,note3 ,images of the original pages are available through ,internet ,archive4 ,see https3_/_/archive4org_/details_/cu#caibd jadcadidf ,,soliloquies ,,in ,,england ,and ,later ,soliloquies by ,,george ,,santayana ,new ,york ,charles ,scribner's ,sons #aibb ,,preface ,many of these ,soliloquies have appeared in ,the ,athenaeum and one or more in ,the ,london ,mercury1 ,the ,nation1 ,the ,new ,republic1 ,the ,dial1 and ,the ,journal of ,philosophy4 ,the author's thanks are due to the ,editors of all these reviews for permission to reprint the articles4 ,for convenience1 three ,soliloquies on ,liberty1 written in #aiae1 have been placed in the second group2 and perhaps it should be added that not a few of the later pieces were written in ,france1 ,spain1 or ,italy1 although still for the most part on ,english themes and under the influence of ,english impressions4 ,,contents ,prologue ,,soliloquies ,,in ,,england1 #aiad-aiah #a4 ,,atmosphere #b4 ,,grisaille #c4 ,,praises ,,of ,,water #d4 ,,the ,,two ,,parents ,,of ,,vision #e4 ,,aversion ,,from ,,platonism #f4 ,,cloud ,,castles #g4 ,,cross-,,lights #h4 ,,hamlet',s ,,question #i4 ,,the ,,british ,,character #aj4 ,,seafaring #aa4 ,,privacy #ab4 ,,the ,,lion ,,and ,,the ,,unicorn #ac4 ,,dons #ad4 ,,apology ,,for ,,snobs #ae4 ,,the ,,higher ,,snobbery #af4 ,,distinction ,,in ,,englishmen #ag4 ,,friendships #ah4 ,,dickens #ai4 ,,the ,,human ,,scale #bj4 ,,english ,,architecture #ba4 ,,the ,,english ,,church #bb4 ,,leaving ,,church #bc4 ,,death-,,bed ,,manners #bd4 ,,war ,,shrines #be4 ,,tipperary #bf4 ,,skylarks #bg4 ,,at ,,heaven',s ,,gate ,,later ,,soliloquies1 #aiah-aiba #bh4 ,,society ,,and ,,solitude #bi4 ,,imagination #cj4 ,,the ,,world',s ,a ,,stage #ca4 ,,masks #cb4 ,,the ,,tragic ,,mask #cc4 ,,the ,,comic ,,mask #cd4 ,,carnival #ce4 ,,queen ,,mab #cf4 ,a ,,contrast ,,with ,,spanish ,,drama #cg4 ,,the ,,censor ,,and ,,the ,,poet #ch4 ,,the ,,mask ,,of ,,the ,,philosopher #ci4 ,,the ,,voyage ,,of ,,the ,,saint ,,christopher #dj4 ,,classic ,,liberty #da4 ,,german ,,freedom #db4 ,,liberalism ,,and ,,culture #dc4 ,,the ,,irony ,,of ,,liberalism #dd4 ,,john ,,bull ,,and ,,his ,,philosophers #de4 ,,occam',s ,,razor #df4 ,,empiricism #dg4 ,,the ,,british ,,hegelians #dh4 ,,the ,,progress ,,of ,,philosophy #di4 ,,the ,,psyche #ej4 ,,reversion ,,to ,,platonism #ea4 ,,ideas #eb4 ,,the ,,mansions ,,of ,,helen #ec4 ,,the ,,judgement ,,of ,,paris #ed4 ,,on ,,my ,,friendly ,,critics #ee4 ,,hermes ,,the ,,interpreter ,,prologue ,the outbreak of war in the year #aiad found me by chance in ,england1 and there ,i remained1 chiefly at ,oxford1 until the day of the peace4 ,during those five years1 in rambles to ,iffley and ,sandford1 to ,godstow and ,wytham1 to the hospitable eminence of ,chilswell1 to ,wood ,eaton or ,nuneham or ,abingdon or ,stanton ,harcourt1 ,crossing the stripling ,thames at ,bab-lock-hithe1 these ,soliloquies were composed1 or the notes scribbled from which they have been expanded4 ,often over ,port ,meadow the whirr of aeroplanes sent an iron tremor through these reveries1 and the daily casualty list1 the constant sight of the wounded1 the cadets strangely replacing the undergraduates1 made the foreground to these distances4 ,yet nature and solitude continued to envelop me in their gentleness1 and seemed to remain nearer to me than all that was so near4 ,they muffled the importunity of the hour2 perhaps its very bitterness and incubus of horror drove my thoughts deeper than they would otherwise have ventured into the maze of reflection and of dreams4 ,it is a single maze1 though we traverse it in opposite moods1 and distinct threads conduct us2 for when the most dire events have assumed their punctiform places in the history of our lives1 where they will stand eternally1 what are they but absurd episodes in a once tormenting dream8 ,and when our despised night-dreams are regarded and respected as they deserve to be 7since all their troubles are actual and all their tints evident71 do they prove more arbitrary or less significant than our waking thoughts1 or than those more studious daylight fictions which we call history or philosophy8 ,the human mind at best is a sort of song2 the music of it runs away with the words1 and even the words1 which pass for the names of things1 are but poor wild symbols for their unfathomed objects4 ,so are these ,soliloquies compared with their occasions2 and ,i should be the first to hate their verbiage1 if a certain spiritual happiness did not seem to breathe through it1 and redeem its irrelevance4 ,their very abstraction from the time in which they were written may commend them to a free mind4 ,spirit refuses to be caught in a vice2 it triumphs over the existence which begets it4 ,the moving world which feeds it is not its adequate theme4 ,spirit hates its father and its mother4 ,it spreads from its burning focus into the infinite1 careless whether that focus burns to ashes or not4 ,from its pinnacle of earthly time it pours its little life into spheres not temporal nor earthly1 and half in playfulness1 half in sacrifice1 it finds its joy in the irony of eternal things1 which know nothing of it4 ,spirit1 however1 cannot fly from matter without material wings2 the most abstract art is compacted of images1 the most mystical renunciation obeys some passion of the heart4 ,images and passion1 even if they are not easily recognizable in these ,soliloquies as now coldly written down1 were not absent from them when inwardly spoken4 ,the images were ,english images1 the passion was the love of ,england and1 behind ,england1 of ,greece4 ,what ,i love in ,greece and in ,england is contentment in finitude1 fair outward ways1 manly perfection and simplicity4 ,admiration for ,england1 of a certain sort1 was instilled into me in my youth4 ,my father 7who read the language with ease although he did not speak it7 had a profound respect for ,british polity and ,british power4 ,in this admiration there was no touch of sentiment nor even of sympathy2 behind it lay something like an ulterior contempt1 such as we feel for the strong man exhibiting at a fair4 ,the performance may be astonishing but the achievement is mean4 ,so in the middle of the nineteenth century an intelligent foreigner1 the native of a country materially impoverished1 could look to ,england for a model of that irresistible energy and public discipline which afterwards were even more conspicuous in ,bismarckian ,germany and in the ,united ,states4 ,it was admiration for material progress1 for wealth1 for the inimitable gift of success2 and it was not free1 perhaps1 from the poor man's illusion1 who jealously sets his heart on prosperity1 and lets it blind him to the subtler sources of greatness4 ,we should none of us admire ,england to-day1 if we had to admire it only for its conquering commerce1 its pompous noblemen1 or its parliamentary government4 ,i feel no great reverence even for the ,british ,navy1 which may be in the junk-shop to-morrow2 but ,i heartily like the ,british sailor1 with his clear-cut and dogged way of facing the world4 ,it is health1 not policy nor wilfulness1 that gives true strength in the moral world1 as in the animal kingdom2 nature and fortune in the end are on the side of health4 ,there is1 or was1 a beautifully healthy ,england hidden from most foreigners2 the ,england of the countryside and of the poets1 domestic1 sporting1 gallant1 boyish1 of a sure and delicate heart1 which it has been mine to feel beating1 though not so early in my life as ,i could have wished4 ,in childhood ,i saw only ,cardiff on a ,sunday1 and the docks of ,liverpool2 but books and prints soon opened to me more important vistas4 ,i read the poets2 and although ,british painting1 when it tries to idealize human subjects1 has always made me laugh1 ,i was quick to discern an ethereal beauty in the landscapes of ,turner4 ,furgueson's ,cathedrals of ,england1 too1 and the great mansions in the ,italian style depicted in the eighth edition of the ,encyclopaedia ,britannica1 revealed to me even when a boy the rare charm that can envelop the most conventional things when they are associated with tender thoughts or with noble ways of living4 ,it was with a premonition of things noble and tender1 and yet conventional1 that after a term at the ,university of ,berlin ,i went to spend my first holidays in ,england4 ,those were the great free days of my youth4 ,i had lived familiarly in ,spain and in the ,united ,states2 ,i had had a glimpse of ,france and of ,germany1 and ,french literature had been my daily bread3 it had taught me how to think1 but had not given me much to think about4 ,i was not mistaken in surmising that in ,england ,i should find a tertium quid1 something soberer and juster than anything ,i yet knew1 and at the same time greener and richer4 ,i felt at once that here was a distinctive society1 a way of living fundamentally foreign to me1 but deeply attractive4 ,at first all gates seemed shut and bristling with incommunication2 but soon in some embowered corner ,i found the stile ,i might climb over1 and the ancient right of way4 ,those peaceful parks1 and those minds no less retired1 seemed positively to welcome me2 and though ,i was still divided from them by inevitable partitions1 these were in places so thin and yielding1 that the separation seemed hardly greater than is requisite for union and sympathy between autonomous minds4 ,indeed1 ,i was soon satisfied that no climate1 no manners1 no comrades on earth 7where nothing is perfect7 could be more congenial to my complexion4 ,not that ,i ever had the least desire or tendency to become an ,englishman4 ,nationality and religion are like oar love and loyalty towards women3 things too radically intertwined with oar moral essence to be changed honourably1 and too accidental to the free mind to be worth changing4 ,my own origins were living within me2 by their light ,i could see clearly that this ,england was pre-eminently the home of decent happiness and a quiet pleasure in being oneself4 ,i found here the same sort of manliness which ,i had learned to love in ,america1 yet softer1 and not at all obstreperous2 a manliness which when refined a little creates the gentleman1 since its instinct is to hide its strength for an adequate occasion and for the service of others4 ,it is self-reliant1 but with a saving touch of practicality and humour2 for there is a becoming self-confidence1 based on actual performance1 like the confidence of the athlete1 and free from any exorbitant estimate of what that performance is worth4 ,such modesty in strength is entirely absent from the effusive temperament of the ,latin1 who is cocky and punctilious so long as his conceit holds out1 and then utterly humbled and easily corrupted2 entirely absent also from the doctrinaire of the ,german school1 in his dense vanity and officiousness1 that nothing can put to shame4 ,so much had ,i come to count on this sort of manliness in the friends of my youth1 that without it the most admirable and gifted persons seemed to me hardly men3 they fell rather into an ambiguous retinue1 the camp followers of man1 cleverer but meaner than himself--the priests1 politicians1 actors1 pedagogues1 and shopkeepers4 ,the man is he who lives and relies directly on nature1 not on the needs or weaknesses of other people4 ,these self-sufficing ,englishmen1 in their reserve and decision1 seemed to me truly men1 creatures of fixed rational habit1 people in whose somewhat inarticulate society one might feel safe and at home4 ,the low pressure at which their minds seemed to work showed how little they were alarmed about anything3 things would all be managed somehow4 ,they were good company even when they said nothing4 ,their aspect1 their habits1 their invincible likes and dislikes seemed like an anchor to me in the currents of this turbid age4 ,they were a gift of the gods1 like the sunshine or the fresh air or the memory of the ,greeks3 they were superior beings1 and yet more animal than the rest of us1 calmer1 with a different scale of consciousness and a slower pace of thought4 ,there were glints in them sometimes of a mystical oddity2 they loved the wilds2 and yet ordinarily they were wonderfully sane and human1 and responsive to the right touch4 ,moreover1 these semi-divine animals could talk like men of the world4 ,if some of them1 and not the least charming1 said little but ,oh1 really1 and ,how stupid of me1 ,i soon discovered how far others could carry scholarly distinction1 rich humour1 and refinement of diction4 ,i confess1 however1 that when they were very exquisite or subtle they seemed to me like cut flowers2 the finer they were the frailer1 and the cleverer the more wrong-headed4 ,delicacy did not come to them1 as to ,latin minds1 as an added ornament1 a finer means of being passionate1 a trill in a song that flows full-chested from the whole man2 their purity was ,puritanism1 it came by exclusion of what they thought lower4 ,it impoverished their sympathies1 it severed them from their national roots1 it turned to affectation or fanaticism1 it rendered them acrid and fussy and eccentric and sad4 ,it is truly ,english1 in one sense1 to fume against ,england1 individuality tearing its own nest2 and often these frantic poses neutralize one another and do no harm on the whole4 ,nevertheless it is the full-bodied ,englishman who has so far ballasted the ship1 he who1 like ,shakespeare1 can wear gracefully the fashion of the hour1 can play with fancy1 and remain a man4 ,when he ceases to be sensual and national1 adventurous and steady1 reticent and religious1 the ,englishman is a mad ghost2 and wherever he prevails he turns pleasant ,england1 like ,greece1 into a memory4 ,those first holidays of mine1 when ,i was twenty-three years of age1 laid the foundation of a lifelong attachment--of which these ,soliloquies are a late fruit--to both ,oxford and ,cambridge3 not so much to the learned society of those places as to their picturesque aspects and to the possibility of enjoying there in seclusion the intense companionship of the past and of the beautiful2 also the intense companionship of youth1 to which more advanced years in themselves are no obstacle1 if the soul remains free4 ,i have never liked the taste of academic straw2 but there are fat grains and seeds of novelty even at universities1 which the lively young wits that twitter in those shades pick up like hungry sparrows1 yet without unmitigated seriousness2 and unmitigated seriousness is always out of place in human affairs4 ,let not the unwary reader think me flippant for saying so2 it was ,plato1 in his solemn old age1 who said it4 ,he added that our ignominious condition forces us1 nevertheless1 to be often terribly in earnest4 ,wanton and transitory as our existence is1 and comic as it must appear in the eyes of the happy gods1 it is all in all to our mortal nature2 and whilst intellectually we may judge ourselves somewhat as the gods might judge us1 and may commend our lives to the keeping of eternity1 our poor animal souls are caught inextricably in the toils of time1 which devours us and all our possessions4 ,the artist playing a farce for others suffers a tragedy in himself4 ,when he aspires to shed as much as possible the delusions of earthly passion1 and to look at things joyfully and unselfishly1 with the clear eyes of youth1 it is not because he feels no weight of affliction1 but precisely because he feels its weight to the full1 and how final it is4 ,lest it should seem inhuman of me to have been piping soliloquies whilst ,rome was burning1 ,i will transcribe here some desperate verses extorted from me by events during those same years4 ,i am hardly a poet in the magic sense of the word1 but when one's thoughts have taken instinctively a metrical form1 why should they be forbidden to wear it8 ,i do not ask the reader to admire these sonnets1 but to believe them4 ,a ,,premonition ,cambridge1 ,october #aiac ,grey walls1 broad fields1 fresh voices1 rippling weir1 ,i know you well3 ten faces1 for each face ,that passes smiling1 haunt this hallowed place1 ,and nothing not thrice noted greets me here4 ,soft watery winds1 wide twilight skies and clear1 ,refresh my spirit at its founts of grace1 ,and a strange sorrow masters me1 to pace ,these willowed paths1 in this autumnal year4 ,soon1 lovely ,england1 soon thy secular dreams1 ,thy lisping comrades1 shall be thine no more4 ,a world's loosed troubles flood thy gated streams ,and drown1 methinks1 thy towers2 and the tears start ,as if an iron hand had clutched my heart1 ,and knowledge is a pang1 like love of yore4 ,,the ,,undergraduate ,,killed ,,in ,,battle ,oxford1 #aiae ,sweet as the lawn beneath his sandalled tread1 ,or the scarce rippled stream beneath his oar1 ,so gently buffeted it laughed the more1 ,his life was1 and the few blithe words he said4 ,one or two poets read he1 and reread2 ,one or two friends with boyish ardour wore ,close to his heart1 incurious of the lore ,dodonian woods might murmur overhead4 ,ah1 demons of the whirlwind1 have a care1 ,what1 trumpeting your triumphs1 ye undo6 ,the earth once won1 begins your long despair ,that never1 never is his bliss for you4 ,he breathed betimes this clement island air ,and in unwitting lordship saw the blue4 ,,the ,,darkest ,,hour ,oxford1 #aiag ,smother thy flickering light1 the vigil's o'er4 ,hope1 early wounded1 of his wounds is dead4 ,many a night long he smiled1 his drooping head ,laid on thy breast1 and that brave smile he wore ,not yet from his unbreathing lips is fled4 ,enough3 on mortal sweetness look no more1 ,pent in this charnel-house1 fling wide the door ,and on the stars that killed him gaze instead4 ,the world's too vast for hope4 ,the unteachable sun ,rises again and will reflood his sphere1 ,blotting with light what yesterday was done2 ,but the unavailing truth1 though dead1 lives on1 ,and in eternal night1 unkindly clear1 ,a cold moon gilds the waves of ,acheron4 ,,soliloquies ,,in ,,england #aiad-aiah #a ,,atmosphere ,the stars lie above all countries alike1 but the atmosphere that intervenes is denser in one place than in another2 and even where it is purest1 if once its atoms catch the sunlight1 it cuts off the prospect beyond4 ,in some climates the veil of earthly weather is so thick and blotted that even the plodder with his eyes on the ground finds its density inconvenient1 and misses his way home4 ,the advantage of having eyes is neutralized at such moments1 and it would be better to have retained the power of going on all fours and being guided by scent4 ,in fact human beings everywhere are like marine animals and live in a congenial watery medium1 which like themselves is an emanation of mother earth2 and they are content for the most part to glide through it horizontally at their native level4 ,they ignore the third1 the vertical dimension2 or if they ever get some inkling of empty heights or rigid depths where they could not breathe1 they dismiss that speculative thought with a shudder1 and continue to dart about in their familiar aquarium1 immersed in an opaque fluid that cools their passions1 protects their intellect from mental dispersion1 keeps them from idle gazing1 and screens them from impertinent observation by those who have no business in the premises4 ,the stellar universe that silently surrounds them1 if while swimming they ever think of it1 seems to them something foreign and not quite credibly reported4 ,how should anything exist so unlike home1 so out of scale with their affairs1 so little watery1 and so little human8 ,their philosophers confirm them in that incredulity2 and the sea-caves hold conclaves of profound thinkers congregated to prove that only fog can be real4 ,the dry1 their council decrees1 is but a vain abstraction1 a mere negative which human imagination opposes to the moist1 of which alone1 since life is moist1 there can be positive experience4 ,as for the stars1 these inspired children of the mist have discovered that they are nothing but postulates of astronomy1 imagined for a moment to exist1 in order that a beautiful human science may be constructed about them4 ,duller people1 born in the same fog1 may not understand so transcendental a philosophy1 but they spontaneously frame others of their own1 not unlike it in principle4 ,in the middle of the night1 when the starlight best manages to pierce to the lowest strata of the air1 these good people are asleep2 yet occasionally when they are returning somewhat disappointed from a party1 or when illness or anxiety or love-hunger keeps them pacing their chamber or tossing in their beds1 by chance they may catch a glimpse of a star or two twinkling between their curtains4 ,idle objects1 they say to themselves1 like dots upon the wall-paper4 ,why should there be stars at all1 and why so many of them8 ,certainly they shed a little light and are pretty2 and they are a convenience sometimes in the country when there is no moon and no lamp-posts2 and they are said to be useful in navigation and to enable the astronomers to calculate sidereal time in addition to solar time1 which is doubtless a great satisfaction to them4 ,but all this hardly seems to justify such an expense of matter and energy as is involved in celestial mechanics4 ,to have so much going on so far away1 and for such prodigious lengths of time1 seems rather futile and terrible4 ,who knows8 ,astrologers used to foretell people's character and destiny by their horoscope2 perhaps they may turn out to have been more or less right after all1 now that science is coming round to support more and more what our fathers called superstitions4 ,there may be some meaning in the stars1 a sort of code-language such as ,bacon put into ,shakespeare's sonnets1 which would prove to us1 if we could only read it1 not how insignificant1 but how very important we are in the world1 since the very stars are talking about us4 ,the safest thing1 however1 is to agree with the great idealists1 who say there are really no stars at all4 ,or1 if their philosophy seems insecure--and there are rumours that even the professors are hedging on the subject--we can always take refuge in faith1 and think of the heavenly bodies as beautiful new homes in which we are to meet and work together again when we die2 and as in time we might grow weary even there1 with being every day busier and busier1 there must always be other stars at hand for us to move to1 each happier and busier than the last2 and since we wish to live and to progress for ever1 the number of habitable planets provided for us has to be infinite4 ,certainly faith is far better than science for explaining everything4 ,so the embryonic soul reasons in her shell of vapour2 her huddled philosophy is1 as it were1 pre-natal1 and discredits the possibility of ever peeping into a cold outer world4 ,yet in time this shell may grow dangerously thin in places1 and a little vague light may filter through4 ,strange promptings and premonitions at the same time may visit the imprisoned spirit1 as if it might not be impossible nor inglorious to venture into a world that was not oneself4 ,at last1 willy-nilly1 the soul may be actually hatched1 and may suddenly find herself horribly exposed1 cast perhaps on the ,arabian desert1 or on some high1 scorched1 open place that resembles it1 like the uplands of ,castile4 ,there the rarefied atmosphere lets the stars down upon her overwhelmingly1 like a veritable host of heaven4 ,there the barren earth entwines few tentacles about the heart2 it stretches away dark and empty beneath our feet1 a mere footstool for meditation4 ,it is a thing to look away from1 too indifferent and accidental even to spurn2 for after all it supports us1 and though small and extinguished it is one of the stars4 ,in these regions the shepherds first thought of ,god4 #b ,,grisaille ,england is pre-eminently a land of atmosphere4 ,a luminous haze permeates everywhere1 softening distances1 magnifying perspectives1 transfiguring familiar objects1 harmonizing the accidental1 making beautiful things magical and ugly things picturesque4 ,road and pavement become wet mirrors1 in which the fragments of this gross world are shattered1 inverted1 and transmuted into jewels1 more appealing than precious stones to the poet1 because they are insubstantial and must be loved without being possessed4 ,mists prolong the most sentimental and soothing of hours1 the twilight1 through the long summer evenings and the whole winter's day4 ,in these country-sides so full of habitations and these towns so full of verdure1 lamplight and twilight cross their rays2 and the passers-by1 mercifully wrapped alike in one crepuscular mantle1 are reduced to unison and simplicity1 as if sketched at one stroke by the hand of a master4 ,english landscape1 if we think only of the land and the works of man upon it1 is seldom on the grand scale4 ,charming1 clement1 and eminently habitable1 it is almost too domestic1 as if only home passions and caged souls could live there4 ,but lift the eyes for a moment above the line of roofs or of tree-tops1 and there the grandeur you miss on the earth is spread gloriously before you4 ,the spirit of the atmosphere is not compelled1 like the god of pantheism1 to descend in order to exist1 and wholly to diffuse itself amongst earthly objects4 ,it exists absolutely in its own person as well1 and enjoys in the sky1 like a true deity1 its separate life and being4 ,there the veil of ,maya1 the heavenly ,penelope1 is being woven and rent perpetually1 and the winds of destiny are always charmingly defeating their apparent intentions4 ,here is the playground of those early nebulous gods that had the bodies of giants and the minds of children4 ,in ,england the classic spectacle of thunderbolts and rainbows appears but seldom2 such contrasts are too violent and definite for these tender skies4 ,here the conflict between light and darkness1 like all other conflicts1 ends in a compromise2 cataclysms are rare1 but revolution is perpetual4 ,everything lingers on and is modified2 all is luminous and all is grey4 #c ,,praises ,,of ,,water ,the transformation of landscape by moisture is no matter of appearance only1 no mere optical illusion or effect of liquid stained glass4 ,it is a sort of echo or symbol to our senses of very serious events in prehistoric times4 ,water1 which now seems only to lap the earth or to cloud it1 was the chisel which originally carved its surface4 ,they say that when the planet1 recently thrown off from the sun1 was still on fire1 the lighter elements rose in the form of gases around the molten metallic core2 and the outer parts of this nucleus in cooling formed a crust of igneous rock which1 as the earth contracted1 was crushed together and wrinkled like the skin of a raisin4 ,these wrinkles are our mountain chains1 made even more rugged and villainous by belated eruptions4 ,on that early earth there was no water4 ,all was sheer peaks1 ledges1 and chasms1 red-hot or coal-black1 or of such livid metallic hues1 crimson1 saffron1 and purple1 as may still be seen on the shores of the ,dead ,sea or in the ,grand ,canyon of the ,colorado--rifts that allow us to peep into the infernal regions1 happily in those places at least without inhabitants4 ,this hellish sort of landscape1 which we must now plunge into the depths to find1 was the first general landscape of earth4 ,as the cooling progressed1 however1 the steam that was in the upper atmosphere began to condense and to fall in rain4 ,at first the hot drops no doubt sizzled as they fell and rose again immediately in vapour1 yet the meteorological cycle was established notwithstanding4 ,the rain that evaporated descended once more1 each time colder and more abundant1 until it cut channels amongst the crags1 ground and polished their fragments into boulders and pebbles1 formed pools in the hollows1 and finally covered the earth up to its chin with the oceans4 ,much detritus meantime was washed down from the rocks2 it gathered in crevices and along the pockets and slacker reaches of rivers4 ,this sediment was soaked with moisture and mixed with dissolved acids2 it became the first soft layer of earth and finally a fertile soil4 ,water in this way softened the outlines of the mountains1 laid the floor of the valleys1 and made a leafy and a cloudy place of the planet4 ,the sages 7and some of them much more recent than ,thales7 tell us that water not only wears away the rocks1 but has a singular power of carrying away their subtler elements in solution1 especially carbonic acid1 of which the atmosphere also is full2 and it happens that these elements can combine with the volatile dements of water into innumerable highly complex substances1 all of which the atmospheric cycle carries with it wherever it goes2 and with these complex substances1 which are the requisite materials for living bodies1 it everywhere fills the sea and impregnates the land4 ,even if life1 then1 is not actually born of the moist element1 it is at least suckled by it2 the water-laden atmosphere is the wet nurse1 if not the mother1 of the earth-soul4 ,the earth has its soul outside its body1 as many a philosopher would have wished to have his4 ,the winds that play about it are its breath1 the water that rains down and rises again in mist is its circulating blood2 and the death of the earth will come when some day it sucks in the atmosphere and the sea1 gets its soul inside its body again1 turns its animating gases back into solids1 and becomes altogether a skeleton of stone4 ,no wonder that living creatures find things that are fluid and immersed in moisture friendly to the watery core of their own being4 ,seeds1 blood1 and tears are liquid2 nothing else is so poignant as what passes and flows1 like music and love2 and if this irreparable fluidity is sad1 anything stark and arrested is still sadder4 ,life is compelled to flow1 and things must either flow with it or1 like ,lot's wife1 in the petrified gesture of refusal1 remain to mock their own hope4 #d ,,the ,,two ,,parents ,,of ,,vision ,it would seem that when a heavenly body ceases to shine by its own light1 it becomes capable of breeding eyes with which to profit by the light other bodies are shedding2 whereas1 so long as it was itself on fire1 no part of it could see4 ,is life a gift which cooling stars receive from those still incandescent1 when some ray falls upon a moist spot1 making it a focus of warmth and luminous energy1 and reversing at that point the general refrigeration8 ,it is certain1 at any rate1 that if light did not pour down from the sun no earthly animal would have developed an eye4 ,yet there was another partner in this business of seeing1 who would have flatly refused to undertake it1 had the sole profit been the possibility of star-gazing4 ,star-gazing is an ulterior platonic homage which we pay to our celestial sources1 as a sort of pious acknowledgment of their munificence in unconsciously begetting us4 ,but this is an acknowledgment which they are far from demanding or noticing1 not being vain or anxious to be admired1 like popular gods2 and if we omitted it1 they would continue to perform their offices towards us with the same contemptuous regularity4 ,star-gazing is1 therefore1 a pure waste of time in the estimation of the other partner in vision1 besides celestial light--,i mean1 that clod of moist earth which the light quickens1 that plastic home-keeping parent of the mind1 whom we might call old mother ,psyche1 and whose primary care is to keep the body in order and guide it prudently over the earth's surface4 ,for such a purpose the direct rays of the sun are blinding1 and those of the moon and stars fit only to breed lunatics4 ,to mother ,psyche it seems a blessing that the view of the infinite from the earth is so often intercepted2 else it might have sunk into her heart 7for she has watched through many a night in her long vegetative career71 and might have stretched her comfortable industrious sanity into a sort of divine madness or reason1 very disconcerting in her business4 ,indeed1 she would never have consented to look or to see at all1 except for this circumstance1 that the rays coming from heavenly bodies are reflected by earthly bodies upon one another2 so that by becoming sensitive to light the ,psyche could receive a most useful warning of what to seek or to avoid4 ,instead of merely stretching or poking or sniffing through the world1 she could now map it at a glance1 and turn instinct into foresight4 ,this was a great turn in her career1 wonderful in its tragic possibilities1 and something like falling in love2 for her new art brought her a new pleasure and a new unrest1 purer and more continual than those drowsy and terrible ones which she knew before4 ,reflected light is beautiful4 ,the direct downpour of light through space leaves space wonderfully dark1 and it falls on the earth indiscriminately upon the wise and the foolish1 to warm or to scorch them2 but the few rays caught by solid matter or drifting vapour become prismatic1 soft1 and infinitely varied2 not only reporting truly the position and material diversity of things1 but adding to them an orchestration in design and colour bewitching to the senses4 ,it was not the stars but the terrestrial atmosphere that the eyes of the flesh were made to see2 even mother ,psyche can love the light1 when it clothes or betrays something else that matters2 and the fleshly-spiritual ,goethe said most truly3 ,am farbigen ,abglanz haben wir das ,leben4 #e ,,aversion ,,from ,,platonism ,repetition is the only form of permanence that nature can achieve1 and in those ,mediterranean regions that nurtured the classic mind1 by continually repeating the same definite scenes1 nature forced it to fix its ideas4 ,every one learned to think that the earth and the gods were more permanent than himself2 he perused them1 he returned to them1 he studied them at arm's length1 and he recognized their external divinity4 ,but where the ,atlantic mists envelop everything1 though we must repeatedly use the same names for new-born things1 as we continue to christen children ,john and ,mary1 yet we feel that the facts1 like the persons1 are never really alike2 everything is so fused1 merged1 and continuous1 that whatever element we may choose to say is repeated seems but a mental abstraction and a creature of language4 ,the weather has got into our bones2 there is a fog in the brain2 the limits of our own being become uncertain to us4 ,yet what is the harm1 if only we move and change inwardly in harmony with the ambient flux8 ,why this mania for naming and measuring and mastering what is carrying us so merrily along8 ,why shouldn't the intellect be vague while the heart is comfortable8 #f ,,cloud ,,castles ,the heavens are the most constant thing we know1 the skies the most inconstant4 ,even the ,olympian expanse1 when blue and cloudless1 is an aspect of terrestrial atmosphere in a holiday mood1 a sort of gay parasol which the ,earth holds up when she walks in the sun1 and takes down again when she walks in the shadow2 while clouds are veils wrapped more closely about her1 and even more friendly to her frailty4 ,nor are these feminine trappings less lovely for being easily blown about1 and always fresh and in the latest fashion4 ,it is a prejudice to suppose that instability must be sad or must be trivial4 ,a new cloud castle is probably well worth an old one2 any one of them may equal in beauty the monotonous gold and black vault which it conceals from us1 and all of them together certainly surpass that tragic decoration in spiritual suggestion4 ,something in us no doubt regrets that these airy visions vanish so quickly and are irrecoverable2 but this is a sort of fleshly sentimentality of ours and not reasonable4 ,in nature1 what disappears never narrows the range of what is yet to be4 ,if we were immortally young1 like the atmosphere1 the lapse of things would not grieve us1 nor would inconstancy be a vice in ourselves4 ,nobody's future would be blighted by his past2 and this perhaps explains the morals of the gods4 ,change to us is an omen of death1 and only in the timeless can we feel secure2 but if we were safe in our plastic existence1 like nature and the gods of nature1 fidelity to a single love might seem foolish in us2 being and possessing any one thing would not then be incompatible with sooner or later being and possessing everything else4 ,nature and substance are like the absolute actor with an equal affinity for every part1 and changing sex1 age1 and station with perfect good grace4 ,a great principle of charity in morals is not to blame the fishes for their bad taste in liking to live under water4 ,yet many philosophers seem to have sinned against this reasonable law1 since they have blamed life and nature for liking to change1 which is as much as to say for liking to live4 ,certainly life and nature1 when they produce thought1 turn from themselves towards the eternal1 but it is by a glance1 itself momentary1 that they turn to it2 for if they were themselves converted into something changeless1 they could neither live1 think1 nor turn4 ,in the realm of existence it is not sinful to be fugitive nor in bad taste to be new4 ,accordingly cloud castles have nothing to blush for2 if they have a weak hold on existence1 so has everything good4 ,we are warned that the day of judgement will be full of surprises3 perhaps one of them may be that in heaven things are even more unstable than on earth1 and that the mansions reserved for us there are not only many but insecure4 ,cloud castles are hints to us that eternity has nothing to do with duration1 nor beauty with substantial existence1 and that even in heaven our bliss would have to be founded on a smiling renunciation4 ,did ,mohammed1 ,i wonder1 misunderstand the archangel ,gabriel in gathering that celestial beauties 7unlike the lights and voices of ,dante's paradise7 could be embraced as well as admired8 ,and in promising that our heavenly brides would daily recover their virginity1 did he simply clothe in a congenial metaphor the fact that they would be different brides every day1 and that if we wished to dwell in a true paradise1 and not in a quarrelsome and sordid harem1 we must never dream of seeing any of them a second time8 ,fidelity is a virtue akin to habit and rooted in the inertia of animal life1 which would run amok without trusty allies and familiar signals4 ,we have an inveterate love of ,the ,same1 because our mortal condition obliges us to reconsider facts and to accumulate possessions2 by instinct both the heart and the intellect hug everything they touch1 and to let anything go is a sort of death to them4 ,this spirit of pathetic fidelity in us would certainly reproach those ethereal visions for being ephemeral1 and ,cupid for having wings and no heart2 but might not the visiting angels in turn reproach us for clownishness in wishing to detain them8 ,they are not made of flesh and blood2 they are not condemned to bear children4 ,their smile1 their voice1 and the joy they bring us are the only life they have4 ,they are fertile only like the clouds1 in that by dissolving they give place to some other form1 no less lovely and elusive than themselves2 and perhaps if we took a long view we should not feel that our own passage through existence had a very different quality4 ,we last as a strain of music lasts1 and we go where it goes4 ,is it not enough that matter should illustrate each ideal possibility only once and for a moment1 and that ,caesar or ,shakespeare should figure once in this world8 ,to repeat them would not intensify their reality1 while it would impoverish and make ridiculous the pageant of time1 like a stage army running round behind the scenes in order to reappear4 ,to come to an end is a virtue when one has had one's day1 seeing that in the womb of the infinite there are always other essences no less deserving of existence4 ,even cloud castles1 however1 have a double lien on permanence4 ,a flash of lightning is soon over1 yet so long as the earth is wrapped in its present atmosphere1 flashes will recur from time to time so very like this one that the mind will make the same comment upon them1 and its pronouncements on its past experience will remain applicable to its experience to come4 ,fleeting things in this way1 when they are repeated1 survive and are united in the wisdom which they teach us in common4 ,at the same time they inwardly contain something positively eternal1 since the essences they manifest are immutable in character1 and from their platonic heaven laugh at this inconstant world1 into which they peep for a moment1 when a chance collocation of atoms suggests one or another of them to our minds4 ,to these essences mind is constitutionally addressed1 and into them it likes to sink in its self-forgetfulness4 ,it is only our poor mother ,psyche1 being justly afraid of growing old1 who must grudge the exchange of one vision for another4 ,material life is sluggish and conservative2 it would gladly drag the whole weary length of its past behind it1 like a worm afraid of being cut in two in its crawling4 ,it is haunted by a ghostly memory1 a wonderful but not successful expedient for calling the dead to life1 in order1 somewhat inconsistently1 to mourn over them and be comforted4 ,why not kiss our successive pleasures good-bye1 simply and without marking our preferences1 as we do our children when they file to bed8 ,a free mind does not measure the worth of anything by the worth of anything else4 ,it is itself at least as plastic as nature and has nothing to fear from revolutions4 ,to live in the moment would indeed be brutish and dangerous if we narrowed to a moment the time embraced in our field of view1 since with the wider scope of thought come serenity and dominion2 but to live in the moment is the only possible life if we consider the spiritual activity itself4 ,the most protracted life1 in the actual living1 can be nothing but a chain of moments1 each the seat of its irrecoverable vision1 each a dramatic perspective of the world1 seen in the light of a particular passion at a particular juncture4 ,but at each moment the wholeness of mind is spiritual and aesthetic1 the wholeness of a meaning or a picture1 and no knife can divide it4 ,its immortality1 too1 is timeless1 like that of the truths and forms in which it is absorbed4 ,therefore apprehension can afford to hasten all the more trippingly in its career1 touching the facts here and there for a moment1 and building its cloud castles out of light and air1 movement and irony1 to let them lapse again without a pang4 ,contemplation1 when it frees itself from animal anxiety about existence1 ceases to question and castigate its visions1 as if they were mere signals of alarm or hints of hidden treasures2 and then it cannot help seeing what treasures these visions hold within themselves1 each framing some luminous and divine essence1 as a telescope frames a star2 and something of their inalienable distinction and firmness seems to linger in our minds1 though in the exigencies of our hurried life we must turn away from each of them and forget them4 #g ,,cross-,,lights ,they say the sun is a very small star1 and the thing is plausible enough in itself1 without the proofs which presumably the astronomers can give of it4 ,that which nature produces she is apt to produce in crowds2 what she does once1 if she has her way1 she will do often1 with a persistency and monotony which would be intolerable to her if she were endowed with memory2 but hers is a life of habit and automatic repetition1 varied only when there is some hitch in the clockwork1 and she begins hurriedly beating a new tune4 ,accordingly1 what any creature calls the present time1 the living interest1 the ruling power1 or the true religion is almost always but as one leaf in a tree4 ,the same plastic stress which created it creates a million comparable things around it4 ,yet it is easy for each to ignore its neighbours1 and to be shocked at the notion of loving them as itself2 for they all have their separate places or seasons1 and bloom on their several stems1 so that an accident that overwhelms one of them may easily leave the others unscathed4 ,but for all that1 they are as multitudinous and similar as the waves of the sea4 ,take any star at random1 like our sun1 or any poet1 or any idea1 and whilst certainly it will be the nearest and warmest to somebody1 it is not at all likely to be the greatest of its kind1 or even very remarkable4 ,nevertheless1 in a moral perspective1 nearness makes all the difference2 and for us the sun is a veritable ruling deity and parent of light2 he is the centre and monarch of our home system4 ,similarly each living being is a sort of sun to itself2 this spark within me1 by whose light ,i see at all1 is a great sun to me2 and considering how wide a berth other spiritual luminaries seem to give me1 ,i must warm myself chiefly by my own combustion1 and remain singularly important to myself4 ,this importance belongs to the humour of material existence1 visible when ,i look at my seamy side2 it vanishes in so far as my little light actually bums clear1 and my intent flies with it to whatever objects its rays can reach1 no matter how distant or alien4 ,yet this very intelligence and scope in me are functions of my inward fire3 seeing1 too1 is burning4 ,an atomic and spark-like form of existence1 prevalent in nature1 is absolutely essential to spirit2 and ,i find it very acceptable4 ,it is a free1 happy1 and humble condition4 ,i welcome the minute bulk1 the negligible power1 the chance quality and oddity of my being1 combined as it is with vital independence and adequate fuel in my small bunkers for my brief voyage4 ,on a vaster scale1 ,i think the sun1 for all his littleness1 has a splendid prerogative1 and ,i honour ,phoebus as a happy god4 ,the happiest part of his condition and his best claim to deity lie in this3 that he can irradiate and kindle the frozen or vaporous bodies that swim about him2 he can create the moonlight and the earthlight1 much more powerful than the moonlight4 ,this earthlight1 if we could only get far enough from the earth to see it1 would seem strangely brilliant and beautiful2 it would show sea-tints and snow-tints and sand-tints2 there would be greens and purples in it reflected from summer and winter zones1 dotted with cinder scars and smoke-wreaths of cities4 ,yet all these lights are only sunlight1 received and returned with thanks4 ,nor is this surface shimmer1 visible to telescopic observers1 the only benefit gained3 something is kept back and absorbed2 some warmth sinks into the substance of the earth and permeates its watery soil1 initiating currents in the sea and air1 and quickening many a nest of particles into magnetic and explosive and contagious motions4 ,this life which arises in the earth is an obeisance to the sun4 ,the flowers turn to the light and the eye follows it1 animal bodies imbibe it1 and send it forth again in glad looks and keen attention2 and when dreams and thoughts1 even with the eyes shut1 play within us like flamelets amongst the coals1 it is still the light of the sun1 strangely stored and transmuted1 that shines in those visions4 ,certainly intelligence in its cognitive intent is radically immaterial1 and nothing could be more heterogeneous from vibrations1 attractions1 or ethereal currents than the power to make assertions that shall be true or false1 relevant or irrelevant to outlying things2 but this so spiritual power is profoundly natural2 it plainly exhibits an animal awaking to the presence of other bodies that actually surround him1 resenting their cruelty or warming to their conquest and absorption4 ,apart from its roots in animal predicaments1 spirit would be wholly inexplicable in its moods and arbitrary in its deliverance4 ,the more ecstatic or the more tragic experience is1 the more unmistakably it is the voice of matter4 ,it then obviously retraces and makes incandescent the silent relations of things with things1 by which its weal or woe is decided4 ,sometimes it simply burns in their midst and moves in their company like the sun amongst the stars he ignores2 sometimes it gilds in its highly coloured lights the surface of things turned in its direction4 ,were not the distances between bodies spanned by some universal gravitation 7which we are now told may be a sort of light71 we may be sure that sense and fancy1 which are profoundly vegetative things1 would never leap from their source and discount their images in the heroic effort to understand the world4 ,but the fire of life casts its passionate illumination on the dead things that control it1 and raises to aesthetic actuality various poetic symbols of their power4 ,dead things possess1 of course1 in their own right1 their material and logical being1 but they borrow from the adventitious interest which a living creature must needs take in them their various moral dignities and all their part in the conscious world4 ,it is intelligible that moralists and psychologists should be absorbed in those reflections of their attention which reach them from things distant or near1 and that they should pronounce the whole universe to be nothing but their experience of it1 a sort of rainbow or crescent kindly decorating their personal sky4 ,on the same principle the sun 7who1 being a material creature1 would also be subject to egotism7 might say that the only substance in the universe was light1 and that the earth and moon were nothing but ethereal mirrors palely reflecting his own fire4 ,it would seem absurd to him that the earth or its inhabitants should profess to have any bowels4 ,inextinguishable laughter and self-assurance would seize him at the report that any dark places existed1 or any invisible thoughts4 ,he would never admit that1 in all this1 he was himself thinking2 what we should call his thoughts he would maintain 7without thinking67 were evident meteors moving and shining on their own account4 ,such are the cross-lights of animal persuasion4 ,things1 when seen1 seem to come and go with our visions2 and visions1 when we do not know why they visit us1 seem to be things4 ,but this is not the end of the story4 ,opacity is a great discoverer4 ,it teaches the souls of animals the existence of what is not themselves4 ,their souls in fact live and spread their roots in the darkness1 which embosoms and creates the light1 though the light does not comprehend it4 ,if sensuous evidence flooded the whole sphere with which souls are conversant1 they would have no reason for suspecting that there was anything they did not see1 and they would live in a fool's paradise of lucidity4 ,fortunately for their wisdom1 if not for their comfort1 they come upon mysteries and surprises1 earthquakes and rumblings in their hidden selves and in their undeciphered environment2 they live in time1 which is a double abyss of darkness2 and the primary and urgent object of their curiosity is that unfathomable engine of nature which from its ambush governs their fortunes4 ,the proud1 who shine by their own light1 do not perceive matter1 the fuel that feeds and will some day fail them2 but the knowledge of it comes to extinct stars in their borrowed light and almost mortal coldness1 because they need to warm themselves at a distant fire and to adapt their seasons to its favourable shining4 ,when we are on the shady side of the earth we can1 as a compensation1 range in knowledge far beyond our painted atmosphere1 and far beyond that little sun who1 so long as he shone upon us1 seemed to ride at the top of heaven2 we can perceive a galaxy of other lights1 no less original than he1 to which his glory blinded us2 we can even discover how he himself1 if his hot head of burning hair would only suffer him to notice it1 lives subject to their perpetual influence4 ,beautiful and happy god as ,phoebus may be1 he is not a just god nor an everlasting one4 ,he is a lyric singer2 he is not responsible save to his own heart1 and not obliged to know other things4 ,he lives in the eternal1 and does not need to be perpetual4 ,and he is often beneficent in his spontaneity1 and many of us have cause to thank and to love him4 ,there is an uncovenanted society of spirits1 like that of the morning stars singing together1 or of all the larks at once in the sky2 it is a happy accident of freedom and a conspiracy of solitudes4 ,when people talk together1 they are at once entangled in a mesh of instrumentalities1 irrelevance1 misunderstanding1 vanity1 and propaganda2 and all to no purpose1 for why should creatures become alike who are different8 ,but when minds1 being naturally akin and each alone in its own heaven1 soliloquize in harmony1 saying compatible things only because their hearts are similar1 then society is friendship in the spirit2 and the unison of many thoughts twinkles happily in the night across the void of separation4 #h ,,hamlet',s ,,question ,to be born is painful1 and the profit of it so uncertain that we need not wonder if sometimes the mind as well as the body seems to hold back4 ,the winds of ,february are not colder to a featherless chick than are the surprises which nature and truth bring to our dreaming egotism4 ,it was warm and safe in the egg2 exciting enough1 too1 to feel a new organ throbbing here or a fresh limb growing out there4 ,no suspicion visited the happy creature that these budding domestic functions were but preparations for foreign wars and omens of a disastrous death1 to overtake it sooner or later in a barbarous1 militant1 incomprehensible world4 ,of death1 and even of birth 7its ominous counterpart7 the embryo had no idea4 ,it believed simply in the tight spherical universe which it knew1 and was confident of living in it for ever4 ,it would have thought heaven had fallen if its shell had cracked4 ,how should life be possible in a world of uncertain dimensions1 where incalculable blows might fall upon us at any time from any quarter8 ,what a wild philosophy1 to invent objects and dangers of which there was absolutely no experience6 ,and yet for us now1 accustomed to the buffets and ambitions of life in the open1 that pre-natal vegetative dream seems worthless and contemptible1 and hardly deserving the name of existence4 ,could we have debated ,hamlet's question before we were conceived1 the answer might well have been doubtful2 or rather reason1 not serving any prior instinct1 could have expressed no preference and must have left the decision to chance4 ,birth and death are the right moments for absolute courage4 ,but when once the die is cast and we exist1 so that ,hamlet's question can be put to us1 the answer is already given2 nature in forming us has compelled us to prejudge the case4 ,she has decreed that all the beasts and many a man should propagate without knowing what they are about2 and the infant soul for its part1 when once begotten1 is constitutionally bent on working out its powers and daring the adventure of life4 ,to have made the great refusal at the beginning1 for fear of what shocks and hardships might come1 seems to us1 now that we are launched1 morose and cowardly4 ,our soul1 with its fluttering hopes and alarmed curiosity1 is made to flee from death1 and seems to think1 if we judge by its action1 that to miss experience altogether is worse and sadder than any life1 however troubled or short4 ,if nature has fooled us in this1 she doubtless saw no harm in doing so1 and thought it quite compatible with heartily loving us in her rough way4 ,she merely yielded to a tendency to tease which is strangely prevalent among nurses4 ,with a sort of tyrannical fondness1 to make us show our paces1 she dangled this exciting and unsatisfactory bauble of life before us for a moment1 only to laugh at us1 and kiss us1 and presently lay our head again on her appeasing breast4 ,the fear which children feel at being left in the dark or alone or among strangers goes somewhat beyond what a useful instinct would require2 for they are likely to be still pretty well embosomed and protected1 not to say smothered4 ,it is as if the happy inmate of some model gad took alarm at the opening of his cell door1 thinking he was to be driven out and forced to take his chances again in this rough wide world1 when1 in fact1 all was well and he was only being invited to walk in the prison garden4 ,just so when the young mind hears the perilous summons to think1 it is usually a false alarm4 ,in its philosophical excursions it is likely to remain well blanketed from the truth and comfortably muffled in its own atmosphere4 ,groping and empirical in its habits1 it will continue in the path it happens to have turned into2 for in a fog how should it otherwise choose its direction8 ,its natural preference is to be guided by touch and smell1 but it sometimes finds it convenient to use its eyes and ears as a substitute4 ,so long as the reference to the vegetative soul and its comforts remains dominant1 this substitution is harmless4 ,sights and sounds will then be but flowers in the prisoner's garden1 and intelligence a maze through which at best he will find his way home again4 ,some danger there always is1 even in such an outing2 for this walled garden has gates into the fields1 which by chance may be left open4 ,sight and sound1 in their useful ministrations1 may create a new interest1 and run into sheer music and star-gazing4 ,the life the senses were meant to serve will then be forgotten2 the psychic atmosphere--which of course is indispensable--will be pierced1 discounted1 and used as a pleasant vehicle to things and to truths2 and the motherly soul1 having unintentionally given birth to the intellect1 will grumble at her runaway and thankless child4 ,as for the truant himself1 ,hamlet's question will lapse from his view altogether1 not because nature has answered it for him beforehand1 but because his own disinterestedness and rapture have robbed it of all urgency4 ,intellect is passionate1 and natural1 and human enough1 as singing is2 it is all the purer and keener for having emancipated itself1 like singing1 from its uses1 if it ever had any1 and having become a delight in itself4 ,but it is not concerned with its own organs or their longevity2 it cannot understand why its mother1 the earthly soul1 thinks all the good and evil things that happen in this world are of no consequence1 if they do not happen to her4 #i ,,the ,,british ,,character ,what is it that governs the ,englishman8 ,certainly not intelligence2 seldom passion2 hardly self-interest1 since what we call self-interest is nothing but some dull passion served by a brisk intelligence4 ,the ,englishman's heart is perhaps capricious or silent2 it is seldom designing or mean4 ,there are nations where people are always innocently explaining how they have been lying and cheating in small matters1 to get out of some predicament1 or secure some advantage2 that seems to them a part of the art of living4 ,such is not the ,englishman's way3 it is easier for him to face or to break opposition than to circumvent it4 ,if we tried to say that what governs him is convention1 we should have to ask ourselves how it comes about that ,england is the paradise of individuality1 eccentricity1 heresy1 anomalies1 hobbies1 and humours4 ,nowhere do we come oftener upon those two social abortions--the affected and the disaffected4 ,where else would a man inform you1 with a sort of proud challenge1 that he lived on nuts1 or was in correspondence through a medium with ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds1 or had been disgustingly housed when last in prison8 ,where else would a young woman1 in dress and manners the close copy of a man1 tell you that her parents were odious1 and that she desired a husband but no children1 or children without a husband8 ,it is true that these novelties soon become the conventions of some narrower circle1 or may even have been adopted en bloc in emotional desperation1 as when people are converted2 and the oddest sects demand the strictest self-surrender4 ,nevertheless1 when people are dissident and supercilious by temperament1 they manage to wear their uniforms with a difference1 turning them by some lordly adaptation into a part of their own person4 ,let me come to the point boldly2 what governs the ,englishman is his inner atmosphere1 the weather in his soul4 ,it is nothing particularly spiritual or mysterious4 ,when he has taken his exercise and is drinking his tea or his beer and lighting his pipe2 when1 in his garden or by his fire1 he sprawls in an aggressively comfortable chair2 when1 well-washed and well-brushed1 he resolutely turns in church to the east and recites the ,creed 7with genuflexions1 if he likes genuflexions7 without in the least implying that he believes one word of it2 when he hears or sings the most crudely sentimental and thinnest of popular songs1 unmoved but not disgusted2 when he makes up his mind who is his best friend or his favourite poet2 when he adopts a party or a sweetheart2 when he is hunting or shooting or boating1 or striding through the fields2 when he is choosing his clothes or his profession--never is it a precise reason1 or purpose1 or outer fact that determines him2 it is always the atmosphere of his inner man4 ,to say that this atmosphere was simply a sense of physical well-being1 of coursing blood and a prosperous digestion1 would be far too gross2 for while psychic weather is all that1 it is also a witness to some settled disposition1 some ripening inclination for this or that1 deeply rooted in the soul4 ,it gives a sense of direction in life which is virtually a code of ethics1 and a religion behind religion4 ,on the other hand1 to say it was the vision of any ideal or allegiance to any principle would be making it far too articulate and abstract4 ,the inner atmosphere1 when compelled to condense into words1 may precipitate some curt maxim or over-simple theory as a sort of war-cry2 but its puerile language does it injustice1 because it broods at a much deeper level than language or even thought4 ,it is a mass of dumb instincts and allegiances1 the love of a certain quality of life1 to be maintained manfully4 ,it is pregnant with many a stubborn assertion and rejection4 ,it fights under its trivial fluttering opinions like a smoking battleship under its flags and signals2 you must consider1 not what they are1 but why they have been hoisted and will not be lowered4 ,one is tempted at times to turn away in despair from the most delightful acquaintance--the picture of manliness1 grace1 simplicity1 and honour1 apparently rich in knowledge and humour--because of some enormous platitude he reverts to1 some hopelessly stupid little dogma from which one knows that nothing can ever liberate him4 ,the reformer must give him up2 but why should one wish to reform a person so much better than oneself8 ,he is like a thoroughbred horse1 satisfying to the trained eye1 docile to the light touch1 and coursing in most wonderful unison with you through the open world4 ,what do you care what words he uses8 ,are you impatient with the lark because he sings rather than talks8 and if he could talk1 would you be irritated by his curious opinions8 ,of course1 if any one positively asserts what is contrary to fact1 there is an error1 though the error may be harmless2 and most divergencies between men should interest us rather than offend us1 because they are effects of perspective1 or of legitimate diversity in experience and interests4 ,trust the man who hesitates in his speech and is quick and steady in action1 but beware of long arguments and long beards4 ,jupiter decided the most intricate questions with a nod1 and a very few words and no gestures suffice for the ,englishman to make his inner mind felt most unequivocably when occasion requires4 ,instinctively the ,englishman is no missionary1 no conqueror4 ,he prefers the country to the town1 and home to foreign parts4 ,he is rather glad and relieved if only natives will remain natives and strangers strangers1 and at a comfortable distance from himself4 ,yet outwardly he is most hospitable and accepts almost anybody for the time being2 he travels and conquers without a settled design1 because he has the instinct of exploration4 ,his adventures are all external2 they change him so little that he is not afraid of them4 ,he carries his ,english weather in his heart wherever he goes1 and it becomes a cool spot in the desert1 and a steady and sane oracle amongst all the deliriums of mankind4 ,never since the heroic days of ,greece has the world had such a sweet1 just1 boyish master4 ,it will be a black day for the human race when scientific blackguards1 conspirators1 churls1 and fanatics manage to supplant him4 #aj ,,seafaring ,all peoples that dwell by the sea sometimes venture out upon it4 ,the boys are eager to swim and sail1 and the men may be turned into habitual navigators by the spirit of enterprise or by necessity4 ,but some races take to the water more kindly than others1 either because they love the waves more or the furrow less4 ,we may imagine that sheer distress drove the ,norse fishermen and pirates into their open boats4 ,the ocean they explored was rough and desolate2 the fish and the pillaged foreigner had to compensate them for their privations4 ,they quitted their fiords and brackish islands dreaming of happier lands4 ,but with the ,greeks and the ,english the case was somewhat different4 ,there are no happier lands than theirs2 and they set forth for the most part on summer seas1 towards wilder and less populous regions4 ,they went armed1 of course1 and ready to give battle3 they had no scruples about carrying home anything they might purloin or obtain by enormously advantageous barter1 but they were not in quest of softer climes or foreign models2 their home remained their ideal4 ,they were scarcely willing to settle in foreign parts unless they could live their home life there4 ,this love of home merged in their minds with the love of liberty2 it was a loyalty inwardly grounded and not a mere tribute to habit or external influences4 ,they could consequently retain their manners wherever they went1 and could found free colonies1 almost as ,greek or as ,english as the mother country2 for it was not ,greece that originally formed the ,greeks nor ,england the ,english1 but the other way round2 the ,greeks and the ,english1 wherever they might be1 spun their institutions about them like a cocoon4 ,certainly the geographical environment was favourable2 the skies and waters that embosomed them--when in their migrations they had reached those climes--simply met their native genius half-way and allowed it to bloom as it had not elsewhere4 ,but the winds could carry that same seed to fructify in other soils2 and as there were many ,greek cities sprung from one1 so there are several local ,englands in ,great ,britain1 and others all over the world4 ,even people who are not heirs of these nations according to the flesh may assimilate their spirit in some measure4 ,all men are ,greek in the best sense in so far as they are rational1 and live and think on the human scale2 and all are ,english in so far as their souls are individual1 each the imperturbably dominant cell in its own organism1 each faithful to its inner oracle4 ,life at sea is very favourable to this empire of personal liberty4 ,the inner man1 the hereditary ,psyche that breeds the body and its discursive thoughts1 craves to exercise ascendancy2 it is essentially a formative principle1 an organ of government4 ,mere solitude and monastic reverie1 such as a hermit or satirist may enjoy even in great cities1 weary and oppress the ,englishman4 ,he wants to do something or else to play at something4 ,his thoughts are not vivid and substantial enough for company2 his passions are too nebulous to define their innate objects1 until accident offers something that perhaps may serve4 ,at sea there is always something doing3 you must mind the helm1 the sails1 or the engines2 you must keep things shipshape2 brasses must be always bright and eyes sharp2 decorum is essential1 since discipline is so2 you may even dress for dinner and read prayers on ,sunday4 ,this routine does not trespass on the liberty and reserve of your inner man4 ,you can exchange a few hearty commonplaces with the other officers and sailors1 or even with a casual passenger2 now and then you may indulge in a long talk1 pacing the deck beneath the stars4 ,there is space1 there is the constant shadow of danger1 the chance of some adventure at sea or on a strange shore4 ,there is a continual test and tension of character4 ,there are degrees of authority and of competence1 but the sailor's art is finite2 his ship1 however complicated and delicate a creature1 has a known structure and known organs2 she will not do anything without a reason2 she is not too wayward 7as is the course of things on terra firma7 for a clear-headed man to understand nor for a firm hand to steer4 ,maritime fortune in its uncertainty has after all not many forms of caprice2 its worst tricks are familiar2 your life-belt is hanging over your bunk1 and you are ready4 ,every one grumbles at his lot and at his profession2 but what is man that he should ask for more8 ,these buffeting winds1 these long hours of deep breathing1 these habits of quick decision and sharp movement whet your appetite2 you relish your solid plain food1 whilst your accustomed drink smooths over the petty worries of the day1 and liberates your private musings2 and what a companionable thing your pipe is6 ,the women--dear1 dogmatic1 fussy angels--are not here2 that is a relief2 and yet you are counting the weeks before you can return to them at home4 ,and all those tender episodes of a more fugitive sort1 how merrily you think them over now6 more merrily perhaps than you enacted them1 since you need not call to mind the little shabby accompaniments and false notes that may have marred them in reality4 ,your remoter future1 too1 is smiling enough for an honest man who believes in ,god and is not a snob in the things of the spirit4 ,you see in your mind's eye a cottage on some sunny hillside over-looking the sea2 near it1 from a signal-post that is a ship's mast1 the flags are flapping in the breeze2 your children are playing on the beach--except the eldest1 perhaps1 already a sailor4 ,there is a blessed simplicity about the sea1 with its vast inhumanity islanding and freeing the humanity of man4 #ab ,,privacy ,the secret of ,english mastery is self-mastery4 ,the ,englishman establishes a sort of satisfaction and equilibrium in his inner man1 and from that citadel of rightness he easily measures the value of everything that comes within his moral horizon4 ,in what may lie beyond he takes but a feeble interest4 ,enterprising enough when in a roving mood1 and fond of collecting outlandish objects and ideas1 he seldom allows his wanderings and discoveries to unhinge his home loyalties or ruffle his self-possession2 and he remains1 after all his