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diff --git a/9656.txt b/9656.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 84cf852..0000000 --- a/9656.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5154 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alarms and Discursions, by G. K. Chesterton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Alarms and Discursions - -Author: G. K. Chesterton - -Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9656] -Posting Date: June 16, 2009 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALARMS AND DISCURSIONS *** - - - - -Produced by Georges Allaire and Martin Ward - - - - - -ALARMS AND DISCURSIONS - -By G. K. Chesterton - - - -CONTENTS - - 1: INTRODUCTORY: ON GARGOYLES - - 2: THE SURRENDER OF A COCKNEY - - 3: THE NIGHTMARE - - 4: THE TELEGRAPH POLES - - 5: A DRAMA OF DOLLS - - 6: THE MAN AND HIS NEWSPAPER - - 7: THE APPETITE OF EARTH - - 8: SIMMONS AND THE SOCIAL TIE - - 9: CHEESE - -10: THE RED TOWN - -11: THE FURROWS - -12: THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIGHT-SEEING - -13: A CRIMINAL HEAD - -14: THE WRATH OF THE ROSES - -15: THE GOLD OF GLASTONBURY - -16: THE FUTURISTS - -17: DUKES - -18: THE GLORY OF GREY - -19: THE ANARCHIST - -20: HOW I FOUND THE SUPERMAN - -21: THE NEW HOUSE - -22: THE WINGS OF STONE - -23: THE THREE KINDS OF MEN - -24: THE STEWARD OF THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS - -25: THE FIELD OF BLOOD - -26: THE STRANGENESS OF LUXURY - -27: THE TRIUMPH OF THE DONKEY - -28: THE WHEEL - -29: FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE - -30: ETHANDUNE - -31: THE FLAT FREAK - -32: THE GARDEN OF THE SEA - -33: THE SENTIMENTALIST - -34: THE WHITE HORSES - -35: THE LONG BOW - -36: THE MODERN SCROOGE - -37: THE HIGH PLAINS - -38: THE CHORUS - -39: A ROMANCE OF THE MARSHES - - - - -Introductory: On Gargoyles - -Alone at some distance from the wasting walls of a disused abbey I found -half sunken in the grass the grey and goggle-eyed visage of one of those -graven monsters that made the ornamental water-spouts in the cathedrals -of the Middle Ages. It lay there, scoured by ancient rains or striped by -recent fungus, but still looking like the head of some huge dragon slain -by a primeval hero. And as I looked at it, I thought of the meaning of -the grotesque, and passed into some symbolic reverie of the three great -stages of art. - - - - - -I - -Once upon a time there lived upon an island a merry and innocent people, -mostly shepherds and tillers of the earth. They were republicans, like -all primitive and simple souls; they talked over their affairs under a -tree, and the nearest approach they had to a personal ruler was a -sort of priest or white witch who said their prayers for them. They -worshipped the sun, not idolatrously, but as the golden crown of the god -whom all such infants see almost as plainly as the sun. - -Now this priest was told by his people to build a great tower, pointing -to the sky in salutation of the Sun-god; and he pondered long and -heavily before he picked his materials. For he was resolved to use -nothing that was not almost as clear and exquisite as sunshine itself; -he would use nothing that was not washed as white as the rain can wash -the heavens, nothing that did not sparkle as spotlessly as that crown of -God. He would have nothing grotesque or obscure; he would not have even -anything emphatic or even anything mysterious. He would have all the -arches as light as laughter and as candid as logic. He built the temple -in three concentric courts, which were cooler and more exquisite in -substance each than the other. For the outer wall was a hedge of white -lilies, ranked so thick that a green stalk was hardly to be seen; -and the wall within that was of crystal, which smashed the sun into a -million stars. And the wall within that, which was the tower itself, was -a tower of pure water, forced up in an everlasting fountain; and upon -the very tip and crest of that foaming spire was one big and blazing -diamond, which the water tossed up eternally and caught again as a child -catches a ball. - -"Now," said the priest, "I have made a tower which is a little worthy of -the sun." - - - - -II - -But about this time the island was caught in a swarm of pirates; and the -shepherds had to turn themselves into rude warriors and seamen; and at -first they were utterly broken down in blood and shame; and the pirates -might have taken the jewel flung up for ever from their sacred fount. -And then, after years of horror and humiliation, they gained a little -and began to conquer because they did not mind defeat. And the pride of -the pirates went sick within them after a few unexpected foils; and at -last the invasion rolled back into the empty seas and the island was -delivered. And for some reason after this men began to talk quite -differently about the temple and the sun. Some, indeed, said, "You must -not touch the temple; it is classical; it is perfect, since it admits -no imperfections." But the others answered, "In that it differs from -the sun, that shines on the evil and the good and on mud and monsters -everywhere. The temple is of the noon; it is made of white marble clouds -and sapphire sky. But the sun is not always of the noon. The sun dies -daily, every night he is crucified in blood and fire." Now the priest -had taught and fought through all the war, and his hair had grown white, -but his eyes had grown young. And he said, "I was wrong and they are -right. The sun, the symbol of our father, gives life to all those -earthly things that are full of ugliness and energy. All the -exaggerations are right, if they exaggerate the right thing. Let us -point to heaven with tusks and horns and fins and trunks and tails so -long as they all point to heaven. The ugly animals praise God as much -as the beautiful. The frog's eyes stand out of his head because he is -staring at heaven. The giraffe's neck is long because he is stretching -towards heaven. The donkey has ears to hear--let him hear." - -And under the new inspiration they planned a gorgeous cathedral in the -Gothic manner, with all the animals of the earth crawling over it, and -all the possible ugly things making up one common beauty, because they -all appealed to the god. The columns of the temple were carved like the -necks of giraffes; the dome was like an ugly tortoise; and the highest -pinnacle was a monkey standing on his head with his tail pointing at the -sun. And yet the whole was beautiful, because it was lifted up in one -living and religious gesture as a man lifts his hands in prayer. - - - - -III - -But this great plan was never properly completed. The people had brought -up on great wagons the heavy tortoise roof and the huge necks of stone, -and all the thousand and one oddities that made up that unity, the owls -and the efts and the crocodiles and the kangaroos, which hideous -by themselves might have been magnificent if reared in one definite -proportion and dedicated to the sun. For this was Gothic, this was -romantic, this was Christian art; this was the whole advance of -Shakespeare upon Sophocles. And that symbol which was to crown it all, -the ape upside down, was really Christian; for man is the ape upside -down. - -But the rich, who had grown riotous in the long peace, obstructed the -thing, and in some squabble a stone struck the priest on the head and -he lost his memory. He saw piled in front of him frogs and elephants, -monkeys and giraffes, toadstools and sharks, all the ugly things of the -universe which he had collected to do honour to God. But he forgot why -he had collected them. He could not remember the design or the object. -He piled them all wildly into one heap fifty feet high; and when he had -done it all the rich and influential went into a passion of applause and -cried, "This is real art! This is Realism! This is things as they really -are!" - -That, I fancy, is the only true origin of Realism. Realism is simply -Romanticism that has lost its reason. This is so not merely in the sense -of insanity but of suicide. It has lost its reason; that is its reason -for existing. The old Greeks summoned godlike things to worship their -god. The medieval Christians summoned all things to worship theirs, -dwarfs and pelicans, monkeys and madmen. The modern realists summon all -these million creatures to worship their god; and then have no god for -them to worship. Paganism was in art a pure beauty; that was the dawn. -Christianity was a beauty created by controlling a million monsters of -ugliness; and that in my belief was the zenith and the noon. Modern -art and science practically mean having the million monsters and being -unable to control them; and I will venture to call that the disruption -and the decay. The finest lengths of the Elgin marbles consist splendid -houses going to the temple of a virgin. Christianity, with its gargoyles -and grotesques, really amounted to saying this: that a donkey could -go before all the horses of the world when it was really going to the -temple. Romance means a holy donkey going to the temple. Realism means a -lost donkey going nowhere. - -The fragments of futile journalism or fleeting impression which are here -collected are very like the wrecks and riven blocks that were piled in a -heap round my imaginary priest of the sun. They are very like that grey -and gaping head of stone that I found overgrown with the grass. Yet I -will venture to make even of these trivial fragments the high boast that -I am a medievalist and not a modern. That is, I really have a notion of -why I have collected all the nonsensical things there are. I have not -the patience nor perhaps the constructive intelligence to state the -connecting link between all these chaotic papers. But it could be -stated. This row of shapeless and ungainly monsters which I now -set before the reader does not consist of separate idols cut out -capriciously in lonely valleys or various islands. These monsters are -meant for the gargoyles of a definite cathedral. I have to carve the -gargoyles, because I can carve nothing else; I leave to others the -angels and the arches and the spires. But I am very sure of the style of -the architecture, and of the consecration of the church. - - - - -The Surrender of a Cockney - -Evert man, though he were born in the very belfry of Bow and spent his -infancy climbing among chimneys, has waiting for him somewhere a country -house which he has never seen; but which was built for him in the very -shape of his soul. It stands patiently waiting to be found, knee-deep in -orchards of Kent or mirrored in pools of Lincoln; and when the man sees -it he remembers it, though he has never seen it before. Even I have been -forced to confess this at last, who am a Cockney, if ever there was one, -a Cockney not only on principle, but with savage pride. I have always -maintained, quite seriously, that the Lord is not in the wind or thunder -of the waste, but if anywhere in the still small voice of Fleet Street. -I sincerely maintain that Nature-worship is more morally dangerous -than the most vulgar man-worship of the cities; since it can easily be -perverted into the worship of an impersonal mystery, carelessness, or -cruelty. Thoreau would have been a jollier fellow if he had devoted -himself to a greengrocer instead of to greens. Swinburne would have -been a better moralist if he had worshipped a fishmonger instead of -worshipping the sea. I prefer the philosophy of bricks and mortar to -the philosophy of turnips. To call a man a turnip may be playful, but is -seldom respectful. But when we wish to pay emphatic honour to a man, to -praise the firmness of his nature, the squareness of his conduct, the -strong humility with which he is interlocked with his equals in silent -mutual support, then we invoke the nobler Cockney metaphor, and call him -a brick. - -But, despite all these theories, I have surrendered; I have struck my -colours at sight; at a mere glimpse through the opening of a hedge. I -shall come down to living in the country, like any common Socialist or -Simple Lifer. I shall end my days in a village, in the character of -the Village Idiot, and be a spectacle and a judgment to mankind. I have -already learnt the rustic manner of leaning upon a gate; and I was thus -gymnastically occupied at the moment when my eye caught the house that -was made for me. It stood well back from the road, and was built of a -good yellow brick; it was narrow for its height, like the tower of some -Border robber; and over the front door was carved in large letters, -"1908." That last burst of sincerity, that superb scorn of antiquarian -sentiment, overwhelmed me finally. I closed my eyes in a kind of -ecstasy. My friend (who was helping me to lean on the gate) asked me -with some curiosity what I was doing. - -"My dear fellow," I said, with emotion, "I am bidding farewell to -forty-three hansom cabmen." - -"Well," he said, "I suppose they would think this county rather outside -the radius." - -"Oh, my friend," I cried brokenly, "how beautiful London is! Why do they -only write poetry about the country? I could turn every lyric cry into -Cockney. - - "'My heart leaps up when I behold - A sky-sign in the sky,' - -"as I observed in a volume which is too little read, founded on the -older English poets. You never saw my 'Golden Treasury Regilded; or, The -Classics Made Cockney'--it contained some fine lines. - - "'O Wild West End, thou breath of London's being,' - -"or the reminiscence of Keats, beginning - - "'City of smuts and mellow fogfulness.'; - -"I have written many such lines on the beauty of London; yet I never -realized that London was really beautiful till now. Do you ask me why? -It is because I have left it for ever." - -"If you will take my advice," said my friend, "you will humbly endeavour -not to be a fool. What is the sense of this mad modern notion that every -literary man must live in the country, with the pigs and the donkeys and -the squires? Chaucer and Spenser and Milton and Dryden lived in London; -Shakespeare and Dr. Johnson came to London because they had had quite -enough of the country. And as for trumpery topical journalists like you, -why, they would cut their throats in the country. You have confessed -it yourself in your own last words. You hunger and thirst after the -streets; you think London the finest place on the planet. And if by some -miracle a Bayswater omnibus could come down this green country lane you -would utter a yell of joy." - -Then a light burst upon my brain, and I turned upon him with terrible -sternness. - -"Why, miserable aesthete," I said in a voice of thunder, "that is the -true country spirit! That is how the real rustic feels. The real rustic -does utter a yell of joy at the sight of a Bayswater omnibus. The real -rustic does think London the finest place on the planet. In the few -moments that I have stood by this stile, I have grown rooted here like -an ancient tree; I have been here for ages. Petulant Suburban, I am the -real rustic. I believe that the streets of London are paved with gold; -and I mean to see it before I die." - -The evening breeze freshened among the little tossing trees of that -lane, and the purple evening clouds piled up and darkened behind my -Country Seat, the house that belonged to me, making, by contrast, its -yellow bricks gleam like gold. At last my friend said: "To cut it short, -then, you mean that you will live in the country because you won't like -it. What on earth will you do here; dig up the garden?" - -"Dig!" I answered, in honourable scorn. "Dig! Do work at my Country -Seat; no, thank you. When I find a Country Seat, I sit in it. And for -your other objection, you are quite wrong. I do not dislike the country, -but I like the town more. Therefore the art of happiness certainly -suggests that I should live in the country and think about the town. -Modern nature-worship is all upside down. Trees and fields ought to be -the ordinary things; terraces and temples ought to be extraordinary. I -am on the side of the man who lives in the country and wants to go to -London. I abominate and abjure the man who lives in London and wants -to go to the country; I do it with all the more heartiness because I am -that sort of man myself. We must learn to love London again, as rustics -love it. Therefore (I quote again from the great Cockney version of The -Golden Treasury)-- - - "'Therefore, ye gas-pipes, ye asbestos? stoves, - Forbode not any severing of our loves. - I have relinquished but your earthly sight, - To hold you dear in a more distant way. - I'll love the 'buses lumbering through the wet, - Even more than when I lightly tripped as they. - The grimy colour of the London clay - Is lovely yet,' - -"because I have found the house where I was really born; the tall and -quiet house from which I can see London afar off, as the miracle of man -that it is." - - - - -The Nightmare - -A sunset of copper and gold had just broken down and gone to pieces in -the west, and grey colours were crawling over everything in earth and -heaven; also a wind was growing, a wind that laid a cold finger upon -flesh and spirit. The bushes at the back of my garden began to whisper -like conspirators; and then to wave like wild hands in signal. I was -trying to read by the last light that died on the lawn a long poem of -the decadent period, a poem about the old gods of Babylon and Egypt, -about their blazing and obscene temples, their cruel and colossal faces. - - "Or didst thou love the God of Flies who plagued - the Hebrews and was splashed - With wine unto the waist, or Pasht who had green - beryls for her eyes?" - -I read this poem because I had to review it for the Daily News; still -it was genuine poetry of its kind. It really gave out an atmosphere, -a fragrant and suffocating smoke that seemed really to come from the -Bondage of Egypt or the Burden of Tyre There is not much in common -(thank God) between my garden with the grey-green English sky-line -beyond it, and these mad visions of painted palaces huge, headless -idols and monstrous solitudes of red or golden sand. Nevertheless (as -I confessed to myself) I can fancy in such a stormy twilight some such -smell of death and fear. The ruined sunset really looks like one of -their ruined temples: a shattered heap of gold and green marble. A black -flapping thing detaches itself from one of the sombre trees and flutters -to another. I know not if it is owl or flittermouse; I could fancy it -was a black cherub, an infernal cherub of darkness, not with the wings -of a bird and the head of a baby, but with the head of a goblin and the -wings of a bat. I think, if there were light enough, I could sit here -and write some very creditable creepy tale, about how I went up the -crooked road beyond the church and met Something--say a dog, a dog with -one eye. Then I should meet a horse, perhaps, a horse without a rider, -the horse also would have one eye. Then the inhuman silence would be -broken; I should meet a man (need I say, a one-eyed man?) who would ask -me the way to my own house. Or perhaps tell me that it was burnt to the -ground. I could tell a very cosy little tale along some such lines. Or I -might dream of climbing for ever the tall dark trees above me. They are -so tall that I feel as if I should find at their tops the nests of the -angels; but in this mood they would be dark and dreadful angels; angels -of death. - -Only, you see, this mood is all bosh. I do not believe in it in the -least. That one-eyed universe, with its one-eyed men and beasts, was -only created with one universal wink. At the top of the tragic trees I -should not find the Angel's Nest. I should only find the Mare's Nest; -the dreamy and divine nest is not there. In the Mare's Nest I shall -discover that dim, enormous opalescent egg from which is hatched the -Nightmare. For there is nothing so delightful as a nightmare--when you -know it is a nightmare. - -That is the essential. That is the stern condition laid upon all -artists touching this luxury of fear. The terror must be fundamentally -frivolous. Sanity may play with insanity; but insanity must not be -allowed to play with sanity. Let such poets as the one I was reading in -the garden, by all means, be free to imagine what outrageous deities and -violent landscapes they like. By all means let them wander freely amid -their opium pinnacles and perspectives. But these huge gods, these -high cities, are toys; they must never for an instant be allowed to -be anything else. Man, a gigantic child, must play with Babylon and -Nineveh, with Isis and with Ashtaroth. By all means let him dream of the -Bondage of Egypt, so long as he is free from it. By all means let him -take up the Burden of Tyre, so long as he can take it lightly. But the -old gods must be his dolls, not his idols. His central sanctities, his -true possessions, should be Christian and simple. And just as a child -would cherish most a wooden horse or a sword that is a mere cross of -wood, so man, the great child, must cherish most the old plain things of -poetry and piety; that horse of wood that was the epic end of Ilium, or -that cross of wood that redeemed and conquered the world. - -In one of Stevenson's letters there is a characteristically humorous -remark about the appalling impression produced on him in childhood -by the beasts with many eyes in the Book of Revelations: "If that was -heaven, what in the name of Davy Jones was hell like?" Now in sober -truth there is a magnificent idea in these monsters of the Apocalypse. -It is, I suppose, the idea that beings really more beautiful or more -universal than we are might appear to us frightful and even confused. -Especially they might seem to have senses at once more multiplex and -more staring; an idea very imaginatively seized in the multitude of -eyes. I like those monsters beneath the throne very much. But I like -them beneath the throne. It is when one of them goes wandering in -deserts and finds a throne for himself that evil faiths begin, and -there is (literally) the devil to pay--to pay in dancing girls or human -sacrifice. As long as those misshapen elemental powers are around the -throne, remember that the thing that they worship is the likeness of the -appearance of a man. - -That is, I fancy, the true doctrine on the subject of Tales of Terror -and such things, which unless a man of letters do well and truly -believe, without doubt he will end by blowing his brains out or by -writing badly. Man, the central pillar of the world must be upright and -straight; around him all the trees and beasts and elements and devils -may crook and curl like smoke if they choose. All really imaginative -literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and -the straightness of the soul. Man may behold what ugliness he likes if -he is sure that he will not worship it; but there are some so weak that -they will worship a thing only because it is ugly. These must be chained -to the beautiful. It is not always wrong even to go, like Dante, to the -brink of the lowest promontory and look down at hell. It is when you -look up at hell that a serious miscalculation has probably been made. - -Therefore I see no wrong in riding with the Nightmare to-night; she -whinnies to me from the rocking tree-tops and the roaring wind; I will -catch her and ride her through the awful air. Woods and weeds are alike -tugging at the roots in the rising tempest, as if all wished to fly -with us over the moon, like that wild amorous cow whose child was the -Moon-Calf. We will rise to that mad infinite where there is neither up -nor down, the high topsy-turveydom of the heavens. I will answer the -call of chaos and old night. I will ride on the Nightmare; but she shall -not ride on me. - - - - -The Telegraph Poles - -My friend and I were walking in one of those wastes of pine-wood which -make inland seas of solitude in every part of Western Europe; which have -the true terror of a desert, since they are uniform, and so one may lose -one's way in them. Stiff, straight, and similar, stood up all around -us the pines of the wood, like the pikes of a silent mutiny. There is a -truth in talking of the variety of Nature; but I think that Nature often -shows her chief strangeness in her sameness. There is a weird rhythm in -this very repetition; it is as if the earth were resolved to repeat a -single shape until the shape shall turn terrible. - -Have you ever tried the experiment of saying some plain word, such as -"dog," thirty times? By the thirtieth time it has become a word like -"snark" or "pobble." It does not become tame, it becomes wild, by -repetition. In the end a dog walks about as startling and undecipherable -as Leviathan or Croquemitaine. - -It may be that this explains the repetitions in Nature, it may be for -this reason that there are so many million leaves and pebbles. Perhaps -they are not repeated so that they may grow familiar. Perhaps they are -repeated only in the hope that they may at last grow unfamiliar. Perhaps -a man is not startled at the first cat he sees, but jumps into the air -with surprise at the seventy-ninth cat. Perhaps he has to pass through -thousands of pine trees before he finds the one that is really a pine -tree. However this may be, there is something singularly thrilling, even -something urgent and intolerant, about the endless forest repetitions; -there is the hint of something like madness in that musical monotony of -the pines. - -I said something like this to my friend; and he answered with sardonic -truth, "Ah, you wait till we come to a telegraph post." - -My friend was right, as he occasionally is in our discussions, -especially upon points of fact. We had crossed the pine forest by one -of its paths which happened to follow the wires of the provincial -telegraphy; and though the poles occurred at long intervals they made a -difference when they came. The instant we came to the straight pole we -could see that the pines were not really straight. It was like a hundred -straight lines drawn with schoolboy pencils all brought to judgment -suddenly by one straight line drawn with a ruler. All the amateur lines -seemed to reel to right and left. A moment before I could have sworn -they stood as straight as lances; now I could see them curve and waver -everywhere, like scimitars and yataghans. Compared with the telegraph -post the pines were crooked--and alive. That lonely vertical rod at once -deformed and enfranchised the forest. It tangled it all together and yet -made it free, like any grotesque undergrowth of oak or holly. - -"Yes," said my gloomy friend, answering my thoughts. "You don't know -what a wicked shameful thing straightness is if you think these trees -are straight. You never will know till your precious intellectual -civilization builds a forty-mile forest of telegraph poles." - -We had started walking from our temporary home later in the day than we -intended; and the long afternoon was already lengthening itself out into -a yellow evening when we came out of the forest on to the hills above -a strange town or village, of which the lights had already begun to -glitter in the darkening valley. The change had already happened which -is the test and definition of evening. I mean that while the sky seemed -still as bright, the earth was growing blacker against it, especially -at the edges, the hills and the pine-tops. This brought out yet more -clearly the owlish secrecy of pine-woods; and my friend cast a regretful -glance at them as he came out under the sky. Then he turned to the view -in front; and, as it happened, one of the telegraph posts stood up in -front of him in the last sunlight. It was no longer crossed and softened -by the more delicate lines of pine wood; it stood up ugly, arbitrary, -and angular as any crude figure in geometry. My friend stopped, pointing -his stick at it, and all his anarchic philosophy rushed to his lips. - -"Demon," he said to me briefly, "behold your work. That palace of -proud trees behind us is what the world was before you civilized men, -Christians or democrats or the rest, came to make it dull with your -dreary rules of morals and equality. In the silent fight of that forest, -tree fights speechless against tree, branch against branch. And the -upshot of that dumb battle is inequality--and beauty. Now lift up your -eyes and look at equality and ugliness. See how regularly the white -buttons are arranged on that black stick, and defend your dogmas if you -dare." - -"Is that telegraph post so much a symbol of democracy?" I asked. "I -fancy that while three men have made the telegraph to get dividends, -about a thousand men have preserved the forest to cut wood. But if the -telegraph pole is hideous (as I admit) it is not due to doctrine -but rather to commercial anarchy. If any one had a doctrine about a -telegraph pole it might be carved in ivory and decked with gold. Modern -things are ugly, because modern men are careless, not because they are -careful." - -"No," answered my friend with his eye on the end of a splendid and -sprawling sunset, "there is something intrinsically deadening about -the very idea of a doctrine. A straight line is always ugly. Beauty is -always crooked. These rigid posts at regular intervals are ugly because -they are carrying across the world the real message of democracy." - -"At this moment," I answered, "they are probably carrying across the -world the message, 'Buy Bulgarian Rails.' They are probably the prompt -communication between some two of the wealthiest and wickedest of His -children with whom God has ever had patience. No; these telegraph -poles are ugly and detestable, they are inhuman and indecent. But their -baseness lies in their privacy, not in their publicity. That black stick -with white buttons is not the creation of the soul of a multitude. It is -the mad creation of the souls of two millionaires." - -"At least you have to explain," answered my friend gravely, "how it is -that the hard democratic doctrine and the hard telegraphic outline have -appeared together; you have... But bless my soul, we must be getting -home. I had no idea it was so late. Let me see, I think this is our -way through the wood. Come, let us both curse the telegraph post for -entirely different reasons and get home before it is dark." - -We did not get home before it was dark. For one reason or another we had -underestimated the swiftness of twilight and the suddenness of night, -especially in the threading of thick woods. When my friend, after the -first five minutes' march, had fallen over a log, and I, ten minutes -after, had stuck nearly to the knees in mire, we began to have some -suspicion of our direction. At last my friend said, in a low, husky -voice: - -"I'm afraid we're on the wrong path. It's pitch dark." - -"I thought we went the right way," I said, tentatively. - -"Well," he said; and then, after a long pause, "I can't see any -telegraph poles. I've been looking for them." - -"So have I," I said. "They're so straight." - -We groped away for about two hours of darkness in the thick of the -fringe of trees which seemed to dance round us in derision. Here and -there, however, it was possible to trace the outline of something just -too erect and rigid to be a pine tree. By these we finally felt our way -home, arriving in a cold green twilight before dawn. - - - - -A Drama of Dolls - -In a small grey town of stone in one of the great Yorkshire dales, which -is full of history, I entered a hall and saw an old puppet-play -exactly as our fathers saw it five hundred years ago. It was admirably -translated from the old German, and was the original tale of Faust. The -dolls were at once comic and convincing; but if you cannot at once laugh -at a thing and believe in it, you have no business in the Middle Ages. -Or in the world, for that matter. - -The puppet-play in question belongs, I believe, to the fifteenth -century; and indeed the whole legend of Dr. Faustus has the colour of -that grotesque but somewhat gloomy time. It is very unfortunate that -we so often know a thing that is past only by its tail end. We remember -yesterday only by its sunsets. There are many instances. One is -Napoleon. We always think of him as a fat old despot, ruling Europe with -a ruthless military machine. But that, as Lord Rosebery would say, -was only "The Last Phase"; or at least the last but one. During the -strongest and most startling part of his career, the time that made him -immortal, Napoleon was a sort of boy, and not a bad sort of boy either, -bullet-headed and ambitious, but honestly in love with a woman, and -honestly enthusiastic for a cause, the cause of French justice and -equality. - -Another instance is the Middle Ages, which we also remember only by the -odour of their ultimate decay. We think of the life of the Middle Ages -as a dance of death, full of devils and deadly sins, lepers and burning -heretics. But this was not the life of the Middle Ages, but the death -of the Middle Ages. It is the spirit of Louis XI and Richard III, not of -Louis IX and Edward I. - -This grim but not unwholesome fable of Dr. Faustus, with its rebuke to -the mere arrogance of learning, is sound and stringent enough; but it is -not a fair sample of the mediaeval soul at its happiest and sanest. The -heart of the true Middle Ages might be found far better, for instance, -in the noble tale of Tannhauser, in which the dead staff broke into leaf -and flower to rebuke the pontiff who had declared even one human being -beyond the strength of sorrow and pardon. - -But there were in the play two great human ideas which the mediaeval -mind never lost its grip on, through the heaviest nightmares of its -dissolution. They were the two great jokes of mediaevalism, as they are -the two eternal jokes of mankind. Wherever those two jokes exist -there is a little health and hope; wherever they are absent, pride and -insanity are present. The first is the idea that the poor man ought to -get the better of the rich man. The other is the idea that the husband -is afraid of the wife. - -I have heard that there is a place under the knee which, when struck, -should produce a sort of jump; and that if you do not jump, you are mad. -I am sure that there are some such places in the soul. When the human -spirit does not jump with joy at either of those two old jokes, the -human spirit must be struck with incurable paralysis. There is hope -for people who have gone down into the hells of greed and economic -oppression (at least, I hope there is, for we are such a people -ourselves), but there is no hope for a people that does not exult in the -abstract idea of the peasant scoring off the prince. There is hope for -the idle and the adulterous, for the men that desert their wives and the -men that beat their wives. But there is no hope for men who do not boast -that their wives bully them. - -The first idea, the idea about the man at the bottom coming out on top, -is expressed in this puppet-play in the person of Dr. Faustus' servant, -Caspar. Sentimental old Tones, regretting the feudal times, sometimes -complain that in these days Jack is as good as his master. But most of -the actual tales of the feudal times turn on the idea