by ,al ,haines4 ,,where ,,no ,,fear ,,was ,a ,,book ,,about ,,fear ,by ,,arthur ,,christopher ,,benson #aiad ,,contents ,i4 ,,the ,,shadow ,,ii4 ,,shapes ,,of ,,fear ,,iii4 ,,the ,,darkest ,,doubt ,,iv4 ,,vulnerability ,v4 ,,the ,,use ,,of ,,fear ,,vi4 ,,fears ,,of ,,childhood ,,vii4 ,,fears ,,of ,,boyhood ,,viii4 ,,fears ,,of ,,youth ,,ix4 ,,fears ,,of ,,middle ,,age ,x4 ,,fears ,,of ,,age ,,xi4 ,,dr4 ,,johnson ,,xii4 ,,tennyson1 ,,ruskin1 ,,carlyle ,,xiii4 ,,charlotte ,,bronte ,,xiv4 ,,john ,,sterling ,,xv4 ,,instinctive ,,fear ,,xvi4 ,,fear ,,of ,,life ,,xvii4 ,,simplicity ,,xviii4 ,,affection ,,xix4 ,,sin ,,xx4 ,,serenity ,thus they went on till they came to about the middle of the ,valley1 and then ,christiana said1 ',methinks ,i see something yonder on the road before us1 a thing of such a shape such as ,i have not seen4' ,then said ,joseph1 ',mother1 what is it8' ',an ugly thing1 ,child1 an ugly thing1' said she4 ',but1 ,mother1 what is it like8' said he4 '',tis like ,i cannot tell what1' said she4 ,and now it was but a little way off4 ,then said she1 ',it is nigh4' ,pilgrim's ,progress1 ,part ,,ii4 ,where ,no ,fear ,was ,i ,,the ,,shadow ,there surely may come a time for each of us1 if we have lived with any animation or interest1 if we have had any constant or even fitful desire to penetrate and grasp the significance of the strange adventure of life1 a time1 ,i say1 when we may look back a little1 not sentimentally or with any hope of making out an impressive case for ourselves1 and interrogate the memory as to what have been the most real1 vivid1 and intense things that have befallen us by the way4 ,we may try to separate the momentous from the trivial1 and the important from the unimportant2 to discern where and how and when we might have acted differently2 to see and to say what has really mattered1 what has made a deep mark on our spirit2 what has hampered or wounded or maimed us4 ,because one of the strangest things about life seems to be our incapacity to decide beforehand1 or even at the time1 where the real and fruitful joys1 and where the dark dangers and distresses lie4 ,the things that at certain times filled all one's mind1 kindled hope and aim1 seemed so infinitely desirable1 so necessary to happiness1 have faded1 many of them1 into the lightest and most worthless of husks and phantoms1 like the withered flowers that we find sometimes shut in the pages of our old books1 and cannot even remember of what glowing and emotional moment they were the record6 ,how impossible it is ever to learn anything by being told it6 ,how necessary it is to pay the full price for any knowledge worth having6 ,the anxious father1 the tearful mother1 may warn the little boy before he goes to school of the dangers that await him4 ,he does not understand1 he does not attend1 he is looking at the pattern of the carpet1 and wondering for the hundredth time whether the oddly-shaped blue thing which appears and reappears at intervals is a bird or a flower--yes1 it is certainly meant for a bird perched on a bough6 ,he wishes the talk were over1 he looks at the little scar on his father's hand1 and remembers that he has been told that he cut it in a cucumber-frame when he was a boy4 ,and then1 long afterwards perhaps1 when he has made a mistake and is suffering for it1 he sees that it was ,,that of which they spoke1 and wonders that they could not have explained it better4 ,and this is so all along6 ,we cannot recognise the dark tower1 to which in the story ,childe ,roland came1 by any description4 ,we must go there ourselves2 and not till we feel the teeth of the trap biting into us1 do we see that it was exactly in such a place that we had been warned that it would be laid4 ,there is an episode in that strange and beautiful book ,phantastes1 by ,george ,macdonald1 which comes often to my mind4 ,the boy is wandering in the enchanted forest1 and he is told to avoid the house where the ,daughter of the ,ogre lives4 ,his morose young guide shows him where the paths divide1 and he takes the one indicated to him with a sense of misgiving4 ,a little while before he had been deceived by the ,alder-maiden1 and had given her his love in error4 ,this has taken some of the old joy out of his heart1 but he has made his escape from her1 and thinks he has learned his lesson4 ,but he comes at last to the long low house in the clearing2 he finds within it an ancient woman reading out of an old volume2 he enters1 he examines the room in which she sits1 and yielding to curiosity1 he opens the door of the great cupboard in the corner1 in spite of a muttered warning4 ,he thinks1 on first opening it1 that it is just a dark cupboard2 but he sees with a shock of surprise that he is looking into a long dark passage1 which leads out1 far away from where he stands1 into the starlit night4 ,then a figure1 which seems to have been running from a long distance1 turns the corner1 and comes speeding down towards him4 ,he has not time to close the door1 but stands aside to let it pass2 it passes1 and slips behind him2 and soon he sees that it is a shadow of himself1 which has fallen on the floor at his feet4 ,he asks what has happened1 and then the old woman says that he has found his shadow1 a thing which happens to many people2 and then for the first time she raises her head and looks at him1 and he sees that her mouth is full of long white teeth2 he knows where he is at last1 and stumbles out1 with the dark shadow at his heels1 which is to haunt him so miserably for many a sad day4 ,that is a very fine and true similitude of what befalls many men and women4 ,they go astray1 they give up some precious thing--their innocence perhaps--to a deluding temptation4 ,they are delivered for a time2 and then a little while after they find their shadow1 which no tears or anguish of regret can take away1 till the healing of life and work and purpose annuls it4 ,neither is it always annulled1 even in length of days4 ,but it is a paltry and inglorious mistake to let the shadow have its disheartening will of us4 ,it is only a shadow1 after all6 ,and if we capitulate after our first disastrous encounter1 it does not mean that we shall be for ever vanquished1 though it means perhaps a long and dreary waste of shame-stained days4 ,that is what we must try to avoid--any ,,waste of time and strength4 ,for if anything is certain1 it is that we have all to fight until we conquer1 and the sooner we take up the dropped sword again the better4 ,and we have also to learn that no one can help us except ourselves4 ,other people can sympathise and console1 try to soothe our injured vanity1 try to persuade us that the dangers and disasters ahead are not so dreadful as they appear to be1 and that the mistakes we have made are not irreparable4 ,but no one can remove danger or regret from us1 or relieve us of the necessity of facing our own troubles2 the most that they can do1 indeed1 is to encourage us to try again4 ,but we cannot hope to change the conditions of life2 and one of its conditions is1 as ,i have said1 that we cannot foresee dangers4 ,no matter how vividly they are described to us1 no matter how eagerly those who love us try to warn us of peril1 we cannot escape4 ,for that is the essence of life--experience2 and though we cannot rejoice when we are in the grip of it1 and when we cannot see what the end will be1 we can at least say to ourselves again and again1 this is at all events reality--this is business6 for it is the moments of endurance and energy and action which after all justify us in living1 and not the pleasant spaces where we saunter among flowers and sunlit woods4 ,those are conceded to us1 to tempt us to live1 to make us desire to remain in the world2 and we need not be afraid to take them1 to use them1 to enjoy them2 because all things alike help to make us what we are4 ,,ii ,,shapes ,,of ,,fear ,now as ,i look back a little1 ,i see that some of my worst experiences have not hurt or injured me at all4 ,i do not claim more than my share of troubles1 but ,i have had trouble enough for one1 as ,browning says1--bereavements1 disappointments1 the illness of those ,i have loved1 illness of my own1 quarrels1 misunderstandings1 enmities1 angers1 disapprovals1 losses2 ,i have made bad mistakes1 ,i have failed in my duty1 ,i have done many things that ,i regret1 ,i have been unreasonable1 unkind1 selfish4 ,many of these things have hurt and wounded me1 have brought me into sorrow1 and even into despair4 ,but ,i do not feel that any of them have really injured me1 and some of them have already benefited me4 ,i have learned to be a little more patient and diligent1 and ,i have discovered that there are certain things that ,i must at all costs avoid4 ,but there is one thing which seems to me to have always and invariably hampered and maimed me1 whenever ,i have yielded to it1 and ,i have often yielded to it2 and that is ,fear4 ,it can be called by many names1 and all of them ugly names--anxiety1 timidity1 moral cowardice4 ,i can never trace the smallest good in having given way to it4 ,it has been from my earliest days the ,shadow2 and ,i think it is the shadow in the lives of many men and women4 ,i want in this book to track it1 if ,i can1 to its lair1 to see what it is1 where its awful power lies1 and what1 if anything1 one can do to resist it4 ,it seems the most unreal thing in the world1 when one is on the other side of it2 and yet face to face with it1 it has a strength1 a poignancy1 a paralysing power1 which makes it seem like a personal and specific ill-will1 issuing in a sort of dreadful enchantment or spell1 which renders it impossible to withstand4 ,yet1 strange to say1 it has not exercised its power in the few occasions in my life when it would seem to have been really justified4 ,let me quote an instance or two which will illustrate what ,i mean4 ,i was confronted once with the necessity of a small surgical operation1 quite unexpectedly4 ,if ,i had known beforehand that it was to be done1 ,i should have depicted every incident with horror and misery4 ,but the moment arrived1 and ,i found myself marching to my bedroom with a surgeon and a nurse1 with a sense almost of amusement at the adventure4 ,i was called upon once in ,switzerland to assist with two guides in the rescue of an unfortunate woman who had fallen from a precipice1 and had to be brought down1 dead or alive4 ,we hurried up through the pine-forest with a chair1 and found the poor creature alive indeed1 but with horrible injuries--an eye knocked out1 an arm and a thigh broken1 her ulster torn to ribbons1 and with more blood about the place in pools than ,i should have thought a human body could contain4 ,she was conscious2 she had to be lifted into the chair1 and we had to discover where she belonged2 she fainted away in the middle of it1 and ,i had to go on and break the news to her relations4 ,if ,i had been told beforehand what would have had to be done1 ,i do not think ,i could have faced it2 but it was there to do1 and ,i found myself entirely capable of taking part1 and even of wondering all the time that it was possible to act4 ,again1 ,i was once engulfed in a crevasse1 hanging from the ice-ledge with a portentous gulf below1 and a glacier-stream roaring in the darkness4 ,i could get no hold for foot or hand1 my companions could not reach me or extract me2 and as ,i sank into unconsciousness1 hearing my own expiring breath1 ,i knew that ,i was doomed2 but ,i can only say1 quite honestly and humbly1 that ,i had no fear at all1 and only dimly wondered what arrangements would be made at ,eton1 where ,i was then a master1 to accommodate the boys of my house and my pupils4 ,it was not done by an effort1 nor did ,i brace myself to the situation3 fear simply did not come near to me4 ,once again ,i found myself confronted1 not so long ago1 with an incredibly painful and distressing interview4 ,that indeed did oppress me with almost intolerable dread beforehand4 ,i was to go to a certain house in ,london1 and there was just a chance that the interview might not take place after all4 ,as ,i drove there1 ,i suddenly found myself wondering whether the interview could ,,really be going to take place--how often had ,i rehearsed it beforehand with anguish--and then as suddenly became aware that ,i should in some strange way be disappointed if it did not take place4 ,i wanted on the whole to go through with it1 and to see what it would be like4 ,a deep-seated curiosity came to my aid4 ,it did take place1 and it was very bad--worse than ,i could have imagined2 but it was not terrible6 ,these are just four instances which come into my mind4 ,i should be glad to feel that the courage which undoubtedly came had been the creation of my will2 but it was not so4 ,in three cases1 the events came unexpectedly2 but in the fourth case ,i had long anticipated the moment with extreme dread4 ,yet in that last case the fear suddenly slipped away1 without the smallest effort on my part2 and in all four cases some strange gusto of experience1 some sense of heightened life and adventure1 rose in the mind like a fountain--so that even in the crevasse ,i said to myself1 not excitedly but serenely1 ,so this is what it feels like to await death6 ,it was this particular experience which gave me an inkling into that which in so many tragic histories seems incredible--that men often do pass to death1 by scaffold and by stake1 at the last moment1 in serenity and even in joy4 ,i do not doubt for a moment that it is the immortal principle in man1 the sense of deathlessness1 which comes to his aid4 ,it is the instinct which1 in spite of all knowledge and experience1 says suddenly1 in a moment like that1 ,well1 what then8 ,that instinct is a far truer thing than any expectation or imagination4 ,it sees things1 in supreme moments1 in a true proportion4 ,it asserts that when the rope jerks1 or the flames leap up1 or the benumbing blow falls1 there is something there which cannot possibly be injured1 and which indeed is rather freed from the body of our humiliation4 ,it is but an incident1 after all1 in a much longer and more momentous voyage4 ,it means only the closing of one chapter of experience and the beginning of another4 ,the base element in it is the fear which dreads the opening of the door1 and the quitting of what is familiar4 ,and ,i feel assured of this1 that the one universal and inevitable experience1 known to us as death1 must in reality be a very simple and even a natural affair1 and that when we can look back upon it1 it will seem to us amazing that we can ever have regarded it as so momentous and appalling a thing4 ,,iii ,,the ,,darkest ,,doubt ,now we can make no real advance in the things of the spirit until we have seen what lies on the other side of fear2 fear cannot help us to grow1 at best it can only teach us to be prudent2 it does not of itself destroy the desire to offend--only shame can do that2 if our wish to be different comes merely from our being afraid to transgress1 then1 if the fear of punishment were to be removed1 we should go back with a light heart to our old sins4 ,we may obey irresponsible power1 because we know that it can hurt us if we disobey2 but unless we can perceive the reason why this and that is forbidden1 we cannot concur with law4 ,we learn as children that flame has power to hurt us1 but we only dread the fire because it can injure us1 not because we admire the reason which it has for burning4 ,so long as we do not sin simply because we know the laws of life which punish sin1 we have not learned any hatred of sin2 it is only because we hate the punishment more than we love the sin1 that we abstain4 ,socrates once said1 in one of his wise paradoxes1 that it was better to sin knowingly than ignorantly4 ,that is a hard saying1 but it means that at least if we sin knowingly1 there is some purpose1 some courage in the soul4 ,we take a risk with our eyes open1 and our purpose may perhaps be changed2 whereas if we sin ignorantly1 we do so out of a mere base instinct1 and there is no purpose that may be educated4 ,anyone who has ever had the task of teaching boys or young men to write will know how much easier it is to teach those who write volubly and exuberantly1 and desire to express themselves1 even if they do it with many faults and lapses of taste2 taste and method may be corrected1 if only the instinct of expression is there4 ,but the young man who has no impulse to write1 who says that he could think of nothing to say1 it is impossible to teach him much1 because one cannot communicate the desire for expression4 ,and the same holds good of life4 ,those who have strong vital impulses can learn restraint and choice2 but the people who have no particular impulses and preferences1 who just live out of mere impetus and habit1 who plod along1 doing in a dispirited way just what they find to do1 and lapsing into indolence and indifference the moment that prescribed work ceases1 those are the spirits that afford the real problem1 because they despise activity1 and think energy a mere exhibition of fussy diffuseness4 ,but the generous1 eager1 wilful nature1 who has always some aim in sight1 who makes mistakes perhaps1 gives offence1 collides high-heartedly with others1 makes both friends and enemies1 loves and hates1 is anxious1 jealous1 self-absorbed1 resentful1 intolerant--there is always hope for such an one1 for he is quick to despair1 capable of shame1 swift to repent1 and even when he is worsted and wounded1 rises to fight again4 ,such a nature1 through pain and love1 can learn to chasten his base desires1 and to choose the nobler and worthier way4 ,but what does really differentiate men and women is not their power of fearing and suffering1 but their power of caring and admiring4 ,the only real and vital force in the world is the force which attracts1 the beauty which is so desirable that one must imitate it if one can1 the wisdom which is so calm and serene that one must possess it if one may4 ,and thus all depends upon our discerning in the world a loving intention of some kind1 which holds us in view1 and draws us to itself4 ,if we merely think of ,god and nature as an inflexible system of laws1 and that our only chance of happiness is to slip in and out of them1 as a man might pick his way among red-hot ploughshares1 thankful if he can escape burning1 then we can make no sort of advance1 because we can have neither faith nor trust4 ,the thing from which one merely flees can have no real power over our spirit2 but if we know ,god as a fatherly ,heart behind nature1 who is leading us on our way1 then indeed we can walk joyfully in happiness1 and undismayed in trouble2 because troubles then become only the wearisome incidents of the upward ascent1 the fatigue1 the failing breath1 the strained muscles1 the discomfort which is actually taking us higher1 and cannot by any means be avoided4 ,but fear is the opposite of all this2 it is the dread of the unknown1 the ghastly doubt as to whether there is any goal before us or not2 when we fear1 we are like the butterfly that flutters anxiously away from the boy who pursues it1 who means out of mere wantonness to strike it down tattered and bruised among the grass-stems4 ,,iv ,,vulnerability ,there have been many attempts in the history of mankind to escape from the dominion of fear2 the essence of fear1 that which prompts it1 is the consciousness of our vulnerability4 ,what we all dread is the disease or the accident that may disable us1 the loss of money or credit1 the death of those whom we love and whose love makes the sunshine of our life1 the anger and hostility and displeasure and scorn and ill-usage of those about us4 ,these are the definite things which the anxious mind forecasts1 and upon which it mournfully dwells4 ,the object then in the minds of the philosophers or teachers who would fain relieve the unhappiness of the world1 has been always to suggest ways in which this vulnerability may be lessened2 and thus their object has been to disengage as far as possible the hopes and affections of men from things which must always be fleeting4 ,that is the principle which lies behind all asceticism1 that1 if one can be indifferent to wealth and comfort and popularity1 one has a better chance of serenity4 ,the essence of that teaching is not that pleasant things are not desirable1 but that one is more miserable if one loses them than if one never cares for them at all4 ,the ascetic trains himself to be indifferent about food and drink and the apparatus of life2 he aims at celibacy partly because love itself is an overmastering passion1 and partly because he cannot bear to engage himself with human affections1 the loss of which may give him pain4 ,there is1 of course1 a deeper strain in asceticism than this1 which is a suspicious mistrust of all physical joys and a sense of their baseness2 but that is in itself an artistic preference of mental and spiritual joys1 and a defiance to everything which may impair or invade them4 ,the ,stoic imperturbability is an attempt to take a further step2 not to fly from life1 but to mingle with it1 and yet to grow to be not dependent on it4 ,the ,stoic ideal was a high one1 to cultivate a firmness of mind that was on the one hand not to be dismayed by pain or suffering1 and on the other to use life so temperately and judiciously as not to form habits of indulgence which it would be painful to discontinue4 ,the weakness of ,stoicism was that it despised human relations2 and the strength of primitive ,christianity was that1 while it recommended a ,stoical simplicity of life1 it taught men not to be afraid of love1 but to use and lavish love freely1 as being the one thing which would survive death and not be cut short by it4 ,the ,christian teaching came to this1 that the world was meant to be a school of love1 and that love was to be an outward-rippling ring of affection extending from the family outwards to the tribe1 the nation1 the world1 and on to ,god ,himself4 ,it laid all its emphasis on the truth that love is the one immortal thing1 that all the joys and triumphs of the world pass away with the decay of its material framework1 but that love passes boldly on1 with linked hands1 into the darkness of the unknown4 ,the one loss that ,christianity recognised was the loss of love2 the one punishment it dreaded was the withholding of love4 ,as ,christianity soaked into the world1 it became vitiated1 and drew into itself many elements of human weakness4 ,it became a social force1 it learned to depend on property1 it fulminated a code of criminality1 and accepted human standards of prosperity and wealth4 ,it lost its simplicity and became sophisticated4 ,it is hard to say that men of the world should not1 if they wish1 claim to be ,christians1 but the whole essence of ,christianity is obscured if it is forgotten that its vital attributes are its indifference to material conveniences1 and its emphatic acceptance of sympathy as the one supreme virtue4 ,this is but another way of expressing that our troubles and our terrors alike are based on selfishness1 and that if we are really concerned with the welfare of others we shall not be much concerned with our own4 ,the difficulty in adopting the ,christian theory is that ,god does not apparently intend to cure the world by creating all men unselfish4 ,people are born selfish1 and the laws of nature and heredity seem to ordain that it shall be so4 ,indeed a certain selfishness seems to be inseparable from any desire to live4 ,the force of asceticism and of ,stoicism is that they both appeal to selfishness as a motive4 ,they frankly say1 ,happiness is your aim1 personal happiness2 but instead of grasping at pleasure whenever it offers1 you will find it more prudent in the end not to care too much about such things4 ,it is true that popular ,christianity makes the same sort of appeal4 ,it says1 or seems to say1 ,if you grasp at happiness in this world1 you may secure a great deal of it successfully2 but it will be worse for you eventually4 ,the theory of life as taught and enforced1 for instance1 in such a work as ,dante's great poem is based upon this crudity of thought4 ,dante1 by his ,hell and his ,purgatory1 expressed plainly that the chief motive of man to practise morality must be his fear of ultimate punishment4 ,his was an attempt to draw away the curtain which hides this world from the next1 and to horrify men into living purely and kindly4 ,but the mind only revolts against the dastardly injustice of a ,god1 who allows men to be born into the world so corrupt1 with so many incentives to sin1 and deliberately hides from them the ghastly sight of the eternal torments1 which might have saved them from recklessness of life4 ,no one who had trod the dark caverns of ,hell or the flinty ridges of ,purgatory1 as ,dante represented himself doing1 who had seen the awful sights and heard the heart-broken words of the place1 could have returned to the world as a light-hearted sinner6 ,whatever we may believe of ,god1 we must not for an instant allow ourselves to believe that life can be so brief and finite1 so small and hampered an opportunity1 and that punishment could be so demoniacal and so infinite4 ,a ,god who could design such a scheme must be essentially evil and malignant4 ,we may menace wicked men with punishment for wanton misdeeds1 but it must be with just punishment4 ,what could we say of a human father who exposed a child to temptation without explaining the consequences1 and then condemned him to lifelong penalties for failing to make the right choice8 ,we must firmly believe that if offences are finite1 punishment must be finite too2 that it must be remedial and not mechanical4 ,we must believe that if we deserve punishment1 it will be because we can hope for restoration4 ,hell is a monstrous and insupportable fiction1 and the idea of it is simply inconsistent with any belief in the goodness of ,god4 ,it is easy to quote texts to support it1 but we must not allow any text1 any record in the world1 however sacred1 to shatter our belief in the ,love and ,justice of ,god4 ,and ,i say as frankly and directly as ,i can that until we can get rid of this intolerable terror1 we can make no advance at all4 ,the old1 fierce ,saints1 who went into the darkness exulting in the thought of the eternal damnation of the wicked1 had not spelt the first letter of the ,christian creed1 and ,i doubt not have discovered their mistake long ago6 ,yet there are pious people in the world who will neither think nor speak frankly of the subject1 for fear of weakening the motives for human virtue4 ,i will at least speak frankly1 and though ,i believe with all my heart in a life beyond the grave1 in which suffering enough may exist for the cure of those who by wilful sin have sunk into sloth and hopelessness and despair1 and even into cruelty and brutality1 ,i do not for an instant believe that the conduct of the vilest human being who ever set foot on the earth can deserve more than a term of punishment1 or that such punishment will have anything that is vindictive about it4 ,it may be said that ,i am here only combating an old-fashioned idea1 and that no one believes in the old theory of eternal punishment1 or that if they believe that the possibility exists1 they do not believe that any human being can incur it4 ,but ,i feel little doubt that the belief does exist1 and that it is more widespread than one cares to believe4 ,to believe it is to yield to the darkest and basest temptation of fear1 and keeps all who hold it back from the truth of ,god4 ,what then are we to believe about the punishment of our sins8 ,i look back upon my own life1 and ,i see numberless occasions--they rise up before me1 a long perspective of failures--when ,i have acted cruelly1 selfishly1 self-indulgently1 basely1 knowing perfectly well that ,i was so behaving4 ,what was wrong with me8 ,why did ,i so behave8 ,because ,i preferred the baser course1 and thought at the time that it gave me pleasure4 ,well then1 what do ,i wish about all that8 ,i wish it had not happened so1 ,i wish ,i had been kinder1 more just1 more self-restrained1 more strong4 ,i am ashamed1 because ,i condemn myself1 and because ,i know that those whom ,i love and honour would condemn me1 if they knew all4 ,but ,i do not1 therefore1 lose all hope of myself1 nor do ,i think that ,god will not show me how to be different4 ,if it can only be done by suffering1 ,i dread the suffering1 but ,i am ready to suffer if ,i can become what ,i should wish to be4 ,but ,i do not for a moment think that ,god will cast me off or turn ,his face away from me because ,i have sinned2 and ,i can pray that ,he will lead me into light and strength4 ,and thus it is not my vulnerability that ,i dread2 ,i rather welcome it as a sign that ,i may learn the truth so4 ,and ,i will not look upon my desire for pleasant things as a proof that ,i am evil1 but rather as a proof that ,god is showing me where happiness lies1 and teaching me by my mistakes to discern and value it4 ,he could make me perfect if ,he would1 in a single instant4 ,but the fact that ,he does not1 is a sign that ,he has something better in store for me than a mere mechanical perfection4 ,v ,,the ,,use ,,of ,,fear ,the advantages of the fearful temperament1 if it is not a mere unmanning and desolating dread1 are not to be overlooked4 ,fear is the shadow of the imaginative1 the resourceful1 the inventive temperament1 but it multiplies resource and invention a hundredfold4 ,everyone knows the superstition which is deeply rooted in humanity1 that a time of exaltation and excitement and unusual success is held to be often the prelude to some disaster1 just as the sense of excitement and buoyant health1 when it is very consciously perceived1 is thought to herald the approach of illness4 ,i felt so happy1 people say1 that ,i was sure that some misfortune was going to befall me--it is not lucky to feel so secure as that6 ,this represented itself to the ,greeks as part of the divine government of the world2 they thought that the heedless and self-confident man was beguiled by success into what they called ubris1 the insolence of prosperity2 and that then atae1 that is1 disaster1 followed4 ,they believed that the over-prosperous man incurred the envy and jealousy of the gods4 ,we see this in the old legend of ,polycrates of ,samos1 whose schemes all succeeded1 and whose ventures all turned out well4 ,he consulted a soothsayer about his alarming prosperity1 who advised him to inflict some deliberate loss or sacrifice upon himself2 so ,polycrates drew from his finger and flung into the sea a signet-ring which he possessed1 with a jewel of great rarity and beauty in it4 ,soon afterwards a fish was caught by the royal fisherman1 and was served up at the king's table--there1 inside the body of the fish1 was the ring2 and when ,polycrates saw that1 he felt that the gods had restored him his gift1 and that his destruction was determined upon2 which came true1 for he was caught by pirates at sea1 and crucified upon a rocky headland4 ,no nation1 and least of all the ,greeks1 would have arrived at this theory of life and fate1 if they had not felt that it was supported by actual instances4 ,it was of the nature of an inference from the facts of life2 and the explanation undoubtedly is that men do get betrayed1 by a constant