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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: Impressions And Comments + +Author: Havelock Ellis + + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8125] +This file was first posted on June 16, 2003 +Last Updated: May 20, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS *** + + + + +Text file produced by S.R. Ellison, Eric Eldred and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Havelock Ellis + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + For many years I have been accustomed to make notes on random leaves of + the things in Life and Thought which have chanced to strike my attention. + Such records of personal reaction to the outer and inner world have been + helpful to my work, and so had their uses. + </p> + <p> + But as one grows older the possibilities of these uses become more + limited. One realises in the Autumn that leaves no longer have a vital + function to perform; there is no longer any need why they should cling to + the tree. So let them be scattered to the winds! + </p> + <p> + It is inevitable that such Leaves cannot be judged in the same way as + though they constituted a Book. They are much more like loose pages from a + Journal. Thus they tend to be more personal, more idiosyncratic, than in a + book it would be lawful for a writer to be. Often, also, they show blanks + which the intelligence of the reader must fill in. At the best they merely + present the aspect of the moment, the flash of a single facet of life, + only to be held in the brain provided one also holds therein many other + facets, for the fair presentation of the great crystal of life. So it + comes about that much is here demanded of the Reader, so much that I feel + it rather my duty to warn him away than to hold out any fallacious lures. + </p> + <p> + The fact has especially to be reckoned with that such Impressions and + Comments, stated absolutely and without consideration for divergent + Impressions and Comments, may seem, as a friend who has read some of them + points out, to lack explicit reasonableness. I trust they are not lacking + in implicit reasonableness. They spring, even when they seem to contradict + one another, from a central vision, and from a central faith too deeply + rooted to care to hasten unduly towards the most obvious goal. From that + central core these Impressions and Comments are concerned with many + things, with the miracles of Nature, with the Charms and Absurdities of + the Human Worm, that Golden Wire wherefrom hang all the joys and the + mysteries of Art. I am only troubled because I know how very feebly these + things are imaged here. For I have only the medium of words to work in, + only words, words that are flung about in the street and often in the mud, + only words with which to mould all my images of the Beauty and Gaiety of + the World. + </p> + <p> + Such as they are, these random leaves are here scattered to the winds. It + may be that as they flutter to the earth one or another may be caught by + the hand of the idle passer-by, and even seem worthy of contemplation. For + no two leaves are alike even when they fall from the same tree. + </p> + <h3> + HAVELOCK ELLIS. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS + </h2> + <p> + <i>July 24, 1912</i>.—I looked out from my room about ten o'clock at + night. Almost below the open window a young woman was clinging to the flat + wall for support, with occasional floundering movements towards the + attainment of a firmer balance. In the dim light she seemed decently + dressed in black; her handkerchief was in her hand; she had evidently been + sick. + </p> + <p> + Every few moments some one passed by. It was quite clear that she was + helpless and distressed. No one turned a glance towards her—except a + policeman. He gazed at her searchingly as he passed, but without stopping + or speaking; she was drunk, no doubt, but not too obtrusively incapable; + he mercifully decided that she was of no immediate professional concern to + him. She soon made a more violent effort to gain muscular control of + herself, but merely staggered round her own escaping centre of gravity and + sank gently on to the pavement in a sitting posture. + </p> + <p> + Every few moments people continued to pass within a few inches of her—men, + women, couples. Unlike the priest and the Levite in the parable, they + never turned away, but pursued their straight course with callous + rectitude. Not one seemed so much as to see her. In a minute or two, + stimulated perhaps by some sense of the impropriety of her position, she + rose to her feet again, without much difficulty, and returned to cling to + the wall. + </p> + <p> + A few minutes later I saw a decently-dressed young woman, evidently of the + working class, walk quietly, but without an instant's hesitation, straight + up to the figure against the wall. (It was what, in Moscow, the first + passer-by would have done.) I could hear her speaking gently and kindly, + though of what she said I could only catch, "Where do you live?" No + answers were audible, and perhaps none were given. But the sweet Samaritan + continued speaking gently. At last I heard her say, "Come round the + corner," and with only the gentle pressure of a hand on the other's arm + she guided her round the corner near which they stood, away from the + careless stream of passengers, to recover at leisure. I saw no more. + </p> + <p> + Our modern civilisation, it is well known, long since transformed + "chivalry"; it was once an offer of help to distressed women; it is now + exclusively reserved for women who are not distressed and clearly able to + help themselves. We have to realise that it can scarcely even be said that + our growing urban life, however it fosters what has been called + "urbanity," has any equally fostering influence on instinctive mutual + helpfulness as an element of that urbanity. We do not even see the + helpless people who go to the wall or to the pavement. This is true of men + and women alike. But when instinctive helpfulness is manifested it seems + most likely to reveal itself in a woman. That is why I would like to give + to women all possible opportunities—rights and privileges alike—for + social service. + </p> + <p> + <i>July 27</i>.—A gentle rain was falling, and on this my first day + in Paris since the unveiling of the Verlaine monument in the Luxembourg + Gardens, immediately after I left Paris last year, I thought there could + be no better moment to visit the spot so peculiarly fit to be dedicated to + the poet who loved such spots—a "coin exquis" where the rain may + fall peacefully among the trees, on his image as once on his heart, and + the tender mists enfold him from the harsh world. + </p> + <p> + I scarcely think the sculptor quite happily inspired in his conception of + the face of the charming old man I knew of old in his haunts of the + Boulevard Saint-Michel. It is too strong a face, too disdainful, with too + much character. Verlaine was sympathetic, simple, childlike, humble; when + he put on an air of pride it was with a deliberate yet delightful pose, a + child's pose. There is an air of almost military rigidity about the pride + of this bust; I do not find Verlaine in that trait. + </p> + <p> + Verlaine's strength was not that of character; it was that of Nature. I + could imagine that the Silenus, whom we see with his satellites near by, + might be regarded in its expression, indeed in the whole conception of the + group—with its helpless languor and yet its divine dominance—as + the monument of that divine and helpless poet whom I still recall so well, + as with lame leg and stick he would drift genially along the Boulevard a + few yards away. + </p> + <p> + <i>July 31.</i>—At the hotel in Dijon, the flourishing capital of + Burgundy, I was amused to note how curiously my room differed from what I + once regarded as the type of the French room in the hotels I used to + frequent. There is still a Teutonic touch in the Burgundian; he is + meticulously thorough. I had six electric lights in different positions, a + telephone, hot and cold water laid on into a huge basin, a foot-bath, and, + finally, a wastepaper-basket. For the rest, a severely simple room, no + ornaments, nothing to remind one of the brace of glass pistols and all the + other ugly and useless things which filled my room at the ancient hotel in + Rouen where I stayed two years ago. And the "lavabo," as it is here + called, a spacious room with an ostentatiously noisy rush of water which + may be heard afar and awakens one at night. The sanitary and mechanical + age we are now entering makes up for the mercy it grants to our sense of + smell by the ferocity with which it assails our sense of hearing. As + usual, what we call "Progress" is the exchange of one Nuisance for another + Nuisance. + </p> + <p> + <i>August 5.</i>—It is an idea of mine that a country with a genius + for architecture is only able to show that genius supremely in one style, + not in all styles. The Catalans have a supreme genius for architecture, + but they have only achieved a single style. The English have attempted all + styles of architecture, but it was only in Perpendicular that we attained + a really free and beautiful native style in our domestic buildings and + what one might call our domestic churches. Strassburg Cathedral is + thoroughly German and acceptable as such, but Cologne Cathedral is an + exotic, and all the energy and the money of Germany through a thousand + years can never make it anything but cold, mechanical, and artificial. + When I was in Burgundy I felt that the Burgundians had a genius for + Romanesque, and that their Gothic is for the most part feeble and insipid. + Now, how about the Normans? One cannot say their Romanesque is not fine, + in the presence of William the Conqueror's Abbaye aux Hommes, here at + Caen. But I should be inclined to ask (without absolutely affirming) + whether the finest Norman Romanesque can be coupled with the finest + Burgundian Romanesque. The Norman genius was, I think, really for Gothic, + and not for what we in England call "Norman" because it happened to come + to us through Normandy. Without going to Rouen it is enough to look at + many a church here. The Normans had a peculiar plastic power over stone + which Gothic alone could give free scope to. Stone became so malleable in + their hands that they seem as if working in wood. Probably it really was + the case that their familiarity with wood-carving influenced their work in + architecture. And they possessed so fine a taste that while they seem to + be freely abandoning themselves to their wildest fantasies, the outcome is + rarely extravagant (Flaubert in his <i>Tentation</i> is a great Norman + architect), and at the best attains a ravishing beauty of flowing and + interwoven lines. At its worst, as in St. Sauveur, which is a monstrosity + like the Siamese twins, a church with two naves and no aisles, the general + result still has its interest, even apart from the exquisite beauty of the + details. It is here in Gothic, and not in Romanesque, that the Normans + attained full scope. We miss the superb repose, the majestic strength, of + the Romanesque of Burgundy and the south-west of France. There is + something daring and strange and adventurous in Norman Romanesque. It was + by no accident, I think, that the ogive, in which lay the secret of + Gothic, appeared first in Norman Romanesque. + </p> + <p> + <i>August 8.</i>—I have sometimes thought when in Spain that in + ancient university towns the women tend to be notably beautiful or + attractive, and I have imagined that this might be due to the continuous + influence of student blood through many centuries in refining the + population, the finest specimens of the young students proving + irresistible to the women of the people, and so raising the level of the + population by sexual selection. At Salamanca I was impressed by the + unusual charm of the women, and even at Palencia to some extent noticed + it, though Palencia ceased to be the great university of Spain nearly + eight centuries ago. At Fécamp I have been struck by the occasional + occurrence of an unusual type of feminine beauty, not, it seems to me, + peculiarly Norman, with dark, ardent, spiritual eyes, and a kind of proud + hierarchical bearing. I have wondered how far the abbots and monks of this + great and ancient abbey of Benedictines were occupied—in the + intervals of more supra-mundane avocations—in perfecting, not only + the ancient recipe of their liqueur, but also the physical type of the + feminine population among which they laboured. The type I have in mind + sometimes rather recalls the face of Baudelaire, who, by his mother's + family from which he chiefly inherited, the Dufays, belonged, it is held + probable, to Normandy. + </p> + <p> + <i>August 9.</i>—Typical women of Normandy often have a certain + highly-bred air. They are slender when young, sometimes inclined to be + tall, and the face—of course beautiful in complexion, for they dwell + near the sea—is not seldom refined and distinguished. See the proud, + sensitive nostrils of that young woman sweeping the pavement with her + broom in front of the house this morning; one can tell she is of the same + race as Charlotte Corday. And I have certainly never found anywhere in + France women who seem to me so naturally charming and so sympathetic as + the women who dwell in all this north-western district from Paris to the + sea. They are often, as one might expect, a little English-like (it might + be in Suffolk on the other side of the Channel, and Beauvais, I recall, + has something of the air of old Ipswich), but with a vivacity of movement, + and at the same time an aristocratic precision and subtlety one fails to + find in the English. When a pretty English girl of the people opens her + mouth the charm is often gone. On the contrary, I have often noticed in + Normandy that a seemingly commonplace unattractive girl only becomes + charming when she does open her mouth, to reveal her softness of speech, + the delicately-inflexed and expressive tones, while her face lights up in + harmony with her speech. Now—to say nothing of the women of the + south, whose hard faces and harsh voices are often so distressing—in + Dijon, whence I came to Normandy this time, the women are often sweet, + even angelic of aspect, looking proper material for nuns and saints, but, + to me at all events, not personally so sympathetic as the Norman women, + who are no doubt quite as good but never express the fact with the same + air of slightly Teutonic insipidity. The men of Normandy I regard as of + finer type than the Burgundian men, and this time it is the men who + express goodness more than the women. The Burgundian men, with their big + moustaches turned up resolutely at the points and their wickedly-sparkling + eyes, have evidently set before themselves the task of incorporating a + protest against the attitude of their women. But the Norman men, who allow + their golden moustaches to droop, are a fine frank type of manhood at the + best, pleasantly honest and unspoilt. I know, indeed, how skilful, how + wily, how noble even, in their aristocratic indifference to detail, these + Normans can be in extracting money from the stranger (have I not lunched + simply at the Hostel Guillaume-le-Conquérant in the village of Dives for + the same sum on which I have lived sumptuously for three days at the Hotel + Victoria in the heart of Seville?), but the manner of their activity in + this matter scarcely seems to me to be happily caught by those Parisians + who delight to caricature, as mere dull, avaricious plebeians, "Ces bons + Normands." Their ancient chronicler said a thousand years ago of the + Normans that their unbounded avarice was balanced by their equally + unbounded extravagance. That, perhaps, is a clue to the magnificent + achievements of the Normans, in the spiritual world even more than in the + material world. + </p> + <p> + <i>August</i> 10.—On leaving France by the boat from Dieppe I + selected a seat close to which, shortly afterwards, three English people—two + young women and a man—came to occupy deck-chairs already placed for + them by a sailor and surrounded by their bags and wraps. Immediately one + of the women began angrily asking her companions why her bag had not been + placed the right side up; <i>she</i> would not have her things treated + like that, etc. Her companions were gentle and conciliatory,—though + I noticed they left her alone during most of the passage,—and the + man had with attentive forethought made all arrangements for his + companions' comfort. But, somehow, I looked in wonder at her discontented + face and heard with surprise her peevish voice. She was just an ordinary + stolid nourishing young Englishwoman. But I had been in France, and though + I had been travelling for a whole fortnight I had seen nothing like this. + She lay back and began reading a novel, which she speedily exchanged for a + basin. I fear I felt a certain satisfaction at the spectacle. It is good + for the English barbarian to be chastised with scorpions. + </p> + <p> + How pleasant at Newhaven to find myself near another woman, a young + Frenchwoman, with the firm, disciplined, tender face, the + sweetly-modulated voice, the air of fine training, the dignified + self-respect which also involves respect for others. I realised in a flash + the profound contrast to that fellow-countrywoman of mine who had + fascinated my attention on board the boat. + </p> + <p> + But one imagines a French philosopher, a new Taine, let us suppose, + setting out from Dieppe for the "land of Suffragettes" to write another <i>Notes + sur l'Angleterre</i>. How finely he would build a great generalisation on + narrow premises! How acutely he would point out the dependence of the + English "gentleman's" good qualities or the ill-conditioned qualities of + his women-folk! + </p> + <p> + <i>August 15.</i>—I enter an empty suburban railway carriage and + take up a common-looking little periodical lying on the seat beside me. It + is a penny weekly I had never heard of before, written for feminine + readers and evidently enjoying an immense circulation. I turn over the + pages. One might possibly suppose that at the present moment the feminine + world is greatly excited, or at all events mildly interested, by the + suffrage movement. But there is not a word in this paper from beginning to + end with the faintest reference to the suffrage, nor is there anything + bearing on any single great social movement of the day in which, it may + seem to us, women are taking a part. Nor, again, is there anything to be + found touching on ideas, not even on religion. There are, on the other + hand, evidently three great interests dominating the thoughts of the + readers of this paper: Clothes, Cookery, Courtship. How to make an old hat + look new, how to make sweetmeats, how to behave when a man makes advances + to you—these are the problems in which the readers of this journal + are profoundly interested, and one can scarcely gather that they are + interested in anything else. Very instructive is the long series of + questions, problems posed by anxious correspondents for the editor to + answer. One finds such a problem as this: Suppose you like a man, and + suppose you think he likes you, and suppose he never says so—what + ought you to do? The answers, fully accepting the serious nature of the + problems, are kindly and sensible enough, almost maternal, admirably + adapted to the calibre and outlook of the readers in this little world. + But what a little world! So narrow, so palaeolithically ancient, so + pathetically simple, so good, so sweet, so humble, so essentially and + profoundly feminine! It is difficult not to drop a tear on the thin, + common, badly-printed pages. + </p> + <p> + And then, in the very different journal I have with me, I read the + enthusiastic declaration of an ardent masculine feminist—a man of + the study—that the executive power of the world is to-day being + transferred to women; they alone possess "psychic vision," they alone are + interested in the great questions which men ignore—and I realise + what those great questions are: Clothes, Cookery, Courtship. + </p> + <p> + <i>August 23.</i>—I stood on the platform at Paddington station as + the Plymouth Express slowly glided out. Leaning out of a third-class + compartment stood the figure that attracted my attention. His head was + bare and so revealed his harmoniously wavy and carefully-tended grey hair. + The expression of his shaven and disciplined face was sympathetic and + kindly, evidently attuned to expected emotions of sorrowful farewell, yet + composed, clearly not himself overwhelmed by those emotions. His right arm + and open hand were held above his head, in an attitude that had in it a + not too ostentatious hint of benediction. When he judged that the gracious + vision was no longer visible to the sorrowing friends left behind he + discreetly withdrew into the carriage. There was a feminine touch about + this figure; there was also a touch of the professional actor. But on the + whole it was absolutely, without the shadow of a doubt, the complete + Anglican Clergyman. + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 2.—Nearly every day just now I have to enter a + certain shop where I am served by a young woman. She is married, a mother, + at the same time a businesslike young woman who is proud of her + businesslike qualities. But she is also pleasant to look upon in her + healthy young maternity, her frank open face, her direct speech, her + simple natural manner and instinctive friendliness. From her whole body + radiates the healthy happiness of her gracious personality. A businesslike + person, certainly, and I receive nothing beyond my due money's worth. But + I always carry away something that no money can buy, and that is even more + nourishing than the eggs and butter and cream she sells. + </p> + <p> + How few, it seems to me, yet realise the vast importance in civilisation + of the quality of the people one is necessarily brought into contact with! + Consider the vast number of people in our present communities who are + harsh, ugly, ineradically discourteous, selfish, or insolent—the + people whose lives are spent in diminishing the joy of the community in + which not so much Providence as the absence of providence has placed them, + in impeding that community's natural activity, in diminishing its total + output of vital force. Lazy and impertinent clerks, stuck-up shop + assistants, inconsiderate employers, brutal employees, unendurable + servants, and no less unendurable mistresses—what place will be left + for them as civilisation advances? + </p> + <p> + We have assumed, in the past, that these things and the likes of these are + modifiable by nurture, and that where they cannot be cured they must be + endured. But with the realisation that breeding can be, and eventually + must be, controlled by social opinion, a new horizon has opened to + civilisation, a new light has come into the world, the glimpse of a new + Heaven is revealed. + </p> + <p> + Animals living in nature are everywhere beautiful; it is only among men + that ugliness flourishes. Savages, nearly everywhere, are gracious and + harmonious; it is only among the civilised that harshness and discord are + permitted to prevail. Henry Ellis, in the narrative of his experiences in + Hudson's Bay in the eighteenth century, tells how a party of Eskimo—a + people peculiarly tender to their children—came to the English + settlement, told heart-brokenly of hardship and famine so severe that one + of the children had been eaten. The English only laughed and the indignant + Eskimo went on their way. What savages anywhere in the world would have + laughed? I recall seeing, years ago, a man enter a railway carriage, fling + aside the rug a traveller had deposited to retain a corner seat and + obstinately hold that seat. Would such a man be permitted to live among + savages? If the eugenic ideals that are now floating before men's eyes + never lead us to any Heaven at all, but merely discourage among us the + generation of human creatures below the level of decent savagery, they + will serve their turn. + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 7.—The music of César Franck always brings before + me a man who is seeking peace with himself and consolation with God, at a + height, above the crowd, in isolation, as it were in the uppermost turret + of a church tower. It recalls the memory of the unforgettable evening when + Denyn played on the carillon at Malines, and from the canal side I looked + up at the little red casement high in the huge Cathedral tower where the + great player seemed to be breathing out his soul, in solitude, among the + stars. Always when I hear the music of Franck—a Fleming, also, it + may well be by no accident—I seem to be in contact with a sensitive + and solitary spirit, absorbed in self-communion, weaving the web of its + own Heaven and achieving the fulfilment of its own rapture. + </p> + <p> + In this symphonic poem, "Les Djinns," the attitude more tenderly revealed + in the "Variations Symphoniques," and, above all, the sonata in A Major, + is dramatically represented. The solitary dreamer in his tower is + surrounded and assailed by evil spirits, we hear the beating of their + great wings as they troop past, but the dreamer is strong and undismayed, + and in the end he is left in peace, alone. + </p> + <p> + <i>September 10</i>.—It was an overture by Elgar, and the full + solemn sonorous music had drawn to its properly majestic close. Beside me + sat an artist friend who is a lover of music, and regularly attends these + Promenade Concerts. He removed the cigarette from his lips and chuckled + softly to himself for some moments. Then he replaced the cigarette and + joined in the tempestuous and prolonged applause. I looked at him + inquiringly. "It is a sort of variation of the theme," he said, "that he + sometimes calls the Cosmic Angels Working Together or the Soul of Man + Striving with the Divine Essence." I glanced at the programme again. The + title was "Cockaigne." + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 17.—It has often seemed to me that the bearing of + musical conductors is significant for the study of national + characteristics, and especially for the difference between the English and + the Continental neuro-psychic systems. One always feels inhibition and + suppression (such as a Freudian has found characteristic of the English) + in the movements of the English conductor, some psychic element holding + the nervous play in check, and producing a stiff wooden embarrassed + rigidity or an ostentatiously languid and careless indifference. At the + extreme remove from this is Birnbaum, that gigantic and feverishly active + spider, whose bent body seems to crouch over the whole orchestra, his + magically elongated arms to stretch out so far that his wand touches the + big drum. But even the quietest of these foreign conductors, Nikisch, for + example, gives no impression of psychic inhibition, but rather of that + refined and deliberate economy of means which marks the accomplished + artist. Among English conductors one may regard Wood (<i>lucus a non + lucendo!</i>) as an exception. Most of the rest—I speak of those of + the old school, since those of the new school can sometimes be volatile + and feverish enough—seem to be saying all the time: "I am in an + awkward and embarrassing position, though I shall muddle through + successfully. The fact is I am rather out of my element here. I am really + a Gentleman." + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 2.—Whenever I come down to Cornwall I realise the + curious contradiction which lies in this region as at once a Land of + Granite and a Land of Mist. On the one hand archaic rocks, primitive, + mighty, unchanging, deep-rooted in the bases of the world. On the other + hand, iridescent vapour, for ever changing, one moment covering the land + with radiant colour, another enveloping it in a pall of gloom. + </p> + <p> + I can also see two contradictory types of people among the inhabitants of + this land. On the one hand, a people of massive and solid build, a + slow-moving people of firm, primitive nature, that for all their calm + stolidity may give out a fiery ring if struck, and will fearlessly follow + the lure of Adventure or of Right. On the other hand, a race of soft and + flexible build, of shifting and elusive mind, alert to speak and slow to + act, of rainbow temperament, fascinating and uncertain. Other types there + may be, but certainly these two, whatever their racial origin, Children of + the Granite and Children of the Mist. <i>October</i> 3.—It has often + interested me to observe how a nation of ancient civilisation differs from + a nation of new civilisation by what may be called the ennoblement of its + lower classes. Among new peoples the lower classes—whatever fine + qualities they may possess—are still barbarians, if not savages. + Plebeian is written all over them, in their vulgar roughly-moulded faces, + in their awkward movements, in their manners, in their servility or in + their insolence. But among the peoples of age-long culture, that culture + has had time to enter the blood of even the lowest social classes, so that + the very beggars may sometimes be fine gentlemen. The features become + firmly or delicately moulded, the movements graceful, the manners as + gracious; there is an instinctive courtesy and ease, as of equal to equal, + even when addressing a social superior. One has only to think of the + contrast between Poland and Russia, between Spain and Germany. + </p> + <p> + I am frequently reminded of that difference here in Cornwall. Anywhere in + Cornwall you may see a carter, a miner, a fisherman, a bricklayer, who + with the high distinction of his finely cast face, the mingling in his + manner of easy nonchalance and old-world courtesy, seems only to need a + visit to the tailor to add dignity to a Pall Mall club. No doubt England + is not a new country, and the English lower social classes have become in + a definite degree more aristocratic than those of Russia or even Germany. + But the forefathers of the Cornish were civilised when we English were a + horde of savages. One may still find humble families with ancient surnames + living in the same spot as lived, we find, if we consult the Heralds' + Visitations, armigerous families of the same name in the sixteenth + century, already ancient, and perhaps bearing, it is curious to note, the + same Christian names as the family which has forgotten them bears to-day. + </p> + <p> + So it is that in that innate ennoblement which implies no superiority + either of the intellect or of the heart, but merely a greater refinement + of the nervous tissue, the Cornish have displayed, from the earliest + period we can discern, a slight superiority over us English. Drake, a man + of this district if not a Cornish-man, when sailing on his daring + buccaneering adventures, dined and supped to the music of violins, a + refinement which even his Pole-hunting successors of our own day scarcely + achieved. Raleigh, partly a Cornishman, still retains popular fame as the + man who flung his rich cloak in the mud for the Queen to step on. To-day a + poet of Cornish race when introduced in public to Sarah Bernhardt, the + goddess of his youthful adoration, at once kissed her hand and declared to + her that that was the moment he had all his life been looking for. But we + English are not descended from the men who wrote the <i>Mabinogian</i>; + our hearts and souls are expressed in <i>Beowulf</i> and <i>Havelok</i>, + and more remotely in the <i>Chanson de Roland</i>. We could not imitate + the Cornish if we would; and sometimes, perhaps, we would not if we could. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 4.—I lay with a book on the rocks, overlooking a + familiar scene, the great expanse of the sands at low tide. In the far + distance near the river was a dim feminine figure in a long coat, + accompanied by three dogs. Half an hour later, when I glanced up from my + book, I chanced to notice that the slender feminine figure was marching + down to the sea, leaving a little pile of garments on the middle of the + sands, just now completely deserted. The slender figure leisurely and + joyously disported itself in the water. Then at length it returned to the + little pile, negligently guarded by the dogs, there was a faint radiance + of flesh, a white towel flashed swiftly to and fro for a few moments. Then + with amazing celerity the figure had resumed its original appearance, and, + decorously proceeding shorewards, disappeared among the sand dunes on the + way to its unknown home. + </p> + <p> + In an age when savagery has passed and civilisation has not arrived, it is + only by stealth, at rare moments, that the human form may emerge from the + prison house of its garments, it is only from afar that the radiance of + its beauty—if beauty is still left to it—may faintly flash + before us. + </p> + <p> + Among pseudo-Christian barbarians, as Heine described them, the Olympian + deities still wander homelessly, scarce emerging from beneath obscure + disguises, and half ashamed of their own divinity. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 5.—I made again to-day an observation concerning a + curious habit of birds and small mammals which I first made many years ago + and have frequently confirmed. If when I am walking along near banks and + hedges, absorbed in my own thoughts, and chance suddenly to stand still, + any wild creature in covert near the spot will at once scuttle hastily and + noisily away: the creature which had awaited the approaching tramp in + quiet confidence that the moment of danger would soon be overpast if only + he kept quiet and concealed, is overcome by so sudden a panic of terror at + the arrest of movement in his neighbourhood that he betrays his own + presence in the impulse to escape. The silence which one might imagine to + be reassuring to the nervous animal is precisely the cause of his terror. + It is a useful adaptation to the ways of the great enemy Man, whether it + is an adaptation resulting from individual experience or acquired by + natural selection. From the stand-point of wild animality it is the + Silence of Man that is ominous. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 11.—When I come, as now, from Cornwall to West + Suffolk, I feel that I have left behind a magic land of sea and sky and + exquisite atmosphere. But I have entered a land of humanity, and a land + whose humanity—it may be in part from ancestral reasons—I find + peculiarly congenial. Humanity is not the chief part of the charm of + Cornwall, though sometimes it may seem the very efflorescence of the land. + It often seems almost a parasite there. It cannot mould the barren and + stubborn soil to any ideal human shapes, or develop upon it any rich + harmonious human life, such as I inhale always, with immense satisfaction, + in this reposeful and beautifully wrought land of Suffolk. + </p> + <p> + On this evening of my arrival in the charming old town by the quiet river, + how delicious—with remembrance still fresh of the square heavy + little granite boxes in which the Cornish live—to find once more + these ancient, half-timbered houses reminiscent of the Norman houses, but + lighter and more various, wrought with an art at once so admirable and so + homely, with such delicate detail, the lovely little old windows with the + soft light shining through to reveal their pattern. + </p> + <p> + The musically voiced bells sound the hour from the great church, rich in + beauty and tradition, and we walk across the market-place, this side the + castle hill—the hill which held for six hundred years the precious + jewelled crucifix, with the splinter of the "True Cross" in its secret + recess, a careless English queen once lost from her neck—towards our + quiet inn, a real museum of interesting things fittingly housed, for + supper of Suffolk ham and country ale, and then to bed, before the long + walk of the morrow. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 14.—The Raphaels and the Peruginos are now ranged + side by side along a great wall of the National Gallery. I am able more + clearly than ever to realise how much more the early master appeals to me + than his greater pupil. I well remember how, as a boy of fifteen, in the + old National Gallery, I would linger long before Raphael's "St. + Catherine." There was no picture in the whole gallery that appealed to my + youthful brain as that picture appealed, with its seductive blend of + feminine grace and heavenly aspiration. But a little later the glory of + Rubens suddenly broke on my vision. I could never look again with the same + eyes on Raphael. By an intellectual effort I can appreciate the gracious + plenitude of his accomplishment, his copious facility, his immense + variety, the beauty of his draughtsmanship, and the felicity of his + decorative design. But all this self-conscious skill, this ingenious + affectation, this ostentatious muscularity, this immense superficiality—I + feel always now a spiritual vacuity behind it which leaves me cold and + critical. Every famous achievement of Raphael's, when I come upon it for + the first time, repels me with a fresh shock of disillusionment. I am + unpleasantly reminded of Andrea del Sarto and even of lesser men; I see + the frescoes of Vasari in the distance. It is all the work of a divinely + gifted youth who swiftly ran to waste, carrying with him all the art of + his day and land to the same fatal abyss. + </p> + <p> + But the art of Perugino is still solid and beautiful, immutably serene. It + radiates peace and strength. I neither criticise nor admire; my attitude + is much more nearly that of worship, not of Perugino's images, but of a + far-away ineffable mystery, which he in his time humbly sought to make a + little more symbolically visible to men than any that came before him. For + here we are in the presence of a great tradition which a long series of + artists have in succession wrought, each adding a little that expressed + the noblest insight of his own soul at its highest and best moments, and + the newest acquirement of his technical skill. Raphael broke up painting, + as later on Beethoven broke up music. Not that that blow destroyed the + possibility of rare and wonderful developments in special directions. But + painting and music alike lost for ever the radiant beauty of their prime + and its unconscious serenity. + </p> + <p> + In a certain sense, if one thinks, it is the ripeness of Raphael's + perfection which falls short of Perfection. In all Perfection that + satisfies we demand the possibility of a Beyond which enfolds a further + Perfection. It is not the fully blown rose which entrances us, but rather + that which in its half-blown loveliness suggests a Perfection which no + full-blown rose ever reached. In that the rose is the symbol of all + vitally beautiful things. Raphael is the full-blown rose; the only Beyond + is Dissolution and the straggling of faded petals. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 17.—"War, that simple-looking word which lightly + comes tripping from the lips of unthinking men, and even women." So writes + a famous war-correspondent, a man in the midst of war and telling of war + as it really is. Now hear a woman war-correspondent, writing about this + same war: "I was so proud to see the first gun fired on Wednesday. ... I + liked to hear the shells swishing. ... To women keen on this war it seems + almost too good to be true." That is not an extract from one of the + poignant satires of Janson. This woman, who writes of war as a girl might + write of her first long frock, is an actual woman, a war-correspondent, + with a special permit to be at the front. We are told, moreover, that she + is, at the same time, actively nursing the wounded in the hospital. + </p> + <p> + To those psychologists who like large generalisations, how this figure + must appeal as a type of the ancient conventional conception of what women + are supposed to be—Incarnate Devils, Angels of Mercy, blended + together. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 18.