that Jack is much -better than his master, and certainly it is so in the case of Caspar and -Faust. The play ends with the damnation of the learned and illustrious -doctor, followed by a cheerful and animated dance by Caspar, who has -been made watchman of the city. - -But there was a much keener stroke of mediaeval irony earlier in the -play. The learned doctor has been ransacking all the libraries of the -earth to find a certain rare formula, now almost unknown, by which he -can control the infernal deities. At last he procures the one precious -volume, opens it at the proper page, and leaves it on the table while -he seeks some other part of his magic equipment. The servant comes -in, reads off the formula, and immediately becomes an emperor of -the elemental spirits. He gives them a horrible time. He summons and -dismisses them alternately with the rapidity of a piston-rod working at -high speed; he keeps them flying between the doctor's house and their -own more unmentionable residences till they faint with rage and fatigue. -There is all the best of the Middle Ages in that; the idea of the great -levellers, luck and laughter; the idea of a sense of humour defying and -dominating hell. - -One of the best points in the play as performed in this Yorkshire town -was that the servant Caspar was made to talk Yorkshire, instead of the -German rustic dialect which he talked in the original. That also smacks -of the good air of that epoch. In those old pictures and poems they -always made things living by making them local. Thus, queerly enough, -the one touch that was not in the old mediaeval version was the most -mediaeval touch of all. - -That other ancient and Christian jest, that a wife is a holy terror, -occurs in the last scene, where the doctor (who wears a fur coat -throughout, to make him seem more offensively rich and refined) is -attempting to escape from the avenging demons, and meets his old servant -in the street. The servant obligingly points out a house with a blue -door, and strongly recommends Dr. Faustus to take refuge in it. "My old -woman lives there," he says, "and the devils are more afraid of her -than you are of them." Faustus does not take this advice, but goes on -meditating and reflecting (which had been his mistake all along) until -the clock strikes twelve, and dreadful voices talk Latin in heaven. -So Faustus, in his fur coat, is carried away by little black imps; and -serve him right for being an Intellectual. - - - - -The Man and His Newspaper - -At a little station, which I decline to specify, somewhere between -Oxford and Guildford, I missed a connection or miscalculated a route -in such manner that I was left stranded for rather more than an hour. -I adore waiting at railway stations, but this was not a very sumptuous -specimen. There was nothing on the platform except a chocolate automatic -machine, which eagerly absorbed pennies but produced no corresponding -chocolate, and a small paper-stall with a few remaining copies of a -cheap imperial organ which we will call the Daily Wire. It does not -matter which imperial organ it was, as they all say the same thing. - -Though I knew it quite well already, I read it with gravity as I -strolled out of the station and up the country road. It opened with the -striking phrase that the Radicals were setting class against class. It -went on to remark that nothing had contributed more to make our Empire -happy and enviable, to create that obvious list of glories which you can -supply for yourself, the prosperity of all classes in our great cities, -our populous and growing villages, the success of our rule in Ireland, -etc., etc., than the sound Anglo-Saxon readiness of all classes in the -State "to work heartily hand-in-hand." It was this alone, the paper -assured me, that had saved us from the horrors of the French Revolution. -"It is easy for the Radicals," it went on very solemnly, "to make jokes -about the dukes. Very few of these revolutionary gentlemen have given -to the poor one half of the earnest thought, tireless unselfishness, and -truly Christian patience that are given to them by the great landlords -of this country. We are very sure that the English people, with their -sturdy common sense, will prefer to be in the hands of English gentlemen -rather than in the miry claws of Socialistic buccaneers." - -Just when I had reached this point I nearly ran into a man. Despite the -populousness and growth of our villages, he appeared to be the only man -for miles, but the road up which I had wandered turned and narrowed with -equal abruptness, and I nearly knocked him off the gate on which he -was leaning. I pulled up to apologize, and since he seemed ready for -society, and even pathetically pleased with it, I tossed the Daily -Wire over a hedge and fell into speech with him. He wore a wreck of -respectable clothes, and his face had that plebeian refinement which one -sees in small tailors and watchmakers, in poor men of sedentary trades. -Behind him a twisted group of winter trees stood up as gaunt and -tattered as himself, but I do not think that the tragedy that he -symbolized was a mere fancy from the spectral wood. There was a fixed -look in his face which told that he was one of those who in keeping body -and soul together have difficulties not only with the body, but also -with the soul. - -He was a Cockney by birth, and retained the touching accent of those -streets from which I am an exile; but he had lived nearly all his life -in this countryside; and he began to tell me the affairs of it in that -formless, tail-foremost way in which the poor gossip about their great -neighbours. Names kept coming and going in the narrative like charms or -spells, unaccompanied by any biographical explanation. In particular -the name of somebody called Sir Joseph multiplied itself with the -omnipresence of a deity. I took Sir Joseph to be the principal landowner -of the district; and as the confused picture unfolded itself, I began to -form a definite and by no means pleasing picture of Sir Joseph. He was -spoken of in a strange way, frigid and yet familiar, as a child might -speak of a stepmother or an unavoidable nurse; something intimate, but -by no means tender; something that was waiting for you by your own bed -and board; that told you to do this and forbade you to do that, with a -caprice that was cold and yet somehow personal. It did not appear that -Sir Joseph was popular, but he was "a household word." He was not -so much a public man as a sort of private god or omnipotence. The -particular man to whom I spoke said he had "been in trouble," and that -Sir Joseph had been "pretty hard on him." - -And under that grey and silver cloudland, with a background of those -frost-bitten and wind-tortured trees, the little Londoner told me a tale -which, true or false, was as heartrending as Romeo and Juliet. - -He had slowly built up in the village a small business as a -photographer, and he was engaged to a girl at one of the lodges, whom he -loved with passion. "I'm the sort that 'ad better marry," he said; -and for all his frail figure I knew what he meant. But Sir Joseph, -and especially Sir Joseph's wife, did not want a photographer in -the village; it made the girls vain, or perhaps they disliked this -particular photographer. He worked and worked until he had just enough -to marry on honestly; and almost on the eve of his wedding the lease -expired, and Sir Joseph appeared in all his glory. He refused to -renew the lease; and the man went wildly elsewhere. But Sir Joseph was -ubiquitous; and the whole of that place was barred against him. In all -that country he could not find a shed to which to bring home his bride. -The man appealed and explained; but he was disliked as a demagogue, as -well as a photographer. Then it was as if a black cloud came across the -winter sky; for I knew what was coming. I forget even in what words -he told of Nature maddened and set free. But I still see, as in a -photograph, the grey muscles of the winter trees standing out like tight -ropes, as if all Nature were on the rack. - -"She 'ad to go away," he said. - -"Wouldn't her parents," I began, and hesitated on the word "forgive." - -"Oh, her people forgave her," he said. "But Her Ladyship..." - -"Her Ladyship made the sun and moon and stars," I said, impatiently. "So -of course she can come between a mother and the child of her body." - -"Well, it does seem a bit 'ard..." he began with a break in his voice. - -"But, good Lord, man," I cried, "it isn't a matter of hardness! It's a -matter of impious and indecent wickedness. If your Sir Joseph knew -the passions he was playing with, he did you a wrong for which in many -Christian countries he would have a knife in him." - -The man continued to look across the frozen fields with a frown. He -certainly told his tale with real resentment, whether it was true or -false, or only exaggerated. He was certainly sullen and injured; but he -did not seem to think of any avenue of escape. At last he said: - -"Well, it's a bad world; let's 'ope there's a better one." - -"Amen," I said. "But when I think of Sir Joseph, I understand how men -have hoped there was a worse one." - -Then we were silent for a long time and felt the cold of the day -crawling up, and at last I said, abruptly: - -"The other day at a Budget meeting, I heard." - -He took his elbows off the stile and seemed to change from head to foot -like a man coming out of sleep with a yawn. He said in a totally -new voice, louder but much more careless, "Ah yes, sir,... this 'ere -Budget... the Radicals are doing a lot of 'arm." - -I listened intently, and he went on. He said with a sort of careful -precision, "Settin' class against class; that's what I call it. Why, -what's made our Empire except the readiness of all classes to work -'eartily 'and-in-'and." - -He walked a little up and down the lane and stamped with the cold. -Then he said, "What I say is, what else kept us from the 'errors of the -French Revolution?" - -My memory is good, and I waited in tense eagerness for the phrase that -came next. "They may laugh at Dukes; I'd like to see them 'alf as kind -and Christian and patient as lots of the landlords are. Let me tell you, -sir," he said, facing round at me with the final air of one launching a -paradox. "The English people 'ave some common sense, and they'd rather -be in the 'ands of gentlemen than in the claws of a lot of Socialist -thieves." - -I had an indescribable sense that I ought to applaud, as if I were a -public meeting. The insane separation in the man's soul between his -experience and his ready-made theory was but a type of what covers a -quarter of England. As he turned away, I saw the Daily Wire sticking -out of his shabby pocket. He bade me farewell in quite a blaze of -catchwords, and went stumping up the road. I saw his figure grow smaller -and smaller in the great green landscape; even as the Free Man has grown -smaller and smaller in the English countryside. - - - - -The Appetite of Earth - -I was walking the other day in a kitchen garden, which I find has -somehow got attached to my premises, and I was wondering why I liked it. -After a prolonged spiritual self-analysis I came to the conclusion that -I like a kitchen garden because it contains things to eat. I do not mean -that a kitchen garden is ugly; a kitchen garden is often very beautiful. -The mixture of green and purple on some monstrous cabbage is much -subtler and grander than the mere freakish and theatrical splashing -of yellow and violet on a pansy. Few of the flowers merely meant for -ornament are so ethereal as a potato. A kitchen garden is as beautiful -as an orchard; but why is it that the word "orchard" sounds as beautiful -as the word "flower-garden," and yet also sounds more satisfactory? I -suggest again my extraordinarily dark and delicate discovery: that it -contains things to eat. - -The cabbage is a solid; it can be approached from all sides at once; it -can be realized by all senses at once. Compared with that the sunflower, -which can only be seen, is a mere pattern, a thing painted on a flat -wall. Now, it is this sense of the solidity of things that can only be -uttered by the metaphor of eating. To express the cubic content of a -turnip, you must be all round it at once. The only way to get all round -a turnip at once is to eat the turnip. I think any poetic mind that has -loved solidity, the thickness of trees, the squareness of stones, the -firmness of clay, must have sometimes wished that they were things -to eat. If only brown peat tasted as good as it looks; if only white -firwood were digestible! We talk rightly of giving stones for bread: but -there are in the Geological Museum certain rich crimson marbles, -certain split stones of blue and green, that make me wish my teeth were -stronger. - -Somebody staring into the sky with the same ethereal appetite declared -that the moon was made of green cheese. I never could conscientiously -accept the full doctrine. I am Modernist in this matter. That the moon -is made of cheese I have believed from childhood; and in the course of -every month a giant (of my acquaintance) bites a big round piece out of -it. This seems to me a doctrine that is above reason, but not contrary -to it. But that the cheese is green seems to be in some degree actually -contradicted by the senses and the reason; first because if the moon -were made of green cheese it would be inhabited; and second because if -it were made of green cheese it would be green. A blue moon is said to -be an unusual sight; but I cannot think that a green one is much more -common. In fact, I think I have seen the moon looking like every other -sort of cheese except a green cheese. I have seen it look exactly like a -cream cheese: a circle of warm white upon a warm faint violet sky above -a cornfield in Kent. I have seen it look very like a Dutch cheese, -rising a dull red copper disk amid masts and dark waters at Honfleur. -I have seen it look like an ordinary sensible Cheddar cheese in an -ordinary sensible Prussian blue sky; and I have once seen it so naked -and ruinous-looking, so strangely lit up, that it looked like a Gruyere -cheese, that awful volcanic cheese that has horrible holes in it, as -if it had come in boiling unnatural milk from mysterious and unearthly -cattle. But I have never yet seen the lunar cheese green; and I -incline to the opinion that the moon is not old enough. The moon, like -everything else, will ripen by the end of the world; and in the last -days we shall see it taking on those volcanic sunset colours, and -leaping with that enormous and fantastic life. - -But this is a parenthesis; and one perhaps slightly lacking in prosaic -actuality. Whatever may be the value of the above speculations, the -phrase about the moon and green cheese remains a good example of this -imagery of eating and drinking on a large scale. The same huge fancy -is in the phrase "if all the trees were bread and cheese," which I have -cited elsewhere in this connection; and in that noble nightmare of a -Scandinavian legend, in which Thor drinks the deep sea nearly dry out -of a horn. In an essay like the present (first intended as a paper to -be read before the Royal Society) one cannot be too exact; and I will -concede that my theory of the gradual vire-scence of our satellite is -to be regarded rather as an alternative theory than as a law finally -demonstrated and universally accepted by the scientific world. It is a -hypothesis that holds the field, as the scientists say of a theory when -there is no evidence for it so far. - -But the reader need be under no apprehension that I have suddenly gone -mad, and shall start biting large pieces out of the trunks of trees; -or seriously altering (by large semicircular mouthfuls) the exquisite -outline of the mountains. This feeling for expressing a fresh solidity -by the image of eating is really a very old one. So far from being a -paradox of perversity, it is one of the oldest commonplaces of religion. -If any one wandering about wants to have a good trick or test for -separating the wrong idealism from the right, I will give him one on the -spot. It is a mark of false religion that it is always trying to -express concrete facts as abstract; it calls sex affinity; it calls wine -alcohol; it calls brute starvation the economic problem. The test of -true religion is that its energy drives exactly the other way; it is -always trying to make men feel truths as facts; always trying to make -abstract things as plain and solid as concrete things; always trying to -make men, not merely admit the truth, but see, smell, handle, hear, -and devour the truth. All great spiritual scriptures are full of the -invitation not to test, but to taste; not to examine, but to eat. Their -phrases are full of living water and heavenly bread, mysterious manna -and dreadful wine. Worldliness, and the polite society of the world, has -despised this instinct of eating; but religion has never despised it. -When we look at a firm, fat, white cliff of chalk at Dover, I do not -suggest that we should desire to eat it; that would be highly abnormal. -But I really mean that we should think it good to eat; good for some -one else to eat. For, indeed, some one else is eating it; the grass that -grows upon its top is devouring it silently, but, doubtless, with an -uproarious appetite. - - - - -Simmons and the Social Tie - -It is a platitude, and none the less true for that, that we need to -have an ideal in our minds with which to test all realities. But it is -equally true, and less noted, that we need a reality with which to test -ideals. Thus I have selected Mrs. Buttons, a charwoman in Battersea, as -the touchstone of all modern theories about the mass of women. Her name -is not Buttons; she is not in the least a contemptible nor entirely a -comic figure. She has a powerful stoop and an ugly, attractive face, a -little like that of Huxley--without the whiskers, of course. The courage -with which she supports the most brutal bad luck has something quite -creepy about it. Her irony is incessant and inventive; her practical -charity very large; and she is wholly unaware of the philosophical use -to which I put her. - -But when I hear the modern generalization about her sex on all sides I -simply substitute her name, and see how the thing sounds then. When on -the one side the mere sentimentalist says, "Let woman be content to -be dainty and exquisite, a protected piece of social art and domestic -ornament," then I merely repeat it to myself in the "other form," "Let -Mrs. Buttons be content to be dainty and exquisite, a protected piece of -social art, etc." It is extraordinary what a difference the substitution -seems to make. And on the other hand, when some of the Suffragettes say -in their pamphlets and speeches, "Woman, leaping to life at the trumpet -call of Ibsen and Shaw, drops her tawdry luxuries and demands to grasp -the sceptre of empire and the firebrand of speculative thought"--in -order to understand such a sentence I say it over again in the amended -form: "Mrs. Buttons, leaping to life at the trumpet call of Ibsen and -Shaw, drops her tawdry luxuries and demands to grasp the sceptre of -empire and the firebrand of speculative thought." Somehow it sounds -quite different. And yet when you say Woman I suppose you mean the -average woman; and if most women are as capable and critical and morally -sound as Mrs. Buttons, it is as much as we can expect, and a great deal -more than we deserve. - -But this study is not about Mrs. Buttons; she would require many -studies. I will take a less impressive case of my principle, the -principle of keeping in the mind an actual personality when we are -talking about types or tendencies or generalized ideals. Take, for -example, the question of the education of boys. Almost every post -brings me pamphlets expounding some advanced and suggestive scheme of -education; the pupils are to be taught separate; the sexes are to -be taught together; there should be no prizes; there should be no -punishments; the master should lift the boys to his level; the master -should descend to their level; we should encourage the heartiest -comradeship among boys, and also the tenderest spiritual intimacy with -masters; toil must be pleasant and holidays must be instructive; with -all these things I am daily impressed and somewhat bewildered. But on -the great Buttons' principle I keep in my mind and apply to all these -ideals one still vivid fact; the face and character of a particular -schoolboy whom I once knew. I am not taking a mere individual oddity, as -you will hear. He was exceptional, and yet the reverse of eccentric; -he was (in a quite sober and strict sense of the words) exceptionally -average. He was the incarnation and the exaggeration of a certain spirit -which is the common spirit of boys, but which nowhere else became so -obvious and outrageous. And because he was an incarnation he was, in his -way, a tragedy. - -I will call him Simmons. He was a tall, healthy figure, strong, but a -little slouching, and there was in his walk something between a slight -swagger and a seaman's roll; he commonly had his hands in his pockets. -His hair was dark, straight, and undistinguished; and his face, if one -saw it after his figure, was something of a surprise. For while the form -might be called big and braggart, the face might have been called weak, -and was certainly worried. It was a hesitating face, which seemed to -blink doubtfully in the daylight. He had even the look of one who has -received a buffet that he cannot return. In all occupations he was the -average boy; just sufficiently good at sports, just sufficiently bad at -work to be universally satisfactory. But he was prominent in nothing, -for prominence was to him a thing like bodily pain. He could not endure, -without discomfort amounting to desperation, that any boy should be -noticed or sensationally separated from the long line of boys; for him, -to be distinguished was to be disgraced. - -Those who interpret schoolboys as merely wooden and barbarous, unmoved -by anything but a savage seriousness about tuck or cricket, make the -mistake of forgetting how much of the schoolboy life is public and -ceremonial, having reference to an ideal; or, if you like, to an -affectation. Boys, like dogs, have a sort of romantic ritual which is -not always their real selves. And this romantic ritual is generally the -ritual of not being romantic; the pretence of being much more -masculine and materialistic than they are. Boys in themselves are very -sentimental. The most sentimental thing in the world is to hide your -feelings; it is making too much of them. Stoicism is the direct product -of sentimentalism; and schoolboys are sentimental individually, but -stoical collectively. - -For example, there were numbers of boys at my school besides myself -who took a private pleasure in poetry; but red-hot iron would not have -induced most of us to admit this to the masters, or to repeat poetry -with the faintest inflection of rhythm or intelligence. That would have -been anti-social egoism; we called it "showing off." I myself remember -running to school (an extraordinary thing to do) with mere internal -ecstasy in repeating lines of Walter Scott about the taunts of Marmion -or the boasts of Roderick Dhu, and then repeating the same lines in -class with the colourless decorum of a hurdy-gurdy. We all wished to be -invisible in our uniformity; a mere pattern of Eton collars and coats. - -But Simmons went even further. He felt it as an insult to brotherly -equality if any task or knowledge out of the ordinary track was -discovered even by accident. If a boy had learnt German in infancy; or -if a boy knew some terms in music; or if a boy was forced to confess -feebly that he had read "The Mill on the Floss"--then Simmons was in a -perspiration of discomfort. He felt no personal anger, still less any -petty jealousy, what he felt was an honourable and generous shame. He -hated it as a lady hates coarseness in a pantomime; it made him want to -hide himself. Just that feeling of impersonal ignominy which most of us -have when some one betrays indecent ignorance, Simmons had when some one -betrayed special knowledge. He writhed and went red in the face; he used -to put up the lid of his desk to hide his blushes for human dignity, -and from behind this barrier would whisper protests which had the hoarse -emphasis of pain. "O, shut up, I say... O, I say, shut up.... O, shut -it, can't you?" Once when a little boy admitted that he had heard of the -Highland claymore, Simmons literally hid his head inside his desk and -dropped the lid upon it in desperation; and when I was for a moment -transferred from the bottom of the form for knowing the name of Cardinal -Newman, I thought he would have rushed from the room. - -His psychological eccentricity increased; if one can call that an -eccentricity which was a wild worship of the ordinary. At last he grew -so sensitive that he could not even bear any question answered correctly -without grief. He felt there was a touch of disloyalty, of unfraternal -individualism, even about knowing the right answer to a sum. If asked -the date of the battle of Hastings, he considered it due to social tact -and general good feeling to answer 1067. This chivalrous exaggeration -led to bad feeling between him and the school authority, which ended -in a rupture unexpectedly violent in the case of so good-humoured a -creature. He fled from the school, and it was discovered upon inquiry -that he had fled from his home also. - -I never expected to see him again; yet it is one of the two or three -odd coincidences of my life that I did see him. At some public sports or -recreation ground I saw a group of rather objectless youths, one of whom -was wearing the dashing uniform of a private in the Lancers. Inside that -uniform was the tall figure, shy face, and dark, stiff hair of Simmons. -He had gone to the one place where every one is dressed alike--a -regiment. I know nothing more; perhaps he was killed in Africa. But when -England was full of flags and false triumphs, when everybody was talking -manly trash about the whelps of the lion and the brave boys in red, I -often heard a voice echoing in the under-caverns of my memory, "Shut -up... O, shut up... O, I say, shut it." - - - - -Cheese - -My forthcoming work in five volumes, "The Neglect of Cheese in European -Literature" is a work of such unprecedented and laborious detail that it -is doubtful if I shall live to finish it. Some overflowings from such -a fountain of information may therefore be permitted to springle these -pages. I cannot yet wholly explain the neglect to which I refer. Poets -have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. Virgil, if I -remember right, refers to it several times, but with too much Roman -restraint. He does not let himself go on cheese. The only other poet -I can think of just now who seems to have had some sensibility on the -point was the nameless author of the nursery rhyme which says: "If all -the trees were bread and cheese"--which is, indeed a rich and gigantic -vision of the higher gluttony. If all the trees were bread and cheese -there would be considerable deforestation in any part of England where -I was living. Wild and wide woodlands would reel and fade before me -as rapidly as they ran after Orpheus. Except Virgil and this anonymous -rhymer, I can recall no verse about cheese. Yet it has every quality -which we require in exalted poetry. It is a short, strong word; it -rhymes to "breeze" and "seas" (an essential point); that it is emphatic -in sound is admitted even by the civilization of the modern cities. For -their citizens, with no apparent intention except emphasis, will often -say, "Cheese it!" or even "Quite the cheese." The substance itself is -imaginative. It is ancient--sometimes in the individual case, always -in the type and custom. It is simple, being directly derived from milk, -which is one of the ancestral drinks, not lightly to be corrupted with -soda-water. You know, I hope (though I myself have only just thought -of it), that the four rivers of Eden were milk, water, wine, and ale. -Aerated waters only appeared after the Fall. - -But cheese has another quality, which is also the very soul of song. -Once in endeavouring to lecture in several places at once, I made an -eccentric journey across England, a journey of so irregular and even -illogical shape that it necessitated my having lunch on four successive -days in four roadside inns in four different counties. In each inn they -had nothing but bread and cheese; nor can I imagine why a man should -want more than bread and cheese, if he can get enough of it. In each inn -the cheese was good; and in each inn it was different. There was a noble -Wensleydale cheese in Yorkshire, a Cheshire cheese in Cheshire, and so -on. Now, it is just here that true poetic civilization differs from that -paltry and mechanical civilization which holds us all in bondage. Bad -customs are universal and rigid, like modern militarism. Good customs -are universal and varied, like native chivalry and self-defence. Both -the good and bad civilization cover us as with a canopy, and protect us -from all that is outside. But a good civilization spreads over us -freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A -bad civilization stands up and sticks out above us like an -umbrella--artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but -uniform. So it is with the contrast between the substances that vary and -the substances that are the same wherever they penetrate. By a wise doom -of heaven men were commanded to eat cheese, but not the same cheese. -Being really universal it varies from valley to valley. But if, let us -say, we compare cheese with soap (that vastly inferior substance), we -shall see that soap tends more and more to be merely Smith's Soap or -Brown's Soap, sent automatically all over the world. If the Red Indians -have soap it is Smith's Soap. If the Grand Lama has soap it is Brown's -soap. There is nothing subtly and strangely Buddhist, nothing tenderly -Tibetan, about his soap. I fancy the Grand Lama does not eat cheese (he -is not worthy), but if he does it is probably a local cheese, having -some real relation to his life and outlook. Safety matches, tinned -foods, patent medicines are sent all over the world; but they are not -produced all over the world. Therefore there is in them a mere dead -identity, never that soft play of slight variation which exists in -things produced everywhere out of the soil, in the milk of the kine, -or the fruits of the orchard. You can get a whisky and soda at every -outpost of the Empire: that is why so many Empire-builders go mad. But -you are not tasting or touching any environment, as in the cider of -Devonshire or the grapes of the Rhine. You are not approaching Nature in -one of her myriad tints of mood, as in the holy act of eating cheese. - -When I had done my pilgrimage in the four wayside public-houses I -reached one of the great northern cities, and there I proceeded, with -great rapidity and complete inconsistency, to a large and elaborate -restaurant, where I knew I could get many other things besides bread and -cheese. I could get that also, however; or at least I expected to get -it; but I was sharply reminded that I had entered Babylon, and left -England behind. The waiter brought me cheese, indeed, but cheese cut up -into contemptibly small pieces; and it is the awful fact that, instead -of Christian bread, he brought me biscuits. Biscuits--to one who had -eaten the cheese of four great countrysides! Biscuits--to one who had -proved anew for himself the sanctity of the ancient wedding between -cheese and bread! I addressed the waiter in warm and moving terms. I -asked him who he was that he should put asunder those whom Humanity had -joined. I asked him if he did not feel, as an artist, that a solid but -yielding substance like cheese went naturally with a solid, yielding -substance like bread; to eat it off biscuits is like eating it off -slates. I asked him if, when he said his prayers, he was so supercilious -as to pray for his daily biscuits. He gave me generally to understand -that he was only obeying a custom of Modern Society. I have therefore -resolved to raise my voice, not against the waiter, but against Modern -Society, for this huge and unparalleled modern wrong. - - - - -The Red Town - -When a man says that democracy is false because most people are stupid, -there are several courses which the philosopher may pursue. The most -obvious is to hit him smartly and with precision on the exact tip of the -nose. But if you have scruples (moral or physical) about this course, -you may proceed to employ Reason, which in this case has all the savage -solidity of a blow with the fist. It is stupid to say that "most people" -are stupid. It is like saying "most people are tall," when it is obvious -that "tall" can only mean taller than most people. It is absurd to -denounce the majority of mankind as below the average of mankind. - -Should the man have been hammered on the nose and brained with logic, -and should he still remain cold, a third course opens: lead him by the -hand (himself half-willing) towards some sunlit and yet secret meadow -and ask him who made the names of the common wild flowers. They were -ordinary people, so far as any one knows, who gave to one flower the -name of the Star of Bethlehem and to another and much commoner flower -the tremendous title of the Eye of Day. If you cling to the snobbish -notion that common people are prosaic, ask any common person for the -local names of the flowers, names which vary not only from county to -county, but even from dale to dale. - -But, curiously enough, the case is much stronger than this. It will be -said that this poetry is peculiar to the country populace, and that -the dim democracies of our modern towns at least have lost it. For some -extraordinary reason they have not lost it. Ordinary London slang is -full of witty things said by nobody in particular. True, the creed -of our cruel cities is not so sane and just as the creed of the old -countryside; but the people are just as clever in giving names to their -sins in the city as in giving names to their joys in the wilderness. -One could not better sum up Christianity than by calling a small white -insignificant flower "The Star of Bethlehem." But then, again, one could -not better sum up the philosophy deduced from Darwinism than in the one -verbal picture of "having your monkey up." - -Who first invented these violent felicities of language? Who first spoke -of a man "being off his head"? The obvious comment on a lunatic is that -his head is off him; yet the other phrase is far more fantastically -exact. There is about every madman a singular sensation that his body -has walked off and left the important part of him behind. - -But the cases of this popular perfection in phrase are even stronger -when they are more vulgar. What concentrated irony and imagination there -is for instance, in the metaphor which describes a man doing a midnight -flitting as "shooting the moon"? It