experience of good fortune1 into rashness and heedlessness1 because they trust to their luck and depend upon their fortunate star4 ,but the man who is of an energetic and active type1 if he is haunted by anxiety1 if his imagination paints the possibilities of disaster1 takes every means in his power to foresee contingencies1 and to deal cautiously and thoroughly with the situation which causes him anxiety4 ,if he is a man of keen sensibilities1 the pressure of such care is so insupportable that he takes prompt and effective measures to remove it2 and his fear thus becomes an element in his success1 because it urges him to action1 and at the same time teaches him the need of due precaution4 ,as ,horace wrote3 ,sperat infestis1 metuit secundis ,alteram sortem4 ,he hopes for a change of fortune when things are menacing1 he fears a reverse when things are prosperous4 ,and if we look at the facts of life1 we see that it is not by any means the confident and optimistic people who succeed best in their designs4 ,it is rather the man of eager and ambitious temperament1 who dreads a repulse and anticipates it1 and takes all possible measures beforehand to avoid it4 ,we see the same principle underlying the scientific doctrine of evolution4 ,people often think loosely that the idea of evolution1 in the case1 let us say1 of a bird like a heron1 with his immobility1 his long legs1 his pointed beak1 his muscular neck1 is that such characteristics have been evolved through long ages by birds that have had to get their food in swamps and shallow lakes1 and were thus gradually equipped for food-getting through long ages of practice4 ,but of course no particular bird is thus modified by circumstances4 ,a pigeon transferred to a fen would not develop the characteristics of the heron2 it would simply die for lack of food4 ,it is rather that certain minute variations take place1 for unknown reasons1 in every species2 and the bird which happened to be hatched out in a fenland with a rather sharper beak or rather longer legs than his fellows1 would have his power of obtaining food slightly increased1 and would thus be more likely to perpetuate in his offspring that particular advantage of form4 ,this principle working through endless centuries would tend slowly to develop the stock that was better equipped for life under such circumstances1 and to eliminate those less suited to the locality2 and thus the fittest would tend to survive4 ,but it does not indicate any design on the part of the birds themselves1 nor any deliberate attempt to develop those characteristics2 it is rather that such characteristics1 once started by natural variation1 tend to emphasize themselves in the lapse of time4 ,no doubt fear has played an enormous part in the progress of the human race itself4 ,the savage whose imagination was stronger than that of other savages1 and who could forecast the possibilities of disaster1 would wander through the forest with more precaution against wild beasts1 and would make his dwelling more secure against assault2 so that the more timid and imaginative type would tend to survive longest and to multiply their stock4 ,man in his physical characteristics is a very weak1 frail1 and helpless animal1 exposed to all kinds of dangers2 his infancy is protracted and singularly defenceless2 his pace is slow1 his strength is insignificant2 it is his imagination that has put him at the top of creation1 and has enabled him both to evade dangers and to use natural forces for his greater security4 ,though he is the youngest of all created forms1 and by no means the best equipped for life1 he has been able to go ahead in a way denied to all other animals2 his inventiveness has been largely developed by his terrors2 and the result has been that whereas all other animals still preserve1 as a condition of life1 their ceaseless attitude of suspicion and fear1 man has been enabled by organisation to establish communities in which fear of disaster plays but little part4 ,if one watches a bird feeding on a lawn1 it is strange to observe its ceaseless vigilance4 ,it takes a hurried mouthful1 and then looks round in an agitated manner to see that it is in no danger of attack4 ,yet it is clear that the terror in which all wild animals seem to live1 and without which self-preservation would be impossible1 does not in the least militate against their physical welfare4 ,a man who had to live his life under the same sort of risks that a bird in a garden has to endure from cats and other foes1 would lose his senses from the awful pressure of terror2 he would lie under the constant shadow of assassination4 ,but the singular thing in ,nature is that she preserves characteristics long after they have ceased to be needed2 and so1 though a man in a civilised community has very little to dread1 he is still haunted by an irrational sense of insecurity and precariousness4 ,and thus many of our fears arise from old inheritance1 and represent nothing rational or real at all1 but only an old and savage need of vigilance and wariness4 ,one can see this exemplified in a curious way in level tracts of country4 ,everyone who has traversed places like the plain of ,worcestershire must remember the irritating way in which the roads keep ascending little eminences1 instead of going round at the foot4 ,now these old country roads no doubt represent very ancient tracks indeed1 dating from times when much of the land was uncultivated4 ,they get stereotyped1 partly because they were tracks1 and partly because for convenience the first enclosures and tillages were made along the roads for purposes of communication4 ,but the perpetual tendency to ascend little eminences no doubt dates from a time when it was safer to go up1 in order to look round and to see ahead1 partly in order to be sure of one's direction1 and partly to beware of the manifold dangers of the road4 ,and thus many of the fears by which one is haunted are these old survivals1 these inherited anxieties4 ,who does not know the frame of mind when perhaps for a day1 perhaps for days together1 the mind is oppressed and uneasy1 scenting danger in the air1 forecasting calamity1 recounting all the possible directions in which fate or malice may have power to wound and hurt us8 ,it is a melancholy inheritance1 but it cannot be combated by any reason4 ,it is of no use then to imitate ,robinson ,crusoe1 and to make a list of one's blessings on a piece of paper2 that only increases our fear1 because it is just the chance of forfeiting such blessings of which we are in dread6 ,we must simply remind ourselves that we are surrounded by old phantoms1 and that we derive our weakness from ages far back1 in which risks were many and security was rare4 ,,vi ,,fears ,,of ,,childhood ,if ,i look back over my own life1 ,i can discern three distinct stages of fear and anxieties1 and ,i expect it is the same with most people4 ,the terrors of childhood are very mysterious things1 and their horror consists in the child's inability to put the dread into words4 ,i remember how one night1 when we were living in the ,master's ,lodge at ,wellington ,college1 ,i had gone to bed1 and waking soon afterwards heard a voice somewhere outside4 ,i got out of bed1 went to the door1 and looked out4 ,close to my door was an archway which looked into the open gallery that ran round the big front hall1 giving access to the bedrooms4 ,at the opposite end of the hall1 in the gallery1 burnt a gaslight3 to my horror ,i observed close to the gas what seemed to me a colossal shrouded statue1 made of a black bronze1 formless1 silent1 awful4 ,i crept back to my bed1 and there shivered in an ecstasy of fear1 till at last ,i fell asleep4 ,there was no statue there in the morning6 ,i told my old nurse1 after a day or two of dumb dread1 what ,i had seen4 ,she laughed1 and told me that a certain ,mrs4 ,holder1 an elderly widow who was a dressmaker1 had been to see her1 about some piece of work4 ,they had turned out the nursery lights and were going downstairs1 when some question arose about the stuff of the frock1 whatever it was4 ,mrs4 ,holder had mounted on a chair to look close at the stuff by the gaslight2 and this was my bogey6 ,we had a delightful custom in nursery days1 devised by my mother1 that on festival occasions1 such as birthdays or at ,christmas1 our presents were given us in the evening by a fairy called ,abracadabra4 ,the first time the fairy appeared1 we heard1 after tea1 in the hall1 the hoarse notes of a horn4 ,we rushed out in amazement4 ,down in the hall1 talking to an aunt of mine who was staying in the house1 stood a veritable fairy1 in a scarlet dress1 carrying a wand and a scarlet bag1 and wearing a high pointed scarlet hat1 of the shape of an extinguisher4 ,my aunt called us down2 and we saw that the fairy had the face of a great ape1 dark-brown1 spectacled1 of a good-natured aspect1 with a broad grin1 and a curious crop of white hair1 hanging down behind and on each side4 ,unfortunately my eldest brother1 a very clever and imaginative child1 was seized with a panic so insupportable at the sight of the face1 that his present had to be given him hurriedly1 and he was led away1 blanched and shuddering1 to the nursery4 ,after that1 the fairy never appeared except when he was at school3 but long after1 when ,i was looking in a lumber-room with my brother for some mislaid toys1 ,i found in a box the mask of ,abracadabra and the horn4 ,i put it hurriedly on1 and blew a blast on the horn1 which seemed to be of tortoise-shell with metal fittings4 ,to my amazement1 he turned perfectly white1 covered his face with his hands1 and burst out with the most dreadful moans4 ,i thought at first that he was making believe to be frightened1 but ,i saw in a minute or two that he had quite lost control of himself1 and the things were hurriedly put away4 ,at the time ,i thought it a silly kind of affectation4 ,but ,i perceive now that he had had a real shock the first time he had seen the mask2 and though he was then a big schoolboy1 the terror was indelible4 ,who can say of what old inheritance of fear that horror of the great ape-like countenance was the sign8 ,he had no associations of fear with apes1 but it must have been1 ,i think1 some dim old primeval terror1 dating from some ancestral encounter with a forest monster4 ,in no other way can ,i explain it4 ,again1 as a child1 ,i was once sitting at dinner with my parents1 reading an old bound-up ,saturday ,magazine1 looking at the pictures1 and waiting for dessert4 ,i turned a page1 and saw a picture of a ,saint1 lying on the ground1 holding up a cross1 and a huge and cloudy fiend with vast bat-like wings bending over him1 preparing to clutch him1 but deterred by the sacred emblem4 ,that was a really terrible shock4 ,i turned the page hastily1 and said nothing1 though it deprived me of speech and appetite4 ,my father noticed my distress1 and asked if ,i felt unwell1 but ,i said ,no4 ,i got through dessert somehow2 but then ,i had to say good-night1 go out into the dimly-lit hall1 slip the volume back into the bookcase1 and get upstairs4 ,i tore up the staircase1 feeling the air full of wings and clutching hands4 ,that was too bad ever to be spoken of2 and as ,i did not remember which volume it was1 ,i was never able to look at the set of magazines again for fear of encountering it2 and strange to say some years afterwards1 when ,i was an ,eton boy1 ,i looked curiously for the picture1 and again experienced the same overwhelming horror4 ,my youngest brother1 too1 an imaginative child1 could never be persuaded by any bribes or entreaties to go into a dark room to fetch anything out4 ,nothing would induce him4 ,i remember that he was catechised at the tea-table as to what he expected to find1 to which he replied at once1 with a horror-stricken look and a long stammer1 ,b--b--b--bloodstained corpses6 ,it seems fantastic and ridiculous enough to older people1 but the horror of the dark and of the unknown which some children have is not a thing to be laughed at1 nor should it be unsympathetically combated4 ,one must remember that experience has not taught a child scepticism2 he thinks that anything in the world may happen2 and all the monsters of nursery tales1 goblins1 witches1 evil fairies1 dragons1 which a child in daylight will know to be imaginary1 begin1 as the dusk draws on1 to become appalling possibilities4 ,they may be somewhere about1 lurking in cellars and cupboards and lofts and dark entries by day1 and at night they may slip out to do what harm they can4 ,for children1 not far from the gates of birth1 are still strongly the victims of primeval and inherited fears1 not corrected by the habitual current of life4 ,it is not a reason for depriving children of the joys of the old tales and the exercise of the faculty of wonder2 but the tendency should be very carefully guarded and watched1 because these sudden shocks may make indelible marks1 and leave a little weak spot in the mind which may prove difficult to heal4 ,it is not only these spectral terrors against which children have to be guarded4 ,all severity and sharp indignity of punishment1 all intemperate anger1 all roughness of treatment1 should be kept in strict restraint4 ,there are noisy1 boisterous1 healthy children1 of course1 who do not resent or even dread sharp usage4 ,but it is not always easy to discover the sensitive child1 because fear of displeasure will freeze him into a stupor of apparent dullness and stubbornness4 ,i am always infuriated by stupid people who regret the disappearance of sharp1 stern1 peremptory punishments1 and lament the softness of the rising generation4 ,if punishment must be inflicted1 it should be done good-naturedly and robustly as a natural tit-for-tat4 ,anger should be reserved for things like spitefulness and dishonesty and cruelty4 ,there is nothing more utterly confusing to the childish mind than to have trifling faults treated with wrath and indignation4 ,it is true that1 in the world of nature1 punishment seems often wholly disproportionate to offences4 ,nature will penalise carelessness in a disastrous fashion1 and spare the cautious and prudent sinner4 ,but there is no excuse for us1 if we have any sense of justice and patience at all1 for not setting a better example4 ,we ought to show children that there is a moral order which we are endeavouring to administer4 ,if parents and schoolmasters1 who are both judges and executioners1 allow their own rule to be fortuitous1 indulge their own irritable moods1 punish severely a trifling fault1 and sentimentalise or condone a serious one1 a child is utterly confused4 ,i know several people who have had their lives blighted1 have been made suspicious1 cynical1 crafty1 and timid1 by severe usage and bullying and open contempt in childhood4 ,the thing to avoid1 for all who are responsible in the smallest degree for the nurture of children1 is to call in the influence of fear2 one may speak plainly of consequences1 but even there one must not exaggerate1 as schoolmasters often do1 for the best of motives1 about moral faults2 one may punish deliberate and repeated disobedience1 wanton cruelty1 persistent and selfish disregard of the rights of others1 but one must warn many times1 and never try to triumph over a fault by the infliction of a shock of any kind4 ,the shock is the most cruel and cowardly sort of punishment1 and if we wilfully use it1 then we are perpetuating the sad tyranny of instinctive fear1 and using the strength of a great angel to do the work of a demon1 such as ,i saw long ago in the old magazine1 and felt its tyranny for many days4 ,as a child the one thing ,i was afraid of was the possibility of my father's displeasure4 ,we did not see a great deal of him1 because he was a much occupied headmaster2 and he was to me a stately and majestic presence1 before whom the whole created world seemed visibly to bow4 ,but he was deeply anxious about our upbringing1 and had a very strong sense of his responsibility2 and he would sometimes reprove us rather sternly for some extremely trifling thing1 the way one ate one's food1 or spoke1 or behaved4 ,this descended upon me as a cloud of darkness2 ,i attempted no excuses1 ,i did not explain or defend myself2 ,i simply was crushed and confounded4 ,i do not think it was the right method4 ,he never punished us1 but we were not at ease with him4 ,i remember the agony with which ,i heard a younger sister once repeat to him some silly and profane little jokes which a good-natured and absurd old lady had told us in the nursery4 ,i felt sure he would disapprove1 as he did4 ,i knew quite well in my childish mind that it was harmless nonsense1 and did not give us a taste for ungodly mirth4 ,but ,i could not intervene or expostulate4 ,i am sure that my father had not the slightest idea how weighty and dominant he was2 but many of the things he rebuked would have been better not noticed1 or if noticed only made fun of1 while ,i feel that he ought to have given us more opportunity of stating our case4 ,he simply frightened me into having a different morality when ,i was in his presence to what ,i had elsewhere4 ,but he did not make me love goodness thereby1 and only gave me a sense that certain things1 harmless in themselves1 must not be done or said in the presence of papa4 ,he did not always remember his own rules1 and there was thus an element of injustice in his rebukes1 which one merely accepted as part of his awful and unaccountable greatness4 ,when ,i was transferred to a private school1 a great big place1 very well managed in every way1 ,i lived for a time in atrocious terror of everything and everybody4 ,i was conscious of a great code of rules which ,i did not know or understand1 which ,i might quite unwittingly break1 and the consequences of which might be fatal4 ,i was never punished or caned1 nor was ,i ever bullied4 ,but ,i simply effaced myself as far as possible1 and lived in dread of disaster4 ,the thought even now of certain high blank walls with lofty barred windows1 the remembered smells of certain passages and corners1 the tall form and flashing eye of our headmaster and the faint fragrance of ,havana cigars which hung about him1 the bare corridors with their dark cupboards1 the stone stairs and iron railings--all this gives me a far-off sense of dread4 ,i can give no reason for my unhappiness there2 but ,i can recollect waking in the early summer mornings1 hearing the screams of peacocks from an adjoining garden1 and thinking with a dreadful sense of isolation and despair of all the possibilities of disaster that lay hid in the day4 ,i am sure it was not a wholesome experience4 ,one need not fear the world more than is necessary--but my only dream of peace was the escape to the delights of home1 and the thought of the larger world was only a thing that ,i shrank from and shuddered at4 ,no1 it is wrong to say one had no friends1 but how few they seemed and how clearly they stand out6 ,i did not make friends among the boys2 they were pleasant enough acquaintances1 some of them1 but not to be trusted or confided in2 they had to be kept at arm's length1 and one's real life guarded and hoarded away from them2 because if one told them anything about one's home or one's ideas1 it might be repeated1 and the sacred facts shouted in one's ears as taunts and jests4 ,but there was a little bluff master1 a clergyman1 with shaggy rippled red-brown hair and a face like a pug-dog4 ,he was kind to me1 and had me to lunch one ,sunday in a villa out at ,barnes--that was a breath of life1 to sit in a homelike room and look at old ,punches half the afternoon2 and there was another young man1 a master1 rather stout and pale1 with whom ,i shared some little jokes1 and who treated me as he might treat a younger brother2 he was pledged1 ,i remember1 to give me a cake if ,i won an ,eton ,scholarship1 and royally he redeemed his promise4 ,he died of heart disease a little while after ,i left the school4 ,i had promised to write to him from ,eton and never did so1 and ,i had a little pang about that when ,i heard of his death4 ,and then there was the handsome loud-voiced maid of my dormitory1 ,underwood by name1 who was always just and kind1 and who1 even when she rated us1 as she did at times1 had always something human beckoning from her handsome eye4 ,i can see her now1 with her sleeves tucked up1 and her big white muscular arms1 washing a refractory little boy who fought shy of soap and water4 ,i had a wild idea of giving her a kiss when ,i went away1 and ,i think she would have liked that4 ,she told me ,i had always been a good boy1 and that she was sorry that ,i was going2 but ,i did not dare to embrace her4 ,and then there was dear ,louisa1 the matron of the little sanatorium on the ,mortlake road4 ,she had been a former housemaid of ours2 she was a strong sturdy woman1 with a deep voice like a man1 and when ,i arrived there ill--,i was often ill in those days--she used to hug and kiss me and even cry over me2 and the happiest days ,i spent at school were in that poky little house1 reading in ,louisa's little parlour1 while she prepared some special dish as a treat for my supper2 or sitting hour by hour at the window of my room upstairs1 watching a grocer opposite set out his window4 ,i certainly did love ,louisa with all my heart2 and it was almost pleasant to be ill1 to be welcomed by her and petted and made much of4 ,my own dear boy1 she used to say1 and it was music in my ears4 ,i feel on looking back that1 if ,i had children of my own1 ,i should study very carefully to avoid any sort of terrorism4 ,psychologists tell us that the nervous shocks of early years are the things that leave indelible marks throughout life4 ,i believe that mental specialists often make a careful study of the dreams of those whose minds are afflicted1 because it is held that dreams very often continue to reproduce in later life the mental shocks of childhood4 ,anger1 intemperate punishment1 any attempt to produce instant submission and dismay in children1 is very apt to hurt the nervous organisation4 ,of course it is easy enough to be careful about these things in sheltered environments1 where there is some security and refinement of life4 ,and this opens up a vast problem which cannot be touched on here1 because it is practically certain that many children in poor and unsatisfactory homes sustain shocks to their mental organisation in early life which damage them irreparably1 and which could be avoided if they could be brought up on more wholesome and tender lines4 ,,vii ,,fears ,,of ,,boyhood ,there is a tendency1 ,i am sure1 in books1 to shirk the whole subject of fear1 as though it were a thing disgraceful1 shameful1 almost unmentionable4 ,the coward1 the timid person1 receives very little sympathy2 he is rather like one tainted with a shocking disease1 of which the less said the better4 ,he is not viewed with any sympathy or commiseration1 but as something almost lower in the scale of humanity4 ,take the literature that deals with school life1 for instance4 ,i do not think that there is any province of our literature so inept1 so conventional1 so entirely lacking in reality1 as the books which deal with the life of schools4 ,the difficulty of writing them is very great1 because they can only be reconstructed by an effort of memory4 ,the boy himself is quite unable to give expression to his thoughts and feelings2 school life is a time of sharp1 eager1 often rather savage emotions1 lived by beings who have no sense of proportion1 no knowledge of life1 no idea of what is really going on in the world4 ,the actual incidents which occur are very trivial1 and yet to the fresh minds and spirits of boyhood they seem all charged with an intense significance4 ,then again the talk of schoolboys is wholly immature and shapeless4 ,they cannot express themselves1 and moreover there is a very strict and peremptory convention which dictates what may be talked about and what may not4 ,no society in the world is under so oppressive a taboo4 ,they must not speak of anything emotional or intellectual1 at the cost of being thought a fool or a prig4 ,they talk about games1 they gossip about boys and masters1 sometimes their conversation is nasty and bestial4 ,but it conceals very real if very fitful emotions2 yet it is impossible to recall or to reconstruct2 and when older people attempt to reconstruct it1 they remember the emotions which underlay it1 and the eager interests out of which it all sprang2 and they make it something picturesque1 epigrammatic1 and vernacular which is wholly untrue to life4 ,the fact is that the talk of schoolboys is very trivial and almost wholly symbolical2 emotion reveals itself in glance and gesture1 not in word at all4 ,i suppose that most of us remember our boyish friendships1 ardent and eager personal admirations1 extraordinary deifications of quite commonplace boys1 emotions none of which were ever put into words at all1 hardly even into coherent thought1 and were yet a swift and vital current of the soul4 ,now the most unreal part of the reconstructions of school life is the insistence on the boyish code of honour4 ,neither as a boy nor as a schoolmaster did ,i ever have much evidence of this4 ,there were certain hard and fast rules of conduct1 like the rule which prevented any boy from giving information to a master against another boy4 ,but this was not a conscientious thing4 ,it was part of the tradition1 and the social ostracism which was the penalty of its infraction was too severe to risk incurring4 ,but the boys who cut a schoolfellow for telling tales1 did not do it from any high-minded sense of violated honour4 ,it was simply a piece of self-defence1 and the basis of the convention was merely this1 that1 if the rule were broken1 it would produce an impossible sense of insecurity and peril4 ,however much boys might on the whole approve of1 respect1 and even like their masters1 still they could not make common cause with them4 ,the school was a perfectly definite community1 inside of which it was often convenient and pleasant to do things which would be penalised if discovered2 and thus the whole stability of that society depended upon a certain secrecy4 ,the masters were not disliked for finding out the infractions of rules1 if only such infractions were patent and obvious4 ,a master who looked too closely into things1 who practised any sort of espionage1 who tried to extort confession1 was disapproved of as a menace1 and it was convenient to label him a sneak and a spy1 and to say that he did not play the game fair4 ,but all this was a mere tradition4 ,boys do not reflect much1 or look into the reasons of things4 ,it does not occur to them to credit masters with the motive of wishing to protect them against themselves1 to minimise temptation1 to shelter them from undesirable influences2 that perhaps dawns on the minds of sensible and high-minded prefects1 but the ordinary boy just regards the master as an opposing power1 whom he hoodwinks if he can4 ,and then the boyish ideal of courage is a very incomplete one4 ,he does not recognise it as courage if a sensitive1 conscientious1 and right-minded boy risks unpopularity by telling a master of some evil practice which is spreading in a school4 ,he simply regards it as a desire to meddle1 a priggish and pragmatical act1 and even as a sneaking desire to inflict punishment by proxy4 ,courage1 for the schoolboy1 is merely physical courage1 aplomb1 boldness1 recklessness1 high-handedness4 ,the hero of school life is one like ,odysseus1 who is strong1 inventive1 daring1 full of resource4 ,the point is to come out on the top4 ,odysseus yields to sensual delight1 he is cruel1 vindictive1 and incredibly deceitful4 ,it is evident that successful beguiling1 the power of telling an elaborate1 plausible1 and imperturbable lie on occasions1 is an heroic quality in the ,odyssey4 ,odysseus is not a man who scorns to deceive1 or who would rather take the consequences than utter a falsehood4 ,his strength rather lies in his power1 when at bay1 of flashing into some monstrous fiction1 dramatising the situation1 playing an adopted part1 with confidence and assurance4 ,one sees traces of the same thing in the ,bible4 ,the story of ,jacob deceiving ,isaac1 and pretending to be ,esau in order to secure a blessing is not related with disapprobation4 ,jacob does not forfeit his blessing when his deceit is discovered4 ,the whole incident is regarded rather as a master-stroke of cunning and inventiveness4 ,esau is angry not because ,jacob has employed such trickery1 but because he has succeeded in supplanting him4 ,i remember1 as a boy at ,eton1 seeing a scene which left a deep impression on me4 ,there was a big unpleasant unscrupulous boy of great physical strength1 who was a noted football player4 ,he was extremely unpopular in the school1 because he was rude1 sulky1 and overbearing1 and still more because he took unfair advantages in games4 ,there was a hotly contested house-match1 in which he tried again and again to evade rules1 while he was for ever appealing to the umpires against violations of rule by the opposite side4 ,his own house was ultimately victorious1 but feeling ran very high indeed1 because it was thought that the victory was unfairly won4 ,the crowd of boys who had been watching the match drifted away in a state of great exasperation1 and finally collected in front of the house of the unpopular player1 hissed and hooted him4 ,he took very little notice of the demonstration and walked in1 when there arose a babel of howls4 ,he turned round and came out again1 facing the crowd4 ,i can see him now1 all splashed and muddy1 with his shirt open at the neck4 ,he was pale1 ugly1 and sinister2 but he surveyed us all with entire effrontery1 drew out a pince-nez1 being very short-sighted1 and then looked calmly round as if surprised4 ,i have certainly never seen such an exhibition of courage in my life4 ,he knew that he had not a single friend present1 and he did not know that he would not be maltreated--there were indications of a rush being made4 ,he did not look in the least picturesque2 he was ugly1 scowling1 offensive4 ,but he did not care a rap1 and if he had been attacked1 he would have defended himself with a will4 ,it did not occur to me then1 nor did it1 ,i think1 occur to anyone else1 what an amazing bit of physical and moral courage it was4 ,no one1 then or after1 had the slightest feeling of admiration for his pluck4 ,did you ever see such a brute as ,p-- looked8 was the only sort of comment made4 ,this just serves to illustrate my point1 that boys have no real discernment for what is courageous4 ,what they admire is a certain grace and spirit1 and the hero is not one who constrains himself to do an unpopular thing from a sense of duty1 not even the boy who1 being unpopular like ,p--1 does a satanically brave thing4 ,boys have no admiration for the boy who defies them2 what they like to see is the defiance of a common foe4 ,they admire gallant1 modest1 spirited1 picturesque behaviour1 not the dull and faithful obedience to the sense of right4 ,of course things have altered for the better4 ,masters are no longer stern1 severe1 abrupt1 formidable1 unreasonable4 ,they know that many a boy1 who would be inclined on the whole to tell the truth1 can easily be frightened into telling