—Stanley Hall has lately pointed out how much we + have lost by eliminating the Devil from our theology. He is the + inseparable Companion of God, and when faith in the Devil grows dim God + fades away. Not only has the Devil been the Guardian of innocent pleasure, + of the theatre, of dancing, of sports, Hall observes, but he preserved the + virility of God. "Ought not we to rehabilitate and reinstall the Devil?" + </p> + <p> + There is much psychological truth in this contention, even for those who + are not concerned, with Stanley Hall, for the maintenance of orthodox + Christian theology. By eliminating one of the Great Persons from our + theology we not only emasculate, we dissolve it. We cannot with impunity + pick and choose what we will dispense with and what we will preserve in + our traditional myths. Let us take another sacred myth, as it may well + have been, "Jack and the Bean Stalk." Suppose that our refined civilised + impulses lead us to reject Jack, the reckless, mischievous, and + irresponsible youth, who, after a brief but discreditable career on earth, + climbed up into the clouds and fraudulently deprived the Great Giant in + the sky of his most precious possessions. But if the revolted moral sense + rejects Jack, is it likely that even the Great Giant himself will much + longer retain our faith? + </p> + <p> + In any case it must still be said that mere grandeur, creativeness, the + apotheosis of virtue and benevolence, fail to constitute an adequate + theological symbol for the complex human animal. Man needs to deify not + only his moments of moral subjection and rectitude, but his moments of + orgy and revolt. He has attained the height of civilisation, not along the + one line only, but along both lines, and we cannot even be sure that the + virtue line is the most important. Even the Puritan Milton ("a true poet + and of the Devil's party without knowing it," as Blake said) made Satan + the real hero of his theological epic, while the austere Carducci + addressed a famous ode to Satan as the creator of human civilisation. And + if you suspect that European culture may be only an eccentric aberration, + then let us wander to the other side of the world, and we find, for + instance, that the great Hawaiian goddess Kapo had a double life—now + an angel of grace and beauty, now a demon of darkness and lust. Every + profound vision of the world must recognise these two equally essential + aspects of Nature and of Man; every vital religion must embody both + aspects in superb and ennobling symbols. A religion can no more afford to + degrade its Devil than to degrade its God. + </p> + <p> + That is the error Christianity fell into at last. There can be no doubt + that the Christian Devil had grown quite impossible, and his disappearance + was imperative. Neither Milton nor Carducci could keep him alive. His + palmy days were in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, + before the Renaissance had grown powerful enough to influence European + life. Even during those palmy days he exercised a power that for the most + part was not virile, but crushing and inhuman. It has been set forth in + Dr. Paul Carus's <i>History of the Devil</i>. In the light of such a + history as that I doubt much whether even Professor Stanley Hall himself + would lift a finger to bring the Devil back among us again. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 22.—Gaby Deslys is just now a great attraction at the + Palace Theatre. One is amused to note how this very Parisian person and + her very Parisian performance are with infinite care adapted to English + needs, and attuned to this comfortably respectable, not to say stolidly + luxurious, house. We are shown a bedroom with a bed in it, and a little + dressing-room by the side. Her task is to undress and go to bed. It is the + sort of scene that may be seen anywhere in any music-hall all over Europe. + But in the capital city of British propriety, and in a music-hall + patronised by Royalty, this delicate task is surrounded and safeguarded by + infinite precautions. One seems to detect that the scene has been + rehearsed before a committee of ambiguously mixed composition. One sees + the care with which they determined the precise moment at which the + electric light should be switched off in the dressing-room; one realises + their firm decision that the lady must, after all, go to bed fully + clothed. One is conscious throughout of a careful anxiety that every + avenue to "suggestiveness" shall be just hinted and at once decently + veiled. There is something unpleasant, painful, degrading in this + ingenious mingling of prurience and prudery. The spectators, if they think + of it at all, must realise that throughout the whole trivial performance + their emotions are being basely played upon, and yet that they are being + treated with an insulting precaution which would be more in place in a + lunatic asylum than in a gathering of presumably responsible men and + women. In the end one is made to feel how far more purifying and ennobling + than this is the spectacle of absolute nakedness, even on the stage, yes, + even on the stage. + </p> + <p> + And my thoughts go back to the day, less than two years ago, when for the + first time this was clearly brought home to me by a performance—like + this and yet so unlike—in a very different place, the simple, bare, + almost sordid Teatro Gayarre. Most of the turns were of the same ordinary + sort that might be seen in many another music-hall of the long Calle + Marques del Duero. But at the end came on a performer who was, I soon + found, of altogether another order. The famous Bianca Stella, as the + programme announced, shortly to start on her South American tour, was + appearing for a limited number of nights. I had never heard of Bianca + Stella. She might, to look at, be Austrian, and one could imagine, from + some of her methods, that she was a pupil of Isadora Duncan. She was + certainly a highly trained and accomplished artist; though peculiarly + fitted for her part by Nature, still an artist, not a child of Nature. + </p> + <p> + Of fine and high type, tall and rather slim, attractive in face, almost + faultless in proportion and detail, playing her difficult part with + unfailing dignity and grace, Bianca Stella might in general type be a + Bohemian out of Stratz's <i>Schönheit des weiblichen Körpers</i>, or even + an aristocratic young Englishwoman. She comes on fully dressed, like Gaby + Deslys, but with no such luxurious environment, and slowly disrobes, + dancing all the while, one delicate garment at a time, until only a gauzy + chemise is left and she flings herself on the bed. Then she rises, fastens + on a black mantle which floats behind concealing nothing, at the same + moment removing her chemise. There is now no concealment left save by a + little close-fitting triangular shield of spangled silver, as large as the + palm of her hand, fastened round her waist by an almost invisible cord, + and she dances again with her beautiful, dignified air. Once more, this + time in the afternoon, I went to see Bianca Stella dance. Now there was a + dark curtain as a background. She came on with a piece of simple white + drapery wound round her body; as she dances she unfolds it, holds it + behind her as she dances, finally flings it away, dancing with her + fleckless and delicately proportioned body before the dark curtain. + Throughout the dances her dignity and grace, untouched by voluptuous + appeal and yet always human, remained unfailing. Other dancers who came on + before her, clothed dancers, had been petulantly wanton to their hearts' + desire. Bianca Stella seemed to belong to another world. As she danced, + when I noted the spectators, I could see here and there a gleam in the + eyes of coarse faces, though there was no slightest movement or gesture or + look of the dancer to evoke it. For these men Bianca Stella had danced in + vain, for—it remains symbolically true—only the pure in heart + can see God. To see Bianca Stella truly was to realise that it is not + desire but a sacred awe which nakedness inspires, an intoxication of the + spirit rather than of the senses, no flame of lust but rather a purifying + and exalting fire. To feel otherwise has merely been the unhappy privilege + of men intoxicated by the stifling and unwholesome air of modern + artificiality. To the natural man, always and everywhere, even to-day, + nakedness has in it a power of divine terror, which ancient men throughout + the world crystallised into beautiful rites, so that when a woman unveiled + herself it seemed to them that thunderstorms were silenced, and that + noxious animals were killed, and that vegetation flourished, and that all + the powers of evil were put to flight. That was their feeling, and, absurd + as it may seem to us, a right and natural instinct lay beneath it. Some + day, perhaps, a new moral reformer, a great apostle of purity, will appear + among us, having his scourge in his hand, and enter our theatres and + music-halls to purge them. Since I have seen Bianca Stella I know + something of what he will do. It is not nakedness that he will cast out. + It will more likely be clothes. + </p> + <p> + So it is that when I contemplate Gaby Deslys or her sort, it is of Bianca + Stella that I think. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 1.—"The way to spiritual life," wrote George + Meredith in one of his recently published letters, "lies in the complete + unfolding of the creature, not in the nipping of his passions. ... To the + flourishing of the spirit, then, through the healthy exercise of the + senses!" + </p> + <p> + Yes, all that is very good, I heartily subscribe. And yet, and yet, there + lingers a certain hesitation; one vaguely feels that, as a complete + statement of the matter, it hardly satisfies all the demands of to-day. + George Meredith belonged to the early Victorian period which had encased + its head in a huge bonnet and girdled its loins with a stiff crinoline. + His function was to react vitally to that state of things, and he + performed his function magnificently, evoking, of course, from the <i>Ordeal + of Richard Feverel</i> onwards, a doubtless salutary amount of scandal and + amazement. The time demanded that its preachers should take their text + from the spiritually excessive Blake: "Damn braces, bless relaxes." On + that text, throughout his life, Meredith heroically and eloquently + preached. + </p> + <p> + But nowadays that seems a long time ago. The great preacher of to-day + cannot react against the attraction to braces, for it no longer exists. We + are all quite ready to "damn braces." The moralist, therefore, may now + legitimately hold the balance fair and firm, without giving it a little + pressure in one direction for wholesome ends of admonition. + </p> + <p> + When we so look at the matter we have to realise that, biologically and + morally alike, healthy restraint is needed for "the flourishing of the + spirit" quite as much as healthy exercise; that bracing as well as + relaxing is part of the soul's hygiene; that the directive force of a fine + asceticism, exerted towards positive and not towards negative ends, is an + essential part of life itself. + </p> + <p> + You might say that a fountain that leaps largely and exquisitely up + towards the sky only needs freedom and space. But no, it also needs + compression and force, a mighty restrained energy at its roots, of which + it is the gay and capricious flower. That, you may say, is not really a + vital thing. But take a real flower, the same mechanism is still at work. + The flexible convolvulus that must cling to any support from which to + expand its delicate bells needs not only freedom to expand but much more + the marvellous energy that was wound up and confined, like a spring, in + the seed. It will find its own freedom, but it will not find its own + force. + </p> + <p> + Therefore let us hold the moral balance fair and firm. The utmost freedom, + the utmost restraint, we need them both. They are two aspects of the same + thing. We cannot have freedom in any triumphant degree unless we have + restraint. The main point is, that we should not fossilise either our + freedoms or our restraints. Every individual needs—harmoniously with + the needs of other individuals—the freedoms and restraints his own + nature demands. Every age needs new freedoms and new restraints. In the + making of New Freedoms and New Restraints lies the rhythm of Life. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 11.—The psychology of the crowd is interesting, even + when it is an educated and well-fed crowd. I take up the newspaper and see + the announcement of a "momentous" declaration by the Premier at a Lord + Mayor's banquet at the Guildhall. I have the curiosity to read, and I find + it to be that the "victors are not to be robbed of the fruits which have + cost them so dear." This declaration was followed by "loud and prolonged + cheers," as evidently the speaker, being a sagacious lawyer, knew it would + be when he chose to put his declaration into this cynical shape, as an + appeal to mob feeling, rather than in the form of a statement concerning + the rights of the case, whatever the rights may be. Yet not one of those + rapturous applauders would for a moment have tolerated that doctrine if it + had been proposed to apply it to his own possessions. As a mob they + applaud what as individuals they would disclaim with such moral energy as + they might be capable of. The spectacle of the big robber is always + impressive, and the most respectable of mobs is carried away by it. "Who + was ever a pirate for millions?" as Raleigh protested to Bacon. + </p> + <p> + If we imagine the "victors" in this case to have been on a rather smaller + scale the enthusiasm of the Guildhall mob would have been considerably + damped. Let us imagine they were a band of burglars who had broken in the + night before and carried off the materials for the forthcoming banquet, + leaving one of the band behind dead and two wounded. When the guests + seated at the bare board heard the emphatic declaration that the victors + are not to be robbed of "the fruits which have cost them so dear," would + they have raised quite such "loud and prolonged cheers"? + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 12.—The Divine Ironist who surely rules the world + seldom leaves Himself without witness. On Lord Mayor's Day this witness + appeared in the form of an ignorant ruffian. Within a few yards of the + Mansion House, within a few hours of that "momentous declaration" which + followed the turtle soup, in Liverpool Street—a street crowded not + with ruffians but with business people and bankers' clerks, all the people + who carry on the daily routine of civilisation—a man of the people + smashed a jeweller's window and flung the jewelry into the street, + shouting "Help yourselves." And they helped themselves. In a brief + terrific scramble several hundred pounds' worth of jewelry was seized. Two + men only of this respectable crowd brought what they had secured into the + shop; the rest decamped with the booty. They had scarcely had time to read + the "momentous declaration." But they agreed with it. They were not to be + "robbed of the fruits which had cost them so dear." + </p> + <p> + Clearly, again, the Premier had rightly gauged the moral capacities of the + mob. We sometimes think that the fundamental instincts of the crowd are, + after all, sound; leave them to themselves and they will do the right + thing. But, on the other hand, those who despise and contemn the mob will + always have a sadly large amount of evidence to support their case, even + in the most "respectable" centres of civilisation. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 20.—The Archbishop of Canterbury, I understand, has + publicly expressed his approval of the application of the lash to those + persons who are engaged in the so-called "White Slave Traffic." There is + always a certain sociological interest in the public utterances of an + Archbishop of Canterbury. He is a great State official who automatically + registers the level of the public opinion of the respectable classes. The + futility for deterrence or reform of the lash or other physical torture as + applied to adults has long been a commonplace of historical criminology, + and Collas, the standard historian of flagellation, pointing out that the + lash can at best only breed the virtues of slavery, declares that "the + history of flagellation is that of a moral bankruptcy." Moreover, + criminals who are engaged in low-grade commercial affairs, with the large + lure that makes them worth while, can usually arrange that the lash should + fall on a subordinate's shoulders. It has been ascertained that the + "capitalised value" of the average prostitute is nearly four times as + great as that of the average respectable working-girl; how many lashes + will alter that? But the sadistic impulse, in all its various degrees, is + independent of facts. Of late it appears to have been rising. Now it has + reached that percentage of the respectable population which automatically + puts the archiepiscopal apparatus in motion. For an Archbishop of + Canterbury has a public function to perform (has not Sydney Smith + described a "foolometer"?) altogether independent of such reasonable and + human functions as he may privately perform. + </p> + <p> + Is this love of torture, by the way, possibly one of the fruits of Empire? + We see it in the Roman Empire, too, and how vigorously it was applied to + Christians and other criminals. <i>Christianos ad leones!</i> But it was a + disastrously unsuccessful policy—or we should not have an Archbishop + of Canterbury with us now. + </p> + <p> + No disrespect for Archbishops of Canterbury is involved in this + recognition of their public function, and I have no wish to be (as Laud + wrote of one of my ancestors) "a very troublesome man" to archbishops. + They act automatically for the measurement of society, merely in the same + sense as an individual is automatically acting for the measurement of + himself when he states how profoundly he admires Mendelssohn or R. L. + Stevenson. He thereby registers the particular degree of his own spiritual + state. And when an Archbishop of Canterbury, with all that sensitiveness + to the atmosphere which his supreme office involves, publicly Professes an + Opinion, he is necessarily registering a particular degree in the + Spiritual State of Society. It is an important function which was never + vouchsafed to his Master. + </p> + <p> + One wonders how many centuries it is since an Archbishop of Canterbury was + known to express any public opinion on non-ecclesiastical affairs which + was not that of the great majority of Respectable People. Of course in + ecclesiastical matters, and in political matters which are ecclesiastical, + he is professionally bound, and Beckett and Sudbury and Laud—though + one was a victim to the hostility of a King, another to the hostility of + the lower class, and the third to the middle class—were all faithful + to the death to their profession and their class, as an Archbishop is + bound to be even when his profession and his class are in a minority; I + speak of the things to which he is not so bound. I have no doubt that at + some recent period an Archbishop has archiepiscopally blessed the + Temperance Movement. He is opposed to drunkenness, because we all are, + even Licensed Victuallers, and because drunkenness is fast dying out. But + imagine an Archbishop of Canterbury preaching Temperance in the eighteenth + century when nearly every one was liable to be drunk! He would have been + mistaken for a Methodist. I must confess it would be to me a great + satisfaction to find an Archbishop of Canterbury earnestly pleading in the + House of Lords in favour of gambling, or the unrestricted opening of + public-houses on Sunday, or some relaxation in the prosecution of + pornographic literature. Not by any means that I should agree with his + point of view. But the spectacle offered of a morally courageous and + intellectually independent Archbishop of Canterbury would be so + stimulating, the presence of a Live Person at the head of the Church + instead of a glorified Penny-in-the-Slot Machine would be so far-reaching + in its results, that all questions of agreement and disagreement would + sink into insignificance. + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 5.—I think we under-estimate our ancestors' regard + for ease. Whenever I have occasion to go to my "Jacobean" chest of drawers + (chests of this type are said really to belong to the end of the + seventeenth century) the softness and ease with which the drawers run + always gives me a slight thrill of pleasure. They run on grooves along the + side of each drawer, so that they can never catch, and when one examines + them one finds that grease, now black with age, had been applied to the + grooves. (In chests which have passed through the dealers' hands it is not + usually easy to find traces of this grease.) The chests of modified + "Jacobean" type—belonging, one may suppose, to the early eighteenth + century—still show these grooves for the drawers to run on. And + then, as the eighteenth century advances, they are no longer found. But + that by no means meant that the eighteenth-century craftsman had resolved + to be content with such articles of furniture as millions of our patient + contemporaries tug and push and more or less mildly curse at. No, the + eighteenth-century craftsman said to himself: I have gone beyond those + "Jacobean" fellows; I can make drawers so accurately, so exquisitely + fitted, that they no longer need grooves, and move as well as though they + had them. And he was justified. A beautiful eighteenth-century chest of + drawers really is almost as easy to manipulate as my "Jacobean" chest. One + realises that the device of grooves, ingenious and successful as it was, + rested on an imperfection; it was evidently an effort to overcome the + crude and heavy work of earlier imperfect craftsmen. + </p> + <p> + There is evolution in the vital progress of furniture as in all other + vital progress. The Jacobean chest with its oak substance and its panels + and its great depth is apparently massive; this is an inherited ancestral + trait due to the fact that it developed out of the earlier coffers that + really were massive; in reality it is rather light. The later modified + Jacobean chest shows only an attenuated appearance of massiveness, and the + loss is real, for there are no fresh compensating qualities. But the + developed eighteenth-century walnut chest is the unmistakable expression + of a new feeling in civilisation, a new feeling of delicacy and + refinement, a lovely superficiality such as civilisation demands, alike in + furniture and in social intercourse. There is not even the appearance of + massiveness now; the panels have gone and the depth has been notably + reduced. The final goal of development was reached, and nothing was left + to the nineteenth century but degeneration. + </p> + <p> + An interesting evolution in details is instructive to note. In the + Jacobean chest, while the drooping loops of the handles are small and + simple, the keyholes are elaborately adorned with beautiful brass + scroll-work, the hereditary vestige of mediaeval days when the chest was a + coffer, and the key, insistently demanded for security, was far more + important than handles, which then indeed had no existence. In the + unsatisfactory transitional stage of the later Jacobean chest the keyhole + is less beautifully adorned, but the handles remain of similar type. Here, + again, the eighteenth-century craftsman shows the fine artist he was. He + instinctively felt that the handles must be developed, for not only were + they more functionally important than the lock had become, but in + dispensing with the grooves for the drawers to run on he had made + necessary a somewhat firmer grip. So he made his handles more solid and + fastened them in with beautifully-cut fingers of brass. Then he realised + that the keyhole with all its fine possibilities must be sacrificed + because it clashed with his handles and produced a distracting confusion. + He contented himself with a simple narrow rim of brass for his keyholes, + and the effect is perfectly right. + </p> + <p> + Furniture is the natural expression of the civilisation producing it. I + sometimes think that there is even an intimate relation between the + furniture of an epoch and its other art forms, even its literary style. + The people who delighted in Cowley used these Jacobean chests, and in his + style there is precisely the same blending of the seemingly massive and + the really light, a blending perhaps more incongruous in poetry than in + furniture. And the eighteenth-century chests were made for people who had + been penetrated by the spirit of the <i>Spectator</i>; their craftsmen put + into furniture precisely that exquisite superficiality, that social + amenity, that fine conventionism which Addison and Steele put into their + essays. I find it hard not to believe that delicate feminine hands once + stored away the <i>Spectator</i> in these drawers, and sometimes think I + have seen those hands on the canvases of Gainsborough and Romney. + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 7.—One is perhaps too easily disquieted by the + incompetence and disaster of our typically modern things. Rotten + aeroplanes for fools to ride to destruction, motorcars for drunkards and + imbeciles to use as the ancient war-chariots were used, telephones and a + thousand other devices which are always out of order—our + civilisation after all is not made up of these. I take up <i>Le Rire</i> + and I gaze at its coloured pictures again and again. One realises that + these are the things that people will turn to when they think of the + twentieth century. Our aeroplanes and our motor-cars and our telephones + will no doubt be carefully displayed in a neglected cellar of their + museums. But here are things they will cherish and admire, and as one + gazes at them one grows more at peace with one's own time. + </p> + <p> + It is easy to detect the influence of Rowlandson and of Hiroshige and the + other Japanese designers in the methods of these French artists of to-day, + and there could be no better influences. Rowlandson's <i>Dr. Syntax</i> + was the delight of my childhood, and is equally a solace to-day when I am + better able to understand what that great artist accomplished; Hiroshige's + daring and lovely visions of some remote Japanese fairyland are always + consoling to take out and gaze at when one is weary or depressed or + disgusted. There could be no better influences. + </p> + <p> + But while it is not difficult to detect such influences in <i>Le Hire's</i> + best artists at their best moments,—not so very often attained,—they + are yet always themselves and true to their own spirit and vision, or they + would have no message to deliver. These pictures have their supreme value + because, whether or not they are a true picture of French life, they are a + true presentation of the essential French spirit, so recklessly gay and so + daringly poignant, so happily exquisite in its methods, and so + relentlessly direct in its moral. For some people, who take what they are + able to receive, the French spirit seems trivial and superficial, merely + wanton and gay, chiefly characterised by that Lubricity which worried the + pedagogic Matthew Arnold. The French spirit is more specifically + distinguished by its profundity and its seriousness. Without profundity + and seriousness, indeed, gaiety and wantonness have no significance. If + the Seven Sins had not been Deadly, the Christian Church could never have + clothed them in garments of tragic dignity. Unless you cut deep into life, + wantonness and gaiety lose their savour and are not fit for the ends of + art. The French spirit is not only embodied in Rabelais and Montaigne and + Molière—if these are your superficial men!—but also in Pascal. + Was there so great a gulf between Pascal and Daumier? And I find not only + the spirit of Pascal in some of these pictures in <i>Le Rire</i>, but + sometimes even his very phrases used as the titles of them. + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 9.—The Australians, it appears, have been much + worried over Chidley. Here was a man who would not fit into their + conventional moulds. He was stern, resolute, inflexible, convinced that he + carried a Gospel which Australia and the world at large needed. It was a + Gospel so eccentrically related to the accepted scheme of things that only + he himself could accept it in its entirety. His method of preaching this + gospel, moreover, was as eccentric as the gospel itself. It seemed to him + that men need to live closer to Nature, that a simpler diet is necessary + to salvation, and less clothing, and greater sexual continence. He + approved his gospel by being a model of physical muscular fitness. As I + have sometimes seen a Rifian from the hills, with bare magnificent limbs, + striding down from the heights carolling a song, to enter the + bastardly-civilised city of Tangier, so, it would seem, Chidley descended + on to the city of Sydney. Having written a book in which to contain the + pith of his message, he proceeded to clothe himself in a sort of scanty + bathing dress, to lecture the public in the most fashionable streets of + the city, and to sell his book to those who might desire it. + </p> + <p> + Three centuries ago a man of the same type as Chidley, the eminent Quaker, + Solomon Eccles, who had his gospel too, would now and then come to + Westminster Hall, "very civilly tied about the privities to avoid scandal" + (as Pepys, a great stickler for propriety, noted with satisfaction), to + call to repentance the wicked generation of Charles II.'s day. But the + people of that day were not altogether without wisdom. They let the + strenuous Quaker alone. He was doubtless the better, and they were none + the worse. + </p> + <p> + Nowadays, it seems, we need more than a loincloth to protect our + hyperaesthetic eyes from the Splendour of Nature. The Australians, + afflicted by our modern nervous fussiness, could not leave Chidley alone. + The police moved him on, worried him as well as they could, invented + reasons for locking him up now and then, and finally, by what seemed a + masterstroke, they persuaded the doctors to shut him up in the Asylum. + That, however, proved to be too much for Australian popular opinion. The + voice of the people began to be heard in the press; there were long + debates in Parliament; the Premier sent to the Asylum to inquire on what + grounds Chidley had been placed there, and the doctors, who really had no + evil intent in the matter, though their mental equilibrium had been + momentarily disturbed by this unique Chidley, honourably opened the Asylum + doors, and Chidley has returned to preach the Gospel in George Street + until new reasons can be puzzled out for harassing him, neurotic, without + doubt, but now hall-marked sane. + </p> + <p> + Like the Athenians of old, the Australians are not averse to hearing some + new thing, and they have bought Chidley's book by the thousand. But the + Athenians, notwithstanding their love of novelty, offered the cup of + hemlock to Socrates. Chidley, if not exactly the Australian Socrates, + clearly resembles his disciples, those great Cynics who in the Greek + market-places were wont to preach and to practise a philosophy of stern + simplicity, often akin to his own. The Athenians killed Socrates, but they + produced a Plato to idealise and even to immortalise him. The Australians + have drawn the line at killing Chidley. So he still awaits his Plato. + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 15.—Like a Gargantuan <i>casserole</i> outside, but + modelled on a kettle inside, the Albert Hall, more or less filled with + people, is often to me a delightful spectacle. It is so at this Sunday + afternoon concert, when the lights are blended, and the bottom of the + kettle is thickspread with humanity, and sprinkled with splashes of dusky + crimson or purple on women's hats, while the sides are more slightly + spread with the same humanity up to the galleries. The spectacle so + fascinates me sometimes that I cannot listen to the music. At such moments + the Albert Hall faintly recalls a miniature Spanish bull-ring. It is a + far-off resemblance, even farther than the resemblance of St. Paul's + Cathedral, with its enclosed dome and its worrying detail, to the simple + and superb strength of the Pantheon, which lives in memory through the + years as a great consoling Presence, but it often comes to me and brings + with it an inspiring sense of dignity and colour and light before which + the actual spectacle grows dim. + </p> + <p> + <i>January</i> 3, 1913.—I chanced to walk along the village street + behind two little girls of the people, evidently sisters, with ribbons + round their uncovered heads, filleting the hair which fell in careless + ringlets on their backs. It was hair of the bright flaxen sort, which the + poets have conventionally called "golden," the hair one sees so often on + the angels of the Italian primitive painters—though not so often on + living Italians. It is the hair which always seems to me more beautiful + than any other, and I felt as if I wanted to follow these plain + commonplace children as the rats followed the Pied Piper. + </p> + <p> + The vision brought to my mind the fact I have so often had occasion to + realise, that aesthetic attraction has nothing to do with erotic + attraction, however at their origins, it may have been, the two + attractions were identical or sprang from the same source, and though they + have constantly reacted on, and sometimes deflected, each other. + Aesthetically this hair fascinates me; it is an exhilarating delight + whenever I meet it. But I have never felt any personal attraction in + association with this hair, or any great personal interest in the people + it belonged to. + </p> + <p> + What one aesthetically craves is the outcome of one set of influences, due + to one's special vision, one's traditions, one's training and environment, + influences that are no doubt mainly objective and impersonal, operative on + most of one's fellows. But what one personally craves is the outcome of + another set of influences, due to one's peculiar and instinctive organic + constitution; it is based on one's individual instinctive needs and may + not be precisely the same for any two persons. + </p> + <p> + The Aestheticians are not here indeed altogether in harmony. But it would + seem that, while the aesthetic and the sexual must frequently and + legitimately overlap, they are definitely separate, that it is possible to + distinguish the aesthetically-from the sexually-attractive in different + persons and even in different features of the same person, that while it + is frequently natural and right to love a "beautiful" woman, to love a + woman because she is beautiful is as unreasonable as to fall in love with + a beautiful statue. The aesthetically-attractive and the + sexually-attractive tend to be held apart. They are two different + "substances," as the mediaeval metaphysician would have said. From the + standpoint of clear thinking, and also of social well-being, the confusion + of them is, in theological language, damnable. In so far as Beauty is a + personal lust it is unfit for wholesome social ends. Only in so far as it + is lifted above personal desire is it fitted to become a social + inspiration. + </p> + <p> + <i>January</i> 10.—Yesterday I waited for a friend at a London + Underground railway station. She was delayed, and I stood for a quarter of + an hour at the bottom of a flight of steps, watching the continuous stream + of descending passengers, mostly women, and generally young. Some among + the less young were swollen, heavy, and awkward; most were slack, + drooping, limp, bony, or bent; a few were lithe and lissom; one or two had + the emotional vivacity and muscular tone of abounding vitality. Not one + plainly indicated that, stripped of her clothing, she would have + transformed those Underground steps into the Golden Stairway of Heaven. + </p> + <p> + "The average civilised woman sags." That is the conclusion lately reached + by Dickinson and Truslow after the examination of a very large number of + American women, and it is a conclusion which applies without doubt far + beyond the limits of the United States. Her breasts droop down, these + investigators assert, her buttocks sweep low, her abdomen protrudes. While + these defects are general, the modern woman has cultivated two extreme and + opposite defects of physical carriage which Dickinson and Truslow + picturesquely describe as the Kangaroo Type and the Gorilla Type. In the + kangaroo type of civilised woman the upper part of the trunk is carried + too much in front of the line of gravity, and the lower part too much + behind that line. In the gorilla type of woman, on the contrary, the upper + part of the body is carried too much behind the line of gravity, and the + lower part too much in front. So far Dickinson and Truslow. + </p> + <p> + If this were a purely aesthetic matter, though it would still have its + importance, it would only intrude to a slight degree into the moral and + social sphere. We should simply have to recognise that these defects of + the modern woman must be a frequent cause of depression to her more + intimate friends, and that that may have its consequences. + </p> + <p> + There is more in it than that. All such defects of tone and posture (as + indeed Dickinson and Truslow realise) have their inevitable reaction on + the nervous system: they produce a constant wearing stress, a perpetual + liability to pain. The women who have fallen into these habits are + inadequate to life, and their inadequacy is felt in all that they are and + in all that they attempt to do. Each of them is a stone flung into the + social pool to disperse around it an ever-widening circle of disturbance + and irritation. + </p> + <p> + It may be argued that one has seen women—working women especially—whose + breasts were firm bowls of beauty, whose buttocks were exquisitely curved, + whose bellies would have satisfied the inspired author of <i>The Song of + Songs</i>, and yet the women who owned such physical graces have not + conspicuously possessed the finer spiritual graces. But we do not enhance + one half of human perfection by belittling the other half. And we rarely + conceive of any high perfection on one side without some approach to it on + the other. Even Jesus—though the whole of his story demands that his + visage should be more marred than any man's—is always pictured as + beautiful. And do you suppose that the slave girl Blandina would have gone + into the arena at Lyons to present her white body as the immortal symbol + of the love of Jesus if her breasts had drooped down, and her buttocks + swept low, and her abdomen protruded? The human heart is more subtly + constructed. Those romantic Christian hagiologists saw to that. And—to + come nearer to the point—could her fine tension of soul have been + built up on a body as dissolute and weak as a candle in the sun? + </p> + <p> + We need to-day a great revival of the sense of responsibility, not only in + the soul but in the body. We want a new sort of <i>esprit de corps</i>. We + need it especially for women, for women, under modern conditions, even + less than men, have no use for sagging bodies or sagging souls. It is only + by the sanction of nakedness that this can be achieved. "Take this hint + from the dancer," a distinguished American dancer has said, "the fewer + clothes the better; woman is clumsy because she is overweighted with + clothes." With whatever terror we may view any general claim to the right + of nakedness, the mere liability to nakedness, the mere freedom to be + naked, at once introduces a new motive into life. It becomes a moralising + force of the most strenuous urgency. Clothes can no more be put before us + as a substitute for the person. The dressmaker can no longer arrogate the + functions of a Creator. The way is opened for the appearance in + civilisation of a real human race. + </p> + <p> + <i>January</i> 11.