expresses everything about the run -away: his eccentric occupation, his improbable explanations, his furtive -air as of a hunter, his constant glances at the blank clock in the sky. - -No; the English democracy is weak enough about a number of things; for -instance, it is weak in politics. But there is no doubt that democracy -is wonderfully strong in literature. Very few books that the cultured -class has produced of late have been such good literature as the -expression "painting the town red." - -Oddly enough, this last Cockney epigram clings to my memory. For as I -was walking a little while ago round a corner near Victoria I realized -for the first time that a familiar lamp-post was painted all over with -a bright vermilion just as if it were trying (in spite of the obvious -bodily disqualification) to pretend that it was a pillar-box. I have -since heard official explanations of these startling and scarlet -objects. But my first fancy was that some dissipated gentleman on his -way home at four o'clock in the morning had attempted to paint the town -red and got only as far as one lamp-post. - -I began to make a fairy tale about the man; and, indeed, this phrase -contains both a fairy tale and a philosophy; it really states almost the -whole truth about those pure outbreaks of pagan enjoyment to which all -healthy men have often been tempted. It expresses the desire to have -levity on a large scale which is the essence of such a mood. The rowdy -young man is not content to paint his tutor's door green: he would like -to paint the whole city scarlet. The word which to us best recalls -such gigantesque idiocy is the word "mafficking." The slaves of that -saturnalia were not only painting the town red; they thought that they -were painting the map red--that they were painting the world red. But, -indeed, this Imperial debauch has in it something worse than the -mere larkiness which is my present topic; it has an element of real -self-flattery and of sin. The Jingo who wants to admire himself is -worse than the blackguard who only wants to enjoy himself. In a very old -ninth-century illumination which I have seen, depicting the war of the -rebel angels in heaven, Satan is represented as distributing to his -followers peacock feathers--the symbols of an evil pride. Satan also -distributed peacock feathers to his followers on Mafeking Night... - -But taking the case of ordinary pagan recklessness and pleasure seeking, -it is, as we have said, well expressed in this image. First, because -it conveys this notion of filling the world with one private folly; and -secondly, because of the profound idea involved in the choice of colour. -Red is the most joyful and dreadful thing in the physical universe; it -is the fiercest note, it is the highest light, it is the place where -the walls of this world of ours wear thinnest and something beyond burns -through. It glows in the blood which sustains and in the fire which -destroys us, in the roses of our romance and in the awful cup of our -religion. It stands for all passionate happiness, as in faith or in -first love. - -Now, the profligate is he who wishes to spread this crimson of conscious -joy over everything; to have excitement at every moment; to paint -everything red. He bursts a thousand barrels of wine to incarnadine the -streets; and sometimes (in his last madness) he will butcher beasts -and men to dip his gigantic brushes in their blood. For it marks -the sacredness of red in nature, that it is secret even when it is -ubiquitous, like blood in the human body, which is omnipresent, yet -invisible. As long as blood lives it is hidden; it is only dead blood -that we see. But the earlier parts of the rake's progress are very -natural and amusing. Painting the town red is a delightful thing until -it is done. It would be splendid to see the cross of St. Paul's as red -as the cross of St. George, and the gallons of red paint running down -the dome or dripping from the Nelson Column. But when it is done, when -you have painted the town red, an extraordinary thing happens. You -cannot see any red at all. - -I can see, as in a sort of vision, the successful artist standing in the -midst of that frightful city, hung on all sides with the scarlet of his -shame. And then, when everything is red, he will long for a red rose -in a green hedge and long in vain; he will dream of a red leaf and be -unable even to imagine it. He has desecrated the divine colour, and he -can no longer see it, though it is all around. I see him, a single black -figure against the red-hot hell that he has kindled, where spires and -turrets stand up like immobile flames: he is stiffened in a sort of -agony of prayer. Then the mercy of Heaven is loosened, and I see one or -two flakes of snow very slowly begin to fall. - - - - -The Furrows - -As I see the corn grow green all about my neighbourhood, there rushes on -me for no reason in particular a memory of the winter. I say "rushes," -for that is the very word for the old sweeping lines of the ploughed -fields. From some accidental turn of a train-journey or a walking tour, -I saw suddenly the fierce rush of the furrows. The furrows are like -arrows; they fly along an arc of sky. They are like leaping animals; -they vault an inviolable hill and roll down the other side. They are -like battering battalions; they rush over a hill with flying squadrons -and carry it with a cavalry charge. They have all the air of Arabs -sweeping a desert, of rockets sweeping the sky, of torrents sweeping a -watercourse. Nothing ever seemed so living as those brown lines as they -shot sheer from the height of a ridge down to their still whirl of the -valley. They were swifter than arrows, fiercer than Arabs, more riotous -and rejoicing than rockets. And yet they were only thin straight lines -drawn with difficulty, like a diagram, by painful and patient men. The -men that ploughed tried to plough straight; they had no notion of giving -great sweeps and swirls to the eye. Those cataracts of cloven earth; -they were done by the grace of God. I had always rejoiced in them; but I -had never found any reason for my joy. There are some very clever people -who cannot enjoy the joy unless they understand it. There are other and -even cleverer people who say that they lose the joy the moment they do -understand it. Thank God I was never clever, and I could always enjoy -things when I understood them and when I didn't. I can enjoy the -orthodox Tory, though I could never understand him. I can also enjoy the -orthodox Liberal, though I understand him only too well. - -But the splendour of furrowed fields is this: that like all brave things -they are made straight, and therefore they bend. In everything that bows -gracefully there must be an effort at stiffness. Bows arc beautiful when -they bend only because they try to remain rigid; and sword-blades -can curl like silver ribbons only because they are certain to spring -straight again. But the same is true of every tough curve of the -tree-trunk, of every strong-backed bend of the bough; there is hardly -any such thing in Nature as a mere droop of weakness. Rigidity yielding -a little, like justice swayed by mercy, is the whole beauty of the -earth. The cosmos is a diagram just bent beautifully out of shape. -Everything tries to be straight; and everything just fortunately fails. - -The foil may curve in the lunge, but there is nothing beautiful about -beginning the battle with a crooked foil. So the strict aim, the strong -doctrine, may give a little in the actual fight with facts: but that is -no reason for beginning with a weak doctrine or a twisted aim. Do not be -an opportunist; try to be theoretic at all the opportunities; fate can -be trusted to do all the opportunist part of it. Do not try to bend, -any more than the trees try to bend. Try to grow straight, and life will -bend you. - -Alas! I am giving the moral before the fable; and yet I hardly think -that otherwise you could see all that I mean in that enormous vision -of the ploughed hills. These great furrowed slopes are the oldest -architecture of man: the oldest astronomy was his guide, the oldest -botany his object. And for geometry, the mere word proves my case. - -But when I looked at those torrents of ploughed parallels, that great -rush of rigid lines, I seemed to see the whole huge achievement of -democracy, Here was mere equality: but equality seen in bulk is more -superb than any supremacy. Equality free and flying, equality rushing -over hill and dale, equality charging the world--that was the meaning -of those military furrows, military in their identity, military in their -energy. They sculptured hill and dale with strong curves merely because -they did not mean to curve at all. They made the strong lines of -landscape with their stiffly driven swords of the soil. It is not only -nonsense, but blasphemy, to say that man has spoilt the country. Man has -created the country; it was his business, as the image of God. No hill, -covered with common scrub or patches of purple heath, could have been so -sublimely hilly as that ridge up to which the ranked furrows rose like -aspiring angels. No valley, confused with needless cottages and -towns, can have been so utterly valleyish as that abyss into which the -down-rushing furrows raged like demons into the swirling pit. - -It is the hard lines of discipline and equality that mark out a -landscape and give it all its mould and meaning. It is just because the -lines of the furrow arc ugly and even that the landscape is living and -superb. As I think I have remarked elsewhere, the Republic is founded on -the plough. - - - - -The Philosophy of Sight-seeing - -It would be really interesting to know exactly why an intelligent -person--by which I mean a person with any sort of intelligence--can and -does dislike sight-seeing. Why does the idea of a char-a-banc full of -tourists going to see the birth-place of Nelson or the death-scene of -Simon de Montfort strike a strange chill to the soul? I can tell quite -easily what this dim aversion to tourists and their antiquities does not -arise from--at least, in my case. Whatever my other vices (and they are, -of course, of a lurid cast), I can lay my hand on my heart and say that -it does not arise from a paltry contempt for the antiquities, nor yet -from the still more paltry contempt for the tourists. If there is one -thing more dwarfish and pitiful than irreverence for the past, it -is irreverence for the present, for the passionate and many-coloured -procession of life, which includes the char-a-banc among its many -chariots and triumphal cars. I know nothing so vulgar as that contempt -for vulgarity which sneers at the clerks on a Bank Holiday or the -Cockneys on Margate sands. The man who notices nothing about the clerk -except his Cockney accent would have noticed nothing about Simon de -Montfort except his French accent. The man who jeers at Jones for having -dropped an "h" might have jeered at Nelson for having dropped an arm. -Scorn springs easily to the essentially vulgar-minded, and it is as easy -to gibe at Montfort as a foreigner or at Nelson as a cripple, as to gibe -at the struggling speech and the maimed bodies of the mass of our comic -and tragic race. If I shrink faintly from this affair of tourists and -tombs, it is certainly not because I am so profane as to think lightly -either of the tombs or the tourists. I reverence those great men who -had the courage to die; I reverence also these little men who have the -courage to live. - -Even if this be conceded, another suggestion may be made. It may be said -that antiquities and commonplace crowds are indeed good things, like -violets and geraniums; but they do not go together. A billycock is a -beautiful object (it may be eagerly urged), but it is not in the same -style of architecture as Ely Cathedral; it is a dome, a small rococo -dome in the Renaissance manner, and does not go with the pointed arches -that assault heaven like spears. A char-a-banc is lovely (it may be -said) if placed upon a pedestal and worshipped for its own sweet -sake; but it does not harmonize with the curve and outline of the old -three-decker on which Nelson died; its beauty is quite of another sort. -Therefore (we will suppose our sage to argue) antiquity and democracy -should be kept separate, as inconsistent things. Things may be -inconsistent in time and space which are by no means inconsistent in -essential value and idea. Thus the Catholic Church has water for the -new-born and oil for the dying: but she never mixes oil and water. - -This explanation is plausible; but I do not find it adequate. The first -objection is that the same smell of bathos haunts the soul in the -case of all deliberate and elaborate visits to "beauty spots," even -by persons of the most elegant position or the most protected privacy. -Specially visiting the Coliseum by moonlight always struck me as being -as vulgar as visiting it by limelight. One millionaire standing on the -top of Mont Blanc, one millionaire standing in the desert by the Sphinx, -one millionaire standing in the middle of Stonehenge, is just as comic -as one millionaire is anywhere else; and that is saying a good deal. On -the other hand, if the billycock had come privately and naturally into -Ely Cathedral, no enthusiast for Gothic harmony would think of objecting -to the billycock--so long, of course, as it was not worn on the head. -But there is indeed a much deeper objection to this theory of the two -incompatible excellences of antiquity and popularity. For the truth -is that it has been almost entirely the antiquities that have normally -interested the populace; and it has been almost entirely the populace -who have systematically preserved the antiquities. The Oldest Inhabitant -has always been a clodhopper; I have never heard of his being a -gentleman. It is the peasants who preserve all traditions of the sites -of battles or the building of churches. It is they who remember, so far -as any one remembers, the glimpses of fairies or the graver wonders of -saints. In the classes above them the supernatural has been slain by the -supercilious. That is a true and tremendous text in Scripture which says -that "where there is no vision the people perish." But it is equally -true in practice that where there is no people the visions perish. - -The idea must be abandoned, then, that this feeling of faint dislike -towards popular sight-seeing is due to any inherent incompatibility -between the idea of special shrines and trophies and the idea of large -masses of ordinary men. On the contrary, these two elements of sanctity -and democracy have been specially connected and allied throughout -history. The shrines and trophies were often put up by ordinary men. -They were always put up for ordinary men. To whatever things the -fastidious modern artist may choose to apply his theory of specialist -judgment, and an aristocracy of taste, he must necessarily find it -difficult really to apply it to such historic and monumental art. -Obviously, a public building is meant to impress the public. The most -aristocratic tomb is a democratic tomb, because it exists to be seen; -the only aristocratic thing is the decaying corpse, not the undecaying -marble; and if the man wanted to be thoroughly aristocratic, he should -be buried in his own back-garden. The chapel of the most narrow and -exclusive sect is universal outside, even if it is limited inside, its -walls and windows confront all points of the compass and all quarters of -the cosmos. It may be small as a dwelling-place, but it is universal -as a monument; if its sectarians had really wished to be private they -should have met in a private house. Whenever and wherever we erect a -national or municipal hall, pillar, or statue, we are speaking to the -crowd like a demagogue. - -The statue of every statesman offers itself for election as much as the -statesman himself. Every epitaph on a church slab is put up for the mob -as much as a placard in a General Election. And if we follow this track -of reflection we shall, I think, really find why it is that modern -sight-seeing jars on something in us, something that is not a caddish -contempt for graves nor an equally caddish contempt for cads. For, after -all, there is many a--churchyard which consists mostly of dead cads; but -that does not make it less sacred or less sad. - -The real explanation, I fancy, is this: that these cathedrals and -columns of triumph were meant, not for people more cultured and -self-conscious than modern tourists, but for people much rougher and -more casual. Those leaps of live stone like frozen fountains, were so -placed and poised as to catch the eye of ordinary inconsiderate men -going about their daily business; and when they are so seen they -are never forgotten. The true way of reviving the magic of our great -minsters and historic sepulchres is not the one which Ruskin was always -recommending. It is not to be more careful of historic buildings. Nay, -it is rather to be more careless of them. Buy a bicycle in Maidstone to -visit an aunt in Dover, and you will see Canterbury Cathedral as it was -built to be seen. Go through London only as the shortest way between -Croydon and Hampstead, and the Nelson Column will (for the first time in -your life) remind you of Nelson. You will appreciate Hereford Cathedral -if you have come for cider, not if you have come for architecture. You -will really see the Place Vendome if you have come on business, not -if you have come for art. For it was for the simple and laborious -generations of men, practical, troubled about many things, that our -fathers reared those portents. There is, indeed, another element, not -unimportant: the fact that people have gone to cathedrals to pray. But -in discussing modern artistic cathedral-lovers, we need not consider -this. - - - - -A Criminal Head - -When men of science (or, more often, men who talk about science) speak -of studying history or human society scientifically they always forget -that there are two quite distinct questions involved. It may be that -certain facts of the body go with certain facts of the soul, but it -by no means follows that a grasp of such facts of the body goes with -a grasp of the things of the soul. A man may show very learnedly that -certain mixtures of race make a happy community, but he may be quite -wrong (he generally is) about what communities are happy. A man may -explain scientifically how a certain physical type involves a really bad -man, but he may be quite wrong (he generally is) about which sort of man -is really bad. Thus his whole argument is useless, for he understands -only one half of the equation. - -The drearier kind of don may come to me and say, "Celts are -unsuccessful; look at Irishmen, for instance." To which I should reply, -"You may know all about Celts; but it is obvious that you know nothing -about Irishmen. The Irish are not in the least unsuccessful, unless it -is unsuccessful to wander from their own country over a great part of -the earth, in which case the English are unsuccessful too." A man with -a bumpy head may say to me (as a kind of New Year greeting), "Fools have -microcephalous skulls," or what not. To which I shall reply, "In order -to be certain of that, you must be a good judge both of the physical -and of the mental fact. It is not enough that you should know a -microcephalous skull when you see it. It is also necessary that you -should know a fool when you see him; and I have a suspicion that you -do not know a fool when you see him, even after the most lifelong and -intimate of all forms of acquaintanceship." - -The trouble with most sociologists, criminologists, etc., is that while -their knowledge of their own details is exhaustive and subtle, their -knowledge of man and society, to which these are to be applied, is quite -exceptionally superficial and silly. They know everything about biology, -but almost nothing about life. Their ideas of history, for instance, -are simply cheap and uneducated. Thus some famous and foolish professor -measured the skull of Charlotte Corday to ascertain the criminal type; -he had not historical knowledge enough to know that if there is any -"criminal type," certainly Charlotte Corday had not got it. The skull, I -believe, afterwards turned out not to be Charlotte Corday's at all; but -that is another story. The point is that the poor old man was trying to -match Charlotte Corday's mind with her skull without knowing anything -whatever about her mind. - -But I came yesterday upon a yet more crude and startling example. - -In a popular magazine there is one of the usual articles about -criminology; about whether wicked men could be made good if their heads -were taken to pieces. As by far the wickedest men I know of are much too -rich and powerful ever to submit to the process, the speculation leaves -me cold. I always notice with pain, however, a curious absence of the -portraits of living millionaires from such galleries of awful examples; -most of the portraits in which we are called upon to remark the line -of the nose or the curve of the forehead appear to be the portraits of -ordinary sad men, who stole because they were hungry or killed because -they were in a rage. The physical peculiarity seems to vary infinitely; -sometimes it is the remarkable square head, sometimes it is the -unmistakable round head; sometimes the learned draw attention to the -abnormal development, sometimes to the striking deficiency of the back -of the head. I have tried to discover what is the invariable factor, -the one permanent mark of the scientific criminal type; after exhaustive -classification I have to come to the conclusion that it consists in -being poor. - -But it was among the pictures in this article that I received the final -shock; the enlightenment which has left me in lasting possession of the -fact that criminologists are generally more ignorant than criminals. -Among the starved and bitter, but quite human, faces was one head, neat -but old-fashioned, with the powder of the 18th century and a certain -almost pert primness in the dress which marked the conventions of the -upper middle-class about 1790. The face was lean and lifted stiffly up, -the eyes stared forward with a frightful sincerity, the lip was firm -with a heroic firmness; all the more pathetic because of a certain -delicacy and deficiency of male force, Without knowing who it was, one -could have guessed that it was a man in the manner of Shakespeare's -Brutus, a man of piercingly pure intentions, prone to use government -as a mere machine for morality, very sensitive to the charge of -inconsistency and a little too proud of his own clean and honourable -life. I say I should have known this almost from the face alone, even if -I had not known who it was. - -But I did know who it was. It was Robespierre. And underneath the -portrait of this pale and too eager moralist were written these -remarkable words: "Deficiency of ethical instincts," followed by -something to the effect that he knew no mercy (which is certainly -untrue), and by some nonsense about a retreating forehead, a peculiarity -which he shared with Louis XVI and with half the people of his time and -ours. - -Then it was that I measured the staggering distance between the -knowledge and the ignorance of science. Then I knew that all criminology -might be worse than worthless, because of its utter ignorance of that -human material of which it is supposed to be speaking. The man who could -say that Robespierre was deficient in ethical instincts is a man utterly -to be disregarded in all calculations of ethics. He might as well say -that John Bunyan was deficient in ethical instincts. You may say that -Robespierre was morbid and unbalanced, and you may say the same of -Bunyan. But if these two men were morbid and unbalanced they were morbid -and unbalanced by feeling too much about morality, not by feeling too -little. You may say if you like that Robespierre was (in a negative sort -of way) mad. But if he was mad he was mad on ethics. He and a company of -keen and pugnacious men, intellectually impatient of unreason and -wrong, resolved that Europe should not be choked up in every channel -by oligarchies and state secrets that already stank. The work was the -greatest that was ever given to men to do except that which Christianity -did in dragging Europe out of the abyss of barbarism after the Dark -Ages. But they did it, and no one else could have done it. - -Certainly we could not do it. We are not ready to fight all Europe on a -point of justice. We are not ready to fling our most powerful class -as mere refuse to the foreigner; we are not ready to shatter the great -estates at a stroke; we are not ready to trust ourselves in an -awful moment of utter dissolution in order to make all things seem -intelligible and all men feel honourable henceforth. We are not strong -enough to be as strong as Danton. We are not strong enough to be as weak -as Robespierre. There is only one thing, it seems, that we can do. Like -a mob of children, we can play games upon this ancient battlefield; -we can pull up the bones and skulls of the tyrants and martyrs of -that unimaginable war; and we can chatter to each other childishly and -innocently about skulls that are imbecile and heads that are criminal. -I do not know whose heads are criminal, but I think I know whose are -imbecile. - - - - -The Wrath of the Roses - -The position of the rose among flowers is like that of the dog among -animals. It is so much that both are domesticated as that have some dim -feeling that they were always domesticated. There are wild roses and -there are wild dogs. I do not know the wild dogs; wild roses are very -nice. But nobody ever thinks of either of them if the name is abruptly -mentioned in a gossip or a poem. On the other hand, there are tame -tigers and tame cobras, but if one says, "I have a cobra in my pocket," -or "There is a tiger in the music-room," the adjective "tame" has to be -somewhat hastily added. If one speaks of beasts one thinks first of wild -beasts; if of flowers one thinks first of wild flowers. - -But there are two great exceptions; caught so completely into the -wheel of man's civilization, entangled so unalterably with his ancient -emotions and images, that the artificial product seems more natural -than the natural. The dog is not a part of natural history, but of -human history; and the real rose grows in a garden. All must regard the -elephant as something tremendous, but tamed; and many, especially in our -great cultured centres, regard every bull as presumably a mad bull. -In the same way we think of most garden trees and plants as fierce -creatures of the forest or morass taught at last to endure the curb. - -But with the dog and the rose this instinctive principle is reversed. -With them we think of the artificial as the archetype; the earth-born as -the erratic exception. We think vaguely of the wild dog as if he had run -away, like the stray cat. And we cannot help fancying that the wonderful -wild rose of our hedges has escaped by jumping over the hedge. Perhaps -they fled together, the dog and the rose: a singular and (on the whole) -an imprudent elopement. Perhaps the treacherous dog crept from the -kennel, and the rebellious rose from the flower-bed, and they fought -their way out in company, one with teeth and the other with thorns. -Possibly this is why my dog becomes a wild dog when he sees roses, and -kicks them anywhere. Possibly this is why the wild rose is called a -dog-rose. Possibly not. - -But there is this degree of dim barbaric truth in the quaint old-world -legend that I have just invented. That in these two cases the civilized -product is felt to be the fiercer, nay, even the wilder. Nobody seems to -be afraid of a wild dog: he is classed among the jackals and the servile -beasts. The terrible cave canem is written over man's creation. When we -read "Beware of the Dog," it means beware of the tame dog: for it is the -tame dog that is terrible. He is terrible in proportion as he is tame: -it is his loyalty and his virtues that are awful to the stranger, even -the stranger within your gates; still more to the stranger halfway over -your gates. He is alarmed at such deafening and furious docility; he -flees from that great monster of mildness. - -Well, I have much the same feeling when I look at the roses ranked red -and thick and resolute round a garden; they seem to me bold and even -blustering. I hasten to say that I know even less about my own garden -than about anybody else's garden. I know nothing about roses, not even -their names. I know only the name Rose; and Rose is (in every sense -of the word) a Christian name. It is Christian in the one absolute -and primordial sense of Christian--that it comes down from the age -of pagans. The rose can be seen, and even smelt, in Greek, Latin, -Provencal, Gothic, Renascence, and Puritan poems. Beyond this mere word -Rose, which (like wine and other noble words) is the same in all the -tongues of white men, I know literally nothing. I have heard the more -evident and advertised names. I know there is a flower which calls -itself the Glory of Dijon--which I had supposed to be its cathedral. In -any case, to have produced a rose and a cathedral is to have produced -not only two very glorious and humane things, but also (as I maintain) -two very soldierly and defiant things. I also know there is a rose -called Marechal Niel--note once more the military ring. - -And when I was walking round my garden the other day I spoke to my -gardener (an enterprise of no little valour) and asked him the name of -a strange dark rose that had somehow oddly taken my fancy. It was almost -as if it reminded me of some turbid element in history and the soul. Its -red was not only swarthy, but smoky; there was something congested and -wrathful about its colour. It was at once theatrical and sulky. The -gardener told me it was called Victor Hugo. - -Therefore it is that I feel all roses to have some secret power about -them; even their names may mean something in connexion with themselves, -in which they differ from nearly all the sons of men. But the rose -itself is royal and dangerous; long as it has remained in the rich house -of civilization, it has never laid off its armour. A rose always looks -like a mediaeval gentleman of Italy, with a cloak of crimson and a -sword: for the thorn is the sword of the rose. - -And there is this real moral in the matter; that we have to remember -that civilization as it goes on ought not perhaps to grow more -fighting--but ought to grow more ready to fight. The more valuable and -reposeful is the order we have to guard, the more vivid should be our -ultimate sense of vigilance and potential violence. And when I walk -round a summer garden, I can understand how those high mad lords at -the end of the Middle Ages, just before their swords clashed, caught at -roses for their instinctive emblems of empire and rivalry. For to me any -such garden is full of the wars of the roses. - - - - -The Gold of Glastonbury - -One silver morning I walked into a small grey town of stone, like twenty -other grey western towns, which happened to be called Glastonbury; and -saw the magic thorn of near two thousand years growing in the open air -as casually as any bush in my garden. - -In Glastonbury, as in all noble and humane things, the myth is more -important than the history. One cannot say anything stronger of the -strange old tale of St. Joseph and the Thorn than that it dwarfs St. -Dunstan. Standing among the actual stones and shrubs one thinks of the -first century and not of the tenth; one's mind goes back beyond the -Saxons and beyond the greatest statesman of the Dark Ages. The tale that -Joseph of Arimathea came to Britain is presumably a mere legend. But -it is not by any means so incredible or preposterous a legend as many -modern people suppose. The popular notion is that the thing is quite -comic and inconceivable; as if one said that Wat Tyler went to Chicago, -or that John Bunyan discovered the North Pole. We think of Palestine as -little, localized and very private, of Christ's followers as poor folk, -astricti globis, rooted to their towns or trades; and we think of vast -routes of travel and constant world-communications as things of recent -and scientific origin. But this is wrong; at least, the last part of it -is. It is part of that large and placid lie that the rationalists -tell when they say that Christianity arose in ignorance and barbarism. -Christianity arose in the thick of a brilliant and bustling cosmopolitan -civilization. Long sea-voyages were not so quick, but were quite as -incessant as to-day; and though in the nature of things Christ had not -many rich followers, it is not unnatural to suppose that He had some. -And a Joseph of Arimathea may easily have been a Roman citizen with a -yacht that could visit Britain. The same fallacy is employed with -the same partisan motive in the case of the Gospel of St. John; -which critics say could not have been written by one of the first few -Christians because of its Greek transcendentalism and its Platonic tone. -I am no judge of the philology, but every human being is a divinely -appointed judge of the philosophy: and the Platonic tone seems to me to -prove nothing at all. Palestine was not a secluded valley of barbarians; -it was an open province of a polyglot empire, overrun with all sorts of -people of all kinds of education. To take a rough parallel: suppose some -great prophet arose among the Boers in South Africa. The prophet himself -might be a simple or unlettered man. But no one who knows the modern -world would be surprised if one of his closest followers were a -Professor from Heidelberg or an M.A. from Oxford. - -All this is not urged here with any notion of proving that the tale of -the thorn is not a myth; as I have said, it probably is a myth. It is -urged with the much more important object of pointing out the proper -attitude towards such myths.. The proper attitude is one of doubt -and hope and of a kind of light mystery. The tale is certainly not -impossible; as it is certainly not certain. And through all the ages -since the Roman Empire men have fed their healthy fancies and their -historical imagination upon the very twilight condition of such tales. -But to-day real agnosticism has declined along with real theology. -People cannot leave a creed alone; though it is the essence of a creed -to be clear. But neither can they leave a legend alone; though it is -the essence of a legend to be vague. That sane half scepticism which was -found in all rustics, in all ghost tales and fairy tales, seems to be -a lost secret. Modern people must make scientifically certain that St. -Joseph did or did not go to Glastonbury, despite the fact that it is -now quite impossible to find out; and that it does not, in a religious -sense, very much matter. But it is essential to feel that he may have -gone to Glastonbury: all songs, arts, and dedications branching and -blossoming like the thorn, are rooted in some such sacred doubt. Taken -thus, not heavily like a problem but lightly like an old tale, the thing -does lead one along the road of very strange realities, and the thorn is -found growing in the heart of a very secret maze of the soul. Something -is really present in the place; some closer contact with the thing which -covers Europe but is still a secret. Somehow the grey town and the green -bush touch across the world the strange small country of the garden and -the grave; there is verily some communion between the thorn tree and the -crown of thorns. - -A man never knows what tiny thing will startle him to such ancestral and -impersonal tears. Piles of superb masonry will often pass like a common -panorama; and on this grey and silver morning the ruined towers of the -cathedral stood about me somewhat vaguely like grey clouds. But down in -a hollow where the local antiquaries are making a fruitful excavation, a -magnificent old ruffian with a pickaxe (whom I believe to have been St. -Joseph of Arimathea) showed me a fragment of the old vaulted roof which -he had found in the earth; and on the whitish grey stone there was just -a faint brush of gold. There seemed a piercing and swordlike pathos, an -unexpected fragrance of all forgotten or desecrated things, in the bare -survival of that poor little pigment upon the imperishable rock. To the -strong shapes of the Roman and the Gothic I had grown accustomed; but -that weak touch of colour was at once tawdry and tender, like some -popular keepsake. Then I knew that all my fathers were men like me; -for the columns and arches were grave, and told of the gravity of the -builders; but here was one touch of their gaiety. I almost expected it -to fade from the stone as I stared. It was as if men had been able to -preserve a fragment of a sunset. - -And then I remembered how the artistic critics have always praised the -grave tints and the grim shadows of the crumbling cloisters and abbey -towers, and how they themselves often dress up like Gothic ruins in the -sombre tones of dim grey walls or dark green ivy. I remembered how they -hated almost all primary things, but especially primary colours. I knew -they were appreciating much more delicately and truly than I the sublime -skeleton and the mighty fungoids of the dead Glastonbury. But I stood -for an instant alive in the living Glastonbury, gay with gold and -coloured like the toy-book of a child. - - - - -The Futurists - -It was a warm golden evening, fit for October, and I was watching (with -regret) a lot of little black pigs being turned out of my garden, when -the postman handed to me, with a perfunctory haste which doubtless -masked his emotion, the Declaration of Futurism. If you ask me what -Futurism is, I cannot tell you; even the Futurists themselves seem a -little doubtful; perhaps they are waiting for the future to find out. -But if you ask me what its Declaration is, I answer eagerly; for I -can tell you quite a lot about that. It is written by an Italian -named Marinetti, in a magazine which is called Poesia. It is headed -"Declaration of Futurism" in enormous letters; it is divided off with -little numbers; and it starts straight away like this: "1. We intend to -glorify the love of danger, the custom of energy, the strengt of daring. -2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity, and -revolt. 