a lie2 but they have not yet contrived to put the sense of honour among boys in the right proportion4 ,such stories as that of ,george ,washington--when the children were asked who had cut down the apple-tree1 and he rose and said1 ,sir1 ,i cannot tell a lie2 it was ,i who did it with my little hatchet--do not really take the imagination of boys captive4 ,how constantly did worthy preachers at ,eton tell the story of how ,bishop ,selwyn1 as a boy1 rose and left the room at a boat-supper because an improper song was sung6 ,that anecdote was regarded with undisguised amusement1 and it was simply thought to be a piece of priggishness4 ,i cannot imagine that any boy ever heard the story and went away with a glowing desire to do likewise4 ,the incident really belongs to the domain of manners rather than to that of morals4 ,the truth is really that boys at school have a code which resembles that of the old chivalry4 ,the hero may be sensual1 unscrupulous1 cruel1 selfish1 indifferent to the welfare of others4 ,but if he bears himself gallantly1 if he has a charm of look and manner1 if he is a deft performer in the prescribed athletics1 he is the object of profound and devoted admiration4 ,it is really physical courage1 skill1 prowess1 personal attractiveness which is envied and praised4 ,a dull1 heavy1 painstaking1 conscientious boy with a sturdy sense of duty may be respected1 but he is not followed2 while the imaginative1 sensitive1 nervous1 highly-strung boy1 who may have the finest qualities of all within him1 is apt to be the most despised4 ,such a boy is often no good at games1 because public performance disconcerts him2 he cannot make a ready answer1 he has no aplomb1 no cheek1 no smartness2 and he is consequently thought very little of4 ,to what extent this sort of instinctive preference can be altered1 ,i do not know2 it certainly cannot be altered by sermons1 and still less by edicts4 ,old ,dr4 ,keate said1 when he was addressing the school on the subject of fighting1 ,i must say that ,i like to see a boy return a blow6 ,it seems1 if one considers it1 to be a curious ideal to start life with1 considering how little opportunity civilisation now gives for returning blows6 ,boys in fact are still educated under a system which seems to anticipate a combative and disturbed sort of life to follow1 in which strength and agility1 violence and physical activity1 will have a value4 ,yet1 as a matter of fact1 such things have very little substantial value in an ordinary citizen's life at all1 except in so far as they play their part in the elaborate cult of athletic exercises1 with which we beguile the instinct which craves for manual toil4 ,all the races1 and games1 and athletics cultivated so assiduously at school seem now to have very little aim in view4 ,it is not important for ordinary life to be able to run a hundred yards1 or even three miles1 faster than another man2 the judgment1 the quickness of eye1 the strength and swiftness of muscle needed to make a man a good batsman were all well enough in days when a man's life might afterwards depend on his use of sword and battle-axe4 ,but now it only enables him to play games rather longer than other people1 and to a certain extent ministers to bodily health1 although the statistics of rowing would seem clearly to prove that it is a pursuit which is rather more apt to damage the vitality of strong boys than to increase the vitality of weak ones4 ,so1 if we look facts fairly in the face1 we see that much of the training of school life1 especially in the direction of athletics1 is really little more than the maintenance of a thoughtless old tradition1 and that it is all directed to increase our admiration of prowess and grace and gallantry1 rather than to fortify us in usefulness and manual skill and soundness of body4 ,a boy at school may be a skilful carver or carpenter2 he may have a real gift for engineering or mechanics2 he may even be a good rider1 a first-rate fisherman1 an excellent shot4 ,he may have good intellectual abilities1 a strong memory1 a power of expression2 he may be a sound mathematician1 a competent scientist2 he may have all sorts of excellent moral qualities1 be reliable1 accurate1 truthful1 punctual1 duty-loving2 he may in fact be equipped for life and citizenship1 able to play his part sturdily and manfully1 and to do the world good service2 but yet he may never win the smallest recognition or admiration in his school-days1 while all the glory and honour and credit is still reserved for the graceful1 attractive1 high-spirited athlete1 who may have nothing else in the background4 ,that is certainly the ideal of the boy1 and the disconcerting thing is that it is also the ideal1 practically if not theoretically1 of the parent and the schoolmaster4 ,the school still reserves all its best gifts1 its sunshine and smiles1 for the knightly and the skilful2 it rewards all the qualities that are their own reward4 ,why1 if it wishes to get the right scale adopted1 does it not reward the thing which it professes to uphold as its best result1 worth of character namely8 ,it claims to be a training-ground for character first1 but it does little to encourage secret and unobtrusive virtues4 ,that is1 it adds its prizes to the things which the natural man values1 and it neglects to crown the one thing at which it professes first to aim4 ,in doing this it only endorses the verdict of the world1 and while it praises moral effort1 it rewards success4 ,the issue of all this is that the sort of courage which it enforces is essentially a graceful and showy sort of courage1 a lively readiness1 a high-hearted fearlessness--so that timidity and slowness and diffidence and unreadiness become base and feeble qualities1 when they are not the things of which anyone need be ashamed6 ,let me say then that moral courage1 the patient and unrecognised facing of difficulties1 the disregard of popular standards1 solidity and steadfastness of purpose1 the tranquil performance of tiresome and disagreeable duties1 homely perseverance1 are not the things which are regarded as supreme in the ideal of the school2 so that the fear which is the shadow of sensitive and imaginative natures is turned into the wrong channels1 and becomes a mere dread of doing the unpopular and unimpressive thing1 or a craven determination not to be found out4 ,and the dread of being obscure and unacceptable is what haunts the minds of boys brought up on these ambitious and competitive lines1 rather than the fear which is the beginning of wisdom4 ,,viii ,,fears ,,of ,,youth ,the fears of youth are as a rule just the terrors of self-consciousness and shyness4 ,they are a very irrational thing1 something purely instinctive and of old inheritance4 ,how irrational they are is best proved by the fact that shyness is caused mostly by the presence of strangers2 there are many young people who are bashful1 awkward1 and tongue-tied in the presence of strangers1 whose tremors wholly disappear in the family circle4 ,if these were rational fears1 they might be caused by the consciousness of the inspection and possible disapproval of those among whom one lives1 and whose annoyance and criticism might have unpleasant practical effects4 ,yet they are caused often by the presence of those whose disapproval is not of the smallest consequence1 those1 in fact1 whom one is not likely to see again4 ,one must look then for the cause of this1 not in the fact that one's awkwardness and inefficiency is likely to be blamed by those of one's own circle1 but simply in the terror of the unknown and the unfamiliar4 ,it is probably therefore an old inherited instinct1 coming from a time when the sight of a stranger might contain in it a menace of some hostile usage4 ,if one questions a shy boy or girl as to what it is they are afraid of in the presence of strangers1 they are quite unable to answer4 ,they are not afraid of anything that will be said or done2 and yet they will have become intensely conscious of their own appearance and movements and dress1 and will be quite unable to command themselves4 ,that it is a thing which can be easily cured is obvious from the fact which ,i often observed when ,i was a schoolmaster1 that as a rule the boys who came from houses where there was much entertaining1 and a constant coming and going of guests1 very rarely suffered from such shyness4 ,they had got used to the fact that strangers could be depended upon to be kind and friendly1 and instead of looking upon a new person as a possible foe1 they regarded him as a probable friend4 ,i often think that parents do not take enough trouble in this respect to make children used to strangers4 ,what often happens is that parents are themselves shy and embarrassed in the presence of strangers1 and when they notice that their children suffer from the same awkwardness1 they criticise them afterwards1 partly because they are vexed at their own clumsy performance2 and thus the shyness is increased1 because the child1 in addition to his sense of shyness before strangers1 has in the background of his mind the feeling that any mauvaise honte that he may display may he commented upon afterwards4 ,no exhibition of shyness on the part of a boy or girl should ever be adverted upon by parents4 ,they should take for granted that no one is ever willingly shy1 and that it is a misery which all would avoid if they could4 ,it is even better to allow children considerable freedom of speech with strangers1 than to repress and silence them4 ,of course impertinence and unpleasant comments1 such as children will sometimes make on the appearance or manners of strangers1 must be checked1 but it should be on the grounds of the unpleasantness of such remarks1 and not on the ground of forwardness4 ,on the other hand1 all attempts on the part of a child to be friendly and courteous to strangers should be noted and praised2 a child should be encouraged to look upon itself as an integral part of a circle1 and not as a silent and lumpish auditor4 ,probably too there are certain physical and psychological laws1 which we do not at all understand1 which account for the curious subjective effects which certain people have at close quarters2 there is something hypnotic and mesmeric about the glance of certain eyes2 and there is in all probability a curious blending of mental currents in an assembly of people1 which is not a mere fancy1 but a very real physical fact4 ,personalities radiate very real and unmistakable influences1 and probably the undercurrent of thought which happens to be in one's mind when one is with others has an effect1 even if one says or does nothing to indicate one's preoccupation4 ,a certain amount of this comes from an unconscious inference on the part of the recipients4 ,we often augur1 without any very definite rational process1 from the facial expressions1 gestures1 movements1 tones of others1 what their frame of mind is4 ,but ,i believe that there is a great deal more than that4 ,we must all know that when we are with friends to whose moods and emotions we are attuned1 there takes place a singular degree of thought-transference1 quite apart from speech4 ,i had once a great friend with whom ,i was accustomed to spend much time tete-a-tete4 ,we used to travel together and spend long periods1 day after day1 in close conjunction1 often indeed sharing the same bedroom4 ,it became a matter at first of amusement and interest1 but afterwards an accepted fact1 that we could often realise1 even after a long silence1 in what direction the other's thought was travelling4 ,how did you guess ,i was thinking of that8 would be asked4 ,to which the reply was1 ,i did not guess--,i knew4 ,on the other hand ,i have an old and familiar friend1 whom ,i know well and regard with great affection1 but whose presence1 and particularly a certain fixity of glance1 often1 even now1 causes me a curious subjective disturbance which is not wholly pleasant1 a sense of some odd psychical control which is not entirely agreeable4 ,i have another friend who is the most delightful and easy company in the world when we are1 alone together2 but he is a sensitive and highly-strung creature1 much affected by personal influences1 and when ,i meet him in the company of other people he is often almost unrecognisable4 ,his mind becomes critical1 combative1 acrid2 he does not say what he means1 he is touched by a vague excitement1 and there passes over him an unnatural sort of brilliance1 of a hard and futile kind1 which makes him sacrifice consideration and friendliness to the instinctive desire to produce an effect and to score a point4 ,i sometimes actually detest him when he is one of a circle4 ,i feel inclined to say to him1 ,if only you could let your real self appear1 and drop this tiresome posturing and fencing1 you would be as delightful as you are to me when ,i am alone with you2 but this hectic tittering and feverish jocosity is not only not your real self1 but it gives others an impression of a totally unreal and not very agreeable person4 ,but1 alas1 this is just the sort of thing one cannot say to a friend6 ,as one goes on in life1 this terrible and disconcerting shyness of youth disappears4 ,we begin to realise1 with a wholesome loss of vanity and conceit1 how very little people care or even notice how we are dressed1 how we look1 what we say4 ,we learn that other people are as much preoccupied with their thoughts and fancies and reflections as we are with our own4 ,we realise that if we are anxious to produce an agreeable impression1 we do so far more by being interested and sympathetic1 than by attempting a brilliance which we cannot command4 ,we perceive that other people are not particularly interested in our crude views1 nor very grateful for the expression of them4 ,we acquire the power of combination and co-operation1 in losing the desire for splendour and domination4 ,we see that people value ease and security1 more than they admire originality and fantastic contradiction4 ,and so we come to the blessed time when1 instead of reflecting after a social occasion whether we did ourselves justice1 we begin to consider rather the impression we have formed of other personalities4 ,i believe that we ought to have recourse to very homely remedies indeed for combating shyness4 ,it is of no use to try to console and distract ourselves with lofty thoughts1 and to try to keep eternity and the hopes of man in mind4 ,we so become only more self-conscious and superior than ever4 ,the fact remains that the shyness of youth causes agonies both of anticipation and retrospect2 if one really wishes to get rid of it1 the only way is to determine to get used somehow to society1 and not to endeavour to avoid it2 and as a practical rule to make up one's mind1 if possible1 to ask people questions1 rather than to meditate impressive answers4 ,asking other people questions about things to which they are likely to know the answers is one of the shortest cuts to popularity and esteem4 ,it is wonderful to reflect how much distress personal bashfulness causes people1 how much they would give to be rid of it1 and yet how very little trouble they ever take to acquiring any method of dealing with the difficulty4 ,i see a good deal of undergraduates1 and am often aware that they are friendly and responsive1 but without any power of giving expression to it4 ,i sometimes see them suffering acutely from shyness before my eyes4 ,but a young man who can bring himself to ask a perfectly simple question about some small matter of common interest is comparatively rare2 and yet it is generally the simplest way out of the difficulty4 ,,ix ,,fears ,,of ,,middle ,,age ,now with all the tremors1 reactions1 glooms1 shadows1 and despairs of youth--it is easy enough to forget them1 but they were there--goes a power of lifting and lighting up in a moment at a chord of music1 a glance1 a word1 the song of a bird1 the scent of a flower1 a flying sunburst1 which fills life up like a cup with bubbling and sparkling liquor4 ,my soul1 be patient6 ,thou shalt find ,a little matter mend all this6 ,and that is the part of youth which we remember1 till on looking back it seems like a time of wandering with like-hearted comrades down some sweet-scented avenue of golden sun and green shade4 ,our memory plays us beautifully false--splendide mendax--till one wishes sometimes that old and wise men1 retelling the story of their life1 could recall for the comfort of youth some part of its languors and mischances1 its bitter jealousies1 its intense and poignant sense of failure4 ,and then in a moment the door of life opens4 ,one day ,i was an irresponsible1 pleasure-loving1 fantastic youth1 and a week later ,i was1 or it seemed to me that ,i was1 a professional man with all the cares of a pedagogue upon my back4 ,it filled me at first1 ,i remember1 with a gleeful amazement1 to find myself in the desk1 holding forth1 instead of on the form listening4 ,it seemed delicious at first to have the power of correcting and slashing exercises1 and placing boys in order1 instead of being corrected and examined1 and competing for a place4 ,it was a solemn game at the outset4 ,then came the other side of the picture4 ,one's pupils were troublesome1 they did badly in examinations1 they failed unaccountably2 and one had a glimpse too of some of the tragedies of school life4 ,almost insensibly ,i became aware that ,i had a task to perform1 that my mistakes involved boys in disaster1 that ,i had the anxious care of other destinies2 and thus1 almost before ,i knew it1 came a new cloud on the horizon1 the cloud of anxiety4 ,i could not help seeing that ,i had mismanaged this boy and misdirected that2 that one could not treat them as ingenuous and lively playthings1 but that what one said and did set a mark which perhaps could not be effaced4 ,gradually other doubts and problems made themselves felt4 ,i had to administer a system of education in which ,i did not wholly believe2 ,i saw little by little that the rigid old system of education was a machine which1 if it made a highly accomplished product out of the best material1 wasted an enormous amount of boyish interest and liveliness1 and stultified the feebler sort of mind4 ,then came the care of a boarding-house1 close relations with parents1 a more real knowledge of the infinite levity of boy nature4 ,i became mixed up with the politics of the place1 the chance of more ambitious positions floated before me2 the need for tact1 discretion1 judiciousness1 moderation1 tolerance emphasized itself4 ,i am here outlining my own experience1 but it is only one of many similar experiences4 ,i became a citizen without knowing it1 and my place in the world1 my status1 success1 all became definite things which ,i had to secure4 ,the cares1 the fears1 the anxieties of middle life lie for most men and women in this region2 if people are healthy and active1 they generally arrive at a considerable degree of equanimity2 they do not anticipate evil1 and they take the problems of life cheerfully enough as they come2 but yet come they do1 and too many men and women are tempted to throw overboard scornfully and disdainfully the dreams of youth as a luxury which they cannot afford to indulge1 and to immerse themselves in practical cares1 month after month1 with perhaps the hope of a fairly careless and idle holiday at intervals4 ,what ,i think tends to counteract this for many people is love and marriage1 the wonder and amazement of having children of their own1 and all the offices of tenderness that grow up naturally beside their path4 ,but this again brings a whole host of fears and anxieties as well--arrangements1 ways and means1 household cares1 illnesses1 the homely stuff of life1 much of it enjoyed1 much of it cheerfully borne1 and often very bravely and gallantly endured4 ,it is out of this simple material that life has to be constructed4 ,but there is a twofold danger in all this4 ,there is a danger of cynicism1 the frame of mind in which a man comes to face little worries as one might put up an umbrella in a shower--,thou know'st 'tis common6 ,out of that grows up a rude dreariness1 a philosophy which has nothing dignified about it1 but is merely a recognition of the fact that life is a poor affair1 and that one cannot hope to have things to one's mind4 ,or there is a dull frame of mind which implies a meek resignation1 a sense of disappointment about life1 borne with a mournful patience1 a sense of one's sphere having somehow fallen short of one's deserts4 ,this produces the grumpy paterfamilias who drowses over a paper or grumbles over a pipe2 such a man is inimitably depicted by ,mr4 ,wells in ,marriage4 ,that sort of ugly disillusionment1 that publicity of disappointment1 that frank disregard of all concerns except one's own1 is one of the most hideous features of middle-class life1 and it is rather characteristically ,english4 ,it sometimes conceals a robust good sense and even kindliness2 but it is a base thing at best1 and seems to be the shadow of commercial prosperity4 ,yet it at least implies a certain sturdiness of character1 and a stubborn belief in one's own merits which is quite impervious to the lessons of experience4 ,on sensitive and imaginative people the result of the professional struggle with life1 the essence of which is often social pretentiousness1 is different4 ,it ends in a mournful and distracted kind of fatigue1 a tired sort of padding along after life1 a timid bewilderment at conditions which one cannot alter1 and which yet have no dignity or seemliness4 ,what is there that is wrong with all this8 ,the cause is easy enough to analyse4 ,it is the result of a system which develops conventional1 short-sighted1 complicated households1 averse to effort1 fond of pleasure1 and with tastes which are expensive without being refined4 ,the only cure would seem to be that men and women should be born different1 with simple active generous natures2 it is easy to say that6 ,but the worst of the situation is that the sordid banality and ugly tragedy of their lot do not dawn on the people concerned4 ,greedy vanity in the more robust1 lack of moral courage and firmness in the more sensitive1 with a social organisation that aims at a surface dignity and a cheap showiness1 are the ingredients of this devil's cauldron4 ,the worst of it is that it has no fine elements at all4 ,there is a nobility about real tragedy which evokes a quality of passionate and sincere emotion4 ,there is something essentially exalted about a fierce resistance1 a desperate failure4 ,but this abject1 listless dreariness1 which can hardly be altered or expressed1 this miserable floating down the muddy current1 where there is no sharp repentance or fiery battling1 nothing but a mean abandonment to a meaningless and unintelligible destiny1 seems to have in it no seed of recovery at all4 ,the dark shadow of professional anxiety is that it has no tragic quality2 it is like ploughing on day by day through endless mud-flats4 ,one does not feel1 in the presence of sharp suffering or bitter loss1 that they ought not to exist4 ,they are there1 stern1 implacable1 august2 stately enemies1 great combatants4 ,there is a significance about their very awfulness4 ,one may fall before them1 but they pass like a great express train1 roaring1 flashing1 things deliberately and intently designed2 but these dull failures which seem not the outgrowth of anyone's fierce longing or wilful passion1 but of everyone's laziness and greediness and stupidity1 how is one to face them8 ,it is the helpless death of the quagmire1 not the death of the fight or the mountain-top4 ,is there1 we ask ourselves1 anything in the mind of ,god which corresponds to comfort-loving vulgarity1 if so strong and yet so stagnant a stream can overflow the world8 ,the bourgeois ideal6 ,one would rather have tyranny or savagery than anything so gross and smug4 ,and yet we see high-spirited and ardent husbands drawn into this by obstinate and vulgar-minded wives4 ,we see fine-natured and sensitive women engulfed in it by selfish and ambitious husbands4 ,the tendency is awfully and horribly strong1 and it wins1 not by open combat1 but by secret and dull persistence4 ,and one sees too--,i have seen it many times--children of delicate and eager natures1 who would have flourished and expanded in more generous air1 become conventional and commonplace and petty1 concerned about knowing the right people and doing the right things1 and making the same stupid and paltry show1 which deceives no one4 ,there is nothing for it but independence and simplicity and1 perhaps best of all1 a love of beauty4 ,william ,morris asserted passionately enough that art was the only cure for all this dreariness--the love of beautiful sounds and sights and words2 and ,i think that is true1 if it be further extended to a perception of the quality of beauty in the conduct and relations of life4 ,for those are the cheap and reasonable pleasures of life1 accessible to all2 and if men and women cared for work first and the decent simplicities of wholesome living1 and could further find their pleasure in art1 in whatever form1 then ,i believe that many of these fears and anxieties1 so maiming and impairing to all that is fine in life1 would vanish quietly out of being4 ,the thing seems both beautiful and possible1 because one knows of households where it is so1 and where it grows up naturally and easily enough4 ,i know households of both kinds--where on the one hand the standard is ambitious and mean1 where the inmates calculate everything with a view to success1 or rather to producing an impression of success2 and there all talk and intercourse is an unreal thing1 not the outflow of natural interests and pleasant tastes1 but a sham culture and a refinement that is only pursued because it is the right sort of surface to present to the world4 ,one submits to it with boredom1 one leaves it with relief4 ,they have got the right people together1 they have shown that they can command their attendance2 it is all ceremony and waste4 ,and then ,i know households where one sees in the books1 the pictures1 the glances1 the gestures1 the movements of the inmates1 a sort of grace and delicacy which comes of really caring about things that are beautiful and fine4 ,sincere things are simply said1 humour bubbles up and breaks in laughter2 one feels that light is thrown on a hundred topics and facts and personalities4 ,the whole of life then becomes a garden teeming with strange and wonderful secrets1 and influences that flash and radiate1 passing on into some mysterious and fragrant gloom4 ,everything there seems charged with significance and charm2 there are no pretences--there are preferences1 prejudices if you will2 but there is tolerance and sympathy1 and a desire to see the point of view of others4 ,the effect of such an atmosphere is to set one wondering how one has contrived to miss the sense of so much that is beautiful and interesting in life1 and sends one away longing to perceive more1 and determined if possible to interpret life more truly and more graciously4 ,x ,,fears ,,of ,,age ,and then age creeps on2 and that brings fears of its own1 and fears that are all the more intolerable because they are not definite fears at all1 merely a loss of nervous vigour1 which attaches itself to the most trivial detail and magnifies it into an insuperable difficulty4 ,a friend of mine who was growing old once confided to me that foreign travel1 which used to be such a delight to him1 was now getting burdensome4 ,it is all right when ,i have once started1 he said1 but for days before ,i am the prey of all kinds of apprehensions4 ,what sort of apprehensions8 ,i said4 ,he laughed1 and replied1 ,well1 it is almost too absurd to mention1 but ,i find myself oppressed with anxiety for weeks beforehand as to whether1 when we get to ,calais1 we shall find places in the train4 ,and ,i remember1 too1 how a woman friend of mine once told me that she called at the house of an elderly couple in ,london1 people of rank and wealth4 ,their daughter met her in the drawing-room and said1 ,i am glad you are come--you may be able to cheer my mother up4 ,we are going down to-morrow to our place in the country2 the servants and the luggage went this morning1 and my mother and father are to drive down this afternoon--my mother is very low about it4 ,what is the matter8 said my friend4 ,the daughter replied1 ,she is afraid that they will not get there in time6 ,in time for what8 said my friend1 thinking that there was some important engagement4 ,in time for tea6 said the daughter gravely4 ,it is all very well to laugh at such fears1 but they are not natural fears at all1 they just indicate a low vitality2 they are the symptoms and not the causes of a disease4 ,it is the frame of mind of the sluggard in the ,bible who says1 ,there is a lion in the way4 ,younger people are apt to be irritated by what seems a wilful creating of apprehensions4 ,they ought rather to be patient and reassuring1 and compassionate to the weakness of nerve for which it stands4 ,with such fears as these may be classed all the unreal but none the less distressing fears about health which beset people all their lives1 in some cases2 it is extremely annoying to healthy people to find a man reduced to depression and silence at the possibility of taking cold1 or at the fear of having eaten something unwholesome4 ,i remember an elderly gentleman who had lived a vigorous and unselfish life1 and was indeed a man of force and character1 whose activity was entirely suspended in later years by his fear of catching cold or of over-tiring himself4 ,he was a country clergyman1 and used to spend the whole of ,sunday between his services1 in solitary seclusion1 resting1 and retire to bed the moment the evening service was over2 moreover his dread of taking cold was such that he invariably wore a hat in the winter months to go from the drawing-room to the dining-room for dinner1 even if there were guests in his house4 ,he used to jest about it1 and say that it no doubt must look curious2 but he added that he had found it a wise precaution1 and that we had no idea how disabling his colds were4 ,even a very healthy friend of my own standing has told me that if he ever lies awake at night he is apt to exaggerate the smallest and most trifling sense of discomfort into the symptom of some dangerous disease4 ,let me quote the well-known case of ,hans ,andersen1 whose imagination was morbidly strong4 ,he found one morning when he awoke that he had a small pimple under his left eyebrow4 ,he reflected with distress upon the circumstance1 and soon came to the rueful conclusion that the pimple would probably increase in size1 and deprive him of the sight of his left eye4 ,a friend calling upon him in the course of the morning found him writing1 in a mood of solemn resignation1 with one hand over the eye in question1 practising1 as he said1 how to read and write with the only eye that would soon be left him4 ,one's first impulse is to treat these self-inflicted sufferings as ridiculous and almost idiotic4 ,but they are quite apt to beset people of effectiveness and ability4 ,to call them irrational does not cure them1 because they lie deeper than any rational process1 and are in fact the superficial symptoms of some deep-seated weakness of nerve1 