FANCIES VERSUS FADS
BY G. K. CHESTERTON
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923, By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY BOOK MANUFACTURERS RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION THE ROMANCE OF RHYME HAMLET AND THE PSYCHO-ANALYST THE MEANING OF MOCK TURKEY SHAKESPEARE AND THE LEGAL LADY ON BEING AN OLD BEAN THE FEAR OF THE FILM WINGS AND THE HOUSEMAID THE SLAVERY OF FREE VERSE PROHIBITION AND THE PRESS THE MERCY OF MR. ARNOLD BENNETT A DEFENCE OF DRAMATIC UNITIES THE BOREDOM OF BUTTERFLIES THE TERROR OF A TOY FALSE THEORY AND THE THEATRE THE SECRET SOCIETY OF MANKIND THE SENTIMENTALISM OF DIVORCE STREET CRIES AND STRETCHING THE LAW WHY REFORMS GO WRONG THE INNOCENCE OF THE CRIMINAL THE PRUDERY OF THE FEMINISTS HOW MAD LAWS ARE MADE THE PAGODA OF PROGRESS THE MYTH OF THE “MAYFLOWER” MUCH TOO MODERN HISTORY THE EVOLUTION OF SLAVES IS DARWIN DEAD? TURNING INSIDE OUT STRIKES AND THE SPIRIT OF WONDER A NOTE ON OLD NONSENSE MILTON AND MERRY ENGLAND
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INTRODUCTION
I HAVE strung these things together on a slight enough thread; but as the things themselves are slight, it is possible that the thread (and the metaphor) may manage to hang together. These notes range over very variegated topics and in many cases were made at very different times. They concern all sorts of things from lady barristers to cave-men, and from psycho-analysis to free verse. Yet they have this amount of unity in their wandering, that they all imply that it is only a more traditional spirit that is truly able to wander. The wild theorists of our time are quite unable to wander. When they talk of making new roads, they are only making new ruts. Each of them is necessarily imprisoned in his own curious cosmos; in other words, he is limited by the very largeness of his own generalization. The explanations of the Marxian must not go outside economics; and the student of Freud is forbidden to forget sex. To see only the fanciful side of these serious sects may seem a very frivolous pleasure—and I will not dispute that these are very frivolous criticisms. I only submit that this frivolity is the last lingering form of freedom.
In short the note of these notes, so to speak, is that it is only from a normal standpoint that all the nonsense of the world takes on something of the wild interest of wonderland. I mean it is only in the mirror of a very moderate sense and sanity, which is all I have ever claimed to possess, that even insanities can appear as images clear enough to appeal to the imagination. After all, the ordinary orthodox person is he to whom the heresies can appear as fantasies. After all, it is we ordinary human and humdrum people who can enjoy eccentricity as a sort of elfland; while the eccentrics are too serious even to know that they are elves. When a man tells us that he disapproves of children being told fairy tales, it is we who can perceive that he is himself a fairy. He himself has not the least idea of it. When he says he would discourage children from playing with tin soldiers, because it is militarism, it is we and not he who can enjoy in fancy the fantastic possibilities of his idea. It is we who suddenly think of children playing with little tin figures of philanthropists, rather round and with tin top-hats; the little tin gods of our commercial religion. It is we who develop his imaginative idea for him, by suggesting little leaden dolls of Conscientious Objectors in fixed attitudes of refined repugnance; or a whole regiment of tiny Quakers with little grey coats and white flags. He would never have thought of any of these substitutes for himself; his negation is purely negative. Or when an educational philosopher tells us that the child should have complete equality with the adult, he cannot really carry his idea any farther without our assistance. It will be from us and not from him that the natural suggestion will come; that the baby should take its turn and carry the mother, the moment the mother is tired of carrying the baby. He will not, when left to himself, call up the poetical picture of the child wheeling a double perambulator with the father and mother at each end. He has no motive to look for lively logical developments; for him the assimilation of parent and child is simply a platitude; and an inevitable part of his own rather platitudinous philosophy. It is we and not he who can behold the whole vista and vanishing perspective of his own opinions; and work out what he really means. It is only those who have ordinary views who have extraordinary visions.
There is indeed nothing very extraordinary about these visions, except the extraordinary people who have provoked some of them. They are only very sketchy sort of sketches of some of the strange things that may be found in the modern world. But however inadequate be the example, it is none the less true that this is the sound principle behind much better examples; and that, in those great things as in these small ones, sanity was the condition of satire. It is because Gulliver is a man of moderate stature that he can stray into the land of the giants and the land of the pygmies. It is Swift and not the professors of Laputa who sees the real romance of getting sunbeams out of cucumbers. It would be less than exact to call Swift a sunbeam in the house; but if he did not himself get much sunshine out of cucumbers, at least he let daylight into professors. It was not the mad Swift but the sane Swift who made that story so wild. The truth is more self-evident in men who were more sane. It is the good sense of Rabelais that makes him seem to grin like a gargoyle; and it is in a sense because Dickens was a Philistine that he saw the land so full of strange gods. These idle journalistic jottings have nothing in common with such standards of real literature, except the principle involved; but the principle is the right one.
But while these are frivolous essays, pretending only to touch on topics and theories they cannot exhaustively examine, I have added some that may not seem to fit so easily even into so slight a scheme. Nevertheless, they are in some sense connected with it. I have opened with an essay on rhyme, because it is a type of the sort of tradition which the anti-traditionalists now attack; and I have ended with one called “Milton and Merry England,” because I feel that many may misunderstand my case against the new Puritans, if they have no notion of how I should attempt to meet the more accepted case in favour of the old Puritans. Both these articles appeared originally in the “London Mercury,” and I desire to express my thanks to Mr. J. C. Squire for his kind permission to reprint them. But, in the latter case, I had the further feeling that I wished to express somewhere the historical sentiment that underlies the whole; the conviction that there did and does exist a more normal and national England, which we once inhabited and to which we may yet return; and which is not a Utopia but a home. I have therefore thought it worth while to write this line of introduction to show that such a scrap-book is not entirely scrappy; and that even to touch such things lightly we need something like a test. It is necessary to have in hand a truth to judge modern philosophies rapidly; and it is necessary to judge them very rapidly to judge them before they disappear.
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THE ROMANCE OF RHYME
THE poet in the comic opera, it will be remembered (I hope), claimed for his aesthetic authority that “Hey diddle diddle will rank as an idyll, if I pronounce it chaste.” In face of a satire which still survives the fashion it satirized, it may require some moral courage seriously to pronounce it chaste, or to suggest that the nursery rhyme in question has really some of the qualities of an idyll. Of its chastity, in the vulgar sense, there need be little dispute, despite the scandal of the elopement of the dish with the spoon, which would seem as free from grossness as the loves of the triangles. And though the incident of the cow may have something of the moonstruck ecstasy of Endymion, that also has a silvery coldness about it worthy of the wilder aspects of Diana. The truth more seriously tenable is that this nursery rhyme is a complete and compact model of the nursery short story. The cow jumping over the moon fulfils to perfection the two essentials of such a story for children. It makes an effect that is fantastic out of objects that are familiar; and it makes a picture that is at once incredible and unmistakable. But it is yet more tenable, and here more to the point, that this nursery rhyme is emphatically a rhyme. Both the lilt and the jingle are just right for their purpose, and are worth whole libraries of elaborate literary verse for children. And the best proof of its vitality is that the satirist himself has unconsciously echoed the jingle even in making the joke. The metre of that nineteenth-century satire is the metre of the nursery rhyme. “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle” and “Hey diddle diddle will rank as an idyll” are obviously both dancing to the same ancient tune; and that by no means the tune the old cow died of, but the more exhilarating air to which she jumped over the moon.
The whole history of the thing called rhyme can be found between those two things: the simple pleasure of rhyming “diddle” to “fiddle,” and the more sophisticated pleasure of rhyming “diddle” to “idyll.” Now the fatal mistake about poetry, and more than half of the fatal mistake about humanity, consists in forgetting that we should have the first kind of pleasure as well as the second. It might be said that we should have the first pleasure as the basis of the second; or yet more truly, the first pleasure inside the second. The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us. The heart of the tree remains the same, however many rings are added to it; and a man cannot leave his heart behind by running hard with his legs. In the core of all culture are the things that may be said, in every sense, to be learned by heart. In the innermost part of all poetry is the nursery rhyme, the nonsense that is too happy even to care about being nonsensical. It may lead on to the more elaborate nonsense of the Gilbertian line, or even far less poetic nonsense of some of the Browningesque rhymes. But the true enjoyment of poetry is in having the simple pleasure as well as the subtle pleasure. Indeed it is on this primary point that so many of our artistic and other reforms seem to go wrong. What is the matter with the modern world is that it is trying to get simplicity in everything except the soul. Where the soul really has simplicity it can be grateful for anything—even complexity. Many peasants have to be vegetarians, and their ordinary life is really a simple life. But the peasants do not despise a good dinner when they can get it; they wolf it down with enthusiasm, because they have not only the simple life but the simple spirit. And it is so with the modern modes of art which revert, very rightly, to what is “primitive.” But their moral mistake is that they try to combine the ruggedness that should belong to simplicity with a superciliousness that should only belong to satiety. The last Futurist draughtsmanship, for instance, evidently has the aim of drawing a tree as it might be drawn by a child of ten. I think the new artists would admit it; nor do I merely sneer at it. I am willing to admit, especially for the sake of argument, that there is a truth of philosophy and psychology in this attempt to attain the clarity even through the crudity of childhood. In this sense I can see what a man is driving at when he draws a tree merely as a stick with smaller sticks standing out of it. He may be trying to trace in black and white or grey a primeval and almost pre-natal illumination; that it is very remarkable that a stick should exist, and still more remarkable that a stick should stick up or stick out. He may be similarly enchanted with his own stick of charcoal or grey chalk; he may be enraptured, as a child is, with the mere fact that it makes a mark on the paper—a highly poetic fact in itself. But the child does not despise the real tree for being different from his drawing of the tree. He does not despise Uncle Humphrey because that talented amateur can really draw a tree. He does not think less of the real sticks because they are live sticks, and can grow and branch and curve in a way uncommon in walking sticks. Because he has a single eye he can enjoy a double pleasure. This distinction, which seems strangely neglected, may be traced again in the drama and most other domains of art. Reformers insist that the audiences of simpler ages were content with bare boards or rudimentary scenery if they could hear Sophocles or Shakespeare talking a language of the gods. They were very properly contented with plain boards. But they were not discontented with pageants. The people who appreciated Antony’s oration as such would have appreciated Aladin’s palace as such. They did not think gilding and spangles substitutes for poetry and philosophy, because they are not. But they did think gilding and spangles great and admirable gifts of God, because they are.
But the application of this distinction here is to the case of rhyme in poetry. And the application of it is that we should never be ashamed of enjoying a thing as a rhyme as well as enjoying it as a poem. And I think the modern poets who try to escape from the rhyming pleasure, in pursuit of a freer poetical pleasure, are making the same fundamentally fallacious attempt to combine simplicity with superiority. Such a poet is like a child who could take no pleasure in a tree because it looked like a tree, or a playgoer who could take no pleasure in the Forest of Arden because it looked like a forest. It is not impossible to find a sort of prig who professes that he could listen to literature in any scenery, but strongly objects to good scenery. And in poetical criticism and creation there has also appeared the prig who insists that any new poem must avoid the sort of melody that makes the beauty of any old song. Poets must put away childish things, including the child’s pleasure in the mere sing-song of irrational rhyme. It may be hinted that when poets put away childish things they will put away poetry. But it may be well to say a word in further justification of rhyme as well as poetry, in the child as well as the poet. Now, the neglect of this nursery instinct would be a blunder, even if it were merely an animal instinct or an automatic instinct. If a rhyme were to a man merely what a bark is to a dog, or a crow to a cock, it would be clear that such natural things cannot be merely neglected. It is clear that a canine epic, about Argus instead of Ulysses, would have a beat ultimately consisting of barks. It is clear that a long poem like “Chantecler,” written by a real cock, would be to the tune of Cock-a-doodle-doo. But in truth the nursery rhyme has a nobler origin; if it be ancestral it is not animal; its principle is a primary one, not only in the body but in the soul.
Milton prefaced “Paradise Lost” with a ponderous condemnation of rhyme. And perhaps the finest and even the most familiar line in the whole of “Paradise Lost” is really a glorification of rhyme. “Seasons return, but not to me return,” is not only an echo that has all the ring of rhyme in its form, but it happens to contain nearly all the philosophy of rhyme in its spirit. The wonderful word “return” has, not only in its sound but in its sense, a hint of the whole secret of song. It is not merely that its very form is a fine example of a certain quality in English, somewhat similar to that which Mrs. Meynell admirably analysed in a former issue of this magazine in the case of words like “unforgiven.” It is that it describes poetry itself, not only in a mechanical but a moral sense. Song is not only a recurrence, it is a return. It does not merely, like the child in the nursery, take pleasure in seeing the wheels go round. It also wishes to go back as well as round; to go back to the nursery where such pleasures are found. Or to vary the metaphor slightly, it does not merely rejoice in the rotation of a wheel on the road, as if it were a fixed wheel in the air. It is not only the wheel but the wagon that is returning. That labouring caravan is always travelling towards some camping-ground that it has lost and cannot find again. No lover of poetry needs to be told that all poems are full of that noise of returning wheels; and none more than the poems of Milton himself. The whole truth is obvious, not merely in the poem, but even in the two words of the title. All poems might be bound in one book under the title of “Paradise Lost.” And the only object of writing “Paradise Lost” is to turn it, if only by a magic and momentary illusion, into “Paradise Regained.”
It is in this deeper significance of return that we must seek for the peculiar power in the recurrence we call rhyme. It would be easy enough to reply to Milton’s strictures on rhyme in the spirit of a sensible if superficial liberality by saying that it takes all sorts to make a world, and especially the world of the poets. It is evident enough that Milton might have been right to dispense with rhyme without being right to despise it. It is obvious that the peculiar dignity of his religious epic would have been weakened if it had been a rhymed epic, beginning:—
Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal root.
But it is equally obvious that Milton himself would not have tripped on the light fantastic toe with quite so much charm and cheerfulness in the lines:—
But come thou Goddess fair and free In heaven yclept Euphrosyne
if the goddess had been yclept something else, as, for the sake of argument, Syrinx. Milton in his more reasonable moods would have allowed rhyme in theory a place in all poetry, as he allowed it in practice in his own poetry. But he would certainly have said at this time, and possibly at all times, that he allowed it an inferior place, or at least a secondary place. But is its place secondary; and is it in any sense inferior?
The romance of rhyme does not consist merely in the pleasure of a jingle, though this is a pleasure of which no man should be ashamed. Certainly most men take pleasure in it, whether or not they are ashamed of it. We see it in the older fashion of prolonging the chorus of a song with syllables like “rumty tumty” or “tooral looral.” We see it in the similar but later fashion of discussing whether a truth is objective or subjective, or whether a reform is constructive or destructive, or whether an argument is deductive or inductive: all bearing witness to a very natural love for those nursery rhyme recurrences which make a sort of song without words, or at least without any kind of intellectual significance. But something much deeper is involved in the love of rhyme as distinct from other poetic forms, something which is perhaps too deep and subtle to be described. The nearest approximation to the truth I can think of is something like this: that while all forms of genuine verse recurs there is in rhyme a sense of return to exactly the same place. All modes of song go forward and backward like the tides of the sea; but in the great sea of Homeric or Virgilian hexametres, the sea that carried the labouring ships of Ulysses and Oeneas, the thunder of the breakers is rhythmic, but the margin of the foam is necessarily irregular and vague. In rhyme there is rather a sense of water poured safely into one familiar well, or (to use a nobler metaphor) of ale poured safely into one familiar flagon. The armies of Homer and Virgil advance and retreat over a vast country, and suggest vast and very profound sentiments about it, about whether it is their own country or only a strange country. But when the old nameless ballad boldly rhymes “the bonny ivy tree” to “my ain countree” the vision at once dwindles and sharpens to a very vivid image of a single soldier passing under the ivy that darkens his own door. Rhythm deals with similarity, but rhyme with identity. Now in the one word identity are involved perhaps the deepest and certainly the dearest human things. He who is homesick does not desire houses or even homes. He who is lovesick does not want to see all the women with whom he might have fallen in love. Only he who is sea-sick, perhaps, may be said to have a cosmopolitan craving for all lands or any kind of land. And this is probably why sea-sickness, like cosmopolitanism, has never yet been a high inspiration to song. Songs, especially the most poignant of them, generally refer to some absolute, to some positive place or person for whom no similarity is a substitute. In such a case all approximation is merely asymptotic. The prodigal returns to his father’s house and not the house next door, unless he is still an imperfectly sober prodigal; the lover desires his lady and not her twin sister, except, in old complications of romance; and even the spiritualist is generally looking for a ghost and not merely for ghosts. I think the intolerable torture of spiritualism must be a doubt about identity. Anyhow, it will generally be found that where this call for the identical has been uttered most ringingly and unmistakably in literature, it has been uttered in rhyme. Another purpose for which this pointed and definite form is very much fitted is the expression of dogma, as distinct from doubt or even opinion. This is why, with all allowance for a decline in the most classical effects of the classical tongue, the rhymed Latin of the mediaeval hymns does express what it had to express in a very poignant poetical manner, as compared with the reverent agnosticism so nobly uttered in the rolling unrhymed metres of the ancients. For even if we regard the matter of the mediaeval verses as a dream, it was at least a vivid dream, a dream full of faces, a dream of love and of lost things. And something of the same spirit runs in a vaguer way through proverbs and phrases that are not exactly religious, but rather in a rude sense philosophical, but which all move with the burden of returning; things to be felt only in familiar fragments… on revient toujours… it’s the old story— it’s love that makes the world go round; and all roads lead to Rome: we might almost say that all roads lead to Rhyme.
Milton’s revolt against rhyme must be read in the light of history. Milton is the Renascence frozen into a Puritan form; the beginning of a period which was in a sense classic, but was in a still more definite sense aristocratic. There the Classicist was the artistic aristocrat because the Calvinist was the spiritual aristocrat. The seventeenth century was intensely individualistic; it had both in the noble and the ignoble sense a respect for persons. It had no respect whatever for popular traditions; and it was in the midst of its purely logical and legal excitement that most of the popular traditions died. The Parliament appeared and the people disappeared. The arts were put under patrons, where they had once been under patron saints. The schools and colleges at once strengthened and narrowed the New Learning, making it something rather peculiar to one country and one class. A few men talked a great deal of good Latin, where all men had once talked a little bad Latin. But they talked even the good Latin so that no Latinist in the world could understand them. They confined all study of the classics to that of the most classical period, and grossly exaggerated the barbarity and barrenness of patriotic Greek or mediaeval Latin. It is as if a man said that because the English translation of the Bible is perhaps the best English in the world, therefore Addison and Pater and Newman are not worth reading. We can imagine what men in such a mood would have said of the rude rhymed hexametres of the monks; and it is not unnatural that they should have felt a reaction against rhyme itself. For the history of rhyme is the history of something else, very vast and sometimes invisible, certainly somewhat indefinable, against which they were in aristocratic rebellion.
That thing is difficult to define in impartial modern terms. It might well be called Romance, and that even in a more technical sense, since it corresponds to the rise of the Romance languages as distinct from the Roman language. It might more truly be called Religion, for historically it was the gradual re-emergence of Europe through the Dark Ages, because it still had one religion, though no longer one rule. It was, in short, the creation of Christendom. It may be called Legend, for it is true that the most overpowering presence in it is that of omnipresent and powerful popular Legend; so that things that may never have happened, or, as some say, could never have happened, are nevertheless rooted in our racial memory like things that have happened to ourselves. The whole Arthurian Cycle, for instance, seems something more real than reality. If the faces in that darkness of the Dark Ages, Lancelot and Arthur and Merlin and Modred, are indeed faces in a dream, they are like faces in a real dream: a dream in a bed and not a dream in a book. Sub-consciously at least, I should be much less surprised if Arthur was to come again than I should be if the Superman were to come at all. Again, the thing might be called Gossip: a noble name, having in it the name of God and one of the most generous and genial of the relations of men. For I suppose there has seldom been a time when such a mass of culture and good traditions of craft and song have been handed down orally, by one universal buzz of conversation, through centuries of ignorance down to centuries of greater knowledge. Education must have been an eternal viva voce examination; but the men passed their examination. At least they went out in such rude sense masters of art as to create the Song of Roland and the round Roman arches that carry the weight of so many Gothic towers. Finally, of course, it can be called ignorance, barbarism, black superstition, a reaction towards obscurantism and old night; and such a vie is eminently complete and satisfactory, only that it leaves behind it a sort of weak wonder as to why the very youngest poets do still go on writing poems about the sword of Arthur and the horn of Roland.
All this was but the beginning of a process which has two great points of interest. The first is the way in which the mediaeval movement did rebuild the old Roman civilization; the other was the way in which it did not. A strange interest attaches to the things which had never existed in the pagan culture and did appear in the Christian culture. I think it is true of most of them that they had a quality that can very approximately be described as popular, or perhaps as vulgar, as indeed we still talk of the languages which at that time liberated themselves from Latin as the vulgar tongues. And to many Classicists these things would appear to be vulgar in a more vulgar sense. They were vulgar in the sense of being vivid almost to excess, of making a very direct and unsophisticated appeal to the emotions. The first law of heraldry was to wear the heart upon the sleeve. Such mediaevalism was the reverse of mere mysticism, in the sense of mere mystery; it might more truly be described as sensationalism. One of these things, for instance, was a hot and even an impatient love of colour. It learned to paint before it could draw, and could afford the twopence coloured long before it could manage the penny plain. It culminated at last, of course, in the energy and gaiety of the Gothic; but even the richness of Gothic rested on a certain psychological simplicity. We can contrast it with the classic by noting its popular passion for telling a story in stone. We may admit that a Doric portico is a poem, but no one would describe it as an anecdote. The time was to come when much of the imagery of the cathedrals was to be lost; but it would have mattered the less that it was defaced by its enemies if it had not been already neglected by its friends. It would have mattered less if the whole tide of taste among the rich had not turned against the old popular masterpieces. The Puritans defaced them, but the Cavaliers did not truly defend them. The Cavaliers were also aristocrats of the new classical culture, and used the word Gothic in the sense of barbaric. For the benefit of the Teutonists we may note in parenthesis that, if this phrase meant that Gothic was despised, it also meant that the Goths were despised. But when the Cavaliers came back, after the Puritan interregnum, they restored not in the style of Pugin but in the style of Wren. The very thing we call the Restoration, which was the restoration of King Charles, was also the restoration of St. Paul’s. And it was a very modern restoration.
So far we might say that simple people do not like simple things. This is certainly true if we compare the classic with these highly coloured things of mediaevalism, or all the vivid visions which first began to glow in the night of the Dark Ages. Now one of these things was the romantic expedient called rhyme. And even in this, if we compare the two, we shall see something of the same paradox by which the simple like complexities and the complex like simplicities. The ignorant like rich carvings and melodious and often ingenious rhymes. The learned like bare walls and blank verse. But in the case of rhyme it is peculiarly difficult to define the double and yet very definite truth. It is difficult to define the sense in which rhyme is artificial and the sense in which it is simple. In truth it is simple because it is artificial. It is an artifice of the kind enjoyed by children and other poetic people; it is a toy. As a technical accomplishment it stands at the same distance from the popular experience as the old popular sports. Like swimming, like dancing, like drawing the bow, anybody can do it, but nobody can do it without taking the trouble to do it; and only a few can do it very well. In a hundred ways it was akin to that simple and even humble energy that made all the lost glory of the guilds. Thus their rhyme was useful as well as ornamental. It was not merely a melody but also a mnemonic; just as their towers were not merely trophies but beacons and belfries. In another aspect rhyme is akin to rhetoric, but of a very positive and emphatic sort: the coincidence of sound giving the effect of saying, “It is certainly so.” Shakespeare realized this when he rounded off a fierce or romantic scene with a rhymed couplet. I know that some critics do not like this, but I think there is a moment when a drama ought to become a melodrama. Then there is a much older effect of rhyme that can only be called mystical, which may seem the very opposite of the utilitarian, and almost equally remote from the rhetorical. Yet it shares with the former the tough texture of something not easily forgotten, and with the latter the touch of authority which is the aim of all oratory. The thing I mean may be found in the fact that so many of the old proverbial prophecies, from Merlin to Mother Shipton, were handed down in rhyme. It can be found in the very name of Thomas the Rhymer.
But the simplest way of putting this popular quality is in a single word: it is a song. Rhyme corresponds to a melody so simple that it goes straight like an arrow to the heart. It corresponds to a chorus so familiar and obvious that all men can join in it. I am not disturbed by the suggestion that such an arrow of song, when it hits the heart, may entirely miss the head. I am not concerned to deny that the chorus may sometimes be a drunken chorus, in which men have lost their heads to find their tongues. I am not defending but defining; I am trying to find words for a large but elusive distinction between certain things that are certainly poetry and certain other things which are also song. Of course it is only an accident that Horace opens his greatest series of odes by saying that he detests the profane populace and wishes to drive them from his temple of poetry. But it is the sort of accident that is almost an allegory. There is even a sense in which it has a practical side. When all is said, could a whole crowd of men sing the “Descende Coelo,” that noble ode, as a crowd can certainly sing the “Dies Irae,” or for that matter “Down among the Dead Men”? Did Horace himself sing the Horatian odes in the sense in which Shakespeare could sing, or could hardly help singing, the Shakespearean songs. I do not know, having no kind of scholarship on these points. But I do not feel that it could have been at all the same thing; and my only purpose is to attempt a rude description of that thing. Rhyme is consonant to the particular kind of song that can be a popular song, whether pathetic or passionate or comic; and Milton is entitled to his true distinction; nobody is likely to sing “Paradise Lost” as if it were a song of that kind. I have tried to suggest my sympathy with rhyme, in terms true enough to be accepted by the other side as expressing their antipathy for it. I have admitted that rhyme is a toy and even a trick, of the sort that delights children. I have admitted that every rhyme is a nursery rhyme. What I will never admit is that anyone who is too big for the nursery is big enough for the Kingdom of God, though the God were only Apollo.
A good critic should be like God in the great saying of a Scottish mystic. George Macdonald said that God was easy to please and hard to satisfy. That paradox is the poise of all good artistic appreciation. Without the first part of the paradox appreciation perishes, because it loses the power to appreciate. Good criticism, I repeat, combines the subtle pleasure in a thing being done well with the simple pleasure in it being done at all. It combines the pleasure of the scientific engineer in seeing how the wheels work together to a logical end with the pleasure of the baby in seeing the wheels go round. It combines the pleasure of the artistic draughtsman in the fact that his lines of charcoal, light and apparently loose, fall exactly right and in a perfect relation with the pleasure of the child in the fact that the charcoal makes marks of any kind on the paper. And in the same fashion it combines the critic’s pleasure in a poem with the child’s pleasure in a rhyme. The historical point about this kind of poetry, the rhymed romantic kind, is that it rose out of the Dark Ages with the whole of this huge popular power behind it, the human love of a song, a riddle, a proverb, a pun or a nursery rhyme; the sing-song of innumerable children’s games, the chorus of a thousand camp-fires and a thousand taverns. When poetry loses its link with all these people who are easily pleased it loses all its power of giving pleasure. When a poet looks down on a rhyme it is, I will not say as if he looked down on a daisy (which might seem possible to the more literal-minded), but rather as if he looked down on a lark because he had been up in a balloon. It is cutting away the very roots of poetry; it is revolting against nature because it is natural, against sunshine because it is bright, or mountains because they are high, or moonrise because it is mysterious. The freezing process began after the Reformation with a fastidious search for finer yet freer forms; to-day it has ended in formlessness.
But the joke of it is that even when it is formless it is still fastidious. The new anarchic artists are not ready to accept everything. They are not ready to accept anything except anarchy. Unless it observes the very latest conventions of unconventionality, they would rule out anything classic as coldly as any classic ever ruled out anything romantic. But the classic was a form; and there was even a time when it was a new form. The men who invented Sapphics did invent a new metre; the introduction of Elizabethan blank verse was a real revolution in literary form. But vers libre, or nine-tenths of it, is not a new metre any more than sleeping in a ditch is a new school of architecture. It is no more a revolution in literary form than eating meat raw is an innovation in cookery. It is not even original, because it is not creative; the artist does not invent anything, but only abolishes something. But the only point about it that is to my present purpose is expressed in the word “pride.” It is not merely proud in the sense of being exultant, but proud in the sense of being disdainful. Such outlaws are more exclusive than aristocrats; and their anarchical arrogance goes far beyond the pride of Milton and the aristocrats of the New Learning. And this final refinement has completed the work which the saner aristocrats began, the work now most evident in the world: the separation of art from the people. I need not insist on the sensational and self-evident character of that separation. I need not recommend the modern poet to attempt to sing his vers libres in a public-house. I need not even urge the young Imagist to read out a number of his disconnected Images to a public meeting. The thing is not only admitted but admired. The old artist remained proud in spite of his unpopularity; the new artist is proud because of his unpopularity; perhaps it is his chief ground for pride.
Dwelling as I do in the Dark Ages, or at latest along the mediaeval fairy tales, I am yet moved to remember something I once read in a modern fairy tale. As it happens, I have already used the name of George Macdonald; and in the best of his books there is a description of how a young miner in the mountains could always drive away the subterranean goblins if he could remember and repeat any kind of rhyme. The impromptu rhymes were often doggerel, as was the dog-Latin of many monkish hexametres or the burden of many rude Border ballads. But I have a notion that they drove away the devils, blue devils of pessimism and black devils of pride. Anyhow Madame Montessori, who has apparently been deploring the educational effects of fairy tales, would probably see in me a pitiable example of such early perversion, for that image which was one of my first impressions seems likely enough to be one of my last; and when the noise of many new and original musical instruments, with strange shapes and still stranger noises, has passed away like a procession, I shall bear in the succeeding silence only a rustle and scramble among the rocks and a boy singing on the mountain.
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HAMLET AND THE PSYCHO-ANALYST
THIS morning, for a long stretch of hours before breakfast, and even as it were merging into breakfast, and almost overlapping breakfast, I was engaged in scientific researches in the great new department of psycho-analysis. Every journalist knows by this time that psycho-analysis largely depends on the study of dreams. But in order to study our dreams it is necessary to dream; and in order to dream it is necessary to sleep. So, while others threw away the golden hours in lighter and less learned occupations, while ignorant and superstitious peasants were already digging in their ignorant and superstitious kitchen-gardens, to produce their ignorant and superstitious beans and potatoes, while priests were performing their pious mummeries and poets composing lyrics on listening to the skylark—I myself was pioneering hundreds of years ahead of this benighted century; ruthlessly and progressively probing into all the various horrible nightmares, from which a happier future will take its oracles and its commandments. I will not describe my dreams in detail; I am not quite so ruthless a psychologist as all that. And indeed it strikes me as possible that the new psychologist will be rather a bore at breakfast. My dream was something about wandering in some sort of catacombs under the Albert Hall, and it involved eating jumbles (a brown flexible cake now almost gone from us, like so many glories of England) and also arguing with a Theosophist. I cannot fit this in very well with Freud and his theory of suppressed impulses. For I swear I never in my life suppressed the impulse to eat a jumble or to argue with a Theosophist. And as for wandering about in the Albert Hall, nobody could ever have had an impulse to do that.
When I came down to breakfast I looked at the morning paper; not (as you humorously suggest) at the evening paper. I had not pursued my scientific studies quite so earnestly as that. I looked at the morning paper, as I say, and found it contained a good deal about Psycho-Analysis, indeed it explained almost everything about Psycho-Analysis except what it was. This was naturally a thing which newspapers would present in a rather fragmentary fashion; and I fitted the fragments together as best I could. Apparently the dreams were merely symbols; and apparently symbols of something very savage and horrible which remained a secret. This seems to me a highly unscientific use of the word symbol. A symbol is not a disguise but rather a display; the best expression of something that cannot otherwise be expressed. Eating a jumble may mean that I wished to bite off my father’s nose (the mother-complex being strong on me); but it does not seem to show much symbolic talent. The Albert Hall may imply the murder of an uncle; but it hardly makes itself very clear. And we do not seem to be getting much nearer the truth by dreaming, if we hide things by night more completely than we repress them by day. Anyhow, the murdered uncle reminds me of Hamlet, of whom more anon; at the moment I am merely remarking that my newspaper was a little vague; and I was all the more relieved to open my “London Mercury” and find an article on the subject by so able and suggestive a writer as Mr. J. D. Beresford.
Mr. J. D. Beresford practically asked himself whether he should become a psycho-analyst or continue to be a novelist. It will readily be understood that he did not put it precisely in these words; he would probably put psycho-analysis higher, and very possibly his own fiction lower; for men of genius are often innocent enough of their own genuine originality. That is a form of the unconscious mind with which none of us will quarrel. But I have no desire to watch a man of genius tying himself in knots, and perhaps dying in agony, in the attempt to be conscious of his own unconsciousness. I have seen too many unfortunate sceptics thus committing suicide by self-contradiction. Haeckel and his Determinists, in my youth, bullied us all about the urgent necessity of choosing a philosophy which would prove the impossibility of choosing anything. No doubt the new psychology will somehow enable us to know what we are doing, about all that we do without knowing it. These things come and go, and pass through their phases in order, from the time when they are as experimental as Freudism to the time when they are as exploded as Darwinism. But I never can understand men allowing things so visibly fugitive to hide things that are visibly permanent, like morals and religion and (what is in question here) the art of letters. Ars longa, scientia brevis.
Anyhow, as has been said, psycho-analysis depends in practice upon the interpretation of dreams. I do not know whether making masses of people, chiefly children, confess their dreams, would lead to a great output of literature; though it would certainly lead, if I know anything of human nature, to a glorious output of lies. There is something touching in the inhuman innocence of the psychologist, who is already talking of the scientific exactitude of results reached by the one particular sort of evidence that cannot conceivably be checked or tested in any way whatever. But, as Mr. Beresford truly says, the general notion of finding signs in dreams is as old as the world; but even the special theory of it is older than many seem to suppose. Indeed, it is not only old, but obvious; and was never discovered, because it was always noticed. Long before the present fashion I myself (who, heaven knows, am no psychologist) remember saying that as there is truth in all popular traditions, there is truth in the popular saying that dreams go by the rule of contraries. That is, that a man does often think at night about the very things he does not think by day. But the popular saying had in it a certain virtue never found in the anti-popular sciences of our day. Popular superstition has one enormous element of sanity; it is never serious. We talk of ages like the mediaeval as the ages of faith; but it would be quite as true a tribute to call them the ages of doubt; of a healthy doubt, and even a healthy derision. There was always something more or less consciously grotesque about an old ghost story. There was fun mixed with the fear; and the yokels knew too much about turnips not occasionally to think of turnip-ghosts. There is no fun about psycho-analysis. One yokel would say, “‘Ar,’ they do say dreams go by contraries.” And then the others would say, “Ar,” and they would all laugh in a deep internal fashion. But when Mr. J. D. Beresford says that Freud’s theory is among scientific theories the most attractive for novelists, “it was a theory of sex, the all but universal theme of the novel,” it is clear that our audience is slower and more solemn than the yokels. For nobody laughs at all. People seem to have lost the power of reacting to the humorous stimulus. When one milkmaid dreamed of a funeral, the other milkmaid said, “That means a wedding,” and then they would both giggle. But when Mr. J. D. Beresford says that the theory “adumbrated the suggestion of a freer morality, by dwelling upon the physical and spiritual necessity for the liberation of impulse,” the point seems somehow to be missed. Not a single giggle is heard in the deep and disappointing silence. It seems truly strange that when a modern and brilliant artist actually provides jokes far more truly humorous than the rude jests of the yokels and the milkmaids, the finer effort should meet with the feebler response. It is but an example of the unnatural solemnity, like an artificial vacuum, in which all these modern experiments are conducted. But no doubt if Freud had enjoyed the opportunity of explaining his ideas in an ancient ale-house, they would have met with more spontaneous applause.
I hope I do not seem unsympathetic with Mr. Beresford; for I not only admire his talent, but I am at this moment acting in strict obedience to his theories. I am—I say it proudly—acting as a disciple of Freud, who apparently forbids me to conceal any impulse, presumably including the impulse to laugh. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Beresford; but my first duty, of course, is to my own psychological inside. And goodness knows what damage might not be done to the most delicate workings of my own mental apparatus (as Mr. Arnold Bennett called it) if I were to subject it to the sudden and violent strain of not smiling at the scientific theory which is attractive because it is sexual, or of forcing my features into a frightful composure when I hear of the spiritual necessity for the liberation of impulse. I am not quite sure how far the liberation of impulse is to be carried out in practice by its exponents in theory; I do not know whether it is better to liberate the impulse to throw somebody else out of an express train in order to have the carriage to oneself all the way; or what may be the penalties for repressing the native instinct to shoot Mr. Lloyd George. But obviously the greater includes the less; and it would be very illogical if we were allowed to chuck out our fellow-traveller but not to chaff him; or if I were permitted to shoot at Mr. George but not to smile at Mr. Beresford. And though I am not so serious as he is, I assure him that in this I am quite as sincere as he is. In that sense I do seriously regret his seriousness; I do seriously think such seriousness a very serious evil. For some healthy human impulses are really the better for the relief by words and gestures, and one of them is the universal human sense that there is something comic about the relations of the sexes. The impulse to laugh at the mention of morality as “free” or of sex science as “attractive” is one of the impulses which is already gratified by most people who have never heard of psycho-analysis and is only mortified by people like the psycho-analysts.