3. Literature having up to now glorified thoughtful immobility, -ecstasy, and slumber, we wish to exalt the aggressive movement, the -feverish insomnia, running, the perilous leap, the cuff and the blow." -While I am quite willing to exalt the cuff within reason, it scarcely -seems such an entirely new subject for literature as the Futurists -imagine. It seems to me that even through the slumber which fills the -Siege of Troy, the Song of Roland, and the Orlando Furioso, and in spite -of the thoughtful immobility which marks "Pantagruel," "Henry V," and -the Ballad of Chevy Chase, there are occasional gleams of an admiration -for courage, a readiness to glorify the love of danger, and even the -"strengt of daring," I seem to remember, slightly differently spelt, -somewhere in literature. - -The distinction, however, seems to be that the warriors of the past went -in for tournaments, which were at least dangerous for themselves, while -the Futurists go in for motor-cars, which are mainly alarming for -other people. It is the Futurist in his motor who does the "aggressive -movement," but it is the pedestrians who go in for the "running" and the -"perilous leap." Section No. 4 says, "We declare that the splendour of -the world has been enriched with a new form of beauty, the beauty of -speed. A race-automobile adorned with great pipes like serpents -with explosive breath.... A race-automobile which seems to rush over -exploding powder is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace." It -is also much easier, if you have the money. It is quite clear, however, -that you cannot be a Futurist at all unless you are frightfully rich. -Then follows this lucid and soul-stirring sentence: "5. We will sing -the praises of man holding the flywheel of which the ideal steering-post -traverses the earth impelled itself around the circuit of its own -orbit." What a jolly song it would be--so hearty, and with such a simple -swing in it! I can imagine the Futurists round the fire in a tavern -trolling out in chorus some ballad with that incomparable refrain; -shouting over their swaying flagons some such words as these: - - A notion came into my head as new as it was bright - That poems might be written on the subject of a fight; - No praise was given to Lancelot, Achilles, Nap or Corbett, - But we will sing the praises of man holding the flywheel of which the ideal -steering-post traverses the earth impelled itself around the circuit of -its own orbit. - -Then lest it should be supposed that Futurism would be so weak as to -permit any democratic restraints upon the violence and levity of the -luxurious classes, there would be a special verse in honour of the -motors also: - - My fathers scaled the mountains in their pilgrimages far, - But I feel full of energy while sitting in a car; - And petrol is the perfect wine, I lick it and absorb it, - So we will sing the praises of man holding the flywheel of which the ideal -steering-post traverses the earth impelled itself around the circuit of -its own orbit. - -Yes, it would be a rollicking catch. I wish there were space to finish -the song, or to detail all the other sections in the Declaration. -Suffice it to say that Futurism has a gratifying dislike both of -Liberal politics and Christian morals; I say gratifying because, however -unfortunately the cross and the cap of liberty have quarrelled, they are -always united in the feeble hatred of such silly megalomaniacs as these. -They will "glorify war--the only true hygiene of the world--militarism, -patriotism, the destructive gesture of Anarchism, the beautiful ideas -which kill, and the scorn of woman." They will "destroy museums, -libraries, and fight against moralism, feminism, and all utilitarian -cowardice." The proclamation ends with an extraordinary passage which I -cannot understand at all, all about something that is going to happen to -Mr. Marinetti when he is forty. As far as I can make out he will then be -killed by other poets, who will be overwhelmed with love and admiration -for him. "They will come against us from far away, from everywhere, -leaping on the cadence of their first poems, clawing the air with -crooked fingers and scenting at the Academy gates the good smell of our -decaying minds." Well, it is satisfactory to be told, however obscurely, -that this sort of thing is coming to an end some day, to be replaced by -some other tomfoolery. And though I commonly refrain from clawing the -air with crooked fingers, I can assure Mr. Marinetti that this omission -does not disqualify me, and that I scent the good smell of his decaying -mind all right. - -I think the only other point of Futurism is contained in this sentence: -"It is in Italy that we hurl this overthrowing and inflammatory -Declaration, with which to-day we found Futurism, for we will free Italy -from her numberless museums which cover her with countless cemeteries." -I think that rather sums it up. The best way, one would think, of -freeing oneself from a museum would be not to go there. Mr. Marinetti's -fathers and grandfathers freed Italy from prisons and torture chambers, -places where people were held by force. They, being in the bondage of -"moralism," attacked Governments as unjust, real Governments, with -real guns. Such was their utilitarian cowardice that they would die -in hundreds upon the bayonets of Austria. I can well imagine why Mr. -Marinetti in his motor-car does not wish to look back at the past. If -there was one thing that could make him look smaller even than before it -is that roll of dead men's drums and that dream of Garibaldi going by. -The old Radical ghosts go by, more real than the living men, to assault -I know not what ramparted city in hell. And meanwhile the Futurist -stands outside a museum in a warlike attitude, and defiantly tells the -official at the turnstile that he will never, never come in. - -There is a certain solid use in fools. It is not so much that they rush -in where angels fear to tread, but rather that they let out what devils -intend to do. Some perversion of folly will float about nameless -and pervade a whole society; then some lunatic gives it a name, and -henceforth it is harmless. With all really evil things, when the -danger has appeared the danger is over. Now it may be hoped that the -self-indulgent sprawlers of Poesia have put a name once and for all to -their philosophy. In the case of their philosophy, to put a name to it -is to put an end to it. Yet their philosophy has been very widespread in -our time; it could hardly have been pointed and finished except by this -perfect folly. The creed of which (please God) this is the flower -and finish consists ultimately in this statement: that it is bold -and spirited to appeal to the future. Now, it is entirely weak and -half-witted to appeal to the future. A brave man ought to ask for what -he wants, not for what he expects to get. A brave man who wants Atheism -in the future calls himself an Atheist; a brave man who wants Socialism, -a Socialist; a brave man who wants Catholicism, a Catholic. But a -weak-minded man who does not know what he wants in the future calls -himself a Futurist. - -They have driven all the pigs away. Oh that they had driven away the -prigs, and left the pigs! The sky begins to droop with darkness and all -birds and blossoms to descend unfaltering into the healthy underworld -where things slumber and grow. There was just one true phrase of Mr. -Marinetti's about himself: "the feverish insomnia." The whole universe -is pouring headlong to the happiness of the night. It is only the madman -who has not the courage to sleep. - - - - -Dukes - -The Duc de Chambertin-Pommard was a small but lively relic of a really -aristocratic family, the members of which were nearly all Atheists up to -the time of the French Revolution, but since that event (beneficial -in such various ways) had been very devout. He was a Royalist, a -Nationalist, and a perfectly sincere patriot in that particular style -which consists of ceaselessly asserting that one's country is not so -much in danger as already destroyed. He wrote cheery little articles for -the Royalist Press entitled "The End of France" or "The Last Cry," -or what not, and he gave the final touches to a picture of the Kaiser -riding across a pavement of prostrate Parisians with a glow of patriotic -exultation. He was quite poor, and even his relations had no money. He -walked briskly to all his meals at a little open cafe, and he looked -just like everybody else. - -Living in a country where aristocracy does not exist, he had a high -opinion of it. He would yearn for the swords and the stately manners of -the Pommards before the Revolution--most of whom had been (in theory) -Republicans. But he turned with a more practical eagerness to the one -country in Europe where the tricolour has never flown and men have never -been roughly equalized before the State. The beacon and comfort of -his life was England, which all Europe sees clearly as the one pure -aristocracy that remains. He had, moreover, a mild taste for sport and -kept an English bulldog, and he believed the English to be a race of -bulldogs, of heroic squires, and hearty yeomen vassals, because he read -all this in English Conservative papers, written by exhausted little -Levantine clerks. But his reading was naturally for the most part in the -French Conservative papers (though he knew English well), and it was in -these that he first heard of the horrible Budget. There he read of the -confiscatory revolution planned by the Lord Chancellor of the Exchequer, -the sinister Georges Lloyd. He also read how chivalrously Prince Arthur -Balfour of Burleigh had defied that demagogue, assisted by Austen the -Lord Chamberlain and the gay and witty Walter Lang. And being a brisk -partisan and a capable journalist, he decided to pay England a special -visit and report to his paper upon the struggle. - -He drove for an eternity in an open fly through beautiful woods, with a -letter of introduction in his pocket to one duke, who was to introduce -him to another duke. The endless and numberless avenues of bewildering -pine woods gave him a queer feeling that he was driving through the -countless corridors of a dream. Yet the vast silence and freshness -healed his irritation at modern ugliness and unrest. It seemed a -background fit for the return of chivalry. In such a forest a king and -all his court might lose themselves hunting or a knight errant might -perish with no companion but God. The castle itself when he reached it -was somewhat smaller than he had expected, but he was delighted with -its romantic and castellated outline. He was just about to alight when -somebody opened two enormous gates at the side and the vehicle drove -briskly through. - -"That is not the house?" he inquired politely of the driver. - -"No, sir," said the driver, controlling the corners of his mouth. "The -lodge, sir." - -"Indeed," said the Duc de Chambertin-Pommard, "that is where the Duke's -land begins?" - -"Oh no, sir," said the man, quite in distress. "We've been in his -Grace's land all day." - -The Frenchman thanked him and leant back in the carriage, feeling as if -everything were incredibly huge and vast, like Gulliver in the country -of the Brobdingnags. - -He got out in front of a long facade of a somewhat severe building, and -a little careless man in a shooting jacket and knickerbockers ran down -the steps. He had a weak, fair moustache and dull, blue, babyish eyes; -his features were insignificant, but his manner extremely pleasant -and hospitable, This was the Duke of Aylesbury, perhaps the largest -landowner in Europe, and known only as a horsebreeder until he began -to write abrupt little letters about the Budget. He led the French Duke -upstairs, talking trivialties in a hearty way, and there presented -him to another and more important English oligarch, who got up from a -writing-desk with a slightly senile jerk. He had a gleaming bald head -and glasses; the lower part of his face was masked with a short, -dark beard, which did not conceal a beaming smile, not unmixed with -sharpness. He stooped a little as he ran, like some sedentary head clerk -or cashier; and even without the cheque-book and papers on his desk -would have given the impression of a merchant or man of business. He was -dressed in a light grey check jacket. He was the Duke of Windsor, the -great Unionist statesman. Between these two loose, amiable men, the -little Gaul stood erect in his black frock coat, with the monstrous -gravity of French ceremonial good manners. This stiffness led the Duke -of Windsor to put him at his ease (like a tenant), and he said, rubbing -his hands: - -"I was delighted with your letter... delighted. I shall be very pleased -if I can give you--er--any details." - -"My visit," said the Frenchman, "scarcely suffices for the scientific -exhaustion of detail. I seek only the idea. The idea, that is always the -immediate thing." - -"Quite so," said the other rapidly; "quite so... the idea." - -Feeling somehow that it was his turn (the English Duke having done all -that could be required of him) Pommard had to say: "I mean the idea -of aristocracy. I regard this as the last great battle for the idea. -Aristocracy, like any other thing, must justify itself to mankind. -Aristocracy is good because it preserves a picture of human dignity in -a world where that dignity is often obscured by servile necessities. -Aristocracy alone can keep a certain high reticence of soul and body, a -certain noble distance between the sexes." - -The Duke of Aylesbury, who had a clouded recollection of having squirted -soda-water down the neck of a Countess on the previous evening, looked -somewhat gloomy, as if lamenting the theoretic spirit of the Latin race. -The elder Duke laughed heartily, and said: "Well, well, you know; we -English are horribly practical. With us the great question is the land. -Out here in the country ... do you know this part?" - -"Yes, yes," cried the Frenchmen eagerly. "I See what you mean. The -country! the old rustic life of humanity! A holy war upon the bloated -and filthy towns. What right have these anarchists to attack your -busy and prosperous countrysides? Have they not thriven under your -management? Are not the English villages always growing larger and gayer -under the enthusiastic leadership of their encouraging squires? Have you -not the Maypole? Have you not Merry England?" - -The Duke of Aylesbury made a noise in his throat, and then said very -indistinctly: "They all go to London." - -"All go to London?" repeated Pommard, with a blank stare. "Why?" - -This time nobody answered, and Pommard had to attack again. - -"The spirit of aristocracy is essentially opposed to the greed of the -industrial cities. Yet in France there are actually one or two nobles so -vile as to drive coal and gas trades, and drive them hard." The Duke of -Windsor looked at the carpet. The Duke of Aylesbury went and looked -out of the window. At length the latter said: "That's rather stiff, you -know. One has to look after one's own business in town as well." - -"Do not say it," cried the little Frenchman, starting up. "I tell you -all Europe is one fight between business and honour. If we do not fight -for honour, who will? What other right have we poor two-legged sinners -to titles and quartered shields except that we staggeringly support some -idea of giving things which cannot be demanded and avoiding things which -cannot be punished? Our only claim is to be a wall across Christendom -against the Jew pedlars and pawnbrokers, against the Goldsteins and -the--" - -The Duke of Aylesbury swung round with his hands in his pockets. - -"Oh, I say," he said, "you've been readin' Lloyd George. Nobody but -dirty Radicals can say a word against Goldstein." - -"I certainly cannot permit," said the elder Duke, rising rather shakily, -"the respected name of Lord Goldstein--" - -He intended to be impressive, but there was something in the Frenchman's -eye that is not so easily impressed; there shone there that steel which -is the mind of France. - -"Gentlemen," he said, "I think I have all the details now. You have -ruled England for four hundred years. By your own account you have not -made the countryside endurable to men. By your own account you have -helped the victory of vulgarity and smoke. And by your own account you -are hand and glove with those very money-grubbers and adventurers whom -gentlemen have no other business but to keep at bay. I do not know what -your people will do; but my people would kill you." - -Some seconds afterwards he had left the Duke's house, and some hours -afterwards the Duke's estate. - - - - -The Glory of Grey - -I suppose that, taking this summer as a whole, people will not call it -an appropriate time for praising the English climate. But for my part I -will praise the English climate till I die--even if I die of the English -climate. There is no weather so good as English weather. Nay, in a real -sense there is no weather at all anywhere but in England. In France you -have much sun and some rain; in Italy you have hot winds and cold winds; -in Scotland and Ireland you have rain, either thick or thin; in America -you have hells of heat and cold, and in the Tropics you have sunstrokes -varied by thunderbolts. But all these you have on a broad and brutal -scale, and you settle down into contentment or despair. Only in our own -romantic country do you have the strictly romantic thing called Weather; -beautiful and changing as a woman. The great English landscape painters -(neglected now like everything that is English) have this salient -distinction: that the Weather is not the atmosphere of their pictures; -it is the subject of their pictures. They paint portraits of the -Weather. The Weather sat to Constable. The Weather posed for Turner, and -a deuce of a pose it was. This cannot truly be said of the greatest of -their continental models or rivals. Poussin and Claude painted objects, -ancient cities or perfect Arcadian shepherds through a clear medium -of the climate. But in the English painters Weather is the hero; with -Turner an Adelphi hero, taunting, flashing and fighting, melodramatic -but really magnificent. The English climate, a tall and terrible -protagonist, robed in rain and thunder and snow and sunlight, fills the -whole canvas and the whole foreground. I admit the superiority of many -other French things besides French art. But I will not yield an inch on -the superiority of English weather and weather-painting. Why, the French -have not even got a word for Weather: and you must ask for the weather -in French as if you were asking for the time in English. - -Then, again, variety of climate should always go with stability of -abode. The weather in the desert is monotonous; and as a natural -consequence the Arabs wander about, hoping it may be different -somewhere. But an Englishman's house is not only his castle; it is -his fairy castle. Clouds and colours of every varied dawn and eve are -perpetually touching and turning it from clay to gold, or from gold to -ivory. There is a line of woodland beyond a corner of my garden which -is literally different on every one of the three hundred and sixty-five -days. Sometimes it seems as near as a hedge, and sometimes as far as a -faint and fiery evening cloud. The same principle (by the way) applies -to the difficult problem of wives. Variability is one of the virtues -of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you -have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem. - -Now, among the heresies that are spoken in this matter is the habit of -calling a grey day a "colourless" day. Grey is a colour, and can be a -very powerful and pleasing colour. There is also an insulting style of -speech about "one grey day just like another" You might as well talk -about one green tree just like another. A grey clouded sky is indeed a -canopy between us and the sun; so is a green tree, if it comes to that. -But the grey umbrellas differ as much as the green in their style and -shape, in their tint and tilt. One day may be grey like steel, and -another grey like dove's plumage. One may seem grey like the deathly -frost, and another grey like the smoke of substantial kitchens. No -things could seem further apart than the doubt of grey and the decision -of scarlet. Yet grey and red can mingle, as they do in the morning -clouds: and also in a sort of warm smoky stone of which they build the -little towns in the west country. In those towns even the houses that -are wholly grey have a glow in them; as if their secret firesides were -such furnaces of hospitality as faintly to transfuse the walls like -walls of cloud. And wandering in those westland parts I did once really -find a sign-post pointing up a steep crooked path to a town that was -called Clouds. I did not climb up to it; I feared that either the town -would not be good enough for the name, or I should not be good enough -for the town. Anyhow, the little hamlets of the warm grey stone have -a geniality which is not achieved by all the artistic scarlet of the -suburbs; as if it were better to warm one's hands at the ashes of -Glastonbury than at the painted flames of Croydon. - -Again, the enemies of grey (those astute, daring and evil-minded men) -are fond of bringing forward the argument that colours suffer in grey -weather, and that strong sunlight is necessary to all the hues of -heaven and earth. Here again there are two words to be said; and it is -essential to distinguish. It is true that sun is needed to burnish and -bring into bloom the tertiary and dubious colours; the colour of peat, -pea-soup, Impressionist sketches, brown velvet coats, olives, grey and -blue slates, the complexions of vegetarians, the tints of volcanic rock, -chocolate, cocoa, mud, soot, slime, old boots; the delicate shades of -these do need the sunlight to bring out the faint beauty that often -clings to them. But if you have a healthy negro taste in colour, if you -choke your garden with poppies and geraniums, if you paint your house -sky-blue and scarlet, if you wear, let us say, a golden top-hat and a -crimson frock-coat, you will not only be visible on the greyest day, -but you will notice that your costume and environment produce a certain -singular effect. You will find, I mean, that rich colours actually look -more luminous on a grey day, because they are seen against a sombre -background and seem to be burning with a lustre of their own. Against -a dark sky all flowers look like fireworks. There is something strange -about them, at once vivid and secret, like flowers traced in fire in the -phantasmal garden of a witch. A bright blue sky is necessarily the -high light of the picture; and its brightness kills all the bright blue -flowers. But on a grey day the larkspur looks like fallen heaven; the -red daisies are really the red lost eyes of day; and the sunflower is -the vice-regent of the sun. - -Lastly, there is this value about the colour that men call colourless; -that it suggests in some way the mixed and troubled average of -existence, especially in its quality of strife and expectation and -promise. Grey is a colour that always seems on the eve of changing to -some other colour; of brightening into blue or blanching into white or -bursting into green and gold. So we may be perpetually reminded of the -indefinite hope that is in doubt itself; and when there is grey weather -in our hills or grey hairs in our heads, perhaps they may still remind -us of the morning. - - - - -The Anarchist - -I have now lived for about two months in the country, and have gathered -the last rich autumnal fruit of a rural life, which is a strong desire -to see London. Artists living in my neighbourhood talk rapturously of -the rolling liberty of the landscape, the living peace of woods. But -I say to them (with a slight Buckinghamshire accent), "Ah, that is how -Cockneys feel. For us real old country people the country is reality; it -is the town that is romance. Nature is as plain as one of her pigs, -as commonplace, as comic, and as healthy. But civilization is full of -poetry, even if it be sometimes an evil poetry. The streets of London -are paved with gold; that is, with the very poetry of avarice." With -these typically bucolic words I touch my hat and go ambling away on a -stick, with a stiffness of gait proper to the Oldest Inhabitant; while -in my more animated moments I am taken for the Village Idiot. Exchanging -heavy but courteous salutations with other gaffers, I reach the station, -where I ask for a ticket for London where the king lives. Such a -journey, mingled of provincial fascination and fear, did I successfully -perform only a few days ago; and alone and helpless in the capital, -found myself in the tangle of roads around the Marble Arch. - -A faint prejudice may possess the mind that I have slightly exaggerated -my rusticity and remoteness. And yet it is true as I came to that corner -of the Park that, for some unreasonable reason of mood, I saw all London -as a strange city and the civilization itself as one enormous whim. The -Marble Arch itself, in its new insular position, with traffic turning -dizzily all about it, struck me as a placid monstrosity. What could be -wilder than to have a huge arched gateway, with people going everywhere -except under it? If I took down my front door and stood it up all by -itself in the middle of my back garden, my village neighbours (in their -simplicity) would probably stare. Yet the Marble Arch is now precisely -that; an elaborate entrance and the only place by which no one can -enter. By the new arrangement its last weak pretence to be a gate has -been taken away. The cabman still cannot drive through it, but he can -have the delights of riding round it, and even (on foggy nights) the -rapture of running into it. It has been raised from the rank of a -fiction to the dignity of an obstacle. - -As I began to walk across a corner of the Park, this sense of what is -strange in cities began to mingle with some sense of what is stern as -well as strange. It was one of those queer-coloured winter days when a -watery sky changes to pink and grey and green, like an enormous opal. -The trees stood up grey and angular, as if in attitudes of agony; and -here and there on benches under the trees sat men as grey and angular -as they. It was cold even for me, who had eaten a large breakfast and -purposed to eat a perfectly Gargantuan lunch; it was colder for the men -under the trees. And to eastward through the opalescent haze, the warmer -whites and yellows of the houses in Park-lane shone as unsubstantially -as if the clouds themselves had taken on the shape of mansions to mock -the men who sat there in the cold. But the mansions were real--like the -mockery. - -No one worth calling a man allows his moods to change his convictions; -but it is by moods that we understand other men's convictions. The bigot -is not he who knows he is right; every sane man knows he is right. The -bigot is he whose emotions and imagination are too cold and weak to feel -how it is that other men go wrong. At that moment I felt vividly how men -might go wrong, even unto dynamite. If one of those huddled men under -the trees had stood up and asked for rivers of blood, it would have been -erroneous--but not irrelevant. It would have been appropriate and in the -picture; that lurid grey picture of insolence on one side and impotence -on the other. It may be true (on the whole it is) that this social -machine we have made is better than anarchy. Still, it is a machine; and -we have made it. It does hold those poor men helpless: and it does lift -those rich men high... and such men--good Lord! By the time I flung -myself on a bench beside another man I was half inclined to try anarchy -for a change. - -The other was of more prosperous appearance than most of the men on such -seats; still, he was not what one calls a gentleman, and had probably -worked at some time like a human being. He was a small, sharp-faced man, -with grave, staring eyes, and a beard somewhat foreign. His clothes -were black; respectable and yet casual; those of a man who dressed -conventionally because it was a bore to dress unconventionally--as it -is. Attracted by this and other things, and wanting an outburst for my -bitter social feelings, I tempted him into speech, first about the -cold, and then about the General Election. To this the respectable man -replied: - -"Well, I don't belong to any party myself. I'm an Anarchist." - -I looked up and almost expected fire from heaven. This coincidence was -like the end of the world. I had sat down feeling that somehow or other -Park-lane must be pulled down; and I had sat down beside the man who -wanted to pull it down. I bowed in silence for an instant under the -approaching apocalypse; and in that instant the man turned sharply and -started talking like a torrent. - -"Understand me," he said. "Ordinary people think an Anarchist means a -man with a bomb in his pocket. Herbert Spencer was an Anarchist. But -for that fatal admission of his on page 793, he would be a complete -Anarchist. Otherwise, he agrees wholly with Pidge." - -This was uttered with such blinding rapidity of syllabification as to -be a better test of teetotalism than the Scotch one of saying "Biblical -criticism" six times. I attempted to speak, but he began again with the -same rippling rapidity. - -"You will say that Pidge also admits government in that tenth chapter -so easily misunderstood. Bolger has attacked Pidge on those lines. But -Bolger has no scientific training. Bolger is a psychometrist, but no -sociologist. To any one who has combined a study of Pidge with the -earlier and better discoveries of Kruxy, the fallacy is quite clear. -Bolger confounds social coercion with coercional social action." - -His rapid rattling mouth shut quite tight suddenly, and he looked -steadily and triumphantly at me, with his head on one side. I opened my -mouth, and the mere motion seemed to sting him to fresh verbal leaps. - -"Yes," he said, "that's all very well. The Finland Group has accepted -Bolger. But," he said, suddenly lifting a long finger as if to stop me, -"but--Pidge has replied. His pamphlet is published. He has proved that -Potential Social Rebuke is not a weapon of the true Anarchist. He has -shown that just as religious authority and political authority have -gone, so must emotional authority and psychological authority. He has -shown--" - -I stood up in a sort of daze. "I think you remarked," I said -feebly, "that the mere common populace do not quite understand -Anarchism"--"Quite so," he said with burning swiftness; "as I said, they -think any Anarchist is a man with a bomb, whereas--" - -"But great heavens, man!" I said; "it's the man with the bomb that -I understand! I wish you had half his sense. What do I care how many -German dons tie themselves in knots about how this society began? My -only interest is about how soon it will end. Do you see those fat white -houses over in Park-lane, where your masters live?" - -He assented and muttered something about concentrations of capital. - -"Well," I said, "if the time ever comes when we all storm those -houses, will you tell me one thing? Tell me how we shall do it -without authority? Tell me how you will have an army of revolt without -discipline?" - -For the first instant he was doubtful; and I had bidden him farewell, -and crossed the street again, when I saw him open his mouth and begin to -run after me. He had remembered something out of Pidge. - -I escaped, however, and as I leapt on an omnibus I saw again the -enormous emblem of the Marble Arch. I saw that massive symbol of the -modern mind: a door with no house to it; the gigantic gate of Nowhere. - - - - -How I found the Superman - -Readers of Mr. Bernard Shaw and other modern writers may be interested -to know that the Superman has been found. I found him; he lives in -South Croydon. My