while their very absurdity1 and the fact that the mind cannot throw them off1 only proves how strong they are4 ,they are in fact signs of some profound uneasiness of mind2 and the rational brain of such people1 casting about for some reason to explain the fear with which they are haunted1 fixes on some detail which is not worthy of serious notice4 ,it is of course a species of local insanity and monomania1 but it does not imply any general obscuration of faculties at all4 ,some of the most intellectual people are most at the mercy of such trials1 and indeed they are rather characteristic of men and women whose brain is apt to work at high pressure4 ,one recollects in the life of ,shelley1 how he used to be haunted by these insupportable fears4 ,he was at one time persuaded that he had contracted leprosy1 and he used to disconcert his acquaintances by examining solicitously their wrists and necks to see if he could detect symptoms of the same disease4 ,there is very little doubt that as medical knowledge progresses we shall know more about the cause of such hallucinations4 ,to call them unreal is mere stupidity4 ,sensible people who suffer from them are often perfectly well aware of their unreality1 and are profoundly humiliated by them4 ,they are some disease or weakness of the imaginative faculty2 and a friend of mine who suffered from such things told me that it was extraordinary to him to perceive the incredible ingenuity with which his brain under such circumstances used to find confirmation for his fears from all sorts of trivial incidents which at other times passed quite unnoticed4 ,it is generally quite useless to think of removing the fear by combating the particular fancy2 the affected centre1 whatever it is1 only turns feverishly to some other similar anxiety4 ,occupation of a quiet kind1 exercise1 rest1 are the best medicine4 ,sometimes these anxieties take a different form1 and betray themselves by suspicion of other people's conduct and motives4 ,that is of course allied to insanity4 ,in sane and sound health we realise that we are not1 as a rule1 the objects of the malignity and spitefulness of others4 ,we are perhaps obstacles to the carrying out of other people's plans2 but men and women as a rule mind their own business1 and are not much concerned to intervene in the designs and activities of others4 ,yet a man whose mental equilibrium is unstable is apt to think that if he is disappointed or thwarted it is the result of a deliberate conspiracy on the part of other people4 ,if he is a writer1 he thinks that other writers are aware of his merits1 but are determined to prevent them being recognised out of sheer ill-will4 ,a man in robust health realises that he gets quite as much credit or even more credit than he deserves1 and that his claims to attention are generously recognised2 one has exactly as much influence and weight as one can get1 and other people as a rule are much too much occupied in their own concerns to have either the time or the inclination to interfere4 ,but as a man grows older1 as his work stiffens and weakens1 he falls out of the race1 and he must be content to do so2 and he is well advised if he puts his failure down to his own deficiencies1 and not to the malice of others4 ,the world is really very much on the look out for anything which amuses1 delights1 impresses1 moves1 or helps it2 it is quick and generous in recognition of originality and force2 and if a writer1 as he gets older1 finds his books neglected and his opinions disdained1 he may be fairly sure that he has said his say1 and that men are preoccupied with new ideas and new personalities4 ,of course this is a melancholy and disconcerting business1 especially if one has been more concerned with personal prominence than with the worth and weight of one's ideas2 mortified vanity is a sore trial4 ,i remember once meeting an old author who1 some thirty years before the date at which ,i met him1 had produced a book which attracted an extraordinary amount of attention1 though it has long since been forgotten4 ,the old man had all the airs of solemn greatness1 and ,i have seldom seen a more rueful spectacle than when a young and rising author was introduced to him1 and when it became obvious that the young man had not only never heard of the old writer1 but did not know the name of his book4 ,the question is what we can do to avoid falling under the dominion of these uncanny fears and fancies1 as we fall from middle age to age4 ,a dreary1 dispirited1 unhappy1 peevish old man or old woman is a very miserable spectacle2 while1 at the same time1 generous1 courteous1 patient1 modest1 tender old age is one of the most beautiful things in the world4 ,we may of course resolve not to carry our dreariness into all circles1 and if we find life a poor and dejected business1 we can determine that we will not enlarge upon the theme4 ,but the worst of discouragement is that it removes even the desire to play a part1 or to make the most and best of ourselves4 ,like ,mrs4 ,gummidge in ,david ,copperfield1 if we are reminded that other people have their troubles1 we are apt to reply that we feel them more4 ,one does not desire that people should unduly indulge themselves in self-dramatisation4 ,there is something very repugnant in an elderly person who is bent on proving his importance and dignity1 in laying claim to force and influence1 in affecting to play a large part in the world4 ,but there is something even more afflicting in the people who drop all decent pretence of dignity1 and pour the product of an acrid and disappointed spirit into all conversations4 ,age can establish itself very firmly in the hearts of its circle1 if it is kind1 sympathetic1 appreciative1 ready to receive confidences1 willing to encourage the fitful despondencies of youth4 ,but here again we are met by the perennial difficulty as to how far we can force ourselves to do things which we do not really want to do1 and how far again1 if we succeed in forcing ourselves into action1 we can give any accent of sincerity and genuineness to our comments and questions4 ,in this particular matter1 that of sympathy1 a very little effort does undoubtedly go a long way1 because there are a great many people in the world eagerly on the look out for any sign of sympathy1 and not apt to scrutinise too closely the character of the sympathy offered4 ,and the best part of having once forced oneself to exhibit sympathy1 at whatever cost of strain and effort1 is that one is at least ashamed to withdraw it4 ,i remember a foolish woman who was very anxious to retain the hold upon the active world which she had once possessed4 ,she very seldom spoke of any subject but herself1 her performances1 her activities1 the pressure of the claims which she was forced to try to satisfy4 ,i can recall her now1 with her sanguine complexion1 her high voice1 her anxious and restless eye wandering in search of admiration4 ,the day's post6 she cried1 that is one of my worst trials--so many duties to fulfil1 so many requests for help1 so many irresistible claims come before me in the pile of letters--that high1 indicating about a foot and a half of linear measurement above the table4 ,it is the same story every day--a score of people bringing their little mugs of egotism to be filled at my pump of sympathy6 ,it was a ridiculous exhibition1 because one was practically sure that there was nothing of the kind going on4 ,one was inclined to believe that they were mugs of sympathy filled at the pump of egotism6 ,but if the thing were really being done1 it was certainly worth doing6 ,one of the causes of the failure of nerve-force in age1 which lies behind so much of these miseries1 is that people who have lived at all active lives cannot bring themselves to realise their loss of vigour1 and try to prolong the natural energies of middle age into the twilight of elderliness4 ,men and women cling to activities1 not because they enjoy them1 but to delude themselves into believing that they are still young4 ,that terrible inability to resign positions1 the duties of which one cannot adequately fulfil1 which seems so disgraceful and unconscientious a handling of life to the young1 is often a pathetic clinging to youth4 ,such veterans do not reflect that the only effect of such tenacity is partly that other people do their work1 and partly also that the critic observes that if a post can be adequately filled by so old a man it is a proof that such a post ought not to exist4 ,the tendency ought to be met as far as possible by fixing age-limits to all positions4 ,because even if the old and weary do consult their friends as to the advisability of retirement1 it is very hard for the friends cordially to recommend it4 ,a public man once told me that a very aged official consulted him as to the propriety of resignation4 ,he said in his reply something complimentary about the value of the veteran's services4 ,whereupon the old man replied that as he set so high an estimation upon his work1 he would endeavour to hold on a little longer6 ,the conscientious thing to do1 as we get older and find ourselves slower1 more timid1 more inactive1 more anxious1 is to consult a candid friend1 and to follow his advice rather than our own inclination2 a certain fearfulness1 an avoidance of unpleasant duty1 a dreary foreboding1 is apt to be characteristic of age4 ,but we must meet it philosophically4 ,we must reflect that we have done our work1 and that an attempt to galvanise ourselves into activity is sure to result in depression4 ,so we must condense our energies1 be content to play a little1 to drowse a little1 to watch with interest the game of life in which we cannot take a hand1 until death falls as naturally upon our wearied eyes as sleep falls upon the eyes of a child tired with a long summer day of eager pleasure and delight4 ,but there is one practical counsel that may here be given to all who find a tendency to dread and anxiety creeping upon them as life advances4 ,i have known very truly and deeply religious people who have been thus beset1 and who make their fears the subject of earnest prayer1 asking that this particular terror may be spared them1 that this cup may be withdrawn from their shuddering lips4 ,i do not believe that this is the right way of meeting the situation4 ,one may pray as whole-heartedly as one will against the tendency to fear2 but it is a great help to realise that the very experiences which seem now so overwhelming had little or no effect upon one in youthful and high-hearted days4 ,it is not really that the quality of events alter2 it is merely that one is losing vitality1 and parting with the irresponsible hopefulness that did not allow one to brood1 simply because there were so many other interesting and delightful things going on4 ,one must attack the disease1 for it is a disease1 at the root2 and it is of little use to shrink timidly from the particular evil1 because when it is gone1 another will take its place4 ,we may pray for courage1 but we must practise it2 and the best way of meeting particular fears is to cultivate interests1 distractions1 amusements1 which may serve to dispel them4 ,we cannot begin to do that while we are under the dominion of a particular fear1 for the strength of fear lies in its dominating and nauseating quality1 so that it gives us a dreary disrelish for life2 but if we really wish to combat it1 we must beware of inactivity2 it may be comfortable1 as life goes on1 to cultivate a habit of mild contemplation1 but it is this very habit of mind which predisposes us to anxiety when anxiety comes4 ,dr4 ,johnson pointed out how comparatively rare it was for people who had manual labour to perform1 and whose work lay in the open air1 to suffer from hypochondriacal terrors4 ,the truth is that we are made for labour1 and we have by no means got rid of the necessity for it4 ,we have to pay a price for the comforts of civilisation1 and above all for the pleasures of inactivity4 ,it is astonishing how quickly a definite task which one has to perform1 whether one likes it or not1 draws off a cloud of anxiety from one's spirit4 ,i am myself liable to attacks of depression1 not causeless depression1 but a despondent exaggeration of small troubles4 ,yet in times of full work1 when meetings have to be attended1 papers tackled1 engagements kept1 ,i seldom find myself suffering from vague anxieties4 ,it is simply astonishing that one cannot learn more common sense6 ,i suppose that all people of anxious minds tend to find the waking hour a trying one4 ,the mind1 refreshed by sleep1 turns sorrowfully to the task of surveying the difficulties which lie before it4 ,and yet a hundred times have ,i discovered that life1 which seemed at dawn nothing but a tangle of intolerable problems1 has become at noon a very bearable and even interesting affair2 and one should thus learn to appreciate the tonic value of occupation1 and set oneself to discern some pursuit1 if we have no compulsory duties1 which may set the holy mill revolving1 as ,dante says2 for it is the homely grumble of the gear which distracts us from the other sort of grumbling1 the self-pitying frame of mind1 which is the most fertile seed-plot of fear4 ,how happy ,i was long ago2 how little ,i guessed my happiness2 how little ,i knew all that lay before me2 how sadly and strangely afflicted ,i am6 ,these are the whispers of the evil demon of fearfulness2 and they can only be checked by the murmur of wholesome and homely voices4 ,the old motto says1 ,orare est laborare1 prayer is work--and it is no less true that laborare est orare1 work is prayer4 ,the truth is that we cannot do without both2 and when we have prayed for courage1 and tried to rejoice in our beds1 as the saints who are joyful in glory do1 we had better spend no time in begging that money may be sent us to meet our particular need1 or that health may return to us1 or that this and that person may behave more kindly and considerately1 but go our way to some perfectly commonplace bit of work1 do it as thoroughly as we can1 and simply turn our back upon the hobgoblin whose grimaces fill us with such uneasiness4 ,he melts away in the blessed daylight over the volume or the account-book1 in the simple talk about arrangements or affairs1 and above all perhaps in trying to disentangle and relieve another's troubles and anxieties4 ,we cannot get rid of fear by drugs or charms2 we have to turn to the work which is the appointed solace of man1 and which is the reward rather than the penalty of life4 ,,xi ,,dr4 ,,johnson ,there is one great and notable instance in our annals which ought once and for all to dispose of the idea that there is anything weak or unmanly in finding fear a constant temptation1 and that is the case of ,dr4 ,johnson4 ,dr4 ,johnson holds his supreme station as the figure par excellence of ,english life for a number of reasons4 ,his robustness1 his wit1 his reverence for established things1 his secret piety are all contributory causes2 but the chief of all causes is that the proportion in which these things were mixed is congenial to the ,british mind4 ,the ,englishman likes a man who is deeply serious without being in the least a prig2 a man who is tender-hearted without being sentimental2 he likes a rather combative nature1 and enjoys repartee more than he enjoys humour4 ,the ,englishman values good sense above almost all qualities2 by a sensible man he means a man with a clear judgment of right and wrong1 a man who is not taken in by pretences nor gulled by rhetoric2 a man who can instinctively see what is important and what is unimportant4 ,but of course the chief external reason1 apart from the character of ,johnson himself1 for his supremacy of fame1 is that his memory is enshrined in an incomparable biography4 ,it shows the strange ineptness of ,englishmen for literary and artistic criticism1 their incapacity for judging a work of art on its own merits1 their singular habit of allowing their disapprobation of a man's private character to depreciate his work1 that an acknowledged critic like ,macaulay could waste time in carefully considering whether ,boswell was more fool or more knave1 and triumphantly announce that he produced a good book by accident4 ,probably ,boswell did not realise how matchless a biographer he was1 though he was not disposed to belittle his own performances4 ,but his unbridled interest in the smallest details1 his power of hero-worship1 his amazing style1 his perception1 his astonishing memory and the training he gave it1 his superb dramatic faculty1 which enabled him to arrange his other characters around the main figure1 and to subordinate them all to his central emphasis--all these qualities are undeniable4 ,moreover he was himself the most perfect foil and contrast to ,johnson that could be imagined1 while he possessed in a unique degree the power of both stimulating and provoking his hero to animation and to wrath4 ,boswell may not have known what an artist he was1 but he is probably one of the best literary artists who has ever lived4 ,but the supreme quality of his great book is this--that his interest in every trait of his hero1 large and small1 is so strong that he had none of that stiff propriety or chilly reserve which mars almost all ,english biographies4 ,he did not care a straw whether this characteristic or that would redound to ,johnson's credit4 ,he saw that ,johnson was a large-minded1 large-hearted man1 with an astonishing power of conversational expression1 and an extremely picturesque figure as well4 ,he perceived that he was big enough to be described in full1 and that the shadows of his temperament only brought out the finer features into prominence4 ,since the days of ,johnson there are but two ,englishmen whose lives we know in anything like the same detail--,ruskin and ,carlyle4 ,we know the life of ,ruskin mainly from his own power of impassioned autobiography1 and because he had the same sort of power of exhibiting both his charm and his weakness as ,boswell had in dealing with ,johnson4 ,but ,ruskin was not at all a typical ,englishman2 he had a very feminine side to his character1 and though he was saved from sentimentality by his extreme trenchancy1 and by his irritable temper1 yet his whole temperament is beautiful1 winning1 attractive1 rather than salient and picturesque4 ,he had the qualities of a poet1 a quixotic ideal1 and an exuberant fancy2 but though his spell over those who understand him is an almost magical one1 his point of view is bound to be misunderstood by the ordinary man4 ,carlyle's case is a different one again4 ,there the evidence is mainly documentary4 ,we know more about the ,carlyle interior than we know of the history of any married pair since the world began4 ,there is little doubt that if ,carlyle could have had a ,boswell1 a biographer who could have rendered the effect of his splendid power of conversation1 we might have had a book which could have been put on the same level as the life of ,johnson1 because ,carlyle again was pre-eminently a figure1 a man made by nature to hold the enraptured attention of a circle4 ,but it would have been a much more difficult task to represent ,carlyle's talk than it was to represent ,johnson's1 because ,carlyle was an inspired soliloquist1 and supplied both objection and repartee out of his own mind4 ,i think it probable that ,carlyle was a typical ,scotchman2 he was more impassioned in his seriousness than ,johnson1 but he had a grimness which ,johnson did not possess1 and he had not ,johnson's good-natured tolerance for foolish and well-meaning people4 ,carlyle himself had a good deal of ,boswell's own gift1 a power of minute and faithful observation1 and a memory which treasured and reproduced characteristic details4 ,if ,carlyle had ever had the time or the taste to admire any human being as ,boswell admired ,johnson1 he might have produced fully as great a book2 but ,carlyle had a prophetic impulse1 an instinct for inverting tubs and preaching from them1 a desire for telling the whole human race what to do and how to do it1 which ,johnson was too modest to claim4 ,there is but one other instance that ,i know in ,english literature of a man who had the ,boswellian gift to the full1 but who never had complete scope1 and that was ,hogg4 ,if ,hogg could have spent more of his life with ,shelley1 and had been allowed to complete his book1 we might1 ,i believe1 have had a monument of the same kind4 ,but in the case of ,boswell and ,johnson1 it is ,boswell's magnificent scorn of reticence which has done the trick1 like the spurt of acid1 of which ,browning speaks in one of his best similes4 ,the final stroke of genius which has established the ,life of ,johnson so securely in the hearts of ,english readers1 lies in the fact that ,boswell has given us something to compassionate4 ,as a rule the biographer cannot bear to evoke the smallest pity for his hero4 ,the absence of female relatives in the case of ,johnson was probably a part of his good fortune4 ,no biographer likes1 and seldom dares1 to torture the sensibilities of a great man's widow and daughters4 ,and the strength as well as the weakness of the feminine point of view is that women have a power not so much of not observing1 as of actually obliterating the weaknesses of those whom they love4 ,it is sentiment which ruins biographies1 the sentiment that cannot bear the truth4 ,boswell did not shrink from admitting the reader to a sight of ,johnson's hypochondria1 his melancholy fears1 his dreary miseries1 his dread of illness1 his terror of death4 ,johnson's horror of annihilation was insupportable4 ,he so revelled in life1 in the contact and company of other human beings1 that he once said that the idea of an infinity of torment was preferable to the thought of annihilation4 ,he wrote1 in his last illness1 to his old friend ,dr4 ,taylor3 ,oh6 my friend1 the approach of death is very dreadful4 ,i am afraid to think on that which ,i know ,i cannot avoid4 ,it is vain to look round and round for that help which cannot be had4 ,yet we hope and hope1 and fancy that he who has lived to-day may live to-morrow4 ,but let us learn to derive our hope only from ,god4 ,in the meantime1 let us be kind to one another4 ,i have no friend now living but you and ,mr4 ,hector that was the friend of my youth4--,do not neglect1 sir1 yours affectionately1 ,,sam4 ,,johnson4 ,was ever the last fear put into such simple and poignant words as in the above letter8 ,it is like that other saying of ,johnson's1 when all sorts of good reasons had been given why men should wish to be released from their troubles by death1 ,after all1 it is a sad thing for a man to lie down and die4 ,there is no more that can be said1 and not the best reasons in the world for desiring to depart and have done with life can ever do away with that sadness4 ,dr4 ,johnson supplies the clearest proof1 if proof were needed1 that no robustness of temperament1 no genius of common sense1 no array of rationality1 no degree of courage1 can save a man from the assaults of fear1 and even of fear which the sufferer knows to be unreal4 ,some of the most severe and angry things which ,johnson ever said were said to ,boswell and others who persisted in discussing the question of death4 ,yet ,johnson had no rational doubt of immortality1 and believed with an almost childlike simplicity in the ,christian faith4 ,he was not afraid of pain1 or of the act of dying2 it was of the unknown conditions beyond the grave that he was afraid4 ,probably as a rule very robust people are so much occupied in living that they have little time to think of the future1 while men and women who hold to life by a frail tenure are not much concerned at quitting a scene which is phantasmal and full of pain4 ,but in ,johnson we have the two extremes brought together4 ,he was the most gregarious of men2 he loved company so well that he would follow his friends to the very threshold1 in the hope1 as he once told ,boswell1 that they might perhaps return4 ,when he was alone and undistracted1 his melancholy came back upon him like a cloud4 ,he tortured himself over the unprofitableness of his life1 over his failure to achieve official prominence4 ,he does not seem to have brooded over the favourite subject for ,englishmen to lose heart over1 namely1 his financial position4 ,it is a very significant fact in our ,english life that if at an inquest upon a suicide it can be established that a man has financial difficulties1 a verdict of temporary insanity is instantly conceded4 ,loss of property rather than loss of affection is the thing which the ,englishman thinks is likely to derange a man4 ,but ,johnson seems never to have been afraid of poverty1 nor to have ever troubled about fame4 ,he was very angry once when it was laughingly suggested to him that if he had gone to the ,bar he might have been ,lord ,chancellor2 and ,i have no doubt1 as ,i have said1 that one of his uncomfortable reflections was that he did not seem to himself to be in a position of influence and authority4 ,but1 apart from that1 it is obvious that ,johnson's broodings took the form of lamenting his own sinfulness and moral worthlessness3 what the faults which troubled him were1 it is hard to say4 ,he does not seem to have been repentant about the mortification he caused others by his witty bludgeoning--indeed he considered himself a polite man6 ,but ,i believe1 from many slight indications1 that ,johnson was distressed by the consciousness of sensual impulses1 though he held them in severe restraint4 ,his habit of ejaculatory prayer was1 ,i think1 directed against this tendency4 ,the agitation with which he once said that corruption had entered into his heart by means of a dream seems to me a proof of this4 ,he took a tolerant view of the lapses of others1 and of course the standard of the age was lax in this respect4 ,but ,i have little doubt myself that here ,johnson found himself often confronted with a sensuous tendency which he thought degrading1 and which he constantly combated4 ,apart from this1 he was not afraid of illness in itself1 except as a prelude of mortality4 ,indeed ,i believe that he took a hypochondriac pleasure in observing his symptoms minutely1 and in dosing himself in all sorts of ways4 ,his mysterious preoccupations with dried orange-peel had no doubt a medicinal end in view4 ,but when it came to suffering pain and even to enduring operations1 he had no tremors4 ,his one constant fear was the fear of death4 ,he kept it at arm's length1 he loved any social amusement that banished it1 but it is obvious1 in several of his talks1 when the subject was under discussion1 that the cloud descended upon him suddenly and made him miserable4 ,it was all summed up in this1 that life was to his taste1 that even when oppressed with gloom and depression1 he never desired to escape4 ,i have heard a great doctor say that he believed that human beings were very sharply divided in this respect1 that there were some people in whom any extremity of prolonged anguish1 bodily or mental1 never produced the smallest desire to quit life2 while there were others whose attachment to life was slight1 and that a very little pressure of care or calamity developed a suicidal impulse4 ,this is1 ,i suppose1 a question of vitality1 not necessarily of activity of mind and body1 but a deep instinctive desire to live2 the thought of deliberate suicide was wholly unintelligible to ,johnson1 death was his ultimate fear1 and however much he suffered from disease or depression1 his intention to live was always inalienable4 ,his fear then was one which no devoutness of faith1 no resolute tenacity of hope1 no array of reasons could ever touch4 ,it was simply the unknown that he feared4 ,life had not been an easy business for ,johnson2 he had known all the calamities of life1 and he was familiar with the worst calamity of all1 the causeless melancholy which makes life weary and distasteful without ever removing the certainty that it is in itself desirable4 ,we may see from all this that to attempt to seek a cure for fear in reason is foredoomed to failure1 because fear lies in a region that is behind all reason4 ,it exists in the depth of the spirit1 as in the fallen gloom of the glimmering sea-deeps1 and it can be touched by no activity of life and joy and sunlight on the surface1 where the speeding sail moves past wind-swept headlands4 ,we must follow it into those depths if we are to deal with it at all1 and it must be vanquished in the region where it is born1 and where it skulks unseen4 ,,xii ,,tennyson1 ,,ruskin1 ,,carlyle ,there were three great men of the nineteenth century of whom we know more than we know of most men1 ,carlyle1 ,ruskin1 and ,tennyson1 in whose lives fear was a prominent element4 ,tennyson has suffered no loss of fame1 but he has suffered of late a certain loss of influence1 which was bound to come1 if simply from the tremendous domination which his writings exercised in his lifetime4 ,he was undoubtedly one of the first word-artists who ever lived and wrote1 but he was a great deal more than that2 he was a great mystic1 a man whose mind moved in a shining cloud of inspiration4 ,he had the constitution and the temperament of a big ,lincolnshire yeoman1 with that simple rusticity that is said to have characterised ,vergil4 ,but his spirit dwelt apart1 revolving dim and profound thoughts1 brooding over mysteries2 if he is lightly said to be ,early ,victorian1 it is not because he was typical of his age1 but because he contributed so much to make it what it was4 ,while ,browning lived an eager personal life1 full of observation1 zest1 and passion1 ,tennyson abode in more impersonal thoughts4 ,in the dawn of science1 when there was a danger of life becoming over-materialised1 contented with the first steps of swiftly apprehended knowledge1 and with solutions which were no solutions at all1 but only the perception of laws1 ,tennyson was the man of all others who saw that science had a deeply poetical side1 and could enforce rather than destroy the religious spirit2 he saw that a knowledge of processes was not the same thing as an explanation of impulses1 and that while it was a little more clear in the light of science what was actually happening in the world1 men were no nearer the perception of why it happened so1 or why it happened at all4 ,tennyson saw clearly the wonders of astronomy and geology1 and discerned that the laws of nature were nothing more than the habits1 so to speak1 of a power that was incredibly dim and vast1 a power which held within itself the secrets of motion and rest1 of death and life4 ,thus he claimed for his disciples not only the average thoughtful men1 but the very best and finest minds of his generation who wished to link the past and the present together1 and not to break with the old sanctities4 ,tennyson's art suffered from the consciousness of his enormous responsibility1 and where he failed was from his dread of unpopularity1 or his fear of alienating the ordinary man4 ,browning was interested in ethical problems2 his robust and fortunate temperament allowed him to bridge over with a sort of buoyant healthiness the gaps of his philosophy4 ,but ,tennyson's ethical failure lay in his desire to improve the occasion1 and to rule out all impulses that had not a social and civic