Mr. Beresford must therefore excuse me if, with a sincere desire to follow his serious argument seriously, I note at the beginning a certain normal element of comedy of which critics of his school seem to be rather unconscious. When he asks whether this theory of the Nemesis of suppression can serve the purposes of great literary work, it would seem natural at first to test it by the example of the greatest literary works. And, judged by this scientific test, it must be admitted that our literary classics would appear to fail. Lady Macbeth does not suffer as a sleep-walker because she has resisted the impulse to murder Duncan, but rather (by some curious trick of thought) because she has yielded to it. Hamlet’s uncle is in a morbid frame of mind, not, as one would naturally expect, because he had thwarted his own development by leaving his own brother alive and in possession; but actually because he has triumphantly liberated himself from the morbid impulse to pour poison in his brother’s ear. On the theory of psycho-analysis, as expounded, a man ought to be haunted by the ghosts of all the men he has not murdered. Even if they were limited to those he has felt a vague fancy for murdering, they might make a respectable crowd to follow at his heels. Yet Shakespeare certainly seems to represent Macbeth as haunted by Banquo, whom he removed at one blow from the light of the sun and from his own sub-consciousness. Hell ought to mean the regret for lost opportunities for crime; the insupportable thought of houses still standing unburned or unburgled, or of wealthy uncles still walking about alive with their projecting watch-chains. Yet Dante certainly seemed to represent it as concerned exclusively with things done and done with, and not as merely the morbidly congested imagination of a thief who had not thieved and a murderer who had not murdered. In short, it is only too apparent that the poets and sages of the past knew very little of psycho-analysis, and whether or no Mr. Beresford can achieve great literary effects with it, they managed to achieve their literary effects without it. This is but a preliminary point, and I touch the more serious problem in a few minutes, if the fashion has not changed before then. For the moment I only take the test of literary experience, and of how independent of such theories have been the real masterpieces of man. Men are still excited over the poetic parts of poets like Shakespeare and Dante; if they go to sleep it is over the scientific parts. It is over some system of the spheres which Dante thought the very latest astronomy or some argument about the humours of the body which Shakespeare thought the very latest physiology. I appeal to Mr. Beresford’s indestructible sense of humanity and his still undestroyed sense of humour. What would have become of the work of Dickens if it had been rewritten to illustrate the thesis of Darwin? What even of the work of Mr. Kipling if modified to meet the theories of Mr. Kidd? Believe me, the proportions are as I have said. Art is long, but science is fleeting; and Mr. Beresford’s sub-consciousness, though stout and brave, is in danger of being not so much a muffled drum as a drum which somebody silences for ever; by knocking a hole in it, only to find nothing inside.
But there is one incidental moral in the matter that seems to me topical and rather arresting. It concerns the idea of punishment.
The psycho-analysts continue to buzz in a mysterious manner round the problem of Hamlet. They are especially interested in the things of which Hamlet was unconscious, not to mention the things of which Shakespeare was unconscious. It is in vain for old-fashioned rationalists like myself to point out that this is like dissecting the brain of Puck or revealing the real private life of Punch and Judy. The discussion no longer revolves round whether Hamlet is mad, but whether everybody is mad, especially the experts investigating the madness. And the curious thing about this process is that even when the critics are really subtle enough to see subtle things, they are never simple enough to see self-evident things. A really fine critic is reported as arguing that in Hamlet the consciousness willed one thing and the sub-consciousness another. Apparently the conscious Hamlet had unreservedly embraced and even welcomed the obligation of vengeance, but the shock (we are told) had rendered the whole subject painful, and started a strange and secret aversion to the scheme. It did not seem to occur to the writers that there might possibly be something slightly painful, at the best, in cutting the throat of your own uncle and the husband of your own mother. There might certainly be an aversion from the act; but I do not quite see why it should be an unconscious aversion. It seems just possible that a man might be quite conscious of not liking such a job. Where he differed from the modern morality was that he believed in the possibility of disliking it and yet doing it.
But to follow the argument of these critics, one would think that murdering the head of one’s family was a sort of family festivity or family joke; a gay and innocent indulgence into which the young prince would naturally have thrown himself with thoughtless exuberance, were it not for the dark and secretive thoughts that had given him an unaccountable distaste for it. Suppose it were borne in upon one of these modern middle-class critics, of my own rank and routine of life (possibly through his confidence in the messages at a Spiritualist séance) that it was his business to go home to Brompton or Surbiton and stick the carving-knife into Uncle William, who had poisoned somebody and was beyond the reach of the law. It is possible that the critic’s first thought would be that it was a happy way of spending a half-holiday; and that only in the critic’s sub-consciousness the suspicion would stir that there was something unhappy about the whole business. But it seems also possible that the regret might not be confined to his sub-consciousness, but might swim almost to the surface of his consciousness. In plain words, this sort of criticism has lost the last rags of common sense. Hamlet requires no such sub-conscious explanation, for he explains himself, and was perhaps rather too fond of doing so. He was a man to whom duty had come in a very dreadful and repulsive form, and to a man not fitted for that form of duty. There was a conflict, but he was conscious of it from beginning to end. He was not an unconscious person; but a far too conscious one.
Strangely enough, this theory of sub-conscious repulsion in the dramatic character is itself an example of sub-conscious repulsion in the modern critic. It is the critic who has a sort of subliminal prejudice which makes him avoid something, that seems very simple to others. The thing which he secretly and obscurely avoids, from the start, is the very simple fact of the morality in which Shakespeare did believe, as distinct from all the crude psychology in which he almost certainly did not believe. Shakespeare certainly did believe in the struggle between duty and inclination. The critic instinctively avoids the admission that Hamlet’s was a struggle between duty and inclination; and tries to substitute a struggle between consciousness and sub-consciousness. He gives Hamlet a complex to avoid giving him a conscience. But he is actually forced to talk as if it was a man’s natural inclination to kill an uncle, because he does not want to admit that it might be his duty to kill him. He is really driven to talking as if some dark and secretive monomania alone prevented us all from killing our uncles. He is driven to this because he will not even take seriously the simple and, if you will, primitive morality upon which the tragedy is built. For that morality involves three moral propositions, from which the whole of the morbid modern sub-consciousness does really recoil as from an ugly jar of pain. These principles are: first, that it may be our main business to do the right thing, even when we detest doing it; second, that the right thing may involve punishing some person, especially some powerful person; third, that the just process of punishment may take the form of fighting and killing. The modern critic is prejudiced against the first principle and calls it asceticism; he is prejudiced against the second principle and calls it vindictiveness; he is prejudiced against the third and generally calls it militarism. That it actually might be the duty of a young man to risk his own life, much against his own inclination, by drawing a sword and killing a tyrant, that is an idea instinctively avoided by this particular mood of modern times. That is why tyrants have such a good time in modern times. And in order to avoid this plain and obvious meaning, of war as a duty and peace as a temptation, the critic has to turn the whole play upside down, and seek its meaning in modern notions so remote as to be in this connexion meaningless. He has to make William Shakespeare of Stratford one of the pupils of Professor Freud. He has to make him a champion of psycho-analysis, which is like making him a champion of vaccination. He has to fit Hamlet’s soul somehow into the classifications of Freud and Jung; which is just as if he had to fit Hamlet’s father into the classifications of Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He has to interpret the whole thing by a new morality that Shakespeare had never heard of, because he has an intense internal dislike of the old morality that Shakespeare could not help hearing of. And that morality, which some of us believe to be based on a much more realistic psychology, is that punishment as punishment is a perfectly healthy process, not merely because it is reform, but also because it is expiation. What the modern world means by proposing to substitute pity for punishment is really very simple. It is that the modern world dare not punish those who are punishable, but only those who are pitiable. It would never touch anyone so important as King Claudius—or Kaiser William.
Now this truth is highly topical just now. The point about Hamlet was that he wavered, very excusably, in something that had to be done; and this is the point quite apart from whether we ourselves would have done it. That was pointed out long ago by Browning in “The Statue and the Bust.” He argued that even if the motive for acting was bad, the motive for not acting was worse. And an action or inaction is judged by its real motive, not by whether somebody else might have done the same thing from a better motive. Whether or no the tyrannicide of Hamlet was a duty, it was accepted as a duty and it was shirked as a duty. And that is precisely true of a tyrannicide like that for which everybody clamoured at the conclusion of the Great War. It may have been right or wrong to punish the Kaiser; it was certainly no more right to punish the German generals and admirals for their atrocities. But even if it was wrong, it was not abandoned because it was wrong. It was abandoned because it was troublesome. It was abandoned for all those motives—weakness and mutability of mood which we associate with the name of Hamlet. It might be glory or ignominy to shed the blood of imperial enemies, but it is certainly ignominy to shout for what you dare not shed; “to fall a-cursing like a common drab, a scullion.” Granted that we had no better motives than we had then or have now, it would certainly have been more dignified if we had fatted all the region-kites with this slave’s offal. The motive is the only moral test. A saint might provide us with a higher motive for forgiving the War-Lords who butchered Fryatt and Edith Cavell. But we have not forgiven the War-Lords. We have simply forgotten the War. We have not pardoned like Christ; we have only procrastinated like Hamlet. Our highest motive has been laziness; our commonest motive has been money. In this respect indeed I must apologize to the charming and chivalrous Prince of Denmark for comparing him, even on a single point, with the princes of finance and the professional politicians of our time. At least Hamlet did not spare Claudius solely because he hoped to get money out of him for the salaries of the Players, or meant to do a deal with him about wine supplied to Elsinore or debts contracted at Wittenburg. Still less was Hamlet acting entirely in the interests of Shylock, an inhabitant of the distant city of Venice. Doubtless Hamlet was sent to England in order that he might develop further these higher motives for peace and pardon. “‘Twill not be noticed in him there; there the men are as mad as he.”
It is therefore very natural that men should be trying to dissolve the moral problem of Hamlet into the unmoral elements of consciousness and unconsciousness. The sort of duty that Hamlet shirked is exactly the sort of duty that we are all shirking; that of dethroning justice and vindicating truth. Many are now in a mood to deny that it is a duty because it is a danger. This applies, of course, not only to international but internal and especially industrial matters. Capitalism was allowed to grow into a towering tyranny in England because the English were always putting off their popular revolution, just as the Prince of Denmark put off his palace revolution. They lectured the French about their love of bloody revolutions, exactly as they are now lecturing the French about their love of bloody wars. But the patience which suffered England to be turned into a plutocracy was not the patience of the saints; it was that patience which paralyzed the noble prince of the tragedy; accidia and the great refusal. In any case, the vital point is that by refusing to punish the powerful we soon lost the very idea of punishment; and turned our police into a mere persecution of the poor.
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THE MEANING OF MOCK TURKEY
HAVING lately taken part in a pageant of Nursery Rhymes, in the character of Old King Cole, I meditated not so much on the glorious past of the great kingdom of Colchester, as on the more doubtful future of Nursery Rhymes. The Modern Movements cannot produce a nursery rhyme; it is one of the many such things they cannot even be conceived as doing. But if they cannot create the nursery rhyme, will they destroy it? The new poets have already abolished rhyme; and presumably the new educationalists will soon abolish nurseries. Or if they do not destroy, will they reform; which is worse? Nursery rhymes are a positive network of notions and allusions of which the enlightened disapprove. To take only my own allotted rhyme as an example, some might think the very mention of a king a piece of reactionary royalism, inconsistent with that democratic self-determination we all enjoy under some five Controllers and a committee of the Cabinet. Perhaps in the amended version he will be called President Cole. Probably he will be confused with Mr. G. D. H. Cole, the first President of the Guild Socialistic Republic. With the greatest admiration for Mr. Cole, I cannot quite picture him as so festive a figure; and I incline to think that the same influences will probably eliminate the festivity. It is said that America, having already abolished the bowl, is now attempting to abolish the pipe. After that it might very reasonably go on to abolish the fiddlers; for music can be far more maddening than wine. Tolstoy, the only consistent prophet of the Simple Life, did really go on to denounce music as a mere drug. Anyhow, it is quite intolerable that the innocent minds of children should be poisoned with the idea of anybody calling for his pipe and his bowl. There will have to be some other version, such as: “He called for his milk and he called for his lozenge,” or whatever form of bodily pleasure is still permitted to mankind. This particular verse will evidently have to be altered a great deal; it is founded on so antiquated a philosophy, that I fear even the alteration will not be easy or complete. I am not sure, for instance, that there is not a memory of animism and spiritism in the very word “soul,” used in calling the monarch a merry old soul. It would seem that some other simple phrase, such as “a merry old organism,” might be used with advantage. Indeed it would save more advantages than one; for if the reader will say the amended line in a flowing and lyrical manner, he cannot but observe that the experiment has burst the fetters of formal metre, and achieved one of these larger and lovelier melodies that we associate with vers libre.
It is needless to note the numberless other examples of nursery rhymes to which the same criticism applies. Some of the other cases are even more shocking to the true scientific spirit. For instance, in the typically old-world rhyme of “Girls and boys come out to play,” there appear the truly appalling words: “Leave your supper and leave your sleep.” As the great medical reformer of our day observed, in a striking and immortal phrase, “All Eugenists are agreed upon the importance of sleep.” The case of supper may be more complex and controversial. If the supper were a really hygienic and wholesome supper, it might not be so difficult to leave it. But it is obvious that the whole vision which the rhyme calls up is utterly incompatible with a wise educational supervision. It is a wild vision of children playing in the streets by moonlight, for all the world as if they were fairies. Moonlight, like music, is credited with a power of upsetting the reason; and it is at least obvious that the indulgence is both unseasonable and unreasonable. No scientific reformer desires hasty and destructive action; for his reform is founded on that evolution which has produced the anthropoid from the amoeba, a process which none have ever stigmatized as hasty. But when the eugenist recalls the reckless and romantic love affairs encouraged by such moonlight, he will have to consider seriously the problem of abolishing the moon.
But indeed I have much more sympathy with the simplicity of the baby who cries for the moon than with the sort of simplicity that dismisses the moon as all moonshine. And indeed I think that these two antagonistic types of simplicity are perhaps the pivotal terms of the present transition. It is a new thing called the Simple Life against an older thing which may be called the Simple Soul; possibly exemplified, so far as nursery rhymes are concerned, by the incident of Simple Simon. I prefer the old Simple Simon, who, though ignorant of the economic theory of exchange, had at least a positive and poetic enthusiasm for pies. I think him far wiser than the new Simple Simon, who simplifies his existence by means of a perverse and pedantic antipathy to pies. It is unnecessary to add that this philosophy of pies is applicable with peculiar force to mince-pies; and thus to the whole of the Christmas tradition which descended from the first carols to the imaginative world of Dickens. The morality of that tradition is much too simple and obvious to be understood to-day. Awful as it may seem to many modern people, it means no less than that Simple Simon should have his pies, even in the absence of his pennies.
But the philosophy of the two Simple Simons is plain enough. The former is an expansion of simplicity towards complexity; Simon, conscious that he cannot himself make pies, approaches them with an ardour not unmixed with awe. But the latter is a reaction of complexity towards simplicity; in other words the other Simon refuses pies for various reasons, often including the fact that he has eaten too many of them. Most of the Simple Life as we see it to-day is, of course, a thing having this character of the surfeit or satiety of Simon, when he has become less simple and certainly less greedy. This reaction may take two diverse forms; it may send Simon searching for more and more expensive and extravagant confectionery, or it may reduce him to nibbling at some new kind of nut biscuit. For it may be noted, in passing, that it probably will not reduce him to eating dry bread. The Simple Life never accepts anything that is simple in the sense of self-evident and familiar. The thing must be uncommonly simple; it must not be simply common. Its philosophy must be something higher than the ordinary breakfast table, and something drier than dry bread. The usual process, as I have observed it in vegetarian and other summaries, seems in one sense indeed to be simple enough. The pie-man produces what looks like the same sort of pie, or is supposed to look like it; only it has thinner crust outside and nothing at all inside. Then instead of asking Simple Simon for a penny he asks him for a pound, or possibly a guinea or a five-pound note. And what is strangest of all, the customer is often so singularly Simple a Simon that he pays for it. For that is perhaps the final and most marked difference between Simon of the Simple Spirit and Simon of the Simple Life. It is the fact that the ardent and appreciative Simon was not in possession of a penny. The more refined and exalted Simon is generally in possession of far too many pennies. He is often very rich and needs to be; for the drier and thinner and emptier are the pies, the more he is charged for them. But this alone will reveal another side of the same paradox; and if it be possible to spend a lot of money on the Simple Life, it is also possible to make a great deal of money out of it. There are several self-advertisers doing very well out of the new self-denial. But wealth is always at one end of it or the other; and that is the great difference between the two Simons. Perhaps it is the difference between Simon Peter and Simon Magus.
I have before me a little pamphlet in which the most precise directions are given for a Mock Turkey, for a vegetarian mince-pie, and for a cautious and hygienic Christmas pudding. I have never quite understood why it should be a part of the Simple Life to have anything so deceptive and almost conspiratorial as an imitation turkey. The coarse and comic alderman may be expected, in his festive ribaldry, to mock a turtle; but surely a lean and earnest humanitarian ought not to mock a turkey. Nor do I understand the theory of the imitation in its relation to the ideal. Surely one who thinks meat eating mere cannibalism ought not to arrange vegetables so as to look like an animal. It is as if a converted cannibal in the Sandwich Islands were to arrange joints of meat in the shape of a missionary. The missionaries would surely regard the proceedings of their convert with something less than approval, and perhaps with something akin to alarm. But the consistency of these concessions I will leave on one side, because I am not here concerned with the concessions but with the creed itself. And I am concerned with the creed not merely as affecting its practice in diet or cookery but its general theory. For the compilers of the little book before me are great on philosophy and ethics. There are whole pages about brotherhood and fellowship and happiness and healing. In short, as the writer observes, we have “also some Mental Helps, as set forth in the flood of Psychology Literature to-day—but raised to a higher plane.” It may be a little risky to set a thing forth in a flood, or a little difficult to raise a flood to a higher plane; but there is behind these rather vague expressions a very real modern intelligence and point of view, common to considerable numbers of cultivated people, and well worthy of some further study.
Under the title of “How to Think” there are twenty-four rules of which the first few are: “Empty Your Mind,” “Think of the Best Things,” “Appreciate,” “Analyze,” “Prepare Physically,” “Prepare Mentally,” and so on. I have met some earnest students of this school, who had apparently entered on this course, but at the time of our meeting had only graduated so far as the fulfilment of the first rule. It was more obvious, on the whole, that they had succeeded in the preliminary process of emptying the mind than that they had as yet thought of the best things, or analyzed or appreciated anything in particular. But there were others, I willingly admit, who had really thought of certain things in a genuinely thoughtful fashion, though whether they were really the best things might involve a difference of opinion between us. Still, so far as they are concerned, it is a school of thought, and therefore worth thinking about. Having been able to this extent to appreciate, I will now attempt to analyze. I have attempted to discover in my own mind where the difference between us really lies, apart from all these superficial jests and journalistic points; to ask myself why it is exactly that their ideal vegetarian differs so much from my ideal Christian. And the result of the concentrated contemplation of their ideal is, I confess, a somewhat impatient forward plunge in the progress of their initiation. I am strongly disposed to “Prepare Physically” for a conflict with the ideal vegetarian, with the only hope of hitting him on the nose. In one of Mr. P. G. Wodehouse’s stories the vegetarian rebukes his enemy for threatening to skin him, by reminding him that man should only think beautiful thoughts; to which the enemy gives the unanswerable answer: “Skinning you is a beautiful thought.” In the same way I am quite prepared to think of the best things; but I think hitting the ideal vegetarian on the nose would be one of the best things in the world. This may be an extreme example; but it involves a much more serious principle. What such philosophers often forget is that among the best things in the world are the very things which their placid universalism forbids; and that there is nothing better or more beautiful than a noble hatred. I do not profess to feel it for them; but they themselves do not seem to feel it for anything.
But as my new idealistic instructor tells me to analyze, I will attempt to analyze. In the ordinary way it would perhaps be enough to say that I do not like his ideals, and that I prefer my own, as I should say I did not like the taste of nut cutlet so much as the taste of veal cutlet. But just as it is possible to resolve the food into formulas about proteids, so it is partly possible to resolve the religious preference into formulas about principles. The most we can hope to do is to find out which of these principles are the first principles. And in this connexion I should like to speak a little more seriously, and even a little more respectfully, of the formulas about emptying the mind. I do not deny that it is sometimes a good thing to empty the mind of the mere accumulation of secondary and tertiary impressions. If what is meant is something which a friend of mine once called “a mental spring clean,” then I can see what it means. But the most drastic spring clean in a house does not generally wash away the house. It does not tear down the roof like a cobweb, or pluck up the walls like weeds. And the true formula is not so much to empty the mind as to discover that we cannot empty the mind, by emptying it as much as we can. In other words we always came back to certain fundamentals which are convictions, because we can hardly even conceive their contraries. But it is the paradox of human language that though these truths are in a manner past all parallel, hard and clear, yet any attempt to talk about them always has the appearance of being hazy and elusive.
Now this antagonism, when thus analyzed, seems to me to arise from one ultimate thing at the back of the minds of these men; that they believe in taking the body seriously. The body is a sort of pagan god, though the pagans are more often stoics than epicureans. To begin with, it is itself a beginning. The body, if not the creator of the soul in Heaven, is regarded as the practical producer of it on earth. In this their materialism is the very foundation of their asceticism. They wish us to consume clean fruit and clear water that our minds may be clear or our lives clean. The body is a sort of magical factory where these things go in as vegetables and come out as virtues. Thus digestion has the first sign of a deity; that of being an origin. It has the next sign of a deity; that if it is satisfied other things do not matter, or at any rate other things follow in their place. And so, they would say, the services of the body should be serious and not grotesque; and its smallest hints should be taken as terrible warnings. Art has a place in it because the body must be draped like an altar; and science is paraded in it because the service must be in Latin or Greek or some hieratic tongue. I quite understand these things surrounding a god or an altar; but I do not happen to worship at that altar or to believe in that god. I do not think the body ought to be taken seriously; I think it is far safer and saner when it is taken comically and even coarsely. And I think that when the body is given a holiday, as it is in a great feast, I think it should be set free not merely for wisdom but for folly, not merely to dance but to turn head over heels. In short, when it is really allowed to exaggerate its own pleasures, it ought also to exaggerate its own absurdity. The body has its own rank, and its own rights, and its own place under government; but the body is not the king but rather the Court Jester. And the human and historical importance of the old jests and buffooneries of Christmas, however vulgar or stale or trivial they appear, is that in them the popular instinct always resisted this pagan solemnity about sensual things. A man was meant to feel rather a goose when he was eating goose; and to realize that he is such stuff as stuffing is made of. That is why anyone who has in these things the touch of the comic will also have the taste for the conservative; he will be unwilling to alter what that popular instinct has made in its own absurd image. He will be doubtful about a Christmas pudding moulded in the shape of the Pyramid or the Parthenon, or anything that is not as round and ridiculous as the world. And when Mr. Pickwick, as round and ridiculous as any Christmas pudding or any world worth living in, stood straddling and smiling under the mistletoe he disinfected that vegetable of its ancient and almost vegetarian sadness and heathenism, of the blood of Baldur and the human sacrifice of the Druids.
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SHAKESPEARE AND THE LEGAL LADY
I WONDER how long liberated woman will endure the invidious ban which excludes her from being a hangman. Or rather, to speak with more exactitude, a hangwoman. The very fact that there seems something vaguely unfamiliar and awkward about the word, is but a proof of the ages of sex oppression that have accustomed us to this sex privilege. The ambition would not perhaps have been understood by the prudish and sentimental heroines of Fanny Burney and Jane Austen. But it is now agreed that the farther we go beyond these faded proprieties the better; and I really do not see how we could go farther. There are always torturers of course; who will probably return under some scientific name. Obscurantists may use the old argument, that woman has never risen to the first rank in this or other arts; that Jack Ketch was not Jemima Ketch, and that the headsman was called Samson and not Delilah. And they will be overwhelmed with the old retort: that until we have hundreds of healthy women happily engaged in this healthful occupation, it will be impossible to judge whether they can rise above the average or no. Tearful sentimentalists may feel something unpleasing, something faintly repugnant, about the new feminine trade. But, as the indignant policewoman said the other day, when a magistrate excluded some of her sex and service from revolting revelations, “crime is a disease,” and must be studied scientifically, however hideous it may be. Death also is a disease; and frequently a fatal one. Experiments must be made in it; and it must be inflicted in any form, however hideous, in a cool and scientific manner.
It is not true, of course, that crime is a disease. It is criminology that is a disease. But the suggestion about the painful duties of a policewoman leads naturally to my deduction about the painful duties of a hangwoman. And I make it in the faint hope of waking up some of the feminists, that they may at least be moved to wonder what they are doing, and to attempt to find out. What they are not doing is obvious enough. They are not asking themselves two perfectly plain questions; first, whether they want anybody to be a hangman; and second, whether they want everybody to be a hangman. They simply assume, with panting impetuosity, that we want everybody to be everything, criminologists, constables, barristers, executioners, torturers. It never seems to occur to them that some of us doubt the beauty and blessedness of these things, and are rather glad to limit them like other necessary evils. And this applies especially to the doubtful though defensible case of the advocate.
There is one phrase perpetually repeated and now practically stereotyped, which to my mind concentrates and sums up all the very worst qualities in the very worst journalism; all its paralysis of thought, all its monotony of chatter, all its sham culture and shoddy picturesqueness, all its perpetual readiness to cover any vulgarity of the present with any sentimentalism about the past. There is one phrase that does measure to how low an ebb the mind of my unfortunate profession can sink. It is the habit of perpetually calling any of the new lady barristers “Portia.”
First of all, of course, it is quite clear that the journalist does not know who Portia was. If he has ever heard of the story of the “Merchant of Venice” he has managed to miss the only point of the story. Suppose a man had been so instructed in the story of “As You Like It” that he remained under the impression that Rosalind merely was a boy, and was the brother of Celia. We should say that the plot of the comedy had reached his mind in a rather confused form. Suppose a man had seen a whole performance of the play of “Twelfth Night” without discovering the fact that the page called Cesario was really a girl called Viola. We should say that he had succeeded in seeing the play without exactly seeing the point. But there is exactly the same blind stupidity in calling a barrister Portia; or even in calling Portia a barrister. It misses in exactly the same sense the whole meaning of the scene. Portia is no more a barrister than Rosalind is a boy. She is no more the learned jurist whom Shylock congratulates than Viola is the adventurous page whom Olivia loves. The whole point of her position is that she is a heroic and magnanimous fraud. She has not taken up the legal profession, or any profession; she has not sought that public duty, or any public duty. Her action, from first to last, is wholly and entirely private. Her motives are not professional but private. Her ideal is not public but private. She acts as much on personal grounds in the Trial Scene as she does in the Casket Scene. She acts in order to save a friend, and especially a friend of the husband whom she loves. Anything less like the attitude of an advocate, for good or evil, could not be conceived. She seeks individually to save an individual; and in order to do so is ready to break all the existing laws of the profession and the public tribunal; to assume lawlessly powers she has not got, to intrude where she would never be legally admitted, to pretend to be somebody else, to dress up as a man; to do what is actually a crime against the law. This is not what is now called the attitude of a public woman; it is certainly not the attitude of a lady lawyer, any more than of any other kind of lawyer. But it is emphatically the attitude of a private woman; that much more ancient and much more powerful thing.
Suppose that Portia had really become an advocate, merely by advocating the cause of Antonio against Shylock. The first thing that follows is that, as like as not, she would be briefed in the next case to advocate the cause of Shylock against Antonio. She would, in the ordinary way of business, have to help Shylock to punish with ruin the private extravagances of Gratiano. She would have to assist Shylock to distrain on poor Launcelot Gobbo and sell up all his miserable sticks. She might well be employed by him to ruin the happiness of Lorenzo and Jessica, by urging some obsolete parental power or some technical flaw in the marriage service. Shylock evidently had a great admiration for her forensic talents; and indeed that sort of lucid and detached admission of the talents of a successful opponent is a very Jewish characteristic. There seems no reason why he should not have employed her regularly, whenever he wanted some one to recover ruthless interest, to ruin needy households, to drive towards theft or suicide the souls of desperate men. But there seems every reason to doubt whether the Portia whom Shakespeare describes for us is likely to have taken on the job.
Anyhow, that is the job; and I am not here arguing that it is not a necessary job; or that it is always an indefensible job. Many honourable men have made an arguable case for the advocate who has to support Shylock, and men much worse than Shylock. But that is the job; and to cover up its ugly realities with a loose literary quotation that really refers to the exact opposite, is one of those crawling and cowardly evasions and verbal fictions which make all this sort of servile journalism so useless for every worthy or working purpose. If we wish to consider whether a lady should be a barrister, we should consider sanely and clearly what a barrister is and what a lady is; and then come to our conclusion according to what we considered worthy or worthless in the traditions of the two things. But the spirit of advertisement, which tries to associate soap with sunlight or grapenuts with grapes, calls to its rescue an old romance of Venice and tries to cover up a practical problem in the robes of a romantic heroine of the stage. This is the sort of confusion that really leads to corruption. In one sense it would matter very little that the legal profession was formally open to women, for it is only a very exceptional sort of woman who would see herself as a vision of beauty in the character of Mr. Sergeant Buzfuz. And most girls are more likely to be stage-struck, and want to be the real Portia on the stage, rather than law-struck and want to be the very reverse of Portia in a law court. For that matter, it would make relatively little difference if formal permission were given to a woman to be a hangman or a torturer. Very few women would have a taste for it; and very few men would have a taste for the women who had a taste for it. But advertisement, by its use of the vulgar picturesque, can hide the realities of this professional problem, as it can hide the realities of tinned meats and patent medicines. It can conceal the fact that the hangman exists to hang, and that the torturer exists to torture. Similarly it can conceal the fact that the Buzfuz barrister exists to bully. It can hide from the innocent female aspirants outside even the perils and potential abuses that would be admitted by the honest male advocate inside. And that is part of a very much larger problem, which extends beyond this particular profession to a great many other professions; and not least to the lowest and most lucrative of all modern professions: that of professional politics.
I wonder how many people are still duped by the story of the extension of the franchise. I wonder how many Radicals have been a little mystified, in remarking how many Tories and reactionaries have helped in the extension of the franchise. The truth is that calling in crowds of new voters will very often be to the interest, not only of Tories, but of really tyrannical Tories. It will often be in the interest of the guilty to appeal to the innocent; if they are innocent in the matter of other people’s conduct as well as of their own. The tyrant calls in those he has not wronged, to defend him against those he has wronged. He is not afraid of the new and ignorant masses who know too little; he is afraid of the older and nearer nucleus of those who know too much. And there is nothing that would please the professional politician more than to flood the constituencies with innocent negroes or remote Chinamen, who might possibly admire him more, because they knew him less. I should not wonder if the Party System had been saved three or four times at the point of extinction, by the introduction of new voters who had never had time to discover why it deserved to be extinguished. The last of these rescues by an inrush of dupes was the enfranchisement of women.
What is true of the political is equally true of the professional ambition. Much of the mere imitation of masculine tricks and trades is indeed trivial enough; it is a mere masquerade. The greatest of Roman satirists noted that in his day the more fast of the fashionable ladies liked to fight as gladiators in the amphitheatre. In that one statement he pinned and killed, like moths on a cork, a host of women prophets and women pioneers and large-minded liberators of their sex in modern England and America. But besides these more showy she-gladiators there are also multitudes of worthy and sincere women who take the new (or rather old) professions seriously. The only disadvantage is that in many of those professions they can only continue to be serious by ceasing to be sincere. But the simplicity with which they first set out is an enormous support to old and complex and corrupt institutions. No modest person setting out to learn an elaborate science can be expected to start with the assumption that it is not worth learning. The young lady will naturally begin to learn Law as gravely as she begins to learn Greek. It is not in that mood that she will conceive independent doubts about the ultimate relations of Law and Justice. Just as the Suffragettes are already complaining that the realism of industrial revolution interferes with their new hobby of voting, so the lady lawyers are quite likely to complain that the realism of legal reformers interferes with their new hobby of legalism. We are suffering in every department from the same cross-purposes that can be seen in the case of any vulgar patent medicine. In Law and Medicine, we have the thing advertised in the public press instead of analyzed by the public authority. What we want is not the journalistic Portia but the theatrical Portia, who is also the real Portia. We do not want the woman who will enter the law court with the solemn sense of a lasting vocation. We want a Portia; a woman who will enter it as lightly, and leave it as gladly as she did.
The same thing is true of a fact nobler than any fiction; the story, so often quoted, of the woman who won back mediaeval France. Joan of Arc was a soldier; but she was not a normal soldier. If she had been, she would have been vowed, not to the war for France, but to any war with Flanders, Spain or the Italian cities to which her feudal lord might lead her. If she were a modern conscript, she would be bound to obey orders not always coming from St. Michael. But the point is here that merely making all women soldiers, under either system, could do nothing at all except whitewash and ratify feudalism or conscription. And both feudalism and conscription are much more magnanimous things than our modern system of police and prisons.
In fact there are few sillier implications than that in the phrase that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. A cook who really rules a kitchen on that principle would wait patiently for milk from the bull, because he got it from the cow. It is neither a perceptible fact nor a first principle that the sexes must not specialize; and if one sex must specialize in adopting dubious occupations, we ought to be very glad that the other sex specializes in abstaining from them. That is how the balance of criticism in the Commonwealth is maintained; as by a sort of government and opposition. In this, as in other things, the new régime is that everybody shall join the government. The government of the moment will be monstrously strengthened; for everybody will be a tyrant and everybody will be a slave. The detached criticism of official fashions will disappear; and none was ever so detached as the deadly criticism that came from women. When all women wear uniforms, all women will wear gags; for a gag is part of every uniform in the world.
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ON BEING AN OLD BEAN
I WAS looking at some press cuttings that had pursued me down to a remote cottage beside a river of Norfolk; and as it happened, those that caught my eye were mostly not from the vulgar monopolist press, but from all sorts of quieter and even more studious publications. But what struck me as curious about the collection as a whole was the selection, among half a hundred things that were hardly worth saying, of the things that were considered worth repeating. There seemed to be a most disproportionate importance attached to a trivial phrase I had used about the alleged indecorum of a gentleman calling his father an old bean. I had been asked to join in a discussion in the “Morning Post,” touching the alleged disrespect of youth towards age, and I had done so; chiefly because I have a respect for the “Morning Post” for its courage about political corruption and cosmopolitan conspiracies, in spite of deep disagreement on other very vital things. And I said what I should have thought was so true as to be trite. I said that it makes life narrower and not broader to lose the special note of piety or respect for the past still living; and that to call an old man an old bean is merely to lose all intelligent sense of the significance of an old man. Since then, to my great entertainment, I seem to have figured in various papers as a sort of ferocious heavy father, come out on my own account to curse the numerous young sprigs who have called me an old bean. But this is an error. I should be the last to deny that I am heavy, but I am not fatherly; nor am I ferocious, at any rate I am not ferocious about this. Individually I regard the question with a detachment verging on indifference. I cannot imagine anybody except an aged and very lean vegetarian positively dancing with joy at being called an old bean; and I am not a very lean vegetarian. But still less can I imagine anyone regarding the accusation with horror or resentment; the sins and crimes blackening the career of a bean must be comparatively few; its character must be simple and free from complexity, and its manner of life innocent. A philosophic rationalist wrote to me the other day to say that my grubbing in the grossest superstitions of the past reminded him of “an old sow pig rooting in the refuse of the kitchen heap,” and expressed a hope that I should be dragged from this occupation and made to resume “the cap and bells of yore.” That is something like a vigorous and vivid comparison; though my Feminist friends may be distressed at my being compared to a sow as well as a pig; and though I am not quite clear myself about how the animal would get on when he had resumed the cap and bells of yore. But it would certainly be a pity, when it was possible to find this image in the kitchen heap, to be content with one from the kitchen-garden. It would indeed be a lost opportunity to work yourself up to the furious pitch of calling your enemy a beast, and then only call him a bean.
From the extracts I saw, it would seem that certain ladies were especially lively in their protest against my antiquated prejudices; and rioted in quite a bean-feast of old beans. The form the argument generally takes is to ask why parents and children should not be friends, or, as they often put it (I deeply regret to say), pals. Neither term seems to me to convey a sufficiently distinctive meaning; and I take it that the best term for what they really mean is that they should be comrades. Now comradeship is a very real and splendid thing; but this is simply the cant of comradeship. A boy does not take his mother with him when he goes bird-nesting; and his affection for his mother is of another kind unconnected with the idea of her climbing a tree. Three men do not generally take an aged and beloved aunt with them as part of their luggage on a walking tour; and if they did, it would not be so much disrespectful to age as unjust to youth. For this confusion between two valuable but varied things, like most of such modern confusions, is quite as liable to obscurantist as to mutinous abuse; and is as easy to turn into tyranny as into licence. If a boy’s aunts are his comrades, why should he need any comrades except his aunts? If his father and mother are perfect and consummate pals, why should he fool away his time with more ignorant, immature and insufficient pals? As in a good many other modern things, the end of the old parental dignity would be the beginning of a new parental tyranny. I would rather the boy loved his father as his father than feared him as a Frankenstein giant of a superior and supercilious friend, armed in that unequal friendship with all the weapons of psychology and psycho-analysis. If he loves him as a father he loves him as an older man; and if we are to abolish all differences of tone towards those older than ourselves, we must presumably do the same to those younger than ourselves. All healthy people, for instance, feel an instinctive and almost impersonal affection for a baby. Is a baby a comrade? Is he to climb the tree and go on the walking tour; or are we on his account to abolish all trees and tours? Are the grandfather aged ninety, the son aged thirty, and the grandson aged three, all to set out together on their travels, with the same knapsacks and knickerbockers? I have read somewhere that in one of the Ten or Twelve or Two Hundred Types of Filial Piety reverenced by the Chinese, one was an elderly sage and statesman, who dressed up as a child of four and danced before his yet more elderly parents, to delight them with the romantic illusion that they were still quite young. This in itself could not but attract remark; but this in itself I am prepared to defend. It was an exceptional and even extraordinary festivity, like the reversals of the Saturnalia; and I wish we could have seen some vigorous old gentleman like Lord Halsbury or the Archbishop of Canterbury performing a similar act of piety. But in the Utopia of comradeship now commended to us, old and young are expected normally to think alike, feel alike and talk alike; and may therefore normally and permanently be supposed to dress alike. Whether the parents dress as children or the children as parents, it is clear that they must all dress as pals, whatever be the ceremonial dress of that rank. I imagine it as something in tweeds, with rather a loud check.
As I considered these things I looked across the kitchen-garden of the cottage, and the association of peas and beans brought the fancy back to the foolish figure of speech with which the discussion began. There is a proverb, which is like most of our popular sayings, a country proverb, about things that are as like as two peas. There is something significant in the fact that this is as near as the rural imagination could get to a mere mechanical monotony. For as a matter of fact it is highly improbable that any two peas are exactly alike. A survey of the whole world of peas, with all their forms and uses, would probably reveal every sort of significance between the sweet peas of sentiment and the dried peas of asceticism. Modern machinery has gone far beyond such rude rural attempts at dullness. Things are not as like as two peas in the sense that they are as like as two pins. But the flippant phrase under discussion does really imply that they are as like as two beans. It is really part of the low and levelling philosophy that assimilates all things too much to each other. It does not mean that we see any fanciful significance in the use of the term, as in a country proverb. It is not that we see an old gentleman with fine curling white hair and say to him poetically, “Permit me, venerable cauliflower, to inquire after your health.” It is not that we address an old farmer with a deep and rich complexion, saying, “I trust, most admirable of beetroots, that you are as well as you look.” When we say, “How are you, old bean,” the error is not so much that we say something rude, but that we may say nothing because we mean nothing.