success will be a great blow to Mr. Shaw, who has been -following quite a false scent, and is now looking for the creature in -Blackpool; and as for Mr. Wells's notion of generating him out of gases -in a private laboratory, I always thought it doomed to failure. I assure -Mr. Wells that the Superman at Croydon was born in the ordinary way, -though he himself, of course, is anything but ordinary. - -Nor are his parents unworthy of the wonderful being whom they have given -to the world. The name of Lady Hypatia Smythe-Browne (now Lady Hypatia -Hagg) will never be forgotten in the East End, where she did such -splendid social work. Her constant cry of "Save the children!" referred -to the cruel neglect of children's eyesight involved in allowing them -to play with crudely painted toys. She quoted unanswerable statistics -to prove that children allowed to look at violet and vermilion often -suffered from failing eyesight in their extreme old age; and it -was owing to her ceaseless crusade that the pestilence of the -Monkey-on-the-Stick was almost swept from Hoxton. The devoted worker -would tramp the streets untiringly, taking away the toys from all the -poor children, who were often moved to tears by her kindness. Her -good work was interrupted, partly by a new interest in the creed -of Zoroaster, and partly by a savage blow from an umbrella. It was -inflicted by a dissolute Irish apple-woman, who, on returning from some -orgy to her ill-kept apartment, found Lady Hypatia in the bedroom taking -down an oleograph, which, to say the least of it, could not really -elevate the mind. At this the ignorant and partly intoxicated Celt dealt -the social reformer a severe blow, adding to it an absurd accusation of -theft. The lady's exquisitely balanced mind received a shock, and it was -during a short mental illness that she married Dr. Hagg. - -Of Dr. Hagg himself I hope there is no need to speak. Any one even -slightly acquainted with those daring experiments in Neo-Individualist -Eugenics, which are now the one absorbing interest of the English -democracy, must know his name and often commend it to the personal -protection of an impersonal power. Early in life he brought to bear that -ruthless insight into the history of religions which he had gained in -boyhood as an electrical engineer. Later he became one of our greatest -geologists; and achieved that bold and bright outlook upon the future of -Socialism which only geology can give. At first there seemed something -like a rift, a faint, but perceptible, fissure, between his views and -those of his aristocratic wife. For she was in favour (to use her own -powerful epigram) of protecting the poor against themselves; while he -declared pitilessly, in a new and striking metaphor, that the weakest -must go to the wall. Eventually, however, the married pair perceived -an essential union in the unmistakably modern character of both their -views, and in this enlightening and intelligible formula their souls -found peace. The result is that this union of the two highest types of -our civilization, the fashionable lady and the all but vulgar medical -man, has been blessed by the birth of the Superman, that being whom all -the labourers in Battersea are so eagerly expecting night and day. - -I found the house of Dr. and Lady Hypatia Hagg without much difficulty; -it is situated in one of the last straggling streets of Croydon, -and overlooked by a line of poplars. I reached the door towards the -twilight, and it was natural that I should fancifully see something dark -and monstrous in the dim bulk of that house which contained the creature -who was more marvellous than the children of men. When I entered the -house I was received with exquisite courtesy by Lady Hypatia and her -husband; but I found much greater difficulty in actually seeing the -Superman, who is now about fifteen years old, and is kept by himself in -a quiet room. Even my conversation with the father and mother did not -quite clear up the character of this mysterious being. Lady Hypatia, -who has a pale and poignant face, and is clad in those impalpable and -pathetic greys and greens with which she has brightened so many homes in -Hoxton, did not appear to talk of her offspring with any of the vulgar -vanity of an ordinary human mother. I took a bold step and asked if the -Superman was nice looking. - -"He creates his own standard, you see," she replied, with a slight sigh. -"Upon that plane he is more than Apollo. Seen from our lower plane, of -course--" And she sighed again. - -I had a horrible impulse, and said suddenly, "Has he got any hair?" - -There was a long and painful silence, and then Dr. Hagg said smoothly: -"Everything upon that plane is different; what he has got is not... -well, not, of course, what we call hair... but--" - -"Don't you think," said his wife, very softly, "don't you think that -really, for the sake of argument, when talking to the mere public, one -might call it hair?" - -"Perhaps you are right," said the doctor after a few moments' -reflection. "In connexion with hair like that one must speak in -parables." - -"Well, what on earth is it," I asked in some irritation, "if it isn't -hair? Is it feathers?" - -"Not feathers, as we understand feathers," answered Hagg in an awful -voice. - -I got up in some irritation. "Can I see him, at any rate?" I asked. -"I am a journalist, and have no earthly motives except curiosity and -personal vanity. I should like to say that I had shaken hands with the -Superman." - -The husband and wife had both got heavily to their feet, and stood, -embarrassed. "Well, of course, you know," said Lady Hypatia, with the -really charming smile of the aristocratic hostess. "You know he can't -exactly shake hands... not hands, you know.... The structure, of -course--" - -I broke out of all social bounds, and rushed at the door of the room -which I thought to contain the incredible creature. I burst it open; the -room was pitch dark. But from in front of me came a small sad yelp, and -from behind me a double shriek. - -"You have done it, now!" cried Dr. Hagg, burying his bald brow in his -hands. "You have let in a draught on him; and he is dead." - -As I walked away from Croydon that night I saw men in black carrying -out a coffin that was not of any human shape. The wind wailed above me, -whirling the poplars, so that they drooped and nodded like the plumes of -some cosmic funeral. "It is, indeed," said Dr. Hagg, "the whole universe -weeping over the frustration of its most magnificent birth." But I -thought that there was a hoot of laughter in the high wail of the wind. - - - - -The New House - -Within a stone's throw of my house they are building another house. I am -glad they are building it, and I am glad it is within a stone's throw; -quite well within it, with a good catapult. Nevertheless, I have not -yet cast the first stone at the new house--not being, strictly speaking, -guiltless myself in the matter of new houses. And, indeed, in such -cases there is a strong protest to be made. The whole curse of the last -century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is the -idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a -shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity -of mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is -dead that he swings. But whenever one meets modern thinkers (as one -often does) progressing towards a madhouse, one always finds, on -inquiry, that they have just had a splendid escape from another -madhouse. Thus, hundreds of people become Socialists, not because they -have tried Socialism and found it nice, but because they have tried -Individualism and found it particularly nasty. Thus, many embrace -Christian Science solely because they are quite sick of heathen science; -they are so tired of believing that everything is matter that they will -even take refuge in the revolting fable that everything is mind. Man -ought to march somewhere. But modern man (in his sick reaction) is ready -to march nowhere--so long as it is the Other End of Nowhere. - -The case of building houses is a strong instance of this. Early in -the nineteenth century our civilization chose to abandon the Greek and -medieval idea of a town, with walls, limited and defined, with a temple -for faith and a market-place for politics; and it chose to let the city -grow like a jungle with blind cruelty and bestial unconsciousness; so -that London and Liverpool are the great cities we now see. Well, people -have reacted against that; they have grown tired of living in a city -which is as dark and barbaric as a forest only not as beautiful, and -there has been an exodus into the country of those who could afford it, -and some I could name who can't. Now, as soon as this quite rational -recoil occurred, it flew at once to the opposite extreme. People went -about with beaming faces, boasting that they were twenty-three miles -from a station. Rubbing their hands, they exclaimed in rollicking -asides that their butcher only called once a month, and that their baker -started out with fresh hot loaves which were quite stale before they -reached the table. A man would praise his little house in a quiet -valley, but gloomily admit (with a slight shake of the head) that a -human habitation on the distant horizon was faintly discernible on -a clear day. Rival ruralists would quarrel about which had the most -completely inconvenient postal service; and there were many jealous -heartburnings if one friend found out any uncomfortable situation which -the other friend had thoughtlessly overlooked. - -In the feverish summer of this fanaticism there arose the phrase that -this or that part of England is being "built over." Now, there is not -the slightest objection, in itself, to England being built over by men, -any more than there is to its being (as it is already) built over by -birds, or by squirrels, or by spiders. But if birds' nests were so thick -on a tree that one could see nothing but nests and no leaves at all, -I should say that bird civilization was becoming a bit decadent. If -whenever I tried to walk down the road I found the whole thoroughfare -one crawling carpet of spiders, closely interlocked, I should feel -a distress verging on distaste. If one were at every turn crowded, -elbowed, overlooked, overcharged, sweated, rack-rented, swindled, -and sold up by avaricious and arrogant squirrels, one might at last -remonstrate. But the great towns have grown intolerable solely because -of such suffocating vulgarities and tyrannies. It is not humanity that -disgusts us in the huge cities; it is inhumanity. It is not that there -are human beings; but that they are not treated as such. We do not, I -hope, dislike men and women; we only dislike their being made into a -sort of jam: crushed together so that they are not merely powerless but -shapeless. It is not the presence of people that makes London appalling. -It is merely the absence of The People. - -Therefore, I dance with joy to think that my part of England is being -built over, so long as it is being built over in a human way at human -intervals and in a human proportion. So long, in short, as I am not -myself built over, like a pagan slave buried in the foundations of a -temple, or an American clerk in a star-striking pagoda of flats, I am -delighted to see the faces and the homes of a race of bipeds, to which -I am not only attracted by a strange affection, but to which also (by a -touching coincidence) I actually happen to belong. I am not one desiring -deserts. I am not Timon of Athens; if my town were Athens I would stay -in it. I am not Simeon Stylites; except in the mournful sense that every -Saturday I find myself on the top of a newspaper column. I am not in -the desert repenting of some monstrous sins; at least, I am repenting of -them all right, but not in the desert. I do not want the nearest human -house to be too distant to see; that is my objection to the wilderness. -But neither do I want the nearest human house to be too close to see; -that is my objection to the modern city. I love my fellow-man; I do not -want him so far off that I can only observe anything of him through a -telescope, nor do I want him so close that I can examine parts of him -with a microscope. I want him within a stone's throw of me; so that -whenever it is really necessary, I may throw the stone. - -Perhaps, after all, it may not be a stone. Perhaps, after all, it may be -a bouquet, or a snowball, or a firework, or a Free Trade Loaf; perhaps -they will ask for a stone and I shall give them bread. But it is -essential that they should be within reach: how can I love my neighbour -as myself if he gets out of range for snowballs? There should be no -institution out of the reach of an indignant or admiring humanity. I -could hit the nearest house quite well with the catapult; but the -truth is that the catapult belongs to a little boy I know, and, with -characteristic youthful 'selfishness, he has taken it away. - - - - -The Wings of Stone - -The preceding essay is about a half-built house upon my private horizon; -I wrote it sitting in a garden-chair; and as, though it was a week -ago, I have scarcely moved since then (to speak of), I do not see why -I should not go on writing about it. Strictly speaking, I have moved; I -have even walked across a field--a field of turf all fiery in our early -summer sunlight--and studied the early angular red skeleton which has -turned golden in the sun. It is odd that the skeleton of a house is -cheerful when the skeleton of a man is mournful, since we only see it -after the man is destroyed. At least, we think the skeleton is mournful; -the skeleton himself does not seem to think so. Anyhow, there is -something strangely primary and poetic about this sight of the -scaffolding and main lines of a human building; it is a pity there is -no scaffolding round a human baby. One seems to see domestic life as -the daring and ambitious thing that it is, when one looks at those open -staircases and empty chambers, those spirals of wind and open halls of -sky. Ibsen said that the art of domestic drama was merely to knock one -wall out of the four walls of a drawing-room. I find the drawing-room -even more impressive when all four walls are knocked out. - -I have never understood what people mean by domesticity being tame; it -seems to me one of the wildest of adventures. But if you wish to see -how high and harsh and fantastic an adventure it is, consider only the -actual structure of a house itself. A man may march up in a rather bored -way to bed; but at least he is mounting to a height from which he could -kill himself. Every rich, silent, padded staircase, with banisters of -oak, stair-rods of brass, and busts and settees on every landing, every -such staircase is truly only an awful and naked ladder running up into -the Infinite to a deadly height. The millionaire who stumps up inside -the house is really doing the same thing as the tiler or roof-mender who -climbs up outside the house; they are both mounting up into the void. -They are both making an escalade of the intense inane. Each is a sort -of domestic mountaineer; he is reaching a point from which mere idle -falling will kill a man; and life is always worth living while men feel -that they may die. - -I cannot understand people at present making such a fuss about flying -ships and aviation, when men ever since Stonehenge and the Pyramids -have done something so much more wild than flying. A grasshopper can go -astonishingly high up in the air, his biological limitation and weakness -is that he cannot stop there. Hosts of unclean birds and crapulous -insects can pass through the sky, but they cannot pass any communication -between it and the earth. But the army of man has advanced vertically -into infinity, and not been cut off. It can establish outposts in the -ether, and yet keep open behind it its erect and insolent road. It would -be grand (as in Jules Verne) to fire a cannon-ball at the moon; but -would it not be grander to build a railway to the moon? Yet every -building of brick or wood is a hint of that high railroad; every chimney -points to some star, and every tower is a Tower of Babel. Man rising on -these awful and unbroken wings of stone seems to me more majestic and -more mystic than man fluttering for an instant on wings of canvas and -sticks of steel. How sublime and, indeed, almost dizzy is the thought of -these veiled ladders on which we all live, like climbing monkeys! Many a -black-coated clerk in a flat may comfort himself for his sombre garb by -reflecting that he is like some lonely rook in an immemorial elm. Many -a wealthy bachelor on the top floor of a pile of mansions should look -forth at morning and try (if possible) to feel like an eagle whose -nest just clings to the edge of some awful cliff. How sad that the -word "giddy" is used to imply wantonness or levity! It should be a high -compliment to a man's exalted spirituality and the imagination to say he -is a little giddy. - -I strolled slowly back across the stretch of turf by the sunset, a field -of the cloth of gold. As I drew near my own house, its huge size began -to horrify me; and when I came to the porch of it I discovered with an -incredulity as strong as despair that my house was actually bigger than -myself. A minute or two before there might well have seemed to be a -monstrous and mythical competition about which of the two should swallow -the other. But I was Jonah; my house was the huge and hungry fish; and -even as its jaws darkened and closed about me I had again this dreadful -fancy touching the dizzy altitude of all the works of man. I climbed the -stairs stubbornly, planting each foot with savage care, as if ascending -a glacier. When I got to a landing I was wildly relieved, and waved my -hat. The very word "landing" has about it the wild sound of some one -washed up by the sea. I climbed each flight like a ladder in naked sky. -The walls all round me failed and faded into infinity; I went up the -ladder to my bedroom as Montrose went up the ladder to the gallows; sic -itur ad astro. Do you think this is a little fantastic--even a little -fearful and nervous? Believe me, it is only one of the wild and -wonderful things that one can learn by stopping at home. - - - - -The Three Kinds of Men - -Roughly speaking, there are three kinds of people in this world. The -first kind of people are People; they are the largest and probably the -most valuable class. We owe to this class the chairs we sit down on, -the clothes we wear, the houses we live in; and, indeed (when we come -to think of it), we probably belong to this class ourselves. The second -class may be called for convenience the Poets; they are often a nuisance -to their families, but, generally speaking, a blessing to mankind. -The third class is that of the Professors or Intellectuals; sometimes -described as the thoughtful people; and these are a blight and a -desolation both to their families and also to mankind. Of course, the -classification sometimes overlaps, like all classification. Some good -people are almost poets and some bad poets are almost professors. But -the division follows lines of real psychological cleavage. I do not -offer it lightly. It has been the fruit of more than eighteen minutes of -earnest reflection and research. - -The class called People (to which you and I, with no little pride, -attach ourselves) has certain casual, yet profound, assumptions, which -are called "commonplaces," as that children are charming, or that -twilight is sad and sentimental, or that one man fighting three is a -fine sight. Now, these feelings are not crude; they are not even simple. -The charm of children is very subtle; it is even complex, to the extent -of being almost contradictory. It is, at its very plainest, mingled of -a regard for hilarity and a regard for helplessness. The sentiment of -twilight, in the vulgarest drawing-room song or the coarsest pair of -sweethearts, is, so far as it goes, a subtle sentiment. It is strangely -balanced between pain and pleasure; it might also be called pleasure -tempting pain. The plunge of impatient chivalry by which we all admire a -man fighting odds is not at all easy to define separately, it means -many things, pity, dramatic surprise, a desire for justice, a delight in -experiment and the indeterminate. The ideas of the mob are really very -subtle ideas; but the mob does not express them subtly. In fact, it does -not express them at all, except on those occasions (now only too rare) -when it indulges in insurrection and massacre. - -Now, this accounts for the otherwise unreasonable fact of the existence -of Poets. Poets are those who share these popular sentiments, but can so -express them that they prove themselves the strange and delicate things -that they really are. Poets draw out the shy refinement of the rabble. -Where the common man covers the queerest emotions by saying, "Rum -little kid," Victor Hugo will write "L'art d'etre grand-pere"; where the -stockbroker will only say abruptly, "Evenings closing in now," Mr. -Yeats will write "Into the twilight"; where the navvy can only mutter -something about pluck and being "precious game," Homer will show you the -hero in rags in his own hall defying the princes at their banquet. The -Poets carry the popular sentiments to a keener and more splendid pitch; -but let it always be remembered that it is the popular sentiments -that they are carrying. No man ever wrote any good poetry to show that -childhood was shocking, or that twilight was gay and farcical, or that a -man was contemptible because he had crossed his single sword with three. -The people who maintain this are the Professors, or Prigs. - -The Poets are those who rise above the people by understanding them. Of -course, most of the Poets wrote in prose--Rabelais, for instance, and -Dickens. The Prigs rise above the people by refusing to understand them: -by saying that all their dim, strange preferences are prejudices and -superstitions. The Prigs make the people feel stupid; the Poets make the -people feel wiser than they could have imagined that they were. There -are many weird elements in this situation. The oddest of all perhaps is -the fate of the two factors in practical politics. The Poets who embrace -and admire the people are often pelted with stones and crucified. The -Prigs who despise the people are often loaded with lands and crowned. In -the House of Commons, for instance, there are quite a number of prigs, -but comparatively few poets. There are no People there at all. - -By poets, as I have said, I do not mean people who write poetry, or -indeed people who write anything. I mean such people as, having culture -and imagination, use them to understand and share the feelings of their -fellows; as against those who use them to rise to what they call a -higher plane. Crudely, the poet differs from the mob by his sensibility; -the professor differs from the mob by his insensibility. He has not -sufficient finesse and sensitiveness to sympathize with the mob. -His only notion is coarsely to contradict it, to cut across it, in -accordance with some egotistical plan of his own; to tell himself that, -whatever the ignorant say, they are probably wrong. He forgets that -ignorance often has the exquisite intuitions of innocence. - -Let me take one example which may mark out the outline of the -contention. Open the nearest comic paper and let your eye rest lovingly -upon a joke about a mother-in-law. Now, the joke, as presented for the -populace, will probably be a simple joke; the old lady will be tall and -stout, the hen-pecked husband will be small and cowering. But for all -that, a mother-in-law is not a simple idea. She is a very subtle idea. -The problem is not that she is big and arrogant; she is frequently -little and quite extraordinarily nice. The problem of the mother-in-law -is that she is like the twilight: half one thing and half another. Now, -this twilight truth, this fine and even tender embarrassment, might be -rendered, as it really is, by a poet, only here the poet would have to -be some very penetrating and sincere novelist, like George Meredith, -or Mr. H. G. Wells, whose "Ann Veronica" I have just been reading with -delight. I would trust the fine poets and novelists because they follow -the fairy clue given them in Comic Cuts. But suppose the Professor -appears, and suppose he says (as he almost certainly will), "A -mother-in-law is merely a fellow-citizen. Considerations of sex should -not interfere with comradeship. Regard for age should not influence -the intellect. A mother-in-law is merely Another Mind. We should free -ourselves from these tribal hierarchies and degrees." Now, when the -Professor says this (as he always does), I say to him, "Sir, you are -coarser than Comic Cuts. You are more vulgar and blundering than the -most elephantine music-hall artiste. You are blinder and grosser than -the mob. These vulgar knockabouts have, at least, got hold of a social -shade and real mental distinction, though they can only express it -clumsily. You are so clumsy that you cannot get hold of it at all. If -you really cannot see that the bridegroom's mother and the bride have -any reason for constraint or diffidence, then you are neither polite nor -humane: you have no sympathy in you for the deep and doubtful hearts of -human folk." It is better even to put the difficulty as the vulgar put -it than to be pertly unconscious of the difficulty altogether. - -The same question might be considered well enough in the old proverb -that two is company and three is none. This proverb is the truth put -popularly: that is, it is the truth put wrong. Certainly it is untrue -that three is no company. Three is splendid company: three is the ideal -number for pure comradeship: as in the Three Musketeers. But if you -reject the proverb altogether; if you say that two and three are the -same sort of company; if you cannot see that there is a wider abyss -between two and three than between three and three million--then I -regret to inform you that you belong to the Third Class of human beings; -that you shall have no company either of two or three, but shall be -alone in a howling desert till you die. - - - - -The Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds - -The other day on a stray spur of the Chiltern Hills I climbed up upon -one of those high, abrupt, windy churchyards from which the dead seem -to look down upon all the living. It was a mountain of ghosts as Olympus -was a mountain of gods. In that church lay the bones of great Puritan -lords, of a time when most of the power of England was Puritan, even of -the Established Church. And below these uplifted bones lay the huge -and hollow valleys of the English countryside, where the motors went by -every now and then like meteors, where stood out in white squares and -oblongs in the chequered forest many of the country seats even of -those same families now dulled with wealth or decayed with Toryism. And -looking over that deep green prospect on that luminous yellow evening, a -lovely and austere thought came into my mind, a thought as beautiful as -the green wood and as grave as the tombs. The thought was this: that -I should like to go into Parliament, quarrel with my party, accept the -Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, and then refuse to give it up. - -We are so proud in England of our crazy constitutional anomalies that -I fancy that very few readers indeed will need to be told about the -Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds. But in case there should be here or -there one happy man who has never heard of such twisted tomfooleries, -I will rapidly remind you what this legal fiction is. As it is quite a -voluntary, sometimes even an eager, affair to get into Parliament, you -would naturally suppose that it would be also a voluntary matter to get -out again. You would think your fellow-members would be indifferent, or -even relieved to see you go; especially as (by another exercise of the -shrewd, illogical old English common sense) they have carefully built -the room too small for the people who have to sit in it. But not so, -my pippins, as it says in the "Iliad." If you are merely a member of -Parliament (Lord knows why) you can't resign. But if you are a Minister -of the Crown (Lord knows why) you can. It is necessary to get into the -Ministry in order to get out of the House; and they have to give you -some office that doesn't exist or that nobody else wants and thus -unlock the door. So you go to the Prime Minister, concealing your air of -fatigue, and say, "It has been the ambition of my life to be Steward of -the Chiltern Hundreds." The Prime Minister then replies, "I can imagine -no man more fitted both morally and mentally for that high office." He -then gives it you, and you hurriedly leave, reflecting how the republics -of the Continent reel anarchically to and fro for lack of a little solid -English directness and simplicity. - -Now, the thought that struck me like a thunderbolt as I sat on the -Chiltern slope was that I would like to get the Prime Minister to give -me the Chiltern Hundreds, and then startle and disturb him by showing -the utmost interest in my work. I should profess a general knowledge of -my duties, but wish to be instructed in the details. I should ask to see -the Under-Steward and the Under-Under-Steward, and all the fine staff -of experienced permanent officials who are the glory of this department. -And, indeed, my enthusiasm would not be wholly unreal. For as far as I -can recollect the original duties of a Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds -were to put down the outlaws and brigands in that part of the world. -Well, there are a great many outlaws and brigands in that part of the -world still, and though their methods have so largely altered as to -require a corresponding alteration in the tactics of the Steward, I do -not see why an energetic and public-spirited Steward should not nab them -yet. - -For the robbers have not vanished from the old high forests to the west -of the great city. The thieves have not vanished; they have grown so -large that they are invisible. You do not see the word "Asia" written -across a map of that neighbourhood; nor do you see the word "Thief" -written across the countrysides of England; though it is really written -in equally large letters. I know men governing despotically great -stretches of that country, whose every step in life has been such that a -slip would have sent them to Dartmoor; but they trod along the high -hard wall between right and wrong, the wall as sharp as a swordedge, as -softly and craftily and lightly as a cat. The vastness of their silent -violence itself obscured what they were at; if they seem to stand for -the rights of property it is really because they have so often invaded -them. And if they do not break the laws, it is only because they make -them. - -But after all we only need a Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds who really -understands cats and thieves. Men hunt one animal differently from -another; and the rich could catch swindlers as dexterously as they catch -otters or antlered deer if they were really at all keen upon doing it. -But then they never have an uncle with antlers; nor a personal friend -who is an otter. When some of the great lords that lie in the churchyard -behind me went out against their foes in those deep woods beneath I -wager that they had bows against the bows of the outlaws, and spears -against the spears of the robber knights. They knew what they were -about; they fought the evildoers of their age with the weapons of -their age. If the same common sense were applied to commercial law, in -forty-eight hours it would be all over with the American Trusts and -the African forward finance. But it will not be done: for the governing -class either does not care, or cares very much, for the criminals, -and as for me, I had a delusive opportunity of being Constable of -Beaconsfield (with grossly inadequate powers), but I fear I shall never -really be Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds. - - - - -The Field of Blood - -In my daily paper this morning I read the following interesting -paragraphs, which take my mind back to an England which I do not -remember and which, therefore (perhaps), I admire. - -"Nearly sixty years ago--on 4 September, 1850--the Austrian General -Haynau, who had gained an unenviable fame throughout the world by his -ferocious methods in suppressing the Hungarian revolution in 1849, while -on a visit to this country, was belaboured in the streets of London by -the draymen of Messrs. Barclay, Perkins and Co., whose brewery he had -just inspected in company of an adjutant. Popular delight was so -great that the Government of the time did not dare to prosecute the -assailants, and the General--the 'women-flogger,' as he was called by -the people--had to leave these shores without remedy. - -"He returned to his own country and settled upon his estate at Szekeres, -which is close to the commune above-mentioned. By his will the estate -passed to his daughter, after whose death it was to be presented to the -commune. This daughter has just died, but the Communal Council, after -much deliberation, has declined to accept the gift, and ordered that -the estate should be left to fall out of cultivation, and be called the -'Bloody Meadow.'" - -Now that is an example of how things happen under an honest democratical -impulse. I do not dwell specially on the earlier part of the story, -though the earlier part of the story is astonishingly interesting. -It recalls the days when Englishmen were potential lighters; that is, -potential rebels. It is not for lack of agonies of intellectual anger: -the Sultan and the late King Leopold have been denounced as heartily as -General Haynau. But I doubt if they would have been physically thrashed -in the London streets. - -It is not the tyrants that are lacking, but the draymen. Nevertheless, -it is not upon the historic heroes of Barclay, Perkins and Co. that -I build all my hope. Fine as it was, it was not a full and perfect -revolution. A brewer's drayman beating an eminent European General -with a stick, though a singularly bright and pleasing vision, is not -a complete one. Only when the brewer's drayman beats the brewer with -a stick shall we see the clear and radiant sunrise of British -self-government. The fun will really start when we begin to thump the -oppressors of England as well as the oppressors of Hungary. It is, -however, a definite decline in the spiritual character of draymen that -now they can thump neither one nor the other. - -But, as I have already suggested, my real quarrel is not about the first -part of the extract, but about the second. Whether or no the draymen -of Barclay and Perkins have degenerated, the Commune which includes -Szekeres has not degenerated. By the way, the Commune which includes -Szekeres is called Kissekeres; I trust that this frank avowal will -excuse me from the necessity of mentioning either of these places again -by name. The Commune is still capable of performing direct democratic -actions, if