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diff --git a/old/8092.txt b/old/8092.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0235957 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8092.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5790 @@ +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: May, 2005 [EBook #8092] +Release Date: August 10, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREMENDOUS TRIFLES *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + + + + + +TREMENDOUS TRIFLES + +By G. K. Chesterton + + + + +PREFACE + +These fleeting sketches are all republished by kind permission of the +Editor of the DAILY NEWS, in which paper they appeared. They amount +to no more than a sort of sporadic diary--a diary recording one day in +twenty which happened to stick in the fancy--the only kind of diary the +author has ever been able to keep. Even that diary he could only keep +by keeping it in public, for bread and cheese. But trivial as are the +topics they are not utterly without a connecting thread of motive. +As the reader's eye strays, with hearty relief, from these pages, it +probably alights on something, a bed-post or a lamp-post, a window +blind or a wall. It is a thousand to one that the reader is looking at +something that he has never seen: that is, never realised. He could not +write an essay on such a post or wall: he does not know what the post +or wall mean. He could not even write the synopsis of an essay; as "The +Bed-Post; Its Significance--Security Essential to Idea of Sleep--Night +Felt as Infinite--Need of Monumental Architecture," and so on. He could +not sketch in outline his theoretic attitude towards window-blinds, even +in the form of a summary. "The Window-Blind--Its Analogy to the Curtain +and Veil--Is Modesty Natural?--Worship of and Avoidance of the Sun, +etc., etc." None of us think enough of these things on which the eye +rests. But don't let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? +Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that +run across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular +athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured +cloud. I have attempted some such thing in what follows; but anyone else +may do it better, if anyone else will only try. + + + CONTENTS: + + I Tremendous Trifles + II A Piece of Chalk + III The Secret of a Train + IV The Perfect Game + V The Extraordinary Cabman + VI An Accident + VII The Advantages of Having One Leg + VIII The End of the World + IX In the Place de la Bastille + X On Lying in Bed + XI The Twelve Men + XII The Wind and the Trees + XIII The Dickensian + XIV In Topsy-Turvy Land + XV What I Found in My Pocket + XVI The Dragon's Grandmother + XVII The Red Angel + XVIII The Tower + XIX How I Met the President + XX The Giant + XXI The Great Man + XXII The Orthodox Barber + XXIII The Toy Theatre + XXIV A Tragedy of Twopence + XXV A Cab Ride Across Country + XXVI The Two Noises + XXVII Some Policemen and a Moral + XXVIII The Lion + XXIX Humanity: An Interlude + XXX The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + XXXI The Riddle of the Ivy + XXXII The Travellers in State + XXXIII The Prehistoric Railway Station + XXXIV The Diabolist + XXXV A Glimpse of My Country + XXXVI A Somewhat Improbable Story + XXXVII The Shop of Ghosts + XXXVIII The Ballade of a Strange Town + XXXIX The Mystery of a Pageant + + + + + +I. Tremendous Trifles + +Once upon a time there were two little boys who lived chiefly in the +front garden, because their villa was a model one. The front garden was +about the same size as the dinner table; it consisted of four strips of +gravel, a square of turf with some mysterious pieces of cork standing up +in the middle and one flower bed with a row of red daisies. One morning +while they were at play in these romantic grounds, a passing individual, +probably the milkman, leaned over the railing and engaged them in +philosophical conversation. The boys, whom we will call Paul and Peter, +were at least sharply interested in his remarks. For the milkman (who +was, I need say, a fairy) did his duty in that state of life by offering +them in the regulation manner anything that they chose to ask for. And +Paul closed with the offer with a business-like abruptness, explaining +that he had long wished to be a giant that he might stride across +continents and oceans and visit Niagara or the Himalayas in an afternoon +dinner stroll. The milkman producing a wand from his breast pocket, +waved it in a hurried and perfunctory manner; and in an instant the +model villa with its front garden was like a tiny doll's house at Paul's +colossal feet. He went striding away with his head above the clouds to +visit Niagara and the Himalayas. But when he came to the Himalayas, +he found they were quite small and silly-looking, like the little cork +rockery in the garden; and when he found Niagara it was no bigger than +the tap turned on in the bathroom. He wandered round the world for +several minutes trying to find something really large and finding +everything small, till in sheer boredom he lay down on four or five +prairies and fell asleep. Unfortunately his head was just outside the +hut of an intellectual backwoodsman who came out of it at that moment +with an axe in one hand and a book of Neo-Catholic Philosophy in the +other. The man looked at the book and then at the giant, and then at the +book again. And in the book it said, "It can be maintained that the evil +of pride consists in being out of proportion to the universe." So the +backwoodsman put down his book, took his axe and, working eight hours a +day for about a week, cut the giant's head off; and there was an end of +him. + +Such is the severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly +enough, made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long wished to +be a pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he immediately became +one. When the transformation was over he found himself in the midst of +an immense plain, covered with a tall green jungle and above which, at +intervals, rose strange trees each with a head like the sun in symbolic +pictures, with gigantic rays of silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward +the middle of this prairie stood up a mountain of such romantic and +impossible shape, yet of such stony height and dominance, that it looked +like some incident of the end of the world. And far away on the faint +horizon he could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more +mystical, of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. +He set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has not +come to the end of it yet. + +Such is the story of Peter and Paul, which contains all the highest +qualities of a modern fairy tale, including that of being wholly unfit +for children; and indeed the motive with which I have introduced it is +not childish, but rather full of subtlety and reaction. It is in fact +the almost desperate motive of excusing or palliating the pages that +follow. Peter and Paul are the two primary influences upon European +literature to-day; and I may be permitted to put my own preference in +its most favourable shape, even if I can only do it by what little girls +call telling a story. + +I need scarcely say that I am the pigmy. The only excuse for the scraps +that follow is that they show what can be achieved with a commonplace +existence and the sacred spectacles of exaggeration. The other great +literary theory, that which is roughly represented in England by Mr. +Rudyard Kipling, is that we moderns are to regain the primal zest by +sprawling all over the world growing used to travel and geographical +variety, being at home everywhere, that is being at home nowhere. Let it +be granted that a man in a frock coat is a heartrending sight; and the +two alternative methods still remain. Mr. Kipling's school advises us +to go to Central Africa in order to find a man without a frock coat. The +school to which I belong suggests that we should stare steadily at the +man until we see the man inside the frock coat. If we stare at him long +enough he may even be moved to take off his coat to us; and that is a +far greater compliment than his taking off his hat. In other words, +we may, by fixing our attention almost fiercely on the facts actually +before us, force them to turn into adventures; force them to give up +their meaning and fulfil their mysterious purpose. The purpose of the +Kipling literature is to show how many extraordinary things a man may +see if he is active and strides from continent to continent like the +giant in my tale. But the object of my school is to show how many +extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man may see if he can spur +himself to the single activity of seeing. For this purpose I have taken +the laziest person of my acquaintance, that is myself; and made an idle +diary of such odd things as I have fallen over by accident, in walking +in a very limited area at a very indolent pace. If anyone says that +these are very small affairs talked about in very big language, I can +only gracefully compliment him upon seeing the joke. If anyone says that +I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess with pride that it is +so. I can imagine no more successful and productive form of manufacture +than that of making mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not +unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a +pigmy like Peter to discover that. + +I have my doubts about all this real value in mountaineering, in getting +to the top of everything and overlooking everything. Satan was the +most celebrated of Alpine guides, when he took Jesus to the top of an +exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. +But the joy of Satan in standing on a peak is not a joy in largeness, +but a joy in beholding smallness, in the fact that all men look like +insects at his feet. It is from the valley that things look large; it is +from the level that things look high; I am a child of the level and have +no need of that celebrated Alpine guide. I will lift up my eyes to the +hills, from whence cometh my help; but I will not lift up my carcass +to the hills, unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything is in an +attitude of mind; and at this moment I am in a comfortable attitude. I +will sit still and let the marvels and the adventures settle on me like +flies. There are plenty of them, I assure you. The world will never +starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder. + + + + +II. A Piece of Chalk + +I remember one splendid morning, all blue and silver, in the summer +holidays when I reluctantly tore myself away from the task of doing +nothing in particular, and put on a hat of some sort and picked up a +walking-stick, and put six very bright-coloured chalks in my pocket. +I then went into the kitchen (which, along with the rest of the house, +belonged to a very square and sensible old woman in a Sussex village), +and asked the owner and occupant of the kitchen if she had any brown +paper. She had a great deal; in fact, she had too much; and she mistook +the purpose and the rationale of the existence of brown paper. She +seemed to have an idea that if a person wanted brown paper he must be +wanting to tie up parcels; which was the last thing I wanted to +do; indeed, it is a thing which I have found to be beyond my mental +capacity. Hence she dwelt very much on the varying qualities of +toughness and endurance in the material. I explained to her that I only +wanted to draw pictures on it, and that I did not want them to endure in +the least; and that from my point of view, therefore, it was a +question, not of tough consistency, but of responsive surface, a thing +comparatively irrelevant in a parcel. When she understood that I +wanted to draw she offered to overwhelm me with note-paper, apparently +supposing that I did my notes and correspondence on old brown paper +wrappers from motives of economy. + +I then tried to explain the rather delicate logical shade, that I not +only liked brown paper, but liked the quality of brownness in paper, +just as I liked the quality of brownness in October woods, or in beer, +or in the peat-streams of the North. Brown paper represents the primal +twilight of the first toil of creation, and with a bright-coloured +chalk or two you can pick out points of fire in it, sparks of gold, and +blood-red, and sea-green, like the first fierce stars that sprang out of +divine darkness. All this I said (in an off-hand way) to the old woman; +and I put the brown paper in my pocket along with the chalks, and +possibly other things. I suppose every one must have reflected how +primeval and how poetical are the things that one carries in one's +pocket; the pocket-knife, for instance, the type of all human tools, the +infant of the sword. Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely +about the things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and +the age of the great epics is past. + +..... + +With my stick and my knife, my chalks and my brown paper, I went out +on to the great downs. I crawled across those colossal contours that +express the best quality of England, because they are at the same time +soft and strong. The smoothness of them has the same meaning as the +smoothness of great cart-horses, or the smoothness of the beech-tree; +it declares in the teeth of our timid and cruel theories that the mighty +are merciful. As my eye swept the landscape, the landscape was as kindly +as any of its cottages, but for power it was like an earthquake. The +villages in the immense valley were safe, one could see, for centuries; +yet the lifting of the whole land was like the lifting of one enormous +wave to wash them all away. + +I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place +to sit down and draw. Do not, for heaven's sake, imagine I was going to +sketch from Nature. I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind +old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in +robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green, and all the sacred +or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colours on brown paper. +They are much better worth drawing than Nature; also they are much +easier to draw. When a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a +mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs +of quadrupeds. So I drew the soul of the cow; which I saw there plainly +walking before me in the sunlight; and the soul was all purple and +silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all the +beasts. But though I could not with a crayon get the best out of the +landscape, it does not follow that the landscape was not getting the +best out of me. And this, I think, is the mistake that people make about +the old poets who lived before Wordsworth, and were supposed not to care +very much about Nature because they did not describe it much. + +They preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills; but +they sat on the great hills to write it. They gave out much less about +Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more. They painted the white +robes of their holy virgins with the blinding snow, at which they had +stared all day. They blazoned the shields of their paladins with the +purple and gold of many heraldic sunsets. The greenness of a thousand +green leaves clustered into the live green figure of Robin Hood. The +blueness of a score of forgotten skies became the blue robes of the +Virgin. The inspiration went in like sunbeams and came out like Apollo. + +..... + +But as I sat scrawling these silly figures on the brown paper, it began +to dawn on me, to my great disgust, that I had left one chalk, and that +a most exquisite and essential chalk, behind. I searched all my pockets, +but I could not find any white chalk. Now, those who are acquainted +with all the philosophy (nay, religion) which is typified in the art +of drawing on brown paper, know that white is positive and essential. I +cannot avoid remarking here upon a moral significance. One of the wise +and awful truths which this brown-paper art reveals, is this, that white +is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and +affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so +to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows +white-hot, it draws stars. And one of the two or three defiant verities +of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is +exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality +is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the +avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like +pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or +sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive +thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. + +Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something +flaming, like Joan of Arc. In a word, God paints in many colours; but +He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when +He paints in white. In a sense our age has realised this fact, and +expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that +white was a blank and colourless thing, negative and non-committal, then +white would be used instead of black and grey for the funeral dress of +this pessimistic period. We should see city gentlemen in frock coats of +spotless silver linen, with top hats as white as wonderful arum lilies. +Which is not the case. + +Meanwhile, I could not find my chalk. + +..... + +I sat on the hill in a sort of despair. There was no town nearer than +Chichester at which it was even remotely probable that there would be +such a thing as an artist's colourman. And yet, without white, my absurd +little pictures would be as pointless as the world would be if there +were no good people in it. I stared stupidly round, racking my brain for +expedients. Then I suddenly stood up and roared with laughter, again and +again, so that the cows stared at me and called a committee. Imagine +a man in the Sahara regretting that he had no sand for his hour-glass. +Imagine a gentleman in mid-ocean wishing that he had brought some salt +water with him for his chemical experiments. I was sitting on an immense +warehouse of white chalk. The landscape was made entirely out of white +chalk. White chalk was piled more miles until it met the sky. I stooped +and broke a piece off the rock I sat on; it did not mark so well as the +shop chalks do; but it gave the effect. And I stood there in a trance +of pleasure, realising that this Southern England is not only a grand +peninsula, and a tradition and a civilisation; it is something even more +admirable. It is a piece of chalk. + + + + +III. The Secret of a Train + +All this talk of a railway mystery has sent my mind back to a loose +memory. I will not merely say that this story is true: because, as you +will soon see, it is all truth and no story. It has no explanation and +no conclusion; it is, like most of the other things we encounter in +life, a fragment of something else which would be intensely exciting if +it were not too large to be seen. For the perplexity of life arises from +there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested +properly in any of them; what we call its triviality is really the +tag-ends of numberless tales; ordinary and unmeaning existence is like +ten thousand thrilling detective stories mixed up with a spoon. My +experience was a fragment of this nature, and it is, at any rate, not +fictitious. Not only am I not making up the incidents (what there were +of them), but I am not making up the atmosphere of the landscape, which +were the whole horror of the thing. I remember them vividly, and they +were as I shall now describe. + +..... + +About noon of an ashen autumn day some years ago I was standing outside +the station at Oxford intending to take the train to London. And +for some reason, out of idleness or the emptiness of my mind or the +emptiness of the pale grey sky, or the cold, a kind of caprice fell upon +me that I would not go by that train at all, but would step out on the +road and walk at least some part of the way to London. I do not know +if other people are made like me in this matter; but to me it is always +dreary weather, what may be called useless weather, that slings into +life a sense of action and romance. On bright blue days I do not want +anything to happen; the world is complete and beautiful, a thing for +contemplation. I no more ask for adventures under that turquoise dome +than I ask for adventures in church. But when the background of man's +life is a grey background, then, in the name of man's sacred supremacy, +I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. When the heavens fail man +refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have written on it, in letters +of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing shall happen, then the +immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises up and decrees that +something shall happen, if it be only the slaughter of a policeman. But +this is a digressive way of stating what I have said already--that +the bleak sky awoke in me a hunger for some change of plans, that the +monotonous weather seemed to render unbearable the use of the monotonous +train, and that I set out into the country lanes, out of the town of +Oxford. It was, perhaps, at that moment that a strange curse came +upon me out of the city and the sky, whereby it was decreed that years +afterwards I should, in an article in the DAILY NEWS, talk about Sir +George Trevelyan in connection with Oxford, when I knew perfectly well +that he went to Cambridge. + +As I crossed the country everything was ghostly and colourless. The +fields that should have been green were as grey as the skies; the +tree-tops that should have been green were as grey as the clouds and as +cloudy. And when I had walked for some hours the evening was closing in. +A sickly sunset clung weakly to the horizon, as if pale with reluctance +to leave the world in the dark. And as it faded more and more the skies +seemed to come closer and to threaten. The clouds which had been merely +sullen became swollen; and then they loosened and let down the dark +curtains of the rain. The rain was blinding and seemed to beat like +blows from an enemy at close quarters; the skies seemed bending over and +bawling in my ears. I walked on many more miles before I met a man, and +in that distance my mind had been made up; and when I met him I asked +him if anywhere in the neighbourhood I could pick up the train for +Paddington. He directed me to a small silent station (I cannot even +remember the name of it) which stood well away from the road and looked +as lonely as a hut on the Andes. I do not think I have ever seen such a +type of time and sadness and scepticism and everything devilish as that +station was: it looked as if it had always been raining there ever since +the creation of the world. The water streamed from the soaking wood of +it as if it were not water at all, but some loathsome liquid corruption +of the wood itself; as if the solid station were eternally falling to +pieces and pouring away in filth. It took me nearly ten minutes to find +a man in the station. When I did he was a dull one, and when I asked him +if there was a train to Paddington his answer was sleepy and vague. As +far as I understood him, he said there would be a train in half an hour. +I sat down and lit a cigar and waited, watching the last tail of the +tattered sunset and listening to the everlasting rain. It may have +been in half an hour or less, but a train came rather slowly into the +station. It was an unnaturally dark train; I could not see a light +anywhere in the long black body of it; and I could not see any guard +running beside it. I was reduced to walking up to the engine and calling +out to the stoker to ask if the train was going to London. "Well--yes, +sir," he said, with an unaccountable kind of reluctance. "It is going +to London; but----" It was just starting, and I jumped into the first +carriage; it was pitch dark. I sat there smoking and wondering, as we +steamed through the continually darkening landscape, lined with desolate +poplars, until we slowed down and stopped, irrationally, in the middle +of a field. I heard a heavy noise as of some one clambering off the +train, and a dark, ragged head suddenly put itself into my window. +"Excuse me, sir," said the stoker, "but I think, perhaps--well, perhaps +you ought to know--there's a dead man in this train." + +..... + +Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities +and nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt, to be finally +overwhelmed with this sensational touch, and to have insisted on +getting out and walking. As it was, I regret to say, I expressed myself +politely, but firmly, to the effect that I didn't care particularly if +the train took me to Paddington. But when the train had started with +its unknown burden I did do one thing, and do it quite instinctively, +without stopping to think, or to think more than a flash. I threw +away my cigar. Something that is as old as man and has to do with +all mourning and ceremonial told me to do it. There was something +unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, in the idea of there being +only two men in that train, and one of them dead and the other smoking +a cigar. And as the red and gold of the butt end of it faded like a +funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic moment of a procession, +I realised how immortal ritual is. I realised (what is the origin and +essence of all ritual) that in the presence of those sacred riddles +about which we can say nothing it is more decent merely to do something. +And I realised that ritual will always mean throwing away something; +DESTROYING our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods. + +When the train panted at last into Paddington Station I sprang out of +it with a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier and officials +guarding the rear part of the train; no one was allowed to press towards +it. They were guarding and hiding something; perhaps death in some too +shocking form, perhaps something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up +with human mystery and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of +sanctity; perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough +into the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces. +Nor have I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I +wandered or what frightful thing was my companion in the dark. + + + + +IV. The Perfect Game + +We have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to +him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernatural. My +own position is the opposite of this. I believe in the supernatural as a +matter of intellect and reason, not as a matter of personal experience. +I do not see ghosts; I only see their inherent probability. But it is +entirely a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions; +my nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. But +upon people of this temperament one weird incident will often leave a +peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance that ever occurred +to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted in nothing less than my +playing a game, and playing it quite well for some seventeen consecutive +minutes. The ghost of my grandfather would have astonished me less. + +On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my +inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had +imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, +and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant +side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. I played +it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had a +semi-philosophical argument which lasted through the entire contest. It +is deeply implanted in my mind that I had the best of the argument; but +it is certain and beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. + +"Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!" I cried, patting him affectionately on the +head with a mallet, "how far you really are from the pure love of the +sport--you who can play. It is only we who play badly who love the Game +itself. You love glory; you love applause; you love the earthquake voice +of victory; you do not love croquet. You do not love croquet until +you love being beaten at croquet. It is we the bunglers who adore the +occupation in the abstract. It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. +If we may see the face of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) +we are content to see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is +called amateurish; and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs +is but the French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, +the most disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates +(I allude to the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, +impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within the pedantic +boundaries of the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek honour in the ends +of the earth; they turn up in the flower-beds and the conservatory; they +are to be found in the front garden and the next street. No, Parkinson! +The good painter has skill. It is the bad painter who loves his art. The +good musician loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With +such a pure and hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game +itself. I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or tape, +as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, the four +seas of Britain. I love the mere swing of the mallets, and the click of +the balls is music. The four colours are to me sacramental and symbolic, +like the red of martyrdom, or the white of Easter Day. You lose all +this, my poor Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence of +this vision by the paltry consolation of being able to go through hoops +and to hit the stick." + +And I waved my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety. + +"Don't be too sorry for me," said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. "I +shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more a man likes +a game the better he would want to play it. Granted that the pleasure +in the thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure of success come +naturally and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your own simile of the +Knight and his Lady-love. I admit the gentleman does first and foremost +want to be in the lady's presence. But I never yet heard of a gentleman +who wanted to look an utter ass when he was there." + +"Perhaps not; though he generally looks it," I replied. "But the truth +is that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The +happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which +can be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, +the jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the love +of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not true +that the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger will +be the game. It is logically possible--(follow me closely here, +Parkinson!)--it is logically possible, to play croquet too well to enjoy +it at all. If you could put this blue ball through that distant hoop as +easily as you could pick it up with your hand, then you would not put it +through that hoop any more than you pick it up with your hand; it would +not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly you would not play at +all. The moment the game is perfect the game disappears." + +"I do not think, however," said Parkinson, "that you are in any +immediate danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not think +your croquet will vanish through its own faultless excellence. You are +safe for the present." + +I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired +myself, and resumed the thread of my discourse. + +The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this +time it was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four more +fundamental principles, and my companion had gone through five more +hoops, the dusk was verging upon dark. + +"We shall have to give this up," said Parkinson, as he missed a ball +almost for the first time, "I can't see a thing." + +"Nor can I," I answered, "and it is a comfort to reflect that I could +not hit anything if I saw it." + +With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness +towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. +Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, +indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball. + +Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball +again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was the +right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot. + +Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that +impossible ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I supposed +was the vague direction of the quite invisible stick. And in the dead +silence I heard the stick rattle as the ball struck it heavily. + +I threw down my mallet. "I can't stand this," I said. "My ball has gone +right three times. These things are not of this world." + +"Pick your mallet up," said Parkinson, "have another go." + +"I tell you I daren't. If I made another hoop like that I should see all +the devils dancing there on the blessed grass." + +"Why devils?" asked Parkinson; "they may be only fairies making fun of +you. They are sending you the 'Perfect Game,' which is no game." + +I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness, in which +the faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across the grass +as if it burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball +somewhere--somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull click +of the balls touching, and ran into the house like one pursued. + + + + +V. The Extraordinary Cabman + +From time to time I have introduced into this newspaper column the +narration of incidents that have really occurred. I do not mean to +insinuate that in this respect it stands alone among newspaper columns. +I mean only that I have found that my meaning was better expressed +by some practical parable out of daily life than by any other method; +therefore I propose to narrate the incident of the extraordinary cabman, +which occurred to me only three days ago, and which, slight as it +apparently is, aroused in me a moment of genuine emotion bordering upon +despair. + +On the day that I met the strange cabman I had been lunching in a little +restaurant in Soho in company with three or four of my best friends. My +best friends are all either bottomless sceptics or quite uncontrollable +believers, so our discussion at luncheon turned upon the most ultimate +and terrible ideas. And the whole argument worked out ultimately to +this: that the question is whether a man can be certain of anything +at all. I think he can be certain, for if (as I said to my friend, +furiously brandishing an empty bottle) it is impossible intellectually +to entertain certainty, what is this certainty which it is impossible +to entertain? If I have never experienced such a thing as certainty I +cannot even say that a thing is not certain. Similarly, if I have never +experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not +green. It may be as green as possible for all I know, if I have really +no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the +room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And +the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as +to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening +of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the +sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening +infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened +my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing +it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly +silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever. + +..... + +Now when this argument was over, or at least when it was cut short (for +it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in +the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow +become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the +corner of Leicester-square to the members' entrance of the House of +Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. +Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a +discussion between us which still continues. + +It is necessary in this narrative to preserve the utmost exactitude of +detail. After leaving my friend at the House I took the cab on a few +hundred yards to an office in Victoria-street which I had to visit. I +then got out and offered him more than his fare. He looked at it, but +not with the surly doubt and general disposition to try it on which is +not unknown among normal cabmen. But this was no normal, perhaps, no +human, cabman. He looked at it with a dull and infantile astonishment, +clearly quite genuine. "Do you know, sir," he said, "you've only given +me 1s.8d?" I remarked, with some surprise, that I did know it. "Now you +know, sir," said he in a kindly, appealing, reasonable way, "you know +that ain't the fare from Euston." "Euston," I repeated vaguely, for the +phrase at that moment sounded to me like China or Arabia. "What on +earth has Euston got to do with it?" "You hailed me just outside Euston +Station," began the man with astonishing precision, "and then you +said----" "What in the name of Tartarus are you talking about?" I said +with Christian forbearance; "I took you at the south-west corner of +Leicester-square." "Leicester-square," he exclaimed, loosening a kind of +cataract of scorn, "why we ain't been near Leicester-square to-day. You +hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said----" "Are you mad, or am +I?" I asked with scientific calm. + +I looked at the man. No ordinary dishonest cabman would think of +creating so solid and colossal and creative a lie. And this man was +not a dishonest cabman. If ever a human face was heavy and simple and +humble, and with great big blue eyes protruding like a frog's, if ever +(in short) a human face was