As I happened to meet at that moment a girl belonging to the family of the cottage, I showed her the cutting, and asked her opinion upon the great progressive problem of calling your father an old bean. At which she laughed derisively, and merely said, “As if anybody would!”
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THE FEAR OF THE FILM
LONG lists are being given of particular cases in which children have suffered in spirits or health from alleged horrors of the kinema. One child is said to have had a fit after seeing a film; another to have been sleepless with some fixed idea taken from a film; another to have killed his father with a carving-knife through having seen a knife used in a film. This may possibly have occurred; though if it did, anybody of common sense would prefer to have details about that particular child, rather than about that particular picture. But what is supposed to be the practical moral of it, in any case? Is it that the young should never see a story with a knife in it? Are they to be brought up in complete ignorance of “The Merchant of Venice” because Shylock flourishes a knife for a highly disagreeable purpose? Are they never to hear of Macbeth, lest it should slowly dawn upon their trembling intelligence that it is a dagger that they see before them? It would be more practical to propose that a child should never see a real carving-knife, and still more practical that he should never see a real father. All that may come; the era of preventive and prophetic science has only begun. We must not be impatient. But when we come to the cases of morbid panic after some particular exhibition, there is yet more reason to clear the mind of cant. It is perfectly true that a child will have the horrors after seeing some particular detail. It is quite equally true that nobody can possibly predict what that detail will be. It certainly need not be anything so obvious as a murder or even a knife. I should have thought anybody who knew anything about children, or for that matter anybody who had been a child, would know that these nightmares are quite incalculable. The hint of horror may come by any chance in any connexion. If the kinema exhibited nothing but views of country vicarages or vegetarian restaurants, the ugly fancy is as likely to be stimulated by these things as by anything else. It is like seeing a face in the carpet; it makes no difference that it is the carpet at the vicarage.
I will give two examples from my own most personal circle; I could give hundreds from hearsay. I know a child who screamed steadily for hours if he had been taken past the Albert Memorial. This was not a precocious precision or excellence in his taste in architecture. Nor was it a premature protest against all that gimcrack German culture which nearly entangled us in the downfall of the barbaric tyranny. It was the fear of something which he himself described with lurid simplicity as “The Cow with the India-rubber Tongue.” It sounds rather a good title for a creepy short story. At the base of the Albert Memorial (I may explain for those who have never enjoyed that monument) are four groups of statuary representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. America especially is very overwhelming; borne onward on a snorting bison who plunges forward in a fury of western progress, and is surrounded with Red Indians, Mexicans, and all sorts of pioneers, 0 pioneers, armed to the teeth. The child passed this transatlantic tornado with complete coolness and indifference. Europe however is seated on a bull so mild as to look like a cow; the tip of its tongue is showing and happened to be discoloured by weather; suggesting, I suppose, a living thing coming out of the dead marble. Now nobody could possibly foretell that a weather-stain would occur in that particular place, and fill that particular child with that particular fancy. Nobody is likely to propose meeting it by forbidding graven images, like the Moslems and the Jews. Nobody has said (as yet) that it is bad morals to make a picture of a cow. Nobody has even pleaded that it is bad manners for a cow to put its tongue out. These things are utterly beyond calculation; they are also beyond counting, for they occur all over the place, not only to morbid children but to any children. I knew this particular child very well, being a rather older child myself at the time. He certainly was not congenitally timid or feeble-minded; for he risked going to prison to expose the Marconi Scandal and died fighting in the Great War.
Here is another example out of scores. A little girl, now a very normal and cheerful young lady, had an insomnia of insane terror entirely arising from the lyric of “Little Bo-Peep.” After an inquisition like that of the confessor or the psycho-analyst, it was found that the word “bleating” had some obscure connexion in her mind with the word “bleeding.” There was thus perhaps an added horror in the phrase “heard”; in hearing rather than seeing the flowing of blood. Nobody could possibly provide against that sort of mistake. Nobody could prevent the little girl from hearing about sheep, any more than the little boy from hearing about cows. We might abolish all nursery rhymes; and as they are happy and popular and used with universal success, it is very likely that we shall. But the whole point of the mistake about that phrase is that it might have been a mistake about any phrase. We cannot foresee all the fancies that might arise, not only out of what we say, but of what we do not say. We cannot avoid promising a child a caramel lest he should think we say cannibal, or conceal the very word “hill” lest it should sound like “hell.”
All the catalogues and calculations offered us by the party of caution in this controversy are therefore quite worthless. It is perfectly true that examples can be given of a child being frightened of this, that or the other. But we can never be certain of his being frightened of the same thing twice. It is not on the negative side, by making lists of vetoes, that the danger can be avoided; it can never indeed be entirely avoided. We can only fortify the child on the positive side by giving him health and humour and a trust in God; not omitting (what will much mystify the moderns) an intelligent appreciation of the idea of authority, which is only the other side of confidence, and which alone can suddenly and summarily cast out such devils. But we may be sure that most modern people will not look at it in this way. They will think it more scientific to attempt to calculate the incalculable. So soon as they have realized that it is not so simple as it looks, they will try to map it out, however complicated it may be. When they discover that the terrible detail need not be a knife, but might just as well be a fork, they will only say there is a fork complex as well as a knife complex. And that increasing complexity of complexes is the net in which liberty will be taken.
Instead of seeing in the odd cases of the cow’s tongue or the bleating sheep the peril of their past generalizations, they will see them only as starting points for new generalizations. They will get yet another theory out of it. And they will begin acting on the theory long before they have done thinking about it. They will start out with some new and crude conception that sculpture has made children scream or that nursery rhymes have made children sleepless; and the thing will be a clause in a programme of reform before it has begun to be a conclusion in a serious study of psychology. That is the practical problem about modern liberty which the critics will not see; of which eugenics is one example and all this amateur child-psychology is another. So long as an old morality was in black and white like a chess-board, even a man who wanted more of it made white was certain that no more of it would be made black. Now he is never certain what vices may not be released, but neither is he certain what virtues may be forbidden. Even if he did not think it wrong to run away with a married woman, he knew that his neighbours only thought it wrong because the woman was married. They did not think it wrong to run away with a red-haired woman, or a left-handed woman, or a woman subject to headaches. But when we let loose a thousand eugenical speculations, all adopted before they are verified and acted on even before they are adopted, he is just as likely as not to find himself separated from the woman for those or any other reasons. Similarly there was something to be said for restrictions, even rather puritanical and provincial restrictions, upon what children should read or see, so long as they fenced in certain fixed departments like sex or sensational tortures. But when we begin to speculate on whether other sensations may not stimulate as dangerously as sex, those other sensations may be as closely controlled as sex. When, let us say, we hear that the eye and brain are weakened by the rapid turning of wheels as well as by the most revolting torturing of men, we have come into a world in which cart-wheels and steam-engines may become as obscene as racks and thumbscrews. In short, so long as we combine ceaseless and often reckless scientific speculation with rapid and often random social reform, the result must inevitably be not anarchy but ever-increasing tyranny. There must be a ceaseless and almost mechanical multiplication of things forbidden. The resolution to cure all the ills that flesh is heir to, combined with the guesswork about all possible ills that flesh and nerve and brain-cell may be heir to—these two things conducted simultaneously must inevitably spread a sort of panic of prohibition. Scientific imagination and social reform between them will quite logically and almost legitimately have made us slaves. This seems to me a very clear, a very fair and a very simple point of public criticism; and I am much mystified about why so many publicists cannot even see what it is, but take refuge in charges of anarchism, which firstly are not true, and secondly have nothing to do with it.
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WINGS AND THE HOUSEMAID
AMONG the numberless fictitious things that I have fortunately never written, there was a little story about a logical maiden lady engaging apartments in which she was not allowed to keep a cat or dog, who, nevertheless, stipulated for permission to keep a bird, and who eventually walked round to her new lodgings accompanied by an ostrich. There was a moral to the fable, connected with that exaggeration of small concessions, in which, for instance, the Germans indulged about espionage, or the Jews about interest. But this faded fancy returned to my mind in another fashion when a very humane lady suggested the other day that every domestic servant, including the butler, I presume, should be described as “a home-bird.” Unless the lady is mis-reported, which is likely enough, she wanted servants called home-birds because they keep the home-fires burning, which, as many will be ready to point out, is hardly the particular form in which the domesticity of the nest commonly expresses itself. But I am not at all disposed to deride the lady’s real meaning, still less her real motives, which referred to a real movement of social conscience and sentiment, however wrongly expressed. She was troubled about the implied insolence of calling servants servants and apparently even of talking about “maids” or “the cook.” Therefore she evolved the ornithological substitute; about which, of course, it would be easy to evolve a whole aviary of allegorical parodies. It would be easy to ask whether a private secretary is to be called a secretary bird, or, perhaps, the telephone girl a humming-bird; but it will be enough to say generally of the proposal, in its present verbal form, that one has only to submit it to any living and human house-maid in order to find that particular home-bird developing rapidly into a mocking-bird. Nevertheless, as I have said, we should not merely dismiss any social doubts thus suggested, or any impulse towards a warmer respect for work generally grossly under-valued. Too many people, of the more snobbish social strata, have treated their servants as home-birds; as owls, for instance, who can be up all night, or as vultures, who can eat the refuse fit for the dustbin. I would not throw cold water on any indignation on this score; but I note it as typical of the time that the indignation should fail on the side of intelligence. For it is the mark of our time, above almost everything else, that it goes by associations and not by arguments; that is why it has a hundred arts and no philosophy.
Thus, for instance, the lady in question lumps together a number of terms that have no logical connexion at all. There is at least a meaning in objecting to one person calling another a servant. As I shall suggest in a moment, there is not much sense in changing the name when you do not change the thing; and there is a great deal of nonsense in denying the status of the servant at the moment when you are making it more servile. Still, anybody can see how the term might be held to hurt human dignity; but the other terms mentioned cannot hurt human dignity at all. I cannot conceive why it should insult a cook to call her a cook, any more than it insults a cashier to call him a cashier; to say nothing of the fact that dealing with cookery is far nobler than dealing with cash. And the third title certainly tells entirely the other way. The word “maid” is not only a noble old English word, with no note of social distinction; for a mediaeval king might have praised his daughter as “a good maid.” It is a word loaded with magnificent memories, in history, literature, and religion. Joan the Maid suggests a little more than Joan the maid-servant; and, as it says in Mr. Belloc’s stirring little poem:—
By God who made the Master Maids, I know not whence she came; But the sword she bore to save the soul Went up like an altar flame.
It is needless here to trace the idea back to its splendid sources; or to explain how the word maid has been the highest earthly title, not only on earth but in Heaven. “Mother and maiden was never none but she.” Here at least modern humanitarian criticism has gone curiously astray, even for its own purposes; any servant may well be satisfied with the dignity of being called the maid, just as any workman may be rightly honoured by the accident which calls him the man. For in a modern industrial dispute, as reported in the papers, I always feel there is a final verdict and sentence in the very statement of the case of Masters versus Men.
The true objection lies much farther back. It begins with the simple fact that the home-bird is not in her own home. When that particular sparrow stokes the fire, as above described, it is not her own fireside; when we happen to meet a canary carrying a coal scuttle, the canary is not generally a coal-owner. In short, wherever we find pelicans, penguins, or flamingoes keeping the home-fires burning, they may all be earnestly wishing that they could fly away to their homes. Now a moderate amount of this temporary and vicarious domesticity is a natural enough accident in social relations, so long as it does not obscure and obstruct more individual and direct domesticity. In short, there is no particular harm in the maid being a housemaid in some one else’s house, if she normally has a chance of being a housewife in her own. As I shall suggest in a moment, this is what was really implied in certain older institutions to which the wisest are now looking back. But in any case it is odd that the home-bird should thus plume itself at this moment; for the trend of the time is certainly not towards any domesticity, direct or indirect. The birds have long been netted or caged, by cold, fear and hunger, into larger and more terrorist systems. The happy home-birds are keeping the factory fires burning. The only legal and industrial tendency seems to be to shut up more and more of the women, those strange wild fowl, in those colossal cages of iron. Nor is the change one of mere aesthetic atmosphere; we know now that it is one of economic fact and may soon be one of legal definition. In a word, it is queer that we should suddenly grow sensitive about calling people servants when we are in the act of making them slaves. Indeed, in many concrete cases we may already be said to be making them convicts. The true moral meaning of much that is called the improvement of prisons is not that we are turning prisoners into a better sort of people, but rather that we are treating a better sort of people as prisoners. The broad arrow is broadened in so liberal a fashion as to cover those who would once have been counted respectable and there is a sense in which the broad arrow, becoming broader, is bound to become blunter. The prison becomes utilitarian as well as disciplinary, as the factory becomes disciplinary as well as utilitarian. The two become simply and substantially the same; for they have to treat the same sort of impecunious people in the same sort of impersonal way. People may differ about the definition of that common condition or status. Some may eagerly salute persons involved as home-birds; others may prefer to describe them as jail-birds.
For the rest, if anybody wants to strike the central stream of moderate sanity in the servant problem, I recommend him first to read with a close attention or preferably to sing in a loud voice, the song called “Sally in Our Alley.” In that great and gloriously English lyric, the poet does not disguise the accidental discomforts of the great system of apprenticeship which was part of the glory of the Guilds. He even exhibits his Christian prejudices by comparing his master to a Turk. He actually entertains, as every reflective social reformer must, the hypothetical alternative of the Servile State, and considers the relative advantages of a slave that rows a galley. But the point is that what makes him refuse and endure is hope, the sure and certain hope of a glorious emancipation; not the hopeless hope of a chance in a scramble, with a general recommendation to get on or get out, but a charter of knowledge and honour, that “when his seven long years are past,” a door shall open to him, which our age has shut on the great multitude of mankind.
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THE SLAVERY OF FREE VERSE
THE truth most needed to-day is that the end is never the right end. The beginning is the right end at which to begin. The modern man has to read everything backwards; as when he reads journalism first and history afterwards—if at all. He is like a blind man exploring an elephant, and condemned to begin at the very tip of its tail. But he is still more unlucky; for when be has a first principle, it is generally the very last principle that he ought to have. He starts, as it were, with one infallible dogma about the elephant; that its tail is its trunk. He works the wrong way round on principle; and tries to fit all the practical facts to his principle. Because the elephant has no eyes in its tail-end, he calls it a blind elephant; and expatiates on its ignorance, superstition, and need of compulsory education. Because it has no tusks at its tail-end, he says that tusks are a fantastic flourish attributed to a fabulous creature, an ivory chimera that must have come through the ivory gate. Because it does not as a rule pick up things with its tail, he dismisses the magical story that it can pick up things with its trunk. He probably says it is plainly a piece of anthropomorphism to suppose that an elephant can pack its trunk. The result is that he becomes as pallid and worried as a pessimist; the world to him is not only an elephant, but a white elephant. He does not know what to do with it, and cannot be persuaded of the perfectly simple explanation; which is that he has not made the smallest real attempt to make head or tail of the animal. He will not begin at the right end; because he happens to have come first on the wrong end.
But in nothing do I feel this modern trick, of trusting to a fag-end rather than a first principle, more than in the modern treatment of poetry. With this or that particular metrical form, or unmetrical form, or unmetrical formlessness, I might be content or not, as it achieves some particular effect or not. But the whole general tendency, regarded as an emancipation, seems to me more or less of an enslavement. It seems founded on one sub-conscious idea; that talk is freer than verse; and that verse, therefore, should claim the freedom of talk. But talk, especially in our time, is not free at all. It is tripped up by trivialities, tamed by conventions loaded with dead words, thwarted by a thousand meaningless things. It does not liberate the soul so much, when a man can say, “You always look so nice,” as when he can say, “But your eternal summer shall not fade.” The first is an awkward and constrained sentence ending with the weakest word ever used, or rather misused, by man. The second is like the gesture of a giant or the sweeping flight of an archangel; it has the very rush of liberty. I do not despise the man who says the first, because he means the second; and what he means is more important than what he says. I have always done my best to emphasize the inner dignity of these daily things, in spite of their dull externals; but I do not think it an improvement that the inner spirit itself should grow more external and more dull. It is thought right to discourage numbers of prosaic people trying to be poetical; but I think it much more of a bore to watch numbers of poetical people trying to be prosaic. In short, it is another case of tail-foremost philosophy; instead of watering the laurel hedge of the cockney villa, we bride the cockney to brick in the plant of Apollo.
I have always had the fancy that if a man were really free, he would talk in rhythm and even in rhyme. His most hurried post card would be a sonnet; and his most hasty wires like harp-strings. He would breathe a song into the telephone; a song which would be a lyric or an epic, according to the time involved in awaiting the call; or in his inevitable altercation with the telephone girl, the duel would be also a duet. He would express his preference among the dishes at dinner in short impromptu poems, combining the more mystical gratitude of grace with a certain epigrammatic terseness, more convenient for domestic good feeling. If Mr. Yeats can say, in exquisite verse, the exact number of bean-rows he would like on his plantation, why not the number of beans he would like on his plate? If he can issue a rhymed request to procure the honey-bee, why not pass the honey? Misunderstandings might arise at first with the richer and more fantastic poets; and Francis Thompson might have asked several times for “the gold skins of undelirious wine” before anybody understood that he wanted the grapes. Nevertheless, I will maintain that his magnificent phrase would be a far more real expression of God’s most glorious gift of the vine, than if he had simply said in a peremptory manner “grapes”; especially if the culture of compulsory education had carefully taught him to pronounce it as if it were “gripes.” And if a man could ask for a potato in the form of a poem, the poem would not be merely a more romantic but a much more realistic rendering of a potato. For a potato is a poem; it is even an ascending scale of poems; beginning at the root, in subterranean grotesques in the Gothic manner, with humps like the deformities of a goblin and eyes like a beast of Revelation, and rising up through the green shades of the earth to a crown that has the shape of stars and the hue of Heaven.
But the truth behind all this is that expressed in that very ancient mystical notion, the music of the spheres. It is the idea that, at the back of everything, existence begins with a harmony and not a chaos; and, therefore, when we really spread our wings and find a wider freedom, we find it in something more continuous and recurrent, and not in something more fragmentary and crude. Freedom is fullness, especially fullness of life; and a full vessel is more rounded and complete than an empty one, and not less so. To vary Browning’s phrase, we find in prose the broken arcs, in poetry the perfect round. Prose is not the freedom of poetry; rather prose is the fragments of poetry. Prose, at least in the prosaic sense, is poetry interrupted, held up and cut off from its course; the chariot of Phoebus stopped by a block in the Strand. But when it begins to move again at all, I think we shall find certain old-fashioned things move with it, such as repetition and even measure, rhythm and even rhyme. We shall discover with horror that the wheels of the chariot go round and round; and even that the horses of the chariot have the usual number of feet.
Anyhow, the right way to encourage the cortège is not to put the cart before the horse. It is to make poetry more poetical by ignoring what distinguishes it from prose. There may be many new ways of making the chariot move again; but I confess that most of the modern theorists seem to me to be lecturing on a new theory of its mechanics, while it is standing still. If a wizard before my very eyes works a miracle with a rope, a boy and a mango plant, I am only theoretically interested in the question of a sceptic, who asks why it should not be done with a garden hose, a maiden aunt and a monkey-tree. Why not, indeed, if he can do it? If a saint performs a miracle to-morrow, by turning a stone into a fish, I shall be the less concerned at being asked, in the abstract, why a man should not also turn a camp-stool into a cockatoo; but let him do it, and not merely explain how it can be done. It is certain that words such as “birds” and “sweet,” which are as plain as “fish” or “stone,” can be combined in such a miracle as “Bare ruined quires where late the sweet birds sang.” So far as I can follow my own feelings, the metre and fall of the feet, even the rhyme and place in the sonnet, have a great deal to do with producing such an effect. I do not say there is no other way of producing such an effect. I only ask, not without longing, where else in this wide and weary time is it produced? I know I cannot produce it; and I do not in fact feel it when I hear vers libres. I know not where is that Promethean heat; and, even to express my ignorance, I am glad to find better words than my own.
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PROHIBITION AND THE PRESS
AN organ of the Nonconformist Conscience, while commenting very kindly on my recent remarks about America, naturally went on to criticize, though equally kind, my remarks about Prohibition. Now, so far as I am concerned, the problem is not so much Prohibition with a large P as prohibition with a small one. I mean, I am interested not so much in liquor as in liberty. I want to know on what principle the prohibitionists are proceeding in this case, and how they think it applies to any other case. And I cannot for the life of me make out. They might be expected to argue that there is something peculiar in principle about the position of liquor, and make that the basis for attacking liquor. But in point of fact they do not attack liquor; they do quite simply attack liberty. I mean that they are satisfied with saying about this liberty what can obviously be said about any liberty—that it can be, and is, abominably abused. If that had been a final objection to any form of freedom, there never would have been any form of freedom. And there most notably would never have been the particular forms of freedom which are most sacred to the Nonconformist Conscience. The Nonconformists have demanded liberty to secede, though they knew it led to an anarchy of sects and spiteful controversies. They had demanded the licence to print, though they knew it involved the licence to print twenty falsehoods to one truth. I suppose there is nothing in history of which the modern Puritan would be more innocently proud than the thing called the Liberty of the Press, which arose out of the pamphleteering of the seventeenth century, and especially the great pamphlet of Milton. Yet everything that Milton says, about allowing controversy in spite of its dangers, could be applied word for word to the case of allowing drinking in spite of its dangers. Is not the virtue that shuts itself up in a temperance hotel a fugitive and cloistered virtue? Is not the morality that dare not have wine on the table, or in the town, emphatically one that dares not sally out to meet its enemy? All Milton’s arguments for freedom are arguments for beer; and, of course, Milton himself would certainly have applied them to beer. The highly successful brewer to whom he was Latin secretary— a gentleman of the name of Williams, otherwise Cromwell—would hardly have been pleased with him if he had not applied them to beer.
For instance the critic whom I am here venturing to criticize says that people differ about Prohibition according to their knowledge or ignorance of the dreadful state of the slums, the ravages of alcoholism in our industrial cities, and all the rest of it. Whether or no this be a good argument against the public-house, there is no doubt that I could easily turn it against the public press. I could insist that I am a common Cockney Fleet Street journalist who has done nightly work for daily papers and fed off nocturnal potato-stalls; whereas he is probably a cultivated Congregationalist minister writing in a library of theological works. I might say that I know better than he does, or than most people do, the cynicism and the vulgarity and the vices of journalism. But, as a matter of fact, the vices of journalism have by this time become as evident to the people who read journals as to the people who write them. All responsible people are complaining of the power and condition of the press, and no people more than these earnest and ethical Nonconformists. It is they who complain most bitterly that a Jingo press can manufacture war. It is they who declare most indignantly that a sensational press is undermining morality. They often, to my mind, unduly confuse matters of morality with matters of taste. They often, to my mind, denounce as mere Jingoism what is simply the deeply democratic and popular character of patriotism. But nobody will deny that to a large extent they are legitimately and logically alarmed about the abuses and absurdities of the newspapers. But they have not yet used this as an argument for a veto upon all newspapers. Why in the world should they use the parallel evils as an argument for a veto on all public-houses?
For my part I do feel very strongly about the frivolity and irresponsibility of the press. It seems impossible to exaggerate the evil that can be done by a corrupt and unscrupulous press. If drink directly ruins the family, it only indirectly ruins the nation. But bad journalism does directly ruin the nation, considered as a nation; it acts on the corporate national will and sways the common national decision. It may force a decision in a few hours that will be an incurable calamity for hundreds of years. It may drive a whole civilization to defeat, to slavery, to bankruptcy, to universal famine. Even at this moment there are prominent papers wildly urging us to war—not with our foes but with our friends. There are some journalists so wicked as to want war, almost for its own sake; there are more journalists so weak-minded as to work for war without even wanting it. Let us give one example out of fifty of the sort of phrases that flash by us when we turn over the papers. A headline in enormous letters announces that the French are “scuttling” out of the disputed areas in the Near East. The phrase about scuttling, and the policy of scuttle, has been familiar and firmly established in English journalism as meaning a cowardly and servile surrender, admitting abject defeat. And the suggestion is that the French, being notoriously a nation of cowards, having that tendency to panic produced by a habit of dancing and a diet of frogs, can vividly be pictured as scampering with screams of terror from the sight of a Turk with a drawn sabre. This is the way our newspapers improve our relations with our Allies. Only the newspaper men seem to have got a little mixed in their eagerness to expatiate on the wide field of French vileness and ignominy. Only a little while ago the same papers were telling us that the French were furious filibusters, forcing war in every corner of the world. We were told that it was France which was militaristic and aggressive, and all her rivals were made to scuttle. We were told that it was, the Frenchman and not the Turk who was the terrible person holding the drawn sabre. In plain words, these journalists are resolved to show that whatever the French do is wrong. If they advance, they are arrogant; if they retreat, they are cowardly. If they keep an army beyond the Rhine, they are pursuing a policy of militarism; if they withdraw an army from somewhere else, they are pursuing a policy of scuttle. Where M. Poincaré is ready to fight, he is a fire-eater who cares for nothing but fighting; where he is not ready to fight, he is a poltroon who is always notoriously too timid to fight. The careful selection of language of this sort, for a given period, might quite possibly land us in a European war—a war in which we should be certainly on the wrong side, and almost certainly on the losing side.
Suppose I come forward with this great reform of the Prohibition of the Press. Suppose I suggest that the police should forcibly shut up all the newspaper-offices, as the other reformers wish to shut up all the public-houses. What answer will the Puritan moralists make to me, or on what principle do they distinguish between the one reform and the other? There is no kind of doubt about the harm that journalism does; and their own line of argument precludes them from appealing merely to the good that it does. As a matter of fact, far better poems have been written in taverns than are ever likely to appear in daily papers. And, from Pantagruel to Pickwick, this form of festivity has a roll of literary glory to its credit which is never likely to be found in the back files of any newspaper that I know of. But the Puritans do not discuss the healthier tradition of wine; they consider their argument sufficiently supported by the unhealthy effects of gin and bad beer in the slums. And if we adopt that principle of judging by the worst, then the worst effects of the press are far wider than the worst effects of the public-house. What exactly is the principle by which they distinguish between lawful and unlawful liberty, or mixed and unmixed licence? I have a rough-and-ready test, which may be right or wrong, but which I can at least state; but where has their test been stated? I say that the simplest form of freedom is that which distinguishes the free man from the slave—the ownership of his own body and his own bodily activities. That there is a risk in allowing him this ownership is obvious, and has always been obvious. The risk is not confined to the question of drink, but covers the whole question of health. But surely the other forms of freedom, such as freedom to print, are very much more indirect and disputable. A newspaper may be made the instrument of the vilest sort of swindling or starving of a whole people. Why are we to grant the remote right, and deny the intimate right? Moreover, a newspaper is a new thing; if our fathers had the right to it, they never knew it. Fermented liquor is as old as civilization, or older. But what I have asked for again and again is simply the principle of the Prohibitionists: and I am asking still.
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THE MERCY OF MR. ARNOLD BENNETT
MR. ARNOLD BENNETT recently wrote one of his humorous and humane causeries, pleading very properly for social imagination and the better understanding of our fellows. He carried it, however, to the point of affirming, as some fatalists do, that we should never judge anybody in the sense of condemning anybody, in connexion with his moral conduct. Some time ago the same distinguished writer showed that his mercy and magnanimity were indeed on a heroic scale by reviewing a book of mine, and even saying many kind things about it. But to these he added a doubt about whether true intelligence could be consistent with the acceptance of any dogma. In truth there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it. My only advantage over the gifted novelist lies in my belonging to the former class. I suspect that his unconsciousness of his dogmas extends to an unconsciousness of what he means by a dogma. If it means merely the popular idea of being dogmatic, it might be suggested that saying that all dogmatism is unintelligent is itself somewhat dogmatic. And something of what is true of his veto on dogma is also true of his veto on condemnation; which is really a veto on vetoes.
Mr. Arnold Bennett does not darken the question with the dreary metaphysics of determinism; he is far too bright and adroit a journalist for that. But he does make a simple appeal to charity, and even Christianity, basing on it the idea that we should not judge people at all, or even blame them at all. Like everybody else who argues thus, he imagines himself to be pleading for mercy and humanity. Like everybody else who argues thus, he is doing the direct contrary. This particular notion of not judging people really means hanging them without trial. It would really substitute for judgment not mercy but something much more like murder. For the logical process through which the discussion passes is always the same; I have seen it in a hundred debates about fate and free-will. First somebody says, like Mr. Bennett: “Let us be kinder to our brethren, and not blame them for faults we cannot judge.” Then some casual common-sense person says: “Do you really mean you would let anybody pick your pocket or cut your throat without protest?” Then the first man always answers as Mr. Bennett does: “Oh, no; I would punish him to protect myself and protect society; but I would not blame him, because I would not venture to judge him.” The philosopher seems to have forgotten that he set out with the idea of being kinder to the cut-throat and the pick-pocket. His sense of humour should suggest to him that the pick-pocket might possibly prefer to be blamed, rather than go to penal servitude for the protection of society.
Now of course Mr. Bennett is quite right in the most mystical and therefore the most deeply moral sense. We do not know what God knows about the merits of a man. Nor do we know what God knows about the needs of a community. A man who poisons his little niece for money may have mysterious motives and excuses we cannot understand. And so he may serve mysterious social purposes we cannot follow. We are not infallible when we think we are punishing criminals; but neither are we infallible when we think we are protecting society. Our inevitable ignorance seems to me to cut both ways. But even in our ignorance one thing is vividly clear. Mr. Bennett’s solution is not the more merciful, but the less merciful of the two. To say that we may punish people, but not blame them, is to say that we have a right to be cruel to them, but not a right to be kind to them.
For after all, blame is itself a compliment. It is a compliment because it is an appeal; and an appeal to a man as a creative artist making his soul. To say to a man, “rascal” or “villain” in ordinary society may seem abrupt; but it is also elliptical. It is an abbreviation of a sublime spiritual apostrophe for which there may be no time in our busy social life. When you meet a millionaire, the cornerer of many markets, out at dinner in Mayfair, and greet him (as is your custom) with the exclamation “Scoundrel!” you are merely shortening for convenience some such expression as: “How can you, having the divine spirit of man that might be higher than the angels, drag it down so far as to be a scoundrel?” When you are introduced at a garden party to a Cabinet Minister who takes tips on Government contracts, and when you say to him in the ordinary way “Scamp!” you are merely using the last word of a long moral disquisition; which is in effect, “How pathetic is the spiritual spectacle of this Cabinet Minister, who being from the first made glorious by the image of God, condescends so far to lesser ambitions as to allow them to turn him into a scamp.” It is a mere taking of the tail of a sentence to stand for the rest; like saying ‘bus for omnibus. It is even more like the case of that seventeenth century Puritan whose name was something like “If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned, Higgins”; but who was, for popular convenience, referred to as “Damned Higgins.” But it is obvious, anyhow, that when we call a man a coward, we are in so doing asking him how he can be a coward when he could be a hero. When we rebuke a man for being a sinner, we imply that he has the powers of a saint.
But punishing him for the protection of society involves no regard for him at all. It involves no limit of proportion in the punishment at all. There are some limits to what ordinary men are likely to say that an ordinary man deserves. But there are no limits to what the danger of the community may be supposed to demand. We would not, even if we could, boil the millionaire in oil or skin the poor little politician alive; for we do not think a man deserves to be skinned alive for taking commissions on contracts. But it is by no means so certain that the skinning him alive might not protect the community. Corruption can destroy communities; and torture can deter men. At any rate the thing is not so self-evidently useless as it is self-evidently unjust and vindictive. We refrain from such fantastic punishments, largely because we do have some notion of making the punishment fit the crime, and not merely fit the community. If the State were the sole consideration, it may be inferred a priori that people might be much more cruel. And in fact, where the State was the sole consideration, it was found in experience that they were much more cruel. They were much more cruel precisely because they were freed from all responsibilities about the innocence or guilt of the individual. I believe that in heathen Rome, the model of a merely civic and secular loyalty, it was a common practice to torture the slaves of any household subjected to legal enquiry. If you had remonstrated, because no crime had been proved against the slaves, the State would have answered in the modern manner: “We are not punishing the crime; we are protecting the community.”
Now that example is relevant just now in more ways than one. Of course I do not mean that this was the motive of all historical cruelties, or that some did not spring from quite an opposite motive. But it was the motive of such tyranny in the heathen world; and in this, as in other things, the modern world has largely become a heathen world. And modern tyranny can find its prototype in the torturing of heathen slaves in two fundamental respects. First, that the modern world has returned to the test of the heathen world, that of considering service to the state and not justice to the individual. And second, that the modern world, like the heathen world, is here inflicting it chiefly on subordinate and submerged classes of society; on slaves or those who are almost slaves.
For the heathen state is a Servile State. And no one has more of this view of the state than the State Socialists. The official Labour Politician would be the first to say in theory that punishment must not be a moral recompense, but merely a social regulation. And he would be the first to say in practice that it is the poor and ignorant who must be regulated. Doubtless it is one thing to be regulated and another to be tortured. But when once the principle is admitted broadly, the progress towards torture may proceed pretty briskly. In the psychological sphere, it is already as bad as it has ever been. It may come as a surprise to the humanitarian to learn it; but it is none the less true, that a mother may undergo moral torture in the last degree, when her children are taken from her by brute force. And that incident has become so common in the policing of the poor nowadays as hardly to call for notice. And that example is particularly relevant to the present argument. Nobody could pretend that the affectionate mother of a rather backward child deserves to be punished by having all the happiness taken out of her life. But anybody can pretend that the act is needed for the happiness of the community. Nobody will say it was so wicked of her to love her baby that she deserves to lose it. But it is always easy to say that some remote social purpose will be served by taking it away. Thus the elimination of punishment means the extension of tyranny. Men would not do things so oppressive so long as they were vindictive. It is only when punishment is purged of vengeance that it can be as villainous as that.
For that matter, it would be easy to find examples much nearer than this one to the torturing of the Roman slaves. There is a very close parallel in the Third Degree, as applied by the police to the criminal class on suspicion, especially in America; for the criminal class is a submerged class like the slaves; and it is but an experiment on the nerves in one way instead of another, like a preference for the rack rather than the thumbscrew. But the point is that it is applied to the criminal type without any proof that it is in this case criminal; and the thing is justified not by the criminality of the individual but by the needs of the State. The police would answer exactly as the pagans answered: “We are not punishing the crime; we are protecting the community.”
This tyranny is spreading. And there is no hope for liberty or democracy until we all demand again, with a tongue of thunder, the right to be blamed. We shall never feel like free men until we assert again our sacred claim to be punished. The denunciation of a man for what he chose to do is itself the confession that he chose to do it; and it is beneath his dignity to admit that he could have done nothing else. The only alternative theory is that we can do nothing but what we do, and our rulers can do anything whatever to restrain us. Compared with that, it would be better that roaring mobs should rise all over England, uproariously demanding to be hanged.
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A DEFENCE OF DRAMATIC UNITIES
INJUSTICE is done to the old classical rules of artistic criticism, because we do not treat them as artistic criticism. We first turn them into police regulations, and then complain of them for being so. But I suspect, with the submission proper to ignorance, that the art canons of Aristotle and others were much more generally artistic, in the sense of atmospheric. We allow a romantic critic to be as dogmatic as Ruskin, and still feel that he is not really being so despotic as Boileau. If a modern, like Maeterlinck, says that all drama is in an open door at the end of an empty passage, we do not take it literally, like a notice requiring an extra exit in case of fire. But if an ancient, like Horace, says that all drama demands a closed door, which shall hide Medea while she murders her children, then we do receive it as something rigid and formal, like the order to close the shutters on Zeppelin nights. Now how far the classical critics took their rules absolutely I do not know. But I am substantially sure that there is a true instinct at the back of them, whatever exceptions be allowed at the edges. The unities of time and place, that is the idea of keeping figures and events within the frame of a few hours or a few yards, is naturally decided as a specially artificial affront to the intellect. But I am sure it is an especially true suggestion to the imagination. It is exactly in the artistic atmosphere, where rules and reasons are so hard to define, that this unification would be most easy to defend. This limitation to a few scenes and actors really has something in it that pleases the imagination and not the reason. There are instances in which it may be broken boldly: there are types of art to which it does not apply at all. But wherever it can be satisfied, something not superficial but rather sub-conscious is satisfied. Something re-visits us that is the strange soul of single places; the shadow of haunting ghosts or of household gods. Like all such things, it is indescribable when it is successful: it is easier to describe the disregard of it as unsuccessful. Thus Stevenson’s masterpiece, “The Master of Ballantrae,” always seems to me to fall into two parts, the finer which revolves round Durisdeer and the inferior which rambles through India and America. The slender and sinister figure in black, standing on the shore or vanishing from the shrubbery, does really seem to have come from the ends of the earth. In the chapters of travel he only serves to show that, for a boy’s adventure tale, a good villain makes a bad hero. And even about Hamlet I am so heretical as to be almost classical; I doubt whether the exile in England does not rather dwarf than dignify the prisoner of Denmark. I am not sure that he got anything out of the pirates he could not have got out of the players. And I am very sure indeed that this figure in black, like the other, produces a true though intangible effect of tragedy when, and because, we see him against the great grey background of the house of his fathers. In a word it is what Mr. J. B. Yeats, the poet’s stimulating parent, calls in his excellent book of essays “the drama of the home.” The drama is domestic, and is dramatic because it is domestic.
We might say that superior literature is centripetal, while inferior literature is centrifugal. But oddly enough, the same truth may be found by studying inferior as well as superior literature. What is true of a Shakespearean play is equally true of a shilling shocker. The shocker is at its worst when it wanders and escapes through new scenes and new characters. The shocker is at its best when it shocks by something familiar; a figure or fact that is already known though not understood. A good detective story also can keep the classic unities; or otherwise play the game. I for one devour detective stories; I am delighted when the dagger of the curate is found to be the final clue to the death of the vicar. But there is a point of honour for the author; he may conceal the curate’s crime, but he must not conceal the curate. I feel I am cheated when the last chapter hints for the first time that the vicar had a curate. I am annoyed when a curate, who is a total stranger to me, is produced from a cupboard or a box in a style at once abrupt and belated. I am annoyed most of all when the new curate is only the tool of a terrible secret society ramifying from Moscow or Thibet. These cosmopolitan complications are the dull and not the dramatic element in the ingenious tales of Mr. Oppenheim or Mr. Le Queux. They entirely spoil the fine domesticity of a good murder. It is unsportsmanlike to call spies from the end of the earth, as it is to call spirits from the vasty deep, in a story that does not imply them from the start. And this because the supply is infinite; and the infinite, as Coventry Patmore well said, is generally alien to art. Everybody knows that the universe contains enough spies or enough spectres to kill the most healthy and vigorous vicar. The drama of detection is in discovering how he can be killed decently and economically, within the classic unities of time and place.