necessary, with a stick. - -I say with a stick, not with sticks, for that is the whole argument -about democracy. A people is a soul; and if you want to know what a soul -is, I can only answer that it is something that can sin and that can -sacrifice itself. A people can commit theft; a people can confess theft; -a people can repent of theft. That is the idea of the republic. Now, -most modern people have got into their heads the idea that democracies -are dull, drifting things, a mere black swarm or slide of clerks to -their accustomed doom. In most modern novels and essays it is insisted -(by way of contrast) that a walking gentleman may have ad-ventures as he -walks. It is insisted that an aristocrat can commit crimes, because an -aristocrat always cultivates liberty. But, in truth, a people can have -adventures, as Israel did crawling through the desert to the promised -land. A people can do heroic deeds; a people can commit crimes; the -French people did both in the Revolution; the Irish people have done -both in their much purer and more honourable progress. - -But the real answer to this aristocratic argument which seeks to -identify democracy with a drab utilitarianism may be found in action -such as that of the Hungarian Commune--whose name I decline to repeat. -This Commune did just one of those acts that prove that a separate -people has a separate personality; it threw something away. A man can -throw a bank note into the fire. A man can fling a sack of corn into the -river. The bank-note may be burnt as a satisfaction of some scruple; the -corn may be destroyed as a sacrifice to some god. But whenever there is -sacrifice we know there is a single will. Men may be disputatious and -doubtful, may divide by very narrow majorities in their debate about -how to gain wealth. But men have to be uncommonly unanimous in order to -refuse wealth. It wants a very complete committee to burn a bank note in -the office grate. It needs a highly religious tribe really to throw -corn into the river. This self-denial is the test and definition of -self-government. - -I wish I could feel certain that any English County Council or Parish -Council would be single enough to make that strong gesture of a romantic -refusal; could say, "No rents shall be raised from this spot; no grain -shall grow in this spot; no good shall come of this spot; it shall -remain sterile for a sign." But I am afraid they might answer, like the -eminent sociologist in the story, that it was "wiste of spice." - - - - -The Strangeness of Luxury - -It is an English misfortune that what is called "public spirit" is so -often a very private spirit; the legitimate but strictly individual -ideals of this or that person who happens to have the power to carry -them out. When these private principles are held by very rich people, -the result is often the blackest and most repulsive kind of despotism, -which is benevolent despotism. Obviously it is the public which ought -to have public spirit. But in this country and at this epoch this is -exactly what it has not got. We shall have a public washhouse and a -public kitchen long before we have a public spirit; in fact, if we had a -public spirit we might very probably do without the other things. But if -England were properly and naturally governed by the English, one of the -first results would probably be this: that our standard of excess or -defect in property would be changed from that of the plutocrat to that -of the moderately needy man. That is, that while property might be -strictly respected, everything that is necessary to a clerk would be -felt and considered on quite a different plane from anything which is a -very great luxury to a clerk. This sane distinction of sentiment is -not instinctive at present, because our standard of life is that of the -governing class, which is eternally turning luxuries into necessities -as fast as pork is turned into sausages; and which cannot remember the -beginning of its needs and cannot get to the end of its novelties. - -Take, for the sake of argument, the case of the motor. Doubtless the -duke now feels it as necessary to have a motor as to have a roof, and in -a little while he may feel it equally necessary to have a flying ship. -But this does not prove (as the reactionary sceptics always argue) that -a motor really is just as necessary as a roof. It only proves that a man -can get used to an artificial life: it does not prove that there is no -natural life for him to get used to. In the broad bird's-eye view of -common sense there abides a huge disproportion between the need for a -roof and the need for an aeroplane; and no rush of inventions can ever -alter it. The only difference is that things are now judged by the -abnormal needs, when they might be judged merely by the normal needs. -The best aristocrat sees the situation from an aeroplane. The good -citizen, in his loftiest moments, goes no further than seeing it from -the roof. - -It is not true that luxury is merely relative. It is not true that it -is only an expensive novelty which we may afterwards come to think a -necessity. Luxury has a firm philosophical meaning; and where there is -a real public spirit luxury is generally allowed for, sometimes rebuked, -but always recognized instantly. To the healthy soul there is something -in the very nature of certain pleasures which warns us that they -are exceptions, and that if they become rules they will become very -tyrannical rules. - -Take a harassed seamstress out of the Harrow Road and give her one -lightning hour in a motorcar, and she will probably feel it as -splendid, but strange, rare, and even terrible. But this is not (as the -relativists say) merely because she has never been in a car before. She -has never been in the middle of a Somerset cowslip meadow before; but if -you put her there she does not think it terrifying or extraordinary, -but merely pleasant and free and a little lonely. She does not think the -motor monstrous because it is new. She thinks it monstrous because she -has eyes in her head; she thinks it monstrous because it is monstrous. -That is, her mothers and grandmothers, and the whole race by whose life -she lives, have had, as a matter of fact, a roughly recognizable mode of -living; sitting in a green field was a part of it; travelling as quick -as a cannon ball was not. And we should not look down on the seamstress -because she mechanically emits a short sharp scream whenever the motor -begins to move. On the contrary, we ought to look up to the seamstress, -and regard her cry as a kind of mystic omen or revelation of nature, as -the old Goths used to consider the howls emitted by chance females when -annoyed. For that ritual yell is really a mark of moral health--of swift -response to the stimulations and changes of life. The seamstress is -wiser than all the learned ladies, precisely because she can still feel -that a motor is a different sort of thing from a meadow. By the accident -of her economic imprisonment it is even possible that she may have -seen more of the former than the latter. But this has not shaken her -cyclopean sagacity as to which is the natural thing and which the -artificial. If not for her, at least for humanity as a whole, there -is little doubt about which is the more normally attainable. It is -considerably cheaper to sit in a meadow and see motors go by than to sit -in a motor and see meadows go by. - -To me personally, at least, it would never seem needful to own a motor, -any more than to own an avalanche. An avalanche, if you have luck, I am -told, is a very swift, successful, and thrilling way of coming down a -hill. It is distinctly more stirring, say, than a glacier, which moves -an inch in a hundred years. But I do not divide these pleasures either -by excitement or convenience, but by the nature of the thing itself. It -seems human to have a horse or bicycle, because it seems human to potter -about; and men cannot work horses, nor can bicycles work men, enormously -far afield of their ordinary haunts and affairs. - -But about motoring there is something magical, like going to the moon; -and I say the thing should be kept exceptional and felt as something -breathless and bizarre. My ideal hero would own his horse, but would -have the moral courage to hire his motor. Fairy tales are the only sound -guidebooks to life; I like the Fairy Prince to ride on a white pony -out of his father's stables, which are of ivory and gold. But if in the -course of his adventures he finds it necessary to travel on a flaming -dragon, I think he ought to give the dragon back to the witch at the end -of the story. It is a mistake to have dragons about the place. - -For there is truly an air of something weird about luxury; and it is by -this that healthy human nature has always smelt and suspected it. All -romances that deal in extreme luxury, from the "Arabian Nights" to the -novels of Ouida and Disraeli, have, it may be noted, a singular air of -dream and occasionally of nightmare. In such imaginative debauches there -is something as occasional as intoxication; if that is still counted -occasional. Life in those preposterous palaces would be an agony of -dullness; it is clear we are meant to visit them only as in a flying -vision. And what is true of the old freaks of wealth, flavour and fierce -colour and smell, I would say also of the new freak of wealth, which is -speed. I should say to the duke, when I entered his house at the head of -an armed mob, "I do not object to your having exceptional pleasures, if -you have them exceptionally. I do not mind your enjoying the strange and -alien energies of science, if you feel them strange and alien, and not -your own. But in condemning you (under the Seventeenth Section of the -Eighth Decree of the Republic) to hire a motor-car twice a year at -Margate, I am not the enemy of your luxuries, but, rather, the protector -of them." - -That is what I should say to the duke. As to what the duke would say to -me, that is another matter, and may well be deferred. - - - - -The Triumph of the Donkey - -Doubtless the unsympathetic might state my doctrine that one should not -own a motor like a horse, but rather use it like a flying dragon in the -simpler form that I will always go motoring in somebody else's car. My -favourite modern philosopher (Mr. W. W. Jacobs) describes a similar case -of spiritual delicacy misunderstood. I have not the book at hand, but -I think that Job Brown was reproaching Bill Chambers for wasteful -drunkenness, and Henery Walker spoke up for Bill, and said he scarcely -ever had a glass but what somebody else paid for it, and there was -"unpleasantness all round then." - -Being less sensitive than Bill Chambers (or whoever it was) I will -risk this rude perversion of my meaning, and concede that I was in a -motor-car yesterday, and the motor-car most certainly was not my own, -and the journey, though it contained nothing that is specially unusual -on such journeys, had running through it a strain of the grotesque which -was at once wholesome and humiliating. The symbol of that influence was -that ancient symbol of the humble and humorous--a donkey. - -When first I saw the donkey I saw him in the sunlight as the unearthly -gargoyle that he is. My friend had met me in his car (I repeat firmly, -in his car) at the little painted station in the middle of the warm wet -woods and hop-fields of that western country. He proposed to drive me -first to his house beyond the village before starting for a longer spin -of adventure, and we rattled through those rich green lanes which have -in them something singularly analogous to fairy tales: whether the lanes -produced the fairies or (as I believe) the fairies produced the lanes. -All around in the glimmering hop-yards stood those little hop-kilns like -stunted and slanting spires. They look like dwarfish churches--in fact, -rather like many modern churches I could mention, churches all of them -small and each of them a little crooked. In this elfin atmosphere we -swung round a sharp corner and half-way up a steep, white hill, and -saw what looked at first like a tall, black monster against the sun. It -appeared to be a dark and dreadful woman walking on wheels and waving -long ears like a bat's. A second glance told me that she was not the -local witch in a state of transition; she was only one of the million -tricks of perspective. She stood up in a small wheeled cart drawn by a -donkey; the donkey's ears were just set behind her head, and the whole -was black against the light. - -Perspective is really the comic element in everything. It has a pompous -Latin name, but it is incurably Gothic and grotesque. One simple proof -of this is that it is always left out of all dignified and decorative -art. There is no perspective in the Elgin Marbles, and even the -essentially angular angels in mediaeval stained glass almost always (as -it says in "Patience") contrive to look both angular and flat. There is -something intrinsically disproportionate and outrageous in the idea of -the distant objects dwindling and growing dwarfish, the closer objects -swelling enormous and intolerable. There is something frantic in the -notion that one's own father by walking a little way can be changed by a -blast of magic to a pigmy. There is something farcical in the fancy that -Nature keeps one's uncle in an infinite number of sizes, according to -where he is to stand. All soldiers in retreat turn into tin soldiers; -all bears in rout into toy bears; as if on the ultimate horizon of -the world everything was sardonically doomed to stand up laughable and -little against heaven. - -It was for this reason that the old woman and her donkey struck us -first when seen from behind as one black grotesque. I afterwards had -the chance of seeing the old woman, the cart, and the donkey fairly, -in flank and in all their length. I saw the old woman and the donkey -PASSANT, as they might have appeared heraldically on the shield of some -heroic family. I saw the old woman and the donkey dignified, decorative, -and flat, as they might have marched across the Elgin Marbles. Seen thus -under an equal light, there was nothing specially ugly about them; the -cart was long and sufficiently comfortable; the donkey was stolid -and sufficiently respectable; the old woman was lean but sufficiently -strong, and even smiling in a sour, rustic manner. But seen from behind -they looked like one black monstrous animal; the dark donkey cars seemed -like dreadful wings, and the tall dark back of the woman, erect like a -tree, seemed to grow taller and taller until one could almost scream. - -Then we went by her with a blasting roar like a railway train, and fled -far from her over the brow of the hill to my friend's home. - -There we paused only for my friend to stock the car with some kind of -picnic paraphernalia, and so started again, as it happened, by the way -we had come. Thus it fell that we went shattering down that short, sharp -hill again before the poor old woman and her donkey had managed to crawl -to the top of it; and seeing them under a different light, I saw them -very differently. Black against the sun, they had seemed comic; but -bright against greenwood and grey cloud, they were not comic but tragic; -for there are not a few things that seem fantastic in the twilight, -and in the sunlight are sad. I saw that she had a grand, gaunt mask of -ancient honour and endurance, and wide eyes sharpened to two shining -points, as if looking for that small hope on the horizon of human life. -I also saw that her cart contained carrots. - -"Don't you feel, broadly speaking, a beast," I asked my friend, "when -you go so easily and so fast?" For we had crashed by so that the crazy -cart must have thrilled in every stick of it. - -My friend was a good man, and said, "Yes. But I don't think it would do -her any good if I went slower." - -"No," I assented after reflection. "Perhaps the only pleasure we can -give to her or any one else is to get out of their sight very soon." - -My friend availed himself of this advice in no niggard spirit; I felt as -if we were fleeing for our lives in throttling fear after some frightful -atrocity. In truth, there is only one difference left between the -secrecy of the two social classes: the poor hide themselves in darkness -and the rich hide themselves in distance. They both hide. - -As we shot like a lost boat over a cataract down into a whirlpool of -white roads far below, I saw afar a black dot crawling like an insect. -I looked again: I could hardly believe it. There was the slow old woman, -with her slow old donkey, still toiling along the main road. I asked my -friend to slacken, but when he said of the car, "She's wanting to go," I -knew it was all up with him. For when you have called a thing female you -have yielded to it utterly. We passed the old woman with a shock that -must have shaken the earth: if her head did not reel and her heart -quail, I know not what they were made of. And when we had fled -perilously on in the gathering dark, spurning hamlets behind us, I -suddenly called out, "Why, what asses we are! Why, it's She that is -brave--she and the donkey. We are safe enough; we are artillery and -plate-armour: and she stands up to us with matchwood and a snail! If you -had grown old in a quiet valley, and people began firing cannon-balls as -big as cabs at you in your seventieth year, wouldn't you jump--and she -never moved an eyelid. Oh! we go very fast and very far, no doubt--" - -As I spoke came a curious noise, and my friend, instead of going fast, -began to go very slow; then he stopped; then he got out. Then he said, -"And I left the Stepney behind." - -The grey moths came out of the wood and the yellow stars came out to -crown it, as my friend, with the lucidity of despair, explained to me -(on the soundest scientific principles, of course) that nothing would be -any good at all. We must sleep the night in the lane, except in the very -unlikely event of some one coming by to carry a message to some town. -Twice I thought I heard some tiny sound of such approach, and it died -away like wind in the trees, and the motorist was already asleep when -I heard it renewed and realized. Something certainly was approaching. -I ran up the road--and there it was. Yes, It--and She. Thrice had she -come, once comic and once tragic and once heroic. And when she came -again it was as if in pardon on a pure errand of prosaic pity and -relief. I am quite serious. I do not want you to laugh. It is not the -first time a donkey has been received seriously, nor one riding a donkey -with respect. - - - - -The Wheel - -In a quiet and rustic though fairly famous church in my neighbourhood -there is a window supposed to represent an Angel on a Bicycle. It does -definitely and indisputably represent a nude youth sitting on a wheel; -but there is enough complication in the wheel and sanctity (I suppose) -in the youth to warrant this working description. It is a thing of -florid Renascence outline, and belongs to the highly pagan period which -introduced all sorts of objects into ornament: personally I can believe -in the bicycle more than in the angel. Men, they say, are now imitating -angels; in their flying-machines, that is: not in any other respect that -I have heard of. So perhaps the angel on the bicycle (if he is an angel -and if it is a bicycle) was avenging himself by imitating man. If so, he -showed that high order of intellect which is attributed to angels in the -mediaeval books, though not always (perhaps) in the mediaeval pictures. - -For wheels are the mark of a man quite as much as wings are the mark of -an angel. Wheels are the things that are as old as mankind and yet are -strictly peculiar to man, that are prehistoric but not pre-human. - -A distinguished psychologist, who is well acquainted with physiology, -has told me that parts of himself are certainly levers, while other -parts are probably pulleys, but that after feeling himself carefully all -over, he cannot find a wheel anywhere. The wheel, as a mode of movement, -is a purely human thing. On the ancient escutcheon of Adam (which, -like much of the rest of his costume, has not yet been discovered) the -heraldic emblem was a wheel--passant. As a mode of progress, I say, it -is unique. Many modern philosophers, like my friend before mentioned, -are ready to find links between man and beast, and to show that man has -been in all things the blind slave of his mother earth. Some, of a -very different kind, are even eager to show it; especially if it can be -twisted to the discredit of religion. But even the most eager scientists -have often admitted in my hearing that they would be surprised if some -kind of cow approached them moving solemnly on four wheels. Wings, fins, -flappers, claws, hoofs, webs, trotters, with all these the fantastic -families of the earth come against us and close around us, fluttering -and flapping and rustling and galloping and lumbering and thundering; -but there is no sound of wheels. - -I remember dimly, if, indeed, I remember aright, that in some of those -dark prophetic pages of Scripture, that seem of cloudy purple and dusky -gold, there is a passage in which the seer beholds a violent dream -of wheels. Perhaps this was indeed the symbolic declaration of the -spiritual supremacy of man. Whatever the birds may do above or the -fishes beneath his ship, man is the only thing to steer; the only thing -to be conceived as steering. He may make the birds his friends, if he -can. He may make the fishes his gods, if he chooses. But most certainly -he will not believe a bird at the masthead; and it is hardly likely -that he will even permit a fish at the helm. He is, as Swinburne says, -helmsman and chief: he is literally the Man at the Wheel. - -The wheel is an animal that is always standing on its head; only "it -does it so rapidly that no philosopher has ever found out which is its -head." Or if the phrase be felt as more exact, it is an animal that is -always turning head over heels and progressing by this principle. Some -fish, I think, turn head over heels (supposing them, for the sake of -argument, to have heels); I have a dog who nearly did it; and I did -it once myself when I was very small. It was an accident, and, as -delightful novelist, Mr. De Morgan, would say, it never can happen -again. Since then no one has accused me of being upside down except -mentally: and I rather think that there is something to be said for -that; especially as typified by the rotary symbol. A wheel is the -sublime paradox; one part of it is always going forward and the other -part always going back. Now this, as it happens, is highly similar to -the proper condition of any human soul or any political state. Every -sane soul or state looks at once backwards and forwards; and even goes -backwards to come on. - -For those interested in revolt (as I am) I only say meekly that one -cannot have a Revolution without revolving. The wheel, being a logical -thing, has reference to what is behind as well as what is before. It has -(as every society should have) a part that perpetually leaps helplessly -at the sky and a part that perpetually bows down its head into the dust. -Why should people be so scornful of us who stand on our heads? Bowing -down one's head in the dust is a very good thing, the humble beginning -of all happiness. When we have bowed our heads in the dust for a little -time the happiness comes; and then (leaving our heads' in the humble and -reverent position) we kick up our heels behind in the air. That is -the true origin of standing on one's head; and the ultimate defence -of paradox. The wheel humbles itself to be exalted; only it does it a -little quicker than I do. - - - - -Five Hundred and Fifty-five - -Life is full of a ceaseless shower of small coincidences: too small to -be worth mentioning except for a special purpose, often too trifling -even to be noticed, any more than we notice one snowflake falling on -another. It is this that lends a frightful plausibility to all false -doctrines and evil fads. There are always such crowds of accidental -arguments for anything. If I said suddenly that historical truth is -generally told by red-haired men, I have no doubt that ten minutes' -reflection (in which I decline to indulge) would provide me with a -handsome list of instances in support of it. I remember a riotous -argument about Bacon and Shakespeare in which I offered quite at random -to show that Lord Rosebery had written the works of Mr. W. B. Yeats. No -sooner had I said the words than a torrent of coincidences rushed upon -my mind. I pointed out, for instance, that Mr. Yeats's chief work was -"The Secret Rose." This may easily be paraphrased as "The Quiet or -Modest Rose"; and so, of course, as the Primrose. A second after I saw -the same suggestion in the combination of "rose" and "bury." If I had -pursued the matter, who knows but I might have been a raving maniac by -this time. - -We trip over these trivial repetitions and exactitudes at every turn, -only they are too trivial even for conversation. A man named Williams -did walk into a strange house and murder a man named Williamson; it -sounds like a sort of infanticide. A journalist of my acquaintance -did move quite unconsciously from a place called Overstrand to a place -called Overroads. When he had made this escape he was very properly -pursued by a voting card from Battersea, on which a political agent -named Burn asked him to vote for a political candidate named Burns. And -when he did so another coincidence happened to him: rather a spiritual -than a material coincidence; a mystical thing, a matter of a magic -number. - -For a sufficient number of reasons, the man I know went up to vote in -Battersea in a drifting and even dubious frame of mind. As the train -slid through swampy woods and sullen skies there came into his empty -mind those idle and yet awful questions which come when the mind is -empty. Fools make cosmic systems out of them; knaves make profane poems -out of them; men try to crush them like an ugly lust. Religion is -only the responsible reinforcement of common courage and common sense. -Religion only sets up the normal mood of health against the hundred -moods of disease. - -But there is this about such ghastly empty enigmas, that they always -have an answer to the obvious answer, the reply offered by daily reason. -Suppose a man's children have gone swimming; suppose he is suddenly -throttled by the senseless--fear that they are drowned. The obvious -answer is, "Only one man in a thousand has his children drowned." But -a deeper voice (deeper, being as deep as hell) answers, "And why should -not you--be the thousandth man?" What is true of tragic doubt is true -also of trivial doubt. The voter's guardian devil said to him, "If you -don't vote to-day you can do fifteen things which will quite certainly -do some good somewhere, please a friend, please a child, please a -maddened publisher. And what good do you expect to do by voting? You -don't think your man will get in by one vote, do you?" To this he knew -the answer of common sense, "But if everybody said that, nobody would -get in at all." And then there came that deeper voice from Hades, "But -you are not settling what everybody shall do, but what one person on one -occasion shall do. If this afternoon you went your way about more solid -things, how would it matter and who would ever know?" Yet somehow the -voter drove on blindly through the blackening London roads, and found -somewhere a tedious polling station and recorded his tiny vote. - -The politician for whom the voter had voted got in by five hundred and -fifty-five votes. The voter read this next morning at breakfast, -being in a more cheery and expansive mood, and found something very -fascinating not merely in the fact of the majority, but even in the form -of it. There was something symbolic about the three exact figures; one -felt it might be a sort of motto or cipher. In the great book of seals -and cloudy symbols there is just such a thundering repetition. Six -hundred and sixty-six was the Mark of the Beast. Five hundred and -fifty-five is the Mark of the Man; the triumphant tribune and citizen. A -number so symmetrical as that really rises out of the region of science -into the region of art. It is a pattern, like the egg-and-dart ornament -or the Greek key. One might edge a wall-paper or fringe a robe with -a recurring decimal. And while the voter luxuriated in this light -exactitude of the numbers, a thought crossed his mind and he almost -leapt to his feet. "Why, good heavens!" he cried. "I won that -election; and it was won by one vote! But for me it would have been the -despicable, broken-backed, disjointed, inharmonious figure five hundred -and fifty-four. The whole artistic point would have vanished. The Mark -of the Man would have disappeared from history. It was I who with a -masterful hand seized the chisel and carved the hieroglyph--complete and -perfect. I clutched the trembling hand of Destiny when it was about to -make a dull square four and forced it to make a nice curly five. -Why, but for me the Cosmos would have lost a coincidence!" After this -outburst the voter sat down and finished his breakfast. - - - - -Ethandune - -Perhaps you do not know where Ethandune is. Nor do I; nor does anybody. -That is where the somewhat sombre fun begins. I cannot even tell you for -certain whether it is the name of a forest or a town or a hill. I can -only say that in any case it is of the kind that floats and is unfixed. -If it is a forest, it is one of those forests that march with a million -legs, like the walking trees that were the doom of Macbeth. If it is a -town, it is one of those towns that vanish, like a city of tents. If it -is a hill, it is a flying hill, like the mountain to which faith lends -wings. Over a vast dim region of England this dark name of Ethandune -floats like an eagle doubtful where to swoop and strike, and, indeed, -there were birds of prey enough over Ethandune, wherever it was. But now -Ethandune itself has grown as dark and drifting as the black drifts of -the birds. - -And yet without this word that you cannot fit with a meaning and hardly -with a memory, you would be sitting in a very different chair at this -moment and looking at a very different tablecloth. As a practical modern -phrase I do not commend it; if my private critics and correspondents -in whom I delight should happen to address me "G. K. Chesterton, Poste -Restante, Ethandune," I fear their letters would not come to hand. If -two hurried commercial travellers should agree to discuss a business -matter at Ethandune from 5 to 5.15, I am afraid they would grow old in -the district as white-haired wanderers. To put it plainly, Ethandune is -anywhere and nowhere in the western hills; it is an English mirage. And -yet but for this doubtful thing you would have probably no Daily News on -Saturday and certainly no church on Sunday. I do not say that either of -these two things is a benefit; but I do say that they are customs, and -that you would not possess them except through this mystery. You would -not have Christmas puddings, nor (probably) any puddings; you would -not have Easter eggs, probably not poached eggs, I strongly suspect not -scrambled eggs, and the best historians are decidedly doubtful about -curried eggs. To cut a long story short (the longest of all -stories), you would not have any civilization, far less any Christian -civilization. And if in some moment of gentle curiosity you wish to know -why you are the polished sparkling, rounded, and wholly satisfactory -citizen which you obviously are, then I can give you no more definite -answer geographical or historical; but only toll in your ears the tone -of the uncaptured name--Ethandune. - -I will try to state quite sensibly why it is as important as it is. And -yet even that is not easy. If I were to state the mere fact from the -history books, numbers of people would think it equally trivial and -remote, like some war of the Picts and Scots. The points perhaps might -be put in this way. There is a certain spirit in the world which breaks -everything off short. There may be magnificence in the smashing; but the -thing is smashed. There may be a certain splendour; but the splendour is -sterile: it abolishes all future splendours. I mean (to take a working -example), York Minster covered with flames might happen to be quite -as beautiful as York Minster covered with carvings. But the carvings -produce more carvings. The flames produce nothing but a little black -heap. When any act has this cul-de-sac quality it matters little whether -it is done by a book or a sword, by a clumsy battle-axe or a chemical -bomb. The case is the same with ideas. The pessimist may be a proud -figure when he curses all the stars; the optimist may be an even prouder -figure when he blesses them all. But the real test is not in the -energy, but in the effect. When the optimist has said, "All things -are interesting," we are left free; we can be interested as much or -as little as we please. But when the pessimist says, "No things are -interesting," it may be a very witty remark: but it is the last witty -remark that can be made on the subject. He has burnt his cathedral; he -has had his blaze and the rest is ashes. The sceptics, like bees, give -their one sting and die. The pessimist must be wrong, because he says -the last word. - -Now, this spirit that denies and that destroys had at one period of -history a dreadful epoch of military superiority. They did burn York -Minster, or at least, places of the same kind. Roughly speaking, from -the seventh century to the tenth, a dense tide of darkness, of chaos and -brainless cruelty, poured on these islands and on the western coasts -of the Continent, which well-nigh cut them off from all the white man's -culture for ever. And this is the final human test; that the varied -chiefs of that vague age were remembered or forgotten according to how -they had resisted this almost cosmic raid. Nobody thought of the modern -nonsense about races; everybody thought of the human race and its -highest achievements. Arthur was a Celt, and may have been a fabulous -Celt; but he was a fable on the right side. Charlemagne may have been a -Gaul or a Goth, but he was not a barbarian; he fought for the tradition -against the barbarians, the nihilists. And for this reason also, for -this reason, in the last resort, only, we call the saddest and in some -ways the least successful of the Wessex kings by the title of Alfred -the Great. Alfred was defeated by the barbarians again and again, he -defeated the barbarians again and again; but his victories were almost -as vain as his defeats. Fortunately he did not believe in the Time -Spirit or the Trend of Things or any such modern rubbish, and therefore -kept pegging away. But while his failures and his fruitless successes -have names still in use (such as Wilton, Basing, and Ashdown), that -last epic battle which really broke the barbarian has remained without -a modern place or name. Except that it was near Chippenham, where -the Danes gave up their swords and were baptized, no one can pick out -certainly