adventures1 intellectually as indolent and secure as in the beginning4 ,as to speculative truth1 he instinctively halts short of it1 as it looms in the distance and threatens to cast a contemptuous and chilling shadow across his life4 ,he would be very severe to any who dreaded cold water and wouldn't learn to swim2 yet in the moral world he is himself subject to illusions of timidity4 ,he does not believe1 there1 in the overwhelming rewards of courage4 ,his chosen life is indeed beautiful--as the shy boy's might be--ill its finitude2 all the more beautiful and worth preserving because1 like his country1 it is an island in the sea4 ,his domestic thermometer and barometer have sufficed to guide him to the right hygiene4 ,hygiene does not require telescopes nor microscopes4 ,it is not concerned1 like medicine or psychology1 with the profound hidden workings of our bodies or minds1 complexities hardly less foreign to our discoursing selves than are the mysteries of the great outer world4 ,hygiene regards only the right regimen of man in his obvious environment1 judged by his conscious well-being4 ,if it goes afield at all1 it does so in the interests of privacy4 ,all it asks of life is that it should be comely1 spontaneous1 and unimpeded3 all it asks of the earth is that it should be fit for sport and for habitation4 ,men1 to be of the right hygienic sort1 must love the earth1 and must know how to range in it4 ,this the ,englishman knows2 and just as1 in spite of his insularity1 he loves this whole terraqueous globe simply and genuinely1 so the earth1 turned into mud by the vain stampings of so many garrulous and sickly nations1 would doubtless say3 ,let the ,englishman inhabit me1 and ,i shall be green again4 ,in matters of hygiene the ,englishman's maxims are definite and his practice refined4 ,he has discovered what he calls good form1 and is obstinately conservative about it1 not from inertia1 but in the interests of pure vitality4 ,experience has taught him the uses to which vitality can be put1 so as to preserve and refresh it4 ,he knows the right degree of exertion normally required to do things well--to walk or to talk1 for instance2 he does not saunter nor scramble1 he does not gesticulate nor scream4 ,in consequence1 perhaps1 on extraordinary occasions he fails at first to exert himself enough2 and his eloquence is not torrential nor inspired1 even at those rare moments when it ought to be so4 ,but when nothing presses1 he shows abundant energy1 without flurry or excess4 ,in manners and morals1 too1 he has found the right mean between anarchy and servitude1 and the wholesome measure of comfort4 ,what those who dislike him call his hypocrisy is but timeliness in his instincts1 and a certain modesty on their part in not intruding upon one another4 ,your prayers are not necessarily insincere because you pray only in church2 you are not concealing a passion if for a time you forget it and slough it off4 ,these alternations are phases of the inner man1 not masks put on in turn by some insidious and calculating knave4 ,all the ,englishman's attitudes and habits--his out-of-door life1 his clubs1 his conventicles1 his business--when they are spontaneous and truly ,british1 are for the sake of his inner man in its privacy4 ,other people1 unless the game calls for them1 are in the way1 and uninteresting4 ,his spirit is like ,wordsworth's skylark1 true to the kindred points of heaven and home2 and perhaps these points seem to him kindred only because they are both functions of himself4 ,home is the centre of his physical and moral comfort1 his headquarters in the war of life1 where lie his spiritual stores4 ,heaven is a realm of friendly inspiring breezes and setting suns1 enveloping his rambles and his perplexities4 ,the world to him is a theatre for the soliloquy of action4 ,there is a comfortable luxuriousness in all his attitudes4 ,he thinks the prize of life worth winning1 but not worth snatching4 ,if you snatch it1 as ,germans1 ,jews1 and ,americans seem inclined to do1 you abdicate the sovereignty of your inner man1 you miss delight1 dignity1 and peace2 and in that case the prize of life has escaped you4 ,as the ,englishman disdains to peer and is slow to speculate1 so he resents any meddling or intrusion into his own preserves4 ,how sedulously he plants out his garden1 however tiny1 from his neighbours and from the public road6 ,if his windows look unmistakably on the street1 at least he fills his window-boxes with the semblance of a hedge or a garden1 and scarcely allows the dubious light to filter through his blinds and lace curtains2 and the space between them1 in the most dingy tenement1 is blocked by an artificial plant4 ,he is quite willing not to be able to look out1 if only he can prevent other people from looking in4 ,if they did1 what would they see8 ,nothing shocking1 surely2 his attitude by his fireside is perfectly seemly4 ,he is not throwing anything at the family2 very likely they are not at home4 ,nor has he introduced any low-class person by the tradesman's entrance1 in whose company he might blush to be spied4 ,he is not in deshabille2 if he has changed any part of his street clothes it has not been from any inclination to be slovenly in private1 but on the contrary to vindicate his self-respect and domestic decorum4 ,he does not dress to be seen of men1 but of ,god4 ,his elegance is an expression of comfort1 and his comfort a consciousness of elegance4 ,the eyes of men disquiet him1 eminently presentable though he be1 and he thinks it rude of them to stare1 even in simple admiration4 ,it takes tact and patience in strangers--perhaps at first an ostentatious indifference--to reassure him and persuade him that he would be safe in liking them4 ,his frigid exterior is often a cuticle to protect his natural tenderness1 which he forces himself not to express1 lest it should seem misplaced or clumsy4 ,there is a masculine sort of tenderness which is not fondness1 but craving and premonition of things untried2 and the young ,englishman is full of it4 ,his heart is quiet and full2 he has not pumped it dry1 like ill-bred children1 in tantrums and effusive fancies4 ,on the other hand1 passions are atrophied if their expression is long suppressed1 and we soon have nothing to say if we never say anything4 ,as he grows old the ,englishman may come to suspect1 not without reason1 that he might not reward too close a perusal4 ,his social bristles will then protect his intellectual weakness1 and he will puff himself out to disguise his vacuity4 ,it is intelligible that a man of deep but inarticulate character should feel more at ease in the fields and woods1 at sea or in remote enterprises1 than in the press of men4 ,in the world he is obliged to maintain stiffly principles which he would prefer should be taken for granted4 ,therefore when he sits in silence behind his window curtains1 with his newspaper1 his wife1 or his dog1 his monumental passivity is not a real indolence4 ,he is busily reinforcing his character1 ruffled by the day's contact with hostile or indifferent things1 and he is gathering new strength for the fray4 ,after the concessions imposed upon him by necessity or courtesy1 he is recovering his natural tone4 ,to-morrow he will issue forth fresh and confident1 and exactly the same as he was yesterday4 ,his character is like his climate1 gentle and passing readily from dull to glorious1 and back again2 variable on the surface1 yet perpetually self-restored and invincibly the same4 #ab ,,the ,,lion ,,and ,,the ,,unicorn ,every one can see why the ,lion should be a symbol for the ,british nation4 ,this noble animal loves dignified repose4 ,he haunts by preference solitary glades and pastoral landscapes4 ,his movements are slow1 he yawns a good deal2 he has small squinting eyes high up in his head1 a long displeased nose1 and a prodigious maw4 ,he apparently has some difficulty in making things out at a distance1 as if he had forgotten his spectacles 7for he is getting to be an elderly lion now71 but he snaps at the flies when they bother him too much4 ,on the whole1 he is a tame lion2 he has a cage called the ,constitution1 and a whole parliament of keepers with high wages and a cockney accent2 and he submits to all the rules they make for him1 growling only when he is short of raw beef4 ,the younger members of the nobility and gentry may ride on his back1 and he obligingly lets his tail hang out of the bars1 so that the little ,americans and the little ,irishmen and the little ,bolshevists1 when they come to jeer at him1 may twist it4 ,yet when the old fellow goes for a walk1 how all the domestic and foreign poultry scamper6 ,they know he can spring2 his strength when aroused proves altogether surprising and unaccountable1 he never seems to mind a blow1 and his courage is terrible4 ,the cattle1 seeing there is no safety in flight1 herd together when he appears on the horizon1 and try to look unconscious2 the hyenas go to snarl at a distance2 the eagles and the serpents aver afterwards that they were asleep4 ,even the insects that buzz about his ears1 and the very vermin in his skin1 know him for the king of beasts4 ,but why should the other supporter of the ,british arms be the ,unicorn8 ,what are the mystic implications of having a single horn8 ,this can hardly be the monster spoken of in ,scripture1 into the reason for whose existence1 whether he be the rhinoceros of natural history or a slip of an inspired pen1 it would be blasphemy to inquire4 ,this ,unicorn is a creature of mediaeval fancy1 a horse rampant argent1 only with something queer about his head1 as if a croquet-stake had been driven into it1 or he wore a very high and attenuated fool's cap4 ,it would be far-fetched to see in this ornament any allusion to deceived husbands1 as if in ,england the alleged injury never seemed worth two horns1 or divorce and damages soon removed one of them4 ,more plausible is the view that1 as the ,lion obviously expresses the ,british character1 so the ,unicorn somewhat more subtly expresses the ,british intellect4 ,whereas most truths have two faces1 and at least half of any solid fact escapes any single view of it1 the ,english mind is monocular2 the odd and the singular have a special charm for it4 ,this love of the particular and the original leads the ,englishman far afield in the search for it2 he collects curios1 and taking all the nation together1 there is perhaps nothing that some ,englishman has not seen1 thought1 or known2 but who sees things as a whole1 or anything in its right place8 ,he inevitably rides some hobby4 ,he travels through the wide world with one eye shut1 hops all over it on one leg1 and plays all his scales with one finger4 ,there is fervour1 there is accuracy1 there is kindness in his gaze1 but there is no comprehension4 ,he will defend the silliest opinion with a mint of learning1 and espouse the worst of causes on the highest principles4 ,it is notorious elsewhere that the world is round1 that nature has bulk1 and three if not four dimensions2 it is a truism that things cannot be seen as a whole except in imagination4 ,but imagination1 if he has it1 the ,englishman is too scrupulous to trust2 he observes the shapes and the colours of things intently1 and behold1 they are quite flat1 and he challenges you to show why1 when every visible part of everything is flat1 anything should be supposed to be round4 ,he is a keen reformer1 and certainly the world would be much simpler1 right opinion would be much lighter and wrong opinion much wronger1 if things had no third and no fourth dimension4 ,ah1 why did those early phrenologists1 true and typical ,englishmen as they were1 denounce the innocent midwife who by a little timely pressure on the infant skull compressed1 as they said1 the oval of genius into the flatness of boobyism4 ,let us not be cowed by a malicious epithet4 ,what some people choose to call boobyism and flatness may be the simplest1 the most ,british1 the most scientific philosophy4 ,your true booby may be only he who1 having perforce but a flat view of a flat world1 prates of genius and rotundity4 ,blessed are they whose eye is single4 ,only when very drunk do we acknowledge our double optics2 when sober we endeavour to correct and ignore this visual duplicity and to see as respectably as if we had only one eye4 ,the ,unicorn might well say the same thing of two-horned beasts4 ,such double and crooked weapons are wasteful and absurd4 ,you can use only one horn effectively even if you have two1 but in a sidelong and cross-eyed fashion2 else your prey simply nestles between1 where eye cannot see it nor horn probe it4 ,a single straight horn1 on the contrary1 is like a lancet2 it pierces to the heart of the enemy by a sure frontal attack3 nothing like it for pricking a bubble1 or pointing to a fact and scathingly asking the ,government if they are aware of it4 ,in music likewise every pure melody passes from single note to note1 as do the sweet songs of nature4 ,away with your demoniac orchestras1 and your mad pianist1 tossing his mane1 and banging with his ten fingers and his two feet at once ,i ,as to walking on two feet1 that also is mere wobbling and1 as ,schopenhauer observed1 a fall perpetually arrested4 ,it is an unstable compromise between going on all fours1 if you want to be safe1 and standing on one leg1 like the exquisite flamingo1 if you aspire to be graceful and spiritually sensitive4 ,there is really no biped in nature except ridiculous man1 as if the prancing ,unicorn had succeeded in always being rampant2 your feathered creatures are bipeds only on occasion and in their off moments2 essentially they are winged beings1 and their legs serve only to prop them when at rest1 like the foot-piece of a motor-cycle which you let down when it stops4 ,the ,lion is an actual beast1 the ,unicorn a chimera2 and is not ,england in fact always buoyed up on one side by some chimera1 as on the other by a sense for fact8 ,illusions are mighty1 and must be reckoned with in this world2 but it is not necessary to share them or even to understand them from within1 because being illusions they do not prophesy the probable consequences of their existence2 they are irrelevant in aspect to what they involve in effect4 ,the dove of peace brings new wars1 the religion of love instigates crusades and lights faggots1 metaphysical idealism in practice is the worship of ,mammon1 government by the people establishes the boss1 free trade creates monopolies1 fondness smothers its pet1 assurance precipitates disaster1 fury ends in smoke and in shaking hands4 ,the shaggy ,lion is dimly aware of all this2 he is ponderous and taciturn by an instinctive philosophy4 ,why should he be troubled about the dreams of the ,unicorn1 more than about those of the nightingale or the spider8 ,he can roughly discount these creatures' habits1 in so far as they touch him at all1 without deciphering their fantastic minds4 ,that makes the strength of ,england in the world1 the leonine fortitude that helps her1 through a thousand stupidities and blunders1 always to pull through4 ,but ,england is also1 more than any other country1 the land of poetry and of the inner man4 ,her sunlight and mists1 her fields1 cliffs1 and moors are full of aerial enchantment2 it is a land of tenderness and dreams4 ,the whole nation hugs its hallowed shams2 there is a real happiness1 a sense of safety1 in agreeing not to acknowledge the obvious2 there is a universal conspiracy of respect for the non-existent4 ,english religion1 ,english philosophy1 ,english law1 ,english domesticity could not get on without this tendency to feign4 ,and see how admissible1 how almost natural this chimera is4 ,a milk-white pony1 elegantly ,arabian1 with a mane like sea-foam1 and a tail like a little silvery comet1 sensitive nostrils1 eyes alight with recognition1 a steed such as ,phoebus might well water at those springs that lie in the chalices of flowers1 a symbol at once of impetuosity and obedience1 a heraldic image for the daintiness of ,ariel and the purity of ,galahad4 ,if somehow we suspect that the poetical creature is light-witted1 the stem ,lion opposite finds him nevertheless a sprightly and tender companion1 as ,king ,lear did his exquisite ,fool4 ,such a ,pegasus cannot be a normal horse2 he was hatched in a cloud1 and at his birth some inexorable ironic deity drove a croquet-stake into his pate1 and set an attenuated crown1 very like a fool's cap1 between his startled ears4 #ac ,,dons ,dons are picturesque figures4 ,their fussy ways and their oddities1 personal and intellectual1 are as becoming to them as black feathers to the blackbird4 ,their minds are all gaunt pinnacles1 closed gates1 and little hidden gardens4 ,a mediaeval tradition survives in their notion of learning and in their manner of life2 they are monks flown from the dovecot1 scholastics carrying their punctilious habits into the family circle4 ,in the grander ones there may be some assimilation to a prelate1 a country gentleman1 or a party leader2 but the rank and file are modest1 industrious pedagogues1 sticklers for routine1 with a squinting knowledge of old books and of young men4 ,their politics are narrow and their religion dubious4 ,there was always something slippery in the orthodoxy of scholastics1 even in the ,middle ,ages2 they are so eager to define1 to correct1 and to trace back everything1 that they tend to cut the cloth on their own bias1 and to make some crotchet of theirs the fulcrum of the universe4 ,the thoughts of these men are like the ,sibylline leaves1 profound but lost4 ,i should not call them pedants1 because what they pursue and insist on in little things is the shadow of something great2 trifles1 as ,michael ,angelo said1 make perfection1 and perfection is no trifle4 ,yet dry learning and much chewing of the cud take the place amongst them of the two ways men have of really understanding the world--science1 which explores it1 and sound wit1 which estimates humanly the value of science and of everything else4 ,the function of dons is to expound a few classic documents1 and to hand down as large and as pleasant a store as possible of academic habits1 maxims1 and anecdotes4 ,they peruse with distrust the new books published on the subject of their teaching2 they refer to them sometimes sarcastically1 but their teaching remains the same4 ,their conversation with outsiders is painfully amiable for a while2 lassitude soon puts the damper on it1 unless they can lapse into the academic question of the day1 or take up the circle of their good old stories4 ,their originality runs to interpreting some old text afresh1 wearing some odd garment1 or frequenting in the holidays some unfrequented spot4 ,when they are bachelors1 as properly they should be1 their pupils are their chief link with the world of affection1 with mischievous and merry things2 and in exchange for this whiff of life1 which they receive with each yearly invasion of flowering youth1 like the fresh scent of hay every summer from the meadows1 they furnish those empty minds with some humorous memories1 and some shreds of knowledge4 ,it does not matter very much whether what a don says is right or wrong1 provided it is quotable2 nobody considers his opinions for the matter they convey2 the point is that by hearing them the pupils and the public may discover what opinions1 and on what subjects1 it is possible for mortals to devise4 ,their maxims are like those of the early ,greek philosophers1 a proper introduction to the good society of the intellectual world4 ,so are the general systems to which the dons may be addicted1 probably some revision of ,christian theology1 of ,platonic mysticism1 or of ,german philosophy4 ,such foreign doctrines do very well for the dons of successive epochs1 native ,british philosophy not being fitted to edify the minds of the young3 those vaster constructions appeal more to the imagination1 and their very artificiality and ticklish architecture1 like that of a house of cards1 are part of their function1 calling for paradoxical faith and--what youth loves quite as much--for captious and sophistical argument4 ,they lie in the fourth dimension of human belief1 amongst the epicycles which ingenious error describes about the unknown orbit of truth2 for the truth is not itself luminous1 as wit is2 the truth travels silently in the night and requires to be caught by the searchlight of wit to become visible4 ,meantime the mind plays innocently with its own phosphorescence1 which is what we call culture and what dons are created to keep alive4 ,wit the dons often have1 of an oblique kind1 in the midst of their much-indulged prejudices and foibles2 and what with glints of wit and scraps of learning1 the soul is not sent away empty from their door3 better fed and healthier1 indeed1 for these rich crumbs from the banquet of antiquity1 when thought was fresh1 than if it had been reared on a stuffy diet of useful knowledge1 or on some single dogmatic system1 to which life-slavery is attached4 ,poor1 brusque1 comic1 venerable dons6 ,you watched over us tenderly once1 whilst you blew your long noses at us and scolded2 then we thought only of the roses in your garden1 of your succulent dinners1 or perhaps of your daughters2 but now we understand that you had hearts yourselves1 that you were song-birds grown old in your cages1 having preferred fidelity to adventure4 ,we catch again the sweet inflection of your cracked notes1 and we bless you4 ,you have washed your hands among the innocent2 you have loved the beauty of the ,lord's house4 #ad ,,apology ,,for ,,snobs ,british satirists are very scornful of snobbery2 they seem oppressed by the thought that wealth1 rank1 and finery are hideously inane and that they are hideously powerful4 ,are these moralists really overcome by a sense of the vanity of human wishes8 ,it would hardly seem so2 for they often breathe a sentimental adoration for romantic love or philanthropy or adventure or mystic piety or good cheer or ruthless will--all of them passions as little likely as any snobbish impulse to arise without some illusion or to end without some disappointment4 ,why this exclusive hostility to the vanities dear to the snob8 ,have birth1 money1 and fashion no value whatever8 ,do they not dazzle the innocent and unsophisticated with a distant image of happiness8 ,are they not actually1 when enjoyed1 very comforting and delightful things in their way8 ,what else than this sensitiveness to better social example--which we may call snobbery if we please--lends ,english life in particular its most characteristic excellences--order without constraint1 leisure without apathy1 seclusion without solitude1 good manners without punctilio1 emulation without intrigue1 splendour without hollowness8 ,why such bitterness about the harmless absurdities that may fringe this national discipline8 ,are these moralists in fact only envious and sulky8 ,is it sour grapes8 ,it would sometimes seem as if1 in ,england1 the less representative a man was the more eagerly he took to literature1 and thought that by hating his fellow-men and despising their prevalent feelings he rendered himself eminently fit to be their guide and redeemer4 ,in fact1 there is a philosophical principle implied in snobbery1 a principle which is certainly false if made absolute1 but which fairly expresses the moral relations of things in a certain perspective4 ,if we all really stood on different steps in a single ladder of progress1 then to admire and imitate those above us and to identify ourselves with them by hook or by crook would be simply to accelerate our natural development1 to expand into our higher self1 and to avoid fatal abysses to the right and to the left of the path marked out for us by our innate vocation4 ,life would then be like the simple game which children call ,follow the ,leader2 and this scrupulous discipleship would be perfect freedom1 since the soul of our leader and our own soul that chooses him would be the same4 ,this principle is precisely that of the transcendental philosophy where it maintains that there is but one spirit in all men1 and one logical moral evolution for the world4 ,in fact1 it is the ,germans rather than the ,english that are solemn1 convinced1 and universal snobs4 ,if they do not seem so much snobs in particular1 it is because they are snobs berhaupt4 ,it is not only from the nobility that grateful dews descend on their sensitive hearts1 as upon open flowers2 they yearn also after the professors and the artists1 and assiduously dress their domestic mind1 so far as the cloth will go1 in the latest intellectual fashion4 ,their respect for what holds the official stage1 and holds it for the moment1 is beautiful in its completeness4 ,they can change their front without changing their formation4 ,and the occasional pricks and heartburnings of snobbery are entirely drowned1 in their case1 in its voluminous vicarious joys4 ,on the whole1 however1 snobbish sentiment and transcendental philosophy do not express the facts of nature4 ,men and nations do not really march in single file1 as if they were being shepherded into some ,noah's ,ark4 ,they have perhaps a common root and similar beginnings1 but they branch out at every step into forms of life between which there is no further interchange of sap1 and no common destiny4 ,their several fruits become incommensurable in beauty and in value1 like the poetry of different languages1 and more disparate the more each is perfected after its kind4 ,the whale is not a first sketch for the butterfly1 nor its culmination2 the mind of an ox is not a fuller expression of that of a rabbit4 ,the poet does not evolve into the general1 nor vice versa2 nor does a man1 in growing further1 become a woman1 superior as she may be in her own way4 ,that is why snobbery is really a vice3 it tempts us to neglect and despise our proper virtues in aping those of other people4 ,if an angel appeared to me displaying his iridescent wings and treble voice and heart fluttering with eternal love1 ,i should say1 ,certainly1 ,i congratulate you1 but ,i do not wish to resemble you4 ,snobbery haunts those who are not reconciled with themselves2 evolution is the hope of the immature4 ,you cannot be everything4 ,why not be what you are8 ,this contentment with oneself1 in its rational mixture of pride with humility1 and its infinite indifference to possibilities which to us are impossible1 is well understood in the great ,east--which is a moral as well as a geographical climate4 ,there every one feels that circumstances have not made and cannot unmake the soul4 ,variations of fortune do not move a man from his inborn centre of gravity4 ,whatever happens and whatever people say he puts up with as he would with bad weather4 ,he lets them thunder and rage1 and continues to sit on his heels in his corner1 in the shade or in the sun according to the season1 munching his crust of bread1 meditating on heaven and earth1 and publishing on occasion to the passers-by1 or to the wilderness1 the revelations he receives from the spirit2 and if these are particularly vivid1 he will not hesitate to cry1 ,so saith the ,lord1 with an equal dignity or assurance whether he be sage1 king1 or beggar4 ,such firmness and independence of character are admirable1 so long as the expression of them remains merely poetical or moral4 ,it is enough if confessions are sincere1 and aspirations true to the heart that utters them4 ,in the heights and the depths we are all solitary1 and we are deceived if we think otherwise1 even when people say they agree with us1 or form a sect under our name4 ,as our radical bodily functions are incorrigibly selfish and persistent1 so our ultimate ideals1 if they are sincere1 must for ever deviate from those of others and find their zenith in a different star4 ,the moral world is round like the heavens1 and the directions which life can take are infinitely divergent and unreturning4 ,but in the world of circumstances1 in matters of politics and business1 information1 and thrift1 civilized men move together3 their interests1 if not identical1 are parallel1 and their very conflicts and rivalries arise out of this contact and relevance in their aims4 ,eminence in this worldly sphere is unmistakable4 ,one fortune in money can be measured against another and may be increased to equal it2 and in government1 fashion1 and notoriety some people are unmistakably at the top of the tree1 and doubtless deserve to be there1 having found the right method of climbing4 ,it is only natural that those who wish to climb too should study and imitate them4 ,awe and respect for such persons is an honest expression of social idealism3 it is an admiration mixed with curiosity and with the desire for propinquity1 because their achievements are in our own line of business and a prospective partnership is not out of the question4 ,their life is the ideal of ours4 ,yet all such conventional values and instrumentalities1 in which we are perhaps absorbed1 in the end say nothing to the heart4 ,if by chance1 in the shifts of this world1 we pop up near the people whom we distantly admired1 and reach the crest of the wave in their company1 we discover how great an illusion it was that it would be good or possible for us to resemble them2 conventional friends1 we have no instincts1 joys1 or memories in common4 ,it is1 perhaps1 from quite another age or race1 from an utterly different setting of worldly tasks and ambitions1 that some hint of true friendship and understanding reaches us in our hermitage2 and even this hint is probably a hollow reverberation of our own soliloquy4 ,in this slippery competitive earth snobbery is not unreasonable2 but in heaven and hell there are no snobs4 ,there every despised demon hugs his favourite vice for ever1 and even the smallest of the stars shines with a singular glory4 #ae ,,the ,,higher ,,snobbery ,to call an attitude snobbish1 when the great and good recommend it as the only right attitude1 would be to condemn it without trial2 yet ,i do not know how else to name the sentiment that happiness of one sort is better than happiness of another sort1 and that perfection in one animal is more admirable than perfection in another4 ,i wish there was a word for this arrangement of excellences in higher and lower classes which did not imply approval or disapproval of such an arrangement4 ,but language is terribly moralistic1 and ,i do not blame the logicians for wishing to invent another which shall convey nothing to the mind with which it has any previous acquaintance4 ,the ,psyche1 who is the mother of language as well as of intellect1 feels things to be good or evil before she notices what other qualities they may have3 and she never gets much beyond the first dichotomy of her feminine logic3 wretch and darling1 nasty and nice4 ,this is perhaps the true reason why ,plato1 who in some respects had a feminine mind and whose metaphysics follows the lines of language1 tells us in one place that the good is the highest of the ,ideas1 and the source of both essence and existence4 ,good and bad are certainly the first qualities fixed by words3 so that to call a man a snob1 for instance1 is a very vague description but a very clear insult4 ,suppose we found on examination that the person in question had a retiring and discriminating disposition1 that he shunned the unwashed1 that he resembled persons of distinction1 and recognized the superiority of those who were really his superiors2 we should conclude without hesitation that he was no snob at all1 but a respectable1 right-minded person4 ,if he had been really a snob1 he would have looked up stupidly to what has no true sublimity1 like birth without money1 would have imitated what was not becoming to his station1 and would have shunned company1 such as our own1 which though perhaps not the most fashionable is undoubtedly the best4 ,as ,i can see no scientific difference between this snob and that no-snob1 ,i am constrained in my own thoughts to class them together2 but in order to remind myself that the same principle may be approved in one case and condemned in the other1 ,i call snobbery1 when people approve of it1 the higher snobbery4 ,an interesting advocate of the higher snobbery is ,nietzsche4 ,although his admiring eye is fixed on the superman1 who is to supersede our common or garden humanity1 the unique excellence of that future being does not seem to lie merely in that he is future1 or is destined to be dominant in his day3 after all1 everything was once future1 everything was once the coming thing1 and destined to prevail in its day4 ,it is only human to admire and copy the fashion of to-day1 whether in clothes1 or politics1 or literature1 or speculation2 but ,i have not yet heard of any snob so far ahead of his times as to love the fashions of doomsday4 ,the worship of evolution1 which counts for so much with many higher snobs1 does not seem essential in ,nietzsche4 ,the superman no doubt is coming1 but he is not coming to stay1 since the world repeats its evolution in perpetual cycles2 and whilst he will give its highest expression to the love of power1 it does not appear that he will care very much about controlling external things1 or will be able to control them4 ,his superiority is to be intrinsic1 and chiefly composed of freedom4 ,it was freedom1 ,i think1 that ,nietzsche sighed for in his heart1 whilst in his cavalierly speculations he talked of power4 ,at least1 unless by power he meant power to be oneself1 the notion that all nature was animated by the lust of power would lose its plausibility2 the ambition which we may poetically attribute to all animals is rather to appropriate such things as serve their use1 perfection1 or fancy1 and to leave all else alone4 ,there are indications that the superman was to be a mystic and a wanderer1 like a god visiting the earth1 and that what spell he exercised was to flow from him almost unawares1 whilst he mused about himself and about higher things4 ,so little was his power to involve subjection to what he worked upon 7which is the counterpart of all material power7 that he was to disregard the interests of others in a ,spartan mood2 he was to ride ruthlessly through this nether world1 half a poet1 half a scourge1 with his breast uncovered to every treacherous shaft1 and his head high in the air4 ,now ,i will not say whether such a romantic and ,byronic life is worth living in itself2 there may be creatures whose only happiness is to be like that1 although ,i suspect that ,byron and ,nietzsche1 ,lohengrin and ,zarathustra1 had not mastered the art of ,socrates1 and did not know what they wanted4 ,in any case1 such a ,dionysiac career would be good only as the humblest human existence may be so2 its excellence would lie in its harmony with the nature of him who follows it1 not in its bombast1 inflation1 or superhumanity4 ,nietzsche was far from ungenerous or unsympathetic towards the people4 ,he wished them 7somewhat contemptuously7 to be happy1 whilst he and his superman remained poetically wretched2 he even said sometimes that in their own sphere they might be perfect1 and added--with that sincerity which1 in him1 redeems so many follies--that nothing could be better than such perfection4 ,but if this admission is to be taken seriously1 the superman would be no better than the good slave4 ,the whole principle of the higher snobbery would be abandoned1 and ,nietzsche in the end would only lead us back to ,epictetus4 ,no1 the higher snob will reply1 the perfect superman may be no better than the perfect slave1 but he is higher4 ,what does this word mean8 ,for the zealous evolutionist it seems to mean later1 more complicated1 requiring a longer incubation and a more special environment4 ,therefore what is higher is more expensive1 and has a more precarious existence than what is lower2 so the lady is higher than the woman1 fine art is higher than useful art1 and the height of the fashion in fine art is the highest point in it4 ,the higher is the more inclusive1 requiring everything else to produce it1 and itself producing nothing1 or something higher still4 ,of course the higher is not merely the better2 because the standard of excellence itself changes as we proceed1 and according to the standard of the lower morality the higher state which abolishes it will be worse4 ,an orchid may not be more beautiful than a lily1 but it is higher2 philosophy may not be truer than science1 nor true at all1 but it is higher1 because so much more comprehensive2 faith may not be more trustworthy than reason1 but it is higher2 insatiable will may not be more beneficent than contentment in oneself and respect for others1 but it is higher2 war is higher1 though more painful1 than peace2 perpetual motion is not more reasonable than movement towards an end1 and stilts are not more convenient than shoes1 but they are higher4 ,in everything the higher1 when not the better1 means what folly or vanity cannot bear to abandon4 ,higher is a word by which we defend the indefensible2 it is a declaration of impenitence on the part of unreason1 a cry to create prejudice in favour of all that tyrannizes over mankind4 ,it is the watchword of the higher snob4 ,the first to use it was ,satan1 when he declared that he was not satisfied to be anything but the highest2 whereas the highest thinks it no derogation to take the form of the lowest since the lowest1 too1 has its proper perfection1 and there is nothing better than that4 #af ,,distinction ,,in ,,englishmen ,england has been rich in poets1 in novelists1 in inventors1 in philosophers making new beginnings1 in intrepid travellers1 in learned men whose researches are a hobby and almost a secret4 ,the land was once rich in saints1 and is still rich in enthusiasts4 ,but the official leaders of the ,english people1 the kings1 prelates1 professors1 and politicians1 have usually been secondary men2 and even they have been far more distinguished in their private capacity than in their official action and mind4 ,english genius is anti-professional2 its affinities are with amateurs1 and there is something of the amateur in the best ,english artists1 actors1 and generals4 ,delicacy of conscience1 mental haze1 care not to outrun the impulse of the soul1 hold the ,englishman back midway in his achievements2 there is in him a vague respect for the unknown1 a tacit diffidence in his own powers1 which dissuade him from venturing on the greatest things or from carrying them out in a comprehensive manner4 ,the truth is the ,british do not wish to be well led4 ,they are all individualistic and aristocratic at heart1 and want no leaders in ultimate things2 the inner man must be his own guide4 ,if they had to live under the shadow of a splendid monarch1 or a masterful statesman1 or an authoritative religion1 or a deified state they would not feel free4 ,they wish to peck at their institutions1 and tolerate only such institutions as they can peck at4 ,a certain ineptitude thus comes to be amongst them an aptitude for office3 it keeps the official from acquiring too great an ascendancy4 ,there is a sort of ostracism by anticipation1 to prevent men who are too good from coming forward and upsetting the balance of ,british liberties2 very like the vacuum which is created in ,america around distinction1 and which keeps the national character there so true to type1 so much on one lively level4 ,but in ,england distinction exists1 because it escapes into privacy4 ,it is reserved for his ,grace in his library and her ,ladyship at her tea-table2 it fills the nursery with lisping sweetness and intrepid singleness of will2 it dwells with the poets in their solitary rambles and midnight questionings2 it bends with the scholar over immortal texts2 it is shut off from the profane by the high barriers of school and college and hunting-field1 by the sanctity and silence of dubs1 by the unspoken secrets of church and home4 ,the greatest distinction of ,english people1 however1 is one which1 whilst quite personal and private in its scope1 is widely diffused and strikingly characteristic of the better part of the nation2 ,i mean1 distinction in the way of living4 ,the ,englishman does in a distinguished way the simple things that other men might slur over as unimportant or essentially gross or irremediable2 he is distinguished--he is disciplined1 skilful1 and calm--in eating1 in sport1 in public gatherings1 in hardship1 in danger1 in extremities4 ,it is in physical and rudimentary behaviour that the ,englishman is an artist2 he is the ideal sailor1 the ideal explorer1 the ideal comrade in a tight place2 he knows how to be clean without fussiness1 well-dressed without show1 and pleasure-loving without loudness4 ,this is why1 although he is the most disliked of men the world over 7except where people need some one they can trust7 he is also the most imitated4 ,what ferocious ,anglophobe1 whether a white man or a black man1 is not immensely flattered if you pretend to have mistaken him for an ,englishman8 ,after all1 this imitation of the physical distinction of ,englishmen is not absurd2 here is something that can be imitated3 it is really the easiest way of doing easy things1 which only bad education and bad habits have made difficult for most people4 ,there is nothing impossible in adopting afternoon tea1 football1 and boy scouts2 what is impossible1 and if possible very foolish1 is to adopt ,english religion1 philosophy1 or political institutions4 ,but why should any one wish to adopt them8 ,they have their merits1 of course1 and their propriety at home2 but they are blind compromises1 and it is not in their principles that the ,english are distinguished1 but only in their practice4 ,their accents are more choice than their words1 and their words more choice than their ideas4 ,this1 which might sound like a gibe1 is to my mind a ground for great hope and for some envy4 ,refinement1 like charity1 should begin at home4 ,first the body ought to be made fit and decent1 then speech and manners1 and habits justly combining personal initiative with the power of co-operating with others2 and then1 as this healthy life extends1 the world will begin to open out to the mind in the right perspectives3 not at first1 perhaps never1 in its total truth and its real proportions1 but with an ever-enlarging appreciation of what1 for us1 it can contain4 ,the mind of the ,englishman1 starting in this proud and--humble and profound way from the inner man1 pierces very often1 in single directions1 to the limit of human faculty2 and it seems to me to add to his humanity1 without injury to his speculation1 that he instinctively withdraws again into himself1 as he might return home to marry and settle after tempting fortune at the antipodes4 ,his curious knowledge and his personal opinions then become1 as it were1 mementos of his distant adventures2 but his sterling worth lies in himself4 ,he is at his best when free impulse or familiar habit takes an unquestioned lead1 and when the mind1 not being expected to intervene1 beats in easy unison with the scene and the occasion1 like a rider at home in the saddle and one with his galloping horse4 ,then grace returns to him1 so angular often in his forced acts and his express tenets2 the smile comes unaffectedly1 and the blithe quick words flow as they should2 arm is linked spontaneously in arm1 laughter points the bull's-eye of truth1 the whole world and its mysteries1 not being pressed1 become amiable1 and the soul shines happy1 and beautiful1 and absolute mistress in her comely house4 ,nothing in him then is gross2 all is harmonized1 all is touched with natural life4 ,his simplicity becomes wholeness1 and he no longer seems dull in any direction1 but in all things sound1 sensitive1 tender1 watchful1 and brave4 #ag ,,friendships ,friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with a part of another2 people are friends in spots4 ,friendship sometimes rests on sharing early memories1 as do brothers and schoolfellows1 who often1 but for that now affectionate familiarity with the same old days1 would dislike and irritate one another extremely4 ,sometimes it hangs on passing pleasures and amusements1 or on special pursuits2 sometimes on mere convenience and comparative lack of friction in living together4 ,one's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human4 ,but there are youthful friendships of quite another quality1 which ,i seem to have discovered flourishing more often and more frankly in ,england than in other countries2 brief echoes1 as it were1 of that love of comrades so much celebrated in antiquity4 ,i do not refer to the friendship of virtue mentioned by ,aristotle1 which means1 ,i suppose1 community in allegiance or in ideals4 ,it may come to that in the end1 considered externally2 but community in allegiance or in ideals1 if genuine1 expresses a common disposition1 and its roots are deeper and more physical than itself4 ,the friendship ,i have in mind is a sense of this initial harmony between two natures1 a union of one whole man with another whole man1 a sympathy between the centres of their being1 radiating from those centres on occasion in unanimous thoughts1 but not essentially needing to radiate4 ,trust here is inwardly grounded2 likes and dislikes run together without harness1 like the steeds of ,aurora2 you may take agreement for granted without words2 affection is generously independent of all tests or external bonds2 it can even bear not to be mutual1 not to be recognized2 and in any case it shrinks from the blatancy of open vows4 ,in such friendships there is a touch of passion and of shyness2 an understanding which does not need to become explicit or complete4 ,there is wine in the cup2 it is not to be spilled nor gulped down unrelished1 but to be sipped slowly1 soberly1 in the long summer evening1 with the window open to the college garden1 and the mind full of all that is sweetest to the mind4 ,now there is a mystery here--though it need be no mystery--which some people find strange and distressing and would like to hush up4 ,this profound physical sympathy may sometimes1 for a moment1 spread to the senses2 that is one of its possible radiations1 though fugitive2 and there is a fashionable psychology at hand to explain all friendship1 for that reason1 as an aberration of sex4 ,of course it is such in some people1 and in many people it may seem to be such at rare moments2 but it would be a plain abuse of language to call a mother's love for her children sexual1 even when they are boys1 although certainly she could not have that love1 nor those children1 if she had no sex4 ,perhaps if we had no sex we should be incapable of tenderness of any sort2 but this fact does not make all forms of affection similar in quality nor in tendency4 ,the love of friends is not1 like the love of woman1 a lyrical prologue to nest--building4 ,engaging1 no doubt1 the same radical instincts1 in a different environment and at another phase of their development1 it turns them1 whilst still plastic1 in other directions4 ,human nature is still plastic1 especially in the region of emotion1 as is proved by the ever-changing forms of religion and art2 and it is not a question of right and wrong1 nor even1 except in extreme cases1 of health and disease1 but only a question of alternative development1 whether the human capacity to love is absorbed in the family cycle1 or extends to individual friendships1 or to communion with nature or with ,god4 ,the love of friends in youth1 in the cases where it is love rather than friendship1 has a mystical tendency4 ,in character1 though seldom in intensity1 it resembles the dart which1 in an ecstatic vision1 pierced the heart of ,saint ,theresa1 bursting the normal integument by which the blood is kept coursing through generation after generation1 in the closed channel of human existence and human slavery4 ,love then escapes from that round2 it is1 in one sense1 wasted and sterilized2 but in being diverted from its earthly labours it suffuses the whole universe with light2 it casts its glowing colours on the sunset1 upon the altar1 upon the past1 upon the truth4 ,the anguished futility of love corrects its own selfishness1 its own illusion2 gradually the whole world becomes beautiful in its inhuman immensity2 our very defeats are transfigured1 and we see that it was good for us to have gone up into that mountain4 ,that such mystic emotions1 whether in religion or in friendship1 are erotic was well known before the day's of ,freud4 ,they have always expressed themselves in erotic language4 ,and why should they not be erotic8 ,sexual passion is itself an incident in the life of the ,psyche1 a transitive phase in the great cycle by which life on earth is kept going4 ,it grows insensibly out of bodily self-love1 childish play1 and love of sensation2 it merges in the end1 after its midsummer night's dream1 into parental and kingly purposes4 ,how casual1 how comic1 the purely erotic impulse is1 and how lightly nature plays with it1 may be seen in the passion of jealousy4 ,jealousy is inseparable from sexual love1 and yet jealousy is not itself erotic either in quality or in effect1 since it poisons pleasure1 turns sympathy into suspicion1 love into hate1 all in the interests of proprietorship4 ,why should we be jealous1 if we were simply merry8 ,nature weaves with a wide loom1 and crosses the threads2 and erotic passion may be as easily provoked peripherally by deeper impulses as be itself the root of other propensities4 ,lovers sometimes pretend at first to be only friends1 and friends have sometimes fancied1 at first blush1 that they were lovers2 it is as easy for one habit or sentiment as for the other to prove the radical one1 and to prevail in the end4 ,as for ,englishmen1 the last thing they would do would be to disguise some base prompting in high-flown language2 they would call a spade a spade1 if there were occasion4 ,they are shy of words1 as of all manifestations2 and this very shyness1 if it proves that there is at bottom a vital instinct concerned1 also proves that it is not intrinsically more erotic than social1 nor more social than intellectual4 ,it is each of these things potentially1 for such faculties are not divided in nature as they are in language2 it may turn into any one of them if accident leads it that way2 but it reverts from every casual expression to its central seat1 which is the felt harmony of life with life1 and of life with nature1 with everything that in the pulses of this world beats our own measure1 and swells the music of our thoughts4 #ah ,,dickens ,if ,christendom should lose everything that is now in the melting-pot1 human life would still remain amiable and quite adequately human4 ,i draw this comforting assurance from the pages of ,dickens4 ,who could not be happy in his world8 ,yet there is nothing essential to it which the most destructive revolution would be able to destroy4 ,people would still be as different1 as absurd1 and as charming as are his characters2 the springs of kindness and folly in their lives would not be dried up4 ,indeed1 there is much in ,dickens which communism1 if it came1 would only emphasize and render universal4 ,those schools1 those poorhouses1 those prisons1 with those surviving shreds of family life in them1 show us what in the coming age 7with some sanitary improvements7 would be the nursery and home of everybody4 ,everybody would be a waif1 like ,oliver ,twist1 like ,smike1 like ,pip1 and like ,david ,copperfield2 and amongst the agents and underlings of social government1 to whom all these waifs would be entrusted1 there would surely be a goodly sprinkling of ,pecksniffs1 ,squeers's1 and ,fangs2 whilst the ,fagins would be everywhere commissioners of the people4 ,nor would there fail to be1 in high places and in low1 the occasional sparkle of some ,pickwick or ,cheeryble ,brothers or ,sam ,weller or ,mark ,tapley2 and the voluble ,flora ,finchings would be everywhere in evidence1 and the strong-minded ,betsey ,trotwoods in office4 ,there would also be1 among the inefficient1 many a ,dora and ,agnes and ,little ,emily--with her charm but without her tragedy1 since this is one of the things which the promised social reform would happily render impossible2 ,i mean1 by removing all the disgrace of it4 ,the only element in the world of ,dickens which would become obsolete would be the setting1 the atmosphere of material instrumentalities and arrangements1 as travelling by coach is obsolete2 but travelling by rail1 by motor1 or by airship will emotionally be much the same thing4 ,it is worth noting how such instrumentalities1 which absorb modern life1 are admired and enjoyed by ,dickens1 as they were by ,homer4 ,the poets ought not to be afraid of them2 they exercise the mind congenially1 and can be played with joyfully4 ,consider the black ships and the chariots of ,homer1 the coaches and river-boats of ,dickens1 and the aeroplanes of to-day2 to what would an unspoiled young mind turn with more interest8 ,dickens tells us little of ,english sports1 but he shares the sporting nature of the ,englishman1 to whom the whole material world is a playing--field1 the scene giving ample scope to his love of action1 legality1 and pleasant achievement4 ,his art is to sport according to the rules of the game1 and to do things for the sake of doing them1 rather than for any ulterior motive4 ,it is remarkable1 in spite of his ardent simplicity and openness of heart1 how insensible ,dickens was to the greater themes of the human imagination--religion1 science1 politics1 art4 ,he was a waif himself1 and utterly disinherited4 ,for example1 the terrible heritage of contentious religions which fills the world seems not to exist for him4 ,in this matter he was like a sensitive child1 with a most religious disposition1 but no religious ideas4 ,perhaps1 properly speaking1 he had no ideas on any subject2 what he had was a vast sympathetic participation in the daily life of mankind2 and what he saw of ancient institutions made him hate them1 as needless sources of oppression1 misery1 selfishness1 and rancour4 ,his one political passion was philanthropy1 genuine but felt only on its negative1 reforming side2 of positive utopias or enthusiasms we hear nothing4 ,the political background of ,christendom is only1 so to speak1 an old faded back-drop for his stage2 a castle1 a frigate1 a gallows1 and a large female angel with white wings standing above an orphan by an open grave--a decoration which has to serve for all the melodramas in his theatre1 intellectually so provincial and poor4 ,common life as it is lived was varied and lovable enough for ,dickens1 if only the pests and cruelties could be removed from it4 ,suffering wounded him1 but not vulgarity2 whatever pleased his senses and whatever shocked them filled his mind alike with romantic wonder1 with the endless delight of observation4 ,vulgarity--and what can we relish1 if we recoil at vulgarity8--was innocent and amusing2 in fact1 for the humorist1 it was the spice of life4 ,there was more piety in being human than in being pious4 ,in reviving ,christmas1 ,dickens transformed it from the celebration of a metaphysical mystery into a feast of overflowing simple kindness and good cheer2 the church bells were still there--in the orchestra2 and the angels of ,bethlehem were still there--painted on the back-curtain4 ,churches1 in his novels1 are vague1 desolate places where one has ghastly experiences1 and where only the pew-opener is human2 and such religious and political conflicts as he depicts in ,barnaby ,rudge and in ,a ,tale of ,two ,cities are street brawls and prison scenes and conspiracies in taverns1 without any indication of the contrasts in mind or interests between the opposed parties4 ,nor had ,dickens any lively sense for fine art1 classical tradition1 science1 or even the manners and feelings of the upper classes in his own time and country3 in his novels we may almost say there is no army1 no navy1 no church1 no sport1 no distant travel1 no daring adventure1 no feeling for the watery wastes and the motley nations of the planet1 and--luckily1 with his notion of them--no lords and ladies4 ,even love of the traditional sort is hardly in ,dickens's sphere--,i mean the soldierly passion in which a rather rakish gallantry was sobered by devotion1 and loyalty rested on pride4 ,in ,dickens love is sentimental or benevolent or merry or sneaking or canine2 in his last book he was going to describe a love that was passionate and criminal2 but love for him was never chivalrous1 never poetical4 ,what he paints most tragically is a quasi-paternal devotion in the old to the young1 the love of ,mr4 ,peggotty for ,little ,emily1 or of ,solomon ,gills for ,walter ,gay1 ,a series of shabby little adventures1 such as might absorb the interest of an average youth1 were romantic enough for ,dickens4 ,i say he was disinherited1 but he inherited the most terrible negations4 ,religion lay on him like the weight of the atmosphere1 sixteen pounds to the square inch1 yet never noticed nor mentioned4 ,he lived and wrote in the shadow of the most awful prohibitions4 ,hearts petrified by legality and falsified by worldliness offered1 indeed1 a good subject for a novelist1 and ,dickens availed himself of it to the extent of always contrasting natural goodness and happiness with whatever is morose2 but his morose people were wicked1 not virtuous in their own way2 so that the protest of his temperament against his environment never took a radical form nor went back to first principles4 ,he needed to feel1 in his writing1 that he was carrying the sympathies of every man with him4 ,in him conscience was single1 and he could not conceive how it could ever be divided in other men4 ,he denounced scandals without exposing shams1 and conformed willingly and scrupulously to the proprieties4 ,lady ,dedlock's secret1 for instance1 he treats as if it were the sin of ,adam1 remote1 mysterious1 inexpiable4 ,mrs4 ,dombey is not allowed to deceive her husband except by pretending to deceive him4 ,the seduction of ,little ,emily is left out altogether1 with the whole character of ,steerforth1 the development of which would have been so important in the moral experience of ,david ,copperfield himself4 ,but it is not public prejudice alone that plays the censor over ,dickens's art2 his own kindness and even weakness of heart act sometimes as marplots4 ,the character of ,miss ,mowcher1 for example1 so brilliantly introduced1 was evidently intended to be shady1 and to play a very important part in the story2 but its original in real life1 which was recognized1 had to be conciliated1 and the sequel was omitted and patched up with an apology--itself admirable--for the poor dwarf4 ,such a sacrifice does honour to ,dickens's heart2 but artists should meditate on their works in time1 and it is easy to remove any too great likeness in a portrait by a few touches making it more consistent than real people are apt to be2 and in this case1 if the little creature had been really guilty1 how much more subtle and tragic her apology for herself might have been1 like that of the bastard ,edmund in ,king ,lear6 ,so1 too1 in ,dombey and ,son1 ,dickens could not bear to let ,walter ,gay turn out badly1 as he had been meant to do1 and to break his uncle's heart as well as the heroine's2 he was accordingly transformed into a stage hero miraculously saved from shipwreck1 and ,florence was not allowed to reward the admirable ,toots1 as she should have done1 with her trembling hand4 ,but ,dickens was no free artist2 he had more genius than taste1 a warm fancy not aided by a thorough understanding of complex characters4 ,he worked under pressure1 for money and applause1 and often had to cheapen in execution what his inspiration had so vividly conceived4 ,what1 then1 is there left1 if ,dickens has all these limitations8 ,in our romantic disgust we might be tempted to say1 ,nothing4 ,but in fact almost everything is left1 almost everything that counts in the daily life of mankind1 or that by its presence or absence can determine whether life shall be worth living or not2 because a simple good life is worth-living1 and an elaborate bad life is not4 ,there remains in the first place eating and drinking2 relished not bestially1 but humanly1 jovially1 as the sane and exhilarating basis for everything else4 ,this is a sound ,english beginning2 but the immediate sequel1 as the ,england of that day presented it to ,dickens1 is no less delightful4 ,there is the ruddy glow of the hearth2 the sparkle of glasses and brasses and well-scrubbed pewter2 the savoury fumes of the hot punch1 after the tingle of the wintry air2 the coaching-scenes1 the motley figures and absurd incidents of travel2 the changing sights and joys of the road4 ,and then1 to balance this1 the traffic of ports and cities1 the hubbub of crowded streets1 the luxury of shop-windows and of palaces not to be entered2 the procession of the passers-by1 shabby or ludicrously genteel2 the dingy look and musty smell of their lodgings2 the labyrinth of back-alleys1 courts1 and mews1 with their crying children1 and scolding old women1 and listless1 half-drunken loiterers4 ,these sights1 like fables1 have a sort of moral in them to which ,dickens was very sensitive2 the important airs of nobodies on great occasions1 the sadness and preoccupation of the great as they hasten by in their mourning or on their pressing affairs2 the sadly comic characters of the tavern2 the diligence of shopkeepers1 like squirrels turning in their cages2 the children peeping out everywhere like grass in an untrodden street2 the charm of humble things1 the nobleness of humble people1 the horror of crime1 the ghastliness of vice1 the deft hand and shining face of virtue passing through the midst of it all2 and finally a fresh wind of indifference and change blowing across our troubles and clearing the most lurid sky4 ,i do not know whether it was ,christian charity or naturalistic insight1 or a mixture of both 7for they are closely akin7 that attracted ,dickens particularly to the deformed1 the half-witted1 the abandoned1 or those impeded or misunderstood by virtue of some singular inner consecration4 ,the visible moral of these things1 when brutal prejudice does not blind us to it1 comes very near to true philosophy2 one turn of the screw1 one flash of reflection1 and we have understood nature and human morality and the relation between them4 ,in his love of roads and wayfarers1 of river-ports and wharves and the idle or sinister figures that lounge about them1 ,dickens was like ,walt ,whitman2 and ,i think a second ,dickens may any day appear in ,america1 when it is possible in that land of hurry to reach the same degree of saturation1 the same unquestioning pleasure in the familiar facts4 ,the spirit of ,dickens would be better able to do justice to ,america than was that of ,walt ,whitman2 because ,america1 although it may seem nothing but a noisy nebula to the impressionist1 is not a nebula but a concourse of very distinct individual bodies1 natural and social1 each with its definite interests and story4 ,walt ,whitman had a sort of transcendental philosophy which swallowed the universe whole1 supposing there was a universal spirit in things identical with the absolute spirit that observed them2 but ,dickens was innocent of any such clap-trap1 and remained a true spirit in his own person4 ,kindly and clear-sighted1 but self-identical and unequivocally human1 he glided through the slums like one of his own little heroes1 uncontaminated by their squalor and confusion1 courageous and firm in his clear allegiances amid the flux of things1 a pale angel at the ,carnival1 his heart aflame1 his voice always flute-like in its tenderness and warning4 ,this is the true relation of spirit to existence1 not the other which confuses them2 for this earth 7,i cannot speak for the universe at large7 has no spirit of its own1 but brings forth spirits only at certain points1 in the hearts and brains of frail living creatures1 who like insects flit through it1 buzzing and gathering what sweets they can2 and it is the spaces they traverse in this career1 charged with their own moral burden1 that they can report on or describe1 not things rolling on to infinity in their vain tides4 ,to be hypnotized by that flood would be a heathen idolatry4 ,accordingly ,walt ,whitman1 in his comprehensive democratic vistas1 could never see the trees for the wood1 and remained incapable1 for all his diffuse love of the human herd1 of ever painting a character or telling a story2 the very things in which ,dickens was a master4 ,it is this life of the individual1 as it may be lived in a given nation1 that determines the whole value of that nation to the poet1 to the moralist1 and to the judicious historian4 ,but for the excellence of the typical single life1 no nation deserves to be remembered more than the sands of the sea2 and ,america will not be a success1 if every ,american is a failure4 ,dickens entered the theatre of this world by the stage door2 the shabby little adventures of the actors in their private capacity replace for him the mock tragedies which they enact before a dreaming public4 ,mediocrity of circumstances and mediocrity of soul for ever return to the centre of his stage2 a more wretched or a grander existence is sometimes broached1 but the pendulum soon swings back1 and we return1 with the relief with which we put on our slippers after the most romantic excursion1 to a golden mediocrity--to mutton and beer1 and to love and babies in a suburban villa with one frowsy maid4 ,dickens is the poet of those acres of yellow brick streets which the traveller sees from the railway viaducts as he approaches ,london2 they need a poet1 and they deserve one1 since a complete human life may very well be lived there4 ,their little excitements and sorrows1 their hopes and humours are like those of the ,wooden ,midshipman in ,dombey and ,son2 but the sea is not far off1 and the sky--,dickens never forgets it--is above all those brief troubles4 ,he had a sentiment in the presence of this vast flatness of human fates1 in spite of their individual pungency1 which ,i think might well be the dominant sentiment of mankind in the future2 a sense of happy freedom in littleness1 an open-eyed reverence and religion without words4 ,this universal human anonymity is like a sea1 an infinitive democratic desert1 chock-full and yet the very image of emptiness1 with nothing in it for the mind1 except1 as the ,moslems say1 the presence of ,allah4 ,awe is the counterpart of humility--and this is perhaps religion enough4 ,the atom in the universal vortex ought to be humble2 he ought to see that1 materially1 he doesn't much matter1 and that morally his loves are merely his own1 without authority over the universe4 ,he can admit without obloquy that he is what he is2 and he can rejoice in his own being1 and in that of all other things in so far as he can share it sympathetically4 ,the apportionment of existence and of fortune is in ,other ,hands2 his own portion is contentment1 vision1 love1 and laughter4 ,having humility1 that most liberating of sentiments1 having a true vision of human existence and joy in that vision1 ,dickens had in a superlative degree the gift of humour1 of mimicry1 of unrestrained farce4 ,he was the perfect comedian4 ,when people say ,dickens exaggerates1 it seems to me they can have no eyes and no ears4 ,they probably have only notions of what things and people are2 they accept them conventionally1 at their diplomatic value4 ,their minds run on in the region of discourse1 where there are masks only and no faces1 ideas and no facts2 they have little sense for those living grimaces that play from moment to moment upon the countenance of the world4 ,the world is a perpetual caricature of itself2 at every moment it is the mockery and the contradiction of what it is pretending to be4 ,but as it nevertheless intends all the time to be something different and highly dignified1 at the next moment it corrects and checks and tries to cover up the absurd thing it was2 so that a conventional world1 a world of masks1 is superimposed on the reality1 and passes in every sphere of human interest for the reality itself4 ,humour is the perception of this illusion1 the fact allowed to pierce here and there through the convention1 whilst the convention continues to be maintained1 as if we had not observed its absurdity4 ,pure comedy is more radical1 cruder1 in a certain sense less human2 because comedy throws the convention over altogether1 revels for a moment in the fact1 and brutally says to the notions of mankind1 as if it slapped them in the face1 ,there1 take that6 ,that's what you really are ,i ,at this the polite world pretends to laugh1 not tolerantly as it does at humour1 but a little angrily4 ,it does not like to see itself by chance in the glass1 without having had time to compose its features for demure self-contemplation4 ,what a bad mirror1 it exclaims2 it must be concave or convex2 for surely ,i never looked like that4 ,mere caricature1 farce1 and horse play4 ,dickens exaggerates2 ,i never was so sentimental as that2 ,i never saw anything so dreadful2 ,i don't believe there were ever any people like ,quilp1 or ,squeers1 or ,serjeant ,buzfuz4 ,but the polite world is lying2 there are such people2 we are such people ourselves in our true moments1 in our veritable impulses2 but we are careful to stifle and to hide those moments from ourselves and from the world2 to purse and pucker ourselves into the mask of our conventional personality2 and so simpering1 we profess that it is very coarse and inartistic of ,dickens to undo our life's work for us in an instant1 and remind us of what we are4 ,and as to other people1 though we may allow that considered superficially they are often absurd1 we do not wish to dwell on their eccentricities1 nor to mimic them4 ,on the contrary1 it is good manners to look away quickly1 to suppress a smile1 and to say to ourselves that the ludicrous figure in the street is not at all comic1 but a dull ordinary ,christian1 and that it is foolish to give any importance to the fact that its hat has blown off1 that it has slipped on an orange-peel and unintentionally sat on the pavement1 that it has a pimple on its nose1 that its one tooth projects over its lower lip1 that it is angry with things in general1 and that it is looking everywhere for the penny which it holds tightly in its hand4 ,that may fairly represent the moral condition of most of us at most times2 but we do not want to think of it2 we do not want to see2 we gloss the fact over2 we console ourselves before we are grieved1 and reassert our composure before we have laughed4 ,we are afraid1 ashamed1 anxious to be spared4 ,what displeases us in ,dickens is that he does not spare us2 he mimics things to the full2 he dilates and exhausts and repeats2 he wallows4 ,he is too intent on the passing experience