiently intimate +with such a man to ask him why it was a rule of his life in Parliament +to appear sillier than he was. + +It is the same with the voters. The average man votes below himself; he +votes with half a mind or with a hundredth part of one. A man ought to +vote with the whole of himself as he worships or gets married. A man +ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for +faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his +hands and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of +it should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, they +should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. But as it is, +the difficulty with English democracy at all elections is that it is +something less than itself. The question is not so much whether only a +minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of +the voter votes. + +..... + +This is the tragedy of England; you cannot judge it by its foremost men. +Its types do not typify. And on the occasion of which I speak I found +this to be so especially of that old intelligent middle class which I +had imagined had almost vanished from the world. It seemed to me that +all the main representatives of the middle class had gone off in one +direction or in the other; they had either set out in pursuit of the +Smart Set or they had set out in pursuit of the Simple Life. I cannot +say which I dislike more myself; the people in question are welcome to +have either of them, or, as is more likely, to have both, in hideous +alternations of disease and cure. But all the prominent men who plainly +represent the middle class have adopted either the single eye-glass of +Mr. Chamberlain or the single eye of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + +The old class that I mean has no representative. Its food was plentiful; +but it had no show. Its food was plain; but it had no fads. It was +serious about politics; and when it spoke in public it committed the +solecism of trying to speak well. I thought that this old earnest +political England had practically disappeared. And as I say, I took one +turn out of Fleet Street and I found a room full of it. + +..... + +At the top of the room was a chair in which Johnson had sat. The +club was a club in which Wilkes had spoken, in a time when even the +ne’er-do-weel was virile. But all these things by themselves might be +merely archaism. The extraordinary thing was that this hall had all the +hubbub, the sincerity, the anger, the oratory of the eighteenth century. +The members of this club were of all shades of opinion, yet there was +not one speech which gave me that jar of unreality which I often have in +listening to the ablest men uttering my own opinion. The Toryism of this +club was like the Toryism of Johnson, a Toryism that could use humour +and appealed to humanity. The democracy of this club was like the +democracy of Wilkes, a democracy that can speak epigrams and fight +duels; a democracy that can face things out and endure slander; the +democracy of Wilkes, or, rather, the democracy of Fox. + +One thing especially filled my soul with the soul of my fathers. Each +man speaking, whether he spoke well or ill, spoke as well as he could +from sheer fury against the other man. This is the greatest of our +modern descents, that nowadays a man does not become more rhetorical +as he becomes more sincere. An eighteenth-century speaker, when he got +really and honestly furious, looked for big words with which to crush +his adversary. The new speaker looks for small words to crush him with. +He looks for little facts and little sneers. In a modern speech the +rhetoric is put into the merely formal part, the opening to which nobody +listens. But when Mr. Chamberlain, or a Moderate, or one of the harder +kind of Socialists, becomes really sincere, he becomes Cockney. “The +destiny of the Empire,” or “The destiny of humanity,” do well enough +for mere ornamental preliminaries, but when the man becomes angry and +honest, then it is a snarl, “Where do we come in?” or “It’s your money +they want.” + +The men in this eighteenth-century club were entirely different; they +were quite eighteenth century. Each one rose to his feet quivering with +passion, and tried to destroy his opponent, not with sniggering, but +actually with eloquence. I was arguing with them about Home Rule; at +the end I told them why the English aristocracy really disliked an Irish +Parliament; because it would be like their club. + +..... + +I came out again into Fleet Street at night, and by a dim lamp I saw +pasted up some tawdry nonsense about Wastrels and how London was rising +against something that London had hardly heard of. Then I suddenly +saw, as in one obvious picture, that the modern world is an immense and +tumultuous ocean, full of monstrous and living things. And I saw that +across the top of it is spread a thin, a very thin, sheet of ice, of +wicked wealth and of lying journalism. + +And as I stood there in the darkness I could almost fancy that I heard +it crack. + + + + +XXXVI. A Somewhat Improbable Story + +I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read it through +very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come to the conclusion +that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read it through very +carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet. The image and the +idea of it clung to me through a great part of my boyhood; I may have +dreamt it before I could talk; or told it to myself before I could read; +or read it before I could remember. On the whole, however, I am certain +that I did not read it, for children have very clear memories about +things like that; and of the books which I was really fond I can still +remember, not only the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position +of the printed words on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline to +the opinion that it happened to me before I was born. + +..... + +At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages of the +atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, for the sake of +argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch restaurants +in the City where men take their food so fast that it has none of the +quality of food, and take their half-hour’s vacation so fast that it has +none of the qualities of leisure; to hurry through one’s leisure is the +most unbusiness-like of actions. They all wore tall shiny hats as if +they could not lose an instant even to hang them on a peg, and they all +had one eye a little off, hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In +short, they were the slaves of the modern bondage, you could hear their +fetters clanking. Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest +chain ever tied to a man--it is called a watch-chain. + +Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man who +almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. He was like all +the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly opposite to them in all +manner. He wore a high shiny hat and a long frock coat, but he wore them +as such solemn things were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if +it were a mitre, and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high +priest. He not only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed (such was +his stateliness) almost to ask permission of the hat for doing so, and +to apologise to the peg for making use of it. When he had sat down on +a wooden chair with the air of one considering its feelings and given a +sort of slight stoop or bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an +altar, I could not help some comment springing to my lips. For the man +was a big, sanguine-faced, prosperous-looking man, and yet he treated +everything with a care that almost amounted to nervousness. + +For the sake of saying something to express my interest I said, “This +furniture is fairly solid; but, of course, people do treat it much too +carelessly.” + +As I looked up doubtfully my eye caught his, and was fixed as his was +fixed in an apocalyptic stare. I had thought him ordinary as he entered, +save for his strange, cautious manner; but if the other people had seen +him then they would have screamed and emptied the room. They did not see +him, and they went on making a clatter with their forks, and a murmur +with their conversation. But the man’s face was the face of a maniac. + +“Did you mean anything particular by that remark?” he asked at last, and +the blood crawled back slowly into his face. + +“Nothing whatever,” I answered. “One does not mean anything here; it +spoils people’s digestions.” + +He limped back and wiped his broad forehead with a big handkerchief; and +yet there seemed to be a sort of regret in his relief. + +“I thought perhaps,” he said in a low voice, “that another of them had +gone wrong.” + +“If you mean another digestion gone wrong,” I said, “I never heard of +one here that went right. This is the heart of the Empire, and the other +organs are in an equally bad way.” + +“No, I mean another street gone wrong,” and he said heavily and quietly, +“but as I suppose that doesn’t explain much to you, I think I shall have +to tell you the story. I do so with all the less responsibility, because +I know you won’t believe it. For forty years of my life I invariably +left my office, which is in Leadenhall Street, at half-past five in the +afternoon, taking with me an umbrella in the right hand and a bag in the +left hand. For forty years two months and four days I passed out of the +side office door, walked down the street on the left-hand side, took +the first turning to the left and the third to the right, from where I +bought an evening paper, followed the road on the right-hand side round +two obtuse angles, and came out just outside a Metropolitan station, +where I took a train home. For forty years two months and four days I +fulfilled this course by accumulated habit: it was not a long street +that I traversed, and it took me about four and a half minutes to do it. +After forty years two months and four days, on the fifth day I went out +in the same manner, with my umbrella in the right hand and my bag in the +left, and I began to notice that walking along the familiar street tired +me somewhat more than usual; and when I turned it I was convinced that I +had turned down the wrong one. For now the street shot up quite a steep +slant, such as one only sees in the hilly parts of London, and in this +part there were no hills at all. Yet it was not the wrong street; the +name written on it was the same; the shuttered shops were the same; the +lamp-posts and the whole look of the perspective was the same; only +it was tilted upwards like a lid. Forgetting any trouble about +breathlessness or fatigue I ran furiously forward, and reached the +second of my accustomed turnings, which ought to bring me almost within +sight of the station. And as I turned that corner I nearly fell on the +pavement. For now the street went up straight in front of my face like a +steep staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not for miles round +that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. And this was +a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole street had lifted itself +like a single wave, and yet every speck and detail of it was the same, +and I saw in the high distance, as at the top of an Alpine pass, picked +out in pink letters the name over my paper shop. + +“I ran on and on blindly now, passing all the shops and coming to a part +of the road where there was a long grey row of private houses. I had, +I know not why, an irrational feeling that I was a long iron bridge in +empty space. An impulse seized me, and I pulled up the iron trap of a +coal-hole. Looking down through it I saw empty space and the stairs. + +“When I looked up again a man was standing in his front garden, having +apparently come out of his house; he was leaning over the railings and +gazing at me. We were all alone on that nightmare road; his face was in +shadow; his dress was dark and ordinary; but when I saw him standing so +perfectly still I knew somehow that he was not of this world. And the +stars behind his head were larger and fiercer than ought to be endured +by the eyes of men. + +“‘If you are a kind angel,’ I said, ‘or a wise devil, or have anything +in common with mankind, tell me what is this street possessed of +devils.’ + +“After a long silence he said, ‘What do you say that it is?’ + +“‘It is Bumpton Street, of course,’ I snapped. ‘It goes to Oldgate +Station.’ + +“‘Yes,’ he admitted gravely; ‘it goes there sometimes. Just now, +however, it is going to heaven.’ + +“‘To heaven?’ I said. ‘Why?’ + +“‘It is going to heaven for justice,’ he replied. ‘You must have treated +it badly. Remember always that there is one thing that cannot be endured +by anybody or anything. That one unendurable thing is to be overworked +and also neglected. For instance, you can overwork women--everybody +does. But you can’t neglect women--I defy you to. At the same time, you +can neglect tramps and gypsies and all the apparent refuse of the State +so long as you do not overwork it. But no beast of the field, no horse, +no dog can endure long to be asked to do more than his work and yet have +less than his honour. It is the same with streets. You have worked this +street to death, and yet you have never remembered its existence. If +you had a healthy democracy, even of pagans, they would have hung this +street with garlands and given it the name of a god. Then it would have +gone quietly. But at last the street has grown tired of your tireless +insolence; and it is bucking and rearing its head to heaven. Have you +never sat on a bucking horse?’ + +“I looked at the long grey street, and for a moment it seemed to me to +be exactly like the long grey neck of a horse flung up to heaven. But +in a moment my sanity returned, and I said, ‘But this is all nonsense. +Streets go to the place they have to go. A street must always go to its +end.’ + +“‘Why do you think so of a street?’ he asked, standing very still. + +“‘Because I have always seen it do the same thing,’ I replied, in +reasonable anger. ‘Day after day, year after year, it has always gone to +Oldgate Station; day after...’ + +“I stopped, for he had flung up his head with the fury of the road in +revolt. + +“‘And you?’ he cried terribly. ‘What do you think the road thinks of +you? Does the road think you are alive? Are you alive? Day after day, +year after year, you have gone to Oldgate Station....’ Since then I have +respected the things called inanimate.” + +And bowing slightly to the mustard-pot, the man in the restaurant +withdrew. + + + + +XXXVII. The Shop Of Ghosts + +Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get +for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, +the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get +them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am +not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a +penny halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. +In the street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an +electric tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on +a flying castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of +brightly coloured sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of +reading this article for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and +irrelevant matter. + +But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable +things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last +night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and +dimly lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets +of Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a +child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of +the poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but +they were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important +than cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the +body. You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in +the modern world. + +..... + +As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, +at small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red Noah’s +arks, I must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. That lit +shop-window became like the brilliantly lit stage when one is watching +some highly coloured comedy. I forgot the grey houses and the grimy +people behind me as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds +at a theatre. It seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were +small, not because they were toys, but because they were objects far +away. The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater +omnibus, passing across some huge desert on its ordinary way to +Bayswater. The blue elephant was no longer blue with paint; he was +blue with distance. The black doll was really a negro relieved against +passionate tropic foliage in the land where every weed is flaming and +only man is black. The red Noah’s ark was really the enormous ship +of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen sea, red in the first +morning of hope. + +Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, such +brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the face +of one’s own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles or +moustaches. They are commonly marked by the two signs of the slowness of +their growth and the suddenness of their termination. The return to real +thinking is often as abrupt as bumping into a man. Very often indeed +(in my case) it is bumping into a man. But in any case the awakening is +always emphatic and, generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in +this case, I did come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness +that I was, after all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; but +in some strange way the mental cure did not seem to be final. There +was still in my mind an unmanageable something that told me that I had +strayed into some odd atmosphere, or that I had already done some odd +thing. I felt as if I had worked a miracle or committed a sin. It was as +if I had at any rate, stepped across some border in the soul. + +To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop and +tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old and +broken, with confused white hair covering his head and half his face, +hair so startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. Yet though +he was senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering in his +eyes; he looked rather as if he were gradually falling asleep in a not +unkindly decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, but when I put down the +money he did not at first seem to see it; then he blinked at it feebly, +and then he pushed it feebly away. + +“No, no,” he said vaguely. “I never have. I never have. We are rather +old-fashioned here.” + +“Not taking money,” I replied, “seems to me more like an uncommonly new +fashion than an old one.” + +“I never have,” said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; “I’ve +always given presents. I’m too old to stop.” + +“Good heavens!” I said. “What can you mean? Why, you might be Father +Christmas.” + +“I am Father Christmas,” he said apologetically, and blew his nose +again. + +The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. At +any rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining +shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; I +might have strayed into some new and sunless world. But something had +cut the chords of common sense, and I could not feel even surprise +except sleepily. Something made me say, “You look ill, Father +Christmas.” + +“I am dying,” he said. + +I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again. + +“All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. They seem +to object to me on such curious and inconsistent sort of grounds, +these scientific men, and these innovators. They say that I give people +superstitions and make them too visionary; they say I give people +sausages and make them too coarse. They say my heavenly parts are too +heavenly; they say my earthly parts are too earthly; I don’t know what +they want, I’m sure. How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly +things too earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? I don’t +understand. But I understand one thing well enough. These modern people +are living and I am dead.” + +“You may be dead,” I replied. “You ought to know. But as for what they +are doing, do not call it living.” + +..... + +A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected to be +unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few seconds when, in the +utter stillness, I distinctly heard a very rapid step coming nearer and +nearer along the street. The next moment a figure flung itself into the +shop and stood framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted +back as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, +a gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. He +had large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; he +had a pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the shop +and the old man in a look that seemed literally a flash and uttered the +exclamation of a man utterly staggered. + +“Good lord!” he cried out; “it can’t be you! It isn’t you! I came to ask +where your grave was.” + +“I’m not dead yet, Mr. Dickens,” said the old gentleman, with a feeble +smile; “but I’m dying,” he hastened to add reassuringly. + +“But, dash it all, you were dying in my time,” said Mr. Charles Dickens +with animation; “and you don’t look a day older.” + +“I’ve felt like this for a long time,” said Father Christmas. + +Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door into the +darkness. + +“Dick,” he roared at the top of his voice; “he’s still alive.” + +..... + +Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more +full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his +flushed face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. He carried +his head well back like a soldier, and his hot face had even a look +of arrogance, which was suddenly contradicted by his eyes, which were +literally as humble as a dog’s. His sword made a great clatter, as if +the shop were too small for it. + +“Indeed,” said Sir Richard Steele, “?’tis a most prodigious matter, +for the man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley and his +Christmas Day.” + +My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. It seemed to be +filled with newcomers. + +“It hath ever been understood,” said a burly man, who carried his head +humorously and obstinately a little on one side--I think he was Ben +Jonson--“It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King +James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were +fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most +surely was no lustier when I knew him than now.” + +And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in +some mixed Norman French, “But I saw the man dying.” + +“I have felt like this a long time,” said Father Christmas, in his +feeble way again. + +Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him. + +“Since when?” he asked. “Since you were born?” + +“Yes,” said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. “I have been +always dying.” + +Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to +rise. + +“I understand it now,” he cried, “you will never die.” + + + + +XXXVIII. The Ballade of a Strange Town + +My friend and I, in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed affection +for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there was so restful that +we almost felt it as a home, and hardly strayed out of it. + +We sat day after day in the market-place, under little trees growing +in wooden tubs, and looked up at the noble converging lines of the +Cathedral tower, from which the three riders from Ghent, in the poem, +heard the bell which told them they were not too late. But we took as +much pleasure in the people, in the little boys with open, flat +Flemish faces and fur collars round their necks, making them look +like burgomasters; or the women, whose prim, oval faces, hair strained +tightly off the temples, and mouths at once hard, meek, and humorous, +exactly reproduced the late mediaeval faces in Memling and Van Eyck. + +But one afternoon, as it happened, my friend rose from under his little +tree, and pointing to a sort of toy train that was puffing smoke in one +corner of the clear square, suggested that we should go by it. We got +into the little train, which was meant really to take the peasants and +their vegetables to and fro from their fields beyond the town, and +the official came round to give us tickets. We asked him what place +we should get to if we paid fivepence. The Belgians are not a romantic +people, and he asked us (with a lamentable mixture of Flemish coarseness +and French rationalism) where we wanted to go. + +We explained that we wanted to go to fairyland, and the only question +was whether we could get there for fivepence. At last, after a great +deal of international misunderstanding (for he spoke French in the +Flemish and we in the English manner), he told us that fivepence would +take us to a place which I have never seen written down, but which when +spoken sounded like the word “Waterloo” pronounced by an intoxicated +patriot; I think it was Waerlowe. + +We clasped our hands and said it was the place we had been seeking from +boyhood, and when we had got there we descended with promptitude. + +For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field of +Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was in quite a +different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, with one cottage at the +corner, a perspective of tall trees like Hobbema’s “Avenue,” and beyond +only the infinite flat chess-board of the little fields. It was the +scene of peace and prosperity; but I must confess that my friend’s first +action was to ask the man when there would be another train back to +Mechlin. The man stated that there would be a train back in exactly one +hour. We walked up the avenue, and when we were nearly half an hour’s +walk away it began to rain. + +..... + +We arrived back at the cross-roads sodden and dripping, and, finding +the train waiting, climbed into it with some relief. The officer on +this train could speak nothing but Flemish, but he understood the name +Mechlin, and indicated that when we came to Mechlin Station he would put +us down, which, after the right interval of time, he did. + +We got down, under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin, +though the features could not easily be recognised through the grey +screen of the rain. I do not generally agree with those who find rain +depressing. A shower-bath is not depressing; it is rather startling. And +if it is exciting when a man throws a pail of water over you, why should +it not also be exciting when the gods throw many pails? But on this +soaking afternoon, whether it was the dull sky-line of the Netherlands +or the fact that we were returning home without any adventure, I really +did think things a trifle dreary. As soon as we could creep under the +shelter of a street we turned into a little café, kept by one woman. She +was incredibly old, and she spoke no French. There we drank black coffee +and what was called “cognac fine.” “Cognac fine” were the only two +French words used in the establishment, and they were not true. At +least, the fineness (perhaps by its very ethereal delicacy) escaped me. +After a little my friend, who was more restless than I, got up and went +out, to see if the rain had stopped and if we could at once stroll back +to our hotel by the station. I sat finishing my coffee in a colourless +mood, and listening to the unremitting rain. + +..... + +Suddenly the door burst open, and my friend appeared, transfigured and +frantic. + +“Get up!” he cried, waving his hands wildly. “Get up! We’re in the wrong +town! We’re not in Mechlin at all. Mechlin is ten miles, twenty miles +off--God knows what! We’re somewhere near Antwerp.” + +“What!” I cried, leaping from my seat, and sending the furniture flying. +“Then all is well, after all! Poetry only hid her face for an instant +behind a cloud. Positively for a moment I was feeling depressed because +we were in the right town. But if we are in the wrong town--why, we +have our adventure after all! If we are in the wrong town, we are in the +right place.” + +I rushed out into the rain, and my friend followed me somewhat more +grimly. We discovered we were in a town called Lierre, which seemed to +consist chiefly of bankrupt pastry cooks, who sold lemonade. + +“This is the peak of our whole poetic progress!” I cried +enthusiastically. “We must do something, something sacramental and +commemorative! We cannot sacrifice an ox, and it would be a bore to +build a temple. Let us write a poem.” + +With but slight encouragement, I took out an old envelope and one of +those pencils that turn bright violet in water. There was plenty of +water about, and the violet ran down the paper, symbolising the rich +purple of that romantic hour. I began, choosing the form of an old +French ballade; it is the easiest because it is the most restricted-- + + “Can Man to Mount Olympus rise, + And fancy Primrose Hill the scene? + Can a man walk in Paradise + And think he is in Turnham Green? + And could I take you for Malines, + Not knowing the nobler thing you were? + O Pearl of all the plain, and queen, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + “Through memory’s mist in glimmering guise + Shall shine your streets of sloppy sheen. + And wet shall grow my dreaming eyes, + To think how wet my boots have been + Now if I die or shoot a Dean----” + +Here I broke off to ask my friend whether he thought it expressed a more +wild calamity to shoot a Dean or to be a Dean. But he only turned up his +coat collar, and I felt that for him the muse had folded her wings. I +rewrote-- + + “Now if I die a Rural Dean, + Or rob a bank I do not care, + Or turn a Tory. I have seen + The lovely city of Lierre.” + +“The next line,” I resumed, warming to it; but my friend interrupted me. + +“The next line,” he said somewhat harshly, “will be a railway line. +We can get back to Mechlin from here, I find, though we have to change +twice. I dare say I should think this jolly romantic but for the +weather. Adventure is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne +and my adventures dry. Here is the station.” + +..... + +We did not speak again until we had left Lierre, in its sacred cloud of +rain, and were coming to Mechlin, under a clearer sky, that even made +one think of stars. Then I leant forward and said to my friend in a low +voice--“I have found out everything. We have come to the wrong star.” + +He stared his query, and I went on eagerly: “That is what makes life +at once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. When I +thought that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it was wrong, +I was happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, tires us +because it tells us we fit into this world. The true happiness is that +we don’t fit. We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way.” + +He silently nodded, staring out of the window, but whether I had +impressed or only fatigued him I could not tell. “This,” I added, “is +suggested in the last verse of a fine poem you have grossly neglected-- + + “‘Happy is he and more than wise + Who sees with wondering eyes and clean + The world through all the grey disguise + Of sleep and custom in between. + Yes; we may pass the heavenly screen, + But shall we know when we are there? + Who know not what these dead stones mean, + The lovely city of Lierre.’” + +Here the train stopped abruptly. And from Mechlin church steeple we +heard the half-chime: and Joris broke silence with “No bally HORS +D’OEUVRES for me: I shall get on to something solid at once.” + + L’Envoy + + Prince, wide your Empire spreads, I ween, + Yet happier is that moistened Mayor, + Who drinks her cognac far from fine, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + + + +XXXIX. The Mystery of a Pageant + +Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take +a small part in one of those historical processions or pageants which +happened to be fashionable in or about the year 1909. And since I tend, +like all who are growing old, to re-enter the remote past as a paradise +or playground, I disinter a memory which may serve to stand among those +memories of small but strange incidents with which I have sometimes +filled this column. The thing has really some of the dark qualities of +a detective-story; though I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could +hardly unravel it now, when the scent is so old and cold and most of the +actors, doubtless, long dead. + +This old pageant included a series of figures from the eighteenth +century, and I was told that I was just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that +Dr. Johnson was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over +gravy, snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man +in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I +had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as +I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested +that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch +all of them but one, and then go back and touch that. Failing this, I +felt that the least they could do was to have twenty-five cups of tea +stationed at regular intervals along the course, each held by a Mrs. +Thrale in full costume. My best constructive suggestion was the most +harshly rejected of all. In front of me in the procession walked the +great Bishop Berkeley, the man who turned the tables on the early +materialists by maintaining that matter itself possibly does not exist. +Dr. Johnson, you will remember, did not like such bottomless fancies as +Berkeley’s, and kicked a stone with his foot, saying, “I refute him so!” + Now (as I pointed out) kicking a stone would not make the metaphysical +quarrel quite clear; besides, it would hurt. But how picturesque +and perfect it would be if I moved across the ground in the symbolic +attitude of kicking Bishop Berkeley! How complete an allegoric group; +the great transcendentalist walking with his head among the stars, but +behind him the avenging realist pede claudo, with uplifted foot. But I +must not take up space with these forgotten frivolities; we old men grow +too garrulous in talking of the distant past. + +This story scarcely concerns me either in my real or my assumed +character. Suffice it to say that the procession took place at night +in a large garden and by torchlight (so remote is the date), that the +garden was crowded with Puritans, monks, and men-at-arms, and especially +with early Celtic saints smoking pipes, and with elegant Renaissance +gentlemen talking Cockney. Suffice it to say, or rather it is needless +to say, that I got lost. I wandered away into some dim corner of that +dim shrubbery, where there was nothing to do except tumbling over tent +ropes, and I began almost to feel like my prototype, and to share his +horror of solitude and hatred of a country life. + +In this detachment and dilemma I saw another man in a white wig +advancing across this forsaken stretch of lawn; a tall, lean man, who +stooped in his long black robes like a stooping eagle. When I thought +he would pass me, he stopped before my face, and said, “Dr. Johnson, I +think. I am Paley.” + +“Sir,” I said, “you used to guide men to the beginnings of Christianity. +If you can guide me now to wherever this infernal thing begins you will +perform a yet higher and harder function.” + +His costume and style were so perfect that for the instant I really +thought he was a ghost. He took no notice of my flippancy, but, turning +his black-robed back on me, led me through verdurous glooms and winding +mossy ways, until we came out into the glare of gaslight and laughing +men in masquerade, and I could easily laugh at myself. + +And there, you will say, was an end of the matter. I am (you will say) +naturally obtuse, cowardly, and mentally deficient. I was, moreover, +unused to pageants; I felt frightened in the dark and took a man for a +spectre whom, in the light, I could recognise as a modern gentleman in +a masquerade dress. No; far from it. That spectral person was my first +introduction to a special incident which has never been explained and +which still lays its finger on my nerve. + +I mixed with the men of the eighteenth century; and we fooled as one +does at a fancy-dress ball. There was Burke as large as life and a great +deal better looking. There was Cowper much larger than life; he ought +to have been a little man in a night-cap, with a cat under one arm and +a spaniel under the other. As it was, he was a magnificent person, and +looked more like the Master of Ballantrae than Cowper. I persuaded him +at last to the night-cap, but never, alas, to the cat and dog. When I +came the next night Burke was still the same beautiful improvement upon +himself; Cowper was still weeping for his dog and cat and would not +be comforted; Bishop Berkeley was still waiting to be kicked in the +interests of philosophy. In short, I met all my old friends but one. +Where was Paley? I had been mystically moved by the man’s presence; I +was moved more by his absence. At last I saw advancing towards us +across the twilight garden a little man with a large book and a bright +attractive face. When he came near enough he said, in a small, clear +voice, “I’m Paley.” The thing was quite natural, of course; the man was +ill and had sent a substitute. Yet somehow the contrast was a shock. + +By the next night I had grown quite friendly with my four or five +colleagues; I had discovered what is called a mutual friend with +Berkeley and several points of difference with Burke. Cowper, I think +it was, who introduced me to a friend of his, a fresh face, square +and sturdy, framed in a white wig. “This,” he explained, “is my friend +So-and-So. He’s Paley.” I looked round at all the faces by this time +fixed and familiar; I studied them; I counted them; then I bowed to the +third Paley as one bows to necessity. So far the thing was all within +the limits of coincidence. It certainly seemed odd that this one +particular cleric should be so varying and elusive. It was singular +that Paley, alone among men, should swell and shrink and alter like a +phantom, while all else remained solid. But the thing was explicable; +two men had been ill and there was an end of it; only I went again +the next night, and a clear-coloured elegant youth with powdered hair +bounded up to me, and told me with boyish excitement that he was Paley. + +For the next twenty-four hours I remained in the mental condition of +the modern world. I mean the condition in which all natural explanations +have broken down and no supernatural explanation has been established. +My bewilderment had reached to boredom when I found myself once more in +the colour and clatter of the pageant, and I was all the more pleased +because I met an old school-fellow, and we mutually recognised each +other under our heavy clothes and hoary wigs. We talked about all those +great things for which literature is too small and only life large +enough; red-hot memories and those gigantic details which make up the +characters of men. I heard all about the friends he had lost sight of +and those he had kept in sight; I heard about his profession, and asked +at last how he came into the pageant. + +“The fact is,” he said, “a friend of mine asked me, just for to-night, +to act a chap called Paley; I don’t know who he was....” + +“No, by thunder!” I said, “nor does anyone.” + +This was the last blow, and the next night passed like a dream. I +scarcely noticed the slender, sprightly, and entirely new figure which +fell into the ranks in the place of Paley, so many times deceased. What +could it mean? Why was the giddy Paley unfaithful among the faithful +found? Did these perpetual changes prove the popularity or the +unpopularity of being Paley? Was it that no human being could support +being Paley for one night and live till morning? Or was it that the +gates were crowded with eager throngs of the British public thirsting +to be Paley, who could only be let in one at a time? Or is there some +ancient vendetta against Paley? Does some secret society of Deists still +assassinate any one who adopts the name? + +I cannot conjecture further about this true tale of mystery; and that +for two reasons. First, the story is so true that I have had to put a +lie into it. Every word of this narrative is veracious, except the one +word Paley. And second, because I have got to go into the next room and +dress up as Dr. Johnson. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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K. Chesterton</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Tremendous Trifles</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: G. K. Chesterton</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 13, 2003 [eBook #8092]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 27, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: An Anonymous Volunteer</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREMENDOUS TRIFLES ***</div> + +<h1>TREMENDOUS TRIFLES</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">By G. K. Chesterton</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_PREF">PREFACE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0002">I. Tremendous Trifles</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0003">II. A Piece of Chalk</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0004">III. The Secret of a Train</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0005">IV. The Perfect Game</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0006">V. The Extraordinary Cabman</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0007">VI. An Accident</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0008">VII. The Advantages of Having One Leg</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0009">VIII. The End of the World</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0010">IX. In the Place de La Bastille</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0011">X. On Lying in Bed</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0012">XI. The Twelve Men</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0013">XII. The Wind and the Trees</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0014">XIII. The Dickensian</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0015">XIV. In Topsy-Turvy Land</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0016">XV. What I Found in My Pocket</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0017">XVI. The Dragon’s Grandmother</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0018">XVII. The Red Angel</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0019">XVIII. The Tower</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0020">XIX. How I Met the President</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0021">XX. The Giant</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0022">XXI. A Great Man</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0023">XXII. The Orthodox Barber</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0024">XXIII. The Toy Theatre</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0025">XXIV. A Tragedy of Twopence</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0026">XXV. A Cab Ride Across Country</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0027">XXVI. The Two Noises</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0028">XXVII. Some Policemen and a Moral</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0029">XXVIII. The Lion</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0030">XXIX. Humanity: an Interlude</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0031">XXX. The Little Birds Who Won’t Sing</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0032">XXXI. The Riddle of the Ivy</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0033">XXXII. The Travellers in State</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0034">XXXIII. The Prehistoric Railway Station</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0035">XXXIV. The Diabolist</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0036">XXXV. A Glimpse of My Country</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0037">XXXVI. A Somewhat Improbable Story</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0038">XXXVII. The Shop Of Ghosts</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0039">XXXVIII. The Ballade of a Strange Town</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0040">XXXIX. The Mystery of a Pageant</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"></a> +PREFACE</h2> + <p> + These fleeting sketches are all republished by kind permission of the + Editor of the DAILY NEWS, in which paper they appeared. They amount to no + more than a sort of sporadic diary—a diary recording one day in + twenty which happened to stick in the fancy—the only kind of diary + the author has ever been able to keep. Even that diary he could only keep + by keeping it in public, for bread and cheese. But trivial as are the + topics they are not utterly without a connecting thread of motive. As the + reader’s eye strays, with hearty relief, from these pages, it probably + alights on something, a bed-post or a lamp-post, a window blind or a wall. + It is a thousand to one that the reader is looking at something that he + has never seen: that is, never realised. He could not write an essay on + such a post or wall: he does not know what the post or wall mean. He could + not even write the synopsis of an essay; as “The Bed-Post; Its + Significance—Security Essential to Idea of Sleep—Night Felt as + Infinite—Need of Monumental Architecture,” and so on. He could not + sketch in outline his theoretic attitude towards window-blinds, even in + the form of a summary. “The Window-Blind—Its Analogy to the Curtain + and Veil—Is Modesty Natural?—Worship of and Avoidance of the + Sun, etc., etc.” None of us think enough of these things on which the eye + rests. But don’t let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? + Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that run + across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular + athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured cloud. + I have attempted some such thing in what follows; but anyone else may do + it better, if anyone else will only try. + </p> + + <hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"></a> +I. Tremendous Trifles</h2> + <p> + Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly in the front + garden, because their villa was a model one. The front garden was about + the same size as the dinner table; it consisted of four strips of gravel, + a square of turf with some mysterious pieces of cork standing up in the + middle and one flower bed with a row of red daisies. One morning while + they were at play in these romantic grounds, a passing individual, + probably the milkman, leaned over the railing and engaged them in + philosophical conversation. The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, + were at least sharply interested in his remarks. For the milkman (who was, + I need say, a fairy) did his duty in that state of life by offering them + in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. And Paul + closed with the offer with a business-like abruptness, explaining that he + had long wished to be a giant that he might stride across continents and + oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas in an afternoon dinner stroll. + The milkman producing a wand from his breast pocket, waved it in a hurried + and perfunctory manner; and in an instant the model villa with its front + garden was like a tiny doll’s house at Paul’s colossal feet. He went + striding away with his head above the clouds to visit Niagara and the + Himalayas. But when he came to the Himalayas, he found they were quite + small and silly-looking, like the little cork rockery in the garden; and + when he found Niagara it was no bigger than the tap turned on in the + bathroom. He wandered round the world for several minutes trying to find + something really large and finding everything small, till in sheer boredom + he lay down on four or five prairies and fell asleep. Unfortunately his + head was just outside the hut of an intellectual backwoodsman who came out + of it at that moment with an axe in one hand and a book of Neo-Catholic + Philosophy in the other. The man looked at the book and then at the giant, + and then at the book again. And in the book it said, “It can be maintained + that the evil of pride consists in being out of proportion to the + universe.” So the backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, + working eight hours a day for about a week, cut the giant’s head off; and + there was an end of him. + </p> + <p> + Such is the severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly enough, + made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long wished to be a + pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he immediately became one. + When the transformation was over he found himself in the midst of an + immense plain, covered with a tall green jungle and above which, at + intervals, rose strange trees each with a head like the sun in symbolic + pictures, with gigantic rays of silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward + the middle of this prairie stood up a mountain of such romantic and + impossible shape, yet of such stony height and dominance, that it looked + like some incident of the end of the world. And far away on the faint + horizon he could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more + mystical, of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. He + set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has not come + to the end of it yet. + </p> + <p> + Such is the story of Peter and Paul, which contains all the highest + qualities of a modern fairy tale, including that of being wholly unfit for + children; and indeed the motive with which I have introduced it is not + childish, but rather full of subtlety and reaction. It is in fact the + almost desperate motive of excusing or palliating the pages that follow. + Peter and Paul are the two primary influences upon European literature + to-day; and I may be permitted to put my own preference in its most + favourable shape, even if I can only do it by what little girls call + telling a story. + </p> + <p> + I need scarcely say that I am the pigmy. The only excuse for the scraps + that follow is that they show what can be achieved with a commonplace + existence and the sacred spectacles of exaggeration. The other great + literary theory, that which is roughly represented in England by Mr. + Rudyard Kipling, is that we moderns are to regain the primal zest by + sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical + variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. Let it + be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; and the two + alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling’s school advises us to go to + Central Africa in order to find a man without a frock coat. The school to + which I belong suggests that we should stare steadily at the man until we + see the man inside the frock coat. If we stare at him long enough he may + even be moved to take off his coat to us; and that is a far greater + compliment than his taking off his hat. In other words, we may, by fixing + our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually before us, force them + to turn into adventures; force them to give up their meaning and fulfil + their mysterious purpose. The purpose of the Kipling literature is to show + how many extraordinary things a man may see if he is active and strides + from continent to continent like the giant in my tale. But the object of + my school is to show how many extraordinary things even a lazy and + ordinary man may see if he can spur himself to the single activity of + seeing. For this purpose I have taken the laziest person of my + acquaintance, that is myself; and made an idle diary of such odd things as + I have fallen over by accident, in walking in a very limited area at a + very indolent pace. If anyone says that these are very small affairs + talked about in very big language, I can only gracefully compliment him + upon seeing the joke. If anyone says that I am making mountains out of + molehills, I confess with pride that it is so. I can imagine no more + successful and productive form of manufacture than that of making + mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not unimportant fact, + that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a pigmy like Peter to + discover that. + </p> + <p> + I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, in getting + to the top of everything and overlooking everything. Satan was the most + celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took Jesus to the top of an exceeding + high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. But the joy of + Satan in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, but a joy in + beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like insects at his + feet. It is from the valley that things look large; it is from the level + that things look high; I am a child of the level and have no need of that + celebrated Alpine guide. I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence + cometh my help; but I will not lift up my carcass to the hills, unless it + is absolutely necessary. Everything is in an attitude of mind; and at this + moment I am in a comfortable attitude. I will sit still and let the + marvels and the adventures settle on me like flies. There are plenty of + them, I assure you. The world will never starve for want of wonders; but + only for want of wonder. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"></a> +II. A Piece of Chalk</h2> + <p> + I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer + holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing + nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a + walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. I + then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, + belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), and + asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown paper. + She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook the + purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She seemed to + have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be wanting to tie + up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do; indeed, it is a thing + which I have found to be beyond my mental capacity. Hence she dwelt very + much on the varying qualities of toughness and endurance in the material. + I explained to her that I only wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I + did not want them to endure in the least; and that from my point of view, + therefore, it was a question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive + surface, a thing comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood + that I wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, + apparently supposing that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown + paper wrappers from motives of economy. + </p> + <p> + I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not only + liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness in paper, just as I + liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, or in the + peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal twilight of + the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured chalk or two you + can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and + sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. + All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown + paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and possibly other things. I + suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are + the things that one carries in one’s pocket; the pocket-knife, for + instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I + planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pockets. + But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, I went out on to + the great downs. I crawled across those colossal contours that express the + best quality of England, because they are at the same time soft and + strong. The smoothness of them has the same meaning as the smoothness of + great cart-horses, or the smoothness of the beech-tree; it declares in the + teeth of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty are merciful. As my + eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly as any of its + cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. The villages in the + immense valley were safe, one could see, for centuries; yet the lifting of + the whole land was like the lifting of one enormous wave to wash them all + away. + </p> + <p> + I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place to + sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven’s sake, imagine I was going to + sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind old + gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in robes of + angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred or monstrous + symbols that look so well in bright colours on brown paper. They are much + better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much easier to draw. When + a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a mere artist might have + drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds. So I drew + the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly walking before me in the + sunlight; and the soul was all purple and silver, and had seven horns and + the mystery that belongs to all the beasts. But though I could not with a + crayon get the best out of the landscape, it does not follow that the + landscape was not getting the best out of me. And this, I think, is the + mistake that people make about the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, + and were supposed not to care very much about Nature because they did not + describe it much. + </p> + <p> + They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but + they sat on the great hills to write it. They gave out much less about + Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white + robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had + stared all day. They blazoned the shields of their paladins with the + purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. The greenness of a thousand + green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The + blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the + Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began to + dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that a + most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, but + I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted with all + the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art of drawing on + brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I cannot avoid + remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the wise and awful truths + which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white is a colour. It is + not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as + fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows + red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one + of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of + real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief + assertion of religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not + the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid + and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean + not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain + and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. + </p> + <p> + Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something + flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colours; but He + never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He + paints in white. In a sense our age has realised this fact, and expressed + it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that white was a + blank and colourless thing, negative and non-committal, then white would + be used instead of black and grey for the funeral dress of this + pessimistic period. We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of + spotless silver linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. + Which is not the case. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town nearer than + Chichester at which it was even remotely probable that there would be such + a thing as an artist’s colourman. And yet, without white, my absurd little + pictures would be as pointless as the world would be if there were no good + people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients. + Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and again, so + that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a man in the + Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. Imagine a + gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt water with + him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense warehouse of + white chalk. The landscape was made entirely out of white chalk. White + chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped and broke a + piece off the rock I sat on; it did not mark so well as the shop chalks + do; but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, + realising that this Southern England is not only a grand peninsula, and a + tradition and a civilisation; it is something even more admirable. It is a + piece of chalk. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"></a> +III. The Secret of a Train</h2> + <p> + All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a loose + memory. I will not merely say that this story is true: because, as you + will soon see, it is all truth and no story. It has no explanation and no + conclusion; it is, like most of the other things we encounter in life, a + fragment of something else which would be intensely exciting if it were + not too large to be seen. For the perplexity of life arises from there + being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly + in any of them; what we call its triviality is really the tag-ends of + numberless tales; ordinary and unmeaning existence is like ten thousand + thrilling detective stories mixed up with a spoon. My experience was a + fragment of this nature, and it is, at any rate, not fictitious. Not only + am I not making up the incidents (what there were of them), but I am not + making up the atmosphere of the landscape, which were the whole horror of + the thing. I remember them vividly, and they were as I shall now describe. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + About noon of an ashen autumn day some years ago I was standing outside + the station at Oxford intending to take the train to London. And for some + reason, out of idleness or the emptiness of my mind or the emptiness of + the pale grey sky, or the cold, a kind of caprice fell upon me that I + would not go by that train at all, but would step out on the road and walk + at least some part of the way to London. I do not know if other people are + made like me in this matter; but to me it is always dreary weather, what + may be called useless weather, that slings into life a sense of action and + romance. On bright blue days I do not want anything to happen; the world + is complete and beautiful, a thing for contemplation. I no more ask for + adventures under that turquoise dome than I ask for adventures in church. + But when the background of man’s life is a grey background, then, in the + name of man’s sacred supremacy, I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. + When the heavens fail man refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have + written on it, in letters of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing + shall happen, then the immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises + up and decrees that something shall happen, if it be only the slaughter of + a policeman. But this is a digressive way of stating what I have said + already—that the bleak sky awoke in me a hunger for some change of + plans, that the monotonous weather seemed to render unbearable the use of + the monotonous train, and that I set out into the country lanes, out of + the town of Oxford. It was, perhaps, at that moment that a strange curse + came upon me out of the city and the sky, whereby it was decreed that + years afterwards I should, in an article in the DAILY NEWS, talk about Sir + George Trevelyan in connection with Oxford, when I knew perfectly well + that he went to Cambridge. + </p> + <p> + As I crossed the country everything was ghostly and colourless. The fields + that should have been green were as grey as the skies; the tree-tops that + should have been green were as grey as the clouds and as cloudy. And when + I had walked for some hours the evening was closing in. A sickly sunset + clung weakly to the horizon, as if pale with reluctance to leave the world + in the dark. And as it faded more and more the skies seemed to come closer + and to threaten. The clouds which had been merely sullen became swollen; + and then they loosened and let down the dark curtains of the rain. The + rain was blinding and seemed to beat like blows from an enemy at close + quarters; the skies seemed bending over and bawling in my ears. I walked + on many more miles before I met a man, and in that distance my mind had + been made up; and when I met him I asked him if anywhere in the + neighbourhood I could pick up the train for Paddington. He directed me to + a small silent station (I cannot even remember the name of it) which stood + well away from the road and looked as lonely as a hut on the Andes. I do + not think I have ever seen such a type of time and sadness and scepticism + and everything devilish as that station was: it looked as if it had always + been raining there ever since the creation of the world. The water + streamed from the soaking wood of it as if it were not water at all, but + some loathsome liquid corruption of the wood itself; as if the solid + station were eternally falling to pieces and pouring away in filth. It + took me nearly ten minutes to find a man in the station. When I did he was + a dull one, and when I asked him if there was a train to Paddington his + answer was sleepy and vague. As far as I understood him, he said there + would be a train in half an hour. I sat down and lit a cigar and waited, + watching the last tail of the tattered sunset and listening to the + everlasting rain. It may have been in half an hour or less, but a train + came rather slowly into the station. It was an unnaturally dark train; I + could not see a light anywhere in the long black body of it; and I could + not see any guard running beside it. I was reduced to walking up to the + engine and calling out to the stoker to ask if the train was going to + London. “Well—yes, sir,” he said, with an unaccountable kind of + reluctance. “It is going to London; but——” It was just + starting, and I jumped into the first carriage; it was pitch dark. I sat + there smoking and wondering, as we steamed through the continually + darkening landscape, lined with desolate poplars, until we slowed down and + stopped, irrationally, in the middle of a field. I heard a heavy noise as + of some one clambering off the train, and a dark, ragged head suddenly put + itself into my window. “Excuse me, sir,” said the stoker, “but I think, + perhaps—well, perhaps you ought to know—there’s a dead man in + this train.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities and + nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt, to be finally + overwhelmed with this sensational touch, and to have insisted on getting + out and walking. As it was, I regret to say, I expressed myself politely, + but firmly, to the effect that I didn’t care particularly if the train + took me to Paddington. But when the train had started with its unknown + burden I did do one thing, and do it quite instinctively, without stopping + to think, or to think more than a flash. I threw away my cigar. Something + that is as old as man and has to do with all mourning and ceremonial told + me to do it. There was something unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, + in the idea of there being only two men in that train, and one of them + dead and the other smoking a cigar. And as the red and gold of the butt + end of it faded like a funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic moment + of a procession, I realised how immortal ritual is. I realised (what is + the origin and essence of all ritual) that in the presence of those sacred + riddles about which we can say nothing it is more decent merely to do + something. And I realised that ritual will always mean throwing away + something; DESTROYING our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods. + </p> + <p> + When the train panted at last into Paddington Station I sprang out of it + with a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier and officials + guarding the rear part of the train; no one was allowed to press towards + it. They were guarding and hiding something; perhaps death in some too + shocking form, perhaps something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up + with human mystery and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of + sanctity; perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough + into the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces. Nor have + I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I wandered or + what frightful thing was my companion in the dark. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"></a> +IV. The Perfect Game</h2> + <p> + We have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to + him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernatural. My + own position is the opposite of this. I believe in the supernatural as a + matter of intellect and reason, not as a matter of personal experience. I + do not see ghosts; I only see their inherent probability. But it is + entirely a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions; my + nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. But upon people + of this temperament one weird incident will often leave a peculiar + impression. And the weirdest circumstance that ever occurred to me + occurred a little while ago. It consisted in nothing less than my playing + a game, and playing it quite well for some seventeen consecutive minutes. + The ghost of my grandfather would have astonished me less. + </p> + <p> + On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my + inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had imagined + that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, and I had + neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant side + whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. I played it with a + man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had a semi-philosophical + argument which lasted through the entire contest. It is deeply implanted + in my mind that I had the best of the argument; but it is certain and + beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!” I cried, patting him affectionately on the + head with a mallet, “how far you really are from the pure love of the + sport—you who can play. It is only we who play badly who love the + Game itself. You love glory; you love applause; you love the earthquake + voice of victory; you do not love croquet. You do not love croquet until + you love being beaten at croquet. It is we the bunglers who adore the + occupation in the abstract. It is we to whom it is art for art’s sake. If + we may see the face of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) we are + content to see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is called + amateurish; and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs is but + the French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, the most + disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates (I allude to + the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, impetuous and + full of chivalry, will not be confined within the pedantic boundaries of + the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek honour in the ends of the earth; + they turn up in the flower-beds and the conservatory; they are to be found + in the front garden and the next street. No, Parkinson! The good painter + has skill. It is the bad painter who loves his art. The good musician + loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With such a pure and + hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game itself. I love the + parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or tape, as if its limits + were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, the four seas of Britain. I + love the mere swing of the mallets, and the click of the balls is music. + The four colours are to me sacramental and symbolic, like the red of + martyrdom, or the white of Easter Day. You lose all this, my poor + Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence of this vision by + the paltry consolation of being able to go through hoops and to hit the + stick.” + </p> + <p> + And I waved my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be too sorry for me,” said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. “I + shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more a man likes a + game the better he would want to play it. Granted that the pleasure in the + thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure of success come naturally + and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your own simile of the Knight and his + Lady-love. I admit the gentleman does first and foremost want to be in the + lady’s presence. But I never yet heard of a gentleman who wanted to look + an utter ass when he was there.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps not; though he generally looks it,” I replied. “But the truth is + that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The + happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which can + be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, the + jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the love of + both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not true that + the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger will be the + game. It is logically possible—(follow me closely here, Parkinson!)—it + is logically possible, to play croquet too well to enjoy it at all. If you + could put this blue ball through that distant hoop as easily as you could + pick it up with your hand, then you would not put it through that hoop any + more than you pick it up with your hand; it would not be worth doing. If + you could play unerringly you would not play at all. The moment the game + is perfect the game disappears.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not think, however,” said Parkinson, “that you are in any immediate + danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not think your croquet + will vanish through its own faultless excellence. You are safe for the + present.” + </p> + <p> + I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired myself, + and resumed the thread of my discourse. + </p> + <p> + The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this time it + was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four more fundamental + principles, and my companion had gone through five more hoops, the dusk + was verging upon dark. + </p> + <p> + “We shall have to give this up,” said Parkinson, as he missed a ball + almost for the first time, “I can’t see a thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor can I,” I answered, “and it is a comfort to reflect that I could not + hit anything if I saw it.” + </p> + <p> + With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness + towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. + Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, + indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball. + </p> + <p> + Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball + again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was the + right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot. + </p> + <p> + Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that impossible + ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I supposed was the vague + direction of the quite invisible stick. And in the dead silence I heard + the stick rattle as the ball struck it heavily. + </p> + <p> + I threw down my mallet. “I can’t stand this,” I said. “My ball has gone + right three times. These things are not of this world.” + </p> + <p> + “Pick your mallet up,” said Parkinson, “have another go.” + </p> + <p> + “I tell you I daren’t. If I made another hoop like that I should see all + the devils dancing there on the blessed grass.” + </p> + <p> + “Why devils?” asked Parkinson; “they may be only fairies making fun of + you. They are sending you the ‘Perfect Game,’ which is no game.” + </p> + <p> + I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness, in which the + faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across the grass as if it + burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball somewhere—somewhere + where another ball might be. I heard the dull click of the balls touching, + and ran into the house like one pursued. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"></a> +V. The Extraordinary Cabman</h2> + <p> + From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the + narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to + insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. I + mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed by some + practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; therefore I + propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, which + occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it apparently is, + aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon despair. + </p> + <p> + On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little + restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My + best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable + believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate and + terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to this: that + the question is whether a man can be certain of anything at all. I think + he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, furiously brandishing + an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually to entertain certainty, + what is this certainty which it is impossible to entertain? If I have + never experienced such a thing as certainty I cannot even say that a thing + is not certain. Similarly, if I have never experienced such a thing as + green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as green as + possible for all I know, if I have really no experience of greenness. So + we shouted at each other and shook the room; because metaphysics is the + only thoroughly emotional thing. And the difference between us was very + deep, because it was a difference as to the object of the whole thing + called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend + said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm + tree, opening for opening’s sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said + that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again + on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed + out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth + infinitely, for ever and ever. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for it + will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in the + confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow + become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the + corner of Leicester-square to the members’ entrance of the House of + Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. + Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a + discussion between us which still continues. + </p> + <p> + It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of + detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few + hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I had to visit. I then + got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but not with + the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is not unknown + among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He + looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, clearly quite + genuine. “Do you know, sir,” he said, “you’ve only given me 1s.8d?” I + remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. “Now you know, sir,” + said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, “you know that ain’t the + fare from Euston.” “Euston,” I repeated vaguely, for the phrase at that + moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. “What on earth has Euston got + to do with it?” “You hailed me just outside Euston Station,” began the man + with astonishing precision, “and then you said——” “What in the + name of Tartarus are you talking about?” I said with Christian + forbearance; “I took you at the south-west corner of Leicester-square.” + “Leicester-square,” he exclaimed, loosening a kind of cataract of scorn, + “why we ain’t been near Leicester-square to-day. You hailed me outside + Euston Station, and you said——” “Are you mad, or am I?” I + asked with scientific calm. + </p> + <p> + I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of creating + so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was not a dishonest + cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and humble, and with + great big blue eyes protruding like a frog’s, if ever (in short) a human + face was all that a human face should be, it was the face of that + resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the street; an + unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one second the old + nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What was certainty? + Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the dull rut of the + sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future life. The exciting + question for real scepticism is whether we possess a past life. What is a + minute ago, rationalistically considered, except a tradition and a + picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The cabman calmly gave me + the most elaborate details of the gesture, the words, the complex but + consistent course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable + occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I know (my + sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him outside Euston. I + was firm about my assertion; he was quite equally firm about his. He was + obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a member of a much more + respectable profession. In that moment the universe and the stars swung + just a hair’s breadth from their balance, and the foundations of the earth + were moved. But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the + same reason that I believe in free will, for the same reason that I + believe in fixed character of virtue, the reason that could only be + expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic, I continued to + believe that this honest cabman was wrong, and I repeated to him that I + had really taken him at the corner of Leicester-square. He began with the + same evident and ponderous sincerity, “You hailed me outside Euston + Station, and you said——” + </p> + <p> + And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful + transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like a + lamp from the inside. “Why, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I beg your + pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I remember + now. I beg your pardon.” And with that this astonishing man let out his + whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. The whole of + which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, is strictly + true. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the + mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his + face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac about + him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me from my + adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended earlier + in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that my sense of + reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained erect. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"></a> +VI. An Accident</h2> + <p> + Some time ago I wrote in these columns an article called “The + Extraordinary Cabman.” I am now in a position to contribute my experience + of a still more extraordinary cab. The extraordinary thing about the cab + was that it did not like me; it threw me out violently in the middle of + the Strand. If my friends who read the DAILY NEWS are as romantic (and as + rich) as I take them to be, I presume that this experience is not + uncommon. I suppose that they are all being thrown out of cabs, all over + London. Still, as there are some people, virginal and remote from the + world, who have not yet had this luxurious experience, I will give a short + account of the psychology of myself when my hansom cab ran into the side + of a motor omnibus, and I hope hurt it. + </p> + <p> + I do not need to dwell on the essential romance of the hansom cab—that + one really noble modern thing which our age, when it is judged, will + gravely put beside the Parthenon. It is really modern in that it is both + secret and swift. My particular hansom cab was modern in these two + respects; it was also very modern in the fact that it came to grief. But + it is also English; it is not to be found abroad; it belongs to a + beautiful, romantic country where nearly everybody is pretending to be + richer than they are, and acting as if they were. It is comfortable, and + yet it is reckless; and that combination is the very soul of England. But + although I had always realised all these good qualities in a hansom cab, I + had not experienced all the possibilities, or, as the moderns put it, all + the aspects of that vehicle. My enunciation of the merits of a hansom cab + had been always made when it was the right way up. Let me, therefore, + explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom cab for the first and, I am + happy to believe, the last time. Polycrates threw one ring into the sea to + propitiate the Fates. I have thrown one hansom cab into the sea (if you + will excuse a rather violent metaphor) and the Fates are, I am quite sure, + propitiated. Though I am told they do not like to be told so. + </p> + <p> + I was driving yesterday afternoon in a hansom cab down one of the sloping + streets into the Strand, reading one of my own admirable articles with + continual pleasure, and still more continual surprise, when the horse fell + forward, scrambled a moment on the scraping stones, staggered to his feet + again, and went forward. The horses in my cabs often do this, and I have + learnt to enjoy my own articles at any angle of the vehicle. So I did not + see anything at all odd about the way the horse went on again. But I saw + it suddenly in the faces of all the people on the pavement. They were all + turned towards me, and they were all struck with fear suddenly, as with a + white flame out of the sky. And one man half ran out into the road with a + movement of the elbow as if warding off a blow, and tried to stop the + horse. Then I knew that the reins were lost, and the next moment the horse + was like a living thunder-bolt. I try to describe things exactly as they + seemed to me; many details I may have missed or mis-stated; many details + may have, so to speak, gone mad in the race down the road. I remember that + I once called one of my experiences narrated in this paper “A Fragment of + Fact.” This is, at any rate, a fragment of fact. No fact could possibly be + more fragmentary than the sort of fact that I expected to be at the bottom + of that street. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that + the converted do not understand their own religion. Thus I have always + urged in this paper that democracy has a deeper meaning than democrats + understand; that is, that common and popular things, proverbs, and + ordinary sayings always have something in them unrealised by most who + repeat them. Here is one. We have all heard about the man who is in + momentary danger, and who sees the whole of his life pass before him in a + moment. In the cold, literal, and common sense of words, this is obviously + a thundering lie. Nobody can pretend that in an accident or a mortal + crisis he elaborately remembered all the tickets he had ever taken to + Wimbledon, or all the times that he had ever passed the brown bread and + butter. + </p> + <p> + But in those few moments, while my cab was tearing towards the traffic of + the Strand, I discovered that there is a truth behind this phrase, as + there is behind all popular phrases. I did really have, in that short and + shrieking period, a rapid succession of a number of fundamental points of + view. I had, so to speak, about five religions in almost as many seconds. + My first religion was pure Paganism, which among sincere men is more + shortly described as extreme fear. Then there succeeded a state of mind + which is quite real, but for which no proper name has ever been found. The + ancients called it Stoicism, and I think it must be what some German + lunatics mean (if they mean anything) when they talk about Pessimism. It + was an empty and open acceptance of the thing that happens—as if one + had got beyond the value of it. And then, curiously enough, came a very + strong contrary feeling—that things mattered very much indeed, and + yet that they were something more than tragic. It was a feeling, not that + life was unimportant, but that life was much too important ever to be + anything but life. I hope that this was Christianity. At any rate, it + occurred at the moment when we went crash into the omnibus. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to me that the hansom cab simply turned over on top of me, like + an enormous hood or hat. I then found myself crawling out from underneath + it in attitudes so undignified that they must have added enormously to + that great cause to which the Anti-Puritan League and I have recently + dedicated ourselves. I mean the cause of the pleasures of the people. As + to my demeanour when I emerged, I have two confessions to make, and they + are both made merely in the interests of mental science. The first is that + whereas I had been in a quite pious frame of mind the moment before the + collision, when I got to my feet and found I had got off with a cut or two + I began (like St. Peter) to curse and to swear. A man offered me a + newspaper or something that I had dropped. I can distinctly remember + consigning the paper to a state of irremediable spiritual ruin. I am very + sorry for this now, and I apologise both to the man and to the paper. I + have not the least idea what was the meaning of this unnatural anger; I + mention it as a psychological confession. It was immediately followed by + extreme hilarity, and I made so many silly jokes to the policeman that he + disgraced himself by continual laughter before all the little boys in the + street, who had hitherto taken him seriously. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + There is one other odd thing about the matter which I also mention as a + curiosity of the human brain or deficiency of brain. At intervals of about + every three minutes I kept on reminding the policeman that I had not paid + the cabman, and that I hoped he would not lose his money. He said it would + be all right, and the man would appear. But it was not until about half an + hour afterwards that it suddenly struck me with a shock intolerable that + the man might conceivably have lost more than half a crown; that he had + been in danger as well as I. I had instinctively regarded the cabman as + something uplifted above accidents, a god. I immediately made inquiries, + and I am happy to say that they seemed to have been unnecessary. + </p> + <p> + But henceforward I shall always understand with a darker and more delicate + charity those who take tythe of mint, and anise, and cumin, and neglect + the weightier matters of the law; I shall remember how I was once really + tortured with owing half a crown to a man who might have been dead. Some + admirable men in white coats at the Charing Cross Hospital tied up my + small injury, and I went out again into the Strand. I felt upon me even a + kind of unnatural youth; I hungered for something untried. So to open a + new chapter in my life I got into a hansom cab. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"></a> +VII. The Advantages of Having One Leg</h2> + <p> + A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and casting + about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either insolent or + weak, said at last, “I think one can live through these great sorrows and + even be the better. What wears one is the little worries.” “That’s quite + right, mum,” answered the old woman with emphasis, “and I ought to know, + seeing I’ve had ten of ’em.” It is, perhaps, in this sense that it is most + true that little worries are most wearing. In its vaguer significance the + phrase, though it contains a truth, contains also some possibilities of + self-deception and error. People who have both small troubles and big ones + have the right to say that they find the small ones the most bitter; and + it is undoubtedly true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible + can feel a faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and + all its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I + am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is + sometimes used or abused by people, because they have nothing but the very + smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the crumpled + rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she would wear the + crown of thorns—if she had to. The gentleman may permit himself to + curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much better if it + were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that the grasshopper on + man’s shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much respect to the + gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant + when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We may concede that a + straw may break the camel’s back, but we like to know that it really is + the last straw and not the first. + </p> + <p> + I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, + so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that + if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To + talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way + to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about little + ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often has + his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very clear and + happy daily life then I think we are justified in asking that he shall not + make mountains out of molehills. I do not deny that molehills can sometimes + be important. Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be + more abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before, + they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition that he + was going to tumble over a hassock. William III. died by falling over a + molehill; I do not suppose that with all his varied abilities he could + have managed to fall over a mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I + repeat that we may ask a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure + inconveniences, and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain + or positive poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable + accidental limitations that are always falling across our path—bad + weather, confinement to this or that house or room, failure of + appointments or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, + finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding + punctuality when we don’t. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn from + all these that I sing—I sing with confidence because I have recently + been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise from having to sit + in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only alternative course of + standing on one leg like a stork—a stork is a poetic simile; + therefore I eagerly adopted it. + </p> + <p> + To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing itself + symbolise something other than isolation. If we wish to see what a house + is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish to depict + what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or on a dark + sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that humanity + means; so long as he is solitary he means human society; so long as he is + solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another figure and the + picture is less human—not more so. One is company, two is none. If + you wish to symbolise human building draw one dark tower on the horizon; + if you wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the sky. Indeed, + all through that strangely lit season which we call our day there is but + one star in the sky—a large, fierce star which we call the sun. One + sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower Of Giotto is + sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row of white + posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry of + nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in following the + single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the single star. And + so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of all human anatomy + in standing on a single leg. To express complete and perfect leggishness + the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the tower in the wilderness. + As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is that which stands most + alone. + </p> + <p> + This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric + column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate use + of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its + legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic + consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few days + that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness or dislocation of the + one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and classic + beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. George + Meredith’s novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in the + stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more + literal exactitude, “He has a leg.” Notice how this famous literary phrase + supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable thing. + Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect picture of + human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She delicately + glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact that he had + really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, a reflection, + and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson + like two Monuments in London. That having had one good leg he should have + another—this would be to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do. + She would have been as much bewildered by him as if he had been a + centipede. + </p> + <p> + All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender of life, + all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all desolation has + for its real aim this separation of something so that it may be poignantly + and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has + introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet + and the other. The way to love anything is to realise that it might be + lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong and splendid a foot is; in + the other I can realise how very much otherwise it might have been. The + moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. This world and all our powers + in it are far more awful and beautiful than even we know until some + accident reminds us. If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, + limit yourself if only for a moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully + and wonderfully God’s image is made, stand on one leg. If you want to + realise the splendid vision of all visible things—wink the other + eye. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"></a> +VIII. The End of the World</h2> + <p> + For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious town of + Besançon, which stands like a sort of peninsula in a horse-shoe of river. + You may learn from the guide books that it was the birthplace of Victor + Hugo, and that it is a military station with many forts, near the French + frontier. But you will not learn from guide books that the very tiles on + the roofs seem to be of some quainter and more delicate colour than the + tiles of all the other towns of the world; that the tiles look like the + little clouds of some strange sunset, or like the lustrous scales of some + strange fish. They will not tell you that in this town the eye cannot rest + on anything without finding it in some way attractive and even elvish, a + carved face at a street corner, a gleam of green fields through a stunted + arch, or some unexpected colour for the enamel of a spire or dome. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Evening was coming on and in the light of it all these colours so simple + and yet so subtle seemed more and more to fit together and make a fairy + tale. I sat down for a little outside a café with a row of little toy + trees in front of it, and presently the driver of a fly (as we should call + it) came to the same place. He was one of those very large and dark + Frenchmen, a type not common but yet typical of France; the Rabelaisian + Frenchman, huge, swarthy, purple-faced, a walking wine-barrel; he was a + sort of Southern Falstaff, if one can imagine Falstaff anything but + English. And, indeed, there was a vital difference, typical of two + nations. For while Falstaff would have been shaking with hilarity like a + huge jelly, full of the broad farce of the London streets, this Frenchman + was rather solemn and dignified than otherwise—as if pleasure were a + kind of pagan religion. After some talk which was full of the admirable + civility and equality of French civilisation, he suggested without either + eagerness or embarrassment that he should take me in his fly for an hour’s + ride in the hills beyond the town. And though it was growing late I + consented; for there was one long white road under an archway and round a + hill that dragged me like a long white cord. We drove through the strong, + squat gateway that was made by Romans, and I remember the coincidence like + a sort of omen that as we passed out of the city I heard simultaneously + the three sounds which are the trinity of France. They make what some poet + calls “a tangled trinity,” and I am not going to disentangle it. Whatever + those three things mean, how or why they co-exist; whether they can be + reconciled or perhaps are reconciled already; the three sounds I heard + then by an accident all at once make up the French mystery. For the brass + band in the Casino gardens behind me was playing with a sort of passionate + levity some ramping tune from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was + going on I heard also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible + loyalties and men always arming in the gate of France; and I heard also, + fainter than these sounds and through them all, the Angelus. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + After this coincidence of symbols I had a curious sense of having left + France behind me, or, perhaps, even the civilised world. And, indeed, + there was something in the landscape wild enough to encourage such a + fancy. I have seen perhaps higher mountains, but I have never seen higher + rocks; I have never seen height so near, so abrupt and sensational, + splinters of rock that stood up like the spires of churches, cliffs that + fell sudden and straight as Satan fell from heaven. There was also a + quality in the ride which was not only astonishing, but rather + bewildering; a quality which many must have noticed if they have driven or + ridden rapidly up mountain roads. I mean a sense of gigantic gyration, as + of the whole earth turning about one’s head. It is quite inadequate to say + that the hills rose and fell like enormous waves. Rather the hills seemed + to turn about me like the enormous sails of a windmill, a vast wheel of + monstrous archangelic wings. As we drove on and up into the gathering + purple of the sunset this dizziness increased, confounding things above + with things below. Wide walls of wooded rock stood out above my head like + a roof. I stared at them until I fancied that I was staring down at a + wooded plain. Below me steeps of green swept down to the river. I stared + at them until I fancied that they swept up to the sky. The purple + darkened, night drew nearer; it seemed only to cut clearer the chasms and + draw higher the spires of that nightmare landscape. Above me in the + twilight was the huge black hulk of the driver, and his broad, blank back + was as mysterious as the back of Death in Watts’ picture. I felt that I + was growing too fantastic, and I sought to speak of ordinary things. I + called out to the driver in French, “Where are you taking me?” and it is a + literal and solemn fact that he answered me in the same language without + turning around, “To the end of the world.” + </p> + <p> + I did not answer. I let him drag the vehicle up dark, steep ways, until I + saw lights under a low roof of little trees and two children, one oddly + beautiful, playing at ball. Then we found ourselves filling up the strict + main street of a tiny hamlet, and across the wall of its inn was written + in large letters, LE BOUT DU MONDE—the end of the world. + </p> + <p> + The driver and I sat down outside that inn without a word, as if all + ceremonies were natural and understood in that ultimate place. I ordered + bread for both of us, and red wine, that was good but had no name. On the + other side of the road was a little plain church with a cross on top of it + and a cock on top of the cross. This seemed to me a very good end of the + world; if the story of the world ended here it ended well. Then I wondered + whether I myself should really be content to end here, where most + certainly there were the best things of Christendom—a church and + children’s games and decent soil and a tavern for men to talk with men. + But as I thought a singular doubt and desire grew slowly in me, and at + last I started up. + </p> + <p> + “Are you not satisfied?” asked my companion. “No,” I said, “I am not + satisfied even at the end of the world.” + </p> + <p> + Then, after a silence, I said, “Because you see there are two ends of the + world. And this is the wrong end of the world; at least the wrong one for + me. This is the French end of the world. I want the other end of the + world. Drive me to the other end of the world.” + </p> + <p> + “The other end of the world?” he asked. “Where is that?” + </p> + <p> + “It is in Walham Green,” I whispered hoarsely. “You see it on the London + omnibuses. ‘World’s End and Walham Green.’ Oh, I know how good this is; I + love your vineyards and your free peasantry, but I want the English end of + the world. I love you like a brother, but I want an English cabman, who + will be funny and ask me what his fare ‘is.’ Your bugles stir my blood, + but I want to see a London policeman. Take, oh, take me to see a London + policeman.” + </p> + <p> + He stood quite dark and still against the end of the sunset, and I could + not tell whether he understood or not. I got back into his carriage. + </p> + <p> + “You will understand,” I said, “if ever you are an exile even for + pleasure. The child to his mother, the man to his country, as a countryman + of yours once said. But since, perhaps, it is rather too long a drive to + the English end of the world, we may as well drive back to Besançon.” + </p> + <p> + Only as the stars came out among those immortal hills I wept for Walham + Green. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"></a> +IX. In the Place de La Bastille</h2> + <p> + On the first of May I was sitting outside a café in the Place de la + Bastille in Paris staring at the exultant column, crowned with a capering + figure, which stands in the place where the people destroyed a prison and + ended an age. The thing is a curious example of how symbolic is the great + part of human history. As a matter of mere material fact, the Bastille + when it was taken was not a horrible prison; it was hardly a prison at + all. But it was a symbol, and the people always go by a sure instinct for + symbols; for the Chinaman, for instance, at the last General Election, or + for President Kruger’s hat in the election before; their poetic sense is + perfect. The Chinaman with his pigtail is not an idle flippancy. He does + typify with a compact precision exactly the thing the people resent in + African policy, the alien and grotesque nature of the power of wealth, the + fact that money has no roots, that it is not a natural and familiar power, + but a sort of airy and evil magic calling monsters from the ends of the + earth. The people hate the mine owner who can bring a Chinaman flying + across the sea, exactly as the people hated the wizard who could fetch a + flying dragon through the air. It was the same with Mr. Kruger’s hat. His + hat (that admirable hat) was not merely a joke. It did symbolise, and + symbolise extremely well, the exact thing which our people at that moment + regarded with impatience and venom; the old-fashioned, dingy, Republican + simplicity, the unbeautiful dignity of the bourgeois, and the heavier + truisms of political morality. No; the people are sometimes wrong on the + practical side of politics; they are never wrong on the artistic side. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + So it was, certainly, with the Bastille. The destruction of the Bastille + was not a reform; it was something more important than a reform. It was an + iconoclasm; it was the breaking of a stone image. The people saw the + building like a giant looking at them with a score of eyes, and they + struck at it as at a carved fact. For of all the shapes in which that + immense illusion called materialism can terrify the soul, perhaps the most + oppressive are big buildings. Man feels like a fly, an accident, in the + thing he has himself made. It requires a violent effort of the spirit to + remember that man made this confounding thing and man could unmake it. + Therefore the mere act of the ragged people in the street taking and + destroying a huge public building has a spiritual, a ritual meaning far + beyond its immediate political results. It is a religious service. If, for + instance, the Socialists were numerous or courageous enough to capture and + smash up the Bank of England, you might argue for ever about the inutility + of the act, and how it really did not touch the root of the economic + problem in the correct manner. But mankind would never forget it. It would + change the world. + </p> + <p> + Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, for + the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable things—marriage, + for instance. And architecture approaches nearer than any other art to + being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get rid of. You can turn + a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a nuisance to turn that + Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. You can tear a poem to pieces; + it is only in moments of very sincere emotion that you tear a town-hall to + pieces. A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like a dogma. Whether + or no it is permanent, it claims permanence like a dogma. People ask why + we have no typical architecture of the modern world, like impressionism in + painting. Surely it is obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we + cannot bear to see anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, + anything in the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky. But + along with this decision which is involved in creating a building, there + goes a quite similar decision in the more delightful task of smashing one. + The two of necessity go together. In few places have so many fine public + buildings been set up as here in Paris, and in few places have so many + been destroyed. When people have finally got into the horrible habit of + preserving buildings, they have got out of the habit of building them. And + in London one mingles, as it were, one’s tears because so few are pulled + down. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + As I sat staring at the column of the Bastille, inscribed to Liberty and + Glory, there came out of one corner of the square (which, like so many + such squares, was at once crowded and quiet) a sudden and silent line of + horsemen. Their dress was of a dull blue, plain and prosaic enough, but + the sun set on fire the brass and steel of their helmets; and their + helmets were carved like the helmets of the Romans. I had seen them by + twos and threes often enough before. I had seen plenty of them in pictures + toiling through the snows of Friedland or roaring round the squares at + Waterloo. But now they came file after file, like an invasion, and + something in their numbers, or in the evening light that lit up their + faces and their crests, or something in the reverie into which they broke, + made me inclined to spring to my feet and cry out, “The French soldiers!” + There were the little men with the brown faces that had so often ridden + through the capitals of Europe as coolly as they now rode through their + own. And when I looked across the square I saw that the two other corners + were choked with blue and red; held by little groups of infantry. The city + was garrisoned as against a revolution. + </p> + <p> + Of course, I had heard all about the strike, chiefly from a baker. He said + he was not going to “Chomer.” I said, “Qu’est-ce que c’est que le chome?” + He said, “Ils ne veulent pas travailler.” I said, “Ni moi non plus,” and + he thought I was a class-conscious collectivist proletarian. The whole + thing was curious, and the true moral of it one not easy for us, as a + nation, to grasp, because our own faults are so deeply and dangerously in + the other direction. To me, as an Englishman (personally steeped in the + English optimism and the English dislike of severity), the whole thing + seemed a fuss about nothing. It looked like turning out one of the best + armies in Europe against ordinary people walking about the street. The + cavalry charged us once or twice, more or less harmlessly. But, of course, + it is hard to say how far in such criticisms one is assuming the French + populace to be (what it is not) as docile as the English. But the deeper + truth of the matter tingled, so to speak, through the whole noisy night. + This people has a natural faculty for feeling itself on the eve of + something—of the Bartholomew or the Revolution or the Commune or the + Day of Judgment. It is this sense of crisis that makes France eternally + young. It is perpetually pulling down and building up, as it pulled down + the prison and put up the column in the Place de La Bastille. France has + always been at the point of dissolution. She has found the only method of + immortality. She dies daily. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"></a> +X. On Lying in Bed</h2> + <p> + Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only + one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. This, + however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the + premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several + pails of Aspinall and a broom. Only if one worked in a really sweeping and + masterly way, and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip down + again on one’s face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some strange + fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid it would be + necessary to stick to black and white in this form of artistic + composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would be of the + greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of a white + ceiling being put to. + </p> + <p> + But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have + discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in a + modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really + allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, “Il me faut des géants.” + But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern rooms such + as we all live in I was continually disappointed. I found an endless + pattern and complication of small objects hung like a curtain of fine + links between me and my desire. I examined the walls; I found them to my + surprise to be already covered with wallpaper, and I found the wallpaper + to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing a ridiculous + resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one arbitrary symbol + (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious or philosophical + significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my nice walls like a sort + of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to wallpapers, I think, when it + says, “Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do.” I found the Turkey + carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, rather like the Turkish Empire, or + like the sweetmeat called Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what + Turkish Delight really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. + Everywhere that I went forlornly, with my pencil or my paint brush, I + found that others had unaccountably been before me, spoiling the walls, + the curtains, and the furniture with their childish and barbaric designs. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this occasion + when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying on my back + in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my vision, that + breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition of Paradise, + since it means purity and also means freedom. But alas! like all heavens, + now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; it looks more austere + and more distant than the blue sky outside the window. For my proposal to + paint on it with the bristly end of a broom has been discouraged—never + mind by whom; by a person debarred from all political rights—and + even my minor proposal to put the other end of the broom into the kitchen + fire and turn it to charcoal has not been conceded. Yet I am certain that + it was from persons in my position that all the original inspiration came + for covering the ceilings of palaces and cathedrals with a riot of fallen + angels or victorious gods. I am sure that it was only because Michael + Angelo was engaged in the ancient and honourable occupation of lying in + bed that he ever realized how the roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made + into an awful imitation of a divine drama that could only be acted in the + heavens. + </p> + <p> + The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is + hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to + mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous than + the exultation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the + expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties and + tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse than the modern + weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. + Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of + bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness + is made essential and godliness is regarded as an offence. A playwright + can attack the institution of marriage so long as he does not misrepresent + the manners of society, and I have met Ibsenite pessimists who thought it + wrong to take beer but right to take prussic acid. Especially this is so + in matters of hygiene; notably such matters as lying in bed. Instead of + being regarded, as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenience and + adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it were a part of + essential morals to get up early in the morning. It is upon the whole part + of practical wisdom; but there is nothing good about it or bad about its + opposite. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up + the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its + mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. A man’s + minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the + things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But + with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch + does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted + conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the + garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top of a + tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let them do it in + a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. This alarming growth of good habits really + means a too great emphasis on those virtues which mere custom can ensure, + it means too little emphasis on those virtues which custom can never quite + ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of inspired pity or of inspired + candour. If ever that abrupt appeal is made to us we may fail. A man can + get use to getting up at five o’clock in the morning. A man cannot very + well get used to being burnt for his opinions; the first experiment is + commonly fatal. Let us pay a little more attention to these possibilities + of the heroic and unexpected. I dare say that when I get out of this bed I + shall do some deed of an almost terrible virtue. + </p> + <p> + For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic + caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like + journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, + for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that + the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution I + mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without + any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the + seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a + rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some + secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may + get up a hypochondriac. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"></a> +XI. The Twelve Men</h2> + <p> + The other day, while I was meditating on morality and Mr. H. Pitt, I was, + so to speak, snatched up and put into a jury box to try people. The + snatching took some weeks, but to me it seemed something sudden and + arbitrary. I was put into this box because I lived in Battersea, and my + name began with a C. Looking round me, I saw that there were also summoned + and in attendance in the court whole crowds and processions of men, all of + whom lived in Battersea, and all of whose names began with a C. + </p> + <p> + It seems that they always summon jurymen in this sweeping alphabetical + way. At one official blow, so to speak, Battersea is denuded of all its + C’s, and left to get on as best it can with the rest of the alphabet. A + Cumberpatch is missing from one street—a Chizzolpop from another—three + Chucksterfields from Chucksterfield House; the children are crying out for + an absent Cadgerboy; the woman at the street corner is weeping for her + Coffintop, and will not be comforted. We settle down with a rollicking + ease into our seats (for we are a bold, devil-may-care race, the C’s of + Battersea), and an oath is administered to us in a totally inaudible + manner by an individual resembling an Army surgeon in his second + childhood. We understand, however, that we are to well and truly try the + case between our sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, + neither of whom has put in an appearance as yet. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Just when I was wondering whether the King and the prisoner were, perhaps, + coming to an amicable understanding in some adjoining public house, the + prisoner’s head appears above the barrier of the dock; he is accused of + stealing bicycles, and he is the living image of a great friend of mine. + We go into the matter of the stealing of the bicycles. We do well and + truly try the case between the King and the prisoner in the affair of the + bicycles. And we come to the conclusion, after a brief but reasonable + discussion, that the King is not in any way implicated. Then we pass on to + a woman who neglected her children, and who looks as if somebody or + something had neglected her. And I am one of those who fancy that + something had. + </p> + <p> + All the time that the eye took in these light appearances and the brain + passed these light criticisms, there was in the heart a barbaric pity and + fear which men have never been able to utter from the beginning, but which + is the power behind half the poems of the world. The mood cannot even + adequately be suggested, except faintly by this statement that tragedy is + the highest expression of the infinite value of human life. Never had I + stood so close to pain; and never so far away from pessimism. Ordinarily, + I should not have spoken of these dark emotions at all, for speech about + them is too difficult; but I mention them now for a specific and + particular reason to the statement of which I will proceed at once. I + speak these feelings because out of the furnace of them there came a + curious realisation of a political or social truth. I saw with a queer and + indescribable kind of clearness what a jury really is, and why we must + never let it go. + </p> + <p> + The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards + specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers because + they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, trained + dancers because they dance better, specially instructed laughers because + they laugh better, and so on and so on. The principle has been applied to + law and politics by innumerable modern writers. Many Fabians have insisted + that a greater part of our political work should be performed by experts. + Many legalists have declared that the untrained jury should be altogether + supplanted by the trained Judge. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Now, if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, I do not + know that there would be any fault to find with this. But the true result + of all experience and the true foundation of all religion is this. That + the four or five things that it is most practically essential that a man + should know, are all of them what people call paradoxes. That is to say, + that though we all find them in life to be mere plain truths, yet we + cannot easily state them in words without being guilty of seeming verbal + contradictions. One of them, for instance, is the unimpeachable platitude + that the man who finds most pleasure for himself is often the man who + least hunts for it. Another is the paradox of courage; the fact that the + way to avoid death is not to have too much aversion to it. Whoever is + careless enough of his bones to climb some hopeful cliff above the tide + may save his bones by that carelessness. Whoever will lose his life, the + same shall save it; an entirely practical and prosaic statement. + </p> + <p> + Now, one of these four or five paradoxes which should be taught to every + infant prattling at his mother’s knee is the following: That the more a + man looks at a thing, the less he can see it, and the more a man learns a + thing the less he knows it. The Fabian argument of the expert, that the + man who is trained should be the man who is trusted would be absolutely + unanswerable if it were really true that a man who studied a thing and + practiced it every day went on seeing more and more of its significance. + But he does not. He goes on seeing less and less of its significance. In + the same way, alas! we all go on every day, unless we are continually + goading ourselves into gratitude and humility, seeing less and less of the + significance of the sky or the stones. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Now it is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of men. + But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can to other + terrible things; he can even grow accustomed to the sun. And the horrible + thing about all legal officials, even the best, about all judges, + magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, is not that they are + wicked (some of them are good), not that they are stupid (several of them + are quite intelligent), it is simply that they have got used to it. + </p> + <p> + Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they see is the + usual man in the usual place. They do not see the awful court of judgment; + they only see their own workshop. Therefore, the instinct of Christian + civilisation has most wisely declared that into their judgments there + shall upon every occasion be infused fresh blood and fresh thoughts from + the streets. Men shall come in who can see the court and the crowd, and + coarse faces of the policeman and the professional criminals, the wasted + faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the gesticulating counsel, and + see it all as one sees a new picture or a play hitherto unvisited. + </p> + <p> + Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining + the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to + trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who + know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in + the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system + discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up specialists. But when + it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the + ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, + by the Founder of Christianity. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"></a> +XII. The Wind and the Trees</h2> + <p> + I am sitting under tall trees, with a great wind boiling like surf about + the tops of them, so that their living load of leaves rocks and roars in + something that is at once exultation and agony. I feel, in fact, as if I + were actually sitting at the bottom of the sea among mere anchors and + ropes, while over my head and over the green twilight of water sounded the + everlasting rush of waves and the toil and crash and shipwreck of + tremendous ships. The wind tugs at the trees as if it might pluck them + root and all out of the earth like tufts of grass. Or, to try yet another + desperate figure of speech for this unspeakable energy, the trees are + straining and tearing and lashing as if they were a tribe of dragons each + tied by the tail. + </p> + <p> + As I look at these top-heavy giants tortured by an invisible and violent + witchcraft, a phrase comes back into my mind. I remember a little boy of + my acquaintance who was once walking in Battersea Park under just such + torn skies and tossing trees. He did not like the wind at all; it blew in + his face too much; it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his hat, of + which he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about four. After + complaining repeatedly of the atmospheric unrest, he said at last to his + mother, “Well, why don’t you take away the trees, and then it wouldn’t + wind.” + </p> + <p> + Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. Any one + looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were indeed + vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the air around + them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and excusable than the + belief that it is the trees which make the wind. Indeed, the belief is so + human and excusable that it is, as a matter of fact, the belief of about + ninety-nine out of a hundred of the philosophers, reformers, sociologists, + and politicians of the great age in which we live. My small friend was, in + fact, very like the principal modern thinkers; only much nicer. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + In the little apologue or parable which he has thus the honour of + inventing, the trees stand for all visible things and the wind for the + invisible. The wind is the spirit which bloweth where it listeth; the + trees are the material things of the world which are blown where the + spirit lists. The wind is philosophy, religion, revolution; the trees are + cities and civilisations. We only know that there is a wind because the + trees on some distant hill suddenly go mad. We only know that there is a + real revolution because all the chimney-pots go mad on the whole skyline + of the city. + </p> + <p> + Just as the ragged outline of a tree grows suddenly more ragged and rises + into fantastic crests or tattered tails, so the human city rises under the + wind of the spirit into toppling temples or sudden spires. No man has ever + seen a revolution. Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood pouring down + the gutters, the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, a prison in + ruins, a people in arms—these things are not revolution, but the + results of revolution. + </p> + <p> + You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind. So, also, + you cannot see a revolution; you can only see that there is a revolution. + And there never has been in the history of the world a real revolution, + brutally active and decisive, which was not preceded by unrest and new + dogma in the reign of invisible things. All revolutions began by being + abstract. Most revolutions began by being quite pedantically abstract. + </p> + <p> + The wind is up above the world before a twig on the tree has moved. So + there must always be a battle in the sky before there is a battle on the + earth. Since it is lawful to pray for the coming of the kingdom, it is + lawful also to pray for the coming of the revolution that shall restore + the kingdom. It is lawful to hope to hear the wind of Heaven in the trees. + It is lawful to pray “Thine anger come on earth as it is in Heaven.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The great human dogma, then, is that the wind moves the trees. The great + human heresy is that the trees move the wind. When people begin to say + that the material circumstances have alone created the moral + circumstances, then they have prevented all possibility of serious change. + For if my circumstances have made me wholly stupid, how can I be certain + even that I am right in altering those circumstances? + </p> + <p> + The man who represents all thought as an accident of environment is simply + smashing and discrediting all his own thoughts—including that one. + To treat the human mind as having an ultimate authority is necessary to + any kind of thinking, even free thinking. And nothing will ever be + reformed in this age or country unless we realise that the moral fact + comes first. + </p> + <p> + For example, most of us, I suppose, have seen in print and heard in + debating clubs an endless discussion that goes on between Socialists and + total abstainers. The latter say that drink leads to poverty; the former + say that poverty leads to drink. I can only wonder at their either of them + being content with such simple physical explanations. Surely it is obvious + that the thing which among the English proletariat leads to poverty is the + same as the thing which leads to drink; the absence of strong civic + dignity, the absence of an instinct that resists degradation. + </p> + <p> + When you have discovered why enormous English estates were not long ago + cut up into small holdings like the land of France, you will have + discovered why the Englishman is more drunken than the Frenchman. The + Englishman, among his million delightful virtues, really has this quality, + which may strictly be called “hand to mouth,” because under its influence + a man’s hand automatically seeks his own mouth, instead of seeking (as it + sometimes should do) his oppressor’s nose. And a man who says that the + English inequality in land is due only to economic causes, or that the + drunkenness of England is due only to economic causes, is saying something + so absurd that he cannot really have thought what he was saying. + </p> + <p> + Yet things quite as preposterous as this are said and written under the + influence of that great spectacle of babyish helplessness, the economic + theory of history. We have people who represent that all great historic + motives were economic, and then have to howl at the top of their voices in + order to induce the modern democracy to act on economic motives. The + extreme Marxian politicians in England exhibit themselves as a small, + heroic minority, trying vainly to induce the world to do what, according + to their theory, the world always does. The truth is, of course, that + there will be a social revolution the moment the thing has ceased to be + purely economic. You can never have a revolution in order to establish a + democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I get up from under the trees, for the wind and the slight rain have + ceased. The trees stand up like golden pillars in a clear sunlight. The + tossing of the trees and the blowing of the wind have ceased + simultaneously. So I suppose there are still modern philosophers who will + maintain that the trees make the wind. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"></a> +XIII. The Dickensian</h2> + <p> + He was a quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw hat; + with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, but with a + quite unmilitary stoop and very dreamy eyes. He was gazing with a rather + gloomy interest at the cluster, one might almost say the tangle, of small + shipping which grew thicker as our little pleasure boat crawled up into + Yarmouth Harbour. A boat entering this harbour, as every one knows, does + not enter in front of the town like a foreigner, but creeps round at the + back like a traitor taking the town in the rear. The passage of the river + seems almost too narrow for traffic, and in consequence the bigger ships + look colossal. As we passed under a timber ship from Norway, which seemed + to block up the heavens like a cathedral, the man in a straw hat pointed + to an odd wooden figurehead carved like a woman, and said, like one + continuing a conversation, “Now, why have they left off having them. They + didn’t do any one any harm?” + </p> + <p> + I replied with some flippancy about the captain’s wife being jealous; but + I knew in my heart that the man had struck a deep note. There has been + something in our most recent civilisation which is mysteriously hostile to + such healthy and humane symbols. + </p> + <p> + “They hate anything like that, which is human and pretty,” he continued, + exactly echoing my thoughts. “I believe they broke up all the jolly old + figureheads with hatchets and enjoyed doing it.” + </p> + <p> + “Like Mr. Quilp,” I answered, “when he battered the wooden Admiral with + the poker.” + </p> + <p> + His whole face suddenly became alive, and for the first time he stood + erect and stared at me. + </p> + <p> + “Do you come to Yarmouth for that?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “For what?” + </p> + <p> + “For Dickens,” he answered, and drummed with his foot on the deck. + </p> + <p> + “No,” I answered; “I come for fun, though that is much the same thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I always come,” he answered quietly, “to find Peggotty’s boat. It isn’t + here.” + </p> + <p> + And when he said that I understood him perfectly. + </p> + <p> + There are two Yarmouths; I daresay there are two hundred to the people who + live there. I myself have never come to the end of the list of Batterseas. + But there are two to the stranger and tourist; the poor part, which is + dignified, and the prosperous part, which is savagely vulgar. My new + friend haunted the first of these like a ghost; to the latter he would + only distantly allude. + </p> + <p> + “The place is very much spoilt now... trippers, you know,” he would say, + not at all scornfully, but simply sadly. That was the nearest he would go + to an admission of the monstrous watering place that lay along the front, + outblazing the sun, and more deafening than the sea. But behind—out + of earshot of this uproar—there are lanes so narrow that they seem + like secret entrances to some hidden place of repose. There are squares so + brimful of silence that to plunge into one of them is like plunging into a + pool. In these places the man and I paced up and down talking about + Dickens, or, rather, doing what all true Dickensians do, telling each + other verbatim long passages which both of us knew quite well already. We + were really in the atmosphere of the older England. Fishermen passed us + who might well have been characters like Peggotty; we went into a musty + curiosity shop and bought pipe-stoppers carved into figures from Pickwick. + The evening was settling down between all the buildings with that slow + gold that seems to soak everything when we went into the church. + </p> + <p> + In the growing darkness of the church, my eye caught the coloured windows + which on that clear golden evening were flaming with all the passionate + heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian arts. At length I + said to my companion: + </p> + <p> + “Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant for the angel + at the sepulchre.” + </p> + <p> + He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + “I daresay,” he said. “What is there odd about that?” + </p> + <p> + After a pause I said, “Do you remember what the angel at the sepulchre + said?” + </p> + <p> + “Not particularly,” he answered; “but where are you off to in such a + hurry?” + </p> + <p> + I walked him rapidly out of the still square, past the fishermen’s + almshouses, towards the coast, he still inquiring indignantly where I was + going. + </p> + <p> + “I am going,” I said, “to put pennies in automatic machines on the beach. + I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my photograph + taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer out of its original bottle. I will + buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat. I am ready to listen to a + concertina, and but for the defects of my education should be ready to + play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, if the donkey is + willing. I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was commanded me by the + angel in the stained-glass window.” + </p> + <p> + “I really think,” said the Dickensian, “that I had better put you in + charge of your relations.” + </p> + <p> + “Sir,” I answered, “there are certain writers to whom humanity owes much, + whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective a type that we + do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain perishing + associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the spirit of Horace + Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even for the shade of Thackeray in Old + Kensington. But let us have no antiquarianism about Dickens, for Dickens + is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward, but forward; he might + look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury, but he would love to + look at them. He might lash our democracy, but it would be because, like a + democrat, he asked much from it. We will not have all his books bound up + under the title of ‘The Old Curiosity Shop.’ Rather we will have them all + bound up under the title of ‘Great Expectations.’ Wherever humanity is he + would have us face it and make something of it, swallow it with a holy + cannibalism, and assimilate it with the digestion of a giant. We must take + these trippers as he would have taken them, and tear out of them their + tragedy and their farce. Do you remember now what the angel said at the + sepulchre? ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; he is + risen.’” + </p> + <p> + With that we came out suddenly on the wide stretch of the sands, which + were black with the knobs and masses of our laughing and quite desperate + democracy. And the sunset, which was now in its final glory, flung far + over all of them a red flush and glitter like the gigantic firelight of + Dickens. In that strange evening light every figure looked at once + grotesque and attractive, as if he had a story to tell. I heard a little + girl (who was being throttled by another little girl) say by way of + self-vindication, “My sister-in-law ’as got four rings aside her weddin’ + ring!” + </p> + <p> + I stood and listened for more, but my friend went away. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"></a> +XIV. In Topsy-Turvy Land</h2> + <p> + Last week, in an idle metaphor, I took the tumbling of trees and the + secret energy of the wind as typical of the visible world moving under the + violence of the invisible. I took this metaphor merely because I happened + to be writing the article in a wood. Nevertheless, now that I return to + Fleet Street (which seems to me, I confess, much better and more poetical + than all the wild woods in the world), I am strangely haunted by this + accidental comparison. The people’s figures seem a forest and their soul a + wind. All the human personalities which speak or signal to me seem to have + this fantastic character of the fringe of the forest against the sky. That + man that talks to me, what is he but an articulate tree? That driver of a + van who waves his hands wildly at me to tell me to get out of the way, + what is he but a bunch of branches stirred and swayed by a spiritual wind, + a sylvan object that I can continue to contemplate with calm? That + policeman who lifts his hand to warn three omnibuses of the peril that + they run in encountering my person, what is he but a shrub shaken for a + moment with that blast of human law which is a thing stronger than + anarchy? Gradually this impression of the woods wears off. But this + black-and-white contrast between the visible and invisible, this deep + sense that the one essential belief is belief in the invisible as against + the visible, is suddenly and sensationally brought back to my mind. + Exactly at the moment when Fleet Street has grown most familiar (that is, + most bewildering and bright), my eye catches a poster of vivid violet, on + which I see written in large black letters these remarkable words: “Should + Shop Assistants Marry?” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + When I saw those words everything might just as well have turned upside + down. The men in Fleet Street might have been walking about on their + hands. The cross of St. Paul’s might have been hanging in the air upside + down. For I realise that I have really come into a topsy-turvy country; I + have come into the country where men do definitely believe that the waving + of the trees makes the wind. That is to say, they believe that the + material circumstances, however black and twisted, are more important than + the spiritual realities, however powerful and pure. “Should Shop + Assistants Marry?” I am puzzled to think what some periods and schools of + human history would have made of such a question. The ascetics of the East + or of some periods of the early Church would have thought that the + question meant, “Are not shop assistants too saintly, too much of another + world, even to feel the emotions of the sexes?” But I suppose that is not + what the purple poster means. In some pagan cities it might have meant, + “Shall slaves so vile as shop assistants even be allowed to propagate + their abject race?” But I suppose that is not what the purple poster + meant. We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what it does mean. It + does really mean that a section of the human race is asking whether the + primary relations of the two human sexes are particularly good for modern + shops. The human race is asking whether Adam and Eve are entirely suitable + for Marshall and Snelgrove. If this is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine + what would be. We ask whether the universal institution will improve our + (please God) temporary institution. Yet I have known many such questions. + For instance, I have known a man ask seriously, “Does Democracy help the + Empire?” Which is like saying, “Is art favourable to frescoes?” + </p> + <p> + I say that there are many such questions asked. But if the world ever runs + short of them, I can suggest a large number of questions of precisely the + same kind, based on precisely the same principle. + </p> + <p> + “Do Feet Improve Boots?”—“Is Bread Better when Eaten?”—“Should + Hats have Heads in them?”—“Do People Spoil a Town?”—“Do Walls + Ruin Wall-papers?”—“Should Neckties enclose Necks?”—“Do Hands + Hurt Walking-sticks?”—“Does Burning Destroy Firewood?”—“Is + Cleanliness Good for Soap?”—“Can Cricket Really Improve + Cricket-bats?”—“Shall We Take Brides with our Wedding Rings?” and a + hundred others. + </p> + <p> + Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport or in + intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from the purple + poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by half of the earnest + economists of our times. All the questions they ask are of this character; + they are all tinged with this same initial absurdity. They do not ask if + the means is suited to the end; they all ask (with profound and + penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited to the means. They do not ask + whether the tail suits the dog. They all ask whether a dog is (by the + highest artistic canons) the most ornamental appendage that can be put at + the end of a tail. In short, instead of asking whether our modern + arrangements, our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete + institutions are suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy + human life, they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion + at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; and then they + only ask whether that healthy human life is suited to our streets and + trades. Perfection may be attainable or unattainable as an end. It may or + may not be possible to talk of imperfection as a means to perfection. But + surely it passes toleration to talk of perfection as a means to + imperfection. The New Jerusalem may be a reality. It may be a dream. But + surely it is too outrageous to say that the New Jerusalem is a reality on + the road to Birmingham. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + This is the most enormous and at the same time the most secret of the + modern tyrannies of materialism. In theory the thing ought to be simple + enough. A really human human being would always put the spiritual things + first. A walking and speaking statue of God finds himself at one + particular moment employed as a shop assistant. He has in himself a power + of terrible love, a promise of paternity, a thirst for some loyalty that + shall unify life, and in the ordinary course of things he asks himself, + “How far do the existing conditions of those assisting in shops fit in + with my evident and epic destiny in the matter of love and marriage?” But + here, as I have said, comes in the quiet and crushing power of modern + materialism. It prevents him rising in rebellion, as he would otherwise + do. By perpetually talking about environment and visible things, by + perpetually talking about economics and physical necessity, painting and + keeping repainted a perpetual picture of iron machinery and merciless + engines, of rails of steel, and of towers of stone, modern materialism at + last produces this tremendous impression in which the truth is stated + upside down. At last the result is achieved. The man does not say as he + ought to have said, “Should married men endure being modern shop + assistants?” The man says, “Should shop assistants marry?” Triumph has + completed the immense illusion of materialism. The slave does not say, + “Are these chains worthy of me?” The slave says scientifically and + contentedly, “Am I even worthy of these chains?” + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"></a> +XV. What I Found in My Pocket</h2> + <p> + Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have made the Empire + what it is—a man in an astracan coat, with an astracan moustache—a + tight, black, curly moustache. Whether he put on the moustache with the + coat or whether his Napoleonic will enabled him not only to grow a + moustache in the usual place, but also to grow little moustaches all over + his clothes, I do not know. I only remember that he said to me the + following words: “A man can’t get on nowadays by hanging about with his + hands in his pockets.” I made reply with the quite obvious flippancy that + perhaps a man got on by having his hands in other people’s pockets; + whereupon he began to argue about Moral Evolution, so I suppose what I + said had some truth in it. But the incident now comes back to me, and + connects itself with another incident—if you can call it an incident—which + happened to me only the other day. + </p> + <p> + I have only once in my life picked a pocket, and then (perhaps through + some absent-mindedness) I picked my own. My act can really with some + reason be so described. For in taking things out of my own pocket I had at + least one of the more tense and quivering emotions of the thief; I had a + complete ignorance and a profound curiosity as to what I should find + there. Perhaps it would be the exaggeration of eulogy to call me a tidy + person. But I can always pretty satisfactorily account for all my + possessions. I can always tell where they are, and what I have done with + them, so long as I can keep them out of my pockets. If once anything slips + into those unknown abysses, I wave it a sad Virgilian farewell. I suppose + that the things that I have dropped into my pockets are still there; the + same presumption applies to the things that I have dropped into the sea. + But I regard the riches stored in both these bottomless chasms with the + same reverent ignorance. They tell us that on the last day the sea will + give up its dead; and I suppose that on the same occasion long strings of + extraordinary things will come running out of my pockets. But I have quite + forgotten what any of them are; and there is really nothing (excepting the + money) that I shall be at all surprised at finding among them. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Such at least has hitherto been my state of innocence. I here only wish + briefly to recall the special, extraordinary, and hitherto unprecedented + circumstances which led me in cold blood, and being of sound mind, to turn + out my pockets. I was locked up in a third-class carriage for a rather + long journey. The time was towards evening, but it might have been + anything, for everything resembling earth or sky or light or shade was + painted out as if with a great wet brush by an unshifting sheet of quite + colourless rain. I had no books or newspapers. I had not even a pencil and + a scrap of paper with which to write a religious epic. There were no + advertisements on the walls of the carriage, otherwise I could have + plunged into the study, for any collection of printed words is quite + enough to suggest infinite complexities of mental ingenuity. When I find + myself opposite the words “Sunlight Soap” I can exhaust all the aspects of + Sun Worship, Apollo, and Summer poetry before I go on to the less + congenial subject of soap. But there was no printed word or picture + anywhere; there was nothing but blank wood inside the carriage and blank + wet without. Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can be, + uninteresting. So I stared at the joints of the walls and seats, and began + thinking hard on the fascinating subject of wood. Just as I had begun to + realise why, perhaps, it was that Christ was a carpenter, rather than a + bricklayer, or a baker, or anything else, I suddenly started upright, and + remembered my pockets. I was carrying about with me an unknown treasury. I + had a British Museum and a South Kensington collection of unknown curios + hung all over me in different places. I began to take the things out. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The first thing I came upon consisted of piles and heaps of Battersea tram + tickets. There were enough to equip a paper chase. They shook down in + showers like confetti. Primarily, of course, they touched my patriotic + emotions, and brought tears to my eyes; also they provided me with the + printed matter I required, for I found on the back of them some short but + striking little scientific essays about some kind of pill. Comparatively + speaking, in my then destitution, those tickets might be regarded as a + small but well-chosen scientific library. Should my railway journey + continue (which seemed likely at the time) for a few months longer, I + could imagine myself throwing myself into the controversial aspects of the + pill, composing replies and rejoinders pro and con upon the data furnished + to me. But after all it was the symbolic quality of the tickets that moved + me most. For as certainly as the cross of St. George means English + patriotism, those scraps of paper meant all that municipal patriotism + which is now, perhaps, the greatest hope of England. + </p> + <p> + The next thing that I took out was a pocket-knife. A pocket-knife, I need + hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral meditations all to + itself. A knife typifies one of the most primary of those practical + origins upon which as upon low, thick pillows all our human civilisation + reposes. Metals, the mystery of the thing called iron and of the thing + called steel, led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream. I saw into the + intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among all the common + stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent battle, in which + stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered against something + shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. I heard all the hammers + on all the anvils of the earth. I saw all the swords of Feudal and all the + weals of Industrial war. For the knife is only a short sword; and the + pocket-knife is a secret sword. I opened it and looked at that brilliant + and terrible tongue which we call a blade; and I thought that perhaps it + was the symbol of the oldest of the needs of man. The next moment I knew + that I was wrong; for the thing that came next out of my pocket was a box + of matches. Then I saw fire, which is stronger even than steel, the old, + fierce female thing, the thing we all love, but dare not touch. + </p> + <p> + The next thing I found was a piece of chalk; and I saw in it all the art + and all the frescoes of the world. The next was a coin of a very modest + value; and I saw in it not only the image and superscription of our own + Caesar, but all government and order since the world began. But I have not + space to say what were the items in the long and splendid procession of + poetical symbols that came pouring out. I cannot tell you all the things + that were in my pocket. I can tell you one thing, however, that I could + not find in my pocket. I allude to my railway ticket. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"></a> +XVI. The Dragon’s Grandmother</h2> + <p> + I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. I do not + mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated in them—that + he did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into a coach. He did, indeed, + entertain this curious disbelief. And, like all the other people I have + ever met who entertained it, he was wholly unable to give me an + intelligent reason for it. He tried the laws of nature, but he soon + dropped that. Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary + experience, and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted + pumpkinity. But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we + adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply the attitude we + adopt towards all unusual occurrences. If we were certain of miracles we + should not count on them. Things that happen very seldom we all leave out + of our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. I do not expect a + glass of water to be turned into wine; but neither do I expect a glass of + water to be poisoned with prussic acid. I do not in ordinary business + relations act on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but neither do + I act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost heir of the + Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is not that the natural order + is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet on uncommon + incidents than on common ones. This does not touch the credibility of any + attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned into a coach. If I + had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car with my own eyes that + would not make me any more inclined to assume that the same thing would + happen again. I should not invest largely in pumpkins with an eye to the + motor trade. Cinderella got a ball dress from the fairy; but I do not + suppose that she looked after her own clothes any the less after it. + </p> + <p> + But the view that fairy tales cannot really have happened, though crazy, + is common. The man I speak of disbelieved in fairy tales in an even more + amazing and perverted sense. He actually thought that fairy tales ought + not to be told to children. That is (like a belief in slavery or + annexation) one of those intellectual errors which lie very near to + ordinary mortal sins. There are some refusals which, though they may be + done what is called conscientiously, yet carry so much of their whole + horror in the very act of them, that a man must in doing them not only + harden but slightly corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of milk + to young mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. Another + is the refusal of fairy tales to children. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The man had come to see me in connection with some silly society of which + I am an enthusiastic member; he was a fresh-coloured, short-sighted young + man, like a stray curate who was too helpless even to find his way to the + Church of England. He had a curious green necktie and a very long neck; I + am always meeting idealists with very long necks. Perhaps it is that their + eternal aspiration slowly lifts their heads nearer and nearer to the + stars. Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that so many of + them are vegetarians: perhaps they are slowly evolving the neck of the + giraffe so that they can eat all the tops of the trees in Kensington + Gardens. These things are in every sense above me. Such, anyhow, was the + young man who did not believe in fairy tales; and by a curious coincidence + he entered the room when I had just finished looking through a pile of + contemporary fiction, and had begun to read “Grimm’s Fairy tales” as a + natural consequence. + </p> + <p> + The modern novels stood before me, however, in a stack; and you can + imagine their titles for yourself. There was “Suburban Sue: A Tale of + Psychology,” and also “Psychological Sue: A Tale of Suburbia”; there was + “Trixy: A Temperament,” and “Man-Hate: A Monochrome,” and all those nice + things. I read them with real interest, but, curiously enough, I grew + tired of them at last, and when I saw “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” lying + accidentally on the table, I gave a cry of indecent joy. Here at least, + here at last, one could find a little common sense. I opened the book, and + my eyes fell on these splendid and satisfying words, “The Dragon’s + Grandmother.” That at least was reasonable; that at least was true. “The + Dragon’s Grandmother!” While I was rolling this first touch of ordinary + human reality upon my tongue, I looked up suddenly and saw this monster + with a green tie standing in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I listened to what he said about the society politely enough, I hope; but + when he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe in fairy tales, I + broke out beyond control. “Man,” I said, “who are you that you should not + believe in fairy tales? It is much easier to believe in Blue Beard than to + believe in you. A blue beard is a misfortune; but there are green ties + which are sins. It is far easier to believe in a million fairy tales than + to believe in one man who does not like fairy tales. I would rather kiss + Grimm instead of a Bible and swear to all his stories as if they were + thirty-nine articles than say seriously and out of my heart that there can + be such a man as you; that you are not some temptation of the devil or + some delusion from the void. Look at these plain, homely, practical words. + ‘The Dragon’s Grandmother,’ that is all right; that is rational almost to + the verge of rationalism. If there was a dragon, he had a grandmother. But + you—you had no grandmother! If you had known one, she would have + taught you to love fairy tales. You had no father, you had no mother; no + natural causes can explain you. You cannot be. I believe many things which + I have not seen; but of such things as you it may be said, ‘Blessed is he + that has seen and yet has disbelieved.’” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + It seemed to me that he did not follow me with sufficient delicacy, so I + moderated my tone. “Can you not see,” I said, “that fairy tales in their + essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting + fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? + Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and + full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, + but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is—what + will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern + novel is—what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales + the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels + the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh + steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos. In the excellent tale of ‘The + Dragon’s Grandmother,’ in all the other tales of Grimm, it is assumed that + the young man setting out on his travels will have all substantial truths + in him; that he will be brave, full of faith, reasonable, that he will + respect his parents, keep his word, rescue one kind of people, defy + another kind, ‘parcere subjectis et debellare,’ etc. Then, having assumed + this centre of sanity, the writer entertains himself by fancying what + would happen if the whole world went mad all round it, if the sun turned + green and the moon blue, if horses had six legs and giants had two heads. + But your modern literature takes insanity as its centre. Therefore, it + loses the interest even of insanity. A lunatic is not startling to + himself, because he is quite serious; that is what makes him a lunatic. A + man who thinks he is a piece of glass is to himself as dull as a piece of + glass. A man who thinks he is a chicken is to himself as common as a + chicken. It is only sanity that can see even a wild poetry in insanity. + Therefore, these wise old tales made the hero ordinary and the tale + extraordinary. But you have made the hero extraordinary and the tale + ordinary—so ordinary—oh, so very ordinary.” + </p> + <p> + I saw him still gazing at me fixedly. Some nerve snapped in me under the + hypnotic stare. I leapt to my feet and cried, “In the name of God and + Democracy and the Dragon’s grandmother—in the name of all good + things—I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more.” Whether + or no it was the result of the exorcism, there is no doubt that he + definitely went away. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"></a> +XVII. The Red Angel</h2> + <p> + I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad for + children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him I can never + count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest letter saying that + fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even if they are true. She + says that it is cruel to tell children fairy tales, because it frightens + them. You might just as well say that it is cruel to give girls + sentimental novels because it makes them cry. All this kind of talk is + based on that complete forgetting of what a child is like which has been + the firm foundation of so many educational schemes. If you keep bogies and + goblins away from children they would make them up for themselves. One + small child in the dark can invent more hells than Swedenborg. One small + child can imagine monsters too big and black to get into any picture, and + give them names too unearthly and cacophonous to have occurred in the + cries of any lunatic. The child, to begin with, commonly likes horrors, + and he continues to indulge in them even when he does not like them. There + is just as much difficulty in saying exactly where pure pain begins in his + case, as there is in ours when we walk of our own free will into the + torture-chamber of a great tragedy. The fear does not come from fairy + tales; the fear comes from the universe of the soul. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are + alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They + dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be + alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics + worship it—because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not + responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; + fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that + is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales + do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the + child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby + has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the + fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. + </p> + <p> + Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of + clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that + these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is + something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than + strong fear. When I was a child I have stared at the darkness until the + whole black bulk of it turned into one negro giant taller than heaven. If + there was one star in the sky it only made him a Cyclops. But fairy tales + restored my mental health, for next day I read an authentic account of how + a negro giant with one eye, of quite equal dimensions, had been baffled by + a little boy like myself (of similar inexperience and even lower social + status) by means of a sword, some bad riddles, and a brave heart. + Sometimes the sea at night seemed as dreadful as any dragon. But then I + was acquainted with many youngest sons and little sailors to whom a dragon + or two was as simple as the sea. + </p> + <p> + Take the most horrible of Grimm’s tales in incident and imagery, the + excellent tale of the “Boy who Could not Shudder,” and you will see what I + mean. There are some living shocks in that tale. I remember specially a + man’s legs which fell down the chimney by themselves and walked about the + room, until they were rejoined by the severed head and body which fell + down the chimney after them. That is very good. But the point of the story + and the point of the reader’s feelings is not that these things are + frightening, but the far more striking fact that the hero was not + frightened at them. The most fearful of all these fearful wonders was his + own absence of fear. He slapped the bogies on the back and asked the + devils to drink wine with him; many a time in my youth, when stifled with + some modern morbidity, I have prayed for a double portion of his spirit. + If you have not read the end of his story, go and read it; it is the + wisest thing in the world. The hero was at last taught to shudder by + taking a wife, who threw a pail of cold water over him. In that one + sentence there is more of the real meaning of marriage than in all the + books about sex that cover Europe and America. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + At the four corners of a child’s bed stand Perseus and Roland, Sigurd and + St. George. If you withdraw the guard of heroes you are not making him + rational; you are only leaving him to fight the devils alone. For the + devils, alas, we have always believed in. The hopeful element in the + universe has in modern times continually been denied and reasserted; but + the hopeless element has never for a moment been denied. As I told “H. N. + B.” (whom I pause to wish a Happy Christmas in its most superstitious + sense), the one thing modern people really do believe in is damnation. The + greatest of purely modern poets summed up the really modern attitude in + that fine Agnostic line— + </p> + <p> + “There may be Heaven; there must be Hell.” + </p> + <p> + The gloomy view of the universe has been a continuous tradition; and the + new types of spiritual investigation or conjecture all begin by being + gloomy. A little while ago men believed in no spirits. Now they are + beginning rather slowly to believe in rather slow spirits. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Some people objected to spiritualism, table rappings, and such things, + because they were undignified, because the ghosts cracked jokes or waltzed + with dinner-tables. I do not share this objection in the least. I wish the + spirits were more farcical than they are. That they should make more jokes + and better ones, would be my suggestion. For almost all the spiritualism + of our time, in so far as it is new, is solemn and sad. Some Pagan gods + were lawless, and some Christian saints were a little too serious; but the + spirits of modern spiritualism are both lawless and serious—a + disgusting combination. The specially contemporary spirits are not only + devils, they are blue devils. This is, first and last, the real value of + Christmas; in so far as the mythology remains at all it is a kind of happy + mythology. Personally, of course, I believe in Santa Claus; but it is the + season of forgiveness, and I will forgive others for not doing so. But if + there is anyone who does not comprehend the defect in our world which I am + civilising, I should recommend him, for instance, to read a story by Mr. + Henry James, called “The Turn of the Screw.” It is one of the most + powerful things ever written, and it is one of the things about which I + doubt most whether it ought ever to have been written at all. It describes + two innocent children gradually growing at once omniscient and half-witted + under the influence of the foul ghosts of a groom and a governess. As I + say, I doubt whether Mr. Henry James ought to have published it (no, it is + not indecent, do not buy it; it is a spiritual matter), but I think the + question so doubtful that I will give that truly great man a chance. I + will approve the thing as well as admire it if he will write another tale + just as powerful about two children and Santa Claus. If he will not, or + cannot, then the conclusion is clear; we can deal strongly with gloomy + mystery, but not with happy mystery; we are not rationalists, but + diabolists. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I have thought vaguely of all this staring at a great red fire that stands + up in the room like a great red angel. But, perhaps, you have never heard + of a red angel. But you have heard of a blue devil. That is exactly what I + mean. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"></a> +XVIII. The Tower</h2> + <p> + I have been standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great Belfry + Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought (though not, + perhaps, said), that it is built in defiance of all decencies of + architecture. It is made in deliberate disproportion to achieve the one + startling effect of height. It is a church on stilts. But this sort of + sublime deformity is characteristic of the whole fancy and energy of these + Flemish cities. Flanders has the flattest and most prosaic landscapes, but + the most violent and extravagant of buildings. Here Nature is tame; it is + civilisation that is untamable. Here the fields are as flat as a paved + square; but, on the other hand, the streets and roofs are as uproarious as + a forest in a great wind. The waters of wood and meadow slide as smoothly + and meekly as if they were in the London water-pipes. But the parish pump + is carved with all the creatures out of the wilderness. Part of this is + true, of course, of all art. We talk of wild animals, but the wildest + animal is man. There are sounds in music that are more ancient and awful + than the cry of the strangest beast at night. And so also there are + buildings that are shapeless in their strength, seeming to lift themselves + slowly like monsters from the primal mire, and there are spires that seem + to fly up suddenly like a startled bird. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + This savagery even in stone is the expression of the special spirit in + humanity. All the beasts of the field are respectable; it is only man who + has broken loose. All animals are domestic animals; only man is ever + undomestic. All animals are tame animals; it is only we who are wild. And + doubtless, also, while this queer energy is common to all human art, it is + also generally characteristic of Christian art among the arts of the + world. This is what people really mean when they say that Christianity is + barbaric, and arose in ignorance. As a matter of historic fact, it didn’t; + it arose in the most equably civilised period the world has ever seen. + </p> + <p> + But it is true that there is something in it that breaks the outline of + perfect and conventional beauty, something that dots with anger the blind + eyes of the Apollo and lashes to a cavalry charge the horses of the Elgin + Marbles. Christianity is savage, in the sense that it is primeval; there + is in it a touch of the nigger hymn. I remember a debate in which I had + praised militant music in ritual, and some one asked me if I could imagine + Christ walking down the street before a brass band. I said I could imagine + it with the greatest ease; for Christ definitely approved a natural + noisiness at a great moment. When the street children shouted too loud, + certain priggish disciples did begin to rebuke them in the name of good + taste. He said: “If these were silent the very stones would cry out.” With + these words He called up all the wealth of artistic creation that has been + founded on this creed. With those words He founded Gothic architecture. + For in a town like this, which seems to have grown Gothic as a wood grows + leaves, anywhere and anyhow, any odd brick or moulding may be carved off + into a shouting face. The front of vast buildings is thronged with open + mouths, angels praising God, or devils defying Him. Rock itself is racked + and twisted, until it seems to scream. The miracle is accomplished; the + very stones cry out. + </p> + <p> + But though this furious fancy is certainly a specialty of men among + creatures, and of Christian art among arts, it is still most notable in + the art of Flanders. All Gothic buildings are full of extravagant things + in detail; but this is an extravagant thing in design. All Christian + temples worth talking about have gargoyles; but Bruges Belfry is a + gargoyle. It is an unnaturally long-necked animal, like a giraffe. The + same impression of exaggeration is forced on the mind at every corner of a + Flemish town. And if any one asks, “Why did the people of these flat + countries instinctively raise these riotous and towering monuments?” the + only answer one can give is, “Because they were the people of these flat + countries.” If any one asks, “Why the men of Bruges sacrificed + architecture and everything to the sense of dizzy and divine heights?” we + can only answer, “Because Nature gave them no encouragement to do so.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + As I stare at the Belfry, I think with a sort of smile of some of my + friends in London who are quite sure of how children will turn out if you + give them what they call “the right environment.” It is a troublesome + thing, environment, for it sometimes works positively and sometimes + negatively, and more often between the two. A beautiful environment may + make a child love beauty; it may make him bored with beauty; most likely + the two effects will mix and neutralise each other. Most likely, that is, + the environment will make hardly any difference at all. In the scientific + style of history (which was recently fashionable, and is still + conventional) we always had a list of countries that had owed their + characteristics to their physical conditions. + </p> + <p> + The Spaniards (it was said) are passionate because their country is hot; + Scandinavians adventurous because their country is cold; Englishmen naval + because they are islanders; Switzers free because they are mountaineers. + It is all very nice in its way. Only unfortunately I am quite certain that + I could make up quite as long a list exactly contrary in its argument + point-blank against the influence of their geographical environment. Thus + Spaniards have discovered more continents than Scandinavians because their + hot climate discouraged them from exertion. Thus Dutchmen have fought for + their freedom quite as bravely as Switzers because the Dutch have no + mountains. Thus Pagan Greece and Rome and many Mediterranean peoples have + specially hated the sea because they had the nicest sea to deal with, the + easiest sea to manage. I could extend the list for ever. But however long + it was, two examples would certainly stand up in it as pre-eminent and + unquestionable. The first is that the Swiss, who live under staggering + precipices and spires of eternal snow, have produced no art or literature + at all, and are by far the most mundane, sensible, and business-like + people in Europe. The other is that the people of Belgium, who live in a + country like a carpet, have, by an inner energy, desired to exalt their + towers till they struck the stars. + </p> + <p> + As it is therefore quite doubtful whether a person will go specially with + his environment or specially against his environment, I cannot comfort + myself with the thought that the modern discussions about environment are + of much practical value. But I think I will not write any more about these + modern theories, but go on looking at the Belfry of Bruges. I would give + them the greater attention if I were not pretty well convinced that the + theories will have disappeared a long time before the Belfry. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"></a> +XIX. How I Met the President</h2> + <p> + Several years ago, when there was a small war going on in South Africa and + a great fuss going on in England, when it was by no means so popular and + convenient to be a Pro-Boer as it is now, I remember making a bright + suggestion to my Pro-Boer friends and allies, which was not, I regret to + say, received with the seriousness it deserved. I suggested that a band of + devoted and noble youths, including ourselves, should express our sense of + the pathos of the President’s and the Republic’s fate by growing Kruger + beards under our chins. I imagined how abruptly this decoration would + alter the appearance of Mr. John Morley; how startling it would be as it + emerged from under the chin of Mr. Lloyd-George. But the younger men, my + own friends, on whom I more particularly urged it, men whose names are in + many cases familiar to the readers of this paper—Mr. Masterman’s for + instance, and Mr. Conrad Noel—they, I felt, being young and + beautiful, would do even more justice to the Kruger beard, and when + walking down the street with it could not fail to attract attention. The + beard would have been a kind of counterblast to the Rhodes hat. An + appropriate counterblast; for the Rhodesian power in Africa is only an + external thing, placed upon the top like a hat; the Dutch power and + tradition is a thing rooted and growing like a beard; we have shaved it, + and it is growing again. The Kruger beard would represent time and the + natural processes. You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + After making this proposal to my friends I hurriedly left town. I went + down to a West Country place where there was shortly afterwards an + election, at which I enjoyed myself very much canvassing for the Liberal + candidate. The extraordinary thing was that he got in. I sometimes lie + awake at night and meditate upon that mystery; but it must not detain us + now. The rather singular incident which happened to me then, and which + some recent events have recalled to me, happened while the canvassing was + still going on. It was a burning blue day, and the warm sunshine, settling + everywhere on the high hedges and the low hills, brought out into a kind + of heavy bloom that HUMANE quality of the landscape which, as far as I + know, only exists in England; that sense as if the bushes and the roads + were human, and had kindness like men; as if the tree were a good giant + with one wooden leg; as if the very line of palings were a row of + good-tempered gnomes. On one side of the white, sprawling road a low hill + or down showed but a little higher than the hedge, on the other the land + tumbled down into a valley that opened towards the Mendip hills. The road + was very erratic, for every true English road exists in order to lead one + a dance; and what could be more beautiful and beneficent than a dance? At + an abrupt turn of it I came upon a low white building, with dark doors and + dark shuttered windows, evidently not inhabited and scarcely in the + ordinary sense inhabitable—a thing more like a toolhouse than a + house of any other kind. Made idle by the heat, I paused, and, taking a + piece of red chalk out of my pocket, began drawing aimlessly on the back + door—drawing goblins and Mr. Chamberlain, and finally the ideal + Nationalist with the Kruger beard. The materials did not permit of any + delicate rendering of his noble and national expansion of countenance + (stoical and yet hopeful, full of tears for man, and yet of an element of + humour); but the hat was finely handled. Just as I was adding the + finishing touches to the Kruger fantasy, I was frozen to the spot with + terror. The black door, which I thought no more of than the lid of an + empty box, began slowly to open, impelled from within by a human hand. And + President Kruger himself came out into the sunlight! + </p> + <p> + He was a shade milder of eye than he was in his portraits, and he did not + wear that ceremonial scarf which was usually, in such pictures, slung + across his ponderous form. But there was the hat which filled the Empire + with so much alarm; there were the clumsy dark clothes, there was the + heavy, powerful face; there, above all, was the Kruger beard which I had + sought to evoke (if I may use the verb) from under the features of Mr. + Masterman. Whether he had the umbrella or not I was too much emotionally + shaken to observe; he had not the stone lions with him, or Mrs. Kruger; + and what he was doing in that dark shed I cannot imagine, but I suppose he + was oppressing an Outlander. + </p> + <p> + I was surprised, I must confess, to meet President Kruger in Somersetshire + during the war. I had no idea that he was in the neighbourhood. But a yet + more arresting surprise awaited me. Mr. Kruger regarded me for some + moments with a dubious grey eye, and then addressed me with a strong + Somersetshire accent. A curious cold shock went through me to hear that + inappropriate voice coming out of that familiar form. It was as if you met + a Chinaman, with pigtail and yellow jacket, and he began to talk broad + Scotch. But the next moment, of course, I understood the situation. We had + much underrated the Boers in supposing that the Boer education was + incomplete. In pursuit of his ruthless plot against our island home, the + terrible President had learnt not only English, but all the dialects at a + moment’s notice to win over a Lancashire merchant or seduce a + Northumberland Fusilier. No doubt, if I asked him, this stout old + gentleman could grind out Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and so on, like + the tunes in a barrel organ. I could not wonder if our plain, true-hearted + German millionaires fell before a cunning so penetrated with culture as + this. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + And now I come to the third and greatest surprise of all that this strange + old man gave me. When he asked me, dryly enough, but not without a certain + steady civility that belongs to old-fashioned country people, what I + wanted and what I was doing, I told him the facts of the case, explaining + my political mission and the almost angelic qualities of the Liberal + candidate. Whereupon, this old man became suddenly transfigured in the + sunlight into a devil of wrath. It was some time before I could understand + a word he said, but the one word that kept on recurring was the word + “Kruger,” and it was invariably accompanied with a volley of violent + terms. Was I for old Kruger, was I? Did I come to him and want him to help + old Kruger? I ought to be ashamed, I was... and here he became once more + obscure. The one thing that he made quite clear was that he wouldn’t do + anything for Kruger. + </p> + <p> + “But you ARE Kruger,” burst from my lips, in a natural explosion of + reasonableness. “You ARE Kruger, aren’t you?” + </p> + <p> + After this innocent CRI DE COEUR of mine, I thought at first there would + be a fight, and I remembered with regret that the President in early life + had had a hobby of killing lions. But really I began to think that I had + been mistaken, and that it was not the President after all. There was a + confounding sincerity in the anger with which he declared that he was + Farmer Bowles, and everybody knowed it. I appeased him eventually and + parted from him at the door of his farmhouse, where he left me with a few + tags of religion, which again raised my suspicions of his identity. In the + coffee-room to which I returned there was an illustrated paper with a + picture of President Kruger, and he and Farmer Bowles were as like as two + peas. There was a picture also of a group of Outlander leaders, and the + faces of them, leering and triumphant, were perhaps unduly darkened by the + photograph, but they seemed to me like the faces of a distant and hostile + people. + </p> + <p> + I saw the old man once again on the fierce night of the poll, when he + drove down our Liberal lines in a little cart ablaze with the blue Tory + ribbons, for he was a man who would carry his colours everywhere. It was + evening, and the warm western light was on the grey hair and heavy massive + features of that good old man. I knew as one knows a fact of sense that if + Spanish and German stockbrokers had flooded his farm or country he would + have fought them for ever, not fiercely like an Irishman, but with the + ponderous courage and ponderous cunning of the Boer. I knew that without + seeing it, as certainly as I knew without seeing it that when he went into + the polling room he put his cross against the Conservative name. Then he + came out again, having given his vote and looking more like Kruger than + ever. And at the same hour on the same night thousands upon thousands of + English Krugers gave the same vote. And thus Kruger was pulled down and + the dark-faced men in the photograph reigned in his stead. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"></a> +XX. The Giant</h2> + <p> + I sometimes fancy that every great city must have been built by night. At + least, it is only at night that every part of a great city is great. All + architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is + really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. At least, I think many + people of those nobler trades that work by night (journalists, policemen, + burglars, coffee-stall keepers, and such mistaken enthusiasts as refuse to + go home till morning) must often have stood admiring some black bulk of + building with a crown of battlements or a crest of spires and then burst + into tears at daybreak to discover that it was only a haberdasher’s shop + with huge gold letters across the face of it. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I had a sensation of this sort the other day as I happened to be wandering + in the Temple Gardens towards the end of twilight. I sat down on a bench + with my back to the river, happening to choose such a place that a huge + angle and façade of building jutting out from the Strand sat above me like + an incubus. I dare say that if I took the same seat to-morrow by daylight + I should find the impression entirely false. In sunlight the thing might + seem almost distant; but in that half-darkness it seemed as if the walls + were almost falling upon me. Never before have I had so strongly the sense + which makes people pessimists in politics, the sense of the hopeless + height of the high places of the earth. That pile of wealth and power, + whatever was its name, went up above and beyond me like a cliff that no + living thing could climb. I had an irrational sense that this thing had to + be fought, that I had to fight it; and that I could offer nothing to the + occasion but an indolent journalist with a walking-stick. + </p> + <p> + Almost as I had the thought, two windows were lit in that black, blind + face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge face of a sleeping + giant; the eyes were too close together, and gave it the suggestion of a + bestial sneer. And either by accident of this light or of some other, I + could now read the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; + it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything that I + should like to pull down with my hands if I could. Reared by a detected + robber, it is framed to be the fashionable and luxurious home of + undetected robbers. In the house of man are many mansions; but there is a + class of men who feel normal nowhere except in the Babylon Hotel or in + Dartmoor Gaol. That big black face, which was staring at me with its + flaming eyes too close together, that was indeed the giant of all epic and + fairy tales. But, alas! I was not the giant-killer; the hour had come, but + not the man. I sat down on the seat again (I had had one wild impulse to + climb up the front of the hotel and fall in at one of the windows), and I + tried to think, as all decent people are thinking, what one can really do. + And all the time that oppressive wall went up in front of me, and took + hold upon the heavens like a house of the gods. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + It is remarkable that in so many great wars it has been the defeated who + have won. The people who were left worst at the end of the war were + generally the people who were left best at the end of the whole business. + For instance, the Crusades ended in the defeat of the Christians. But they + did not end in the decline of the Christians; they ended in the decline of + the Saracens. That huge prophetic wave of Moslem power which had hung in + the very heavens above the towns of Christendom, that wave was broken, and + never came on again. The Crusaders had saved Paris in the act of losing + Jerusalem. The same applies to that epic of Republican war in the + eighteenth century to which we Liberals owe our political creed. The + French Revolution ended in defeat: the kings came back across a carpet of + dead at Waterloo. The Revolution had lost its last battle; but it had + gained its first object. It had cut a chasm. The world has never been the + same since. No one after that has ever been able to treat the poor merely + as a pavement. + </p> + <p> + These jewels of God, the poor, are still treated as mere stones of the + street; but as stones that may sometimes fly. If it please God, you and I + may see some of the stones flying again before we see death. But here I + only remark the interesting fact that the conquered almost always conquer. + Sparta killed Athens with a final blow, and she was born again. Sparta + went away victorious, and died slowly of her own wounds. The Boers lost + the South African War and gained South Africa. + </p> + <p> + And this is really all that we can do when we fight something really + stronger than ourselves; we can deal it its death-wound one moment; it + deals us death in the end. It is something if we can shock and jar the + unthinking impetus and enormous innocence of evil; just as a pebble on a + railway can stagger the Scotch express. It is enough for the great martyrs + and criminals of the French revolution, that they have surprised for all + time the secret weakness of the strong. They have awakened and set leaping + and quivering in his crypt for ever the coward in the hearts of kings. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + When Jack the Giant-Killer really first saw the giant his experience was + not such as has been generally supposed. If you care to hear it I will + tell you the real story of Jack the Giant-Killer. To begin with, the most + awful thing which Jack first felt about the giant was that he was not a + giant. He came striding across an interminable wooded plain, and against + its remote horizon the giant was quite a small figure, like a figure in a + picture—he seemed merely a man walking across the grass. Then Jack + was shocked by remembering that the grass which the man was treading down + was one of the tallest forests upon that plain. The man came nearer and + nearer, growing bigger and bigger, and at the instant when he passed the + possible stature of humanity Jack almost screamed. The rest was an + intolerable apocalypse. + </p> + <p> + The giant had the one frightful quality of a miracle; the more he became + incredible the more he became solid. The less one could believe in him the + more plainly one could see him. It was unbearable that so much of the sky + should be occupied by one human face. His eyes, which had stood out like + bow windows, became bigger yet, and there was no metaphor that could + contain their bigness; yet still they were human eyes. Jack’s intellect + was utterly gone under that huge hypnotism of the face that filled the + sky; his last hope was submerged, his five wits all still with terror. + </p> + <p> + But there stood up in him still a kind of cold chivalry, a dignity of dead + honour that would not forget the small and futile sword in his hand. He + rushed at one of the colossal feet of this human tower, and when he came + quite close to it the ankle-bone arched over him like a cave. Then he + planted the point of his sword against the foot and leant on it with all + his weight, till it went up to the hilt and broke the hilt, and then + snapped just under it. And it was plain that the giant felt a sort of + prick, for he snatched up his great foot into his great hand for an + instant; and then, putting it down again, he bent over and stared at the + ground until he had seen his enemy. + </p> + <p> + Then he picked up Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw him away; + and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were flying from system + to system through the universe of stars. But, as the giant had thrown him + away carelessly, he did not strike a stone, but struck soft mire by the + side of a distant river. There he lay insensible for several hours; but + when he awoke again his horrible conqueror was still in sight. He was + striding away across the void and wooded plain towards where it ended in + the sea; and by this time he was only much higher than any of the hills. + He grew less and less indeed; but only as a really high mountain grows at + last less and less when we leave it in a railway train. Half an hour + afterwards he was a bright blue colour, as are the distant hills; but his + outline was still human and still gigantic. Then the big blue figure + seemed to come to the brink of the big blue sea, and even as it did so it + altered its attitude. Jack, stunned and bleeding, lifted himself + laboriously upon one elbow to stare. The giant once more caught hold of + his ankle, wavered twice as in a wind, and then went over into the great + sea which washes the whole world, and which, alone of all things God has + made, was big enough to drown him. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"></a> +XXI. A Great Man</h2> + <p> + People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always + seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils from + private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous but + blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for + exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything so + valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never + gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million times + in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him + in real life. The Yellow Pressman seems to have no power of catching the + first fresh fact about a man that dominates all after impressions. For + instance, before I met Bernard Shaw I heard that he spoke with a reckless + desire for paradox or a sneering hatred of sentiment; but I never knew + till he opened his mouth that he spoke with an Irish accent, which is more + important than all the other criticisms put together. + </p> + <p> + Journalism is not personal enough. So far from digging out private + personalities, it cannot even report the obvious personalities on the + surface. Now there is one vivid and even bodily impression of this kind + which we have all felt when we met great poets or politicians, but which + never finds its way into the newspapers. I mean the impression that they + are much older than we thought they were. We connect great men with their + great triumphs, which generally happened some years ago, and many recruits + enthusiastic for the thin Napoleon of Marengo must have found themselves + in the presence of the fat Napoleon of Leipzic. + </p> + <p> + I remember reading a newspaper account of how a certain rising politician + confronted the House of Lords with the enthusiasm almost of boyhood. It + described how his “brave young voice” rang in the rafters. I also remember + that I met him some days after, and he was considerably older than my own + father. I mention this truth for only one purpose: all this generalisation + leads up to only one fact—the fact that I once met a great man who + was younger than I expected. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I had come over the wooded wall from the villages about Epsom, and down a + stumbling path between trees towards the valley in which Dorking lies. A + warm sunlight was working its way through the leafage; a sunlight which + though of saintless gold had taken on the quality of evening. It was such + sunlight as reminds a man that the sun begins to set an instant after + noon. It seemed to lessen as the wood strengthened and the road sank. + </p> + <p> + I had a sensation peculiar to such entangled descents; I felt that the + treetops that closed above me were the fixed and real things, certain as + the level of the sea; but that the solid earth was every instant failing + under my feet. In a little while that splendid sunlight showed only in + splashes, like flaming stars and suns in the dome of green sky. Around me + in that emerald twilight were trunks of trees of every plain or twisted + type; it was like a chapel supported on columns of every earthly and + unearthly style of architecture. + </p> + <p> + Without intention my mind grew full of fancies on the nature of the + forest; on the whole philosophy of mystery and force. For the meaning of + woods is the combination of energy with complexity. A forest is not in the + least rude or barbarous; it is only dense with delicacy. Unique shapes + that an artist would copy or a philosopher watch for years if he found + them in an open plain are here mingled and confounded; but it is not a + darkness of deformity. It is a darkness of life; a darkness of perfection. + And I began to think how much of the highest human obscurity is like this, + and how much men have misunderstood it. People will tell you, for + instance, that theology became elaborate because it was dead. Believe me, + if it had been dead it would never have become elaborate; it is only the + live tree that grows too many branches. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + These trees thinned and fell away from each other, and I came out into + deep grass and a road. I remember being surprised that the evening was so + far advanced; I had a fancy that this valley had a sunset all to itself. I + went along that road according to directions that had been given me, and + passed the gateway in a slight paling beyond which the wood changed only + faintly to a garden. It was as if the curious courtesy and fineness of + that character I was to meet went out from him upon the valley; for I felt + on all these things the finger of that quality which the old English + called “faërie”; it is the quality which those can never understand who + think of the past as merely brutal; it is an ancient elegance such as + there is in trees. I went through the garden and saw an old man sitting by + a table, looking smallish in his big chair. He was already an invalid, and + his hair and beard were both white; not like snow, for snow is cold and + heavy, but like something feathery, or even fierce; rather they were white + like the white thistledown. I came up quite close to him; he looked at me + as he put out his frail hand, and I saw of a sudden that his eyes were + startlingly young. He was the one great man of the old world whom I have + met who was not a mere statue over his own grave. + </p> + <p> + He was deaf and he talked like a torrent. He did not talk about the books + he had written; he was far too much alive for that. He talked about the + books he had not written. He unrolled a purple bundle of romances which he + had never had time to sell. He asked me to write one of the stories for + him, as he would have asked the milkman, if he had been talking to the + milkman. It was a splendid and frantic story, a sort of astronomical + farce. It was all about a man who was rushing up to the Royal Society with + the only possible way of avoiding an earth-destroying comet; and it showed + how, even on this huge errand, the man was tripped up at every other + minute by his own weakness and vanities; how he lost a train by trifling + or was put in gaol for brawling. That is only one of them; there were ten + or twenty more. Another, I dimly remember, was a version of the fall of + Parnell; the idea that a quite honest man might be secret from a pure love + of secrecy, of solitary self-control. I went out of that garden with a + blurred sensation of the million possibilities of creative literature. The + feeling increased as my way fell back into the wood; for a wood is a + palace with a million corridors that cross each other everywhere. I really + had the feeling that I had seen the creative quality; which is + supernatural. I had seen what Virgil calls the Old Man of the Forest: I + had seen an elf. The trees thronged behind my path; I have never seen him + again; and now I shall not see him, because he died last Tuesday. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"></a> +XXII. The Orthodox Barber</h2> + <p> + Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love + of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it + would, if they had it. There is a very real thing which may be called the + love of humanity; in our time it exists almost entirely among what are + called uneducated people; and it does not exist at all among the people + who talk about it. + </p> + <p> + A positive pleasure in being in the presence of any other human being is + chiefly remarkable, for instance, in the masses on Bank Holiday; that is + why they are so much nearer Heaven (despite appearances) than any other + part of our population. + </p> + <p> + I remember seeing a crowd of factory girls getting into an empty train at + a wayside country station. There were about twenty of them; they all got + into one carriage; and they left all the rest of the train entirely empty. + That is the real love of humanity. That is the definite pleasure in the + immediate proximity of one’s own kind. Only this coarse, rank, real love + of men seems to be entirely lacking in those who propose the love of + humanity as a substitute for all other love; honourable, rationalistic + idealists. + </p> + <p> + I can well remember the explosion of human joy which marked the sudden + starting of that train; all the factory girls who could not find seats + (and they must have been the majority) relieving their feelings by jumping + up and down. Now I have never seen any rationalistic idealists do this. I + have never seen twenty modern philosophers crowd into one third-class + carriage for the mere pleasure of being together. I have never seen twenty + Mr. McCabes all in one carriage and all jumping up and down. + </p> + <p> + Some people express a fear that vulgar trippers will overrun all beautiful + places, such as Hampstead or Burnham Beeches. But their fear is + unreasonable; because trippers always prefer to trip together; they pack + as close as they can; they have a suffocating passion of philanthropy. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But among the minor and milder aspects of the same principle, I have no + hesitation in placing the problem of the colloquial barber. Before any + modern man talks with authority about loving men, I insist (I insist with + violence) that he shall always be very much pleased when his barber tries + to talk to him. His barber is humanity: let him love that. If he is not + pleased at this, I will not accept any substitute in the way of interest + in the Congo or the future of Japan. If a man cannot love his barber whom + he has seen, how shall he love the Japanese whom he has not seen? + </p> + <p> + It is urged against the barber that he begins by talking about the + weather; so do all dukes and diplomatists, only that they talk about it + with ostentatious fatigue and indifference, whereas the barber talks about + it with an astonishing, nay incredible, freshness of interest. It is + objected to him that he tells people that they are going bald. That is to + say, his very virtues are cast up against him; he is blamed because, being + a specialist, he is a sincere specialist, and because, being a tradesman, + he is not entirely a slave. But the only proof of such things is by + example; therefore I will prove the excellence of the conversation of + barbers by a specific case. Lest any one should accuse me of attempting to + prove it by fictitious means, I beg to say quite seriously that though I + forget the exact language employed, the following conversation between me + and a human (I trust), living barber really took place a few days ago. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I had been invited to some At Home to meet the Colonial Premiers, and lest + I should be mistaken for some partly reformed bush-ranger out of the + interior of Australia I went into a shop in the Strand to get shaved. + While I was undergoing the torture the man said to me: + </p> + <p> + “There seems to be a lot in the papers about this new shaving, sir. It + seems you can shave yourself with anything—with a stick or a stone + or a pole or a poker” (here I began for the first time to detect a + sarcastic intonation) “or a shovel or a——” + </p> + <p> + Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing about the + matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical vein. + </p> + <p> + “Or a button-hook,” I said, “or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram or a + piston-rod——” + </p> + <p> + He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, “Or a curtain rod or a + candle-stick, or a——” + </p> + <p> + “Cow-catcher,” I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic duet + for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told me. He + explained the thing eloquently and at length. + </p> + <p> + “The funny part of it is,” he said, “that the thing isn’t new at all. It’s + been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before. There is always + a notion that the razor might be done without somehow. But none of those + schemes ever came to anything; and I don’t believe myself that this will.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, as to that,” I said, rising slowly from the chair and trying to put + on my coat inside out, “I don’t know how it may be in the case of you and + your new shaving. Shaving, with all respect to you, is a trivial and + materialistic thing, and in such things startling inventions are sometimes + made. But what you say reminds me in some dark and dreamy fashion of + something else. I recall it especially when you tell me, with such evident + experience and sincerity, that the new shaving is not really new. My + friend, the human race is always trying this dodge of making everything + entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts off one thing it shifts + on to another. If one man has not the toil of preparing a man’s chin, I + suppose that some other man has the toil of preparing something very + curious to put on a man’s chin. It would be nice if we could be shaved + without troubling anybody. It would be nicer still if we could go unshaved + without annoying anybody— + </p> + +<p class="poem"> + “‘But, O wise friend, chief Barber of the Strand,<br/> + Brother, nor you nor I have made the world.’ +</p> + <p> + “Whoever made it, who is wiser, and we hope better than we, made it under + strange limitations, and with painful conditions of pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “In the first and darkest of its books it is fiercely written that a man + shall not eat his cake and have it; and though all men talked until the + stars were old it would still be true that a man who has lost his razor + could not shave with it. But every now and then men jump up with the new + something or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, + that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there is no real + difference between being shaved and not being shaved. The difference, they + say, is only a difference of degree; everything is evolutionary and + relative. Shavedness is immanent in man. Every ten-penny nail is a + Potential Razor. The superstitious people of the past (they say) believed + that a lot of black bristles standing out at right angles to one’s face + was a positive affair. But the higher criticism teaches us better. + Bristles are merely negative. They are a Shadow where Shaving should be. + </p> + <p> + “Well, it all goes on, and I suppose it all means something. But a baby is + the Kingdom of God, and if you try to kiss a baby he will know whether you + are shaved or not. Perhaps I am mixing up being shaved and being saved; my + democratic sympathies have always led me to drop my ‘h’s.’ In another + moment I may suggest that goats represent the lost because goats have long + beards. This is growing altogether too allegorical. + </p> + <p> + “Nevertheless,” I added, as I paid the bill, “I have really been + profoundly interested in what you told me about the New Shaving. Have you + ever heard of a thing called the New theology?” + </p> + <p> + He smiled and said that he had not. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"></a> +XXIII. The Toy Theatre</h2> + <p> + There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; + and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys takes so + very much more time and trouble than anything else. Playing as children + mean playing is the most serious thing in the world; and as soon as we + have small duties or small sorrows we have to abandon to some extent so + enormous and ambitious a plan of life. We have enough strength for + politics and commerce and art and philosophy; we have not enough strength + for play. This is a truth which every one will recognize who, as a child, + has ever played with anything at all; any one who has played with bricks, + any one who has played with dolls, any one who has played with tin + soldiers. My journalistic work, which earns money, is not pursued with + such awful persistency as that work which earned nothing. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Take the case of bricks. If you publish a book to-morrow in twelve volumes + (it would be just like you) on “The Theory and Practice of European + Architecture,” your work may be laborious, but it is fundamentally + frivolous. It is not serious as the work of a child piling one brick on + the other is serious; for the simple reason that if your book is a bad + book no one will ever be able ultimately and entirely to prove to you that + it is a bad book. Whereas if his balance of bricks is a bad balance of + bricks, it will simply tumble down. And if I know anything of children, he + will set to work solemnly and sadly to build it up again. Whereas, if I + know anything of authors, nothing would induce you to write your book + again, or even to think of it again if you could help it. + </p> + <p> + Take the case of dolls. It is much easier to care for an educational cause + than to care for a doll. It is as easy to write an article on education as + to write an article on toffee or tramcars or anything else. But it is + almost as difficult to look after a doll as to look after a child. The + little girls that I meet in the little streets of Battersea worship their + dolls in a way that reminds one not so much of play as idolatry. In some + cases the love and care of the artistic symbol has actually become more + important than the human reality which it was, I suppose, originally meant + to symbolize. + </p> + <p> + I remember a Battersea little girl who wheeled her large baby sister + stuffed into a doll’s perambulator. When questioned on this course of + conduct, she replied: “I haven’t got a dolly, and Baby is pretending to be + my dolly.” Nature was indeed imitating art. First a doll had been a + substitute for a child; afterwards a child was a mere substitute for a + doll. But that opens other matters; the point is here that such devotion + takes up most of the brain and most of the life; much as if it were really + the thing which it is supposed to symbolize. The point is that the man + writing on motherhood is merely an educationalist; the child playing with + a doll is a mother. + </p> + <p> + Take the case of soldiers. A man writing an article on military strategy + is simply a man writing an article; a horrid sight. But a boy making a + campaign with tin soldiers is like a General making a campaign with live + soldiers. He must to the limit of his juvenile powers think about the + thing; whereas the war correspondent need not think at all. I remember a + war correspondent who remarked after the capture of Methuen: “This renewed + activity on the part of Delarey is probably due to his being short of + stores.” The same military critic had mentioned a few paragraphs before + that Delarey was being hard pressed by a column which was pursuing him + under the command of Methuen. Methuen chased Delarey; and Delarey’s + activity was due to his being short of stores. Otherwise he would have + stood quite still while he was chased. I run after Jones with a hatchet, + and if he turns round and tries to get rid of me the only possible + explanation is that he has a very small balance at his bankers. I cannot + believe that any boy playing at soldiers would be as idiotic as this. But + then any one playing at anything has to be serious. Whereas, as I have + only too good reason to know, if you are writing an article you can say + anything that comes into your head. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Broadly, then, what keeps adults from joining in children’s games is, + generally speaking, not that they have no pleasure in them; it is simply + that they have no leisure for them. It is that they cannot afford the + expenditure of toil and time and consideration for so grand and grave a + scheme. I have been myself attempting for some time past to complete a + play in a small toy theatre, the sort of toy theatre that used to be + called Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured; only that I drew and coloured + the figures and scenes myself. Hence I was free from the degrading + obligation of having to pay either a penny or twopence; I only had to pay + a shilling a sheet for good cardboard and a shilling a box for bad water + colours. The kind of miniature stage I mean is probably familiar to every + one; it is never more than a development of the stage which Skelt made and + Stevenson celebrated. + </p> + <p> + But though I have worked much harder at the toy theatre than I ever worked + at any tale or article, I cannot finish it; the work seems too heavy for + me. I have to break off and betake myself to lighter employments; such as + the biographies of great men. The play of “St. George and the Dragon,” + over which I have burnt the midnight oil (you must colour the thing by + lamplight because that is how it will be seen), still lacks most + conspicuously, alas! two wings of the Sultan’s Palace, and also some + comprehensible and workable way of getting up the curtain. + </p> + <p> + All this gives me a feeling touching the real meaning of immortality. In + this world we cannot have pure pleasure. This is partly because pure + pleasure would be dangerous to us and to our neighbours. But it is partly + because pure pleasure is a great deal too much trouble. If I am ever in + any other and better world, I hope that I shall have enough time to play + with nothing but toy theatres; and I hope that I shall have enough divine + and superhuman energy to act at least one play in them without a hitch. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile the philosophy of toy theatres is worth any one’s consideration. + All the essential morals which modern men need to learn could be deduced + from this toy. Artistically considered, it reminds us of the main + principle of art, the principle which is in most danger of being forgotten + in our time. I mean the fact that art consists of limitation; the fact + that art is limitation. Art does not consist in expanding things. Art + consists of cutting things down, as I cut down with a pair of scissors my + very ugly figures of St. George and the Dragon. Plato, who liked definite + ideas, would like my cardboard dragon; for though the creature has few + other artistic merits he is at least dragonish. The modern philosopher, + who likes infinity, is quite welcome to a sheet of the plain cardboard. + The most artistic thing about the theatrical art is the fact that the + spectator looks at the whole thing through a window. This is true even of + theatres inferior to my own; even at the Court Theatre or His Majesty’s + you are looking through a window; an unusually large window. But the + advantage of the small theatre exactly is that you are looking through a + small window. Has not every one noticed how sweet and startling any + landscape looks when seen through an arch? This strong, square shape, this + shutting off of everything else is not only an assistance to beauty; it is + the essential of beauty. The most beautiful part of every picture is the + frame. + </p> + <p> + This especially is true of the toy theatre; that, by reducing the scale of + events it can introduce much larger events. Because it is small it could + easily represent the earthquake in Jamaica. Because it is small it could + easily represent the Day of Judgment. Exactly in so far as it is limited, + so far it could play easily with falling cities or with falling stars. + Meanwhile the big theatres are obliged to be economical because they are + big. When we have understood this fact we shall have understood something + of the reason why the world has always been first inspired by small + nationalities. The vast Greek philosophy could fit easier into the small + city of Athens than into the immense Empire of Persia. In the narrow + streets of Florence Dante felt that there was room for Purgatory and + Heaven and Hell. He would have been stifled by the British Empire. Great + empires are necessarily prosaic; for it is beyond human power to act a + great poem upon so great a scale. You can only represent very big ideas in + very small spaces. My toy theatre is as philosophical as the drama of + Athens. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"></a> +XXIV. A Tragedy of Twopence</h2> + <p> + My relations with the readers of this page have been long and pleasant, + but—perhaps for that very reason—I feel that the time has come + when I ought to confess the one great crime of my life. It happened a long + time ago; but it is not uncommon for a belated burst of remorse to reveal + such dark episodes long after they have occurred. It has nothing to do + with the orgies of the Anti-Puritan League. That body is so offensively + respectable that a newspaper, in describing it the other day, referred to + my friend Mr. Edgar Jepson as Canon Edgar Jepson; and it is believed that + similar titles are intended for all of us. No; it is not by the conduct of + Archbishop Crane, of Dean Chesterton, of the Rev. James Douglas, of + Monsignor Bland, and even of that fine and virile old ecclesiastic, + Cardinal Nesbit, that I wish (or rather, am driven by my conscience) to + make this declaration. The crime was committed in solitude and without + accomplices. Alone I did it. Let me, with the characteristic thirst of + penitents to get the worst of the confession over, state it first of all + in its most dreadful and indefensible form. There is at the present moment + in a town in Germany (unless he has died of rage on discovering his + wrong), a restaurant-keeper to whom I still owe twopence. I last left his + open-air restaurant knowing that I owed him twopence. I carried it away + under his nose, despite the fact that the nose was a decidedly Jewish one. + I have never paid him, and it is highly improbable that I ever shall. How + did this villainy come to occur in a life which has been, generally + speaking, deficient in the dexterity necessary for fraud? The story is as + follows—and it has a moral, though there may not be room for that. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + It is a fair general rule for those travelling on the Continent that the + easiest way of talking in a foreign language is to talk philosophy. The + most difficult kind of talking is to talk about common necessities. The + reason is obvious. The names of common necessities vary completely with + each nation and are generally somewhat odd and quaint. How, for instance, + could a Frenchman suppose that a coalbox would be called a “scuttle”? If + he has ever seen the word scuttle it has been in the Jingo Press, where + the “policy of scuttle” is used whenever we give up something to a small + Power like Liberals, instead of giving up everything to a great Power, + like Imperialists. What Englishman in Germany would be poet enough to + guess that the Germans call a glove a “hand-shoe.” Nations name their + necessities by nicknames, so to speak. They call their tubs and stools by + quaint, elvish, and almost affectionate names, as if they were their own + children! But any one can argue about abstract things in a foreign + language who has ever got as far as Exercise IV. in a primer. For as soon + as he can put a sentence together at all he finds that the words used in + abstract or philosophical discussions are almost the same in all nations. + They are the same, for the simple reason that they all come from the + things that were the roots of our common civilisation. From Christianity, + from the Roman Empire, from the mediaeval Church, or the French + Revolution. “Nation,” “citizen,” “religion,” “philosophy,” “authority,” + “the Republic,” words like these are nearly the same in all the countries + in which we travel. Restrain, therefore, your exuberant admiration for the + young man who can argue with six French atheists when he first lands at + Dieppe. Even I can do that. But very likely the same young man does not + know the French for a shoe-horn. But to this generalisation there are + three great exceptions. (1) In the case of countries that are not European + at all, and have never had our civic conceptions, or the old Latin + scholarship. I do not pretend that the Patagonian phrase for “citizenship” + at once leaps to the mind, or that a Dyak’s word for “the Republic” has + been familiar to me from the nursery. (2) In the case of Germany, where, + although the principle does apply to many words such as “nation” and + “philosophy,” it does not apply so generally, because Germany has had a + special and deliberate policy of encouraging the purely German part of its + language. (3) In the case where one does not know any of the language at + all, as is generally the case with me. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Such at least was my situation on the dark day on which I committed my + crime. Two of the exceptional conditions which I have mentioned were + combined. I was walking about a German town, and I knew no German. I knew, + however, two or three of those great and solemn words which hold our + European civilisation together—one of which is “cigar.” As it was a + hot and dreamy day, I sat down at a table in a sort of beer-garden, and + ordered a cigar and a pot of lager. I drank the lager, and paid for it. I + smoked the cigar, forgot to pay for it, and walked away, gazing + rapturously at the royal outline of the Taunus mountains. After about ten + minutes, I suddenly remembered that I had not paid for the cigar. I went + back to the place of refreshment, and put down the money. But the + proprietor also had forgotten the cigar, and he merely said guttural + things in a tone of query, asking me, I suppose, what I wanted. I said + “cigar,” and he gave me a cigar. I endeavoured while putting down the + money to wave away the cigar with gestures of refusal. He thought that my + rejection was of the nature of a condemnation of that particular cigar, + and brought me another. I whirled my arms like a windmill, seeking to + convey by the sweeping universality of my gesture that my rejection was a + rejection of cigars in general, not of that particular article. He mistook + this for the ordinary impatience of common men, and rushed forward, his + hands filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing them upon me. In + desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the more cigars I + refused the more and more rare and precious cigars were brought out of the + deeps and recesses of the establishment. I tried in vain to think of a way + of conveying to him the fact that I had already had the cigar. I imitated + the action of a citizen smoking, knocking off and throwing away a cigar. + The watchful proprietor only thought I was rehearsing (as in an ecstasy of + anticipation) the joys of the cigar he was going to give me. At last I + retired baffled: he would not take the money and leave the cigars alone. + So that this restaurant-keeper (in whose face a love of money shone like + the sun at noonday) flatly and firmly refused to receive the twopence that + I certainly owed him; and I took that twopence of his away with me and + rioted on it for months. I hope that on the last day the angels will break + the truth very gently to that unhappy man. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + This is the true and exact account of the Great Cigar Fraud, and the moral + of it is this—that civilisation is founded upon abstractions. The + idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed by physical motions at all, + because it is an abstract idea. And civilisation obviously would be + nothing without debt. So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific + sociology (which does not exist) come and tell you that civilisation is + material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourselves how many of + the things that make up our Society, the Law, or the Stocks and Shares, or + the National Debt, you would be able to convey with your face and your ten + fingers by grinning and gesticulating to a German innkeeper. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"></a> +XXV. A Cab Ride Across Country</h2> + <p> + Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there lies a + village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, but of + eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, which asked the present writer to + come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address. + </p> + <p> + Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon, + owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws and customs + have fallen in connection with the seventh day. It is not Puritanism; it + is simply anarchy. I should have some sympathy with the Jewish Sabbath, if + it were a Jewish Sabbath, and that for three reasons; first, that religion + is an intrinsically sympathetic thing; second, that I cannot conceive any + religion worth calling a religion without a fixed and material observance; + and third, that the particular observance of sitting still and doing no + work is one that suits my temperament down to the ground. + </p> + <p> + But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it does not let + a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him up when it has forced him + to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism does not forbid us to ask a man in + Battersea to come and talk in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his getting + there. I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with joys, with + flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. I can understand that a + deity might be worshipped with sorrows. But I cannot imagine any deity + being worshipped with inconveniences. Let the good Moslem go to Mecca, or + let him abide in his tent, according to his feelings for religious + symbols. But surely Allah cannot see anything particularly dignified in + his servant being misled by the time-table, finding that the old Mecca + express is not running, missing his connection at Bagdad, or having to + wait three hours in a small side station outside Damascus. + </p> + <p> + So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph service + at all to this place; I found there was only one weak thread of + train-service. Now if this had been the authority of real English + religion, I should have submitted to it at once. If I believed that the + telegraph clerk could not send the telegram because he was at that moment + rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, I should think all telegrams unimportant in + comparison. If I could believe that railway porters when relieved from + their duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of worship, I should + say that all lectures and everything else ought to give way to such a + consideration. I should not complain if the national faith forbade me to + make any appointments of labour or self-expression on the Sabbath. But, as + it is, it only tells me that I may very probably keep the Sabbath by not + keeping the appointment. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there was only + one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could even get within + several hours or several miles of the time or place. I therefore went to + the telephone, which is one of my favourite toys, and down which I have + shouted many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon art and + morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered that one + could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be cut off, but + I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the advancement of + our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer words than usual, + and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a taxi-cab to take me + to the railway station. I have not a word to say in general either against + telephones or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two of the purest and most poetic + of the creations of modern scientific civilisation. Unfortunately, when + the taxi-cab started, it did exactly what modern scientific civilisation + has done—it broke down. The result of this was that when I arrived + at King’s Cross my only train was gone; there was a Sabbath calm in the + station, a calm in the eyes of the porters, and in my breast, if calm at + all, if any calm, a calm despair. + </p> + <p> + There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my breast on first + making the discovery; and it was turned to blinding horror when I learnt + that I could not even send a telegram to the organisers of the meeting. To + leave my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; to leave + them without any intimation was simply low. I reasoned with the official. + I said: “Do you really mean to say that if my brother were dying and my + mother in this place, I could not communicate with her?” He was a man of + literal and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was dying. I + answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health, but that I + was inquiring upon a question of principle. What would happen if England + were invaded, or if I alone knew how to turn aside a comet or an + earthquake. He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible + spirit, but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this + particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element of the + outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang up ungovernable, + and I decided that I would not be a cad merely because some of my remote + ancestors had been Calvinists. I would keep my appointment if I lost all + my money and all my wits. I went out into the quiet London street, where + my quiet London cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty + morning. I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the London + driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. And he did. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful whether, even in a + motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver, + not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road. I + urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, but he said + (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate sense of adventure) + that he would rather do it when we arrived—if we ever did. I was by + no means so delicate; I bought a varied selection of pork-pies at a little + shop that was open (why was that shop open?—it is all a mystery), + and ate them as we went along. The beginning was sombre and irritating. I + was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a baby; with the motor + for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday. And the sight of the + northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did not decrease, my gloom: + Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness in its squalor; Battersea and + Camberwell have an indescribable bustle of democracy; but the poor parts + of North London... well, perhaps I saw them wrongly under that ashen + morning and on that foolish errand. + </p> + <p> + It was one of those days which more than once this year broke the retreat + of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. We were already + clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace through a + borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, when the grey + showed golden patches and a good light began to glitter on everything. The + cab went quicker and quicker. The open land whirled wider and wider; but I + did not lose my sense of being battled with and thwarted that I had felt + in the thronged slums. Rather the feeling increased, because of the great + difficulty of space and time. The faster went the car, the fiercer and + thicker I felt the fight. + </p> + <p> + The whole landscape seemed charging at me—and just missing me. The + tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; the very trees seemed + like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving it by a hair’s breadth. Across + some vast, smooth valley I saw a beech-tree by the white road stand up + little and defiant. It grew bigger and bigger with blinding rapidity. It + charged me like a tilting knight, seemed to hack at my head, and pass by. + Sometimes when we went round a curve of road, the effect was yet more + awful. It seemed as if some tree or windmill swung round to smite like a + boomerang. The sun by this time was a blazing fact; and I saw that all + Nature is chivalrous and militant. We do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we + should rather seek the nobler sort of war; and see all the trees as green + banners. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was deciding to leave. + When my cab came reeling into the market-place they decided, with evident + disappointment, to remain. Over the lecture I draw a veil. When I came + back home I was called to the telephone, and a meek voice expressed regret + for the failure of the motor-cab, and even said something about any + reasonable payment. “Whom can I pay for my own superb experience? What is + the usual charge for seeing the clouds shattered by the sun? What is the + market price of a tree blue on the sky-line and then blinding white in the + sun? Mention your price for that windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks + in the garden. Let me pay you for...” Here it was, I think, that we were + cut off. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"></a> +XXVI. The Two Noises</h2> + <p> + For three days and three nights the sea had charged England as Napoleon + charged her at Waterloo. The phrase is instinctive, because away to the + last grey line of the sea there was only the look of galloping squadrons, + impetuous, but with a common purpose. The sea came on like cavalry, and + when it touched the shore it opened the blazing eyes and deafening tongues + of the artillery. I saw the worst assault at night on a seaside parade + where the sea smote on the doors of England with the hammers of + earthquake, and a white smoke went up into the black heavens. There one + could thoroughly realise what an awful thing a wave really is. I talk like + other people about the rushing swiftness of a wave. But the horrible thing + about a wave is its hideous slowness. It lifts its load of water + laboriously: in that style at once slow and slippery in which a Titan + might lift a load of rock and then let it slip at last to be shattered + into shock of dust. In front of me that night the waves were not like + water: they were like falling city walls. The breaker rose first as if it + did not wish to attack the earth; it wished only to attack the stars. For + a time it stood up in the air as naturally as a tower; then it went a + little wrong in its outline, like a tower that might some day fall. When + it fell it was as if a powder magazine blew up. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I have never seen such a sea. All the time there blew across the land one + of those stiff and throttling winds that one can lean up against like a + wall. One expected anything to be blown out of shape at any instant; the + lamp-post to be snapped like a green stalk, the tree to be whirled away + like a straw. I myself should certainly have been blown out of shape if I + had possessed any shape to be blown out of; for I walked along the edge of + the stone embankment above the black and battering sea and could not rid + myself of the idea that it was an invasion of England. But as I walked + along this edge I was somewhat surprised to find that as I neared a + certain spot another noise mingled with the ceaseless cannonade of the + sea. + </p> + <p> + Somewhere at the back, in some pleasure ground or casino or place of + entertainment, an undaunted brass band was playing against the cosmic + uproar. I do not know what band it was. Judging from the boisterous + British Imperialism of most of the airs it played, I should think it was a + German band. But there was no doubt about its energy, and when I came + quite close under it it really drowned the storm. It was playing such + things as “Tommy Atkins” and “You Can Depend on Young Australia,” and many + others of which I do not know the words, but I should think they would be + “John, Pat, and Mac, With the Union Jack,” or that fine though unwritten + poem, “Wait till the Bull Dog gets a bite of you.” Now, I for one detest + Imperialism, but I have a great deal of sympathy with Jingoism. And there + seemed something so touching about this unbroken and innocent bragging + under the brutal menace of Nature that it made, if I may so put it, two + tunes in my mind. It is so obvious and so jolly to be optimistic about + England, especially when you are an optimist—and an Englishman. But + through all that glorious brass came the voice of the invasion, the + undertone of that awful sea. I did a foolish thing. As I could not express + my meaning in an article, I tried to express it in a poem—a bad one. + You can call it what you like. It might be called “Doubt,” or “Brighton.” + It might be called “The Patriot,” or yet again “The German Band.” I would + call it “The Two Voices,” but that title has been taken for a grossly + inferior poem. This is how it began— + </p> +<p class="poem"> + “They say the sun is on your knees<br/> + A lamp to light your lands from harm,<br/> + They say you turn the seven seas<br/> + To little brooks about your farm.<br/> + I hear the sea and the new song<br/> + that calls you empress all day long.<br/> +<br/> + “(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie<br/> + Dying in swamps—you shall not die,<br/> + Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust,<br/> + Your poor are chased about like dust,<br/> + Emptied of anger and surprise—<br/> + And God has gone out of their eyes,<br/> + Your cohorts break—your captains lie,<br/> + I say to you, you shall not die.)” + </p> + <p> + Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there is an English + country that the Imperialists have never found. The British Empire may + annex what it likes, it will never annex England. It has not even + discovered the island, let alone conquered it. I took up the two tunes + again with a greater sympathy for the first— + </p> +<p class="poem"> + “I know the bright baptismal rains,<br/> + I love your tender troubled skies,<br/> + I know your little climbing lanes,<br/> + Are peering into Paradise,<br/> + From open hearth to orchard cool,<br/> + How bountiful and beautiful.<br/> +<br/> + “(O throttled and without a cry,<br/> + O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die,<br/> + The frightful word is on your walls,<br/> + The east sea to the west sea calls,<br/> + The stars are dying in the sky,<br/> + You shall not die; you shall not die.)” + </p> + <p> + Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the peril + of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. It is their + fault if the last verse was written a little rudely and at random— + </p> +<p class="poem"> + “I see you how you smile in state<br/> + Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar,<br/> + You need not tell me you are great,<br/> + I know how more than great you are.<br/> + I know what William Shakespeare was,<br/> + I have seen Gainsborough and the grass.<br/> +<br/> + “(O given to believe a lie,<br/> + O my mad mother, do do not die,<br/> + Whose eyes turn all ways but within,<br/> + Whose sin is innocence of sin,<br/> + Whose eyes, blinded with beams at noon,<br/> + Can see the motes upon the moon,<br/> + You shall your lover still pursue.<br/> + To what last madhouse shelters you<br/> + I will uphold you, even I.<br/> + You that are dead. You shall not die.)” + </p> + <p> + But the sea would not stop for me any more than for Canute; and as for the + German band, that would not stop for anybody. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"></a> +XXVII. Some Policemen and a Moral</h2> + <p> + The other day I was nearly arrested by two excited policemen in a wood in + Yorkshire. I was on a holiday, and was engaged in that rich and intricate + mass of pleasures, duties, and discoveries which for the keeping off of + the profane, we disguise by the exoteric name of Nothing. At the moment in + question I was throwing a big Swedish knife at a tree, practising (alas, + without success) that useful trick of knife-throwing by which men murder + each other in Stevenson’s romances. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the forest was full of two policemen; there was something about + their appearance in and relation to the greenwood that reminded me, I know + not how, of some happy Elizabethan comedy. They asked what the knife was, + who I was, why I was throwing it, what my address was, trade, religion, + opinions on the Japanese war, name of favourite cat, and so on. They also + said I was damaging the tree; which was, I am sorry to say, not true, + because I could not hit it. The peculiar philosophical importance, + however, of the incident was this. After some half-hour’s animated + conversation, the exhibition of an envelope, an unfinished poem, which was + read with great care, and, I trust, with some profit, and one or two other + subtle detective strokes, the elder of the two knights became convinced + that I really was what I professed to be, that I was a journalist, that I + was on the DAILY NEWS (this was the real stroke; they were shaken with a + terror common to all tyrants), that I lived in a particular place as + stated, and that I was stopping with particular people in Yorkshire, who + happened to be wealthy and well-known in the neighbourhood. + </p> + <p> + In fact the leading constable became so genial and complimentary at last + that he ended up by representing himself as a reader of my work. And when + that was said, everything was settled. They acquitted me and let me pass. + </p> + <p> + “But,” I said, “what of this mangled tree? It was to the rescue of that + Dryad, tethered to the earth, that you rushed like knight-errants. You, + the higher humanitarians, are not deceived by the seeming stillness of the + green things, a stillness like the stillness of the cataract, a headlong + and crashing silence. You know that a tree is but a creature tied to the + ground by one leg. You will not let assassins with their Swedish daggers + shed the green blood of such a being. But if so, why am I not in custody; + where are my gyves? Produce, from some portion of your persons, my mouldy + straw and my grated window. The facts of which I have just convinced you, + that my name is Chesterton, that I am a journalist, that I am living with + the well-known and philanthropic Mr. Blank of Ilkley, cannot have anything + to do with the question of whether I have been guilty of cruelty to + vegetables. The tree is none the less damaged even though it may reflect + with a dark pride that it was wounded by a gentleman connected with the + Liberal press. Wounds in the bark do not more rapidly close up because + they are inflicted by people who are stopping with Mr. Blank of Ilkley. + That tree, the ruin of its former self, the wreck of what was once a giant + of the forest, now splintered and laid low by the brute superiority of a + Swedish knife, that tragedy, constable, cannot be wiped out even by + stopping for several months more with some wealthy person. It is + incredible that you have no legal claim to arrest even the most august and + fashionable persons on this charge. For if so, why did you interfere with + me at all?” + </p> + <p> + I made the later and larger part of this speech to the silent wood, for + the two policemen had vanished almost as quickly as they came. It is very + possible, of course, that they were fairies. In that case the somewhat + illogical character of their view of crime, law, and personal + responsibility would find a bright and elfish explanation; perhaps if I + had lingered in the glade till moonrise I might have seen rings of tiny + policemen dancing on the sward; or running about with glow-worm belts, + arresting grasshoppers for damaging blades of grass. But taking the bolder + hypothesis, that they really were policemen, I find myself in a certain + difficulty. I was certainly accused of something which was either an + offence or was not. I was let off because I proved I was a guest at a big + house. The inference seems painfully clear; either it is not a proof of + infamy to throw a knife about in a lonely wood, or else it is a proof of + innocence to know a rich man. Suppose a very poor person, poorer even than + a journalist, a navvy or unskilled labourer, tramping in search of work, + often changing his lodgings, often, perhaps, failing in his rent. Suppose + he had been intoxicated with the green gaiety of the ancient wood. Suppose + he had thrown knives at trees and could give no description of a + dwelling-place except that he had been fired out of the last. As I walked + home through a cloudy and purple twilight I wondered how he would have got + on. + </p> + <p> + Moral. We English are always boasting that we are very illogical; there is + no great harm in that. There is no subtle spiritual evil in the fact that + people always brag about their vices; it is when they begin to brag about + their virtues that they become insufferable. But there is this to be said, + that illogicality in your constitution or your legal methods may become + very dangerous if there happens to be some great national vice or national + temptation which many take advantage of the chaos. Similarly, a drunkard + ought to have strict rules and hours; a temperate man may obey his + instincts. + </p> + <p> + Take some absurd anomaly in the British law—the fact, for instance, + that a man ceasing to be an M. P. has to become Steward of the Chiltern + Hundreds, an office which I believe was intended originally to keep down + some wild robbers near Chiltern, wherever that is. Obviously this kind of + illogicality does not matter very much, for the simple reason that there + is no great temptation to take advantage of it. Men retiring from + Parliament do not have any furious impulse to hunt robbers in the hills. + But if there were a real danger that wise, white-haired, venerable + politicians taking leave of public life would desire to do this (if, for + instance, there were any money in it), then clearly, if we went on saying + that the illogicality did not matter, when (as a matter of fact) Sir + Michael Hicks-Beach was hanging Chiltern shop-keepers every day and taking + their property, we should be very silly. The illogicality would matter, + for it would have become an excuse for indulgence. It is only the very + good who can live riotous lives. + </p> + <p> + Now this is exactly what is present in cases of police investigation such + as the one narrated above. There enters into such things a great national + sin, a far greater sin than drink—the habit of respecting a + gentleman. Snobbishness has, like drink, a kind of grand poetry. And + snobbishness has this peculiar and devilish quality of evil, that it is + rampant among very kindly people, with open hearts and houses. But it is + our great English vice; to be watched more fiercely than small-pox. If a + man wished to hear the worst and wickedest thing in England summed up in + casual English words, he would not find it in any foul oaths or ribald + quarrelling. He would find it in the fact that the best kind of working + man, when he wishes to praise any one, calls him “a gentleman.” It never + occurs to him that he might as well call him “a marquis,” or “a privy + councillor”—that he is simply naming a rank or class, not a phrase + for a good man. And this perennial temptation to a shameful admiration, + must, and, I think, does, constantly come in and distort and poison our + police methods. + </p> + <p> + In this case we must be logical and exact; for we have to keep watch upon + ourselves. The power of wealth, and that power at its vilest, is + increasing in the modern world. A very good and just people, without this + temptation, might not need, perhaps, to make clear rules and systems to + guard themselves against the power of our great financiers. But that is + because a very just people would have shot them long ago, from mere native + good feeling. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"></a> +XXVIII. The Lion</h2> + <p> + In the town of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We + talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is the + man in the street. Things quite central for him are connected with these + lamp-posts and pavements; everything from his meals to his martyrdoms. + When first an Englishman looks at a French town or village his first + feeling is simply that it is uglier than an English town or village; when + he looks again he sees that this comparative absence of the picturesque is + chiefly expressed in the plain, precipitous frontage of the houses + standing up hard and flat out of the street like the cardboard houses in a + pantomime—a hard angularity allied perhaps to the harshness of + French logic. When he looks a third time he sees quite simply that it is + all because the houses have no front gardens. The vague English spirit + loves to have the entrance to its house softened by bushes and broken by + steps. It likes to have a little anteroom of hedges half in the house and + half out of it; a green room in a double sense. The Frenchman desires no + such little pathetic ramparts or halting places, for the street itself is + a thing natural and familiar to him. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The French have no front gardens; but the street is every man’s front + garden. There are trees in the street, and sometimes fountains. The street + is the Frenchman’s tavern, for he drinks in the street. It is his + dining-room, for he dines in the street. It is his British Museum, for the + statues and monuments in French streets are not, as with us, of the worst, + but of the best, art of the country, and they are often actually as + historical as the Pyramids. The street again is the Frenchman’s + Parliament, for France has never taken its Chamber of Deputies so + seriously as we take our House of Commons, and the quibbles of mere + elected nonentities in an official room seem feeble to a people whose + fathers have heard the voice of Desmoulins like a trumpet under open + heaven, or Victor Hugo shouting from his carriage amid the wreck of the + second Republic. And as the Frenchman drinks in the street and dines in + the street so also he fights in the street and dies in the street, so that + the street can never be commonplace to him. + </p> + <p> + Take, for instance, such a simple object as a lamp-post. In London a + lamp-post is a comic thing. We think of the intoxicated gentleman + embracing it, and recalling ancient friendship. But in Paris a lamp-post + is a tragic thing. For we think of tyrants hanged on it, and of an end of + the world. There is, or was, a bitter Republican paper in Paris called LA + LANTERNE. How funny it would be if there were a Progressive paper in + England called THE LAMP POST! We have said, then, that the Frenchman is + the man in the street; that he can dine in the street, and die in the + street. And if I ever pass through Paris and find him going to bed in the + street, I shall say that he is still true to the genius of his + civilisation. All that is good and all that is evil in France is alike + connected with this open-air element. French democracy and French + indecency are alike part of the desire to have everything out of doors. + Compared to a café, a public-house is a private house. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + There were two reasons why all these fancies should float through the mind + in the streets of this especial town of Belfort. First of all, it lies + close upon the boundary of France and Germany, and boundaries are the most + beautiful things in the world. To love anything is to love its boundaries; + thus children will always play on the edge of anything. They build castles + on the edge of the sea, and can only be restrained by public proclamation + and private violence from walking on the edge of the grass. For when we + have come to the end of a thing we have come to the beginning of it. + </p> + <p> + Hence this town seemed all the more French for being on the very margin of + Germany, and although there were many German touches in the place—German + names, larger pots of beer, and enormous theatrical barmaids dressed up in + outrageous imitation of Alsatian peasants—yet the fixed French + colour seemed all the stronger for these specks of something else. All day + long and all night long troops of dusty, swarthy, scornful little soldiers + went plodding through the streets with an air of stubborn disgust, for + German soldiers look as if they despised you, but French soldiers as if + they despised you and themselves even more than you. It is a part, I + suppose, of the realism of the nation which has made it good at war and + science and other things in which what is necessary is combined with what + is nasty. And the soldiers and the civilians alike had most of them + cropped hair, and that curious kind of head which to an Englishman looks + almost brutal, the kind that we call a bullet-head. Indeed, we are + speaking very appropriately when we call it a bullet-head, for in + intellectual history the heads of Frenchmen have been bullets—yes, + and explosive bullets. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But there was a second reason why in this place one should think + particularly of the open-air politics and the open-air art of the French. + For this town of Belfort is famous for one of the most typical and + powerful of the public monuments of France. From the café table at which I + sit I can see the hill beyond the town on which hangs the high and + flat-faced citadel, pierced with many windows, and warmed in the evening + light. On the steep hill below it is a huge stone lion, itself as large as + a hill. It is hacked out of the rock with a sort of gigantic impression. + No trivial attempt has been made to make it like a common statue; no + attempt to carve the mane into curls, or to distinguish the monster + minutely from the earth out of which he rises, shaking the world. The face + of the lion has something of the bold conventionality of Assyrian art. The + mane of the lion is left like a shapeless cloud of tempest, as if it might + literally be said of him that God had clothed his neck with thunder. Even + at this distance the thing looks vast, and in some sense prehistoric. Yet + it was carved only a little while ago. It commemorates the fact that this + town was never taken by the Germans through all the terrible year, but + only laid down its arms at last at the command of its own Government. But + the spirit of it has been in this land from the beginning—the spirit + of something defiant and almost defeated. + </p> + <p> + As I leave this place and take the railway into Germany the news comes + thicker and thicker up the streets that Southern France is in a flame, and + that there perhaps will be fought out finally the awful modern battle of + the rich and poor. And as I pass into quieter places for the last sign of + France on the sky-line, I see the Lion of Belfort stand at bay, the last + sight of that great people which has never been at peace. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"></a> +XXIX. Humanity: an Interlude</h2> + <p> + Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, the + City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything noble cut + out, and everything nasty left in. No one can understand Paris and its + history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and + justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it + may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is + also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite + ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are + martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. For the + indecency of many of their books and papers is not of the sort which + charms and seduces, but of the sort that horrifies and hurts; they are + torturing themselves. They lash their own patriotism into life with the + same whips which most men use to lash foreigners to silence. The enemies + of France can never give an account of her infamy or decay which does not + seem insipid and even polite compared with the things which the + Nationalists of France say about their own nation. They taunt and torment + themselves; sometimes they even deliberately oppress themselves. Thus, + when the mob of Paris could make a Government to please itself, it made a + sort of sublime tyranny to order itself about. The spirit is the same from + the Crusades or St. Bartholomew to the apotheosis of Zola. The old + religionists tortured men physically for a moral truth. The new realists + torture men morally for a physical truth. + </p> + <p> + Now Brussels is Paris without this constant purification of pain. Its + indecencies are not regrettable incidents in an everlasting revolution. It + has none of the things which make good Frenchmen love Paris; it has only + the things which make unspeakable Englishmen love it. It has the part + which is cosmopolitan—and narrow; not the part which is Parisian—and + universal. You can find there (as commonly happens in modern centres) the + worst things of all nations—the <i>Daily Mail</i> from England, the cheap + philosophies from Germany, the loose novels of France, and the drinks of + America. But there is no English broad fun, no German kindly ceremony, no + American exhilaration, and, above all, no French tradition of fighting for + an idea. Though all the boulevards look like Parisian boulevards, though + all the shops look like Parisian shops, you cannot look at them steadily + for two minutes without feeling the full distance between, let us say, + King Leopold and fighters like Clemenceau and Deroulède. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + For all these reasons, and many more, when I had got into Brussels I began + to make all necessary arrangements for getting out of it again; and I had + impulsively got into a tram which seemed to be going out of the city. In + this tram there were two men talking; one was a little man with a black + French beard; the other was a baldish man with bushy whiskers, like the + financial foreign count in a three-act farce. And about the time that we + reached the suburb of the city, and the traffic grew thinner, and the + noises more few, I began to hear what they were saying. Though they spoke + French quickly, their words were fairly easy to follow, because they were + all long words. Anybody can understand long words because they have in + them all the lucidity of Latin. + </p> + <p> + The man with the black beard said: “It must that we have the Progress.” + </p> + <p> + The man with the whiskers parried this smartly by saying: “It must also + that we have the Consolidation International.” + </p> + <p> + This is a sort of discussion which I like myself, so I listened with some + care, and I think I picked up the thread of it. One of the Belgians was a + Little Belgian, as we speak of a Little Englander. The other was a Belgian + Imperialist, for though Belgium is not quite strong enough to be + altogether a nation, she is quite strong enough to be an empire. Being a + nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being an empire only + means kicking your inferiors. The man with whiskers was the Imperialist, + and he was saying: “The science, behold there the new guide of humanity.” + </p> + <p> + And the man with the beard answered him: “It does not suffice to have + progress in the science; one must have it also in the sentiment of the + human justice.” + </p> + <p> + This remark I applauded, as if at a public meeting, but they were much too + keen on their argument to hear me. The views I have often heard in + England, but never uttered so lucidly, and certainly never so fast. Though + Belgian by nation they must both have been essentially French. Whiskers + was great on education, which, it seems, is on the march. All the world + goes to make itself instructed. It must that the more instructed enlighten + the less instructed. Eh, well then, the European must impose upon the + savage the science and the light. Also (apparently) he must impose himself + on the savage while he is about it. To-day one travelled quickly. The + science had changed all. For our fathers, they were religious, and (what + was worse) dead. To-day humanity had electricity to the hand; the machines + came from triumphing; all the lines and limits of the globe effaced + themselves. Soon there would not be but the great Empires and + confederations, guided by the science, always the science. + </p> + <p> + Here Whiskers stopped an instant for breath; and the man with the + sentiment for human justice had “la parole” off him in a flash. Without + doubt Humanity was on the march, but towards the sentiments, the ideal, + the methods moral and pacific. Humanity directed itself towards Humanity. + For your wars and empires on behalf of civilisation, what were they in + effect? The war, was it not itself an affair of the barbarism? The Empires + were they not things savage? The Humanity had passed all that; she was now + intellectual. Tolstoy had refined all human souls with the sentiments the + most delicate and just. Man was become a spirit; the wings pushed.... + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + At this important point of evolution the tram came to a jerky stoppage; + and staring around I found, to my stunned consternation, that it was + almost dark, that I was far away from Brussels, that I could not dream of + getting back to dinner; in short, that through the clinging fascination of + this great controversy on Humanity and its recent complete alteration by + science or Tolstoy, I had landed myself Heaven knows where. I dropped + hastily from the suburban tram and let it go on without me. + </p> + <p> + I was alone in the flat fields out of sight of the city. On one side of + the road was one of those small, thin woods which are common in all + countries, but of which, by a coincidence, the mystical painters of + Flanders were very fond. The night was closing in with cloudy purple and + grey; there was one ribbon of silver, the last rag of the sunset. Through + the wood went one little path, and somehow it suggested that it might lead + to some sign of life—there was no other sign of life on the horizon. + I went along it, and soon sank into a sort of dancing twilight of all + those tiny trees. There is something subtle and bewildering about that + sort of frail and fantastic wood. A forest of big trees seems like a + bodily barrier; but somehow that mist of thin lines seems like a spiritual + barrier. It is as if one were caught in a fairy cloud or could not pass a + phantom. When I had well lost the last gleam of the high road a curious + and definite feeling came upon me. Now I suddenly felt something much more + practical and extraordinary—the absence of humanity: inhuman + loneliness. Of course, there was nothing really lost in my state; but the + mood may hit one anywhere. I wanted men—any men; and I felt our + awful alliance over all the globe. And at last, when I had walked for what + seemed a long time, I saw a light too near the earth to mean anything + except the image of God. + </p> + <p> + I came out on a clear space and a low, long cottage, the door of which was + open, but was blocked by a big grey horse, who seemed to prefer to eat + with his head inside the sitting-room. I got past him, and found he was + being fed by a young man who was sitting down and drinking beer inside, + and who saluted me with heavy rustic courtesy, but in a strange tongue. + The room was full of staring faces like owls, and these I traced at length + as belonging to about six small children. Their father was still working + in the fields, but their mother rose when I entered. She smiled, but she + and all the rest spoke some rude language, Flamand, I suppose; so that we + had to be kind to each other by signs. She fetched me beer, and pointed + out my way with her finger; and I drew a picture to please the children; + and as it was a picture of two men hitting each other with swords, it + pleased them very much. Then I gave a Belgian penny to each child, for as + I said on chance in French, “It must be that we have the economic + equality.” But they had never heard of economic equality, while all + Battersea workmen have heard of economic equality, though it is true that + they haven’t got it. + </p> + <p> + I found my way back to the city, and some time afterwards I actually saw + in the street my two men talking, no doubt still saying, one that Science + had changed all in Humanity, and the other that Humanity was now pushing + the wings of the purely intellectual. But for me Humanity was hooked on to + an accidental picture. I thought of a low and lonely house in the flats, + behind a veil or film of slight trees, a man breaking the ground as men + have broken from the first morning, and a huge grey horse champing his + food within a foot of a child’s head, as in the stable where Christ was + born. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"></a> +XXX. The Little Birds Who Won’t Sing</h2> + <p> + On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that in a few hours I + should be in England, my eye fell upon one of the details of Gothic + carving of which Flanders is full. I do not know whether the thing is old, + though it was certainly knocked about and indecipherable, but at least it + was certainly in the style and tradition of the early Middle Ages. It + seemed to represent men bending themselves (not to say twisting + themselves) to certain primary employments. Some seemed to be sailors + tugging at ropes; others, I think, were reaping; others were energetically + pouring something into something else. This is entirely characteristic of + the pictures and carvings of the early thirteenth century, perhaps the + most purely vigorous time in all history. The great Greeks preferred to + carve their gods and heroes doing nothing. Splendid and philosophic as + their composure is there is always about it something that marks the + master of many slaves. But if there was one thing the early mediaevals + liked it was representing people doing something—hunting or hawking, + or rowing boats, or treading grapes, or making shoes, or cooking something + in a pot. “Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira voluptas.” (I quote + from memory.) The Middle Ages is full of that spirit in all its monuments + and manuscripts. Chaucer retains it in his jolly insistence on everybody’s + type of trade and toil. It was the earliest and youngest resurrection of + Europe, the time when social order was strengthening, but had not yet + become oppressive; the time when religious faiths were strong, but had not + yet been exasperated. For this reason the whole effect of Greek and Gothic + carving is different. The figures in the Elgin marbles, though often + reining their steeds for an instant in the air, seem frozen for ever at + that perfect instant. But a mass of mediaeval carving seems actually a + sort of bustle or hubbub in stone. Sometimes one cannot help feeling that + the groups actually move and mix, and the whole front of a great cathedral + has the hum of a huge hive. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But about these particular figures there was a peculiarity of which I + could not be sure. Those of them that had any heads had very curious + heads, and it seemed to me that they had their mouths open. Whether or no + this really meant anything or was an accident of nascent art I do not + know; but in the course of wondering I recalled to my mind the fact that + singing was connected with many of the tasks there suggested, that there + were songs for reapers and songs for sailors hauling ropes. I was still + thinking about this small problem when I walked along the pier at Ostend; + and I heard some sailors uttering a measured shout as they laboured, and I + remembered that sailors still sing in chorus while they work, and even + sing different songs according to what part of their work they are doing. + And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was over, the sight of + men working in the English fields reminded me again that there are still + songs for harvest and for many agricultural routines. And I suddenly + wondered why if this were so it should be quite unknown, for any modern + trade to have a ritual poetry. How did people come to chant rude poems + while pulling certain ropes or gathering certain fruit, and why did nobody + do anything of the kind while producing any of the modern things? Why is a + modern newspaper never printed by people singing in chorus? Why do shopmen + seldom, if ever, sing? + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while auditing + and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all the separate things + that have to be done in a boat, why are there not songs for all the + separate things that have to be done in a bank? As the train from Dover + flew through the Kentish gardens, I tried to write a few songs suitable + for commercial gentlemen. Thus, the work of bank clerks when casting up + columns might begin with a thundering chorus in praise of Simple Addition. + </p> + <p> + “Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o’er. Hear the Stars + of Morning shouting: ‘Two and Two are four.’ Though the creeds and realms + are reeling, though the sophists roar, Though we weep and pawn our + watches, Two and Two are Four.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s a run upon the Bank—Stand away! For the Manager’s a crank + and the Secretary drank, and the + </p> +<p class="poem"> + Upper Tooting Bank<br/> + Turns to bay!<br/> + Stand close: there is a run<br/> + On the Bank.<br/> + Of our ship, our royal one, let the ringing legend run,<br/> + That she fired with every gun<br/> + Ere she sank.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + And as I came into the cloud of London I met a friend of mine who actually + is in a bank, and submitted these suggestions in rhyme to him for use + among his colleagues. But he was not very hopeful about the matter. It was + not (he assured me) that he underrated the verses, or in any sense + lamented their lack of polish. No; it was rather, he felt, an indefinable + something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we live that + makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks. And I think he must be + right; though the matter is very mysterious. I may observe here that I + think there must be some mistake in the calculations of the Socialists. + They put down all our distress, not to a moral tone, but to the chaos of + private enterprise. Now, banks are private; but post-offices are + Socialistic: therefore I naturally expected that the post-office would + fall into the collectivist idea of a chorus. Judge of my surprise when the + lady in my local post-office (whom I urged to sing) dismissed the idea + with far more coldness than the bank clerk had done. She seemed indeed, to + be in a considerably greater state of depression than he. Should any one + suppose that this was the effect of the verses themselves, it is only fair + to say that the specimen verse of the Post-Office Hymn ran thus: + </p> +<p class="poem"> + “O’er London our letters are shaken like snow,<br/> + Our wires o’er the world like the thunderbolts go.<br/> + The news that may marry a maiden in Sark,<br/> + Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park.” + </p> + <p> + Chorus (with a swing of joy and energy): + </p> +<p class="poem"> + “Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park.” + </p> + <p> + And the more I thought about the matter the more painfully certain it + seemed that the most important and typical modern things could not be done + with a chorus. One could not, for instance, be a great financier and sing; + because the essence of being a great financier is that you keep quiet. You + could not even in many modern circles be a public man and sing; because in + those circles the essence of being a public man is that you do nearly + everything in private. Nobody would imagine a chorus of money-lenders. + Every one knows the story of the solicitors’ corps of volunteers who, when + the Colonel on the battlefield cried “Charge!” all said simultaneously, + “Six-and-eightpence.” Men can sing while charging in a military, but + hardly in a legal sense. And at the end of my reflections I had really got + no further than the sub-conscious feeling of my friend the bank-clerk—that + there is something spiritually suffocating about our life; not about our + laws merely, but about our life. Bank-clerks are without songs, not + because they are poor, but because they are sad. Sailors are much poorer. + As I passed homewards I passed a little tin building of some religious + sort, which was shaken with shouting as a trumpet is torn with its own + tongue. THEY were singing anyhow; and I had for an instant a fancy I had + often had before: that with us the super-human is the only place where you + can find the human. Human nature is hunted and has fled into sanctuary. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"></a> +XXXI. The Riddle of the Ivy</h2> + <p> + More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, a friend + walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded with half-packed + luggage. + </p> + <p> + “You seem to be off on your travels,” he said. “Where are you going?” + </p> + <p> + With a strap between my teeth I replied, “To Battersea.” + </p> + <p> + “The wit of your remark,” he said, “wholly escapes me.” + </p> + <p> + “I am going to Battersea,” I repeated, “to Battersea viâ Paris, Belfort, + Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained simply + the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once more I + find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, somewhere + in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little island which + I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great white cliffs. + Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch travellers tell me + that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour that somewhere in the + heart of it there is a beautiful place called Battersea.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you,” said my friend, with an air of + intellectual comparison, “that this is Battersea?” + </p> + <p> + “It is quite unnecessary,” I said, “and it is spiritually untrue. I cannot + see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or any England. I cannot + see that door. I cannot see that chair: because a cloud of sleep and + custom has come across my eyes. The only way to get back to them is to go + somewhere else; and that is the real object of travel and the real + pleasure of holidays. Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see + France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? I + shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking. I am seeking + Battersea. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; + it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land. Now I + warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and heavy, and that if you + utter that word ‘paradox’ I shall hurl it at your head. I did not make the + world, and I did not make it paradoxical. It is not my fault, it is the + truth, that the only way to go to England is to go away from it.” + </p> + <p> + But when, after only a month’s travelling, I did come back to England, I + was startled to find that I had told the exact truth. England did break on + me at once beautifully new and beautifully old. To land at Dover is the + right way to approach England (most things that are hackneyed are right), + for then you see first the full, soft gardens of Kent, which are, perhaps, + an exaggeration, but still a typical exaggeration, of the rich rusticity + of England. As it happened, also, a fellow-traveller with whom I had + fallen into conversation felt the same freshness, though for another + cause. She was an American lady who had seen Europe, and had never yet + seen England, and she expressed her enthusiasm in that simple and splendid + way which is natural to Americans, who are the most idealistic people in + the whole world. Their only danger is that the idealist can easily become + the idolator. And the American has become so idealistic that he even + idealises money. But (to quote a very able writer of American short + stories) that is another story. + </p> + <p> + “I have never been in England before,” said the American lady, “yet it is + so pretty that I feel as if I have been away from it for a long time.” + </p> + <p> + “So you have,” I said; “you have been away for three hundred years.” + </p> + <p> + “What a lot of ivy you have,” she said. “It covers the churches and it + buries the houses. We have ivy; but I have never seen it grow like that.” + </p> + <p> + “I am interested to hear it,” I replied, “for I am making a little list of + all the things that are really better in England. Even a month on the + Continent, combined with intelligence, will teach you that there are many + things that are better abroad. All the things that the DAILY MAIL calls + English are better abroad. But there are things entirely English and + entirely good. Kippers, for instance, and Free Trade, and front gardens, + and individual liberty, and the Elizabethan drama, and hansom cabs, and + cricket, and Mr. Will Crooks. Above all, there is the happy and holy + custom of eating a heavy breakfast. I cannot imagine that Shakespeare + began the day with rolls and coffee, like a Frenchman or a German. Surely + he began with bacon or bloaters. In fact, a light bursts upon me; for the + first time I see the real meaning of Mrs. Gallup and the Great Cipher. It + is merely a mistake in the matter of a capital letter. I withdraw my + objections; I accept everything; bacon did write Shakespeare.” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot look at anything but the ivy,” she said, “it looks so + comfortable.” + </p> + <p> + While she looked at the ivy I opened for the first time for many weeks an + English newspaper, and I read a speech of Mr. Balfour in which he said + that the House of Lords ought to be preserved because it represented + something in the nature of permanent public opinion of England, above the + ebb and flow of the parties. Now Mr. Balfour is a perfectly sincere + patriot, a man who, from his own point of view, thinks long and seriously + about the public needs, and he is, moreover, a man of entirely + exceptionable intellectual power. But alas, in spite of all this, when I + had read that speech I thought with a heavy heart that there was one more + thing that I had to add to the list of the specially English things, such + as kippers and cricket; I had to add the specially English kind of humbug. + In France things are attacked and defended for what they are. The Catholic + Church is attacked because it is Catholic, and defended because it is + Catholic. The Republic is defended because it is Republican, and attacked + because it is Republican. But here is the ablest of English politicians + consoling everybody by telling them that the House of Lords is not really + the House of Lords, but something quite different, that the foolish + accidental peers whom he meets every night are in some mysterious way + experts upon the psychology of the democracy; that if you want to know + what the very poor want you must ask the very rich, and that if you want + the truth about Hoxton, you must ask for it at Hatfield. If the + Conservative defender of the House of Lords were a logical French + politician he would simply be a liar. But being an English politician he + is simply a poet. The English love of believing that all is as it should + be, the English optimism combined with the strong English imagination, is + too much even for the obvious facts. In a cold, scientific sense, of + course, Mr. Balfour knows that nearly all the Lords who are not Lords by + accident are Lords by bribery. He knows, and (as Mr. Belloc excellently + said) everybody in Parliament knows the very names of the peers who have + purchased their peerages. But the glamour of comfort, the pleasure of + reassuring himself and reassuring others, is too strong for this original + knowledge; at last it fades from him, and he sincerely and earnestly calls + on Englishmen to join with him in admiring an august and public-spirited + Senate, having wholly forgotten that the Senate really consists of idiots + whom he has himself despised; and adventurers whom he has himself + ennobled. + </p> + <p> + “Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick,” said the American lady, “it + seems to cover almost everything. It must be the most poetical thing in + England.” + </p> + <p> + “It is very beautiful,” I said, “and, as you say, it is very English. + Charles Dickens, who was almost more English than England, wrote one of + his rare poems about the beauty of ivy. Yes, by all means let us admire + the ivy, so deep, so warm, so full of a genial gloom and a grotesque + tenderness. Let us admire the ivy; and let us pray to God in His mercy + that it may not kill the tree.” + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"></a> +XXXII. The Travellers in State</h2> + <p> + The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught a train; it was a train + going into the Eastern Counties, and I only just caught it. And while I + was running along the train (amid general admiration) I noticed that there + were a quite peculiar and unusual number of carriages marked “Engaged.” On + five, six, seven, eight, nine carriages was pasted the little notice: at + five, six, seven, eight, nine windows were big bland men staring out in + the conscious pride of possession. Their bodies seemed more than usually + impenetrable, their faces more than usual placid. It could not be the + Derby, if only for the minor reasons that it was the opposite direction + and the wrong day. It could hardly be the King. It could hardly be the + French President. For, though these distinguished persons naturally like + to be private for three hours, they are at least public for three minutes. + A crowd can gather to see them step into the train; and there was no crowd + here, or any police ceremonial. + </p> + <p> + Who were those awful persons, who occupied more of the train than a + bricklayer’s beanfeast, and yet were more fastidious and delicate than the + King’s own suite? Who were these that were larger than a mob, yet more + mysterious than a monarch? Was it possible that instead of our Royal House + visiting the Tsar, he was really visiting us? Or does the House of Lords + have a breakfast? I waited and wondered until the train slowed down at + some station in the direction of Cambridge. Then the large, impenetrable + men got out, and after them got out the distinguished holders of the + engaged seats. They were all dressed decorously in one colour; they had + neatly cropped hair; and they were chained together. + </p> + <p> + I looked across the carriage at its only other occupant, and our eyes met. + He was a small, tired-looking man, and, as I afterwards learnt, a native + of Cambridge; by the look of him, some working tradesman there, such as a + journeyman tailor or a small clock-mender. In order to make conversation I + said I wondered where the convicts were going. His mouth twitched with the + instinctive irony of our poor, and he said: “I don’t s’pose they’re goin’ + on an ’oliday at the seaside with little spades and pails.” I was + naturally delighted, and, pursuing the same vein of literary invention, I + suggested that perhaps dons were taken down to Cambridge chained together + like this. And as he lived in Cambridge, and had seen several dons, he was + pleased with such a scheme. Then when we had ceased to laugh, we suddenly + became quite silent; and the bleak, grey eyes of the little man grew + sadder and emptier than an open sea. I knew what he was thinking, because + I was thinking the same, because all modern sophists are only sophists, + and there is such a thing as mankind. Then at last (and it fell in as + exactly as the right last note of a tune one is trying to remember) he + said: “Well, I s’pose we ’ave to do it.” And in those three things, his + first speech and his silence and his second speech, there were all the + three great fundamental facts of the English democracy, its profound sense + of humour, its profound sense of pathos, and its profound sense of + helplessness. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + It cannot be too often repeated that all real democracy is an attempt + (like that of a jolly hostess) to bring the shy people out. For every + practical purpose of a political state, for every practical purpose of a + tea-party, he that abaseth himself must be exalted. At a tea-party it is + equally obvious that he that exalteth himself must be abased, if possible + without bodily violence. Now people talk of democracy as being coarse and + turbulent: it is a self-evident error in mere history. Aristocracy is the + thing that is always coarse and turbulent: for it means appealing to the + self-confident people. Democracy means appealing to the different people. + Democracy means getting those people to vote who would never have the + cheek to govern: and (according to Christian ethics) the precise people + who ought to govern are the people who have not the cheek to do it. There + is a strong example of this truth in my friend in the train. The only two + types we hear of in this argument about crime and punishment are two very + rare and abnormal types. + </p> + <p> + We hear of the stark sentimentalist, who talks as if there were no problem + at all: as if physical kindness would cure everything: as if one need only + pat Nero and stroke Ivan the Terrible. This mere belief in bodily + humanitarianism is not sentimental; it is simply snobbish. For if comfort + gives men virtue, the comfortable classes ought to be virtuous—which + is absurd. Then, again, we do hear of the yet weaker and more watery type + of sentimentalists: I mean the sentimentalist who says, with a sort of + splutter, “Flog the brutes!” or who tells you with innocent obscenity + “what he would do” with a certain man—always supposing the man’s + hands were tied. + </p> + <p> + This is the more effeminate type of the two; but both are weak and + unbalanced. And it is only these two types, the sentimental humanitarian + and the sentimental brutalitarian, whom one hears in the modern babel. Yet + you very rarely meet either of them in a train. You never meet anyone else + in a controversy. The man you meet in a train is like this man that I met: + he is emotionally decent, only he is intellectually doubtful. So far from + luxuriating in the loathsome things that could be “done” to criminals, he + feels bitterly how much better it would be if nothing need be done. But + something must be done. “I s’pose we ’ave to do it.” In short, he is + simply a sane man, and of a sane man there is only one safe definition. He + is a man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Now the real difficulty of discussing decently this problem of the proper + treatment of criminals is that both parties discuss the matter without any + direct human feeling. The denouncers of wrong are as cold as the + organisers of wrong. Humanitarianism is as hard as inhumanity. + </p> + <p> + Let me take one practical instance. I think the flogging arranged in our + modern prisons is a filthy torture; all its scientific paraphernalia, the + photographing, the medical attendance, prove that it goes to the last foul + limit of the boot and rack. The cat is simply the rack without any of its + intellectual reasons. Holding this view strongly, I open the ordinary + humanitarian books or papers and I find a phrase like this, “The lash is a + relic of barbarism.” So is the plough. So is the fishing net. So is the + horn or the staff or the fire lit in winter. What an inexpressibly feeble + phrase for anything one wants to attack—a relic of barbarism! It is + as if a man walked naked down the street to-morrow, and we said that his + clothes were not quite in the latest fashion. There is nothing + particularly nasty about being a relic of barbarism. Man is a relic of + barbarism. Civilisation is a relic of barbarism. + </p> + <p> + But torture is not a relic of barbarism at all. In actuality it is simply + a relic of sin; but in comparative history it may well be called a relic + of civilisation. It has always been most artistic and elaborate when + everything else was most artistic and elaborate. Thus it was detailed + exquisite in the late Roman Empire, in the complex and gorgeous sixteenth + century, in the centralised French monarchy a hundred years before the + Revolution, and in the great Chinese civilisation to this day. This is, + first and last, the frightful thing we must remember. In so far as we grow + instructed and refined we are not (in any sense whatever) naturally moving + away from torture. We may be moving towards torture. We must know what we + are doing, if we are to avoid the enormous secret cruelty which has + crowned every historic civilisation. + </p> + <p> + The train moves more swiftly through the sunny English fields. They have + taken the prisoners away, and I do not know what they have done with them. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"></a> +XXXIII. The Prehistoric Railway Station</h2> + <p> + A railway station is an admirable place, although Ruskin did not think so; + he did not think so because he himself was even more modern than the + railway station. He did not think so because he was himself feverish, + irritable, and snorting like an engine. He could not value the ancient + silence of the railway station. + </p> + <p> + “In a railway station,” he said, “you are in a hurry, and therefore, + miserable”; but you need not be either unless you are as modern as Ruskin. + The true philosopher does not think of coming just in time for his train + except as a bet or a joke. + </p> + <p> + The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to be late for + the one before. Do this, and you will find in a railway station much of + the quietude and consolation of a cathedral. It has many of the + characteristics of a great ecclesiastical building; it has vast arches, + void spaces, coloured lights, and, above all, it has recurrence or ritual. + It is dedicated to the celebration of water and fire the two prime + elements of all human ceremonial. Lastly, a station resembles the old + religions rather than the new religions in this point, that people go + there. In connection with this it should also be remembered that all + popular places, all sites, actually used by the people, tend to retain the + best routine of antiquity very much more than any localities or machines + used by any privileged class. Things are not altered so quickly or + completely by common people as they are by fashionable people. Ruskin + could have found more memories of the Middle Ages in the Underground + Railway than in the grand hotels outside the stations. The great palaces + of pleasure which the rich build in London all have brazen and vulgar + names. Their names are either snobbish, like the Hotel Cecil, or (worse + still) cosmopolitan like the Hotel Metropole. But when I go in a + third-class carriage from the nearest circle station to Battersea to the + nearest circle station to the DAILY NEWS, the names of the stations are + one long litany of solemn and saintly memories. Leaving Victoria I come to + a park belonging especially to St. James the Apostle; thence I go to + Westminster Bridge, whose very name alludes to the awful Abbey; Charing + Cross holds up the symbol of Christendom; the next station is called a + Temple; and Blackfriars remembers the mediaeval dream of a Brotherhood. + </p> + <p> + If you wish to find the past preserved, follow the million feet of the + crowd. At the worst the uneducated only wear down old things by sheer + walking. But the educated kick them down out of sheer culture. + </p> + <p> + I feel all this profoundly as I wander about the empty railway station, + where I have no business of any kind. I have extracted a vast number of + chocolates from automatic machines; I have obtained cigarettes, toffee, + scent, and other things that I dislike by the same machinery; I have + weighed myself, with sublime results; and this sense, not only of the + healthiness of popular things, but of their essential antiquity and + permanence, is still in possession of my mind. I wander up to the + bookstall, and my faith survives even the wild spectacle of modern + literature and journalism. Even in the crudest and most clamorous aspects + of the newspaper world I still prefer the popular to the proud and + fastidious. If I had to choose between taking in the DAILY MAIL and taking + in the TIMES (the dilemma reminds one of a nightmare), I should certainly + cry out with the whole of my being for the DAILY MAIL. Even mere bigness + preached in a frivolous way is not so irritating as mere meanness preached + in a big and solemn way. People buy the DAILY MAIL, but they do not + believe in it. They do believe in the TIMES, and (apparently) they do not + buy it. But the more the output of paper upon the modern world is actually + studied, the more it will be found to be in all its essentials ancient and + human, like the name of Charing Cross. Linger for two or three hours at a + station bookstall (as I am doing), and you will find that it gradually + takes on the grandeur and historic allusiveness of the Vatican or Bodleian + Library. The novelty is all superficial; the tradition is all interior and + profound. The DAILY MAIL has new editions, but never a new idea. + Everything in a newspaper that is not the old human love of altar or + fatherland is the old human love of gossip. Modern writers have often made + game of the old chronicles because they chiefly record accidents and + prodigies; a church struck by lightning, or a calf with six legs. They do + not seem to realise that this old barbaric history is the same as new + democratic journalism. It is not that the savage chronicle has + disappeared. It is merely that the savage chronicle now appears every + morning. + </p> + <p> + As I moved thus mildly and vaguely in front of the bookstall, my eye + caught a sudden and scarlet title that for the moment staggered me. On the + outside of a book I saw written in large letters, “Get On or Get Out.” The + title of the book recalled to me with a sudden revolt and reaction all + that does seem unquestionably new and nasty; it reminded me that there was + in the world of to-day that utterly idiotic thing, a worship of success; a + thing that only means surpassing anybody in anything; a thing that may + mean being the most successful person in running away from a battle; a + thing that may mean being the most successfully sleepy of the whole row of + sleeping men. When I saw those words the silence and sanctity of the + railway station were for the moment shadowed. Here, I thought, there is at + any rate something anarchic and violent and vile. This title, at any rate, + means the most disgusting individualism of this individualistic world. In + the fury of my bitterness and passion I actually bought the book, thereby + ensuring that my enemy would get some of my money. I opened it prepared to + find some brutality, some blasphemy, which would really be an exception to + the general silence and sanctity of the railway station. I was prepared to + find something in the book that was as infamous as its title. + </p> + <p> + I was disappointed. There was nothing at all corresponding to the furious + decisiveness of the remarks on the cover. After reading it carefully I + could not discover whether I was really to get on or to get out; but I had + a vague feeling that I should prefer to get out. A considerable part of + the book, particularly towards the end, was concerned with a detailed + description of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Undoubtedly Napoleon got + on. He also got out. But I could not discover in any way how the details + of his life given here were supposed to help a person aiming at success. + One anecdote described how Napoleon always wiped his pen on his + knee-breeches. I suppose the moral is: always wipe your pen on your + knee-breeches, and you will win the battle of Wagram. Another story told + that he let loose a gazelle among the ladies of his Court. Clearly the + brutal practical inference is—loose a gazelle among the ladies of + your acquaintance, and you will be Emperor of the French. Get on with a + gazelle or get out. The book entirely reconciled me to the soft twilight + of the station. Then I suddenly saw that there was a symbolic division + which might be paralleled from biology. Brave men are vertebrates; they + have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle. But + these modern cowards are all crustaceans; their hardness is all on the + cover and their softness is inside. But the softness is there; everything + in this twilight temple is soft. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"></a> +XXXIV. The Diabolist</h2> + <p> + Every now and then I have introduced into my essays an element of truth. + Things that really happened have been mentioned, such as meeting President + Kruger or being thrown out of a cab. What I have now to relate really + happened; yet there was no element in it of practical politics or of + personal danger. It was simply a quiet conversation which I had with + another man. But that quiet conversation was by far the most terrible + thing that has ever happened to me in my life. It happened so long ago + that I cannot be certain of the exact words of the dialogue, only of its + main questions and answers; but there is one sentence in it for which I + can answer absolutely and word for word. It was a sentence so awful that I + could not forget it if I would. It was the last sentence spoken; and it + was not spoken to me. + </p> + <p> + The thing befell me in the days when I was at an art school. An art school + is different from almost all other schools or colleges in this respect: + that, being of new and crude creation and of lax discipline, it presents a + specially strong contrast between the industrious and the idle. People at + an art school either do an atrocious amount of work or do no work at all. + I belonged, along with other charming people, to the latter class; and + this threw me often into the society of men who were very different from + myself, and who were idle for reasons very different from mine. I was idle + because I was very much occupied; I was engaged about that time in + discovering, to my own extreme and lasting astonishment, that I was not an + atheist. But there were others also at loose ends who were engaged in + discovering what Carlyle called (I think with needless delicacy) the fact + that ginger is hot in the mouth. + </p> + <p> + I value that time, in short, because it made me acquainted with a good + representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are two + very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. The first + is the fact that there is one real difference between men and women; that + women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes. The + second is that when you find (as you often do) three young cads and idiots + going about together and getting drunk together every day you generally + find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for some extraordinary + reason) not a cad and not an idiot. In these small groups devoted to a + drivelling dissipation there is almost always one man who seems to have + condescended to his company; one man who, while he can talk a foul + triviality with his fellows, can also talk politics with a Socialist, or + philosophy with a Catholic. + </p> + <p> + It was just such a man whom I came to know well. It was strange, perhaps, + that he liked his dirty, drunken society; it was stranger still, perhaps, + that he liked my society. For hours of the day he would talk with me about + Milton or Gothic architecture; for hours of the night he would go where I + have no wish to follow him, even in speculation. He was a man with a long, + ironical face, and close and red hair; he was by class a gentleman, and + could walk like one, but preferred, for some reason, to walk like a groom + carrying two pails. He looked like a sort of Super-jockey; as if some + archangel had gone on the Turf. And I shall never forget the half-hour in + which he and I argued about real things for the first and the last time. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Along the front of the big building of which our school was a part ran a + huge slope of stone steps, higher, I think, than those that lead up to St. + Paul’s Cathedral. On a black wintry evening he and I were wandering on + these cold heights, which seemed as dreary as a pyramid under the stars. + The one thing visible below us in the blackness was a burning and blowing + fire; for some gardener (I suppose) was burning something in the grounds, + and from time to time the red sparks went whirling past us like a swarm of + scarlet insects in the dark. Above us also it was gloom; but if one stared + long enough at that upper darkness, one saw vertical stripes of grey in + the black and then became conscious of the colossal façade of the Doric + building, phantasmal, yet filling the sky, as if Heaven were still filled + with the gigantic ghost of Paganism. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The man asked me abruptly why I was becoming orthodox. Until he said it, I + really had not known that I was; but the moment he had said it I knew it + to be literally true. And the process had been so long and full that I + answered him at once out of existing stores of explanation. + </p> + <p> + “I am becoming orthodox,” I said, “because I have come, rightly or + wrongly, after stretching my brain till it bursts, to the old belief that + heresy is worse even than sin. An error is more menacing than a crime, for + an error begets crimes. An Imperialist is worse than a pirate. For an + Imperialist keeps a school for pirates; he teaches piracy disinterestedly + and without an adequate salary. A Free Lover is worse than a profligate. + For a profligate is serious and reckless even in his shortest love; while + a Free Lover is cautious and irresponsible even in his longest devotion. I + hate modern doubt because it is dangerous.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean dangerous to morality,” he said in a voice of wonderful + gentleness. “I expect you are right. But why do you care about morality?” + </p> + <p> + I glanced at his face quickly. He had thrust out his neck as he had a + trick of doing; and so brought his face abruptly into the light of the + bonfire from below, like a face in the footlights. His long chin and high + cheek-bones were lit up infernally from underneath; so that he looked like + a fiend staring down into the flaming pit. I had an unmeaning sense of + being tempted in a wilderness; and even as I paused a burst of red sparks + broke past. + </p> + <p> + “Aren’t those sparks splendid?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “That is all that I ask you to admit,” said I. “Give me those few red + specks and I will deduce Christian morality. Once I thought like you, that + one’s pleasure in a flying spark was a thing that could come and go with + that spark. Once I thought that the delight was as free as the fire. Once + I thought that red star we see was alone in space. But now I know that the + red star is only on the apex of an invisible pyramid of virtues. That red + fire is only the flower on a stalk of living habits, which you cannot see. + Only because your mother made you say ‘Thank you’ for a bun are you now + able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars of an instant or for the + white stars of all time. Only because you were humble before fireworks on + the fifth of November do you now enjoy any fireworks that you chance to + see. You only like them being red because you were told about the blood of + the martyrs; you only like them being bright because brightness is a + glory. That flame flowered out of virtues, and it will fade with virtues. + Seduce a woman, and that spark will be less bright. Shed blood, and that + spark will be less red. Be really bad, and they will be to you like the + spots on a wall-paper.” + </p> + <p> + He had a horrible fairness of the intellect that made me despair of his + soul. A common, harmless atheist would have denied that religion produced + humility or humility a simple joy: but he admitted both. He only said, + “But shall I not find in evil a life of its own? Granted that for every + woman I ruin one of those red sparks will go out: will not the expanding + pleasure of ruin...” + </p> + <p> + “Do you see that fire?” I asked. “If we had a real fighting democracy, + some one would burn you in it; like the devil-worshipper that you are.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” he said, in his tired, fair way. “Only what you call evil I + call good.” + </p> + <p> + He went down the great steps alone, and I felt as if I wanted the steps + swept and cleaned. I followed later, and as I went to find my hat in the + low, dark passage where it hung, I suddenly heard his voice again, but the + words were inaudible. I stopped, startled: then I heard the voice of one + of the vilest of his associates saying, “Nobody can possibly know.” And + then I heard those two or three words which I remember in every syllable + and cannot forget. I heard the Diabolist say, “I tell you I have done + everything else. If I do that I shan’t know the difference between right + and wrong.” I rushed out without daring to pause; and as I passed the fire + I did not know whether it was hell or the furious love of God. + </p> + <p> + I have since heard that he died: it may be said, I think, that he + committed suicide; though he did it with tools of pleasure, not with tools + of pain. God help him, I know the road he went; but I have never known, or + even dared to think, what was that place at which he stopped and + refrained. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"></a> +XXXV. A Glimpse of My Country</h2> + <p> + Whatever is it that we are all looking for? I fancy that it is really + quite close. When I was a boy I had a fancy that Heaven or Fairyland or + whatever I called it, was immediately behind my own back, and that this + was why I could never manage to see it, however often I twisted and turned + to take it by surprise. I had a notion of a man perpetually spinning round + on one foot like a teetotum in the effort to find that world behind his + back which continually fled from him. Perhaps this is why the world goes + round. Perhaps the world is always trying to look over its shoulder and + catch up the world which always escapes it, yet without which it cannot be + itself. + </p> + <p> + In any case, as I have said, I think that we must always conceive of that + which is the goal of all our endeavours as something which is in some + strange way near. Science boasts of the distance of its stars; of the + terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. But poetry and + religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost menacing closeness + of the things with which they are concerned. Always the Kingdom of Heaven + is “At Hand”; and Looking-glass Land is only through the looking-glass. So + I for one should never be astonished if the next twist of a street led me + to the heart of that maze in which all the mystics are lost. I should not + be at all surprised if I turned one corner in Fleet Street and saw a yet + queerer-looking lamp; I should not be surprised if I turned a third corner + and found myself in Elfland. + </p> + <p> + I should not be surprised at this; but I was surprised the other day at + something more surprising. I took a turn out of Fleet Street and found + myself in England. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The singular shock experienced perhaps requires explanation. In the + darkest or the most inadequate moments of England there is one thing that + should always be remembered about the very nature of our country. It may + be shortly stated by saying that England is not such a fool as it looks. + The types of England, the externals of England, always misrepresent the + country. England is an oligarchical country, and it prefers that its + oligarchy should be inferior to itself. + </p> + <p> + The speaking in the House of Commons, for instance, is not only worse than + the speaking was, it is worse than the speaking is, in all or almost all + other places in small debating clubs or casual dinners. Our countrymen + probably prefer this solemn futility in the higher places of the national + life. It may be a strange sight to see the blind leading the blind; but + England provides a stranger. England shows us the blind leading the people + who can see. And this again is an under-statement of the case. For the + English political aristocrats not only speak worse than many other people; + they speak worse than themselves. The ignorance of statesmen is like the + ignorance of judges, an artificial and affected thing. If you have the + good fortune really to talk with a statesman, you will be constantly + startled with his saying quite intelligent things. It makes one nervous at + first. And I have never been sufficiently intimate with such a man to ask + him why it was a rule of his life in Parliament to appear sillier than he + was. + </p> + <p> + It is the same with the voters. The average man votes below himself; he + votes with half a mind or with a hundredth part of one. A man ought to + vote with the whole of himself as he worships or gets married. A man ought + to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for faces + and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands + and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of it + should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, they + should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. But as it is, the + difficulty with English democracy at all elections is that it is something + less than itself. The question is not so much whether only a minority of + the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of the voter + votes. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + This is the tragedy of England; you cannot judge it by its foremost men. + Its types do not typify. And on the occasion of which I speak I found this + to be so especially of that old intelligent middle class which I had + imagined had almost vanished from the world. It seemed to me that all the + main representatives of the middle class had gone off in one direction or + in the other; they had either set out in pursuit of the Smart Set or they + had set out in pursuit of the Simple Life. I cannot say which I dislike + more myself; the people in question are welcome to have either of them, + or, as is more likely, to have both, in hideous alternations of disease + and cure. But all the prominent men who plainly represent the middle class + have adopted either the single eye-glass of Mr. Chamberlain or the single + eye of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + </p> + <p> + The old class that I mean has no representative. Its food was plentiful; + but it had no show. Its food was plain; but it had no fads. It was serious + about politics; and when it spoke in public it committed the solecism of + trying to speak well. I thought that this old earnest political England + had practically disappeared. And as I say, I took one turn out of Fleet + Street and I found a room full of it. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + At the top of the room was a chair in which Johnson had sat. The club was + a club in which Wilkes had spoken, in a time when even the ne’er-do-weel + was virile. But all these things by themselves might be merely archaism. + The extraordinary thing was that this hall had all the hubbub, the + sincerity, the anger, the oratory of the eighteenth century. The members + of this club were of all shades of opinion, yet there was not one speech + which gave me that jar of unreality which I often have in listening to the + ablest men uttering my own opinion. The Toryism of this club was like the + Toryism of Johnson, a Toryism that could use humour and appealed to + humanity. The democracy of this club was like the democracy of Wilkes, a + democracy that can speak epigrams and fight duels; a democracy that can + face things out and endure slander; the democracy of Wilkes, or, rather, + the democracy of Fox. + </p> + <p> + One thing especially filled my soul with the soul of my fathers. Each man + speaking, whether he spoke well or ill, spoke as well as he could from + sheer fury against the other man. This is the greatest of our modern + descents, that nowadays a man does not become more rhetorical as he + becomes more sincere. An eighteenth-century speaker, when he got really + and honestly furious, looked for big words with which to crush his + adversary. The new speaker looks for small words to crush him with. He + looks for little facts and little sneers. In a modern speech the rhetoric + is put into the merely formal part, the opening to which nobody listens. + But when Mr. Chamberlain, or a Moderate, or one of the harder kind of + Socialists, becomes really sincere, he becomes Cockney. “The destiny of + the Empire,” or “The destiny of humanity,” do well enough for mere + ornamental preliminaries, but when the man becomes angry and honest, then + it is a snarl, “Where do we come in?” or “It’s your money they want.” + </p> + <p> + The men in this eighteenth-century club were entirely different; they were + quite eighteenth century. Each one rose to his feet quivering with + passion, and tried to destroy his opponent, not with sniggering, but + actually with eloquence. I was arguing with them about Home Rule; at the + end I told them why the English aristocracy really disliked an Irish + Parliament; because it would be like their club. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I came out again into Fleet Street at night, and by a dim lamp I saw + pasted up some tawdry nonsense about Wastrels and how London was rising + against something that London had hardly heard of. Then I suddenly saw, as + in one obvious picture, that the modern world is an immense and tumultuous + ocean, full of monstrous and living things. And I saw that across the top + of it is spread a thin, a very thin, sheet of ice, of wicked wealth and of + lying journalism. + </p> + <p> + And as I stood there in the darkness I could almost fancy that I heard it + crack. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"></a> +XXXVI. A Somewhat Improbable Story</h2> + <p> + I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read it through + very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come to the conclusion + that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read it through very + carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet. The image and the idea + of it clung to me through a great part of my boyhood; I may have dreamt it + before I could talk; or told it to myself before I could read; or read it + before I could remember. On the whole, however, I am certain that I did + not read it, for children have very clear memories about things like that; + and of the books which I was really fond I can still remember, not only + the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position of the printed words + on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline to the opinion that it + happened to me before I was born. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages of the + atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, for the sake of + argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch restaurants in the + City where men take their food so fast that it has none of the quality of + food, and take their half-hour’s vacation so fast that it has none of the + qualities of leisure; to hurry through one’s leisure is the most + unbusiness-like of actions. They all wore tall shiny hats as if they could + not lose an instant even to hang them on a peg, and they all had one eye a + little off, hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In short, they were + the slaves of the modern bondage, you could hear their fetters clanking. + Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest chain ever tied to a man—it + is called a watch-chain. + </p> + <p> + Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man who + almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. He was like all the + other men in dress, yet he was startlingly opposite to them in all manner. + He wore a high shiny hat and a long frock coat, but he wore them as such + solemn things were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if it were a + mitre, and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high priest. He not + only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed (such was his stateliness) + almost to ask permission of the hat for doing so, and to apologise to the + peg for making use of it. When he had sat down on a wooden chair with the + air of one considering its feelings and given a sort of slight stoop or + bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an altar, I could not help + some comment springing to my lips. For the man was a big, sanguine-faced, + prosperous-looking man, and yet he treated everything with a care that + almost amounted to nervousness. + </p> + <p> + For the sake of saying something to express my interest I said, “This + furniture is fairly solid; but, of course, people do treat it much too + carelessly.” + </p> + <p> + As I looked up doubtfully my eye caught his, and was fixed as his was + fixed in an apocalyptic stare. I had thought him ordinary as he entered, + save for his strange, cautious manner; but if the other people had seen + him then they would have screamed and emptied the room. They did not see + him, and they went on making a clatter with their forks, and a murmur with + their conversation. But the man’s face was the face of a maniac. + </p> + <p> + “Did you mean anything particular by that remark?” he asked at last, and + the blood crawled back slowly into his face. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing whatever,” I answered. “One does not mean anything here; it + spoils people’s digestions.” + </p> + <p> + He limped back and wiped his broad forehead with a big handkerchief; and + yet there seemed to be a sort of regret in his relief. + </p> + <p> + “I thought perhaps,” he said in a low voice, “that another of them had + gone wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “If you mean another digestion gone wrong,” I said, “I never heard of one + here that went right. This is the heart of the Empire, and the other + organs are in an equally bad way.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I mean another street gone wrong,” and he said heavily and quietly, + “but as I suppose that doesn’t explain much to you, I think I shall have + to tell you the story. I do so with all the less responsibility, because I + know you won’t believe it. For forty years of my life I invariably left my + office, which is in Leadenhall Street, at half-past five in the afternoon, + taking with me an umbrella in the right hand and a bag in the left hand. + For forty years two months and four days I passed out of the side office + door, walked down the street on the left-hand side, took the first turning + to the left and the third to the right, from where I bought an evening + paper, followed the road on the right-hand side round two obtuse angles, + and came out just outside a Metropolitan station, where I took a train + home. For forty years two months and four days I fulfilled this course by + accumulated habit: it was not a long street that I traversed, and it took + me about four and a half minutes to do it. After forty years two months + and four days, on the fifth day I went out in the same manner, with my + umbrella in the right hand and my bag in the left, and I began to notice + that walking along the familiar street tired me somewhat more than usual; + and when I turned it I was convinced that I had turned down the wrong one. + For now the street shot up quite a steep slant, such as one only sees in + the hilly parts of London, and in this part there were no hills at all. + Yet it was not the wrong street; the name written on it was the same; the + shuttered shops were the same; the lamp-posts and the whole look of the + perspective was the same; only it was tilted upwards like a lid. + Forgetting any trouble about breathlessness or fatigue I ran furiously + forward, and reached the second of my accustomed turnings, which ought to + bring me almost within sight of the station. And as I turned that corner I + nearly fell on the pavement. For now the street went up straight in front + of my face like a steep staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not + for miles round that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. + And this was a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole street had + lifted itself like a single wave, and yet every speck and detail of it was + the same, and I saw in the high distance, as at the top of an Alpine pass, + picked out in pink letters the name over my paper shop. + </p> + <p> + “I ran on and on blindly now, passing all the shops and coming to a part + of the road where there was a long grey row of private houses. I had, I + know not why, an irrational feeling that I was a long iron bridge in empty + space. An impulse seized me, and I pulled up the iron trap of a coal-hole. + Looking down through it I saw empty space and the stairs. + </p> + <p> + “When I looked up again a man was standing in his front garden, having + apparently come out of his house; he was leaning over the railings and + gazing at me. We were all alone on that nightmare road; his face was in + shadow; his dress was dark and ordinary; but when I saw him standing so + perfectly still I knew somehow that he was not of this world. And the + stars behind his head were larger and fiercer than ought to be endured by + the eyes of men. + </p> + <p> + “‘If you are a kind angel,’ I said, ‘or a wise devil, or have anything in + common with mankind, tell me what is this street possessed of devils.’ + </p> + <p> + “After a long silence he said, ‘What do you say that it is?’ + </p> + <p> + “‘It is Bumpton Street, of course,’ I snapped. ‘It goes to Oldgate + Station.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Yes,’ he admitted gravely; ‘it goes there sometimes. Just now, however, + it is going to heaven.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘To heaven?’ I said. ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + “‘It is going to heaven for justice,’ he replied. ‘You must have treated + it badly. Remember always that there is one thing that cannot be endured + by anybody or anything. That one unendurable thing is to be overworked and + also neglected. For instance, you can overwork women—everybody does. + But you can’t neglect women—I defy you to. At the same time, you can + neglect tramps and gypsies and all the apparent refuse of the State so + long as you do not overwork it. But no beast of the field, no horse, no + dog can endure long to be asked to do more than his work and yet have less + than his honour. It is the same with streets. You have worked this street + to death, and yet you have never remembered its existence. If you had a + healthy democracy, even of pagans, they would have hung this street with + garlands and given it the name of a god. Then it would have gone quietly. + But at last the street has grown tired of your tireless insolence; and it + is bucking and rearing its head to heaven. Have you never sat on a bucking + horse?’ + </p> + <p> + “I looked at the long grey street, and for a moment it seemed to me to be + exactly like the long grey neck of a horse flung up to heaven. But in a + moment my sanity returned, and I said, ‘But this is all nonsense. Streets + go to the place they have to go. A street must always go to its end.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Why do you think so of a street?’ he asked, standing very still. + </p> + <p> + “‘Because I have always seen it do the same thing,’ I replied, in + reasonable anger. ‘Day after day, year after year, it has always gone to + Oldgate Station; day after...’ + </p> + <p> + “I stopped, for he had flung up his head with the fury of the road in + revolt. + </p> + <p> + “‘And you?’ he cried terribly. ‘What do you think the road thinks of you? + Does the road think you are alive? Are you alive? Day after day, year + after year, you have gone to Oldgate Station....’ Since then I have + respected the things called inanimate.” + </p> + <p> + And bowing slightly to the mustard-pot, the man in the restaurant + withdrew. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"></a> +XXXVII. The Shop Of Ghosts</h2> + <p> + Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get + for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the + earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get them + for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am not + allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a penny + halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. In the + street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an electric tram + for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on a flying castle in + a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of brightly coloured sweets + for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of reading this article for a + halfpenny; along, of course, with other and irrelevant matter. + </p> + <p> + But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable + things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last + night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and dimly + lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets of + Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a child + once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of the + poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but they + were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important than + cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the body. + You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in the + modern world. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, at + small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red Noah’s arks, I + must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. That lit shop-window + became like the brilliantly lit stage when one is watching some highly + coloured comedy. I forgot the grey houses and the grimy people behind me + as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds at a theatre. It + seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were small, not because + they were toys, but because they were objects far away. The green omnibus + was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater omnibus, passing across some + huge desert on its ordinary way to Bayswater. The blue elephant was no + longer blue with paint; he was blue with distance. The black doll was + really a negro relieved against passionate tropic foliage in the land + where every weed is flaming and only man is black. The red Noah’s ark was + really the enormous ship of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen + sea, red in the first morning of hope. + </p> + <p> + Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, such + brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the face of + one’s own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles or moustaches. + They are commonly marked by the two signs of the slowness of their growth + and the suddenness of their termination. The return to real thinking is + often as abrupt as bumping into a man. Very often indeed (in my case) it + is bumping into a man. But in any case the awakening is always emphatic + and, generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in this case, I did + come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness that I was, after + all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; but in some strange way + the mental cure did not seem to be final. There was still in my mind an + unmanageable something that told me that I had strayed into some odd + atmosphere, or that I had already done some odd thing. I felt as if I had + worked a miracle or committed a sin. It was as if I had at any rate, + stepped across some border in the soul. + </p> + <p> + To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop and + tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old and broken, + with confused white hair covering his head and half his face, hair so + startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. Yet though he was + senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering in his eyes; he + looked rather as if he were gradually falling asleep in a not unkindly + decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, but when I put down the money he + did not at first seem to see it; then he blinked at it feebly, and then he + pushed it feebly away. + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” he said vaguely. “I never have. I never have. We are rather + old-fashioned here.” + </p> + <p> + “Not taking money,” I replied, “seems to me more like an uncommonly new + fashion than an old one.” + </p> + <p> + “I never have,” said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; “I’ve + always given presents. I’m too old to stop.” + </p> + <p> + “Good heavens!” I said. “What can you mean? Why, you might be Father + Christmas.” + </p> + <p> + “I am Father Christmas,” he said apologetically, and blew his nose again. + </p> + <p> + The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. At any + rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining + shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; I + might have strayed into some new and sunless world. But something had cut + the chords of common sense, and I could not feel even surprise except + sleepily. Something made me say, “You look ill, Father Christmas.” + </p> + <p> + “I am dying,” he said. + </p> + <p> + I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again. + </p> + <p> + “All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. They seem + to object to me on such curious and inconsistent sort of grounds, these + scientific men, and these innovators. They say that I give people + superstitions and make them too visionary; they say I give people sausages + and make them too coarse. They say my heavenly parts are too heavenly; + they say my earthly parts are too earthly; I don’t know what they want, + I’m sure. How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly things too + earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? I don’t understand. But I + understand one thing well enough. These modern people are living and I am + dead.” + </p> + <p> + “You may be dead,” I replied. “You ought to know. But as for what they are + doing, do not call it living.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected to be + unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few seconds when, in the + utter stillness, I distinctly heard a very rapid step coming nearer and + nearer along the street. The next moment a figure flung itself into the + shop and stood framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted + back as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, a + gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. He had + large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; he had a + pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the shop and the old + man in a look that seemed literally a flash and uttered the exclamation of + a man utterly staggered. + </p> + <p> + “Good lord!” he cried out; “it can’t be you! It isn’t you! I came to ask + where your grave was.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not dead yet, Mr. Dickens,” said the old gentleman, with a feeble + smile; “but I’m dying,” he hastened to add reassuringly. + </p> + <p> + “But, dash it all, you were dying in my time,” said Mr. Charles Dickens + with animation; “and you don’t look a day older.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve felt like this for a long time,” said Father Christmas. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door into the + darkness. + </p> + <p> + “Dick,” he roared at the top of his voice; “he’s still alive.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more + full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his flushed + face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. He carried his head + well back like a soldier, and his hot face had even a look of arrogance, + which was suddenly contradicted by his eyes, which were literally as + humble as a dog’s. His sword made a great clatter, as if the shop were too + small for it. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed,” said Sir Richard Steele, “’tis a most prodigious matter, for the + man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley and his Christmas + Day.” + </p> + <p> + My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. It seemed to be filled + with newcomers. + </p> + <p> + “It hath ever been understood,” said a burly man, who carried his head + humorously and obstinately a little on one side—I think he was Ben + Jonson—“It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King + James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were fallen + sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most surely was no + lustier when I knew him than now.” + </p> + <p> + And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in some + mixed Norman French, “But I saw the man dying.” + </p> + <p> + “I have felt like this a long time,” said Father Christmas, in his feeble + way again. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him. + </p> + <p> + “Since when?” he asked. “Since you were born?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. “I have been + always dying.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to + rise. + </p> + <p> + “I understand it now,” he cried, “you will never die.” + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"></a> +XXXVIII. The Ballade of a Strange Town</h2> + <p> + My friend and I, in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed affection + for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there was so restful that we + almost felt it as a home, and hardly strayed out of it. + </p> + <p> + We sat day after day in the market-place, under little trees growing in + wooden tubs, and looked up at the noble converging lines of the Cathedral + tower, from which the three riders from Ghent, in the poem, heard the bell + which told them they were not too late. But we took as much pleasure in + the people, in the little boys with open, flat Flemish faces and fur + collars round their necks, making them look like burgomasters; or the + women, whose prim, oval faces, hair strained tightly off the temples, and + mouths at once hard, meek, and humorous, exactly reproduced the late + mediaeval faces in Memling and Van Eyck. + </p> + <p> + But one afternoon, as it happened, my friend rose from under his little + tree, and pointing to a sort of toy train that was puffing smoke in one + corner of the clear square, suggested that we should go by it. We got into + the little train, which was meant really to take the peasants and their + vegetables to and fro from their fields beyond the town, and the official + came round to give us tickets. We asked him what place we should get to if + we paid fivepence. The Belgians are not a romantic people, and he asked us + (with a lamentable mixture of Flemish coarseness and French rationalism) + where we wanted to go. + </p> + <p> + We explained that we wanted to go to fairyland, and the only question was + whether we could get there for fivepence. At last, after a great deal of + international misunderstanding (for he spoke French in the Flemish and we + in the English manner), he told us that fivepence would take us to a place + which I have never seen written down, but which when spoken sounded like + the word “Waterloo” pronounced by an intoxicated patriot; I think it was + Waerlowe. + </p> + <p> + We clasped our hands and said it was the place we had been seeking from + boyhood, and when we had got there we descended with promptitude. + </p> + <p> + For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field of + Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was in quite a + different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, with one cottage at the + corner, a perspective of tall trees like Hobbema’s “Avenue,” and beyond + only the infinite flat chess-board of the little fields. It was the scene + of peace and prosperity; but I must confess that my friend’s first action + was to ask the man when there would be another train back to Mechlin. The + man stated that there would be a train back in exactly one hour. We walked + up the avenue, and when we were nearly half an hour’s walk away it began + to rain. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + We arrived back at the cross-roads sodden and dripping, and, finding the + train waiting, climbed into it with some relief. The officer on this train + could speak nothing but Flemish, but he understood the name Mechlin, and + indicated that when we came to Mechlin Station he would put us down, + which, after the right interval of time, he did. + </p> + <p> + We got down, under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin, + though the features could not easily be recognised through the grey screen + of the rain. I do not generally agree with those who find rain depressing. + A shower-bath is not depressing; it is rather startling. And if it is + exciting when a man throws a pail of water over you, why should it not + also be exciting when the gods throw many pails? But on this soaking + afternoon, whether it was the dull sky-line of the Netherlands or the fact + that we were returning home without any adventure, I really did think + things a trifle dreary. As soon as we could creep under the shelter of a + street we turned into a little café, kept by one woman. She was incredibly + old, and she spoke no French. There we drank black coffee and what was + called “cognac fine.” “Cognac fine” were the only two French words used in + the establishment, and they were not true. At least, the fineness (perhaps + by its very ethereal delicacy) escaped me. After a little my friend, who + was more restless than I, got up and went out, to see if the rain had + stopped and if we could at once stroll back to our hotel by the station. I + sat finishing my coffee in a colourless mood, and listening to the + unremitting rain. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the door burst open, and my friend appeared, transfigured and + frantic. + </p> + <p> + “Get up!” he cried, waving his hands wildly. “Get up! We’re in the wrong + town! We’re not in Mechlin at all. Mechlin is ten miles, twenty miles off—God + knows what! We’re somewhere near Antwerp.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” I cried, leaping from my seat, and sending the furniture flying. + “Then all is well, after all! Poetry only hid her face for an instant + behind a cloud. Positively for a moment I was feeling depressed because we + were in the right town. But if we are in the wrong town—why, we have + our adventure after all! If we are in the wrong town, we are in the right + place.” + </p> + <p> + I rushed out into the rain, and my friend followed me somewhat more + grimly. We discovered we were in a town called Lierre, which seemed to + consist chiefly of bankrupt pastry cooks, who sold lemonade. + </p> + <p> + “This is the peak of our whole poetic progress!” I cried enthusiastically. + “We must do something, something sacramental and commemorative! We cannot + sacrifice an ox, and it would be a bore to build a temple. Let us write a + poem.” + </p> + <p> + With but slight encouragement, I took out an old envelope and one of those + pencils that turn bright violet in water. There was plenty of water about, + and the violet ran down the paper, symbolising the rich purple of that + romantic hour. I began, choosing the form of an old French ballade; it is + the easiest because it is the most restricted— + </p> +<p class="poem"> + “Can Man to Mount Olympus rise,<br/> + And fancy Primrose Hill the scene?<br/> + Can a man walk in Paradise<br/> + And think he is in Turnham Green?<br/> + And could I take you for Malines,<br/> + Not knowing the nobler thing you were?<br/> + O Pearl of all the plain, and queen,<br/> + The lovely city of Lierre.<br/> +<br/> + “Through memory’s mist in glimmering guise<br/> + Shall shine your streets of sloppy sheen.<br/> + And wet shall grow my dreaming eyes,<br/> + To think how wet my boots have been<br/> + Now if I die or shoot a Dean——” + </p> + <p> + Here I broke off to ask my friend whether he thought it expressed a more + wild calamity to shoot a Dean or to be a Dean. But he only turned up his + coat collar, and I felt that for him the muse had folded her wings. I + rewrote— + </p> +<p class="poem"> + “Now if I die a Rural Dean,<br/> + Or rob a bank I do not care,<br/> + Or turn a Tory. I have seen<br/> + The lovely city of Lierre.” + </p> + <p> + “The next line,” I resumed, warming to it; but my friend interrupted me. + </p> + <p> + “The next line,” he said somewhat harshly, “will be a railway line. We can + get back to Mechlin from here, I find, though we have to change twice. I + dare say I should think this jolly romantic but for the weather. Adventure + is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne and my adventures dry. + Here is the station.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + We did not speak again until we had left Lierre, in its sacred cloud of + rain, and were coming to Mechlin, under a clearer sky, that even made one + think of stars. Then I leant forward and said to my friend in a low voice—“I + have found out everything. We have come to the wrong star.” + </p> + <p> + He stared his query, and I went on eagerly: “That is what makes life at + once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. When I thought + that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it was wrong, I was + happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, tires us because it + tells us we fit into this world. The true happiness is that we don’t fit. + We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way.” + </p> + <p> + He silently nodded, staring out of the window, but whether I had impressed + or only fatigued him I could not tell. “This,” I added, “is suggested in + the last verse of a fine poem you have grossly neglected— + </p> +<p class="poem"> + “‘Happy is he and more than wise<br/> + Who sees with wondering eyes and clean<br/> + The world through all the grey disguise<br/> + Of sleep and custom in between.<br/> + Yes; we may pass the heavenly screen,<br/> + But shall we know when we are there?<br/> + Who know not what these dead stones mean,<br/> + The lovely city of Lierre.’” + </p> + <p> + Here the train stopped abruptly. And from Mechlin church steeple we heard + the half-chime: and Joris broke silence with “No bally HORS D’OEUVRES for + me: I shall get on to something solid at once.” + </p> +<p class="poem"> + L’Envoy<br/> +<br/> + Prince, wide your Empire spreads, I ween,<br/> + Yet happier is that moistened Mayor,<br/> + Who drinks her cognac far from fine,<br/> + The lovely city of Lierre. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"></a> +XXXIX. The Mystery of a Pageant</h2> + <p> + Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take a + small part in one of those historical processions or pageants which + happened to be fashionable in or about the year 1909. And since I tend, + like all who are growing old, to re-enter the remote past as a paradise or + playground, I disinter a memory which may serve to stand among those + memories of small but strange incidents with which I have sometimes filled + this column. The thing has really some of the dark qualities of a + detective-story; though I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could + hardly unravel it now, when the scent is so old and cold and most of the + actors, doubtless, long dead. + </p> + <p> + This old pageant included a series of figures from the eighteenth century, + and I was told that I was just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that Dr. Johnson + was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over gravy, snorted + and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man in London, I + mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I had nothing to + do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as I made were not + taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested that a row of + posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch all of them but + one, and then go back and touch that. Failing this, I felt that the least + they could do was to have twenty-five cups of tea stationed at regular + intervals along the course, each held by a Mrs. Thrale in full costume. My + best constructive suggestion was the most harshly rejected of all. In + front of me in the procession walked the great Bishop Berkeley, the man + who turned the tables on the early materialists by maintaining that matter + itself possibly does not exist. Dr. Johnson, you will remember, did not + like such bottomless fancies as Berkeley’s, and kicked a stone with his + foot, saying, “I refute him so!” Now (as I pointed out) kicking a stone + would not make the metaphysical quarrel quite clear; besides, it would + hurt. But how picturesque and perfect it would be if I moved across the + ground in the symbolic attitude of kicking Bishop Berkeley! How complete + an allegoric group; the great transcendentalist walking with his head + among the stars, but behind him the avenging realist pede claudo, with + uplifted foot. But I must not take up space with these forgotten + frivolities; we old men grow too garrulous in talking of the distant past. + </p> + <p> + This story scarcely concerns me either in my real or my assumed character. + Suffice it to say that the procession took place at night in a large + garden and by torchlight (so remote is the date), that the garden was + crowded with Puritans, monks, and men-at-arms, and especially with early + Celtic saints smoking pipes, and with elegant Renaissance gentlemen + talking Cockney. Suffice it to say, or rather it is needless to say, that + I got lost. I wandered away into some dim corner of that dim shrubbery, + where there was nothing to do except tumbling over tent ropes, and I began + almost to feel like my prototype, and to share his horror of solitude and + hatred of a country life. + </p> + <p> + In this detachment and dilemma I saw another man in a white wig advancing + across this forsaken stretch of lawn; a tall, lean man, who stooped in his + long black robes like a stooping eagle. When I thought he would pass me, + he stopped before my face, and said, “Dr. Johnson, I think. I am Paley.” + </p> + <p> + “Sir,” I said, “you used to guide men to the beginnings of Christianity. + If you can guide me now to wherever this infernal thing begins you will + perform a yet higher and harder function.” + </p> + <p> + His costume and style were so perfect that for the instant I really + thought he was a ghost. He took no notice of my flippancy, but, turning + his black-robed back on me, led me through verdurous glooms and winding + mossy ways, until we came out into the glare of gaslight and laughing men + in masquerade, and I could easily laugh at myself. + </p> + <p> + And there, you will say, was an end of the matter. I am (you will say) + naturally obtuse, cowardly, and mentally deficient. I was, moreover, + unused to pageants; I felt frightened in the dark and took a man for a + spectre whom, in the light, I could recognise as a modern gentleman in a + masquerade dress. No; far from it. That spectral person was my first + introduction to a special incident which has never been explained and + which still lays its finger on my nerve. + </p> + <p> + I mixed with the men of the eighteenth century; and we fooled as one does + at a fancy-dress ball. There was Burke as large as life and a great deal + better looking. There was Cowper much larger than life; he ought to have + been a little man in a night-cap, with a cat under one arm and a spaniel + under the other. As it was, he was a magnificent person, and looked more + like the Master of Ballantrae than Cowper. I persuaded him at last to the + night-cap, but never, alas, to the cat and dog. When I came the next night + Burke was still the same beautiful improvement upon himself; Cowper was + still weeping for his dog and cat and would not be comforted; Bishop + Berkeley was still waiting to be kicked in the interests of philosophy. In + short, I met all my old friends but one. Where was Paley? I had been + mystically moved by the man’s presence; I was moved more by his absence. + At last I saw advancing towards us across the twilight garden a little man + with a large book and a bright attractive face. When he came near enough + he said, in a small, clear voice, “I’m Paley.” The thing was quite + natural, of course; the man was ill and had sent a substitute. Yet somehow + the contrast was a shock. + </p> + <p> + By the next night I had grown quite friendly with my four or five + colleagues; I had discovered what is called a mutual friend with Berkeley + and several points of difference with Burke. Cowper, I think it was, who + introduced me to a friend of his, a fresh face, square and sturdy, framed + in a white wig. “This,” he explained, “is my friend So-and-So. He’s + Paley.” I looked round at all the faces by this time fixed and familiar; I + studied them; I counted them; then I bowed to the third Paley as one bows + to necessity. So far the thing was all within the limits of coincidence. + It certainly seemed odd that this one particular cleric should be so + varying and elusive. It was singular that Paley, alone among men, should + swell and shrink and alter like a phantom, while all else remained solid. + But the thing was explicable; two men had been ill and there was an end of + it; only I went again the next night, and a clear-coloured elegant youth + with powdered hair bounded up to me, and told me with boyish excitement + that he was Paley. + </p> + <p> + For the next twenty-four hours I remained in the mental condition of the + modern world. I mean the condition in which all natural explanations have + broken down and no supernatural explanation has been established. My + bewilderment had reached to boredom when I found myself once more in the + colour and clatter of the pageant, and I was all the more pleased because + I met an old school-fellow, and we mutually recognised each other under + our heavy clothes and hoary wigs. We talked about all those great things + for which literature is too small and only life large enough; red-hot + memories and those gigantic details which make up the characters of men. I + heard all about the friends he had lost sight of and those he had kept in + sight; I heard about his profession, and asked at last how he came into + the pageant. + </p> + <p> + “The fact is,” he said, “a friend of mine asked me, just for to-night, to + act a chap called Paley; I don’t know who he was....” + </p> + <p> + “No, by thunder!” I said, “nor does anyone.” + </p> + <p> + This was the last blow, and the next night passed like a dream. I scarcely + noticed the slender, sprightly, and entirely new figure which fell into + the ranks in the place of Paley, so many times deceased. What could it + mean? Why was the giddy Paley unfaithful among the faithful found? Did + these perpetual changes prove the popularity or the unpopularity of being + Paley? Was it that no human being could support being Paley for one night + and live till morning? Or was it that the gates were crowded with eager + throngs of the British public thirsting to be Paley, who could only be let + in one at a time? Or is there some ancient vendetta against Paley? Does + some secret society of Deists still assassinate any one who adopts the + name? + </p> + <p> + I cannot conjecture further about this true tale of mystery; and that for + two reasons. First, the story is so true that I have had to put a lie into + it. Every word of this narrative is veracious, except the one word Paley. + And second, because I have got to go into the next room and dress up as + Dr. Johnson. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREMENDOUS TRIFLES ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Tremendous Trifles + +Author: G.K. Chesterton + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8092] +[This file was first posted on June 13, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + + + + +TREMENDOUS TRIFLES + +by + +G. K. Chesterton + + + + + + +Preface + +These fleeting sketches are all republished by kind permission +of the Editor of the DAILY NEWS, in which paper they appeared. +They amount to no more than a sort of sporadic diary--a diary +recording one day in twenty which happened to stick in the fancy-- +the only kind of diary the author has ever been able to keep. +Even that diary he could only keep by keeping it in public, +for bread and cheese. But trivial as are the topics they +are not utterly without a connecting thread of motive. As the +reader's eye strays, with hearty relief, from these pages, +it probably alights on something, a bed-post or a lamp-post, +a window blind or a wall. It is a thousand to one that the +reader is looking at something that he has never seen: that is, +never realised. He could not write an essay on such a post or +wall: he does not know what the post or wall mean. He could +not even write the synopsis of an essay; as "The Bed-Post; Its +Significance--Security Essential to Idea of Sleep--Night Felt +as Infinite--Need of Monumental Architecture," and so on. +He could not sketch in outline his theoretic attitude towards +window-blinds, even in the form of a summary. "The Window-Blind-- +Its Analogy to the Curtain and Veil--Is Modesty Natural? +--Worship of and Avoidance of the Sun, etc., etc." None of us +think enough of these things on which the eye rests. But don't +let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? Let us +exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that run +across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be +ocular athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or +a coloured cloud. I have attempted some such thing in what +follows; but anyone else may do it better, if anyone else will +only try. + + +Contents Chapter + I Tremendous Trifles + II A Piece of Chalk + III The Secret of a Train + IV The Perfect Game + V The Extraordinary Cabman + VI An Accident + VII The Advantages of Having One Leg + VIII The End of the World + IX In the Place de la Bastille + X On Lying in Bed + XI The Twelve Men + XII The Wind and the Trees + XIII The Dickensian + XIV In Topsy-Turvy Land + XV What I Found in My Pocket + XVI The Dragon's Grandmother + XVII The Red Angel + XVIII The Tower + XIX How I Met the President + XX The Giant + XXI The Great Man + XXII The Orthodox Barber + XXIII The Toy Theatre + XXIV A Tragedy of Twopence + XXV A Cab Ride Across Country + XXVI The Two Noises + XXVII Some Policemen and a Moral + XXVIII The Lion + XXIX Humanity: An Interlude + XXX The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + XXXI The Riddle of the Ivy + XXXII The Travellers in State + XXXIII The Prehistoric Railway Station + XXXIV The Diabolist + XXXV A Glimpse of My Country + XXXVI A Somewhat Improbable Story + XXXVII The Shop of Ghosts +XXXVIII The Ballade of a Strange Town + XXXIX The Mystery of a Pageant + + +I + +Tremendous Trifles + +Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly +in the front garden, because their villa was a model one. +The front garden was about the same size as the dinner table; +it consisted of four strips of gravel, a square of turf with some +mysterious pieces of cork standing up in the middle and one flower +bed with a row of red daisies. One morning while they were at play +in these romantic grounds, a passing individual, probably the milkman, +leaned over the railing and engaged them in philosophical conversation. +The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, were at least sharply +interested in his remarks. For the milkman (who was, I need say, +a fairy) did his duty in that state of life by offering them +in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. +And Paul closed with the offer with a business-like abruptness, +explaining that he had long wished to be a giant that he might stride +across continents and oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas +in an afternoon dinner stroll. The milkman producing a wand from +his breast pocket, waved it in a hurried and perfunctory manner; +and in an instant the model villa with its front garden was like a +tiny doll's house at Paul's colossal feet. He went striding away +with his head above the clouds to visit Niagara and the Himalayas. +But when he came to the Himalayas, he found they were quite small +and silly-looking, like the little cork rockery in the garden; and when +he found Niagara it was no bigger than the tap turned on in the bathroom. +He wandered round the world for several minutes trying to find +something really large and finding everything small, till in sheer +boredom he lay down on four or five prairies and fell asleep. +Unfortunately his head was just outside the hut of an intellectual +backwoodsman who came out of it at that moment with an axe in one hand +and a book of Neo-Catholic Philosophy in the other. The man looked +at the book and then at the giant, and then at the book again. +And in the book it said, "It can be maintained that the evil +of pride consists in being out of proportion to the universe." +So the backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, +working eight hours a day for about a week, cut the giant's head off; +and there was an end of him. + +Such is the severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly +enough, made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long +wished to be a pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he +immediately became one. When the transformation was over he found +himself in the midst of an immense plain, covered with a tall green +jungle and above which, at intervals, rose strange trees each with +a head like the sun in symbolic pictures, with gigantic rays of +silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward the middle of this prairie +stood up a mountain of such romantic and impossible shape, yet of +such stony height and dominance, that it looked like some incident +of the end of the world. And far away on the faint horizon he +could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more mystical, +of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. He +set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has +not come to the end of it yet. + +Such is the story of Peter and Paul, which contains all the highest +qualities of a modern fairy tale, including that of being wholly unfit +for children; and indeed the motive with which I have introduced +it is not childish, but rather full of subtlety and reaction. +It is in fact the almost desperate motive of excusing or palliating +the pages that follow. Peter and Paul are the two primary influences +upon European literature to-day; and I may be permitted to put my own +preference in its most favourable shape, even if I can only do it +by what little girls call telling a story. + +I need scarcely say that I am the pigmy. The only excuse for the scraps +that follow is that they show what can be achieved with a commonplace +existence and the sacred spectacles of exaggeration. The other +great literary theory, that which is roughly represented in England +by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, is that we moderns are to regain the primal zest +by sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical +variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. +Let it be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; +and the two alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling's school +advises us to go to Central Africa in order to find a man without +a frock coat. The school to which I belong suggests that we should +stare steadily at the man until we see the man inside the frock coat. +If we stare at him long enough he may even be moved to take off his coat +to us; and that is a far greater compliment than his taking off his hat. +In other words, we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely +on the facts actually before us, force them to turn into adventures; +force them to give up their meaning and fulfil their mysterious purpose. +The purpose of the Kipling literature is to show how many extraordinary +things a man may see if he is active and strides from continent +to continent like the giant in my tale. But the object of my school +is to show how many extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man +may see if he can spur himself to the single activity of seeing. +For this purpose I have taken the laziest person of my acquaintance, that +is myself; and made an idle diary of such odd things as I have fallen over +by accident, in walking in a very limited area at a very indolent pace. +If anyone says that these are very small affairs talked about in very +big language, I can only gracefully compliment him upon seeing the joke. +If anyone says that I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess +with pride that it is so. I can imagine no more successful and productive +form of manufacture than that of making mountains out of molehills. +But I would add this not unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; +one has only to become a pigmy like Peter to discover that. + +I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, +in getting to the top of everything and overlooking everything. +Satan was the most celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took +Jesus to the top of an exceeding high mountain and showed +him all the kingdoms of the earth. But the joy of Satan +in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, but a joy in +beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like insects +at his feet. It is from the valley that things look large; +it is from the level that things look high; I am a child +of the level and have no need of that celebrated Alpine guide. +I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help; +but I will not lift up my carcass to the hills, unless it is +absolutely necessary. Everything is in an attitude of mind; +and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. +I will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle +on me like flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. +The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only +for want of wonder. + + +II + +A Piece of Chalk + +I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer +holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing +nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up +a walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. +I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, +belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), +and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any +brown paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she +mistook the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. +She seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must +be wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do; +indeed, it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental capacity. +Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of toughness and +endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only wanted to draw +pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in the least; +and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a question, not of +tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing comparatively +irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I wanted to draw +she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, apparently supposing +that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown paper wrappers +from motives of economy. + +I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I +not only liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness +in paper, just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, +or in beer, or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper +represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, +and with a bright-coloured chalk or two you can pick out points +of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, +like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. +All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown +paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and possibly other things. +I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical +are the things that one carries in one's pocket; the pocket-knife, +for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. +Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things +in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age +of the great epics is past. + +. . . . . + +With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, +I went out on to the great downs. I crawled across those colossal +contours that express the best quality of England, because they +are at the same time soft and strong. The smoothness of them +has the same meaning as the smoothness of great cart-horses, +or the smoothness of the beech-tree; it declares in the teeth +of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty are merciful. +As my eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly +as any of its cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. +The villages in the immense valley were safe, one could see, +for centuries; yet the lifting of the whole land was like +the lifting of one enormous wave to wash them all away. + +I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place +to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven's sake, imagine I was going +to sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, +and blind old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, +and saints in robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, +and all the sacred or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright +colours on brown paper. They are much better worth drawing than Nature; +also they are much easier to draw. When a cow came slouching +by in the field next to me, a mere artist might have drawn it; +but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds. So I drew +the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly walking before me +in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and silver, and had +seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all the beasts. But +though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the landscape, +it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the best out +of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about the +old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care +very much about Nature because they did not describe it much. + +They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; +but they sat on the great hills to write it. They gave out much +less about Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They +painted the white robes of their holy virgins with the blinding +snow, at which they had stared all day. They blazoned the shields +of their paladins with the purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. +The greenness of a thousand green leaves clustered into the live +green figure of Robin Hood. The blueness of a score of forgotten +skies became the blue robes of the Virgin. The inspiration went +in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo. + +. . . . . + +But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began +to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that a +most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, +but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted +with all the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art +of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. +I cannot avoid remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the +wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, +that white is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is +a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as +black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; +when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three +defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, +for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of +religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence +of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and +separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean +not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a +plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or +not seen. + +Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means +something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in +many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost +said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. In a sense our age +has realised this fact, and expressed it in our sullen costume. +For if it were really true that white was a blank and colourless +thing, negative and non-committal, then white would be used instead +of black and grey for the funeral dress of this pessimistic period. +We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of spotless silver +linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. Which is +not the case. + +Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk. + +. . . . . + +I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town +nearer than Chichester at which it was even remotely probable +that there would be such a thing as an artist's colourman. +And yet, without white, my absurd little pictures would be as +pointless as the world would be if there were no good people in it. +I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients. +Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and again, +so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a +man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. +Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some +salt water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on +an immense warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made +entirely out of white chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until +it met the sky. I stooped and broke a piece off the rock I sat on; +it did not mark so well as the shop chalks do; but it gave the +effect. And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, realising that +this Southern England is not only a grand peninsula, and a tradition +and a civilisation; it is something even more admirable. It is a +piece of chalk. + + +III + +The Secret of a Train + +All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a +loose memory. I will not merely say that this story is true: +because, as you will soon see, it is all truth and no story. +It has no explanation and no conclusion; it is, like most of the other +things we encounter in life, a fragment of something else which +would be intensely exciting if it were not too large to be seen. +For the perplexity of life arises from there being too many +interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any +of them; what we call its triviality is really the tag-ends +of numberless tales; ordinary and unmeaning existence is like ten +thousand thrilling detective stories mixed up with a spoon. +My experience was a fragment of this nature, and it is, at any rate, +not fictitious. Not only am I not making up the incidents +(what there were of them), but I am not making up the atmosphere +of the landscape, which were the whole horror of the thing. +I remember them vividly, and they were as I shall now describe. + +. . . . . + +About noon of an ashen autumn day some years ago I was standing +outside the station at Oxford intending to take the train to London. +And for some reason, out of idleness or the emptiness of my mind +or the emptiness of the pale grey sky, or the cold, a kind of caprice +fell upon me that I would not go by that train at all, but would step +out on the road and walk at least some part of the way to London. +I do not know if other people are made like me in this matter; +but to me it is always dreary weather, what may be called +useless weather, that slings into life a sense of action and romance. +On bright blue days I do not want anything to happen; the world +is complete and beautiful, a thing for contemplation. I no more +ask for adventures under that turquoise dome than I ask for +adventures in church. But when the background of man's life is +a grey background, then, in the name of man's sacred supremacy, +I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. When the heavens fail +man refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have written on it, in +letters of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing shall +happen, then the immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises +up and decrees that something shall happen, if it be only the +slaughter of a policeman. But this is a digressive way of stating +what I have said already--that the bleak sky awoke in me a hunger +for some change of plans, that the monotonous weather seemed to +render unbearable the use of the monotonous train, and that I set +out into the country lanes, out of the town of Oxford. It was, +perhaps, at that moment that a strange curse came upon me out of +the city and the sky, whereby it was decreed that years afterwards +I should, in an article in the DAILY NEWS, talk about Sir George +Trevelyan in connection with Oxford, when I knew perfectly well +that he went to Cambridge. + +As I crossed the country everything was ghostly and colourless. +The fields that should have been green were as grey as the skies; +the tree-tops that should have been green were as grey as the clouds +and as cloudy. And when I had walked for some hours the evening +was closing in. A sickly sunset clung weakly to the horizon, +as if pale with reluctance to leave the world in the dark. +And as it faded more and more the skies seemed to come closer and +to threaten. The clouds which had been merely sullen became swollen; +and then they loosened and let down the dark curtains of the rain. +The rain was blinding and seemed to beat like blows from an enemy +at close quarters; the skies seemed bending over and bawling +in my ears. I walked on many more miles before I met a man, +and in that distance my mind had been made up; and when I met +him I asked him if anywhere in the neighbourhood I could pick up +the train for Paddington. He directed me to a small silent station +(I cannot even remember the name of it) which stood well away +from the road and looked as lonely as a hut on the Andes. +I do not think I have ever seen such a type of time and sadness +and scepticism and everything devilish as that station was: +it looked as if it had always been raining there ever since +the creation of the world. The water streamed from the soaking +wood of it as if it were not water at all, but some loathsome +liquid corruption of the wood itself; as if the solid station +were eternally falling to pieces and pouring away in filth. +It took me nearly ten minutes to find a man in the station. +When I did he was a dull one, and when I asked him if there was +a train to Paddington his answer was sleepy and vague. As far as I +understood him, he said there would be a train in half an hour. +I sat down and lit a cigar and waited, watching the last tail +of the tattered sunset and listening to the everlasting rain. +It may have been in half an hour or less, but a train came rather +slowly into the station. It was an unnaturally dark train; +I could not see a light anywhere in the long black body of it; +and I could not see any guard running beside it. I was reduced +to walking up to the engine and calling out to the stoker to ask +if the train was going to London. "Well--yes, sir," he said, with +an unaccountable kind of reluctance. "It is going to London; +but----" It was just starting, and I jumped into the first +carriage; it was pitch dark. I sat there smoking and wondering, +as we steamed through the continually darkening landscape, lined +with desolate poplars, until we slowed down and stopped, +irrationally, in the middle of a field. I heard a heavy noise as +of some one clambering off the train, and a dark, ragged head +suddenly put itself into my window. "Excuse me, sir," said the +stoker, "but I think, perhaps--well, perhaps you ought to know-- +there's a dead man in this train." + +. . . . . + +Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities +and nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt, to be +finally overwhelmed with this sensational touch, and to have +insisted on getting out and walking. As it was, I regret to +say, I expressed myself politely, but firmly, to the effect that +I didn't care particularly if the train took me to Paddington. +But when the train had started with its unknown burden I did do +one thing, and do it quite instinctively, without stopping to +think, or to think more than a flash. I threw away my cigar. +Something that is as old as man and has to do with all mourning +and ceremonial told me to do it. There was something +unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, in the idea of there +being only two men in that train, and one of them dead and the +other smoking a cigar. And as the red and gold of the butt end +of it faded like a funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic +moment of a procession, I realised how immortal ritual is. I +realised (what is the origin and essence of all ritual) that in +the presence of those sacred riddles about which we can say +nothing it is more decent merely to do something. And I realised +that ritual will always mean throwing away something; DESTROYING +our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods. + +When the train panted at last into Paddington Station I sprang +out of it with a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier +and officials guarding the rear part of the train; no one was +allowed to press towards it. They were guarding and hiding +something; perhaps death in some too shocking form, perhaps +something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up with human mystery +and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of sanctity; +perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough into +the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces. Nor +have I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I +wandered or what frightful thing was my companion in the dark. + + +IV + +THE PERFECT GAME + +We have all met the man who says that some odd things have +happened to him, but that he does not really believe that they +were supernatural. My own position is the opposite of this. +I believe in the supernatural as a matter of intellect and reason, +not as a matter of personal experience. I do not see ghosts; +I only see their inherent probability. But it is entirely +a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions; +my nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. +But upon people of this temperament one weird incident will often +leave a peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance +that ever occurred to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted +in nothing less than my playing a game, and playing it quite well +for some seventeen consecutive minutes. The ghost of my grandfather +would have astonished me less. + +On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my +inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had +imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, +and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and +luxuriant side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. +I played it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had +a semi-philosophical argument which lasted through the entire contest. +It is deeply implanted in my mind that I had the best of the argument; +but it is certain and beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. + +"Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!" I cried, patting him affectionately +on the head with a mallet, "how far you really are from the pure +love of the sport--you who can play. It is only we who play badly +who love the Game itself. You love glory; you love applause; +you love the earthquake voice of victory; you do not love croquet. +You do not love croquet until you love being beaten at croquet. +It is we the bunglers who adore the occupation in the abstract. +It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. If we may see the face +of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) we are content to +see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is called amateurish; +and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs is but the +French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, the most +disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates (I +allude to the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, +impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within +the pedantic boundaries of the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek +honour in the ends of the earth; they turn up in the flower-beds +and the conservatory; they are to be found in the front garden +and the next street. No, Parkinson! The good painter has skill. +It is the bad painter who loves his art. The good musician +loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With such a +pure and hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game +itself. I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or +tape, as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, +the four seas of Britain. I love the mere swing of the mallets, and +the click of the balls is music. The four colours are to me +sacramental and symbolic, like the red of martyrdom, or the white +of Easter Day. You lose all this, my poor Parkinson. You have to +solace yourself for the absence of this vision by the paltry +consolation of being able to go through hoops and to hit the stick." + +And I waved my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety. + +"Don't be too sorry for me," said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. +"I shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more +a man likes a game the better he would want to play it. Granted that +the pleasure in the thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure +of success come naturally and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your +own simile of the Knight and his Lady-love. I admit the gentleman +does first and foremost want to be in the lady's presence. But I +never yet heard of a gentleman who wanted to look an utter ass when +he was there." + +"Perhaps not; though he generally looks it," I replied. "But the truth +is that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The +happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which +can be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, +the jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the +love of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not +true that the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger +will be the game. It is logically possible--(follow me closely here, +Parkinson!)--it is logically possible, to play croquet too well to +enjoy it at all. If you could put this blue ball through that distant +hoop as easily as you could pick it up with your hand, then you would +not put it through that hoop any more than you pick it up with your +hand; it would not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly you +would not play at all. The moment the game is perfect the game +disappears." + +"I do not think, however," said Parkinson, "that you are in any +immediate danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not +think your croquet will vanish through its own faultless excellence. +You are safe for the present." + +I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired myself, +and resumed the thread of my discourse. + +The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this +time it was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four +more fundamental principles, and my companion had gone through five +more hoops, the dusk was verging upon dark. + +"We shall have to give this up," said Parkinson, as he missed +a ball almost for the first time, "I can't see a thing." + +"Nor can I," I answered, "and it is a comfort to reflect that I +could not hit anything if I saw it." + +With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness +towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. +Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, +indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball. + +Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball +again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was +the right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot. + +Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that +impossible ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I +supposed was the vague direction of the quite invisible stick. +And in the dead silence I heard the stick rattle as the ball +struck it heavily. + +I threw down my mallet. "I can't stand this," I said. "My ball has +gone right three times. These things are not of this world." + +"Pick your mallet up ," said Parkinson, "have another go." + +"I tell you I daren't. If I made another hoop like that I should see +all the devils dancing there on the blessed grass." + +"Why devils?" asked Parkinson; "they may be only fairies making fun of +you. They are sending you the 'Perfect Game,' which is no game." + +I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness, +in which the faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across +the grass as if it burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball +somewhere--somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull +click of the balls touching, and ran into the house like one pursued. + + +V + +The Extraordinary Cabman + +From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the +narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to +insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper +columns. I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better +expressed by some practical parable out of daily life than by any +other method; therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the +extraordinary cabman, which occurred to me only three days ago, and +which, slight as it apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine +emotion bordering upon despair. + +On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching +in a little restaurant in Soho in company with three or four +of my best friends. My best friends are all either bottomless +sceptics or quite uncontrollable believers, so our discussion +at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate and terrible ideas. +And the whole argument worked out ultimately to this: that the +question is whether a man can be certain of anything at all. +I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, +furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible +intellectually to entertain certainty, what is this certainty +which it is impossible to entertain? If I have never experienced +such a thing as certainty I cannot even say that a thing is not +certain. Similarly, if I have never experienced such a thing as +green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as +green as possible for all I know, if I have really no experience +of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the room; +because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. +And the difference between us was very deep, because it +was a difference as to the object of the whole thing +called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. +For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun +opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, +opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened +my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it +again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. +And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly +if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever. + +. . . . . + +Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short +(for it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, +who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election +had somehow become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab +from the corner of Leicester-square to the members' entrance of the House +of Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. +Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper +is a discussion between us which still continues. + +It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude +of detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab +on a few hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I +had to visit. I then got out and offered him more than his fare. +He looked at it, but not with the surly doubt and general +disposition to try it on which is not unknown among normal cabmen. +But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He looked at it +with a dull and infantile astonishment, clearly quite genuine. +"Do you know, sir," he said, "you've only given me 1s.8d?" +I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. "Now you know, +sir," said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, "you know +that ain't the fare from Euston." "Euston," I repeated vaguely, +for the phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. +"What on earth has Euston got to do with it?" "You hailed me just outside +Euston Station," began the man with astonishing precision, "and then +you said----" "What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?" +I said with Christian forbearance; "I took you at the south-west +corner of Leicester-square." "Leicester-square," he exclaimed, +loosening a kind of cataract of scorn, "why we ain't been near +Leicester-square to-day. You hailed me outside Euston Station, +and you said----" "Are you mad, or am I?" I asked with scientific calm. + +I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would +think of creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. +And this man was not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human +face was heavy and simple and humble, and with great big +blue eyes protruding like a frog's, if ever (in short) +a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the +face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and +down the street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming +on. And for one second the old nightmare of the sceptic put +its finger on my nerve. What was certainty? Was anybody +certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the dull rut of the +sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future life. +The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we +possess a past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically +considered, except a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew +deeper from the road. The cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate +details of the gesture, the words, the complex but consistent +course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable +occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I +know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him +outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite equally +firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a +member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment +the universe and the stars swung just a hair's breadth from +their balance, and the foundations of the earth were moved. +But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the same +reason that I believe in free will, for the same reason that I +believe in fixed character of virtue, the reason that could +only be expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic, +I continued to believe that this honest cabman was wrong, +and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner +of Leicester-square. He began with the same evident and +ponderous sincerity, "You hailed me outside Euston Station, +and you said----" + +And at this moment there came over his features a kind +of frightful transfiguration of living astonishment, +as if he had been lit up like a lamp from the inside. +"Why, I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I beg your pardon. +I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I remember now. +I beg your pardon." And with that this astonishing man let out +his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. +The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, +is strictly true. + +. . . . . + +I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance +and the mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying +that although his face had seemed so honest there was something +unearthly and demoniac about him when seen from behind. +Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me from my adherence to those +sanities and certainties which I had defended earlier in the day. +In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that my sense of reality, +though it had rocked for an instant, had remained erect. + + +VI + +An Accident + +Some time ago I wrote in these columns an article called +"The Extraordinary Cabman." I am now in a position to +contribute my experience of a still more extraordinary cab. +The extraordinary thing about the cab was that it did not like me; +it threw me out violently in the middle of the Strand. +If my friends who read the DAILY NEWS are as romantic (and as rich) +as I take them to be, I presume that this experience is not uncommon. +I suppose that they are all being thrown out of cabs, all over London. +Still, as there are some people, virginal and remote from the world, +who have not yet had this luxurious experience, I will give +a short account of the psychology of myself when my hansom cab +ran into the side of a motor omnibus, and I hope hurt it. + +I do not need to dwell on the essential romance of the hansom cab-- +that one really noble modern thing which our age, when it is judged, +will gravely put beside the Parthenon. It is really modern in that +it is both secret and swift. My particular hansom cab was modern in +these two respects; it was also very modern in the fact that it came +to grief. But it is also English; it is not to be found abroad; it +belongs to a beautiful, romantic country where nearly everybody is +pretending to be richer than they are, and acting as if they were. +It is comfortable, and yet it is reckless; and that combination +is the very soul of England. But although I had always +realised all these good qualities in a hansom cab, I had not +experienced all the possibilities, or, as the moderns put it, +all the aspects of that vehicle. My enunciation of the merits +of a hansom cab had been always made when it was the right way up. +Let me, therefore, explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom +cab for the first and, I am happy to believe, the last time. +Polycrates threw one ring into the sea to propitiate the Fates. +I have thrown one hansom cab into the sea (if you will excuse a rather +violent metaphor) and the Fates are, I am quite sure, propitiated. +Though I am told they do not like to be told so. + +I was driving yesterday afternoon in a hansom cab down one +of the sloping streets into the Strand, reading one of my own +admirable articles with continual pleasure, and still more +continual surprise, when the horse fell forward, scrambled a moment +on the scraping stones, staggered to his feet again, and went forward. +The horses in my cabs often do this, and I have learnt to enjoy +my own articles at any angle of the vehicle. So I did not see +anything at all odd about the way the horse went on again. +But I saw it suddenly in the faces of all the people on the pavement. +They were all turned towards me, and they were all struck +with fear suddenly, as with a white flame out of the sky. +And one man half ran out into the road with a movement of the +elbow as if warding off a blow, and tried to stop the horse. +Then I knew that the reins were lost, and the next moment the horse +was like a living thunder-bolt. I try to describe things exactly +as they seemed to me; many details I may have missed or mis-stated; +many details may have, so to speak, gone mad in the race down the road. +I remember that I once called one of my experiences narrated in this +paper "A Fragment of Fact." This is, at any rate, a fragment of fact. +No fact could possibly be more fragmentary than the sort of fact +that I expected to be at the bottom of that street. + +. . . . . + +I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally +found that the converted do not understand their own religion. +Thus I have always urged in this paper that democracy has +a deeper meaning than democrats understand; that is, that common +and popular things, proverbs, and ordinary sayings always have +something in them unrealised by most who repeat them. Here is one. +We have all heard about the man who is in momentary danger, +and who sees the whole of his life pass before him in a moment. +In the cold, literal, and common sense of words, this is obviously +a thundering lie. Nobody can pretend that in an accident +or a mortal crisis he elaborately remembered all the tickets +he had ever taken to Wimbledon, or all the times that he had ever +passed the brown bread and butter. + +But in those few moments, while my cab was tearing towards +the traffic of the Strand, I discovered that there is a truth +behind this phrase, as there is behind all popular phrases. +I did really have, in that short and shrieking period, +a rapid succession of a number of fundamental points of view. +I had, so to speak, about five religions in almost as many seconds. +My first religion was pure Paganism, which among sincere men +is more shortly described as extreme fear. Then there succeeded +a state of mind which is quite real, but for which no proper +name has ever been found. The ancients called it Stoicism, +and I think it must be what some German lunatics mean +(if they mean anything) when they talk about Pessimism. +It was an empty and open acceptance of the thing that happens-- +as if one had got beyond the value of it. And then, curiously enough, +came a very strong contrary feeling--that things mattered very +much indeed, and yet that they were something more than tragic. +It was a feeling, not that life was unimportant, but that +life was much too important ever to be anything but life. +I hope that this was Christianity. At any rate, it occurred +at the moment when we went crash into the omnibus. + +It seemed to me that the hansom cab simply turned over on top of me, +like an enormous hood or hat. I then found myself crawling +out from underneath it in attitudes so undignified that they +must have added enormously to that great cause to which the +Anti-Puritan League and I have recently dedicated ourselves. +I mean the cause of the pleasures of the people. As to my demeanour +when I emerged, I have two confessions to make, and they are both +made merely in the interests of mental science. The first is that +whereas I had been in a quite pious frame of mind the moment before +the collision, when I got to my feet and found I had got off with a +cut or two I began (like St. Peter) to curse and to swear. +A man offered me a newspaper or something that I had dropped. +I can distinctly remember consigning the paper to a state +of irremediable spiritual ruin. I am very sorry for this now, +and I apologise both to the man and to the paper. I have not the +least idea what was the meaning of this unnatural anger; I mention +it as a psychological confession. It was immediately followed by +extreme hilarity, and I made so many silly jokes to the policeman +that he disgraced himself by continual laughter before all the +little boys in the street, who had hitherto taken him seriously. + +. . . . . + +There is one other odd thing about the matter which I also mention +as a curiosity of the human brain or deficiency of brain. +At intervals of about every three minutes I kept on reminding +the policeman that I had not paid the cabman, and that I hoped +he would not lose his money. He said it would be all right, +and the man would appear. But it was not until about half an hour +afterwards that it suddenly struck me with a shock intolerable +that the man might conceivably have lost more than half a crown; +that he had been in danger as well as I. I had instinctively +regarded the cabman as something uplifted above accidents, a god. +I immediately made inquiries, and I am happy to say that they +seemed to have been unnecessary. + +But henceforward I shall always understand with a darker and more delicate +charity those who take tythe of mint, and anise, and cumin, and neglect +the weightier matters of the law; I shall remember how I was once really +tortured with owing half a crown to a man who might have been dead. +Some admirable men in white coats at the Charing Cross Hospital tied +up my small injury, and I went out again into the Strand. I felt upon +me even a kind of unnatural youth; I hungered for something untried. +So to open a new chapter in my life I got into a hansom cab. + + +VII + +The Advantages of Having One Leg + +A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement +and casting about for some phrase of consolation that should +not be either insolent or weak, said at last, "I think one can +live through these great sorrows and even be the better. +What wears one is the little worries." "That's quite right, mum," +answered the old woman with emphasis, "and I ought to know, +seeing I've had ten of 'em." It is, perhaps, in this sense +that it is most true that little worries are most wearing. +In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a truth, +contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. +People who have both small troubles and big ones have the +right to say that they find the small ones the most bitter; +and it is undoubtedly true that the back which is bowed under +loads incredible can feel a faint addition to those loads; +a giant holding up the earth and all its animal creation might +still find the grasshopper a burden. But I am afraid that the +maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is sometimes used +or abused by people, because they have nothing but the very +smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the +crumpled rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity +she would wear the crown of thorns--if she had to. The gentleman +may permit himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he +would behave much better if it were a mere matter of starvation. +We need not deny that the grasshopper on man's shoulder is +a burden; but we need not pay much respect to the gentleman +who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant +when he knows there are no elephants in the country. +We may concede that a straw may break the camel's back, +but we like to know that it really is the last straw and +not the first. + +I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right +to grumble, so long as they grumble about something else. +It is a singular fact that if they are sane they almost always +do grumble about something else. To talk quite reasonably about +your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way to go off your head. +But people with great troubles talk about little ones, +and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often +has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly +a very clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified +in asking that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. +I do no deny that molehills can sometimes be important. +Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be more +abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before, +they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition +that he was going to tumble over a hassock. William III. +died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose that with all his +varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a mountain. +But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask a happy man +(not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, and even make +them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive poverty +I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental +limitations that are always falling across our path--bad weather, +confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments +or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, +finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, +finding punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures +to be drawn from all these that I sing--I sing with confidence +because I have recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures +which arise from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, +with the only alternative course of standing on one leg like a stork-- +a stork is a poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it. + +To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if +the thing itself symbolise something other than isolation. +If we wish to see what a house is it must be a house in some +uninhabited landscape. If we wish to depict what a man really +is we must depict a man alone in a desert or on a dark sea sand. +So long as he is a single figure he means all that humanity means; +so long as he is solitary he means human society; so long +as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. +Add another figure and the picture is less human--not more so. +One is company, two is none. If you wish to symbolise +human building draw one dark tower on the horizon; if you +wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the sky. +Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we +call our day there is but one star in the sky--a large, +fierce star which we call the sun. One sun is splendid; +six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower Of Giotto is sublime; +a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row of white posts. +The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry +of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in +following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping +the single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find +the poetry of all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. +To express complete and perfect leggishness the leg must stand +in sublime isolation, like the tower in the wilderness. +As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is that which +stands most alone. + +This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity +of some Doric column. The students of architecture tell us +that the only legitimate use of a column is to support weight. +This column of mine fulfils its legitimate function. +It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic consistency, +it may even improve by the process, and during these few +days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness +or dislocation of the one leg may find compensation in the +astonishing strength and classic beauty of the other leg. +Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. George Meredith's novel might +pass by at any moment, and seeing me in the stork-like attitude +would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more literal exactitude, +"He has a leg." Notice how this famous literary phrase supports +my contention touching this isolation of any admirable thing. +Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect +picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. +She delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive +fact that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous +and irrelevant, a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have +confused Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. +That having had one good leg he should have another-- +this would be to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do. +She would have been as much bewildered by him as if he had +been a centipede. + +All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender +of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, +all desolation has for its real aim this separation of something +so that it may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel +grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious +and fascinating division between one of my feet and the other. +The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost. +In one of my feet I can feel how strong and splendid a foot is; +in the other I can realise how very much otherwise it might +have been. The moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. +This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and +beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. +If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself +if only for a moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully +and wonderfully God's image is made, stand on one leg. +If you want to realise the splendid vision of all visible things-- +wink the other eye. + + +VIII + +The End of the World + +For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious +town of Besancon, which stands like a sort of peninsula +in a horse-shoe of river. You may learn from the guide books +that it was the birthplace of Victor Hugo, and that it is +a military station with many forts, near the French frontier. +But you will not learn from guide books that the very tiles +on the roofs seem to be of some quainter and more delicate +colour than the tiles of all the other towns of the world; +that the tiles look like the little clouds of some strange sunset, +or like the lustrous scales of some strange fish. They will not +tell you that in this town the eye cannot rest on anything without +finding it in some way attractive and even elvish, a carved face +at a street corner, a gleam of green fields through a stunted arch, +or some unexpected colour for the enamel of a spire or dome. + +. . . . . + +Evening was coming on and in the light of it all these colours +so simple and yet so subtle seemed more and more to fit together +and make a fairy tale. I sat down for a little outside a cafe +with a row of little toy trees in front of it, and presently +the driver of a fly (as we should call it) came to the same place. +He was one of those very large and dark Frenchmen, a type not +common but yet typical of France; the Rabelaisian Frenchman, +huge, swarthy, purple-faced, a walking wine-barrel; he was a sort +of Southern Falstaff, if one can imagine Falstaff anything but English. +And, indeed, there was a vital difference, typical of two nations. +For while Falstaff would have been shaking with hilarity like +a huge jelly, full of the broad farce of the London streets, +this Frenchman was rather solemn and dignified than otherwise-- +as if pleasure were a kind of pagan religion. After some +talk which was full of the admirable civility and equality +of French civilisation, he suggested without either eagerness +or embarrassment that he should take me in his fly for an hour's +ride in the hills beyond the town. And though it was growing late +I consented; for there was one long white road under an archway +and round a hill that dragged me like a long white cord. +We drove through the strong, squat gateway that was made by Romans, +and I remember the coincidence like a sort of omen that as we +passed out of the city I heard simultaneously the three sounds +which are the trinity of France. They make what some poet calls +"a tangled trinity," and I am not going to disentangle it. +Whatever those three things mean, how or why they co-exist; +whether they can be reconciled or perhaps are reconciled already; +the three sounds I heard then by an accident all at once make up +the French mystery. For the brass band in the Casino gardens behind +me was playing with a sort of passionate levity some ramping tune +from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was going on I heard +also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible loyalties +and men always arming in the gate of France; and I heard also, +fainter than these sounds and through them all, the Angelus. + +. . . . . + +After this coincidence of symbols I had a curious sense of having +left France behind me, or, perhaps, even the civilised world. +And, indeed, there was something in the landscape wild +enough to encourage such a fancy. I have seen perhaps +higher mountains, but I have never seen higher rocks; +I have never seen height so near, so abrupt and sensational, +splinters of rock that stood up like the spires of churches, +cliffs that fell sudden and straight as Satan fell from heaven. +There was also a quality in the ride which was not only astonishing, +but rather bewildering; a quality which many must have noticed +if they have driven or ridden rapidly up mountain roads. +I mean a sense of gigantic gyration, as of the whole +earth turning about one's head. It is quite inadequate +to say that the hills rose and fell like enormous waves. +Rather the hills seemed to turn about me like the enormous sails +of a windmill, a vast wheel of monstrous archangelic wings. +As we drove on and up into the gathering purple of the sunset this +dizziness increased, confounding things above with things below. +Wide walls of wooded rock stood out above my head like a roof. +I stared at them until I fancied that I was staring down at a +wooded plain. Below me steeps of green swept down to the river. +I stared at them until I fancied that they swept up to the sky. +The purple darkened, night drew nearer; it seemed only to cut clearer +the chasms and draw higher the spires of that nightmare landscape. +Above me in the twilight was the huge black hulk of the driver, +and his broad, blank back was as mysterious as the back +of Death in Watts' picture. I felt that I was growing +too fantastic, and I sought to speak of ordinary things. +I called out to the driver in French, "Where are you taking me?" +and it is a literal and solemn fact that he answered me in the same +language without turning around, "To the end of the world." + +I did not answer. I let him drag the vehicle up dark, +steep ways, until I saw lights under a low roof of little +trees and two children, one oddly beautiful, playing at ball. +Then we found ourselves filling up the strict main street +of a tiny hamlet, and across the wall of its inn was written +in large letters, LE BOUT DU MONDE--the end of the world. + +The driver and I sat down outside that inn without a word, as if all +ceremonies were natural and understood in that ultimate place. +I ordered bread for both of us, and red wine, that was good but +had no name. On the other side of the road was a little plain +church with a cross on top of it and a cock on top of the cross. +This seemed to me a very good end of the world; if the story +of the world ended here it ended well. Then I wondered whether I +myself should really be content to end here, where most certainly +there were the best things of Christendom--a church and children's +games and decent soil and a tavern for men to talk with men. +But as I thought a singular doubt and desire grew slowly in me, +and at last I started up. + +"Are you not satisfied?" asked my companion. "No," I said, +"I am not satisfied even at the end of the world." + +Then, after a silence, I said, "Because you see there are two +ends of the world. And this is the wrong end of the world; +at least the wrong one for me. This is the French end of the world. +I want the other end of the world. Drive me to the other end +of the world." + +"The other end of the world?" he asked. "Where is that?" + +"It is in Walham Green," I whispered hoarsely. "You see it +on the London omnibuses. 'World's End and Walham Green.' +Oh, I know how good this is; I love your vineyards and your +free peasantry, but I want the English end of the world. +I love you like a brother, but I want an English cabman, +who will be funny and ask me what his fare 'is.' Your bugles +stir my blood, but I want to see a London policeman. +Take, oh, take me to see a London policeman." + +He stood quite dark and still against the end of the sunset, +and I could not tell whether he understood or not. I got back +into his carriage. + +"You will understand," I said, "if ever you are an exile even +for pleasure. The child to his mother, the man to his country, +as a countryman of yours once said. But since, perhaps, it is +rather too long a drive to the English end of the world, +we may as well drive back to Besancon." + +Only as the stars came out among those immortal hills I wept +for Walham Green. + + +IX + +In the Place de La Bastille + +On the first of May I was sitting outside a cafe in the Place de +la Bastille in Paris staring at the exultant column, crowned with +a capering figure, which stands in the place where the people +destroyed a prison and ended an age. The thing is a curious +example of how symbolic is the great part of human history. +As a matter of mere material fact, the Bastille when it was taken +was not a horrible prison; it was hardly a prison at all. +But it was a symbol, and the people always go by a sure +instinct for symbols; for the Chinaman, for instance, +at the last General Election, or for President Kruger's hat +in the election before; their poetic sense is perfect. +The Chinaman with his pigtail is not an idle flippancy. +He does typify with a compact precision exactly the thing +the people resent in African policy, the alien and grotesque +nature of the power of wealth, the fact that money has no roots, +that it is not a natural and familiar power, but a sort of airy +and evil magic calling monsters from the ends of the earth. +The people hate the mine owner who can bring a Chinaman +flying across the sea, exactly as the people hated the wizard +who could fetch a flying dragon through the air. It was the same +with Mr. Kruger's hat. His hat (that admirable hat) was not merely +a joke. It did symbolise, and symbolise extremely well, the exact +thing which our people at that moment regarded with impatience and +venom; the old-fashioned, dingy, Republican simplicity, the +unbeautiful dignity of the bourgeois, and the heavier truisms of +political morality. No; the people are sometimes wrong on the +practical side of politics; they are never wrong on the artistic +side. + +. . . . . + +So it was, certainly, with the Bastille. The destruction of the Bastille +was not a reform; it was something more important than a reform. +It was an iconoclasm; it was the breaking of a stone image. +The people saw the building like a giant looking at them with +a score of eyes, and they struck at it as at a carved fact. +For of all the shapes in which that immense illusion called materialism +can terrify the soul, perhaps the most oppressive are big buildings. +Man feels like a fly, an accident, in the thing he has himself made. +It requires a violent effort of the spirit to remember that +man made this confounding thing and man could unmake it. +Therefore the mere act of the ragged people in the street +taking and destroying a huge public building has a spiritual, +a ritual meaning far beyond its immediate political results. +It is a religious service. If, for instance, the Socialists were +numerous or courageous enough to capture and smash up the Bank +of England, you might argue for ever about the inutility of the act, +and how it really did not touch the root of the economic problem +in the correct manner. But mankind would never forget it. +It would change the world. + +Architecture is a very good test of the true strength +of a society, for the most valuable things in a human +state are the irrevocable things--marriage, for instance. +And architecture approaches nearer than any other art to +being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get rid of. +You can turn a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a +nuisance to turn that Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. +You can tear a poem to pieces; it is only in moments of +very sincere emotion that you tear a town-hall to pieces. +A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like a dogma. +Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence like a dogma. +People ask why we have no typical architecture of the modern world, +like impressionism in painting. Surely it is obviously +because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see +anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in +the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky. +But along with this decision which is involved in creating a building, +there goes a quite similar decision in the more delightful +task of smashing one. The two of necessity go together. +In few places have so many fine public buildings been set up +as here in Paris, and in few places have so many been destroyed. +When people have finally got into the horrible habit of preserving +buildings, they have got out of the habit of building them. +And in London one mingles, as it were, one's tears because so few +are pulled down. + +. . . . . + +As I sat staring at the column of the Bastille, inscribed to Liberty +and Glory, there came out of one corner of the square (which, like +so many such squares, was at once crowded and quiet) a sudden and +silent line of horsemen. Their dress was of a dull blue, plain and +prosaic enough, but the sun set on fire the brass and steel of their +helmets; and their helmets were carved like the helmets of the Romans. +I had seen them by twos and threes often enough before. +I had seen plenty of them in pictures toiling through the snows +of Friedland or roaring round the squares at Waterloo. +But now they came file after file, like an invasion, +and something in their numbers, or in the evening light that lit +up their faces and their crests, or something in the reverie +into which they broke, made me inclined to spring to my feet +and cry out, "The French soldiers!" There were the little men +with the brown faces that had so often ridden through the capitals +of Europe as coolly as they now rode through their own. +And when I looked across the square I saw that the two other corners +were choked with blue and red; held by little groups of infantry. +The city was garrisoned as against a revolution. + +Of course, I had heard all about the strike, chiefly from a baker. +He said he was not going to "Chomer." I said, "Qu'est-ce que +c'est que le chome?" He said, "Ils ne veulent pas travailler." +I said, "Ni moi non plus," and he thought I was a class-conscious +collectivist proletarian. The whole thing was curious, and the true +moral of it one not easy for us, as a nation, to grasp, because our +own faults are so deeply and dangerously in the other direction. +To me, as an Englishman (personally steeped in the English optimism +and the English dislike of severity), the whole thing seemed a fuss +about nothing. It looked like turning out one of the best armies +in Europe against ordinary people walking about the street. +The cavalry charged us once or twice, more or less harmlessly. +But, of course, it is hard to say how far in such criticisms +one is assuming the French populace to be (what it is not) +as docile as the English. But the deeper truth of the matter tingled, +so to speak, through the whole noisy night. This people has +a natural faculty for feeling itself on the eve of something--of the +Bartholomew or the Revolution or the Commune or the Day of Judgment. +It is this sense of crisis that makes France eternally young. +It is perpetually pulling down and building up, as it pulled down +the prison and put up the column in the Place de La Bastille. +France has always been at the point of dissolution. She has found +the only method of immortality. She dies daily. + + +X + +On Lying in Bed + +Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience +if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. +This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic +apparatus on the premises. I think myself that the thing +might be managed with several pails of Aspinall and a broom. +Only if one worked in a really sweeping and masterly way, +and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip down again +on one's face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some +strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. +I am afraid it would be necessary to stick to black and white +in this form of artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, +the white ceiling would be of the greatest possible use; in fact, +it is the only use I think of a white ceiling being put to. + +But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have +discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces +in a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really +allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, "Il me faut des geants." +But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern +rooms such as we all live in I was continually disappointed. +I found an endless pattern and complication of small objects +hung like a curtain of fine links between me and my desire. +I examined the walls; I found them to my surprise to be +already covered with wallpaper, and I found the wallpaper +to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing +a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand +why one arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely +devoid of any religious or philosophical significance) +should thus be sprinkled all over my nice walls like a sort +of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to wallpapers, I think, +when it says, "Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do." +I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, +rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called +Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight +really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. +Everywhere that I went forlornly, with my pencil or my paint brush, +I found that others had unaccountably been before me, +spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with their +childish and barbaric designs. + +. . . . . + +Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this occasion +when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying on my back +in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my vision, +that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition +of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom. +But alas! like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found +to be unattainable; it looks more austere and more distant +than the blue sky outside the window. For my proposal to paint +on it with the bristly end of a broom has been discouraged-- +never mind by whom; by a person debarred from all political rights-- +and even my minor proposal to put the other end of the broom into +the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been conceded. +Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that all +the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces +and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. +I am sure that it was only because Michael Angelo was engaged +in the ancient and honourable occupation of lying in bed that +he ever realized how the roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made +into an awful imitation of a divine drama that could only be acted +in the heavens. + +The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed +is hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity +that seem to mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing +and dangerous than the exultation of very small and secondary +matters of conduct at the expense of very great and primary ones, +at the expense of eternal ties and tragic human morality. +If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, +it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. Thus it is considered +more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of bad ethics. +Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness +is made essential and godliness is regarded as an offence. +A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long +as he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met +Ibsenite pessimists who thought it wrong to take beer but right +to take prussic acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; +notably such matters as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, +as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenience +and adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it +were a part of essential morals to get up early in the morning. +It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but there is nothing +good about it or bad about its opposite. + +. . . . . + +Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, +get up the night before. It is the great peril of our society +that all its mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows +more fickle. A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to +be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable +are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; +our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. +Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions, +but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, +sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top +of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, +but let them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. +This alarming growth of good habits really means a too great emphasis +on those virtues which mere custom can ensure, it means too little +emphasis on those virtues which custom can never quite ensure, +sudden and splendid virtues of inspired pity or of inspired candour. +If ever that abrupt appeal is made to us we may fail. +A man can get use to getting up at five o'clock in the morning. +A man cannot very well get used to being burnt for his opinions; +the first experiment is commonly fatal. Let us pay a little more +attention to these possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. +I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed +of an almost terrible virtue. + +For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic +caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed +(like journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done +in bed (as, for example, the professional harpooners of whales), +it is obvious that the indulgence must be very occasional. +But that is not the caution I mean. The caution is this: +if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without any reason or +justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the seriously sick. +But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a rag of excuse; +then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some secondary +hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may get +up a hypochondriac. + + +XI + +The Twelve Men + +The other day, while I was meditating on morality and Mr. H. Pitt, I was, +so to speak, snatched up and put into a jury box to try people. +The snatching took some weeks, but to me it seemed something sudden +and arbitrary. I was put into this box because I lived in Battersea, +and my name began with a C. Looking round me, I saw that there were +also summoned and in attendance in the court whole crowds and processions +of men, all of whom lived in Battersea, and all of whose names began +with a C. + +It seems that they always summon jurymen in this sweeping +alphabetical way. At one official blow, so to speak, +Battersea is denuded of all its C's, and left to get on +as best it can with the rest of the alphabet. A Cumberpatch +is missing from one street--a Chizzolpop from another-- +three Chucksterfields from Chucksterfield House; the children +are crying out for an absent Cadgerboy; the woman at the street +corner is weeping for her Coffintop, and will not be comforted. +We settle down with a rollicking ease into our seats +(for we are a bold, devil-may-care race, the C's of Battersea), +and an oath is administered to us in a totally inaudible manner +by an individual resembling an Army surgeon in his second childhood. +We understand, however, that we are to well and truly try the case +between our sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, +neither of whom has put in an appearance as yet. + +. . . . . + +Just when I was wondering whether the King and the prisoner +were, perhaps, coming to an amicable understanding in some +adjoining public house, the prisoner's head appears above +the barrier of the dock; he is accused of stealing bicycles, +and he is the living image of a great friend of mine. +We go into the matter of the stealing of the bicycles. +We do well and truly try the case between the King and the +prisoner in the affair of the bicycles. And we come to the +conclusion, after a brief but reasonable discussion, that +the King is not in any way implicated. Then we pass on to a +woman who neglected her children, and who looks as if somebody +or something had neglected her. And I am one of those who fancy +that something had. + +All the time that the eye took in these light appearances +and the brain passed these light criticisms, there was in +the heart a barbaric pity and fear which men have never been +able to utter from the beginning, but which is the power behind +half the poems of the world. The mood cannot even adequately +be suggested, except faintly by this statement that tragedy +is the highest expression of the infinite value of human life. +Never had I stood so close to pain; and never so far away +from pessimism. Ordinarily, I should not have spoken of these +dark emotions at all, for speech about them is too difficult; +but I mention them now for a specific and particular +reason to the statement of which I will proceed at once. +I speak these feelings because out of the furnace of them there +came a curious realisation of a political or social truth. +I saw with a queer and indescribable kind of clearness what +a jury really is, and why we must never let it go. + +The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards +specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers +because they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, +trained dancers because they dance better, specially instructed +laughers because they laugh better, and so on and so on. +The principle has been applied to law and politics by innumerable +modern writers. Many Fabians have insisted that a greater +part of our political work should be performed by experts. +Many legalists have declared that the untrained jury should be +altogether supplanted by the trained Judge. + +. . . . . + +Now, if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, +I do not know that there would be any fault to find with this. +But the true result of all experience and the true foundation +of all religion is this. That the four or five things +that it is most practically essential that a man should know, +are all of them what people call paradoxes. That is to say, +that though we all find them in life to be mere plain truths, +yet we cannot easily state them in words without being guilty +of seeming verbal contradictions. One of them, for instance, +is the unimpeachable platitude that the man who finds most +pleasure for himself is often the man who least hunts for it. +Another is the paradox of courage; the fact that the way +to avoid death is not to have too much aversion to it. +Whoever is careless enough of his bones to climb some hopeful +cliff above the tide may save his bones by that carelessness. +Whoever will lose his life, the same shall save it; +an entirely practical and prosaic statement. + +Now, one of these four or five paradoxes which should be taught +to every infant prattling at his mother's knee is the following: +That the more a man looks at a thing, the less he can see it, +and the more a man learns a thing the less he knows it. +The Fabian argument of the expert, that the man who is trained +should be the man who is trusted would be absolutely unanswerable +if it were really true that a man who studied a thing and practiced +it every day went on seeing more and more of its significance. +But he does not. He goes on seeing less and less of its significance. +In the same way, alas! we all go on every day, unless we are +continually goading ourselves into gratitude and humility, +seeing less and less of the significance of the sky or the stones. + +. . . . . + +Now it is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of men. +But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can +to other terrible things; he can even grow accustomed to the sun. +And the horrible thing about all legal officials, even the best, +about all judges, magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, +is not that they are wicked (some of them are good), not that they +are stupid (several of them are quite intelligent), it is simply +that they have got used to it. + +Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they +see is the usual man in the usual place. They do not see +the awful court of judgment; they only see their own workshop. +Therefore, the instinct of Christian civilisation has most wisely +declared that into their judgments there shall upon every occasion +be infused fresh blood and fresh thoughts from the streets. +Men shall come in who can see the court and the crowd, +and coarse faces of the policeman and the professional criminals, +the wasted faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the +gesticulating counsel, and see it all as one sees a new picture +or a play hitherto unvisited. + +Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, +that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too +important to be trusted to trained men. It wishes for light upon +that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, +but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. +When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, +or any trifle of that kind, it uses up specialists. But when it +wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve +of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I +remember right, by the Founder of Christianity. + + +XII + +The Wind and the Trees + +I am sitting under tall trees, with a great wind boiling like surf +about the tops of them, so that their living load of leaves rocks +and roars in something that is at once exultation and agony. +I feel, in fact, as if I were actually sitting at the bottom +of the sea among mere anchors and ropes, while over my head +and over the green twilight of water sounded the everlasting rush +of waves and the toil and crash and shipwreck of tremendous ships. +The wind tugs at the trees as if it might pluck them root +and all out of the earth like tufts of grass. Or, to try yet +another desperate figure of speech for this unspeakable energy, +the trees are straining and tearing and lashing as if they +were a tribe of dragons each tied by the tail. + +As I look at these top-heavy giants tortured by an invisible +and violent witchcraft, a phrase comes back into my mind. +I remember a little boy of my acquaintance who was once walking +in Battersea Park under just such torn skies and tossing trees. +He did not like the wind at all; it blew in his face too much; +it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his hat, of which +he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about four. +After complaining repeatedly of the atmospheric unrest, he said +at last to his mother, "Well, why don't you take away the trees, +and then it wouldn't wind." + +Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. +Any one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy +that they were indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere +waving agitated the air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, +could be more human and excusable than the belief that it is +the trees which make the wind. Indeed, the belief is so human +and excusable that it is, as a matter of fact, the belief of about +ninety-nine out of a hundred of the philosophers, reformers, +sociologists, and politicians of the great age in which we live. +My small friend was, in fact, very like the principal modern thinkers; +only much nicer. + +. . . . . + +In the little apologue or parable which he has thus the honour +of inventing, the trees stand for all visible things +and the wind for the invisible. The wind is the spirit +which bloweth where it listeth; the trees are the material +things of the world which are blown where the spirit lists. +The wind is philosophy, religion, revolution; the trees are +cities and civilisations. We only know that there is a wind +because the trees on some distant hill suddenly go mad. +We only know that there is a real revolution because all +the chimney-pots go mad on the whole skyline of the city. + +Just as the ragged outline of a tree grows suddenly more +ragged and rises into fantastic crests or tattered tails, +so the human city rises under the wind of the spirit into toppling +temples or sudden spires. No man has ever seen a revolution. +Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood pouring down the gutters, +the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, a prison +in ruins, a people in arms--these things are not revolution, +but the results of revolution. + +You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind. +So, also, you cannot see a revolution; you can only see that +there is a revolution. And there never has been in the history +of the world a real revolution, brutally active and decisive, +which was not preceded by unrest and new dogma in the reign +of invisible things. All revolutions began by being abstract. +Most revolutions began by being quite pedantically abstract. + +The wind is up above the world before a twig on the tree has moved. +So there must always be a battle in the sky before there +is a battle on the earth. Since it is lawful to pray +for the coming of the kingdom, it is lawful also to pray for +the coming of the revolution that shall restore the kingdom. +It is lawful to hope to hear the wind of Heaven in the trees. +It is lawful to pray "Thine anger come on earth as it +is in Heaven." + +. . . . . + +The great human dogma, then, is that the wind moves the trees. +The great human heresy is that the trees move the wind. +When people begin to say that the material circumstances have +alone created the moral circumstances, then they have prevented +all possibility of serious change. For if my circumstances +have made me wholly stupid, how can I be certain even that I +am right in altering those circumstances? + +The man who represents all thought as an accident of environment +is simply smashing and discrediting all his own thoughts-- +including that one. To treat the human mind as having an ultimate +authority is necessary to any kind of thinking, even free thinking. +And nothing will ever be reformed in this age or country unless +we realise that the moral fact comes first. + +For example, most of us, I suppose, have seen in print and heard +in debating clubs an endless discussion that goes on between Socialists +and total abstainers. The latter say that drink leads to poverty; +the former say that poverty leads to drink. I can only wonder at their +either of them being content with such simple physical explanations. +Surely it is obvious that the thing which among the English proletariat +leads to poverty is the same as the thing which leads to drink; +the absence of strong civic dignity, the absence of an instinct +that resists degradation. + +When you have discovered why enormous English estates were not long +ago cut up into small holdings like the land of France, you will have +discovered why the Englishman is more drunken than the Frenchman. +The Englishman, among his million delightful virtues, really has +this quality, which may strictly be called "hand to mouth," because under +its influence a man's hand automatically seeks his own mouth, +instead of seeking (as it sometimes should do) his oppressor's nose. +And a man who says that the English inequality in land is due only +to economic causes, or that the drunkenness of England is due only +to economic causes, is saying something so absurd that he cannot +really have thought what he was saying. + +Yet things quite as preposterous as this are said and written under +the influence of that great spectacle of babyish helplessness, the +economic theory of history. We have people who represent that all +great historic motives were economic, and then have to howl at the +top of their voices in order to induce the modern democracy to act +on economic motives. The extreme Marxian politicians in England +exhibit themselves as a small, heroic minority, trying vainly to +induce the world to do what, according to their theory, the world +always does. The truth is, of course, that there will be a social +revolution the moment the thing has ceased to be purely economic. +You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. +You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. + +. . . . . + +I get up from under the trees, for the wind and the slight +rain have ceased. The trees stand up like golden pillars +in a clear sunlight. The tossing of the trees and the blowing +of the wind have ceased simultaneously. So I suppose there +are still modern philosophers who will maintain that the trees +make the wind. + + +XIII + +The Dickensian + +He was a quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw hat; +with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, +but with a quite unmilitary stoop and very dreamy eyes. +He was gazing with a rather gloomy interest at the cluster, +one might almost say the tangle, of small shipping which grew thicker +as our little pleasure boat crawled up into Yarmouth Harbour. +A boat entering this harbour, as every one knows, does not +enter in front of the town like a foreigner, but creeps round +at the back like a traitor taking the town in the rear. +The passage of the river seems almost too narrow for traffic, +and in consequence the bigger ships look colossal. As we passed +under a timber ship from Norway, which seemed to block up the heavens +like a cathedral, the man in a straw hat pointed to an odd wooden +figurehead carved like a woman, and said, like one continuing +a conversation, "Now, why have they left off having them. +They didn't do any one any harm?" + +I replied with some flippancy about the captain's wife being jealous; +but I knew in my heart that the man had struck a deep note. +There has been something in our most recent civilisation which is +mysteriously hostile to such healthy and humane symbols. + +"They hate anything like that, which is human and pretty," he continued, +exactly echoing my thoughts. "I believe they broke up all the jolly +old figureheads with hatchets and enjoyed doing it." + +"Like Mr. Quilp," I answered, "when he battered the wooden Admiral +with the poker." + +His whole face suddenly became alive, and for the first time +he stood erect and stared at me. + +"Do you come to Yarmouth for that?" he asked. + +"For what?" + +"For Dickens," he answered, and drummed with his foot on the deck. + +"No," I answered; "I come for fun, though that is much the same thing." + +"I always come," he answered quietly, "to find Peggotty's boat. +It isn't here." + +And when he said that I understood him perfectly. + +There are two Yarmouths; I daresay there are two hundred +to the people who live there. I myself have never come +to the end of the list of Batterseas. But there are two to +the stranger and tourist; the poor part, which is dignified, +and the prosperous part, which is savagely vulgar. +My new friend haunted the first of these like a ghost; +to the latter he would only distantly allude. + +"The place is very much spoilt now . . . trippers, you know," +he would say, not at all scornfully, but simply sadly. +That was the nearest he would go to an admission of the monstrous +watering place that lay along the front, outblazing the sun, +and more deafening than the sea. But behind--out of earshot +of this uproar--there are lanes so narrow that they seem +like secret entrances to some hidden place of repose. +There are squares so brimful of silence that to plunge into one +of them is like plunging into a pool. In these places the man +and I paced up and down talking about Dickens, or, rather, +doing what all true Dickensians do, telling each other verbatim +long passages which both of us knew quite well already. +We were really in the atmosphere of the older England. +Fishermen passed us who might well have been characters +like Peggotty; we went into a musty curiosity shop and +bought pipe-stoppers carved into figures from Pickwick. +The evening was settling down between all the buildings +with that slow gold that seems to soak everything when we went +into the church. + +In the growing darkness of the church, my eye caught the coloured +windows which on that clear golden evening were flaming with all the +passionate heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian arts. +At length I said to my companion: + +"Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant +for the angel at the sepulchre." + +He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows. + +"I daresay," he said. "What is there odd about that?" + +After a pause I said, "Do you remember what the angel at +the sepulchre said?" + +"Not particularly," he answered; "but where are you off +to in such a hurry?" + +I walked him rapidly out of the still square, past the +fishermen's almshouses, towards the coast, he still inquiring +indignantly where I was going. + +"I am going," I said, "to put pennies in automatic machines +on the beach. I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going +to have my photograph taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer +out of its original bottle. I will buy some picture postcards. +I do want a boat. I am ready to listen to a concertina, +and but for the defects of my education should be ready to play it. +I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, if the donkey is willing. +I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was commanded me +by the angel in the stained-glass window." + +"I really think," said the Dickensian, "that I had better put +you in charge of your relations." + +"Sir," I answered, "there are certain writers to whom humanity +owes much, whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective +a type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places +or certain perishing associations. It would not be unnatural +to look for the spirit of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, +or even for the shade of Thackeray in Old Kensington. +But let us have no antiquarianism about Dickens, for Dickens +is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward, but forward; +he might look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury, +but he would love to look at them. He might lash our democracy, +but it would be because, like a democrat, he asked much from it. +We will not have all his books bound up under the title +of 'The Old Curiosity Shop.' Rather we will have them +all bound up under the title of 'Great Expectations.' +Wherever humanity is he would have us face it and make +something of it, swallow it with a holy cannibalism, +and assimilate it with the digestion of a giant. We must +take these trippers as he would have taken them, and tear +out of them their tragedy and their farce. Do you remember +now what the angel said at the sepulchre? 'Why seek ye the +living among the dead? He is not here; he is risen.'" + +With that we came out suddenly on the wide stretch of the sands, +which were black with the knobs and masses of our laughing and quite +desperate democracy. And the sunset, which was now in its final glory, +flung far over all of them a red flush and glitter like the gigantic +firelight of Dickens. In that strange evening light every figure +looked at once grotesque and attractive, as if he had a story to tell. +I heard a little girl (who was being throttled by another little girl) +say by way of self-vindication, "My sister-in-law 'as got four rings +aside her weddin' ring!" + +I stood and listened for more, but my friend went away. + + +XIV + +In Topsy-Turvy Land + +Last week, in an idle metaphor, I took the tumbling of trees +and the secret energy of the wind as typical of the visible world +moving under the violence of the invisible. I took this metaphor +merely because I happened to be writing the article in a wood. +Nevertheless, now that I return to Fleet Street (which seems to me, +I confess, much better and more poetical than all the wild woods +in the world), I am strangely haunted by this accidental comparison. +The people's figures seem a forest and their soul a wind. +All the human personalities which speak or signal to me seem to have +this fantastic character of the fringe of the forest against the sky. +That man that talks to me, what is he but an articulate tree? +That driver of a van who waves his hands wildly at me to tell me +to get out of the way, what is he but a bunch of branches stirred +and swayed by a spiritual wind, a sylvan object that I can continue +to contemplate with calm? That policeman who lifts his hand +to warn three omnibuses of the peril that they run in encountering +my person, what is he but a shrub shaken for a moment with that +blast of human law which is a thing stronger than anarchy? +Gradually this impression of the woods wears off. But this +black-and-white contrast between the visible and invisible, this deep +sense that the one essential belief is belief in the invisible as against +the visible, is suddenly and sensationally brought back to my mind. +Exactly at the moment when Fleet Street has grown most familiar (that is, +most bewildering and bright), my eye catches a poster of vivid violet, +on which I see written in large black letters these remarkable words: +"Should Shop Assistants Marry?" + +. . . . . + +When I saw those words everything might just as well +have turned upside down. The men in Fleet Street might +have been walking about on their hands. The cross of +St. Paul's might have been hanging in the air upside down. +For I realise that I have really come into a topsy-turvy country; +I have come into the country where men do definitely believe +that the waving of the trees makes the wind. That is to say, +they believe that the material circumstances, however black +and twisted, are more important than the spiritual realities, +however powerful and pure. "Should Shop Assistants Marry?" I am +puzzled to think what some periods and schools of human history +would have made of such a question. The ascetics of the East +or of some periods of the early Church would have thought +that the question meant, "Are not shop assistants too saintly, +too much of another world, even to feel the emotions of the sexes?" +But I suppose that is not what the purple poster means. +In some pagan cities it might have meant, "Shall slaves so vile +as shop assistants even be allowed to propagate their abject race?" +But I suppose that is not what the purple poster meant. +We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what it does mean. +It does really mean that a section of the human race is asking +whether the primary relations of the two human sexes are particularly +good for modern shops. The human race is asking whether Adam +and Eve are entirely suitable for Marshall and Snelgrove. +If this is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine what would be. +We ask whether the universal institution will improve our +(please God) temporary institution. Yet I have known many +such questions. For instance, I have known a man ask seriously, +"Does Democracy help the Empire?" Which is like saying, +"Is art favourable to frescoes?" + +I say that there are many such questions asked. +But if the world ever runs short of them, I can suggest +a large number of questions of precisely the same kind, +based on precisely the same principle. + +"Do Feet Improve Boots?"--"Is Bread Better when Eaten?"--"Should +Hats have Heads in them?"--"Do People Spoil a Town?"--"Do Walls +Ruin Wall-papers?"--"Should Neckties enclose Necks?"--"Do Hands +Hurt Walking-sticks?"--"Does Burning Destroy Firewood?"--"Is +Cleanliness Good for Soap?"--"Can Cricket Really Improve +Cricket-bats?"