In short the good mystery story should narrow its circles like an eagle about to swoop. The spiral should curve inwards and not outwards. And this inward movement is in true poetic mysteries as well as mere police mystifications. It will be assumed that I am joking if I say there is a serious social meaning in this novel-reader’s notion of keeping a crime in the family. It must seem mere nonsense to find a moral in this fancy, about washing gory linen at home. It will naturally be asked whether I have idealized the home merely as a good place for assassinations. I have not; any more than I have idealized the Church as a thing in which the curates can kill the vicars. Nevertheless the thing, like many things, is symbolic though it is not serious. And the objection to it implies a subtle misunderstanding, in many minds, of the whole case for the home as I have sometimes had occasion to urge it. When we defend the family we do not mean it is always a peaceful family; when we maintain the thesis of marriage we do not mean that it is always a happy marriage. We mean that it is the theatre of the spiritual drama, the place where things happen, especially the things that matter. It is not so much the place where a man kills his wife as the place where he can take the equally sensational step of not killing his wife. There is truth in the cynicism that calls marriage a trial; but even the cynic will admit that a trial may end in an acquittal. And the reason that the family has this central and crucial character is the same reason that makes it in politics the only prop of liberty. The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself. Other institutions must largely be made for him by strangers, whether the institutions be despotic or democratic. There is no other way of organizing mankind which can give this power and dignity, not only to mankind but to men. If anybody likes to put it so, we cannot really make all men democrats unless we make all men despots. That is to say, the co-operation of the common-wealth will be a mere automatic unanimity like that of insects, unless the citizen has some province of purely voluntary action; unless he is so far not only a citizen but a king. In the world of ethics this is called liberty; in the world of economics it is called property, and in the world of aesthetics, necessarily so much more dim and indefinable, it is darkly adumbrated in the old dramatic unities of place or time. It must indeed be a mistake in any case to treat such artistic rules as rigidly as if they were moral rules. It was an error if they ever were so treated; it may well be a question whether they were ever meant to be so treated. But when critics have suggested that these classical canons were a mere superficial varnish, it may safely be said that it is the critics who are superficial. Modern artists would have been wiser if they had developed sympathetically some of the Aristotelian aesthetics, as mediaeval philosophers developed sympathetically the Aristotelian logic and ethics. For a more subtle study of the unities of time and place, for example, as outlined for the Greek drama, might have led us towards what is perhaps the last secret of all legend and literature. It might have suggested why poets, pagan or not, returned perpetually to the idea of happiness as a place for humanity as a person. It might suggest why the world is always seeking for absolutes that are not abstractions; why fairyland was always a land, and even the Superman was almost a man.
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THE BOREDOM OF BUTTERFLIES
THERE is one thing which critics perhaps tend to forget when they complain that Mr. H. G. Wells no longer concerns himself with telling a story. It is that nobody else could interest and excite us so much without telling a story. It is possible to read one of his recent novels almost without knowing the story at all. It is possible to dip into it as into a book of essays, and pick up opinions here and there. But all the essays are brilliant essays, and all the opinions are striking opinions. It does not much matter who holds the opinions; it is possible that the author does not hold them at all, and pretty certain that he will not hold them long. But nobody else could make such splendid stuff out of the very refuse of his rejected opinions. Seen from this side, even what is called his failure must be recognized as a remarkable success. The personal story may fade away, but it is something of an achievement to be still interesting after becoming impersonal; like the achievement of the Cheshire cat who could grin when he was no longer there. Moreover, these impersonal and even irresponsible opinions of Mr. Wells, though never conclusive, are always suggestive; each is a good starting-point for thought, if only for the thought that refutes it. In short, the critics of Mr. Wells rather exaggerate the danger of his story running to speculation, as if it were merely running to seed. Anyhow, they ought to remember that there are two meanings in running to seed; and one of them is connected with seed-time. I have, however, a particular reason for mentioning the matter here. I confess there is more than one of Mr. Wells’s recent novels that I have both read and not read. I am never quite sure that I have read all Shakespeare or all Boswell’s Johnson; because I have so long had the habit of opening them anywhere. So I have opened the works of Mr. Wells anywhere, and had great fun out of the essays that would have seemed only long parentheses in the story. But, on getting to rather closer grips with the last of his stories, “The Secret Places of the Heart,” I think I have caught a glimpse of a difficulty in this sort of narrative which is something deeper than mere digression. In a story like “Pickwick” or “Tristram Shandy” digression is never disappointment. But in this case, differing as I do from the merely hostile critics, I cannot dispel the atmosphere of disappointment. The story seems inconclusive in a sense beyond anything merely inconsistent; and I fancy I can guess why.
A pedantic logician may perhaps imagine that a thing can only be inconclusive at the conclusion. But I will boldly claim the liberty in language of saying that this sort of thing is inconclusive from the start. It begins inconclusive, and in that sense begins dull. The hero begins by telling the doctor about a mutable flux of flirtation, about his own experiments as a philanderer, always flitting like a butterfly from flower to flower. Now, it is highly probable that the diary of a butterfly would be very dull, even if it were only the diary of a day. His round need be no more really amusing than a postman’s, since he has no serious spiritual interest in any of his places of call. Now, by starting his hero as a philosopher and also philanderer, and taking seriously his philosophy of philandering, the author as good as tells us, to start with, that his hero will not have any serious adventures at all. At the beginning of the story, he practically tells us that there will be no story. The story of a fickle man is not a story at all; because there is no strain or resistance in it. Somebody talked about tales with a twist; and it is certain that all tales are tales with a tug.
All the most subtle truths of literature are to be found in legend. There is no better test of the truth of serious fiction than the simple truths to be found in a fairy tale or an old ballad. Now, in the whole of folk-lore there is no such thing as free love. There is such a thing as false love. There is also another thing, which the old ballads always talk of as true love. But the story always turns on the keeping of a bond or the breaking of it; and this quite apart from orthodox morality in the matter of the marriage bond. The love may be in the strict sense sinful, but it is never anarchical. There was quite as little freedom for Lancelot as for Arthur; quite as little mere philandering in the philosophy of Tristram as in the philosophy of Galahad. It may have been unlawful love, but it certainly was not lawless love. In the old ballads there is the triumph of true love, as in “The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington”; or the tragedy of true love, as in “Helen of Kirkconnel Lea”; or the tragedy of false love as in the ballad of “Oh, waly, waly up the bank.” But there is neither triumph nor tragedy in the idea of avowedly transient love; and no literature will ever be made out of it, except the very lightest literature of satire. And even the satire must be a satire on fickleness, and therefore involve an indirect ideal of fidelity. But you cannot make any enduring literature out of love conscious that it will not endure. Even if this mutability were working as morality, it would still be unworkable as art.
The decadents used to say that things like the marriage vow might be very convenient for common-place public purposes, but had no place in the world of beauty and imagination. The truth is exactly the other way. The truth is that if marriage had not existed it would have been necessary for artists to invent it. The truth is that if constancy had never been needed as a social requirement, it would still have been created out of cloud and air as a poetical requirement. If ever monogamy is abandoned in practice, it will linger in legend and in literature. When society is haunted by the butterfly flitting from flower to flower, poetry will still be describing the desire of the moth for the star; and it will be a fixed star. Literature must always revolve round loyalties; for a rudimentary psychological reason, which is simply the nature of narrative. You cannot tell a story without the idea of pursuing a purpose and sticking to a point. You cannot tell a story without the idea of the Quest, the idea of the Vow; even if it be only the idea of the Wager.
Perhaps the most modern equivalent to the man who makes a vow is the man who makes a bet. But he must not hedge on a bet; still less must he welsh, or do a bolt when he has made a bet. Even if the story ends with his doing so, the dramatic emotion depends on our realizing the dishonesty of his doing so. That is, the drama depends on the keeping or breaking of a bond, if it be only a bet. A man wandering about a race-course, making bets that nobody took seriously, would be merely a bore. And so the hero wandering through a novel, making vows of love that nobody took seriously, is merely a bore. The point here is not so much that morally it cannot be a creditable story, but that artistically it cannot be a story at all. Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal; the shock of beauty is when the irresistible force hits the immovable post.
Thus in the last novel of Mr. Wells, what is inconclusive in the second part is largely due to what is convincing in the first part. By the time that the hero meets his new heroine on Salisbury Plain, he has seriously convinced us that there is nothing heroic about him, and that nothing heroic will happen to him; at any rate in that department. He disenchants the enchantment beforehand, and warns the reader against even a momentary illusion. When once a man looks forward as well as backward to disillusionment, no romance can be made of him.
Profligacy may be made romantic, precisely because it implies some betrayal or breaking of a law. But polygamy is not in the least romantic. Polygamy is dull to the point of respectability. When a man looks forward to a number of wives as he does to a number of cigarettes, you can no more make a book out of them than out of the bills from his tobacconist. Anything having the character of a Turkish harem has also something of the character of a Turkey carpet. It is not a portrait, or even a picture, but a pattern. We may at the moment be looking at one highly coloured and even flamboyant figure in the carpet; but we know that on every side, in front as well as behind, the image is repeated without purpose and without finality.
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THE TERROR OF A TOY
IT would be too high and hopeful a compliment to say that the world is becoming absolutely babyish. For its chief weak-mindedness is an inability to appreciate the intelligence of babies. On every side we hear whispers and warnings that would have appeared half-witted to the Wise Men of Gotham. Only this Christmas I was told in a toy-shop that not so many bows and arrows were being made for little boys; because they were considered dangerous. It might in some circumstances be dangerous to have a little bow. It is always dangerous to have a little boy. But no other society, claiming to be sane, would have dreamed of supposing that you could abolish all bows unless you could abolish all boys. With the merits of the latter reform I will not deal here. There is a great deal to be said for such a course; and perhaps we shall soon have an opportunity of considering it. For the modern mind seems quite incapable of distinguishing between the means and the end, between the organ and the disease, between the use and the abuse; and would doubtless break the boy along with the bow, as it empties out the baby with the bath.
But let us, by way of a little study in this mournful state of things, consider this case of the dangerous toy. Now the first and most self-evident truth is that, of all the things a child sees and touches, the most dangerous toy is about the least dangerous thing. There is hardly a single domestic utensil that is not much more dangerous than a little bow and arrow. He can burn himself in the fire, he can boil himself in the bath, he can cut his throat with the carving-knife, he can scald himself with the kettle, he can choke himself with anything small enough, he can break his neck off anything high enough. He moves all day long amid a murderous machinery, as capable of killing and maiming as the wheels of the most frightful factory. He plays all day in a house fitted up with engines of torture like the Spanish Inquisition. And while he thus dances in the shadow of death, he is to be saved from all the perils of possessing a piece of string, tied to a bent bough or twig. When he is a little boy it generally takes him some time even to learn how to hold the bow. When he does hold it, he is delighted if the arrow flutters for a few yards like a feather or an autumn leaf. But even if he grows a little older and more skilful and has yet not learned to despise arrows in favour of aeroplanes, the amount of damage he could conceivably do with his little arrows would be about one hundredth part of the damage that he could always in any case have done by simply picking up a stone in the garden.
Now you do not keep a little boy from throwing stones by preventing him from ever seeing stones. You do not do it by locking up all the stones in the Geological Museum, and only issuing tickets of admission to adults. You do not do it by trying to pick up all the pebbles on the beach, for fear he should practise throwing them into the sea. You do not even adopt so obvious and even pressing a social reform as forbidding roads to be made of anything but asphalt, or directing that all gardens shall be made on clay and none on gravel. You neglect all these great opportunities opening before you; you neglect all these inspiring vistas of social science and enlightenment. When you want to prevent a child from throwing stones, you fall back on the stalest and most sentimental and even most superstitious methods. You do it by trying to preserve some reasonable authority and influence over the child. You trust to your private relation with the boy, and not to your public relation with the stone. And what is true of the natural missile is just as true, of course, of the artificial missile; especially as it is a very much more ineffectual and therefore innocuous missile. A man could be really killed, like St. Stephen, with the stones in the road. I doubt if he could be really killed, like St. Sebastian, with the arrows in the toyshop. But anyhow the very plain principle is the same. If you can teach a child not to throw a stone, you can teach him when to shoot an arrow; if you cannot teach him anything, he will always have something to throw. If he can be persuaded not to smash the Archdeacon’s hat with a heavy flint, it will probably be possible to dissuade him from transfixing that head-dress with a toy arrow. If his training deters him from heaving half a brick at the postman, it will probably also warn him against constantly loosening shafts of death against the policeman. But the notion that the child depends upon particular implements, labelled dangerous, in order to be a danger to himself and other people, is a notion so nonsensical that it is hard to see how any human mind can entertain it for a moment. The truth is that all sorts of faddism, both official and theoretical, have broken down the natural authority of the domestic institution, especially among the poor; and the faddists are now casting about desperately for a substitute for the thing they have themselves destroyed. The normal thing is for the parents to prevent a boy from doing more than a reasonable amount of damage with his bow and arrow; and for the rest, to leave him to a reasonable enjoyment of them. Officialism cannot thus follow the life of the individual boy, as can the individual guardian. You cannot appoint a particular policeman for each boy, to pursue him when he climbs trees or falls into ponds. So the modern spirit has descended to the indescribable mental degradation of trying to abolish the abuse of things by abolishing the things themselves; which is as if it were to abolish ponds or abolish trees. Perhaps it will have a try at that before long. Thus we have all heard of savages who try a tomahawk for murder, or burn a wooden club for the damage it has done to society. To such intellectual levels may the world return.
There are indeed yet lower levels. There is a story from America about a little boy who gave up his toy cannon to assist the disarmament of the world. I do not know if it is true, but on the whole I prefer to think so; for it is perhaps more tolerable to imagine one small monster who could do such a thing than many more mature monsters who could invent or admire it. There were some doubtless who neither invented nor admired. It is one of the peculiarities of the Americans that they combine a power of producing what they satirize as “sob-stuff” with a parallel power of satirizing it. And of the two American tall stories, it is sometimes hard to say which is the story and which the satire. But it seems clear that some people did really repeat this story in a reverential spirit. And it marks, as I have said, another stage of cerebral decay. You can (with luck) break a window with a toy arrow; but you can hardly bombard a town with a toy gun. If people object to the mere model of a cannon, they must equally object to the picture of a cannon, and so to every picture in the world that depicts a sword or a spear. There would be a splendid clearance of all the great art-galleries of the world. But it would be nothing to the destruction of all the great libraries of the world, if we logically extended the principle to all the literary masterpieces that admit the glory of arms. When this progress had gone on for a century or two, it might begin to dawn on people that there was something wrong with their moral principle. What is wrong with their moral principle is that it is immoral. Arms, like every other adventure or art of man, have two sides according as they are invoked for the infliction or the defiance of wrong. They have also an element of real poetry and an element of realistic and therefore repulsive prose. The child’s symbolic sword and bow are simply the poetry without the prose; the good without the evil. The toy sword is the abstraction and emanation of the heroic, apart from all its horrible accidents. It is the soul of the sword, that will never be stained with blood.
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FALSE THEORY AND THE THEATRE
A THEATRICAL manager recently insisted on introducing Chinese labour into the theatrical profession. He insisted on having real Chinamen to take the parts of Chinese servants; and some actors seem to have resented it—as I think, very reasonably. A distinguished actress, who is clever enough to know better, defended it on the ground that nothing must interfere with the perfection of a work of art. I dispute the moral thesis in any case; and Nero would no doubt have urged it in defence of having real deaths in the amphitheatre. I do not admit in any case that the artist can be entirely indifferent to hunger and unemployment, any more than to lions or boiling oil. But, as a matter of fact, there is no need to raise the moral question, because the case is equally strong in relation to the artistic question. I do not think that a Chinese character being represented by a Chinese actor is the finishing touch to the perfection of a work of art. I think it is the last and lowest phase of the vulgarity that is called realism. It is in the same style and taste as the triumphs on which, I believe, some actor-managers have prided themselves: the triumphs of having real silver for goblets or real jewels for crowns. That is not the spirit of a perfect artist, but rather of a purse-proud parvenu. The perfect artist would be he who could put on a crown of gilt wire or tinsel and make us feel he was a king.
Moreover, if the principle is to be extended from properties to persons, it is not easy to see where the principle can stop. If we are to insist on real Asiatics to act “Chu Chin Chow,” why not insist on real Venetians to act “The Merchant of Venice”? We did experiment recently and I believe very successfully, in having the Jew acted by a real Jew. But I hardly think we should like to make it a rule that nobody must be allowed to act Shylock unless he can prove his racial right to call upon his father Abraham. Must the characters of Macbeth and Macduff only be represented by men with names like Macpherson and Macnab? Must the Prince of Denmark always be in private life a Dane? Must we import a crowd of Greeks before we are allowed to act “Troilus and Cressida,” or a mob of real Egyptians to form the background of “Antony and Cleopatra”? Will it be necessary to kidnap an African gentleman out of Africa, by the methods of the slave trade, and force him into acting Othello? It was rather foolishly suggested at one time that our allies in Japan might be offended at the fantastic satire of “The Mikado.” As a matter of fact, the satire of “The Mikado” is not at all directed against Japanese things, but exclusively against English things. But I certainly think there might be some little ill-feeling in Japan if gangs of Japanese coolies were shipped across two continents merely in order to act in it. If once this singular rule be recognized, a dramatist will certainly be rather shy of introducing Zulus or Red Indians into his dramas, owing to the difficulty in securing appropriate dramatic talent. He will hesitate before making his hero an Eskimo. He will abandon his intention of seeking his heroine in the Sandwich Islands. If he were to insist on introducing real cannibals, it seems possible that they might insist on introducing real cannibalism. This would be quite in the spirit of Nero and all the art critics of the Roman realism of the amphitheatre. But surely it would be putting almost too perfect a finishing touch to the perfection of a work of art. That kind of finishing touch is a little too finishing.
The irony grew more intense when the newspapers that had insisted on Chinamen because they could not help being Chinamen began to praise them with admiration and astonishment because they looked Chinese. This opens up a speculation so complex and contradictory that I do not propose to follow it, for I am interested here not in the particular incident but in the general idea. It will be a sufficient statement of the fundamental fact of all the arts if I say simply that I do not believe in the resemblance. I do not believe that a Chinaman does look like a Chinaman. That is, I do not believe that any Chinaman will necessarily look like the Chinaman—the Chinaman in the imagination of the artist and the interest of the crowd. We all know the fable of the man who imitated a pig, and his rival who was hooted by the crowd because he could only produce what was (in fact) the squeak of a real pig. The crowd was perfectly right. The crowd was a crowd of very penetrating and philosophical art critics. They had come there not to hear an ordinary pig, which they could hear by poking in any ordinary pig-sty. They had come to hear how the voice of the pig affects the immortal mind and spirit of man; what sort of satire he would make of it; what sort of fun he can get out of it; what sort of exaggeration he feels to be an exaggeration of its essence, and not of its accidents. In other words, they had come to hear a squeak, but the sort of squeak which expresses what a man thinks of a pig— not the vastly inferior squeak which only expresses what a pig thinks of a man. I have myself a poetical enthusiasm for pigs, and the paradise of my fancy is one where the pigs have wings. But it is only men, especially wise men, who discuss whether pigs can fly; we have no particular proof that pigs ever discuss it. Therefore the actor who imitated the quadruped may well have put into his squeak something of the pathetic cry of one longing for the wings of the dove. The quadruped himself might express no such sentiment; he might appear, and generally does appear, singularly unconscious of his own lack of feathers. But the same principle is true of things more dignified than the most dignified porker, though clad in the most superb plumage. If a vision of a stately Arab has risen in the imagination of an author who is an artist, he will be wise if he confides it to an actor who is also an artist. He will be much wiser to confide it to an actor than to an Arab. The actor, being a fellow-countryman and a fellow-artist, may bring out what the author thinks the Arab stands for; whereas the real Arab might be a particular individual who at that particular moment refused to stand for anything of the sort, or for anything at all. The principle is a general one; and I mean no disrespect to China in the porcine parallel, or in the figurative association of pigs and pig-tails.
But, as a matter of fact, the argument is especially apt in the case of China. For I fear that China is chiefly interesting to most of us as the other end of the world. It is valued as something far-off, and therefore fantastical, like a kingdom in the clouds of sunrise. It is not the very real virtues of the Chinese tradition— its stoicism, its sense of honour, its ancient peasant cults— that most people want to put into a play. It is the ordinary romantic feeling about something remote and extravagant, like the Martians or the Man in the Moon. It is perfectly reasonable to have that romantic feeling in moderation, like other amusements. But it is not reasonable to expect the remote person to feel remote from himself, or the man at the other end of the world not to feel it as this end. We must not ask the outlandish Oriental to feel outlandish, or a Chinaman to be astonished at being Chinese. If, therefore, the literary artist has the legitimate literary purpose of expressing the mysterious and alien atmosphere which China implies to him, he will probably do it much better with the aid of an actor who is not Chinese. Of course, I am not criticizing the particular details of the particular performance, of which I know little or nothing. I do not know the circumstances; and under the circumstances, for all I know, the experiment may have been very necessary or very successful. I merely protest against a theory of dramatic truth, urged in defence of the dramatic experiment, which seems to me calculated to falsify the whole art of the drama. It is founded on exactly the same fallacy as that of the infant in Stevenson’s nursery rhyme, who thought that the Japanese children must suffer from home-sickness through being always abroad in Japan.
This brings us very near to an old and rather threadbare theatrical controversy, about whether staging should be simple or elaborate. I do not mean to begin that argument all over again. What is really wanted is not so much the simple stage-manager as the simple spectator. In a very real sense, what is wanted is the simple critic, who would be in truth the most subtle critic. The healthy human instincts in these things are at least as much spoiled by sophistication in the stalls as by elaboration on the stage. A really simple mind would enjoy a simple scene and also a gorgeous scene. A popular instinct, to be found in all folk-lore, would know well enough when the one or the other was appropriate. But what is involved here is not the whole of that sophistication, but only one particular sophistry, and against that sophistry we may well pause to protest. It is the critical fallacy of cutting off a real donkey’s head to put it on Bottom the Weaver; when the head is symbolical, and in that case more appropriate to the critic than to the actor.
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THE SECRET SOCIETY OF MANKIND
WITH that fantastic love of paradox which gives pain to so many critics, I once suggested that there may be some truth in the notion of the brotherhood of men. This was naturally a subject for severe criticism from the modern or modernist standpoint; and I remember that the cleverest refutation of it occurred in a book which was called “We Moderns.” It was written by a Mr. Edward Moore, and very well written too; indeed the author did himself some injustice in insisting on his own modernity; for he was not so very modern after all, but really quite lucid and coherent. But I will venture to take his remark as a text here because it concerns a matter on which most moderns darken council in a highly incoherent manner. It concerns the nature of the unity of men; which I did certainly state in its more defiant form as the equality of man. And I said that this norm or meeting-place of mankind can be found in the two extremes of the comic and the tragic. I said that no individual tragedy could be so tragic as having to die; and all men have equally to die. I said that nothing can be funnier than having two legs; and all men can join equally in the joke.
The critic in question was terribly severe on this remark. I believe that the words of his condemnation ran as follows: “Well, in this passage, there is an error so plain, it is almost inconceivable that a responsible thinker could have put it forward even in jest. For it is clear that the tragic and comic elements of which Mr. Chesterton speaks make not only mankind, but all life, equal. Everything that lives must die; and therefore it is, in Mr. Chesterton’s sense, tragic. Everything that lives has shape; and therefore it is, in Mr. Chesterton’s sense, comic. His premises lead to the equality not of mankind, but of all that lives; whether it be leviathan or butterfly, oak or violet, worm or eagle. … Would that he had said this! Then we who affirm inequality would be the first to echo him.” I do not feel it hard to show that where Mr. Moore thinks equality wrong is exactly where it is right; and I will begin with mortality; premising that the same is true (for those who believe it) of immortality. Both are absolutes: a man cannot be somewhat mortal; nor can he be rather immortal.
To begin with, it must be understood that having an equality in being black or white is not even the same as being equally black or white. It is generally fair to take a familiar illustration; and I will take the ordinary expression about being all in the same boat. Mr. Moore and I and all men are not only all in the same boat, but have a very real equality implied in that fact. Nevertheless, since there is a word “inner” as well as a word “in,” there is a sense in which some of us might be more in the boat than others. My fellow passengers might have stowed me at the bottom of the boat and sat on top of me, moved by a natural distaste for my sitting on top of them. I have noticed that I am often thus packed in a preliminary fashion into the back seats or basic parts of cabs, cars, or boats; there being evidently a feeling that I am the stuff of which the foundations of an edifice are made rather than its toppling minarets or tapering spires. Meanwhile Mr. Moore might be surveying the world from the masthead, if there were one, or leaning out over the prow with the forward gestures of a leader of men, or even sitting by preference on the edge of the boat with his feet paddling in the water, to indicate the utmost possible aristocratic detachment from us and our concerns. Nevertheless, in the large and ultimate matters which are the whole meaning of the phrase “all in the same boat,” we should be all equally in the same boat. We should be all equally dependent upon the reassuring fact that a boat can float. If it did not float but sink, each one of us would have lost his one and only boat at the same decisive time and in the same disconcerting manner. If the King of the Cannibal Islands, upon whose principal island we might suffer the inconvenience of being wrecked, were to exclaim in a loud voice, “I will eat every single man who has arrived by that identical boat and no other,” we should all be eaten, and we should all be equally eaten. For being eaten, considered as a tragedy, is not a matter of degree.
Now there is a fault in every analogy; but the fault in my analogy is not a fault in my argument; it is the chief fault in Mr. Moore’s argument. It may be said that even in a shipwreck men are not equal, for some of us might be so strong that we could swim to the shore, or some of us might be so tough that the island king would repent of his rash vow after the first bite. But it is precisely here that I have again, as delicately as possible, to draw the reader’s attention to the modest and little-known institution called death. We are all in a boat which will certainly drown us all, and drown us equally, the strongest with the weakest; we sail to the land of an ogre, edax rerum, who devours all without distinction. And the meaning in the phrase about being all in the same boat is, not that there are no degrees among the people in a boat, but that all those degrees are nothing compared with the stupendous fact that the boat goes home or goes down. And it is when I come to the particular criticism on my remarks about “the fact of having to die” that I feel most confident that I was right and that Mr. Moore is wrong.
It will be noted that I spoke of the fact of having to die, not of the fact of dying. The brotherhood of men, being a spiritual thing, is not concerned merely with the truth that all men will die, but with the truth that all men know it. It is true, as Mr. Moore says, that everything will die, “whether it be leviathan or butterfly, oak or violet, worm or eagle”; but exactly what, at the very start, we do not know is whether they know it. Can Mr. Moore draw forth leviathan with a hook, and extract his hopes and fears about the heavenly harpooner? Can he worm its philosophy out of a worm, or get the caterpillar to talk about the faint possibility of a butterfly? The caterpillar on the leaf may repeat to Blake his mother’s grief; but it does not repeat to anybody its own grief about its own mother. Can he know whether oaks confront their fate with hearts of oak, as the phrase is used in a sailor’s song? He cannot; and this is the whole point about human brotherhood, the point the vegetarians cannot see. This is why a harpooner is not an assassin; this is why eating whale’s blubber, though not attractive to the fancy, is not repulsive to the conscience. We do not know what a whale thinks of death; still less what the other whales think of his being killed and eaten. He may be a pessimistic whale, and be perpetually wishing that this too, too solid blubber would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew. He may be a fanatical whale, and feel frantically certain of passing instantly into a polar paradise of whales, ruled by the sacred whale who swallowed Jonah. But we can elicit no sign or gesture from him suggestive of such reflections; and the working common sense of the thing is that no creatures outside man seem to have any sense of death at all. Mr. Moore has therefore chosen a strangely unlucky point upon which to challenge the true egalitarian doctrine. Almost the most arresting and even startling stamp of the solidarity and sameness of mankind is precisely this fact, not only of death, but of the shadow of death. We do know of any man whatever what we do not know of any other thing whatever, that his death is what we call a tragedy. From the fact that it is a tragedy flow all the forms and tests by which we say it is a murder or an execution, a martyrdom or a suicide. They all depend on an echo or vibration, not only in the soul of man; but in the souls of all men.
Oddly enough, Mr. Moore has made exactly the same mistake about the comic as about the tragic. It is true, I think, that almost everything which has a shape is humorous; but it is not true that everything which has a shape has a sense of humour. The whale may be laughable, but it is not the whale who laughs; the image indeed is almost alarming. And the instant the question is raised, we collide with another colossal fact, dwarfing all human differentiations; the fact that man is the only creature who does laugh. In the presence of this prodigious fact, the fact that men laugh in different degrees, and at different things, shrivels not merely into insignificance but into invisibility. It is true that I have often felt the physical universe as something like a firework display: the most practical of all practical jokes. But if the cosmos is meant for a joke, men seem to be the only cosmic conspirators who have been let into the joke. There could be no fraternity like our freemasonry in that secret pleasure. It is true that there are no limits to this jesting faculty, that it is not confined to common human jests; but it is confined to human jesters. Mr. Moore may burst out laughing when he beholds the morning star, or be thrown into convulsions of amusement by the effect of moonrise seen through a mist. He may, to quote his own catalogue, see all the fun of an eagle or an oak tree. We may come upon him in some quiet dell rolling about in uproarious mirth, at the sight of a violet. But we shall not find the violet in a state of uproarious mirth at Mr. Moore. He may laugh at the worm; but the worm will not turn and laugh at him. For that comfort he must come to his fellow-sinners: I shall always be ready to oblige.
The truth involved here has had many names; that man is the image of God; that he is the microcosm; that he is the measure of all things. He is the microcosm in the sense that he is the mirror, the only crystal we know in which the fantasy and fear in things are, in the double and real sense, things of reflection. In the presence of this mysterious monopoly the differences of men are like dust. That is what the equality of men means to me; and that is the only intelligible thing it ever meant to anybody. The common things of men infinitely outclass all classes. For a man to disagree with this it is necessary that he should understand it; Mr. Moore may really disagree with it; but the ordinary modern anti-egalitarian does not understand it, or apparently anything else. If a man says he had some transcendental dogma of his own, as Mr. Moore may possibly have, which mixes man with nature or claims to see other values in men, I shall say no more than that my religion is different from his, and I am uncommonly glad of it. But if he simply says that men cannot be equal because some of them are clever and some of them are stupid—why then I shall merely agree (not without tears) that some of them are very stupid.
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THE SENTIMENTALISM OF DIVORCE
DIVORCE is a thing which the newspapers now not only advertise, but advocate, almost as if it were a pleasure in itself. It may be, indeed, that all the flowers and festivities will now be transferred from the fashionable wedding to the fashionable divorce. A superb iced and frosted divorce-cake will be provided for the feast, and in military circles will be cut with the co-respondent’s sword. A dazzling display of divorce presents will be laid out for the inspection of the company, watched by a detective dressed as an ordinary divorce guest. Perhaps the old divorce breakfast will be revived; anyhow, toasts will be drunk, the guests will assemble on the doorstep to see the husband and wife go off in opposite directions; and all will go merry as a divorce-court bell. All this, though to some it might seem a little fanciful, would really be far less fantastic than the sort of things that are really said on the subject. I am not going to discuss the depth and substance of that subject. I myself hold a mystical view of marriage; but I am not going to debate it here. But merely in the interests of light and logic I would protest against the way in which it is frequently debated. The process cannot rationally be called a debate at all. It is a sort of chorus of sentimentalists in the sensational newspapers, perpetually intoning some such formula as this: “We respect marriage, we reverence marriage, holy, sacred, ineffably exquisite and ideal marriage. True marriage is love, and when love alters, marriage alters, and when love stops or begins again, marriage does the same; wonderful, beautiful, beatific marriage.”
Now, with all reasonable sympathy with everything sentimental, I may remark that all that talk is tosh. Marriage is an institution like any other, set up deliberately to have certain functions and limitations; it is an institution like private property, or conscription, or the legal liberties of the subject. To talk as if it were made or melted with certain changing moods is a mere waste of words. The object of private property is that as many citizens as possible should have a certain dignity and pleasure in being masters of material things. But suppose a dog-stealer were to say that as soon as a man was bored with his dog it ceased to be his dog, and he ceased to be responsible for it. Suppose he were to say that by merely coveting the dog, he could immediately morally possess the dog. The answer would be that the only way to make men responsible for dogs was to make the relation a legal one, apart from the likes and dislikes of the moment. Suppose a burglar were to say: “Private property I venerate, private property I revere; but I am convinced that Mr. Brown does not truly value his silver Apostle spoons as such sacred objects should be valued; they have therefore ceased to be his property; in reality they have already become my property, for I appreciate their precious character as nobody else can do.” Suppose a murderer were to say: “What can be more amiable and admirable than human life lived with a due sense of its priceless opportunity! But I regret to observe that Mr. Robinson has lately been looking decidedly tired and melancholy; life accepted in this depressing and demoralizing spirit can no longer truly be called life; it is rather my own exuberant and perhaps exaggerated joy of life which I must gratify by cutting his throat with a carving-knife.”
It is obvious that these philosophers would fail to understand what we mean by a rule, quite apart from the problem of its exceptions. They would fail to grasp what we mean by an institution, whether it be the institution of law, of property, or of marriage. A reasonable person will certainly reply to the burglar: “You will hardly soothe us by merely poetical praises of property; because your case would be much more convincing if you denied, as the Communists do, that property ought to exist at all. There may be, there certainly are, gross abuses in private property; but, so long as it is an institution at all, it cannot alter merely with moods and emotions. A farm cannot simply float away from a farmer, in proportion as his interest in it grows fainter than it was. A house cannot shift away by inches from a householder, by certain fine shades of feeling that he happens to have about it. A dog cannot drift away like a dream, and begin to belong to somebody else who happens just then to be dreaming of him. And neither can the serious social relation of husband and wife, of mother and father, or even of man and woman, be resolved in all its relations by passions and reactions of sentiment.” This question is quite apart from the question of whether there are exceptions to the rule of loyalty, or what they are. The primary point is that there is an institution to which to be loyal. If the new sentimentalists mean what they say, when they say they venerate that institution, they must not suggest that an institution can be actually identical with an emotion. And that is what their rhetoric does suggest, so far as it can be said to suggest anything.
These writers are always explaining to us why they believe in divorce. I think I can easily understand why they believe in divorce. What I do not understand is why they believe in marriage. Just as the philosophical burglar would be more philosophical if he were a Bolshevist, so this sort of divorce advocate would be more philosophical if he were a free-lover. For his arguments never seem to touch on marriage as an institution, or anything more than an individual experience. The real explanation of this strange indifference to the institutional idea is, I fancy, something not only deeper, but wider; something affecting all the institutions of the modern world. The truth is that these sociologists are not at all interested in promoting the sort of social life that marriage does promote. The sort of society of which marriage has always been the strongest pillar is what is sometimes called the distributive society; the society in which most of the citizens have a tolerable share of property, especially property in hand. Everywhere, all over the world, the farm goes with the family and the family with the farm. Unless the whole domestic group hold together with a sort of loyalty or local patriotism, unless the inheritance of property is logical and legitimate, unless the family quarrels are kept out of the courts of officialism, the tradition of family ownership cannot be handed on unimpaired. On the other hand, the Servile State, which is the opposite of the distributive state, has always been rather embarrassed by the institution of marriage. It is an old story that the negro slavery of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” did its worst work in the breaking-up of families. But, curiously enough, the same story is told from both sides. For the apologists of the Slave States, or, at least, of the Southern States, make the same admission even in their own defence. If they denied breaking up the slave family, it was because they denied that there was any slave family to break up.
Free love is the direct enemy of freedom. It is the most obvious of all the bribes that can be offered by slavery. In servile societies a vast amount of sexual laxity can go on in practice, and even in theory, save when now and then some cranky speculator or crazy squire has a fad for some special breed of slaves like a breed of cattle. And even that lunacy would not last long; for lunatics are the minority among slave-owners. Slavery has a much more sane and a much more subtle appeal to human nature than that. It is much more likely that, after a few such fads and freaks, the new Servile State would settle down into the sleepy resignation of the old Servile State; the old pagan repose in slavery, as it was before Christianity came to trouble and perplex the world with ideals of liberty and chivalry. One of the conveniences of that pagan world is that, below a certain level of society, nobody really need bother about pedigree or paternity at all. A new world began when slaves began to stand on their dignity as virgin martyrs. Christendom is the civilization that such martyrs made; and slavery is its returning enemy. But of all the bribes that the old pagan slavery can offer, this luxury and laxity is the strongest; nor do I deny that the influences desiring the degradation of human dignity have here chosen their instrument well.
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STREET CRIES AND STRETCHING THE LAW
ABOUT a hundred years ago some enemy sowed among our people the heresy that it is more practical to use a corkscrew to open a sardine-tin, or to employ a door-scraper as a paper-weight. Practical politics came to mean the habit of using everything for some other purpose than its own; of snatching up anything as a substitute for something else. A law that had been meant to do one thing, and had conspicuously failed to do it, was always excused because it might do something totally different and perhaps directly contrary. A custom that was supposed to keep everything white was allowed to survive on condition that it made everything black. In reality this is so far from being practical that it does not even rise to the dignity of being lazy. At the best it can only claim to save trouble, and it does not even do that. What it really means is that some people will take every other kind of trouble in the world, if they are saved the trouble of thinking. They will sit for hours trying to open the tin with a corkscrew, rather than make the mental effort of pursuing the abstract, academic, logical connexion between a corkscrew and a cork.
Here is an example of the sort of thing I mean, which I came across in a daily paper to-day. A headline announces in staring letters, and with startled notes of exclamation, that some abominable judicial authority has made the monstrous decision that musicians playing in the street are not beggars. The journalist bitterly remarks that they may shove their hats under our very noses for money, but yet we must not call them beggars. He follows this remark with several notes of exclamation, and I feel inclined to add a few of my own. The most astonishing thing about the matter, to my mind, is that the journalist is quite innocent in his own indignation. It never so much as crosses his mind that organ-grinders are not classed as beggars because they are not beggars. They may be as much of a nuisance as beggars; they may demand special legislation like beggars; it may be right and proper for every philanthropist to stop them, starve them, harry them, and hound them to death just as if they were beggars. But they are not beggars, by any possible definition of begging. Nobody can be said to be a mere mendicant who is offering something in exchange for money, especially if it is something which some people like and are willing to pay for. A street singer is no more of a mendicant than Madame Clara Butt, though the method (and the scale) of remuneration differs more or less. Anybody who sells anything, in the streets or in the shops, is begging in the sense of begging people to buy. Mr. Selfridge is begging people to buy; the Imperial International Universal Cosmic Stores is begging people to buy. The only possible definition of the actual beggar is not that he is begging people to buy, but that he has nothing to sell.