the place where you and I were saved from being savages for -ever. - -But the other day under a wild sunset and moonrise I passed the place -which is best reputed as Ethandune, a high, grim upland, partly bare -and partly shaggy; like that savage and sacred spot in those great -imaginative lines about the demon lover and the waning moon. The -darkness, the red wreck of sunset, the yellow and lurid moon, the long -fantastic shadows, actually created that sense of monstrous incident -which is the dramatic side of landscape. The bare grey slopes seemed to -rush downhill like routed hosts; the dark clouds drove across like riven -banners; and the moon was like a golden dragon, like the Golden Dragon -of Wessex. - -As we crossed a tilt of the torn heath I saw suddenly between myself and -the moon a black shapeless pile higher than a house. The atmosphere -was so intense that I really thought of a pile of dead Danes, with some -phantom conqueror on the top of it. Fortunately I was crossing these -wastes with a friend who knew more history than I; and he told me -that this was a barrow older than Alfred, older than the Romans, older -perhaps than the Britons; and no man knew whether it was a wall or a -trophy or a tomb. Ethandune is still a drifting name; but it gave me a -queer emotion to think that, sword in hand, as the Danes poured with -the torrents of their blood down to Chippenham, the great king may have -lifted up his head and looked at that oppressive shape, suggestive of -something and yet suggestive of nothing; may have looked at it as we -did, and understood it as little as we. - - - - -The Flat Freak - -Some time ago a Sub-Tropical Dinner was given by some South African -millionaire. I forget his name; and so, very likely, does he. The humour -of this was so subtle and haunting that it has been imitated by another -millionaire, who has given a North Pole Dinner in a grand hotel, on -which he managed to spend gigantic sums of money. I do not know how he -did it; perhaps they had silver for snow and great sapphires for lumps -of ice. Anyhow, it seems to have cost rather more to bring the Pole to -London than to take Peary to the Pole. All this, one would say, does not -concern us. We do not want to go to the Pole--or to the hotel. I, for -one, cannot imagine which would be the more dreary and disgusting--the -real North Pole or the sham one. But as a mere matter of psychology -(that merry pastime) there is a question that is not unentertaining. - -Why is it that all this scheme of ice and snow leaves us cold? Why is -it that you and I feel that we would (on the whole) rather spend the -evening with two or three stable boys in a pot-house than take part -in that pallid and Arctic joke? Why does the modern millionaire's -jest--bore a man to death with the mere thought of it? That it does bore -a man to death I take for granted, and shall do so until somebody writes -to me in cold ink and tells me that he really thinks it funny. - -Now, it is not a sufficient explanation to say that the joke is silly. -All jokes are silly; that is what they are for. If you ask some sincere -and elemental person, a woman, for instance, what she thinks of a good -sentence from Dickens, she will say that it is "too silly." When Mr. -Weller, senior, assured Mr. Weller, junior, that "circumvented" was "a -more tenderer word" than "circumscribed," the remark was at least as -silly as it was sublime. It is vain, then, to object to "senseless -jokes." The very definition of a joke is that it need have no sense; -except that one wild and supernatural sense which we call the sense of -humour. Humour is meant, in a literal sense, to make game of man; that -is, to dethrone him from his official dignity and hunt him like game. -It is meant to remind us human beings that we have things about us as -ungainly and ludicrous as the nose of the elephant or the neck of the -giraffe. If laughter does not touch a sort of fundamental folly, it -does not do its duty in bringing us back to an enormous and original -simplicity. Nothing has been worse than the modern notion that a clever -man can make a joke without taking part in it; without sharing in the -general absurdity that such a situation creates. It is unpardonable -conceit not to laugh at your own jokes. Joking is undignified; that is -why it is so good for one's soul. Do not fancy you can be a detached wit -and avoid being a buffoon; you cannot. If you are the Court Jester you -must be the Court Fool. - -Whatever it is, therefore, that wearies us in these wealthy jokes -(like the North Pole Dinner) it is not merely that men make fools of -themselves. When Dickens described Mr. Chuckster, Dickens was, strictly -speaking, making a fool of himself; for he was making a fool out of -himself. And every kind of real lark, from acting a charade to making -a pun, does consist in restraining one's nine hundred and ninety-nine -serious selves and letting the fool loose. The dullness of the -millionaire joke is much deeper. It is not silly at all; it is solely -stupid. It does not consist of ingenuity limited, but merely of inanity -expanded. There is considerable difference between a wit making a fool -of himself and a fool making a wit of himself. - -The true explanation, I fancy, may be stated thus. We can all remember -it in the case of the really inspiriting parties and fooleries of our -youth. The only real fun is to have limited materials and a good idea. -This explains the perennial popularity of impromptu private theatricals. -These fascinate because they give such a scope for invention and variety -with the most domestic restriction of machinery. A tea-cosy may have to -do for an Admiral's cocked hat; it all depends on whether the amateur -actor can swear like an Admiral. A hearth-rug may have to do for a -bear's fur; it all depends on whether the wearer is a polished and -versatile man of the world and can grunt like a bear. A clergyman's hat -(to my own private and certain knowledge) can be punched and thumped -into the exact shape of a policeman's helmet; it all depends on the -clergyman. I mean it depends on his permission; his imprimatur; his -nihil obstat. Clergymen can be policemen; rugs can rage like wild -animals; tea-cosies can smell of the sea; if only there is at the back -of them all one bright and amusing idea. What is really funny about -Christmas charades in any average home is that there is a contrast -between commonplace resources and one comic idea. What is deadly dull -about the millionaire-banquets is that there is a contrast between -colossal resources and no idea. - -That is the abyss of inanity in such feasts--it may be literally called -a yawning abyss. The abyss is the vast chasm between the money power -employed and the thing it is employed on. To make a big joke out of a -broomstick, a barrow and an old hat--that is great. But to make a small -joke out of mountains of emeralds and tons of gold--surely that is -humiliating! The North Pole is not a very good joke to start with. An -icicle hanging on one's nose is a simple sort of humour in any case. If -a set of spontaneous mummers got the effect cleverly with cut crystals -from the early Victorian chandelier there might really be something -suddenly funny in it. But what should we say of hanging diamonds on a -hundred human noses merely to make that precious joke about icicles? - -What can be more abject than the union of elaborate and recherche -arrangements with an old and obvious point? The clown with the red-hot -poker and the string of sausages is all very well in his way. But think -of a string of pate de foie gras sausages at a guinea a piece! Think of -a red-hot poker cut out of a single ruby! Imagine such fantasticalities -of expense with such a tameness and staleness of design. - -We may even admit the practical joke if it is domestic and simple. We -may concede that apple-pie beds and butter-slides are sometimes useful -things for the education of pompous persons living the Higher Life. But -imagine a man making a butter-slide and telling everybody it was made -with the most expensive butter. Picture an apple-pie bed of purple -and cloth of gold. It is not hard to see that such schemes would lead -simultaneously to a double boredom; weariness of the costly and complex -method and of the meagre and trivial thought. This is the true analysis, -I think of that chill of tedium that strikes to the soul of any -intelligent man when he hears of such elephantine pranks. That is why we -feel that Freak Dinners would not even be freakish. That is why we feel -that expensive Arctic feasts would probably be a frost. - -If it be said that such things do no harm, I hasten, in one sense, at -least, to agree. Far from it; they do good. They do good in the most -vital matter of modern times; for they prove and print in huge letters -the truth which our society must learn or perish. They prove that wealth -in society as now constituted does not tend to get into the hands of -the thrifty or the capable, but actually tends to get into the hands of -wastrels and imbeciles. And it proves that the wealthy class of to-day -is quite as ignorant about how to enjoy itself as about how to rule -other people. That it cannot make its government govern or its education -educate we may take as a trifling weakness of oligarchy; but pleasure -we do look to see in such a class; and it has surely come to its -decrepitude when it cannot make its pleasures please. - - - - -The Garden of the Sea - -One sometimes hears from persons of the chillier type of culture the -remark that plain country people do not appreciate the beauty of -the country. This is an error rooted in the intellectual pride of -mediocrity; and is one of the many examples of a truth in the idea -that extremes meet. Thus, to appreciate the virtues of the mob one must -either be on a level with it (as I am) or be really high up, like the -saints. It is roughly the same with aesthetics; slang and rude dialect -can be relished by a really literary taste, but not by a merely bookish -taste. And when these cultivated cranks say that rustics do not talk of -Nature in an appreciative way, they really mean that they do not talk -in a bookish way. They do not talk bookishly about clouds or stones, -or pigs or slugs, or horses or anything you please. They talk piggishly -about pigs; and sluggishly, I suppose, about slugs; and are refreshingly -horsy about horses. They speak in a stony way of stones; they speak in -a cloudy way of clouds; and this is surely the right way. And if by any -chance a simple intelligent person from the country comes in contact -with any aspect of Nature unfamiliar and arresting, such a person's -comment is always worth remark. It is sometimes an epigram, and at worst -it is never a quotation. - -Consider, for instance, what wastes of wordy imitation and ambiguity the -ordinary educated person in the big towns could pour out on the subject -of the sea. A country girl I know in the county of Buckingham had never -seen the sea in her life until the other day. When she was asked what -she thought of it she said it was like cauliflowers. Now that is a -piece of pure literature--vivid, entirely independent and original, -and perfectly true. I had always been haunted with an analogous kinship -which I could never locate; cabbages always remind me of the sea and -the sea always reminds me of cabbages. It is partly, perhaps, the veined -mingling of violet and green, as in the sea a purple that is almost dark -red may mix with a green that is almost yellow, and still be the blue -sea as a whole. But it is more the grand curves of the cabbage that -curl over cavernously like waves, and it is partly again that dreamy -repetition, as of a pattern, that made two great poets, Eschylus and -Shakespeare, use a word like "multitudinous" of the ocean. But just -where my fancy halted the Buckinghamshire young woman rushed (so to -speak) to my imaginative rescue. Cauliflowers are twenty times better -than cabbages, for they show the wave breaking as well as curling, and -the efflorescence of the branching foam, blind bubbling, and opaque. -Moreover, the strong lines of life are suggested; the arches of the -rushing waves have all the rigid energy of green stalks, as if the whole -sea were one great green plant with one immense white flower rooted in -the abyss. - -Now, a large number of delicate and superior persons would refuse to see -the force in that kitchen garden comparison, because it is not connected -with any of the ordinary maritime sentiments as stated in books and -songs. The aesthetic amateur would say that he knew what large and -philosophical thoughts he ought to have by the boundless deep. He would -say that he was not a greengrocer who would think first of greens. To -which I should reply, like Hamlet, apropos of a parallel profession, "I -would you were so honest a man." The mention of "Hamlet" reminds me, by -the way, that besides the girl who had never seen the sea, I knew a girl -who had never seen a stage-play. She was taken to "Hamlet," and she said -it was very sad. There is another case of going to the primordial point -which is overlaid by learning and secondary impressions. We are so used -to thinking of "Hamlet" as a problem that we sometimes quite forget that -it is a tragedy, just as we are so used to thinking of the sea as vast -and vague, that we scarcely notice when it is white and green. - -But there is another quarrel involved in which the young gentleman -of culture comes into violent collision with the young lady of the -cauliflowers. The first essential of the merely bookish view of the sea -is that it is boundless, and gives a sentiment of infinity. Now it is -quite certain, I think, that the cauliflower simile was partly created -by exactly the opposite impression, the impression of boundary and of -barrier. The girl thought of it as a field of vegetables, even as a yard -of vegetables. The girl was right. The ocean only suggests infinity when -you cannot see it; a sea mist may seem endless, but not a sea. So far -from being vague and vanishing, the sea is the one hard straight line in -Nature. It is the one plain limit; the only thing that God has made that -really looks like a wall. Compared to the sea, not only sun and cloud -are chaotic and doubtful, but solid mountains and standing forests may -be said to melt and fade and flee in the presence of that lonely iron -line. The old naval phrase, that the seas are England's bulwarks, is not -a frigid and artificial metaphor; it came into the head of some genuine -sea-dog, when he was genuinely looking at the sea. For the edge of the -sea is like the edge of a sword; it is sharp, military, and decisive; it -really looks like a bolt or bar, and not like a mere expansion. It hangs -in heaven, grey, or green, or blue, changing in colour, but changeless -in form, behind all the slippery contours of the land and all the savage -softness of the forests, like the scales of God held even. It hangs, a -perpetual reminder of that divine reason and justice which abides behind -all compromises and all legitimate variety; the one straight line; the -limit of the intellect; the dark and ultimate dogma of the world. - - - - -The Sentimentalist - -"Sentimentalism is the most broken reed on which righteousness can -lean"; these were, I think, the exact words of a distinguished American -visitor at the Guildhall, and may Heaven forgive me if I do him a wrong. -It was spoken in illustration of the folly of supporting Egyptian and -other Oriental nationalism, and it has tempted me to some reflections on -the first word of the sentence. - -The Sentimentalist, roughly speaking, is the man who wants to eat his -cake and have it. He has no sense of honour about ideas; he will not see -that one must pay for an idea as for anything else. He will not see -that any worthy idea, like any honest woman, can only be won on its own -terms, and with its logical chain of loyalty. One idea attracts him; -another idea really inspires him; a third idea flatters him; a fourth -idea pays him. He will have them all at once in one wild intellectual -harem, no matter how much they quarrel and contradict each other. The -Sentimentalist is a philosophic profligate, who tries to capture every -mental beauty without reference to its rival beauties; who will not even -be off with the old love before he is on with the new. Thus if a man -were to say, "I love this woman, but I may some day find my affinity in -some other woman," he would be a Sentimentalist. He would be saying, "I -will eat my wedding-cake and keep it." Or if a man should say, "I am -a Republican, believing in the equality of citizens; but when the -Government has given me my peerage I can do infinite good as a -kind landlord and a wise legislator"; then that man would be a -Sentimentalist. He would be trying to keep at the same time the classic -austerity of equality and also the vulgar excitement of an aristocrat. -Or if a man should say, "I am in favour of religious equality; but I -must preserve the Protestant Succession," he would be a Sentimentalist -of a grosser and more improbable kind. - -This is the essence of the Sentimentalist: that he seeks to enjoy every -idea without its sequence, and every pleasure without its consequence. - -Now it would really be hard to find a worse case of this inconsequent -sentimentalism than the theory of the British Empire advanced by Mr. -Roosevelt himself in his attack on Sentimentalists. For the Imperial -theory, the Roosevelt and Kipling theory, of our relation to Eastern -races is simply one of eating the Oriental cake (I suppose a Sultana -Cake) and at the same time leaving it alone. - -Now there are two sane attitudes of a European statesman towards Eastern -peoples, and there are only two. - -First, he may simply say that the less we have to do with them the -better; that whether they are lower than us or higher they are so -catastrophically different that the more we go our way and they go -theirs the better for all parties concerned. I will confess to some -tenderness for this view. There is much to be said for letting that calm -immemorial life of slave and sultan, temple and palm tree flow on as it -has always flowed. The best reason of all, the reason that affects me -most finally, is that if we left the rest of the world alone we might -have some time for attending to our own affairs, which are urgent to -the point of excruciation. All history points to this; that intensive -cultivation in the long run triumphs over the widest extensive -cultivation; or, in other words, that making one's own field superior is -far more effective than reducing other people's fields to inferiority. -If you cultivate your own garden and grow a specially large cabbage, -people will probably come to see it. Whereas the life of one selling -small cabbages round the whole district is often forlorn. - -Now, the Imperial Pioneer is essentially a commercial traveller; and -a commercial traveller is essentially a person who goes to see people -because they don't want to see him. As long as empires go about urging -their ideas on others, I always have a notion that the ideas are no -good. If they were really so splendid, they would make the country -preaching them a wonder of the world. That is the true ideal; a great -nation ought not to be a hammer, but a magnet. Men went to the mediaeval -Sorbonne because it was worth going to. Men went to old Japan because -only there could they find the unique and exquisite old Japanese art. -Nobody will ever go to modern Japan (nobody worth bothering about, I -mean), because modern Japan has made the huge mistake of going to the -other people: becoming a common empire. The mountain has condescended to -Mahomet; and henceforth Mahomet will whistle for it when he wants it. - -That is my political theory: that we should make England worth copying -instead of telling everybody to copy her. - -But it is not the only possible theory. There is another view of our -relations to such places as Egypt and India which is entirely tenable. -It may be said, "We Europeans are the heirs of the Roman Empire; when -all is said we have the largest freedom, the most exact science, the -most solid romance. We have a deep though undefined obligation to -give as we have received from God; because the tribes of men are truly -thirsting for these things as for water. All men really want clear -laws: we can give clear laws. All men really want hygiene: we can -give hygiene. We are not merely imposing Western ideas. We are simply -fulfilling human ideas--for the first time." - -On this line, I think, it is possible to justify the forts of Africa and -the railroads of Asia; but on this line we must go much further. If it -is our duty to give our best, there can be no doubt about what is our -best. The greatest thing our Europe has made is the Citizen: the idea -of the average man, free and full of honour, voluntarily invoking on his -own sin the just vengeance of his city. All else we have done is mere -machinery for that: railways exist only to carry the Citizen; forts only -to defend him; electricity only to light him, medicine only to heal him. -Popularism, the idea of the people alive and patiently feeding history, -that we cannot give; for it exists everywhere, East and West. But -democracy, the idea of the people fighting and governing--that is the -only thing we have to give. - -Those are the two roads. But between them weakly wavers the -Sentimentalist--that is, the Imperialist of the Roosevelt school. He -wants to have it both ways, to have the splendours of success without -the perils. Europe may enslave Asia, because it is flattering: but -Europe must not free Asia, because that is responsible. It tickles -his Imperial taste that Hindoos should have European hats: it is too -dangerous if they have European heads. He cannot leave Asia Asiatic: yet -he dare not contemplate Asia as European. Therefore he proposes to have -in Egypt railway signals, but not flags; despatch boxes, but not ballot -boxes. - -In short, the Sentimentalist decides to spread the body of Europe -without the soul. - - - - -The White Horses - -It is within my experience, which is very brief and occasional in this -matter, that it is not really at all easy to talk in a motor-car. This -is fortunate; first, because, as a whole, it prevents me from motoring; -and second because, at any given moment, it prevents me from talking. -The difficulty is not wholly due to the physical conditions, though -these are distinctly unconversational. FitzGerald's Omar, being a -pessimist, was probably rich, and being a lazy fellow, was almost -certainly a motorist. If any doubt could exist on the point, it is -enough to say that, in speaking of the foolish profits, Omar has defined -the difficulties of colloquial motoring with a precision which cannot -be accidental. "Their words to wind are scattered; and their mouths are -stopped with dust." From this follows not (as many of the cut-and-dried -philosophers would say) a savage silence and mutual hostility, but -rather one of those rich silences that make the mass and bulk of all -friendship; the silence of men rowing the same boat or fighting in the -same battle-line. - -It happened that the other day I hired a motor-car, because I wanted to -visit in very rapid succession the battle-places and hiding-places -of Alfred the Great; and for a thing of this sort a motor is really -appropriate. It is not by any means the best way of seeing the beauty -of the country; you see beauty better by walking, and best of all by -sitting still. But it is a good method in any enterprise that involves a -parody of the military or governmental quality--anything which needs -to know quickly the whole contour of a county or the rough, relative -position of men and towns. On such a journey, like jagged lightning, -I sat from morning till night by the side of the chauffeur; and we -scarcely exchanged a word to the hour. But by the time the yellow stars -came out in the villages and the white stars in the skies, I think I -understood his character; and I fear he understood mine. - -He was a Cheshire man with a sour, patient, and humorous face; he was -modest, though a north countryman, and genial, though an expert. He -spoke (when he spoke at all) with a strong northland accent; and he -evidently was new to the beautiful south country, as was clear both from -his approval and his complaints. But though he came from the north he -was agricultural and not commercial in origin; he looked at the land -rather than the towns, even if he looked at it with a somewhat more -sharp and utilitarian eye. His first remark for some hours was uttered -when we were crossing the more coarse and desolate heights of Salisbury -Plain. He remarked that he had always thought that Salisbury Plain was -a plain. This alone showed that he was new to the vicinity. But he also -said, with a critical frown, "A lot of this land ought to be good land -enough. Why don't they use it?" He was then silent for some more hours. - -At an abrupt angle of the slopes that lead down from what is called -(with no little humour) Salisbury Plain, I saw suddenly, as by accident, -something I was looking for--that is, something I did not expect to see. -We are all supposed to be trying to walk into heaven; but we should be -uncommonly astonished if we suddenly walked into it. As I was leaving -Salisbury Plain (to put it roughly) I lifted up my eyes and saw the -White Horse of Britain. - -One or two truly fine poets of the Tory and Protestant type, such as -Swinburne and Mr. Rudyard Kipling, have eulogized England under the -image of white horses, meaning the white-maned breakers of the Channel. -This is right and natural enough. The true philosophical Tory goes back -to ancient things because he thinks they will be anarchic things. It -would startle him very much to be told that there are white horses of -artifice in England that may be older than those wild white horses of -the elements. Yet it is truly so. Nobody knows how old are those strange -green and white hieroglyphics, those straggling quadrupeds of chalk, -that stand out on the sides of so many of the Southern Downs. They are -possibly older than Saxon and older than Roman times. They may well be -older than British, older than any recorded times. They may go back, for -all we know, to the first faint seeds of human life on this planet. Men -may have picked a horse out of the grass long before they scratched a -horse on a vase or pot, or messed and massed any horse out of clay. This -may be the oldest human art--before building or graving. And if so, it -may have first happened in another geological age, before the sea burst -through the narrow Straits of Dover. The White Horse may have begun in -Berkshire when there were no white horses at Folkestone or Newhaven. -That rude but evident white outline that I saw across the valley may -have been begun when Britain was not an island. We forget that there are -many places where art is older than nature. - -We took a long detour through somewhat easier roads, till we came to a -breach or chasm in the valley, from which we saw our friend the White -Horse once more. At least, we thought it was our friend the White Horse; -but after a little inquiry we discovered to our astonishment that it was -another friend and another horse. Along the leaning flanks of the same -fair valley there was (it seemed) another white horse; as rude and as -clean, as ancient and as modern, as the first. This, at least, I thought -must be the aboriginal White Horse of Alfred, which I had always heard -associated with his name. And yet before we had driven into Wantage -and seen King Alfred's quaint grey statue in the sun, we had seen yet a -third white horse. And the third white horse was so hopelessly unlike -a horse that we were sure that it was genuine. The final and original -white horse, the white horse of the White Horse Vale, has that big, -babyish quality that truly belongs to our remotest ancestors. It really -has the prehistoric, preposterous quality of Zulu or New Zealand native -drawings. This at least was surely made by our fathers when they were -barely men; long before they were civilized men. - -But why was it made? Why did barbarians take so much trouble to make a -horse nearly as big as a hamlet; a horse who could bear no hunter, who -could drag no load? What was this titanic, sub-conscious instinct for -spoiling a beautiful green slope with a very ugly white quadruped? -What (for the matter of that) is this whole hazardous fancy of humanity -ruling the earth, which may have begun with white horses, which may by -no means end with twenty horse-power cars? As I rolled away out of that -country, I was still cloudily considering how ordinary men ever came to -want to make such strange chalk horses, when my chauffeur startled me by -speaking for the first time for nearly two hours. He suddenly let go one -of the handles and pointed at a gross green bulk of down that happened -to swell above us. "That would be a good place," he said. - -Naturally I referred to his last speech of some hours before; and -supposed he meant that it would be promising for agriculture. As a fact, -it was quite unpromising; and this made me suddenly understand the quiet -ardour in his eye. All of a sudden I saw what he really meant. He really -meant that this would be a splendid place to pick out another white -horse. He knew no more than I did why it was done; but he was in some -unthinkable prehistoric tradition, because he wanted to do it. He became -so acute in sensibility that he could not bear to pass any broad breezy -hill of grass on which there was not a white horse. He could hardly keep -his hands off the hills. He could hardly leave any of the living grass -alone. - -Then I left off wondering why the primitive man made so many white -horses. I left off troubling in what sense the ordinary eternal man had -sought to scar or deface the hills. I was content to know that he did -want it; for I had seen him wanting it. - - - - -The Long Bow - -I find myself still sitting in front of the last book by Mr. H. G. -Wells, I say stunned with admiration, my family says sleepy with -fatigue. I still feel vaguely all the things in Mr. Wells's book which -I agree with; and I still feel vividly the one thing that I deny. I deny -that biology can destroy the sense of truth, which alone can even desire -biology. No truth which I find can deny that I am seeking the truth. My -mind cannot find anything which denies my mind... But what is all this? -This is no sort of talk for a genial essay. Let us change the subject; -let us have a romance or a fable or a fairy tale. - -Come, let us tell each other stories. There was once a king who was very -fond of listening to stories, like the king in the Arabian Nights. -The only difference was that, unlike that cynical Oriental, this king -believed all the stories that he heard. It is hardly necessary to add -that he lived in England. His face had not the swarthy secrecy of the -tyrant of the thousand tales; on the contrary, his eyes were as big and -innocent as two blue moons; and when his yellow beard turned totally -white he seemed to be growing younger. Above him hung still his heavy -sword and horn, to remind men that he had been a tall hunter and warrior -in his time: indeed, with that rusted sword he had wrecked armies. -But he was one of those who will never know the world, even when they -conquer it. Besides his love of this old Chaucerian pastime of the -telling of tales, he was, like many old English kings, specially -interested in the art of the bow. He gathered round him great archers of -the stature of Ulysses and Robin Hood, and to four of these he gave -the whole government of his kingdom. They did not mind governing his -kingdom; but they were sometimes a little bored with the necessity -of telling him stories. None of their stories were true; but the king -believed all of them, and this became very depressing. They created the -most preposterous romances; and could not get the credit of creating -them. Their true ambition was sent empty away. They were praised as -archers; but they desired to be praised as poets. They were trusted as -men, but they would rather have been admired as literary men. - -At last, in an hour of desperation, they formed themselves into a club -or conspiracy with the object of inventing some story which even the -king could not swallow. They called it The League of the Long Bow; thus -attaching themselves by a double bond to their motherland of England, -which has been steadily celebrated since the Norman Conquest for its -heroic archery and for the extraordinary credulity of its people. - -At last it seemed to the four archers that their hour had come. The king -commonly sat in a green curtained chamber, which opened by four doors, -and was surmounted by four turrets. Summoning his champions to him on an -April evening, he sent out each of them by a separate door, telling him -to return at morning with the tale of his journey. Every champion bowed -low, and, girding on great armour as for awful adventures, retired to -some part of the garden to think of a lie. They did not want to think of -a lie which would deceive the king; any lie would do that. They wanted -to think of a lie so outrageous that it would not deceive him, and that -was a serious matter. - -The first archer who returned was a dark, quiet, clever fellow, very -dexterous in small matters of mechanics. He was more interested in the -science of the bow than in the sport of it. Also he would only shoot at -a mark, for he thought it cruel to kill beasts and birds, and atrocious -to kill men. When he left the king he had gone out into the wood and -tried all sorts of tiresome experiments about the bending of branches -and the impact of arrows; when even he found it tiresome he returned to -the house of the four turrets and narrated his adventure. "Well," said -the king, "what have you been shooting?" "Arrows," answered the archer. -"So I suppose," said the king smiling; "but I mean, I mean what wild -things have you shot?" "I have shot nothing but arrows," answered the -bowman obstinately. "When I went out on to the plain I saw in a crescent -the black army of the Tartars, the terrible archers whose bows are of -bended steel, and their bolts as big as javelins. They spied me afar -off, and the shower of their arrows shut out the sun and made a rattling -roof above me. You know, I think it wrong to kill a bird, or worm, or -even a Tartar. But such is the precision and rapidity of perfect science -that, with my own arrows, I split every arrow as it came against me. I -struck every flying shaft as if it were a flying bird. Therefore, Sire, -I may say truly, that I shot nothing but arrows." The king said, "I know -how clever you engineers are with your fingers." The archer said, "Oh," -and went out. - -The second archer, who had curly hair and was pale, poetical, and rather -effeminate, had merely gone out into the garden and stared at the moon. -When the moon had become too wide, blank, and watery, even for his own -wide, blank, and watery eyes, he came in again. And when the king