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diff --git a/old/8092-h.htm.2018-08-06 b/old/8092-h.htm.2018-08-06 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a11e27 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8092-h.htm.2018-08-06 @@ -0,0 +1,6469 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Tremendous Trifles, by G. 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 cafĂ© 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 cafĂ© 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 gĂ©ants.” + 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 “faĂ«rie”; 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 cafĂ©, 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 cafĂ© 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 cafĂ©, 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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