Now, it is interesting to ask ourselves what the newspaper really meant, when it was so wildly illogical in what it said. Superficially, and as a matter of mood or feeling, we can all guess what was meant. The writer meant that street musicians looked very much like beggars, because they wore thinner and dirtier clothes than his own; and that he had grown quite used to people who looked like that being treated anyhow and arrested for everything. That is a state of mind not uncommon among those whom economic security has kept as superficial as a varnish. But what was intellectually involved in his vague argument was more interesting. What he meant was, in that deeper sense, that it would be a great convenience if the law that punishes beggars could be stretched to cover people who are certainly not beggars, but who may be as much of a botheration as beggars. In other words, he wanted to use the mendacity laws in a matter quite unconnected with mendacity; but he wanted to use the old laws because it would save the trouble of making new laws—as the corkscrew would save the trouble of going to look for the tin-opener. And for this notion of the crooked and anomalous use of laws, for ends logically different from their own, he could, of course, find much support in the various sophists who have attacked reason in recent times. But, as I have said, it does not really save trouble; and it is becoming increasingly doubtful whether it will even save disaster. It used to be said that this rough-and-ready method made the country richer; but it will be found less and less consoling to explain why the country is richer when the country is steadily growing poorer. It will not comfort us in the hour of failure to listen to long and ingenious explanations of our success. The truth is that this sort of practical compromise has not led to practical success. The success of England came as the culmination of the highly logical and theoretical eighteenth century. The method was already beginning to fail by the time we came to the end of the compromising and constitutional nineteenth century. Modern scientific civilization was launched by logicians. It was only wrecked by practical men. Anyhow, by this time everybody in England has given up pretending to be particularly rich. It is, therefore, no appropriate moment for proving that a course of being consistently unreasonable will always lead to riches.
In truth, it would be much more practical to be more logical. If street musicians are a nuisance, let them be legislated against for being a nuisance. If begging is really wrong, a logical law should be imposed on all beggars, and not merely on those whom particular persons happen to regard as being also nuisances. What this sort of opportunism does is simply to prevent any question being considered as a whole. I happen to think the whole modern attitude towards beggars is entirely heathen and inhuman. I should be prepared to maintain, as a matter of general morality, that it is intrinsically indefensible to punish human beings for asking for human assistance. I should say that it is intrinsically insane to urge people to give charity and forbid people to accept charity. Nobody is penalized for crying for help when he is drowning; why should he be penalized for crying for help when he is starving? Every one would expect to have to help a man to save his life in a shipwreck; why not a man who has suffered a shipwreck of his life? A man may be in such a position by no conceivable fault of his own; but in any case his fault is never urged against him in the parallel cases. A man is saved from shipwreck without inquiry about whether he has blundered in the steering of his ship; and we fish him out of a pond before asking whose fault it was that he fell into it. A striking social satire might be written about a man who was rescued again and again out of mere motives of humanity in all the wildest places of the world; who was heroically rescued from a lion and skilfully saved out of a sinking ship; who was sought out on a desert island and scientifically recovered from a deadly swoon; and who only found himself suddenly deserted by all humanity when he reached the city that was his home.
In the ultimate sense, therefore, I do not myself disapprove of mendicants. Nor do I disapprove of musicians. It may not unfairly be retorted that this is because I am not a musician. I allow full weight to the fairness of the retort, but I cannot think it a good thing that even musicians should lose all their feelings except the feeling for music. And it may surely be said that a man must have lost most of his feelings if be does not feel the pathos of a barrel-organ in a poor street. But there are other feelings besides pathos covered by any comprehensive veto upon street music and minstrelsy. There are feelings of history, and even of patriotism. I have seen in certain rich and respectable quarters of London a notice saying that all street cries are forbidden. If there were a notice up to say that all old tombstones should be carted away like lumber, it would be rather less of an act of vandalism. Some of the old street cries of London are among the last links that we have with the London of Shakespeare and the London of Chaucer. When I meet a man who utters one I am so far from regarding him as a beggar; it is I who should be a beggar, and beg him to say it again.
But in any case it should be made clear that we cannot make one law do the work of another. If we have real reasons for forbidding something like a street cry, we should give the reasons that are real; we should forbid it because it is a cry, because it is a noise, because it is a nuisance, or perhaps, according to our tastes, because it is old, because it is popular, because it is historic and a memory of Merry England. I suspect that the sub-conscious prejudice against it is rooted in the fact that the pedlar or hawker is one of the few free men left in the modern city; that he often sells his own wares directly to the consumer, and does not pay rent for a shop. But if the modern spirit wishes to veto him, to harry him, or to hang, draw, and quarter him for being free, at least let it so far recognize his dignity as to define him; and let the law deal with him in principle as well as in practice.
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WHY REFORMS GO WRONG
EVERYBODY says that each generation revolts against the last. Nobody seems to notice that it generally revolts against the revolt of the last. I mean that the latest grievance is really the last reform. To take but one example in passing. There is a new kind of novel which I have seen widely reviewed in the newspapers. No; it is not an improper novel. On the contrary, it is more proper— almost in the sense of prim—than its authors probably imagine. It is really a reaction towards a more old-fashioned morality, and away from a new-fashioned one. It is not so much a revolt of the daughters as a return of the grandmothers.
Miss May Sinclair wrote a novel of the kind I mean, about a spinster whose life had been blighted by a tender and sensitive touch in her education, which had taught her—or rather, expected her— always to “behave beautifully.” Mrs. Delafield wrote a story with the refreshing name of “Humbug” on somewhat similar lines. It suggests that children are actually trained to deception, and especially self-deception, by a delicate and considerate treatment that continually appealed to their better feelings, which was always saying, “You would not hurt father.” Now, certainly a more old-fashioned and simple style of education did not invariably say “You would not hurt father.” Sometimes it preferred to say, “Father will hurt you.” I am not arguing for or against the father with the big stick. I am pointing out that Miss Sinclair and the modern novelists really are arguing for the father with the big stick, and against a more recent movement that is supposed to have reformed him. I myself can remember the time when the progressives offered us, as a happy prospect, the very educational method which the novelists now describe so bitterly in retrospect. We were told that true education would only appeal to the better feelings of children; that it would devote itself entirely to telling them to live beautifully; that it would use no argument more arbitrary than saying, “You would not hurt father.” That ethical education was the whole plan for the rising generation in the days of my youth. We were assured beforehand how much more effective such a psychological treatment would be than the bullying and blundering idea of authority. The hope of the future was in this humanitarian optimism in the training of the young; in other words, the hope was set on something which, when it is established, Mrs. Delafield instantly calls humbug and Miss Sinclair appears to hate as a sort of hell. What they are suffering from, apparently, is not the abuses of their grandfathers, but the most modern reforms of their fathers. These complaints are the first fruits of reformed education, of ethical societies, and social idealists. I repeat that I am for the moment talking about their opinions and not mine. I am not eulogizing either big sticks or psychological scalpels; I am pointing out that the outcry against the scalpel inevitably involves something of a case for the stick. I have never tied myself to a final belief in either; but I point out that the progressive, generation after generation, does elaborately tie himself up in new knots, and then roar and yell aloud to be untied.
It seems a little hard on the late Victorian idealist to be so bitterly abused merely for being kind to his children. There is something a little unconsciously comic about the latest generation of critics, who are crying out against their parents, “Never, never can I forgive the tenderness with which my mother treated me.” There is a certain irony in the bitterness which says, “My soul cries for vengeance when I remember that papa was always polite at the breakfast-table; my soul is seared by the persistent insolence of Uncle William in refraining from clouting me over the head.” It seems harsh to blame these idealists for idealizing human life, when they were only following what was seriously set before them as the only ideal of education. But, if this is to be said for the late Victorian idealist, there is also something to be said for the early Victorian authoritarian. Upon their own argument, there is something to be said for Uncle William if he did clout them over the head. It is rather hard, even on the great-grandfather with the big stick, that we should still abuse him merely for having neglected the persuasive methods that we have ourselves abandoned. It is hard to revile him for not having discovered to be sound the very sentimentalities that we have since discovered to be rotten.
For the case of these moderns is worst of all when they do try to find any third ideal, which is neither the authority which they once condemned for not being persuasion, nor the persuasion which they now condemn for being worse than authority. The nearest they can get to any other alternative is some notion about individuality; about drawing out the true personality of the child, or allowing a human being to find his real self. It is, perhaps, the most utterly meaningless talk in the whole muddle of the modern world. How is a child of seven to decide whether he has or has not found his true individuality? How, for that matter, is any grown-up person to tell it for him? How is anybody to know whether anybody has become his true self? In the highest sense it can only be a matter of mysticism; it can only mean that there was a purpose in his creation. It can only be the purpose of God, and even then it is a mystery. In anybody who does not accept the purpose of God, it can only be a muddle. It is so unmeaning that it cannot be called mystery but only mystification. Humanly considered, a human personality is the only thing that does in fact emerge out of a combination of the forces inside the child and the forces outside. The child cannot grow up in a void or vacuum with no forces outside. Circumstances will control or contribute to his character, whether they are the grandfather’s stick or the father’s persuasion or the conversations among the characters of Miss May Sinclair. Who in the world is to say positively which of these things has or has not helped his real personality?
What is his real personality? These philosophers talk as if there was a complete and complex animal curled up inside every baby, and we had nothing to do but to let it come out with a yell. As a matter of fact, we all know, in the case of the finest and most distinguished personalities, that it would be very difficult to disentangle them from the trials they have suffered, as well as from the truths they have found. But, anyhow, these thinkers must give us some guidance as to how they propose to tell whether their transcendental notion of a true self has been realized or no. As it is, anybody can say of any part of any personality that it is or is not an artificial addition obscuring that personality. In fiction, most of the wild and anarchical characters strike me as entirely artificial. In real life they would no doubt be much the same, if they could ever be met with in real life. But anyhow, they would be the products of experience as well as of elemental impulses; they would be influenced in some way by all they had gone through; and anybody would be free to speculate on what they would have been like if they had never had such experiences. Anybody might amuse himself by trying to subtract the experiences and find the self; anybody who wanted to waste his time.
Therefore, without feeling any fixed fanaticism for all the old methods, whether coercive or persuasive, I do think they both had a basis of common sense which is wanting in this third theory. The parent, whether persuading or punishing the child, was at least aware of one simple truth. He knew that, in the most serious sense, God alone knows what the child is really like, or is meant to be really like. All we can do to him is to fill him with those truths which we believe to be equally true whatever he is like. We must have a code of morals which we believe to be applicable to all children, and impose it on this child because it is applicable to all children. If it seems to be a part of his personality to be a swindler or a torturer, we must tell him that we do not want any personalities to be swindlers and torturers. In other words, we must believe in a religion or philosophy firmly enough to take the responsibility of acting on it, however much the rising generations may knock or kick at the door. I know all about the word education meaning drawing things out, and mere instruction meaning putting things in. And I respectfully reply that God alone knows what there is to draw out; but we can be reasonably responsible for what we are ourselves putting in.
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THE INNOCENCE OF THE CRIMINAL
A PHRASE, which we have all heard, is sometimes uttered by some small man sentenced to some small town of imprisonment, for either or both of the two principal reasons for imprisoning a man in modern England: that he is known to the police, and that he is not known to the magistrate. When such a man receives a more or less temperate term of imprisonment, he is often reported as having left the dock saying that he would “do it on his head.” In his own self-consciousness, he is merely seeking to maintain his equilibrium by that dazed and helpless hilarity which is the only philosophy allowed to him. But the phrase itself, like a great part of really popular slang, is highly symbolic. The English pauper (who tends to become numerically the preponderant Englishman) does really reconcile himself to existence by putting himself in an inverted and grotesque posture towards it. He does really stand on his head, because he is living in topsy-turvydom. He finds himself in an Upsidonia fully as fantastic as Mr. Archibald Marshall’s, and far less fair and logical; in a landscape as wild as if the trees grew downwards or the moon hung below his feet. He lives in a world in which the man who lends him money makes him a beggar; in which, when he is a beggar, the man who gives him money makes him a criminal; in which, when he is a criminal and “known to the police,” he becomes permanently liable to be arrested for other people’s crimes.
He is punished if his home is neglected though there is nobody to look after it, and punished again if it is not neglected, and the children are kept from school to look after it. He is arrested for sleeping on private land, and arrested again for sleeping on public land, and arrested, be it noted, for the positive and explicit reason that he has no money to sleep anywhere else. In short, he is under laws of such naked and admitted lunacy that they might quite as well tell him to pluck all the feathers off the cows, or to amputate the left leg of a whale. There is no possible way of behaving in such a pantomime city except as a sort of comic acrobat, a knockabout comedian who does as many things as possible on his head. He is, both by accident and design, a tumbler. It is a proverb about his children that they tumble up; it is the whole joke about his drunkenness that he tumbles down. But he is in a world in which standing straight or standing still have become both impossible and fatal. Meredith rightly conceived the only possible philosophy of this modern outlaw as that of Juggling Jerry; and even what is called his swindling is mostly this sort of almost automatic juggling. His nearest approach to social status is mere kinetic stability, like a top. There was, indeed, another tumbler called in tradition Our Lady’s Tumbler, who performed happier antics before a shrine in the days of superstition; and whose philosophy was perhaps more positive than Juggling Jerry’s, or Meredith’s. But a strenuous reform has passed through our own cities, careful of the survival of the fittest, and we have been able to preserve the antic while abolishing the altar.
But though this form of reaction into ridicule, and even self-ridicule, is very natural, it is also very national; it is not the only human reaction against injustice, nor perhaps the most obvious. The Irishman has shot his landlord, the Italian has joined a revolutionary Secret Society, the Russian has either thrown a bomb or gone on a pilgrimage, long before the Englishman has come finally to the conclusion that existence is a joke. Even as he does so he is too fully conscious that it would be too bad as a tragedy if it were not so good as a farce. It is further to be noticed, for the fact is of ominous importance, that this topsy-turvy English humour has, during the last six or seven generations, been more and more abandoned to the poorer orders. Sir John Falstaff is a knight; Tony Weller is a coachman; his son Sam is a servant to the middle classes, and the recent developments of social discipline seem calculated to force Sam Weller into the status of the Artful Dodger. It is certain that a youth of that class who should do to-day a tenth of the things that Sam Weller did would in one way or another spend most of his life in jail. To-day, indeed, it is the main object of social reform that he should spend the whole of his life in jail; but in a jail that can be used as a factory. That is the real meaning of all the talk about scientific criminology and remedial penalties. For such outcasts punishment is to be abolished by being perpetuated. When men propose to eliminate retribution as “vindictive,” they mean two very simple things: ceasing altogether to punish the few who are rich, and enslaving all the rest for being poor.
Nevertheless this half-conscious buffoon who is the butt of our society is also the satirist of it. He is even the judge of it, in the sense that he is the normal test by which it will be judged. In a number of quite practical matters it is he who represents historic humanity, and speaks naturally and truthfully where his judges and critics are crooked, crabbed and superstitious. This can be seen, for instance, if we see him for a moment not in the dock but in the witness-box. In several books and newspapers I happened to read lately, I have noticed a certain tone touching the uneducated witness; phrases like “the vagueness characteristic of their class,” or “easily confused, as such witnesses are.” Now such vagueness is simple truthfulness. Nine times out of ten, it is the confusion any man would show at any given instant about the complications which crowd human life. Nine times out of ten, it is avoided in the case of educated witnesses by the mere expedient of a legal fiction. The witness has a brief, like the barrister: he has consulted dates, he has made memoranda, he has frequently settled with solicitors exactly what he can safely say. His evidence is artificial even when it is not fictitious; we might almost say it is fictitious even when it is not false. The model testimony, regarded as the most regular of all in a law court, is constabulary testimony; if what the soldier said is not evidence, what the policeman says is often the only evidence. And what the policeman says is incredible, as he says it. It is something like this: “I met the prisoner coming out of Clapham Junction Station and he told me he went to see Mrs. Nehemiah Blagg, of 192 Paardeburg Terrace, West Ealing, about a cat which he had left there last Tuesday week which she was going to keep if it was a good mouser, and she told him it had killed a mouse in the back kitchen on Sunday morning so he had better leave it. She gave him a shilling for his trouble, and he went to West Ealing post-office where he bought two half-penny stamps and a ball of string, and then to the Imperial Stores at Ealing Broadway, and bought a pennyworth of mixed sweets. Coming out he met a friend, and they went to the Green Dolphin and made an appointment for 5.30 next day at the third lamp-post in Eckstein Street,” and so on. It is frankly impossible for anybody to say such a sentence; still more for anybody to remember it. If the thing is not a tissue of mere inventions, it can only be the arbitrary summary of a very arbitrary cross-examination, conducted precisely as are the examinations of a secret police in Russia. The story was not only discovered bit by bit, but discovered backwards. Mountains were in labour to bring forth that mouse in West Ealing. The police made a thorough official search of the man’s mental boxes and baggage, before that cat was let out of the bag. I am not here supposing the tale to be untrue—I am pointing out that the telling of it is unreal. The right way to tell a story is the way in which the prisoner told it to the policeman, and not the way in which the policeman tells it to the court. It is the way in which all true tales are told, the way in which all men learn the news about their neighbours, the way in which we all learned everything we know in childhood; it is the only real evidence for anything on this earth, and it is not evidence in a court of law. The man who tells it is vague about some things, less vague about others, and so on in proportion; but at his very vaguest, among the stiff unreason of modern conditions, he is a judgment on those conditions. His very bewilderment is a criticism, and his very indecision is a decision against us. It is an old story that we are judged by the innocence of a child, and every child is, in the French phrase, a terrible child. There is a true sense in which all our laws are judged by the innocence of a criminal.
In politics, of course, the case is the same. I will defer the question of whether the democracy knows how to answer questions until the oligarchy knows how to ask them. Asking a man if he approves of Tariff Reform is not only a silly but an insane question, for it covers the wildest possibilities, just as asking him whether he approves of Trouser Reform might mean anything from wearing no trousers to wearing a particular pattern of yellow trousers decorated with scarlet snakes. Talking about Temperance, when you mean pouring wine down the gutter, is quite literally as senseless as talking about Thrift, when you mean throwing money into the sea. The rambling speech of yokels and tramps is as much wiser than this as a rambling walk in the woods is wiser than the mathematical straightness of a fall from a precipice. The present leaders of progress are, I think, very near to that precipice; about all their schemes and ideals there is a savour of suicide. But the clown will go on talking in a living and, therefore, a leisurely fashion, and the great truth of pure gossip which sprang up in simpler ages and was the fountain of all the literatures, will flow on when our intricate and tortured society has died of its sins.
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THE PRUDERY OF THE FEMINISTS
IN the ultimate and universal sense I am astonished at the lack of astonishment. Starting from scratch, so to speak, we are all in the position of the first frog, whose pious and compact prayer was “Lord, how you made me jump!” Matthew Arnold told us to see life steadily and see it whole. But the flaw in his whole philosophy is that when we do see life whole we do not see it steadily, in Arnold’s sense, but as a staggering prodigy of creation. There is a primeval light in which all stones are precious stones; a primeval darkness against which all flowers are as vivid as fireworks. Nevertheless, there is one kind of surprise that does surprise me, the more, perhaps, because it is not true surprise but a supercilious fuss. There is a kind of man who not only claims that his stone is the only pebble on the beach, but declares it must be the one and only philosopher’s stone, because he is the one and only philosopher. He does not discover suddenly the sensational fact that grass is green. He discovers it very slowly, and proves it still more slowly, bringing us one blade of grass at a time. He is made haughty instead of humble by hitting on the obvious. The flowers do not make him open his eyes, but, rather, cover them with spectacles; and this is even more true of the weeds and thorns. Even his bad news is banal. A young man told me he had abandoned his Bible religion and vicarage environment at the withering touch of the one line of Fitzgerald: “The flower that once has blown, for ever dies.” I vainly pointed out that the Bible or the English burial service could have told him that man cometh up as a flower and is cut down. If that were self-evidently final, there would never have been any Bibles or any vicarages. I do not see how the flower can be any more dead, when a mower can cut it down, merely because a botanist can cut it up. It should further be remembered that the belief in the soul, right or wrong, arose and flourished among men who knew all there is to know about cutting down, not unfrequently cutting each other down, with considerable vivacity. The physical fact of death, in a hundred horrid shapes, was more naked and less veiled in times of faith or superstition than in times of science or scepticism. Often it was not merely those who had seen a man die, but those who had seen him rot, who were most certain that he was everlastingly alive.
There is another case somewhat analogous to this discovery of the new disease of death. I am puzzled in somewhat the same way when I hear, as we often hear just now, somebody saying that he was formerly opposed to Female Suffrage but was converted to it by the courage and patriotism shown by women in nursing and similar war work. Really, I do not wish to be superior in my turn, when I can only express my wonder in a question. But from what benighted dens can these people have crawled, that they did not know that women are brave? What horrible sort of women have they known all their lives? Where do they come from? Or, what is a still more apposite question, where do they think they come from? Do they think they fell from the moon, or were really found under cabbage-leaves, or brought over the sea by storks? Do they (as seems more likely) believe they were produced chemically, by Mr. Schefer on principles of abiogenesis? Should we any of us be here at all if women were not brave? Are we not all trophies of that war and triumph? Does not every man stand on the earth like a graven statue as the monument of the valour of a woman?
As a matter of fact, it is men much more than women who needed a war to redeem their reputation, and who have redeemed it. There was much more plausibility in the suspicion that the old torture of blood and iron would prove too much for a somewhat drugged and materialistic male population long estranged from it. I have always suspected that this doubt about manhood was the real sting in the strange sex quarrel, and the meaning of the new and nervous tattoo about the unhappiness of women. Man, like the Master Builder, was suspected by the female intelligence of having lost his nerve for climbing that dizzy battle-tower he had built in times gone by. In this the war did certainly straighten out the sex tangle; but it did also make clear on how terrible a thread of tenure we hold our privileges—and even our pleasures. For even bridge parties and champagne suppers take place on the top of that toppling war-tower; an hour can come when even a man who cared for nothing but bridge would have to defend it like Horatius; or when the man who only lives for champagne would have to die for champagne, as certainly as thousands of French soldiers have died for that flat land of vines; when he would have to fight as hard for the wine as Jeanne D’Arc for the oil of Rheims.
Just as civilization is guarded by potential war, so it is guarded by potential revolution. We ought never to indulge in either without extreme provocation; but we ought to be cured for ever of the fancy that extreme provocation is impossible. Against the tyrant within, as against the barbarian without, every voter should be a potential volunteer. “Thou goest with women, forget not thy whip,” said the Prussian philosopher; and some such echo probably infected those who wanted a war to make them respect their wives and mothers. But there would really be a symbolic sense in saying, “Thou goest with men, forget not thy sword.” Men coming to the council of the tribe should sheathe their swords, but not surrender them. Now I am not going to talk about Female Suffrage at this time of day; but these were the elements upon which a fair and sane opposition to it were founded. These are the risks of real politics; and the woman was not called upon to run such a risk, for the very simple reason that she was already running another risk. It was not laws that fixed her in the family; it was the very nature of the family. If the family was a fact in any very full sense, and if popular rule was also a fact in any very full sense, it was simply physically impossible for the woman to play the same part in such politics as the man. The difficulty was only evaded because the democracy was not a free democracy or the family not a free family. But whether this view was right or wrong, it is at least clear that the only honourable basis for any limitations of womanhood is the same as the basis of the respect for womanhood. It consisted in certain realities, which it may be undesirable to discuss, but is certainly even more undesirable to ignore. And my complaint against the more fussy Feminists (so called from their detestation of everything feminine) is that they do ignore these realities. I do not even propose the alternative of discussing them; on that point I am myself content to be what some call conventional, and others, civilized. I do not in the least demand that anyone should accept my own deduction from them; and I do not care a brass farthing what deduction anybody accepts about such a rag as modern ballot paper. But I do suggest that the peril with which one half of humanity is perpetually at war should be at least present in the minds of those who are perpetually bragging about breaking conventions, rending veils, and violating antiquated taboos. And, in nine cases out of ten, it seems to be quite absent from their minds. The mere fact of using the argument before mentioned, of women’s strength vindicated by war work, shows that it is absent from their minds.
If this oddity of the new obscurantism means, rather, that women have shown the moral courage and mental capacity needed for important concerns, I am equally unable to summon up any surprise at the revelation. Nothing can well be more important than our own souls and bodies; and they, at their most delicate and determining period, are almost always and almost entirely confided to women. Those who have been appointed as educational experts in every age are not surely a new order of priestesses? If it means that in a historic crisis all kinds of people must do all kinds of work, and that women are the more to be admired for doing work to which they are unaccustomed, or even unsuited, it is a point which I should quite as easily concede. But if it means that in planning the foundations of a future society we should ignore the one eternal and incurable contrast in humanity; if it means that we may now go ahead gaily as if there were really no difference at all; if it means, as I read in a magazine to-day, and as almost anyone may now read almost anywhere, that if such and such work is bad for women it must be bad for men; if it means that patriotic women in munition factories prove that any women can be happy in any factories; if, in short, it means that the huge and primeval facts of the family no longer block the way to a mere social assimilation and regimentation— then I say that the prospect is not one of liberty but of perpetuation of the dreariest sort of humbug. It is not emancipation, it is not even anarchy; it is simply prudery in the thoughts. It means that we have Bowdlerized our brains as well as our books. It is every bit as senseless a surrender to a superstitious decorum as it would be to force every woman to cut herself with a razor, because it was not etiquette to admit that she cannot grow a beard.
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HOW MAD LAWS ARE MADE
ANY one of the strange laws we suffer is a compromise between a fad and a vested interest. The fashionable way of effecting a social reform is as follows. To make the story clearer, and worthier of its wild and pointless process, I will call the two chief agents in it the March Hare and the Hatter. The Hatter is mad, in a quiet way; but he is merely mad on making hats, or rather on making money. He has a huge and prosperous emporium which advertises all possible hats to fit all possible heads; but he certainly nourishes an occult conviction that it is really the duty of the heads to fit the hats. This is his mild madness; in other respects he is a stodgy and rather stupid millionaire. Now, the man whom we will call the March Hare is at first sight the flat contrary of this. He is a wild intellectual and the leader of the Hatless Brigade. It does not much matter why there is this quarrel between the Hare and the Hat; it may be any progressive sophistry. Perhaps it is because he is a March Hare; and finds it hard to keep his hat on in a March wind. Perhaps it is because his ears are too long to allow him to wear a hat; or perhaps he hopes that every emancipated member of the Hatless Brigade will eventually evolve ears as long as a hare’s—or a donkey’s. The point is that anyone would fancy that the Hare and the Hatter would collide. As a matter of fact they co-operate. In other words, every “reform” to-day is a treaty between the two most influential modern figures— the great capitalist and the small faddist. They are the father and mother of a new law; and therefore it is so much of a mongrel as to be a monster.
What happens is something like this. The line of least resistance is found between the two by a more subtle analysis of their real respective aims. The intuitive eye of friendship detects a fine shade in the feelings of the Hatter. The desire of his heart, when delicately apprehended, is not necessarily that people should wear his hats, but rather that they should buy them. On the other hand, even his fanatically consistent colleague has no particular objection to a human being purchasing a hat, so long as he does not wreck his health, blast his prospects and generally blow his brains out, by the one suicidal act of putting it on. Between them they construct a law called the Habitual Hat-Pegs Act, which lays it down that every householder shall have not less than twenty-three hat-pegs and that, lest these should accumulate unwholesome dust, each must be covered by a hat in uninterrupted occupation. Or the thing might be managed some other way; as by arranging that a great modern nobleman should wear an accumulation of hats, one on top of the other, in pleasing memory of what has often been the itinerant occupation of his youth. Broadly, it would be enacted that hats might be used in various ways; to take rabbits out of, as in the case of conjurers, or put pennies into, as in the case of beggars, or smash on the heads of scarecrows, or stick on the tops of poles; if only it were guaranteed that as many citizens as possible should be forced to go bareheaded. Thus, the two most powerful elements in the governing class are satisfied; of which the first is finance and the second fidgets. The Capitalist has made money; and he only wanted to make money. The Social Reformer has done something; and he only wanted something to do.
Now every one of the recent tricks about temperance and economy has been literally of this type. I have chosen the names from a nonsense story merely for algebraic lucidity and universality; what has really happened in our own shops and streets is every bit as nonsensical. But quite recent events have confirmed this analysis with an accuracy which even the unconverted can hardly regard as a coincidence. I have already traced the truth in the case of the liquor traffic; but many public-spirited persons of the Prohibitionist school have found it very difficult to believe. All “temperance legislation” is a compromise between a liquor merchant who wants to get rid of his liquor and a teetotaller who does not want his neighbours to get it. But as the capitalist is much stronger than the crank, the compromise is lop-sided as such; the neighbours do get it, but always in the wrong way. But again, since the crank has not a true creed, but only an intellectual itch, he cares much more to be up and doing than to understand what he has done. As I said above, he only wants to do something; he has increased drunkenness. Anyhow, all such reforms are upon the plan of my parable. Sometimes it is decreed that drink shall only be sold in large quantities suitable to large incomes; that is exactly like allowing one nobleman to wear twenty hats. Sometimes it is proposed that the State should take over the liquor traffic; we hardly need to be told what that means, when it is the Plutocratic State. It means quite simply this: the policeman goes to the hatter and buys his whole stock of hats at a hundred pounds a piece, and then parades the street handing out hats to those who may take his fancy, and by blows of the truncheon forcing every man Jack of the rest of them to pay a hundred pounds for a hat he does not get. Merely to divert the rivers of ale or gin from private power to public power or from poor men to rich men, or from good taverns to bad taverns, is the sort of effort with which the faddists are satisfied and the liquor lords much more than satisfied.
There was a curious case of the same thing in the attempt to economize food during the Great War. The reformers did not wish really to economize food; the great food profiteers would not let them. The fussy person wants to force or forbid something, under the conditions defining all such effort; it must be something that will interfere with the citizen and will not interfere with the profiteer. Given such a problem, we might almost predict, for instance, that he will propose the limitation of the number of courses at a restaurant. It will not save the beef; it is not meant to save the beef; but to save the beef merchant. There will actually be more food bought, if the cook is not allowed to turn the scraps into kickshaws. But why should a plutocracy including food profiteers object to more food being bought? Why, for that matter, should the pure-minded social idealist object to more food being bought, as long as it is the wrong food that is sold? His quite disinterested aim is not that food should be restricted, but merely that freedom should be restricted. When once he is assured that a sufficient number of thoughtless persons are really getting what they don’t want, he says he is building Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land. And so he is; if the expression signifies handing over England to the wealthier Jews.
Now the only way in which this conclusive explanation can be countered is by ridiculing as impossible the notion that so fantastic a compact can be clearly and coolly made. The two attitudes are not logically interlocked, like the antlers of stags; they simply squeeze each other out of shape, as in a wrestle of two rival jelly-fish. We should be far safer if they had the intellectual honesty of a bargain or a bribe. As it is, they have an almost creepy quality which justifies the comparison to shapeless beasts of the sea. I defy any rational man to deny that he has noticed something moonstruck and mis-shapen, as apart from anything unjust or uncomfortable, about the little laws which have lately been tripping him up; laws which may tell him at any minute that he must not purchase turpentine before a certain tick of the clock, or that if he buys a pound of tea he must also buy a pennyworth of tin-tacks. The strictly correct word for such things is half-witted; and they are half-witted because each of the two incongruous partners has only half his will. They have not, for instance, the sweeping simplicity of the old sumptuary laws or even the old Puritan persecutions. But they are also half-witted because even the one mind is not the whole mind; it is largely the sub-conscious mind, which dares not trust itself in speech. The Drink Capitalist dares not actually say to the teetotaller, “Let me sell a quart bottle of whisky to be drunk in a day, and then I will let you pester a poor fellow who makes a pot of beer last half an hour.” That is exactly what happens in essence; but it is easy to guess what happens in external form. The teetotaller has twenty schemes for cutting off free citizens from the beverage of their fathers; and out of these twenty the liquor lord, without whose permission nothing can be done, selects the one scheme which will not interfere with him and his money. It is even more probable that the temperance reformer himself selects, by an instinct for what he would call practical politics, the one scheme which the liquor lord is likely to look at. And it matters nothing that it is a scheme too witless for Wonderland; a scheme for abolishing hats while preserving hatters.
It might be a good thing to give the control of drink to the State— if there were a State to give it to. But there is not. There is nothing but a congested compromise made by the pressure of powerful interests on each other. The liquor lords may bargain with the other lords to take their abnormal tribute in a lump instead of a lifetime; but not one of them will live the poorer. The main point is that, in passing through that plutocratic machinery, even a mad opinion will always emerge in a shape more maniacal than its own; and even the silliest fool can only do what the stupidest fool will let him.
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THE PAGODA OF PROGRESS
THERE is one fashionable fallacy that crops up everywhere like a weed, until a man feels inclined to devote the rest of his life to the hopeless task of weeding it out. I take one example of it from a newspaper correspondence headed “Have Women Gone Far Enough?” It is immediately concerned with alleged impropriety in dress; but I am not directly interested in that. I quote one paragraph from a lady correspondent, not because it is any worse than the same thing as stated by countless scholars and thinkers, but rather because it is more clearly stated—
“‘Women have gone far enough.’ That has always been the cry of the individual with the unprogressive mind. It seems to me that until Doomsday there will always be the type of man who will cry ‘Women have gone far enough’; but no one can stop the tide of evolution, and women will still go on.”
Which raises the interesting question of where they will go to. Now, as a matter of fact, every thinking person wants to stop the tide of evolution at some particular mark in his own mind. If I were to propose that people should wear no clothes at all, the lady might be shocked. But I should have as much right as anyone else to say that she was obviously an individual with an unprogressive mind. If I were to propose that this reform should be imposed on people by force, she would be justly indignant. But I could answer her with her own argument—that there had always been unprogressive people, and would be till Doomsday. If I then proposed that people should not only be stripped, but skinned alive, she might, perhaps, see several moral objections. But her own argument would still hold good, or as good as it held in her own case; and I could say that evolution would not stop and the skinning would go on. The argument is quite as good on my side as on hers; and it is worthless on both.
Of course, it would be just as easy to urge people to progress or evolve in exactly the opposite direction. It would be as easy to maintain that they ought to go on wearing more and more clothes. It might be argued that savages wear fewer clothes, that clothes are a mark of civilization, and that the evolution of them will go on. I am highly civilized if I wear ten hats, and more highly civilized if I wear twelve hats. When I have already evolved so far as to put on six pairs of trousers, I must still hail the appearance of the seventh pair of trousers with the joy due to the waving banner of a great reform. When we balance these two lunacies against each other, the central point of sanity is surely apparent. The man who headed his inquiry: “Have Women Gone Far Enough?” was at least in a real sense stating the point rightly. The point is that there is a “far enough.” There is a point at which something that was once neglected becomes exaggerated; something that is valuable up to that stage becomes undesirable after that stage. It is possible for the human intellect to consider clearly at what stage, or in what condition, it would have enough complication of clothes, or enough simplification of clothes, or enough of any other social element or tendency. It is possible to set a limit to the pagoda of human hats, rising for ever into infinity. It is possible to count the human legs, and, after a brief calculation, allot to them the appropriate number of trousers. There is such a thing as the miscalculation of making hats for a hydra or boots for a centipede, just as there are such things as bare-footed friars or the Hatless Brigade. There are exceptions and exaggerations, good and bad; but the point is that they are not only both good and bad, but they are good and bad in opposite directions. Let a man have what ideal of human costume or custom he likes. That ideal must still consist of elements in a certain proportion; and if that proportion is disturbed that ideal is destroyed. Let him once be clear in his own mind about what he wants, and then, whatever it is that he wants, he will not want the tide of evolution to wash it away. His ideal may be as revolutionary as he likes or as reactionary as he likes, but it must remain as he likes it. To make it more revolutionary or more reactionary is distortion; to suggest its growing more and more reactionary or revolutionary for ever is demented nonsense. How can a man know what he wants, how can he even want what he wants, if it will not even remain the same while he wants it?
The particular argument about women is not primarily the point; but as a matter of fact it is a very good illustration of the point. If a man thinks the Victorian conventions kept women out of things they would be the happier for having, his natural course is to consider what things they are; not to think that any things will do, so long as there are more of them. This is only the sort of living logic everybody acts in life. Suppose somebody says, “Don’t you think all this wood could be used for something else besides palings?” We shall very probably answer, “Well, I dare say it could,” and perhaps begin to think of wooden boxes or wooden stools. But we shall not see, as in a sort of vision, a vista of wooden razors, wooden carving-knives, wooden coats and hats, wooden pillows and pocket-handkerchiefs. If people had made a false and insufficient list of the uses of wood, we shall try to make a true and sufficient list of them; but not imagine that the list can go on for ever, or include more and more of everything in the world. I am not establishing a scientific parallel between wood and womanhood. But there would be nothing disrespectful in the symbol, considered as a symbol; for wood is the most sacred of all substances: it typifies the divine trade of the carpenter, and men count themselves fortunate to touch it. Here it is only a working simile, but the point of it is this—that all this nonsense about progressive and unprogressive minds, and the tide of evolution, divides people into those who stick ignorantly to wood for one thing and those who attempt insanely to use wood for everything. Both seem to think it a highly eccentric suggestion that we should find out what wood is really useful for, and use it for that. They either profess to worship a wooden womanhood inside the wooden fences of certain trivial and temporary Victorian conventions; or else they profess to see the future as a forest of dryads growing more and more feminine for ever.
But it does not matter to the main question whether anybody else draws the line exactly where I do. The point is that I am not doing an illogical thing, but the only logical thing, in drawing the line. I think tennis for women normal, and football for women quite abnormal; and I am no more inconsistent than I am in having a wooden walking-stick and not a wooden hat. I do not particularly object to a female despot; but I do object to a female demagogue. And my distinction is as much founded on the substance of things as my eccentric conduct in having a wooden chair and table but not a wooden knife and fork. You may think my division wrong; the point is that it is not wrong in being a division. All this fallacy of false progress tends to obscure the old common sense of all mankind, which is still the common sense of every man in his own daily dealings: that everything has its place and proportion and proper use, and that it is rational to trust its use and distrust its abuse. Progress, in the good sense, does not consist in looking for a direction in which one can go on indefinitely. For there is no such direction, unless it be in quite transcendental things, like the love of God. It would be far truer to say that true progress consists in looking for the place where we can stop.