said -"What have you been shooting?" he answered with great volubility, "I -have shot a man; not a man from Tartary, not a man from Europe, Asia, -Africa, or America; not a man on this earth at all. I have shot the -Man in the Moon." "Shot the Man in the Moon?" repeated the king with -something like a mild surprise. "It is easy to prove it," said -the archer with hysterical haste. "Examine the moon through this -particularly powerful telescope, and you will no longer find any -traces of a man there." The king glued his big blue idiotic eye to the -telescope for about ten minutes, and then said, "You are right: as -you have often pointed out, scientific truth can only be tested by the -senses. I believe you." And the second archer went out, and being of a -more emotional temperament burst into tears. - -The third archer was a savage, brooding sort of man with tangled hair -and dreamy eyes, and he came in without any preface, saying, "I have -lost all my arrows. They have turned into birds." Then as he saw that -they all stared at him, he said "Well, you know everything changes on -the earth; mud turns into marigolds, eggs turn into chickens; one can -even breed dogs into quite different shapes. Well, I shot my arrows -at the awful eagles that clash their wings round the Himalayas; great -golden eagles as big as elephants, which snap the tall trees by perching -on them. My arrows fled so far over mountain and valley that they turned -slowly into fowls in their flight. See here," and he threw down a dead -bird and laid an arrow beside it. "Can't you see they are the same -structure. The straight shaft is the backbone; the sharp point is the -beak; the feather is the rudimentary plumage. It is merely modification -and evolution." After a silence the king nodded gravely and said, "Yes; -of course everything is evolution." At this the third archer suddenly -and violently left the room, and was heard in some distant part of the -building making extraordinary noises either of sorrow or of mirth. - -The fourth archer was a stunted man with a face as dead as wood, -but with wicked little eyes close together, and very much alive. His -comrades dissuaded him from going in because they said that they had -soared up into the seventh heaven of living lies, and that there was -literally nothing which the old man would not believe. The face of the -little archer became a little more wooden as he forced his way in, and -when he was inside he looked round with blinking bewilderment. "Ha, the -last," said the king heartily, "welcome back again!" There was a long -pause, and then the stunted archer said, "What do you mean by 'again'? -I have never been here before." The king stared for a few seconds, and -said, "I sent you out from this room with the four doors last night." -After another pause the little man slowly shook his head. "I never saw -you before," he said simply; "you never sent me out from anywhere. -I only saw your four turrets in the distance, and strayed in here by -accident. I was born in an island in the Greek Archipelago; I am by -profession an auctioneer, and my name is Punk." The king sat on his -throne for seven long instants like a statue; and then there awoke in -his mild and ancient eyes an awful thing; the complete conviction of -untruth. Every one has felt it who has found a child obstinately false. -He rose to his height and took down the heavy sword above him, plucked -it out naked, and then spoke. "I will believe your mad tales about the -exact machinery of arrows; for that is science. I will believe your -mad tales about traces of life in the moon; for that is science. I -will believe your mad tales about jellyfish turning into gentlemen, and -everything turning into anything; for that is science. But I will -not believe you when you tell me what I know to be untrue. I will -not believe you when you say that you did not all set forth under my -authority and out of my house. The other three may conceivably have told -the truth; but this last man has certainly lied. Therefore I will kill -him." And with that the old and gentle king ran at the man with uplifted -sword; but he was arrested by the roar of happy laughter, which told the -world that there is, after all, something which an Englishman will not -swallow. - - - - -The Modern Scrooge - -Mr. Vernon-Smith, of Trinity, and the Social Settlement, Tooting, -author of "A Higher London" and "The Boyg System at Work," came to the -conclusion, after looking through his select and even severe library, -that Dickens's "Christmas Carol" was a very suitable thing to be read to -charwomen. Had they been men they would have been forcibly subjected -to Browning's "Christmas Eve" with exposition, but chivalry spared -the charwomen, and Dickens was funny, and could do no harm. His fellow -worker Wimpole would read things like "Three Men in a Boat" to the poor; -but Vernon-Smith regarded this as a sacrifice of principle, or (what was -the same thing to him) of dignity. He would not encourage them in their -vulgarity; they should have nothing from him that was not literature. -Still Dickens was literature after all; not literature of a high order, -of course, not thoughtful or purposeful literature, but literature quite -fitted for charwomen on Christmas Eve. - -He did not, however, let them absorb Dickens without due antidotes of -warning and criticism. He explained that Dickens was not a writer of the -first rank, since he lacked the high seriousness of Matthew Arnold. -He also feared that they would find the characters of Dickens terribly -exaggerated. But they did not, possibly because they were meeting them -every day. For among the poor there are still exaggerated characters; -they do not go to the Universities to be universified. He told the -charwomen, with progressive brightness, that a mad wicked old miser -like Scrooge would be really quite impossible now; but as each of the -charwomen had an uncle or a grandfather or a father-in-law who was -exactly like Scrooge, his cheerfulness was not shared. Indeed, the -lecture as a whole lacked something of his firm and elastic touch, and -towards the end he found himself rambling, and in a sort of abstraction, -talking to them as if they were his fellows. He caught himself saying -quite mystically that a spiritual plane (by which he meant his plane) -always looked to those on the sensual or Dickens plane, not merely -austere, but desolate. He said, quoting Bernard Shaw, that we could all -go to heaven just as we can all go to a classical concert, but if we -did it would bore us. Realizing that he was taking his flock far out of -their depth, he ended somewhat hurriedly, and was soon receiving that -generous applause which is a part of the profound ceremonialism of the -working classes. As he made his way to the door three people stopped -him, and he answered them heartily enough, but with an air of hurry -which he would not have dreamed of showing to people of his own class. -One was a little schoolmistress who told him with a sort of feverish -meekness that she was troubled because an Ethical Lecturer had said that -Dickens was not really Progressive; but she thought he was Progressive; -and surely he was Progressive. Of what being Progressive was she had -no more notion than a whale. The second person implored him for a -subscription to some soup kitchen or cheap meal; and his refined -features sharpened; for this, like literature, was a matter of principle -with him. "Quite the wrong method," he said, shaking his head and -pushing past. "Nothing any good but the Boyg system." The third -stranger, who was male, caught him on the step as he came out into the -snow and starlight; and asked him point blank for money. It was a -part of Vernon-Smith's principles that all such persons are prosperous -impostors; and like a true mystic he held to his principles in defiance -of his five senses, which told him that the night was freezing and the -man very thin and weak. "If you come to the Settlement between four and -five on Friday week," he said, "inquiries will be made." The man stepped -back into the snow with a not ungraceful gesture as of apology; he had -frosty silver hair, and his lean face, though in shadow, seemed to wear -something like a smile. As Vernon-Smith stepped briskly into the street, -the man stooped down as if to do up his bootlace. He was, however, -guiltless of any such dandyism; and as the young philanthropist stood -pulling on his gloves with some particularity, a heavy snowball was -suddenly smashed into his face. He was blind for a black instant; then -as some of the snow fell, saw faintly, as in a dim mirror of ice or -dreamy crystal, the lean man bowing with the elegance of a dancing -master, and saying amiably, "A Christmas box." When he had quite cleared -his face of snow the man had vanished. - -For three burning minutes Cyril Vernon-Smith was nearer to the people -and more their brother than he had been in his whole high-stepping -pedantic existence; for if he did not love a poor man, he hated one. And -you never really regard a labourer as your equal until you can quarrel -with him. "Dirty cad!" he muttered. "Filthy fool! Mucking with snow like -a beastly baby! When will they be civilized? Why, the very state of the -street is a disgrace and a temptation to such tomfools. Why isn't all -this snow cleared away and the street made decent?" - -To the eye of efficiency, there was, indeed, something to complain of -in the condition of the road. Snow was banked up on both sides in white -walls and towards the other and darker end of the street even rose into -a chaos of low colourless hills. By the time he reached them he was -nearly knee deep, and was in a far from philanthropic frame of mind. -The solitude of the little streets was as strange as their white -obstruction, and before he had ploughed his way much further he was -convinced that he had taken a wrong turning, and fallen upon some -formless suburb unvisited before. There was no light in any of the low, -dark houses; no light in anything but the blank emphatic snow. He was -modern and morbid; hellish isolation hit and held him suddenly; anything -human would have relieved the strain, if it had been only the leap of a -garotter. Then the tender human touch came indeed; for another snowball -struck him, and made a star on his back. He turned with fierce joy, and -ran after a boy escaping; ran with dizzy and violent speed, he knew not -for how long. He wanted the boy; he did not know whether he loved or -hated him. He wanted humanity; he did not know whether he loved or hated -it. - -As he ran he realized that the landscape around him was changing in -shape though not in colour. The houses seemed to dwindle and disappear -in hills of snow as if buried; the snow seemed to rise in tattered -outlines of crag and cliff and crest, but he thought nothing of all -these impossibilities until the boy turned to bay. When he did he saw -the child was queerly beautiful, with gold red hair, and a face as -serious as complete happiness. And when he spoke to the boy his own -question surprised him, for he said for the first time in his life, -"What am I doing here?" And the little boy, with very grave eyes, -answered, "I suppose you are dead." - -He had (also for the first time) a doubt of his spiritual destiny. He -looked round on a towering landscape of frozen peaks and plains, and -said, "Is this hell?" And as the child stared, but did not answer, he -knew it was heaven. - -All over that colossal country, white as the world round the Pole, -little boys were playing, rolling each other down dreadful slopes, -crushing each other under falling cliffs; for heaven is a place where -one can fight for ever without hurting. Smith suddenly remembered how -happy he had been as a child, rolling about on the safe sandhills around -Conway. - -Right above Smith's head, higher than the cross of St. Paul's, but -curving over him like the hanging blossom of a harebell, was a cavernous -crag of snow. A hundred feet below him, like a landscape seen from a -balloon, lay snowy flats as white and as far away. He saw a little -boy stagger, with many catastrophic slides, to that toppling peak; and -seizing another little boy by the leg, send him flying away down to the -distant silver plains. There he sank and vanished in the snow as if in -the sea; but coming up again like a diver rushed madly up the steep once -more, rolling before him a great gathering snowball, gigantic at last, -which he hurled back at the mountain crest, and brought both the boy and -the mountain down in one avalanche to the level of the vale. The other -boy also sank like a stone, and also rose again like a bird, but Smith -had no leisure to concern himself with this. For the collapse of that -celestial crest had left him standing solitary in the sky on a peak like -a church spire. - -He could see the tiny figures of the boys in the valley below, and he -knew by their attitudes that they were eagerly telling him to jump. Then -for the first time he knew the nature of faith, as he had just known -the fierce nature of charity. Or rather for the second time, for he -remembered one moment when he had known faith before. It was n when his -father had taught him to swim, and he had believed he could float on -water not only against reason, but (what is so much harder) against -instinct. Then he had trusted water; now he must trust air. - -He jumped. He went through air and then through snow with the same -blinding swiftness. But as he buried himself in solid snow like a bullet -he seemed to learn a million things and to learn them all too fast. -He knew that the whole world is a snowball, and that all the stars are -snowballs. He knew that no man will be fit for heaven till he loves -solid whiteness as a little boy loves a ball of snow. - -He sank and sank and sank... and then, as usually happens in such cases, -woke up, with a start--in the street. True, he was taken up for a common -drunk, but (if you properly appreciate his conversion) you will realize -that he did not mind; since the crime of drunkenness is infinitely less -than that of spiritual pride, of which he had really been guilty. - - - - -The High Plains - -By high plains I do not mean table-lands; table-lands do not interest -one very much. They seem to involve the bore of a climb without the -pleasure of a peak. Also they arc vaguely associated with Asia and those -enormous armies that eat up everything like locusts, as did the army -of Xerxes; with emperors from nowhere spreading their battalions -everywhere; with the white elephants and the painted horses, the dark -engines and the dreadful mounted bowmen of the moving empires of the -East, with all that evil insolence in short that rolled into Europe in -the youth of Nero, and after having been battered about and abandoned by -one Christian nation after another, turned up in England with Disraeli -and was christened (or rather paganed) Imperialism. - -Also (it may be necessary to explain) I do not mean "high planes" such -as the Theosophists and the Higher Thought Centres talk about. They -spell theirs differently; but I will not have theirs in any spelling. -They, I know, are always expounding how this or that person is on a -lower plane, while they (the speakers) are on a higher plane: sometimes -they will almost tell you what plane, as "5994" or "Plane F, sub-plane -304." I do not mean this sort of height either. My religion says nothing -about such planes except that all men are on one plane and that by no -means a high one. There are saints indeed in my religion: but a saint -only means a man who really knows he is a sinner. - -Why then should I talk of the plains as high? I do it for a rather -singular reason, which I will illustrate by a parallel. When I was at -school learning all the Greek I have ever forgotten, I was puzzled by -the phrase OINON MELAN that is "black wine," which continually occurred. -I asked what it meant, and many most interesting and convincing answers -were given. It was pointed out that we know little of the actual liquid -drunk by the Greeks; that the analogy of modern Greek wines may suggest -that it was dark and sticky, perhaps a sort of syrup always taken with -water; that archaic language about colour is always a little dubious, as -where Homer speaks of the "wine-dark sea" and so on. I was very properly -satisfied, and never thought of the matter again; until one day, having -a decanter of claret in front of me, I happened to look at it. I then -perceived that they called wine black because it is black. Very thin, -diluted, or held-up abruptly against a flame, red wine is red; but seen -in body in most normal shades and semi-lights red wine is black, and -therefore was called so. - -On the same principles I call the plains high because the plains always -are high; they are always as high as we are. We talk of climbing a -mountain crest and looking down at the plain; but the phrase is an -illusion of our arrogance. It is impossible even to look down at the -plain. For the plain itself rises as we rise. It is not merely true -that the higher we climb the wider and wider is spread out below us -the wealth of the world; it is not merely that the devil or some other -respectable guide for tourists takes us to the top of an exceeding high -mountain and shows us all the kingdoms of the earth. It is more than -that, in our real feeling of it. It is that in a sense the whole -world rises with us roaring, and accompanies us to the crest like some -clanging chorus of eagles. The plains rise higher and higher like swift -grey walls piled up against invisible invaders. And however high a peak -you climb, the plain is still as high as the peak. - -The mountain tops are only noble because from them we are privileged to -behold the plains. So the only value in any man being superior is that -he may have a superior admiration for the level and the common. If there -is any profit in a place craggy and precipitous it is only because from -the vale it is not easy to see all the beauty of the vale; because -when actually in the flats one cannot see their sublime and satisfying -flatness. If there is any value in being educated or eminent (which is -doubtful enough) it is only because the best instructed man may feel -most swiftly and certainly the splendour of the ignorant and the simple: -the full magnificence of that mighty human army in the plains. The -general goes up to the hill to look at his soldiers, not to look down at -his soldiers. He withdraws himself not because his regiment is too small -to be touched, but because it is too mighty to be seen. The chief climbs -with submission and goes higher with great humility; since in order to -take a bird's eye view of everything, he must become small and distant -like a bird. - -The most marvellous of those mystical cavaliers who wrote intricate -and exquisite verse in England in the seventeenth century, I mean -Henry Vaughan, put the matter in one line, intrinsically immortal and -practically forgotten-- - -"Oh holy hope and high humility." - -That adjective "high" is not only one of the sudden and stunning -inspirations of literature; it is also one of the greatest and gravest -definitions of moral science. However far aloft a man may go, he is -still looking up, not only at God (which is obvious), but in a manner -at men also: seeing more and more all that is towering and mysterious in -the dignity and destiny of the lonely house of Adam. I wrote some part -of these rambling remarks on a high ridge of rock and turf overlooking a -stretch of the central counties; the rise was slight enough in reality, -but the immediate ascent had been so steep and sudden that one could not -avoid the fancy that on reaching the summit one would look down at the -stars. But one did not look down at the stars, but rather up at the -cities; seeing as high in heaven the palace town of Alfred like a lit -sunset cloud, and away in the void spaces, like a planet in eclipse, -Salisbury. So, it may be hoped, until we die you and I will always look -up rather than down at the labours and the habitations of our race; we -will lift up our eyes to the valleys from whence cometh our help. For -from every special eminence and beyond every sublime landmark, it is -good for our souls to see only vaster and vaster visions of that dizzy -and divine level; and to behold from our crumbling turrets the tall -plains of equality. - - - - -The Chorus - -One of the most marked instances of the decline of true popular sympathy -is the gradual disappearance in our time of the habit of singing -in chorus. Even when it is done nowadays it is done tentatively and -sometimes inaudibly; apparently upon some preposterous principle -(which I have never clearly grasped) that singing is an art. In the new -aristocracy of the drawing-room a lady is actually asked whether she -sings. In the old democracy of the dinner table a man was simply told to -sing, and he had to do it. I like the atmosphere of those old banquets. -I like to think of my ancestors, middle-aged or venerable gentlemen, all -sitting round a table and explaining that they would never forget old -days or friends with a rumpty-iddity-iddity, or letting it be known that -they would die for England's glory with their tooral ooral, etc. Even -the vices of that society (which 'sometimes, I fear, rendered the -narrative portions of the song almost as cryptic and inarticulate as the -chorus) were displayed with a more human softening than the same -vices in the saloon bars of our own time. I greatly prefer Mr. Richard -Swiveller to Mr. Stanley Ortheris. I prefer the man who exceeded in rosy -wine in order that the wing of friendship might never moult a feather -to the man who exceeds quite as much in whiskies and sodas, but declares -all the time that he's for number one, and that you don't catch him -paying for other men's drinks. The old men of pleasure (with their -tooral ooral) got at least some social and communal virtue out of -pleasure. The new men of pleasure (without the slightest vestige of -a tooral ooral) are simply hermits of irreligion instead of religion, -anchorites of atheism, and they might as well be drugging themselves -with hashish or opium in a wilderness. - -But the chorus of the old songs had another use besides this obvious one -of asserting the popular element in the arts. The chorus of a song, even -of a comic song, has the same purpose as the chorus in a Greek tragedy. -It reconciles men to the gods. It connects this one particular tale with -the cosmos and the philosophy of common things, Thus we constantly find -in the old ballads, especially the pathetic ballads, some refrain about -the grass growing green, or the birds singing, or the woods being merry -in spring. These are windows opened in the house of tragedy; momentary -glimpses of larger and quieter scenes, of more ancient and enduring -landscapes. Many of the country songs describing crime and death have -refrains of a startling joviality like cock crow, just as if the whole -company were coming in with a shout of protest against so sombre a view -of existence. There is a long and gruesome ballad called "The Berkshire -Tragedy," about a murder committed by a jealous sister, for the -consummation of which a wicked miller is hanged, and the chorus (which -should come in a kind of burst) runs: - - "And I'll be true to my love - If my love'll be true to me." - -The very reasonable arrangement here suggested is introduced, I think, -as a kind of throw back to the normal, a reminder that even "The -Berkshire Tragedy" does not fill the whole of Berkshire. The poor -young lady is drowned, and the wicked miller (to whom we may have been -affectionately attached) is hanged; but still a ruby kindles in the -vine, and many a garden by the water blows. Not that Omar's type of -hedonistic resignation is at all the same as the breezy impatience of -the Berkshire refrain; but they are alike in so far as they gaze out -beyond the particular complication to more open plains of peace. The -chorus of the ballad looks past the drowning maiden and the miller's -gibbet, and sees the lanes full of lovers. - -This use of the chorus to humanize and dilute a dark story is strongly -opposed to the modern view of art. Modern art has to be what is -called "intense." It is not easy to define being intense; but, roughly -speaking, it means saying only one thing at a time, and saying it wrong. -Modern tragic writers have to write short stories; if they wrote long -stories (as the man said of philosophy) cheerfulness would creep in. -Such stories are like stings; brief, but purely painful. And doubtless -they bore some resemblance to some lives lived under our successful -scientific civilization; lives which tend in any case to be painful, and -in many cases to be brief. But when the artistic people passed beyond -the poignant anecdote and began to write long books full of poignancy, -then the reading public began to rebel and to demand the recall of -romance. The long books about the black poverty of cities became quite -insupportable. The Berkshire tragedy had a chorus; but the London -tragedy has no chorus. Therefore people welcomed the return of -adventurous novels about alien places and times, the trenchant and -swordlike stories of Stevenson. But I am not narrowly on the side of the -romantics. I think that glimpses of the gloom of our civilization ought -to be recorded. I think that the bewilderments of the solitary and -sceptical soul ought to be preserved, if it be only for the pity (yes, -and the admiration) of a happier time. But I wish that there were some -way in which the chorus could enter. I wish that at the end of each -chapter of stiff agony or insane terror the choir of humanity could come -in with a crash of music and tell both the reader and the author that -this is not the whole of human experience. Let them go on recording hard -scenes or hideous questions, but let there be a jolly refrain. - -Thus we might read: "As Honoria laid down the volume of Ibsen and went -wearily to her window, she realized that life must be to her not only -harsher, but colder than it was to the comfortable and the weak. With -her tooral ooral, etc.;" or, again: "The young curate smiled grimly as -he listened to his great-grandmother's last words. He knew only too -well that since Phogg's discovery of the hereditary hairiness of goats -religion stood on a very different basis from that which it had occupied -in his childhood. With his rumpty-iddity, rumpty-iddity;" and so on. Or -we might read: "Uriel Maybloom stared gloomily down at his sandals, as -he realized for the first time how senseless and anti-social are all -ties between man and woman; how each must go his or her way without any -attempt to arrest the head-long separation of their souls." And then -would come in one deafening chorus of everlasting humanity "But I'll be -true to my love, if my love'll be true to me." - -In the records of the first majestic and yet fantastic developments -of the foundation of St. Francis of Assisi is an account of a certain -Blessed Brother Giles. I have forgotten most of it, but I remember -one fact: that certain students of theology came to ask him whether -he believed in free will, and, if so, how he could reconcile it with -necessity. On hearing the question St. Francis's follower reflected a -little while and then seized a fiddle and began capering and dancing -about the garden, playing a wild tune and generally expressing a violent -and invigorating indifference. The tune is not recorded, but it is the -eternal chorus of mankind, that modifies all the arts and mocks all the -individualisms, like the laughter and thunder of some distant sea. - - - - -A Romance of the Marshes - -In books as a whole marshes are described as desolate and colourless, -great fields of clay or sedge, vast horizons of drab or grey. But this, -like many other literary associations, is a piece of poetical injustice. -Monotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its -sensation or its infliction, is simply the quality of a person. There -are no dreary sights; there are only dreary sightseers. It is a matter -of taste, that is of personality, whether marshes are monotonous; but it -is a matter of fact and science that they are not monochrome. The tops -of high mountains (I am told) are all white; the depths of primeval -caverns (I am also told) are all dark. The sea will be grey or blue -for weeks together; and the desert, I have been led to believe, is the -colour of sand. The North Pole (if we found it) would be white with -cracks of blue; and Endless Space (if we went there) would, I suppose, -be black with white spots. If any of these were counted of a monotonous -colour I could well understand it; but on the contrary, they are always -spoken of as if they had the gorgeous and chaotic colours of a cosmic -kaleidoscope. Now exactly where you can find colours like those of a -tulip garden or a stained-glass window, is in those sunken and sodden -lands which are always called dreary. Of course the great tulip gardens -did arise in Holland; which is simply one immense marsh. There is -nothing in Europe so truly tropical as marshes. Also, now I come to -think of it, there are few places so agreeably marshy as tropics. At -any rate swamp and fenlands in England are always especially rich in -gay grasses or gorgeous fungoids; and seem sometimes as glorious as -a transformation scene; but also as unsubstantial. In these splendid -scenes it is always very easy to put your foot through the scenery. You -may sink up to your armpits; but you will sink up to your armpits in -flowers. I do not deny that I myself am of a sort that sinks--except -in the matter of spirits. I saw in the west counties recently a swampy -field of great richness and promise. If I had stepped on it I have no -doubt at all that I should have vanished; that aeons hence the -complete fossil of a fat Fleet Street journalist would be found in that -compressed clay. I only claim that it would be found in some attitude of -energy, or even of joy. But the last point is the most important of all, -for as I imagined myself sinking up to the neck in what looked like a -solid green field, I suddenly remembered that this very thing must have -happened to certain interesting pirates quite a thousand years ago. - -For, as it happened, the flat fenland in which I so nearly sunk was -the fenland round the Island of Athelney, which is now an island in the -fields and no longer in the waters. But on the abrupt hillock a stone -still stands to say that this was that embattled islet in the Parrett -where King Alfred held his last fort against the foreign invaders, in -that war that nearly washed us as far from civilization as the Solomon -Islands. Here he defended the island called Athelney as he afterwards -did his best to defend the island called England. For the hero always -defends an island, a thing beleaguered and surrounded, like the Troy -of Hector. And the highest and largest humanitarian can only rise to -defending the tiny island called the earth. - -One approaches the island of Athelney along a low long road like an -interminable white string stretched across the flats, and lined with -those dwarfish trees that are elvish in their very dullness. At one -point of the journey (I cannot conceive why) one is arrested by a toll -gate at which one has to pay threepence. Perhaps it is a distorted -tradition of those dark ages. Perhaps Alfred, with the superior science -of comparative civilization, had calculated the economics of Denmark -down to a halfpenny. Perhaps a Dane sometimes came with twopence, -sometimes even with twopence-halfpenny, after the sack of many cities -even with twopence three farthings; but never with threepence. Whether -or no it was a permanent barrier to the barbarians it was only a -temporary barrier to me. I discovered three large and complete coppers -in various parts of my person, and I passed on along that strangely -monotonous and strangely fascinating path. It is not merely fanciful to -feel that the place expresses itself appropriately as the place -where the great Christian King hid himself from the heathen. Though -a marshland is always open it is still curiously secret. Fens, like -deserts, are large things very apt to be mislaid. These flats feared to -be overlooked in a double sense; the small trees crouched and the whole -plain seemed lying on its face, as men do when shells burst. The -little path ran fearlessly forward; but it seemed to run on all fours. -Everything in that strange countryside seemed to be lying low, as if to -avoid the incessant and rattling rain of the Danish arrows. There were -indeed hills of no inconsiderable height quite within call; but those -pools and flats of the old Parrett seemed to separate themselves like -a central and secret sea; and in the midst of them stood up the rock of -Athelney as isolate as it was to Alfred. And all across this recumbent -and almost crawling country there ran the glory of the low wet lands; -grass lustrous and living like the plumage of some universal bird; the -flowers as gorgeous as bonfires and the weeds more beautiful than the -flowers. One stooped to stroke the grass, as if the earth were all one -kind beast that could feel. - -Why does no decent person write an historical novel about Alfred and his -fort in Athelney, in the marshes of the Parrett? Not a very historical -novel. Not about his Truth-telling (please) or his founding the British -Empire, or the British Navy, or the Navy League, or whichever it was -he founded. Not about the Treaty of Wedmore and whether it ought (as -an eminent historian says) to be called the Pact of Chippenham. But an -aboriginal romance for boys about the bare, bald, beatific fact that -a great hero held his fort in an island in a river. An island is fine -enough, in all conscience or piratic unconscientiousness, but an island -in a river sounds like the beginning of the greatest adventure story on -earth. "Robinson Crusoe" is really a great tale, but think of Robinson -Crusoe's feelings if he could have actually seen England and Spain from -his inaccessible isle! "Treasure Island" is a spirit of genius: but -what treasure could an island contain to compare with Alfred? And then -consider the further elements of juvenile romance in an island that was -more of an island than it looked. Athelney was masked with marshes; many -a heavy harnessed Viking may have started bounding across a meadow only -to find himself submerged in a sea. I feel the full fictitious splendour -spreading round me; I see glimpses of a great romance that will never be -written. I see a sudden shaft quivering in one of the short trees. I see -a red-haired man wading madly among the tall gold flowers of the marsh, -leaping onward and lurching lower. I see another shaft stand quivering -in his throat. I cannot see any more, because, as I have delicately -suggested, I am a heavy man. This mysterious marshland does not sustain -me, and I sink into its depths with a bubbling groan. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Alarms and Discursions, by G. K. 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