to look over his shoulder1 and consider whether we have not already understood1 and had enough4 ,he is not thinking of us2 he is obeying the impulse of the passion1 the person1 or the story he is enacting4 ,this faculty1 which renders him a consummate comedian1 is just what alienated from him a later generation in which people of taste were aesthetes and virtuous people were higher snobs2 they wanted a mincing art1 and he gave them copious improvization1 they wanted analysis and development1 and he gave them absolute comedy4 ,i must confess1 though the fault is mine and not his1 that sometimes his absoluteness is too much for me4 ,when ,i come to the death of ,little ,nell1 or to ,what the ,waves were always ,saying1 or even to the incorrigible perversities of the pretty ,dora1 ,i skip4 ,i can't take my liquor neat in such draughts1 and my inner man says to ,dickens1 ,please don't4 ,but then ,i am a coward in so many ways6 ,there are so many things in this world that ,i skip1 as ,i skip the undiluted ,dickens6 ,when ,i reach ,dover on a rough day1 ,i wait there until the ,channel is smoother2 am ,i not travelling for pleasure8 ,but my prudence does not blind me to the admirable virtue of the sailors that cross in all weathers1 nor even to the automatic determination of the sea-sick ladies1 who might so easily have followed my example1 if they were not the slaves of their railway tickets and of their labelled luggage4 ,they are loyal to their tour1 and ,i to my philosophy4 ,yet as wrapped in my great-coat and sure of a good dinner1 ,i pace the windy pier and soliloquize1 ,i feel the superiority of the bluff tar1 glad of breeze1 stretching a firm arm to the unsteady passenger1 and watching with a masterful thrill of emotion the home cliffs receding and the foreign coasts ahead4 ,it is only courage 7which ,dickens had without knowing it7 and universal kindness 7which he knew he had7 that are requisite to nerve us for a true vision of this world4 ,and as some of us are cowards about crossing the ,channel1 and others about crossing the bar1 so almost everybody is a coward about his own humanity4 ,we do not consent to be absurd1 though absurd we are4 ,we have no fundamental humility4 ,we do not wish the moments of our lives to be caught by a quick eye in their grotesque initiative1 and to be pilloried in this way before our own eyes4 ,for that reason we don't like ,dickens1 and don't like comedy1 and don't like the truth4 ,dickens could don the comic mask with innocent courage2 he could wear it with a grace1 ease1 and irresistible vivacity seldom given to men4 ,we must go back for anything like it to the very greatest comic poets1 to ,shakespeare or to ,aristophanes4 ,who else1 for instance1 could have penned this3 ,it was all ,mrs4 ,bumble4 ,she would do it1 urged ,mr4 ,bumble2 first looking found to ascertain that his partner had left the room4 ,that is no excuse1 replied ,air4 ,brownlow4 ,you were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets1 and indeed are the more guilty of the two1 in the eye of the law2 for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction4 ,if the law supposes that1 said ,mr4 ,bumble1 squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands1 the law is a ass1 a idiot4 ,if that's the eye of the law1 the law is a bachelor2 and the worst ,i wish the law is1 that his eye may be opened by experience--by experience4 ,laying great stress on the repetition of these two words1 ,mr4 ,bumble fixed his hat on very tight1 and putting his hands in his pockets1 followed his helpmate downstairs4 ,this is high comedy2 the irresistible1 absurd1 intense dream of the old fool1 personifying the law in order to convince and to punish it4 ,i can understand that this sort of thing should not be common in ,english literature1 nor much relished2 because pure comedy is scornful1 merciless1 devastating1 holding no door open to anything beyond4 ,cultivated ,english feeling winces at this brutality1 although the common people love it in clowns and in puppet shows2 and ,i think they are right4 ,dickens1 who surely was tender enough1 had so irresistible a comic genius that it carried him beyond the gentle humour which most ,englishmen possess to the absolute grotesque reality4 ,squeers1 for instance1 when he sips the wretched dilution which he has prepared for his starved and shivering little pupils1 smacks his lips and cries3 ,here's richness6 ,it is savage comedy2 humour would come in if we understood 7what ,dickens does not tell us7 that the little creatures were duly impressed and thought the thin liquid truly delicious4 ,i suspect that ,english sensibility prefers the humour and wit of ,hamlet to the pure comedy of ,falstaff2 and that even in ,aristophanes it seeks consolation in the lyrical poetry for the flaying of human life in the comedy itself4 ,tastes are free2 but we should not deny that in merciless and rollicking comedy life is caught in the act4 ,the most grotesque creatures of ,dickens are not exaggerations or mockeries of something other than themselves2 they arise because nature generates them1 like toadstools2 they exist because they can't help it1 as we all do4 ,the fact that these perfectly self-justified beings are absurd appears only by comparison1 and from outside2 circumstances1 or the expectations of other people1 make them ridiculous and force them to contradict themselves2 but in nature it is no crime to be exceptional4 ,often1 but for the savagery of the average man1 it would not even be a misfortune4 ,the sleepy fat boy in ,pickwick looks foolish2 but in himself he is no more foolish1 nor less solidly self-justified1 than a pumpkin lying on the ground4 ,toots seems ridiculous2 and we laugh heartily at his incoherence1 his beautiful waistcoats1 and his extreme modesty2 but when did anybody more obviously grow into what he is because he couldn't grow otherwise8 ,so with ,mr4 ,pickwick1 and ,sam ,weller1 and ,mrs4 ,gamp1 and ,micawber1 and all the rest of this wonderful gallery2 they are ridiculous only by accident1 and in a context in which they never intended to appear4 ,if ,oedipus and ,lear and ,cleopatra do not seem ridiculous1 it is only because tragic reflection has taken them out of the context in which1 in real life1 they would have figured4 ,if we saw them as facts1 and not as emanations of a poet's dream1 we should laugh at them till doomsday2 what grotesque presumption1 what silly whims1 what mad contradiction of the simplest realities6 ,yet we should not laugh at them without feeling how real their griefs were2 as real and terrible as the griefs of children and of dreams4 ,but facts1 however serious inwardly1 are always absurd outwardly2 and the just critic of life sees both truths at once1 as ,cervantes did in ,don ,quixote4 ,a pompous idealist who does not see the ridiculous in all things is the dupe of his sympathy and abstraction2 and a clown1 who does not see that these ridiculous creatures are living quite in earnest1 is the dupe of his egotism4 ,dickens saw the absurdity1 and understood the life2 ,i think he was a good philosopher4 ,it is usual to compare ,dickens with ,thackeray1 which is like comparing the grape with the gooseberry2 there are obvious points of resemblance1 and the gooseberry has some superior qualities of its own2 but you can't make red wine of it4 ,the wine of ,dickens is of the richest1 the purest1 the sweetest1 the most fortifying to the blood2 there is distilled in it1 with the perfection of comedy1 the perfection of morals4 ,i do not mean1 of course1 that ,dickens appreciated all the values that human life has or might have2 that is beyond any man4 ,even the greatest philosophers1 such as ,aristotle1 have not always much imagination to conceive forms of happiness or folly other than those which their age or their temperament reveals to them2 their insight runs only to discovering the principle of happiness1 that it is spontaneous life of any sort harmonized with circumstances4 ,the sympathies and imagination of ,dickens1 vivid in their sphere1 were no less limited in range2 and of course it was not his business to find philosophic formulas2 nevertheless ,i call his the perfection of morals for two reasons3 that he put the distinction between good and evil in the right place1 and that he felt this distinction intensely4 ,a moralist might have excellent judgement1 he might see what sort of life is spontaneous in a given being and how far it may be harmonized with circumstances1 yet his heart might remain cold1 he might not suffer nor rejoice with the suffering or joy he foresaw4 ,humanitarians like ,bentham and ,mill1 who talked about the greatest happiness of the greatest number1 might conceivably be moral prigs in their own persons1 and they might have been chilled to the bone in their theoretic love of mankind1 if they had had the wit to imagine in what1 as a matter of fact1 the majority would place their happiness4 ,even if their theory had been correct 7which ,i think it was in intention1 though not in statement7 they would then not have been perfect moralists1 because their maxims would not have expressed their hearts4 ,in expressing their hearts1 they ought to have embraced one of those forms of idealism by which men fortify themselves in their bitter passions or in their helpless commitments2 for they do not wish mankind to be happy in its own way1 but in theirs4 ,dickens was not one of those moralists who summon every man to do himself the greatest violence so that he may not offend them1 nor defeat their ideals4 ,love of the good of others is something that shines in every page of ,dickens with a truly celestial splendour4 ,how entirely limpid is his sympathy with life--a sympathy uncontaminated by dogma or pedantry or snobbery or bias of any kind6 ,how generous is this keen1 light spirit1 how pure this open heart6 ,and yet1 in spite of this extreme sensibility1 not the least wobbling2 no deviation from a just severity of judgement1 from an uncompromising distinction between white and black4 ,and this happens as it ought to happen2 sympathy is not checked by a flatly contrary prejudice or commandment1 by some categorical imperative irrelevant to human nature2 the check1 like the cheer1 comes by tracing the course of spontaneous impulse amid circumstances that inexorably lead it to success or to failure4 ,there is a bed to this stream1 freely as the water may flow2 when it comes to this precipice it must leap1 when it runs over these pebbles it must sing1 and when it spreads into that marsh it must become livid and malarial4 ,the very sympathy with human impulse quickens in ,dickens the sense of danger2 his very joy in joy makes him stem to what kills it4 ,how admirably drawn are his surly villains6 ,no rhetorical vilification of them1 as in a sermon2 no exaggeration of their qualms or fears2 rather a sense of how obvious and human all their courses seem from their own point of view2 and yet no sentimental apology for them1 no romantic worship of rebels in their madness or crime4 ,the pity of it1 the waste of it all1 are seen not by a second vision but by the same original vision which revealed the lure and the drift of the passion4 ,vice is a monster here of such sorry mien1 that the longer we see it the more we deplore it2 that other sort of vice which ,pope found so seductive was perhaps only some innocent impulse artificially suppressed1 and called a vice because it broke out inconveniently and displeased the company4 ,true vice is human nature strangled by the suicide of attempting the impossible4 ,those so self-justified villains of ,dickens never elude their fates4 ,bill ,sikes is not let off1 neither is ,nancy2 the oddly benevolent ,magwitch does not escape from the net1 nor does the unfortunate young ,richard ,carstone1 victim of the ,circumlocution ,office4 ,the horror and ugliness of their fall are rendered with the hand of a master2 we see here1 as in the world1 that in spite of the romanticists it is not virtue to rush enthusiastically along any road4 ,i think ,dickens is one of the best friends mankind has ever had4 ,he has held the mirror up to nature1 and of its reflected fragments has composed a fresh world1 where the men and women differ from real people only in that they live in a literary medium1 so that all ages and places may know them4 ,and they are worth knowing1 just as one's neighbours are1 for their picturesque characters and their pathetic fates4 ,their names should be in every child's mouth2 they ought to be adopted members of every household4 ,their stories cause the merriest and the sweetest chimes to ring in the fancy1 without confusing our moral judgement or alienating our interest from the motley commonplaces of daily life4 ,in every ,english-speaking home1 in the four quarters of the globe1 parents and children will do well to read ,dickens aloud of a winter's evening2 they will love winter1 and one another1 and ,god the better for it4 ,what a wreath that will be of ever-fresh holly1 thick with bright berries1 to hang to this poet's memory--the very crown he would have chosen6 #ai ,,the ,,human ,,scale ,great buildings often have great doors2 but great doors are heavy to swing1 and if left open they may let in too much cold or glare2 so that we sometimes observe a small postern cut into one leaf of the large door for more convenient entrance and exit1 and it is seldom or never that the monumental gates yawn in their somnolence4 ,here is the modest human scale reasserting itself in the midst of a titanic structure1 but it reasserts itself with an ill grace and in the interests of frailty2 the patch it makes seems unintended and ignominious4 ,yet the human scale is not essentially petty2 when it does not slip in as a sort of interloper it has nothing to apologize for4 ,between the infinite and the infinitesimal all sizes are equally central4 ,the ,greeks1 the ,saracens1 the ,english1 the ,chinese1 and ,japanese instinctively retain the human scale in all that part of their work which is most characteristic of them and nearest to their affections4 ,a ,greek temple or the hall of an ,english mansion can be spacious and dignified enough1 but they do not outrun familiar uses1 and they lend their spaciousness and dignity to the mind1 instead of crushing it4 ,everything about them has an air of friendliness and sufficiency2 their elegance is not pompous1 and if they are noble they are certainly not vast1 cold1 nor gilded4 ,the ,saracens1 ,chinese1 and ,japanese in their various ways use the human scale with even greater refinement1 for they apply it also in a sensuous and psychological direction4 ,not only is the size of their works moderate by preference1 like their brief lyrics1 but they exactly meet human sensibility by a great delicacy and concentration in design and a fragrant simplicity in workmanship4 ,everything they make is economical in its beauty and seems to say to us3 ,i exist only to be enjoyed2 there is nothing in me not merely delightful1 ,here the human scale is not drawn from the human body so much as from the human soul2 its faculties are treated with deference--,i mean the faculties it really has1 not those1 like reason1 which a flattering philosophy may impute to it4 ,an ,english country house which is a cottage in appearance may turn out on examination to be almost a palace in extent and appointments2 there is no parade1 yet there is great profusion--too much furniture1 too many ornaments1 too much food1 too many flowers1 too many people4 ,everything there is on the human scale except the quantity of things1 which is oppressive4 ,the ,orientals are poorer1 more voluptuous1 and more sensitive to calligraphy2 they leave empty spaces about them and enjoy one thing at a time and enjoy it longer4 ,one reason for this greater subtlety and mercifulness in the art of ,orientals is perhaps the fiercer assault made on their senses by nature4 ,the ,englishman lives in a country which is itself on the human scale1 clement at all seasons1 charming with a gently inconstant atmospheric charm4 ,the rare humanity of nature in his island permeates his being from boyhood up with a delight that is half sentimental1 half physical and sporting4 ,in his fields and moors he grows keen and fond of exertion2 there too his friendships and his estimates of men are shaped unawares1 as if under some silent superior influence4 ,there he imbibes the impressions that make him tender to poetry4 ,he may not require great subtlety in his poets1 but he insists that their sentiment shall have been felt and their images seen1 and while the obvious1 even the shamelessly obvious1 does not irritate him1 he hates cheap sublimity and false notes4 ,he respects experience and is master of it in his own field4 ,thus the empty spaces with which a delicate art likes to surround itself are supplied for the ,englishman by his comradeship with nature1 his ranging habits1 and the reticence of his imagination4 ,there the unexpressed dimension1 the background of pregnant silence1 exists for him in all its power4 ,for the ,saracen1 on the contrary1 nature is an abyss3 parched deserts1 hard mountains1 night with its overwhelming moon4 ,here the human scale is altogether transgressed2 nature is cruel1 alien1 excessive1 to be fled from with a veiled face4 ,for a relief and solace he builds his house without windows2 he makes his life simple1 his religion a single phrase1 his art exquisite and slight1 like the jet of his fountain4 ,it is sweet and necessary that the works of man should respect the human scale when everything in nature so infinitely transcends it4 ,why the ,egyptians loved things colossal ,i do not know1 but the taste of the ,romans for the grandiose is easier to understand4 ,it seems to have been part and parcel of that yearning for the super-human which filled late antiquity4 ,this yearning took two distinct directions4 ,among the worldly it fostered imperialism1 organization1 rhetoric1 portentous works1 belief in the universality and eternity of ,rome1 and actual deification of emperors4 ,among the spiritually-minded it led to a violent abstraction from the world1 so that the soul in its inward solitude might feel itself inviolate and divine4 ,the ,christians at first belonged of course to the latter party2 they detested the inflation of the empire1 with its cold veneer of marble and of optimism2 they were nothing if not humble and dead to the world4 ,their catacombs were perforce on the human scale1 as a coffin is2 but even when they emerged to the surface1 they reduced rather than enlarged the temples and basilicas bequeathed to them by the pagans4 ,apart from a few imperial structures at ,constantinople or ,ravenna their churches for a thousand years kept to the human scale2 often they were diminutive2 when necessary they were spread out to hold multitudes1 but remained low and in the nature of avenues to a tomb or a shrine4 ,the centre was some sombre precinct1 often subterranean1 where the inward man might commune with the other world4 ,the sacraments were received with a bowed head2 they did not call for architectural vistas4 ,the sumptuousness that in time encrusted these sanctuaries was that of a jewel--the ,oriental1 interior1 concentrated sumptuousness of the cloistered arts4 ,yet the open-air pagan tradition was not dead4 ,roman works were everywhere1 and not all in ruins1 and love of display and of plastic grandiloquence lay hardly dormant in the breast of many4 ,it required only a little prosperity to dispel the mystical humility and detachment which ,christianity had brought with it at first2 and the human scale of the ,christian ,greeks yielded at the first opportunity to the gigantic scale of the ,romans4 ,spaces were cleared1 vaults were raised1 arches were made pointed in order that they might be wider and be poised higher1 towers and spires were aimed at the clouds1 usually getting only half way1 porches became immense caverns4 ,brunelleschi accomplished a tour de force in his dome and ,michelangelo another in his1 even more stupendous4 ,these various strained models1 straining in divergent directions1 have kept artists uneasy and impotent ever since1 except when under some benign influence they have recovered the human scale1 and in domestic architecture or portrait painting have forgotten to be grand and have become felicitous4 ,the same movement is perhaps easier to survey in philosophy than in architecture4 ,scarcely had ,socrates brought investigation down from the heavens and limited it to morals--a realm essentially on the human scale--when his pupils hastened to undo his work by projecting their moral system again into the sky1 denaturalizing both morals and nature4 ,they imagined a universe circling about man1 tempering the light for his eyes and making absolute his childlike wishes and judgements4 ,this was humanism out of scale and out of place1 an attempt to cut not the works of man but the universe to human measure4 ,it was the nemesis that overtook the ,greeks for having become too complacently human4 ,earlier the monstrous had played a great part in their religion2 henceforth that surrounding immensity having been falsely humanized1 their modest humanity itself had to be made monstrous to fill its place4 ,hence we see the temples growing larger and larger1 the dome introduced1 things on the human scale piled on one another to make a sublime fabric1 like ,saint ,sophia1 triumphal arches on pedestals not to be passed through1 vain columns like towers1 with a statue poised on the summit like a weathercock1 and finally doors so large that they could not be opened and little doors had to be cut in them for men to use4 ,so the human scale turned up again irrepressibly1 but for the moment without its native dignity1 because it had been stretched to compass a lifeless dignity quite other than its own4 #bj ,,english ,,architecture ,nests were the first buildings2 ,i suppose the birds built them long before man ceased to be four-footed or four-handed1 and to swing by his tail from trees4 ,the nests of man were coverts1 something between a hole in the ground and an arbour2 a retreat easily turned into a wig-warn1 a hut1 or a tent1 when once man had begun to flay animals and to weave mats4 ,from the tent we can imagine the cart developing--one of the earliest of human habitations--and from the cart the boat3 tents1 boats1 and carts 7as the ,englishman knows so well7 are in a manner more human than houses2 they are the shelters of freemen4 ,some men1 those destined to higher things1 are migratory2 they have imagination1 being haunted by absent things1 and distance of itself allures them1 even if dearth or danger does not drive them on2 indeed1 dearth and danger would not of themselves act as incentives to migration1 if some safer and greener paradise were not present to the fancy4 ,ranging into varied climates1 these men feel the need of that portable shelter which we call clothes2 and at a slightly greater distance from their skins1 they surround themselves with a second integument1 also portable1 the tent1 cart1 or boat4 ,the first home of man is appropriately without foundations1 except in the instincts of his soul2 and it is only by a slight anchorage to the earth1 in some tempting glen or by some flowing river1 that the cart1 boat1 or tent becomes a dwelling-house4 ,here ,i see the secret of that paradox1 that the ,english people who have invented the word home1 should be such travellers and colonists1 and should live so largely and so contentedly abroad4 ,home is essentially portable2 it has no terrene foundation1 like a tomb1 a well1 or an altar2 it is an integument of the living man1 as the body itself is2 and as the body is more than the raiment1 and determines its form1 so the inner man is more than his dwelling1 and causes it to mould and to harden itself round him like a shell1 wherever he may be4 ,home is built round his bed1 his cupboard1 and his chimney-corner2 and such a nest1 if it fits his habits1 is home all the world over1 from ,hudson's ,bay to ,malacca2 at least1 it becomes home when the inner man1 as he is prompted inwardly to do1 surrounds himself there with a family2 for a home is a nest1 and somehow incomplete without an egg to sit on4 ,this seems to me to be the true genealogy of ,english architecture1 in so far as it is ,english4 ,strictly speaking1 there is no ,english architecture at all1 only foreign architecture adapted and domesticated in ,england4 ,but how thoroughly and admirably domesticated ,i ,how entirely transmuted inwardly from the classic tragic monumental thing it was1 into something which1 even if in abstract design it seems unchanged1 has a new expression1 a new scale1 a new subordination of part to part1 and as it were a new circulation of the blood within it6 ,it has all been made to bend and to cling like ivy round the inner man2 it has all been rendered domestic and converted into a home4 ,far other was the character proper to nobler architecture in its foreign seats4 ,there it had been essentially military1 religious1 or civic3 it had begun perhaps with a slight modification or rearrangement of great stones lying on the ground1 perhaps infinitely rooted in its depths4 ,its centre was no living person1 but some spot with a magic and compulsive influence1 or with a communal function2 it came to glorify three slabs--the tomb1 the hearth1 and the altar--and to render them monumental4 ,the tribe or the king had a treasure to be roofed over and walled in2 the mound where the dead lay buried was marked with a heap of stones2 pillars were set up to the right and to the left of the presiding deity1 to dignify the place where he delivered true oracles1 and dispensed magic powers4 ,this deity himself was a pillar1 scarcely humanized in form1 or fantastically named after some animal2 and as he grew colossal1 and his features took form and colour1 his sacred head had to be arched over with more labour and art2 and the approach to him was impressively delayed through pylons1 courts1 narthex1 or nave1 into the sepulchral darkness of the holy of holies4 ,similarly defences grew into citadels1 and judgement-seats into palaces2 and as for individual men1 if they did not sleep in the embrasure of some temple gate1 or under some public stair1 they found cubicles in the galleries of the king's court1 or built themselves huts to breed in under the lee of the fortifications4 ,this sort of architecture has a tragic character2 it dominates the soul rather than expresses it1 and embodies stabilities and powers far older than any one man1 and far more lasting4 ,it confronts each generation like an inexorable deity1 like death and war and labour2 life is passed1 thoughtlessly but not happily1 under that awful shadow4 ,of course1 there are acolytes in the temple and pages in the palace that scamper all over the most hallowed precincts1 tittering and larking2 and the same retreats may seem luminous and friendly afterwards to the poet1 the lover1 or the mind bereaved2 yet in their essential function these monuments are arresting1 serious1 silent1 overwhelming2 they are a source of terror and compunction1 like tragedy2 they are favourable to prayer1 ecstasy1 and meditation4 ,at other times they become the scene of enormous gatherings1 of parades and thrilling celebrations2 but always it is a vast affair1 like a court ball1 in which one insinuates one's littleness into what corner one can1 to see and feel the movement of the whole1 without playing any great part in it4 ,even the most amiable forms of classic architecture have this public character4 ,there is the theatre and the circus1 into which one must squeeze one's person uncomfortably1 in order to subject one's mind to contagious emotions1 and the judgements of the crowd2 and even the public fountain1 at which the housemaids and water-boys wait for their turn1 plays for ever far above the heads of the people2 as if that ,neptune and those dolphins were spouting for their own pleasure1 cooling the sunshine for their own bronze limbs1 and never caring whether they soused the passing mortal1 or quenched his thirst4 ,all these forms and habits are intensely un-,english1 and yet ,england is full of vestiges of them1 not only because its fine arts are derived from abroad1 but because1 however disguised1 the same tragic themes must appear everywhere4 ,the tomb1 the temple1 the fortress are obligatory things2 but they become properly ,english in character only when their public function recedes into the background1 and they become interesting to the inner man by virtue of associations or accidents which harmonize them with his sentimental experience4 ,they grow ,english in growing picturesque4 ,these castles and abbeys were ,norman when they were built1 they were expressions of domination and fear1 hard1 crude1 practical1 and foreign4 ,but now the moat is grass-grown1 the cloister in ruins1 the headless saints are posts for the roses to creep over1 the frowning keep has lost its battlements and become a comfortable mansion mantled with ivy2 before it the well-dressed young people play croquet on the lawn2 and the chapel1 whitewashed within1 politely furnished with pews1 and politely frequented on ,sundays1 is embowered in a pretty garden of a graveyard1 which the yew seems to sanctify more than the cross1 and the flowers to suit better than the inscriptions2 there is a bench there round the great tree1 where the old villagers sit of an evening1 and its branches1 far overtopping the church spire with its restored sun-dial1 seem to dispense a surer grace and protection than the church itself3 they seem more unequivocally the symbol and the work of ,god4 ,so everything1 in its ruin1 seems in ,england to live a new life2 and it is only this second life1 this cottage built in the fallen stronghold1 that is ,english4 ,if great architecture has a tragic character1 it does not exclude1 in the execution1 a certain play of fancy1 a sportive use of the forms which the needful structure imposes2 and these decorative frills or arbitrary variations of theme might be called comic architecture4 ,this is the side of the art which is subject to fashion1 and changes under the same influences1 with the same swiftness and the same unanimity4 ,but as fashions among peasants sometimes last for ages1 so certain decorative themes1 although quite arbitrary1 sometimes linger on because of the inertia of the eye1 which demands what it is used to1 or the poverty of invention in the designer4 ,the worst taste and the best taste revel in decoration2 but the motive here is play and there display4 ,the ,englishman deprecates both2 he abominates the tawdry1 the theatrical1 the unnecessarily elaborate2 and at the same time he is shy of novelty and playfulness2 give him comfortable old grey clothes1 good for all weathers1 and comfortable1 pleasing1 inconspicuous houses1 where he can live without feeling a fool or being the victim of his possessions4 ,the comic poses of architecture1 which come to him from abroad1 together with its tragic structure1 he accordingly tones down and neutralizes as far as possible4 ,how gently1 for instance1 how pleasantly the wave of ,italian architecture broke on these grassy shores6 ,the classic line1 which is tragic in its simple veracity and fixity1 had already been submerged in attempts to vary it2 in ,england1 as in ,france1 the ,gothic habit of letting each part of a building have its own roof and its own symmetry1 at once introduced the picturesque into the most classic designs4 ,the ,italian scale1 too1 was at once reduced1 and the ,italian rhetoric in stone1 the baroque and the spectacular1 was obliterated4 ,how pleasantly the ,palladian forms were fitted to their ,english setting2 how the windows were widened and subdivided1 the show pediments forgotten1 the wreathed urns shaved into modest globes1 the pilasters sensibly broadened into panels1 and the classical detail applied to the native ,gothic framework1 with its gables1 chimneys1 and high roofs2 whence the delightful brood of ,jacobean and ,queen ,anne houses2 and in the next generation the so genteel1 so judicious ,georgian mansion1 with its ruddy brick1 its broad windows1 and its delicate mouldings and accessories of stone4 ,the tragic and the comic were spirited away together1 and only the domestic remained4 ,nevertheless1 at one of the greatest moments in its history1 ,england had seemed to revel in comic art1 and to have made it thoroughly its own4 ,domestic taste had reduced ,gothic too1 in ,england1 to the human scale2 prodigies of height and width in vaulting were not attempted1 doors remained modest1 hooded1 perhaps1 with an almost rustic porch2 the vast spaces were subdivided1 they were encrusted with ornament2 the lines became playful1 fan-tracery was invented1 and floral pendants of stone2 the walls became all glass1 the ceilings carved bowers1 and ,gothic seemed on the point of smothering its rational skeleton altogether in luxurious trappings and the millinery of fashion4 ,all ,england seemed to become one field of the cloth of gold2 rooms looked like gilded palanquins or silken tents1 roofs were forests of bannerets1 pinnacles1 and weathercocks2 heraldry 7a comic art7 overspread every garment and utensil4 ,poetry1 too1 became euphuistic and labyrinthine and nevertheless friendly and familiar and full of a luscious humour1 like the wit of the people4 ,even prose was a maze of metaphors and conceits1 every phrase was embroidered1 and no self-respecting person could say yea or nay without some artful circumlocution4 ,it was this outburst of universal comedy that made ,shakespeare possible--an exuberant genius in some respects not like a modern ,englishman2 he rose on the crest of a somewhat exotic wave of passion and vivacity1 which at once subsided4 ,some vestiges of that spirit seem to linger in ,american manners2 but for the most part puritanism killed it2 and ,i do not think we need regret its loss4 ,what could ,england have been but for the triumph of ,protestantism there8 ,only a coarser ,france1 or a cockney ,ireland4 ,the puritan stiffening was essential to raise ,england to its external dignity and greatness2 and it was needed to fortify the inner man1 to sober him1 and persuade him to be worthy of himself4 ,as for comic art1 there is enough of it elsewhere1 in the oriental and the ,french schools1 and in painting and drawing1 if not in architecture1 all the younger artists are experimenting with it4 ,the sort of aestheticism which was the fashion in ,london at the end of the nineteenth century tried to be playful1 and to dote on art for its own sake2 but in reality it was full of a perverted moralism2 the aesthetes were simply ,ruskin's pupils running away from school2 they thought it immensely important to be choice1 and quite disgraceful to think of morals4 ,the architecture of that time was certainly not comic in my sense of the word1 it did not give a free rein to exuberant fancy3 it was only railway ,gothic4 ,but in ,england the mists and the ivy and the green sward and the dark screening trees can make endurable even that abortion of the ethics of ,ruskin3 and with better models1 and less wilfulness1 ,i see the fresh building of to-day recovering a national charm3 the scale small1 the detail polyglot1 the arrangement gracious and convenient1 the marriage with the green earth and the luminous air1 foreseen and prepared for4 ,domestic architecture in ,england follows to the letter the advice of ,polonius3 ,costly thy garment as thy purse can buy1 ,but not expressed in fancy3 rich1 not gaudy4 #ba ,,the ,,english ,,church ,compromise is odious to passionate natures because it seems a surrender1 and to intellectual natures because it seems a confusion2 but to the inner man1 to the profound ,psyche within us1 whose life is warm1 nebulous1 and plastic1 compromise seems the path of profit and justice4 ,health has many conditions2 life is a resultant of many forces4 ,are there not several impulses in us at every moment8 ,are there not several sides to every question8 ,has not every party caught sight of something veritably right and good8 ,is not the greatest practicable harmony1 or the least dissension1 the highest good8 ,and if by the word truth we designate not the actual order of the facts1 nor the exact description of them1 but some inner symbol of reconciliation with reality on our own part1 bringing comfort1 safety1 and assurance1 then truth also will lie in compromise3 truth will be partly truth to oneself1 partly workable convention and plausibility4 ,a man's life as it flows is not a theorem to which there is any one rigid solution4 ,it is composed of many strands and looks to divers issues4 ,there is the love of home and the lure of adventure2 there is chastity which is a good1 and there is love which is a good also2 work must leave room for sport1 science for poetry1 and reason for prejudice4 ,can it be a man's duty to annul any of the elements that make up his moral being and1 because he possesses a religious tradition1 shall he refuse the gifts of his senses1 of his affections1 of his country and its history1 of the ruling science1 morality1 and taste of his day8 ,far from it3 religion1 says the inner man1 ought rather to be the highest synthesis of our nature1 and make room for all these things4 ,it should not succumb to any dead or foreign authority that ignores or dishonours them4 ,the ,englishman finds that he was born a ,christian1 and therefore wishes to remain a ,christian2 but his ,christianity must be his own1 no less plastic and adaptable than his inner man2 and it is an axiom with him that nothing can be obligatory for a ,christian which is unpalatable to an ,englishman4 ,only a few years ago1 if a traveller landing in ,england on a ,sunday and entering an ,anglican church1 had been told that the country was ,catholic and its church a branch of the ,catholic church1 his astonishment would have been extreme4 ,catholic is opposed in the first place to national and in the second place to ,protestant2 how then1 he would have asked himself1 can a church be ,catholic that is so obviously and dismally ,protestant1 and so narrowly and primly national8 ,why then this abuse of language8 ,and why this silly provincialism of insisting on always calling ,catholics ,roman ,catholics1 as if there were any others1 and they were not known by that name all the world over8 ,nevertheless1 the restoration of an elder ,anglicanism in our day has somewhat softened these paradoxes2 and when we remember how fondly the ,english screen their instincts in legal fictions and in genteel shams1 the paradoxes vanish altogether4 ,what is ,protestantism8 ,it is all things to all men1 if they are ,protestants3 but ,i see in it three leading motifs3 to revert to primitive ,christianity1 to inspire moral and political reform1 and to accept the religious witness of the inner man4 ,now the ,church of ,england1 intensely ,protestant as it seemed until the other day1 is not ,protestant in any of these respects4 ,no established national church could possibly be so4 ,the subjection to ,parliament which renders the ,english church not ,catholic1 renders it also not ,protestant4 ,to a primitive ,christian1 to a puritan reformer or to a transcendental mystic1 a religion established by lay authority is a contradiction in terms2 a lay government may be more or less inspired by righteousness1 but it cannot mediate salvation4 ,a ,protestant is essentially a nonconformist4 ,moreover1 if we examine the theology of the ,english church1 we see that whilst incidentally very heretical1 it is still fundamentally ,catholic2 it admits only a single deposit of faith and one apostolic fountain of grace for all mankind4 ,but in its view heresy in any branch of the church does not cut it off from the tree4 ,heresy is something to which all churches are liable2 the pope of ,rome and the patriarch of ,constantinople fall into it hardly less often or less desperately than the archbishop of ,canterbury himself4 ,heresy is to be conceived as eccentricity within the fold1 not as separation from it2 it is the tacking of the ship on its voyage4 ,saint ,peter or ,saint ,paul or both of them must have been heretical in their little controversies2 and ,christ himself must have had at times1 if not always1 but a partial view of the truth2 for instance1 in respect to the date and the material nature of his second coming4 ,accordingly1 although it may be a little trying to the nerves1 it is no essential scandal that a curate should be addicted to ,mariolatry1 or that a dean should be unfortunately ambiguous on the subject of the ,incarnation3 such rapids and backwaters in the stream of ,christian thought only prove how broad and full it is capable of being4 ,that many ,catholic bodies1 if not all1 should be constantly schismatic or heretical1 is therefore no paradox with this conception of the church2 and it is obvious that ,rome itself is heretical and schismatic on this theory1 since it has laid an exaggerated weight on the text about ,peter and the keys1 and has claimed a jurisdiction ,over the eastern patriarchates which was certainly not primitive1 and which these patriarchates have never honestly acknowledged4 ,on the other hand1 the ,church of ,england belonged to the ,western ,empire and its ,christianity has always been ,latin4 ,it broke away from the patriarchate of ,rome not at all in sympathy with the claims of ,antioch or ,constantinople1 but notoriously in sympathy with ,german ,protestantism4 ,this revolt was based on the same anti-,catholic and inconsistent motives as the ,german ,reformation--namely1 greed and desire for absolute power in princes1 zeal in puritan reformers1 and impatience of moral and intellectual constraint in the body of the clergy and laity4 ,nationalism1 faith1 learning1 and licence were curiously mingled in those turbid minds1 and the ,church of ,england inherits all that indescribable spiritual confusion4 ,it is national in its morals and manners1 mincing in its scholarship1 snobbish in its sympathies1 sentimental in its emotions4 ,spiritual minds in the church--of which there are many--suffer under this heredity incubus of worldliness2 but what can they avail8 ,some join the socialists2 a few escape to ,rome2 there at least the worldliness1 however conspicuous1 is regarded as a vice and not as a virtue4 ,the convert will find no dearth of petty passions1 machinations1 vanities1 tricks1 and shameless disbelief2 but all this will be1 like debauchery1 a crust of corruption1 avowedly corrupt4 ,it is dirt on the skin1 not cancer at the heart4 ,but then the true ,catholic has made the great surrender2 he has renounced1 or never thought of maintaining1 the authority of his inner man4 ,he is a catechumen2 his teachers will read for him the symptoms of health or disease visible in his thoughts and dispositions2 by their discipline--which is an ancient science--they will help him to save his soul2 a totally different thing from obeying the impulses or extending the adventures of the transcendental self4 ,the inner man1 for the ,catholic as for the materialist1 is only a pathological phenomenon4 ,therefore the ,englishman1 as ,i conceive him1 living in and by his inner man1 can never be really a ,catholic1 either ,anglican or ,roman2 if he likes to call himself by either name1 it is equally a masquerade1 a fad like a thousand others to which the inner man1 so seriously playful1 is prone to lend itself4 ,he may go over to ,rome on a spiritual tour1 as he might abscond for a year and live in ,japan with a ,japanese wife2 but if he is converted really1 and becomes a ,catholic at heart1 for good1 and in all simplicity1 then he is no longer the man he was4 ,words cannot measure the chasm that must henceforth separate him from everything at home4 ,i am not surprised that he recoils from so desperate a step4 ,it is not only the outward coarseness and laxity of ,catholic manners that offend him2 these vices are not universal1 and he would not need to share them4 ,but for him1 a modern ,englishman1 with freedom and experiment and reserve in his blood1 always nursing within himself the silent love of nature and of rebellion1 to go over to ,rome is an essential suicide3 the inner man must succumb first4 ,such an ,englishman might become a saint1 but only by becoming a foreigner4 ,there is another sense altogether in which the ,english church might be catholic if it chose4 ,suppose we lay it down as an axiom that whatever is acceptable to the inner man is good and true1 and that whatever is good and true is ,christian--,christianity would then be open to every influence which1 whilst apparently denaturalizing it1 might help to manifest its fulness4 ,it would cast off husk after husk of doctrine1 developing the living spirit and feeding it with every substance which it was fitted to absorb4 ,there is nothing new in this process4 ,christianity was born of such a marriage between the ,jewish soul and the ,greek4 ,greek philosophy was absorbed with magnificent results2 the restoration of ,pauline theology1 and the other insights of ,protestantism1 led to ,german philosophy1 which has been absorbed too2 the sloughing off of monasticism and ecclesiasticism have put ,christianity in a position to understand and express the modern world2 the reduction of revelation1 by the higher criticism of the ,bible1 to its true place in human history1 will involve a new change of front2 and the absorption of modern science and of democracy would complete the transformation4 ,to justify this method the church might appeal to an archbishop of ,canterbury who--this was in the old days--was also a saint and a great philosopher4 ,saint ,anselm has a famous proof of the existence of ,god which runs as follows3 ,god exists1 because ,god is1 by definition1 the most real of beings4 ,according to this argument1 if it should turn out that the most real of beings was matter1 it would follow that matter was ,god4 ,this might be thought a consequence drawn in mockery2 but ,i do not mean to deride ,saint ,anselm1 whom ,i revere1 but on the contrary to lay bare the nerve of his argument which if the age had given him scope1 and he had not been ,arch-bishop of ,canterbury1 he might have followed to its sublime conclusion1 as ,spinoza did after him4 ,there is a dignity in existence1 in fact1 in truth which to some speculative and rapt natures absorbs and cancels every other dignity3 and on this principle the ,english church might1 without any sudden or distressing negation1 gradually turn its worship to the most real of beings1 wheresoever it may be found2 and ,i presume the most real of beings will be the whole of what is found everywhere4 ,a narrower conception of ,god might at each step give place to a wider one2 and the church1 instead of embodying one particular revelation and striving to impose it universally through propaganda1 might become hospitable to all revelations1 and find a place for the inspirations of all ages and countries under the aegis of its own progressive traditions4 ,so the religion of ancient ,rome domesticated all the gods2 and so the ,english language1 if it should become the medium of international intercourse1 might by translation or imitation of other literatures or by the infiltration into it of foreign words and styles1 really become a vehicle for all human ideas4 ,i am not sure whether one party in the ,english church might not welcome such a destiny2 but at present1 so far as ,i can see1 the tenderer and more poetical spirits in it take quite another direction4 ,they are trying to recover the insights and practices of mediaeval piety2 they are archaistic in devotion4 ,there is a certain romance in their decision to believe greatly1 to feel mystically1 to pray perpetually4 ,they study their attitudes1 as they kneel in some correctly restored church1 hearing or intoning some revived early chant1 and wondering why they should not choose a divine lady in heaven to be their love and their advocate1 as did the troubadours1 or why they should not have recumbent effigies of themselves carved on their tombs1 with their legs crossed1 like the crusaders4 ,things cried the rapturous young priest who showed me the beautiful chapel of ,pusey ,house1 what we need is ,things6 #bb ,,leaving ,,church ,protestant faith does not vanish into the sunlight as ,catholic faith does1 but leaves a shadowy ghost haunting the night of the soul4 ,faith1 in the two cases1 was not faith in the same sense2 for the ,catholic it was belief in a report or an argument2 for the ,protestant it was confidence in an allegiance4 ,when ,catholics leave the church they do so by the south door1 into the glare of the market-place1 where their eye is at once attracted by the wares displayed in the booths1 by the flower-stalls with their bright awnings1 by the fountain with its baroque ,tritons blowing the spray into the air1 and the children laughing and playing round it1 by the concourse of townspeople and strangers1 and by the soldiers1 perhaps1 marching past2 and if they cast a look back at the church at all1 it is only to admire its antique architecture1 that crumbling filigree of stone so poetically surviving in its incongruous setting4 ,it is astonishing sometimes with what contempt1 with what a complete absence of understanding1 unbelievers in ,catholic countries look back on their religion4 ,for one cultivated mind that sees in that religion a monument to his racial genius1 a heritage of poetry and aft almost as precious as the classical heritage1 which indeed it incorporated in a hybrid form1 there are twenty ignorant radicals who pass it by apologetically1 as they might the broken toys or dusty schoolbooks of childhood4 ,their political animosity1 legitimate in itself1 blinds their imagination1 and renders them even politically foolish2 because in their injustice to human nature and to their national history they discredit their own cause1 and provoke reaction4 ,protestants1 on the contrary1 leave the church by the north door1 into the damp solitude of a green churchyard1 amid yews and weeping willows and overgrown mounds and fallen illegible gravestones4 ,they feel a terrible chill2 the few weedy flowers that may struggle through that long grass do not console them2 it was far brighter and warmer and more decent inside4 ,the church--boring as the platitudes and insincerities were which you listened to there for hours--was an edifice1 something protective1 social1 and human2 whereas here1 in this vague unhomely wilderness1 nothing seems to await you but discouragement and melancholy4 ,better the church than the madhouse4 ,and yet the ,protestant can hardly go back1 as the ,catholic does easily on occasion1 out of habit1 or fatigue1 or disappointment in life1 or metaphysical delusion1 or the emotional weakness of the death-bed4 ,no1 the ,protestant is more in earnest1 he carries his problem and his religion within him4 ,in his very desolation he will find ,god4 ,this has often been a cause of wonder to me3 the ,protestant pious economy is so repressive and morose and the ,catholic so charitable and pagan1 that ,i should have expected the ,catholic sometimes to sigh a little for his ,virgin and his saints1 and the ,protestant to shout for joy at having got rid of his ,god4 ,but the trouble is that the poor ,protestant can't get rid of his ,god2 for his idea of ,god is a vague symbol that stands not essentially1 as with the ,catholic1 for a particular legendary or theological personage1 but rather for that unfathomable influence which1 if it does not make for righteousness1 at least has so far made for existence and has imposed it upon us2 so that go through what doors you will and discard what dogmas you choose1 ,god will confront you still whichever way you may turn4 ,in this sense the enlightened ,catholic1 too1 in leaving the church1 has merely rediscovered ,god1 finding him now not in the church alone1 but in the church only as an expression of human fancy1 and in human life itself only as in one out of a myriad forms of natural existence4 ,but the ,protestant is less dear in his gropings1 the atmosphere of his inner man is more charged with vapours1 and it takes longer for the light dubiously to break through2 and often in his wintry day the sun sets without shining4 #bc ,,deathbed ,,manners ,in all ,protestant countries ,i have noticed a certain hush about death1 an uncomfortable secrecy1 and a fear as if of blasphemy whenever the subject threatens to come up4 ,is it that hell is still felt to lie1 for the vast majority1 immediately behind the curtain8 ,or is it that people have encouraged themselves to live and love as if they were immortal1 and to this lifelong bluff of theirs death brings a contradiction which they have not the courage to face8 ,or is it simply that death is too painful1 too sacred1 or too unseemly for polite ears8 ,that a desire to ignore everything unpleasant is at the bottom of this convention seems to be confirmed by an opposite attitude towards death which ,i have observed among ,english people during this war4 ,some of them speak of death quite glibly1 quite cheerfully1 as if it were a sort of trip to ,brighton4 ,oh yes1 our two sons went down in the ,black ,prince4 ,they were such nice boys4 ,never heard a word about them1 of course2 but probably the magazine blew up and they were all killed quite instantly1 so that we don't mind half so much as if they had had any of those bad lingering wounds4 ,they wouldn't have liked it at all being crippled1 you know2 and we all think it is probably much better as it is4 ,just blown to atoms6 ,it is such a blessing6 ,of course1 the poor parents feel their hearts sink within them in private2 but their affectation of cheerfulness has its logic4 ,death is a fact2 and we had better accept it as such as we do the weather2 perhaps1 if we pretend not to care1 we really shan't care so much4 ,the men in the trenches and hospitals have often been bitterly unreconciled and rebellious1 and haunted by the cruel futility of their sufferings3 but the nursing everywhere has been devoted and heroic3 and my impression of the mourning at home is1 that it has been philosophical4 ,english manners are sensible and conducive to comfort even at a death-bed4 ,no summoning of priests1 no great concourse of friends and relations1 no loud grief1 no passionate embraces and poignant farewells2 no endless confabulations in the antechamber1 no gossip about the symptoms1 the remedies1 or the doctors' quarrels and blunders2 no breathless enumeration of distinguished visitors1 letters1 and telegrams2 no tearful reconciliation of old family feuds nor whisperings about the division of the property4 ,instead1 either silence and closed doors1 if there is real sorrow1 or more commonly only a little physical weariness in the mourners1 a little sigh or glance at one another1 as if to say3 ,we are simply waiting for events2 the doctors and nurses1 are attending to everything1 and no doubt1 when the end comes1 it will be for the best4 ,in the departing soul1 too1 probably dulness and indifference4 ,no repentance1 no anxiety1 no definite hopes or desires either for this life or for the next4 ,perhaps old memories returning1 old loves automatically reviving2 possibly a vision1 by anticipation1 of some reunion in the other world3 but how pale1 how ghostly1 how impotent this death-dream is6 ,i seem to overhear the last words1 the last thoughts of a mother3 ,dear children1 you know ,i love you4 ,provision has been made4 ,i should be of little use to you any longer4 ,how pleasant to look out of that window into the park6 ,be sure they don't forget to give ,pup some meat with his dog-biscuit4 ,it is all very simple1 very much repressed1 the pattering echo of daily words4 ,death1 it is felt1 is not important4 ,what matters is the part we have played in the world1 or may still play there by our influence4 ,we are not going to a melodramatic ,last ,judgement4 ,we are shrinking into ourselves1 into the seed we came from1 into a long winter's sleep4 ,perhaps in another springtime we may revive and come again to the light somewhere1 among those sweet flowers1 those dear ones we have lost4 ,that is ,god's secret4 ,we have tried to do right here4 ,if there is any ,beyond1 we shall try to do right there also4 #bd ,,war ,,shrines ,in many an ,english village there is nowadays a calvary4 ,the novel object merges with wonderful ease into the landscape1 and one would almost think it had always been there4 ,the protecting wooden eaves have already lost their rigidity and their varnish2 the crucifix no longer reminds one of the shop-window from which it came2 it does not suggest popish aggression nor the affectations of ritualism4 ,flecks of sunlight play upon it familiarly1 as upon the wayside stones1 and it casts its shadow across the common like any natural tree4 ,the flowers in the pots before it have withered1 they droop half hidden in the ivy that has overgrown them4 ,even the scroll of names has modified its official ghastliness--all those newly dead obscure souls starkly ticketed and numbered2 the tragic page has got somewhat weather-stained and illegible1 and is curling up at the edges2 it has become a dead leaf4 ,decidedly the war-shrine is at home in the scene4 ,it is a portion of that unspoken truth which every one carries about with him1 and the people seem again to breathe freely under the shadow of the cross4 ,what does the cross signify8 ,we are told that ,christ died to save us1 and various analogies1 legal1 sentimental1 or chivalrous1 are put forward to make that notion acceptable4 ,i respect the sentiments of duty and devotion which this doctrine of legal redemption can inspire2 they express readiness to do well1 and in a certain moral sense1 as ,hamlet says1 the readiness is all2 yet it is a conception of religion borrowed from ancient lawyers and rhetoricians1 a sort of celestial diplomacy4 ,the cross can mean something else2 it can symbolize poetically a general truth about existence and experience4 ,this truth is the same which the ,indians express more philosophically by saying that life is an illusion--an expression which is itself figurative and poetical4 ,it is certainly not an illusion that ,i have now the experience of being alive and of finding myself surrounded1 at least in appearance1 by a tolerably tractable world1 material and social4 ,it is not an illusion that this experience is now filling me with mixed and trooping feelings4 ,in calling existence an illusion1 the ,indian sages meant that it is fugitive and treacherous3 the images and persons that diversify it are unsubstantial1 and myself the most shifting and unsubstantial of all4 ,the substance and fine mechanism which ,i do not doubt underlie this changing apparition are out of scale with my imagined units1 and 7beyond a certain point7 out of sympathy with my interests4 ,life is an illusion if we trust it1 but it is a truth if we do not trust it2 and this discovery is perhaps better symbolized by the cross than by the ,indian doctrine of illusion4 ,i will not say that not to exist would not be better2 existence may be condemned by the very respectable criterion of excellence or reality which demands in all things permanence and safety2 but so long as we exist1 however precariously or unreally1 ,i think it the part of wisdom to find a way of living well1 rather than merely to deprecate living4 ,the cross is certainly a most violent image1 putting suffering and death before us with a rude emphasis2 and ,i can understand the preference of many for the serene ,buddha1 lifting the finger of meditation and profound counsel1 and freeing the soul by the sheer force of knowledge and of sweet reason4 ,nevertheless1 ,i am not sorry to have been born a ,christian3 for the soul cannot be really freed except by ceasing to live2 and it is whilst we still exist1 not after we are dead to existence1 that we need counsel ,it is therefore the crucified spirit1 not the liberated spirit1 that is our true master4 ,certainly the spirit is crucified1 first by being incarcerated in the flesh at all1 and then again1 after it has identified itself with the will of the flesh1 by being compelled to renounce it4 ,yet both this painful incarnation and this painful redemption have something marvellously sweet about them4 ,the world which torments us is truly beautiful2 indeed1 that is one of its ways of tormenting us2 and we are not wrong in loving1 but only in appropriating it4 ,the surrender of this untenable claim to exist and to possess the beautiful1 is in its turn beautiful and good4 ,christ loved the world1 in an erotic sense in which ,buddha did not love it3 and the world has loved the cross as it can never love the ,bo-tree4 ,so that out of the very entanglements of the spirit come marvellous compensations to the spirit1 which in its liberation leave it still human and friendly to all that it gives up4 ,i do not at all accept the morality of the ,indians in so far as it denies the values of illusion2 the only evil in illusion is that it deceives2 there is beauty in its being4 ,true insight1 true mercy1 is tender and sensitive to the infinite pulsations of ignorance and passion3 it is not deceived by the prattle of the child1 but is not offended by it4 ,the knowledge that existence can manifest but cannot retain the good reconciles us at once to living and to dying4 ,that1 ,i think1 is the wisdom of the cross4 ,there is a folly of the cross also1 when the knowledge or half-knowledge that life must be suffering1 until it is cleared of the love of life1 erects suffering into an end in itself1 which is insane and monstrous4 ,i suspect1 however1 that in asceticism as actually preached and practised there is less of this idolatry of suffering than the outsider imagines1 who lying amid his cushions severely reproves those who indulge in a penance4 ,there is an asceticism which may be loved for its simplicity1 its clean poverty and cold water1 hygienic like mountain air2 but flagellations and blood and night-long wailings are not an end in themselves2 no saint expects to carry them with him into heaven2 at best they are a homoeopathic cure for the lusts of the flesh4 ,their purpose1 if not their effect1 is freedom and peace4 ,i wish ,protestants1 who find their ascetic discipline in hard work1 were equally clear about its object4 ,from the worship of instrumentalities1 whether penitential or worldly1 the cross redeems us3 in draining the cup of suffering it transcends suffering1 and in being raised above the earth it lifts us out of it4 ,my instinct is to go and stand under the cross1 with the monks and the crusaders1 far away from these ,jews and ,protestants who adore the world and who govern it4 ,there is a mystical folly also among the ,indians1 when they assign a positive bliss to pure ,being2 this1 too1 is substance-worship4 ,identity with substance is deemed blessed because beneath the vicissitudes of illusion1 substance remains always solid1 safe1 and real4 ,certainly substance1 if there is such a thing1 must be safe1 real1 and solid2 for we understand by substance whatever is constant in change4 ,hence the desire to escape from illusion and from suffering hails a return to the indistinction of substance as a positive salvation2 remember that you are dust1 return to the infinite from which you came1 and nothing ominous can threaten you any more1 the dust and the infinite are safe4 ,but changeless substance1 being unconscious1 cannot be blissful2 the attribution of divine bliss to it is an illusion of contrast1 and1 like so much philosophy1 mere rhetoric turned into a revelation4 ,what verbal mirage is this1 to see happiness in fixity8 ,substance may be conceived logically1 and then it means pure ,being2 or it may be conceived psychologically1 and then it means absorption in the sense of pure ,being2 or it may be conceived physically as matter1 a name for the constant quantities in things that are traceably transformed into one another4 ,pure ,being and the contemplation of pure ,being seem at first sight very different from matter2 but they may be a dramatic impersonation of matter1 viewed from the inside1 and felt as blind intensity and solidified ignorance4 ,no one calls matter blessed when viewed externally1 although it is then that its best qualities1 its fertility and order1 come into view3 yet half mankind have fallen to worshipping matter in envy of its internal condition1 and to trying to fall back into it1 because it is the negation 7and yet the cause67 of all their troubles4 ,the idea of an intense nothing hypnotizes them1 it is the sovereign anaesthetic2 and they forget that this intense nothing1 by its fruitfulness in the realm of illusion1 has generated all their desires1 including this desperate desire to be nothing1 which turns that nothingness1 by a last illusion1 into a good4 ,if to be saved were merely to cease1 we should all be saved by a little waiting3 and ,i say this advisedly1 without forgetting that the ,indians threaten us with reincarnation4 ,it is a myth to which ,i have no objection1 because only selfishness persuades me that if ,i am safe1 all is well4 ,what difference does it make in reality whether the suffering and ignominy of life fall to what ,i call myself or to what ,i call another man8 ,the only trouble is that the moral redemption which is proposed to us as a means of safety instead of death1 touches the individual only1 just as death does4 ,christ and ,buddha are called saviours of the world2 ,i think it must be in irony1 for the world is just as much in need of salvation as ever4 ,death and insight and salvation are personal4 ,the world springs up unregenerate every morning in spite of all the ,tabors and ,calvaries of yesterday4 ,what can save the world1 without destroying it1 is self-knowledge on the part of the world1 not of course reflective self-knowledge 7for the world is not an animal that can think7 but such a regimen and such a philosophy established in society as shall recognize truly what the world is1 and what happiness is possible in it4 ,the force that has launched me into this dream of life does not care what turns my dream takes nor how long it troubles me4 ,nature denies at every moment1 not indeed that ,i am troubled and dreaming1 but that there are any natural units like my visions1 or anything anomalous in what ,i hate1 or final in what ,i love4 ,under these circumstances1 what is the part of wisdom8 ,to dream with one eye open2 to be detached from the world without hostility to it2 to welcome fugitive beauties and pity fugitive sufferings without forgetting for a moment how fugitive they are2 and not to lay up treasures1 except in heaven4 ,how charming is divine philosophy1 when it is really divine1 when it descends to earth from a higher sphere1 and loves the things of earth without needing or collecting them ,i ,what the gay ,aristippus said of his mistress3 ,i possess1 ,i am not possessed1 every spirit should say of an experience that ruffles it like a breeze playing on the summer sea4 ,a thousand ships sail over it in vain1 and the worst of tempests is in a teapot4 ,this once acknowledged and inwardly digested1 life and happiness can honestly begin4 ,nature is innocently fond of puffing herself out1 spreading her peacock feathers1 and saying1 ,what a fine bird am ,i6 ,and so she is2 to rave against this vanity would be to imitate it4 ,on the contrary1 the secret of a merry carnival is that ,lent is at hand4 ,having virtually renounced our follies1 we are for the first time able to enjoy them with a free heart in their ephemeral purity4 ,when laughter is humble1 when it is not based on self-esteem1 it is wiser than tears4 ,conformity is wiser than hot denials1 tolerance wiser than priggishness and puritanism4 ,it is not what earnest people renounce that makes me pity them1 it is what they work for4 ,no possible reform will make existence adorable or fundamentally just4 ,modern ,england has worked too hard and cared too much2 so much tension is hysterical and degrading2 nothing is ever gained by it worth half what it spoils4 ,wealth is dismal and poverty cruel unless both are festive4 ,there is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval4 ,the easier attitudes which seem more frivolous are at bottom infinitely more spiritual and profound than the tense attitudes2 they are nearer to understanding and to renunciation2 they are nearer to the cross4 ,perhaps if ,england had remained ,catholic it might have remained merry2 it might still dare1 as ,shakespeare dared1 to be utterly tragic and also frankly and humbly gay4 ,the world has been too much with it2 ,hebraic religion and ,german philosophy have confirmed it in a deliberate and agonized worldliness4 ,they have sanctioned1 in the hard-working and reforming part of the middle classes1 an unqualified respect for prosperity and success2 life is judged with all the blindness of life itself4 ,there is no moral freedom4 ,in so far as minds are absorbed in business or in science they all inevitably circle about the same objects1 and take part in the same events1 combining their thoughts and efforts in the same worlds work4 ,the world1 therefore1 invades and dominates them2 they lose their independence and almost their distinction from one another4 ,their philosophy accordingly only exaggerates a little when it maintains that their individual souls are all manifestation of a single spirit1 the ,earth-spirit4 ,they hardly have any souls they can call their own1 that may be saved out of the world1 or that may see and judge the world from above4 ,death is the background of life much as empty space is that of the stars2 it is a deeper thing always lying behind1 like the black sky behind the blue4 ,in the realm of existence death is indeed nothing2 only a word for something negative and merely notional--the fact that each life has limits in time and is absent beyond them4 ,but in the realm of truth1 as things are eternally1 life is a little luminous meteor in an infinite abyss of nothingness1 a rocket fired on a dark night2 and to see life1 and to value it1 from the point of view of death is to see and to value it truly4 ,the foot of the cross--,i dare not say the cross itself--is a good station from which to survey existence4 ,in the greatest griefs there is a tragic calm2 the fury of the will is exhausted1 and our thoughts rise to another level2 as the shrill delights and the black sorrows of childhood are impossible in old age4 ,people sometimes make crosses of flowers or of gold2 and ,i like to see the enamelled crucifix richly surrounded with scrolls1 and encrusted with jewels2 without a touch of this pagan instinct the religion of the cross would not be healthy nor just4 ,in the skirts of ,mount ,calvary lies the garden of the resurrection3 ,i do not refer to any melodramatic resurrection1 such as is pictured in ,jewish and ,christian legend1 but to one which actually followed quietly1 sweetly1 in the light of a purer day1 in the cloister1 in the home1 in