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THE MYTH OF THE “MAYFLOWER”
AGNOSTICISM, the ancient confession of ignorance, was a singularly sane and healthy thing so far as it went. Unfortunately it has not gone as far as the twentieth century. It has declared in all ages, as a heathen chief declared in the dark ages, that the life of a man is like the flight of a bird across a firelit room, because we know nothing of whence it comes or whither it goes. It would seem natural to apply it not only to man but to mankind. But the moderns do not apply the same principle but the very opposite principle. They specialize in the unknown origins and in the unknown future. They dwell on the prehistoric and on the post-historic or prophetic; and neglect only the historic. They will give a most detailed description of the habits of the bird when he was a sort of pterodactyl only faintly to be traced in a fossil. They will give an equally detailed description of the habits of the bird a hundred years hence, when he shall have turned into a super-bird, or the dove of universal peace. But the bird in the hand is worth far less to them than the two mysterious birds in these two impenetrable bushes. They will publish a portrait with life, letters, and table-talk of the Missing Link, although he is missing; they will publish a plan and documented history of how the Social Revolution happened, though it has not happened yet. It is the men who are not missing and the revolutions that have happened that they have rather a habit of overlooking. Anyone who has argued, for instance, with the young Jewish intellectuals who are the brain of Bolshevism knows that their whole system turns on the two pivots of the prehistoric and the prophetic. They talk of the Communism of prehistoric ages as if it were a thing like the Crusades in the Middle Ages; not even a probable conjecture but a proved and familiar fact. They will tell you exactly how private property arose in primitive times, just as if they had been there. And then they will take one gigantic leap over all human history, and tell you about the inevitable Communism of the future. Nothing seems to matter unless it is either new enough to be foretold or old enough to be forgotten.
Mr. H. G. Wells has hit off his human habit in the account of a very human character, the American girl who glorifies Stonehenge in his last novel. I do not make Mr. Wells responsible for her opinions, though she is an attractive person and much too good for her Lothario. But she interests me here because she typifies very truly another variation upon this same tendency. To the prehistoric and the post-historic must be added a third thing, which may be called the unhistoric. I mean the bad teaching of real history that such intelligent people so often suffer. She sums up exactly what I mean when she says humorously that Stonehenge has been “kept from her,” that Notre Dame is far less important, and that this is the real starting-point of the “Mayflower.”
Now the “Mayflower” is a myth. It is an intensely interesting example of a real modern myth. I do not mean of course that the “Mayflower” never sailed, any more than I admit that King Arthur never lived or that Roland never died. I do not mean that the incident had no historic interest, or that the men who figured in it had no heroic qualities; any more than I deny that Charlemagne was a great man because the legend says he was two hundred years old; any more than I deny that the resistance of Roman Britain to the heathen invasion was valiant and valuable, because the legend says that Arthur at Mount Badon killed nine hundred men with his own hand. I mean that there exists in millions of modern minds a traditional image or vision called the “Mayflower,” which has far less relation to the real facts than Charlemagne’s two hundred years or Arthur’s nine hundred corpses. Multitudes of people in England and America, as intelligent and sympathetic as the young lady in Mr. Wells’s novel, think of the “Mayflower” as an origin, or archetype, like the Ark or at least the Argo. Perhaps it would be an exaggeration to say that they think the “Mayflower” discovered America. They do really talk as if the “Mayflower” populated America. Above all, they talk as if the establishment of New England had been the first and formative example of the expansion of England. They believe that English expansion was a Puritan experiment; and that an expansion of Puritan ideas was also the expansion of what have been claimed as English ideas, especially ideas of liberty. The Puritans of New England were champions of religious freedom, seeking to found a newer and freer state beyond the sea, and thus becoming the origin and model of modern democracy. All this betrays a lack of exactitude. It is certainly nearer to exact truth to say that Merlin built the castle at Camelot by magic, or that Roland broke the mountains in pieces with his unbroken sword.
For at least the old fables are faults on the right side. They are symbols of the truth and not of the opposite of the truth. They described Roland as brandishing his unbroken sword against the Moslems, but not in favour of the Moslems. And the New England Puritans would have regarded the establishment of real religious liberty exactly as Roland would have regarded the establishment of the religion of Mahound. The fables described Merlin as building a palace for a king and not a public hall for the London School of Economics. And it would be quite as sensible to read the Fabian politics of Mr. Sidney Webb into the local kingships of the Dark Ages, as to read anything remotely resembling modern liberality into the most savage of all the savage theological frenzies of the seventeenth century. Thus the “Mayflower” is not merely a fable, but is much more false than fables generally are. The revolt of the Puritans against the Stuarts was really a revolt against religious toleration. I do not say the Puritans were never persecuted by their opponents; but I do say, to their great honour and glory, that the Puritans never descended to the hypocrisy of pretending for a moment that they did not mean to persecute their opponents. And in the main their quarrel with the Stuarts was that the Stuarts would not persecute those opponents enough. Not only was it then the Catholics who were proposing toleration, but it was they who had already actually established toleration in the State of Maryland, before the Puritans began to establish the most intolerant sort of intolerance in the State of New England. And if the fable is fabulous touching the emancipation of religion, it is yet more fabulous touching the expansion of empire. That had been started long before either New England or Maryland, by Raleigh who started it in Virginia. Virginia is still perhaps the most English of the states, certainly more English than New England. And it was also the most typical and important of the states, almost up to Lee’s last battle in the Wilderness. But I have only taken the “Mayflower” as an example of the general truth; and in a way the truth has its consoling side. Modern men are not allowed to have any history; but at least nothing can prevent men from having legends.
We have thus before us, in a very true and typical modern picture, the two essential parts of modern culture. It consists first of false history and second of fancy history. What the American tourist believed about Plymouth Rock was untrue; what she believed about Stonehenge was only unfounded. The popular story of Primitive Man cannot be proved. The popular story of Puritanism can be disproved. I can fully sympathize with Mr. Wells and his heroine in feeling the imaginative stimulus of mysteries like Stonehenge; but the imagination springs from the mystery; that is, the imagination springs from the ignorance. It is the very greatness of Stonehenge that there is very little of it left. It is its chief feature to be featureless. We are very naturally and rightly moved to mystical emotions about signals from so far away along the path of the past; but part of the poetry lies in our inability really to read the signals. And this is what gives an interest, and even an irony, to the comparison half consciously invoked by the American lady herself when she asked “What’s Notre Dame to this?” And the answer that should be given to her is: “Notre Dame, compared to this, is true. It is history. It is humanity. It is what has really happened, what we know has really happened, what we know is really happening still. It is the central fact of your own civilization. And it is the thing that has really been kept from you.”
Notre Dame is not a myth. Notre Dame is not a theory. Its interest does not spring from ignorance but from knowledge; from a culture complicated with a hundred controversies and revolutions. It is not featureless, but carved into an incredible forest and labyrinth of fascinating features, any one of which we could talk about for days. It is not great because there is little of it, but great because there is a great deal of it. It is true that though there is a great deal of it, Puritans may not be allowed to see a great deal in it; whether they were those brought over in the “Mayflower” or only those brought up on the “Mayflower.” But that is not the fault of Notre Dame; but of the extraordinary evasion by which such people can dodge to right or left of it, taking refuge in things more recent or things more remote. Notre Dame, on its merely human side, is mediaeval civilization, and therefore not a fable or a guess but a great solid determining part of modern civilization. It is the whole modern debate about guilds; for such cathedrals were built by the guilds. It is the whole modern question of religion and irreligion; for we know what religion it stands for, while we really have not a notion what religion Stonehenge stands for. A Druid temple is a ruin, and a Puritan ship by this time may well be called a wreck. But a church is a challenge; and that is why it is not answered.
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MUCH TOO MODERN HISTORY
ALL wise men will agree that history ought to be taught more fully in the form of world history. In that respect at least Mr. Wells gave us an excellent working model. England is meaningless without Europe, more meaningless than England without Empire. But those who would broaden history with human brotherhood too often suffer from a limitation not absent even from Mr. Wells. They exchange the narrowness of a nation for the narrowness of a theory, or even a fad. They think they have a world-wide philosophy because they extend their own narrowness to the whole world. A distinguished professor, who is a member of the League of Nations Union, has been telling an interviewer what he thinks history-books should teach. And it seems to me that, according to his views if correctly reported, the new histories would be rather more prejudiced and limited than the old.
He begins with a small but singular error, which itself shows some lack of the imagination that can see two sides of a question. He says, “Textbooks of history should aim at truth. It should not be possible for one version of the American War of Independence to be taught in American schools, and another in English schools.”
Now, in point of fact, the same version of that story is taught both in English and American schools. It is the other version, a very tenable one, that is not allowed to be taught anywhere. No American historian, however American, could be more positive that George III was wrong and George Washington right than all the English historians are. What would show real independence of mind would be to state the case for George III. And there was a very real case for George III. I will not go into it here, but every honest historical student will agree with me. Perhaps the fairest way of putting it is this: that it was not really a case of a government resolved on tyranny, but of a nation resolved on independence.
But if we sympathize with national independence, surely there is something to be said for intellectual independence. And the professor is far from being really sympathetic with intellectual independence. He is so far from it that he wants both sides forced to tell the same story, apparently whether they like it or not. As a fact, they do agree; but apparently in any case the professor would coerce them into agreement. And his extraordinary reason for this course is that history should aim at truth.
But suppose I do aim at truth, and sincerely come to the conclusion that North was a patriot and Burke a sophist? How would the professor prevent it being “possible” for me to teach what I think is true? The truth is that it has never occurred to these progressive professors that there could be any view of any question except their own, or what they call their own. For it is only a tradition they have been taught; a tradition as narrow as North’s and now nearly as old.
But the professor goes on to say something much more interesting and curious. After saying very truly that the past, the Plantagenet period, for instance, should not be made a mere matter of kings and battles, he goes on to say, “What we want to see is the textbook of history and the teaching of it brought more closely into touch with the realities of the modern world— the world of the division of labour between different countries, of the application of science to industry, of the shortening of the spaces of the earth by improvements in transport— and with all that these realities imply.”
Now it seems to me obvious that what we want is exactly the opposite. A child can see these realities of the modern world, whether he is taught any history or not. He will see them whether you want him to or not. As he grows up he will learn by experience all about the improvements in transport, its acceleration by Zeppelins and its interruption by submarines. He will realize for himself that the modern world is the world of the division of labour between nations. For he will know that England has been turned into an isolated workshop with hardly food enough for a fortnight, with the potential alternative of surrender or starvation or eating nails. He will by the light of nature know all about the application of science to industry—in war by chemical analyses of poison gas, in peace by bright little pamphlets about phossy jaw. He will know “all that these realities imply,” about which also there is very much that might be said. But even if we consider only the somewhat cheerier products of the division of labour and the application of science to industry, there is quite as little need laboriously to instruct the infant in what he can see for himself. A child has a very pure and poetical love of machinery, a love in which there is nothing in the least evil or materialistic. But it is hardly necessary to devote years to proving to him that motor-cars have been invented, as he can see them going by in the street. It is not necessary to read up in the British Museum the details with which to demonstrate that there are really such things as tube stations or motor bicycles. The child can see these things everywhere, and the real danger obviously is that he should think they had existed always. The danger is that he should know nothing of humanity, except as it is under these special and sometimes cramping conditions of scientific industry and the division of labour. It is that he should be unable to imagine any civilization without tube stations, whatever its substitutes in the way of temples or trophies of war. It is that he should see man as a sort of cyclist-centaur, inseparable from his motor-bike. In short, the whole danger of historical ignorance is that he may be as limited to his local circumstances as a savage on an island, or a provincial in a decayed town, or a historical professor in the League of Nations Union.
The whole object of history is to enlarge experience by imagination. And this sort of history would enlarge neither imagination nor experience. The whole object of history is to make us realize that humanity could be great and glorious, under conditions quite different and even contrary to our own. It is to teach us that men could achieve most profitable labour without our own division of labour. It is to teach us that men could be industrious without being industrial. It is to make us understand that there might be a world in which there was far less improvement in the transport for visiting various places, and there might still be a very great improvement in the places visited.
The professor is perfectly right in saying that a history of the Plantagenet period ought not merely to record the succession of kings and battles. But what ought it to record? Is it to record only the absence of motors and electric lights? Should we say nothing of the Plantagenet period except that it did not have motor-bikes? I venture to suggest that we might record the presence of some things which the whole people had then and have not got now, such as the guilds, the great popular universities, the use of the common lands, the fraternity of the common creed.
I fear the professor will not follow me into matters so disturbing to his perfect picture of progress. But, in conclusion, there is one little question I should like to ask him, and it is this: If you cannot see Man, divine and democratic, under the disguises of all the centuries, why on earth should you suppose you will be able to see him under the disguises of all the nations and tribes? If the Dark Ages must be as dark as they look, why are the black men not so black as they are painted? If I may feel supercilious towards a Chaldean, why not towards a Chinaman? If I may despise a Roman for not having a steam-plough, why not a Russian for not wanting a steam-plough? If scientific industry is the supreme historical test, it divides us as much from backward peoples as from bygone peoples. It divides even European peoples from each other. And if that be the test, why bother to join the League of Nations Union?
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THE EVOLUTION OF SLAVES
A VERY curious and interesting thing has recently happened in America. There has suddenly appeared an organized political attack on Darwinian Evolution, led by an old demagogue appealing entirely to the ideals of democracy. I mean no discredit to Mr. Bryan in calling him a demagogue; for I should have been far more heartily on his side in the days when he was a demagogue than in the days when he was a diplomatist. He was a much wiser man when he refused to allow the financiers to crucify humanity on a golden cross, than when he consented to allow the Kaiser to crucify it on an iron cross. The movement is religious and therefore popular; but it is Protestant and therefore provincial. Its opponents, the old guard of materialism, will of course do their best to represent it as something like the village that voted the earth was flat. But there is one sharp difference, which is the point of the whole position. If an ignorant man went about saying that the earth was flat, the scientific man would promptly and confidently answer, “Oh, nonsense; of course it’s round.” He might even condescend to give the real reasons, which I believe are quite different from the current ones. But when the private citizen rushes wild-eyed down the streets of Heliopolis, Neb., calling out “Have you heard the news? Darwin’s wrong!” the scientific man does not say, “Oh, nonsense, of course he’s right.” He says tremulously, “Not entirely wrong; surely not entirely wrong”; and we can draw our conclusions. But I believe myself there is a deeper and more democratic force behind this reaction; and I think it worthy of further study.
I recently heard a debate on that American system of class privilege which we call for convenience Prohibition; and I was very much amused by one argument that was advanced in its favour. A very intelligent young American, a Rhodes scholar from Oxford, advanced the thesis that Prohibition was not a violation of liberty because, if it were fully established, its victims would never know what they had lost. If a generation of total abstainers could once grow up “without the desire” for drink, they would not be conscious of any restraint on their freedom. The argument is ingenious and promising and opens up a wide field of application. Thus, if I happen to find it convenient to keep miners or other proletarians permanently underground, I have only to make sure that all their babies are born in pitch darkness and they will certainly never imagine the light of day. My action therefore will not only be just and benevolent in itself, but will obviously involve not even the faintest infringement of the ideal of freedom. Or if I merely kidnap all the babies from all the mothers in the country, it is obvious that the infants will not remember their mothers, and in that sense will not miss them. There is therefore no reason why I should not adopt this course; and even if I hide the babies from their mothers by locking them up in boxes, I shall not be violating the principle of liberty; because the babies will not understand what I have done. Or, to take a comparison even closer in many ways, there is an ordinary social problem like dress. I come to the conclusion that ladies spend too much money on dress, that it is a social evil because families suffer from the extravagance, and rivalries and seductions distract the State. I therefore decree, on the lines of Prohibitionist logic, that the law shall forbid anybody to wear any clothes at all. Nobody who grows up naked, according to this theory, will ever have any regrets for beauty or dignity or decency; and therefore will have suffered no loss. I cannot sufficiently express my admiration for the extraordinary simplicity which can smooth the path of Prussianism with this large, elementary and satisfactory principle. So long as we tyrannize enough we are not tyrannizing at all; and so long as we steal enough our victims will never know what has been stolen. Seriously, everybody knows that the rich planning the oppression of the poor will never lack a sycophant to act as a sophist. But I never dreamed that I should live to enjoy so crude and stark and startling a sophistry as this.
But the last example I gave, that of the normality of clothes or of nakedness, has a further relevance in this connection. What is really at the back of the minds of the people who say these strange things is one very simple error. They imagine that the drinking of fermented liquor has been an artifice and a luxury; something odd like the strange self-indulgences praised by the decadent poets. This is simply an accident of the ignorance of history and humanity. Drinking fermented liquor is not a fashion like wearing a green carnation. It is a habit like wearing clothes. It is one of the habits that are indeed man’s second nature; if indeed they are not his first nature. Wine is purest and healthiest in the highest civilization, just as clothing is most complete in the highest civilization. But there is nothing to show that the savage has not shed the clothes of a higher civilization, retaining only the ornaments; as a good many fashionable people in our own civilization seem to be doing now. And there is nothing to show that ruder races who brew their “native beers” in Africa or Polynesia have not lost the art of brewing something better; just as Prohibitionist America, before our very eyes, has left off brewing Christian beer and taken to drinking fermented wood-pulp and methylated spirit. The very example of modern America falling from better to baser drinks, under a dismal taboo, is a perfect model of the way in which civilizations have relapsed into savagery, and produced the savages we know. But the point is that drink, like dress, is the rule; and the exceptions only prove the rule. There are individuals who for personal and particular reasons are right to drink no liquor but water; just as there are individuals who have to stay in bed, and wear no clothes but bedclothes. There have been sects of Moslems and there have been sects of Adamites. There have been, as I have said, barbarized peoples fallen so far from civilization as to wear grotesque garments or none, or to drink bad beer or none. But nobody has ever seen Primitive Man, naked and drinking water; he is a myth of the modern mythologists. Man, as Aristotle saw long ago, is an abnormal animal whose nature it is to be civilized. In so far as he ever becomes uncivilized he becomes unnatural, and even artificial.
Now at the back of all this, of course, the real difference is religious. I only take this one case of what is called temperance for the sake of the wider philosophy that underlies it. When my young American friend talked of the next generation growing up without the desire for “alcohol,” he had at the back of his mind a certain idea. It is the idea which I have just seen expressed by another American in a high-brow article, in the words: “Evolution does not stand still. We are not finished. The world is not finished.” What it means is that the nature of man can be modified to suit the convenience of particular men; and this would certainly be very convenient. If the rich man wants the miners to live underground, he may really breed for it a new race as blind as bats and owls. If he finds it cheaper to run the school and school inspections on Adamite principles, he can hope to produce Adamites not merely as a sect but as a species. And the same will be true of teetotalism or vegetarianism; nature, having evolved man, who is an ale-drinking animal, may now evolve a super-man, or a sub-man, who shall be a water-drinking animal. Having risen from a monkey who eats nuts to a man who eats mutton, he may rise yet higher by eating nuts again.
Thinking people, of course, know that all that is nonsense. They know there is no such constant flux of adaption. So far from saying that the evolution of man has not finished, they will point out that (as far as we know) it has not begun. In all the five thousand years of recorded history, and in all the prehistoric indications before it, there is not a shadow or suspicion of movement or change in the human biological type. Even evolution, let alone natural selection, is only a conjecture about things unknown, compared with the broad daylight of things known in all those thousands of years. The only difference is that evolution seems a probable conjecture, and natural selection is on the face of it an extravagantly improbable one. All this, which is obvious to thinking people, has at last become obvious even to the most unthinking; and that is the meaning of the attack on Darwinism in America and the battle of Mr. Bryan against the Missing Link. The secret is out. The obscurantism of the professors is over. Those of us who have humbly hammered on this point from time to time suddenly find ourselves hammering on an open door. For these changes almost always come suddenly; which is alone enough to show that human history at least has never been merely an evolution. As Darwinism came with a rush, so anti-Darwinism has come with a rush; and just as people who accepted evolution could not be held back from embracing natural selection, so it is likely enough that many, who now see reason to reject natural selection, will not be stopped in their course till they have also rejected evolution. They will merely have a vague but angry conviction that the professors have been kidding them. But behind all this there will be a very real moral and religious reaction; the meaning of which is what I have described in this article. It is the profound popular impression that scientific materialism, at the end of its hundred years, is found to have been used chiefly for the oppression of the people. Of this the most evident example is that evolution itself can be offered as something able to evolve a people who can be oppressed. As in the argument about Prohibition, it will offer to breed slaves; to produce a new race indifferent to its rights. Morally the argument is quite indistinguishable from justifying assassination by promising to bring up children as suicides, who will prefer to be poisoned.
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IS DARWIN DEAD?
MR. ERNEST NEWMAN, that lively and acute critic, once rebuked the arrogance of those of us who confessed that we knew nothing about music. Why he should suppose we are arrogant about it, if he does think so, I cannot quite understand. I, for one, am fully conscious of my inferiority to him and others through this deficiency; nor is it, alas, the only deficiency. I have sometimes thought it would be wholesome for anybody who has succeeded pretty well by some trick of some trade, to have a huge notice board or diagram hung in front of him all day; showing exactly where he stood in all the other crafts and competitions of mankind. Thus the poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling, as it rose from the paper on which an entirely new type of villanelle had just sprung into being, would encounter the disconcerting facts and figures about his suitability to be a professional acrobat or a pearl-diver. On the other hand, the radiant victor in the great International Egg and Spoon Race can see at a glance how very far down he stands, so to speak, in the queue of those waiting for the post of Astronomer Royal. Most of us have at least one or two gaps in our general culture and information; and sometimes whole departments of knowledge are practically hidden from whole generations and classes of mankind. There is something very defective and disproportionate about even the ideal culture of a modern man. It may be that Mr. Newman is deeply read in that mediaeval theology which is still the sub-conscious basis of most morality; but it is also possible that he is not. He may have at his fingers’ ends that military art which has often turned the fortunes of history; but he may not. He would be none the less a highly cultivated gentleman, if he did not. Yet the mystical and the military mind have been at least as pivotal and practical in history as the musical mind. I can admire them all, but I have no claim to possess any of them.
But my ignorance of music happens to assist me with a convenient metaphor in the more controversial matter of my ignorance of science. I once made some remarks about the decline of Darwinism, in a review of the Wells “Outline of History.” This aroused rather excited criticism; but one comparatively calm critic challenged what really interests me in the matter: he said that my conundrums about the wing of the bat and similar things “could easily be solved on purely Darwinian lines by any competent zoologist, or even by one so incompetent as myself.” The conundrum in question, of course, concerns the survival value of features in their unfinished state. If a thing can fly it may survive, and if it has a wing it may fly; but if it cannot fly with half a wing, why should it survive with half a wing? Yet Darwinism pre-supposes that numberless generations could survive before one generation could fly. Now it is quite true that I am not even an incompetent zoologist; and that my critic is more competent than I, if only in the mere fact of being a zoologist at all. Nevertheless, I adhere to my opinion, and do so for a reason that seems to me worthy of some little consideration. I do it because this does happen to be exactly one of those questions on which, as it seems to me, the independent critic has really a right to check the specialist. For it is a larger question of logic, and not a smaller question of fact. It is like the difficulty of believing that a halfpenny can fall head or tail a hundred times running; which has nothing to do with the numismatic value of the coin. It is like the difficulty of believing that a mere tax could make a loaf cheaper, which has nothing to do with the agrarian craft of growing corn. There is a general tide of reason flowing against such improbabilities, even if they are possibilities; they would still be exceptions, and reason would be on the side of the rule. And whatever the details of natural history, this thing is against the very nature of things.
To explain what I mean I will take this parallel of the technique of music, of which I know even less than of the technique of natural history. To begin with a simple though moving musical instrument, suppose an expert told me that a coach-horn could be blown quite as well if it were only two feet long. I should believe him; partly because it seems probable enough, and partly because I know nothing about the matter. I am not even an incompetent coach-horn blower. But I should certainly not believe him if he told me, as a generalization about all musical instruments, that half a musical instrument was better than no music, or even as good as any music. I should disbelieve it because it is inconsistent with the general nature of a musical instrument, or any instrument. I should disbelieve it long before I had thought of the thousand particular instruments to which it does not apply. I should not primarily need to think of the particular examples, though they are obvious enough. A stringed instrument cannot even be called stringed without two fixed points to hold both ends of the string. At the stage when the fiddle-strings floated like filaments in the void, feeling their way towards an evolutionary other end of nowhere, there could be nothing serving any purpose of a fiddle. A drum with a hole in is not a drum at all. But an evolutionary drum has to turn slowly into a drum, when it has begun by being only a hole. I cannot see any survival for a bagpipe that begins by being slit; I think such bagpipes would die with all their music in them. I feel a faint doubt, mingled with fascination, about the idea that a violin could grow out of the ground like a tree; it would at least make a charming fairy story. But whether or no a fiddle could grow like a tree, I feel sure nobody could play on it while it was still only a twig. But all these, as I say, are only examples that throng into the mind afterwards, of a principle seen in a flash from the first. Of things serving particular purposes, by a balance and arrangement of parts, it cannot be generally true that they are fit for use before they are finished for use. It is against the general nature of such things; and can only be true by an individual coincidence. I can see for myself, for instance, that some particular case like the trunk of an elephant might really be compared to the simpler case of the coach-horn. Length and flexibility are mere matters of degree; and I might possibly find it convenient if my nose were six inches longer, and sufficiently lively to be able to point right and left at various objects on the tea-table. But this is simply an accident of the particular qualities of length and laxity, not a general truth about the qualities of growth and use. It is not in the least true that I should experience the least convenience from the membrane between my fingers thickening or widening a little; even if an evolutionist at my elbow comforted and inspired me with the far-off divine event when my descendant should have the wings of a bat. Until the membrane can really be spread properly from point to point it is like the fiddle-string before it is stretched properly from point to point. It is no nearer serving its ultimate purpose than if it were not there at all. But it would be easy to find a similar animal parallel to the drum with a hole in it. There are monsters who would die instantly if they could not close the holes in their head under water. One supposes they would have died swiftly, before their closing apparatus could develop slowly. But the principle is a general one, and is involved in the very nature of any apparatus. It is only by way of figure of speech, in defence of the freedom of the ignorant, that I take the type of a musical apparatus. I take it because I am entirely ignorant of musical instruments. I am of the candid class of those who have “never tried” to perform on the violin. I cannot play upon this pipe; especially if it be a bagpipe. But if anybody tells me that the wildest pibroch rose from a whisper gradually, as a hole in the wind-bag was filled up gradually—why then, I shall not be so rude, I hope, as to say that there is a wind-bag in his head, but I shall venture to say that there is a hole in his argument. And if he says that pieces of wood came together slowly, stick by stick, to form a fiddle, and that before it was yet a fiddle at all the sticks discoursed most excellent music—why, I fear I shall be content to say “fiddlesticks.”
There is another answer often made which seems to me even more illogical. The critic generally says it is unreasonable to expect from the geological record that continuous gradation of types which the challengers of Darwinism demand. He says that only a part of the earth can be examined and that it could not in any case prove so much. This mode of argument involves an amazing oblivion of what is the thing to be proved, and who is trying to prove it. By hypothesis the Darwinians are trying to prove Darwinism. The Anti-Darwinians are not trying to prove anything; except that the Darwinians have not proved it. I do not demand anything, in the sense of complaining anything or the absence of anything. I am quite comfortable in a completely mysterious cosmos. I am not reviling the rocks or cursing the eternal hills for not containing these things. I am only saying that these are the things they would have to contain to make me believe something that somebody else wants me to believe. These traces are not things that the Anti-Darwinian demands. They are things that the Darwinian requires. The Darwinian requires them in order to convince his opponent of Darwinism; his opponent may be right or wrong, but he cannot be expected to accept the mere absence of them as proof of Darwinism. If the evidences in support of the theory are unfortunately hidden, why then, we do not know whether they were in support of the theory. If the proofs of natural selection are lost, why then, there are no proofs of natural selection; and there is an end of it.
And I would respectfully ask these critics what would be thought of a theological or miraculous argument which thus based itself on the very gaps in its own evidence. Let them indulge in the flight of fancy that I have just told them, let us say, that I saw the Devil at Brighton: and that the proof of his presence there can still be seen on the sands, in gigantic marks of a cloven hoof as big as the foot of an elephant. Suppose we all search the sands of Brighton and find no such thing. And suppose I then say that, after all, the tide might have washed away the footprints, or that the fiend may have flown through the air from his little country seat at the Dyke, or that he may have walked along the hard asphalt of Brighton parade, as proudly as once upon the flaming marl. To those acquainted with Brighton parade this will seem probable enough; but there would be a fallacy in merely saying that the evil spirit may have done all this. The sceptic will not unnaturally reply: “Yes, he may; and he may not; and it may be a legend; and you may be a liar; and I think our little investigation is now concluded.” I am very far indeed from calling the Darwinian a liar; but I shall continue to say that he is not always a logician.
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TURNING INSIDE OUT
WHEN the author of “If Winter Comes” brought out another book about the life of the family, it was almost as much criticized as the first book was praised. I do not say that there was nothing to criticize, but I do say that I was not convinced by the abstract logic of the criticism. Probably the critics would have accepted it as a true story if the author had not been so incautious as to give it a true moral. And the moral is not fashionable in the Press at the moment; for it is to the effect that a woman may gain a professional success at the price of a domestic failure. And it is the convention of journalism at this moment to support what is feminist against what is feminine. Anyhow, while the story might be criticized, the criticisms can certainly be criticized. It is not really conclusive to say that a woman may be ambitious in business without her children going to the bad. It is just as easy to say that a woman may be ambitious in politics without helping to murder an old gentleman in his bed. But that does not make “Macbeth” either inartistic or untrue. It is just as easy to say that a woman may be ambitious in society without tricking her husband into a debtor’s prison, so that she may spend the time with a bald-headed nobleman with red whiskers. But that does not make the great scene in “Vanity Fair” unconvincing either in detail or design. The question in fiction is not whether that thing must occur, but whether that sort of thing may occur, and whether it is significant of larger things. Now this business of the woman at work and the woman at home is a very large thing, and this story about it is highly significant.
For in this matter the modern mind is inconsistent with itself. It has managed to get one of its rather crude ideals in flat contradiction to the other. People of the progressive sort are perpetually telling us that the hope of the world is in education. Education is everything. Nothing is so important as training the rising generation. Nothing is really, important except the rising generation. They tell us this over and over again, with slight variations of the same formula, and never seem to see what it involves. For if there be any word of truth in all this talk about the education of the child, then there is certainly nothing but nonsense in nine-tenths of the talk about the emancipation of the woman. If education is the highest function in the State, why should anybody want to be emancipated from the highest function in the State? It is as if we talked of commuting the sentence that condemned a man to be President of the United States; or a reprieve coming in time to save him from being Pope. If education is the largest thing in the world, what is the sense of talking about a woman being liberated from the largest thing in the world? It is as if we were to rescue her from the cruel doom of being a poet like Shakespeare; or to pity the limitations of an all-round artist like Leonardo da Vinci. Nor can there be any doubt that there is truth in this claim for education. Only precisely the sort of which it is particularly true is the sort called domestic education. Private education really is universal. Public education can be comparatively narrow. It would really be an exaggeration to say that the school-master who takes his pupils in freehand drawing is training them in all the uses of freedom. It really would be fantastic to say that the harmless foreigner who instructs a class in French or German is talking with all the tongues of men and angels. But the mother dealing with her own daughters in her own home does literally have to deal with all forms of freedom, because she has to deal with all sides of a single human soul. She is obliged, if not to talk with the tongues of men and angels, at least to decide how much she shall talk about angels and how much about men.
In short, if education is really the larger matter, then certainly domestic life is the larger matter; and official or commercial life the lesser matter. It is a mere matter of arithmetic that anything taken from the larger matter will leave it less. It is a mere matter of simple subtraction that the mother must have less time for the family if she has more time for the factory. If education, ethical and cultural, really were a trivial and mechanical matter, the mother might possibly rattle through it as a rapid routine, before going about her more serious business of serving a capitalist for hire. If education were merely instruction, she might briefly instruct her babies in the multiplication tables, before she mounted to higher and nobler spheres as the servant of a Milk Trust or the secretary of a Drug Combine. But the moderns are perpetually assuring us that education is not instruction; they are perpetually insisting that it is not a mechanical exercise, and must on no account be an abbreviated exercise. It must go on at every hour. It must cover every subject. But if it must go on at all hours, it must not be neglected in business hours. And if the child is to be free to cover every subject, the parent must be free to cover every subject too.
For the idea of a non-parental substitute is simply an illusion of wealth. The advanced advocate of this inconsistent and infinite education for the child is generally thinking of the rich child; and all this particular sort of liberty should rather be called luxury. It is natural enough for a fashionable lady to leave her little daughter with the French governess or the Czecho-Slovakian governess or the Ancient Sanskrit governess, and know that one or other of these sides of the infant’s intelligence is being developed; while she, the mother, figures in public as a money-lender or some other modern position of dignity. But among poorer people there cannot be five teachers to one pupil. Generally there are about fifty pupils to one teacher. There it is impossible to cut up the soul of a single child and distribute it among specialists. It is all we can do to tear in pieces the soul of a single schoolmaster, and distribute it in rags and scraps to a whole mob of boys. And even in the case of the wealthy child it is by no means clear that specialists are a substitute for spiritual authority. Even a millionaire can never be certain that he has not left out one governess, in the long procession of governesses perpetually under his marble portico; and the omission may be as fatal as that of the king who forgot to ask the bad fairy to the christening. The daughter, after a life of ruin and despair, may look back and say, “Had I but also had a Lithuanian governess, my fate as a diplomatist’s wife in Eastern Europe would have been very different.” But it seems rather more probable, on the whole, that what she would miss would not be one or other of these special accomplishments, but some common sense code of morals or general view of life. The millionaire could, no doubt, hire a mahatma or mystical prophet to give his child a general philosophy. But I doubt if the philosophy would be very successful even for the rich child, and it would be quite impossible for the poor child. In the case of comparative poverty, which is the common lot of mankind, we come back to a general parental responsibility, which is the common sense of mankind. We come back to the parent as the person in charge of education. If you exalt the education, you must exalt the parental power with it. If you exaggerate the education, you must exaggerate the parental power with it. If you depreciate the parental power, you must depreciate education with it. If the young are always right and can do as they like, well and good; let us all be jolly, old and young, and free from every kind of responsibility. But in that case do not come pestering us with the importance of education, when nobody has any authority to educate anybody. Make up your mind whether you want unlimited education or unlimited emancipation, but do not be such a fool as to suppose you can have both at once.
There is evidence, as I have noted, that the more hard-headed people, even of the most progressive sort, are beginning to come back to realities in this respect. The new work of Mr. Hutchinson’s is only one of many indications among the really independent intelligences, working on modern fiction, that the cruder culture of merely commercial emancipation is beginning to smell a little stale. The work of Miss Clemence Dane and even of Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith contains more than one suggestion of what I mean. People are no longer quite so certain that a woman’s liberty consists of having a latch-key without a house. They are no longer wholly convinced that every housekeeper is dull and prosaic, while every bookkeeper is wild and poetical. And among the intelligent the reaction is actually strengthened by all the most modern excitements about psychology and hygiene. We cannot insist that every trick of nerves or train of thought is important enough to be searched for in libraries and laboratories, and not important enough for anybody to watch by simply staying at home. We cannot insist that the first years of infancy are of supreme importance, and that mothers are not of supreme importance; or that motherhood is a topic of sufficient interest for men, but not of sufficient interest for mothers. Every word that is said about the tremendous importance of trivial nursery habits goes to prove that being a nurse is not trivial. All tends to the return of the simple truth that the private work is the great one and the public work the small. The human house is a paradox, for it is larger inside than out.
But in the problem of private versus public life there is another neglected truth. It is true of many masculine problems as well as of this feminine problem. Indeed, feminism falls here into exactly the same mistake as militarism and imperialism. I mean that anything on a grand scale gives the illusion of a grand success. Curiously enough, multiplication acts as a concealment. Repetition actually disguises failure. Take a particular man, and tell him to put on a particular kind of hat and coat and trousers, and to stand in particular attitudes in the back garden; and you will have great difficulty in persuading yourself (or him) that he has passed through a triumph and transfiguration. Order four hundred such hats, and eight hundred such trousers, and you will have turned the fancy costume into a uniform. Make all the four hundred men stand in the special attitudes on Salisbury Plain, and there will rise up before you the spirit of a regiment. Let the regiment march past, and, if you have any life in you above the brutes that perish, you will have an overwhelming sense that something splendid has just happened, or is just going to begin. I sympathize with this moral emotion in militarism; I think it does symbolize something great in the soul, which has given us the image of St. Michael. But I also realize that in practical relations that emotion can get mixed up with an illusion. It is not really possible to know the characters of all the four hundred men in the marching column as well as one might know the character of the one man attitudinizing in the back garden. If all the four hundred men were individual failures, we could still vaguely feel that the whole thing was a success. If we know the one man to be a failure, we cannot think him a success. That is why a footman has become rather a foolish figure, while a foot-soldier remains rather a sublime one. Or rather, that is one of the reasons; for there are others much more worthy. Anyhow, footmen were only formidable or dignified when they could come in large numbers like foot-soldiers— when they were in fact the feudal army of some great local family, having some of the loyalty of local patriotism. Then a livery was as dignified as a uniform, because it really was a uniform. A man who said he served the Nevilles or rode with the Douglases could once feel much like a man fighting for France or England. But military feeling is mob feeling, noble as mob feeling may be. Parading one footman is like lunching on one pea, or curing baldness by the growth of one hair. There ought not to be anything but a plural for flunkeys, any more than for measles or vermin or animalculae or the sweets called hundreds and thousands. Strictly speaking, I suppose that a logical Latinist could say, “I have seen an animalcula”; but I never heard of a child having the moderation to remark, “I have eaten a hundred and thousand.” Similarly, any one of us can feel that to have hundreds and thousands of slaves, let alone soldiers, might give a certain imaginative pleasure in magnificence. To have one slave reveals all the meanness of slavery. For the solitary flunkey really is the man in fancy dress, the man standing in the back garden in the strange and the fantastic coat and breeches. His isolation reveals our illusion. We find our failure in the back garden, when we have been dreaming a dream of success in the market-place. When you ride through the streets amid a great mob of vassals (you may have noticed) you have a genial and not ungenerous sense of being at one with them all. You cannot remember their names or count their numbers, but their very immensity seems a substitute for intimacy. That is what great men have felt at the head of great armies; and the reason why Napoleon or Foch would call his soldiers “mes enfants.” He feels at that moment that they are a part of him, as if he had a million arms and legs. But it is very different if you disband your army of lackeys; or if (as is, after all, possible) you have not got an army of lackeys. It is very different if you look at one lackey; one solitary solemn footman standing in your front hall. You never have the sense of being caught up into a rapture of unity with him. All your sense of social solidarity with your social inferiors has dropped from you. It is only in public that people can be so intimate as that. When you look into the eyes of the lonely footman, you see that his soul is far away.