value4 ,in the later ,idylls he did his best to represent the prig trailing clouds of glory1 and to discourage lawlessness in every form2 but he was more familiar with the darker and grosser sides of life than he allowed to appear in his verse1 which suffers from an almost prudish delicacy1 which is more akin to respectability than to moral courage4 ,but all this was the shadow of a very sensitive and melancholy temperament4 ,comparatively little is known of the first forty years of his life2 it is after that time that the elaborate legend begins4 ,till the time of his marriage1 he must have been a constant anxiety to his friends2 his gloom1 his inertia1 his drifting mooning ways1 his hypochondria1 his incapacity for any settled plan of life1 all seemed to portend an ultimate failure4 ,but this troubled inertness was the soil of his inspiration2 his conceptions took slow and stately shape4 ,he never suffered from the haste1 which as ,dante says mars all decency of act4 ,after that time he enjoyed a great domestic happiness1 and practised considerable sociability4 ,his terrifying demeanour1 his amazing personal dignity and majesty1 the certainty that he would say whatever came into his head1 whether it was profound and solemn1 or testy and discourteous1 gave him a personal ascendancy that never disappointed a pilgrim4 ,but he lived all his life in a perpetual melancholy1 feeling the smallest slights acutely1 hating at once obscurity and publicity1 aware of his renown1 yet shrinking from the evidences of it4 ,he could be distracted by company1 soothed by wine and tobacco2 but left to itself1 his mind fell helplessly down the dark slope into a sadness and a dreariness which deprived life of its savour4 ,it was not that his dread was a definite one2 he was strong and tough physically1 and he regarded death with a solemn curiosity2 but he had a sense of the profitlessness of vacant hours1 unthrilled by beauty and delight1 and had also a morbid pride1 of the nature of vanity1 which caused him to resent the smallest criticism of his works from the humblest reader4 ,there are many stories of this1 how he declaimed against the lust of gossip1 which he called with rough appositeness ripping up a man like a pig1 and thanked ,god with all his heart and soul that he knew nothing of ,shakespeare's private life2 and in the same breath went on to say that he thought that his own fame was suffering from a sort of congestion1 because he had received no letters about his poems for several days4 ,in later life he became very pessimistic1 and believed that the world was sinking fast into dull materialism1 petty selfishness1 and moral anarchy4 ,he had less opportunity of knowing what was going on in the world than most people1 in his sheltered and secluded life1 with his court of friends and worshippers4 ,and indeed it was not a rational pessimism2 it was but the shadow of his fear4 ,and the fact remains that in spite of a life of great good fortune1 and an undimmed supremacy of fame1 he spent much of his time in fighting shadows1 involved in clouds of darkness and dissatisfaction4 ,that was no doubt the price he paid for his exquisite perception of beauty and his power of melodious expression4 ,but we make a great mistake if we merely think of ,tennyson as a rich and ample nature moving serenely through life4 ,he was black-blooded1 he once said1 adding1 like all the ,tennysons4 ,doubtless he had in his mind his father1 a man often deeply in the grip of melancholy4 ,and the absurd legend1 invented probably by ,rossetti1 contains a truth in it and may be quoted here4 ,rossetti said that he once went to dine with a friend in ,london1 and was shown into a dimly lit drawing-room with no one to receive him4 ,he went towards the fireplace1 and suddenly to his surprise discovered an immensely tall man in evening dress lying prostrate on the hearthrug1 his face downwards1 in an attitude of prone despair4 ,while he gazed1 the stranger rose to his feet1 looked fixedly at him1 and said1 ,i must introduce myself2 ,i am ,octavius1 the most morbid of the ,tennysons4 ,with ,ruskin we have a different case4 ,he was brought up in the most secluded fashion1 and though he was sharply enough disciplined into decorous behaviour by his very grim and positive mother1 he was guarded like a precious jewel1 and as he grew up he was endlessly petted and indulged4 ,the ,ruskins lived a very comfortable life in a big villa with ample grounds at ,denmark ,hill4 ,whatever the wonderful boy did was applauded and even dangerously encouraged1 both in the way of drawing and of writing4 ,though he seems to have been often publicly snubbed by both his parents1 it was more a family custom than anything else1 and was accompanied by undisguised admiration and patent pride4 ,they were his stupefied critics1 when he read aloud his works in the family circle1 and his father obediently produced large sums of money to gratify his brilliant son's artistic desire for the possession of ,turner's paintings4 ,ruskin in his morbid moments1 in later life1 turned fiercely and unjustly against his fond and tender father4 ,he accused him with an in temperate bitterness of having lavished everything upon him except the intelligent sympathy of which he stood in need1 and his father's gentle and mournful apologies have an extraordinary beauty of puzzled and patient dignity about them4 ,when ,ruskin went to ,oxford1 his mother went to reside there too1 to look after her darling4 ,one might have supposed that this would have involved ,ruskin in ridicule1 but he was petted and indulged by his fellow-undergraduates1 who found his charm1 his swift wit1 his childlike waywardness1 his freakish humour irresistible4 ,then he had a serious illness1 and his first taste of misery2 he was afraid of death1 he hated the constraints of invalid life and the grim interruption to his boundless energies and plans4 ,then came his first great book1 and he strode full-fledged into fame4 ,his amazing attractiveness1 his talk1 which combined incisiveness and fancy and humour and fire and gentleness1 made him a marked figure from the first4 ,moreover1 he had the command of great wealth1 yet no temptation to be idle4 ,the tale of ,ruskin's industry for the next fifty years is one that would be incredible if it were not true4 ,his brief and dim experience of married life seems hardly to have affected him4 ,as a critic of art and ethics1 as the writer of facile magnificent sentences1 full of beauty and rhythm1 as the composer of word-structures1 apparently logical in form but deeply prejudiced and inconsequent in thought1 he became one of the great influences of the day1 and wielded not only power but real domination4 ,the widespread delusion of the ,english educated classes1 that they are interested in art1 was of ,ruskin's making4 ,then something very serious happened to him2 a baffled passion of extraordinary intensity1 a perception of the realities of life1 the consciousness that his public indulged and humoured him as his parents had done1 and admired his artistic advice without paying the smallest heed to his ethical principles--all these experiences broke over him1 wearied as he was with excessive strain1 like a bitter wave4 ,but his pessimism took the noble form of an intense concern with the blindness and impenetrability of the world at large4 ,he made a theory of political economy1 which1 peremptory and prejudiced as it is1 is yet built on large lines1 and has been fruitful in suggestiveness4 ,but he tasted discouragement and failure in deep draughts4 ,his parents frankly expressed their bewildered disappointment1 his public looked upon him as a perverse man who was throwing away a beautiful message for the sake of a crabbed whim2 and he fell into a fierce depression1 alternating between savage energy and listless despondency1 which lasted for several years1 till at last the overwrought brain and mind gave way2 and for the rest of his life he was liable to recurrent attacks of insanity1 which cleared off and left him normal again1 or as normal as he ever had been4 ,wide and eager as ,ruskin's tenderness was1 one feels that his heart was never really engaged2 he was always far away1 in a solitude full of fear1 out of the reach of affection1 always solemnly and mournfully alone4 ,ruskin was never really allied with any other human soul2 he knew most of the great men of the day2 he baited ,rossetti1 he petted ,carlyle2 he had correspondents like ,norton1 to whom he poured out his overburdened heart2 but he was always the spoiled and indulged child of his boyhood1 infinitely winning1 provoking1 wilful4 ,he could not be helped1 because he could never get away from himself2 he could admire almost frenziedly1 but he could not worship2 he could not keep himself from criticism even when he adored1 and he had a bitter superiority of spirit1 a terrible perception of the imperfections and faults of others1 a real despair of humanity4 ,i do not know exactly what the terrors which ,ruskin suffered were--very few people will tell the tale of the valley of hobgoblins1 or probably cannot6 ,in the ,pilgrim's ,progress itself1 the unreality of the spirits of fear1 their secrecy and leniency1 is very firmly and wittily told4 ,they scream in their dens1 sitting together1 ,i have thought1 like fowls in a roost4 ,they come padding after the pilgrim1 they show themselves obscurely1 swollen by the mist at the corners of the road4 ,they give the sense of being banded together in a numerous ambush1 they can deceive eye and ear1 and even nose with noisome stenches2 but they cannot show themselves1 and they cannot hurt4 ,if they could be seen1 they would be nothing but limp ungainly things that would rouse disdain and laughter and even pity1 at anything at once so weak and so malevolent4 ,but they are not like the demons of sin that can hamper and wound2 they are just little gnomes and elves that can make a noise1 and their strength is a spiteful and a puny thing4 ,ruskin had no sordid or material fears2 he had no fear of poverty1 for he flung his father's hard-earned wealth profusely away2 nor did he fear illness2 indeed one of the bravest and most gallant things about him was the way in which he talked and wrote about his insane fits1 described his haunted visions1 told1 half-ruefully1 half-humorously1 how he fought and struggled with his nurses1 and made fun of the matter4 ,that was a very courageous thing to do1 because most people are ashamed of insanity1 no doubt from the old sad ignorant tradition that it was the work of demoniacal agencies1 and not a mere disease like other diseases4 ,half the tragedy of insanity is that it shocks people1 and cannot be alluded to or spoken about2 but one can take the sting out of almost any calamity if one can make fun of it1 and this ,ruskin did4 ,but he was wounded by his fears1 as we most of us are1 not only through his vanity but through his finest emotions4 ,he felt his impotence and his failure4 ,he had thought of his gift of language as one might think of a magic wand which one can wave1 and thus compel duller spirits to do one's bidding4 ,ruskin began by thinking that there was not much amiss with the world except a sort of pathetic stupidity2 and he thought that if only people could be told1 clearly and loudly enough1 what was right1 they would do it gladly2 and then it dawned upon him by slow degrees that the confusion was far deeper than that1 that men mostly did not live in motives but in appetites4 ,and so he fell into a sort of noble rage with the imperfection of mortal things2 and one of the clearest signs1 as he himself knew1 that he was drifting into one of the mind-storms which swept across him1 was that in these moods everything that people said or wrote had power to arouse his irritation1 to interrupt his work1 to break his sleep1 and to show him that he was powerless indeed4 ,what he feared was derision1 and the good-natured indifferent stolidity that is worse than any derision1 and the knowledge that1 with all his powers and perceptions1 his common-sense1 which was great1 and his sense of responsibility1 he was treated by the world like a spoilt child1 charming even in his wrath1 who had full license to be as vehement as he liked1 with the understanding that no one would act on his advice4 ,i often go to ,brantwood1 which is a sacred place indeed1 and see with deep emotion the little rooms1 with all their beautiful treasures1 and all the great accumulations of that fierce industry of mind1 and remember that in that peaceful background a man of exquisite genius fought with sinister shadows1 and was worsted in the fight1 for a time2 because the last ten years of that long life were a time of serene waiting for death1 a beguiling by little childish and homely occupations the heavy hours3 he could uplift his voice no more1 often could hardly frame an intelligible thought4 ,but meanwhile his great message went on rippling out to the world1 touching heart after heart into light and hope1 and doing1 insensibly and graciously1 by the spirit1 the very thing he had failed to do by might and power4 ,and then we come to ,carlyle1 and here we are on somewhat different ground4 ,carlyle had a colossal quarrel with the age1 but he thought very little of the message of beauty and peace4 ,his idea of the world was that of a stern combative place1 with the one hope a strenuous and grim righteousness2 ,carlyle thought of the world as a place where cheats and liars cozened and beguiled men1 for their own advantage1 with all sorts of shams and pretences3 but he did not really know the world2 he put down to individual action and deliberate policy much that was due simply to the prevalence of tradition and system1 and to the complexity of civilisation4 ,he was so fierce an individualist himself that he credited everyone else with purpose and prejudice4 ,he did not realise the vast preponderance of helpless good-nature and muddled kindliness4 ,the mistake of much of ,carlyle's work is that it is too poignantly dramatic1 and bristles with intention and significance2 and he did not allow sufficiently for the crowd of vague supers who throng the background of the stage4 ,neither did he ever go about the world with his eyes open for general facts4 ,wherever he was1 he was intensely observant1 but he spent his days either in a fierce absorption of work1 blind even to the sorrow and discomfort of his wife1 or taking rapid tours to store his mind with the details of historical scenes1 or in the big houses of wealthy people1 where he kept much to himself1 stored up irresistibly absurd caricatures of the other guests1 and lamented his own inaction4 ,i have never been able to discover exactly why ,carlyle spent so much time in staying at great houses1 deriding and satirising everything he set eyes upon2 it was1 ,i believe1 vaguely gratifying to him to have raised himself unaided into the highest social stratum2 and the old man was after all a tremendous aristocrat at heart4 ,or else he skulked with infinite melancholy in his mother's house1 being waited upon and humoured1 and indulging his deep and true family affection4 ,but he was a solitary man for the most part1 and mixed with men1 involved in a cloud of his own irresistibly fantastic and whimsical talk2 for his real gift was half-humorous1 half-melancholy improvisation rather than deliberate writing4 ,but it is difficult to discern in all this what his endless and plangent melancholy was concerned with4 ,he had a very singular physical frame1 immensely tough and wiry1 with an imagination which emphasized and particularised every slight touch of bodily disorder4 ,when he was at work1 he toiled like a demon day after day1 entirely and vehemently absorbed4 ,when he was not at work he suffered from dreary reaction4 ,he fought out in early days a severe moral combat1 and found his way to a belief in ,god which was very different from his former ,calvinism4 ,carlyle can by no stretch of the word be called a ,christian1 but he was one of the most thoroughgoing ,deists that ever lived4 ,the terror that beset him in that first great conflict was a ghastly fear of his own insignificance1 and a horrible suspicion that the world was made on fortuitous and indifferent lines4 ,his dread was that of being worsted1 in spite of all his eager sensibility and immense desire to do a noble work1 of being crushed1 silenced1 thrown ruthlessly on the dust-heap of the world4 ,he learned a fiery sort of ,determinism1 and a faith in the stubborn power of the will1 not to achieve anything1 but to achieve something4 ,yet after this tremendous conflict1 described in ,sartor ,resartus1 where he found himself at bay with his back to the wall1 he never had any ultimate doubt again of his own purpose4 ,still1 it brought him no serenity2 and ,i suppose there is no writer in the world whose letters and diaries are so full of cries of anguish and hopelessness4 ,he was crushed under the sense of the world's immensity2 his own observation was so microscopic1 his desire to perceive and know so strong1 his appetite for definiteness so profound1 that ,i feel that ,carlyle's terror was like that of a mite in an enormous cheese1 longing to explore it all1 lost in the high-flavoured dusk1 and conscious of a scale of mystery so vast that it humiliated a brain that wanted to know the truth about everything4 ,in these sad hours--and they were numerous and protracted--he felt like a knight worn out by conflict1 under a listless enchantment which he could not break4 ,i know few confessions that are so filled with gleams of high poetry and beauty as many of these solitary lamentations4 ,but ,i believe that the terrors that ,carlyle had to face were the terrors of a swift1 clear-sighted1 feverishly active1 intuitive brain1 prevented by mortal weakness and frailty from dealing as he desired with the dazzling immensity and intricacy of the world's life and history4 ,i feel no real doubt of this1 because ,carlyle's passion for accurate and minute knowledge1 his intense interest in temperament and character1 his almost unequalled power of observation--which is really the surest sign of genius--come out so clearly all through his life1 that his finite limitations must have been of the nature of a torture to him4 ,one who desired to know the truth about everything so vehemently1 was crushed and bewildered by the narrow range and limited scope of his own insatiable thought4 ,his power of expressing all that he saw and felt1 so delicately1 so humorously1 and at times so tenderly1 must have beguiled his sadness more than he knew4 ,it was ,ruskin who said that he could never fit the two sides of the puzzle together--on the one side the awful dejection and despondency which ,carlyle always claimed to feel in the presence of his work1 as a dredger in lakes of mud and as a sorter of mountains of rubbish1 and on the other side the endless relish for salient traits1 and the delighted apprehension of quality which emerges so clearly in all he wrote4 ,but it is clear that ,carlyle suffered ceaselessly1 though never unutterably4 ,he was a matchless artist1 with an unequalled gift of putting into vivid words everything he experienced2 but his sadness was a disease of the imagination1 a fear1 not of anything definite--for he never even saw the anxieties that were nearest to him--but a nightmare dream of chaos and whirling forces all about him1 a dread of slipping off his own very fairly comfortable perch into oceans of confusion and dismay4 ,,xiii ,,charlotte ,,bronte ,i doubt if the records of intimate biography contain a finer object-lesson against fear and all its obsessions than the life of ,charlotte ,bronte4 ,she was of a temperament which in many ways was more open to the assaults of fear than any which could well be devised4 ,she was frail and delicate1 liable to acute nervous depression1 intensely shy and sensitive1 and susceptible as well2 that is to say that her shyness did not isolate her from her kind2 she wanted to be loved1 respected1 even admired4 ,when she did love1 she loved with fire and passion and desperate loyalty4 ,her life was from beginning to end full of sharp and tragic experiences4 ,she was born and brought up in a bleak moorland village1 climbing steeply and grimly to the edge of heathery uplands4 ,the bare parsonage1 with its little dark rooms1 looks out on a churchyard paved with graves4 ,her father was a kindly man1 but essentially moody and solitary4 ,he took all his meals alone1 walked alone1 sate alone4 ,her mother died of cancer1 when she was but a child4 ,then she was sent to an ill-managed austere school1 and here when she was nine years old her two elder sisters died4 ,she took service two or three times as a governess1 and endured agonies of misunderstanding1 suspicious of her employers1 afraid of her pupils1 longing for home with an intense yearning4 ,then she went out to a school at ,brussels1 where under the teaching of ,m4 ,heger1 a gifted professor1 her mind and heart awoke1 and she formed for him a strange affection1 half an intellectual devotion1 half an unconscious passion1 which deprived her of her peace of mind4 ,her sad and wistful letters to him1 lately published1 were disregarded by him1 partly because his wife was undoubtedly jealous of the relation1 partly because he was disconcerted by the emotion he had aroused4 ,her brother1 a brilliant1 wayward1 and in some ways attractive boy1 got into disgrace1 and drifted home1 where he tried to console himself with drink and opium4 ,after three years of this horrible life1 he died1 and within twelve months her two surviving sisters1 ,emily and ,anne1 developed consumption and died4 ,as ,robert ,browning says1 there indeed was trouble enough for one6 ,now it must be borne in mind that her temperament was naturally hypochondriacal4 ,let me quote a passage dealing with the same experience2 it is undoubtedly autobiographical1 though it comes from ,villette1 into which ,charlotte ,bronte threw the picture of her own solitary experiences in ,brussels4 ,she is left alone at the pensionnat in the vacation1 strained by work and anxiety1 and tortured by exhaustion1 restlessness1 and sleeplessness3-- ,one day1 perceiving this growing illusion1 ,i said1 ',i really believe my nerves are getting overstretched3 my mind has suffered somewhat too much2 a malady is growing upon it--what shall ,i do8 ,how shall ,i keep well8' ,indeed there was no way to keep well under the circumstances4 ,at last a day and night of peculiarly agonising depression were succeeded by physical illness2 ,i took perforce to my bed4 ,about this time the ,indian summer closed1 and the equinoctial storms began2 and for nine dark and wet days1 of which the hours rushed on all turbulent1 deaf1 dishevelled--bewildered with sounding hurricane--,i lay in a strange fever of the nerves and blood4 ,sleep went quite away4 ,i used to rise in the night1 look round for her1 beseech her earnestly to return4 ,a rattle of the window1 a cry of the blast only replied--,sleep never came6 ,i err4 ,she came once1 but in anger4 ,impatient of my importunity she brought with her an avenging dream4 ,by the clock of ,st4 ,jean ,baptiste1 that dream remained scarce fifteen minutes--a brief space1 but sufficing to wring my whole frame with unknown anguish2 to confer a nameless experience that had the hue1 the mien1 the terror1 the very tone of a visitation from eternity4 ,between twelve and one that night a cup was forced to my lips1 black1 strong1 strange1 drawn from no well1 but filled up seething from a bottomless and boundless sea4 ,suffering1 brewed in temporal or calculable measure1 and mixed for mortal lips1 tastes not as this suffering tasted4 ,having drank sic and woke1 ,i thought all was over3 the end come and passed by4 ,trembling fearfully--as consciousness returned--ready to cry out on some fellow-creature to help me1 only that ,i knew no fellow-creature was near enough to catch the wild summons--,goton in her far distant attic could not hear--,i rose on my knees in bed4 ,some fearful hours went over me2 indescribably was ,i torn1 racked and oppressed in mind4 ,amidst the horrors of that dream ,i think the worst lay here4 ,methought the well-loved dead1 who had loved ,,me well in life1 met me elsewhere alienated2 galled was my inmost spirit with an unutterable sense of despair about the future4 ,motive there was none why ,i should try to recover or wish to live2 and yet quite unendurable was the pitiless and haughty voice in which ,death challenged me to engage his unknown terrors4 ,when ,i tried to pray ,i could only utter these words3-- ',from my youth up ,thy terrors have ,i suffered with a troubled mind4' ,the deep interest of this experience is that it was endured by one who was not only intellectually endowed beyond most women of her time1 but whose sanity1 reasonableness1 and moral force were conspicuously strong4 ,charlotte ,bronte was not one of those impulsive and imaginative women who are the prey of every fancy4 ,throughout the whole of her career1 she was for ever compelling her frail and sensitive temperament1 with indomitable purpose1 to perform whatever she had undertaken to do4 ,there never was anyone who lived so sternly by principle and reason1 or who so maintained her self-control in the face of sorrow1 disaster1 unhappiness1 and bereavement4 ,she never gave way to feeble or morbid self-accusation1 and therefore the fact that she could thus have suffered is a sign that this unnamed terror can coexist with a dauntless courage and an essential self-command4 ,here again is the cry of a desolate heart6 ,she had been going through her sisters' papers not long after their death1 and wrote to her great friend3 ,i am both angry and surprised at myself for not being in better spirits2 for not growing accustomed1 or at least resigned1 to the solitude and isolation of my lot4 ,but my late occupation left a result1 for some days and indeed still1 very painful4 ,the reading over of papers1 the renewal of remembrances1 brought back the pangs of bereavement and occasioned a depression of spirits well-nigh intolerable4 ,for one or two nights ,i hardly knew how to get on till morning2 and when morning came ,i was still haunted by a sense of sickening distress4 ,i tell you these things because it is absolutely necessary to me to have ,,some relief4 ,you will forgive me and not trouble yourself1 or imagine that ,i am one whit worse than ,i say4 ,it is quite a mental ailment1 and ,i believe and hope is better now4 ,i think so1 because ,i can speak about it1 which ,i never can when grief is at its worst4 ,i thought to find occupation and interest in writing when alone at home1 but hitherto my efforts have been in vain3 the deficiency of every stimulus is so complete4 ,you will recommend me1 ,i dare say1 to go from home2 but that does no good1 even could ,i again leave papa with an easy mind4 4 4 4 ,i cannot describe what a time of it ,i had after my return from ,london and ,scotland4 ,there was a reaction that sank me to the earth1 the deadly silence1 solitude1 depression1 desolation were awful2 the craving for companionship1 the hopelessness of relief were what ,i should dread to feel again4 ,or again1 in a somewhat calmer mood1 she writes3 ,i feel to my deep sorrow1 to my humiliation1 that it is not in my power to bear the canker of constant solitude4 ,i had calculated that when shut out from every enjoyment1 from every stimulus but what could be desired from intellectual exertion1 my mind would rouse itself perforce4 ,it is not so4 ,even intellect1 even imagination will not dispense with the ray of domestic cheerfulness1 with the gentle spur of family discussions4 ,late in the evening and all through the nights1 ,i fall into a condition of mind which turns entirely to the past--to memory1 and memory is both sad and relentless4 ,this will never do1 and will produce no good4 ,i tell you this that you may check false anticipations4 ,you cannot help me1 and must not trouble yourself in any shape to sympathise with me4 ,it is my cup1 and ,i must drink it as others do theirs4 ,it would be difficult to create a picture of more poignant suffering2 yet she was at this time a famous writer4 ,she had published ,jane ,eyre and ,shirley1 and on her visits to ,london1 to her hospitable publisher1 had found herself welcomed1 honoured1 feted4 ,the great lions of the literary world had flocked eagerly to meet her4 ,even these simple festivities were accompanied by a deadly sense of strain1 anxiety1 and exhaustion4 ,mrs4 ,gaskell describes how a little later she met ,charlotte ,bronte at a quiet country-house1 and how ,charlotte was reduced from tolerable health to a bad nervous headache by the announcement that they were going to drive over in the afternoon to have tea at a neighbour's house--the prospect of meeting strangers was so alarming to her4 ,but in spite of this agonising susceptibility and vulnerability1 there is never the least touch either of sentimentality or self-pity about ,charlotte ,bronte4 ,she stuck to her duty and faced life with an infinity of patient courage4 ,one of her friends said of her that no one she had ever known had sacrificed more to others1 or done it with a fuller consciousness of what she was sacrificing4 ,if duty and affection bade her act1 no sense of weakness or of inclination had any power over her4 ,she was afraid of life1 but she stood up to it2 she was never crushed or broken4 ,consider the circumstances under which she began to write ,jane ,eyre4 ,she had written her novel ,the ,professor1 and it was returned to her nine several times1 by publisher after publisher4 ,her father was threatened with blindness4 ,she had taken him to ,manchester for an operation1 installed him in lodgings1 and settled down alone to nurse him4 ,the ill-fated ,professor came back to her once more with a polite refusal4 ,that very day she wrote the first lines of ,jane ,eyre4 ,later on too1 with her brother dying of opium and drink1 she had begun ,shirley1 and she finished it after the deaths of her sisters4 ,she was perfectly merciless to herself1 saw no reason why she should be spared any sorrow or suffering or ill-health1 but looked upon it all as a stern but not unjust discipline4 ,she had one of the most passionately affectionate natures both in friendship and home relations--my hot tenacious heart1 she once says6 ,but there was no touch of softness or sentimentality about her2 she never feebly condoned weaknesses2 her observation of people was minute1 her judgment of them severe and even satirical4 ,her letters abound in pungent humour and acute perception2 and her idea of charity was not that of mild and muddled tolerance4 ,she had a vein of frank and rather bitter irony when she was indignant1 and she could return stroke for stroke4 ,she knew well that1 whatever life was meant to be1 it was not intended to be an easy business2 but she did not face it stoically or indifferently2 she had a fierce desire for knowledge1 culture1 ideas2 she was ambitious2 and above everything she desired to be loved2 yet she did not think of love in the way in which all ,english romancers had treated it for over a century1 as a condescending hand held out by a superior being1 for the glory of which a woman submitted to a more or less contented servitude2 but as a glowing equality of passion and worship1 in