—There seem to be two extreme and opposed styles + of writing: the liquid style that flows, and the bronze or marmoreal style + that is moulded or carved. Thus there is in English the style of Jeremy + Taylor and Newman and Ruskin, and there is the style of Bacon and Landor + and Pater, the lyrically-impetuous men and the artistically-deliberate + men. + </p> + <p> + One may even say that a whole language may fall into one or the other of + these two groups, according to the temper of the people which created it. + There is the Greek tongue, for instance, and there is the Latin tongue. + Greek is the embodiment of the fluent speech that runs or soars, the + speech of a people which could not help giving winged feet to its god of + art. Latin is the embodiment of the weighty and concentrated speech which + is hammered and pressed and polished into the shape of its perfection, as + the ethically-minded Romans believed that the soul also should be wrought. + Virgil said that he licked his poems into shape as a she-bear licks her + cubs, and Horace, the other supreme literary artist of Rome, compared the + writing of poems to working in bronze. No Greek could have said these + things. Whether Plato or Aristophanes or even Thucydides, the Greek's feet + touched the earth, touched it lovingly, though it might only be with the + pressure of a toe, but there were always wings to his feet, he was always + the embodiment of all that he symbolised in Hermes. The speech of the + Greek flies, but the speech of the Roman sinks. The Roman's word in art, + as in life, was still <i>gravitas</i>, and he contrived to infuse a shade + of contempt into the word <i>levis</i>. With the inspired Greek we rise, + with the inspired Roman we sink. With the Greek poet, it may be any poet + of the Anthology, I am uplifted, I am touched by the breath of rapture. + But if it is a Latin poet—Lucretius or Catullus, the quintessential + Latin poets—I am hit by something pungent and poignant (they are + really the same word, one notes, and that a Latin word) which pierces the + flesh and sinks into the heart. + </p> + <p> + One resents the narrow and defective intelligence of the spirit embodied + in Latin, its indifference to Nature, its refusal to hallow the freedom + and beauty and gaiety of things, its ever-recurring foretaste of + Christianity. But one must not refuse to recognise the superb and eternal + morality of that spirit, whether in language or in life. It consecrates + struggle, the conquest of brute matter, the perpetual and patient effort + after perfection. So Rome is an everlasting challenge to the soul of Man, + and the very stones of its city the mightiest of inspirations. + </p> + <p> + <i>January</i> 13.—An American physician, we are told, paid a visit + to the famous dog-kennels on the Vanderbilt estate. He was surprised at + the intelligence and gentleness of the animals. "Have you no vicious + animals at all?" he asked. And the keeper in surprise answered him: "Do + you suppose we would be so foolish as to permit vicious animals to breed?" + </p> + <p> + Human beings ought surely to be worth more to us than dogs. Yet here in + England-and I do not know in what "civilised" country any different order + prevails—we gather together all our physical and moral defectives, + we bring them into our Workhouses to have babies, under the + superintendence of Boards of Guardians, and every one knows that these + babies are born in the image of their parents, and will perpetuate the + same cycle of misery. Yet, so far as I know, not one of these "Guardians" + ever so much as attempts to make clear to those hapless mothers why and + how they should avoid having other children. And no one proposes to shut + up as dangerous lunatics these precious Guardians of Private Misery and + Public Incapacity! + </p> + <p> + We look down with lofty moral superiority on our ancestors in these + islands who were accustomed to eat their fellow-creatures. We do not eat + them. We only torture them. That is what we call Progress. At all events + we are laying up a bountiful supply of moral superiority for our own + descendants. It is not probable that they will be able to read in their + newspaper (if newspaper they will still possess) as we can in ours: "At an + inquest at Dudley yesterday on a woman who was fatally scalded whilst in a + fit, it was stated that she had been an epileptic for years, and that her + seven children had all been epileptics, and all had died when young." + </p> + <p> + <i>January</i> 14.—There are few things that make one so doubtful + about the civilising power of England as our indifference to the smoke + problem in London. If we were Neapolitan ragamuffins, who could lie in the + sun with bare limbs, sucking oranges, there would be nothing to say; under + such conditions indolence might be pardonable, almost justified. But we + English are feverishly active, we run over the whole world, and we utilise + all this energy to build up the biggest and busiest city in the world. Yet + we have never created an atmosphere for our great city. Mist is beautiful, + with its power of radiant transformation, and London could never, under + any circumstances, and need never, be absolutely without mist; it is part + of the physical genius of our land, and even perhaps of the spiritual + genius of our people. But the black fogs of London are mist soaked with + preventable coal smoke; their evils have been recognised from the first. + Evelyn protested against this "hellish and dismal cloud of sea-coal," and + Charles II. desired Evelyn to prepare a Bill on this nuisance to put + before Parliament. But there the matter rested. For three centuries we + have been in the position of the Russian gentleman who could not prevent + his dilapidated roof from letting in the rain; for, as he pointed out, in + wet weather it was quite impossible to effect any repairs, and in dry + weather there was really nothing to complain of. In the meanwhile this + "cloud of sea-coal" has continued to produce not only actual death and + injury in particular cases, but a general diminution of human vitality and + the wholesale destruction of plant life. It eats away our most beautiful + public buildings; it covers everything and everybody with soot; it is + responsible, directly and indirectly, for a financial loss so vast and + manifold as to be incalculable. + </p> + <p> + Yesterday Lord Curzon delivered an address at the Mansion House on the + Beautiful London of the Future. He dwelt eloquently on its noble buildings + and its long embankments, and its wide streets and its finely placed + statues. But of the smoke which nullifies and destroys all these things, + not a word! Yet, as he was speaking, outside the Mansion House the people + of London were almost feeling their way about, scarce knowing where they + were, timidly crawling across motor-infested roads with their hearts in + their mouths, all the time permanently ingraining their lungs with black + filth. An able man, Lord Curzon, skilful to gauge the British Idealist, + ever so absorbed in his own dream of comfort or of cash that he is even + blind to the world he lives in, "pinnacled dim in the intense inane" in + another sense than the poet intended. + </p> + <p> + If we were mediaeval monks, who spent our time chanting the rhyme of + Bernard of Morlaix, there might seem to be a reason in our madness. To + make a Hell of earth is doubtless a useful method of rendering more joyous + the transition to Heaven, and less overwhelming the transition to + Purgatory. Yet the mediaeval monks burnt no coal and were careful to live + in beautiful sites and fine air. The prospect of Purgatory made them + epicures in the fine things of Earth. Now we, apparently, care not a snap + for any Hereafter. It is therefore a curious psychological problem why we + should have chosen to take up our cross in this peculiarly repulsive + shape. Apparently our traditions are too strong for us, we cannot dispense + with Hell; if robbed of it in the future we must have it Here and Now. + </p> + <p> + <i>January</i> 15.—When English days are dark and dreary, and the + rain falls, and cold winds blow, then it is that memory brings back the + full joy of ancient beauty and sunshine. (How could Dante have written + "Nessun maggior dolore"! But he had to write of Hell, and Hell were no + longer Hell if the lovely memory of Earth still cheered its inmates.) + Especially I love to think of that two days' brief journey-the most + delightful journey there can be in the world, it sometimes seems—which + separates me from Spain. I think of it as it is in early Spring, in the + April month, when Browning longed to be in England and most people long to + be out of it. I think of the swift passage across the Channel, of the + ever-new impression of the light-toned greenery of France and the subtle + difference of the beautiful trees, of Paris, of the Quai d'Orsay early + next morning, of the mediaeval cities that flash into view on their + ancient hills, of the vast stretch of beautiful and varied French land, of + Limoges, the last outpost of the Northern French, whom it is sad to leave + even when one is bound for Spain, of Rocamadour (and I think of that + fantastic old-world shrine, with the legendary blade of Roland's Durandel + still struck into its walls, and of the long delicious day on the solitary + brooding height over the exquisite ravine), the night at Toulouse at the + Hotel Bayard, and the sour bread that marks the Puritanic Southern French, + the keen winds and the dreary rain that comes from Provence,—delicious + to leave behind. Then Carcassonne and the momentary vision of its turrets, + the embodiment of one's dream of the past; lunch at Narbonne with the + unfailing cold asparagus of the south, Perpignan, where now at last one is + haunted by the fragrance of a city that once was Spanish. Then creeping + along by the broken coast, and the rocky creeks up to the outermost edge + of the Pyrenees, leaving to the north the ancient path which Pompey and + Caesar climbed, and feeling the winds that descend mysteriously from its + gorges: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne + Me rendra fou. +</pre> + <p> + Lo, at once a new Heaven and a new Earth and a new People. A sky that is + ever soft and radiant; a land on which strange and fragrant plants + flourish, and lakes of crimson poppies glimmer afar; men and women into + whose veins seems to have passed something of the lazy sunshine of their + sky, something of the rich colour of their earth. Then at last the great + city of Barcelona, where work and play are mingled as nowhere else so + harmoniously in the whole European world; and, beyond, the sacred height + of Montserrat; and, beyond that, all the magic of Spain at my feet. + </p> + <p> + <i>January</i> 19.—"For three days I have observed two large + pictures in solid frames hanging on the wall before me, supported by a + cord fastened horizontally behind the frames; these pictures have only one + point of support, so that they are sensitive to the slightest movement. + The wall goes from east to west, or the other way about, it makes no + difference. Now, every morning when I wake, I find these works of art a + little askew, the left corner inclined down and the right up!" I came upon + that passage in <i>Sylva Sylvarum</i>, the first book of Strindberg's I + ever read, and it pleased me so much that I believe I read no further. + </p> + <p> + I am reminded of it now when Strindberg's fame has grown so great in + England. + </p> + <p> + It really seems to me that that fantastic image is an excellent symbol of + Strindberg himself. For his picture of the world fails to swing + concordantly with the world. He has lagged behind in the cosmic rhythm, he + has fallen out of the dance of the stars. So that the whole universe is to + him an exquisitely keen jar of the nerves, and he hangs awry. That may + well make him an extraordinarily interesting person, and, indeed, perhaps + he is thereby an index of the world's vital movement, registering it by + not moving with it. We have to read Strindberg, but to read him <i>à + rebours</i>. + </p> + <p> + So I experience some amusement when I see to-day the solemn statement in + an American journal which claims—I do not say with no reason—to + be portentously clever and superior, that Strindberg is destined to become + in America the voice of the masculine reaction in favour of "the + corrective influence of a matter-of-fact attitude towards woman." One + wonders by what strange fatality Strindberg-the most fantastic genius that + ever lived—can appeal to an American as "matter-of-fact." And one + wonders why Americans, anyway, should go to this distinguished Swede for + such a "corrective," when in their own country, to mention but a single + name, they have a writer like Robert Herrick, whose novels are surely so + admirably subtle and profound an analysis of the position of womanhood in + America, and quite reasonably sane. But it is still true, as Jesus sighed + two thousand years ago, that a prophet is no prophet in his own country. + </p> + <p> + <i>January</i> 29.—For supper, we are told, Milton used often to eat + a few olives. That statement has frequently recurred to my mind. I never + grow weary of the significance of little things. What do the so-called + great things of life count for in the end, the fashion of a man's + showing-off for the benefit of his fellows? It is the little things that + give its savour or its bitterness to life, the little things that direct + the currents of activity, the little things that alone really reveal the + intimate depths of personality. <i>De minimis non curât lex</i>. But + against that dictum of human law one may place the Elder Pliny's maxim + concerning natural law: <i>Nusquam magis quam in minimis tota est Natura</i>. + For in the sphere of Nature's Laws it is only the minimal things that are + worth caring about, the least things in the world, mere specks on the + Walls of Life, as it seems to you. But one sets one's eyes to them, and, + behold, they are chinks that look out into Infinity. + </p> + <p> + Milton is one of the "great" things in English life and literature, and + his admirers dwell on his great achievements. These achievements often + leave me a little cold, intellectually acquiescent, nothing more. But when + I hear of these olives which the blind old scholar-poet was wont to eat + for supper I am at once brought nearer to him. I intuitively divine what + they meant to him. + </p> + <p> + Olives are not the most obvious food for an English Puritan of the + seventeenth century, though olive-oil is said to have been used here even + in the fourteenth century. Milton might more naturally, one supposes, like + his arch-Puritanic foe, Prynne, have "refocillated" his brain with ale and + bread, and indeed he was still too English, and perhaps too wise, to + disdain either. + </p> + <p> + But Milton had lived in Italy. There the most brilliant and happy days of + his life had been spent. All the rest of his real and inner life was but + an echo of the music he had heard in Italy. For Milton was only on one + side of his nature the austere Latin secretary of Cromwell and the + ferocious opponent of Salmasius. He was also the champion of the tardy + English Renaissance, the grave and beautiful youth whose every fibre + thrilled to the magic of Italy. For two rich months he had lived in + Florence, then the most attractive of Italian cities, with Gaddi, Dati, + Coltellini, and the rest for his friends. He had visited Galileo, then + just grown blind, as he was himself destined to be. His inner sight always + preserved the old visions he had garnered + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + At evening from the top of Fesole, + Or in Valdarno. +</pre> + <p> + Now at last, in the company of sour and ignorant Puritans who counted him + one of themselves, while a new generation grew up which ignored him and + which he disdained, in this sulphurous atmosphere of London which sickened + and drove away his secretary Ellwood, Milton ate a handful of olives. And + all Italy came to him in those olives. + </p> + <p> + "What! when the sun rises do you not see a round disc of fire, somewhat + like a guinea?" "Oh no, no, no!" said Blake, "I see an innumerable company + of the heavenly host." And these dull green exotic fruits which the blind + Milton ate bedwards were the heralds of dreams diviner than he freighted + with magnificent verse. + </p> + <p> + <i>February</i> 3.—"Every well-written novel," I find Remy de + Gourmont stating, "seems immoral." A paradox? By no means; Gourmont, the + finest of living critics, is not a paradox-monger. He is referring to the + prosecution of <i>Madame Bovary</i>, a book which Taine said might + profitably be used in Sunday Schools; and he points out that Flaubert—and + every other profoundly original writer—by avoiding the commonplace + phrase, the familiar counter, by deliberately choosing each word, by + moulding his language to a personal rhythm, imparts such novelty to his + descriptions that the reader seems to himself to be assisting for the + first time at a scene which is yet exactly the same as those described in + all novels. Hence inevitable scandal. + </p> + <p> + One may very well add that in this matter Life follows the same law as + Art. It is the common fate of all creative work (and "non merita nome di + Creatore se non Iddio ed il Poeta"). Whoso lives well, as whoso writes + well, cannot fail to convey an alarming impression of novelty, precisely + because he is in accurate personal adjustment to the facts of his own + time. So he is counted immoral and criminal, as Nietzsche delighted to + explain. Has not Nietzsche himself been counted, in his own playful + phrase, an "immoralist"? Yet the path of life that Nietzsche proposed to + follow was just the same ancient, old-fashioned, in the true sense trivial + path which all the world has trodden. Only his sensitive feet felt that + path so keenly, with such a new grip of the toes on the asperities of it, + that the mob cried: Why, this man cannot possibly be on our good old + well-worn comfortable highway; he must have set off on some new path, no + doubt a very bad and wicked path, where trespassers must be prosecuted. + And it was just the same venerable path that all humanity has travelled, + the path that Adam and Eve scuttled over, in hairy nakedness, through the + jungle of the Garden of Eden! + </p> + <p> + That is one of the reasons—and there are many of them—why the + social ideal of Herbert Spencer, in which the adjustment of life is so + perfect that friction is impossible, can never be attained. Putting aside + the question of the desirability of such an ideal it is impossible to see + how it could be achieved, either along the line of working at Heredity, or + along the line of working at the Environment. Even the most keenly + intellectual people that ever existed, the most amorous of novelty, the + most supple-minded, could not permit Socrates to live, though all the time + Socrates was going their own way, his feet pressing the same path; they + still could not understand his prosaic way of looking intently where his + feet fell. It must always happen so, and it always means conflict. Even a + flower cannot burst into bloom without conflict, the balance of forces can + never be quite equal and opposite, there must be a breaking down + somewhere, there must always be conflict. We may regulate and harmonise + the conditions, we cannot abolish the conflict. For Conflict is implicit + in Life. + </p> + <p> + <i>February</i> 5.—I note that Charles Dudley Warner (that splendid + type of American man as I recall him in old age, pacing up and down my + room, pondering out some serious problem of life), when half a century ago + he came over to London for the first time on a visit from Paris, was + struck by the contrast between the light luminosity of one city and the + prevailing gloomy dirt of the other. The contrast may not be so pronounced + to-day. Yet that same dirt—which has its beautiful side no doubt—remains + the note of London, brown dirt all over the streets, black dirt all over + the buildings, yellow dirt all over the sky, and those who live in it + become subdued to what they live in, "like the dyer's hand," even + literally. + </p> + <p> + So the sight of the Cornish coast, the prospect of seeing it, the very + thought of its existence, has the exhilaration of a rapturous prayer. + There—sometimes, at all events—the earth is exquisitely clean, + the bright sea bubbles like champagne, and its mere mists are rainbow-hued + dreams; the sky has flung off its dingy robe and is naked, beautiful, + alive. Profoundly alien to me as I always feel this land of Cornwall to + be, it is much to feel there something of that elemental reality of which + men count God the symbol. Here the city-stained soul may become the + sacramental agent of a Divine Transubstantiation of the elements of earth, + of air, of water, of fire. + </p> + <p> + <i>February</i> 8.—It was a fine and deep saying of Aristotle's that + "the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor." That is the + mark of genius, for, said he, it implies an intuitive perception of the + similarity in dissimilars. + </p> + <p> + All the great thinkers have been masters of metaphor, because all vivid + thinking must be in images, and the philosopher whose metaphors are + blurred or diluted is one whose thinking is blurred and diluted. Thus it + comes about that the thinkers who survive are the thinkers who wrote well + and are most nearly poets. Not that they need have attained to that which + we, individually or collectively, may be pleased to consider "Truth." But + they were alive; they had realised what they meant; they embodied their + thoughts in definite images which are a perpetual challenge to thought for + all who come after. One may agree or disagree with Schopenhauer or with + Nietzsche. But they were vitally and intensely alive; they transformed + their thought into wonderful imagery; or they sang it and they danced it; + and they are alive for ever. People talk of "the passing of Kant." It may + be. But who will talk of the passing of Plato or even of the passing of + Hobbes? No thinker has been so buffeted as Hobbes, and there is no school + to accept his central thesis. It is no matter. Hobbes flung aside all the + armour of tradition and met the giant problem that faced him with his own + sling and any stones out of the brook. It was enough to make him immortal. + His achievement has receded into the past. The <i>Leviathan</i> is now an + ancient tapestry which generations of street urchins have thrown mud at; + and yet it remains radiantly beautiful. + </p> + <p> + All great thinkers are great masters of metaphor because all thinking of + any kind must be by analogy. It may often be a misleading guide, but it + remains the only guide. To say that thinking is by metaphor is merely the + same thing as to say that the world is an infinite series of analogies + enclosed one within another in a succession of Chinese boxes. Even the + crowd recognises this. The story that Newton first saw the gravitation of + the earth in the fall of an apple in the orchard, which Voltaire has + transmitted to us from a fairly good source, has no first-hand authority. + But the crowd has always accepted it as a gospel truth, and by a sound + instinct. The Milky Way itself is pictured by its latest investigators as + a vague spiral scarcely to be distinguished from the ascending smoke of a + cigarette. + </p> + <p> + <i>February</i> 10.—A French soprano, and it is the first time she + has sung on an English platform. She walks on slowly and stands + statuesquely motionless while the preliminary bars are being played. One + notes her elegant Parisian costume, clinging and very low-cut, every + detail of her appearance carefully thought out, constituting a harmony in + itself, though not perhaps a harmony with this negligent Sunday afternoon + environment in which the singer finds herself. Her voice is finely trained + and under complete control, she enters into the spirit of the operatic + scene she sings, dramatically, yet with restraint, with modulated + movements, now of her arms, now of her whole supple body. In her voice, as + in her body, there is always a reserve of energy, a dignified + self-respect; there is never any self-abandonment. She has sung first in + French, now she comes on in an Italian air, and afterwards is not too + coyly reticent in taking an encore which is in English, to a piano + accompaniment, and when that is over she hastens to bring the accompanist + by the hand to her side before the audience, and bows, sweetly and + graciously, with a gesture of the whole body, yet again with a certain + reserve, not, as one may see some great singers, symbolically clasping her + arms round the public and kissing it with humble gratitude. She is a + complete success with her audience. + </p> + <p> + Yet she is really, one divines, a fairly commonplace person. And she is + not beautiful. And even her voice has no marvellous original quality. She + has on her side a certain quality of nervous texture to mould + artistically, but that is not a personal possession but merely a quality + of her race. She has laboriously wrought this ductile nervous tissue to + her own ends. By force of long training, discipline, art, she has made + herself what she desired to be. She has become all that she had in her to + be. She has given to the world all that the world has any right to ask of + her. + </p> + <p> + That is all. But this training and this discipline, the ability to be + oneself and to impart graciously to others the utmost that they have any + right to demand—is not that the whole Art of Living and the entire + Code of Morality? + </p> + <p> + <i>February</i> 15.—"There is no Excellent Beauty that hath not some + Strangeness in the Proportion." That saying of Bacon's—one of the + profoundest of human utterances—is significant not only for all life + but for all art. In the sphere of literature, for instance, it makes + impossible the use of counters. + </p> + <p> + The counter or the <i>cliché</i>—no doubt it is better known for + what it is to good French writers—is the word or the phrase which + has lost the original contour of its mintage and become a mere featureless + coin, having still, as it were, its metallic meaning but no longer its + fresh beauty and expressiveness. The young novelist whose hero "wends his + way," and the journalist for whom a party of fifteen persons may be + "literally decimated," are both adepts in the use of the counter. They use + ancient worn words, such as leap first into the mind, words which are too + effaced to be beautiful, and sometimes too effaced to be accurate. They + are just counters for careless writers to pass on to careless readers, and + not always reliable as counters. + </p> + <p> + We are all of us using these counters; they are convenient for the + ordinary purposes of life, whenever the search for beauty and rarity and + expressiveness may seem uncalled for. Even the master of style uses them + unquestioned, so long as he uses them consciously, deliberately, of set + purpose, with a sense of their just value for his purpose. When they are + used, as sometimes happens, heedlessly and helplessly, by writers who are + dealing with beautiful and expressive things, they become jarring + vulgarisms which set the teeth on edge. Even a poet of real inspiration, + like Francis Thompson, may seek to carry, "hiddenly," as he would express + it, beneath the cloak of his rapture, all sorts of absurd archaisms, + awkwardly conventional inversions, hideous neologisms like false antiques, + all mere counters. A born writer with a personal instinct for expression, + like Arthur Symons, is not apt to resort to the use of counters, even when + he is seemingly careless; a carefully trained artist in the use of words, + like Stevenson, evidently rejects counters immediately; the man who is not + a writer, born or made, sometimes uses nothing but counters. + </p> + <p> + A casual acquaintance once presented to me an epic he had written in + rhymed couplets, extending to many cantos. He was a man of bright and + vigorous mind, but no poet. So when he set himself to write verse it is + clear that he instinctively tested every word or phrase, and rejected + those that failed to sound smooth, familiar, "poetic," to his reminiscent + ear. The result is that the whole of his book is made up of counters, and + every epithet is studiously obvious. The hero is "dauntless," and his + "steed" is "noble," and the sky at night is a "spangled vault," and "spicy + perfumes load the balmy air." It is thirty years since that epic was + placed in my hands, and I have often since had occasion to think that it + might profitably be used by any teacher of English literature as a text + for an ever needed lesson on the counter. "There is no Excellent Beauty + that hath not some Strangeness in the Proportion." Or, as Aristotle had + said long before, there must be "a certain admixture of unfamiliarity," a + continual slight novelty. + </p> + <p> + That is the Law of Beauty in Art because it is the Law of Morality in + Life. Our acts so easily become defaced and conventionalised, mere uniform + counters that have been used a thousand times before and rarely with any + special applicability—often, indeed, a flagrant inapplicability—to + the case in hand. The demand upon us in Life is to fling away counters, to + react vitally to the vital circumstances of the situation. All the + teachers of Excellent Beauty in the Moral Life bear witness to the truth + of Bacon's saying. Look at the Sermon on the Mount: no doubt about the + "Strangeness in the Proportion" there! Socrates and Jesus, unlike as they + were, so far as we are able to discern, were yet both marked by the same + horror of counters. Sooner than employ them they would die. And indeed, if + the Moral Life could be reduced to the simplicity of a slot-machine, it + would still be necessary to put real pennies in. + </p> + <p> + <i>February</i> 23.—Some time ago a navvy working in Sussex came + upon a round object like a cocoa-nut which he flung carelessly out of the + way. It would soon have disappeared for ever. But by an almost miraculous + chance a man of science passed that way and secured the object, easily + discernible as a portion of a human skull. Now that, with all that + appertains to it, the fragment has been investigated, the Sussex navvy's + unconscious find is revealed as perhaps the most precious and interesting + thing that has ever been discovered in the earth, the earliest Charter in + the History of Man. + </p> + <p> + Whenever I read of the chance discovery of fossils or human remains, of + buried cities in Yucatan or Roman pavements beneath Gloucestershire + meadows, or beautiful statues fished out of the Tiber, or mediaeval + treasures dug from below old castles, it grows an ever greater wonder to + me that no one has yet proposed a systematic exploration of the whole + earth beneath our feet. Here is this earth, a marvellous onion, a series + of encapsuled worlds, each successive foliation preserving the intimate + secrets of its own irrecoverable life. And Man the Baby, neglecting the + wonderful Earth he crawls on, has cried for the barren Moon! All science + has begun with the stars, and Early Man seemed to himself merely the + by-play of a great cosmic process. God was first, and Man who had created + Him—out of less than dust—was nowhere. Even in mediaeval days + we knew much more about Heaven and Hell than about Earth. The Earth comes + last into man's view,—even after Heaven and Hell and Purgatory,—but + it will surely be a puzzle for our successors that after a million years, + even in our present little era, we had still not begun to scratch up + systematically the soil we stand on and could scarcely so much as uncover + Pompeii. For though the under-world is not all a buried Pompeii, it is a + vast treasure-house. One cannot so much as put a spade into the + garden-mould of one's cottage-garden without now and then finding ancient + coins and shards of strange pottery; and for all that you know, the clue + to some mystery that has puzzled mankind for ages may at this moment lie a + few inches below your feet. + </p> + <p> + It would be the task of an International Exfodiation Commission to dig up + the whole earth systematically, leaving no inch of it untouched except on + definitely determined grounds, the depth explored in each region being + duly determined by experts. One might make a beginning with the banks of + the Nile where the task is comparatively easy, and Nature has packed such + fragile treasures in such antiseptic sand. Italy with its soil laden with + marvellous things could be investigated at the same time, with all the + shores of the Mediterranean. The work would take many centuries to + complete and would cost vast sums of money. But when the nations are no + longer engaged in the task of building warships which are obsolete a few + weeks after they are launched, if not before, how vast a sum of money will + be saved! The money which is wasted on the armies and navies of Europe + alone during a single century would furnish a very respectable credit for + the International Exfodiation Commission to begin work with. At the same + time the men now employed in laboriously learning the trade of war, which + they are seldom or never called upon to exercise, could be given something + useful to do. In the meanwhile Exfodiation must wait until what an old + English writer called "the essential oil of democracy" is poured over the + stormy waves of human society. You doubt whether that oil will calm the + waves? But if your essential oil of democracy fails to possess that + elementary property of oil it is hardly worth while to manufacture it. + </p> + <p> + Once achieved, whenever or however it is achieved, the task will be + achieved for ever. It would be the greatest task man has ever attempted, + and the most inspiring. He would for the first time become fully conscious + of himself. He would know all that he once was, and all that he has ever + accomplished so far as its record survives. He would read clearly in the + earth for the first time the title-deeds that make him the owner of the + world. All that is involved is Exfodiation. + </p> + <p> + I call this process Exfodiation, because if our descendants happen to be + at all like us they would much rather Exfodiate than Dig. As for us, we + dare not so much as call our bodily organs and functions by their + beautifully common names, and to Dig we are even more ashamed than to Beg. + </p> + <p> + <i>March</i> 3.—Some one was telling me yesterday how lately in + Wales he stood in a wood by a little stream that ran swiftly over the + stones, babbling and chattering—the poets have wisely said—as + children babble and chatter. "It is certainly the stream," he said to + himself; "no, it must be children; no, it is the stream." And then a band + of careless children, whose voices had mingled with the brook's voice, + emerged from amidst the wood. + </p> + <p> + Children are more than murmuring streams, and women are more than fragrant + flowers, and men are more than walking trees. But on one side they are all + part of the vision and music of Nature, not merely the creators of + pictures and melodies, but even yet more fundamentally themselves the + music and the vision. We cannot too often remember that not only is the + art of man an art that Nature makes, but that Man himself is Nature. + Accordingly as we cherish that faith, and seek to live by it, we vindicate + our right to the Earth, and preserve our sane and vital relations to the + Earth's life. The poets love to see human emotions in the procession of + cosmic phenomena. But we have also to see the force of the sun and the + dust of the earth in the dance of the blood through the veins of Man. + </p> + <p> + Civilisation and Morals may seem to hold us apart from Nature. Yet the + world has, even literally, been set in our hearts. We are of the Stuff of + the Universe. In comparison with that fact Morals and Civilisation sink + into Nothingness. + </p> + <p> + <i>March</i> 7.—So fine a critic of art as Remy de Gourmont finds it + difficult, to his own regret, to admire Shakespeare on the stage, at all + events in France in French translations. This is not, he says, what in + France is counted great dramatic art; there is no beginning and there is + no real end, except such as may be due to the slaughter of the characters; + throughout it is possible to interpolate scenes or to subtract scenes. He + is referring more especially to <i>Macbeth</i>. + </p> + <p> + It cannot be denied that there is truth in this plaint. In France, from a + French standpoint,—or, for the matter of that, from a Greek + standpoint,—Shakespeare must always be a barbarian. It is the same + feeling—though not indeed in so great a degree—that one + experiences when one looks at the picturesque disorder and irregularity of + English Gothic churches from the standpoint of the severely ordered + majesty of Chartres, or even of Amiens, which yet has so much about it + that recalls its neighbourhood to England. From the right standpoint, + however, English Gothic architecture is full of charm, and even of art. In + the same way I cannot at all admit that Shakespeare is unsuited for the + stage. One has only to remember that it is the Romantic not the Classic + stage. It is the function of the Shakespearian drama, and of the whole + school of which Shakespeare is the supreme representative (I put aside + Marlowe who died in the making of a greater classic tradition), to evoke a + variegated vision of the tragi-comedy of life in its height and its depth, + its freedom, and its wide horizon. This drama has for the most part little + to do with the operation of the Fate which works itself out when a man's + soul is in the stern clutch of Necessity. We are far here from Euripides + and from Ibsen. Life is always a pageant here, a tragi-comedy, which may + lean sometimes more to comedy, and sometimes more to tragedy, but has in + it always, even in <i>Lear</i>, an atmosphere of enlarging and + exhilarating gaiety. + </p> + <p> + Shakespeare is for the stage. But what stage? We were cut off for ever + from the Shakesperian tradition in the very generation after Shakespeare + died, and have not acquired a sound new tradition even yet. The device of + substituting drapery for scenery and relying exclusively on the gorgeous + flow of words for decorative purposes fails to satisfy us, and we fall + back on the foolish trick of submerging Shakespeare in upholstery and + limelight. + </p> + <p> + It seems to me that we may discern the beginning of a more rational + tradition in Granville Barker's staging of <i>Twelfth Night</i> at the + Savoy. There is something here of the romantic suggestion and the easy + freedom which are of the essence of the Shakesperian drama. The creamy + walls, possibly an approximation to the courtyard-like theatre of the + Elizabethans, are a perfect background for the play of brilliant figures; + the light curtains furnish precisely the desired suggestion of scenery; + and when at last all the figures wander up the stairway in the background + as the Fool sings his inconsequent song, "With hey ho the wind and the + rain," the whole gracious dream melts away deliriously, as it seemed to + Prospero, and surely to Shakespeare himself, the dream of life in the end + melts away in the wind or the rain of the grave. + </p> + <p> + Thus conceived, the Shakesperian drama has surely as good a right to exist + on the stage as the drama of Molière. There cannot be the same perfection + of finish and detail, for this is only an experiment, and there is + inevitably a total difference of method. Yet, as thus presented, <i>Twelfth + Night</i> lingers in my mind with <i>Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme</i> as + presented at the Comedie Française, so presented that, by force of + tradition wrought with faultless art, a play becomes an embodied symphony, + a visible manifestation of gracious music. + </p> + <p> + <i>March</i> 13.—I passed in the village street the exotic figure of + a fat man in a flat cap and a dark blue costume, with very wide baggy + trousers down to the ground. He was reading a newspaper as he walked with + an easy slouch. His fat shaven face was large and round and wrinkled, yet + not flabby. Altogether there was something irresistibly Chinese about him. + Strange that this curious figure should be the typical English sailor, the + legendary Hero of the British People, and the person on whose existence + that of the English nation is held to depend. + </p> + <p> + <i>March</i> 16.—Two feminine idealists. I read of an English + suffragette trying to address a meeting and pelted with tomatoes by a + crowd grown weary of suffragette outrages. And shortly after I read of a + young German dancer in a small Paris theatre who in the course of her + dance is for a few moments absolutely naked, whereupon the Chief of Police + sends for her and draws up a charge of "outrage aux moeurs." To a + journalist she expresses her indignation at this insult to her art: "Let + there be no mistake; when I remove my chemise to come on the stage it is + in order to bare my soul." Not quite a wise thing to say to a journalist, + but it is in effect what the suffragette also says, and is rewarded with + rotten tomatoes as her sister with a <i>procès-verbal.