the regenerate mind4 ,after renouncing the world1 the soul may find the world more amiable1 and may live in it with a smile and a mystic doubt and one foot in eternity4 ,vanity is innocent when recognized to be vain1 and is no longer a disgrace to the spirit4 ,the happiness of wisdom may at first seem autumnal1 and the shadow of the cross the shadow of death2 but it is healing slow2 and presently1 in the hollow where the cross was set1 the scent of violets surprises us1 and the crocuses peep out amongst the thorns4 ,the dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity4 ,far be it from me to suggest that existence is the better because non-existence precedes and follows it2 certainly1 if man was immortal his experience could not include tradition1 parentage1 childhood1 love1 nor old age2 nevertheless1 from the point of view of both bodily and intellectual instincts immortality would be far better4 ,but since1 as a matter of fact1 birth and death actually occur1 and our brief career is surrounded by vacancy1 it is far better to live in the light of the tragic fact1 rather than to forget or deny it1 and build everything on a fundamental lie4 ,death does not say to life that life is nothing1 or does not exist1 or is an illusion2 that would be wild talk1 and would show that the inspiration we had drawn from death was as little capable of doing justice to life1 as life itself is when mindless1 of discovering death1 or learning anything from it4 ,what the environing presence of death teaches is merely that life has such and such limits and such and such a course1 whether it reflects on its course or not1 whether it recognizes its limits or ignores them4 ,death can do nothing to our lives except to frame them in1 to show them off with a broad margin of darkness and silence2 so that to live in the shadow of death and of the cross is to spread a large nimbus of peace around our littleness4 #be ,,tipperary ,what a strange pleasure there is sometimes in seeing what we expected1 or hearing what we knew was a fact6 ,the dream then seems really to hold together and truth to be positively true4 ,the bells that announced the ,armistice brought me no news2 a week sooner or a week later they had to ring4 ,certainly if the purpose of the war had been conquest or victory1 nobody had achieved it2 but the purposes of things1 and especially of wars1 are imputed to them rhetorically1 the impulses at work being too complicated and changeful to be easily surveyed2 and in this case1 for the ,french and the ,english1 the moving impulse had been defence2 they had been sustained through incredible trials by the awful necessity of not yielding4 ,that strain had now been relaxed2 and as the conduct of men is determined by present forces and not by future advantages1 they could have no heart to fight on4 ,it seemed enough to them that the wanton blow had been parried1 that the bully had begged for mercy4 ,it was amusing to hear him now4 ,he said that further bloodshed this time would be horrible2 his tender soul longed to get home safely1 to call it quits1 and to take a long breath and plan a new combination before the next bout4 ,his collapse had been evident for days and months2 yet these bells that confirmed the fact were pleasant to hear4 ,those mean little flags1 hung out here and there by private initiative in the streets of ,oxford1 had almost put on a look of triumph2 the very sunlight and brisk autumnal air seemed to have heard the tidings1 and to invite the world to begin to live again at ease4 ,certainly many a sad figure and many a broken soul must slink henceforth on crutches1 a mere survival2 but they1 too1 will die off gradually4 ,the grass soon grows over a grave4 ,so musing1 ,i suddenly heard a once familiar strain1 now long despised and out of favour1 the old tune of ,tipperary4 ,in a coffee-house frequented at that hour some wounded officers from the hospital at ,somerville were singing it1 standing near the bar2 they were breaking all rules1 both of surgeons and of epicures1 and were having champagne in the morning4 ,and good reason they had for it4 ,they were reprieved1 they should never have to go back to the front1 their friends--such as were left--would all come home alive4 ,instinctively the old grumbling1 good-natured1 sentimental song1 which they used to sing when they first joined1 came again into their minds4 ,it had been indeed a long1 long way to ,tipperary4 ,but they had trudged on and had come round full circle2 they were in ,tipperary at last4 ,i wonder what they think ,tipperary means--for this is a mystical song4 ,probably they are willing to leave it vague1 as they do their notions of honour or happiness or heaven4 ,their soldiering is over2 they remember1 with a strange proud grief1 their comrades who died to make this day possible1 hardly believing that it ever would come2 they are overjoyed1 yet half ashamed1 to be safe themselves2 they forget their wounds2 they see a green vista before them1 a jolly1 busy1 sporting1 loving life in the old familiar places4 ,everything will go on1 they fancy1 as if nothing had happened4 ,good honest unguided creatures6 ,they are hardly out of the fog of war when they are lost in the fog of peace4 ,if experience could teach mankind anything1 how different our morals and our politics would be1 how clear1 how tolerant1 how steady ,i ,if we knew ourselves1 our conduct at all times would be absolutely decided and consistent2 and a pervasive sense of vanity and humour would disinfect all our passions1 if we knew the world4 ,as it is1 we live experimentally1 moodily1 in the dark2 each generation breaks its egg-shell with the same haste and assurance as the last1 pecks at the same indigestible pebbles1 dreams the same dreams1 or others just as absurd1 and if it hears anything of what former men have learned by experience1 it corrects their maxims by its first impressions1 and rushes down any untrodden path which it finds alluring1 to die in its own way1 or become wise too late and to no purpose4 ,these young men are no rustics1 they are no fools2 and yet they have passed through the most terrible ordeal1 they have seen the mad heart of this world riven and unmasked1 they have had long vigils before battle1 long nights tossing with pain1 in which to meditate on the spectacle2 and yet they have learned nothing4 ,the young barbarians want to be again at play4 ,if it were to be only cricket or boating1 it would be innocent enough2 but they are going to gamble away their lives and their country1 taking their chances in the lottery of love and of business and of politics1 with a sporting chance thrown in1 perhaps1 of heaven4 ,they are going to shut out from view everything except their topmost instincts and easy habits1 and to trust to luck4 ,yet the poor fellows think they are safe6 ,they think that the war--perhaps the last of all wars--is over6 ,only the dead are safe2 only the dead have seen the end of war4 ,not that non-existence deserves to be called peace2 it is only by an illusion of contrast and a pathetic fallacy that we are tempted to call it so4 ,the church has a poetical and melancholy prayer1 that the souls of the faithful departed may rest in peace4 ,if in that sigh there lingers any fear that1 when a tomb is disturbed1 the unhappy ghost is doomed to walk more often abroad1 the fear is mad2 and if it merely expresses the hope that dead men's troubles are over1 the wish is superfluous2 but perhaps we may gloss the old superstition1 and read into it the rational aspiration that all souls in other spheres1 or in the world to come upon earth1 might learn to live at peace with ,god and with things4 ,that would be something worth praying for1 but ,i am afraid it is asking too much4 ,god--,i mean the sum of all possible good--is immutable2 to make our peace with him it is we1 not he1 that must change4 ,we should need to discover1 and to pursue singly1 the happiness proper to our nature1 including the accidents of race and sex and the very real advantages of growing old and of not living for ever2 and we should need to respect without envying all other forms of the good4 ,as to the world of existence1 it is certainly fluid1 and by judicious pressure we may coax some parts of it into greater conformity with our wills2 yet it is so vast1 and crawls through such ponderous1 insidious revolutions1 all so blind and so inimical to one another1 that in order to live at peace with things we should need to acquire a marvellous plasticity1 or a splendid indifference4 ,we should have to make peace with the fact of war4 ,it is the stupid obstinacy of our self-love that produces tragedy1 and makes us angry with the world4 ,free life has the spirit of comedy4 ,it rejoices in the seasonable beauty of each new thing1 and laughs at its decay1 covets no possessions1 demands no agreement1 and strives to sustain nothing in being except a gallant spirit of courage and truth1 as each fresh adventure may renew it4 ,this gallant spirit of courage and truth1 you young men had it in those early days when you first sang ,tipperary2 have you it still1 ,i wonder1 when you repeat the song8 ,some of you1 no doubt4 ,i have seen in some of you the smile that makes light of pain1 the sturdy humility that accepts mutilation and faces disability without repining or shame2 armless and legless men are still ,god's creatures1 and even if you cannot see the sun you can bask in it1 and there is joy on earth--perhaps the deepest and most primitive joy--even in that4 ,but others of you1 though you were driven to the war by contagious example1 or by force1 are natural cowards2 you are perhaps superior persons1 intellectual snobs1 and are indignant at having been interrupted in your important studies and made to do useless work4 ,you are disgusted at the stupidity of all the generals1 and whatever the ,government does is an outrage to your moral sense4 ,you were made sick at the thought of the war before you went to it1 and you are sicker of it now4 ,you are pacifists1 and you suspect that the ,germans1 who were not pacifists1 were right after all4 ,i notice you are not singing ,tipperary this morning2 you are too angry to be glad1 and you wish it to be understood that you can't endure such a vulgar air4 ,you are willing1 however1 to sip your champagne with the rest2 in hospital you seem to have come forward a little socially2 but you find the wine too dry or too sweet1 and you are making a wry face at it4 ,ah1 my delicate friends1 if the soul of a philosopher may venture to address you1 let me whisper this counsel in your ears3 ,reserve a part of your wrath2 you have not seen the worst yet4 ,you suppose that this war has been a criminal blunder and an exceptional horror2 you imagine that before long reason will prevail1 and all these inferior people that govern the world will be swept aside1 and your own party will reform everything and remain always in office4 ,you are mistaken4 ,this war has given you your first glimpse of the ancient1 fundamental1 normal state of the world1 your first taste of reality4 ,it should teach you to dismiss all your philosophies of progress or of a governing reason as the babble of dreamers who walk through one world mentally beholding another4 ,i don't mean that you or they are fools2 heaven forbid4 ,you have too much mind4 ,it is easy to behave very much like other people and yet be possessed inwardly by a narcotic dream4 ,i am sure the flowers--and you resemble flowers yourselves1 though a bit wilted--if they speculate at all1 construct idealisms which1 like your own1 express their inner sensibility and their experience of the weather1 without much resemblance to the world at large4 ,their thoughts1 like yours1 are all positings and deductions and asseverations of what ought to be1 whilst the calm truth is marching on unheeded outside4 ,no great harm ensues1 because the flowers are rooted in their places and adjusted to the prevailing climate4 ,it doesn't matter what they think4 ,you1 too1 in your lodgings in ,chelsea1 quite as in ,lhassa or in ,mount ,athos1 may live and die happy in your painted cells4 ,it is the primitive and the ultimate office of the mind to supply such a sanctuary4 ,but if you are ever driven again into the open1 if the course of events should be so rapid1 that you could catch the drift of it in your short life 7since you despise tradition71 then you must prepare for a ruder shock4 ,there is eternal war in nature1 a war in which every cause is ultimately lost and every nation destroyed4 ,war is but resisted change2 and change must needs be resisted so long as the organism it would destroy retains any vitality4 ,peace itself means discipline at home and invulnerability abroad--two forms of permanent virtual war2 peace requires so vigorous an internal regimen that every germ of dissolution or infection shall be repelled before it reaches the public soul4 ,this war has been a short one1 and its ravages slight in comparison with what remains standing3 a severe war is one in which the entire manhood of a nation is destroyed1 its cities razed1 and its women and children driven into slavery4 ,in this instance the slaughter has been greater1 perhaps1 only because modern populations are so enormous2 the disturbance has been acute only because the modern industrial system is so dangerously complex and unstable2 and the expense seems prodigious because we were so extravagantly rich4 ,our society was a sleepy glutton who thought himself immortal and squealed inexpressibly1 like a stuck pig1 at the first prick of the sword4 ,an ancient city would have thought this war1 or one relatively as costly1 only a normal incident2 and certainly the ,germans will not regard it otherwise4 ,existence1 being a perpetual generation1 involves aspiration1 and its aspiration envelops it in an atmosphere of light1 the joy and the beauty of being1 which is the living heaven2 but for the same reason existence1 in its texture1 involves a perpetual and a living hell--the conflict and mutual hatred of its parts1 each endeavouring to devour its neighbour's substance in the vain effort to live for ever4 ,now1 the greater part of most men's souls dwells in this hell1 and ends there4 ,one of their chief torments is the desire to live without dying--continual death being a part of the only possible and happy life4 ,we wish to exist materially1 and yet resent the plastic stress1 the very force of material being1 which is daily creating and destroying us4 ,certainly war is hell1 as you1 my fair friends1 are fond of repeating2 but so is rebellion against war4 ,to live well you must be victorious4 ,it is with war as with the passion of love1 which is a war of another kind3 war at first against the beloved for favour and possession2 war afterwards against the rest of the world for the beloved's sake4 ,often love1 too1 is a torment and shameful2 but it has its laughing triumphs1 and the attempt to eliminate it is a worse torture1 and more degrading4 ,when was a coward at peace8 ,homer1 who was a poet of war1 did not disguise its horrors nor its havoc1 but he knew it was the shield of such happiness as is possible on earth4 ,if ,hector had not scoured the plain in his chariot1 ,paris could not have piped upon the slopes of ,ida1 nor sported with his sheep and his goddesses upon the green4 ,the merchants of ,crete or ,phoenicia could not have drawn up their black keels upon the beach1 if the high walls of ,ilium had not cast their protecting shadow on their bales of merchandise1 their bags of coin1 and their noisy bargaining4 ,when ,hector was no more and the walls were a heap of dust1 all the uses of peace vanished also3 ruin and utter meanness came to inhabit that land1 and still inhabit it4 ,nor is war1 which makes peace possible1 without occasions in which a free spirit1 not too much attached to existence1 may come into its own4 ,homer shows us how his heroes could gather even from battle a certain harvest of tenderness and nobility1 and how above their heads1 half seen through the clouds of dust and of pain1 flew the winged chariots of the gods1 and music mingled with their banquet4 ,be sad if you will1 there is always reason for sadness1 since the good which the world brings forth is so fugitive and bought at so great a price2 but be brave4 ,if you think happiness worth enjoying1 think it worth defending4 ,nothing you can lose ,by dying is half so precious as the readiness to die1 which is man's charter of nobility2 life would not be worth having without the freedom of soul and the friendship with nature which that readiness brings4 ,the things we know and love on earth are1 and should be1 transitory2 they are1 as were the things celebrated by ,homer1 at best the song or oracle by which heaven is revealed in our time4 ,we must pass with them into eternity1 not in the end only but continually1 as a phrase passes into its meaning2 and since they are part of us and we of them1 we should accompany them with a good grace3 it would be desolation to survive4 ,the eternal is always present1 as the flux of time in one sense never is1 since it is all either past or future2 but this elusive existence in passing sets before the spirit essences in which spirit rests1 and which can never vary2 as a dramatic poet creates a character which many an actor afterwards on many a night may try to enact4 ,of course the flux of matter carries the poets away too2 they become old-fashioned1 and nobody wishes any longer to play their characters2 but each age has its own gods4 ,time is like an enterprising manager always bent on staging some new and surprising production1 without knowing very well what it will be4 ,our good mother ,psyche1 who is a convolution of this material flux1 breeds us accordingly to mindlessness and anxiety1 out of which it is hard for our youthful intellect to wean itself to peace1 by escaping into the essential eternity of everything it sees and loves4 ,so long as the world goes round we shall see ,tipperary only1 as it were1 out of the window of our troop-train4 ,your heart and mine may remain there1 but it's a long1 long way that the world has to go4 #bf ,,skylarks ,there is a poet in every nice ,englishman2 there is a little fund of free vitality deep down in him which the exigencies of his life do not tap and which no art at his command can render articulate4 ,he is able to draw upon it1 and to drink in the refreshment and joy of inner freedom1 only in silent or religious moments4 ,he feels he is never so much himself as when he has shed for the time being all his ordinary preoccupations4 ,that is why his religion is so thin or 7as he might say7 so pure3 it has no relevance to any particular passions or events2 a featureless background1 distant and restful1 like a pale clear sky4 ,that is why he loves nature1 and country life1 and hates towns and vulgar people2 those he likes he conceives emasculated1 sentimentalized1 and robed in white4 ,the silent poet within him is only a lyric poet4 ,when he returns from those draughts of rare and abstract happiness1 he would find it hard to reconcile himself to the world1 or to himself1 did he not view both through a veil of convention and make-believe2 he could not be honest about himself and retain his self-respect2 he could not be clear about other people and remain kind4 ,yet to be kind to all1 and true to his inner man1 is his profound desire2 because even if life1 in its unvarnished truth1 is a gross medley and a cruel business1 it is redeemed for him1 nevertheless1 by the perfect beauty of soul that here and there may shine through it4 ,hamlet is the classic version of this imprisoned spirit2 the skylark seems a symbol of what it would be in its freedom4 ,poor larks6 ,is the proportion of dull matter in their bodies1 ,i wonder1 really less than in ours8 ,must they not find food and rear their young8 ,must they not in their measure work1 watch1 and tremble8 ,cold1 hunger1 and disease probably beset them more often and more bitterly than they do most of us4 ,but we think of them selfishly1 as of actors on the stage1 only in the character they wear when they attract our attention4 ,as we walk through the fields we stop to watch and to listen to them performing in the sky1 and never think of their home troubles2 which they1 too1 seem for the moment to have eluded2 at least they have energy and time enough left over from those troubles for all this luxury of song4 ,it is this glorious if temporary emancipation1 this absolute defiant emphasis laid with so much sweetness on the inner life that the poet in every nice ,englishman loves in the lark2 it seems to reveal a brother-spirit more fortunate than oneself1 almost a master and a guide4 ,larks made even ,shelley envious1 although no man ever had less reason to envy them for their gift1 either in its rapture or in its abstraction4 ,even the outer circumstances of ,shelley's life were very favourable to inspiration and left him free to warble as much and as ardently as he chose2 but perhaps he was somewhat deceived by the pathos of distance and fancied that in ,nephelococcygia bad birds and wicked traditions were less tyrannous than in parliamentary ,england4 ,he seems to have thought that human nature was not really made for puddings and port wine and hunting and elections1 nor even for rollicking at universities and reading ,greek1 but only for innocent lyrical ecstasies and fiery convictions that nevertheless should somehow not render people covetous or jealous or cruelly disposed1 nor constrain them to prevent any one from doing anything that any one might choose to do4 ,perhaps in truth the cloisters of ,oxford and the streets of ,london are quite as propitious to the flights of which human nature is really capable as ,english fields are to the flights of larks2 there is food in them for thought4 ,but ,shelley was impatient of human nature2 he was horrified to find that society is a web of merciless ambitions and jealousies1 mitigated by a quite subsidiary kindness2 he forgot that human life is precarious and that its only weapon against circumstances1 and against rival men1 is intelligent action1 intelligent war4 ,the case is not otherwise with larks1 on the fundamental earthly side of their existence2 yet because their flight is bodily1 because it is a festive outpouring of animal vitality1 not of art or reflection1 it suggests to us a total freedom of the inner man1 a freedom which is impossible4 ,in the flight of larks1 however1 by a rare favour of fortune1 all seems to be spontaneity1 courage1 and trust1 even within this material sphere2 nothing seems to be adjustment or observation4 ,their life in the air is a sort of intoxication of innocence and happiness in the blind pulses of existence4 ,they are voices of the morning1 young hearts seeking experience and not remembering it2 when they seem to sob they are only catching their breath4 ,they spring from the ground as impetuously as a rocket or the jet of a fountain1 that bursts into a shower of sparks or of dew-drops2 they circle as they rise1 soaring through veil after veil of luminous air1 or dropping from level to level4 ,their song is like the gurgling of little rills of water1 perpetual through its delicate variations1 and throbbing with a changed volume at every change in the breeze4 ,their rapture seems to us seraphic1 not merely because it descends to us invisibly from a luminous height1 straining our eyes and necks--in itself a cheap sublimity-v but rather because the lark sings so absolutely for the mad sake of singing4 ,he is evidently making high holiday1 spending his whole strength on something ultimate and utterly useless1 a momentary entrancing pleasure which 7being useless and ultimate7 is very like an act of worship or of sacrifice4 ,sheer life in him has become pure4 ,that is what we envy2 that is what causes us1 as we listen1 to draw a deeper breath1 and perhaps something like tears to come to our eyes4 ,he seems so triumphantly to attain what all our labours end by missing1 yet what alone would justify them3 happiness1 selflessness1 a moment of life lived in the spirit4 ,and we may be tempted to say to ourselves3 ,ah1 if ,i could only forget1 if ,i could cease to look before and after1 if the pale cast of thought did not make a slave of me1 as well as a coward6 ,vital raptures such as the lark's are indeed not unknown even to man1 and the suggestion of them powerfully allures the ,englishman1 being as he is a youth morally1 still impelled to sport1 still confident of carrying his whole self forward into some sort of heaven1 whether in love1 in politics1 or in religion1 without resigning to nature the things that are nature's nor hiding in ,god the things that are ,god's4 ,alas1 a sad lesson awaits him1 if he ever grows old enough to learn it4 ,vital raptures1 unless long training or a miracle of adaptation has antecedently harmonized them with the whole orchestration of nature1 necessarily come to a bad end4 ,dancing and singing and love and sport and religious enthusiasm are mighty ferments3 happy he who vents them in their season4 ,but if ever they are turned into duties1 pumped up by force1 or made the basis of anything serious1 like morals or science1 they become vicious4 ,the wild breath of inspiration is gone which hurried them across the soul like a bright cloud4 ,inspiration1 as we may read in ,plato between the lines1 inspiration is animal4 ,it comes from the depths1 from that hearth of ,hestia1 the ,earth-,mother1 which conservative pagans could not help venerating as divine4 ,only art and reason1 however1 are divine in a moral sense1 not because they are less natural than inspiration 7for the ,earth-,mother with her seeds and vapours is the root of everything7 but because they mount towards the ultimate heaven of order1 beauty1 intellectual light1 and the achievement of eternal dignities4 ,in that dimension of being even featherless bipeds can soar and sing with a good grace4 ,but space is not their element2 airmen1 now that we have them1 are only a new sort of sailor4 ,they fly for the sake of danger and of high wages2 it is a boyish art1 with its romantic glamour soon tarnished1 and only a material reward left for all its skill and hardships4 ,the only sublimity possible to man is intellectual2 when he would be sublime in any other dimension he is merely fatuous and bombastic4 ,by intelligence1 so far as he possesses it1 a man sees things as they are1 transcends his senses and his passions1 uproots himself from his casual station in space and time1 sees all things future as if they were past1 and all things past as for ever present1 at once condemns and forgives himself1 renounces the world and loves it4 ,having this inner avenue open to divinity1 he would be a fool to emulate the larks in their kind of ecstasy4 ,his wings are his intelligence2 not that they bring ultimate success to his animal will1 which must end in failure1 but that they lift his failure itself into an atmosphere of laughter and light1 where is his proper happiness4 ,he cannot take his fine flight1 like the lark1 in the morning1 in mad youth1 in some irresponsible burst of vitality1 because life is impatient to begin3 that sort of thing is the fluttering of a caged bird1 a rebellion against circumstance and against commonness which is a sign of spirit1 but not spirit in its self-possession1 not happiness nor a school of happiness4 ,the thought which crowns life at its summit can accompany it throughout its course1 and can reconcile us to its issue4 ,intelligence is ,homeric in its pervasive light4 ,it traces all the business of nature1 eluding but not disturbing it1 rendering it in fact more amiable than it is1 and rescuing it from vanity4 ,sense is like a lively child always at our elbow1 saying1 ,look1 look1 what is that8 ,will is like an orator1 indignantly demanding something different4 ,history and fiction and religion are like poets1 continually recomposing the facts into some tragic unity which is not in them4 ,all these forms of mind are spiritual1 and therefore materially superfluous and free2 but their spirit is pious1 it is attentive to its sources1 and therefore seems to be care-laden and not so gloriously emancipated as the music of larks1 or even of human musicians2 yet thought is pure music in its essence1 and only in its subject-matter retrospective and troubled about the facts4 ,it must indeed be troubled about them1 because in man spirit is not a mere truant1 as it seems to be in the lark1 but is a faithful chronicler of labour and wisdom4 ,man is hard-pressed2 long truancies would be fatal to him4 ,he is tempted to indulge in them--witness his languages and pyramids and mythologies2 yet his margin of safety is comparatively narrow1 and he cannot afford to spend such relatively prodigious amounts of energy in mere play as the lark does with a light heart and in the grand manner4 ,there are words to man's music2 he gives names to things2 he tries to catch the rhythm of his own story1 or to imagine it richer and more sublime than it is4 ,his festivals are heavy with pathos2 they mark the events on which his existence turns--harvests1 funerals1 redemptions1 wooings1 and wars4 ,when he disregards all these tiresome things1 he becomes a fop or a fanatic4 ,there is no worthy transport for him except sane philosophy--a commentary1 not a dream4 ,his intelligence is most intense and triumphant when there is least waste in his life2 for if hard thinking sometimes makes the head ache1 it is because it comes hard1 not because it is thinking2 our fuddled brain grates and repeats itself in that it can't think4 ,but if your business is in order1 it requires no further pains to understand it4 ,intelligence is the flower of war and the flower of love4 ,both1 in the end1 are comprehension4 ,how miraculously in our happy moments we understand1 how far we jump1 what masses of facts we dominate at a glance6 ,there is no labour then1 no friction or groping1 no anxious jostling against what we do not know1 but only joy in this intricate outspread humorous world1 intoxication as ethereal as the lark's1 but more descriptive4 ,if his song is raised above the world for a moment by its wantonness and idle rapture1 ours is raised above it essentially by its scope4 ,to look before and after is human2 it would not be sincere nor manly in us not to take thought for the morrow and not to pine for what is not4 ,we must start on that basis1 with our human vitality 7which is art7 substituted for the vegetative prayerfulness of the lily1 and our human scope 7which is knowledge of the world7 substituted for the outpourings of larks4 ,on this other plane we could easily be as happy as the larks1 if we were as liberal4 ,men when they are civilized and at ease are liberal enough in their sports1 and willing to desipere in loco1 like kittens1 but it is strange how barbarous and illiberal1 at least in modern times1 they have remained about thought4 ,they wish to harness thought like a waterfall1 or like the blind ,samson1 to work for them night and day1 in the treadmill of their interests or of their orthodoxy4 ,fie upon their stupidity and upon their slavishness6 ,they do not see that when nature1 with much travail1 brings something living to birth1 inevitable thought is there already1 and gratis1 and cannot possibly be there before4 ,the seething of the brain is indeed as pragmatic as the habit of singing and flying1 which in its inception doubtless helped the larks to survive1 as even the whiteness of the lily may have done through the ministry of insects which it attracted2 but even material organs are bound to utility by a very loose tie4 ,nature does not shake off her baroque ornaments and her vices until they prove fatal1 and she never thinks of the most obvious invention or pressing reform1 until some complication brings her1 she knows not how1 to try the experiment4 ,nature1 having no ulterior purpose1 has no need of parsimony or haste or simplicity4 ,much less need she be niggardly of spirit1 which lays no tax upon her1 and consumes no energy1 but laughs aloud1 a marvel and a mystery to her1 in her very heart4 ,all animal functions1 whether helpful or wasteful1 have this fourth dimension in the realm of spirit--the joy1 or the pain1 or the beauty that may be found in them4 ,spirit loads with a lyric intensity the flying moment in which it lives4 ,it actually paints the lily and casts a perfume on the violet2 it turns into vivid presences a thousand forms which1 until its flame lighted them up1 were merged in the passive order and truth of things1 like the charms of ,lucy by the springs of ,dove1 before ,wordsworth discovered them4 ,the smile of nature is not ponderable2 and the changing harmonies of nature1 out of which spirit springs1 are like the conjunctions or eclipses of planets1 facts obvious enough to sense in their specious simplicity1 yet materially only momentary positions of transit for wayfarers bound each on his own errand4 ,the songs of larks are like shooting stars that drop downwards and vanish2 human intelligence is a part of the steadier music of the spheres4 #bg ,,at ,,heaven',s ,,gate ,skylarks1 if they exist elsewhere1 must be homesick for ,england4 ,they need these kindly mists to hide and to sustain them4 ,their flexible throats would soon be parched1 far from these vaporous meadows and hedgerows rich in berries and loam4 ,how should they live in arid tablelands1 or at merciless altitudes1 where there is nothing but scorching heat or a freezing blizzard8 ,what space could they find for solitude and freedom in the tangle of tropical forests1 amongst the monkeys and parrots8 ,what reserve1 what tenderness1 what inward springs of happiness could they treasure amid those gross harlot-like flowers8 ,no1 they are the hermits of this mild atmosphere1 fled to its wilderness of gentle light4 ,well may they leave it to eagles to rush against the naked sun1 as if its round eye challenged them to single combat3 not theirs the stupid ferocity of passion against fact1 anger against light1 swiftness against poise1 beak and talons against intangible fire4 ,larks may not be very clever1 but they are not so foolish as to be proud1 or to scream hoarsely against the nature of things4 ,having wings and voluble throats they play with them for pure pleasure2 they are little artists and little gentlemen2 they disdain to employ their faculties for their mere utility1 or only in order to pounce down to the earth1 whenever they spy a dainty morsel1 or to return to sulk shivering on some solitary crag1 their voracity but half appeased1 like eagles dreaming of their next victim4 ,of course1 even the most playful songster must eat1 and skylarks no doubt keep an eye open for worms1 and their nest calls them back to terrene affections2 but they are as forgetful of earth as they can be1 and insatiable craving does not stamp itself on their bent necks1 as if they were vultures1 nor strain their feathers of iron4 ,no more are they inspired by sentimental pangs and love-sick like the nightingale2 they do not hide in the labyrinthine shade of ilex or cypress1 from there to wail in the melancholy moonlight1 as it were a seductive serenade addressed to mortal lovers4 ,no1 the trilling of larks is not for mankind4 ,like ,english poets they sing to themselves of nature1 inarticulately happy in a bath of light and freedom1 sporting for the sake of sport1 turning what doubts they may have into sweetness1 not asking to see or to know anything ulterior4 ,they must needs drink the dew amongst these ,english fields1 peeping into the dark little hearts and flushed petals of these daisies1 like the heart and cheeks of an ,english child1 or into these buttercups1 yellow like his ,saxon hair4 ,they could hardly have built their nests far from this maze of little streams1 or from these narrow dykes and ditches1 arched with the scented tracery of limes and willows4 ,they needed this long1 dull1 chilly winter in which to gather their unsuspected fund of yearning and readiness for joy2 so that when high summer comes at last they may mount with virgin confidence and ardour through these sunlit spaces1 to pour their souls out at heaven's gate4 ,at heaven's gate1 but not in heaven4 ,the sky1 as these larks rise higher and higher1 grows colder and thinner2 if they could rise high enough1 it would be a black void4 ,all this fluid and dazzling atmosphere is but the drapery of earth2 this cerulean vault is only a film round the oceans4 ,as these choristers pass beyond the nether veils of air1 the sun becomes fierce and comfortless2 they freeze and are dazzled2 they must hurry home again to earth if they would live4 ,they must put fuel in their little engines3 after all it was flesh and blood in them that were praising the ,lord4 ,and accordingly1 down they drop to their nests and peck about1 anxious and silent2 but their song never comes down4 ,up there they leave it1 in the glittering desert it once ravished1 in what we call the past4 ,they bore their glad offering to the gate and returned empty2 but the gladness of it1 which in their palpitation and hurry they only half guessed1 passed in and is a part of heaven4 ,in the home of all good1 from which their frail souls fetched it for a moment1 it is still audible for any ear that ever again can attune itself to that measure4 ,all that was loved or beautiful at any time1 or that shall be so hereafter1 all that never was but that ought to have been1 lives in that paradise1 in the brilliant treasure-house of the gods4 ,how many an ,english spirit1 too modest to be heard here1 has now committed its secret to that same heaven6 ,caught by the impulse of the hour1 they rose like larks in the morning1 cheerily1 rashly1 to meet the unforeseen1 fatal1 congenial adventure1 the goal not seen1 the air not measured1 but the firm heart steady through the fog or blinding fire1 making the best of what came1 trembling but ready for what might come1 with a simple courage which was half joy in living and half willingness to die4 ,their first flight was often their last4 ,what fell to earth was only a poor dead body1 one of a million2 what remained above perhaps nothing to speak of1 some boyish sally or wistful fancy1 less than the song of a lark for ,god to treasure up in his omniscience and eternity4 ,yet these common brave fools knew as well as the lark the thing that they could do1 and did it2 and of other gifts and other adventures they were not envious4 ,boys and free men are always a little inclined to flout what is not the goal of their present desires1 or is beyond their present scope2 spontaneity in them has its ebb-flow in mockery4 ,their tight little selves are too vigorous and too clearly determined to brood much upon distant things2 but they are true to their own nature1 they know and love the sources of their own strength4 ,like the larks1 those ,english boys had drunk here the quintessence of many a sunlit morning2 they had rambled through these same fields1 fringed with hedges and peeping copse and downs purple with heather2 these paths and streams had enticed them often2 they had been vaguely happy in these quiet1 habitable places4 ,it was enough for them to live1 as for nature to revolve2 and fate1 in draining in one draught the modest cup of their spirit1 spared them the weary dilution and waste of it in the world4 ,the length of things is vanity1 only their height is joy4 ,of myself also ,i would keep nothing but what ,god may keep of me--some lovely essence1 mine for a moment in that ,i beheld it1 some object of devout love enshrined where all other hearts that have a like intelligence of love in their day may worship it2 but my loves themselves and my reasonings are but a flutter of feathers weaker than a lark's1 a prattle idler than his warblings1 happy enough if they too may fly with him and die with him at the gate of heaven4 ,,later ,,soliloquies #aiah-aiba #bh ,,society ,,and ,,solitude ,o solitudo1 sola beatitudo1 ,saint ,bernard said2 but might he not have said just as well1 ,o societas1 sola felicitas8 ,just as truly1 ,i think2 because when a man says that the only happiness is this or that1 he is like a lover saying that ,mary ,jane is the one woman in the world4 ,she may be truly the one woman for him1 though even that is not probable2 but he cannot mean to assert that she is the only woman living1 nor to deny that each of the others might be the one woman for somebody4 ,now1 when a ,hegelian philosopher1 contradicting ,saint ,bernard1 says that society is his be-all and end-all1 that he himself is nothing but an invisible point at which relations cross1 and that if you removed from him his connection with ,hegel1 with his university1 his church1 his wife1 and his publishers1 there would be nothing left1 or at best a name and a peg to hang a gown on1 far be it from me to revise his own analysis of his nature2 society may be the only felicity and the only reality for him4 ,but that cannot annul the judgement of ,saint ,bernard4 ,he had a great mind and a great heart1 and he knew society well2 at least1 he accepted the verdict which antiquity had passed on society1 after a very long1 brilliant1 and hearty experience of it2 and he knew the religious life and solitude as well2 and ,i can't help thinking that he1 too1 must have been right in his self-knowledge1 and that solitude must have been the only happiness for him4 ,nevertheless1 the matter is not limited to this confronting of divers honest judgements1 or confessions of moral experience4 ,the natures expressed in these judgements have a long history1 and are on different levels2 the one may be derived from the other4 ,thus it is evident that the beatific solitude of ,saint ,bernard was filled with a kind of society2 he devoted it to communion with the ,trinity1 or to composing fervent compliments to the ,virgin ,mary4 ,it was only the society to be found in inns and hovels1 in castles1 sacristies1 and refectories1 that he thought it happiness to avoid4 ,that the wilderness to which hermits flee must be peopled by their fancy1 could have been foreseen by any observer of human nature4 ,tormenting demons or ministering angels must needs appear1 because man is rooted in society and his instincts are addressed to it2 for the first nine months1 or even years1 of his existence he is a parasite2 and scarcely are these parental bonds a little relaxed1 when he instinctively forms other ties1 that turn him into a husband and father1 and keep him such all his days4 ,if ever he finds happiness in solitude1 it can only be by lavishing on objects of his imagination the attentions which his social functions require that he should lavish on something4 ,without exercising these faculties somehow his nature would be paralysed2 there would be no fuel to feed a spiritual flame4 ,all ,saint ,bernard could mean1 then1 is that happiness lies in this substitution of an ideal for a natural society1 in converse with thoughts rather than with things4 ,such a substitution is normal1 and a mark of moral vigour2 we must not be misled into comparing it with a love of dolls or of lap-dogs4 ,dolls are not impersonal1 and lap-dogs are not ideas3 they are only less rebellious specimens of the genus thing2 they are more portable idols4 ,to substitute the society of ideas for that of things is simply to live in the mind2 it is to survey the world of existences in its truth and beauty rather than in its personal perspectives1 or with practical urgency4 ,it is the sole path to happiness for the intellectual man1 because the intellectual man cannot be satisfied with a world of perpetual change1 defeat1 and imperfection4 ,it is the path trodden by ancient philosophers and modern saints or poets2 not1 of course1 by modern writers on philosophy 7except ,spinoza71 because these have not been philosophers in the vital sense2 they have practised no spiritual discipline1 suffered no change of heart1 but lived on exactly like other professors1 and exerted themselves to prove the existence of a ,god favourable to their own desires1 instead of searching for the ,god that happens to exist4 ,certainly this path1 in its beginnings1 is arduous1 and leaves the natural man somewhat spare and haggard2 he seems to himself to have fasted for forty days and forty nights1 and the world regards his way of living afterwards as rather ghostly and poor4 ,but he usually congratulates himself upon it in the end2 and of those who persevere some become saints and some poets and some philosophers4 ,yet why1 we may ask1 should happiness be found exclusively in this ideal society where none intrudes8 ,if the intellectual man cannot lay up his treasures in a world of change1 the natural man can perfectly well satisfy his instincts within it2 and why shouldn't the two live amicably together in a house of two stories8 ,i can see no essential reason2 but historically natural society long ago proved a moral failure4 ,it could not harmonize nor decently satisfy even the instincts on which it rests4 ,hence the philosophers have felt bound not only to build themselves a superstructure but to quit the ground floor--materially1 if possible1 by leading a monastic fife1 religiously in any case by not expecting to find much except weeping and wailing in this vale of tears4 ,we may tax this despair with being premature1 and call such a flight into an imaginary world a desperate expedient2 at any time the attempts of the natural man to live his comic life happily may be renewed1 and may succeed4 ,solitude peopled with ideas might still remain to employ the mind2 but it would not be the only beatitude4 ,yet the insecurity of natural society runs deeper1 for natural society itself is an expedient and a sort of refuge of despair4 ,it1 too1 in its inception1 seemed a sacrifice and a constraint4 ,the primitive soul hates order and the happiness founded on order4 ,the barbarous soul hates justice and peace4 ,the belly is always rebelling against the members4 ,the belly was once all in all2 it was a single cell floating deliciously in a warm liquid2 it had no outer organs2 it thought it didn't need them4 ,it vegetated in peace2 no noises1 no alarms1 no lusts1 no nonsense4 ,ah1 veritably solitude was blessedness then6 ,but it was a specious solitude and a precarious blessedness1 resting on ignorance4 ,the warm liquid might cool1 or might dry up2 it might breed all sorts of enemies2 presently heaven might crack and the cell be cleft in two4 ,happy the hooded microbe that put forth feelers in time1 and awoke to its social or unsocial environment6 ,i am not sure that1 beneath the love of ideal society1 there was not in ,saint ,bernard a lingering love of primeval peace1 of seminal slumber2 that he did not yearn for the cell bio-logical as well as for the cell monastic4 ,life1 mere living1 is a profound ideal1 pregnant with the memory of a possible happiness1 the happiness of protoplasm2 and the advocate of moral society must not reckon without his host4 ,he has a rebellious material in hand2 his every atom is instinct with a life of its own which it may reassert1 upsetting his calculations and destroying his organic systems4 ,only the physical failure of solitude drove the spirit at first into society1 as the moral failure of society may drive it later into solitude again4 ,if any one said1 then1 that happiness lies only in society1 his maxim would be no less sincere and solid than ,saint ,bernard's1 but it would not be so profound4 ,for beneath natural society1 in the heart of each of its members1 there is always an intense and jealous solitude1 the sleep of elemental life which can never be wholly broken2 and above natural society there is always another solitude--a placid ethereal wilderness1 the heaven of ideas--beckoning the mind4 #bi ,,imagination ,men are ruled by imagination3 imagination makes them into men1 capable of madness and of immense labours4 ,we work dreaming4 ,consider what dreams must have dominated the builders of the ,pyramids--dreams geometrical1 dreams funereal1 dreams of resurrection1 dreams of outdoing the pyramid of some other ,pharaoh6 ,what dreams occupy that fat man in the street1 toddling by under his shabby hat and bedraggled rain-coat8 ,perhaps he is in love2 perhaps he is a ,catholic1 and imagines that early this morning he has partaken of the body and blood of ,christ2 perhaps he is a revolutionist1 with the millennium in his heart and a bomb in his pocket4 ,the spirit bloweth where it listeth2 the wind of inspiration carries our dreams before it and constantly refashions them like clouds4 ,nothing could be madder1 more irresponsible1 more dangerous than this guidance of men by dreams4 ,what saves us is the fact that our imaginations1 groundless and chimerical as they may seem1 are secretly suggested and controlled by shrewd old instincts of our animal nature1 and by continual contact with things4 ,the shock of sense1 breaking in upon us with a fresh irresistible image1 checks wayward imagination and sends it rebounding in a new direction1 perhaps more relevant to what is happening in the world outside4 ,when ,i speak of being governed by imagination1 of course ,i am indulging in a figure of speech1 in an ellipsis2 in reality we are governed by that perpetual latent process within us by which imagination itself is created4 ,actual imaginings--the cloud-like thoughts drifting by--are not masters over themselves nor over anything else4 ,they are like the sound of chimes in the night2 they know nothing of whence they came1 how they will fall out1 or how long they will ring4 ,there is a mechanism in the church tower2 there was a theme in the composer's head2 there is a beadle who has been winding the thing up4 ,the sound wafted to us1 muffled by distance and a thousand obstacles1 is but the last lost emanation of this magical bell-ringing4 ,yet in our dream it is all in all2 it is what first entertains and absorbs the mind4 ,imagination1 when it chimes within us1 apparently of itself1 is no less elaborately grounded2 it is a last symptom1 a rolling echo1 by which we detect and name the obscure operation that occasions it2 and not this echo in its aesthetic impotence1 but the whole operation whose last witness it is1 receives in science the name of imagination1 and may be truly said to rule the human world4 ,this extension of names is inevitable although unfortunate1 because language and perception are poetical before they become scientific1 if they ever do2 as ,aristotle observes that the word anger is used indifferently for two different things3 dialectically1 or as ,i call it1 imaginatively1 for the desire for revenge1 but physically for a boiling of the humours4 ,and utterly different as these two things are in quality1 no great inconvenience results from giving them the same name1 because historically they are parts of the same event4 ,nature has many dimensions at once1 and whenever we see anything happen1 much else is happening there which we cannot see4 ,whilst dreams entertain us1 the balance of our character is shifting beneath3 we are growing while we sleep4 ,the young think in one way1 the drunken in another1 and the dead not at all2 and ,i imagine--for ,i have imagination myself--that they do not die because they stop thinking1 but they stop thinking because they die4 ,how much veering and luffing before they make that port ,i ,the brain of man1 ,william ,james used to say1 has a hair-trigger organization4 ,his life is terribly experimental4 ,he is perilously dependent on the oscillations of a living needle1 imagination1 that never points to the true north4 ,there are books in which the footnotes1 or the comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin1 are more interesting than the text4 ,the world is one of these books4 ,the reciprocal interference of magnetic fields 7which ,i understand is the latest conception of matter7 may compose a marvellous moving pattern2 but the chief interest to us of matter lies in its fertility in producing minds and presenting recognizable phenomena to the senses2 and the chief interest of any scientific notion of its intrinsic nature lies in the fact that1 if not literally true1 it may liberate us from more misleading conceptions4 ,did we have nothing but electrical physics to think of1 the nightmare would soon become intolerable4 ,but a hint of that kind1 like a hasty glance into the crater of a volcano1 sends a wholesome shudder through our nerves2 we realize how thin is the crust we build on1 how mythical and remote from the minute and gigantic scale of nature are the bright images we seem to move among1 all cut out and fitted to our human stature4 ,yet these bright images are our natural companions1 and if we do not worship them idolatrously nor petrify them into substances1 forgetting the nimble use of them in mental discourse1 which is where they belong1 they need not be more misleading to us1 even for scientific purposes1 than are words or any other symbols4 ,it is fortunate that the material world1 whatever may be its intrinsic structure or substance1 falls to our apprehension into such charming units4 ,there is the blue vault of heaven1 there are the twinkling constellations1 there are the mountains1 trees1 and rivers1 and above all those fascinating unstable unities which we call animals and persons2 magnetic fields ,i am quite ready to believe them1 for such in a vast vague way ,i feel them to be1 but individual bodies they will remain to my sensuous imagination1 and dramatic personages to my moral sense4 ,they1 too1 are animate3 they1 too1 compose a running commentary on things and on one another1 adding their salacious footnotes to the dull black letter of the world4 ,many of them are hardly aware of their own wit2 knowing they are but commentators1 they are intent on fidelity and unconscious of invention4 ,yet against their will they gloss everything1 willy-nilly we are all scholiasts together4 ,heaven forbid that ,i should depreciate this prodigious tome of nature1 or question in one jot or tittle the absolute authority of its ,author2 but it is like an encyclopaedia in an infinite number of volumes1 or a directory with the addresses of everybody that ever lived4 ,we may dip into it on occasion in search of some pertinent fact1 but it is not a book to read2 its wealth is infinite1 but so is its monotony2 it is not composed in our style nor in our language1 we could not have written one line of it4 ,yet the briefest text invites reflection1 and we may spin a little homily out of it in the vernacular for our own edification4 ,in the ,mahabharata1 a learned friend tells me1 a young champion armed for the combat and about to rush forward between the two armies drawn up in battle array1 stops for a moment to receive a word of counsel from his spiritual adviser--and that word occupies the next eighteen books of the epic2 after which the battle is allowed to proceed4 ,these ,indian poets had spiritual minds1 they measured things by their importance to the spirit1 not to the eye4 ,they despised verisimilitude and aesthetic proportion2 they despised existence1 the beauties of which they felt exquisitely nevertheless1 and to which their imagination made such stupendous additions4 ,i honour their courage in bidding the sun stand still1 not that they might thoroughly vanquish an earthly enemy1 but that they might wholly clarify their own soul4 ,for this better purpose the sun need not stand still materially4 ,for the spirit1 time is an elastic thing4 ,fancy is quick and brings the widest vistas to a focus in a single instant4 ,after the longest interval of oblivion and death1 it can light up the same image in all the greenness of youth2 and if cut short1 as it were at ,pompeii1 in the midst of a word1 it can1 ages after1 without feeling the break1 add the last syllable4 ,imagination changes the scale of everything1 and makes a thousand patterns of the woof of nature1 without disturbing a single thread4 ,or rather--since it is nature itself that imagines--it turns to music what was only strain2 as if the universal vibration1 suddenly ashamed of having been so long silent and useless1 had burst into tears and laughter at its own folly1 and in so doing had become wise4 #cj ,,the ,,world',s ,a ,,stage ,nature1 like a theatre1 offers a double object to the mind4 ,there is in the first place the play presented1 the overt spectacle1 which is something specious and ideal2 and then there is something material and profound lying behind and only symbolically revealed1 namely1 the stage1 the actors1 and the author4 ,the playful spectacular sort of reality we can pretty well dominate and exhaust1 if we are attentive2 indeed the prospect1 in its sensuous and poetic essence1 is plastic to attention1 and alters its character according to the spectator's station and faculty2 a poetic theme develops as interest in it is aroused1 and offers different beauties and different morals to every new critic4 ,the instrumentalities1 on the contrary1 which bring this spectacle before us1 whether they be material or personal1 are unfathomable4 ,they are events1 not ideas4 ,even putting together all that carpenters and chemists1 biographers and psychologists1 might learn about these events1 we could never probe them to the bottom4 ,in the beginning1 as for a child at his first pantomime1 the play's the thing2 and a human audience can never quite outgrow this initial illusion1 since this world is a theatre nobody can visit twice4 ,if we could become habitus1 old theatre-goers amongst the worlds1 we might grow more discriminating2 on the whole we might enjoy the performances just as much or even more1 perhaps2 yet less breathlessly4 ,we should see more and believe less4 ,the pleasure of seeing is one1 and the pleasure of believing is quite another2 the first liberates our senses and fills the present with light2 the second directs our conduct and relieves our anxiety or doubts about the past and future4 ,when the spectator bethinks himself of destiny as well as of beauty1 his sensibility becomes tragic1 it becomes intelligence4 ,every picture is then regarded as a sign for the whole situation which has generated it or which it forebodes4 ,the given image1 for intelligence1 expresses a problematic fact2 and intelligence invents various grammatical forms and logical categories by which to describe its hidden enemy or fascinating prey4 ,so spontaneous and dogmatic is the intellect in this interpretation of the scene that the conceived object 7however abstractly sketched7 is unhesitatingly judged to be1 as we say1 the real thing3 it alone works and acts1 whilst the given image is either disregarded altogether or despised as a mere word or phantasm of sense1 such as only fools would stop to gaze at4 ,and it is very true1 whatever desperate efforts empiricism may make to deny it1 that every figure crossing the stage of apprehension is a symbol1 or may become a symbol2 they all have some occasion and arise out of some deeper commotion in the material world4 ,the womb of nature is full of crowding events1 to us invisible2 the ballet has machinery behind its vistas and its music2 the dancers possess a character and fate in the daylight quite foreign to these fays and shepherds before the footlights2 what to us is a pirouette to them is a twitch or a shilling4 ,shame to the impious egotism that would deny it1 and1 in order to spare itself the tension of faith and the labour of understanding1 would pretend to find in experience nothing but a shadowy tapestry1 a landscape without a substance4 ,to its invisible substance the spectacle owes not only its existence but its meaning1 since our interest in the scene is rooted in a hidden life within us1 quite as much as the shifts and colours of the scenery are rooted in tricks of the stage4 ,nevertheless the roots of things are properly and decently hidden under ground1 and it is as childish to be always pulling them up1 to make sure that they exist1 as it is to deny their existence4 ,the flowers are what chiefly interests a man of taste2 the spectacle is what liberal-minded people have come to see4 ,every image has its specific aspect and aesthetic essence1 more or less charming in itself2 the sensualist1 the poet1 the chronicler of his passing visions must take them at their face value1 and be content with that4 ,fair masks1 like flowers1 like sunsets1 like melodies wrung out of troubled brains and strung wire1 cover for us appropriately the anatomical face of nature2 and words and dogmas are other masks1 behind which we1 too1 can venture upon the stage2 for it is life to give expression to life1 transmuting diffused movements into dear images4 ,how blind is the zeal of the iconoclasts1 and how profoundly hostile to religious impulse6 ,they pour scorn upon eyes that see not and a mouth that cannot speak2 they despise a work of art or of thought for being finished and motionless2 as if the images of the retina were less idols than those of the sculptor1 and as if words1 of all things1 were not conventional signs1 grotesque counterfeits1 dead messengers1 like fallen leaves1 from the dumb soul4 ,why should one art be contemptuous of the figurative language of another8 ,jehovah1 who would suffer no statues1 was himself a metaphor4 #ca ,,masks ,when we are children we love putting on masks to astonish our elders2 there is a lordly pleasure in puzzling those harmless giants who are not in the secret4 ,we ourselves1 of course1 know that it is only a disguise2 and when presently we pull it off1 their surprise at recognizing us is something deliciously comic4 ,yet1 at bottom1 this compulsory return to nature is a little sad2 our young empiricism would like to take appearances more seriously4 ,to an unsophisticated mind every transformation seems as credible as it is interesting2 there is always danger and hope of anything4 ,why should people hesitate to believe something intrinsically so plausible as that ,johnny should have acquired a bull's head1 or that little ,alice should suddenly develop a red nose and furious mustachios8 ,that is just the sort of thing that would happen if this stupid world were only more natural2 but the trouble with old people is that their minds have become stagnant1 dominated as they are by precedent and prejudice2 it is too much of an exertion for them to imagine anything but what they have always seen4 ,even when they tell us about religion1 which is so full of exciting and lovely things that we know must be true1 they seem to be trying to remember something they have read or heard of1 and quite spoil the story2 they don't seem to understand at all1 as we do1 why it all happens4 ,they are terrible believers in substance1 and can hardly lend themselves to the wayward game of experience4 ,this after all wouldn't matter so much2 it is not worth while playing with people who don't relish games4 ,the subtlest part of the pleasure is being blindfolded on purpose and feeling lost when you know you are not lost4 ,empiricism would be agony if any one was so silly as really to forget his material status and to become the sport of his passing ideas4 ,but masks are great fun in themselves1 and when you are fundamentally sane it is pleasant to play the madman and to yield to the eloquence of an imagined life2 and it is intolerable to have the game spoiled by some heavy-footed person who constantly reminds you of the discovered facts and will not lend himself to the spirit of your fiction1 which is the deepest part of your own spirit4 ,no one would be angry with a man for unintentionally making a mistake about a matter of fact2 but if he perversely insists on spoiling your story in the telling of it1 you want to kick him2 and this is the reason why every philosopher and theologian is justly vexed with every other4 ,when we are children the accident and fatality of having been born human are recent and only half welcome2 we still feel a little hurt at being so arbitrarily confined to one miserable career and forced to remain always consistent2 we still see the equal antecedent propriety of being anybody or anything else4 ,masks afford us the pleasing excitement of revising our so accidental birth-certificate and of changing places in spirit with some other changeling4 ,nevertheless the game soon tires4 ,although children are no believers in substance1 they are substances themselves without knowing it4 ,the mask refuses to grow on to their flesh3 it thwarts their rising impulses4 ,play-acting is seldom worth the commitments it involves2 your part1 after a few enthusiastic rehearsals1 turns out not really to suit you4 ,it seemed at first to open up splendid adventures and give you a chance to display your unsuspected passions and powers2 but now you begin to think your speeches ridiculous and your costume unbecoming4 ,you must pull off the mask to see clearly and to breathe freely2 you are overheard indulging in asides that are out of character1 and swearing in the unvarnished vernacular2 and when the performance at last is over1 what a relief to fling away your wig and your false beard1 and relapse into your honest self6 ,there is no place like home1 although there may be better places2 and there is no face like one's own1 for comfort to the wearer4 ,the ,englishman likes to be comfortable1 and he hates masks4 ,it is pleasant to be straightforward1 as it is to be clean4 ,mere faades offend him so much that he actually manages to build houses without them2 they have creepers1 they have chimneys1 they have bow-windows1 they have several doors1 but they have no front4 ,his ,empire1 too1 for all its extent and complexity1 presents no imposing faade to the world2 it seems to elude observation and to be everywhere apologizing for its existence4 ,its enemies1 on the contrary1 both at home and abroad1 are blatancy itself1 always parading their heroisms and their ambitions2 and one wonders how a power so hated1 so hesitant1 and so involuntary can last at all4 ,but it has a certain plastic invulnerability2 you pommel it and trample on it here1 and its strength turns out to have lain in quite another quarter4 ,it is like the sort of man who serves it1 a pale languid youth1 sprawling on cushions1 and lisping a little when he cares to take his pipe out of his mouth at all2 but what is your surprise when1 something having happened1 he gets up and knocks you down4 ,nothing had prepared you for that2 no philosophical eloquence or resounding coup d'tat3 he is perhaps a little surprised himself at his energy4 ,he blushes if by chance any warm gesture or expression has escaped him2 he feels that it misrepresents his average sentiment2 the echo of it sounds hollow in his ear1 and just because it was so spontaneous he detests it as if it had been a lie4 ,the passing grimaces of passion1 the masks of life1 are odious to him2 yet he is quite happy to be deceived and to be masked by a thick atmosphere of convention1 if only this atmosphere is temperate and sustained4 ,he will be loyal to any nonsense that seems to justify his instincts and that has got a domestic stamp2 but elaborate original lies are not in his nature2 he has no histrionic gift4 ,intrigue requires a dear perception of the facts1 an insight into other people's motives1 and a power of sustained simulation2 he is not clever at any of these things4 ,masks1 wigs1 cowls1 and stays are too troublesome2 if you are not always on the watch1 the beastly things will fall off4 ,he prefers to dress his personage more constitutionally2 the dyes he uses must be all indelible1 such as religion and education can supply4 ,these1 with the habit of his set or profession1 are his lifelong make-up and his second nature2 his only mask is the unperturbed expression which time and temperance have chiselled in his face4 #cb ,,the ,,tragic ,,mask ,masks are arrested expressions and admirable echoes of feeling1 at once faithful1 discreet1 and superlative4 ,living things in contact with the air must acquire a cuticle1 and it is not urged against cuticles that they are not hearts2 yet some philosophers seem to be angry with images for not being things1 and with words for not being feelings4 ,words and images are like shells1 no less integral parts of nature than are the substances they cover1 but better addressed to the eye and more open to observation4 ,i would not say that substance exists for the sake of appearance1 or faces for the sake of masks1 or the passions for the sake of poetry and virtue4 ,nothing arises in nature for the sake of anything else2 all these phases and products are involved equally in the round of existence1 and it would be sheer wilfulness to praise the germinal phase on the ground that it is vital1 and to denounce the explicit phase on the ground that it is dead and sterile4 ,we might as justly despise the seed for being merely instrumental1 and glorify the full-blown flower1 or the conventions of art1 as the highest achievement and fruition of life4 ,substance is fluid1 and1 since it cannot exist without some form1 is always ready to exchange one form for another2 but sometimes it falls into a settled rhythm or recognizable vortex1 which we call a nature1 and which sustains an interesting form for a season4 ,these sustained forms are enshrined in memory and worshipped in moral philosophy1 which often assigns to them a power to create and to reassert themselves which their precarious status is very far from justifying4 ,but they are all in all to the mind3 art and happiness lie in pouring and repouring the molten metal of existence through some such tenable mould4 ,masks are accordingly glorious things2 we are instinctively as proud of designing and wearing them as we are of inventing and using words4 ,the blackest tragedy is festive2 the most pessimistic philosophy is an enthusiastic triumph of thought4 ,the life which such expressions seem to arrest or to caricature would be incomplete without them2 indeed1 it would be blind and abortive4 ,it is no interruption to experience to master experience1 as tragedy aspires to do2 nor is it an interruption to sink into its episodes and render them consummate1 which is the trick of comedy4 ,on the contrary1 without such playful pauses and reflective interludes our round of motions and sensations would be deprived of that intellectual dignity which relieves it and renders it morally endurable--the dignity of knowing what we are doing1 even if it be foolish in itself1 and with what probable issue4 ,tragedy1 the knowledge of death1 raises us to that height4 ,in fancy and for a moment it brings our mortal wills into harmony with our destiny1 with the wages of existence1 and with the silence beyond4 ,these discoveries of reason have fixed the expression of the tragic mask1 half horror and half sublimity4 ,such is the countenance of man when turned towards death and eternity and looking beyond all his endeavours at the ,gorgon face of the truth4 ,this is not to say that it is less human1 or less legitimate1 to look in other directions and to make other faces4 ,but whether the visage we assume be a joyful or a sad one1 in adopting and