which two hearts clasped each other close1 with a sacred concurrence of soul4 ,and thus it was that she and ,robert ,browning1 above all other writers of the century1 put the love of man and woman in the true light1 as the supreme worth of life2 not as a half-sensuous excitement1 with lapses and reactions1 but as a great and holy mystery of devotion and service and mutual help4 ,she too had her little taste of love4 ,mr4 ,nicholls1 her father's curate1 a man of deep tenderness behind his quiet homely ways1 had proposed to her2 she had refused him2 but his suffering and bewilderment had touched her deeply1 and at last she consented1 though she went to her wedding in fear and dread2 but she was rewarded1 and for a few short months tasted a calm and sweet happiness1 the joy of being needed and desired1 and at the same time guarded and tended well4 ,her pathetic words1 when she knew from his lips that she must die1 ,god will not part us--we have been so happy1 are full of the deepest tragedy4 ,i say again that ,i know of no instance among the most intimate records of the human heart1 in which life was faced with such splendid courage as it was by ,charlotte ,bronte4 ,it contained so many things which she desired--art1 beauty1 thought1 peace1 deep and tender relations1 and the supreme crown of love4 ,but she never dreamed of trying to escape or shirk her lot4 ,after her first great success with ,jane ,eyre1 she might have lived life on her own lines2 her writing meant wealth to one of her simple tastes2 and as her closest friend said1 if she had chosen to set up a house of her own1 she would have been gratefully thanked for any kindness she might have shown to her household1 instead of being1 as she was1 ruthlessly employed and even tyrannised over4 ,consider how a young authoress1 with that splendid success to her credit1 would nowadays be made much of and tended1 begged to consult her own wishes and make1 her own arrangements4 ,but ,charlotte ,bronte hated notoriety1 and took her fame with a shrinking and modest amazement4 ,she never gave herself airs1 or displayed any affectation1 or caught at any flattery4 ,she just went back to her tragic home1 and carried the burden of housekeeping on her frail shoulders4 ,the simplicity1 the delicacy1 the humility of it all is above praise4 ,if ever there was a human being who might have pleaded to be excused from any gallant battling with life because of her bleak1 comfortless1 unhappy surroundings1 and her own sensitive temperament1 it was ,charlotte ,bronte4 ,but instead of that she fought silently with disaster and unhappiness1 neither pitying herself for her destiny1 nor taking the smallest credit for her tough resistance4 ,it does not necessarily prove that all can wage so equal a fight with fears and sorrows2 but it shows at least that an indomitable resolution can make a noble thing out of a life from which every circumstance of romance and dignity seems to be purposely withdrawn4 ,i do not think that there is in literature a more inspiring and heartening book than ,mrs4 ,gaskell's ,life of ,charlotte ,bronte4 ,the book was written with a fine frankness and a daring indiscretion which cost ,mrs4 ,gaskell very dear4 ,it remains as one of the most matchless and splendid presentments of duty and passion and genius1 waging a perfectly undaunted fight with life and temperament1 and carrying off the spoils not only of undying fame1 but the far more supreme crown of moral force4 ,charlotte ,bronte never doubted that she had been set in the forefront of the battle1 and that her first concern was with the issues of life and sorrow and death4 ,she died at thirty-eight1 at a time when many men and women have hardly got a firm hold of life at all1 or have parted with weak illusions4 ,yet years before she had said sternly to a friend who was meditating a flight from hard conditions of life3 ,the right course is that which necessitates the greatest sacrifice of self-interest4 ,many people could have said that1 but ,i know no figure who more relentlessly and loyally carried out the principle than ,charlotte ,bronte1 or who waged a more vigorous and tenacious battle with every onset of fear4 ,my conscience tells me1 she once wrote about an anxious decision1 that it would be the act of a moral poltroon to let the fear of suffering stand in the way of improvement4 ,but suffer ,i shall4 ,no matter6 ,,xiv ,,john ,,sterling ,i believe that the most affecting1 beautiful1 and grave message ever written from a death-bed is ,john ,sterling's last letter to ,carlyle4 ,it reflects1 perhaps1 something of ,carlyle's own fine manner1 but then ,sterling had long been ,carlyle's friend and confidant4 ,before ,i give it1 let me add a brief account of ,sterling4 ,he was some ten years ,carlyle's junior1 the son of the redoubtable ,edward ,sterling1 the leader-writer of the ,times1 a man who in his day wielded a mighty influence4 ,carlyle describes the father's way of life1 how he spent the day in going about ,london1 rolling into clubs1 volubly questioning and talking2 then returned home in the evening1 and condensed it all into a leader1 and is found1 said ,carlyle1 to have hit the essential purport of the world's immeasurable babblement that day with an accuracy above all other men4 ,the younger ,sterling1 ,carlyle's friend1 was at ,cambridge for a time1 but never took his degree2 he became a journalist1 wrote a novel1 tales1 plays1 endless poems--all of thin and vapid quality4 ,his brief life1 for he died at thirty-eight1 was a much disquieted one2 he travelled about in search of health1 for he was early threatened with consumption2 for a short time he was a curate in the ,english ,church1 but drifted away from that4 ,he lived for a time at ,falmouth1 and afterwards at ,ventnor4 ,he must have been a man of extraordinary charm1 and with quite unequalled powers of conversation4 ,even ,carlyle seems to have heard him gladly1 and that is no ordinary compliment1 considering ,carlyle's own volubility1 and the agonies1 occasionally suppressed but generally trenchantly expressed1 with which ,carlyle listened to other well-known talkers like ,coleridge and ,macaulay4 ,carlyle certainly had a very deep affection and admiration for ,sterling2 he rains down praises upon him1 in that wonderful little biography1 which is probably the finest piece of work that ,carlyle ever did4 ,he speaks of ,sterling as brilliant1 beautiful1 cheerful with an ever-flowing wealth of ideas1 fancies1 imaginations 4 4 4 with frank affections1 inexhaustible hopes1 audacities1 activities1 and general radiant vivacity of heart and intelligence1 which made the presence of him an illumination and inspiration wherever he went4 ,but all ,carlyle's love and admiration for his friend did not induce him to praise ,sterling's writings2 he looked upon him as a poet1 but without the gift of expression4 ,he says that all ,sterling's work was spoilt by over-haste1 and a lack of due inertia4 ,the fact is that ,sterling was a sort of improvisatore1 and what was beautiful and natural enough when poured out in talk1 and with the stimulus of congenial company1 grew pale and indistinct when he wrote it down2 he had1 in fact1 no instinct for art or for design1 and he failed whenever he tried to mould ideas into form4 ,the shadow of illness darkened about him1 and he spent long periods in prostrate seclusion1 tended by his wife and children1 unable to write or talk or receive his friends4 ,then a terrible calamity befell him4 ,his mother1 to whom he was devotedly attached1 died after a long illness1 ,sterling not being allowed to go to her1 or to leave his own sick-room4 ,he received the news one morning by letter1 that all was over1 went in to tell his wife1 who was ill2 while they were talking1 his wife became faint1 and died two hours later4 ,so that within a few hours he lost the two human beings whom he most devotedly loved1 and on whom he most depended for sympathy and help4 ,but in all ,sterling's sorrows and illnesses1 he never seems to have lost his interest in life and thought1 in ideas1 questions1 and problems4 ,again and again he came back to the surface1 with an irrepressible zest and freshness1 and even gaiety1 until at last all hope of life was extinguished4 ,he lay dying for many weeks1 and it was then that he wrote his last letter to ,carlyle1 which must be given in full3-- ,,hillside1 ,,ventnor1 #ajth ,august #ahdd4 ,,my ,,dear ,,carlyle1--,for the first time for many months it seems possible to send you a few words2 merely1 however1 for ,remembrance and ,farewell4 ,on higher matters there is nothing to say4 ,i tread the common road into the great darkness1 without any thought of fear1 and with very much of hope4 ,certainty indeed ,i have none4 ,with regard to you and me ,i cannot begin to write2 having nothing for it but to keep shut the lid of those secrets with all the iron weights that are in my power4 ,towards me it is still more true than towards ,england that no man has been and done like you4 ,heaven bless you6 ,if ,i can lend a hand when ,,there1 that will not be wanting4 ,it is all very strange1 but not one hundredth part so sad as it seems to the standers-by4 ,your ,wife knows my mind towards her1 and will believe it without asseverations4--,yours to the last1 ,,john ,,sterling4 ,that letter may speak for itself4 ,in its dignity1 its nobleness1 its fearlessness1 it is one of the finest human documents ,i know4 ,but let it be remembered that it is not the letter of a mournful and heart-broken man1 turning his back on life in an ecstasy of despair2 but the letter of one who had taken a boundless delight in life1 had known upon equal terms most of the finest intellects of the day1 and had been frankly recognised by them as a chosen spirit4 ,all ,sterling's designs for life and work had been slowly and surely thwarted by the pressure of hopeless illness2 yet he had never complained or fretted or brooded1 or indulged in any bitter recriminations against his destiny4 ,that seems to me a very heroic attitude2 while the letter itself1 in its perfect frankness and courage1 without a touch of solemnity or affectation1 or any trace of craven shrinking from his doom1 makes it in its noble simplicity one of the finest last words that ,i have ever read1 and finer1 ,i verily believe1 than any flight of poetical imagination4 ,a few days later he sent ,carlyle some stanzas of verse1 written1 says ,carlyle1 as if in star-fire and immortal tears2 which are among my sacred possessions1 to be kept for myself alone4 ,a few weeks before he wrote his last letter to ,carlyle1 ,sterling had written a letter to his son1 who was then a boy at school in ,london4 ,in that he says3 ,when ,i fancy how you are walking in the same streets1 and moving along the same river1 that ,i used to watch so intently1 as if in a dream1 when younger than you are--,i could gladly burst into tears1 not of grief1 but with a feeling that there is no name for4 ,everything is so wonderful1 great and holy1 so sad and yet not bitter1 so full of ,death and so bordering on ,heaven4 ,can you understand anything of this8 ,if you can1 you will begin to know what a serious matter our ,life is2 how unworthy and stupid it is to trifle it away without heed2 what a wretched1 insignificant1 worthless creature anyone comes to be1 who does not as soon as possible bend his whole strength1 as in stringing a stiff bow1 to doing whatever task lies first before him4 ,that again is a noble letter2 but over it ,i think there lies a little shadow of regret1 a sense that he had himself wasted some of the force of life in vague trifling2 but even that mood had passed away in the nearness of the great impending change1 leaving him upborne upon the greatness of ,god1 in deep wonder and hope1 knowing nothing more1 in his weariness and his suffering1 but the calmness of the ,eternal ,will4 ,,xv ,,instinctive ,,fear ,the fears then from which men suffer1 and even the greatest men not least1 seem to be strangely complicated by the fact that nature does not seem to work as fast in the physical world as in the mental world4 ,the mosquitoes of ,south ,american swamps are all fitted with a perfect tool-box of implements for piercing the hides of warm-blooded animals and drawing blood1 although warm-blooded animals have long ceased to exist in those localities4 ,but as the mosquito is one of the few creatures which can propagate its kind without ever partaking of food1 the mosquito has therefore not died out2 and though for many generations billions upon billions of mosquitoes have never had a chance of doing what they seem born to do1 they have not discarded their apparatus4 ,if mosquitoes could reason and philosophise1 the prospect of such a meal might remain as a far-off and inspiring ideal of life and conduct1 a thing which heroes in the past had achieved1 and which might be possible again if they remained true to their highest instincts4 ,so it is with humanity4 ,many of our fears do not correspond to any real danger2 they are part of a panoply which we inherit1 and have to do with the instinct of self-preservation4 ,we are exposed to dangers still1 dangers of infection for instance1 but we have developed no instinctive fear which helps us to recognise the presence of infection4 ,we take rational precautions against it when we recognise it1 but the vast prevalence and mortality of consumption a generation or two ago was due to the fact that men did not recognise consumption as infectious2 and many fine lives--,keats and ,emily ,bronte1 to name but two--were sacrificed to careless proximity as well as to devoted tendance2 but here nature1 with all her instinct of self-preservation1 did not hang out any danger signal1 or provide human beings with any instinctive fear to protect them4 ,our instinctive fears1 such as our fear of darkness and solitude1 and our suspicion of strangers1 seem to date from a time when such conditions were really dangerous1 though they are so no longer4 ,at the same time the development of the imaginative faculty has brought with it a whole series of new terrors1 through our power of anticipating and picturing possible calamities2 while our increased sensitiveness as well as our more sentimental morality expose us to yet another range of fears4 ,consider the dread which many of us feel at the prospect of a painful interview1 our avoidance of an unpleasant scene1 our terror of arousing anger4 ,the basis of all this is the primeval dread of personal violence4 ,we are afraid of arousing anger1 not because we expect to be assailed by blows and wounds1 but because our far-off ancestors expected anger to end in an actual assault4 ,we may know that we shall emerge from an unpleasant interview unscathed in fortune and in limb1 but we anticipate it with a quite irrational terror1 because we are still haunted by fears which date from a time when injury was the natural outcome of wrath4 ,it may be our duty1 and we may recognise it to be our duty1 to make a protest of an unpleasant kind1 or to withstand the action of an irritable person2 but though we know well enough that he has no power to injure us1 the flashing eye1 the distended nostril1 the rising pallor1 the uplifted voice have a disagreeable effect on our nerves1 although we know well that no physical disaster will result from it4 ,mrs4 ,browning1 for instance1 though she had high moral courage and tenacity of purpose1 could not face an interview with her father1 because an exhibition of his anger caused her to faint away on the spot4 ,one does not often experience this whiff of violent anger in middle life2 but the other day ,i had occasion to speak to a colleague of mine on a ,board of which ,i am a member1 at the conclusion of a piece of business in which ,i had proposed and carried a certain policy4 ,i did not know that he disapproved of the policy in question1 but ,i found on speaking to him that he was in a towering passion at my having opposed the policy which he preferred4 ,he grew pale with rage2 the hair on his head seemed to bristle1 his eyes flashed fire2 he slammed down a bundle of papers in his hand on the table1 he stamped with passion2 and ,i confess that it was profoundly disturbing and disconcerting4 ,i felt for a moment that sickening sense of misgiving with which as a little boy one confronted an angry schoolmaster4 ,though ,i knew that ,i had a perfect right to my opinion1 though ,i recognised that my sensations were quite irrational1 ,i felt myself confronted with something demoniacal and insane1 and the basis of it was1 ,i am sure1 physical and not moral terror4 ,if ,i had been bullied or chastised as a child1 ,i should be able to refer the discomfort ,i felt to old associations4 ,but ,i feel no doubt that my emotion was something far more primeval than that1 and that the dumb and atrophied sense of self-preservation was at work4 ,the fear then that ,i felt was an instinctive thing1 and was experienced in the inner nature and not in the rational mind2 and the perplexity of the situation arises from the fact that such fear cannot be combated by rational considerations4 ,though no harm whatever resulted or could result from such an interview1 yet ,i am certain that the prospect of such an outbreak would make me in the future far more cautious in dealing with this particular man1 more anxious to conciliate him1 and probably more disposed to compromise a matter4 ,such an incident makes one unpleasantly aware of the quality of one's nature and temperament4 ,it shows one that though one may have a strong moral and intellectual sense of what is the right and sensible course to take1 one may be sadly hampered in carrying it out1 by this secret and hidden instinct of which one may be rationally ashamed1 but which is characteristic of what seems to be the stronger and more vital part of one's self4 ,the whole of civilisation is a combat between these two forces1 a struggle between the rational and the instinctive parts of the mind4 ,the instinctive mind bids one follow profit1 need1 advantage1 the pleasure of the moment2 the rational part of the mind bids one abstain1 resist1 balance contingencies1 act in accordance with a moral standard4 ,many such abstentions become a mere matter of habit4 ,if one is hungry and thirsty1 and meets a child carrying bread or milk1 one has no impulse to seize the food and eat it4 ,one does not reflect upon the possible outcome of following the impulse of plunder2 it simply does not enter one's head so to act4 ,and there is of course a slow process going on in the world by which this moral restraint is becoming habitual and instinctive2 but notably in the case of fear our instinct is a belated one1 and results in many causeless and baseless anxieties which our reason in vain assures us are wholly false4 ,what then is our practical way of escape from the dominion of these shadows8 ,not1 ,i am sure1 in any resolute attempt to combat them by rational weapons2 the rational argument1 the common-sense consolation1 only touches the rational part of the mind2 we have got to get behind and below that1 we have got somehow to fight instinct by instinct1 and quell the terror in its proper home4 ,by our finite nature we are compelled to attend to one thing at a time1 and thus if we use rational argument1 we are recognising the presence of the irrational fear2 it is of little use then to array our advantages against our disadvantages1 our blessings against our sufferings1 as ,michael ,finsbury did with such small effect in ,the ,wrong ,box2 our only chance is to turn tail altogether1 and try to set some other dominant instinct at work2 while we remember1 we shall continue to suffer2 our best chance lies in forgetting1 and we can only do that by calling some other dominant emotion into play4 ,and here comes in the peculiarly paralysing effect of these baser emotions4 ,as ,victor ,hugo once said1 in a fine apophthegm1 ,despair yawns4 ,fear and anxiety bring with them a particular kind of physical fatigue which makes us listless and inert4 ,they lie on the spirit with a leaden dullness1 which takes from us all possibility of energy and motion4 ,who does not know the instinct1 when one is crushed and tortured by depression1 to escape into solitude and silence1 and to let the waves and streams flow over one4 ,that is a universal instinct1 and it is not wholly to be disregarded2 it shows that to torture oneself into rational activity is of little use1 or worse than useless4 ,when ,i was myself a sufferer from long nervous depression1 and had to face a social gathering1 ,i used out of very shame1 and partly ,i think out of a sense of courtesy due to others1 to galvanise myself into a sort of horrid merriment4 ,the dark tide flowed on beneath in its sore and aching channels4 ,it was common enough then for some sympathetic friend to say1 ,you seemed better to-night--you were quite yourself2 that is what you want2 if you would only make the effort and go out more into society1 you would soon forget your troubles4 ,there is something in it1 because the sick mind must be persuaded if possible not to grave its dolorous course too indelibly in the temperament2 but no one else could see the acute and intolerable reaction which used to follow such a strain1 or how1 the excitement over1 the suffering resumed its sway over the exhausted self with an insupportable agony4 ,i am sure that in my long affliction ,i never suffered more than after occasions when ,i was betrayed by excitement into argument or lively talk1 and the worst spasms of melancholy that ,i ever endured were the direct and immediate results of such efforts4 ,the counteracting force in fact must be an emotional and instinctive one1 not a rational and deliberate one2 and this must be our next endeavour1 to see in what direction the counterpoise must lie4 ,in depression then1 and when causeless fears assail us1 we must try to put the mind in easier postures1 to avoid excess and strain1 to live more in company1 to do something different4 ,human beings are happiest in monotony and settled ways of life2 but these also develop their own poisons1 like sameness of diet1 however wholesome it may be4 ,it is1 ,i believe1 an established fact that most people cannot eat a pigeon a day for fourteen days in succession2 a pigeon is not unwholesome1 but the digestion cannot stand iteration4 ,there is an old and homely story of a man who went to a great doctor suffering from dyspepsia4 ,the doctor asked him what he ate1 and he said that he always lunched off bread and cheese4 ,try a mutton chop1 said the doctor4 ,he did so with excellent results4 ,a year later he was ill again and went to the same doctor1 who put him through the same catechism4 ,what do you have for luncheon8 said the doctor4 ,a chop1 said the patient1 conscious of virtuous obedience4 ,try bread and cheese1 said the doctor4 ,why1 said the patient1 that was the very thing you told me to avoid4 ,yes1 said the doctor1 and ,i tell you to avoid a chop now4 ,you1 are suffering not from diet1 but from monotony of diet--and you want a change4 ,the principle holds good of ordinary life2 it is humiliating to confess it1 but these depressions and despondencies which beset us are often best met by very ordinary physical remedies4 ,it is not uncommon for people who suffer from them to examine their consciences1 rake up forgotten transgressions1 and feel themselves to be under the anger of ,god4 ,i do not mean that such scrutiny of life is wholly undesirable2 depression1 though it exaggerates our sinfulness1 has a wonderful way of laying its finger on what is amiss1 but we must not wilfully continue in sadness2 and sadness is often a combination of an old instinct with the staleness which comes of civilised life2 and a return to nature1 as it is called1 is often a cure1 because civilisation has this disadvantage1 that it often takes from us the necessity of doing many of the things which it is normal to man by inheritance to do--fighting1 hunting1 preparing food1 working with the hands4 ,we combat these old instincts artificially by games and exercises4 ,it is humiliating again to think that golf is an artificial substitute for man's need to hunt and plough1 but it is undoubtedly true2 and thus to break with the monotony of civilisation1 and to delude the mind into believing that it is occupied with primal needs is often a great refreshment4 ,anyone who fishes and shoots knows that the joy of securing a fish or a partridge is entirely out of proportion to any advantages resulting4 ,a lawyer could make money enough in a single week to buy the whole contents of a fishmonger's shop1 but this does not give him half the satisfaction which comes from fishing day after day for a whole week1 and securing perhaps three salmon4 ,the fact is that the old savage mind1 which lies behind the rational and educated mind1 is having its fling2 it believes itself to be staving off starvation by its ingenuity and skill1 and it unbends like a loosened bow4 ,we may be enjoying our work1 and we may even take glad refuge in it to stave off depression1 but we are then often adding fuel to the fire1 and tiring the very faculty of resistance1 which hardly knows that it needs resting4 ,the smallest change of scene1 of company1 of work may effect a miraculous improvement when we are feeling low-spirited and listless4 ,it is not idleness as a rule that we want1 but the use of other faculties and powers and muscles4 ,and thus though our anxieties may be a real factor in our success1 and may give us the touch of prudence and vigilance we want1 it does not do to allow ourselves to drift into vague fears and dull depressions1 and we must fight them in a practical way4 ,we must remember the case of ,naaman1 who was vexed at being told to go and dip himself in a mud-stained stream running violently in rocky places1 when he might have washed in ,abana and ,pharpar1 the statelier1 purer1 fuller streams of his native land4 ,it is just the little homely torrent that we need1 and part of our cares come from being too dignified about them4 ,it is pleasanter to think oneself the battle-ground for high and tragical forces of a spiritual kind1 than to realise that some little homely bit of common machinery is out of gear4 ,but we must resist the temptation to feel that our fears have a dark and great significance4 ,we must simply treat them as little sicknesses and ailments of the soul4 ,i therefore believe that fears are like those little fugitive gliding things that seem to dart across the field of the eye when it is weak and ailing1 vague clusters and tangles and spidery webs1 that float and fly1 and can never be fixed and truly seen2 and that they are best treated as we learn to treat common ailments1 by not concerning ourselves very much about them1 by enduring and evading them and distracting the mind1 and not by facing them1 because they will not be faced2 nor can they be dispelled by reason1 because they are not in the plane of reason at all1 but phantoms gathered by the sick imagination1 distorted out of their proper shape1 evil nightmares1 the horror of which is gone with the dawn4 ,they are the shadows of our childishness1 and they show that we have a long journey before us2 and they gain their strength from the fact that we gather them together out of the future like the bundle of sticks in the fable1 when we shall have the strength to snap them singly as they come4 ,the real way to fight them is to get together a treasure of interests and hopes and beautiful visions and emotions1 and above all to have some definite work which lies apart from our daily work1 to which we can turn gladly in empty hours2 because fears are born of inaction and idleness1 and melt insensibly away in the warmth of labour and duty4 ,nothing can really hurt us except our own despair4 ,but the problem which is difficult is how to practise a real fulness of life1 and yet to keep a certain detachment1 how to realise that what we do is small and petty enough1 but that the greatness lies in our energy and briskness of action2 we should try to be interested in life as we are interested in a game1 not believing too much in the importance of it1 but yet intensely concerned at the moment in playing it as well and skilfully as possible4 ,the happiest people of all are those who can shift their interest rapidly from point to point1 and throw themselves into the act of the moment1 whatever it may be4 ,of course this is largely at first a matter of temperament1 but temperament is not unalterable2 and self-discipline working along the lines of habit has a great attractiveness1 the moment we feel that life is beginning to shape itself upon real lines4 ,,xvi ,,fear ,,of ,,life ,let us divide our fears up into definite divisions1 and see how it is best to deal with them4 ,lowest and worst of all is the shapeless and bodiless fear1 which is a real disease of brain and nerves4 ,i know no more poignant description of this than in the strange book ,lavengro3 ',what ails you1 my child1' said a mother to her son1 as he lay on a couch under the influence of the dreadful one2 'what ails you8 you seem afraid6' ,boy4 ,and so ,i am2 a dreadful fear is upon me4 ,mother4 ,but of what8 there is no one can harm you2 of what are you apprehensive8 ,boy4 ,of nothing that ,i can express2 ,i know not what ,i am afraid of1 but afraid ,i am4 ,mother4 ,perhaps you see sights and visions2 ,i knew a lady once who was continually thinking that she saw an armed man threaten her1 but it was only an imagination1 a phantom of the brain4 ,boy4 ,no armed man threatens me2 and 'tis not a thing that would cause me any fear4 ,did an armed man threaten me1 ,i would get up and fight him2 weak as ,i am1 ,i would wish for nothing better1 for then1 perhaps1 ,i should lose this fear2 mine is a dread of ,i know not what1 and there the horror lies4 ,mother4 ,your forehead is cool1 and your speech collected4 ,do you know where you are8 ,boy4 ,i know where ,i am1 and ,i see things just as they are2 you are beside me1 and upon the table there is a book which was written by a ,florentine4 ,all this ,i see1 and that there is no ground for being afraid4 ,i am1 moreover1 quite cool1 and feel no pain--but--but-- ,and then there was a burst of 'gemiti1 sospiri ed alti guai4' ,alas1 alas1 poor child of clay6 as the sparks fly upward1 so wast thou born to sorrow--,onward6 ,that is a description of amazing power1 but of course we are here dealing with a definite brain-malady1 in which the emotional centres are directly affected4 ,this in a lesser degree no doubt affects more people than one would wish to think2 but it may be considered a physical malady of which fear is the symptom and not the cause4 ,let us then frankly recognise the physical element in these irrational terrors2 and when one has once done this1 a great burden is taken off the mind1 because one sees that such fear may be a real illusion1 a sort of ghastly mockery1 which by directly affecting the delicate machinery through which emotion is translated into act1 may produce a symptom of terror which is both causeless and baseless1 and which may imply neither a lack of courage nor self-control4 ,and1 therefore1 ,i feel1 as against the ,ascetic and the ,stoic1 that ,i am meant to live and to taste the fulness of life2 and that if ,i begin by choosing the wrong joys1 it is that ,i may learn their unreality4 ,i have learned already to compromise about many things1 to be content with getting much less than ,i desire1 to acquiesce in missing many good things altogether4 ,but asceticism for the sake of prudence seems to me a wilful error1 as though a man practised starvation through uneasy days1 because of the chance that he might some day find himself with not enough to eat4 ,the only self-denial worth practising is the self-denial that one admires1 and that seems to one to be fine and beautiful4 ,for we must emphatically remember that the saint is one who lives life with high enjoyment1 and with a vital zest2 he chooses holiness because of its irresistible beauty1 and because of the appeal it makes to his mind4 ,he does not creep through life ashamed1 depressed1 anxious1 letting ordinary delights slip through his nerveless fingers2 and if he denies himself common pleasures1 it is because1 if indulged1 they thwart and mar his purer and more lively joys4 ,the fear of life1 the frame of mind which says1 ,this attractive and charming thing captivates me1 but ,i will mistrust it and keep it at arm's length1 because if ,i lose it1 ,i shall experience discomfort1 seems to me a poor and timid handling of life4 ,i would rather say1 ,i will use it generously and freely1 knowing that it may not endure2 but it is a sign to me of ,god's care for me1 that ,he gives me the desire and the gratification2 and even if ,he means me to learn that it is only a small thing1 ,i can learn that only by using it and trying its sweetness4 ,this may be held a dangerous doctrine2 but ,i do not mean that life must be a foolish and ingenuous indulgence of every appetite and whim4 ,one must make choices2 and there are many appetites which come hand in hand with their own shadow4 ,i am not here speaking of tampering with sin2 ,i think that most people burn their fingers over that in early life4 ,but ,i am speaking rather of the delights of the body that are in no way sinful1 food and drink1 games and exercise1 love itself2 and of the joys of the mind and the artistic sense2 free and open relations with men and women of keen interests and eager fancies2 the delights of work1 professional success1 the doing of pleasant tasks as vigorously and as perfectly as one can--all the stir and motion and delight of life4 ,to shrink back in terror from all this seems to me a sort of cowardice2 and it is a cowardice too to go on indulging in things which one does not enjoy for the sake of social tradition4 ,one must not be afraid of breaking with social custom1 if one finds that it leads one into dreary and useless formalities1 stupid and expensive entertainments1 tiresome gatherings1 dull and futile assemblies4 ,i think that men and women ought gaily and delightedly to choose the things that minister to their vigour and joy1 and to throw themselves willingly into these things1 so long as they do not interfere with plainer and simpler duties4 ,another way of escape from the importunities of fear is to be very resolute in fighting against our personal claims to honour and esteem4 ,we are sorely wounded through our ambitions1 whether they be petty or great2 and it is astonishing to find how frail a basis often serves for a sense of dignity4 ,i have known lowly and unimportant people who were yet full of pragmatical self-concern1 and whose pride took the form not so much of exalting their own consequence as of thinking meanly of other people4 ,it is easy to restore one's own confidence by dwelling with bitter emphasis on the faults and failings of those about one1 by cataloguing the deficiencies of those who have achieved success1 by accustoming oneself to think of one's own lack of success as a sign of unworldliness1 and by attributing the success of others to a cynical and unscrupulous pursuit of reputation4 ,there is nothing in the world which so differentiates men and women as the tendency to suspect and perceive affronts1 and to nurture grievances4 ,it is so fatally easy to think that one has been inconsiderately treated1 and to mistake susceptibility for courage4 ,let us boldly face the fact that we get in this world very much what we earn and deserve1 and there is no surer way of being excluded and left out from whatever is going forward than a habit of claiming more respect and deference than is due to one4 ,if we are snubbed and humiliated1 it is generally because we have put ourselves forward and taken more than our share4 ,whereas if we have been content to bear a hand1 to take trouble1 and to desire useful work rather than credit1 our influence grows silently and we become indispensable4 ,a man who does not notice petty grumbling1 who laughs away sharp comments1 who does not brood over imagined insults1 who forgets irritable passages1 who makes allowance for impatience and fatigue1 is singularly invulnerable4 ,the power of forgetting is infinitely more valuable than the power of forgiving1 in many conjunctions of life4 ,in nine cases out of ten1 the wounds which our sensibilities receive are the merest pin-pricks1 enlarged and fretted by our own hands2 we work the little thorn about in the puncture till it festers1 instead of drawing it out and casting it away4 ,very few of the prizes of life that we covet are worth winning1 if we scheme to get them2 it is the honour or the task that comes to us unexpectedly that we deserve4 ,i have heard discontented men say that they never get the particular work that they desire and for which they feel themselves to be suited2 and meanwhile life flies swiftly1 while we are picturing ourselves in all sorts of coveted situations1 and slighting the peaceful happiness1 the beautiful joys which lie all around us1 as we go forward in our greedy reverie4 ,i have been much surprised1 since ,i began some years ago to receive letters from all sorts of unknown people1 to realise how many persons there are in the world who think themselves unappreciated4 ,such are not generally people who have tried and failed2--an honest failure very often brings a wholesome sense of incompetence2--but they are generally persons who think that they have never had a chance of showing what is in them1 speakers who have found their audiences unresponsive1 writers who have been discouraged by finding their amateur efforts unsaleable1 men who lament the unsuitability of their profession to their abilities1 women who find themselves living in what they call a thoroughly unsympathetic circle4 ,the failure here lies in an incapacity to believe in one's own inefficiency1 and a sturdy persuasion of the malevolence of others4 ,here is a soil in which fears spring up like thorns and briars4 ,whatever ,i do or say1 ,i shall be passed over and slighted1 ,i shall always find people determined to exclude and neglect me6 ,i know myself1 only too well1 how fertile the brain is in discovering almost any reason for a failure except what is generally the real reason1 that the work was badly done4 ,and the more eager one is for personal recognition and patent success1 the more sickened one is by any hint of contempt and derision4 ,but it is quite possible1 as ,i also know from personal experience1 to go patiently and humbly to work again1 to face the reasons for failure1 to learn to enjoy work1 to banish from the mind the uneasy hope of personal distinction4 ,we may try to discern the humour of ,providence1 because ,i am as certain as ,i can be of anything that we are humorously treated as well as lovingly regarded4 ,let me relate two small incidents which did me a great deal of good at a time of self-importance4 ,i was once asked to give a lecture1 and it was widely announced4 ,i saw my own name in capital letters upon advertisements displayed in the street4 ,on the evening appointed1 ,i went to the place1 and met the chairman of the meeting and some of the officials in a room adjoining the hall where ,i was to speak4 ,we bowed and smiled1 paid mutual compliments1 congratulated each other on the importance of the occasion4 ,at last the chairman consulted his watch and said it was time to be beginning4 ,a procession was formed1 a door was majestically thrown open by an attendant1 and we walked with infinite solemnity on to the platform of an entirely empty hall1 with rows of benches all wholly unfurnished with guests4 ,i think it was one of the most ludicrous incidents ,i ever remember4 ,the courteous confusion of the chairman1 the dismay of the committee1 the colossal nature of the fiasco filled me1 ,i am glad to say1 not with mortification1 but with an overpowering desire to laugh4 ,i may add that there had been a mistake about the announcement of the hour1 and ten minutes later a minute audience did arrive1 whom ,i proceeded to address with such spirit as ,i could muster2 but ,i have always been grateful for the humorous nature of the snub administered to me4 ,again on another occasion ,i had to pay a visit of business to a remote house in the country4 ,a good-natured friend descanted upon the excitement it would be to the household to entertain a living author1 and how eagerly my utterances would be listened to4 ,i was received not only without respect but with obvious boredom4 ,in the course of the afternoon ,i discovered that ,i was supposed to be a solicitor's clerk1 but when a little later it transpired what my real occupations were1 ,i was not displeased to find that no member of the party had ever heard of my existence1 or was aware that ,i had ever published a book1 and when ,i was questioned as to what ,i had written1 no one had ever come across anything that ,i had printed1 until at last ,i soared into some transient distinction by the discovery that my brother was the author of ,dodo4 ,i cannot help feeling that there is something gently humorous about this good-humoured indication that the whole civilised world is not engaged in the pursuit of literature1 and that one's claims to consideration depend upon one's social merits4 ,i do honestly think that ,providence was here deliberately poking fun at me1 and showing me that a habit of presenting one's opinions broadcast to the world does not necessarily mean that the world is much aware either of oneself or of one's opinions4 ,the cure then1 it seems to me1 for personal ambition1 is the humorous reflection that the stir and hum of one's own particular teetotum is confined to a very small space and range2 and that the witty description of the ,greek politician who was said to be well known throughout the whole civilised world and at ,lampsacus1 or of the philosopher who was announced as the author of many epoch-making volumes and as the second cousin of the ,earl of ,cork1 represents a very real truth1--that reputation is not a thing which is worth bothering one's head about2 that if it comes1 it is apt to be quite as inconvenient as it is pleasant1 while if one grows to depend upon it1 it is as liable to part with its sparkle as soda-water in an open glass4 ,and then if one comes to consider the commoner claim1 the claim to be felt and respected and regarded in one's own little circle1 it is wholesome and humiliating to observe how generously and easily that regard is conceded to affectionateness and kindness1 and how little it is won by any brilliance or sharpness4 ,of course irritable1 quick-tempered1 severe1 discontented people can win attention easily enough1 and acquire the kind of consideration which is generally conceded to anyone who can be unpleasant4 ,how often families and groups are drilled and cautioned by anxious mothers and sisters not to say or do anything which will vex so-and-so6 ,such irritable people get the rooms and the chairs and the food that they like1 and the talk in their presence is eagerly kept upon subjects on which they can hold forth4 ,but how little such regard lasts1 and how welcome a relief it is1 when one that is thus courted and deferred to is absent6 ,of course if one is wholly indifferent whether one is regarded1 needed1 missed1 loved1 so long as one can obtain the obedience and the conveniences one likes1 there is no more to be said4 ,but ,i often think of that wonderful poem of ,christina ,rossetti's about the revenant1 the spirit that returns to the familiar house1 and finds himself unregretted3 ',to-morrow' and 'to-day1' they cried2 ,i was of yesterday6 ,one sometimes sees1 in the faces of old family servants1 in unregarded elderly relatives1 bachelor uncles1 maiden aunts1 who are entertained as a duty1 or given a home in charity1 a very beautiful and tender look1 indescribable in words but unmistakable1 when it seems as if self1 and personal claims1 and pride1 and complacency had really passed out of the expression1 leaving nothing but a hope of being loved1 and a desire to do some humble service4 ,i saw it the other day in the face of a little old lady1 who lived in the house of a well-to-do cousin1 with rather a bustling and vigorous family pervading the place4 ,she was a small frail creature1 with a tired worn face1 but with no look of fretfulness or discontent4 ,she had a little attic as a bedroom1 and she was not considered in any way4 ,she effaced herself1 ate about as much as a bird would eat1 seldom spoke1 uttering little ejaculations of surprise and amusement at what was said2 if there was a place vacant in the carriage1 she drove out4 ,if there was not1 she stopped at home4 ,she amused herself by going about in the village1 talking to the old women and the children1 who half loved and half despised her for being so very unimportant1 and for having nothing she could give away4 ,but ,i do not think the little lady ever had a thought except of gratitude for her blessings1 and admiration for the robustness and efficiency of her relations4 ,she claimed nothing from life and expected nothing4 ,it seemed a little frail and vanquished existence1 and there was not an atom of what is called proper pride about her2 but it was fine1 for all that6 ,an infinite sweetness looked out of her eyes2 she suffered a good deal1 but never complained4 ,she was glad to live1 found the world a beautiful and interesting place1 and never quarrelled with her slender share of its more potent pleasures4 ,and she will slip silently out of life some day in her attic room2 and be strangely mourned and missed4 ,i do not consider that a failure in life1 and ,i am not sure that it is not something much more like a triumph4 ,i know that as ,i watched her one evening knitting in the corner1 following what was said with intense enjoyment1 uttering her little bird-like cries1 ,i thought how few of the things that could afflict me had power to wound her1 and how little she had to fear4 ,i do not think she wanted to take flight1 but yet ,i am sure she had no dread of death2 and when she goes thitherward1 leaving the little tired and withered frame behind1 it will be just as when the crested lark springs up from the dust of the roadway1 and wings his way into the heart of the dewy upland4 ,,xvii ,,simplicity ,if we are to avoid the dark onset of fear1 we must at all costs simplify life1 because the more complicated and intricate our life is1 and the more we multiply our defences1 the more gates and posterns there are by which the enemy can creep upon us4 ,property1 comforts1 habits1 conveniences1 these are the vantage-grounds from which fears can organise their invasions4 ,the more that we need excitement1 distraction1 diversion1 the more helpless we become without them4 ,all this is very clearly recognised and stated in the ,gospel4 ,our ,saviour does not seem to regard the abandonment of wealth as a necessary condition of the ,christian life1 but ,he does very distinctly say that rich men are beset with great difficulties owing to their wealth1 and ,he indicates that a man who trusts complacently in his possessions is tempted into a disastrous security4 ,he speaks of laying up treasure in heaven as opposed to the treasures which men store up on earth2 and ,he points out that whenever things are put aside unused1 in order that the owner may comfort himself by the thought that they are there if he wants them1 decay and corruption begin at once to undermine and destroy them4 ,what exactly the treasure in heaven can be it is hard to define4 ,it cannot be anything quite so sordid as good deeds done for the sake of spiritual investment1 because our ,saviour was very severe on those who1 like the ,pharisees1 sought to acquire righteousness by scrupulosity4 ,nothing that is done just for the sake of one's own future benefit seems to be regarded in the ,gospel as worth doing4 ,the essence of ,christian giving seems to be real giving1 and not a sort of usurious loan4 ,there is of course one very puzzling parable1 that of the unjust steward1 who used his last hours in office1 before the news of his dismissal could get abroad1 in cheating his master1 in order to win the favour of the debtors by arbitrarily diminishing the amount of their debts4 ,it seems strange that our ,saviour should have drawn a moral out of so immoral an incident4 ,perhaps ,he was using a well-known story1 and even making allowances for the admiration with which in the ,east resourcefulness1 even of a fraudulent kind1 was undoubtedly regarded4 ,but the principle seems clear enough1 that if the ,christian chooses to possess wealth1 he runs a great risk1 and that it is therefore wiser to disembarrass oneself of it4 ,property is regarded in the ,gospel as an undoubtedly dangerous thing2 but so far from our ,lord preaching a kind of socialism1 and bidding men to co-operate anxiously for the sake of equalising wealth1 ,he recommends an individualistic freedom from the burden of wealth altogether4 ,but1 as always in the ,gospel1 our ,lord looks behind practice to motive2 and it is clear that the motive for the abandonment of wealth is not to be a desire to act with a selfish prudence1 in order to lay an obligation upon ,god to repay one generously in the future for present sacrifices1 but rather the attainment of an individual liberty1 which leaves the spirit free to deal with the real interests of life4 ,and one must not overlook the definite promise that if a man seeks virtue first1 even at the cost of earthly possessions and comforts1 he will find that they will be added as well4 ,those who would discredit the morality of the ,gospel would have one believe that our ,saviour in dealing with shrewd1 homely1 literal folk was careful to promise substantial future rewards for any worldly sacrifices they might make2 but not so can ,i read the ,gospel4 ,our ,saviour does undoubtedly say plainly that we shall find it worth our while to escape from the burdens and anxieties of wealth1 but the reward promised seems rather to be a lightness and contentment of spirit1 and a freedom from heavy and unnecessary bonds4 ,in our complicated civilisation it is far more difficult to say what simplicity of life is4 ,it is certainly not that expensive and dramatic simplicity which is sometimes contrived by people of wealth as a pleasant contrast to elaborate living4 ,i remember the son of a very wealthy man1 who had a great mansion in the country and a large house in ,london1 telling me that his family circle were never so entirely happy as when they were living at close quarters in a small ,scotch shooting-lodge1 where their life was comparatively rough1 and luxuries unattainable4 ,but ,i gathered that the main delight of such a period was the sense of laying up a stock of health and freshness for the more luxurious life which intervened4 ,the ,anglo-,saxon naturally loves a kind of feudal dignity2 he likes a great house1 a crowd of servants and dependants1 the impression of power and influence which it all gives2 and the delights of ostentation1 of having handsome things which one does not use and indeed hardly ever sees1 of knowing that others are eating and drinking at one's expense1 which is a thing far removed from hospitality1 are dear to the temperament of our race4 ,we may say at once that this is fatal to any simplicity of life2 it may be that we cannot expect anyone who is born to such splendours deliberately to forego them2 but ,i am sure of this1 that a rich man1 now and here1 who spontaneously parted with his wealth1 and lived sparely in a small house1 would make perhaps as powerful an appeal to the imagination of the ,english world as could well be made4 ,if a man had a message to deliver1 there could be no better way of emphasizing it4 ,it must not be a mere flight from the anxiety of worldly life into a more congenial seclusion4 ,it should be done as ,francis of ,assisi did it1 by continuing to live the life of the world without any of its normal conveniences4 ,patent and visible self-sacrifice1 if it be accompanied by a tender love of humanity1 will always be the most impressive attitude in the world4 ,but if one is not capable of going to such lengths1 if indeed one has nothing that one can resign1 how is it possible to practise simplicity of life8 ,it can be done by limiting one's needs1 by avoiding luxuries1 by having nothing in one's house that one cannot use1 by being detached from pretentiousness1 by being indifferent to elaborate comforts4 ,there are people whom ,i know who do this1 and who1 even though they live with some degree of wealth1 are yet themselves obviously independent of comfort to an extraordinary degree4 ,there is a ,puritanical dislike of waste which is a very different thing1 because it often coexists with an extreme attachment to the particular standard of comfort that the man himself prefers4 ,i know people who believe that a substantial midday meal and a high tea are more righteous than a simple midday meal and a substantial dinner4 ,but the right attitude is one of unconcern and the absence of uneasy scheming as to the details of life4 ,there is no reason why people should not form habits1 because method is the primary condition of work2 but the moment that habit becomes tyrannous and elaborate1 then the spirit is at once in bondage to anxiety4 ,the real victory over these little cares is not for ever to have them on one's mind2 or one becomes like the bread-and-butter fly in ,through the ,looking-,glass1 whose food was weak tea with cream in it4 ,but supposing it cannot find any8 said ,alice4 ,then it dies1 says the gnat1 who is acting the part of interpreter4 ,but that must happen very often8 said ,alice4 ,it ,,always happens6 says the gnat with sombre emphasis4 ,simplicity is1 in fact1 a difficult thing to lay down rules for1 because the essence of it is that it is free from rules2 and those who talk and think most about it1 are often the most uneasy and complicated natures4 ,but it is certain that if one finds oneself growing more and more fastidious and particular1 more and more easily disconcerted and put out and hampered by any variation from the exact scheme of life that one prefers1 even if that scheme is an apparently simple one1 it is certain that simplicity is at an end4 ,the real simplicity is a sense of being at home and at ease in any company and mode of living1 and a quiet equanimity of spirit which cannot be content to waste time over the arrangements of life4 ,sufficient food and exercise and sleep may be postulated2 but these are all to be in the background1 and the real occupations of life are to be work and interests and talk and ideas and natural relations with others4 ,one knows of houses where some trifling omission of detail1 some failure of service in a meal1 will plunge the hostess into a dumb and incommunicable despair4 ,the slightest lapse of the conventional order becomes a cloud that intercepts the sun4 ,but the right attitude to life1 if we desire to set ourselves free from this self-created torment1 is a resolute avoidance of minute preoccupations1 a light-hearted journeying1 with an amused tolerance for the incidents of the way4 ,a conventional order of life is useful only in so far as it removes from the mind the necessity of detailed planning1 and allows it to flow punctually and mechanically in an ordered course4 ,but if we exalt that order into something sacred and solemn1 then we become pharisaical and meticulous1 and the savour of life is lost4 ,one remembers the scene in ,david ,copperfield which makes so fine a parable of life2 how the merry party who were making the best of an ill-cooked meal1 and grilling the chops over the lodging-house fire1 were utterly disconcerted and reduced to miserable dignity by the entry of the ceremonious servant with his ,pray1 permit me1 and how his decorous management of the cheerful affair cast a gloom upon the circle which could not even be dispelled when he had finished his work and left them to themselves4 ,,xviii ,,affection ,one of the ways in which our fears have power to wound us most grievously is through our affections1 and here we are confronted with a real and crucial difficulty4 ,are we to hold ourselves in1 to check the impulses of affection1 to use self-restraint1 not multiply intimacies1 not extend sympathies8 ,one sees every now and then lives which have entwined themselves with every tendril of passion and love and companionship and service round some one personality1 and have then been bereaved1 with the result that the whole life has been palsied and struck into desolation by the loss4 ,i am thinking now of two instances which ,i have known2 one was a wife1 who was childless1 and whose whole nature1 every motive and every faculty1 became centred upon her husband1 a man most worthy of love4 ,he died suddenly1 and his wife lost everything at one blow2 not only her lover and comrade1 but every occupation as well which might have helped to distract her1 because her whole life had been entirely devoted to her husband2 and even the hours when he was absent from her had been given to doing anything and everything that might save him trouble or vexation4 ,she lived on1 though she would willingly have died at any moment1 and the whole fabric of her life was shattered4 ,again1 ,i think of a devoted daughter who had done the same office for an old and not very robust father4 ,i heard her once say that the sorrow of her mother's death had been almost nullified for her by finding that she could do everything for and be everything to her father1 whom she almost adored4 ,she had refused an offer of marriage from a man whom she sincerely loved1 that she might not leave her father1 and she never even told her father of the incident1 for fear that he might have felt that he had stood in the way of her happiness4 ,when he died1 she too found herself utterly desolate1 without ties and without occupation1 an elderly woman almost without friends or companions4 ,ought one to feel that this kind of jealous absorption in a single individual affection is a mistake8 ,it certainly brought both the wife and daughter an intense happiness1 but in both cases the relation was so close and so intimate that it tended gradually to seclude them from all other relations4 ,the husband and the father were both reserved and shy men1 and desired no other companionship4 ,one can see so easily how it all came about1 and what the inevitable result was bound to be1 and yet it would have been difficult at any point to say what could have been done4 ,of course these great absorbed emotions involve large risks2 and it may be doubted whether life can be safely lived on these intensive lines4 ,these are of course extreme instances1 but there are many cases in the world1 and especially in the case of women whose life is entirely built up on certain emotions like the love and care of children2 and when that is so1 a nature becomes liable to the sharpest incursions of fear4 ,it is of little use arguing such cases theoretically1 because1 as the proverb says1 as the land lies the water flows1--and love makes very light of all prudential considerations4 ,the difficulty does not arise with large and generous natures which give love prodigally in many directions1 because if one such relation is broken by death1 love can still exercise itself upon those that remain4 ,it is the fierce and jealous sort of love that is so hard to deal with1 a love that exults in solitariness of devotion1 and cannot bear any intrusion of other relations4 ,yet if one believes1 as ,i for one believe1 that the secret of the world is somehow hidden in love1 and can be interpreted through love alone1 then one must run the risks of love1 and seek for strength to bear the inevitable suffering which love must bring4 ,but men and women are very differently made in this respect4 ,among innumerable minor differences1 certain broad divisions are clear4 ,men1 in the first place1 both by training and temperament1 are far less dependent upon affection than women4 ,career and occupation play a much larger part in their thoughts4 ,if one could test and intercept the secret and unoccupied reveries of men1 when the mind moves idly among the objects which most concern it1 it would be found1 ,i do not doubt1 that men's minds occupy themselves much more about definite and tangible things--their work1 their duties1 their ambitions1 their amusements--and centre little upon the thought of other people2 an affection1 an emotional relation1 is much more of an incident than a settled preoccupation2 and then with men there are two marked types1 those who give and lavish affection freely1 who are interested and attracted by others and wish to attach and secure close friends2 and there are others who respond to advances1 yet do not go in search of friendship1 but only accept it when it comes2 and the singular thing is that such natures1 which are often cold and self-absorbed1 have a power of kindling emotion in others which men of generous and eager feeling sometimes lack4 ,it is strange that it should be so1 but there is some psychological law at the back of it2 and it is certainly true in my experience that the men who have been most eagerly sought in friendship have not as a rule been the most open-hearted and expansive natures4 ,i suppose that a certain law of pursuit holds good1 and that people of self-contained temperament1 with a sort of baffling charm1 who are critical and hard to please1 excite a certain ambition in those who would claim their affection4 ,women1 ,i have no doubt1 live far more in the thought of others1 and desire their intention2 they wish to arrive at mutual understanding and confidence1 to explore personality1 to pierce behind the surface1 to establish a definite relation4 ,yet in the matter of relations with others1 women are often1 ,i believe1 less sentimental1 and even less tender-hearted than men1 and they have a far swifter and truer intuition of character4 ,though the two sexes can never really understand each other's point of view1 because no imagination can cross the gulf of fundamental difference1 yet ,i am certain that women understand men far better than men understand women4 ,the whole range of motives is strangely different1 and men can never grasp the comparative unimportance with which women regard the question of occupation4 ,occupation is for men a definite and isolated part of life1 a thing important and absorbing in itself1 quite apart from any motives or reasons4 ,to do something1 to make something1 to produce something--that desire is always there1 whatever ebb and flow of emotions there may be2 it is an end in itself with men1 and with many women it is not so2 for women mostly regard