</i> + </p> + <p> + One sees the whole-hearted enthusiasm of both the suffragette and the + dancer. Unwise, no doubt, unable to discern the perspective of life, or to + measure the inevitable social reactions of their time. Yet idealists, even + martyrs, for Art or for Justice, exposed in the arena of the world, as the + Perpetuas and Blandinas of old were exposed out of love for Jesus, all + moved by the Spirit of Life, though, as the ages pass, the Excuses for + Life differ. Many Masks, but one Face and one Arena. + </p> + <p> + For the Mob, huddled like sheep around this Arena of Life, and with no + vital instinct to play therein any part of their own, it is not for these + to cast contumely. Let them be well content that for a brief moment it is + theirs to gaze at the Spectacle of Divine Gaiety and then be thrust into + outer Darkness. + </p> + <p> + <i>March</i> 17.—Yet, when one thinks of it, why should the mob in + the galleries not hiss, when they so please, the spectacle they were not + made to take part in? They are what they are born to be and what + circumstances have made them, the legitimate outcome of your Random + Procreation, and your Compulsory Education, your Regulations and By-laws, + spread thick over every inch of Land and Sea and Air. And if they still + throw rotten tomatoes and draw up charge sheets in police stations, why + should they not enjoy their brief moment of Living Action, and be Damned? + </p> + <p> + We may even go a step further. It has to be remembered that the Actors of + Life, interesting as they are, exist for the audience, and not the + audience for the Actors. The Actors are the abnormal and exceptional + people, born out of due time, at variance with the environment; that is + why they are Actors. This vast inert mass of people, with no definite + individualities of their own, they are normal and healthy Humanity, born + to consume the Earth's fruits, even when these fruits happen to be dancers + and suffragettes. It is thus that harmony is established between Actors + and Spectators; neither could exist without the other. Both are needed in + any Cosmic Arena. + </p> + <p> + <i>March 18</i>.—I always recall with a certain surprise how many + years ago a fine critic who is also a fine writer told me he had no + admiration for Addison, and even seemed to feel a certain disdain. This + attitude caused me no resentment, for Addison makes no personal appeal to + me, and I experience no great interest in the things he writes about. I am + content to read a page of him in bed, and therewith peacefully fall + asleep. + </p> + <p> + Yet surely Addison, and still more Steele, the authors of the <i>Spectator</i> + and the <i>Tatler</i>, represent the high-water mark of English Speech. + The mere rubbish left by the tide, if you like, for I am not asserting + that the position of Addison and of Steele is necessarily the sole result + of individual desert. They mark a special moment in the vital growth of + language, if only by revealing the Charm of Triviality, and they stood + among a crowd—Defoe, Temple, Swift, and the rest—who at + various points surpassed them. A magnificent growth had preceded them. The + superb and glowing weight of Bacon had become the tumultuous splendour of + Milton, which subsided into the unconscious purity of Bunyan, the delicate + simplicity of Cowley, and the muscular orderliness of Dryden. Every + necessary quality of prose had been separately conquered. An instrument + had been created that contained all the stops, and might be used not only + for the deepest things of life, but equally for the lightest. And then, + suddenly, the whole English world began to use words beautifully, and not + only so, but to spell, to punctuate, to use their capital letters with + corresponding beauty. So it was at the end of the seventeenth century and + during the first quarter of the eighteenth. Addison and Steele stand for + that epoch. + </p> + <p> + Then the tide began to ebb. That fine equilibrium of all the elements of + speech could not be maintained indefinitely. Its poise and equability + began to grow trivial, its exalted familiarity to become mere vulgarity. + So violent reactions became necessary. Johnson and Johnsonese swept + heavily over the retreating tide and killed what natural grace and + vivacity might have been left in Goldsmith or in Graves. But even had + there been no Johnson the reaction was inevitable. Every great writer + began to be an isolated grandee who lost the art of familiarity, for he + had no one to be familiar with. Consider Gibbon, in his own domain + supreme, but the magnificent fall of his cadences, however fit for his + subject, was fit for no other; and look at Landor, the last great writer + of English, though even he never quite scoured off the lingering dross of + Johnsonese, and at the best has the air of a giant conversing with + pigmies. + </p> + <p> + Then we come to the nineteenth century, where we find writing that is bad, + indifferent, good, rarely perfect save now and again for a brief moment, + as in Lamb, who incarnated again the old familiar touch on great things + and little things alike, and into that was only driven, likely enough, by + the scourge of madness. Then there was Pater, who was exquisite, even a + magician, yet scarcely great. And there was Stevenson,—prototype of + a vast band of accomplished writers of to-day,—the hollow image of a + great writer, a man who, having laboriously taught himself to write after + the best copybook models, found that he had nothing to say and duly said + it at length. It was a state of things highly pleasing to the mob. For + they said one to another: Look, here is a man who writes beautifully, + evidently a Great Writer; and there is nothing inside him but sawdust, + just like you and me. For the most part good writing in the nineteenth + century was self-conscious writing, which cannot be beautiful. Is a woman + gazing into her mirror beautiful? + </p> + <p> + Our writers waver between vulgarity on the one hand, artificiality or + eccentricity on the other. It is an alternation of evils. The best writing + must always possess both Dignity and Familiarity, otherwise it can never + touch at once the high things and the low things of life, or appeal simply + to the complete human person. That is well illustrated by Cervantes, who + thereby becomes, for all his carelessness, one of the supremely great + writers. There, again, is Brantôme, not a supremely great writer, or even + a writer who set out to be great. But he has in him the roots of great + style. He possesses in an incomparable degree this High Familiarity. His + voice is so exquisitely pitched that he can describe with equal simplicity + and charm the secrets of monarchs' hearts or the intimate peculiarities of + maids of honour. He knows that, as a fine critic has said, everything is + serious and at the same time frivolous. He makes us feel that the + ambitions of monarchs may be frivolous, and the intimate secrets of maids + of honour of serious interest. + </p> + <p> + But where is our great writer to-day, and how can we apply this test to + him? If he deals frivolously with the King off he goes to prison, and if + he deals seriously with so much as a chambermaid's physical secrets off he + goes to prison again, only on a different pretext. And in either case we + all cry: Serve him right! + </p> + <p> + It ought to be a satisfaction to us to feel that we could not well sink + lower. There is nothing left for us but to rise. The tide turns at low + water as well as at high. + </p> + <p> + <i>March</i> 19.—"Behold a Republic," once eloquently exclaimed Mr. + Bryan, now Secretary of State of the United States, "solving the problem + of civilisation, hastening the coming of Universal Brotherhood, a Republic + which gives light and inspiration to those who sit in darkness ... a + Republic gradually but surely becoming the supreme moral factor in the + world's progress!" + </p> + <p> + Behold a Republic, one is hereby at once impelled to continue, where + suspected evildoers are soaked in oil and roasted, where the rulings of + judges override the law, a Republic where the shadow of morality is + preferred to the substance, and a great man is driven out of the land + because he has failed to conform to that order of things, a Republic where + those who sit in darkness are permitted to finance crime. It would not be + difficult to continue Mr. Bryan's rhapsody in the same vein. + </p> + <p> + Now one has no wish to allude to these things. Moreover, it is easy to set + forth definitely splendid achievements on the other side of the account, + restoring the statement to balance and sanity. It is the glare of + rhapsodical eulogy which instinctively and automatically evokes the + complementary colours and afterimages. For, as Keble rightly thought, it + is a dangerous exploit to + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + wind ourselves too high + For sinful man beneath the sky. +</pre> + <p> + The spectacle of his hinder parts thus presented to the world may be quite + other than the winder intended. + </p> + <p> + <i>March</i> 20.—The other day a cat climbed the switchboard at the + electric lighting works of Cardiff, became entangled in the wires, and + plunged the city into darkness, giving up his life in this supreme + achievement. It is not known that he was either a Syndicalist or a + Suffragette. But his adventure is significant for the Civilisation we are + moving towards. + </p> + <p> + All Civilisation depends on the Intelligence, Sympathy, and Mutual Trust + of the persons who wrought that Civilisation. It was not so in barbaric + days to anything like the same degree. Then a man's house was his castle. + He could shut himself up with his family and his retainers and be + independent of society, even laugh at its impotent rage. No man's house is + his castle now. He is at the mercy of every imbecile and every fanatic. + His whole life is regulated by delicate mechanisms which can be put out of + gear by a touch. There is nothing so fragile as civilisation, and no high + civilisation has long withstood the manifold risks it is exposed to. + Nowadays any naughty grown-up child can say to Society: Give me the + sugar-stick I want or I'll make your life intolerable. And for a brief + moment he makes it intolerable. + </p> + <p> + Nature herself in her most exquisite moods has shared the same fate at the + hands of Civilised Man. If there is anything anywhere in the world that is + rare and wild and wonderful, singular in the perfection of its beauty, + Civilised Man sweeps it out of existence. It is the fate everywhere of + lyre-birds, of humming-birds, of birds of Paradise, marvellous things that + Man may destroy and can never create. They make poor parlour ornaments and + but ugly adornments for silly women. The world is the poorer and we none + the richer. The same fate is overtaking all the loveliest spots on the + earth. There are rare places which Primitive Man only approaches on + special occasions, with sacred awe, counting their beauty inviolable and + the animals living in them as gods. Such places have existed in the heart + of Africa unto to-day. Civilised man arrives, disperses the awe, shoots + the animals, if possible turns them into cash. Eventually he turns the + scenery into cash, covering it with dear hotels and cheap advertisements. + In Europe the process has long been systematised. Lake Leman was once a + spot which inspired poets with a new feeling for romantic landscape. What + Rousseau or Byron could find inspiration on that lake to-day? The Pacific + once hid in its wilderness a multitude of little islands upon which, as + the first voyagers and missionaries bore witness, Primitive Man, protected + by Nature from the larger world, had developed a rarely beautiful culture, + wild and fierce and voluptuous, and yet in the highest degree humane. + Civilised man arrived, armed with Alcohol and Syphilis and Trousers and + the Bible, and in a few years only a sordid and ridiculous shadow was left + of that uniquely wonderful life. People talk with horror of "Sabotage." + Naturally enough. Yet they do not see that they themselves are morally + supporting, and financially paying for, and even religiously praying for, + a gigantic system of world-wide "Sabotage" which for centuries has been + recklessly destroying things that are infinitely more lovely and + irreparable than any that Syndicalists may have injured. + </p> + <p> + Nature has her revenge on Civilised Man, and when he in his turn comes to + produce exquisite things she in her turn crushes them. By chance, or with + a fine irony, she uses as her instruments the very beings whom he, in his + reckless fury of incompetent breeding, has himself procreated. And whether + he will ever circumvent her by learning to breed better is a question + which no one is yet born to answer. + </p> + <p> + <i>March 21</i>.—It is maintained by some that every great poet is a + great critic. I fail to see it. For the most part I suspect the poetry of + the great critic and the criticism of the great poet. There can be no more + instructive series of documents in this matter than the enthusiastic + records of admiration which P. H. Bailey collected from the first poets of + his time concerning his <i>Festus</i>. That work was no doubt a fine + achievement; when I was fifteen I read it from end to end with real + sympathy, and interest that was at least tepid. But to imagine that it was + a great poem, or that there was so much as a single line of great poetry + in all the six hundred pages of it! It needed a poet for that. + </p> + <p> + If we consider poets as critics in the field of art generally, where their + aesthetic judgment might be less biassed, they show no better. Think of + the lovely little poem in which Tennyson eulogised the incongruous façade + of Milan Cathedral. And for any one who with Wordsworth's exquisite sonnet + on King's College Chapel in his mind has the misfortune to enter that long + tunnel, beplastered with false ornament, the disillusion is unforgettable. + Robert Browning presents a highly instructive example of the poet as + critic. He was interested in many artists in many fields of art, yet it + seems impossible for him to be interested in any who were not second-rate + or altogether inferior: Abt Vogler, Galuppi, Guercino, Andréa del Sarto, + and the rest. One might hesitate indeed to call Filippo Lippi inferior, + but the Evil Genius still stands by, and from Browning's hands Lippi + escapes a very poor creature. + </p> + <p> + Baudelaire stands apart as a great poet who was an equally great critic, + as intuitive, as daring, as decisively and immediately right in aesthetic + judgment as an artistic creation. And even with Baudelaire as one's guide + one sometimes needs to walk by faith. In the baroque church of St. Loup in + Namur he admired so greatly—the church wherein he was in the end + stricken by paralysis—I have wandered and hesitated a little between + the great critic's insight into a strange beauty and the great artist's + acceptance of so frigidly artificial a model. + </p> + <p> + Why indeed should one expect a great poet to be a great critic? The fine + critic must be sensitive, but he must also be clear-eyed, calm, judicial. + The poet must be swept by emotion, carried out of himself, strung to high + tension. How can he be sure to hold the critical balance even? He must + indeed be a critic, and an exquisite critic, in the embodiment of his own + dream, the technique of his own verse. But do not expect him to be a + critic outside his own work. Do not expect to find the bee an authority on + ant-hills or the ant a critic of honeycomb. + </p> + <p> + March 22.—Hendrik Andersen sends from Rome the latest news of that + proposed World City he is working towards with so much sanguine ardour, + the City which is to be the internationally social Embodiment of the World + Conscience, though its site—Tervueren, Berne, the Hague, Paris, + Fréjus, San Stefano, Rome, Lakewood—still remains undetermined. So + far the City is a fairy tale, but in that shape it has secured influential + support and been worked out in detail by some forty architects, engineers, + sculptors, and painters, under the direction of Hébrard. It covers some + ten square miles of ground. In its simple dignity, in its magnificent + design, in its unrivalled sanitation, it is unique. The International + Centres represented fall into three groups: Physical Culture, Science, + Art. The Art centres are closely connected with the Physical Culture + Centres by gardens devoted to floriculture, natural history, zoology, and + botany. It is all very well. + </p> + <p> + So far I only know of one World City. But Rome was the creation of a + special and powerful race, endowed with great qualities, and with the + defects of those qualities, and, moreover, it was the World City of a + small world. Who are to be the creators of this new World City? If it is + not to be left in the hands of a few long-haired men and short-haired + women, it will need a solid basis of ordinary people, including no doubt + English, such as Mr. A., and Mrs. B., and Miss C. + </p> + <p> + Now I know Mr. A., and Mrs. B., and Miss C., their admirable virtues, + their prim conventions, their little private weaknesses, their ingrained + prejudices, their mutual suspicion of one another. Little people may + fittingly rule a little village. But these little people would dominate + the huge Natatorium, the wonderful Bureau of Anthropological Records, and + the Temple of Religions. + </p> + <p> + On the whole I would rather work towards the creation of Great People than + of World Centres. Before creating a World Conscience let us have bodies + and souls for its reception. I am not enthusiastic about a World + Conscience which will be enshrined in Mr. A., and Mrs. B., and Miss C. + Excellent people, I know, but—a World Conscience? + </p> + <p> + <i>Easter Sunday</i>.—What a strange fate it is that made England! A + little ledge of beautiful land in the ocean, to draw and to keep all the + men in Europe who had the sea in their hearts and the wind in their + brains, daring children of Nature, greedy enough and romantic enough to + trust their fortunes to waves and to gales. The most eccentric of peoples, + all the world says, and the most acquisitive, made to be pirates and made + to be poets, a people that have fastened their big teeth into every + quarter of the globe and flung their big hearts in song at the feet of + Nature, and even done both things at the same time. The man who wrote the + most magnificent sentence in the English language was a pirate and died on + the scaffold. + </p> + <p> + <i>March 26</i>.—I have lately been hearing Busoni play Chopin, and + absorbing an immense joy from the skill with which that master-player + evokes all the virile and complex power of Chopin, the power and the + intellect which Pachmann, however deliciously he catches the butterflies + fluttering up from the keys, for the most part misses. + </p> + <p> + All the great artists, in whatever medium, take so rare a delight, now and + again, in interpreting some unutterable emotion, some ineffable vision, in + mere terms of technique. In Chopin, in Rodin, in Besnard, in Rossetti,—indeed + in any supreme artist,—again and again I have noted this. Great + simple souls for the most part, inarticulate except through an endless + power over the medium of their own art, they all love to take some + insignificant little lump of that medium, to work at that little lump, + with all their subtlest skill and power, in the production of what + seemingly may be some absolutely trivial object or detail, and yet, not by + what it obviously represents, but by the technique put into it, has become + a reality, a secret of the soul, and an embodiment of a vision never + before seen on earth. + </p> + <p> + Many years ago I realised this over Rossetti's poem "Cloud Confines." It + is made out of a little lump of tawdry material which says nothing, is, + indeed, mere twaddle. Yet it is wrought with so marvellous a technique + that we seem to catch in it a far-away echo of voices that were heard when + the morning stars sang together, and it clings tremulously to the memory + for ever. + </p> + <p> + Technique is the art of so dealing with matter—whether clay or + pigment or sounds or words—that it ceases to affect us in the same + way as the stuff it is wrought out of originally affects us, and becomes a + Transparent Symbol of a Spiritual Reality. Something that was always + familiar and commonplace is suddenly transformed into something that until + that moment eye had never seen or ear heard, and that yet seems the + revelation of our hearts' secret. + </p> + <p> + It is an important point to remember. For one sometimes hears ignorant + persons speak of technique with a certain supercilious contempt, as though + it were a mere negligible and inferior element in an artist's equipment + and not the art itself, the mere virtuosity of an accomplished fiddler who + seems to say anything with his fiddle, and has never really said anything + in his whole life. To the artist technique is another matter. It is the + little secret by which he reveals his soul, by which he reveals the soul + of the world. Through technique the stuff of the artist's work becomes the + stuff of his own soul moulded into shapes that were never before known. In + that act Dust is transubstantiated into God. The Garment of the Infinite + is lifted, and the aching human heart is pressed for one brief moment + against the breast of the Ineffable Mystery. + </p> + <p> + <i>March 29</i>.—I notice that in his <i>Year's Journey through + France and Spain in 1795</i>, Thicknesse favourably contrasts the + Frenchman, who only took wine at meals, with the Englishman, who, "earning + disease and misery at his bottle, sits at it many hours after dinner and + always after supper." The French have largely retained their ancient sober + habit (save for the unhappy introduction of the afternoon "aperitif"), but + the English have shown a tendency to abandon their intemperance of excess + in favour of an opposed intemperance, and instead of drinking till they + fall under the table have sometimes developed a passion for not drinking + at all. Similarly in eating, the English of old were renowned for the + enormous quantities of roast beef they ate; the French, who have been + famous bread-makers for at least seven hundred years, ate much bread and + only a moderate amount of meat; that remains their practice to-day, and + though such skilful cooks of vegetables the French have never shown any + tendency to live on them. When I was last at Versailles the latest + guide-book mentioned a vegetarian restaurant; I sought it out, only to + find that it had already disappeared. But the English have developed a + passion for vegetarianism, here again reacting from one intemperance to + the opposed intemperance. Just in the same way we have a national passion + for bull-baiting and cock-fighting and pheasant-shooting and fox-hunting, + and a no less violent passion for anti-vivisection and the protection of + animals. + </p> + <p> + This characteristic really goes very deep into our English temper. The + Englishman is termed eccentric, and eccentricity, in a precise and literal + sense, is fundamental in the English character. We preserve our balance, + in other words, by passing from one extreme to the opposite extreme, and + keep in touch with our centre of gravity by rolling heavily from one side + of it to the other side. + </p> + <p> + Geoffrey Malaterra, who outlined the Norman character many centuries ago + with much psychological acuteness, insisted on the excessiveness of that + <i>gens effrenatissima</i>, the tendency to unite opposite impulses, the + taste for contradictory extremes. Now of all their conquests the Normans + only made one true and permanent Conquest, the Conquest of England. And as + Freeman has pointed out, surely with true insight, the reason of the + profound conquest of England by the Normans simply lay in the fact that + the spirit of the Norman was already implanted in the English soil, + scattered broadcast by a long series of extravagant Northmen who had + daringly driven their prows into every attractive inlet. So on the + spiritual side the Norman had really in England little conquest to make. + The genius of Canute, one of the greatest of English kings and a Northman, + had paved the road for William the Conqueror. It was open to William + Blake, surely an indubitable Englishman, to establish the English national + motto: "The Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom." Certainly it is + a motto that can only be borne triumphantly on the standard of a very + well-tempered nation. On that road it is so easy to miss Wisdom and only + encounter Dissolution. Doubtless, on the whole, the Greeks knew better. + </p> + <p> + Now see how Illusion enters into the world, and men are moved by what + Jules de Gaultier calls Bovarism, the desire to be other than they are. + Here is this profound, blind, unconscious impulse, lying at the heart of + the race for thousands of years, and not to be torn out. And the children + of the race, when the hidden impulse stirring within drives them to + extremes, invent beautiful reasons for these extremes: patriotic reasons, + biological reasons, aesthetic reasons, moral reasons, humanitarian + reasons, hygienic reasons—there is no end to them. + </p> + <p> + <i>April 1.</i>—When the boisterous winds of March are at last + touched with a new softness and become strangely exhilarating, when one + sees the dry hedges everywhere springing into points of delicate green and + white blossoms shining in the bare trees, then, for those who live in + England and know that summer is still far away, the impulse of migration + arises within. It has always seemed remarkable to me that Chaucer, at the + outset of the <i>Canterbury Tales</i>, definitely and clearly assumes that + the reason for pilgrimage is not primarily religious but biological, an + impulse due to the first manifestation of spring: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, + And palmers for to seken straunge strondes. +</pre> + <p> + And what a delightful fiction (a manifestation of Vaihinger's omnipotent + "als ob") to transform this inner impulse into a sacred objective duty! + </p> + <p> + Perhaps if we were duly sensitive to the Inner Voice responding to natural + conditions, we might detect a migratory impulse for every month in the + year. For every month there is surely some fitting land and sky, some + fragrance that satisfies the sense or some vision that satisfies the soul. + </p> + <p> + In January certainly—if I confined my migrations to Europe—I + would be in the gardens of Malaga, for at that season it is that we of the + North most crave to lunch beneath the orange trees and to feel the + delicious echo of the sun in the air of midnight. In February I would go + to Barcelona, where the cooler air may be delightful, though when is it + not delightful in Barcelona, even if martial law prevails? For March there + is doubtless Sicily. For April there is no spot like Seville, when Spring + arrives in a dazzling intoxicating flash. In May one should be in Paris to + meet the spring again, softly insinuating itself into the heart under the + delicious northern sky. In June and July we may be anywhere, in cities or + in forests. August I prefer to spend in London, for then only is London + leisurely, brilliant, almost exotic; and only then can one really see + London. During September I would be wandering over Suffolk, to inhale its + air and to revel in its villages, or else anywhere in Normandy where the + crowd are not. I have never known where I would be in October, to escape + the first deathly chill of winter; but at all events there is + Aix-les-Bains, beautifully cloistered within its hills and still enlivened + by fantastic visions from the whole European world. In November there is + the Cornish coast, then often most exquisite, with soft nights, magical + skies, and bays star-illuminated with fishers' lights, fire-flies of the + sea. And before November is over I would be in Rome to end the year, not + Rome the new-fangled capital of an upstart kingdom, but that Rome, if we + may still detect it, which is the greatest and most inspiring city in the + world. + </p> + <p> + <i>April 4.</i>—An advocate of Anti-vivisection brings an action for + libel against an advocate of Vivisection. It matters little which will + win. (The action was brought on All Fools' Day.) The interesting point is + that each represents a great—or, if you prefer, a little—truth. + But if each recognised the other's truth he would be paralysed in + proclaiming his own truth. There would be general stagnation. The world is + carried on by ensuring that those who carry it on shall be blinded in one + or the other eye. We may call it the method of one-sided blinkers. + </p> + <p> + It is an excellent device of the Ironist. + </p> + <p> + <i>April 8.</i>—As very slowly, by rare sudden glimpses, one obtains + an insight into the lives of people, one is constantly impressed by the + large amount of their moral activity which is hidden from view. No doubt + there are people who are all of a piece and all on the surface, people who + are all that they seem and nothing beyond what they seem. Yet I am + sometimes tempted to think that most people circle round the world as the + moon circles round it, always carefully displaying one side only to the + human spectators' view, and concealing unknown secrets on their hidden + hemispheres. + </p> + <p> + The side that is displayed is, in the moral sphere, generally called + "respectable," and the side that is hidden "vicious." What men show they + call their "virtues." But if one looks at the matter broadly and + naturally, may it not be that the vices themselves are after all nothing + but disreputable virtues? It is not only schoolboys and servant-girls who + spend a considerable part of their time in doing things which are + flagrantly and absurdly contradictory of that artificially modelled + propriety which in public they exhibit. It is just the same, one finds by + chance revelations, among merchant princes and leaders of learned + professions. For it is not merely the degenerate and the unfit who cannot + confine all their activities within the limits prescribed by the + conventional morality which surrounds them, but often the ablest and most + energetic men, the sweetest and gentlest women. Moreover, it would often + seem that on this unseen side of their lives they may be even more heroic, + more inspired, more ideal, more vitally stimulated, than they are on that + side with which they confront the world. + </p> + <p> + Suppose people were morally inverted, turned upside down, with their vices + above water, and their respectable virtues submerged, suppose that they + were, so to say, turned morally inside out. And suppose that vice became + respectable and the respectabilities vicious, that men and women exercised + their vices openly and indulged their virtues in secret, would the world + be any the worse? Would there be a difference in the real nature of people + if they changed the fashion of wearing the natural hairy fur of their + coats inside instead of outside? + </p> + <p> + And if there is a difference, what is that difference? + </p> + <p> + <i>April 10.</i>—I am a little surprised sometimes to find how + commonly people suppose that when one is unable to accept their opinions + one is therefore necessarily hostile to them. Thus a few years ago, I + recall, Professor Freud wrote how much pleasure it would give him if he + could overcome my hostility to his doctrines. But, as I hastened to reply, + I have no hostility to his doctrines, though they may not at every point + be acceptable to my own mental constitution. If I see a man pursuing a + dangerous mountain track I am not hostile in being unable to follow far on + the same track. On the contrary, I may call attention to that pioneer's + adventure, may admire his courage and skill, even applaud the results of + his efforts, or at all events the great ideal that animated him. In all + this I am not with him, but I am not hostile. + </p> + <p> + Why indeed should one ever be hostile? What a vain thing is this + hostility! A dagger that pierces the hand of him that holds it. They who + take up the sword shall perish by the sword was the lesson Jesus taught + and himself never learnt it. Ferociously, recklessly, that supreme master + of denunciation took up the sword of his piercing speech against the + "Scribes" and the "Pharisees" of the "generation of vipers," until he made + their very names a by-word and a reproach. And yet the Church of Jesus has + been the greatest generator of Scribes and Pharisees the world has ever + known, and they have even proved the very bulwark of it to this day. Look, + again, at Luther. There was the Catholic Church dying by inches, gently, + even exquisitely. And here came that gigantic peasant, with his too + exuberant energy, battered the dying Church into acute sensibility, kicked + it into emotion, galvanised it into life, prolonged its existence for a + thousand years. The man who sought to exterminate the Church proved to be + the greatest benefactor the Church had ever known. + </p> + <p> + The end men attain is rarely the end they desired. Some go out like Saul, + the son of Kish, who sought his father's asses and found a kingdom, and + some sally forth to seek kingdoms and find merely asses. In the one case + and in the other they are led by a hand that they knew not to a goal that + was not so much their own as that of their enemies. + </p> + <p> + So it is that we live for ever on hostility. Our friends may be the + undoing of us; in the end it is our enemies who save us. The views we hate + become ridiculous because they adopt them. Their very thoroughness leads + to an overwhelming reaction on whose waves we ride to victory. Even their + skill calls out our greater skill and our finer achievement. At their + best, at their worst, alike they help us. They are the very life-blood in + our veins. + </p> + <p> + It is a strange world in which, as Paulhan says (and I chance to alight on + his concordant words even as I write this note), "things are not employed + according to their essence, but, as a rule, for ends which are directly + opposed to that essence." We are more unsuccessful than we know. And if we + could all realise more keenly that we are fighting not so much in our own + cause as in the cause of our enemies, how greatly it would make for the + Visible Harmony of the World. + </p> + <p> + <i>April 12.</i>—All literary art lies in the arrangement of life. + The literature most adequate to the needs of life is that most capable of + transforming the facts of life into expressive and beautiful words. French + literary art has always had that power. English literary art had it once + and has lost it now. When I read, for instance, Goncourt's <i>Journal</i>—one + of the few permanently interesting memoirs the nineteenth century has left + us—my heart sinks at the comparison of its adequacy to life with the + inadequacy of all contemporary English literature which seeks to grapple + with life. It is all pathetically mirrored in the typical English comic + paper, <i>Punch</i>, this inability to go below the surface of life, or + even to touch life at all, save in narrowly prescribed regions. But + Goncourt is always able to say what there is to say, simply and vividly; + whatever aspect of life presents itself, of that he is able to speak. I + can understand, surprising as at first it may be, how Verlaine, who seems + at every point so remote from Goncourt, yet counted him as the first + prose-writer of his time; Verlaine had penetrated to the <i>simplicité + cachée</i> (to use Poincaré's phrase) behind the seemingly tortured + expressions of Goncourt's art. Goncourt makes us feel that whatever is fit + to occur in the world is fit to be spoken of by him who knows how to speak + of it. If we wish to face the manifold interest of the world, in its + poignancy and its beauty, as well as in its triviality, there is no other + way. + </p> + <p> + English literary art was strong and brave and expressive for several + centuries, even, one may say, on the whole, up to the end of the + eighteenth century, though I suppose that Dr. Johnson had helped to crush + the life out of it. When Queen Victoria came to the throne the finishing + stroke seems to have been dealt at it. One might fancy that the whole + literary world had become conscious of the youthful and innocent monarch's + eye on every book issued from the press, and that every writer feared he + might write a word to bring a blush on her virginal countenance. When + young Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, they seem to have felt, it was + another matter. There was a monarch who feared nothing and nobody, who + once spat at a courtier whose costume misliked her, who as a girl had + experienced no resentment when the Lord High Admiral, who was courting + her, sent a messenger to "ax hir whether hir great buttocks were grown any + less or no," a monarch who was not afraid of any word in the English + language, and loved the most expressive words best. Under such a monarch, + the Victorian writers felt they would no longer have modestly refrained + from becoming Shakespeares. + </p> + <p> + But the excuses for feebleness are apt to be more ingenious than + convincing. There is no connection between coarseness and art. Goncourt + was a refined aristocrat who associated with the most highly civilised men + and women of his day, and possessed the rarest secrets of aesthetic + beauty. Indeed we may say that it is precisely the consciousness of + coarseness which leads to a cowardly flight from the brave expression of + life. Most of these excuses are impotent. Most impotent of all is the + excuse that their books reach the Nursery and the Young Ladies' School. Do + they suppose by any chance that their books grapple with the real life of + Nurseries and Young Ladies' Schools? If they grappled with that they might + grapple with anything. It is a subterfuge, a sham, and with fatty + degeneration eating away the muscular fibre of their hearts, they snatch + at it. + </p> + <p> + The road is long, and a high discipline is needed, and a great courage, if + our English literature is to regain its old power and exert once more its + proper influence in the world. + </p> + <p> + <i>April</i> 16.