emphasizing it we define our sovereign temper4 ,henceforth1 so long as we continue under the spell of this self-knowledge1 we do not merely live but act2 we compose and play our chosen character1 we wear the buskin of deliberation1 we defend and idealize our passions1 we encourage ourselves eloquently to be what we are1 devoted or scornful or careless or austere2 we soliloquize 7before an imaginary audience7 and we wrap ourselves gracefully in the mantle of our inalienable part4 ,so draped1 we solicit applause and expect to die amid a universal hush4 ,we profess to live up to the fine sentiments we have uttered1 as we try to believe in the religion we profess4 ,the greater our difficulties the greater our zeal4 ,under our published principles and plighted language we must assiduously hide all the inequalities of our moods and conduct1 and this without hypocrisy1 since our deliberate character is more truly ourself than is the flux of our involuntary dreams4 ,the portrait we paint in this way and exhibit as our true person may well be in the grand manner1 with column and curtain and distant landscape and finger pointing to the terrestrial globe or to the ,yorick-skull of philosophy2 but if this style is native to us and our art is vital1 the more it transmutes its model the deeper and truer art it will be4 ,the severe bust of an archaic sculpture1 scarcely humanizing the block1 will express a spirit far more justly than the man's dull morning looks or casual grimaces4 ,every one who is sure of his mind1 or proud of his office1 or anxious about his duty assumes a tragic mask4 ,he deputes it to be himself and transfers to it almost all his vanity4 ,while still alive and subject1 like all existing things1 to the undermining flux of his own substance1 he has crystallized his soul into an idea1 and more in pride than in sorrow he has offered up his life on the altar of the ,muses4 ,self-knowledge1 like any art or science1 renders its subject-matter in a new medium1 the medium of ideas1 in which it loses its old dimensions and its old pace4 ,our animal habits are transmuted by conscience into loyalties and duties1 and we become persons or masks4 ,art1 truth1 and death turn everything to marble4 ,that life should be able to reach such expression in the realm of eternal form is a sublime and wonderful privilege1 but it is tragic1 and for that reason distasteful to the animal in man4 ,a mask is not responsive2 you must not speak to it as to a living person1 you must not kiss it4 ,if you do1 you will find the cold thing repulsive and ghastly4 ,it is only a husk1 empty1 eyeless1 brittle1 and glazed4 ,the more comic its expression the more horrible it will prove1 being that of a corpse4 ,the animal in man responds to things according to their substance1 edible1 helpful1 or plastic2 his only joy is to push his way victoriously through the material world1 till a death stops him which he never thought of and1 in a sense1 never experiences4 ,he is not in the least interested in picturing what he is or what he will have been2 he is intent only on what is happening to him now or may happen to him next4 ,but when the passions see themselves in the mirror of reflection1 what they behold is a tragic mask4 ,this is the escutcheon of human nature1 in which its experience is emblazoned4 ,in so far as men are men at all1 or men of honour1 they militate under this standard and are true to their colours4 ,whatever refuses to be idealized in this way1 they are obliged to disown and commit to instant oblivion4 ,it will never do for a mind merely to live through its passions or its perceptions2 it must discern recognizable objects1 in which to centre its experience and its desires2 it must choose names and signs for them1 and these names and symbols1 if they are to perform their function in memory and intercourse1 must be tightly conventional4 ,what could be more unseemly than a fault in grammar1 or in many a case more laughable and disconcerting8 ,yet any solecism1 if it were once stereotyped and made definitely significant1 would become an idiom3 it would become a good verbal mask4 ,what is not covered in this way by some abiding symbol can never be recovered2 the dark flood of existence carries it down bodily4 ,only in some word or conventional image can the secret of one moment be flashed to another moment2 and even when there is no one ready to receive the message1 or able to decipher it1 at least the poet in his soliloquy has uttered his mind and raised his monument in his own eyes2 and in expressing his life he has found it4 #cc ,,the ,,comic ,,mask ,the down is the primitive comedian4 ,sometimes in the exuberance of animal life a spirit of riot and frolic comes over a man2 he leaps1 he dances1 he tumbles head over heels1 he grins1 shouts1 or leers1 possibly he pretends to go to pieces suddenly1 and blubbers like a child4 ,a moment later he may look up wreathed in smiles1 and hugely pleased about nothing4 ,all this he does hysterically1 without any reason1 by a sort of mad inspiration and irresistible impulse4 ,he may easily1 however1 turn his absolute histrionic impulse1 his pure fooling1 into mimicry of anything or anybody that at the moment happens to impress his senses2 he will crow like a cock1 simper like a young lady1 or reel like a drunkard4 ,such mimicry is virtual mockery1 because the actor is able to revert from those assumed attitudes to his natural self2 whilst his models1 as he thinks1 have no natural self save that imitable attitude1 and can never disown it2 so that the clown feels himself immensely superior1 in his rle of universal satirist1 to all actual men1 and belabours and rails at them unmercifully4 ,he sees everything in caricature1 because he sees the surface only1 with the lucid innocence of a child2 and all these grotesque personages stimulate him1 not to moral sympathy1 nor to any consideration of their fate1 but rather to boisterous sallies1 as the rush of a crowd1 or the hue and cry of a hunt1 or the contortions of a jumping-jack might stimulate him4 ,he is not at all amused intellectually2 he is not rendered wiser or tenderer by knowing the predicaments into which people inevitably fall2 he is merely excited1 flushed1 and challenged by an absurd spectacle4 ,of course this rush and suasion of mere existence must never fail on the stage1 nor in any art2 it is to the drama what the hypnotizing stone block is to the statue1 or shouts and rhythmic breathing to the bard2 but such primary magical influences may be qualified by reflection1 and then rational and semi-tragic unities will supervene4 ,when this happens the histrionic impulse creates the idyl or the tragic chorus2 henceforth the muse of reflection follows in the train of ,dionysus1 and the revel or the rude farce passes into humane comedy4 ,paganism was full of scruples and superstitions in matters of behaviour or of cultus1 since the cultus too was regarded as a business or a magic craft2 but in expression1 in reflection1 paganism was frank and even shameless2 it felt itself inspired1 and revered this inspiration4 ,it saw nothing impious in inventing or recasting a myth about no matter how sacred a subject4 ,its inspiration1 however1 soon fell into classic moulds1 because the primary impulses of nature1 though intermittent1 are monotonous and clearly defined1 as are the gestures of love and of anger4 ,a man who is unaffectedly himself turns out to be uncommonly like other people4 ,simple sincerity will continually rediscover the old right ways of thinking and speaking1 and will be perfectly conventional without suspecting it4 ,this classic iteration comes of nature1 it is not the consequence of any revision or censorship imposed by reason4 ,reason1 not being responsible for any of the facts or passions that enter into human life1 has no interest in maintaining them as they are2 any novelty1 even the most revolutionary1 would merely afford reason a fresh occasion for demanding a fresh harmony4 ,but the ,old ,adam is conservative2 he repeats himself mechanically in every child who cries and loves sweets and is imitative and jealous4 ,reason1 with its tragic discoveries and restraints1 is a far more precarious and personal possession than the trite animal experience and the ancestral grimaces on which it supervenes2 and automatically even the philosopher continues to cut his old comic capers1 as if no such thing as reason existed4 ,the wiseacres too are comic1 and their mask is one of the most harmlessly amusing in the human museum2 for reason1 taken psychologically1 is an old inherited passion like any other1 the passion for consistency and order2 and it is just as prone as the other passions to overstep the modesty of nature and to regard its own aims as alone important4 ,but this is ridiculous2 because importance springs from the stress of nature1 from the cry of life1 not from reason and its pale prescriptions4 ,reason cannot stand alone2 brute habit and blind play are at the bottom of art and morals1 and unless irrational impulses and fancies are kept alive1 the life of reason collapses for sheer emptiness4 ,what tragedy could there be1 or what sublime harmonies rising out of tragedy1 if there were no spontaneous passions to create the issue1 no wild voices to be reduced to harmony8 ,moralists have habitually aimed at suppression1 wisely perhaps at first1 when they were preaching to men of spirit2 but why continue to harp on propriety and unselfishness and labour1 when we are little but labour-machines already1 and have hardly any self or any passions left to indulge8 ,perhaps the time has come to suspend those exhortations1 and to encourage us to be sometimes a little lively1 and see if we can invent something worth saying or doing4 ,we should then be living in the spirit of comedy1 and the world would grow young4 ,every occasion would don its comic mask1 and make its bold grimace at the world for a moment4 ,we should be constantly original without effort and without shame1 somewhat as we are in dreams1 and consistent only in sincerity2 and we should gloriously emphasize all the poses we fell into1 without seeking to prolong them4 ,objections to the comic mask--to the irresponsible1 complete1 extreme expression of each moment--cut at the roots of all expression4 ,pursue this path1 and at once you do away with gesture3 we must not point1 we must not pout1 we must not cry1 we must not laugh aloud2 we must not only avoid attracting attention1 but our attention must not be obviously attracted2 it is silly to gaze1 says the nursery-governess1 and rude to stare4 ,presently words1 too1 will be reduced to a telegraphic code4 ,a man in his own country will talk like the laconic tourist abroad2 his whole vocabulary will be ,o8 ,combien8 ,all right6 ,dear me6 ,conversation in the quiet home will dispense even with these phrases2 nothing will be required but a few pragmatic grunts and signals for action4 ,where the spirit of comedy has departed1 company becomes constraint1 reserve eats up the spirit1 and people fall into a penurious melancholy in their scruple to be always exact1 sane1 and reasonable1 never to mourn1 never to glow1 never to betray a passion or a weakness1 nor venture to utter a thought they might not wish to harbour for ever4 ,yet irony pursues these enemies of comedy1 and for fear of wearing a mask for a moment they are hypocrites all their lives4 ,their very reserve becomes a pose1 a convention imposed externally1 and their mincing speech turns to cant4 ,sometimes this evasion of impulsive sentiment fosters a poignant sentimentality beneath4 ,the comedy goes on silently behind the scenes1 until perhaps it gets the upper hand and becomes positive madness2 or else it breaks out in some shy1 indirect fashion1 as among ,americans with their perpetual joking4 ,where there is no habitual art and no moral liberty1 the instinct for direct expression is atrophied for want of exercise2 and then slang and a humorous perversity of phrase or manner act as safety-valves to sanity2 and you manage to express yourself in spite of the censor by saying something grotesquely different from what you mean4 ,that is a long way round to sincerity1 and an ugly one4 ,what1 on the contrary1 could be more splendidly sincere than the impulse to play in real life1 to rise on the rising wave of every feeling and let it burst1 if it will1 into the foam of exaggeration8 ,life is not a means1 the mind is not a slave nor a photograph3 it has a right to enact a pose1 to assume a panache1 and to create what prodigious allegories it will for the mere sport and glory of it4 ,nor is this art of innocent make-believe forbidden in the ,decalogue1 although ,bible-reading ,anglo-,saxondom might seem to think so4 ,on the contrary1 the ,bible and the ,decalogue are themselves instances of it4 ,to embroider upon experience is not to bear false witness against one's neighbour1 but to bear true witness to oneself4 ,fancy is playful and may be misleading to those who try to take it for literal fact2 but literalness is impossible in any utterance of spirit1 and if it were possible it would be deadly4 ,why should we quarrel with human nature1 with metaphor1 with myth1 with impersonation8 ,the foolishness of the simple is delightful2 only the foolishness of the wise is exasperating4 #cd ,,carnival ,in this world we must either institute conventional forms of expression or else pretend that we have nothing to express2 the choice lies between a mask and a fig-leaf4 ,art and discipline render seemly what would be unseemly without them1 but hypocrisy hides it ostentatiously under something irrelevant1 and the fig-leaf is only a more ignominious mask4 ,for the moment it is certainly easier to suppress the wild impulses of our nature than to manifest them fitly1 at the right times and with the proper fugitive emphasis2 yet in the long run suppression does not solve the problem1 and meantime those maimed expressions which are allowed are infected with a secret misery and falseness4 ,it is the charm and safety of virtue that it is more natural than vice1 but many moralists do their best to deprive it of this advantage4 ,they seem to think it would lose its value if they lost their office4 ,their precepts1 as distinguished from the spontaneous appreciations of men1 are framed in the interests of utility1 and are curiously out of sympathy with the soul4 ,precept divides the moral world materially into right and wrong things2 but nothing concrete is right or wrong intrinsically1 and every object or event has both good and bad effects in the context of nature4 ,every passion1 like life as a whole1 has its feet in one moral climate and its head in another4 ,existence itself is not a good1 but only an opportunity4 ,christians thank ,god for their creation1 preservation1 and all the blessings of this life1 but life is the condition and source of all evil1 and the ,indians thank ,brahma or ,buddha for lifting them out of it4 ,what metaphysical psychologists call ,will is the great original sin1 the unaccountable and irrational interest which the spirit takes1 when it is incarnate1 in one thing happening rather than another2 yet this mad interest is the condition of generosity and of every virtue4 ,love is a red devil at one end of its spectrum and an ultra-violet angel at the other end4 ,nor is this amphibious moral quality limited to the passions2 all facts and objects in nature can take on opposite moral tints4 ,when abstracted from our own presence and interests1 everything that can be found or imagined is reduced to a mere essence1 an ideal theme picked out of the infinite1 something harmless1 marvellous1 and pure1 like a musical rhythm or geometrical design4 ,the whole world then becomes a labyrinth of forms and motions1 a castle in the clouds built without labour and dissolved without tears4 ,the moment the animal will reawakes1 however1 these same things acquire a new dimension2 they become substantial1 not to be created without effort nor rent without resistance2 at the same time they become objects of desire and fear2 we are so engrossed in existence that every phenomenon becomes questionable and ominous1 and not so much a free gift and manifestation of its own nature as a piece of good or bad news4 ,we are no longer surprised1 as a free spirit would be1 at the extraordinary interest we take in things turning out one way rather than another4 ,we are caught in the meshes of time and place and care2 and as the things we have set our heart on1 whatever they may be1 must pass away in the end1 either suddenly or by a gentle transformation1 we cannot take a long view without finding life sad1 and all things tragic4 ,this aspect of vanity and self-annihilation1 which existence wears when we consider its destiny1 is not to be denied or explained away1 as is sometimes attempted in cowardly and mincing philosophies4 ,it is a true aspect of existence in one relation and on a certain view2 but to take this long view of existence1 and look down the avenues of time from the station and with the emotions of some particular moment1 is by no means inevitable1 nor is it a fair and sympathetic way of viewing existence4 ,things when they are actual do not lie in that sort of sentimental perspective1 but each is centred in itself2 and in this intrinsic aspect existence is nothing tragic or sad1 but rather something joyful1 hearty1 and merry4 ,a buoyant and full-blooded soul has quick senses and miscellaneous sympathies3 it changes with the changing world2 and when not too much starved or thwarted by circumstances1 it finds all things vivid and comic4 ,life is free play fundamentally and would like to be free play altogether4 ,in youth anything is pleasant to see or to do1 so long as it is spontaneous1 and if the conjunction of these things is ridiculous1 so much the better3 to be ridiculous is part of the fun4 ,existence involves changes and happenings and is comic inherently1 like a pun that begins with one meaning and ends with another4 ,incongruity is a consequence of change2 and this incongruity becomes especially conspicuous when1 as in the flux of nature1 change is going on at different rates in different strands of being1 so that not only does each thing surprise itself by what it becomes1 but it is continually astonished and disconcerted by what other things have turned into without its leave4 ,the mishaps1 the expedients1 the merry solutions of comedy1 in which everybody acknowledges himself beaten and deceived1 yet is the happier for the unexpected posture of affairs1 belong to the very texture of temporal being2 and if people repine at these mishaps1 or rebel against these solutions1 it is only because their souls are less plastic and volatile than the general flux of nature4 ,the individual grows old and lags behind2 he remembers his old pain and resents it when the world is already on a new tack4 ,in the jumble of existence there must be many a knock and many a grief2 people living at cross purposes cannot be free from malice1 and they must needs be fooled by their pretentious passions4 ,but there is no need of taking these evils tragically4 ,at bottom they are gratuitous1 and might have been avoided if people had not pledged their hearts to things beyond their control and had not entrenched themselves in their illusions4 ,at a sufficient remove every drama seems pathological and makes much ado about what to other people is nothing4 ,we are interested in those vicissitudes1 which we might have undergone if placed under the given circumstances2 but we are happy to have escaped them4 ,thus the universe changes its hues like the chameleon1 not at random but in a fashion which moral optics can determine1 as it appears in one perspective or another2 for everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence1 tragic in its fate1 and comic in its existence4 ,existence is indeed distinguishable from the platonic essences that are embodied in it precisely by being a conjunction of things mutually irrelevant1 a chapter of accidents1 a medley improvised here and now for no reason1 to the exclusion of the myriad other farces which1 so far as their ideal structure is concerned1 might have been performed just as well4 ,this world is contingency and absurdity incarnate1 the oddest of possibilities masquerading momentarily as a fact4 ,custom blinds persons who are not naturally speculative to the egregious character of the actual1 because custom assimilates their expectations to the march of existing things and deadens their power to imagine anything different4 ,but wherever the routine of a barbaric life is broken by the least acquaintance with larger ways1 the arbitrariness of the actual begins to be discovered4 ,the traveller will first learn that his native language is not the only one1 nor the best possible1 nor itself constant2 then1 perhaps1 he will understand that the same is true of his home religion and government4 ,the naturalist will begin by marvelling at the forms and habits of the lower animals1 while continuing to attribute his own to their obvious propriety2 later the heavens and the earth1 and all physical laws1 will strike him as paradoxically arranged and unintelligible2 and ultimately the very elements of existence--time1 change1 matter1 habit1 life cooped in bodies--will reveal themselves to him in their extreme oddity1 so that1 unless he has unusual humility and respect for fact1 he will probably declare all these actual things to be impossible and therefore unreal4 ,the most profound philosophers accordingly deny that any of those things exist which we find existing1 and maintain that the only reality is changeless1 infinite1 and indistinguishable into parts2 and ,i call them the most profound philosophers in spite of this obvious folly of theirs1 because they are led into it by the force of intense reflection1 which discloses to them that what exists is unintelligible and has no reason for existing2 and since their moral and religious prejudices do not allow them to say that to be irrational and unintelligible is the character proper to existence1 they are driven to the alternative of saying that existence is illusion and that the only reality is something beneath or above existence4 ,that real existence should be radically comic never occurs to these solemn sages2 they are without one ray of humour and are persuaded that the universe too must be without one4 ,yet there is a capital joke in their own systems1 which prove that nothing exists so strenuously1 that existence laughs aloud in their vociferations and drowns the argument4 ,their conviction is the very ghost which it rises to exorcise2 yet the conviction and the exorcism remain impressive1 because they bear witness to the essential strangeness of existence to the spirit4 ,like the ,ghost in ,hamlet this apparition1 this unthinkable fact1 is terribly disturbing and emphatic2 it cries to us in a hollow voice1 ,swear6 and when in an agony of concern and affection we endeavour to follow it1 ,tis here6 ',tis here6 ,tis gone6 ,certainly existence can bewitch us2 it can compel us to cry as well as to laugh2 it can hurt1 and that is its chief claim to respect4 ,its cruelty1 however1 is as casual as its enchantments2 it is not cruel on purpose but only rough1 like thoughtless boys4 ,coarseness--and existence is hopelessly coarse--is not an evil unless we demand refinement4 ,a giggling lass that peeps at us through her fingers is well enough in her sphere1 but we should not have begun by calling her ,dulcinea4 ,dulcinea is a pure essence1 and dwells only in that realm4 ,existence should be met on its own terms2 we may dance a round with it1 and perhaps steal a kiss2 but it tempts only to flout us1 not being dedicated to any constant love4 ,as if to acknowledge how groundless existence is1 everything that arises instantly backs away1 bowing its excuses1 and saying1 ,my mistake6 ,it suffers from a sort of original sin or congenital tendency to cease from being4 ,this is what ,heraclitus called ,greek3 ,dik1 or just punishment2 because1 as ,mephistopheles long afterwards added1 alles was entsteht ist wert dass es zugrunde geht--whatsoever arises deserves to perish2 not of course because what arises is not often a charming creation1 but because it has no prerogative to exist not shared by every ,cinderella-like essence that lies eternally neglected in that limbo to which all things intrinsically belong--the limbo of unheard melodies and uncreated worlds4 ,for anything to emerge from that twilight region is inexplicable and comic1 like the popping up of ,jack-in-the-box2 and the shock will amuse us1 if our wits are as nimble as nature and as quick as time4 ,we too exist2 and existence is a joy to the sportive side of our nature1 itself akin to a shower of sparks and a patter of irrevocable adventures4 ,what indeed could be more exhilarating than such a rout1 if only we are not too exacting1 and do not demand of it irrelevant perfections8 ,the art of life is to keep step with the celestial orchestra that beats the measure of our career1 and gives the cue for our exits and our entrances4 ,why should we willingly miss anything1 or precipitate anything1 or be angry with folly1 or in despair at any misadventure8 ,in this world there should be none but gentle tears1 and fluttering tip-toe loves4 ,it is a great ,carnival1 and amongst these lights and shadows of comedy1 these roses and vices of the playhouse1 there is no abiding4 #ce ,,queen ,,mab ,nature1 which is far more resourceful than logic1 has found a way out of the contradiction between the human need for expression and the ,british distaste for personal outbursts4 ,this way is rambling fiction4 ,when out of shyness1 or because they have shocked each other1 the inner man and the outer man are not on speaking terms1 loud language and vehement gestures are incompatible with depth of feeling4 ,what lies deep must in such a case remain unexpressed1 and will seem inexpressible4 ,a man's heart will be revealed1 even to himself1 only in long stretches of constant endeavour and faithful habit3 towards the end of his life he may begin to discern his ruling motives4 ,in the meantime1 however1 his fancy may have played at self-revelation2 he may have indulged in day-dreams and romantic transformations of himself1 as boys do2 and without pledging his real person too much he may have made trial of candour1 or1 if need be1 of extravagance1 in imaginary substitutes for himself1 thus trying the paces of his inner man without cheapening his secret feelings or publishing them in common and second-hand terms4 ,such a man will talk little about himself2 his opinions and preferences will not be very explicit1 but he will privily nurse and develop them by endless variations played upon them in fancy1 as he reads or perhaps writes a book of fiction by his chimney corner4 ,he will dream of what ,queen ,mab makes other people dream4 ,romantic fiction is a bypath of expression2 it meanders through fields of possible experience that stretch harmlessly between the highroads of actual lives1 far from the precipices of private and public passions4 ,the labyrinth is infinite1 but the path chosen in it is always traceable by a sort of ,ariadne's thread spun out of the poet's heart4 ,he means to forget himself and to feign some charming monster in some picturesque landscape1 the more exotic the better2 but in doing so he obeys the dream-impulses of his own soul1 and recasts or corrects the images supplied by his experience4 ,his very extravagances and hectic concentration of fancy betray him2 they manifest his impatience1 his affections1 his potentialities2 for he paints what he can conceive and what fascinates him in conceiving it4 ,that which he might have been1 and was not1 comforts him4 ,such a form of self-expression1 indirect1 bashful1 and profoundly humorous1 being play rather than art1 is alone congenial to the ,british temperament2 it is the soul of ,english literature4 ,like ,english politics and religion1 it breathes tolerance1 plasticity1 waywardness1 infinitude2 it is tender and tentative1 shapeless and guileless4 ,its straggling march forms a vast national soliloquy1 rich in casual touches1 in alternatives1 in contrasts1 in suspended themes2 the plot grows out of the episodes1 it is always being remodelled and always to be continued4 ,the facts1 though much talked of in detail1 are never faced as a whole1 nor is the soul ever gathered together to pronounce upon them2 the whole procedure is a subterfuge1 and may be easily disparaged by people with other gifts and aspirations4 ,intelligence certainly does not dominate it2 its conclusions1 when it reaches conclusions1 are false1 and its methods cumbrous2 and foreigners who adopt them are catching only the vices of their model4 ,but its virtues are transcendent2 if the mind of ,england is wrapped in mists1 it is touched with ethereal colours2 and who shall measure the benign influences1 the lights1 the manliness1 the comforts1 the moral sanity that have spread from it through the world8 ,its very incapacities are full of promise2 it closes no doors2 it is the one fountain of kindly liberty on earth4 ,the ,englishman's prejudices are so obviously prejudices as to be almost innocent1 and even amiable2 his consecrated formulas 7for of course he has them7 are frankly inadequate and half humorous2 he would not have you suppose he has said his all1 nor his last word4 ,he is jealous of preserving1 far from public observation or censure1 the free play of his potential sentiments2 from thence he will occasionally fetch some scrap of a word1 or let slip some hint of emotion2 he will only murmur or suggest or smile his loves4 ,everybody dislikes a caricature of himself2 and the ,englishman feels 7,i think justly7 that any figure a man can cut in other people's eyes is a caricature4 ,therefore1 if there is anything in him1 he fears to betray it2 and if there is nothing in him1 he fears to betray that2 and in either case he is condemned to diffidence and shyness4 ,he wishes you to let him alone2 perhaps if you do he may presently tell you1 about quite another imaginary person1 some vivid and tender story4 ,this story may be a fairy tale or it may be a piece of realistic fiction1 in which the experiences of sundry characters1 as different as possible from oneself and from one another1 are imagined and lived through4 ,the author may fairly say that these creations are not masks for his own person2 it is expressly not his own feelings that he is evoking and developing4 ,he is fancying other feelings2 and yet1 as this fancy and the magic life it constitutes are necessarily his own1 his mind is being secretly agitated and relieved by these fictions2 and his sensibility1 instead of being sublimated into some ultimate tragic passion1 is diffused over a thousand picturesque figures and adventures with which he acknowledges no moral kinship1 save such as is requisite for a lively interest in them and a minute portrayed4 ,it is only by accident that any of his poetic offspring may resemble their parent4 ,what cares he what curious eye may note their deformity8 ,he need not blush for them4 ,he may even be bent on unmasking and fiercely condemning them1 as a scrupulous penitent is bent on ferreting out and denouncing his real or fancied sins4 ,in the most searching truth of fiction there is accordingly no indiscretion2 the author's inmost and least avowable feelings may be uttered through it without reserve4 ,like a modest showman behind the curtain of his booth1 he manipulates his marionettes and speaks for them in a feigned voice1 by a sort of ventriloquy4 ,here is no religious tragedy1 no distilled philosophy1 no overarching cosmic myth4 ,the scale is pleasantly small and the tone familiar1 though the sum of the parts may fade into the infinite4 ,we do not find in this complicated dream any life greater than our own or less accidental4 ,we do not need to outgrow ourselves in order to understand it2 no one summons us to pause1 to recant1 to renounce any part of our being4 ,on the contrary1 we simply unwind our own reel2 we play endlessly at living1 and in this second visionary life we survive all catastrophes1 and we exchange one character for another without carrying over any load of memory or habit or fate4 ,we seem still to undergo the vicissitudes of a moral world1 but without responsibility4 ,queen ,mab is a naughty sprite1 full of idle curiosity and impartial laughter4 ,when she flutters over the roofs of cities1 she is no angel with a mission1 coming to sow there some chosen passion or purpose of her own2 nor does she gather from those snoring mortals any collective sentiment or aspiration1 such as a classic muse might render articulate1 or such as religion or war or some consecrated school of art might embody4 ,she steals wilily like a stray moonbeam into every crack and dark old corner of the earth4 ,her deft touch1 as she pretends1 sets all men dreaming1 each after his own heart2 but like other magicians1 she is a fraud4 ,those garden fancies about her fairy equipage are all a joke to amuse the children2 her wings are1 in reality1 far finer than gossamer1 and the ,equivocation she rides on is nimbler than any grasshopper4 ,all she professes to spy out or provoke is her own merry invention4 ,her wand really works no miracle and sets no sleeper dreaming2 on the contrary1 it is rather an electric spark from the lover's brain or the parson's nose1 as she tickles it1 that quickens her own fancy1 and hatches there an interminable brood of exquisite oddities1 each little goblin perfectly ridiculous1 each quite serious and proud of its little self1 each battling bravely for its little happiness4 ,queen ,mab is the genius proper to the art of a nation whose sensibility is tender1 but whose personal life is drab and pale4 ,to report1 however poetically1 the events and feelings they have actually experienced would be dull1 as dull as life2 their imagination craves entertainment with something richer1 more wayward1 more exciting4 ,every one is weary of his own society2 the lifelong company of so meagre and warped a creature has become insufferable4 ,we see that the passions of ,mercutio are potentially deep and vivid2 but they have been crossed by fortune1 and on fortune his kindly humour mockingly takes its revenge1 by feigning no end of parodies and escapades for the ineffable bright mischiefs lurking in his bosom4 ,queen ,mab is the frail mothlike emanation of such a generous but disappointed mind2 her magic lies in the ironical visions which1 like the dust of the poppy1 she can call forth there4 ,a ,cinderella at home1 she becomes a seer in her midnight travels4 ,hence ,table ,rounds and ,ivanhoes2 hence three-volume novels about ,becky ,sharps and ,david ,copperfields4 ,these imagined characters are often alive1 not only because the scene in which they move may be well indicated1 with romantic absorption in the picturesque aspects of human existence1 but also because their minds are the author's mind dreaming2 they skirt the truth of his inner man2 in their fancifulness or their realism they retain a secret reference to the deepest impulses in himself4 ,english lovers1 ,i believe1 seldom practise what in ,spain is called conjugating the verb2 they do not spend hours ringing the changes on ,i love1 you love1 we love4 ,this1 in their opinion1 would be to protest too much4 ,they prefer the method of ,paolo and ,francesca3 they will sit reading out of the same book1 and when they come to the kissing1 she will say1 ,how nice that is6 and he will reply1 ,isn't it8 and the story will supply the vicarious eloquence of their love4 ,fiction and poetry1 in some supposititious instance1 report for the ,englishman the bashful truth about himself2 and what ,english life thereby misses in vivacity1 ,english literature gains in wealth1 in tenderness1 in a rambling veracity1 and in preciousness to the people's heart4 #cf ,a ,,contrast ,,with ,,spanish ,,drama ,in classical ,spanish drama the masks are few4 ,the characters hardly have individual names4 ,the lady in ,calderon1 for instance1 if she is not ,beatriz will be ,leonor1 and under either name so superlatively beautiful1 young1 chaste1 eloquent1 devoted1 and resourceful1 as to be indistinguishable from her namesakes in the other plays4 ,the hero is always exaggeratedly in love1 exaggeratedly chivalrous1 and absolutely perfect1 save for this heroic excess of sensitiveness and honour4 ,the old father is always austere1 unyielding1 perverse1 and sublime4 ,all the maids in attendance possess the same roguishness1 the same genius for intrigue and lightning mendacity2 whilst the valet1 whether called ,crispin or ,florin1 is always a faithful soul and a coward1 with the same quality of rather forced humour4 ,no diversity from play to play save the diversity in the fable1 in the angle at which the stock characters are exhibited and the occasion on which they versify2 for they all versify in the same style1 with the same inexhaustible facility1 abundance1 rhetorical finish1 and lyric fire4 ,why this monotony8 ,did ,spanish life afford fewer contrasts1 less individuality of character and idiom1 than did the ,england of ,shakespeare8 ,hardly3 in ,spain the soldier of fortune1 the grandee1 peasant1 monk1 or prelate1 the rogue1 beggar1 and bandit were surely as highly characterized as anything to be then found in ,england2 and ,spanish women in their natural ardour of affection1 in their ready speech and discretion1 in their dignity and religious consecration1 lent themselves rather better1 one would think1 to the making of heroines than did those comparatively cool and boylike young ladies whom ,shakespeare transmuted into tragic angels4 ,i think we may go further and say positively that it was ,spain rather than ,england that could have shown the spectacle of every man in his humour4 ,even in the days before ,puritanism ,english character was ,english2 it tended to silent independence and outward reserve1 preferring to ignore its opposite rather than to challenge it4 ,in pose and expression the ,spaniard is naturally more theatrical and pungent2 and his individuality itself is stiffen ,no doubt1 in society1 he will simulate and dissimulate as an ,englishman never would2 but he is prompted to this un-,english habit by the very fixity of his purposes2 all his courtesy and loyalty are ironical1 and inwardly he never yields an inch4 ,he likes if possible to be statuesque2 he likes to appeal to his own principles and character1 and to say1 ,sir1 whatever you may think of it1 that is the sort of man ,i am4 ,he has that curious form of self-love which inclines to parade even its defects1 as a mourner parades his grief4 ,he admits readily that he is a sinner1 and that he means to remain one2 he composes his countenance proudly on that basis2 whereas when ,english people say they are miserable sinners 7which happens only in church7 they feel perhaps that they are imperfect or unlucky1 and they may even contemplate being somewhat different in future2 but it never occurs to them to classify themselves as miserable sinners for good1 with a certain pride in their class1 deliberately putting on the mask of ,satan or the cock's feather of ,mephistopheles and saying to all concerned1 ,see what a very devil ,i am6 ,the ,englishman's sins are slips2 he feels he was not himself on those occasions1 and does not think it fair to be reminded of them4 ,though theology may sometimes have taught him that he is a sinner fundamentally1 such is not his native conviction2 the transcendental ego in him cannot admit any external standard to which it ought to have conformed4 ,the ,spaniard is metaphysically humbler1 knowing himself to be a creature of accident and fate2 yet he is dramatically more impudent1 and respects himself more than he respects other people4 ,he laughs at kings2 and as amongst beggars it is etiquette to whine1 and ostentatiously to call oneself blind1 old1 poor1 crippled1 hungry1 and a brother of yours1 so amongst avowed sinners it may become a point of pride to hold1 as it were1 the record as a liar1 a thief1 an assassin1 or a harlot4 ,these rles are disgraceful when one is reduced to them by force of circumstances or for some mean ulterior motive1 but they recover their human dignity when one wears them as a chosen mask in the comedy of life4 ,the pose1 at that angle1 redeems the folly1 and the faade the building4 ,nor is this a lapse into sheer immorality2 there is many a primitive or animal level of morality beneath the conventional code2 and often crime and barbarism are as proud of themselves as virtue1 and no less punctilious4 ,if there is effrontery in such a rebellion1 there may be also sincerity1 courage1 relief1 profound truth to one's own nature4 ,hence the eloquence of romanticism4 ,passion and wilfulness 7which romanticists think are above criticism7 cannot be expected to understand that1 if they merged and subsided into a harmony1 the life distilled out of their several deaths would be infinitely more living and varied than any of them1 and would be beautiful and perfect to boot2 whereas the romantic chaos which they prolong by their obstinacy is the most hideous of hells4 ,but avowed sinners and proud romanticists insist on preserving and on loving hell1 because they insist on loving and preserving themselves4 ,it was not1 then1 moral variety that was lacking in ,spain1 always a romantic country1 but only interest in moral variety4 ,this lack of interest was itself an expression of romantic independence1 intensity1 and pride4 ,the gentleman with his hand always on the hilt of his sword1 lest some whiff from anywhere should wound his vanity1 or the monk perpetually murmuring memento mori1 closed his mind to every alien vista4 ,of course he knew that the world was full of motley characters3 that was one of his reasons for holding it at arm's length4 ,what were those miscellaneous follies to him but an offence or a danger8 ,why should he entertain his leisure in depicting or idealizing them8 ,if some psychological zoologist cared to discant on the infinity of phenomena1 natural or moral1 well and good2 but how should such things charm a man of honour1 a ,christian1 or a poet8 ,they might indeed be referred to on occasion1 as fabulists make the animals speak1 with a humorous and satirical intention1 as a sort of warning and confirmation to us in our chosen path2 but an appealing poet1 for such tightly integrated minds1 must illustrate and enforce their personal feelings4 ,moreover1 although in words and under the spell of eloquence the ,spaniard may often seem credulous and enthusiastic1 he is disillusioned and cynical at heart2 he does not credit the existence of motives or feelings better than those he has observed1 or thinks he has observed4 ,his preachers recommend religion chiefly by composing invectives against the world1 and his political writers express sympathy with one foreign country only out of hatred for another1 or perhaps for their own4 ,the sphere of distrust and indifference begins for him very near home2 he has little speculative sympathy with life at large2 he is cruel to animals2 he shrugs his shoulders at crime in high places2 he feels little responsibility to the public1 and has small faith in time and in work4 ,this does not mean in the least that his character is weak or his morality lax within its natural range2 his affections are firm1 his sense of obligation deep1 his delicacy of feeling often excessive2 he is devoted to his family1 and will put himself to any inconvenience to do a favour to a friend at the public expense4 ,there are definite things to which his sentiments and habits have pledged him3 beyond that horizon nothing speaks to his heart4 ,such a people will not go to the play to be vaguely entertained1 as if they were previously bored4 ,they are not habitually bored2 they are full to the brim of their characteristic passions and ideas4 ,they require that the theatre should set forth these passions and ideas as brilliantly and convincingly as possible1 in order to be confirmed in them1 and to understand and develop them more clearly4 ,variety of plot and landscape they will relish1 because nothing is easier for them than to imagine themselves born in the purple1 or captive1 or in love1 or in a difficult dilemma of honour2 and they will be deeply moved to see some constant spirit1 like their own1 buffeted by fortune1 but even in the last extremity never shaken4 ,the whole force of their dramatic art will lie in leading them to dream of themselves in a different1 perhaps more glorious1 position1 in which their latent passions might be more splendidly expressed4 ,these passions are intense and exceptionally definite2 and this is the reason1 ,i think1 for the monotony of ,spanish music1 philosophy1 and romantic drama4 ,all eloquence1 all issues1 all sentiments1 if they are not to seem vapid and trivial1 must be such as each man can make his own1 with a sense of enhanced vitality and moral glory4 ,the lady1 if he is to warm to her praises1 must not be less divine than the one he loves1 or might have loved2 the hero must not fall short of what1 under such circumstances1 he himself would have wished to be4 ,the language1 too1 must always be worthy of the theme3 it cannot be too rapturous and eloquent4 ,unless his soul can be fired by the poet's words1 and can sing them1 as it were1 in chorus1 he will not care to listen to them4 ,but he will not tire of the same cadences or the same images--stars1 foam1 feathers1 flowers--if these symbols1 better than any others1 transport him into the ethereal atmosphere which it is his pleasure to breathe4 ,the ,spanish nation boils the same peas for its dinner the whole year round2 it has only one religion1 if it has any2 the pious part of it recites the same prayers fifty or one hundred and fifty times daily1 almost in one breath2 the gay and sentimental part never ceases to sing the same jotas and malagueas4 ,such constancy is admirable4 ,if a dish is cheap1 nutritious1 and savoury on ,monday1 it must be so on ,tuesday1 too2 it was a ridiculous falsehood1 though countenanced by some philosophers1 which pretended that always to feel 7or to eat7 the same thing was equivalent to never feeling 7or eating7 anything4 ,nor does experience of a genuine good really have any tendency to turn it into an evil1 or into an indifferent thing2 at most1 custom may lead people to take it for granted1 and the thoughtless may forget its value1 until1 perhaps1 they lose it4 ,of course1 men and nations may slowly change their nature1 and consequently their rational preferences2 but at any assigned time a man must have some moral complexion1 or if he has none1 not much need be said about him4 ,but there is another point to be considered4 ,need human nature's daily food be exclusively the ,spanish pea8 ,might it not just as well be rice1 or polenta1 or even beef and bacon8 ,much as ,i admire my countrymen's stomachs for making a clear choice and for sticking to it1 ,i rather pity them for the choice they have made4 ,that hard yellow pea is decidedly heavy1 flatulent1 and indigestible4 ,i am sure ,pythagoras would not have approved of it2 possibly it is the very bean he abhorred4 ,against the jota and the malaguea ,i can say nothing2 ,i find in them ,i know not what infinite1 never-failing thrill and inimitable power1 the power which perfection of any kind always has2 yet what are they in comparison to all the possibilities of human music8 ,enjoyment1 which some people call criticism1 is something aesthetic1 spontaneous1 and irresponsible2 the aesthetic perfection of anything is incommensurable with that of anything else4 ,but there is a responsible sort of criticism which is political and moral1 and which turns on the human advantage of possessing or loving this or that sort of perfection4 ,to cultivate some sorts may be useless or even hostile to the possible perfection of human life4 ,spanish religion1 again1 is certainly most human and most superhuman2 but its mystic virtue to the devotee cannot alter the fact that1 on a broad view1 it appears to be a romantic tour de force1 a desperate illusion1 fostered by premature despair and by a total misunderstanding of nature and history4 ,finally1 those lyrical ladies and entranced gentlemen of the ,spanish drama are like filigree flowers upon golden stems2 they belong to a fantastic ballet1 to an exquisite dream1 rather than to sane human society4 ,the trouble is not that their types are few and constant1 but that these types are eccentric1 attenuated1 and forced4 ,they would not be monotonous if they were adequate to human nature4 ,how vast1 how kindly1 how enveloping does the world of ,shakespeare seem in comparison6 ,we seem to be afloat again on the tide of time1 in a young1 green world2 we are ready to tempt new fortunes1 in the hope of reaching better things than we know4 ,and this is the right spirit2 because although the best1 if it had been attained1 would be all-sufficient1 the best is not yet4 #cg ,,the ,,censor ,,and ,,the ,,poet ,there is an important official of the inner man who in the latest psychology is called the ,censor2 his function is to forbid the utterance1 in the council chamber within us1 of unparliamentary sentiments1 and to suppress all reports not in the interest of our moral dignity4 ,by relegating half our experience to oblivion and locking up our unseemly passions in solitary dungeons1 the ,censor composes a conventional personage that we may decently present to the world4 ,it is he1 whilst we are sane and virtuous1 that regulates our actions4 ,it had occurred to me sometimes that the ,censor was only another name for our old friend ,reason2 but there is a great difference4 ,this is no censor of the noble ,roman sort1 like ,cato ,major2 he makes no attempt to purify the republic from within2 he is not concerned with moral health1 honest harmony1 and the thorough extirpation of hopeless rebels4 ,he is concerned only with appearances and diplomatic relations2 his old name was not ,reason but ,vanity or ,self-love4 ,he is merely the head of the government propaganda1 charged with preventing inconvenient intelligence of our psychological home politics from reaching foreign powers or weakening the moral of our fighting force4 ,he is the father of shams4 ,he invents those masterly methods of putting our best foot forward1 and sustaining the illusion that we are always actuated by becoming and avowable motives4 ,he it is that dictates the polite movements by which we show that we prefer the comfort of others to our own4 ,he causes us to put on mourning for those who have left us legacies4 ,he persuades us that we believe in the religion of our ancestors1 in the science of the day1 in the national cause1 and in the party cry4 ,he leads us to admire the latest art1 or the most ancient2 he enables us to be pleased with every fashion in turn1 or perhaps to sigh at its ugliness1 if we are conscious of being the best-dressed persons in the room4 ,he induces us to follow the doings of the royal family with affectionate awe1 to love our relations1 to prefer ,bach to ,offenbach1 and always to have had a good time when we leave a friend's house4 ,the ,censor sends our children to the best schools1 to prove what sacrifices we are willing to make for their good1 and to relieve us of further responsibility in regard to them4 ,he directs that considerations of wealth shall control our careers1 our friendships1 and our manners2 and this is perhaps the greatest sham of all the shams he has set up3 that money is an expression of happiness and a means to it4 ,what opens the way to happiness1 if our character does not render happiness impossible1 is freedom1 and some security against want is usually necessary for that2 but wealth1 and the necessity of being fashionable if one is rich1 take away freedom4 ,a genuine love for the pleasant surroundings and the facilities which riches afford is often keener in the outsider1 who peeps in at the gate1 than in the master or his children who perhaps1 if the ,censor would let them1 would prefer their low acquaintance and their days afield4 ,but the ,censor-ridden inner man cannot break his harness4 ,he is groomed and reined in like a pony at the circus3 at the crack of the whip the neck must be bent1 the tail switched1 the trained feet must retrace the circle in the sawdust1 or tap the velvet barrier4 ,so we prance to our funeral1 the last sham of all1 after the ,censor has made our wills for us2 whereupon somebody else's ,censor gives us the finishing touches by praising our character1 and nailing down the coffin4 ,the untutored passions which the ,censor keeps down are themselves remarkable dissemblers4 ,that old propensity to allegory1 which is now condemned in literature1 seems to rule unchecked in dreams4 ,invention in dreams1 as in mythology1 is far-fetched1 yet spontaneous4 ,what it sets immediately before us is a third or a fourth transformation of the fundamental fact4 ,it hides the fact1 without misrepresenting it2 the orchestration of the theme1 the alien images in which allegory dresses it up1 are suggested by some subtle affinity1 some instinctive choice1 which is perfectly automatic and innocent2 the ,psyche could find no simpler way of bringing her agitations to consciousness4 ,just as we cannot see a material object more clearly than by seeing exactly how it looks 7though that may not be at all how it is71 so we cannot express a feeling more sincerely than by rehearsing all the images1 all the metaphors1 which it suggests to us4 ,passion when aroused to speech is rich in rhetorical figures4 ,when we assert inaccurately that a man is a cur we depart from observation only to register sentiment2 we express truly the niche he fills in our thoughts4 ,dramatic poetry is an excursus in this direction2 it reports the echoes which events produce in a voluminous inner sensibility2 it throws back our perception of what is going on into the latent dream which this perception has for its background3 for a perception1 apart from its object1 is only one feature in a dream1 momentarily more salient than the rest4 ,these natural harlequins1 the passions1 are perfectly sincere in their falsehoods and indirections3 their fancy is their only means of expressing the facts4 ,to be more literal would require training1 and a painful effort2 it would require the art of reading and discounting dreams1 whilst these simple poets have only the gift of dreaming4 ,when ,juliet dreams 7it is a desperate poetic little dream created by her passion7 that she will cut up ,romeo into bits and make stars of him1 the image is extravagant2 yet if the fundamental theme is1 as ,i suppose1 that every atom of ,romeo is precious1 this mad but natural passion for the bits1 even1 of what she loves1 is expressed truly4 ,but this sort of sincere fiction1 though it may put the ,censor to sleep if he does not quite understand what it signifies1 is the very opposite of his own shams2 it is exuberance and these are suppression4 ,if the ,censor could have got at ,juliet in time1 she would have expressed herself quite differently4 ,wiping her prospective tears he would have said1 ,what is ,romeo's body to me8 ,our spirits will be reunited in heaven6 ,this would have been a sham2 because we should now not be led to understand that ,juliet loved the eyes and the hands and the lips of ,romeo--which was the fact to be expressed--but on the contrary her idolatrous infatuation would have been hushed up1 and something else1 an empty convention contradicting her true feeling1 would have been substituted for it4 ,the ,censor may not be useless to the poet in the end1 because the need of shamming develops sensitiveness in some directions1 as in that1 for instance1 of self-consciousness4 ,the vigour of art in ,england may depend on the possibility of using the fineness of perception which reticence enhances in order to invent new metaphors and allegories by which to express the heart4 ,could a vigorous ,english art1 for instance1 ever give expression to the erotic passion which1 according to this latest psychology1 plays such a great part in the ,psyche8 ,the comic vein of ,english writers commonly stops short at the improper4 ,this is doubtless a wise modesty on their part1 because every artist is a moralist1 though he need not preach2 like ,orpheus he tames the simple soul to his persuasive measures2 he insinuates his preferences and his principles1 he teaches us what to love3 and to discover what we truly love is the whole of ethics4 ,now if any passion were sinful and really shameful in itself1 it ought not to enter at all into human life1 either through the door of art or through any other door4 ,conceivably a perfect expression might still be given to it technically1 although even this is improbable if the artist had a bad conscience and a leering eye2 but this expression1 good only from an abstracted point of view1 would be on the whole an evil experience and an evil possession4 ,if the early ,christians and the ,puritans and a whole cloud of mystics and ascetics everywhere have been right in thinking the flesh essentially sinful1 the ,censor must not be allowed to flinch2 on the contrary1 he must considerably extend his operations4 ,if you renounce the flesh you must renounce the world2 things called indecent or obscene are inextricably woven into the texture of human existence2 there can be no completely honest comedy without them4 ,life itself would have to be condemned as sinful2 we should deny that anything harmonious1 merry1 or sweet could be made of it1 either in the world or on the stage4 ,if we made any concession to art at all1 on the same grounds as to matrimony1 it would be only in favour of tragedy1 which should show us that all we think most amiable is an illusion1 ending in torments and in nothingness4 ,wedlock itself would be sanctioned only grudgingly1 as a concession to human frailty1 lest a worse thing be2 and we should marry1 if at all very sadly1 with fear and trembling and strictly for the sake of children4 ,marriage would then not be the happy-go-lucky1 tender1 faithful1 humorous1 trying fatality which nature has made of it1 and which comedy describes4 ,perhaps the emancipated plebeians of the future will expect their comic poets to play upon sensuality as upon something altogether innocent and amiable3 comic1 too1 because all reality is comic1 and especially a phase of it where illusion1 jollity1 conceit1 mishap1 and chagrin follow one another in such quick alternation4 ,if this subject could be passed by the ,censor1 and treated judiciously1 it would enrich the arts and at the same time disinfect the mind in one of its most troubled and sullen moods1 by giving it a merry expression4 ,in the ,arabian ,nights ,i find something of this kind2 but erotic art in ,europe1 even in antiquity1 seems to have been almost always constrained and vicious4 ,a man who is moralized politically1 as ,europeans are1 rather than religiously or poetically like ,orientals1 cannot treat natural things naturally4 ,he respects the uttered feelings of others more than his own feelings unuttered1 and suppresses every manifestation of himself which a spectator might frown upon1 even if behind the ,censor's back everybody would rejoice in it4 ,so long as this social complication lasts public art and the inner life have to flow separately1 the one remains conventional the other clouded and incoherent4 ,if poets under these circumstances tried to tell the whole truth1 they would not only offend the public but do a grave injustice to their theme1 and fail to make it explicit1 for want of discipline and grace of expression4 ,it is as well that the ,censor1 by imposing silence1 keeps them from attempting the impossible4 #ch ,,the ,,mask ,,of ,,the ,,philosopher ,amongst tragic masks may be counted all systems of philosophy and religion4 ,so long as they are still plastic in the mind of their creator1 they seem to him to wear the very lineaments of nature4 ,he cannot distinguish the comic cast of his own thought2 yet inevitably it shows the hue and features of his race2 it has its curious idiom and constitutional grammar1 its quite personal rhetoric1 its ridiculous ignorances and incapacities1 and when his work is finished and its expression set1 and other people behold it1 it becomes under his name one of the stock masks or dramatis personae of the moral world4 ,in it every wrinkle of his soul is eternalized1 its old dead passion persisted in1 its open mouth1 always with the same rictus1 bawling one deaf thought for ever4 ,even to himself1 if he could have seen his mind at a distance1 it would have appeared limited and foreign1 as to an old man the verses of his youth1 or like one's own figure seen unexpectedly in a mirror and mistaken at first for another person4 ,his own system1 as much as those of others1 would have seemed to him a mask for the truth1 partial1 over-emphatic1 exaggerating one feature and distorting another1 and above all severed from the context of nature1 as a picture in a frame1 where much may be shown with a wonderfully distilled beauty1 yet without its substance1 and without its changeful setting in the moving world4 ,yet this fate is in part a favour4 ,a system1 like a tell-tale glass1 may reveal by a trick of reflection many a fact going on behind one's back4 ,by it the eye of the mind travels where experience cannot penetrate2 it turns into a spectacle what was never open to sight1 and it disentangles things seen from the personal accidents of vision4 ,the mask is greater than the man4 ,in isolating what was important and pertinent in his thoughts1 it rescues his spirit from the contamination of all alien dyes1 and bequeaths it to posterity such as it would have wished to be4 #ci ,,the ,,voyage ,,of ,,the ,,saint ,,christopher ,the voyage of ,peter's ,bark in search of another world has been less fortunate than that of ,columbus4 ,there have been mutinies on board2 the other world is not yet found4 ,soon after this good ship1 the ,saint ,christopher1 was launched from her ,phoenician home-port1 she had a strange experience very like that which legend attributes to her namesake1 the sainted ferryman4 ,her freight at the beginning seemed to be of the lightest--only living ,hopes and daily ,miracles2 and the crossing was to be very brief1 the other shore being plainly visible at a stone's throw4 ,but that promised land turned out to be a mirage1 lying across the mouth of the port1 which really opened out into a vast ocean4 ,meantime the cargo too was strangely transformed2 for whilst the ,hopes and ,miracles were still reputed to be on board1 they were hidden from sight and smothered in a litter of ,possessions4 ,these included a great load of ,books1 a heavy fund of ,traditions1 and a multitude of unruly passengers1 with their clamorous wives and children1 and all sorts of provender4 ,so over-weighted1 the ,saint ,christopher sank down until the waves almost covered her deck2 but she was staunch1 like the wading saint when his light burden grew heavier and heavier1 and she laboured on4 ,not only was this ship named after a saint--which in so old a ship is no wonder--but incredible as it may seem1 her captain was a saint too--,saint ,simon or 7since these vague roving people often have an alias7 ,saint ,peter4 ,he had been a fisherman by profession1 and had only become a saint late in life2 a fact which explained his good seamanship and his bad language4 ,besides1 he did not pretend to be a saint except in his official capacity1 as captain1 and in matters of science and navigation3 in his private life he was frankly not impeccable1 and deprecated any strict scrutiny of it as not to the point4 ,not only might there have been some blemishes in his early career1 but even when in command he might have his faults4 ,people enjoy doing what they can do well from long habit2 and he was perhaps too fond of fishing1 of cursing1 and of commanding4 ,these foibles once brought upon him a serious mutiny4 ,a large part of the crew1 imitating his expressive speech1 cried1 ,damn the captain6 and took to the boats1 saying the ship was rotten and water-logged4 ,they carried away with them most of the ,hopes1 whilst scrupulously leaving the ,miracles alone4 ,in their boats and rafts they pulled ahead in all directions1 covering the sea with specks for a long distance2 and the captain1 after running down and sinking a few of them in his towering rage1 got used to their existence1 made things shipshape again on board1 and fell to observing them1 not without some chucklings of humour1 rowing and splashing about1 quarrelling and never getting anywhere1 but often merely drifting and quietly fishing1 much in his own old maimer4 ,the worst mutiny in the ,saint ,christopher1 however1 was of quite another kind4 ,the remaining crew had no objection to the captain--they were human themselves--and no desire to paddle their own canoes4 ,but they got thoroughly weary of sailing day after day into the same sunset1 decided that there was no ,el ,dorado1 and insisted clamorously on putting the ship about4 ,but in what direction8 ,some were for going home2 they said all talk of another world was nonsense1 that those ,hopes and ,miracles were worthless1 and that the only thing to do was to return to the old country and live there in the old way1 making the best of it4 ,but the majority said that such an acknowledgment of defeat and error would be ignominious2 and that life at home1 never really happy1 would now be doubly intolerable4 ,they would never have set out on so problematical an expedition1 had they found life possible in their native seats4 ,but it had been horrible4 ,they remembered with a shudder the cruelties and vanities of their ancestral heathenism4 ,they were adventurers and mariners by nature4 ,they might be now bewildered for a moment and discouraged in their explorations1 but the impulse to hope for the better and to try the unknown was ineradicable in their breast4 ,in some of them1 indeed1 this brave impulse was so vigorous1 that they now had a sudden intuition of the romantic principle of life1 and harangued their companions as follows3 ,what need1 ,o shipmates1 to sail for any port8 ,the sailor is not a land animal4 ,how we chafed and stifled when we lived on terra firma1 pent in those horrible stone dungeons called houses and churches1 and compelled to till those inert and filthy clods1 year in and year out--a most stupefying existence6 ,let us sail for the sake of sailing4 ,it was not in putting forth into this infinite sea that we were ill-advised1 but only in imagining that we could reach an opposite shore1 and that the sea was not infinite but hemmed about by dead land4 ,that was a gross illusion4 ,in reality there is no terra firma at all1 but only ships and rafts more or less extensive1 covered over with earth and trees1 riding on the water4 ,fancy deceived us1 when we supposed that our ,earth was anchored in some deeper earth4 ,it floats and drifts upon a bottomless flood1 and will dissolve into it4 ,do not dream of any backward voyage1 or of reaching home4 ,you will never find that old home again2 it exists no longer4 ,but this good ship of ours1 with its wind-blown sails1 can never sink and can never stop4 ,if the banners and crosses1 which we still fly in deference to custom1 have lost their meaning for us1 other symbols will take their place4 ,we must not confuse our infinite task with the illusions that may first have prompted us to undertake it4 ,a brave and an endless life awaits us1 battling with the storms of winter2 in the summer days1 leaping over the waves with the dolphins and the porpoises2 in the watches of the night hailing the ever-new constellations which1 as we sail onward1 will rise to greet us1 and pass over our heads4 ,for ocean is a river that flows unendingly1 and the stars and clouds are exhalations attendant upon it2 they rise and soar in great circles perpetually before its course1 like loosed doves before the bounding shell of ,galatea4 ,these words were not at all relished by the majority of those who listened to them4 ,they were stay-at-homes by temperament1 who had embarked only in the hope of gain1 or of finding peace and plenty in some softer climate4 ,they were alarmed and disgusted at what they had just heard1 and not being quite sore that it was false1 they denied it with some irritation4 ,what folly1 they cried1 what nonsense you are talking4 ,of course it is the land that is infinite1 since it is much better than the sea2 and the sea is no river1 or its water would be fresh1 and you know how brackish and bitter it is3 indeed1 but for the rain we have collected in pans and hogsheads1 we should already have died of thirst4 ,this sea is nothing but a stagnant lake in the midst of the green earth1 one of the myriad salt ponds studded all over it2 and as for this leaky little ship1 which we were induced to embark in only by fraud1 it is not really sea-worthy4 ,the planks and cordage are already rotting1 and how shall we replace them1 unless we speedily sight land--and ,god grant it may be a civilized country6 ,and look there6 ,is not that land on the horizon6 ,through the clearing mists ,i can discern a lighthouse1 quite distinctly2 and beyond lies a low shore1 overhung with smoke4 ,something tells me this is the ,new ,atlantis described by ,bacon4 ,a prosperous and populous city1 full of docks and factories1 where we shall find everything needful--warehouses1 shops1 inns1 theatres1 baths1 even churches and chapels of every sect and denomination4 ,what joy6 ,this sight was so welcome to those heartsick passengers1 that they could not wait for the ship to make fast1 though they steered her straight for the coast1 but jumped over-board and eagerly swam ashore4 ,their example was contagious4 ,the other party could not bear to be left behind without experiencing the new life1 whatever it might bring4 ,they reflected that as the land was really a part of the sea1 it was not bad seamanship sometimes to run aground1 that in leaving the ship they would1 in a higher sense1 be continuing their voyage1 and that they would not be true to the supreme principle of their philosophy1 which was absolute free-will1 if they did not often change their principles in minor matters4 ,the chief point was to experience everything4 ,they did not regret the past1 as did their narrow-minded positivistic friends1 simply because it had involved hardships and errors4 ,hardships and errors were blessings1 if you could only outgrow them2 and they1 in their splendid vitality1 knew how to outgrow everything4 ,sacred history1 classic fable1 chivalry1 and the cure of one's soul had1 in that former age1 proved absorbing themes for the fancy1 and had exquisitely modulated the emotions2 but the fountain of those emotions had always been their own breast1 and since after such dramatic adventures their breast remained deeply unsatisfied1 it was time to look again narrowly into its depths