all that a human face should be, it was the +face of that resentful and respectful cabman. I looked up and down the +street; an unusually dark twilight seemed to be coming on. And for one +second the old nightmare of the sceptic put its finger on my nerve. What +was certainty? Was anybody certain of anything? Heavens! to think of the +dull rut of the sceptics who go on asking whether we possess a future +life. The exciting question for real scepticism is whether we possess a +past life. What is a minute ago, rationalistically considered, except +a tradition and a picture? The darkness grew deeper from the road. The +cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate details of the gesture, the +words, the complex but consistent course of action which I had adopted +since that remarkable occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston +Station. How did I know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not +hailed him outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite +equally firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, +and a member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment the +universe and the stars swung just a hair's breadth from their balance, +and the foundations of the earth were moved. But for the same reason +that I believe in Democracy, for the same reason that I believe in free +will, for the same reason that I believe in fixed character of virtue, +the reason that could only be expressed by saying that I do not choose +to be a lunatic, I continued to believe that this honest cabman was +wrong, and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner +of Leicester-square. He began with the same evident and ponderous +sincerity, "You hailed me outside Euston Station, and you said----" + +And at this moment there came over his features a kind of frightful +transfiguration of living astonishment, as if he had been lit up like +a lamp from the inside. "Why, I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I beg +your pardon. I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I +remember now. I beg your pardon." And with that this astonishing man let +out his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away. +The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear, +is strictly true. + +..... + +I looked at the strange cabman as he lessened in the distance and the +mists. I do not know whether I was right in fancying that although his +face had seemed so honest there was something unearthly and demoniac +about him when seen from behind. Perhaps he had been sent to tempt me +from my adherence to those sanities and certainties which I had defended +earlier in the day. In any case it gave me pleasure to remember that +my sense of reality, though it had rocked for an instant, had remained +erect. + + + + +VI. An Accident + +Some time ago I wrote in these columns an article called "The +Extraordinary Cabman." I am now in a position to contribute my +experience of a still more extraordinary cab. The extraordinary thing +about the cab was that it did not like me; it threw me out violently in +the middle of the Strand. If my friends who read the DAILY NEWS are +as romantic (and as rich) as I take them to be, I presume that this +experience is not uncommon. I suppose that they are all being thrown out +of cabs, all over London. Still, as there are some people, virginal and +remote from the world, who have not yet had this luxurious experience, I +will give a short account of the psychology of myself when my hansom cab +ran into the side of a motor omnibus, and I hope hurt it. + +I do not need to dwell on the essential romance of the hansom cab--that +one really noble modern thing which our age, when it is judged, will +gravely put beside the Parthenon. It is really modern in that it is +both secret and swift. My particular hansom cab was modern in these two +respects; it was also very modern in the fact that it came to grief. +But it is also English; it is not to be found abroad; it belongs to a +beautiful, romantic country where nearly everybody is pretending to be +richer than they are, and acting as if they were. It is comfortable, and +yet it is reckless; and that combination is the very soul of England. +But although I had always realised all these good qualities in a hansom +cab, I had not experienced all the possibilities, or, as the moderns put +it, all the aspects of that vehicle. My enunciation of the merits of a +hansom cab had been always made when it was the right way up. Let me, +therefore, explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom cab for the +first and, I am happy to believe, the last time. Polycrates threw one +ring into the sea to propitiate the Fates. I have thrown one hansom +cab into the sea (if you will excuse a rather violent metaphor) and the +Fates are, I am quite sure, propitiated. Though I am told they do not +like to be told so. + +I was driving yesterday afternoon in a hansom cab down one of the +sloping streets into the Strand, reading one of my own admirable +articles with continual pleasure, and still more continual surprise, +when the horse fell forward, scrambled a moment on the scraping stones, +staggered to his feet again, and went forward. The horses in my cabs +often do this, and I have learnt to enjoy my own articles at any angle +of the vehicle. So I did not see anything at all odd about the way +the horse went on again. But I saw it suddenly in the faces of all the +people on the pavement. They were all turned towards me, and they were +all struck with fear suddenly, as with a white flame out of the sky. And +one man half ran out into the road with a movement of the elbow as if +warding off a blow, and tried to stop the horse. Then I knew that +the reins were lost, and the next moment the horse was like a living +thunder-bolt. I try to describe things exactly as they seemed to me; +many details I may have missed or mis-stated; many details may have, +so to speak, gone mad in the race down the road. I remember that I +once called one of my experiences narrated in this paper "A Fragment of +Fact." This is, at any rate, a fragment of fact. No fact could possibly +be more fragmentary than the sort of fact that I expected to be at the +bottom of that street. + +..... + +I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that +the converted do not understand their own religion. Thus I have always +urged in this paper that democracy has a deeper meaning than democrats +understand; that is, that common and popular things, proverbs, and +ordinary sayings always have something in them unrealised by most who +repeat them. Here is one. We have all heard about the man who is in +momentary danger, and who sees the whole of his life pass before him +in a moment. In the cold, literal, and common sense of words, this is +obviously a thundering lie. Nobody can pretend that in an accident or +a mortal crisis he elaborately remembered all the tickets he had ever +taken to Wimbledon, or all the times that he had ever passed the brown +bread and butter. + +But in those few moments, while my cab was tearing towards the traffic +of the Strand, I discovered that there is a truth behind this phrase, +as there is behind all popular phrases. I did really have, in that short +and shrieking period, a rapid succession of a number of fundamental +points of view. I had, so to speak, about five religions in almost as +many seconds. My first religion was pure Paganism, which among sincere +men is more shortly described as extreme fear. Then there succeeded a +state of mind which is quite real, but for which no proper name has ever +been found. The ancients called it Stoicism, and I think it must be what +some German lunatics mean (if they mean anything) when they talk +about Pessimism. It was an empty and open acceptance of the thing that +happens--as if one had got beyond the value of it. And then, curiously +enough, came a very strong contrary feeling--that things mattered very +much indeed, and yet that they were something more than tragic. It was +a feeling, not that life was unimportant, but that life was much +too important ever to be anything but life. I hope that this was +Christianity. At any rate, it occurred at the moment when we went crash +into the omnibus. + +It seemed to me that the hansom cab simply turned over on top of me, +like an enormous hood or hat. I then found myself crawling out from +underneath it in attitudes so undignified that they must have added +enormously to that great cause to which the Anti-Puritan League and I +have recently dedicated ourselves. I mean the cause of the pleasures of +the people. As to my demeanour when I emerged, I have two confessions to +make, and they are both made merely in the interests of mental science. +The first is that whereas I had been in a quite pious frame of mind the +moment before the collision, when I got to my feet and found I had got +off with a cut or two I began (like St. Peter) to curse and to swear. +A man offered me a newspaper or something that I had dropped. I can +distinctly remember consigning the paper to a state of irremediable +spiritual ruin. I am very sorry for this now, and I apologise both to +the man and to the paper. I have not the least idea what was the meaning +of this unnatural anger; I mention it as a psychological confession. It +was immediately followed by extreme hilarity, and I made so many silly +jokes to the policeman that he disgraced himself by continual laughter +before all the little boys in the street, who had hitherto taken him +seriously. + +..... + +There is one other odd thing about the matter which I also mention as +a curiosity of the human brain or deficiency of brain. At intervals of +about every three minutes I kept on reminding the policeman that I had +not paid the cabman, and that I hoped he would not lose his money. He +said it would be all right, and the man would appear. But it was not +until about half an hour afterwards that it suddenly struck me with a +shock intolerable that the man might conceivably have lost more +than half a crown; that he had been in danger as well as I. I had +instinctively regarded the cabman as something uplifted above accidents, +a god. I immediately made inquiries, and I am happy to say that they +seemed to have been unnecessary. + +But henceforward I shall always understand with a darker and more +delicate charity those who take tythe of mint, and anise, and cumin, +and neglect the weightier matters of the law; I shall remember how I +was once really tortured with owing half a crown to a man who might +have been dead. Some admirable men in white coats at the Charing Cross +Hospital tied up my small injury, and I went out again into the Strand. +I felt upon me even a kind of unnatural youth; I hungered for something +untried. So to open a new chapter in my life I got into a hansom cab. + + + + +VII. The Advantages of Having One Leg + +A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and +casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either +insolent or weak, said at last, "I think one can live through these +great sorrows and even be the better. What wears one is the little +worries." "That's quite right, mum," answered the old woman with +emphasis, "and I ought to know, seeing I've had ten of 'em." It is, +perhaps, in this sense that it is most true that little worries are most +wearing. In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a +truth, contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. +People who have both small troubles and big ones have the right to say +that they find the small ones the most bitter; and it is undoubtedly +true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible can feel a +faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and all +its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I +am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is +sometimes used or abused by people, because they have nothing but the +very smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the +crumpled rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she +would wear the crown of thorns--if she had to. The gentleman may permit +himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much +better if it were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that +the grasshopper on man's shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much +respect to the gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather +have an elephant when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We +may concede that a straw may break the camel's back, but we like to know +that it really is the last straw and not the first. + +I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, +so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that +if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To +talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest +way to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about +little ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very +often has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very +clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified in asking +that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. I do no deny that +molehills can sometimes be important. Small annoyances have this +evil about them, that they can be more abrupt because they are more +invisible; they cast no shadow before, they have no atmosphere. No +one ever had a mystical premonition that he was going to tumble over a +hassock. William III. died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose +that with all his varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a +mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask +a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, +and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive +poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental +limitations that are always falling across our path--bad weather, +confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments +or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding +unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding +punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn +from all these that I sing--I sing with confidence because I have +recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise +from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only +alternative course of standing on one leg like a stork--a stork is a +poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it. + +To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing +itself symbolise something other than isolation. If we wish to see what +a house is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish +to depict what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or +on a dark sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that +humanity means; so long as he is solitary he means human society; so +long as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another +figure and the picture is less human--not more so. One is company, two +is none. If you wish to symbolise human building draw one dark tower on +the horizon; if you wish to symbolise light let there be no star in the +sky. Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we call our day +there is but one star in the sky--a large, fierce star which we call the +sun. One sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower Of +Giotto is sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row +of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; +the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in +following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the +single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of +all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. To express complete and +perfect leggishness the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the +tower in the wilderness. As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is +that which stands most alone. + +This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric +column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate +use of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its +legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic +consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few +days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness or dislocation +of the one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and +classic beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. +George Meredith's novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in +the stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more +literal exactitude, "He has a leg." Notice how this famous literary +phrase supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable +thing. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect +picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She +delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact +that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, +a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. +Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. That having had one +good leg he should have another--this would be to use vain repetitions +as the Gentiles do. She would have been as much bewildered by him as if +he had been a centipede. + +All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender +of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all +desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it +may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight +sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division +between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to +realise that it might be lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong +and splendid a foot is; in the other I can realise how very much +otherwise it might have been. The moral of the thing is wholly +exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and +beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. If you +wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a +moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully and wonderfully God's image +is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realise the splendid vision of +all visible things--wink the other eye. + + + + +VIII. The End of the World + +For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious town +of Besancon, which stands like a sort of peninsula in a horse-shoe of +river. You may learn from the guide books that it was the birthplace of +Victor Hugo, and that it is a military station with many forts, near the +French frontier. But you will not learn from guide books that the very +tiles on the roofs seem to be of some quainter and more delicate colour +than the tiles of all the other towns of the world; that the tiles look +like the little clouds of some strange sunset, or like the lustrous +scales of some strange fish. They will not tell you that in this +town the eye cannot rest on anything without finding it in some way +attractive and even elvish, a carved face at a street corner, a gleam of +green fields through a stunted arch, or some unexpected colour for the +enamel of a spire or dome. + +..... + +Evening was coming on and in the light of it all these colours so simple +and yet so subtle seemed more and more to fit together and make a fairy +tale. I sat down for a little outside a cafe with a row of little toy +trees in front of it, and presently the driver of a fly (as we should +call it) came to the same place. He was one of those very large and dark +Frenchmen, a type not common but yet typical of France; the Rabelaisian +Frenchman, huge, swarthy, purple-faced, a walking wine-barrel; he was +a sort of Southern Falstaff, if one can imagine Falstaff anything but +English. And, indeed, there was a vital difference, typical of two +nations. For while Falstaff would have been shaking with hilarity like +a huge jelly, full of the broad farce of the London streets, this +Frenchman was rather solemn and dignified than otherwise--as if pleasure +were a kind of pagan religion. After some talk which was full of the +admirable civility and equality of French civilisation, he suggested +without either eagerness or embarrassment that he should take me in his +fly for an hour's ride in the hills beyond the town. And though it was +growing late I consented; for there was one long white road under an +archway and round a hill that dragged me like a long white cord. We +drove through the strong, squat gateway that was made by Romans, and I +remember the coincidence like a sort of omen that as we passed out of +the city I heard simultaneously the three sounds which are the trinity +of France. They make what some poet calls "a tangled trinity," and I am +not going to disentangle it. Whatever those three things mean, how +or why they co-exist; whether they can be reconciled or perhaps are +reconciled already; the three sounds I heard then by an accident all +at once make up the French mystery. For the brass band in the Casino +gardens behind me was playing with a sort of passionate levity some +ramping tune from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was going on +I heard also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible +loyalties and men always arming in the gate of France; and I heard also, +fainter than these sounds and through them all, the Angelus. + +..... + +After this coincidence of symbols I had a curious sense of having left +France behind me, or, perhaps, even the civilised world. And, indeed, +there was something in the landscape wild enough to encourage such +a fancy. I have seen perhaps higher mountains, but I have never +seen higher rocks; I have never seen height so near, so abrupt and +sensational, splinters of rock that stood up like the spires of +churches, cliffs that fell sudden and straight as Satan fell from +heaven. There was also a quality in the ride which was not only +astonishing, but rather bewildering; a quality which many must have +noticed if they have driven or ridden rapidly up mountain roads. I mean +a sense of gigantic gyration, as of the whole earth turning about one's +head. It is quite inadequate to say that the hills rose and fell like +enormous waves. Rather the hills seemed to turn about me like the +enormous sails of a windmill, a vast wheel of monstrous archangelic +wings. As we drove on and up into the gathering purple of the sunset +this dizziness increased, confounding things above with things below. +Wide walls of wooded rock stood out above my head like a roof. I stared +at them until I fancied that I was staring down at a wooded plain. Below +me steeps of green swept down to the river. I stared at them until I +fancied that they swept up to the sky. The purple darkened, night drew +nearer; it seemed only to cut clearer the chasms and draw higher the +spires of that nightmare landscape. Above me in the twilight was +the huge black hulk of the driver, and his broad, blank back was as +mysterious as the back of Death in Watts' picture. I felt that I was +growing too fantastic, and I sought to speak of ordinary things. I +called out to the driver in French, "Where are you taking me?" and it +is a literal and solemn fact that he answered me in the same language +without turning around, "To the end of the world." + +I did not answer. I let him drag the vehicle up dark, steep ways, until +I saw lights under a low roof of little trees and two children, one +oddly beautiful, playing at ball. Then we found ourselves filling up the +strict main street of a tiny hamlet, and across the wall of its inn was +written in large letters, LE BOUT DU MONDE--the end of the world. + +The driver and I sat down outside that inn without a word, as if all +ceremonies were natural and understood in that ultimate place. I ordered +bread for both of us, and red wine, that was good but had no name. On +the other side of the road was a little plain church with a cross on top +of it and a cock on top of the cross. This seemed to me a very good end +of the world; if the story of the world ended here it ended well. Then +I wondered whether I myself should really be content to end here, where +most certainly there were the best things of Christendom--a church and +children's games and decent soil and a tavern for men to talk with men. +But as I thought a singular doubt and desire grew slowly in me, and at +last I started up. + +"Are you not satisfied?" asked my companion. "No," I said, "I am not +satisfied even at the end of the world." + +Then, after a silence, I said, "Because you see there are two ends of +the world. And this is the wrong end of the world; at least the wrong +one for me. This is the French end of the world. I want the other end of +the world. Drive me to the other end of the world." + +"The other end of the world?" he asked. "Where is that?" + +"It is in Walham Green," I whispered hoarsely. "You see it on the London +omnibuses. 'World's End and Walham Green.' Oh, I know how good this is; +I love your vineyards and your free peasantry, but I want the English +end of the world. I love you like a brother, but I want an English +cabman, who will be funny and ask me what his fare 'is.' Your bugles +stir my blood, but I want to see a London policeman. Take, oh, take me +to see a London policeman." + +He stood quite dark and still against the end of the sunset, and I could +not tell whether he understood or not. I got back into his carriage. + +"You will understand," I said, "if ever you are an exile even for +pleasure. The child to his mother, the man to his country, as a +countryman of yours once said. But since, perhaps, it is rather too long +a drive to the English end of the world, we may as well drive back to +Besancon." + +Only as the stars came out among those immortal hills I wept for Walham +Green. + + + + +IX. In the Place de La Bastille + +On the first of May I was sitting outside a cafe in the Place de +la Bastille in Paris staring at the exultant column, crowned with a +capering figure, which stands in the place where the people destroyed a +prison and ended an age. The thing is a curious example of how symbolic +is the great part of human history. As a matter of mere material fact, +the Bastille when it was taken was not a horrible prison; it was hardly +a prison at all. But it was a symbol, and the people always go by a +sure instinct for symbols; for the Chinaman, for instance, at the last +General Election, or for President Kruger's hat in the election before; +their poetic sense is perfect. The Chinaman with his pigtail is not +an idle flippancy. He does typify with a compact precision exactly +the thing the people resent in African policy, the alien and grotesque +nature of the power of wealth, the fact that money has no roots, that it +is not a natural and familiar power, but a sort of airy and evil magic +calling monsters from the ends of the earth. The people hate the mine +owner who can bring a Chinaman flying across the sea, exactly as the +people hated the wizard who could fetch a flying dragon through the air. +It was the same with Mr. Kruger's hat. His hat (that admirable hat) was +not merely a joke. It did symbolise, and symbolise extremely well, the +exact thing which our people at that moment regarded with impatience and +venom; the old-fashioned, dingy, Republican simplicity, the unbeautiful +dignity of the bourgeois, and the heavier truisms of political morality. +No; the people are sometimes wrong on the practical side of politics; +they are never wrong on the artistic side. + +..... + +So it was, certainly, with the Bastille. The destruction of the Bastille +was not a reform; it was something more important than a reform. It was +an iconoclasm; it was the breaking of a stone image. The people saw the +building like a giant looking at them with a score of eyes, and they +struck at it as at a carved fact. For of all the shapes in which that +immense illusion called materialism can terrify the soul, perhaps the +most oppressive are big buildings. Man feels like a fly, an accident, +in the thing he has himself made. It requires a violent effort of the +spirit to remember that man made this confounding thing and man could +unmake it. Therefore the mere act of the ragged people in the street +taking and destroying a huge public building has a spiritual, a ritual +meaning far beyond its immediate political results. It is a religious +service. If, for instance, the Socialists were numerous or courageous +enough to capture and smash up the Bank of England, you might argue for +ever about the inutility of the act, and how it really did not touch the +root of the economic problem in the correct manner. But mankind would +never forget it. It would change the world. + +Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, +for the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable +things--marriage, for instance. And architecture approaches nearer than +any other art to being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get +rid of. You can turn a picture with its face to the wall; it would be a +nuisance to turn that Roman cathedral with its face to the wall. You +can tear a poem to pieces; it is only in moments of very sincere emotion +that you tear a town-hall to pieces. A building is akin to dogma; it +is insolent, like a dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims +permanence like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture +of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is +obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see +anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that +does not change like the clouds of the sky. But along with this decision +which is involved in creating a building, there goes a quite similar +decision in the more delightful task of smashing one. The two of +necessity go together. In few places have so many fine public buildings +been set up as here in Paris, and in few places have so many been +destroyed. When people have finally got into the horrible habit of +preserving buildings, they have got out of the habit of building them. +And in London one mingles, as it were, one's tears because so few are +pulled down. + +..... + +As I sat staring at the column of the Bastille, inscribed to Liberty and +Glory, there came out of one corner of the square (which, like so many +such squares, was at once crowded and quiet) a sudden and silent line of +horsemen. Their dress was of a dull blue, plain and prosaic enough, +but the sun set on fire the brass and steel of their helmets; and their +helmets were carved like the helmets of the Romans. I had seen them +by twos and threes often enough before. I had seen plenty of them in +pictures toiling through the snows of Friedland or roaring round +the squares at Waterloo. But now they came file after file, like an +invasion, and something in their numbers, or in the evening light that +lit up their faces and their crests, or something in the reverie into +which they broke, made me inclined to spring to my feet and cry out, +"The French soldiers!" There were the little men with the brown faces +that had so often ridden through the capitals of Europe as coolly as +they now rode through their own. And when I looked across the square I +saw that the two other corners were choked with blue and red; held +by little groups of infantry. The city was garrisoned as against a +revolution. + +Of course, I had heard all about the strike, chiefly from a baker. He +said he was not going to "Chomer." I said, "Qu'est-ce que c'est que le +chome?" He said, "Ils ne veulent pas travailler." I said, "Ni moi non +plus," and he thought I was a class-conscious collectivist proletarian. +The whole thing was curious, and the true moral of it one not easy for +us, as a nation, to grasp, because our own faults are so deeply and +dangerously in the other direction. To me, as an Englishman (personally +steeped in the English optimism and the English dislike of severity), +the whole thing seemed a fuss about nothing. It looked like turning out +one of the best armies in Europe against ordinary people walking +about the street. The cavalry charged us once or twice, more or less +harmlessly. But, of course, it is hard to say how far in such criticisms +one is assuming the French populace to be (what it is not) as docile as +the English. But the deeper truth of the matter tingled, so to speak, +through the whole noisy night. This people has a natural faculty for +feeling itself on the eve of something--of the Bartholomew or the +Revolution or the Commune or the Day of Judgment. It is this sense of +crisis that makes France eternally young. It is perpetually pulling down +and building up, as it pulled down the prison and put up the column +in the Place de La Bastille. France has always been at the point of +dissolution. She has found the only method of immortality. She dies +daily. + + + + +X. On Lying in Bed + +Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if +only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. +This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the +premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several +pails of Aspinall and a broom. Only if one worked in a really sweeping +and masterly way, and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip +down again on one's face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some +strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid +it would be necessary to stick to black and white in this form of +artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would +be of the greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of +a white ceiling being put to. + +But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have +discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in +a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really +allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, "Il me faut des geants." +But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern rooms +such as we all live in I was continually disappointed. I found an +endless pattern and complication of small objects hung like a curtain of +fine links between me and my desire. I examined the walls; I found them +to my surprise to be already covered with wallpaper, and I found the +wallpaper to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing +a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one +arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious +or philosophical significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my +nice walls like a sort of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to +wallpapers, I think, when it says, "Use not vain repetitions, as the +Gentiles do." I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, +rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish +Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I +suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. Everywhere that I went forlornly, +with my pencil or my paint brush, I found that others had unaccountably +been before me, spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with +their childish and barbaric designs. + +..... + +Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this +occasion when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying +on my back in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my +vision, that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition +of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom. But alas! +like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; +it looks more austere and more distant than the blue sky outside the +window. For my proposal to paint on it with the bristly end of a broom +has been discouraged--never mind by whom; by a person debarred from all +political rights--and even my minor proposal to put the other end of +the broom into the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been +conceded. Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that +all the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces +and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. I am +sure that it was only because Michael Angelo was engaged in the ancient +and honourable occupation of lying in bed that he ever realized how the +roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made into an awful imitation of a +divine drama that could only be acted in the heavens. + +The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is +hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to +mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous than +the exultation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the +expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties +and tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse than the modern +weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor +morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad +taste than of bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, +for cleanliness is made essential and godliness is regarded as an +offence. A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long as +he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met Ibsenite +pessimists who thought it wrong to take beer but right to take prussic +acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; notably such matters +as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, as it ought to be, as +a matter of personal convenience and adjustment, it has come to be +regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to get up +early in the morning. It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but +there is nothing good about it or bad about its opposite. + +..... + +Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get +up the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its +mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. +A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, +creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his +ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; +but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and +rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes +in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the +top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let +them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. This alarming growth of +good habits really means a too great emphasis on those virtues which +mere custom can ensure, it means too little emphasis on those virtues +which custom can never quite ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of +inspired pity or of inspired candour. If ever that abrupt appeal is made +to us we may fail. A man can get use to getting up at five o'clock in +the morning. A man cannot very well get used to being burnt for his +opinions; the first experiment is commonly fatal. Let us pay a little +more attention to these possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. +I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an +almost terrible virtue. + +For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic +caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like +journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, +for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that +the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution +I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it +without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, +of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it +without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he +does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific +explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac. + + + + +XI. The Twelve Men + +The other day, while I was meditating on morality and Mr. H. Pitt, I +was, so to speak, snatched up and put into a jury box to try people. +The snatching took some weeks, but to me it seemed something sudden and +arbitrary. I was put into this box because I lived in Battersea, and +my name began with a C. Looking round me, I saw that there were also +summoned and in attendance in the court whole crowds and processions of +men, all of whom lived in Battersea, and all of whose names began with a +C. + +It seems that they always summon jurymen in this sweeping alphabetical +way. At one official blow, so to speak, Battersea is denuded of all its +C's, and left to get on as best it can with the rest of the alphabet. A +Cumberpatch is missing from one street--a Chizzolpop from another--three +Chucksterfields from Chucksterfield House; the children are crying out +for an absent Cadgerboy; the woman at the street corner is weeping +for her Coffintop, and will not be comforted. We settle down with a +rollicking ease into our seats (for we are a bold, devil-may-care race, +the C's of Battersea), and an oath is administered to us in a totally +inaudible manner by an individual resembling an Army surgeon in his +second childhood. We understand, however, that we are to well and truly +try the case between our sovereign lord the King and the prisoner at the +bar, neither of whom has put in an appearance as yet. + +..... + +Just when I was wondering whether the King and the prisoner were, +perhaps, coming to an amicable understanding in some adjoining public +house, the prisoner's head appears above the barrier of the dock; he +is accused of stealing bicycles, and he is the living image of a great +friend of mine. We go into the matter of the stealing of the bicycles. +We do well and truly try the case between the King and the prisoner in +the affair of the bicycles. And we come to the conclusion, after a brief +but reasonable discussion, that the King is not in any way implicated. +Then we pass on to a woman who neglected her children, and who looks as +if somebody or something had neglected her. And I am one of those who +fancy that something had. + +All the time that the eye took in these light appearances and the brain +passed these light criticisms, there was in the heart a barbaric pity +and fear which men have never been able to utter from the beginning, but +which is the power behind half the poems of the world. The mood cannot +even adequately be suggested, except faintly by this statement that +tragedy is the highest expression of the infinite value of human +life. Never had I stood so close to pain; and never so far away from +pessimism. Ordinarily, I should not have spoken of these dark emotions +at all, for speech about them is too difficult; but I mention them now +for a specific and particular reason to the statement of which I will +proceed at once. I speak these feelings because out of the furnace of +them there came a curious realisation of a political or social truth. I +saw with a queer and indescribable kind of clearness what a jury really +is, and why we must never let it go. + +The trend of our epoch up to this time has been consistently towards +specialism and professionalism. We tend to have trained soldiers because +they fight better, trained singers because they sing better, trained +dancers because they dance better, specially instructed laughers because +they laugh better, and so on and so on. The principle has been applied +to law and politics by innumerable modern writers. Many Fabians have +insisted that a greater part of our political work should be performed +by experts. Many legalists have declared that the untrained jury should +be altogether supplanted by the trained Judge. + +..... + +Now, if this world of ours were really what is called reasonable, I do +not know that there would be any fault to find with this. But the true +result of all experience and the true foundation of all religion is +this. That the four or five things that it is most practically essential +that a man should know, are all of them what people call paradoxes. That +is to say, that though we all find them in life to be mere plain truths, +yet we cannot easily state them in words without being guilty of seeming +verbal contradictions. One of them, for instance, is the unimpeachable +platitude that the man who finds most pleasure for himself is often the +man who least hunts for it. Another is the paradox of courage; the fact +that the way to avoid death is not to have too much aversion to it. +Whoever is careless enough of his bones to climb some hopeful cliff +above the tide may save his bones by that carelessness. Whoever will +lose his life, the same shall save it; an entirely practical and prosaic +statement. + +Now, one of these four or five paradoxes which should be taught to every +infant prattling at his mother's knee is the following: That the more a +man looks at a thing, the less he can see it, and the more a man learns +a thing the less he knows it. The Fabian argument of the expert, +that the man who is trained should be the man who is trusted would be +absolutely unanswerable if it were really true that a man who studied +a thing and practiced it every day went on seeing more and more of its +significance. But he does not. He goes on seeing less and less of its +significance. In the same way, alas! we all go on every day, unless we +are continually goading ourselves into gratitude and humility, seeing +less and less of the significance of the sky or the stones. + +..... + +Now it is a terrible business to mark a man out for the vengeance of +men. But it is a thing to which a man can grow accustomed, as he can to +other terrible things; he can even grow accustomed to the sun. And +the horrible thing about all legal officials, even the best, about all +judges, magistrates, barristers, detectives, and policemen, is not +that they are wicked (some of them are good), not that they are stupid +(several of them are quite intelligent), it is simply that they have got +used to it. + +Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they see is +the usual man in the usual place. They do not see the awful court of +judgment; they only see their own workshop. Therefore, the instinct +of Christian civilisation has most wisely declared that into their +judgments there shall upon every occasion be infused fresh blood and +fresh thoughts from the streets. Men shall come in who can see the court +and the crowd, and coarse faces of the policeman and the professional +criminals, the wasted faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the +gesticulating counsel, and see it all as one sees a new picture or a +play hitherto unvisited. + +Our civilisation has decided, and very justly decided, that determining +the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to +trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who +know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt +in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system +discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up specialists. But when +it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of +the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember +right, by the Founder of Christianity. + + + + +XII. The Wind and the Trees + +I am sitting under tall trees, with a great wind boiling like surf about +the tops of them, so that their living load of leaves rocks and roars in +something that is at once exultation and agony. I feel, in fact, as if +I were actually sitting at the bottom of the sea among mere anchors and +ropes, while over my head and over the green twilight of water sounded +the everlasting rush of waves and the toil and crash and shipwreck of +tremendous ships. The wind tugs at the trees as if it might pluck +them root and all out of the earth like tufts of grass. Or, to try yet +another desperate figure of speech for this unspeakable energy, the +trees are straining and tearing and lashing as if they were a tribe of +dragons each tied by the tail. + +As I look at these top-heavy giants tortured by an invisible and violent +witchcraft, a phrase comes back into my mind. I remember a little boy of +my acquaintance who was once walking in Battersea Park under just such +torn skies and tossing trees. He did not like the wind at all; it blew +in his face too much; it made him shut his eyes; and it blew off his +hat, of which he was very proud. He was, as far as I remember, about +four. After complaining repeatedly of the atmospheric unrest, he said at +last to his mother, "Well, why don't you take away the trees, and then +it wouldn't wind." + +Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. Any +one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were +indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the +air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and +excusable than the belief that it is the trees which make the wind. +Indeed, the belief is so human and excusable that it is, as a matter +of fact, the belief of about ninety-nine out of a hundred of the +philosophers, reformers, sociologists, and politicians of the great age +in which we live. My small friend was, in fact, very like the principal +modern thinkers; only much nicer. + +..... + +In the little apologue or parable which he has thus the honour of +inventing, the trees stand for all visible things and the wind for the +invisible. The wind is the spirit which bloweth where it listeth; the +trees are the material things of the world which are blown where the +spirit lists. The wind is philosophy, religion, revolution; the trees +are cities and civilisations. We only know that there is a wind because +the trees on some distant hill suddenly go mad. We only know that there +is a real revolution because all the chimney-pots go mad on the whole +skyline of the city. + +Just as the ragged outline of a tree grows suddenly more ragged and +rises into fantastic crests or tattered tails, so the human city rises +under the wind of the spirit into toppling temples or sudden spires. No +man has ever seen a revolution. Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood +pouring down the gutters, the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, +a prison in ruins, a people in arms--these things are not revolution, +but the results of revolution. + +You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind. So, +also, you cannot see a revolution; you can only see that there is a +revolution. And there never has been in the history of the world a real +revolution, brutally active and decisive, which was not preceded by +unrest and new dogma in the reign of invisible things. All revolutions +began by being abstract. Most revolutions began by being quite +pedantically abstract. + +The wind is up above the world before a twig on the tree has moved. So +there must always be a battle in the sky before there is a battle on the +earth. Since it is lawful to pray for the coming of the kingdom, it is +lawful also to pray for the coming of the revolution that shall restore +the kingdom. It is lawful to hope to hear the wind of Heaven in the +trees. It is lawful to pray "Thine anger come on earth as it is in +Heaven." + +..... + +The great human dogma, then, is that the wind moves the trees. The great +human heresy is that the trees move the wind. When people begin to +say that the material circumstances have alone created the moral +circumstances, then they have prevented all possibility of serious +change. For if my circumstances have made me wholly stupid, how can I be +certain even that I am right in altering those circumstances? + +The man who represents all thought as an accident of environment is +simply smashing and discrediting all his own thoughts--including +that one. To treat the human mind as having an ultimate authority is +necessary to any kind of thinking, even free thinking. And nothing will +ever be reformed in this age or country unless we realise that the moral +fact comes first. + +For example, most of us, I suppose, have seen in print and heard in +debating clubs an endless discussion that goes on between Socialists and +total abstainers. The latter say that drink leads to poverty; the former +say that poverty leads to drink. I can only wonder at their either of +them being content with such simple physical explanations. Surely it +is obvious that the thing which among the English proletariat leads to +poverty is the same as the thing which leads to drink; the absence +of strong civic dignity, the absence of an instinct that resists +degradation. + +When you have discovered why enormous English estates were not long +ago cut up into small holdings like the land of France, you will have +discovered why the Englishman is more drunken than the Frenchman. +The Englishman, among his million delightful virtues, really has this +quality, which may strictly be called "hand to mouth," because under +its influence a man's hand automatically seeks his own mouth, instead of +seeking (as it sometimes should do) his oppressor's nose. And a man who +says that the English inequality in land is due only to economic causes, +or that the drunkenness of England is due only to economic causes, is +saying something so absurd that he cannot really have thought what he +was saying. + +Yet things quite as preposterous as this are said and written under the +influence of that great spectacle of babyish helplessness, the economic +theory of history. We have people who represent that all great historic +motives were economic, and then have to howl at the top of their voices +in order to induce the modern democracy to act on economic motives. The +extreme Marxian politicians in England exhibit themselves as a small, +heroic minority, trying vainly to induce the world to do what, according +to their theory, the world always does. The truth is, of course, that +there will be a social revolution the moment the thing has ceased to be +purely economic. You can never have a revolution in order to establish a +democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. + +..... + +I get up from under the trees, for the wind and the slight rain have +ceased. The trees stand up like golden pillars in a clear sunlight. +The tossing of the trees and the blowing of the wind have ceased +simultaneously. So I suppose there are still modern philosophers who +will maintain that the trees make the wind. + + + + +XIII. The Dickensian + +He was a quiet man, dressed in dark clothes, with a large limp straw +hat; with something almost military in his moustache and whiskers, but +with a quite unmilitary stoop and very dreamy eyes. He was gazing with a +rather gloomy interest at the cluster, one might almost say the tangle, +of small shipping which grew thicker as our little pleasure boat crawled +up into Yarmouth Harbour. A boat entering this harbour, as every one +knows, does not enter in front of the town like a foreigner, but creeps +round at the back like a traitor taking the town in the rear. The +passage of the river seems almost too narrow for traffic, and in +consequence the bigger ships look colossal. As we passed under a timber +ship from Norway, which seemed to block up the heavens like a cathedral, +the man in a straw hat pointed to an odd wooden figurehead carved like a +woman, and said, like one continuing a conversation, "Now, why have they +left off having them. They didn't do any one any harm?" + +I replied with some flippancy about the captain's wife being jealous; +but I knew in my heart that the man had struck a deep note. There has +been something in our most recent civilisation which is mysteriously +hostile to such healthy and humane symbols. + +"They hate anything like that, which is human and pretty," he continued, +exactly echoing my thoughts. "I believe they broke up all the jolly old +figureheads with hatchets and enjoyed doing it." + +"Like Mr. Quilp," I answered, "when he battered the wooden Admiral with +the poker." + +His whole face suddenly became alive, and for the first time he stood +erect and stared at me. + +"Do you come to Yarmouth for that?" he asked. + +"For what?" + +"For Dickens," he answered, and drummed with his foot on the deck. + +"No," I answered; "I come for fun, though that is much the same thing." + +"I always come," he answered quietly, "to find Peggotty's boat. It isn't +here." + +And when he said that I understood him perfectly. + +There are two Yarmouths; I daresay there are two hundred to the people +who live there. I myself have never come to the end of the list of +Batterseas. But there are two to the stranger and tourist; the poor +part, which is dignified, and the prosperous part, which is savagely +vulgar. My new friend haunted the first of these like a ghost; to the +latter he would only distantly allude. + +"The place is very much spoilt now... trippers, you know," he would say, +not at all scornfully, but simply sadly. That was the nearest he would +go to an admission of the monstrous watering place that lay along +the front, outblazing the sun, and more deafening than the sea. But +behind--out of earshot of this uproar--there are lanes so narrow that +they seem like secret entrances to some hidden place of repose. There +are squares so brimful of silence that to plunge into one of them is +like plunging into a pool. In these places the man and I paced up and +down talking about Dickens, or, rather, doing what all true Dickensians +do, telling each other verbatim long passages which both of us knew +quite well already. We were really in the atmosphere of the older +England. Fishermen passed us who might well have been characters like +Peggotty; we went into a musty curiosity shop and bought pipe-stoppers +carved into figures from Pickwick. The evening was settling down between +all the buildings with that slow gold that seems to soak everything when +we went into the church. + +In the growing darkness of the church, my eye caught the coloured +windows which on that clear golden evening were flaming with all the +passionate heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian arts. +At length I said to my companion: + +"Do you see that angel over there? I think it must be meant for the +angel at the sepulchre." + +He saw that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows. + +"I daresay," he said. "What is there odd about that?" + +After a pause I said, "Do you remember what the angel at the sepulchre +said?" + +"Not particularly," he answered; "but where are you off to in such a +hurry?" + +I walked him rapidly out of the still square, past the fishermen's +almshouses, towards the coast, he still inquiring indignantly where I +was going. + +"I am going," I said, "to put pennies in automatic machines on the +beach. I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my +photograph taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer out of its original +bottle. I will buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat. I am ready +to listen to a concertina, and but for the defects of my education +should be ready to play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, +if the donkey is willing. I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was +commanded me by the angel in the stained-glass window." + +"I really think," said the Dickensian, "that I had better put you in +charge of your relations." + +"Sir," I answered, "there are certain writers to whom humanity owes +much, whose talent is yet of so shy or delicate or retrospective a +type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain +perishing associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the spirit +of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even for the shade of Thackeray +in Old Kensington. But let us have no antiquarianism about Dickens, for +Dickens is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward, but forward; +he might look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury, but he +would love to look at them. He might lash our democracy, but it would +be because, like a democrat, he asked much from it. We will not have all +his books bound up under the title of 'The Old Curiosity Shop.' Rather +we will have them all bound up under the title of 'Great Expectations.' +Wherever humanity is he would have us face it and make something of it, +swallow it with a holy cannibalism, and assimilate it with the digestion +of a giant. We must take these trippers as he would have taken them, and +tear out of them their tragedy and their farce. Do you remember now what +the angel said at the sepulchre? 'Why seek ye the living among the dead? +He is not here; he is risen.'" + +With that we came out suddenly on the wide stretch of the sands, which +were black with the knobs and masses of our laughing and quite desperate +democracy. And the sunset, which was now in its final glory, flung far +over all of them a red flush and glitter like the gigantic firelight +of Dickens. In that strange evening light every figure looked at once +grotesque and attractive, as if he had a story to tell. I heard a little +girl (who was being throttled by another little girl) say by way of +self-vindication, "My sister-in-law 'as got four rings aside her weddin' +ring!" + +I stood and listened for more, but my friend went away. + + + + +XIV. In Topsy-Turvy Land + +Last week, in an idle metaphor, I took the tumbling of trees and the +secret energy of the wind as typical of the visible world moving under +the violence of the invisible. I took this metaphor merely because I +happened to be writing the article in a wood. Nevertheless, now that I +return to Fleet Street (which seems to me, I confess, much better and +more poetical than all the wild woods in the world), I am strangely +haunted by this accidental comparison. The people's figures seem a +forest and their soul a wind. All the human personalities which speak or +signal to me seem to have this fantastic character of the fringe of the +forest against the sky. That man that talks to me, what is he but an +articulate tree? That driver of a van who waves his hands wildly at me +to tell me to get out of the way, what is he but a bunch of branches +stirred and swayed by a spiritual wind, a sylvan object that I can +continue to contemplate with calm? That policeman who lifts his hand +to warn three omnibuses of the peril that they run in encountering my +person, what is he but a shrub shaken for a moment with that blast +of human law which is a thing stronger than anarchy? Gradually this +impression of the woods wears off. But this black-and-white contrast +between the visible and invisible, this deep sense that the one +essential belief is belief in the invisible as against the visible, +is suddenly and sensationally brought back to my mind. Exactly at +the moment when Fleet Street has grown most familiar (that is, most +bewildering and bright), my eye catches a poster of vivid violet, on +which I see written in large black letters these remarkable words: +"Should Shop Assistants Marry?" + +..... + +When I saw those words everything might just as well have turned upside +down. The men in Fleet Street might have been walking about on their +hands. The cross of St. Paul's might have been hanging in the air upside +down. For I realise that I have really come into a topsy-turvy country; +I have come into the country where men do definitely believe that the +waving of the trees makes the wind. That is to say, they believe +that the material circumstances, however black and twisted, are more +important than the spiritual realities, however powerful and pure. +"Should Shop Assistants Marry?" I am puzzled to think what some periods +and schools of human history would have made of such a question. The +ascetics of the East or of some periods of the early Church would have +thought that the question meant, "Are not shop assistants too saintly, +too much of another world, even to feel the emotions of the sexes?" But +I suppose that is not what the purple poster means. In some pagan cities +it might have meant, "Shall slaves so vile as shop assistants even be +allowed to propagate their abject race?" But I suppose that is not what +the purple poster meant. We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what +it does mean. It does really mean that a section of the human race +is asking whether the primary relations of the two human sexes are +particularly good for modern shops. The human race is asking whether +Adam and Eve are entirely suitable for Marshall and Snelgrove. If this +is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine what would be. We ask whether +the universal institution will improve our (please God) temporary +institution. Yet I have known many such questions. For instance, I have +known a man ask seriously, "Does Democracy help the Empire?" Which is +like saying, "Is art favourable to frescoes?" + +I say that there are many such questions asked. But if the world +ever runs short of them, I can suggest a large number of questions of +precisely the same kind, based on precisely the same principle. + +"Do Feet Improve Boots?"--"Is Bread Better when Eaten?"--"Should +Hats have Heads in them?"--"Do People Spoil a Town?"--"Do Walls +Ruin Wall-papers?"--"Should Neckties enclose Necks?"--"Do Hands Hurt +Walking-sticks?"--"Does Burning Destroy Firewood?"--"Is Cleanliness Good +for Soap?"--"Can Cricket Really Improve Cricket-bats?"--"Shall We Take +Brides with our Wedding Rings?" and a hundred others. + +Not one of these questions differs at all in intellectual purport or in +intellectual value from the question which I have quoted from the +purple poster, or from any of the typical questions asked by half of the +earnest economists of our times. All the questions they ask are of this +character; they are all tinged with this same initial absurdity. They do +not ask if the means is suited to the end; they all ask (with profound +and penetrating scepticism) if the end is suited to the means. They do +not ask whether the tail suits the dog. They all ask whether a dog is +(by the highest artistic canons) the most ornamental appendage that can +be put at the end of a tail. In short, instead of asking whether our +modern arrangements, our streets, trades, bargains, laws, and concrete +institutions are suited to the primal and permanent idea of a healthy +human life, they never admit that healthy human life into the discussion +at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; and then they +only ask whether that healthy human life is suited to our streets and +trades. Perfection may be attainable or unattainable as an end. It may +or may not be possible to talk of imperfection as a means to perfection. +But surely it passes toleration to talk of perfection as a means to +imperfection. The New Jerusalem may be a reality. It may be a dream. But +surely it is too outrageous to say that the New Jerusalem is a reality +on the road to Birmingham. + +..... + +This is the most enormous and at the same time the most secret of the +modern tyrannies of materialism. In theory the thing ought to be simple +enough. A really human human being would always put the spiritual +things first. A walking and speaking statue of God finds himself at +one particular moment employed as a shop assistant. He has in himself +a power of terrible love, a promise of paternity, a thirst for some +loyalty that shall unify life, and in the ordinary course of things he +asks himself, "How far do the existing conditions of those assisting in +shops fit in with my evident and epic destiny in the matter of love and +marriage?" But here, as I have said, comes in the quiet and crushing +power of modern materialism. It prevents him rising in rebellion, as he +would otherwise do. By perpetually talking about environment and visible +things, by perpetually talking about economics and physical necessity, +painting and keeping repainted a perpetual picture of iron machinery +and merciless engines, of rails of steel, and of towers of stone, modern +materialism at last produces this tremendous impression in which the +truth is stated upside down. At last the result is achieved. The man +does not say as he ought to have said, "Should married men endure being +modern shop assistants?" The man says, "Should shop assistants marry?" +Triumph has completed the immense illusion of materialism. The +slave does not say, "Are these chains worthy of me?" The slave says +scientifically and contentedly, "Am I even worthy of these chains?" + + + + +XV. What I Found in My Pocket + +Once when I was very young I met one of those men who have made +the Empire what it is--a man in an astracan coat, with an astracan +moustache--a tight, black, curly moustache. Whether he put on the +moustache with the coat or whether his Napoleonic will enabled him not +only to grow a moustache in the usual place, but also to grow little +moustaches all over his clothes, I do not know. I only remember that he +said to me the following words: "A man can't get on nowadays by hanging +about with his hands in his pockets." I made reply with the quite +obvious flippancy that perhaps a man got on by having his hands in other +people's pockets; whereupon he began to argue about Moral Evolution, so +I suppose what I said had some truth in it. But the incident now comes +back to me, and connects itself with another incident--if you can call +it an incident--which happened to me only the other day. + +I have only once in my life picked a pocket, and then (perhaps through +some absent-mindedness) I picked my own. My act can really with some +reason be so described. For in taking things out of my own pocket I had +at least one of the more tense and quivering emotions of the thief; I +had a complete ignorance and a profound curiosity as to what I should +find there. Perhaps it would be the exaggeration of eulogy to call me a +tidy person. But I can always pretty satisfactorily account for all my +possessions. I can always tell where they are, and what I have done with +them, so long as I can keep them out of my pockets. If once anything +slips into those unknown abysses, I wave it a sad Virgilian farewell. +I suppose that the things that I have dropped into my pockets are still +there; the same presumption applies to the things that I have dropped +into the sea. But I regard the riches stored in both these bottomless +chasms with the same reverent ignorance. They tell us that on the +last day the sea will give up its dead; and I suppose that on the same +occasion long strings of extraordinary things will come running out of +my pockets. But I have quite forgotten what any of them are; and there +is really nothing (excepting the money) that I shall be at all surprised +at finding among them. + +..... + +Such at least has hitherto been my state of innocence. I here only wish +briefly to recall the special, extraordinary, and hitherto unprecedented +circumstances which led me in cold blood, and being of sound mind, to +turn out my pockets. I was locked up in a third-class carriage for a +rather long journey. The time was towards evening, but it might have +been anything, for everything resembling earth or sky or light or shade +was painted out as if with a great wet brush by an unshifting sheet of +quite colourless rain. I had no books or newspapers. I had not even a +pencil and a scrap of paper with which to write a religious epic. There +were no advertisements on the walls of the carriage, otherwise I could +have plunged into the study, for any collection of printed words is +quite enough to suggest infinite complexities of mental ingenuity. When +I find myself opposite the words "Sunlight Soap" I can exhaust all the +aspects of Sun Worship, Apollo, and Summer poetry before I go on to the +less congenial subject of soap. But there was no printed word or picture +anywhere; there was nothing but blank wood inside the carriage and blank +wet without. Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can be, +uninteresting. So I stared at the joints of the walls and seats, and +began thinking hard on the fascinating subject of wood. Just as I had +begun to realise why, perhaps, it was that Christ was a carpenter, +rather than a bricklayer, or a baker, or anything else, I suddenly +started upright, and remembered my pockets. I was carrying about with +me an unknown treasury. I had a British Museum and a South Kensington +collection of unknown curios hung all over me in different places. I +began to take the things out. + +..... + +The first thing I came upon consisted of piles and heaps of Battersea +tram tickets. There were enough to equip a paper chase. They shook +down in showers like confetti. Primarily, of course, they touched my +patriotic emotions, and brought tears to my eyes; also they provided me +with the printed matter I required, for I found on the back of them some +short but striking little scientific essays about some kind of pill. +Comparatively speaking, in my then destitution, those tickets might +be regarded as a small but well-chosen scientific library. Should my +railway journey continue (which seemed likely at the time) for a +few months longer, I could imagine myself throwing myself into the +controversial aspects of the pill, composing replies and rejoinders pro +and con upon the data furnished to me. But after all it was the symbolic +quality of the tickets that moved me most. For as certainly as the cross +of St. George means English patriotism, those scraps of paper meant all +that municipal patriotism which is now, perhaps, the greatest hope of +England. + +The next thing that I took out was a pocket-knife. A pocket-knife, I +need hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral meditations +all to itself. A knife typifies one of the most primary of those +practical origins upon which as upon low, thick pillows all our human +civilisation reposes. Metals, the mystery of the thing called iron and +of the thing called steel, led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream. +I saw into the intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among +all the common stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent +battle, in which stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered +against something shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. +I heard all the hammers on all the anvils of the earth. I saw all the +swords of Feudal and all the weals of Industrial war. For the knife is +only a short sword; and the pocket-knife is a secret sword. I opened it +and looked at that brilliant and terrible tongue which we call a blade; +and I thought that perhaps it was the symbol of the oldest of the needs +of man. The next moment I knew that I was wrong; for the thing that came +next out of my pocket was a box of matches. Then I saw fire, which is +stronger even than steel, the old, fierce female thing, the thing we all +love, but dare not touch. + +The next thing I found was a piece of chalk; and I saw in it all the art +and all the frescoes of the world. The next was a coin of a very modest +value; and I saw in it not only the image and superscription of our own +Caesar, but all government and order since the world began. But I have +not space to say what were the items in the long and splendid procession +of poetical symbols that came pouring out. I cannot tell you all the +things that were in my pocket. I can tell you one thing, however, that I +could not find in my pocket. I allude to my railway ticket. + + + + +XVI. The Dragon's Grandmother + +I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. I do not +mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated in them--that he +did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into a coach. He did, indeed, +entertain this curious disbelief. And, like all the other people I +have ever met who entertained it, he was wholly unable to give me an +intelligent reason for it. He tried the laws of nature, but he soon +dropped that. Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary +experience, and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted +pumpkinity. But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we +adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply the attitude we +adopt towards all unusual occurrences. If we were certain of miracles +we should not count on them. Things that happen very seldom we all leave +out of our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. I do not +expect a glass of water to be turned into wine; but neither do I expect +a glass of water to be poisoned with prussic acid. I do not in ordinary +business relations act on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but +neither do I act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost +heir of the Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is not that the +natural order is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet +on uncommon incidents than on common ones. This does not touch the +credibility of any attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned +into a coach. If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car +with my own eyes that would not make me any more inclined to assume +that the same thing would happen again. I should not invest largely in +pumpkins with an eye to the motor trade. Cinderella got a ball dress +from the fairy; but I do not suppose that she looked after her own +clothes any the less after it. + +But the view that fairy tales cannot really have happened, though crazy, +is common. The man I speak of disbelieved in fairy tales in an even more +amazing and perverted sense. He actually thought that fairy tales +ought not to be told to children. That is (like a belief in slavery +or annexation) one of those intellectual errors which lie very near to +ordinary mortal sins. There are some refusals which, though they may be +done what is called conscientiously, yet carry so much of their whole +horror in the very act of them, that a man must in doing them not only +harden but slightly corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of +milk to young mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. +Another is the refusal of fairy tales to children. + +..... + +The man had come to see me in connection with some silly society +of which I am an enthusiastic member; he was a fresh-coloured, +short-sighted young man, like a stray curate who was too helpless even +to find his way to the Church of England. He had a curious green necktie +and a very long neck; I am always meeting idealists with very long +necks. Perhaps it is that their eternal aspiration slowly lifts their +heads nearer and nearer to the stars. Or perhaps it has something to +do with the fact that so many of them are vegetarians: perhaps they are +slowly evolving the neck of the giraffe so that they can eat all the +tops of the trees in Kensington Gardens. These things are in every sense +above me. Such, anyhow, was the young man who did not believe in fairy +tales; and by a curious coincidence he entered the room when I had just +finished looking through a pile of contemporary fiction, and had begun +to read "Grimm's Fairy tales" as a natural consequence. + +The modern novels stood before me, however, in a stack; and you can +imagine their titles for yourself. There was "Suburban Sue: A Tale of +Psychology," and also "Psychological Sue: A Tale of Suburbia"; there was +"Trixy: A Temperament," and "Man-Hate: A Monochrome," and all those nice +things. I read them with real interest, but, curiously enough, I grew +tired of them at last, and when I saw "Grimm's Fairy Tales" lying +accidentally on the table, I gave a cry of indecent joy. Here at least, +here at last, one could find a little common sense. I opened the book, +and my eyes fell on these splendid and satisfying words, "The Dragon's +Grandmother." That at least was reasonable; that at least was true. "The +Dragon's Grandmother!" While I was rolling this first touch of ordinary +human reality upon my tongue, I looked up suddenly and saw this monster +with a green tie standing in the doorway. + +..... + +I listened to what he said about the society politely enough, I hope; +but when he incidentally mentioned that he did not believe in fairy +tales, I broke out beyond control. "Man," I said, "who are you that you +should not believe in fairy tales? It is much easier to believe in Blue +Beard than to believe in you. A blue beard is a misfortune; but there +are green ties which are sins. It is far easier to believe in a million +fairy tales than to believe in one man who does not like fairy tales. I +would rather kiss Grimm instead of a Bible and swear to all his stories +as if they were thirty-nine articles than say seriously and out of +my heart that there can be such a man as you; that you are not some +temptation of the devil or some delusion from the void. Look at these +plain, homely, practical words. 'The Dragon's Grandmother,' that is all +right; that is rational almost to the verge of rationalism. If there was +a dragon, he had a grandmother. But you--you had no grandmother! If you +had known one, she would have taught you to love fairy tales. You had no +father, you had no mother; no natural causes can explain you. You cannot +be. I believe many things which I have not seen; but of such things +as you it may be said, 'Blessed is he that has seen and yet has +disbelieved.'" + +..... + +It seemed to me that he did not follow me with sufficient delicacy, so I +moderated my tone. "Can you not see," I said, "that fairy tales in their +essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting +fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? +Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild +and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of +routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the +fairy tale is--what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The +problem of the modern novel is--what will a madman do with a dull world? +In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. +In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and +suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos. In the +excellent tale of 'The Dragon's Grandmother,' in all the other tales of +Grimm, it is assumed that the young man setting out on his travels +will have all substantial truths in him; that he will be brave, full +of faith, reasonable, that he will respect his parents, keep his word, +rescue one kind of people, defy another kind, 'parcere subjectis et +debellare,' etc. Then, having assumed this centre of sanity, the writer +entertains himself by fancying what would happen if the whole world went +mad all round it, if the sun turned green and the moon blue, if horses +had six legs and giants had two heads. But your modern literature +takes insanity as its centre. Therefore, it loses the interest even of +insanity. A lunatic is not startling to himself, because he is quite +serious; that is what makes him a lunatic. A man who thinks he is a +piece of glass is to himself as dull as a piece of glass. A man who +thinks he is a chicken is to himself as common as a chicken. It is only +sanity that can see even a wild poetry in insanity. Therefore, these +wise old tales made the hero ordinary and the tale extraordinary. +But you have made the hero extraordinary and the tale ordinary--so +ordinary--oh, so very ordinary." + +I saw him still gazing at me fixedly. Some nerve snapped in me under the +hypnotic stare. I leapt to my feet and cried, "In the name of God +and Democracy and the Dragon's grandmother--in the name of all good +things--I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more." Whether +or no it was the result of the exorcism, there is no doubt that he +definitely went away. + + + + +XVII. The Red Angel + +I find that there really are human beings who think fairy tales bad +for children. I do not speak of the man in the green tie, for him I can +never count truly human. But a lady has written me an earnest letter +saying that fairy tales ought not to be taught to children even if +they are true. She says that it is cruel to tell children fairy tales, +because it frightens them. You might just as well say that it is cruel +to give girls sentimental novels because it makes them cry. All this +kind of talk is based on that complete forgetting of what a child is +like which has been the firm foundation of so many educational schemes. +If you keep bogies and goblins away from children they would make them +up for themselves. One small child in the dark can invent more hells +than Swedenborg. One small child can imagine monsters too big and +black to get into any picture, and give them names too unearthly and +cacophonous to have occurred in the cries of any lunatic. The child, to +begin with, commonly likes horrors, and he continues to indulge in them +even when he does not like them. There is just as much difficulty in +saying exactly where pure pain begins in his case, as there is in ours +when we walk of our own free will into the torture-chamber of a great +tragedy. The fear does not come from fairy tales; the fear comes from +the universe of the soul. + +..... + +The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are +alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They +dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be +alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics +worship it--because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible +for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy +tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is +in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales +do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the +child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby +has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What +the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. + +Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series +of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, +that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that +there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and +stronger than strong fear. When I was a child I have stared at the +darkness until the whole black bulk of it turned into one negro giant +taller than heaven. If there was one star in the sky it only made him a +Cyclops. But fairy tales restored my mental health, for next day I read +an authentic account of how a negro giant with one eye, of quite equal +dimensions, had been baffled by a little boy like myself (of similar +inexperience and even lower social status) by means of a sword, some +bad riddles, and a brave heart. Sometimes the sea at night seemed as +dreadful as any dragon. But then I was acquainted with many youngest +sons and little sailors to whom a dragon or two was as simple as the +sea. + +Take the most horrible of Grimm's tales in incident and imagery, the +excellent tale of the "Boy who Could not Shudder," and you will see what +I mean. There are some living shocks in that tale. I remember specially +a man's legs which fell down the chimney by themselves and walked about +the room, until they were rejoined by the severed head and body which +fell down the chimney after them. That is very good. But the point +of the story and the point of the reader's feelings is not that these +things are frightening, but the far more striking fact that the hero was +not frightened at them. The most fearful of all these fearful wonders +was his own absence of fear. He slapped the bogies on the back and asked +the devils to drink wine with him; many a time in my youth, when stifled +with some modern morbidity, I have prayed for a double portion of his +spirit. If you have not read the end of his story, go and read it; it is +the wisest thing in the world. The hero was at last taught to shudder +by taking a wife, who threw a pail of cold water over him. In that one +sentence there is more of the real meaning of marriage than in all the +books about sex that cover Europe and America. + +..... + +At the four corners of a child's bed stand Perseus and Roland, Sigurd +and St. George. If you withdraw the guard of heroes you are not making +him rational; you are only leaving him to fight the devils alone. For +the devils, alas, we have always believed in. The hopeful element in the +universe has in modern times continually been denied and reasserted; but +the hopeless element has never for a moment been denied. As I told "H. +N. B." (whom I pause to wish a Happy Christmas in its most superstitious +sense), the one thing modern people really do believe in is damnation. +The greatest of purely modern poets summed up the really modern attitude +in that fine Agnostic line-- + +"There may be Heaven; there must be Hell." + +The gloomy view of the universe has been a continuous tradition; and the +new types of spiritual investigation or conjecture all begin by being +gloomy. A little while ago men believed in no spirits. Now they are +beginning rather slowly to believe in rather slow spirits. + +..... + +Some people objected to spiritualism, table rappings, and such things, +because they were undignified, because the ghosts cracked jokes or +waltzed with dinner-tables. I do not share this objection in the least. +I wish the spirits were more farcical than they are. That they should +make more jokes and better ones, would be my suggestion. For almost all +the spiritualism of our time, in so far as it is new, is solemn and sad. +Some Pagan gods were lawless, and some Christian saints were a little +too serious; but the spirits of modern spiritualism are both lawless and +serious--a disgusting combination. The specially contemporary spirits +are not only devils, they are blue devils. This is, first and last, the +real value of Christmas; in so far as the mythology remains at all it +is a kind of happy mythology. Personally, of course, I believe in Santa +Claus; but it is the season of forgiveness, and I will forgive others +for not doing so. But if there is anyone who does not comprehend the +defect in our world which I am civilising, I should recommend him, for +instance, to read a story by Mr. Henry James, called "The Turn of the +Screw." It is one of the most powerful things ever written, and it is +one of the things about which I doubt most whether it ought ever to +have been written at all. It describes two innocent children gradually +growing at once omniscient and half-witted under the influence of the +foul ghosts of a groom and a governess. As I say, I doubt whether Mr. +Henry James ought to have published it (no, it is not indecent, do not +buy it; it is a spiritual matter), but I think the question so doubtful +that I will give that truly great man a chance. I will approve the thing +as well as admire it if he will write another tale just as powerful +about two children and Santa Claus. If he will not, or cannot, then the +conclusion is clear; we can deal strongly with gloomy mystery, but not +with happy mystery; we are not rationalists, but diabolists. + +..... + +I have thought vaguely of all this staring at a great red fire that +stands up in the room like a great red angel. But, perhaps, you have +never heard of a red angel. But you have heard of a blue devil. That is +exactly what I mean. + + + + +XVIII. The Tower + +I have been standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great +Belfry Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought (though +not, perhaps, said), that it is built in defiance of all decencies of +architecture. It is made in deliberate disproportion to achieve the one +startling effect of height. It is a church on stilts. But this sort of +sublime deformity is characteristic of the whole fancy and energy +of these Flemish cities. Flanders has the flattest and most prosaic +landscapes, but the most violent and extravagant of buildings. Here +Nature is tame; it is civilisation that is untamable. Here the fields +are as flat as a paved square; but, on the other hand, the streets and +roofs are as uproarious as a forest in a great wind. The waters of wood +and meadow slide as smoothly and meekly as if they were in the London +water-pipes. But the parish pump is carved with all the creatures out of +the wilderness. Part of this is true, of course, of all art. We talk of +wild animals, but the wildest animal is man. There are sounds in music +that are more ancient and awful than the cry of the strangest beast +at night. And so also there are buildings that are shapeless in their +strength, seeming to lift themselves slowly like monsters from the +primal mire, and there are spires that seem to fly up suddenly like a +startled bird. + +..... + +This savagery even in stone is the expression of the special spirit in +humanity. All the beasts of the field are respectable; it is only man +who has broken loose. All animals are domestic animals; only man is ever +undomestic. All animals are tame animals; it is only we who are wild. +And doubtless, also, while this queer energy is common to all human art, +it is also generally characteristic of Christian art among the arts +of the world. This is what people really mean when they say that +Christianity is barbaric, and arose in ignorance. As a matter of +historic fact, it didn't; it arose in the most equably civilised period +the world has ever seen. + +But it is true that there is something in it that breaks the outline +of perfect and conventional beauty, something that dots with anger the +blind eyes of the Apollo and lashes to a cavalry charge the horses +of the Elgin Marbles. Christianity is savage, in the sense that it is +primeval; there is in it a touch of the nigger hymn. I remember a debate +in which I had praised militant music in ritual, and some one asked me +if I could imagine Christ walking down the street before a brass band. +I said I could imagine it with the greatest ease; for Christ definitely +approved a natural noisiness at a great moment. When the street children +shouted too loud, certain priggish disciples did begin to rebuke them in +the name of good taste. He said: "If these were silent the very stones +would cry out." With these words He called up all the wealth of artistic +creation that has been founded on this creed. With those words He +founded Gothic architecture. For in a town like this, which seems to +have grown Gothic as a wood grows leaves, anywhere and anyhow, any odd +brick or moulding may be carved off into a shouting face. The front of +vast buildings is thronged with open mouths, angels praising God, or +devils defying Him. Rock itself is racked and twisted, until it seems to +scream. The miracle is accomplished; the very stones cry out. + +But though this furious fancy is certainly a specialty of men among +creatures, and of Christian art among arts, it is still most notable in +the art of Flanders. All Gothic buildings are full of extravagant things +in detail; but this is an extravagant thing in design. All Christian +temples worth talking about have gargoyles; but Bruges Belfry is a +gargoyle. It is an unnaturally long-necked animal, like a giraffe. The +same impression of exaggeration is forced on the mind at every corner of +a Flemish town. And if any one asks, "Why did the people of these flat +countries instinctively raise these riotous and towering monuments?" the +only answer one can give is, "Because they were the people of these +flat countries." If any one asks, "Why the men of Bruges sacrificed +architecture and everything to the sense of dizzy and divine heights?" +we can only answer, "Because Nature gave them no encouragement to do +so." + +..... + +As I stare at the Belfry, I think with a sort of smile of some of my +friends in London who are quite sure of how children will turn out +if you give them what they call "the right environment." It is a +troublesome thing, environment, for it sometimes works positively +and sometimes negatively, and more often between the two. A beautiful +environment may make a child love beauty; it may make him bored with +beauty; most likely the two effects will mix and neutralise each other. +Most likely, that is, the environment will make hardly any difference at +all. In the scientific style of history (which was recently fashionable, +and is still conventional) we always had a list of countries that had +owed their characteristics to their physical conditions. + +The Spaniards (it was said) are passionate because their country is +hot; Scandinavians adventurous because their country is cold; Englishmen +naval because they are islanders; Switzers free because they are +mountaineers. It is all very nice in its way. Only unfortunately I am +quite certain that I could make up quite as long a list exactly contrary +in its argument point-blank against the influence of their geographical +environment. Thus Spaniards have discovered more continents than +Scandinavians because their hot climate discouraged them from exertion. +Thus Dutchmen have fought for their freedom quite as bravely as Switzers +because the Dutch have no mountains. Thus Pagan Greece and Rome and many +Mediterranean peoples have specially hated the sea because they had the +nicest sea to deal with, the easiest sea to manage. I could extend the +list for ever. But however long it was, two examples would certainly +stand up in it as pre-eminent and unquestionable. The first is that the +Swiss, who live under staggering precipices and spires of eternal snow, +have produced no art or literature at all, and are by far the most +mundane, sensible, and business-like people in Europe. The other is that +the people of Belgium, who live in a country like a carpet, have, by an +inner energy, desired to exalt their towers till they struck the stars. + +As it is therefore quite doubtful whether a person will go specially +with his environment or specially against his environment, I cannot +comfort myself with the thought that the modern discussions about +environment are of much practical value. But I think I will not write +any more about these modern theories, but go on looking at the Belfry +of Bruges. I would give them the greater attention if I were not pretty +well convinced that the theories will have disappeared a long time +before the Belfry. + + + + +XIX. How I Met the President + +Several years ago, when there was a small war going on in South Africa +and a great fuss going on in England, when it was by no means so popular +and convenient to be a Pro-Boer as it is now, I remember making a bright +suggestion to my Pro-Boer friends and allies, which was not, I regret to +say, received with the seriousness it deserved. I suggested that a band +of devoted and noble youths, including ourselves, should express our +sense of the pathos of the President's and the Republic's fate by +growing Kruger beards under our chins. I imagined how abruptly this +decoration would alter the appearance of Mr. John Morley; how startling +it would be as it emerged from under the chin of Mr. Lloyd-George. But +the younger men, my own friends, on whom I more particularly urged +it, men whose names are in many cases familiar to the readers of this +paper--Mr. Masterman's for instance, and Mr. Conrad Noel--they, I felt, +being young and beautiful, would do even more justice to the Kruger +beard, and when walking down the street with it could not fail to +attract attention. The beard would have been a kind of counterblast to +the Rhodes hat. An appropriate counterblast; for the Rhodesian power in +Africa is only an external thing, placed upon the top like a hat; the +Dutch power and tradition is a thing rooted and growing like a beard; +we have shaved it, and it is growing again. The Kruger beard would +represent time and the natural processes. You cannot grow a beard in a +moment of passion. + +..... + +After making this proposal to my friends I hurriedly left town. I went +down to a West Country place where there was shortly afterwards an +election, at which I enjoyed myself very much canvassing for the Liberal +candidate. The extraordinary thing was that he got in. I sometimes lie +awake at night and meditate upon that mystery; but it must not detain us +now. The rather singular incident which happened to me then, and which +some recent events have recalled to me, happened while the canvassing +was still going on. It was a burning blue day, and the warm sunshine, +settling everywhere on the high hedges and the low hills, brought out +into a kind of heavy bloom that HUMANE quality of the landscape which, +as far as I know, only exists in England; that sense as if the bushes +and the roads were human, and had kindness like men; as if the tree were +a good giant with one wooden leg; as if the very line of palings were a +row of good-tempered gnomes. On one side of the white, sprawling road a +low hill or down showed but a little higher than the hedge, on the +other the land tumbled down into a valley that opened towards the Mendip +hills. The road was very erratic, for every true English road exists +in order to lead one a dance; and what could be more beautiful and +beneficent than a dance? At an abrupt turn of it I came upon a low white +building, with dark doors and dark shuttered windows, evidently not +inhabited and scarcely in the ordinary sense inhabitable--a thing more +like a toolhouse than a house of any other kind. Made idle by the heat, +I paused, and, taking a piece of red chalk out of my pocket, began +drawing aimlessly on the back door--drawing goblins and Mr. Chamberlain, +and finally the ideal Nationalist with the Kruger beard. The materials +did not permit of any delicate rendering of his noble and national +expansion of countenance (stoical and yet hopeful, full of tears for +man, and yet of an element of humour); but the hat was finely handled. +Just as I was adding the finishing touches to the Kruger fantasy, I was +frozen to the spot with terror. The black door, which I thought no more +of than the lid of an empty box, began slowly to open, impelled from +within by a human hand. And President Kruger himself came out into the +sunlight! + +He was a shade milder of eye than he was in his portraits, and he did +not wear that ceremonial scarf which was usually, in such pictures, +slung across his ponderous form. But there was the hat which filled the +Empire with so much alarm; there were the clumsy dark clothes, there was +the heavy, powerful face; there, above all, was the Kruger beard which +I had sought to evoke (if I may use the verb) from under the features +of Mr. Masterman. Whether he had the umbrella or not I was too much +emotionally shaken to observe; he had not the stone lions with him, or +Mrs. Kruger; and what he was doing in that dark shed I cannot imagine, +but I suppose he was oppressing an Outlander. + +I was surprised, I must confess, to meet President Kruger in +Somersetshire during the war. I had no idea that he was in the +neighbourhood. But a yet more arresting surprise awaited me. Mr. Kruger +regarded me for some moments with a dubious grey eye, and then addressed +me with a strong Somersetshire accent. A curious cold shock went through +me to hear that inappropriate voice coming out of that familiar form. +It was as if you met a Chinaman, with pigtail and yellow jacket, and he +began to talk broad Scotch. But the next moment, of course, I understood +the situation. We had much underrated the Boers in supposing that the +Boer education was incomplete. In pursuit of his ruthless plot against +our island home, the terrible President had learnt not only English, but +all the dialects at a moment's notice to win over a Lancashire merchant +or seduce a Northumberland Fusilier. No doubt, if I asked him, this +stout old gentleman could grind out Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, +and so on, like the tunes in a barrel organ. I could not wonder if +our plain, true-hearted German millionaires fell before a cunning so +penetrated with culture as this. + +..... + +And now I come to the third and greatest surprise of all that this +strange old man gave me. When he asked me, dryly enough, but not without +a certain steady civility that belongs to old-fashioned country people, +what I wanted and what I was doing, I told him the facts of the case, +explaining my political mission and the almost angelic qualities of the +Liberal candidate. Whereupon, this old man became suddenly transfigured +in the sunlight into a devil of wrath. It was some time before I could +understand a word he said, but the one word that kept on recurring was +the word "Kruger," and it was invariably accompanied with a volley of +violent terms. Was I for old Kruger, was I? Did I come to him and want +him to help old Kruger? I ought to be ashamed, I was... and here he +became once more obscure. The one thing that he made quite clear was +that he wouldn't do anything for Kruger. + +"But you ARE Kruger," burst from my lips, in a natural explosion of +reasonableness. "You ARE Kruger, aren't you?" + +After this innocent CRI DE COEUR of mine, I thought at first there would +be a fight, and I remembered with regret that the President in early +life had had a hobby of killing lions. But really I began to think that +I had been mistaken, and that it was not the President after all. There +was a confounding sincerity in the anger with which he declared that he +was Farmer Bowles, and everybody knowed it. I appeased him eventually +and parted from him at the door of his farmhouse, where he left me +with a few tags of religion, which again raised my suspicions of +his identity. In the coffee-room to which I returned there was an +illustrated paper with a picture of President Kruger, and he and Farmer +Bowles were as like as two peas. There was a picture also of a group of +Outlander leaders, and the faces of them, leering and triumphant, were +perhaps unduly darkened by the photograph, but they seemed to me like +the faces of a distant and hostile people. + +I saw the old man once again on the fierce night of the poll, when he +drove down our Liberal lines in a little cart ablaze with the blue Tory +ribbons, for he was a man who would carry his colours everywhere. It +was evening, and the warm western light was on the grey hair and heavy +massive features of that good old man. I knew as one knows a fact of +sense that if Spanish and German stockbrokers had flooded his farm +or country he would have fought them for ever, not fiercely like an +Irishman, but with the ponderous courage and ponderous cunning of the +Boer. I knew that without seeing it, as certainly as I knew without +seeing it that when he went into the polling room he put his cross +against the Conservative name. Then he came out again, having given his +vote and looking more like Kruger than ever. And at the same hour on +the same night thousands upon thousands of English Krugers gave the +same vote. And thus Kruger was pulled down and the dark-faced men in the +photograph reigned in his stead. + + + + +XX. The Giant + +I sometimes fancy that every great city must have been built by night. +At least, it is only at night that every part of a great city is +great. All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps +architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. At +least, I think many people of those nobler trades that work by night +(journalists, policemen, burglars, coffee-stall keepers, and such +mistaken enthusiasts as refuse to go home till morning) must often have +stood admiring some black bulk of building with a crown of battlements +or a crest of spires and then burst into tears at daybreak to discover +that it was only a haberdasher's shop with huge gold letters across the +face of it. + +..... + +I had a sensation of this sort the other day as I happened to be +wandering in the Temple Gardens towards the end of twilight. I sat down +on a bench with my back to the river, happening to choose such a place +that a huge angle and facade of building jutting out from the Strand +sat above me like an incubus. I dare say that if I took the same seat +to-morrow by daylight I should find the impression entirely false. In +sunlight the thing might seem almost distant; but in that half-darkness +it seemed as if the walls were almost falling upon me. Never before have +I had so strongly the sense which makes people pessimists in politics, +the sense of the hopeless height of the high places of the earth. That +pile of wealth and power, whatever was its name, went up above and +beyond me like a cliff that no living thing could climb. I had an +irrational sense that this thing had to be fought, that I had to fight +it; and that I could offer nothing to the occasion but an indolent +journalist with a walking-stick. + +Almost as I had the thought, two windows were lit in that black, blind +face. It was as if two eyes had opened in the huge face of a sleeping +giant; the eyes were too close together, and gave it the suggestion of a +bestial sneer. And either by accident of this light or of some other, I +could now read the big letters which spaced themselves across the front; +it was the Babylon Hotel. It was the perfect symbol of everything that I +should like to pull down with my hands if I could. Reared by a detected +robber, it is framed to be the fashionable and luxurious home of +undetected robbers. In the house of man are many mansions; but there is +a class of men who feel normal nowhere except in the Babylon Hotel or +in Dartmoor Gaol. That big black face, which was staring at me with its +flaming eyes too close together, that was indeed the giant of all epic +and fairy tales. But, alas! I was not the giant-killer; the hour had +come, but not the man. I sat down on the seat again (I had had one wild +impulse to climb up the front of the hotel and fall in at one of the +windows), and I tried to think, as all decent people are thinking, what +one can really do. And all the time that oppressive wall went up in +front of me, and took hold upon the heavens like a house of the gods. + +..... + +It is remarkable that in so many great wars it has been the defeated +who have won. The people who were left worst at the end of the war +were generally the people who were left best at the end of the whole +business. For instance, the Crusades ended in the defeat of the +Christians. But they did not end in the decline of the Christians; they +ended in the decline of the Saracens. That huge prophetic wave of Moslem +power which had hung in the very heavens above the towns of Christendom, +that wave was broken, and never came on again. The Crusaders had saved +Paris in the act of losing Jerusalem. The same applies to that epic of +Republican war in the eighteenth century to which we Liberals owe our +political creed. The French Revolution ended in defeat: the kings came +back across a carpet of dead at Waterloo. The Revolution had lost its +last battle; but it had gained its first object. It had cut a chasm. +The world has never been the same since. No one after that has ever been +able to treat the poor merely as a pavement. + +These jewels of God, the poor, are still treated as mere stones of the +street; but as stones that may sometimes fly. If it please God, you and +I may see some of the stones flying again before we see death. But here +I only remark the interesting fact that the conquered almost always +conquer. Sparta killed Athens with a final blow, and she was born again. +Sparta went away victorious, and died slowly of her own wounds. The +Boers lost the South African War and gained South Africa. + +And this is really all that we can do when we fight something really +stronger than ourselves; we can deal it its death-wound one moment; it +deals us death in the end. It is something if we can shock and jar the +unthinking impetus and enormous innocence of evil; just as a pebble on +a railway can stagger the Scotch express. It is enough for the great +martyrs and criminals of the French revolution, that they have surprised +for all time the secret weakness of the strong. They have awakened and +set leaping and quivering in his crypt for ever the coward in the hearts +of kings. + +..... + +When Jack the Giant-Killer really first saw the giant his experience was +not such as has been generally supposed. If you care to hear it I will +tell you the real story of Jack the Giant-Killer. To begin with, the +most awful thing which Jack first felt about the giant was that he was +not a giant. He came striding across an interminable wooded plain, and +against its remote horizon the giant was quite a small figure, like a +figure in a picture--he seemed merely a man walking across the grass. +Then Jack was shocked by remembering that the grass which the man was +treading down was one of the tallest forests upon that plain. The man +came nearer and nearer, growing bigger and bigger, and at the instant +when he passed the possible stature of humanity Jack almost screamed. +The rest was an intolerable apocalypse. + +The giant had the one frightful quality of a miracle; the more he became +incredible the more he became solid. The less one could believe in him +the more plainly one could see him. It was unbearable that so much of +the sky should be occupied by one human face. His eyes, which had stood +out like bow windows, became bigger yet, and there was no metaphor that +could contain their bigness; yet still they were human eyes. Jack's +intellect was utterly gone under that huge hypnotism of the face that +filled the sky; his last hope was submerged, his five wits all still +with terror. + +But there stood up in him still a kind of cold chivalry, a dignity of +dead honour that would not forget the small and futile sword in his +hand. He rushed at one of the colossal feet of this human tower, and +when he came quite close to it the ankle-bone arched over him like a +cave. Then he planted the point of his sword against the foot and leant +on it with all his weight, till it went up to the hilt and broke the +hilt, and then snapped just under it. And it was plain that the giant +felt a sort of prick, for he snatched up his great foot into his great +hand for an instant; and then, putting it down again, he bent over and +stared at the ground until he had seen his enemy. + +Then he picked up Jack between a big finger and thumb and threw him +away; and as Jack went through the air he felt as if he were flying from +system to system through the universe of stars. But, as the giant had +thrown him away carelessly, he did not strike a stone, but struck soft +mire by the side of a distant river. There he lay insensible for several +hours; but when he awoke again his horrible conqueror was still in +sight. He was striding away across the void and wooded plain towards +where it ended in the sea; and by this time he was only much higher than +any of the hills. He grew less and less indeed; but only as a really +high mountain grows at last less and less when we leave it in a railway +train. Half an hour afterwards he was a bright blue colour, as are the +distant hills; but his outline was still human and still gigantic. Then +the big blue figure seemed to come to the brink of the big blue sea, and +even as it did so it altered its attitude. Jack, stunned and bleeding, +lifted himself laboriously upon one elbow to stare. The giant once more +caught hold of his ankle, wavered twice as in a wind, and then went over +into the great sea which washes the whole world, and which, alone of all +things God has made, was big enough to drown him. + + + + +XXI. A Great Man + +People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always +seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils +from private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous +but blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for +exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything +so valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never +gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million +times in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to +meet him in real life. The Yellow Pressman seems to have no power of +catching the first fresh fact about a man that dominates all after +impressions. For instance, before I met Bernard Shaw I heard that +he spoke with a reckless desire for paradox or a sneering hatred of +sentiment; but I never knew till he opened his mouth that he spoke with +an Irish accent, which is more important than all the other criticisms +put together. + +Journalism is not personal enough. So far from digging out private +personalities, it cannot even report the obvious personalities on the +surface. Now there is one vivid and even bodily impression of this kind +which we have all felt when we met great poets or politicians, but which +never finds its way into the newspapers. I mean the impression that +they are much older than we thought they were. We connect great men with +their great triumphs, which generally happened some years ago, and many +recruits enthusiastic for the thin Napoleon of Marengo must have found +themselves in the presence of the fat Napoleon of Leipzic. + +I remember reading a newspaper account of how a certain rising +politician confronted the House of Lords with the enthusiasm almost of +boyhood. It described how his "brave young voice" rang in the rafters. +I also remember that I met him some days after, and he was considerably +older than my own father. I mention this truth for only one purpose: all +this generalisation leads up to only one fact--the fact that I once met +a great man who was younger than I expected. + +..... + +I had come over the wooded wall from the villages about Epsom, and down +a stumbling path between trees towards the valley in which Dorking lies. +A warm sunlight was working its way through the leafage; a sunlight +which though of saintless gold had taken on the quality of evening. It +was such sunlight as reminds a man that the sun begins to set an instant +after noon. It seemed to lessen as the wood strengthened and the road +sank. + +I had a sensation peculiar to such entangled descents; I felt that the +treetops that closed above me were the fixed and real things, certain as +the level of the sea; but that the solid earth was every instant failing +under my feet. In a little while that splendid sunlight showed only in +splashes, like flaming stars and suns in the dome of green sky. Around +me in that emerald twilight were trunks of trees of every plain or +twisted type; it was like a chapel supported on columns of every earthly +and unearthly style of architecture. + +Without intention my mind grew full of fancies on the nature of the +forest; on the whole philosophy of mystery and force. For the meaning of +woods is the combination of energy with complexity. A forest is not +in the least rude or barbarous; it is only dense with delicacy. Unique +shapes that an artist would copy or a philosopher watch for years if he +found them in an open plain are here mingled and confounded; but it is +not a darkness of deformity. It is a darkness of life; a darkness of +perfection. And I began to think how much of the highest human obscurity +is like this, and how much men have misunderstood it. People will tell +you, for instance, that theology became elaborate because it was dead. +Believe me, if it had been dead it would never have become elaborate; it +is only the live tree that grows too many branches. + +..... + +These trees thinned and fell away from each other, and I came out into +deep grass and a road. I remember being surprised that the evening was +so far advanced; I had a fancy that this valley had a sunset all to +itself. I went along that road according to directions that had been +given me, and passed the gateway in a slight paling beyond which the +wood changed only faintly to a garden. It was as if the curious courtesy +and fineness of that character I was to meet went out from him upon the +valley; for I felt on all these things the finger of that quality which +the old English called "faerie"; it is the quality which those can never +understand who think of the past as merely brutal; it is an ancient +elegance such as there is in trees. I went through the garden and saw +an old man sitting by a table, looking smallish in his big chair. He +was already an invalid, and his hair and beard were both white; not like +snow, for snow is cold and heavy, but like something feathery, or even +fierce; rather they were white like the white thistledown. I came up +quite close to him; he looked at me as he put out his frail hand, and +I saw of a sudden that his eyes were startlingly young. He was the one +great man of the old world whom I have met who was not a mere statue +over his own grave. + +He was deaf and he talked like a torrent. He did not talk about the +books he had written; he was far too much alive for that. He talked +about the books he had not written. He unrolled a purple bundle of +romances which he had never had time to sell. He asked me to write one +of the stories for him, as he would have asked the milkman, if he had +been talking to the milkman. It was a splendid and frantic story, a sort +of astronomical farce. It was all about a man who was rushing up to the +Royal Society with the only possible way of avoiding an earth-destroying +comet; and it showed how, even on this huge errand, the man was tripped +up at every other minute by his own weakness and vanities; how he lost +a train by trifling or was put in gaol for brawling. That is only one +of them; there were ten or twenty more. Another, I dimly remember, was +a version of the fall of Parnell; the idea that a quite honest man might +be secret from a pure love of secrecy, of solitary self-control. I went +out of that garden with a blurred sensation of the million possibilities +of creative literature. The feeling increased as my way fell back into +the wood; for a wood is a palace with a million corridors that cross +each other everywhere. I really had the feeling that I had seen the +creative quality; which is supernatural. I had seen what Virgil calls +the Old Man of the Forest: I had seen an elf. The trees thronged behind +my path; I have never seen him again; and now I shall not see him, +because he died last Tuesday. + + + + +XXII. The Orthodox Barber + +Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love +of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it +would, if they had it. There is a very real thing which may be called +the love of humanity; in our time it exists almost entirely among what +are called uneducated people; and it does not exist at all among the +people who talk about it. + +A positive pleasure in being in the presence of any other human being is +chiefly remarkable, for instance, in the masses on Bank Holiday; that is +why they are so much nearer Heaven (despite appearances) than any other +part of our population. + +I remember seeing a crowd of factory girls getting into an empty train +at a wayside country station. There were about twenty of them; they all +got into one carriage; and they left all the rest of the train entirely +empty. That is the real love of humanity. That is the definite pleasure +in the immediate proximity of one's own kind. Only this coarse, rank, +real love of men seems to be entirely lacking in those who propose +the love of humanity as a substitute for all other love; honourable, +rationalistic idealists. + +I can well remember the explosion of human joy which marked the sudden +starting of that train; all the factory girls who could not find seats +(and they must have been the majority) relieving their feelings by +jumping up and down. Now I have never seen any rationalistic idealists +do this. I have never seen twenty modern philosophers crowd into one +third-class carriage for the mere pleasure of being together. I have +never seen twenty Mr. McCabes all in one carriage and all jumping up and +down. + +Some people express a fear that vulgar trippers will overrun all +beautiful places, such as Hampstead or Burnham Beeches. But their fear +is unreasonable; because trippers always prefer to trip together; +they pack as close as they can; they have a suffocating passion of +philanthropy. + +..... + +But among the minor and milder aspects of the same principle, I have no +hesitation in placing the problem of the colloquial barber. Before any +modern man talks with authority about loving men, I insist (I insist +with violence) that he shall always be very much pleased when his barber +tries to talk to him. His barber is humanity: let him love that. If he +is not pleased at this, I will not accept any substitute in the way of +interest in the Congo or the future of Japan. If a man cannot love his +barber whom he has seen, how shall he love the Japanese whom he has not +seen? + +It is urged against the barber that he begins by talking about the +weather; so do all dukes and diplomatists, only that they talk about +it with ostentatious fatigue and indifference, whereas the barber talks +about it with an astonishing, nay incredible, freshness of interest. It +is objected to him that he tells people that they are going bald. +That is to say, his very virtues are cast up against him; he is blamed +because, being a specialist, he is a sincere specialist, and because, +being a tradesman, he is not entirely a slave. But the only proof of +such things is by example; therefore I will prove the excellence of the +conversation of barbers by a specific case. Lest any one should accuse +me of attempting to prove it by fictitious means, I beg to say quite +seriously that though I forget the exact language employed, the +following conversation between me and a human (I trust), living barber +really took place a few days ago. + +..... + +I had been invited to some At Home to meet the Colonial Premiers, and +lest I should be mistaken for some partly reformed bush-ranger out +of the interior of Australia I went into a shop in the Strand to get +shaved. While I was undergoing the torture the man said to me: + +"There seems to be a lot in the papers about this new shaving, sir. It +seems you can shave yourself with anything--with a stick or a stone or a +pole or a poker" (here I began for the first time to detect a sarcastic +intonation) "or a shovel or a----" + +Here he hesitated for a word, and I, although I knew nothing about the +matter, helped him out with suggestions in the same rhetorical vein. + +"Or a button-hook," I said, "or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram or a +piston-rod----" + +He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, "Or a curtain rod or a +candle-stick, or a----" + +"Cow-catcher," I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic +duet for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told +me. He explained the thing eloquently and at length. + +"The funny part of it is," he said, "that the thing isn't new at all. +It's been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before. There is +always a notion that the razor might be done without somehow. But none +of those schemes ever came to anything; and I don't believe myself that +this will." + +"Why, as to that," I said, rising slowly from the chair and trying to +put on my coat inside out, "I don't know how it may be in the case of +you and your new shaving. Shaving, with all respect to you, is a trivial +and materialistic thing, and in such things startling inventions are +sometimes made. But what you say reminds me in some dark and dreamy +fashion of something else. I recall it especially when you tell me, +with such evident experience and sincerity, that the new shaving is not +really new. My friend, the human race is always trying this dodge of +making everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts +off one thing it shifts on to another. If one man has not the toil of +preparing a man's chin, I suppose that some other man has the toil of +preparing something very curious to put on a man's chin. It would be +nice if we could be shaved without troubling anybody. It would be nicer +still if we could go unshaved without annoying anybody-- + + "'But, O wise friend, chief Barber of the Strand, + Brother, nor you nor I have made the world.' + +"Whoever made it, who is wiser, and we hope better than we, made it +under strange limitations, and with painful conditions of pleasure. + +"In the first and darkest of its books it is fiercely written that a man +shall not eat his cake and have it; and though all men talked until the +stars were old it would still be true that a man who has lost his razor +could not shave with it. But every now and then men jump up with the new +something or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, +that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there is no real +difference between being shaved and not being shaved. The difference, +they say, is only a difference of degree; everything is evolutionary +and relative. Shavedness is immanent in man. Every ten-penny nail is +a Potential Razor. The superstitious people of the past (they say) +believed that a lot of black bristles standing out at right angles to +one's face was a positive affair. But the higher criticism teaches us +better. Bristles are merely negative. They are a Shadow where Shaving +should be. + +"Well, it all goes on, and I suppose it all means something. But a +baby is the Kingdom of God, and if you try to kiss a baby he will know +whether you are shaved or not. Perhaps I am mixing up being shaved and +being saved; my democratic sympathies have always led me to drop my +'h's.' In another moment I may suggest that goats represent the +lost because goats have long beards. This is growing altogether too +allegorical. + +"Nevertheless," I added, as I paid the bill, "I have really been +profoundly interested in what you told me about the New Shaving. Have +you ever heard of a thing called the New theology?" + +He smiled and said that he had not. + + + + +XXIII. The Toy Theatre + +There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; +and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys takes so +very much more time and trouble than anything else. Playing as children +mean playing is the most serious thing in the world; and as soon as we +have small duties or small sorrows we have to abandon to some extent +so enormous and ambitious a plan of life. We have enough strength +for politics and commerce and art and philosophy; we have not enough +strength for play. This is a truth which every one will recognize who, +as a child, has ever played with anything at all; any one who has played +with bricks, any one who has played with dolls, any one who has played +with tin soldiers. My journalistic work, which earns money, is not +pursued with such awful persistency as that work which earned nothing. + +..... + +Take the case of bricks. If you publish a book to-morrow in twelve +volumes (it would be just like you) on "The Theory and Practice +of European Architecture," your work may be laborious, but it is +fundamentally frivolous. It is not serious as the work of a child piling +one brick on the other is serious; for the simple reason that if your +book is a bad book no one will ever be able ultimately and entirely to +prove to you that it is a bad book. Whereas if his balance of bricks +is a bad balance of bricks, it will simply tumble down. And if I know +anything of children, he will set to work solemnly and sadly to build it +up again. Whereas, if I know anything of authors, nothing would induce +you to write your book again, or even to think of it again if you could +help it. + +Take the case of dolls. It is much easier to care for an educational +cause than to care for a doll. It is as easy to write an article on +education as to write an article on toffee or tramcars or anything else. +But it is almost as difficult to look after a doll as to look after a +child. The little girls that I meet in the little streets of Battersea +worship their dolls in a way that reminds one not so much of play as +idolatry. In some cases the love and care of the artistic symbol has +actually become more important than the human reality which it was, I +suppose, originally meant to symbolize. + +I remember a Battersea little girl who wheeled her large baby sister +stuffed into a doll's perambulator. When questioned on this course of +conduct, she replied: "I haven't got a dolly, and Baby is pretending to +be my dolly." Nature was indeed imitating art. First a doll had been a +substitute for a child; afterwards a child was a mere substitute for a +doll. But that opens other matters; the point is here that such devotion +takes up most of the brain and most of the life; much as if it were +really the thing which it is supposed to symbolize. The point is that +the man writing on motherhood is merely an educationalist; the child +playing with a doll is a mother. + +Take the case of soldiers. A man writing an article on military strategy +is simply a man writing an article; a horrid sight. But a boy making a +campaign with tin soldiers is like a General making a campaign with live +soldiers. He must to the limit of his juvenile powers think about the +thing; whereas the war correspondent need not think at all. I remember +a war correspondent who remarked after the capture of Methuen: "This +renewed activity on the part of Delarey is probably due to his +being short of stores." The same military critic had mentioned a few +paragraphs before that Delarey was being hard pressed by a column which +was pursuing him under the command of Methuen. Methuen chased Delarey; +and Delarey's activity was due to his being short of stores. Otherwise +he would have stood quite still while he was chased. I run after Jones +with a hatchet, and if he turns round and tries to get rid of me the +only possible explanation is that he has a very small balance at his +bankers. I cannot believe that any boy playing at soldiers would be as +idiotic as this. But then any one playing at anything has to be serious. +Whereas, as I have only too good reason to know, if you are writing an +article you can say anything that comes into your head. + +..... + +Broadly, then, what keeps adults from joining in children's games is, +generally speaking, not that they have no pleasure in them; it is simply +that they have no leisure for them. It is that they cannot afford the +expenditure of toil and time and consideration for so grand and grave a +scheme. I have been myself attempting for some time past to complete +a play in a small toy theatre, the sort of toy theatre that used to be +called Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured; only that I drew and coloured +the figures and scenes myself. Hence I was free from the degrading +obligation of having to pay either a penny or twopence; I only had to +pay a shilling a sheet for good cardboard and a shilling a box for bad +water colours. The kind of miniature stage I mean is probably familiar +to every one; it is never more than a development of the stage which +Skelt made and Stevenson celebrated. + +But though I have worked much harder at the toy theatre than I ever +worked at any tale or article, I cannot finish it; the work seems +too heavy for me. I have to break off and betake myself to lighter +employments; such as the biographies of great men. The play of "St. +George and the Dragon," over which I have burnt the midnight oil (you +must colour the thing by lamplight because that is how it will be seen), +still lacks most conspicuously, alas! two wings of the Sultan's Palace, +and also some comprehensible and workable way of getting up the curtain. + +All this gives me a feeling touching the real meaning of immortality. +In this world we cannot have pure pleasure. This is partly because +pure pleasure would be dangerous to us and to our neighbours. But it is +partly because pure pleasure is a great deal too much trouble. If I am +ever in any other and better world, I hope that I shall have enough +time to play with nothing but toy theatres; and I hope that I shall have +enough divine and superhuman energy to act at least one play in them +without a hitch. + +..... + +Meanwhile the philosophy of toy theatres is worth any one's +consideration. All the essential morals which modern men need to learn +could be deduced from this toy. Artistically considered, it reminds us +of the main principle of art, the principle which is in most danger +of being forgotten in our time. I mean the fact that art consists of +limitation; the fact that art is limitation. Art does not consist in +expanding things. Art consists of cutting things down, as I cut down +with a pair of scissors my very ugly figures of St. George and the +Dragon. Plato, who liked definite ideas, would like my cardboard dragon; +for though the creature has few other artistic merits he is at least +dragonish. The modern philosopher, who likes infinity, is quite welcome +to a sheet of the plain cardboard. The most artistic thing about the +theatrical art is the fact that the spectator looks at the whole thing +through a window. This is true even of theatres inferior to my own; even +at the Court Theatre or His Majesty's you are looking through a window; +an unusually large window. But the advantage of the small theatre +exactly is that you are looking through a small window. Has not every +one noticed how sweet and startling any landscape looks when seen +through an arch? This strong, square shape, this shutting off of +everything else is not only an assistance to beauty; it is the essential +of beauty. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. + +This especially is true of the toy theatre; that, by reducing the scale +of events it can introduce much larger events. Because it is small it +could easily represent the earthquake in Jamaica. Because it is small it +could easily represent the Day of Judgment. Exactly in so far as it is +limited, so far it could play easily with falling cities or with falling +stars. Meanwhile the big theatres are obliged to be economical because +they are big. When we have understood this fact we shall have understood +something of the reason why the world has always been first inspired by +small nationalities. The vast Greek philosophy could fit easier into +the small city of Athens than into the immense Empire of Persia. In the +narrow streets of Florence Dante felt that there was room for Purgatory +and Heaven and Hell. He would have been stifled by the British Empire. +Great empires are necessarily prosaic; for it is beyond human power to +act a great poem upon so great a scale. You can only represent very big +ideas in very small spaces. My toy theatre is as philosophical as the +drama of Athens. + + + + +XXIV. A Tragedy of Twopence + +My relations with the readers of this page have been long and pleasant, +but--perhaps for that very reason--I feel that the time has come when I +ought to confess the one great crime of my life. It happened a long time +ago; but it is not uncommon for a belated burst of remorse to reveal +such dark episodes long after they have occurred. It has nothing to do +with the orgies of the Anti-Puritan League. That body is so offensively +respectable that a newspaper, in describing it the other day, referred +to my friend Mr. Edgar Jepson as Canon Edgar Jepson; and it is believed +that similar titles are intended for all of us. No; it is not by the +conduct of Archbishop Crane, of Dean Chesterton, of the Rev. James +Douglas, of Monsignor Bland, and even of that fine and virile old +ecclesiastic, Cardinal Nesbit, that I wish (or rather, am driven by +my conscience) to make this declaration. The crime was committed in +solitude and without accomplices. Alone I did it. Let me, with the +characteristic thirst of penitents to get the worst of the confession +over, state it first of all in its most dreadful and indefensible form. +There is at the present moment in a town in Germany (unless he has died +of rage on discovering his wrong), a restaurant-keeper to whom I still +owe twopence. I last left his open-air restaurant knowing that I owed +him twopence. I carried it away under his nose, despite the fact that +the nose was a decidedly Jewish one. I have never paid him, and it is +highly improbable that I ever shall. How did this villainy come to occur +in a life which has been, generally speaking, deficient in the dexterity +necessary for fraud? The story is as follows--and it has a moral, though +there may not be room for that. + +..... + +It is a fair general rule for those travelling on the Continent that the +easiest way of talking in a foreign language is to talk philosophy. The +most difficult kind of talking is to talk about common necessities. The +reason is obvious. The names of common necessities vary completely +with each nation and are generally somewhat odd and quaint. How, for +instance, could a Frenchman suppose that a coalbox would be called a +"scuttle"? If he has ever seen the word scuttle it has been in the +Jingo Press, where the "policy of scuttle" is used whenever we give +up something to a small Power like Liberals, instead of giving up +everything to a great Power, like Imperialists. What Englishman in +Germany would be poet enough to guess that the Germans call a glove a +"hand-shoe." Nations name their necessities by nicknames, so to +speak. They call their tubs and stools by quaint, elvish, and almost +affectionate names, as if they were their own children! But any one can +argue about abstract things in a foreign language who has ever got as +far as Exercise IV. in a primer. For as soon as he can put a +sentence together at all he finds that the words used in abstract or +philosophical discussions are almost the same in all nations. They are +the same, for the simple reason that they all come from the things that +were the roots of our common civilisation. From Christianity, from +the Roman Empire, from the mediaeval Church, or the French Revolution. +"Nation," "citizen," "religion," "philosophy," "authority," "the +Republic," words like these are nearly the same in all the countries in +which we travel. Restrain, therefore, your exuberant admiration for the +young man who can argue with six French atheists when he first lands at +Dieppe. Even I can do that. But very likely the same young man does not +know the French for a shoe-horn. But to this generalisation there +are three great exceptions. (1) In the case of countries that are not +European at all, and have never had our civic conceptions, or the old +Latin scholarship. I do not pretend that the Patagonian phrase for +"citizenship" at once leaps to the mind, or that a Dyak's word for "the +Republic" has been familiar to me from the nursery. (2) In the case of +Germany, where, although the principle does apply to many words such +as "nation" and "philosophy," it does not apply so generally, because +Germany has had a special and deliberate policy of encouraging the +purely German part of its language. (3) In the case where one does not +know any of the language at all, as is generally the case with me. + +..... + +Such at least was my situation on the dark day on which I committed my +crime. Two of the exceptional conditions which I have mentioned were +combined. I was walking about a German town, and I knew no German. I +knew, however, two or three of those great and solemn words which hold +our European civilisation together--one of which is "cigar." As it was a +hot and dreamy day, I sat down at a table in a sort of beer-garden, and +ordered a cigar and a pot of lager. I drank the lager, and paid for +it. I smoked the cigar, forgot to pay for it, and walked away, gazing +rapturously at the royal outline of the Taunus mountains. After about +ten minutes, I suddenly remembered that I had not paid for the cigar. I +went back to the place of refreshment, and put down the money. But the +proprietor also had forgotten the cigar, and he merely said guttural +things in a tone of query, asking me, I suppose, what I wanted. I said +"cigar," and he gave me a cigar. I endeavoured while putting down the +money to wave away the cigar with gestures of refusal. He thought that +my rejection was of the nature of a condemnation of that particular +cigar, and brought me another. I whirled my arms like a windmill, +seeking to convey by the sweeping universality of my gesture that my +rejection was a rejection of cigars in general, not of that particular +article. He mistook this for the ordinary impatience of common men, and +rushed forward, his hands filled with miscellaneous cigars, pressing +them upon me. In desperation I tried other kinds of pantomime, but the +more cigars I refused the more and more rare and precious cigars were +brought out of the deeps and recesses of the establishment. I tried in +vain to think of a way of conveying to him the fact that I had already +had the cigar. I imitated the action of a citizen smoking, knocking off +and throwing away a cigar. The watchful proprietor only thought I was +rehearsing (as in an ecstasy of anticipation) the joys of the cigar he +was going to give me. At last I retired baffled: he would not take the +money and leave the cigars alone. So that this restaurant-keeper (in +whose face a love of money shone like the sun at noonday) flatly and +firmly refused to receive the twopence that I certainly owed him; and +I took that twopence of his away with me and rioted on it for months. I +hope that on the last day the angels will break the truth very gently to +that unhappy man. + +..... + +This is the true and exact account of the Great Cigar Fraud, and the +moral of it is this--that civilisation is founded upon abstractions. The +idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed by physical motions at +all, because it is an abstract idea. And civilisation obviously would be +nothing without debt. So when hard-headed fellows who study scientific +sociology (which does not exist) come and tell you that civilisation is +material or indifferent to the abstract, just ask yourselves how many of +the things that make up our Society, the Law, or the Stocks and Shares, +or the National Debt, you would be able to convey with your face and +your ten fingers by grinning and gesticulating to a German innkeeper. + + + + +XXV. A Cab Ride Across Country + +Sown somewhere far off in the shallow dales of Hertfordshire there lies +a village of great beauty, and I doubt not of admirable virtue, but of +eccentric and unbalanced literary taste, which asked the present writer +to come down to it on Sunday afternoon and give an address. + +Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon, +owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws and +customs have fallen in connection with the seventh day. It is not +Puritanism; it is simply anarchy. I should have some sympathy with the +Jewish Sabbath, if it were a Jewish Sabbath, and that for three reasons; +first, that religion is an intrinsically sympathetic thing; second, that +I cannot conceive any religion worth calling a religion without a fixed +and material observance; and third, that the particular observance of +sitting still and doing no work is one that suits my temperament down to +the ground. + +But the absurdity of the modern English convention is that it does not +let a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him up when it has forced +him to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism does not forbid us to ask a man +in Battersea to come and talk in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his +getting there. I can understand that a deity might be worshipped with +joys, with flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. I can +understand that a deity might be worshipped with sorrows. But I cannot +imagine any deity being worshipped with inconveniences. Let the good +Moslem go to Mecca, or let him abide in his tent, according to his +feelings for religious symbols. But surely Allah cannot see anything +particularly dignified in his servant being misled by the time-table, +finding that the old Mecca express is not running, missing his +connection at Bagdad, or having to wait three hours in a small side +station outside Damascus. + +So it was with me on this occasion. I found there was no telegraph +service at all to this place; I found there was only one weak thread +of train-service. Now if this had been the authority of real English +religion, I should have submitted to it at once. If I believed that +the telegraph clerk could not send the telegram because he was at that +moment rigid in an ecstasy of prayer, I should think all telegrams +unimportant in comparison. If I could believe that railway porters when +relieved from their duties rushed with passion to the nearest place of +worship, I should say that all lectures and everything else ought to +give way to such a consideration. I should not complain if the national +faith forbade me to make any appointments of labour or self-expression +on the Sabbath. But, as it is, it only tells me that I may very probably +keep the Sabbath by not keeping the appointment. + +..... + +But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there was +only one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could even get +within several hours or several miles of the time or place. I therefore +went to the telephone, which is one of my favourite toys, and down which +I have shouted many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon +art and morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered +that one could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be +cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the +advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer +words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a +taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. I have not a word to say in +general either against telephones or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two +of the purest and most poetic of the creations of modern scientific +civilisation. Unfortunately, when the taxi-cab started, it did exactly +what modern scientific civilisation has done--it broke down. The result +of this was that when I arrived at King's Cross my only train was gone; +there was a Sabbath calm in the station, a calm in the eyes of the +porters, and in my breast, if calm at all, if any calm, a calm despair. + +There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my breast on first +making the discovery; and it was turned to blinding horror when I learnt +that I could not even send a telegram to the organisers of the meeting. +To leave my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; to +leave them without any intimation was simply low. I reasoned with the +official. I said: "Do you really mean to say that if my brother were +dying and my mother in this place, I could not communicate with her?" He +was a man of literal and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was +dying. I answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health, +but that I was inquiring upon a question of principle. What would happen +if England were invaded, or if I alone knew how to turn aside a comet or +an earthquake. He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible +spirit, but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this +particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element of the +outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang up ungovernable, +and I decided that I would not be a cad merely because some of my remote +ancestors had been Calvinists. I would keep my appointment if I lost all +my money and all my wits. I went out into the quiet London street, where +my quiet London cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty +morning. I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the +London driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. And he did. + +..... + +I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful weather, even in a +motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver, +not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road. +I urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, but +he said (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate sense of +adventure) that he would rather do it when we arrived--if we ever did. I +was by no means so delicate; I bought a varied selection of pork-pies +at a little shop that was open (why was that shop open?