—I have often noticed—and I find that others + also have noticed—that when an artist in design, whether line or + colour or clay, takes up a pen and writes, he generally writes well, + sometimes even superbly well. Again and again it has happened that a man + who has spent his life with a brush in his hand has beaten the best penmen + at their own weapon. + </p> + <p> + Leonardo, who was indeed great in everything, is among the few great + writers of Italian prose. Blake was first and above all an artist in + design, but at the best he had so magnificent a mastery of words that + besides it all but the rare best of his work in design looks thin and + artificial. Rossetti was drawing and painting all his life, and yet, as + has now become clear, it is only in language, verse and prose alike, that + he is a supreme master. Fromentin was a painter for his contemporaries, + yet his paintings are now quite uninteresting, while the few books he + wrote belong to great literature, to linger over with perpetual delight. + Poetry seemed to play but a small part in the life of Michelangelo, yet + his sonnets stand to-day by the side of his drawings and his marbles. + Rodin has all his life been passionately immersed in plastic art; he has + never written and seldom talks; yet whenever his more intimate disciples, + a Judith Cladel or a Paul Gsell, have set down the things he utters, they + are found to be among the most vital, fascinating, and profound sayings in + the world. Even a bad artist with the brush may be on the road to become a + good artist with the pen. Euripides was not only a soldier, he had tried + to be a painter before he became a supreme tragic dramatist, and, to come + down to modern times, Hazlitt and Thackeray, both fine artists with the + pen, had first been poor artists with the brush. It is hard, indeed, to + think of any artist in design who has been a bad writer. The painter may + never write, he may never feel an impulse to write, but when he writes, it + would almost seem without an effort, he writes well. The list of good + artists and bad artists who have been masters of words, from Vasari and + earlier onwards, is long. One sets down at random the names of Reynolds, + Northcote, Delacroix, Woolner, Carrière, Leighton, Gauguin, Beardsley, Du + Maurier, Besnard, to which doubtless it might be easy to add a host of + others. And then, for contrast, think of that other art, which yet seems + to be so much nearer to words; think of musicians! + </p> + <p> + The clue seems to be, not only in the nature of the arts of design, but + also in the nature of writing. For, unlike all the arts, writing is not + necessarily an art at all. It is just anything. It fails to carry + inevitably within it the discipline of art. And if the writer is not an + artist, if the discipline of art has left no acquired skill in his muscles + and no instinctive habit in his nerves, he may never so much as discover + that he is not an artist. The facility of writing is its fate. + </p> + <p> + Gourmont has well said that whatever is deeply thought is well written. + And one might add that whatever is deeply observed is well said. The + artist in design is by the very nature of his work compelled to observe + deeply, precisely, beautifully. He is never able to revolve in a vacuum, + or flounder in a morass, or run after a mirage. When there is nothing + there he is still. He is held by his art to Nature. So, when he takes up + his pen, by training, by acquired instinct, he still follows with the new + instrument, deeply, precisely, beautifully, the same mystery of Nature. + </p> + <p> + It was by a somewhat similar transference of skilled experience that the + great writers of Spain, who in so many cases were first soldiers and men + of the sword, when they took up the pen, wrote, carelessly it may seem, + but so poignantly, so vividly, so fundamentally well. + </p> + <p> + <i>April</i> 22.—There is a certain type of mind which + constitutionally ignores and overlooks little things, and habitually moves + among large generalisations. Of such minds we may well find a type in + Bacon, who so often gave James I. occasion to remark jocularly in the + Council Chamber of his Lord Chancellor, <i>De minimis non curât lex</i>. + </p> + <p> + There is another type of mind which is constitutionally sensitive to the + infinite significance of minimal things. Of such, very typical in our day + are Freud and the Freudians grouped around him. There is nothing so small + that for Freud it is not packed with endless meaning. Every slightest + twitch of the muscles, every fleeting fancy of the brain, is unconsciously + designed to reveal the deepest impulse of the soul. Every detail of the + wildest dream of the night is merely a hieroglyph which may be + interpreted. Every symptom of disease is a symbol of the heart's desire. + In every seeming meaningless lapse of his tongue or his memory a man is + unconsciously revealing his most guarded and shameful secret. It is the + daring and fantastic attempt, astonishing in the unexpected amount of its + success, to work out this Philosophy of the Unconscious which makes the + work of the Freudians so fascinating. + </p> + <p> + They have their defects, both these methods, the far-sighted and the + near-sighted. Bacon fell into the ditch, and Freud is obsessed by the + vision of a world only seen through the delicate anastomosis of the nerves + of sex. Yet also they both have their rightness, they both help us to + realise the Divine Mystery of the Soul, towards which no telescope can + carry us too far, and no microscope too near. + </p> + <p> + <i>April</i> 23.—I see to-day that Justice Darling—perhaps + going a little out of his way—informed the jury in the course of a + summing-up that he "could not read a chapter of Rabelais without being + bored to death." The assumption in this <i>obiter dictum</i> seemed to be + that Rabelais is an obscene writer. And the implication seemed to be that + to a healthily virtuous and superior mind like the Judge's the obscene is + merely wearisome. + </p> + <p> + I note the remark by no means as a foolish eccentricity, but because it is + really typical. I seem to remember that, as a boy, I met with a very + similar assumption, though scarcely a similar implication, in Macaulay's + <i>Essays</i>, which at that time I very carefully read. I thereupon + purchased Rabelais in order to investigate for myself, and thus made the + discovery that Rabelais is a great philosopher, a discovery which Macaulay + had scarcely prepared me for, so that I imagined it to be original, until + a few years later I chanced to light upon the observations of Coleridge + concerning Rabelais' wonderful philosophic genius and his refined and + exalted morality, and I realised for the first time—with an + unforgettable thrill of joy—that I was not alone. + </p> + <p> + It seems clearly to be true that on the appearance in literature of the + obscene,—I use the word in a colourless and technical sense to + indicate the usually unseen or obverse side of life, the side behind the + scenes, the <i>postscenia vitae</i> of Lucretius, and not implying + anything necessarily objectionable,—it at once for most readers + covers the whole field of vision. The reader may like it or dislike, but + his reaction, especially if he is English, seems to be so intense that it + absorbs his whole psychic activity. (I say "especially if he is English," + because, though this tendency seems universal, it is strongly emphasised + in the Anglo-Saxon mind. Gaby Deslys has remarked that she has sometimes + felt embarrassed on the London stage by finding that an attempt to arouse + mere amusement has been received with intense seriousness: "When I appear + <i>en pantalons</i> the whole audience seems to hold its breath!") + Henceforth the book is either to be cherished secretly and silently, or + else to be spoken of loudly with protest and vituperation. And this + reaction is by no means limited to ignorant and unintelligent readers; it + affects ordinary people, it affects highly intelligent and super-refined + people, it may even affect eminent literary personages. The book may be by + a great philosopher and contain his deepest philosophy, but let an obscene + word appear in it, and that word will draw every reader's attention. Thus + Shakespeare used to be considered an obscene writer, in need of + expurgation, and may be so considered still, though his obscene passages + even to our prudish modern ears are so few that they could surely be + collected on a single page. Thus also it is that even the Bible, the + God-inspired book of Christendom, has been judicially declared to be + obscene. It may have been a reasonable decision, for judicial decision + ought, no doubt, to reflect popular opinion; a judge must be judicial, + whether or not he is just. + </p> + <p> + One wonders how far this is merely due to defective education and + therefore modifiable, and how far it is based on an eradicable tendency of + the human mind. Of course the forms of obscenity vary in every age, they + are varying every day. Much which for the old Roman was obscene is not so + for us; much which for us is obscene would have made a Roman smile at our + simplicity. But even savages sometimes have obscene words not fit to utter + in good aboriginal society, and a very strict code of propriety which to + violate would be obscene. Rabelais in his immortal work wore a fantastic + and extravagant robe, undoubtedly of very obscene texture, and it + concealed from stupid eyes, as he doubtless desired that it should, one of + the greatest and wisest spirits that ever lived. It would be pleasant to + think that in the presence of such men who in their gay and daring and + profound way present life in its wholeness and find it sweet, it may some + day be the instinct of the ordinary person to enjoy the vision reverently, + if not on his knees, thanking his God for the privilege vouchsafed to him. + But one has no sort of confidence that it will be so. + </p> + <p> + <i>April</i> 27.—Every garden tended by love is a new revelation, + and to see it for the first time gives one a new thrill of joy, above all + at this moment of the year when flowers are still young and virginal, yet + already profuse and beautiful. It is the moment, doubtless, when Linnaeus, + according to the legend, saw a gorse-covered English common for the first + time and fell on his knees to thank God for the sight. (I say "legend," + for I find on consulting Fries that the story must be a praiseworthy + English invention, since it was in August that Linnaeus visited England.) + </p> + <p> + Linnaeus, it may be said, was a naturalist. But it is not merely the + naturalist who experiences this emotion; it is common to the larger part + of humanity. Savages deck their bodies with flowers just as craftsmen and + poets weave them into their work; the cottager cultivates his little + garden, and the town artisan cherishes his flower-pots. However alien + one's field of interest may be, flowers still make their appeal. I recall + the revealing thrill of joy with which, on a certain day, a quite ordinary + day nearly forty years ago, my eye caught the flash of the red roses amid + the greenery of my verandah in the Australian bush. And this bowl of + wall-flowers before me now—these old-fashioned, homely, shapeless, + intimately fascinating flowers, with their faint ancient fragrance, their + antique faded beauty, their symbolisation of the delicate and contented + beauty of old age—seem to me fit for the altar of whatever might be + my dearest god. + </p> + <p> + Why should flowers possess this emotional force? It is a force which is + largely independent of association and quite abstracted from direct vital + use. Flowers are purely impersonal, they subserve neither of the great + primary ends of life. They concern us even less than the sunset. And yet + we are irresistibly impelled to "consider the lilies." + </p> + <p> + Surely it is as symbols, manifoldly complex symbols, that flowers appeal + to us so deeply. They are, after all, the organs of sex, and for some + creatures they are also the sources of food. So that if we only look at + life largely enough flowers are in the main stream of vital necessity. + They are useless to man, but man cannot cut himself off from the common + trunk of life. He is related to the insects and even in the end to the + trees. So that it may not be so surprising that while flowers are vitally + useless to man they are yet the very loveliest symbols to him of all the + things that are vitally useful. There is nothing so vitally intimate to + himself that man has not seen it, and rightly seen it, symbolically + embodied in flowers. Study the folk-nomenclature of plants in any country, + or glance through Aigremont's <i>Volkserotik und Pflanzenwelt</i>. And the + symbolisation is not the less fascinating because it is so obscure, so + elusive, usually so unconscious, developed by sudden happy inspirations of + peasant genius, and because I am altogether ignorant why the morbid and + nameless tones of these curved and wrinkled wall-flowers delight me as + they once delighted my mother, and so, it may be, backwards, through + ancient generations who dwelt in parsonages whence their gaze caught the + flowers which the seventeenth-century herbalist said in his <i>Paradisus + Terrestris</i> are "often found growing on the old walls of Churches." + </p> + <p> + <i>May</i> 8.—It is curious how there seems to be an instinctive + disgust in Man for his own nearest ancestors and relations. If only Darwin + could conscientiously have traced Man back to the Elephant or the Lion or + the Antelope, how much ridicule and prejudice would have been spared to + the doctrine of Evolution! "Monkey" and "Worm" have been the bywords of + reproach among the more supercilious of human beings, whether schoolboys + or theologians. And it was precisely through the Anthropoid Apes, and more + remotely the Annelids, that Darwin sought to trace the ancestry of Man. + The Annelids have been rejected, but the Arachnids have taken their place. + </p> + <p> + Really the proud and the haughty have no luck in this world. They can + scarcely perform their most elementary natural necessities with dignity, + and they have had the misfortune to teach their flesh to creep before + spiders and scorpions whom, it may be, they have to recognise as their own + forefathers. Well for them that their high place is reserved in another + world, and that Milton recognised "obdurate pride" as the chief mark of + Satan. + </p> + <p> + <i>May</i> 9.—The words of Keats concerning the ocean's "priestlike + task of pure ablution" often come to my mind in this deserted Cornish bay. + For it is on such a margin between sea and land over which the tide rolls + from afar that alone—save in some degree on remote Australian hills—-I + have ever found the Earth still virginal and unstained by Man. Everywhere + else we realise that the Earth has felt the embrace of Man, and been + beautified thereby, it may be, or polluted. But here, as the tide recedes, + all is ever new and fresh. Nature is untouched, and we see the gleam of + her, smell the scent of her, hear the voice of her, as she was before ever + life appeared on the Earth, or Venus had risen from the sea. This moment, + for all that I perceive, the first Adam may not have been born or the + caravel of the Columbus who discovered this new world never yet ground + into the fresh-laid sand. + </p> + <p> + So when I come unto these yellow sands I come to kiss a pure and new-born + Earth. + </p> + <p> + <i>May</i> 12.—The name of Philip Thicknesse, at one time Governor + of Landguard Fort, is not unknown to posterity. The echo of his bitter + quarrel with his son by his second wife, Baron Audley, has come down to + us. He wrote also the first biography of Gainsborough, whom he claimed to + have discovered. Moreover (herein stealing a march on Wilhelm von + Humboldt) he was the first to set on record a detailed enthusiastic + description of Montserrat from the modern standpoint. It was this last + achievement which led me to him. + </p> + <p> + Philip Thicknesse, I find, is well worth study for his own sake. He is the + accomplished representative of a certain type of Englishman, a type, + indeed, once regarded by the world at large outside England as that of the + essential Englishman. The men of this type have, in fact, a passion for + exploring the physical world, they are often found outside England, and + for some strange reason they seem more themselves, more quintessentially + English, when they are out of England. They are gentlemen and they are + patriots. But they have a natural aptitude for disgust and indignation, + and they cannot fail to find ample exercise for that aptitude in the + affairs of their own country. So in a moment of passion they shake the + dust of England off their feet to rush abroad, where, also, however,—though + they are far too intelligent to be inappreciative of what they find,—they + meet even more to arouse their disgust and indignation, and in the end + they usually come back to England. + </p> + <p> + So it was with Philip Thicknesse. A lawsuit, with final appeal to the + House of Lords, definitely deprived him of all hope of a large sum of + money he considered himself entitled to. He at once resolved to abandon + his own impossible country and settle in Spain. Accompanied by his wife + and his two young daughters, he set out from Calais with his carriage, his + horse, his man-servant, and his monkey. A discursive, disorderly, + delightful book is the record of his journey through France into + Catalonia, of his visit to Montserrat, which takes up the larger part of + it, of the abandonment of his proposed settlement in Spain, and of his + safe return with his whole retinue to Calais. + </p> + <p> + Thicknesse was an intelligent man and may be considered a good writer, + for, however careless and disorderly, he is often vivid and usually + amusing. He was of course something of a dilettante and antiquarian. He + had a sound sense for natural beauty. He was an enthusiastic friend as + well as a venomous enemy. He was infinitely tender to animals. His + insolence could be unmeasured, and as he had no defect of courage it was + just as likely to be bestowed on his superiors as on his subordinates. + When I read him I am reminded of the advice given in my early (1847) copy + of Murray's <i>Guide to France</i>: "Our countrymen have a reputation for + pugnacity in France; let them therefore be especially cautious not to make + use of their fists." Note Thicknesse's adventure with the dish of spinach. + It was on the return journey. He had seen that spinach before it came to + table. He gives several reasons why he objected to it, and they are + excellent reasons. But notwithstanding his injunction the spinach was + served, and thereupon the irate Englishman took up the dish and, + dexterously reversing it, spinach and all, made therewith a hat for the + serving-maid's head. From the ensuing hubbub and the <i>aubergiste's</i> + wrath Thicknesse was delivered by the advent of a French gentleman who + chivalrously declared (we are told) that he himself would have acted + similarly. But one realises the picture of the typical Englishman which + Thicknesse left behind him. It is to his influence and that of our + fellow-countrymen who resembled him that we must attribute the evolution + of the type of Englishman, arrogant, fantastic, original, who stalks + through Continental traditions, down even till to-day, for we find him in + Mr. Thomas Tobyson of Tottenwood in Henri de Régnier's <i>La Double + Maîtresse</i>. For the most part the manners and customs of this type of + man are only known to us by hearsay which we may refuse to credit. But + about Thicknesse there is no manner of doubt; he has written himself down; + he is the veridic and positive embodiment of the type. That is his supreme + distinction. + </p> + <p> + The type is scarcely that of the essential Englishman, yet it is one type, + and a notably interesting type, really racy of the soil. Borrow—less + of a fine gentleman than Thicknesse, but more of a genius—belonged + to the type. Landor, a man cast in a much grander mould, was yet of the + same sort, and the story which tells how he threw his Italian cook out of + the window, and then exclaimed with sudden compunction, "Good God! I + forgot the violets," is altogether in the spirit of Thicknesse. Trelawney + was a man of this kind, and so was Sir Richard Burton. In later years the + men of this type have tended, not so much to smooth their angularities as + to attenuate and subtilise them, and we have Samuel Butler and Goldwin + Smith, but in a rougher and more downright form there was much of the same + temper in William Stead. They are an uncomfortable race of men, but in + many ways admirable; we should be proud rather than ashamed of them. Their + unreasonableness, their inconsiderateness, their irritability, their + singular gleams of insight, their exuberant energy of righteous + vituperation, the curious irregularities of their minds,—however + personally alien one may happen to find such qualities,—can never + fail to interest and delight. + </p> + <p> + <i>May 13</i>.—When Aristotle declared that it is part of + probability that the improbable should sometimes happen he invented a + formula that is apt for the largest uses. Thus it is a part of justice + that injustice should sometimes be done, or, as Gourmont puts it, + Injustice is one of the forms of Justice. There lies a great truth which + most of the civilised nations of the world have forgotten. + </p> + <p> + On Candide's arrival in Portsmouth Harbour he found that an English + admiral had just been solemnly shot, in the sight of the whole fleet, for + having failed to kill as many Frenchmen as with better judgment he might + have killed. "Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un + amiral pour encourager les autres." I suppose that Voltaire was alluding + to the trial by court martial of Admiral Byng, which took place in + Portsmouth Harbour in 1757, while he was writing <i>Candide</i>. + </p> + <p> + To encourage the others! England has been regarded as a model of political + methods, and that is the method of justice by which, throughout the whole + period of her vital development, she has ensured the purity and the + efficiency of her political and social growth. Byng was shot in order + that, some eighteen months later, Nelson might be brought into life. It + was a triumphantly successful method. If our modern progress has carried + us beyond that method it is only because progress means change rather than + betterment. + </p> + <p> + Only think how swiftly and efficiently we might purify and ennoble our + social structure if we had developed, instead of abandoning, this method. + Think, for instance, of the infinite loss of energy, of health, of lives, + the endless degradation of physical and spiritual beauty produced in + London alone by the mere failure to prevent a few million chimneys from + belching soot on the great city and choking all the activities of the + vastest focus of activity in the world. Find the official whose + inefficiency is responsible for this neglect, improvise a court to try + him, and with all the deliberate solemnity and pageantry you can devise + put him to death in the presence of all officialdom. And then picture the + marvellous efficiency of his successor! In a few years' time where would + you find one smut of soot in London? Or, again, think of our complicated + factory legislation and the terrible evils which still abound in our + factories. Find a sufficiently high-placed official who is responsible for + them, and practise the Byng method with him. Under his successor's rule, + we may be sure, we should no longer recognise our death-rates, our + disease-rates, and our accident rates, and the beautiful excuses which + fill our factory inspectors' reports would no longer be needed. There is + no body of officials, from the highest to the lowest, among whom the + exercise of this ancient privilege would not conduce to the highest ends + of justice and the furtherance of human welfare. People talk about the + degradation of politics. They fail to see that it is inevitable when + politics becomes a mere game. There was no degradation of politics when + the Advisers of the Crown were liable to be executed. For it is Death, + wisely directed towards noble ends, which gives Dignity to Life. + </p> + <p> + One may be quite sure that every fat and comfortable citizen (himself + probably an official of some sort) on whom this argument may be pressed + will take it as a joke in bad taste: "Horrible! disgusting!" Yet that same + citizen, stirring the contents of his morning newspaper into his muddy + brain as he stirs his sugar in his coffee, will complacently absorb all + the news of the day, so many hundred thousand men killed, wounded, or + diseased in the course of the Balkan campaigns, so much ugly and hopeless + misery all over the earth, and all avoidable, all caused, in the last + analysis, by the incompetence, obstinacy, blindness, or greed of some + highly placed official whose death at an earlier stage would have made for + the salvation of the world. + </p> + <p> + And if any one still feels any doubt regarding the efficacy of this + method, it is enough to point to our English kings. Every king of England + has at the back of his mind a vision of a flashing axe on a frosty January + morning nearly four centuries ago. It has proved highly salutary in + preserving them within the narrow path of Duty. Before Charles I. English + monarchs were an almost perpetual source of trouble to their people; they + have scarcely ever given more than a moment's trouble since. And justice + has herein been achieved by an injustice which has even worked out in + Charles's favour. It has conferred upon him a prestige he could never have + conferred upon himself. For of all our English monarchs since the Conquest + he alone has become a martyr and a saint, so far as Protestantism can + canonise anybody, and of all our dead kings he alone evokes to-day a + living loyalty. Such a result is surely well worth a Decollation. + </p> + <p> + We have abandoned the method of our forefathers. And see the ignoble and + feeble method we have put in its place. We cowardly promote our + inefficient persons to the House of Lords, or similar obscure heights. We + shelve them, or swathe them, or drop them. Sometimes, indeed, we apply a + simulacrum of the ancient method of punishment, especially if the offence + is sexual, but even there we have forgotten the correct method of its + application, for in such cases the delinquent is usually an effective + rather than an ineffective person, and when he has purged his fault we + continue to punish him in petty and underhand ways, mostly degrading to + those on whom they are inflicted and always degrading to those who inflict + them. We have found no substitute for the sharper way of our ancestors, + which was not only more effective socially, but even more pleasant for the + victim. For if it was a cause of temporary triumph to his enemies, it was + a source of everlasting exultation to his friends. + </p> + <p> + <i>May</i> 14.—I was gazing at some tulips, the supreme image in our + clime of gaiety in Nature, their globes of petals opening into chalices + and painted with spires of scarlet and orange wondrously mingled with a + careless freedom that never goes astray, brilliant cups of delight + serenely poised on the firm shoulders of their stalks, incarnate images of + flame under the species of Eternity. + </p> + <p> + And by some natural transition my thoughts turned to the incident a + scholarly member of Parliament chanced to mention to me yesterday, of his + old student days in Paris, when early one evening he chanced to meet a + joyous band of students, one of whom triumphantly bore a naked girl on his + shoulders. In those days the public smiled or shrugged its shoulders: + "Youth will be youth." To-day, in the Americanised Latin Quarter, the + incident would merely serve to evoke the activities of the police. + </p> + <p> + Shall we, therefore, rail against the police, or the vulgar ideals of the + mob whose minions they are? Rather let us look below the surface and + admire the patient and infinite strategy of Nature. She is the same for + ever and for ever, and can afford to be as patient as she is infinite, + while she winds the springs of the mighty engine which always recoils on + those who attempt to censor the staging of her Comedy or dim the radiance + of the Earthly Spectacle. + </p> + <p> + And such is her subtlety that she even uses Man, her plaything, to + accomplish her ends. Nothing can be more superbly natural than the tulip, + and it was through the Brain of Man that Nature created the tulip. + </p> + <p> + <i>May</i> 16.—It is an error to suppose that Solitude leads away + from Humanity. On the contrary it is Nature who brings us near to Man, her + spoilt and darling child. The enemies of their fellows are bred, not in + deserts, but in cities, where human creatures fester together in heaps. + The lovers of their fellows come out of solitude, like those hermits of + the Thebaid, who fled far from cities, who crucified the flesh, who seemed + to hang to the world by no more than a thread, and yet were infinite in + their compassion, and thought no sacrifice too great for a Human Being. + </p> + <p> + Here as I lie on the towans by a cloud of daisies among the waving and + glistening grass, while the sea recedes along the stretching sands, and + the cloudless sky throbs with the song of larks, and no human thing is in + sight, it is, after all, of Humanity that I am most conscious. I realise + that there is no human function so exalted or so rare, none so simple or + so humble, that it has not its symbol in Nature; that if all the Beauty of + Nature is in Man, yet all the Beauty of Man is in Nature. So it is that + the shuttlecock of Beauty is ever kept in living movement. + </p> + <p> + It is known to many that we need Solitude to find ourselves. Perhaps it is + not so well known that we need Solitude to find our fellows. Even the + Saviour is described as reaching Mankind through the Wilderness. + </p> + <p> + <i>May</i> 20.—Miss Lind-Af-Hageby has just published an + enthusiastic though discriminating book on her distinguished + fellow-countryman, August Strindberg, the first to appear in English. Miss + Lind-Af-Hageby is known as the most brilliant, charming, and passionate + opponent of the vivisection of animals. Strindberg is known as perhaps the + most ferocious and skilful vivisector of the human soul. The literary idol + of the arch-antivivisector of animals is the arch-vivisector of men. It + must not be supposed, moreover, that Miss Lind-Af-Hageby overlooks this + aspect of Strindberg, which would hardly be possible in any case; she + emphasises it, though, it may be by a warning instinct rather than by + deliberate intention, she carefully avoids calling Strindberg a + "vivisector," using instead the less appropriate term "dissector." "He + dissected the human heart," she says, "laid bare its meanness, its + uncleanliness; made men and women turn on each other with sudden + understanding and loathing, and walked away smiling at the evil he had + wrought." + </p> + <p> + I have often noted with interest that a passionate hatred of pain + inflicted on animals is apt to be accompanied by a comparative + indifference to pain inflicted on human beings, and sometimes a certain + complaisance, even pleasure, in such pain. But it is rare to find the + association so clearly presented. Pain is woven into the structure of + life. It cannot be dispensed with in the vital action and reaction unless + we dispense with life itself. We must all accept it somewhere if we would + live at all; and in order that all may live we must not all accept it at + the same point. Vivisection—as experiments on animals are + picturesquely termed—is based on a passionate effort to combat human + pain, anti-vivisection on a passionate effort to combat animal pain. In + each case one set of psychic fibres has to be drawn tense, and another set + relaxed. Only they do not happen to be the same fibres. We see the dynamic + mechanism of the soul's force. + </p> + <p> + How exquisitely the world is balanced! It is easy to understand how the + idea has arisen among so many various peoples, that the scheme of things + could only be accounted for by the assumption of a Conscious Creator, who + wrought it as a work of art out of nothing, <i>spectator ab extra</i>. It + was a brilliant idea, for only such a Creator, and by no means the + totality of the creation he so artistically wrought, could ever achieve + with complete serenity the Enjoyment of Life. + </p> + <p> + <i>May</i> 23.—I seem to see some significance in the popularity of + <i>The Yellow Jacket</i>, the play at the Duke of York's Theatre "in the + Chinese manner," and even more genuinely in the Chinese manner than its + producers openly profess. This significance lies in the fact that the + Chinese manner of performing plays, like the Chinese manner of making + pots, is the ideally perfect manner. + </p> + <p> + The people who feel as I feel take no interest in the modern English + theatre and seldom have any wish to go near it. It combines the maximum of + material reality with the maximum of spiritual unreality, an evil mixture + but inevitable, for on the stage the one involves the other. Nothing can + be more stodgy, more wearisome, more unprofitable, more away from all the + finer ends of dramatic art. But I have always believed that the exponents + of this theatrical method must in the end be the instruments of their own + undoing, give them but rope enough. That is what seems to be happening. A + reaction has been gradually prepared by Poel, Gordon Craig, Reinhardt, + Barker; we have had a purified Shakespeare on the stage and a moderately + reasonable Euripides. Now this <i>Yellow Jacket</i>, in which realism is + openly flouted and a drama is played on the same principles as children + play in the nursery, attracts crowds. They think they are being amused; + they really come to a sermon. They are being taught the value of their own + imaginations, the useful function of accepted conventions, and the proper + meaning of illusion on the stage. + </p> + <p> + Material realism on the stage is not only dull, it is deadly; the drama + dies at its touch. The limitations of reality on the stage are absurdly + narrow; the great central facts of life become impossible of presentation. + Nothing is left to the spectator; he is inert, a cypher, a senseless + block. + </p> + <p> + All great drama owes its vitality to the fact that its spectator is not a + mere passive block, but the living inspiration of the whole play. He is + indeed himself the very stage on which the drama is enacted. He is more, + he is the creator of the play. Here are a group of apparently ordinary + persons, undoubtedly actors, furnished with beautiful garments and little + more, a few routine stage properties, and, above all, certain formal + conventions, without which, as we see in Euripides and all great + dramatists, there can be no high tragedy. Out of these mere nothings and + the suggestions they offer, the Spectator, like God, creates a new world + and finds it very good. It is his vision, his imagination, the latent + possibilities of his soul that are in play all the time. + </p> + <p> + Every great dramatic stage the world has seen, in Greece, in Spain, in + Elizabethan England, in France, has been ordered on these lines. The great + dramatist is not a juggler trying to impose an artifice on his public as a + reality; he sets himself in the spectator's heart. Shakespeare was well + aware of this principle of the drama; Prospero is the Ideal Spectator of + the Theatre. + </p> + <p> + <i>May</i> 31.—It often impresses me with wonder that in Nature or + in Art exquisite beauty is apt to appear other than it is. Jules de + Gaultier seeks to apply to human life a principle of Bovarism by which we + always naturally seek to appear other than we are, as Madame Bovary + sought, as sought all Flaubert's personages, and indeed, less consciously + on their creator's part, Gaultier claims, the great figures in all + fiction. But sometimes I ask myself whether there is not in Nature herself + a touch of Madame Bovary. + </p> + <p> + There is, however, this difference in the Bovarism of Nature's most + exquisite moments. They seem other than they are not by seeming more than + they are but by seeming less. It is by the attenuation of the medium, by + an approach to obscurity, by an approximation to the faintness of a dream, + that Beauty is manifested. I recall the Greek head of a girl once shown at + the Burlington Fine Arts Club,—over which Rodin, who chanced to see + it there, grew rapturous,—and it seemed to be without substance or + weight and almost transparent. "Las Meninas" scarcely seems to me a + painting made out of solid pigments laid on to a material canvas, but + rather a magically evoked vision that at any moment may tremble and pass + out of sight. And when I awoke in the dawn a while ago, and saw a vase of + tulips on the background of the drawn curtain over a window before me, the + scene was so interpenetrated by the soft and diffused light that it seemed + altogether purged of matter and nothing but mere Loveliness remained. + There are flowers the horticulturist delights to develop which no longer + look like living and complex organisms, but only gay fragments of crinkled + tissue-paper cut at random by the swift hand of a happy artist. James + Hinton would be swept by emotion as he listened to some passage in Mozart. + "And yet," he would say, "there is nothing in it." Blake said much the + same of the drawings of Dürer. Even the Universe is perhaps built on the + same plan. "In all probability matter is composed mainly of holes," said + Sir J.J. Thomson a few years ago; and almost at the same moment Poincaré + was declaring that "there is no such thing as matter, there is only holes + in the ether." The World is made out of Nothing, and all Supernal Beauty + would seem to be an approach to the Divine Mystery of Nothingness. "Clay + is fashioned, and thereby the pot is made; but it is its hollowness that + makes it useful," said the first and greatest of the Mystics. "By cutting + out doors and windows the room is formed; it is the space which makes the + room's use. So that when things are useful it is that in them which is + Nothing which makes them useful." Use is the symbol of Beauty, and it is + through the doors and the windows of Beautiful Things that their Beauty + emerges.—Man himself, "the Beauty of the World," emerges on the + world through the door of a Beautiful Thing. + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 5.—"A French gentleman, well acquainted with the + constitution of his country, told me above eight years since that France + increased so rapidly in peace that they must necessarily have a war every + twelve or fourteen years to carry off the refuse of the people." So + Thicknesse wrote in 1776, and he seems to have accepted the statement as + unimpeachable. Indeed, he lived long enough to see the beginning of the + deadliest wars in which France ever engaged. The French were then the most + military people in Europe. Now they are the leaders in the great modern + civilising movement of Anti-Militarism. To what predominant influence are + we to attribute that movement? To Christianity? Most certainly not. To + Humanitarianism? There is not the slightest reason to believe it. The + ultimate and fundamental ground on which the most civilised nations of + to-day are becoming Anti-militant, and why France is at the head of them, + is—there can be no reasonable doubt—the Decline in the + Birth-rate. Men are no longer cheap enough to be used as food for cannon. + If their rulers fail to realise that, it will be the worse for those + rulers. The people of the nations are growing resolved that they will no + longer be treated as "Refuse." The real refuse, they are beginning to + believe, already ripe for destruction, are those Obscurantists who set + their backs to Civilisation and Humanity, and clamour for a return of that + ill-fated recklessness in procreation from which the world suffered so + long, the ancient motto, "Increase and multiply,"—never meant for + use in our modern world,—still clinging so firmly to the dry walls + of their ancient skulls that nothing will ever scrape it off. The best + that can be said for them is that they know not what they talk of. + </p> + <p> + It is really a very good excuse and may serve to save them from the bloody + fate they are so eager to send others to. They are entitled to contend + that it holds good even of the wisest. For who knows what he talks about + when he talks of even the simplest things in the world, the sky or the + sunshine or the water? + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 15.—Am I indeed so unreasonable to care so much whether + the sun shines? The very world, to our human eyes, seems to care. It only + bursts into life, it only bursts even into the semblance of life, when the + sun shines. All this anti-cyclonic day the sky has been cloudless, and for + three hours on the sea the wavelets have been breaking into sudden flashes + and spires of silver flower-like flames, while on the reflecting waters + afar it has seemed as though a myriad argent swallows were escorting me to + the coasts of France. + </p> + <p> + In the evening, in Paris, the glory of the day has still left a long + delicious echo in the air and on the sky. I wander along the quays, and by + a sudden inspiration go to seek out the philosophic hermit of the Rue des + Saints Pères, but even he is not at home to-night, so up and down the + silent quays I wander, aimlessly and joyously, to inhale the fragrance of + Paris and the loveliness of the night, before I leave in the morning for + Spain. + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 19.