In other words, you find yourself at the foot of a steep and staggering mountain crag, that is the real character and conscience of a man. To be really at one with that man, you would have to solve real problems and believe that your own solutions were real. In dealing with the one man you would really have a far huger and harder job than in dealing with your throng of thousands. And that is the job that people run away from when they wish to escape from domesticity to public work, especially educational work. They wish to escape from a sense of failure which is simply a sense of fact. They wish to recapture the illusion of the market-place. It is an illusion that departs in the dark interiors of domesticity, where the realities dwell. As I have said, I am very far from condemning it altogether; it is a lawful pleasure, and a part of life, in its proper proportion, like any other. But I am concerned to point out to the feminists and the faddists that it is not an approach to truth, but rather the opposite. Publicity is rather of the nature of a harmless romance. Public life at its very best will contain a great deal of harmless romancing, and much more often a very harmful romancing. In other words, I am concerned with pointing out that the passage from private life to public life, while it may be right or wrong, or necessary or unnecessary, or desirable or undesirable, is always of necessity a passage from a greater work to a smaller one, and from a harder work to an easier one. And that is why most of the moderns do wish to pass from the great domestic task to the smaller and easier commercial one. They would rather provide the liveries of a hundred footmen than be bothered with the love-affairs of one. They would rather take the salutes of a hundred soldiers than try to save the soul of one. They would rather serve out income-tax papers or telegraph forms to a hundred men than meals, conversation, and moral support to one. They would rather arrange the educational course in history or geography, or correct the examination papers in algebra or trigonometry, for a hundred children, than struggle with the whole human character of one. For anyone who makes himself responsible for one small baby, as a whole, will soon find that he is wrestling with gigantic angels and demons.
In another way there is something of illusion, or of irresponsibility, about the purely public function, especially in the case of public education. The educationist generally deals with only one section of the pupil’s mind. But he always deals with only one section of the pupil’s life. The parent has to deal, not only with the whole of the child’s character, but also with the whole of the child’s career. The teacher sows the seed, but the parent reaps as well as sows. The schoolmaster sees more children, but it is not clear that he sees more childhood; certainly he sees less youth and no maturity. The number of little girls who take prussic acid is necessarily small. The boys who hang themselves on bed-posts, after a life of crime, are generally the minority. But the parent has to envisage the whole life of the individual, and not merely the school life of the scholar. It is not probable that the parent will exactly anticipate crime and prussic acid as the crown of the infant’s career. But he will anticipate hearing of the crime if it is committed; he will probably be told of the suicide if it takes place. It is quite doubtful whether the schoolmaster or schoolmistress will ever hear of it at all. Everybody knows that teachers have a harassing and often heroic task, but it is not unfair to them to remember that in this sense they have an exceptionally happy task. The cynic would say that the teacher is happy in never seeing the results of his own teaching. I prefer to confine myself to saying that he has not the extra worry of having to estimate it from the other end. The teacher is seldom in at the death. To take a milder theatrical metaphor, he is seldom there on the night. But this is only one of many instances of the same truth: that what is called public life is not larger than private life, but smaller. What we call public life is a fragmentary affair of sections and seasons and impressions; it is only in private life that dwells the fullness of our life bodily.
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STRIKES AND THE SPIRIT OF WONDER
THERE is a story which pleases me so much that I feel sure I have repeated it in print, about an alleged and perhaps legendary lady secretary of Madam Blavatsky or Mrs. Besant, who was so much delighted with a new sofa or ottoman that she sat on it by preference when resting or reading her correspondence. At last it moved slightly, and she found it was a mahatma covered with his Eastern robe and rigid in prayer, or some more impersonal ecstasy. That a lady secretary should have a seat any gentleman will approve; that a mahatma should be sat on no Christian will deny; nevertheless, there is another possible moral to the fable which is a reproach rather to the sitter than the seat. It might be put, as in a sort of vision or allegory, by imagining that all our furniture really was made thus of living limbs instead of dead sticks. Suppose the legs of the table were literally legs— the legs of slaves standing still. Suppose the arms of an armchair really were arms—the arms of a patient domestic permanently held out, like those of an old nurse waiting for a baby. It would be calculated to make the luxurious occupant of the easy chair feel rather like a baby; which might do him good. Suppose every sofa were like that of Mrs. Besant’s secretary—simply made of a man. They need not be made merely of Theosophists or Buddhists—God forbid. Many of us would greatly prefer to trust ourselves to a Moslem or Turk. This might, with strict accuracy, be called sitting on an Ottoman. I have even read, I think, of some oriental potentate who rejoiced in a name sounding like “sofa.” It might even be hinted that some of them might be Christians, but there is no reason, of course, why all of them should not be praying. To sit on a man while he was praying would doubtless require some confidence. It would also give a more literal version of the possession of a prie-dieu chair. It would be easy to expand the extravagance into a vision of a whole house alive, an architecture of arms and legs, a temple of temples of the spirit. The four walls might be made of men like the squares in military formation. There is even, perhaps, a shadow of the fantasy in the popular phrases that compare the roof to the human head, that name the chimney-pot hat after the chimney, or lightly allude to all modern masculine head-dresses as “tiles.” But the only value of the vision, as of most visions—even the most topsy-turvy ones— is a moral value. It figures forth, in emblem enigma, the truth that we do treat merely as furniture a number of people who are, at the very least, live stock. And the proof of it is that when they move we are startled like the secretary sitting on the praying man; but perhaps it is we who should begin to pray.
In the current criticisms of the Strikes there is a particular tone, which affects me not as a matter of politics, but rather of philosophy, or even of poetry. It is, indeed, the servile spirit expressed, if not in its poetry, at least in its rhetoric. But it is a spirit I can honestly claim to have hated and done my best to hammer long before I ever heard of the Servile State, long before I ever dreamed of applying this test to Strikes, or indeed of applying it to any political question. I felt it originally touching things at once elemental and everyday— things like grass or daylight, like stones or daisies. But in the light of it at least, I always rebelled against the trend or tone of which I speak. It may roughly be described as the spirit of taking things for granted. But, indeed, oddly enough, the very form of this phrase rather misses its own meaning. The spirit, I mean, strictly speaking, does not take things for granted. It takes them as if they had not been granted. It takes them as if it held them by something more autocratic than a right; by a cold and unconscious occupation, as stiff as a privilege and as baseless as a caprice. As a fact, things generally are granted ultimately by God, but often immediately by men. But this type of man is so unconscious of what he has been given that he is almost unconscious of what he has got; not realizing things as gifts, he hardly realizes them as goods. About the natural things, with which I began, this oblivion has only inward and spiritual, and not outward and political, effects. If we forget the sun the sun will not forget us, or, rather, he will not remember us to revenge himself by “striking” at us with a sunstroke. The stars will not go on strike or extinguish the illumination of the universe as the electricians would extinguish the illumination of the city. And so, while we repeat that there is a special providence in a falling star, we can ignore it in a fixed star. But when we at once ignore and assume thousands of thinking, brooding, free, lonely and capricious human creatures, they will remind us that we can no more order souls than we can order stars. This primary duty of doubt and wonder has nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of special industrial quarrels. The workmen might be quite wrong to go on strike, and we should still be much more wrong in never expecting them to go on strike. Ultimately, it is a mystical but most necessary mood of astonishment at everything outside one’s own soul—even one’s own body. It may even involve a wild vision in which one’s own boots on one’s own feet seem to be things distant and unfamiliar. And if this sound a shade fantastic, it is far less fantastic than the opposite extreme—the state of the man who feels as if he owned not only his own feet, but hundreds of other human feet like a huge centipede, or as if he were a universal octopus, and all rails, tubes and tramlines were his own tentacles, the nerves of his own body, or the circulation of his own blood. That is a much worse nightmare, and at this moment a much commoner one.
Tennyson struck a true note of the nineteenth century when he talked about “the fairy tales of science and the long result of time.” The Victorians had a very real and even childlike wonder at things like the steam-engine or the telephone, considered as toys. Unfortunately the long result of time, on the fairy tales of science, has been to extend the science and lessen the fairy tale, that is, the sense of the fairy tale. Take for example the current case of the Tubes. Suppose that at an age of innocence you had met a strange man who had promised to drive you by the force of the lightning through the bowels of the earth. Suppose he had offered, in a friendly way, to throw you from one end of London to the other, not only like a thunderbolt, but by the same force as a thunderbolt. Or if we picture it a pneumatic and not an electric railway; suppose he gaily promised to blow you through a pea-shooter to the other side of London Bridge. Suppose he indicated all these fascinating opportunities by pointing to a hole in the ground and telling you he would take you there in a sort of flying or falling room. I hope you would have agreed that there was a special providence in a falling room. But whether or no you could call it providential, you would agree to call it special. You would at least think that the strange man was a very strange man. You would perhaps call him a very strange and special liar, if he merely undertook to do it. You might even call him a magician, if he did do it. But the point is this, that you would not call him a Bolshevik merely because he did not do it. You would think it a wonderful thing that it should be done at all; passing in that swift car through those secret caverns, you would feel yourself whirled away like Cinderella carried off in the coach that had once been a pumpkin. But though such things happened in every fairy tale, they were not expected in any fairy tale. Nobody turned on the fairies and complained that they were not working because they were not always working wonders. The Press in those parts did not break into big headlines of “Pumpkins held up; no Transformation Scenes,” or “Wands Won’t Work; Famine of Coaches.” They did not announce with horror a “Strike of Fairy Godmothers.” They did not draw panic-stricken pictures of mobs of fairy godmothers, meeting in parks and squares, merely because the majority of pumpkins still continued to be pumpkins. Now I do not argue that we ought to treat every tube-girl as our fairy godmother; she might resent the familiarity, especially the suggestion of anything so near to a grandmother. But I do suggest that we should, by a return to earlier sentiments, realize that the tube servants are doing something for us that we could not do for ourselves; something that is no part of our natural capacities, or even of our natural rights. It is not inevitable, or in the nature of things, that when we have walked as we can or want to, somebody else should carry us further in a cart, even for hire: or that when we have wandered up a road and come to a river, a total stranger should take us over in a boat, even if we bribe him to do so. If we would look at things in this plain white daylight of wonder, that shines on all the roads of the fairy tales, we come to see at last the simplest truth about the Strikes, which is utterly missed in all contemporary comments on them. It is merely the fact that Strikers are not doing something: they are doing nothing. If you mean that they should be made to do something, say so, and establish slavery. But do not be muddled by the mere word “strike” into mixing it up with breaking a window or hitting a policeman on the nose. Do not be stunned by a metaphor; there are no metaphors in fairy tales.
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A NOTE ON OLD NONSENSE
THE Suffragettes have found out that they were wrong; I might even be so egotistical as to say they have found out that we were right. At least they have found out that the modern plutocratic parliamentary franchise is what I for one always said it was. In other words, they are startled and infuriated to find that the most vital modern matters are not settled in Parliament at all, but mostly by a conflict or compromise between Trusts and Trade Unions. Hence Mrs. Flora Drummond actually cries aloud that she is being robbed of her precious vote; and says dramatically, “We women are being disenfranchised”—apparently by “Soviets.” It is as if somebody who had just spent half a million on a sham diamond, that ought never to have deceived anybody, should shriek from the window that thieves had stolen the real diamond that never existed at all.
Whether or no there are Soviets, there are undoubtedly Strikes; and I do not under-rate the difficulty or danger of the hour. There is at least a case for blaming men for striking right and left, illogically and without a system; there is a case for blaming them for striking steadily and logically in accordance with a false system; there is a case for saying that “direct action” implies such a false system. But there is no case whatever for blaming them for having depreciated the waste paper of the Westminster ballot-box; for that was depreciated long before the war, and long before the word “Soviet” came to soothe and satisfy the mind of Mrs. Drummond. It is absurd to blame the poor miners for discrediting the members of Parliament, who could always be trusted to discredit themselves. It was not the wild destructive Soviet which decided that Parliament should not know who paid the bills of its own political parties; it was Parliament itself. It was not a mad Bolshevist addressing a mob who said that the men of the parliamentary group have to treat charges of corruption among themselves differently from those outside; it was the greatest living parliamentarian in a great parliamentary debate. Miners had no more to be with it than missionaries in the Cannibal Islands; it was not because men could not get coal that they wanted to get coronets; and the empty coal-scuttle did not fill the party chest. But in any case the policy of people like Mrs. Drummond seems to require explanation. I can only fall back on the suggestion I have already made; that she and her friends insisted on taking shares in a rotten concern. They were quite sincere; so far as anybody can be quite sincere who flatly refuses to listen to reason. They have no right to complain if those who had to listen to their lawlessness will not listen to their legalism.
As a fact such a lady is rather contemptuous than complaining. She says the miners do not want Nationalization; which may or may not be true. But she explains the demand by the old disdainful allusion to agitators; or Labour leaders who “have to beat the big drum or lose their jobs.” Nobody of course could possibly connect Mrs. Flora Drummond with the idea of a big drum; any more than with a big horse or a uniform or a self-created military rank. But this particular school of Feminists must not be too fastidious in the present case. The miners are poor and rudely instructed men; and cannot be expected to have that touch of quiet persuasiveness and softening courtesy, by which the Militant Suffragettes did so much to defend the historic dignity of their sex. They have to fall back on something only too like a big drum, having no skill in the silvery flutings of the W.S.P.U., or that tender lute which Miss Pankhurst touched at twilight. But under all the disadvantages of the coarser sex, the advocates of Nationalization have not yet used all the methods that precedent might suggest to them. Mr. Smillie has not cut up any Raphaels or Rembrandts at the National Gallery; nor even set fire to any of the theatres he may happen to pass when he is out for a walk. Mr. Bonar Law, on returning home at evening, does not find Mr. Sidney Webb, a solitary figure chained to his railings. One of the Suffragettes distinguished herself by getting inside a grand piano; but it is seldom that we open our own private piano and find a large coal-miner inside the instrument. The coal-miner may be better at the big drum than the grand piano; but he remains on the outside of both; and his drum is really smaller than some. The big drum, however, is rather a convenient metaphor for something obvious and loud and hollow; and the true moral in the matter is that recent English history was a procession led far too much by the big drum; and the agitation about mere Parliamentary votes was one of the most recent and most remarkable examples of it.
What will be the future of the present industrial crisis I will not prophesy; but I do know that every element in the past, which has led to this impasse in the present, has been thus glorified as a mere novelty by such a noisy minority. It was just because sanguine and shallow people found it easier to act than to write, and easier to write than to think, that every one of the changes came which now complicate our position. The very industrialism which makes us dependent on coal, and therefore on coal-miners and coal-owners, was forced on us by fussy inefficient fools, for whom anything fresh seemed to be free. Neither miners nor mine-owners could have put out the fire by which Shakespeare told his Winter’s Tale. The unequal ownership, which has justly alienated the workers, was hurried happily through because the owners were new, and it did not matter that they were few. The blind hypocrisy with which our press and publicists hardened their hearts in the great strikes before the war, was made possible by loud evasions about political progress and especially by the big drum of Votes for Women. I have begun this essay on a controversial note, with the echo of an old controversy; and yet I do not mean to be merely provocative. The Suffragettes are only doing what we all do; and I have only put them first as an example of accumulated abuses for which we are all responsible. I do not mean to blame the Suffragettes as they blame the Socialists; but only to point to an impasse of impenitence for which we are all to blame.
I am more and more convinced that what is wanted nowadays is not optimism or pessimism, but a sort of reform that might more truly be called repentance. The reform of a State ought to be a thing more like the reform of a thief, which involves the admission that he has been a thief. We ought not to be merely inventing consolations, or even merely prophesying disasters; we ought, first and foremost, to be confessing our own very bad mistakes. It is easy enough to say that the world is getting better, by some mysterious thing called progress—which seems to mean providence without purpose. But it is almost as easy to say the world is getting worse, if we assume that it is only the younger generation that has just begun to make it worse. It is easy enough to say that the country is going to the dogs, if we are careful to identify the dogs with the puppies. What we need is not the assertion that other people are going to the dogs, but the confession that we ourselves have only just come back from the swine. We also are the younger generation, in the sense of being the Prodigal Son. As somebody said, there is such a thing as the Prodigal Father. We could purchase hope at the dreadful price of humility. But all thinkers and writers, of all political parties and philosophical sects, seem to shrink from this notion of admitting they are on the wrong road and getting back on to the right one. They are always trying to pretend, by hook or crook, that they are all on the same somewhat meandering road, and that they were right in going east yesterday, though they are right in going west to-day. They will try to make out that every school of thought was an advance on the last school of thought, and that no apology is due to anybody. For instance, we might really have a moderate, cautious, and even conservative reform of the evils affecting Labour, if we would only confess that Capitalism itself was a blunder which it is very difficult to undo. As it is, men seem to be divided into those that think it an achievement so admirable that it cannot be improved upon, and those who think it an achievement so encouraging that it can be improved upon. The former will leave it in chaos, and the latter will probably improve it into slavery. Neither will admit what is the truth— that we have got to get back to a better distribution of property, as it was before we fell into the blunder of allowing property to be clotted into monstrous monopolies. For that involves admitting that we have made a mistake; and that we none of us have the moral courage to do.
I suggest very seriously that it will do good to our credit for courage and right reason if we drop this way of doing things. The conversions that have converted the world were not effected by this sort of evolutionary curve. St. Paul did not pretend that he had changed slowly and imperceptibly from a Pharisee to a Christian. Victor Hugo did not maintain that he had been very right to be a Royalist, and only a little more right to be a Republican. If we have come to the conclusion that we have been wrong, let us say so, and congratulate ourselves on being now right; not insinuate that in some relative fashion we were just as right when we were wrong. For in this respect the progressive is the worst sort of conservative. He insists on conserving, in the most obstinate and obscurantist fashion, all the courses that have been marked out for progress in the past. He does literally, in the rather unlucky metaphor of Tennyson, “let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.” For anyone who changes in that fashion has only got into a groove. There is no obligation on anybody to invent evolutionary excuses for all these experiments. There is no need to be so much ashamed of our blunders as all that. It is human to err; and the only final and deadly error, among all our errors, is denying that we have ever erred.
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MILTON AND MERRY ENGLAND
MR. FREEMAN, in contributing to the “London Mercury” some of those critical analyses which we all admire, remarked about myself (along with compliments only too generous and strictures almost entirely just) that there was very little autobiography in my writings. I hope the reader will not have reason to curse him for this kindly provocation, watching me assume the graceful poses of Marie Bashkirtseff, but I feel tempted to plead it in extenuation or excuse for this article, which can hardly avoid being egotistical. For though it concerns one of those problems of literature, of philosophy and of history that certainly interest me more than my own psychology, it is one on which I can hardly explain myself without seeming to expose myself.
That valuable public servant, “The Gentleman with the Duster,” has passed on from Downing Street, from polishing up the Mirrors and polishing off the Ministers, to a larger world of reflections in “The Glass of Fashion.” I call the glass a world of reflections rather than a world of shadows: especially as I myself am one of those tenuous shades. And the matter which interests me here is that the critic in question complains that I have been very unjust to Puritans and Puritanism, and especially to a certain ethical idealism in them, which he declares to have been more essential than the Calvinism of which I “make so much.” He puts the point in a genial but somewhat fantastic fashion by saying that the world owes something to the jokes of Mr. G. K. Chesterton, but more to the moral earnestness of John Milton. This involves rather a dizzy elevation than a salutary depression; and the comparison is rather too overwhelming to be crushing. For I suppose the graceful duster of mirrors himself would hardly feel crushed if I told him he did not hold the mirror up to Nature quite so successfully as Shakespeare. Nor can I be described as exactly reeling from the shock of being informed that I am a less historic figure than Milton. I know not how to answer, unless it be in the noble words of Sam Weller: “That’s what we call a self-evident proposition, as the cats’-meat-man said to the housemaid when she said he was no gentleman.” But for all that I have a controversial issue with the critic about the moral earnestness of Milton, and I have a confession to make which will seem to many only too much in the personal manner referred to by Mr. Freeman.
My first impulse to write, and almost my first impulse to think, was a revolt of disgust with the Decadents and the aesthetic pessimism of the ‘nineties. It is now almost impossible to bring home to anybody, even to myself, how final that fin de siècle seemed to be; not the end of the century but the end of the world. To a boy his first hatred is almost as immortal as his first love. He does not realize that the objects of either can alter; and I did not know that the twilight of the gods was only a mood. I thought that all the wit and wisdom in the world were banded together to slander and depress the world, and in becoming an optimist I had the feelings of an outlaw. Like Prince Florizel of Bohemia, I felt myself to be alone in a luxurious Suicide Club. But even the death seemed to be a living or rather everlasting death. To-day the whole thing is merely dead; it was not sufficiently immortal to be damned, but then the image of Dorian Gray was really an idol, with something of the endless youth of a god. To-day the picture of Dorian Gray has really grown old. Dodo then was not merely an amusing female; she was the eternal feminine. To-day the Dodo is extinct. Then, above all, everyone claiming intelligence insisted on what was called “Art for art’s sake.” To-day even the biographer of Oscar Wilde proposes to abandon “art for art’s sake,” and to substitute “art for life’s sake.” But at the time I was more inclined to substitute “no art, for God’s sake.” I would rather have had no art at all than one which occupies itself in matching shades of peacock and turquoise for a decorative scheme of blue devils. I started to think it out, and the more I thought of it the more certain I grew that the whole thing was a fallacy; that art could not exist apart from, still less in opposition to, life; especially the life of the soul, which is salvation; and that great art never had been so much detached as that from conscience and common sense, or from what my critic would call moral earnestness. Unfortunately, by the time I had exposed it as a fallacy it had entirely evaporated as a fashion. Since then I have taken universal annihilations more lightly. But I can still be stirred, as man always can be by memories of their first excitements or ambitions, by anything that shows the cloven hoof of that particular blue devil. I am still ready to knock him about, though I no longer think he has a cloven hoof or even a lame leg to stand on. But for all that there is one real argument which I still recognize on his side; and that argument is in a single word. There is still one word which the aesthete can whisper; and the whisper will bring back all my childish fears that the aesthete may be right after all. There is one name that does seem to me a strong argument for the decadent doctrine that “art is unmoral.” When that name is uttered, the world of Wilde and Whistler comes back with all its cold levity and cynical connoisseurship; the butterfly becomes a burden, and the green carnation flourishes like the green baytree. For the moment I do believe in “art for art’s sake.” And that name is John Milton.
It does really seem to me that Milton was an artist, and nothing but an artist; and yet so great an artist as to sustain by his own strength the idea that art can exist alone. He seems to me an almost solitary example of a man of magnificent genius whose greatness does not depend at all upon moral earnestness, or upon anything connected with morality. His greatness is in a style, and a style which seems to me rather unusually separate from its substance. What is the exact nature of the pleasure which I, for one, take in reading and repeating some such lines, for instance, as those familiar ones:
Dying put on the weeds of Dominic Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.
So far as I can see, the whole effect is in a certain unexpected order and arrangement of words, independent and distinguished, like the perfect manners of an eccentric gentleman. Say instead “Put on in death the weeds of Dominic,” and the whole unique dignity of the line has broken down. It is something in the quiet but confident inversion of “Dying put on” which exactly achieves that perpetual slight novelty which Aristotle profoundly said was the language of poetry. The idea itself is at best an obvious and even conventional condemnation of superstition, and in the ultimate sense a rather superficial one. Coming where it does, indeed, it does not so much suggest moral earnestness as rather a moralizing priggishness. For it is dragged in very laboriously into the very last place where it is wanted, before a splendidly large and luminous vision of the world newly created, and the first innocence of earth and sky. It is that passage in which the wanderer through space approaches Eden; one of the most unquestionable triumphs of all human literature. That one book at least of “Paradise Lost” could claim the more audacious title of “Paradise Found.” But if it was necessary for the poet going to Eden to pass through Limbo, why was it necessary to pass through Lambeth and Little Bethel? Why should he go there via Rome and Geneva? Why was it necessary to compare the débris of Limbo to the details of ecclesiastical quarrels in the seventeenth century, when he was moving in a world before the dawn of all the centuries, or the shadow of the first quarrel? Why did he talk as if the Church was reformed before the world was made, or as if Latimer lit his candle before God made the sun and moon? Matthew Arnold made fun of those who claimed divine sanction for episcopacy by suggesting that when God said, “Let there be light,” He also said “Let there be Bishops.” But his own favourite Milton went very near suggesting that when God said, “Let there be light,” He soon afterwards remarked, “Let there be Nonconformists,” I do not feel this merely because my own religious sympathies happen to be rather on the other side. It is indeed probable that Milton did not appreciate a whole world of ideas in which he saw merely the corruptions: the idea of relics and symbolic acts and the drama of the deathbed. It does not enlarge his place in the philosophy of history that this should be his only relation either to the divine demagogy of the Dogs of God or to the fantastical fraternity of the Jugglers of God. But I should feel exactly the same incongruity if the theological animus were the other way. It would be equally disproportionate if the approach to Eden were interrupted with jokes against Puritans, or if Limbo were littered with steeple-crowned hats and the scrolls of interminable Calvinistic sermons. We should still feel that a book of “Paradise Lost” was not the right place for a passage from Hudibras. So far from being morally earnest, in the best sense, there is something almost philosophically frivolous in the incapacity to think firmly and magnanimously about the First Things, and the primary colours of the creative palette, without spoiling the picture with this ink-slinging of sectarian politics. Speaking from the standpoint of moral earnestness, I confess it seems to me trivial and spiteful and even a little vulgar. After which impertinent criticism, I Will now repeat in a loud voice, and for the mere lust of saying it as often as possible:
Dying put on the weeds of Dominic Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.
And the exuberant joy I take in it is the nearest thing I have ever known to art for art’s sake.
In short it seems to me that Milton was a great artist, and that he was also a great accident. It was rather in the same sense that his master Cromwell was a great accident. It is not true that all the moral virtues were crystallized in Milton and his Puritans. It is not true that all the military virtues were concentrated in Cromwell and his Ironsides. There were masses of moral devotion on the one side, and masses of military valour on the other side. But it did so happen that Milton had more ability and success in literary expression, and Cromwell more ability and success in military science, than any of their many rivals. To represent Cromwell as a fiend or Milton as a hypocrite is to rush to another extreme and be ridiculous; they both believed sincerely enough in certain moral ideas of their time. Only they were not, as seems to be supposed, the only moral ideas of their time. And they were not, in my private opinion, the best moral ideas of their time. One of them was the idea that wisdom is more or less weakened by laughter and a popular taste in pleasure; and we may call this moral earnestness if we like. But the point is that Cromwell did not succeed by his moral earnestness, but by his strategy; and Milton did not succeed by his moral earnestness, but by his style.
And, first of all, let me touch on the highest form of moral earnestness and the relation of Milton to the religious poetry of his day. “Paradise Lost” is certainly a religious poem; but, for many of its admirers, the religion is the least admirable part of it. The poet professes indeed to justify the ways of God to men; but I never heard of any men who read it in order to have them justified, as men do still read a really religious poem, like the dark and almost sceptical Book of Job. A poem can hardly be said to justify the ways of God, when its most frequent effect is admittedly to make people sympathize with Satan. In all this I am in a sense arguing against myself; for all my instincts, as I have said, are against the aesthetic theory that art so great can be wholly irreligious. And I agree that even in Milton there are gleams of Christianity. Nobody quite without them could have written the single line: “By the dear might of Him that walked the waves.” But it is hardly too much to say that it is the one place where that Figure walks in the whole world of Milton. Nobody, I imagine, has ever been able to recognize Christ in the cold conqueror who drives a chariot in the war in Heaven, like Apollo warring on the Titans. Nobody has ever heard Him in the stately disquisitions either of the Council in Heaven or of “Paradise Regained.” But apart from all these particular problems, it is surely the general truth that the great religious epic strikes us with a sense of disproportion; the sense of how little it is religious considering how manifestly it is great. It seems almost strange that a man should have written so much and so well without stumbling on Christian tradition.
Now in the age of Milton there was a riot of religious poetry. Most of it had moral earnestness, and much of it had splendid spiritual conviction. But most of it was not the poetry of the Puritans; on the contrary, it was mostly the poetry of the Cavaliers. The most real religion—we might say the most realistic religion— is not to be found in Milton, but in Vaughan, in Traherne, in Crashaw, in Herbert, and even in Herrick. The best proof of it is that the religion is alive to-day, as religion and not merely as literature. A Roman Catholic can read Crashaw, an Anglo-Catholic can read Herbert, in a direct devotional spirit; I gravely doubt whether many modern Congregationalists read the theology of “Paradise Lost” in that spirit. For the moment I mention only this purely religious emotion; I do not deny that Milton’s poetry, like all great poetry, can awaken other great emotions. For instance, a man bereaved by one of the tragedies of the Great War might well find a stoical serenity in the great lines beginning, “Nothing is here, for tears.” That sort of consolation is uttered, as nobly as it could be uttered, by Milton; but it might be uttered by Sophocles or Goethe, or even by Lucretius or Voltaire. But supposing that a man were seeking a more Christian kind of consolation, he would not find it in Milton at all, as he would find it in the lines beginning, “They are all gone into the world of light.” The whole of the two great Puritan epics do not contain all that is said in saying, “0 holy hope and high humility.” Neither hope nor humility were Puritan specialties.
But it was not only in devotional mysticism that these Cavaliers could challenge the great Puritan; it was in a mysticism more humanistic and even more modern. They shine with that white mystery of daylight which many suppose to have dawned with Wordsworth and with Blake. In that sense they make earth mystical where Milton only made Heaven material. Nor are they inferior in philosophic freedom; the single line of Crashaw, addressed to a woman, “By thy large draughts of intellectual day,” is less likely, I fancy, to have been addressed by Adam to Eve, or by Milton to Mrs. Milton. It seems to me that these men were superior to Milton in magnanimity, in chivalry, in joy of life, in the balance of sanity and subtlety, in everything except the fact (not wholly remote from literary criticism) that they did not write so well as he did. But they wrote well enough to lift the load of materialism from the English name and show us the shining fields of a Paradise that is not wholly lost.
Of such was the anti-Puritan party; and the reader may learn more about it from the author of “The Glass of Fashion.” There he may form a general idea of how, but for the Puritans, England would have been abandoned to mere ribaldry and licence; blasted by the blasphemies of George Herbert; rolled in the mire of the vile materialism of Vaughan; tickled to ribald laughter by the cheap cynicism and tap-room familiarities of Crashaw and Traherne. But the same Cavalier tradition continued into the next age, and indeed into the next century; and the critic must extend his condemnation to include the brutal buffooneries of Bishop Ken or the gay and careless worldliness of Jeremy Collier. Nay, he must extend it to cover the last Tories who kept the tradition of the Jacobites; the careless merriment of Dean Swift, the godless dissipation of Dr. Johnson. None of these men were Puritans; all of them were strong opponents of political and religious Puritanism. The truth is that English literature bears a very continuous and splendid testimony to the fact that England was not merely Puritan. Ben Jonson in “Bartholomew Fair” spoke for most English people, and certainly for most English poets. Anti-Puritanism was the one thing common to Shakespeare and Dryden, to Swift and Jonson, to Cobbett and Dickens. And the historical bias the other way has come, not from Puritan superiority, but simply from Puritan success. It was the political triumph of the party, in the Revolution and the resultant commercial industrialism, that suppressed the testimony of the populace and the poets. Loyalty died away in a few popular songs; the Cromwellians never had any popular song to die. English history has moved away from English literature. Our culture, like our agriculture, is at once very native and very neglected. And as this neglect is regrettable, if only as neglect of literature, I will pause in conclusion upon the later period, two generations after Milton, when the last of the true Tories drank wine with Bolingbroke or tea with Johnson.
The truth that is missed about the Tories of this tradition is that they were rebels. They had the virtues of rebels; they also had the vices of rebels. Swift had the fury of a rebel; Johnson the surliness of a rebel; Goldsmith the morbid sensibility of a rebel; and Scott, at the end of the process, something of the despair and mere retrospection of a defeated rebel. And the Whig school of literary criticism, like the Whig school of political history, has omitted or missed this truth about them, because it necessarily omitted the very existence of the thing against which they rebelled. For Macaulay and Thackeray and the average of Victorian liberality the Revolution of 1688 was simply an emancipation, the defeat of the Stuarts was simply a downfall of tyranny and superstition; the politics of the eighteenth century were simply a progress leading up to the pure and happy politics of the nineteenth century; freedom slowly broadening down, etc., etc. This makes the attitude of the Tory rebels entirely meaningless; so that the critics in question have been forced to represent some of the greatest Englishmen who ever lived as a mere procession of lunatics and ludicrous eccentrics. But these rebels, right or wrong, can only be understood in relation to the real power against which they were rebelling; and their titanic figures can best be traced in the light of the lightning which they defied. That power was a positive thing; it was anything but a mere negative emancipation of everybody. It was as definite as the monarchy which it had replaced; for it was an aristocracy that replaced it. It was the oligarchy of the great Whig families, a very close corporation indeed, having Parliament for its legal form, but the new wealth for its essential substance. That is why these lingering Jacobites appear most picturesque when they are pitted against some of the princes of the new aristocratic order. That is why Bolingbroke remains in the memory, standing in his box at the performance of “Cato,” and flinging forth his defiance to Marlborough. That is why Johnson remains rigid in his magnificent disdain, hurling his defiance at Chesterfield. Churchill and Chesterfield were not small men, either in personality or in power; they were brilliant ornaments of the triumph of the world. They represented the English governing class when it could really govern; the modern plutocracy when it still deserved to be called an aristocracy also. And the whole point of the position of these men of letters is that they were denying and denouncing something which was growing every day in prestige and prosperity; which seemed to have, and indeed had, not only the present but the future on its side. The only thing it had not got on its side was the ancient tradition of the English populace. That populace was being more and more harried by evictions and enclosures, that its old common lands and yeomen freeholds might be added to the enormous estates of the all-powerful aristocracy. One of the Tory rebels has himself made that infamy immortal in the great lines of the “Deserted Village.” At least, it is immortal in the sense that it can never now be lost for lovers of English literature; but even this record was for a long time lost to the public by under-valuation and neglect. In recent times the “Deserted Village” was very much of a deserted poem. But of that I may have occasion to speak later. The point for the moment is that the psychology of these men, in its evil as well as its good, is to be interpreted not so much in terms of a lingering loyalty as of a frustrated revolution. Some of them had, of course, elements of extravagance and morbidity peculiar to their own characters; but they grew ten times more extravagant and more morbid as their souls swelled within them at the success of the shameless and the insolence of the fortunate. I doubt whether anybody ever felt so bitter against the Stuarts. Now this misunderstanding has made a very regrettable gap in literary criticism. The masterpieces of these men are represented as much more crabbed or cranky or inconsequent than they really were, because their objective is not seen objectively. It is like judging the raving of some Puritan preacher without allowing for the fact that the Pope or the King had ever possessed any power at all. To ignore the fact of the great Whig families because of the legal fiction of a free Parliament is like ignoring the feelings of the Christian martyrs about Nero, because of the legal fiction that the Imperator was only a military general. These fictions do not prevent imaginative persons from writing books like the “Apocalypse” or books like “Gulliver’s Travels.”
I will take only one example of what I mean by this purely literary misunderstanding: an example from “Gulliver’s Travels” itself. The case of the under-valuation of Swift is a particularly subtle one, for Swift was really unbalanced as an individual, which has made it much easier for critics not to keep the rather delicate balance of justice about him. There is a superficial case for saying he was mad, apart from the physical accident of his madness; but the point is that even those who have realized that he was sometimes mad with rage have not realized what he was in a rage with. And there is a curious illustration of this in the conclusion of the story of Gulliver. Everyone remembers the ugly business about the Yahoos, and the still uglier business about the real human beings who reminded the returned traveller of Yahoos; how Gulliver shrank at first from his friends, and would only gradually consent to sit near his wife. And everybody remembers the picturesque but hostile sketch which Thackeray gives of the satire and the satirist; of Swift as the black and evil blasphemer sitting down to write his terrible allegory, of which the only moral is that all things are, and always must be, valueless and vile. I say that everybody remembers both these literary passages; but, indeed, I fear that many remember the critical who do not really remember the creative passage, and that many have read Thackeray who have not read Swift.
Now it is here that purely literary criticism has a word to say. A man of letters may be mad or sane in his cerebral constitution; he may be right or wrong in his political antipathies; he may be anything we happen to like or dislike from our own individual standpoint. But there is one thing to which a man of letters has a right, whatever he is, and that is a fair critical comprehension of any particular literary effect which he obviously aims at and achieves. He has a right to his climax, and a right not to be judged without reference to his climax. It would not be fair to leave out the beautiful last lines of “Paradise Lost” as mere bathos; without realizing that the poet had a fine intention in allowing that conclusion, after all the thunder and the trumps of doom, to fall and fade away on a milder note of mercy and reasonable hope. It would not be fair to stigmatize the incident of Ignorance, damned at the very doors of Heaven at the end of Bunyan’s book, as a mere blot of black Calvinist cruelty and spite, without realizing that the writer fully intended its fearful irony, like a last touch of the finger of fear. But this justice which is done to the Puritan masters of imagination has hardly been done to the great Tory masters of irony. No critic I have read has noticed the real point and climax of that passage about the Yahoos. Swift leads up to it ruthlessly enough, for an artist of that sort is often ruthless; and it is increased by his natural talent for a sort of mad reality of detail, as in his description of the slowly diminished distance between himself and his wife at the dinner-table. But he was working up to something that he really wished to say, something which was well worth saying, but which few seem to have thought worth hearing. He suggests that he gradually lost the loathing for humanity with which the Yahoo parallel had inspired him, that although men are in many ways petty and animal, he came to feel them to be normal and tolerable; that the sense of their unworthiness now very seldom returns; and indeed that there is only one thing that revives it. If one of these creatures exhibits Pride.