--it is all a +mystery), and ate them as we went along. The beginning was sombre and +irritating. I was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a +baby; with the motor for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday. +And the sight of the northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did +not decrease, my gloom: Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness in its +squalor; Battersea and Camberwell have an indescribable bustle of +democracy; but the poor parts of North London... well, perhaps I saw +them wrongly under that ashen morning and on that foolish errand. + +It was one of those days which more than once this year broke the +retreat of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. We +were already clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace +through a borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, when +the grey showed golden patches and a good light began to glitter on +everything. The cab went quicker and quicker. The open land whirled +wider and wider; but I did not lose my sense of being battled with +and thwarted that I had felt in the thronged slums. Rather the feeling +increased, because of the great difficulty of space and time. The faster +went the car, the fiercer and thicker I felt the fight. + +The whole landscape seemed charging at me--and just missing me. The +tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; the very trees +seemed like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving it by a hair's +breadth. Across some vast, smooth valley I saw a beech-tree by the +white road stand up little and defiant. It grew bigger and bigger with +blinding rapidity. It charged me like a tilting knight, seemed to hack +at my head, and pass by. Sometimes when we went round a curve of road, +the effect was yet more awful. It seemed as if some tree or windmill +swung round to smite like a boomerang. The sun by this time was a +blazing fact; and I saw that all Nature is chivalrous and militant. We +do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we should rather seek the nobler sort +of war; and see all the trees as green banners. + +..... + +I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was deciding to leave. +When my cab came reeling into the market-place they decided, with +evident disappointment, to remain. Over the lecture I draw a veil. +When I came back home I was called to the telephone, and a meek voice +expressed regret for the failure of the motor-cab, and even said +something about any reasonable payment. "Whom can I pay for my own +superb experience? What is the usual charge for seeing the clouds +shattered by the sun? What is the market price of a tree blue on the +sky-line and then blinding white in the sun? Mention your price for that +windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks in the garden. Let me pay you +for..." Here it was, I think, that we were cut off. + + + + +XXVI. The Two Noises + +For three days and three nights the sea had charged England as Napoleon +charged her at Waterloo. The phrase is instinctive, because away to +the last grey line of the sea there was only the look of galloping +squadrons, impetuous, but with a common purpose. The sea came on like +cavalry, and when it touched the shore it opened the blazing eyes and +deafening tongues of the artillery. I saw the worst assault at night on +a seaside parade where the sea smote on the doors of England with the +hammers of earthquake, and a white smoke went up into the black heavens. +There one could thoroughly realise what an awful thing a wave really is. +I talk like other people about the rushing swiftness of a wave. But the +horrible thing about a wave is its hideous slowness. It lifts its load +of water laboriously: in that style at once slow and slippery in which +a Titan might lift a load of rock and then let it slip at last to be +shattered into shock of dust. In front of me that night the waves were +not like water: they were like falling city walls. The breaker rose +first as if it did not wish to attack the earth; it wished only to +attack the stars. For a time it stood up in the air as naturally as a +tower; then it went a little wrong in its outline, like a tower that +might some day fall. When it fell it was as if a powder magazine blew +up. + +..... + +I have never seen such a sea. All the time there blew across the land +one of those stiff and throttling winds that one can lean up against +like a wall. One expected anything to be blown out of shape at any +instant; the lamp-post to be snapped like a green stalk, the tree to be +whirled away like a straw. I myself should certainly have been blown out +of shape if I had possessed any shape to be blown out of; for I walked +along the edge of the stone embankment above the black and battering sea +and could not rid myself of the idea that it was an invasion of England. +But as I walked along this edge I was somewhat surprised to find that +as I neared a certain spot another noise mingled with the ceaseless +cannonade of the sea. + +Somewhere at the back, in some pleasure ground or casino or place of +entertainment, an undaunted brass band was playing against the cosmic +uproar. I do not know what band it was. Judging from the boisterous +British Imperialism of most of the airs it played, I should think it was +a German band. But there was no doubt about its energy, and when I came +quite close under it it really drowned the storm. It was playing such +things as "Tommy Atkins" and "You Can Depend on Young Australia," and +many others of which I do not know the words, but I should think they +would be "John, Pat, and Mac, With the Union Jack," or that fine though +unwritten poem, "Wait till the Bull Dog gets a bite of you." Now, I +for one detest Imperialism, but I have a great deal of sympathy with +Jingoism. And there seemed something so touching about this unbroken and +innocent bragging under the brutal menace of Nature that it made, if I +may so put it, two tunes in my mind. It is so obvious and so jolly to +be optimistic about England, especially when you are an optimist--and +an Englishman. But through all that glorious brass came the voice of the +invasion, the undertone of that awful sea. I did a foolish thing. As I +could not express my meaning in an article, I tried to express it in +a poem--a bad one. You can call it what you like. It might be called +"Doubt," or "Brighton." It might be called "The Patriot," or yet again +"The German Band." I would call it "The Two Voices," but that title has +been taken for a grossly inferior poem. This is how it began-- + + "They say the sun is on your knees + A lamp to light your lands from harm, + They say you turn the seven seas + To little brooks about your farm. + I hear the sea and the new song + that calls you empress all day long. + + "(O fallen and fouled! O you that lie + Dying in swamps--you shall not die, + Your rich have secrets, and stronge lust, + Your poor are chased about like dust, + Emptied of anger and surprise-- + And God has gone out of their eyes, + Your cohorts break--your captains lie, + I say to you, you shall not die.)" + +Then I revived a little, remembering that after all there is an English +country that the Imperialists have never found. The British Empire +may annex what it likes, it will never annex England. It has not even +discovered the island, let alone conquered it. I took up the two tunes +again with a greater sympathy for the first-- + + "I know the bright baptismal rains, + I love your tender troubled skies, + I know your little climbing lanes, + Are peering into Paradise, + From open hearth to orchard cool, + How bountiful and beautiful. + + "(O throttled and without a cry, + O strangled and stabbed, you shall not die, + The frightful word is on your walls, + The east sea to the west sea calls, + The stars are dying in the sky, + You shall not die; you shall not die.)" + +Then the two great noises grew deafening together, the noise of the +peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. It +is their fault if the last verse was written a little rudely and at +random-- + + "I see you how you smile in state + Straight from the Peak to Plymouth Bar, + You need not tell me you are great, + I know how more than great you are. + I know what William Shakespeare was, + I have seen Gainsborough and the grass. + + "(O given to believe a lie, + O my mad mother, do do not die, + Whose eyes turn all ways but within, + Whose sin is innocence of sin, + Whose eyes, blinded with beams at noon, + Can see the motes upon the moon, + You shall your lover still pursue. + To what last madhouse shelters you + I will uphold you, even I. + You that are dead. You shall not die.)" + +But the sea would not stop for me any more than for Canute; and as for +the German band, that would not stop for anybody. + + + + +XXVII. Some Policemen and a Moral + +The other day I was nearly arrested by two excited policemen in a wood +in Yorkshire. I was on a holiday, and was engaged in that rich and +intricate mass of pleasures, duties, and discoveries which for the +keeping off of the profane, we disguise by the exoteric name of Nothing. +At the moment in question I was throwing a big Swedish knife at a tree, +practising (alas, without success) that useful trick of knife-throwing +by which men murder each other in Stevenson's romances. + +Suddenly the forest was full of two policemen; there was something about +their appearance in and relation to the greenwood that reminded me, +I know not how, of some happy Elizabethan comedy. They asked what the +knife was, who I was, why I was throwing it, what my address was, trade, +religion, opinions on the Japanese war, name of favourite cat, and so +on. They also said I was damaging the tree; which was, I am sorry to +say, not true, because I could not hit it. The peculiar philosophical +importance, however, of the incident was this. After some half-hour's +animated conversation, the exhibition of an envelope, an unfinished +poem, which was read with great care, and, I trust, with some profit, +and one or two other subtle detective strokes, the elder of the two +knights became convinced that I really was what I professed to be, that +I was a journalist, that I was on the DAILY NEWS (this was the real +stroke; they were shaken with a terror common to all tyrants), that +I lived in a particular place as stated, and that I was stopping +with particular people in Yorkshire, who happened to be wealthy and +well-known in the neighbourhood. + +In fact the leading constable became so genial and complimentary at last +that he ended up by representing himself as a reader of my work. And +when that was said, everything was settled. They acquitted me and let me +pass. + +"But," I said, "what of this mangled tree? It was to the rescue of that +Dryad, tethered to the earth, that you rushed like knight-errants. You, +the higher humanitarians, are not deceived by the seeming stillness +of the green things, a stillness like the stillness of the cataract, a +headlong and crashing silence. You know that a tree is but a creature +tied to the ground by one leg. You will not let assassins with their +Swedish daggers shed the green blood of such a being. But if so, why am +I not in custody; where are my gyves? Produce, from some portion of your +persons, my mouldy straw and my grated window. The facts of which I have +just convinced you, that my name is Chesterton, that I am a journalist, +that I am living with the well-known and philanthropic Mr. Blank of +Ilkley, cannot have anything to do with the question of whether I have +been guilty of cruelty to vegetables. The tree is none the less damaged +even though it may reflect with a dark pride that it was wounded by a +gentleman connected with the Liberal press. Wounds in the bark do not +more rapidly close up because they are inflicted by people who are +stopping with Mr. Blank of Ilkley. That tree, the ruin of its former +self, the wreck of what was once a giant of the forest, now splintered +and laid low by the brute superiority of a Swedish knife, that tragedy, +constable, cannot be wiped out even by stopping for several months more +with some wealthy person. It is incredible that you have no legal claim +to arrest even the most august and fashionable persons on this charge. +For if so, why did you interfere with me at all?" + +I made the later and larger part of this speech to the silent wood, for +the two policemen had vanished almost as quickly as they came. It is +very possible, of course, that they were fairies. In that case the +somewhat illogical character of their view of crime, law, and personal +responsibility would find a bright and elfish explanation; perhaps if I +had lingered in the glade till moonrise I might have seen rings of tiny +policemen dancing on the sward; or running about with glow-worm belts, +arresting grasshoppers for damaging blades of grass. But taking the +bolder hypothesis, that they really were policemen, I find myself in +a certain difficulty. I was certainly accused of something which was +either an offence or was not. I was let off because I proved I was a +guest at a big house. The inference seems painfully clear; either it is +not a proof of infamy to throw a knife about in a lonely wood, or else +it is a proof of innocence to know a rich man. Suppose a very poor +person, poorer even than a journalist, a navvy or unskilled labourer, +tramping in search of work, often changing his lodgings, often, perhaps, +failing in his rent. Suppose he had been intoxicated with the green +gaiety of the ancient wood. Suppose he had thrown knives at trees and +could give no description of a dwelling-place except that he had been +fired out of the last. As I walked home through a cloudy and purple +twilight I wondered how he would have got on. + +Moral. We English are always boasting that we are very illogical; there +is no great harm in that. There is no subtle spiritual evil in the fact +that people always brag about their vices; it is when they begin to brag +about their virtues that they become insufferable. But there is this to +be said, that illogicality in your constitution or your legal methods +may become very dangerous if there happens to be some great national +vice or national temptation which many take advantage of the chaos. +Similarly, a drunkard ought to have strict rules and hours; a temperate +man may obey his instincts. + +Take some absurd anomaly in the British law--the fact, for instance, +that a man ceasing to be an M. P. has to become Steward of the Chiltern +Hundreds, an office which I believe was intended originally to keep down +some wild robbers near Chiltern, wherever that is. Obviously this kind +of illogicality does not matter very much, for the simple reason that +there is no great temptation to take advantage of it. Men retiring from +Parliament do not have any furious impulse to hunt robbers in the hills. +But if there were a real danger that wise, white-haired, venerable +politicians taking leave of public life would desire to do this (if, +for instance, there were any money in it), then clearly, if we went on +saying that the illogicality did not matter, when (as a matter of fact) +Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was hanging Chiltern shop-keepers every day and +taking their property, we should be very silly. The illogicality would +matter, for it would have become an excuse for indulgence. It is only +the very good who can live riotous lives. + +Now this is exactly what is present in cases of police investigation +such as the one narrated above. There enters into such things a great +national sin, a far greater sin than drink--the habit of respecting a +gentleman. Snobbishness has, like drink, a kind of grand poetry. And +snobbishness has this peculiar and devilish quality of evil, that it is +rampant among very kindly people, with open hearts and houses. But it is +our great English vice; to be watched more fiercely than small-pox. If a +man wished to hear the worst and wickedest thing in England summed up in +casual English words, he would not find it in any foul oaths or ribald +quarrelling. He would find it in the fact that the best kind of working +man, when he wishes to praise any one, calls him "a gentleman." It never +occurs to him that he might as well call him "a marquis," or "a privy +councillor"--that he is simply naming a rank or class, not a phrase +for a good man. And this perennial temptation to a shameful admiration, +must, and, I think, does, constantly come in and distort and poison our +police methods. + +In this case we must be logical and exact; for we have to keep watch +upon ourselves. The power of wealth, and that power at its vilest, is +increasing in the modern world. A very good and just people, without +this temptation, might not need, perhaps, to make clear rules and +systems to guard themselves against the power of our great financiers. +But that is because a very just people would have shot them long ago, +from mere native good feeling. + + + + +XXVIII. The Lion + +In the town of Belfort I take a chair and I sit down in the street. We +talk in a cant phrase of the Man in the Street, but the Frenchman is the +man in the street. Things quite central for him are connected with these +lamp-posts and pavements; everything from his meals to his martyrdoms. +When first an Englishman looks at a French town or village his first +feeling is simply that it is uglier than an English town or village; +when he looks again he sees that this comparative absence of the +picturesque is chiefly expressed in the plain, precipitous frontage +of the houses standing up hard and flat out of the street like the +cardboard houses in a pantomime--a hard angularity allied perhaps to +the harshness of French logic. When he looks a third time he sees quite +simply that it is all because the houses have no front gardens. The +vague English spirit loves to have the entrance to its house softened by +bushes and broken by steps. It likes to have a little anteroom of hedges +half in the house and half out of it; a green room in a double sense. +The Frenchman desires no such little pathetic ramparts or halting +places, for the street itself is a thing natural and familiar to him. + +..... + +The French have no front gardens; but the street is every man's front +garden. There are trees in the street, and sometimes fountains. The +street is the Frenchman's tavern, for he drinks in the street. It is his +dining-room, for he dines in the street. It is his British Museum, for +the statues and monuments in French streets are not, as with us, of the +worst, but of the best, art of the country, and they are often actually +as historical as the Pyramids. The street again is the Frenchman's +Parliament, for France has never taken its Chamber of Deputies so +seriously as we take our House of Commons, and the quibbles of mere +elected nonentities in an official room seem feeble to a people whose +fathers have heard the voice of Desmoulins like a trumpet under open +heaven, or Victor Hugo shouting from his carriage amid the wreck of the +second Republic. And as the Frenchman drinks in the street and dines in +the street so also he fights in the street and dies in the street, so +that the street can never be commonplace to him. + +Take, for instance, such a simple object as a lamp-post. In London +a lamp-post is a comic thing. We think of the intoxicated gentleman +embracing it, and recalling ancient friendship. But in Paris a lamp-post +is a tragic thing. For we think of tyrants hanged on it, and of an +end of the world. There is, or was, a bitter Republican paper in Paris +called LA LANTERNE. How funny it would be if there were a Progressive +paper in England called THE LAMP POST! We have said, then, that the +Frenchman is the man in the street; that he can dine in the street, and +die in the street. And if I ever pass through Paris and find him going +to bed in the street, I shall say that he is still true to the genius +of his civilisation. All that is good and all that is evil in France is +alike connected with this open-air element. French democracy and French +indecency are alike part of the desire to have everything out of doors. +Compared to a cafe, a public-house is a private house. + +..... + +There were two reasons why all these fancies should float through the +mind in the streets of this especial town of Belfort. First of all, it +lies close upon the boundary of France and Germany, and boundaries are +the most beautiful things in the world. To love anything is to love its +boundaries; thus children will always play on the edge of anything. +They build castles on the edge of the sea, and can only be restrained by +public proclamation and private violence from walking on the edge of the +grass. For when we have come to the end of a thing we have come to the +beginning of it. + +Hence this town seemed all the more French for being on the very +margin of Germany, and although there were many German touches in +the place--German names, larger pots of beer, and enormous theatrical +barmaids dressed up in outrageous imitation of Alsatian peasants--yet +the fixed French colour seemed all the stronger for these specks +of something else. All day long and all night long troops of dusty, +swarthy, scornful little soldiers went plodding through the streets with +an air of stubborn disgust, for German soldiers look as if they despised +you, but French soldiers as if they despised you and themselves even +more than you. It is a part, I suppose, of the realism of the nation +which has made it good at war and science and other things in which what +is necessary is combined with what is nasty. And the soldiers and the +civilians alike had most of them cropped hair, and that curious kind of +head which to an Englishman looks almost brutal, the kind that we call a +bullet-head. Indeed, we are speaking very appropriately when we call it +a bullet-head, for in intellectual history the heads of Frenchmen have +been bullets--yes, and explosive bullets. + +..... + +But there was a second reason why in this place one should think +particularly of the open-air politics and the open-air art of the +French. For this town of Belfort is famous for one of the most typical +and powerful of the public monuments of France. From the cafe table at +which I sit I can see the hill beyond the town on which hangs the high +and flat-faced citadel, pierced with many windows, and warmed in the +evening light. On the steep hill below it is a huge stone lion, itself +as large as a hill. It is hacked out of the rock with a sort of gigantic +impression. No trivial attempt has been made to make it like a common +statue; no attempt to carve the mane into curls, or to distinguish +the monster minutely from the earth out of which he rises, shaking the +world. The face of the lion has something of the bold conventionality +of Assyrian art. The mane of the lion is left like a shapeless cloud of +tempest, as if it might literally be said of him that God had clothed +his neck with thunder. Even at this distance the thing looks vast, and +in some sense prehistoric. Yet it was carved only a little while ago. +It commemorates the fact that this town was never taken by the Germans +through all the terrible year, but only laid down its arms at last at +the command of its own Government. But the spirit of it has been in +this land from the beginning--the spirit of something defiant and almost +defeated. + +As I leave this place and take the railway into Germany the news comes +thicker and thicker up the streets that Southern France is in a flame, +and that there perhaps will be fought out finally the awful modern +battle of the rich and poor. And as I pass into quieter places for the +last sign of France on the sky-line, I see the Lion of Belfort stand at +bay, the last sight of that great people which has never been at peace. + + + + +XXIX. Humanity: an Interlude + +Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, +the City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything noble +cut out, and everything nasty left in. No one can understand Paris and +its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance +and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but +it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses +is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but +quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they +are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality. For +the indecency of many of their books and papers is not of the sort which +charms and seduces, but of the sort that horrifies and hurts; they are +torturing themselves. They lash their own patriotism into life with the +same whips which most men use to lash foreigners to silence. The enemies +of France can never give an account of her infamy or decay which does +not seem insipid and even polite compared with the things which the +Nationalists of France say about their own nation. They taunt and +torment themselves; sometimes they even deliberately oppress themselves. +Thus, when the mob of Paris could make a Government to please itself, it +made a sort of sublime tyranny to order itself about. The spirit is the +same from the Crusades or St. Bartholomew to the apotheosis of Zola. +The old religionists tortured men physically for a moral truth. The new +realists torture men morally for a physical truth. + +Now Brussels is Paris without this constant purification of pain. Its +indecencies are not regrettable incidents in an everlasting revolution. +It has none of the things which make good Frenchmen love Paris; it has +only the things which make unspeakable Englishmen love it. It has +the part which is cosmopolitan--and narrows; not the part which is +Parisian--and universal. You can find there (as commonly happens in +modern centres) the worst things of all nations--the DAILY MAIL from +England, the cheap philosophies from Germany, the loose novels of +France, and the drinks of America. But there is no English broad fun, +no German kindly ceremony, no American exhilaration, and, above all, no +French tradition of fighting for an idea. Though all the boulevards look +like Parisian boulevards, though all the shops look like Parisian shops, +you cannot look at them steadily for two minutes without feeling the +full distance between, let us say, King Leopold and fighters like +Clemenceau and Deroulede. + +..... + +For all these reasons, and many more, when I had got into Brussels I +began to make all necessary arrangements for getting out of it again; +and I had impulsively got into a tram which seemed to be going out of +the city. In this tram there were two men talking; one was a little +man with a black French beard; the other was a baldish man with bushy +whiskers, like the financial foreign count in a three-act farce. And +about the time that we reached the suburb of the city, and the traffic +grew thinner, and the noises more few, I began to hear what they were +saying. Though they spoke French quickly, their words were fairly easy +to follow, because they were all long words. Anybody can understand long +words because they have in them all the lucidity of Latin. + +The man with the black beard said: "It must that we have the Progress." + +The man with the whiskers parried this smartly by saying: "It must also +that we have the Consolidation International." + +This is a sort of discussion which I like myself, so I listened with +some care, and I think I picked up the thread of it. One of the Belgians +was a Little Belgian, as we speak of a Little Englander. The other was a +Belgian Imperialist, for though Belgium is not quite strong enough to be +altogether a nation, she is quite strong enough to be an empire. Being +a nation means standing up to your equals, whereas being an empire only +means kicking your inferiors. The man with whiskers was the Imperialist, +and he was saying: "The science, behold there the new guide of +humanity." + +And the man with the beard answered him: "It does not suffice to have +progress in the science; one must have it also in the sentiment of the +human justice." + +This remark I applauded, as if at a public meeting, but they were much +too keen on their argument to hear me. The views I have often heard +in England, but never uttered so lucidly, and certainly never so fast. +Though Belgian by nation they must both have been essentially French. +Whiskers was great on education, which, it seems, is on the march. +All the world goes to make itself instructed. It must that the more +instructed enlighten the less instructed. Eh, well then, the European +must impose upon the savage the science and the light. Also (apparently) +he must impose himself on the savage while he is about it. To-day one +travelled quickly. The science had changed all. For our fathers, +they were religious, and (what was worse) dead. To-day humanity had +electricity to the hand; the machines came from triumphing; all the +lines and limits of the globe effaced themselves. Soon there would not +be but the great Empires and confederations, guided by the science, +always the science. + +Here Whiskers stopped an instant for breath; and the man with the +sentiment for human justice had "la parole" off him in a flash. Without +doubt Humanity was on the march, but towards the sentiments, the +ideal, the methods moral and pacific. Humanity directed itself towards +Humanity. For your wars and empires on behalf of civilisation, what were +they in effect? The war, was it not itself an affair of the barbarism? +The Empires were they not things savage? The Humanity had passed all +that; she was now intellectual. Tolstoy had refined all human souls with +the sentiments the most delicate and just. Man was become a spirit; the +wings pushed.... + +..... + +At this important point of evolution the tram came to a jerky stoppage; +and staring around I found, to my stunned consternation, that it was +almost dark, that I was far away from Brussels, that I could not +dream of getting back to dinner; in short, that through the clinging +fascination of this great controversy on Humanity and its recent +complete alteration by science or Tolstoy, I had landed myself Heaven +knows where. I dropped hastily from the suburban tram and let it go on +without me. + +I was alone in the flat fields out of sight of the city. On one side +of the road was one of those small, thin woods which are common in all +countries, but of which, by a coincidence, the mystical painters of +Flanders were very fond. The night was closing in with cloudy purple +and grey; there was one ribbon of silver, the last rag of the sunset. +Through the wood went one little path, and somehow it suggested that it +might lead to some sign of life--there was no other sign of life on the +horizon. I went along it, and soon sank into a sort of dancing twilight +of all those tiny trees. There is something subtle and bewildering about +that sort of frail and fantastic wood. A forest of big trees seems +like a bodily barrier; but somehow that mist of thin lines seems like a +spiritual barrier. It is as if one were caught in a fairy cloud or could +not pass a phantom. When I had well lost the last gleam of the high +road a curious and definite feeling came upon me. Now I suddenly +felt something much more practical and extraordinary--the absence of +humanity: inhuman loneliness. Of course, there was nothing really lost +in my state; but the mood may hit one anywhere. I wanted men--any men; +and I felt our awful alliance over all the globe. And at last, when I +had walked for what seemed a long time, I saw a light too near the earth +to mean anything except the image of God. + +I came out on a clear space and a low, long cottage, the door of which +was open, but was blocked by a big grey horse, who seemed to prefer to +eat with his head inside the sitting-room. I got past him, and found +he was being fed by a young man who was sitting down and drinking beer +inside, and who saluted me with heavy rustic courtesy, but in a strange +tongue. The room was full of staring faces like owls, and these I traced +at length as belonging to about six small children. Their father was +still working in the fields, but their mother rose when I entered. She +smiled, but she and all the rest spoke some rude language, Flamand, I +suppose; so that we had to be kind to each other by signs. She fetched +me beer, and pointed out my way with her finger; and I drew a picture +to please the children; and as it was a picture of two men hitting each +other with swords, it pleased them very much. Then I gave a Belgian +penny to each child, for as I said on chance in French, "It must be that +we have the economic equality." But they had never heard of economic +equality, while all Battersea workmen have heard of economic equality, +though it is true that they haven't got it. + +I found my way back to the city, and some time afterwards I actually +saw in the street my two men talking, no doubt still saying, one that +Science had changed all in Humanity, and the other that Humanity was now +pushing the wings of the purely intellectual. But for me Humanity was +hooked on to an accidental picture. I thought of a low and lonely house +in the flats, behind a veil or film of slight trees, a man breaking the +ground as men have broken from the first morning, and a huge grey horse +champing his food within a foot of a child's head, as in the stable +where Christ was born. + + + + +XXX. The Little Birds Who Won't Sing + +On my last morning on the Flemish coast, when I knew that in a few hours +I should be in England, my eye fell upon one of the details of Gothic +carving of which Flanders is full. I do not know whether the thing is +old, though it was certainly knocked about and indecipherable, but at +least it was certainly in the style and tradition of the early Middle +Ages. It seemed to represent men bending themselves (not to say twisting +themselves) to certain primary employments. Some seemed to be +sailors tugging at ropes; others, I think, were reaping; others were +energetically pouring something into something else. This is entirely +characteristic of the pictures and carvings of the early thirteenth +century, perhaps the most purely vigorous time in all history. The great +Greeks preferred to carve their gods and heroes doing nothing. Splendid +and philosophic as their composure is there is always about it something +that marks the master of many slaves. But if there was one thing +the early mediaevals liked it was representing people doing +something--hunting or hawking, or rowing boats, or treading grapes, or +making shoes, or cooking something in a pot. "Quicquid agunt homines, +votum, timor, ira voluptas." (I quote from memory.) The Middle Ages +is full of that spirit in all its monuments and manuscripts. Chaucer +retains it in his jolly insistence on everybody's type of trade and +toil. It was the earliest and youngest resurrection of Europe, the time +when social order was strengthening, but had not yet become oppressive; +the time when religious faiths were strong, but had not yet been +exasperated. For this reason the whole effect of Greek and Gothic +carving is different. The figures in the Elgin marbles, though often +reining their steeds for an instant in the air, seem frozen for ever at +that perfect instant. But a mass of mediaeval carving seems actually +a sort of bustle or hubbub in stone. Sometimes one cannot help feeling +that the groups actually move and mix, and the whole front of a great +cathedral has the hum of a huge hive. + +..... + +But about these particular figures there was a peculiarity of which I +could not be sure. Those of them that had any heads had very curious +heads, and it seemed to me that they had their mouths open. Whether or +no this really meant anything or was an accident of nascent art I do not +know; but in the course of wondering I recalled to my mind the fact that +singing was connected with many of the tasks there suggested, that there +were songs for reapers and songs for sailors hauling ropes. I was +still thinking about this small problem when I walked along the pier +at Ostend; and I heard some sailors uttering a measured shout as they +laboured, and I remembered that sailors still sing in chorus while they +work, and even sing different songs according to what part of their work +they are doing. And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was +over, the sight of men working in the English fields reminded me +again that there are still songs for harvest and for many agricultural +routines. And I suddenly wondered why if this were so it should be quite +unknown, for any modern trade to have a ritual poetry. How did people +come to chant rude poems while pulling certain ropes or gathering +certain fruit, and why did nobody do anything of the kind while +producing any of the modern things? Why is a modern newspaper never +printed by people singing in chorus? Why do shopmen seldom, if ever, +sing? + +..... + +If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while +auditing and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all the +separate things that have to be done in a boat, why are there not songs +for all the separate things that have to be done in a bank? As the train +from Dover flew through the Kentish gardens, I tried to write a few +songs suitable for commercial gentlemen. Thus, the work of bank clerks +when casting up columns might begin with a thundering chorus in praise +of Simple Addition. + +"Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er. Hear the +Stars of Morning shouting: 'Two and Two are four.' Though the creeds and +realms are reeling, though the sophists roar, Though we weep and pawn +our watches, Two and Two are Four." + +"There's a run upon the Bank--Stand away! For the Manager's a crank and +the Secretary drank, and the + + Upper Tooting Bank + Turns to bay! + Stand close: there is a run + On the Bank. + Of our ship, our royal one, let the ringing legend run, + That she fired with every gun + Ere she sank." + +..... + +And as I came into the cloud of London I met a friend of mine who +actually is in a bank, and submitted these suggestions in rhyme to him +for use among his colleagues. But he was not very hopeful about the +matter. It was not (he assured me) that he underrated the verses, or in +any sense lamented their lack of polish. No; it was rather, he felt, an +indefinable something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we +live that makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks. And I think +he must be right; though the matter is very mysterious. I may observe +here that I think there must be some mistake in the calculations of the +Socialists. They put down all our distress, not to a moral tone, but +to the chaos of private enterprise. Now, banks are private; but +post-offices are Socialistic: therefore I naturally expected that the +post-office would fall into the collectivist idea of a chorus. Judge of +my surprise when the lady in my local post-office (whom I urged to sing) +dismissed the idea with far more coldness than the bank clerk had done. +She seemed indeed, to be in a considerably greater state of depression +than he. Should any one suppose that this was the effect of the verses +themselves, it is only fair to say that the specimen verse of the +Post-Office Hymn ran thus: + + "O'er London our letters are shaken like snow, + Our wires o'er the world like the thunderbolts go. + The news that may marry a maiden in Sark, + Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +Chorus (with a swing of joy and energy): + + "Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park." + +And the more I thought about the matter the more painfully certain it +seemed that the most important and typical modern things could not be +done with a chorus. One could not, for instance, be a great financier +and sing; because the essence of being a great financier is that you +keep quiet. You could not even in many modern circles be a public man +and sing; because in those circles the essence of being a public man is +that you do nearly everything in private. Nobody would imagine a chorus +of money-lenders. Every one knows the story of the solicitors' corps of +volunteers who, when the Colonel on the battlefield cried "Charge!" all +said simultaneously, "Six-and-eightpence." Men can sing while charging +in a military, but hardly in a legal sense. And at the end of my +reflections I had really got no further than the sub-conscious feeling +of my friend the bank-clerk--that there is something spiritually +suffocating about our life; not about our laws merely, but about our +life. Bank-clerks are without songs, not because they are poor, but +because they are sad. Sailors are much poorer. As I passed homewards I +passed a little tin building of some religious sort, which was shaken +with shouting as a trumpet is torn with its own tongue. THEY were +singing anyhow; and I had for an instant a fancy I had often had before: +that with us the super-human is the only place where you can find the +human. Human nature is hunted and has fled into sanctuary. + + + + +XXXI. The Riddle of the Ivy + +More than a month ago, when I was leaving London for a holiday, a +friend walked into my flat in Battersea and found me surrounded with +half-packed luggage. + +"You seem to be off on your travels," he said. "Where are you going?" + +With a strap between my teeth I replied, "To Battersea." + +"The wit of your remark," he said, "wholly escapes me." + +"I am going to Battersea," I repeated, "to Battersea via Paris, Belfort, +Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained +simply the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once +more I find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, +somewhere in the ultimate archipelago of the earth, there is one little +island which I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great +white cliffs. Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch +travellers tell me that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour +that somewhere in the heart of it there is a beautiful place called +Battersea." + +"I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you," said my friend, with an air +of intellectual comparison, "that this is Battersea?" + +"It is quite unnecessary," I said, "and it is spiritually untrue. I +cannot see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or any England. I +cannot see that door. I cannot see that chair: because a cloud of sleep +and custom has come across my eyes. The only way to get back to them is +to go somewhere else; and that is the real object of travel and the real +pleasure of holidays. Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see +France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? +I shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking. I am +seeking Battersea. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on +foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a +foreign land. Now I warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and +heavy, and that if you utter that word 'paradox' I shall hurl it at your +head. I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical. It is +not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go to England is to +go away from it." + +But when, after only a month's travelling, I did come back to England, I +was startled to find that I had told the exact truth. England did break +on me at once beautifully new and beautifully old. To land at Dover is +the right way to approach England (most things that are hackneyed are +right), for then you see first the full, soft gardens of Kent, which +are, perhaps, an exaggeration, but still a typical exaggeration, of the +rich rusticity of England. As it happened, also, a fellow-traveller with +whom I had fallen into conversation felt the same freshness, though for +another cause. She was an American lady who had seen Europe, and had +never yet seen England, and she expressed her enthusiasm in that +simple and splendid way which is natural to Americans, who are the most +idealistic people in the whole world. Their only danger is that the +idealist can easily become the idolator. And the American has become +so idealistic that he even idealises money. But (to quote a very able +writer of American short stories) that is another story. + +"I have never been in England before," said the American lady, "yet +it is so pretty that I feel as if I have been away from it for a long +time." + +"So you have," I said; "you have been away for three hundred years." + +"What a lot of ivy you have," she said. "It covers the churches and +it buries the houses. We have ivy; but I have never seen it grow like +that." + +"I am interested to hear it," I replied, "for I am making a little list +of all the things that are really better in England. Even a month on +the Continent, combined with intelligence, will teach you that there are +many things that are better abroad. All the things that the DAILY MAIL +calls English are better abroad. But there are things entirely English +and entirely good. Kippers, for instance, and Free Trade, and front +gardens, and individual liberty, and the Elizabethan drama, and hansom +cabs, and cricket, and Mr. Will Crooks. Above all, there is the happy +and holy custom of eating a heavy breakfast. I cannot imagine that +Shakespeare began the day with rolls and coffee, like a Frenchman or a +German. Surely he began with bacon or bloaters. In fact, a light bursts +upon me; for the first time I see the real meaning of Mrs. Gallup and +the Great Cipher. It is merely a mistake in the matter of a capital +letter. I withdraw my objections; I accept everything; bacon did write +Shakespeare." + +"I cannot look at anything but the ivy," she said, "it looks so +comfortable." + +While she looked at the ivy I opened for the first time for many weeks +an English newspaper, and I read a speech of Mr. Balfour in which +he said that the House of Lords ought to be preserved because it +represented something in the nature of permanent public opinion of +England, above the ebb and flow of the parties. Now Mr. Balfour is a +perfectly sincere patriot, a man who, from his own point of view, thinks +long and seriously about the public needs, and he is, moreover, a man +of entirely exceptionable intellectual power. But alas, in spite of +all this, when I had read that speech I thought with a heavy heart that +there was one more thing that I had to add to the list of the specially +English things, such as kippers and cricket; I had to add the specially +English kind of humbug. In France things are attacked and defended for +what they are. The Catholic Church is attacked because it is Catholic, +and defended because it is Catholic. The Republic is defended because +it is Republican, and attacked because it is Republican. But here is the +ablest of English politicians consoling everybody by telling them that +the House of Lords is not really the House of Lords, but something quite +different, that the foolish accidental peers whom he meets every night +are in some mysterious way experts upon the psychology of the democracy; +that if you want to know what the very poor want you must ask the very +rich, and that if you want the truth about Hoxton, you must ask for it +at Hatfield. If the Conservative defender of the House of Lords were +a logical French politician he would simply be a liar. But being an +English politician he is simply a poet. The English love of believing +that all is as it should be, the English optimism combined with the +strong English imagination, is too much even for the obvious facts. In a +cold, scientific sense, of course, Mr. Balfour knows that nearly all the +Lords who are not Lords by accident are Lords by bribery. He knows, and +(as Mr. Belloc excellently said) everybody in Parliament knows the very +names of the peers who have purchased their peerages. But the glamour +of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring himself and reassuring others, is +too strong for this original knowledge; at last it fades from him, +and he sincerely and earnestly calls on Englishmen to join with him in +admiring an august and public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten +that the Senate really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; +and adventurers whom he has himself ennobled. + +"Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick," said the American lady, "it +seems to cover almost everything. It must be the most poetical thing in +England." + +"It is very beautiful," I said, "and, as you say, it is very English. +Charles Dickens, who was almost more English than England, wrote one of +his rare poems about the beauty of ivy. Yes, by all means let us admire +the ivy, so deep, so warm, so full of a genial gloom and a grotesque +tenderness. Let us admire the ivy; and let us pray to God in His mercy +that it may not kill the tree." + + + + +XXXII. The Travellers in State + +The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught a train; it was a +train going into the Eastern Counties, and I only just caught it. And +while I was running along the train (amid general admiration) I noticed +that there were a quite peculiar and unusual number of carriages marked +"Engaged." On five, six, seven, eight, nine carriages was pasted the +little notice: at five, six, seven, eight, nine windows were big bland +men staring out in the conscious pride of possession. Their bodies +seemed more than usually impenetrable, their faces more than usual +placid. It could not be the Derby, if only for the minor reasons that +it was the opposite direction and the wrong day. It could hardly be +the King. It could hardly be the French President. For, though these +distinguished persons naturally like to be private for three hours, they +are at least public for three minutes. A crowd can gather to see +them step into the train; and there was no crowd here, or any police +ceremonial. + +Who were those awful persons, who occupied more of the train than a +bricklayer's beanfeast, and yet were more fastidious and delicate than +the King's own suite? Who were these that were larger than a mob, yet +more mysterious than a monarch? Was it possible that instead of our +Royal House visiting the Tsar, he was really visiting us? Or does the +House of Lords have a breakfast? I waited and wondered until the train +slowed down at some station in the direction of Cambridge. Then +the large, impenetrable men got out, and after them got out the +distinguished holders of the engaged seats. They were all dressed +decorously in one colour; they had neatly cropped hair; and they were +chained together. + +I looked across the carriage at its only other occupant, and our eyes +met. He was a small, tired-looking man, and, as I afterwards learnt, a +native of Cambridge; by the look of him, some working tradesman there, +such as a journeyman tailor or a small clock-mender. In order to make +conversation I said I wondered where the convicts were going. His mouth +twitched with the instinctive irony of our poor, and he said: "I don't +s'pose they're goin' on an 'oliday at the seaside with little spades +and pails." I was naturally delighted, and, pursuing the same vein of +literary invention, I suggested that perhaps dons were taken down to +Cambridge chained together like this. And as he lived in Cambridge, and +had seen several dons, he was pleased with such a scheme. Then when we +had ceased to laugh, we suddenly became quite silent; and the bleak, +grey eyes of the little man grew sadder and emptier than an open sea. I +knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same, because all +modern sophists are only sophists, and there is such a thing as mankind. +Then at last (and it fell in as exactly as the right last note of a tune +one is trying to remember) he said: "Well, I s'pose we 'ave to do it." +And in those three things, his first speech and his silence and his +second speech, there were all the three great fundamental facts of the +English democracy, its profound sense of humour, its profound sense of +pathos, and its profound sense of helplessness. + +..... + +It cannot be too often repeated that all real democracy is an attempt +(like that of a jolly hostess) to bring the shy people out. For every +practical purpose of a political state, for every practical purpose of a +tea-party, he that abaseth himself must be exalted. At a tea-party it +is equally obvious that he that exalteth himself must be abased, if +possible without bodily violence. Now people talk of democracy as +being coarse and turbulent: it is a self-evident error in mere history. +Aristocracy is the thing that is always coarse and turbulent: for it +means appealing to the self-confident people. Democracy means appealing +to the different people. Democracy means getting those people to vote +who would never have the cheek to govern: and (according to Christian +ethics) the precise people who ought to govern are the people who have +not the cheek to do it. There is a strong example of this truth in my +friend in the train. The only two types we hear of in this argument +about crime and punishment are two very rare and abnormal types. + +We hear of the stark sentimentalist, who talks as if there were no +problem at all: as if physical kindness would cure everything: as if +one need only pat Nero and stroke Ivan the Terrible. This mere belief in +bodily humanitarianism is not sentimental; it is simply snobbish. For +if comfort gives men virtue, the comfortable classes ought to be +virtuous--which is absurd. Then, again, we do hear of the yet weaker and +more watery type of sentimentalists: I mean the sentimentalist who +says, with a sort of splutter, "Flog the brutes!" or who tells you +with innocent obscenity "what he would do" with a certain man--always +supposing the man's hands were tied. + +This is the more effeminate type of the two; but both are weak and +unbalanced. And it is only these two types, the sentimental humanitarian +and the sentimental brutalitarian, whom one hears in the modern babel. +Yet you very rarely meet either of them in a train. You never meet +anyone else in a controversy. The man you meet in a train is like this +man that I met: he is emotionally decent, only he is intellectually +doubtful. So far from luxuriating in the loathsome things that could be +"done" to criminals, he feels bitterly how much better it would be if +nothing need be done. But something must be done. "I s'pose we 'ave to +do it." In short, he is simply a sane man, and of a sane man there is +only one safe definition. He is a man who can have tragedy in his heart +and comedy in his head. + +..... + +Now the real difficulty of discussing decently this problem of the +proper treatment of criminals is that both parties discuss the matter +without any direct human feeling. The denouncers of wrong are as cold as +the organisers of wrong. Humanitarianism is as hard as inhumanity. + +Let me take one practical instance. I think the flogging arranged in our +modern prisons is a filthy torture; all its scientific paraphernalia, +the photographing, the medical attendance, prove that it goes to the +last foul limit of the boot and rack. The cat is simply the rack without +any of its intellectual reasons. Holding this view strongly, I open the +ordinary humanitarian books or papers and I find a phrase like this, +"The lash is a relic of barbarism." So is the plough. So is the fishing +net. So is the horn or the staff or the fire lit in winter. What an +inexpressibly feeble phrase for anything one wants to attack--a relic of +barbarism! It is as if a man walked naked down the street to-morrow, and +we said that his clothes were not quite in the latest fashion. There is +nothing particularly nasty about being a relic of barbarism. Man is a +relic of barbarism. Civilisation is a relic of barbarism. + +But torture is not a relic of barbarism at all. In actuality it is +simply a relic of sin; but in comparative history it may well be called +a relic of civilisation. It has always been most artistic and elaborate +when everything else was most artistic and elaborate. Thus it was +detailed exquisite in the late Roman Empire, in the complex and gorgeous +sixteenth century, in the centralised French monarchy a hundred years +before the Revolution, and in the great Chinese civilisation to this +day. This is, first and last, the frightful thing we must remember. +In so far as we grow instructed and refined we are not (in any sense +whatever) naturally moving away from torture. We may be moving towards +torture. We must know what we are doing, if we are to avoid the enormous +secret cruelty which has crowned every historic civilisation. + +The train moves more swiftly through the sunny English fields. They have +taken the prisoners away, and I do not know what they have done with +them. + + + + +XXXIII. The Prehistoric Railway Station + +A railway station is an admirable place, although Ruskin did not think +so; he did not think so because he himself was even more modern than the +railway station. He did not think so because he was himself feverish, +irritable, and snorting like an engine. He could not value the ancient +silence of the railway station. + +"In a railway station," he said, "you are in a hurry, and therefore, +miserable"; but you need not be either unless you are as modern as +Ruskin. The true philosopher does not think of coming just in time for +his train except as a bet or a joke. + +The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to be late +for the one before. Do this, and you will find in a railway station +much of the quietude and consolation of a cathedral. It has many of the +characteristics of a great ecclesiastical building; it has vast arches, +void spaces, coloured lights, and, above all, it has recurrence or +ritual. It is dedicated to the celebration of water and fire the two +prime elements of all human ceremonial. Lastly, a station resembles the +old religions rather than the new religions in this point, that people +go there. In connection with this it should also be remembered that all +popular places, all sites, actually used by the people, tend to retain +the best routine of antiquity very much more than any localities or +machines used by any privileged class. Things are not altered so quickly +or completely by common people as they are by fashionable people. Ruskin +could have found more memories of the Middle Ages in the Underground +Railway than in the grand hotels outside the stations. The great palaces +of pleasure which the rich build in London all have brazen and vulgar +names. Their names are either snobbish, like the Hotel Cecil, or +(worse still) cosmopolitan like the Hotel Metropole. But when I go in a +third-class carriage from the nearest circle station to Battersea to the +nearest circle station to the DAILY NEWS, the names of the stations are +one long litany of solemn and saintly memories. Leaving Victoria I come +to a park belonging especially to St. James the Apostle; thence I go to +Westminster Bridge, whose very name alludes to the awful Abbey; Charing +Cross holds up the symbol of Christendom; the next station is called a +Temple; and Blackfriars remembers the mediaeval dream of a Brotherhood. + +If you wish to find the past preserved, follow the million feet of the +crowd. At the worst the uneducated only wear down old things by sheer +walking. But the educated kick them down out of sheer culture. + +I feel all this profoundly as I wander about the empty railway station, +where I have no business of any kind. I have extracted a vast number of +chocolates from automatic machines; I have obtained cigarettes, toffee, +scent, and other things that I dislike by the same machinery; I have +weighed myself, with sublime results; and this sense, not only of the +healthiness of popular things, but of their essential antiquity and +permanence, is still in possession of my mind. I wander up to the +bookstall, and my faith survives even the wild spectacle of modern +literature and journalism. Even in the crudest and most clamorous +aspects of the newspaper world I still prefer the popular to the proud +and fastidious. If I had to choose between taking in the DAILY MAIL and +taking in the TIMES (the dilemma reminds one of a nightmare), I should +certainly cry out with the whole of my being for the DAILY MAIL. Even +mere bigness preached in a frivolous way is not so irritating as mere +meanness preached in a big and solemn way. People buy the DAILY MAIL, +but they do not believe in it. They do believe in the TIMES, and +(apparently) they do not buy it. But the more the output of paper upon +the modern world is actually studied, the more it will be found to be +in all its essentials ancient and human, like the name of Charing Cross. +Linger for two or three hours at a station bookstall (as I am doing), +and you will find that it gradually takes on the grandeur and historic +allusiveness of the Vatican or Bodleian Library. The novelty is all +superficial; the tradition is all interior and profound. The DAILY MAIL +has new editions, but never a new idea. Everything in a newspaper that +is not the old human love of altar or fatherland is the old human love +of gossip. Modern writers have often made game of the old chronicles +because they chiefly record accidents and prodigies; a church struck +by lightning, or a calf with six legs. They do not seem to realise that +this old barbaric history is the same as new democratic journalism. It +is not that the savage chronicle has disappeared. It is merely that the +savage chronicle now appears every morning. + +As I moved thus mildly and vaguely in front of the bookstall, my eye +caught a sudden and scarlet title that for the moment staggered me. On +the outside of a book I saw written in large letters, "Get On or Get +Out." The title of the book recalled to me with a sudden revolt and +reaction all that does seem unquestionably new and nasty; it reminded +me that there was in the world of to-day that utterly idiotic thing, +a worship of success; a thing that only means surpassing anybody in +anything; a thing that may mean being the most successful person +in running away from a battle; a thing that may mean being the most +successfully sleepy of the whole row of sleeping men. When I saw those +words the silence and sanctity of the railway station were for the +moment shadowed. Here, I thought, there is at any rate something +anarchic and violent and vile. This title, at any rate, means the most +disgusting individualism of this individualistic world. In the fury of +my bitterness and passion I actually bought the book, thereby ensuring +that my enemy would get some of my money. I opened it prepared to find +some brutality, some blasphemy, which would really be an exception to +the general silence and sanctity of the railway station. I was prepared +to find something in the book that was as infamous as its title. + +I was disappointed. There was nothing at all corresponding to the +furious decisiveness of the remarks on the cover. After reading it +carefully I could not discover whether I was really to get on or to +get out; but I had a vague feeling that I should prefer to get out. +A considerable part of the book, particularly towards the end, was +concerned with a detailed description of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. +Undoubtedly Napoleon got on. He also got out. But I could not discover +in any way how the details of his life given here were supposed to help +a person aiming at success. One anecdote described how Napoleon always +wiped his pen on his knee-breeches. I suppose the moral is: always wipe +your pen on your knee-breeches, and you will win the battle of Wagram. +Another story told that he let loose a gazelle among the ladies of his +Court. Clearly the brutal practical inference is--loose a gazelle among +the ladies of your acquaintance, and you will be Emperor of the French. +Get on with a gazelle or get out. The book entirely reconciled me to +the soft twilight of the station. Then I suddenly saw that there was a +symbolic division which might be paralleled from biology. Brave men are +vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness +in the middle. But these modern cowards are all crustaceans; their +hardness is all on the cover and their softness is inside. But the +softness is there; everything in this twilight temple is soft. + + + + +XXXIV. The Diabolist + +Every now and then I have introduced into my essays an element of +truth. Things that really happened have been mentioned, such as meeting +President Kruger or being thrown out of a cab. What I have now to relate +really happened; yet there was no element in it of practical politics or +of personal danger. It was simply a quiet conversation which I had with +another man. But that quiet conversation was by far the most terrible +thing that has ever happened to me in my life. It happened so long ago +that I cannot be certain of the exact words of the dialogue, only of its +main questions and answers; but there is one sentence in it for which I +can answer absolutely and word for word. It was a sentence so awful that +I could not forget it if I would. It was the last sentence spoken; and +it was not spoken to me. + +The thing befell me in the days when I was at an art school. An art +school is different from almost all other schools or colleges in this +respect: that, being of new and crude creation and of lax discipline, +it presents a specially strong contrast between the industrious and the +idle. People at an art school either do an atrocious amount of work or +do no work at all. I belonged, along with other charming people, to the +latter class; and this threw me often into the society of men who were +very different from myself, and who were idle for reasons very different +from mine. I was idle because I was very much occupied; I was +engaged about that time in discovering, to my own extreme and lasting +astonishment, that I was not an atheist. But there were others also at +loose ends who were engaged in discovering what Carlyle called (I think +with needless delicacy) the fact that ginger is hot in the mouth. + +I value that time, in short, because it made me acquainted with a good +representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are two +very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. The +first is the fact that there is one real difference between men and +women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in +threes. The second is that when you find (as you often do) three young +cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk together every +day you generally find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for +some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. In these small +groups devoted to a drivelling dissipation there is almost always one +man who seems to have condescended to his company; one man who, while he +can talk a foul triviality with his fellows, can also talk politics with +a Socialist, or philosophy with a Catholic. + +It was just such a man whom I came to know well. It was strange, +perhaps, that he liked his dirty, drunken society; it was stranger +still, perhaps, that he liked my society. For hours of the day he would +talk with me about Milton or Gothic architecture; for hours of the night +he would go where I have no wish to follow him, even in speculation. He +was a man with a long, ironical face, and close and red hair; he was +by class a gentleman, and could walk like one, but preferred, for some +reason, to walk like a groom carrying two pails. He looked like a sort +of Super-jockey; as if some archangel had gone on the Turf. And I shall +never forget the half-hour in which he and I argued about real things +for the first and the last time. + +..... + +Along the front of the big building of which our school was a part ran +a huge slope of stone steps, higher, I think, than those that lead up to +St. Paul's Cathedral. On a black wintry evening he and I were wandering +on these cold heights, which seemed as dreary as a pyramid under the +stars. The one thing visible below us in the blackness was a burning and +blowing fire; for some gardener (I suppose) was burning something in the +grounds, and from time to time the red sparks went whirling past us like +a swarm of scarlet insects in the dark. Above us also it was gloom; +but if one stared long enough at that upper darkness, one saw vertical +stripes of grey in the black and then became conscious of the colossal +facade of the Doric building, phantasmal, yet filling the sky, as if +Heaven were still filled with the gigantic ghost of Paganism. + +..... + +The man asked me abruptly why I was becoming orthodox. Until he said it, +I really had not known that I was; but the moment he had said it I knew +it to be literally true. And the process had been so long and full that +I answered him at once out of existing stores of explanation. + +"I am becoming orthodox," I said, "because I have come, rightly or +wrongly, after stretching my brain till it bursts, to the old belief +that heresy is worse even than sin. An error is more menacing than +a crime, for an error begets crimes. An Imperialist is worse than a +pirate. For an Imperialist keeps a school for pirates; he teaches piracy +disinterestedly and without an adequate salary. A Free Lover is worse +than a profligate. For a profligate is serious and reckless even in his +shortest love; while a Free Lover is cautious and irresponsible even in +his longest devotion. I hate modern doubt because it is dangerous." + +"You mean dangerous to morality," he said in a voice of wonderful +gentleness. "I expect you are right. But why do you care about +morality?" + +I glanced at his face quickly. He had thrust out his neck as he had a +trick of doing; and so brought his face abruptly into the light of the +bonfire from below, like a face in the footlights. His long chin and +high cheek-bones were lit up infernally from underneath; so that +he looked like a fiend staring down into the flaming pit. I had an +unmeaning sense of being tempted in a wilderness; and even as I paused a +burst of red sparks broke past. + +"Aren't those sparks splendid?" I said. + +"Yes," he replied. + +"That is all that I ask you to admit," said I. "Give me those few red +specks and I will deduce Christian morality. Once I thought like you, +that one's pleasure in a flying spark was a thing that could come and +go with that spark. Once I thought that the delight was as free as the +fire. Once I thought that red star we see was alone in space. But now +I know that the red star is only on the apex of an invisible pyramid of +virtues. That red fire is only the flower on a stalk of living habits, +which you cannot see. Only because your mother made you say 'Thank you' +for a bun are you now able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars +of an instant or for the white stars of all time. Only because you were +humble before fireworks on the fifth of November do you now enjoy any +fireworks that you chance to see. You only like them being red because +you were told about the blood of the martyrs; you only like them +being bright because brightness is a glory. That flame flowered out of +virtues, and it will fade with virtues. Seduce a woman, and that spark +will be less bright. Shed blood, and that spark will be less red. Be +really bad, and they will be to you like the spots on a wall-paper." + +He had a horrible fairness of the intellect that made me despair of +his soul. A common, harmless atheist would have denied that religion +produced humility or humility a simple joy: but he admitted both. He +only said, "But shall I not find in evil a life of its own? Granted that +for every woman I ruin one of those red sparks will go out: will not the +expanding pleasure of ruin..." + +"Do you see that fire?" I asked. "If we had a real fighting democracy, +some one would burn you in it; like the devil-worshipper that you are." + +"Perhaps," he said, in his tired, fair way. "Only what you call evil I +call good." + +He went down the great steps alone, and I felt as if I wanted the steps +swept and cleaned. I followed later, and as I went to find my hat in the +low, dark passage where it hung, I suddenly heard his voice again, but +the words were inaudible. I stopped, startled: then I heard the voice of +one of the vilest of his associates saying, "Nobody can possibly know." +And then I heard those two or three words which I remember in every +syllable and cannot forget. I heard the Diabolist say, "I tell you I +have done everything else. If I do that I shan't know the difference +between right and wrong." I rushed out without daring to pause; and as +I passed the fire I did not know whether it was hell or the furious love +of God. + +I have since heard that he died: it may be said, I think, that he +committed suicide; though he did it with tools of pleasure, not with +tools of pain. God help him, I know the road he went; but I have never +known, or even dared to think, what was that place at which he stopped +and refrained. + + + + +XXXV. A Glimpse of My Country + +Whatever is it that we are all looking for? I fancy that it is really +quite close. When I was a boy I had a fancy that Heaven or Fairyland or +whatever I called it, was immediately behind my own back, and that this +was why I could never manage to see it, however often I twisted and +turned to take it by surprise. I had a notion of a man perpetually +spinning round on one foot like a teetotum in the effort to find that +world behind his back which continually fled from him. Perhaps this is +why the world goes round. Perhaps the world is always trying to look +over its shoulder and catch up the world which always escapes it, yet +without which it cannot be itself. + +In any case, as I have said, I think that we must always conceive of +that which is the goal of all our endeavours as something which is in +some strange way near. Science boasts of the distance of its stars; +of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak. +But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost +menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. Always +the Kingdom of Heaven is "At Hand"; and Looking-glass Land is only +through the looking-glass. So I for one should never be astonished if +the next twist of a street led me to the heart of that maze in which all +the mystics are lost. I should not be at all surprised if I turned one +corner in Fleet Street and saw a yet queerer-looking lamp; I should not +be surprised if I turned a third corner and found myself in Elfland. + +I should not be surprised at this; but I was surprised the other day at +something more surprising. I took a turn out of Fleet Street and found +myself in England. + +..... + +The singular shock experienced perhaps requires explanation. In the +darkest or the most inadequate moments of England there is one thing +that should always be remembered about the very nature of our country. +It may be shortly stated by saying that England is not such a fool as +it looks. The types of England, the externals of England, always +misrepresent the country. England is an oligarchical country, and it +prefers that its oligarchy should be inferior to itself. + +The speaking in the House of Commons, for instance, is not only worse +than the speaking was, it is worse than the speaking is, in all or +almost all other places in small debating clubs or casual dinners. Our +countrymen probably prefer this solemn futility in the higher places of +the national life. It may be a strange sight to see the blind leading +the blind; but England provides a stranger. England shows us the blind +leading the people who can see. And this again is an under-statement +of the case. For the English political aristocrats not only speak worse +than many other people; they speak worse than themselves. The ignorance +of statesmen is like the ignorance of judges, an artificial and affected +thing. If you have the good fortune really to talk with a statesman, you +will be constantly startled with his saying quite intelligent things. It +makes one nervous at first. And I have never been sufficiently intimate +with such a man to ask him why it was a rule of his life in Parliament +to appear sillier than he was. + +It is the same with the voters. The average man votes below himself; he +votes with half a mind or with a hundredth part of one. A man ought to +vote with the whole of himself as he worships or gets married. A man +ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for +faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his +hands and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of +it should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, they +should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. But as it is, +the difficulty with English democracy at all elections is that it is +something less than itself. The question is not so much whether only a +minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of +the voter votes. + +..... + +This is the tragedy of England; you cannot judge it by its foremost men. +Its types do not typify. And on the occasion of which I speak I found +this to be so especially of that old intelligent middle class which I +had imagined had almost vanished from the world. It seemed to me that +all the main representatives of the middle class had gone off in one +direction or in the other; they had either set out in pursuit of the +Smart Set or they had set out in pursuit of the Simple Life. I cannot +say which I dislike more myself; the people in question are welcome to +have either of them, or, as is more likely, to have both, in hideous +alternations of disease and cure. But all the prominent men who plainly +represent the middle class have adopted either the single eye-glass of +Mr Chamberlain or the single eye of Mr. Bernard Shaw. + +The old class that I mean has no representative. Its food was plentiful; +but it had no show. Its food was plain; but it had no fads. It was +serious about politics; and when it spoke in public it committed the +solecism of trying to speak well. I thought that this old earnest +political England had practically disappeared. And as I say, I took one +turn out of Fleet Street and I found a room full of it. + +..... + +At the top of the room was a chair in which Johnson had sat. The +club was a club in which Wilkes had spoken, in a time when even the +ne'er-do-weel was virile. But all these things by themselves might be +merely archaism. The extraordinary thing was that this hall had all the +hubbub, the sincerity, the anger, the oratory of the eighteenth century. +The members of this club were of all shades of opinion, yet there was +not one speech which gave me that jar of unreality which I often have in +listening to the ablest men uttering my own opinion. The Toryism of this +club was like the Toryism of Johnson, a Toryism that could use humour +and appealed to humanity. The democracy of this club was like the +democracy of Wilkes, a democracy that can speak epigrams and fight +duels; a democracy that can face things out and endure slander; the +democracy of Wilkes, or, rather, the democracy of Fox. + +One thing especially filled my soul with the soul of my fathers. Each +man speaking, whether he spoke well or ill, spoke as well as he could +from sheer fury against the other man. This is the greatest of our +modern descents, that nowadays a man does not become more rhetorical +as he becomes more sincere. An eighteenth-century speaker, when he got +really and honestly furious, looked for big words with which to crush +his adversary. The new speaker looks for small words to crush him with. +He looks for little facts and little sneers. In a modern speech the +rhetoric is put into the merely formal part, the opening to which nobody +listens. But when Mr. Chamberlain, or a Moderate, or one of the harder +kind of Socialists, becomes really sincere, he becomes Cockney. "The +destiny of the Empire," or "The destiny of humanity," do well enough +for mere ornamental preliminaries, but when the man becomes angry and +honest, then it is a snarl, "Where do we come in?" or "It's your money +they want." + +The men in this eighteenth-century club were entirely different; they +were quite eighteenth century. Each one rose to his feet quivering with +passion, and tried to destroy his opponent, not with sniggering, but +actually with eloquence. I was arguing with them about Home Rule; at +the end I told them why the English aristocracy really disliked an Irish +Parliament; because it would be like their club. + +..... + +I came out again into Fleet Street at night, and by a dim lamp I saw +pasted up some tawdry nonsense about Wastrels and how London was rising +against something that London had hardly heard of. Then I suddenly +saw, as in one obvious picture, that the modern world is an immense and +tumultuous ocean, full of monstrous and living things. And I saw that +across the top of it is spread a thin, a very thin, sheet of ice, of +wicked wealth and of lying journalism. + +And as I stood there in the darkness I could almost fancy that I heard +it crack. + + + + +XXXVI. A Somewhat Improbable Story + +I cannot remember whether this tale is true or not. If I read it through +very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come to the conclusion +that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read it through very +carefully, because, you see, it is not written yet. The image and the +idea of it clung to me through a great part of my boyhood; I may have +dreamt it before I could talk; or told it to myself before I could read; +or read it before I could remember. On the whole, however, I am certain +that I did not read it, for children have very clear memories about +things like that; and of the books which I was really fond I can still +remember, not only the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position +of the printed words on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline to +the opinion that it happened to me before I was born. + +..... + +At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages of the +atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, for the sake of +argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch restaurants +in the City where men take their food so fast that it has none of the +quality of food, and take their half-hour's vacation so fast that it has +none of the qualities of leisure; to hurry through one's leisure is the +most unbusiness-like of actions. They all wore tall shiny hats as if +they could not lose an instant even to hang them on a peg, and they all +had one eye a little off, hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In +short, they were the slaves of the modern bondage, you could hear their +fetters clanking. Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest +chain ever tied to a man--it is called a watch-chain. + +Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man who +almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. He was like all +the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly opposite to them in all +manner. He wore a high shiny hat and a long frock coat, but he wore them +as such solemn things were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if +it were a mitre, and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high +priest. He not only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed (such was +his stateliness) almost to ask permission of the hat for doing so, and +to apologise to the peg for making use of it. When he had sat down on +a wooden chair with the air of one considering its feelings and given a +sort of slight stoop or bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an +altar, I could not help some comment springing to my lips. For the man +was a big, sanguine-faced, prosperous-looking man, and yet he treated +everything with a care that almost amounted to nervousness. + +For the sake of saying something to express my interest I said, "This +furniture is fairly solid; but, of course, people do treat it much too +carelessly." + +As I looked up doubtfully my eye caught his, and was fixed as his was +fixed in an apocalyptic stare. I had thought him ordinary as he entered, +save for his strange, cautious manner; but if the other people had seen +him then they would have screamed and emptied the room. They did not see +him, and they went on making a clatter with their forks, and a murmur +with their conversation. But the man's face was the face of a maniac. + +"Did you mean anything particular by that remark?" he asked at last, and +the blood crawled back slowly into his face. + +"Nothing whatever," I answered. "One does not mean anything here; it +spoils people's digestions." + +He limped back and wiped his broad forehead with a big handkerchief; and +yet there seemed to be a sort of regret in his relief. + +"I thought perhaps," he said in a low voice, "that another of them had +gone wrong." + +"If you mean another digestion gone wrong," I said, "I never heard of +one here that went right. This is the heart of the Empire, and the other +organs are in an equally bad way." + +"No, I mean another street gone wrong," and he said heavily and quietly, +"but as I suppose that doesn't explain much to you, I think I shall have +to tell you the story. I do so with all the less responsibility, because +I know you won't believe it. For forty years of my life I invariably +left my office, which is in Leadenhall Street, at half-past five in the +afternoon, taking with me an umbrella in the right hand and a bag in the +left hand. For forty years two months and four days I passed out of the +side office door, walked down the street on the left-hand side, took +the first turning to the left and the third to the right, from where I +bought an evening paper, followed the road on the right-hand side round +two obtuse angles, and came out just outside a Metropolitan station, +where I took a train home. For forty years two months and four days I +fulfilled this course by accumulated habit: it was not a long street +that I traversed, and it took me about four and a half minutes to do it. +After forty years two months and four days, on the fifth day I went out +in the same manner, with my umbrella in the right hand and my bag in the +left, and I began to notice that walking along the familiar street tired +me somewhat more than usual; and when I turned it I was convinced that I +had turned down the wrong one. For now the street shot up quite a steep +slant, such as one only sees in the hilly parts of London, and in this +part there were no hills at all. Yet it was not the wrong street; the +name written on it was the same; the shuttered shops were the same; the +lamp-posts and the whole look of the perspective was the same; only +it was tilted upwards like a lid. Forgetting any trouble about +breathlessness or fatigue I ran furiously forward, and reached the +second of my accustomed turnings, which ought to bring me almost within +sight of the station. And as I turned that corner I nearly fell on the +pavement. For now the street went up straight in front of my face like a +steep staircase or the side of a pyramid. There was not for miles round +that place so much as a slope like that of Ludgate Hill. And this was +a slope like that of the Matterhorn. The whole street had lifted itself +like a single wave, and yet every speck and detail of it was the same, +and I saw in the high distance, as at the top of an Alpine pass, picked +out in pink letters the name over my paper shop. + +"I ran on and on blindly now, passing all the shops and coming to a part +of the road where there was a long grey row of private houses. I had, +I know not why, an irrational feeling that I was a long iron bridge in +empty space. An impulse seized me, and I pulled up the iron trap of a +coal-hole. Looking down through it I saw empty space and the stairs. + +"When I looked up again a man was standing in his front garden, having +apparently come out of his house; he was leaning over the railings and +gazing at me. We were all alone on that nightmare road; his face was in +shadow; his dress was dark and ordinary; but when I saw him standing so +perfectly still I knew somehow that he was not of this world. And the +stars behind his head were larger and fiercer than ought to be endured +by the eyes of men. + +"'If you are a kind angel,' I said, 'or a wise devil, or have anything +in common with mankind, tell me what is this street possessed of +devils.' + +"After a long silence he said, 'What do you say that it is?' + +"'It is Bumpton Street, of course,' I snapped. 'It goes to Oldgate +Station.' + +"'Yes,' he admitted gravely; 'it goes there sometimes. Just now, +however, it is going to heaven.' + +"'To heaven?' I said. 'Why?' + +"'It is going to heaven for justice,' he replied. 'You must have treated +it badly. Remember always that there is one thing that cannot be endured +by anybody or anything. That one unendurable thing is to be overworked +and also neglected. For instance, you can overwork women--everybody +does. But you can't neglect women--I defy you to. At the same time, you +can neglect tramps and gypsies and all the apparent refuse of the State +so long as you do not overwork it. But no beast of the field, no horse, +no dog can endure long to be asked to do more than his work and yet have +less than his honour. It is the same with streets. You have worked this +street to death, and yet you have never remembered its existence. If +you had a healthy democracy, even of pagans, they would have hung this +street with garlands and given it the name of a god. Then it would have +gone quietly. But at last the street has grown tired of your tireless +insolence; and it is bucking and rearing its head to heaven. Have you +never sat on a bucking horse?' + +"I looked at the long grey street, and for a moment it seemed to me to +be exactly like the long grey neck of a horse flung up to heaven. But +in a moment my sanity returned, and I said, 'But this is all nonsense. +Streets go to the place they have to go. A street must always go to its +end.' + +"'Why do you think so of a street?' he asked, standing very still. + +"'Because I have always seen it do the same thing,' I replied, in +reasonable anger. 'Day after day, year after year, it has always gone to +Oldgate Station; day after...' + +"I stopped, for he had flung up his head with the fury of the road in +revolt. + +"'And you?' he cried terribly. 'What do you think the road thinks of +you? Does the road think you are alive? Are you alive? Day after day, +year after year, you have gone to Oldgate Station....' Since then I have +respected the things called inanimate." + +And bowing slightly to the mustard-pot, the man in the restaurant +withdrew. + + + + +XXXVII. The Shop Of Ghosts + +Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get +for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, +the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get +them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am +not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a +penny halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. +In the street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an +electric tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on +a flying castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of +brightly coloured sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of +reading this article for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and +irrelevant matter. + +But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable +things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last +night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and +dimly lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets +of Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a +child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of +the poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but +they were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important +than cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the +body. You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in +the modern world. + +..... + +As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, +at small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red Noah's +arks, I must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. That lit +shop-window became like the brilliantly lit stage when one is watching +some highly coloured comedy. I forgot the grey houses and the grimy +people behind me as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds +at a theatre. It seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were +small, not because they were toys, but because they were objects far +away. The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater +omnibus, passing across some huge desert on its ordinary way to +Bayswater. The blue elephant was no longer blue with paint; he was +blue with distance. The black doll was really a negro relieved against +passionate tropic foliage in the land where every weed is flaming and +only man is black. The red Noah's ark was really the enormous ship +of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen sea, red in the first +morning of hope. + +Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, such +brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the face +of one's own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles or +moustaches. They are commonly marked by the two signs of the slowness of +their growth and the suddenness of their termination. The return to real +thinking is often as abrupt as bumping into a man. Very often indeed +(in my case) it is bumping into a man. But in any case the awakening is +always emphatic and, generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in +this case, I did come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness +that I was, after all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; but +in some strange way the mental cure did not seem to be final. There +was still in my mind an unmanageable something that told me that I had +strayed into some odd atmosphere, or that I had already done some odd +thing. I felt as if I had worked a miracle or committed a sin. It was as +if I had at any rate, stepped across some border in the soul. + +To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop and +tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old and +broken, with confused white hair covering his head and half his face, +hair so startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. Yet though +he was senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering in his +eyes; he looked rather as if he were gradually falling asleep in a not +unkindly decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, but when I put down the +money he did not at first seem to see it; then he blinked at it feebly, +and then he pushed it feebly away. + +"No, no," he said vaguely. "I never have. I never have. We are rather +old-fashioned here." + +"Not taking money," I replied, "seems to me more like an uncommonly new +fashion than an old one." + +"I never have," said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; "I've +always given presents. I'm too old to stop." + +"Good heavens!" I said. "What can you mean? Why, you might be Father +Christmas." + +"I am Father Christmas," he said apologetically, and blew his nose +again. + +The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. At +any rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining +shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; I +might have strayed into some new and sunless world. But something had +cut the chords of common sense, and I could not feel even surprise +except sleepily. Something made me say, "You look ill, Father +Christmas." + +"I am dying," he said. + +I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again. + +"All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. They seem +to object to me on such curious and inconsistent sort of grounds, +these scientific men, and these innovators. They say that I give people +superstitions and make them too visionary; they say I give people +sausages and make them too coarse. They say my heavenly parts are too +heavenly; they say my earthly parts are too earthly; I don't know what +they want, I'm sure. How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly +things too earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? I don't +understand. But I understand one thing well enough. These modern people +are living and I am dead." + +"You may be dead," I replied. "You ought to know. But as for what they +are doing, do not call it living." + +..... + +A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected to be +unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few seconds when, in the +utter stillness, I distinctly heard a very rapid step coming nearer and +nearer along the street. The next moment a figure flung itself into the +shop and stood framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted +back as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, +a gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. He +had large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; he +had a pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the shop +and the old man in a look that seemed literally a flash and uttered the +exclamation of a man utterly staggered. + +"Good lord!" he cried out; "it can't be you! It isn't you! I came to ask +where your grave was." + +"I'm not dead yet, Mr. Dickens," said the old gentleman, with a feeble +smile; "but I'm dying," he hastened to add reassuringly. + +"But, dash it all, you were dying in my time," said Mr. Charles Dickens +with animation; "and you don't look a day older." + +"I've felt like this for a long time," said Father Christmas. + +Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door into the +darkness. + +"Dick," he roared at the top of his voice; "he's still alive." + +..... + +Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more +full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his +flushed face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. He carried +his head well back like a soldier, and his hot face had even a look +of arrogance, which was suddenly contradicted by his eyes, which were +literally as humble as a dog's. His sword made a great clatter, as if +the shop were too small for it. + +"Indeed," said Sir Richard Steele, "'tis a most prodigious matter, +for the man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley and his +Christmas Day." + +My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. It seemed to be +filled with newcomers. + +"It hath ever been understood," said a burly man, who carried his head +humorously and obstinately a little on one side--I think he was Ben +Jonson--"It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King +James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were +fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most +surely was no lustier when I knew him than now." + +And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in +some mixed Norman French, "But I saw the man dying." + +"I have felt like this a long time," said Father Christmas, in his +feeble way again. + +Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him. + +"Since when?" he asked. "Since you were born?" + +"Yes," said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. "I have been +always dying." + +Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to +rise. + +"I understand it now," he cried, "you will never die." + + + + +XXXVIII. The Ballade of a Strange Town + +My friend and I, in fooling about Flanders, fell into a fixed affection +for the town of Mechlin or Malines. Our rest there was so restful that +we almost felt it as a home, and hardly strayed out of it. + +We sat day after day in the market-place, under little trees growing +in wooden tubs, and looked up at the noble converging lines of the +Cathedral tower, from which the three riders from Ghent, in the poem, +heard the bell which told them they were not too late. But we took as +much pleasure in the people, in the little boys with open, flat +Flemish faces and fur collars round their necks, making them look +like burgomasters; or the women, whose prim, oval faces, hair strained +tightly off the temples, and mouths at once hard, meek, and humorous, +exactly reproduced the late mediaeval faces in Memling and Van Eyck. + +But one afternoon, as it happened, my friend rose from under his little +tree, and pointing to a sort of toy train that was puffing smoke in one +corner of the clear square, suggested that we should go by it. We got +into the little train, which was meant really to take the peasants and +their vegetables to and fro from their fields beyond the town, and +the official came round to give us tickets. We asked him what place +we should get to if we paid fivepence. The Belgians are not a romantic +people, and he asked us (with a lamentable mixture of Flemish coarseness +and French rationalism) where we wanted to go. + +We explained that we wanted to go to fairyland, and the only question +was whether we could get there for fivepence. At last, after a great +deal of international misunderstanding (for he spoke French in the +Flemish and we in the English manner), he told us that fivepence would +take us to a place which I have never seen written down, but which when +spoken sounded like the word "Waterloo" pronounced by an intoxicated +patriot; I think it was Waerlowe. + +We clasped our hands and said it was the place we had been seeking from +boyhood, and when we had got there we descended with promptitude. + +For a moment I had a horrible fear that it really was the field of +Waterloo; but I was comforted by remembering that it was in quite a +different part of Belgium. It was a cross-roads, with one cottage at the +corner, a perspective of tall trees like Hobbema's "Avenue," and beyond +only the infinite flat chess-board of the little fields. It was the +scene of peace and prosperity; but I must confess that my friend's first +action was to ask the man when there would be another train back to +Mechlin. The man stated that there would be a train back in exactly one +hour. We walked up the avenue, and when we were nearly half an hour's +walk away it began to rain. + +..... + +We arrived back at the cross-roads sodden and dripping, and, finding +the train waiting, climbed into it with some relief. The officer on +this train could speak nothing but Flemish, but he understood the name +Mechlin, and indicated that when we came to Mechlin Station he would put +us down, which, after the right interval of time, he did. + +We got down, under a steady downpour, evidently on the edge of Mechlin, +though the features could not easily be recognised through the grey +screen of the rain. I do not generally agree with those who find rain +depressing. A shower-bath is not depressing; it is rather startling. And +if it is exciting when a man throws a pail of water over you, why should +it not also be exciting when the gods throw many pails? But on this +soaking afternoon, whether it was the dull sky-line of the Netherlands +or the fact that we were returning home without any adventure, I really +did think things a trifle dreary. As soon as we could creep under the +shelter of a street we turned into a little cafe, kept by one woman. She +was incredibly old, and she spoke no French. There we drank black coffee +and what was called "cognac fine." "Cognac fine" were the only two +French words used in the establishment, and they were not true. At +least, the fineness (perhaps by its very ethereal delicacy) escaped me. +After a little my friend, who was more restless than I, got up and went +out, to see if the rain had stopped and if we could at once stroll back +to our hotel by the station. I sat finishing my coffee in a colourless +mood, and listening to the unremitting rain. + +..... + +Suddenly the door burst open, and my friend appeared, transfigured and +frantic. + +"Get up!" he cried, waving his hands wildly. "Get up! We're in the wrong +town! We're not in Mechlin at all. Mechlin is ten miles, twenty miles +off--God knows what! We're somewhere near Antwerp." + +"What!" I cried, leaping from my seat, and sending the furniture flying. +"Then all is well, after all! Poetry only hid her face for an instant +behind a cloud. Positively for a moment I was feeling depressed because +we were in the right town. But if we are in the wrong town--why, we +have our adventure after all! If we are in the wrong town, we are in the +right place." + +I rushed out into the rain, and my friend followed me somewhat more +grimly. We discovered we were in a town called Lierre, which seemed to +consist chiefly of bankrupt pastry cooks, who sold lemonade. + +"This is the peak of our whole poetic progress!" I cried +enthusiastically. "We must do something, something sacramental and +commemorative! We cannot sacrifice an ox, and it would be a bore to +build a temple. Let us write a poem." + +With but slight encouragement, I took out an old envelope and one of +those pencils that turn bright violet in water. There was plenty of +water about, and the violet ran down the paper, symbolising the rich +purple of that romantic hour. I began, choosing the form of an old +French ballade; it is the easiest because it is the most restricted-- + + "Can Man to Mount Olympus rise, + And fancy Primrose Hill the scene? + Can a man walk in Paradise + And think he is in Turnham Green? + And could I take you for Malines, + Not knowing the nobler thing you were? + O Pearl of all the plain, and queen, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + "Through memory's mist in glimmering guise + Shall shine your streets of sloppy sheen. + And wet shall grow my dreaming eyes, + To think how wet my boots have been + Now if I die or shoot a Dean----" + +Here I broke off to ask my friend whether he thought it expressed a more +wild calamity to shoot a Dean or to be a Dean. But he only turned up his +coat collar, and I felt that for him the muse had folded her wings. I +rewrote-- + + "Now if I die a Rural Dean, + Or rob a bank I do not care, + Or turn a Tory. I have seen + The lovely city of Lierre." + +"The next line," I resumed, warming to it; but my friend interrupted me. + +"The next line," he said somewhat harshly, "will be a railway line. +We can get back to Mechlin from here, I find, though we have to change +twice. I dare say I should think this jolly romantic but for the +weather. Adventure is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne +and my adventures dry. Here is the station." + +..... + +We did not speak again until we had left Lierre, in its sacred cloud of +rain, and were coming to Mechlin, under a clearer sky, that even made +one think of stars. Then I leant forward and said to my friend in a low +voice--"I have found out everything. We have come to the wrong star." + +He stared his query, and I went on eagerly: "That is what makes life +at once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. When I +thought that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it was wrong, +I was happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, tires us +because it tells us we fit into this world. The true happiness is that +we don't fit. We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way." + +He silently nodded, staring out of the window, but whether I had +impressed or only fatigued him I could not tell. "This," I added, "is +suggested in the last verse of a fine poem you have grossly neglected-- + + "'Happy is he and more than wise + Who sees with wondering eyes and clean + The world through all the grey disguise + Of sleep and custom in between. + Yes; we may pass the heavenly screen, + But shall we know when we are there? + Who know not what these dead stones mean, + The lovely city of Lierre.'" + +Here the train stopped abruptly. And from Mechlin church steeple we +heard the half-chime: and Joris broke silence with "No bally HORS +D'OEUVRES for me: I shall get on to something solid at once." + + L'Envoy + + Prince, wide your Empire spreads, I ween, + Yet happier is that moistened Mayor, + Who drinks her cognac far from fine, + The lovely city of Lierre. + + + + +XXXIX. The Mystery of a Pageant + +Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take +a small part in one of those historical processions or pageants which +happened to be fashionable in or about the year 1909. And since I tend, +like all who are growing old, to re-enter the remote past as a paradise +or playground, I disinter a memory which may serve to stand among those +memories of small but strange incidents with which I have sometimes +filled this column. The thing has really some of the dark qualities of +a detective-story; though I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could +hardly unravel it now, when the scent is so old and cold and most of the +actors, doubtless, long dead. + +This old pageant included a series of figures from the eighteenth +century, and I was told that I was just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that +Dr. Johnson was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over +gravy, snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man +in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I +had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as +I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested +that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch +all of them but one, and then go back and touch that. Failing this, I +felt that the least they could do was to have twenty-five cups of tea +stationed at regular intervals along the course, each held by a Mrs. +Thrale in full costume. My best constructive suggestion was the most +harshly rejected of all. In front of me in the procession walked the +great Bishop Berkeley, the man who turned the tables on the early +materialists by maintaining that matter itself possibly does not exist. +Dr. Johnson, you will remember, did not like such bottomless fancies as +Berkeley's, and kicked a stone with his foot, saying, "I refute him so!" +Now (as I pointed out) kicking a stone would not make the metaphysical +quarrel quite clear; besides, it would hurt. But how picturesque +and perfect it would be if I moved across the ground in the symbolic +attitude of kicking Bishop Berkeley! How complete an allegoric group; +the great transcendentalist walking with his head among the stars, but +behind him the avenging realist pede claudo, with uplifted foot. But I +must not take up space with these forgotten frivolities; we old men grow +too garrulous in talking of the distant past. + +This story scarcely concerns me either in my real or my assumed +character. Suffice it to say that the procession took place at night +in a large garden and by torchlight (so remote is the date), that the +garden was crowded with Puritans, monks, and men-at-arms, and especially +with early Celtic saints smoking pipes, and with elegant Renaissance +gentlemen talking Cockney. Suffice it to say, or rather it is needless +to say, that I got lost. I wandered away into some dim corner of that +dim shrubbery, where there was nothing to do except tumbling over tent +ropes, and I began almost to feel like my prototype, and to share his +horror of solitude and hatred of a country life. + +In this detachment and dilemma I saw another man in a white wig +advancing across this forsaken stretch of lawn; a tall, lean man, who +stooped in his long black robes like a stooping eagle. When I thought +he would pass me, he stopped before my face, and said, "Dr. Johnson, I +think. I am Paley." + +"Sir," I said, "you used to guide men to the beginnings of Christianity. +If you can guide me now to wherever this infernal thing begins you will +perform a yet higher and harder function." + +His costume and style were so perfect that for the instant I really +thought he was a ghost. He took no notice of my flippancy, but, turning +his black-robed back on me, led me through verdurous glooms and winding +mossy ways, until we came out into the glare of gaslight and laughing +men in masquerade, and I could easily laugh at myself. + +And there, you will say, was an end of the matter. I am (you will say) +naturally obtuse, cowardly, and mentally deficient. I was, moreover, +unused to pageants; I felt frightened in the dark and took a man for a +spectre whom, in the light, I could recognise as a modern gentleman in +a masquerade dress. No; far from it. That spectral person was my first +introduction to a special incident which has never been explained and +which still lays its finger on my nerve. + +I mixed with the men of the eighteenth century; and we fooled as one +does at a fancy-dress ball. There was Burke as large as life and a great +deal better looking. There was Cowper much larger than life; he ought +to have been a little man in a night-cap, with a cat under one arm and +a spaniel under the other. As it was, he was a magnificent person, and +looked more like the Master of Ballantrae than Cowper. I persuaded him +at last to the night-cap, but never, alas, to the cat and dog. When I +came the next night Burke was still the same beautiful improvement upon +himself; Cowper was still weeping for his dog and cat and would not +be comforted; Bishop Berkeley was still waiting to be kicked in the +interests of philosophy. In short, I met all my old friends but one. +Where was Paley? I had been mystically moved by the man's presence; I +was moved more by his absence. At last I saw advancing towards us +across the twilight garden a little man with a large book and a bright +attractive face. When he came near enough he said, in a small, clear +voice, "I'm Paley." The thing was quite natural, of course; the man was +ill and had sent a substitute. Yet somehow the contrast was a shock. + +By the next night I had grown quite friendly with my four or five +colleagues; I had discovered what is called a mutual friend with +Berkeley and several points of difference with Burke. Cowper, I think +it was, who introduced me to a friend of his, a fresh face, square +and sturdy, framed in a white wig. "This," he explained, "is my friend +So-and-So. He's Paley." I looked round at all the faces by this time +fixed and familiar; I studied them; I counted them; then I bowed to the +third Paley as one bows to necessity. So far the thing was all within +the limits of coincidence. It certainly seemed odd that this one +particular cleric should be so varying and elusive. It was singular +that Paley, alone among men, should swell and shrink and alter like a +phantom, while all else remained solid. But the thing was explicable; +two men had been ill and there was an end of it; only I went again +the next night, and a clear-coloured elegant youth with powdered hair +bounded up to me, and told me with boyish excitement that he was Paley. + +For the next twenty-four hours I remained in the mental condition of +the modern world. I mean the condition in which all natural explanations +have broken down and no supernatural explanation has been established. +My bewilderment had reached to boredom when I found myself once more in +the colour and clatter of the pageant, and I was all the more pleased +because I met an old school-fellow, and we mutually recognised each +other under our heavy clothes and hoary wigs. We talked about all those +great things for which literature is too small and only life large +enough; red-hot memories and those gigantic details which make up the +characters of men. I heard all about the friends he had lost sight of +and those he had kept in sight; I heard about his profession, and asked +at last how he came into the pageant. + +"The fact is," he said, "a friend of mine asked me, just for to-night, +to act a chap called Paley; I don't know who he was...." + +"No, by thunder!" I said, "nor does anyone." + +This was the last blow, and the next night passed like a dream. I +scarcely noticed the slender, sprightly, and entirely new figure which +fell into the ranks in the place of Paley, so many times deceased. What +could it mean? Why was the giddy Paley unfaithful among the faithful +found? Did these perpetual changes prove the popularity or the +unpopularity of being Paley? Was it that no human being could support +being Paley for one night and live till morning? Or was it that the +gates were crowded with eager throngs of the British public thirsting +to be Paley, who could only be let in one at a time? Or is there some +ancient vendetta against Paley? Does some secret society of Deists still +assassinate any one who adopts the name? + +I cannot conjecture further about this true tale of mystery; and that +for two reasons. First, the story is so true that I have had to put a +lie into it. Every word of this narrative is veracious, except the one +word Paley. And second, because I have got to go into the next room and +dress up as Dr. Johnson. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tremendous Trifles, by G. K. 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