--"Shall We Take Brides with our Wedding Rings?" +and a hundred others. + +Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport +or in intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from +the purple poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by +half of the earnest economists of our times. All the questions they +ask are of this character; they are all tinged with this same initial +absurdity. They do not ask if the means is suited to the end; they +all ask (with profound and penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited +to the means. They do not ask whether the tail suits the dog. +They all ask whether a dog is (by the highest artistic canons) +the most ornamental appendage that can be put at the end of a tail. +In short, instead of asking whether our modern arrangements, +our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete institutions are +suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy human life, +they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion +at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; +and then they only ask whether that healthy human life is suited +to our streets and trades. Perfection may be attainable or +unattainable as an end. It may or may not be possible to talk +of imperfection as a means to perfection. But surely it passes +toleration to talk of perfection as a means to imperfection. +The New Jerusalem may be a reality. It may be a dream. +But surely it is too outrageous to say that the New Jerusalem +is a reality on the road to Birmingham. + +. . . . . + +This is the most enormous and at the same time the most secret +of the modern tyrannies of materialism. In theory the thing ought +to be simple enough. A really human human being would always put +the spiritual things first. A walking and speaking statue of God +finds himself at one particular moment employed as a shop assistant. +He has in himself a power of terrible love, a promise of paternity, +a thirst for some loyalty that shall unify life, and in the ordinary +course of things he asks himself, "How far do the existing conditions +of those assisting in shops fit in with my evident and epic destiny +in the matter of love and marriage?" But here, as I have said, +comes in the quiet and crushing power of modern materialism. +It prevents him rising in rebellion, as he would otherwise do. +By perpetually talking about environment and visible things, +by perpetually talking about economics and physical necessity, +painting and keeping repainted a perpetual picture of iron +machinery and merciless engines, of rails of steel, and of +towers of stone, modern materialism at last produces this +tremendous impression in which the truth is stated upside down. +At last the result is achieved. The man does not say as +he ought to have said, "Should married men endure being modern +shop assistants?" The man says, "Should shop assistants marry?" +Triumph has completed the immense illusion of materialism. +The slave does not say, "Are these chains worthy of me?" +The slave says scientifically and contentedly, "Am I even worthy +of these chains?" + + +XV + +What I Found in My Pocket + +Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have +made the Empire what it is--a man in an astracan coat, +with an astracan moustache--a tight, black, curly moustache. +Whether he put on the moustache with the coat or whether his Napoleonic +will enabled him not only to grow a moustache in the usual place, +but also to grow little moustaches all over his clothes, I do not know. +I only remember that he said to me the following words: "A man can't +get on nowadays by hanging about with his hands in his pockets." +I made reply with the quite obvious flippancy that perhaps a man got +on by having his hands in other people's pockets; whereupon he began +to argue about Moral Evolution, so I suppose what I said had some +truth in it. But the incident now comes back to me, and connects +itself with another incident--if you can call it an incident-- +which happened to me only the other day. + +I have only once in my life picked a pocket, and then (perhaps through +some absent-mindedness) I picked my own. My act can really with some +reason be so described. For in taking things out of my own pocket I +had at least one of the more tense and quivering emotions of the thief; +I had a complete ignorance and a profound curiosity as to what I should +find there. Perhaps it would be the exaggeration of eulogy to call me a +tidy person. But I can always pretty satisfactorily account for all my +possessions. I can always tell where they are, and what I have done with +them, so long as I can keep them out of my pockets. If once anything +slips into those unknown abysses, I wave it a sad Virgilian farewell. +I suppose that the things that I have dropped into my pockets +are still there; the same presumption applies to the things +that I have dropped into the sea. But I regard the riches stored +in both these bottomless chasms with the same reverent ignorance. +They tell us that on the last day the sea will give up its dead; +and I suppose that on the same occasion long strings of +extraordinary things will come running out of my pockets. +But I have quite forgotten what any of them are; and there +is really nothing (excepting the money) that I shall be at all +surprised at finding among them. + +. . . . . + +Such at least has hitherto been my state of innocence. +I here only wish briefly to recall the special, extraordinary, +and hitherto unprecedented circumstances which led me in +cold blood, and being of sound mind, to turn out my pockets. +I was locked up in a third-class carriage for a rather long journey. +The time was towards evening, but it might have been anything, +for everything resembling earth or sky or light or shade +was painted out as if with a great wet brush by an unshifting +sheet of quite colourless rain. I had no books or newspapers. +I had not even a pencil and a scrap of paper with which +to write a religious epic. There were no advertisements +on the walls of the carriage, otherwise I could have plunged +into the study, for any collection of printed words is quite +enough to suggest infinite complexities of mental ingenuity. +When I find myself opposite the words "Sunlight Soap" I can +exhaust all the aspects of Sun Worship, Apollo, and Summer +poetry before I go on to the less congenial subject of soap. +But there was no printed word or picture anywhere; there was +nothing but blank wood inside the carriage and blank wet without. +Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can +be, uninteresting. So I stared at the joints of the walls and seats, +and began thinking hard on the fascinating subject of wood. +Just as I had begun to realise why, perhaps, it was that Christ +was a carpenter, rather than a bricklayer, or a baker, +or anything else, I suddenly started upright, and remembered +my pockets. I was carrying about with me an unknown treasury. +I had a British Museum and a South Kensington collection +of unknown curios hung all over me in different places. +I began to take the things out. + +. . . . . + +The first thing I came upon consisted of piles and heaps of +Battersea tram tickets. There were enough to equip a paper chase. +They shook down in showers like confetti. Primarily, of course, +they touched my patriotic emotions, and brought tears to my eyes; +also they provided me with the printed matter I required, +for I found on the back of them some short but striking +little scientific essays about some kind of pill. Comparatively +speaking, in my then destitution, those tickets might be regarded +as a small but well-chosen scientific library. Should my railway +journey continue (which seemed likely at the time) for a few months +longer, I could imagine myself throwing myself into the controversial +aspects of the pill, composing replies and rejoinders pro and con +upon the data furnished to me. But after all it was the symbolic +quality of the tickets that moved me most. For as certainly as the +cross of St. George means English patriotism, those scraps of paper +meant all that municipal patriotism which is now, perhaps, the +greatest hope of England. + +The next thing that I took out was a pocket-knife. A pocket-knife, +I need hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral +meditations all to itself. A knife typifies one of the most +primary of those practical origins upon which as upon low, +thick pillows all our human civilisation reposes. Metals, the +mystery of the thing called iron and of the thing called steel, +led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream. I saw into the +intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among all the +common stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent +battle, in which stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered +against something shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. +I heard all the hammers on all the anvils of the earth. +I saw all the swords of Feudal and all the weals of Industrial war. +For the knife is only a short sword; and the pocket-knife +is a secret sword. I opened it and looked at that brilliant +and terrible tongue which we call a blade; and I thought that +perhaps it was the symbol of the oldest of the needs of man. +The next moment I knew that I was wrong; for the thing +that came next out of my pocket was a box of matches. +Then I saw fire, which is stronger even than steel, the old, +fierce female thing, the thing we all love, but dare not touch. + +The next thing I found was a piece of chalk; and I saw +in it all the art and all the frescoes of the world. +The next was a coin of a very modest value; and I saw in it +not only the image and superscription of our own Caesar, +but all government and order since the world began. +But I have not space to say what were the items in the long and +splendid procession of poetical symbols that came pouring out. +I cannot tell you all the things that were in my pocket. +I can tell you one thing, however, that I could not find in my pocket. +I allude to my railway ticket. + + +XVI + +The Dragon's Grandmother + +I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. +I do not mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated +in them--that he did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into +a coach. He did, indeed, entertain this curious disbelief. +And, like all the other people I have ever met who entertained it, +he was wholly unable to give me an intelligent reason for it. +He tried the laws of nature, but he soon dropped that. +Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary experience, +and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted pumpkinity. +But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we +adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply +the attitude we adopt towards all unusual occurrences. +If we were certain of miracles we should not count on them. +Things that happen very seldom we all leave out of +our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. +I do not expect a glass of water to be turned into wine; +but neither do I expect a glass of water to be poisoned with +prussic acid. I do not in ordinary business relations act +on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but neither do I +act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost +heir of the Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is +not that the natural order is unalterable, but simply that it +is much safer to bet on uncommon incidents than on common ones. +This does not touch the credibility of any attested tale +about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned into a coach. +If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car +with my own eyes that would not make me any more inclined +to assume that the same thing would happen again. I should not +invest largely in pumpkins with an eye to the motor trade. +Cinderella got a ball dress from the fairy; but I do not suppose +that she looked after her own clothes any the less after it. + +But the view that fairy tales cannot really have happened, +though crazy, is common. The man I speak of disbelieved +in fairy tales in an even more amazing and perverted sense. +He actually thought that fairy tales ought not to be told +to children. That is (like a belief in slavery or annexation) +one of those intellectual errors which lie very near +to ordinary mortal sins. There are some refusals which, +though they may be done what is called conscientiously, +yet carry so much of their whole horror in the very act of them, +that a man must in doing them not only harden but slightly +corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of milk to young +mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. +Another is the refusal of fairy tales to children. + +. . . . . + +The man had come to see me in connection with some silly society +of which I am an enthusiastic member; he was a fresh-coloured, +short-sighted young man, like a stray curate who was too +helpless even to find his way to the Church of England. He had a +curious green necktie and a very long neck; I am always meeting +idealists with very long necks. Perhaps it is that their eternal +aspiration slowly lifts their heads nearer and nearer to the stars. +Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that so many of +them are vegetarians: perhaps they are slowly evolving the neck of +the giraffe so that they can eat all the tops of the trees in +Kensington Gardens. These things are in every sense above me. +Such, anyhow, was the young man who did not believe in fairy tales; +and by a curious coincidence he entered the room when I had just +finished looking through a pile of contemporary fiction, and had +begun to read "Grimm's Fairy tales" as a natural consequence. + +The modern novels stood before me, however, in a stack; and you can +imagine their titles for yourself. There was "Suburban Sue: A Tale +of Psychology," and also "Psychological Sue: A Tale of Suburbia"; +there was "Trixy: A Temperament," and "Man-Hate: A Monochrome," and all +those nice things. I read them with real interest, but, curiously enough, +I grew tired of them at last, and when I saw "Grimm's Fairy Tales" +lying accidentally on the table, I gave a cry of indecent joy. +Here at least, here at last, one could find a little common sense. +I opened the book, and my eyes fell on these splendid and satisfying +words, "The Dragon's Grandmother." That at least was reasonable; +that at least was true. "The Dragon's Grandmother!" While I was +rolling this first touch of ordinary human reality upon my tongue, +I looked up suddenly and saw this monster with a green tie standing +in the doorway. + +. . . . . + +I listened to what he said about the society politely enough, +I hope; but when he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe +in fairy tales, I broke out beyond control. "Man," I said, +"who are you that you should not believe in fairy tales? +It is much easier to believe in Blue Beard than to believe in you. +A blue beard is a misfortune; but there are green ties which are sins. +It is far easier to believe in a million fairy tales +than to believe in one man who does not like fairy tales. +I would rather kiss Grimm instead of a Bible and swear to all +his stories as if they were thirty-nine articles than say +seriously and out of my heart that there can be such a man as you; +that you are not some temptation of the devil or some delusion +from the void. Look at these plain, homely, practical words. +'The Dragon's Grandmother,' that is all right; that is rational +almost to the verge of rationalism. If there was a dragon, +he had a grandmother. But you--you had no grandmother! +If you had known one, she would have taught you to love fairy tales. +You had no father, you had no mother; no natural causes can explain you. +You cannot be. I believe many things which I have not seen; +but of such things as you it may be said, 'Blessed is he that has +seen and yet has disbelieved.'" + +. . . . . + +It seemed to me that he did not follow me with sufficient delicacy, +so I moderated my tone. "Can you not see," I said, "that fairy +tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; +but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its +nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul +is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. +Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that +the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is-- +what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem +of the modern novel is--what will a madman do with a dull world? +In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. +In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, +and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos. +In the excellent tale of 'The Dragon's Grandmother,' in all the other +tales of Grimm, it is assumed that the young man setting out on his +travels will have all substantial truths in him; that he will be brave, +full of faith, reasonable, that he will respect his parents, +keep his word, rescue one kind of people, defy another kind, +'parcere subjectis et debellare,' etc. Then, having assumed +this centre of sanity, the writer entertains himself by fancying +what would happen if the whole world went mad all round it, +if the sun turned green and the moon blue, if horses had six legs +and giants had two heads. But your modern literature takes insanity +as its centre. Therefore, it loses the interest even of insanity. +A lunatic is not startling to himself, because he is quite serious; +that is what makes him a lunatic. A man who thinks he is +a piece of glass is to himself as dull as a piece of glass. +A man who thinks he is a chicken is to himself as common as a chicken. +It is only sanity that can see even a wild poetry in insanity. +Therefore, these wise old tales made the hero ordinary and +the tale extraordinary. But you have made the hero extraordinary +and the tale ordinary--so ordinary--oh, so very ordinary." + +I saw him still gazing at me fixedly. Some nerve snapped in me +under the hypnotic stare. I leapt to my feet and cried, "In the name +of God and Democracy and the Dragon's grandmother--in the name of all +good things--I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more." +Whether or no it was the result of the exorcism, there is no doubt +that he definitely went away. + + +XVII + +The Red Angel + +I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad +for children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him +I can never count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest +letter saying that fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even +if they are true. She says that it is cruel to tell children fairy +tales, because it frightens them. You might just as well say that +it is cruel to give girls sentimental novels because it makes them cry. +All this kind of talk is based on that complete forgetting +of what a child is like which has been the firm foundation +of so many educational schemes. If you keep bogies and goblins +away from children they would make them up for themselves. +One small child in the dark can invent more hells than Swedenborg. +One small child can imagine monsters too big and black +to get into any picture, and give them names too unearthly +and cacophonous to have occurred in the cries of any lunatic. +The child, to begin with, commonly likes horrors, and he +continues to indulge in them even when he does not like them. +There is just as much difficulty in saying exactly where pure +pain begins in his case, as there is in ours when we walk of our +own free will into the torture-chamber of a great tragedy. +The fear does not come from fairy tales; the fear comes from +the universe of the soul. + +. . . . . + +The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; +they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very +alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily +and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear +the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it-- +because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible +for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; +fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; +that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. +Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. +What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea +of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known +the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. +What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to +kill the dragon. + +Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him +for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless +terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies +in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe +more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear. +When I was a child I have stared at the darkness until the whole +black bulk of it turned into one negro giant taller than heaven. +If there was one star in the sky it only made him a Cyclops. +But fairy tales restored my mental health, for next day I read +an authentic account of how a negro giant with one eye, of quite +equal dimensions, had been baffled by a little boy like myself +(of similar inexperience and even lower social status) +by means of a sword, some bad riddles, and a brave heart. +Sometimes the sea at night seemed as dreadful as any dragon. +But then I was acquainted with many youngest sons and little +sailors to whom a dragon or two was as simple as the sea. + +Take the most horrible of Grimm's tales in incident and imagery, +the excellent tale of the "Boy who Could not Shudder," and you +will see what I mean. There are some living shocks in that tale. +I remember specially a man's legs which fell down the chimney +by themselves and walked about the room, until they were rejoined +by the severed head and body which fell down the chimney after them. +That is very good. But the point of the story and the point +of the reader's feelings is not that these things are frightening, +but the far more striking fact that the hero was not frightened at them. +The most fearful of all these fearful wonders was his own absence +of fear. He slapped the bogies on the back and asked the devils +to drink wine with him; many a time in my youth, when stifled with some +modern morbidity, I have prayed for a double portion of his spirit. +If you have not read the end of his story, go and read it; +it is the wisest thing in the world. The hero was at last taught +to shudder by taking a wife, who threw a pail of cold water over him. +In that one sentence there is more of the real meaning of marriage +than in all the books about sex that cover Europe and America. + +. . . . . + +At the four corners of a child's bed stand Perseus and Roland, Sigurd and +St. George. If you withdraw the guard of heroes you are not making +him rational; you are only leaving him to fight the devils alone. +For the devils, alas, we have always believed in. The hopeful element in +the universe has in modern times continually been denied and reasserted; +but the hopeless element has never for a moment been denied. +As I told "H. N. B." (whom I pause to wish a Happy Christmas in its +most superstitious sense), the one thing modern people really do +believe in is damnation. The greatest of purely modern poets summed +up the really modern attitude in that fine Agnostic line-- + +"There may be Heaven; there must be Hell." + +The gloomy view of the universe has been a continuous tradition; +and the new types of spiritual investigation or conjecture all begin +by being gloomy. A little while ago men believed in no spirits. +Now they are beginning rather slowly to believe in rather slow spirits. + +. . . . . + +Some people objected to spiritualism, table rappings, and such things, +because they were undignified, because the ghosts cracked jokes or +waltzed with dinner-tables. I do not share this objection in the least. +I wish the spirits were more farcical than they are. That they +should make more jokes and better ones, would be my suggestion. +For almost all the spiritualism of our time, in so far as it is new, +is solemn and sad. Some Pagan gods were lawless, and some Christian +saints were a little too serious; but the spirits of modern spiritualism +are both lawless and serious--a disgusting combination. The specially +contemporary spirits are not only devils, they are blue devils. +This is, first and last, the real value of Christmas; in so far +as the mythology remains at all it is a kind of happy mythology. +Personally, of course, I believe in Santa Claus; but it is the season +of forgiveness, and I will forgive others for not doing so. +But if there is anyone who does not comprehend the defect in our +world which I am civilising, I should recommend him, for instance, +to read a story by Mr. Henry James, called "The Turn of the Screw." +It is one of the most powerful things ever written, and it is one +of the things about which I doubt most whether it ought ever to have +been written at all. It describes two innocent children gradually +growing at once omniscient and half-witted under the influence of +the foul ghosts of a groom and a governess. As I say, I doubt whether +Mr. Henry James ought to have published it (no, it is not indecent, +do not buy it; it is a spiritual matter), but I think the question +so doubtful that I will give that truly great man a chance. +I will approve the thing as well as admire it if he will write +another tale just as powerful about two children and Santa Claus. +If he will not, or cannot, then the conclusion is clear; we can +deal strongly with gloomy mystery, but not with happy mystery; +we are not rationalists, but diabolists. + +. . . . . + +I have thought vaguely of all this staring at a great red fire that +stands up in the room like a great red angel. But, perhaps, you have +never heard of a red angel. But you have heard of a blue devil. +That is exactly what I mean. + + +XVIII + +The Tower + +I have been standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great +Belfry Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought +(though not, perhaps, said), that it is built in defiance of all decencies +of architecture. It is made in deliberate disproportion to achieve +the one startling effect of height. It is a church on stilts. +But this sort of sublime deformity is characteristic of the whole fancy +and energy of these Flemish cities. Flanders has the flattest and most +prosaic landscapes, but the most violent and extravagant of buildings. +Here Nature is tame; it is civilisation that is untamable. +Here the fields are as flat as a paved square; but, on the other hand, +the streets and roofs are as uproarious as a forest in a great wind. +The waters of wood and meadow slide as smoothly and meekly +as if they were in the London water-pipes. But the parish +pump is carved with all the creatures out of the wilderness. +Part of this is true, of course, of all art. We talk of wild animals, +but the wildest animal is man. There are sounds in music that are +more ancient and awful than the cry of the strangest beast at night. +And so also there are buildings that are shapeless in their strength, +seeming to lift themselves slowly like monsters from the primal mire, +and there are spires that seem to fly up suddenly like a startled bird. + +. . . . . + +This savagery even in stone is the expression of the special spirit +in humanity. All the beasts of the field are respectable; it is only +man who has broken loose. All animals are domestic animals; only man +is ever undomestic. All animals are tame animals; it is only we who +are wild. And doubtless, also, while this queer energy is common to +all human art, it is also generally characteristic of Christian art +among the arts of the world. This is what people really mean when +they say that Christianity is barbaric, and arose in ignorance. +As a matter of historic fact, it didn't; it arose in the most +equably civilised period the world has ever seen. + +But it is true that there is something in it that breaks +the outline of perfect and conventional beauty, something that dots +with anger the blind eyes of the Apollo and lashes to a cavalry +charge the horses of the Elgin Marbles. Christianity is savage, +in the sense that it is primeval; there is in it a touch +of the nigger hymn. I remember a debate in which I had praised +militant music in ritual, and some one asked me if I could +imagine Christ walking down the street before a brass band. +I said I could imagine it with the greatest ease; for Christ +definitely approved a natural noisiness at a great moment. +When the street children shouted too loud, certain priggish +disciples did begin to rebuke them in the name of good taste. +He said: "If these were silent the very stones would cry out." +With these words He called up all the wealth of artistic +creation that has been founded on this creed. With those words +He founded Gothic architecture. For in a town like this, +which seems to have grown Gothic as a wood grows leaves, +anywhere and anyhow, any odd brick or moulding may be carved off +into a shouting face. The front of vast buildings is thronged +with open mouths, angels praising God, or devils defying Him. +Rock itself is racked and twisted, until it seems to scream. +The miracle is accomplished; the very stones cry out. + +But though this furious fancy is certainly a specialty of men among +creatures, and of Christian art among arts, it is still most notable +in the art of Flanders. All Gothic buildings are full of extravagant +things in detail; but this is an extravagant thing in design. All +Christian temples worth talking about have gargoyles; but Bruges +Belfry is a gargoyle. It is an unnaturally long-necked animal, like +a giraffe. The same impression of exaggeration is forced on the mind +at every corner of a Flemish town. And if any one asks, +"Why did the people of these flat countries instinctively raise +these riotous and towering monuments?" the only answer one can +give is, "Because they were the people of these flat countries." +If any one asks, "Why the men of Bruges sacrificed architecture +and everything to the sense of dizzy and divine heights?" +we can only answer, "Because Nature gave them no encouragement +to do so." + +. . . . . + +As I stare at the Belfry, I think with a sort of smile of some +of my friends in London who are quite sure of how children will +turn out if you give them what they call "the right environment." +It is a troublesome thing, environment, for it sometimes works +positively and sometimes negatively, and more often between the two. +A beautiful environment may make a child love beauty; +it may make him bored with beauty; most likely the two effects +will mix and neutralise each other. Most likely, that is, +the environment will make hardly any difference at all. +In the scientific style of history (which was recently fashionable, +and is still conventional) we always had a list of countries +that had owed their characteristics to their physical conditions. + +The Spaniards (it was said) are passionate because their country +is hot; Scandinavians adventurous because their country is cold; +Englishmen naval because they are islanders; Switzers free +because they are mountaineers. It is all very nice in its way. +Only unfortunately I am quite certain that I could make up quite +as long a list exactly contrary in its argument point-blank +against the influence of their geographical environment. +Thus Spaniards have discovered more continents than Scandinavians +because their hot climate discouraged them from exertion. +Thus Dutchmen have fought for their freedom quite as +bravely as Switzers because the Dutch have no mountains. +Thus Pagan Greece and Rome and many Mediterranean peoples have +specially hated the sea because they had the nicest sea to deal with, +the easiest sea to manage. I could extend the list for ever. +But however long it was, two examples would certainly stand up in it +as pre-eminent and unquestionable. The first is that the Swiss, +who live under staggering precipices and spires of eternal snow, +have produced no art or literature at all, and are by far +the most mundane, sensible, and business-like people in Europe. +The other is that the people of Belgium, who live in a country +like a carpet, have, by an inner energy, desired to exalt their +towers till they struck the stars. + +As it is therefore quite doubtful whether a person will go specially +with his environment or specially against his environment, +I cannot comfort myself with the thought that the modern +discussions about environment are of much practical value. +But I think I will not write any more about these modern +theories, but go on looking at the Belfry of Bruges. I would +give them the greater attention if I were not pretty well +convinced that the theories will have disappeared a long time +before the Belfry. + + +XIX + +How I Met the President + +Several years ago, when there was a small war going on in South Africa +and a great fuss going on in England, when it was by no means so popular +and convenient to be a Pro-Boer as it is now, I remember making +a bright suggestion to my Pro-Boer friends and allies, which was not, +I regret to say, received with the seriousness it deserved. +I suggested that a band of devoted and noble youths, including ourselves, +should express our sense of the pathos of the President's and +the Republic's fate by growing Kruger beards under our chins. +I imagined how abruptly this decoration would alter the appearance +of Mr. John Morley; how startling it would be as it emerged from under +the chin of Mr. Lloyd-George. But the younger men, my own friends, +on whom I more particularly urged it, men whose names are in many cases +familiar to the readers of this paper--Mr. Masterman's for instance, +and Mr. Conrad Noel--they, I felt, being young and beautiful, +would do even more justice to the Kruger beard, and when walking +down the street with it could not fail to attract attention. +The beard would have been a kind of counterblast to the Rhodes hat. +An appropriate counterblast; for the Rhodesian power in Africa +is only an external thing, placed upon the top like a hat; +the Dutch power and tradition is a thing rooted and growing +like a beard; we have shaved it, and it is growing again. +The Kruger beard would represent time and the natural processes. +You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion. + +. . . . . + +After making this proposal to my friends I hurriedly left town. +I went down to a West Country place where there was shortly afterwards +an election, at which I enjoyed myself very much canvassing for +the Liberal candidate. The extraordinary thing was that he got in. +I sometimes lie awake at night and meditate upon that mystery; +but it must not detain us now. The rather singular incident +which happened to me then, and which some recent events have +recalled to me, happened while the canvassing was still going on. +It was a burning blue day, and the warm sunshine, settling everywhere +on the high hedges and the low hills, brought out into a kind +of heavy bloom that HUMANE quality of the landscape which, +as far as I know, only exists in England; that sense as if +the bushes and the roads were human, and had kindness like men; +as if the tree were a good giant with one wooden leg; +as if the very line of palings were a row of good-tempered gnomes. +On one side of the white, sprawling road a low hill or down +showed but a little higher than the hedge, on the other the land +tumbled down into a valley that opened towards the Mendip hills. +The road was very erratic, for every true English road exists +in order to lead one a dance; and what could be more beautiful +and beneficent than a dance? At an abrupt turn of it I came upon +a low white building, with dark doors and dark shuttered windows, +evidently not inhabited and scarcely in the ordinary sense inhabitable-- +a thing more like a toolhouse than a house of any other kind. +Made idle by the heat, I paused, and, taking a piece of red chalk +out of my pocket, began drawing aimlessly on the back door-- +drawing goblins and Mr. Chamberlain, and finally the ideal +Nationalist with the Kruger beard. The materials did not permit +of any delicate rendering of his noble and national expansion +of countenance (stoical and yet hopeful, full of tears for man, +and yet of an element of humour); but the hat was finely handled. +Just as I was adding the finishing touches to the Kruger fantasy, +I was frozen to the spot with terror. The black door, +which I thought no more of than the lid of an empty box, +began slowly to open, impelled from within by a human hand. +And President Kruger himself came out into the sunlight! + +He was a shade milder of eye than he was in his portraits, and he did +not wear that ceremonial scarf which was usually, in such pictures, +slung across his ponderous form. But there was the hat which filled +the Empire with so much alarm; there were the clumsy dark clothes, +there was the heavy, powerful face; there, above all, was the Kruger +beard which I had sought to evoke (if I may use the verb) from under +the features of Mr. Masterman. Whether he had the umbrella or not I +was too much emotionally shaken to observe; he had not the stone +lions with him, or Mrs. Kruger; and what he was doing in that dark +shed I cannot imagine, but I suppose he was oppressing an Outlander. + +I was surprised, I must confess, to meet President Kruger +in Somersetshire during the war. I had no idea that he was in +the neighbourhood. But a yet more arresting surprise awaited me. +Mr. Kruger regarded me for some moments with a dubious grey eye, +and then addressed me with a strong Somersetshire accent. +A curious cold shock went through me to hear that inappropriate voice +coming out of that familiar form. It was as if you met a Chinaman, +with pigtail and yellow jacket, and he began to talk broad Scotch. +But the next moment, of course, I understood the situation. +We had much underrated the Boers in supposing that the Boer +education was incomplete. In pursuit of his ruthless plot +against our island home, the terrible President had learnt not +only English, but all the dialects at a moment's notice to win +over a Lancashire merchant or seduce a Northumberland Fusilier. +No doubt, if I asked him, this stout old gentleman could +grind out Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and so on, +like the tunes in a barrel organ. I could not wonder if our plain, +true-hearted German millionaires fell before a cunning so penetrated +with culture as this. + +. . . . . + +And now I come to the third and greatest surprise of all +that this strange old man gave me. When he asked me, +dryly enough, but not without a certain steady civility +that belongs to old-fashioned country people, what I wanted +and what I was doing, I told him the facts of the case, +explaining my political mission and the almost angelic qualities +of the Liberal candidate. Whereupon, this old man became +suddenly transfigured in the sunlight into a devil of wrath. +It was some time before I could understand a word he said, +but the one word that kept on recurring was the word "Kruger," +and it was invariably accompanied with a volley of violent terms. +Was I for old Kruger, was I? Did I come to him and want him +to help old Kruger? I ought to be ashamed, I was . . . and +here he became once more obscure. The one thing that he made +quite clear was that he wouldn't do anything for Kruger. + +"But you ARE Kruger," burst from my lips, in a natural explosion +of reasonableness. "You ARE Kruger, aren't you?" + +After this innocent CRI DE COEUR of mine, I thought at first +there would be a fight, and I remembered with regret that +the President in early life had had a hobby of killing lions. +But really I began to think that I had been mistaken, and that it +was not the President after all. There was a confounding sincerity +in the anger with which he declared that he was Farmer Bowles, +and everybody knowed it. I appeased him eventually and parted +from him at the door of his farmhouse, where he left me with a few +tags of religion, which again raised my suspicions of his identity. +In the coffee-room to which I returned there was an illustrated +paper with a picture of President Kruger, and he and Farmer Bowles +were as like as two peas. There was a picture also of a group +of Outlander leaders, and the faces of them, leering and triumphant, +were perhaps unduly darkened by the photograph, but they seemed +to me like the faces of a distant and hostile people. + +I saw the old man once again on the fierce night of the poll, +when he drove down our Liberal lines in a little cart ablaze +with the blue Tory ribbons, for he was a man who would carry his +colours everywhere. It was evening, and the warm western light was +on the grey hair and heavy massive features of that good old man. +I knew as one knows a fact of sense that if Spanish and German +stockbrokers had flooded his farm or country he would +have fought them for ever, not fiercely like an Irishman, +but with the ponderous courage and ponderous cunning of the Boer. +I knew that without seeing it, as certainly as I knew without +seeing it that when he went into the polling room he put his +cross against the Conservative name. Then he came out again, +having given his vote and looking more like Kruger than ever. +And at the same hour on the same night thousands upon thousands +of English Krugers gave the same vote. And thus Kruger was +pulled down and the dark-faced men in the photograph reigned +in his stead. + + +XX + +The Giant + +I sometimes fancy that every great city must have been built by night. +At least, it is only at night that every part of a great city is great. +All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps +architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. +At least, I think many people of those nobler trades that work +by night (journalists, policemen, burglars, coffee-stall keepers, +and such mistaken enthusiasts as refuse to go home till morning) +must often have stood admiring some black bulk of building with a crown +of battlements or a crest of spires and then burst into tears at +daybreak to discover that it was only a haberdasher's shop with huge +gold letters across the face of it. + +. . . . . + +I had a sensation of this sort the other day as I happened to be +wandering in the Temple Gardens towards the end of twilight. +I sat down on a bench with my back to the river, happening to +choose such a place that a huge angle and facade of building +jutting out from the Strand sat above me like an incubus. +I dare say that if I took the same seat to-morrow by daylight I +should find the impression entirely false. In sunlight the thing +might seem almost distant; but in that half-darkness it seemed +as if the walls were almost falling upon me. Never before have I +had so strongly the sense which makes people pessimists in politics, +the sense of the hopeless height of the high places of the earth. +That pile of wealth and power, whatever was its name, went up above +and beyond me like a cliff that no living thing could climb. +I had an irrational sense that this thing had to be fought, that I +had to fight it; and that I could offer nothing to the occasion +but an indolent journalist with a walking-stick. + +Almost as I had the thought, two windows were lit in that black, +blind face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge +face of a sleeping giant; the eyes were too close together, +and gave it the suggestion of a bestial sneer. And either +by accident of this light or of some other, I could now read +the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; +it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything +that I should like to pull down with my hands if I could. +Reared by a detected robber, it is framed to be the fashionable +and luxurious home of undetected robbers. In the house of man +are many mansions; but there is a class of men who feel normal +nowhere except in the Babylon Hotel or in Dartmoor Gaol. +That big black face, which was staring at me with its flaming +eyes too close together, that was indeed the giant of all epic +and fairy tales. But, alas! I was not the giant-killer; +the hour had come, but not the man. I sat down on the seat again +(I had had one wild impulse to climb up the front of the hotel +and fall in at one of the windows), and I tried to think, +as all decent people are thinking, what one can really do. +And all the time that oppressive wall went up in front of me, +and took hold upon the heavens like a house of the gods. + +. . . . . + +It is remarkable that in so many great wars it has been +the defeated who have won. The people who were left +worst at the end of the war were generally the people +who were left best at the end of the whole business. +For instance, the Crusades ended in the defeat of the Christians. +But they did not end in the decline of the Christians; +they ended in the decline of the Saracens. That huge prophetic wave +of Moslem power which had hung in the very heavens above the towns +of Christendom, that wave was broken, and never came on again. +The Crusaders had saved Paris in the act of losing Jerusalem. +The same applies to that epic of Republican war in the eighteenth +century to which we Liberals owe our political creed. +The French Revolution ended in defeat: the kings came back +across a carpet of dead at Waterloo. The Revolution had +lost its last battle; but it had gained its first object. +It had cut a chasm. The world has never been the same since. +No one after that has ever been able to treat the poor merely +as a pavement. + +These jewels of God, the poor, are still treated as mere +stones of the street; but as stones that may sometimes fly. +If it please God, you and I may see some of the stones +flying again before we see death. But here I only remark +the interesting fact that the conquered almost always conquer. +Sparta killed Athens with a final blow, and she was born again. +Sparta went away victorious, and died slowly of her own wounds. +The Boers lost the South African War and gained South Africa. + +And this is really all that we can do when we fight something really +stronger than ourselves; we can deal it its death-wound one moment; +it deals us death in the end. It is something if we can shock +and jar the unthinking impetus and enormous innocence of evil; +just as a pebble on a railway can stagger the Scotch express. +It is enough for the great martyrs and criminals of the French revolution, +that they have surprised for all time the secret weakness of the strong. +They have awakened and set leaping and quivering in his crypt for ever +the coward in the hearts of kings. + +. . . . . + +When Jack the Giant-Killer really first saw the giant his +experience was not such as has been generally supposed. +If you care to hear it I will tell you the real story of Jack +the Giant-Killer. To begin with, the most awful thing which Jack +first felt about the giant was that he was not a giant. +He came striding across an interminable wooded plain, and against +its remote horizon the giant was quite a small figure, like a figure +in a picture--he seemed merely a man walking across the grass. +Then Jack was shocked by remembering that the grass which the man +was treading down was one of the tallest forests upon that plain. +The man came nearer and nearer, growing bigger and bigger, +and at the instant when he passed the possible stature of humanity +Jack almost screamed. The rest was an intolerable apocalypse. + +The giant had the one frightful quality of a miracle; +the more he became incredible the more he became solid. +The less one could believe in him the more plainly one could see him. +It was unbearable that so much of the sky should be occupied +by one human face. His eyes, which had stood out like bow windows, +became bigger yet, and there was no metaphor that could +contain their bigness; yet still they were human eyes. +Jack's intellect was utterly gone under that huge hypnotism +of the face that filled the sky; his last hope was submerged, +his five wits all still with terror. + +But there stood up in him still a kind of cold chivalry, a dignity of dead +honour that would not forget the small and futile sword in his hand. +He rushed at one of the colossal feet of this human tower, and when +he came quite close to it the ankle-bone arched over him like a cave. +Then he planted the point of his sword against the foot and leant on it +with all his weight, till it went up to the hilt and broke the hilt, +and then snapped just under it. And it was plain that the giant felt +a sort of prick, for he snatched up his great foot into his great hand +for an instant; and then, putting it down again, he bent over and stared +at the ground until he had seen his enemy. + +Then he picked up Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw +him away; and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were +flying from system to system through the universe of stars. +But, as the giant had thrown him away carelessly, he did not strike +a stone, but struck soft mire by the side of a distant river. +There he lay insensible for several hours; but when he awoke again +his horrible conqueror was still in sight. He was striding away +across the void and wooded plain towards where it ended in the sea; +and by this time he was only much higher than any of the hills. +He grew less and less indeed; but only as a really high mountain +grows at last less and less when we leave it in a railway train. +Half an hour afterwards he was a bright blue colour, as are the +distant hills; but his outline was still human and still gigantic. +Then the big blue figure seemed to come to the brink of the big +blue sea, and even as it did so it altered its attitude. +Jack, stunned and bleeding, lifted himself laboriously upon one +elbow to stare. The giant once more caught hold of his ankle, +wavered twice as in a wind, and then went over into the great sea +which washes the whole world, and which, alone of all things God +has made, was big enough to drown him. + + +XXI + +A Great Man + +People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has +always seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing +away the veils from private life; but it seems to me to be always +dropping diaphanous but blinding veils between men and men. +The Yellow Press is abused for exposing facts which are private; +I wish the Yellow Press did anything so valuable. It is exactly +the decisive individual touches that it never gives; and a proof of this +is that after one has met a man a million times in the newspapers it +is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him in real life. +The Yellow Pressman seems to have no power of catching the first +fresh fact about a man that dominates all after impressions. +For instance, before I met Bernard Shaw I heard that he spoke with +a reckless desire for paradox or a sneering hatred of sentiment; +but I never knew till he opened his mouth that he spoke with +an Irish accent, which is more important than all the other +criticisms put together. + +Journalism is not personal enough. So far from digging out +private personalities, it cannot even report the obvious personalities +on the surface. Now there is one vivid and even bodily impression +of this kind which we have all felt when we met great poets +or politicians, but which never finds its way into the newspapers. +I mean the impression that they are much older than we thought they were. +We connect great men with their great triumphs, which generally +happened some years ago, and many recruits enthusiastic for the thin +Napoleon of Marengo must have found themselves in the presence +of the fat Napoleon of Leipzic. + +I remember reading a newspaper account of how a certain rising politician +confronted the House of Lords with the enthusiasm almost of boyhood. +It described how his "brave young voice" rang in the rafters. +I also remember that I met him some days after, and he was considerably +older than my own father. I mention this truth for only one purpose: +all this generalisation leads up to only one fact--the fact that I once +met a great man who was younger than I expected. + +. . . . . + +I had come over the wooded wall from the villages about Epsom, and down +a stumbling path between trees towards the valley in which Dorking lies. +A warm sunlight was working its way through the leafage; a sunlight +which though of saintless gold had taken on the quality of evening. +It was such sunlight as reminds a man that the sun begins to set +an instant after noon. It seemed to lessen as the wood strengthened +and the road sank. + +I had a sensation peculiar to such entangled descents; +I felt that the treetops that closed above me were the fixed +and real things, certain as the level of the sea; but that +the solid earth was every instant failing under my feet. +In a little while that splendid sunlight showed only in splashes, +like flaming stars and suns in the dome of green sky. +Around me in that emerald twilight were trunks of trees of every +plain or twisted type; it was like a chapel supported on columns +of every earthly and unearthly style of architecture. + +Without intention my mind grew full of fancies on the nature +of the forest; on the whole philosophy of mystery and force. +For the meaning of woods is the combination of energy with complexity. +A forest is not in the least rude or barbarous; it is only dense +with delicacy. Unique shapes that an artist would copy or a +philosopher watch for years if he found them in an open plain are +here mingled and confounded; but it is not a darkness of deformity. +It is a darkness of life; a darkness of perfection. And I began +to think how much of the highest human obscurity is like this, +and how much men have misunderstood it. People will tell you, +for instance, that theology became elaborate because it was dead. +Believe me, if it had been dead it would never have become elaborate; +it is only the live tree that grows too many branches. + +. . . . . + +These trees thinned and fell away from each other, and I came out +into deep grass and a road. I remember being surprised that the +evening was so far advanced; I had a fancy that this valley had a +sunset all to itself. I went along that road according to directions +that had been given me, and passed the gateway in a slight paling +beyond which the wood changed only faintly to a garden. +It was as if the curious courtesy and fineness of that character +I was to meet went out from him upon the valley; for I felt +on all these things the finger of that quality which the old +English called "faerie"; it is the quality which those can +never understand who think of the past as merely brutal; +it is an ancient elegance such as there is in trees. +I went through the garden and saw an old man sitting by a table, +looking smallish in his big chair. He was already an invalid, +and his hair and beard were both white; not like snow, for snow +is cold and heavy, but like something feathery, or even fierce; +rather they were white like the white thistledown. I came up +quite close to him; he looked at me as he put out his frail hand, +and I saw of a sudden that his eyes were startlingly young. +He was the one great man of the old world whom I have met +who was not a mere statue over his own grave. + +He was deaf and he talked like a torrent. He did not talk about +the books he had written; he was far too much alive for that. +He talked about the books he had not written. He unrolled +a purple bundle of romances which he had never had time to sell. +He asked me to write one of the stories for him, as he would +have asked the milkman, if he had been talking to the milkman. +It was a splendid and frantic story, a sort of astronomical farce. +It was all about a man who was rushing up to the Royal Society +with the only possible way of avoiding an earth-destroying comet; +and it showed how, even on this huge errand, the man was tripped +up at every other minute by his own weakness and vanities; +how he lost a train by trifling or was put in gaol for brawling. +That is only one of them; there were ten or twenty more. +Another, I dimly remember, was a version of the fall of Parnell; +the idea that a quite honest man might be secret from a pure love +of secrecy, of solitary self-control. I went out of that garden with a +blurred sensation of the million possibilities of creative literature. +The feeling increased as my way fell back into the wood; for a wood +is a palace with a million corridors that cross each other everywhere. +I really had the feeling that I had seen the creative quality; +which is supernatural. I had seen what Virgil calls the Old Man +of the Forest: I had seen an elf. The trees thronged behind my path; +I have never seen him again; and now I shall not see him, +because he died last Tuesday. + + +XXII + +The Orthodox Barber + +Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert +that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; +and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it. There is a very real +thing which may be called the love of humanity; in our time it +exists almost entirely among what are called uneducated people; +and it does not exist at all among the people who talk about it. + +A positive pleasure in being in the presence of any other human being +is chiefly remarkable, for instance, in the masses on Bank Holiday; +that is why they are so much nearer Heaven (despite appearances) +than any other part of our population. + +I remember seeing a crowd of factory girls getting into an empty +train at a wayside country station. There were about twenty of them; +they all got into one carriage; and they left all the rest of the +train entirely empty. That is the real love of humanity. That is +the definite pleasure in the immediate proximity of one's own kind. +Only this coarse, rank, real love of men seems to be entirely +lacking in those who propose the love of humanity as a substitute +for all other love; honourable, rationalistic idealists. + +I can well remember the explosion of human joy which marked +the sudden starting of that train; all the factory girls +who could not find seats (and they must have been the majority) +relieving their feelings by jumping up and down. Now I have never +seen any rationalistic idealists do this. I have never seen twenty +modern philosophers crowd into one third-class carriage for the +mere pleasure of being together. I have never seen twenty Mr. +McCabes all in one carriage and all jumping up and down. + +Some people express a fear that vulgar trippers will overrun +all beautiful places, such as Hampstead or Burnham Beeches. +But their fear is unreasonable; because trippers always +prefer to trip together; they pack as close as they can; +they have a suffocating passion of philanthropy. + +. . . . . + +But among the minor and milder aspects of the same principle, +I have no hesitation in placing the problem of the colloquial barber. +Before any modern man talks with authority about loving men, I insist +(I insist with violence) that he shall always be very much pleased +when his barber tries to talk to him. His barber is humanity: +let him love that. If he is not pleased at this, I will not accept any +substitute in the way of interest in the Congo or the future of Japan. +If a man cannot love his barber whom he has seen, how shall he love +the Japanese whom he has not seen? + +It is urged against the barber that he begins by talking about +the weather; so do all dukes and diplomatists, only that they talk about +it with ostentatious fatigue and indifference, whereas the barber talks +about it with an astonishing, nay incredible, freshness of interest. +It is objected to him that he tells people that they are going bald. +That is to say, his very virtues are cast up against him; +he is blamed because, being a specialist, he is a sincere specialist, +and because, being a tradesman, he is not entirely a slave. +But the only proof of such things is by example; therefore I will prove +the excellence of the conversation of barbers by a specific case. +Lest any one should accuse me of attempting to prove it by fictitious +means, I beg to say quite seriously that though I forget the exact +language employed, the following conversation between me and a human +(I trust), living barber really took place a few days ago. + +. . . . . + +I had been invited to some At Home to meet the Colonial Premiers, +and lest I should be mistaken for some partly reformed bush-ranger out of +the interior of Australia I went into a shop in the Strand to get shaved. +While I was undergoing the torture the man said to me: + +"There seems to be a lot in the papers about this new shaving, sir. +It seems you can shave yourself with anything--with a stick or a stone +or a pole or a poker" (here I began for the first time to detect +a sarcastic intonation) "or a shovel or a----" + +Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing about +the matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical vein. + +"Or a button-hook," I said, "or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram +or a piston-rod----" + +He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, "Or a curtain rod +or a candle-stick, or a----" + +"Cow-catcher," I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic duet +for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told me. +He explained the thing eloquently and at length. + +"The funny part of it is," he said, "that the thing isn't new at all. +It's been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before. +There is always a notion that the razor might be done without somehow. +But none of those schemes ever came to anything; and I don't believe +myself that this will." + +"Why, as to that," I said, rising slowly from the chair and trying +to put on my coat inside out, "I don't know how it may be in the case +of you and your new shaving. Shaving, with all respect to you, +is a trivial and materialistic thing, and in such things +startling inventions are sometimes made. But what you say +reminds me in some dark and dreamy fashion of something else. +I recall it especially when you tell me, with such evident +experience and sincerity, that the new shaving is not really new. +My friend, the human race is always trying this dodge of making +everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts off +one thing it shifts on to another. If one man has not the toil +of preparing a man's chin, I suppose that some other man has the toil +of preparing something very curious to put on a man's chin. +It would be nice if we could be shaved without troubling anybody. +It would be nicer still if we could go unshaved without annoying anybody-- + + "'But, O wise friend, chief Barber of the Strand, + Brother, nor you nor I have made the world.' + +"Whoever made it, who is wiser, and we hope better than we, made it +under strange limitations, and with painful conditions of pleasure. + +"In the first and darkest of its books it is fiercely written +that a man shall not eat his cake and have it; and though +all men talked until the stars were old it would still be true +that a man who has lost his razor could not shave with it. +But every now and then men jump up with the new something +or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, +that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there +is no real difference between being shaved and not being shaved. +The difference, they say, is only a difference of degree; +everything is evolutionary and relative. Shavedness is +immanent in man. Every ten-penny nail is a Potential Razor. +The superstitious people of the past (they say) believed that +a lot of black bristles standing out at right angles to one's +face was a positive affair. But the higher criticism teaches +us better. Bristles are merely negative. They are a Shadow +where Shaving should be. + +"Well, it all goes on, and I suppose it all means something. +But a baby is the Kingdom of God, and if you try to kiss a baby +he will know whether you are shaved or not. Perhaps I am mixing +up being shaved and being saved; my democratic sympathies have +always led me to drop my 'h's.' In another moment I may suggest +that goats represent the lost because goats have long beards. +This is growing altogether too allegorical. + +"Nevertheless," I added, as I paid the bill, "I have really been +profoundly interested in what you told me about the New Shaving. +Have you ever heard of a thing called the New theology?" + +He smiled and said that he had not. + + +XXIII + +The Toy Theatre + +There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; +and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys +takes so very much more time and trouble than anything else. +Playing as children mean playing is the most serious thing in the world; +and as soon as we have small duties or small sorrows we have to +abandon to some extent so enormous and ambitious a plan of life. +We have enough strength for politics and commerce and art and philosophy; +we have not enough strength for play. This is a truth which every one +will recognize who, as a child, has ever played with anything at all; +any one who has played with bricks, any one who has played with dolls, +any one who has played with tin soldiers. My journalistic work, +which earns money, is not pursued with such awful persistency as that +work which earned nothing. + +. . . . . + +Take the case of bricks. If you publish a book to-morrow +in twelve volumes (it would be just like you) on "The Theory +and Practice of European Architecture," your work may be laborious, +but it is fundamentally frivolous. It is not serious as the work +of a child piling one brick on the other is serious; for the simple +reason that if your book is a bad book no one will ever be able +ultimately and entirely to prove to you that it is a bad book. +Whereas if his balance of bricks is a bad balance of bricks, +it will simply tumble down. And if I know anything of children, +he will set to work solemnly and sadly to build it up again. +Whereas, if I know anything of authors, nothing would induce you +to write your book again, or even to think of it again if you +could help it. + +Take the case of dolls. It is much easier to care for an educational +cause than to care for a doll. It is as easy to write an article on +education as to write an article on toffee or tramcars or anything else. +But it is almost as difficult to look after a doll as to look after +a child. The little girls that I meet in the little streets of Battersea +worship their dolls in a way that reminds one not so much of play +as idolatry. In some cases the love and care of the artistic symbol +has actually become more important than the human reality which it was, +I suppose, originally meant to symbolize. + +I remember a Battersea little girl who wheeled her large baby sister +stuffed into a doll's perambulator. When questioned on this course of +conduct, she replied: "I haven't got a dolly, and Baby is pretending +to be my dolly." Nature was indeed imitating art. First a doll had +been a substitute for a child; afterwards a child was a mere substitute +for a doll. But that opens other matters; the point is here that such +devotion takes up most of the brain and most of the life; much as if +it were really the thing which it is supposed to symbolize. The point +is that the man writing on motherhood is merely an educationalist; +the child playing with a doll is a mother. + +Take the case of soldiers. A man writing an article on military strategy +is simply a man writing an article; a horrid sight. But a boy making a +campaign with tin soldiers is like a General making a campaign with live +soldiers. He must to the limit of his juvenile powers think about the +thing; whereas the war correspondent need not think at all. I remember +a war correspondent who remarked after the capture of Methuen: "This +renewed activity on the part of Delarey is probably due to his being +short of stores." The same military critic had mentioned a few +paragraphs before that Delarey was being hard pressed by a column which +was pursuing him under the command of Methuen. Methuen chased Delarey; +and Delarey's activity was due to his being short of stores. +Otherwise he would have stood quite still while he was chased. +I run after Jones with a hatchet, and if he turns round and tries +to get rid of me the only possible explanation is that he has +a very small balance at his bankers. I cannot believe that any boy +playing at soldiers would be as idiotic as this. But then any one +playing at anything has to be serious. Whereas, as I have only too +good reason to know, if you are writing an article you can say anything +that comes into your head. + +. . . . . + +Broadly, then, what keeps adults from joining in children's +games is, generally speaking, not that they have no pleasure +in them; it is simply that they have no leisure for them. +It is that they cannot afford the expenditure of toil +and time and consideration for so grand and grave a scheme. +I have been myself attempting for some time past to complete +a play in a small toy theatre, the sort of toy theatre +that used to be called Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured; +only that I drew and coloured the figures and scenes myself. +Hence I was free from the degrading obligation of having to pay +either a penny or twopence; I only had to pay a shilling a sheet +for good cardboard and a shilling a box for bad water colours. +The kind of miniature stage I mean is probably familiar to every one; +it is never more than a development of the stage which Skelt +made and Stevenson celebrated. + +But though I have worked much harder at the toy theatre than I +ever worked at any tale or article, I cannot finish it; the work +seems too heavy for me. I have to break off and betake myself +to lighter employments; such as the biographies of great men. +The play of "St. George and the Dragon," over which I have burnt +the midnight oil (you must colour the thing by lamplight because +that is how it will be seen), still lacks most conspicuously, +alas! two wings of the Sultan's Palace, and also some comprehensible +and workable way of getting up the curtain. + +All this gives me a feeling touching the real meaning of immortality. +In this world we cannot have pure pleasure. This is partly because +pure pleasure would be dangerous to us and to our neighbours. +But it is partly because pure pleasure is a great deal too much trouble. +If I am ever in any other and better world, I hope that I shall have +enough time to play with nothing but toy theatres; and I hope that I +shall have enough divine and superhuman energy to act at least one play +in them without a hitch. + +. . . . . + +Meanwhile the philosophy of toy theatres is worth any one's +consideration. All the essential morals which modern men need +to learn could be deduced from this toy. Artistically considered, +it reminds us of the main principle of art, the principle which +is in most danger of being forgotten in our time. I mean the fact +that art consists of limitation; the fact that art is limitation. +Art does not consist in expanding things. Art consists of cutting +things down, as I cut down with a pair of scissors my very ugly +figures of St. George and the Dragon. Plato, who liked definite +ideas, would like my cardboard dragon; for though the creature has +few other artistic merits he is at least dragonish. The modern +philosopher, who likes infinity, is quite welcome to a sheet of +the plain cardboard. The most artistic thing about the theatrical +art is the fact that the spectator looks at the whole thing through +a window. This is true even of theatres inferior to my own; even at +the Court Theatre or His Majesty's you are looking through a window; +an unusually large window. But the advantage of the small +theatre exactly is that you are looking through a small window. +Has not every one noticed how sweet and startling any +landscape looks when seen through an arch? This strong, +square shape, this shutting off of everything else is not +only an assistance to beauty; it is the essential of beauty. +The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. + +This especially is true of the toy theatre; that, by reducing +the scale of events it can introduce much larger events. +Because it is small it could easily represent the earthquake in Jamaica. +Because it is small it could easily represent the Day of Judgment. +Exactly in so far as it is limited, so far it could play easily +with falling cities or with falling stars. Meanwhile the big +theatres are obliged to be economical because they are big. +When we have understood this fact we shall have understood something +of the reason why the world has always been first inspired by +small nationalities. The vast Greek philosophy could fit easier +into the small city of Athens than into the immense Empire of Persia. +In the narrow streets of Florence Dante felt that there was room +for Purgatory and Heaven and Hell. He would have been stifled +by the British Empire. Great empires are necessarily prosaic; +for it is beyond human power to act a great poem upon so great a scale. +You can only represent very big ideas in very small spaces. +My toy theatre is as philosophical as the drama of Athens. + + +XXIV + +A Tragedy of Twopence + +My relations with the readers of this page have been +long and pleasant, but--perhaps for that very reason-- +I feel that the time has come when I ought to confess +the one great crime of my life. It happened a long time ago; +but it is not uncommon for a belated burst of remorse +to reveal such dark episodes long after they have occurred. +It has nothing to do with the orgies of the Anti-Puritan League. +That body is so offensively respectable that a newspaper, +in describing it the other day, referred to my friend +Mr. Edgar Jepson as Canon Edgar Jepson; and it is believed +that similar titles are intended for all of us. No; it is +not by the conduct of Archbishop Crane, of Dean Chesterton, +of the Rev. James Douglas, of Monsignor Bland, and even of that +fine and virile old ecclesiastic, Cardinal Nesbit, that I wish +(or rather, am driven by my conscience) to make this declaration. +The crime was committed in solitude and without accomplices. +Alone I did it. Let me, with the characteristic thirst +of penitents to get the worst of the confession over, state it +first of all in its most dreadful and indefensible form. +There is at the present moment in a town in Germany (unless he +has died of rage on discovering his wrong), a restaurant-keeper +to whom I still owe twopence. I last left his open-air restaurant +knowing that I owed him twopence. I carried it away under his +nose, despite the fact that the nose was a decidedly Jewish one. +I have never paid him, and it is highly improbable that I ever shall. +How did this villainy come to occur in a life which has been, +generally speaking, deficient in the dexterity necessary for fraud? +The story is as follows--and it has a moral, though there +may not be room for that. + +. . . . . + +It is a fair general rule for those travelling on the Continent that +the easiest way of talking in a foreign language is to talk philosophy. +The most difficult kind of talking is to talk about common necessities. +The reason is obvious. The names of common necessities vary completely +with each nation and are generally somewhat odd and quaint. +How, for instance, could a Frenchman suppose that a coalbox would +be called a "scuttle"? If he has ever seen the word scuttle +it has been in the Jingo Press, where the "policy of scuttle" +is used whenever we give up something to a small Power like Liberals, +instead of giving up everything to a great Power, like Imperialists. +What Englishman in Germany would be poet enough to guess that the Germans +call a glove a "hand-shoe." Nations name their necessities by nicknames, +so to speak. They call their tubs and stools by quaint, elvish, +and almost affectionate names, as if they were their own children! +But any one can argue about abstract things in a foreign language who has +ever got as far as Exercise IV. in a primer. For as soon as he can +put a sentence together at all he finds that the words used in abstract +or philosophical discussions are almost the same in all nations. +They are the same, for the simple reason that they all come +from the things that were the roots of our common civilisation. +From Christianity, from the Roman Empire, from the mediaeval Church, +or the French Revolution. "Nation," "citizen," "religion," "philosophy," +"authority," "the Republic," words like these are nearly the same +in all the countries in which we travel. Restrain, therefore, +your exuberant admiration for the young man who can argue with six +French atheists when he first lands at Dieppe. Even I can do that. +But very likely the same young man does not know the French for a +shoe-horn. But to this generalisation there are three great exceptions. +(1) In the case of countries that are not European at all, and have +never had our civic conceptions, or the old Latin scholarship. +I do not pretend that the Patagonian phrase for "citizenship" +at once leaps to the mind, or that a Dyak's word for "the Republic" +has been familiar to me from the nursery. (2) In the case of Germany, +where, although the principle does apply to many words such as "nation" +and "philosophy," it does not apply so generally, because Germany +has had a special and deliberate policy of encouraging the purely +German part of its language. (3) In the case where one does not know +any of the language at all, as is generally the case with me. + +. . . . . + +Such at least was my situation on the dark day on which I committed +my crime. Two of the exceptional conditions which I have mentioned +were combined. I was walking about a German town, and I knew no German. +I knew, however, two or three of those great and solemn words which +hold our European civilisation together--one of which is "cigar." +As it was a hot and dreamy day, I sat down at a table in a sort +of beer-garden, and ordered a cigar and a pot of lager. I drank the +lager, and paid for it. I smoked the cigar, forgot to pay for it, +and walked away, gazing rapturously at the royal outline of the +Taunus mountains. After about ten minutes, I suddenly remembered +that I had not paid for the cigar. I went back to the place of +refreshment, and put down the money. But the proprietor also had +forgotten the cigar, and he merely said guttural things in a tone +of query, asking me, I suppose, what I wanted. I said "cigar," and +he gave me a cigar. I endeavoured while putting down the money to +wave away the cigar with gestures of refusal. He thought that my +rejection was of the nature of a condemnation of that particular cigar, +and brought me another. I whirled my arms like a windmill, +seeking to convey by the sweeping universality of my gesture +that my rejection was a rejection of cigars in general, +not of that particular article. He mistook this for the ordinary +impatience of common men, and rushed forward, his hands +filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing them upon me. +In desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the more +cigars I refused the more and more rare and precious cigars +were brought out of the deeps and recesses of the establishment. +I tried in vain to think of a way of conveying to him the fact +that I had already had the cigar. I imitated the action +of a citizen smoking, knocking off and throwing away a cigar. +The watchful proprietor only thought I was rehearsing +(as in an ecstasy of anticipation) the joys of the cigar +he was going to give me. At last I retired baffled: +he would not take the money and leave the cigars alone. +So that this restaurant-keeper (in whose face a love of money +shone like the sun at noonday) flatly and firmly refused +to receive the twopence that I certainly owed him; and I took +that twopence of his away with me and rioted on it for months. +I hope that on the last day the angels will break the truth +very gently to that unhappy man. + +. . . . . + +This is the true and exact account of the Great Cigar Fraud, +and the moral of it is this--that civilisation is founded +upon abstractions. The idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed +by physical motions at all, because it is an abstract idea. +And civilisation obviously would be nothing without debt. +So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific sociology +(which does not exist) come and tell you that civilisation +is material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourselves +how many of the things that make up our Society, the Law, +or the Stocks and Shares, or the National Debt, you would be +able to convey with your face and your ten fingers by grinning +and gesticulating to a German innkeeper. + + +XXV + +A Cab Ride Across Country + +Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there +lies a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, +but of eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, which asked the present +writer to come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address. + +Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon, +owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws +and customs have fallen in connection with the seventh day. +It is not Puritanism; it is simply anarchy. I should have some +sympathy with the Jewish Sabbath, if it were a Jewish Sabbath, +and that for three reasons; first, that religion is an intrinsically +sympathetic thing; second, that I cannot conceive any religion +worth calling a religion without a fixed and material observance; +and third, that the particular observance of sitting still and doing +no work is one that suits my temperament down to the ground. + +But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it +does not let a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him +up when it has forced him to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism +does not forbid us to ask a man in Battersea to come and talk +in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his getting there. +I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with joys, +with flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. +I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with sorrows. +But I cannot imagine any deity being worshipped with inconveniences. +Let the good Moslem go to Mecca, or let him abide in his tent, +according to his feelings for religious symbols. But surely Allah +cannot see anything particularly dignified in his servant being +misled by the time-table, finding that the old Mecca express is +not running, missing his connection at Bagdad, or having to wait +three hours in a small side station outside Damascus. + +So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph +service at all to this place; I found there was only one weak +thread of train-service. Now if this had been the authority +of real English religion, I should have submitted to it at once. +If I believed that the telegraph clerk could not send the telegram +because he was at that moment rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, +I should think all telegrams unimportant in comparison. +If I could believe that railway porters when relieved from their +duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of worship, +I should say that all lectures and everything else ought +to give way to such a consideration. I should not complain +if the national faith forbade me to make any appointments +of labour or self-expression on the Sabbath. But, as it is, +it only tells me that I may very probably keep the Sabbath +by not keeping the appointment. + +. . . . . + +But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there +was only one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could +even get within several hours or several miles of the time or place. +I therefore went to the telephone, which is one of my +favourite toys, and down which I have shouted many valuable, +but prematurely arrested, monologues upon art and morals. +I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered that one +could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be +cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, +to the advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, +in fewer words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, +I ordered a taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. +I have not a word to say in general either against telephones +or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two of the purest and most +poetic of the creations of modern scientific civilisation. +Unfortunately, when the taxi-cab started, it did exactly +what modern scientific civilisation has done--it broke down. +The result of this was that when I arrived at King's Cross my +only train was gone; there was a Sabbath calm in the station, +a calm in the eyes of the porters, and in my breast, if calm +at all, if any calm, a calm despair. + +There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my +breast on first making the discovery; and it was turned +to blinding horror when I learnt that I could not even send +a telegram to the organisers of the meeting. To leave +my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; +to leave them without any intimation was simply low. +I reasoned with the official. I said: "Do you really mean +to say that if my brother were dying and my mother in this place, +I could not communicate with her?" He was a man of literal +and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was dying. +I answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health, +but that I was inquiring upon a question of principle. +What would happen if England were invaded, or if I +alone knew how to turn aside a comet or an earthquake. +He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible spirit, +but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this +particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element +of the outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang +up ungovernable, and I decided that I would not be a cad merely +because some of my remote ancestors had been Calvinists. +I would keep my appointment if I lost all my money and all my wits. +I went out into the quiet London street, where my quiet London +cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty morning. +I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the London +driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. +And he did. + +. . . . . + +I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful weather, even in +a motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver, +not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road. +I urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, +but he said (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate +sense of adventure) that he would rather do it when we arrived-- +if we ever did. I was by no means so delicate; I bought +a varied selection of pork-pies at a little shop that was open +(why was that shop open?--it is all a mystery), and ate them +as we went along. The beginning was sombre and irritating. +I was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a baby; +with the motor for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday. +And the sight of the northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did +not decrease, my gloom: Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness +in its squalor; Battersea and Camberwell have an indescribable +bustle of democracy; but the poor parts of North London . . . well, +perhaps I saw them wrongly under that ashen morning and on +that foolish errand. + +It was one of those days which more than once this year broke +the retreat of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. +We were already clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace +through a borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, +when the grey showed golden patches and a good light began +to glitter on everything. The cab went quicker and quicker. +The open land whirled wider and wider; but I did not lose my sense of +being battled with and thwarted that I had felt in the thronged slums. +Rather the feeling increased, because of the great difficulty +of space and time. The faster went the car, the fiercer and thicker +I felt the fight. + +The whole landscape seemed charging at me--and just missing me. +The tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; +the very trees seemed like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving +it by a hair's breadth. Across some vast, smooth valley I saw +a beech-tree by the white road stand up little and defiant. +It grew bigger and bigger with blinding rapidity. It charged me +like a tilting knight, seemed to hack at my head, and pass by. +Sometimes when we went round a curve of road, the effect was yet +more awful. It seemed as if some tree or windmill swung round +to smite like a boomerang. The sun by this time was a blazing fact; +and I saw that all Nature is chivalrous and militant. +We do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we should rather seek +the nobler sort of war; and see all the trees as green banners. + +. . . . . + +I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was deciding to leave. +When my cab came reeling into the market-place they decided, +with evident disappointment, to remain. Over the lecture I draw +a veil. When I came back home I was called to the telephone, +and a meek voice expressed regret for the failure of the motor-cab, +and even said something about any reasonable payment. +"Whom can I pay for my own superb experience? What is +the usual charge for seeing the clouds shattered by the sun? +What is the market price of a tree blue on the sky-line +and then blinding white in the sun? Mention your price for +that windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks in the garden. +Let me pay you for . . ." Here it was, I think, that we +were cut off. + + +XXVI + +The Two Noises + +For three days and three nights the sea had charged England +as Napoleon charged her at Waterloo. The phrase is instinctive, +because away to the last grey line of the sea there was only the look +of galloping squadrons, impetuous, but with a common purpose. +The sea came on like cavalry, and when it touched the shore it +opened the blazing eyes and deafening tongues of the artillery. +I saw the worst assault at night on a seaside parade where the sea +smote on the doors of England with the hammers of earthquake, +and a white smoke went up into the black heavens. There one +could thoroughly realise what an awful thing a wave really is. +I talk like other people about the rushing swiftness of a wave. +But the horrible thing about a wave is its hideous slowness. +It lifts its load of water laboriously: in that style at once +slow and slippery in which a Titan might lift a load of rock +and then let it slip at last to be shattered into shock of dust. +In front of me that night the waves were not like water: +they were like falling city walls. The breaker rose first as if it +did not wish to attack the earth; it wished only to attack the stars. +For a time it stood up in the air as naturally as a tower; then it went +a little wrong in its outline, like a tower that might some day fall. +When it fell it was as if a powder magazine blew up. + +. . . . . + +I have never seen such a sea. All the time there blew across +the land one of those stiff and throttling winds that one can +lean up against like a wall. One expected anything to be blown +out of shape at any instant; the lamp-post to be snapped +like a green stalk, the tree to be whirled away like a straw. +I myself should certainly have been blown out of shape if I had +possessed any shape to be blown out of; for I walked along the edge +of the stone embankment above the black and battering sea and could +not rid myself of the idea that it was an invasion of England. +But as I walked along this edge I was somewhat surprised +to find that as I neared a certain spot another noise mingled +with the ceaseless cannonade of the sea. + +Somewhere at the back, in some pleasure ground or casino +or place of entertainment, an undaunted brass band was playing +against the cosmic uproar. I do not know what band it was. +Judging from the boisterous British Imperialism of most +of the airs it played, I should think it was a German band. +But there was no doubt about its energy, and when I came quite +close under it it really drowned the storm. It was playing such +things as "Tommy Atkins" and "You Can Depend on Young Australia," +and many others of which I do not know the words, but I should +think they would be "John, Pat, and Mac, With the Union Jack," +or that fine though unwritten poem, "Wait till the Bull Dog +gets a bite of you." Now, I for one detest Imperialism, +but I have a great deal of sympathy with Jingoism. +And there seemed something so touching about this unbroken +and innocent bragging under the brutal menace of Nature +that it made, if I may so put it, two tunes in my mind. +It is so obvious and so jolly to be optimistic about England, +especially when you are an optimist--and an Englishman. +But through all that glorious brass came the voice +of the invasion, the undertone of that awful sea. +I did a foolish thing. As I could not express my meaning +in an article, I tried to express it in a poem--a bad one. +You can call it what you like. It might be called "Doubt," +or "Brighton." It might be called "The Patriot," or yet +again "The German Band." I would call it "The Two Voices," +but that title has been taken for a grossly inferior poem. +This is how it began-- + + "They say the sun is on your knees + A lamp to light your lands from harm, + They say you turn the seven seas + To little brooks about your farm. + I hear the sea and the new song + that calls you empress all day long. + + "(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie + Dying in swamps--you shall not die, + Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust, + Your poor are chased about like dust, + Emptied of anger and surprise-- + And God has gone out of their eyes, + Your cohorts break--your captains lie, + I say to you, you shall not die.)" + +Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there +is an English country that the Imperialists have never found. +The British Empire may annex what it likes, it will never annex England. +It has not even discovered the island, let alone conquered it. +I took up the two tunes again with a greater sympathy for the first-- + + "I know the bright baptismal rains, + I love your tender troubled skies, + I know your little climbing lanes, + Are peering into Paradise, + From open hearth to orchard cool, + How bountiful and beautiful. + + "(O throttled and without a cry, + O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die, + The frightful word is on your walls, + The east sea to the west sea calls, + The stars are dying in the sky, + You shall not die; you shall not die.)" + +Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the +peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. +It is their fault if the last verse was written a little rudely +and at random-- + + "I see you how you smile in state + Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar, + You need not tell me you are great, + I know how more than great you are. + I know what William Shakespeare was, + I have seen Gainsborough and the grass. + + "(O given to believe a lie, + O my mad mother, do do not die, + Whose eyes turn all ways but within, + Whose sin is innocence of sin, + Whose eyes, blinded with beams at noon, + Can see the motes upon the moon, + You shall your lover still pursue. + To what last madhouse shelters you + I will uphold you, even I. + You that are dead. You shall not die.)" + +But the sea would not stop for me any more than for Canute; +and as for the German band, that would not stop for anybody. + + +XXVII + +Some Policemen and a Moral + +The other day I was nearly arrested by two excited policemen in a wood +in Yorkshire. I was on a holiday, and was engaged in that rich and +intricate mass of pleasures, duties, and discoveries which for the keeping +off of the profane, we disguise by the exoteric name of Nothing. +At the moment in question I was throwing a big Swedish knife at +a tree, practising (alas, without success) that useful trick of +knife-throwing by which men murder each other in Stevenson's romances. + +Suddenly the forest was full of two policemen; there was something +about their appearance in and relation to the greenwood that +reminded me, I know not how, of some happy Elizabethan comedy. +They asked what the knife was, who I was, why I was throwing it, +what my address was, trade, religion, opinions on the Japanese war, +name of favourite cat, and so on. They also said I was damaging the tree; +which was, I am sorry to say, not true, because I could not hit it. +The peculiar philosophical importance, however, of the incident was this. +After some half-hour's animated conversation, the exhibition of +an envelope, an unfinished poem, which was read with great care, and, +I trust, with some profit, and one or two other subtle detective strokes, +the elder of the two knights became convinced that I really was what I +professed to be, that I was a journalist, that I was on the DAILY NEWS +(this was the real stroke; they were shaken with a terror common +to all tyrants), that I lived in a particular place as stated, +and that I was stopping with particular people in Yorkshire, +who happened to be wealthy and well-known in the neighbourhood. + +In fact the leading constable became so genial and complimentary +at last that he ended up by representing himself as a reader +of my work. And when that was said, everything was settled. +They acquitted me and let me pass. + +"But," I said, "what of this mangled tree? It was to the rescue +of that Dryad, tethered to the earth, that you rushed like +knight-errants. You, the higher humanitarians, are not deceived +by the seeming stillness of the green things, a stillness like +the stillness of the cataract, a headlong and crashing silence. +You know that a tree is but a creature tied to the ground by one leg. +You will not let assassins with their Swedish daggers shed the green +blood of such a being. But if so, why am I not in custody; +where are my gyves? Produce, from some portion of your persons, +my mouldy straw and my grated window. The facts of which I have just +convinced you, that my name is Chesterton, that I am a journalist, +that I am living with the well-known and philanthropic Mr. Blank +of Ilkley, cannot have anything to do with the question of whether +I have been guilty of cruelty to vegetables. The tree is none +the less damaged even though it may reflect with a dark pride that it +was wounded by a gentleman connected with the Liberal press. +Wounds in the bark do not more rapidly close up because they are +inflicted by people who are stopping with Mr. Blank of Ilkley. +That tree, the ruin of its former self, the wreck of what was once +a giant of the forest, now splintered and laid low by the brute +superiority of a Swedish knife, that tragedy, constable, cannot be wiped +out even by stopping for several months more with some wealthy person. +It is incredible that you have no legal claim to arrest +even the most august and fashionable persons on this charge. +For if so, why did you interfere with me at all?" + +I made the later and larger part of this speech to the silent wood, +for the two policemen had vanished almost as quickly as they came. +It is very possible, of course, that they were fairies. +In that case the somewhat illogical character of their view +of crime, law, and personal responsibility would find a bright +and elfish explanation; perhaps if I had lingered in the glade +till moonrise I might have seen rings of tiny policemen +dancing on the sward; or running about with glow-worm belts, +arresting grasshoppers for damaging blades of grass. +But taking the bolder hypothesis, that they really were policemen, +I find myself in a certain difficulty. I was certainly +accused of something which was either an offence or was not. +I was let off because I proved I was a guest at a big house. +The inference seems painfully clear; either it is not +a proof of infamy to throw a knife about in a lonely wood, +or else it is a proof of innocence to know a rich man. +Suppose a very poor person, poorer even than a journalist, +a navvy or unskilled labourer, tramping in search of work, +often changing his lodgings, often, perhaps, failing in his rent. +Suppose he had been intoxicated with the green gaiety +of the ancient wood. Suppose he had thrown knives at trees +and could give no description of a dwelling-place except +that he had been fired out of the last. As I walked home +through a cloudy and purple twilight I wondered how he would +have got on. + +Moral. We English are always boasting that we are very illogical; +there is no great harm in that. There is no subtle spiritual evil +in the fact that people always brag about their vices; it is when they +begin to brag about their virtues that they become insufferable. +But there is this to be said, that illogicality in your constitution +or your legal methods may become very dangerous if there happens to be +some great national vice or national temptation which many take advantage +of the chaos. Similarly, a drunkard ought to have strict rules and hours; +a temperate man may obey his instincts. + +Take some absurd anomaly in the British law--the fact, for instance, +that a man ceasing to be an M. P. has to become Steward of the +Chiltern Hundreds, an office which I believe was intended originally +to keep down some wild robbers near Chiltern, wherever that is. +Obviously this kind of illogicality does not matter very much, +for the simple reason that there is no great temptation to take +advantage of it. Men retiring from Parliament do not have any +furious impulse to hunt robbers in the hills. But if there were +a real danger that wise, white-haired, venerable politicians taking +leave of public life would desire to do this (if, for instance, +there were any money in it), then clearly, if we went on saying +that the illogicality did not matter, when (as a matter of fact) +Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was hanging Chiltern shop-keepers every day +and taking their property, we should be very silly. The illogicality +would matter, for it would have become an excuse for indulgence. +It is only the very good who can live riotous lives. + +Now this is exactly what is present in cases of police investigation +such as the one narrated above. There enters into such things a great +national sin, a far greater sin than drink--the habit of respecting a +gentleman. Snobbishness has, like drink, a kind of grand poetry. +And snobbishness has this peculiar and devilish quality of evil, +that it is rampant among very kindly people, with open hearts +and houses. But it is our great English vice; to be watched +more fiercely than small-pox. If a man wished to hear the worst +and wickedest thing in England summed up in casual English words, +he would not find it in any foul oaths or ribald quarrelling. +He would find it in the fact that the best kind of working man, +when he wishes to praise any one, calls him "a gentleman." +It never occurs to him that he might as well call him "a marquis," +or "a privy councillor"--that he is simply naming a rank or class, +not a phrase for a good man. And this perennial temptation to a +shameful admiration, must, and, I think, does, constantly come +in and distort and poison our police methods. + +In this case we must be logical and exact; for we have to keep watch +upon ourselves. The power of wealth, and that power at its vilest, +is increasing in the modern world. A very good and just people, +without this temptation, might not need, perhaps, to make clear rules and +systems to guard themselves against the power of our great financiers. +But that is because a very just people would have shot them long ago, +from mere native good feeling. + + +XXVIII + +The Lion + +In the town of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We +talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is the +man in the street. Things quite central for him are connected with these +lamp-posts and pavements; everything from his meals to his martyrdoms. +When first an Englishman looks at a French town or village his +first feeling is simply that it is uglier than an English town +or village; when he looks again he sees that this comparative +absence of the picturesque is chiefly expressed in the plain, +precipitous frontage of the houses standing up hard and flat +out of the street like the cardboard houses in a pantomime-- +a hard angularity allied perhaps to the harshness of French logic. +When he looks a third time he sees quite simply that it is all because +the houses have no front gardens. The vague English spirit loves to have +the entrance to its house softened by bushes and broken by steps. +It likes to have a little anteroom of hedges half in the house +and half out of it; a green room in a double sense. The Frenchman +desires no such little pathetic ramparts or halting places, for the +street itself is a thing natural and familiar to him. + +. . . . . + +The French have no front gardens; but the street is every man's +front garden. There are trees in the street, and sometimes fountains. +The street is the Frenchman's tavern, for he drinks in the street. +It is his dining-room, for he dines in the street. It is his +British Museum, for the statues and monuments in French streets are not, +as with us, of the worst, but of the best, art of the country, +and they are often actually as historical as the Pyramids. +The street again is the Frenchman's Parliament, for France has +never taken its Chamber of Deputies so seriously as we take our House +of Commons, and the quibbles of mere elected nonentities in an official +room seem feeble to a people whose fathers have heard the voice +of Desmoulins like a trumpet under open heaven, or Victor Hugo +shouting from his carriage amid the wreck of the second Republic. +And as the Frenchman drinks in the street and dines in the street +so also he fights in the street and dies in the street, so that +the street can never be commonplace to him. + +Take, for instance, such a simple object as a lamp-post. In London +a lamp-post is a comic thing. We think of the intoxicated +gentleman embracing it, and recalling ancient friendship. +But in Paris a lamp-post is a tragic thing. For we think +of tyrants hanged on it, and of an end of the world. There is, +or was, a bitter Republican paper in Paris called LA LANTERNE. +How funny it would be if there were a Progressive paper in England +called THE LAMP POST! We have said, then, that the Frenchman is the man +in the street; that he can dine in the street, and die in the street. +And if I ever pass through Paris and find him going to bed in the street, +I shall say that he is still true to the genius of his civilisation. +All that is good and all that is evil in France is alike connected +with this open-air element. French democracy and French indecency +are alike part of the desire to have everything out of doors. +Compared to a cafe, a public-house is a private house. + +. . . . . + +There were two reasons why all these fancies should float through +the mind in the streets of this especial town of Belfort. +First of all, it lies close upon the boundary of France and Germany, +and boundaries are the most beautiful things in the world. +To love anything is to love its boundaries; thus children will always +play on the edge of anything. They build castles on the edge +of the sea, and can only be restrained by public proclamation +and private violence from walking on the edge of the grass. +For when we have come to the end of a thing we have come +to the beginning of it. + +Hence this town seemed all the more French for being on the very margin +of Germany, and although there were many German touches in the place-- +German names, larger pots of beer, and enormous theatrical barmaids +dressed up in outrageous imitation of Alsatian peasants--yet the fixed +French colour seemed all the stronger for these specks of something else. +All day long and all night long troops of dusty, swarthy, scornful little +soldiers went plodding through the streets with an air of stubborn +disgust, for German soldiers look as if they despised you, but French +soldiers as if they despised you and themselves even more than you. +It is a part, I suppose, of the realism of the nation which has made +it good at war and science and other things in which what is necessary +is combined with what is nasty. And the soldiers and the civilians +alike had most of them cropped hair, and that curious kind of head +which to an Englishman looks almost brutal, the kind that we call +a bullet-head. Indeed, we are speaking very appropriately when we call +it a bullet-head, for in intellectual history the heads of Frenchmen +have been bullets--yes, and explosive bullets. + +. . . . . + +But there was a second reason why in this place one should think +particularly of the open-air politics and the open-air art +of the French. For this town of Belfort is famous for one of +the most typical and powerful of the public monuments of France. +From the cafe table at which I sit I can see the hill beyond the town +on which hangs the high and flat-faced citadel, pierced with +many windows, and warmed in the evening light. On the steep +hill below it is a huge stone lion, itself as large as a hill. +It is hacked out of the rock with a sort of gigantic impression. +No trivial attempt has been made to make it like a common statue; +no attempt to carve the mane into curls, or to distinguish +the monster minutely from the earth out of which he rises, +shaking the world. The face of the lion has something of the bold +conventionality of Assyrian art. The mane of the lion is left +like a shapeless cloud of tempest, as if it might literally +be said of him that God had clothed his neck with thunder. +Even at this distance the thing looks vast, and in some +sense prehistoric. Yet it was carved only a little while ago. +It commemorates the fact that this town was never taken +by the Germans through all the terrible year, but only laid +down its arms at last at the command of its own Government. +But the spirit of it has been in this land from the beginning-- +the spirit of something defiant and almost defeated. + +As I leave this place and take the railway into Germany the news comes +thicker and thicker up the streets that Southern France is in a flame, +and that there perhaps will be fought out finally the awful modern battle +of the rich and poor. And as I pass into quieter places for the last +sign of France on the sky-line, I see the Lion of Belfort stand at bay, +the last sight of that great people which has never been at peace. + + +XXIX + +Humanity: an Interlude + +Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, +the City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything noble +cut out, and everything nasty left in. No one can understand Paris +and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance +and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; +but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of +roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, +but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, +they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. +For the indecency of many of their books and papers is not of the sort +which charms and seduces, but of the sort that horrifies and hurts; +they are torturing themselves. They lash their own patriotism into life +with the same whips which most men use to lash foreigners to silence. +The enemies of France can never give an account of her infamy or decay +which does not seem insipid and even polite compared with the things which +the Nationalists of France say about their own nation. They taunt and +torment themselves; sometimes they even deliberately oppress themselves. +Thus, when the mob of Paris could make a Government to please itself, +it made a sort of sublime tyranny to order itself about. The spirit is +the same from the Crusades or St. Bartholomew to the apotheosis of Zola. +The old religionists tortured men physically for a moral truth. +The new realists torture men morally for a physical truth. + +Now Brussels is Paris without this constant purification of pain. +Its indecencies are not regrettable incidents in an +everlasting revolution. It has none of the things which make good +Frenchmen love Paris; it has only the things which make unspeakable +Englishmen love it. It has the part which is cosmopolitan-- +and narrows; not the part which is Parisian--and universal. +You can find there (as commonly happens in modern centres) +the worst things of all nations--the DAILY MAIL from England, +the cheap philosophies from Germany, the loose novels of France, +and the drinks of America. But there is no English broad fun, +no German kindly ceremony, no American exhilaration, and, +above all, no French tradition of fighting for an idea. +Though all the boulevards look like Parisian boulevards, +though all the shops look like Parisian shops, you cannot look +at them steadily for two minutes without feeling the full +distance between, let us say, King Leopold and fighters +like Clemenceau and Deroulede. + +. . . . . + +For all these reasons, and many more, when I had got into Brussels I began +to make all necessary arrangements for getting out of it again; and I +had impulsively got into a tram which seemed to be going out of the city. +In this tram there were two men talking; one was a little man with a +black French beard; the other was a baldish man with bushy whiskers, +like the financial foreign count in a three-act farce. And about the time +that we reached the suburb of the city, and the traffic grew thinner, +and the noises more few, I began to hear what they were saying. +Though they spoke French quickly, their words were fairly easy to follow, +because they were all long words. Anybody can understand long words +because they have in them all the lucidity of Latin. + +The man with the black beard said: "It must that we have the Progress." + +The man with the whiskers parried this smartly by saying: +"It must also that we have the Consolidation International." + +This is a sort of discussion which I like myself, so I listened +with some care, and I think I picked up the thread of it. +One of the Belgians was a Little Belgian, as we speak +of a Little Englander. The other was a Belgian Imperialist, +for though Belgium is not quite strong enough to be altogether +a nation, she is quite strong enough to be an empire. +Being a nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being +an empire only means kicking your inferiors. The man with whiskers +was the Imperialist, and he was saying: "The science, behold there +the new guide of humanity." + +And the man with the beard answered him: "It does not suffice to +have progress in the science; one must have it also in the sentiment +of the human justice." + +This remark I applauded, as if at a public meeting, but they were much +too keen on their argument to hear me. The views I have often heard in +England, but never uttered so lucidly, and certainly never so fast. +Though Belgian by nation they must both have been essentially French. +Whiskers was great on education, which, it seems, is on +the march. All the world goes to make itself instructed. +It must that the more instructed enlighten the less instructed. +Eh, well then, the European must impose upon the savage the science +and the light. Also (apparently) he must impose himself on +the savage while he is about it. To-day one travelled quickly. +The science had changed all. For our fathers, they were +religious, and (what was worse) dead. To-day humanity had +electricity to the hand; the machines came from triumphing; +all the lines and limits of the globe effaced themselves. +Soon there would not be but the great Empires and confederations, +guided by the science, always the science. + +Here Whiskers stopped an instant for breath; and the man with +the sentiment for human justice had "la parole" off him in a flash. +Without doubt Humanity was on the march, but towards the sentiments, +the ideal, the methods moral and pacific. Humanity directed itself +towards Humanity. For your wars and empires on behalf of civilisation, +what were they in effect? The war, was it not itself an affair of the +barbarism? The Empires were they not things savage? The Humanity had +passed all that; she was now intellectual. Tolstoy had refined all +human souls with the sentiments the most delicate and just. Man was +become a spirit; the wings pushed. . . . + +. . . . . + +At this important point of evolution the tram came to a jerky stoppage; +and staring around I found, to my stunned consternation, that it +was almost dark, that I was far away from Brussels, that I could not +dream of getting back to dinner; in short, that through the clinging +fascination of this great controversy on Humanity and its recent complete +alteration by science or Tolstoy, I had landed myself Heaven knows where. +I dropped hastily from the suburban tram and let it go on without me. + +I was alone in the flat fields out of sight of the city. +On one side of the road was one of those small, thin woods +which are common in all countries, but of which, by a coincidence, +the mystical painters of Flanders were very fond. The night was +closing in with cloudy purple and grey; there was one ribbon of silver, +the last rag of the sunset. Through the wood went one little path, +and somehow it suggested that it might lead to some sign of life-- +there was no other sign of life on the horizon. I went along it, +and soon sank into a sort of dancing twilight of all those tiny trees. +There is something subtle and bewildering about that sort of frail +and fantastic wood. A forest of big trees seems like a bodily barrier; +but somehow that mist of thin lines seems like a spiritual barrier. +It is as if one were caught in a fairy cloud or could not pass a phantom. +When I had well lost the last gleam of the high road a curious +and definite feeling came upon me. Now I suddenly felt something +much more practical and extraordinary--the absence of humanity: +inhuman loneliness. Of course, there was nothing really lost +in my state; but the mood may hit one anywhere. I wanted men-- +any men; and I felt our awful alliance over all the globe. +And at last, when I had walked for what seemed a long time, I saw +a light too near the earth to mean anything except the image of God. + +I came out on a clear space and a low, long cottage, the door +of which was open, but was blocked by a big grey horse, +who seemed to prefer to eat with his head inside the sitting-room. +I got past him, and found he was being fed by a young man +who was sitting down and drinking beer inside, and who saluted +me with heavy rustic courtesy, but in a strange tongue. +The room was full of staring faces like owls, and these I +traced at length as belonging to about six small children. +Their father was still working in the fields, but their mother +rose when I entered. She smiled, but she and all the rest +spoke some rude language, Flamand, I suppose; so that we +had to be kind to each other by signs. She fetched me beer, +and pointed out my way with her finger; and I drew a picture +to please the children; and as it was a picture of two men +hitting each other with swords, it pleased them very much. +Then I gave a Belgian penny to each child, for as I said on chance +in French, "It must be that we have the economic equality." +But they had never heard of economic equality, while all +Battersea workmen have heard of economic equality, though it +is true that they haven't got it. + +I found my way back to the city, and some time afterwards I actually +saw in the street my two men talking, no doubt still saying, +one that Science had changed all in Humanity, and the other that +Humanity was now pushing the wings of the purely intellectual. +But for me Humanity was hooked on to an accidental picture. +I thought of a low and lonely house in the flats, behind a veil +or film of slight trees, a man breaking the ground as men have +broken from the first morning, and a huge grey horse champing +his food within a foot of a child's head, as in the stable +where Christ was born. + + +XXX + +The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + +On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that +in a few hours I should be in England, my eye fell upon one +of the details of Gothic carving of which Flanders is full. +I do not know whether the thing is old, though it was certainly +knocked about and indecipherable, but at least it was certainly +in the style and tradition of the early Middle Ages. +It seemed to represent men bending themselves (not to say +twisting themselves) to certain primary employments. +Some seemed to be sailors tugging at ropes; others, I think, +were reaping; others were energetically pouring something +into something else. This is entirely characteristic of +the pictures and carvings of the early thirteenth century, +perhaps the most purely vigorous time in all history. +The great Greeks preferred to carve their gods and heroes +doing nothing. Splendid and philosophic as their composure +is there is always about it something that marks the master +of many slaves. But if there was one thing the early +mediaevals liked it was representing people doing something-- +hunting or hawking, or rowing boats, or treading grapes, +or making shoes, or cooking something in a pot. "Quicquid agunt +homines, votum, timor, ira voluptas." (I quote from memory.) +The Middle Ages is full of that spirit in all its monuments and +manuscripts. Chaucer retains it in his jolly insistence on +everybody's type of trade and toil. It was the earliest and +youngest resurrection of Europe, the time when social order was +strengthening, but had not yet become oppressive; the time when +religious faiths were strong, but had not yet been exasperated. +For this reason the whole effect of Greek and Gothic carving is +different. The figures in the Elgin marbles, though often reining +their steeds for an instant in the air, seem frozen for ever +at that perfect instant. But a mass of mediaeval carving +seems actually a sort of bustle or hubbub in stone. +Sometimes one cannot help feeling that the groups actually +move and mix, and the whole front of a great cathedral has +the hum of a huge hive. + +. . . . . + +But about these particular figures there was a peculiarity +of which I could not be sure. Those of them that had any heads +had very curious heads, and it seemed to me that they had their +mouths open. Whether or no this really meant anything or was +an accident of nascent art I do not know; but in the course +of wondering I recalled to my mind the fact that singing was +connected with many of the tasks there suggested, that there +were songs for reapers and songs for sailors hauling ropes. +I was still thinking about this small problem when I walked +along the pier at Ostend; and I heard some sailors uttering +a measured shout as they laboured, and I remembered that sailors +still sing in chorus while they work, and even sing different +songs according to what part of their work they are doing. +And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was over, the sight +of men working in the English fields reminded me again that there +are still songs for harvest and for many agricultural routines. +And I suddenly wondered why if this were so it should be +quite unknown, for any modern trade to have a ritual poetry. +How did people come to chant rude poems while pulling certain +ropes or gathering certain fruit, and why did nobody do +anything of the kind while producing any of the modern things? +Why is a modern newspaper never printed by people singing in chorus? +Why do shopmen seldom, if ever, sing? + +. . . . . + +If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while +auditing and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all +the separate things that have to be done in a boat, why are there +not songs for all the separate things that have to be done in a bank? +As the train from Dover flew through the Kentish gardens, +I tried to write a few songs suitable for commercial gentlemen. +Thus, the work of bank clerks when casting up columns might begin +with a thundering chorus in praise of Simple Addition. + +"Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er. +Hear the Stars of Morning shouting: 'Two and Two are four.' +Though the creeds and realms are reeling, though the sophists roar, +Though we weep and pawn our watches, Two and Two are Four." + +"There's a run upon the Bank--Stand away! For the Manager's +a crank and the Secretary drank, + and the Upper Tooting Bank + Turns to bay! +Stand close: there is a run On the Bank. Of our ship, our royal one, +let the ringing legend run, + that she fired with every gun + Ere she sank." + +. . . . . + +And as I came into the cloud of London I met a friend of mine +who actually is in a bank, and submitted these suggestions +in rhyme to him for use among his colleagues. But he was not +very hopeful about the matter. It was not (he assured me) +that he underrated the verses, or in any sense lamented their +lack of polish. No; it was rather, he felt, an indefinable +something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we +live that makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks. +And I think he must be right; though the matter is very mysterious. +I may observe here that I think there must be some mistake in +the calculations of the Socialists. They put down all our distress, +not to a moral tone, but to the chaos of private enterprise. +Now, banks are private; but post-offices are Socialistic: +therefore I naturally expected that the post-office would fall into +the collectivist idea of a chorus. Judge of my surprise when the +lady in my local post-office (whom I urged to sing) dismissed the +idea with far more coldness than the bank clerk had done. She +seemed indeed, to be in a considerably greater state of depression +than he. Should any one suppose that this was the effect of the +verses themselves, it is only fair to say that the specimen verse +of the Post-Office Hymn ran thus: + +"O'er London our letters are shaken like snow, + Our wires o'er the world like the thunderbolts go. + The news that may marry a maiden in Sark, + Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +Chorus (with a swing of joy and energy): + +"Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +And the more I thought about the matter the more painfully +certain it seemed that the most important and typical modern +things could not be done with a chorus. One could not, +for instance, be a great financier and sing; because the +essence of being a great financier is that you keep quiet. +You could not even in many modern circles be a public man +and sing; because in those circles the essence of being +a public man is that you do nearly everything in private. +Nobody would imagine a chorus of money-lenders. Every one +knows the story of the solicitors' corps of volunteers who, +when the Colonel on the battlefield cried "Charge!" all said +simultaneously, "Six-and-eightpence." Men can sing while +charging in a military, but hardly in a legal sense. And at +the end of my reflections I had really got no further than +the sub-conscious feeling of my friend the bank-clerk--that +there is something spiritually suffocating about our life; +not about our laws merely, but about our life. Bank-clerks +are without songs, not because they are poor, but because +they are sad. Sailors are much poorer. As I passed homewards +I passed a little tin building of some religious sort, which +was shaken with shouting as a trumpet is torn with its own +tongue. THEY were singing anyhow; and I had for an instant +a fancy I had often had before: that with us the super-human +is the only place where you can find the human. Human nature +is hunted and has fled into sanctuary. + + +XXXI + +The Riddle of the Ivy + +More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, +a friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded +with half-packed luggage. + +"You seem to be off on your travels," he said. "Where are you going?" + +With a strap between my teeth I replied, "To Battersea." + +"The wit of your remark," he said, "wholly escapes me." + +"I am going to Battersea," I repeated, "to Battersea via Paris, Belfort, +Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained +simply the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once +more I find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, +somewhere in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little +island which I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great +white cliffs. Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch +travellers tell me that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour +that somewhere in the heart of it there is a beautiful place called +Battersea." + +"I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you," said my friend, +with an air of intellectual comparison, "that this is Battersea?" + +"It is quite unnecessary," I said, "and it is spiritually untrue. +I cannot see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or +any England. I cannot see that door. I cannot see that chair: +because a cloud of sleep and custom has come across my eyes. +The only way to get back to them is to go somewhere else; and that +is the real object of travel and the real pleasure of holidays. +Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see France? Do you suppose +that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? I shall enjoy them both; +but it is not them that I am seeking. I am seeking Battersea. +The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; +it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. +Now I warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and heavy, +and that if you utter that word 'paradox' I shall hurl it at your head. +I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical. +It is not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go +to England is to go away from it." + +But when, after only a month's travelling, I did come back +to England, I was startled to find that I had told the exact truth. +England did break on me at once beautifully new and beautifully old. +To land at Dover is the right way to approach England (most things +that are hackneyed are right), for then you see first the full, +soft gardens of Kent, which are, perhaps, an exaggeration, +but still a typical exaggeration, of the rich rusticity of England. +As it happened, also, a fellow-traveller with whom I had fallen +into conversation felt the same freshness, though for another cause. +She was an American lady who had seen Europe, and had +never yet seen England, and she expressed her enthusiasm +in that simple and splendid way which is natural to Americans, +who are the most idealistic people in the whole world. +Their only danger is that the idealist can easily become the idolator. +And the American has become so idealistic that he even idealises money. +But (to quote a very able writer of American short stories) +that is another story. + +"I have never been in England before," said the American lady, +"yet it is so pretty that I feel as if I have been away from it +for a long time." + +"So you have," I said; "you have been away for three hundred years." + +"What a lot of ivy you have," she said. "It covers the churches +and it buries the houses. We have ivy; but I have never seen it +grow like that." + +"I am interested to hear it," I replied, "for I am making a little +list of all the things that are really better in England. +Even a month on the Continent, combined with intelligence, +will teach you that there are many things that are better abroad. +All the things that the DAILY MAIL calls English are better abroad. +But there are things entirely English and entirely good. +Kippers, for instance, and Free Trade, and front gardens, +and individual liberty, and the Elizabethan drama, and hansom cabs, +and cricket, and Mr. Will Crooks. Above all, there is the happy +and holy custom of eating a heavy breakfast. I cannot imagine that +Shakespeare began the day with rolls and coffee, like a Frenchman +or a German. Surely he began with bacon or bloaters. In fact, a +light bursts upon me; for the first time I see the real meaning of +Mrs. Gallup and the Great Cipher. It is merely a mistake in the +matter of a capital letter. I withdraw my objections; I accept +everything; bacon did write Shakespeare." + +"I cannot look at anything but the ivy," she said, +"it looks so comfortable." + +While she looked at the ivy I opened for the first time for many +weeks an English newspaper, and I read a speech of Mr. Balfour +in which he said that the House of Lords ought to be preserved +because it represented something in the nature of permanent public +opinion of England, above the ebb and flow of the parties. +Now Mr. Balfour is a perfectly sincere patriot, a man who, from his +own point of view, thinks long and seriously about the public needs, +and he is, moreover, a man of entirely exceptionable intellectual power. +But alas, in spite of all this, when I had read that speech I +thought with a heavy heart that there was one more thing that I had +to add to the list of the specially English things, such as kippers +and cricket; I had to add the specially English kind of humbug. +In France things are attacked and defended for what they are. +The Catholic Church is attacked because it is Catholic, +and defended because it is Catholic. The Republic is defended +because it is Republican, and attacked because it is Republican. +But here is the ablest of English politicians consoling everybody +by telling them that the House of Lords is not really the House +of Lords, but something quite different, that the foolish accidental +peers whom he meets every night are in some mysterious way experts +upon the psychology of the democracy; that if you want to know +what the very poor want you must ask the very rich, and that if you +want the truth about Hoxton, you must ask for it at Hatfield. +If the Conservative defender of the House of Lords were a logical +French politician he would simply be a liar. But being an English +politician he is simply a poet. The English love of believing that +all is as it should be, the English optimism combined with the strong +English imagination, is too much even for the obvious facts. +In a cold, scientific sense, of course, Mr. Balfour knows that nearly +all the Lords who are not Lords by accident are Lords by bribery. +He knows, and (as Mr. Belloc excellently said) everybody in Parliament +knows the very names of the peers who have purchased their peerages. +But the glamour of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring himself +and reassuring others, is too strong for this original knowledge; +at last it fades from him, and he sincerely and earnestly +calls on Englishmen to join with him in admiring an august and +public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten that the Senate +really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; +and adventurers whom he has himself ennobled. + +"Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick," said the American lady, +"it seems to cover almost everything. It must be the most poetical +thing in England." + +"It is very beautiful," I said, "and, as you say, it is very English. +Charles Dickens, who was almost more English than England, +wrote one of his rare poems about the beauty of ivy. +Yes, by all means let us admire the ivy, so deep, so warm, +so full of a genial gloom and a grotesque tenderness. +Let us admire the ivy; and let us pray to God in His mercy +that it may not kill the tree." + + +XXXII + +The Travellers in State + +The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught a train; it was +a train going into the Eastern Counties, and I only just caught it. +And while I was running along the train (amid general admiration) +I noticed that there were a quite peculiar and unusual number of +carriages marked "Engaged." On five, six, seven, eight, nine carriages +was pasted the little notice: at five, six, seven, eight, nine windows +were big bland men staring out in the conscious pride of possession. +Their bodies seemed more than usually impenetrable, their faces more +than usual placid. It could not be the Derby, if only for the minor +reasons that it was the opposite direction and the wrong day. +It could hardly be the King. It could hardly be the French President. +For, though these distinguished persons naturally like to be private +for three hours, they are at least public for three minutes. +A crowd can gather to see them step into the train; and there was no +crowd here, or any police ceremonial. + +Who were those awful persons, who occupied more of the train +than a bricklayer's beanfeast, and yet were more fastidious +and delicate than the King's own suite? Who were these that +were larger than a mob, yet more mysterious than a monarch? +Was it possible that instead of our Royal House visiting the Tsar, +he was really visiting us? Or does the House of Lords +have a breakfast? I waited and wondered until the train +slowed down at some station in the direction of Cambridge. +Then the large, impenetrable men got out, and after them +got out the distinguished holders of the engaged seats. +They were all dressed decorously in one colour; they had neatly +cropped hair; and they were chained together. + +I looked across the carriage at its only other occupant, and our +eyes met. He was a small, tired-looking man, and, as I afterwards learnt, +a native of Cambridge; by the look of him, some working tradesman there, +such as a journeyman tailor or a small clock-mender. In order to make +conversation I said I wondered where the convicts were going. +His mouth twitched with the instinctive irony of our poor, and he said: +"I don't s'pose they're goin' on an 'oliday at the seaside with little +spades and pails." I was naturally delighted, and, pursuing the same vein +of literary invention, I suggested that perhaps dons were taken down +to Cambridge chained together like this. And as he lived in Cambridge, +and had seen several dons, he was pleased with such a scheme. Then when +we had ceased to laugh, we suddenly became quite silent; and the bleak, +grey eyes of the little man grew sadder and emptier than an open sea. +I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same, because all +modern sophists are only sophists, and there is such a thing as mankind. +Then at last (and it fell in as exactly as the right last note of a tune +one is trying to remember) he said: "Well, I s'pose we 'ave to do it." +And in those three things, his first speech and his silence and his +second speech, there were all the three great fundamental facts of +the English democracy, its profound sense of humour, its profound sense +of pathos, and its profound sense of helplessness. + +. . . . . + +It cannot be too often repeated that all real democracy is an attempt +(like that of a jolly hostess) to bring the shy people out. +For every practical purpose of a political state, for every practical +purpose of a tea-party, he that abaseth himself must be exalted. +At a tea-party it is equally obvious that he that exalteth +himself must be abased, if possible without bodily violence. +Now people talk of democracy as being coarse and turbulent: +it is a self-evident error in mere history. Aristocracy is the thing +that is always coarse and turbulent: for it means appealing to the +self-confident people. Democracy means appealing to the different +people. Democracy means getting those people to vote who would never +have the cheek to govern: and (according to Christian ethics) the +precise people who ought to govern are the people who have not the +cheek to do it. There is a strong example of this truth in my friend +in the train. The only two types we hear of in this argument about crime +and punishment are two very rare and abnormal types. + +We hear of the stark sentimentalist, who talks as if there were no +problem at all: as if physical kindness would cure everything: +as if one need only pat Nero and stroke Ivan the Terrible. +This mere belief in bodily humanitarianism is not sentimental; +it is simply snobbish. For if comfort gives men virtue, +the comfortable classes ought to be virtuous--which is absurd. +Then, again, we do hear of the yet weaker and more watery +type of sentimentalists: I mean the sentimentalist who says, +with a sort of splutter, "Flog the brutes!" or who tells you +with innocent obscenity "what he would do" with a certain man-- +always supposing the man's hands were tied. + +This is the more effeminate type of the two; but both are weak +and unbalanced. And it is only these two types, the sentimental +humanitarian and the sentimental brutalitarian, whom one hears +in the modern babel. Yet you very rarely meet either of them +in a train. You never meet anyone else in a controversy. +The man you meet in a train is like this man that I met: +he is emotionally decent, only he is intellectually doubtful. +So far from luxuriating in the loathsome things that could +be "done" to criminals, he feels bitterly how much better it +would be if nothing need be done. But something must be done. +"I s'pose we 'ave to do it." In short, he is simply a sane man, +and of a sane man there is only one safe definition. He is a man +who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head. + +. . . . . + +Now the real difficulty of discussing decently this problem +of the proper treatment of criminals is that both parties +discuss the matter without any direct human feeling. +The denouncers of wrong are as cold as the organisers of wrong. +Humanitarianism is as hard as inhumanity. + +Let me take one practical instance. I think the flogging +arranged in our modern prisons is a filthy torture; all its +scientific paraphernalia, the photographing, the medical attendance, +prove that it goes to the last foul limit of the boot and rack. +The cat is simply the rack without any of its intellectual reasons. +Holding this view strongly, I open the ordinary humanitarian books or +papers and I find a phrase like this, "The lash is a relic of barbarism." +So is the plough. So is the fishing net. So is the horn or +the staff or the fire lit in winter. What an inexpressibly feeble +phrase for anything one wants to attack--a relic of barbarism! +It is as if a man walked naked down the street to-morrow, +and we said that his clothes were not quite in the latest fashion. +There is nothing particularly nasty about being a relic of barbarism. +Man is a relic of barbarism. Civilisation is a relic of barbarism. + +But torture is not a relic of barbarism at all. In actuality it is simply +a relic of sin; but in comparative history it may well be called a relic +of civilisation. It has always been most artistic and elaborate when +everything else was most artistic and elaborate. Thus it was detailed +exquisite in the late Roman Empire, in the complex and gorgeous sixteenth +century, in the centralised French monarchy a hundred years before the +Revolution, and in the great Chinese civilisation to this day. This is, +first and last, the frightful thing we must remember. In so far as we +grow instructed and refined we are not (in any sense whatever) naturally +moving away from torture. We may be moving towards torture. We must know +what we are doing, if we are to avoid the enormous secret cruelty which +has crowned every historic civilisation. + +The train moves more swiftly through the sunny English fields. +They have taken the prisoners away, and I do not know what they +have done with them. + + +XXXIII + +The Prehistoric Railway Station + +A railway station is an admirable place, although Ruskin did not +think so; he did not think so because he himself was even more +modern than the railway station. He did not think so because +he was himself feverish, irritable, and snorting like an engine. +He could not value the ancient silence of the railway station. + +"In a railway station," he said, "you are in a hurry, +and therefore, miserable"; but you need not be either unless +you are as modern as Ruskin. The true philosopher does not +think of coming just in time for his train except as a bet +or a joke. + +The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to be +late for the one before. Do this, and you will find in a railway +station much of the quietude and consolation of a cathedral. +It has many of the characteristics of a great ecclesiastical building; +it has vast arches, void spaces, coloured lights, and, above all, +it has recurrence or ritual. It is dedicated to the celebration +of water and fire the two prime elements of all human ceremonial. +Lastly, a station resembles the old religions rather than the new +religions in this point, that people go there. In connection +with this it should also be remembered that all popular places, +all sites, actually used by the people, tend to retain the best +routine of antiquity very much more than any localities or machines +used by any privileged class. Things are not altered so quickly +or completely by common people as they are by fashionable people. +Ruskin could have found more memories of the Middle Ages in the +Underground Railway than in the grand hotels outside the stations. +The great palaces of pleasure which the rich build in London all have +brazen and vulgar names. Their names are either snobbish, like the +Hotel Cecil, or (worse still) cosmopolitan like the Hotel Metropole. +But when I go in a third-class carriage from the nearest circle station +to Battersea to the nearest circle station to the DAILY NEWS, the names +of the stations are one long litany of solemn and saintly memories. +Leaving Victoria I come to a park belonging especially to St. James +the Apostle; thence I go to Westminster Bridge, whose very name alludes +to the awful Abbey; Charing Cross holds up the symbol of Christendom; +the next station is called a Temple; and Blackfriars remembers +the mediaeval dream of a Brotherhood. + +If you wish to find the past preserved, follow the million +feet of the crowd. At the worst the uneducated only wear +down old things by sheer walking. But the educated kick them +down out of sheer culture. + +I feel all this profoundly as I wander about the empty +railway station, where I have no business of any kind. +I have extracted a vast number of chocolates from automatic machines; +I have obtained cigarettes, toffee, scent, and other things +that I dislike by the same machinery; I have weighed myself, +with sublime results; and this sense, not only of the +healthiness of popular things, but of their essential +antiquity and permanence, is still in possession of my mind. +I wander up to the bookstall, and my faith survives even +the wild spectacle of modern literature and journalism. +Even in the crudest and most clamorous aspects of the newspaper +world I still prefer the popular to the proud and fastidious. +If I had to choose between taking in the DAILY MAIL and taking +in the TIMES (the dilemma reminds one of a nightmare), I should +certainly cry out with the whole of my being for the DAILY MAIL. +Even mere bigness preached in a frivolous way is not so +irritating as mere meanness preached in a big and solemn way. +People buy the DAILY MAIL, but they do not believe in it. +They do believe in the TIMES, and (apparently) they do not buy it. +But the more the output of paper upon the modern world is +actually studied, the more it will be found to be in all its +essentials ancient and human, like the name of Charing Cross. +Linger for two or three hours at a station bookstall (as I am doing), +and you will find that it gradually takes on the grandeur +and historic allusiveness of the Vatican or Bodleian Library. +The novelty is all superficial; the tradition is all interior +and profound. The DAILY MAIL has new editions, but never a new idea. +Everything in a newspaper that is not the old human love +of altar or fatherland is the old human love of gossip. +Modern writers have often made game of the old chronicles +because they chiefly record accidents and prodigies; a church +struck by lightning, or a calf with six legs. They do not seem +to realise that this old barbaric history is the same as new +democratic journalism. It is not that the savage chronicle has +disappeared. It is merely that the savage chronicle now appears +every morning. + +As I moved thus mildly and vaguely in front of the bookstall, my eye +caught a sudden and scarlet title that for the moment staggered me. +On the outside of a book I saw written in large letters, "Get On +or Get Out." The title of the book recalled to me with a sudden +revolt and reaction all that does seem unquestionably new and nasty; +it reminded me that there was in the world of to-day that utterly +idiotic thing, a worship of success; a thing that only means surpassing +anybody in anything; a thing that may mean being the most successful +person in running away from a battle; a thing that may mean being +the most successfully sleepy of the whole row of sleeping men. +When I saw those words the silence and sanctity of the railway station +were for the moment shadowed. Here, I thought, there is at any rate +something anarchic and violent and vile. This title, at any rate, +means the most disgusting individualism of this individualistic world. +In the fury of my bitterness and passion I actually bought the book, +thereby ensuring that my enemy would get some of my money. I opened it +prepared to find some brutality, some blasphemy, which would really be +an exception to the general silence and sanctity of the railway station. +I was prepared to find something in the book that was as infamous +as its title. + +I was disappointed. There was nothing at all corresponding +to the furious decisiveness of the remarks on the cover. +After reading it carefully I could not discover whether +I was really to get on or to get out; but I had a vague +feeling that I should prefer to get out. A considerable part +of the book, particularly towards the end, was concerned +with a detailed description of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. +Undoubtedly Napoleon got on. He also got out. But I could not +discover in any way how the details of his life given here were +supposed to help a person aiming at success. One anecdote described +how Napoleon always wiped his pen on his knee-breeches. I suppose +the moral is: always wipe your pen on your knee-breeches, and you +will win the battle of Wagram. Another story told that he let loose +a gazelle among the ladies of his Court. Clearly the brutal practical +inference is--loose a gazelle among the ladies of your acquaintance, +and you will be Emperor of the French. Get on with a gazelle or get +out. The book entirely reconciled me to the soft twilight of the +station. Then I suddenly saw that there was a symbolic division +which might be paralleled from biology. Brave men are vertebrates; +they have their softness on the surface and their toughness +in the middle. But these modern cowards are all crustaceans; +their hardness is all on the cover and their softness is inside. +But the softness is there; everything in this twilight +temple is soft. + + +XXXIV + +The Diabolist + +Every now and then I have introduced into my essays an element +of truth. Things that really happened have been mentioned, +such as meeting President Kruger or being thrown out of a cab. +What I have now to relate really happened; yet there was no +element in it of practical politics or of personal danger. +It was simply a quiet conversation which I had with another man. +But that quiet conversation was by far the most terrible thing +that has ever happened to me in my life. It happened so long +ago that I cannot be certain of the exact words of the dialogue, +only of its main questions and answers; but there is one sentence +in it for which I can answer absolutely and word for word. +It was a sentence so awful that I could not forget it if I would. +It was the last sentence spoken; and it was not spoken to me. + +The thing befell me in the days when I was at an art school. +An art school is different from almost all other schools or +colleges in this respect: that, being of new and crude creation +and of lax discipline, it presents a specially strong contrast +between the industrious and the idle. People at an art school +either do an atrocious amount of work or do no work at all. +I belonged, along with other charming people, to the latter class; +and this threw me often into the society of men who were very +different from myself, and who were idle for reasons very different +from mine. I was idle because I was very much occupied; +I was engaged about that time in discovering, to my own +extreme and lasting astonishment, that I was not an atheist. +But there were others also at loose ends who were engaged in +discovering what Carlyle called (I think with needless delicacy) +the fact that ginger is hot in the mouth. + +I value that time, in short, because it made me acquainted with a good +representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are +two very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. +The first is the fact that there is one real difference between men +and women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk +in threes. The second is that when you find (as you often do) +three young cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk +together every day you generally find that one of the three cads and +idiots is (for some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. +In these small groups devoted to a drivelling dissipation there is +almost always one man who seems to have condescended to his company; +one man who, while he can talk a foul triviality with his fellows, +can also talk politics with a Socialist, or philosophy with a Catholic. + +It was just such a man whom I came to know well. It was strange, +perhaps, that he liked his dirty, drunken society; it was stranger +still, perhaps, that he liked my society. For hours of the day he +would talk with me about Milton or Gothic architecture; for hours +of the night he would go where I have no wish to follow him, even +in speculation. He was a man with a long, ironical face, and close +and red hair; he was by class a gentleman, and could walk like one, +but preferred, for some reason, to walk like a groom carrying two +pails. He looked like a sort of Super-jockey; as if some archangel +had gone on the Turf. And I shall never forget the half-hour in +which he and I argued about real things for the first and the last +time. + +. . . . . + +Along the front of the big building of which our school +was a part ran a huge slope of stone steps, higher, I think, +than those that lead up to St. Paul's Cathedral. On a black +wintry evening he and I were wandering on these cold heights, +which seemed as dreary as a pyramid under the stars. +The one thing visible below us in the blackness was a burning +and blowing fire; for some gardener (I suppose) was burning +something in the grounds, and from time to time the red sparks went +whirling past us like a swarm of scarlet insects in the dark. +Above us also it was gloom; but if one stared long enough +at that upper darkness, one saw vertical stripes of grey +in the black and then became conscious of the colossal facade +of the Doric building, phantasmal, yet filling the sky, as if +Heaven were still filled with the gigantic ghost of Paganism. + +. . . . . + +The man asked me abruptly why I was becoming orthodox. Until he said +it, I really had not known that I was; but the moment he had said it +I knew it to be literally true. And the process had been so long and +full that I answered him at once out of existing stores of explanation. + +"I am becoming orthodox," I said, "because I have come, rightly or +wrongly, after stretching my brain till it bursts, to the old belief +that heresy is worse even than sin. An error is more menacing than a +crime, for an error begets crimes. An Imperialist is worse than a +pirate. For an Imperialist keeps a school for pirates; he teaches +piracy disinterestedly and without an adequate salary. +A Free Lover is worse than a profligate. For a profligate is +serious and reckless even in his shortest love; while a Free Lover +is cautious and irresponsible even in his longest devotion. +I hate modern doubt because it is dangerous." + +"You mean dangerous to morality," he said in a voice of wonderful +gentleness. "I expect you are right. But why do you care about morality?" + +I glanced at his face quickly. He had thrust out his neck as he had +a trick of doing; and so brought his face abruptly into the light +of the bonfire from below, like a face in the footlights. +His long chin and high cheek-bones were lit up infernally from underneath; +so that he looked like a fiend staring down into the flaming pit. +I had an unmeaning sense of being tempted in a wilderness; +and even as I paused a burst of red sparks broke past. + +"Aren't those sparks splendid?" I said. + +"Yes," he replied. + +"That is all that I ask you to admit," said I. "Give me +those few red specks and I will deduce Christian morality. +Once I thought like you, that one's pleasure in a flying +spark was a thing that could come and go with that spark. +Once I thought that the delight was as free as the fire. +Once I thought that red star we see was alone in space. +But now I know that the red star is only on the apex +of an invisible pyramid of virtues. That red fire is only +the flower on a stalk of living habits, which you cannot see. +Only because your mother made you say 'Thank you' for a bun +are you now able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars +of an instant or for the white stars of all time. Only because you +were humble before fireworks on the fifth of November do you now +enjoy any fireworks that you chance to see. You only like them +being red because you were told about the blood of the martyrs; +you only like them being bright because brightness is a glory. +That flame flowered out of virtues, and it will fade with virtues. +Seduce a woman, and that spark will be less bright. +Shed blood, and that spark will be less red. Be really bad, +and they will be to you like the spots on a wall-paper." + +He had a horrible fairness of the intellect that made me despair of +his soul. A common, harmless atheist would have denied that religion +produced humility or humility a simple joy: but he admitted both. +He only said, "But shall I not find in evil a life of its own? +Granted that for every woman I ruin one of those red sparks will go out: +will not the expanding pleasure of ruin . . ." + +"Do you see that fire ?" I asked. "If we had a real fighting democracy, +some one would burn you in it; like the devil-worshipper that you are." + +"Perhaps," he said, in his tired, fair way. "Only what you call +evil I call good." + +He went down the great steps alone, and I felt as if I wanted +the steps swept and cleaned. I followed later, and as I went to find +my hat in the low, dark passage where it hung, I suddenly heard his +voice again, but the words were inaudible. I stopped, startled: +then I heard the voice of one of the vilest of his associates saying, +"Nobody can possibly know." And then I heard those two or three +words which I remember in every syllable and cannot forget. +I heard the Diabolist say, "I tell you I have done everything else. +If I do that I shan't know the difference between right and wrong." +I rushed out without daring to pause; and as I passed the fire I +did not know whether it was hell or the furious love of God. + +I have since heard that he died: it may be said, I think, +that he committed suicide; though he did it with tools of pleasure, +not with tools of pain. God help him, I know the road he went; +but I have never known, or even dared to think, what was that place +at which he stopped and refrained. + + +XXXV + +A Glimpse of My Country + +Whatever is it that we are all looking for? I fancy that it is +really quite close. When I was a boy I had a fancy that Heaven +or Fairyland or whatever I called it, was immediately behind my +own back, and that this was why I could never manage to see it, +however often I twisted and turned to take it by surprise. +I had a notion of a man perpetually spinning round on one foot +like a teetotum in the effort to find that world behind his back +which continually fled from him. Perhaps this is why the world +goes round. Perhaps the world is always trying to look over +its shoulder and catch up the world which always escapes it, +yet without which it cannot be itself. + +In any case, as I have said, I think that we must always conceive +of that which is the goal of all our endeavours as something which is +in some strange way near. Science boasts of the distance of its stars; +of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. +But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost +menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. +Always the Kingdom of Heaven is "At Hand"; and Looking-glass Land is +only through the looking-glass. So I for one should never be astonished +if the next twist of a street led me to the heart of that maze in +which all the mystics are lost. I should not be at all surprised if I +turned one corner in Fleet Street and saw a yet queerer-looking lamp; +I should not be surprised if I turned a third corner and found +myself in Elfland. + +I should not be surprised at this; but I was surprised the other day +at something more surprising. I took a turn out of Fleet Street +and found myself in England. + +. . . . . + +The singular shock experienced perhaps requires explanation. +In the darkest or the most inadequate moments of England there +is one thing that should always be remembered about the very +nature of our country. It may be shortly stated by saying that +England is not such a fool as it looks. The types of England, +the externals of England, always misrepresent the country. +England is an oligarchical country, and it prefers that its +oligarchy should be inferior to itself. + +The speaking in the House of Commons, for instance, is not only worse +than the speaking was, it is worse than the speaking is, in all or +almost all other places in small debating clubs or casual dinners. +Our countrymen probably prefer this solemn futility in the higher +places of the national life. It may be a strange sight to see +the blind leading the blind; but England provides a stranger. +England shows us the blind leading the people who can see. +And this again is an under-statement of the case. For the English +political aristocrats not only speak worse than many other people; +they speak worse than themselves. The ignorance of statesmen is +like the ignorance of judges, an artificial and affected thing. +If you have the good fortune really to talk with a statesman, you will +be constantly startled with his saying quite intelligent things. +It makes one nervous at first. And I have never been sufficiently +intimate with such a man to ask him why it was a rule of his life +in Parliament to appear sillier than he was. + +It is the same with the voters. The average man votes below himself; +he votes with half a mind or with a hundredth part of one. +A man ought to vote with the whole of himself as he worships +or gets married. A man ought to vote with his head and heart, +his soul and stomach, his eye for faces and his ear for music; +also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands and feet. +If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of it +should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, +they should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. +But as it is, the difficulty with English democracy at all +elections is that it is something less than itself. The question +is not so much whether only a minority of the electorate votes. +The point is that only a minority of the voter votes. + +. . . . . + +This is the tragedy of England; you cannot judge it by its foremost men. +Its types do not typify. And on the occasion of which I speak +I found this to be so especially of that old intelligent middle +class which I had imagined had almost vanished from the world. +It seemed to me that all the main representatives of the middle +class had gone off in one direction or in the other; they had either +set out in pursuit of the Smart Set or they had set out in pursuit +of the Simple Life. I cannot say which I dislike more myself; +the people in question are welcome to have either of them, or, as is +more likely, to have both, in hideous alternations of disease and cure. +But all the prominent men who plainly represent the middle class have +adopted either the single eye-glass of Mr Chamberlain or the single +eye of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + +The old class that I mean has no representative. Its food was plentiful; +but it had no show. Its food was plain; but it had no fads. +It was serious about politics; and when it spoke in public it +committed the solecism of trying to speak well. I thought that +this old earnest political England had practically disappeared. +And as I say, I took one turn out of Fleet Street and I found +a room full of it. + +. . . . . + +At the top of the room was a chair in which Johnson had sat. The club +was a club in which Wilkes had spoken, in a time when even the +ne'er-do-weel was virile. But all these things by themselves might be +merely archaism. The extraordinary thing was that this hall had all +the hubbub, the sincerity, the anger, the oratory of the eighteenth +century. The members of this club were of all shades of opinion, yet +there was not one speech which gave me that jar of unreality which I +often have in listening to the ablest men uttering my own opinion. +The Toryism of this club was like the Toryism of Johnson, +a Toryism that could use humour and appealed to humanity. +The democracy of this club was like the democracy of Wilkes, +a democracy that can speak epigrams and fight duels; +a democracy that can face things out and endure slander; +the democracy of Wilkes, or, rather, the democracy of Fox. + +One thing especially filled my soul with the soul of my fathers. +Each man speaking, whether he spoke well or ill, spoke as +well as he could from sheer fury against the other man. +This is the greatest of our modern descents, that nowadays a man +does not become more rhetorical as he becomes more sincere. +An eighteenth-century speaker, when he got really and honestly furious, +looked for big words with which to crush his adversary. +The new speaker looks for small words to crush him with. +He looks for little facts and little sneers. In a modern speech +the rhetoric is put into the merely formal part, the opening +to which nobody listens. But when Mr. Chamberlain, or a Moderate, +or one of the harder kind of Socialists, becomes really sincere, +he becomes Cockney. "The destiny of the Empire," or "The destiny +of humanity," do well enough for mere ornamental preliminaries, +but when the man becomes angry and honest, then it is a snarl, +"Where do we come in?" or "It's your money they want." + +The men in this eighteenth-century club were entirely different; +they were quite eighteenth century. Each one rose to his feet +quivering with passion, and tried to destroy his opponent, +not with sniggering, but actually with eloquence. I was arguing +with them about Home Rule; at the end I told them why the English +aristocracy really disliked an Irish Parliament; because it would +be like their club. + +. . . . . + +I came out again into Fleet Street at night, and by a dim lamp I +saw pasted up some tawdry nonsense about Wastrels and how London +was rising against something that London had hardly heard of. +Then I suddenly saw, as in one obvious picture, that the modern world +is an immense and tumultuous ocean, full of monstrous and living things. +And I saw that across the top of it is spread a thin, a very thin, +sheet of ice, of wicked wealth and of lying journalism. + +And as I stood there in the darkness I could almost fancy that I +heard it crack. + + +XXXVI + +A Somewhat Improbable Story + +I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read +it through very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come +to the conclusion that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read +it through very carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet. +The image and the idea of it clung to me through a great part +of my boyhood; I may have dreamt it before I could talk; or told it +to myself before I could read; or read it before I could remember. +On the whole, however, I am certain that I did not read it, +for children have very clear memories about things like that; +and of the books which I was really fond I can still remember, +not only the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position +of the printed words on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline +to the opinion that it happened to me before I was born. + +. . . . . + +At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages +of the atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, +for the sake of argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch +restaurants in the City where men take their food so fast that it +has none of the quality of food, and take their half-hour's +vacation so fast that it has none of the qualities of leisure; +to hurry through one's leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions. +They all wore tall shiny hats as if they could not lose an instant +even to hang them on a peg, and they all had one eye a little off, +hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In short, they were the slaves +of the modern bondage, you could hear their fetters clanking. +Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest chain ever tied +to a man--it is called a watch-chain. + +Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man +who almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. +He was like all the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly +opposite to them in all manner. He wore a high shiny hat +and a long frock coat, but he wore them as such solemn things +were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if it were a mitre, +and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high priest. +He not only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed +(such was his stateliness) almost to ask permission of the hat +for doing so, and to apologise to the peg for making use of it. +When he had sat down on a wooden chair with the air of one +considering its feelings and given a sort of slight stoop +or bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an altar, +I could not help some comment springing to my lips. +For the man was a big, sanguine-faced, prosperous-looking man, +and yet he treated everything with a care that almost +amounted to nervousness. + +For the sake of saying something to express my interest I said, +"This furniture is fairly solid; but, of course, people do treat +it much too carelessly." + +As I looked up doubtfully my eye caught his, and was fixed +as his was fixed in an apocalyptic stare. I had thought him +ordinary as he entered, save for his strange, cautious manner; +but if the other people had seen him then they would have screamed +and emptied the room. They did not see him, and they went on making +a clatter with their forks, and a murmur with their conversation. +But the man's face was the face of a maniac. + +"Did you mean anything particular by that remark?" he asked at last, +and the blood crawled back slowly into his face. + +"Nothing whatever," I answered. "One does not mean anything here; +it spoils people's digestions." + +He limped back and wiped his broad forehead with a big handkerchief; +and yet there seemed to be a sort of regret in his relief. + +"I thought perhaps," he said in a low voice, "that another of them +had gone wrong." + +"If you mean another digestion gone wrong," I said, "I never heard +of one here that went right. This is the heart of the Empire, +and the other organs are in an equally bad way." + +"No, I mean another street gone wrong," and he said heavily +and quietly, "but as I suppose that doesn't explain much to you, +I think I shall have to tell you the story. I do so with all +the less responsibility, because I know you won't believe it. +For forty years of my life I invariably left my office, which is +in Leadenhall Street, at half-past five in the afternoon, taking with +me an umbrella in the right hand and a bag in the left hand. +For forty years two months and four days I passed out of the side +office door, walked down the street on the left-hand side, +took the first turning to the left and the third to the right, +from where I bought an evening paper, followed the road on +the right-hand side round two obtuse angles, and came out just +outside a Metropolitan station, where I took a train home. +For forty years two months and four days I fulfilled this course +by accumulated habit: it was not a long street that I traversed, +and it took me about four and a half minutes to do it. +After forty years two months and four days, on the fifth day I +went out in the same manner, with my umbrella in the right hand +and my bag in the left, and I began to notice that walking along +the familiar street tired me somewhat more than usual; and when I +turned it I was convinced that I had turned down the wrong one. +For now the street shot up quite a steep slant, such as one +only sees in the hilly parts of London, and in this part +there were no hills at all. Yet it was not the wrong street; +the name written on it was the same; the shuttered shops were +the same; the lamp-posts and the whole look of the perspective +was the same; only it was tilted upwards like a lid. +Forgetting any trouble about breathlessness or fatigue I ran +furiously forward, and reached the second of my accustomed turnings, +which ought to bring me almost within sight of the station. +And as I turned that corner I nearly fell on the pavement. +For now the street went up straight in front of my face like a steep +staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not for miles +round that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. +And this was a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole +street had lifted itself like a single wave, and yet every speck +and detail of it was the same, and I saw in the high distance, +as at the top of an Alpine pass, picked out in pink letters +the name over my paper shop. + +"I ran on and on blindly now, passing all the shops and coming to a +part of the road where there was a long grey row of private houses. +I had, I know not why, an irrational feeling that I was a long +iron bridge in empty space. An impulse seized me, and I pulled up +the iron trap of a coal-hole. Looking down through it I saw empty +space and the stairs. + +"When I looked up again a man was standing in his front garden, having +apparently come out of his house; he was leaning over the railings and +gazing at me. We were all alone on that nightmare road; his face was +in shadow; his dress was dark and ordinary; but when I saw him standing +so perfectly still I knew somehow that he was not of this world. +And the stars behind his head were larger and fiercer than ought +to be endured by the eyes of men. + +"'If you are a kind angel,' I said, 'or a wise devil, or have anything +in common with mankind, tell me what is this street possessed of devils.' + +"After a long silence he said, 'What do you say that it is?' + +"'It is Bumpton Street, of course,' I snapped. 'It goes to Oldgate +Station.' + +"'Yes,' he admitted gravely; 'it goes there sometimes. Just now, however, +it is going to heaven.' + +"'To heaven?' I said. 'Why?' + +"'It is going to heaven for justice,' he replied. 'You must have treated +it badly. Remember always that there is one thing that cannot be endured +by anybody or anything. That one unendurable thing is to be overworked +and also neglected. For instance, you can overwork women--everybody does. +But you can't neglect women--I defy you to. At the same time, +you can neglect tramps and gypsies and all the apparent refuse of the +State so long as you do not overwork it. But no beast of the field, no +horse, no dog can endure long to be asked to do more than his work and +yet have less than his honour. It is the same with streets. You have +worked this street to death, and yet you have never remembered its +existence. If you had a healthy democracy, even of pagans, they would +have hung this street with garlands and given it the name of a god. +Then it would have gone quietly. But at last the street has grown tired +of your tireless insolence; and it is bucking and rearing its head to +heaven. Have you never sat on a bucking horse?' + +"I looked at the long grey street, and for a moment it seemed to me +to be exactly like the long grey neck of a horse flung up to heaven. +But in a moment my sanity returned, and I said, 'But this +is all nonsense. Streets go to the place they have to go. +A street must always go to its end.' + +"'Why do you think so of a street?' he asked, standing very still. + +"'Because I have always seen it do the same thing,' I replied, +in reasonable anger. 'Day after day, year after year, it has always +gone to Oldgate Station; day after . . .' + +"I stopped, for he had flung up his head with the fury +of the road in revolt. + +"'And you?' he cried terribly. 'What do you think the road thinks +of you? Does the road think you are alive? Are you alive? +Day after day, year after year, you have gone to Oldgate Station. . . .' +Since then I have respected the things called inanimate." + +And bowing slightly to the mustard-pot, the man in +the restaurant withdrew. + + +XXXVII + +The Shop Of Ghosts + +Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can +get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, +the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. +You can get them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, +which I am not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which +the lowest price is a penny halfpenny. But the general principle +will be at once apparent. In the street behind me, for instance, +you can now get a ride on an electric tram for a halfpenny. +To be on an electric tram is to be on a flying castle in a fairy tale. +You can get quite a large number of brightly coloured sweets for +a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of reading this article +for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and irrelevant matter. + +But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array +of valuable things you can get at a halfpenny each you +should do as I was doing last night. I was gluing my nose +against the glass of a very small and dimly lit toy shop +in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets of Battersea. +But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a +child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. +Those toys of the poor were like the children who buy them; +they were all dirty; but they were all bright. For my part, +I think brightness more important than cleanliness; since +the first is of the soul, and the second of the body. You +must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion +in the modern world. + +. . . . . + +As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, +at small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red +Noah's arks, I must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. +That lit shop-window became like the brilliantly lit +stage when one is watching some highly coloured comedy. +I forgot the grey houses and the grimy people behind me as one +forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds at a theatre. +It seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were small, +not because they were toys, but because they were objects far away. +The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater omnibus, +passing across some huge desert on its ordinary way to Bayswater. +The blue elephant was no longer blue with paint; he was blue +with distance. The black doll was really a negro relieved against +passionate tropic foliage in the land where every weed is flaming +and only man is black. The red Noah's ark was really the enormous +ship of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen sea, +red in the first morning of hope. + +Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, +such brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the +face of one's own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles +or moustaches. They are commonly marked by the two signs of the +slowness of their growth and the suddenness of their termination. +The return to real thinking is often as abrupt as bumping into a man. +Very often indeed (in my case) it is bumping into a man. +But in any case the awakening is always emphatic and, +generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in this case, +I did come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness +that I was, after all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; +but in some strange way the mental cure did not seem to be final. +There was still in my mind an unmanageable something that told +me that I had strayed into some odd atmosphere, or that I +had already done some odd thing. I felt as if I had worked +a miracle or committed a sin. It was as if I had at any rate, +stepped across some border in the soul. + +To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop +and tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old +and broken, with confused white hair covering his head and half +his face, hair so startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. +Yet though he was senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering +in his eyes; he looked rather as if he were gradually falling +asleep in a not unkindly decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, +but when I put down the money he did not at first seem to see it; +then he blinked at it feebly, and then he pushed it feebly away. + +"No, no," he said vaguely. "I never have. I never have. +We are rather old-fashioned here." + +"Not taking money," I replied, "seems to me more like an uncommonly +new fashion than an old one." + +"I never have," said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; +"I've always given presents. I'm too old to stop." + +"Good heavens!" I said. "What can you mean? Why, you might +be Father Christmas." + +"I am Father Christmas," he said apologetically, and blew +his nose again. + +The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. +At any rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining +shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; +I might have strayed into some new and sunless world. +But something had cut the chords of common sense, and I could +not feel even surprise except sleepily. Something made me say, +"You look ill, Father Christmas." + +"I am dying," he said. + +I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again. + +"All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. +They seem to object to me on such curious and inconsistent +sort of grounds, these scientific men, and these innovators. +They say that I give people superstitions and make them too visionary; +they say I give people sausages and make them too coarse. +They say my heavenly parts are too heavenly; they say my earthly +parts are too earthly; I don't know what they want, I'm sure. +How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly things +too earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? +I don't understand. But I understand one thing well enough. +These modern people are living and I am dead." + +"You may be dead," I replied. "You ought to know. +But as for what they are doing, do not call it living." + +. . . . . + +A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected +to be unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few +seconds when, in the utter stillness, I distinctly heard +a very rapid step coming nearer and nearer along the street. +The next moment a figure flung itself into the shop and stood +framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted back +as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, +a gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. +He had large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; +he had a pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the +shop and the old man in a look that seemed literally a flash and +uttered the exclamation of a man utterly staggered. + +"Good lord!" he cried out; "it can't be you! It isn't you! +I came to ask where your grave was." + +"I'm not dead yet, Mr. Dickens," said the old gentleman, with a +feeble smile; "but I'm dying," he hastened to add reassuringly. + +"But, dash it all, you were dying in my time," said Mr. Charles Dickens +with animation; "and you don't look a day older." + +"I've felt like this for a long time," said Father Christmas. + +Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door +into the darkness. + +"Dick," he roared at the top of his voice; "he's still alive." + +. . . . . + +Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more +full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his +flushed face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. +He carried his head well back like a soldier, and his hot face +had even a look of arrogance, which was suddenly contradicted +by his eyes, which were literally as humble as a dog's. His sword +made a great clatter, as if the shop were too small for it. + +"Indeed," said Sir Richard Steele, "'tis a most prodigious matter, +for the man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley +and his Christmas Day." + +My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. +It seemed to be filled with newcomers. + +"It hath ever been understood," said a burly man, who carried +his head humorously and obstinately a little on one side--I think +he was Ben Jonson--"It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, +under our King James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty +customs were fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. +This grey beard most surely was no lustier when I knew him than now." + +And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, +say in some mixed Norman French, "But I saw the man dying." + +"I have felt like this a long time," said Father Christmas, +in his feeble way again. + +Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him. + +"Since when?" he asked. "Since you were born?" + +"Yes," said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. +"I have been always dying." + +Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling +a mob to rise. + +"I understand it now," he cried, "you will never die." + + +XXXVIII + +The Ballade of a Strange Town + +My friend and I, in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed +affection for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there +was so restful that we almost felt it as a home, and hardly +strayed out of it. + +We sat day after day in the market-place, under little trees +growing in wooden tubs, and looked up at the noble converging lines +of the Cathedral tower, from which the three riders from Ghent, +in the poem, heard the bell which told them they were not too late. +But we took as much pleasure in the people, in the little boys +with open, flat Flemish faces and fur collars round their necks, +making them look like burgomasters; or the women, whose prim, +oval faces, hair strained tightly off the temples, and mouths +at once hard, meek, and humorous, exactly reproduced the late +mediaeval faces in Memling and Van Eyck. + +But one afternoon, as it happened, my friend rose from under his +little tree, and pointing to a sort of toy train that was puffing smoke +in one corner of the clear square, suggested that we should go by it. +We got into the little train, which was meant really to take +the peasants and their vegetables to and fro from their fields +beyond the town, and the official came round to give us tickets. +We asked him what place we should get to if we paid fivepence. +The Belgians are not a romantic people, and he asked us (with a +lamentable mixture of Flemish coarseness and French rationalism) +where we wanted to go. + +We explained that we wanted to go to fairyland, and the only +question was whether we could get there for fivepence. +At last, after a great deal of international misunderstanding +(for he spoke French in the Flemish and we in the English manner), +he told us that fivepence would take us to a place which I +have never seen written down, but which when spoken sounded +like the word "Waterloo" pronounced by an intoxicated patriot; +I think it was Waerlowe. + +We clasped our hands and said it was the place we had been seeking +from boyhood, and when we had got there we descended with promptitude. + +For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field +of Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was +in quite a different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, +with one cottage at the corner, a perspective of tall trees like +Hobbema's "Avenue," and beyond only the infinite flat chess-board +of the little fields. It was the scene of peace and prosperity; +but I must confess that my friend's first action was to ask +the man when there would be another train back to Mechlin. +The man stated that there would be a train back in exactly one hour. +We walked up the avenue, and when we were nearly half an hour's +walk away it began to rain. + +. . . . . + +We arrived back at the cross-roads sodden and dripping, and, +finding the train waiting, climbed into it with some relief. +The officer on this train could speak nothing but Flemish, +but he understood the name Mechlin, and indicated that when we came +to Mechlin Station he would put us down, which, after the right +interval of time, he did. + +We got down, under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin, +though the features could not easily be recognised through the grey +screen of the rain. I do not generally agree with those who find rain +depressing. A shower-bath is not depressing; it is rather startling. +And if it is exciting when a man throws a pail of water over you, +why should it not also be exciting when the gods throw many pails? +But on this soaking afternoon, whether it was the dull sky-line +of the Netherlands or the fact that we were returning home without +any adventure, I really did think things a trifle dreary. +As soon as we could creep under the shelter of a street +we turned into a little cafe, kept by one woman. She was incredibly +old, and she spoke no French. There we drank black coffee and what +was called "cognac fine." "Cognac fine" were the only two French +words used in the establishment, and they were not true. At least, +the fineness (perhaps by its very ethereal delicacy) escaped me. +After a little my friend, who was more restless than I, +got up and went out, to see if the rain had stopped and if we +could at once stroll back to our hotel by the station. +I sat finishing my coffee in a colourless mood, and listening +to the unremitting rain. + +. . . . . + +Suddenly the door burst open, and my friend appeared, transfigured +and frantic. + +"Get up!" he cried, waving his hands wildly. "Get up! We're in the +wrong town! We're not in Mechlin at all. Mechlin is ten miles, +twenty miles off--God knows what! We're somewhere near Antwerp." + +"What!" I cried, leaping from my seat, and sending the furniture flying. +"Then all is well, after all! Poetry only hid her face +for an instant behind a cloud. Positively for a moment I +was feeling depressed because we were in the right town. +But if we are in the wrong town--why, we have our adventure after all! +If we are in the wrong town, we are in the right place." + +I rushed out into the rain, and my friend followed me somewhat +more grimly. We discovered we were in a town called Lierre, +which seemed to consist chiefly of bankrupt pastry cooks, +who sold lemonade. + +"This is the peak of our whole poetic progress!" I cried +enthusiastically. "We must do something, something sacramental +and commemorative! We cannot sacrifice an ox, and it would be +a bore to build a temple. Let us write a poem." + +With but slight encouragement, I took out an old envelope +and one of those pencils that turn bright violet in water. +There was plenty of water about, and the violet ran down +the paper, symbolising the rich purple of that romantic hour. +I began, choosing the form of an old French ballade; +it is the easiest because it is the most restricted-- + + "Can Man to Mount Olympus rise, + And fancy Primrose Hill the scene? + Can a man walk in Paradise + And think he is in Turnham Green? + And could I take you for Malines, + Not knowing the nobler thing you were? + O Pearl of all the plain, and queen, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + "Through memory's mist in glimmering guise + Shall shine your streets of sloppy sheen. + And wet shall grow my dreaming eyes, + To think how wet my boots have been + Now if I die or shoot a Dean----" + +Here I broke off to ask my friend whether he thought it +expressed a more wild calamity to shoot a Dean or to be a Dean. +But he only turned up his coat collar, and I felt that for him +the muse had folded her wings. I rewrote-- + + "Now if I die a Rural Dean, + Or rob a bank I do not care, + Or turn a Tory. I have seen + The lovely city of Lierre." + +"The next line," I resumed, warming to it; but my friend interrupted me. + +"The next line," he said somewhat harshly, "will be a railway line. +We can get back to Mechlin from here, I find, though we +have to change twice. I dare say I should think this jolly +romantic but for the weather. Adventure is the champagne +of life, but I prefer my champagne and my adventures dry. +Here is the station." + +. . . . . + +We did not speak again until we had left Lierre, in its sacred +cloud of rain, and were coming to Mechlin, under a clearer sky, +that even made one think of stars. Then I leant forward and said +to my friend in a low voice--"I have found out everything. +We have come to the wrong star." + +He stared his query, and I went on eagerly: "That is what makes life +at once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. +When I thought that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it +was wrong, I was happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, +tires us because it tells us we fit into this world. The true +happiness is that we don't fit. We come from somewhere else. +We have lost our way." + +He silently nodded, staring out of the window, but whether I had impressed +or only fatigued him I could not tell. "This," I added, "is suggested +in the last verse of a fine poem you have grossly neglected-- + + "'Happy is he and more than wise + Who sees with wondering eyes and clean + The world through all the grey disguise + Of sleep and custom in between. + Yes; we may pass the heavenly screen, + But shall we know when we are there? + Who know not what these dead stones mean, + The lovely city of Lierre.'" + +Here the train stopped abruptly. And from Mechlin church steeple +we heard the half-chime: and Joris broke silence with "No bally +HORS D'OEUVRES for me: I shall get on to something solid at once." + + L'Envoy + + Prince, wide your Empire spreads, I ween, + Yet happier is that moistened Mayor, + Who drinks her cognac far from fine, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + +XXXIX + +The Mystery of a Pageant + +Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take +a small part in one of those historical processions or pageants +which happened to be fashionable in or about the year 1909. +And since I tend, like all who are growing old, to re-enter +the remote past as a paradise or playground, I disinter a memory +which may serve to stand among those memories of small but strange +incidents with which I have sometimes filled this column. +The thing has really some of the dark qualities of a detective-story; +though I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could hardly unravel +it now, when the scent is so old and cold and most of the actors, +doubtless, long dead. + +This old pageant included a series of figures from the eighteenth century, +and I was told that I was just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that Dr. Johnson +was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over gravy, +snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man +in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. +I had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions +as I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. +I requested that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I +might touch all of them but one, and then go back and touch that. +Failing this, I felt that the least they could do was to have +twenty-five cups of tea stationed at regular intervals along +the course, each held by a Mrs. Thrale in full costume. +My best constructive suggestion was the most harshly rejected of all. +In front of me in the procession walked the great Bishop Berkeley, +the man who turned the tables on the early materialists by maintaining +that matter itself possibly does not exist. Dr. Johnson, +you will remember, did not like such bottomless fancies as Berkeley's, +and kicked a stone with his foot, saying, "I refute him so!" +Now (as I pointed out) kicking a stone would not make the metaphysical +quarrel quite clear; besides, it would hurt. But how picturesque +and perfect it would be if I moved across the ground in the symbolic +attitude of kicking Bishop Berkeley! How complete an allegoric group; +the great transcendentalist walking with his head among the stars, +but behind him the avenging realist pede claudo, with uplifted foot. +But I must not take up space with these forgotten frivolities; +we old men grow too garrulous in talking of the distant past. + +This story scarcely concerns me either in my real or my +assumed character. Suffice it to say that the procession took place +at night in a large garden and by torchlight (so remote is the date), +that the garden was crowded with Puritans, monks, and men-at-arms, +and especially with early Celtic saints smoking pipes, +and with elegant Renaissance gentlemen talking Cockney. +Suffice it to say, or rather it is needless to say, that I got lost. +I wandered away into some dim corner of that dim shrubbery, +where there was nothing to do except tumbling over tent ropes, +and I began almost to feel like my prototype, and to share his +horror of solitude and hatred of a country life. + +In this detachment and dilemma I saw another man in a white wig +advancing across this forsaken stretch of lawn; a tall, lean man, +who stooped in his long black robes like a stooping eagle. +When I thought he would pass me, he stopped before my face, +and said, "Dr. Johnson, I think. I am Paley." + +"Sir," I said, "you used to guide men to the beginnings of Christianity. +If you can guide me now to wherever this infernal thing begins you +will perform a yet higher and harder function." + +His costume and style were so perfect that for the instant I really +thought he was a ghost. He took no notice of my flippancy, but, +turning his black-robed back on me, led me through verdurous glooms +and winding mossy ways, until we came out into the glare of gaslight +and laughing men in masquerade, and I could easily laugh at myself. + +And there, you will say, was an end of the matter. I am +(you will say) naturally obtuse, cowardly, and mentally deficient. +I was, moreover, unused to pageants; I felt frightened in the dark +and took a man for a spectre whom, in the light, I could recognise +as a modern gentleman in a masquerade dress. No; far from it. +That spectral person was my first introduction to a special incident +which has never been explained and which still lays its finger +on my nerve. + +I mixed with the men of the eighteenth century; and we fooled +as one does at a fancy-dress ball. There was Burke as large as life +and a great deal better looking. There was Cowper much larger +than life; he ought to have been a little man in a night-cap, +with a cat under one arm and a spaniel under the other. +As it was, he was a magnificent person, and looked more +like the Master of Ballantrae than Cowper. I persuaded him +at last to the night-cap, but never, alas, to the cat and dog. +When I came the next night Burke was still the same beautiful +improvement upon himself; Cowper was still weeping for his dog +and cat and would not be comforted; Bishop Berkeley was still waiting +to be kicked in the interests of philosophy. In short, I met all +my old friends but one. Where was Paley? I had been mystically +moved by the man's presence; I was moved more by his absence. +At last I saw advancing towards us across the twilight garden +a little man with a large book and a bright attractive face. +When he came near enough he said, in a small, clear voice, "I'm Paley." +The thing was quite natural, of course; the man was ill and had +sent a substitute. Yet somehow the contrast was a shock. + +By the next night I had grown quite friendly with my four +or five colleagues; I had discovered what is called a mutual +friend with Berkeley and several points of difference with Burke. +Cowper, I think it was, who introduced me to a friend of his, +a fresh face, square and sturdy, framed in a white wig. +"This," he explained, "is my friend So-and-So. He's Paley." +I looked round at all the faces by this time fixed and familiar; +I studied them; I counted them; then I bowed to the third Paley +as one bows to necessity. So far the thing was all within +the limits of coincidence. It certainly seemed odd that this +one particular cleric should be so varying and elusive. +It was singular that Paley, alone among men, should swell and +shrink and alter like a phantom, while all else remained solid. +But the thing was explicable; two men had been ill and there +was an end of it; only I went again the next night, and a +clear-coloured elegant youth with powdered hair bounded up to me, +and told me with boyish excitement that he was Paley. + +For the next twenty-four hours I remained in the mental condition +of the modern world. I mean the condition in which all natural +explanations have broken down and no supernatural explanation has +been established. My bewilderment had reached to boredom when I +found myself once more in the colour and clatter of the pageant, +and I was all the more pleased because I met an old school-fellow, +and we mutually recognised each other under our heavy clothes +and hoary wigs. We talked about all those great things for which +literature is too small and only life large enough; red-hot memories +and those gigantic details which make up the characters of men. +I heard all about the friends he had lost sight of and those he had +kept in sight; I heard about his profession, and asked at last +how he came into the pageant. + +"The fact is," he said, "a friend of mine asked me, just for to-night, +to act a chap called Paley; I don't know who he was. . . ." + +"No, by thunder!" I said, "nor does anyone." + +This was the last blow, and the next night passed like a dream. +I scarcely noticed the slender, sprightly, and entirely new figure +which fell into the ranks in the place of Paley, so many times deceased. +What could it mean? Why was the giddy Paley unfaithful among +the faithful found? Did these perpetual changes prove the popularity +or the unpopularity of being Paley? Was it that no human being +could support being Paley for one night and live till morning? +Or was it that the gates were crowded with eager throngs of the British +public thirsting to be Paley, who could only be let in one at a time? +Or is there some ancient vendetta against Paley? Does some secret +society of Deists still assassinate any one who adopts the name? + +I cannot conjecture further about this true tale of mystery; +and that for two reasons. First, the story is so true +that I have had to put a lie into it. Every word of this +narrative is veracious, except the one word Paley. +And second, because I have got to go into the next room +and dress up as Dr. Johnson. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + +This file should be named 7trtr10.txt or 7trtr10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7trtr11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7trtr10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Chesterton + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8092] +Release Date: August 10, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + + + + + +TREMENDOUS TRIFLES + +By G. K. Chesterton + + + + +PREFACE + +These fleeting sketches are all republished by kind permission of the +Editor of the DAILY NEWS, in which paper they appeared. They amount +to no more than a sort of sporadic diary--a diary recording one day in +twenty which happened to stick in the fancy--the only kind of diary the +author has ever been able to keep. Even that diary he could only keep +by keeping it in public, for bread and cheese. But trivial as are the +topics they are not utterly without a connecting thread of motive. +As the reader's eye strays, with hearty relief, from these pages, it +probably alights on something, a bed-post or a lamp-post, a window +blind or a wall. It is a thousand to one that the reader is looking at +something that he has never seen: that is, never realised. He could not +write an essay on such a post or wall: he does not know what the post +or wall mean. He could not even write the synopsis of an essay; as "The +Bed-Post; Its Significance--Security Essential to Idea of Sleep--Night +Felt as Infinite--Need of Monumental Architecture," and so on. He could +not sketch in outline his theoretic attitude towards window-blinds, even +in the form of a summary. "The Window-Blind--Its Analogy to the Curtain +and Veil--Is Modesty Natural?--Worship of and Avoidance of the Sun, +etc., etc." None of us think enough of these things on which the eye +rests. But don't let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? +Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that +run across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular +athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured +cloud. I have attempted some such thing in what follows; but anyone else +may do it better, if anyone else will only try. + + + CONTENTS: + + I Tremendous Trifles + II A Piece of Chalk + III The Secret of a Train + IV The Perfect Game + V The Extraordinary Cabman + VI An Accident + VII The Advantages of Having One Leg + VIII The End of the World + IX In the Place de la Bastille + X On Lying in Bed + XI The Twelve Men + XII The Wind and the Trees + XIII The Dickensian + XIV In Topsy-Turvy Land + XV What I Found in My Pocket + XVI The Dragon's Grandmother + XVII The Red Angel + XVIII The Tower + XIX How I Met the President + XX The Giant + XXI The Great Man + XXII The Orthodox Barber + XXIII The Toy Theatre + XXIV A Tragedy of Twopence + XXV A Cab Ride Across Country + XXVI The Two Noises + XXVII Some Policemen and a Moral + XXVIII The Lion + XXIX Humanity: An Interlude + XXX The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + XXXI The Riddle of the Ivy + XXXII The Travellers in State + XXXIII The Prehistoric Railway Station + XXXIV The Diabolist + XXXV A Glimpse of My Country + XXXVI A Somewhat Improbable Story + XXXVII The Shop of Ghosts + XXXVIII The Ballade of a Strange Town + XXXIX The Mystery of a Pageant + + + + + +I. Tremendous Trifles + +Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly in the +front garden, because their villa was a model one. The front garden was +about the same size as the dinner table; it consisted of four strips of +gravel, a square of turf with some mysterious pieces of cork standing up +in the middle and one flower bed with a row of red daisies. One morning +while they were at play in these romantic grounds, a passing individual, +probably the milkman, leaned over the railing and engaged them in +philosophical conversation. The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, +were at least sharply interested in his remarks. For the milkman (who +was, I need say, a fairy) did his duty in that state of life by offering +them in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. And +Paul closed with the offer with a business-like abruptness, explaining +that he had long wished to be a giant that he might stride across +continents and oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas in an afternoon +dinner stroll. The milkman producing a wand from his breast pocket, +waved it in a hurried and perfunctory manner; and in an instant the +model villa with its front garden was like a tiny doll's house at Paul's +colossal feet. He went striding away with his head above the clouds to +visit Niagara and the Himalayas. But when he came to the Himalayas, +he found they were quite small and silly-looking, like the little cork +rockery in the garden; and when he found Niagara it was no bigger than +the tap turned on in the bathroom. He wandered round the world for +several minutes trying to find something really large and finding +everything small, till in sheer boredom he lay down on four or five +prairies and fell asleep. Unfortunately his head was just outside the +hut of an intellectual backwoodsman who came out of it at that moment +with an axe in one hand and a book of Neo-Catholic Philosophy in the +other. The man looked at the book and then at the giant, and then at the +book again. And in the book it said, "It can be maintained that the evil +of pride consists in being out of proportion to the universe." So the +backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, working eight hours a +day for about a week, cut the giant's head off; and there was an end of +him. + +Such is the severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly +enough, made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long wished to +be a pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he immediately became +one. When the transformation was over he found himself in the midst of +an immense plain, covered with a tall green jungle and above which, at +intervals, rose strange trees each with a head like the sun in symbolic +pictures, with gigantic rays of silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward +the middle of this prairie stood up a mountain of such romantic and +impossible shape, yet of such stony height and dominance, that it looked +like some incident of the end of the world. And far away on the faint +horizon he could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more +mystical, of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. +He set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has not +come to the end of it yet. + +Such is the story of Peter and Paul, which contains all the highest +qualities of a modern fairy tale, including that of being wholly unfit +for children; and indeed the motive with which I have introduced it is +not childish, but rather full of subtlety and reaction. It is in fact +the almost desperate motive of excusing or palliating the pages that +follow. Peter and Paul are the two primary influences upon European +literature to-day; and I may be permitted to put my own preference in +its most favourable shape, even if I can only do it by what little girls +call telling a story. + +I need scarcely say that I am the pigmy. The only excuse for the scraps +that follow is that they show what can be achieved with a commonplace +existence and the sacred spectacles of exaggeration. The other great +literary theory, that which is roughly represented in England by Mr. +Rudyard Kipling, is that we moderns are to regain the primal zest by +sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical +variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. Let it +be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; and the +two alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling's school advises us +to go to Central Africa in order to find a man without a frock coat. The +school to which I belong suggests that we should stare steadily at the +man until we see the man inside the frock coat. If we stare at him long +enough he may even be moved to take off his coat to us; and that is a +far greater compliment than his taking off his hat. In other words, +we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually +before us, force them to turn into adventures; force them to give up +their meaning and fulfil their mysterious purpose. The purpose of the +Kipling literature is to show how many extraordinary things a man may +see if he is active and strides from continent to continent like the +giant in my tale. But the object of my school is to show how many +extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man may see if he can spur +himself to the single activity of seeing. For this purpose I have taken +the laziest person of my acquaintance, that is myself; and made an idle +diary of such odd things as I have fallen over by accident, in walking +in a very limited area at a very indolent pace. If anyone says that +these are very small affairs talked about in very big language, I can +only gracefully compliment him upon seeing the joke. If anyone says that +I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess with pride that it is +so. I can imagine no more successful and productive form of manufacture +than that of making mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not +unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a +pigmy like Peter to discover that. + +I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, in getting +to the top of everything and overlooking everything. Satan was the +most celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took Jesus to the top of an +exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. +But the joy of Satan in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, +but a joy in beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like +insects at his feet. It is from the valley that things look large; it is +from the level that things look high; I am a child of the level and have +no need of that celebrated Alpine guide. I will lift up my eyes to the +hills, from whence cometh my help; but I will not lift up my carcass +to the hills, unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything is in an +attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. I +will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like +flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never +starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder. + + + + +II. A Piece of Chalk + +I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer +holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing +nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a +walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. +I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, +belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), +and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown +paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook +the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She +seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be +wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to +do; indeed, it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental +capacity. Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of +toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only +wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in +the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a +question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing +comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I +wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, apparently +supposing that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown paper +wrappers from motives of economy. + +I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not +only liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness in paper, +just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, +or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal +twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured +chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and +blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of +divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; +and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and +possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how +primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one's +pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the +infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely +about the things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and +the age of the great epics is past. + +..... + +With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, I went out +on to the great downs. I crawled across those colossal contours that +express the best quality of England, because they are at the same time +soft and strong. The smoothness of them has the same meaning as the +smoothness of great cart-horses, or the smoothness of the beech-tree; +it declares in the teeth of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty +are merciful. As my eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly +as any of its cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. The +villages in the immense valley were safe, one could see, for centuries; +yet the lifting of the whole land was like the lifting of one enormous +wave to wash them all away. + +I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place +to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven's sake, imagine I was going to +sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind +old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in +robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred +or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colours on brown paper. +They are much better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much +easier to draw. When a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a +mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs +of quadrupeds. So I drew the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly +walking before me in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and +silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all the +beasts. But though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the +landscape, it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the +best out of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about +the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care +very much about Nature because they did not describe it much. + +They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but +they sat on the great hills to write it. They gave out much less about +Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white +robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had +stared all day. They blazoned the shields of their paladins with the +purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. The greenness of a thousand +green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The +blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the +Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo. + +..... + +But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began +to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that +a most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, +but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted +with all the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art +of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I +cannot avoid remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the wise +and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white +is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and +affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so +to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows +white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities +of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is +exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality +is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the +avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like +pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or +sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive +thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. + +Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something +flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colours; but +He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when +He paints in white. In a sense our age has realised this fact, and +expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that +white was a blank and colourless thing, negative and non-committal, then +white would be used instead of black and grey for the funeral dress of +this pessimistic period. We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of +spotless silver linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. +Which is not the case. + +Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk. + +..... + +I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town nearer than +Chichester at which it was even remotely probable that there would be +such a thing as an artist's colourman. And yet, without white, my absurd +little pictures would be as pointless as the world would be if there +were no good people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for +expedients. Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and +again, so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine +a man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. +Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt +water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense +warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely out of white +chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped +and broke a piece off the rock I sat on; it did not mark so well as the +shop chalks do; but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance +of pleasure, realising that this Southern England is not only a grand +peninsula, and a tradition and a civilisation; it is something even more +admirable. It is a piece of chalk. + + + + +III. The Secret of a Train + +All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a loose +memory. I will not merely say that this story is true: because, as you +will soon see, it is all truth and no story. It has no explanation and +no conclusion; it is, like most of the other things we encounter in +life, a fragment of something else which would be intensely exciting if +it were not too large to be seen. For the perplexity of life arises from +there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested +properly in any of them; what we call its triviality is really the +tag-ends of numberless tales; ordinary and unmeaning existence is like +ten thousand thrilling detective stories mixed up with a spoon. My +experience was a fragment of this nature, and it is, at any rate, not +fictitious. Not only am I not making up the incidents (what there were +of them), but I am not making up the atmosphere of the landscape, which +were the whole horror of the thing. I remember them vividly, and they +were as I shall now describe. + +..... + +About noon of an ashen autumn day some years ago I was standing outside +the station at Oxford intending to take the train to London. And +for some reason, out of idleness or the emptiness of my mind or the +emptiness of the pale grey sky, or the cold, a kind of caprice fell upon +me that I would not go by that train at all, but would step out on the +road and walk at least some part of the way to London. I do not know +if other people are made like me in this matter; but to me it is always +dreary weather, what may be called useless weather, that slings into +life a sense of action and romance. On bright blue days I do not want +anything to happen; the world is complete and beautiful, a thing for +contemplation. I no more ask for adventures under that turquoise dome +than I ask for adventures in church. But when the background of man's +life is a grey background, then, in the name of man's sacred supremacy, +I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. When the heavens fail man +refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have written on it, in letters +of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing shall happen, then the +immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises up and decrees that +something shall happen, if it be only the slaughter of a policeman. But +this is a digressive way of stating what I have said already--that +the bleak sky awoke in me a hunger for some change of plans, that the +monotonous weather seemed to render unbearable the use of the monotonous +train, and that I set out into the country lanes, out of the town of +Oxford. It was, perhaps, at that moment that a strange curse came +upon me out of the city and the sky, whereby it was decreed that years +afterwards I should, in an article in the DAILY NEWS, talk about Sir +George Trevelyan in connection with Oxford, when I knew perfectly well +that he went to Cambridge. + +As I crossed the country everything was ghostly and colourless. The +fields that should have been green were as grey as the skies; the +tree-tops that should have been green were as grey as the clouds and as +cloudy. And when I had walked for some hours the evening was closing in. +A sickly sunset clung weakly to the horizon, as if pale with reluctance +to leave the world in the dark. And as it faded more and more the skies +seemed to come closer and to threaten. The clouds which had been merely +sullen became swollen; and then they loosened and let down the dark +curtains of the rain. The rain was blinding and seemed to beat like +blows from an enemy at close quarters; the skies seemed bending over and +bawling in my ears. I walked on many more miles before I met a man, and +in that distance my mind had been made up; and when I met him I asked +him if anywhere in the neighbourhood I could pick up the train for +Paddington. He directed me to a small silent station (I cannot even +remember the name of it) which stood well away from the road and looked +as lonely as a hut on the Andes. I do not think I have ever seen such a +type of time and sadness and scepticism and everything devilish as that +station was: it looked as if it had always been raining there ever since +the creation of the world. The water streamed from the soaking wood of +it as if it were not water at all, but some loathsome liquid corruption +of the wood itself; as if the solid station were eternally falling to +pieces and pouring away in filth. It took me nearly ten minutes to find +a man in the station. When I did he was a dull one, and when I asked him +if there was a train to Paddington his answer was sleepy and vague. As +far as I understood him, he said there would be a train in half an hour. +I sat down and lit a cigar and waited, watching the last tail of the +tattered sunset and listening to the everlasting rain. It may have +been in half an hour or less, but a train came rather slowly into the +station. It was an unnaturally dark train; I could not see a light +anywhere in the long black body of it; and I could not see any guard +running beside it. I was reduced to walking up to the engine and calling +out to the stoker to ask if the train was going to London. "Well--yes, +sir," he said, with an unaccountable kind of reluctance. "It is going +to London; but----" It was just starting, and I jumped into the first +carriage; it was pitch dark. I sat there smoking and wondering, as we +steamed through the continually darkening landscape, lined with desolate +poplars, until we slowed down and stopped, irrationally, in the middle +of a field. I heard a heavy noise as of some one clambering off the +train, and a dark, ragged head suddenly put itself into my window. +"Excuse me, sir," said the stoker, "but I think, perhaps--well, perhaps +you ought to know--there's a dead man in this train." + +..... + +Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities +and nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt, to be finally +overwhelmed with this sensational touch, and to have insisted on +getting out and walking. As it was, I regret to say, I expressed myself +politely, but firmly, to the effect that I didn't care particularly if +the train took me to Paddington. But when the train had started with +its unknown burden I did do one thing, and do it quite instinctively, +without stopping to think, or to think more than a flash. I threw +away my cigar. Something that is as old as man and has to do with +all mourning and ceremonial told me to do it. There was something +unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, in the idea of there being +only two men in that train, and one of them dead and the other smoking +a cigar. And as the red and gold of the butt end of it faded like a +funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic moment of a procession, +I realised how immortal ritual is. I realised (what is the origin and +essence of all ritual) that in the presence of those sacred riddles +about which we can say nothing it is more decent merely to do something. +And I realised that ritual will always mean throwing away something; +DESTROYING our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods. + +When the train panted at last into Paddington Station I sprang out of +it with a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier and officials +guarding the rear part of the train; no one was allowed to press towards +it. They were guarding and hiding something; perhaps death in some too +shocking form, perhaps something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up +with human mystery and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of +sanctity; perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough +into the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces. +Nor have I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I +wandered or what frightful thing was my companion in the dark. + + + + +IV. The Perfect Game + +We have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to +him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernatural. My +own position is the opposite of this. I believe in the supernatural as a +matter of intellect and reason, not as a matter of personal experience. +I do not see ghosts; I only see their inherent probability. But it is +entirely a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions; +my nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. But +upon people of this temperament one weird incident will often leave a +peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance that ever occurred +to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted in nothing less than my +playing a game, and playing it quite well for some seventeen consecutive +minutes. The ghost of my grandfather would have astonished me less. + +On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my +inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had +imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, +and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant +side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. I played +it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had a +semi-philosophical argument which lasted through the entire contest. It +is deeply implanted in my mind that I had the best of the argument; but +it is certain and beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. + +"Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!" I cried, patting him affectionately on the +head with a mallet, "how far you really are from the pure love of the +sport--you who can play. It is only we who play badly who love the Game +itself. You love glory; you love applause; you love the earthquake voice +of victory; you do not love croquet. You do not love croquet until +you love being beaten at croquet. It is we the bunglers who adore the +occupation in the abstract. It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. +If we may see the face of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) +we are content to see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is +called amateurish; and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs +is but the French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, +the most disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates +(I allude to the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, +impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within the pedantic +boundaries of the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek honour in the ends +of the earth; they turn up in the flower-beds and the conservatory; they +are to be found in the front garden and the next street. No, Parkinson! +The good painter has skill. It is the bad painter who loves his art. The +good musician loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With +such a pure and hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game +itself. I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or tape, +as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, the four +seas of Britain. I love the mere swing of the mallets, and the click of +the balls is music. The four colours are to me sacramental and symbolic, +like the red of martyrdom, or the white of Easter Day. You lose all +this, my poor Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence of +this vision by the paltry consolation of being able to go through hoops +and to hit the stick." + +And I waved my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety. + +"Don't be too sorry for me," said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. "I +shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more a man likes +a game the better he would want to play it. Granted that the pleasure +in the thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure of success come +naturally and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your own simile of the +Knight and his Lady-love. I admit the gentleman does first and foremost +want to be in the lady's presence. But I never yet heard of a gentleman +who wanted to look an utter ass when he was there." + +"Perhaps not; though he generally looks it," I replied. "But the truth +is that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The +happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which +can be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, +the jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the love +of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not true +that the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger will +be the game. It is logically possible--(follow me closely here, +Parkinson!)--it is logically possible, to play croquet too well to enjoy +it at all. If you could put this blue ball through that distant hoop as +easily as you could pick it up with your hand, then you would not put it +through that hoop any more than you pick it up with your hand; it would +not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly you would not play at +all. The moment the game is perfect the game disappears." + +"I do not think, however," said Parkinson, "that you are in any +immediate danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not think +your croquet will vanish through its own faultless excellence. You are +safe for the present." + +I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired +myself, and resumed the thread of my discourse. + +The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this +time it was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four more +fundamental principles, and my companion had gone through five more +hoops, the dusk was verging upon dark. + +"We shall have to give this up," said Parkinson, as he missed a ball +almost for the first time, "I can't see a thing." + +"Nor can I," I answered, "and it is a comfort to reflect that I could +not hit anything if I saw it." + +With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness +towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. +Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, +indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball. + +Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball +again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was the +right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot. + +Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that +impossible ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I supposed +was the vague direction of the quite invisible stick. And in the dead +silence I heard the stick rattle as the ball struck it heavily. + +I threw down my mallet. "I can't stand this," I said. "My ball has gone +right three times. These things are not of this world." + +"Pick your mallet up," said Parkinson, "have another go." + +"I tell you I daren't. If I made another hoop like that I should see all +the devils dancing there on the blessed grass." + +"Why devils?" asked Parkinson; "they may be only fairies making fun of +you. They are sending you the 'Perfect Game,' which is no game." + +I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness, in which +the faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across the grass +as if it burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball +somewhere--somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull click +of the balls touching, and ran into the house like one pursued. + + + + +V. The Extraordinary Cabman + +From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the +narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to +insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. +I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed +by some practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; +therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, +which occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it +apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon +despair. + +On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little +restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My +best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable +believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate +and terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to +this: that the question is whether a man can be certain of anything +at all. I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, +furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually +to entertain certainty, what is this certainty which it is impossible +to entertain? If I have never experienced such a thing as certainty I +cannot even say that a thing is not certain. Similarly, if I have never +experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not +green. It may be as green as possible for all I know, if I have really +no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the +room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And +the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as +to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening +of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the +sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening +infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened +my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing +it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly +silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever. + +..... + +Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for +it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in +the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow +become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the +corner of Leicester-square to the members' entrance of the House of +Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. +Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a +discussion between us which still continues. + +It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of +detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few +hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I had to visit. I +then got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but +not with the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is +not unknown among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no +human, cabman. He looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, +clearly quite genuine. "Do you know, sir," he said, "you've only given +me 1s.8d?" I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. "Now you +know, sir," said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, "you know +that ain't the fare from Euston." "Euston," I repeated vaguely, for the +phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. "What on +earth has Euston got to do with it?" "You hailed me just outside Euston +Station," began the man with astonishing precision, "and then you +said----" "What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?" I said +with Christian forbearance; "I took you at the south-west corner of +Leicester-square." "Leicester-square," he exclaimed, loosening a kind of +cataract of scorn, "why we ain't been near Leicester-square to-day. You +hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said----" "Are you mad, or am +I?" I asked with scientific calm. + +I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of +creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was +not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and +humble, and with great big blue eyes protruding like a frog's, if ever +(in short) a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the +face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the +street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one +second the old nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What +was certainty? Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the +dull rut of the sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future +life. The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we possess a +past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically considered, except +a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The +cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate details of the gesture, the +words, the complex but consistent course of action which I had adopted +since that remarkable occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston +Station. How did I know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not +hailed him outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite +equally firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, +and a member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment the +universe and the stars swung just a hair's breadth from their balance, +and the foundations of the earth were moved. But for the same reason +that I believe in Democracy, for the same reason that I believe in free +will, for the same reason that I believe in fixed character of virtue, +the reason that could only be expressed by saying that I do not choose +to be a lunatic, I continued to believe that this honest cabman was +wrong, and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner +of Leicester-square. He began with the same evident and ponderous +sincerity, "You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said----" + +And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful +transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like +a lamp from the inside. "Why, I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I beg +your pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I +remember now. I beg your pardon." And with that this astonishing man let +out his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. +The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, +is strictly true. + +..... + +I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the +mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his +face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac +about him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me +from my adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended +earlier in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that +my sense of reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained +erect. + + + + +VI. An Accident + +Some time ago I wrote in these columns an article called "The +Extraordinary Cabman." I am now in a position to contribute my +experience of a still more extraordinary cab. The extraordinary thing +about the cab was that it did not like me; it threw me out violently in +the middle of the Strand. If my friends who read the DAILY NEWS are +as romantic (and as rich) as I take them to be, I presume that this +experience is not uncommon. I suppose that they are all being thrown out +of cabs, all over London. Still, as there are some people, virginal and +remote from the world, who have not yet had this luxurious experience, I +will give a short account of the psychology of myself when my hansom cab +ran into the side of a motor omnibus, and I hope hurt it. + +I do not need to dwell on the essential romance of the hansom cab--that +one really noble modern thing which our age, when it is judged, will +gravely put beside the Parthenon. It is really modern in that it is +both secret and swift. My particular hansom cab was modern in these two +respects; it was also very modern in the fact that it came to grief. +But it is also English; it is not to be found abroad; it belongs to a +beautiful, romantic country where nearly everybody is pretending to be +richer than they are, and acting as if they were. It is comfortable, and +yet it is reckless; and that combination is the very soul of England. +But although I had always realised all these good qualities in a hansom +cab, I had not experienced all the possibilities, or, as the moderns put +it, all the aspects of that vehicle. My enunciation of the merits of a +hansom cab had been always made when it was the right way up. Let me, +therefore, explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom cab for the +first and, I am happy to believe, the last time. Polycrates threw one +ring into the sea to propitiate the Fates. I have thrown one hansom +cab into the sea (if you will excuse a rather violent metaphor) and the +Fates are, I am quite sure, propitiated. Though I am told they do not +like to be told so. + +I was driving yesterday afternoon in a hansom cab down one of the +sloping streets into the Strand, reading one of my own admirable +articles with continual pleasure, and still more continual surprise, +when the horse fell forward, scrambled a moment on the scraping stones, +staggered to his feet again, and went forward. The horses in my cabs +often do this, and I have learnt to enjoy my own articles at any angle +of the vehicle. So I did not see anything at all odd about the way +the horse went on again. But I saw it suddenly in the faces of all the +people on the pavement. They were all turned towards me, and they were +all struck with fear suddenly, as with a white flame out of the sky. And +one man half ran out into the road with a movement of the elbow as if +warding off a blow, and tried to stop the horse. Then I knew that +the reins were lost, and the next moment the horse was like a living +thunder-bolt. I try to describe things exactly as they seemed to me; +many details I may have missed or mis-stated; many details may have, +so to speak, gone mad in the race down the road. I remember that I +once called one of my experiences narrated in this paper "A Fragment of +Fact." This is, at any rate, a fragment of fact. No fact could possibly +be more fragmentary than the sort of fact that I expected to be at the +bottom of that street. + +..... + +I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that +the converted do not understand their own religion. Thus I have always +urged in this paper that democracy has a deeper meaning than democrats +understand; that is, that common and popular things, proverbs, and +ordinary sayings always have something in them unrealised by most who +repeat them. Here is one. We have all heard about the man who is in +momentary danger, and who sees the whole of his life pass before him +in a moment. In the cold, literal, and common sense of words, this is +obviously a thundering lie. Nobody can pretend that in an accident or +a mortal crisis he elaborately remembered all the tickets he had ever +taken to Wimbledon, or all the times that he had ever passed the brown +bread and butter. + +But in those few moments, while my cab was tearing towards the traffic +of the Strand, I discovered that there is a truth behind this phrase, +as there is behind all popular phrases. I did really have, in that short +and shrieking period, a rapid succession of a number of fundamental +points of view. I had, so to speak, about five religions in almost as +many seconds. My first religion was pure Paganism, which among sincere +men is more shortly described as extreme fear. Then there succeeded a +state of mind which is quite real, but for which no proper name has ever +been found. The ancients called it Stoicism, and I think it must be what +some German lunatics mean (if they mean anything) when they talk +about Pessimism. It was an empty and open acceptance of the thing that +happens--as if one had got beyond the value of it. And then, curiously +enough, came a very strong contrary feeling--that things mattered very +much indeed, and yet that they were something more than tragic. It was +a feeling, not that life was unimportant, but that life was much +too important ever to be anything but life. I hope that this was +Christianity. At any rate, it occurred at the moment when we went crash +into the omnibus. + +It seemed to me that the hansom cab simply turned over on top of me, +like an enormous hood or hat. I then found myself crawling out from +underneath it in attitudes so undignified that they must have added +enormously to that great cause to which the Anti-Puritan League and I +have recently dedicated ourselves. I mean the cause of the pleasures of +the people. As to my demeanour when I emerged, I have two confessions to +make, and they are both made merely in the interests of mental science. +The first is that whereas I had been in a quite pious frame of mind the +moment before the collision, when I got to my feet and found I had got +off with a cut or two I began (like St. Peter) to curse and to swear. +A man offered me a newspaper or something that I had dropped. I can +distinctly remember consigning the paper to a state of irremediable +spiritual ruin. I am very sorry for this now, and I apologise both to +the man and to the paper. I have not the least idea what was the meaning +of this unnatural anger; I mention it as a psychological confession. It +was immediately followed by extreme hilarity, and I made so many silly +jokes to the policeman that he disgraced himself by continual laughter +before all the little boys in the street, who had hitherto taken him +seriously. + +..... + +There is one other odd thing about the matter which I also mention as +a curiosity of the human brain or deficiency of brain. At intervals of +about every three minutes I kept on reminding the policeman that I had +not paid the cabman, and that I hoped he would not lose his money. He +said it would be all right, and the man would appear. But it was not +until about half an hour afterwards that it suddenly struck me with a +shock intolerable that the man might conceivably have lost more +than half a crown; that he had been in danger as well as I. I had +instinctively regarded the cabman as something uplifted above accidents, +a god. I immediately made inquiries, and I am happy to say that they +seemed to have been unnecessary. + +But henceforward I shall always understand with a darker and more +delicate charity those who take tythe of mint, and anise, and cumin, +and neglect the weightier matters of the law; I shall remember how I +was once really tortured with owing half a crown to a man who might +have been dead. Some admirable men in white coats at the Charing Cross +Hospital tied up my small injury, and I went out again into the Strand. +I felt upon me even a kind of unnatural youth; I hungered for something +untried. So to open a new chapter in my life I got into a hansom cab. + + + + +VII. The Advantages of Having One Leg + +A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and +casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either +insolent or weak, said at last, "I think one can live through these +great sorrows and even be the better. What wears one is the little +worries." "That's quite right, mum," answered the old woman with +emphasis, "and I ought to know, seeing I've had ten of 'em." It is, +perhaps, in this sense that it is most true that little worries are most +wearing. In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a +truth, contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. +People who have both small troubles and big ones have the right to say +that they find the small ones the most bitter; and it is undoubtedly +true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible can feel a +faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and all +its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I +am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is +sometimes used or abused by people, because they have nothing but the +very smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the +crumpled rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she +would wear the crown of thorns--if she had to. The gentleman may permit +himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much +better if it were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that +the grasshopper on man's shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much +respect to the gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather +have an elephant when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We +may concede that a straw may break the camel's back, but we like to know +that it really is the last straw and not the first. + +I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, +so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that +if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To +talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest +way to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about +little ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very +often has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very +clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified in asking +that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. I do no deny that +molehills can sometimes be important. Small annoyances have this +evil about them, that they can be more abrupt because they are more +invisible; they cast no shadow before, they have no atmosphere. No +one ever had a mystical premonition that he was going to tumble over a +hassock. William III. died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose +that with all his varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a +mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask +a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, +and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive +poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental +limitations that are always falling across our path--bad weather, +confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments +or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding +unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding +punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn +from all these that I sing--I sing with confidence because I have +recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise +from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only +alternative course of standing on one leg like a stork--a stork is a +poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it. + +To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing +itself symbolise something other than isolation. If we wish to see what +a house is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish +to depict what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or +on a dark sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that +humanity means; so long as he is solitary he means human society; so +long as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another +figure and the picture is less human--not more so. One is company, two +is none. If you wish to symbolise human building draw one dark tower on +the horizon; if you wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the +sky. Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we call our day +there is but one star in the sky--a large, fierce star which we call the +sun. One sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower Of +Giotto is sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row +of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; +the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in +following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the +single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of +all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. To express complete and +perfect leggishness the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the +tower in the wilderness. As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is +that which stands most alone. + +This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric +column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate +use of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its +legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic +consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few +days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness or dislocation +of the one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and +classic beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. +George Meredith's novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in +the stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more +literal exactitude, "He has a leg." Notice how this famous literary +phrase supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable +thing. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect +picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She +delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact +that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, +a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. +Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. That having had one +good leg he should have another--this would be to use vain repetitions +as the Gentiles do. She would have been as much bewildered by him as if +he had been a centipede. + +All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender +of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all +desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it +may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight +sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division +between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to +realise that it might be lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong +and splendid a foot is; in the other I can realise how very much +otherwise it might have been. The moral of the thing is wholly +exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and +beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. If you +wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a +moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully and wonderfully God's image +is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realise the splendid vision of +all visible things--wink the other eye. + + + + +VIII. The End of the World + +For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious town +of Besanon, which stands like a sort of peninsula in a horse-shoe of +river. You may learn from the guide books that it was the birthplace of +Victor Hugo, and that it is a military station with many forts, near the +French frontier. But you will not learn from guide books that the very +tiles on the roofs seem to be of some quainter and more delicate colour +than the tiles of all the other towns of the world; that the tiles look +like the little clouds of some strange sunset, or like the lustrous +scales of some strange fish. They will not tell you that in this +town the eye cannot rest on anything without finding it in some way +attractive and even elvish, a carved face at a street corner, a gleam of +green fields through a stunted arch, or some unexpected colour for the +enamel of a spire or dome. + +..... + +Evening was coming on and in the light of it all these colours so simple +and yet so subtle seemed more and more to fit together and make a fairy +tale. I sat down for a little outside a caf with a row of little toy +trees in front of it, and presently the driver of a fly (as we should +call it) came to the same place. He was one of those very large and dark +Frenchmen, a type not common but yet typical of France; the Rabelaisian +Frenchman, huge, swarthy, purple-faced, a walking wine-barrel; he was +a sort of Southern Falstaff, if one can imagine Falstaff anything but +English. And, indeed, there was a vital difference, typical of two +nations. For while Falstaff would have been shaking with hilarity like +a huge jelly, full of the broad farce of the London streets, this +Frenchman was rather solemn and dignified than otherwise--as if pleasure +were a kind of pagan religion. After some talk which was full of the +admirable civility and equality of French civilisation, he suggested +without either eagerness or embarrassment that he should take me in his +fly for an hour's ride in the hills beyond the town. And though it was +growing late I consented; for there was one long white road under an +archway and round a hill that dragged me like a long white cord. We +drove through the strong, squat gateway that was made by Romans, and I +remember the coincidence like a sort of omen that as we passed out of +the city I heard simultaneously the three sounds which are the trinity +of France. They make what some poet calls "a tangled trinity," and I am +not going to disentangle it. Whatever those three things mean, how +or why they co-exist; whether they can be reconciled or perhaps are +reconciled already; the three sounds I heard then by an accident all +at once make up the French mystery. For the brass band in the Casino +gardens behind me was playing with a sort of passionate levity some +ramping tune from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was going on +I heard also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible +loyalties and men always arming in the gate of France; and I heard also, +fainter than these sounds and through them all, the Angelus. + +..... + +After this coincidence of symbols I had a curious sense of having left +France behind me, or, perhaps, even the civilised world. And, indeed, +there was something in the landscape wild enough to encourage such +a fancy. I have seen perhaps higher mountains, but I have never +seen higher rocks; I have never seen height so near, so abrupt and +sensational, splinters of rock that stood up like the spires of +churches, cliffs that fell sudden and straight as Satan fell from +heaven. There was also a quality in the ride which was not only +astonishing, but rather bewildering; a quality which many must have +noticed if they have driven or ridden rapidly up mountain roads. I mean +a sense of gigantic gyration, as of the whole earth turning about one's +head. It is quite inadequate to say that the hills rose and fell like +enormous waves. Rather the hills seemed to turn about me like the +enormous sails of a windmill, a vast wheel of monstrous archangelic +wings. As we drove on and up into the gathering purple of the sunset +this dizziness increased, confounding things above with things below. +Wide walls of wooded rock stood out above my head like a roof. I stared +at them until I fancied that I was staring down at a wooded plain. Below +me steeps of green swept down to the river. I stared at them until I +fancied that they swept up to the sky. The purple darkened, night drew +nearer; it seemed only to cut clearer the chasms and draw higher the +spires of that nightmare landscape. Above me in the twilight was +the huge black hulk of the driver, and his broad, blank back was as +mysterious as the back of Death in Watts' picture. I felt that I was +growing too fantastic, and I sought to speak of ordinary things. I +called out to the driver in French, "Where are you taking me?" and it +is a literal and solemn fact that he answered me in the same language +without turning around, "To the end of the world." + +I did not answer. I let him drag the vehicle up dark, steep ways, until +I saw lights under a low roof of little trees and two children, one +oddly beautiful, playing at ball. Then we found ourselves filling up the +strict main street of a tiny hamlet, and across the wall of its inn was +written in large letters, LE BOUT DU MONDE--the end of the world. + +The driver and I sat down outside that inn without a word, as if all +ceremonies were natural and understood in that ultimate place. I ordered +bread for both of us, and red wine, that was good but had no name. On +the other side of the road was a little plain church with a cross on top +of it and a cock on top of the cross. This seemed to me a very good end +of the world; if the story of the world ended here it ended well. Then +I wondered whether I myself should really be content to end here, where +most certainly there were the best things of Christendom--a church and +children's games and decent soil and a tavern for men to talk with men. +But as I thought a singular doubt and desire grew slowly in me, and at +last I started up. + +"Are you not satisfied?" asked my companion. "No," I said, "I am not +satisfied even at the end of the world." + +Then, after a silence, I said, "Because you see there are two ends of +the world. And this is the wrong end of the world; at least the wrong +one for me. This is the French end of the world. I want the other end of +the world. Drive me to the other end of the world." + +"The other end of the world?" he asked. "Where is that?" + +"It is in Walham Green," I whispered hoarsely. "You see it on the London +omnibuses. 'World's End and Walham Green.' Oh, I know how good this is; +I love your vineyards and your free peasantry, but I want the English +end of the world. I love you like a brother, but I want an English +cabman, who will be funny and ask me what his fare 'is.' Your bugles +stir my blood, but I want to see a London policeman. Take, oh, take me +to see a London policeman." + +He stood quite dark and still against the end of the sunset, and I could +not tell whether he understood or not. I got back into his carriage. + +"You will understand," I said, "if ever you are an exile even for +pleasure. The child to his mother, the man to his country, as a +countryman of yours once said. But since, perhaps, it is rather too long +a drive to the English end of the world, we may as well drive back to +Besanon." + +Only as the stars came out among those immortal hills I wept for Walham +Green. + + + + +IX. In the Place de La Bastille + +On the first of May I was sitting outside a caf in the Place de +la Bastille in Paris staring at the exultant column, crowned with a +capering figure, which stands in the place where the people destroyed a +prison and ended an age. The thing is a curious example of how symbolic +is the great part of human history. As a matter of mere material fact, +the Bastille when it was taken was not a horrible prison; it was hardly +a prison at all. But it was a symbol, and the people always go by a +sure instinct for symbols; for the Chinaman, for instance, at the last +General Election, or for President Kruger's hat in the election before; +their poetic sense is perfect. The Chinaman with his pigtail is not +an idle flippancy. He does typify with a compact precision exactly +the thing the people resent in African policy, the alien and grotesque +nature of the power of wealth, the fact that money has no roots, that it +is not a natural and familiar power, but a sort of airy and evil magic +calling monsters from the ends of the earth. The people hate the mine +owner who can bring a Chinaman flying across the sea, exactly as the +people hated the wizard who could fetch a flying dragon through the air. +It was the same with Mr. Kruger's hat. His hat (that admirable hat) was +not merely a joke. It did symbolise, and symbolise extremely well, the +exact thing which our people at that moment regarded with impatience and +venom; the old-fashioned, dingy, Republican simplicity, the unbeautiful +dignity of the bourgeois, and the heavier truisms of political morality. +No; the people are sometimes wrong on the practical side of politics; +they are never wrong on the artistic side. + +..... + +So it was, certainly, with the Bastille. The destruction of the Bastille +was not a reform; it was something more important than a reform. It was +an iconoclasm; it was the breaking of a stone image. The people saw the +building like a giant looking at them with a score of eyes, and they +struck at it as at a carved fact. For of all the shapes in which that +immense illusion called materialism can terrify the soul, perhaps the +most oppressive are big buildings. Man feels like a fly, an accident, +in the thing he has himself made. It requires a violent effort of the +spirit to remember that man made this confounding thing and man could +unmake it. Therefore the mere act of the ragged people in the street +taking and destroying a huge public building has a spiritual, a ritual +meaning far beyond its immediate political results. It is a religious +service. If, for instance, the Socialists were numerous or courageous +enough to capture and smash up the Bank of England, you might argue for +ever about the inutility of the act, and how it really did not touch the +root of the economic problem in the correct manner. But mankind would +never forget it. It would change the world. + +Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, +for the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable +things--marriage, for instance. And architecture approaches nearer than +any other art to being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get +rid of. You can turn a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a +nuisance to turn that Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. You +can tear a poem to pieces; it is only in moments of very sincere emotion +that you tear a town-hall to pieces. A building is akin to dogma; it +is insolent, like a dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims +permanence like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture +of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is +obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see +anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that +does not change like the clouds of the sky. But along with this decision +which is involved in creating a building, there goes a quite similar +decision in the more delightful task of smashing one. The two of +necessity go together. In few places have so many fine public buildings +been set up as here in Paris, and in few places have so many been +destroyed. When people have finally got into the horrible habit of +preserving buildings, they have got out of the habit of building them. +And in London one mingles, as it were, one's tears because so few are +pulled down. + +..... + +As I sat staring at the column of the Bastille, inscribed to Liberty and +Glory, there came out of one corner of the square (which, like so many +such squares, was at once crowded and quiet) a sudden and silent line of +horsemen. Their dress was of a dull blue, plain and prosaic enough, +but the sun set on fire the brass and steel of their helmets; and their +helmets were carved like the helmets of the Romans. I had seen them +by twos and threes often enough before. I had seen plenty of them in +pictures toiling through the snows of Friedland or roaring round +the squares at Waterloo. But now they came file after file, like an +invasion, and something in their numbers, or in the evening light that +lit up their faces and their crests, or something in the reverie into +which they broke, made me inclined to spring to my feet and cry out, +"The French soldiers!" There were the little men with the brown faces +that had so often ridden through the capitals of Europe as coolly as +they now rode through their own. And when I looked across the square I +saw that the two other corners were choked with blue and red; held +by little groups of infantry. The city was garrisoned as against a +revolution. + +Of course, I had heard all about the strike, chiefly from a baker. He +said he was not going to "Chomer." I said, "Qu'est-ce que c'est que le +chome?" He said, "Ils ne veulent pas travailler." I said, "Ni moi non +plus," and he thought I was a class-conscious collectivist proletarian. +The whole thing was curious, and the true moral of it one not easy for +us, as a nation, to grasp, because our own faults are so deeply and +dangerously in the other direction. To me, as an Englishman (personally +steeped in the English optimism and the English dislike of severity), +the whole thing seemed a fuss about nothing. It looked like turning out +one of the best armies in Europe against ordinary people walking +about the street. The cavalry charged us once or twice, more or less +harmlessly. But, of course, it is hard to say how far in such criticisms +one is assuming the French populace to be (what it is not) as docile as +the English. But the deeper truth of the matter tingled, so to speak, +through the whole noisy night. This people has a natural faculty for +feeling itself on the eve of something--of the Bartholomew or the +Revolution or the Commune or the Day of Judgment. It is this sense of +crisis that makes France eternally young. It is perpetually pulling down +and building up, as it pulled down the prison and put up the column +in the Place de La Bastille. France has always been at the point of +dissolution. She has found the only method of immortality. She dies +daily. + + + + +X. On Lying in Bed + +Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if +only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. +This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the +premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several +pails of Aspinall and a broom. Only if one worked in a really sweeping +and masterly way, and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip +down again on one's face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some +strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid +it would be necessary to stick to black and white in this form of +artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would +be of the greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of +a white ceiling being put to. + +But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have +discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in +a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really +allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, "Il me faut des gants." +But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern rooms +such as we all live in I was continually disappointed. I found an +endless pattern and complication of small objects hung like a curtain of +fine links between me and my desire. I examined the walls; I found them +to my surprise to be already covered with wallpaper, and I found the +wallpaper to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing +a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one +arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious +or philosophical significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my +nice walls like a sort of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to +wallpapers, I think, when it says, "Use not vain repetitions, as the +Gentiles do." I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, +rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish +Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I +suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. Everywhere that I went forlornly, +with my pencil or my paint brush, I found that others had unaccountably +been before me, spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with +their childish and barbaric designs. + +..... + +Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this +occasion when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying +on my back in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my +vision, that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition +of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom. But alas! +like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; +it looks more austere and more distant than the blue sky outside the +window. For my proposal to paint on it with the bristly end of a broom +has been discouraged--never mind by whom; by a person debarred from all +political rights--and even my minor proposal to put the other end of +the broom into the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been +conceded. Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that +all the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces +and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. I am +sure that it was only because Michael Angelo was engaged in the ancient +and honourable occupation of lying in bed that he ever realized how the +roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made into an awful imitation of a +divine drama that could only be acted in the heavens. + +The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is +hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to +mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous than +the exultation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the +expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties +and tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse than the modern +weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor +morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad +taste than of bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, +for cleanliness is made essential and godliness is regarded as an +offence. A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long as +he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met Ibsenite +pessimists who thought it wrong to take beer but right to take prussic +acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; notably such matters +as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, as it ought to be, as +a matter of personal convenience and adjustment, it has come to be +regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to get up +early in the morning. It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but +there is nothing good about it or bad about its opposite. + +..... + +Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get +up the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its +mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. +A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, +creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his +ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; +but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and +rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes +in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the +top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let +them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. This alarming growth of +good habits really means a too great emphasis on those virtues which +mere custom can ensure, it means too little emphasis on those virtues +which custom can never quite ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of +inspired pity or of inspired candour. If ever that abrupt appeal is made +to us we may fail. A man can get use to getting up at five o'clock in +the morning. A man cannot very well get used to being burnt for his +opinions; the first experiment is commonly fatal. Let us pay a little +more attention to these possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. +I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an +almost terrible virtue. + +For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic +caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like +journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, +for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that +the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution +I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it +without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, +of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it +without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he +does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific +explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac. + + + + +XI. The Twelve Men + +The other day, while I was meditating on morality and Mr. H. Pitt, I +was, so to speak, snatched up and put into a jury box to try people. +The snatching took some weeks, but to me it seemed something sudden and +arbitrary. I was put into this box because I lived in Battersea, and +my name began with a C. Looking round me, I saw that there were also +summoned and in attendance in the court whole crowds and processions of +men, all of whom lived in Battersea, and all of whose names began with a +C. + +It seems that they always summon jurymen in this sweeping alphabetical +way. At one official blow, so to speak, Battersea is denuded of all its +C's, and left to get on as best it can with the rest of the alphabet. A +Cumberpatch is missing from one street--a Chizzolpop from another--three +Chucksterfields from Chucksterfield House; the children are crying out +for an absent Cadgerboy; the woman at the street corner is weeping +for her Coffintop, and will not be comforted. We settle down with a +rollicking ease into our seats (for we are a bold, devil-may-care race, +the C's of Battersea), and an oath is administered to us in a totally +inaudible manner by an individual resembling an Army surgeon in his +second childhood. We understand, however, that we are to well and truly +try the case between our sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the +bar, neither of whom has put in an appearance as yet. + +..... + +Just when I was wondering whether the King and the prisoner were, +perhaps, coming to an amicable understanding in some adjoining public +house, the prisoner's head appears above the barrier of the dock; he +is accused of stealing bicycles, and he is the living image of a great +friend of mine. We go into the matter of the stealing of the bicycles. +We do well and truly try the case between the King and the prisoner in +the affair of the bicycles. And we come to the conclusion, after a brief +but reasonable discussion, that the King is not in any way implicated. +Then we pass on to a woman who neglected her children, and who looks as +if somebody or something had neglected her. And I am one of those who +fancy that something had. + +All the time that the eye took in these light appearances and the brain +passed these light criticisms, there was in the heart a barbaric pity +and fear which men have never been able to utter from the beginning, but +which is the power behind half the poems of the world. The mood cannot +even adequately be suggested, except faintly by this statement that +tragedy is the highest expression of the infinite value of human +life. Never had I stood so close to pain; and never so far away from +pessimism. Ordinarily, I should not have spoken of these dark emotions +at all, for speech about them is too difficult; but I mention them now +for a specific and particular reason to the statement of which I will +proceed at once. I speak these feelings because out of the furnace of +them there came a curious realisation of a political or social truth. I +saw with a queer and indescribable kind of clearness what a jury really +is, and why we must never let it go. + +The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards +specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers because +they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, trained +dancers because they dance better, specially instructed laughers because +they laugh better, and so on and so on. The principle has been applied +to law and politics by innumerable modern writers. Many Fabians have +insisted that a greater part of our political work should be performed +by experts. Many legalists have declared that the untrained jury should +be altogether supplanted by the trained Judge. + +..... + +Now, if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, I do +not know that there would be any fault to find with this. But the true +result of all experience and the true foundation of all religion is +this. That the four or five things that it is most practically essential +that a man should know, are all of them what people call paradoxes. That +is to say, that though we all find them in life to be mere plain truths, +yet we cannot easily state them in words without being guilty of seeming +verbal contradictions. One of them, for instance, is the unimpeachable +platitude that the man who finds most pleasure for himself is often the +man who least hunts for it. Another is the paradox of courage; the fact +that the way to avoid death is not to have too much aversion to it. +Whoever is careless enough of his bones to climb some hopeful cliff +above the tide may save his bones by that carelessness. Whoever will +lose his life, the same shall save it; an entirely practical and prosaic +statement. + +Now, one of these four or five paradoxes which should be taught to every +infant prattling at his mother's knee is the following: That the more a +man looks at a thing, the less he can see it, and the more a man learns +a thing the less he knows it. The Fabian argument of the expert, +that the man who is trained should be the man who is trusted would be +absolutely unanswerable if it were really true that a man who studied +a thing and practiced it every day went on seeing more and more of its +significance. But he does not. He goes on seeing less and less of its +significance. In the same way, alas! we all go on every day, unless we +are continually goading ourselves into gratitude and humility, seeing +less and less of the significance of the sky or the stones. + +..... + +Now it is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of +men. But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can to +other terrible things; he can even grow accustomed to the sun. And +the horrible thing about all legal officials, even the best, about all +judges, magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, is not +that they are wicked (some of them are good), not that they are stupid +(several of them are quite intelligent), it is simply that they have got +used to it. + +Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they see is +the usual man in the usual place. They do not see the awful court of +judgment; they only see their own workshop. Therefore, the instinct +of Christian civilisation has most wisely declared that into their +judgments there shall upon every occasion be infused fresh blood and +fresh thoughts from the streets. Men shall come in who can see the court +and the crowd, and coarse faces of the policeman and the professional +criminals, the wasted faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the +gesticulating counsel, and see it all as one sees a new picture or a +play hitherto unvisited. + +Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining +the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to +trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who +know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt +in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system +discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up specialists. But when +it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of +the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember +right, by the Founder of Christianity. + + + + +XII. The Wind and the Trees + +I am sitting under tall trees, with a great wind boiling like surf about +the tops of them, so that their living load of leaves rocks and roars in +something that is at once exultation and agony. I feel, in fact, as if +I were actually sitting at the bottom of the sea among mere anchors and +ropes, while over my head and over the green twilight of water sounded +the everlasting rush of waves and the toil and crash and shipwreck of +tremendous ships. The wind tugs at the trees as if it might pluck +them root and all out of the earth like tufts of grass. Or, to try yet +another desperate figure of speech for this unspeakable energy, the +trees are straining and tearing and lashing as if they were a tribe of +dragons each tied by the tail. + +As I look at these top-heavy giants tortured by an invisible and violent +witchcraft, a phrase comes back into my mind. I remember a little boy of +my acquaintance who was once walking in Battersea Park under just such +torn skies and tossing trees. He did not like the wind at all; it blew +in his face too much; it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his +hat, of which he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about +four. After complaining repeatedly of the atmospheric unrest, he said at +last to his mother, "Well, why don't you take away the trees, and then +it wouldn't wind." + +Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. Any +one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were +indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the +air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and +excusable than the belief that it is the trees which make the wind. +Indeed, the belief is so human and excusable that it is, as a matter +of fact, the belief of about ninety-nine out of a hundred of the +philosophers, reformers, sociologists, and politicians of the great age +in which we live. My small friend was, in fact, very like the principal +modern thinkers; only much nicer. + +..... + +In the little apologue or parable which he has thus the honour of +inventing, the trees stand for all visible things and the wind for the +invisible. The wind is the spirit which bloweth where it listeth; the +trees are the material things of the world which are blown where the +spirit lists. The wind is philosophy, religion, revolution; the trees +are cities and civilisations. We only know that there is a wind because +the trees on some distant hill suddenly go mad. We only know that there +is a real revolution because all the chimney-pots go mad on the whole +skyline of the city. + +Just as the ragged outline of a tree grows suddenly more ragged and +rises into fantastic crests or tattered tails, so the human city rises +under the wind of the spirit into toppling temples or sudden spires. No +man has ever seen a revolution. Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood +pouring down the gutters, the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, +a prison in ruins, a people in arms--these things are not revolution, +but the results of revolution. + +You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind. So, +also, you cannot see a revolution; you can only see that there is a +revolution. And there never has been in the history of the world a real +revolution, brutally active and decisive, which was not preceded by +unrest and new dogma in the reign of invisible things. All revolutions +began by being abstract. Most revolutions began by being quite +pedantically abstract. + +The wind is up above the world before a twig on the tree has moved. So +there must always be a battle in the sky before there is a battle on the +earth. Since it is lawful to pray for the coming of the kingdom, it is +lawful also to pray for the coming of the revolution that shall restore +the kingdom. It is lawful to hope to hear the wind of Heaven in the +trees. It is lawful to pray "Thine anger come on earth as it is in +Heaven." + +..... + +The great human dogma, then, is that the wind moves the trees. The great +human heresy is that the trees move the wind. When people begin to +say that the material circumstances have alone created the moral +circumstances, then they have prevented all possibility of serious +change. For if my circumstances have made me wholly stupid, how can I be +certain even that I am right in altering those circumstances? + +The man who represents all thought as an accident of environment is +simply smashing and discrediting all his own thoughts--including +that one. To treat the human mind as having an ultimate authority is +necessary to any kind of thinking, even free thinking. And nothing will +ever be reformed in this age or country unless we realise that the moral +fact comes first. + +For example, most of us, I suppose, have seen in print and heard in +debating clubs an endless discussion that goes on between Socialists and +total abstainers. The latter say that drink leads to poverty; the former +say that poverty leads to drink. I can only wonder at their either of +them being content with such simple physical explanations. Surely it +is obvious that the thing which among the English proletariat leads to +poverty is the same as the thing which leads to drink; the absence +of strong civic dignity, the absence of an instinct that resists +degradation. + +When you have discovered why enormous English estates were not long +ago cut up into small holdings like the land of France, you will have +discovered why the Englishman is more drunken than the Frenchman. +The Englishman, among his million delightful virtues, really has this +quality, which may strictly be called "hand to mouth," because under +its influence a man's hand automatically seeks his own mouth, instead of +seeking (as it sometimes should do) his oppressor's nose. And a man who +says that the English inequality in land is due only to economic causes, +or that the drunkenness of England is due only to economic causes, is +saying something so absurd that he cannot really have thought what he +was saying. + +Yet things quite as preposterous as this are said and written under the +influence of that great spectacle of babyish helplessness, the economic +theory of history. We have people who represent that all great historic +motives were economic, and then have to howl at the top of their voices +in order to induce the modern democracy to act on economic motives. The +extreme Marxian politicians in England exhibit themselves as a small, +heroic minority, trying vainly to induce the world to do what, according +to their theory, the world always does. The truth is, of course, that +there will be a social revolution the moment the thing has ceased to be +purely economic. You can never have a revolution in order to establish a +democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. + +..... + +I get up from under the trees, for the wind and the slight rain have +ceased. The trees stand up like golden pillars in a clear sunlight. +The tossing of the trees and the blowing of the wind have ceased +simultaneously. So I suppose there are still modern philosophers who +will maintain that the trees make the wind. + + + + +XIII. The Dickensian + +He was a quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw +hat; with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, but +with a quite unmilitary stoop and very dreamy eyes. He was gazing with a +rather gloomy interest at the cluster, one might almost say the tangle, +of small shipping which grew thicker as our little pleasure boat crawled +up into Yarmouth Harbour. A boat entering this harbour, as every one +knows, does not enter in front of the town like a foreigner, but creeps +round at the back like a traitor taking the town in the rear. The +passage of the river seems almost too narrow for traffic, and in +consequence the bigger ships look colossal. As we passed under a timber +ship from Norway, which seemed to block up the heavens like a cathedral, +the man in a straw hat pointed to an odd wooden figurehead carved like a +woman, and said, like one continuing a conversation, "Now, why have they +left off having them. They didn't do any one any harm?" + +I replied with some flippancy about the captain's wife being jealous; +but I knew in my heart that the man had struck a deep note. There has +been something in our most recent civilisation which is mysteriously +hostile to such healthy and humane symbols. + +"They hate anything like that, which is human and pretty," he continued, +exactly echoing my thoughts. "I believe they broke up all the jolly old +figureheads with hatchets and enjoyed doing it." + +"Like Mr. Quilp," I answered, "when he battered the wooden Admiral with +the poker." + +His whole face suddenly became alive, and for the first time he stood +erect and stared at me. + +"Do you come to Yarmouth for that?" he asked. + +"For what?" + +"For Dickens," he answered, and drummed with his foot on the deck. + +"No," I answered; "I come for fun, though that is much the same thing." + +"I always come," he answered quietly, "to find Peggotty's boat. It isn't +here." + +And when he said that I understood him perfectly. + +There are two Yarmouths; I daresay there are two hundred to the people +who live there. I myself have never come to the end of the list of +Batterseas. But there are two to the stranger and tourist; the poor +part, which is dignified, and the prosperous part, which is savagely +vulgar. My new friend haunted the first of these like a ghost; to the +latter he would only distantly allude. + +"The place is very much spoilt now... trippers, you know," he would say, +not at all scornfully, but simply sadly. That was the nearest he would +go to an admission of the monstrous watering place that lay along +the front, outblazing the sun, and more deafening than the sea. But +behind--out of earshot of this uproar--there are lanes so narrow that +they seem like secret entrances to some hidden place of repose. There +are squares so brimful of silence that to plunge into one of them is +like plunging into a pool. In these places the man and I paced up and +down talking about Dickens, or, rather, doing what all true Dickensians +do, telling each other verbatim long passages which both of us knew +quite well already. We were really in the atmosphere of the older +England. Fishermen passed us who might well have been characters like +Peggotty; we went into a musty curiosity shop and bought pipe-stoppers +carved into figures from Pickwick. The evening was settling down between +all the buildings with that slow gold that seems to soak everything when +we went into the church. + +In the growing darkness of the church, my eye caught the coloured +windows which on that clear golden evening were flaming with all the +passionate heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian arts. +At length I said to my companion: + +"Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant for the +angel at the sepulchre." + +He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows. + +"I daresay," he said. "What is there odd about that?" + +After a pause I said, "Do you remember what the angel at the sepulchre +said?" + +"Not particularly," he answered; "but where are you off to in such a +hurry?" + +I walked him rapidly out of the still square, past the fishermen's +almshouses, towards the coast, he still inquiring indignantly where I +was going. + +"I am going," I said, "to put pennies in automatic machines on the +beach. I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my +photograph taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer out of its original +bottle. I will buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat. I am ready +to listen to a concertina, and but for the defects of my education +should be ready to play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, +if the donkey is willing. I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was +commanded me by the angel in the stained-glass window." + +"I really think," said the Dickensian, "that I had better put you in +charge of your relations." + +"Sir," I answered, "there are certain writers to whom humanity owes +much, whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective a +type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain +perishing associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the spirit +of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even for the shade of Thackeray +in Old Kensington. But let us have no antiquarianism about Dickens, for +Dickens is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward, but forward; +he might look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury, but he +would love to look at them. He might lash our democracy, but it would +be because, like a democrat, he asked much from it. We will not have all +his books bound up under the title of 'The Old Curiosity Shop.' Rather +we will have them all bound up under the title of 'Great Expectations.' +Wherever humanity is he would have us face it and make something of it, +swallow it with a holy cannibalism, and assimilate it with the digestion +of a giant. We must take these trippers as he would have taken them, and +tear out of them their tragedy and their farce. Do you remember now what +the angel said at the sepulchre? 'Why seek ye the living among the dead? +He is not here; he is risen.'" + +With that we came out suddenly on the wide stretch of the sands, which +were black with the knobs and masses of our laughing and quite desperate +democracy. And the sunset, which was now in its final glory, flung far +over all of them a red flush and glitter like the gigantic firelight +of Dickens. In that strange evening light every figure looked at once +grotesque and attractive, as if he had a story to tell. I heard a little +girl (who was being throttled by another little girl) say by way of +self-vindication, "My sister-in-law 'as got four rings aside her weddin' +ring!" + +I stood and listened for more, but my friend went away. + + + + +XIV. In Topsy-Turvy Land + +Last week, in an idle metaphor, I took the tumbling of trees and the +secret energy of the wind as typical of the visible world moving under +the violence of the invisible. I took this metaphor merely because I +happened to be writing the article in a wood. Nevertheless, now that I +return to Fleet Street (which seems to me, I confess, much better and +more poetical than all the wild woods in the world), I am strangely +haunted by this accidental comparison. The people's figures seem a +forest and their soul a wind. All the human personalities which speak or +signal to me seem to have this fantastic character of the fringe of the +forest against the sky. That man that talks to me, what is he but an +articulate tree? That driver of a van who waves his hands wildly at me +to tell me to get out of the way, what is he but a bunch of branches +stirred and swayed by a spiritual wind, a sylvan object that I can +continue to contemplate with calm? That policeman who lifts his hand +to warn three omnibuses of the peril that they run in encountering my +person, what is he but a shrub shaken for a moment with that blast +of human law which is a thing stronger than anarchy? Gradually this +impression of the woods wears off. But this black-and-white contrast +between the visible and invisible, this deep sense that the one +essential belief is belief in the invisible as against the visible, +is suddenly and sensationally brought back to my mind. Exactly at +the moment when Fleet Street has grown most familiar (that is, most +bewildering and bright), my eye catches a poster of vivid violet, on +which I see written in large black letters these remarkable words: +"Should Shop Assistants Marry?" + +..... + +When I saw those words everything might just as well have turned upside +down. The men in Fleet Street might have been walking about on their +hands. The cross of St. Paul's might have been hanging in the air upside +down. For I realise that I have really come into a topsy-turvy country; +I have come into the country where men do definitely believe that the +waving of the trees makes the wind. That is to say, they believe +that the material circumstances, however black and twisted, are more +important than the spiritual realities, however powerful and pure. +"Should Shop Assistants Marry?" I am puzzled to think what some periods +and schools of human history would have made of such a question. The +ascetics of the East or of some periods of the early Church would have +thought that the question meant, "Are not shop assistants too saintly, +too much of another world, even to feel the emotions of the sexes?" But +I suppose that is not what the purple poster means. In some pagan cities +it might have meant, "Shall slaves so vile as shop assistants even be +allowed to propagate their abject race?" But I suppose that is not what +the purple poster meant. We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what +it does mean. It does really mean that a section of the human race +is asking whether the primary relations of the two human sexes are +particularly good for modern shops. The human race is asking whether +Adam and Eve are entirely suitable for Marshall and Snelgrove. If this +is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine what would be. We ask whether +the universal institution will improve our (please God) temporary +institution. Yet I have known many such questions. For instance, I have +known a man ask seriously, "Does Democracy help the Empire?" Which is +like saying, "Is art favourable to frescoes?" + +I say that there are many such questions asked. But if the world +ever runs short of them, I can suggest a large number of questions of +precisely the same kind, based on precisely the same principle. + +"Do Feet Improve Boots?"--"Is Bread Better when Eaten?"--"Should +Hats have Heads in them?"--"Do People Spoil a Town?"--"Do Walls +Ruin Wall-papers?"--"Should Neckties enclose Necks?"--"Do Hands Hurt +Walking-sticks?"--"Does Burning Destroy Firewood?"--"Is Cleanliness Good +for Soap?"--"Can Cricket Really Improve Cricket-bats?"--"Shall We Take +Brides with our Wedding Rings?" and a hundred others. + +Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport or in +intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from the +purple poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by half of the +earnest economists of our times. All the questions they ask are of this +character; they are all tinged with this same initial absurdity. They do +not ask if the means is suited to the end; they all ask (with profound +and penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited to the means. They do +not ask whether the tail suits the dog. They all ask whether a dog is +(by the highest artistic canons) the most ornamental appendage that can +be put at the end of a tail. In short, instead of asking whether our +modern arrangements, our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete +institutions are suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy +human life, they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion +at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; and then they +only ask whether that healthy human life is suited to our streets and +trades. Perfection may be attainable or unattainable as an end. It may +or may not be possible to talk of imperfection as a means to perfection. +But surely it passes toleration to talk of perfection as a means to +imperfection. The New Jerusalem may be a reality. It may be a dream. But +surely it is too outrageous to say that the New Jerusalem is a reality +on the road to Birmingham. + +..... + +This is the most enormous and at the same time the most secret of the +modern tyrannies of materialism. In theory the thing ought to be simple +enough. A really human human being would always put the spiritual +things first. A walking and speaking statue of God finds himself at +one particular moment employed as a shop assistant. He has in himself +a power of terrible love, a promise of paternity, a thirst for some +loyalty that shall unify life, and in the ordinary course of things he +asks himself, "How far do the existing conditions of those assisting in +shops fit in with my evident and epic destiny in the matter of love and +marriage?" But here, as I have said, comes in the quiet and crushing +power of modern materialism. It prevents him rising in rebellion, as he +would otherwise do. By perpetually talking about environment and visible +things, by perpetually talking about economics and physical necessity, +painting and keeping repainted a perpetual picture of iron machinery +and merciless engines, of rails of steel, and of towers of stone, modern +materialism at last produces this tremendous impression in which the +truth is stated upside down. At last the result is achieved. The man +does not say as he ought to have said, "Should married men endure being +modern shop assistants?" The man says, "Should shop assistants marry?" +Triumph has completed the immense illusion of materialism. The +slave does not say, "Are these chains worthy of me?" The slave says +scientifically and contentedly, "Am I even worthy of these chains?" + + + + +XV. What I Found in My Pocket + +Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have made +the Empire what it is--a man in an astracan coat, with an astracan +moustache--a tight, black, curly moustache. Whether he put on the +moustache with the coat or whether his Napoleonic will enabled him not +only to grow a moustache in the usual place, but also to grow little +moustaches all over his clothes, I do not know. I only remember that he +said to me the following words: "A man can't get on nowadays by hanging +about with his hands in his pockets." I made reply with the quite +obvious flippancy that perhaps a man got on by having his hands in other +people's pockets; whereupon he began to argue about Moral Evolution, so +I suppose what I said had some truth in it. But the incident now comes +back to me, and connects itself with another incident--if you can call +it an incident--which happened to me only the other day. + +I have only once in my life picked a pocket, and then (perhaps through +some absent-mindedness) I picked my own. My act can really with some +reason be so described. For in taking things out of my own pocket I had +at least one of the more tense and quivering emotions of the thief; I +had a complete ignorance and a profound curiosity as to what I should +find there. Perhaps it would be the exaggeration of eulogy to call me a +tidy person. But I can always pretty satisfactorily account for all my +possessions. I can always tell where they are, and what I have done with +them, so long as I can keep them out of my pockets. If once anything +slips into those unknown abysses, I wave it a sad Virgilian farewell. +I suppose that the things that I have dropped into my pockets are still +there; the same presumption applies to the things that I have dropped +into the sea. But I regard the riches stored in both these bottomless +chasms with the same reverent ignorance. They tell us that on the +last day the sea will give up its dead; and I suppose that on the same +occasion long strings of extraordinary things will come running out of +my pockets. But I have quite forgotten what any of them are; and there +is really nothing (excepting the money) that I shall be at all surprised +at finding among them. + +..... + +Such at least has hitherto been my state of innocence. I here only wish +briefly to recall the special, extraordinary, and hitherto unprecedented +circumstances which led me in cold blood, and being of sound mind, to +turn out my pockets. I was locked up in a third-class carriage for a +rather long journey. The time was towards evening, but it might have +been anything, for everything resembling earth or sky or light or shade +was painted out as if with a great wet brush by an unshifting sheet of +quite colourless rain. I had no books or newspapers. I had not even a +pencil and a scrap of paper with which to write a religious epic. There +were no advertisements on the walls of the carriage, otherwise I could +have plunged into the study, for any collection of printed words is +quite enough to suggest infinite complexities of mental ingenuity. When +I find myself opposite the words "Sunlight Soap" I can exhaust all the +aspects of Sun Worship, Apollo, and Summer poetry before I go on to the +less congenial subject of soap. But there was no printed word or picture +anywhere; there was nothing but blank wood inside the carriage and blank +wet without. Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can be, +uninteresting. So I stared at the joints of the walls and seats, and +began thinking hard on the fascinating subject of wood. Just as I had +begun to realise why, perhaps, it was that Christ was a carpenter, +rather than a bricklayer, or a baker, or anything else, I suddenly +started upright, and remembered my pockets. I was carrying about with +me an unknown treasury. I had a British Museum and a South Kensington +collection of unknown curios hung all over me in different places. I +began to take the things out. + +..... + +The first thing I came upon consisted of piles and heaps of Battersea +tram tickets. There were enough to equip a paper chase. They shook +down in showers like confetti. Primarily, of course, they touched my +patriotic emotions, and brought tears to my eyes; also they provided me +with the printed matter I required, for I found on the back of them some +short but striking little scientific essays about some kind of pill. +Comparatively speaking, in my then destitution, those tickets might +be regarded as a small but well-chosen scientific library. Should my +railway journey continue (which seemed likely at the time) for a +few months longer, I could imagine myself throwing myself into the +controversial aspects of the pill, composing replies and rejoinders pro +and con upon the data furnished to me. But after all it was the symbolic +quality of the tickets that moved me most. For as certainly as the cross +of St. George means English patriotism, those scraps of paper meant all +that municipal patriotism which is now, perhaps, the greatest hope of +England. + +The next thing that I took out was a pocket-knife. A pocket-knife, I +need hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral meditations +all to itself. A knife typifies one of the most primary of those +practical origins upon which as upon low, thick pillows all our human +civilisation reposes. Metals, the mystery of the thing called iron and +of the thing called steel, led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream. +I saw into the intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among +all the common stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent +battle, in which stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered +against something shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. +I heard all the hammers on all the anvils of the earth. I saw all the +swords of Feudal and all the weals of Industrial war. For the knife is +only a short sword; and the pocket-knife is a secret sword. I opened it +and looked at that brilliant and terrible tongue which we call a blade; +and I thought that perhaps it was the symbol of the oldest of the needs +of man. The next moment I knew that I was wrong; for the thing that came +next out of my pocket was a box of matches. Then I saw fire, which is +stronger even than steel, the old, fierce female thing, the thing we all +love, but dare not touch. + +The next thing I found was a piece of chalk; and I saw in it all the art +and all the frescoes of the world. The next was a coin of a very modest +value; and I saw in it not only the image and superscription of our own +Caesar, but all government and order since the world began. But I have +not space to say what were the items in the long and splendid procession +of poetical symbols that came pouring out. I cannot tell you all the +things that were in my pocket. I can tell you one thing, however, that I +could not find in my pocket. I allude to my railway ticket. + + + + +XVI. The Dragon's Grandmother + +I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. I do not +mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated in them--that he +did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into a coach. He did, indeed, +entertain this curious disbelief. And, like all the other people I +have ever met who entertained it, he was wholly unable to give me an +intelligent reason for it. He tried the laws of nature, but he soon +dropped that. Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary +experience, and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted +pumpkinity. But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we +adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply the attitude we +adopt towards all unusual occurrences. If we were certain of miracles +we should not count on them. Things that happen very seldom we all leave +out of our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. I do not +expect a glass of water to be turned into wine; but neither do I expect +a glass of water to be poisoned with prussic acid. I do not in ordinary +business relations act on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but +neither do I act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost +heir of the Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is not that the +natural order is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet +on uncommon incidents than on common ones. This does not touch the +credibility of any attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned +into a coach. If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car +with my own eyes that would not make me any more inclined to assume +that the same thing would happen again. I should not invest largely in +pumpkins with an eye to the motor trade. Cinderella got a ball dress +from the fairy; but I do not suppose that she looked after her own +clothes any the less after it. + +But the view that fairy tales cannot really have happened, though crazy, +is common. The man I speak of disbelieved in fairy tales in an even more +amazing and perverted sense. He actually thought that fairy tales +ought not to be told to children. That is (like a belief in slavery +or annexation) one of those intellectual errors which lie very near to +ordinary mortal sins. There are some refusals which, though they may be +done what is called conscientiously, yet carry so much of their whole +horror in the very act of them, that a man must in doing them not only +harden but slightly corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of +milk to young mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. +Another is the refusal of fairy tales to children. + +..... + +The man had come to see me in connection with some silly society +of which I am an enthusiastic member; he was a fresh-coloured, +short-sighted young man, like a stray curate who was too helpless even +to find his way to the Church of England. He had a curious green necktie +and a very long neck; I am always meeting idealists with very long +necks. Perhaps it is that their eternal aspiration slowly lifts their +heads nearer and nearer to the stars. Or perhaps it has something to +do with the fact that so many of them are vegetarians: perhaps they are +slowly evolving the neck of the giraffe so that they can eat all the +tops of the trees in Kensington Gardens. These things are in every sense +above me. Such, anyhow, was the young man who did not believe in fairy +tales; and by a curious coincidence he entered the room when I had just +finished looking through a pile of contemporary fiction, and had begun +to read "Grimm's Fairy tales" as a natural consequence. + +The modern novels stood before me, however, in a stack; and you can +imagine their titles for yourself. There was "Suburban Sue: A Tale of +Psychology," and also "Psychological Sue: A Tale of Suburbia"; there was +"Trixy: A Temperament," and "Man-Hate: A Monochrome," and all those nice +things. I read them with real interest, but, curiously enough, I grew +tired of them at last, and when I saw "Grimm's Fairy Tales" lying +accidentally on the table, I gave a cry of indecent joy. Here at least, +here at last, one could find a little common sense. I opened the book, +and my eyes fell on these splendid and satisfying words, "The Dragon's +Grandmother." That at least was reasonable; that at least was true. "The +Dragon's Grandmother!" While I was rolling this first touch of ordinary +human reality upon my tongue, I looked up suddenly and saw this monster +with a green tie standing in the doorway. + +..... + +I listened to what he said about the society politely enough, I hope; +but when he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe in fairy +tales, I broke out beyond control. "Man," I said, "who are you that you +should not believe in fairy tales? It is much easier to believe in Blue +Beard than to believe in you. A blue beard is a misfortune; but there +are green ties which are sins. It is far easier to believe in a million +fairy tales than to believe in one man who does not like fairy tales. I +would rather kiss Grimm instead of a Bible and swear to all his stories +as if they were thirty-nine articles than say seriously and out of +my heart that there can be such a man as you; that you are not some +temptation of the devil or some delusion from the void. Look at these +plain, homely, practical words. 'The Dragon's Grandmother,' that is all +right; that is rational almost to the verge of rationalism. If there was +a dragon, he had a grandmother. But you--you had no grandmother! If you +had known one, she would have taught you to love fairy tales. You had no +father, you had no mother; no natural causes can explain you. You cannot +be. I believe many things which I have not seen; but of such things +as you it may be said, 'Blessed is he that has seen and yet has +disbelieved.'" + +..... + +It seemed to me that he did not follow me with sufficient delicacy, so I +moderated my tone. "Can you not see," I said, "that fairy tales in their +essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting +fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? +Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild +and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of +routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the +fairy tale is--what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The +problem of the modern novel is--what will a madman do with a dull world? +In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. +In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and +suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos. In the +excellent tale of 'The Dragon's Grandmother,' in all the other tales of +Grimm, it is assumed that the young man setting out on his travels +will have all substantial truths in him; that he will be brave, full +of faith, reasonable, that he will respect his parents, keep his word, +rescue one kind of people, defy another kind, 'parcere subjectis et +debellare,' etc. Then, having assumed this centre of sanity, the writer +entertains himself by fancying what would happen if the whole world went +mad all round it, if the sun turned green and the moon blue, if horses +had six legs and giants had two heads. But your modern literature +takes insanity as its centre. Therefore, it loses the interest even of +insanity. A lunatic is not startling to himself, because he is quite +serious; that is what makes him a lunatic. A man who thinks he is a +piece of glass is to himself as dull as a piece of glass. A man who +thinks he is a chicken is to himself as common as a chicken. It is only +sanity that can see even a wild poetry in insanity. Therefore, these +wise old tales made the hero ordinary and the tale extraordinary. +But you have made the hero extraordinary and the tale ordinary--so +ordinary--oh, so very ordinary." + +I saw him still gazing at me fixedly. Some nerve snapped in me under the +hypnotic stare. I leapt to my feet and cried, "In the name of God +and Democracy and the Dragon's grandmother--in the name of all good +things--I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more." Whether +or no it was the result of the exorcism, there is no doubt that he +definitely went away. + + + + +XVII. The Red Angel + +I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad +for children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him I can +never count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest letter +saying that fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even if +they are true. She says that it is cruel to tell children fairy tales, +because it frightens them. You might just as well say that it is cruel +to give girls sentimental novels because it makes them cry. All this +kind of talk is based on that complete forgetting of what a child is +like which has been the firm foundation of so many educational schemes. +If you keep bogies and goblins away from children they would make them +up for themselves. One small child in the dark can invent more hells +than Swedenborg. One small child can imagine monsters too big and +black to get into any picture, and give them names too unearthly and +cacophonous to have occurred in the cries of any lunatic. The child, to +begin with, commonly likes horrors, and he continues to indulge in them +even when he does not like them. There is just as much difficulty in +saying exactly where pure pain begins in his case, as there is in ours +when we walk of our own free will into the torture-chamber of a great +tragedy. The fear does not come from fairy tales; the fear comes from +the universe of the soul. + +..... + +The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are +alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They +dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be +alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics +worship it--because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible +for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy +tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is +in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales +do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the +child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby +has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What +the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. + +Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series +of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, +that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that +there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and +stronger than strong fear. When I was a child I have stared at the +darkness until the whole black bulk of it turned into one negro giant +taller than heaven. If there was one star in the sky it only made him a +Cyclops. But fairy tales restored my mental health, for next day I read +an authentic account of how a negro giant with one eye, of quite equal +dimensions, had been baffled by a little boy like myself (of similar +inexperience and even lower social status) by means of a sword, some +bad riddles, and a brave heart. Sometimes the sea at night seemed as +dreadful as any dragon. But then I was acquainted with many youngest +sons and little sailors to whom a dragon or two was as simple as the +sea. + +Take the most horrible of Grimm's tales in incident and imagery, the +excellent tale of the "Boy who Could not Shudder," and you will see what +I mean. There are some living shocks in that tale. I remember specially +a man's legs which fell down the chimney by themselves and walked about +the room, until they were rejoined by the severed head and body which +fell down the chimney after them. That is very good. But the point +of the story and the point of the reader's feelings is not that these +things are frightening, but the far more striking fact that the hero was +not frightened at them. The most fearful of all these fearful wonders +was his own absence of fear. He slapped the bogies on the back and asked +the devils to drink wine with him; many a time in my youth, when stifled +with some modern morbidity, I have prayed for a double portion of his +spirit. If you have not read the end of his story, go and read it; it is +the wisest thing in the world. The hero was at last taught to shudder +by taking a wife, who threw a pail of cold water over him. In that one +sentence there is more of the real meaning of marriage than in all the +books about sex that cover Europe and America. + +..... + +At the four corners of a child's bed stand Perseus and Roland, Sigurd +and St. George. If you withdraw the guard of heroes you are not making +him rational; you are only leaving him to fight the devils alone. For +the devils, alas, we have always believed in. The hopeful element in the +universe has in modern times continually been denied and reasserted; but +the hopeless element has never for a moment been denied. As I told "H. +N. B." (whom I pause to wish a Happy Christmas in its most superstitious +sense), the one thing modern people really do believe in is damnation. +The greatest of purely modern poets summed up the really modern attitude +in that fine Agnostic line-- + +"There may be Heaven; there must be Hell." + +The gloomy view of the universe has been a continuous tradition; and the +new types of spiritual investigation or conjecture all begin by being +gloomy. A little while ago men believed in no spirits. Now they are +beginning rather slowly to believe in rather slow spirits. + +..... + +Some people objected to spiritualism, table rappings, and such things, +because they were undignified, because the ghosts cracked jokes or +waltzed with dinner-tables. I do not share this objection in the least. +I wish the spirits were more farcical than they are. That they should +make more jokes and better ones, would be my suggestion. For almost all +the spiritualism of our time, in so far as it is new, is solemn and sad. +Some Pagan gods were lawless, and some Christian saints were a little +too serious; but the spirits of modern spiritualism are both lawless and +serious--a disgusting combination. The specially contemporary spirits +are not only devils, they are blue devils. This is, first and last, the +real value of Christmas; in so far as the mythology remains at all it +is a kind of happy mythology. Personally, of course, I believe in Santa +Claus; but it is the season of forgiveness, and I will forgive others +for not doing so. But if there is anyone who does not comprehend the +defect in our world which I am civilising, I should recommend him, for +instance, to read a story by Mr. Henry James, called "The Turn of the +Screw." It is one of the most powerful things ever written, and it is +one of the things about which I doubt most whether it ought ever to +have been written at all. It describes two innocent children gradually +growing at once omniscient and half-witted under the influence of the +foul ghosts of a groom and a governess. As I say, I doubt whether Mr. +Henry James ought to have published it (no, it is not indecent, do not +buy it; it is a spiritual matter), but I think the question so doubtful +that I will give that truly great man a chance. I will approve the thing +as well as admire it if he will write another tale just as powerful +about two children and Santa Claus. If he will not, or cannot, then the +conclusion is clear; we can deal strongly with gloomy mystery, but not +with happy mystery; we are not rationalists, but diabolists. + +..... + +I have thought vaguely of all this staring at a great red fire that +stands up in the room like a great red angel. But, perhaps, you have +never heard of a red angel. But you have heard of a blue devil. That is +exactly what I mean. + + + + +XVIII. The Tower + +I have been standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great +Belfry Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought (though +not, perhaps, said), that it is built in defiance of all decencies of +architecture. It is made in deliberate disproportion to achieve the one +startling effect of height. It is a church on stilts. But this sort of +sublime deformity is characteristic of the whole fancy and energy +of these Flemish cities. Flanders has the flattest and most prosaic +landscapes, but the most violent and extravagant of buildings. Here +Nature is tame; it is civilisation that is untamable. Here the fields +are as flat as a paved square; but, on the other hand, the streets and +roofs are as uproarious as a forest in a great wind. The waters of wood +and meadow slide as smoothly and meekly as if they were in the London +water-pipes. But the parish pump is carved with all the creatures out of +the wilderness. Part of this is true, of course, of all art. We talk of +wild animals, but the wildest animal is man. There are sounds in music +that are more ancient and awful than the cry of the strangest beast +at night. And so also there are buildings that are shapeless in their +strength, seeming to lift themselves slowly like monsters from the +primal mire, and there are spires that seem to fly up suddenly like a +startled bird. + +..... + +This savagery even in stone is the expression of the special spirit in +humanity. All the beasts of the field are respectable; it is only man +who has broken loose. All animals are domestic animals; only man is ever +undomestic. All animals are tame animals; it is only we who are wild. +And doubtless, also, while this queer energy is common to all human art, +it is also generally characteristic of Christian art among the arts +of the world. This is what people really mean when they say that +Christianity is barbaric, and arose in ignorance. As a matter of +historic fact, it didn't; it arose in the most equably civilised period +the world has ever seen. + +But it is true that there is something in it that breaks the outline +of perfect and conventional beauty, something that dots with anger the +blind eyes of the Apollo and lashes to a cavalry charge the horses +of the Elgin Marbles. Christianity is savage, in the sense that it is +primeval; there is in it a touch of the nigger hymn. I remember a debate +in which I had praised militant music in ritual, and some one asked me +if I could imagine Christ walking down the street before a brass band. +I said I could imagine it with the greatest ease; for Christ definitely +approved a natural noisiness at a great moment. When the street children +shouted too loud, certain priggish disciples did begin to rebuke them in +the name of good taste. He said: "If these were silent the very stones +would cry out." With these words He called up all the wealth of artistic +creation that has been founded on this creed. With those words He +founded Gothic architecture. For in a town like this, which seems to +have grown Gothic as a wood grows leaves, anywhere and anyhow, any odd +brick or moulding may be carved off into a shouting face. The front of +vast buildings is thronged with open mouths, angels praising God, or +devils defying Him. Rock itself is racked and twisted, until it seems to +scream. The miracle is accomplished; the very stones cry out. + +But though this furious fancy is certainly a specialty of men among +creatures, and of Christian art among arts, it is still most notable in +the art of Flanders. All Gothic buildings are full of extravagant things +in detail; but this is an extravagant thing in design. All Christian +temples worth talking about have gargoyles; but Bruges Belfry is a +gargoyle. It is an unnaturally long-necked animal, like a giraffe. The +same impression of exaggeration is forced on the mind at every corner of +a Flemish town. And if any one asks, "Why did the people of these flat +countries instinctively raise these riotous and towering monuments?" the +only answer one can give is, "Because they were the people of these +flat countries." If any one asks, "Why the men of Bruges sacrificed +architecture and everything to the sense of dizzy and divine heights?" +we can only answer, "Because Nature gave them no encouragement to do +so." + +..... + +As I stare at the Belfry, I think with a sort of smile of some of my +friends in London who are quite sure of how children will turn out +if you give them what they call "the right environment." It is a +troublesome thing, environment, for it sometimes works positively +and sometimes negatively, and more often between the two. A beautiful +environment may make a child love beauty; it may make him bored with +beauty; most likely the two effects will mix and neutralise each other. +Most likely, that is, the environment will make hardly any difference at +all. In the scientific style of history (which was recently fashionable, +and is still conventional) we always had a list of countries that had +owed their characteristics to their physical conditions. + +The Spaniards (it was said) are passionate because their country is +hot; Scandinavians adventurous because their country is cold; Englishmen +naval because they are islanders; Switzers free because they are +mountaineers. It is all very nice in its way. Only unfortunately I am +quite certain that I could make up quite as long a list exactly contrary +in its argument point-blank against the influence of their geographical +environment. Thus Spaniards have discovered more continents than +Scandinavians because their hot climate discouraged them from exertion. +Thus Dutchmen have fought for their freedom quite as bravely as Switzers +because the Dutch have no mountains. Thus Pagan Greece and Rome and many +Mediterranean peoples have specially hated the sea because they had the +nicest sea to deal with, the easiest sea to manage. I could extend the +list for ever. But however long it was, two examples would certainly +stand up in it as pre-eminent and unquestionable. The first is that the +Swiss, who live under staggering precipices and spires of eternal snow, +have produced no art or literature at all, and are by far the most +mundane, sensible, and business-like people in Europe. The other is that +the people of Belgium, who live in a country like a carpet, have, by an +inner energy, desired to exalt their towers till they struck the stars. + +As it is therefore quite doubtful whether a person will go specially +with his environment or specially against his environment, I cannot +comfort myself with the thought that the modern discussions about +environment are of much practical value. But I think I will not write +any more about these modern theories, but go on looking at the Belfry +of Bruges. I would give them the greater attention if I were not pretty +well convinced that the theories will have disappeared a long time +before the Belfry. + + + + +XIX. How I Met the President + +Several years ago, when there was a small war going on in South Africa +and a great fuss going on in England, when it was by no means so popular +and convenient to be a Pro-Boer as it is now, I remember making a bright +suggestion to my Pro-Boer friends and allies, which was not, I regret to +say, received with the seriousness it deserved. I suggested that a band +of devoted and noble youths, including ourselves, should express our +sense of the pathos of the President's and the Republic's fate by +growing Kruger beards under our chins. I imagined how abruptly this +decoration would alter the appearance of Mr. John Morley; how startling +it would be as it emerged from under the chin of Mr. Lloyd-George. But +the younger men, my own friends, on whom I more particularly urged +it, men whose names are in many cases familiar to the readers of this +paper--Mr. Masterman's for instance, and Mr. Conrad Noel--they, I felt, +being young and beautiful, would do even more justice to the Kruger +beard, and when walking down the street with it could not fail to +attract attention. The beard would have been a kind of counterblast to +the Rhodes hat. An appropriate counterblast; for the Rhodesian power in +Africa is only an external thing, placed upon the top like a hat; the +Dutch power and tradition is a thing rooted and growing like a beard; +we have shaved it, and it is growing again. The Kruger beard would +represent time and the natural processes. You cannot grow a beard in a +moment of passion. + +..... + +After making this proposal to my friends I hurriedly left town. I went +down to a West Country place where there was shortly afterwards an +election, at which I enjoyed myself very much canvassing for the Liberal +candidate. The extraordinary thing was that he got in. I sometimes lie +awake at night and meditate upon that mystery; but it must not detain us +now. The rather singular incident which happened to me then, and which +some recent events have recalled to me, happened while the canvassing +was still going on. It was a burning blue day, and the warm sunshine, +settling everywhere on the high hedges and the low hills, brought out +into a kind of heavy bloom that HUMANE quality of the landscape which, +as far as I know, only exists in England; that sense as if the bushes +and the roads were human, and had kindness like men; as if the tree were +a good giant with one wooden leg; as if the very line of palings were a +row of good-tempered gnomes. On one side of the white, sprawling road a +low hill or down showed but a little higher than the hedge, on the +other the land tumbled down into a valley that opened towards the Mendip +hills. The road was very erratic, for every true English road exists +in order to lead one a dance; and what could be more beautiful and +beneficent than a dance? At an abrupt turn of it I came upon a low white +building, with dark doors and dark shuttered windows, evidently not +inhabited and scarcely in the ordinary sense inhabitable--a thing more +like a toolhouse than a house of any other kind. Made idle by the heat, +I paused, and, taking a piece of red chalk out of my pocket, began +drawing aimlessly on the back door--drawing goblins and Mr. Chamberlain, +and finally the ideal Nationalist with the Kruger beard. The materials +did not permit of any delicate rendering of his noble and national +expansion of countenance (stoical and yet hopeful, full of tears for +man, and yet of an element of humour); but the hat was finely handled. +Just as I was adding the finishing touches to the Kruger fantasy, I was +frozen to the spot with terror. The black door, which I thought no more +of than the lid of an empty box, began slowly to open, impelled from +within by a human hand. And President Kruger himself came out into the +sunlight! + +He was a shade milder of eye than he was in his portraits, and he did +not wear that ceremonial scarf which was usually, in such pictures, +slung across his ponderous form. But there was the hat which filled the +Empire with so much alarm; there were the clumsy dark clothes, there was +the heavy, powerful face; there, above all, was the Kruger beard which +I had sought to evoke (if I may use the verb) from under the features +of Mr. Masterman. Whether he had the umbrella or not I was too much +emotionally shaken to observe; he had not the stone lions with him, or +Mrs. Kruger; and what he was doing in that dark shed I cannot imagine, +but I suppose he was oppressing an Outlander. + +I was surprised, I must confess, to meet President Kruger in +Somersetshire during the war. I had no idea that he was in the +neighbourhood. But a yet more arresting surprise awaited me. Mr. Kruger +regarded me for some moments with a dubious grey eye, and then addressed +me with a strong Somersetshire accent. A curious cold shock went through +me to hear that inappropriate voice coming out of that familiar form. +It was as if you met a Chinaman, with pigtail and yellow jacket, and he +began to talk broad Scotch. But the next moment, of course, I understood +the situation. We had much underrated the Boers in supposing that the +Boer education was incomplete. In pursuit of his ruthless plot against +our island home, the terrible President had learnt not only English, but +all the dialects at a moment's notice to win over a Lancashire merchant +or seduce a Northumberland Fusilier. No doubt, if I asked him, this +stout old gentleman could grind out Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, +and so on, like the tunes in a barrel organ. I could not wonder if +our plain, true-hearted German millionaires fell before a cunning so +penetrated with culture as this. + +..... + +And now I come to the third and greatest surprise of all that this +strange old man gave me. When he asked me, dryly enough, but not without +a certain steady civility that belongs to old-fashioned country people, +what I wanted and what I was doing, I told him the facts of the case, +explaining my political mission and the almost angelic qualities of the +Liberal candidate. Whereupon, this old man became suddenly transfigured +in the sunlight into a devil of wrath. It was some time before I could +understand a word he said, but the one word that kept on recurring was +the word "Kruger," and it was invariably accompanied with a volley of +violent terms. Was I for old Kruger, was I? Did I come to him and want +him to help old Kruger? I ought to be ashamed, I was... and here he +became once more obscure. The one thing that he made quite clear was +that he wouldn't do anything for Kruger. + +"But you ARE Kruger," burst from my lips, in a natural explosion of +reasonableness. "You ARE Kruger, aren't you?" + +After this innocent CRI DE COEUR of mine, I thought at first there would +be a fight, and I remembered with regret that the President in early +life had had a hobby of killing lions. But really I began to think that +I had been mistaken, and that it was not the President after all. There +was a confounding sincerity in the anger with which he declared that he +was Farmer Bowles, and everybody knowed it. I appeased him eventually +and parted from him at the door of his farmhouse, where he left me +with a few tags of religion, which again raised my suspicions of +his identity. In the coffee-room to which I returned there was an +illustrated paper with a picture of President Kruger, and he and Farmer +Bowles were as like as two peas. There was a picture also of a group of +Outlander leaders, and the faces of them, leering and triumphant, were +perhaps unduly darkened by the photograph, but they seemed to me like +the faces of a distant and hostile people. + +I saw the old man once again on the fierce night of the poll, when he +drove down our Liberal lines in a little cart ablaze with the blue Tory +ribbons, for he was a man who would carry his colours everywhere. It +was evening, and the warm western light was on the grey hair and heavy +massive features of that good old man. I knew as one knows a fact of +sense that if Spanish and German stockbrokers had flooded his farm +or country he would have fought them for ever, not fiercely like an +Irishman, but with the ponderous courage and ponderous cunning of the +Boer. I knew that without seeing it, as certainly as I knew without +seeing it that when he went into the polling room he put his cross +against the Conservative name. Then he came out again, having given his +vote and looking more like Kruger than ever. And at the same hour on +the same night thousands upon thousands of English Krugers gave the +same vote. And thus Kruger was pulled down and the dark-faced men in the +photograph reigned in his stead. + + + + +XX. The Giant + +I sometimes fancy that every great city must have been built by night. +At least, it is only at night that every part of a great city is +great. All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps +architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. At +least, I think many people of those nobler trades that work by night +(journalists, policemen, burglars, coffee-stall keepers, and such +mistaken enthusiasts as refuse to go home till morning) must often have +stood admiring some black bulk of building with a crown of battlements +or a crest of spires and then burst into tears at daybreak to discover +that it was only a haberdasher's shop with huge gold letters across the +face of it. + +..... + +I had a sensation of this sort the other day as I happened to be +wandering in the Temple Gardens towards the end of twilight. I sat down +on a bench with my back to the river, happening to choose such a place +that a huge angle and faade of building jutting out from the Strand +sat above me like an incubus. I dare say that if I took the same seat +to-morrow by daylight I should find the impression entirely false. In +sunlight the thing might seem almost distant; but in that half-darkness +it seemed as if the walls were almost falling upon me. Never before have +I had so strongly the sense which makes people pessimists in politics, +the sense of the hopeless height of the high places of the earth. That +pile of wealth and power, whatever was its name, went up above and +beyond me like a cliff that no living thing could climb. I had an +irrational sense that this thing had to be fought, that I had to fight +it; and that I could offer nothing to the occasion but an indolent +journalist with a walking-stick. + +Almost as I had the thought, two windows were lit in that black, blind +face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge face of a sleeping +giant; the eyes were too close together, and gave it the suggestion of a +bestial sneer. And either by accident of this light or of some other, I +could now read the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; +it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything that I +should like to pull down with my hands if I could. Reared by a detected +robber, it is framed to be the fashionable and luxurious home of +undetected robbers. In the house of man are many mansions; but there is +a class of men who feel normal nowhere except in the Babylon Hotel or +in Dartmoor Gaol. That big black face, which was staring at me with its +flaming eyes too close together, that was indeed the giant of all epic +and fairy tales. But, alas! I was not the giant-killer; the hour had +come, but not the man. I sat down on the seat again (I had had one wild +impulse to climb up the front of the hotel and fall in at one of the +windows), and I tried to think, as all decent people are thinking, what +one can really do. And all the time that oppressive wall went up in +front of me, and took hold upon the heavens like a house of the gods. + +..... + +It is remarkable that in so many great wars it has been the defeated +who have won. The people who were left worst at the end of the war +were generally the people who were left best at the end of the whole +business. For instance, the Crusades ended in the defeat of the +Christians. But they did not end in the decline of the Christians; they +ended in the decline of the Saracens. That huge prophetic wave of Moslem +power which had hung in the very heavens above the towns of Christendom, +that wave was broken, and never came on again. The Crusaders had saved +Paris in the act of losing Jerusalem. The same applies to that epic of +Republican war in the eighteenth century to which we Liberals owe our +political creed. The French Revolution ended in defeat: the kings came +back across a carpet of dead at Waterloo. The Revolution had lost its +last battle; but it had gained its first object. It had cut a chasm. +The world has never been the same since. No one after that has ever been +able to treat the poor merely as a pavement. + +These jewels of God, the poor, are still treated as mere stones of the +street; but as stones that may sometimes fly. If it please God, you and +I may see some of the stones flying again before we see death. But here +I only remark the interesting fact that the conquered almost always +conquer. Sparta killed Athens with a final blow, and she was born again. +Sparta went away victorious, and died slowly of her own wounds. The +Boers lost the South African War and gained South Africa. + +And this is really all that we can do when we fight something really +stronger than ourselves; we can deal it its death-wound one moment; it +deals us death in the end. It is something if we can shock and jar the +unthinking impetus and enormous innocence of evil; just as a pebble on +a railway can stagger the Scotch express. It is enough for the great +martyrs and criminals of the French revolution, that they have surprised +for all time the secret weakness of the strong. They have awakened and +set leaping and quivering in his crypt for ever the coward in the hearts +of kings. + +..... + +When Jack the Giant-Killer really first saw the giant his experience was +not such as has been generally supposed. If you care to hear it I will +tell you the real story of Jack the Giant-Killer. To begin with, the +most awful thing which Jack first felt about the giant was that he was +not a giant. He came striding across an interminable wooded plain, and +against its remote horizon the giant was quite a small figure, like a +figure in a picture--he seemed merely a man walking across the grass. +Then Jack was shocked by remembering that the grass which the man was +treading down was one of the tallest forests upon that plain. The man +came nearer and nearer, growing bigger and bigger, and at the instant +when he passed the possible stature of humanity Jack almost screamed. +The rest was an intolerable apocalypse. + +The giant had the one frightful quality of a miracle; the more he became +incredible the more he became solid. The less one could believe in him +the more plainly one could see him. It was unbearable that so much of +the sky should be occupied by one human face. His eyes, which had stood +out like bow windows, became bigger yet, and there was no metaphor that +could contain their bigness; yet still they were human eyes. Jack's +intellect was utterly gone under that huge hypnotism of the face that +filled the sky; his last hope was submerged, his five wits all still +with terror. + +But there stood up in him still a kind of cold chivalry, a dignity of +dead honour that would not forget the small and futile sword in his +hand. He rushed at one of the colossal feet of this human tower, and +when he came quite close to it the ankle-bone arched over him like a +cave. Then he planted the point of his sword against the foot and leant +on it with all his weight, till it went up to the hilt and broke the +hilt, and then snapped just under it. And it was plain that the giant +felt a sort of prick, for he snatched up his great foot into his great +hand for an instant; and then, putting it down again, he bent over and +stared at the ground until he had seen his enemy. + +Then he picked up Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw him +away; and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were flying from +system to system through the universe of stars. But, as the giant had +thrown him away carelessly, he did not strike a stone, but struck soft +mire by the side of a distant river. There he lay insensible for several +hours; but when he awoke again his horrible conqueror was still in +sight. He was striding away across the void and wooded plain towards +where it ended in the sea; and by this time he was only much higher than +any of the hills. He grew less and less indeed; but only as a really +high mountain grows at last less and less when we leave it in a railway +train. Half an hour afterwards he was a bright blue colour, as are the +distant hills; but his outline was still human and still gigantic. Then +the big blue figure seemed to come to the brink of the big blue sea, and +even as it did so it altered its attitude. Jack, stunned and bleeding, +lifted himself laboriously upon one elbow to stare. The giant once more +caught hold of his ankle, wavered twice as in a wind, and then went over +into the great sea which washes the whole world, and which, alone of all +things God has made, was big enough to drown him. + + + + +XXI. A Great Man + +People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always +seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils +from private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous +but blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for +exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything +so valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never +gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million +times in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to +meet him in real life. The Yellow Pressman seems to have no power of +catching the first fresh fact about a man that dominates all after +impressions. For instance, before I met Bernard Shaw I heard that +he spoke with a reckless desire for paradox or a sneering hatred of +sentiment; but I never knew till he opened his mouth that he spoke with +an Irish accent, which is more important than all the other criticisms +put together. + +Journalism is not personal enough. So far from digging out private +personalities, it cannot even report the obvious personalities on the +surface. Now there is one vivid and even bodily impression of this kind +which we have all felt when we met great poets or politicians, but which +never finds its way into the newspapers. I mean the impression that +they are much older than we thought they were. We connect great men with +their great triumphs, which generally happened some years ago, and many +recruits enthusiastic for the thin Napoleon of Marengo must have found +themselves in the presence of the fat Napoleon of Leipzic. + +I remember reading a newspaper account of how a certain rising +politician confronted the House of Lords with the enthusiasm almost of +boyhood. It described how his "brave young voice" rang in the rafters. +I also remember that I met him some days after, and he was considerably +older than my own father. I mention this truth for only one purpose: all +this generalisation leads up to only one fact--the fact that I once met +a great man who was younger than I expected. + +..... + +I had come over the wooded wall from the villages about Epsom, and down +a stumbling path between trees towards the valley in which Dorking lies. +A warm sunlight was working its way through the leafage; a sunlight +which though of saintless gold had taken on the quality of evening. It +was such sunlight as reminds a man that the sun begins to set an instant +after noon. It seemed to lessen as the wood strengthened and the road +sank. + +I had a sensation peculiar to such entangled descents; I felt that the +treetops that closed above me were the fixed and real things, certain as +the level of the sea; but that the solid earth was every instant failing +under my feet. In a little while that splendid sunlight showed only in +splashes, like flaming stars and suns in the dome of green sky. Around +me in that emerald twilight were trunks of trees of every plain or +twisted type; it was like a chapel supported on columns of every earthly +and unearthly style of architecture. + +Without intention my mind grew full of fancies on the nature of the +forest; on the whole philosophy of mystery and force. For the meaning of +woods is the combination of energy with complexity. A forest is not +in the least rude or barbarous; it is only dense with delicacy. Unique +shapes that an artist would copy or a philosopher watch for years if he +found them in an open plain are here mingled and confounded; but it is +not a darkness of deformity. It is a darkness of life; a darkness of +perfection. And I began to think how much of the highest human obscurity +is like this, and how much men have misunderstood it. People will tell +you, for instance, that theology became elaborate because it was dead. +Believe me, if it had been dead it would never have become elaborate; it +is only the live tree that grows too many branches. + +..... + +These trees thinned and fell away from each other, and I came out into +deep grass and a road. I remember being surprised that the evening was +so far advanced; I had a fancy that this valley had a sunset all to +itself. I went along that road according to directions that had been +given me, and passed the gateway in a slight paling beyond which the +wood changed only faintly to a garden. It was as if the curious courtesy +and fineness of that character I was to meet went out from him upon the +valley; for I felt on all these things the finger of that quality which +the old English called "farie"; it is the quality which those can never +understand who think of the past as merely brutal; it is an ancient +elegance such as there is in trees. I went through the garden and saw +an old man sitting by a table, looking smallish in his big chair. He +was already an invalid, and his hair and beard were both white; not like +snow, for snow is cold and heavy, but like something feathery, or even +fierce; rather they were white like the white thistledown. I came up +quite close to him; he looked at me as he put out his frail hand, and +I saw of a sudden that his eyes were startlingly young. He was the one +great man of the old world whom I have met who was not a mere statue +over his own grave. + +He was deaf and he talked like a torrent. He did not talk about the +books he had written; he was far too much alive for that. He talked +about the books he had not written. He unrolled a purple bundle of +romances which he had never had time to sell. He asked me to write one +of the stories for him, as he would have asked the milkman, if he had +been talking to the milkman. It was a splendid and frantic story, a sort +of astronomical farce. It was all about a man who was rushing up to the +Royal Society with the only possible way of avoiding an earth-destroying +comet; and it showed how, even on this huge errand, the man was tripped +up at every other minute by his own weakness and vanities; how he lost +a train by trifling or was put in gaol for brawling. That is only one +of them; there were ten or twenty more. Another, I dimly remember, was +a version of the fall of Parnell; the idea that a quite honest man might +be secret from a pure love of secrecy, of solitary self-control. I went +out of that garden with a blurred sensation of the million possibilities +of creative literature. The feeling increased as my way fell back into +the wood; for a wood is a palace with a million corridors that cross +each other everywhere. I really had the feeling that I had seen the +creative quality; which is supernatural. I had seen what Virgil calls +the Old Man of the Forest: I had seen an elf. The trees thronged behind +my path; I have never seen him again; and now I shall not see him, +because he died last Tuesday. + + + + +XXII. The Orthodox Barber + +Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love +of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it +would, if they had it. There is a very real thing which may be called +the love of humanity; in our time it exists almost entirely among what +are called uneducated people; and it does not exist at all among the +people who talk about it. + +A positive pleasure in being in the presence of any other human being is +chiefly remarkable, for instance, in the masses on Bank Holiday; that is +why they are so much nearer Heaven (despite appearances) than any other +part of our population. + +I remember seeing a crowd of factory girls getting into an empty train +at a wayside country station. There were about twenty of them; they all +got into one carriage; and they left all the rest of the train entirely +empty. That is the real love of humanity. That is the definite pleasure +in the immediate proximity of one's own kind. Only this coarse, rank, +real love of men seems to be entirely lacking in those who propose +the love of humanity as a substitute for all other love; honourable, +rationalistic idealists. + +I can well remember the explosion of human joy which marked the sudden +starting of that train; all the factory girls who could not find seats +(and they must have been the majority) relieving their feelings by +jumping up and down. Now I have never seen any rationalistic idealists +do this. I have never seen twenty modern philosophers crowd into one +third-class carriage for the mere pleasure of being together. I have +never seen twenty Mr. McCabes all in one carriage and all jumping up and +down. + +Some people express a fear that vulgar trippers will overrun all +beautiful places, such as Hampstead or Burnham Beeches. But their fear +is unreasonable; because trippers always prefer to trip together; +they pack as close as they can; they have a suffocating passion of +philanthropy. + +..... + +But among the minor and milder aspects of the same principle, I have no +hesitation in placing the problem of the colloquial barber. Before any +modern man talks with authority about loving men, I insist (I insist +with violence) that he shall always be very much pleased when his barber +tries to talk to him. His barber is humanity: let him love that. If he +is not pleased at this, I will not accept any substitute in the way of +interest in the Congo or the future of Japan. If a man cannot love his +barber whom he has seen, how shall he love the Japanese whom he has not +seen? + +It is urged against the barber that he begins by talking about the +weather; so do all dukes and diplomatists, only that they talk about +it with ostentatious fatigue and indifference, whereas the barber talks +about it with an astonishing, nay incredible, freshness of interest. It +is objected to him that he tells people that they are going bald. +That is to say, his very virtues are cast up against him; he is blamed +because, being a specialist, he is a sincere specialist, and because, +being a tradesman, he is not entirely a slave. But the only proof of +such things is by example; therefore I will prove the excellence of the +conversation of barbers by a specific case. Lest any one should accuse +me of attempting to prove it by fictitious means, I beg to say quite +seriously that though I forget the exact language employed, the +following conversation between me and a human (I trust), living barber +really took place a few days ago. + +..... + +I had been invited to some At Home to meet the Colonial Premiers, and +lest I should be mistaken for some partly reformed bush-ranger out +of the interior of Australia I went into a shop in the Strand to get +shaved. While I was undergoing the torture the man said to me: + +"There seems to be a lot in the papers about this new shaving, sir. It +seems you can shave yourself with anything--with a stick or a stone or a +pole or a poker" (here I began for the first time to detect a sarcastic +intonation) "or a shovel or a----" + +Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing about the +matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical vein. + +"Or a button-hook," I said, "or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram or a +piston-rod----" + +He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, "Or a curtain rod or a +candle-stick, or a----" + +"Cow-catcher," I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic +duet for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told +me. He explained the thing eloquently and at length. + +"The funny part of it is," he said, "that the thing isn't new at all. +It's been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before. There is +always a notion that the razor might be done without somehow. But none +of those schemes ever came to anything; and I don't believe myself that +this will." + +"Why, as to that," I said, rising slowly from the chair and trying to +put on my coat inside out, "I don't know how it may be in the case of +you and your new shaving. Shaving, with all respect to you, is a trivial +and materialistic thing, and in such things startling inventions are +sometimes made. But what you say reminds me in some dark and dreamy +fashion of something else. I recall it especially when you tell me, +with such evident experience and sincerity, that the new shaving is not +really new. My friend, the human race is always trying this dodge of +making everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts +off one thing it shifts on to another. If one man has not the toil of +preparing a man's chin, I suppose that some other man has the toil of +preparing something very curious to put on a man's chin. It would be +nice if we could be shaved without troubling anybody. It would be nicer +still if we could go unshaved without annoying anybody-- + + "'But, O wise friend, chief Barber of the Strand, + Brother, nor you nor I have made the world.' + +"Whoever made it, who is wiser, and we hope better than we, made it +under strange limitations, and with painful conditions of pleasure. + +"In the first and darkest of its books it is fiercely written that a man +shall not eat his cake and have it; and though all men talked until the +stars were old it would still be true that a man who has lost his razor +could not shave with it. But every now and then men jump up with the new +something or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, +that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there is no real +difference between being shaved and not being shaved. The difference, +they say, is only a difference of degree; everything is evolutionary +and relative. Shavedness is immanent in man. Every ten-penny nail is +a Potential Razor. The superstitious people of the past (they say) +believed that a lot of black bristles standing out at right angles to +one's face was a positive affair. But the higher criticism teaches us +better. Bristles are merely negative. They are a Shadow where Shaving +should be. + +"Well, it all goes on, and I suppose it all means something. But a +baby is the Kingdom of God, and if you try to kiss a baby he will know +whether you are shaved or not. Perhaps I am mixing up being shaved and +being saved; my democratic sympathies have always led me to drop my +'h's.' In another moment I may suggest that goats represent the +lost because goats have long beards. This is growing altogether too +allegorical. + +"Nevertheless," I added, as I paid the bill, "I have really been +profoundly interested in what you told me about the New Shaving. Have +you ever heard of a thing called the New theology?" + +He smiled and said that he had not. + + + + +XXIII. The Toy Theatre + +There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; +and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys takes so +very much more time and trouble than anything else. Playing as children +mean playing is the most serious thing in the world; and as soon as we +have small duties or small sorrows we have to abandon to some extent +so enormous and ambitious a plan of life. We have enough strength +for politics and commerce and art and philosophy; we have not enough +strength for play. This is a truth which every one will recognize who, +as a child, has ever played with anything at all; any one who has played +with bricks, any one who has played with dolls, any one who has played +with tin soldiers. My journalistic work, which earns money, is not +pursued with such awful persistency as that work which earned nothing. + +..... + +Take the case of bricks. If you publish a book to-morrow in twelve +volumes (it would be just like you) on "The Theory and Practice +of European Architecture," your work may be laborious, but it is +fundamentally frivolous. It is not serious as the work of a child piling +one brick on the other is serious; for the simple reason that if your +book is a bad book no one will ever be able ultimately and entirely to +prove to you that it is a bad book. Whereas if his balance of bricks +is a bad balance of bricks, it will simply tumble down. And if I know +anything of children, he will set to work solemnly and sadly to build it +up again. Whereas, if I know anything of authors, nothing would induce +you to write your book again, or even to think of it again if you could +help it. + +Take the case of dolls. It is much easier to care for an educational +cause than to care for a doll. It is as easy to write an article on +education as to write an article on toffee or tramcars or anything else. +But it is almost as difficult to look after a doll as to look after a +child. The little girls that I meet in the little streets of Battersea +worship their dolls in a way that reminds one not so much of play as +idolatry. In some cases the love and care of the artistic symbol has +actually become more important than the human reality which it was, I +suppose, originally meant to symbolize. + +I remember a Battersea little girl who wheeled her large baby sister +stuffed into a doll's perambulator. When questioned on this course of +conduct, she replied: "I haven't got a dolly, and Baby is pretending to +be my dolly." Nature was indeed imitating art. First a doll had been a +substitute for a child; afterwards a child was a mere substitute for a +doll. But that opens other matters; the point is here that such devotion +takes up most of the brain and most of the life; much as if it were +really the thing which it is supposed to symbolize. The point is that +the man writing on motherhood is merely an educationalist; the child +playing with a doll is a mother. + +Take the case of soldiers. A man writing an article on military strategy +is simply a man writing an article; a horrid sight. But a boy making a +campaign with tin soldiers is like a General making a campaign with live +soldiers. He must to the limit of his juvenile powers think about the +thing; whereas the war correspondent need not think at all. I remember +a war correspondent who remarked after the capture of Methuen: "This +renewed activity on the part of Delarey is probably due to his +being short of stores." The same military critic had mentioned a few +paragraphs before that Delarey was being hard pressed by a column which +was pursuing him under the command of Methuen. Methuen chased Delarey; +and Delarey's activity was due to his being short of stores. Otherwise +he would have stood quite still while he was chased. I run after Jones +with a hatchet, and if he turns round and tries to get rid of me the +only possible explanation is that he has a very small balance at his +bankers. I cannot believe that any boy playing at soldiers would be as +idiotic as this. But then any one playing at anything has to be serious. +Whereas, as I have only too good reason to know, if you are writing an +article you can say anything that comes into your head. + +..... + +Broadly, then, what keeps adults from joining in children's games is, +generally speaking, not that they have no pleasure in them; it is simply +that they have no leisure for them. It is that they cannot afford the +expenditure of toil and time and consideration for so grand and grave a +scheme. I have been myself attempting for some time past to complete +a play in a small toy theatre, the sort of toy theatre that used to be +called Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured; only that I drew and coloured +the figures and scenes myself. Hence I was free from the degrading +obligation of having to pay either a penny or twopence; I only had to +pay a shilling a sheet for good cardboard and a shilling a box for bad +water colours. The kind of miniature stage I mean is probably familiar +to every one; it is never more than a development of the stage which +Skelt made and Stevenson celebrated. + +But though I have worked much harder at the toy theatre than I ever +worked at any tale or article, I cannot finish it; the work seems +too heavy for me. I have to break off and betake myself to lighter +employments; such as the biographies of great men. The play of "St. +George and the Dragon," over which I have burnt the midnight oil (you +must colour the thing by lamplight because that is how it will be seen), +still lacks most conspicuously, alas! two wings of the Sultan's Palace, +and also some comprehensible and workable way of getting up the curtain. + +All this gives me a feeling touching the real meaning of immortality. +In this world we cannot have pure pleasure. This is partly because +pure pleasure would be dangerous to us and to our neighbours. But it is +partly because pure pleasure is a great deal too much trouble. If I am +ever in any other and better world, I hope that I shall have enough +time to play with nothing but toy theatres; and I hope that I shall have +enough divine and superhuman energy to act at least one play in them +without a hitch. + +..... + +Meanwhile the philosophy of toy theatres is worth any one's +consideration. All the essential morals which modern men need to learn +could be deduced from this toy. Artistically considered, it reminds us +of the main principle of art, the principle which is in most danger +of being forgotten in our time. I mean the fact that art consists of +limitation; the fact that art is limitation. Art does not consist in +expanding things. Art consists of cutting things down, as I cut down +with a pair of scissors my very ugly figures of St. George and the +Dragon. Plato, who liked definite ideas, would like my cardboard dragon; +for though the creature has few other artistic merits he is at least +dragonish. The modern philosopher, who likes infinity, is quite welcome +to a sheet of the plain cardboard. The most artistic thing about the +theatrical art is the fact that the spectator looks at the whole thing +through a window. This is true even of theatres inferior to my own; even +at the Court Theatre or His Majesty's you are looking through a window; +an unusually large window. But the advantage of the small theatre +exactly is that you are looking through a small window. Has not every +one noticed how sweet and startling any landscape looks when seen +through an arch? This strong, square shape, this shutting off of +everything else is not only an assistance to beauty; it is the essential +of beauty. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. + +This especially is true of the toy theatre; that, by reducing the scale +of events it can introduce much larger events. Because it is small it +could easily represent the earthquake in Jamaica. Because it is small it +could easily represent the Day of Judgment. Exactly in so far as it is +limited, so far it could play easily with falling cities or with falling +stars. Meanwhile the big theatres are obliged to be economical because +they are big. When we have understood this fact we shall have understood +something of the reason why the world has always been first inspired by +small nationalities. The vast Greek philosophy could fit easier into +the small city of Athens than into the immense Empire of Persia. In the +narrow streets of Florence Dante felt that there was room for Purgatory +and Heaven and Hell. He would have been stifled by the British Empire. +Great empires are necessarily prosaic; for it is beyond human power to +act a great poem upon so great a scale. You can only represent very big +ideas in very small spaces. My toy theatre is as philosophical as the +drama of Athens. + + + + +XXIV. A Tragedy of Twopence + +My relations with the readers of this page have been long and pleasant, +but--perhaps for that very reason--I feel that the time has come when I +ought to confess the one great crime of my life. It happened a long time +ago; but it is not uncommon for a belated burst of remorse to reveal +such dark episodes long after they have occurred. It has nothing to do +with the orgies of the Anti-Puritan League. That body is so offensively +respectable that a newspaper, in describing it the other day, referred +to my friend Mr. Edgar Jepson as Canon Edgar Jepson; and it is believed +that similar titles are intended for all of us. No; it is not by the +conduct of Archbishop Crane, of Dean Chesterton, of the Rev. James +Douglas, of Monsignor Bland, and even of that fine and virile old +ecclesiastic, Cardinal Nesbit, that I wish (or rather, am driven by +my conscience) to make this declaration. The crime was committed in +solitude and without accomplices. Alone I did it. Let me, with the +characteristic thirst of penitents to get the worst of the confession +over, state it first of all in its most dreadful and indefensible form. +There is at the present moment in a town in Germany (unless he has died +of rage on discovering his wrong), a restaurant-keeper to whom I still +owe twopence. I last left his open-air restaurant knowing that I owed +him twopence. I carried it away under his nose, despite the fact that +the nose was a decidedly Jewish one. I have never paid him, and it is +highly improbable that I ever shall. How did this villainy come to occur +in a life which has been, generally speaking, deficient in the dexterity +necessary for fraud? The story is as follows--and it has a moral, though +there may not be room for that. + +..... + +It is a fair general rule for those travelling on the Continent that the +easiest way of talking in a foreign language is to talk philosophy. The +most difficult kind of talking is to talk about common necessities. The +reason is obvious. The names of common necessities vary completely +with each nation and are generally somewhat odd and quaint. How, for +instance, could a Frenchman suppose that a coalbox would be called a +"scuttle"? If he has ever seen the word scuttle it has been in the +Jingo Press, where the "policy of scuttle" is used whenever we give +up something to a small Power like Liberals, instead of giving up +everything to a great Power, like Imperialists. What Englishman in +Germany would be poet enough to guess that the Germans call a glove a +"hand-shoe." Nations name their necessities by nicknames, so to +speak. They call their tubs and stools by quaint, elvish, and almost +affectionate names, as if they were their own children! But any one can +argue about abstract things in a foreign language who has ever got as +far as Exercise IV. in a primer. For as soon as he can put a +sentence together at all he finds that the words used in abstract or +philosophical discussions are almost the same in all nations. They are +the same, for the simple reason that they all come from the things that +were the roots of our common civilisation. From Christianity, from +the Roman Empire, from the mediaeval Church, or the French Revolution. +"Nation," "citizen," "religion," "philosophy," "authority," "the +Republic," words like these are nearly the same in all the countries in +which we travel. Restrain, therefore, your exuberant admiration for the +young man who can argue with six French atheists when he first lands at +Dieppe. Even I can do that. But very likely the same young man does not +know the French for a shoe-horn. But to this generalisation there +are three great exceptions. (1) In the case of countries that are not +European at all, and have never had our civic conceptions, or the old +Latin scholarship. I do not pretend that the Patagonian phrase for +"citizenship" at once leaps to the mind, or that a Dyak's word for "the +Republic" has been familiar to me from the nursery. (2) In the case of +Germany, where, although the principle does apply to many words such +as "nation" and "philosophy," it does not apply so generally, because +Germany has had a special and deliberate policy of encouraging the +purely German part of its language. (3) In the case where one does not +know any of the language at all, as is generally the case with me. + +..... + +Such at least was my situation on the dark day on which I committed my +crime. Two of the exceptional conditions which I have mentioned were +combined. I was walking about a German town, and I knew no German. I +knew, however, two or three of those great and solemn words which hold +our European civilisation together--one of which is "cigar." As it was a +hot and dreamy day, I sat down at a table in a sort of beer-garden, and +ordered a cigar and a pot of lager. I drank the lager, and paid for +it. I smoked the cigar, forgot to pay for it, and walked away, gazing +rapturously at the royal outline of the Taunus mountains. After about +ten minutes, I suddenly remembered that I had not paid for the cigar. I +went back to the place of refreshment, and put down the money. But the +proprietor also had forgotten the cigar, and he merely said guttural +things in a tone of query, asking me, I suppose, what I wanted. I said +"cigar," and he gave me a cigar. I endeavoured while putting down the +money to wave away the cigar with gestures of refusal. He thought that +my rejection was of the nature of a condemnation of that particular +cigar, and brought me another. I whirled my arms like a windmill, +seeking to convey by the sweeping universality of my gesture that my +rejection was a rejection of cigars in general, not of that particular +article. He mistook this for the ordinary impatience of common men, and +rushed forward, his hands filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing +them upon me. In desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the +more cigars I refused the more and more rare and precious cigars were +brought out of the deeps and recesses of the establishment. I tried in +vain to think of a way of conveying to him the fact that I had already +had the cigar. I imitated the action of a citizen smoking, knocking off +and throwing away a cigar. The watchful proprietor only thought I was +rehearsing (as in an ecstasy of anticipation) the joys of the cigar he +was going to give me. At last I retired baffled: he would not take the +money and leave the cigars alone. So that this restaurant-keeper (in +whose face a love of money shone like the sun at noonday) flatly and +firmly refused to receive the twopence that I certainly owed him; and +I took that twopence of his away with me and rioted on it for months. I +hope that on the last day the angels will break the truth very gently to +that unhappy man. + +..... + +This is the true and exact account of the Great Cigar Fraud, and the +moral of it is this--that civilisation is founded upon abstractions. The +idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed by physical motions at +all, because it is an abstract idea. And civilisation obviously would be +nothing without debt. So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific +sociology (which does not exist) come and tell you that civilisation is +material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourselves how many of +the things that make up our Society, the Law, or the Stocks and Shares, +or the National Debt, you would be able to convey with your face and +your ten fingers by grinning and gesticulating to a German innkeeper. + + + + +XXV. A Cab Ride Across Country + +Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there lies +a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, but of +eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, which asked the present writer +to come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address. + +Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon, +owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws and +customs have fallen in connection with the seventh day. It is not +Puritanism; it is simply anarchy. I should have some sympathy with the +Jewish Sabbath, if it were a Jewish Sabbath, and that for three reasons; +first, that religion is an intrinsically sympathetic thing; second, that +I cannot conceive any religion worth calling a religion without a fixed +and material observance; and third, that the particular observance of +sitting still and doing no work is one that suits my temperament down to +the ground. + +But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it does not +let a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him up when it has forced +him to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism does not forbid us to ask a man +in Battersea to come and talk in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his +getting there. I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with +joys, with flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. I can +understand that a deity might be worshipped with sorrows. But I cannot +imagine any deity being worshipped with inconveniences. Let the good +Moslem go to Mecca, or let him abide in his tent, according to his +feelings for religious symbols. But surely Allah cannot see anything +particularly dignified in his servant being misled by the time-table, +finding that the old Mecca express is not running, missing his +connection at Bagdad, or having to wait three hours in a small side +station outside Damascus. + +So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph +service at all to this place; I found there was only one weak thread +of train-service. Now if this had been the authority of real English +religion, I should have submitted to it at once. If I believed that +the telegraph clerk could not send the telegram because he was at that +moment rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, I should think all telegrams +unimportant in comparison. If I could believe that railway porters when +relieved from their duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of +worship, I should say that all lectures and everything else ought to +give way to such a consideration. I should not complain if the national +faith forbade me to make any appointments of labour or self-expression +on the Sabbath. But, as it is, it only tells me that I may very probably +keep the Sabbath by not keeping the appointment. + +..... + +But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there was +only one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could even get +within several hours or several miles of the time or place. I therefore +went to the telephone, which is one of my favourite toys, and down which +I have shouted many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon +art and morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered +that one could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be +cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the +advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer +words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a +taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. I have not a word to say in +general either against telephones or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two +of the purest and most poetic of the creations of modern scientific +civilisation. Unfortunately, when the taxi-cab started, it did exactly +what modern scientific civilisation has done--it broke down. The result +of this was that when I arrived at King's Cross my only train was gone; +there was a Sabbath calm in the station, a calm in the eyes of the +porters, and in my breast, if calm at all, if any calm, a calm despair. + +There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my breast on first +making the discovery; and it was turned to blinding horror when I learnt +that I could not even send a telegram to the organisers of the meeting. +To leave my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; to +leave them without any intimation was simply low. I reasoned with the +official. I said: "Do you really mean to say that if my brother were +dying and my mother in this place, I could not communicate with her?" He +was a man of literal and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was +dying. I answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health, +but that I was inquiring upon a question of principle. What would happen +if England were invaded, or if I alone knew how to turn aside a comet or +an earthquake. He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible +spirit, but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this +particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element of the +outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang up ungovernable, +and I decided that I would not be a cad merely because some of my remote +ancestors had been Calvinists. I would keep my appointment if I lost all +my money and all my wits. I went out into the quiet London street, where +my quiet London cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty +morning. I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the +London driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. And he did. + +..... + +I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful weather, even in a +motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver, +not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road. +I urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, but +he said (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate sense of +adventure) that he would rather do it when we arrived--if we ever did. I +was by no means so delicate; I bought a varied selection of pork-pies +at a little shop that was open (why was that shop open?--it is all a +mystery), and ate them as we went along. The beginning was sombre and +irritating. I was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a +baby; with the motor for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday. +And the sight of the northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did +not decrease, my gloom: Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness in its +squalor; Battersea and Camberwell have an indescribable bustle of +democracy; but the poor parts of North London... well, perhaps I saw +them wrongly under that ashen morning and on that foolish errand. + +It was one of those days which more than once this year broke the +retreat of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. We +were already clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace +through a borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, when +the grey showed golden patches and a good light began to glitter on +everything. The cab went quicker and quicker. The open land whirled +wider and wider; but I did not lose my sense of being battled with +and thwarted that I had felt in the thronged slums. Rather the feeling +increased, because of the great difficulty of space and time. The faster +went the car, the fiercer and thicker I felt the fight. + +The whole landscape seemed charging at me--and just missing me. The +tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; the very trees +seemed like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving it by a hair's +breadth. Across some vast, smooth valley I saw a beech-tree by the +white road stand up little and defiant. It grew bigger and bigger with +blinding rapidity. It charged me like a tilting knight, seemed to hack +at my head, and pass by. Sometimes when we went round a curve of road, +the effect was yet more awful. It seemed as if some tree or windmill +swung round to smite like a boomerang. The sun by this time was a +blazing fact; and I saw that all Nature is chivalrous and militant. We +do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we should rather seek the nobler sort +of war; and see all the trees as green banners. + +..... + +I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was deciding to leave. +When my cab came reeling into the market-place they decided, with +evident disappointment, to remain. Over the lecture I draw a veil. +When I came back home I was called to the telephone, and a meek voice +expressed regret for the failure of the motor-cab, and even said +something about any reasonable payment. "Whom can I pay for my own +superb experience? What is the usual charge for seeing the clouds +shattered by the sun? What is the market price of a tree blue on the +sky-line and then blinding white in the sun? Mention your price for that +windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks in the garden. Let me pay you +for..." Here it was, I think, that we were cut off. + + + + +XXVI. The Two Noises + +For three days and three nights the sea had charged England as Napoleon +charged her at Waterloo. The phrase is instinctive, because away to +the last grey line of the sea there was only the look of galloping +squadrons, impetuous, but with a common purpose. The sea came on like +cavalry, and when it touched the shore it opened the blazing eyes and +deafening tongues of the artillery. I saw the worst assault at night on +a seaside parade where the sea smote on the doors of England with the +hammers of earthquake, and a white smoke went up into the black heavens. +There one could thoroughly realise what an awful thing a wave really is. +I talk like other people about the rushing swiftness of a wave. But the +horrible thing about a wave is its hideous slowness. It lifts its load +of water laboriously: in that style at once slow and slippery in which +a Titan might lift a load of rock and then let it slip at last to be +shattered into shock of dust. In front of me that night the waves were +not like water: they were like falling city walls. The breaker rose +first as if it did not wish to attack the earth; it wished only to +attack the stars. For a time it stood up in the air as naturally as a +tower; then it went a little wrong in its outline, like a tower that +might some day fall. When it fell it was as if a powder magazine blew +up. + +..... + +I have never seen such a sea. All the time there blew across the land +one of those stiff and throttling winds that one can lean up against +like a wall. One expected anything to be blown out of shape at any +instant; the lamp-post to be snapped like a green stalk, the tree to be +whirled away like a straw. I myself should certainly have been blown out +of shape if I had possessed any shape to be blown out of; for I walked +along the edge of the stone embankment above the black and battering sea +and could not rid myself of the idea that it was an invasion of England. +But as I walked along this edge I was somewhat surprised to find that +as I neared a certain spot another noise mingled with the ceaseless +cannonade of the sea. + +Somewhere at the back, in some pleasure ground or casino or place of +entertainment, an undaunted brass band was playing against the cosmic +uproar. I do not know what band it was. Judging from the boisterous +British Imperialism of most of the airs it played, I should think it was +a German band. But there was no doubt about its energy, and when I came +quite close under it it really drowned the storm. It was playing such +things as "Tommy Atkins" and "You Can Depend on Young Australia," and +many others of which I do not know the words, but I should think they +would be "John, Pat, and Mac, With the Union Jack," or that fine though +unwritten poem, "Wait till the Bull Dog gets a bite of you." Now, I +for one detest Imperialism, but I have a great deal of sympathy with +Jingoism. And there seemed something so touching about this unbroken and +innocent bragging under the brutal menace of Nature that it made, if I +may so put it, two tunes in my mind. It is so obvious and so jolly to +be optimistic about England, especially when you are an optimist--and +an Englishman. But through all that glorious brass came the voice of the +invasion, the undertone of that awful sea. I did a foolish thing. As I +could not express my meaning in an article, I tried to express it in +a poem--a bad one. You can call it what you like. It might be called +"Doubt," or "Brighton." It might be called "The Patriot," or yet again +"The German Band." I would call it "The Two Voices," but that title has +been taken for a grossly inferior poem. This is how it began-- + + "They say the sun is on your knees + A lamp to light your lands from harm, + They say you turn the seven seas + To little brooks about your farm. + I hear the sea and the new song + that calls you empress all day long. + + "(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie + Dying in swamps--you shall not die, + Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust, + Your poor are chased about like dust, + Emptied of anger and surprise-- + And God has gone out of their eyes, + Your cohorts break--your captains lie, + I say to you, you shall not die.)" + +Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there is an English +country that the Imperialists have never found. The British Empire +may annex what it likes, it will never annex England. It has not even +discovered the island, let alone conquered it. I took up the two tunes +again with a greater sympathy for the first-- + + "I know the bright baptismal rains, + I love your tender troubled skies, + I know your little climbing lanes, + Are peering into Paradise, + From open hearth to orchard cool, + How bountiful and beautiful. + + "(O throttled and without a cry, + O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die, + The frightful word is on your walls, + The east sea to the west sea calls, + The stars are dying in the sky, + You shall not die; you shall not die.)" + +Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the +peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. It +is their fault if the last verse was written a little rudely and at +random-- + + "I see you how you smile in state + Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar, + You need not tell me you are great, + I know how more than great you are. + I know what William Shakespeare was, + I have seen Gainsborough and the grass. + + "(O given to believe a lie, + O my mad mother, do do not die, + Whose eyes turn all ways but within, + Whose sin is innocence of sin, + Whose eyes, blinded with beams at noon, + Can see the motes upon the moon, + You shall your lover still pursue. + To what last madhouse shelters you + I will uphold you, even I. + You that are dead. You shall not die.)" + +But the sea would not stop for me any more than for Canute; and as for +the German band, that would not stop for anybody. + + + + +XXVII. Some Policemen and a Moral + +The other day I was nearly arrested by two excited policemen in a wood +in Yorkshire. I was on a holiday, and was engaged in that rich and +intricate mass of pleasures, duties, and discoveries which for the +keeping off of the profane, we disguise by the exoteric name of Nothing. +At the moment in question I was throwing a big Swedish knife at a tree, +practising (alas, without success) that useful trick of knife-throwing +by which men murder each other in Stevenson's romances. + +Suddenly the forest was full of two policemen; there was something about +their appearance in and relation to the greenwood that reminded me, +I know not how, of some happy Elizabethan comedy. They asked what the +knife was, who I was, why I was throwing it, what my address was, trade, +religion, opinions on the Japanese war, name of favourite cat, and so +on. They also said I was damaging the tree; which was, I am sorry to +say, not true, because I could not hit it. The peculiar philosophical +importance, however, of the incident was this. After some half-hour's +animated conversation, the exhibition of an envelope, an unfinished +poem, which was read with great care, and, I trust, with some profit, +and one or two other subtle detective strokes, the elder of the two +knights became convinced that I really was what I professed to be, that +I was a journalist, that I was on the DAILY NEWS (this was the real +stroke; they were shaken with a terror common to all tyrants), that +I lived in a particular place as stated, and that I was stopping +with particular people in Yorkshire, who happened to be wealthy and +well-known in the neighbourhood. + +In fact the leading constable became so genial and complimentary at last +that he ended up by representing himself as a reader of my work. And +when that was said, everything was settled. They acquitted me and let me +pass. + +"But," I said, "what of this mangled tree? It was to the rescue of that +Dryad, tethered to the earth, that you rushed like knight-errants. You, +the higher humanitarians, are not deceived by the seeming stillness +of the green things, a stillness like the stillness of the cataract, a +headlong and crashing silence. You know that a tree is but a creature +tied to the ground by one leg. You will not let assassins with their +Swedish daggers shed the green blood of such a being. But if so, why am +I not in custody; where are my gyves? Produce, from some portion of your +persons, my mouldy straw and my grated window. The facts of which I have +just convinced you, that my name is Chesterton, that I am a journalist, +that I am living with the well-known and philanthropic Mr. Blank of +Ilkley, cannot have anything to do with the question of whether I have +been guilty of cruelty to vegetables. The tree is none the less damaged +even though it may reflect with a dark pride that it was wounded by a +gentleman connected with the Liberal press. Wounds in the bark do not +more rapidly close up because they are inflicted by people who are +stopping with Mr. Blank of Ilkley. That tree, the ruin of its former +self, the wreck of what was once a giant of the forest, now splintered +and laid low by the brute superiority of a Swedish knife, that tragedy, +constable, cannot be wiped out even by stopping for several months more +with some wealthy person. It is incredible that you have no legal claim +to arrest even the most august and fashionable persons on this charge. +For if so, why did you interfere with me at all?" + +I made the later and larger part of this speech to the silent wood, for +the two policemen had vanished almost as quickly as they came. It is +very possible, of course, that they were fairies. In that case the +somewhat illogical character of their view of crime, law, and personal +responsibility would find a bright and elfish explanation; perhaps if I +had lingered in the glade till moonrise I might have seen rings of tiny +policemen dancing on the sward; or running about with glow-worm belts, +arresting grasshoppers for damaging blades of grass. But taking the +bolder hypothesis, that they really were policemen, I find myself in +a certain difficulty. I was certainly accused of something which was +either an offence or was not. I was let off because I proved I was a +guest at a big house. The inference seems painfully clear; either it is +not a proof of infamy to throw a knife about in a lonely wood, or else +it is a proof of innocence to know a rich man. Suppose a very poor +person, poorer even than a journalist, a navvy or unskilled labourer, +tramping in search of work, often changing his lodgings, often, perhaps, +failing in his rent. Suppose he had been intoxicated with the green +gaiety of the ancient wood. Suppose he had thrown knives at trees and +could give no description of a dwelling-place except that he had been +fired out of the last. As I walked home through a cloudy and purple +twilight I wondered how he would have got on. + +Moral. We English are always boasting that we are very illogical; there +is no great harm in that. There is no subtle spiritual evil in the fact +that people always brag about their vices; it is when they begin to brag +about their virtues that they become insufferable. But there is this to +be said, that illogicality in your constitution or your legal methods +may become very dangerous if there happens to be some great national +vice or national temptation which many take advantage of the chaos. +Similarly, a drunkard ought to have strict rules and hours; a temperate +man may obey his instincts. + +Take some absurd anomaly in the British law--the fact, for instance, +that a man ceasing to be an M. P. has to become Steward of the Chiltern +Hundreds, an office which I believe was intended originally to keep down +some wild robbers near Chiltern, wherever that is. Obviously this kind +of illogicality does not matter very much, for the simple reason that +there is no great temptation to take advantage of it. Men retiring from +Parliament do not have any furious impulse to hunt robbers in the hills. +But if there were a real danger that wise, white-haired, venerable +politicians taking leave of public life would desire to do this (if, +for instance, there were any money in it), then clearly, if we went on +saying that the illogicality did not matter, when (as a matter of fact) +Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was hanging Chiltern shop-keepers every day and +taking their property, we should be very silly. The illogicality would +matter, for it would have become an excuse for indulgence. It is only +the very good who can live riotous lives. + +Now this is exactly what is present in cases of police investigation +such as the one narrated above. There enters into such things a great +national sin, a far greater sin than drink--the habit of respecting a +gentleman. Snobbishness has, like drink, a kind of grand poetry. And +snobbishness has this peculiar and devilish quality of evil, that it is +rampant among very kindly people, with open hearts and houses. But it is +our great English vice; to be watched more fiercely than small-pox. If a +man wished to hear the worst and wickedest thing in England summed up in +casual English words, he would not find it in any foul oaths or ribald +quarrelling. He would find it in the fact that the best kind of working +man, when he wishes to praise any one, calls him "a gentleman." It never +occurs to him that he might as well call him "a marquis," or "a privy +councillor"--that he is simply naming a rank or class, not a phrase +for a good man. And this perennial temptation to a shameful admiration, +must, and, I think, does, constantly come in and distort and poison our +police methods. + +In this case we must be logical and exact; for we have to keep watch +upon ourselves. The power of wealth, and that power at its vilest, is +increasing in the modern world. A very good and just people, without +this temptation, might not need, perhaps, to make clear rules and +systems to guard themselves against the power of our great financiers. +But that is because a very just people would have shot them long ago, +from mere native good feeling. + + + + +XXVIII. The Lion + +In the town of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We +talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is the +man in the street. Things quite central for him are connected with these +lamp-posts and pavements; everything from his meals to his martyrdoms. +When first an Englishman looks at a French town or village his first +feeling is simply that it is uglier than an English town or village; +when he looks again he sees that this comparative absence of the +picturesque is chiefly expressed in the plain, precipitous frontage +of the houses standing up hard and flat out of the street like the +cardboard houses in a pantomime--a hard angularity allied perhaps to +the harshness of French logic. When he looks a third time he sees quite +simply that it is all because the houses have no front gardens. The +vague English spirit loves to have the entrance to its house softened by +bushes and broken by steps. It likes to have a little anteroom of hedges +half in the house and half out of it; a green room in a double sense. +The Frenchman desires no such little pathetic ramparts or halting +places, for the street itself is a thing natural and familiar to him. + +..... + +The French have no front gardens; but the street is every man's front +garden. There are trees in the street, and sometimes fountains. The +street is the Frenchman's tavern, for he drinks in the street. It is his +dining-room, for he dines in the street. It is his British Museum, for +the statues and monuments in French streets are not, as with us, of the +worst, but of the best, art of the country, and they are often actually +as historical as the Pyramids. The street again is the Frenchman's +Parliament, for France has never taken its Chamber of Deputies so +seriously as we take our House of Commons, and the quibbles of mere +elected nonentities in an official room seem feeble to a people whose +fathers have heard the voice of Desmoulins like a trumpet under open +heaven, or Victor Hugo shouting from his carriage amid the wreck of the +second Republic. And as the Frenchman drinks in the street and dines in +the street so also he fights in the street and dies in the street, so +that the street can never be commonplace to him. + +Take, for instance, such a simple object as a lamp-post. In London +a lamp-post is a comic thing. We think of the intoxicated gentleman +embracing it, and recalling ancient friendship. But in Paris a lamp-post +is a tragic thing. For we think of tyrants hanged on it, and of an +end of the world. There is, or was, a bitter Republican paper in Paris +called LA LANTERNE. How funny it would be if there were a Progressive +paper in England called THE LAMP POST! We have said, then, that the +Frenchman is the man in the street; that he can dine in the street, and +die in the street. And if I ever pass through Paris and find him going +to bed in the street, I shall say that he is still true to the genius +of his civilisation. All that is good and all that is evil in France is +alike connected with this open-air element. French democracy and French +indecency are alike part of the desire to have everything out of doors. +Compared to a caf, a public-house is a private house. + +..... + +There were two reasons why all these fancies should float through the +mind in the streets of this especial town of Belfort. First of all, it +lies close upon the boundary of France and Germany, and boundaries are +the most beautiful things in the world. To love anything is to love its +boundaries; thus children will always play on the edge of anything. +They build castles on the edge of the sea, and can only be restrained by +public proclamation and private violence from walking on the edge of the +grass. For when we have come to the end of a thing we have come to the +beginning of it. + +Hence this town seemed all the more French for being on the very +margin of Germany, and although there were many German touches in +the place--German names, larger pots of beer, and enormous theatrical +barmaids dressed up in outrageous imitation of Alsatian peasants--yet +the fixed French colour seemed all the stronger for these specks +of something else. All day long and all night long troops of dusty, +swarthy, scornful little soldiers went plodding through the streets with +an air of stubborn disgust, for German soldiers look as if they despised +you, but French soldiers as if they despised you and themselves even +more than you. It is a part, I suppose, of the realism of the nation +which has made it good at war and science and other things in which what +is necessary is combined with what is nasty. And the soldiers and the +civilians alike had most of them cropped hair, and that curious kind of +head which to an Englishman looks almost brutal, the kind that we call a +bullet-head. Indeed, we are speaking very appropriately when we call it +a bullet-head, for in intellectual history the heads of Frenchmen have +been bullets--yes, and explosive bullets. + +..... + +But there was a second reason why in this place one should think +particularly of the open-air politics and the open-air art of the +French. For this town of Belfort is famous for one of the most typical +and powerful of the public monuments of France. From the caf table at +which I sit I can see the hill beyond the town on which hangs the high +and flat-faced citadel, pierced with many windows, and warmed in the +evening light. On the steep hill below it is a huge stone lion, itself +as large as a hill. It is hacked out of the rock with a sort of gigantic +impression. No trivial attempt has been made to make it like a common +statue; no attempt to carve the mane into curls, or to distinguish +the monster minutely from the earth out of which he rises, shaking the +world. The face of the lion has something of the bold conventionality +of Assyrian art. The mane of the lion is left like a shapeless cloud of +tempest, as if it might literally be said of him that God had clothed +his neck with thunder. Even at this distance the thing looks vast, and +in some sense prehistoric. Yet it was carved only a little while ago. +It commemorates the fact that this town was never taken by the Germans +through all the terrible year, but only laid down its arms at last at +the command of its own Government. But the spirit of it has been in +this land from the beginning--the spirit of something defiant and almost +defeated. + +As I leave this place and take the railway into Germany the news comes +thicker and thicker up the streets that Southern France is in a flame, +and that there perhaps will be fought out finally the awful modern +battle of the rich and poor. And as I pass into quieter places for the +last sign of France on the sky-line, I see the Lion of Belfort stand at +bay, the last sight of that great people which has never been at peace. + + + + +XXIX. Humanity: an Interlude + +Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, +the City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything noble +cut out, and everything nasty left in. No one can understand Paris and +its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance +and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but +it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses +is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but +quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they +are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. For +the indecency of many of their books and papers is not of the sort which +charms and seduces, but of the sort that horrifies and hurts; they are +torturing themselves. They lash their own patriotism into life with the +same whips which most men use to lash foreigners to silence. The enemies +of France can never give an account of her infamy or decay which does +not seem insipid and even polite compared with the things which the +Nationalists of France say about their own nation. They taunt and +torment themselves; sometimes they even deliberately oppress themselves. +Thus, when the mob of Paris could make a Government to please itself, it +made a sort of sublime tyranny to order itself about. The spirit is the +same from the Crusades or St. Bartholomew to the apotheosis of Zola. +The old religionists tortured men physically for a moral truth. The new +realists torture men morally for a physical truth. + +Now Brussels is Paris without this constant purification of pain. Its +indecencies are not regrettable incidents in an everlasting revolution. +It has none of the things which make good Frenchmen love Paris; it has +only the things which make unspeakable Englishmen love it. It has +the part which is cosmopolitan--and narrows; not the part which is +Parisian--and universal. You can find there (as commonly happens in +modern centres) the worst things of all nations--the DAILY MAIL from +England, the cheap philosophies from Germany, the loose novels of +France, and the drinks of America. But there is no English broad fun, +no German kindly ceremony, no American exhilaration, and, above all, no +French tradition of fighting for an idea. Though all the boulevards look +like Parisian boulevards, though all the shops look like Parisian shops, +you cannot look at them steadily for two minutes without feeling the +full distance between, let us say, King Leopold and fighters like +Clemenceau and Deroulde. + +..... + +For all these reasons, and many more, when I had got into Brussels I +began to make all necessary arrangements for getting out of it again; +and I had impulsively got into a tram which seemed to be going out of +the city. In this tram there were two men talking; one was a little +man with a black French beard; the other was a baldish man with bushy +whiskers, like the financial foreign count in a three-act farce. And +about the time that we reached the suburb of the city, and the traffic +grew thinner, and the noises more few, I began to hear what they were +saying. Though they spoke French quickly, their words were fairly easy +to follow, because they were all long words. Anybody can understand long +words because they have in them all the lucidity of Latin. + +The man with the black beard said: "It must that we have the Progress." + +The man with the whiskers parried this smartly by saying: "It must also +that we have the Consolidation International." + +This is a sort of discussion which I like myself, so I listened with +some care, and I think I picked up the thread of it. One of the Belgians +was a Little Belgian, as we speak of a Little Englander. The other was a +Belgian Imperialist, for though Belgium is not quite strong enough to be +altogether a nation, she is quite strong enough to be an empire. Being +a nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being an empire only +means kicking your inferiors. The man with whiskers was the Imperialist, +and he was saying: "The science, behold there the new guide of +humanity." + +And the man with the beard answered him: "It does not suffice to have +progress in the science; one must have it also in the sentiment of the +human justice." + +This remark I applauded, as if at a public meeting, but they were much +too keen on their argument to hear me. The views I have often heard +in England, but never uttered so lucidly, and certainly never so fast. +Though Belgian by nation they must both have been essentially French. +Whiskers was great on education, which, it seems, is on the march. +All the world goes to make itself instructed. It must that the more +instructed enlighten the less instructed. Eh, well then, the European +must impose upon the savage the science and the light. Also (apparently) +he must impose himself on the savage while he is about it. To-day one +travelled quickly. The science had changed all. For our fathers, +they were religious, and (what was worse) dead. To-day humanity had +electricity to the hand; the machines came from triumphing; all the +lines and limits of the globe effaced themselves. Soon there would not +be but the great Empires and confederations, guided by the science, +always the science. + +Here Whiskers stopped an instant for breath; and the man with the +sentiment for human justice had "la parole" off him in a flash. Without +doubt Humanity was on the march, but towards the sentiments, the +ideal, the methods moral and pacific. Humanity directed itself towards +Humanity. For your wars and empires on behalf of civilisation, what were +they in effect? The war, was it not itself an affair of the barbarism? +The Empires were they not things savage? The Humanity had passed all +that; she was now intellectual. Tolstoy had refined all human souls with +the sentiments the most delicate and just. Man was become a spirit; the +wings pushed.... + +..... + +At this important point of evolution the tram came to a jerky stoppage; +and staring around I found, to my stunned consternation, that it was +almost dark, that I was far away from Brussels, that I could not +dream of getting back to dinner; in short, that through the clinging +fascination of this great controversy on Humanity and its recent +complete alteration by science or Tolstoy, I had landed myself Heaven +knows where. I dropped hastily from the suburban tram and let it go on +without me. + +I was alone in the flat fields out of sight of the city. On one side +of the road was one of those small, thin woods which are common in all +countries, but of which, by a coincidence, the mystical painters of +Flanders were very fond. The night was closing in with cloudy purple +and grey; there was one ribbon of silver, the last rag of the sunset. +Through the wood went one little path, and somehow it suggested that it +might lead to some sign of life--there was no other sign of life on the +horizon. I went along it, and soon sank into a sort of dancing twilight +of all those tiny trees. There is something subtle and bewildering about +that sort of frail and fantastic wood. A forest of big trees seems +like a bodily barrier; but somehow that mist of thin lines seems like a +spiritual barrier. It is as if one were caught in a fairy cloud or could +not pass a phantom. When I had well lost the last gleam of the high +road a curious and definite feeling came upon me. Now I suddenly +felt something much more practical and extraordinary--the absence of +humanity: inhuman loneliness. Of course, there was nothing really lost +in my state; but the mood may hit one anywhere. I wanted men--any men; +and I felt our awful alliance over all the globe. And at last, when I +had walked for what seemed a long time, I saw a light too near the earth +to mean anything except the image of God. + +I came out on a clear space and a low, long cottage, the door of which +was open, but was blocked by a big grey horse, who seemed to prefer to +eat with his head inside the sitting-room. I got past him, and found +he was being fed by a young man who was sitting down and drinking beer +inside, and who saluted me with heavy rustic courtesy, but in a strange +tongue. The room was full of staring faces like owls, and these I traced +at length as belonging to about six small children. Their father was +still working in the fields, but their mother rose when I entered. She +smiled, but she and all the rest spoke some rude language, Flamand, I +suppose; so that we had to be kind to each other by signs. She fetched +me beer, and pointed out my way with her finger; and I drew a picture +to please the children; and as it was a picture of two men hitting each +other with swords, it pleased them very much. Then I gave a Belgian +penny to each child, for as I said on chance in French, "It must be that +we have the economic equality." But they had never heard of economic +equality, while all Battersea workmen have heard of economic equality, +though it is true that they haven't got it. + +I found my way back to the city, and some time afterwards I actually +saw in the street my two men talking, no doubt still saying, one that +Science had changed all in Humanity, and the other that Humanity was now +pushing the wings of the purely intellectual. But for me Humanity was +hooked on to an accidental picture. I thought of a low and lonely house +in the flats, behind a veil or film of slight trees, a man breaking the +ground as men have broken from the first morning, and a huge grey horse +champing his food within a foot of a child's head, as in the stable +where Christ was born. + + + + +XXX. The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + +On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that in a few hours +I should be in England, my eye fell upon one of the details of Gothic +carving of which Flanders is full. I do not know whether the thing is +old, though it was certainly knocked about and indecipherable, but at +least it was certainly in the style and tradition of the early Middle +Ages. It seemed to represent men bending themselves (not to say twisting +themselves) to certain primary employments. Some seemed to be +sailors tugging at ropes; others, I think, were reaping; others were +energetically pouring something into something else. This is entirely +characteristic of the pictures and carvings of the early thirteenth +century, perhaps the most purely vigorous time in all history. The great +Greeks preferred to carve their gods and heroes doing nothing. Splendid +and philosophic as their composure is there is always about it something +that marks the master of many slaves. But if there was one thing +the early mediaevals liked it was representing people doing +something--hunting or hawking, or rowing boats, or treading grapes, or +making shoes, or cooking something in a pot. "Quicquid agunt homines, +votum, timor, ira voluptas." (I quote from memory.) The Middle Ages +is full of that spirit in all its monuments and manuscripts. Chaucer +retains it in his jolly insistence on everybody's type of trade and +toil. It was the earliest and youngest resurrection of Europe, the time +when social order was strengthening, but had not yet become oppressive; +the time when religious faiths were strong, but had not yet been +exasperated. For this reason the whole effect of Greek and Gothic +carving is different. The figures in the Elgin marbles, though often +reining their steeds for an instant in the air, seem frozen for ever at +that perfect instant. But a mass of mediaeval carving seems actually +a sort of bustle or hubbub in stone. Sometimes one cannot help feeling +that the groups actually move and mix, and the whole front of a great +cathedral has the hum of a huge hive. + +..... + +But about these particular figures there was a peculiarity of which I +could not be sure. Those of them that had any heads had very curious +heads, and it seemed to me that they had their mouths open. Whether or +no this really meant anything or was an accident of nascent art I do not +know; but in the course of wondering I recalled to my mind the fact that +singing was connected with many of the tasks there suggested, that there +were songs for reapers and songs for sailors hauling ropes. I was +still thinking about this small problem when I walked along the pier +at Ostend; and I heard some sailors uttering a measured shout as they +laboured, and I remembered that sailors still sing in chorus while they +work, and even sing different songs according to what part of their work +they are doing. And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was +over, the sight of men working in the English fields reminded me +again that there are still songs for harvest and for many agricultural +routines. And I suddenly wondered why if this were so it should be quite +unknown, for any modern trade to have a ritual poetry. How did people +come to chant rude poems while pulling certain ropes or gathering +certain fruit, and why did nobody do anything of the kind while +producing any of the modern things? Why is a modern newspaper never +printed by people singing in chorus? Why do shopmen seldom, if ever, +sing? + +..... + +If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while +auditing and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all the +separate things that have to be done in a boat, why are there not songs +for all the separate things that have to be done in a bank? As the train +from Dover flew through the Kentish gardens, I tried to write a few +songs suitable for commercial gentlemen. Thus, the work of bank clerks +when casting up columns might begin with a thundering chorus in praise +of Simple Addition. + +"Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er. Hear the +Stars of Morning shouting: 'Two and Two are four.' Though the creeds and +realms are reeling, though the sophists roar, Though we weep and pawn +our watches, Two and Two are Four." + +"There's a run upon the Bank--Stand away! For the Manager's a crank and +the Secretary drank, and the + + Upper Tooting Bank + Turns to bay! + Stand close: there is a run + On the Bank. + Of our ship, our royal one, let the ringing legend run, + That she fired with every gun + Ere she sank." + +..... + +And as I came into the cloud of London I met a friend of mine who +actually is in a bank, and submitted these suggestions in rhyme to him +for use among his colleagues. But he was not very hopeful about the +matter. It was not (he assured me) that he underrated the verses, or in +any sense lamented their lack of polish. No; it was rather, he felt, an +indefinable something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we +live that makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks. And I think +he must be right; though the matter is very mysterious. I may observe +here that I think there must be some mistake in the calculations of the +Socialists. They put down all our distress, not to a moral tone, but +to the chaos of private enterprise. Now, banks are private; but +post-offices are Socialistic: therefore I naturally expected that the +post-office would fall into the collectivist idea of a chorus. Judge of +my surprise when the lady in my local post-office (whom I urged to sing) +dismissed the idea with far more coldness than the bank clerk had done. +She seemed indeed, to be in a considerably greater state of depression +than he. Should any one suppose that this was the effect of the verses +themselves, it is only fair to say that the specimen verse of the +Post-Office Hymn ran thus: + + "O'er London our letters are shaken like snow, + Our wires o'er the world like the thunderbolts go. + The news that may marry a maiden in Sark, + Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +Chorus (with a swing of joy and energy): + + "Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +And the more I thought about the matter the more painfully certain it +seemed that the most important and typical modern things could not be +done with a chorus. One could not, for instance, be a great financier +and sing; because the essence of being a great financier is that you +keep quiet. You could not even in many modern circles be a public man +and sing; because in those circles the essence of being a public man is +that you do nearly everything in private. Nobody would imagine a chorus +of money-lenders. Every one knows the story of the solicitors' corps of +volunteers who, when the Colonel on the battlefield cried "Charge!" all +said simultaneously, "Six-and-eightpence." Men can sing while charging +in a military, but hardly in a legal sense. And at the end of my +reflections I had really got no further than the sub-conscious feeling +of my friend the bank-clerk--that there is something spiritually +suffocating about our life; not about our laws merely, but about our +life. Bank-clerks are without songs, not because they are poor, but +because they are sad. Sailors are much poorer. As I passed homewards I +passed a little tin building of some religious sort, which was shaken +with shouting as a trumpet is torn with its own tongue. THEY were +singing anyhow; and I had for an instant a fancy I had often had before: +that with us the super-human is the only place where you can find the +human. Human nature is hunted and has fled into sanctuary. + + + + +XXXI. The Riddle of the Ivy + +More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, a +friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded with +half-packed luggage. + +"You seem to be off on your travels," he said. "Where are you going?" + +With a strap between my teeth I replied, "To Battersea." + +"The wit of your remark," he said, "wholly escapes me." + +"I am going to Battersea," I repeated, "to Battersea vi Paris, Belfort, +Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained +simply the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once +more I find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, +somewhere in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little +island which I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great +white cliffs. Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch +travellers tell me that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour +that somewhere in the heart of it there is a beautiful place called +Battersea." + +"I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you," said my friend, with an air +of intellectual comparison, "that this is Battersea?" + +"It is quite unnecessary," I said, "and it is spiritually untrue. I +cannot see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or any England. I +cannot see that door. I cannot see that chair: because a cloud of sleep +and custom has come across my eyes. The only way to get back to them is +to go somewhere else; and that is the real object of travel and the real +pleasure of holidays. Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see +France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? +I shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking. I am +seeking Battersea. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on +foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a +foreign land. Now I warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and +heavy, and that if you utter that word 'paradox' I shall hurl it at your +head. I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical. It is +not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go to England is to +go away from it." + +But when, after only a month's travelling, I did come back to England, I +was startled to find that I had told the exact truth. England did break +on me at once beautifully new and beautifully old. To land at Dover is +the right way to approach England (most things that are hackneyed are +right), for then you see first the full, soft gardens of Kent, which +are, perhaps, an exaggeration, but still a typical exaggeration, of the +rich rusticity of England. As it happened, also, a fellow-traveller with +whom I had fallen into conversation felt the same freshness, though for +another cause. She was an American lady who had seen Europe, and had +never yet seen England, and she expressed her enthusiasm in that +simple and splendid way which is natural to Americans, who are the most +idealistic people in the whole world. Their only danger is that the +idealist can easily become the idolator. And the American has become +so idealistic that he even idealises money. But (to quote a very able +writer of American short stories) that is another story. + +"I have never been in England before," said the American lady, "yet +it is so pretty that I feel as if I have been away from it for a long +time." + +"So you have," I said; "you have been away for three hundred years." + +"What a lot of ivy you have," she said. "It covers the churches and +it buries the houses. We have ivy; but I have never seen it grow like +that." + +"I am interested to hear it," I replied, "for I am making a little list +of all the things that are really better in England. Even a month on +the Continent, combined with intelligence, will teach you that there are +many things that are better abroad. All the things that the DAILY MAIL +calls English are better abroad. But there are things entirely English +and entirely good. Kippers, for instance, and Free Trade, and front +gardens, and individual liberty, and the Elizabethan drama, and hansom +cabs, and cricket, and Mr. Will Crooks. Above all, there is the happy +and holy custom of eating a heavy breakfast. I cannot imagine that +Shakespeare began the day with rolls and coffee, like a Frenchman or a +German. Surely he began with bacon or bloaters. In fact, a light bursts +upon me; for the first time I see the real meaning of Mrs. Gallup and +the Great Cipher. It is merely a mistake in the matter of a capital +letter. I withdraw my objections; I accept everything; bacon did write +Shakespeare." + +"I cannot look at anything but the ivy," she said, "it looks so +comfortable." + +While she looked at the ivy I opened for the first time for many weeks +an English newspaper, and I read a speech of Mr. Balfour in which +he said that the House of Lords ought to be preserved because it +represented something in the nature of permanent public opinion of +England, above the ebb and flow of the parties. Now Mr. Balfour is a +perfectly sincere patriot, a man who, from his own point of view, thinks +long and seriously about the public needs, and he is, moreover, a man +of entirely exceptionable intellectual power. But alas, in spite of +all this, when I had read that speech I thought with a heavy heart that +there was one more thing that I had to add to the list of the specially +English things, such as kippers and cricket; I had to add the specially +English kind of humbug. In France things are attacked and defended for +what they are. The Catholic Church is attacked because it is Catholic, +and defended because it is Catholic. The Republic is defended because +it is Republican, and attacked because it is Republican. But here is the +ablest of English politicians consoling everybody by telling them that +the House of Lords is not really the House of Lords, but something quite +different, that the foolish accidental peers whom he meets every night +are in some mysterious way experts upon the psychology of the democracy; +that if you want to know what the very poor want you must ask the very +rich, and that if you want the truth about Hoxton, you must ask for it +at Hatfield. If the Conservative defender of the House of Lords were +a logical French politician he would simply be a liar. But being an +English politician he is simply a poet. The English love of believing +that all is as it should be, the English optimism combined with the +strong English imagination, is too much even for the obvious facts. In a +cold, scientific sense, of course, Mr. Balfour knows that nearly all the +Lords who are not Lords by accident are Lords by bribery. He knows, and +(as Mr. Belloc excellently said) everybody in Parliament knows the very +names of the peers who have purchased their peerages. But the glamour +of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring himself and reassuring others, is +too strong for this original knowledge; at last it fades from him, +and he sincerely and earnestly calls on Englishmen to join with him in +admiring an august and public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten +that the Senate really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; +and adventurers whom he has himself ennobled. + +"Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick," said the American lady, "it +seems to cover almost everything. It must be the most poetical thing in +England." + +"It is very beautiful," I said, "and, as you say, it is very English. +Charles Dickens, who was almost more English than England, wrote one of +his rare poems about the beauty of ivy. Yes, by all means let us admire +the ivy, so deep, so warm, so full of a genial gloom and a grotesque +tenderness. Let us admire the ivy; and let us pray to God in His mercy +that it may not kill the tree." + + + + +XXXII. The Travellers in State + +The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught a train; it was a +train going into the Eastern Counties, and I only just caught it. And +while I was running along the train (amid general admiration) I noticed +that there were a quite peculiar and unusual number of carriages marked +"Engaged." On five, six, seven, eight, nine carriages was pasted the +little notice: at five, six, seven, eight, nine windows were big bland +men staring out in the conscious pride of possession. Their bodies +seemed more than usually impenetrable, their faces more than usual +placid. It could not be the Derby, if only for the minor reasons that +it was the opposite direction and the wrong day. It could hardly be +the King. It could hardly be the French President. For, though these +distinguished persons naturally like to be private for three hours, they +are at least public for three minutes. A crowd can gather to see +them step into the train; and there was no crowd here, or any police +ceremonial. + +Who were those awful persons, who occupied more of the train than a +bricklayer's beanfeast, and yet were more fastidious and delicate than +the King's own suite? Who were these that were larger than a mob, yet +more mysterious than a monarch? Was it possible that instead of our +Royal House visiting the Tsar, he was really visiting us? Or does the +House of Lords have a breakfast? I waited and wondered until the train +slowed down at some station in the direction of Cambridge. Then +the large, impenetrable men got out, and after them got out the +distinguished holders of the engaged seats. They were all dressed +decorously in one colour; they had neatly cropped hair; and they were +chained together. + +I looked across the carriage at its only other occupant, and our eyes +met. He was a small, tired-looking man, and, as I afterwards learnt, a +native of Cambridge; by the look of him, some working tradesman there, +such as a journeyman tailor or a small clock-mender. In order to make +conversation I said I wondered where the convicts were going. His mouth +twitched with the instinctive irony of our poor, and he said: "I don't +s'pose they're goin' on an 'oliday at the seaside with little spades +and pails." I was naturally delighted, and, pursuing the same vein of +literary invention, I suggested that perhaps dons were taken down to +Cambridge chained together like this. And as he lived in Cambridge, and +had seen several dons, he was pleased with such a scheme. Then when we +had ceased to laugh, we suddenly became quite silent; and the bleak, +grey eyes of the little man grew sadder and emptier than an open sea. I +knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same, because all +modern sophists are only sophists, and there is such a thing as mankind. +Then at last (and it fell in as exactly as the right last note of a tune +one is trying to remember) he said: "Well, I s'pose we 'ave to do it." +And in those three things, his first speech and his silence and his +second speech, there were all the three great fundamental facts of the +English democracy, its profound sense of humour, its profound sense of +pathos, and its profound sense of helplessness. + +..... + +It cannot be too often repeated that all real democracy is an attempt +(like that of a jolly hostess) to bring the shy people out. For every +practical purpose of a political state, for every practical purpose of a +tea-party, he that abaseth himself must be exalted. At a tea-party it +is equally obvious that he that exalteth himself must be abased, if +possible without bodily violence. Now people talk of democracy as +being coarse and turbulent: it is a self-evident error in mere history. +Aristocracy is the thing that is always coarse and turbulent: for it +means appealing to the self-confident people. Democracy means appealing +to the different people. Democracy means getting those people to vote +who would never have the cheek to govern: and (according to Christian +ethics) the precise people who ought to govern are the people who have +not the cheek to do it. There is a strong example of this truth in my +friend in the train. The only two types we hear of in this argument +about crime and punishment are two very rare and abnormal types. + +We hear of the stark sentimentalist, who talks as if there were no +problem at all: as if physical kindness would cure everything: as if +one need only pat Nero and stroke Ivan the Terrible. This mere belief in +bodily humanitarianism is not sentimental; it is simply snobbish. For +if comfort gives men virtue, the comfortable classes ought to be +virtuous--which is absurd. Then, again, we do hear of the yet weaker and +more watery type of sentimentalists: I mean the sentimentalist who +says, with a sort of splutter, "Flog the brutes!" or who tells you +with innocent obscenity "what he would do" with a certain man--always +supposing the man's hands were tied. + +This is the more effeminate type of the two; but both are weak and +unbalanced. And it is only these two types, the sentimental humanitarian +and the sentimental brutalitarian, whom one hears in the modern babel. +Yet you very rarely meet either of them in a train. You never meet +anyone else in a controversy. The man you meet in a train is like this +man that I met: he is emotionally decent, only he is intellectually +doubtful. So far from luxuriating in the loathsome things that could be +"done" to criminals, he feels bitterly how much better it would be if +nothing need be done. But something must be done. "I s'pose we 'ave to +do it." In short, he is simply a sane man, and of a sane man there is +only one safe definition. He is a man who can have tragedy in his heart +and comedy in his head. + +..... + +Now the real difficulty of discussing decently this problem of the +proper treatment of criminals is that both parties discuss the matter +without any direct human feeling. The denouncers of wrong are as cold as +the organisers of wrong. Humanitarianism is as hard as inhumanity. + +Let me take one practical instance. I think the flogging arranged in our +modern prisons is a filthy torture; all its scientific paraphernalia, +the photographing, the medical attendance, prove that it goes to the +last foul limit of the boot and rack. The cat is simply the rack without +any of its intellectual reasons. Holding this view strongly, I open the +ordinary humanitarian books or papers and I find a phrase like this, +"The lash is a relic of barbarism." So is the plough. So is the fishing +net. So is the horn or the staff or the fire lit in winter. What an +inexpressibly feeble phrase for anything one wants to attack--a relic of +barbarism! It is as if a man walked naked down the street to-morrow, and +we said that his clothes were not quite in the latest fashion. There is +nothing particularly nasty about being a relic of barbarism. Man is a +relic of barbarism. Civilisation is a relic of barbarism. + +But torture is not a relic of barbarism at all. In actuality it is +simply a relic of sin; but in comparative history it may well be called +a relic of civilisation. It has always been most artistic and elaborate +when everything else was most artistic and elaborate. Thus it was +detailed exquisite in the late Roman Empire, in the complex and gorgeous +sixteenth century, in the centralised French monarchy a hundred years +before the Revolution, and in the great Chinese civilisation to this +day. This is, first and last, the frightful thing we must remember. +In so far as we grow instructed and refined we are not (in any sense +whatever) naturally moving away from torture. We may be moving towards +torture. We must know what we are doing, if we are to avoid the enormous +secret cruelty which has crowned every historic civilisation. + +The train moves more swiftly through the sunny English fields. They have +taken the prisoners away, and I do not know what they have done with +them. + + + + +XXXIII. The Prehistoric Railway Station + +A railway station is an admirable place, although Ruskin did not think +so; he did not think so because he himself was even more modern than the +railway station. He did not think so because he was himself feverish, +irritable, and snorting like an engine. He could not value the ancient +silence of the railway station. + +"In a railway station," he said, "you are in a hurry, and therefore, +miserable"; but you need not be either unless you are as modern as +Ruskin. The true philosopher does not think of coming just in time for +his train except as a bet or a joke. + +The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to be late +for the one before. Do this, and you will find in a railway station +much of the quietude and consolation of a cathedral. It has many of the +characteristics of a great ecclesiastical building; it has vast arches, +void spaces, coloured lights, and, above all, it has recurrence or +ritual. It is dedicated to the celebration of water and fire the two +prime elements of all human ceremonial. Lastly, a station resembles the +old religions rather than the new religions in this point, that people +go there. In connection with this it should also be remembered that all +popular places, all sites, actually used by the people, tend to retain +the best routine of antiquity very much more than any localities or +machines used by any privileged class. Things are not altered so quickly +or completely by common people as they are by fashionable people. Ruskin +could have found more memories of the Middle Ages in the Underground +Railway than in the grand hotels outside the stations. The great palaces +of pleasure which the rich build in London all have brazen and vulgar +names. Their names are either snobbish, like the Hotel Cecil, or +(worse still) cosmopolitan like the Hotel Metropole. But when I go in a +third-class carriage from the nearest circle station to Battersea to the +nearest circle station to the DAILY NEWS, the names of the stations are +one long litany of solemn and saintly memories. Leaving Victoria I come +to a park belonging especially to St. James the Apostle; thence I go to +Westminster Bridge, whose very name alludes to the awful Abbey; Charing +Cross holds up the symbol of Christendom; the next station is called a +Temple; and Blackfriars remembers the mediaeval dream of a Brotherhood. + +If you wish to find the past preserved, follow the million feet of the +crowd. At the worst the uneducated only wear down old things by sheer +walking. But the educated kick them down out of sheer culture. + +I feel all this profoundly as I wander about the empty railway station, +where I have no business of any kind. I have extracted a vast number of +chocolates from automatic machines; I have obtained cigarettes, toffee, +scent, and other things that I dislike by the same machinery; I have +weighed myself, with sublime results; and this sense, not only of the +healthiness of popular things, but of their essential antiquity and +permanence, is still in possession of my mind. I wander up to the +bookstall, and my faith survives even the wild spectacle of modern +literature and journalism. Even in the crudest and most clamorous +aspects of the newspaper world I still prefer the popular to the proud +and fastidious. If I had to choose between taking in the DAILY MAIL and +taking in the TIMES (the dilemma reminds one of a nightmare), I should +certainly cry out with the whole of my being for the DAILY MAIL. Even +mere bigness preached in a frivolous way is not so irritating as mere +meanness preached in a big and solemn way. People buy the DAILY MAIL, +but they do not believe in it. They do believe in the TIMES, and +(apparently) they do not buy it. But the more the output of paper upon +the modern world is actually studied, the more it will be found to be +in all its essentials ancient and human, like the name of Charing Cross. +Linger for two or three hours at a station bookstall (as I am doing), +and you will find that it gradually takes on the grandeur and historic +allusiveness of the Vatican or Bodleian Library. The novelty is all +superficial; the tradition is all interior and profound. The DAILY MAIL +has new editions, but never a new idea. Everything in a newspaper that +is not the old human love of altar or fatherland is the old human love +of gossip. Modern writers have often made game of the old chronicles +because they chiefly record accidents and prodigies; a church struck +by lightning, or a calf with six legs. They do not seem to realise that +this old barbaric history is the same as new democratic journalism. It +is not that the savage chronicle has disappeared. It is merely that the +savage chronicle now appears every morning. + +As I moved thus mildly and vaguely in front of the bookstall, my eye +caught a sudden and scarlet title that for the moment staggered me. On +the outside of a book I saw written in large letters, "Get On or Get +Out." The title of the book recalled to me with a sudden revolt and +reaction all that does seem unquestionably new and nasty; it reminded +me that there was in the world of to-day that utterly idiotic thing, +a worship of success; a thing that only means surpassing anybody in +anything; a thing that may mean being the most successful person +in running away from a battle; a thing that may mean being the most +successfully sleepy of the whole row of sleeping men. When I saw those +words the silence and sanctity of the railway station were for the +moment shadowed. Here, I thought, there is at any rate something +anarchic and violent and vile. This title, at any rate, means the most +disgusting individualism of this individualistic world. In the fury of +my bitterness and passion I actually bought the book, thereby ensuring +that my enemy would get some of my money. I opened it prepared to find +some brutality, some blasphemy, which would really be an exception to +the general silence and sanctity of the railway station. I was prepared +to find something in the book that was as infamous as its title. + +I was disappointed. There was nothing at all corresponding to the +furious decisiveness of the remarks on the cover. After reading it +carefully I could not discover whether I was really to get on or to +get out; but I had a vague feeling that I should prefer to get out. +A considerable part of the book, particularly towards the end, was +concerned with a detailed description of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. +Undoubtedly Napoleon got on. He also got out. But I could not discover +in any way how the details of his life given here were supposed to help +a person aiming at success. One anecdote described how Napoleon always +wiped his pen on his knee-breeches. I suppose the moral is: always wipe +your pen on your knee-breeches, and you will win the battle of Wagram. +Another story told that he let loose a gazelle among the ladies of his +Court. Clearly the brutal practical inference is--loose a gazelle among +the ladies of your acquaintance, and you will be Emperor of the French. +Get on with a gazelle or get out. The book entirely reconciled me to +the soft twilight of the station. Then I suddenly saw that there was a +symbolic division which might be paralleled from biology. Brave men are +vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness +in the middle. But these modern cowards are all crustaceans; their +hardness is all on the cover and their softness is inside. But the +softness is there; everything in this twilight temple is soft. + + + + +XXXIV. The Diabolist + +Every now and then I have introduced into my essays an element of +truth. Things that really happened have been mentioned, such as meeting +President Kruger or being thrown out of a cab. What I have now to relate +really happened; yet there was no element in it of practical politics or +of personal danger. It was simply a quiet conversation which I had with +another man. But that quiet conversation was by far the most terrible +thing that has ever happened to me in my life. It happened so long ago +that I cannot be certain of the exact words of the dialogue, only of its +main questions and answers; but there is one sentence in it for which I +can answer absolutely and word for word. It was a sentence so awful that +I could not forget it if I would. It was the last sentence spoken; and +it was not spoken to me. + +The thing befell me in the days when I was at an art school. An art +school is different from almost all other schools or colleges in this +respect: that, being of new and crude creation and of lax discipline, +it presents a specially strong contrast between the industrious and the +idle. People at an art school either do an atrocious amount of work or +do no work at all. I belonged, along with other charming people, to the +latter class; and this threw me often into the society of men who were +very different from myself, and who were idle for reasons very different +from mine. I was idle because I was very much occupied; I was +engaged about that time in discovering, to my own extreme and lasting +astonishment, that I was not an atheist. But there were others also at +loose ends who were engaged in discovering what Carlyle called (I think +with needless delicacy) the fact that ginger is hot in the mouth. + +I value that time, in short, because it made me acquainted with a good +representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are two +very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. The +first is the fact that there is one real difference between men and +women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in +threes. The second is that when you find (as you often do) three young +cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk together every +day you generally find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for +some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. In these small +groups devoted to a drivelling dissipation there is almost always one +man who seems to have condescended to his company; one man who, while he +can talk a foul triviality with his fellows, can also talk politics with +a Socialist, or philosophy with a Catholic. + +It was just such a man whom I came to know well. It was strange, +perhaps, that he liked his dirty, drunken society; it was stranger +still, perhaps, that he liked my society. For hours of the day he would +talk with me about Milton or Gothic architecture; for hours of the night +he would go where I have no wish to follow him, even in speculation. He +was a man with a long, ironical face, and close and red hair; he was +by class a gentleman, and could walk like one, but preferred, for some +reason, to walk like a groom carrying two pails. He looked like a sort +of Super-jockey; as if some archangel had gone on the Turf. And I shall +never forget the half-hour in which he and I argued about real things +for the first and the last time. + +..... + +Along the front of the big building of which our school was a part ran +a huge slope of stone steps, higher, I think, than those that lead up to +St. Paul's Cathedral. On a black wintry evening he and I were wandering +on these cold heights, which seemed as dreary as a pyramid under the +stars. The one thing visible below us in the blackness was a burning and +blowing fire; for some gardener (I suppose) was burning something in the +grounds, and from time to time the red sparks went whirling past us like +a swarm of scarlet insects in the dark. Above us also it was gloom; +but if one stared long enough at that upper darkness, one saw vertical +stripes of grey in the black and then became conscious of the colossal +faade of the Doric building, phantasmal, yet filling the sky, as if +Heaven were still filled with the gigantic ghost of Paganism. + +..... + +The man asked me abruptly why I was becoming orthodox. Until he said it, +I really had not known that I was; but the moment he had said it I knew +it to be literally true. And the process had been so long and full that +I answered him at once out of existing stores of explanation. + +"I am becoming orthodox," I said, "because I have come, rightly or +wrongly, after stretching my brain till it bursts, to the old belief +that heresy is worse even than sin. An error is more menacing than +a crime, for an error begets crimes. An Imperialist is worse than a +pirate. For an Imperialist keeps a school for pirates; he teaches piracy +disinterestedly and without an adequate salary. A Free Lover is worse +than a profligate. For a profligate is serious and reckless even in his +shortest love; while a Free Lover is cautious and irresponsible even in +his longest devotion. I hate modern doubt because it is dangerous." + +"You mean dangerous to morality," he said in a voice of wonderful +gentleness. "I expect you are right. But why do you care about +morality?" + +I glanced at his face quickly. He had thrust out his neck as he had a +trick of doing; and so brought his face abruptly into the light of the +bonfire from below, like a face in the footlights. His long chin and +high cheek-bones were lit up infernally from underneath; so that +he looked like a fiend staring down into the flaming pit. I had an +unmeaning sense of being tempted in a wilderness; and even as I paused a +burst of red sparks broke past. + +"Aren't those sparks splendid?" I said. + +"Yes," he replied. + +"That is all that I ask you to admit," said I. "Give me those few red +specks and I will deduce Christian morality. Once I thought like you, +that one's pleasure in a flying spark was a thing that could come and +go with that spark. Once I thought that the delight was as free as the +fire. Once I thought that red star we see was alone in space. But now +I know that the red star is only on the apex of an invisible pyramid of +virtues. That red fire is only the flower on a stalk of living habits, +which you cannot see. Only because your mother made you say 'Thank you' +for a bun are you now able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars +of an instant or for the white stars of all time. Only because you were +humble before fireworks on the fifth of November do you now enjoy any +fireworks that you chance to see. You only like them being red because +you were told about the blood of the martyrs; you only like them +being bright because brightness is a glory. That flame flowered out of +virtues, and it will fade with virtues. Seduce a woman, and that spark +will be less bright. Shed blood, and that spark will be less red. Be +really bad, and they will be to you like the spots on a wall-paper." + +He had a horrible fairness of the intellect that made me despair of +his soul. A common, harmless atheist would have denied that religion +produced humility or humility a simple joy: but he admitted both. He +only said, "But shall I not find in evil a life of its own? Granted that +for every woman I ruin one of those red sparks will go out: will not the +expanding pleasure of ruin..." + +"Do you see that fire?" I asked. "If we had a real fighting democracy, +some one would burn you in it; like the devil-worshipper that you are." + +"Perhaps," he said, in his tired, fair way. "Only what you call evil I +call good." + +He went down the great steps alone, and I felt as if I wanted the steps +swept and cleaned. I followed later, and as I went to find my hat in the +low, dark passage where it hung, I suddenly heard his voice again, but +the words were inaudible. I stopped, startled: then I heard the voice of +one of the vilest of his associates saying, "Nobody can possibly know." +And then I heard those two or three words which I remember in every +syllable and cannot forget. I heard the Diabolist say, "I tell you I +have done everything else. If I do that I shan't know the difference +between right and wrong." I rushed out without daring to pause; and as +I passed the fire I did not know whether it was hell or the furious love +of God. + +I have since heard that he died: it may be said, I think, that he +committed suicide; though he did it with tools of pleasure, not with +tools of pain. God help him, I know the road he went; but I have never +known, or even dared to think, what was that place at which he stopped +and refrained. + + + + +XXXV. A Glimpse of My Country + +Whatever is it that we are all looking for? I fancy that it is really +quite close. When I was a boy I had a fancy that Heaven or Fairyland or +whatever I called it, was immediately behind my own back, and that this +was why I could never manage to see it, however often I twisted and +turned to take it by surprise. I had a notion of a man perpetually +spinning round on one foot like a teetotum in the effort to find that +world behind his back which continually fled from him. Perhaps this is +why the world goes round. Perhaps the world is always trying to look +over its shoulder and catch up the world which always escapes it, yet +without which it cannot be itself. + +In any case, as I have said, I think that we must always conceive of +that which is the goal of all our endeavours as something which is in +some strange way near. Science boasts of the distance of its stars; +of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. +But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost +menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. Always +the Kingdom of Heaven is "At Hand"; and Looking-glass Land is only +through the looking-glass. So I for one should never be astonished if +the next twist of a street led me to the heart of that maze in which all +the mystics are lost. I should not be at all surprised if I turned one +corner in Fleet Street and saw a yet queerer-looking lamp; I should not +be surprised if I turned a third corner and found myself in Elfland. + +I should not be surprised at this; but I was surprised the other day at +something more surprising. I took a turn out of Fleet Street and found +myself in England. + +..... + +The singular shock experienced perhaps requires explanation. In the +darkest or the most inadequate moments of England there is one thing +that should always be remembered about the very nature of our country. +It may be shortly stated by saying that England is not such a fool as +it looks. The types of England, the externals of England, always +misrepresent the country. England is an oligarchical country, and it +prefers that its oligarchy should be inferior to itself. + +The speaking in the House of Commons, for instance, is not only worse +than the speaking was, it is worse than the speaking is, in all or +almost all other places in small debating clubs or casual dinners. Our +countrymen probably prefer this solemn futility in the higher places of +the national life. It may be a strange sight to see the blind leading +the blind; but England provides a stranger. England shows us the blind +leading the people who can see. And this again is an under-statement +of the case. For the English political aristocrats not only speak worse +than many other people; they speak worse than themselves. The ignorance +of statesmen is like the ignorance of judges, an artificial and affected +thing. If you have the good fortune really to talk with a statesman, you +will be constantly startled with his saying quite intelligent things. It +makes one nervous at first. And I have never been sufficiently intimate +with such a man to ask him why it was a rule of his life in Parliament +to appear sillier than he was. + +It is the same with the voters. The average man votes below himself; he +votes with half a mind or with a hundredth part of one. A man ought to +vote with the whole of himself as he worships or gets married. A man +ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for +faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his +hands and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of +it should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, they +should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. But as it is, +the difficulty with English democracy at all elections is that it is +something less than itself. The question is not so much whether only a +minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of +the voter votes. + +..... + +This is the tragedy of England; you cannot judge it by its foremost men. +Its types do not typify. And on the occasion of which I speak I found +this to be so especially of that old intelligent middle class which I +had imagined had almost vanished from the world. It seemed to me that +all the main representatives of the middle class had gone off in one +direction or in the other; they had either set out in pursuit of the +Smart Set or they had set out in pursuit of the Simple Life. I cannot +say which I dislike more myself; the people in question are welcome to +have either of them, or, as is more likely, to have both, in hideous +alternations of disease and cure. But all the prominent men who plainly +represent the middle class have adopted either the single eye-glass of +Mr Chamberlain or the single eye of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + +The old class that I mean has no representative. Its food was plentiful; +but it had no show. Its food was plain; but it had no fads. It was +serious about politics; and when it spoke in public it committed the +solecism of trying to speak well. I thought that this old earnest +political England had practically disappeared. And as I say, I took one +turn out of Fleet Street and I found a room full of it. + +..... + +At the top of the room was a chair in which Johnson had sat. The +club was a club in which Wilkes had spoken, in a time when even the +ne'er-do-weel was virile. But all these things by themselves might be +merely archaism. The extraordinary thing was that this hall had all the +hubbub, the sincerity, the anger, the oratory of the eighteenth century. +The members of this club were of all shades of opinion, yet there was +not one speech which gave me that jar of unreality which I often have in +listening to the ablest men uttering my own opinion. The Toryism of this +club was like the Toryism of Johnson, a Toryism that could use humour +and appealed to humanity. The democracy of this club was like the +democracy of Wilkes, a democracy that can speak epigrams and fight +duels; a democracy that can face things out and endure slander; the +democracy of Wilkes, or, rather, the democracy of Fox. + +One thing especially filled my soul with the soul of my fathers. Each +man speaking, whether he spoke well or ill, spoke as well as he could +from sheer fury against the other man. This is the greatest of our +modern descents, that nowadays a man does not become more rhetorical +as he becomes more sincere. An eighteenth-century speaker, when he got +really and honestly furious, looked for big words with which to crush +his adversary. The new speaker looks for small words to crush him with. +He looks for little facts and little sneers. In a modern speech the +rhetoric is put into the merely formal part, the opening to which nobody +listens. But when Mr. Chamberlain, or a Moderate, or one of the harder +kind of Socialists, becomes really sincere, he becomes Cockney. "The +destiny of the Empire," or "The destiny of humanity," do well enough +for mere ornamental preliminaries, but when the man becomes angry and +honest, then it is a snarl, "Where do we come in?" or "It's your money +they want." + +The men in this eighteenth-century club were entirely different; they +were quite eighteenth century. Each one rose to his feet quivering with +passion, and tried to destroy his opponent, not with sniggering, but +actually with eloquence. I was arguing with them about Home Rule; at +the end I told them why the English aristocracy really disliked an Irish +Parliament; because it would be like their club. + +..... + +I came out again into Fleet Street at night, and by a dim lamp I saw +pasted up some tawdry nonsense about Wastrels and how London was rising +against something that London had hardly heard of. Then I suddenly +saw, as in one obvious picture, that the modern world is an immense and +tumultuous ocean, full of monstrous and living things. And I saw that +across the top of it is spread a thin, a very thin, sheet of ice, of +wicked wealth and of lying journalism. + +And as I stood there in the darkness I could almost fancy that I heard +it crack. + + + + +XXXVI. A Somewhat Improbable Story + +I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read it through +very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come to the conclusion +that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read it through very +carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet. The image and the +idea of it clung to me through a great part of my boyhood; I may have +dreamt it before I could talk; or told it to myself before I could read; +or read it before I could remember. On the whole, however, I am certain +that I did not read it, for children have very clear memories about +things like that; and of the books which I was really fond I can still +remember, not only the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position +of the printed words on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline to +the opinion that it happened to me before I was born. + +..... + +At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages of the +atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, for the sake of +argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch restaurants +in the City where men take their food so fast that it has none of the +quality of food, and take their half-hour's vacation so fast that it has +none of the qualities of leisure; to hurry through one's leisure is the +most unbusiness-like of actions. They all wore tall shiny hats as if +they could not lose an instant even to hang them on a peg, and they all +had one eye a little off, hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In +short, they were the slaves of the modern bondage, you could hear their +fetters clanking. Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest +chain ever tied to a man--it is called a watch-chain. + +Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man who +almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. He was like all +the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly opposite to them in all +manner. He wore a high shiny hat and a long frock coat, but he wore them +as such solemn things were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if +it were a mitre, and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high +priest. He not only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed (such was +his stateliness) almost to ask permission of the hat for doing so, and +to apologise to the peg for making use of it. When he had sat down on +a wooden chair with the air of one considering its feelings and given a +sort of slight stoop or bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an +altar, I could not help some comment springing to my lips. For the man +was a big, sanguine-faced, prosperous-looking man, and yet he treated +everything with a care that almost amounted to nervousness. + +For the sake of saying something to express my interest I said, "This +furniture is fairly solid; but, of course, people do treat it much too +carelessly." + +As I looked up doubtfully my eye caught his, and was fixed as his was +fixed in an apocalyptic stare. I had thought him ordinary as he entered, +save for his strange, cautious manner; but if the other people had seen +him then they would have screamed and emptied the room. They did not see +him, and they went on making a clatter with their forks, and a murmur +with their conversation. But the man's face was the face of a maniac. + +"Did you mean anything particular by that remark?" he asked at last, and +the blood crawled back slowly into his face. + +"Nothing whatever," I answered. "One does not mean anything here; it +spoils people's digestions." + +He limped back and wiped his broad forehead with a big handkerchief; and +yet there seemed to be a sort of regret in his relief. + +"I thought perhaps," he said in a low voice, "that another of them had +gone wrong." + +"If you mean another digestion gone wrong," I said, "I never heard of +one here that went right. This is the heart of the Empire, and the other +organs are in an equally bad way." + +"No, I mean another street gone wrong," and he said heavily and quietly, +"but as I suppose that doesn't explain much to you, I think I shall have +to tell you the story. I do so with all the less responsibility, because +I know you won't believe it. For forty years of my life I invariably +left my office, which is in Leadenhall Street, at half-past five in the +afternoon, taking with me an umbrella in the right hand and a bag in the +left hand. For forty years two months and four days I passed out of the +side office door, walked down the street on the left-hand side, took +the first turning to the left and the third to the right, from where I +bought an evening paper, followed the road on the right-hand side round +two obtuse angles, and came out just outside a Metropolitan station, +where I took a train home. For forty years two months and four days I +fulfilled this course by accumulated habit: it was not a long street +that I traversed, and it took me about four and a half minutes to do it. +After forty years two months and four days, on the fifth day I went out +in the same manner, with my umbrella in the right hand and my bag in the +left, and I began to notice that walking along the familiar street tired +me somewhat more than usual; and when I turned it I was convinced that I +had turned down the wrong one. For now the street shot up quite a steep +slant, such as one only sees in the hilly parts of London, and in this +part there were no hills at all. Yet it was not the wrong street; the +name written on it was the same; the shuttered shops were the same; the +lamp-posts and the whole look of the perspective was the same; only +it was tilted upwards like a lid. Forgetting any trouble about +breathlessness or fatigue I ran furiously forward, and reached the +second of my accustomed turnings, which ought to bring me almost within +sight of the station. And as I turned that corner I nearly fell on the +pavement. For now the street went up straight in front of my face like a +steep staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not for miles round +that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. And this was +a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole street had lifted itself +like a single wave, and yet every speck and detail of it was the same, +and I saw in the high distance, as at the top of an Alpine pass, picked +out in pink letters the name over my paper shop. + +"I ran on and on blindly now, passing all the shops and coming to a part +of the road where there was a long grey row of private houses. I had, +I know not why, an irrational feeling that I was a long iron bridge in +empty space. An impulse seized me, and I pulled up the iron trap of a +coal-hole. Looking down through it I saw empty space and the stairs. + +"When I looked up again a man was standing in his front garden, having +apparently come out of his house; he was leaning over the railings and +gazing at me. We were all alone on that nightmare road; his face was in +shadow; his dress was dark and ordinary; but when I saw him standing so +perfectly still I knew somehow that he was not of this world. And the +stars behind his head were larger and fiercer than ought to be endured +by the eyes of men. + +"'If you are a kind angel,' I said, 'or a wise devil, or have anything +in common with mankind, tell me what is this street possessed of +devils.' + +"After a long silence he said, 'What do you say that it is?' + +"'It is Bumpton Street, of course,' I snapped. 'It goes to Oldgate +Station.' + +"'Yes,' he admitted gravely; 'it goes there sometimes. Just now, +however, it is going to heaven.' + +"'To heaven?' I said. 'Why?' + +"'It is going to heaven for justice,' he replied. 'You must have treated +it badly. Remember always that there is one thing that cannot be endured +by anybody or anything. That one unendurable thing is to be overworked +and also neglected. For instance, you can overwork women--everybody +does. But you can't neglect women--I defy you to. At the same time, you +can neglect tramps and gypsies and all the apparent refuse of the State +so long as you do not overwork it. But no beast of the field, no horse, +no dog can endure long to be asked to do more than his work and yet have +less than his honour. It is the same with streets. You have worked this +street to death, and yet you have never remembered its existence. If +you had a healthy democracy, even of pagans, they would have hung this +street with garlands and given it the name of a god. Then it would have +gone quietly. But at last the street has grown tired of your tireless +insolence; and it is bucking and rearing its head to heaven. Have you +never sat on a bucking horse?' + +"I looked at the long grey street, and for a moment it seemed to me to +be exactly like the long grey neck of a horse flung up to heaven. But +in a moment my sanity returned, and I said, 'But this is all nonsense. +Streets go to the place they have to go. A street must always go to its +end.' + +"'Why do you think so of a street?' he asked, standing very still. + +"'Because I have always seen it do the same thing,' I replied, in +reasonable anger. 'Day after day, year after year, it has always gone to +Oldgate Station; day after...' + +"I stopped, for he had flung up his head with the fury of the road in +revolt. + +"'And you?' he cried terribly. 