to discover some newer and truer way of expressing it4 ,why should not the development of material arts be the next phase in their career8 ,they would not be less free amid the gusts and the billows of politics than they had been in their marine adventure2 commerce would offer them glorious opportunities to exercise their will-power and their invention2 infinite vistas1 here too1 were open before them3 cities always more populous1 possessions always more varied1 instruments always more wonderful1 and labour always more intense4 ,the romantic party accordingly joined the lovers of material progress in their new city1 called ,mechanapolis3 but the old opposition in their temperaments remained undiminished4 ,the lovers of adventure wanted machines in order to make war1 and the lovers of thrift wanted peace in order to make other machines4 ,meantime ,peter the captain1 with much grumbling and shaking of his grey beard1 had got the old ,saint ,christopher afloat again1 and accompanied still by a faithful boatswain and cook1 and some nondescript recruits that he had got together1 set out again to sea1 in search of that other land beyond the ocean which is called heaven4 ,and every evening with a trembling finger he pointed to it in the setting sun1 not seeing that heaven was above his head4 #dj ,,classic ,,liberty ,when ancient peoples defended what they called their liberty1 the word stood for a plain and urgent interest of theirs3 that their cities should not be destroyed1 their territory pillaged1 and they themselves sold into slavery4 ,for the ,greeks in particular liberty meant even more than this4 ,perhaps the deepest assumption of classic philosophy is that nature and the gods on the one hand and man on the other1 both have a fixed character2 that there is consequently a necessary piety1 a true philosophy1 a standard happiness1 a normal art4 ,the ,greeks believed1 not without reason1 that they had grasped these permanent principles better than other peoples4 ,they had largely dispelled superstition1 experimented in government1 and turned life into a rational art4 ,therefore when they defended their liberty what they defended was not merely freedom to live4 ,it was freedom to live well1 to live as other nations did not1 in the public experimental study of the world and of human nature4 ,this liberty to discover and pursue a natural happiness1 this liberty to grow wise and to live in friendship with the gods and with one another1 was the liberty vindicated at ,thermopylae by martyrdom and at ,salamis by victory4 ,as ,greek cities stood for liberty in the world1 so philosophers stood for liberty in the ,greek cities4 ,in both cases it was the same kind of liberty1 not freedom to wander at hazard or to let things slip1 but on the contrary freedom to legislate more precisely1 at least for oneself1 and to discover and codify the means to true happiness4 ,many of these pioneers in wisdom were audacious radicals and recoiled from no paradox4 ,some condemned what was most ,greek3 mythology1 athletics1 even multiplicity and physical motion4 ,in the heart of those thriving1 loquacious1 festive little ant-hills1 they preached impassibility and abstraction1 the unanswerable scepticism of silence4 ,others practised a musical and priestly refinement of life1 filled with metaphysical mysteries1 and formed secret societies1 not without a tendency to political domination4 ,the cynics railed at the conventions1 making themselves as comfortable as possible in the rle of beggars and mocking parasites4 ,the conservatives themselves were radical1 so intelligent were they1 and ,plato wrote the charter of the most extreme militarism and communism1 for the sake of preserving the free state4 ,it was the swan-song of liberty1 a prescription to a diseased old man to become young again and try a second life of superhuman virtue4 ,the old man preferred simply to die4 ,many laughed then1 as we may be tempted to do1 at all those absolute physicians of the soul1 each with his panacea4 ,yet beneath their quarrels the wranglers had a common faith4 ,they all believed there was a single solid natural wisdom to be found1 that reason could find it1 and that mankind1 sobered by reason1 could put it in practice4 ,mankind has continued to run wild and like barbarians to place freedom in their very wildness1 till we can hardly conceive the classic assumption of ,greek philosophers and cities1 that true liberty is bound up with an institution1 a corporate scientific discipline1 necessary to set free the perfect man1 or the god1 within us4 ,upon the dissolution of paganism the ,christian church adopted the classic conception of liberty4 ,of course1 the field in which the higher politics had to operate was now conceived differently1 and there was a new experience of the sort of happiness appropriate and possible to man2 but the assumption remained unchallenged that ,providence1 as well as the human soul1 had a fixed discoverable scope1 and that the business of education1 law1 and religion was to bring them to operate in harmony4 ,the aim of life1 salvation1 was involved in the nature of the soul itself1 and the means of salvation had been ascertained by a positive science which the church was possessed of1 partly revealed and partly experimental4 ,salvation was simply what1 on a broad view1 we should see to be health1 and religion was nothing but a sort of universal hygiene4 ,the church1 therefore1 little as it tolerated heretical liberty1 the liberty of moral and intellectual dispersion1 felt that it had come into the world to set men free1 and constantly demanded liberty for itself1 that it might fulfil this mission4 ,it was divinely commissioned to teach1 guide1 and console all nations and all ages by the self-same means1 and to promote at all costs what it conceived to be human perfection4 ,there should be saints and as many saints as possible4 ,the church never admitted1 any more than did any sect of ancient philosophers1 that its teaching might represent only an eccentric view of the world1 or that its guidance and consolations might be suitable only at one stage of human development4 ,to waver in the pursuit of the orthodox ideal could only betray frivolity and want of self-knowledge4 ,the truth of things and the happiness of each man could not lie elsewhere than where the church1 summing up all human experience and all divine revelation1 had placed it once for all and for everybody4 ,the liberty of the church to fulfil its mission was accordingly hostile to any liberty of dispersion1 to any radical consecutive independence1 in the life of individuals or of nations4 ,when it came to full fruition this orthodox freedom was far from gay2 it was called sanctity4 ,the freedom of pagan philosophers too had turned out to be rather a stiff and severe pose2 but in the ,christian dispensation this austerity of true happiness was less to be wondered at1 since life on earth was reputed to be abnormal from the beginning1 and infected with hereditary disease4 ,the full beauty and joy of restored liberty could hardly become evident in this life4 ,nevertheless a certain beauty and joy did radiate visibly from the saints2 and while we may well think their renunciations and penances misguided or excessive1 it is certain that1 like the ,spartans and the philosophers1 they got something for their pains4 ,their bodies and souls were transfigured1 as none now found upon earth4 ,if we admire without imitating them we shall perhaps have done their philosophy exact justice4 ,classic liberty was a sort of forced and artificial liberty1 a poor perfection reserved for an ascetic aristocracy in whom heroism and refinement were touched with perversity and slowly starved themselves to death4 ,since those days we have discovered how much larger the universe is1 and we have lost our way in it4 ,any day it may come over us again that our modern liberty to drift in the dark is the most terrible negation of freedom4 ,nothing happens to us as we would4 ,we want peace and make war4 ,we need science and obey the will to believe1 we love art and flounder among whimsicalities1 we believe in general comfort and equality and we strain every nerve to become millionaires4 ,after all1 antiquity must have been right in thinking that reasonable self-direction must rest on having a determinate character and knowing what it is1 and that only the truth about ,god and happiness1 if we somehow found it1 could make us free4 ,but the truth is not to be found by guessing at it1 as religious prophets and men of genius have done1 and then damning every one who does not agree4 ,human nature1 for all its substantial fixity1 is a living thing with many varieties and variations4 ,all diversity of opinion is therefore not founded on ignorance2 it may express a legitimate change of habit or interest4 ,the classic and ,christian synthesis from which we have broken loose was certainly premature1 even if the only issue of our liberal experiments should be to lead us back to some such equilibrium4 ,let us hope at least that the new morality1 when it comes1 may be more broadly based than the old on knowledge of the world1 not so absolute1 not so meticulous1 and not chanted so much in the monotone of an abstracted sage4 #da ,,german ,,freedom ,there is a fine theory of ,hegel's that the universe exists in order to realize freedom4 ,in ,oriental despotisms1 he tells us1 only one man was free4 ,in ancient republican cities a minority1 the aristocracy of citizens1 obtained freedom4 ,now at last freedom has extended to all2 not1 however1 as we might fondly suppose1 in free and casual ,america1 but under the perfect organization of the ,prussian monarchy4 ,for freedom in the mouth of ,german philosophers has a very special meaning4 ,it does not refer to any possibility of choice nor to any private initiative4 ,it means rather that sense of freedom which we acquire when we do gladly and well what we should have to do anyhow1 as when in passing from a close room into the open air we say we breathe freely at last4 ,german freedom is like the freedom of the angels in heaven who see the face of ,god and cannot sin4 ,it lies in such a deep love and understanding of what is actually established that you would not have it otherwise2 you appropriate and bless it all and feel it to be the providential expression of your own spirit4 ,you are enlarged by sympathy with your work1 your country1 and the universe1 until you are no longer conscious of the least distinction between the ,creator1 the state1 and yourself4 ,your compulsory service then becomes perfect freedom4 ,for liberal freedom1 for individualism1 these philosophers have a great contempt4 ,they say a man is nothing but the sum of his relations to other things1 and if he should throw off one after another these constitutive bonds1 he would find his private residuum of a self to be a mathematical point and a naked cipher1 incapable of willing or of choosing anything4 ,and they further say that a dutiful soul is right in feeling that the world it accepts and co-operates with is its own work2 for1 according to their metaphysics1 the world is only an idea which each man makes after his own image1 and even as you are1 so is the world you imagine you live in4 ,only a foolish recalcitrant person1 who does not recognize the handiwork of his own spirit about him1 rebels against it1 and thereby cancels his natural freedom2 for everywhere he finds contradictions and closed doors and irksome necessities1 being divided against himself and constantly bidding his left hand undo what his right hand is doing4 ,so that1 paradoxical as it may seem1 it is only when you conform that you are free1 while if you rebel and secede you become a slave4 ,your spiritual servitude in such a case would only be manifesting itself in a phenomenal form if the government should put you in prison4 ,the national expression of this kind of freedom is what the ,germans call ,kultur1 a word not well understood in other countries4 ,every nation has certain characteristic institutions1 certain representative writers and statesmen1 past and present1 certain forms of art and industry1 a certain type of policy and moral inspiration4 ,these are its ,kultur1 its national tradition and equipment4 ,when by education the individual is brought to understand all these things1 to share their spirit and life1 and to be able to carry them forward faithfully1 then he has absorbed the ,kultur in his own person4 ,kultur is transmitted by systematic education4 ,it is not1 like culture1 a matter of miscellaneous private attainments and refined tastes1 but1 rather1 participation in a national purpose and in the means of executing it4 ,the adept in this ,kultur can live freely the life of his country1 possessing its secret inspiration1 valuing what it pursues and finding his happiness in those successes which he can help it to attain4 ,kultur is a lay religion1 which includes ecclesiastical religion and assigns to it its due place4 ,german ,kultur resembles the polity of ancient cities and of the ,christian church in that it constitutes a definite1 authoritative1 earnest discipline1 a training which is practical and is thought to be urgent and momentous4 ,it is a system to be propagated and to be imposed4 ,it is all-inclusive and demands entire devotion from everybody4 ,at the same time it has this great advantage over the classic systems1 that it admits variations4 ,at ,sparta1 in ,plato's ,republic1 and in the ,catholic church the aims and constitution of society were expected to remain always the same4 ,the ,german ideal1 on the contrary1 not only admits evolution1 but insists upon it4 ,like music1 it is essentially a form of movement4 ,according to the philosophers1 however1 the form of this movement is fixed by the absolute genius of the composer1 and prescribes the way in which the changes shall go on4 ,evolution thus introduces life into this ideal1 but does not admit ambiguities4 ,in this sense the ,german law of progression is as inexorable as the classic model of form4 ,the more reasonable theorists of ,german ,kultur introduce another qualification1 which1 if admitted1 is of the greatest importance1 namely1 that ,german ,kultur is not to be extended to other nations4 ,some make a special point of contrasting the universal claims of the ,roman and ,napoleonic empires and of the ,catholic church with the aspirations of ,german genius1 which1 they say1 is infinite inwardly1 being capable of endless growth and modification by men of ,teutonic blood1 yet is limited externally or in space1 in that it is not communicable to other races4 ,non-,teutons should never be summoned1 therefore1 to acquire the ,german spirit1 which they would only pollute4 ,their proper rle is rather to stand by1 no doubt overawed and filled with admiration1 but left without hope or fear of being assimilated4 ,yet as the church could admit that there might be unconscious and virtual ,christians among the heathen1 who might by exception be saved1 so there may be sporadic manifestations of ,teutonic genius in unforeseen quarters4 ,shakespeare1 ,dante1 and ,christ were virtual and unconscious ,germans4 ,there is1 of course1 a less indulgent ,germanism1 which has on its side the authority of ,fichte and ,hegel1 the enthusiasm of the pan-,germans and that lust for boundless ascendancy which enterprise and war naturally foster in anybody who has carried them on passionately and successfully4 ,according to this stricter view1 the whole world is to be subjugated and purified by the ,german nation1 which alone inherits the undefiled language and religion of ,eden1 and must assign to the remaining creole races1 descended from savages and ultimately perhaps from monkeys or devils1 such tasks as they are capable of4 ,the masters1 being by nature generous and kind1 will allow their slaves1 after their work is done1 to bask in despicable happiness1 since happiness is all that slaves are capable of living for2 but they will be proudly commanded by a race of hard1 righteous1 unhappy1 heroic ,german experts1 with blue eyes fixed on the eternal ideal4 ,the admission that ,german ,kultur is merely national1 which might seem to promise peace and goodwill1 may be turned in this way into a sinister claim to absolute dominion4 ,the ancients and the church had supposed that all men1 though endowed with talent and goodness in the most various degrees1 had qualitatively the same nature4 ,the same passions1 the same arts1 and the same salvation were proper to them all4 ,the servant1 in furthering the aims of his betters1 served what his own soul potentially loved and was capable of appropriating2 there could be religion and love in his subordination4 ,reciprocally the master could feel respect and affection for his servants1 who were his wards and his god-children4 ,the best things in classic life--religion1 poetry1 comradeship1 moral sagacity--were shared by the humblest classes and expressed their genius4 ,the temple1 the church1 the agora1 the theatre1 ,socrates1 and the saints were of the people4 ,german ,kultur1 on the contrary1 boasts that it is not the expression of diffused human nature1 but the product of a special and concentrated free will4 ,it is therefore incommunicable1 unrepresentative4 ,it is not felt by any one else to realize his ideal1 but seems foreign to him1 forced and unamiable4 ,every nation loves its idiosyncrasies and1 until it reflects1 thinks its own balance of faculties1 like its language1 more natural than other people's4 ,but the prophets of ,germanism have turned this blameless love of home and its sanctities into a deliberate dogma that everything ,german has a divine superiority4 ,this dogma they have foisted on a flattered and trustful nation1 with the command to foist it on the rest of the world4 ,the fatuity of this is nothing new1 many nations and religions having shared it in their day1 and we could afford to laugh at it1 if by direct and indirect coercion it did not threaten to trespass upon our liberties4 ,what is universally acceptable in ,german ,kultur is what it contains that is not ,german but human1 what with praiseworthy docility it has borrowed from the ancients1 from ,christianity1 from the less intentional culture of its modern neighbours4 ,the ,teutonic accent which these elements have acquired is often very engaging2 it adds to them a ,gothic charm for the lack of which mankind would be the poorer4 ,but the ,german manner1 in art1 in philosophy1 in government1 is no better--in its broad appeal to human nature we may fairly say it is worse--than the classic manner which it hopes to supersede4 ,it is avowedly a product of will1 arbitrary1 national1 strained2 it is not superior to what other nations possess or may create but only different1 not advanced but eccentric4 ,to study it and use it for a stimulus may be profitable in times and places of spiritual famine or political chaos1 but to impose it as normal1 not to say as supreme1 would be a plain invasion of human liberty4 #db ,,liberalism ,,and ,,culture ,modern reformers1 religious and political1 have usually retained the classic theory of orthodoxy1 namely1 that there is one right or true system--democracy and free thought1 for instance--which it is the reformer's duty to establish in the place of prevalent abuses4 ,certainly ,luther and ,calvin and the doctrinaires of the ,french revolution only meant to substitute one orthodoxy for another1 and what they set forth they regarded as valid for all men and forever4 ,nevertheless they had a greater success in discrediting the received system than in establishing their own1 and the general effect of their reforms was to introduce the modern conception of liberty1 the liberty of liberalism4 ,this consists in limiting the prescriptions of the law to a few points1 for the most part negative1 leaving it to the initiative and conscience of individuals to order their life and conversation as they like1 provided only they do not interfere with the same freedom in others4 ,in practice liberal countries have never reached this ideal of peaceful anarchy1 but have continued to enforce state education1 monogamy1 the vested rights of property1 and sometimes military service4 ,but within whatever limits1 liberty is understood to lie in the individual being left alone1 so that he may express his personal impulses as he pleases in word and action4 ,a philosopher can readily see that this liberal ideal implies a certain view about the relations of man in the universe4 ,it implies that the ultimate environment1 divine or natural1 is either chaotic in itself or undiscoverable by human science1 and that human nature1 too1 is either radically various or only determinable in a few essentials1 round which individual variations play ad libitum4 ,for this reason no normal religion1 science1 art1 or way of happiness can be prescribed4 ,these remain always open1 even in their foundations1 for each man to arrange for himself4 ,the more things are essentially unsettled and optional1 the more liberty of this sort there may safely be in the world and the deeper it may run4 ,man1 however1 is a gregarious animal1 and much more so in his mind than in his body4 ,he may like to go alone for a walk1 but hates to stand alone in his opinions4 ,and he is so imitative that what he thinks he most wishes to do is whatever he sees other people doing4 ,hence if compulsory organization disappears a thousand free and private organizations at once take its place4 ,virginal lived in compulsory unison1 having only one unquestioned religion1 one style of art1 one political order1 one common spring of laughter and tears4 ,liberalism has come to remove the strain and the trammels of these traditions without as yet uprooting the traditions themselves4 ,most people retain their preliberal heritage and hardly remember that they are legally free to abandon it and to sample any and every other form of life4 ,liberalism does not go very deep2 it is an adventitious principle1 a mere loosening of an older structure4 ,for that reason it brings to all who felt cramped and ill-suited such comfort and relief4 ,it offers them an escape from all sorts of accidental tyrannies4 ,it opens to them that sweet1 scholarly1 tenderly moral1 critically superior attitude of mind which ,matthew ,arnold called culture4 ,primitive1 dragooned1 unanimous ages cannot possess culture4 ,what they possess is what the ,germans call a ,kultur1 some type or other of manners1 laws1 implements1 arts1 religion4 ,when these national possessions are perused and relished by some individual who does not take them for granted and who understands and judges them as if from outside1 his acquaintance with them becomes an element in his culture2 and if he is at home in many such forms of life and thought1 his culture is the more perfect4 ,it should ideally be culled from everywhere4 ,culture is a triumph of the individual over society4 ,it is his way of profiting intellectually by a world he has not helped to make4 ,culture requires liberalism for its foundation1 and liberalism requires culture for its crown4 ,it is culture that integrates in imagination the activities which liberalism so dangerously disperses in practice4 ,out of the public disarray of beliefs and efforts it gathers its private collection of curiosities1 much as amateurs stock their museums with fragments of ancient works4 ,it possesses a wealth of vicarious experience and historical insight which comforts it for having nothing of its own to contribute to history4 ,the man of culture abounds in discriminating sentiments2 he lives under the distant influence of exalted minds2 his familiar thoughts at breakfast are intimate appreciations of poetry and art1 and if his culture is really mellow1 he sometimes smiles a little at his own culture4 ,culture came into the modern world with the renaissance1 when personal humours and remote inspiration broke in upon the consecrated mediaeval mind4 ,piety and learning had their intrinsic charms1 but1 after all1 they had been cultivated for the sake of ulterior duties and benefits1 and in order to appropriate and hand down the revealed wisdom which opened the way to heaven4 ,culture1 on the contrary1 had no ulterior purpose1 no forced unity4 ,it was an aroma inhaled by those who walked in the evening in the garden of life4 ,far from being a means to religion1 it threw religion also into the context of human experience1 and touched its mysteries and quarrels with judgement and elegance4 ,it liberated the studious mind from obligatory or national discipline1 and as far as possible from all bonds of time1 place1 utility1 and co-operation1 kindling sympathies by preference with what was most exotic1 and compensating the mind for the ignominious necessity of having to be1 in practical matters1 local and partisan4 ,culture was courteous1 open1 unconscious of self2 it was the joy of living every life but one's own4 ,and its moral side--for everything has its moral side--lay in the just judgements it fostered1 the clear sense it awakened of the different qualities and values of things4 ,the scale of values established by the man of culture might sometimes be fanciful or frivolous1 but he was always most scrupulous1 according to his lights1 in distinguishing the better from the worse4 ,this conscientiousness1 after all1 is the only form of morality that a liberal society can insist upon4 ,the days of liberalism are numbered4 ,first the horrors of competition discredited it1 and now the trial of war1 which it foolishly thought it could elude4 ,the vogue of culture1 too1 has declined4 ,we see that the man whose success is merely personal--the actor1 the sophist1 the millionaire1 the aesthete--is incurably vulgar4 ,the rightness of liberalism is exactly proportional to the diversity of human nature1 to its vague hold on its ideals4 ,where this vagueness and play of variation stop1 and they stop not far below the surface1 the sphere of public organization should begin4 ,it is in the subsoil of uniformity1 of tradition1 of dire necessity that human welfare is rooted1 together with wisdom and unaffected art1 and the flowers of culture that do not draw their sap from that soil are only paper flowers4 #dc ,,the ,,irony ,,of ,,liberalism ,to the mind of the ancients1 who knew something of such matters1 liberty and prosperity seemed hardly compatible1 yet modern liberalism wants them together4 ,liberals believe that free inquiry1 free invention1 free association1 and free trade are sure to produce prosperity4 ,i have no doubt they are right in this2 the nineteenth century1 that golden age of liberalism1 certainly saw a great increase in wealth1 in science1 and in comforts4 ,what the ancients had before them was a different side of the question2 they had no experience of liberalism2 they expected to be state-ridden in their religion1 their customs1 and their military service2 even in their personal and family morals they did not begrudge the strictest discipline2 their states needed to be intensely unified1 being small and in constant danger of total destruction4 ,under these circumstances it seemed clear to them that prosperity1 however it might have been produced1 was dangerous to liberty4 ,prosperity brought power2 and when a people exercises control over other peoples its government becomes ponderous even at home2 its elaborate machinery cannot be stopped1 and can hardly be mended2 the imperial people becomes the slave of its commitments4 ,moreover1 prosperity requires inequalities of function and creates inequalities of fortune2 and both too much work and too much wealth kill liberty in the individual4 ,they involve subjection to things2 and this is contrary to what the ancients1 who had the pride of noble animals1 called freedom4 ,prosperity1 both for individuals and for states1 means possessions2 and possessions mean burdens and harness and slavery2 and slavery for the mind1 too1 because it is not only the rich man's time that is pre-empted1 but his affections1 his judgement1 and the range of his thoughts4 ,i often wonder1 looking at my rich friends1 how far their possessions are facilities and how far they are impediments4 ,the telephone1 for instance1 is a facility if you wish to be in many places at once and to attend to anything that may turn up2 it is an impediment if you are happy where you are and in what you are doing4 ,public motor-vehicles1 public libraries1 and public attendants 7such as waiters in hotels1 when they wait7 are a convenience1 which even the impecunious may enjoy2 but private automobiles1 private collections of books or pictures1 and private servants are1 to my thinking1 an encumbrance3 but then ,i am an old fogy and almost an ancient philosopher1 and ,i don't count4 ,i prize civilization1 being bred in towns and liking to hear and to see what new things people are up to4 ,i like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world2 but private wealth ,i should decline1 or any sort of personal possessions1 because they would take away my liberty4 ,perhaps what liberalism aspires to marry with liberty is not so much prosperity as progress4 ,progress means continued change for the better2 and it is obvious that liberty will conduce to progress in all those things1 such as writing poetry1 which a man can pursue without aid or interference from others3 where aid is requisite and interference probable1 as in politics1 liberty conduces to progress only in so far as people are unanimous1 and spontaneously wish to move in the same direction4 ,now what is the direction of change which seems progress to liberals8 ,a pure liberal might reply1 ,the direction of liberty itself3 the ideal is that every man should move in whatever direction he likes1 with the aid of such as agree with him1 and without interfering with those who disagree4 ,liberty so conceived would be identical with happiness1 with spontaneous life1 blamelessly and safely lived2 and the impulse of liberalism1 to give everybody what he wants1 in so far as that is possible1 would be identical with simple kindness4 ,benevolence was one of the chief motives in liberalism in the beginning1 and many a liberal is still full of kindness in his private capacity2 but politically1 as a liberal1 he is something more than kind4 ,the direction in which many1 or even most1 people would like to move fills him with disgust and indignation2 he does not at all wish them to be happy1 unless they can be happy on his own diet2 and being a reformer and a philanthropist1 he exerts himself to turn all men into the sort of men he likes1 so as to be able to like them4 ,it would be selfish1 he thinks1 to let people alone4 ,they must be helped1 and not merely helped to what they desire--that might really be very bad for them--but helped onwards1 upwards1 in the right direction4 ,progress could not be rightly placed in a smaller population1 a simpler economy1 more moral diversity between nations1 and stricter moral discipline in each of them4 ,that would be progress backwards1 and if it made people happier1 it would not make the liberal so4 ,progress1 if it is to please him1 must continue in the direction in which the nineteenth century progressed1 towards vast numbers1 material complexity1 moral uniformity1 and economic interdependence4 ,the best little boy1 for instance1 according to the liberal ideal1 desires to be washed1 to go to school1 to do ,swedish exercises1 and to learn everything out of books4 ,but perhaps the individual little boy 7and according to the liberal philosophy his individuality is sacred1 and the only judge of what is good or true for him is his own consciousness7 desires to go dirty1 to make mud-pies in the street1 and to learn everything by experience or by report from older boys4 ,when the philanthropist runs up to the rescue1 this little ingrate snivels at him the very principle of liberal liberty1 ,let me alone4 ,to inform such an urchin that he does not know what is good for him1 that he is a slave to bad habits and devilish instincts1 that true freedom for him can only come of correcting himself1 until he has learned to find happiness in virtue--plainly that would be to abandon liberalism1 and to preach the classical doctrine that the good is not liberty but wisdom4 ,liberalism was a protest against just such assumptions of authority4 ,it emphatically refused to pursue an eventual stoical freedom1 absurdly so called1 which was to come when we had given up everything we really wanted--the mock freedom of service4 ,in the presence of the little boy liberal philosophy takes a middle course4 ,it is convinced--though it would not do to tell him so prematurely--that he must be allowed to go dirty for a time1 until sufficient experience of filth teaches him how much more comfortable it is to be clean2 also that he will go to school of his own accord if the books have pictures enough in them1 and if the teacher begins by showing him how to make superior mud-pies4 ,as to morals and religion1 the boy and his companions will evolve the appropriate ones in time out of their own experience1 and no others would be genuine4 ,liberal philosophy1 at this point1 ceases to be empirical and ,british in order to become ,german and transcendental4 ,moral life1 it now believes1 is not the pursuit of liberty and happiness of all sorts by all sorts of different creatures2 it is the development of a single spirit in all life through a series of necessary phases1 each higher than the preceding one4 ,no man1 accordingly1 can really or ultimately desire anything but what the best people desire4 ,this is the principle of the higher snobbery2 and in fact1 all earnest liberals are higher snobs4 ,if you refuse to move in the prescribed direction1 you are not simply different1 you are arrested and perverse4 ,the savage must not remain a savage1 nor the nun a nun1 and ,china must not keep its wall4 ,if the animals remain animals it is somehow through a failure of the will in them1 and very sad4 ,classic liberty1 though only a name for stubborn independence1 and obedience to one's own nature1 was too free1 in one way1 for the modern liberal4 ,it accepted all sorts of perfections1 animal1 human1 and divine1 as final after their kind1 each the seat of a sufficient virtue and happiness4 ,it was polytheistic4 ,between master and slave1 between man and woman1 it admitted no moral advance or development2 they were1 or might be1 equally perfect4 ,inequality was honourable2 amongst the humblest there could be dignity and sweetness2 the higher snobbery would have been absurd1 because if you were not content to be what you were now1 how could you ever be content with anything8 ,but the transcendental principle of progress is pantheistic4 ,it requires everything to be ill at ease in its own house2 no one can be really free or happy but all must be tossed1 like herded emigrants1 on the same compulsory voyage1 to the same unhomely destination4 ,the world came from a nebula1 and to a nebula it returns4 ,in the interval1 happiness is not to be found in being a fixed star1 as bright and pure as possible1 even if only for a season2 happiness is to flow and dissolve in sympathy with one's higher destiny4 ,the motion of progress is thus merged with that of universal evolution1 dropping the element of liberty and even of improvement4 ,nevertheless1 in the political expression of liberalism1 liberty took the first innings4 ,protestants began by asserting the right of private ,judgement in interpreting scripture2 transcendentalists ended by asserting the divine right of the individual to impose his own spirit on everything he touched4 ,his duty to himself1 which was also his deepest instinct1 was to suck in from the widest possible field all that was congenial to him1 and to reject1 down to his very centre1 whatever might thwart or offend4 ,sometimes he carried his consistency in egotism to the length of denying that anything he could not digest could possibly exist1 or that the material world and foreign nations were more than ideal pawns in the game he played with himself for his self-development4 ,even when not initiated into these transcendental mysteries1 he was filled with practical self-trust1 the desire to give himself freedom1 and the belief that he deserved it4 ,there was no need of exploring anything he was not tempted to explore2 he had an equal right to his opinion1 whatever the limits of his knowledge2 and he should be coerced as little as possible in his action4 ,in specific matters1 for the sake of expediency1 he might be willing to yield to the majority2 but only when his vote had been counted1 and as a sort of insurance against being disturbed in his residual liberty4 ,there was a general conviction behind all these maxims1 that tradition corrupts experience4 ,all sensation--which is the test of matters of fact--is somebody's sensation2 all reasoning is somebody's reasoning1 and vitally persuasive as it first comes2 but when transmitted the evidence loses its edge1 words drop their full meaning1 and inert conventions falsify the insights of those who had instituted them4 ,therefore1 reform1 revision1 restatement are perpetually required3 any individual1 according to this view1 who honestly corrected tradition was sure to improve upon it4 ,whatsoever was not the fresh handiwork of the soul and true to its present demand was bad for that soul4 ,a man without traditions1 if he could only be materially well equipped1 would be purer1 more rational1 more virtuous than if he had been an heir to anything4 ,weh dir1 dass du ein ,enkel bist6 ,blessed are the orphans for they shall deserve to have children2 blessed the ,american6 ,philosophy should be transcendental1 history romantic and focussed in one's own country1 politics democratic1 and art individual and above convention4 ,variety in religious dogma would only prove the truth--that is1 the inwardness--of inspiration4 ,yet if this transcendental freedom had been the whole of liberalism1 would not the animals1 such of them at least as are not gregarious1 have been the most perfect liberals8 ,are they not ruled wholly from within8 ,do they not enjoy complete freedom of conscience and of expression8 ,does ,mrs4 ,grundy interfere with their spontaneous actions8 ,are they ever compelled to fight except by their own impulse and in their private interest8 ,yet it was not the ideal of liberalism to return to nature2 far from it4 ,it admonished the dogs not to bark and bite1 even if1 in the words of the sacred poet1 it is their nature to4 ,dogs1 according to transcendental philosophy1 ought to improve their nature1 and to behave better4 ,a chief part of the liberal inspiration was the love of peace1 safety1 comfort1 and general information2 it aimed at stable wealth1 it insisted on education1 it venerated culture4 ,it was wholly out of sympathy with the wilder instincts of man1 with the love of foraging1 of hunting1 of fighting1 of plotting1 of carousing1 or of doing penance4 ,it had an acute1 a sickening horror of suffering2 to be cruel was devilish and to be hardened to pain was brutal4 ,i am afraid liberalism was hopelessly pre-,nietzschean2 it was ,victorian2 it was tame4 ,in inviting every man to be free and autonomous it assumed that1 once free1 he would wish to be rich1 to be educated1 and to be demure4 ,how could he possibly fail to covet a way of life which1 in the eyes of liberals1 was so obviously the best8 ,it must have been a painful surprise to them1 and most inexplicable1 that hardly anybody who has had a taste of the liberal system has ever liked it4 ,what about liberty in love8 ,if there is one ingenuous and winged creature among the immortals1 it is ,eros2 the freer and more innocent love is1 the more it will flutter1 the farther it will range1 and the higher it will soar4 ,but at the touch of matter1 of conditions1 of consequences1 how all its freedom shrivels1 or turns into tragedy6 ,what prohibitions1 what hypocrisies1 what responsibilities1 what sorrows6 ,the progress of civilization compels love to respect the limits set to it by earlier vows1 by age1 sex1 class1 race1 religion1 blood relationship1 and even fictitious relationship2 bounds of which the impertinent ,eros himself knows nothing4 ,society smothers the imp altogether in the long christening-clothes of domestic affection and religious duty4 ,what was once a sensuous intoxication1 a mystic rapture1 an enchanted friendship1 becomes all a question of money1 of habit1 of children4 ,british liberalism has been particularly cruel to love2 in the ,victorian era all its amiable impulses were reputed indecent1 until a marriage certificate suddenly rendered them godly1 though still unmentionable4 ,and what liberty does even the latest radicalism offer to the heart8 ,liberty to be divorced2 divorced at great expense1 with shabby perjuries and public scandal1 probably in order to be at once married again1 until the next divorce4 ,was it not franker and nobler to leave love1 as in ,spain1 to the poets2 to let the stripling play the guitar as much as he liked in the moonlight1 exchange passionate glances1 whisper daily at the lattice1 and then1 dressing the bride in black1 to dismiss free fancy at the church door1 saying3 ,henceforth let thy names be charity and fidelity and obedience8 ,it is not politics that can bring true liberty to the soul2 that must be achieved1 if at all1 by philosophy2 but liberalism may bring large opportunities for achievement in a man's outward life4 ,it intensifies--because it renders attainable--the lure of public distinction1 of luxury1 of love surrounded by refined pleasures4 ,the liberal state stimulates the imagination of an ambitious man to the highest degree4 ,those who have a good start in the universal competition1 or sharp wits1 or audacity1 will find plenty of prizes awaiting them4 ,with the pride of wealth1 when it is great1 there comes the pride of munificence2 in the suburbs of wealth there is culture1 and in its service there is science4 ,when science can minister to wealth and intelligence to dominion1 both can be carried on the shoulders of the plutocracy which dominates the liberal state2 and they can fill it with innumerable comforts and marvellous inventions4 ,at the same time1 nothing will hinder the weaker members of rich families from becoming clergymen or even scholars or artists2 or they may range over the five continents1 hunt whatever wild beasts remain in the jungle1 and write books about savages4 ,whether these prizes offered by liberal society are worth winning1 ,i cannot say from experience1 never having desired them2 but the aspects of modern life which any one may observe1 and the analytic picture of it which the novelists supply1 are not very attractive4 ,wealth is always1 even when most secure1 full of itch and fear2 worry about health1 children1 religion1 marriage1 servants2 and the awful question of where to live1 when one may live anywhere1 and yet all seems to depend on the choice4 ,for the politician1 politics are less important than his private affairs1 and less interesting than bridge2 and he has always a party1 or a wicked opposition1 on which to throw the blame if his careless measures turn out badly4 ,no one in office can be a true statesman1 because a true statesman is consistent1 and public opinion will never long support any consistent course4 ,what the successful man in modern society really most cares about is love2 love for him is a curious mixture of sensuality1 vanity1 and friendship2 it lights up all the world of his thought and action with its secret and unsteady flame4 ,even when mutual and legal1 it seems to be three-quarters anxiety and sorrow2 for if nothing worse happens to lovers1 they grow old4 ,i hear no laughter among the rich which is not forced and nervous4 ,i find no sense of moral security amongst them1 no happy freedom1 no mastery over anything4 ,yet this is the very cream of liberal life1 the brilliant success for the sake of which ,christendom was overturned1 and the dull peasantry elevated into factory-hands1 shopkeepers1 and chauffeurs4 ,when the lists are open to all1 and the one aim of life is to live as much as possible like the rich1 the majority must needs be discouraged4 ,the same task is proposed to unequal strengths1 and the competition emphasizes the inequality4 ,there was more encouragement for mediocre people when happiness was set before them in mediocrity1 or in excellence in some special craft4 ,now the mass1 hopelessly out of the running in the race for wealth1 falls out and drifts into squalor4 ,since there is liberty1 the listless man will work as little and drink as much as he can2 he will crawl into whatever tenement he can get cheapest1 seek the society in which least effort is demanded and least shame is felt1 have as many children as improvidence sends him1 let himself out1 at a pinch1 for whatever service and whatever wages he can obtain1 drift into some syndicated servitude or some great migration1 or sink in solitude into the deepest misery4 ,he then becomes a denizen of those slimy quarters1 under the shadow of railway bridges1 breweries1 and gas-works1 where the blear lights of a public-house peer through the rain at every corner1 and offer him the one joy remaining in life2 for joy is not to be mentioned in the same breath as the female prowling by the door1 hardly less befuddled and bedraggled than the lurching idlers whom she endeavours to entice2 but perhaps ,god does not see all this1 because a pall hangs over it perpetually of impenetrable smoke4 ,the liberal system1 which sought to raise the individual1 has degraded the masses2 and this on so vast a scale and to so pitiable a degree1 that the other element in liberalism1 philanthropic zeal1 has come again to the fore4 ,liberty go hang1 say the new radicals2 let us save the people4 ,liberal legislation1 which was to have reduced government to the minimum of police control1 now has undertaken public education1 social reform1 and even the management of industry4 ,this happy people can read4 ,it supports a press conforming to the tastes of the common man1 or rather to such tastes as common men can have in common2 for the best in each is not diffused enough to be catered for in public4 ,moreover1 this press is audaciously managed by some adventitious power1 which guides it for its own purposes1 commercial or sectarian4 ,superstitions old and new thrive in this infected atmosphere2 they are now all treated with a curious respect1 as if nobody could have anything to object to them4 ,it is all a scramble of prejudices and rumours2 whatever first catches the ear becomes a nucleus for all further presumptions and sympathies4 ,advertising is the modern substitute for argument1 its function is to make the worse appear the better article4 ,a confused competition of all propagandas--those insults to human nature--is carried on by the most expert psychological methods1 which the art of advertising has discovered2 for instance1 by always repeating a lie1 when it has been exposed1 instead of retracting it4 ,the world at large is deafened2 but each propaganda makes its little knot of proselytes1 and inspires them with a new readiness to persecute and to suffer in the sacred cause4 ,the only question is1 which propaganda can first materially reach the greatest number of persons1 and can most efficaciously quench all the others4 ,at present1 it looks as if the ,german1 the ,catholic1 and the communist propaganda had the best chances2 but these three are divergent essentially 7though against a common enemy they may work for a while together1 as they did during this war71 and they appeal to different weaknesses of human nature2 they are alike1 however1 in being equally illiberal1 equally rcksichtlos and bse8 equally regardless of the harm they may do1 and accounting it all an added glory1 like baiting the devil4 ,by giving a free rein to such propagandas1 and by disgusting the people with too much optimism1 toleration1 and neutrality1 liberalism has introduced a new reign of unqualified ill-will4 ,hatred and wilfulness are everywhere2 nations and classes are called to life on purpose to embody them2 they are summoned by their leaders to shake off the lethargy of contentment and to become conscious of their existence and of their terrible wrongs4 ,these propagandas have taken shape in the blue sky of liberalism1 like so many summer clouds2 they seem airships sailing under a flag of truce2 but they are engines of war1 and on the first occasion they will hoist their true colours1 and break the peace which allowed them to cruise over us so leisurely4 ,each will try to establish its universal ascendancy by force1 in contempt of personal freedom1 or the voice of majorities4 ,it will rely1 against the apathy and vagueness of the million1 on concentrated zeal in its adepts4 ,minorities everywhere have their way2 and majorities1 grown familiar with projects that at first shocked them1 decide one fine morning that there may be no harm in them after all1 and follow like sheep4 ,every trade1 sect1 private company1 and aspiring nation1 finding some one to lead it1 asserts itself ruthlessly against every other4 ,incipient formations in the body politic1 cutting across and subverting its old constitution1 eat one another up1 like different species of animals2 and the combat can never cease except some day1 perhaps1 for lack of combatants4 ,liberalism has merely cleared a field in which every soul and every corporate interest may fight with every other for domination4 ,whoever is victorious in this struggle will make an end of liberalism2 and the new order1 which will deem itself saved1 will have to defend itself in the following age against a new crop of rebels4 ,for myself1 even if ,i could live to see it1 ,i should not be afraid of the future domination1 whatever it may be4 ,one has to live in some age1 under some fashion2 ,i have found1 in different times and places1 the liberal1 the ,catholic1 and the ,german air quite possible to breathe2 nor1 ,i am sure1 would communism be without its advantages to a free mind1 and its splendid emotions4 ,fanatics1 as ,tacitus said of the ,jews or ,christians1 are consumed with hatred of the human race1 which offends them2 yet they are themselves human2 and nature in them takes its revenge1 and something reasonable and sweet bubbles up out of the very fountain of their madness4 ,once established in the world the new dispensation forms a ruling caste1 a conventional morality1 a standard of honour2 safety and happiness soften the heart of the tyrant4 ,aristocracy knows how to kiss the ruddy cheeks of its tenants' children2 and before mounting its thoroughbred horse at the park gates1 it pats him with a gloved hand1 and gives him a lump of sugar2 nor does it forget to ask the groom1 with a kindly interest1 when he is setting out for the war4 ,poor flunkey6 ,the demagogues will tell him he is a fool1 to let himself be dragooned into a regiment1 and marched off to endure untold privations1 death1 or ghastly wounds1 all for some fantastic reason which is nothing to him4 ,it is a hard fate2 but can this world promise anybody anything better8 ,for the moment he will have a smart uniform2 beers and lasses will be obtainable2 many comrades will march by his side2 and he may return1 if he is lucky1 to work again in his master's stables1 lounge at the public-house1 and bounce his children on his knee amongst the hollyhocks before his cottage4 ,would the demagogues give him better prospects1 or prove better masters8 ,would he be happier with no masters at all8 ,consider the demagogues themselves1 and their history4 ,they found themselves in the extreme of misery2 but even this is a sort of distinction1 and marks off a new species1 seizing new weapons in the struggle for existence4 ,the scum of the earth gathers itself together1 becomes a criminal or a revolutionary society1 finds some visionary or some cosmopolitan agitator to lead it1 establishes its own code of ethics1 imposes the desperate discipline of outlaws upon its members1 and prepares to rend the free society that allowed it to exist4 ,it is astonishing with what docility masses of ,englishmen1 supposed to be jealous of their personal liberty1 will obey such a revolutionary junta1 that taxes and commands them1 and decrees when they shall starve and when they shall fight4 ,i suspect that the working-people of the towns no longer have what was called the ,british character4 ,their forced unanimity in action and passion is like that of the ages of faith2 its inspiration1 like that of early ,christianity1 comes from a few apostles1 perhaps foreign ,jews1 men who in the beginning had visions of some millennium2 and the cohesion of the faithful is maintained afterwards by preaching1 by custom1 by persecution1 and by murder4 ,yet it is intelligible that the most earnest liberals1 who in so far as they were advocates of liberty fostered these conspiracies1 in so far as they are philanthropists should applaud them1 and feel the need of this new tyranny4 ,they save liberal principles by saying that they applaud it only provisionally as a necessary means of freeing the people4 ,but of freeing the people from what8 ,from the consequences of freedom4 #dd ,,john ,,bull ,,and ,,his ,,philosophers ,england has been curiously served by her philosophers4 ,personally and in their first intention they have usually been sturdy ,britons2 but their scope has seldom been equal to their sagacity in particular matters1 they have not divined the ultimate drift of their ideas1 and they have often ended by adopting1 a little blankly and doggedly1 some foreign or fantastic system1 apparently most inexpressive of ,john ,bull4 ,nevertheless the exotic tendency in so many ,british philosophers1 as in so many disaffected ,british poets1 is itself a mark of the ,british character4 ,the crust of convention has solidified too soon1 and the suppressed fires issue in little erratic streams that seem of an alien substance4 ,in speculation as in other things the ,englishman trusts his inner man2 his impulse is to soliloquize even in science4 ,at the same time his inner man dislikes to be too articulate2 he is soon at a stand in direct self-expression2 and as a poet may take to describing nature or ,italian passions1 so a philosopher may pick up some alien doctrine that comes to hand1 and that seems friendly to his mind2 not understanding it very well1 perhaps1 in its native quality1 but making it a living companion in his own lucubrations1 and a symbol for what remains hidden but revered in his breast4 ,in this way the ,bible or ,plato may serve him to found sects upon exclusively expressing his own feelings2 or remaining a plain ,englishman to all practical purposes1 he may become1 for his greater private satisfaction1 a revolutionary atheist1 a spiritualist1 a ,catholic1 or a ,buddhist4 ,in such strange allegiances something may be due to wayward learning1 or to genuine plasticity of mind and power to feel as very different souls have felt in other climes2 but a part is unmistakable helplessness and dire need1 and a part1 perhaps1 affectation4 ,when his own resources fail1 however1 the most obvious easement and support for the ,english inner man are the classical and ,anglican traditions he has been bred in1 when these are not too nicely defined nor too slavishly followed4 ,most characteristic is ,john ,bull the theologian1 instinct with heresy and practising compromise2 but the rationalistic ,john ,bull is very like him in his alternative way of securing the same supreme object of thinking what he likes to think4 ,in both cases he embraces his opinions much more because they are wholesome and important than because they are certain or clear4 ,opinions1 he feels1 should be summary and safe2 they should express the lessons of experience4 ,as he conceives it at first1 experience does not merely exist1 it teaches4 ,in a sporadic fashion it yields sound satisfactions1 clear warnings1 plain facts4 ,it admonishes him to trust his senses1 the reports of reputable travellers and naturalists1 ,christianity1 and the ,british constitution1 all when duly revised2 and on the other hand to shun popery1 scholastic quibbles1 absolutism1 and revolution4 ,but evidently experience could never teach him these things if his inner man did not contribute its decided cravings and aversions4 ,his inner man detests dictation and loves opportunity2 in ideas it prefers timeliness to finality4 ,therefore1 when his philosophers come upon the scene they cannot appeal to him by coercive proofs1 nor by the impressive architecture of their systems1 nor by disentangling and setting clearly before him any ultimate ideal4 ,to win his ear they must rather drive his current convictions home1 nearer to their source in himself2 they must invite him to concentrate his empiricism4 ,for instance1 he trusts his senses2 and the philosophers can deeply interest him if they ask him what1 precisely1 his senses vouch for4 ,is it external things8 ,but can he actually see anything except colours1 or touch anything except resistances8 ,can he feel anything except his own sensations8 ,by appealing to his honesty1 the sophists catch him in a trap1 and he changes his mind in trying to utter it4 ,it will appear presently1 as he pursues his inquiry1 that he has no knowledge of those external things and events which he had been so sure of2 they were mere empty notions1 and his genuine experience contained nothing but the pulses of his inner life1 changes in his ideas and vital temperature1 which an accurate autobiography might record4 ,and the more scrupulously he considers these pulses of his inner life the less and less will he find in them4 ,he and his whole experience will soon be reduced to a series of sensations in single file1 with nothing behind them4 ,in reality even this is too much4 ,although the inertia of psychological conventions and the romantic habit of self-consciousness have kept him from perceiving it1 even to this day1 yet the fact that a sensation is occurring is not revealed by that sensation itself2 no date1 place1 or relation to a mind is included in its deliverance1 and no relation to anything before or beyond2 so that the bare datum of sensation is an aesthetic being1 not a mental one2 an ideal term1 not an event2 a universal essence1 not a particular fact2 and immersion in sense or in absolute immediate experience1 when animal faith and intelligence are taken away from it1 would remove from us every vestige of the notion that anything exists or that anything happens4 ,but without pushing analysis so far1 the empirical philosophers left ,john ,bull1 when he listened to them1 singularly bereft of those comfortable impedimenta with which he had expected to travel through life--without a body1 without an environment1 without a ground1 or any natural perfection or destiny1 for his moral being4 ,he had loved exploration1 and had looked forward with the flush of confidence to the knowledge and power which his discoveries would bring him2 but now he saw that all discoveries were incalculable1 arbitrary1 and provisional1 since they were not truly discoveries1 but only developments4 ,here was an odd transformation4 ,the self-educated merchants and indignant reformers who1 thumping their desks dogmatically1 had appealed so roundly to the evidence of their senses1 little expected that their philosophy was directed to turning them in the end into inarticulate sensualists1 rapt in omphalic contemplation of their states of mind4 ,some academic idealists1 disliking this result1 which cast a slur on the pre-eminence of spirituality and learning1 and yet not being willing or able to give up the method by which that result had been reached1 sought to push the inquiry further1 and to come out of the wood on quite the other side4 ,my sensations1 they said1 since ,i can now survey the whole series they form1 must all exist together in my present apprehension2 and as ,i cannot know them except in this single and present glance1 they never can have existed out of it2 so that ,i am not really a series of sensations1 but only the idea that ,i am a series of sensations2 in other words1 ,i have become a single sensation instead of many4 ,to make this clearer the same philosophers added that this single sensation or thought1 which is what ,i really am1 is also ,god4 ,experience now turned out not to be anything that goes on or happens or is endured2 it is the theme of an immutable divine contemplation and divine satisfaction4 ,i am ,god in so far as ,i think and approve2 but the chequered experience which ,i supposed myself to be undergoing is merely imputed to myself by ,god and me in our thinking4 ,this second conclusion1 like the first1 has its value for some temperaments4 ,it brings suddenly before us1 as if it were an accomplished fact1 the innate ideal of the intellect3 to see the changing aspects of all things from above1 in their true eternal relations4 ,but this ideal1 too1 is utterly disparate from that practical experience and prevision which ,john ,bull prizes so highly and thinks he possesses2 indeed1 the sublimity of this view lies precisely in its tendency to freeze and submerge all experience1 transmuting hard facts and anxious events into painted ships upon a painted ocean1 and for our stumbling and unfinished progress substituting a bound volume of travels4 ,what false step could bring ,british philosophy1 in its gropings1 to conclusions so un-,english that even those who feel compelled to propose them do so shamefacedly1 with many euphemisms and convenient confusions1 or even fail altogether to understand the tremendous paradoxes they are repeating8 ,it was a false step at which ,hobbes halted1 which ,locke took unsuspectingly1 and which sent ,berkeley and ,hume head over heels3 the assumption that facts are known immediately4 ,in reality none of the facts which the sturdy ,briton feels that he knows--and they are the true facts of nature and of moral life--would be known to him if he were without tentative intelligence and instinctive animal faith2 indeed1 without these the senses would have no virtue and would inform us of nothing2 and cows would not see grass nor horses hay1 but only green or yellow patches1 like rapt empirical philosophers4 ,when ,hobbes said that no discourse whatsoever can end in absolute knowledge of fact1 he uttered a great truth1 but he implied a great error1 since he implied that sense--meaning the senseless sensations of idiots--could give such knowledge2 whereas the absolute datum in sense is just as ideal1 and just as little a fact1 as the deliverance of the most theoretical discourse2 and absolute knowledge--if we call such apprehension knowledge--can seize only some aesthetic or logical term1 without any given date1 place1 or connection in experience4 ,empiricism in the end must substitute these ideal essences1 on the ground that they are the only data1 for the facts of nature--facts which animal reactions and the beliefs expressing them are requisite to discover1 and which science defines by the cumulative use of reason4 ,in making this substitution empiricism passes against its will into sensualism or idealism4 ,then ,john ,bull and his philosophers part company3 he sticks manfully to his confused conventional opinions1 which after all give him a very tolerable knowledge of the facts2 while they go digging for an absolute knowledge of fact1 which is impossible1 in an intuitive cloudland where there are only aesthetic essences4 ,hence the bankruptcy of their enterprise4 ,immediate data are the counters of experience1 but they are the money of empiricism4 #de ,,occam',s ,,razor ,to many an ,englishman the human head seems too luxuriant4 ,with its quantities of superfluous words and ideas1 it grows periodically hot and messy1 and needs a thorough cropping and scrubbing4 ,to this end1 ,william of ,occam long ago invented his razor3 entia non multiplicanda praeter necessitatem2 a maxim calculated to shave the ,british inner man clean1 and make a roundhead of him1 not to say a blockhead4 ,that everything is nothing but something else1 probably inferior to it1 became in time a sort of refrain in his politics and philosophy4 ,he saw that reflection was constantly embroidering on the facts2 but did he suppose that the pattern of things was really simpler than that of ideas1 or did he feel that1 however elaborate things might be1 thought at least might be simple8 ,at any rate1 he aimed instinctively at economy of terms1 retrenchment in belief1 reduction of theory to the irreducible minimum4 ,if theory was not useful1 what was the use of it8 ,and certainly all that can be said for some theories is that perhaps they are useful2 and when ideas are merely useful1 being worthless in themselves and absorbing human caloric1 the less we require of them the better4 ,thought might then be merely a means to a life without thought1 and belief a door to a heaven where no beliefs were expected2 all speech might be like the curt words one says to the waiter1 in the hope of presently dining in silence2 and all looking might be looking out1 as in crossing a crowded street1 ending in the blessed peace of not having to look any more4 ,occam's razor has gradually shorn ,british and ,german philosophy of the notions of substance and cause1 matter and ,god1 truth and the soul4 ,sometimes these terms were declared to stand for nothing whatever1 because 7as in the case of matter and substance7 if ,i reduced myself to a state of artificial stupidity ,i might for a moment stop short of the conception of them4 ,more often 7as in the case of the soul7 the term was declared to stand for something real1 which1 however1 was nothing but something else4 ,of course1 all words and thoughts stand for something else2 and the question is only whether we can find another word or thought that will express the reality better4 ,thus1 if ,i said that the soul was nothing but a series of sensations1 ,i should soon have to add that this series1 to make up a soul1 must arise in the same animal body1 and must be capable of being eventually surveyed and recalled together2 while ,i should have to assign to some other obscure agency those unconscious vital functions which were formerly attributed to the soul in forming and governing the body1 and breeding the passions2 functions without which my series of sensations would hardly be what it is4 ,i am not confident that all this laboured psychology makes things much clearer in the end1 or does not multiply entities without necessity2 since where ,i had simply spoken of the soul1 ,i should now have to speak of sensations1 series1 possibility1 synthesis1 personal identity1 the transcendental unity of apperception1 and the unconscious mind4 ,something is doubtless gained by coining these modern and questionable expressions1 since they indicate true complexities in the facts1 while a poetic term like soul covers them only by pointing the finger of childish wonder at them1 without analysis4 ,nature is far more complicated than any language or philosophy1 and the more these refine1 the closer they can fit4 ,the anxiety of the honest ,occam to stick to the facts1 and pare his thoughts to the quick1 had this justification in it1 that sometimes our images and distinctions are misplaced4 ,grammar1 usurping the rle of physics1 created metaphysics1 the trouble with which is not at all that it multiplies entities1 since no metaphysician can invent anything that did not lie from all eternity in the realm of essence1 like the plot of unwritten novels1 waiting for some one with wit enough to think of it4 ,the trouble is rather that the metaphysician probably gives his favourite essences the wrong status4 ,these beings may well be absent from the time and place to which he hastily assigns them2 they may even be incongruous altogether with what happens to exist anywhere4 ,what happens to exist is perhaps what he thinks he is describing1 or what1 like ,occam1 he would like to describe if he could2 but he is probably not able4 ,yet that doesn't matter so much as he imagines4 ,what happens to exist can take very good care of itself1 and is quite indifferent to what people think of it2 and as for us1 if we possess such cursory knowledge of the nearer parts of existence as is sufficient for our safety1 there is no reason why we should attend to it too minutely3 there's metal more attractive in discourse and in fiction4 ,mind1 as ,hobbes said1 is fancy1 and it is the things of fancy that greet us first and reward us best4 ,they are far from being more absurd than the facts4 ,in themselves1 all things are equally unnecessary and equally possible2 for their own part1 all are equally ready to be thought of or even to be born4 ,it is only the routine of nature or the sluggish human imagination that refuses to admit most of them1 as country people refuse to admit that foreign languages or manners might do as well as their own4 ,if ,god or nature had used ,occam's razor and had hesitated to multiply beings without necessity1 where should we be8 ,far from practising economy1 nature is prevented from overflowing into every sort of flourish and excrescence only by the local paucity of matter1 or the pre-emption of it by other forms2 because forms1 once embodied in matter1 acquire all its inertia1 and grow dreadfully stubborn and egotistical4 ,scrimpy philosophers little know whose stewards they are when they complain of lavishness in nature1 or her lordly way of living2 her substance cannot be spent1 nor its transformations exhausted4 ,in sheer play1 and without being able to help it1 she will suddenly create organization1 or memory1 or intelligence1 or any of those little vortices called passions1 persons1 or nations1 which sustain themselves for a moment1 hypostatizing their frail unity into some moral being--an interest or a soul4 ,and as we are superfluous in the midst of nature1 so is the best part of ourselves superfluous in us4 ,poetry1 music and pictures1 inspired and shaded by human emotion1 are surely better worth having than the inarticulate experience they spring from4 ,even in our apprehension of the material world1 the best part is the adaptation of it to our position and faculties1 since this is what introduces boundaries1 perspectives1 comparison and beauty4 ,it is only what exists materially that exists without excuse1 whereas what the mind creates has some vital justification1 and may serve to justify the rest4 ,hence the utility of ,occam's razor itself1 which may help us to arrive at a strict and spare account of what the world would be without us3 a somewhat ironical speculation which is the subtlest product and last luxury of the scientific mind4 ,meantime the sensuous and rhetorical trappings of human knowledge1 from which exact science abstracts1 by no means disappear2 they remain to enrich the sphere of language and fancy1 to which judicious people always felt that they belonged2 and this intellectual or literary realm is no less actual and