work as a necessity1 but not an interesting necessity4 ,in a woman's occupation1 there is generally someone at the end of it1 for whom and in connection with whom it is done4 ,this is probably largely the result of training and tradition1 and great changes are now going on in the direction of women finding occupations for themselves4 ,but take the case of such a profession as teaching2 it is quite possible for a man to be an effective and competent teacher1 without feeling any particular interest in the temperaments of his pupils1 except in so far as they react upon the work to be done4 ,but a woman can hardly take this impersonal attitude2 and this makes women both more and less effective1 because human beings invariably prefer to be dealt with dispassionately2 and this is as a rule more difficult for women2 and thus in a complicated matter affecting conduct1 a woman as a rule forms a sounder judgment on what has actually occurred than a man1 and is perhaps more likely to take a severe view4 ,the attitude of a ,galileo is often a useful one for a teacher1 because boys and girls ought in matters that concern themselves to learn how to govern themselves4 ,thus in situations involving relation with others women are more liable to feel anxiety and the pressure of personal responsibility2 and the question is to what extent this ought to be indulged1 in what degree men and women ought to assume the direction of other lives1 and whether it is wholesome for the director to allow a desire for personal dominance to be substituted for more spontaneous motives4 ,it very often happens that the temperaments which most claim help and support are actuated by the egotistical desire to find themselves interesting to others1 while those who willingly assume the direction of other lives are attracted more by the sense of power than by genuine sympathy4 ,but it is clear that it is in the region of our affections that the greatest risks of all have to be run4 ,by loving1 we render ourselves liable to the darkest and heaviest fears4 ,yet here1 ,i believe1 we ought to have no doubt at all2 and the man who says to himself1 ,i should like to bestow my affection on this person and on that1 but ,i will keep it in restraint1 because ,i am afraid of the suffering which it may entail1--such a man1 ,i say1 is very far from the kingdom of ,god4 ,because love is the one quality which1 if it reaches a certain height1 can altogether despise and triumph over fear4 ,when ambition and delight and energy fail1 love can accompany us1 with hope and confidence1 to the dark gate2 and thus it is the one thing about which we can hardly be mistaken4 ,if love does not survive death1 then life is built upon nothingness1 and we may be glad to get away2 but it is more likely that it is the only thing that does survive4 ,,xix ,,sin ,it is every one's duty to take himself seriously--that is the right mean between taking oneself either solemnly or apologetically4 ,there is no merit in being apologetic about oneself4 ,one has a right to be there1 wherever one is1 a right to an opinion1 a right to take some kind of a hand in whatever is going on2 natural tact is the only thing which can tell us exactly how far those rights extend2 but it is inconvenient to be apologetic1 because if one insists on explaining how one comes to be there1 or how one comes to have an opinion1 other people begin to think that one needs explanation and excuse2 but it is even worse to be solemn about oneself1 because ,english people are very critical in private1 though they are tolerant in public1 because they dislike a scene1 and have not got the art of administering the delicate snub which indicates to a man that his self-confidence is exuberant without humiliating him2 when ,english people inflict a snub1 they do it violently and emphatically1 like ,dr4 ,johnson1 and it generally means that they are relieving themselves of accumulated disapproval4 ,an ,englishman is apt to be deferential1 and one of the worst temptations of official life is the temptation to be solemn4 ,there is an old story about ,scott and ,wordsworth1 when the latter stayed at ,abbotsford2 ,scott1 during the whole visit1 was full of little pleasant and courteous allusions to ,wordsworth's poems2 and one of the guests present records how at the end of the visit not a single word had ever passed ,wordsworth's lips which could have indicated that he knew his host to have ever written a line of poetry or prose4 ,i was sitting the other day at a function next a man of some eminence1 and ,i was really amazed at the way in which he discoursed of himself and his habits1 his diet1 his hours of work1 and the blank indifference with which he received similar confidences4 ,he merely waited till the speaker had finished1 and then resumed his own story4 ,it is this sort of solemn egotism which makes us overvalue our anxieties quite out of all proportion to their importance1 because they all appear to us as integral elements of a dignified drama in which we enact the hero's part4 ,we press far too heavily on the sense of responsibility2 and if we begin by telling boys1 as is too often done in sermons1 that whatever they do or say is of far-reaching consequence1 that every lightest word may produce an effect1 that any carelessness of speech or example may have disastrous effects upon the character of another1 we are doing our best to encourage the self-emphasis which is the very essence of priggishness4 ,there is a curious conflict going on at the present time in ,english life between light-mindedness and solemnity2 there is a great appetite for living1 a love of amusement1 a tendency to subordinate the interests of the future to the pleasure of the moment1 and to think that the one serious evil is boredom2 that is a healthy manifestation enough in its way1 because it stands for interest and delight in life2 but there is another strain in our nature1 that of a rather heavy pietism1 inherited from our ,puritan ancestors4 ,it must not be forgotten that the ,puritan got a good deal of interest out of his sense of sin2 as the old combative elements of feudal ages disappeared1 the soldierly blood retained the fighting instinct1 and turned it into moral regions4 ,the sense of adventure is impelled to satiate itself1 and the ,pilgrim's ,progress is a clear enough proof that the old combativeness was all there1 revelling in danger1 and exulting in the thought that the human being was in the midst of foes4 ,sin represented itself to the ,puritan as a thing out of which he could get a good deal of fun2 not the fun of yielding to it1 but the fun of whipping out his sword and getting in some shrewd blows4 ,when preachers nowadays lament that we have lost the sense of sin1 what they really mean is that we have lost our combativeness3 we no longer believe that we must treat our foes with open and brutal violence1 and we perceive that such conduct is only pitting one sin against another4 ,there is no warrant in the ,gospel for the combative idea of the ,christian life2 all such metaphors and suggestions come from ,st4 ,paul and the ,apocalypse4 ,the fact is that the world was not ready for the utter peaceableness of the ,gospel1 and it had to be accommodated to the violence of the world4 ,now again the ,christian idea is coloured by scientific and medical knowledge1 and sin1 instead of an enemy which we must fight1 has become a disease which we must try to cure4 ,sins1 the ordinary sins of ordinary life1 are not as a rule instincts which are evil in themselves1 so much as instincts which are selfishly pursued to the detriment of others2 sin is in its essence the selfishness which will not cooperate1 and which secures advantages unjustly1 without any heed to the disadvantage of others4 ,,sympathetic ,,imagination is the real foe of sin1 the power of putting oneself in the place of another2 and much of the sentiment which is so prevalent nowadays is the evidence of the growth of sympathy4 ,the old theory of sin lands one in a horrible dilemma1 because it implies a treacherous enmity on the part of ,god1 to create man weak and unstable1 and to pit his weakness against tyrannous desires2 to allow his will to do evil to be stronger than his power to do right1 is a satanical device4 ,one must not sacrifice the truth to the desire for simplicity and effective statement4 ,the truth is intricate and obscure1 and to pretend that it is plain and obvious is mere hypocrisy4 ,the strength of ,calvinism is its horrible resemblance to a natural inference from the facts of life2 but if any sort of ,calvinism is true1 then it is a mere insult to the intelligence to say that ,god is loving or just4 ,the real basis for all deep-seated fear about life is the fear that one will not be dealt with either lovingly or justly4 ,but we have to make a simple choice as to what we will believe1 and the only hope is to believe that immediate harshness and injustice is not ultimately inconsistent with ,love4 ,no one who knows anything of the world and of life can pretend to think or say that suffering always results from1 or is at all proportioned to1 moral faults2 and if we are tempted to regard all our disasters as penal consequences1 then we are tempted to endure them with gloomy and morbid immobility4 ,it is far more wholesome and encouraging to look upon many disasters that befall us as opportunities to show a little spirit1 to evoke the courage which does not come by indolent prosperity1 to increase our sympathy1 to enlarge our experience1 to make things clearer to us1 to develop our mind and heart1 to free us from material temptations4 ,past suffering is not always an evil1 it is often an exciting reminiscence4 ,it is good to take life adventurously1 like ,odysseus of old4 ,what would one feel about ,odysseus if1 instead of contriving a way out of the ,cyclops' cave1 he had set himself to consider of what forgotten sin his danger was the consequence8 ,suffering and disaster come to us to develop our inventiveness and our courage1 not to daunt and dismay us2 and we ought therefore to approach experience with a sense of humour1 if possible1 and with a lively curiosity4 ,i recollect hearing a man the other day describing an operation to which he had been subjected4 ,my word1 he said1 his eyes sparkling with delight at the recollection1 that was awful1 when ,i came into the operating-room1 and saw the surgeons in their togs1 and the pails and basins all about1 and was invited to step up to the table6 ,there is nothing so agreeable as the remembrance of fears through which we have passed2 and we can only learn to despise them by finding out how unbalanced they were4 ,i do not mean that fears can ever be pleasant at the time1 but we do them too much honour if we court them and defer to them4 ,however much we may be tortured by them1 there is always something at the back of our mind which despises our own susceptibility to them2 and it is that deeper instinct which we ought to trust4 ,but we cannot even begin to trust it1 as long as we allow ourselves to believe pietistically that the ,mind of ,god is set on punishment4 ,that is the ghastly error which humanity tends to make4 ,it has been dinned into us1 alas1 from our early years1 and religious phraseology is constantly polluted by it4 ,our ,saviour lent no countenance to this at all2 ,he spoke perfectly plainly against the theory of judgments4 ,of course suffering is sometimes a consequence of sin1 but it is not a vindictive punishment2 it is that we may learn our mistake4 ,but we must give up the revengeful idea of ,god3 that is imported into our scale of values by the grossest anthropomorphism4 ,only the weak man1 who fears that his safety will be menaced if he does not make an example1 deals in revenge4 ,he is indignant at anything which mortifies his vanity1 which implies any doubt of his power or any disregard of his wishes4 ,revenge is born of terror1 and to think of ,god as vindictive is to think of ,him as subject to fear4 ,serene and unquestioned strength can have nothing to do with fear4 ,milton is largely responsible for perpetuating this belief4 ,he makes the ,almighty say to the ,son-- ,let us advise1 and to this hazard draw ,with speed what force is left1 and all employ ,in our defence1 lest unawares we lose ,this our high place1 our sanctuary1 our hill4 ,milton's idea of the ,almighty was frankly that of a ,power who had undertaken more than he could manage1 and who had allowed things to go too far4 ,but it is a puerile conception of ,god2 and to allow ourselves to think or speak of ,god as a ,power that has to take precautions1 or that has anything to fear from the exercise of human volition1 is to cloud the whole horizon at once4 ,but we ought rather to think of ,god as a ,power which for some reason works through imperfection4 ,the battle of the world is that of force against inertness3 and our fears are the shadow of that combat4 ,fear should then rather show us that we are being confronted with experience2 and that our duty is to disregard it1 to march forward through it1 to come out on the other side of it4 ,it is all an adventure1 in fact6 ,the disaster in which we are involved is not sent to show us that the ,eternal ,power which created us is vexed at our failures1 or bent on crushing us4 ,it is exactly the opposite2 it is to show us that we are worth testing1 worth developing1 and that we are to have the glory of going on2 the very fear of death is the last test of our belief in ,love4 ,we are assuredly meant to believe that the coward is to learn the beauty of courage1 that the laggard is to perceive the worth of energy1 that the selfish man is to be taught sympathy4 ,if we must take a metaphor1 let us rather think of ,god as the graver of the gem than as the child that beats her doll for collapsing instead of sitting upright4 ,it is our dishonouring thought of ,god as jealous1 suspicious1 fond of exhibiting power1 revengeful1 cruel1 that does us harm4 ,we must rather think of ,his ,heart as full of courage1 energy1 and hope2 as teeming with joy1 lightness1 zest1 mirth2 and then we can begin to think of failures1 fears1 delays as things small and unimportant1 not as malicious ambushes1 but as rough bits of road1 as obstacles to reveal and to develop our strength and gaiety4 ,there is no joy in the world so great as the joy of finding ourselves stronger than we know2 and that is what ,god is bent upon showing us1 and not upon proving to us that we are vile and base1 in the spirit of the old ,calvinist who said to his own daughter when she was dying of a painful disease1 that she must remember that all short of ,hell was mercy4 ,it is so2 but ,hell is rather what we start from1 and out of which we have to find our way1 than the waste-paper basket of life1 the last receptacle for our shattered purposes4 ,,xx ,,serenity ,to achieve serenity we must have the power of keeping our hearts and minds fixed upon something which is beyond and above the passing incidents of life1 which so disconcert and overshadow us1 and which are after all but as clouds in the sky1 or islets in a great ocean4 ,think with what smiling indifference a man would meet indignation and abuse and menace1 if he were aware that an hour hence he would be triumphantly vindicated and applauded4 ,how calmly would a man sleep in a condemned cell if he knew that a free pardon were on its way to him6 ,of course the more eagerly and enjoyably we live1 so much the more we are affected by little incidents1 beyond which we can hardly look when they bring us so much pleasure or so much discomfort2 and thus it is always the men and women of keen and highly-strung natures1 who taste the quality of every moment1 in its sweetness and its bitterness1 who will most feel the influence of fear4 ,edward ,fitz,gerald once sadly confessed that1 as life went on1 days of perfect delight--a beautiful scene1 a melodious music1 the society of those whom he loved best--brought him less and less joy1 because he felt that they were passing swiftly1 and could not be recalled4 ,and of course the imaginative nature which lives tremulously in delight will be most apt to portend sadness in hours of happiness1 and in sorrow to anticipate the continuance of sorrow4 ,that is an inevitable effect of temperament2 but we must not give way helplessly to temperament1 or allow ourselves to drift wherever the mind bears us4 ,just as the skilled sailor can tack up against the wind1 and use ingenuity to compel a contrary breeze to bring him to the haven of his desire1 so we must be wise in trimming our sails to the force of circumstance2 while there is an eager delight in making adverse conditions help us to realise our hopes4 ,the timid soul that loves delight is apt to say to itself1 ,i am happy now in health and circumstances and friends1 but ,i lean out into the future1 and see that health must fail and friends must drift away2 death must part me from those ,i love2 and beyond all this1 ,i see the cloudy gate through which ,i must myself pass1 and ,i do not know what lies beyond it4 ,that is true enough6 ,it is like the story of the old prince1 as told by ,herodotus1 who said in his sorrowful age that the ,gods gave man only a taste of life1 just enough to let him feel that life was sweet1 and then took the cup from his lips4 ,but if we look fairly at life1 at our own life1 at other lives1 we see that pleasure and contentment1 even if we hardly realised that it was contentment at the time1 have largely predominated over pain and unhappiness2 a man must be very rueful and melancholy before he will deliberately say that life has not been worth living1 though ,i suppose that there have probably been hours in the lives of all of us when we have thought and said and even believed that we would rather not have lived at all than suffer so4 ,neither must we pass over the fact that every day there are men and women who1 under the pressure of calamity and dismay1 bring their lives to a voluntary end4 ,but we have to be very dull and thankless and slow of heart not to feel that by being allowed to live1 for however short a time1 we have been allowed to take part in a very beautiful and wonderful thing4 ,the loveliness of earth1 its colours1 its lights1 its scents1 its savours1 the pleasures of activity and health1 the sharp joys of love and friendship1 these are surely very great and marvellous experiences1 and the ,mind which planned them must be full of high purpose1 eager intention1 infinite goodwill4 ,and we may go further than that1 and see that even our sorrows and failures have often brought something great to our view1 something which we feel we have learned and apprehended1 something which we would not have missed1 and which we cannot do without4 ,if we will frankly recognise all this1 we cannot feebly crumple up at the smallest touch of misery1 and say suspiciously and vindictively that we wish we had never opened our eyes upon the world2 and even if we do say that1 even if we abandon ourselves to despair1 we yet cannot hope to escape2 we did not enter life by our own will1 it is not our own prudence that has kept us there1 and even if we end it voluntarily1 as ,carlyle said1 by noose or henbane1 we cannot for an instant be sure that we are ending it2 every inference in the world1 in fact1 would tend to indicate that we do not end it4 ,we cannot destroy matter1 we can only disperse and rearrange it2 we cannot generate a single force1 we can only summon it from elsewhere1 and concentrate it1 as we concentrate electricity1 at a single glowing point4 ,force seems as indestructible as matter1 and there is no reason to think that life is destructible either4 ,so that if we are to resign ourselves to any belief at all1 it must be to the belief that to be1 or not to be is not a thing which is in our power at all4 ,we may extinguish life1 as we put out a light2 but we do not destroy it1 we only rearrange it4 ,and we can thus at least practise and exercise ourselves in the belief that we cannot bring our experiences to an end1 however petulantly and irritably we desire to do so1 because it simply is not in our power to effect it4 ,we talk about the power of the will1 but no effort of will can obliterate the life that we have lived1 or add a cubit to our stature2 we cannot abrogate any law of nature1 or destroy a single atom of matter4 ,what it seems that we can do with the will is to make a certain choice1 to select a certain line1 to combine existing forces1 to use them within very small limits4 ,we can oblige ourselves to take a certain course1 when every other inclination is reluctant to do it2 and even so the power varies in different people4 ,it is useless then to depend blindly upon the will1 because we may suddenly come to the end of it1 as we may come to the end of our physical forces4 ,but what the will can do is to try certain experiments1 and the one province where its function seems to be clear1 is where it can discover that we have often a reserve of unsuspected strength1 and more courage and power than we had supposed4 ,we can certainly oppose it to bodily inclinations1 whether they be seductions of sense or temptations of weariness4 ,and in this one respect the will can give us1 if not serenity1 at least a greater serenity than we expect4 ,we can use the will to endure1 to wait1 to suspend a hasty judgment2 and impulse is the thing which menaces our serenity most of all4 ,the will indeed seems to be like a little weight which we can throw into either scale4 ,if we have no doubt how we ought to act1 we can use the will to enforce our judgment1 whether it is a question of acting or of abstaining2 if we are in doubt how to act1 we can use our will to enforce a wise delay4 ,the truth then about the will is that it is a force which we cannot measure1 and that it is as unreasonable to say that it does not exist as to say that it is unlimited4 ,it is foolish to describe it as free2 it is no more free than a prisoner in a cell is free2 but yet he has a certain power to move about within his cell1 and to choose among possible employments4 ,anyone who will deliberately test his will1 will find that it is stronger than he suspects2 what often weakens our use of it is that we are so apt to look beyond the immediate difficulty into a long perspective of imagined obstacles1 and to say within ourselves1 ,yes1 ,i may perhaps achieve this immediate step1 but ,i cannot take step after step--my courage will fail6 ,yet if one does make the immediate effort1 it is common to find the whole range of obstacles modified by the single act2 and thus the first step towards the attainment of serenity of life is to practise cutting off the vista of possible contingencies from our view1 and to create a habit of dealing with a case as it occurs4 ,i am often tempted myself to send my anxious mind far ahead in vague dismay2 at the beginning of a week crammed with various engagements1 numerous tasks1 constant labour1 little businesses1 many of them with their own attendant anxiety1 it is easy to say that there is no time to do anything that one wants to do1 and to feel that the matters themselves will be handled amiss and bungled4 ,but if one can only keep the mind off1 or distract it by work1 or beguile it by a book1 a walk1 a talk1 how easily the thread spins off the reel1 how quietly one comes to harbour on the ,saturday evening1 with everything done and finished6 ,again1 ,i am personally much disposed to dread the opposition and the displeasure of colleagues1 and to shrink nervously from anything which involves dealing with a number of people4 ,i ought to have found out before now how futile such dread is2 other people forget their vexation and even grow ashamed of it1 much as one does oneself2 and looking back ,i can recall no crisis which turned out either as intricate or as difficult as one expected4 ,let me admit that ,i have more than once in life made grave mistakes through this timidity and indolence1 or through an imaginativeness which could see in a great opportunity nothing but a sea of troubles1 which would1 ,i do not doubt1 have melted away as one advanced4 ,but no one has suffered except myself6 ,institutions do not depend upon individuals2 and ,i regard such failures now just as the petulant casting away of a chance of experience1 as a lesson which ,i would not learn2 but there is nothing irreparable about it2 one only comes1 more slowly and painfully1 to the same goal at last4 ,i dare not say that ,i regret it all1 for we are all of us1 whether small or great1 being taught a mighty truth1 whether we wish it or know it2 and all that we can do to hasten it is to put our will into the right scale4 ,i do not think mistakes and failures ought to trouble one much2 at all events there is no fear mingled with them4 ,but ,i do not here claim to have attained any real serenity--my own heart is too impatient1 too fond of pleasure for that6--yet ,i can see clearly enough that it is there1 if ,i could but grasp it2 and ,i know well enough how it is to be attained1 by being content to wait1 and by realising at every instant and moment of life that1 in spite of my tremors and indolences1 my sharp impatiences1 my petulant disgusts1 something very real and great is being shown me1 which ,i shall at last1 however dimly1 perceive2 and that even so the goal of the journey is far beyond any horizon that ,i can conceive1 and built up like the celestial city out of unutterable brightness and clearness1 upon a foundation of peace and joy4 ,it is very difficult to determine1 by any exercise of the intellect or imagination1 what fears would remain to us if we were freed from the dominion of the body4 ,all material fears and anxieties would come to an end2 we should no longer have any poverty to dread1 or any of the limitations or circumscriptions which the lack of the means of life inflicts upon us2 we should have no ambitions left1 because the ambitions which centre on influence--that is1 upon the desire to direct and control the interests of a nation or a group of individuals--have no meaning apart from the material framework of civil life4 ,the only kind of influence which would survive would be the influence of emotion1 the direct appeal which one who lives a higher and more beautiful life can make to all unsatisfied souls1 who would fain find the way to a greater serenity of mood4 ,even upon earth we can see a faint foreshadowing of this in the fact that the only personalities who continue to hold the devotion and admiration of humanity are the idealists4 ,men and women do not make pilgrimages to the graves and houses of eminent jurists and bankers1 political economists or statisticians3 these have done their work1 and have had their reward4 ,even the monuments of statesmen and conquerors have little power to touch the imagination1 unless some love for humanity1 some desire to uplift and benefit the race1 have entered into their schemes and policies4 ,no1 it is rather the soil which covers the bones of dreamers and visionaries that is sacred yet1 prophets and poets1 artists and musicians1 those who have seen through life to beauty1 and have lived and suffered that they might inspire and tranquillise human hearts4 ,the princes of the earth1 popes and emperors1 lie in pompous sepulchres1 and the thoughts of those who regard them1 as they stand in metal or marble1 dwell most on the vanity of earthly glory4 ,but at the tombs of men like ,vergil and ,dante1 of ,shakespeare and ,michelangelo1 the human heart still trembles into tears1 and hates the death that parts soul from soul4 ,so that if1 like ,dante1 we could enter the shadow-land1 and hold converse with the spirits of the dead1 we should seek out to consort with1 not those who have subdued and wasted the earth1 or have terrified men into obedience and service1 but those whose hearts were touched by dreams of impossible beauty1 and who have taught us to be kind and compassionate and tender-hearted1 to love ,god and our neighbour1 and to detect1 however faintly1 the hope of peace and joy which binds us all together4 ,and thus if emotion1 by which ,i mean the power of loving1 is the one thing which survives1 the fears which may remain will be concerned with all the thoughts which cloud love1 the anger and suspicion that divide us2 so that perhaps the only fears which will survive at all will be the fears of our own selfishness and coldness1 that inner hardness which has kept us from the love of ,god and isolated us from our neighbour4 ,the pride which kept us from admitting that we were wrong1 the jealousy that made us hate those who won the love we could not win1 the baseness which made us indifferent to the discomfort of others if we could but secure our own ease1 these are the thoughts which may still have the power to torture us2 and the hell that we may have to fear may be the hell of conscious weakness and the horror of retrospect1 when we recollect how under these dark skies of earth we went on our way claiming and taking all that we could get1 and disregarding love for fear of being taken advantage of4 ,one of the grievous fears of life is the fear of seeing ourselves as we really are1 in all our baseness and pettiness2 yet that will assuredly be shown us in no vindictive spirit1 but that we may learn to rise and soar4 ,there is no hope that death will work an immediate moral change in us2 it may set us free from some sensual and material temptations1 but the innermost motives will indeed survive1 that instinct which makes us again and again pursue what we know to be false and unsatisfying4 ,the more that we shrink from self-knowledge1 the more excuses that we make for ourselves1 the more that we tend to attribute our failures to our circumstances and to the action of others1 the more reason we have to fear the revelation of death4 ,and the only way to face that is to keep our minds open to any light1 to nurture and encourage the wish to be different1 to pray hour by hour that at any cost we may be taught the truth2 it is useless to search for happy illusions1 to look for short cuts1 to hope vaguely that strength and virtue will burst out like a fountain beside our path4 ,we have a long and toilsome way to travel1 and we can by no device abbreviate it2 but when we suffer and grieve1 we are walking more swiftly to our goal2 and the hours we spend in fear1 in sending the mind in weariness along the desolate track1 are merely wasted1 for we can alter nothing so4 ,we use life best when we live it eagerly1 exulting in its fulness and its significance1 casting ourselves into strong relations with others1 drinking in beauty1 making high music in our hearts4 ,there is an abundance of awe in the experiences through which we pass1 awe at the greatness of the vision1 at the vastness of the design1 as it embraces and enfolds our weakness4 ,but we are inside it all1 an integral and indestructible part of it2 and the shadow of fear falls when we doubt this1 when we dread being overlooked or disregarded4 ,no such thing can happen to us2 our inheritance is absolute and certain1 and it is fear that keeps us away from it1 and the fear of fearlessness4 ,for we are contending not with ,god1 but with the fear which hides ,him from our shrinking eyes2 and our prayer should be the undaunted prayer of ,moses in the clefts of the mountain1 ,i beseech ,thee1 show me ,thy ,glory6 ,,the ,,end