'What do you think the road thinks of +you? Does the road think you are alive? Are you alive? Day after day, +year after year, you have gone to Oldgate Station....' Since then I have +respected the things called inanimate." + +And bowing slightly to the mustard-pot, the man in the restaurant +withdrew. + + + + +XXXVII. The Shop Of Ghosts + +Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get +for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, +the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get +them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am +not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a +penny halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. +In the street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an +electric tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on +a flying castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of +brightly coloured sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of +reading this article for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and +irrelevant matter. + +But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable +things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last +night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and +dimly lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets +of Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a +child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of +the poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but +they were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important +than cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the +body. You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in +the modern world. + +..... + +As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, +at small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red Noah's +arks, I must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. That lit +shop-window became like the brilliantly lit stage when one is watching +some highly coloured comedy. I forgot the grey houses and the grimy +people behind me as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds +at a theatre. It seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were +small, not because they were toys, but because they were objects far +away. The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater +omnibus, passing across some huge desert on its ordinary way to +Bayswater. The blue elephant was no longer blue with paint; he was +blue with distance. The black doll was really a negro relieved against +passionate tropic foliage in the land where every weed is flaming and +only man is black. The red Noah's ark was really the enormous ship +of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen sea, red in the first +morning of hope. + +Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, such +brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the face +of one's own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles or +moustaches. They are commonly marked by the two signs of the slowness of +their growth and the suddenness of their termination. The return to real +thinking is often as abrupt as bumping into a man. Very often indeed +(in my case) it is bumping into a man. But in any case the awakening is +always emphatic and, generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in +this case, I did come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness +that I was, after all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; but +in some strange way the mental cure did not seem to be final. There +was still in my mind an unmanageable something that told me that I had +strayed into some odd atmosphere, or that I had already done some odd +thing. I felt as if I had worked a miracle or committed a sin. It was as +if I had at any rate, stepped across some border in the soul. + +To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop and +tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old and +broken, with confused white hair covering his head and half his face, +hair so startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. Yet though +he was senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering in his +eyes; he looked rather as if he were gradually falling asleep in a not +unkindly decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, but when I put down the +money he did not at first seem to see it; then he blinked at it feebly, +and then he pushed it feebly away. + +"No, no," he said vaguely. "I never have. I never have. We are rather +old-fashioned here." + +"Not taking money," I replied, "seems to me more like an uncommonly new +fashion than an old one." + +"I never have," said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; "I've +always given presents. I'm too old to stop." + +"Good heavens!" I said. "What can you mean? Why, you might be Father +Christmas." + +"I am Father Christmas," he said apologetically, and blew his nose +again. + +The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. At +any rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining +shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; I +might have strayed into some new and sunless world. But something had +cut the chords of common sense, and I could not feel even surprise +except sleepily. Something made me say, "You look ill, Father +Christmas." + +"I am dying," he said. + +I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again. + +"All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. They seem +to object to me on such curious and inconsistent sort of grounds, +these scientific men, and these innovators. They say that I give people +superstitions and make them too visionary; they say I give people +sausages and make them too coarse. They say my heavenly parts are too +heavenly; they say my earthly parts are too earthly; I don't know what +they want, I'm sure. How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly +things too earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? I don't +understand. But I understand one thing well enough. These modern people +are living and I am dead." + +"You may be dead," I replied. "You ought to know. But as for what they +are doing, do not call it living." + +..... + +A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected to be +unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few seconds when, in the +utter stillness, I distinctly heard a very rapid step coming nearer and +nearer along the street. The next moment a figure flung itself into the +shop and stood framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted +back as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, +a gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. He +had large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; he +had a pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the shop +and the old man in a look that seemed literally a flash and uttered the +exclamation of a man utterly staggered. + +"Good lord!" he cried out; "it can't be you! It isn't you! I came to ask +where your grave was." + +"I'm not dead yet, Mr. Dickens," said the old gentleman, with a feeble +smile; "but I'm dying," he hastened to add reassuringly. + +"But, dash it all, you were dying in my time," said Mr. Charles Dickens +with animation; "and you don't look a day older." + +"I've felt like this for a long time," said Father Christmas. + +Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door into the +darkness. + +"Dick," he roared at the top of his voice; "he's still alive." + +..... + +Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more +full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his +flushed face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. He carried +his head well back like a soldier, and his hot face had even a look +of arrogance, which was suddenly contradicted by his eyes, which were +literally as humble as a dog's. His sword made a great clatter, as if +the shop were too small for it. + +"Indeed," said Sir Richard Steele, "'tis a most prodigious matter, +for the man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley and his +Christmas Day." + +My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. It seemed to be +filled with newcomers. + +"It hath ever been understood," said a burly man, who carried his head +humorously and obstinately a little on one side--I think he was Ben +Jonson--"It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King +James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were +fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most +surely was no lustier when I knew him than now." + +And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in +some mixed Norman French, "But I saw the man dying." + +"I have felt like this a long time," said Father Christmas, in his +feeble way again. + +Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him. + +"Since when?" he asked. "Since you were born?" + +"Yes," said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. "I have been +always dying." + +Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to +rise. + +"I understand it now," he cried, "you will never die." + + + + +XXXVIII. The Ballade of a Strange Town + +My friend and I, in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed affection +for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there was so restful that +we almost felt it as a home, and hardly strayed out of it. + +We sat day after day in the market-place, under little trees growing +in wooden tubs, and looked up at the noble converging lines of the +Cathedral tower, from which the three riders from Ghent, in the poem, +heard the bell which told them they were not too late. But we took as +much pleasure in the people, in the little boys with open, flat +Flemish faces and fur collars round their necks, making them look +like burgomasters; or the women, whose prim, oval faces, hair strained +tightly off the temples, and mouths at once hard, meek, and humorous, +exactly reproduced the late mediaeval faces in Memling and Van Eyck. + +But one afternoon, as it happened, my friend rose from under his little +tree, and pointing to a sort of toy train that was puffing smoke in one +corner of the clear square, suggested that we should go by it. We got +into the little train, which was meant really to take the peasants and +their vegetables to and fro from their fields beyond the town, and +the official came round to give us tickets. We asked him what place +we should get to if we paid fivepence. The Belgians are not a romantic +people, and he asked us (with a lamentable mixture of Flemish coarseness +and French rationalism) where we wanted to go. + +We explained that we wanted to go to fairyland, and the only question +was whether we could get there for fivepence. At last, after a great +deal of international misunderstanding (for he spoke French in the +Flemish and we in the English manner), he told us that fivepence would +take us to a place which I have never seen written down, but which when +spoken sounded like the word "Waterloo" pronounced by an intoxicated +patriot; I think it was Waerlowe. + +We clasped our hands and said it was the place we had been seeking from +boyhood, and when we had got there we descended with promptitude. + +For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field of +Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was in quite a +different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, with one cottage at the +corner, a perspective of tall trees like Hobbema's "Avenue," and beyond +only the infinite flat chess-board of the little fields. It was the +scene of peace and prosperity; but I must confess that my friend's first +action was to ask the man when there would be another train back to +Mechlin. The man stated that there would be a train back in exactly one +hour. We walked up the avenue, and when we were nearly half an hour's +walk away it began to rain. + +..... + +We arrived back at the cross-roads sodden and dripping, and, finding +the train waiting, climbed into it with some relief. The officer on +this train could speak nothing but Flemish, but he understood the name +Mechlin, and indicated that when we came to Mechlin Station he would put +us down, which, after the right interval of time, he did. + +We got down, under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin, +though the features could not easily be recognised through the grey +screen of the rain. I do not generally agree with those who find rain +depressing. A shower-bath is not depressing; it is rather startling. And +if it is exciting when a man throws a pail of water over you, why should +it not also be exciting when the gods throw many pails? But on this +soaking afternoon, whether it was the dull sky-line of the Netherlands +or the fact that we were returning home without any adventure, I really +did think things a trifle dreary. As soon as we could creep under the +shelter of a street we turned into a little caf, kept by one woman. She +was incredibly old, and she spoke no French. There we drank black coffee +and what was called "cognac fine." "Cognac fine" were the only two +French words used in the establishment, and they were not true. At +least, the fineness (perhaps by its very ethereal delicacy) escaped me. +After a little my friend, who was more restless than I, got up and went +out, to see if the rain had stopped and if we could at once stroll back +to our hotel by the station. I sat finishing my coffee in a colourless +mood, and listening to the unremitting rain. + +..... + +Suddenly the door burst open, and my friend appeared, transfigured and +frantic. + +"Get up!" he cried, waving his hands wildly. "Get up! We're in the wrong +town! We're not in Mechlin at all. Mechlin is ten miles, twenty miles +off--God knows what! We're somewhere near Antwerp." + +"What!" I cried, leaping from my seat, and sending the furniture flying. +"Then all is well, after all! Poetry only hid her face for an instant +behind a cloud. Positively for a moment I was feeling depressed because +we were in the right town. But if we are in the wrong town--why, we +have our adventure after all! If we are in the wrong town, we are in the +right place." + +I rushed out into the rain, and my friend followed me somewhat more +grimly. We discovered we were in a town called Lierre, which seemed to +consist chiefly of bankrupt pastry cooks, who sold lemonade. + +"This is the peak of our whole poetic progress!" I cried +enthusiastically. "We must do something, something sacramental and +commemorative! We cannot sacrifice an ox, and it would be a bore to +build a temple. Let us write a poem." + +With but slight encouragement, I took out an old envelope and one of +those pencils that turn bright violet in water. There was plenty of +water about, and the violet ran down the paper, symbolising the rich +purple of that romantic hour. I began, choosing the form of an old +French ballade; it is the easiest because it is the most restricted-- + + "Can Man to Mount Olympus rise, + And fancy Primrose Hill the scene? + Can a man walk in Paradise + And think he is in Turnham Green? + And could I take you for Malines, + Not knowing the nobler thing you were? + O Pearl of all the plain, and queen, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + "Through memory's mist in glimmering guise + Shall shine your streets of sloppy sheen. + And wet shall grow my dreaming eyes, + To think how wet my boots have been + Now if I die or shoot a Dean----" + +Here I broke off to ask my friend whether he thought it expressed a more +wild calamity to shoot a Dean or to be a Dean. But he only turned up his +coat collar, and I felt that for him the muse had folded her wings. I +rewrote-- + + "Now if I die a Rural Dean, + Or rob a bank I do not care, + Or turn a Tory. I have seen + The lovely city of Lierre." + +"The next line," I resumed, warming to it; but my friend interrupted me. + +"The next line," he said somewhat harshly, "will be a railway line. +We can get back to Mechlin from here, I find, though we have to change +twice. I dare say I should think this jolly romantic but for the +weather. Adventure is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne +and my adventures dry. Here is the station." + +..... + +We did not speak again until we had left Lierre, in its sacred cloud of +rain, and were coming to Mechlin, under a clearer sky, that even made +one think of stars. Then I leant forward and said to my friend in a low +voice--"I have found out everything. We have come to the wrong star." + +He stared his query, and I went on eagerly: "That is what makes life +at once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. When I +thought that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it was wrong, +I was happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, tires us +because it tells us we fit into this world. The true happiness is that +we don't fit. We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way." + +He silently nodded, staring out of the window, but whether I had +impressed or only fatigued him I could not tell. "This," I added, "is +suggested in the last verse of a fine poem you have grossly neglected-- + + "'Happy is he and more than wise + Who sees with wondering eyes and clean + The world through all the grey disguise + Of sleep and custom in between. + Yes; we may pass the heavenly screen, + But shall we know when we are there? + Who know not what these dead stones mean, + The lovely city of Lierre.'" + +Here the train stopped abruptly. And from Mechlin church steeple we +heard the half-chime: and Joris broke silence with "No bally HORS +D'OEUVRES for me: I shall get on to something solid at once." + + L'Envoy + + Prince, wide your Empire spreads, I ween, + Yet happier is that moistened Mayor, + Who drinks her cognac far from fine, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + + + +XXXIX. The Mystery of a Pageant + +Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take +a small part in one of those historical processions or pageants which +happened to be fashionable in or about the year 1909. And since I tend, +like all who are growing old, to re-enter the remote past as a paradise +or playground, I disinter a memory which may serve to stand among those +memories of small but strange incidents with which I have sometimes +filled this column. The thing has really some of the dark qualities of +a detective-story; though I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could +hardly unravel it now, when the scent is so old and cold and most of the +actors, doubtless, long dead. + +This old pageant included a series of figures from the eighteenth +century, and I was told that I was just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that +Dr. Johnson was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over +gravy, snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man +in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I +had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as +I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested +that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch +all of them but one, and then go back and touch that. Failing this, I +felt that the least they could do was to have twenty-five cups of tea +stationed at regular intervals along the course, each held by a Mrs. +Thrale in full costume. My best constructive suggestion was the most +harshly rejected of all. In front of me in the procession walked the +great Bishop Berkeley, the man who turned the tables on the early +materialists by maintaining that matter itself possibly does not exist. +Dr. Johnson, you will remember, did not like such bottomless fancies as +Berkeley's, and kicked a stone with his foot, saying, "I refute him so!" +Now (as I pointed out) kicking a stone would not make the metaphysical +quarrel quite clear; besides, it would hurt. But how picturesque +and perfect it would be if I moved across the ground in the symbolic +attitude of kicking Bishop Berkeley! How complete an allegoric group; +the great transcendentalist walking with his head among the stars, but +behind him the avenging realist pede claudo, with uplifted foot. But I +must not take up space with these forgotten frivolities; we old men grow +too garrulous in talking of the distant past. + +This story scarcely concerns me either in my real or my assumed +character. Suffice it to say that the procession took place at night +in a large garden and by torchlight (so remote is the date), that the +garden was crowded with Puritans, monks, and men-at-arms, and especially +with early Celtic saints smoking pipes, and with elegant Renaissance +gentlemen talking Cockney. Suffice it to say, or rather it is needless +to say, that I got lost. I wandered away into some dim corner of that +dim shrubbery, where there was nothing to do except tumbling over tent +ropes, and I began almost to feel like my prototype, and to share his +horror of solitude and hatred of a country life. + +In this detachment and dilemma I saw another man in a white wig +advancing across this forsaken stretch of lawn; a tall, lean man, who +stooped in his long black robes like a stooping eagle. When I thought +he would pass me, he stopped before my face, and said, "Dr. Johnson, I +think. I am Paley." + +"Sir," I said, "you used to guide men to the beginnings of Christianity. +If you can guide me now to wherever this infernal thing begins you will +perform a yet higher and harder function." + +His costume and style were so perfect that for the instant I really +thought he was a ghost. He took no notice of my flippancy, but, turning +his black-robed back on me, led me through verdurous glooms and winding +mossy ways, until we came out into the glare of gaslight and laughing +men in masquerade, and I could easily laugh at myself. + +And there, you will say, was an end of the matter. I am (you will say) +naturally obtuse, cowardly, and mentally deficient. I was, moreover, +unused to pageants; I felt frightened in the dark and took a man for a +spectre whom, in the light, I could recognise as a modern gentleman in +a masquerade dress. No; far from it. That spectral person was my first +introduction to a special incident which has never been explained and +which still lays its finger on my nerve. + +I mixed with the men of the eighteenth century; and we fooled as one +does at a fancy-dress ball. There was Burke as large as life and a great +deal better looking. There was Cowper much larger than life; he ought +to have been a little man in a night-cap, with a cat under one arm and +a spaniel under the other. As it was, he was a magnificent person, and +looked more like the Master of Ballantrae than Cowper. I persuaded him +at last to the night-cap, but never, alas, to the cat and dog. When I +came the next night Burke was still the same beautiful improvement upon +himself; Cowper was still weeping for his dog and cat and would not +be comforted; Bishop Berkeley was still waiting to be kicked in the +interests of philosophy. In short, I met all my old friends but one. +Where was Paley? I had been mystically moved by the man's presence; I +was moved more by his absence. At last I saw advancing towards us +across the twilight garden a little man with a large book and a bright +attractive face. When he came near enough he said, in a small, clear +voice, "I'm Paley." The thing was quite natural, of course; the man was +ill and had sent a substitute. Yet somehow the contrast was a shock. + +By the next night I had grown quite friendly with my four or five +colleagues; I had discovered what is called a mutual friend with +Berkeley and several points of difference with Burke. Cowper, I think +it was, who introduced me to a friend of his, a fresh face, square +and sturdy, framed in a white wig. "This," he explained, "is my friend +So-and-So. He's Paley." I looked round at all the faces by this time +fixed and familiar; I studied them; I counted them; then I bowed to the +third Paley as one bows to necessity. So far the thing was all within +the limits of coincidence. It certainly seemed odd that this one +particular cleric should be so varying and elusive. It was singular +that Paley, alone among men, should swell and shrink and alter like a +phantom, while all else remained solid. But the thing was explicable; +two men had been ill and there was an end of it; only I went again +the next night, and a clear-coloured elegant youth with powdered hair +bounded up to me, and told me with boyish excitement that he was Paley. + +For the next twenty-four hours I remained in the mental condition of +the modern world. I mean the condition in which all natural explanations +have broken down and no supernatural explanation has been established. +My bewilderment had reached to boredom when I found myself once more in +the colour and clatter of the pageant, and I was all the more pleased +because I met an old school-fellow, and we mutually recognised each +other under our heavy clothes and hoary wigs. We talked about all those +great things for which literature is too small and only life large +enough; red-hot memories and those gigantic details which make up the +characters of men. I heard all about the friends he had lost sight of +and those he had kept in sight; I heard about his profession, and asked +at last how he came into the pageant. + +"The fact is," he said, "a friend of mine asked me, just for to-night, +to act a chap called Paley; I don't know who he was...." + +"No, by thunder!" I said, "nor does anyone." + +This was the last blow, and the next night passed like a dream. I +scarcely noticed the slender, sprightly, and entirely new figure which +fell into the ranks in the place of Paley, so many times deceased. What +could it mean? Why was the giddy Paley unfaithful among the faithful +found? Did these perpetual changes prove the popularity or the +unpopularity of being Paley? Was it that no human being could support +being Paley for one night and live till morning? Or was it that the +gates were crowded with eager throngs of the British public thirsting +to be Paley, who could only be let in one at a time? Or is there some +ancient vendetta against Paley? Does some secret society of Deists still +assassinate any one who adopts the name? + +I cannot conjecture further about this true tale of mystery; and that +for two reasons. First, the story is so true that I have had to put a +lie into it. Every word of this narrative is veracious, except the one +word Paley. And second, because I have got to go into the next room and +dress up as Dr. Johnson. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tremendous Trifles, by G. K. Chesterton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + +***** This file should be named 8092-8.txt or 8092-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/0/9/8092/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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K. Chesterton + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tremendous Trifles, by G. K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tremendous Trifles + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: August 10, 2009 [EBook #8092] +Last Updated: March 9, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + TREMENDOUS TRIFLES + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By G. K. Chesterton + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> <br /> <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0002"> I. </a> Tremendous Trifles <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II. </a> A Piece of Chalk <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III. </a> The Secret of a Train + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV. </a> The Perfect + Game <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V. </a> The + Extraordinary Cabman <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI. </a> An + Accident <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII. </a> The + Advantages of Having One Leg <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VIII. + </a> The End of the World <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> + IX. </a> In the Place de La Bastille <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0011"> X. </a> On Lying in Bed <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0012"> XI. </a> The Twelve Men <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0013"> XII. </a> The Wind and the Trees <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XIII. </a> The Dickensian <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> XIV. </a> In Topsy-Turvy Land <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> XV. </a> What I Found in My Pocket + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> XVI. </a> The Dragon's + Grandmother <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> XVII. </a> The + Red Angel <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> XVIII. </a> The + Tower <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> XIX. </a> How I + Met the President <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> XX. </a> The + Giant <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> XXI. </a> A Great + Man <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> XXII. </a> The + Orthodox Barber <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> XXIII. </a> The + Toy Theatre <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> XXIV. </a> A + Tragedy of Twopence <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> XXV. </a> A + Cab Ride Across Country <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> XXVI. </a> The + Two Noises <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> XXVII. </a> Some + Policemen and a Moral <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> XXVIII. </a> The + Lion <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> XXIX. </a> Humanity: + an Interlude <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> XXX. </a> The + Little Birds Who Won't Sing <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> XXXI. + </a> The Riddle of the Ivy <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> + XXXII. </a> The Travellers in State <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0034"> XXXIII. </a> The Prehistoric Railway + Station <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> XXXIV. </a> The + Diabolist <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> XXXV. </a> A + Glimpse of My Country <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> XXXVI. </a> A + Somewhat Improbable Story <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> XXXVII. + </a> The Shop Of Ghosts <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> + XXXVIII. </a> The Ballade of a Strange Town <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> XXXIX. </a> The Mystery of a + Pageant <br /><br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + These fleeting sketches are all republished by kind permission of the + Editor of the DAILY NEWS, in which paper they appeared. They amount to no + more than a sort of sporadic diary—a diary recording one day in + twenty which happened to stick in the fancy—the only kind of diary + the author has ever been able to keep. Even that diary he could only keep + by keeping it in public, for bread and cheese. But trivial as are the + topics they are not utterly without a connecting thread of motive. As the + reader's eye strays, with hearty relief, from these pages, it probably + alights on something, a bed-post or a lamp-post, a window blind or a wall. + It is a thousand to one that the reader is looking at something that he + has never seen: that is, never realised. He could not write an essay on + such a post or wall: he does not know what the post or wall mean. He could + not even write the synopsis of an essay; as “The Bed-Post; Its + Significance—Security Essential to Idea of Sleep—Night Felt as + Infinite—Need of Monumental Architecture,” and so on. He could not + sketch in outline his theoretic attitude towards window-blinds, even in + the form of a summary. “The Window-Blind—Its Analogy to the Curtain + and Veil—Is Modesty Natural?—Worship of and Avoidance of the + Sun, etc., etc.” None of us think enough of these things on which the eye + rests. But don't let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? + Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that run + across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular + athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured cloud. + I have attempted some such thing in what follows; but anyone else may do + it better, if anyone else will only try. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + I. Tremendous Trifles + </h2> + <p> + Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly in the front + garden, because their villa was a model one. The front garden was about + the same size as the dinner table; it consisted of four strips of gravel, + a square of turf with some mysterious pieces of cork standing up in the + middle and one flower bed with a row of red daisies. One morning while + they were at play in these romantic grounds, a passing individual, + probably the milkman, leaned over the railing and engaged them in + philosophical conversation. The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, + were at least sharply interested in his remarks. For the milkman (who was, + I need say, a fairy) did his duty in that state of life by offering them + in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. And Paul + closed with the offer with a business-like abruptness, explaining that he + had long wished to be a giant that he might stride across continents and + oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas in an afternoon dinner stroll. + The milkman producing a wand from his breast pocket, waved it in a hurried + and perfunctory manner; and in an instant the model villa with its front + garden was like a tiny doll's house at Paul's colossal feet. He went + striding away with his head above the clouds to visit Niagara and the + Himalayas. But when he came to the Himalayas, he found they were quite + small and silly-looking, like the little cork rockery in the garden; and + when he found Niagara it was no bigger than the tap turned on in the + bathroom. He wandered round the world for several minutes trying to find + something really large and finding everything small, till in sheer boredom + he lay down on four or five prairies and fell asleep. Unfortunately his + head was just outside the hut of an intellectual backwoodsman who came out + of it at that moment with an axe in one hand and a book of Neo-Catholic + Philosophy in the other. The man looked at the book and then at the giant, + and then at the book again. And in the book it said, “It can be maintained + that the evil of pride consists in being out of proportion to the + universe.” So the backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, + working eight hours a day for about a week, cut the giant's head off; and + there was an end of him. + </p> + <p> + Such is the severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly enough, + made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long wished to be a + pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he immediately became one. + When the transformation was over he found himself in the midst of an + immense plain, covered with a tall green jungle and above which, at + intervals, rose strange trees each with a head like the sun in symbolic + pictures, with gigantic rays of silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward + the middle of this prairie stood up a mountain of such romantic and + impossible shape, yet of such stony height and dominance, that it looked + like some incident of the end of the world. And far away on the faint + horizon he could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more + mystical, of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. He + set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has not come + to the end of it yet. + </p> + <p> + Such is the story of Peter and Paul, which contains all the highest + qualities of a modern fairy tale, including that of being wholly unfit for + children; and indeed the motive with which I have introduced it is not + childish, but rather full of subtlety and reaction. It is in fact the + almost desperate motive of excusing or palliating the pages that follow. + Peter and Paul are the two primary influences upon European literature + to-day; and I may be permitted to put my own preference in its most + favourable shape, even if I can only do it by what little girls call + telling a story. + </p> + <p> + I need scarcely say that I am the pigmy. The only excuse for the scraps + that follow is that they show what can be achieved with a commonplace + existence and the sacred spectacles of exaggeration. The other great + literary theory, that which is roughly represented in England by Mr. + Rudyard Kipling, is that we moderns are to regain the primal zest by + sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical + variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. Let it + be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; and the two + alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling's school advises us to go to + Central Africa in order to find a man without a frock coat. The school to + which I belong suggests that we should stare steadily at the man until we + see the man inside the frock coat. If we stare at him long enough he may + even be moved to take off his coat to us; and that is a far greater + compliment than his taking off his hat. In other words, we may, by fixing + our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually before us, force them + to turn into adventures; force them to give up their meaning and fulfil + their mysterious purpose. The purpose of the Kipling literature is to show + how many extraordinary things a man may see if he is active and strides + from continent to continent like the giant in my tale. But the object of + my school is to show how many extraordinary things even a lazy and + ordinary man may see if he can spur himself to the single activity of + seeing. For this purpose I have taken the laziest person of my + acquaintance, that is myself; and made an idle diary of such odd things as + I have fallen over by accident, in walking in a very limited area at a + very indolent pace. If anyone says that these are very small affairs + talked about in very big language, I can only gracefully compliment him + upon seeing the joke. If anyone says that I am making mountains out of + molehills, I confess with pride that it is so. I can imagine no more + successful and productive form of manufacture than that of making + mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not unimportant fact, + that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a pigmy like Peter to + discover that. + </p> + <p> + I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, in getting + to the top of everything and overlooking everything. Satan was the most + celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took Jesus to the top of an exceeding + high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. But the joy of + Satan in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, but a joy in + beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like insects at his + feet. It is from the valley that things look large; it is from the level + that things look high; I am a child of the level and have no need of that + celebrated Alpine guide. I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence + cometh my help; but I will not lift up my carcass to the hills, unless it + is absolutely necessary. Everything is in an attitude of mind; and at this + moment I am in a comfortable attitude. I will sit still and let the + marvels and the adventures settle on me like flies. There are plenty of + them, I assure you. The world will never starve for want of wonders; but + only for want of wonder. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. A Piece of Chalk + </h2> + <p> + I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer + holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing + nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a + walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. I + then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, + belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), and + asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown paper. + She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook the + purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She seemed to + have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be wanting to tie + up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do; indeed, it is a thing + which I have found to be beyond my mental capacity. Hence she dwelt very + much on the varying qualities of toughness and endurance in the material. + I explained to her that I only wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I + did not want them to endure in the least; and that from my point of view, + therefore, it was a question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive + surface, a thing comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood + that I wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, + apparently supposing that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown + paper wrappers from motives of economy. + </p> + <p> + I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not only + liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness in paper, just as I + liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, or in the + peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal twilight of + the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured chalk or two you + can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and + sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. + All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown + paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and possibly other things. I + suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical are + the things that one carries in one's pocket; the pocket-knife, for + instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. Once I + planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pockets. + But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, I went out on to + the great downs. I crawled across those colossal contours that express the + best quality of England, because they are at the same time soft and + strong. The smoothness of them has the same meaning as the smoothness of + great cart-horses, or the smoothness of the beech-tree; it declares in the + teeth of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty are merciful. As my + eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly as any of its + cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. The villages in the + immense valley were safe, one could see, for centuries; yet the lifting of + the whole land was like the lifting of one enormous wave to wash them all + away. + </p> + <p> + I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place to + sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven's sake, imagine I was going to + sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind old + gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in robes of + angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred or monstrous + symbols that look so well in bright colours on brown paper. They are much + better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much easier to draw. When + a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a mere artist might have + drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds. So I drew + the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly walking before me in the + sunlight; and the soul was all purple and silver, and had seven horns and + the mystery that belongs to all the beasts. But though I could not with a + crayon get the best out of the landscape, it does not follow that the + landscape was not getting the best out of me. And this, I think, is the + mistake that people make about the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, + and were supposed not to care very much about Nature because they did not + describe it much. + </p> + <p> + They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but + they sat on the great hills to write it. They gave out much less about + Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white + robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had + stared all day. They blazoned the shields of their paladins with the + purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. The greenness of a thousand + green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The + blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the + Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began to + dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that a + most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, but + I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted with all + the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art of drawing on + brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I cannot avoid + remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the wise and awful truths + which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white is a colour. It is + not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as + fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows + red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one + of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of + real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief + assertion of religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not + the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid + and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean + not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain + and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. + </p> + <p> + Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something + flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colours; but He + never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He + paints in white. In a sense our age has realised this fact, and expressed + it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that white was a + blank and colourless thing, negative and non-committal, then white would + be used instead of black and grey for the funeral dress of this + pessimistic period. We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of + spotless silver linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. + Which is not the case. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town nearer than + Chichester at which it was even remotely probable that there would be such + a thing as an artist's colourman. And yet, without white, my absurd little + pictures would be as pointless as the world would be if there were no good + people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients. + Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and again, so + that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a man in the + Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. Imagine a + gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt water with + him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense warehouse of + white chalk. The landscape was made entirely out of white chalk. White + chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped and broke a + piece off the rock I sat on; it did not mark so well as the shop chalks + do; but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, + realising that this Southern England is not only a grand peninsula, and a + tradition and a civilisation; it is something even more admirable. It is a + piece of chalk. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. The Secret of a Train + </h2> + <p> + All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a loose + memory. I will not merely say that this story is true: because, as you + will soon see, it is all truth and no story. It has no explanation and no + conclusion; it is, like most of the other things we encounter in life, a + fragment of something else which would be intensely exciting if it were + not too large to be seen. For the perplexity of life arises from there + being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly + in any of them; what we call its triviality is really the tag-ends of + numberless tales; ordinary and unmeaning existence is like ten thousand + thrilling detective stories mixed up with a spoon. My experience was a + fragment of this nature, and it is, at any rate, not fictitious. Not only + am I not making up the incidents (what there were of them), but I am not + making up the atmosphere of the landscape, which were the whole horror of + the thing. I remember them vividly, and they were as I shall now describe. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + About noon of an ashen autumn day some years ago I was standing outside + the station at Oxford intending to take the train to London. And for some + reason, out of idleness or the emptiness of my mind or the emptiness of + the pale grey sky, or the cold, a kind of caprice fell upon me that I + would not go by that train at all, but would step out on the road and walk + at least some part of the way to London. I do not know if other people are + made like me in this matter; but to me it is always dreary weather, what + may be called useless weather, that slings into life a sense of action and + romance. On bright blue days I do not want anything to happen; the world + is complete and beautiful, a thing for contemplation. I no more ask for + adventures under that turquoise dome than I ask for adventures in church. + But when the background of man's life is a grey background, then, in the + name of man's sacred supremacy, I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. + When the heavens fail man refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have + written on it, in letters of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing + shall happen, then the immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises + up and decrees that something shall happen, if it be only the slaughter of + a policeman. But this is a digressive way of stating what I have said + already—that the bleak sky awoke in me a hunger for some change of + plans, that the monotonous weather seemed to render unbearable the use of + the monotonous train, and that I set out into the country lanes, out of + the town of Oxford. It was, perhaps, at that moment that a strange curse + came upon me out of the city and the sky, whereby it was decreed that + years afterwards I should, in an article in the DAILY NEWS, talk about Sir + George Trevelyan in connection with Oxford, when I knew perfectly well + that he went to Cambridge. + </p> + <p> + As I crossed the country everything was ghostly and colourless. The fields + that should have been green were as grey as the skies; the tree-tops that + should have been green were as grey as the clouds and as cloudy. And when + I had walked for some hours the evening was closing in. A sickly sunset + clung weakly to the horizon, as if pale with reluctance to leave the world + in the dark. And as it faded more and more the skies seemed to come closer + and to threaten. The clouds which had been merely sullen became swollen; + and then they loosened and let down the dark curtains of the rain. The + rain was blinding and seemed to beat like blows from an enemy at close + quarters; the skies seemed bending over and bawling in my ears. I walked + on many more miles before I met a man, and in that distance my mind had + been made up; and when I met him I asked him if anywhere in the + neighbourhood I could pick up the train for Paddington. He directed me to + a small silent station (I cannot even remember the name of it) which stood + well away from the road and looked as lonely as a hut on the Andes. I do + not think I have ever seen such a type of time and sadness and scepticism + and everything devilish as that station was: it looked as if it had always + been raining there ever since the creation of the world. The water + streamed from the soaking wood of it as if it were not water at all, but + some loathsome liquid corruption of the wood itself; as if the solid + station were eternally falling to pieces and pouring away in filth. It + took me nearly ten minutes to find a man in the station. When I did he was + a dull one, and when I asked him if there was a train to Paddington his + answer was sleepy and vague. As far as I understood him, he said there + would be a train in half an hour. I sat down and lit a cigar and waited, + watching the last tail of the tattered sunset and listening to the + everlasting rain. It may have been in half an hour or less, but a train + came rather slowly into the station. It was an unnaturally dark train; I + could not see a light anywhere in the long black body of it; and I could + not see any guard running beside it. I was reduced to walking up to the + engine and calling out to the stoker to ask if the train was going to + London. “Well—yes, sir,” he said, with an unaccountable kind of + reluctance. “It is going to London; but——” It was just + starting, and I jumped into the first carriage; it was pitch dark. I sat + there smoking and wondering, as we steamed through the continually + darkening landscape, lined with desolate poplars, until we slowed down and + stopped, irrationally, in the middle of a field. I heard a heavy noise as + of some one clambering off the train, and a dark, ragged head suddenly put + itself into my window. “Excuse me, sir,” said the stoker, “but I think, + perhaps—well, perhaps you ought to know—there's a dead man in + this train.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities and + nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt, to be finally + overwhelmed with this sensational touch, and to have insisted on getting + out and walking. As it was, I regret to say, I expressed myself politely, + but firmly, to the effect that I didn't care particularly if the train + took me to Paddington. But when the train had started with its unknown + burden I did do one thing, and do it quite instinctively, without stopping + to think, or to think more than a flash. I threw away my cigar. Something + that is as old as man and has to do with all mourning and ceremonial told + me to do it. There was something unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, + in the idea of there being only two men in that train, and one of them + dead and the other smoking a cigar. And as the red and gold of the butt + end of it faded like a funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic moment + of a procession, I realised how immortal ritual is. I realised (what is + the origin and essence of all ritual) that in the presence of those sacred + riddles about which we can say nothing it is more decent merely to do + something. And I realised that ritual will always mean throwing away + something; DESTROYING our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods. + </p> + <p> + When the train panted at last into Paddington Station I sprang out of it + with a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier and officials + guarding the rear part of the train; no one was allowed to press towards + it. They were guarding and hiding something; perhaps death in some too + shocking form, perhaps something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up + with human mystery and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of + sanctity; perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough + into the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces. Nor have + I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I wandered or + what frightful thing was my companion in the dark. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. The Perfect Game + </h2> + <p> + We have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to + him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernatural. My + own position is the opposite of this. I believe in the supernatural as a + matter of intellect and reason, not as a matter of personal experience. I + do not see ghosts; I only see their inherent probability. But it is + entirely a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions; my + nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. But upon people + of this temperament one weird incident will often leave a peculiar + impression. And the weirdest circumstance that ever occurred to me + occurred a little while ago. It consisted in nothing less than my playing + a game, and playing it quite well for some seventeen consecutive minutes. + The ghost of my grandfather would have astonished me less. + </p> + <p> + On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my + inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had imagined + that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, and I had + neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant side + whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. I played it with a + man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had a semi-philosophical + argument which lasted through the entire contest. It is deeply implanted + in my mind that I had the best of the argument; but it is certain and + beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!” I cried, patting him affectionately on the + head with a mallet, “how far you really are from the pure love of the + sport—you who can play. It is only we who play badly who love the + Game itself. You love glory; you love applause; you love the earthquake + voice of victory; you do not love croquet. You do not love croquet until + you love being beaten at croquet. It is we the bunglers who adore the + occupation in the abstract. It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. If + we may see the face of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) we are + content to see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is called + amateurish; and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs is but + the French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, the most + disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates (I allude to + the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, impetuous and + full of chivalry, will not be confined within the pedantic boundaries of + the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek honour in the ends of the earth; + they turn up in the flower-beds and the conservatory; they are to be found + in the front garden and the next street. No, Parkinson! The good painter + has skill. It is the bad painter who loves his art. The good musician + loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With such a pure and + hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game itself. I love the + parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or tape, as if its limits + were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, the four seas of Britain. I + love the mere swing of the mallets, and the click of the balls is music. + The four colours are to me sacramental and symbolic, like the red of + martyrdom, or the white of Easter Day. You lose all this, my poor + Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence of this vision by + the paltry consolation of being able to go through hoops and to hit the + stick.” + </p> + <p> + And I waved my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety. + </p> + <p> + “Don't be too sorry for me,” said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. “I + shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more a man likes a + game the better he would want to play it. Granted that the pleasure in the + thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure of success come naturally + and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your own simile of the Knight and his + Lady-love. I admit the gentleman does first and foremost want to be in the + lady's presence. But I never yet heard of a gentleman who wanted to look + an utter ass when he was there.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps not; though he generally looks it,” I replied. “But the truth is + that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The + happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which can + be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, the + jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the love of + both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not true that + the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger will be the + game. It is logically possible—(follow me closely here, Parkinson!)—it + is logically possible, to play croquet too well to enjoy it at all. If you + could put this blue ball through that distant hoop as easily as you could + pick it up with your hand, then you would not put it through that hoop any + more than you pick it up with your hand; it would not be worth doing. If + you could play unerringly you would not play at all. The moment the game + is perfect the game disappears.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not think, however,” said Parkinson, “that you are in any immediate + danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not think your croquet + will vanish through its own faultless excellence. You are safe for the + present.” + </p> + <p> + I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired myself, + and resumed the thread of my discourse. + </p> + <p> + The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this time it + was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four more fundamental + principles, and my companion had gone through five more hoops, the dusk + was verging upon dark. + </p> + <p> + “We shall have to give this up,” said Parkinson, as he missed a ball + almost for the first time, “I can't see a thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor can I,” I answered, “and it is a comfort to reflect that I could not + hit anything if I saw it.” + </p> + <p> + With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness + towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. + Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, + indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball. + </p> + <p> + Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball + again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was the + right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot. + </p> + <p> + Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that impossible + ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I supposed was the vague + direction of the quite invisible stick. And in the dead silence I heard + the stick rattle as the ball struck it heavily. + </p> + <p> + I threw down my mallet. “I can't stand this,” I said. “My ball has gone + right three times. These things are not of this world.” + </p> + <p> + “Pick your mallet up,” said Parkinson, “have another go.” + </p> + <p> + “I tell you I daren't. If I made another hoop like that I should see all + the devils dancing there on the blessed grass.” + </p> + <p> + “Why devils?” asked Parkinson; “they may be only fairies making fun of + you. They are sending you the 'Perfect Game,' which is no game.” + </p> + <p> + I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness, in which the + faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across the grass as if it + burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball somewhere—somewhere + where another ball might be. I heard the dull click of the balls touching, + and ran into the house like one pursued. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. The Extraordinary Cabman + </h2> + <p> + From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the + narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to + insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. I + mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed by some + practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; therefore I + propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, which + occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it apparently is, + aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon despair. + </p> + <p> + On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little + restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My + best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable + believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate and + terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to this: that + the question is whether a man can be certain of anything at all. I think + he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, furiously brandishing + an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually to entertain certainty, + what is this certainty which it is impossible to entertain? If I have + never experienced such a thing as certainty I cannot even say that a thing + is not certain. Similarly, if I have never experienced such a thing as + green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as green as + possible for all I know, if I have really no experience of greenness. So + we shouted at each other and shook the room; because metaphysics is the + only thoroughly emotional thing. And the difference between us was very + deep, because it was a difference as to the object of the whole thing + called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend + said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm + tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said + that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again + on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed + out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth + infinitely, for ever and ever. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for it + will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in the + confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow + become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the + corner of Leicester-square to the members' entrance of the House of + Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. + Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a + discussion between us which still continues. + </p> + <p> + It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of + detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few + hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I had to visit. I then + got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but not with + the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is not unknown + among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He + looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, clearly quite + genuine. “Do you know, sir,” he said, “you've only given me 1s.8d?” I + remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. “Now you know, sir,” + said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, “you know that ain't the + fare from Euston.” “Euston,” I repeated vaguely, for the phrase at that + moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. “What on earth has Euston got + to do with it?” “You hailed me just outside Euston Station,” began the man + with astonishing precision, “and then you said——” “What in the + name of Tartarus are you talking about?” I said with Christian + forbearance; “I took you at the south-west corner of Leicester-square.” + “Leicester-square,” he exclaimed, loosening a kind of cataract of scorn, + “why we ain't been near Leicester-square to-day. You hailed me outside + Euston Station, and you said——” “Are you mad, or am I?” I + asked with scientific calm. + </p> + <p> + I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of creating + so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was not a dishonest + cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and humble, and with + great big blue eyes protruding like a frog's, if ever (in short) a human + face was all that a human face should be, it was the face of that + resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the street; an + unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one second the old + nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What was certainty? + Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the dull rut of the + sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future life. The exciting + question for real scepticism is whether we possess a past life. What is a + minute ago, rationalistically considered, except a tradition and a + picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The cabman calmly gave me + the most elaborate details of the gesture, the words, the complex but + consistent course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable + occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I know (my + sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him outside Euston. I + was firm about my assertion; he was quite equally firm about his. He was + obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a member of a much more + respectable profession. In that moment the universe and the stars swung + just a hair's breadth from their balance, and the foundations of the earth + were moved. But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the + same reason that I believe in free will, for the same reason that I + believe in fixed character of virtue, the reason that could only be + expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic, I continued to + believe that this honest cabman was wrong, and I repeated to him that I + had really taken him at the corner of Leicester-square. He began with the + same evident and ponderous sincerity, “You hailed me outside Euston + Station, and you said——” + </p> + <p> + And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful + transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like a + lamp from the inside. “Why, I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I beg your + pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I remember + now. I beg your pardon.” And with that this astonishing man let out his + whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. The whole of + which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, is strictly + true. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the + mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his + face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac about + him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me from my + adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended earlier + in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that my sense of + reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained erect. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. An Accident + </h2> + <p> + Some time ago I wrote in these columns an article called “The + Extraordinary Cabman.” I am now in a position to contribute my experience + of a still more extraordinary cab. The extraordinary thing about the cab + was that it did not like me; it threw me out violently in the middle of + the Strand. If my friends who read the DAILY NEWS are as romantic (and as + rich) as I take them to be, I presume that this experience is not + uncommon. I suppose that they are all being thrown out of cabs, all over + London. Still, as there are some people, virginal and remote from the + world, who have not yet had this luxurious experience, I will give a short + account of the psychology of myself when my hansom cab ran into the side + of a motor omnibus, and I hope hurt it. + </p> + <p> + I do not need to dwell on the essential romance of the hansom cab—that + one really noble modern thing which our age, when it is judged, will + gravely put beside the Parthenon. It is really modern in that it is both + secret and swift. My particular hansom cab was modern in these two + respects; it was also very modern in the fact that it came to grief. But + it is also English; it is not to be found abroad; it belongs to a + beautiful, romantic country where nearly everybody is pretending to be + richer than they are, and acting as if they were. It is comfortable, and + yet it is reckless; and that combination is the very soul of England. But + although I had always realised all these good qualities in a hansom cab, I + had not experienced all the possibilities, or, as the moderns put it, all + the aspects of that vehicle. My enunciation of the merits of a hansom cab + had been always made when it was the right way up. Let me, therefore, + explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom cab for the first and, I am + happy to believe, the last time. Polycrates threw one ring into the sea to + propitiate the Fates. I have thrown one hansom cab into the sea (if you + will excuse a rather violent metaphor) and the Fates are, I am quite sure, + propitiated. Though I am told they do not like to be told so. + </p> + <p> + I was driving yesterday afternoon in a hansom cab down one of the sloping + streets into the Strand, reading one of my own admirable articles with + continual pleasure, and still more continual surprise, when the horse fell + forward, scrambled a moment on the scraping stones, staggered to his feet + again, and went forward. The horses in my cabs often do this, and I have + learnt to enjoy my own articles at any angle of the vehicle. So I did not + see anything at all odd about the way the horse went on again. But I saw + it suddenly in the faces of all the people on the pavement. They were all + turned towards me, and they were all struck with fear suddenly, as with a + white flame out of the sky. And one man half ran out into the road with a + movement of the elbow as if warding off a blow, and tried to stop the + horse. Then I knew that the reins were lost, and the next moment the horse + was like a living thunder-bolt. I try to describe things exactly as they + seemed to me; many details I may have missed or mis-stated; many details + may have, so to speak, gone mad in the race down the road. I remember that + I once called one of my experiences narrated in this paper “A Fragment of + Fact.” This is, at any rate, a fragment of fact. No fact could possibly be + more fragmentary than the sort of fact that I expected to be at the bottom + of that street. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that + the converted do not understand their own religion. Thus I have always + urged in this paper that democracy has a deeper meaning than democrats + understand; that is, that common and popular things, proverbs, and + ordinary sayings always have something in them unrealised by most who + repeat them. Here is one. We have all heard about the man who is in + momentary danger, and who sees the whole of his life pass before him in a + moment. In the cold, literal, and common sense of words, this is obviously + a thundering lie. Nobody can pretend that in an accident or a mortal + crisis he elaborately remembered all the tickets he had ever taken to + Wimbledon, or all the times that he had ever passed the brown bread and + butter. + </p> + <p> + But in those few moments, while my cab was tearing towards the traffic of + the Strand, I discovered that there is a truth behind this phrase, as + there is behind all popular phrases. I did really have, in that short and + shrieking period, a rapid succession of a number of fundamental points of + view. I had, so to speak, about five religions in almost as many seconds. + My first religion was pure Paganism, which among sincere men is more + shortly described as extreme fear. Then there succeeded a state of mind + which is quite real, but for which no proper name has ever been found. The + ancients called it Stoicism, and I think it must be what some German + lunatics mean (if they mean anything) when they talk about Pessimism. It + was an empty and open acceptance of the thing that happens—as if one + had got beyond the value of it. And then, curiously enough, came a very + strong contrary feeling—that things mattered very much indeed, and + yet that they were something more than tragic. It was a feeling, not that + life was unimportant, but that life was much too important ever to be + anything but life. I hope that this was Christianity. At any rate, it + occurred at the moment when we went crash into the omnibus. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to me that the hansom cab simply turned over on top of me, like + an enormous hood or hat. I then found myself crawling out from underneath + it in attitudes so undignified that they must have added enormously to + that great cause to which the Anti-Puritan League and I have recently + dedicated ourselves. I mean the cause of the pleasures of the people. As + to my demeanour when I emerged, I have two confessions to make, and they + are both made merely in the interests of mental science. The first is that + whereas I had been in a quite pious frame of mind the moment before the + collision, when I got to my feet and found I had got off with a cut or two + I began (like St. Peter) to curse and to swear. A man offered me a + newspaper or something that I had dropped. I can distinctly remember + consigning the paper to a state of irremediable spiritual ruin. I am very + sorry for this now, and I apologise both to the man and to the paper. I + have not the least idea what was the meaning of this unnatural anger; I + mention it as a psychological confession. It was immediately followed by + extreme hilarity, and I made so many silly jokes to the policeman that he + disgraced himself by continual laughter before all the little boys in the + street, who had hitherto taken him seriously. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + There is one other odd thing about the matter which I also mention as a + curiosity of the human brain or deficiency of brain. At intervals of about + every three minutes I kept on reminding the policeman that I had not paid + the cabman, and that I hoped he would not lose his money. He said it would + be all right, and the man would appear. But it was not until about half an + hour afterwards that it suddenly struck me with a shock intolerable that + the man might conceivably have lost more than half a crown; that he had + been in danger as well as I. I had instinctively regarded the cabman as + something uplifted above accidents, a god. I immediately made inquiries, + and I am happy to say that they seemed to have been unnecessary. + </p> + <p> + But henceforward I shall always understand with a darker and more delicate + charity those who take tythe of mint, and anise, and cumin, and neglect + the weightier matters of the law; I shall remember how I was once really + tortured with owing half a crown to a man who might have been dead. Some + admirable men in white coats at the Charing Cross Hospital tied up my + small injury, and I went out again into the Strand. I felt upon me even a + kind of unnatural youth; I hungered for something untried. So to open a + new chapter in my life I got into a hansom cab. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII. The Advantages of Having One Leg + </h2> + <p> + A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and casting + about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either insolent or + weak, said at last, “I think one can live through these great sorrows and + even be the better. What wears one is the little worries.” “That's quite + right, mum,” answered the old woman with emphasis, “and I ought to know, + seeing I've had ten of 'em.” It is, perhaps, in this sense that it is most + true that little worries are most wearing. In its vaguer significance the + phrase, though it contains a truth, contains also some possibilities of + self-deception and error. People who have both small troubles and big ones + have the right to say that they find the small ones the most bitter; and + it is undoubtedly true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible + can feel a faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and + all its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I + am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is + sometimes used or abused by people, because they have nothing but the very + smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the crumpled + rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she would wear the + crown of thorns—if she had to. The gentleman may permit himself to + curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much better if it + were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that the grasshopper on + man's shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much respect to the + gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant + when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We may concede that a + straw may break the camel's back, but we like to know that it really is + the last straw and not the first. + </p> + <p> + I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, + so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that + if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To + talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way + to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about little + ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often has + his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very clear and + happy daily life then I think we are justified in asking that he shall not + make mountains out of molehills. I do no deny that molehills can sometimes + be important. Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be + more abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before, + they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition that he + was going to tumble over a hassock. William III. died by falling over a + molehill; I do not suppose that with all his varied abilities he could + have managed to fall over a mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I + repeat that we may ask a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure + inconveniences, and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain + or positive poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable + accidental limitations that are always falling across our path—bad + weather, confinement to this or that house or room, failure of + appointments or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, + finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding + punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn from + all these that I sing—I sing with confidence because I have recently + been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise from having to sit + in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only alternative course of + standing on one leg like a stork—a stork is a poetic simile; + therefore I eagerly adopted it. + </p> + <p> + To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing itself + symbolise something other than isolation. If we wish to see what a house + is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish to depict + what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or on a dark + sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that humanity + means; so long as he is solitary he means human society; so long as he is + solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another figure and the + picture is less human—not more so. One is company, two is none. If + you wish to symbolise human building draw one dark tower on the horizon; + if you wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the sky. Indeed, + all through that strangely lit season which we call our day there is but + one star in the sky—a large, fierce star which we call the sun. One + sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower Of Giotto is + sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row of white + posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry of + nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in following the + single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the single star. And + so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of all human anatomy + in standing on a single leg. To express complete and perfect leggishness + the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the tower in the wilderness. + As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is that which stands most + alone. + </p> + <p> + This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric + column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate use + of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its + legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic + consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few days + that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness or dislocation of the + one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and classic + beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. George + Meredith's novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in the + stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more + literal exactitude, “He has a leg.” Notice how this famous literary phrase + supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable thing. + Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect picture of + human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She delicately + glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact that he had + really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, a reflection, + and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson + like two Monuments in London. That having had one good leg he should have + another—this would be to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do. + She would have been as much bewildered by him as if he had been a + centipede. + </p> + <p> + All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender of life, + all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all desolation has + for its real aim this separation of something so that it may be poignantly + and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has + introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet + and the other. The way to love anything is to realise that it might be + lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong and splendid a foot is; in + the other I can realise how very much otherwise it might have been. The + moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. This world and all our powers + in it are far more awful and beautiful than even we know until some + accident reminds us. If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, + limit yourself if only for a moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully + and wonderfully God's image is made, stand on one leg. If you want to + realise the splendid vision of all visible things—wink the other + eye. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII. The End of the World + </h2> + <p> + For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious town of + Besançon, which stands like a sort of peninsula in a horse-shoe of river. + You may learn from the guide books that it was the birthplace of Victor + Hugo, and that it is a military station with many forts, near the French + frontier. But you will not learn from guide books that the very tiles on + the roofs seem to be of some quainter and more delicate colour than the + tiles of all the other towns of the world; that the tiles look like the + little clouds of some strange sunset, or like the lustrous scales of some + strange fish. They will not tell you that in this town the eye cannot rest + on anything without finding it in some way attractive and even elvish, a + carved face at a street corner, a gleam of green fields through a stunted + arch, or some unexpected colour for the enamel of a spire or dome. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Evening was coming on and in the light of it all these colours so simple + and yet so subtle seemed more and more to fit together and make a fairy + tale. I sat down for a little outside a café with a row of little toy + trees in front of it, and presently the driver of a fly (as we should call + it) came to the same place. He was one of those very large and dark + Frenchmen, a type not common but yet typical of France; the Rabelaisian + Frenchman, huge, swarthy, purple-faced, a walking wine-barrel; he was a + sort of Southern Falstaff, if one can imagine Falstaff anything but + English. And, indeed, there was a vital difference, typical of two + nations. For while Falstaff would have been shaking with hilarity like a + huge jelly, full of the broad farce of the London streets, this Frenchman + was rather solemn and dignified than otherwise—as if pleasure were a + kind of pagan religion. After some talk which was full of the admirable + civility and equality of French civilisation, he suggested without either + eagerness or embarrassment that he should take me in his fly for an hour's + ride in the hills beyond the town. And though it was growing late I + consented; for there was one long white road under an archway and round a + hill that dragged me like a long white cord. We drove through the strong, + squat gateway that was made by Romans, and I remember the coincidence like + a sort of omen that as we passed out of the city I heard simultaneously + the three sounds which are the trinity of France. They make what some poet + calls “a tangled trinity,” and I am not going to disentangle it. Whatever + those three things mean, how or why they co-exist; whether they can be + reconciled or perhaps are reconciled already; the three sounds I heard + then by an accident all at once make up the French mystery. For the brass + band in the Casino gardens behind me was playing with a sort of passionate + levity some ramping tune from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was + going on I heard also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible + loyalties and men always arming in the gate of France; and I heard also, + fainter than these sounds and through them all, the Angelus. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + After this coincidence of symbols I had a curious sense of having left + France behind me, or, perhaps, even the civilised world. And, indeed, + there was something in the landscape wild enough to encourage such a + fancy. I have seen perhaps higher mountains, but I have never seen higher + rocks; I have never seen height so near, so abrupt and sensational, + splinters of rock that stood up like the spires of churches, cliffs that + fell sudden and straight as Satan fell from heaven. There was also a + quality in the ride which was not only astonishing, but rather + bewildering; a quality which many must have noticed if they have driven or + ridden rapidly up mountain roads. I mean a sense of gigantic gyration, as + of the whole earth turning about one's head. It is quite inadequate to say + that the hills rose and fell like enormous waves. Rather the hills seemed + to turn about me like the enormous sails of a windmill, a vast wheel of + monstrous archangelic wings. As we drove on and up into the gathering + purple of the sunset this dizziness increased, confounding things above + with things below. Wide walls of wooded rock stood out above my head like + a roof. I stared at them until I fancied that I was staring down at a + wooded plain. Below me steeps of green swept down to the river. I stared + at them until I fancied that they swept up to the sky. The purple + darkened, night drew nearer; it seemed only to cut clearer the chasms and + draw higher the spires of that nightmare landscape. Above me in the + twilight was the huge black hulk of the driver, and his broad, blank back + was as mysterious as the back of Death in Watts' picture. I felt that I + was growing too fantastic, and I sought to speak of ordinary things. I + called out to the driver in French, “Where are you taking me?” and it is a + literal and solemn fact that he answered me in the same language without + turning around, “To the end of the world.” + </p> + <p> + I did not answer. I let him drag the vehicle up dark, steep ways, until I + saw lights under a low roof of little trees and two children, one oddly + beautiful, playing at ball. Then we found ourselves filling up the strict + main street of a tiny hamlet, and across the wall of its inn was written + in large letters, LE BOUT DU MONDE—the end of the world. + </p> + <p> + The driver and I sat down outside that inn without a word, as if all + ceremonies were natural and understood in that ultimate place. I ordered + bread for both of us, and red wine, that was good but had no name. On the + other side of the road was a little plain church with a cross on top of it + and a cock on top of the cross. This seemed to me a very good end of the + world; if the story of the world ended here it ended well. Then I wondered + whether I myself should really be content to end here, where most + certainly there were the best things of Christendom—a church and + children's games and decent soil and a tavern for men to talk with men. + But as I thought a singular doubt and desire grew slowly in me, and at + last I started up. + </p> + <p> + “Are you not satisfied?” asked my companion. “No,” I said, “I am not + satisfied even at the end of the world.” + </p> + <p> + Then, after a silence, I said, “Because you see there are two ends of the + world. And this is the wrong end of the world; at least the wrong one for + me. This is the French end of the world. I want the other end of the + world. Drive me to the other end of the world.” + </p> + <p> + “The other end of the world?” he asked. “Where is that?” + </p> + <p> + “It is in Walham Green,” I whispered hoarsely. “You see it on the London + omnibuses. 'World's End and Walham Green.' Oh, I know how good this is; I + love your vineyards and your free peasantry, but I want the English end of + the world. I love you like a brother, but I want an English cabman, who + will be funny and ask me what his fare 'is.' Your bugles stir my blood, + but I want to see a London policeman. Take, oh, take me to see a London + policeman.” + </p> + <p> + He stood quite dark and still against the end of the sunset, and I could + not tell whether he understood or not. I got back into his carriage. + </p> + <p> + “You will understand,” I said, “if ever you are an exile even for + pleasure. The child to his mother, the man to his country, as a countryman + of yours once said. But since, perhaps, it is rather too long a drive to + the English end of the world, we may as well drive back to Besançon.” + </p> + <p> + Only as the stars came out among those immortal hills I wept for Walham + Green. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX. In the Place de La Bastille + </h2> + <p> + On the first of May I was sitting outside a café in the Place de la + Bastille in Paris staring at the exultant column, crowned with a capering + figure, which stands in the place where the people destroyed a prison and + ended an age. The thing is a curious example of how symbolic is the great + part of human history. As a matter of mere material fact, the Bastille + when it was taken was not a horrible prison; it was hardly a prison at + all. But it was a symbol, and the people always go by a sure instinct for + symbols; for the Chinaman, for instance, at the last General Election, or + for President Kruger's hat in the election before; their poetic sense is + perfect. The Chinaman with his pigtail is not an idle flippancy. He does + typify with a compact precision exactly the thing the people resent in + African policy, the alien and grotesque nature of the power of wealth, the + fact that money has no roots, that it is not a natural and familiar power, + but a sort of airy and evil magic calling monsters from the ends of the + earth. The people hate the mine owner who can bring a Chinaman flying + across the sea, exactly as the people hated the wizard who could fetch a + flying dragon through the air. It was the same with Mr. Kruger's hat. His + hat (that admirable hat) was not merely a joke. It did symbolise, and + symbolise extremely well, the exact thing which our people at that moment + regarded with impatience and venom; the old-fashioned, dingy, Republican + simplicity, the unbeautiful dignity of the bourgeois, and the heavier + truisms of political morality. No; the people are sometimes wrong on the + practical side of politics; they are never wrong on the artistic side. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + So it was, certainly, with the Bastille. The destruction of the Bastille + was not a reform; it was something more important than a reform. It was an + iconoclasm; it was the breaking of a stone image. The people saw the + building like a giant looking at them with a score of eyes, and they + struck at it as at a carved fact. For of all the shapes in which that + immense illusion called materialism can terrify the soul, perhaps the most + oppressive are big buildings. Man feels like a fly, an accident, in the + thing he has himself made. It requires a violent effort of the spirit to + remember that man made this confounding thing and man could unmake it. + Therefore the mere act of the ragged people in the street taking and + destroying a huge public building has a spiritual, a ritual meaning far + beyond its immediate political results. It is a religious service. If, for + instance, the Socialists were numerous or courageous enough to capture and + smash up the Bank of England, you might argue for ever about the inutility + of the act, and how it really did not touch the root of the economic + problem in the correct manner. But mankind would never forget it. It would + change the world. + </p> + <p> + Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, for + the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable things—marriage, + for instance. And architecture approaches nearer than any other art to + being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get rid of. You can turn + a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a nuisance to turn that + Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. You can tear a poem to pieces; + it is only in moments of very sincere emotion that you tear a town-hall to + pieces. A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like a dogma. Whether + or no it is permanent, it claims permanence like a dogma. People ask why + we have no typical architecture of the modern world, like impressionism in + painting. Surely it is obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we + cannot bear to see anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, + anything in the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky. But + along with this decision which is involved in creating a building, there + goes a quite similar decision in the more delightful task of smashing one. + The two of necessity go together. In few places have so many fine public + buildings been set up as here in Paris, and in few places have so many + been destroyed. When people have finally got into the horrible habit of + preserving buildings, they have got out of the habit of building them. And + in London one mingles, as it were, one's tears because so few are pulled + down. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + As I sat staring at the column of the Bastille, inscribed to Liberty and + Glory, there came out of one corner of the square (which, like so many + such squares, was at once crowded and quiet) a sudden and silent line of + horsemen. Their dress was of a dull blue, plain and prosaic enough, but + the sun set on fire the brass and steel of their helmets; and their + helmets were carved like the helmets of the Romans. I had seen them by + twos and threes often enough before. I had seen plenty of them in pictures + toiling through the snows of Friedland or roaring round the squares at + Waterloo. But now they came file after file, like an invasion, and + something in their numbers, or in the evening light that lit up their + faces and their crests, or something in the reverie into which they broke, + made me inclined to spring to my feet and cry out, “The French soldiers!” + There were the little men with the brown faces that had so often ridden + through the capitals of Europe as coolly as they now rode through their + own. And when I looked across the square I saw that the two other corners + were choked with blue and red; held by little groups of infantry. The city + was garrisoned as against a revolution. + </p> + <p> + Of course, I had heard all about the strike, chiefly from a baker. He said + he was not going to “Chomer.” I said, “Qu'est-ce que c'est que le chome?” + He said, “Ils ne veulent pas travailler.” I said, “Ni moi non plus,” and + he thought I was a class-conscious collectivist proletarian. The whole + thing was curious, and the true moral of it one not easy for us, as a + nation, to grasp, because our own faults are so deeply and dangerously in + the other direction. To me, as an Englishman (personally steeped in the + English optimism and the English dislike of severity), the whole thing + seemed a fuss about nothing. It looked like turning out one of the best + armies in Europe against ordinary people walking about the street. The + cavalry charged us once or twice, more or less harmlessly. But, of course, + it is hard to say how far in such criticisms one is assuming the French + populace to be (what it is not) as docile as the English. But the deeper + truth of the matter tingled, so to speak, through the whole noisy night. + This people has a natural faculty for feeling itself on the eve of + something—of the Bartholomew or the Revolution or the Commune or the + Day of Judgment. It is this sense of crisis that makes France eternally + young. It is perpetually pulling down and building up, as it pulled down + the prison and put up the column in the Place de La Bastille. France has + always been at the point of dissolution. She has found the only method of + immortality. She dies daily. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X. On Lying in Bed + </h2> + <p> + Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only + one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. This, + however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the + premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several + pails of Aspinall and a broom. Only if one worked in a really sweeping and + masterly way, and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip down + again on one's face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some strange + fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid it would be + necessary to stick to black and white in this form of artistic + composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would be of the + greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of a white + ceiling being put to. + </p> + <p> + But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have + discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in a + modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really + allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, “Il me faut des géants.” + But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern rooms such + as we all live in I was continually disappointed. I found an endless + pattern and complication of small objects hung like a curtain of fine + links between me and my desire. I examined the walls; I found them to my + surprise to be already covered with wallpaper, and I found the wallpaper + to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing a ridiculous + resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one arbitrary symbol + (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious or philosophical + significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my nice walls like a sort + of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to wallpapers, I think, when it + says, “Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do.” I found the Turkey + carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, rather like the Turkish Empire, or + like the sweetmeat called Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what + Turkish Delight really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. + Everywhere that I went forlornly, with my pencil or my paint brush, I + found that others had unaccountably been before me, spoiling the walls, + the curtains, and the furniture with their childish and barbaric designs. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this occasion + when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying on my back + in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my vision, that + breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition of Paradise, + since it means purity and also means freedom. But alas! like all heavens, + now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; it looks more austere + and more distant than the blue sky outside the window. For my proposal to + paint on it with the bristly end of a broom has been discouraged—never + mind by whom; by a person debarred from all political rights—and + even my minor proposal to put the other end of the broom into the kitchen + fire and turn it to charcoal has not been conceded. Yet I am certain that + it was from persons in my position that all the original inspiration came + for covering the ceilings of palaces and cathedrals with a riot of fallen + angels or victorious gods. I am sure that it was only because Michael + Angelo was engaged in the ancient and honourable occupation of lying in + bed that he ever realized how the roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made + into an awful imitation of a divine drama that could only be acted in the + heavens. + </p> + <p> + The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is + hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to + mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous than + the exultation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the + expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties and + tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse than the modern + weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. + Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of + bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness + is made essential and godliness is regarded as an offence. A playwright + can attack the institution of marriage so long as he does not misrepresent + the manners of society, and I have met Ibsenite pessimists who thought it + wrong to take beer but right to take prussic acid. Especially this is so + in matters of hygiene; notably such matters as lying in bed. Instead of + being regarded, as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenience and + adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it were a part of + essential morals to get up early in the morning. It is upon the whole part + of practical wisdom; but there is nothing good about it or bad about its + opposite. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up + the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its + mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. A man's + minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the + things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But + with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch + does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted + conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the + garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top of a + tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let them do it in + a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. This alarming growth of good habits really + means a too great emphasis on those virtues which mere custom can ensure, + it means too little emphasis on those virtues which custom can never quite + ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of inspired pity or of inspired + candour. If ever that abrupt appeal is made to us we may fail. A man can + get use to getting up at five o'clock in the morning. A man cannot very + well get used to being burnt for his opinions; the first experiment is + commonly fatal. Let us pay a little more attention to these possibilities + of the heroic and unexpected. I dare say that when I get out of this bed I + shall do some deed of an almost terrible virtue. + </p> + <p> + For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic + caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like + journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, + for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that + the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution I + mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without + any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the + seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a + rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some + secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may + get up a hypochondriac. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI. The Twelve Men + </h2> + <p> + The other day, while I was meditating on morality and Mr. H. Pitt, I was, + so to speak, snatched up and put into a jury box to try people. The + snatching took some weeks, but to me it seemed something sudden and + arbitrary. I was put into this box because I lived in Battersea, and my + name began with a C. Looking round me, I saw that there were also summoned + and in attendance in the court whole crowds and processions of men, all of + whom lived in Battersea, and all of whose names began with a C. + </p> + <p> + It seems that they always summon jurymen in this sweeping alphabetical + way. At one official blow, so to speak, Battersea is denuded of all its + C's, and left to get on as best it can with the rest of the alphabet. A + Cumberpatch is missing from one street—a Chizzolpop from another—three + Chucksterfields from Chucksterfield House; the children are crying out for + an absent Cadgerboy; the woman at the street corner is weeping for her + Coffintop, and will not be comforted. We settle down with a rollicking + ease into our seats (for we are a bold, devil-may-care race, the C's of + Battersea), and an oath is administered to us in a totally inaudible + manner by an individual resembling an Army surgeon in his second + childhood. We understand, however, that we are to well and truly try the + case between our sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, + neither of whom has put in an appearance as yet. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Just when I was wondering whether the King and the prisoner were, perhaps, + coming to an amicable understanding in some adjoining public house, the + prisoner's head appears above the barrier of the dock; he is accused of + stealing bicycles, and he is the living image of a great friend of mine. + We go into the matter of the stealing of the bicycles. We do well and + truly try the case between the King and the prisoner in the affair of the + bicycles. And we come to the conclusion, after a brief but reasonable + discussion, that the King is not in any way implicated. Then we pass on to + a woman who neglected her children, and who looks as if somebody or + something had neglected her. And I am one of those who fancy that + something had. + </p> + <p> + All the time that the eye took in these light appearances and the brain + passed these light criticisms, there was in the heart a barbaric pity and + fear which men have never been able to utter from the beginning, but which + is the power behind half the poems of the world. The mood cannot even + adequately be suggested, except faintly by this statement that tragedy is + the highest expression of the infinite value of human life. Never had I + stood so close to pain; and never so far away from pessimism. Ordinarily, + I should not have spoken of these dark emotions at all, for speech about + them is too difficult; but I mention them now for a specific and + particular reason to the statement of which I will proceed at once. I + speak these feelings because out of the furnace of them there came a + curious realisation of a political or social truth. I saw with a queer and + indescribable kind of clearness what a jury really is, and why we must + never let it go. + </p> + <p> + The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards + specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers because + they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, trained + dancers because they dance better, specially instructed laughers because + they laugh better, and so on and so on. The principle has been applied to + law and politics by innumerable modern writers. Many Fabians have insisted + that a greater part of our political work should be performed by experts. + Many legalists have declared that the untrained jury should be altogether + supplanted by the trained Judge. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Now, if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, I do not + know that there would be any fault to find with this. But the true result + of all experience and the true foundation of all religion is this. That + the four or five things that it is most practically essential that a man + should know, are all of them what people call paradoxes. That is to say, + that though we all find them in life to be mere plain truths, yet we + cannot easily state them in words without being guilty of seeming verbal + contradictions. One of them, for instance, is the unimpeachable platitude + that the man who finds most pleasure for himself is often the man who + least hunts for it. Another is the paradox of courage; the fact that the + way to avoid death is not to have too much aversion to it. Whoever is + careless enough of his bones to climb some hopeful cliff above the tide + may save his bones by that carelessness. Whoever will lose his life, the + same shall save it; an entirely practical and prosaic statement. + </p> + <p> + Now, one of these four or five paradoxes which should be taught to every + infant prattling at his mother's knee is the following: That the more a + man looks at a thing, the less he can see it, and the more a man learns a + thing the less he knows it. The Fabian argument of the expert, that the + man who is trained should be the man who is trusted would be absolutely + unanswerable if it were really true that a man who studied a thing and + practiced it every day went on seeing more and more of its significance. + But he does not. He goes on seeing less and less of its significance. In + the same way, alas! we all go on every day, unless we are continually + goading ourselves into gratitude and humility, seeing less and less of the + significance of the sky or the stones. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Now it is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of men. + But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can to other + terrible things; he can even grow accustomed to the sun. And the horrible + thing about all legal officials, even the best, about all judges, + magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, is not that they are + wicked (some of them are good), not that they are stupid (several of them + are quite intelligent), it is simply that they have got used to it. + </p> + <p> + Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they see is the + usual man in the usual place. They do not see the awful court of judgment; + they only see their own workshop. Therefore, the instinct of Christian + civilisation has most wisely declared that into their judgments there + shall upon every occasion be infused fresh blood and fresh thoughts from + the streets. Men shall come in who can see the court and the crowd, and + coarse faces of the policeman and the professional criminals, the wasted + faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the gesticulating counsel, and + see it all as one sees a new picture or a play hitherto unvisited. + </p> + <p> + Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining + the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to + trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who + know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in + the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system + discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up specialists. But when + it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the + ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, + by the Founder of Christianity. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII. The Wind and the Trees + </h2> + <p> + I am sitting under tall trees, with a great wind boiling like surf about + the tops of them, so that their living load of leaves rocks and roars in + something that is at once exultation and agony. I feel, in fact, as if I + were actually sitting at the bottom of the sea among mere anchors and + ropes, while over my head and over the green twilight of water sounded the + everlasting rush of waves and the toil and crash and shipwreck of + tremendous ships. The wind tugs at the trees as if it might pluck them + root and all out of the earth like tufts of grass. Or, to try yet another + desperate figure of speech for this unspeakable energy, the trees are + straining and tearing and lashing as if they were a tribe of dragons each + tied by the tail. + </p> + <p> + As I look at these top-heavy giants tortured by an invisible and violent + witchcraft, a phrase comes back into my mind. I remember a little boy of + my acquaintance who was once walking in Battersea Park under just such + torn skies and tossing trees. He did not like the wind at all; it blew in + his face too much; it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his hat, of + which he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about four. After + complaining repeatedly of the atmospheric unrest, he said at last to his + mother, “Well, why don't you take away the trees, and then it wouldn't + wind.” + </p> + <p> + Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. Any one + looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were indeed + vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the air around + them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and excusable than the + belief that it is the trees which make the wind. Indeed, the belief is so + human and excusable that it is, as a matter of fact, the belief of about + ninety-nine out of a hundred of the philosophers, reformers, sociologists, + and politicians of the great age in which we live. My small friend was, in + fact, very like the principal modern thinkers; only much nicer. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + In the little apologue or parable which he has thus the honour of + inventing, the trees stand for all visible things and the wind for the + invisible. The wind is the spirit which bloweth where it listeth; the + trees are the material things of the world which are blown where the + spirit lists. The wind is philosophy, religion, revolution; the trees are + cities and civilisations. We only know that there is a wind because the + trees on some distant hill suddenly go mad. We only know that there is a + real revolution because all the chimney-pots go mad on the whole skyline + of the city. + </p> + <p> + Just as the ragged outline of a tree grows suddenly more ragged and rises + into fantastic crests or tattered tails, so the human city rises under the + wind of the spirit into toppling temples or sudden spires. No man has ever + seen a revolution. Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood pouring down + the gutters, the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, a prison in + ruins, a people in arms—these things are not revolution, but the + results of revolution. + </p> + <p> + You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind. So, also, + you cannot see a revolution; you can only see that there is a revolution. + And there never has been in the history of the world a real revolution, + brutally active and decisive, which was not preceded by unrest and new + dogma in the reign of invisible things. All revolutions began by being + abstract. Most revolutions began by being quite pedantically abstract. + </p> + <p> + The wind is up above the world before a twig on the tree has moved. So + there must always be a battle in the sky before there is a battle on the + earth. Since it is lawful to pray for the coming of the kingdom, it is + lawful also to pray for the coming of the revolution that shall restore + the kingdom. It is lawful to hope to hear the wind of Heaven in the trees. + It is lawful to pray “Thine anger come on earth as it is in Heaven.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The great human dogma, then, is that the wind moves the trees. The great + human heresy is that the trees move the wind. When people begin to say + that the material circumstances have alone created the moral + circumstances, then they have prevented all possibility of serious change. + For if my circumstances have made me wholly stupid, how can I be certain + even that I am right in altering those circumstances? + </p> + <p> + The man who represents all thought as an accident of environment is simply + smashing and discrediting all his own thoughts—including that one. + To treat the human mind as having an ultimate authority is necessary to + any kind of thinking, even free thinking. And nothing will ever be + reformed in this age or country unless we realise that the moral fact + comes first. + </p> + <p> + For example, most of us, I suppose, have seen in print and heard in + debating clubs an endless discussion that goes on between Socialists and + total abstainers. The latter say that drink leads to poverty; the former + say that poverty leads to drink. I can only wonder at their either of them + being content with such simple physical explanations. Surely it is obvious + that the thing which among the English proletariat leads to poverty is the + same as the thing which leads to drink; the absence of strong civic + dignity, the absence of an instinct that resists degradation. + </p> + <p> + When you have discovered why enormous English estates were not long ago + cut up into small holdings like the land of France, you will have + discovered why the Englishman is more drunken than the Frenchman. The + Englishman, among his million delightful virtues, really has this quality, + which may strictly be called “hand to mouth,” because under its influence + a man's hand automatically seeks his own mouth, instead of seeking (as it + sometimes should do) his oppressor's nose. And a man who says that the + English inequality in land is due only to economic causes, or that the + drunkenness of England is due only to economic causes, is saying something + so absurd that he cannot really have thought what he was saying. + </p> + <p> + Yet things quite as preposterous as this are said and written under the + influence of that great spectacle of babyish helplessness, the economic + theory of history. We have people who represent that all great historic + motives were economic, and then have to howl at the top of their voices in + order to induce the modern democracy to act on economic motives. The + extreme Marxian politicians in England exhibit themselves as a small, + heroic minority, trying vainly to induce the world to do what, according + to their theory, the world always does. The truth is, of course, that + there will be a social revolution the moment the thing has ceased to be + purely economic. You can never have a revolution in order to establish a + democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I get up from under the trees, for the wind and the slight rain have + ceased. The trees stand up like golden pillars in a clear sunlight. The + tossing of the trees and the blowing of the wind have ceased + simultaneously. So I suppose there are still modern philosophers who will + maintain that the trees make the wind. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII. The Dickensian + </h2> + <p> + He was a quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw hat; + with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, but with a + quite unmilitary stoop and very dreamy eyes. He was gazing with a rather + gloomy interest at the cluster, one might almost say the tangle, of small + shipping which grew thicker as our little pleasure boat crawled up into + Yarmouth Harbour. A boat entering this harbour, as every one knows, does + not enter in front of the town like a foreigner, but creeps round at the + back like a traitor taking the town in the rear. The passage of the river + seems almost too narrow for traffic, and in consequence the bigger ships + look colossal. As we passed under a timber ship from Norway, which seemed + to block up the heavens like a cathedral, the man in a straw hat pointed + to an odd wooden figurehead carved like a woman, and said, like one + continuing a conversation, “Now, why have they left off having them. They + didn't do any one any harm?” + </p> + <p> + I replied with some flippancy about the captain's wife being jealous; but + I knew in my heart that the man had struck a deep note. There has been + something in our most recent civilisation which is mysteriously hostile to + such healthy and humane symbols. + </p> + <p> + “They hate anything like that, which is human and pretty,” he continued, + exactly echoing my thoughts. “I believe they broke up all the jolly old + figureheads with hatchets and enjoyed doing it.” + </p> + <p> + “Like Mr. Quilp,” I answered, “when he battered the wooden Admiral with + the poker.” + </p> + <p> + His whole face suddenly became alive, and for the first time he stood + erect and stared at me. + </p> + <p> + “Do you come to Yarmouth for that?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “For what?” + </p> + <p> + “For Dickens,” he answered, and drummed with his foot on the deck. + </p> + <p> + “No,” I answered; “I come for fun, though that is much the same thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I always come,” he answered quietly, “to find Peggotty's boat. It isn't + here.” + </p> + <p> + And when he said that I understood him perfectly. + </p> + <p> + There are two Yarmouths; I daresay there are two hundred to the people who + live there. I myself have never come to the end of the list of Batterseas. + But there are two to the stranger and tourist; the poor part, which is + dignified, and the prosperous part, which is savagely vulgar. My new + friend haunted the first of these like a ghost; to the latter he would + only distantly allude. + </p> + <p> + “The place is very much spoilt now... trippers, you know,” he would say, + not at all scornfully, but simply sadly. That was the nearest he would go + to an admission of the monstrous watering place that lay along the front, + outblazing the sun, and more deafening than the sea. But behind—out + of earshot of this uproar—there are lanes so narrow that they seem + like secret entrances to some hidden place of repose. There are squares so + brimful of silence that to plunge into one of them is like plunging into a + pool. In these places the man and I paced up and down talking about + Dickens, or, rather, doing what all true Dickensians do, telling each + other verbatim long passages which both of us knew quite well already. We + were really in the atmosphere of the older England. Fishermen passed us + who might well have been characters like Peggotty; we went into a musty + curiosity shop and bought pipe-stoppers carved into figures from Pickwick. + The evening was settling down between all the buildings with that slow + gold that seems to soak everything when we went into the church. + </p> + <p> + In the growing darkness of the church, my eye caught the coloured windows + which on that clear golden evening were flaming with all the passionate + heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian arts. At length I + said to my companion: + </p> + <p> + “Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant for the angel + at the sepulchre.” + </p> + <p> + He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + “I daresay,” he said. “What is there odd about that?” + </p> + <p> + After a pause I said, “Do you remember what the angel at the sepulchre + said?” + </p> + <p> + “Not particularly,” he answered; “but where are you off to in such a + hurry?” + </p> + <p> + I walked him rapidly out of the still square, past the fishermen's + almshouses, towards the coast, he still inquiring indignantly where I was + going. + </p> + <p> + “I am going,” I said, “to put pennies in automatic machines on the beach. + I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my photograph + taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer out of its original bottle. I will + buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat. I am ready to listen to a + concertina, and but for the defects of my education should be ready to + play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, if the donkey is + willing. I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was commanded me by the + angel in the stained-glass window.” + </p> + <p> + “I really think,” said the Dickensian, “that I had better put you in + charge of your relations.” + </p> + <p> + “Sir,” I answered, “there are certain writers to whom humanity owes much, + whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective a type that we + do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain perishing + associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the spirit of Horace + Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even for the shade of Thackeray in Old + Kensington. But let us have no antiquarianism about Dickens, for Dickens + is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward, but forward; he might + look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury, but he would love to + look at them. He might lash our democracy, but it would be because, like a + democrat, he asked much from it. We will not have all his books bound up + under the title of 'The Old Curiosity Shop.' Rather we will have them all + bound up under the title of 'Great Expectations.' Wherever humanity is he + would have us face it and make something of it, swallow it with a holy + cannibalism, and assimilate it with the digestion of a giant. We must take + these trippers as he would have taken them, and tear out of them their + tragedy and their farce. Do you remember now what the angel said at the + sepulchre? 'Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; he is + risen.'” + </p> + <p> + With that we came out suddenly on the wide stretch of the sands, which + were black with the knobs and masses of our laughing and quite desperate + democracy. And the sunset, which was now in its final glory, flung far + over all of them a red flush and glitter like the gigantic firelight of + Dickens. In that strange evening light every figure looked at once + grotesque and attractive, as if he had a story to tell. I heard a little + girl (who was being throttled by another little girl) say by way of + self-vindication, “My sister-in-law 'as got four rings aside her weddin' + ring!” + </p> + <p> + I stood and listened for more, but my friend went away. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV. In Topsy-Turvy Land + </h2> + <p> + Last week, in an idle metaphor, I took the tumbling of trees and the + secret energy of the wind as typical of the visible world moving under the + violence of the invisible. I took this metaphor merely because I happened + to be writing the article in a wood. Nevertheless, now that I return to + Fleet Street (which seems to me, I confess, much better and more poetical + than all the wild woods in the world), I am strangely haunted by this + accidental comparison. The people's figures seem a forest and their soul a + wind. All the human personalities which speak or signal to me seem to have + this fantastic character of the fringe of the forest against the sky. That + man that talks to me, what is he but an articulate tree? That driver of a + van who waves his hands wildly at me to tell me to get out of the way, + what is he but a bunch of branches stirred and swayed by a spiritual wind, + a sylvan object that I can continue to contemplate with calm? That + policeman who lifts his hand to warn three omnibuses of the peril that + they run in encountering my person, what is he but a shrub shaken for a + moment with that blast of human law which is a thing stronger than + anarchy? Gradually this impression of the woods wears off. But this + black-and-white contrast between the visible and invisible, this deep + sense that the one essential belief is belief in the invisible as against + the visible, is suddenly and sensationally brought back to my mind. + Exactly at the moment when Fleet Street has grown most familiar (that is, + most bewildering and bright), my eye catches a poster of vivid violet, on + which I see written in large black letters these remarkable words: “Should + Shop Assistants Marry?” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + When I saw those words everything might just as well have turned upside + down. The men in Fleet Street might have been walking about on their + hands. The cross of St. Paul's might have been hanging in the air upside + down. For I realise that I have really come into a topsy-turvy country; I + have come into the country where men do definitely believe that the waving + of the trees makes the wind. That is to say, they believe that the + material circumstances, however black and twisted, are more important than + the spiritual realities, however powerful and pure. “Should Shop + Assistants Marry?” I am puzzled to think what some periods and schools of + human history would have made of such a question. The ascetics of the East + or of some periods of the early Church would have thought that the + question meant, “Are not shop assistants too saintly, too much of another + world, even to feel the emotions of the sexes?” But I suppose that is not + what the purple poster means. In some pagan cities it might have meant, + “Shall slaves so vile as shop assistants even be allowed to propagate + their abject race?” But I suppose that is not what the purple poster + meant. We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what it does mean. It + does really mean that a section of the human race is asking whether the + primary relations of the two human sexes are particularly good for modern + shops. The human race is asking whether Adam and Eve are entirely suitable + for Marshall and Snelgrove. If this is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine + what would be. We ask whether the universal institution will improve our + (please God) temporary institution. Yet I have known many such questions. + For instance, I have known a man ask seriously, “Does Democracy help the + Empire?” Which is like saying, “Is art favourable to frescoes?” + </p> + <p> + I say that there are many such questions asked. But if the world ever runs + short of them, I can suggest a large number of questions of precisely the + same kind, based on precisely the same principle. + </p> + <p> + “Do Feet Improve Boots?”—“Is Bread Better when Eaten?”—“Should + Hats have Heads in them?”—“Do People Spoil a Town?”—“Do Walls + Ruin Wall-papers?”—“Should Neckties enclose Necks?”—“Do Hands + Hurt Walking-sticks?”—“Does Burning Destroy Firewood?”—“Is + Cleanliness Good for Soap?”—“Can Cricket Really Improve + Cricket-bats?”—“Shall We Take Brides with our Wedding Rings?” and a + hundred others. + </p> + <p> + Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport or in + intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from the purple + poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by half of the earnest + economists of our times. All the questions they ask are of this character; + they are all tinged with this same initial absurdity. They do not ask if + the means is suited to the end; they all ask (with profound and + penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited to the means. They do not ask + whether the tail suits the dog. They all ask whether a dog is (by the + highest artistic canons) the most ornamental appendage that can be put at + the end of a tail. In short, instead of asking whether our modern + arrangements, our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete + institutions are suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy + human life, they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion + at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; and then they + only ask whether that healthy human life is suited to our streets and + trades. Perfection may be attainable or unattainable as an end. It may or + may not be possible to talk of imperfection as a means to perfection. But + surely it passes toleration to talk of perfection as a means to + imperfection. The New Jerusalem may be a reality. It may be a dream. But + surely it is too outrageous to say that the New Jerusalem is a reality on + the road to Birmingham. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + This is the most enormous and at the same time the most secret of the + modern tyrannies of materialism. In theory the thing ought to be simple + enough. A really human human being would always put the spiritual things + first. A walking and speaking statue of God finds himself at one + particular moment employed as a shop assistant. He has in himself a power + of terrible love, a promise of paternity, a thirst for some loyalty that + shall unify life, and in the ordinary course of things he asks himself, + “How far do the existing conditions of those assisting in shops fit in + with my evident and epic destiny in the matter of love and marriage?” But + here, as I have said, comes in the quiet and crushing power of modern + materialism. It prevents him rising in rebellion, as he would otherwise + do. By perpetually talking about environment and visible things, by + perpetually talking about economics and physical necessity, painting and + keeping repainted a perpetual picture of iron machinery and merciless + engines, of rails of steel, and of towers of stone, modern materialism at + last produces this tremendous impression in which the truth is stated + upside down. At last the result is achieved. The man does not say as he + ought to have said, “Should married men endure being modern shop + assistants?” The man says, “Should shop assistants marry?” Triumph has + completed the immense illusion of materialism. The slave does not say, + “Are these chains worthy of me?” The slave says scientifically and + contentedly, “Am I even worthy of these chains?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV. What I Found in My Pocket + </h2> + <p> + Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have made the Empire + what it is—a man in an astracan coat, with an astracan moustache—a + tight, black, curly moustache. Whether he put on the moustache with the + coat or whether his Napoleonic will enabled him not only to grow a + moustache in the usual place, but also to grow little moustaches all over + his clothes, I do not know. I only remember that he said to me the + following words: “A man can't get on nowadays by hanging about with his + hands in his pockets.” I made reply with the quite obvious flippancy that + perhaps a man got on by having his hands in other people's pockets; + whereupon he began to argue about Moral Evolution, so I suppose what I + said had some truth in it. But the incident now comes back to me, and + connects itself with another incident—if you can call it an incident—which + happened to me only the other day. + </p> + <p> + I have only once in my life picked a pocket, and then (perhaps through + some absent-mindedness) I picked my own. My act can really with some + reason be so described. For in taking things out of my own pocket I had at + least one of the more tense and quivering emotions of the thief; I had a + complete ignorance and a profound curiosity as to what I should find + there. Perhaps it would be the exaggeration of eulogy to call me a tidy + person. But I can always pretty satisfactorily account for all my + possessions. I can always tell where they are, and what I have done with + them, so long as I can keep them out of my pockets. If once anything slips + into those unknown abysses, I wave it a sad Virgilian farewell. I suppose + that the things that I have dropped into my pockets are still there; the + same presumption applies to the things that I have dropped into the sea. + But I regard the riches stored in both these bottomless chasms with the + same reverent ignorance. They tell us that on the last day the sea will + give up its dead; and I suppose that on the same occasion long strings of + extraordinary things will come running out of my pockets. But I have quite + forgotten what any of them are; and there is really nothing (excepting the + money) that I shall be at all surprised at finding among them. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Such at least has hitherto been my state of innocence. I here only wish + briefly to recall the special, extraordinary, and hitherto unprecedented + circumstances which led me in cold blood, and being of sound mind, to turn + out my pockets. I was locked up in a third-class carriage for a rather + long journey. The time was towards evening, but it might have been + anything, for everything resembling earth or sky or light or shade was + painted out as if with a great wet brush by an unshifting sheet of quite + colourless rain. I had no books or newspapers. I had not even a pencil and + a scrap of paper with which to write a religious epic. There were no + advertisements on the walls of the carriage, otherwise I could have + plunged into the study, for any collection of printed words is quite + enough to suggest infinite complexities of mental ingenuity. When I find + myself opposite the words “Sunlight Soap” I can exhaust all the aspects of + Sun Worship, Apollo, and Summer poetry before I go on to the less + congenial subject of soap. But there was no printed word or picture + anywhere; there was nothing but blank wood inside the carriage and blank + wet without. Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can be, + uninteresting. So I stared at the joints of the walls and seats, and began + thinking hard on the fascinating subject of wood. Just as I had begun to + realise why, perhaps, it was that Christ was a carpenter, rather than a + bricklayer, or a baker, or anything else, I suddenly started upright, and + remembered my pockets. I was carrying about with me an unknown treasury. I + had a British Museum and a South Kensington collection of unknown curios + hung all over me in different places. I began to take the things out. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The first thing I came upon consisted of piles and heaps of Battersea tram + tickets. There were enough to equip a paper chase. They shook down in + showers like confetti. Primarily, of course, they touched my patriotic + emotions, and brought tears to my eyes; also they provided me with the + printed matter I required, for I found on the back of them some short but + striking little scientific essays about some kind of pill. Comparatively + speaking, in my then destitution, those tickets might be regarded as a + small but well-chosen scientific library. Should my railway journey + continue (which seemed likely at the time) for a few months longer, I + could imagine myself throwing myself into the controversial aspects of the + pill, composing replies and rejoinders pro and con upon the data furnished + to me. But after all it was the symbolic quality of the tickets that moved + me most. For as certainly as the cross of St. George means English + patriotism, those scraps of paper meant all that municipal patriotism + which is now, perhaps, the greatest hope of England. + </p> + <p> + The next thing that I took out was a pocket-knife. A pocket-knife, I need + hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral meditations all to + itself. A knife typifies one of the most primary of those practical + origins upon which as upon low, thick pillows all our human civilisation + reposes. Metals, the mystery of the thing called iron and of the thing + called steel, led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream. I saw into the + intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among all the common + stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent battle, in which + stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered against something + shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. I heard all the hammers + on all the anvils of the earth. I saw all the swords of Feudal and all the + weals of Industrial war. For the knife is only a short sword; and the + pocket-knife is a secret sword. I opened it and looked at that brilliant + and terrible tongue which we call a blade; and I thought that perhaps it + was the symbol of the oldest of the needs of man. The next moment I knew + that I was wrong; for the thing that came next out of my pocket was a box + of matches. Then I saw fire, which is stronger even than steel, the old, + fierce female thing, the thing we all love, but dare not touch. + </p> + <p> + The next thing I found was a piece of chalk; and I saw in it all the art + and all the frescoes of the world. The next was a coin of a very modest + value; and I saw in it not only the image and superscription of our own + Caesar, but all government and order since the world began. But I have not + space to say what were the items in the long and splendid procession of + poetical symbols that came pouring out. I cannot tell you all the things + that were in my pocket. I can tell you one thing, however, that I could + not find in my pocket. I allude to my railway ticket. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVI. The Dragon's Grandmother + </h2> + <p> + I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. I do not + mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated in them—that + he did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into a coach. He did, indeed, + entertain this curious disbelief. And, like all the other people I have + ever met who entertained it, he was wholly unable to give me an + intelligent reason for it. He tried the laws of nature, but he soon + dropped that. Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary + experience, and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted + pumpkinity. But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we + adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply the attitude we + adopt towards all unusual occurrences. If we were certain of miracles we + should not count on them. Things that happen very seldom we all leave out + of our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. I do not expect a + glass of water to be turned into wine; but neither do I expect a glass of + water to be poisoned with prussic acid. I do not in ordinary business + relations act on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but neither do + I act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost heir of the + Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is not that the natural order + is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet on uncommon + incidents than on common ones. This does not touch the credibility of any + attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned into a coach. If I + had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car with my own eyes that + would not make me any more inclined to assume that the same thing would + happen again. I should not invest largely in pumpkins with an eye to the + motor trade. Cinderella got a ball dress from the fairy; but I do not + suppose that she looked after her own clothes any the less after it. + </p> + <p> + But the view that fairy tales cannot really have happened, though crazy, + is common. The man I speak of disbelieved in fairy tales in an even more + amazing and perverted sense. He actually thought that fairy tales ought + not to be told to children. That is (like a belief in slavery or + annexation) one of those intellectual errors which lie very near to + ordinary mortal sins. There are some refusals which, though they may be + done what is called conscientiously, yet carry so much of their whole + horror in the very act of them, that a man must in doing them not only + harden but slightly corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of milk + to young mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. Another + is the refusal of fairy tales to children. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The man had come to see me in connection with some silly society of which + I am an enthusiastic member; he was a fresh-coloured, short-sighted young + man, like a stray curate who was too helpless even to find his way to the + Church of England. He had a curious green necktie and a very long neck; I + am always meeting idealists with very long necks. Perhaps it is that their + eternal aspiration slowly lifts their heads nearer and nearer to the + stars. Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that so many of + them are vegetarians: perhaps they are slowly evolving the neck of the + giraffe so that they can eat all the tops of the trees in Kensington + Gardens. These things are in every sense above me. Such, anyhow, was the + young man who did not believe in fairy tales; and by a curious coincidence + he entered the room when I had just finished looking through a pile of + contemporary fiction, and had begun to read “Grimm's Fairy tales” as a + natural consequence. + </p> + <p> + The modern novels stood before me, however, in a stack; and you can + imagine their titles for yourself. There was “Suburban Sue: A Tale of + Psychology,” and also “Psychological Sue: A Tale of Suburbia”; there was + “Trixy: A Temperament,” and “Man-Hate: A Monochrome,” and all those nice + things. I read them with real interest, but, curiously enough, I grew + tired of them at last, and when I saw “Grimm's Fairy Tales” lying + accidentally on the table, I gave a cry of indecent joy. Here at least, + here at last, one could find a little common sense. I opened the book, and + my eyes fell on these splendid and satisfying words, “The Dragon's + Grandmother.” That at least was reasonable; that at least was true. “The + Dragon's Grandmother!” While I was rolling this first touch of ordinary + human reality upon my tongue, I looked up suddenly and saw this monster + with a green tie standing in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I listened to what he said about the society politely enough, I hope; but + when he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe in fairy tales, I + broke out beyond control. “Man,” I said, “who are you that you should not + believe in fairy tales? It is much easier to believe in Blue Beard than to + believe in you. A blue beard is a misfortune; but there are green ties + which are sins. It is far easier to believe in a million fairy tales than + to believe in one man who does not like fairy tales. I would rather kiss + Grimm instead of a Bible and swear to all his stories as if they were + thirty-nine articles than say seriously and out of my heart that there can + be such a man as you; that you are not some temptation of the devil or + some delusion from the void. Look at these plain, homely, practical words. + 'The Dragon's Grandmother,' that is all right; that is rational almost to + the verge of rationalism. If there was a dragon, he had a grandmother. But + you—you had no grandmother! If you had known one, she would have + taught you to love fairy tales. You had no father, you had no mother; no + natural causes can explain you. You cannot be. I believe many things which + I have not seen; but of such things as you it may be said, 'Blessed is he + that has seen and yet has disbelieved.'” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + It seemed to me that he did not follow me with sufficient delicacy, so I + moderated my tone. “Can you not see,” I said, “that fairy tales in their + essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting + fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? + Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and + full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, + but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is—what + will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern + novel is—what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales + the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels + the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh + steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos. In the excellent tale of 'The + Dragon's Grandmother,' in all the other tales of Grimm, it is assumed that + the young man setting out on his travels will have all substantial truths + in him; that he will be brave, full of faith, reasonable, that he will + respect his parents, keep his word, rescue one kind of people, defy + another kind, 'parcere subjectis et debellare,' etc. Then, having assumed + this centre of sanity, the writer entertains himself by fancying what + would happen if the whole world went mad all round it, if the sun turned + green and the moon blue, if horses had six legs and giants had two heads. + But your modern literature takes insanity as its centre. Therefore, it + loses the interest even of insanity. A lunatic is not startling to + himself, because he is quite serious; that is what makes him a lunatic. A + man who thinks he is a piece of glass is to himself as dull as a piece of + glass. A man who thinks he is a chicken is to himself as common as a + chicken. It is only sanity that can see even a wild poetry in insanity. + Therefore, these wise old tales made the hero ordinary and the tale + extraordinary. But you have made the hero extraordinary and the tale + ordinary—so ordinary—oh, so very ordinary.” + </p> + <p> + I saw him still gazing at me fixedly. Some nerve snapped in me under the + hypnotic stare. I leapt to my feet and cried, “In the name of God and + Democracy and the Dragon's grandmother—in the name of all good + things—I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more.” Whether + or no it was the result of the exorcism, there is no doubt that he + definitely went away. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVII. The Red Angel + </h2> + <p> + I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad for + children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him I can never + count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest letter saying that + fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even if they are true. She + says that it is cruel to tell children fairy tales, because it frightens + them. You might just as well say that it is cruel to give girls + sentimental novels because it makes them cry. All this kind of talk is + based on that complete forgetting of what a child is like which has been + the firm foundation of so many educational schemes. If you keep bogies and + goblins away from children they would make them up for themselves. One + small child in the dark can invent more hells than Swedenborg. One small + child can imagine monsters too big and black to get into any picture, and + give them names too unearthly and cacophonous to have occurred in the + cries of any lunatic. The child, to begin with, commonly likes horrors, + and he continues to indulge in them even when he does not like them. There + is just as much difficulty in saying exactly where pure pain begins in his + case, as there is in ours when we walk of our own free will into the + torture-chamber of a great tragedy. The fear does not come from fairy + tales; the fear comes from the universe of the soul. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are + alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They + dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be + alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics + worship it—because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not + responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; + fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that + is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales + do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the + child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby + has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the + fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. + </p> + <p> + Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of + clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that + these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is + something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than + strong fear. When I was a child I have stared at the darkness until the + whole black bulk of it turned into one negro giant taller than heaven. If + there was one star in the sky it only made him a Cyclops. But fairy tales + restored my mental health, for next day I read an authentic account of how + a negro giant with one eye, of quite equal dimensions, had been baffled by + a little boy like myself (of similar inexperience and even lower social + status) by means of a sword, some bad riddles, and a brave heart. + Sometimes the sea at night seemed as dreadful as any dragon. But then I + was acquainted with many youngest sons and little sailors to whom a dragon + or two was as simple as the sea. + </p> + <p> + Take the most horrible of Grimm's tales in incident and imagery, the + excellent tale of the “Boy who Could not Shudder,” and you will see what I + mean. There are some living shocks in that tale. I remember specially a + man's legs which fell down the chimney by themselves and walked about the + room, until they were rejoined by the severed head and body which fell + down the chimney after them. That is very good. But the point of the story + and the point of the reader's feelings is not that these things are + frightening, but the far more striking fact that the hero was not + frightened at them. The most fearful of all these fearful wonders was his + own absence of fear. He slapped the bogies on the back and asked the + devils to drink wine with him; many a time in my youth, when stifled with + some modern morbidity, I have prayed for a double portion of his spirit. + If you have not read the end of his story, go and read it; it is the + wisest thing in the world. The hero was at last taught to shudder by + taking a wife, who threw a pail of cold water over him. In that one + sentence there is more of the real meaning of marriage than in all the + books about sex that cover Europe and America. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + At the four corners of a child's bed stand Perseus and Roland, Sigurd and + St. George. If you withdraw the guard of heroes you are not making him + rational; you are only leaving him to fight the devils alone. For the + devils, alas, we have always believed in. The hopeful element in the + universe has in modern times continually been denied and reasserted; but + the hopeless element has never for a moment been denied. As I told “H. N. + B.” (whom I pause to wish a Happy Christmas in its most superstitious + sense), the one thing modern people really do believe in is damnation. The + greatest of purely modern poets summed up the really modern attitude in + that fine Agnostic line— + </p> + <p> + “There may be Heaven; there must be Hell.” + </p> + <p> + The gloomy view of the universe has been a continuous tradition; and the + new types of spiritual investigation or conjecture all begin by being + gloomy. A little while ago men believed in no spirits. Now they are + beginning rather slowly to believe in rather slow spirits. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Some people objected to spiritualism, table rappings, and such things, + because they were undignified, because the ghosts cracked jokes or waltzed + with dinner-tables. I do not share this objection in the least. I wish the + spirits were more farcical than they are. That they should make more jokes + and better ones, would be my suggestion. For almost all the spiritualism + of our time, in so far as it is new, is solemn and sad. Some Pagan gods + were lawless, and some Christian saints were a little too serious; but the + spirits of modern spiritualism are both lawless and serious—a + disgusting combination. The specially contemporary spirits are not only + devils, they are blue devils. This is, first and last, the real value of + Christmas; in so far as the mythology remains at all it is a kind of happy + mythology. Personally, of course, I believe in Santa Claus; but it is the + season of forgiveness, and I will forgive others for not doing so. But if + there is anyone who does not comprehend the defect in our world which I am + civilising, I should recommend him, for instance, to read a story by Mr. + Henry James, called “The Turn of the Screw.” It is one of the most + powerful things ever written, and it is one of the things about which I + doubt most whether it ought ever to have been written at all. It describes + two innocent children gradually growing at once omniscient and half-witted + under the influence of the foul ghosts of a groom and a governess. As I + say, I doubt whether Mr. Henry James ought to have published it (no, it is + not indecent, do not buy it; it is a spiritual matter), but I think the + question so doubtful that I will give that truly great man a chance. I + will approve the thing as well as admire it if he will write another tale + just as powerful about two children and Santa Claus. If he will not, or + cannot, then the conclusion is clear; we can deal strongly with gloomy + mystery, but not with happy mystery; we are not rationalists, but + diabolists. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I have thought vaguely of all this staring at a great red fire that stands + up in the room like a great red angel. But, perhaps, you have never heard + of a red angel. But you have heard of a blue devil. That is exactly what I + mean. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVIII. The Tower + </h2> + <p> + I have been standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great Belfry + Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought (though not, + perhaps, said), that it is built in defiance of all decencies of + architecture. It is made in deliberate disproportion to achieve the one + startling effect of height. It is a church on stilts. But this sort of + sublime deformity is characteristic of the whole fancy and energy of these + Flemish cities. Flanders has the flattest and most prosaic landscapes, but + the most violent and extravagant of buildings. Here Nature is tame; it is + civilisation that is untamable. Here the fields are as flat as a paved + square; but, on the other hand, the streets and roofs are as uproarious as + a forest in a great wind. The waters of wood and meadow slide as smoothly + and meekly as if they were in the London water-pipes. But the parish pump + is carved with all the creatures out of the wilderness. Part of this is + true, of course, of all art. We talk of wild animals, but the wildest + animal is man. There are sounds in music that are more ancient and awful + than the cry of the strangest beast at night. And so also there are + buildings that are shapeless in their strength, seeming to lift themselves + slowly like monsters from the primal mire, and there are spires that seem + to fly up suddenly like a startled bird. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + This savagery even in stone is the expression of the special spirit in + humanity. All the beasts of the field are respectable; it is only man who + has broken loose. All animals are domestic animals; only man is ever + undomestic. All animals are tame animals; it is only we who are wild. And + doubtless, also, while this queer energy is common to all human art, it is + also generally characteristic of Christian art among the arts of the + world. This is what people really mean when they say that Christianity is + barbaric, and arose in ignorance. As a matter of historic fact, it didn't; + it arose in the most equably civilised period the world has ever seen. + </p> + <p> + But it is true that there is something in it that breaks the outline of + perfect and conventional beauty, something that dots with anger the blind + eyes of the Apollo and lashes to a cavalry charge the horses of the Elgin + Marbles. Christianity is savage, in the sense that it is primeval; there + is in it a touch of the nigger hymn. I remember a debate in which I had + praised militant music in ritual, and some one asked me if I could imagine + Christ walking down the street before a brass band. I said I could imagine + it with the greatest ease; for Christ definitely approved a natural + noisiness at a great moment. When the street children shouted too loud, + certain priggish disciples did begin to rebuke them in the name of good + taste. He said: “If these were silent the very stones would cry out.” With + these words He called up all the wealth of artistic creation that has been + founded on this creed. With those words He founded Gothic architecture. + For in a town like this, which seems to have grown Gothic as a wood grows + leaves, anywhere and anyhow, any odd brick or moulding may be carved off + into a shouting face. The front of vast buildings is thronged with open + mouths, angels praising God, or devils defying Him. Rock itself is racked + and twisted, until it seems to scream. The miracle is accomplished; the + very stones cry out. + </p> + <p> + But though this furious fancy is certainly a specialty of men among + creatures, and of Christian art among arts, it is still most notable in + the art of Flanders. All Gothic buildings are full of extravagant things + in detail; but this is an extravagant thing in design. All Christian + temples worth talking about have gargoyles; but Bruges Belfry is a + gargoyle. It is an unnaturally long-necked animal, like a giraffe. The + same impression of exaggeration is forced on the mind at every corner of a + Flemish town. And if any one asks, “Why did the people of these flat + countries instinctively raise these riotous and towering monuments?” the + only answer one can give is, “Because they were the people of these flat + countries.” If any one asks, “Why the men of Bruges sacrificed + architecture and everything to the sense of dizzy and divine heights?” we + can only answer, “Because Nature gave them no encouragement to do so.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + As I stare at the Belfry, I think with a sort of smile of some of my + friends in London who are quite sure of how children will turn out if you + give them what they call “the right environment.” It is a troublesome + thing, environment, for it sometimes works positively and sometimes + negatively, and more often between the two. A beautiful environment may + make a child love beauty; it may make him bored with beauty; most likely + the two effects will mix and neutralise each other. Most likely, that is, + the environment will make hardly any difference at all. In the scientific + style of history (which was recently fashionable, and is still + conventional) we always had a list of countries that had owed their + characteristics to their physical conditions. + </p> + <p> + The Spaniards (it was said) are passionate because their country is hot; + Scandinavians adventurous because their country is cold; Englishmen naval + because they are islanders; Switzers free because they are mountaineers. + It is all very nice in its way. Only unfortunately I am quite certain that + I could make up quite as long a list exactly contrary in its argument + point-blank against the influence of their geographical environment. Thus + Spaniards have discovered more continents than Scandinavians because their + hot climate discouraged them from exertion. Thus Dutchmen have fought for + their freedom quite as bravely as Switzers because the Dutch have no + mountains. Thus Pagan Greece and Rome and many Mediterranean peoples have + specially hated the sea because they had the nicest sea to deal with, the + easiest sea to manage. I could extend the list for ever. But however long + it was, two examples would certainly stand up in it as pre-eminent and + unquestionable. The first is that the Swiss, who live under staggering + precipices and spires of eternal snow, have produced no art or literature + at all, and are by far the most mundane, sensible, and business-like + people in Europe. The other is that the people of Belgium, who live in a + country like a carpet, have, by an inner energy, desired to exalt their + towers till they struck the stars. + </p> + <p> + As it is therefore quite doubtful whether a person will go specially with + his environment or specially against his environment, I cannot comfort + myself with the thought that the modern discussions about environment are + of much practical value. But I think I will not write any more about these + modern theories, but go on looking at the Belfry of Bruges. I would give + them the greater attention if I were not pretty well convinced that the + theories will have disappeared a long time before the Belfry. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIX. How I Met the President + </h2> + <p> + Several years ago, when there was a small war going on in South Africa and + a great fuss going on in England, when it was by no means so popular and + convenient to be a Pro-Boer as it is now, I remember making a bright + suggestion to my Pro-Boer friends and allies, which was not, I regret to + say, received with the seriousness it deserved. I suggested that a band of + devoted and noble youths, including ourselves, should express our sense of + the pathos of the President's and the Republic's fate by growing Kruger + beards under our chins. I imagined how abruptly this decoration would + alter the appearance of Mr. John Morley; how startling it would be as it + emerged from under the chin of Mr. Lloyd-George. But the younger men, my + own friends, on whom I more particularly urged it, men whose names are in + many cases familiar to the readers of this paper—Mr. Masterman's for + instance, and Mr. Conrad Noel—they, I felt, being young and + beautiful, would do even more justice to the Kruger beard, and when + walking down the street with it could not fail to attract attention. The + beard would have been a kind of counterblast to the Rhodes hat. An + appropriate counterblast; for the Rhodesian power in Africa is only an + external thing, placed upon the top like a hat; the Dutch power and + tradition is a thing rooted and growing like a beard; we have shaved it, + and it is growing again. The Kruger beard would represent time and the + natural processes. You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + After making this proposal to my friends I hurriedly left town. I went + down to a West Country place where there was shortly afterwards an + election, at which I enjoyed myself very much canvassing for the Liberal + candidate. The extraordinary thing was that he got in. I sometimes lie + awake at night and meditate upon that mystery; but it must not detain us + now. The rather singular incident which happened to me then, and which + some recent events have recalled to me, happened while the canvassing was + still going on. It was a burning blue day, and the warm sunshine, settling + everywhere on the high hedges and the low hills, brought out into a kind + of heavy bloom that HUMANE quality of the landscape which, as far as I + know, only exists in England; that sense as if the bushes and the roads + were human, and had kindness like men; as if the tree were a good giant + with one wooden leg; as if the very line of palings were a row of + good-tempered gnomes. On one side of the white, sprawling road a low hill + or down showed but a little higher than the hedge, on the other the land + tumbled down into a valley that opened towards the Mendip hills. The road + was very erratic, for every true English road exists in order to lead one + a dance; and what could be more beautiful and beneficent than a dance? At + an abrupt turn of it I came upon a low white building, with dark doors and + dark shuttered windows, evidently not inhabited and scarcely in the + ordinary sense inhabitable—a thing more like a toolhouse than a + house of any other kind. Made idle by the heat, I paused, and, taking a + piece of red chalk out of my pocket, began drawing aimlessly on the back + door—drawing goblins and Mr. Chamberlain, and finally the ideal + Nationalist with the Kruger beard. The materials did not permit of any + delicate rendering of his noble and national expansion of countenance + (stoical and yet hopeful, full of tears for man, and yet of an element of + humour); but the hat was finely handled. Just as I was adding the + finishing touches to the Kruger fantasy, I was frozen to the spot with + terror. The black door, which I thought no more of than the lid of an + empty box, began slowly to open, impelled from within by a human hand. And + President Kruger himself came out into the sunlight! + </p> + <p> + He was a shade milder of eye than he was in his portraits, and he did not + wear that ceremonial scarf which was usually, in such pictures, slung + across his ponderous form. But there was the hat which filled the Empire + with so much alarm; there were the clumsy dark clothes, there was the + heavy, powerful face; there, above all, was the Kruger beard which I had + sought to evoke (if I may use the verb) from under the features of Mr. + Masterman. Whether he had the umbrella or not I was too much emotionally + shaken to observe; he had not the stone lions with him, or Mrs. Kruger; + and what he was doing in that dark shed I cannot imagine, but I suppose he + was oppressing an Outlander. + </p> + <p> + I was surprised, I must confess, to meet President Kruger in Somersetshire + during the war. I had no idea that he was in the neighbourhood. But a yet + more arresting surprise awaited me. Mr. Kruger regarded me for some + moments with a dubious grey eye, and then addressed me with a strong + Somersetshire accent. A curious cold shock went through me to hear that + inappropriate voice coming out of that familiar form. It was as if you met + a Chinaman, with pigtail and yellow jacket, and he began to talk broad + Scotch. But the next moment, of course, I understood the situation. We had + much underrated the Boers in supposing that the Boer education was + incomplete. In pursuit of his ruthless plot against our island home, the + terrible President had learnt not only English, but all the dialects at a + moment's notice to win over a Lancashire merchant or seduce a + Northumberland Fusilier. No doubt, if I asked him, this stout old + gentleman could grind out Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and so on, like + the tunes in a barrel organ. I could not wonder if our plain, true-hearted + German millionaires fell before a cunning so penetrated with culture as + this. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + And now I come to the third and greatest surprise of all that this strange + old man gave me. When he asked me, dryly enough, but not without a certain + steady civility that belongs to old-fashioned country people, what I + wanted and what I was doing, I told him the facts of the case, explaining + my political mission and the almost angelic qualities of the Liberal + candidate. Whereupon, this old man became suddenly transfigured in the + sunlight into a devil of wrath. It was some time before I could understand + a word he said, but the one word that kept on recurring was the word + “Kruger,” and it was invariably accompanied with a volley of violent + terms. Was I for old Kruger, was I? Did I come to him and want him to help + old Kruger? I ought to be ashamed, I was... and here he became once more + obscure. The one thing that he made quite clear was that he wouldn't do + anything for Kruger. + </p> + <p> + “But you ARE Kruger,” burst from my lips, in a natural explosion of + reasonableness. “You ARE Kruger, aren't you?” + </p> + <p> + After this innocent CRI DE COEUR of mine, I thought at first there would + be a fight, and I remembered with regret that the President in early life + had had a hobby of killing lions. But really I began to think that I had + been mistaken, and that it was not the President after all. There was a + confounding sincerity in the anger with which he declared that he was + Farmer Bowles, and everybody knowed it. I appeased him eventually and + parted from him at the door of his farmhouse, where he left me with a few + tags of religion, which again raised my suspicions of his identity. In the + coffee-room to which I returned there was an illustrated paper with a + picture of President Kruger, and he and Farmer Bowles were as like as two + peas. There was a picture also of a group of Outlander leaders, and the + faces of them, leering and triumphant, were perhaps unduly darkened by the + photograph, but they seemed to me like the faces of a distant and hostile + people. + </p> + <p> + I saw the old man once again on the fierce night of the poll, when he + drove down our Liberal lines in a little cart ablaze with the blue Tory + ribbons, for he was a man who would carry his colours everywhere. It was + evening, and the warm western light was on the grey hair and heavy massive + features of that good old man. I knew as one knows a fact of sense that if + Spanish and German stockbrokers had flooded his farm or country he would + have fought them for ever, not fiercely like an Irishman, but with the + ponderous courage and ponderous cunning of the Boer. I knew that without + seeing it, as certainly as I knew without seeing it that when he went into + the polling room he put his cross against the Conservative name. Then he + came out again, having given his vote and looking more like Kruger than + ever. And at the same hour on the same night thousands upon thousands of + English Krugers gave the same vote. And thus Kruger was pulled down and + the dark-faced men in the photograph reigned in his stead. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XX. The Giant + </h2> + <p> + I sometimes fancy that every great city must have been built by night. At + least, it is only at night that every part of a great city is great. All + architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is + really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. At least, I think many + people of those nobler trades that work by night (journalists, policemen, + burglars, coffee-stall keepers, and such mistaken enthusiasts as refuse to + go home till morning) must often have stood admiring some black bulk of + building with a crown of battlements or a crest of spires and then burst + into tears at daybreak to discover that it was only a haberdasher's shop + with huge gold letters across the face of it. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I had a sensation of this sort the other day as I happened to be wandering + in the Temple Gardens towards the end of twilight. I sat down on a bench + with my back to the river, happening to choose such a place that a huge + angle and façade of building jutting out from the Strand sat above me like + an incubus. I dare say that if I took the same seat to-morrow by daylight + I should find the impression entirely false. In sunlight the thing might + seem almost distant; but in that half-darkness it seemed as if the walls + were almost falling upon me. Never before have I had so strongly the sense + which makes people pessimists in politics, the sense of the hopeless + height of the high places of the earth. That pile of wealth and power, + whatever was its name, went up above and beyond me like a cliff that no + living thing could climb. I had an irrational sense that this thing had to + be fought, that I had to fight it; and that I could offer nothing to the + occasion but an indolent journalist with a walking-stick. + </p> + <p> + Almost as I had the thought, two windows were lit in that black, blind + face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge face of a sleeping + giant; the eyes were too close together, and gave it the suggestion of a + bestial sneer. And either by accident of this light or of some other, I + could now read the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; + it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything that I + should like to pull down with my hands if I could. Reared by a detected + robber, it is framed to be the fashionable and luxurious home of + undetected robbers. In the house of man are many mansions; but there is a + class of men who feel normal nowhere except in the Babylon Hotel or in + Dartmoor Gaol. That big black face, which was staring at me with its + flaming eyes too close together, that was indeed the giant of all epic and + fairy tales. But, alas! I was not the giant-killer; the hour had come, but + not the man. I sat down on the seat again (I had had one wild impulse to + climb up the front of the hotel and fall in at one of the windows), and I + tried to think, as all decent people are thinking, what one can really do. + And all the time that oppressive wall went up in front of me, and took + hold upon the heavens like a house of the gods. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + It is remarkable that in so many great wars it has been the defeated who + have won. The people who were left worst at the end of the war were + generally the people who were left best at the end of the whole business. + For instance, the Crusades ended in the defeat of the Christians. But they + did not end in the decline of the Christians; they ended in the decline of + the Saracens. That huge prophetic wave of Moslem power which had hung in + the very heavens above the towns of Christendom, that wave was broken, and + never came on again. The Crusaders had saved Paris in the act of losing + Jerusalem. The same applies to that epic of Republican war in the + eighteenth century to which we Liberals owe our political creed. The + French Revolution ended in defeat: the kings came back across a carpet of + dead at Waterloo. The Revolution had lost its last battle; but it had + gained its first object. It had cut a chasm. The world has never been the + same since. No one after that has ever been able to treat the poor merely + as a pavement. + </p> + <p> + These jewels of God, the poor, are still treated as mere stones of the + street; but as stones that may sometimes fly. If it please God, you and I + may see some of the stones flying again before we see death. But here I + only remark the interesting fact that the conquered almost always conquer. + Sparta killed Athens with a final blow, and she was born again. Sparta + went away victorious, and died slowly of her own wounds. The Boers lost + the South African War and gained South Africa. + </p> + <p> + And this is really all that we can do when we fight something really + stronger than ourselves; we can deal it its death-wound one moment; it + deals us death in the end. It is something if we can shock and jar the + unthinking impetus and enormous innocence of evil; just as a pebble on a + railway can stagger the Scotch express. It is enough for the great martyrs + and criminals of the French revolution, that they have surprised for all + time the secret weakness of the strong. They have awakened and set leaping + and quivering in his crypt for ever the coward in the hearts of kings. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + When Jack the Giant-Killer really first saw the giant his experience was + not such as has been generally supposed. If you care to hear it I will + tell you the real story of Jack the Giant-Killer. To begin with, the most + awful thing which Jack first felt about the giant was that he was not a + giant. He came striding across an interminable wooded plain, and against + its remote horizon the giant was quite a small figure, like a figure in a + picture—he seemed merely a man walking across the grass. Then Jack + was shocked by remembering that the grass which the man was treading down + was one of the tallest forests upon that plain. The man came nearer and + nearer, growing bigger and bigger, and at the instant when he passed the + possible stature of humanity Jack almost screamed. The rest was an + intolerable apocalypse. + </p> + <p> + The giant had the one frightful quality of a miracle; the more he became + incredible the more he became solid. The less one could believe in him the + more plainly one could see him. It was unbearable that so much of the sky + should be occupied by one human face. His eyes, which had stood out like + bow windows, became bigger yet, and there was no metaphor that could + contain their bigness; yet still they were human eyes. Jack's intellect + was utterly gone under that huge hypnotism of the face that filled the + sky; his last hope was submerged, his five wits all still with terror. + </p> + <p> + But there stood up in him still a kind of cold chivalry, a dignity of dead + honour that would not forget the small and futile sword in his hand. He + rushed at one of the colossal feet of this human tower, and when he came + quite close to it the ankle-bone arched over him like a cave. Then he + planted the point of his sword against the foot and leant on it with all + his weight, till it went up to the hilt and broke the hilt, and then + snapped just under it. And it was plain that the giant felt a sort of + prick, for he snatched up his great foot into his great hand for an + instant; and then, putting it down again, he bent over and stared at the + ground until he had seen his enemy. + </p> + <p> + Then he picked up Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw him away; + and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were flying from system + to system through the universe of stars. But, as the giant had thrown him + away carelessly, he did not strike a stone, but struck soft mire by the + side of a distant river. There he lay insensible for several hours; but + when he awoke again his horrible conqueror was still in sight. He was + striding away across the void and wooded plain towards where it ended in + the sea; and by this time he was only much higher than any of the hills. + He grew less and less indeed; but only as a really high mountain grows at + last less and less when we leave it in a railway train. Half an hour + afterwards he was a bright blue colour, as are the distant hills; but his + outline was still human and still gigantic. Then the big blue figure + seemed to come to the brink of the big blue sea, and even as it did so it + altered its attitude. Jack, stunned and bleeding, lifted himself + laboriously upon one elbow to stare. The giant once more caught hold of + his ankle, wavered twice as in a wind, and then went over into the great + sea which washes the whole world, and which, alone of all things God has + made, was big enough to drown him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXI. A Great Man + </h2> + <p> + People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always + seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils from + private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous but + blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for + exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything so + valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never + gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million times + in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him + in real life. The Yellow Pressman seems to have no power of catching the + first fresh fact about a man that dominates all after impressions. For + instance, before I met Bernard Shaw I heard that he spoke with a reckless + desire for paradox or a sneering hatred of sentiment; but I never knew + till he opened his mouth that he spoke with an Irish accent, which is more + important than all the other criticisms put together. + </p> + <p> + Journalism is not personal enough. So far from digging out private + personalities, it cannot even report the obvious personalities on the + surface. Now there is one vivid and even bodily impression of this kind + which we have all felt when we met great poets or politicians, but which + never finds its way into the newspapers. I mean the impression that they + are much older than we thought they were. We connect great men with their + great triumphs, which generally happened some years ago, and many recruits + enthusiastic for the thin Napoleon of Marengo must have found themselves + in the presence of the fat Napoleon of Leipzic. + </p> + <p> + I remember reading a newspaper account of how a certain rising politician + confronted the House of Lords with the enthusiasm almost of boyhood. It + described how his “brave young voice” rang in the rafters. I also remember + that I met him some days after, and he was considerably older than my own + father. I mention this truth for only one purpose: all this generalisation + leads up to only one fact—the fact that I once met a great man who + was younger than I expected. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I had come over the wooded wall from the villages about Epsom, and down a + stumbling path between trees towards the valley in which Dorking lies. A + warm sunlight was working its way through the leafage; a sunlight which + though of saintless gold had taken on the quality of evening. It was such + sunlight as reminds a man that the sun begins to set an instant after + noon. It seemed to lessen as the wood strengthened and the road sank. + </p> + <p> + I had a sensation peculiar to such entangled descents; I felt that the + treetops that closed above me were the fixed and real things, certain as + the level of the sea; but that the solid earth was every instant failing + under my feet. In a little while that splendid sunlight showed only in + splashes, like flaming stars and suns in the dome of green sky. Around me + in that emerald twilight were trunks of trees of every plain or twisted + type; it was like a chapel supported on columns of every earthly and + unearthly style of architecture. + </p> + <p> + Without intention my mind grew full of fancies on the nature of the + forest; on the whole philosophy of mystery and force. For the meaning of + woods is the combination of energy with complexity. A forest is not in the + least rude or barbarous; it is only dense with delicacy. Unique shapes + that an artist would copy or a philosopher watch for years if he found + them in an open plain are here mingled and confounded; but it is not a + darkness of deformity. It is a darkness of life; a darkness of perfection. + And I began to think how much of the highest human obscurity is like this, + and how much men have misunderstood it. People will tell you, for + instance, that theology became elaborate because it was dead. Believe me, + if it had been dead it would never have become elaborate; it is only the + live tree that grows too many branches. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + These trees thinned and fell away from each other, and I came out into + deep grass and a road. I remember being surprised that the evening was so + far advanced; I had a fancy that this valley had a sunset all to itself. I + went along that road according to directions that had been given me, and + passed the gateway in a slight paling beyond which the wood changed only + faintly to a garden. It was as if the curious courtesy and fineness of + that character I was to meet went out from him upon the valley; for I felt + on all these things the finger of that quality which the old English + called “faërie”; it is the quality which those can never understand who + think of the past as merely brutal; it is an ancient elegance such as + there is in trees. I went through the garden and saw an old man sitting by + a table, looking smallish in his big chair. He was already an invalid, and + his hair and beard were both white; not like snow, for snow is cold and + heavy, but like something feathery, or even fierce; rather they were white + like the white thistledown. I came up quite close to him; he looked at me + as he put out his frail hand, and I saw of a sudden that his eyes were + startlingly young. He was the one great man of the old world whom I have + met who was not a mere statue over his own grave. + </p> + <p> + He was deaf and he talked like a torrent. He did not talk about the books + he had written; he was far too much alive for that. He talked about the + books he had not written. He unrolled a purple bundle of romances which he + had never had time to sell. He asked me to write one of the stories for + him, as he would have asked the milkman, if he had been talking to the + milkman. It was a splendid and frantic story, a sort of astronomical + farce. It was all about a man who was rushing up to the Royal Society with + the only possible way of avoiding an earth-destroying comet; and it showed + how, even on this huge errand, the man was tripped up at every other + minute by his own weakness and vanities; how he lost a train by trifling + or was put in gaol for brawling. That is only one of them; there were ten + or twenty more. Another, I dimly remember, was a version of the fall of + Parnell; the idea that a quite honest man might be secret from a pure love + of secrecy, of solitary self-control. I went out of that garden with a + blurred sensation of the million possibilities of creative literature. The + feeling increased as my way fell back into the wood; for a wood is a + palace with a million corridors that cross each other everywhere. I really + had the feeling that I had seen the creative quality; which is + supernatural. I had seen what Virgil calls the Old Man of the Forest: I + had seen an elf. The trees thronged behind my path; I have never seen him + again; and now I shall not see him, because he died last Tuesday. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXII. The Orthodox Barber + </h2> + <p> + Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love + of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it + would, if they had it. There is a very real thing which may be called the + love of humanity; in our time it exists almost entirely among what are + called uneducated people; and it does not exist at all among the people + who talk about it. + </p> + <p> + A positive pleasure in being in the presence of any other human being is + chiefly remarkable, for instance, in the masses on Bank Holiday; that is + why they are so much nearer Heaven (despite appearances) than any other + part of our population. + </p> + <p> + I remember seeing a crowd of factory girls getting into an empty train at + a wayside country station. There were about twenty of them; they all got + into one carriage; and they left all the rest of the train entirely empty. + That is the real love of humanity. That is the definite pleasure in the + immediate proximity of one's own kind. Only this coarse, rank, real love + of men seems to be entirely lacking in those who propose the love of + humanity as a substitute for all other love; honourable, rationalistic + idealists. + </p> + <p> + I can well remember the explosion of human joy which marked the sudden + starting of that train; all the factory girls who could not find seats + (and they must have been the majority) relieving their feelings by jumping + up and down. Now I have never seen any rationalistic idealists do this. I + have never seen twenty modern philosophers crowd into one third-class + carriage for the mere pleasure of being together. I have never seen twenty + Mr. McCabes all in one carriage and all jumping up and down. + </p> + <p> + Some people express a fear that vulgar trippers will overrun all beautiful + places, such as Hampstead or Burnham Beeches. But their fear is + unreasonable; because trippers always prefer to trip together; they pack + as close as they can; they have a suffocating passion of philanthropy. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But among the minor and milder aspects of the same principle, I have no + hesitation in placing the problem of the colloquial barber. Before any + modern man talks with authority about loving men, I insist (I insist with + violence) that he shall always be very much pleased when his barber tries + to talk to him. His barber is humanity: let him love that. If he is not + pleased at this, I will not accept any substitute in the way of interest + in the Congo or the future of Japan. If a man cannot love his barber whom + he has seen, how shall he love the Japanese whom he has not seen? + </p> + <p> + It is urged against the barber that he begins by talking about the + weather; so do all dukes and diplomatists, only that they talk about it + with ostentatious fatigue and indifference, whereas the barber talks about + it with an astonishing, nay incredible, freshness of interest. It is + objected to him that he tells people that they are going bald. That is to + say, his very virtues are cast up against him; he is blamed because, being + a specialist, he is a sincere specialist, and because, being a tradesman, + he is not entirely a slave. But the only proof of such things is by + example; therefore I will prove the excellence of the conversation of + barbers by a specific case. Lest any one should accuse me of attempting to + prove it by fictitious means, I beg to say quite seriously that though I + forget the exact language employed, the following conversation between me + and a human (I trust), living barber really took place a few days ago. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I had been invited to some At Home to meet the Colonial Premiers, and lest + I should be mistaken for some partly reformed bush-ranger out of the + interior of Australia I went into a shop in the Strand to get shaved. + While I was undergoing the torture the man said to me: + </p> + <p> + “There seems to be a lot in the papers about this new shaving, sir. It + seems you can shave yourself with anything—with a stick or a stone + or a pole or a poker” (here I began for the first time to detect a + sarcastic intonation) “or a shovel or a——” + </p> + <p> + Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing about the + matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical vein. + </p> + <p> + “Or a button-hook,” I said, “or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram or a + piston-rod——” + </p> + <p> + He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, “Or a curtain rod or a + candle-stick, or a——” + </p> + <p> + “Cow-catcher,” I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic duet + for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told me. He + explained the thing eloquently and at length. + </p> + <p> + “The funny part of it is,” he said, “that the thing isn't new at all. It's + been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before. There is always + a notion that the razor might be done without somehow. But none of those + schemes ever came to anything; and I don't believe myself that this will.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, as to that,” I said, rising slowly from the chair and trying to put + on my coat inside out, “I don't know how it may be in the case of you and + your new shaving. Shaving, with all respect to you, is a trivial and + materialistic thing, and in such things startling inventions are sometimes + made. But what you say reminds me in some dark and dreamy fashion of + something else. I recall it especially when you tell me, with such evident + experience and sincerity, that the new shaving is not really new. My + friend, the human race is always trying this dodge of making everything + entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts off one thing it shifts + on to another. If one man has not the toil of preparing a man's chin, I + suppose that some other man has the toil of preparing something very + curious to put on a man's chin. It would be nice if we could be shaved + without troubling anybody. It would be nicer still if we could go unshaved + without annoying anybody— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'But, O wise friend, chief Barber of the Strand, + Brother, nor you nor I have made the world.' +</pre> + <p> + “Whoever made it, who is wiser, and we hope better than we, made it under + strange limitations, and with painful conditions of pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “In the first and darkest of its books it is fiercely written that a man + shall not eat his cake and have it; and though all men talked until the + stars were old it would still be true that a man who has lost his razor + could not shave with it. But every now and then men jump up with the new + something or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, + that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there is no real + difference between being shaved and not being shaved. The difference, they + say, is only a difference of degree; everything is evolutionary and + relative. Shavedness is immanent in man. Every ten-penny nail is a + Potential Razor. The superstitious people of the past (they say) believed + that a lot of black bristles standing out at right angles to one's face + was a positive affair. But the higher criticism teaches us better. + Bristles are merely negative. They are a Shadow where Shaving should be. + </p> + <p> + “Well, it all goes on, and I suppose it all means something. But a baby is + the Kingdom of God, and if you try to kiss a baby he will know whether you + are shaved or not. Perhaps I am mixing up being shaved and being saved; my + democratic sympathies have always led me to drop my 'h's.' In another + moment I may suggest that goats represent the lost because goats have long + beards. This is growing altogether too allegorical. + </p> + <p> + “Nevertheless,” I added, as I paid the bill, “I have really been + profoundly interested in what you told me about the New Shaving. Have you + ever heard of a thing called the New theology?” + </p> + <p> + He smiled and said that he had not. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIII. The Toy Theatre + </h2> + <p> + There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; + and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys takes so + very much more time and trouble than anything else. Playing as children + mean playing is the most serious thing in the world; and as soon as we + have small duties or small sorrows we have to abandon to some extent so + enormous and ambitious a plan of life. We have enough strength for + politics and commerce and art and philosophy; we have not enough strength + for play. This is a truth which every one will recognize who, as a child, + has ever played with anything at all; any one who has played with bricks, + any one who has played with dolls, any one who has played with tin + soldiers. My journalistic work, which earns money, is not pursued with + such awful persistency as that work which earned nothing. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Take the case of bricks. If you publish a book to-morrow in twelve volumes + (it would be just like you) on “The Theory and Practice of European + Architecture,” your work may be laborious, but it is fundamentally + frivolous. It is not serious as the work of a child piling one brick on + the other is serious; for the simple reason that if your book is a bad + book no one will ever be able ultimately and entirely to prove to you that + it is a bad book. Whereas if his balance of bricks is a bad balance of + bricks, it will simply tumble down. And if I know anything of children, he + will set to work solemnly and sadly to build it up again. Whereas, if I + know anything of authors, nothing would induce you to write your book + again, or even to think of it again if you could help it. + </p> + <p> + Take the case of dolls. It is much easier to care for an educational cause + than to care for a doll. It is as easy to write an article on education as + to write an article on toffee or tramcars or anything else. But it is + almost as difficult to look after a doll as to look after a child. The + little girls that I meet in the little streets of Battersea worship their + dolls in a way that reminds one not so much of play as idolatry. In some + cases the love and care of the artistic symbol has actually become more + important than the human reality which it was, I suppose, originally meant + to symbolize. + </p> + <p> + I remember a Battersea little girl who wheeled her large baby sister + stuffed into a doll's perambulator. When questioned on this course of + conduct, she replied: “I haven't got a dolly, and Baby is pretending to be + my dolly.” Nature was indeed imitating art. First a doll had been a + substitute for a child; afterwards a child was a mere substitute for a + doll. But that opens other matters; the point is here that such devotion + takes up most of the brain and most of the life; much as if it were really + the thing which it is supposed to symbolize. The point is that the man + writing on motherhood is merely an educationalist; the child playing with + a doll is a mother. + </p> + <p> + Take the case of soldiers. A man writing an article on military strategy + is simply a man writing an article; a horrid sight. But a boy making a + campaign with tin soldiers is like a General making a campaign with live + soldiers. He must to the limit of his juvenile powers think about the + thing; whereas the war correspondent need not think at all. I remember a + war correspondent who remarked after the capture of Methuen: “This renewed + activity on the part of Delarey is probably due to his being short of + stores.” The same military critic had mentioned a few paragraphs before + that Delarey was being hard pressed by a column which was pursuing him + under the command of Methuen. Methuen chased Delarey; and Delarey's + activity was due to his being short of stores. Otherwise he would have + stood quite still while he was chased. I run after Jones with a hatchet, + and if he turns round and tries to get rid of me the only possible + explanation is that he has a very small balance at his bankers. I cannot + believe that any boy playing at soldiers would be as idiotic as this. But + then any one playing at anything has to be serious. Whereas, as I have + only too good reason to know, if you are writing an article you can say + anything that comes into your head. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Broadly, then, what keeps adults from joining in children's games is, + generally speaking, not that they have no pleasure in them; it is simply + that they have no leisure for them. It is that they cannot afford the + expenditure of toil and time and consideration for so grand and grave a + scheme. I have been myself attempting for some time past to complete a + play in a small toy theatre, the sort of toy theatre that used to be + called Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured; only that I drew and coloured + the figures and scenes myself. Hence I was free from the degrading + obligation of having to pay either a penny or twopence; I only had to pay + a shilling a sheet for good cardboard and a shilling a box for bad water + colours. The kind of miniature stage I mean is probably familiar to every + one; it is never more than a development of the stage which Skelt made and + Stevenson celebrated. + </p> + <p> + But though I have worked much harder at the toy theatre than I ever worked + at any tale or article, I cannot finish it; the work seems too heavy for + me. I have to break off and betake myself to lighter employments; such as + the biographies of great men. The play of “St. George and the Dragon,” + over which I have burnt the midnight oil (you must colour the thing by + lamplight because that is how it will be seen), still lacks most + conspicuously, alas! two wings of the Sultan's Palace, and also some + comprehensible and workable way of getting up the curtain. + </p> + <p> + All this gives me a feeling touching the real meaning of immortality. In + this world we cannot have pure pleasure. This is partly because pure + pleasure would be dangerous to us and to our neighbours. But it is partly + because pure pleasure is a great deal too much trouble. If I am ever in + any other and better world, I hope that I shall have enough time to play + with nothing but toy theatres; and I hope that I shall have enough divine + and superhuman energy to act at least one play in them without a hitch. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile the philosophy of toy theatres is worth any one's consideration. + All the essential morals which modern men need to learn could be deduced + from this toy. Artistically considered, it reminds us of the main + principle of art, the principle which is in most danger of being forgotten + in our time. I mean the fact that art consists of limitation; the fact + that art is limitation. Art does not consist in expanding things. Art + consists of cutting things down, as I cut down with a pair of scissors my + very ugly figures of St. George and the Dragon. Plato, who liked definite + ideas, would like my cardboard dragon; for though the creature has few + other artistic merits he is at least dragonish. The modern philosopher, + who likes infinity, is quite welcome to a sheet of the plain cardboard. + The most artistic thing about the theatrical art is the fact that the + spectator looks at the whole thing through a window. This is true even of + theatres inferior to my own; even at the Court Theatre or His Majesty's + you are looking through a window; an unusually large window. But the + advantage of the small theatre exactly is that you are looking through a + small window. Has not every one noticed how sweet and startling any + landscape looks when seen through an arch? This strong, square shape, this + shutting off of everything else is not only an assistance to beauty; it is + the essential of beauty. The most beautiful part of every picture is the + frame. + </p> + <p> + This especially is true of the toy theatre; that, by reducing the scale of + events it can introduce much larger events. Because it is small it could + easily represent the earthquake in Jamaica. Because it is small it could + easily represent the Day of Judgment. Exactly in so far as it is limited, + so far it could play easily with falling cities or with falling stars. + Meanwhile the big theatres are obliged to be economical because they are + big. When we have understood this fact we shall have understood something + of the reason why the world has always been first inspired by small + nationalities. The vast Greek philosophy could fit easier into the small + city of Athens than into the immense Empire of Persia. In the narrow + streets of Florence Dante felt that there was room for Purgatory and + Heaven and Hell. He would have been stifled by the British Empire. Great + empires are necessarily prosaic; for it is beyond human power to act a + great poem upon so great a scale. You can only represent very big ideas in + very small spaces. My toy theatre is as philosophical as the drama of + Athens. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIV. A Tragedy of Twopence + </h2> + <p> + My relations with the readers of this page have been long and pleasant, + but—perhaps for that very reason—I feel that the time has come + when I ought to confess the one great crime of my life. It happened a long + time ago; but it is not uncommon for a belated burst of remorse to reveal + such dark episodes long after they have occurred. It has nothing to do + with the orgies of the Anti-Puritan League. That body is so offensively + respectable that a newspaper, in describing it the other day, referred to + my friend Mr. Edgar Jepson as Canon Edgar Jepson; and it is believed that + similar titles are intended for all of us. No; it is not by the conduct of + Archbishop Crane, of Dean Chesterton, of the Rev. James Douglas, of + Monsignor Bland, and even of that fine and virile old ecclesiastic, + Cardinal Nesbit, that I wish (or rather, am driven by my conscience) to + make this declaration. The crime was committed in solitude and without + accomplices. Alone I did it. Let me, with the characteristic thirst of + penitents to get the worst of the confession over, state it first of all + in its most dreadful and indefensible form. There is at the present moment + in a town in Germany (unless he has died of rage on discovering his + wrong), a restaurant-keeper to whom I still owe twopence. I last left his + open-air restaurant knowing that I owed him twopence. I carried it away + under his nose, despite the fact that the nose was a decidedly Jewish one. + I have never paid him, and it is highly improbable that I ever shall. How + did this villainy come to occur in a life which has been, generally + speaking, deficient in the dexterity necessary for fraud? The story is as + follows—and it has a moral, though there may not be room for that. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + It is a fair general rule for those travelling on the Continent that the + easiest way of talking in a foreign language is to talk philosophy. The + most difficult kind of talking is to talk about common necessities. The + reason is obvious. The names of common necessities vary completely with + each nation and are generally somewhat odd and quaint. How, for instance, + could a Frenchman suppose that a coalbox would be called a “scuttle”? If + he has ever seen the word scuttle it has been in the Jingo Press, where + the “policy of scuttle” is used whenever we give up something to a small + Power like Liberals, instead of giving up everything to a great Power, + like Imperialists. What Englishman in Germany would be poet enough to + guess that the Germans call a glove a “hand-shoe.” Nations name their + necessities by nicknames, so to speak. They call their tubs and stools by + quaint, elvish, and almost affectionate names, as if they were their own + children! But any one can argue about abstract things in a foreign + language who has ever got as far as Exercise IV. in a primer. For as soon + as he can put a sentence together at all he finds that the words used in + abstract or philosophical discussions are almost the same in all nations. + They are the same, for the simple reason that they all come from the + things that were the roots of our common civilisation. From Christianity, + from the Roman Empire, from the mediaeval Church, or the French + Revolution. “Nation,” “citizen,” “religion,” “philosophy,” “authority,” + “the Republic,” words like these are nearly the same in all the countries + in which we travel. Restrain, therefore, your exuberant admiration for the + young man who can argue with six French atheists when he first lands at + Dieppe. Even I can do that. But very likely the same young man does not + know the French for a shoe-horn. But to this generalisation there are + three great exceptions. (1) In the case of countries that are not European + at all, and have never had our civic conceptions, or the old Latin + scholarship. I do not pretend that the Patagonian phrase for “citizenship” + at once leaps to the mind, or that a Dyak's word for “the Republic” has + been familiar to me from the nursery. (2) In the case of Germany, where, + although the principle does apply to many words such as “nation” and + “philosophy,” it does not apply so generally, because Germany has had a + special and deliberate policy of encouraging the purely German part of its + language. (3) In the case where one does not know any of the language at + all, as is generally the case with me. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Such at least was my situation on the dark day on which I committed my + crime. Two of the exceptional conditions which I have mentioned were + combined. I was walking about a German town, and I knew no German. I knew, + however, two or three of those great and solemn words which hold our + European civilisation together—one of which is “cigar.” As it was a + hot and dreamy day, I sat down at a table in a sort of beer-garden, and + ordered a cigar and a pot of lager. I drank the lager, and paid for it. I + smoked the cigar, forgot to pay for it, and walked away, gazing + rapturously at the royal outline of the Taunus mountains. After about ten + minutes, I suddenly remembered that I had not paid for the cigar. I went + back to the place of refreshment, and put down the money. But the + proprietor also had forgotten the cigar, and he merely said guttural + things in a tone of query, asking me, I suppose, what I wanted. I said + “cigar,” and he gave me a cigar. I endeavoured while putting down the + money to wave away the cigar with gestures of refusal. He thought that my + rejection was of the nature of a condemnation of that particular cigar, + and brought me another. I whirled my arms like a windmill, seeking to + convey by the sweeping universality of my gesture that my rejection was a + rejection of cigars in general, not of that particular article. He mistook + this for the ordinary impatience of common men, and rushed forward, his + hands filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing them upon me. In + desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the more cigars I + refused the more and more rare and precious cigars were brought out of the + deeps and recesses of the establishment. I tried in vain to think of a way + of conveying to him the fact that I had already had the cigar. I imitated + the action of a citizen smoking, knocking off and throwing away a cigar. + The watchful proprietor only thought I was rehearsing (as in an ecstasy of + anticipation) the joys of the cigar he was going to give me. At last I + retired baffled: he would not take the money and leave the cigars alone. + So that this restaurant-keeper (in whose face a love of money shone like + the sun at noonday) flatly and firmly refused to receive the twopence that + I certainly owed him; and I took that twopence of his away with me and + rioted on it for months. I hope that on the last day the angels will break + the truth very gently to that unhappy man. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + This is the true and exact account of the Great Cigar Fraud, and the moral + of it is this—that civilisation is founded upon abstractions. The + idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed by physical motions at all, + because it is an abstract idea. And civilisation obviously would be + nothing without debt. So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific + sociology (which does not exist) come and tell you that civilisation is + material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourselves how many of + the things that make up our Society, the Law, or the Stocks and Shares, or + the National Debt, you would be able to convey with your face and your ten + fingers by grinning and gesticulating to a German innkeeper. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXV. A Cab Ride Across Country + </h2> + <p> + Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there lies a + village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, but of + eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, which asked the present writer to + come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address. + </p> + <p> + Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon, + owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws and customs + have fallen in connection with the seventh day. It is not Puritanism; it + is simply anarchy. I should have some sympathy with the Jewish Sabbath, if + it were a Jewish Sabbath, and that for three reasons; first, that religion + is an intrinsically sympathetic thing; second, that I cannot conceive any + religion worth calling a religion without a fixed and material observance; + and third, that the particular observance of sitting still and doing no + work is one that suits my temperament down to the ground. + </p> + <p> + But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it does not let + a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him up when it has forced him + to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism does not forbid us to ask a man in + Battersea to come and talk in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his getting + there. I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with joys, with + flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. I can understand that a + deity might be worshipped with sorrows. But I cannot imagine any deity + being worshipped with inconveniences. Let the good Moslem go to Mecca, or + let him abide in his tent, according to his feelings for religious + symbols. But surely Allah cannot see anything particularly dignified in + his servant being misled by the time-table, finding that the old Mecca + express is not running, missing his connection at Bagdad, or having to + wait three hours in a small side station outside Damascus. + </p> + <p> + So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph service + at all to this place; I found there was only one weak thread of + train-service. Now if this had been the authority of real English + religion, I should have submitted to it at once. If I believed that the + telegraph clerk could not send the telegram because he was at that moment + rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, I should think all telegrams unimportant in + comparison. If I could believe that railway porters when relieved from + their duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of worship, I should + say that all lectures and everything else ought to give way to such a + consideration. I should not complain if the national faith forbade me to + make any appointments of labour or self-expression on the Sabbath. But, as + it is, it only tells me that I may very probably keep the Sabbath by not + keeping the appointment. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there was only + one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could even get within + several hours or several miles of the time or place. I therefore went to + the telephone, which is one of my favourite toys, and down which I have + shouted many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon art and + morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered that one + could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be cut off, but + I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the advancement of + our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer words than usual, + and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a taxi-cab to take me + to the railway station. I have not a word to say in general either against + telephones or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two of the purest and most poetic + of the creations of modern scientific civilisation. Unfortunately, when + the taxi-cab started, it did exactly what modern scientific civilisation + has done—it broke down. The result of this was that when I arrived + at King's Cross my only train was gone; there was a Sabbath calm in the + station, a calm in the eyes of the porters, and in my breast, if calm at + all, if any calm, a calm despair. + </p> + <p> + There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my breast on first + making the discovery; and it was turned to blinding horror when I learnt + that I could not even send a telegram to the organisers of the meeting. To + leave my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; to leave + them without any intimation was simply low. I reasoned with the official. + I said: “Do you really mean to say that if my brother were dying and my + mother in this place, I could not communicate with her?” He was a man of + literal and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was dying. I + answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health, but that I + was inquiring upon a question of principle. What would happen if England + were invaded, or if I alone knew how to turn aside a comet or an + earthquake. He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible + spirit, but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this + particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element of the + outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang up ungovernable, + and I decided that I would not be a cad merely because some of my remote + ancestors had been Calvinists. I would keep my appointment if I lost all + my money and all my wits. I went out into the quiet London street, where + my quiet London cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty + morning. I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the London + driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. And he did. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful whether, even in a + motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver, + not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road. I + urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, but he said + (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate sense of adventure) + that he would rather do it when we arrived—if we ever did. I was by + no means so delicate; I bought a varied selection of pork-pies at a little + shop that was open (why was that shop open?—it is all a mystery), + and ate them as we went along. The beginning was sombre and irritating. I + was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a baby; with the motor + for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday. And the sight of the + northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did not decrease, my gloom: + Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness in its squalor; Battersea and + Camberwell have an indescribable bustle of democracy; but the poor parts + of North London... well, perhaps I saw them wrongly under that ashen + morning and on that foolish errand. + </p> + <p> + It was one of those days which more than once this year broke the retreat + of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. We were already + clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace through a + borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, when the grey + showed golden patches and a good light began to glitter on everything. The + cab went quicker and quicker. The open land whirled wider and wider; but I + did not lose my sense of being battled with and thwarted that I had felt + in the thronged slums. Rather the feeling increased, because of the great + difficulty of space and time. The faster went the car, the fiercer and + thicker I felt the fight. + </p> + <p> + The whole landscape seemed charging at me—and just missing me. The + tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; the very trees seemed + like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving it by a hair's breadth. Across + some vast, smooth valley I saw a beech-tree by the white road stand up + little and defiant. It grew bigger and bigger with blinding rapidity. It + charged me like a tilting knight, seemed to hack at my head, and pass by. + Sometimes when we went round a curve of road, the effect was yet more + awful. It seemed as if some tree or windmill swung round to smite like a + boomerang. The sun by this time was a blazing fact; and I saw that all + Nature is chivalrous and militant. We do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we + should rather seek the nobler sort of war; and see all the trees as green + banners. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was deciding to leave. + When my cab came reeling into the market-place they decided, with evident + disappointment, to remain. Over the lecture I draw a veil. When I came + back home I was called to the telephone, and a meek voice expressed regret + for the failure of the motor-cab, and even said something about any + reasonable payment. “Whom can I pay for my own superb experience? What is + the usual charge for seeing the clouds shattered by the sun? What is the + market price of a tree blue on the sky-line and then blinding white in the + sun? Mention your price for that windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks + in the garden. Let me pay you for...” Here it was, I think, that we were + cut off. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVI. The Two Noises + </h2> + <p> + For three days and three nights the sea had charged England as Napoleon + charged her at Waterloo. The phrase is instinctive, because away to the + last grey line of the sea there was only the look of galloping squadrons, + impetuous, but with a common purpose. The sea came on like cavalry, and + when it touched the shore it opened the blazing eyes and deafening tongues + of the artillery. I saw the worst assault at night on a seaside parade + where the sea smote on the doors of England with the hammers of + earthquake, and a white smoke went up into the black heavens. There one + could thoroughly realise what an awful thing a wave really is. I talk like + other people about the rushing swiftness of a wave. But the horrible thing + about a wave is its hideous slowness. It lifts its load of water + laboriously: in that style at once slow and slippery in which a Titan + might lift a load of rock and then let it slip at last to be shattered + into shock of dust. In front of me that night the waves were not like + water: they were like falling city walls. The breaker rose first as if it + did not wish to attack the earth; it wished only to attack the stars. For + a time it stood up in the air as naturally as a tower; then it went a + little wrong in its outline, like a tower that might some day fall. When + it fell it was as if a powder magazine blew up. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I have never seen such a sea. All the time there blew across the land one + of those stiff and throttling winds that one can lean up against like a + wall. One expected anything to be blown out of shape at any instant; the + lamp-post to be snapped like a green stalk, the tree to be whirled away + like a straw. I myself should certainly have been blown out of shape if I + had possessed any shape to be blown out of; for I walked along the edge of + the stone embankment above the black and battering sea and could not rid + myself of the idea that it was an invasion of England. But as I walked + along this edge I was somewhat surprised to find that as I neared a + certain spot another noise mingled with the ceaseless cannonade of the + sea. + </p> + <p> + Somewhere at the back, in some pleasure ground or casino or place of + entertainment, an undaunted brass band was playing against the cosmic + uproar. I do not know what band it was. Judging from the boisterous + British Imperialism of most of the airs it played, I should think it was a + German band. But there was no doubt about its energy, and when I came + quite close under it it really drowned the storm. It was playing such + things as “Tommy Atkins” and “You Can Depend on Young Australia,” and many + others of which I do not know the words, but I should think they would be + “John, Pat, and Mac, With the Union Jack,” or that fine though unwritten + poem, “Wait till the Bull Dog gets a bite of you.” Now, I for one detest + Imperialism, but I have a great deal of sympathy with Jingoism. And there + seemed something so touching about this unbroken and innocent bragging + under the brutal menace of Nature that it made, if I may so put it, two + tunes in my mind. It is so obvious and so jolly to be optimistic about + England, especially when you are an optimist—and an Englishman. But + through all that glorious brass came the voice of the invasion, the + undertone of that awful sea. I did a foolish thing. As I could not express + my meaning in an article, I tried to express it in a poem—a bad one. + You can call it what you like. It might be called “Doubt,” or “Brighton.” + It might be called “The Patriot,” or yet again “The German Band.” I would + call it “The Two Voices,” but that title has been taken for a grossly + inferior poem. This is how it began— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “They say the sun is on your knees + A lamp to light your lands from harm, + They say you turn the seven seas + To little brooks about your farm. + I hear the sea and the new song + that calls you empress all day long. + + “(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie + Dying in swamps—you shall not die, + Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust, + Your poor are chased about like dust, + Emptied of anger and surprise— + And God has gone out of their eyes, + Your cohorts break—your captains lie, + I say to you, you shall not die.)” + </pre> + <p> + Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there is an English + country that the Imperialists have never found. The British Empire may + annex what it likes, it will never annex England. It has not even + discovered the island, let alone conquered it. I took up the two tunes + again with a greater sympathy for the first— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I know the bright baptismal rains, + I love your tender troubled skies, + I know your little climbing lanes, + Are peering into Paradise, + From open hearth to orchard cool, + How bountiful and beautiful. + + “(O throttled and without a cry, + O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die, + The frightful word is on your walls, + The east sea to the west sea calls, + The stars are dying in the sky, + You shall not die; you shall not die.)” + </pre> + <p> + Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the peril + of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. It is their + fault if the last verse was written a little rudely and at random— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I see you how you smile in state + Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar, + You need not tell me you are great, + I know how more than great you are. + I know what William Shakespeare was, + I have seen Gainsborough and the grass. + + “(O given to believe a lie, + O my mad mother, do do not die, + Whose eyes turn all ways but within, + Whose sin is innocence of sin, + Whose eyes, blinded with beams at noon, + Can see the motes upon the moon, + You shall your lover still pursue. + To what last madhouse shelters you + I will uphold you, even I. + You that are dead. You shall not die.)” + </pre> + <p> + But the sea would not stop for me any more than for Canute; and as for the + German band, that would not stop for anybody. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVII. Some Policemen and a Moral + </h2> + <p> + The other day I was nearly arrested by two excited policemen in a wood in + Yorkshire. I was on a holiday, and was engaged in that rich and intricate + mass of pleasures, duties, and discoveries which for the keeping off of + the profane, we disguise by the exoteric name of Nothing. At the moment in + question I was throwing a big Swedish knife at a tree, practising (alas, + without success) that useful trick of knife-throwing by which men murder + each other in Stevenson's romances. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the forest was full of two policemen; there was something about + their appearance in and relation to the greenwood that reminded me, I know + not how, of some happy Elizabethan comedy. They asked what the knife was, + who I was, why I was throwing it, what my address was, trade, religion, + opinions on the Japanese war, name of favourite cat, and so on. They also + said I was damaging the tree; which was, I am sorry to say, not true, + because I could not hit it. The peculiar philosophical importance, + however, of the incident was this. After some half-hour's animated + conversation, the exhibition of an envelope, an unfinished poem, which was + read with great care, and, I trust, with some profit, and one or two other + subtle detective strokes, the elder of the two knights became convinced + that I really was what I professed to be, that I was a journalist, that I + was on the DAILY NEWS (this was the real stroke; they were shaken with a + terror common to all tyrants), that I lived in a particular place as + stated, and that I was stopping with particular people in Yorkshire, who + happened to be wealthy and well-known in the neighbourhood. + </p> + <p> + In fact the leading constable became so genial and complimentary at last + that he ended up by representing himself as a reader of my work. And when + that was said, everything was settled. They acquitted me and let me pass. + </p> + <p> + “But,” I said, “what of this mangled tree? It was to the rescue of that + Dryad, tethered to the earth, that you rushed like knight-errants. You, + the higher humanitarians, are not deceived by the seeming stillness of the + green things, a stillness like the stillness of the cataract, a headlong + and crashing silence. You know that a tree is but a creature tied to the + ground by one leg. You will not let assassins with their Swedish daggers + shed the green blood of such a being. But if so, why am I not in custody; + where are my gyves? Produce, from some portion of your persons, my mouldy + straw and my grated window. The facts of which I have just convinced you, + that my name is Chesterton, that I am a journalist, that I am living with + the well-known and philanthropic Mr. Blank of Ilkley, cannot have anything + to do with the question of whether I have been guilty of cruelty to + vegetables. The tree is none the less damaged even though it may reflect + with a dark pride that it was wounded by a gentleman connected with the + Liberal press. Wounds in the bark do not more rapidly close up because + they are inflicted by people who are stopping with Mr. Blank of Ilkley. + That tree, the ruin of its former self, the wreck of what was once a giant + of the forest, now splintered and laid low by the brute superiority of a + Swedish knife, that tragedy, constable, cannot be wiped out even by + stopping for several months more with some wealthy person. It is + incredible that you have no legal claim to arrest even the most august and + fashionable persons on this charge. For if so, why did you interfere with + me at all?” + </p> + <p> + I made the later and larger part of this speech to the silent wood, for + the two policemen had vanished almost as quickly as they came. It is very + possible, of course, that they were fairies. In that case the somewhat + illogical character of their view of crime, law, and personal + responsibility would find a bright and elfish explanation; perhaps if I + had lingered in the glade till moonrise I might have seen rings of tiny + policemen dancing on the sward; or running about with glow-worm belts, + arresting grasshoppers for damaging blades of grass. But taking the bolder + hypothesis, that they really were policemen, I find myself in a certain + difficulty. I was certainly accused of something which was either an + offence or was not. I was let off because I proved I was a guest at a big + house. The inference seems painfully clear; either it is not a proof of + infamy to throw a knife about in a lonely wood, or else it is a proof of + innocence to know a rich man. Suppose a very poor person, poorer even than + a journalist, a navvy or unskilled labourer, tramping in search of work, + often changing his lodgings, often, perhaps, failing in his rent. Suppose + he had been intoxicated with the green gaiety of the ancient wood. Suppose + he had thrown knives at trees and could give no description of a + dwelling-place except that he had been fired out of the last. As I walked + home through a cloudy and purple twilight I wondered how he would have got + on. + </p> + <p> + Moral. We English are always boasting that we are very illogical; there is + no great harm in that. There is no subtle spiritual evil in the fact that + people always brag about their vices; it is when they begin to brag about + their virtues that they become insufferable. But there is this to be said, + that illogicality in your constitution or your legal methods may become + very dangerous if there happens to be some great national vice or national + temptation which many take advantage of the chaos. Similarly, a drunkard + ought to have strict rules and hours; a temperate man may obey his + instincts. + </p> + <p> + Take some absurd anomaly in the British law—the fact, for instance, + that a man ceasing to be an M. P. has to become Steward of the Chiltern + Hundreds, an office which I believe was intended originally to keep down + some wild robbers near Chiltern, wherever that is. Obviously this kind of + illogicality does not matter very much, for the simple reason that there + is no great temptation to take advantage of it. Men retiring from + Parliament do not have any furious impulse to hunt robbers in the hills. + But if there were a real danger that wise, white-haired, venerable + politicians taking leave of public life would desire to do this (if, for + instance, there were any money in it), then clearly, if we went on saying + that the illogicality did not matter, when (as a matter of fact) Sir + Michael Hicks-Beach was hanging Chiltern shop-keepers every day and taking + their property, we should be very silly. The illogicality would matter, + for it would have become an excuse for indulgence. It is only the very + good who can live riotous lives. + </p> + <p> + Now this is exactly what is present in cases of police investigation such + as the one narrated above. There enters into such things a great national + sin, a far greater sin than drink—the habit of respecting a + gentleman. Snobbishness has, like drink, a kind of grand poetry. And + snobbishness has this peculiar and devilish quality of evil, that it is + rampant among very kindly people, with open hearts and houses. But it is + our great English vice; to be watched more fiercely than small-pox. If a + man wished to hear the worst and wickedest thing in England summed up in + casual English words, he would not find it in any foul oaths or ribald + quarrelling. He would find it in the fact that the best kind of working + man, when he wishes to praise any one, calls him “a gentleman.” It never + occurs to him that he might as well call him “a marquis,” or “a privy + councillor”—that he is simply naming a rank or class, not a phrase + for a good man. And this perennial temptation to a shameful admiration, + must, and, I think, does, constantly come in and distort and poison our + police methods. + </p> + <p> + In this case we must be logical and exact; for we have to keep watch upon + ourselves. The power of wealth, and that power at its vilest, is + increasing in the modern world. A very good and just people, without this + temptation, might not need, perhaps, to make clear rules and systems to + guard themselves against the power of our great financiers. But that is + because a very just people would have shot them long ago, from mere native + good feeling. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVIII. The Lion + </h2> + <p> + In the town of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We + talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is the + man in the street. Things quite central for him are connected with these + lamp-posts and pavements; everything from his meals to his martyrdoms. + When first an Englishman looks at a French town or village his first + feeling is simply that it is uglier than an English town or village; when + he looks again he sees that this comparative absence of the picturesque is + chiefly expressed in the plain, precipitous frontage of the houses + standing up hard and flat out of the street like the cardboard houses in a + pantomime—a hard angularity allied perhaps to the harshness of + French logic. When he looks a third time he sees quite simply that it is + all because the houses have no front gardens. The vague English spirit + loves to have the entrance to its house softened by bushes and broken by + steps. It likes to have a little anteroom of hedges half in the house and + half out of it; a green room in a double sense. The Frenchman desires no + such little pathetic ramparts or halting places, for the street itself is + a thing natural and familiar to him. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The French have no front gardens; but the street is every man's front + garden. There are trees in the street, and sometimes fountains. The street + is the Frenchman's tavern, for he drinks in the street. It is his + dining-room, for he dines in the street. It is his British Museum, for the + statues and monuments in French streets are not, as with us, of the worst, + but of the best, art of the country, and they are often actually as + historical as the Pyramids. The street again is the Frenchman's + Parliament, for France has never taken its Chamber of Deputies so + seriously as we take our House of Commons, and the quibbles of mere + elected nonentities in an official room seem feeble to a people whose + fathers have heard the voice of Desmoulins like a trumpet under open + heaven, or Victor Hugo shouting from his carriage amid the wreck of the + second Republic. And as the Frenchman drinks in the street and dines in + the street so also he fights in the street and dies in the street, so that + the street can never be commonplace to him. + </p> + <p> + Take, for instance, such a simple object as a lamp-post. In London a + lamp-post is a comic thing. We think of the intoxicated gentleman + embracing it, and recalling ancient friendship. But in Paris a lamp-post + is a tragic thing. For we think of tyrants hanged on it, and of an end of + the world. There is, or was, a bitter Republican paper in Paris called LA + LANTERNE. How funny it would be if there were a Progressive paper in + England called THE LAMP POST! We have said, then, that the Frenchman is + the man in the street; that he can dine in the street, and die in the + street. And if I ever pass through Paris and find him going to bed in the + street, I shall say that he is still true to the genius of his + civilisation. All that is good and all that is evil in France is alike + connected with this open-air element. French democracy and French + indecency are alike part of the desire to have everything out of doors. + Compared to a café, a public-house is a private house. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + There were two reasons why all these fancies should float through the mind + in the streets of this especial town of Belfort. First of all, it lies + close upon the boundary of France and Germany, and boundaries are the most + beautiful things in the world. To love anything is to love its boundaries; + thus children will always play on the edge of anything. They build castles + on the edge of the sea, and can only be restrained by public proclamation + and private violence from walking on the edge of the grass. For when we + have come to the end of a thing we have come to the beginning of it. + </p> + <p> + Hence this town seemed all the more French for being on the very margin of + Germany, and although there were many German touches in the place—German + names, larger pots of beer, and enormous theatrical barmaids dressed up in + outrageous imitation of Alsatian peasants—yet the fixed French + colour seemed all the stronger for these specks of something else. All day + long and all night long troops of dusty, swarthy, scornful little soldiers + went plodding through the streets with an air of stubborn disgust, for + German soldiers look as if they despised you, but French soldiers as if + they despised you and themselves even more than you. It is a part, I + suppose, of the realism of the nation which has made it good at war and + science and other things in which what is necessary is combined with what + is nasty. And the soldiers and the civilians alike had most of them + cropped hair, and that curious kind of head which to an Englishman looks + almost brutal, the kind that we call a bullet-head. Indeed, we are + speaking very appropriately when we call it a bullet-head, for in + intellectual history the heads of Frenchmen have been bullets—yes, + and explosive bullets. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But there was a second reason why in this place one should think + particularly of the open-air politics and the open-air art of the French. + For this town of Belfort is famous for one of the most typical and + powerful of the public monuments of France. From the café table at which I + sit I can see the hill beyond the town on which hangs the high and + flat-faced citadel, pierced with many windows, and warmed in the evening + light. On the steep hill below it is a huge stone lion, itself as large as + a hill. It is hacked out of the rock with a sort of gigantic impression. + No trivial attempt has been made to make it like a common statue; no + attempt to carve the mane into curls, or to distinguish the monster + minutely from the earth out of which he rises, shaking the world. The face + of the lion has something of the bold conventionality of Assyrian art. The + mane of the lion is left like a shapeless cloud of tempest, as if it might + literally be said of him that God had clothed his neck with thunder. Even + at this distance the thing looks vast, and in some sense prehistoric. Yet + it was carved only a little while ago. It commemorates the fact that this + town was never taken by the Germans through all the terrible year, but + only laid down its arms at last at the command of its own Government. But + the spirit of it has been in this land from the beginning—the spirit + of something defiant and almost defeated. + </p> + <p> + As I leave this place and take the railway into Germany the news comes + thicker and thicker up the streets that Southern France is in a flame, and + that there perhaps will be fought out finally the awful modern battle of + the rich and poor. And as I pass into quieter places for the last sign of + France on the sky-line, I see the Lion of Belfort stand at bay, the last + sight of that great people which has never been at peace. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIX. Humanity: an Interlude + </h2> + <p> + Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, the + City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything noble cut + out, and everything nasty left in. No one can understand Paris and its + history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and + justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it + may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is + also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite + ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are + martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. For the + indecency of many of their books and papers is not of the sort which + charms and seduces, but of the sort that horrifies and hurts; they are + torturing themselves. They lash their own patriotism into life with the + same whips which most men use to lash foreigners to silence. The enemies + of France can never give an account of her infamy or decay which does not + seem insipid and even polite compared with the things which the + Nationalists of France say about their own nation. They taunt and torment + themselves; sometimes they even deliberately oppress themselves. Thus, + when the mob of Paris could make a Government to please itself, it made a + sort of sublime tyranny to order itself about. The spirit is the same from + the Crusades or St. Bartholomew to the apotheosis of Zola. The old + religionists tortured men physically for a moral truth. The new realists + torture men morally for a physical truth. + </p> + <p> + Now Brussels is Paris without this constant purification of pain. Its + indecencies are not regrettable incidents in an everlasting revolution. It + has none of the things which make good Frenchmen love Paris; it has only + the things which make unspeakable Englishmen love it. It has the part + which is cosmopolitan—and narrows; not the part which is Parisian—and + universal. You can find there (as commonly happens in modern centres) the + worst things of all nations—the DAILY MAIL from England, the cheap + philosophies from Germany, the loose novels of France, and the drinks of + America. But there is no English broad fun, no German kindly ceremony, no + American exhilaration, and, above all, no French tradition of fighting for + an idea. Though all the boulevards look like Parisian boulevards, though + all the shops look like Parisian shops, you cannot look at them steadily + for two minutes without feeling the full distance between, let us say, + King Leopold and fighters like Clemenceau and Deroulède. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + For all these reasons, and many more, when I had got into Brussels I began + to make all necessary arrangements for getting out of it again; and I had + impulsively got into a tram which seemed to be going out of the city. In + this tram there were two men talking; one was a little man with a black + French beard; the other was a baldish man with bushy whiskers, like the + financial foreign count in a three-act farce. And about the time that we + reached the suburb of the city, and the traffic grew thinner, and the + noises more few, I began to hear what they were saying. Though they spoke + French quickly, their words were fairly easy to follow, because they were + all long words. Anybody can understand long words because they have in + them all the lucidity of Latin. + </p> + <p> + The man with the black beard said: “It must that we have the Progress.” + </p> + <p> + The man with the whiskers parried this smartly by saying: “It must also + that we have the Consolidation International.” + </p> + <p> + This is a sort of discussion which I like myself, so I listened with some + care, and I think I picked up the thread of it. One of the Belgians was a + Little Belgian, as we speak of a Little Englander. The other was a Belgian + Imperialist, for though Belgium is not quite strong enough to be + altogether a nation, she is quite strong enough to be an empire. Being a + nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being an empire only + means kicking your inferiors. The man with whiskers was the Imperialist, + and he was saying: “The science, behold there the new guide of humanity.” + </p> + <p> + And the man with the beard answered him: “It does not suffice to have + progress in the science; one must have it also in the sentiment of the + human justice.” + </p> + <p> + This remark I applauded, as if at a public meeting, but they were much too + keen on their argument to hear me. The views I have often heard in + England, but never uttered so lucidly, and certainly never so fast. Though + Belgian by nation they must both have been essentially French. Whiskers + was great on education, which, it seems, is on the march. All the world + goes to make itself instructed. It must that the more instructed enlighten + the less instructed. Eh, well then, the European must impose upon the + savage the science and the light. Also (apparently) he must impose himself + on the savage while he is about it. To-day one travelled quickly. The + science had changed all. For our fathers, they were religious, and (what + was worse) dead. To-day humanity had electricity to the hand; the machines + came from triumphing; all the lines and limits of the globe effaced + themselves. Soon there would not be but the great Empires and + confederations, guided by the science, always the science. + </p> + <p> + Here Whiskers stopped an instant for breath; and the man with the + sentiment for human justice had “la parole” off him in a flash. Without + doubt Humanity was on the march, but towards the sentiments, the ideal, + the methods moral and pacific. Humanity directed itself towards Humanity. + For your wars and empires on behalf of civilisation, what were they in + effect? The war, was it not itself an affair of the barbarism? The Empires + were they not things savage? The Humanity had passed all that; she was now + intellectual. Tolstoy had refined all human souls with the sentiments the + most delicate and just. Man was become a spirit; the wings pushed.... + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + At this important point of evolution the tram came to a jerky stoppage; + and staring around I found, to my stunned consternation, that it was + almost dark, that I was far away from Brussels, that I could not dream of + getting back to dinner; in short, that through the clinging fascination of + this great controversy on Humanity and its recent complete alteration by + science or Tolstoy, I had landed myself Heaven knows where. I dropped + hastily from the suburban tram and let it go on without me. + </p> + <p> + I was alone in the flat fields out of sight of the city. On one side of + the road was one of those small, thin woods which are common in all + countries, but of which, by a coincidence, the mystical painters of + Flanders were very fond. The night was closing in with cloudy purple and + grey; there was one ribbon of silver, the last rag of the sunset. Through + the wood went one little path, and somehow it suggested that it might lead + to some sign of life—there was no other sign of life on the horizon. + I went along it, and soon sank into a sort of dancing twilight of all + those tiny trees. There is something subtle and bewildering about that + sort of frail and fantastic wood. A forest of big trees seems like a + bodily barrier; but somehow that mist of thin lines seems like a spiritual + barrier. It is as if one were caught in a fairy cloud or could not pass a + phantom. When I had well lost the last gleam of the high road a curious + and definite feeling came upon me. Now I suddenly felt something much more + practical and extraordinary—the absence of humanity: inhuman + loneliness. Of course, there was nothing really lost in my state; but the + mood may hit one anywhere. I wanted men—any men; and I felt our + awful alliance over all the globe. And at last, when I had walked for what + seemed a long time, I saw a light too near the earth to mean anything + except the image of God. + </p> + <p> + I came out on a clear space and a low, long cottage, the door of which was + open, but was blocked by a big grey horse, who seemed to prefer to eat + with his head inside the sitting-room. I got past him, and found he was + being fed by a young man who was sitting down and drinking beer inside, + and who saluted me with heavy rustic courtesy, but in a strange tongue. + The room was full of staring faces like owls, and these I traced at length + as belonging to about six small children. Their father was still working + in the fields, but their mother rose when I entered. She smiled, but she + and all the rest spoke some rude language, Flamand, I suppose; so that we + had to be kind to each other by signs. She fetched me beer, and pointed + out my way with her finger; and I drew a picture to please the children; + and as it was a picture of two men hitting each other with swords, it + pleased them very much. Then I gave a Belgian penny to each child, for as + I said on chance in French, “It must be that we have the economic + equality.” But they had never heard of economic equality, while all + Battersea workmen have heard of economic equality, though it is true that + they haven't got it. + </p> + <p> + I found my way back to the city, and some time afterwards I actually saw + in the street my two men talking, no doubt still saying, one that Science + had changed all in Humanity, and the other that Humanity was now pushing + the wings of the purely intellectual. But for me Humanity was hooked on to + an accidental picture. I thought of a low and lonely house in the flats, + behind a veil or film of slight trees, a man breaking the ground as men + have broken from the first morning, and a huge grey horse champing his + food within a foot of a child's head, as in the stable where Christ was + born. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXX. The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + </h2> + <p> + On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that in a few hours I + should be in England, my eye fell upon one of the details of Gothic + carving of which Flanders is full. I do not know whether the thing is old, + though it was certainly knocked about and indecipherable, but at least it + was certainly in the style and tradition of the early Middle Ages. It + seemed to represent men bending themselves (not to say twisting + themselves) to certain primary employments. Some seemed to be sailors + tugging at ropes; others, I think, were reaping; others were energetically + pouring something into something else. This is entirely characteristic of + the pictures and carvings of the early thirteenth century, perhaps the + most purely vigorous time in all history. The great Greeks preferred to + carve their gods and heroes doing nothing. Splendid and philosophic as + their composure is there is always about it something that marks the + master of many slaves. But if there was one thing the early mediaevals + liked it was representing people doing something—hunting or hawking, + or rowing boats, or treading grapes, or making shoes, or cooking something + in a pot. “Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira voluptas.” (I quote + from memory.) The Middle Ages is full of that spirit in all its monuments + and manuscripts. Chaucer retains it in his jolly insistence on everybody's + type of trade and toil. It was the earliest and youngest resurrection of + Europe, the time when social order was strengthening, but had not yet + become oppressive; the time when religious faiths were strong, but had not + yet been exasperated. For this reason the whole effect of Greek and Gothic + carving is different. The figures in the Elgin marbles, though often + reining their steeds for an instant in the air, seem frozen for ever at + that perfect instant. But a mass of mediaeval carving seems actually a + sort of bustle or hubbub in stone. Sometimes one cannot help feeling that + the groups actually move and mix, and the whole front of a great cathedral + has the hum of a huge hive. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + But about these particular figures there was a peculiarity of which I + could not be sure. Those of them that had any heads had very curious + heads, and it seemed to me that they had their mouths open. Whether or no + this really meant anything or was an accident of nascent art I do not + know; but in the course of wondering I recalled to my mind the fact that + singing was connected with many of the tasks there suggested, that there + were songs for reapers and songs for sailors hauling ropes. I was still + thinking about this small problem when I walked along the pier at Ostend; + and I heard some sailors uttering a measured shout as they laboured, and I + remembered that sailors still sing in chorus while they work, and even + sing different songs according to what part of their work they are doing. + And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was over, the sight of + men working in the English fields reminded me again that there are still + songs for harvest and for many agricultural routines. And I suddenly + wondered why if this were so it should be quite unknown, for any modern + trade to have a ritual poetry. How did people come to chant rude poems + while pulling certain ropes or gathering certain fruit, and why did nobody + do anything of the kind while producing any of the modern things? Why is a + modern newspaper never printed by people singing in chorus? Why do shopmen + seldom, if ever, sing? + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while auditing + and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all the separate things + that have to be done in a boat, why are there not songs for all the + separate things that have to be done in a bank? As the train from Dover + flew through the Kentish gardens, I tried to write a few songs suitable + for commercial gentlemen. Thus, the work of bank clerks when casting up + columns might begin with a thundering chorus in praise of Simple Addition. + </p> + <p> + “Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er. Hear the Stars + of Morning shouting: 'Two and Two are four.' Though the creeds and realms + are reeling, though the sophists roar, Though we weep and pawn our + watches, Two and Two are Four.” + </p> + <p> + “There's a run upon the Bank—Stand away! For the Manager's a crank + and the Secretary drank, and the + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Upper Tooting Bank + Turns to bay! + Stand close: there is a run + On the Bank. + Of our ship, our royal one, let the ringing legend run, + That she fired with every gun + Ere she sank.” + </pre> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + And as I came into the cloud of London I met a friend of mine who actually + is in a bank, and submitted these suggestions in rhyme to him for use + among his colleagues. But he was not very hopeful about the matter. It was + not (he assured me) that he underrated the verses, or in any sense + lamented their lack of polish. No; it was rather, he felt, an indefinable + something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we live that + makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks. And I think he must be + right; though the matter is very mysterious. I may observe here that I + think there must be some mistake in the calculations of the Socialists. + They put down all our distress, not to a moral tone, but to the chaos of + private enterprise. Now, banks are private; but post-offices are + Socialistic: therefore I naturally expected that the post-office would + fall into the collectivist idea of a chorus. Judge of my surprise when the + lady in my local post-office (whom I urged to sing) dismissed the idea + with far more coldness than the bank clerk had done. She seemed indeed, to + be in a considerably greater state of depression than he. Should any one + suppose that this was the effect of the verses themselves, it is only fair + to say that the specimen verse of the Post-Office Hymn ran thus: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “O'er London our letters are shaken like snow, + Our wires o'er the world like the thunderbolts go. + The news that may marry a maiden in Sark, + Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park.” + </pre> + <p> + Chorus (with a swing of joy and energy): + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park.” + </pre> + <p> + And the more I thought about the matter the more painfully certain it + seemed that the most important and typical modern things could not be done + with a chorus. One could not, for instance, be a great financier and sing; + because the essence of being a great financier is that you keep quiet. You + could not even in many modern circles be a public man and sing; because in + those circles the essence of being a public man is that you do nearly + everything in private. Nobody would imagine a chorus of money-lenders. + Every one knows the story of the solicitors' corps of volunteers who, when + the Colonel on the battlefield cried “Charge!” all said simultaneously, + “Six-and-eightpence.” Men can sing while charging in a military, but + hardly in a legal sense. And at the end of my reflections I had really got + no further than the sub-conscious feeling of my friend the bank-clerk—that + there is something spiritually suffocating about our life; not about our + laws merely, but about our life. Bank-clerks are without songs, not + because they are poor, but because they are sad. Sailors are much poorer. + As I passed homewards I passed a little tin building of some religious + sort, which was shaken with shouting as a trumpet is torn with its own + tongue. THEY were singing anyhow; and I had for an instant a fancy I had + often had before: that with us the super-human is the only place where you + can find the human. Human nature is hunted and has fled into sanctuary. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXI. The Riddle of the Ivy + </h2> + <p> + More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, a friend + walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded with half-packed + luggage. + </p> + <p> + “You seem to be off on your travels,” he said. “Where are you going?” + </p> + <p> + With a strap between my teeth I replied, “To Battersea.” + </p> + <p> + “The wit of your remark,” he said, “wholly escapes me.” + </p> + <p> + “I am going to Battersea,” I repeated, “to Battersea viâ Paris, Belfort, + Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained simply + the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once more I + find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, somewhere + in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little island which + I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great white cliffs. + Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch travellers tell me + that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour that somewhere in the + heart of it there is a beautiful place called Battersea.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you,” said my friend, with an air of + intellectual comparison, “that this is Battersea?” + </p> + <p> + “It is quite unnecessary,” I said, “and it is spiritually untrue. I cannot + see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or any England. I cannot + see that door. I cannot see that chair: because a cloud of sleep and + custom has come across my eyes. The only way to get back to them is to go + somewhere else; and that is the real object of travel and the real + pleasure of holidays. Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see + France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? I + shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking. I am seeking + Battersea. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; + it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. Now I + warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and heavy, and that if you + utter that word 'paradox' I shall hurl it at your head. I did not make the + world, and I did not make it paradoxical. It is not my fault, it is the + truth, that the only way to go to England is to go away from it.” + </p> + <p> + But when, after only a month's travelling, I did come back to England, I + was startled to find that I had told the exact truth. England did break on + me at once beautifully new and beautifully old. To land at Dover is the + right way to approach England (most things that are hackneyed are right), + for then you see first the full, soft gardens of Kent, which are, perhaps, + an exaggeration, but still a typical exaggeration, of the rich rusticity + of England. As it happened, also, a fellow-traveller with whom I had + fallen into conversation felt the same freshness, though for another + cause. She was an American lady who had seen Europe, and had never yet + seen England, and she expressed her enthusiasm in that simple and splendid + way which is natural to Americans, who are the most idealistic people in + the whole world. Their only danger is that the idealist can easily become + the idolator. And the American has become so idealistic that he even + idealises money. But (to quote a very able writer of American short + stories) that is another story. + </p> + <p> + “I have never been in England before,” said the American lady, “yet it is + so pretty that I feel as if I have been away from it for a long time.” + </p> + <p> + “So you have,” I said; “you have been away for three hundred years.” + </p> + <p> + “What a lot of ivy you have,” she said. “It covers the churches and it + buries the houses. We have ivy; but I have never seen it grow like that.” + </p> + <p> + “I am interested to hear it,” I replied, “for I am making a little list of + all the things that are really better in England. Even a month on the + Continent, combined with intelligence, will teach you that there are many + things that are better abroad. All the things that the DAILY MAIL calls + English are better abroad. But there are things entirely English and + entirely good. Kippers, for instance, and Free Trade, and front gardens, + and individual liberty, and the Elizabethan drama, and hansom cabs, and + cricket, and Mr. Will Crooks. Above all, there is the happy and holy + custom of eating a heavy breakfast. I cannot imagine that Shakespeare + began the day with rolls and coffee, like a Frenchman or a German. Surely + he began with bacon or bloaters. In fact, a light bursts upon me; for the + first time I see the real meaning of Mrs. Gallup and the Great Cipher. It + is merely a mistake in the matter of a capital letter. I withdraw my + objections; I accept everything; bacon did write Shakespeare.” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot look at anything but the ivy,” she said, “it looks so + comfortable.” + </p> + <p> + While she looked at the ivy I opened for the first time for many weeks an + English newspaper, and I read a speech of Mr. Balfour in which he said + that the House of Lords ought to be preserved because it represented + something in the nature of permanent public opinion of England, above the + ebb and flow of the parties. Now Mr. Balfour is a perfectly sincere + patriot, a man who, from his own point of view, thinks long and seriously + about the public needs, and he is, moreover, a man of entirely + exceptionable intellectual power. But alas, in spite of all this, when I + had read that speech I thought with a heavy heart that there was one more + thing that I had to add to the list of the specially English things, such + as kippers and cricket; I had to add the specially English kind of humbug. + In France things are attacked and defended for what they are. The Catholic + Church is attacked because it is Catholic, and defended because it is + Catholic. The Republic is defended because it is Republican, and attacked + because it is Republican. But here is the ablest of English politicians + consoling everybody by telling them that the House of Lords is not really + the House of Lords, but something quite different, that the foolish + accidental peers whom he meets every night are in some mysterious way + experts upon the psychology of the democracy; that if you want to know + what the very poor want you must ask the very rich, and that if you want + the truth about Hoxton, you must ask for it at Hatfield. If the + Conservative defender of the House of Lords were a logical French + politician he would simply be a liar. But being an English politician he + is simply a poet. The English love of believing that all is as it should + be, the English optimism combined with the strong English imagination, is + too much even for the obvious facts. In a cold, scientific sense, of + course, Mr. Balfour knows that nearly all the Lords who are not Lords by + accident are Lords by bribery. He knows, and (as Mr. Belloc excellently + said) everybody in Parliament knows the very names of the peers who have + purchased their peerages. But the glamour of comfort, the pleasure of + reassuring himself and reassuring others, is too strong for this original + knowledge; at last it fades from him, and he sincerely and earnestly calls + on Englishmen to join with him in admiring an august and public-spirited + Senate, having wholly forgotten that the Senate really consists of idiots + whom he has himself despised; and adventurers whom he has himself + ennobled. + </p> + <p> + “Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick,” said the American lady, “it + seems to cover almost everything. It must be the most poetical thing in + England.” + </p> + <p> + “It is very beautiful,” I said, “and, as you say, it is very English. + Charles Dickens, who was almost more English than England, wrote one of + his rare poems about the beauty of ivy. Yes, by all means let us admire + the ivy, so deep, so warm, so full of a genial gloom and a grotesque + tenderness. Let us admire the ivy; and let us pray to God in His mercy + that it may not kill the tree.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXII. The Travellers in State + </h2> + <p> + The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught a train; it was a train + going into the Eastern Counties, and I only just caught it. And while I + was running along the train (amid general admiration) I noticed that there + were a quite peculiar and unusual number of carriages marked “Engaged.” On + five, six, seven, eight, nine carriages was pasted the little notice: at + five, six, seven, eight, nine windows were big bland men staring out in + the conscious pride of possession. Their bodies seemed more than usually + impenetrable, their faces more than usual placid. It could not be the + Derby, if only for the minor reasons that it was the opposite direction + and the wrong day. It could hardly be the King. It could hardly be the + French President. For, though these distinguished persons naturally like + to be private for three hours, they are at least public for three minutes. + A crowd can gather to see them step into the train; and there was no crowd + here, or any police ceremonial. + </p> + <p> + Who were those awful persons, who occupied more of the train than a + bricklayer's beanfeast, and yet were more fastidious and delicate than the + King's own suite? Who were these that were larger than a mob, yet more + mysterious than a monarch? Was it possible that instead of our Royal House + visiting the Tsar, he was really visiting us? Or does the House of Lords + have a breakfast? I waited and wondered until the train slowed down at + some station in the direction of Cambridge. Then the large, impenetrable + men got out, and after them got out the distinguished holders of the + engaged seats. They were all dressed decorously in one colour; they had + neatly cropped hair; and they were chained together. + </p> + <p> + I looked across the carriage at its only other occupant, and our eyes met. + He was a small, tired-looking man, and, as I afterwards learnt, a native + of Cambridge; by the look of him, some working tradesman there, such as a + journeyman tailor or a small clock-mender. In order to make conversation I + said I wondered where the convicts were going. His mouth twitched with the + instinctive irony of our poor, and he said: “I don't s'pose they're goin' + on an 'oliday at the seaside with little spades and pails.” I was + naturally delighted, and, pursuing the same vein of literary invention, I + suggested that perhaps dons were taken down to Cambridge chained together + like this. And as he lived in Cambridge, and had seen several dons, he was + pleased with such a scheme. Then when we had ceased to laugh, we suddenly + became quite silent; and the bleak, grey eyes of the little man grew + sadder and emptier than an open sea. I knew what he was thinking, because + I was thinking the same, because all modern sophists are only sophists, + and there is such a thing as mankind. Then at last (and it fell in as + exactly as the right last note of a tune one is trying to remember) he + said: “Well, I s'pose we 'ave to do it.” And in those three things, his + first speech and his silence and his second speech, there were all the + three great fundamental facts of the English democracy, its profound sense + of humour, its profound sense of pathos, and its profound sense of + helplessness. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + It cannot be too often repeated that all real democracy is an attempt + (like that of a jolly hostess) to bring the shy people out. For every + practical purpose of a political state, for every practical purpose of a + tea-party, he that abaseth himself must be exalted. At a tea-party it is + equally obvious that he that exalteth himself must be abased, if possible + without bodily violence. Now people talk of democracy as being coarse and + turbulent: it is a self-evident error in mere history. Aristocracy is the + thing that is always coarse and turbulent: for it means appealing to the + self-confident people. Democracy means appealing to the different people. + Democracy means getting those people to vote who would never have the + cheek to govern: and (according to Christian ethics) the precise people + who ought to govern are the people who have not the cheek to do it. There + is a strong example of this truth in my friend in the train. The only two + types we hear of in this argument about crime and punishment are two very + rare and abnormal types. + </p> + <p> + We hear of the stark sentimentalist, who talks as if there were no problem + at all: as if physical kindness would cure everything: as if one need only + pat Nero and stroke Ivan the Terrible. This mere belief in bodily + humanitarianism is not sentimental; it is simply snobbish. For if comfort + gives men virtue, the comfortable classes ought to be virtuous—which + is absurd. Then, again, we do hear of the yet weaker and more watery type + of sentimentalists: I mean the sentimentalist who says, with a sort of + splutter, “Flog the brutes!” or who tells you with innocent obscenity + “what he would do” with a certain man—always supposing the man's + hands were tied. + </p> + <p> + This is the more effeminate type of the two; but both are weak and + unbalanced. And it is only these two types, the sentimental humanitarian + and the sentimental brutalitarian, whom one hears in the modern babel. Yet + you very rarely meet either of them in a train. You never meet anyone else + in a controversy. The man you meet in a train is like this man that I met: + he is emotionally decent, only he is intellectually doubtful. So far from + luxuriating in the loathsome things that could be “done” to criminals, he + feels bitterly how much better it would be if nothing need be done. But + something must be done. “I s'pose we 'ave to do it.” In short, he is + simply a sane man, and of a sane man there is only one safe definition. He + is a man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Now the real difficulty of discussing decently this problem of the proper + treatment of criminals is that both parties discuss the matter without any + direct human feeling. The denouncers of wrong are as cold as the + organisers of wrong. Humanitarianism is as hard as inhumanity. + </p> + <p> + Let me take one practical instance. I think the flogging arranged in our + modern prisons is a filthy torture; all its scientific paraphernalia, the + photographing, the medical attendance, prove that it goes to the last foul + limit of the boot and rack. The cat is simply the rack without any of its + intellectual reasons. Holding this view strongly, I open the ordinary + humanitarian books or papers and I find a phrase like this, “The lash is a + relic of barbarism.” So is the plough. So is the fishing net. So is the + horn or the staff or the fire lit in winter. What an inexpressibly feeble + phrase for anything one wants to attack—a relic of barbarism! It is + as if a man walked naked down the street to-morrow, and we said that his + clothes were not quite in the latest fashion. There is nothing + particularly nasty about being a relic of barbarism. Man is a relic of + barbarism. Civilisation is a relic of barbarism. + </p> + <p> + But torture is not a relic of barbarism at all. In actuality it is simply + a relic of sin; but in comparative history it may well be called a relic + of civilisation. It has always been most artistic and elaborate when + everything else was most artistic and elaborate. Thus it was detailed + exquisite in the late Roman Empire, in the complex and gorgeous sixteenth + century, in the centralised French monarchy a hundred years before the + Revolution, and in the great Chinese civilisation to this day. This is, + first and last, the frightful thing we must remember. In so far as we grow + instructed and refined we are not (in any sense whatever) naturally moving + away from torture. We may be moving towards torture. We must know what we + are doing, if we are to avoid the enormous secret cruelty which has + crowned every historic civilisation. + </p> + <p> + The train moves more swiftly through the sunny English fields. They have + taken the prisoners away, and I do not know what they have done with them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIII. The Prehistoric Railway Station + </h2> + <p> + A railway station is an admirable place, although Ruskin did not think so; + he did not think so because he himself was even more modern than the + railway station. He did not think so because he was himself feverish, + irritable, and snorting like an engine. He could not value the ancient + silence of the railway station. + </p> + <p> + “In a railway station,” he said, “you are in a hurry, and therefore, + miserable”; but you need not be either unless you are as modern as Ruskin. + The true philosopher does not think of coming just in time for his train + except as a bet or a joke. + </p> + <p> + The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to be late for + the one before. Do this, and you will find in a railway station much of + the quietude and consolation of a cathedral. It has many of the + characteristics of a great ecclesiastical building; it has vast arches, + void spaces, coloured lights, and, above all, it has recurrence or ritual. + It is dedicated to the celebration of water and fire the two prime + elements of all human ceremonial. Lastly, a station resembles the old + religions rather than the new religions in this point, that people go + there. In connection with this it should also be remembered that all + popular places, all sites, actually used by the people, tend to retain the + best routine of antiquity very much more than any localities or machines + used by any privileged class. Things are not altered so quickly or + completely by common people as they are by fashionable people. Ruskin + could have found more memories of the Middle Ages in the Underground + Railway than in the grand hotels outside the stations. The great palaces + of pleasure which the rich build in London all have brazen and vulgar + names. Their names are either snobbish, like the Hotel Cecil, or (worse + still) cosmopolitan like the Hotel Metropole. But when I go in a + third-class carriage from the nearest circle station to Battersea to the + nearest circle station to the DAILY NEWS, the names of the stations are + one long litany of solemn and saintly memories. Leaving Victoria I come to + a park belonging especially to St. James the Apostle; thence I go to + Westminster Bridge, whose very name alludes to the awful Abbey; Charing + Cross holds up the symbol of Christendom; the next station is called a + Temple; and Blackfriars remembers the mediaeval dream of a Brotherhood. + </p> + <p> + If you wish to find the past preserved, follow the million feet of the + crowd. At the worst the uneducated only wear down old things by sheer + walking. But the educated kick them down out of sheer culture. + </p> + <p> + I feel all this profoundly as I wander about the empty railway station, + where I have no business of any kind. I have extracted a vast number of + chocolates from automatic machines; I have obtained cigarettes, toffee, + scent, and other things that I dislike by the same machinery; I have + weighed myself, with sublime results; and this sense, not only of the + healthiness of popular things, but of their essential antiquity and + permanence, is still in possession of my mind. I wander up to the + bookstall, and my faith survives even the wild spectacle of modern + literature and journalism. Even in the crudest and most clamorous aspects + of the newspaper world I still prefer the popular to the proud and + fastidious. If I had to choose between taking in the DAILY MAIL and taking + in the TIMES (the dilemma reminds one of a nightmare), I should certainly + cry out with the whole of my being for the DAILY MAIL. Even mere bigness + preached in a frivolous way is not so irritating as mere meanness preached + in a big and solemn way. People buy the DAILY MAIL, but they do not + believe in it. They do believe in the TIMES, and (apparently) they do not + buy it. But the more the output of paper upon the modern world is actually + studied, the more it will be found to be in all its essentials ancient and + human, like the name of Charing Cross. Linger for two or three hours at a + station bookstall (as I am doing), and you will find that it gradually + takes on the grandeur and historic allusiveness of the Vatican or Bodleian + Library. The novelty is all superficial; the tradition is all interior and + profound. The DAILY MAIL has new editions, but never a new idea. + Everything in a newspaper that is not the old human love of altar or + fatherland is the old human love of gossip. Modern writers have often made + game of the old chronicles because they chiefly record accidents and + prodigies; a church struck by lightning, or a calf with six legs. They do + not seem to realise that this old barbaric history is the same as new + democratic journalism. It is not that the savage chronicle has + disappeared. It is merely that the savage chronicle now appears every + morning. + </p> + <p> + As I moved thus mildly and vaguely in front of the bookstall, my eye + caught a sudden and scarlet title that for the moment staggered me. On the + outside of a book I saw written in large letters, “Get On or Get Out.” The + title of the book recalled to me with a sudden revolt and reaction all + that does seem unquestionably new and nasty; it reminded me that there was + in the world of to-day that utterly idiotic thing, a worship of success; a + thing that only means surpassing anybody in anything; a thing that may + mean being the most successful person in running away from a battle; a + thing that may mean being the most successfully sleepy of the whole row of + sleeping men. When I saw those words the silence and sanctity of the + railway station were for the moment shadowed. Here, I thought, there is at + any rate something anarchic and violent and vile. This title, at any rate, + means the most disgusting individualism of this individualistic world. In + the fury of my bitterness and passion I actually bought the book, thereby + ensuring that my enemy would get some of my money. I opened it prepared to + find some brutality, some blasphemy, which would really be an exception to + the general silence and sanctity of the railway station. I was prepared to + find something in the book that was as infamous as its title. + </p> + <p> + I was disappointed. There was nothing at all corresponding to the furious + decisiveness of the remarks on the cover. After reading it carefully I + could not discover whether I was really to get on or to get out; but I had + a vague feeling that I should prefer to get out. A considerable part of + the book, particularly towards the end, was concerned with a detailed + description of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Undoubtedly Napoleon got + on. He also got out. But I could not discover in any way how the details + of his life given here were supposed to help a person aiming at success. + One anecdote described how Napoleon always wiped his pen on his + knee-breeches. I suppose the moral is: always wipe your pen on your + knee-breeches, and you will win the battle of Wagram. Another story told + that he let loose a gazelle among the ladies of his Court. Clearly the + brutal practical inference is—loose a gazelle among the ladies of + your acquaintance, and you will be Emperor of the French. Get on with a + gazelle or get out. The book entirely reconciled me to the soft twilight + of the station. Then I suddenly saw that there was a symbolic division + which might be paralleled from biology. Brave men are vertebrates; they + have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle. But + these modern cowards are all crustaceans; their hardness is all on the + cover and their softness is inside. But the softness is there; everything + in this twilight temple is soft. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIV. The Diabolist + </h2> + <p> + Every now and then I have introduced into my essays an element of truth. + Things that really happened have been mentioned, such as meeting President + Kruger or being thrown out of a cab. What I have now to relate really + happened; yet there was no element in it of practical politics or of + personal danger. It was simply a quiet conversation which I had with + another man. But that quiet conversation was by far the most terrible + thing that has ever happened to me in my life. It happened so long ago + that I cannot be certain of the exact words of the dialogue, only of its + main questions and answers; but there is one sentence in it for which I + can answer absolutely and word for word. It was a sentence so awful that I + could not forget it if I would. It was the last sentence spoken; and it + was not spoken to me. + </p> + <p> + The thing befell me in the days when I was at an art school. An art school + is different from almost all other schools or colleges in this respect: + that, being of new and crude creation and of lax discipline, it presents a + specially strong contrast between the industrious and the idle. People at + an art school either do an atrocious amount of work or do no work at all. + I belonged, along with other charming people, to the latter class; and + this threw me often into the society of men who were very different from + myself, and who were idle for reasons very different from mine. I was idle + because I was very much occupied; I was engaged about that time in + discovering, to my own extreme and lasting astonishment, that I was not an + atheist. But there were others also at loose ends who were engaged in + discovering what Carlyle called (I think with needless delicacy) the fact + that ginger is hot in the mouth. + </p> + <p> + I value that time, in short, because it made me acquainted with a good + representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are two + very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. The first + is the fact that there is one real difference between men and women; that + women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes. The + second is that when you find (as you often do) three young cads and idiots + going about together and getting drunk together every day you generally + find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for some extraordinary + reason) not a cad and not an idiot. In these small groups devoted to a + drivelling dissipation there is almost always one man who seems to have + condescended to his company; one man who, while he can talk a foul + triviality with his fellows, can also talk politics with a Socialist, or + philosophy with a Catholic. + </p> + <p> + It was just such a man whom I came to know well. It was strange, perhaps, + that he liked his dirty, drunken society; it was stranger still, perhaps, + that he liked my society. For hours of the day he would talk with me about + Milton or Gothic architecture; for hours of the night he would go where I + have no wish to follow him, even in speculation. He was a man with a long, + ironical face, and close and red hair; he was by class a gentleman, and + could walk like one, but preferred, for some reason, to walk like a groom + carrying two pails. He looked like a sort of Super-jockey; as if some + archangel had gone on the Turf. And I shall never forget the half-hour in + which he and I argued about real things for the first and the last time. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Along the front of the big building of which our school was a part ran a + huge slope of stone steps, higher, I think, than those that lead up to St. + Paul's Cathedral. On a black wintry evening he and I were wandering on + these cold heights, which seemed as dreary as a pyramid under the stars. + The one thing visible below us in the blackness was a burning and blowing + fire; for some gardener (I suppose) was burning something in the grounds, + and from time to time the red sparks went whirling past us like a swarm of + scarlet insects in the dark. Above us also it was gloom; but if one stared + long enough at that upper darkness, one saw vertical stripes of grey in + the black and then became conscious of the colossal façade of the Doric + building, phantasmal, yet filling the sky, as if Heaven were still filled + with the gigantic ghost of Paganism. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The man asked me abruptly why I was becoming orthodox. Until he said it, I + really had not known that I was; but the moment he had said it I knew it + to be literally true. And the process had been so long and full that I + answered him at once out of existing stores of explanation. + </p> + <p> + “I am becoming orthodox,” I said, “because I have come, rightly or + wrongly, after stretching my brain till it bursts, to the old belief that + heresy is worse even than sin. An error is more menacing than a crime, for + an error begets crimes. An Imperialist is worse than a pirate. For an + Imperialist keeps a school for pirates; he teaches piracy disinterestedly + and without an adequate salary. A Free Lover is worse than a profligate. + For a profligate is serious and reckless even in his shortest love; while + a Free Lover is cautious and irresponsible even in his longest devotion. I + hate modern doubt because it is dangerous.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean dangerous to morality,” he said in a voice of wonderful + gentleness. “I expect you are right. But why do you care about morality?” + </p> + <p> + I glanced at his face quickly. He had thrust out his neck as he had a + trick of doing; and so brought his face abruptly into the light of the + bonfire from below, like a face in the footlights. His long chin and high + cheek-bones were lit up infernally from underneath; so that he looked like + a fiend staring down into the flaming pit. I had an unmeaning sense of + being tempted in a wilderness; and even as I paused a burst of red sparks + broke past. + </p> + <p> + “Aren't those sparks splendid?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “That is all that I ask you to admit,” said I. “Give me those few red + specks and I will deduce Christian morality. Once I thought like you, that + one's pleasure in a flying spark was a thing that could come and go with + that spark. Once I thought that the delight was as free as the fire. Once + I thought that red star we see was alone in space. But now I know that the + red star is only on the apex of an invisible pyramid of virtues. That red + fire is only the flower on a stalk of living habits, which you cannot see. + Only because your mother made you say 'Thank you' for a bun are you now + able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars of an instant or for the + white stars of all time. Only because you were humble before fireworks on + the fifth of November do you now enjoy any fireworks that you chance to + see. You only like them being red because you were told about the blood of + the martyrs; you only like them being bright because brightness is a + glory. That flame flowered out of virtues, and it will fade with virtues. + Seduce a woman, and that spark will be less bright. Shed blood, and that + spark will be less red. Be really bad, and they will be to you like the + spots on a wall-paper.” + </p> + <p> + He had a horrible fairness of the intellect that made me despair of his + soul. A common, harmless atheist would have denied that religion produced + humility or humility a simple joy: but he admitted both. He only said, + “But shall I not find in evil a life of its own? Granted that for every + woman I ruin one of those red sparks will go out: will not the expanding + pleasure of ruin...” + </p> + <p> + “Do you see that fire?” I asked. “If we had a real fighting democracy, + some one would burn you in it; like the devil-worshipper that you are.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” he said, in his tired, fair way. “Only what you call evil I + call good.” + </p> + <p> + He went down the great steps alone, and I felt as if I wanted the steps + swept and cleaned. I followed later, and as I went to find my hat in the + low, dark passage where it hung, I suddenly heard his voice again, but the + words were inaudible. I stopped, startled: then I heard the voice of one + of the vilest of his associates saying, “Nobody can possibly know.” And + then I heard those two or three words which I remember in every syllable + and cannot forget. I heard the Diabolist say, “I tell you I have done + everything else. If I do that I shan't know the difference between right + and wrong.” I rushed out without daring to pause; and as I passed the fire + I did not know whether it was hell or the furious love of God. + </p> + <p> + I have since heard that he died: it may be said, I think, that he + committed suicide; though he did it with tools of pleasure, not with tools + of pain. God help him, I know the road he went; but I have never known, or + even dared to think, what was that place at which he stopped and + refrained. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXV. A Glimpse of My Country + </h2> + <p> + Whatever is it that we are all looking for? I fancy that it is really + quite close. When I was a boy I had a fancy that Heaven or Fairyland or + whatever I called it, was immediately behind my own back, and that this + was why I could never manage to see it, however often I twisted and turned + to take it by surprise. I had a notion of a man perpetually spinning round + on one foot like a teetotum in the effort to find that world behind his + back which continually fled from him. Perhaps this is why the world goes + round. Perhaps the world is always trying to look over its shoulder and + catch up the world which always escapes it, yet without which it cannot be + itself. + </p> + <p> + In any case, as I have said, I think that we must always conceive of that + which is the goal of all our endeavours as something which is in some + strange way near. Science boasts of the distance of its stars; of the + terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. But poetry and + religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost menacing closeness + of the things with which they are concerned. Always the Kingdom of Heaven + is “At Hand”; and Looking-glass Land is only through the looking-glass. So + I for one should never be astonished if the next twist of a street led me + to the heart of that maze in which all the mystics are lost. I should not + be at all surprised if I turned one corner in Fleet Street and saw a yet + queerer-looking lamp; I should not be surprised if I turned a third corner + and found myself in Elfland. + </p> + <p> + I should not be surprised at this; but I was surprised the other day at + something more surprising. I took a turn out of Fleet Street and found + myself in England. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + The singular shock experienced perhaps requires explanation. In the + darkest or the most inadequate moments of England there is one thing that + should always be remembered about the very nature of our country. It may + be shortly stated by saying that England is not such a fool as it looks. + The types of England, the externals of England, always misrepresent the + country. England is an oligarchical country, and it prefers that its + oligarchy should be inferior to itself. + </p> + <p> + The speaking in the House of Commons, for instance, is not only worse than + the speaking was, it is worse than the speaking is, in all or almost all + other places in small debating clubs or casual dinners. Our countrymen + probably prefer this solemn futility in the higher places of the national + life. It may be a strange sight to see the blind leading the blind; but + England provides a stranger. England shows us the blind leading the people + who can see. And this again is an under-statement of the case. For the + English political aristocrats not only speak worse than many other people; + they speak worse than themselves. The ignorance of statesmen is like the + ignorance of judges, an artificial and affected thing. If you have the + good fortune really to talk with a statesman, you will be constantly + startled with his saying quite intelligent things. It makes one nervous at + first. And I have never been sufficiently intimate with such a man to ask + him why it was a rule of his life in Parliament to appear sillier than he + was. + </p> + <p> + It is the same with the voters. The average man votes below himself; he + votes with half a mind or with a hundredth part of one. A man ought to + vote with the whole of himself as he worships or gets married. A man ought + to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for faces + and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands + and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of it + should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, they + should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. But as it is, the + difficulty with English democracy at all elections is that it is something + less than itself. The question is not so much whether only a minority of + the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of the voter + votes. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + This is the tragedy of England; you cannot judge it by its foremost men. + Its types do not typify. And on the occasion of which I speak I found this + to be so especially of that old intelligent middle class which I had + imagined had almost vanished from the world. It seemed to me that all the + main representatives of the middle class had gone off in one direction or + in the other; they had either set out in pursuit of the Smart Set or they + had set out in pursuit of the Simple Life. I cannot say which I dislike + more myself; the people in question are welcome to have either of them, + or, as is more likely, to have both, in hideous alternations of disease + and cure. But all the prominent men who plainly represent the middle class + have adopted either the single eye-glass of Mr Chamberlain or the single + eye of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + </p> + <p> + The old class that I mean has no representative. Its food was plentiful; + but it had no show. Its food was plain; but it had no fads. It was serious + about politics; and when it spoke in public it committed the solecism of + trying to speak well. I thought that this old earnest political England + had practically disappeared. And as I say, I took one turn out of Fleet + Street and I found a room full of it. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + At the top of the room was a chair in which Johnson had sat. The club was + a club in which Wilkes had spoken, in a time when even the ne'er-do-weel + was virile. But all these things by themselves might be merely archaism. + The extraordinary thing was that this hall had all the hubbub, the + sincerity, the anger, the oratory of the eighteenth century. The members + of this club were of all shades of opinion, yet there was not one speech + which gave me that jar of unreality which I often have in listening to the + ablest men uttering my own opinion. The Toryism of this club was like the + Toryism of Johnson, a Toryism that could use humour and appealed to + humanity. The democracy of this club was like the democracy of Wilkes, a + democracy that can speak epigrams and fight duels; a democracy that can + face things out and endure slander; the democracy of Wilkes, or, rather, + the democracy of Fox. + </p> + <p> + One thing especially filled my soul with the soul of my fathers. Each man + speaking, whether he spoke well or ill, spoke as well as he could from + sheer fury against the other man. This is the greatest of our modern + descents, that nowadays a man does not become more rhetorical as he + becomes more sincere. An eighteenth-century speaker, when he got really + and honestly furious, looked for big words with which to crush his + adversary. The new speaker looks for small words to crush him with. He + looks for little facts and little sneers. In a modern speech the rhetoric + is put into the merely formal part, the opening to which nobody listens. + But when Mr. Chamberlain, or a Moderate, or one of the harder kind of + Socialists, becomes really sincere, he becomes Cockney. “The destiny of + the Empire,” or “The destiny of humanity,” do well enough for mere + ornamental preliminaries, but when the man becomes angry and honest, then + it is a snarl, “Where do we come in?” or “It's your money they want.” + </p> + <p> + The men in this eighteenth-century club were entirely different; they were + quite eighteenth century. Each one rose to his feet quivering with + passion, and tried to destroy his opponent, not with sniggering, but + actually with eloquence. I was arguing with them about Home Rule; at the + end I told them why the English aristocracy really disliked an Irish + Parliament; because it would be like their club. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + I came out again into Fleet Street at night, and by a dim lamp I saw + pasted up some tawdry nonsense about Wastrels and how London was rising + against something that London had hardly heard of. Then I suddenly saw, as + in one obvious picture, that the modern world is an immense and tumultuous + ocean, full of monstrous and living things. And I saw that across the top + of it is spread a thin, a very thin, sheet of ice, of wicked wealth and of + lying journalism. + </p> + <p> + And as I stood there in the darkness I could almost fancy that I heard it + crack. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVI. A Somewhat Improbable Story + </h2> + <p> + I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read it through + very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come to the conclusion + that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read it through very + carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet. The image and the idea + of it clung to me through a great part of my boyhood; I may have dreamt it + before I could talk; or told it to myself before I could read; or read it + before I could remember. On the whole, however, I am certain that I did + not read it, for children have very clear memories about things like that; + and of the books which I was really fond I can still remember, not only + the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position of the printed words + on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline to the opinion that it + happened to me before I was born. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages of the + atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, for the sake of + argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch restaurants in the + City where men take their food so fast that it has none of the quality of + food, and take their half-hour's vacation so fast that it has none of the + qualities of leisure; to hurry through one's leisure is the most + unbusiness-like of actions. They all wore tall shiny hats as if they could + not lose an instant even to hang them on a peg, and they all had one eye a + little off, hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In short, they were + the slaves of the modern bondage, you could hear their fetters clanking. + Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest chain ever tied to a man—it + is called a watch-chain. + </p> + <p> + Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man who + almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. He was like all the + other men in dress, yet he was startlingly opposite to them in all manner. + He wore a high shiny hat and a long frock coat, but he wore them as such + solemn things were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if it were a + mitre, and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high priest. He not + only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed (such was his stateliness) + almost to ask permission of the hat for doing so, and to apologise to the + peg for making use of it. When he had sat down on a wooden chair with the + air of one considering its feelings and given a sort of slight stoop or + bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an altar, I could not help + some comment springing to my lips. For the man was a big, sanguine-faced, + prosperous-looking man, and yet he treated everything with a care that + almost amounted to nervousness. + </p> + <p> + For the sake of saying something to express my interest I said, “This + furniture is fairly solid; but, of course, people do treat it much too + carelessly.” + </p> + <p> + As I looked up doubtfully my eye caught his, and was fixed as his was + fixed in an apocalyptic stare. I had thought him ordinary as he entered, + save for his strange, cautious manner; but if the other people had seen + him then they would have screamed and emptied the room. They did not see + him, and they went on making a clatter with their forks, and a murmur with + their conversation. But the man's face was the face of a maniac. + </p> + <p> + “Did you mean anything particular by that remark?” he asked at last, and + the blood crawled back slowly into his face. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing whatever,” I answered. “One does not mean anything here; it + spoils people's digestions.” + </p> + <p> + He limped back and wiped his broad forehead with a big handkerchief; and + yet there seemed to be a sort of regret in his relief. + </p> + <p> + “I thought perhaps,” he said in a low voice, “that another of them had + gone wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “If you mean another digestion gone wrong,” I said, “I never heard of one + here that went right. This is the heart of the Empire, and the other + organs are in an equally bad way.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I mean another street gone wrong,” and he said heavily and quietly, + “but as I suppose that doesn't explain much to you, I think I shall have + to tell you the story. I do so with all the less responsibility, because I + know you won't believe it. For forty years of my life I invariably left my + office, which is in Leadenhall Street, at half-past five in the afternoon, + taking with me an umbrella in the right hand and a bag in the left hand. + For forty years two months and four days I passed out of the side office + door, walked down the street on the left-hand side, took the first turning + to the left and the third to the right, from where I bought an evening + paper, followed the road on the right-hand side round two obtuse angles, + and came out just outside a Metropolitan station, where I took a train + home. For forty years two months and four days I fulfilled this course by + accumulated habit: it was not a long street that I traversed, and it took + me about four and a half minutes to do it. After forty years two months + and four days, on the fifth day I went out in the same manner, with my + umbrella in the right hand and my bag in the left, and I began to notice + that walking along the familiar street tired me somewhat more than usual; + and when I turned it I was convinced that I had turned down the wrong one. + For now the street shot up quite a steep slant, such as one only sees in + the hilly parts of London, and in this part there were no hills at all. + Yet it was not the wrong street; the name written on it was the same; the + shuttered shops were the same; the lamp-posts and the whole look of the + perspective was the same; only it was tilted upwards like a lid. + Forgetting any trouble about breathlessness or fatigue I ran furiously + forward, and reached the second of my accustomed turnings, which ought to + bring me almost within sight of the station. And as I turned that corner I + nearly fell on the pavement. For now the street went up straight in front + of my face like a steep staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not + for miles round that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. + And this was a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole street had + lifted itself like a single wave, and yet every speck and detail of it was + the same, and I saw in the high distance, as at the top of an Alpine pass, + picked out in pink letters the name over my paper shop. + </p> + <p> + “I ran on and on blindly now, passing all the shops and coming to a part + of the road where there was a long grey row of private houses. I had, I + know not why, an irrational feeling that I was a long iron bridge in empty + space. An impulse seized me, and I pulled up the iron trap of a coal-hole. + Looking down through it I saw empty space and the stairs. + </p> + <p> + “When I looked up again a man was standing in his front garden, having + apparently come out of his house; he was leaning over the railings and + gazing at me. We were all alone on that nightmare road; his face was in + shadow; his dress was dark and ordinary; but when I saw him standing so + perfectly still I knew somehow that he was not of this world. And the + stars behind his head were larger and fiercer than ought to be endured by + the eyes of men. + </p> + <p> + “'If you are a kind angel,' I said, 'or a wise devil, or have anything in + common with mankind, tell me what is this street possessed of devils.' + </p> + <p> + “After a long silence he said, 'What do you say that it is?' + </p> + <p> + “'It is Bumpton Street, of course,' I snapped. 'It goes to Oldgate + Station.' + </p> + <p> + “'Yes,' he admitted gravely; 'it goes there sometimes. Just now, however, + it is going to heaven.' + </p> + <p> + “'To heaven?' I said. 'Why?' + </p> + <p> + “'It is going to heaven for justice,' he replied. 'You must have treated + it badly. Remember always that there is one thing that cannot be endured + by anybody or anything. That one unendurable thing is to be overworked and + also neglected. For instance, you can overwork women—everybody does. + But you can't neglect women—I defy you to. At the same time, you can + neglect tramps and gypsies and all the apparent refuse of the State so + long as you do not overwork it. But no beast of the field, no horse, no + dog can endure long to be asked to do more than his work and yet have less + than his honour. It is the same with streets. You have worked this street + to death, and yet you have never remembered its existence. If you had a + healthy democracy, even of pagans, they would have hung this street with + garlands and given it the name of a god. Then it would have gone quietly. + But at last the street has grown tired of your tireless insolence; and it + is bucking and rearing its head to heaven. Have you never sat on a bucking + horse?' + </p> + <p> + “I looked at the long grey street, and for a moment it seemed to me to be + exactly like the long grey neck of a horse flung up to heaven. But in a + moment my sanity returned, and I said, 'But this is all nonsense. Streets + go to the place they have to go. A street must always go to its end.' + </p> + <p> + “'Why do you think so of a street?' he asked, standing very still. + </p> + <p> + “'Because I have always seen it do the same thing,' I replied, in + reasonable anger. 'Day after day, year after year, it has always gone to + Oldgate Station; day after...' + </p> + <p> + “I stopped, for he had flung up his head with the fury of the road in + revolt. + </p> + <p> + “'And you?' he cried terribly. 'What do you think the road thinks of you? + Does the road think you are alive? Are you alive? Day after day, year + after year, you have gone to Oldgate Station....' Since then I have + respected the things called inanimate.” + </p> + <p> + And bowing slightly to the mustard-pot, the man in the restaurant + withdrew. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVII. The Shop Of Ghosts + </h2> + <p> + Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get + for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the + earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get them + for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am not + allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a penny + halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. In the + street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an electric tram + for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on a flying castle in + a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of brightly coloured sweets + for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of reading this article for a + halfpenny; along, of course, with other and irrelevant matter. + </p> + <p> + But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable + things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last + night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and dimly + lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets of + Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a child + once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of the + poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but they + were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important than + cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the body. + You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in the + modern world. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, at + small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red Noah's arks, I + must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. That lit shop-window + became like the brilliantly lit stage when one is watching some highly + coloured comedy. I forgot the grey houses and the grimy people behind me + as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds at a theatre. It + seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were small, not because + they were toys, but because they were objects far away. The green omnibus + was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater omnibus, passing across some + huge desert on its ordinary way to Bayswater. The blue elephant was no + longer blue with paint; he was blue with distance. The black doll was + really a negro relieved against passionate tropic foliage in the land + where every weed is flaming and only man is black. The red Noah's ark was + really the enormous ship of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen + sea, red in the first morning of hope. + </p> + <p> + Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, such + brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the face of + one's own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles or moustaches. + They are commonly marked by the two signs of the slowness of their growth + and the suddenness of their termination. The return to real thinking is + often as abrupt as bumping into a man. Very often indeed (in my case) it + is bumping into a man. But in any case the awakening is always emphatic + and, generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in this case, I did + come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness that I was, after + all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; but in some strange way + the mental cure did not seem to be final. There was still in my mind an + unmanageable something that told me that I had strayed into some odd + atmosphere, or that I had already done some odd thing. I felt as if I had + worked a miracle or committed a sin. It was as if I had at any rate, + stepped across some border in the soul. + </p> + <p> + To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop and + tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old and broken, + with confused white hair covering his head and half his face, hair so + startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. Yet though he was + senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering in his eyes; he + looked rather as if he were gradually falling asleep in a not unkindly + decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, but when I put down the money he + did not at first seem to see it; then he blinked at it feebly, and then he + pushed it feebly away. + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” he said vaguely. “I never have. I never have. We are rather + old-fashioned here.” + </p> + <p> + “Not taking money,” I replied, “seems to me more like an uncommonly new + fashion than an old one.” + </p> + <p> + “I never have,” said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; “I've + always given presents. I'm too old to stop.” + </p> + <p> + “Good heavens!” I said. “What can you mean? Why, you might be Father + Christmas.” + </p> + <p> + “I am Father Christmas,” he said apologetically, and blew his nose again. + </p> + <p> + The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. At any + rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining + shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; I + might have strayed into some new and sunless world. But something had cut + the chords of common sense, and I could not feel even surprise except + sleepily. Something made me say, “You look ill, Father Christmas.” + </p> + <p> + “I am dying,” he said. + </p> + <p> + I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again. + </p> + <p> + “All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. They seem + to object to me on such curious and inconsistent sort of grounds, these + scientific men, and these innovators. They say that I give people + superstitions and make them too visionary; they say I give people sausages + and make them too coarse. They say my heavenly parts are too heavenly; + they say my earthly parts are too earthly; I don't know what they want, + I'm sure. How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly things too + earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? I don't understand. But I + understand one thing well enough. These modern people are living and I am + dead.” + </p> + <p> + “You may be dead,” I replied. “You ought to know. But as for what they are + doing, do not call it living.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected to be + unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few seconds when, in the + utter stillness, I distinctly heard a very rapid step coming nearer and + nearer along the street. The next moment a figure flung itself into the + shop and stood framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted + back as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, a + gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. He had + large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; he had a + pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the shop and the old + man in a look that seemed literally a flash and uttered the exclamation of + a man utterly staggered. + </p> + <p> + “Good lord!” he cried out; “it can't be you! It isn't you! I came to ask + where your grave was.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not dead yet, Mr. Dickens,” said the old gentleman, with a feeble + smile; “but I'm dying,” he hastened to add reassuringly. + </p> + <p> + “But, dash it all, you were dying in my time,” said Mr. Charles Dickens + with animation; “and you don't look a day older.” + </p> + <p> + “I've felt like this for a long time,” said Father Christmas. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door into the + darkness. + </p> + <p> + “Dick,” he roared at the top of his voice; “he's still alive.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more + full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his flushed + face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. He carried his head + well back like a soldier, and his hot face had even a look of arrogance, + which was suddenly contradicted by his eyes, which were literally as + humble as a dog's. His sword made a great clatter, as if the shop were too + small for it. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed,” said Sir Richard Steele, “'tis a most prodigious matter, for the + man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley and his Christmas + Day.” + </p> + <p> + My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. It seemed to be filled + with newcomers. + </p> + <p> + “It hath ever been understood,” said a burly man, who carried his head + humorously and obstinately a little on one side—I think he was Ben + Jonson—“It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King + James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were fallen + sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most surely was no + lustier when I knew him than now.” + </p> + <p> + And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in some + mixed Norman French, “But I saw the man dying.” + </p> + <p> + “I have felt like this a long time,” said Father Christmas, in his feeble + way again. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him. + </p> + <p> + “Since when?” he asked. “Since you were born?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. “I have been + always dying.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to + rise. + </p> + <p> + “I understand it now,” he cried, “you will never die.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVIII. The Ballade of a Strange Town + </h2> + <p> + My friend and I, in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed affection + for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there was so restful that we + almost felt it as a home, and hardly strayed out of it. + </p> + <p> + We sat day after day in the market-place, under little trees growing in + wooden tubs, and looked up at the noble converging lines of the Cathedral + tower, from which the three riders from Ghent, in the poem, heard the bell + which told them they were not too late. But we took as much pleasure in + the people, in the little boys with open, flat Flemish faces and fur + collars round their necks, making them look like burgomasters; or the + women, whose prim, oval faces, hair strained tightly off the temples, and + mouths at once hard, meek, and humorous, exactly reproduced the late + mediaeval faces in Memling and Van Eyck. + </p> + <p> + But one afternoon, as it happened, my friend rose from under his little + tree, and pointing to a sort of toy train that was puffing smoke in one + corner of the clear square, suggested that we should go by it. We got into + the little train, which was meant really to take the peasants and their + vegetables to and fro from their fields beyond the town, and the official + came round to give us tickets. We asked him what place we should get to if + we paid fivepence. The Belgians are not a romantic people, and he asked us + (with a lamentable mixture of Flemish coarseness and French rationalism) + where we wanted to go. + </p> + <p> + We explained that we wanted to go to fairyland, and the only question was + whether we could get there for fivepence. At last, after a great deal of + international misunderstanding (for he spoke French in the Flemish and we + in the English manner), he told us that fivepence would take us to a place + which I have never seen written down, but which when spoken sounded like + the word “Waterloo” pronounced by an intoxicated patriot; I think it was + Waerlowe. + </p> + <p> + We clasped our hands and said it was the place we had been seeking from + boyhood, and when we had got there we descended with promptitude. + </p> + <p> + For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field of + Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was in quite a + different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, with one cottage at the + corner, a perspective of tall trees like Hobbema's “Avenue,” and beyond + only the infinite flat chess-board of the little fields. It was the scene + of peace and prosperity; but I must confess that my friend's first action + was to ask the man when there would be another train back to Mechlin. The + man stated that there would be a train back in exactly one hour. We walked + up the avenue, and when we were nearly half an hour's walk away it began + to rain. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + We arrived back at the cross-roads sodden and dripping, and, finding the + train waiting, climbed into it with some relief. The officer on this train + could speak nothing but Flemish, but he understood the name Mechlin, and + indicated that when we came to Mechlin Station he would put us down, + which, after the right interval of time, he did. + </p> + <p> + We got down, under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin, + though the features could not easily be recognised through the grey screen + of the rain. I do not generally agree with those who find rain depressing. + A shower-bath is not depressing; it is rather startling. And if it is + exciting when a man throws a pail of water over you, why should it not + also be exciting when the gods throw many pails? But on this soaking + afternoon, whether it was the dull sky-line of the Netherlands or the fact + that we were returning home without any adventure, I really did think + things a trifle dreary. As soon as we could creep under the shelter of a + street we turned into a little café, kept by one woman. She was incredibly + old, and she spoke no French. There we drank black coffee and what was + called “cognac fine.” “Cognac fine” were the only two French words used in + the establishment, and they were not true. At least, the fineness (perhaps + by its very ethereal delicacy) escaped me. After a little my friend, who + was more restless than I, got up and went out, to see if the rain had + stopped and if we could at once stroll back to our hotel by the station. I + sat finishing my coffee in a colourless mood, and listening to the + unremitting rain. + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the door burst open, and my friend appeared, transfigured and + frantic. + </p> + <p> + “Get up!” he cried, waving his hands wildly. “Get up! We're in the wrong + town! We're not in Mechlin at all. Mechlin is ten miles, twenty miles off—God + knows what! We're somewhere near Antwerp.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” I cried, leaping from my seat, and sending the furniture flying. + “Then all is well, after all! Poetry only hid her face for an instant + behind a cloud. Positively for a moment I was feeling depressed because we + were in the right town. But if we are in the wrong town—why, we have + our adventure after all! If we are in the wrong town, we are in the right + place.” + </p> + <p> + I rushed out into the rain, and my friend followed me somewhat more + grimly. We discovered we were in a town called Lierre, which seemed to + consist chiefly of bankrupt pastry cooks, who sold lemonade. + </p> + <p> + “This is the peak of our whole poetic progress!” I cried enthusiastically. + “We must do something, something sacramental and commemorative! We cannot + sacrifice an ox, and it would be a bore to build a temple. Let us write a + poem.” + </p> + <p> + With but slight encouragement, I took out an old envelope and one of those + pencils that turn bright violet in water. There was plenty of water about, + and the violet ran down the paper, symbolising the rich purple of that + romantic hour. I began, choosing the form of an old French ballade; it is + the easiest because it is the most restricted— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Can Man to Mount Olympus rise, + And fancy Primrose Hill the scene? + Can a man walk in Paradise + And think he is in Turnham Green? + And could I take you for Malines, + Not knowing the nobler thing you were? + O Pearl of all the plain, and queen, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + “Through memory's mist in glimmering guise + Shall shine your streets of sloppy sheen. + And wet shall grow my dreaming eyes, + To think how wet my boots have been + Now if I die or shoot a Dean——” + </pre> + <p> + Here I broke off to ask my friend whether he thought it expressed a more + wild calamity to shoot a Dean or to be a Dean. But he only turned up his + coat collar, and I felt that for him the muse had folded her wings. I + rewrote— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Now if I die a Rural Dean, + Or rob a bank I do not care, + Or turn a Tory. I have seen + The lovely city of Lierre.” + </pre> + <p> + “The next line,” I resumed, warming to it; but my friend interrupted me. + </p> + <p> + “The next line,” he said somewhat harshly, “will be a railway line. We can + get back to Mechlin from here, I find, though we have to change twice. I + dare say I should think this jolly romantic but for the weather. Adventure + is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne and my adventures dry. + Here is the station.” + </p> + <p> + ..... + </p> + <p> + We did not speak again until we had left Lierre, in its sacred cloud of + rain, and were coming to Mechlin, under a clearer sky, that even made one + think of stars. Then I leant forward and said to my friend in a low voice—“I + have found out everything. We have come to the wrong star.” + </p> + <p> + He stared his query, and I went on eagerly: “That is what makes life at + once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. When I thought + that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it was wrong, I was + happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, tires us because it + tells us we fit into this world. The true happiness is that we don't fit. + We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way.” + </p> + <p> + He silently nodded, staring out of the window, but whether I had impressed + or only fatigued him I could not tell. “This,” I added, “is suggested in + the last verse of a fine poem you have grossly neglected— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'Happy is he and more than wise + Who sees with wondering eyes and clean + The world through all the grey disguise + Of sleep and custom in between. + Yes; we may pass the heavenly screen, + But shall we know when we are there? + Who know not what these dead stones mean, + The lovely city of Lierre.'” + </pre> + <p> + Here the train stopped abruptly. And from Mechlin church steeple we heard + the half-chime: and Joris broke silence with “No bally HORS D'OEUVRES for + me: I shall get on to something solid at once.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + L'Envoy + + Prince, wide your Empire spreads, I ween, + Yet happier is that moistened Mayor, + Who drinks her cognac far from fine, + The lovely city of Lierre. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIX. The Mystery of a Pageant + </h2> + <p> + Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take a + small part in one of those historical processions or pageants which + happened to be fashionable in or about the year 1909. And since I tend, + like all who are growing old, to re-enter the remote past as a paradise or + playground, I disinter a memory which may serve to stand among those + memories of small but strange incidents with which I have sometimes filled + this column. The thing has really some of the dark qualities of a + detective-story; though I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could + hardly unravel it now, when the scent is so old and cold and most of the + actors, doubtless, long dead. + </p> + <p> + This old pageant included a series of figures from the eighteenth century, + and I was told that I was just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that Dr. Johnson + was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over gravy, snorted + and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man in London, I + mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I had nothing to + do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as I made were not + taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested that a row of + posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch all of them but + one, and then go back and touch that. Failing this, I felt that the least + they could do was to have twenty-five cups of tea stationed at regular + intervals along the course, each held by a Mrs. Thrale in full costume. My + best constructive suggestion was the most harshly rejected of all. In + front of me in the procession walked the great Bishop Berkeley, the man + who turned the tables on the early materialists by maintaining that matter + itself possibly does not exist. Dr. Johnson, you will remember, did not + like such bottomless fancies as Berkeley's, and kicked a stone with his + foot, saying, “I refute him so!” Now (as I pointed out) kicking a stone + would not make the metaphysical quarrel quite clear; besides, it would + hurt. But how picturesque and perfect it would be if I moved across the + ground in the symbolic attitude of kicking Bishop Berkeley! How complete + an allegoric group; the great transcendentalist walking with his head + among the stars, but behind him the avenging realist pede claudo, with + uplifted foot. But I must not take up space with these forgotten + frivolities; we old men grow too garrulous in talking of the distant past. + </p> + <p> + This story scarcely concerns me either in my real or my assumed character. + Suffice it to say that the procession took place at night in a large + garden and by torchlight (so remote is the date), that the garden was + crowded with Puritans, monks, and men-at-arms, and especially with early + Celtic saints smoking pipes, and with elegant Renaissance gentlemen + talking Cockney. Suffice it to say, or rather it is needless to say, that + I got lost. I wandered away into some dim corner of that dim shrubbery, + where there was nothing to do except tumbling over tent ropes, and I began + almost to feel like my prototype, and to share his horror of solitude and + hatred of a country life. + </p> + <p> + In this detachment and dilemma I saw another man in a white wig advancing + across this forsaken stretch of lawn; a tall, lean man, who stooped in his + long black robes like a stooping eagle. When I thought he would pass me, + he stopped before my face, and said, “Dr. Johnson, I think. I am Paley.” + </p> + <p> + “Sir,” I said, “you used to guide men to the beginnings of Christianity. + If you can guide me now to wherever this infernal thing begins you will + perform a yet higher and harder function.” + </p> + <p> + His costume and style were so perfect that for the instant I really + thought he was a ghost. He took no notice of my flippancy, but, turning + his black-robed back on me, led me through verdurous glooms and winding + mossy ways, until we came out into the glare of gaslight and laughing men + in masquerade, and I could easily laugh at myself. + </p> + <p> + And there, you will say, was an end of the matter. I am (you will say) + naturally obtuse, cowardly, and mentally deficient. I was, moreover, + unused to pageants; I felt frightened in the dark and took a man for a + spectre whom, in the light, I could recognise as a modern gentleman in a + masquerade dress. No; far from it. That spectral person was my first + introduction to a special incident which has never been explained and + which still lays its finger on my nerve. + </p> + <p> + I mixed with the men of the eighteenth century; and we fooled as one does + at a fancy-dress ball. There was Burke as large as life and a great deal + better looking. There was Cowper much larger than life; he ought to have + been a little man in a night-cap, with a cat under one arm and a spaniel + under the other. As it was, he was a magnificent person, and looked more + like the Master of Ballantrae than Cowper. I persuaded him at last to the + night-cap, but never, alas, to the cat and dog. When I came the next night + Burke was still the same beautiful improvement upon himself; Cowper was + still weeping for his dog and cat and would not be comforted; Bishop + Berkeley was still waiting to be kicked in the interests of philosophy. In + short, I met all my old friends but one. Where was Paley? I had been + mystically moved by the man's presence; I was moved more by his absence. + At last I saw advancing towards us across the twilight garden a little man + with a large book and a bright attractive face. When he came near enough + he said, in a small, clear voice, “I'm Paley.” The thing was quite + natural, of course; the man was ill and had sent a substitute. Yet somehow + the contrast was a shock. + </p> + <p> + By the next night I had grown quite friendly with my four or five + colleagues; I had discovered what is called a mutual friend with Berkeley + and several points of difference with Burke. Cowper, I think it was, who + introduced me to a friend of his, a fresh face, square and sturdy, framed + in a white wig. “This,” he explained, “is my friend So-and-So. He's + Paley.” I looked round at all the faces by this time fixed and familiar; I + studied them; I counted them; then I bowed to the third Paley as one bows + to necessity. So far the thing was all within the limits of coincidence. + It certainly seemed odd that this one particular cleric should be so + varying and elusive. It was singular that Paley, alone among men, should + swell and shrink and alter like a phantom, while all else remained solid. + But the thing was explicable; two men had been ill and there was an end of + it; only I went again the next night, and a clear-coloured elegant youth + with powdered hair bounded up to me, and told me with boyish excitement + that he was Paley. + </p> + <p> + For the next twenty-four hours I remained in the mental condition of the + modern world. I mean the condition in which all natural explanations have + broken down and no supernatural explanation has been established. My + bewilderment had reached to boredom when I found myself once more in the + colour and clatter of the pageant, and I was all the more pleased because + I met an old school-fellow, and we mutually recognised each other under + our heavy clothes and hoary wigs. We talked about all those great things + for which literature is too small and only life large enough; red-hot + memories and those gigantic details which make up the characters of men. I + heard all about the friends he had lost sight of and those he had kept in + sight; I heard about his profession, and asked at last how he came into + the pageant. + </p> + <p> + “The fact is,” he said, “a friend of mine asked me, just for to-night, to + act a chap called Paley; I don't know who he was....” + </p> + <p> + “No, by thunder!” I said, “nor does anyone.” + </p> + <p> + This was the last blow, and the next night passed like a dream. I scarcely + noticed the slender, sprightly, and entirely new figure which fell into + the ranks in the place of Paley, so many times deceased. What could it + mean? Why was the giddy Paley unfaithful among the faithful found? Did + these perpetual changes prove the popularity or the unpopularity of being + Paley? Was it that no human being could support being Paley for one night + and live till morning? Or was it that the gates were crowded with eager + throngs of the British public thirsting to be Paley, who could only be let + in one at a time? Or is there some ancient vendetta against Paley? Does + some secret society of Deists still assassinate any one who adopts the + name? + </p> + <p> + I cannot conjecture further about this true tale of mystery; and that for + two reasons. First, the story is so true that I have had to put a lie into + it. Every word of this narrative is veracious, except the one word Paley. + And second, because I have got to go into the next room and dress up as + Dr. Johnson. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tremendous Trifles, by G. K. 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K. Chesterton + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8092] +Release Date: August 10, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + + + + + +TREMENDOUS TRIFLES + +By G. K. Chesterton + + + + +PREFACE + +These fleeting sketches are all republished by kind permission of the +Editor of the DAILY NEWS, in which paper they appeared. They amount +to no more than a sort of sporadic diary--a diary recording one day in +twenty which happened to stick in the fancy--the only kind of diary the +author has ever been able to keep. Even that diary he could only keep +by keeping it in public, for bread and cheese. But trivial as are the +topics they are not utterly without a connecting thread of motive. +As the reader's eye strays, with hearty relief, from these pages, it +probably alights on something, a bed-post or a lamp-post, a window +blind or a wall. It is a thousand to one that the reader is looking at +something that he has never seen: that is, never realised. He could not +write an essay on such a post or wall: he does not know what the post +or wall mean. He could not even write the synopsis of an essay; as "The +Bed-Post; Its Significance--Security Essential to Idea of Sleep--Night +Felt as Infinite--Need of Monumental Architecture," and so on. He could +not sketch in outline his theoretic attitude towards window-blinds, even +in the form of a summary. "The Window-Blind--Its Analogy to the Curtain +and Veil--Is Modesty Natural?--Worship of and Avoidance of the Sun, +etc., etc." None of us think enough of these things on which the eye +rests. But don't let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? +Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that +run across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular +athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured +cloud. I have attempted some such thing in what follows; but anyone else +may do it better, if anyone else will only try. + + + CONTENTS: + + I Tremendous Trifles + II A Piece of Chalk + III The Secret of a Train + IV The Perfect Game + V The Extraordinary Cabman + VI An Accident + VII The Advantages of Having One Leg + VIII The End of the World + IX In the Place de la Bastille + X On Lying in Bed + XI The Twelve Men + XII The Wind and the Trees + XIII The Dickensian + XIV In Topsy-Turvy Land + XV What I Found in My Pocket + XVI The Dragon's Grandmother + XVII The Red Angel + XVIII The Tower + XIX How I Met the President + XX The Giant + XXI The Great Man + XXII The Orthodox Barber + XXIII The Toy Theatre + XXIV A Tragedy of Twopence + XXV A Cab Ride Across Country + XXVI The Two Noises + XXVII Some Policemen and a Moral + XXVIII The Lion + XXIX Humanity: An Interlude + XXX The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + XXXI The Riddle of the Ivy + XXXII The Travellers in State + XXXIII The Prehistoric Railway Station + XXXIV The Diabolist + XXXV A Glimpse of My Country + XXXVI A Somewhat Improbable Story + XXXVII The Shop of Ghosts + XXXVIII The Ballade of a Strange Town + XXXIX The Mystery of a Pageant + + + + + +I. Tremendous Trifles + +Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly in the +front garden, because their villa was a model one. The front garden was +about the same size as the dinner table; it consisted of four strips of +gravel, a square of turf with some mysterious pieces of cork standing up +in the middle and one flower bed with a row of red daisies. One morning +while they were at play in these romantic grounds, a passing individual, +probably the milkman, leaned over the railing and engaged them in +philosophical conversation. The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, +were at least sharply interested in his remarks. For the milkman (who +was, I need say, a fairy) did his duty in that state of life by offering +them in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. And +Paul closed with the offer with a business-like abruptness, explaining +that he had long wished to be a giant that he might stride across +continents and oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas in an afternoon +dinner stroll. The milkman producing a wand from his breast pocket, +waved it in a hurried and perfunctory manner; and in an instant the +model villa with its front garden was like a tiny doll's house at Paul's +colossal feet. He went striding away with his head above the clouds to +visit Niagara and the Himalayas. But when he came to the Himalayas, +he found they were quite small and silly-looking, like the little cork +rockery in the garden; and when he found Niagara it was no bigger than +the tap turned on in the bathroom. He wandered round the world for +several minutes trying to find something really large and finding +everything small, till in sheer boredom he lay down on four or five +prairies and fell asleep. Unfortunately his head was just outside the +hut of an intellectual backwoodsman who came out of it at that moment +with an axe in one hand and a book of Neo-Catholic Philosophy in the +other. The man looked at the book and then at the giant, and then at the +book again. And in the book it said, "It can be maintained that the evil +of pride consists in being out of proportion to the universe." So the +backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, working eight hours a +day for about a week, cut the giant's head off; and there was an end of +him. + +Such is the severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly +enough, made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long wished to +be a pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he immediately became +one. When the transformation was over he found himself in the midst of +an immense plain, covered with a tall green jungle and above which, at +intervals, rose strange trees each with a head like the sun in symbolic +pictures, with gigantic rays of silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward +the middle of this prairie stood up a mountain of such romantic and +impossible shape, yet of such stony height and dominance, that it looked +like some incident of the end of the world. And far away on the faint +horizon he could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more +mystical, of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. +He set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has not +come to the end of it yet. + +Such is the story of Peter and Paul, which contains all the highest +qualities of a modern fairy tale, including that of being wholly unfit +for children; and indeed the motive with which I have introduced it is +not childish, but rather full of subtlety and reaction. It is in fact +the almost desperate motive of excusing or palliating the pages that +follow. Peter and Paul are the two primary influences upon European +literature to-day; and I may be permitted to put my own preference in +its most favourable shape, even if I can only do it by what little girls +call telling a story. + +I need scarcely say that I am the pigmy. The only excuse for the scraps +that follow is that they show what can be achieved with a commonplace +existence and the sacred spectacles of exaggeration. The other great +literary theory, that which is roughly represented in England by Mr. +Rudyard Kipling, is that we moderns are to regain the primal zest by +sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical +variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. Let it +be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; and the +two alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling's school advises us +to go to Central Africa in order to find a man without a frock coat. The +school to which I belong suggests that we should stare steadily at the +man until we see the man inside the frock coat. If we stare at him long +enough he may even be moved to take off his coat to us; and that is a +far greater compliment than his taking off his hat. In other words, +we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually +before us, force them to turn into adventures; force them to give up +their meaning and fulfil their mysterious purpose. The purpose of the +Kipling literature is to show how many extraordinary things a man may +see if he is active and strides from continent to continent like the +giant in my tale. But the object of my school is to show how many +extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man may see if he can spur +himself to the single activity of seeing. For this purpose I have taken +the laziest person of my acquaintance, that is myself; and made an idle +diary of such odd things as I have fallen over by accident, in walking +in a very limited area at a very indolent pace. If anyone says that +these are very small affairs talked about in very big language, I can +only gracefully compliment him upon seeing the joke. If anyone says that +I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess with pride that it is +so. I can imagine no more successful and productive form of manufacture +than that of making mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not +unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a +pigmy like Peter to discover that. + +I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, in getting +to the top of everything and overlooking everything. Satan was the +most celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took Jesus to the top of an +exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. +But the joy of Satan in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, +but a joy in beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like +insects at his feet. It is from the valley that things look large; it is +from the level that things look high; I am a child of the level and have +no need of that celebrated Alpine guide. I will lift up my eyes to the +hills, from whence cometh my help; but I will not lift up my carcass +to the hills, unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything is in an +attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. I +will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like +flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never +starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder. + + + + +II. A Piece of Chalk + +I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer +holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing +nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a +walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. +I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, +belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), +and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown +paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook +the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She +seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be +wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to +do; indeed, it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental +capacity. Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of +toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only +wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in +the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a +question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing +comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I +wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, apparently +supposing that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown paper +wrappers from motives of economy. + +I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not +only liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness in paper, +just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, +or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal +twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured +chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and +blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of +divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; +and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and +possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how +primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one's +pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the +infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely +about the things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and +the age of the great epics is past. + +..... + +With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, I went out +on to the great downs. I crawled across those colossal contours that +express the best quality of England, because they are at the same time +soft and strong. The smoothness of them has the same meaning as the +smoothness of great cart-horses, or the smoothness of the beech-tree; +it declares in the teeth of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty +are merciful. As my eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly +as any of its cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. The +villages in the immense valley were safe, one could see, for centuries; +yet the lifting of the whole land was like the lifting of one enormous +wave to wash them all away. + +I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place +to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven's sake, imagine I was going to +sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind +old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in +robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred +or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colours on brown paper. +They are much better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much +easier to draw. When a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a +mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs +of quadrupeds. So I drew the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly +walking before me in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and +silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all the +beasts. But though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the +landscape, it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the +best out of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about +the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care +very much about Nature because they did not describe it much. + +They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but +they sat on the great hills to write it. They gave out much less about +Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white +robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had +stared all day. They blazoned the shields of their paladins with the +purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. The greenness of a thousand +green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The +blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the +Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo. + +..... + +But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began +to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that +a most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, +but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted +with all the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art +of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I +cannot avoid remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the wise +and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white +is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and +affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so +to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows +white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities +of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is +exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality +is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the +avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like +pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or +sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive +thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. + +Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something +flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colours; but +He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when +He paints in white. In a sense our age has realised this fact, and +expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that +white was a blank and colourless thing, negative and non-committal, then +white would be used instead of black and grey for the funeral dress of +this pessimistic period. We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of +spotless silver linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. +Which is not the case. + +Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk. + +..... + +I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town nearer than +Chichester at which it was even remotely probable that there would be +such a thing as an artist's colourman. And yet, without white, my absurd +little pictures would be as pointless as the world would be if there +were no good people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for +expedients. Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and +again, so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine +a man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. +Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt +water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense +warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely out of white +chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped +and broke a piece off the rock I sat on; it did not mark so well as the +shop chalks do; but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance +of pleasure, realising that this Southern England is not only a grand +peninsula, and a tradition and a civilisation; it is something even more +admirable. It is a piece of chalk. + + + + +III. The Secret of a Train + +All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a loose +memory. I will not merely say that this story is true: because, as you +will soon see, it is all truth and no story. It has no explanation and +no conclusion; it is, like most of the other things we encounter in +life, a fragment of something else which would be intensely exciting if +it were not too large to be seen. For the perplexity of life arises from +there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested +properly in any of them; what we call its triviality is really the +tag-ends of numberless tales; ordinary and unmeaning existence is like +ten thousand thrilling detective stories mixed up with a spoon. My +experience was a fragment of this nature, and it is, at any rate, not +fictitious. Not only am I not making up the incidents (what there were +of them), but I am not making up the atmosphere of the landscape, which +were the whole horror of the thing. I remember them vividly, and they +were as I shall now describe. + +..... + +About noon of an ashen autumn day some years ago I was standing outside +the station at Oxford intending to take the train to London. And +for some reason, out of idleness or the emptiness of my mind or the +emptiness of the pale grey sky, or the cold, a kind of caprice fell upon +me that I would not go by that train at all, but would step out on the +road and walk at least some part of the way to London. I do not know +if other people are made like me in this matter; but to me it is always +dreary weather, what may be called useless weather, that slings into +life a sense of action and romance. On bright blue days I do not want +anything to happen; the world is complete and beautiful, a thing for +contemplation. I no more ask for adventures under that turquoise dome +than I ask for adventures in church. But when the background of man's +life is a grey background, then, in the name of man's sacred supremacy, +I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. When the heavens fail man +refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have written on it, in letters +of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing shall happen, then the +immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises up and decrees that +something shall happen, if it be only the slaughter of a policeman. But +this is a digressive way of stating what I have said already--that +the bleak sky awoke in me a hunger for some change of plans, that the +monotonous weather seemed to render unbearable the use of the monotonous +train, and that I set out into the country lanes, out of the town of +Oxford. It was, perhaps, at that moment that a strange curse came +upon me out of the city and the sky, whereby it was decreed that years +afterwards I should, in an article in the DAILY NEWS, talk about Sir +George Trevelyan in connection with Oxford, when I knew perfectly well +that he went to Cambridge. + +As I crossed the country everything was ghostly and colourless. The +fields that should have been green were as grey as the skies; the +tree-tops that should have been green were as grey as the clouds and as +cloudy. And when I had walked for some hours the evening was closing in. +A sickly sunset clung weakly to the horizon, as if pale with reluctance +to leave the world in the dark. And as it faded more and more the skies +seemed to come closer and to threaten. The clouds which had been merely +sullen became swollen; and then they loosened and let down the dark +curtains of the rain. The rain was blinding and seemed to beat like +blows from an enemy at close quarters; the skies seemed bending over and +bawling in my ears. I walked on many more miles before I met a man, and +in that distance my mind had been made up; and when I met him I asked +him if anywhere in the neighbourhood I could pick up the train for +Paddington. He directed me to a small silent station (I cannot even +remember the name of it) which stood well away from the road and looked +as lonely as a hut on the Andes. I do not think I have ever seen such a +type of time and sadness and scepticism and everything devilish as that +station was: it looked as if it had always been raining there ever since +the creation of the world. The water streamed from the soaking wood of +it as if it were not water at all, but some loathsome liquid corruption +of the wood itself; as if the solid station were eternally falling to +pieces and pouring away in filth. It took me nearly ten minutes to find +a man in the station. When I did he was a dull one, and when I asked him +if there was a train to Paddington his answer was sleepy and vague. As +far as I understood him, he said there would be a train in half an hour. +I sat down and lit a cigar and waited, watching the last tail of the +tattered sunset and listening to the everlasting rain. It may have +been in half an hour or less, but a train came rather slowly into the +station. It was an unnaturally dark train; I could not see a light +anywhere in the long black body of it; and I could not see any guard +running beside it. I was reduced to walking up to the engine and calling +out to the stoker to ask if the train was going to London. "Well--yes, +sir," he said, with an unaccountable kind of reluctance. "It is going +to London; but----" It was just starting, and I jumped into the first +carriage; it was pitch dark. I sat there smoking and wondering, as we +steamed through the continually darkening landscape, lined with desolate +poplars, until we slowed down and stopped, irrationally, in the middle +of a field. I heard a heavy noise as of some one clambering off the +train, and a dark, ragged head suddenly put itself into my window. +"Excuse me, sir," said the stoker, "but I think, perhaps--well, perhaps +you ought to know--there's a dead man in this train." + +..... + +Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities +and nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt, to be finally +overwhelmed with this sensational touch, and to have insisted on +getting out and walking. As it was, I regret to say, I expressed myself +politely, but firmly, to the effect that I didn't care particularly if +the train took me to Paddington. But when the train had started with +its unknown burden I did do one thing, and do it quite instinctively, +without stopping to think, or to think more than a flash. I threw +away my cigar. Something that is as old as man and has to do with +all mourning and ceremonial told me to do it. There was something +unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, in the idea of there being +only two men in that train, and one of them dead and the other smoking +a cigar. And as the red and gold of the butt end of it faded like a +funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic moment of a procession, +I realised how immortal ritual is. I realised (what is the origin and +essence of all ritual) that in the presence of those sacred riddles +about which we can say nothing it is more decent merely to do something. +And I realised that ritual will always mean throwing away something; +DESTROYING our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods. + +When the train panted at last into Paddington Station I sprang out of +it with a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier and officials +guarding the rear part of the train; no one was allowed to press towards +it. They were guarding and hiding something; perhaps death in some too +shocking form, perhaps something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up +with human mystery and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of +sanctity; perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough +into the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces. +Nor have I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I +wandered or what frightful thing was my companion in the dark. + + + + +IV. The Perfect Game + +We have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to +him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernatural. My +own position is the opposite of this. I believe in the supernatural as a +matter of intellect and reason, not as a matter of personal experience. +I do not see ghosts; I only see their inherent probability. But it is +entirely a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions; +my nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. But +upon people of this temperament one weird incident will often leave a +peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance that ever occurred +to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted in nothing less than my +playing a game, and playing it quite well for some seventeen consecutive +minutes. The ghost of my grandfather would have astonished me less. + +On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my +inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had +imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, +and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant +side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. I played +it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had a +semi-philosophical argument which lasted through the entire contest. It +is deeply implanted in my mind that I had the best of the argument; but +it is certain and beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. + +"Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!" I cried, patting him affectionately on the +head with a mallet, "how far you really are from the pure love of the +sport--you who can play. It is only we who play badly who love the Game +itself. You love glory; you love applause; you love the earthquake voice +of victory; you do not love croquet. You do not love croquet until +you love being beaten at croquet. It is we the bunglers who adore the +occupation in the abstract. It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. +If we may see the face of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) +we are content to see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is +called amateurish; and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs +is but the French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, +the most disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates +(I allude to the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, +impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within the pedantic +boundaries of the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek honour in the ends +of the earth; they turn up in the flower-beds and the conservatory; they +are to be found in the front garden and the next street. No, Parkinson! +The good painter has skill. It is the bad painter who loves his art. The +good musician loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With +such a pure and hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game +itself. I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or tape, +as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, the four +seas of Britain. I love the mere swing of the mallets, and the click of +the balls is music. The four colours are to me sacramental and symbolic, +like the red of martyrdom, or the white of Easter Day. You lose all +this, my poor Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence of +this vision by the paltry consolation of being able to go through hoops +and to hit the stick." + +And I waved my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety. + +"Don't be too sorry for me," said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. "I +shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more a man likes +a game the better he would want to play it. Granted that the pleasure +in the thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure of success come +naturally and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your own simile of the +Knight and his Lady-love. I admit the gentleman does first and foremost +want to be in the lady's presence. But I never yet heard of a gentleman +who wanted to look an utter ass when he was there." + +"Perhaps not; though he generally looks it," I replied. "But the truth +is that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The +happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which +can be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, +the jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the love +of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not true +that the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger will +be the game. It is logically possible--(follow me closely here, +Parkinson!)--it is logically possible, to play croquet too well to enjoy +it at all. If you could put this blue ball through that distant hoop as +easily as you could pick it up with your hand, then you would not put it +through that hoop any more than you pick it up with your hand; it would +not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly you would not play at +all. The moment the game is perfect the game disappears." + +"I do not think, however," said Parkinson, "that you are in any +immediate danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not think +your croquet will vanish through its own faultless excellence. You are +safe for the present." + +I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired +myself, and resumed the thread of my discourse. + +The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this +time it was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four more +fundamental principles, and my companion had gone through five more +hoops, the dusk was verging upon dark. + +"We shall have to give this up," said Parkinson, as he missed a ball +almost for the first time, "I can't see a thing." + +"Nor can I," I answered, "and it is a comfort to reflect that I could +not hit anything if I saw it." + +With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness +towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. +Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, +indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball. + +Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball +again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was the +right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot. + +Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that +impossible ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I supposed +was the vague direction of the quite invisible stick. And in the dead +silence I heard the stick rattle as the ball struck it heavily. + +I threw down my mallet. "I can't stand this," I said. "My ball has gone +right three times. These things are not of this world." + +"Pick your mallet up," said Parkinson, "have another go." + +"I tell you I daren't. If I made another hoop like that I should see all +the devils dancing there on the blessed grass." + +"Why devils?" asked Parkinson; "they may be only fairies making fun of +you. They are sending you the 'Perfect Game,' which is no game." + +I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness, in which +the faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across the grass +as if it burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball +somewhere--somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull click +of the balls touching, and ran into the house like one pursued. + + + + +V. The Extraordinary Cabman + +From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the +narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to +insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. +I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed +by some practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; +therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, +which occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it +apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon +despair. + +On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little +restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My +best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable +believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate +and terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to +this: that the question is whether a man can be certain of anything +at all. I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, +furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually +to entertain certainty, what is this certainty which it is impossible +to entertain? If I have never experienced such a thing as certainty I +cannot even say that a thing is not certain. Similarly, if I have never +experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not +green. It may be as green as possible for all I know, if I have really +no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the +room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And +the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as +to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening +of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the +sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening +infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened +my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing +it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly +silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever. + +..... + +Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for +it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in +the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow +become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the +corner of Leicester-square to the members' entrance of the House of +Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. +Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a +discussion between us which still continues. + +It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of +detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few +hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I had to visit. I +then got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but +not with the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is +not unknown among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no +human, cabman. He looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, +clearly quite genuine. "Do you know, sir," he said, "you've only given +me 1s.8d?" I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. "Now you +know, sir," said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, "you know +that ain't the fare from Euston." "Euston," I repeated vaguely, for the +phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. "What on +earth has Euston got to do with it?" "You hailed me just outside Euston +Station," began the man with astonishing precision, "and then you +said----" "What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?" I said +with Christian forbearance; "I took you at the south-west corner of +Leicester-square." "Leicester-square," he exclaimed, loosening a kind of +cataract of scorn, "why we ain't been near Leicester-square to-day. You +hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said----" "Are you mad, or am +I?" I asked with scientific calm. + +I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of +creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was +not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and +humble, and with great big blue eyes protruding like a frog's, if ever +(in short) a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the +face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the +street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one +second the old nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What +was certainty? Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the +dull rut of the sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future +life. The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we possess a +past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically considered, except +a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The +cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate details of the gesture, the +words, the complex but consistent course of action which I had adopted +since that remarkable occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston +Station. How did I know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not +hailed him outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite +equally firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, +and a member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment the +universe and the stars swung just a hair's breadth from their balance, +and the foundations of the earth were moved. But for the same reason +that I believe in Democracy, for the same reason that I believe in free +will, for the same reason that I believe in fixed character of virtue, +the reason that could only be expressed by saying that I do not choose +to be a lunatic, I continued to believe that this honest cabman was +wrong, and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner +of Leicester-square. He began with the same evident and ponderous +sincerity, "You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said----" + +And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful +transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like +a lamp from the inside. "Why, I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I beg +your pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I +remember now. I beg your pardon." And with that this astonishing man let +out his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. +The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, +is strictly true. + +..... + +I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the +mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his +face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac +about him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me +from my adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended +earlier in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that +my sense of reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained +erect. + + + + +VI. An Accident + +Some time ago I wrote in these columns an article called "The +Extraordinary Cabman." I am now in a position to contribute my +experience of a still more extraordinary cab. The extraordinary thing +about the cab was that it did not like me; it threw me out violently in +the middle of the Strand. If my friends who read the DAILY NEWS are +as romantic (and as rich) as I take them to be, I presume that this +experience is not uncommon. I suppose that they are all being thrown out +of cabs, all over London. Still, as there are some people, virginal and +remote from the world, who have not yet had this luxurious experience, I +will give a short account of the psychology of myself when my hansom cab +ran into the side of a motor omnibus, and I hope hurt it. + +I do not need to dwell on the essential romance of the hansom cab--that +one really noble modern thing which our age, when it is judged, will +gravely put beside the Parthenon. It is really modern in that it is +both secret and swift. My particular hansom cab was modern in these two +respects; it was also very modern in the fact that it came to grief. +But it is also English; it is not to be found abroad; it belongs to a +beautiful, romantic country where nearly everybody is pretending to be +richer than they are, and acting as if they were. It is comfortable, and +yet it is reckless; and that combination is the very soul of England. +But although I had always realised all these good qualities in a hansom +cab, I had not experienced all the possibilities, or, as the moderns put +it, all the aspects of that vehicle. My enunciation of the merits of a +hansom cab had been always made when it was the right way up. Let me, +therefore, explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom cab for the +first and, I am happy to believe, the last time. Polycrates threw one +ring into the sea to propitiate the Fates. I have thrown one hansom +cab into the sea (if you will excuse a rather violent metaphor) and the +Fates are, I am quite sure, propitiated. Though I am told they do not +like to be told so. + +I was driving yesterday afternoon in a hansom cab down one of the +sloping streets into the Strand, reading one of my own admirable +articles with continual pleasure, and still more continual surprise, +when the horse fell forward, scrambled a moment on the scraping stones, +staggered to his feet again, and went forward. The horses in my cabs +often do this, and I have learnt to enjoy my own articles at any angle +of the vehicle. So I did not see anything at all odd about the way +the horse went on again. But I saw it suddenly in the faces of all the +people on the pavement. They were all turned towards me, and they were +all struck with fear suddenly, as with a white flame out of the sky. And +one man half ran out into the road with a movement of the elbow as if +warding off a blow, and tried to stop the horse. Then I knew that +the reins were lost, and the next moment the horse was like a living +thunder-bolt. I try to describe things exactly as they seemed to me; +many details I may have missed or mis-stated; many details may have, +so to speak, gone mad in the race down the road. I remember that I +once called one of my experiences narrated in this paper "A Fragment of +Fact." This is, at any rate, a fragment of fact. No fact could possibly +be more fragmentary than the sort of fact that I expected to be at the +bottom of that street. + +..... + +I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that +the converted do not understand their own religion. Thus I have always +urged in this paper that democracy has a deeper meaning than democrats +understand; that is, that common and popular things, proverbs, and +ordinary sayings always have something in them unrealised by most who +repeat them. Here is one. We have all heard about the man who is in +momentary danger, and who sees the whole of his life pass before him +in a moment. In the cold, literal, and common sense of words, this is +obviously a thundering lie. Nobody can pretend that in an accident or +a mortal crisis he elaborately remembered all the tickets he had ever +taken to Wimbledon, or all the times that he had ever passed the brown +bread and butter. + +But in those few moments, while my cab was tearing towards the traffic +of the Strand, I discovered that there is a truth behind this phrase, +as there is behind all popular phrases. I did really have, in that short +and shrieking period, a rapid succession of a number of fundamental +points of view. I had, so to speak, about five religions in almost as +many seconds. My first religion was pure Paganism, which among sincere +men is more shortly described as extreme fear. Then there succeeded a +state of mind which is quite real, but for which no proper name has ever +been found. The ancients called it Stoicism, and I think it must be what +some German lunatics mean (if they mean anything) when they talk +about Pessimism. It was an empty and open acceptance of the thing that +happens--as if one had got beyond the value of it. And then, curiously +enough, came a very strong contrary feeling--that things mattered very +much indeed, and yet that they were something more than tragic. It was +a feeling, not that life was unimportant, but that life was much +too important ever to be anything but life. I hope that this was +Christianity. At any rate, it occurred at the moment when we went crash +into the omnibus. + +It seemed to me that the hansom cab simply turned over on top of me, +like an enormous hood or hat. I then found myself crawling out from +underneath it in attitudes so undignified that they must have added +enormously to that great cause to which the Anti-Puritan League and I +have recently dedicated ourselves. I mean the cause of the pleasures of +the people. As to my demeanour when I emerged, I have two confessions to +make, and they are both made merely in the interests of mental science. +The first is that whereas I had been in a quite pious frame of mind the +moment before the collision, when I got to my feet and found I had got +off with a cut or two I began (like St. Peter) to curse and to swear. +A man offered me a newspaper or something that I had dropped. I can +distinctly remember consigning the paper to a state of irremediable +spiritual ruin. I am very sorry for this now, and I apologise both to +the man and to the paper. I have not the least idea what was the meaning +of this unnatural anger; I mention it as a psychological confession. It +was immediately followed by extreme hilarity, and I made so many silly +jokes to the policeman that he disgraced himself by continual laughter +before all the little boys in the street, who had hitherto taken him +seriously. + +..... + +There is one other odd thing about the matter which I also mention as +a curiosity of the human brain or deficiency of brain. At intervals of +about every three minutes I kept on reminding the policeman that I had +not paid the cabman, and that I hoped he would not lose his money. He +said it would be all right, and the man would appear. But it was not +until about half an hour afterwards that it suddenly struck me with a +shock intolerable that the man might conceivably have lost more +than half a crown; that he had been in danger as well as I. I had +instinctively regarded the cabman as something uplifted above accidents, +a god. I immediately made inquiries, and I am happy to say that they +seemed to have been unnecessary. + +But henceforward I shall always understand with a darker and more +delicate charity those who take tythe of mint, and anise, and cumin, +and neglect the weightier matters of the law; I shall remember how I +was once really tortured with owing half a crown to a man who might +have been dead. Some admirable men in white coats at the Charing Cross +Hospital tied up my small injury, and I went out again into the Strand. +I felt upon me even a kind of unnatural youth; I hungered for something +untried. So to open a new chapter in my life I got into a hansom cab. + + + + +VII. The Advantages of Having One Leg + +A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and +casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either +insolent or weak, said at last, "I think one can live through these +great sorrows and even be the better. What wears one is the little +worries." "That's quite right, mum," answered the old woman with +emphasis, "and I ought to know, seeing I've had ten of 'em." It is, +perhaps, in this sense that it is most true that little worries are most +wearing. In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a +truth, contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. +People who have both small troubles and big ones have the right to say +that they find the small ones the most bitter; and it is undoubtedly +true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible can feel a +faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and all +its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I +am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is +sometimes used or abused by people, because they have nothing but the +very smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the +crumpled rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she +would wear the crown of thorns--if she had to. The gentleman may permit +himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much +better if it were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that +the grasshopper on man's shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much +respect to the gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather +have an elephant when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We +may concede that a straw may break the camel's back, but we like to know +that it really is the last straw and not the first. + +I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, +so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that +if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To +talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest +way to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about +little ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very +often has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very +clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified in asking +that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. I do no deny that +molehills can sometimes be important. Small annoyances have this +evil about them, that they can be more abrupt because they are more +invisible; they cast no shadow before, they have no atmosphere. No +one ever had a mystical premonition that he was going to tumble over a +hassock. William III. died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose +that with all his varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a +mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask +a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, +and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive +poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental +limitations that are always falling across our path--bad weather, +confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments +or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding +unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding +punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn +from all these that I sing--I sing with confidence because I have +recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise +from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only +alternative course of standing on one leg like a stork--a stork is a +poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it. + +To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing +itself symbolise something other than isolation. If we wish to see what +a house is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish +to depict what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or +on a dark sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that +humanity means; so long as he is solitary he means human society; so +long as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another +figure and the picture is less human--not more so. One is company, two +is none. If you wish to symbolise human building draw one dark tower on +the horizon; if you wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the +sky. Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we call our day +there is but one star in the sky--a large, fierce star which we call the +sun. One sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower Of +Giotto is sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row +of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; +the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in +following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the +single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of +all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. To express complete and +perfect leggishness the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the +tower in the wilderness. As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is +that which stands most alone. + +This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric +column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate +use of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its +legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic +consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few +days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness or dislocation +of the one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and +classic beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. +George Meredith's novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in +the stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more +literal exactitude, "He has a leg." Notice how this famous literary +phrase supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable +thing. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect +picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She +delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact +that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, +a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. +Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. That having had one +good leg he should have another--this would be to use vain repetitions +as the Gentiles do. She would have been as much bewildered by him as if +he had been a centipede. + +All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender +of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all +desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it +may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight +sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division +between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to +realise that it might be lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong +and splendid a foot is; in the other I can realise how very much +otherwise it might have been. The moral of the thing is wholly +exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and +beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. If you +wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a +moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully and wonderfully God's image +is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realise the splendid vision of +all visible things--wink the other eye. + + + + +VIII. The End of the World + +For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious town +of Besancon, which stands like a sort of peninsula in a horse-shoe of +river. You may learn from the guide books that it was the birthplace of +Victor Hugo, and that it is a military station with many forts, near the +French frontier. But you will not learn from guide books that the very +tiles on the roofs seem to be of some quainter and more delicate colour +than the tiles of all the other towns of the world; that the tiles look +like the little clouds of some strange sunset, or like the lustrous +scales of some strange fish. They will not tell you that in this +town the eye cannot rest on anything without finding it in some way +attractive and even elvish, a carved face at a street corner, a gleam of +green fields through a stunted arch, or some unexpected colour for the +enamel of a spire or dome. + +..... + +Evening was coming on and in the light of it all these colours so simple +and yet so subtle seemed more and more to fit together and make a fairy +tale. I sat down for a little outside a cafe with a row of little toy +trees in front of it, and presently the driver of a fly (as we should +call it) came to the same place. He was one of those very large and dark +Frenchmen, a type not common but yet typical of France; the Rabelaisian +Frenchman, huge, swarthy, purple-faced, a walking wine-barrel; he was +a sort of Southern Falstaff, if one can imagine Falstaff anything but +English. And, indeed, there was a vital difference, typical of two +nations. For while Falstaff would have been shaking with hilarity like +a huge jelly, full of the broad farce of the London streets, this +Frenchman was rather solemn and dignified than otherwise--as if pleasure +were a kind of pagan religion. After some talk which was full of the +admirable civility and equality of French civilisation, he suggested +without either eagerness or embarrassment that he should take me in his +fly for an hour's ride in the hills beyond the town. And though it was +growing late I consented; for there was one long white road under an +archway and round a hill that dragged me like a long white cord. We +drove through the strong, squat gateway that was made by Romans, and I +remember the coincidence like a sort of omen that as we passed out of +the city I heard simultaneously the three sounds which are the trinity +of France. They make what some poet calls "a tangled trinity," and I am +not going to disentangle it. Whatever those three things mean, how +or why they co-exist; whether they can be reconciled or perhaps are +reconciled already; the three sounds I heard then by an accident all +at once make up the French mystery. For the brass band in the Casino +gardens behind me was playing with a sort of passionate levity some +ramping tune from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was going on +I heard also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible +loyalties and men always arming in the gate of France; and I heard also, +fainter than these sounds and through them all, the Angelus. + +..... + +After this coincidence of symbols I had a curious sense of having left +France behind me, or, perhaps, even the civilised world. And, indeed, +there was something in the landscape wild enough to encourage such +a fancy. I have seen perhaps higher mountains, but I have never +seen higher rocks; I have never seen height so near, so abrupt and +sensational, splinters of rock that stood up like the spires of +churches, cliffs that fell sudden and straight as Satan fell from +heaven. There was also a quality in the ride which was not only +astonishing, but rather bewildering; a quality which many must have +noticed if they have driven or ridden rapidly up mountain roads. I mean +a sense of gigantic gyration, as of the whole earth turning about one's +head. It is quite inadequate to say that the hills rose and fell like +enormous waves. Rather the hills seemed to turn about me like the +enormous sails of a windmill, a vast wheel of monstrous archangelic +wings. As we drove on and up into the gathering purple of the sunset +this dizziness increased, confounding things above with things below. +Wide walls of wooded rock stood out above my head like a roof. I stared +at them until I fancied that I was staring down at a wooded plain. Below +me steeps of green swept down to the river. I stared at them until I +fancied that they swept up to the sky. The purple darkened, night drew +nearer; it seemed only to cut clearer the chasms and draw higher the +spires of that nightmare landscape. Above me in the twilight was +the huge black hulk of the driver, and his broad, blank back was as +mysterious as the back of Death in Watts' picture. I felt that I was +growing too fantastic, and I sought to speak of ordinary things. I +called out to the driver in French, "Where are you taking me?" and it +is a literal and solemn fact that he answered me in the same language +without turning around, "To the end of the world." + +I did not answer. I let him drag the vehicle up dark, steep ways, until +I saw lights under a low roof of little trees and two children, one +oddly beautiful, playing at ball. Then we found ourselves filling up the +strict main street of a tiny hamlet, and across the wall of its inn was +written in large letters, LE BOUT DU MONDE--the end of the world. + +The driver and I sat down outside that inn without a word, as if all +ceremonies were natural and understood in that ultimate place. I ordered +bread for both of us, and red wine, that was good but had no name. On +the other side of the road was a little plain church with a cross on top +of it and a cock on top of the cross. This seemed to me a very good end +of the world; if the story of the world ended here it ended well. Then +I wondered whether I myself should really be content to end here, where +most certainly there were the best things of Christendom--a church and +children's games and decent soil and a tavern for men to talk with men. +But as I thought a singular doubt and desire grew slowly in me, and at +last I started up. + +"Are you not satisfied?" asked my companion. "No," I said, "I am not +satisfied even at the end of the world." + +Then, after a silence, I said, "Because you see there are two ends of +the world. And this is the wrong end of the world; at least the wrong +one for me. This is the French end of the world. I want the other end of +the world. Drive me to the other end of the world." + +"The other end of the world?" he asked. "Where is that?" + +"It is in Walham Green," I whispered hoarsely. "You see it on the London +omnibuses. 'World's End and Walham Green.' Oh, I know how good this is; +I love your vineyards and your free peasantry, but I want the English +end of the world. I love you like a brother, but I want an English +cabman, who will be funny and ask me what his fare 'is.' Your bugles +stir my blood, but I want to see a London policeman. Take, oh, take me +to see a London policeman." + +He stood quite dark and still against the end of the sunset, and I could +not tell whether he understood or not. I got back into his carriage. + +"You will understand," I said, "if ever you are an exile even for +pleasure. The child to his mother, the man to his country, as a +countryman of yours once said. But since, perhaps, it is rather too long +a drive to the English end of the world, we may as well drive back to +Besancon." + +Only as the stars came out among those immortal hills I wept for Walham +Green. + + + + +IX. In the Place de La Bastille + +On the first of May I was sitting outside a cafe in the Place de +la Bastille in Paris staring at the exultant column, crowned with a +capering figure, which stands in the place where the people destroyed a +prison and ended an age. The thing is a curious example of how symbolic +is the great part of human history. As a matter of mere material fact, +the Bastille when it was taken was not a horrible prison; it was hardly +a prison at all. But it was a symbol, and the people always go by a +sure instinct for symbols; for the Chinaman, for instance, at the last +General Election, or for President Kruger's hat in the election before; +their poetic sense is perfect. The Chinaman with his pigtail is not +an idle flippancy. He does typify with a compact precision exactly +the thing the people resent in African policy, the alien and grotesque +nature of the power of wealth, the fact that money has no roots, that it +is not a natural and familiar power, but a sort of airy and evil magic +calling monsters from the ends of the earth. The people hate the mine +owner who can bring a Chinaman flying across the sea, exactly as the +people hated the wizard who could fetch a flying dragon through the air. +It was the same with Mr. Kruger's hat. His hat (that admirable hat) was +not merely a joke. It did symbolise, and symbolise extremely well, the +exact thing which our people at that moment regarded with impatience and +venom; the old-fashioned, dingy, Republican simplicity, the unbeautiful +dignity of the bourgeois, and the heavier truisms of political morality. +No; the people are sometimes wrong on the practical side of politics; +they are never wrong on the artistic side. + +..... + +So it was, certainly, with the Bastille. The destruction of the Bastille +was not a reform; it was something more important than a reform. It was +an iconoclasm; it was the breaking of a stone image. The people saw the +building like a giant looking at them with a score of eyes, and they +struck at it as at a carved fact. For of all the shapes in which that +immense illusion called materialism can terrify the soul, perhaps the +most oppressive are big buildings. Man feels like a fly, an accident, +in the thing he has himself made. It requires a violent effort of the +spirit to remember that man made this confounding thing and man could +unmake it. Therefore the mere act of the ragged people in the street +taking and destroying a huge public building has a spiritual, a ritual +meaning far beyond its immediate political results. It is a religious +service. If, for instance, the Socialists were numerous or courageous +enough to capture and smash up the Bank of England, you might argue for +ever about the inutility of the act, and how it really did not touch the +root of the economic problem in the correct manner. But mankind would +never forget it. It would change the world. + +Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, +for the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable +things--marriage, for instance. And architecture approaches nearer than +any other art to being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get +rid of. You can turn a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a +nuisance to turn that Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. You +can tear a poem to pieces; it is only in moments of very sincere emotion +that you tear a town-hall to pieces. A building is akin to dogma; it +is insolent, like a dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims +permanence like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture +of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is +obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see +anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that +does not change like the clouds of the sky. But along with this decision +which is involved in creating a building, there goes a quite similar +decision in the more delightful task of smashing one. The two of +necessity go together. In few places have so many fine public buildings +been set up as here in Paris, and in few places have so many been +destroyed. When people have finally got into the horrible habit of +preserving buildings, they have got out of the habit of building them. +And in London one mingles, as it were, one's tears because so few are +pulled down. + +..... + +As I sat staring at the column of the Bastille, inscribed to Liberty and +Glory, there came out of one corner of the square (which, like so many +such squares, was at once crowded and quiet) a sudden and silent line of +horsemen. Their dress was of a dull blue, plain and prosaic enough, +but the sun set on fire the brass and steel of their helmets; and their +helmets were carved like the helmets of the Romans. I had seen them +by twos and threes often enough before. I had seen plenty of them in +pictures toiling through the snows of Friedland or roaring round +the squares at Waterloo. But now they came file after file, like an +invasion, and something in their numbers, or in the evening light that +lit up their faces and their crests, or something in the reverie into +which they broke, made me inclined to spring to my feet and cry out, +"The French soldiers!" There were the little men with the brown faces +that had so often ridden through the capitals of Europe as coolly as +they now rode through their own. And when I looked across the square I +saw that the two other corners were choked with blue and red; held +by little groups of infantry. The city was garrisoned as against a +revolution. + +Of course, I had heard all about the strike, chiefly from a baker. He +said he was not going to "Chomer." I said, "Qu'est-ce que c'est que le +chome?" He said, "Ils ne veulent pas travailler." I said, "Ni moi non +plus," and he thought I was a class-conscious collectivist proletarian. +The whole thing was curious, and the true moral of it one not easy for +us, as a nation, to grasp, because our own faults are so deeply and +dangerously in the other direction. To me, as an Englishman (personally +steeped in the English optimism and the English dislike of severity), +the whole thing seemed a fuss about nothing. It looked like turning out +one of the best armies in Europe against ordinary people walking +about the street. The cavalry charged us once or twice, more or less +harmlessly. But, of course, it is hard to say how far in such criticisms +one is assuming the French populace to be (what it is not) as docile as +the English. But the deeper truth of the matter tingled, so to speak, +through the whole noisy night. This people has a natural faculty for +feeling itself on the eve of something--of the Bartholomew or the +Revolution or the Commune or the Day of Judgment. It is this sense of +crisis that makes France eternally young. It is perpetually pulling down +and building up, as it pulled down the prison and put up the column +in the Place de La Bastille. France has always been at the point of +dissolution. She has found the only method of immortality. She dies +daily. + + + + +X. On Lying in Bed + +Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if +only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. +This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the +premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several +pails of Aspinall and a broom. Only if one worked in a really sweeping +and masterly way, and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip +down again on one's face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some +strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid +it would be necessary to stick to black and white in this form of +artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would +be of the greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of +a white ceiling being put to. + +But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have +discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in +a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really +allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, "Il me faut des geants." +But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern rooms +such as we all live in I was continually disappointed. I found an +endless pattern and complication of small objects hung like a curtain of +fine links between me and my desire. I examined the walls; I found them +to my surprise to be already covered with wallpaper, and I found the +wallpaper to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing +a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one +arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious +or philosophical significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my +nice walls like a sort of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to +wallpapers, I think, when it says, "Use not vain repetitions, as the +Gentiles do." I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, +rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish +Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I +suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. Everywhere that I went forlornly, +with my pencil or my paint brush, I found that others had unaccountably +been before me, spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with +their childish and barbaric designs. + +..... + +Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this +occasion when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying +on my back in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my +vision, that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition +of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom. But alas! +like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; +it looks more austere and more distant than the blue sky outside the +window. For my proposal to paint on it with the bristly end of a broom +has been discouraged--never mind by whom; by a person debarred from all +political rights--and even my minor proposal to put the other end of +the broom into the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been +conceded. Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that +all the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces +and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. I am +sure that it was only because Michael Angelo was engaged in the ancient +and honourable occupation of lying in bed that he ever realized how the +roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made into an awful imitation of a +divine drama that could only be acted in the heavens. + +The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is +hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to +mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous than +the exultation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the +expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties +and tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse than the modern +weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor +morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad +taste than of bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, +for cleanliness is made essential and godliness is regarded as an +offence. A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long as +he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met Ibsenite +pessimists who thought it wrong to take beer but right to take prussic +acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; notably such matters +as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, as it ought to be, as +a matter of personal convenience and adjustment, it has come to be +regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to get up +early in the morning. It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but +there is nothing good about it or bad about its opposite. + +..... + +Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get +up the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its +mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. +A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, +creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his +ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; +but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and +rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes +in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the +top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let +them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. This alarming growth of +good habits really means a too great emphasis on those virtues which +mere custom can ensure, it means too little emphasis on those virtues +which custom can never quite ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of +inspired pity or of inspired candour. If ever that abrupt appeal is made +to us we may fail. A man can get use to getting up at five o'clock in +the morning. A man cannot very well get used to being burnt for his +opinions; the first experiment is commonly fatal. Let us pay a little +more attention to these possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. +I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an +almost terrible virtue. + +For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic +caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like +journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, +for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that +the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution +I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it +without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, +of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it +without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he +does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific +explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac. + + + + +XI. The Twelve Men + +The other day, while I was meditating on morality and Mr. H. Pitt, I +was, so to speak, snatched up and put into a jury box to try people. +The snatching took some weeks, but to me it seemed something sudden and +arbitrary. I was put into this box because I lived in Battersea, and +my name began with a C. Looking round me, I saw that there were also +summoned and in attendance in the court whole crowds and processions of +men, all of whom lived in Battersea, and all of whose names began with a +C. + +It seems that they always summon jurymen in this sweeping alphabetical +way. At one official blow, so to speak, Battersea is denuded of all its +C's, and left to get on as best it can with the rest of the alphabet. A +Cumberpatch is missing from one street--a Chizzolpop from another--three +Chucksterfields from Chucksterfield House; the children are crying out +for an absent Cadgerboy; the woman at the street corner is weeping +for her Coffintop, and will not be comforted. We settle down with a +rollicking ease into our seats (for we are a bold, devil-may-care race, +the C's of Battersea), and an oath is administered to us in a totally +inaudible manner by an individual resembling an Army surgeon in his +second childhood. We understand, however, that we are to well and truly +try the case between our sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the +bar, neither of whom has put in an appearance as yet. + +..... + +Just when I was wondering whether the King and the prisoner were, +perhaps, coming to an amicable understanding in some adjoining public +house, the prisoner's head appears above the barrier of the dock; he +is accused of stealing bicycles, and he is the living image of a great +friend of mine. We go into the matter of the stealing of the bicycles. +We do well and truly try the case between the King and the prisoner in +the affair of the bicycles. And we come to the conclusion, after a brief +but reasonable discussion, that the King is not in any way implicated. +Then we pass on to a woman who neglected her children, and who looks as +if somebody or something had neglected her. And I am one of those who +fancy that something had. + +All the time that the eye took in these light appearances and the brain +passed these light criticisms, there was in the heart a barbaric pity +and fear which men have never been able to utter from the beginning, but +which is the power behind half the poems of the world. The mood cannot +even adequately be suggested, except faintly by this statement that +tragedy is the highest expression of the infinite value of human +life. Never had I stood so close to pain; and never so far away from +pessimism. Ordinarily, I should not have spoken of these dark emotions +at all, for speech about them is too difficult; but I mention them now +for a specific and particular reason to the statement of which I will +proceed at once. I speak these feelings because out of the furnace of +them there came a curious realisation of a political or social truth. I +saw with a queer and indescribable kind of clearness what a jury really +is, and why we must never let it go. + +The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards +specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers because +they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, trained +dancers because they dance better, specially instructed laughers because +they laugh better, and so on and so on. The principle has been applied +to law and politics by innumerable modern writers. Many Fabians have +insisted that a greater part of our political work should be performed +by experts. Many legalists have declared that the untrained jury should +be altogether supplanted by the trained Judge. + +..... + +Now, if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, I do +not know that there would be any fault to find with this. But the true +result of all experience and the true foundation of all religion is +this. That the four or five things that it is most practically essential +that a man should know, are all of them what people call paradoxes. That +is to say, that though we all find them in life to be mere plain truths, +yet we cannot easily state them in words without being guilty of seeming +verbal contradictions. One of them, for instance, is the unimpeachable +platitude that the man who finds most pleasure for himself is often the +man who least hunts for it. Another is the paradox of courage; the fact +that the way to avoid death is not to have too much aversion to it. +Whoever is careless enough of his bones to climb some hopeful cliff +above the tide may save his bones by that carelessness. Whoever will +lose his life, the same shall save it; an entirely practical and prosaic +statement. + +Now, one of these four or five paradoxes which should be taught to every +infant prattling at his mother's knee is the following: That the more a +man looks at a thing, the less he can see it, and the more a man learns +a thing the less he knows it. The Fabian argument of the expert, +that the man who is trained should be the man who is trusted would be +absolutely unanswerable if it were really true that a man who studied +a thing and practiced it every day went on seeing more and more of its +significance. But he does not. He goes on seeing less and less of its +significance. In the same way, alas! we all go on every day, unless we +are continually goading ourselves into gratitude and humility, seeing +less and less of the significance of the sky or the stones. + +..... + +Now it is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of +men. But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can to +other terrible things; he can even grow accustomed to the sun. And +the horrible thing about all legal officials, even the best, about all +judges, magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, is not +that they are wicked (some of them are good), not that they are stupid +(several of them are quite intelligent), it is simply that they have got +used to it. + +Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they see is +the usual man in the usual place. They do not see the awful court of +judgment; they only see their own workshop. Therefore, the instinct +of Christian civilisation has most wisely declared that into their +judgments there shall upon every occasion be infused fresh blood and +fresh thoughts from the streets. Men shall come in who can see the court +and the crowd, and coarse faces of the policeman and the professional +criminals, the wasted faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the +gesticulating counsel, and see it all as one sees a new picture or a +play hitherto unvisited. + +Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining +the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to +trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who +know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt +in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system +discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up specialists. But when +it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of +the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember +right, by the Founder of Christianity. + + + + +XII. The Wind and the Trees + +I am sitting under tall trees, with a great wind boiling like surf about +the tops of them, so that their living load of leaves rocks and roars in +something that is at once exultation and agony. I feel, in fact, as if +I were actually sitting at the bottom of the sea among mere anchors and +ropes, while over my head and over the green twilight of water sounded +the everlasting rush of waves and the toil and crash and shipwreck of +tremendous ships. The wind tugs at the trees as if it might pluck +them root and all out of the earth like tufts of grass. Or, to try yet +another desperate figure of speech for this unspeakable energy, the +trees are straining and tearing and lashing as if they were a tribe of +dragons each tied by the tail. + +As I look at these top-heavy giants tortured by an invisible and violent +witchcraft, a phrase comes back into my mind. I remember a little boy of +my acquaintance who was once walking in Battersea Park under just such +torn skies and tossing trees. He did not like the wind at all; it blew +in his face too much; it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his +hat, of which he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about +four. After complaining repeatedly of the atmospheric unrest, he said at +last to his mother, "Well, why don't you take away the trees, and then +it wouldn't wind." + +Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. Any +one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were +indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the +air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and +excusable than the belief that it is the trees which make the wind. +Indeed, the belief is so human and excusable that it is, as a matter +of fact, the belief of about ninety-nine out of a hundred of the +philosophers, reformers, sociologists, and politicians of the great age +in which we live. My small friend was, in fact, very like the principal +modern thinkers; only much nicer. + +..... + +In the little apologue or parable which he has thus the honour of +inventing, the trees stand for all visible things and the wind for the +invisible. The wind is the spirit which bloweth where it listeth; the +trees are the material things of the world which are blown where the +spirit lists. The wind is philosophy, religion, revolution; the trees +are cities and civilisations. We only know that there is a wind because +the trees on some distant hill suddenly go mad. We only know that there +is a real revolution because all the chimney-pots go mad on the whole +skyline of the city. + +Just as the ragged outline of a tree grows suddenly more ragged and +rises into fantastic crests or tattered tails, so the human city rises +under the wind of the spirit into toppling temples or sudden spires. No +man has ever seen a revolution. Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood +pouring down the gutters, the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, +a prison in ruins, a people in arms--these things are not revolution, +but the results of revolution. + +You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind. So, +also, you cannot see a revolution; you can only see that there is a +revolution. And there never has been in the history of the world a real +revolution, brutally active and decisive, which was not preceded by +unrest and new dogma in the reign of invisible things. All revolutions +began by being abstract. Most revolutions began by being quite +pedantically abstract. + +The wind is up above the world before a twig on the tree has moved. So +there must always be a battle in the sky before there is a battle on the +earth. Since it is lawful to pray for the coming of the kingdom, it is +lawful also to pray for the coming of the revolution that shall restore +the kingdom. It is lawful to hope to hear the wind of Heaven in the +trees. It is lawful to pray "Thine anger come on earth as it is in +Heaven." + +..... + +The great human dogma, then, is that the wind moves the trees. The great +human heresy is that the trees move the wind. When people begin to +say that the material circumstances have alone created the moral +circumstances, then they have prevented all possibility of serious +change. For if my circumstances have made me wholly stupid, how can I be +certain even that I am right in altering those circumstances? + +The man who represents all thought as an accident of environment is +simply smashing and discrediting all his own thoughts--including +that one. To treat the human mind as having an ultimate authority is +necessary to any kind of thinking, even free thinking. And nothing will +ever be reformed in this age or country unless we realise that the moral +fact comes first. + +For example, most of us, I suppose, have seen in print and heard in +debating clubs an endless discussion that goes on between Socialists and +total abstainers. The latter say that drink leads to poverty; the former +say that poverty leads to drink. I can only wonder at their either of +them being content with such simple physical explanations. Surely it +is obvious that the thing which among the English proletariat leads to +poverty is the same as the thing which leads to drink; the absence +of strong civic dignity, the absence of an instinct that resists +degradation. + +When you have discovered why enormous English estates were not long +ago cut up into small holdings like the land of France, you will have +discovered why the Englishman is more drunken than the Frenchman. +The Englishman, among his million delightful virtues, really has this +quality, which may strictly be called "hand to mouth," because under +its influence a man's hand automatically seeks his own mouth, instead of +seeking (as it sometimes should do) his oppressor's nose. And a man who +says that the English inequality in land is due only to economic causes, +or that the drunkenness of England is due only to economic causes, is +saying something so absurd that he cannot really have thought what he +was saying. + +Yet things quite as preposterous as this are said and written under the +influence of that great spectacle of babyish helplessness, the economic +theory of history. We have people who represent that all great historic +motives were economic, and then have to howl at the top of their voices +in order to induce the modern democracy to act on economic motives. The +extreme Marxian politicians in England exhibit themselves as a small, +heroic minority, trying vainly to induce the world to do what, according +to their theory, the world always does. The truth is, of course, that +there will be a social revolution the moment the thing has ceased to be +purely economic. You can never have a revolution in order to establish a +democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. + +..... + +I get up from under the trees, for the wind and the slight rain have +ceased. The trees stand up like golden pillars in a clear sunlight. +The tossing of the trees and the blowing of the wind have ceased +simultaneously. So I suppose there are still modern philosophers who +will maintain that the trees make the wind. + + + + +XIII. The Dickensian + +He was a quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw +hat; with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, but +with a quite unmilitary stoop and very dreamy eyes. He was gazing with a +rather gloomy interest at the cluster, one might almost say the tangle, +of small shipping which grew thicker as our little pleasure boat crawled +up into Yarmouth Harbour. A boat entering this harbour, as every one +knows, does not enter in front of the town like a foreigner, but creeps +round at the back like a traitor taking the town in the rear. The +passage of the river seems almost too narrow for traffic, and in +consequence the bigger ships look colossal. As we passed under a timber +ship from Norway, which seemed to block up the heavens like a cathedral, +the man in a straw hat pointed to an odd wooden figurehead carved like a +woman, and said, like one continuing a conversation, "Now, why have they +left off having them. They didn't do any one any harm?" + +I replied with some flippancy about the captain's wife being jealous; +but I knew in my heart that the man had struck a deep note. There has +been something in our most recent civilisation which is mysteriously +hostile to such healthy and humane symbols. + +"They hate anything like that, which is human and pretty," he continued, +exactly echoing my thoughts. "I believe they broke up all the jolly old +figureheads with hatchets and enjoyed doing it." + +"Like Mr. Quilp," I answered, "when he battered the wooden Admiral with +the poker." + +His whole face suddenly became alive, and for the first time he stood +erect and stared at me. + +"Do you come to Yarmouth for that?" he asked. + +"For what?" + +"For Dickens," he answered, and drummed with his foot on the deck. + +"No," I answered; "I come for fun, though that is much the same thing." + +"I always come," he answered quietly, "to find Peggotty's boat. It isn't +here." + +And when he said that I understood him perfectly. + +There are two Yarmouths; I daresay there are two hundred to the people +who live there. I myself have never come to the end of the list of +Batterseas. But there are two to the stranger and tourist; the poor +part, which is dignified, and the prosperous part, which is savagely +vulgar. My new friend haunted the first of these like a ghost; to the +latter he would only distantly allude. + +"The place is very much spoilt now... trippers, you know," he would say, +not at all scornfully, but simply sadly. That was the nearest he would +go to an admission of the monstrous watering place that lay along +the front, outblazing the sun, and more deafening than the sea. But +behind--out of earshot of this uproar--there are lanes so narrow that +they seem like secret entrances to some hidden place of repose. There +are squares so brimful of silence that to plunge into one of them is +like plunging into a pool. In these places the man and I paced up and +down talking about Dickens, or, rather, doing what all true Dickensians +do, telling each other verbatim long passages which both of us knew +quite well already. We were really in the atmosphere of the older +England. Fishermen passed us who might well have been characters like +Peggotty; we went into a musty curiosity shop and bought pipe-stoppers +carved into figures from Pickwick. The evening was settling down between +all the buildings with that slow gold that seems to soak everything when +we went into the church. + +In the growing darkness of the church, my eye caught the coloured +windows which on that clear golden evening were flaming with all the +passionate heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian arts. +At length I said to my companion: + +"Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant for the +angel at the sepulchre." + +He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows. + +"I daresay," he said. "What is there odd about that?" + +After a pause I said, "Do you remember what the angel at the sepulchre +said?" + +"Not particularly," he answered; "but where are you off to in such a +hurry?" + +I walked him rapidly out of the still square, past the fishermen's +almshouses, towards the coast, he still inquiring indignantly where I +was going. + +"I am going," I said, "to put pennies in automatic machines on the +beach. I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my +photograph taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer out of its original +bottle. I will buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat. I am ready +to listen to a concertina, and but for the defects of my education +should be ready to play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, +if the donkey is willing. I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was +commanded me by the angel in the stained-glass window." + +"I really think," said the Dickensian, "that I had better put you in +charge of your relations." + +"Sir," I answered, "there are certain writers to whom humanity owes +much, whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective a +type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain +perishing associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the spirit +of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even for the shade of Thackeray +in Old Kensington. But let us have no antiquarianism about Dickens, for +Dickens is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward, but forward; +he might look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury, but he +would love to look at them. He might lash our democracy, but it would +be because, like a democrat, he asked much from it. We will not have all +his books bound up under the title of 'The Old Curiosity Shop.' Rather +we will have them all bound up under the title of 'Great Expectations.' +Wherever humanity is he would have us face it and make something of it, +swallow it with a holy cannibalism, and assimilate it with the digestion +of a giant. We must take these trippers as he would have taken them, and +tear out of them their tragedy and their farce. Do you remember now what +the angel said at the sepulchre? 'Why seek ye the living among the dead? +He is not here; he is risen.'" + +With that we came out suddenly on the wide stretch of the sands, which +were black with the knobs and masses of our laughing and quite desperate +democracy. And the sunset, which was now in its final glory, flung far +over all of them a red flush and glitter like the gigantic firelight +of Dickens. In that strange evening light every figure looked at once +grotesque and attractive, as if he had a story to tell. I heard a little +girl (who was being throttled by another little girl) say by way of +self-vindication, "My sister-in-law 'as got four rings aside her weddin' +ring!" + +I stood and listened for more, but my friend went away. + + + + +XIV. In Topsy-Turvy Land + +Last week, in an idle metaphor, I took the tumbling of trees and the +secret energy of the wind as typical of the visible world moving under +the violence of the invisible. I took this metaphor merely because I +happened to be writing the article in a wood. Nevertheless, now that I +return to Fleet Street (which seems to me, I confess, much better and +more poetical than all the wild woods in the world), I am strangely +haunted by this accidental comparison. The people's figures seem a +forest and their soul a wind. All the human personalities which speak or +signal to me seem to have this fantastic character of the fringe of the +forest against the sky. That man that talks to me, what is he but an +articulate tree? That driver of a van who waves his hands wildly at me +to tell me to get out of the way, what is he but a bunch of branches +stirred and swayed by a spiritual wind, a sylvan object that I can +continue to contemplate with calm? That policeman who lifts his hand +to warn three omnibuses of the peril that they run in encountering my +person, what is he but a shrub shaken for a moment with that blast +of human law which is a thing stronger than anarchy? Gradually this +impression of the woods wears off. But this black-and-white contrast +between the visible and invisible, this deep sense that the one +essential belief is belief in the invisible as against the visible, +is suddenly and sensationally brought back to my mind. Exactly at +the moment when Fleet Street has grown most familiar (that is, most +bewildering and bright), my eye catches a poster of vivid violet, on +which I see written in large black letters these remarkable words: +"Should Shop Assistants Marry?" + +..... + +When I saw those words everything might just as well have turned upside +down. The men in Fleet Street might have been walking about on their +hands. The cross of St. Paul's might have been hanging in the air upside +down. For I realise that I have really come into a topsy-turvy country; +I have come into the country where men do definitely believe that the +waving of the trees makes the wind. That is to say, they believe +that the material circumstances, however black and twisted, are more +important than the spiritual realities, however powerful and pure. +"Should Shop Assistants Marry?" I am puzzled to think what some periods +and schools of human history would have made of such a question. The +ascetics of the East or of some periods of the early Church would have +thought that the question meant, "Are not shop assistants too saintly, +too much of another world, even to feel the emotions of the sexes?" But +I suppose that is not what the purple poster means. In some pagan cities +it might have meant, "Shall slaves so vile as shop assistants even be +allowed to propagate their abject race?" But I suppose that is not what +the purple poster meant. We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what +it does mean. It does really mean that a section of the human race +is asking whether the primary relations of the two human sexes are +particularly good for modern shops. The human race is asking whether +Adam and Eve are entirely suitable for Marshall and Snelgrove. If this +is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine what would be. We ask whether +the universal institution will improve our (please God) temporary +institution. Yet I have known many such questions. For instance, I have +known a man ask seriously, "Does Democracy help the Empire?" Which is +like saying, "Is art favourable to frescoes?" + +I say that there are many such questions asked. But if the world +ever runs short of them, I can suggest a large number of questions of +precisely the same kind, based on precisely the same principle. + +"Do Feet Improve Boots?"--"Is Bread Better when Eaten?"--"Should +Hats have Heads in them?"--"Do People Spoil a Town?"--"Do Walls +Ruin Wall-papers?"--"Should Neckties enclose Necks?"--"Do Hands Hurt +Walking-sticks?"--"Does Burning Destroy Firewood?"--"Is Cleanliness Good +for Soap?"--"Can Cricket Really Improve Cricket-bats?"--"Shall We Take +Brides with our Wedding Rings?" and a hundred others. + +Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport or in +intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from the +purple poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by half of the +earnest economists of our times. All the questions they ask are of this +character; they are all tinged with this same initial absurdity. They do +not ask if the means is suited to the end; they all ask (with profound +and penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited to the means. They do +not ask whether the tail suits the dog. They all ask whether a dog is +(by the highest artistic canons) the most ornamental appendage that can +be put at the end of a tail. In short, instead of asking whether our +modern arrangements, our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete +institutions are suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy +human life, they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion +at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; and then they +only ask whether that healthy human life is suited to our streets and +trades. Perfection may be attainable or unattainable as an end. It may +or may not be possible to talk of imperfection as a means to perfection. +But surely it passes toleration to talk of perfection as a means to +imperfection. The New Jerusalem may be a reality. It may be a dream. But +surely it is too outrageous to say that the New Jerusalem is a reality +on the road to Birmingham. + +..... + +This is the most enormous and at the same time the most secret of the +modern tyrannies of materialism. In theory the thing ought to be simple +enough. A really human human being would always put the spiritual +things first. A walking and speaking statue of God finds himself at +one particular moment employed as a shop assistant. He has in himself +a power of terrible love, a promise of paternity, a thirst for some +loyalty that shall unify life, and in the ordinary course of things he +asks himself, "How far do the existing conditions of those assisting in +shops fit in with my evident and epic destiny in the matter of love and +marriage?" But here, as I have said, comes in the quiet and crushing +power of modern materialism. It prevents him rising in rebellion, as he +would otherwise do. By perpetually talking about environment and visible +things, by perpetually talking about economics and physical necessity, +painting and keeping repainted a perpetual picture of iron machinery +and merciless engines, of rails of steel, and of towers of stone, modern +materialism at last produces this tremendous impression in which the +truth is stated upside down. At last the result is achieved. The man +does not say as he ought to have said, "Should married men endure being +modern shop assistants?" The man says, "Should shop assistants marry?" +Triumph has completed the immense illusion of materialism. The +slave does not say, "Are these chains worthy of me?" The slave says +scientifically and contentedly, "Am I even worthy of these chains?" + + + + +XV. What I Found in My Pocket + +Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have made +the Empire what it is--a man in an astracan coat, with an astracan +moustache--a tight, black, curly moustache. Whether he put on the +moustache with the coat or whether his Napoleonic will enabled him not +only to grow a moustache in the usual place, but also to grow little +moustaches all over his clothes, I do not know. I only remember that he +said to me the following words: "A man can't get on nowadays by hanging +about with his hands in his pockets." I made reply with the quite +obvious flippancy that perhaps a man got on by having his hands in other +people's pockets; whereupon he began to argue about Moral Evolution, so +I suppose what I said had some truth in it. But the incident now comes +back to me, and connects itself with another incident--if you can call +it an incident--which happened to me only the other day. + +I have only once in my life picked a pocket, and then (perhaps through +some absent-mindedness) I picked my own. My act can really with some +reason be so described. For in taking things out of my own pocket I had +at least one of the more tense and quivering emotions of the thief; I +had a complete ignorance and a profound curiosity as to what I should +find there. Perhaps it would be the exaggeration of eulogy to call me a +tidy person. But I can always pretty satisfactorily account for all my +possessions. I can always tell where they are, and what I have done with +them, so long as I can keep them out of my pockets. If once anything +slips into those unknown abysses, I wave it a sad Virgilian farewell. +I suppose that the things that I have dropped into my pockets are still +there; the same presumption applies to the things that I have dropped +into the sea. But I regard the riches stored in both these bottomless +chasms with the same reverent ignorance. They tell us that on the +last day the sea will give up its dead; and I suppose that on the same +occasion long strings of extraordinary things will come running out of +my pockets. But I have quite forgotten what any of them are; and there +is really nothing (excepting the money) that I shall be at all surprised +at finding among them. + +..... + +Such at least has hitherto been my state of innocence. I here only wish +briefly to recall the special, extraordinary, and hitherto unprecedented +circumstances which led me in cold blood, and being of sound mind, to +turn out my pockets. I was locked up in a third-class carriage for a +rather long journey. The time was towards evening, but it might have +been anything, for everything resembling earth or sky or light or shade +was painted out as if with a great wet brush by an unshifting sheet of +quite colourless rain. I had no books or newspapers. I had not even a +pencil and a scrap of paper with which to write a religious epic. There +were no advertisements on the walls of the carriage, otherwise I could +have plunged into the study, for any collection of printed words is +quite enough to suggest infinite complexities of mental ingenuity. When +I find myself opposite the words "Sunlight Soap" I can exhaust all the +aspects of Sun Worship, Apollo, and Summer poetry before I go on to the +less congenial subject of soap. But there was no printed word or picture +anywhere; there was nothing but blank wood inside the carriage and blank +wet without. Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can be, +uninteresting. So I stared at the joints of the walls and seats, and +began thinking hard on the fascinating subject of wood. Just as I had +begun to realise why, perhaps, it was that Christ was a carpenter, +rather than a bricklayer, or a baker, or anything else, I suddenly +started upright, and remembered my pockets. I was carrying about with +me an unknown treasury. I had a British Museum and a South Kensington +collection of unknown curios hung all over me in different places. I +began to take the things out. + +..... + +The first thing I came upon consisted of piles and heaps of Battersea +tram tickets. There were enough to equip a paper chase. They shook +down in showers like confetti. Primarily, of course, they touched my +patriotic emotions, and brought tears to my eyes; also they provided me +with the printed matter I required, for I found on the back of them some +short but striking little scientific essays about some kind of pill. +Comparatively speaking, in my then destitution, those tickets might +be regarded as a small but well-chosen scientific library. Should my +railway journey continue (which seemed likely at the time) for a +few months longer, I could imagine myself throwing myself into the +controversial aspects of the pill, composing replies and rejoinders pro +and con upon the data furnished to me. But after all it was the symbolic +quality of the tickets that moved me most. For as certainly as the cross +of St. George means English patriotism, those scraps of paper meant all +that municipal patriotism which is now, perhaps, the greatest hope of +England. + +The next thing that I took out was a pocket-knife. A pocket-knife, I +need hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral meditations +all to itself. A knife typifies one of the most primary of those +practical origins upon which as upon low, thick pillows all our human +civilisation reposes. Metals, the mystery of the thing called iron and +of the thing called steel, led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream. +I saw into the intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among +all the common stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent +battle, in which stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered +against something shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. +I heard all the hammers on all the anvils of the earth. I saw all the +swords of Feudal and all the weals of Industrial war. For the knife is +only a short sword; and the pocket-knife is a secret sword. I opened it +and looked at that brilliant and terrible tongue which we call a blade; +and I thought that perhaps it was the symbol of the oldest of the needs +of man. The next moment I knew that I was wrong; for the thing that came +next out of my pocket was a box of matches. Then I saw fire, which is +stronger even than steel, the old, fierce female thing, the thing we all +love, but dare not touch. + +The next thing I found was a piece of chalk; and I saw in it all the art +and all the frescoes of the world. The next was a coin of a very modest +value; and I saw in it not only the image and superscription of our own +Caesar, but all government and order since the world began. But I have +not space to say what were the items in the long and splendid procession +of poetical symbols that came pouring out. I cannot tell you all the +things that were in my pocket. I can tell you one thing, however, that I +could not find in my pocket. I allude to my railway ticket. + + + + +XVI. The Dragon's Grandmother + +I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. I do not +mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated in them--that he +did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into a coach. He did, indeed, +entertain this curious disbelief. And, like all the other people I +have ever met who entertained it, he was wholly unable to give me an +intelligent reason for it. He tried the laws of nature, but he soon +dropped that. Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary +experience, and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted +pumpkinity. But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we +adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply the attitude we +adopt towards all unusual occurrences. If we were certain of miracles +we should not count on them. Things that happen very seldom we all leave +out of our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. I do not +expect a glass of water to be turned into wine; but neither do I expect +a glass of water to be poisoned with prussic acid. I do not in ordinary +business relations act on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but +neither do I act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost +heir of the Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is not that the +natural order is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet +on uncommon incidents than on common ones. This does not touch the +credibility of any attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned +into a coach. If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car +with my own eyes that would not make me any more inclined to assume +that the same thing would happen again. I should not invest largely in +pumpkins with an eye to the motor trade. Cinderella got a ball dress +from the fairy; but I do not suppose that she looked after her own +clothes any the less after it. + +But the view that fairy tales cannot really have happened, though crazy, +is common. The man I speak of disbelieved in fairy tales in an even more +amazing and perverted sense. He actually thought that fairy tales +ought not to be told to children. That is (like a belief in slavery +or annexation) one of those intellectual errors which lie very near to +ordinary mortal sins. There are some refusals which, though they may be +done what is called conscientiously, yet carry so much of their whole +horror in the very act of them, that a man must in doing them not only +harden but slightly corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of +milk to young mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. +Another is the refusal of fairy tales to children. + +..... + +The man had come to see me in connection with some silly society +of which I am an enthusiastic member; he was a fresh-coloured, +short-sighted young man, like a stray curate who was too helpless even +to find his way to the Church of England. He had a curious green necktie +and a very long neck; I am always meeting idealists with very long +necks. Perhaps it is that their eternal aspiration slowly lifts their +heads nearer and nearer to the stars. Or perhaps it has something to +do with the fact that so many of them are vegetarians: perhaps they are +slowly evolving the neck of the giraffe so that they can eat all the +tops of the trees in Kensington Gardens. These things are in every sense +above me. Such, anyhow, was the young man who did not believe in fairy +tales; and by a curious coincidence he entered the room when I had just +finished looking through a pile of contemporary fiction, and had begun +to read "Grimm's Fairy tales" as a natural consequence. + +The modern novels stood before me, however, in a stack; and you can +imagine their titles for yourself. There was "Suburban Sue: A Tale of +Psychology," and also "Psychological Sue: A Tale of Suburbia"; there was +"Trixy: A Temperament," and "Man-Hate: A Monochrome," and all those nice +things. I read them with real interest, but, curiously enough, I grew +tired of them at last, and when I saw "Grimm's Fairy Tales" lying +accidentally on the table, I gave a cry of indecent joy. Here at least, +here at last, one could find a little common sense. I opened the book, +and my eyes fell on these splendid and satisfying words, "The Dragon's +Grandmother." That at least was reasonable; that at least was true. "The +Dragon's Grandmother!" While I was rolling this first touch of ordinary +human reality upon my tongue, I looked up suddenly and saw this monster +with a green tie standing in the doorway. + +..... + +I listened to what he said about the society politely enough, I hope; +but when he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe in fairy +tales, I broke out beyond control. "Man," I said, "who are you that you +should not believe in fairy tales? It is much easier to believe in Blue +Beard than to believe in you. A blue beard is a misfortune; but there +are green ties which are sins. It is far easier to believe in a million +fairy tales than to believe in one man who does not like fairy tales. I +would rather kiss Grimm instead of a Bible and swear to all his stories +as if they were thirty-nine articles than say seriously and out of +my heart that there can be such a man as you; that you are not some +temptation of the devil or some delusion from the void. Look at these +plain, homely, practical words. 