—As I entered Santa Maria del Mar this morning by the + north door, and glanced along the walls under the particular illumination + of the moment (for in these Spanish churches of subdued light the varying + surprises of illumination are endless), there flashed on me a new swift + realisation of an old familiar fact. How mediaeval it is! Those grey walls + and the ancient sacred objects disposed on them with a strange irregular + harmony, they seem to be as mediaeval hands left them yesterday. And + indeed every aspect of this church—which to me has always been + romantic and beautiful—can scarcely have undergone any substantial + change. Even the worshippers must have changed but little, for this is the + church of the workers, and the Spanish woman's workaday costume bears + little mark of any specific century. If Cervantes were to return to this + district—perhaps to this district alone—of the city he loved + it is hard to see what he would note afresh, save the results of natural + decay and the shifting of the social centre of gravity. + </p> + <p> + Whenever I enter an old Spanish church, in the south or in the north, + still intact in its material details, in the observance of its traditions, + in its antique grandiosity or loveliness, nearly always there is a latent + fear at my heart. Who knows how long these things will be left on the + earth? Even if they escape the dangers due to the ignorance or + carelessness of their own guardians, no one knows what swift destruction + may not at any moment overtake them. + </p> + <p> + In the leading article of the Barcelonese <i>Diluvio</i> to-day I read: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The unity which marked the Middle Ages is broken into an infinite + variety of opinions and beliefs. + + Everywhere else, however, except in our country, there has been + formed a gradation, a rhythm, of ideas, passing from the highest to + the deepest notes of the scale. There are radicals in politics, in + religion, in philosophy; there are also reactionaries in all these + fields; but it is the intermediate notes, conciliatory, more or less + eclectic, which constitute the nucleus on which every society must + depend. In Spain this central nucleus has no existence. Here in all + orders of thought there are only the two extremes: <i>all or + nothing</i>. +</pre> + <p> + And the article concludes by saying that this state of things is so + threatening to the nation that some pessimists are already standing, watch + in hand, to count the moments of Spain's existence. + </p> + <p> + This tendency of the Spanish spirit, which there can be little doubt + about, may not threaten the existence of Spain, but it threatens the + existence of the last great fortress of mediaeval splendour and beauty and + romance. France, the chosen land of Saintliness and Catholicism, has been + swept clear of mediaevalism. England, even though it is the chosen land of + Compromise, has in the sphere of religion witnessed destructive + revolutions and counter-revolutions. What can save the Church in Spain + from perishing by that sword of Intolerance which it has itself forged? + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 20.—In a side-chapel there is a large and tall Virgin, + with seemingly closed eyes, a serene and gracious personage. Before this + image of the Virgin Mother kneels a young girl, devoutly no doubt, though + with a certain careless familiarity, with her dark hair down, and on her + head the little transparent piece of lace which the Spanish woman, even + the smallest Spanish girl-child, unlike the free-spirited Frenchwoman, + never fails to adjust as she enters a church. + </p> + <p> + I have no sympathy with those who look on the Bible as an outworn book and + the Church as an institution whose symbols are empty of meaning. It is a + good thing that, somewhere amid our social order or disorder, the Mother + whose child has no father save God should be regarded as an object of + worship. It would be as well to maintain the symbol of that worship until + we have really incorporated it into our hearts and are prepared in our + daily life to worship the Mother whose child has no known father save God. + It is not the final stage in family evolution, certainly, but a step in + the right direction. So let us be thankful to the Bible for stating it so + divinely and keeping it before our eyes in such splendid imagery. + </p> + <p> + The official guardians of the Bible have always felt it to be a dangerous + book, to be concealed, as the Jews concealed their sacred things in the + ark. When after many centuries they could no longer maintain the policy of + concealing it in a foreign tongue which few could understand, a brilliant + idea occurred to them. They flung the Bible in the vulgar tongue in + millions of copies at the heads of the masses. And they dared them to + understand it! This audacity has been justified by the results. A sublime + faith in Human Imbecility has seldom led those who cherish it astray. + </p> + <p> + No wonder they feel so holy a horror of Eugenics! + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 22.—I can see, across the narrow side-street, that a + room nearly opposite the windows of my room at the hotel is occupied by + tailors, possibly a family of them—two men, two women, two girls. + They seem to be always at work, from about eight in the morning until late + in the evening; even Sunday seems to make only a little difference, for + to-day is Sunday, and they have been at work until half-past seven. They + sit, always in the same places, round a table, near the large French + windows which are constantly kept open. At the earliest sign of dusk the + electric light suspended over the table shines out. They rarely glance + through the window, though certainly there is little to see, and I am not + sure that they go away for meals; I sometimes see them munching a roll, + and the Catalan water-pot is always at hand to drink from. If it were not + that I know how the Catalan can live by night as well as by day, I should + say that this little group can know nothing whatever of the vast and + variegated Barcelonese world in whose heart they live, that it is nothing + to them that all last night Barcelona was celebrating St. John's Eve (now + becoming a movable festival in the cities) with bonfires and illuminations + and festivities of every kind, or that at the very same moment in this + same city the soldiery were shooting down the people who never cease to + protest against the war in Morocco. They are mostly good-looking, neatly + dressed, cheerful, animated; they talk and gesticulate; they even play, + the men and the girls battering each other for a few moments with any + harmless weapons that come to hand. They are always at work, yet it is + clear that they have not adopted the heresy that man was made for work. + </p> + <p> + I am reminded of another workroom I once overlooked in a London suburb + where three men tailors worked from very early till late. But that was a + very different spectacle. They were careworn, sordid, carelessly + half-dressed creatures, and they worked with ferocity, without speaking, + with the monotonous routine of machines at high pressure. They were tragic + in the fury of their absorption in their work. They might have been the + Fates spinning the destinies of the world. + </p> + <p> + A marvellous thing how pliant the human animal is to work! Certainly it is + no Gospel of Work that the world needs. It has ever been the great concern + of the lawgivers of mankind, not to ordain work, but, as we see so + interestingly in the Mosaic Codes, to enjoin holidays from work. + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 23.—At a little station on the Catalonian-Pyrenean line + near Vich a rather thin, worn-looking young woman alighted from the + second-class carriage next to mine, and was greeted by a stout matronly + woman and a plump young girl with beaming face. These two were clearly + mother and daughter, and I suppose that the careworn new-comer from the + city, though it was less obviously so, was an elder daughter. The two + women greeted each other with scarcely a word, but they stood close + together for a few moments, and slight but visible waves of emotion ran + sympathetically down their bodies. Then the elder woman tenderly placed + her arm beneath the other's, and they walked slowly away, while the + radiant girl, on the other side of the new-comer, lovingly gave a + straightening little tug to the back of her jacket, as though it needed + it. + </p> + <p> + One sets out for a new expedition into the world always with a concealed + unexpressed hope that one will see something new. But in our little + European world one never sees anything new. There is merely a little + difference in the emotions, a little finer or a little coarser, a little + more open or a little more restrained, a little more or a little less + charm in the expression of them. But they are everywhere just the same + human emotions manifested in substantially the same ways. + </p> + <p> + It is not indeed always quite the same outside Europe. It is not the same + in Morocco. I always remember how I never grew tired of watching the Moors + in even the smallest operation of their daily life. For it always seemed + that their actions, their commonest actions, were set to a rhythm which to + a European was new and strange. Therefore it was infinitely fascinating. + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 24.—St. John's Eve was celebrated here in Ripoll on the + correct, or, as the Catalans call it, the classical, date last night. The + little market-place was full of animation. (The church, I may note, stands + in the middle of the Plaza, and the market is held in the primitive way + all round the church, the market-women's stalls clinging close to its + walls.) Here for hours, and no doubt long after I had gone to bed, the + grave, sweet Catalan girls were dancing with their young men, in couples + or in circles, and later I was awakened by the singing of Catalan songs + which reminded me a little of Cornish carols. The Catalan girls, up in + these Pyrenean heights, are perhaps more often seriously beautiful than in + Barcelona, though here, too, they are well endowed with the substantial, + homely, good-humoured Catalan graces. But here they do their hair straight + and low on the brows on each side and fasten it in knots near the nape of + the neck, so they have an air of distinction which sometimes recalls the + Florentine women of Ghirlandajo's or Botticelli's portraits. The solar + festival of St. John's Eve is perhaps the most ancient in our European + world, but even in this remote corner of it the dances seem to have lost + all recognised connection with the bonfires, which in Barcelona are mostly + left to the children. This dancing is just human, popular dancing to the + accompaniment, sad to tell, of a mechanical piano. Yet even as such it is + attractive, and I lingered around it. For I am English, very English, and + I spend much of my time in London, where dancing in the street is treated + by the police as "disorderly conduct." For only the day before I left a + London magistrate admonished a man and woman placed in the dock before him + for this heinous offence of dancing in the street, which gave so much + pleasure to my Catalan youths and maidens all last night: "This is not a + country in which people can afford to be jovial. You must cultivate a + spirit of melancholy if you want to be safe. Go away and be as sad as you + can." + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 25.—Up here on the solitary mountain side, with Ripoll + and its swirling, roaring river and many bridges below me, I realise + better the admirable position of this ancient monastery city, so admirable + that even to-day Ripoll is a flourishing little town. The river has here + formed a flat, though further on it enters a narrow gorge, and the + mountains open out into an amphitheatre. It is, one sees, on a large and + magnificent scale, precisely the site which always commended itself to the + monks of old, and not least to the Benedictines when they chose the + country for their houses instead of the town, and here, indeed, they were + at the outset far away from any great centre of human habitation. Founded, + according to the Chronicles, in the ninth century by Wilfred the Shaggy, + the first independent Count of Barcelona, one suspects that the selection + of the spot was less, an original inspiration of the Shaggy Count's than + put into his head by astute monks, who have modestly refrained from + mentioning their own part in the transaction. In any case they flourished, + and a century later, when Montserrat had been devastated by the Moors, it + was restored and repeopled by monks from Ripoll. In their own house they + were greatly active. There is the huge monastery of which so much still + remains, not a beautiful erection, scarcely even interesting for the most + part, massive, orderly, excessively bare, but with two features which will + ever make it notable; its Romanesque cloisters with the highly variegated + capitals, and the sculptured western portal. This is regarded as one of + the earliest works of sculpture in Spain, and certainly it has some very + primitive, one may even say Iberian, traits, for the large <i>toro</i>-like + animals recall Iberian sculpture. Yet it is a great work, largely and + systematically planned, full of imaginative variety; at innumerable points + it anticipates what the later more accomplished Gothic sculptors were to + achieve, and I suspect, indeed, that much of its apparent lack of + executive skill is due to wearing away of the rather soft stone the + sculptors used. In the capitals of the cloisters—certainly much + later—a peculiarly hard stone has been chosen, and, notwithstanding, + the precision and expressive vigour of these artists is clearly shown. But + the great portal, a stupendous work of art, as we still dimly perceive it + to be, wrought nearly a thousand years ago in this sheltered nook of the + Pyrenees, lingers in the memory. Also, like so many other things in the + far Past, its crumbling outlines scatter much ancient dust over what we + vainly call Modern Progress. + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 26.—Every supposed improvement in methods of travelling + seems to me to sacrifice more than it gains; it gains speed, but it + sacrifices nearly everything else, even comfort. Yet, I fear, there is a + certain unreality in one's lamentations over the decay of the ancient + methods; one is still borne on the stream. I have long wanted to cross the + Pyrenees, and certainly I should prefer to cross them leisurely, as + Thicknesse would have done (had he not preferred to elude them by the + easier and beaten road), in one's own carriage. But, failing that, surely + I ought to have walked, or, at least, to have travelled by the diligence. + Yet I cannot escape the contagious disease of Modernity, and I choose to + be whirled through the most delicious and restful scenery in the world, at + the most perfect moment of the year, in three hours (including the + interval for lunch) in a motor 'bus, while any stray passengers on the + road, as by common accord, plant themselves on the further side of the + nearest big tree until our fearsome engine of modernity has safely passed. + It is an adventure I scarcely feel proud of. + </p> + <p> + Yet even this hurried whirl has not been too swift to leave memories which + will linger long and exquisitely, among far other scenes, even with a + sense of abiding peace. How often shall I recall the exhilaration of this + clear, soft air of the mountains, touched towards the summits by the icy + breath of the snow, these glimpses of swift streams and sudden cascades, + the scent of the pine forests, the intense flame of full-flowered broom, + and perhaps more than all, the trees, as large as almond trees, of richly + blossomed wild roses now fully out, white roses and pink roses, which + abound along these winding roads among the mountains. Where else can there + be such wild rose trees? + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 27.—It is, I suppose, more than twenty years since I + stopped at Perpignan for the night, on the eve of first entering Spain, + and pushed open in the twilight the little door of the Cathedral, and knew + with sudden deep satisfaction the beauty and originality of Catalonian + architecture. The city of Perpignan has emerged into vigorous modern life + since then, but the Cathedral remains the same and still calls me with the + same voice. It seems but yesterday that I entered it. And there, at the + same spot, in the second northern bay, the same little lamp is still + twinkling, each faint throb seemingly the last, as in memory it has + twinkled for twenty years. + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 28.—Nowhere, it is said, are the offices of the Church + more magnificently presented than in Barcelona. However this may be, I + nowhere feel so much as in Spain that whatever may happen to Christianity + it is essential that the ancient traditions of the Mass should be + preserved, and the churches of Catholicism continue to be the arena of + such Sacred Operas as the Mass, their supreme and classic type. + </p> + <p> + I do not assert that it need necessarily be maintained as a Religious + Office. There are serious objections to the attempt at divine officiation + by those who have no conviction of their own Divine Office. There are + surely sufficient persons, even in pessimistic and agnostic Spain, to + carry on the Mass in sincerity for a long time to come. When sincerity + failed, I would hold that the Mass as an act of religion had come to an + end. + </p> + <p> + It would remain as Art. As Art, as the embodied summary of a great ancient + tradition, a supreme moment in the spiritual history of the world, the + Mass would retain its vitality as surely as Dante's <i>Divine Comedy</i> + retains its vitality, even though the stage of that Comedy has no more + reality for most modern readers than the stage of Punch and Judy. So it is + here. The Play of the Mass has been wrought through centuries out of the + finest intuitions, the loftiest aspirations, of a long succession of the + most sensitively spiritual men of their time. Its external shell of + superstition may fall away. But when that happens the play will gain + rather than lose. It will become clearly visible as the Divine Drama it + is, the embodied presentation of the Soul's Great Adventure, the symbolic + Initiation of the Individual into the Spiritual Life of the World. + </p> + <p> + It is not only for the perpetuation of the traditions of the recognised + Sacred Offices that Churches such as the Spanish churches continue to + constitute the ideal stage. Secular drama arises out of sacred drama, and + at its most superb moments (as we see, earlier than Christianity, in the + <i>Bacchae</i>, the final achievement of the mature art of Euripides) it + still remains infused with the old sacred spirit and even the old sacred + forms, for which the Church remains the only fitting background. It might + possibly be so for <i>Parsifal</i>. Of all operas since <i>Parsifal</i> + that I have seen, the <i>Ariane et Barbe Bleue</i> of Dukas and + Maeterlinck seems to me the most beautiful, the most exalted in + conception, the most finely symbolic, and surely of all modern operas it + is that in which the ideas and the words, the music, the stage pictures, + are wrought with finest artistry into one harmonious whole. It seems to me + that the emotions aroused by such an Opera as <i>Ariane</i> could only be + fittingly expressed—unecclesiastical as Blue Beard's character may + appear—in the frame of one of these old Catalonian churches. The + unique possibilities of the church for dramatic art constitute one of the + reasons why I shudder at the thought that these wonderful and fascinating + buildings may some day be swept of their beauty and even torn down. + </p> + <p> + <i>June</i> 29.—I have always felt a certain antipathy—unreasonable, + no doubt—to Brittany, and never experienced any impulse to enter it. + Now that I have done so the chances of my route have placed my entry at + Nantes, where the contact of neighbouring provinces may well have modified + the Breton characteristics. Yet they seem to me quite pronounced, and + scarcely affected even by the vigorous and mercantile activity of this + large city. A large and busy city, and yet I feel that I am among a people + who are, ineradically, provincial peasants, men and women of a temper + impervious to civilisation. Here too are those symbols of peasantry, the + white caps of endless shape and fashion which seem to exert such an + attraction on the sentimental English mind. Yet they are not by any means + beautiful. And what terrible faces they enfold—battered, shapeless, + featureless faces that may have been tossed among granite rocks but seem + never to have been moulded by human intercourse. The young girls are often + rather pretty, sometimes coquettish, with occasionally a touch of careless + abandonment which reminds one of England rather than of France. But the + old women—one can scarcely believe that these tragic, narrow-eyed, + narrow-spirited old women are next neighbours to the handsome, jovial old + women of Normandy. And the old men, to an extent that surely is seldom + found, are the exact counterparts of the old women, with just the same + passive, battered, pathetic figures. (I recall the remark of an English + friend who has lived much in Brittany, that these people look as though + they were still living under the Ancient Régime.) I know I shall never + forget the congregation that I saw gathered together in the Cathedral at + High Mass this Sunday morning, largely made up of these poor old decayed + abortions of humanity, all moved by the most intense and absorbed + devotion. + </p> + <p> + There is something gay and open about this Cathedral. The whole ritual is + clear to view; there is a lavish display of scarlet in the choir + upholstery; the music is singularly swift and cheerful; the whole tone of + the place is bright and joyous. One cannot but realise how perfectly such + a worship is adapted to such worshippers. Surely an accomplished + ecclesiastical art and insight have been at work here. We seem to see a + people scarcely made for this world, and sunk in ruts of sorrow, below the + level of humanity, where no hope is visible but the sky. And here is their + sky! How can it be but that they should embrace the vision with a fervour + surely unparalleled in Christendom outside Russia. + </p> + <p> + <i>July</i> 4.—Feeble little scraps of reproduction of the Bayeux + Tapestry have been familiar to me since I was a child. Yet until to-day I + entered the room opposite the Cathedral where it has lately been simply + but fittingly housed, I never imagined, and no one had ever told me, how + splendid a work of art it is. Nothing could be more unpretentious, more + domestic in a sense, with almost the air of our grandmothers' samplers, + than this long strip of embroidered canvas, still so fresh in its colours + that it might have been finished, if indeed it is finished, yesterday. It + is technically crude, childishly conventionalised, wrought with an + enforced economy of means. Yet how superbly direct and bold in the + presentation of the narrative, in the realism of the essential details, in + all this marshalling of ships and horses and men, in this tragic + multiplication of death on the battlefield. One feels behind it the fine + and free energy of a creative spirit. It is one of our great European + masterpieces of art, a glory alike for Normans and for English. It is + among the things that once known must live in one's mind to recur to + memory with a thrill of exhilaration. There is in it the spirit of another + great Norman work of art, the <i>Chanson de Roland</i>; there is even in + it the spirit of Homer, or the spirit of Flaubert, "the French Homer," as + Gourmont has called him, who lived and worked so few miles away from this + city of Bayeux. + </p> + <p> + <i>July</i> 9.—Now that I have again crossed Normandy, this time + from the south-west, I see the old puzzle of the architectural quality of + the Norman from a new aspect. Certainly the Normans seem to have had a + native impulse to make large, strong, bold buildings. But the aesthetic + qualities of these buildings seem sometimes to me a little doubtful. + Surely Coutances must lie in a thoroughly Norman district; it possesses + three great churches, of which St. Nicolas pleases me most; the Cathedral, + even in its strength and originality, makes no strong appeal to me. I find + more that is attractive in Bayeux Cathedral, which is a stage nearer to + the Seine. And I have asked myself this time whether the architectural + phenomena of Normandy may not be explained precisely by this presence of + the Seine, running right through the middle of it, and of its capital + city, Rouen, which is also its great architectural centre. What is + architecturally of the first quality in Normandy and the neighbouring + provinces seems to me now to lie on the Seine, or within some fifty miles + of its banks. That would include Bayeux and Chartres to the south, as well + as Amiens and Beauvais to the north. So I ask myself whether what we see + in this region may not be the result of the great highway passing through + it. Have we not here, perhaps, action and reaction between the massive + constructional spirit of Normandy and the exquisite inventive aesthetic + spirit of the Ile de France? + </p> + <p> + <i>July</i> 12.—Certainly June, at all events as I have known it + this year, is the ideal month for rambling through Europe. Here along the + Norman coast, indeed, at Avranches and Fécamp, one encounters a damp + cloudiness to remind one that England is almost within sight. Yet during a + month in Spain and in France, in the Pyrenees and in Normandy, it has + never been too hot or too cold, during the whole time I have scarcely so + much as seen rain. Everywhere my journey has been an endless procession of + summer pageantry, of greenery that is always fresh, of flowers that have + just reached their hour of brilliant expansion. "To travel is to die + continually"; and I have had occasion to realise the truth of the saying + during the past few weeks. But I shall not soon forget the joy of this + wild profusion of flowers scattered all along my path, for two thousand + miles—the roses and lilies, the broom and the poppies. + </p> + <p> + <i>July</i> 18.—When one considers that Irony which seems so + prevailing a note of human affairs, if we choose to regard human affairs + from the theological standpoint, it is interesting to remember that the + most pronounced intellectual characteristic of Jesus, whom the instinct of + the populace recognised as the Incarnation of God, was, in the wider + sense, a ferocious Irony. God is Love, said St. John. The popular mind + seems to have had an obscure conviction that God is Irony. And it is in + his own image, let us remember, that Man creates God. + </p> + <p> + <i>July</i> 29.—In his essay on "The Comparative Anatomy of Angels," + Fechner, the father of experimental psychology, argued that angels can + have no legs. For if we go far down in the animal scale we find that + centipedes have God knows how many legs; then come butterflies and beetles + with six, and then mammals with four; then come birds, which resemble + angels by their free movement through space, and man, who by his own + account is half an angel, with only two legs; in the final step to the + angelic state of spherical perfection the remaining pair of legs must + finally disappear. (Indeed, Origen is said to have believed that the + Resurrection body would be spherical.) + </p> + <p> + One is reminded of Fechner's playful satire by the spectacle of those + poets who ape angelic modes of progression. The poet who desires to + achieve the music of the spheres may impart to his movement the planetary + impulse if he can suggest to our ears the illusion of the swift rush of + rustling wings, but he must never forget that in reality he still + possesses legs, and that these legs have to be accounted for, and reckoned + in the constitution of metre. Every poet must still move with feet, feet + that must be exquisitely sensitive to the earth's touch, impeccably + skilful to encounter every obstacle on the way with the joyous flashing of + his feet. The most splendidly angelic inspirations will not suffice to + compensate the poet for feet that draggle in the mud, or stumble + higgledy-piggledy among stony words, which his toes should have kissed + into jewels. + </p> + <p> + We find this well illustrated in a quite genuine poet whose biography has + just been published. In some poems of Francis Thompson we see that the + poet seeks to fling himself into a planetary course, forgetting, and + hoping to hypnotise his readers into forgetting, that the poet has feet. + He thereby takes his place in the group which Matthew Arnold termed that + of Ineffectual Angels. Arnold, it is true, a pedagogue rather than a + critic, invented this name for Shelley, whom it scarcely fits. For + Shelley, whose feet almost keep pace with his wings, more nearly belongs + to the Effectual Angels. + </p> + <p> + <i>August</i> 3.—In our modern life an immense stress is placed on + the value of Morality. Very little stress is placed on the value of + Immorality. I do not, of course, use the words "Morality" and "Immorality" + in any question-begging way as synonymous of "goodness" and of "badness," + but, technically, as names for two different sorts of socially-determined + impulses. Morality covers those impulses, of a more communal character, + which conform to the standards of action openly accepted at a given time + and place; Immorality stands for those impulses, of a more individual + character, which fail so to conform. Morality is, more concisely, the <i>mores</i> + of the moment; Immorality is the <i>mores</i> of some other moment, it may + be a better, it may be a worse moment. Every nonconformist action is + immoral, but whether it is thereby good, bad, or indifferent remains + another question. Jesus was immoral; so also was Barabbas. + </p> + <p> + The more one knows of the real lives of people the more one perceives how + large a part of them is lived in the sphere of Immorality and how vitally + important that part is. It is not the part shown to the world, the + mechanism of its activities remains hidden. Yet those activities are so + intimate and so potent that in a large proportion of cases it is in their + sphere that we must seek the true motive force of the man or woman, who + may be a most excellent person, one who lays, indeed, emphatically and + honestly, the greatest stress on the value of the impulses of Morality. + "The passions are the winds which fill the sails of the vessel," said the + hermit to Zadig, and Spinoza had already said the same thing in other + words. The passions are by their nature Immoralities. To Morality is left + the impulses which guide the rudder, of little value when no winds blow. + </p> + <p> + Thus to emphasise the value of Immorality is not to diminish the value of + Morality. They are both alike necessary. ("Everything is dangerous here + below, and everything is necessary.") There should be no call on us to + place the stress on one side at the expense of the other side. When + Carducci, with thoughts directed on the intellectual history of humanity, + wrote his hymn to Satan, it was as the symbol of the revolutionary power + of reason that he sang the triumph of Satan over Jehovah. But no such + triumph of Immorality over Morality can be foreseen or desired. When we + place ourselves at the high biological standpoint we see the vital + necessity of each. It is necessary to place the stress on both. + </p> + <p> + If we ask ourselves why at the present moment the sphere of Morality seems + to have acquired, not in actual life, but in popular esteem, an undue + prominence over the sphere of Immorality, we may see various tendencies at + work, and perhaps not uninfluentially the decay of Christianity. For + Religion has always been the foe of Morality, and has always had a sneer + for "mere Morality." Religion stands for the Individual as Morality stands + for Society. Religion is the champion of Grace; it pours contempt on + "Law," the stronghold of Morality, even annuls it. The Pauline and + pseudo-Pauline Epistles are inexhaustible on this theme. The Catholic + Church with its Absolution and its Indulgences could always override + Morality, and Protestantism, for all its hatred of Absolution and of + Indulgences, by the aid of Faith and of Grace easily maintained exactly + the same conquest over Morality. So the decay of Christianity is the fall + of the Sublime Guardian of Immorality. + </p> + <p> + One may well ask oneself whether it is not a pressing need of our time to + see to it that these two great and seemingly opposed impulses are + maintained in harmonious balance, by their vital tension to further those + Higher Ends of Life to which Morality and Immorality alike must be held in + due subjection. + </p> + <p> + <i>August 18</i>.—How marvellous is the Humility of Man! I find it + illustrated in nothing so much as in his treatment of his Idols and Gods. + With a charming irony the so-called "Second Isaiah" described how the + craftsman deals with mere ordinary wood or stone which he puts to the + basest purposes; "and the residue thereof he maketh a God." One wonders + whether Isaiah ever realised that he himself was the fellow of that + craftsman. He also had moulded his Jehovah out of the residue of his own + ordinary emotions and ideas. But that application of his own irony + probably never occurred to Isaiah, and if it had he was too wise a prophet + to mention it. + </p> + <p> + Man makes his God and places Him, with nothing to rest on, in a Chaos, and + imposes on Him the task of introducing life and order, everything indeed, + out of His own Divine Brains. To the savage theologian and his more + civilised successors that seems an intelligent theory of the Universe. + They fail to see that they have merely removed an inevitable difficulty a + stage further back. (And we can understand the reply of the irritable + old-world theologian to one who asked what God was doing before the + creation: "He was making rods for the backs of fools.") For the Evolution + of a Creator is no easier a problem than the Evolution of a Cosmos. + </p> + <p> + The theologians, with their ineradicable anthropomorphic conceptions, have + never been able to see how stupendous an anachronism they committed + (without even taking the trouble to analyse Time) when they placed God + prior to His Created Universe in the void and formless Nebula. Such a God + would not have been worth the mist He was made of. + </p> + <p> + It is only when we place God at the End, not at the Beginning, that the + Universe falls into order. God is an Unutterable Sigh in the Human Heart, + said the old German mystic. And therewith said the last word. + </p> + <p> + <i>August 21</i>.—Is not a certain aloofness essential to our vision + of the Heaven of Art? + </p> + <p> + As I write I glance up from time to time at the open door of a + schoolhouse, and am aware of a dim harmony of soft, rich, deep colour and + atmosphere framed by the doorway and momentarily falling into a balanced + composition, purified of details by obscurity, the semblance of a + Velasquez. Doors and windows and gateways vouchsafe to us perpetually the + vision of a beauty apparently remote from the sphere of our sorrow, and + the impression of a room as we gaze into it from without through the + window is more beautiful than when we move within it. Every picture, the + creation of the artist's eye and hand, is a vision seen through a window. + </p> + <p> + It is the delight of mirrors that they give something of the same + impression as I receive from the schoolhouse doorway. In music-halls, and + restaurants, and other places where large mirrors hang on the walls, we + may constantly be entranced by the lovely and shifting pictures of the + commonplace things which they chance to frame. In the atmosphere of + mirrors there always seems to be a depth and tone which eludes us in the + actual direct vision. Mirrors cut off sections of the commonplace real + world, and hold them aloof from us in a sphere of beauty. From the days of + the Greeks and Etruscans to the days of Henri de Régnier a peculiar + suggestion of aesthetic loveliness has thus always adhered to the mirror. + The most miraculous of pictures created by man, "Las Meninas," resembles + nothing so much as the vision momentarily floated on a mirror. In this + world we see "as in a glass darkly," said St. Paul, and he might have + added that in so seeing we see more and more beautifully than we can ever + hope to see "face to face." + </p> + <p> + There is sometimes even more deliciously the same kind of lovely + attraction in the reflection of lakes and canals, and languid rivers and + the pools of fountains. Here reality is mirrored so faintly and + tremulously, so brokenly, so as it seems evanescently, that the simplest + things may be purged and refined into suggestions of exquisite beauty. + Again and again some scene of scarcely more than commonplace charm—seen + from some bridge at Thetford, or by some canal at Delft, some pond in + Moscow—imprints itself on the memory for ever, because one chances + to see it under the accident of fit circumstance reflected in the water. + </p> + <p> + Still more mysterious, still more elusive, still more remote are the + glorious visions of the external world which we may catch in a polished + copper bowl, as in crystals and jewels and the human eye. Well might Böhme + among the polished pots of his kitchen receive intimation of the secret + light of the Universe. + </p> + <p> + In a certain sense there is more in the tremulously faint and far + reflection of a thing than there is in the thing itself. The dog who + preferred the reflection of his bone in the water to the bone itself, + though from a practical point of view he made a lamentable mistake, was + aesthetically justified. No "orb," as Tennyson said, is a "perfect star" + while we walk therein. Aloofness is essential to the Beatific Vision. If + we entered its portals Heaven would no longer be Heaven. + </p> + <p> + <i>August</i> 23.—I never grow weary of the endless charm of English + parish churches. The more one sees of them the more one realises what + fresh, delightful surprises they hold. Nothing else in England betrays so + well the curious individuality, the fascinating tendency to incipient + eccentricity, which marks the English genius. Certainly there are few + English churches one can place beside some of the more noble and + exquisitely beautiful French churches, such a church, for instance, as + that of Caudebec on the Seine. But one will nowhere find such a series of + variously delightful churches springing out of concretely diversified + minds. + </p> + <p> + Here at Maldon I enter the parish church in the centre of the town, and + find that the tower, which appears outside, so far as one is able to view + it, of the normal four-sided shape, is really triangular; and when in the + nave one faces west, this peculiarity imparts an adventurous sense of + novelty to the church, a delicious and mysterious surprise one could not + anticipate, nor even realise, until one had seen. + </p> + <p> + Individuality is as common in the world as ever it was, and as precious. + But its accepted manifestations become ever rarer. What architect to-day + would venture to design a triangular-towered church, and what Committee + would accept it? No doubt they would all find excellent reasons against + such a tower. But those reasons existed five hundred years ago. Yet the + men of Maldon built this tower, and it has set for ever the seal of unique + charm upon their church. + </p> + <p> + The heel of Modern Man is struck down very firmly on Individuality, and + not in human life only, but also in Nature. Hahn in his summary survey of + the North American fauna and flora comes to the conclusion that their + aspect is becoming ever tamer and more commonplace, because all the + animals and plants that are rare or bizarre or beautiful are being + sedulously destroyed by Man's devastating hand. There is nothing we have + to fight for more strenuously than Individuality. Unless, indeed, since + Man cannot inhabit the earth for ever, the growing dulness of the world + may not be a beneficent adaptation to the final extinction, and the last + man die content, thankful to leave so dreary and monotonous a scene. + </p> + <p> + <i>August</i> 24.