interesting than any other1 being a part of the moral radiation and exuberance of a living world4 #df ,,empiricism ,experience is a fine word1 but what does it mean8 ,it seems to carry with it a mixed sense of mastery and disappointment1 suggesting knowledge of a sort with despair of better knowledge4 ,is it such contact with events as nobody can avoid1 shocks and pressure endured from circumstances and from the routine of the world8 ,but a cricket-ball has no experience1 although it comes in contact with many hands1 receives hard knocks1 and plays its part in the vicissitudes of a protracted game4 ,there are men in much the same case2 they travel1 they undergo an illness or a conversion1 and after a little everything in them is exactly as it was before2 ,greek3 pathos with them is not ,greek3 pathos2 their natures are so faithful to the a priori and so elastic that they rebound from the evidence of sense and the buffets of fortune like a rubber bag full of wind2 they pass through life with round eyes open1 and a perpetual instinctive babble1 and yet in the moral sense of the word they have no experience1 not being mindful enough to acquire any4 ,it would seem that to gather anything we must first pause1 and that before we can have experience we must have minds4 ,yet if we said that experience arose by the operation of mind1 would not all the operations of mind be equally experience8 ,has not a maniac probably more and more vivid experience than a man of the world8 ,doubtless when people call their fancies or thoughts experience1 they mean to imply that they have an external source1 as religious experience is assumed to manifest divine intervention1 and psychical experience to prove the self-existence of departed spirits4 ,but these assumptions are not empirical2 and evidently the religious or psychical experience itself1 whatever its cause1 is the only empirical fact in the case4 ,those who appeal to the lessons of experience are not empiricists1 for these are lessons that only reason can learn4 ,experience1 as practical people understand it1 is not every sort of consciousness or memory1 but only such as is addressed to the facts of nature and controlled by the influence of those facts2 material contact or derivation is essential to it4 ,experience is both physical and mental1 the intellectual fruit of a material intercourse4 ,it presupposes animal bodies in contact with things1 and it presupposes intelligent minds in those bodies1 keeping count of the shocks received1 understanding their causes1 and expecting their recurrence as it will actually take place4 ,to these naturalistic convictions all those ought to have clung who valued experience as a witness rather than as a sensation2 without animals in a natural environment experience1 as contrasted with fancy or intuition1 can neither be nor be conceived4 ,it means so much of knowledge and readiness as is fetched from contact with events by a teachable and intelligent creature2 it is a fund of wisdom gathered by living in familiar intercourse with things4 ,but such assumptions are an offence to the expert empiricist4 ,the moment he comes upon the scene we feel that all we thought experience had taught us is going to be disproved4 ,do you admit1 he begins by asking1 that nothing can be more real than experience8 ,we do admit it4 ,and can you ever know anything that is not experience8 ,perhaps not2 and yet would experience be very distinct or very significant if it was experience of nothing8 ,of nothing1 indeed1 he retorts1 withering us with a scornful glance and the consciousness of his masked batteries2 as if experience itself was nothing6 ,experience is everything2 and when you have experience of experience what more could you ask for1 even if you were ,doctor ,faustus in person8 ,what spurious little non-empirical particle is this of of yours8 ,and what illegitimate ghost is this something else that experience should be of8 ,can you1 without confessing to an adulterous intercourse with what is not experience1 explain these natural but disreputable members of your intellectual family8 ,we cannot explain them1 and we blush4 ,yet why should experience arise at all if there is no occasion for it8 ,occasion6 cries the empiricist2 another illegal figment1 the old notion of cause6 ,is it not notorious that causation is nothing but the habit which some parts of experience have of following upon others8 ,how then should the whole of it follow upon any part8 ,experience cannot spring from anything1 it cannot express anything1 and it cannot know anything1 because experience is all there is4 ,here is a considerable retrenchment in the scope of our philosophy3 no material world1 no soul1 and 7in the proper sense of the words7 no ,god and no knowledge4 ,retrenchment1 however1 is often a sign of wisdom1 and the retrenching empiricist deserves to be followed1 like the retrenching hermit1 into his psychological wilderness1 not with a vow never to return to the world1 for that would be precipitate1 but in the hope of sounding1 in one direction1 the depths of spiritual discipline and disillusion4 ,and the empirical eremite can taste rare pleasures4 ,all things1 for him1 become the appanage of the inner man2 and we need not wonder that the pensive ,englishman is ready to be empirical in this sense and to become an idealist4 ,the lessons of experience1 if he was forced to take them seriously1 might tend to dethrone his inner man and lead him to materialism2 but fortunately the lessons of experience1 for an empiricist1 can be nothing but little epicycles within it1 or cross-references to its literal text2 they cannot spoil its intimate and romantic nature1 which is to be no end of pulsations and no end of pictures4 ,how dead would anything external or permanent be1 even if we thought we could find it6 ,how abstract would be anything common to all times and places1 how terrible a mocking truth that should overarch them for ever6 ,it is true that the romantic empiricist is not very radical2 he commonly stops short of any doubts on the validity of memory1 with all the yarns it spins2 his past adventures and his growth are too fascinating for him to doubt their reality4 ,sometimes he even trusts a superstitious prophecy1 under the name of logical evolution1 foretelling what his destiny is somehow compelled to be4 ,at other times he prefers to leave the future ambiguous1 so that the next step may lead him anywhere1 perhaps to heaven1 provided it is understood that his career1 even there1 is always to remain an unfinished voyage in an uncharted sea4 ,in strictness1 however1 he has no right to this fond interest in himself4 ,if he became a perfect empiricist he would trust experience only if it taught him absolutely nothing1 even about his own past4 ,this is hard for the flesh1 and it may not be fair to ask an empiricist to be heroic in the interests of logic2 but if he could screw his courage up for the plunge1 his spirit might find itself perfectly at home in the new situation4 ,what he might have been or might have thought1 he would dismiss as a dead issue2 he would watch only his present life as it flowed1 and he would love exclusively what he was becoming4 ,there is a sense of safety in being and not thinking which probably all the animals know1 and there is a mystical happiness in accepting existence without understanding it2 but the sense of safety does not render the animals really safe1 and the price they pay for living in the moment is that they carry nothing over from one moment to another except bare existence itself4 ,the disadvantage of radical empiricism is that it shuts out experience4 #dg ,,the ,,british ,,hegelians ,it was formerly a matter of some surprise to me that there should be so many ,hegelians in ,england1 and in such places of influence4 ,i could imagine how the system might have taken root in circles where the classic tradition was absent or enfeebled--in ,america1 in ,scotland1 among the ,dissenters or ,jews in ,england itself2 but how could ,oxford and ,cambridge fail to see in that system the trail of the serpent8 ,how could they mistake it for a ,christian or for a spiritual philosophy8 ,it is indeed1 in form1 an encyclopaedic system1 and in that sense suitable to universities2 and it deifies knowledge such as an encyclopaedia can give1 turning it into the sum total of reality1 so that it flatters the self-sufficiency of pedants1 or that of any reflective mind4 ,but in ,oxford and ,cambridge knowledge is not everything2 they are more and less than universities2 the learning they cultivate is selective and pursued in the service of aristocratic liberty4 ,i should not expect them to care much for a philosophy that was not poetic and devout4 ,i sometimes fancy how the genuine ,oxonians must have smiled to hear ,t4 ,h4 ,green1 in the early days of transcendentalism1 talking about his spiritual principle in nature4 ,by spiritual he meant mind-made2 he thought the world1 remaining just as it is1 could suddenly be proved to be spiritual if you could show that a mental synthesis was requisite to hold it together4 ,but what possible advantage is it to the world to be held together by a mental synthesis1 rather than by space or time or the truth of its constitution8 ,a synthesis of worthless facts does not render them severally better1 nor itself a good4 ,a spirit whose essential function was to create relations would be merely a generative principle1 as the spider is to its web2 it would be no better than its work1 unless perhaps it was spiritual enough to grow weary of that vain labour4 ,spiritual1 for those who retain the language of ,christendom1 signifies free from the world and from the flesh1 and addressed to the eternal and to the beautiful4 ,everything1 however1 has its explanation1 and in the matter of ,english ,hegelism ,i think ,i begin to see it4 ,in the first place1 ,i was rashly identifying ,england with a figment of my dreams1 with which ,i was in love3 ,i saw in my mind's eye a manly and single-minded ,england1 free1 candid1 poetical1 akin to feudal ,france1 beauty-loving like old ,italy1 the ,benjamin of the ,roman family of nations1 adding to the dignity and disinterestedness of the ,castilian character only a certain blond charm1 a certain infusion of northern purity1 and of sympathy with the wild and rural voices of nature4 ,in this ,england1 in which there was something ,spartan and archaically ,greek1 the men were like ,hippolytus and the women like ,antigone4 ,naturally it was unintelligible to me that the system of ,hegel should take root in such a nation4 ,persons with a ripe moral tradition are not attracted by sophistry4 ,no argument1 however specious1 will convince them that the experience of man on earth makes up the whole universe1 or the chief part of it2 much less will they allow fortune1 under the pompous name of evolution1 to dictate to them their moral allegiance4 ,the chief force of the ,hegelian system for those who are not metaphysicians lies in the criterion of progress which it imposes4 ,this criterion is not beauty in art1 nor truth in philosophy1 nor justice in society1 nor happiness in the individual life3 the criterion is simply the direction which the actual movement happens to be taking4 ,hegel endeavours to show in what way forms are inevitably passing into one another4 ,thus his ethics begs defence of history1 and his history calls for aid on metaphysics4 ,and what metaphysics8 ,a logic of moral fashions4 ,now it seemed to me axiomatic that eager co-operation with whatever is going on1 or is bound to win1 would be repulsive to a man of honour4 ,nor could ,i conceive a true ,englishman taking kindly even to the grand side of this system1 which to me personally is rather attractive1 ,i mean to its satirical elevation4 ,the ,english mind is tender and temperate3 it deprecates scorn4 ,but ,hegel1 in his scathing moods1 is comparable to ,heraclitus2 he mocks every opinion with an opinion which refutes it1 and every life with another life which kills it4 ,he has the wisdom of the serpent2 but unlike ,heraclitus1 whose fabled tears were warm1 he has the heart of the serpent too4 ,he despises finitude because it is weak1 as if an infinity of pervasive weakness were strong1 or a perpetual flux a victory for anything4 ,laughing1 ,i can't help thinking1 up his sleeve1 he suggests that this flux itself is a victory for the spirit1 meaning by spirit the law by which he supposes that this flux is controlled4 ,but this is sheer mockery3 the only moral victory is that achieved1 under favourable conditions1 by some living spirit1 glad to be expressed or to have been expressed in some perfect form4 ,the finite only is good3 the infinite tides are worth exactly what they cast up4 ,there is a bitter idolatry of fate in this system which might seem splendid to a barbarian2 but how1 ,i asked myself1 can it be anything but horrible to a cultivated conscience1 or to a pupil of the ,greeks8 ,in the real ,england the character ,i dreamt of exists1 but very much mixed1 and overbalanced by its contrary4 ,many have the minds of true gentlemen1 poetically detached from fortune1 and seeing in temporal things only their eternal beauties4 ,yet if this type of ,english character had been general1 ,england could never have become ,puritan1 nor bred so many prosperous merchants and manufacturers1 nor sent such shoals of emigrants to the colonies2 it would hardly have revelled as it does in political debates and elections1 and in societies for the prevention and promotion of everything4 ,in the real ,england there is a strong if not dominant admixture of worldliness4 ,how ponderous these ,lord ,mayors1 these pillars of chapels1 these bishops1 these politicians1 these solemn snobs6 ,how tight-shut1 how moralistic1 how overbearing these intellectuals with a mission6 ,all these important people are eaten up with zeal1 and given over to rearranging the world1 and yet without the least idea of what they would change it into in the end1 or to what purpose4 ,being so much in earnest1 they are convinced that they must be living on the highest principles3 what1 then1 is more intelligible than that they should welcome a philosophy which assures them that such is the case8 ,they are well pleased to hear1 on the highest metaphysical authority1 that the first duty of a rich man is to grow richer1 and of a settled man to redouble in loyalty to his wife1 his community1 his party1 and his business4 ,the ,protestant reformers told them so formerly in biblical language2 the ,protestant philosophers tell them so now in the language of ,hegel4 ,besides1 on its technical side1 the ,hegelian system has a great strength1 and was most apposite in the predicament in which1 fifty years ago1 philosophy found itself in ,england4 ,it supplied three illusions which idealism sadly needed if it was to become orthodox and popular3 the illusions of profundity1 of comprehensiveness1 and of finality4 ,it was a philosophy of progress--another claim to popularity in the nineteenth century--not only progress in the world at large1 but especially in philosophy itself2 and a philosophy of progress cannot ask us to go back1 to cry peccavi1 and reconsider the false assumptions on which we may have been reasoning for two hundred or for two thousand years4 ,it must accept these assumptions and go on building upon them1 always a higher and a higher structure4 ,now the principal assumption of ,british philosophy1 on which ,german philosophy itself rests1 was that nothing can be experienced except experience itself1 and nothing known except knowledge4 ,but the ,germans analysed far more accurately than the ,british had formerly done what the notions of experience and knowledge contain4 ,they demonstrated the unity of glance that is essential to it1 and thus refuted 7without of course removing7 the successive and episodic character of experience1 as the honest but unwary empiricists had conceived it4 ,hume and ,mill had remained naturalists in regard to the distribution of those volatile ideas to which they pretended to reduce the world4 ,john ,stuart ,mill had a deeper and a sweeter mind than his critics2 there was something in him akin to ,wordsworth or to ,matthew ,arnold2 but his inherited principles were treacherous1 and opened the door to just such a concentration of egotism as the ,hegelians brought about4 ,moreover1 ,hume and ,mill had seemed depressing2 they perplexed without filling the mind2 they made everything that is most familiar and interesting seem strangely hypothetical2 whereas in ,hegel the pageant of nature and history appeared to be re-formed and to march round and round the stage of the ego under the strongest light to the loudest music4 ,there was a sort of deafening optimism about it2 and not only was a convenient school-book universe offered you1 warranted complete1 but all previous philosophies were succinctly described1 refuted1 and linked together1 in a manner most convenient for tutorial purposes4 ,of course1 the true character and eternal plausibility of each great system were falsified in such a survey2 each was attached artificially to what happened to precede and to follow it in time1 or in the knowledge of the historian2 as if history were a single chain of events1 and its march dialectical--a fiction which ,hegel did not blush to maintain4 ,an inner instability was thus attributed to each view which came only from the slippery mind of the critic touring amongst them1 without the least intention of finding anywhere a home in which to rest4 ,hegel was not looking for the truth--why dream of truth when you possess learning8--he was writing an apology for opinion4 ,he enjoyed understanding and imagining things plausibly1 and had a great intelligence to pour into his constructions2 but this very heat of thought fused everything into the mould of his method1 and he gave out that he had understood every system much better than those who believed in it1 and had been carried by its inner contradictions 7which its adepts never saw7 to the next convenient position in the development of human fancy1 and of his own lectures4 ,abstraction1 such as withdrawal of the mind from worldly affairs1 is condemned by this philosophy3 you must glut the brain and heart with everything that exists4 ,an even worse abstraction1 for a philosopher1 is to detach the object from the subject1 and believe it to exist independently4 ,but what is abstraction8 ,can attention ever render things more discrete than they are in their own nature8 ,suppose ,i abstract a coin from another man's pocket3 it is easily proved by ,hegel's logic that such an abstraction is a mere appearance4 ,coins cannot exist as coins except as pocketed and owned2 at the same time they imply an essential tendency to pass into the pockets of other men3 for a coin that could not issue from the pocket would be a coin in name only1 and not in function4 ,when it actually passes from one man's pocket into another's1 this circumstance1 far from justifying us in thinking the coin a separable thing1 shows that all men's pockets 7when not empty and therefore1 in function1 not pockets at all7 are intrinsically related and1 in a higher sense1 one and the same purse4 ,therefore1 we may conclude1 it was not the sly transference of the coin from my neighbour's pocket into mine that was the wrongful abstraction1 but only the false supposition that if the coin was his it was not1 by right of eminent domain1 mine also4 ,a man1 in so far as he is the possessor of coins1 is simply a pocket1 and all pockets1 in so far as there is transferable coin1 in them1 are one pocket together4 ,in this way we avoid false abstraction by proving that everything is abstract4 ,nor is this all2 for strange as it may seem1 ,hegel appeals also to one type of religious people1 and seems to them to lift religious faith triumphantly above all possible assaults of fact or of science4 ,are not all facts mere ideas8 ,and must not all ideas be bred in the mind according to its own free principles of life and effort8 ,is not all this semblance of externality in things a blessed foil to spiritual activity8 ,does not this universal mutation pay loud homage to eternal law8 ,things go by threes3 that is the reason why they exist and why they move1 and the sovereign good to be attained by their motion4 ,if every truth turns out to be a lie1 every lie is a part of some higher truth2 if everything becomes unreal1 because it passes into something else1 this other thing inherits its reality2 and if we look at things as a whole instead of seriatim1 and spread out our moving film into a panorama1 we perceive that everything has implied everything else from the beginning1 and formed a part of it2 ,so that only from the point of view of ignorance is anything earlier1 or better1 or truer than anything else4 ,here1 in the ,all1 we have rest from our labours4 ,in this way even the slaves of the world at last learn to overcome the world2 but it is too late4 ,this ,all1 even if it were open to human survey1 would have no value3 it defeats each of its constituent lives and is itself responsive to no living desire4 ,the indistinction which the vague idea of it produces in the mind may be soothing to the weary2 but better than mystical relief at the end would have been moral freedom in the beginning4 ,that a different life will supersede mine is nothing against my happiness2 that time is swallowing me up is nothing against my appropriate eternity4 ,how vain the crabbed hand of the miser stringing his pearls and never looking at them1 counting the drops that trickle into his cup and never emptying it1 never feeling the intoxication of living now1 of telling the truth frankly1 and of being happy here ,i ,if the devil laughs at me because ,i am mortal1 ,i laugh at him for imagining that death can trouble me1 or any other free spirit1 so long as ,i live1 or after ,i am dead4 #dh ,,the ,,progress ,,of ,,philosophy ,this war will kill the belief in progress1 and it was high time4 ,progress is often a fact3 granted a definite end to be achieved1 we may sometimes observe a continuous approach towards achieving it1 as for instance towards cutting off a leg neatly when it has been smashed2 and such progress is to be desired in all human arts4 ,but belief in progress1 like belief in fate or in the number three1 is a sheer superstition1 a mad notion that because some idea--here the idea of continuous change for the better--has been realized somewhere1 that idea was a power which realized itself there fatally1 and which must be secretly realizing itself everywhere else1 even where the facts contradict it4 ,nor is belief in progress identical with belief in ,providence1 or even compatible with it4 ,providence would not have begun wrong in order to correct itself2 and in works which are essentially progressive1 like a story1 the beginning is not worse than the end1 if the artist is competent4 ,what true progress is1 and how it is usually qualified by all sorts of backsliding and by incompatible movements in contrary directions1 is well illustrated by the history of philosophy4 ,there has been progress in it2 if we start with the first birth of intelligence and assume that the end pursued is to understand the world1 the progress has been immense4 ,we do not understand the world yet2 but we have formed many hypotheses about it corroborated by experience1 we are in possession of many arts which involve true knowledge1 and we have collated and criticized--especially during the last century--a great number of speculations which1 though unverified or unverifiable1 reveal the problems and the possibilities in the case2 so that ,i think a philosopher in our day has no excuse for being so utterly deceived in various important matters as the best philosophers formerly were through no fault of theirs1 because they were misled by a local tradition1 and inevitably cut off from the traditions of other ages and races4 ,nevertheless the progress of philosophy has not been of such a sort that the latest philosophers are the best3 it is quite the other way4 ,philosophy in this respect is like poetry4 ,there is progress in that new poets arise with new gifts1 and the fund of transmitted poetry is enriched2 but ,homer1 the first poet amongst the ,greeks1 was also the best1 and so ,dante in ,italy1 and ,shakespeare in ,england4 ,when a civilization and a language take shape they have a wonderful vitality1 and their first-fruits are some love-child1 some incomparable creature in whom the whole genius of the young race bursts forth uncontaminated and untrammelled4 ,what follows is more valuable in this respect or in that2 it renders fitly the partial feelings and varying fashions of a long decadence2 but nothing1 so long as that language and that tradition last1 can ever equal their first exuberance4 ,philosophy is not so tightly bound as poetry is to language and to local inspiration1 but it has largely shared the same vicissitudes2 and in each school of philosophy only the inventors and founders are of any consequence2 the rest are hacks4 ,moreover1 if we take each school as a whole1 and compare it with the others1 ,i think we may repeat the same observation3 the first are the best4 ,those following have made very real improvements2 they have discovered truths and methods before unknown2 but instead of adding these 7as they might have done7 to the essential wisdom of their predecessors1 they have proceeded like poets1 each a new-born child in a magic world1 abandoned to his fancy and his personal experience4 ,bent on some specific reform or wrapped up in some favourite notion1 they have denied the obvious because other people had pointed it out2 and the later we come down in the history of philosophy the less important philosophy becomes1 and the less true in fundamental matters4 ,suppose ,i arrange the works of the essential philosophers--leaving out secondary and transitional systems--in a bookcase of four shelves2 on the top shelf 7out of reach1 since ,i can't read the language7 ,i will place the ,indians2 on the next the ,greek naturalists2 and to remedy the unfortunate paucity of their remains1 ,i will add here those free inquirers of the renaissance1 leading to ,spinoza1 who after two thousand years picked up the thread of scientific speculation2 and besides1 all modern science3 so that this shelf will run over into a whole library of what is not ordinarily called philosophy4 ,on the third shelf ,i will put ,platonism1 including ,aristotle1 the ,fathers1 the ,scholastics1 and all honestly ,christian theology2 and on the last1 modern or subjective philosophy in its entirety4 ,i will leave lying on the table1 as of doubtful destination1 the works of my contemporaries4 ,there is much life in some of them4 ,i like their water-colour sketches of self-consciousness1 their rebellious egotisms1 their fervid reforms of phraseology1 their peep-holes through which some very small part of things may be seen very clearly3 they have lively wits1 but they seem to me like children playing blind-man's-buff2 they are keenly excited at not knowing where they are4 ,they are really here1 in the common natural world1 where there is nothing in particular to threaten or to allure them2 and they have only to remove their philosophical bandages in order to perceive it4 ,what sort of a world this is--,i will not say in itself1 but in respect to us--can be perceived almost at once by any candid spirit1 and the ,indians readily perceived it4 ,they saw that substance is infinite1 out of scale with our sensuous images and 7except in the little vortex that makes us up7 out of sympathy with our endeavours2 and that spirit in us nevertheless can hold its own1 because salvation lies in finding joy in the truth1 not in rendering fortune propitious1 by some miracle1 to our animal interests4 ,the spirit is at home in the infinite1 and morally independent of all the accidents of existence3 nothing that nature can produce outruns its potential scope1 its desire to know the truth2 and its disinterestedness renders it free1 free especially from any concern about its own existence4 ,it does not deem it the part of piety to deny the fugitive1 impotent1 and fantastic nature of human life4 ,it knows that the thoughts of man and his works1 however great or delightful when measured by the human scale1 are but the faintest shimmer on the surface of being4 ,on the ruin of humanistic illusions 7such as make up the religious philosophy of the ,west7 it knows how to establish a tender morality and a sublime religion4 ,indian wisdom1 intent on the infinity and unity of substance and on the vanity of human life1 neglected two inquiries which are nevertheless of the greatest interest to the spirit1 so long as this vain life endures4 ,the ,indians did not study the movement and mechanism of nature3 they had no science4 ,their poets1 in a sort of spectacular physics1 were content to paint vividly the images of sense1 conscious of their fugitive charm1 and of their monstrous and delirious diversity4 ,they also neglected the art of rational conduct in this world2 the refinements of their moral discipline were all mystical2 they were determined by watching the movement of inner experience1 and allowing the fancy to distinguish its objects and its stages4 ,they thought the spirit could liberate itself by thinking1 as by thinking it seemed to have entangled itself in this mesh of dreams4 ,but how could the spirit1 if it had been free originally1 ever have attached its fortunes to any lump of clay8 ,why should it be the sport of time and change and the vicissitudes of affairs8 ,from the point of view of the spirit 7which is that of the ,indians7 this question is absolutely insoluble2 a fact which drives them to say that this entanglement is not real1 but only an illusion of being entangled4 ,certainly substance is not entangled1 but persists and moves according to its nature2 and if what exists besides substance--its aspects and the spirit in us that notes them--is not real because not substantial1 then the unreal has the privilege1 as ,democritus pointed out1 of existing as well as the real1 and more obviously4 ,but this subterfuge1 of denying that appearance exists1 because its existence is only the seeming of its objects1 was inevitable in the ,indian system1 and dramatically right4 ,the spirit1 left to its own fond logic1 remains perfectly ignorant of its natural ancestry and cannot imagine why it finds itself caught in the vice of existence1 and hanging like ,prometheus on a crag of ,caucasus1 or like ,christ on the cross4 ,the myth of reincarnation1 whilst it meets certain moral demands1 leaves the problem essentially untouched4 ,why should spirit have fallen in the first instance1 or made any beginning in sin and illusion8 ,it would have been better1 for the moral and religious purposes of these sages1 to have observed and respected the prose facts1 and admitted that each little spirit falls for the first time when the body is generated which it is to dwell in4 ,it never1 in fact1 existed before2 it is the spirit of that body4 ,its transcendental prerogatives and its impersonal aims are by no means inconsistent with that humble fact3 they seem inconsistent only to those who are ignorant of the life and fertility of nature1 which breeds spirit as naturally as the lark sings4 ,aspiration to liberate spirit from absorption in finite existence is in danger of missing its way if it is not enlightened by a true theory of existence and of spirit2 for it is utterly impossible to free the spirit materially1 since it is the voice of matter1 but by a proper hygiene it can be freed ideally1 so that it ceases to be troubled by its sluggish instrument1 or conscious of it4 ,in these matters the ,indians were the sport of the wildest fancy4 ,they mistook their early poetry for a metaphysical revelation1 and their philosophy was condemned to turn in the most dreary treadmill of commentaries and homilies1 without one ray of criticism1 or any revision of first principles4 ,nevertheless1 all their mythology and scholasticism did not invalidate 7as they did not in the ,catholic church afterwards7 the initial spiritual insight on which their system rested4 ,the spirit1 viewed from within1 is omnipresent and timeless1 and must be spoken of as falling1 or coming down1 or entering 7as ,aristotle puts it7 through the house-door4 ,spirit calls itself a stranger1 because it finds the world strange2 and it finds the world strange because1 being the spirit of a very high-strung and perilously organized animal1 it is sensitive to many influences not harmonious with its own impulses1 and has to beg its daily bread4 ,yet it is rich in resource2 and it gives itself out for a traveller and tells marvellous lies about its supposed native land1 where it was a prince and an omnipotent poet4 ,these boasts serve the spirit as a declaration of independence1 and a claim to immense superiority above the world4 ,this independence1 however1 is really only the independence of ignorance1 that must think and act at random2 and the spirit would add sanity to its spirituality if it recognized the natural1 precarious1 and exquisite life of which it is the spirit4 ,sanity1 thy name is ,greece4 ,the ,greek naturalists saw 7what it needs only sanity to see7 that the infinite substance of things was instinct with a perpetual motion and rhythmic order which were its life1 and that the spirit of man was a spark from that universal fire4 ,they made a magnificent beginning in understanding what the order of nature is1 and what is the relation of its substance to its spirit4 ,they were much nearer in their outlook and their wisdom to the ,indians than we are apt to imagine4 ,the ,indians meant to be naturalists too2 all serious philosophers must somehow make a naturalism of their chosen elements2 only the ,indians were carried away by an untutored imagination4 ,the ,greeks1 for their part1 also meant to be discerners of substance like the ,indians1 and sharers in the divine life4 ,the object which they believed in and studied was precisely the same as that which the ,indians felt to be breathing deeply around and within them3 it was the infinite substance and life of things2 all things not as they appear but as they truly are4 ,this is the object which animals envisage in their perceptions from the beginning4 ,the sciences1 and all honest speculation1 only substitute more refined ideas for the images of sense1 to be descriptions of the same objects which the images of sense reveal4 ,the notion that the object of sense is the very image created in sensation1 or is an idea constructed afterwards by the intellect1 is an aberration of confused psychologists2 the intellectual construction1 like the sensuous image1 is and is meant to be only a symbol for the substance1 whatever it may be1 which confronts the living being when he eats or looks or frames a scientific hypothesis4 ,natural things1 in their undiscovered inner texture1 are the only things-in-themselves1 and the object of every practical perception is the thing-in-itself1 whatever its nature may happen to be4 ,when we enlarge our thoughts1 and take in the world1 as it were1 at a glance1 the object does not become more metaphysical than when we take common things singly4 ,the ,greeks1 too1 looked up into the heavens and cried1 ,the ,all is one4 ,it was just what the ,indians had said1 shutting their eyes and drinking in an infinite draught of nothing2 but the outward glance1 the docility to fact1 in the ,greeks made a new thought of it1 and a true one4 ,what was now discovered was the system of nature2 the spirit was naturalized in its source2 it was set like a young plant in its appropriate flower-pot1 where it might wax and bloom4 ,it did grow there1 but not to its primeval size4 ,these knowing ,greeks were not saints and hermits1 like the venerable ,indians2 they were merchants1 sniffing travellers1 curiosity-hunters1 who turned pebbles over and culled herbs1 breeders of animals1 or wandering sooth-sayers with a monkey on their shoulder2 and in naturalizing the spirit they stultified it4 ,why should knowledge of the world make people worldly8 ,it ought to do the exact opposite4 ,the ,indians had1 in their way1 a most profound and mature knowledge of the world2 they knew perfectly what it could yield to the spirit1 and what it was worth4 ,but lost in their inner experience they invented for nature what structure they chose1 fantastically attenuating and inflating it as in a dream4 ,apparently there is not energy enough in the human intellect to look both ways at once1 and to study the world scientifically whilst living in it spiritually4 ,the ,greeks in their sanity discovered not only the natural world but the art of living well in it4 ,besides physics they founded ethics and politics4 ,but here again progress was prevented by the rejection or perversion of the greater thing in the interests of the lesser4 ,speculatively at least some just conception of the world we live in1 and of our place and destiny there1 is more important than the choice of a definite way of life2 for animals and man have1 quite legitimately1 each his own habits and pleasures1 but they all crawl under the same heaven1 and if they think of it at all1 they should not blaspheme against it4 ,the ,greek naturalists had conceived nature rightly2 and their sentiments and maxims1 whilst very properly diverse1 had all of them a certain noble frankness in the presence of the infinite world1 of which they begged no favours4 ,it was precisely these personal sentiments and maxims1 and policy in the government of cities1 that interested the ,greeks most2 and the ,sophists and ,socrates affected to care nothing about natural science1 unless it could make their pot boil4 ,this utilitarianism was humorous in ,socrates1 and in some of the ,sophists unprincipled2 but the habit of treating opinions about nature as rhetorical themes1 or as more or less edifying myths1 had disastrous consequences for philosophy4 ,it created metaphysics4 ,metaphysics is not merely speculative physics1 in which natural science is extended imaginatively in congruous ways1 anticipating what might some day be discovered4 ,this is what the naturalists had done1 and their theories were simply physical or cosmological4 ,but after ,socrates a theory constructed by reasoning1 in terms of logic1 ethics1 and a sort of poetic propriety was put in the place of physics2 the economy of the human mind was projected into the universe2 and nature1 in the works of the metaphysicians1 held the mirror up to man4 ,human nature and the human mind1 which were thus made to rule the world1 are in reality a very small incident in it2 they are proper to one animal2 they are things of yesterday and perhaps not of to-morrow4 ,this is nothing against them in their place1 as it is nothing against the daisy that it is humble1 nor against the spray of the sea that its flight is violent and brief4 ,the ,platonic1 ,british1 and ,german schools of philosophy advance our knowledge of ourselves2 what a pity that they were not content to cultivate their own gardens1 where so many moral fruits and psychological flowers might be made to grow1 but have insisted that their domestic vegetables are the signs of the zodiac1 and that the universe was made to illustrate their horticulture6 ,taken for what they really are1 these humanistic philosophies express different sides of human nature4 ,the best 7and earliest7 is the ,platonic1 because the side of human nature which it expresses and fosters is the spiritual side4 ,platonic metaphysics projects into the universe the moral progress of the soul4 ,it is like a mountain lake1 in which the aspirations and passions of a civilized mind are reflected upside down2 and a certain tremor and intensity is added to them in that narrower frame1 which they would hardly have in the upper air4 ,this system renders the life of the soul more unified and more beautiful than it would otherwise be4 ,everything becomes magical1 and a sort of perpetual miracle of grace2 the forms which things wear to the human mind are deputed to be their substance2 the uses of life become its protecting gods2 the categories of logic and of morals become celestial spheres enclosing the earth4 ,a monstrous dream1 if you take it for a description of nature2 but a suitable allegory by which to illustrate the progress of the inner life3 because those stages1 or something like them1 are really the stages of moral progress for the soul4 ,the ,british and ,german philosophies belong to an analytic phase of reflection1 without spiritual discipline1 and their value is merely psychological4 ,their subject matter is human knowledge2 and the titles of many of the chief works of this school confess that this is their only theme4 ,not moral life1 much less the natural world1 but simply the articulation of knowledge occupies them2 and yet1 by the hocus-pocus of metaphysics1 they substitute this human experience for the whole universe in which it arises4 ,the universe is to be nothing but a flux of perceptions1 or a will positing an object1 or a tendency to feign that there is a world4 ,it would ill become me1 a pupil of this philosophy1 to deny its profundity4 ,these are the heart-searchings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized4 ,it is a wonderful thing to spin out in soliloquy1 out of some unfathomed creative instinct1 the various phases of one's faith and sensibility1 making an inventory of one's intellectual possessions1 with some notes on their presumable or reported history4 ,i love the lore of the moral antiquary2 ,i love rummaging in the psychological curiosity shop4 ,the charm of modern life is ambiguous2 it lies in self-consciousness4 ,egotism has its tender developments2 there is a sort of engaging purity in its perplexities and faithful labours4 ,the ,german soul has a great volume1 and ,hamlet is heroic even in his impotence4 ,when in this little glow-worm which we call man there is so much going on1 what must not all nature contain in its immensity8 ,yet all these advances in analysis and in psychological self-knowledge1 far from enriching the modern philosopher and giving him fresh hints for the interpretation of the great world1 have been neutralized1 under the guise of scepticism1 by a total intellectual cramp or by a colossal folly4 ,this thoughtful dog has dropped the substance he held in his mouth1 to snatch at the reflection of it which his own mind gave him4 ,it is wonderful with what a light heart1 with what self-satisfaction and even boasts1 the youngest children of the philosophical family jettison all their heirlooms4 ,fichte and ,nietzsche1 in their fervid arrogance1 could hardly outdo the mental impoverishment of ,berkeley and ,hume in their levity3 it had really been a sight for the gods to see one of these undergraduates driving matter out of the universe1 whilst the other drove out spirit4 #di ,,the ,,psyche ,english poetry and fiction have expressed the inner man far better than ,british philosophy has defined him4 ,he is a hidden spring1 a source of bubbling half-thoughts and characteristic actions1 and the philosophers have called him a series of ideas4 ,ideas are rather his weak point4 ,idealism1 on principle1 leaves no room for anything latent2 but in a living being1 especially in a nice ,englishman1 what is latent is the chief thing4 ,the vital organs are under the skin and far more complicated1 ,i suspect1 than anatomy would lead us to imagine3 the case is somewhat as if some giant in remote space should examine the surface of our earth with a glass1 measuring its motion round the sun and perhaps round its own axis1 but regarding as perfectly inexplicable and unmeaning the coursing of ships1 the march of armies and migrations1 the change of forests into cornfields1 and of cornfields into deserts4 ,so1 perhaps1 far beyond the reach of any microscope1 the politic congregation of atoms within us is busy in its curiously organic and curiously aimless way3 sustaining on the whole1 until disease or death supervenes1 the international peace and commerce of the animal body4 ,how much wireless telegraphy1 how many alliances1 and how many diplomatic compromises there must be in our system for the human body to live at all6 ,but psychological philosophers1 like children1 think the whole economy of life the simplest thing in the world3 experience1 they say1 just comes as it does come2 as the boy1 asked where he would get the money necessary for all the fine things he said he would do when he was a man1 replied1 full of empirical wisdom1 ,out of my pocket1 like papa6 ,experience is the paternal pocket of these philosophers2 they have not discovered the financial system1 the life of the body1 which fills that minute and precarious reservoir4 ,it is not only a stronger glass that the remote giant would need to disclose to him the life of the earth2 he would need imagination akin to the human1 which such a giant would probably not possess4 ,for suppose anatomy had done its best or its worst1 and had completely mapped the machinery of the human automaton2 and suppose at the same time the modern dream-readers and diviners had unearthed all a man's infant concupiscences and secret thoughts3 there would still be something essential undiscovered4 ,i do not mean that behind the whole physical machinery there would be another material agency1 another force or set of events2 nor that besides the totality of mental discourse1 remembered or unremembered1 there would be more thinking elsewhere3 the hypothesis is that all that exists in these spheres has been surveyed1 and assigned to its place in the evolving system4 ,what has been so far ignored is something on another plane of being altogether1 which this automatic life and this mental discourse involve1 but do not contain4 ,it is the principle of both and of their relation2 the system of repetitions1 correspondences1 developments1 and ideal unities created by this march of human life in double column4 ,for instance1 men are mortal2 they are born2 they are begotten by sexual fertilization2 they have a childhood2 their passions and thoughts flow in a certain general order2 and there are units in the human world called persons1 nations1 interests1 purposes4 ,i do not refer to the ideas of these things in the mental discourse of this or that man2 but to the groups or cycles of facts designated by these ideas4 ,to perceive these groups or cycles requires a certain type of intelligence3 but intelligence does not invent them without cause2 it finds the order which it designates by some word1 some metaphor1 or some image4 ,that this order of human life is something natural1 and not a fiction of discourse1 appears in many ways4 ,the relation of discourse itself to physical life is one proof of it4 ,mental discourse is the inner luminosity or speech that accompanies dramatic crises in the fortunes of the body2 it is not self-generated2 it is always the expression of another event1 then occurring in the body1 as is a cry of pain2 and it is usually1 at the same time1 a report of still another event that has already occurred beyond the body1 as is a memory or a perception4 ,feeling and thought are perpetually interrupted and perpetually renewed by something not themselves4 ,their march1 logic1 and sanity1 no less than their existence1 translate into mental language an order proper to material events4 ,a sense of comfort is the symptom of a good digestion2 pain expresses a lively discord in the nervous system1 and pleasure a lively harmony4 ,when we can scarcely live1 because something is stifling us1 we hate that thing2 and when we breathe more freely because something approaches1 we love it4 ,spirit everywhere expresses the life of nature1 and echoes its endeavours2 but the animal life which prompts these feelings is itself not arbitrary3 it passes through a cycle of changes which are pre-ordained4 ,this predetermined1 specific direction of animal life is the key to everything moral2 without it no external circumstance could be favourable or unfavourable to us2 and spirit within us would have no reason to welcome1 to deplore1 or to notice anything4 ,what an anomaly it would seem to a free spirit 7if there could be such a thing7 that it should care particularly for what happens in the body of some animal1 or that it should see one set of facts rattier than another1 and this in so partial and violent a perspective6 ,but spirit does1 and must1 do this2 and it is an absurd and satanic presumption on its part to profess that it could exist1 or be a spirit at all1 if it were not the spirit of some body1 the voice of some animal heart4 ,to have a station in matter1 and to have interests in the material world1 are essential to spirit1 because spirit is life become articulate1 experience focussed in thought and dominated ideally2 but experience and life are inconceivable unless an organism with specific capacities and needs finds itself in an environment that stimulates it variously and offers it a conditioned career4 ,science as yet has no answer to this most important of all questions1 if we wish to understand human nature3 namely1 ,how is the body1 and how are its senses and passions1 determined to develop as they do8 ,we may reply3 ,because ,god wills it so2 or ,because such is the character of the human species2 or ,because mechanical causes necessitate it4 ,these answers do not increase our scientific understanding in the least2 nevertheless they are not wholly vain3 for the first tells us that we must be satisfied with ignorance2 the second that we must be satisfied with the facts2 and the third1 which is the most significant1 that these facts are analogous in every province of nature4 ,but how dose are these analogies8 ,mechanism is one habit of matter1 and life is another habit of matter2 the first we can measure mathematically and forecast accurately1 the second we can only express in moral terms1 and anticipate vaguely2 but that the mechanical habit runs through the vital habit1 and conditions it1 is made obvious by the dependence of life on food1 on time1 on temperature1 by its routine in health and by its diseases1 by its end1 and above all by its origin2 for it is a habit of matter continuous with other inorganic habits1 and 7if evolution is true7 arising out of them4 ,in any case1 life comes from a seed in which it lies apparently dormant and arrested1 and from which it is elicited by purely mechanical agencies4 ,on the other hand1 the seed reacts on those agencies in a manner as yet inexplicable by what we know of its structure2 and its development closely repeats 7though perhaps with some spontaneous variation7 the phases proper to the species4 ,to this mysterious but evident predetermination of normal life by the seed the ancients gave the name of soul2 but to us the word soul suggests a thinking spirit1 or even a disembodied one4 ,it is totally incredible that a thinking spirit should exist in the seed1 and should plan and carry out 7by what instruments87 the organization of the body2 and if so wise and powerful and independent a spirit lay in us from the beginning1 or rather long before our birth1 how superfluous a labour to beget us at all1 and how unkind of it to dangle after it1 in addition to its own intelligence1 these poor blundering and troubled thoughts of which alone we are aware6 ,evidently the governing principle in seeds is no soul in this modern sense1 no thinking moral being2 it is a mysterious habit in matter4 ,whether this total habit is reducible to minor habits of matter1 prevalent in the world at large1 is the question debated between mechanical and vitalist psychologists2 but it is a stupid controversy4 ,the smallest unit of mechanism is an event as vital1 as groundless1 and as creative as it is possible for an event to be2 it summons fresh essences into existence1 which the character of the essences previously embodied in existence by no means implied dialectically4 ,on the other hand1 the romantic adventure of life1 if it is not a series of miracles and catastrophes observed ex post facto1 must be a resultant of simpler habits struggling or conspiring together4 ,however minute1 therefore1 or however comprehensive the units by which natural processes are described1 they are equally vital and equally mechanical1 equally free and 7for an observer with a sufficient range of vision7 equally predictable4 ,on the human scale of observation it is the larger habits of living beings that are most easily observed2 and the principle of these habits1 transmitted by a seed1 ,i call the ,psyche3 it is either a complex of more minute habits of matter1 or a mastering rhythm imposed upon them by the habit of the species4 ,many ,greek philosophers taught that the ,psyche was material2 and even ,plato1 although of course his ,psyche might eventually take to thinking1 regarded it as primarily a principle of motion1 growth1 and unconscious government2 so that the associations of the word ,psyche are not repugnant1 as are those of the word soul1 to the meaning ,i wish to give to it3 that habit in matter which forms the human body and the human mind4#a ,there is1 then1 in every man a ,psyche1 or inherited nucleus of life1 which from its dormant seminal condition expands and awakes anew in each generation1 becoming the person recognized in history1 law1 and morals4 ,a man's body is a sort of husk of which his ,psyche 7itself material7 is the kernel2 and it is out of the predispositions of this living seed1 played upon by circumstances1 that his character and his mind are formed4 ,the ,psyche's first care is to surround itself with outer organs1 like a spider with its web2 only these organs remain subject to her central control1 and are the medium by which she acts upon outer things1 and receives1 in her patient labour1 the solicitations and rebuffs of fortune4 ,the ,psyche1 being essentially a way of living1 a sort of animated code of hygiene and morals1 is a very selective principle3 she is perpetually distinguishing--in action1 if not in words--between good and bad1 right and wrong4 ,choice is the breath of her nostrils4 ,all the senses1 instincts1 and passions are her scouts4 ,the further she extends her influence the more she feels how dependent she is on external things1 and the more feverishly she tries to modify them1 so as to render them more harmonious with her own impulses4 ,at first1 when she was only a vegetative ,psyche1 she waited in a comparatively peaceful mystical torpor for the rain or the sunshine to foster her1 or for the cruel winter or barbarous scythe to cut her down2 and she never would have survived at all if breeding had not been her chief preoccupation2 but she distributed herself so multitudinously and so fast amongst her children1 that she has survived to this day4 ,later1 she found a new means of safety and profit in locomotion2 and it was then that she began to perceive distinct objects1 to think1 and to plan her actions--accomplishments by no means native to her4 ,like the ,chinese1 she is just as busy by night as by day4 ,long before sunrise she is at work in her subterranean kitchen over her pots of stewing herbs1 her looms1 and her spindles2 and with the first dawn1 when the first ray of intuition falls through some aperture into those dusky spaces1 what does it light up8 ,the secret springs of her life8 ,the aims she is so faithfully but blindly pursuing8 ,far from it4 ,intuition1 floods of intuition1 have been playing for ages upon human life3 poets1 painters1 men of prayer1 scrupulous naturalists innumerable1 have been intent on their several visions2 yet of the origin and of the end of life we know as little as ever4 ,and the reason is this3 that intuition is not a material organ of the ,psyche1 like a hand or an antenna2 it is a miraculous child1 far more alive than herself1 whose only instinct is play1 laughter1 and brooding meditation4 ,this strange child--who could have been his father8--is a poet2 absolutely useless and incomprehensible to his poor mother1 and only a new burden on her shoulders1 because she can't help feeding and loving him4 ,he sees2 which to her is a mystery1 because although she has always acted as if1 in some measure1 she felt things at a distance1 she has never seen and never can see anything4 ,nor are his senses1 for all their vivacity1 of any use to her4 ,for what do they reveal to him8 ,always something irrelevant3 a shaft of dusty light across the rafters1 a blue flame dancing on the coals1 a hum1 a babbling of waters1 a breath of heat or of coolness1 a mortal weariness or a groundless joy--all dream-images1 visions of a play world1 essences painted on air1 such as any poet might invent in idleness4 ,yet the child cares about them immensely3 he is full of sudden tears and of jealous little loves4 ,hush1 my child1 says good mother ,psyche1 it's all nonsense4 ,it is not for those fantastic visions that she watches3 she knits with her eyes shut1 and mutters her same old prayers4 ,she has always groped amidst obstacles like a mole pressing on where the earth is softest4 ,she can tell friends from enemies 7not always correctly7 by a mysterious instinct within her1 and the rhythm1 as it were1 of their approaching step4 ,she is long-suffering and faithful1 like ,penelope2 but when hard-pressed and at bay she becomes fierce4 ,she is terribly absolute then1 blindly bent on vengeance and wild destruction4 ,at other times she can melt and be generous2 in her beehive she is not only the congregation of workers1 but also the queen4 ,her stubborn old-womanish temper makes her ordinarily unjust to her best impulses and hypocritical about her worst ones4 ,she is artful but not intelligent1 least of all about herself4 ,for this reason she can never understand how she gave birth to such a thankless child4 ,she hardly remembers the warm ray from the sun or from some other celestial source which one day pierced to her heart1 and begat there this strange uneasiness1 this truant joy1 which we call thought4 ,seeing how quick and observant the brat is1 she sometimes sends him on errands2 but he loiters terribly on the way1 or loses it altogether1 forgets what he was sent for1 and brings home nothing but strange tales about ,long-noses and ,helmets-of-gold1 whom he says he has encountered4 ,he prefers the poppies to the com1 and half the mushrooms he picks are of the poisonous variety2 he sometimes insists on setting apart his food for imaginary beings called the dead or the gods2 and worst of all1 he once ravished and married a fairy1 whom he called ,truth2 and he wished to bring her to live with him at home4 ,at that1 good mother ,psyche naturally put her foot down4 ,no hussies here6 ,yet there are moments when she relents1 when her worn old hands rest in her lap1 when she remembers and wonders1 and two cold tears trickle down from her blind eyes4 ,what is the good of all her labour8 ,has it all been1 perhaps1 for his sake1 that he might live and sing and be happy8 ,even in her green days1 in her cool vegetable economy1 there had been waste2 she had unwittingly put forth flowers she could not see and diffused a fragrance that eluded her4 ,now her warmer heart has bred this wilder1 this diviner folly3 a wanton sweetness shed by her longer travail and a flower of her old age4 ,but he forgets her in his selfishness1 and she can never1 never understand him4 ,footnote #a3 ,i beg the learned to notice that the ,psyche1 as ,i use the term1 is not a material atom but a material system1 stretching over both time and space2 it is not a monad2 it has not the unity proper to consciousness2 nor is it a mass of subconscious1 mental discourse4 ,the ,psyche may be called a substance in respect to mental and moral phenomena which 7,i think7 are based on modes or processes in matter1 not on any material particle taken singly2 but the ,psyche is not a substance absolutely1 since its own substance is matter in a certain arrangement--in other words1 body4 ,matter may be called mind-stuff or psychic substance inasmuch as it can become on occasion the substance of a ,psyche1 and through the ,psyche the basis of mind2 but of course not in the sense that matter may be an aggregate of thinking spirits4 ,mental events may be called psychic when we consider their origin rather than their essence1 as certain pleasures are called material1 although pleasures1 in being1 are all equally spiritual4 ,psychic phenomena are crudely material1 and psychical research has for its object1 not spirits in another world1 but the habits of matter that produce apparitions4 #ej ,,reversion ,,to ,,platonism ,i hear that ,oxford is reading ,plotinus--a blessed change from ,hegel4 ,the pious mind is still in the age of mythology2 science has confused its own lessons1 for want of a philosopher who should understand them2 and what matters1 so long as the age of mythology lasts1 is that the myths that occupy the fancy should be wise and beautiful1 and should teach men to lay up their treasures in heaven4 ,the philosophy of ,plotinus does this1 and does it magnificently4 ,like that of ,plato and of ,aristotle it is little more than a rhetorical inversion or perpetual metaphor1 expressing the aim of life under the figure of a cosmos which is animate and which has already attained its perfection4 ,considering the hurried life which we are condemned to lead1 and the shifting1 symbolic ideas to which we are confined1 it seems hardly worth while to quarrel with such inspired fabulists1 or to carp at the cosmic dress in which they present their moralities4 ,gentle1 secluded1 scholastic ,england does well to platonize4 ,it had never ceased to do so4 ,in spite of the restiveness1 sometimes1 of barbarian blood1 in spite of ,hebraic religion and ,germanic philosophy1 the great classical tradition has always been seated here2 and ,england has shared1 even if with a little reserve and mistrust1 in the ecclesiastical1 courtly1 military1 and artistic heritage of ,europe4 ,a genuine child of the past1 who is bred to knowledge of the world1 and does not plunge into it greedily like a stranger1 cannot worship the world2 he cannot really be a snob4 ,those who have profited by a long life cannot possibly identify the divine life with the human4 ,they will not be satisfied with a philosophy that is fundamentally worldly1 that cannot lift up its heart except pragmatically1 because the good things are hanging from above1 or because the long way round by righteousness and the ten commandments may be the shortest cut to the promised land4 ,their love of wisdom will not be merely provisional1 nor their piety a sort of idyllic interlude1 penitent but hopeful1 comforting itself with the thought that the sour grapes will soon be ripe1 and oh1 so delicious6 ,they will not remember the flesh-pots of ,egypt with an eternal regret1 and the flesh-pots of ,berlin and ,new ,york will not revive their appetite4 ,spirit is not an instrument but a realization1 a fruition4 ,at every stage1 and wherever it peeps out through the interstices of existence1 it is a contemplation of eternal things4 ,eternal things are not other material things by miracle existing for ever in another world2 eternal tilings are the essences of all things here1 when we consider what they are in themselves and not what1 in the world of fortune1 they may bring or take away from us personally4 ,that is why piety and prayer are spiritual1 when they cease to be magic operations or efforts of a celestial diplomacy3 they chief works of this school confess that this is their only theme4 ,not moral life1 much less the natural world1 but simply the articulation of knowledge occupies them2 and yet1 by the hocus-pocus of metaphysics1 they substitute this human experience for the whole universe in which it arises4 ,the universe is to be nothing but a flux of perceptions1 or a will positing an object1 or a tendency to feign that there is a world4 ,it would ill become me1 a pupil of this philosophy1 to deny its profundity4 ,these are the heart-searchings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized4 ,it is a wonderful thing to spin out in soliloquy1 out of some unfathomed creative instinct1 the various phases of one's faith and sensibility1 making an inventory of one's intellectual possessions1 with some notes on their presumable or reported history4 ,i love the lore of the moral antiquary2 ,i love rummaging in the psychological curiosity shop4 ,the charm of modern life is ambiguous2 it lies in self-consciousness4 ,egotism has its tender developments2 there is a sort of engaging purity in its perplexities and faithful labours4 ,the ,german soul has a great volume1 and ,hamlet is heroic even in his impotence4 ,when in this little glow-worm which we call man there is so much going on1 what must not all nature contain in its immensity8 ,yet all these advances in analysis and in psychological self-knowledge1 far from enriching the modern philosopher and giving him fresh hints for the interpretation of the great world1 have been neutralized1 under the guise of scepticism1 by a total intellectual cramp or by a colossal folly4 ,this thoughtful dog has dropped the substance he held in his mouth1 to snatch at the reflection of it which his own mind gave him4 ,it is wonderful with what a light heart1 with what self-satisfaction and even boasts1 the youngest children of the philosophical family jettison all their heirlooms4 ,fichte and ,nietzsche1 in their fervid arrogance1 could hardly outdo the mental impoverishment of ,berkeley and ,hume in their levity3 it had really been a sight for the gods to see one of these undergraduates driving matter out of the universe1 whilst the other drove out spirit4 #ea ,,ideas ,how comes it that the word ,idea1 so redolent of ,platonism1 has been the fulcrum on which ,british philosophy has turned in its effort to dislodge ,platonism from its foundations1 and to lay bare the positive facts8 ,the vicissitudes of words are instructive2 they show us what each age understood or forgot in the wisdom of its predecessors1 and what new things it discovered to which it gave the old names4 ,the beauty which ,plato and the ,english saw in ,ideas was the same beauty2 they both found in ,ideas the immediate1 indubitable object of knowledge4 ,and nevertheless1 hugging the same certitude1 they became sure of entirely different things4 ,the word ,idea ought to mean any theme which attention has lighted up1 any aesthetic or logical essence1 so long as it is observed in itself or used to describe some ulterior existence4 ,amid a thousand metaphysical and psychological abuses of the term this purely ideal signification sometimes reappears in polite speech2 for instance when ,athalie says1 in ,racine3 ,j'ai deux fois1 en dormant1 revu la mme ide4 ,here1 perhaps by chance1 the word is used with absolute propriety and its chief implications are indicated4 ,an ,idea is something seen1 an immediate presence2 it is something seen in a dream1 or imaginary2 and it is the same ,idea when seen a second time1 or a universal4 ,that universals are present to intuition was the secret of ,plato2 yet it is the homeliest of truths4 ,it comes to seem a paradox1 or even inconceivable1 because people suppose they see what they believe they are looking at1 which is some particular thing1 the object of investigation1 of desire1 and of action2 they overlook the terms of their thought1 as they overlook the perspective of the landscape4 ,these terms1 which are alone immediate1 are all universals4 ,belief--the expectation1 fear1 or sense of events hidden or imminent--precedes clear perception2 but it is supposed to be derived from it4 ,perception without belief would be mere intuition of ,ideas1 and no belief in things or ulterior events could ever be based on it4 ,a seraph who should know only ,ideas would be incapable of conceiving any fact1 or noting any change1 or discovering his own spiritual existence2 he would be mathematics actualized1 a landscape self-composed1 and love spread like butter4 ,the human mind1 on the contrary1 is the expression of an animal life1 swimming hard in the sea of matter4 ,it begins by being the darkest belief and the most helpless discomfort1 and it proceeds gradually to relieve this uneasiness and to tincture this blind faith with more and more luminous ,ideas1 ,ideas1 in the discovery of facts1 are only graphic symbols1 the existence and locus of the facts thus described being posited in the first place by animal instinct and watchfulness4 ,if we suspend these eager explorations for a moment1 and check our practical haste in understanding the material structure of things and in acting upon them1 it becomes perfectly obvious that the data of actual intuition are sounds1 figures1 movements1 landscapes1 stories--all universal essences appearing1 and perhaps reappearing1 as in a trance4 ,i think that ,plato in his youth must have seen his ,ideas with this mystical directness1 and must have felt the irritation common to mystics at being called back out of that poetic ecstasy into the society of material things4 ,those essences were like the gods1 dear and immortal1 however fugitive our vision of them might be2 whereas things were in their inmost substance intricate and obscure and treacherously changeable2 you could never really know what any of them was1 nor what it might become4 ,the ,ideas were our true friends1 our natural companions1 and all our safe knowledge was of them2 things were only vehicles by which ,ideas were conveyed to us1 as the copies of a book are vehicles for its sense4 ,nevertheless1 the happy intuition of pure essences of all sorts1 as life vouchsafes it to the free poet or to the logician1 could not satisfy the heart of ,plato4 ,he felt the burden1 the incessant sweet torment1 of the flesh2 and when age--as ,i think we may detect in the changed tone of his thoughts--relieved him of this obsession1 which had been also his first inspiration1 it only reinforced an obsession of a different kind1 the indignation of an aristocrat and the sorrow of a patriot at the doom which hung visibly over his country4 ,the fact that love intervened from the beginning in ,plato's vision of the ,ideas explains why his ,ideas were not the essences actually manifested in experience1 as it comes to the cold eye or the mathematical brain4 ,when love looks1 the image is idealized2 it does their several visions2 yet of the origin and of the end of life we know as little as ever4 ,and the reason is this3 that intuition is not a material organ of the ,psyche1 like a hand or an antenna2 it is a miraculous child1 far more alive than herself1 whose only instinct is play1 laughter1 and brooding meditation4 ,this strange child--who could have been his father8--is a poet2 absolutely useless and incomprehensible to his poor mother1 and only a new burden on her shoulders1 because she can't help feeding and loving him4 ,he sees2 which to her is a mystery1 because although she has always acted as if1 in some measure1 