'The Dragon's Grandmother,' that is all +right; that is rational almost to the verge of rationalism. If there was +a dragon, he had a grandmother. But you--you had no grandmother! If you +had known one, she would have taught you to love fairy tales. You had no +father, you had no mother; no natural causes can explain you. You cannot +be. I believe many things which I have not seen; but of such things +as you it may be said, 'Blessed is he that has seen and yet has +disbelieved.'" + +..... + +It seemed to me that he did not follow me with sufficient delicacy, so I +moderated my tone. "Can you not see," I said, "that fairy tales in their +essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting +fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? +Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild +and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of +routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the +fairy tale is--what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The +problem of the modern novel is--what will a madman do with a dull world? +In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. +In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and +suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos. In the +excellent tale of 'The Dragon's Grandmother,' in all the other tales of +Grimm, it is assumed that the young man setting out on his travels +will have all substantial truths in him; that he will be brave, full +of faith, reasonable, that he will respect his parents, keep his word, +rescue one kind of people, defy another kind, 'parcere subjectis et +debellare,' etc. Then, having assumed this centre of sanity, the writer +entertains himself by fancying what would happen if the whole world went +mad all round it, if the sun turned green and the moon blue, if horses +had six legs and giants had two heads. But your modern literature +takes insanity as its centre. Therefore, it loses the interest even of +insanity. A lunatic is not startling to himself, because he is quite +serious; that is what makes him a lunatic. A man who thinks he is a +piece of glass is to himself as dull as a piece of glass. A man who +thinks he is a chicken is to himself as common as a chicken. It is only +sanity that can see even a wild poetry in insanity. Therefore, these +wise old tales made the hero ordinary and the tale extraordinary. +But you have made the hero extraordinary and the tale ordinary--so +ordinary--oh, so very ordinary." + +I saw him still gazing at me fixedly. Some nerve snapped in me under the +hypnotic stare. I leapt to my feet and cried, "In the name of God +and Democracy and the Dragon's grandmother--in the name of all good +things--I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more." Whether +or no it was the result of the exorcism, there is no doubt that he +definitely went away. + + + + +XVII. The Red Angel + +I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad +for children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him I can +never count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest letter +saying that fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even if +they are true. She says that it is cruel to tell children fairy tales, +because it frightens them. You might just as well say that it is cruel +to give girls sentimental novels because it makes them cry. All this +kind of talk is based on that complete forgetting of what a child is +like which has been the firm foundation of so many educational schemes. +If you keep bogies and goblins away from children they would make them +up for themselves. One small child in the dark can invent more hells +than Swedenborg. One small child can imagine monsters too big and +black to get into any picture, and give them names too unearthly and +cacophonous to have occurred in the cries of any lunatic. The child, to +begin with, commonly likes horrors, and he continues to indulge in them +even when he does not like them. There is just as much difficulty in +saying exactly where pure pain begins in his case, as there is in ours +when we walk of our own free will into the torture-chamber of a great +tragedy. The fear does not come from fairy tales; the fear comes from +the universe of the soul. + +..... + +The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are +alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They +dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be +alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics +worship it--because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible +for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy +tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is +in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales +do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the +child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby +has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What +the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. + +Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series +of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, +that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that +there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and +stronger than strong fear. When I was a child I have stared at the +darkness until the whole black bulk of it turned into one negro giant +taller than heaven. If there was one star in the sky it only made him a +Cyclops. But fairy tales restored my mental health, for next day I read +an authentic account of how a negro giant with one eye, of quite equal +dimensions, had been baffled by a little boy like myself (of similar +inexperience and even lower social status) by means of a sword, some +bad riddles, and a brave heart. Sometimes the sea at night seemed as +dreadful as any dragon. But then I was acquainted with many youngest +sons and little sailors to whom a dragon or two was as simple as the +sea. + +Take the most horrible of Grimm's tales in incident and imagery, the +excellent tale of the "Boy who Could not Shudder," and you will see what +I mean. There are some living shocks in that tale. I remember specially +a man's legs which fell down the chimney by themselves and walked about +the room, until they were rejoined by the severed head and body which +fell down the chimney after them. That is very good. But the point +of the story and the point of the reader's feelings is not that these +things are frightening, but the far more striking fact that the hero was +not frightened at them. The most fearful of all these fearful wonders +was his own absence of fear. He slapped the bogies on the back and asked +the devils to drink wine with him; many a time in my youth, when stifled +with some modern morbidity, I have prayed for a double portion of his +spirit. If you have not read the end of his story, go and read it; it is +the wisest thing in the world. The hero was at last taught to shudder +by taking a wife, who threw a pail of cold water over him. In that one +sentence there is more of the real meaning of marriage than in all the +books about sex that cover Europe and America. + +..... + +At the four corners of a child's bed stand Perseus and Roland, Sigurd +and St. George. If you withdraw the guard of heroes you are not making +him rational; you are only leaving him to fight the devils alone. For +the devils, alas, we have always believed in. The hopeful element in the +universe has in modern times continually been denied and reasserted; but +the hopeless element has never for a moment been denied. As I told "H. +N. B." (whom I pause to wish a Happy Christmas in its most superstitious +sense), the one thing modern people really do believe in is damnation. +The greatest of purely modern poets summed up the really modern attitude +in that fine Agnostic line-- + +"There may be Heaven; there must be Hell." + +The gloomy view of the universe has been a continuous tradition; and the +new types of spiritual investigation or conjecture all begin by being +gloomy. A little while ago men believed in no spirits. Now they are +beginning rather slowly to believe in rather slow spirits. + +..... + +Some people objected to spiritualism, table rappings, and such things, +because they were undignified, because the ghosts cracked jokes or +waltzed with dinner-tables. I do not share this objection in the least. +I wish the spirits were more farcical than they are. That they should +make more jokes and better ones, would be my suggestion. For almost all +the spiritualism of our time, in so far as it is new, is solemn and sad. +Some Pagan gods were lawless, and some Christian saints were a little +too serious; but the spirits of modern spiritualism are both lawless and +serious--a disgusting combination. The specially contemporary spirits +are not only devils, they are blue devils. This is, first and last, the +real value of Christmas; in so far as the mythology remains at all it +is a kind of happy mythology. Personally, of course, I believe in Santa +Claus; but it is the season of forgiveness, and I will forgive others +for not doing so. But if there is anyone who does not comprehend the +defect in our world which I am civilising, I should recommend him, for +instance, to read a story by Mr. Henry James, called "The Turn of the +Screw." It is one of the most powerful things ever written, and it is +one of the things about which I doubt most whether it ought ever to +have been written at all. It describes two innocent children gradually +growing at once omniscient and half-witted under the influence of the +foul ghosts of a groom and a governess. As I say, I doubt whether Mr. +Henry James ought to have published it (no, it is not indecent, do not +buy it; it is a spiritual matter), but I think the question so doubtful +that I will give that truly great man a chance. I will approve the thing +as well as admire it if he will write another tale just as powerful +about two children and Santa Claus. If he will not, or cannot, then the +conclusion is clear; we can deal strongly with gloomy mystery, but not +with happy mystery; we are not rationalists, but diabolists. + +..... + +I have thought vaguely of all this staring at a great red fire that +stands up in the room like a great red angel. But, perhaps, you have +never heard of a red angel. But you have heard of a blue devil. That is +exactly what I mean. + + + + +XVIII. The Tower + +I have been standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great +Belfry Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought (though +not, perhaps, said), that it is built in defiance of all decencies of +architecture. It is made in deliberate disproportion to achieve the one +startling effect of height. It is a church on stilts. But this sort of +sublime deformity is characteristic of the whole fancy and energy +of these Flemish cities. Flanders has the flattest and most prosaic +landscapes, but the most violent and extravagant of buildings. Here +Nature is tame; it is civilisation that is untamable. Here the fields +are as flat as a paved square; but, on the other hand, the streets and +roofs are as uproarious as a forest in a great wind. The waters of wood +and meadow slide as smoothly and meekly as if they were in the London +water-pipes. But the parish pump is carved with all the creatures out of +the wilderness. Part of this is true, of course, of all art. We talk of +wild animals, but the wildest animal is man. There are sounds in music +that are more ancient and awful than the cry of the strangest beast +at night. And so also there are buildings that are shapeless in their +strength, seeming to lift themselves slowly like monsters from the +primal mire, and there are spires that seem to fly up suddenly like a +startled bird. + +..... + +This savagery even in stone is the expression of the special spirit in +humanity. All the beasts of the field are respectable; it is only man +who has broken loose. All animals are domestic animals; only man is ever +undomestic. All animals are tame animals; it is only we who are wild. +And doubtless, also, while this queer energy is common to all human art, +it is also generally characteristic of Christian art among the arts +of the world. This is what people really mean when they say that +Christianity is barbaric, and arose in ignorance. As a matter of +historic fact, it didn't; it arose in the most equably civilised period +the world has ever seen. + +But it is true that there is something in it that breaks the outline +of perfect and conventional beauty, something that dots with anger the +blind eyes of the Apollo and lashes to a cavalry charge the horses +of the Elgin Marbles. Christianity is savage, in the sense that it is +primeval; there is in it a touch of the nigger hymn. I remember a debate +in which I had praised militant music in ritual, and some one asked me +if I could imagine Christ walking down the street before a brass band. +I said I could imagine it with the greatest ease; for Christ definitely +approved a natural noisiness at a great moment. When the street children +shouted too loud, certain priggish disciples did begin to rebuke them in +the name of good taste. He said: "If these were silent the very stones +would cry out." With these words He called up all the wealth of artistic +creation that has been founded on this creed. With those words He +founded Gothic architecture. For in a town like this, which seems to +have grown Gothic as a wood grows leaves, anywhere and anyhow, any odd +brick or moulding may be carved off into a shouting face. The front of +vast buildings is thronged with open mouths, angels praising God, or +devils defying Him. Rock itself is racked and twisted, until it seems to +scream. The miracle is accomplished; the very stones cry out. + +But though this furious fancy is certainly a specialty of men among +creatures, and of Christian art among arts, it is still most notable in +the art of Flanders. All Gothic buildings are full of extravagant things +in detail; but this is an extravagant thing in design. All Christian +temples worth talking about have gargoyles; but Bruges Belfry is a +gargoyle. It is an unnaturally long-necked animal, like a giraffe. The +same impression of exaggeration is forced on the mind at every corner of +a Flemish town. And if any one asks, "Why did the people of these flat +countries instinctively raise these riotous and towering monuments?" the +only answer one can give is, "Because they were the people of these +flat countries." If any one asks, "Why the men of Bruges sacrificed +architecture and everything to the sense of dizzy and divine heights?" +we can only answer, "Because Nature gave them no encouragement to do +so." + +..... + +As I stare at the Belfry, I think with a sort of smile of some of my +friends in London who are quite sure of how children will turn out +if you give them what they call "the right environment." It is a +troublesome thing, environment, for it sometimes works positively +and sometimes negatively, and more often between the two. A beautiful +environment may make a child love beauty; it may make him bored with +beauty; most likely the two effects will mix and neutralise each other. +Most likely, that is, the environment will make hardly any difference at +all. In the scientific style of history (which was recently fashionable, +and is still conventional) we always had a list of countries that had +owed their characteristics to their physical conditions. + +The Spaniards (it was said) are passionate because their country is +hot; Scandinavians adventurous because their country is cold; Englishmen +naval because they are islanders; Switzers free because they are +mountaineers. It is all very nice in its way. Only unfortunately I am +quite certain that I could make up quite as long a list exactly contrary +in its argument point-blank against the influence of their geographical +environment. Thus Spaniards have discovered more continents than +Scandinavians because their hot climate discouraged them from exertion. +Thus Dutchmen have fought for their freedom quite as bravely as Switzers +because the Dutch have no mountains. Thus Pagan Greece and Rome and many +Mediterranean peoples have specially hated the sea because they had the +nicest sea to deal with, the easiest sea to manage. I could extend the +list for ever. But however long it was, two examples would certainly +stand up in it as pre-eminent and unquestionable. The first is that the +Swiss, who live under staggering precipices and spires of eternal snow, +have produced no art or literature at all, and are by far the most +mundane, sensible, and business-like people in Europe. The other is that +the people of Belgium, who live in a country like a carpet, have, by an +inner energy, desired to exalt their towers till they struck the stars. + +As it is therefore quite doubtful whether a person will go specially +with his environment or specially against his environment, I cannot +comfort myself with the thought that the modern discussions about +environment are of much practical value. But I think I will not write +any more about these modern theories, but go on looking at the Belfry +of Bruges. I would give them the greater attention if I were not pretty +well convinced that the theories will have disappeared a long time +before the Belfry. + + + + +XIX. How I Met the President + +Several years ago, when there was a small war going on in South Africa +and a great fuss going on in England, when it was by no means so popular +and convenient to be a Pro-Boer as it is now, I remember making a bright +suggestion to my Pro-Boer friends and allies, which was not, I regret to +say, received with the seriousness it deserved. I suggested that a band +of devoted and noble youths, including ourselves, should express our +sense of the pathos of the President's and the Republic's fate by +growing Kruger beards under our chins. I imagined how abruptly this +decoration would alter the appearance of Mr. John Morley; how startling +it would be as it emerged from under the chin of Mr. Lloyd-George. But +the younger men, my own friends, on whom I more particularly urged +it, men whose names are in many cases familiar to the readers of this +paper--Mr. Masterman's for instance, and Mr. Conrad Noel--they, I felt, +being young and beautiful, would do even more justice to the Kruger +beard, and when walking down the street with it could not fail to +attract attention. The beard would have been a kind of counterblast to +the Rhodes hat. An appropriate counterblast; for the Rhodesian power in +Africa is only an external thing, placed upon the top like a hat; the +Dutch power and tradition is a thing rooted and growing like a beard; +we have shaved it, and it is growing again. The Kruger beard would +represent time and the natural processes. You cannot grow a beard in a +moment of passion. + +..... + +After making this proposal to my friends I hurriedly left town. I went +down to a West Country place where there was shortly afterwards an +election, at which I enjoyed myself very much canvassing for the Liberal +candidate. The extraordinary thing was that he got in. I sometimes lie +awake at night and meditate upon that mystery; but it must not detain us +now. The rather singular incident which happened to me then, and which +some recent events have recalled to me, happened while the canvassing +was still going on. It was a burning blue day, and the warm sunshine, +settling everywhere on the high hedges and the low hills, brought out +into a kind of heavy bloom that HUMANE quality of the landscape which, +as far as I know, only exists in England; that sense as if the bushes +and the roads were human, and had kindness like men; as if the tree were +a good giant with one wooden leg; as if the very line of palings were a +row of good-tempered gnomes. On one side of the white, sprawling road a +low hill or down showed but a little higher than the hedge, on the +other the land tumbled down into a valley that opened towards the Mendip +hills. The road was very erratic, for every true English road exists +in order to lead one a dance; and what could be more beautiful and +beneficent than a dance? At an abrupt turn of it I came upon a low white +building, with dark doors and dark shuttered windows, evidently not +inhabited and scarcely in the ordinary sense inhabitable--a thing more +like a toolhouse than a house of any other kind. Made idle by the heat, +I paused, and, taking a piece of red chalk out of my pocket, began +drawing aimlessly on the back door--drawing goblins and Mr. Chamberlain, +and finally the ideal Nationalist with the Kruger beard. The materials +did not permit of any delicate rendering of his noble and national +expansion of countenance (stoical and yet hopeful, full of tears for +man, and yet of an element of humour); but the hat was finely handled. +Just as I was adding the finishing touches to the Kruger fantasy, I was +frozen to the spot with terror. The black door, which I thought no more +of than the lid of an empty box, began slowly to open, impelled from +within by a human hand. And President Kruger himself came out into the +sunlight! + +He was a shade milder of eye than he was in his portraits, and he did +not wear that ceremonial scarf which was usually, in such pictures, +slung across his ponderous form. But there was the hat which filled the +Empire with so much alarm; there were the clumsy dark clothes, there was +the heavy, powerful face; there, above all, was the Kruger beard which +I had sought to evoke (if I may use the verb) from under the features +of Mr. Masterman. Whether he had the umbrella or not I was too much +emotionally shaken to observe; he had not the stone lions with him, or +Mrs. Kruger; and what he was doing in that dark shed I cannot imagine, +but I suppose he was oppressing an Outlander. + +I was surprised, I must confess, to meet President Kruger in +Somersetshire during the war. I had no idea that he was in the +neighbourhood. But a yet more arresting surprise awaited me. Mr. Kruger +regarded me for some moments with a dubious grey eye, and then addressed +me with a strong Somersetshire accent. A curious cold shock went through +me to hear that inappropriate voice coming out of that familiar form. +It was as if you met a Chinaman, with pigtail and yellow jacket, and he +began to talk broad Scotch. But the next moment, of course, I understood +the situation. We had much underrated the Boers in supposing that the +Boer education was incomplete. In pursuit of his ruthless plot against +our island home, the terrible President had learnt not only English, but +all the dialects at a moment's notice to win over a Lancashire merchant +or seduce a Northumberland Fusilier. No doubt, if I asked him, this +stout old gentleman could grind out Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, +and so on, like the tunes in a barrel organ. I could not wonder if +our plain, true-hearted German millionaires fell before a cunning so +penetrated with culture as this. + +..... + +And now I come to the third and greatest surprise of all that this +strange old man gave me. When he asked me, dryly enough, but not without +a certain steady civility that belongs to old-fashioned country people, +what I wanted and what I was doing, I told him the facts of the case, +explaining my political mission and the almost angelic qualities of the +Liberal candidate. Whereupon, this old man became suddenly transfigured +in the sunlight into a devil of wrath. It was some time before I could +understand a word he said, but the one word that kept on recurring was +the word "Kruger," and it was invariably accompanied with a volley of +violent terms. Was I for old Kruger, was I? Did I come to him and want +him to help old Kruger? I ought to be ashamed, I was... and here he +became once more obscure. The one thing that he made quite clear was +that he wouldn't do anything for Kruger. + +"But you ARE Kruger," burst from my lips, in a natural explosion of +reasonableness. "You ARE Kruger, aren't you?" + +After this innocent CRI DE COEUR of mine, I thought at first there would +be a fight, and I remembered with regret that the President in early +life had had a hobby of killing lions. But really I began to think that +I had been mistaken, and that it was not the President after all. There +was a confounding sincerity in the anger with which he declared that he +was Farmer Bowles, and everybody knowed it. I appeased him eventually +and parted from him at the door of his farmhouse, where he left me +with a few tags of religion, which again raised my suspicions of +his identity. In the coffee-room to which I returned there was an +illustrated paper with a picture of President Kruger, and he and Farmer +Bowles were as like as two peas. There was a picture also of a group of +Outlander leaders, and the faces of them, leering and triumphant, were +perhaps unduly darkened by the photograph, but they seemed to me like +the faces of a distant and hostile people. + +I saw the old man once again on the fierce night of the poll, when he +drove down our Liberal lines in a little cart ablaze with the blue Tory +ribbons, for he was a man who would carry his colours everywhere. It +was evening, and the warm western light was on the grey hair and heavy +massive features of that good old man. I knew as one knows a fact of +sense that if Spanish and German stockbrokers had flooded his farm +or country he would have fought them for ever, not fiercely like an +Irishman, but with the ponderous courage and ponderous cunning of the +Boer. I knew that without seeing it, as certainly as I knew without +seeing it that when he went into the polling room he put his cross +against the Conservative name. Then he came out again, having given his +vote and looking more like Kruger than ever. And at the same hour on +the same night thousands upon thousands of English Krugers gave the +same vote. And thus Kruger was pulled down and the dark-faced men in the +photograph reigned in his stead. + + + + +XX. The Giant + +I sometimes fancy that every great city must have been built by night. +At least, it is only at night that every part of a great city is +great. All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps +architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. At +least, I think many people of those nobler trades that work by night +(journalists, policemen, burglars, coffee-stall keepers, and such +mistaken enthusiasts as refuse to go home till morning) must often have +stood admiring some black bulk of building with a crown of battlements +or a crest of spires and then burst into tears at daybreak to discover +that it was only a haberdasher's shop with huge gold letters across the +face of it. + +..... + +I had a sensation of this sort the other day as I happened to be +wandering in the Temple Gardens towards the end of twilight. I sat down +on a bench with my back to the river, happening to choose such a place +that a huge angle and facade of building jutting out from the Strand +sat above me like an incubus. I dare say that if I took the same seat +to-morrow by daylight I should find the impression entirely false. In +sunlight the thing might seem almost distant; but in that half-darkness +it seemed as if the walls were almost falling upon me. Never before have +I had so strongly the sense which makes people pessimists in politics, +the sense of the hopeless height of the high places of the earth. That +pile of wealth and power, whatever was its name, went up above and +beyond me like a cliff that no living thing could climb. I had an +irrational sense that this thing had to be fought, that I had to fight +it; and that I could offer nothing to the occasion but an indolent +journalist with a walking-stick. + +Almost as I had the thought, two windows were lit in that black, blind +face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge face of a sleeping +giant; the eyes were too close together, and gave it the suggestion of a +bestial sneer. And either by accident of this light or of some other, I +could now read the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; +it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything that I +should like to pull down with my hands if I could. Reared by a detected +robber, it is framed to be the fashionable and luxurious home of +undetected robbers. In the house of man are many mansions; but there is +a class of men who feel normal nowhere except in the Babylon Hotel or +in Dartmoor Gaol. That big black face, which was staring at me with its +flaming eyes too close together, that was indeed the giant of all epic +and fairy tales. But, alas! I was not the giant-killer; the hour had +come, but not the man. I sat down on the seat again (I had had one wild +impulse to climb up the front of the hotel and fall in at one of the +windows), and I tried to think, as all decent people are thinking, what +one can really do. And all the time that oppressive wall went up in +front of me, and took hold upon the heavens like a house of the gods. + +..... + +It is remarkable that in so many great wars it has been the defeated +who have won. The people who were left worst at the end of the war +were generally the people who were left best at the end of the whole +business. For instance, the Crusades ended in the defeat of the +Christians. But they did not end in the decline of the Christians; they +ended in the decline of the Saracens. That huge prophetic wave of Moslem +power which had hung in the very heavens above the towns of Christendom, +that wave was broken, and never came on again. The Crusaders had saved +Paris in the act of losing Jerusalem. The same applies to that epic of +Republican war in the eighteenth century to which we Liberals owe our +political creed. The French Revolution ended in defeat: the kings came +back across a carpet of dead at Waterloo. The Revolution had lost its +last battle; but it had gained its first object. It had cut a chasm. +The world has never been the same since. No one after that has ever been +able to treat the poor merely as a pavement. + +These jewels of God, the poor, are still treated as mere stones of the +street; but as stones that may sometimes fly. If it please God, you and +I may see some of the stones flying again before we see death. But here +I only remark the interesting fact that the conquered almost always +conquer. Sparta killed Athens with a final blow, and she was born again. +Sparta went away victorious, and died slowly of her own wounds. The +Boers lost the South African War and gained South Africa. + +And this is really all that we can do when we fight something really +stronger than ourselves; we can deal it its death-wound one moment; it +deals us death in the end. It is something if we can shock and jar the +unthinking impetus and enormous innocence of evil; just as a pebble on +a railway can stagger the Scotch express. It is enough for the great +martyrs and criminals of the French revolution, that they have surprised +for all time the secret weakness of the strong. They have awakened and +set leaping and quivering in his crypt for ever the coward in the hearts +of kings. + +..... + +When Jack the Giant-Killer really first saw the giant his experience was +not such as has been generally supposed. If you care to hear it I will +tell you the real story of Jack the Giant-Killer. To begin with, the +most awful thing which Jack first felt about the giant was that he was +not a giant. He came striding across an interminable wooded plain, and +against its remote horizon the giant was quite a small figure, like a +figure in a picture--he seemed merely a man walking across the grass. +Then Jack was shocked by remembering that the grass which the man was +treading down was one of the tallest forests upon that plain. The man +came nearer and nearer, growing bigger and bigger, and at the instant +when he passed the possible stature of humanity Jack almost screamed. +The rest was an intolerable apocalypse. + +The giant had the one frightful quality of a miracle; the more he became +incredible the more he became solid. The less one could believe in him +the more plainly one could see him. It was unbearable that so much of +the sky should be occupied by one human face. His eyes, which had stood +out like bow windows, became bigger yet, and there was no metaphor that +could contain their bigness; yet still they were human eyes. Jack's +intellect was utterly gone under that huge hypnotism of the face that +filled the sky; his last hope was submerged, his five wits all still +with terror. + +But there stood up in him still a kind of cold chivalry, a dignity of +dead honour that would not forget the small and futile sword in his +hand. He rushed at one of the colossal feet of this human tower, and +when he came quite close to it the ankle-bone arched over him like a +cave. Then he planted the point of his sword against the foot and leant +on it with all his weight, till it went up to the hilt and broke the +hilt, and then snapped just under it. And it was plain that the giant +felt a sort of prick, for he snatched up his great foot into his great +hand for an instant; and then, putting it down again, he bent over and +stared at the ground until he had seen his enemy. + +Then he picked up Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw him +away; and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were flying from +system to system through the universe of stars. But, as the giant had +thrown him away carelessly, he did not strike a stone, but struck soft +mire by the side of a distant river. There he lay insensible for several +hours; but when he awoke again his horrible conqueror was still in +sight. He was striding away across the void and wooded plain towards +where it ended in the sea; and by this time he was only much higher than +any of the hills. He grew less and less indeed; but only as a really +high mountain grows at last less and less when we leave it in a railway +train. Half an hour afterwards he was a bright blue colour, as are the +distant hills; but his outline was still human and still gigantic. Then +the big blue figure seemed to come to the brink of the big blue sea, and +even as it did so it altered its attitude. Jack, stunned and bleeding, +lifted himself laboriously upon one elbow to stare. The giant once more +caught hold of his ankle, wavered twice as in a wind, and then went over +into the great sea which washes the whole world, and which, alone of all +things God has made, was big enough to drown him. + + + + +XXI. A Great Man + +People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always +seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils +from private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous +but blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for +exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything +so valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never +gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million +times in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to +meet him in real life. The Yellow Pressman seems to have no power of +catching the first fresh fact about a man that dominates all after +impressions. For instance, before I met Bernard Shaw I heard that +he spoke with a reckless desire for paradox or a sneering hatred of +sentiment; but I never knew till he opened his mouth that he spoke with +an Irish accent, which is more important than all the other criticisms +put together. + +Journalism is not personal enough. So far from digging out private +personalities, it cannot even report the obvious personalities on the +surface. Now there is one vivid and even bodily impression of this kind +which we have all felt when we met great poets or politicians, but which +never finds its way into the newspapers. I mean the impression that +they are much older than we thought they were. We connect great men with +their great triumphs, which generally happened some years ago, and many +recruits enthusiastic for the thin Napoleon of Marengo must have found +themselves in the presence of the fat Napoleon of Leipzic. + +I remember reading a newspaper account of how a certain rising +politician confronted the House of Lords with the enthusiasm almost of +boyhood. It described how his "brave young voice" rang in the rafters. +I also remember that I met him some days after, and he was considerably +older than my own father. I mention this truth for only one purpose: all +this generalisation leads up to only one fact--the fact that I once met +a great man who was younger than I expected. + +..... + +I had come over the wooded wall from the villages about Epsom, and down +a stumbling path between trees towards the valley in which Dorking lies. +A warm sunlight was working its way through the leafage; a sunlight +which though of saintless gold had taken on the quality of evening. It +was such sunlight as reminds a man that the sun begins to set an instant +after noon. It seemed to lessen as the wood strengthened and the road +sank. + +I had a sensation peculiar to such entangled descents; I felt that the +treetops that closed above me were the fixed and real things, certain as +the level of the sea; but that the solid earth was every instant failing +under my feet. In a little while that splendid sunlight showed only in +splashes, like flaming stars and suns in the dome of green sky. Around +me in that emerald twilight were trunks of trees of every plain or +twisted type; it was like a chapel supported on columns of every earthly +and unearthly style of architecture. + +Without intention my mind grew full of fancies on the nature of the +forest; on the whole philosophy of mystery and force. For the meaning of +woods is the combination of energy with complexity. A forest is not +in the least rude or barbarous; it is only dense with delicacy. Unique +shapes that an artist would copy or a philosopher watch for years if he +found them in an open plain are here mingled and confounded; but it is +not a darkness of deformity. It is a darkness of life; a darkness of +perfection. And I began to think how much of the highest human obscurity +is like this, and how much men have misunderstood it. People will tell +you, for instance, that theology became elaborate because it was dead. +Believe me, if it had been dead it would never have become elaborate; it +is only the live tree that grows too many branches. + +..... + +These trees thinned and fell away from each other, and I came out into +deep grass and a road. I remember being surprised that the evening was +so far advanced; I had a fancy that this valley had a sunset all to +itself. I went along that road according to directions that had been +given me, and passed the gateway in a slight paling beyond which the +wood changed only faintly to a garden. It was as if the curious courtesy +and fineness of that character I was to meet went out from him upon the +valley; for I felt on all these things the finger of that quality which +the old English called "faerie"; it is the quality which those can never +understand who think of the past as merely brutal; it is an ancient +elegance such as there is in trees. I went through the garden and saw +an old man sitting by a table, looking smallish in his big chair. He +was already an invalid, and his hair and beard were both white; not like +snow, for snow is cold and heavy, but like something feathery, or even +fierce; rather they were white like the white thistledown. I came up +quite close to him; he looked at me as he put out his frail hand, and +I saw of a sudden that his eyes were startlingly young. He was the one +great man of the old world whom I have met who was not a mere statue +over his own grave. + +He was deaf and he talked like a torrent. He did not talk about the +books he had written; he was far too much alive for that. He talked +about the books he had not written. He unrolled a purple bundle of +romances which he had never had time to sell. He asked me to write one +of the stories for him, as he would have asked the milkman, if he had +been talking to the milkman. It was a splendid and frantic story, a sort +of astronomical farce. It was all about a man who was rushing up to the +Royal Society with the only possible way of avoiding an earth-destroying +comet; and it showed how, even on this huge errand, the man was tripped +up at every other minute by his own weakness and vanities; how he lost +a train by trifling or was put in gaol for brawling. That is only one +of them; there were ten or twenty more. Another, I dimly remember, was +a version of the fall of Parnell; the idea that a quite honest man might +be secret from a pure love of secrecy, of solitary self-control. I went +out of that garden with a blurred sensation of the million possibilities +of creative literature. The feeling increased as my way fell back into +the wood; for a wood is a palace with a million corridors that cross +each other everywhere. I really had the feeling that I had seen the +creative quality; which is supernatural. I had seen what Virgil calls +the Old Man of the Forest: I had seen an elf. The trees thronged behind +my path; I have never seen him again; and now I shall not see him, +because he died last Tuesday. + + + + +XXII. The Orthodox Barber + +Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love +of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it +would, if they had it. There is a very real thing which may be called +the love of humanity; in our time it exists almost entirely among what +are called uneducated people; and it does not exist at all among the +people who talk about it. + +A positive pleasure in being in the presence of any other human being is +chiefly remarkable, for instance, in the masses on Bank Holiday; that is +why they are so much nearer Heaven (despite appearances) than any other +part of our population. + +I remember seeing a crowd of factory girls getting into an empty train +at a wayside country station. There were about twenty of them; they all +got into one carriage; and they left all the rest of the train entirely +empty. That is the real love of humanity. That is the definite pleasure +in the immediate proximity of one's own kind. Only this coarse, rank, +real love of men seems to be entirely lacking in those who propose +the love of humanity as a substitute for all other love; honourable, +rationalistic idealists. + +I can well remember the explosion of human joy which marked the sudden +starting of that train; all the factory girls who could not find seats +(and they must have been the majority) relieving their feelings by +jumping up and down. Now I have never seen any rationalistic idealists +do this. I have never seen twenty modern philosophers crowd into one +third-class carriage for the mere pleasure of being together. I have +never seen twenty Mr. McCabes all in one carriage and all jumping up and +down. + +Some people express a fear that vulgar trippers will overrun all +beautiful places, such as Hampstead or Burnham Beeches. But their fear +is unreasonable; because trippers always prefer to trip together; +they pack as close as they can; they have a suffocating passion of +philanthropy. + +..... + +But among the minor and milder aspects of the same principle, I have no +hesitation in placing the problem of the colloquial barber. Before any +modern man talks with authority about loving men, I insist (I insist +with violence) that he shall always be very much pleased when his barber +tries to talk to him. His barber is humanity: let him love that. If he +is not pleased at this, I will not accept any substitute in the way of +interest in the Congo or the future of Japan. If a man cannot love his +barber whom he has seen, how shall he love the Japanese whom he has not +seen? + +It is urged against the barber that he begins by talking about the +weather; so do all dukes and diplomatists, only that they talk about +it with ostentatious fatigue and indifference, whereas the barber talks +about it with an astonishing, nay incredible, freshness of interest. It +is objected to him that he tells people that they are going bald. +That is to say, his very virtues are cast up against him; he is blamed +because, being a specialist, he is a sincere specialist, and because, +being a tradesman, he is not entirely a slave. But the only proof of +such things is by example; therefore I will prove the excellence of the +conversation of barbers by a specific case. Lest any one should accuse +me of attempting to prove it by fictitious means, I beg to say quite +seriously that though I forget the exact language employed, the +following conversation between me and a human (I trust), living barber +really took place a few days ago. + +..... + +I had been invited to some At Home to meet the Colonial Premiers, and +lest I should be mistaken for some partly reformed bush-ranger out +of the interior of Australia I went into a shop in the Strand to get +shaved. While I was undergoing the torture the man said to me: + +"There seems to be a lot in the papers about this new shaving, sir. It +seems you can shave yourself with anything--with a stick or a stone or a +pole or a poker" (here I began for the first time to detect a sarcastic +intonation) "or a shovel or a----" + +Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing about the +matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical vein. + +"Or a button-hook," I said, "or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram or a +piston-rod----" + +He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, "Or a curtain rod or a +candle-stick, or a----" + +"Cow-catcher," I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic +duet for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told +me. He explained the thing eloquently and at length. + +"The funny part of it is," he said, "that the thing isn't new at all. +It's been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before. There is +always a notion that the razor might be done without somehow. But none +of those schemes ever came to anything; and I don't believe myself that +this will." + +"Why, as to that," I said, rising slowly from the chair and trying to +put on my coat inside out, "I don't know how it may be in the case of +you and your new shaving. Shaving, with all respect to you, is a trivial +and materialistic thing, and in such things startling inventions are +sometimes made. But what you say reminds me in some dark and dreamy +fashion of something else. I recall it especially when you tell me, +with such evident experience and sincerity, that the new shaving is not +really new. My friend, the human race is always trying this dodge of +making everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts +off one thing it shifts on to another. If one man has not the toil of +preparing a man's chin, I suppose that some other man has the toil of +preparing something very curious to put on a man's chin. It would be +nice if we could be shaved without troubling anybody. It would be nicer +still if we could go unshaved without annoying anybody-- + + "'But, O wise friend, chief Barber of the Strand, + Brother, nor you nor I have made the world.' + +"Whoever made it, who is wiser, and we hope better than we, made it +under strange limitations, and with painful conditions of pleasure. + +"In the first and darkest of its books it is fiercely written that a man +shall not eat his cake and have it; and though all men talked until the +stars were old it would still be true that a man who has lost his razor +could not shave with it. But every now and then men jump up with the new +something or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, +that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there is no real +difference between being shaved and not being shaved. The difference, +they say, is only a difference of degree; everything is evolutionary +and relative. Shavedness is immanent in man. Every ten-penny nail is +a Potential Razor. The superstitious people of the past (they say) +believed that a lot of black bristles standing out at right angles to +one's face was a positive affair. But the higher criticism teaches us +better. Bristles are merely negative. They are a Shadow where Shaving +should be. + +"Well, it all goes on, and I suppose it all means something. But a +baby is the Kingdom of God, and if you try to kiss a baby he will know +whether you are shaved or not. Perhaps I am mixing up being shaved and +being saved; my democratic sympathies have always led me to drop my +'h's.' In another moment I may suggest that goats represent the +lost because goats have long beards. This is growing altogether too +allegorical. + +"Nevertheless," I added, as I paid the bill, "I have really been +profoundly interested in what you told me about the New Shaving. Have +you ever heard of a thing called the New theology?" + +He smiled and said that he had not. + + + + +XXIII. The Toy Theatre + +There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; +and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys takes so +very much more time and trouble than anything else. Playing as children +mean playing is the most serious thing in the world; and as soon as we +have small duties or small sorrows we have to abandon to some extent +so enormous and ambitious a plan of life. We have enough strength +for politics and commerce and art and philosophy; we have not enough +strength for play. This is a truth which every one will recognize who, +as a child, has ever played with anything at all; any one who has played +with bricks, any one who has played with dolls, any one who has played +with tin soldiers. My journalistic work, which earns money, is not +pursued with such awful persistency as that work which earned nothing. + +..... + +Take the case of bricks. If you publish a book to-morrow in twelve +volumes (it would be just like you) on "The Theory and Practice +of European Architecture," your work may be laborious, but it is +fundamentally frivolous. It is not serious as the work of a child piling +one brick on the other is serious; for the simple reason that if your +book is a bad book no one will ever be able ultimately and entirely to +prove to you that it is a bad book. Whereas if his balance of bricks +is a bad balance of bricks, it will simply tumble down. And if I know +anything of children, he will set to work solemnly and sadly to build it +up again. Whereas, if I know anything of authors, nothing would induce +you to write your book again, or even to think of it again if you could +help it. + +Take the case of dolls. It is much easier to care for an educational +cause than to care for a doll. It is as easy to write an article on +education as to write an article on toffee or tramcars or anything else. +But it is almost as difficult to look after a doll as to look after a +child. The little girls that I meet in the little streets of Battersea +worship their dolls in a way that reminds one not so much of play as +idolatry. In some cases the love and care of the artistic symbol has +actually become more important than the human reality which it was, I +suppose, originally meant to symbolize. + +I remember a Battersea little girl who wheeled her large baby sister +stuffed into a doll's perambulator. When questioned on this course of +conduct, she replied: "I haven't got a dolly, and Baby is pretending to +be my dolly." Nature was indeed imitating art. First a doll had been a +substitute for a child; afterwards a child was a mere substitute for a +doll. But that opens other matters; the point is here that such devotion +takes up most of the brain and most of the life; much as if it were +really the thing which it is supposed to symbolize. The point is that +the man writing on motherhood is merely an educationalist; the child +playing with a doll is a mother. + +Take the case of soldiers. A man writing an article on military strategy +is simply a man writing an article; a horrid sight. But a boy making a +campaign with tin soldiers is like a General making a campaign with live +soldiers. He must to the limit of his juvenile powers think about the +thing; whereas the war correspondent need not think at all. I remember +a war correspondent who remarked after the capture of Methuen: "This +renewed activity on the part of Delarey is probably due to his +being short of stores." The same military critic had mentioned a few +paragraphs before that Delarey was being hard pressed by a column which +was pursuing him under the command of Methuen. Methuen chased Delarey; +and Delarey's activity was due to his being short of stores. Otherwise +he would have stood quite still while he was chased. I run after Jones +with a hatchet, and if he turns round and tries to get rid of me the +only possible explanation is that he has a very small balance at his +bankers. I cannot believe that any boy playing at soldiers would be as +idiotic as this. But then any one playing at anything has to be serious. +Whereas, as I have only too good reason to know, if you are writing an +article you can say anything that comes into your head. + +..... + +Broadly, then, what keeps adults from joining in children's games is, +generally speaking, not that they have no pleasure in them; it is simply +that they have no leisure for them. It is that they cannot afford the +expenditure of toil and time and consideration for so grand and grave a +scheme. I have been myself attempting for some time past to complete +a play in a small toy theatre, the sort of toy theatre that used to be +called Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured; only that I drew and coloured +the figures and scenes myself. Hence I was free from the degrading +obligation of having to pay either a penny or twopence; I only had to +pay a shilling a sheet for good cardboard and a shilling a box for bad +water colours. The kind of miniature stage I mean is probably familiar +to every one; it is never more than a development of the stage which +Skelt made and Stevenson celebrated. + +But though I have worked much harder at the toy theatre than I ever +worked at any tale or article, I cannot finish it; the work seems +too heavy for me. I have to break off and betake myself to lighter +employments; such as the biographies of great men. The play of "St. +George and the Dragon," over which I have burnt the midnight oil (you +must colour the thing by lamplight because that is how it will be seen), +still lacks most conspicuously, alas! two wings of the Sultan's Palace, +and also some comprehensible and workable way of getting up the curtain. + +All this gives me a feeling touching the real meaning of immortality. +In this world we cannot have pure pleasure. This is partly because +pure pleasure would be dangerous to us and to our neighbours. But it is +partly because pure pleasure is a great deal too much trouble. If I am +ever in any other and better world, I hope that I shall have enough +time to play with nothing but toy theatres; and I hope that I shall have +enough divine and superhuman energy to act at least one play in them +without a hitch. + +..... + +Meanwhile the philosophy of toy theatres is worth any one's +consideration. All the essential morals which modern men need to learn +could be deduced from this toy. Artistically considered, it reminds us +of the main principle of art, the principle which is in most danger +of being forgotten in our time. I mean the fact that art consists of +limitation; the fact that art is limitation. Art does not consist in +expanding things. Art consists of cutting things down, as I cut down +with a pair of scissors my very ugly figures of St. George and the +Dragon. Plato, who liked definite ideas, would like my cardboard dragon; +for though the creature has few other artistic merits he is at least +dragonish. The modern philosopher, who likes infinity, is quite welcome +to a sheet of the plain cardboard. The most artistic thing about the +theatrical art is the fact that the spectator looks at the whole thing +through a window. This is true even of theatres inferior to my own; even +at the Court Theatre or His Majesty's you are looking through a window; +an unusually large window. But the advantage of the small theatre +exactly is that you are looking through a small window. Has not every +one noticed how sweet and startling any landscape looks when seen +through an arch? This strong, square shape, this shutting off of +everything else is not only an assistance to beauty; it is the essential +of beauty. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. + +This especially is true of the toy theatre; that, by reducing the scale +of events it can introduce much larger events. Because it is small it +could easily represent the earthquake in Jamaica. Because it is small it +could easily represent the Day of Judgment. Exactly in so far as it is +limited, so far it could play easily with falling cities or with falling +stars. Meanwhile the big theatres are obliged to be economical because +they are big. When we have understood this fact we shall have understood +something of the reason why the world has always been first inspired by +small nationalities. The vast Greek philosophy could fit easier into +the small city of Athens than into the immense Empire of Persia. In the +narrow streets of Florence Dante felt that there was room for Purgatory +and Heaven and Hell. He would have been stifled by the British Empire. +Great empires are necessarily prosaic; for it is beyond human power to +act a great poem upon so great a scale. You can only represent very big +ideas in very small spaces. My toy theatre is as philosophical as the +drama of Athens. + + + + +XXIV. A Tragedy of Twopence + +My relations with the readers of this page have been long and pleasant, +but--perhaps for that very reason--I feel that the time has come when I +ought to confess the one great crime of my life. It happened a long time +ago; but it is not uncommon for a belated burst of remorse to reveal +such dark episodes long after they have occurred. It has nothing to do +with the orgies of the Anti-Puritan League. That body is so offensively +respectable that a newspaper, in describing it the other day, referred +to my friend Mr. Edgar Jepson as Canon Edgar Jepson; and it is believed +that similar titles are intended for all of us. No; it is not by the +conduct of Archbishop Crane, of Dean Chesterton, of the Rev. James +Douglas, of Monsignor Bland, and even of that fine and virile old +ecclesiastic, Cardinal Nesbit, that I wish (or rather, am driven by +my conscience) to make this declaration. The crime was committed in +solitude and without accomplices. Alone I did it. Let me, with the +characteristic thirst of penitents to get the worst of the confession +over, state it first of all in its most dreadful and indefensible form. +There is at the present moment in a town in Germany (unless he has died +of rage on discovering his wrong), a restaurant-keeper to whom I still +owe twopence. I last left his open-air restaurant knowing that I owed +him twopence. I carried it away under his nose, despite the fact that +the nose was a decidedly Jewish one. I have never paid him, and it is +highly improbable that I ever shall. How did this villainy come to occur +in a life which has been, generally speaking, deficient in the dexterity +necessary for fraud? The story is as follows--and it has a moral, though +there may not be room for that. + +..... + +It is a fair general rule for those travelling on the Continent that the +easiest way of talking in a foreign language is to talk philosophy. The +most difficult kind of talking is to talk about common necessities. The +reason is obvious. The names of common necessities vary completely +with each nation and are generally somewhat odd and quaint. How, for +instance, could a Frenchman suppose that a coalbox would be called a +"scuttle"? If he has ever seen the word scuttle it has been in the +Jingo Press, where the "policy of scuttle" is used whenever we give +up something to a small Power like Liberals, instead of giving up +everything to a great Power, like Imperialists. What Englishman in +Germany would be poet enough to guess that the Germans call a glove a +"hand-shoe." Nations name their necessities by nicknames, so to +speak. They call their tubs and stools by quaint, elvish, and almost +affectionate names, as if they were their own children! But any one can +argue about abstract things in a foreign language who has ever got as +far as Exercise IV. in a primer. For as soon as he can put a +sentence together at all he finds that the words used in abstract or +philosophical discussions are almost the same in all nations. They are +the same, for the simple reason that they all come from the things that +were the roots of our common civilisation. From Christianity, from +the Roman Empire, from the mediaeval Church, or the French Revolution. +"Nation," "citizen," "religion," "philosophy," "authority," "the +Republic," words like these are nearly the same in all the countries in +which we travel. Restrain, therefore, your exuberant admiration for the +young man who can argue with six French atheists when he first lands at +Dieppe. Even I can do that. But very likely the same young man does not +know the French for a shoe-horn. But to this generalisation there +are three great exceptions. (1) In the case of countries that are not +European at all, and have never had our civic conceptions, or the old +Latin scholarship. I do not pretend that the Patagonian phrase for +"citizenship" at once leaps to the mind, or that a Dyak's word for "the +Republic" has been familiar to me from the nursery. (2) In the case of +Germany, where, although the principle does apply to many words such +as "nation" and "philosophy," it does not apply so generally, because +Germany has had a special and deliberate policy of encouraging the +purely German part of its language. (3) In the case where one does not +know any of the language at all, as is generally the case with me. + +..... + +Such at least was my situation on the dark day on which I committed my +crime. Two of the exceptional conditions which I have mentioned were +combined. I was walking about a German town, and I knew no German. I +knew, however, two or three of those great and solemn words which hold +our European civilisation together--one of which is "cigar." As it was a +hot and dreamy day, I sat down at a table in a sort of beer-garden, and +ordered a cigar and a pot of lager. I drank the lager, and paid for +it. I smoked the cigar, forgot to pay for it, and walked away, gazing +rapturously at the royal outline of the Taunus mountains. After about +ten minutes, I suddenly remembered that I had not paid for the cigar. I +went back to the place of refreshment, and put down the money. But the +proprietor also had forgotten the cigar, and he merely said guttural +things in a tone of query, asking me, I suppose, what I wanted. I said +"cigar," and he gave me a cigar. I endeavoured while putting down the +money to wave away the cigar with gestures of refusal. He thought that +my rejection was of the nature of a condemnation of that particular +cigar, and brought me another. I whirled my arms like a windmill, +seeking to convey by the sweeping universality of my gesture that my +rejection was a rejection of cigars in general, not of that particular +article. He mistook this for the ordinary impatience of common men, and +rushed forward, his hands filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing +them upon me. In desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the +more cigars I refused the more and more rare and precious cigars were +brought out of the deeps and recesses of the establishment. I tried in +vain to think of a way of conveying to him the fact that I had already +had the cigar. I imitated the action of a citizen smoking, knocking off +and throwing away a cigar. The watchful proprietor only thought I was +rehearsing (as in an ecstasy of anticipation) the joys of the cigar he +was going to give me. At last I retired baffled: he would not take the +money and leave the cigars alone. So that this restaurant-keeper (in +whose face a love of money shone like the sun at noonday) flatly and +firmly refused to receive the twopence that I certainly owed him; and +I took that twopence of his away with me and rioted on it for months. I +hope that on the last day the angels will break the truth very gently to +that unhappy man. + +..... + +This is the true and exact account of the Great Cigar Fraud, and the +moral of it is this--that civilisation is founded upon abstractions. The +idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed by physical motions at +all, because it is an abstract idea. And civilisation obviously would be +nothing without debt. So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific +sociology (which does not exist) come and tell you that civilisation is +material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourselves how many of +the things that make up our Society, the Law, or the Stocks and Shares, +or the National Debt, you would be able to convey with your face and +your ten fingers by grinning and gesticulating to a German innkeeper. + + + + +XXV. A Cab Ride Across Country + +Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there lies +a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, but of +eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, which asked the present writer +to come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address. + +Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon, +owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws and +customs have fallen in connection with the seventh day. It is not +Puritanism; it is simply anarchy. I should have some sympathy with the +Jewish Sabbath, if it were a Jewish Sabbath, and that for three reasons; +first, that religion is an intrinsically sympathetic thing; second, that +I cannot conceive any religion worth calling a religion without a fixed +and material observance; and third, that the particular observance of +sitting still and doing no work is one that suits my temperament down to +the ground. + +But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it does not +let a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him up when it has forced +him to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism does not forbid us to ask a man +in Battersea to come and talk in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his +getting there. I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with +joys, with flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. I can +understand that a deity might be worshipped with sorrows. But I cannot +imagine any deity being worshipped with inconveniences. Let the good +Moslem go to Mecca, or let him abide in his tent, according to his +feelings for religious symbols. But surely Allah cannot see anything +particularly dignified in his servant being misled by the time-table, +finding that the old Mecca express is not running, missing his +connection at Bagdad, or having to wait three hours in a small side +station outside Damascus. + +So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph +service at all to this place; I found there was only one weak thread +of train-service. Now if this had been the authority of real English +religion, I should have submitted to it at once. If I believed that +the telegraph clerk could not send the telegram because he was at that +moment rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, I should think all telegrams +unimportant in comparison. If I could believe that railway porters when +relieved from their duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of +worship, I should say that all lectures and everything else ought to +give way to such a consideration. I should not complain if the national +faith forbade me to make any appointments of labour or self-expression +on the Sabbath. But, as it is, it only tells me that I may very probably +keep the Sabbath by not keeping the appointment. + +..... + +But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there was +only one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could even get +within several hours or several miles of the time or place. I therefore +went to the telephone, which is one of my favourite toys, and down which +I have shouted many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon +art and morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered +that one could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be +cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the +advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer +words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a +taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. I have not a word to say in +general either against telephones or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two +of the purest and most poetic of the creations of modern scientific +civilisation. Unfortunately, when the taxi-cab started, it did exactly +what modern scientific civilisation has done--it broke down. The result +of this was that when I arrived at King's Cross my only train was gone; +there was a Sabbath calm in the station, a calm in the eyes of the +porters, and in my breast, if calm at all, if any calm, a calm despair. + +There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my breast on first +making the discovery; and it was turned to blinding horror when I learnt +that I could not even send a telegram to the organisers of the meeting. +To leave my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; to +leave them without any intimation was simply low. I reasoned with the +official. I said: "Do you really mean to say that if my brother were +dying and my mother in this place, I could not communicate with her?" He +was a man of literal and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was +dying. I answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health, +but that I was inquiring upon a question of principle. What would happen +if England were invaded, or if I alone knew how to turn aside a comet or +an earthquake. He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible +spirit, but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this +particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element of the +outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang up ungovernable, +and I decided that I would not be a cad merely because some of my remote +ancestors had been Calvinists. I would keep my appointment if I lost all +my money and all my wits. I went out into the quiet London street, where +my quiet London cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty +morning. I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the +London driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. And he did. + +..... + +I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful weather, even in a +motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver, +not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road. +I urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, but +he said (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate sense of +adventure) that he would rather do it when we arrived--if we ever did. I +was by no means so delicate; I bought a varied selection of pork-pies +at a little shop that was open (why was that shop open?--it is all a +mystery), and ate them as we went along. The beginning was sombre and +irritating. I was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a +baby; with the motor for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday. +And the sight of the northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did +not decrease, my gloom: Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness in its +squalor; Battersea and Camberwell have an indescribable bustle of +democracy; but the poor parts of North London... well, perhaps I saw +them wrongly under that ashen morning and on that foolish errand. + +It was one of those days which more than once this year broke the +retreat of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. We +were already clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace +through a borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, when +the grey showed golden patches and a good light began to glitter on +everything. The cab went quicker and quicker. The open land whirled +wider and wider; but I did not lose my sense of being battled with +and thwarted that I had felt in the thronged slums. Rather the feeling +increased, because of the great difficulty of space and time. The faster +went the car, the fiercer and thicker I felt the fight. + +The whole landscape seemed charging at me--and just missing me. The +tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; the very trees +seemed like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving it by a hair's +breadth. Across some vast, smooth valley I saw a beech-tree by the +white road stand up little and defiant. It grew bigger and bigger with +blinding rapidity. It charged me like a tilting knight, seemed to hack +at my head, and pass by. Sometimes when we went round a curve of road, +the effect was yet more awful. It seemed as if some tree or windmill +swung round to smite like a boomerang. The sun by this time was a +blazing fact; and I saw that all Nature is chivalrous and militant. We +do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we should rather seek the nobler sort +of war; and see all the trees as green banners. + +..... + +I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was deciding to leave. +When my cab came reeling into the market-place they decided, with +evident disappointment, to remain. Over the lecture I draw a veil. +When I came back home I was called to the telephone, and a meek voice +expressed regret for the failure of the motor-cab, and even said +something about any reasonable payment. "Whom can I pay for my own +superb experience? What is the usual charge for seeing the clouds +shattered by the sun? What is the market price of a tree blue on the +sky-line and then blinding white in the sun? Mention your price for that +windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks in the garden. Let me pay you +for..." Here it was, I think, that we were cut off. + + + + +XXVI. The Two Noises + +For three days and three nights the sea had charged England as Napoleon +charged her at Waterloo. The phrase is instinctive, because away to +the last grey line of the sea there was only the look of galloping +squadrons, impetuous, but with a common purpose. The sea came on like +cavalry, and when it touched the shore it opened the blazing eyes and +deafening tongues of the artillery. I saw the worst assault at night on +a seaside parade where the sea smote on the doors of England with the +hammers of earthquake, and a white smoke went up into the black heavens. +There one could thoroughly realise what an awful thing a wave really is. +I talk like other people about the rushing swiftness of a wave. But the +horrible thing about a wave is its hideous slowness. It lifts its load +of water laboriously: in that style at once slow and slippery in which +a Titan might lift a load of rock and then let it slip at last to be +shattered into shock of dust. In front of me that night the waves were +not like water: they were like falling city walls. The breaker rose +first as if it did not wish to attack the earth; it wished only to +attack the stars. For a time it stood up in the air as naturally as a +tower; then it went a little wrong in its outline, like a tower that +might some day fall. When it fell it was as if a powder magazine blew +up. + +..... + +I have never seen such a sea. All the time there blew across the land +one of those stiff and throttling winds that one can lean up against +like a wall. One expected anything to be blown out of shape at any +instant; the lamp-post to be snapped like a green stalk, the tree to be +whirled away like a straw. I myself should certainly have been blown out +of shape if I had possessed any shape to be blown out of; for I walked +along the edge of the stone embankment above the black and battering sea +and could not rid myself of the idea that it was an invasion of England. +But as I walked along this edge I was somewhat surprised to find that +as I neared a certain spot another noise mingled with the ceaseless +cannonade of the sea. + +Somewhere at the back, in some pleasure ground or casino or place of +entertainment, an undaunted brass band was playing against the cosmic +uproar. I do not know what band it was. Judging from the boisterous +British Imperialism of most of the airs it played, I should think it was +a German band. But there was no doubt about its energy, and when I came +quite close under it it really drowned the storm. It was playing such +things as "Tommy Atkins" and "You Can Depend on Young Australia," and +many others of which I do not know the words, but I should think they +would be "John, Pat, and Mac, With the Union Jack," or that fine though +unwritten poem, "Wait till the Bull Dog gets a bite of you." Now, I +for one detest Imperialism, but I have a great deal of sympathy with +Jingoism. And there seemed something so touching about this unbroken and +innocent bragging under the brutal menace of Nature that it made, if I +may so put it, two tunes in my mind. It is so obvious and so jolly to +be optimistic about England, especially when you are an optimist--and +an Englishman. But through all that glorious brass came the voice of the +invasion, the undertone of that awful sea. I did a foolish thing. As I +could not express my meaning in an article, I tried to express it in +a poem--a bad one. You can call it what you like. It might be called +"Doubt," or "Brighton." It might be called "The Patriot," or yet again +"The German Band." I would call it "The Two Voices," but that title has +been taken for a grossly inferior poem. This is how it began-- + + "They say the sun is on your knees + A lamp to light your lands from harm, + They say you turn the seven seas + To little brooks about your farm. + I hear the sea and the new song + that calls you empress all day long. + + "(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie + Dying in swamps--you shall not die, + Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust, + Your poor are chased about like dust, + Emptied of anger and surprise-- + And God has gone out of their eyes, + Your cohorts break--your captains lie, + I say to you, you shall not die.)" + +Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there is an English +country that the Imperialists have never found. The British Empire +may annex what it likes, it will never annex England. It has not even +discovered the island, let alone conquered it. I took up the two tunes +again with a greater sympathy for the first-- + + "I know the bright baptismal rains, + I love your tender troubled skies, + I know your little climbing lanes, + Are peering into Paradise, + From open hearth to orchard cool, + How bountiful and beautiful. + + "(O throttled and without a cry, + O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die, + The frightful word is on your walls, + The east sea to the west sea calls, + The stars are dying in the sky, + You shall not die; you shall not die.)" + +Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the +peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. It +is their fault if the last verse was written a little rudely and at +random-- + + "I see you how you smile in state + Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar, + You need not tell me you are great, + I know how more than great you are. + I know what William Shakespeare was, + I have seen Gainsborough and the grass. + + "(O given to believe a lie, + O my mad mother, do do not die, + Whose eyes turn all ways but within, + Whose sin is innocence of sin, + Whose eyes, blinded with beams at noon, + Can see the motes upon the moon, + You shall your lover still pursue. + To what last madhouse shelters you + I will uphold you, even I. + You that are dead. You shall not die.)" + +But the sea would not stop for me any more than for Canute; and as for +the German band, that would not stop for anybody. + + + + +XXVII. Some Policemen and a Moral + +The other day I was nearly arrested by two excited policemen in a wood +in Yorkshire. I was on a holiday, and was engaged in that rich and +intricate mass of pleasures, duties, and discoveries which for the +keeping off of the profane, we disguise by the exoteric name of Nothing. +At the moment in question I was throwing a big Swedish knife at a tree, +practising (alas, without success) that useful trick of knife-throwing +by which men murder each other in Stevenson's romances. + +Suddenly the forest was full of two policemen; there was something about +their appearance in and relation to the greenwood that reminded me, +I know not how, of some happy Elizabethan comedy. They asked what the +knife was, who I was, why I was throwing it, what my address was, trade, +religion, opinions on the Japanese war, name of favourite cat, and so +on. They also said I was damaging the tree; which was, I am sorry to +say, not true, because I could not hit it. The peculiar philosophical +importance, however, of the incident was this. After some half-hour's +animated conversation, the exhibition of an envelope, an unfinished +poem, which was read with great care, and, I trust, with some profit, +and one or two other subtle detective strokes, the elder of the two +knights became convinced that I really was what I professed to be, that +I was a journalist, that I was on the DAILY NEWS (this was the real +stroke; they were shaken with a terror common to all tyrants), that +I lived in a particular place as stated, and that I was stopping +with particular people in Yorkshire, who happened to be wealthy and +well-known in the neighbourhood. + +In fact the leading constable became so genial and complimentary at last +that he ended up by representing himself as a reader of my work. And +when that was said, everything was settled. They acquitted me and let me +pass. + +"But," I said, "what of this mangled tree? It was to the rescue of that +Dryad, tethered to the earth, that you rushed like knight-errants. You, +the higher humanitarians, are not deceived by the seeming stillness +of the green things, a stillness like the stillness of the cataract, a +headlong and crashing silence. You know that a tree is but a creature +tied to the ground by one leg. You will not let assassins with their +Swedish daggers shed the green blood of such a being. But if so, why am +I not in custody; where are my gyves? Produce, from some portion of your +persons, my mouldy straw and my grated window. The facts of which I have +just convinced you, that my name is Chesterton, that I am a journalist, +that I am living with the well-known and philanthropic Mr. Blank of +Ilkley, cannot have anything to do with the question of whether I have +been guilty of cruelty to vegetables. The tree is none the less damaged +even though it may reflect with a dark pride that it was wounded by a +gentleman connected with the Liberal press. Wounds in the bark do not +more rapidly close up because they are inflicted by people who are +stopping with Mr. Blank of Ilkley. That tree, the ruin of its former +self, the wreck of what was once a giant of the forest, now splintered +and laid low by the brute superiority of a Swedish knife, that tragedy, +constable, cannot be wiped out even by stopping for several months more +with some wealthy person. It is incredible that you have no legal claim +to arrest even the most august and fashionable persons on this charge. +For if so, why did you interfere with me at all?" + +I made the later and larger part of this speech to the silent wood, for +the two policemen had vanished almost as quickly as they came. It is +very possible, of course, that they were fairies. In that case the +somewhat illogical character of their view of crime, law, and personal +responsibility would find a bright and elfish explanation; perhaps if I +had lingered in the glade till moonrise I might have seen rings of tiny +policemen dancing on the sward; or running about with glow-worm belts, +arresting grasshoppers for damaging blades of grass. But taking the +bolder hypothesis, that they really were policemen, I find myself in +a certain difficulty. I was certainly accused of something which was +either an offence or was not. I was let off because I proved I was a +guest at a big house. The inference seems painfully clear; either it is +not a proof of infamy to throw a knife about in a lonely wood, or else +it is a proof of innocence to know a rich man. Suppose a very poor +person, poorer even than a journalist, a navvy or unskilled labourer, +tramping in search of work, often changing his lodgings, often, perhaps, +failing in his rent. Suppose he had been intoxicated with the green +gaiety of the ancient wood. Suppose he had thrown knives at trees and +could give no description of a dwelling-place except that he had been +fired out of the last. As I walked home through a cloudy and purple +twilight I wondered how he would have got on. + +Moral. We English are always boasting that we are very illogical; there +is no great harm in that. There is no subtle spiritual evil in the fact +that people always brag about their vices; it is when they begin to brag +about their virtues that they become insufferable. But there is this to +be said, that illogicality in your constitution or your legal methods +may become very dangerous if there happens to be some great national +vice or national temptation which many take advantage of the chaos. +Similarly, a drunkard ought to have strict rules and hours; a temperate +man may obey his instincts. + +Take some absurd anomaly in the British law--the fact, for instance, +that a man ceasing to be an M. P. has to become Steward of the Chiltern +Hundreds, an office which I believe was intended originally to keep down +some wild robbers near Chiltern, wherever that is. Obviously this kind +of illogicality does not matter very much, for the simple reason that +there is no great temptation to take advantage of it. Men retiring from +Parliament do not have any furious impulse to hunt robbers in the hills. +But if there were a real danger that wise, white-haired, venerable +politicians taking leave of public life would desire to do this (if, +for instance, there were any money in it), then clearly, if we went on +saying that the illogicality did not matter, when (as a matter of fact) +Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was hanging Chiltern shop-keepers every day and +taking their property, we should be very silly. The illogicality would +matter, for it would have become an excuse for indulgence. It is only +the very good who can live riotous lives. + +Now this is exactly what is present in cases of police investigation +such as the one narrated above. There enters into such things a great +national sin, a far greater sin than drink--the habit of respecting a +gentleman. Snobbishness has, like drink, a kind of grand poetry. And +snobbishness has this peculiar and devilish quality of evil, that it is +rampant among very kindly people, with open hearts and houses. But it is +our great English vice; to be watched more fiercely than small-pox. If a +man wished to hear the worst and wickedest thing in England summed up in +casual English words, he would not find it in any foul oaths or ribald +quarrelling. He would find it in the fact that the best kind of working +man, when he wishes to praise any one, calls him "a gentleman." It never +occurs to him that he might as well call him "a marquis," or "a privy +councillor"--that he is simply naming a rank or class, not a phrase +for a good man. And this perennial temptation to a shameful admiration, +must, and, I think, does, constantly come in and distort and poison our +police methods. + +In this case we must be logical and exact; for we have to keep watch +upon ourselves. The power of wealth, and that power at its vilest, is +increasing in the modern world. A very good and just people, without +this temptation, might not need, perhaps, to make clear rules and +systems to guard themselves against the power of our great financiers. +But that is because a very just people would have shot them long ago, +from mere native good feeling. + + + + +XXVIII. The Lion + +In the town of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We +talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is the +man in the street. Things quite central for him are connected with these +lamp-posts and pavements; everything from his meals to his martyrdoms. +When first an Englishman looks at a French town or village his first +feeling is simply that it is uglier than an English town or village; +when he looks again he sees that this comparative absence of the +picturesque is chiefly expressed in the plain, precipitous frontage +of the houses standing up hard and flat out of the street like the +cardboard houses in a pantomime--a hard angularity allied perhaps to +the harshness of French logic. When he looks a third time he sees quite +simply that it is all because the houses have no front gardens. The +vague English spirit loves to have the entrance to its house softened by +bushes and broken by steps. It likes to have a little anteroom of hedges +half in the house and half out of it; a green room in a double sense. +The Frenchman desires no such little pathetic ramparts or halting +places, for the street itself is a thing natural and familiar to him. + +..... + +The French have no front gardens; but the street is every man's front +garden. There are trees in the street, and sometimes fountains. The +street is the Frenchman's tavern, for he drinks in the street. It is his +dining-room, for he dines in the street. It is his British Museum, for +the statues and monuments in French streets are not, as with us, of the +worst, but of the best, art of the country, and they are often actually +as historical as the Pyramids. The street again is the Frenchman's +Parliament, for France has never taken its Chamber of Deputies so +seriously as we take our House of Commons, and the quibbles of mere +elected nonentities in an official room seem feeble to a people whose +fathers have heard the voice of Desmoulins like a trumpet under open +heaven, or Victor Hugo shouting from his carriage amid the wreck of the +second Republic. And as the Frenchman drinks in the street and dines in +the street so also he fights in the street and dies in the street, so +that the street can never be commonplace to him. + +Take, for instance, such a simple object as a lamp-post. In London +a lamp-post is a comic thing. We think of the intoxicated gentleman +embracing it, and recalling ancient friendship. But in Paris a lamp-post +is a tragic thing. For we think of tyrants hanged on it, and of an +end of the world. There is, or was, a bitter Republican paper in Paris +called LA LANTERNE. How funny it would be if there were a Progressive +paper in England called THE LAMP POST! We have said, then, that the +Frenchman is the man in the street; that he can dine in the street, and +die in the street. And if I ever pass through Paris and find him going +to bed in the street, I shall say that he is still true to the genius +of his civilisation. All that is good and all that is evil in France is +alike connected with this open-air element. French democracy and French +indecency are alike part of the desire to have everything out of doors. +Compared to a cafe, a public-house is a private house. + +..... + +There were two reasons why all these fancies should float through the +mind in the streets of this especial town of Belfort. First of all, it +lies close upon the boundary of France and Germany, and boundaries are +the most beautiful things in the world. To love anything is to love its +boundaries; thus children will always play on the edge of anything. +They build castles on the edge of the sea, and can only be restrained by +public proclamation and private violence from walking on the edge of the +grass. For when we have come to the end of a thing we have come to the +beginning of it. + +Hence this town seemed all the more French for being on the very +margin of Germany, and although there were many German touches in +the place--German names, larger pots of beer, and enormous theatrical +barmaids dressed up in outrageous imitation of Alsatian peasants--yet +the fixed French colour seemed all the stronger for these specks +of something else. All day long and all night long troops of dusty, +swarthy, scornful little soldiers went plodding through the streets with +an air of stubborn disgust, for German soldiers look as if they despised +you, but French soldiers as if they despised you and themselves even +more than you. It is a part, I suppose, of the realism of the nation +which has made it good at war and science and other things in which what +is necessary is combined with what is nasty. And the soldiers and the +civilians alike had most of them cropped hair, and that curious kind of +head which to an Englishman looks almost brutal, the kind that we call a +bullet-head. Indeed, we are speaking very appropriately when we call it +a bullet-head, for in intellectual history the heads of Frenchmen have +been bullets--yes, and explosive bullets. + +..... + +But there was a second reason why in this place one should think +particularly of the open-air politics and the open-air art of the +French. For this town of Belfort is famous for one of the most typical +and powerful of the public monuments of France. From the cafe table at +which I sit I can see the hill beyond the town on which hangs the high +and flat-faced citadel, pierced with many windows, and warmed in the +evening light. On the steep hill below it is a huge stone lion, itself +as large as a hill. It is hacked out of the rock with a sort of gigantic +impression. No trivial attempt has been made to make it like a common +statue; no attempt to carve the mane into curls, or to distinguish +the monster minutely from the earth out of which he rises, shaking the +world. The face of the lion has something of the bold conventionality +of Assyrian art. The mane of the lion is left like a shapeless cloud of +tempest, as if it might literally be said of him that God had clothed +his neck with thunder. Even at this distance the thing looks vast, and +in some sense prehistoric. Yet it was carved only a little while ago. +It commemorates the fact that this town was never taken by the Germans +through all the terrible year, but only laid down its arms at last at +the command of its own Government. But the spirit of it has been in +this land from the beginning--the spirit of something defiant and almost +defeated. + +As I leave this place and take the railway into Germany the news comes +thicker and thicker up the streets that Southern France is in a flame, +and that there perhaps will be fought out finally the awful modern +battle of the rich and poor. And as I pass into quieter places for the +last sign of France on the sky-line, I see the Lion of Belfort stand at +bay, the last sight of that great people which has never been at peace. + + + + +XXIX. Humanity: an Interlude + +Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, +the City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything noble +cut out, and everything nasty left in. No one can understand Paris and +its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance +and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but +it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses +is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but +quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they +are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. For +the indecency of many of their books and papers is not of the sort which +charms and seduces, but of the sort that horrifies and hurts; they are +torturing themselves. They lash their own patriotism into life with the +same whips which most men use to lash foreigners to silence. The enemies +of France can never give an account of her infamy or decay which does +not seem insipid and even polite compared with the things which the +Nationalists of France say about their own nation. They taunt and +torment themselves; sometimes they even deliberately oppress themselves. +Thus, when the mob of Paris could make a Government to please itself, it +made a sort of sublime tyranny to order itself about. The spirit is the +same from the Crusades or St. Bartholomew to the apotheosis of Zola. +The old religionists tortured men physically for a moral truth. The new +realists torture men morally for a physical truth. + +Now Brussels is Paris without this constant purification of pain. Its +indecencies are not regrettable incidents in an everlasting revolution. +It has none of the things which make good Frenchmen love Paris; it has +only the things which make unspeakable Englishmen love it. It has +the part which is cosmopolitan--and narrows; not the part which is +Parisian--and universal. You can find there (as commonly happens in +modern centres) the worst things of all nations--the DAILY MAIL from +England, the cheap philosophies from Germany, the loose novels of +France, and the drinks of America. But there is no English broad fun, +no German kindly ceremony, no American exhilaration, and, above all, no +French tradition of fighting for an idea. Though all the boulevards look +like Parisian boulevards, though all the shops look like Parisian shops, +you cannot look at them steadily for two minutes without feeling the +full distance between, let us say, King Leopold and fighters like +Clemenceau and Deroulede. + +..... + +For all these reasons, and many more, when I had got into Brussels I +began to make all necessary arrangements for getting out of it again; +and I had impulsively got into a tram which seemed to be going out of +the city. In this tram there were two men talking; one was a little +man with a black French beard; the other was a baldish man with bushy +whiskers, like the financial foreign count in a three-act farce. And +about the time that we reached the suburb of the city, and the traffic +grew thinner, and the noises more few, I began to hear what they were +saying. Though they spoke French quickly, their words were fairly easy +to follow, because they were all long words. Anybody can understand long +words because they have in them all the lucidity of Latin. + +The man with the black beard said: "It must that we have the Progress." + +The man with the whiskers parried this smartly by saying: "It must also +that we have the Consolidation International." + +This is a sort of discussion which I like myself, so I listened with +some care, and I think I picked up the thread of it. One of the Belgians +was a Little Belgian, as we speak of a Little Englander. The other was a +Belgian Imperialist, for though Belgium is not quite strong enough to be +altogether a nation, she is quite strong enough to be an empire. Being +a nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being an empire only +means kicking your inferiors. The man with whiskers was the Imperialist, +and he was saying: "The science, behold there the new guide of +humanity." + +And the man with the beard answered him: "It does not suffice to have +progress in the science; one must have it also in the sentiment of the +human justice." + +This remark I applauded, as if at a public meeting, but they were much +too keen on their argument to hear me. The views I have often heard +in England, but never uttered so lucidly, and certainly never so fast. +Though Belgian by nation they must both have been essentially French. +Whiskers was great on education, which, it seems, is on the march. +All the world goes to make itself instructed. It must that the more +instructed enlighten the less instructed. Eh, well then, the European +must impose upon the savage the science and the light. Also (apparently) +he must impose himself on the savage while he is about it. To-day one +travelled quickly. The science had changed all. For our fathers, +they were religious, and (what was worse) dead. To-day humanity had +electricity to the hand; the machines came from triumphing; all the +lines and limits of the globe effaced themselves. Soon there would not +be but the great Empires and confederations, guided by the science, +always the science. + +Here Whiskers stopped an instant for breath; and the man with the +sentiment for human justice had "la parole" off him in a flash. Without +doubt Humanity was on the march, but towards the sentiments, the +ideal, the methods moral and pacific. Humanity directed itself towards +Humanity. For your wars and empires on behalf of civilisation, what were +they in effect? The war, was it not itself an affair of the barbarism? +The Empires were they not things savage? The Humanity had passed all +that; she was now intellectual. Tolstoy had refined all human souls with +the sentiments the most delicate and just. Man was become a spirit; the +wings pushed.... + +..... + +At this important point of evolution the tram came to a jerky stoppage; +and staring around I found, to my stunned consternation, that it was +almost dark, that I was far away from Brussels, that I could not +dream of getting back to dinner; in short, that through the clinging +fascination of this great controversy on Humanity and its recent +complete alteration by science or Tolstoy, I had landed myself Heaven +knows where. I dropped hastily from the suburban tram and let it go on +without me. + +I was alone in the flat fields out of sight of the city. On one side +of the road was one of those small, thin woods which are common in all +countries, but of which, by a coincidence, the mystical painters of +Flanders were very fond. The night was closing in with cloudy purple +and grey; there was one ribbon of silver, the last rag of the sunset. +Through the wood went one little path, and somehow it suggested that it +might lead to some sign of life--there was no other sign of life on the +horizon. I went along it, and soon sank into a sort of dancing twilight +of all those tiny trees. There is something subtle and bewildering about +that sort of frail and fantastic wood. A forest of big trees seems +like a bodily barrier; but somehow that mist of thin lines seems like a +spiritual barrier. It is as if one were caught in a fairy cloud or could +not pass a phantom. When I had well lost the last gleam of the high +road a curious and definite feeling came upon me. Now I suddenly +felt something much more practical and extraordinary--the absence of +humanity: inhuman loneliness. Of course, there was nothing really lost +in my state; but the mood may hit one anywhere. I wanted men--any men; +and I felt our awful alliance over all the globe. And at last, when I +had walked for what seemed a long time, I saw a light too near the earth +to mean anything except the image of God. + +I came out on a clear space and a low, long cottage, the door of which +was open, but was blocked by a big grey horse, who seemed to prefer to +eat with his head inside the sitting-room. I got past him, and found +he was being fed by a young man who was sitting down and drinking beer +inside, and who saluted me with heavy rustic courtesy, but in a strange +tongue. The room was full of staring faces like owls, and these I traced +at length as belonging to about six small children. Their father was +still working in the fields, but their mother rose when I entered. She +smiled, but she and all the rest spoke some rude language, Flamand, I +suppose; so that we had to be kind to each other by signs. She fetched +me beer, and pointed out my way with her finger; and I drew a picture +to please the children; and as it was a picture of two men hitting each +other with swords, it pleased them very much. Then I gave a Belgian +penny to each child, for as I said on chance in French, "It must be that +we have the economic equality." But they had never heard of economic +equality, while all Battersea workmen have heard of economic equality, +though it is true that they haven't got it. + +I found my way back to the city, and some time afterwards I actually +saw in the street my two men talking, no doubt still saying, one that +Science had changed all in Humanity, and the other that Humanity was now +pushing the wings of the purely intellectual. But for me Humanity was +hooked on to an accidental picture. I thought of a low and lonely house +in the flats, behind a veil or film of slight trees, a man breaking the +ground as men have broken from the first morning, and a huge grey horse +champing his food within a foot of a child's head, as in the stable +where Christ was born. + + + + +XXX. The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + +On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that in a few hours +I should be in England, my eye fell upon one of the details of Gothic +carving of which Flanders is full. I do not know whether the thing is +old, though it was certainly knocked about and indecipherable, but at +least it was certainly in the style and tradition of the early Middle +Ages. It seemed to represent men bending themselves (not to say twisting +themselves) to certain primary employments. Some seemed to be +sailors tugging at ropes; others, I think, were reaping; others were +energetically pouring something into something else. This is entirely +characteristic of the pictures and carvings of the early thirteenth +century, perhaps the most purely vigorous time in all history. The great +Greeks preferred to carve their gods and heroes doing nothing. Splendid +and philosophic as their composure is there is always about it something +that marks the master of many slaves. But if there was one thing +the early mediaevals liked it was representing people doing +something--hunting or hawking, or rowing boats, or treading grapes, or +making shoes, or cooking something in a pot. "Quicquid agunt homines, +votum, timor, ira voluptas." (I quote from memory.) The Middle Ages +is full of that spirit in all its monuments and manuscripts. Chaucer +retains it in his jolly insistence on everybody's type of trade and +toil. It was the earliest and youngest resurrection of Europe, the time +when social order was strengthening, but had not yet become oppressive; +the time when religious faiths were strong, but had not yet been +exasperated. For this reason the whole effect of Greek and Gothic +carving is different. The figures in the Elgin marbles, though often +reining their steeds for an instant in the air, seem frozen for ever at +that perfect instant. But a mass of mediaeval carving seems actually +a sort of bustle or hubbub in stone. Sometimes one cannot help feeling +that the groups actually move and mix, and the whole front of a great +cathedral has the hum of a huge hive. + +..... + +But about these particular figures there was a peculiarity of which I +could not be sure. Those of them that had any heads had very curious +heads, and it seemed to me that they had their mouths open. Whether or +no this really meant anything or was an accident of nascent art I do not +know; but in the course of wondering I recalled to my mind the fact that +singing was connected with many of the tasks there suggested, that there +were songs for reapers and songs for sailors hauling ropes. I was +still thinking about this small problem when I walked along the pier +at Ostend; and I heard some sailors uttering a measured shout as they +laboured, and I remembered that sailors still sing in chorus while they +work, and even sing different songs according to what part of their work +they are doing. And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was +over, the sight of men working in the English fields reminded me +again that there are still songs for harvest and for many agricultural +routines. And I suddenly wondered why if this were so it should be quite +unknown, for any modern trade to have a ritual poetry. How did people +come to chant rude poems while pulling certain ropes or gathering +certain fruit, and why did nobody do anything of the kind while +producing any of the modern things? Why is a modern newspaper never +printed by people singing in chorus? Why do shopmen seldom, if ever, +sing? + +..... + +If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while +auditing and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all the +separate things that have to be done in a boat, why are there not songs +for all the separate things that have to be done in a bank? As the train +from Dover flew through the Kentish gardens, I tried to write a few +songs suitable for commercial gentlemen. Thus, the work of bank clerks +when casting up columns might begin with a thundering chorus in praise +of Simple Addition. + +"Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er. Hear the +Stars of Morning shouting: 'Two and Two are four.' Though the creeds and +realms are reeling, though the sophists roar, Though we weep and pawn +our watches, Two and Two are Four." + +"There's a run upon the Bank--Stand away! For the Manager's a crank and +the Secretary drank, and the + + Upper Tooting Bank + Turns to bay! + Stand close: there is a run + On the Bank. + Of our ship, our royal one, let the ringing legend run, + That she fired with every gun + Ere she sank." + +..... + +And as I came into the cloud of London I met a friend of mine who +actually is in a bank, and submitted these suggestions in rhyme to him +for use among his colleagues. But he was not very hopeful about the +matter. It was not (he assured me) that he underrated the verses, or in +any sense lamented their lack of polish. No; it was rather, he felt, an +indefinable something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we +live that makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks. And I think +he must be right; though the matter is very mysterious. I may observe +here that I think there must be some mistake in the calculations of the +Socialists. They put down all our distress, not to a moral tone, but +to the chaos of private enterprise. Now, banks are private; but +post-offices are Socialistic: therefore I naturally expected that the +post-office would fall into the collectivist idea of a chorus. Judge of +my surprise when the lady in my local post-office (whom I urged to sing) +dismissed the idea with far more coldness than the bank clerk had done. +She seemed indeed, to be in a considerably greater state of depression +than he. Should any one suppose that this was the effect of the verses +themselves, it is only fair to say that the specimen verse of the +Post-Office Hymn ran thus: + + "O'er London our letters are shaken like snow, + Our wires o'er the world like the thunderbolts go. + The news that may marry a maiden in Sark, + Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +Chorus (with a swing of joy and energy): + + "Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +And the more I thought about the matter the more painfully certain it +seemed that the most important and typical modern things could not be +done with a chorus. One could not, for instance, be a great financier +and sing; because the essence of being a great financier is that you +keep quiet. You could not even in many modern circles be a public man +and sing; because in those circles the essence of being a public man is +that you do nearly everything in private. Nobody would imagine a chorus +of money-lenders. Every one knows the story of the solicitors' corps of +volunteers who, when the Colonel on the battlefield cried "Charge!" all +said simultaneously, "Six-and-eightpence." Men can sing while charging +in a military, but hardly in a legal sense. And at the end of my +reflections I had really got no further than the sub-conscious feeling +of my friend the bank-clerk--that there is something spiritually +suffocating about our life; not about our laws merely, but about our +life. Bank-clerks are without songs, not because they are poor, but +because they are sad. Sailors are much poorer. As I passed homewards I +passed a little tin building of some religious sort, which was shaken +with shouting as a trumpet is torn with its own tongue. THEY were +singing anyhow; and I had for an instant a fancy I had often had before: +that with us the super-human is the only place where you can find the +human. Human nature is hunted and has fled into sanctuary. + + + + +XXXI. The Riddle of the Ivy + +More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, a +friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded with +half-packed luggage. + +"You seem to be off on your travels," he said. "Where are you going?" + +With a strap between my teeth I replied, "To Battersea." + +"The wit of your remark," he said, "wholly escapes me." + +"I am going to Battersea," I repeated, "to Battersea via Paris, Belfort, +Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained +simply the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once +more I find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, +somewhere in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little +island which I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great +white cliffs. Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch +travellers tell me that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour +that somewhere in the heart of it there is a beautiful place called +Battersea." + +"I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you," said my friend, with an air +of intellectual comparison, "that this is Battersea?" + +"It is quite unnecessary," I said, "and it is spiritually untrue. I +cannot see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or any England. I +cannot see that door. I cannot see that chair: because a cloud of sleep +and custom has come across my eyes. The only way to get back to them is +to go somewhere else; and that is the real object of travel and the real +pleasure of holidays. Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see +France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? +I shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking. I am +seeking Battersea. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on +foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a +foreign land. Now I warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and +heavy, and that if you utter that word 'paradox' I shall hurl it at your +head. I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical. It is +not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go to England is to +go away from it." + +But when, after only a month's travelling, I did come back to England, I +was startled to find that I had told the exact truth. England did break +on me at once beautifully new and beautifully old. To land at Dover is +the right way to approach England (most things that are hackneyed are +right), for then you see first the full, soft gardens of Kent, which +are, perhaps, an exaggeration, but still a typical exaggeration, of the +rich rusticity of England. As it happened, also, a fellow-traveller with +whom I had fallen into conversation felt the same freshness, though for +another cause. She was an American lady who had seen Europe, and had +never yet seen England, and she expressed her enthusiasm in that +simple and splendid way which is natural to Americans, who are the most +idealistic people in the whole world. Their only danger is that the +idealist can easily become the idolator. And the American has become +so idealistic that he even idealises money. But (to quote a very able +writer of American short stories) that is another story. + +"I have never been in England before," said the American lady, "yet +it is so pretty that I feel as if I have been away from it for a long +time." + +"So you have," I said; "you have been away for three hundred years." + +"What a lot of ivy you have," she said. "It covers the churches and +it buries the houses. We have ivy; but I have never seen it grow like +that." + +"I am interested to hear it," I replied, "for I am making a little list +of all the things that are really better in England. Even a month on +the Continent, combined with intelligence, will teach you that there are +many things that are better abroad. All the things that the DAILY MAIL +calls English are better abroad. But there are things entirely English +and entirely good. Kippers, for instance, and Free Trade, and front +gardens, and individual liberty, and the Elizabethan drama, and hansom +cabs, and cricket, and Mr. Will Crooks. Above all, there is the happy +and holy custom of eating a heavy breakfast. I cannot imagine that +Shakespeare began the day with rolls and coffee, like a Frenchman or a +German. Surely he began with bacon or bloaters. In fact, a light bursts +upon me; for the first time I see the real meaning of Mrs. Gallup and +the Great Cipher. It is merely a mistake in the matter of a capital +letter. I withdraw my objections; I accept everything; bacon did write +Shakespeare." + +"I cannot look at anything but the ivy," she said, "it looks so +comfortable." + +While she looked at the ivy I opened for the first time for many weeks +an English newspaper, and I read a speech of Mr. Balfour in which +he said that the House of Lords ought to be preserved because it +represented something in the nature of permanent public opinion of +England, above the ebb and flow of the parties. Now Mr. Balfour is a +perfectly sincere patriot, a man who, from his own point of view, thinks +long and seriously about the public needs, and he is, moreover, a man +of entirely exceptionable intellectual power. But alas, in spite of +all this, when I had read that speech I thought with a heavy heart that +there was one more thing that I had to add to the list of the specially +English things, such as kippers and cricket; I had to add the specially +English kind of humbug. In France things are attacked and defended for +what they are. The Catholic Church is attacked because it is Catholic, +and defended because it is Catholic. The Republic is defended because +it is Republican, and attacked because it is Republican. But here is the +ablest of English politicians consoling everybody by telling them that +the House of Lords is not really the House of Lords, but something quite +different, that the foolish accidental peers whom he meets every night +are in some mysterious way experts upon the psychology of the democracy; +that if you want to know what the very poor want you must ask the very +rich, and that if you want the truth about Hoxton, you must ask for it +at Hatfield. If the Conservative defender of the House of Lords were +a logical French politician he would simply be a liar. But being an +English politician he is simply a poet. The English love of believing +that all is as it should be, the English optimism combined with the +strong English imagination, is too much even for the obvious facts. In a +cold, scientific sense, of course, Mr. Balfour knows that nearly all the +Lords who are not Lords by accident are Lords by bribery. He knows, and +(as Mr. Belloc excellently said) everybody in Parliament knows the very +names of the peers who have purchased their peerages. But the glamour +of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring himself and reassuring others, is +too strong for this original knowledge; at last it fades from him, +and he sincerely and earnestly calls on Englishmen to join with him in +admiring an august and public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten +that the Senate really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; +and adventurers whom he has himself ennobled. + +"Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick," said the American lady, "it +seems to cover almost everything. It must be the most poetical thing in +England." + +"It is very beautiful," I said, "and, as you say, it is very English. +Charles Dickens, who was almost more English than England, wrote one of +his rare poems about the beauty of ivy. Yes, by all means let us admire +the ivy, so deep, so warm, so full of a genial gloom and a grotesque +tenderness. Let us admire the ivy; and let us pray to God in His mercy +that it may not kill the tree." + + + + +XXXII. The Travellers in State + +The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught a train; it was a +train going into the Eastern Counties, and I only just caught it. And +while I was running along the train (amid general admiration) I noticed +that there were a quite peculiar and unusual number of carriages marked +"Engaged." On five, six, seven, eight, nine carriages was pasted the +little notice: at five, six, seven, eight, nine windows were big bland +men staring out in the conscious pride of possession. Their bodies +seemed more than usually impenetrable, their faces more than usual +placid. It could not be the Derby, if only for the minor reasons that +it was the opposite direction and the wrong day. It could hardly be +the King. It could hardly be the French President. For, though these +distinguished persons naturally like to be private for three hours, they +are at least public for three minutes. A crowd can gather to see +them step into the train; and there was no crowd here, or any police +ceremonial. + +Who were those awful persons, who occupied more of the train than a +bricklayer's beanfeast, and yet were more fastidious and delicate than +the King's own suite? Who were these that were larger than a mob, yet +more mysterious than a monarch? Was it possible that instead of our +Royal House visiting the Tsar, he was really visiting us? Or does the +House of Lords have a breakfast? I waited and wondered until the train +slowed down at some station in the direction of Cambridge. Then +the large, impenetrable men got out, and after them got out the +distinguished holders of the engaged seats. They were all dressed +decorously in one colour; they had neatly cropped hair; and they were +chained together. + +I looked across the carriage at its only other occupant, and our eyes +met. He was a small, tired-looking man, and, as I afterwards learnt, a +native of Cambridge; by the look of him, some working tradesman there, +such as a journeyman tailor or a small clock-mender. In order to make +conversation I said I wondered where the convicts were going. His mouth +twitched with the instinctive irony of our poor, and he said: "I don't +s'pose they're goin' on an 'oliday at the seaside with little spades +and pails." I was naturally delighted, and, pursuing the same vein of +literary invention, I suggested that perhaps dons were taken down to +Cambridge chained together like this. And as he lived in Cambridge, and +had seen several dons, he was pleased with such a scheme. Then when we +had ceased to laugh, we suddenly became quite silent; and the bleak, +grey eyes of the little man grew sadder and emptier than an open sea. I +knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same, because all +modern sophists are only sophists, and there is such a thing as mankind. +Then at last (and it fell in as exactly as the right last note of a tune +one is trying to remember) he said: "Well, I s'pose we 'ave to do it." +And in those three things, his first speech and his silence and his +second speech, there were all the three great fundamental facts of the +English democracy, its profound sense of humour, its profound sense of +pathos, and its profound sense of helplessness. + +..... + +It cannot be too often repeated that all real democracy is an attempt +(like that of a jolly hostess) to bring the shy people out. For every +practical purpose of a political state, for every practical purpose of a +tea-party, he that abaseth himself must be exalted. At a tea-party it +is equally obvious that he that exalteth himself must be abased, if +possible without bodily violence. Now people talk of democracy as +being coarse and turbulent: it is a self-evident error in mere history. +Aristocracy is the thing that is always coarse and turbulent: for it +means appealing to the self-confident people. Democracy means appealing +to the different people. Democracy means getting those people to vote +who would never have the cheek to govern: and (according to Christian +ethics) the precise people who ought to govern are the people who have +not the cheek to do it. There is a strong example of this truth in my +friend in the train. The only two types we hear of in this argument +about crime and punishment are two very rare and abnormal types. + +We hear of the stark sentimentalist, who talks as if there were no +problem at all: as if physical kindness would cure everything: as if +one need only pat Nero and stroke Ivan the Terrible. This mere belief in +bodily humanitarianism is not sentimental; it is simply snobbish. For +if comfort gives men virtue, the comfortable classes ought to be +virtuous--which is absurd. Then, again, we do hear of the yet weaker and +more watery type of sentimentalists: I mean the sentimentalist who +says, with a sort of splutter, "Flog the brutes!" or who tells you +with innocent obscenity "what he would do" with a certain man--always +supposing the man's hands were tied. + +This is the more effeminate type of the two; but both are weak and +unbalanced. And it is only these two types, the sentimental humanitarian +and the sentimental brutalitarian, whom one hears in the modern babel. +Yet you very rarely meet either of them in a train. You never meet +anyone else in a controversy. The man you meet in a train is like this +man that I met: he is emotionally decent, only he is intellectually +doubtful. So far from luxuriating in the loathsome things that could be +"done" to criminals, he feels bitterly how much better it would be if +nothing need be done. But something must be done. "I s'pose we 'ave to +do it." In short, he is simply a sane man, and of a sane man there is +only one safe definition. He is a man who can have tragedy in his heart +and comedy in his head. + +..... + +Now the real difficulty of discussing decently this problem of the +proper treatment of criminals is that both parties discuss the matter +without any direct human feeling. The denouncers of wrong are as cold as +the organisers of wrong. Humanitarianism is as hard as inhumanity. + +Let me take one practical instance. I think the flogging arranged in our +modern prisons is a filthy torture; all its scientific paraphernalia, +the photographing, the medical attendance, prove that it goes to the +last foul limit of the boot and rack. The cat is simply the rack without +any of its intellectual reasons. Holding this view strongly, I open the +ordinary humanitarian books or papers and I find a phrase like this, +"The lash is a relic of barbarism." So is the plough. So is the fishing +net. So is the horn or the staff or the fire lit in winter. What an +inexpressibly feeble phrase for anything one wants to attack--a relic of +barbarism! It is as if a man walked naked down the street to-morrow, and +we said that his clothes were not quite in the latest fashion. There is +nothing particularly nasty about being a relic of barbarism. Man is a +relic of barbarism. Civilisation is a relic of barbarism. + +But torture is not a relic of barbarism at all. In actuality it is +simply a relic of sin; but in comparative history it may well be called +a relic of civilisation. It has always been most artistic and elaborate +when everything else was most artistic and elaborate. Thus it was +detailed exquisite in the late Roman Empire, in the complex and gorgeous +sixteenth century, in the centralised French monarchy a hundred years +before the Revolution, and in the great Chinese civilisation to this +day. This is, first and last, the frightful thing we must remember. +In so far as we grow instructed and refined we are not (in any sense +whatever) naturally moving away from torture. We may be moving towards +torture. We must know what we are doing, if we are to avoid the enormous +secret cruelty which has crowned every historic civilisation. + +The train moves more swiftly through the sunny English fields. They have +taken the prisoners away, and I do not know what they have done with +them. + + + + +XXXIII. The Prehistoric Railway Station + +A railway station is an admirable place, although Ruskin did not think +so; he did not think so because he himself was even more modern than the +railway station. He did not think so because he was himself feverish, +irritable, and snorting like an engine. He could not value the ancient +silence of the railway station. + +"In a railway station," he said, "you are in a hurry, and therefore, +miserable"; but you need not be either unless you are as modern as +Ruskin. The true philosopher does not think of coming just in time for +his train except as a bet or a joke. + +The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to be late +for the one before. Do this, and you will find in a railway station +much of the quietude and consolation of a cathedral. It has many of the +characteristics of a great ecclesiastical building; it has vast arches, +void spaces, coloured lights, and, above all, it has recurrence or +ritual. It is dedicated to the celebration of water and fire the two +prime elements of all human ceremonial. Lastly, a station resembles the +old religions rather than the new religions in this point, that people +go there. In connection with this it should also be remembered that all +popular places, all sites, actually used by the people, tend to retain +the best routine of antiquity very much more than any localities or +machines used by any privileged class. Things are not altered so quickly +or completely by common people as they are by fashionable people. Ruskin +could have found more memories of the Middle Ages in the Underground +Railway than in the grand hotels outside the stations. The great palaces +of pleasure which the rich build in London all have brazen and vulgar +names. Their names are either snobbish, like the Hotel Cecil, or +(worse still) cosmopolitan like the Hotel Metropole. But when I go in a +third-class carriage from the nearest circle station to Battersea to the +nearest circle station to the DAILY NEWS, the names of the stations are +one long litany of solemn and saintly memories. Leaving Victoria I come +to a park belonging especially to St. James the Apostle; thence I go to +Westminster Bridge, whose very name alludes to the awful Abbey; Charing +Cross holds up the symbol of Christendom; the next station is called a +Temple; and Blackfriars remembers the mediaeval dream of a Brotherhood. + +If you wish to find the past preserved, follow the million feet of the +crowd. At the worst the uneducated only wear down old things by sheer +walking. But the educated kick them down out of sheer culture. + +I feel all this profoundly as I wander about the empty railway station, +where I have no business of any kind. I have extracted a vast number of +chocolates from automatic machines; I have obtained cigarettes, toffee, +scent, and other things that I dislike by the same machinery; I have +weighed myself, with sublime results; and this sense, not only of the +healthiness of popular things, but of their essential antiquity and +permanence, is still in possession of my mind. I wander up to the +bookstall, and my faith survives even the wild spectacle of modern +literature and journalism. Even in the crudest and most clamorous +aspects of the newspaper world I still prefer the popular to the proud +and fastidious. If I had to choose between taking in the DAILY MAIL and +taking in the TIMES (the dilemma reminds one of a nightmare), I should +certainly cry out with the whole of my being for the DAILY MAIL. Even +mere bigness preached in a frivolous way is not so irritating as mere +meanness preached in a big and solemn way. People buy the DAILY MAIL, +but they do not believe in it. They do believe in the TIMES, and +(apparently) they do not buy it. But the more the output of paper upon +the modern world is actually studied, the more it will be found to be +in all its essentials ancient and human, like the name of Charing Cross. +Linger for two or three hours at a station bookstall (as I am doing), +and you will find that it gradually takes on the grandeur and historic +allusiveness of the Vatican or Bodleian Library. The novelty is all +superficial; the tradition is all interior and profound. The DAILY MAIL +has new editions, but never a new idea. Everything in a newspaper that +is not the old human love of altar or fatherland is the old human love +of gossip. Modern writers have often made game of the old chronicles +because they chiefly record accidents and prodigies; a church struck +by lightning, or a calf with six legs. They do not seem to realise that +this old barbaric history is the same as new democratic journalism. It +is not that the savage chronicle has disappeared. It is merely that the +savage chronicle now appears every morning. + +As I moved thus mildly and vaguely in front of the bookstall, my eye +caught a sudden and scarlet title that for the moment staggered me. On +the outside of a book I saw written in large letters, "Get On or Get +Out." The title of the book recalled to me with a sudden revolt and +reaction all that does seem unquestionably new and nasty; it reminded +me that there was in the world of to-day that utterly idiotic thing, +a worship of success; a thing that only means surpassing anybody in +anything; a thing that may mean being the most successful person +in running away from a battle; a thing that may mean being the most +successfully sleepy of the whole row of sleeping men. When I saw those +words the silence and sanctity of the railway station were for the +moment shadowed. Here, I thought, there is at any rate something +anarchic and violent and vile. This title, at any rate, means the most +disgusting individualism of this individualistic world. In the fury of +my bitterness and passion I actually bought the book, thereby ensuring +that my enemy would get some of my money. I opened it prepared to find +some brutality, some blasphemy, which would really be an exception to +the general silence and sanctity of the railway station. I was prepared +to find something in the book that was as infamous as its title. + +I was disappointed. There was nothing at all corresponding to the +furious decisiveness of the remarks on the cover. After reading it +carefully I could not discover whether I was really to get on or to +get out; but I had a vague feeling that I should prefer to get out. +A considerable part of the book, particularly towards the end, was +concerned with a detailed description of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. +Undoubtedly Napoleon got on. He also got out. But I could not discover +in any way how the details of his life given here were supposed to help +a person aiming at success. One anecdote described how Napoleon always +wiped his pen on his knee-breeches. I suppose the moral is: always wipe +your pen on your knee-breeches, and you will win the battle of Wagram. +Another story told that he let loose a gazelle among the ladies of his +Court. Clearly the brutal practical inference is--loose a gazelle among +the ladies of your acquaintance, and you will be Emperor of the French. +Get on with a gazelle or get out. The book entirely reconciled me to +the soft twilight of the station. Then I suddenly saw that there was a +symbolic division which might be paralleled from biology. Brave men are +vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness +in the middle. But these modern cowards are all crustaceans; their +hardness is all on the cover and their softness is inside. But the +softness is there; everything in this twilight temple is soft. + + + + +XXXIV. The Diabolist + +Every now and then I have introduced into my essays an element of +truth. Things that really happened have been mentioned, such as meeting +President Kruger or being thrown out of a cab. What I have now to relate +really happened; yet there was no element in it of practical politics or +of personal danger. It was simply a quiet conversation which I had with +another man. But that quiet conversation was by far the most terrible +thing that has ever happened to me in my life. It happened so long ago +that I cannot be certain of the exact words of the dialogue, only of its +main questions and answers; but there is one sentence in it for which I +can answer absolutely and word for word. It was a sentence so awful that +I could not forget it if I would. It was the last sentence spoken; and +it was not spoken to me. + +The thing befell me in the days when I was at an art school. An art +school is different from almost all other schools or colleges in this +respect: that, being of new and crude creation and of lax discipline, +it presents a specially strong contrast between the industrious and the +idle. People at an art school either do an atrocious amount of work or +do no work at all. I belonged, along with other charming people, to the +latter class; and this threw me often into the society of men who were +very different from myself, and who were idle for reasons very different +from mine. I was idle because I was very much occupied; I was +engaged about that time in discovering, to my own extreme and lasting +astonishment, that I was not an atheist. But there were others also at +loose ends who were engaged in discovering what Carlyle called (I think +with needless delicacy) the fact that ginger is hot in the mouth. + +I value that time, in short, because it made me acquainted with a good +representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are two +very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. The +first is the fact that there is one real difference between men and +women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in +threes. The second is that when you find (as you often do) three young +cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk together every +day you generally find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for +some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. In these small +groups devoted to a drivelling dissipation there is almost always one +man who seems to have condescended to his company; one man who, while he +can talk a foul triviality with his fellows, can also talk politics with +a Socialist, or philosophy with a Catholic. + +It was just such a man whom I came to know well. It was strange, +perhaps, that he liked his dirty, drunken society; it was stranger +still, perhaps, that he liked my society. For hours of the day he would +talk with me about Milton or Gothic architecture; for hours of the night +he would go where I have no wish to follow him, even in speculation. He +was a man with a long, ironical face, and close and red hair; he was +by class a gentleman, and could walk like one, but preferred, for some +reason, to walk like a groom carrying two pails. He looked like a sort +of Super-jockey; as if some archangel had gone on the Turf. And I shall +never forget the half-hour in which he and I argued about real things +for the first and the last time. + +..... + +Along the front of the big building of which our school was a part ran +a huge slope of stone steps, higher, I think, than those that lead up to +St. Paul's Cathedral. On a black wintry evening he and I were wandering +on these cold heights, which seemed as dreary as a pyramid under the +stars. The one thing visible below us in the blackness was a burning and +blowing fire; for some gardener (I suppose) was burning something in the +grounds, and from time to time the red sparks went whirling past us like +a swarm of scarlet insects in the dark. Above us also it was gloom; +but if one stared long enough at that upper darkness, one saw vertical +stripes of grey in the black and then became conscious of the colossal +facade of the Doric building, phantasmal, yet filling the sky, as if +Heaven were still filled with the gigantic ghost of Paganism. + +..... + +The man asked me abruptly why I was becoming orthodox. Until he said it, +I really had not known that I was; but the moment he had said it I knew +it to be literally true. And the process had been so long and full that +I answered him at once out of existing stores of explanation. + +"I am becoming orthodox," I said, "because I have come, rightly or +wrongly, after stretching my brain till it bursts, to the old belief +that heresy is worse even than sin. An error is more menacing than +a crime, for an error begets crimes. An Imperialist is worse than a +pirate. For an Imperialist keeps a school for pirates; he teaches piracy +disinterestedly and without an adequate salary. A Free Lover is worse +than a profligate. For a profligate is serious and reckless even in his +shortest love; while a Free Lover is cautious and irresponsible even in +his longest devotion. I hate modern doubt because it is dangerous." + +"You mean dangerous to morality," he said in a voice of wonderful +gentleness. "I expect you are right. But why do you care about +morality?" + +I glanced at his face quickly. He had thrust out his neck as he had a +trick of doing; and so brought his face abruptly into the light of the +bonfire from below, like a face in the footlights. His long chin and +high cheek-bones were lit up infernally from underneath; so that +he looked like a fiend staring down into the flaming pit. I had an +unmeaning sense of being tempted in a wilderness; and even as I paused a +burst of red sparks broke past. + +"Aren't those sparks splendid?" I said. + +"Yes," he replied. + +"That is all that I ask you to admit," said I. "Give me those few red +specks and I will deduce Christian morality. Once I thought like you, +that one's pleasure in a flying spark was a thing that could come and +go with that spark. Once I thought that the delight was as free as the +fire. Once I thought that red star we see was alone in space. But now +I know that the red star is only on the apex of an invisible pyramid of +virtues. That red fire is only the flower on a stalk of living habits, +which you cannot see. Only because your mother made you say 'Thank you' +for a bun are you now able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars +of an instant or for the white stars of all time. Only because you were +humble before fireworks on the fifth of November do you now enjoy any +fireworks that you chance to see. You only like them being red because +you were told about the blood of the martyrs; you only like them +being bright because brightness is a glory. That flame flowered out of +virtues, and it will fade with virtues. Seduce a woman, and that spark +will be less bright. Shed blood, and that spark will be less red. Be +really bad, and they will be to you like the spots on a wall-paper." + +He had a horrible fairness of the intellect that made me despair of +his soul. A common, harmless atheist would have denied that religion +produced humility or humility a simple joy: but he admitted both. He +only said, "But shall I not find in evil a life of its own? Granted that +for every woman I ruin one of those red sparks will go out: will not the +expanding pleasure of ruin..." + +"Do you see that fire?" I asked. "If we had a real fighting democracy, +some one would burn you in it; like the devil-worshipper that you are." + +"Perhaps," he said, in his tired, fair way. "Only what you call evil I +call good." + +He went down the great steps alone, and I felt as if I wanted the steps +swept and cleaned. I followed later, and as I went to find my hat in the +low, dark passage where it hung, I suddenly heard his voice again, but +the words were inaudible. I stopped, startled: then I heard the voice of +one of the vilest of his associates saying, "Nobody can possibly know." +And then I heard those two or three words which I remember in every +syllable and cannot forget. I heard the Diabolist say, "I tell you I +have done everything else. If I do that I shan't know the difference +between right and wrong." I rushed out without daring to pause; and as +I passed the fire I did not know whether it was hell or the furious love +of God. + +I have since heard that he died: it may be said, I think, that he +committed suicide; though he did it with tools of pleasure, not with +tools of pain. God help him, I know the road he went; but I have never +known, or even dared to think, what was that place at which he stopped +and refrained. + + + + +XXXV. A Glimpse of My Country + +Whatever is it that we are all looking for? I fancy that it is really +quite close. When I was a boy I had a fancy that Heaven or Fairyland or +whatever I called it, was immediately behind my own back, and that this +was why I could never manage to see it, however often I twisted and +turned to take it by surprise. I had a notion of a man perpetually +spinning round on one foot like a teetotum in the effort to find that +world behind his back which continually fled from him. Perhaps this is +why the world goes round. Perhaps the world is always trying to look +over its shoulder and catch up the world which always escapes it, yet +without which it cannot be itself. + +In any case, as I have said, I think that we must always conceive of +that which is the goal of all our endeavours as something which is in +some strange way near. Science boasts of the distance of its stars; +of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. +But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost +menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. Always +the Kingdom of Heaven is "At Hand"; and Looking-glass Land is only +through the looking-glass. So I for one should never be astonished if +the next twist of a street led me to the heart of that maze in which all +the mystics are lost. I should not be at all surprised if I turned one +corner in Fleet Street and saw a yet queerer-looking lamp; I should not +be surprised if I turned a third corner and found myself in Elfland. + +I should not be surprised at this; but I was surprised the other day at +something more surprising. I took a turn out of Fleet Street and found +myself in England. + +..... + +The singular shock experienced perhaps requires explanation. In the +darkest or the most inadequate moments of England there is one thing +that should always be remembered about the very nature of our country. +It may be shortly stated by saying that England is not such a fool as +it looks. The types of England, the externals of England, always +misrepresent the country. England is an oligarchical country, and it +prefers that its oligarchy should be inferior to itself. + +The speaking in the House of Commons, for instance, is not only worse +than the speaking was, it is worse than the speaking is, in all or +almost all other places in small debating clubs or casual dinners. Our +countrymen probably prefer this solemn futility in the higher places of +the national life. It may be a strange sight to see the blind leading +the blind; but England provides a stranger. England shows us the blind +leading the people who can see. And this again is an under-statement +of the case. For the English political aristocrats not only speak worse +than many other people; they speak worse than themselves. The ignorance +of statesmen is like the ignorance of judges, an artificial and affected +thing. If you have the good fortune really to talk with a statesman, you +will be constantly startled with his saying quite intelligent things. It +makes one nervous at first. And I have never been sufficiently intimate +with such a man to ask him why it was a rule of his life in Parliament +to appear sillier than he was. + +It is the same with the voters. The average man votes below himself; he +votes with half a mind or with a hundredth part of one. A man ought to +vote with the whole of himself as he worships or gets married. A man +ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for +faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his +hands and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of +it should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, they +should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. But as it is, +the difficulty with English democracy at all elections is that it is +something less than itself. The question is not so much whether only a +minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of +the voter votes. + +..... + +This is the tragedy of England; you cannot judge it by its foremost men. +Its types do not typify. And on the occasion of which I speak I found +this to be so especially of that old intelligent middle class which I +had imagined had almost vanished from the world. It seemed to me that +all the main representatives of the middle class had gone off in one +direction or in the other; they had either set out in pursuit of the +Smart Set or they had set out in pursuit of the Simple Life. I cannot +say which I dislike more myself; the people in question are welcome to +have either of them, or, as is more likely, to have both, in hideous +alternations of disease and cure. But all the prominent men who plainly +represent the middle class have adopted either the single eye-glass of +Mr Chamberlain or the single eye of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + +The old class that I mean has no representative. Its food was plentiful; +but it had no show. Its food was plain; but it had no fads. It was +serious about politics; and when it spoke in public it committed the +solecism of trying to speak well. I thought that this old earnest +political England had practically disappeared. And as I say, I took one +turn out of Fleet Street and I found a room full of it. + +..... + +At the top of the room was a chair in which Johnson had sat. The +club was a club in which Wilkes had spoken, in a time when even the +ne'er-do-weel was virile. But all these things by themselves might be +merely archaism. The extraordinary thing was that this hall had all the +hubbub, the sincerity, the anger, the oratory of the eighteenth century. +The members of this club were of all shades of opinion, yet there was +not one speech which gave me that jar of unreality which I often have in +listening to the ablest men uttering my own opinion. The Toryism of this +club was like the Toryism of Johnson, a Toryism that could use humour +and appealed to humanity. The democracy of this club was like the +democracy of Wilkes, a democracy that can speak epigrams and fight +duels; a democracy that can face things out and endure slander; the +democracy of Wilkes, or, rather, the democracy of Fox. + +One thing especially filled my soul with the soul of my fathers. Each +man speaking, whether he spoke well or ill, spoke as well as he could +from sheer fury against the other man. This is the greatest of our +modern descents, that nowadays a man does not become more rhetorical +as he becomes more sincere. An eighteenth-century speaker, when he got +really and honestly furious, looked for big words with which to crush +his adversary. The new speaker looks for small words to crush him with. +He looks for little facts and little sneers. In a modern speech the +rhetoric is put into the merely formal part, the opening to which nobody +listens. But when Mr. Chamberlain, or a Moderate, or one of the harder +kind of Socialists, becomes really sincere, he becomes Cockney. "The +destiny of the Empire," or "The destiny of humanity," do well enough +for mere ornamental preliminaries, but when the man becomes angry and +honest, then it is a snarl, "Where do we come in?" or "It's your money +they want." + +The men in this eighteenth-century club were entirely different; they +were quite eighteenth century. Each one rose to his feet quivering with +passion, and tried to destroy his opponent, not with sniggering, but +actually with eloquence. I was arguing with them about Home Rule; at +the end I told them why the English aristocracy really disliked an Irish +Parliament; because it would be like their club. + +..... + +I came out again into Fleet Street at night, and by a dim lamp I saw +pasted up some tawdry nonsense about Wastrels and how London was rising +against something that London had hardly heard of. Then I suddenly +saw, as in one obvious picture, that the modern world is an immense and +tumultuous ocean, full of monstrous and living things. And I saw that +across the top of it is spread a thin, a very thin, sheet of ice, of +wicked wealth and of lying journalism. + +And as I stood there in the darkness I could almost fancy that I heard +it crack. + + + + +XXXVI. A Somewhat Improbable Story + +I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read it through +very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come to the conclusion +that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read it through very +carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet. The image and the +idea of it clung to me through a great part of my boyhood; I may have +dreamt it before I could talk; or told it to myself before I could read; +or read it before I could remember. On the whole, however, I am certain +that I did not read it, for children have very clear memories about +things like that; and of the books which I was really fond I can still +remember, not only the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position +of the printed words on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline to +the opinion that it happened to me before I was born. + +..... + +At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages of the +atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, for the sake of +argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch restaurants +in the City where men take their food so fast that it has none of the +quality of food, and take their half-hour's vacation so fast that it has +none of the qualities of leisure; to hurry through one's leisure is the +most unbusiness-like of actions. They all wore tall shiny hats as if +they could not lose an instant even to hang them on a peg, and they all +had one eye a little off, hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In +short, they were the slaves of the modern bondage, you could hear their +fetters clanking. Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest +chain ever tied to a man--it is called a watch-chain. + +Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man who +almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. He was like all +the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly opposite to them in all +manner. He wore a high shiny hat and a long frock coat, but he wore them +as such solemn things were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if +it were a mitre, and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high +priest. He not only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed (such was +his stateliness) almost to ask permission of the hat for doing so, and +to apologise to the peg for making use of it. When he had sat down on +a wooden chair with the air of one considering its feelings and given a +sort of slight stoop or bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an +altar, I could not help some comment springing to my lips. For the man +was a big, sanguine-faced, prosperous-looking man, and yet he treated +everything with a care that almost amounted to nervousness. + +For the sake of saying something to express my interest I said, "This +furniture is fairly solid; but, of course, people do treat it much too +carelessly." + +As I looked up doubtfully my eye caught his, and was fixed as his was +fixed in an apocalyptic stare. I had thought him ordinary as he entered, +save for his strange, cautious manner; but if the other people had seen +him then they would have screamed and emptied the room. They did not see +him, and they went on making a clatter with their forks, and a murmur +with their conversation. But the man's face was the face of a maniac. + +"Did you mean anything particular by that remark?" he asked at last, and +the blood crawled back slowly into his face. + +"Nothing whatever," I answered. "One does not mean anything here; it +spoils people's digestions." + +He limped back and wiped his broad forehead with a big handkerchief; and +yet there seemed to be a sort of regret in his relief. + +"I thought perhaps," he said in a low voice, "that another of them had +gone wrong." + +"If you mean another digestion gone wrong," I said, "I never heard of +one here that went right. This is the heart of the Empire, and the other +organs are in an equally bad way." + +"No, I mean another street gone wrong," and he said heavily and quietly, +"but as I suppose that doesn't explain much to you, I think I shall have +to tell you the story. I do so with all the less responsibility, because +I know you won't believe it. For forty years of my life I invariably +left my office, which is in Leadenhall Street, at half-past five in the +afternoon, taking with me an umbrella in the right hand and a bag in the +left hand. For forty years two months and four days I passed out of the +side office door, walked down the street on the left-hand side, took +the first turning to the left and the third to the right, from where I +bought an evening paper, followed the road on the right-hand side round +two obtuse angles, and came out just outside a Metropolitan station, +where I took a train home. For forty years two months and four days I +fulfilled this course by accumulated habit: it was not a long street +that I traversed, and it took me about four and a half minutes to do it. +After forty years two months and four days, on the fifth day I went out +in the same manner, with my umbrella in the right hand and my bag in the +left, and I began to notice that walking along the familiar street tired +me somewhat more than usual; and when I turned it I was convinced that I +had turned down the wrong one. For now the street shot up quite a steep +slant, such as one only sees in the hilly parts of London, and in this +part there were no hills at all. Yet it was not the wrong street; the +name written on it was the same; the shuttered shops were the same; the +lamp-posts and the whole look of the perspective was the same; only +it was tilted upwards like a lid. Forgetting any trouble about +breathlessness or fatigue I ran furiously forward, and reached the +second of my accustomed turnings, which ought to bring me almost within +sight of the station. And as I turned that corner I nearly fell on the +pavement. For now the street went up straight in front of my face like a +steep staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not for miles round +that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. And this was +a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole street had lifted itself +like a single wave, and yet every speck and detail of it was the same, +and I saw in the high distance, as at the top of an Alpine pass, picked +out in pink letters the name over my paper shop. + +"I ran on and on blindly now, passing all the shops and coming to a part +of the road where there was a long grey row of private houses. I had, +I know not why, an irrational feeling that I was a long iron bridge in +empty space. An impulse seized me, and I pulled up the iron trap of a +coal-hole. Looking down through it I saw empty space and the stairs. + +"When I looked up again a man was standing in his front garden, having +apparently come out of his house; he was leaning over the railings and +gazing at me. We were all alone on that nightmare road; his face was in +shadow; his dress was dark and ordinary; but when I saw him standing so +perfectly still I knew somehow that he was not of this world. And the +stars behind his head were larger and fiercer than ought to be endured +by the eyes of men. + +"'If you are a kind angel,' I said, 'or a wise devil, or have anything +in common with mankind, tell me what is this street possessed of +devils.' + +"After a long silence he said, 'What do you say that it is?' + +"'It is Bumpton Street, of course,' I snapped. 'It goes to Oldgate +Station.' + +"'Yes,' he admitted gravely; 'it goes there sometimes. Just now, +however, it is going to heaven.' + +"'To heaven?' I said. 'Why?' + +"'It is going to heaven for justice,' he replied. 'You must have treated +it badly. Remember always that there is one thing that cannot be endured +by anybody or anything. That one unendurable thing is to be overworked +and also neglected. For instance, you can overwork women--everybody +does. But you can't neglect women--I defy you to. At the same time, you +can neglect tramps and gypsies and all the apparent refuse of the State +so long as you do not overwork it. But no beast of the field, no horse, +no dog can endure long to be asked to do more than his work and yet have +less than his honour. It is the same with streets. You have worked this +street to death, and yet you have never remembered its existence. If +you had a healthy democracy, even of pagans, they would have hung this +street with garlands and given it the name of a god. Then it would have +gone quietly. But at last the street has grown tired of your tireless +insolence; and it is bucking and rearing its head to heaven. Have you +never sat on a bucking horse?' + +"I looked at the long grey street, and for a moment it seemed to me to +be exactly like the long grey neck of a horse flung up to heaven. But +in a moment my sanity returned, and I said, 'But this is all nonsense. +Streets go to the place they have to go. A street must always go to its +end.' + +"'Why do you think so of a street?' he asked, standing very still. + +"'Because I have always seen it do the same thing,' I replied, in +reasonable anger. 'Day after day, year after year, it has always gone to +Oldgate Station; day after...' + +"I stopped, for he had flung up his head with the fury of the road in +revolt. + +"'And you?' he cried terribly. 'What do you think the road thinks of +you? Does the road think you are alive? Are you alive? Day after day, +year after year, you have gone to Oldgate Station....' Since then I have +respected the things called inanimate." + +And bowing slightly to the mustard-pot, the man in the restaurant +withdrew. + + + + +XXXVII. The Shop Of Ghosts + +Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get +for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, +the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get +them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am +not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a +penny halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. +In the street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an +electric tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on +a flying castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of +brightly coloured sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of +reading this article for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and +irrelevant matter. + +But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable +things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last +night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and +dimly lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets +of Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a +child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of +the poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but +they were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important +than cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the +body. You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in +the modern world. + +..... + +As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, +at small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red Noah's +arks, I must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. That lit +shop-window became like the brilliantly lit stage when one is watching +some highly coloured comedy. I forgot the grey houses and the grimy +people behind me as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds +at a theatre. It seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were +small, not because they were toys, but because they were objects far +away. The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater +omnibus, passing across some huge desert on its ordinary way to +Bayswater. The blue elephant was no longer blue with paint; he was +blue with distance. The black doll was really a negro relieved against +passionate tropic foliage in the land where every weed is flaming and +only man is black. The red Noah's ark was really the enormous ship +of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen sea, red in the first +morning of hope. + +Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, such +brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the face +of one's own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles or +moustaches. They are commonly marked by the two signs of the slowness of +their growth and the suddenness of their termination. The return to real +thinking is often as abrupt as bumping into a man. Very often indeed +(in my case) it is bumping into a man. But in any case the awakening is +always emphatic and, generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in +this case, I did come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness +that I was, after all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; but +in some strange way the mental cure did not seem to be final. There +was still in my mind an unmanageable something that told me that I had +strayed into some odd atmosphere, or that I had already done some odd +thing. I felt as if I had worked a miracle or committed a sin. It was as +if I had at any rate, stepped across some border in the soul. + +To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop and +tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old and +broken, with confused white hair covering his head and half his face, +hair so startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. Yet though +he was senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering in his +eyes; he looked rather as if he were gradually falling asleep in a not +unkindly decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, but when I put down the +money he did not at first seem to see it; then he blinked at it feebly, +and then he pushed it feebly away. + +"No, no," he said vaguely. "I never have. I never have. We are rather +old-fashioned here." + +"Not taking money," I replied, "seems to me more like an uncommonly new +fashion than an old one." + +"I never have," said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; "I've +always given presents. I'm too old to stop." + +"Good heavens!" I said. "What can you mean? Why, you might be Father +Christmas." + +"I am Father Christmas," he said apologetically, and blew his nose +again. + +The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. At +any rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining +shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; I +might have strayed into some new and sunless world. But something had +cut the chords of common sense, and I could not feel even surprise +except sleepily. Something made me say, "You look ill, Father +Christmas." + +"I am dying," he said. + +I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again. + +"All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. They seem +to object to me on such curious and inconsistent sort of grounds, +these scientific men, and these innovators. They say that I give people +superstitions and make them too visionary; they say I give people +sausages and make them too coarse. They say my heavenly parts are too +heavenly; they say my earthly parts are too earthly; I don't know what +they want, I'm sure. How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly +things too earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? I don't +understand. But I understand one thing well enough. These modern people +are living and I am dead." + +"You may be dead," I replied. "You ought to know. But as for what they +are doing, do not call it living." + +..... + +A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected to be +unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few seconds when, in the +utter stillness, I distinctly heard a very rapid step coming nearer and +nearer along the street. The next moment a figure flung itself into the +shop and stood framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted +back as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, +a gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. He +had large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; he +had a pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the shop +and the old man in a look that seemed literally a flash and uttered the +exclamation of a man utterly staggered. + +"Good lord!" he cried out; "it can't be you! It isn't you! I came to ask +where your grave was." + +"I'm not dead yet, Mr. Dickens," said the old gentleman, with a feeble +smile; "but I'm dying," he hastened to add reassuringly. + +"But, dash it all, you were dying in my time," said Mr. Charles Dickens +with animation; "and you don't look a day older." + +"I've felt like this for a long time," said Father Christmas. + +Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door into the +darkness. + +"Dick," he roared at the top of his voice; "he's still alive." + +..... + +Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more +full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his +flushed face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. He carried +his head well back like a soldier, and his hot face had even a look +of arrogance, which was suddenly contradicted by his eyes, which were +literally as humble as a dog's. His sword made a great clatter, as if +the shop were too small for it. + +"Indeed," said Sir Richard Steele, "'tis a most prodigious matter, +for the man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley and his +Christmas Day." + +My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. It seemed to be +filled with newcomers. + +"It hath ever been understood," said a burly man, who carried his head +humorously and obstinately a little on one side--I think he was Ben +Jonson--"It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King +James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were +fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most +surely was no lustier when I knew him than now." + +And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in +some mixed Norman French, "But I saw the man dying." + +"I have felt like this a long time," said Father Christmas, in his +feeble way again. + +Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him. + +"Since when?" he asked. "Since you were born?" + +"Yes," said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. "I have been +always dying." + +Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to +rise. + +"I understand it now," he cried, "you will never die." + + + + +XXXVIII. The Ballade of a Strange Town + +My friend and I, in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed affection +for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there was so restful that +we almost felt it as a home, and hardly strayed out of it. + +We sat day after day in the market-place, under little trees growing +in wooden tubs, and looked up at the noble converging lines of the +Cathedral tower, from which the three riders from Ghent, in the poem, +heard the bell which told them they were not too late. But we took as +much pleasure in the people, in the little boys with open, flat +Flemish faces and fur collars round their necks, making them look +like burgomasters; or the women, whose prim, oval faces, hair strained +tightly off the temples, and mouths at once hard, meek, and humorous, +exactly reproduced the late mediaeval faces in Memling and Van Eyck. + +But one afternoon, as it happened, my friend rose from under his little +tree, and pointing to a sort of toy train that was puffing smoke in one +corner of the clear square, suggested that we should go by it. We got +into the little train, which was meant really to take the peasants and +their vegetables to and fro from their fields beyond the town, and +the official came round to give us tickets. We asked him what place +we should get to if we paid fivepence. The Belgians are not a romantic +people, and he asked us (with a lamentable mixture of Flemish coarseness +and French rationalism) where we wanted to go. + +We explained that we wanted to go to fairyland, and the only question +was whether we could get there for fivepence. At last, after a great +deal of international misunderstanding (for he spoke French in the +Flemish and we in the English manner), he told us that fivepence would +take us to a place which I have never seen written down, but which when +spoken sounded like the word "Waterloo" pronounced by an intoxicated +patriot; I think it was Waerlowe. + +We clasped our hands and said it was the place we had been seeking from +boyhood, and when we had got there we descended with promptitude. + +For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field of +Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was in quite a +different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, with one cottage at the +corner, a perspective of tall trees like Hobbema's "Avenue," and beyond +only the infinite flat chess-board of the little fields. It was the +scene of peace and prosperity; but I must confess that my friend's first +action was to ask the man when there would be another train back to +Mechlin. The man stated that there would be a train back in exactly one +hour. We walked up the avenue, and when we were nearly half an hour's +walk away it began to rain. + +..... + +We arrived back at the cross-roads sodden and dripping, and, finding +the train waiting, climbed into it with some relief. The officer on +this train could speak nothing but Flemish, but he understood the name +Mechlin, and indicated that when we came to Mechlin Station he would put +us down, which, after the right interval of time, he did. + +We got down, under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin, +though the features could not easily be recognised through the grey +screen of the rain. I do not generally agree with those who find rain +depressing. A shower-bath is not depressing; it is rather startling. And +if it is exciting when a man throws a pail of water over you, why should +it not also be exciting when the gods throw many pails? But on this +soaking afternoon, whether it was the dull sky-line of the Netherlands +or the fact that we were returning home without any adventure, I really +did think things a trifle dreary. As soon as we could creep under the +shelter of a street we turned into a little cafe, kept by one woman. She +was incredibly old, and she spoke no French. There we drank black coffee +and what was called "cognac fine." "Cognac fine" were the only two +French words used in the establishment, and they were not true. At +least, the fineness (perhaps by its very ethereal delicacy) escaped me. +After a little my friend, who was more restless than I, got up and went +out, to see if the rain had stopped and if we could at once stroll back +to our hotel by the station. I sat finishing my coffee in a colourless +mood, and listening to the unremitting rain. + +..... + +Suddenly the door burst open, and my friend appeared, transfigured and +frantic. + +"Get up!" he cried, waving his hands wildly. "Get up! We're in the wrong +town! We're not in Mechlin at all. Mechlin is ten miles, twenty miles +off--God knows what! We're somewhere near Antwerp." + +"What!" I cried, leaping from my seat, and sending the furniture flying. +"Then all is well, after all! Poetry only hid her face for an instant +behind a cloud. Positively for a moment I was feeling depressed because +we were in the right town. But if we are in the wrong town--why, we +have our adventure after all! If we are in the wrong town, we are in the +right place." + +I rushed out into the rain, and my friend followed me somewhat more +grimly. We discovered we were in a town called Lierre, which seemed to +consist chiefly of bankrupt pastry cooks, who sold lemonade. + +"This is the peak of our whole poetic progress!" I cried +enthusiastically. "We must do something, something sacramental and +commemorative! We cannot sacrifice an ox, and it would be a bore to +build a temple. Let us write a poem." + +With but slight encouragement, I took out an old envelope and one of +those pencils that turn bright violet in water. There was plenty of +water about, and the violet ran down the paper, symbolising the rich +purple of that romantic hour. I began, choosing the form of an old +French ballade; it is the easiest because it is the most restricted-- + + "Can Man to Mount Olympus rise, + And fancy Primrose Hill the scene? + Can a man walk in Paradise + And think he is in Turnham Green? + And could I take you for Malines, + Not knowing the nobler thing you were? + O Pearl of all the plain, and queen, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + "Through memory's mist in glimmering guise + Shall shine your streets of sloppy sheen. + And wet shall grow my dreaming eyes, + To think how wet my boots have been + Now if I die or shoot a Dean----" + +Here I broke off to ask my friend whether he thought it expressed a more +wild calamity to shoot a Dean or to be a Dean. But he only turned up his +coat collar, and I felt that for him the muse had folded her wings. I +rewrote-- + + "Now if I die a Rural Dean, + Or rob a bank I do not care, + Or turn a Tory. I have seen + The lovely city of Lierre." + +"The next line," I resumed, warming to it; but my friend interrupted me. + +"The next line," he said somewhat harshly, "will be a railway line. +We can get back to Mechlin from here, I find, though we have to change +twice. I dare say I should think this jolly romantic but for the +weather. Adventure is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne +and my adventures dry. Here is the station." + +..... + +We did not speak again until we had left Lierre, in its sacred cloud of +rain, and were coming to Mechlin, under a clearer sky, that even made +one think of stars. Then I leant forward and said to my friend in a low +voice--"I have found out everything. We have come to the wrong star." + +He stared his query, and I went on eagerly: "That is what makes life +at once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. When I +thought that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it was wrong, +I was happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, tires us +because it tells us we fit into this world. The true happiness is that +we don't fit. We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way." + +He silently nodded, staring out of the window, but whether I had +impressed or only fatigued him I could not tell. "This," I added, "is +suggested in the last verse of a fine poem you have grossly neglected-- + + "'Happy is he and more than wise + Who sees with wondering eyes and clean + The world through all the grey disguise + Of sleep and custom in between. + Yes; we may pass the heavenly screen, + But shall we know when we are there? + Who know not what these dead stones mean, + The lovely city of Lierre.'" + +Here the train stopped abruptly. And from Mechlin church steeple we +heard the half-chime: and Joris broke silence with "No bally HORS +D'OEUVRES for me: I shall get on to something solid at once." + + L'Envoy + + Prince, wide your Empire spreads, I ween, + Yet happier is that moistened Mayor, + Who drinks her cognac far from fine, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + + + +XXXIX. The Mystery of a Pageant + +Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take +a small part in one of those historical processions or pageants which +happened to be fashionable in or about the year 1909. And since I tend, +like all who are growing old, to re-enter the remote past as a paradise +or playground, I disinter a memory which may serve to stand among those +memories of small but strange incidents with which I have sometimes +filled this column. The thing has really some of the dark qualities of +a detective-story; though I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could +hardly unravel it now, when the scent is so old and cold and most of the +actors, doubtless, long dead. + +This old pageant included a series of figures from the eighteenth +century, and I was told that I was just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that +Dr. Johnson was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over +gravy, snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man +in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I +had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as +I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested +that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch +all of them but one, and then go back and touch that. Failing this, I +felt that the least they could do was to have twenty-five cups of tea +stationed at regular intervals along the course, each held by a Mrs. +Thrale in full costume. My best constructive suggestion was the most +harshly rejected of all. In front of me in the procession walked the +great Bishop Berkeley, the man who turned the tables on the early +materialists by maintaining that matter itself possibly does not exist. +Dr. Johnson, you will remember, did not like such bottomless fancies as +Berkeley's, and kicked a stone with his foot, saying, "I refute him so!" +Now (as I pointed out) kicking a stone would not make the metaphysical +quarrel quite clear; besides, it would hurt. But how picturesque +and perfect it would be if I moved across the ground in the symbolic +attitude of kicking Bishop Berkeley! How complete an allegoric group; +the great transcendentalist walking with his head among the stars, but +behind him the avenging realist pede claudo, with uplifted foot. But I +must not take up space with these forgotten frivolities; we old men grow +too garrulous in talking of the distant past. + +This story scarcely concerns me either in my real or my assumed +character. Suffice it to say that the procession took place at night +in a large garden and by torchlight (so remote is the date), that the +garden was crowded with Puritans, monks, and men-at-arms, and especially +with early Celtic saints smoking pipes, and with elegant Renaissance +gentlemen talking Cockney. Suffice it to say, or rather it is needless +to say, that I got lost. I wandered away into some dim corner of that +dim shrubbery, where there was nothing to do except tumbling over tent +ropes, and I began almost to feel like my prototype, and to share his +horror of solitude and hatred of a country life. + +In this detachment and dilemma I saw another man in a white wig +advancing across this forsaken stretch of lawn; a tall, lean man, who +stooped in his long black robes like a stooping eagle. When I thought +he would pass me, he stopped before my face, and said, "Dr. Johnson, I +think. I am Paley." + +"Sir," I said, "you used to guide men to the beginnings of Christianity. +If you can guide me now to wherever this infernal thing begins you will +perform a yet higher and harder function." + +His costume and style were so perfect that for the instant I really +thought he was a ghost. He took no notice of my flippancy, but, turning +his black-robed back on me, led me through verdurous glooms and winding +mossy ways, until we came out into the glare of gaslight and laughing +men in masquerade, and I could easily laugh at myself. + +And there, you will say, was an end of the matter. I am (you will say) +naturally obtuse, cowardly, and mentally deficient. I was, moreover, +unused to pageants; I felt frightened in the dark and took a man for a +spectre whom, in the light, I could recognise as a modern gentleman in +a masquerade dress. No; far from it. That spectral person was my first +introduction to a special incident which has never been explained and +which still lays its finger on my nerve. + +I mixed with the men of the eighteenth century; and we fooled as one +does at a fancy-dress ball. There was Burke as large as life and a great +deal better looking. There was Cowper much larger than life; he ought +to have been a little man in a night-cap, with a cat under one arm and +a spaniel under the other. As it was, he was a magnificent person, and +looked more like the Master of Ballantrae than Cowper. I persuaded him +at last to the night-cap, but never, alas, to the cat and dog. When I +came the next night Burke was still the same beautiful improvement upon +himself; Cowper was still weeping for his dog and cat and would not +be comforted; Bishop Berkeley was still waiting to be kicked in the +interests of philosophy. In short, I met all my old friends but one. +Where was Paley? I had been mystically moved by the man's presence; I +was moved more by his absence. At last I saw advancing towards us +across the twilight garden a little man with a large book and a bright +attractive face. When he came near enough he said, in a small, clear +voice, "I'm Paley." The thing was quite natural, of course; the man was +ill and had sent a substitute. Yet somehow the contrast was a shock. + +By the next night I had grown quite friendly with my four or five +colleagues; I had discovered what is called a mutual friend with +Berkeley and several points of difference with Burke. Cowper, I think +it was, who introduced me to a friend of his, a fresh face, square +and sturdy, framed in a white wig. "This," he explained, "is my friend +So-and-So. He's Paley." I looked round at all the faces by this time +fixed and familiar; I studied them; I counted them; then I bowed to the +third Paley as one bows to necessity. So far the thing was all within +the limits of coincidence. It certainly seemed odd that this one +particular cleric should be so varying and elusive. It was singular +that Paley, alone among men, should swell and shrink and alter like a +phantom, while all else remained solid. But the thing was explicable; +two men had been ill and there was an end of it; only I went again +the next night, and a clear-coloured elegant youth with powdered hair +bounded up to me, and told me with boyish excitement that he was Paley. + +For the next twenty-four hours I remained in the mental condition of +the modern world. I mean the condition in which all natural explanations +have broken down and no supernatural explanation has been established. +My bewilderment had reached to boredom when I found myself once more in +the colour and clatter of the pageant, and I was all the more pleased +because I met an old school-fellow, and we mutually recognised each +other under our heavy clothes and hoary wigs. We talked about all those +great things for which literature is too small and only life large +enough; red-hot memories and those gigantic details which make up the +characters of men. I heard all about the friends he had lost sight of +and those he had kept in sight; I heard about his profession, and asked +at last how he came into the pageant. + +"The fact is," he said, "a friend of mine asked me, just for to-night, +to act a chap called Paley; I don't know who he was...." + +"No, by thunder!" I said, "nor does anyone." + +This was the last blow, and the next night passed like a dream. I +scarcely noticed the slender, sprightly, and entirely new figure which +fell into the ranks in the place of Paley, so many times deceased. What +could it mean? Why was the giddy Paley unfaithful among the faithful +found? Did these perpetual changes prove the popularity or the +unpopularity of being Paley? Was it that no human being could support +being Paley for one night and live till morning? Or was it that the +gates were crowded with eager throngs of the British public thirsting +to be Paley, who could only be let in one at a time? Or is there some +ancient vendetta against Paley? Does some secret society of Deists still +assassinate any one who adopts the name? + +I cannot conjecture further about this true tale of mystery; and that +for two reasons. First, the story is so true that I have had to put a +lie into it. Every word of this narrative is veracious, except the one +word Paley. And second, because I have got to go into the next room and +dress up as Dr. Johnson. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tremendous Trifles, by G. K. 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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Tremendous Trifles + +Author: G.K. Chesterton + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8092] +[This file was first posted on June 13, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + + + + +TREMENDOUS TRIFLES + +by + +G. K. Chesterton + + + + + + +Preface + +These fleeting sketches are all republished by kind permission +of the Editor of the DAILY NEWS, in which paper they appeared. +They amount to no more than a sort of sporadic diary--a diary +recording one day in twenty which happened to stick in the fancy-- +the only kind of diary the author has ever been able to keep. +Even that diary he could only keep by keeping it in public, +for bread and cheese. But trivial as are the topics they +are not utterly without a connecting thread of motive. As the +reader's eye strays, with hearty relief, from these pages, +it probably alights on something, a bed-post or a lamp-post, +a window blind or a wall. It is a thousand to one that the +reader is looking at something that he has never seen: that is, +never realised. He could not write an essay on such a post or +wall: he does not know what the post or wall mean. He could +not even write the synopsis of an essay; as "The Bed-Post; Its +Significance--Security Essential to Idea of Sleep--Night Felt +as Infinite--Need of Monumental Architecture," and so on. +He could not sketch in outline his theoretic attitude towards +window-blinds, even in the form of a summary. "The Window-Blind-- +Its Analogy to the Curtain and Veil--Is Modesty Natural? +--Worship of and Avoidance of the Sun, etc., etc." None of us +think enough of these things on which the eye rests. But don't +let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? Let us +exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that run +across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be +ocular athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or +a coloured cloud. I have attempted some such thing in what +follows; but anyone else may do it better, if anyone else will +only try. + + +Contents Chapter + I Tremendous Trifles + II A Piece of Chalk + III The Secret of a Train + IV The Perfect Game + V The Extraordinary Cabman + VI An Accident + VII The Advantages of Having One Leg + VIII The End of the World + IX In the Place de la Bastille + X On Lying in Bed + XI The Twelve Men + XII The Wind and the Trees + XIII The Dickensian + XIV In Topsy-Turvy Land + XV What I Found in My Pocket + XVI The Dragon's Grandmother + XVII The Red Angel + XVIII The Tower + XIX How I Met the President + XX The Giant + XXI The Great Man + XXII The Orthodox Barber + XXIII The Toy Theatre + XXIV A Tragedy of Twopence + XXV A Cab Ride Across Country + XXVI The Two Noises + XXVII Some Policemen and a Moral + XXVIII The Lion + XXIX Humanity: An Interlude + XXX The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + XXXI The Riddle of the Ivy + XXXII The Travellers in State + XXXIII The Prehistoric Railway Station + XXXIV The Diabolist + XXXV A Glimpse of My Country + XXXVI A Somewhat Improbable Story + XXXVII The Shop of Ghosts +XXXVIII The Ballade of a Strange Town + XXXIX The Mystery of a Pageant + + +I + +Tremendous Trifles + +Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly +in the front garden, because their villa was a model one. +The front garden was about the same size as the dinner table; +it consisted of four strips of gravel, a square of turf with some +mysterious pieces of cork standing up in the middle and one flower +bed with a row of red daisies. One morning while they were at play +in these romantic grounds, a passing individual, probably the milkman, +leaned over the railing and engaged them in philosophical conversation. +The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, were at least sharply +interested in his remarks. For the milkman (who was, I need say, +a fairy) did his duty in that state of life by offering them +in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. +And Paul closed with the offer with a business-like abruptness, +explaining that he had long wished to be a giant that he might stride +across continents and oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas +in an afternoon dinner stroll. The milkman producing a wand from +his breast pocket, waved it in a hurried and perfunctory manner; +and in an instant the model villa with its front garden was like a +tiny doll's house at Paul's colossal feet. He went striding away +with his head above the clouds to visit Niagara and the Himalayas. +But when he came to the Himalayas, he found they were quite small +and silly-looking, like the little cork rockery in the garden; and when +he found Niagara it was no bigger than the tap turned on in the bathroom. +He wandered round the world for several minutes trying to find +something really large and finding everything small, till in sheer +boredom he lay down on four or five prairies and fell asleep. +Unfortunately his head was just outside the hut of an intellectual +backwoodsman who came out of it at that moment with an axe in one hand +and a book of Neo-Catholic Philosophy in the other. The man looked +at the book and then at the giant, and then at the book again. +And in the book it said, "It can be maintained that the evil +of pride consists in being out of proportion to the universe." +So the backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, +working eight hours a day for about a week, cut the giant's head off; +and there was an end of him. + +Such is the severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly +enough, made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long +wished to be a pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he +immediately became one. When the transformation was over he found +himself in the midst of an immense plain, covered with a tall green +jungle and above which, at intervals, rose strange trees each with +a head like the sun in symbolic pictures, with gigantic rays of +silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward the middle of this prairie +stood up a mountain of such romantic and impossible shape, yet of +such stony height and dominance, that it looked like some incident +of the end of the world. And far away on the faint horizon he +could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more mystical, +of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. He +set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has +not come to the end of it yet. + +Such is the story of Peter and Paul, which contains all the highest +qualities of a modern fairy tale, including that of being wholly unfit +for children; and indeed the motive with which I have introduced +it is not childish, but rather full of subtlety and reaction. +It is in fact the almost desperate motive of excusing or palliating +the pages that follow. Peter and Paul are the two primary influences +upon European literature to-day; and I may be permitted to put my own +preference in its most favourable shape, even if I can only do it +by what little girls call telling a story. + +I need scarcely say that I am the pigmy. The only excuse for the scraps +that follow is that they show what can be achieved with a commonplace +existence and the sacred spectacles of exaggeration. The other +great literary theory, that which is roughly represented in England +by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, is that we moderns are to regain the primal zest +by sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical +variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. +Let it be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; +and the two alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling's school +advises us to go to Central Africa in order to find a man without +a frock coat. The school to which I belong suggests that we should +stare steadily at the man until we see the man inside the frock coat. +If we stare at him long enough he may even be moved to take off his coat +to us; and that is a far greater compliment than his taking off his hat. +In other words, we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely +on the facts actually before us, force them to turn into adventures; +force them to give up their meaning and fulfil their mysterious purpose. +The purpose of the Kipling literature is to show how many extraordinary +things a man may see if he is active and strides from continent +to continent like the giant in my tale. But the object of my school +is to show how many extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man +may see if he can spur himself to the single activity of seeing. +For this purpose I have taken the laziest person of my acquaintance, that +is myself; and made an idle diary of such odd things as I have fallen over +by accident, in walking in a very limited area at a very indolent pace. +If anyone says that these are very small affairs talked about in very +big language, I can only gracefully compliment him upon seeing the joke. +If anyone says that I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess +with pride that it is so. I can imagine no more successful and productive +form of manufacture than that of making mountains out of molehills. +But I would add this not unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; +one has only to become a pigmy like Peter to discover that. + +I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, +in getting to the top of everything and overlooking everything. +Satan was the most celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took +Jesus to the top of an exceeding high mountain and showed +him all the kingdoms of the earth. But the joy of Satan +in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, but a joy in +beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like insects +at his feet. It is from the valley that things look large; +it is from the level that things look high; I am a child +of the level and have no need of that celebrated Alpine guide. +I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help; +but I will not lift up my carcass to the hills, unless it is +absolutely necessary. Everything is in an attitude of mind; +and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. +I will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle +on me like flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. +The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only +for want of wonder. + + +II + +A Piece of Chalk + +I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer +holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing +nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up +a walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. +I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, +belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), +and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any +brown paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she +mistook the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. +She seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must +be wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to do; +indeed, it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental capacity. +Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of toughness and +endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only wanted to draw +pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in the least; +and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a question, not of +tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing comparatively +irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I wanted to draw +she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, apparently supposing +that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown paper wrappers +from motives of economy. + +I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I +not only liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness +in paper, just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, +or in beer, or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper +represents the primal twilight of the first toil of creation, +and with a bright-coloured chalk or two you can pick out points +of fire in it, sparks of gold, and blood-red, and sea-green, +like the first fierce stars that sprang out of divine darkness. +All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; and I put the brown +paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and possibly other things. +I suppose every one must have reflected how primeval and how poetical +are the things that one carries in one's pocket; the pocket-knife, +for instance, the type of all human tools, the infant of the sword. +Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things +in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age +of the great epics is past. + +. . . . . + +With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, +I went out on to the great downs. I crawled across those colossal +contours that express the best quality of England, because they +are at the same time soft and strong. The smoothness of them +has the same meaning as the smoothness of great cart-horses, +or the smoothness of the beech-tree; it declares in the teeth +of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty are merciful. +As my eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly +as any of its cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. +The villages in the immense valley were safe, one could see, +for centuries; yet the lifting of the whole land was like +the lifting of one enormous wave to wash them all away. + +I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place +to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven's sake, imagine I was going +to sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, +and blind old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, +and saints in robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, +and all the sacred or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright +colours on brown paper. They are much better worth drawing than Nature; +also they are much easier to draw. When a cow came slouching +by in the field next to me, a mere artist might have drawn it; +but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrupeds. So I drew +the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly walking before me +in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and silver, and had +seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all the beasts. But +though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the landscape, +it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the best out +of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about the +old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care +very much about Nature because they did not describe it much. + +They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; +but they sat on the great hills to write it. They gave out much +less about Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They +painted the white robes of their holy virgins with the blinding +snow, at which they had stared all day. They blazoned the shields +of their paladins with the purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. +The greenness of a thousand green leaves clustered into the live +green figure of Robin Hood. The blueness of a score of forgotten +skies became the blue robes of the Virgin. The inspiration went +in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo. + +. . . . . + +But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began +to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that a +most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, +but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted +with all the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art +of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. +I cannot avoid remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the +wise and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, +that white is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is +a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as +black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; +when it grows white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three +defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, +for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of +religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence +of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and +separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean +not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a +plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or +not seen. + +Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means +something flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in +many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost +said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. In a sense our age +has realised this fact, and expressed it in our sullen costume. +For if it were really true that white was a blank and colourless +thing, negative and non-committal, then white would be used instead +of black and grey for the funeral dress of this pessimistic period. +We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of spotless silver +linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. Which is +not the case. + +Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk. + +. . . . . + +I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town +nearer than Chichester at which it was even remotely probable +that there would be such a thing as an artist's colourman. +And yet, without white, my absurd little pictures would be as +pointless as the world would be if there were no good people in it. +I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for expedients. +Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and again, +so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine a +man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. +Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some +salt water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on +an immense warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made +entirely out of white chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until +it met the sky. I stooped and broke a piece off the rock I sat on; +it did not mark so well as the shop chalks do; but it gave the +effect. And I stood there in a trance of pleasure, realising that +this Southern England is not only a grand peninsula, and a tradition +and a civilisation; it is something even more admirable. It is a +piece of chalk. + + +III + +The Secret of a Train + +All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a +loose memory. I will not merely say that this story is true: +because, as you will soon see, it is all truth and no story. +It has no explanation and no conclusion; it is, like most of the other +things we encounter in life, a fragment of something else which +would be intensely exciting if it were not too large to be seen. +For the perplexity of life arises from there being too many +interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any +of them; what we call its triviality is really the tag-ends +of numberless tales; ordinary and unmeaning existence is like ten +thousand thrilling detective stories mixed up with a spoon. +My experience was a fragment of this nature, and it is, at any rate, +not fictitious. Not only am I not making up the incidents +(what there were of them), but I am not making up the atmosphere +of the landscape, which were the whole horror of the thing. +I remember them vividly, and they were as I shall now describe. + +. . . . . + +About noon of an ashen autumn day some years ago I was standing +outside the station at Oxford intending to take the train to London. +And for some reason, out of idleness or the emptiness of my mind +or the emptiness of the pale grey sky, or the cold, a kind of caprice +fell upon me that I would not go by that train at all, but would step +out on the road and walk at least some part of the way to London. +I do not know if other people are made like me in this matter; +but to me it is always dreary weather, what may be called +useless weather, that slings into life a sense of action and romance. +On bright blue days I do not want anything to happen; the world +is complete and beautiful, a thing for contemplation. I no more +ask for adventures under that turquoise dome than I ask for +adventures in church. But when the background of man's life is +a grey background, then, in the name of man's sacred supremacy, +I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. When the heavens fail +man refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have written on it, in +letters of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing shall +happen, then the immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises +up and decrees that something shall happen, if it be only the +slaughter of a policeman. But this is a digressive way of stating +what I have said already--that the bleak sky awoke in me a hunger +for some change of plans, that the monotonous weather seemed to +render unbearable the use of the monotonous train, and that I set +out into the country lanes, out of the town of Oxford. It was, +perhaps, at that moment that a strange curse came upon me out of +the city and the sky, whereby it was decreed that years afterwards +I should, in an article in the DAILY NEWS, talk about Sir George +Trevelyan in connection with Oxford, when I knew perfectly well +that he went to Cambridge. + +As I crossed the country everything was ghostly and colourless. +The fields that should have been green were as grey as the skies; +the tree-tops that should have been green were as grey as the clouds +and as cloudy. And when I had walked for some hours the evening +was closing in. A sickly sunset clung weakly to the horizon, +as if pale with reluctance to leave the world in the dark. +And as it faded more and more the skies seemed to come closer and +to threaten. The clouds which had been merely sullen became swollen; +and then they loosened and let down the dark curtains of the rain. +The rain was blinding and seemed to beat like blows from an enemy +at close quarters; the skies seemed bending over and bawling +in my ears. I walked on many more miles before I met a man, +and in that distance my mind had been made up; and when I met +him I asked him if anywhere in the neighbourhood I could pick up +the train for Paddington. He directed me to a small silent station +(I cannot even remember the name of it) which stood well away +from the road and looked as lonely as a hut on the Andes. +I do not think I have ever seen such a type of time and sadness +and scepticism and everything devilish as that station was: +it looked as if it had always been raining there ever since +the creation of the world. The water streamed from the soaking +wood of it as if it were not water at all, but some loathsome +liquid corruption of the wood itself; as if the solid station +were eternally falling to pieces and pouring away in filth. +It took me nearly ten minutes to find a man in the station. +When I did he was a dull one, and when I asked him if there was +a train to Paddington his answer was sleepy and vague. As far as I +understood him, he said there would be a train in half an hour. +I sat down and lit a cigar and waited, watching the last tail +of the tattered sunset and listening to the everlasting rain. +It may have been in half an hour or less, but a train came rather +slowly into the station. It was an unnaturally dark train; +I could not see a light anywhere in the long black body of it; +and I could not see any guard running beside it. I was reduced +to walking up to the engine and calling out to the stoker to ask +if the train was going to London. "Well--yes, sir," he said, with +an unaccountable kind of reluctance. "It is going to London; +but----" It was just starting, and I jumped into the first +carriage; it was pitch dark. I sat there smoking and wondering, +as we steamed through the continually darkening landscape, lined +with desolate poplars, until we slowed down and stopped, +irrationally, in the middle of a field. I heard a heavy noise as +of some one clambering off the train, and a dark, ragged head +suddenly put itself into my window. "Excuse me, sir," said the +stoker, "but I think, perhaps--well, perhaps you ought to know-- +there's a dead man in this train." + +. . . . . + +Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities +and nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt, to be +finally overwhelmed with this sensational touch, and to have +insisted on getting out and walking. As it was, I regret to +say, I expressed myself politely, but firmly, to the effect that +I didn't care particularly if the train took me to Paddington. +But when the train had started with its unknown burden I did do +one thing, and do it quite instinctively, without stopping to +think, or to think more than a flash. I threw away my cigar. +Something that is as old as man and has to do with all mourning +and ceremonial told me to do it. There was something +unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, in the idea of there +being only two men in that train, and one of them dead and the +other smoking a cigar. And as the red and gold of the butt end +of it faded like a funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic +moment of a procession, I realised how immortal ritual is. I +realised (what is the origin and essence of all ritual) that in +the presence of those sacred riddles about which we can say +nothing it is more decent merely to do something. And I realised +that ritual will always mean throwing away something; DESTROYING +our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods. + +When the train panted at last into Paddington Station I sprang +out of it with a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier +and officials guarding the rear part of the train; no one was +allowed to press towards it. They were guarding and hiding +something; perhaps death in some too shocking form, perhaps +something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up with human mystery +and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of sanctity; +perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough into +the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces. Nor +have I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I +wandered or what frightful thing was my companion in the dark. + + +IV + +THE PERFECT GAME + +We have all met the man who says that some odd things have +happened to him, but that he does not really believe that they +were supernatural. My own position is the opposite of this. +I believe in the supernatural as a matter of intellect and reason, +not as a matter of personal experience. I do not see ghosts; +I only see their inherent probability. But it is entirely +a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions; +my nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. +But upon people of this temperament one weird incident will often +leave a peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance +that ever occurred to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted +in nothing less than my playing a game, and playing it quite well +for some seventeen consecutive minutes. The ghost of my grandfather +would have astonished me less. + +On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my +inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had +imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, +and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and +luxuriant side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. +I played it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had +a semi-philosophical argument which lasted through the entire contest. +It is deeply implanted in my mind that I had the best of the argument; +but it is certain and beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. + +"Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!" I cried, patting him affectionately +on the head with a mallet, "how far you really are from the pure +love of the sport--you who can play. It is only we who play badly +who love the Game itself. You love glory; you love applause; +you love the earthquake voice of victory; you do not love croquet. +You do not love croquet until you love being beaten at croquet. +It is we the bunglers who adore the occupation in the abstract. +It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. If we may see the face +of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) we are content to +see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is called amateurish; +and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs is but the +French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, the most +disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates (I +allude to the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, +impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within +the pedantic boundaries of the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek +honour in the ends of the earth; they turn up in the flower-beds +and the conservatory; they are to be found in the front garden +and the next street. No, Parkinson! The good painter has skill. +It is the bad painter who loves his art. The good musician +loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With such a +pure and hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game +itself. I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or +tape, as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, +the four seas of Britain. I love the mere swing of the mallets, and +the click of the balls is music. The four colours are to me +sacramental and symbolic, like the red of martyrdom, or the white +of Easter Day. You lose all this, my poor Parkinson. You have to +solace yourself for the absence of this vision by the paltry +consolation of being able to go through hoops and to hit the stick." + +And I waved my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety. + +"Don't be too sorry for me," said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. +"I shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more +a man likes a game the better he would want to play it. Granted that +the pleasure in the thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure +of success come naturally and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your +own simile of the Knight and his Lady-love. I admit the gentleman +does first and foremost want to be in the lady's presence. But I +never yet heard of a gentleman who wanted to look an utter ass when +he was there." + +"Perhaps not; though he generally looks it," I replied. "But the truth +is that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The +happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which +can be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, +the jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the +love of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not +true that the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger +will be the game. It is logically possible--(follow me closely here, +Parkinson!)--it is logically possible, to play croquet too well to +enjoy it at all. If you could put this blue ball through that distant +hoop as easily as you could pick it up with your hand, then you would +not put it through that hoop any more than you pick it up with your +hand; it would not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly you +would not play at all. The moment the game is perfect the game +disappears." + +"I do not think, however," said Parkinson, "that you are in any +immediate danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not +think your croquet will vanish through its own faultless excellence. +You are safe for the present." + +I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired myself, +and resumed the thread of my discourse. + +The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this +time it was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four +more fundamental principles, and my companion had gone through five +more hoops, the dusk was verging upon dark. + +"We shall have to give this up," said Parkinson, as he missed +a ball almost for the first time, "I can't see a thing." + +"Nor can I," I answered, "and it is a comfort to reflect that I +could not hit anything if I saw it." + +With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness +towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. +Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, +indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball. + +Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball +again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was +the right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot. + +Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that +impossible ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I +supposed was the vague direction of the quite invisible stick. +And in the dead silence I heard the stick rattle as the ball +struck it heavily. + +I threw down my mallet. "I can't stand this," I said. "My ball has +gone right three times. These things are not of this world." + +"Pick your mallet up ," said Parkinson, "have another go." + +"I tell you I daren't. If I made another hoop like that I should see +all the devils dancing there on the blessed grass." + +"Why devils?" asked Parkinson; "they may be only fairies making fun of +you. They are sending you the 'Perfect Game,' which is no game." + +I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness, +in which the faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across +the grass as if it burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball +somewhere--somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull +click of the balls touching, and ran into the house like one pursued. + + +V + +The Extraordinary Cabman + +From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the +narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to +insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper +columns. I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better +expressed by some practical parable out of daily life than by any +other method; therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the +extraordinary cabman, which occurred to me only three days ago, and +which, slight as it apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine +emotion bordering upon despair. + +On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching +in a little restaurant in Soho in company with three or four +of my best friends. My best friends are all either bottomless +sceptics or quite uncontrollable believers, so our discussion +at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate and terrible ideas. +And the whole argument worked out ultimately to this: that the +question is whether a man can be certain of anything at all. +I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, +furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible +intellectually to entertain certainty, what is this certainty +which it is impossible to entertain? If I have never experienced +such a thing as certainty I cannot even say that a thing is not +certain. Similarly, if I have never experienced such a thing as +green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as +green as possible for all I know, if I have really no experience +of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the room; +because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. +And the difference between us was very deep, because it +was a difference as to the object of the whole thing +called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. +For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun +opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, +opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened +my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it +again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. +And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly +if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever. + +. . . . . + +Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short +(for it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, +who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election +had somehow become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab +from the corner of Leicester-square to the members' entrance of the House +of Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. +Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper +is a discussion between us which still continues. + +It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude +of detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab +on a few hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I +had to visit. I then got out and offered him more than his fare. +He looked at it, but not with the surly doubt and general +disposition to try it on which is not unknown among normal cabmen. +But this was no normal, perhaps, no human, cabman. He looked at it +with a dull and infantile astonishment, clearly quite genuine. +"Do you know, sir," he said, "you've only given me 1s.8d?" +I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. "Now you know, +sir," said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, "you know +that ain't the fare from Euston." "Euston," I repeated vaguely, +for the phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. +"What on earth has Euston got to do with it?" "You hailed me just outside +Euston Station," began the man with astonishing precision, "and then +you said----" "What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?" +I said with Christian forbearance; "I took you at the south-west +corner of Leicester-square." "Leicester-square," he exclaimed, +loosening a kind of cataract of scorn, "why we ain't been near +Leicester-square to-day. You hailed me outside Euston Station, +and you said----" "Are you mad, or am I?" I asked with scientific calm. + +I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would +think of creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. +And this man was not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human +face was heavy and simple and humble, and with great big +blue eyes protruding like a frog's, if ever (in short) +a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the +face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and +down the street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming +on. And for one second the old nightmare of the sceptic put +its finger on my nerve. What was certainty? Was anybody +certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the dull rut of the +sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future life. +The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we +possess a past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically +considered, except a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew +deeper from the road. The cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate +details of the gesture, the words, the complex but consistent +course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable +occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I +know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him +outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite equally +firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a +member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment +the universe and the stars swung just a hair's breadth from +their balance, and the foundations of the earth were moved. +But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the same +reason that I believe in free will, for the same reason that I +believe in fixed character of virtue, the reason that could +only be expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic, +I continued to believe that this honest cabman was wrong, +and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner +of Leicester-square. He began with the same evident and +ponderous sincerity, "You hailed me outside Euston Station, +and you said----" + +And at this moment there came over his features a kind +of frightful transfiguration of living astonishment, +as if he had been lit up like a lamp from the inside. +"Why, I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I beg your pardon. +I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I remember now. +I beg your pardon." And with that this astonishing man let out +his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. +The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, +is strictly true. + +. . . . . + +I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance +and the mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying +that although his face had seemed so honest there was something +unearthly and demoniac about him when seen from behind. +Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me from my adherence to those +sanities and certainties which I had defended earlier in the day. +In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that my sense of reality, +though it had rocked for an instant, had remained erect. + + +VI + +An Accident + +Some time ago I wrote in these columns an article called +"The Extraordinary Cabman." I am now in a position to +contribute my experience of a still more extraordinary cab. +The extraordinary thing about the cab was that it did not like me; +it threw me out violently in the middle of the Strand. +If my friends who read the DAILY NEWS are as romantic (and as rich) +as I take them to be, I presume that this experience is not uncommon. +I suppose that they are all being thrown out of cabs, all over London. +Still, as there are some people, virginal and remote from the world, +who have not yet had this luxurious experience, I will give +a short account of the psychology of myself when my hansom cab +ran into the side of a motor omnibus, and I hope hurt it. + +I do not need to dwell on the essential romance of the hansom cab-- +that one really noble modern thing which our age, when it is judged, +will gravely put beside the Parthenon. It is really modern in that +it is both secret and swift. My particular hansom cab was modern in +these two respects; it was also very modern in the fact that it came +to grief. But it is also English; it is not to be found abroad; it +belongs to a beautiful, romantic country where nearly everybody is +pretending to be richer than they are, and acting as if they were. +It is comfortable, and yet it is reckless; and that combination +is the very soul of England. But although I had always +realised all these good qualities in a hansom cab, I had not +experienced all the possibilities, or, as the moderns put it, +all the aspects of that vehicle. My enunciation of the merits +of a hansom cab had been always made when it was the right way up. +Let me, therefore, explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom +cab for the first and, I am happy to believe, the last time. +Polycrates threw one ring into the sea to propitiate the Fates. +I have thrown one hansom cab into the sea (if you will excuse a rather +violent metaphor) and the Fates are, I am quite sure, propitiated. +Though I am told they do not like to be told so. + +I was driving yesterday afternoon in a hansom cab down one +of the sloping streets into the Strand, reading one of my own +admirable articles with continual pleasure, and still more +continual surprise, when the horse fell forward, scrambled a moment +on the scraping stones, staggered to his feet again, and went forward. +The horses in my cabs often do this, and I have learnt to enjoy +my own articles at any angle of the vehicle. So I did not see +anything at all odd about the way the horse went on again. +But I saw it suddenly in the faces of all the people on the pavement. +They were all turned towards me, and they were all struck +with fear suddenly, as with a white flame out of the sky. +And one man half ran out into the road with a movement of the +elbow as if warding off a blow, and tried to stop the horse. +Then I knew that the reins were lost, and the next moment the horse +was like a living thunder-bolt. I try to describe things exactly +as they seemed to me; many details I may have missed or mis-stated; +many details may have, so to speak, gone mad in the race down the road. +I remember that I once called one of my experiences narrated in this +paper "A Fragment of Fact." This is, at any rate, a fragment of fact. +No fact could possibly be more fragmentary than the sort of fact +that I expected to be at the bottom of that street. + +. . . . . + +I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally +found that the converted do not understand their own religion. +Thus I have always urged in this paper that democracy has +a deeper meaning than democrats understand; that is, that common +and popular things, proverbs, and ordinary sayings always have +something in them unrealised by most who repeat them. Here is one. +We have all heard about the man who is in momentary danger, +and who sees the whole of his life pass before him in a moment. +In the cold, literal, and common sense of words, this is obviously +a thundering lie. Nobody can pretend that in an accident +or a mortal crisis he elaborately remembered all the tickets +he had ever taken to Wimbledon, or all the times that he had ever +passed the brown bread and butter. + +But in those few moments, while my cab was tearing towards +the traffic of the Strand, I discovered that there is a truth +behind this phrase, as there is behind all popular phrases. +I did really have, in that short and shrieking period, +a rapid succession of a number of fundamental points of view. +I had, so to speak, about five religions in almost as many seconds. +My first religion was pure Paganism, which among sincere men +is more shortly described as extreme fear. Then there succeeded +a state of mind which is quite real, but for which no proper +name has ever been found. The ancients called it Stoicism, +and I think it must be what some German lunatics mean +(if they mean anything) when they talk about Pessimism. +It was an empty and open acceptance of the thing that happens-- +as if one had got beyond the value of it. And then, curiously enough, +came a very strong contrary feeling--that things mattered very +much indeed, and yet that they were something more than tragic. +It was a feeling, not that life was unimportant, but that +life was much too important ever to be anything but life. +I hope that this was Christianity. At any rate, it occurred +at the moment when we went crash into the omnibus. + +It seemed to me that the hansom cab simply turned over on top of me, +like an enormous hood or hat. I then found myself crawling +out from underneath it in attitudes so undignified that they +must have added enormously to that great cause to which the +Anti-Puritan League and I have recently dedicated ourselves. +I mean the cause of the pleasures of the people. As to my demeanour +when I emerged, I have two confessions to make, and they are both +made merely in the interests of mental science. The first is that +whereas I had been in a quite pious frame of mind the moment before +the collision, when I got to my feet and found I had got off with a +cut or two I began (like St. Peter) to curse and to swear. +A man offered me a newspaper or something that I had dropped. +I can distinctly remember consigning the paper to a state +of irremediable spiritual ruin. I am very sorry for this now, +and I apologise both to the man and to the paper. I have not the +least idea what was the meaning of this unnatural anger; I mention +it as a psychological confession. It was immediately followed by +extreme hilarity, and I made so many silly jokes to the policeman +that he disgraced himself by continual laughter before all the +little boys in the street, who had hitherto taken him seriously. + +. . . . . + +There is one other odd thing about the matter which I also mention +as a curiosity of the human brain or deficiency of brain. +At intervals of about every three minutes I kept on reminding +the policeman that I had not paid the cabman, and that I hoped +he would not lose his money. He said it would be all right, +and the man would appear. But it was not until about half an hour +afterwards that it suddenly struck me with a shock intolerable +that the man might conceivably have lost more than half a crown; +that he had been in danger as well as I. I had instinctively +regarded the cabman as something uplifted above accidents, a god. +I immediately made inquiries, and I am happy to say that they +seemed to have been unnecessary. + +But henceforward I shall always understand with a darker and more delicate +charity those who take tythe of mint, and anise, and cumin, and neglect +the weightier matters of the law; I shall remember how I was once really +tortured with owing half a crown to a man who might have been dead. +Some admirable men in white coats at the Charing Cross Hospital tied +up my small injury, and I went out again into the Strand. I felt upon +me even a kind of unnatural youth; I hungered for something untried. +So to open a new chapter in my life I got into a hansom cab. + + +VII + +The Advantages of Having One Leg + +A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement +and casting about for some phrase of consolation that should +not be either insolent or weak, said at last, "I think one can +live through these great sorrows and even be the better. +What wears one is the little worries." "That's quite right, mum," +answered the old woman with emphasis, "and I ought to know, +seeing I've had ten of 'em." It is, perhaps, in this sense +that it is most true that little worries are most wearing. +In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a truth, +contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. +People who have both small troubles and big ones have the +right to say that they find the small ones the most bitter; +and it is undoubtedly true that the back which is bowed under +loads incredible can feel a faint addition to those loads; +a giant holding up the earth and all its animal creation might +still find the grasshopper a burden. But I am afraid that the +maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is sometimes used +or abused by people, because they have nothing but the very +smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the +crumpled rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity +she would wear the crown of thorns--if she had to. The gentleman +may permit himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he +would behave much better if it were a mere matter of starvation. +We need not deny that the grasshopper on man's shoulder is +a burden; but we need not pay much respect to the gentleman +who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant +when he knows there are no elephants in the country. +We may concede that a straw may break the camel's back, +but we like to know that it really is the last straw and +not the first. + +I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right +to grumble, so long as they grumble about something else. +It is a singular fact that if they are sane they almost always +do grumble about something else. To talk quite reasonably about +your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way to go off your head. +But people with great troubles talk about little ones, +and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often +has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly +a very clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified +in asking that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. +I do no deny that molehills can sometimes be important. +Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be more +abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before, +they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition +that he was going to tumble over a hassock. William III. +died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose that with all his +varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a mountain. +But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask a happy man +(not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, and even make +them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive poverty +I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental +limitations that are always falling across our path--bad weather, +confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments +or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, +finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, +finding punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures +to be drawn from all these that I sing--I sing with confidence +because I have recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures +which arise from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, +with the only alternative course of standing on one leg like a stork-- +a stork is a poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it. + +To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if +the thing itself symbolise something other than isolation. +If we wish to see what a house is it must be a house in some +uninhabited landscape. If we wish to depict what a man really +is we must depict a man alone in a desert or on a dark sea sand. +So long as he is a single figure he means all that humanity means; +so long as he is solitary he means human society; so long +as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. +Add another figure and the picture is less human--not more so. +One is company, two is none. If you wish to symbolise +human building draw one dark tower on the horizon; if you +wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the sky. +Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we +call our day there is but one star in the sky--a large, +fierce star which we call the sun. One sun is splendid; +six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower Of Giotto is sublime; +a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row of white posts. +The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry +of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in +following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping +the single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find +the poetry of all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. +To express complete and perfect leggishness the leg must stand +in sublime isolation, like the tower in the wilderness. +As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is that which +stands most alone. + +This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity +of some Doric column. The students of architecture tell us +that the only legitimate use of a column is to support weight. +This column of mine fulfils its legitimate function. +It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic consistency, +it may even improve by the process, and during these few +days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness +or dislocation of the one leg may find compensation in the +astonishing strength and classic beauty of the other leg. +Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. George Meredith's novel might +pass by at any moment, and seeing me in the stork-like attitude +would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more literal exactitude, +"He has a leg." Notice how this famous literary phrase supports +my contention touching this isolation of any admirable thing. +Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect +picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. +She delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive +fact that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous +and irrelevant, a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have +confused Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. +That having had one good leg he should have another-- +this would be to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do. +She would have been as much bewildered by him as if he had +been a centipede. + +All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender +of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, +all desolation has for its real aim this separation of something +so that it may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel +grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious +and fascinating division between one of my feet and the other. +The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost. +In one of my feet I can feel how strong and splendid a foot is; +in the other I can realise how very much otherwise it might +have been. The moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. +This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and +beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. +If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself +if only for a moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully +and wonderfully God's image is made, stand on one leg. +If you want to realise the splendid vision of all visible things-- +wink the other eye. + + +VIII + +The End of the World + +For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious +town of Besanon, which stands like a sort of peninsula +in a horse-shoe of river. You may learn from the guide books +that it was the birthplace of Victor Hugo, and that it is +a military station with many forts, near the French frontier. +But you will not learn from guide books that the very tiles +on the roofs seem to be of some quainter and more delicate +colour than the tiles of all the other towns of the world; +that the tiles look like the little clouds of some strange sunset, +or like the lustrous scales of some strange fish. They will not +tell you that in this town the eye cannot rest on anything without +finding it in some way attractive and even elvish, a carved face +at a street corner, a gleam of green fields through a stunted arch, +or some unexpected colour for the enamel of a spire or dome. + +. . . . . + +Evening was coming on and in the light of it all these colours +so simple and yet so subtle seemed more and more to fit together +and make a fairy tale. I sat down for a little outside a caf +with a row of little toy trees in front of it, and presently +the driver of a fly (as we should call it) came to the same place. +He was one of those very large and dark Frenchmen, a type not +common but yet typical of France; the Rabelaisian Frenchman, +huge, swarthy, purple-faced, a walking wine-barrel; he was a sort +of Southern Falstaff, if one can imagine Falstaff anything but English. +And, indeed, there was a vital difference, typical of two nations. +For while Falstaff would have been shaking with hilarity like +a huge jelly, full of the broad farce of the London streets, +this Frenchman was rather solemn and dignified than otherwise-- +as if pleasure were a kind of pagan religion. After some +talk which was full of the admirable civility and equality +of French civilisation, he suggested without either eagerness +or embarrassment that he should take me in his fly for an hour's +ride in the hills beyond the town. And though it was growing late +I consented; for there was one long white road under an archway +and round a hill that dragged me like a long white cord. +We drove through the strong, squat gateway that was made by Romans, +and I remember the coincidence like a sort of omen that as we +passed out of the city I heard simultaneously the three sounds +which are the trinity of France. They make what some poet calls +"a tangled trinity," and I am not going to disentangle it. +Whatever those three things mean, how or why they co-exist; +whether they can be reconciled or perhaps are reconciled already; +the three sounds I heard then by an accident all at once make up +the French mystery. For the brass band in the Casino gardens behind +me was playing with a sort of passionate levity some ramping tune +from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was going on I heard +also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible loyalties +and men always arming in the gate of France; and I heard also, +fainter than these sounds and through them all, the Angelus. + +. . . . . + +After this coincidence of symbols I had a curious sense of having +left France behind me, or, perhaps, even the civilised world. +And, indeed, there was something in the landscape wild +enough to encourage such a fancy. I have seen perhaps +higher mountains, but I have never seen higher rocks; +I have never seen height so near, so abrupt and sensational, +splinters of rock that stood up like the spires of churches, +cliffs that fell sudden and straight as Satan fell from heaven. +There was also a quality in the ride which was not only astonishing, +but rather bewildering; a quality which many must have noticed +if they have driven or ridden rapidly up mountain roads. +I mean a sense of gigantic gyration, as of the whole +earth turning about one's head. It is quite inadequate +to say that the hills rose and fell like enormous waves. +Rather the hills seemed to turn about me like the enormous sails +of a windmill, a vast wheel of monstrous archangelic wings. +As we drove on and up into the gathering purple of the sunset this +dizziness increased, confounding things above with things below. +Wide walls of wooded rock stood out above my head like a roof. +I stared at them until I fancied that I was staring down at a +wooded plain. Below me steeps of green swept down to the river. +I stared at them until I fancied that they swept up to the sky. +The purple darkened, night drew nearer; it seemed only to cut clearer +the chasms and draw higher the spires of that nightmare landscape. +Above me in the twilight was the huge black hulk of the driver, +and his broad, blank back was as mysterious as the back +of Death in Watts' picture. I felt that I was growing +too fantastic, and I sought to speak of ordinary things. +I called out to the driver in French, "Where are you taking me?" +and it is a literal and solemn fact that he answered me in the same +language without turning around, "To the end of the world." + +I did not answer. I let him drag the vehicle up dark, +steep ways, until I saw lights under a low roof of little +trees and two children, one oddly beautiful, playing at ball. +Then we found ourselves filling up the strict main street +of a tiny hamlet, and across the wall of its inn was written +in large letters, LE BOUT DU MONDE--the end of the world. + +The driver and I sat down outside that inn without a word, as if all +ceremonies were natural and understood in that ultimate place. +I ordered bread for both of us, and red wine, that was good but +had no name. On the other side of the road was a little plain +church with a cross on top of it and a cock on top of the cross. +This seemed to me a very good end of the world; if the story +of the world ended here it ended well. Then I wondered whether I +myself should really be content to end here, where most certainly +there were the best things of Christendom--a church and children's +games and decent soil and a tavern for men to talk with men. +But as I thought a singular doubt and desire grew slowly in me, +and at last I started up. + +"Are you not satisfied?" asked my companion. "No," I said, +"I am not satisfied even at the end of the world." + +Then, after a silence, I said, "Because you see there are two +ends of the world. And this is the wrong end of the world; +at least the wrong one for me. This is the French end of the world. +I want the other end of the world. Drive me to the other end +of the world." + +"The other end of the world?" he asked. "Where is that?" + +"It is in Walham Green," I whispered hoarsely. "You see it +on the London omnibuses. 