—A month ago I was wandering through the superb + spiritual fortress overlying a primeval pagan sanctuary, which was dreamed + twelve centuries ago in the brain of a Bishop of neighbouring Avranches, + and slowly realised by the monastic aspiration, energy, and skill of many + generations to dominate the Bay of St. Michel even now after all the monks + have passed away. And to-day I have been wandering in a very different + scene around the scanty and charming remains of the Abbey of Beeleigh, + along peaceful walks by lovely streams in this most delightful corner of + Essex, which the Premonstratensian Canons once captured, in witness of the + triumph of religion over the world and the right of the religious to enjoy + the best that the world can give. + </p> + <p> + The Premonstratensian Canons who followed the mild Augustinian rule + differed from the Benedictines, and it was not in their genius to seize + great rocks and convert them into fortresses. Their attitude was humane, + their rule not excessively ascetic; they allowed men and women to exercise + the religious life side by side in neighbouring houses; they lived in the + country but they were in familiar touch with the world. The White Canons + ruled Maldon, but they lived at Beeleigh. They appear to have been + admirable priests; the official Visitor (for they were free from Episcopal + control) could on one occasion find nothing amiss save that the Canons + wore more luxuriant hair than befitted those who bear the chastening sign + of the tonsure, and their abbots seem to have been exceptionally wise and + prudent. This sweet pastoral scenery, these slow streams with luxuriant + banks and pleasant, sheltered walks, were altogether to their taste. Here + were their fish-ponds and their mills. Here were all the luxuries of + Epicurean austerity. Even in the matter of comfort compare the cramped + dungeons, made for defence, in which the would-be lords of the world + dwelt, with the spacious democratic palaces, or the finely spaced rural + villas, with no need to think of defence, in which men led the religious + life. Compare this abbey even with Castle Hedingham a few miles away, once + the home of the great De Veres, by no means so gloomy as such castles are + wont to be, and I doubt if you would prefer it to live in; as a matter of + fact it has been little used for centuries, while Beeleigh is still a + home. Here in these rich and peaceful gardens, Abbot Epicurus of Beeleigh—who + held in his hands, at convenient arm's length, the prosperous town of + Maldon—could discourse at leisure to his girl disciples—had + there been a house of canonesses here—of the lusts and passions that + dominate the world, repletion, extravagance, disorders, disease, warfare, + and death. In reality Abbot Epicurus had captured all the best things the + world can hold and established them at Beeleigh, leaving only the dregs. + And at the same time, by a supreme master-stroke of ironic skill, he + persuaded those stupid dregs that in spurning them he had renounced the + World! + </p> + <p> + <i>August</i> 27.—Here in the north-west of Suffolk and on into + Norfolk there is a fascinating blank in the map. Much of it was in ancient + days fenland, with, long before the dawn of history, at least one spot + which was a great civilising centre of England, and even maybe of Europe, + from the abundance and the quality of the flints here skilfully worked + into implements. Now it is simply undulating stretches of heathland, at + this season freshly breaking into flower, with many pine trees, and the + most invigorating air one can desire. Not a house sometimes for miles, not + a soul maybe in sight all day long, not (as we know of old by sad + experience and are provided accordingly) a single wayside inn within + reach. Only innumerable rabbits who help to dig out the worked flints one + may easily find—broken, imperfect, for the most part no doubt + discarded—and rare solitary herons, silent and motionless, with long + legs and great bills, and unfamiliar flowers, and gorgeous butterflies. + Here, on a bank of heather and thyme, we spread our simple and delicious + meal. + </p> + <p> + Do not ask the way to this ancient centre of civilisation, even by its + modern and misleading name, even at the nearest cottage. They cannot tell + you, and have not so much as heard of it. Yet it may be that those + cottagers themselves are of the race of the men who were here once the + pioneers of human civilisation, for until lately the people of this + isolated region were said to be of different physical type and even of + different dress from other people. So it is, as they said of old, that the + glory of the world passes away. + </p> + <p> + <i>August</i> 29.—Whenever, as to-day, I pass through Bury St. + Edmunds or Stowmarket or Sudbury and the neighbourhood, I experience a + curious racial home-feeling. I never saw any of these towns or took much + interest in them till I had reached middle age. Yet whenever I enter this + area I realise that its inhabitants are nearer to me in blood, and + doubtless in nervous and psychic tissue, than the people of any other + area. It is true that one may feel no special affinity to the members of + one's own family group individually. But collectively the affinity cannot + fail to be impressive. I am convinced that if a man were to associate with + a group of one hundred women (I limit the sex merely because it is in + relation to the opposite sex that a man's instinctive and unreasoned + sympathies and antipathies are most definite), this group consisting of + fifty women who belonged to his own ancestral district, and therefore his + own blood, and fifty outside that district, his sympathies would more + frequently be evoked by the members of the first group than the second, + however indistinguishably they were mingled. That harmonises with the fact + that homogamy, as it is called, predominates over heterogamy, that like is + attractive to like. Therefore, after all, the feeling I have acquired + concerning this part of Suffolk may be in part a matter of instinct. + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 3.—Why is it that notwithstanding my profound + admiration for Beethoven, and the delight he frequently gives me, I yet + feel so disquieted by that master and so restively hostile to his + prevailing temper? I always seem to have a vague feeling that he is a + Satan among musicians, a fallen angel in the darkness who is perpetually + seeking to fight his way back to happiness, and to enter on the impossible + task of taking the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. + </p> + <p> + Consider the exceedingly popular Fifth Symphony. It seems to me to + represent the strenuous efforts of a man who is struggling virtuously with + adversity. It is morality rather than art (I would not say the same of the + Seventh Symphony, or of the Ninth), and the morality of a proud, + self-assertive, rather ill-bred person. I always think of Beethoven as the + man who, walking with Goethe at Weimar and meeting the Ducal Court party, + turned up his coat collar and elbowed his way through the courtiers, who + were all attention to him, while Goethe, scarcely noticed, stood aside + bowing, doubtless with an ironic smile at his heart. The Fifth Symphony is + a musical rendering of that episode. We feel all through it that + self-assertive, self-righteous little man, vigorously thrusting himself + through difficulties to the goal of success, and finely advertising his + progress over obstacles by that ever-restless drum which is the backbone + of the whole symphony. No wonder the Fifth Symphony appeals so much to our + virtuous and pushful middle-class audiences. They seem to feel in it the + glorification of "a nation of shopkeepers" who are the happy possessors of + a "Nonconformist Conscience." + </p> + <p> + It is another appeal which is made by Bach and Mozart and Schubert. They + also may be moved by suffering and sorrow. But they are never in vain + rebellion against the Universe. Their sorrow is itself at one with the + Universe, and therefore at one with its joy. Such sorrow gives wings to + the soul, it elevates and enlarges us; we are not jarred and crushed by + violent attacks on a Fortress of Joy which to such attacks must ever be an + unscaleable glacis. The Kingdom of Heaven is not taken by violence, and I + feel that in the world of music many a smaller man is nearer to the + Kingdom of Heaven than this prodigious and lamentable Titan. + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 9.—As I sit basking in the sunshine on this + familiar little rocky peninsula in the centre of the bay, still almost + surrounded by the falling tide, I note a youth and a girl crossing the + sands below me, where the gulls calmly rest, to the edge of dry beach. + Then she sits down and he stands or bends tenderly over her. This + continues for some time, but the operation thus deliberately carried out, + it ultimately becomes clear, is simply that of removing her shoes and + stockings. At last it is accomplished, he raises her, swiftly harmonises + his costume to hers, and forthwith conducts her through some shallow water + to an island of sand. The deeper passage to my peninsula still remains to + be forded, and the feat requires some circumspection. In less than half an + hour it will be easy to walk across dry-shod, and time is evidently no + object. But so prosaic a proceeding is disdained by Paul and Virginia. He + wades carefully forward within reach of the rocks, flings boots, white + stockings, and other cumbersome belongings on to the lowest ledge of rock, + returns to the island, and lifts her up, supporting her body with one arm + as she clasps his neck, while with the other he slowly and anxiously feels + his way with his stout stick among the big seaweed-grown stones in the + surf. I see them clearly now, a serious bespectacled youth of some twenty—one + years and a golden—haired girl, some two or three years younger, in + a clinging white dress. The young St. Christopher at last deposits his + sacred burden at the foot of the peninsula, which they climb, to sit down + on the rocks, and in the same deliberate, happy, self-absorbed spirit + complete their toilet and depart. + </p> + <p> + I know not what relation of tender intimacy unites them, but when they + have gone their faces remain in my memory. I seem to see them thirty years + hence, that honest, faithful, straightforward face of the youth, + transformed into the rigid image of an eminently-worthy and + wholly-undistinguished citizen, and the radiant, meaningless girl a stout + and careful Mrs. Grundy with a band of children around her. Yet the memory + of to-day will still perhaps be enshrined in their hearts. + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 12.—"I study you as I study the Bible," said a wise + and religious old doctor to a patient who had proved a complex and + difficult case. His study was of much benefit to her and probably to + himself. + </p> + <p> + It is precisely in this spirit that the psychoanalysts, taught by the + genius of Freud, study their patients, devoting an hour a day for weeks or + months or more to the gospel before them, seeking to purge themselves of + all prepossessions, to lie open to the Divine mystery they are + approaching, as the mystic lies open to his Divine mystery, to wait + patiently as every page of the physical and spiritual history is turned + over, to penetrate slowly to the most remote and intimate secrets of + personality, even those that the surface shows no indication of, that have + never been uttered or known—until at last the Illumination comes and + the Meaning is clear. + </p> + <p> + How few among the general run of us, medical or lay, have yet learnt to + deal thus reverently with Human Beings! Here are these things, Men, Women, + and Children, infinitely fascinating and curious in every curve and + function of their bodies and souls, with the world set in the heart of + each of them, indeed whole Immortalities and Cosmoses, of which one may + sometimes catch glimpses, with amazement if not indeed with amusement, and + such a holy awe as Dostoeffsky felt when in moments of revelation he saw + by some sudden gleam into the hearts of the criminals around him in + Siberia—and what do we do with them? Tie up their souls in official + red tape and render their bodies anaemic with clothes, distort them in + factories or slay them on battlefields. The doctor is herein the New + Mystic at whose feet all must patiently learn the Revelation of Humanity. + When there is not quite so much Mankind in the world, and what remains is + of better quality, we may perhaps begin to see that a new task lies before + Religion, and that all the patient study which men devoted to the + Revelation that seemed to them held in the Text of the Bible is but a + feeble symbol of the Revelation held in the Text of Men and Women, of whom + all the Bibles that ever were merely contain the excretions. It is indeed + exactly on that account that we cannot study Bibles too devoutly. + </p> + <p> + So before each New Person let us ejaculate internally that profound and + memorable saying: "I study you as I study the Bible." + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 18.—The approach to the comprehension of any + original personality, in art or in philosophy, is slow but full of + fascination. One's first impulse, I have usually found, is one of tedious + indifference, followed by rejection, probably accompanied with repugnance. + In this sphere the door which opens at a touch may only lead into a hovel. + The portal to a glorious temple may be through a dark and dreary narthex, + to be traversed painfully, it may be on one's knees, a passage only + illuminated in its last stages by exhilarating bursts of light as the door + ahead momentarily swings open. + </p> + <p> + When Jules de Gaultier sent me on publication his first book <i>Le + Bovarysme</i>, I glanced through it with but a faint interest and threw it + aside. (I had done the same some years before, perhaps as stupidly, who + knows? with the <i>Matière et Mémoire</i> of the rival philosopher who has + since become so magnificently prosperous in the world.) The awkward and + ill-chosen title offended me, as it offends me still, and Gaultier had + then scarcely attained the full personal charm of his grave, subdued, and + reticent style. But another book arrived from the same author, and yet + another, and I began to feel the attraction of this new thinker and to + grasp slowly his daring and elusive conception of the world. Here, one + remarks, is where the stupid people who are slow of understanding have + their compensation in the end. For whereas the brilliant person sees so + much light at his first effort that he is apt to be content with it, the + other is never content, but is always groping after more, perhaps to come + nearer to the Great Light at last. + </p> + <p> + For Gaultier the world is a spectacle. We always conceive ourselves other + than we are (that is the famous "Bovarism"), we can never know the world + as it is. The divine creative principle is Error. All the great dramatists + and novelists have unconsciously realised this in the sphere of + literature; Flaubert consciously and supremely realised it. In life also + the same principle holds. Life is a perpetual risk and danger, the + perpetual toss of a die which can never be calculated, a perpetual + challenge to high adventure. But it is only in Art that the solution of + Life's problems can be found. Life is always immoral and unjust. It is Art + alone which, rising above the categories of Morality, justifies the pains + and griefs of Life by demonstrating their representative character and + emphasising their spectacular value, thus redeeming the Pain of Life by + Beauty. + </p> + <p> + It is along this path that Jules de Gaultier would lead by the hand those + tender and courageous souls who care to follow him. + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 19.—Imbecility is the Enemy, and there are two + tragic shapes of Imbecility which one meets so often, and finds so + disheartening, perhaps not indeed hopeless, not beyond the power even of + Training, to say nothing of Breeding, to better. + </p> + <p> + There is that form of Imbecility which shows itself in the inability to + see any person or any thing save in a halo of the debased effluvium which + the imbecile creature himself exudes, and in the firm conviction—that + is where the Imbecility comes in—that the halo pertains not to + himself but to the object he gazes at. Law, necessary as it is, powerfully + aids these manifestations, and the Policeman is the accepted + representative of this form of Imbecility. It is a sad form, not only + because it is so common, and so powerfully supported, but because it + effectually destroys the finest blossoms of human aspiration on the + pathway to any more beautiful life. It is the guardian against us of the + Gate of Paradise. If the inspired genius who wrote the delightful book of + <i>Genesis</i> were among us to-day, instead of two cherubim with flaming + swords, he would probably have placed at the door of his Eden two + policemen with truncheons. Nothing can be lovelier, more true to the + spiritual fact, than the account in the Gospel of the angel Gabriel's + visit to the Virgin Mary; it represents the experience of innumerable + women in all ages, and on that account it has received sanctification for + ever. It was an incident described by a saint who was also a poet. But + imagine that incident described by a policeman, and one shudders. So long + as the policeman's special form of Imbecility triumphs in the world, there + will be no Paradise Regained. + </p> + <p> + But there is another shape in which Imbecility is revealed, scarcely less + fatal though it is of the reverse kind. It is the Imbecility of those + young things who, themselves radiating innocence and fragrance, + instinctively cast a garment of their own making round every object that + attracts them, however foul, and never see it for what it is, until too + late, and then, with their illusion, their own innocence and fragrance + have also gone. For this kind of Imbecility erects a fortress for the Evil + in the world it could by a glance strike dead. + </p> + <p> + In the one case, as in the other, it is Intelligence which is at fault, + the enlightened brain, the calm and discerning eye that can see things for + what they are, neither debasing nor exalting them. The clear-sighted eye + in front of the enlightened brain—there can be no Imbecility then. + Only the Diseases of the Soul which Reason can never cure. + </p> + <p> + From these two shapes of Imbecility one would like to see a delivering + Saviour arise. + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 24.—The act of bathing in the sea, rightly + considered, is a sacred act, and is so recognised in many parts of the + world. It should not be made as commonplace as a mere hygienic tubbing, + nor be carried out by a crowd of clothed persons in muddy water. No + profane unfriendly eye should be near, the sun must be bright, the air + soft, the green transparent sea should ripple smoothly over the rocks, as + I see it below me now, welling rhythmically into rock-basins and plashing + out with a charge of bubbling air and a delicious murmur of satisfied + physiological relief. Enter the sea in such a manner, on such a day, and + the well-tempered water greets the flesh so lovingly that it opens like a + flower with no contraction of hostile resistance. The discomforting + sensation of the salt in the nostrils becomes a delightful and + invigorating fragrance as it blends with the exhilaration of this + experience. So to bathe is more than to bathe. It is a rite of which the + physical delight is a symbol of the spiritual significance of an act of + Communion with Nature, to be stored up with one's best experiences of Fine + Living. + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 27.—It is a soft, wet Cornish day, and as I sit in + the garden, sheltered from the rain, there floats back to memory a day, + two months ago at Ripoll, when I wandered in the wonderful and beautiful + cloisters, where every capital is an individual object of fascinating + study, still fresh after so many centuries, and not a footstep ever + disturbed my peace. + </p> + <p> + Nothing so well evidences the fine utility of monasticism as the invention + of the cloister. In a sense it was the centre of monastic life, so that + monastery and cloister are almost synonymous terms. No peasant-born monk + of the West, in the carol of his cloister, had occasion to envy the King + of Granada his Court of the Lions. Fresh air, the possibility of movement, + sunshine in winter and shade in summer, the vision of flowers, the + haunting beauty of the well in the centre, and the exhilarating spring of + the arches all around, the <i>armaria</i> of books at hand, and silence—such + things as these are for every man who thinks and writes the essentials of + intellectual living. And every cloister offered them. Literature has smelt + unpleasantly of the lamp since cloisters were no longer built, and men + born for the cloister, the Rousseaus and the Wordsworths and the + Nietzsches, wandered homelessly among the hills, while to-day we seek any + feeble substitute for the cloister wherein to work at leisure in the free + air of Nature, and hear the song of the birds and the plash of the rain at + one's feet. + </p> + <p> + <i>September</i> 30.—When I pass through the little Cornish valley + there is one tree on which my eye always dwells. It is of no greater size + than many other trees in the valley, nor even, it may be to a casual + glance, of any marked peculiarity; one might say, indeed, that in this + alien environment, so far from its home on the other side of the world, it + manifests a certain unfamiliar shyness, or a well-bred condescension to + the conventions of the English floral world. Yet, such as it is, that tree + calls up endless pictures from the recesses of memory, of the beautiful + sun-suffused land where the Eucalyptus in all its wonderful varieties, + vast and insolent and solemn and fantastic, is lord of the floral land, + and the Mimosa, with the bewitching loveliness that aches for ever at + one's heart, is the lady of the land. + </p> + <p> + So I walk along the Cornish valley in a dream, and once more kangaroos + bound in slow, great curves down the hills, and gay parrakeets squabble on + the ground, and the soft grey apple-gums slumber in the distance, and the + fragrance of the wattles is wafted in the air. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 2.—If this Cornish day were always and everywhere + October, then October would never be a month to breed melancholy in the + heart, and I could enter into the rapture of De Régnier over this season + of the year. It would, indeed, be pleasant to think of October as a month + when, as to-day, the faint northeasterly wind is mysteriously languorous, + and the sun burns hot even through misty clouds, and the dim sea has all + the soft plash of summer, and from the throats of birds comes now and + again a liquid and idle note which, they themselves seem to feel, has no + function but the delight of mere languid contentment, and the fuchsia tree + casts a pool of crimson blossoms on the ground while yet retaining amid + its deep metallic greenery a rich burden of exotic bells, to last maybe to + Christmas. If this is indeed October as Nature made October, then we might + always approach Winter in the same mood as, if we are wise, we shall + always approach Death. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 6.—The Russian philosopher Schestoff points out that + while we have to be reticent regarding the weaknesses of ordinary men, we + can approach the great with open eyes and need never fear to give their + qualities the right names. "How simply and quietly the Gospel reports that + in one night the Apostle Peter denied his Master thrice! And yet that has + not hindered mankind from building him a magnificent temple in Rome, where + untold millions have reverently kissed the feet of his statue, and even + to-day his representative is counted infallible." + </p> + <p> + It is a pregnant observation that we might well bear in mind when we + concern ourselves with the nature and significance of genius. I know + little about St. Peter's claim to genius. But at least he is here an + admirable symbol. That is how genius is made, and, it is interesting to + note, how the popular mind realises that genius is made; for the creators + of the Gospels, who have clearly omitted or softened so much, have yet + emphatically set forth the bald record of the abject moral failure in the + moment of decisive trial of the inappropriately named Rock on which Christ + built His Church. And Peter's reputation and authority remain supreme to + this day. + </p> + <p> + James Hinton was wont to dwell on the weakness of genius, as of a point of + least resistance in human nature, an opening through which the force of + Nature might enter the human world. "Where there is nothing there is God," + and it may be that this weakness is no accident but an essential fact in + the very structure of genius. Weakness may be as necessary to the man of + genius as it is unnecessary to the normal man. + </p> + <p> + Our biographers of genius are usually futile enough on all grounds, even + in the record of the simplest biological data, as in my own work I have + had sad occasion to experience. But at no point are they so futile as in + toning down, glozing over, or altogether ignoring all those immoralities, + weaknesses, defects, and failures which perhaps are the very Hallmark of + Genius. They all want their Peters to look like real rocks. And on such + rocks no churches are built. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 13.—I wish that people would be a little more + cautious in the use of the word "Perfection." Or else that they would take + the trouble to find out what they mean by it. One grows tired of endless + chatter concerning the march of Progress towards Perfection, and of the + assumption underlying it that Perfection—as usually defined—is + a quality which any one need desire in anything. + </p> + <p> + If Perfection is that which is most beautiful and desirable to us, then it + is something of which an essential part is Imperfection. + </p> + <p> + That is clearly so in relation to physical beauty. A person who is without + demonstrable defect of beauty—some exaggeration of proportion, some + visible flaw—leaves us cold and indifferent. The flaw or the defect + may need to be of some special kind or quality to touch us individually, + but still it is needed. The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw. As + I write my eye falls on a plate of tomatoes. The tense and smoothly curved + red fruits with their wayward green stalks lie at random on a blue dish of + ancient pattern. They are beautiful. Yet each fruit has conspicuously on + it a fleck of reflected light. Looked at in itself, each fleck is ugly, a + greyish patch which effaces the colour it rests on. Yet the brilliant + beauty of these fruits is largely dependent on those flecks of light. So + it is with some little mole on the body of a beautiful woman, or a + mutinous irregularity in the curve of her mouth, or some freak in the + distribution of her hair. + </p> + <p> + There are some people willing to admit that Perfection is a useless + conception in relation to physical beauty, and yet unwilling to believe + that it is equally useless in the moral sphere. Yet in the moral world + also Imperfection is essential to beauty and desire. What we are pleased + to consider Perfection of character is perhaps easier to attain than + Perfection of body. But, not on that account alone, it is equally + unattractive. The woman who seems a combination of unalloyed virtues is as + inadequate as the woman who is a combination of smooth physical + perfections. In the moral world, indeed, the desired Imperfection needs to + be dynamic and shifting rather than static and fixed, because virtues are + contradictory. Modesty and Courage, for instance, do not sort well + together at the same moment. Men have rhapsodied much on the modesty of + woman, but a woman who was always modest would be as insipid as a woman + who was always courageous would be repellent. An incalculable and dynamic + combination of Shyness and Daring is at the core of a woman's fascination. + And the same relationship binds the more masculine combination of Justice + and Generosity. + </p> + <p> + Why should we pretend any more that the world is on the road to + Perfection? Or that we want it to be? The world is in perpetual + oscillation. Let us be thankful for every inspiring revelation of a New + Imperfection. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 23.—There has been much discussion over Flaubert's + views of the artist's attitude towards his own work—how far the + artist stands outside his own work, and how far he is himself the stuff of + his work—and I see that Mr. Newbolt has been grappling again with + that same problem. Yet surely it is hardly a problem. Flaubert, we are + told, contradicted himself in those volumes of <i>Correspondance</i> which + have seemed to some (indeed what has Flaubert written that has not seemed + to some?) the most fascinating and profoundly interesting part of his + work. The artist must be impersonal, he insisted, and yet St. Anthony is + Flaubert, and he himself said, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi." He contradicted + himself. Well, what then? "Do I contradict myself?" he might have asked + with Whitman. "Very well, then, I contradict myself." The greatest of + literary artists, we may rest assured, had the clearest vision of the + haven for which he was sailing. But he was bound for a port which few + mariners have ever come near, and he knew that the wind was ever in his + teeth. It was only by taking a course that was a constant series of + zigzags, it was only by perpetually tacking, that he could ever hope to + come into harbour. He was not, therefore, the less acutely aware of his + precise course. He was merely adopting the most strictly scientific method + of navigation. The fluctuating judgments which Flaubert seems to pronounce + on the aim of the artist all represent sound approximations to a complete + truth which no formula will hold. No sailor on this sea ever sailed more + triumphantly into port. That seems to settle the matter. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 24.—At the crowded concert this evening I found a + seat at the back of the orchestra, and when a singer came on to sing the + "Agnus Dei" of Bach's Mass in B Minor I had the full view of her back, her + dress, cut broad and low, fully showing her shoulder-blades. I thus saw + that, though the movements of her arms were slight, yet as she sang the + long drawn-out sighs, rising and falling, of the "Miserere," the subdued + loveliness of the music was accompanied by an unceasing play of the + deltoid and trapezius muscles. It was a perpetual dance of all the visible + muscles, in swelling and sinking curves, opening out and closing in, + rising and falling and swaying, a beautifully expressive rhythm in + embodiment of the melody. + </p> + <p> + One sees how it was that the Greeks, for whom the whole body was an + ever-open book, could so train their vision to its vivid music (has not + Taine indeed said something to this effect in his travel notes in Southern + Italy?) that when they came to carve reliefs for their Parthenon, even to + represent the body in seeming repose, they instinctively knew how to show + it sensitive, alive, as in truth it is, redeemed from grossness by the + exquisite delicacy of its mechanism at every point. People think that the + so-called <i>danse du ventre</i> is an unnatural distortion, and in its + customary exaggerations so it is. But it is merely the high-trained and + undue emphasis of beautiful natural expression. Rightly considered, the + whole body is a dance. It is for ever in instinctive harmonious movement, + at every point exalted to unstained beauty, because at every moment it is + the outcome of vital expression that springs from its core and is related + to the meaning of the whole. In our blind folly we have hidden the body. + We have denied its purity. We have ignored its vital significance. We pay + the bitter penalty. And I detect a new meaning in the wail of that + "Miserere." + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 29.—I am interested to hear that the latest theorists + of harmony in music are abandoning the notion that they must guide + practice, or that music is good or bad according as it follows, or fails + to follow, theoretical laws. One recalls how Beethoven in his lifetime was + condemned by the theorists, and how almost apologetically he himself + referred at the end to his own deliberate breaking of the rules. But now, + it appears, the musical theorists are beginning to realise that theory + must be based on practice and not practice on theory. The artist takes + precedence of the theorist, who learns his theories from observation of + the artist, and when in his turn he teaches, the artist is apt to prove + dangerous. "In matters of art," says Lenormand in his recent book on + harmony, "it is dangerous to learn to do as others do." + </p> + <p> + Now this interests me because it is in this spirit that I have always + contemplated the art of writing. This must be our attitude before the + so-called rules of grammar and syntax. Certainly one cannot be too + familiar with the rules, they cannot even be wisely broken unless they are + known, and we cannot be too familiar with the practice of those who have + gone before us. But the logic of thought takes precedence of the rules of + grammar, and syntax must ever be moulded afresh on the sensibility of the + individual writer. Only in so far as a man writes in this temper—the + resolute temper, as Thoreau said, of a man who is grasping an axe or a + sword—can he achieve the daring and the skill by which writing + lives. To be clear, to be exact, to be expressive, and so to be beautiful—that + is the writer's proper aim. The rules are good so far—but only so + far—as they help him to sail on the voyage towards his desired + haven. Let him sail warily, and if he miscalculates let him suffer + shipwreck. + </p> + <p> + That is the really inviolable law of all the arts. How long will it be + before we understand that it is also the law of morality, the greatest art + of all, the Art of Living? + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 5.—Surely an uncomfortable feeling must overcome + many excellent people when they realise—if that ever happens—the + contrast between their view of the world and that which prevailed in the + ages most apt for great achievement and abounding vitality. In the moral + world of to-day such didactic energy as men possess is concentrated into + one long litany of Thou Shalt Not. + </p> + <p> + May it be because the Tradesman has inherited the earth and stocked + Morality on his shelves? That he stocks no line of moral goods to which + the yard-measure cannot be applied? The Saints as well as the Sinners must + go empty away in a social state whose lordship has fallen to Hogarth's + Good Apprentice. + </p> + <p> + But that is not how Life is. In the moral world—so far as it is a + world of great achievement—the tape-measure is out of place. It is + only the Immeasurable that counts. And Life is not only Immeasurable but + magnificently inconsistent, even incomprehensible, to those who have not + the clue to its Divine Maze. + </p> + <p> + Think of the thirteenth century, the fourteenth, the fifteenth, the + sixteenth, and all that they achieved for humanity, and consider in what + surviving recesses of them you would find a place for the Moralists of the + Counter, who in their eagerness to open up new markets would cut the cloth + of the moral life not merely for themselves—that would matter to + nobody—but for mankind at large. There would have been no room for + them in the monasteries where, on first thought, we might be inclined to + hide them, notwithstanding the exaggerated love of rule which marked the + monastic mind, for that rule was itself based on a magnificent + extravagance, heroic even when it was not natural. There would have been + still less room for them in the churches, where the priests themselves + joined in the revels of the Feast of Fools, and the builders delighted to + honour God by carving on their temples, inside and outside, the images of + wildest licence, as we may still see here and there to-day. And as for the + ages of Humanism and the Renaissance, our moralists would have been + submerged in laughter. Look even at Boccaccio, a very grave scholar, and + see how in his stories of human life he serenely wove all that men thought + belonged to Heaven and all that they thought belonged to Hell into a + single variegated and harmonious picture. + </p> + <p> + Since then a strange blindness has struck men in the world we were born + into. There has been a Goethe, no doubt, a Wilhelm von Humboldt, a + Whitman. Men have scarcely noted them. Perhaps the responsibility in part + lies at the door of Protestantism. Unamuno remarks that Catholicism knew + little of that anxious preoccupation with sin, so destructive of heroic + greatness, which has gnawed at the vitals of the Protestantism which we + have inherited, if only in the form of a barren Freethought spreading its + influence far beyond Protestant lands. + </p> + <p> + Is this a clue to our Intellectual Anaemia and Spiritual Starvation? + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 8.—In a letter of St. Bernard—the ardent + theologian, the relentless fanatic, the austere critic of the world and + the flesh—to his friend Rainald, the Abbot of Foigny, I come with + surprised delight on a quotation from "your favourite"—and it almost + seems as though the Saint had narrowly escaped writing "our favourite"—"your + favourite Ovid." So the Abbot of Foigny, amid the vexations and + tribulations he felt so bitterly, was wont to pore in his cell over the + pages of Ovid. + </p> + <p> + The pages of Ovid, as one glances across them, are like a gay southern + meadow in June, variegated and brilliant, sweet and pensive and rather + luxuriant, and here and there even a little rank. Yet they are swept by + the air and the light and the rain of Nature, and so their seduction never + grew stale. During sixteen centuries, while the world was spiritually + revolutionised again and yet again, the influence of Ovid never failed; it + entered even the unlikeliest places. Homer might be an obscure forgotten + bard and Virgil become a fantastic magician, but Ovid, lifted beyond the + measure of his genius, was for ever a gracious and exalted Influence, yet + human enough to be beloved and with the pathos of exile clinging to his + memory, filling the dreams of fainting monks at the feet of the Virgin, + arousing the veneration of the Humanists, even inspiring the superb and + exuberant poets of the English Renaissance, Marlowe and Shakespeare and + Milton. + </p> + <p> + It has sometimes seemed to me that if it were given to the ghosts of the + Great Dead to follow with sensitive eyes the life after life of their fame + on earth, there would be none, not even the greatest—to whom indeed + the vision could often bring only bitterness,—to find more + reasonable ground for prolonged bliss than Ovid. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 13.—I find myself unable to share that Pessimism in + the face of the world which seems not uncommon to-day. I suspect that the + Pessimist is often merely an impecunious bankrupt Optimist. He had + imagined, in other words, that the eminently respectable March of Progress + was bearing him onwards to the social goal of a glorified Sunday School. + Horrible doubts have seized him. Henceforth, to his eyes, the Universe is + shrouded in Black. + </p> + <p> + His mistake has doubtless been to emphasise unduly the notion of Progress, + to imagine that any cosmic advance, if such there be, could ever be made + actual to our human eyes. There was a failure to realise that the + everlasting process of Evolution which had obsessed men's minds is + counterbalanced by an equally everlasting process of Involution. There is + no Gain in the world: so be it: but neither is there any Loss. There is + never any failure to this infinite freshness of life, and the ancient + novelty is for ever renewed. + </p> + <p> + We realise the world better if we imagine it, not as a Progress to Prim + Perfection, but as the sustained upleaping of a Fountain, the pillar of a + Glorious Flame. For, after all, we cannot go beyond the ancient image of + Heraclitus, the "Ever-living Flame, kindled in due measure and in the like + measure extinguished." That translucent and mysterious Flame shines + undyingly before our eyes, never for two moments the same, and always + miraculously incalculable, an ever-flowing stream of fire. The world is + moving, men tell us, to this, to that, to the other. Do not believe them! + Men have never known what the world is moving to. Who foresaw—to say + nothing of older and vaster events—the Crucifixion? What Greek or + Roman in his most fantastic moments prefigured our thirteenth century? + What Christian foresaw the Renaissance? Who ever really expected the + French Revolution? We cannot be too bold, for we are ever at the incipient + point of some new manifestation far more overwhelming than all our dreams. + No one can foresee the next aspect of the Fountain of Life. And all the + time the Pillar of that Flame is burning at exactly the same height it has + always been burning at! + </p> + <p> + The World is everlasting Novelty, everlasting Monotony. It is just which + aspect you prefer. You will always be right. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 14.—"Life is a great bundle of little things." It is + very many years since I read that saying of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but + there is no saying I oftener have occasion to repeat to myself. There is + the whole universe to dream over, and one's life is spent in the perpetual + doing of an infinite series of little things. It is a hard task, if one + loses the sense of the significance of little things, the little loose + variegated threads which are yet the stuff of which our picture of the + universe is woven. + </p> + <p> + I admire the wisdom of our ancestors who seem to have spent so much of + their time in weaving beautiful tapestries to hang on the walls of their + rooms, even though, it seems, they were not always careful that there + should be no rats behind the arras. So to live was to have always before + one the visible symbol of life, where every little variegated tag has a + meaning that goes to the heart of the universe. For each of these + insignificant little things of life stretches far beyond itself—like + a certain Impromptu of Schubert's, which begins as though it might be a + cradle song in a nursery and ends like the music of the starry sphere + which carries the world on its course. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 17.—It has long been a little puzzling to me that my + feeling in regard to the apple and the pear, and their respective + symbolisms, is utterly at variance with tradition and folklore. To the + primitive mind the apple was feminine and the symbol of all feminine + things, while the pear was masculine. To me it is rather the apple that is + masculine, while the pear is extravagantly and deliciously feminine. In + its exquisitely golden-toned skin, which yet is of such firm texture, in + the melting sweetness of its flesh, in its vaguely penetrating fragrance, + in its subtle and ravishing and various curves, even, if you will, in the + tantalising uncertainty as to the state of its heart, the pear is surely a + fruit perfectly endowed with the qualities which fit it to be regarded as + conventionally a feminine symbol. In the apple, on the other hand, I can + see all sorts of qualities which should better befit a masculine symbol. + But it was not so to the primitive mind. + </p> + <p> + I see now how the apparent clash has come about. It appears that Albertus + Magnus in the thirteenth century, accepting the ancient and orthodox view + of his time, remarked that the pear is rightly considered masculine + because of the hardness of its wood, the coarseness of its leaves, and the + close texture of its fruit. Evidently our pear has been developed away + from the mediaeval pear, while the apple has remained comparatively + stable. The careful cultivation of the apple began at an early period in + history; an orchard in mediaeval days meant an apple orchard. (One recalls + that, in the fourth century, the pear-tree the youthful St. Augustine + robbed was not in an orchard, and the fruit was "tempting neither for + colour nor taste," though, certainly, he says he had better at home.) The + apple for the men of those days was the sweetest and loveliest of the + larger fruits they knew; it naturally seemed to them the symbol of woman. + Here to-day are some pears of the primitive sort they sell in the Cornish + village street, small round fruits, dark green touched with brown in + colour, without fragrance, extremely hard, though as ripe as they ever + will be. This clearly is what Albertus Magnus meant by a pear, and one can + quite understand that he saw nothing femininely symbolic about it. As soon + as the modern pear began to be developed the popular mind at once seized + on its feminine analogies ("Cuisse-Madame," for instance, is the name of + one variety), and as a matter of fact all the modern associations of the + fruit are feminine. They seem first to be traceable about the sixteenth + century, and it was only then, I imagine, that the pear began to be + seriously cultivated. So the seeming conflict is harmonised. + </p> + <p> + The human mind always reasons and analogises correctly from the data + before it. Only because the data have changed, only because the data were + imperfect, can the reasoning seem to be astray. There is really nothing so + primitive, even so animal, as reason. It may plausibly, however unsoundly, + be maintained that it is by his emotions, not by his reason, that man + differs most from the beasts. "My cat," says Unamuno, who takes this view + in his new book <i>Del sentimiento tragico de la vida</i>, "never laughs + or cries; he is always reasoning." + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 22.—I note that a fine scholar remarks with a smile + that the direct simplicity of the Greeks hardly suits our modern taste for + obscurity. + </p> + <p> + Yet there is obscurity and obscurity. There is, that is to say, the + obscurity that is an accidental result of depth and the obscurity that is + a fundamental result of confusion. Swinburne once had occasion to compare + the obscurity of Chapman with the obscurity of Browning. The difference + was, he said, that Chapman's obscurity was that of smoke and Browning's + that of lightning. One may surely add that smoke is often more beautiful + than lightning (Swinburne himself admitted Chapman's "flashes of high and + subtle beauty"), and that lightning is to our eyes by no means more + intelligible than smoke. If indeed one wished to risk such facile + generalisations, one might say that the difference between Chapman's + obscurity and Browning's is that the one is more often beautiful and the + other more often ugly. If one looks into the matter a little more closely, + it would seem that Chapman was a man whose splendid emotions were apt to + flare up so excessively and swiftly that their smoke was not all converted + into flame, while Browning was a man whose radically prim and conventional + ideas, heavily overladen with emotion, acquired the semblance of + profundity because they struggled into expression through the medium of a + congenital stutter—a stutter which was no doubt one of the great + assets of his fame. But neither Chapman's obscurity nor Browning's + obscurity seems to be intrinsically admirable. There was too much pedantry + in both of them and too little artistry. It is the function of genius to + express the Inexpressed, even to express what men have accounted the + Inexpressible. And so far as the function of genius is concerned, that man + merely cumbers the ground who fails to express. For we can all do that. + And whether we do it in modest privacy or in ten thousand published pages + is beside the point. + </p> + <p> + Yet, on the other hand, a superlative clearness is not necessarily + admirable. To see truly, according to the fine saying of Renan, is to see + dimly. If art is expression, mere clarity is nothing. The extreme clarity + of an artist may be due not to his marvellous power of illuminating the + abysses of his soul, but merely to the fact that there are no abysses to + illuminate. It is at best but that core of Nothingness which needs to be + enclosed in order to make either Beauty or Depth. The maximum of Clarity + must be consistent with the maximum of Beauty. The impression we receive + on first entering the presence of any supreme work of art is obscurity. + But it is an obscurity like that of a Catalonian Cathedral which slowly + grows luminous as one gazes, until the solid structure beneath is + revealed. The veil of its Depth grows first transparent on the form of Art + before our eyes, and then the veil of its Beauty, and at last there is + only its Clarity. So it comes before us like the Eastern dancer who slowly + unwinds the shimmering veil that floats around her as she dances, and for + one flashing supreme moment of the dance bears no veil at all. But without + the veil there would be no dance. + </p> + <p> + Be clear. Be clear. Be not too clear. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 23.—I see that Milton's attitude to the astronomy of + his time, a subject on which Dr. Orchard wrote an elaborate study many + years ago, is once more under discussion. + </p> + <p> + There is perhaps some interest in comparing Milton's attitude in this + matter to that of his daring and brilliant contemporary, Cyrano de + Bergerac. In reading the Preface which Lebret wrote somewhere about 1656 + for his friend Cyrano's <i>Voyage dans la Lune</i>, written some years + earlier, I note the remark that most astronomers had then adopted the + Copernican system (without offence, as he is careful to add, to the memory + of Ptolemy) and Bergerac had introduced it into literature; it certainly + suited his genius and his purpose. As we know, Milton—who had once + met the blind Galileo and always venerated his memory—viewed + Copernican astronomy with evident sympathy, even in <i>Paradise Lost</i> + itself dismissing the Ptolemaic cosmogony with contempt. Yet it is + precisely on the basis of that discredited cosmogony that the whole + structure of <i>Paradise Lost</i> is built. Hence a source of worry to the + modern critic who is disposed to conclude that Milton chose the worse way + in place of the better out of timidity or deference to the crowd, though + Milton's attitude towards marriage and divorce might alone serve to shield + him from any charge of intellectual cowardice, and the conditions under + which <i>Paradise Lost</i> was written could scarcely invite any appeal to + the mob. This seems to me a perverse attitude which entirely overlooks the + essential point of the case. Milton was an artist. + </p> + <p> + If Milton, having abandoned his earlier Arthurian scheme, and chosen in + preference these antique Biblical protagonists, had therewith placed them + on the contemporary cosmogonic stage of the Renaissance he would have + perpetrated, as he must have felt, a hideous incongruity of geocentric and + heliocentric conceptions, and set himself a task which could only work out + absurdly. His stage was as necessary to his drama as Dante's complicated + stage was necessary to his drama. We must not here recall the ancient + observation about "pouring new wine into old bottles." That metaphor is + excellent when we are talking of morals, and it was in the sphere of + morals it was meant to apply. But in the sphere of literary art it is the + reverse of the truth, as the poets of Vers Libres have sometimes found to + their cost. It was probably a very old bottle into which Homer poured his + new wine, and it was certainly a skin of the oldest at hand which + Cervantes chose for his <i>Quixote</i>. + </p> + <p> + In his attitude towards science Milton thus represents the artist's true + instinct. Science, mere concordance with the latest doctrine of the + moment, is nothing to the artist except in so far as it serves his ends. + It is just as likely to be a hindrance as a help, and Tennyson, however + true an artist, profited nothing by dragging into his verse a few scraps + of the latest astronomy. Art is in its sphere as supreme over fact as + Science in its sphere is supreme over fiction. The artist may play either + fast or loose with Science, and the finest artist will sometimes play + loose. + </p> + <p> + <i>November 24</i>.—The more one ponders over that attitude of + comprehensive acceptance towards life, on its spiritual and physical sides + alike, which marked the men of the Mediaeval and Renaissance Ages, the + more one realises that its temporary suppression was inevitable. The men + of those days were, one sees, themselves creating the instrument (what a + marvellous intellectual instrument Scholasticism forged!) which was to + analyse and destroy the civilisation they themselves lived in. Their fluid + civilisation held all the elements of life in active vital solution. They + left hard, definite, clear-cut crystals for us to deal with, separate, + immiscible, inharmonious substances. It was Progress, no doubt, as + Progress exists in our world. The men of those days were nearer to + Barbarism. They were also nearer to the Secret of Nature. Nowadays it is + only among men of genius—a Whitman, a Wagner, a Rodin, a Verlaine—that + the ancient secret has survived. Not indeed that it was universal even + among Renaissance men, not even when they were men of genius. If it is + true that, under the influence of Savonarola, Botticelli burnt his + drawings, he was false to the spirit of his age, touched by the spirit of + Progress before its time. Verlaine was nearer to the great secret when he + wrote <i>Sagesse</i> and, at the same time, <i>Parallèlement</i>. + </p> + <p> + When Lady Lugard was travelling in the Pacific she met a young Polynesian + of high birth who gravely told her, when asked about his proposed career + in life, that he had not yet decided whether to enter the Church or to + join a Circus. He was still sufficiently near to the large and beautiful + life of his forefathers to feel instinctively that there is no + contradiction between an athletic body and an athletic soul, that we may + enter into communion with Nature along the one road or the other road. He + knew that the union of these two avocations—which to our narrow eyes + seem incompatible—was needed to fulfil his ideal of complete and + wholesome human activity. That young Polynesian chief had in him the + secret to regenerate a world which has only a self-complacent smile for + his faith. + </p> + <p> + It was evidently the great development of the geometrical, mathematical, + and allied sciences in the seventeenth century which completed the + submergence of the Mediaeval and Renaissance attitude towards morals. + There was no room for a biological conception of life in the seventeenth + century, unless it were among the maligned Jesuits. The morbid and + mathematical Pascal claimed to be an authority in morals. The Crystal had + superseded Life. + </p> + <p> + So it came about that Logic was introduced as the guide of morals; Logic, + which the Greeks regarded as an exercise for schoolboys; Logic, which in + Flaubert's <i>Tentation</i> is the leader of the chorus of the Seven + Deadly Sins! That surprising touch of Flaubert's seems, indeed, a fine + example of the profound and apparently incalculable insight of genius. Who + would have thought to find in the visions of St. Anthony a clue to the + disease of our modern morality? Yet when the fact is before us there is + nothing plainer than the fatal analytic action of logic on the moral life. + It is only when the white light of life is broken up that the wild + extravagance of colour appears. It is only when the harmonious balance of + the moral life is overturned that the Deadly Sins, which in their due + co-ordination are woven into the whole texture of life, become truly + damnable. Life says for ever: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I + contradict myself." And to such Morality Logic is fatally subversive. + There can be no large and harmonious and natural Morality when Logic is + made to stand where it ought not. + </p> + <p> + Sooner or later the whirligig of time brings its revenges. We return to + the former age, on another plane, purged of its tyranny and of its + cruelty, it may well be, and with all sorts of new imperfections to + console us for the old imperfections we are forced to abandon. + </p> + <p> + One more turn of the Earthly Kaleidoscope. Who knows what it may bring? + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 25.—In a novel by a distinguished writer, Madame + Delarue-Mardrus, I notice a casual reference to "the English love of + flowers." I am a little surprised to find this stated as a specifically + English characteristic. It seems more obvious to regard the love of + animals as peculiarly English, as it is regarded by the Freudian + physician, Maeder, who believes that the love of animals is the + lightning-rod along which the dangerously repressed emotions of the + English are conducted to earth through harmless channels. It is in Spain + that flowers seem to me more tenderly regarded by the people than + anywhere, the cherished companions of daily life, carefully cultivated on + every poorest balcony. Certainly in Paris one sees very conspicuously the + absence of the love of flowers; or, rather, one may say that for the + subtle and inventive children of the Ile de France the flower is + artificial, and what we call flowers are merely an insipid and subordinate + variety, "natural flowers," having their market in a remote and deserted + corner of the city, whereas in Barcelona the busiest and central part of + the city is the Rambla de las Flores. + </p> + <p> + The factors involved may well be two, one climatic, one racial: a climate + favourable or unfavourable to horticulture and a popular feeling attracted + or repelled by Nature. Both these factors may work in the same direction + in the Parisian love of artificial flowers and the Catalan love of natural + flowers, while in the parched land of Andalusia one factor alone seems to + keep alive the adoration of flowers. Lucie Delarue-Mardrus belongs to + Normandy, and perhaps the Norman traditions have been a little modified by + the dominant influence of the neighbouring Ile de France. Along this mild + and luxuriant Atlantic seaboard of France, so favourable to flowers, from + the Pyrenees northwards, there seems to me no intrinsic defect in the love + of flowers, which are everywhere cultivated and familiarly regarded. I + have noted, for instance, how constantly the hydrangea plant appears. In + churches for weddings in profusion, in Bordeaux, for example, and in + rooms, on the tables, again and again I have noted the fine taste which + selected for special reverence the hydrangea—that Chinese flower + whose penetrating loveliness is miraculously made out of forms so simple + and colour so effaced. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 26.—Kraepelin, one of the wisest and most + far-sighted physicians of to-day where the interpretation of insanity is + concerned, believes that Civilisation is just now favouring Degeneration. + He attributes an especially evil influence on mental health to our modern + tendency to limit freedom: the piling-up of burdens of all sorts, within + and without, on the exercise of the will. + </p> + <p> + This well accords with what I have noted concerning the necessity in any + age of creating New Freedoms and New Restraints. New Restraints by all + means, they are necessary and vital. But just as necessary, just as vital, + are the compensatory New Freedoms. + </p> + <p> + We cannot count too precious in any age those who sweep away outworn + traditions, effete routines, the burden of unnecessary duties and + superfluous luxuries and useless moralities, too heavy to be borne. We + rebel against these rebels, even shudder at their sacrilegious daring. + But, after all, they are a part of life, an absolutely necessary part of + it. For life is a breaking-down as well as a building-up. Destruction as + well as construction goes to the Metabolism of Society. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 27.—It seems to me a weakness of the Peace + Propaganda of our time—though a weakness which represents an + inevitable reaction from an ancient superstition—that it tends to be + under the dominance of Namby Pamby. The people who crowd Peace Congresses + to demonstrate against war seem largely people who have little perception + of the eternal function of Pain in the world and no insight into the right + uses of Death. + </p> + <p> + Apart from the intolerable burden of armaments it imposes, and the + flagrant disregard of Justice it involves, the crushing objection to War, + from the standpoint of Humanity and Society, is not that it distributes + Pain and inflicts Death, but that it distributes and inflicts them on an + absurdly wholesale scale and on the wrong people. So that it is awry to + all the ends of reasonable civilisation. Occasionally, no doubt, it may + kill off the people who ought to be killed, but that is only by accident, + for by its very organisation it is more likely to kill the people who + ought not to be killed. Occasionally and incidentally, also, it may + promote Heroism, but its heroes merely exterminate each other for the + benefit of people who are not heroes. In the recent Balkan wars we see + that the combatant States all diligently and ferociously maimed each + other, very little to their own advantage and very much to the + aggrandisement of the one State within their borders which never fired a + gun and never lost a man. If Peace Societies possessed a little + intelligence they would surely issue a faithful history of this war for + free distribution among all the modern States of the world. That is what + War is. + </p> + <p> + Explorers in Southern Nigeria, I see, have just reported the discovery of + remote Sacred Places consecrated to native worship. Here were found the + Lake of Life and the Pool of Death. Here, also, from time to time human + sacrifices are offered. This ritual the worthy explorers self-complacently + describe as "blood-thirsty." + </p> + <p> + But how about us? The men of Southern Nigeria, seriously, deliberately, + with a more or less unconscious insight into the secrets of Nature, offer + up human sacrifices on their altars, and when some ignorant European + intrudes and calls them "blood-thirsty" we all meekly acquiesce. In Europe + we kill and maim people by the hundred thousand, not seriously and + deliberately for any sacred ends that make Life more precious to us or the + Mystery of Nature more intelligible, but out of sheer stupidity. We spend + the half, and sometimes more than the half, of our national incomes in + sharpening to the finest point our implements of bloodshed, not to the + accompaniment of any Bacchic Evoe, but incongruously mumbling the Sermon + on the Mount. We put our population into factories which squeeze the blood + out of their anaemic and diseased bodies, and we permit the most + extravagant variations in the infantile death-rate which the slightest + social readjustment would smooth out. We do all this consciously, in full + statistical knowledge to a decimal fraction. + </p> + <p> + Therein is our blood-thirstiness, beside which that of the Southern + Nigerian savage is negligible, if not estimable, and this European + blood-thirstiness it is which threatens to lead to an extravagant reaction + to the opposite extreme, as it has already led to an ignoble reaction in + our ideals. + </p> + <p> + For there can be no ideal conception of Life and no true conception of + Nature if we seek to shut out Death and Pain. It is the feeble shrinking + from Death and the flabby horror of Pain that mark the final stage of + decay in any civilisation. Our ancestors, too, offered up human sacrifices + on their altars, and none can say how much of their virility and how much + of the promise of the future they held in their grasp were bound up with + the fact. Different days bring different duties. And we cannot desire to + restore the centuries that are gone. But neither can we afford to dispense + with the radical verities of Life and Nature which they recognised. If we + do we are felling the tree up which we somehow hope to climb to the + clouds. + </p> + <p> + It is essential to the human dignity of a truly civilised society that it + should hold in its hands not only the Key of Birth but the Key of Death. + </p> + <p> + <i>November</i> 29.—The vast and complex machines to which our + civilisation devotes its best energy are no doubt worthy of all + admiration. Yet when one seeks to look broadly at human activity they only + seem to be part of the scaffolding and material. They are not the Life + itself. + </p> + <p> + To whatever sphere of human activity one turns one's attention to-day, one + is constantly met by the same depressing spectacle of pale, lean, nervous, + dyspeptic human creatures, restlessly engaged in building up marvellously + complex machines and elaborate social organisations, all of which, they + tell us, will make for the improvement of Life. But what do they suppose + "Life" to be? + </p> + <p> + A giant's task demands a giant. When one watches this puny modern + civilised Man engaged on tasks which do so much credit to his imagination + and invention, one is reminded of the little boy who was employed to fill + a large modern vat. He nearly completed the task. One day he disappeared. + They found him at last with only his feet visible above the rim of the + vat. + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 1.—I so frequently notice among Moral Reformers—for + the most part highly well-intentioned people—a frantic and unbridled + desire to eliminate from our social world any form of "Temptation." (One + wonders how far this attitude may have been fostered by that petition of + the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into Temptation," which, on the face of + it, seems to support Nietzsche's extravagant reaction against + Christianity. Yet surely the Church has misunderstood that petition. Jesus + himself faced the Tempter, and it is evident that he could not have so + lacked insight into the soul's secrets as to countenance the impossible + notion of eliminating Temptation from the world. It was the power to meet + the Tempter and yet not be led into Temptation—if this petition may + be regarded as authentic—that he desired his followers to possess; + and therein he was on the same side as Nietzsche.) No scheme is too + extravagantly impossible to invoke in this cause. No absurdity but we are + asked to contemplate it with a seriously long face if it is sanctified by + the aim of eliminating some temptation from the earth. Of any recognition + of Temptation as the Divine method of burning Up the moral chaff of the + world, not a sign! + </p> + <p> + The fact is that we cannot have too much Temptation in the world. Without + contact with Temptation Virtue is worthless, and even a meaningless term. + Temptation is an essential form of that Conflict which is of the essence + of Life. Without the fire of perpetual Temptation no human spirit can ever + be tempered and fortified. The zeal of the Moral Reformers who would sweep + away all Temptation and place every young creature from the outset in a + Temptation-free vacuum, even if it could be achieved (and the achievement + would not only annihilate the whole environment but eviscerate the human + heart of its vital passions) would merely result in the creation of a race + of useless weaklings. For Temptation is even more than a stimulus to + conflict. It is itself, in so far as it is related to Passion, the ferment + of Life. To face and reject Temptation may be to fortify life. To face and + accept Temptation may be to enrich life. He who can do neither is not fit + to live. + </p> + <p> + He can indeed be sent to the Home for Defectives. That way lies perhaps + the solution of our Social Problem. The pessimist may cry out at the size + of the Homes that his fears portend. Yet, even at the worst, who will deny + that it is better, beyond comparison better, that even only a minority of + Mankind should be free—free to develop in the sun and free to climb + to the sky and free to be damned—than that the whole world should be + made one vast Home for Moral Imbeciles? + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 4.—There is nothing amid the restlessness of the + world that one lingers over with such tender delight as Flowers and Gods. + What can be more beautiful than Flowers and Gods? + </p> + <p> + Flowers are of all things most completely and profusely the obvious + efflorescence of loveliness in the whole physical world. Gods are of all + things the most marvellous efflorescence of the human psychic world. These + two Lovelinesses, the Loveliness of Sex and the Loveliness of Creation, + bring the whole universe to two polar points, which yet are in the closest + degree resemblant and allied. In China, the land of flowers, flowers are + nowhere, it is said, so devoutly cultivated as in the monasteries of + Buddha. For flowers are constant symbols of the Gods and instruments of + worship, and when the Gods take fitting shape it is a shape that recalls + to us a flower. Of all Gods made visible none is so divine as Buddha + (one's thoughts constantly return to the most delectable of museums, the + Musée Guimet), and the Buddha of finest imagery is like nothing so much as + a vast and serene flower, a great lotus that rises erect on the bosom of + Humanity's troubled lake. + </p> + <p> + And perhaps it is because men and women are in function flowers and in + image gods that they are so fascinating, even enwrapped in the rags, + physical and metaphysical, which sometimes serve but to express more + genuinely the Flower-God beneath. + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 11.—<i>Quid hoc ad aeternitatem?</i> So, we are + told, an ancient holy man of the early Christian world was wont to + question everything that was brought before him. It is a question that we + cannot too often ask to-day. I assume that we understand "Eternity" in its + essential Christian sense (on which F. D. Maurice used to insist) as + referring not to the Future, but to the Everlasting Present, not to Time + but to the Things that Matter. + </p> + <p> + There are not only far too many people in the world, there are far too + many things. Prodigality is indeed the note of Nature. And rightly so. But + Economy is the note of Man. Rightly also. For Nature has infinite lives to + play with. Man has only one life. + </p> + <p> + Public Hygiene is nowadays much concerned with the edification of large + and effective Destructors of Refuse. It is well. They can scarcely be too + large or too effective. Large enough to deal with all the Dreadnoughts of + the world and most of its books. And so much else! Let us imitate the + Rich, if that seems well, in the quality of our possessions. But in their + number let us imitate the Poorest. So in our different human way we may + reach towards the Simplicity of Nature. + </p> + <p> + And let us never grow weary of repeating afresh the stern challenge of + that old champion of the Higher Sabotage: <i>Quid hoc ad aeternitatem?</i> + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 15.—"There has always been the same amount of light + in the world," said Thoreau. One sometimes doubts it. Perhaps one fails to + recognise the "bushels" it is hidden under. One need not fear that it is + becoming less. One must not hope that it will become more. + </p> + <p> + I wonder whether Mazzini, could he revisit the Italy which reveres his + memory, would really find more light there than of old? There was the + Italy that Stendhal loved, the Italy that produced Mazzini, who went out + into the world as its most inspired prophet and sought so earnestly to + regenerate it. And here is the duly regenerated Italy which has gone after + what it considers glory in Tripoli and systematically starved its own + children, and sent its inspired prophet Marinetti into the world, as it + once sent Mazzini. The un-regenerate Italy which produced Mazzini or the + regenerated Italy which produced Marinetti—which is it, I wonder, + that most tries our faith in Thoreau's creed, "There has always been the + same amount of light in the world"? + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 28.—Lévy-Bruhl, a penetrating and suggestive + moralist, has written a book, <i>Les Fonctiones mentales dans les sociétés + inférieures</i>, in which he seeks to distinguish between a primitive + pre-logical rationality, not subject to the law of contradiction, and a + later logical rationality, which refuses to admit contradictions. He + points out how much wider and more fruitful is the earlier attitude. + </p> + <p> + There seems something in this distinction. But it may well be dangerous to + formulate it too precisely. No hard and clear-cut distinctions can here be + made. The logical method can scarcely supersede the pre-logical method, + for it covers less ground and is more exclusive, it can never be the + universal legatee of the pre-logical method. We are probably concerned + with two tendencies which may exist contemporaneously, and each have its + value. It may even be said that the pre-logical and the logical + temperaments represent two types of people, found everywhere even to-day. + Some observers, like Heymans in his thoughtful book on the psychology of + women, have noted how women seem often to combine contradictory impulses + on an organic basis, but they have not always observed that that gift may + be as inestimable as it is dangerous. + </p> + <p> + In this connection it is interesting to recall that Harnack, the great + historian of Christian dogma, while asserting that Athanasius in combating + Arianism saved Christianity, yet asserts with equal emphasis that the + doctrine of Athanasius embodied a mass of contradictions which multiply as + we advance. He might have added that that was why it was vital. Life, even + in the plant, is a tension of opposing forces. Whatever is vital is + contradictory, and if of two views we wish to find out which is the + richest and the most fruitful we ought perhaps to ask ourselves which + embodies the most contradictions. + </p> + <p> + <i>December</i> 31.—"The heavens shall be rolled together as a + scroll, and all their host shall fade away, as a leaf fadeth off the vine, + and as a fading leaf from the fig-tree." So the world seemed made to + Isaiah, and that light airy way of accepting it may linger in one's mind + all the more persistently because of its contrast with the heavy solemnity + of the Hebraic genius. So it is with all these men of creative genius, + whatever nation they belong to. Wherever Man flowers into Genius, + wherever, that is to say, he becomes most quintessentially Man, he can + never take the world seriously. He vaguely realises that it is merely his + own handiwork, his own creation out of chaos, and that he himself + transcends it. So for the physicist of genius the universe is made up of + holes, and for the poet of genius it is a dream, and even for the greatest + of these solemn Hebraic prophets it is merely a leaf, a fading leaf from + the fig-tree. + </p> + <p> + <i>Qualis artifex pereo!</i> It may well be the last exclamation of the + last Son of Man on the uninhabitable Earth. + </p> + <h3> + INDEX + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Addison +Aesthetics +Aigremont +Albert Hall, the +Albertus Magnus +Andersen, Hendrik +Angels and poets +Animals and Man +Anti-Militarism +Apple, symbolism of the +Architecture, Norman and Burgundian; + Spanish; + English +Aristotle +Arnold, Matthew +Art +Artists as writers +Augustine, St. +Australia +</pre> + <p> + Bacon Bailey, P. H. Barcelona Barker, Granville Bathing Baudelaire Bayeux + tapestry + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Beauty, in women; and love; + the strangeness of proportion in; + in Nature and Man; + and Nothingness; + and imperfection; + in style +Beauvais +Beethoven +Bergerac, Cyrano de +Bernard, St. +Bianca Stella +Bible, the +Birnbaum +Birth-rate, decline in +Blake +Boccaccio +Body, significance of the +Böhme +Bovarism +Brantôme +Bretons +Browning, R. +Bryan, W.J. +Buddha +Burgundy +Burton, Sir R. +Busoni +Byng, Admiral +</pre> + <p> + Caen Canterbury, Archbishops of Carducci Carus, P. Castle Hedingham + Catalans Catullus Chidley Chivalry Chopin Christianity Churches, English + City, the World Civilisation Clarity in style Clergyman, the Anglican <i>Cliché</i>, + the Cloister, the Coleridge Conductors, English musical, Cornwall, + Counters, Coutance, Cowley, Crowd, psychology of the, Curzon, Lord, + </p> + <p> + Dancing, Dante, Darling, Justice, Daumier, Death, Delarue-Mardrus, Lucie, + Denyn, J., Deslys, Gaby, Devil, fate of the, Dickinson, Dijon, Dives, + Drake, Drama, Dukas, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Eccles, Solomon, +Elgar, +Elizabeth, Queen, +Ellis, Henry, +England, +English, women, + temperament, + sailor, + literature, + excessiveness, + type, + churches, + love of flowers, +Eskimo, +Eternity, +Eucalyptus, +Eugenics, +Euripides, +Evolution, +Exfodiation, +</pre> + <p> + Fécamp, Fechner, Feminism, Flagellation, Flaubert, Flowers, Fountains, + Franck, César, Freedom, French spirit, Freud, Furniture, + </p> + <p> + Gardens, Gaultier, Jules de, Genius, Gibbon, God, Goethe, Goncourt, + Gourmont, Remy de, Greek language, + </p> + <p> + Hahn, Hair, Hall, Stanley, Harnack, Heaven, Hell, Herrick, Robert, Hinton, + James, Hobbes, Hostility, the vanity of, Humboldt, Wilhelm von, Hydrangea, + </p> + <p> + Imbecility, Immorality, Individuality, Irony, Isaiah, Italy, + </p> + <p> + Jacobean furniture, Janson, G., Jesus, Johnson, + </p> + <p> + Kapo, Kraepelin, + </p> + <p> + Lamb, C., Landor, Latin, Lenormand, Lévy-Bruhl, Life, Lind-Af-Hageby, + Miss, Linnaeus, Logic in morals, London Lucretius Luther + </p> + <p> + Macaulay Maeterlinck Malaterra, Geoffrey Maldon Malines Man Marinetti + Mass, the Mazzini Mediaevalism Mendelssohn Meredith, George Metaphor + Michelangelo Midsummer Eve Milton Mimosa Mirrors Mob, the Molière Monks, + as epicures Montserrat Mont St. Michel Morality Morocco Music + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Nakedness +Nantes +Nature +Newbolt, H. +Nietzsche +Nigeria, religious rites of +Nikisch +Norman, genius + women + character + architecture +Normandy +Novels +</pre> + <p> + Obscene, the Obscurity in style October Ogive, the Olives Ovid + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Pachmann +Pain +Palencia +Pantheon, the +Paris +Pascal +Pater +Paulhan +Peace Propaganda +Pear, symbolism of the +Perfection +Perpignan +Perugino +Peter, St. +Pliny, the Elder +Poets, as critics + as angels +Poincaré, II. +Progress +Protestantism +</pre> + <p> + Rabelais Raleigh, Sir W. Raphael Régnier, H. de Religion Restraint Ripoll + <i>Rire, Le</i> Rocamadour Rodin Romanesque architecture Roses, wild + Rossetti Rouen Rowlandson Rubens + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Sabotage + the Higher +Sailor, the English +Salamanca +Schestoff +Schopenhauer +Sea, the +Shakespeare +Shelley +Smoke problem +Socrates +Solitude +Spain +Stead, W. T. +Steele +Stevenson, R. L. +Strassburg Cathedral +Stratz +Strindberg +Style +Suffolk +Suffragette, the +Sun, the +Swinburne +Symons, Arthur +</pre> + <p> + Technique Temperance movement Temptation, value of Tennyson Theatre, the + Thicknesse, Philip Thompson, Francis Thomson, Sir J. J. Thoreau Travelling + Truslow Tulips + </p> + <p> + Unamuno, M. de United States + </p> + <p> + Vaihinger Vegetarianism Velasquez Verlaine Vich Vinci, Leonardo da Virgin + Mother, the Vivisection Voltaire + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Wallflowers +War +Warner, C. D. +Whitman, Walt +Women, and social service; + in university towns; + of Normandy; + of Burgundy; + of England; + of France; + psychology of; + and beauty; + as affected by civilisation; + beauty of; + and the pear +Wood, Sir Henry +Wordsworth +Work, the Gospel of +</pre> + <p> + <i>Yellow Jacket, The</i> + </p> + <h3> + THE END + </h3> + <p> + <i>Printed by</i> R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, <i>Edinburgh</i>. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Impressions And Comments, by Havelock Ellis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS *** + +***** This file should be named 8125-h.htm or 8125-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/1/2/8125/ + + +Text file produced by S.R. 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