she felt things at a distance1 she has never seen and never can see anything4 ,nor are his senses1 for all their vivacity1 of any use to her4 ,for what do they reveal to him8 ,always something irrelevant3 a shaft of dusty light across the rafters1 a blue flame dancing on the coals1 a hum1 a babbling of waters1 a breath of heat or of coolness1 a mortal weariness or a groundless joy--all dream-images1 visions of a play world1 essences painted on air1 such as any poet might invent in idleness4 ,yet the child cares about them immensely3 he is full of sudden tears and of jealous little loves4 ,hush1 my child1 says good mother ,psyche1 it's all nonsense4 ,it is not for those fantastic visions that she watches3 she knits with her eyes shut1 and mutters her same old prayers4 ,she has always groped amidst obstacles like a mole pressing on where the earth is softest4 ,she can tell friends from enemies 7not always correctly7 by a mysterious instinct within her1 and the rhythm1 as it were1 of their approaching step4 ,she is long-suffering and faithful1 like ,penelope2 but when hard-pressed and at bay she becomes fierce4 ,she is terribly absolute then1 blindly bent on vengeance and wild destruction4 ,at other times she can melt and be generous2 in her beehive she is not only the congregation of workers1 but also the queen4 ,her stubborn old-womanish temper makes her ordinarily unjust to her best impulses and hypocritical about her worst ones4 ,she is artful but not intelligent1 least of all about herself4 ,for this reason she can never understand how she gave birth to such a thankless child4 ,she hardly remembers the warm ray from the sun or from some other celestial source which one day pierced presents actually will be only a few1 and not the most welcome1 since this world is a most paradoxical1 odd1 and picturesque object1 and not at all the sort of world which the human mind 7being a highly specialized part of it7 would have made or can easily believe to be real4 ,the ,ideas which a philosopher says govern the world are not likely to be its true laws2 and1 if he has really drawn them from observation1 they cannot possibly be all1 nor the best1 ,ideas on which his free mind would have chosen to dwell4 ,the truth1 which is a standard for the naturalist1 for the poet is only a stimulus2 and in many an idealist the poet debauches the naturalist1 and the naturalist paralyses the poet4 ,the earth might well upbraid ,plato for trying to build his seven-walled cloud-castle on her back1 and to circumscribe her in his magic circles4 ,why should she be forbidden to exhibit any other essences than those authorized by this metaphysical ,solon8 ,why should his impoverished ,olympian theology be imposed upon her1 and all her pretty dryads and silly fauns1 all her harpies and chimeras1 be frowned upon and turned into black devils8 ,how these people who would moralize nature hate nature2 and if they loved nature1 how sweetly and firmly would morality take its human place there without all this delusion and bluster6 ,but ,i am not concerned so much with the violence done by ,plato to nature2 nature can take care of herself1 and being really the mother even of the most waspish philosopher1 with his sting and his wings and his buzzing1 she can comfortably find room for him and his system amongst her swarming children4 ,i wish ,i knew if the real wasps1 too1 have a philosophy1 and what it is2 probably as vital and idealistic as that of the ,germans4 ,but ,i am grieved rather at the servitude and at the stark aspect imposed on the ,platonic ,ideas by their ambition to rule the world4 ,they are like the shorn ,samson in the treadmill2 they have lost the radiance and the music of ,phoebus ,apollo4 ,socrates taught that to do wrong is to suffer harm2 and his ,ideas1 in establishing their absurd theocracy over nature1 were compelled to bend their backs to that earth-labour1 and to become merely a celestial zoology1 a celestial grammar1 and a celestial ethics4 ,heaven had stooped to rule the earth1 and the crooked features of the earth had cast their grotesque shadow on heaven4 ,this is the first chapter in the sad history of ,ideas4 ,now for the second4 ,the honest ,englishman does not care much for ,ideas1 because in his labour1 he is occupied with things and in his leisure with play1 or with rest in a haze of emotional indolence3 but finding himself1 for the most part1 deep in the mess of business1 he is heartily desirous of knowing the facts2 and when1 in his scrupulous inquiry into the facts1 he finds at bottom only ,ideas1 and is constrained to become a philosopher against his will1 he contrives1 out of those very ,ideas1 to elicit some knowledge of fact4 ,ideas are not intrinsically facts1 but suppositions2 they are descriptions offering themselves officiously as testimonials for facts whose character remains problematical1 since1 if there were no such facts1 the ,ideas would still be the same2 yet1 says the melancholy ,jaques to himself1 ,is it not a fact that ,i have made this dubious supposition8 ,am ,i not entertaining this ,idea8 ,this sad but undeniable experience of mine1 not the fact which ,i sought nor the ,idea which ,i found1 is the actual fact1 and the undeniable existence4 ,thus the occurrence of any experience1 or the existence of any illusion1 assumes the names both of fact and of idea in his vocabulary1 and the existence of ideas becomes the corner-stone of his philosophy4 ,the most candid and delightful of ,english philosophers 7who was an ,irishman7 was ,berkeley4 ,in his ardent youth1 like ,plato1 he awoke to pure intuition3 he saw ,ideas1 or at least he saw that he did not see material things2 but instead of studying these ,ideas for their own sake with a steadier gaze1 he took up the disputatious notion of denying that material things existed at all1 because he could not see them4 ,it was a great simplification2 and if he had not had conventional and apologetic axes to grind1 he might have reached the radical conclusion1 familiar to ,indian sages1 that nothing could exist at all1 least of all himself4 ,language1 however1 and the ,cartesian philosophy1 made it easy for him to assume that of course he existed1 since he saw these ,ideas2 and he was led by a malicious demon to add1 that the ,ideas existed too1 since he saw them1 so long as they were visible to him4 ,bat if he existed only in that he saw the ,ideas1 and the ,ideas existed in that he saw them1 was there any difference at all between himself seeing and the ,ideas seen8 ,none1 ,i am afraid3 so that he himself1 whom he had proudly called a spirit1 would be in truth only a series of ideas 7,i spell them now with a small i71 and the ideas--in which he had not stopped to recognize eternal essences--would be only the pulses of his fugitive existence4 ,here is substance for an excellent ironical system of the universe1 such as some philosopher in ,greece might have espoused2 a flux of absolute intensive existences1 variously coloured and more or less warm1 like the sparks of a rocket4 ,some scientific philosopher in our day or in the future may be tempted to work out this system1 and it might have been the true one4 ,but ,i see an objection to it from the point of view of ,british philosophy1 which covets knowledge of fact4 ,the philosopher conceiving this system1 if the system was true1 would be only one of those sparks2 he could have no idea except the idea which he was2 the whole landscape before him would be but the fleeting nature of himself4 ,although1 therefore1 by an infinitely improbable accident1 his philosophy might be true1 he could have no reason to think it true1 and no possibility of not thinking it so4 ,a genuine sceptic might be satisfied with this result1 enjoying each moment of his being1 and laughing at his own perpetual pretension of knowing anything further4 ,and since extremes meet1 such a mocking sceptic might easily become1 like ,plato1 a lover of pure ,ideas4 ,if he really abandons all claims1 all hopes1 all memory which is more than fantasy1 and simply enjoys the illusion of the moment1 he dwells on an ,idea1 which is all that an illusion can supply4 ,the immediate has a mystical charm2 it unveils some eternal essence1 and the extreme of renunciation1 like a sacrificial death1 brings a supreme security in another sphere4 ,berkeley and ,hume were little more than boys when they fell in love with ,ideas2 perhaps1 if we knew their personal history1 we should find that they were little children when they first did so1 and that pure ,essence was the ,beatrice that had secretly inspired all their lives4 ,but though they were youths of genius1 there was a touch in them of the prig2 the immediate1 dear as it is to fresh and honest hearts1 was too unconventional for them legally to wed and to take home1 as it were1 to their worldly relations4 ,in ,england to love ,ideas is to sow one's intellectual wild oats4 ,there may be something healthy and impetuous in that impulse which is engaging2 but it must not go too far1 and above all it must not be permanent4 ,the ,british philosopher dips into idealism in order to reform belief1 to get rid of dangerous shams or uncongenial dogmas1 not for the sake of pure intuition or instant assurance4 ,he wishes to remove impediments to action2 he hates great remote objects as he hates popery and policy2 imposing things are impositions4 ,better get rid1 if possible1 of substance and cause and necessity and abstractions and self and consciousness4 ,the purpose is to reduce everything to plain experience of fact1 and to rest neither in pure intuition nor in external existences4 ,for instance1 he has two arguments against the existence of matter which he finds equally satisfactory3 one that matter cannot exist because he can form no idea of it1 and the other that matter cannot exist because it is merely an idea which he forms4 ,he descends to the immediate only for the sake of the ulterior1 for the immediate in some other place4 ,if he found himself reduced to essences actually given now1 he would be terribly unhappy1 and ,i am sure would renounce philosophy as a bad business1 as he did in the person of ,hume1 his most profound representative4 ,thus ,european speculation1 like the ,athalie of ,racine1 has twice in its dreams beheld the same ,ideas2 but like that uneasy heroine it has been troubled by the sight1 and has stretched out its arms to grasp the painted shadow4 ,the first time1 instead of ,ideas1 it found a celestial hierarchy of dominations and powers1 a bevy of magic influences1 angels1 and demons4 ,the second time1 instead of ,ideas1 it found an irrevocable flux of existing feelings1 without sense1 purpose1 connection1 or knowledge4 ,perhaps if on the third occasion the ,ideas visited a less burdened and preoccupied soul1 that could look on them without apprehension1 they might be welcomed for their fair aspect and for the messages they convey from things1 without being1 in their own persons1 either deified or materialized4 #eb ,,the ,,mansions ,,of ,,helen ,concerning the visions which men have of the gods there is much uncertainty4 ,it is written that no man can see ,god and live2 but ,i think some evil god or evil man must be spoken of1 and that they come nearer to the truth who say that the vision of ,god brings perfect happiness4 ,i suspect this is true in a humbler and more familiar sense than is intended in discourses about the state of the soul in heaven2 for there is a heaven above every place1 and the soul mounts to it in all its thoughts and actions1 when these are perfect4 ,i incline also to another opinion1 which would surprise those religious friends of mine who call me an atheist2 namely1 that ,whenever we see anything1 we have1 or might have if we chose1 a partial vision of ,god1 and a moment of happiness4 ,for all experience comes to us fatally1 from an alien source which in physics is called matter1 in morals power or will1 and in religion ,god2 so that by his power 7as ,i learned when a child in my ,spanish catechism7 ,god is present in everything4 ,the same authority added 7and how full of meaning that word is to me now67 that he was also present in everything by his essence2 since what is brought unimpeachably before us in any vision is some essence which1 being absolutely indestructible1 is in that respect divine4 ,it is indestructible because1 if all trace and memory of it were destroyed1 it would in that very obscuration vindicate its essential identity1 since not it1 but only things different from it1 would now exist4 ,every essence1 therefore1 lies eternally at the very foundations of being1 and is a part of the divine immutability and necessity2 an intrinsic feature in that ,nous or ,logos which theologians tell us is the second hypostasis of the divine nature4 ,yet to say that we see ,god when we see him only in part is perhaps hazardous and open to objection1 because a part of anything1 separated from the rest1 becomes a different being1 qualitatively and numerically2 and it will be better to speak of our visions as visions of angels or messengers or demigods1 having one divine parent and one human4 ,in everything1 if we regard it as it is in itself1 and not selfishly1 we may find an incarnation or manifestation of deity4 ,how the divinity of our daily visitants shines out at certain moments and then again is obscured by our practical haste and inattention1 is admirably expressed in the history of ,helen4 ,her birth was miraculous1 and yet quaintly natural1 for her father ,zeus1 having taken the form of a swan when he wooed her mother ,leda1 she was hatched from a great white egg2 and there was always something swanlike in the movements of her neck1 in the composure of her carriage1 as if borne on still waters1 in the scarcely flushed marble of her skin1 and in the lightness and amplitude of her floating garments4 ,she was hardly of this world1 and it seemed almost a desecration to have wedded her to any mortal4 ,yet she offered no resistance to love2 it was indifferent to her whom she might enamour1 or into what nest of robbers she might be carried by force4 ,was it not violence1 she said to herself1 to exist on earth at all8 ,what mattered a shade more or less of violence8 ,if she remained in a manner chaste and inviolate1 it was only because she was too beautiful to tempt the lusts of men4 ,neither of her two husbands loved or understood her4 ,menelaus because he was a dullard1 and ,paris because he was a rake1 approached her as they would have approached any other woman1 and they found no great pleasure in her society4 ,yet wherever she appeared1 every one stopped talking and was motionless2 and she was worshipped by all who saw her pass at a distance4 ,supreme beauty is foreign everywhere1 yet everywhere has a right of domicile2 it opens a window to heaven1 and is a cause of suspended animation and1 as it were1 ecstatic suicide in the heart of mortals4 ,helen passed her childhood dazed1 but with a pleasing wonder1 because she loved her brothers1 and they1 absorbed though they were habitually in their violent sports1 were tender to her4 ,when they died1 how gladly would she have followed them and become the third star with them in heaven6 ,but she found herself married to ,menelaus the king2 and this her first mansion at ,sparta1 the narrowest of citadels1 was far from happy4 ,the palace was a great farm-house1 and the talk in it was all of harvests and cattle and horses and wars4 ,the men were boors1 and their scruples about sacrifices and auguries annoyed her2 being half divine1 she felt no need for religion4 ,what advantage is it1 she said in her thoughts1 to be a queen when ,i am a prisoner1 or to be called beautiful where nobody looks at me4 ,accordingly it was with a vague hope and a secret desire for vengeance that she heard of the approach of a brilliant stranger1 from a far more populous and flourishing city than ,sparta1 who came with gifts and a glib tongue to view the wonders of the island world4 ,when his eyes fell on her1 his unfeigned surprise filled her with exultation4 ,to be so discerned1 for her1 was to be won4 ,those eyes could recognize divinity4 ,no doubt he was preparing new fetters for her and new sorrows1 but for a moment she would be free1 and in following him she would feel herself once more the goddess4 ,in fact1 so long as they sailed the dark-purple sea1 or rested in caves or in island bowers1 all was pleasantness between them4 ,their very galley1 with its white sails spread1 took on something of ,helen's beauty1 and seemed a cloud wafted across the ,aegean1 or the swan1 her father1 riding on the rippled reaches of the ,meander4 ,paris proved a candid and light-hearted lover2 never vexed1 he was all grace and mastery in small matters3 one of those lordly travellers who can feel the charm of nature and of woman in every dime1 however exotic1 however pure1 or however impure2 and the incomparable ,helen seemed indeed incomparable to his practised mind4 ,he adored her1 but he preferred other women4 ,moreover1 she found that at ,troy he counted for nothing4 ,he moved amid battles and councils1 quite at home in the scene1 but never consulted2 a prince turned shepherd1 a familiar but superfluous ornament1 like a fop or a ballet-dancer that everybody smiled upon and nobody respected4 ,it was given him in the end to slay the redoubtable ,achilles with a chance arrow1 ,apollo secretly directing the shaft1 but he was no warrior4 ,it was a useless triumph1 as his abduction of ,helen had been an innocent crime3 both were the work of gods laughing at human arrogance4 ,there were doubtless street rhetoricians in ,ilium who upbraided ,paris and ,helen1 as there are reasoning philosophers and politicians to-day who attribute the ascendancy or decay of nations to the ideas that prevail there1 forgetting to ask why those particular ideas have been embraced by those peoples1 when all ideas1 in the universal market1 are to be had gratis4 ,the wise old ,priam and his counsellors knew better4 ,they did not disown ,paris for his escapade1 as they might so easily have done1 nor did they return ,helen to her wronged husband1 useless as she was at ,troy4 ,they knew that the confused battles of earth must be fought over some nominal prize2 men and animals will always be fighting for something1 not because the thing is necessarily of any value to them1 but because they wish to snatch it from one another4 ,helen had lent her name and image to colour an ancient feud1 and make articulate the dull eternal contention between ,asia and ,europe4 ,it was for existence that each party was fighting2 but it added to their courage and self-esteem to say they were fighting for beauty1 and that the victory of their side would be a victory for the gods4 ,but the gods were in both camps1 and in neither1 as in her heart was ,helen herself4 ,in her isolation1 her conscience sometimes reproached her1 and she wondered that she never heard these reproaches from the lips of others4 ,hector and ,priam and the other old men1 even the queen and the gossiping women1 treated her with deference2 but they cared only for ,troy and for their own affairs4 ,if less beset than in her strict old home1 she was more neglected in these spacious palaces1 and no less melancholy4 ,was it a miracle of generosity that nobody blamed her1 or was it a supreme proof of indifference1 that standing in the centre of the stage she remained unheeded8 ,was she so much a goddess that they thought her a statue8 ,would she be borne away by the victors like an inert ,palladium1 to be set up elsewhere on a new pedestal8 ,she did not understand that it is not the vision that men have of the gods that works their safety or ruin1 but that fatal maladjustments1 or natural vigour in them1 in shaping their destiny1 call that vision down4 ,nor is it an idle vision2 for the sight turns the dreary length of their misery into a tragedy flashing with light and tears2 and the presence of ,helen on those beleaguered walls1 which might have irritated the foolish1 consoled the wise4 ,she was not the cause of their danger nor of their coming disaster1 as she had not been the cause of the harsh virtues of her ,spartan clan2 but as those harsh virtues had created her beauty1 so the wealth and exuberant civilization of ,ilium had recognized it1 and made it their own2 and she was a glory to both nations1 for not every city1 of all the cities that perish1 has had a queen like her4 ,when ,troy fell at last1 when ,hector and ,paris and ,priam were dead1 and ,aeneas had escaped just in time1 she waited1 impassible1 at the gate of the smoking acropolis1 neither glad nor sorry1 not ashamed to see her first husband again and his shouting friends--for she despised them--nor unwilling to be removed1 as it were1 into the evening shadow of her old queenliness4 ,something told her that in her second life at ,sparta she would be more feared and more respected2 in her advancing age and intangible isolation she would be as a priestess whom no one--not even ,menelaus--would dare to approach4 ,her crime would be her protection2 her rebellion1 proudly acknowledged and never retracted in spirit1 would lift her above all mankind4 ,even while still in this world1 she would belong to the other4 ,there is an obscure rumour that after the fall of ,troy ,helen never returned to ,sparta but was spirited away to ,egypt1 whilst a mere phantasm resembling her accompanied her dull husband back to his dull fastness by the pebbly ,eurotas4 ,this turn given to the fable hints darkly at the unearthly truth4 ,helen was a phantom always and everywhere2 so long as men fought for her1 taking her image1 as it were1 for their banner1 she presided over a most veritable and bloody battle2 but when the battle ceased of itself1 and all those heroes that had seen and idolized her were dead1 the cerulean colours of that banner faded from it2 the shreds of it rotted indistinguishably in the mire1 and the hues that had lent it for a moment its terrible magic fled back into the ether1 where wind and mist1 meteors and sunbeams1 never cease to weave them4 ,the passing of ,helen was the death of ,greece1 but ,helen herself is its immortality4 ,yet why seek to interpret the parable8 ,there is more depth of suggestion in these ancient myths than in any abstract doctrine which we may substitute for them4 ,homer and his companions certainly were not writing intentional allegories2 but they had a sense for beauty and a sense for the flux of things1 and in those two perceptions the whole philosophy of ,ideas is latent4 ,sight1 thought1 love arrest essences2 and time1 perpetually undermining the existence that brings those essences before us1 drives them1 as fast as we can arrest them1 like a sort of upward flaw1 back into heaven4 #ec ,,the ,,judgement ,,of ,,paris ,i do not conceive the ,judgement of ,paris as ,rubens has painted it3 an agricultural labourer leering at three fat women of the town who have gone into the country for a lark4 ,this disrobing of goddesses1 though there may be some ancient authority for it1 does not conform to my principles of exegesis1 and ,i pronounce it heretical4 ,goddesses cannot disrobe1 because their attributes are their substance4 ,they are like the images of the ,virgin in ,spanish churches2 if you are so ill-advised1 you may take off their crown1 their veils1 and their stiffly embroidered conical mantle2 but what will remain will not be our ,lady either of ,mercies or of ,sorrows1 but a pole1 with a doll's head and two hands attached4 ,the spell lies in the ornaments1 because they alone are symbolical and richly mysterious4 ,similarly the virtue of those pagan goddesses did not he in what each might be in herself1 either as a conscious spirit or as a beautiful titanic body endowed with free and immortal life2 their relevant virtue was tutelary1 and lay in their patronage of particular crafts or passions in man4 ,for this reason it was not absurd that they should be rivals in beauty4 ,of course in itself every nature1 celestial or even earthly1 is incomparable and perfect in its own way4 ,but goddesses may well compete for the prize of beauty in the eyes of a mortal2 it is not their persons that he sees or can see1 but their herds1 born and bred on the mountain-side1 ,arcadia is full of dirt1 hardship1 and poverty2 sunrise and sunset are heavy to them2 they fatten their sheep in order to shear and to slaughter them1 and they love a green pasture because it fattens the sheep4 ,so too the eclogues of town poets1 and the toy ,arcadias of ,versailles or of the carnival1 in their satin slippers and gilded crooks1 are a forced labour1 and tedious2 at best a new masquerade in which the jaded may continue to make love4 ,but there is a poetic ,arcadia none the less1 the real ,arcadia mirrored in a contemplative mind4 ,idle vision neither is what it looks at1 nor apes it3 it is infinitely other1 yet in looking forgets itself1 and lends its heart gladly to the spectacle4 ,paris shirked none of the labours or bestialities of the country swain2 with a semi-divine tolerance he relished those rough sports and those monotonous pipings3 anything a creature can love1 some god finds lovable4 ,he tussled with those wenches1 and the crude scent of those smoking kettles did not turn his stomach4 ,had it been less malodorous at court8 ,was there not more freedom1 more laughter1 and greater plenty here8 ,if ,paris was not a hero1 at least he was not a snob4 ,he was a truant prince1 a fop become a shepherd1 with a body and a mind capable of great things1 but doing easy things from choice4 ,in his very softness1 since it was voluntary1 there was a kind of strength1 the strength of indifference1 and freedom1 and universal derision4 ,and his cynicism was voluptuous4 ,idle vision in him gilded alike everything it saw4 ,he had chosen1 and would never lose1 possession of the ,immediate4 ,as to ,helen1 ,i have not ignored her4 ,the gods called ,paris ,alexander1 and a private oracle has revealed to me that they also had another name for ,helen1 which was ,doxa or ,epiphaneia1 that is to say1 ,glory or ,evidence or 7being otherwise interpreted7 ,seeming or ,phantom4 ,she was not substantial1 but a manifestation of something else4 ,her beauty was her all1 and what was her beauty to herself ,a myriad potential appearances wait in the intricate recesses of substance1 or in the ethereal web of lights and motions that vibrates through the infinite1 ready for the quick eye that can discern them4 ,this discernment is at once a birth and a marriage4 ,no sooner is the fair phantom called into existence than she has already leapt1 as if carried by destiny1 into her lover's arms2 for nothing can be more longed for1 or more rapturously beautiful when it appears1 than perfect evidence is to the mind4 ,and the womb of nature1 too1 in its dark fertility1 must be relieved to bring something to light at last4 ,yet this rare concourse of desires1 and this blissful marriage1 proves in the end most unhappy1 for there is sin in it4 ,as all desperate lovers1 in the absence of their true love1 embrace what best they can find1 though a false object1 so spirit which1 if not entangled in circumstance and heavy with dreams1 would embrace the truth1 must embrace appearance instead4 ,there is a momentary lyrical joy even in that1 because appearance has a being of its own2 it has form1 like ,helen1 and magic comings and goings1 like visions of the gods3 and if spirit were not incarnate and had nothing to fear or pursue1 appearance would be the only reality it would care to dwell on4 ,it was princely of ,paris to love only the ,immediate1 but it was inhuman and unwise2 and ,venus had seduced him not only to his ruin 7we must all die sooner or later7 but to his disgrace and perpetual misery4 ,a spirit lodged in time1 place1 and an animal body needs to be mindful of existence2 it needs to respect the past1 the hidden1 the ulterior4 ,it should be satisfied with what beauties are visible from its station1 and with such truths as are pertinent to its fate4 ,it should study appearance for the sake of substance4 ,but as the joy of a free spirit is in perfect evidence1 in ,doxa or ,epiphaneia1 it inevitably flouts substance and embraces appearance instead4 ,the ,rape of ,helen is this adulterous substitution1 dazzling but criminal4 #ed ,,on ,,my ,,friendly ,,critics ,now that for some years my body has not been visible in the places it used to haunt 7my mind1 even then1 being often elsewhere71 my friends in ,america have fallen into the habit of thinking me dead1 and with characteristic haste and kindness1 they are writing obituary notices1 as it were1 on my life and works4 ,some of these reach me in this other world--the friendly ones1 which their authors send me--and without the aid of any such stratagem as ,swift's1 ,i have the strange pleasure of laughing at my own epitaphs4 ,it is not merely the play of vanity that enters into this experience1 nor the occasional excuse for being unfair in return2 there comes with it a genuine discovery of the general balance of one's character4 ,a man has unrivalled knowledge of the details of his life and feelings1 but it is hard for him to compose his personage as it appears in the comedy of the world1 or in the eyes of other people4 ,it is not true that contemporaries misjudge a man4 ,competent contemporaries judge him perfectly1 much better than posterity1 which is composed of critics no less egotistical and obliged to rely exclusively on documents easily misinterpreted4 ,the contemporary can read more safely between the lines2 and if the general public often misjudges the men of its own time1 the general public hears little of them4 ,it is guided by some party tag or casual association1 by the malignity or delusion of some small coterie that has caught its ear3 how otherwise should it judge ideas it has not grasped and people it has not seen8 ,but public opinion is hardly better informed about the past than about the present1 and histories are only newspapers published long after the fact4 ,as to my person1 my critics are very gentle1 and ,i am sensible of the kindness1 or the diffidence1 with which they treat me4 ,i do not mind being occasionally denounced for atheism1 conceit1 or detachment4 ,one has to be oneself2 and so long as the facts are not misrepresented--and ,i have little to complain of on that score--any judgement based upon them is a two-edged sword3 people simply condemn what condemns them4 ,i can always say to myself that my atheism1 like that of ,spinoza1 is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image1 to be servants of their human interests2 and that even in this denial ,i am no rude iconoclast1 but full of secret sympathy with the impulses of idolaters4 ,my detachment from things and persons is also affectionate1 and simply what the ancients called philosophy3 ,i consent that a flowing river should flow2 ,i renounce that which betrays1 and cling to that which satisfies1 and ,i relish the irony of truth2 but my security in my own happiness is not indifference to that of others3 ,i rejoice that every one should have his tastes and his pleasures4 ,that ,i am conceited1 it would be folly to deny3 what artist1 what thinker1 what parent does not overestimate his own offspring8 ,can ,i suppress an irresistible sense of seeing things clearly1 and a keen delight in so seeing them8 ,frankly1 ,i think these attitudes of mine are justified by the facts2 but ,i entirely understand how offensive they must be to any one who thinks they are not justified1 or who fears that they may be4 ,let the irritant work4 ,the arrows of anger miss their mark4 ,aimed at some imaginary evil bird in the heavens1 they scarcely startle the poet wandering in his dell4 ,he hears them pass over his head and bury their venom far away in the young grass4 ,far away too his friends are designing his vain cenotaph1 and inscribing it with seemly words in large capitals4 ,on the other hand1 in respect to my impersonal opinions1 ,i notice a little bewilderment1 and some obtuseness4 ,of course1 if people are repelled by the subject or by the manner 7which is an integral part of the thought7 and find it all unintelligible1 that is no fault of theirs1 nor of mine2 but ,i speak of the initiated and of such as are willing to lend their minds to my sort of lucubration4 ,for instance1 when more than twenty years ago1 ,i wrote some ,interpretations of ,poetry and ,religion1 this is what ,william ,james said of them3 ,what a perfection of rottenness 444 how fantastic a philosophy6--as if the 'world of values' were independent of existence4 ,it is only as being that one thing is better than another4 ,the idea of darkness is as good as that of light1 as ideas4 ,there is more value in light's being4 ,william ,james was a radical empiricist1 so that for him the being of light could not have meant anything except its being in idea1 in experience4 ,the fantastic view must therefore be some other2 apparently that in the realm of unrealized essences1 apart from any observer1 one essence can be better than another4 ,but how could any one attribute such a view to me8 ,the whole contention of my book was that the glow of human emotion lent a value to good poetry which it denied to bad1 and to one idea of ,god which it denied to another4 ,my position in this matter was that of empirical philosophy1 and of ,william ,james himself4 ,in his book on ,pragmatism he says that the being of atoms is just as good as the being of ,god1 if both produce the same effects in human experience2 and ,i remember once mildly protesting to him on that point1 and asking him if1 apart from these effects on us1 the existence of ,god1 assuming ,god to be conscious1 would not have a considerable value in itself2 and he replied1 ,of course2 but ,i was thinking of our idea4 ,this was exactly the attitude of my book2 ,i was thinking of our religious and poetic ideas1 and reducing their value to what they stood for in the elements of our experience1 or in our destiny4 ,i think ,i see1 however1 where the trouble lies4 ,the practical intellect conceives everything as a source of influence4 ,whether it be matter or other people1 or tutelary spirits1 that which we envisage in action and passion is not our idea of these objects1 but their operation on us1 or our operation on them4 ,now a source of influence cannot be non-existent4 ,accordingly1 what concerns earnest people in their religion is something1 they know not what1 which is real4 ,they are not interested in forming poetic or dramatic pictures of the gods1 as the ,greeks did in their mythology1 but rather in finding a living ,god to help them1 as even the ,greeks did in their home cultus and their oracles4 ,this living ,god1 since he is to operate and to be worked upon1 must exist2 otherwise the whole practice of religion becomes a farce4 ,so also in love or in science1 it would be egotistical and affected to gloat on our own ideal1 turning our backs on the adorable person or the natural process before us4 ,it is the danger of empirical and critical philosophy1 that it turns our attention stubbornly to the subjective3 legitimately1 ,i think1 if the purpose is merely to study the growth and logic of our beliefs1 but illegitimately1 if the purpose is malicious1 and if it is assumed that once we have understood how our beliefs are formed we shall abandon them and believe nothing4 ,empiricism and idealism are1 as ,kant called them1 excellent cathartics1 but they are nasty food2 and if we try to build them up into a system of the universe the effort is not only self-contradictory 7because we ought then to possess only ideas without beliefs7 but the result is1 in the words of ,william ,james1 fantastic and rotten4 ,now1 however much ,i may have studied the human imagination1 ,i have never doubted that even highly imaginative things1 like poetry and religion1 express real events1 if not in the outer world1 at least in the inner growth or discipline of life4 ,like the daily experience of the senses and like the ideas of science1 they form a human language1 all the terms of which are poetical and its images dream-images1 but which symbolizes things and events beyond it and is controlled from outside4 ,this would be perfectly evident to any other animal who should discover how men see the world or what they think of it3 why should we be less intelligent than any other animal would be about ourselves8 ,enlightenment consists in coming nearer and nearer to the natural objects that lend a practical meaning to our mental discourse2 and when the material significance of our dreams is thus discovered1 we are lost in admiration at the originality1 humour1 and pictorial grandeur of the imagery in which our experience comes to us1 as we might be at the decorative marvels of tapestry or of stained glass3 but now without illusion4 ,for we can now discriminate the rhythms and colour proper to our mental atmosphere from the extrinsic value of discourse as a sign for things and events beyond it4 ,these external things and events make up what we call nature4 ,it is nature1 or some part of nature1 or some movement of nature occurring within us or affecting us1 that is the true existent object of religion1 of science1 and of love4 ,the rest is a mere image4 ,my naturalism is sometimes taxed with being dogmatic1 and if ,i were anxious to avoid that reproach1 ,i might easily reduce my naturalism to a definition and say that if experience has any sources whatever1 the sum and system of these sources shall be called nature4 ,i know what speculative difficulties cluster about the notion of cause1 which in one sense is quite unnecessary to science2 but so long as time1 process1 and derivation are admitted at all1 events may be traced back to earlier events which were their sources2 and this universal flax of events will be called nature4 ,any existing persons1 and any gods exercising power1 will evidently be parts of nature4 ,but ,i am not concerned to avoid dogmatism on such a point4 ,every assertion about existence is hazarded1 it rests on animal faith1 not on logical proof2 and every argument to support naturalism1 or to rebut it1 implies naturalism4 ,to deny that there are any facts 7if scepticism can be carried so far7 is still to dogmatize1 no less than it would be to point to some fact in particular2 in either case we descend into the arena of existence1 which may betray our confidence4 ,any fact is an existence which discourse plays about and regards1 but does not create4 ,it is the essence of the practical intellect to prophesy about nature1 and we must all do it ,as to the truth of our prophecy1 that is always problematical1 because nature is whatever nature happens to be2 and as to our knowledge1 starting as it does from a single point1 the present position of the thinker1 and falling away rapidly in dearness and certainty as the perspective recedes1 it cannot pretend to draw the outlines of nature a priori3 yet our knowledge of nature1 in our neighbourhood and moral climate1 is very considerable1 since every known fact is a part of nature4 ,it is quite idle to deny1 for instance1 that human life depends on cosmic and hygienic influences2 or that in the end all human operations must run back somehow to the rotation of the earth1 to the rays of the sun1 to the moisture and fructification of the soil1 to the ferment there of vegetative and dreaming spirits1 quickened in animals endowed with locomotion into knowledge of surrounding things3 whence the passionate imaginations which we find in ourselves4 ,i know that things might have been arranged otherwise2 and some of those alternative worlds may be minutely thought out in myth or in philosophy1 in obedience to some dialectical or moral impulse of the human mind2 but that all those other worlds are figments of fancy1 interesting as poetry is interesting1 and that only the natural world1 the world of medicine and commerce1 is actual1 is obvious2 so obvious to every man in his sane moments1 that ,i have always thought it idle to argue the point4 ,argument is not persuasive to madmen2 but they can be won over by gentler courses to a gradual docility to the truth4 ,one of these gentler courses is this3 to remember that madness is human1 that dreams have their springs in the depths of human nature and of human experience2 and that the illusion they cause may be kindly and even gloriously dispelled by showing what the solid truth was which they expressed allegorically4 ,why should one be angry with dreams1 with myth1 with allegory1 with madness8 ,we must not kill the mind1 as some rationalists do1 in trying to cure it4 ,the life of reason1 as ,i conceive it1 is simply the dreaming mind becoming coherent1 devising symbols and methods1 such as languages1 by which it may fitly survey its own career1 and the forces of nature on which that career depends4 ,reason thereby raises our vegetative dream into a poetic revelation and transcript of the truth4 ,that all this life of expression grows up in animals living in the material world is the deliverance of reason itself1 in our lucid moments2 but my books1 being descriptive of the imagination and having perhaps some touches of imagination in them1 may not seem to have expressed my lucid moments alone4 ,they were1 however1 intended to do so2 and ,i ought to have warned my readers more often that such was the case4 ,i have no metaphysics1 and in that sense ,i am no philosopher1 but a poor ignoramus trusting what he hears from the men of science4 ,i rely on them to discover gradually exactly which elements in their description of nature may be literally true1 and which merely symbolical3 even if they were all symbolical1 they would be true enough for me4 ,my naturalism is not at all afraid of the latest theories of space1 time1 or matter3 what ,i understand of them1 ,i like1 and am ready to believe1 for ,i am a follower of ,plato in his doctrine that only knowledge of ideas 7if we call it knowledge7 can be literal and exact1 whilst practical knowledge is necessarily mythical in form1 precisely because its object exists and is external to us4 ,an arbitrary sign1 indication1 or name can point to something unambiguously1 without at all fathoming its nature1 and therefore can be knowledge of fact3 which an aesthetic or logical elucidation of ideas can never be4 ,every idea of sense or science is a summary sign1 on a different plane and scale altogether from the diffuse material facts which it covers3 one unexampled colour for many rays1 one indescribable note for many vibrations1 one picture for many particles of paint1 one word for a series of noises or letters4 ,a word is a very ,platonic thing3 you cannot say when it begins1 when it ends1 how long it lasts1 nor where it ever is2 and yet it is the only unit you mean to utter1 or normally hear4 ,platonism is the intuition of essences in the presence of things1 in order to describe them3 it is mind itself4 ,i am quite happy in this human ignorance mitigated by pictures1 for it yields practical security and poetic beauty3 what more can a sane man want8 ,in this respect ,i think sometimes ,i am the only philosopher living3 ,i am resigned to being a mind4 ,i have put my hand into the hand of nature1 and a thrill of sympathy has passed from her into my very heart1 so that ,i can instinctively see all things1 and see myself1 from her point of view3 a sympathy which emboldens me often to say to her1 ,mother1 tell me a story4 ,not the fair ,sheherazad herself knew half the marvellous tales that nature spins in the brains of her children4 ,but ,i must not let go her hand in my wonder1 or ,i might be bewitched and lost in the maze of her inventions4 ,a workman must not quarrel with his tools1 nor the mind with ideas2 and ,i have little patience with those philanthropists who hate everything human1 and would reform away everything that men love or can love4 ,yet if we dwell too lovingly on the human quality and poetic play of ideas1 we may forget that they are primarily signs4 ,the practical intellect is always on the watch for ambient existences1 in order to fight or to swallow them3 and if by chance its attention is arrested at an idea1 it will instinctively raise that idea to the throne of power which should be occupied only by the thing which it stands for and poetically describes4 ,ideas lend themselves to idolatry4 ,there is a continual incidental deception into which we are betrayed by the fictitious and symbolical terms of our knowledge1 in that we suppose these terms to form the whole essence of their objects4 ,i think ,i have never failed to point out this danger of illusion1 and to protest against idolatry in thought1 so much more frequent and dangerous than the worship of stocks and stones2 but at the same time1 as such idolatry is almost inevitable1 and as the fictions so deified often cover some true force or harmony in nature1 ,i have sometimes been tempted in my heart to condone this illusion4 ,in my youth it seemed as if a scientific philosophy was unattainable2 human life1 ,i thought1 was at best a dream1 and if we were not the dupes of one error1 we should be the dupes of another2 and whilst of course the critic must make this mental reservation in all his assents1 it was perhaps too much to ask mankind to do so2 so that in practice we were condemned to overlook the deceptiveness of fable1 because there would be less beauty and no more truth in whatever theory might take its place4 ,i think now that this despair of finding a scientific philosophy was premature1 and that the near future may actually produce one3 not that its terms will be less human and symbolical than those to which we are accustomed1 but that they may hug more closely the true movement and the calculable order of nature4 ,the truth1 though it must be expressed in language1 is not for that reason a form of error4 ,no doubt the popularizers of science will turn its language into a revelation1 and its images into idols2 but the abstract character of these symbols will render it easier for the judicious to preserve the distinction between the things to be described and the science which describes them4 ,was it1 ,i wonder1 this touch of sympathy with splendid error1 bred in me by long familiarity with religion and philosophy1 that offended my honest critics8 ,now that ,i show less sympathy with it1 will they be better satisfied8 ,i fear the opposite is the case4 ,what they resented was rather that in spite of all my sympathy1 and of all my despair about science1 it never occurred to me to think those errors true1 because they were splendid1 except true to the soul4 ,did they expect that ,i should seriously debate whether the ,ghost in ,hamlet really came out of ,purgatorial fires1 and whether ,athena really descended in her chariot from ,olympus and pulled ,achilles by his yellow hair when he was in danger of doing something rash8 ,frankly1 ,i have assumed--perhaps prematurely--that such questions are settled4 ,i am not able nor willing to write a system of magic cosmology1 nor to propose a new religion4 ,i merely endeavour to interpret1 as sympathetically and imaginatively as ,i can1 the religion and poetry already familiar to us2 and ,i interpret them1 of course1 on their better side1 not as childish science1 but as subtle creations of hope1 tenderness1 and ignorance4 ,so anxious was ,i1 when younger1 to find some rational justification for poetry and religion1 and to show that their magic was significant of true facts1 that ,i insisted too much1 as ,i now think1 on the need of relevance to fact even in poetry4 ,not only did ,i distinguish good religion from bad by its expression of practical wisdom1 and of the moral discipline that makes for happiness in this world1 but ,i maintained that the noblest poetry also must express the moral burden of life and must be rich in wisdom4 ,age has made me less exacting1 and ,i can now find quite sufficient perfection in poetry1 like that of the ,chinese and ,arabians1 without much philosophic scope1 in mere grace and feeling and music and cloud-castles and frolic4 ,i assumed formerly that an idea could have depth and richness only if somehow redolent of former experiences of an overt kind4 ,i had been taught to assign no substance to the mind1 but to conceive it as a system of successive ideas1 the later ones mingling with a survival of the earlier1 and forming a cumulative experience1 like a swelling musical movement4 ,now1 without ceasing to conceive mental discourse in that way1 ,i have learned1 with the younger generation1 to rely more on the substructure1 on the material and psychical machinery that puts this conscious show on the stage1 and pulls the wires4 ,not that ,i ever denied or really doubted that this substructure existed1 but that ,i thought it a more prudent and critical method in philosophy not to assume it4 ,certainly it is a vast assumption2 but ,i see now an irony in scepticism which ,i did not see when ,i was more fervid a sceptic2 namely1 that in addressing anybody1 or even myself1 ,i have already made that assumption2 and that if ,i tried to rescind it1 ,i should only be making another1 no less gratuitous1 and far more extravagant2 ,i should be assuming that the need of making this assumption was a fatal illusion1 rather than a natural revelation of the existence of an environment to a living animal4 ,this environment has been called the unknowable1 the unconscious and the subconscious--egotistical and absurd names for it1 as if its essence was the difficulty we have in approaching it4 ,its proper names are matter1 substance1 nature1 or soul2 and ,i hope people will learn again to call it by those old names4 ,when living substance is thus restored beneath the surface of experience1 there is no longer any reason for assuming that the first song of a bird may not be infinitely rich and as deep as heaven1 if it utters the vital impulses of that moment with enough completeness4 ,the analogies of this utterance with other events1 or its outlying suggestions1 whilst they may render it more intelligible to a third person1 would not add much to its inward force and intrinsic beauty4 ,its lyric adequacy1 though of course not independent of nature1 would be independent of wisdom4 ,if besides being an adequate expression of the soul1 the song expressed the lessons of a broad experience1 which that soul had gathered and digested1 this fact certainly would lend a great tragic sublimity to that song2 but to be poetical or religious intrinsically1 the mystic cry is enough4 ,i notice that men of the world1 when they dip into my books1 find them consistent1 almost oppressively consistent1 and to the ladies everything is crystal--clear2 yet the philosophers say that it is lazy and self-indulgent of me not to tell them plainly what ,i think1 if ,i know myself what it is4 ,because ,i describe madness sympathetically1 because ,i lose myself in the dreaming mind1 and see the world from that transcendental point of vantage1 while at the same time interpreting that dream by its presumable motives and by its moral tendencies1 these quick and intense reasoners suppose that ,i am vacillating in my own opinions4 ,my own opinions are a minor matter1 and there was usually no need1 for the task in hand1 that ,i should put them forward2 yet as a matter of fact1 since ,i reached the age of manhood1 they have not changed4 ,in my adolescence ,i thought this earthly life 7not unintelligibly1 considering what ,i had then seen and heard of it7 a most hideous thing1 and ,i was not disinclined to dismiss it as an illusion1 for which perhaps the ,catholic epic might be substituted to advantage1 as conforming better to the impulses of the soul2 and later ,i liked to regard all systems as alternative illusions for the solipsist2 but neither solipsism nor ,catholicism were ever anything to me but theoretic poses or possibilities2 vistas for the imagination1 never convictions4 ,i was well aware1 as ,i am still1 that any such vista may be taken for true1 because all dreams are persuasive while they last2 and ,i have not lost1 nor do ,i wish to lose1 a certain facility and pleasure in taking those points of view at will1 and speaking those philosophical languages4 ,but though as a child ,i regretted the fact and now ,i hugely enjoy it1 ,i have never been able to elude the recurring1 invincible1 and ironic conviction that whenever ,i or any other person feign to be living in any of those non-natural worlds1 we are simply dreaming awake4 ,in general1 ,i think my critics attribute to me more illusions than ,i have4 ,my dogmatism may be a fault of temper or manner1 because ,i dislike to stop to qualify or to explain everything2 but in principle it is raised more diffidently and on a deeper scepticism than most of the systems which are called critical4 ,my essences1 for instance1 are blamed for being gratuitous inventions or needless abstractions4 ,but essences appear precisely when all inventions are rescinded and the irreducible manifest datum is disclosed4 ,i do not ask any one to believe in essences4 ,i ask them to reject every belief1 and what they will have on their hands1 if they do so1 will be some essence4 ,and if1 believing nothing1 they could infinitely enlarge their imagination1 the whole realm of essence would loom before them4 ,this realm is no discovery of mine2 it has been described1 for instance1 by ,leibniz in two different ways2 once as the collection of all possible worlds1 and again as the abyss of non-existence1 le nant1 of which he says3 ,the non-existent 444 is infinite1 it is eternal1 it has a great many of the attributes of ,god2 it contains an infinity of things1 since all those things which do not exist at all are included in the non-existent1 and those which no longer exist have returned to the non-existent4 ,it suffices1 therefore1 that we deny a thing for us to recognize an essence1 if we know at all what we are denying4 ,and the essence before us1 whether we assert or deny its existence1 is certainly no abstraction2 for there is no other datum1 more individual or more obvious1 from which the abstraction could be drawn4 ,the difficulty in discerning essences is simply the very real difficulty which the practical intellect has in abstaining from belief1 and from everywhere thinking it finds much more than is actually given4 ,profound scepticism is favourable to conventions1 because it doubts that the criticism of conventions is any truer than they are4 ,fervent believers look for some system of philosophy or religion that shall be literally true and worthy of superseding the current assumptions of daily life4 ,i look for no such thing4 ,never for a moment can ,i bring myself to regard a human system--a piece of mental discourse--as more than a system of notation1 sometimes picturesque1 sometimes abstract and mathematical4 ,scientific symbols1 terms in which calculation is possible1 may replace poetic symbols1 which merely catch echoes of the senses or make up dramatic units out of appearances in the gross4 ,but the most accurate scientific system would still be only a method of description1 and the actual facts would continue to rejoice in their own ways of being4 ,the relevance and truth of science1 like the relevance and truth of sense1 are pragmatic1 in that they mark the actual relations1 march1 and distribution of events1 in the terms in which they enter our experience4 ,in moral philosophy 7which is my chosen subject7 ,i find my unsophisticated readers1 as ,i found my pupils formerly1 delightfully appreciative1 warmly sympathetic1 and altogether friends of mine in the spirit4 ,it is a joy1 like that of true conversation1 to look and laugh and cry at the world so unfeignedly together4 ,but the other philosophers1 and those whose religion is of the anxious and intolerant sort1 are not at all pleased4 ,they think my morality very loose3 ,i am a friend of publicans and sinners1 not 7as they are7 in zeal to reform them1 but because ,i like them as they are2 and indeed ,i am a pagan and a moral sceptic in my naturalism4 ,on the other hand 7and this seems a contradiction to them71 my moral philosophy looks strangely negative and narrow2 a philosophy of abstention and distaste for life4 ,what a horrible combination1 they say to themselves1 of moral licence with moral poverty6 ,they do not see that it is because ,i love life that ,i wish to keep it sweet1 so as to be able to love it altogether3 and that all ,i wish for others1 or dare to recommend to them1 is that they should keep their lives sweet also1 not after my fashion1 but each man in his own way4 ,i talk a great deal about the good and the ideal1 having learned from ,plato and ,aristotle 7since the living have never shown me how to live7 that1 granting a human nature to which to appeal1 the good and the ideal may be defined with some accuracy4 ,of course1 they cannot be defined immutably1 because human nature is not immutable2 and they cannot be defined in such a way as to be transferred without change from one race or person to another1 because human nature is various4 ,yet any reflective and honest man1 in expressing his hopes and preferences1 may expect to find many of his neighbours agreeing with him1 and when they agree1 they may work politically together4 ,now ,i am sometimes blamed for not labouring more earnestly to bring down the good of which ,i prate into the lives of other men4 ,my critics suppose1 apparently1 that ,i mean by the good some particular way of life or some type of character which is alone virtuous1 and which ought to be propagated4 ,alas1 their propagandas6 ,how they have fined this world with hatred1 darkness1 and blood6 ,how they are still the eternal obstacle1 in every home and in every heart1 to a simple happiness6 ,i have no wish to propagate any particular character1 least of all my own2 my conceit does not take that form4 ,i wish individuals1 and races1 and nations to be themselves1 and to multiply the forms of perfection and happiness1 as nature prompts them4 ,the only thing which ,i think might be propagated without injustice to the types thereby suppressed is harmony2 enough harmony to prevent the interference of one type with another1 and to allow the perfect development of each type4 ,the good1 as ,i conceive it1 is happiness1 happiness for each man after his own heart1 and for each hour according to its inspiration4 ,i should dread to transplant my happiness into other people2 it might die in that soil2 and my critics are the first to tell me that my sort of happiness is a poor thing in their estimation4 ,well and good4 ,i congratulate them on their true loves3 but how should ,i be able to speed them on their course8 ,they do not place their happiness in the things ,i have1 or can give4 ,no man can set up an ideal for another1 nor labour to realise it for him1 save by his leave or as his spokesman1 perhaps more ready with the right word4 ,to find the comparatively right word1 my critics seem to agree1 is my art4 ,do ,i not practise it for their benefit as best ,i can8 ,is it ,i who am indifferent to the being of light8 ,who loves it more1 or basks in it more joyfully8 ,and do ,i do nothing that the light may come8 ,is it ,i who tremble lest at its coming it should dissolve the creatures begotten in darkness8 ,ah1 ,i know why my critics murmur and are dissatisfied4 ,i do not endeavour to deceive myself1 nor to deceive them1 nor to aid them in deceiving themselves4 ,they will never prevail on me to do that4 ,i am a disciple of ,socrates4 #ee ,,hermes ,,the ,,interpreter ,a traveller should be devout to ,hermes1 and ,i have always loved him above the other gods for that charming union which is found in him of youth with experience1 alacrity with prudence1 modesty with laughter1 and a ready tongue with a sound heart4 ,in him the first bubblings of mockery subside at once into courtesy and helpfulness4 ,he is the winged ,figaro of ,olympus1 willing to yield to others in station and to pretend to serve them1 but really wiser and happier than any of them4 ,there is a certain roguery in him1 and the habit of winking at mischief4 ,he has a great gift for dissertation1 and his abundant eloquence1 always unimpeachable in form and in point1 does not hug the truth so closely as pious people might expect in a god who1 as they say sagaciously1 can have no motive for lying4 ,but gods do not need motives4 ,the lies of ,hermes are jests2 they represent things as they might have been1 and serve to show what a strange accident the truth is4 ,the reproach which ,virgil addresses to his ,juno1 ,such malignity in minds celestial8 could never apply to this amiable divinity1 who1 if he is a rascal at all 7which ,i do not admit71 is a disinterested rascal4 ,he has given no pawns to fortune1 he is not a householder1 he is not pledged against his will to any cause4 ,homer tells us that ,hermes was a thief2 but the beauty of mythology is that every poet can recast it according to his own insight and sense of propriety2 as1 in fact1 our solemn theologians do also1 although they pretend that their theology is a science1 and are not wide awake enough to notice the dreamful1 dramatic impulse which leads them to construct it4 ,now1 in my vision1 the thievery of ,hermes1 and the fact that he was the patron of robbers1 merchants1 rhetoricians1 and liars1 far from being unworthy of his divine nature1 are a superb and humorous expression of it4 ,he did not steal the cattle of ,apollo for profit4 ,apollo himself--a most exquisite young god--did not give a fig for his cattle nor for his rustic employment2 in adopting it he was doing a kind turn to a friend1 or had a love-lorn scheme or a wager afoot1 or merely wished for the moment to be idyllic4 ,it was a pleasant scherzo 7after the andante which he played in the heavens1 in his capacity of sun-god and inspirer of all prophets7 to lean gracefully here on his herdsman's staff1 or to lie under a tuft of trees on some mossy hillock1 in the midst of his pasturing kine1 and to hold the poor peeping dryads spellbound by the operatic marvels of his singing4 ,in purloining those oxen1 ,hermes1 who was a very little boy at the time1 simply wanted to mock these affectations of his long-haired elder brother2 and ,apollo1 truly an enraptured artist and not a prig1 and invulnerable like ,hermes in his godlike freedom1 did not in the least mind the practical joke1 nor the ridicule1 but was the first to join in the laugh4 ,when ,hermes consents to be the patron of thieves and money-lenders it is in the same spirit4 ,standing1 purse in hand1 in his little shrine above their dens1 he smiles as if to remind them that everything is trash which mortals can snatch from one another by thieving or bargaining1 and that the purpose of all their voyages1 and fairs1 and high-way robberies is a bauble1 such as the dirty children playing in the street set up as a counter in their game4 ,but ,hermes is not impatient even of the gutter-snipes1 with their cries and their shrill quarrels4 ,he laughs at their grimaces2 their jests do not seem emptier to him than those of their elders2 he is not offended at their rags1 but sends sleep to them as they lie huddled under some archway or stretched in the sun upon the temple steps4 ,he presides no less benignly over thieves' kitchens and over the shipyards and counting-houses of traders2 not that he cares at all who makes the profit or who hoards the treasure1 but that sagacity and the hum of business are delightful to him in themselves4 ,he likes to cull the passion and sparkle out of the most sordid life1 and the confused rumble of civilization is pleasant to his senses1 like a sweet vapour rising from the evening sacrifice4 ,his admirable temper and mastery of soul appear in nothing more clearly than in his love-affair with the beautiful ,maia4 ,she is ill-spoken of1 but he is very1 very fond of her1 and deeply happy in her love4 ,it is a secret relation1 although everybody has heard of it2 but the nymph is a mystery2 in fact1 although everybody has seen her at one time or another1 no one has ever known then that it was she4 ,hermes alone recognizes and loves her in her own person1 and calls her by her name2 but privately4 ,sometimes1 with that indiscretion and over-familiarity which the young allow themselves in their cups1 his brothers ask him where he meets her2 and he only smiles a little and is silent4 ,she is said to be a wild unmanageable being1 half maenad and half shrew2 a waif always appearing and disappearing without any reason1 and in her fitful temper at once exacting and tedious4 ,her eyes are sometimes blue and sometimes black1 like heaven4 ,empty-headed and too gay1 some people think her2 but others understand that she is constitutionally melancholy and quite mad4 ,they say she often sits alone1 hardly distinguishable in the speckled sunshine of the forest1 or else by the sea1 spreading her hair to the wind and moaning3 and then ,hermes flies to her and comforts her1 for she is an exile everywhere and he is everywhere at home4 ,it is rumoured that in the ,east she has had a great position1 and has been ,queen of the ,universe2 but in ,europe she has no settled metaphysical status1 and it is not known whether she is really a goddess1 mistress over herself1 or only a fay or a phantom at other people's beck and call2 and she has nowhere any temple or rustic sanctuary or respectable oracle4 ,moreover1 she has inexpressibly shocked the virtuous1 who think so much of genealogy1 by saying1 as is reported1 that she has no idea who is the father of her children4 ,hermes laughs merrily at this1 calling it one of her harmless sallies1 which she indulges in simply because they occur to her1 and because she likes to show her independence and to flout the sober censors of this world4 ,he is perfectly confident she has never had any wooer but himself1 nor would dream of accepting any other4 ,even with him she is always reverting to stubborn refusals and denials and calling him names2 but when the spitfire is raging most angrily1 he has only to gaze at her steadily and throw his arm gaily about her1 as much as to say1 ,don't be a fool1 for her to be instantly mollified and confess that it was all make-believe1 but that she couldn't help it4 ,then it is wonderful how reasonable she becomes1 how perfectly trustful and frank1 so that no companion could be more deeply delightful4 ,she is as light as a feather1 then1 in his arms4 ,the truth is1 she lives only for him2 she really has no children1 only young sisters who are also more or less in love with him and he with them2 and she sleeps her whole life long in his absence4 ,in all those strange doings and wanderings reported of her she is only walking in her sleep4 ,the approach of ,hermes awakes her and lends her life--the only life she has4 ,her true name is ,illusion2 and it is very characteristic of him1 so rich in pity1 merriment1 and shrewdness1 to have chosen this poor child1 ,illusion1 for his love4 ,hermes is the great interpreter1 the master of riddles4 ,i should not honour him for his skill in riddles if ,i thought he invented them wantonly1 because he liked to puzzle himself with them1 or to reduce other people to a foolish perplexity without cause4 ,i hate enigmas2 and if ,i believed that ,hermes was the inspirer of those odious persons who are always asking conundrums and making puns ,i should renounce him altogether1 break his statue1 turn his picture to the wall1 and devote myself exclusively to the cult of some sylvan deity1 all silence and simple light4 ,but ,i am sure ,hermes loves riddles only because they are no riddles to him2 he is never caught in the tangle1 and he laughs to see how unnecessarily poor opinionated mortals befool themselves1 wilfully following any devious scent once they are on it by chance1 and missing the obvious for ever4 ,he gives them what sly hints he can to break the spell of their blindness2 but they are so wedded to their false preconceptions that they do not understand him1 and are only the more perplexed4 ,sometimes1 however1 they take the hint1 their wit grows nimble1 their thoughts catch fire1 and insight1 solving every idle riddle1 harmonizes the jarring cords of the mind4 ,the wand of ,hermes has serpents wound about it1 but is capped with wings1 so that at its touch the sting and the coil of care may vanish1 and that we may be freed from torpor and dull enchantment1 and may see1 as the god does1 how foolish we are4 ,all these mysteries that befog us are not mysteries really2 they are the mother-tongue of nature4 ,rustics1 and also philosophers1 think that any language but theirs is gibberish2 they are sorry for the stranger who can speak only an unintelligible language1 and are sure he will be damned unless the truth is preached to him speedily by some impertinent missionary from their own country4 ,they even argue with nature1 trying to convince her that she cannot move1 or cannot think1 or cannot have more dimensions than those of their understanding4 ,oh for a touch of the healing wand of ,hermes the ,interpreter1 that we might understand the language of the birds and the stars1 and1 laughing first at what they say of us1 might then see our image in the mirror of infinity1 and laugh at ourselves6 ,here is a kindly god indeed1 humane though superhuman1 friendly though inviolate1 who does not preach1 who does not threaten1 who does not lay new1 absurd1 or morose commands on our befuddled souls1 but who unravels1 who relieves1 who shows us the innocence of the things we hated and the clearness of the things we frowned on or denied4 ,he interprets us to the gods1 and they accept us2 he interprets us to one another1 and we perceive that the foreigner1 too1 spoke a plain language3 happy he if he was wise in his own tongue4 ,it is for the divine herald alone to catch the meaning of all1 without subduing his merry voice to any dialect of mortals4 ,he mocks our stammerings and forgives them2 and when we say anything to the purpose1 and reach any goal which1 however wantonly1 we had proposed to ourselves1 he applauds and immensely enjoys our little achievement2 for it is inspired by him and like his own4 ,may he be my guide3 and not in this world only1 in which the way before me seems to descend gently1 quite straight and clear1 towards an unruffled sea2 but at the frontiers of eternity let him receive my spirit1 reconciling it1 by his gracious greeting1 to what had been its destiny4 ,for he is the friend of the shades also1 and makes the greatest interpretation of all1 that of life into truth1 translating the swift words of time into the painted language of eternity4 ,that is for the dead2 but for living men1 whose feet must move forward whilst their eyes see only backward1 he interprets the past to the future1 for its guidance and ornament4 ,often1 too1 he bears news to his father and brothers in ,olympus1 concerning any joyful or beautiful thing that is done on earth1 lest they should despise or forget it4 ,in that fair inventory and chronicle of happiness let my love of him be remembered4