'World's End and Walham Green.' +Oh, I know how good this is; I love your vineyards and your +free peasantry, but I want the English end of the world. +I love you like a brother, but I want an English cabman, +who will be funny and ask me what his fare 'is.' Your bugles +stir my blood, but I want to see a London policeman. +Take, oh, take me to see a London policeman." + +He stood quite dark and still against the end of the sunset, +and I could not tell whether he understood or not. I got back +into his carriage. + +"You will understand," I said, "if ever you are an exile even +for pleasure. The child to his mother, the man to his country, +as a countryman of yours once said. But since, perhaps, it is +rather too long a drive to the English end of the world, +we may as well drive back to Besanon." + +Only as the stars came out among those immortal hills I wept +for Walham Green. + + +IX + +In the Place de La Bastille + +On the first of May I was sitting outside a caf in the Place de +la Bastille in Paris staring at the exultant column, crowned with +a capering figure, which stands in the place where the people +destroyed a prison and ended an age. The thing is a curious +example of how symbolic is the great part of human history. +As a matter of mere material fact, the Bastille when it was taken +was not a horrible prison; it was hardly a prison at all. +But it was a symbol, and the people always go by a sure +instinct for symbols; for the Chinaman, for instance, +at the last General Election, or for President Kruger's hat +in the election before; their poetic sense is perfect. +The Chinaman with his pigtail is not an idle flippancy. +He does typify with a compact precision exactly the thing +the people resent in African policy, the alien and grotesque +nature of the power of wealth, the fact that money has no roots, +that it is not a natural and familiar power, but a sort of airy +and evil magic calling monsters from the ends of the earth. +The people hate the mine owner who can bring a Chinaman +flying across the sea, exactly as the people hated the wizard +who could fetch a flying dragon through the air. It was the same +with Mr. Kruger's hat. His hat (that admirable hat) was not merely +a joke. It did symbolise, and symbolise extremely well, the exact +thing which our people at that moment regarded with impatience and +venom; the old-fashioned, dingy, Republican simplicity, the +unbeautiful dignity of the bourgeois, and the heavier truisms of +political morality. No; the people are sometimes wrong on the +practical side of politics; they are never wrong on the artistic +side. + +. . . . . + +So it was, certainly, with the Bastille. The destruction of the Bastille +was not a reform; it was something more important than a reform. +It was an iconoclasm; it was the breaking of a stone image. +The people saw the building like a giant looking at them with +a score of eyes, and they struck at it as at a carved fact. +For of all the shapes in which that immense illusion called materialism +can terrify the soul, perhaps the most oppressive are big buildings. +Man feels like a fly, an accident, in the thing he has himself made. +It requires a violent effort of the spirit to remember that +man made this confounding thing and man could unmake it. +Therefore the mere act of the ragged people in the street +taking and destroying a huge public building has a spiritual, +a ritual meaning far beyond its immediate political results. +It is a religious service. If, for instance, the Socialists were +numerous or courageous enough to capture and smash up the Bank +of England, you might argue for ever about the inutility of the act, +and how it really did not touch the root of the economic problem +in the correct manner. But mankind would never forget it. +It would change the world. + +Architecture is a very good test of the true strength +of a society, for the most valuable things in a human +state are the irrevocable things--marriage, for instance. +And architecture approaches nearer than any other art to +being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get rid of. +You can turn a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a +nuisance to turn that Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. +You can tear a poem to pieces; it is only in moments of +very sincere emotion that you tear a town-hall to pieces. +A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like a dogma. +Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence like a dogma. +People ask why we have no typical architecture of the modern world, +like impressionism in painting. Surely it is obviously +because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see +anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in +the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky. +But along with this decision which is involved in creating a building, +there goes a quite similar decision in the more delightful +task of smashing one. The two of necessity go together. +In few places have so many fine public buildings been set up +as here in Paris, and in few places have so many been destroyed. +When people have finally got into the horrible habit of preserving +buildings, they have got out of the habit of building them. +And in London one mingles, as it were, one's tears because so few +are pulled down. + +. . . . . + +As I sat staring at the column of the Bastille, inscribed to Liberty +and Glory, there came out of one corner of the square (which, like +so many such squares, was at once crowded and quiet) a sudden and +silent line of horsemen. Their dress was of a dull blue, plain and +prosaic enough, but the sun set on fire the brass and steel of their +helmets; and their helmets were carved like the helmets of the Romans. +I had seen them by twos and threes often enough before. +I had seen plenty of them in pictures toiling through the snows +of Friedland or roaring round the squares at Waterloo. +But now they came file after file, like an invasion, +and something in their numbers, or in the evening light that lit +up their faces and their crests, or something in the reverie +into which they broke, made me inclined to spring to my feet +and cry out, "The French soldiers!" There were the little men +with the brown faces that had so often ridden through the capitals +of Europe as coolly as they now rode through their own. +And when I looked across the square I saw that the two other corners +were choked with blue and red; held by little groups of infantry. +The city was garrisoned as against a revolution. + +Of course, I had heard all about the strike, chiefly from a baker. +He said he was not going to "Chomer." I said, "Qu'est-ce que +c'est que le chome?" He said, "Ils ne veulent pas travailler." +I said, "Ni moi non plus," and he thought I was a class-conscious +collectivist proletarian. The whole thing was curious, and the true +moral of it one not easy for us, as a nation, to grasp, because our +own faults are so deeply and dangerously in the other direction. +To me, as an Englishman (personally steeped in the English optimism +and the English dislike of severity), the whole thing seemed a fuss +about nothing. It looked like turning out one of the best armies +in Europe against ordinary people walking about the street. +The cavalry charged us once or twice, more or less harmlessly. +But, of course, it is hard to say how far in such criticisms +one is assuming the French populace to be (what it is not) +as docile as the English. But the deeper truth of the matter tingled, +so to speak, through the whole noisy night. This people has +a natural faculty for feeling itself on the eve of something--of the +Bartholomew or the Revolution or the Commune or the Day of Judgment. +It is this sense of crisis that makes France eternally young. +It is perpetually pulling down and building up, as it pulled down +the prison and put up the column in the Place de La Bastille. +France has always been at the point of dissolution. She has found +the only method of immortality. She dies daily. + + +X + +On Lying in Bed + +Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience +if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. +This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic +apparatus on the premises. I think myself that the thing +might be managed with several pails of Aspinall and a broom. +Only if one worked in a really sweeping and masterly way, +and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip down again +on one's face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some +strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. +I am afraid it would be necessary to stick to black and white +in this form of artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, +the white ceiling would be of the greatest possible use; in fact, +it is the only use I think of a white ceiling being put to. + +But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have +discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces +in a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really +allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, "Il me faut des gants." +But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern +rooms such as we all live in I was continually disappointed. +I found an endless pattern and complication of small objects +hung like a curtain of fine links between me and my desire. +I examined the walls; I found them to my surprise to be +already covered with wallpaper, and I found the wallpaper +to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing +a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand +why one arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely +devoid of any religious or philosophical significance) +should thus be sprinkled all over my nice walls like a sort +of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to wallpapers, I think, +when it says, "Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do." +I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, +rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called +Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight +really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. +Everywhere that I went forlornly, with my pencil or my paint brush, +I found that others had unaccountably been before me, +spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with their +childish and barbaric designs. + +. . . . . + +Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this occasion +when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying on my back +in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my vision, +that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition +of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom. +But alas! like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found +to be unattainable; it looks more austere and more distant +than the blue sky outside the window. For my proposal to paint +on it with the bristly end of a broom has been discouraged-- +never mind by whom; by a person debarred from all political rights-- +and even my minor proposal to put the other end of the broom into +the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been conceded. +Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that all +the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces +and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. +I am sure that it was only because Michael Angelo was engaged +in the ancient and honourable occupation of lying in bed that +he ever realized how the roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made +into an awful imitation of a divine drama that could only be acted +in the heavens. + +The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed +is hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity +that seem to mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing +and dangerous than the exultation of very small and secondary +matters of conduct at the expense of very great and primary ones, +at the expense of eternal ties and tragic human morality. +If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, +it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. Thus it is considered +more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of bad ethics. +Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness +is made essential and godliness is regarded as an offence. +A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long +as he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met +Ibsenite pessimists who thought it wrong to take beer but right +to take prussic acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; +notably such matters as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, +as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenience +and adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it +were a part of essential morals to get up early in the morning. +It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but there is nothing +good about it or bad about its opposite. + +. . . . . + +Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, +get up the night before. It is the great peril of our society +that all its mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows +more fickle. A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to +be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable +are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; +our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. +Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions, +but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, +sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top +of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, +but let them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. +This alarming growth of good habits really means a too great emphasis +on those virtues which mere custom can ensure, it means too little +emphasis on those virtues which custom can never quite ensure, +sudden and splendid virtues of inspired pity or of inspired candour. +If ever that abrupt appeal is made to us we may fail. +A man can get use to getting up at five o'clock in the morning. +A man cannot very well get used to being burnt for his opinions; +the first experiment is commonly fatal. Let us pay a little more +attention to these possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. +I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed +of an almost terrible virtue. + +For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic +caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed +(like journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done +in bed (as, for example, the professional harpooners of whales), +it is obvious that the indulgence must be very occasional. +But that is not the caution I mean. The caution is this: +if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without any reason or +justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the seriously sick. +But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a rag of excuse; +then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some secondary +hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may get +up a hypochondriac. + + +XI + +The Twelve Men + +The other day, while I was meditating on morality and Mr. H. Pitt, I was, +so to speak, snatched up and put into a jury box to try people. +The snatching took some weeks, but to me it seemed something sudden +and arbitrary. I was put into this box because I lived in Battersea, +and my name began with a C. Looking round me, I saw that there were +also summoned and in attendance in the court whole crowds and processions +of men, all of whom lived in Battersea, and all of whose names began +with a C. + +It seems that they always summon jurymen in this sweeping +alphabetical way. At one official blow, so to speak, +Battersea is denuded of all its C's, and left to get on +as best it can with the rest of the alphabet. A Cumberpatch +is missing from one street--a Chizzolpop from another-- +three Chucksterfields from Chucksterfield House; the children +are crying out for an absent Cadgerboy; the woman at the street +corner is weeping for her Coffintop, and will not be comforted. +We settle down with a rollicking ease into our seats +(for we are a bold, devil-may-care race, the C's of Battersea), +and an oath is administered to us in a totally inaudible manner +by an individual resembling an Army surgeon in his second childhood. +We understand, however, that we are to well and truly try the case +between our sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, +neither of whom has put in an appearance as yet. + +. . . . . + +Just when I was wondering whether the King and the prisoner +were, perhaps, coming to an amicable understanding in some +adjoining public house, the prisoner's head appears above +the barrier of the dock; he is accused of stealing bicycles, +and he is the living image of a great friend of mine. +We go into the matter of the stealing of the bicycles. +We do well and truly try the case between the King and the +prisoner in the affair of the bicycles. And we come to the +conclusion, after a brief but reasonable discussion, that +the King is not in any way implicated. Then we pass on to a +woman who neglected her children, and who looks as if somebody +or something had neglected her. And I am one of those who fancy +that something had. + +All the time that the eye took in these light appearances +and the brain passed these light criticisms, there was in +the heart a barbaric pity and fear which men have never been +able to utter from the beginning, but which is the power behind +half the poems of the world. The mood cannot even adequately +be suggested, except faintly by this statement that tragedy +is the highest expression of the infinite value of human life. +Never had I stood so close to pain; and never so far away +from pessimism. Ordinarily, I should not have spoken of these +dark emotions at all, for speech about them is too difficult; +but I mention them now for a specific and particular +reason to the statement of which I will proceed at once. +I speak these feelings because out of the furnace of them there +came a curious realisation of a political or social truth. +I saw with a queer and indescribable kind of clearness what +a jury really is, and why we must never let it go. + +The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards +specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers +because they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, +trained dancers because they dance better, specially instructed +laughers because they laugh better, and so on and so on. +The principle has been applied to law and politics by innumerable +modern writers. Many Fabians have insisted that a greater +part of our political work should be performed by experts. +Many legalists have declared that the untrained jury should be +altogether supplanted by the trained Judge. + +. . . . . + +Now, if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, +I do not know that there would be any fault to find with this. +But the true result of all experience and the true foundation +of all religion is this. That the four or five things +that it is most practically essential that a man should know, +are all of them what people call paradoxes. That is to say, +that though we all find them in life to be mere plain truths, +yet we cannot easily state them in words without being guilty +of seeming verbal contradictions. One of them, for instance, +is the unimpeachable platitude that the man who finds most +pleasure for himself is often the man who least hunts for it. +Another is the paradox of courage; the fact that the way +to avoid death is not to have too much aversion to it. +Whoever is careless enough of his bones to climb some hopeful +cliff above the tide may save his bones by that carelessness. +Whoever will lose his life, the same shall save it; +an entirely practical and prosaic statement. + +Now, one of these four or five paradoxes which should be taught +to every infant prattling at his mother's knee is the following: +That the more a man looks at a thing, the less he can see it, +and the more a man learns a thing the less he knows it. +The Fabian argument of the expert, that the man who is trained +should be the man who is trusted would be absolutely unanswerable +if it were really true that a man who studied a thing and practiced +it every day went on seeing more and more of its significance. +But he does not. He goes on seeing less and less of its significance. +In the same way, alas! we all go on every day, unless we are +continually goading ourselves into gratitude and humility, +seeing less and less of the significance of the sky or the stones. + +. . . . . + +Now it is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of men. +But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can +to other terrible things; he can even grow accustomed to the sun. +And the horrible thing about all legal officials, even the best, +about all judges, magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, +is not that they are wicked (some of them are good), not that they +are stupid (several of them are quite intelligent), it is simply +that they have got used to it. + +Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they +see is the usual man in the usual place. They do not see +the awful court of judgment; they only see their own workshop. +Therefore, the instinct of Christian civilisation has most wisely +declared that into their judgments there shall upon every occasion +be infused fresh blood and fresh thoughts from the streets. +Men shall come in who can see the court and the crowd, +and coarse faces of the policeman and the professional criminals, +the wasted faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the +gesticulating counsel, and see it all as one sees a new picture +or a play hitherto unvisited. + +Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, +that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too +important to be trusted to trained men. It wishes for light upon +that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, +but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. +When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, +or any trifle of that kind, it uses up specialists. But when it +wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve +of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I +remember right, by the Founder of Christianity. + + +XII + +The Wind and the Trees + +I am sitting under tall trees, with a great wind boiling like surf +about the tops of them, so that their living load of leaves rocks +and roars in something that is at once exultation and agony. +I feel, in fact, as if I were actually sitting at the bottom +of the sea among mere anchors and ropes, while over my head +and over the green twilight of water sounded the everlasting rush +of waves and the toil and crash and shipwreck of tremendous ships. +The wind tugs at the trees as if it might pluck them root +and all out of the earth like tufts of grass. Or, to try yet +another desperate figure of speech for this unspeakable energy, +the trees are straining and tearing and lashing as if they +were a tribe of dragons each tied by the tail. + +As I look at these top-heavy giants tortured by an invisible +and violent witchcraft, a phrase comes back into my mind. +I remember a little boy of my acquaintance who was once walking +in Battersea Park under just such torn skies and tossing trees. +He did not like the wind at all; it blew in his face too much; +it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his hat, of which +he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about four. +After complaining repeatedly of the atmospheric unrest, he said +at last to his mother, "Well, why don't you take away the trees, +and then it wouldn't wind." + +Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. +Any one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy +that they were indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere +waving agitated the air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, +could be more human and excusable than the belief that it is +the trees which make the wind. Indeed, the belief is so human +and excusable that it is, as a matter of fact, the belief of about +ninety-nine out of a hundred of the philosophers, reformers, +sociologists, and politicians of the great age in which we live. +My small friend was, in fact, very like the principal modern thinkers; +only much nicer. + +. . . . . + +In the little apologue or parable which he has thus the honour +of inventing, the trees stand for all visible things +and the wind for the invisible. The wind is the spirit +which bloweth where it listeth; the trees are the material +things of the world which are blown where the spirit lists. +The wind is philosophy, religion, revolution; the trees are +cities and civilisations. We only know that there is a wind +because the trees on some distant hill suddenly go mad. +We only know that there is a real revolution because all +the chimney-pots go mad on the whole skyline of the city. + +Just as the ragged outline of a tree grows suddenly more +ragged and rises into fantastic crests or tattered tails, +so the human city rises under the wind of the spirit into toppling +temples or sudden spires. No man has ever seen a revolution. +Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood pouring down the gutters, +the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, a prison +in ruins, a people in arms--these things are not revolution, +but the results of revolution. + +You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind. +So, also, you cannot see a revolution; you can only see that +there is a revolution. And there never has been in the history +of the world a real revolution, brutally active and decisive, +which was not preceded by unrest and new dogma in the reign +of invisible things. All revolutions began by being abstract. +Most revolutions began by being quite pedantically abstract. + +The wind is up above the world before a twig on the tree has moved. +So there must always be a battle in the sky before there +is a battle on the earth. Since it is lawful to pray +for the coming of the kingdom, it is lawful also to pray for +the coming of the revolution that shall restore the kingdom. +It is lawful to hope to hear the wind of Heaven in the trees. +It is lawful to pray "Thine anger come on earth as it +is in Heaven." + +. . . . . + +The great human dogma, then, is that the wind moves the trees. +The great human heresy is that the trees move the wind. +When people begin to say that the material circumstances have +alone created the moral circumstances, then they have prevented +all possibility of serious change. For if my circumstances +have made me wholly stupid, how can I be certain even that I +am right in altering those circumstances? + +The man who represents all thought as an accident of environment +is simply smashing and discrediting all his own thoughts-- +including that one. To treat the human mind as having an ultimate +authority is necessary to any kind of thinking, even free thinking. +And nothing will ever be reformed in this age or country unless +we realise that the moral fact comes first. + +For example, most of us, I suppose, have seen in print and heard +in debating clubs an endless discussion that goes on between Socialists +and total abstainers. The latter say that drink leads to poverty; +the former say that poverty leads to drink. I can only wonder at their +either of them being content with such simple physical explanations. +Surely it is obvious that the thing which among the English proletariat +leads to poverty is the same as the thing which leads to drink; +the absence of strong civic dignity, the absence of an instinct +that resists degradation. + +When you have discovered why enormous English estates were not long +ago cut up into small holdings like the land of France, you will have +discovered why the Englishman is more drunken than the Frenchman. +The Englishman, among his million delightful virtues, really has +this quality, which may strictly be called "hand to mouth," because under +its influence a man's hand automatically seeks his own mouth, +instead of seeking (as it sometimes should do) his oppressor's nose. +And a man who says that the English inequality in land is due only +to economic causes, or that the drunkenness of England is due only +to economic causes, is saying something so absurd that he cannot +really have thought what he was saying. + +Yet things quite as preposterous as this are said and written under +the influence of that great spectacle of babyish helplessness, the +economic theory of history. We have people who represent that all +great historic motives were economic, and then have to howl at the +top of their voices in order to induce the modern democracy to act +on economic motives. The extreme Marxian politicians in England +exhibit themselves as a small, heroic minority, trying vainly to +induce the world to do what, according to their theory, the world +always does. The truth is, of course, that there will be a social +revolution the moment the thing has ceased to be purely economic. +You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. +You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. + +. . . . . + +I get up from under the trees, for the wind and the slight +rain have ceased. The trees stand up like golden pillars +in a clear sunlight. The tossing of the trees and the blowing +of the wind have ceased simultaneously. So I suppose there +are still modern philosophers who will maintain that the trees +make the wind. + + +XIII + +The Dickensian + +He was a quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw hat; +with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, +but with a quite unmilitary stoop and very dreamy eyes. +He was gazing with a rather gloomy interest at the cluster, +one might almost say the tangle, of small shipping which grew thicker +as our little pleasure boat crawled up into Yarmouth Harbour. +A boat entering this harbour, as every one knows, does not +enter in front of the town like a foreigner, but creeps round +at the back like a traitor taking the town in the rear. +The passage of the river seems almost too narrow for traffic, +and in consequence the bigger ships look colossal. As we passed +under a timber ship from Norway, which seemed to block up the heavens +like a cathedral, the man in a straw hat pointed to an odd wooden +figurehead carved like a woman, and said, like one continuing +a conversation, "Now, why have they left off having them. +They didn't do any one any harm?" + +I replied with some flippancy about the captain's wife being jealous; +but I knew in my heart that the man had struck a deep note. +There has been something in our most recent civilisation which is +mysteriously hostile to such healthy and humane symbols. + +"They hate anything like that, which is human and pretty," he continued, +exactly echoing my thoughts. "I believe they broke up all the jolly +old figureheads with hatchets and enjoyed doing it." + +"Like Mr. Quilp," I answered, "when he battered the wooden Admiral +with the poker." + +His whole face suddenly became alive, and for the first time +he stood erect and stared at me. + +"Do you come to Yarmouth for that?" he asked. + +"For what?" + +"For Dickens," he answered, and drummed with his foot on the deck. + +"No," I answered; "I come for fun, though that is much the same thing." + +"I always come," he answered quietly, "to find Peggotty's boat. +It isn't here." + +And when he said that I understood him perfectly. + +There are two Yarmouths; I daresay there are two hundred +to the people who live there. I myself have never come +to the end of the list of Batterseas. But there are two to +the stranger and tourist; the poor part, which is dignified, +and the prosperous part, which is savagely vulgar. +My new friend haunted the first of these like a ghost; +to the latter he would only distantly allude. + +"The place is very much spoilt now . . . trippers, you know," +he would say, not at all scornfully, but simply sadly. +That was the nearest he would go to an admission of the monstrous +watering place that lay along the front, outblazing the sun, +and more deafening than the sea. But behind--out of earshot +of this uproar--there are lanes so narrow that they seem +like secret entrances to some hidden place of repose. +There are squares so brimful of silence that to plunge into one +of them is like plunging into a pool. In these places the man +and I paced up and down talking about Dickens, or, rather, +doing what all true Dickensians do, telling each other verbatim +long passages which both of us knew quite well already. +We were really in the atmosphere of the older England. +Fishermen passed us who might well have been characters +like Peggotty; we went into a musty curiosity shop and +bought pipe-stoppers carved into figures from Pickwick. +The evening was settling down between all the buildings +with that slow gold that seems to soak everything when we went +into the church. + +In the growing darkness of the church, my eye caught the coloured +windows which on that clear golden evening were flaming with all the +passionate heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian arts. +At length I said to my companion: + +"Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant +for the angel at the sepulchre." + +He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows. + +"I daresay," he said. "What is there odd about that?" + +After a pause I said, "Do you remember what the angel at +the sepulchre said?" + +"Not particularly," he answered; "but where are you off +to in such a hurry?" + +I walked him rapidly out of the still square, past the +fishermen's almshouses, towards the coast, he still inquiring +indignantly where I was going. + +"I am going," I said, "to put pennies in automatic machines +on the beach. I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going +to have my photograph taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer +out of its original bottle. I will buy some picture postcards. +I do want a boat. I am ready to listen to a concertina, +and but for the defects of my education should be ready to play it. +I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, if the donkey is willing. +I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was commanded me +by the angel in the stained-glass window." + +"I really think," said the Dickensian, "that I had better put +you in charge of your relations." + +"Sir," I answered, "there are certain writers to whom humanity +owes much, whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective +a type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places +or certain perishing associations. It would not be unnatural +to look for the spirit of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, +or even for the shade of Thackeray in Old Kensington. +But let us have no antiquarianism about Dickens, for Dickens +is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward, but forward; +he might look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury, +but he would love to look at them. He might lash our democracy, +but it would be because, like a democrat, he asked much from it. +We will not have all his books bound up under the title +of 'The Old Curiosity Shop.' Rather we will have them +all bound up under the title of 'Great Expectations.' +Wherever humanity is he would have us face it and make +something of it, swallow it with a holy cannibalism, +and assimilate it with the digestion of a giant. We must +take these trippers as he would have taken them, and tear +out of them their tragedy and their farce. Do you remember +now what the angel said at the sepulchre? 'Why seek ye the +living among the dead? He is not here; he is risen.'" + +With that we came out suddenly on the wide stretch of the sands, +which were black with the knobs and masses of our laughing and quite +desperate democracy. And the sunset, which was now in its final glory, +flung far over all of them a red flush and glitter like the gigantic +firelight of Dickens. In that strange evening light every figure +looked at once grotesque and attractive, as if he had a story to tell. +I heard a little girl (who was being throttled by another little girl) +say by way of self-vindication, "My sister-in-law 'as got four rings +aside her weddin' ring!" + +I stood and listened for more, but my friend went away. + + +XIV + +In Topsy-Turvy Land + +Last week, in an idle metaphor, I took the tumbling of trees +and the secret energy of the wind as typical of the visible world +moving under the violence of the invisible. I took this metaphor +merely because I happened to be writing the article in a wood. +Nevertheless, now that I return to Fleet Street (which seems to me, +I confess, much better and more poetical than all the wild woods +in the world), I am strangely haunted by this accidental comparison. +The people's figures seem a forest and their soul a wind. +All the human personalities which speak or signal to me seem to have +this fantastic character of the fringe of the forest against the sky. +That man that talks to me, what is he but an articulate tree? +That driver of a van who waves his hands wildly at me to tell me +to get out of the way, what is he but a bunch of branches stirred +and swayed by a spiritual wind, a sylvan object that I can continue +to contemplate with calm? That policeman who lifts his hand +to warn three omnibuses of the peril that they run in encountering +my person, what is he but a shrub shaken for a moment with that +blast of human law which is a thing stronger than anarchy? +Gradually this impression of the woods wears off. But this +black-and-white contrast between the visible and invisible, this deep +sense that the one essential belief is belief in the invisible as against +the visible, is suddenly and sensationally brought back to my mind. +Exactly at the moment when Fleet Street has grown most familiar (that is, +most bewildering and bright), my eye catches a poster of vivid violet, +on which I see written in large black letters these remarkable words: +"Should Shop Assistants Marry?" + +. . . . . + +When I saw those words everything might just as well +have turned upside down. The men in Fleet Street might +have been walking about on their hands. The cross of +St. Paul's might have been hanging in the air upside down. +For I realise that I have really come into a topsy-turvy country; +I have come into the country where men do definitely believe +that the waving of the trees makes the wind. That is to say, +they believe that the material circumstances, however black +and twisted, are more important than the spiritual realities, +however powerful and pure. "Should Shop Assistants Marry?" I am +puzzled to think what some periods and schools of human history +would have made of such a question. The ascetics of the East +or of some periods of the early Church would have thought +that the question meant, "Are not shop assistants too saintly, +too much of another world, even to feel the emotions of the sexes?" +But I suppose that is not what the purple poster means. +In some pagan cities it might have meant, "Shall slaves so vile +as shop assistants even be allowed to propagate their abject race?" +But I suppose that is not what the purple poster meant. +We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what it does mean. +It does really mean that a section of the human race is asking +whether the primary relations of the two human sexes are particularly +good for modern shops. The human race is asking whether Adam +and Eve are entirely suitable for Marshall and Snelgrove. +If this is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine what would be. +We ask whether the universal institution will improve our +(please God) temporary institution. Yet I have known many +such questions. For instance, I have known a man ask seriously, +"Does Democracy help the Empire?" Which is like saying, +"Is art favourable to frescoes?" + +I say that there are many such questions asked. +But if the world ever runs short of them, I can suggest +a large number of questions of precisely the same kind, +based on precisely the same principle. + +"Do Feet Improve Boots?"--"Is Bread Better when Eaten?"--"Should +Hats have Heads in them?"--"Do People Spoil a Town?"--"Do Walls +Ruin Wall-papers?"--"Should Neckties enclose Necks?"--"Do Hands +Hurt Walking-sticks?"--"Does Burning Destroy Firewood?"--"Is +Cleanliness Good for Soap?"--"Can Cricket Really Improve +Cricket-bats?"--"Shall We Take Brides with our Wedding Rings?" +and a hundred others. + +Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport +or in intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from +the purple poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by +half of the earnest economists of our times. All the questions they +ask are of this character; they are all tinged with this same initial +absurdity. They do not ask if the means is suited to the end; they +all ask (with profound and penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited +to the means. They do not ask whether the tail suits the dog. +They all ask whether a dog is (by the highest artistic canons) +the most ornamental appendage that can be put at the end of a tail. +In short, instead of asking whether our modern arrangements, +our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete institutions are +suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy human life, +they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion +at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; +and then they only ask whether that healthy human life is suited +to our streets and trades. Perfection may be attainable or +unattainable as an end. It may or may not be possible to talk +of imperfection as a means to perfection. But surely it passes +toleration to talk of perfection as a means to imperfection. +The New Jerusalem may be a reality. It may be a dream. +But surely it is too outrageous to say that the New Jerusalem +is a reality on the road to Birmingham. + +. . . . . + +This is the most enormous and at the same time the most secret +of the modern tyrannies of materialism. In theory the thing ought +to be simple enough. A really human human being would always put +the spiritual things first. A walking and speaking statue of God +finds himself at one particular moment employed as a shop assistant. +He has in himself a power of terrible love, a promise of paternity, +a thirst for some loyalty that shall unify life, and in the ordinary +course of things he asks himself, "How far do the existing conditions +of those assisting in shops fit in with my evident and epic destiny +in the matter of love and marriage?" But here, as I have said, +comes in the quiet and crushing power of modern materialism. +It prevents him rising in rebellion, as he would otherwise do. +By perpetually talking about environment and visible things, +by perpetually talking about economics and physical necessity, +painting and keeping repainted a perpetual picture of iron +machinery and merciless engines, of rails of steel, and of +towers of stone, modern materialism at last produces this +tremendous impression in which the truth is stated upside down. +At last the result is achieved. The man does not say as +he ought to have said, "Should married men endure being modern +shop assistants?" The man says, "Should shop assistants marry?" +Triumph has completed the immense illusion of materialism. +The slave does not say, "Are these chains worthy of me?" +The slave says scientifically and contentedly, "Am I even worthy +of these chains?" + + +XV + +What I Found in My Pocket + +Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have +made the Empire what it is--a man in an astracan coat, +with an astracan moustache--a tight, black, curly moustache. +Whether he put on the moustache with the coat or whether his Napoleonic +will enabled him not only to grow a moustache in the usual place, +but also to grow little moustaches all over his clothes, I do not know. +I only remember that he said to me the following words: "A man can't +get on nowadays by hanging about with his hands in his pockets." +I made reply with the quite obvious flippancy that perhaps a man got +on by having his hands in other people's pockets; whereupon he began +to argue about Moral Evolution, so I suppose what I said had some +truth in it. But the incident now comes back to me, and connects +itself with another incident--if you can call it an incident-- +which happened to me only the other day. + +I have only once in my life picked a pocket, and then (perhaps through +some absent-mindedness) I picked my own. My act can really with some +reason be so described. For in taking things out of my own pocket I +had at least one of the more tense and quivering emotions of the thief; +I had a complete ignorance and a profound curiosity as to what I should +find there. Perhaps it would be the exaggeration of eulogy to call me a +tidy person. But I can always pretty satisfactorily account for all my +possessions. I can always tell where they are, and what I have done with +them, so long as I can keep them out of my pockets. If once anything +slips into those unknown abysses, I wave it a sad Virgilian farewell. +I suppose that the things that I have dropped into my pockets +are still there; the same presumption applies to the things +that I have dropped into the sea. But I regard the riches stored +in both these bottomless chasms with the same reverent ignorance. +They tell us that on the last day the sea will give up its dead; +and I suppose that on the same occasion long strings of +extraordinary things will come running out of my pockets. +But I have quite forgotten what any of them are; and there +is really nothing (excepting the money) that I shall be at all +surprised at finding among them. + +. . . . . + +Such at least has hitherto been my state of innocence. +I here only wish briefly to recall the special, extraordinary, +and hitherto unprecedented circumstances which led me in +cold blood, and being of sound mind, to turn out my pockets. +I was locked up in a third-class carriage for a rather long journey. +The time was towards evening, but it might have been anything, +for everything resembling earth or sky or light or shade +was painted out as if with a great wet brush by an unshifting +sheet of quite colourless rain. I had no books or newspapers. +I had not even a pencil and a scrap of paper with which +to write a religious epic. There were no advertisements +on the walls of the carriage, otherwise I could have plunged +into the study, for any collection of printed words is quite +enough to suggest infinite complexities of mental ingenuity. +When I find myself opposite the words "Sunlight Soap" I can +exhaust all the aspects of Sun Worship, Apollo, and Summer +poetry before I go on to the less congenial subject of soap. +But there was no printed word or picture anywhere; there was +nothing but blank wood inside the carriage and blank wet without. +Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can +be, uninteresting. So I stared at the joints of the walls and seats, +and began thinking hard on the fascinating subject of wood. +Just as I had begun to realise why, perhaps, it was that Christ +was a carpenter, rather than a bricklayer, or a baker, +or anything else, I suddenly started upright, and remembered +my pockets. I was carrying about with me an unknown treasury. +I had a British Museum and a South Kensington collection +of unknown curios hung all over me in different places. +I began to take the things out. + +. . . . . + +The first thing I came upon consisted of piles and heaps of +Battersea tram tickets. There were enough to equip a paper chase. +They shook down in showers like confetti. Primarily, of course, +they touched my patriotic emotions, and brought tears to my eyes; +also they provided me with the printed matter I required, +for I found on the back of them some short but striking +little scientific essays about some kind of pill. Comparatively +speaking, in my then destitution, those tickets might be regarded +as a small but well-chosen scientific library. Should my railway +journey continue (which seemed likely at the time) for a few months +longer, I could imagine myself throwing myself into the controversial +aspects of the pill, composing replies and rejoinders pro and con +upon the data furnished to me. But after all it was the symbolic +quality of the tickets that moved me most. For as certainly as the +cross of St. George means English patriotism, those scraps of paper +meant all that municipal patriotism which is now, perhaps, the +greatest hope of England. + +The next thing that I took out was a pocket-knife. A pocket-knife, +I need hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral +meditations all to itself. A knife typifies one of the most +primary of those practical origins upon which as upon low, +thick pillows all our human civilisation reposes. Metals, the +mystery of the thing called iron and of the thing called steel, +led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream. I saw into the +intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among all the +common stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent +battle, in which stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered +against something shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. +I heard all the hammers on all the anvils of the earth. +I saw all the swords of Feudal and all the weals of Industrial war. +For the knife is only a short sword; and the pocket-knife +is a secret sword. I opened it and looked at that brilliant +and terrible tongue which we call a blade; and I thought that +perhaps it was the symbol of the oldest of the needs of man. +The next moment I knew that I was wrong; for the thing +that came next out of my pocket was a box of matches. +Then I saw fire, which is stronger even than steel, the old, +fierce female thing, the thing we all love, but dare not touch. + +The next thing I found was a piece of chalk; and I saw +in it all the art and all the frescoes of the world. +The next was a coin of a very modest value; and I saw in it +not only the image and superscription of our own Caesar, +but all government and order since the world began. +But I have not space to say what were the items in the long and +splendid procession of poetical symbols that came pouring out. +I cannot tell you all the things that were in my pocket. +I can tell you one thing, however, that I could not find in my pocket. +I allude to my railway ticket. + + +XVI + +The Dragon's Grandmother + +I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. +I do not mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated +in them--that he did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into +a coach. He did, indeed, entertain this curious disbelief. +And, like all the other people I have ever met who entertained it, +he was wholly unable to give me an intelligent reason for it. +He tried the laws of nature, but he soon dropped that. +Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary experience, +and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted pumpkinity. +But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we +adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply +the attitude we adopt towards all unusual occurrences. +If we were certain of miracles we should not count on them. +Things that happen very seldom we all leave out of +our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. +I do not expect a glass of water to be turned into wine; +but neither do I expect a glass of water to be poisoned with +prussic acid. I do not in ordinary business relations act +on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but neither do I +act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost +heir of the Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is +not that the natural order is unalterable, but simply that it +is much safer to bet on uncommon incidents than on common ones. +This does not touch the credibility of any attested tale +about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned into a coach. +If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car +with my own eyes that would not make me any more inclined +to assume that the same thing would happen again. I should not +invest largely in pumpkins with an eye to the motor trade. +Cinderella got a ball dress from the fairy; but I do not suppose +that she looked after her own clothes any the less after it. + +But the view that fairy tales cannot really have happened, +though crazy, is common. The man I speak of disbelieved +in fairy tales in an even more amazing and perverted sense. +He actually thought that fairy tales ought not to be told +to children. That is (like a belief in slavery or annexation) +one of those intellectual errors which lie very near +to ordinary mortal sins. There are some refusals which, +though they may be done what is called conscientiously, +yet carry so much of their whole horror in the very act of them, +that a man must in doing them not only harden but slightly +corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of milk to young +mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. +Another is the refusal of fairy tales to children. + +. . . . . + +The man had come to see me in connection with some silly society +of which I am an enthusiastic member; he was a fresh-coloured, +short-sighted young man, like a stray curate who was too +helpless even to find his way to the Church of England. He had a +curious green necktie and a very long neck; I am always meeting +idealists with very long necks. Perhaps it is that their eternal +aspiration slowly lifts their heads nearer and nearer to the stars. +Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that so many of +them are vegetarians: perhaps they are slowly evolving the neck of +the giraffe so that they can eat all the tops of the trees in +Kensington Gardens. These things are in every sense above me. +Such, anyhow, was the young man who did not believe in fairy tales; +and by a curious coincidence he entered the room when I had just +finished looking through a pile of contemporary fiction, and had +begun to read "Grimm's Fairy tales" as a natural consequence. + +The modern novels stood before me, however, in a stack; and you can +imagine their titles for yourself. There was "Suburban Sue: A Tale +of Psychology," and also "Psychological Sue: A Tale of Suburbia"; +there was "Trixy: A Temperament," and "Man-Hate: A Monochrome," and all +those nice things. I read them with real interest, but, curiously enough, +I grew tired of them at last, and when I saw "Grimm's Fairy Tales" +lying accidentally on the table, I gave a cry of indecent joy. +Here at least, here at last, one could find a little common sense. +I opened the book, and my eyes fell on these splendid and satisfying +words, "The Dragon's Grandmother." That at least was reasonable; +that at least was true. "The Dragon's Grandmother!" While I was +rolling this first touch of ordinary human reality upon my tongue, +I looked up suddenly and saw this monster with a green tie standing +in the doorway. + +. . . . . + +I listened to what he said about the society politely enough, +I hope; but when he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe +in fairy tales, I broke out beyond control. "Man," I said, +"who are you that you should not believe in fairy tales? +It is much easier to believe in Blue Beard than to believe in you. +A blue beard is a misfortune; but there are green ties which are sins. +It is far easier to believe in a million fairy tales +than to believe in one man who does not like fairy tales. +I would rather kiss Grimm instead of a Bible and swear to all +his stories as if they were thirty-nine articles than say +seriously and out of my heart that there can be such a man as you; +that you are not some temptation of the devil or some delusion +from the void. Look at these plain, homely, practical words. +'The Dragon's Grandmother,' that is all right; that is rational +almost to the verge of rationalism. If there was a dragon, +he had a grandmother. But you--you had no grandmother! +If you had known one, she would have taught you to love fairy tales. +You had no father, you had no mother; no natural causes can explain you. +You cannot be. I believe many things which I have not seen; +but of such things as you it may be said, 'Blessed is he that has +seen and yet has disbelieved.'" + +. . . . . + +It seemed to me that he did not follow me with sufficient delicacy, +so I moderated my tone. "Can you not see," I said, "that fairy +tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; +but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its +nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul +is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. +Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that +the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is-- +what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem +of the modern novel is--what will a madman do with a dull world? +In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. +In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, +and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos. +In the excellent tale of 'The Dragon's Grandmother,' in all the other +tales of Grimm, it is assumed that the young man setting out on his +travels will have all substantial truths in him; that he will be brave, +full of faith, reasonable, that he will respect his parents, +keep his word, rescue one kind of people, defy another kind, +'parcere subjectis et debellare,' etc. Then, having assumed +this centre of sanity, the writer entertains himself by fancying +what would happen if the whole world went mad all round it, +if the sun turned green and the moon blue, if horses had six legs +and giants had two heads. But your modern literature takes insanity +as its centre. Therefore, it loses the interest even of insanity. +A lunatic is not startling to himself, because he is quite serious; +that is what makes him a lunatic. A man who thinks he is +a piece of glass is to himself as dull as a piece of glass. +A man who thinks he is a chicken is to himself as common as a chicken. +It is only sanity that can see even a wild poetry in insanity. +Therefore, these wise old tales made the hero ordinary and +the tale extraordinary. But you have made the hero extraordinary +and the tale ordinary--so ordinary--oh, so very ordinary." + +I saw him still gazing at me fixedly. Some nerve snapped in me +under the hypnotic stare. I leapt to my feet and cried, "In the name +of God and Democracy and the Dragon's grandmother--in the name of all +good things--I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more." +Whether or no it was the result of the exorcism, there is no doubt +that he definitely went away. + + +XVII + +The Red Angel + +I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad +for children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him +I can never count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest +letter saying that fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even +if they are true. She says that it is cruel to tell children fairy +tales, because it frightens them. You might just as well say that +it is cruel to give girls sentimental novels because it makes them cry. +All this kind of talk is based on that complete forgetting +of what a child is like which has been the firm foundation +of so many educational schemes. If you keep bogies and goblins +away from children they would make them up for themselves. +One small child in the dark can invent more hells than Swedenborg. +One small child can imagine monsters too big and black +to get into any picture, and give them names too unearthly +and cacophonous to have occurred in the cries of any lunatic. +The child, to begin with, commonly likes horrors, and he +continues to indulge in them even when he does not like them. +There is just as much difficulty in saying exactly where pure +pain begins in his case, as there is in ours when we walk of our +own free will into the torture-chamber of a great tragedy. +The fear does not come from fairy tales; the fear comes from +the universe of the soul. + +. . . . . + +The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; +they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very +alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily +and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear +the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it-- +because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible +for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; +fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; +that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. +Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. +What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea +of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known +the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. +What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to +kill the dragon. + +Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him +for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless +terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies +in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe +more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear. +When I was a child I have stared at the darkness until the whole +black bulk of it turned into one negro giant taller than heaven. +If there was one star in the sky it only made him a Cyclops. +But fairy tales restored my mental health, for next day I read +an authentic account of how a negro giant with one eye, of quite +equal dimensions, had been baffled by a little boy like myself +(of similar inexperience and even lower social status) +by means of a sword, some bad riddles, and a brave heart. +Sometimes the sea at night seemed as dreadful as any dragon. +But then I was acquainted with many youngest sons and little +sailors to whom a dragon or two was as simple as the sea. + +Take the most horrible of Grimm's tales in incident and imagery, +the excellent tale of the "Boy who Could not Shudder," and you +will see what I mean. There are some living shocks in that tale. +I remember specially a man's legs which fell down the chimney +by themselves and walked about the room, until they were rejoined +by the severed head and body which fell down the chimney after them. +That is very good. But the point of the story and the point +of the reader's feelings is not that these things are frightening, +but the far more striking fact that the hero was not frightened at them. +The most fearful of all these fearful wonders was his own absence +of fear. He slapped the bogies on the back and asked the devils +to drink wine with him; many a time in my youth, when stifled with some +modern morbidity, I have prayed for a double portion of his spirit. +If you have not read the end of his story, go and read it; +it is the wisest thing in the world. The hero was at last taught +to shudder by taking a wife, who threw a pail of cold water over him. +In that one sentence there is more of the real meaning of marriage +than in all the books about sex that cover Europe and America. + +. . . . . + +At the four corners of a child's bed stand Perseus and Roland, Sigurd and +St. George. If you withdraw the guard of heroes you are not making +him rational; you are only leaving him to fight the devils alone. +For the devils, alas, we have always believed in. The hopeful element in +the universe has in modern times continually been denied and reasserted; +but the hopeless element has never for a moment been denied. +As I told "H. N. B." (whom I pause to wish a Happy Christmas in its +most superstitious sense), the one thing modern people really do +believe in is damnation. The greatest of purely modern poets summed +up the really modern attitude in that fine Agnostic line-- + +"There may be Heaven; there must be Hell." + +The gloomy view of the universe has been a continuous tradition; +and the new types of spiritual investigation or conjecture all begin +by being gloomy. A little while ago men believed in no spirits. +Now they are beginning rather slowly to believe in rather slow spirits. + +. . . . . + +Some people objected to spiritualism, table rappings, and such things, +because they were undignified, because the ghosts cracked jokes or +waltzed with dinner-tables. I do not share this objection in the least. +I wish the spirits were more farcical than they are. That they +should make more jokes and better ones, would be my suggestion. +For almost all the spiritualism of our time, in so far as it is new, +is solemn and sad. Some Pagan gods were lawless, and some Christian +saints were a little too serious; but the spirits of modern spiritualism +are both lawless and serious--a disgusting combination. The specially +contemporary spirits are not only devils, they are blue devils. +This is, first and last, the real value of Christmas; in so far +as the mythology remains at all it is a kind of happy mythology. +Personally, of course, I believe in Santa Claus; but it is the season +of forgiveness, and I will forgive others for not doing so. +But if there is anyone who does not comprehend the defect in our +world which I am civilising, I should recommend him, for instance, +to read a story by Mr. Henry James, called "The Turn of the Screw." +It is one of the most powerful things ever written, and it is one +of the things about which I doubt most whether it ought ever to have +been written at all. It describes two innocent children gradually +growing at once omniscient and half-witted under the influence of +the foul ghosts of a groom and a governess. As I say, I doubt whether +Mr. Henry James ought to have published it (no, it is not indecent, +do not buy it; it is a spiritual matter), but I think the question +so doubtful that I will give that truly great man a chance. +I will approve the thing as well as admire it if he will write +another tale just as powerful about two children and Santa Claus. +If he will not, or cannot, then the conclusion is clear; we can +deal strongly with gloomy mystery, but not with happy mystery; +we are not rationalists, but diabolists. + +. . . . . + +I have thought vaguely of all this staring at a great red fire that +stands up in the room like a great red angel. But, perhaps, you have +never heard of a red angel. But you have heard of a blue devil. +That is exactly what I mean. + + +XVIII + +The Tower + +I have been standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great +Belfry Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought +(though not, perhaps, said), that it is built in defiance of all decencies +of architecture. It is made in deliberate disproportion to achieve +the one startling effect of height. It is a church on stilts. +But this sort of sublime deformity is characteristic of the whole fancy +and energy of these Flemish cities. Flanders has the flattest and most +prosaic landscapes, but the most violent and extravagant of buildings. +Here Nature is tame; it is civilisation that is untamable. +Here the fields are as flat as a paved square; but, on the other hand, +the streets and roofs are as uproarious as a forest in a great wind. +The waters of wood and meadow slide as smoothly and meekly +as if they were in the London water-pipes. But the parish +pump is carved with all the creatures out of the wilderness. +Part of this is true, of course, of all art. We talk of wild animals, +but the wildest animal is man. There are sounds in music that are +more ancient and awful than the cry of the strangest beast at night. +And so also there are buildings that are shapeless in their strength, +seeming to lift themselves slowly like monsters from the primal mire, +and there are spires that seem to fly up suddenly like a startled bird. + +. . . . . + +This savagery even in stone is the expression of the special spirit +in humanity. All the beasts of the field are respectable; it is only +man who has broken loose. All animals are domestic animals; only man +is ever undomestic. All animals are tame animals; it is only we who +are wild. And doubtless, also, while this queer energy is common to +all human art, it is also generally characteristic of Christian art +among the arts of the world. This is what people really mean when +they say that Christianity is barbaric, and arose in ignorance. +As a matter of historic fact, it didn't; it arose in the most +equably civilised period the world has ever seen. + +But it is true that there is something in it that breaks +the outline of perfect and conventional beauty, something that dots +with anger the blind eyes of the Apollo and lashes to a cavalry +charge the horses of the Elgin Marbles. Christianity is savage, +in the sense that it is primeval; there is in it a touch +of the nigger hymn. I remember a debate in which I had praised +militant music in ritual, and some one asked me if I could +imagine Christ walking down the street before a brass band. +I said I could imagine it with the greatest ease; for Christ +definitely approved a natural noisiness at a great moment. +When the street children shouted too loud, certain priggish +disciples did begin to rebuke them in the name of good taste. +He said: "If these were silent the very stones would cry out." +With these words He called up all the wealth of artistic +creation that has been founded on this creed. With those words +He founded Gothic architecture. For in a town like this, +which seems to have grown Gothic as a wood grows leaves, +anywhere and anyhow, any odd brick or moulding may be carved off +into a shouting face. The front of vast buildings is thronged +with open mouths, angels praising God, or devils defying Him. +Rock itself is racked and twisted, until it seems to scream. +The miracle is accomplished; the very stones cry out. + +But though this furious fancy is certainly a specialty of men among +creatures, and of Christian art among arts, it is still most notable +in the art of Flanders. All Gothic buildings are full of extravagant +things in detail; but this is an extravagant thing in design. All +Christian temples worth talking about have gargoyles; but Bruges +Belfry is a gargoyle. It is an unnaturally long-necked animal, like +a giraffe. The same impression of exaggeration is forced on the mind +at every corner of a Flemish town. And if any one asks, +"Why did the people of these flat countries instinctively raise +these riotous and towering monuments?" the only answer one can +give is, "Because they were the people of these flat countries." +If any one asks, "Why the men of Bruges sacrificed architecture +and everything to the sense of dizzy and divine heights?" +we can only answer, "Because Nature gave them no encouragement +to do so." + +. . . . . + +As I stare at the Belfry, I think with a sort of smile of some +of my friends in London who are quite sure of how children will +turn out if you give them what they call "the right environment." +It is a troublesome thing, environment, for it sometimes works +positively and sometimes negatively, and more often between the two. +A beautiful environment may make a child love beauty; +it may make him bored with beauty; most likely the two effects +will mix and neutralise each other. Most likely, that is, +the environment will make hardly any difference at all. +In the scientific style of history (which was recently fashionable, +and is still conventional) we always had a list of countries +that had owed their characteristics to their physical conditions. + +The Spaniards (it was said) are passionate because their country +is hot; Scandinavians adventurous because their country is cold; +Englishmen naval because they are islanders; Switzers free +because they are mountaineers. It is all very nice in its way. +Only unfortunately I am quite certain that I could make up quite +as long a list exactly contrary in its argument point-blank +against the influence of their geographical environment. +Thus Spaniards have discovered more continents than Scandinavians +because their hot climate discouraged them from exertion. +Thus Dutchmen have fought for their freedom quite as +bravely as Switzers because the Dutch have no mountains. +Thus Pagan Greece and Rome and many Mediterranean peoples have +specially hated the sea because they had the nicest sea to deal with, +the easiest sea to manage. I could extend the list for ever. +But however long it was, two examples would certainly stand up in it +as pre-eminent and unquestionable. The first is that the Swiss, +who live under staggering precipices and spires of eternal snow, +have produced no art or literature at all, and are by far +the most mundane, sensible, and business-like people in Europe. +The other is that the people of Belgium, who live in a country +like a carpet, have, by an inner energy, desired to exalt their +towers till they struck the stars. + +As it is therefore quite doubtful whether a person will go specially +with his environment or specially against his environment, +I cannot comfort myself with the thought that the modern +discussions about environment are of much practical value. +But I think I will not write any more about these modern +theories, but go on looking at the Belfry of Bruges. I would +give them the greater attention if I were not pretty well +convinced that the theories will have disappeared a long time +before the Belfry. + + +XIX + +How I Met the President + +Several years ago, when there was a small war going on in South Africa +and a great fuss going on in England, when it was by no means so popular +and convenient to be a Pro-Boer as it is now, I remember making +a bright suggestion to my Pro-Boer friends and allies, which was not, +I regret to say, received with the seriousness it deserved. +I suggested that a band of devoted and noble youths, including ourselves, +should express our sense of the pathos of the President's and +the Republic's fate by growing Kruger beards under our chins. +I imagined how abruptly this decoration would alter the appearance +of Mr. John Morley; how startling it would be as it emerged from under +the chin of Mr. Lloyd-George. But the younger men, my own friends, +on whom I more particularly urged it, men whose names are in many cases +familiar to the readers of this paper--Mr. Masterman's for instance, +and Mr. Conrad Noel--they, I felt, being young and beautiful, +would do even more justice to the Kruger beard, and when walking +down the street with it could not fail to attract attention. +The beard would have been a kind of counterblast to the Rhodes hat. +An appropriate counterblast; for the Rhodesian power in Africa +is only an external thing, placed upon the top like a hat; +the Dutch power and tradition is a thing rooted and growing +like a beard; we have shaved it, and it is growing again. +The Kruger beard would represent time and the natural processes. +You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion. + +. . . . . + +After making this proposal to my friends I hurriedly left town. +I went down to a West Country place where there was shortly afterwards +an election, at which I enjoyed myself very much canvassing for +the Liberal candidate. The extraordinary thing was that he got in. +I sometimes lie awake at night and meditate upon that mystery; +but it must not detain us now. The rather singular incident +which happened to me then, and which some recent events have +recalled to me, happened while the canvassing was still going on. +It was a burning blue day, and the warm sunshine, settling everywhere +on the high hedges and the low hills, brought out into a kind +of heavy bloom that HUMANE quality of the landscape which, +as far as I know, only exists in England; that sense as if +the bushes and the roads were human, and had kindness like men; +as if the tree were a good giant with one wooden leg; +as if the very line of palings were a row of good-tempered gnomes. +On one side of the white, sprawling road a low hill or down +showed but a little higher than the hedge, on the other the land +tumbled down into a valley that opened towards the Mendip hills. +The road was very erratic, for every true English road exists +in order to lead one a dance; and what could be more beautiful +and beneficent than a dance? At an abrupt turn of it I came upon +a low white building, with dark doors and dark shuttered windows, +evidently not inhabited and scarcely in the ordinary sense inhabitable-- +a thing more like a toolhouse than a house of any other kind. +Made idle by the heat, I paused, and, taking a piece of red chalk +out of my pocket, began drawing aimlessly on the back door-- +drawing goblins and Mr. Chamberlain, and finally the ideal +Nationalist with the Kruger beard. The materials did not permit +of any delicate rendering of his noble and national expansion +of countenance (stoical and yet hopeful, full of tears for man, +and yet of an element of humour); but the hat was finely handled. +Just as I was adding the finishing touches to the Kruger fantasy, +I was frozen to the spot with terror. The black door, +which I thought no more of than the lid of an empty box, +began slowly to open, impelled from within by a human hand. +And President Kruger himself came out into the sunlight! + +He was a shade milder of eye than he was in his portraits, and he did +not wear that ceremonial scarf which was usually, in such pictures, +slung across his ponderous form. But there was the hat which filled +the Empire with so much alarm; there were the clumsy dark clothes, +there was the heavy, powerful face; there, above all, was the Kruger +beard which I had sought to evoke (if I may use the verb) from under +the features of Mr. Masterman. Whether he had the umbrella or not I +was too much emotionally shaken to observe; he had not the stone +lions with him, or Mrs. Kruger; and what he was doing in that dark +shed I cannot imagine, but I suppose he was oppressing an Outlander. + +I was surprised, I must confess, to meet President Kruger +in Somersetshire during the war. I had no idea that he was in +the neighbourhood. But a yet more arresting surprise awaited me. +Mr. Kruger regarded me for some moments with a dubious grey eye, +and then addressed me with a strong Somersetshire accent. +A curious cold shock went through me to hear that inappropriate voice +coming out of that familiar form. It was as if you met a Chinaman, +with pigtail and yellow jacket, and he began to talk broad Scotch. +But the next moment, of course, I understood the situation. +We had much underrated the Boers in supposing that the Boer +education was incomplete. In pursuit of his ruthless plot +against our island home, the terrible President had learnt not +only English, but all the dialects at a moment's notice to win +over a Lancashire merchant or seduce a Northumberland Fusilier. +No doubt, if I asked him, this stout old gentleman could +grind out Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and so on, +like the tunes in a barrel organ. I could not wonder if our plain, +true-hearted German millionaires fell before a cunning so penetrated +with culture as this. + +. . . . . + +And now I come to the third and greatest surprise of all +that this strange old man gave me. When he asked me, +dryly enough, but not without a certain steady civility +that belongs to old-fashioned country people, what I wanted +and what I was doing, I told him the facts of the case, +explaining my political mission and the almost angelic qualities +of the Liberal candidate. Whereupon, this old man became +suddenly transfigured in the sunlight into a devil of wrath. +It was some time before I could understand a word he said, +but the one word that kept on recurring was the word "Kruger," +and it was invariably accompanied with a volley of violent terms. +Was I for old Kruger, was I? Did I come to him and want him +to help old Kruger? I ought to be ashamed, I was . . . and +here he became once more obscure. The one thing that he made +quite clear was that he wouldn't do anything for Kruger. + +"But you ARE Kruger," burst from my lips, in a natural explosion +of reasonableness. "You ARE Kruger, aren't you?" + +After this innocent CRI DE COEUR of mine, I thought at first +there would be a fight, and I remembered with regret that +the President in early life had had a hobby of killing lions. +But really I began to think that I had been mistaken, and that it +was not the President after all. There was a confounding sincerity +in the anger with which he declared that he was Farmer Bowles, +and everybody knowed it. I appeased him eventually and parted +from him at the door of his farmhouse, where he left me with a few +tags of religion, which again raised my suspicions of his identity. +In the coffee-room to which I returned there was an illustrated +paper with a picture of President Kruger, and he and Farmer Bowles +were as like as two peas. There was a picture also of a group +of Outlander leaders, and the faces of them, leering and triumphant, +were perhaps unduly darkened by the photograph, but they seemed +to me like the faces of a distant and hostile people. + +I saw the old man once again on the fierce night of the poll, +when he drove down our Liberal lines in a little cart ablaze +with the blue Tory ribbons, for he was a man who would carry his +colours everywhere. It was evening, and the warm western light was +on the grey hair and heavy massive features of that good old man. +I knew as one knows a fact of sense that if Spanish and German +stockbrokers had flooded his farm or country he would +have fought them for ever, not fiercely like an Irishman, +but with the ponderous courage and ponderous cunning of the Boer. +I knew that without seeing it, as certainly as I knew without +seeing it that when he went into the polling room he put his +cross against the Conservative name. Then he came out again, +having given his vote and looking more like Kruger than ever. +And at the same hour on the same night thousands upon thousands +of English Krugers gave the same vote. And thus Kruger was +pulled down and the dark-faced men in the photograph reigned +in his stead. + + +XX + +The Giant + +I sometimes fancy that every great city must have been built by night. +At least, it is only at night that every part of a great city is great. +All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps +architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. +At least, I think many people of those nobler trades that work +by night (journalists, policemen, burglars, coffee-stall keepers, +and such mistaken enthusiasts as refuse to go home till morning) +must often have stood admiring some black bulk of building with a crown +of battlements or a crest of spires and then burst into tears at +daybreak to discover that it was only a haberdasher's shop with huge +gold letters across the face of it. + +. . . . . + +I had a sensation of this sort the other day as I happened to be +wandering in the Temple Gardens towards the end of twilight. +I sat down on a bench with my back to the river, happening to +choose such a place that a huge angle and faade of building +jutting out from the Strand sat above me like an incubus. +I dare say that if I took the same seat to-morrow by daylight I +should find the impression entirely false. In sunlight the thing +might seem almost distant; but in that half-darkness it seemed +as if the walls were almost falling upon me. Never before have I +had so strongly the sense which makes people pessimists in politics, +the sense of the hopeless height of the high places of the earth. +That pile of wealth and power, whatever was its name, went up above +and beyond me like a cliff that no living thing could climb. +I had an irrational sense that this thing had to be fought, that I +had to fight it; and that I could offer nothing to the occasion +but an indolent journalist with a walking-stick. + +Almost as I had the thought, two windows were lit in that black, +blind face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge +face of a sleeping giant; the eyes were too close together, +and gave it the suggestion of a bestial sneer. And either +by accident of this light or of some other, I could now read +the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; +it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything +that I should like to pull down with my hands if I could. +Reared by a detected robber, it is framed to be the fashionable +and luxurious home of undetected robbers. In the house of man +are many mansions; but there is a class of men who feel normal +nowhere except in the Babylon Hotel or in Dartmoor Gaol. +That big black face, which was staring at me with its flaming +eyes too close together, that was indeed the giant of all epic +and fairy tales. But, alas! I was not the giant-killer; +the hour had come, but not the man. I sat down on the seat again +(I had had one wild impulse to climb up the front of the hotel +and fall in at one of the windows), and I tried to think, +as all decent people are thinking, what one can really do. +And all the time that oppressive wall went up in front of me, +and took hold upon the heavens like a house of the gods. + +. . . . . + +It is remarkable that in so many great wars it has been +the defeated who have won. The people who were left +worst at the end of the war were generally the people +who were left best at the end of the whole business. +For instance, the Crusades ended in the defeat of the Christians. +But they did not end in the decline of the Christians; +they ended in the decline of the Saracens. That huge prophetic wave +of Moslem power which had hung in the very heavens above the towns +of Christendom, that wave was broken, and never came on again. +The Crusaders had saved Paris in the act of losing Jerusalem. +The same applies to that epic of Republican war in the eighteenth +century to which we Liberals owe our political creed. +The French Revolution ended in defeat: the kings came back +across a carpet of dead at Waterloo. The Revolution had +lost its last battle; but it had gained its first object. +It had cut a chasm. The world has never been the same since. +No one after that has ever been able to treat the poor merely +as a pavement. + +These jewels of God, the poor, are still treated as mere +stones of the street; but as stones that may sometimes fly. +If it please God, you and I may see some of the stones +flying again before we see death. But here I only remark +the interesting fact that the conquered almost always conquer. +Sparta killed Athens with a final blow, and she was born again. +Sparta went away victorious, and died slowly of her own wounds. +The Boers lost the South African War and gained South Africa. + +And this is really all that we can do when we fight something really +stronger than ourselves; we can deal it its death-wound one moment; +it deals us death in the end. It is something if we can shock +and jar the unthinking impetus and enormous innocence of evil; +just as a pebble on a railway can stagger the Scotch express. +It is enough for the great martyrs and criminals of the French revolution, +that they have surprised for all time the secret weakness of the strong. +They have awakened and set leaping and quivering in his crypt for ever +the coward in the hearts of kings. + +. . . . . + +When Jack the Giant-Killer really first saw the giant his +experience was not such as has been generally supposed. +If you care to hear it I will tell you the real story of Jack +the Giant-Killer. To begin with, the most awful thing which Jack +first felt about the giant was that he was not a giant. +He came striding across an interminable wooded plain, and against +its remote horizon the giant was quite a small figure, like a figure +in a picture--he seemed merely a man walking across the grass. +Then Jack was shocked by remembering that the grass which the man +was treading down was one of the tallest forests upon that plain. +The man came nearer and nearer, growing bigger and bigger, +and at the instant when he passed the possible stature of humanity +Jack almost screamed. The rest was an intolerable apocalypse. + +The giant had the one frightful quality of a miracle; +the more he became incredible the more he became solid. +The less one could believe in him the more plainly one could see him. +It was unbearable that so much of the sky should be occupied +by one human face. His eyes, which had stood out like bow windows, +became bigger yet, and there was no metaphor that could +contain their bigness; yet still they were human eyes. +Jack's intellect was utterly gone under that huge hypnotism +of the face that filled the sky; his last hope was submerged, +his five wits all still with terror. + +But there stood up in him still a kind of cold chivalry, a dignity of dead +honour that would not forget the small and futile sword in his hand. +He rushed at one of the colossal feet of this human tower, and when +he came quite close to it the ankle-bone arched over him like a cave. +Then he planted the point of his sword against the foot and leant on it +with all his weight, till it went up to the hilt and broke the hilt, +and then snapped just under it. And it was plain that the giant felt +a sort of prick, for he snatched up his great foot into his great hand +for an instant; and then, putting it down again, he bent over and stared +at the ground until he had seen his enemy. + +Then he picked up Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw +him away; and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were +flying from system to system through the universe of stars. +But, as the giant had thrown him away carelessly, he did not strike +a stone, but struck soft mire by the side of a distant river. +There he lay insensible for several hours; but when he awoke again +his horrible conqueror was still in sight. He was striding away +across the void and wooded plain towards where it ended in the sea; +and by this time he was only much higher than any of the hills. +He grew less and less indeed; but only as a really high mountain +grows at last less and less when we leave it in a railway train. +Half an hour afterwards he was a bright blue colour, as are the +distant hills; but his outline was still human and still gigantic. +Then the big blue figure seemed to come to the brink of the big +blue sea, and even as it did so it altered its attitude. +Jack, stunned and bleeding, lifted himself laboriously upon one +elbow to stare. The giant once more caught hold of his ankle, +wavered twice as in a wind, and then went over into the great sea +which washes the whole world, and which, alone of all things God +has made, was big enough to drown him. + + +XXI + +A Great Man + +People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has +always seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing +away the veils from private life; but it seems to me to be always +dropping diaphanous but blinding veils between men and men. +The Yellow Press is abused for exposing facts which are private; +I wish the Yellow Press did anything so valuable. It is exactly +the decisive individual touches that it never gives; and a proof of this +is that after one has met a man a million times in the newspapers it +is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him in real life. +The Yellow Pressman seems to have no power of catching the first +fresh fact about a man that dominates all after impressions. +For instance, before I met Bernard Shaw I heard that he spoke with +a reckless desire for paradox or a sneering hatred of sentiment; +but I never knew till he opened his mouth that he spoke with +an Irish accent, which is more important than all the other +criticisms put together. + +Journalism is not personal enough. So far from digging out +private personalities, it cannot even report the obvious personalities +on the surface. Now there is one vivid and even bodily impression +of this kind which we have all felt when we met great poets +or politicians, but which never finds its way into the newspapers. +I mean the impression that they are much older than we thought they were. +We connect great men with their great triumphs, which generally +happened some years ago, and many recruits enthusiastic for the thin +Napoleon of Marengo must have found themselves in the presence +of the fat Napoleon of Leipzic. + +I remember reading a newspaper account of how a certain rising politician +confronted the House of Lords with the enthusiasm almost of boyhood. +It described how his "brave young voice" rang in the rafters. +I also remember that I met him some days after, and he was considerably +older than my own father. I mention this truth for only one purpose: +all this generalisation leads up to only one fact--the fact that I once +met a great man who was younger than I expected. + +. . . . . + +I had come over the wooded wall from the villages about Epsom, and down +a stumbling path between trees towards the valley in which Dorking lies. +A warm sunlight was working its way through the leafage; a sunlight +which though of saintless gold had taken on the quality of evening. +It was such sunlight as reminds a man that the sun begins to set +an instant after noon. It seemed to lessen as the wood strengthened +and the road sank. + +I had a sensation peculiar to such entangled descents; +I felt that the treetops that closed above me were the fixed +and real things, certain as the level of the sea; but that +the solid earth was every instant failing under my feet. +In a little while that splendid sunlight showed only in splashes, +like flaming stars and suns in the dome of green sky. +Around me in that emerald twilight were trunks of trees of every +plain or twisted type; it was like a chapel supported on columns +of every earthly and unearthly style of architecture. + +Without intention my mind grew full of fancies on the nature +of the forest; on the whole philosophy of mystery and force. +For the meaning of woods is the combination of energy with complexity. +A forest is not in the least rude or barbarous; it is only dense +with delicacy. Unique shapes that an artist would copy or a +philosopher watch for years if he found them in an open plain are +here mingled and confounded; but it is not a darkness of deformity. +It is a darkness of life; a darkness of perfection. And I began +to think how much of the highest human obscurity is like this, +and how much men have misunderstood it. People will tell you, +for instance, that theology became elaborate because it was dead. +Believe me, if it had been dead it would never have become elaborate; +it is only the live tree that grows too many branches. + +. . . . . + +These trees thinned and fell away from each other, and I came out +into deep grass and a road. I remember being surprised that the +evening was so far advanced; I had a fancy that this valley had a +sunset all to itself. I went along that road according to directions +that had been given me, and passed the gateway in a slight paling +beyond which the wood changed only faintly to a garden. +It was as if the curious courtesy and fineness of that character +I was to meet went out from him upon the valley; for I felt +on all these things the finger of that quality which the old +English called "farie"; it is the quality which those can +never understand who think of the past as merely brutal; +it is an ancient elegance such as there is in trees. +I went through the garden and saw an old man sitting by a table, +looking smallish in his big chair. He was already an invalid, +and his hair and beard were both white; not like snow, for snow +is cold and heavy, but like something feathery, or even fierce; +rather they were white like the white thistledown. I came up +quite close to him; he looked at me as he put out his frail hand, +and I saw of a sudden that his eyes were startlingly young. +He was the one great man of the old world whom I have met +who was not a mere statue over his own grave. + +He was deaf and he talked like a torrent. He did not talk about +the books he had written; he was far too much alive for that. +He talked about the books he had not written. He unrolled +a purple bundle of romances which he had never had time to sell. +He asked me to write one of the stories for him, as he would +have asked the milkman, if he had been talking to the milkman. +It was a splendid and frantic story, a sort of astronomical farce. +It was all about a man who was rushing up to the Royal Society +with the only possible way of avoiding an earth-destroying comet; +and it showed how, even on this huge errand, the man was tripped +up at every other minute by his own weakness and vanities; +how he lost a train by trifling or was put in gaol for brawling. +That is only one of them; there were ten or twenty more. +Another, I dimly remember, was a version of the fall of Parnell; +the idea that a quite honest man might be secret from a pure love +of secrecy, of solitary self-control. I went out of that garden with a +blurred sensation of the million possibilities of creative literature. +The feeling increased as my way fell back into the wood; for a wood +is a palace with a million corridors that cross each other everywhere. +I really had the feeling that I had seen the creative quality; +which is supernatural. I had seen what Virgil calls the Old Man +of the Forest: I had seen an elf. The trees thronged behind my path; +I have never seen him again; and now I shall not see him, +because he died last Tuesday. + + +XXII + +The Orthodox Barber + +Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert +that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; +and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it. There is a very real +thing which may be called the love of humanity; in our time it +exists almost entirely among what are called uneducated people; +and it does not exist at all among the people who talk about it. + +A positive pleasure in being in the presence of any other human being +is chiefly remarkable, for instance, in the masses on Bank Holiday; +that is why they are so much nearer Heaven (despite appearances) +than any other part of our population. + +I remember seeing a crowd of factory girls getting into an empty +train at a wayside country station. There were about twenty of them; +they all got into one carriage; and they left all the rest of the +train entirely empty. That is the real love of humanity. That is +the definite pleasure in the immediate proximity of one's own kind. +Only this coarse, rank, real love of men seems to be entirely +lacking in those who propose the love of humanity as a substitute +for all other love; honourable, rationalistic idealists. + +I can well remember the explosion of human joy which marked +the sudden starting of that train; all the factory girls +who could not find seats (and they must have been the majority) +relieving their feelings by jumping up and down. Now I have never +seen any rationalistic idealists do this. I have never seen twenty +modern philosophers crowd into one third-class carriage for the +mere pleasure of being together. I have never seen twenty Mr. +McCabes all in one carriage and all jumping up and down. + +Some people express a fear that vulgar trippers will overrun +all beautiful places, such as Hampstead or Burnham Beeches. +But their fear is unreasonable; because trippers always +prefer to trip together; they pack as close as they can; +they have a suffocating passion of philanthropy. + +. . . . . + +But among the minor and milder aspects of the same principle, +I have no hesitation in placing the problem of the colloquial barber. +Before any modern man talks with authority about loving men, I insist +(I insist with violence) that he shall always be very much pleased +when his barber tries to talk to him. His barber is humanity: +let him love that. If he is not pleased at this, I will not accept any +substitute in the way of interest in the Congo or the future of Japan. +If a man cannot love his barber whom he has seen, how shall he love +the Japanese whom he has not seen? + +It is urged against the barber that he begins by talking about +the weather; so do all dukes and diplomatists, only that they talk about +it with ostentatious fatigue and indifference, whereas the barber talks +about it with an astonishing, nay incredible, freshness of interest. +It is objected to him that he tells people that they are going bald. +That is to say, his very virtues are cast up against him; +he is blamed because, being a specialist, he is a sincere specialist, +and because, being a tradesman, he is not entirely a slave. +But the only proof of such things is by example; therefore I will prove +the excellence of the conversation of barbers by a specific case. +Lest any one should accuse me of attempting to prove it by fictitious +means, I beg to say quite seriously that though I forget the exact +language employed, the following conversation between me and a human +(I trust), living barber really took place a few days ago. + +. . . . . + +I had been invited to some At Home to meet the Colonial Premiers, +and lest I should be mistaken for some partly reformed bush-ranger out of +the interior of Australia I went into a shop in the Strand to get shaved. +While I was undergoing the torture the man said to me: + +"There seems to be a lot in the papers about this new shaving, sir. +It seems you can shave yourself with anything--with a stick or a stone +or a pole or a poker" (here I began for the first time to detect +a sarcastic intonation) "or a shovel or a----" + +Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing about +the matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical vein. + +"Or a button-hook," I said, "or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram +or a piston-rod----" + +He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, "Or a curtain rod +or a candle-stick, or a----" + +"Cow-catcher," I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic duet +for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told me. +He explained the thing eloquently and at length. + +"The funny part of it is," he said, "that the thing isn't new at all. +It's been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before. +There is always a notion that the razor might be done without somehow. +But none of those schemes ever came to anything; and I don't believe +myself that this will." + +"Why, as to that," I said, rising slowly from the chair and trying +to put on my coat inside out, "I don't know how it may be in the case +of you and your new shaving. Shaving, with all respect to you, +is a trivial and materialistic thing, and in such things +startling inventions are sometimes made. But what you say +reminds me in some dark and dreamy fashion of something else. +I recall it especially when you tell me, with such evident +experience and sincerity, that the new shaving is not really new. +My friend, the human race is always trying this dodge of making +everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts off +one thing it shifts on to another. If one man has not the toil +of preparing a man's chin, I suppose that some other man has the toil +of preparing something very curious to put on a man's chin. +It would be nice if we could be shaved without troubling anybody. +It would be nicer still if we could go unshaved without annoying anybody-- + + "'But, O wise friend, chief Barber of the Strand, + Brother, nor you nor I have made the world.' + +"Whoever made it, who is wiser, and we hope better than we, made it +under strange limitations, and with painful conditions of pleasure. + +"In the first and darkest of its books it is fiercely written +that a man shall not eat his cake and have it; and though +all men talked until the stars were old it would still be true +that a man who has lost his razor could not shave with it. +But every now and then men jump up with the new something +or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, +that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there +is no real difference between being shaved and not being shaved. +The difference, they say, is only a difference of degree; +everything is evolutionary and relative. Shavedness is +immanent in man. Every ten-penny nail is a Potential Razor. +The superstitious people of the past (they say) believed that +a lot of black bristles standing out at right angles to one's +face was a positive affair. But the higher criticism teaches +us better. Bristles are merely negative. They are a Shadow +where Shaving should be. + +"Well, it all goes on, and I suppose it all means something. +But a baby is the Kingdom of God, and if you try to kiss a baby +he will know whether you are shaved or not. Perhaps I am mixing +up being shaved and being saved; my democratic sympathies have +always led me to drop my 'h's.' In another moment I may suggest +that goats represent the lost because goats have long beards. +This is growing altogether too allegorical. + +"Nevertheless," I added, as I paid the bill, "I have really been +profoundly interested in what you told me about the New Shaving. +Have you ever heard of a thing called the New theology?" + +He smiled and said that he had not. + + +XXIII + +The Toy Theatre + +There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; +and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys +takes so very much more time and trouble than anything else. +Playing as children mean playing is the most serious thing in the world; +and as soon as we have small duties or small sorrows we have to +abandon to some extent so enormous and ambitious a plan of life. +We have enough strength for politics and commerce and art and philosophy; +we have not enough strength for play. This is a truth which every one +will recognize who, as a child, has ever played with anything at all; +any one who has played with bricks, any one who has played with dolls, +any one who has played with tin soldiers. My journalistic work, +which earns money, is not pursued with such awful persistency as that +work which earned nothing. + +. . . . . + +Take the case of bricks. If you publish a book to-morrow +in twelve volumes (it would be just like you) on "The Theory +and Practice of European Architecture," your work may be laborious, +but it is fundamentally frivolous. It is not serious as the work +of a child piling one brick on the other is serious; for the simple +reason that if your book is a bad book no one will ever be able +ultimately and entirely to prove to you that it is a bad book. +Whereas if his balance of bricks is a bad balance of bricks, +it will simply tumble down. And if I know anything of children, +he will set to work solemnly and sadly to build it up again. +Whereas, if I know anything of authors, nothing would induce you +to write your book again, or even to think of it again if you +could help it. + +Take the case of dolls. It is much easier to care for an educational +cause than to care for a doll. It is as easy to write an article on +education as to write an article on toffee or tramcars or anything else. +But it is almost as difficult to look after a doll as to look after +a child. The little girls that I meet in the little streets of Battersea +worship their dolls in a way that reminds one not so much of play +as idolatry. In some cases the love and care of the artistic symbol +has actually become more important than the human reality which it was, +I suppose, originally meant to symbolize. + +I remember a Battersea little girl who wheeled her large baby sister +stuffed into a doll's perambulator. When questioned on this course of +conduct, she replied: "I haven't got a dolly, and Baby is pretending +to be my dolly." Nature was indeed imitating art. First a doll had +been a substitute for a child; afterwards a child was a mere substitute +for a doll. But that opens other matters; the point is here that such +devotion takes up most of the brain and most of the life; much as if +it were really the thing which it is supposed to symbolize. The point +is that the man writing on motherhood is merely an educationalist; +the child playing with a doll is a mother. + +Take the case of soldiers. A man writing an article on military strategy +is simply a man writing an article; a horrid sight. But a boy making a +campaign with tin soldiers is like a General making a campaign with live +soldiers. He must to the limit of his juvenile powers think about the +thing; whereas the war correspondent need not think at all. I remember +a war correspondent who remarked after the capture of Methuen: "This +renewed activity on the part of Delarey is probably due to his being +short of stores." The same military critic had mentioned a few +paragraphs before that Delarey was being hard pressed by a column which +was pursuing him under the command of Methuen. Methuen chased Delarey; +and Delarey's activity was due to his being short of stores. +Otherwise he would have stood quite still while he was chased. +I run after Jones with a hatchet, and if he turns round and tries +to get rid of me the only possible explanation is that he has +a very small balance at his bankers. I cannot believe that any boy +playing at soldiers would be as idiotic as this. But then any one +playing at anything has to be serious. Whereas, as I have only too +good reason to know, if you are writing an article you can say anything +that comes into your head. + +. . . . . + +Broadly, then, what keeps adults from joining in children's +games is, generally speaking, not that they have no pleasure +in them; it is simply that they have no leisure for them. +It is that they cannot afford the expenditure of toil +and time and consideration for so grand and grave a scheme. +I have been myself attempting for some time past to complete +a play in a small toy theatre, the sort of toy theatre +that used to be called Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured; +only that I drew and coloured the figures and scenes myself. +Hence I was free from the degrading obligation of having to pay +either a penny or twopence; I only had to pay a shilling a sheet +for good cardboard and a shilling a box for bad water colours. +The kind of miniature stage I mean is probably familiar to every one; +it is never more than a development of the stage which Skelt +made and Stevenson celebrated. + +But though I have worked much harder at the toy theatre than I +ever worked at any tale or article, I cannot finish it; the work +seems too heavy for me. I have to break off and betake myself +to lighter employments; such as the biographies of great men. +The play of "St. George and the Dragon," over which I have burnt +the midnight oil (you must colour the thing by lamplight because +that is how it will be seen), still lacks most conspicuously, +alas! two wings of the Sultan's Palace, and also some comprehensible +and workable way of getting up the curtain. + +All this gives me a feeling touching the real meaning of immortality. +In this world we cannot have pure pleasure. This is partly because +pure pleasure would be dangerous to us and to our neighbours. +But it is partly because pure pleasure is a great deal too much trouble. +If I am ever in any other and better world, I hope that I shall have +enough time to play with nothing but toy theatres; and I hope that I +shall have enough divine and superhuman energy to act at least one play +in them without a hitch. + +. . . . . + +Meanwhile the philosophy of toy theatres is worth any one's +consideration. All the essential morals which modern men need +to learn could be deduced from this toy. Artistically considered, +it reminds us of the main principle of art, the principle which +is in most danger of being forgotten in our time. I mean the fact +that art consists of limitation; the fact that art is limitation. +Art does not consist in expanding things. Art consists of cutting +things down, as I cut down with a pair of scissors my very ugly +figures of St. George and the Dragon. Plato, who liked definite +ideas, would like my cardboard dragon; for though the creature has +few other artistic merits he is at least dragonish. The modern +philosopher, who likes infinity, is quite welcome to a sheet of +the plain cardboard. The most artistic thing about the theatrical +art is the fact that the spectator looks at the whole thing through +a window. This is true even of theatres inferior to my own; even at +the Court Theatre or His Majesty's you are looking through a window; +an unusually large window. But the advantage of the small +theatre exactly is that you are looking through a small window. +Has not every one noticed how sweet and startling any +landscape looks when seen through an arch? This strong, +square shape, this shutting off of everything else is not +only an assistance to beauty; it is the essential of beauty. +The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. + +This especially is true of the toy theatre; that, by reducing +the scale of events it can introduce much larger events. +Because it is small it could easily represent the earthquake in Jamaica. +Because it is small it could easily represent the Day of Judgment. +Exactly in so far as it is limited, so far it could play easily +with falling cities or with falling stars. Meanwhile the big +theatres are obliged to be economical because they are big. +When we have understood this fact we shall have understood something +of the reason why the world has always been first inspired by +small nationalities. The vast Greek philosophy could fit easier +into the small city of Athens than into the immense Empire of Persia. +In the narrow streets of Florence Dante felt that there was room +for Purgatory and Heaven and Hell. He would have been stifled +by the British Empire. Great empires are necessarily prosaic; +for it is beyond human power to act a great poem upon so great a scale. +You can only represent very big ideas in very small spaces. +My toy theatre is as philosophical as the drama of Athens. + + +XXIV + +A Tragedy of Twopence + +My relations with the readers of this page have been +long and pleasant, but--perhaps for that very reason-- +I feel that the time has come when I ought to confess +the one great crime of my life. It happened a long time ago; +but it is not uncommon for a belated burst of remorse +to reveal such dark episodes long after they have occurred. +It has nothing to do with the orgies of the Anti-Puritan League. +That body is so offensively respectable that a newspaper, +in describing it the other day, referred to my friend +Mr. Edgar Jepson as Canon Edgar Jepson; and it is believed +that similar titles are intended for all of us. No; it is +not by the conduct of Archbishop Crane, of Dean Chesterton, +of the Rev. James Douglas, of Monsignor Bland, and even of that +fine and virile old ecclesiastic, Cardinal Nesbit, that I wish +(or rather, am driven by my conscience) to make this declaration. +The crime was committed in solitude and without accomplices. +Alone I did it. Let me, with the characteristic thirst +of penitents to get the worst of the confession over, state it +first of all in its most dreadful and indefensible form. +There is at the present moment in a town in Germany (unless he +has died of rage on discovering his wrong), a restaurant-keeper +to whom I still owe twopence. I last left his open-air restaurant +knowing that I owed him twopence. I carried it away under his +nose, despite the fact that the nose was a decidedly Jewish one. +I have never paid him, and it is highly improbable that I ever shall. +How did this villainy come to occur in a life which has been, +generally speaking, deficient in the dexterity necessary for fraud? +The story is as follows--and it has a moral, though there +may not be room for that. + +. . . . . + +It is a fair general rule for those travelling on the Continent that +the easiest way of talking in a foreign language is to talk philosophy. +The most difficult kind of talking is to talk about common necessities. +The reason is obvious. The names of common necessities vary completely +with each nation and are generally somewhat odd and quaint. +How, for instance, could a Frenchman suppose that a coalbox would +be called a "scuttle"? If he has ever seen the word scuttle +it has been in the Jingo Press, where the "policy of scuttle" +is used whenever we give up something to a small Power like Liberals, +instead of giving up everything to a great Power, like Imperialists. +What Englishman in Germany would be poet enough to guess that the Germans +call a glove a "hand-shoe." Nations name their necessities by nicknames, +so to speak. They call their tubs and stools by quaint, elvish, +and almost affectionate names, as if they were their own children! +But any one can argue about abstract things in a foreign language who has +ever got as far as Exercise IV. in a primer. For as soon as he can +put a sentence together at all he finds that the words used in abstract +or philosophical discussions are almost the same in all nations. +They are the same, for the simple reason that they all come +from the things that were the roots of our common civilisation. +From Christianity, from the Roman Empire, from the mediaeval Church, +or the French Revolution. "Nation," "citizen," "religion," "philosophy," +"authority," "the Republic," words like these are nearly the same +in all the countries in which we travel. Restrain, therefore, +your exuberant admiration for the young man who can argue with six +French atheists when he first lands at Dieppe. Even I can do that. +But very likely the same young man does not know the French for a +shoe-horn. But to this generalisation there are three great exceptions. +(1) In the case of countries that are not European at all, and have +never had our civic conceptions, or the old Latin scholarship. +I do not pretend that the Patagonian phrase for "citizenship" +at once leaps to the mind, or that a Dyak's word for "the Republic" +has been familiar to me from the nursery. (2) In the case of Germany, +where, although the principle does apply to many words such as "nation" +and "philosophy," it does not apply so generally, because Germany +has had a special and deliberate policy of encouraging the purely +German part of its language. (3) In the case where one does not know +any of the language at all, as is generally the case with me. + +. . . . . + +Such at least was my situation on the dark day on which I committed +my crime. Two of the exceptional conditions which I have mentioned +were combined. I was walking about a German town, and I knew no German. +I knew, however, two or three of those great and solemn words which +hold our European civilisation together--one of which is "cigar." +As it was a hot and dreamy day, I sat down at a table in a sort +of beer-garden, and ordered a cigar and a pot of lager. I drank the +lager, and paid for it. I smoked the cigar, forgot to pay for it, +and walked away, gazing rapturously at the royal outline of the +Taunus mountains. After about ten minutes, I suddenly remembered +that I had not paid for the cigar. I went back to the place of +refreshment, and put down the money. But the proprietor also had +forgotten the cigar, and he merely said guttural things in a tone +of query, asking me, I suppose, what I wanted. I said "cigar," and +he gave me a cigar. I endeavoured while putting down the money to +wave away the cigar with gestures of refusal. He thought that my +rejection was of the nature of a condemnation of that particular cigar, +and brought me another. I whirled my arms like a windmill, +seeking to convey by the sweeping universality of my gesture +that my rejection was a rejection of cigars in general, +not of that particular article. He mistook this for the ordinary +impatience of common men, and rushed forward, his hands +filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing them upon me. +In desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the more +cigars I refused the more and more rare and precious cigars +were brought out of the deeps and recesses of the establishment. +I tried in vain to think of a way of conveying to him the fact +that I had already had the cigar. I imitated the action +of a citizen smoking, knocking off and throwing away a cigar. +The watchful proprietor only thought I was rehearsing +(as in an ecstasy of anticipation) the joys of the cigar +he was going to give me. At last I retired baffled: +he would not take the money and leave the cigars alone. +So that this restaurant-keeper (in whose face a love of money +shone like the sun at noonday) flatly and firmly refused +to receive the twopence that I certainly owed him; and I took +that twopence of his away with me and rioted on it for months. +I hope that on the last day the angels will break the truth +very gently to that unhappy man. + +. . . . . + +This is the true and exact account of the Great Cigar Fraud, +and the moral of it is this--that civilisation is founded +upon abstractions. The idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed +by physical motions at all, because it is an abstract idea. +And civilisation obviously would be nothing without debt. +So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific sociology +(which does not exist) come and tell you that civilisation +is material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourselves +how many of the things that make up our Society, the Law, +or the Stocks and Shares, or the National Debt, you would be +able to convey with your face and your ten fingers by grinning +and gesticulating to a German innkeeper. + + +XXV + +A Cab Ride Across Country + +Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there +lies a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, +but of eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, which asked the present +writer to come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address. + +Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon, +owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws +and customs have fallen in connection with the seventh day. +It is not Puritanism; it is simply anarchy. I should have some +sympathy with the Jewish Sabbath, if it were a Jewish Sabbath, +and that for three reasons; first, that religion is an intrinsically +sympathetic thing; second, that I cannot conceive any religion +worth calling a religion without a fixed and material observance; +and third, that the particular observance of sitting still and doing +no work is one that suits my temperament down to the ground. + +But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it +does not let a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him +up when it has forced him to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism +does not forbid us to ask a man in Battersea to come and talk +in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his getting there. +I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with joys, +with flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. +I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with sorrows. +But I cannot imagine any deity being worshipped with inconveniences. +Let the good Moslem go to Mecca, or let him abide in his tent, +according to his feelings for religious symbols. But surely Allah +cannot see anything particularly dignified in his servant being +misled by the time-table, finding that the old Mecca express is +not running, missing his connection at Bagdad, or having to wait +three hours in a small side station outside Damascus. + +So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph +service at all to this place; I found there was only one weak +thread of train-service. Now if this had been the authority +of real English religion, I should have submitted to it at once. +If I believed that the telegraph clerk could not send the telegram +because he was at that moment rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, +I should think all telegrams unimportant in comparison. +If I could believe that railway porters when relieved from their +duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of worship, +I should say that all lectures and everything else ought +to give way to such a consideration. I should not complain +if the national faith forbade me to make any appointments +of labour or self-expression on the Sabbath. But, as it is, +it only tells me that I may very probably keep the Sabbath +by not keeping the appointment. + +. . . . . + +But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there +was only one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could +even get within several hours or several miles of the time or place. +I therefore went to the telephone, which is one of my +favourite toys, and down which I have shouted many valuable, +but prematurely arrested, monologues upon art and morals. +I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered that one +could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be +cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, +to the advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, +in fewer words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, +I ordered a taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. +I have not a word to say in general either against telephones +or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two of the purest and most +poetic of the creations of modern scientific civilisation. +Unfortunately, when the taxi-cab started, it did exactly +what modern scientific civilisation has done--it broke down. +The result of this was that when I arrived at King's Cross my +only train was gone; there was a Sabbath calm in the station, +a calm in the eyes of the porters, and in my breast, if calm +at all, if any calm, a calm despair. + +There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my +breast on first making the discovery; and it was turned +to blinding horror when I learnt that I could not even send +a telegram to the organisers of the meeting. To leave +my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; +to leave them without any intimation was simply low. +I reasoned with the official. I said: "Do you really mean +to say that if my brother were dying and my mother in this place, +I could not communicate with her?" He was a man of literal +and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was dying. +I answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health, +but that I was inquiring upon a question of principle. +What would happen if England were invaded, or if I +alone knew how to turn aside a comet or an earthquake. +He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible spirit, +but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this +particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element +of the outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang +up ungovernable, and I decided that I would not be a cad merely +because some of my remote ancestors had been Calvinists. +I would keep my appointment if I lost all my money and all my wits. +I went out into the quiet London street, where my quiet London +cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty morning. +I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the London +driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. +And he did. + +. . . . . + +I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful weather, even in +a motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver, +not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road. +I urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, +but he said (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate +sense of adventure) that he would rather do it when we arrived-- +if we ever did. I was by no means so delicate; I bought +a varied selection of pork-pies at a little shop that was open +(why was that shop open?--it is all a mystery), and ate them +as we went along. The beginning was sombre and irritating. +I was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a baby; +with the motor for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday. +And the sight of the northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did +not decrease, my gloom: Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness +in its squalor; Battersea and Camberwell have an indescribable +bustle of democracy; but the poor parts of North London . . . well, +perhaps I saw them wrongly under that ashen morning and on +that foolish errand. + +It was one of those days which more than once this year broke +the retreat of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. +We were already clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace +through a borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, +when the grey showed golden patches and a good light began +to glitter on everything. The cab went quicker and quicker. +The open land whirled wider and wider; but I did not lose my sense of +being battled with and thwarted that I had felt in the thronged slums. +Rather the feeling increased, because of the great difficulty +of space and time. The faster went the car, the fiercer and thicker +I felt the fight. + +The whole landscape seemed charging at me--and just missing me. +The tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; +the very trees seemed like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving +it by a hair's breadth. Across some vast, smooth valley I saw +a beech-tree by the white road stand up little and defiant. +It grew bigger and bigger with blinding rapidity. It charged me +like a tilting knight, seemed to hack at my head, and pass by. +Sometimes when we went round a curve of road, the effect was yet +more awful. It seemed as if some tree or windmill swung round +to smite like a boomerang. The sun by this time was a blazing fact; +and I saw that all Nature is chivalrous and militant. +We do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we should rather seek +the nobler sort of war; and see all the trees as green banners. + +. . . . . + +I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was deciding to leave. +When my cab came reeling into the market-place they decided, +with evident disappointment, to remain. Over the lecture I draw +a veil. When I came back home I was called to the telephone, +and a meek voice expressed regret for the failure of the motor-cab, +and even said something about any reasonable payment. +"Whom can I pay for my own superb experience? What is +the usual charge for seeing the clouds shattered by the sun? +What is the market price of a tree blue on the sky-line +and then blinding white in the sun? Mention your price for +that windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks in the garden. +Let me pay you for . . ." Here it was, I think, that we +were cut off. + + +XXVI + +The Two Noises + +For three days and three nights the sea had charged England +as Napoleon charged her at Waterloo. The phrase is instinctive, +because away to the last grey line of the sea there was only the look +of galloping squadrons, impetuous, but with a common purpose. +The sea came on like cavalry, and when it touched the shore it +opened the blazing eyes and deafening tongues of the artillery. +I saw the worst assault at night on a seaside parade where the sea +smote on the doors of England with the hammers of earthquake, +and a white smoke went up into the black heavens. There one +could thoroughly realise what an awful thing a wave really is. +I talk like other people about the rushing swiftness of a wave. +But the horrible thing about a wave is its hideous slowness. +It lifts its load of water laboriously: in that style at once +slow and slippery in which a Titan might lift a load of rock +and then let it slip at last to be shattered into shock of dust. +In front of me that night the waves were not like water: +they were like falling city walls. The breaker rose first as if it +did not wish to attack the earth; it wished only to attack the stars. +For a time it stood up in the air as naturally as a tower; then it went +a little wrong in its outline, like a tower that might some day fall. +When it fell it was as if a powder magazine blew up. + +. . . . . + +I have never seen such a sea. All the time there blew across +the land one of those stiff and throttling winds that one can +lean up against like a wall. One expected anything to be blown +out of shape at any instant; the lamp-post to be snapped +like a green stalk, the tree to be whirled away like a straw. +I myself should certainly have been blown out of shape if I had +possessed any shape to be blown out of; for I walked along the edge +of the stone embankment above the black and battering sea and could +not rid myself of the idea that it was an invasion of England. +But as I walked along this edge I was somewhat surprised +to find that as I neared a certain spot another noise mingled +with the ceaseless cannonade of the sea. + +Somewhere at the back, in some pleasure ground or casino +or place of entertainment, an undaunted brass band was playing +against the cosmic uproar. I do not know what band it was. +Judging from the boisterous British Imperialism of most +of the airs it played, I should think it was a German band. +But there was no doubt about its energy, and when I came quite +close under it it really drowned the storm. It was playing such +things as "Tommy Atkins" and "You Can Depend on Young Australia," +and many others of which I do not know the words, but I should +think they would be "John, Pat, and Mac, With the Union Jack," +or that fine though unwritten poem, "Wait till the Bull Dog +gets a bite of you." Now, I for one detest Imperialism, +but I have a great deal of sympathy with Jingoism. +And there seemed something so touching about this unbroken +and innocent bragging under the brutal menace of Nature +that it made, if I may so put it, two tunes in my mind. +It is so obvious and so jolly to be optimistic about England, +especially when you are an optimist--and an Englishman. +But through all that glorious brass came the voice +of the invasion, the undertone of that awful sea. +I did a foolish thing. As I could not express my meaning +in an article, I tried to express it in a poem--a bad one. +You can call it what you like. It might be called "Doubt," +or "Brighton." It might be called "The Patriot," or yet +again "The German Band." I would call it "The Two Voices," +but that title has been taken for a grossly inferior poem. +This is how it began-- + + "They say the sun is on your knees + A lamp to light your lands from harm, + They say you turn the seven seas + To little brooks about your farm. + I hear the sea and the new song + that calls you empress all day long. + + "(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie + Dying in swamps--you shall not die, + Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust, + Your poor are chased about like dust, + Emptied of anger and surprise-- + And God has gone out of their eyes, + Your cohorts break--your captains lie, + I say to you, you shall not die.)" + +Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there +is an English country that the Imperialists have never found. +The British Empire may annex what it likes, it will never annex England. +It has not even discovered the island, let alone conquered it. +I took up the two tunes again with a greater sympathy for the first-- + + "I know the bright baptismal rains, + I love your tender troubled skies, + I know your little climbing lanes, + Are peering into Paradise, + From open hearth to orchard cool, + How bountiful and beautiful. + + "(O throttled and without a cry, + O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die, + The frightful word is on your walls, + The east sea to the west sea calls, + The stars are dying in the sky, + You shall not die; you shall not die.)" + +Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the +peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. +It is their fault if the last verse was written a little rudely +and at random-- + + "I see you how you smile in state + Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar, + You need not tell me you are great, + I know how more than great you are. + I know what William Shakespeare was, + I have seen Gainsborough and the grass. + + "(O given to believe a lie, + O my mad mother, do do not die, + Whose eyes turn all ways but within, + Whose sin is innocence of sin, + Whose eyes, blinded with beams at noon, + Can see the motes upon the moon, + You shall your lover still pursue. + To what last madhouse shelters you + I will uphold you, even I. + You that are dead. You shall not die.)" + +But the sea would not stop for me any more than for Canute; +and as for the German band, that would not stop for anybody. + + +XXVII + +Some Policemen and a Moral + +The other day I was nearly arrested by two excited policemen in a wood +in Yorkshire. I was on a holiday, and was engaged in that rich and +intricate mass of pleasures, duties, and discoveries which for the keeping +off of the profane, we disguise by the exoteric name of Nothing. +At the moment in question I was throwing a big Swedish knife at +a tree, practising (alas, without success) that useful trick of +knife-throwing by which men murder each other in Stevenson's romances. + +Suddenly the forest was full of two policemen; there was something +about their appearance in and relation to the greenwood that +reminded me, I know not how, of some happy Elizabethan comedy. +They asked what the knife was, who I was, why I was throwing it, +what my address was, trade, religion, opinions on the Japanese war, +name of favourite cat, and so on. They also said I was damaging the tree; +which was, I am sorry to say, not true, because I could not hit it. +The peculiar philosophical importance, however, of the incident was this. +After some half-hour's animated conversation, the exhibition of +an envelope, an unfinished poem, which was read with great care, and, +I trust, with some profit, and one or two other subtle detective strokes, +the elder of the two knights became convinced that I really was what I +professed to be, that I was a journalist, that I was on the DAILY NEWS +(this was the real stroke; they were shaken with a terror common +to all tyrants), that I lived in a particular place as stated, +and that I was stopping with particular people in Yorkshire, +who happened to be wealthy and well-known in the neighbourhood. + +In fact the leading constable became so genial and complimentary +at last that he ended up by representing himself as a reader +of my work. And when that was said, everything was settled. +They acquitted me and let me pass. + +"But," I said, "what of this mangled tree? It was to the rescue +of that Dryad, tethered to the earth, that you rushed like +knight-errants. You, the higher humanitarians, are not deceived +by the seeming stillness of the green things, a stillness like +the stillness of the cataract, a headlong and crashing silence. +You know that a tree is but a creature tied to the ground by one leg. +You will not let assassins with their Swedish daggers shed the green +blood of such a being. But if so, why am I not in custody; +where are my gyves? Produce, from some portion of your persons, +my mouldy straw and my grated window. The facts of which I have just +convinced you, that my name is Chesterton, that I am a journalist, +that I am living with the well-known and philanthropic Mr. Blank +of Ilkley, cannot have anything to do with the question of whether +I have been guilty of cruelty to vegetables. The tree is none +the less damaged even though it may reflect with a dark pride that it +was wounded by a gentleman connected with the Liberal press. +Wounds in the bark do not more rapidly close up because they are +inflicted by people who are stopping with Mr. Blank of Ilkley. +That tree, the ruin of its former self, the wreck of what was once +a giant of the forest, now splintered and laid low by the brute +superiority of a Swedish knife, that tragedy, constable, cannot be wiped +out even by stopping for several months more with some wealthy person. +It is incredible that you have no legal claim to arrest +even the most august and fashionable persons on this charge. +For if so, why did you interfere with me at all?" + +I made the later and larger part of this speech to the silent wood, +for the two policemen had vanished almost as quickly as they came. +It is very possible, of course, that they were fairies. +In that case the somewhat illogical character of their view +of crime, law, and personal responsibility would find a bright +and elfish explanation; perhaps if I had lingered in the glade +till moonrise I might have seen rings of tiny policemen +dancing on the sward; or running about with glow-worm belts, +arresting grasshoppers for damaging blades of grass. +But taking the bolder hypothesis, that they really were policemen, +I find myself in a certain difficulty. I was certainly +accused of something which was either an offence or was not. +I was let off because I proved I was a guest at a big house. +The inference seems painfully clear; either it is not +a proof of infamy to throw a knife about in a lonely wood, +or else it is a proof of innocence to know a rich man. +Suppose a very poor person, poorer even than a journalist, +a navvy or unskilled labourer, tramping in search of work, +often changing his lodgings, often, perhaps, failing in his rent. +Suppose he had been intoxicated with the green gaiety +of the ancient wood. Suppose he had thrown knives at trees +and could give no description of a dwelling-place except +that he had been fired out of the last. As I walked home +through a cloudy and purple twilight I wondered how he would +have got on. + +Moral. We English are always boasting that we are very illogical; +there is no great harm in that. There is no subtle spiritual evil +in the fact that people always brag about their vices; it is when they +begin to brag about their virtues that they become insufferable. +But there is this to be said, that illogicality in your constitution +or your legal methods may become very dangerous if there happens to be +some great national vice or national temptation which many take advantage +of the chaos. Similarly, a drunkard ought to have strict rules and hours; +a temperate man may obey his instincts. + +Take some absurd anomaly in the British law--the fact, for instance, +that a man ceasing to be an M. P. has to become Steward of the +Chiltern Hundreds, an office which I believe was intended originally +to keep down some wild robbers near Chiltern, wherever that is. +Obviously this kind of illogicality does not matter very much, +for the simple reason that there is no great temptation to take +advantage of it. Men retiring from Parliament do not have any +furious impulse to hunt robbers in the hills. But if there were +a real danger that wise, white-haired, venerable politicians taking +leave of public life would desire to do this (if, for instance, +there were any money in it), then clearly, if we went on saying +that the illogicality did not matter, when (as a matter of fact) +Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was hanging Chiltern shop-keepers every day +and taking their property, we should be very silly. The illogicality +would matter, for it would have become an excuse for indulgence. +It is only the very good who can live riotous lives. + +Now this is exactly what is present in cases of police investigation +such as the one narrated above. There enters into such things a great +national sin, a far greater sin than drink--the habit of respecting a +gentleman. Snobbishness has, like drink, a kind of grand poetry. +And snobbishness has this peculiar and devilish quality of evil, +that it is rampant among very kindly people, with open hearts +and houses. But it is our great English vice; to be watched +more fiercely than small-pox. If a man wished to hear the worst +and wickedest thing in England summed up in casual English words, +he would not find it in any foul oaths or ribald quarrelling. +He would find it in the fact that the best kind of working man, +when he wishes to praise any one, calls him "a gentleman." +It never occurs to him that he might as well call him "a marquis," +or "a privy councillor"--that he is simply naming a rank or class, +not a phrase for a good man. And this perennial temptation to a +shameful admiration, must, and, I think, does, constantly come +in and distort and poison our police methods. + +In this case we must be logical and exact; for we have to keep watch +upon ourselves. The power of wealth, and that power at its vilest, +is increasing in the modern world. A very good and just people, +without this temptation, might not need, perhaps, to make clear rules and +systems to guard themselves against the power of our great financiers. +But that is because a very just people would have shot them long ago, +from mere native good feeling. + + +XXVIII + +The Lion + +In the town of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We +talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is the +man in the street. Things quite central for him are connected with these +lamp-posts and pavements; everything from his meals to his martyrdoms. +When first an Englishman looks at a French town or village his +first feeling is simply that it is uglier than an English town +or village; when he looks again he sees that this comparative +absence of the picturesque is chiefly expressed in the plain, +precipitous frontage of the houses standing up hard and flat +out of the street like the cardboard houses in a pantomime-- +a hard angularity allied perhaps to the harshness of French logic. +When he looks a third time he sees quite simply that it is all because +the houses have no front gardens. The vague English spirit loves to have +the entrance to its house softened by bushes and broken by steps. +It likes to have a little anteroom of hedges half in the house +and half out of it; a green room in a double sense. The Frenchman +desires no such little pathetic ramparts or halting places, for the +street itself is a thing natural and familiar to him. + +. . . . . + +The French have no front gardens; but the street is every man's +front garden. There are trees in the street, and sometimes fountains. +The street is the Frenchman's tavern, for he drinks in the street. +It is his dining-room, for he dines in the street. It is his +British Museum, for the statues and monuments in French streets are not, +as with us, of the worst, but of the best, art of the country, +and they are often actually as historical as the Pyramids. +The street again is the Frenchman's Parliament, for France has +never taken its Chamber of Deputies so seriously as we take our House +of Commons, and the quibbles of mere elected nonentities in an official +room seem feeble to a people whose fathers have heard the voice +of Desmoulins like a trumpet under open heaven, or Victor Hugo +shouting from his carriage amid the wreck of the second Republic. +And as the Frenchman drinks in the street and dines in the street +so also he fights in the street and dies in the street, so that +the street can never be commonplace to him. + +Take, for instance, such a simple object as a lamp-post. In London +a lamp-post is a comic thing. We think of the intoxicated +gentleman embracing it, and recalling ancient friendship. +But in Paris a lamp-post is a tragic thing. For we think +of tyrants hanged on it, and of an end of the world. There is, +or was, a bitter Republican paper in Paris called LA LANTERNE. +How funny it would be if there were a Progressive paper in England +called THE LAMP POST! We have said, then, that the Frenchman is the man +in the street; that he can dine in the street, and die in the street. +And if I ever pass through Paris and find him going to bed in the street, +I shall say that he is still true to the genius of his civilisation. +All that is good and all that is evil in France is alike connected +with this open-air element. French democracy and French indecency +are alike part of the desire to have everything out of doors. +Compared to a caf, a public-house is a private house. + +. . . . . + +There were two reasons why all these fancies should float through +the mind in the streets of this especial town of Belfort. +First of all, it lies close upon the boundary of France and Germany, +and boundaries are the most beautiful things in the world. +To love anything is to love its boundaries; thus children will always +play on the edge of anything. They build castles on the edge +of the sea, and can only be restrained by public proclamation +and private violence from walking on the edge of the grass. +For when we have come to the end of a thing we have come +to the beginning of it. + +Hence this town seemed all the more French for being on the very margin +of Germany, and although there were many German touches in the place-- +German names, larger pots of beer, and enormous theatrical barmaids +dressed up in outrageous imitation of Alsatian peasants--yet the fixed +French colour seemed all the stronger for these specks of something else. +All day long and all night long troops of dusty, swarthy, scornful little +soldiers went plodding through the streets with an air of stubborn +disgust, for German soldiers look as if they despised you, but French +soldiers as if they despised you and themselves even more than you. +It is a part, I suppose, of the realism of the nation which has made +it good at war and science and other things in which what is necessary +is combined with what is nasty. And the soldiers and the civilians +alike had most of them cropped hair, and that curious kind of head +which to an Englishman looks almost brutal, the kind that we call +a bullet-head. Indeed, we are speaking very appropriately when we call +it a bullet-head, for in intellectual history the heads of Frenchmen +have been bullets--yes, and explosive bullets. + +. . . . . + +But there was a second reason why in this place one should think +particularly of the open-air politics and the open-air art +of the French. For this town of Belfort is famous for one of +the most typical and powerful of the public monuments of France. +From the caf table at which I sit I can see the hill beyond the town +on which hangs the high and flat-faced citadel, pierced with +many windows, and warmed in the evening light. On the steep +hill below it is a huge stone lion, itself as large as a hill. +It is hacked out of the rock with a sort of gigantic impression. +No trivial attempt has been made to make it like a common statue; +no attempt to carve the mane into curls, or to distinguish +the monster minutely from the earth out of which he rises, +shaking the world. The face of the lion has something of the bold +conventionality of Assyrian art. The mane of the lion is left +like a shapeless cloud of tempest, as if it might literally +be said of him that God had clothed his neck with thunder. +Even at this distance the thing looks vast, and in some +sense prehistoric. Yet it was carved only a little while ago. +It commemorates the fact that this town was never taken +by the Germans through all the terrible year, but only laid +down its arms at last at the command of its own Government. +But the spirit of it has been in this land from the beginning-- +the spirit of something defiant and almost defeated. + +As I leave this place and take the railway into Germany the news comes +thicker and thicker up the streets that Southern France is in a flame, +and that there perhaps will be fought out finally the awful modern battle +of the rich and poor. And as I pass into quieter places for the last +sign of France on the sky-line, I see the Lion of Belfort stand at bay, +the last sight of that great people which has never been at peace. + + +XXIX + +Humanity: an Interlude + +Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, +the City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything noble +cut out, and everything nasty left in. No one can understand Paris +and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance +and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; +but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of +roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, +but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, +they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. +For the indecency of many of their books and papers is not of the sort +which charms and seduces, but of the sort that horrifies and hurts; +they are torturing themselves. They lash their own patriotism into life +with the same whips which most men use to lash foreigners to silence. +The enemies of France can never give an account of her infamy or decay +which does not seem insipid and even polite compared with the things which +the Nationalists of France say about their own nation. They taunt and +torment themselves; sometimes they even deliberately oppress themselves. +Thus, when the mob of Paris could make a Government to please itself, +it made a sort of sublime tyranny to order itself about. The spirit is +the same from the Crusades or St. Bartholomew to the apotheosis of Zola. +The old religionists tortured men physically for a moral truth. +The new realists torture men morally for a physical truth. + +Now Brussels is Paris without this constant purification of pain. +Its indecencies are not regrettable incidents in an +everlasting revolution. It has none of the things which make good +Frenchmen love Paris; it has only the things which make unspeakable +Englishmen love it. It has the part which is cosmopolitan-- +and narrows; not the part which is Parisian--and universal. +You can find there (as commonly happens in modern centres) +the worst things of all nations--the DAILY MAIL from England, +the cheap philosophies from Germany, the loose novels of France, +and the drinks of America. But there is no English broad fun, +no German kindly ceremony, no American exhilaration, and, +above all, no French tradition of fighting for an idea. +Though all the boulevards look like Parisian boulevards, +though all the shops look like Parisian shops, you cannot look +at them steadily for two minutes without feeling the full +distance between, let us say, King Leopold and fighters +like Clemenceau and Deroulde. + +. . . . . + +For all these reasons, and many more, when I had got into Brussels I began +to make all necessary arrangements for getting out of it again; and I +had impulsively got into a tram which seemed to be going out of the city. +In this tram there were two men talking; one was a little man with a +black French beard; the other was a baldish man with bushy whiskers, +like the financial foreign count in a three-act farce. And about the time +that we reached the suburb of the city, and the traffic grew thinner, +and the noises more few, I began to hear what they were saying. +Though they spoke French quickly, their words were fairly easy to follow, +because they were all long words. Anybody can understand long words +because they have in them all the lucidity of Latin. + +The man with the black beard said: "It must that we have the Progress." + +The man with the whiskers parried this smartly by saying: +"It must also that we have the Consolidation International." + +This is a sort of discussion which I like myself, so I listened +with some care, and I think I picked up the thread of it. +One of the Belgians was a Little Belgian, as we speak +of a Little Englander. The other was a Belgian Imperialist, +for though Belgium is not quite strong enough to be altogether +a nation, she is quite strong enough to be an empire. +Being a nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being +an empire only means kicking your inferiors. The man with whiskers +was the Imperialist, and he was saying: "The science, behold there +the new guide of humanity." + +And the man with the beard answered him: "It does not suffice to +have progress in the science; one must have it also in the sentiment +of the human justice." + +This remark I applauded, as if at a public meeting, but they were much +too keen on their argument to hear me. The views I have often heard in +England, but never uttered so lucidly, and certainly never so fast. +Though Belgian by nation they must both have been essentially French. +Whiskers was great on education, which, it seems, is on +the march. All the world goes to make itself instructed. +It must that the more instructed enlighten the less instructed. +Eh, well then, the European must impose upon the savage the science +and the light. Also (apparently) he must impose himself on +the savage while he is about it. To-day one travelled quickly. +The science had changed all. For our fathers, they were +religious, and (what was worse) dead. To-day humanity had +electricity to the hand; the machines came from triumphing; +all the lines and limits of the globe effaced themselves. +Soon there would not be but the great Empires and confederations, +guided by the science, always the science. + +Here Whiskers stopped an instant for breath; and the man with +the sentiment for human justice had "la parole" off him in a flash. +Without doubt Humanity was on the march, but towards the sentiments, +the ideal, the methods moral and pacific. Humanity directed itself +towards Humanity. For your wars and empires on behalf of civilisation, +what were they in effect? The war, was it not itself an affair of the +barbarism? The Empires were they not things savage? The Humanity had +passed all that; she was now intellectual. Tolstoy had refined all +human souls with the sentiments the most delicate and just. Man was +become a spirit; the wings pushed. . . . + +. . . . . + +At this important point of evolution the tram came to a jerky stoppage; +and staring around I found, to my stunned consternation, that it +was almost dark, that I was far away from Brussels, that I could not +dream of getting back to dinner; in short, that through the clinging +fascination of this great controversy on Humanity and its recent complete +alteration by science or Tolstoy, I had landed myself Heaven knows where. +I dropped hastily from the suburban tram and let it go on without me. + +I was alone in the flat fields out of sight of the city. +On one side of the road was one of those small, thin woods +which are common in all countries, but of which, by a coincidence, +the mystical painters of Flanders were very fond. The night was +closing in with cloudy purple and grey; there was one ribbon of silver, +the last rag of the sunset. Through the wood went one little path, +and somehow it suggested that it might lead to some sign of life-- +there was no other sign of life on the horizon. I went along it, +and soon sank into a sort of dancing twilight of all those tiny trees. +There is something subtle and bewildering about that sort of frail +and fantastic wood. A forest of big trees seems like a bodily barrier; +but somehow that mist of thin lines seems like a spiritual barrier. +It is as if one were caught in a fairy cloud or could not pass a phantom. +When I had well lost the last gleam of the high road a curious +and definite feeling came upon me. Now I suddenly felt something +much more practical and extraordinary--the absence of humanity: +inhuman loneliness. Of course, there was nothing really lost +in my state; but the mood may hit one anywhere. I wanted men-- +any men; and I felt our awful alliance over all the globe. +And at last, when I had walked for what seemed a long time, I saw +a light too near the earth to mean anything except the image of God. + +I came out on a clear space and a low, long cottage, the door +of which was open, but was blocked by a big grey horse, +who seemed to prefer to eat with his head inside the sitting-room. +I got past him, and found he was being fed by a young man +who was sitting down and drinking beer inside, and who saluted +me with heavy rustic courtesy, but in a strange tongue. +The room was full of staring faces like owls, and these I +traced at length as belonging to about six small children. +Their father was still working in the fields, but their mother +rose when I entered. She smiled, but she and all the rest +spoke some rude language, Flamand, I suppose; so that we +had to be kind to each other by signs. She fetched me beer, +and pointed out my way with her finger; and I drew a picture +to please the children; and as it was a picture of two men +hitting each other with swords, it pleased them very much. +Then I gave a Belgian penny to each child, for as I said on chance +in French, "It must be that we have the economic equality." +But they had never heard of economic equality, while all +Battersea workmen have heard of economic equality, though it +is true that they haven't got it. + +I found my way back to the city, and some time afterwards I actually +saw in the street my two men talking, no doubt still saying, +one that Science had changed all in Humanity, and the other that +Humanity was now pushing the wings of the purely intellectual. +But for me Humanity was hooked on to an accidental picture. +I thought of a low and lonely house in the flats, behind a veil +or film of slight trees, a man breaking the ground as men have +broken from the first morning, and a huge grey horse champing +his food within a foot of a child's head, as in the stable +where Christ was born. + + +XXX + +The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + +On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that +in a few hours I should be in England, my eye fell upon one +of the details of Gothic carving of which Flanders is full. +I do not know whether the thing is old, though it was certainly +knocked about and indecipherable, but at least it was certainly +in the style and tradition of the early Middle Ages. +It seemed to represent men bending themselves (not to say +twisting themselves) to certain primary employments. +Some seemed to be sailors tugging at ropes; others, I think, +were reaping; others were energetically pouring something +into something else. This is entirely characteristic of +the pictures and carvings of the early thirteenth century, +perhaps the most purely vigorous time in all history. +The great Greeks preferred to carve their gods and heroes +doing nothing. Splendid and philosophic as their composure +is there is always about it something that marks the master +of many slaves. But if there was one thing the early +mediaevals liked it was representing people doing something-- +hunting or hawking, or rowing boats, or treading grapes, +or making shoes, or cooking something in a pot. "Quicquid agunt +homines, votum, timor, ira voluptas." (I quote from memory.) +The Middle Ages is full of that spirit in all its monuments and +manuscripts. Chaucer retains it in his jolly insistence on +everybody's type of trade and toil. It was the earliest and +youngest resurrection of Europe, the time when social order was +strengthening, but had not yet become oppressive; the time when +religious faiths were strong, but had not yet been exasperated. +For this reason the whole effect of Greek and Gothic carving is +different. The figures in the Elgin marbles, though often reining +their steeds for an instant in the air, seem frozen for ever +at that perfect instant. But a mass of mediaeval carving +seems actually a sort of bustle or hubbub in stone. +Sometimes one cannot help feeling that the groups actually +move and mix, and the whole front of a great cathedral has +the hum of a huge hive. + +. . . . . + +But about these particular figures there was a peculiarity +of which I could not be sure. Those of them that had any heads +had very curious heads, and it seemed to me that they had their +mouths open. Whether or no this really meant anything or was +an accident of nascent art I do not know; but in the course +of wondering I recalled to my mind the fact that singing was +connected with many of the tasks there suggested, that there +were songs for reapers and songs for sailors hauling ropes. +I was still thinking about this small problem when I walked +along the pier at Ostend; and I heard some sailors uttering +a measured shout as they laboured, and I remembered that sailors +still sing in chorus while they work, and even sing different +songs according to what part of their work they are doing. +And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was over, the sight +of men working in the English fields reminded me again that there +are still songs for harvest and for many agricultural routines. +And I suddenly wondered why if this were so it should be +quite unknown, for any modern trade to have a ritual poetry. +How did people come to chant rude poems while pulling certain +ropes or gathering certain fruit, and why did nobody do +anything of the kind while producing any of the modern things? +Why is a modern newspaper never printed by people singing in chorus? +Why do shopmen seldom, if ever, sing? + +. . . . . + +If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while +auditing and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all +the separate things that have to be done in a boat, why are there +not songs for all the separate things that have to be done in a bank? +As the train from Dover flew through the Kentish gardens, +I tried to write a few songs suitable for commercial gentlemen. +Thus, the work of bank clerks when casting up columns might begin +with a thundering chorus in praise of Simple Addition. + +"Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er. +Hear the Stars of Morning shouting: 'Two and Two are four.' +Though the creeds and realms are reeling, though the sophists roar, +Though we weep and pawn our watches, Two and Two are Four." + +"There's a run upon the Bank--Stand away! For the Manager's +a crank and the Secretary drank, + and the Upper Tooting Bank + Turns to bay! +Stand close: there is a run On the Bank. Of our ship, our royal one, +let the ringing legend run, + that she fired with every gun + Ere she sank." + +. . . . . + +And as I came into the cloud of London I met a friend of mine +who actually is in a bank, and submitted these suggestions +in rhyme to him for use among his colleagues. But he was not +very hopeful about the matter. It was not (he assured me) +that he underrated the verses, or in any sense lamented their +lack of polish. No; it was rather, he felt, an indefinable +something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we +live that makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks. +And I think he must be right; though the matter is very mysterious. +I may observe here that I think there must be some mistake in +the calculations of the Socialists. They put down all our distress, +not to a moral tone, but to the chaos of private enterprise. +Now, banks are private; but post-offices are Socialistic: +therefore I naturally expected that the post-office would fall into +the collectivist idea of a chorus. Judge of my surprise when the +lady in my local post-office (whom I urged to sing) dismissed the +idea with far more coldness than the bank clerk had done. She +seemed indeed, to be in a considerably greater state of depression +than he. Should any one suppose that this was the effect of the +verses themselves, it is only fair to say that the specimen verse +of the Post-Office Hymn ran thus: + +"O'er London our letters are shaken like snow, + Our wires o'er the world like the thunderbolts go. + The news that may marry a maiden in Sark, + Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +Chorus (with a swing of joy and energy): + +"Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +And the more I thought about the matter the more painfully +certain it seemed that the most important and typical modern +things could not be done with a chorus. One could not, +for instance, be a great financier and sing; because the +essence of being a great financier is that you keep quiet. +You could not even in many modern circles be a public man +and sing; because in those circles the essence of being +a public man is that you do nearly everything in private. +Nobody would imagine a chorus of money-lenders. Every one +knows the story of the solicitors' corps of volunteers who, +when the Colonel on the battlefield cried "Charge!" all said +simultaneously, "Six-and-eightpence." Men can sing while +charging in a military, but hardly in a legal sense. And at +the end of my reflections I had really got no further than +the sub-conscious feeling of my friend the bank-clerk--that +there is something spiritually suffocating about our life; +not about our laws merely, but about our life. Bank-clerks +are without songs, not because they are poor, but because +they are sad. Sailors are much poorer. As I passed homewards +I passed a little tin building of some religious sort, which +was shaken with shouting as a trumpet is torn with its own +tongue. THEY were singing anyhow; and I had for an instant +a fancy I had often had before: that with us the super-human +is the only place where you can find the human. Human nature +is hunted and has fled into sanctuary. + + +XXXI + +The Riddle of the Ivy + +More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, +a friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded +with half-packed luggage. + +"You seem to be off on your travels," he said. "Where are you going?" + +With a strap between my teeth I replied, "To Battersea." + +"The wit of your remark," he said, "wholly escapes me." + +"I am going to Battersea," I repeated, "to Battersea vi Paris, Belfort, +Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained +simply the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once +more I find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, +somewhere in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little +island which I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great +white cliffs. Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch +travellers tell me that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour +that somewhere in the heart of it there is a beautiful place called +Battersea." + +"I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you," said my friend, +with an air of intellectual comparison, "that this is Battersea?" + +"It is quite unnecessary," I said, "and it is spiritually untrue. +I cannot see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or +any England. I cannot see that door. I cannot see that chair: +because a cloud of sleep and custom has come across my eyes. +The only way to get back to them is to go somewhere else; and that +is the real object of travel and the real pleasure of holidays. +Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see France? Do you suppose +that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? I shall enjoy them both; +but it is not them that I am seeking. I am seeking Battersea. +The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; +it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. +Now I warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and heavy, +and that if you utter that word 'paradox' I shall hurl it at your head. +I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical. +It is not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go +to England is to go away from it." + +But when, after only a month's travelling, I did come back +to England, I was startled to find that I had told the exact truth. +England did break on me at once beautifully new and beautifully old. +To land at Dover is the right way to approach England (most things +that are hackneyed are right), for then you see first the full, +soft gardens of Kent, which are, perhaps, an exaggeration, +but still a typical exaggeration, of the rich rusticity of England. +As it happened, also, a fellow-traveller with whom I had fallen +into conversation felt the same freshness, though for another cause. +She was an American lady who had seen Europe, and had +never yet seen England, and she expressed her enthusiasm +in that simple and splendid way which is natural to Americans, +who are the most idealistic people in the whole world. +Their only danger is that the idealist can easily become the idolator. +And the American has become so idealistic that he even idealises money. +But (to quote a very able writer of American short stories) +that is another story. + +"I have never been in England before," said the American lady, +"yet it is so pretty that I feel as if I have been away from it +for a long time." + +"So you have," I said; "you have been away for three hundred years." + +"What a lot of ivy you have," she said. "It covers the churches +and it buries the houses. We have ivy; but I have never seen it +grow like that." + +"I am interested to hear it," I replied, "for I am making a little +list of all the things that are really better in England. +Even a month on the Continent, combined with intelligence, +will teach you that there are many things that are better abroad. +All the things that the DAILY MAIL calls English are better abroad. +But there are things entirely English and entirely good. +Kippers, for instance, and Free Trade, and front gardens, +and individual liberty, and the Elizabethan drama, and hansom cabs, +and cricket, and Mr. Will Crooks. Above all, there is the happy +and holy custom of eating a heavy breakfast. I cannot imagine that +Shakespeare began the day with rolls and coffee, like a Frenchman +or a German. Surely he began with bacon or bloaters. In fact, a +light bursts upon me; for the first time I see the real meaning of +Mrs. Gallup and the Great Cipher. It is merely a mistake in the +matter of a capital letter. I withdraw my objections; I accept +everything; bacon did write Shakespeare." + +"I cannot look at anything but the ivy," she said, +"it looks so comfortable." + +While she looked at the ivy I opened for the first time for many +weeks an English newspaper, and I read a speech of Mr. Balfour +in which he said that the House of Lords ought to be preserved +because it represented something in the nature of permanent public +opinion of England, above the ebb and flow of the parties. +Now Mr. Balfour is a perfectly sincere patriot, a man who, from his +own point of view, thinks long and seriously about the public needs, +and he is, moreover, a man of entirely exceptionable intellectual power. +But alas, in spite of all this, when I had read that speech I +thought with a heavy heart that there was one more thing that I had +to add to the list of the specially English things, such as kippers +and cricket; I had to add the specially English kind of humbug. +In France things are attacked and defended for what they are. +The Catholic Church is attacked because it is Catholic, +and defended because it is Catholic. The Republic is defended +because it is Republican, and attacked because it is Republican. +But here is the ablest of English politicians consoling everybody +by telling them that the House of Lords is not really the House +of Lords, but something quite different, that the foolish accidental +peers whom he meets every night are in some mysterious way experts +upon the psychology of the democracy; that if you want to know +what the very poor want you must ask the very rich, and that if you +want the truth about Hoxton, you must ask for it at Hatfield. +If the Conservative defender of the House of Lords were a logical +French politician he would simply be a liar. But being an English +politician he is simply a poet. The English love of believing that +all is as it should be, the English optimism combined with the strong +English imagination, is too much even for the obvious facts. +In a cold, scientific sense, of course, Mr. Balfour knows that nearly +all the Lords who are not Lords by accident are Lords by bribery. +He knows, and (as Mr. Belloc excellently said) everybody in Parliament +knows the very names of the peers who have purchased their peerages. +But the glamour of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring himself +and reassuring others, is too strong for this original knowledge; +at last it fades from him, and he sincerely and earnestly +calls on Englishmen to join with him in admiring an august and +public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten that the Senate +really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; +and adventurers whom he has himself ennobled. + +"Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick," said the American lady, +"it seems to cover almost everything. It must be the most poetical +thing in England." + +"It is very beautiful," I said, "and, as you say, it is very English. +Charles Dickens, who was almost more English than England, +wrote one of his rare poems about the beauty of ivy. +Yes, by all means let us admire the ivy, so deep, so warm, +so full of a genial gloom and a grotesque tenderness. +Let us admire the ivy; and let us pray to God in His mercy +that it may not kill the tree." + + +XXXII + +The Travellers in State + +The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught a train; it was +a train going into the Eastern Counties, and I only just caught it. +And while I was running along the train (amid general admiration) +I noticed that there were a quite peculiar and unusual number of +carriages marked "Engaged." On five, six, seven, eight, nine carriages +was pasted the little notice: at five, six, seven, eight, nine windows +were big bland men staring out in the conscious pride of possession. +Their bodies seemed more than usually impenetrable, their faces more +than usual placid. It could not be the Derby, if only for the minor +reasons that it was the opposite direction and the wrong day. +It could hardly be the King. It could hardly be the French President. +For, though these distinguished persons naturally like to be private +for three hours, they are at least public for three minutes. +A crowd can gather to see them step into the train; and there was no +crowd here, or any police ceremonial. + +Who were those awful persons, who occupied more of the train +than a bricklayer's beanfeast, and yet were more fastidious +and delicate than the King's own suite? Who were these that +were larger than a mob, yet more mysterious than a monarch? +Was it possible that instead of our Royal House visiting the Tsar, +he was really visiting us? Or does the House of Lords +have a breakfast? I waited and wondered until the train +slowed down at some station in the direction of Cambridge. +Then the large, impenetrable men got out, and after them +got out the distinguished holders of the engaged seats. +They were all dressed decorously in one colour; they had neatly +cropped hair; and they were chained together. + +I looked across the carriage at its only other occupant, and our +eyes met. He was a small, tired-looking man, and, as I afterwards learnt, +a native of Cambridge; by the look of him, some working tradesman there, +such as a journeyman tailor or a small clock-mender. In order to make +conversation I said I wondered where the convicts were going. +His mouth twitched with the instinctive irony of our poor, and he said: +"I don't s'pose they're goin' on an 'oliday at the seaside with little +spades and pails." I was naturally delighted, and, pursuing the same vein +of literary invention, I suggested that perhaps dons were taken down +to Cambridge chained together like this. And as he lived in Cambridge, +and had seen several dons, he was pleased with such a scheme. Then when +we had ceased to laugh, we suddenly became quite silent; and the bleak, +grey eyes of the little man grew sadder and emptier than an open sea. +I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same, because all +modern sophists are only sophists, and there is such a thing as mankind. +Then at last (and it fell in as exactly as the right last note of a tune +one is trying to remember) he said: "Well, I s'pose we 'ave to do it." +And in those three things, his first speech and his silence and his +second speech, there were all the three great fundamental facts of +the English democracy, its profound sense of humour, its profound sense +of pathos, and its profound sense of helplessness. + +. . . . . + +It cannot be too often repeated that all real democracy is an attempt +(like that of a jolly hostess) to bring the shy people out. +For every practical purpose of a political state, for every practical +purpose of a tea-party, he that abaseth himself must be exalted. +At a tea-party it is equally obvious that he that exalteth +himself must be abased, if possible without bodily violence. +Now people talk of democracy as being coarse and turbulent: +it is a self-evident error in mere history. Aristocracy is the thing +that is always coarse and turbulent: for it means appealing to the +self-confident people. Democracy means appealing to the different +people. Democracy means getting those people to vote who would never +have the cheek to govern: and (according to Christian ethics) the +precise people who ought to govern are the people who have not the +cheek to do it. There is a strong example of this truth in my friend +in the train. The only two types we hear of in this argument about crime +and punishment are two very rare and abnormal types. + +We hear of the stark sentimentalist, who talks as if there were no +problem at all: as if physical kindness would cure everything: +as if one need only pat Nero and stroke Ivan the Terrible. +This mere belief in bodily humanitarianism is not sentimental; +it is simply snobbish. For if comfort gives men virtue, +the comfortable classes ought to be virtuous--which is absurd. +Then, again, we do hear of the yet weaker and more watery +type of sentimentalists: I mean the sentimentalist who says, +with a sort of splutter, "Flog the brutes!" or who tells you +with innocent obscenity "what he would do" with a certain man-- +always supposing the man's hands were tied. + +This is the more effeminate type of the two; but both are weak +and unbalanced. And it is only these two types, the sentimental +humanitarian and the sentimental brutalitarian, whom one hears +in the modern babel. Yet you very rarely meet either of them +in a train. You never meet anyone else in a controversy. +The man you meet in a train is like this man that I met: +he is emotionally decent, only he is intellectually doubtful. +So far from luxuriating in the loathsome things that could +be "done" to criminals, he feels bitterly how much better it +would be if nothing need be done. But something must be done. +"I s'pose we 'ave to do it." In short, he is simply a sane man, +and of a sane man there is only one safe definition. He is a man +who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head. + +. . . . . + +Now the real difficulty of discussing decently this problem +of the proper treatment of criminals is that both parties +discuss the matter without any direct human feeling. +The denouncers of wrong are as cold as the organisers of wrong. +Humanitarianism is as hard as inhumanity. + +Let me take one practical instance. I think the flogging +arranged in our modern prisons is a filthy torture; all its +scientific paraphernalia, the photographing, the medical attendance, +prove that it goes to the last foul limit of the boot and rack. +The cat is simply the rack without any of its intellectual reasons. +Holding this view strongly, I open the ordinary humanitarian books or +papers and I find a phrase like this, "The lash is a relic of barbarism." +So is the plough. So is the fishing net. So is the horn or +the staff or the fire lit in winter. What an inexpressibly feeble +phrase for anything one wants to attack--a relic of barbarism! +It is as if a man walked naked down the street to-morrow, +and we said that his clothes were not quite in the latest fashion. +There is nothing particularly nasty about being a relic of barbarism. +Man is a relic of barbarism. Civilisation is a relic of barbarism. + +But torture is not a relic of barbarism at all. In actuality it is simply +a relic of sin; but in comparative history it may well be called a relic +of civilisation. It has always been most artistic and elaborate when +everything else was most artistic and elaborate. Thus it was detailed +exquisite in the late Roman Empire, in the complex and gorgeous sixteenth +century, in the centralised French monarchy a hundred years before the +Revolution, and in the great Chinese civilisation to this day. This is, +first and last, the frightful thing we must remember. In so far as we +grow instructed and refined we are not (in any sense whatever) naturally +moving away from torture. We may be moving towards torture. We must know +what we are doing, if we are to avoid the enormous secret cruelty which +has crowned every historic civilisation. + +The train moves more swiftly through the sunny English fields. +They have taken the prisoners away, and I do not know what they +have done with them. + + +XXXIII + +The Prehistoric Railway Station + +A railway station is an admirable place, although Ruskin did not +think so; he did not think so because he himself was even more +modern than the railway station. He did not think so because +he was himself feverish, irritable, and snorting like an engine. +He could not value the ancient silence of the railway station. + +"In a railway station," he said, "you are in a hurry, +and therefore, miserable"; but you need not be either unless +you are as modern as Ruskin. The true philosopher does not +think of coming just in time for his train except as a bet +or a joke. + +The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to be +late for the one before. Do this, and you will find in a railway +station much of the quietude and consolation of a cathedral. +It has many of the characteristics of a great ecclesiastical building; +it has vast arches, void spaces, coloured lights, and, above all, +it has recurrence or ritual. It is dedicated to the celebration +of water and fire the two prime elements of all human ceremonial. +Lastly, a station resembles the old religions rather than the new +religions in this point, that people go there. In connection +with this it should also be remembered that all popular places, +all sites, actually used by the people, tend to retain the best +routine of antiquity very much more than any localities or machines +used by any privileged class. Things are not altered so quickly +or completely by common people as they are by fashionable people. +Ruskin could have found more memories of the Middle Ages in the +Underground Railway than in the grand hotels outside the stations. +The great palaces of pleasure which the rich build in London all have +brazen and vulgar names. Their names are either snobbish, like the +Hotel Cecil, or (worse still) cosmopolitan like the Hotel Metropole. +But when I go in a third-class carriage from the nearest circle station +to Battersea to the nearest circle station to the DAILY NEWS, the names +of the stations are one long litany of solemn and saintly memories. +Leaving Victoria I come to a park belonging especially to St. James +the Apostle; thence I go to Westminster Bridge, whose very name alludes +to the awful Abbey; Charing Cross holds up the symbol of Christendom; +the next station is called a Temple; and Blackfriars remembers +the mediaeval dream of a Brotherhood. + +If you wish to find the past preserved, follow the million +feet of the crowd. At the worst the uneducated only wear +down old things by sheer walking. But the educated kick them +down out of sheer culture. + +I feel all this profoundly as I wander about the empty +railway station, where I have no business of any kind. +I have extracted a vast number of chocolates from automatic machines; +I have obtained cigarettes, toffee, scent, and other things +that I dislike by the same machinery; I have weighed myself, +with sublime results; and this sense, not only of the +healthiness of popular things, but of their essential +antiquity and permanence, is still in possession of my mind. +I wander up to the bookstall, and my faith survives even +the wild spectacle of modern literature and journalism. +Even in the crudest and most clamorous aspects of the newspaper +world I still prefer the popular to the proud and fastidious. +If I had to choose between taking in the DAILY MAIL and taking +in the TIMES (the dilemma reminds one of a nightmare), I should +certainly cry out with the whole of my being for the DAILY MAIL. +Even mere bigness preached in a frivolous way is not so +irritating as mere meanness preached in a big and solemn way. +People buy the DAILY MAIL, but they do not believe in it. +They do believe in the TIMES, and (apparently) they do not buy it. +But the more the output of paper upon the modern world is +actually studied, the more it will be found to be in all its +essentials ancient and human, like the name of Charing Cross. +Linger for two or three hours at a station bookstall (as I am doing), +and you will find that it gradually takes on the grandeur +and historic allusiveness of the Vatican or Bodleian Library. +The novelty is all superficial; the tradition is all interior +and profound. The DAILY MAIL has new editions, but never a new idea. +Everything in a newspaper that is not the old human love +of altar or fatherland is the old human love of gossip. +Modern writers have often made game of the old chronicles +because they chiefly record accidents and prodigies; a church +struck by lightning, or a calf with six legs. They do not seem +to realise that this old barbaric history is the same as new +democratic journalism. It is not that the savage chronicle has +disappeared. It is merely that the savage chronicle now appears +every morning. + +As I moved thus mildly and vaguely in front of the bookstall, my eye +caught a sudden and scarlet title that for the moment staggered me. +On the outside of a book I saw written in large letters, "Get On +or Get Out." The title of the book recalled to me with a sudden +revolt and reaction all that does seem unquestionably new and nasty; +it reminded me that there was in the world of to-day that utterly +idiotic thing, a worship of success; a thing that only means surpassing +anybody in anything; a thing that may mean being the most successful +person in running away from a battle; a thing that may mean being +the most successfully sleepy of the whole row of sleeping men. +When I saw those words the silence and sanctity of the railway station +were for the moment shadowed. Here, I thought, there is at any rate +something anarchic and violent and vile. This title, at any rate, +means the most disgusting individualism of this individualistic world. +In the fury of my bitterness and passion I actually bought the book, +thereby ensuring that my enemy would get some of my money. I opened it +prepared to find some brutality, some blasphemy, which would really be +an exception to the general silence and sanctity of the railway station. +I was prepared to find something in the book that was as infamous +as its title. + +I was disappointed. There was nothing at all corresponding +to the furious decisiveness of the remarks on the cover. +After reading it carefully I could not discover whether +I was really to get on or to get out; but I had a vague +feeling that I should prefer to get out. A considerable part +of the book, particularly towards the end, was concerned +with a detailed description of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. +Undoubtedly Napoleon got on. He also got out. But I could not +discover in any way how the details of his life given here were +supposed to help a person aiming at success. One anecdote described +how Napoleon always wiped his pen on his knee-breeches. I suppose +the moral is: always wipe your pen on your knee-breeches, and you +will win the battle of Wagram. Another story told that he let loose +a gazelle among the ladies of his Court. Clearly the brutal practical +inference is--loose a gazelle among the ladies of your acquaintance, +and you will be Emperor of the French. Get on with a gazelle or get +out. The book entirely reconciled me to the soft twilight of the +station. Then I suddenly saw that there was a symbolic division +which might be paralleled from biology. Brave men are vertebrates; +they have their softness on the surface and their toughness +in the middle. But these modern cowards are all crustaceans; +their hardness is all on the cover and their softness is inside. +But the softness is there; everything in this twilight +temple is soft. + + +XXXIV + +The Diabolist + +Every now and then I have introduced into my essays an element +of truth. Things that really happened have been mentioned, +such as meeting President Kruger or being thrown out of a cab. +What I have now to relate really happened; yet there was no +element in it of practical politics or of personal danger. +It was simply a quiet conversation which I had with another man. +But that quiet conversation was by far the most terrible thing +that has ever happened to me in my life. It happened so long +ago that I cannot be certain of the exact words of the dialogue, +only of its main questions and answers; but there is one sentence +in it for which I can answer absolutely and word for word. +It was a sentence so awful that I could not forget it if I would. +It was the last sentence spoken; and it was not spoken to me. + +The thing befell me in the days when I was at an art school. +An art school is different from almost all other schools or +colleges in this respect: that, being of new and crude creation +and of lax discipline, it presents a specially strong contrast +between the industrious and the idle. People at an art school +either do an atrocious amount of work or do no work at all. +I belonged, along with other charming people, to the latter class; +and this threw me often into the society of men who were very +different from myself, and who were idle for reasons very different +from mine. I was idle because I was very much occupied; +I was engaged about that time in discovering, to my own +extreme and lasting astonishment, that I was not an atheist. +But there were others also at loose ends who were engaged in +discovering what Carlyle called (I think with needless delicacy) +the fact that ginger is hot in the mouth. + +I value that time, in short, because it made me acquainted with a good +representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are +two very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. +The first is the fact that there is one real difference between men +and women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk +in threes. The second is that when you find (as you often do) +three young cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk +together every day you generally find that one of the three cads and +idiots is (for some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. +In these small groups devoted to a drivelling dissipation there is +almost always one man who seems to have condescended to his company; +one man who, while he can talk a foul triviality with his fellows, +can also talk politics with a Socialist, or philosophy with a Catholic. + +It was just such a man whom I came to know well. It was strange, +perhaps, that he liked his dirty, drunken society; it was stranger +still, perhaps, that he liked my society. For hours of the day he +would talk with me about Milton or Gothic architecture; for hours +of the night he would go where I have no wish to follow him, even +in speculation. He was a man with a long, ironical face, and close +and red hair; he was by class a gentleman, and could walk like one, +but preferred, for some reason, to walk like a groom carrying two +pails. He looked like a sort of Super-jockey; as if some archangel +had gone on the Turf. And I shall never forget the half-hour in +which he and I argued about real things for the first and the last +time. + +. . . . . + +Along the front of the big building of which our school +was a part ran a huge slope of stone steps, higher, I think, +than those that lead up to St. Paul's Cathedral. On a black +wintry evening he and I were wandering on these cold heights, +which seemed as dreary as a pyramid under the stars. +The one thing visible below us in the blackness was a burning +and blowing fire; for some gardener (I suppose) was burning +something in the grounds, and from time to time the red sparks went +whirling past us like a swarm of scarlet insects in the dark. +Above us also it was gloom; but if one stared long enough +at that upper darkness, one saw vertical stripes of grey +in the black and then became conscious of the colossal faade +of the Doric building, phantasmal, yet filling the sky, as if +Heaven were still filled with the gigantic ghost of Paganism. + +. . . . . + +The man asked me abruptly why I was becoming orthodox. Until he said +it, I really had not known that I was; but the moment he had said it +I knew it to be literally true. And the process had been so long and +full that I answered him at once out of existing stores of explanation. + +"I am becoming orthodox," I said, "because I have come, rightly or +wrongly, after stretching my brain till it bursts, to the old belief +that heresy is worse even than sin. An error is more menacing than a +crime, for an error begets crimes. An Imperialist is worse than a +pirate. For an Imperialist keeps a school for pirates; he teaches +piracy disinterestedly and without an adequate salary. +A Free Lover is worse than a profligate. For a profligate is +serious and reckless even in his shortest love; while a Free Lover +is cautious and irresponsible even in his longest devotion. +I hate modern doubt because it is dangerous." + +"You mean dangerous to morality," he said in a voice of wonderful +gentleness. "I expect you are right. But why do you care about morality?" + +I glanced at his face quickly. He had thrust out his neck as he had +a trick of doing; and so brought his face abruptly into the light +of the bonfire from below, like a face in the footlights. +His long chin and high cheek-bones were lit up infernally from underneath; +so that he looked like a fiend staring down into the flaming pit. +I had an unmeaning sense of being tempted in a wilderness; +and even as I paused a burst of red sparks broke past. + +"Aren't those sparks splendid?" I said. + +"Yes," he replied. + +"That is all that I ask you to admit," said I. "Give me +those few red specks and I will deduce Christian morality. +Once I thought like you, that one's pleasure in a flying +spark was a thing that could come and go with that spark. +Once I thought that the delight was as free as the fire. +Once I thought that red star we see was alone in space. +But now I know that the red star is only on the apex +of an invisible pyramid of virtues. That red fire is only +the flower on a stalk of living habits, which you cannot see. +Only because your mother made you say 'Thank you' for a bun +are you now able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars +of an instant or for the white stars of all time. Only because you +were humble before fireworks on the fifth of November do you now +enjoy any fireworks that you chance to see. You only like them +being red because you were told about the blood of the martyrs; +you only like them being bright because brightness is a glory. +That flame flowered out of virtues, and it will fade with virtues. +Seduce a woman, and that spark will be less bright. +Shed blood, and that spark will be less red. Be really bad, +and they will be to you like the spots on a wall-paper." + +He had a horrible fairness of the intellect that made me despair of +his soul. A common, harmless atheist would have denied that religion +produced humility or humility a simple joy: but he admitted both. +He only said, "But shall I not find in evil a life of its own? +Granted that for every woman I ruin one of those red sparks will go out: +will not the expanding pleasure of ruin . . ." + +"Do you see that fire ?" I asked. "If we had a real fighting democracy, +some one would burn you in it; like the devil-worshipper that you are." + +"Perhaps," he said, in his tired, fair way. "Only what you call +evil I call good." + +He went down the great steps alone, and I felt as if I wanted +the steps swept and cleaned. I followed later, and as I went to find +my hat in the low, dark passage where it hung, I suddenly heard his +voice again, but the words were inaudible. I stopped, startled: +then I heard the voice of one of the vilest of his associates saying, +"Nobody can possibly know." And then I heard those two or three +words which I remember in every syllable and cannot forget. +I heard the Diabolist say, "I tell you I have done everything else. +If I do that I shan't know the difference between right and wrong." +I rushed out without daring to pause; and as I passed the fire I +did not know whether it was hell or the furious love of God. + +I have since heard that he died: it may be said, I think, +that he committed suicide; though he did it with tools of pleasure, +not with tools of pain. God help him, I know the road he went; +but I have never known, or even dared to think, what was that place +at which he stopped and refrained. + + +XXXV + +A Glimpse of My Country + +Whatever is it that we are all looking for? I fancy that it is +really quite close. When I was a boy I had a fancy that Heaven +or Fairyland or whatever I called it, was immediately behind my +own back, and that this was why I could never manage to see it, +however often I twisted and turned to take it by surprise. +I had a notion of a man perpetually spinning round on one foot +like a teetotum in the effort to find that world behind his back +which continually fled from him. Perhaps this is why the world +goes round. Perhaps the world is always trying to look over +its shoulder and catch up the world which always escapes it, +yet without which it cannot be itself. + +In any case, as I have said, I think that we must always conceive +of that which is the goal of all our endeavours as something which is +in some strange way near. Science boasts of the distance of its stars; +of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. +But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost +menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. +Always the Kingdom of Heaven is "At Hand"; and Looking-glass Land is +only through the looking-glass. So I for one should never be astonished +if the next twist of a street led me to the heart of that maze in +which all the mystics are lost. I should not be at all surprised if I +turned one corner in Fleet Street and saw a yet queerer-looking lamp; +I should not be surprised if I turned a third corner and found +myself in Elfland. + +I should not be surprised at this; but I was surprised the other day +at something more surprising. I took a turn out of Fleet Street +and found myself in England. + +. . . . . + +The singular shock experienced perhaps requires explanation. +In the darkest or the most inadequate moments of England there +is one thing that should always be remembered about the very +nature of our country. It may be shortly stated by saying that +England is not such a fool as it looks. The types of England, +the externals of England, always misrepresent the country. +England is an oligarchical country, and it prefers that its +oligarchy should be inferior to itself. + +The speaking in the House of Commons, for instance, is not only worse +than the speaking was, it is worse than the speaking is, in all or +almost all other places in small debating clubs or casual dinners. +Our countrymen probably prefer this solemn futility in the higher +places of the national life. It may be a strange sight to see +the blind leading the blind; but England provides a stranger. +England shows us the blind leading the people who can see. +And this again is an under-statement of the case. For the English +political aristocrats not only speak worse than many other people; +they speak worse than themselves. The ignorance of statesmen is +like the ignorance of judges, an artificial and affected thing. +If you have the good fortune really to talk with a statesman, you will +be constantly startled with his saying quite intelligent things. +It makes one nervous at first. And I have never been sufficiently +intimate with such a man to ask him why it was a rule of his life +in Parliament to appear sillier than he was. + +It is the same with the voters. The average man votes below himself; +he votes with half a mind or with a hundredth part of one. +A man ought to vote with the whole of himself as he worships +or gets married. A man ought to vote with his head and heart, +his soul and stomach, his eye for faces and his ear for music; +also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands and feet. +If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of it +should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, +they should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. +But as it is, the difficulty with English democracy at all +elections is that it is something less than itself. The question +is not so much whether only a minority of the electorate votes. +The point is that only a minority of the voter votes. + +. . . . . + +This is the tragedy of England; you cannot judge it by its foremost men. +Its types do not typify. And on the occasion of which I speak +I found this to be so especially of that old intelligent middle +class which I had imagined had almost vanished from the world. +It seemed to me that all the main representatives of the middle +class had gone off in one direction or in the other; they had either +set out in pursuit of the Smart Set or they had set out in pursuit +of the Simple Life. I cannot say which I dislike more myself; +the people in question are welcome to have either of them, or, as is +more likely, to have both, in hideous alternations of disease and cure. +But all the prominent men who plainly represent the middle class have +adopted either the single eye-glass of Mr Chamberlain or the single +eye of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + +The old class that I mean has no representative. Its food was plentiful; +but it had no show. Its food was plain; but it had no fads. +It was serious about politics; and when it spoke in public it +committed the solecism of trying to speak well. I thought that +this old earnest political England had practically disappeared. +And as I say, I took one turn out of Fleet Street and I found +a room full of it. + +. . . . . + +At the top of the room was a chair in which Johnson had sat. The club +was a club in which Wilkes had spoken, in a time when even the +ne'er-do-weel was virile. But all these things by themselves might be +merely archaism. The extraordinary thing was that this hall had all +the hubbub, the sincerity, the anger, the oratory of the eighteenth +century. The members of this club were of all shades of opinion, yet +there was not one speech which gave me that jar of unreality which I +often have in listening to the ablest men uttering my own opinion. +The Toryism of this club was like the Toryism of Johnson, +a Toryism that could use humour and appealed to humanity. +The democracy of this club was like the democracy of Wilkes, +a democracy that can speak epigrams and fight duels; +a democracy that can face things out and endure slander; +the democracy of Wilkes, or, rather, the democracy of Fox. + +One thing especially filled my soul with the soul of my fathers. +Each man speaking, whether he spoke well or ill, spoke as +well as he could from sheer fury against the other man. +This is the greatest of our modern descents, that nowadays a man +does not become more rhetorical as he becomes more sincere. +An eighteenth-century speaker, when he got really and honestly furious, +looked for big words with which to crush his adversary. +The new speaker looks for small words to crush him with. +He looks for little facts and little sneers. In a modern speech +the rhetoric is put into the merely formal part, the opening +to which nobody listens. But when Mr. Chamberlain, or a Moderate, +or one of the harder kind of Socialists, becomes really sincere, +he becomes Cockney. "The destiny of the Empire," or "The destiny +of humanity," do well enough for mere ornamental preliminaries, +but when the man becomes angry and honest, then it is a snarl, +"Where do we come in?" or "It's your money they want." + +The men in this eighteenth-century club were entirely different; +they were quite eighteenth century. Each one rose to his feet +quivering with passion, and tried to destroy his opponent, +not with sniggering, but actually with eloquence. I was arguing +with them about Home Rule; at the end I told them why the English +aristocracy really disliked an Irish Parliament; because it would +be like their club. + +. . . . . + +I came out again into Fleet Street at night, and by a dim lamp I +saw pasted up some tawdry nonsense about Wastrels and how London +was rising against something that London had hardly heard of. +Then I suddenly saw, as in one obvious picture, that the modern world +is an immense and tumultuous ocean, full of monstrous and living things. +And I saw that across the top of it is spread a thin, a very thin, +sheet of ice, of wicked wealth and of lying journalism. + +And as I stood there in the darkness I could almost fancy that I +heard it crack. + + +XXXVI + +A Somewhat Improbable Story + +I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read +it through very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come +to the conclusion that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read +it through very carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet. +The image and the idea of it clung to me through a great part +of my boyhood; I may have dreamt it before I could talk; or told it +to myself before I could read; or read it before I could remember. +On the whole, however, I am certain that I did not read it, +for children have very clear memories about things like that; +and of the books which I was really fond I can still remember, +not only the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position +of the printed words on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline +to the opinion that it happened to me before I was born. + +. . . . . + +At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages +of the atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, +for the sake of argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch +restaurants in the City where men take their food so fast that it +has none of the quality of food, and take their half-hour's +vacation so fast that it has none of the qualities of leisure; +to hurry through one's leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions. +They all wore tall shiny hats as if they could not lose an instant +even to hang them on a peg, and they all had one eye a little off, +hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In short, they were the slaves +of the modern bondage, you could hear their fetters clanking. +Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest chain ever tied +to a man--it is called a watch-chain. + +Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man +who almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. +He was like all the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly +opposite to them in all manner. He wore a high shiny hat +and a long frock coat, but he wore them as such solemn things +were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if it were a mitre, +and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high priest. +He not only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed +(such was his stateliness) almost to ask permission of the hat +for doing so, and to apologise to the peg for making use of it. +When he had sat down on a wooden chair with the air of one +considering its feelings and given a sort of slight stoop +or bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an altar, +I could not help some comment springing to my lips. +For the man was a big, sanguine-faced, prosperous-looking man, +and yet he treated everything with a care that almost +amounted to nervousness. + +For the sake of saying something to express my interest I said, +"This furniture is fairly solid; but, of course, people do treat +it much too carelessly." + +As I looked up doubtfully my eye caught his, and was fixed +as his was fixed in an apocalyptic stare. I had thought him +ordinary as he entered, save for his strange, cautious manner; +but if the other people had seen him then they would have screamed +and emptied the room. They did not see him, and they went on making +a clatter with their forks, and a murmur with their conversation. +But the man's face was the face of a maniac. + +"Did you mean anything particular by that remark?" he asked at last, +and the blood crawled back slowly into his face. + +"Nothing whatever," I answered. "One does not mean anything here; +it spoils people's digestions." + +He limped back and wiped his broad forehead with a big handkerchief; +and yet there seemed to be a sort of regret in his relief. + +"I thought perhaps," he said in a low voice, "that another of them +had gone wrong." + +"If you mean another digestion gone wrong," I said, "I never heard +of one here that went right. This is the heart of the Empire, +and the other organs are in an equally bad way." + +"No, I mean another street gone wrong," and he said heavily +and quietly, "but as I suppose that doesn't explain much to you, +I think I shall have to tell you the story. I do so with all +the less responsibility, because I know you won't believe it. +For forty years of my life I invariably left my office, which is +in Leadenhall Street, at half-past five in the afternoon, taking with +me an umbrella in the right hand and a bag in the left hand. +For forty years two months and four days I passed out of the side +office door, walked down the street on the left-hand side, +took the first turning to the left and the third to the right, +from where I bought an evening paper, followed the road on +the right-hand side round two obtuse angles, and came out just +outside a Metropolitan station, where I took a train home. +For forty years two months and four days I fulfilled this course +by accumulated habit: it was not a long street that I traversed, +and it took me about four and a half minutes to do it. +After forty years two months and four days, on the fifth day I +went out in the same manner, with my umbrella in the right hand +and my bag in the left, and I began to notice that walking along +the familiar street tired me somewhat more than usual; and when I +turned it I was convinced that I had turned down the wrong one. +For now the street shot up quite a steep slant, such as one +only sees in the hilly parts of London, and in this part +there were no hills at all. Yet it was not the wrong street; +the name written on it was the same; the shuttered shops were +the same; the lamp-posts and the whole look of the perspective +was the same; only it was tilted upwards like a lid. +Forgetting any trouble about breathlessness or fatigue I ran +furiously forward, and reached the second of my accustomed turnings, +which ought to bring me almost within sight of the station. +And as I turned that corner I nearly fell on the pavement. +For now the street went up straight in front of my face like a steep +staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not for miles +round that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. +And this was a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole +street had lifted itself like a single wave, and yet every speck +and detail of it was the same, and I saw in the high distance, +as at the top of an Alpine pass, picked out in pink letters +the name over my paper shop. + +"I ran on and on blindly now, passing all the shops and coming to a +part of the road where there was a long grey row of private houses. +I had, I know not why, an irrational feeling that I was a long +iron bridge in empty space. An impulse seized me, and I pulled up +the iron trap of a coal-hole. Looking down through it I saw empty +space and the stairs. + +"When I looked up again a man was standing in his front garden, having +apparently come out of his house; he was leaning over the railings and +gazing at me. We were all alone on that nightmare road; his face was +in shadow; his dress was dark and ordinary; but when I saw him standing +so perfectly still I knew somehow that he was not of this world. +And the stars behind his head were larger and fiercer than ought +to be endured by the eyes of men. + +"'If you are a kind angel,' I said, 'or a wise devil, or have anything +in common with mankind, tell me what is this street possessed of devils.' + +"After a long silence he said, 'What do you say that it is?' + +"'It is Bumpton Street, of course,' I snapped. 'It goes to Oldgate +Station.' + +"'Yes,' he admitted gravely; 'it goes there sometimes. Just now, however, +it is going to heaven.' + +"'To heaven?' I said. 'Why?' + +"'It is going to heaven for justice,' he replied. 'You must have treated +it badly. Remember always that there is one thing that cannot be endured +by anybody or anything. That one unendurable thing is to be overworked +and also neglected. For instance, you can overwork women--everybody does. +But you can't neglect women--I defy you to. At the same time, +you can neglect tramps and gypsies and all the apparent refuse of the +State so long as you do not overwork it. But no beast of the field, no +horse, no dog can endure long to be asked to do more than his work and +yet have less than his honour. It is the same with streets. You have +worked this street to death, and yet you have never remembered its +existence. If you had a healthy democracy, even of pagans, they would +have hung this street with garlands and given it the name of a god. +Then it would have gone quietly. But at last the street has grown tired +of your tireless insolence; and it is bucking and rearing its head to +heaven. Have you never sat on a bucking horse?' + +"I looked at the long grey street, and for a moment it seemed to me +to be exactly like the long grey neck of a horse flung up to heaven. +But in a moment my sanity returned, and I said, 'But this +is all nonsense. Streets go to the place they have to go. +A street must always go to its end.' + +"'Why do you think so of a street?' he asked, standing very still. + +"'Because I have always seen it do the same thing,' I replied, +in reasonable anger. 'Day after day, year after year, it has always +gone to Oldgate Station; day after . . .' + +"I stopped, for he had flung up his head with the fury +of the road in revolt. + +"'And you?' he cried terribly. 'What do you think the road thinks +of you? Does the road think you are alive? Are you alive? +Day after day, year after year, you have gone to Oldgate Station. . . .' +Since then I have respected the things called inanimate." + +And bowing slightly to the mustard-pot, the man in +the restaurant withdrew. + + +XXXVII + +The Shop Of Ghosts + +Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can +get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, +the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. +You can get them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, +which I am not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which +the lowest price is a penny halfpenny. But the general principle +will be at once apparent. In the street behind me, for instance, +you can now get a ride on an electric tram for a halfpenny. +To be on an electric tram is to be on a flying castle in a fairy tale. +You can get quite a large number of brightly coloured sweets for +a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of reading this article +for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and irrelevant matter. + +But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array +of valuable things you can get at a halfpenny each you +should do as I was doing last night. I was gluing my nose +against the glass of a very small and dimly lit toy shop +in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets of Battersea. +But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a +child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. +Those toys of the poor were like the children who buy them; +they were all dirty; but they were all bright. For my part, +I think brightness more important than cleanliness; since +the first is of the soul, and the second of the body. You +must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion +in the modern world. + +. . . . . + +As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, +at small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red +Noah's arks, I must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. +That lit shop-window became like the brilliantly lit +stage when one is watching some highly coloured comedy. +I forgot the grey houses and the grimy people behind me as one +forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds at a theatre. +It seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were small, +not because they were toys, but because they were objects far away. +The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater omnibus, +passing across some huge desert on its ordinary way to Bayswater. +The blue elephant was no longer blue with paint; he was blue +with distance. The black doll was really a negro relieved against +passionate tropic foliage in the land where every weed is flaming +and only man is black. The red Noah's ark was really the enormous +ship of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen sea, +red in the first morning of hope. + +Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, +such brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the +face of one's own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles +or moustaches. They are commonly marked by the two signs of the +slowness of their growth and the suddenness of their termination. +The return to real thinking is often as abrupt as bumping into a man. +Very often indeed (in my case) it is bumping into a man. +But in any case the awakening is always emphatic and, +generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in this case, +I did come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness +that I was, after all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; +but in some strange way the mental cure did not seem to be final. +There was still in my mind an unmanageable something that told +me that I had strayed into some odd atmosphere, or that I +had already done some odd thing. I felt as if I had worked +a miracle or committed a sin. It was as if I had at any rate, +stepped across some border in the soul. + +To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop +and tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old +and broken, with confused white hair covering his head and half +his face, hair so startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. +Yet though he was senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering +in his eyes; he looked rather as if he were gradually falling +asleep in a not unkindly decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, +but when I put down the money he did not at first seem to see it; +then he blinked at it feebly, and then he pushed it feebly away. + +"No, no," he said vaguely. "I never have. I never have. +We are rather old-fashioned here." + +"Not taking money," I replied, "seems to me more like an uncommonly +new fashion than an old one." + +"I never have," said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; +"I've always given presents. I'm too old to stop." + +"Good heavens!" I said. "What can you mean? Why, you might +be Father Christmas." + +"I am Father Christmas," he said apologetically, and blew +his nose again. + +The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. +At any rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining +shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; +I might have strayed into some new and sunless world. +But something had cut the chords of common sense, and I could +not feel even surprise except sleepily. Something made me say, +"You look ill, Father Christmas." + +"I am dying," he said. + +I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again. + +"All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. +They seem to object to me on such curious and inconsistent +sort of grounds, these scientific men, and these innovators. +They say that I give people superstitions and make them too visionary; +they say I give people sausages and make them too coarse. +They say my heavenly parts are too heavenly; they say my earthly +parts are too earthly; I don't know what they want, I'm sure. +How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly things +too earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? +I don't understand. But I understand one thing well enough. +These modern people are living and I am dead." + +"You may be dead," I replied. "You ought to know. +But as for what they are doing, do not call it living." + +. . . . . + +A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected +to be unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few +seconds when, in the utter stillness, I distinctly heard +a very rapid step coming nearer and nearer along the street. +The next moment a figure flung itself into the shop and stood +framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted back +as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, +a gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. +He had large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; +he had a pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the +shop and the old man in a look that seemed literally a flash and +uttered the exclamation of a man utterly staggered. + +"Good lord!" he cried out; "it can't be you! It isn't you! +I came to ask where your grave was." + +"I'm not dead yet, Mr. Dickens," said the old gentleman, with a +feeble smile; "but I'm dying," he hastened to add reassuringly. + +"But, dash it all, you were dying in my time," said Mr. Charles Dickens +with animation; "and you don't look a day older." + +"I've felt like this for a long time," said Father Christmas. + +Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door +into the darkness. + +"Dick," he roared at the top of his voice; "he's still alive." + +. . . . . + +Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more +full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his +flushed face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. +He carried his head well back like a soldier, and his hot face +had even a look of arrogance, which was suddenly contradicted +by his eyes, which were literally as humble as a dog's. His sword +made a great clatter, as if the shop were too small for it. + +"Indeed," said Sir Richard Steele, "'tis a most prodigious matter, +for the man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley +and his Christmas Day." + +My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. +It seemed to be filled with newcomers. + +"It hath ever been understood," said a burly man, who carried +his head humorously and obstinately a little on one side--I think +he was Ben Jonson--"It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, +under our King James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty +customs were fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. +This grey beard most surely was no lustier when I knew him than now." + +And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, +say in some mixed Norman French, "But I saw the man dying." + +"I have felt like this a long time," said Father Christmas, +in his feeble way again. + +Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him. + +"Since when?" he asked. "Since you were born?" + +"Yes," said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. +"I have been always dying." + +Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling +a mob to rise. + +"I understand it now," he cried, "you will never die." + + +XXXVIII + +The Ballade of a Strange Town + +My friend and I, in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed +affection for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there +was so restful that we almost felt it as a home, and hardly +strayed out of it. + +We sat day after day in the market-place, under little trees +growing in wooden tubs, and looked up at the noble converging lines +of the Cathedral tower, from which the three riders from Ghent, +in the poem, heard the bell which told them they were not too late. +But we took as much pleasure in the people, in the little boys +with open, flat Flemish faces and fur collars round their necks, +making them look like burgomasters; or the women, whose prim, +oval faces, hair strained tightly off the temples, and mouths +at once hard, meek, and humorous, exactly reproduced the late +mediaeval faces in Memling and Van Eyck. + +But one afternoon, as it happened, my friend rose from under his +little tree, and pointing to a sort of toy train that was puffing smoke +in one corner of the clear square, suggested that we should go by it. +We got into the little train, which was meant really to take +the peasants and their vegetables to and fro from their fields +beyond the town, and the official came round to give us tickets. +We asked him what place we should get to if we paid fivepence. +The Belgians are not a romantic people, and he asked us (with a +lamentable mixture of Flemish coarseness and French rationalism) +where we wanted to go. + +We explained that we wanted to go to fairyland, and the only +question was whether we could get there for fivepence. +At last, after a great deal of international misunderstanding +(for he spoke French in the Flemish and we in the English manner), +he told us that fivepence would take us to a place which I +have never seen written down, but which when spoken sounded +like the word "Waterloo" pronounced by an intoxicated patriot; +I think it was Waerlowe. + +We clasped our hands and said it was the place we had been seeking +from boyhood, and when we had got there we descended with promptitude. + +For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field +of Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was +in quite a different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, +with one cottage at the corner, a perspective of tall trees like +Hobbema's "Avenue," and beyond only the infinite flat chess-board +of the little fields. It was the scene of peace and prosperity; +but I must confess that my friend's first action was to ask +the man when there would be another train back to Mechlin. +The man stated that there would be a train back in exactly one hour. +We walked up the avenue, and when we were nearly half an hour's +walk away it began to rain. + +. . . . . + +We arrived back at the cross-roads sodden and dripping, and, +finding the train waiting, climbed into it with some relief. +The officer on this train could speak nothing but Flemish, +but he understood the name Mechlin, and indicated that when we came +to Mechlin Station he would put us down, which, after the right +interval of time, he did. + +We got down, under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin, +though the features could not easily be recognised through the grey +screen of the rain. I do not generally agree with those who find rain +depressing. A shower-bath is not depressing; it is rather startling. +And if it is exciting when a man throws a pail of water over you, +why should it not also be exciting when the gods throw many pails? +But on this soaking afternoon, whether it was the dull sky-line +of the Netherlands or the fact that we were returning home without +any adventure, I really did think things a trifle dreary. +As soon as we could creep under the shelter of a street +we turned into a little caf, kept by one woman. She was incredibly +old, and she spoke no French. There we drank black coffee and what +was called "cognac fine." "Cognac fine" were the only two French +words used in the establishment, and they were not true. At least, +the fineness (perhaps by its very ethereal delicacy) escaped me. +After a little my friend, who was more restless than I, +got up and went out, to see if the rain had stopped and if we +could at once stroll back to our hotel by the station. +I sat finishing my coffee in a colourless mood, and listening +to the unremitting rain. + +. . . . . + +Suddenly the door burst open, and my friend appeared, transfigured +and frantic. + +"Get up!" he cried, waving his hands wildly. "Get up! We're in the +wrong town! We're not in Mechlin at all. Mechlin is ten miles, +twenty miles off--God knows what! We're somewhere near Antwerp." + +"What!" I cried, leaping from my seat, and sending the furniture flying. +"Then all is well, after all! Poetry only hid her face +for an instant behind a cloud. Positively for a moment I +was feeling depressed because we were in the right town. +But if we are in the wrong town--why, we have our adventure after all! +If we are in the wrong town, we are in the right place." + +I rushed out into the rain, and my friend followed me somewhat +more grimly. We discovered we were in a town called Lierre, +which seemed to consist chiefly of bankrupt pastry cooks, +who sold lemonade. + +"This is the peak of our whole poetic progress!" I cried +enthusiastically. "We must do something, something sacramental +and commemorative! We cannot sacrifice an ox, and it would be +a bore to build a temple. Let us write a poem." + +With but slight encouragement, I took out an old envelope +and one of those pencils that turn bright violet in water. +There was plenty of water about, and the violet ran down +the paper, symbolising the rich purple of that romantic hour. +I began, choosing the form of an old French ballade; +it is the easiest because it is the most restricted-- + + "Can Man to Mount Olympus rise, + And fancy Primrose Hill the scene? + Can a man walk in Paradise + And think he is in Turnham Green? + And could I take you for Malines, + Not knowing the nobler thing you were? + O Pearl of all the plain, and queen, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + "Through memory's mist in glimmering guise + Shall shine your streets of sloppy sheen. + And wet shall grow my dreaming eyes, + To think how wet my boots have been + Now if I die or shoot a Dean----" + +Here I broke off to ask my friend whether he thought it +expressed a more wild calamity to shoot a Dean or to be a Dean. +But he only turned up his coat collar, and I felt that for him +the muse had folded her wings. I rewrote-- + + "Now if I die a Rural Dean, + Or rob a bank I do not care, + Or turn a Tory. I have seen + The lovely city of Lierre." + +"The next line," I resumed, warming to it; but my friend interrupted me. + +"The next line," he said somewhat harshly, "will be a railway line. +We can get back to Mechlin from here, I find, though we +have to change twice. I dare say I should think this jolly +romantic but for the weather. Adventure is the champagne +of life, but I prefer my champagne and my adventures dry. +Here is the station." + +. . . . . + +We did not speak again until we had left Lierre, in its sacred +cloud of rain, and were coming to Mechlin, under a clearer sky, +that even made one think of stars. Then I leant forward and said +to my friend in a low voice--"I have found out everything. +We have come to the wrong star." + +He stared his query, and I went on eagerly: "That is what makes life +at once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. +When I thought that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it +was wrong, I was happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, +tires us because it tells us we fit into this world. The true +happiness is that we don't fit. We come from somewhere else. +We have lost our way." + +He silently nodded, staring out of the window, but whether I had impressed +or only fatigued him I could not tell. "This," I added, "is suggested +in the last verse of a fine poem you have grossly neglected-- + + "'Happy is he and more than wise + Who sees with wondering eyes and clean + The world through all the grey disguise + Of sleep and custom in between. + Yes; we may pass the heavenly screen, + But shall we know when we are there? + Who know not what these dead stones mean, + The lovely city of Lierre.'" + +Here the train stopped abruptly. And from Mechlin church steeple +we heard the half-chime: and Joris broke silence with "No bally +HORS D'OEUVRES for me: I shall get on to something solid at once." + + L'Envoy + + Prince, wide your Empire spreads, I ween, + Yet happier is that moistened Mayor, + Who drinks her cognac far from fine, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + +XXXIX + +The Mystery of a Pageant + +Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take +a small part in one of those historical processions or pageants +which happened to be fashionable in or about the year 1909. +And since I tend, like all who are growing old, to re-enter +the remote past as a paradise or playground, I disinter a memory +which may serve to stand among those memories of small but strange +incidents with which I have sometimes filled this column. +The thing has really some of the dark qualities of a detective-story; +though I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could hardly unravel +it now, when the scent is so old and cold and most of the actors, +doubtless, long dead. + +This old pageant included a series of figures from the eighteenth century, +and I was told that I was just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that Dr. Johnson +was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over gravy, +snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man +in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. +I had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions +as I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. +I requested that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I +might touch all of them but one, and then go back and touch that. +Failing this, I felt that the least they could do was to have +twenty-five cups of tea stationed at regular intervals along +the course, each held by a Mrs. Thrale in full costume. +My best constructive suggestion was the most harshly rejected of all. +In front of me in the procession walked the great Bishop Berkeley, +the man who turned the tables on the early materialists by maintaining +that matter itself possibly does not exist. Dr. Johnson, +you will remember, did not like such bottomless fancies as Berkeley's, +and kicked a stone with his foot, saying, "I refute him so!" +Now (as I pointed out) kicking a stone would not make the metaphysical +quarrel quite clear; besides, it would hurt. But how picturesque +and perfect it would be if I moved across the ground in the symbolic +attitude of kicking Bishop Berkeley! How complete an allegoric group; +the great transcendentalist walking with his head among the stars, +but behind him the avenging realist pede claudo, with uplifted foot. +But I must not take up space with these forgotten frivolities; +we old men grow too garrulous in talking of the distant past. + +This story scarcely concerns me either in my real or my +assumed character. Suffice it to say that the procession took place +at night in a large garden and by torchlight (so remote is the date), +that the garden was crowded with Puritans, monks, and men-at-arms, +and especially with early Celtic saints smoking pipes, +and with elegant Renaissance gentlemen talking Cockney. +Suffice it to say, or rather it is needless to say, that I got lost. +I wandered away into some dim corner of that dim shrubbery, +where there was nothing to do except tumbling over tent ropes, +and I began almost to feel like my prototype, and to share his +horror of solitude and hatred of a country life. + +In this detachment and dilemma I saw another man in a white wig +advancing across this forsaken stretch of lawn; a tall, lean man, +who stooped in his long black robes like a stooping eagle. +When I thought he would pass me, he stopped before my face, +and said, "Dr. Johnson, I think. I am Paley." + +"Sir," I said, "you used to guide men to the beginnings of Christianity. +If you can guide me now to wherever this infernal thing begins you +will perform a yet higher and harder function." + +His costume and style were so perfect that for the instant I really +thought he was a ghost. He took no notice of my flippancy, but, +turning his black-robed back on me, led me through verdurous glooms +and winding mossy ways, until we came out into the glare of gaslight +and laughing men in masquerade, and I could easily laugh at myself. + +And there, you will say, was an end of the matter. I am +(you will say) naturally obtuse, cowardly, and mentally deficient. +I was, moreover, unused to pageants; I felt frightened in the dark +and took a man for a spectre whom, in the light, I could recognise +as a modern gentleman in a masquerade dress. No; far from it. +That spectral person was my first introduction to a special incident +which has never been explained and which still lays its finger +on my nerve. + +I mixed with the men of the eighteenth century; and we fooled +as one does at a fancy-dress ball. There was Burke as large as life +and a great deal better looking. There was Cowper much larger +than life; he ought to have been a little man in a night-cap, +with a cat under one arm and a spaniel under the other. +As it was, he was a magnificent person, and looked more +like the Master of Ballantrae than Cowper. I persuaded him +at last to the night-cap, but never, alas, to the cat and dog. +When I came the next night Burke was still the same beautiful +improvement upon himself; Cowper was still weeping for his dog +and cat and would not be comforted; Bishop Berkeley was still waiting +to be kicked in the interests of philosophy. In short, I met all +my old friends but one. Where was Paley? I had been mystically +moved by the man's presence; I was moved more by his absence. +At last I saw advancing towards us across the twilight garden +a little man with a large book and a bright attractive face. +When he came near enough he said, in a small, clear voice, "I'm Paley." +The thing was quite natural, of course; the man was ill and had +sent a substitute. Yet somehow the contrast was a shock. + +By the next night I had grown quite friendly with my four +or five colleagues; I had discovered what is called a mutual +friend with Berkeley and several points of difference with Burke. +Cowper, I think it was, who introduced me to a friend of his, +a fresh face, square and sturdy, framed in a white wig. +"This," he explained, "is my friend So-and-So. He's Paley." +I looked round at all the faces by this time fixed and familiar; +I studied them; I counted them; then I bowed to the third Paley +as one bows to necessity. So far the thing was all within +the limits of coincidence. It certainly seemed odd that this +one particular cleric should be so varying and elusive. +It was singular that Paley, alone among men, should swell and +shrink and alter like a phantom, while all else remained solid. +But the thing was explicable; two men had been ill and there +was an end of it; only I went again the next night, and a +clear-coloured elegant youth with powdered hair bounded up to me, +and told me with boyish excitement that he was Paley. + +For the next twenty-four hours I remained in the mental condition +of the modern world. I mean the condition in which all natural +explanations have broken down and no supernatural explanation has +been established. My bewilderment had reached to boredom when I +found myself once more in the colour and clatter of the pageant, +and I was all the more pleased because I met an old school-fellow, +and we mutually recognised each other under our heavy clothes +and hoary wigs. We talked about all those great things for which +literature is too small and only life large enough; red-hot memories +and those gigantic details which make up the characters of men. +I heard all about the friends he had lost sight of and those he had +kept in sight; I heard about his profession, and asked at last +how he came into the pageant. + +"The fact is," he said, "a friend of mine asked me, just for to-night, +to act a chap called Paley; I don't know who he was. . . ." + +"No, by thunder!" I said, "nor does anyone." + +This was the last blow, and the next night passed like a dream. +I scarcely noticed the slender, sprightly, and entirely new figure +which fell into the ranks in the place of Paley, so many times deceased. +What could it mean? Why was the giddy Paley unfaithful among +the faithful found? Did these perpetual changes prove the popularity +or the unpopularity of being Paley? Was it that no human being +could support being Paley for one night and live till morning? +Or was it that the gates were crowded with eager throngs of the British +public thirsting to be Paley, who could only be let in one at a time? +Or is there some ancient vendetta against Paley? Does some secret +society of Deists still assassinate any one who adopts the name? + +I cannot conjecture further about this true tale of mystery; +and that for two reasons. First, the story is so true +that I have had to put a lie into it. Every word of this +narrative is veracious, except the one word Paley. +And second, because I have got to go into the next room +and dress up as Dr. Johnson. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + +This file should be named 8trtr10.txt or 8trtr10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8trtr11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8trtr10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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