That is the voice of Swift, and the cry arraigning aristocracy. It is natural for a monkey to collect nuts, and it may be pardonable for John Churchill to collect guineas. But to think that John Churchill can be proud of his heap of guineas, can convert them into stars and coronets, and can carry that calm and classic face disdainful above the multitude! It is natural for she-monkeys to be mated somehow; but to think that the Duchess of Yarmouth is proud of being the Duchess of Yarmouth! It may not be surprising that the nobility should have scrambled like screaming Yahoos for the rags and ribbons of the Revolution, tripping up and betraying anybody and everybody in turn, with every dirty trick of treason, for anything and everything they could get. But that those of them who had got everything should then despise those who had got nothing, that the rich should sneer at the poor for having no part of the plunder, that this oligarchy of Yahoos should actually feel superior to anything or anybody—that does move the prophet of the losing side to an indignation which is something much deeper and nobler than the negative flippancies that we call blasphemy. Swift was perhaps more of a Jeremiah than an Isaiah, and a faulty Jeremiah at that; but in his great climax of his grim satire he is none the less a seer and a speaker of the things of God; because he gives the testimony of the strongest and most searching of human intellects to the profound truth of the meanness and imbecility of pride.
And the other men of the same tradition had essentially the same instinct. Johnson was in many ways unjust to Swift, just as Cobbett was afterwards unjust to Johnson. But looking back up the perspective of history we can all see that those three great men were all facing the same way; that they all regretted the rise of a rapacious and paganized commercial aristocracy, and its conquest over the old popular traditions, which some would call popular prejudices. When Johnson said that the devil was the first Whig, he might have merely varied the phrase by saying that he was the first aristocrat. For the men of this Tory tradition, in spirit if not in definition, distinguished between the privilege of monarchy and that of the new aristocracy by a very tenable test. The mark of aristocracy is ambition. The king cannot be ambitious. We might put it now by saying that monarchy is authority; but in its essence aristocracy is always anarchy. But the men of that school did not criticize the oligarch merely as a rebel against those above; they were well aware of his activities as an oppressor of those below. This aspect, as has already been noted, was best described by a friend of Johnson, for whom Johnson had a very noble and rather unique appreciation—Oliver Goldsmith.
I hope that the author of an admirable study of Mr. Belloc in this magazine will not think that I am merely traversing one of his criticisms if I venture to add something to it. He used the phrase that Mr. Belloc had been anticipated by Disraeli in his view of England as having evolved into a Venetian oligarchy. The truth is that Disraeli was anticipated by Bolingbroke and the many highly intelligent men who agreed with him; and not least by Goldsmith. The whole view, including the very parallel with Venice, can be found stated with luminous logic and cogency in the “Vicar of Wakefield.” And Goldsmith attacked the problem entirely from the popular side. Nobody can mistake his Toryism for a snobbish submission to a privilege or title:
Princes and lords, the shadow of a shade, A breath can make them, as a breath has made: But a bold peasantry, a nation’s pride, When once destroyed can never be supplied.
I hope he was wrong; but I sometimes have a horrible feeling that he may have been right.
But I have here, thank God, no cause for touching upon modern politics. I was educated, as much as my critic, in the belief that Whiggism was a pure deliverance; and I hope I am still as willing as he to respect Puritans for their individual virtue as well as for their individual genius. But it moves all my memories of the unmorality of the ‘nineties to be charged with indifference to the importance of being earnest. And it is for the sake of English literature that I protest against the suggestion that we had no purity except Puritanism, or that only a man like the author of “Paradise Lost” could manage to be on the side of the angels.
On Peace Day I set up outside my house two torches, and twined them with laurel; because I thought at least there was nothing pacifist about laurel. But that night, after the bonfire and the fireworks had faded, a wind grew and blew with gathering violence, blowing away the rain. And in the morning I found one of the laurelled posts torn off and lying at random on the rainy ground; while the other still stood erect, green and glittering in the sun. I thought that the pagans would certainly have called it an omen; and it was one that strangely fitted my own sense of some great work half fulfilled and half frustrated. And I thought vaguely of that man in Virgil, who prayed that he might slay his foe and return to his country; and the gods heard half the prayer, and the other half was scattered to the winds. For I knew we were right to rejoice; since the tyrant was indeed slain and his tyranny fallen for ever; but I know not when we shall find our way back to our own land.
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THE END
BOOK MANUFACTURERS RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION THE ROMANCE OF RHYME HAMLET AND THE PSYCHO-ANALYST THE MEANING OF MOCK TURKEY SHAKESPEARE AND THE LEGAL LADY ON BEING AN OLD BEAN THE FEAR OF THE FILM WINGS AND THE HOUSEMAID THE SLAVERY OF FREE VERSE PROHIBITION AND THE PRESS THE MERCY OF MR. ARNOLD BENNETT A DEFENCE OF DRAMATIC UNITIES THE BOREDOM OF BUTTERFLIES THE TERROR OF A TOY FALSE THEORY AND THE THEATRE THE SECRET SOCIETY OF MANKIND THE SENTIMENTALISM OF DIVORCE STREET CRIES AND STRETCHING THE LAW WHY REFORMS GO WRONG THE INNOCENCE OF THE CRIMINAL THE PRUDERY OF THE FEMINISTS HOW MAD LAWS ARE MADE THE PAGODA OF PROGRESS THE MYTH OF THE “MAYFLOWER” MUCH TOO MODERN HISTORY THE EVOLUTION OF SLAVES IS DARWIN DEAD? TURNING INSIDE OUT STRIKES AND THE SPIRIT OF WONDER A NOTE ON OLD NONSENSE MILTON AND MERRY ENGLAND
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INTRODUCTION
I HAVE strung these things together on a slight enough thread; but as the things themselves are slight, it is possible that the thread (and the metaphor) may manage to hang together. These notes range over very variegated topics and in many cases were made at very different times. They concern all sorts of things from lady barristers to cave-men, and from psycho-analysis to free verse. Yet they have this amount of unity in their wandering, that they all imply that it is only a more traditional spirit that is truly able to wander. The wild theorists of our time are quite unable to wander. When they talk of making new roads, they are only making new ruts. Each of them is necessarily imprisoned in his own curious cosmos; in other words, he is limited by the very largeness of his own generalization. The explanations of the Marxian must not go outside economics; and the student of Freud is forbidden to forget sex. To see only the fanciful side of these serious sects may seem a very frivolous pleasure—and I will not dispute that these are very frivolous criticisms. I only submit that this frivolity is the last lingering form of freedom.
In short the note of these notes, so to speak, is that it is only from a normal standpoint that all the nonsense of the world takes on something of the wild interest of wonderland. I mean it is only in the mirror of a very moderate sense and sanity, which is all I have ever claimed to possess, that even insanities can appear as images clear enough to appeal to the imagination. After all, the ordinary orthodox person is he to whom the heresies can appear as fantasies. After all, it is we ordinary human and humdrum people who can enjoy eccentricity as a sort of elfland; while the eccentrics are too serious even to know that they are elves. When a man tells us that he disapproves of children being told fairy tales, it is we who can perceive that he is himself a fairy. He himself has not the least idea of it. When he says he would discourage children from playing with tin soldiers, because it is militarism, it is we and not he who can enjoy in fancy the fantastic possibilities of his idea. It is we who suddenly think of children playing with little tin figures of philanthropists, rather round and with tin top-hats; the little tin gods of our commercial religion. It is we who develop his imaginative idea for him, by suggesting little leaden dolls of Conscientious Objectors in fixed attitudes of refined repugnance; or a whole regiment of tiny Quakers with little grey coats and white flags. He would never have thought of any of these substitutes for himself; his negation is purely negative. Or when an educational philosopher tells us that the child should have complete equality with the adult, he cannot really carry his idea any farther without our assistance. It will be from us and not from him that the natural suggestion will come; that the baby should take its turn and carry the mother, the moment the mother is tired of carrying the baby. He will not, when left to himself, call up the poetical picture of the child wheeling a double perambulator with the father and mother at each end. He has no motive to look for lively logical developments; for him the assimilation of parent and child is simply a platitude; and an inevitable part of his own rather platitudinous philosophy. It is we and not he who can behold the whole vista and vanishing perspective of his own opinions; and work out what he really means. It is only those who have ordinary views who have extraordinary visions.
There is indeed nothing very extraordinary about these visions, except the extraordinary people who have provoked some of them. They are only very sketchy sort of sketches of some of the strange things that may be found in the modern world. But however inadequate be the example, it is none the less true that this is the sound principle behind much better examples; and that, in those great things as in these small ones, sanity was the condition of satire. It is because Gulliver is a man of moderate stature that he can stray into the land of the giants and the land of the pygmies. It is Swift and not the professors of Laputa who sees the real romance of getting sunbeams out of cucumbers. It would be less than exact to call Swift a sunbeam in the house; but if he did not himself get much sunshine out of cucumbers, at least he let daylight into professors. It was not the mad Swift but the sane Swift who made that story so wild. The truth is more self-evident in men who were more sane. It is the good sense of Rabelais that makes him seem to grin like a gargoyle; and it is in a sense because Dickens was a Philistine that he saw the land so full of strange gods. These idle journalistic jottings have nothing in common with such standards of real literature, except the principle involved; but the principle is the right one.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
INDICE
INTRODUZIONE IL ROMANZO DELLA RIMA AMLETO E LO PSICOANALISTA IL SIGNIFICATO DEL FINTO TACCHINO SHAKESPEARE E LA SIGNORA DELLA LEGGE SULL’ESSERE UN VECCHIO AMICONE LA PAURA DEL FILM LE ALI E LA CAMERIERA LA SCHIAVITÙ DEL VERSO LIBERO IL PROIBIZIONISMO E LA STAMPA LA MISERICORDIA DEL SIGNOR ARNOLD BENNETT UNA DIFESA DELLE UNITÀ DRAMMATICHE LA NOIA DELLE FARFALLE IL TERRORE DI UN GIOCATTOLO LA FALSA TEORIA E IL TEATRO LA SOCIETÀ SEGRETA DELL’UMANITÀ IL SENTIMENTALISMO DEL DIVORZIO LE GRIDA DI STRADA E LO STIRACCHIARE LA LEGGE PERCHÉ LE RIFORME FINISCONO MALE L’INNOCENZA DEL CRIMINALE LA PRUDERIE DELLE FEMMINISTE COME SI FANNO LE LEGGI FOLLI LA PAGODA DEL PROGRESSO IL MITO DELLA «MAYFLOWER» STORIA FIN TROPPO MODERNA L’EVOLUZIONE DEGLI SCHIAVI DARWIN È MORTO? RIVOLTARE COME UN GUANTO GLI SCIOPERI E LO SPIRITO DELLA MERAVIGLIA UNA NOTA SUL VECCHIO NONSENSE MILTON E L’ALLEGRA INGHILTERRA
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INTRODUZIONE
HO infilato queste cose insieme su un filo abbastanza esile; ma poiché le cose stesse sono esili, è possibile che il filo (e la metafora) riesca a reggere. Queste note spaziano su argomenti assai variegati e in molti casi furono scritte in tempi assai diversi. Riguardano ogni sorta di cose, dalle avvocatesse agli uomini delle caverne, e dalla psicoanalisi al verso libero. Eppure esse hanno in comune, nel loro vagare, questo tanto di unità: che tutte lasciano intendere che solo uno spirito più tradizionale è davvero capace di vagare. I selvaggi teorici del nostro tempo sono del tutto incapaci di vagare. Quando parlano di aprire nuove strade, non fanno che aprire nuovi solchi. Ciascuno di essi è necessariamente imprigionato nel proprio curioso cosmo; in altre parole, è limitato dalla grandezza stessa della propria generalizzazione. Le spiegazioni del marxista non devono uscire dall’economia; e allo studioso di Freud è proibito dimenticare il sesso. Vedere soltanto il lato fantasioso di queste serie sette può sembrare un piacere assai frivolo — e non contesterò che queste siano critiche assai frivole. Sostengo soltanto che questa frivolezza è l’ultima forma superstite di libertà.
In breve, la nota di queste note, per così dire, è che soltanto da un punto di vista normale tutte le assurdità del mondo assumono qualcosa del selvaggio interesse del paese delle meraviglie. Voglio dire che è soltanto nello specchio di un sensato buonsenso e di una sanità assai moderati, che è tutto ciò che io abbia mai preteso di possedere, che persino le insanie possono apparire come immagini abbastanza chiare da far presa sull’immaginazione. In fondo, la persona comune e ortodossa è colei alla quale le eresie possono apparire come fantasie. In fondo, siamo noi gente comune, umana e monotona, che possiamo goderci l’eccentricità come una sorta di paese degli elfi; mentre gli eccentrici sono troppo seri persino per sapere di essere elfi. Quando un uomo ci dice che disapprova che ai bambini si raccontino fiabe, siamo noi che possiamo accorgerci che egli stesso è una fata. Egli non ne ha la minima idea. Quando dice che scoraggerebbe i bambini dal giocare coi soldatini di latta, perché è militarismo, siamo noi e non lui che possiamo goderci nella fantasia le fantastiche possibilità della sua idea. Siamo noi che d’un tratto pensiamo a bambini che giocano con piccole figurine di latta di filantropi, piuttosto tondeggianti e con cilindri di latta; i piccoli dèi di latta della nostra religione commerciale. Siamo noi che sviluppiamo per lui la sua idea immaginativa, suggerendo piccole bambole di piombo di obiettori di coscienza in fisse pose di raffinata ripugnanza; o un intero reggimento di minuscoli quaccheri con piccole giubbe grigie e bandiere bianche. Egli non avrebbe mai pensato da sé ad alcuno di questi sostituti; la sua negazione è puramente negativa. Oppure, quando un filosofo dell’educazione ci dice che il bambino dovrebbe avere completa uguaglianza con l’adulto, non può in realtà portare la sua idea più oltre senza il nostro aiuto. Sarà da noi e non da lui che verrà il suggerimento naturale; che il neonato dovrebbe fare a turno e portare la madre, nel momento in cui la madre è stanca di portare il neonato. Egli non evocherà, se lasciato a se stesso, la poetica immagine del bambino che spinge una carrozzina doppia col padre e la madre a ciascuna estremità. Non ha alcun movente per cercare vivaci sviluppi logici; per lui l’assimilazione tra genitore e figlio è semplicemente un luogo comune; e una parte inevitabile della sua piuttosto banale filosofia. Siamo noi e non lui che possiamo contemplare l’intera veduta e la fuggente prospettiva delle sue stesse opinioni; ed elaborare ciò che egli davvero intende. Sono soltanto coloro che hanno vedute ordinarie ad avere visioni straordinarie.
Non vi è in verità nulla di molto straordinario in queste visioni, se non le straordinarie persone che ne hanno provocate alcune. Esse sono soltanto abbozzi assai sommari di alcune delle strane cose che si possono trovare nel mondo moderno. Ma per quanto inadeguato sia l’esempio, non è meno vero che questo è il sano principio che sta dietro esempi assai migliori; e che, in quelle grandi cose come in queste piccole, la sanità era la condizione della satira. È perché Gulliver è un uomo di statura moderata che egli può smarrirsi nel paese dei giganti e nel paese dei pigmei. È Swift e non i professori di Laputa che vede il vero romanzesco nell’estrarre raggi di sole dai cetrioli. Sarebbe men che esatto chiamare Swift un raggio di sole nella casa; ma se egli stesso non ricavava molto sole dai cetrioli, almeno faceva entrare la luce del giorno nei professori. Non fu il pazzo Swift ma il sano Swift a rendere quella storia così selvaggia. La verità è più evidente di per sé negli uomini che erano più sani. È il buonsenso di Rabelais che lo fa sembrare sogghignare come un doccione; ed è in un certo senso perché Dickens era un filisteo che egli vide la terra così piena di strani dèi. Questi oziosi appunti giornalistici non hanno nulla in comune con simili modelli di vera letteratura, se non il principio che vi è implicato; ma il principio è quello giusto.
But while these are frivolous essays, pretending only to touch on topics and theories they cannot exhaustively examine, I have added some that may not seem to fit so easily even into so slight a scheme. Nevertheless, they are in some sense connected with it. I have opened with an essay on rhyme, because it is a type of the sort of tradition which the anti-traditionalists now attack; and I have ended with one called “Milton and Merry England,” because I feel that many may misunderstand my case against the new Puritans, if they have no notion of how I should attempt to meet the more accepted case in favour of the old Puritans. Both these articles appeared originally in the “London Mercury,” and I desire to express my thanks to Mr. J. C. Squire for his kind permission to reprint them. But, in the latter case, I had the further feeling that I wished to express somewhere the historical sentiment that underlies the whole; the conviction that there did and does exist a more normal and national England, which we once inhabited and to which we may yet return; and which is not a Utopia but a home. I have therefore thought it worth while to write this line of introduction to show that such a scrap-book is not entirely scrappy; and that even to touch such things lightly we need something like a test. It is necessary to have in hand a truth to judge modern philosophies rapidly; and it is necessary to judge them very rapidly to judge them before they disappear.
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THE ROMANCE OF RHYME
THE poet in the comic opera, it will be remembered (I hope), claimed for his aesthetic authority that “Hey diddle diddle will rank as an idyll, if I pronounce it chaste.” In face of a satire which still survives the fashion it satirized, it may require some moral courage seriously to pronounce it chaste, or to suggest that the nursery rhyme in question has really some of the qualities of an idyll. Of its chastity, in the vulgar sense, there need be little dispute, despite the scandal of the elopement of the dish with the spoon, which would seem as free from grossness as the loves of the triangles. And though the incident of the cow may have something of the moonstruck ecstasy of Endymion, that also has a silvery coldness about it worthy of the wilder aspects of Diana. The truth more seriously tenable is that this nursery rhyme is a complete and compact model of the nursery short story. The cow jumping over the moon fulfils to perfection the two essentials of such a story for children. It makes an effect that is fantastic out of objects that are familiar; and it makes a picture that is at once incredible and unmistakable. But it is yet more tenable, and here more to the point, that this nursery rhyme is emphatically a rhyme. Both the lilt and the jingle are just right for their purpose, and are worth whole libraries of elaborate literary verse for children. And the best proof of its vitality is that the satirist himself has unconsciously echoed the jingle even in making the joke. The metre of that nineteenth-century satire is the metre of the nursery rhyme. “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle” and “Hey diddle diddle will rank as an idyll” are obviously both dancing to the same ancient tune; and that by no means the tune the old cow died of, but the more exhilarating air to which she jumped over the moon.
The whole history of the thing called rhyme can be found between those two things: the simple pleasure of rhyming “diddle” to “fiddle,” and the more sophisticated pleasure of rhyming “diddle” to “idyll.” Now the fatal mistake about poetry, and more than half of the fatal mistake about humanity, consists in forgetting that we should have the first kind of pleasure as well as the second. It might be said that we should have the first pleasure as the basis of the second; or yet more truly, the first pleasure inside the second. The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us. The heart of the tree remains the same, however many rings are added to it; and a man cannot leave his heart behind by running hard with his legs. In the core of all culture are the things that may be said, in every sense, to be learned by heart. In the innermost part of all poetry is the nursery rhyme, the nonsense that is too happy even to care about being nonsensical. It may lead on to the more elaborate nonsense of the Gilbertian line, or even far less poetic nonsense of some of the Browningesque rhymes. But the true enjoyment of poetry is in having the simple pleasure as well as the subtle pleasure. Indeed it is on this primary point that so many of our artistic and other reforms seem to go wrong. What is the matter with the modern world is that it is trying to get simplicity in everything except the soul. Where the soul really has simplicity it can be grateful for anything—even complexity. Many peasants have to be vegetarians, and their ordinary life is really a simple life. But the peasants do not despise a good dinner when they can get it; they wolf it down with enthusiasm, because they have not only the simple life but the simple spirit. And it is so with the modern modes of art which revert, very rightly, to what is “primitive.” But their moral mistake is that they try to combine the ruggedness that should belong to simplicity with a superciliousness that should only belong to satiety. The last Futurist draughtsmanship, for instance, evidently has the aim of drawing a tree as it might be drawn by a child of ten. I think the new artists would admit it; nor do I merely sneer at it. I am willing to admit, especially for the sake of argument, that there is a truth of philosophy and psychology in this attempt to attain the clarity even through the crudity of childhood. In this sense I can see what a man is driving at when he draws a tree merely as a stick with smaller sticks standing out of it. He may be trying to trace in black and white or grey a primeval and almost pre-natal illumination; that it is very remarkable that a stick should exist, and still more remarkable that a stick should stick up or stick out. He may be similarly enchanted with his own stick of charcoal or grey chalk; he may be enraptured, as a child is, with the mere fact that it makes a mark on the paper—a highly poetic fact in itself. But the child does not despise the real tree for being different from his drawing of the tree. He does not despise Uncle Humphrey because that talented amateur can really draw a tree. He does not think less of the real sticks because they are live sticks, and can grow and branch and curve in a way uncommon in walking sticks. Because he has a single eye he can enjoy a double pleasure. This distinction, which seems strangely neglected, may be traced again in the drama and most other domains of art. Reformers insist that the audiences of simpler ages were content with bare boards or rudimentary scenery if they could hear Sophocles or Shakespeare talking a language of the gods. They were very properly contented with plain boards. But they were not discontented with pageants. The people who appreciated Antony’s oration as such would have appreciated Aladin’s palace as such. They did not think gilding and spangles substitutes for poetry and philosophy, because they are not. But they did think gilding and spangles great and admirable gifts of God, because they are.
Ma benché questi siano saggi frivoli, che pretendono soltanto di sfiorare argomenti e teorie che non possono esaminare esaurientemente, ne ho aggiunti alcuni che potrebbero non sembrare adattarsi così facilmente persino a uno schema tanto esile. Ciononostante, essi sono in un certo senso connessi con esso. Ho aperto con un saggio sulla rima, perché è un tipo di quella tradizione che gli antitradizionalisti ora attaccano; e ho concluso con uno intitolato «Milton e l’Allegra Inghilterra», perché sento che molti potrebbero fraintendere la mia requisitoria contro i nuovi Puritani, se non avessero alcuna nozione di come tenterei di affrontare la più accreditata tesi in favore dei vecchi Puritani. Entrambi questi articoli apparvero originariamente sulla «London Mercury», e desidero esprimere il mio ringraziamento al signor J. C. Squire per la sua cortese autorizzazione a ristamparli. Ma, nel secondo caso, ebbi l’ulteriore sentimento di voler esprimere da qualche parte il sentimento storico che sta a fondamento del tutto; la convinzione che esisteva ed esiste un’Inghilterra più normale e nazionale, che un tempo abitammo e alla quale possiamo ancora fare ritorno; e che non è un’Utopia ma una patria. Ho perciò ritenuto valesse la pena di scrivere questa riga di introduzione per mostrare che un tale zibaldone non è interamente frammentario; e che persino per sfiorare simili cose con leggerezza abbiamo bisogno di qualcosa come un criterio. È necessario avere in mano una verità per giudicare rapidamente le filosofie moderne; ed è necessario giudicarle assai rapidamente per giudicarle prima che scompaiano.
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IL ROMANZO DELLA RIMA
IL poeta dell’opera comica, si ricorderà (lo spero), rivendicava per la sua autorità estetica che «Hey diddle diddle avrà rango di idillio, se io lo dichiaro casto». Di fronte a una satira che sopravvive ancora alla moda che satireggiava, può richiedere un certo coraggio morale dichiararla seriamente casta, o suggerire che la filastrocca in questione abbia davvero alcune delle qualità di un idillio. Della sua castità, nel senso volgare, non vi è molto da disputare, nonostante lo scandalo della fuga d’amore del piatto con il cucchiaio, che sembrerebbe tanto scevra di grossolanità quanto gli amori dei triangoli. E benché l’episodio della mucca possa avere qualcosa dell’estasi lunatica di Endimione, anch’esso ha attorno a sé un freddo argenteo degno degli aspetti più selvaggi di Diana. La verità più seriamente sostenibile è che questa filastrocca è un modello completo e compatto del racconto breve da nursery. La mucca che salta al di sopra della luna soddisfa alla perfezione i due elementi essenziali di una tale storia per bambini. Ricava un effetto fantastico da oggetti che sono familiari; e crea un quadro che è a un tempo incredibile e inconfondibile. Ma è ancor più sostenibile, e qui più pertinente, che questa filastrocca è enfaticamente una rima. Tanto la cadenza quanto la cantilena sono proprio giuste per il loro scopo, e valgono intere biblioteche di elaborati versi letterari per bambini. E la migliore prova della sua vitalità è che il satirico stesso ha inconsapevolmente riecheggiato la cantilena persino nel fare la battuta. Il metro di quella satira ottocentesca è il metro della filastrocca. «Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle» e «Hey diddle diddle will rank as an idyll» danzano evidentemente entrambi sulla medesima antica melodia; e questa non è affatto la melodia per cui morì la vecchia mucca, ma l’aria più esilarante al suono della quale ella saltò al di sopra della luna.
L’intera storia della cosa chiamata rima si può trovare fra queste due cose: il semplice piacere di rimare «diddle» con «fiddle», e il più raffinato piacere di rimare «diddle» con «idyll». Ora, l’errore fatale riguardo alla poesia, e più di metà dell’errore fatale riguardo all’umanità, consiste nel dimenticare che dovremmo avere il primo genere di piacere oltre che il secondo. Si potrebbe dire che dovremmo avere il primo piacere come base del secondo; o ancor più veracemente, il primo piacere dentro il secondo. La fatale metafora del progresso, che significa lasciarsi le cose alle spalle, ha del tutto oscurato la vera idea della crescita, che significa lasciarsi le cose dentro. Il cuore dell’albero rimane lo stesso, per quanti anelli gli si aggiungano; e un uomo non può lasciarsi il cuore alle spalle correndo forte con le gambe. Nel nucleo di ogni cultura vi sono le cose che si possono dire, in ogni senso, imparate a memoria. Nella parte più intima di ogni poesia vi è la filastrocca, il nonsenso troppo felice persino per curarsi di essere insensato. Esso può condurre al più elaborato nonsenso del verso gilbertiano, o persino al nonsenso assai meno poetico di alcune delle rime browninghiane. Ma il vero godimento della poesia sta nell’avere il piacere semplice oltre che il piacere sottile. Anzi, è proprio su questo punto primario che tante delle nostre riforme artistiche e d’altro genere sembrano andare a male. Ciò che non va nel mondo moderno è che esso cerca di ottenere la semplicità in ogni cosa tranne che nell’anima. Là dove l’anima ha davvero semplicità, essa può essere grata di qualsiasi cosa — persino della complessità. Molti contadini devono essere vegetariani, e la loro vita ordinaria è davvero una vita semplice. Ma i contadini non disprezzano un buon pranzo quando possono averlo; lo divorano con entusiasmo, perché hanno non solo la vita semplice ma lo spirito semplice. E così è con i moderni modi dell’arte che ritornano, assai giustamente, a ciò che è «primitivo». Ma il loro errore morale è che cercano di combinare la ruvidezza che dovrebbe appartenere alla semplicità con una supponenza che dovrebbe appartenere soltanto alla sazietà. L’ultimo disegno futurista, per esempio, ha evidentemente lo scopo di disegnare un albero come potrebbe disegnarlo un bambino di dieci anni. Penso che i nuovi artisti lo ammetterebbero; né io mi limito a sogghignarne. Sono disposto ad ammettere, specialmente per amor di discussione, che vi è una verità di filosofia e di psicologia in questo tentativo di raggiungere la chiarezza persino attraverso la rozzezza dell’infanzia. In questo senso posso capire a che cosa mira un uomo quando disegna un albero semplicemente come un bastone con bastoncini più piccoli che ne sporgono. Egli potrebbe cercare di rintracciare, in bianco e nero o in grigio, un’illuminazione primeva e quasi prenatale; che è assai notevole che un bastone esista, e ancor più notevole che un bastone si drizzi o sporga. Egli potrebbe essere similmente incantato dal proprio bastoncino di carboncino o di gesso grigio; potrebbe essere rapito, come lo è un bambino, dal mero fatto che esso lascia un segno sulla carta — un fatto altamente poetico in sé. Ma il bambino non disprezza l’albero vero perché è diverso dal suo disegno dell’albero. Non disprezza lo zio Humphrey perché quel talentuoso dilettante sa davvero disegnare un albero. Non pensa meno dei bastoni veri perché sono bastoni vivi, e sanno crescere e ramificarsi e curvarsi in un modo insolito nei bastoni da passeggio. Poiché ha un occhio solo, può godere di un doppio piacere. Questa distinzione, che sembra stranamente trascurata, si può rintracciare di nuovo nel dramma e nella maggior parte degli altri domini dell’arte. I riformatori insistono che il pubblico delle epoche più semplici si accontentava di nude assi o di scenografie rudimentali se poteva udire Sofocle o Shakespeare parlare una lingua degli dèi. Erano assai giustamente contenti di semplici assi. Ma non erano scontenti dei fasti scenici. Le persone che apprezzavano l’orazione di Antonio in quanto tale avrebbero apprezzato il palazzo di Aladino in quanto tale. Non ritenevano le dorature e i lustrini sostituti della poesia e della filosofia, perché non lo sono. Ma ritenevano davvero le dorature e i lustrini grandi e ammirevoli doni di Dio, perché lo sono.
But the application of this distinction here is to the case of rhyme in poetry. And the application of it is that we should never be ashamed of enjoying a thing as a rhyme as well as enjoying it as a poem. And I think the modern poets who try to escape from the rhyming pleasure, in pursuit of a freer poetical pleasure, are making the same fundamentally fallacious attempt to combine simplicity with superiority. Such a poet is like a child who could take no pleasure in a tree because it looked like a tree, or a playgoer who could take no pleasure in the Forest of Arden because it looked like a forest. It is not impossible to find a sort of prig who professes that he could listen to literature in any scenery, but strongly objects to good scenery. And in poetical criticism and creation there has also appeared the prig who insists that any new poem must avoid the sort of melody that makes the beauty of any old song. Poets must put away childish things, including the child’s pleasure in the mere sing-song of irrational rhyme. It may be hinted that when poets put away childish things they will put away poetry. But it may be well to say a word in further justification of rhyme as well as poetry, in the child as well as the poet. Now, the neglect of this nursery instinct would be a blunder, even if it were merely an animal instinct or an automatic instinct. If a rhyme were to a man merely what a bark is to a dog, or a crow to a cock, it would be clear that such natural things cannot be merely neglected. It is clear that a canine epic, about Argus instead of Ulysses, would have a beat ultimately consisting of barks. It is clear that a long poem like “Chantecler,” written by a real cock, would be to the tune of Cock-a-doodle-doo. But in truth the nursery rhyme has a nobler origin; if it be ancestral it is not animal; its principle is a primary one, not only in the body but in the soul.
Milton prefaced “Paradise Lost” with a ponderous condemnation of rhyme. And perhaps the finest and even the most familiar line in the whole of “Paradise Lost” is really a glorification of rhyme. “Seasons return, but not to me return,” is not only an echo that has all the ring of rhyme in its form, but it happens to contain nearly all the philosophy of rhyme in its spirit. The wonderful word “return” has, not only in its sound but in its sense, a hint of the whole secret of song. It is not merely that its very form is a fine example of a certain quality in English, somewhat similar to that which Mrs. Meynell admirably analysed in a former issue of this magazine in the case of words like “unforgiven.” It is that it describes poetry itself, not only in a mechanical but a moral sense. Song is not only a recurrence, it is a return. It does not merely, like the child in the nursery, take pleasure in seeing the wheels go round. It also wishes to go back as well as round; to go back to the nursery where such pleasures are found. Or to vary the metaphor slightly, it does not merely rejoice in the rotation of a wheel on the road, as if it were a fixed wheel in the air. It is not only the wheel but the wagon that is returning. That labouring caravan is always travelling towards some camping-ground that it has lost and cannot find again. No lover of poetry needs to be told that all poems are full of that noise of returning wheels; and none more than the poems of Milton himself. The whole truth is obvious, not merely in the poem, but even in the two words of the title. All poems might be bound in one book under the title of “Paradise Lost.” And the only object of writing “Paradise Lost” is to turn it, if only by a magic and momentary illusion, into “Paradise Regained.”
It is in this deeper significance of return that we must seek for the peculiar power in the recurrence we call rhyme. It would be easy enough to reply to Milton’s strictures on rhyme in the spirit of a sensible if superficial liberality by saying that it takes all sorts to make a world, and especially the world of the poets. It is evident enough that Milton might have been right to dispense with rhyme without being right to despise it. It is obvious that the peculiar dignity of his religious epic would have been weakened if it had been a rhymed epic, beginning:—
Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal root.
But it is equally obvious that Milton himself would not have tripped on the light fantastic toe with quite so much charm and cheerfulness in the lines:—
But come thou Goddess fair and free In heaven yclept Euphrosyne
if the goddess had been yclept something else, as, for the sake of argument, Syrinx. Milton in his more reasonable moods would have allowed rhyme in theory a place in all poetry, as he allowed it in practice in his own poetry. But he would certainly have said at this time, and possibly at all times, that he allowed it an inferior place, or at least a secondary place. But is its place secondary; and is it in any sense inferior?
The romance of rhyme does not consist merely in the pleasure of a jingle, though this is a pleasure of which no man should be ashamed. Certainly most men take pleasure in it, whether or not they are ashamed of it. We see it in the older fashion of prolonging the chorus of a song with syllables like “rumty tumty” or “tooral looral.” We see it in the similar but later fashion of discussing whether a truth is objective or subjective, or whether a reform is constructive or destructive, or whether an argument is deductive or inductive: all bearing witness to a very natural love for those nursery rhyme recurrences which make a sort of song without words, or at least without any kind of intellectual significance. But something much deeper is involved in the love of rhyme as distinct from other poetic forms, something which is perhaps too deep and subtle to be described. The nearest approximation to the truth I can think of is something like this: that while all forms of genuine verse recurs there is in rhyme a sense of return to exactly the same place. All modes of song go forward and backward like the tides of the sea; but in the great sea of Homeric or Virgilian hexametres, the sea that carried the labouring ships of Ulysses and Oeneas, the thunder of the breakers is rhythmic, but the margin of the foam is necessarily irregular and vague. In rhyme there is rather a sense of water poured safely into one familiar well, or (to use a nobler metaphor) of ale poured safely into one familiar flagon. The armies of Homer and Virgil advance and retreat over a vast country, and suggest vast and very profound sentiments about it, about whether it is their own country or only a strange country. But when the old nameless ballad boldly rhymes “the bonny ivy tree” to “my ain countree” the vision at once dwindles and sharpens to a very vivid image of a single soldier passing under the ivy that darkens his own door. Rhythm deals with similarity, but rhyme with identity. Now in the one word identity are involved perhaps the deepest and certainly the dearest human things. He who is homesick does not desire houses or even homes. He who is lovesick does not want to see all the women with whom he might have fallen in love. Only he who is sea-sick, perhaps, may be said to have a cosmopolitan craving for all lands or any kind of land. And this is probably why sea-sickness, like cosmopolitanism, has never yet been a high inspiration to song. Songs, especially the most poignant of them, generally refer to some absolute, to some positive place or person for whom no similarity is a substitute. In such a case all approximation is merely asymptotic. The prodigal returns to his father’s house and not the house next door, unless he is still an imperfectly sober prodigal; the lover desires his lady and not her twin sister, except, in old complications of romance; and even the spiritualist is generally looking for a ghost and not merely for ghosts. I think the intolerable torture of spiritualism must be a doubt about identity. Anyhow, it will generally be found that where this call for the identical has been uttered most ringingly and unmistakably in literature, it has been uttered in rhyme. Another purpose for which this pointed and definite form is very much fitted is the expression of dogma, as distinct from doubt or even opinion. This is why, with all allowance for a decline in the most classical effects of the classical tongue, the rhymed Latin of the mediaeval hymns does express what it had to express in a very poignant poetical manner, as compared with the reverent agnosticism so nobly uttered in the rolling unrhymed metres of the ancients. For even if we regard the matter of the mediaeval verses as a dream, it was at least a vivid dream, a dream full of faces, a dream of love and of lost things. And something of the same spirit runs in a vaguer way through proverbs and phrases that are not exactly religious, but rather in a rude sense philosophical, but which all move with the burden of returning; things to be felt only in familiar fragments… on revient toujours… it’s the old story— it’s love that makes the world go round; and all roads lead to Rome: we might almost say that all roads lead to Rhyme.
Ma qui l’applicazione di questa distinzione riguarda il caso della rima in poesia. E l’applicazione è questa: non dovremmo mai vergognarci di godere di una cosa in quanto rima così come di goderne in quanto poesia. E credo che i poeti moderni che cercano di sfuggire al piacere della rima, all’inseguimento di un piacere poetico più libero, compiano lo stesso tentativo, radicalmente fallace, di combinare la semplicità con la superiorità. Un poeta simile è come un bambino che non sapesse trarre piacere da un albero perché somiglia a un albero, o come uno spettatore che non sapesse godere della Foresta di Arden perché somiglia a una foresta. Non è impossibile trovare una specie di pedante che professi di poter ascoltare la letteratura in qualsiasi scenario, ma che ha una forte avversione per un buono scenario. E anche nella critica e nella creazione poetica è comparso il pedante che pretende che ogni nuova poesia debba evitare quel genere di melodia che fa la bellezza di ogni vecchia canzone. I poeti devono mettere da parte le cose puerili, compreso il piacere che il bambino prova nella semplice cantilena della rima irrazionale. Si potrebbe insinuare che, quando i poeti metteranno da parte le cose puerili, metteranno da parte la poesia. Ma sarà forse bene spendere una parola a ulteriore giustificazione della rima non meno che della poesia, del bambino non meno che del poeta. Ora, trascurare questo istinto infantile sarebbe un errore, anche se si trattasse di un mero istinto animale o di un istinto automatico. Se una rima fosse per un uomo soltanto ciò che l’abbaiare è per un cane, o il gracchiare per un gallo, sarebbe chiaro che cose naturali di tal fatta non possono essere semplicemente trascurate. È chiaro che un’epopea canina, che cantasse Argo anziché Ulisse, avrebbe una battuta fatta in ultima analisi di latrati. È chiaro che un lungo poema come «Chantecler», scritto da un vero gallo, sarebbe sull’aria di Chicchirichì. Ma in verità la filastrocca ha un’origine più nobile; se è ancestrale non è animale; il suo principio è primario, non solo nel corpo ma nell’anima.
Milton fece precedere «Paradise Lost» da una ponderosa condanna della rima. Eppure forse il verso più bello e persino più celebre di tutto «Paradise Lost» è in realtà una glorificazione della rima. «Seasons return, but not to me return» non è soltanto un’eco che ha nella sua forma tutto il suono della rima, ma per giunta racchiude nel suo spirito quasi tutta la filosofia della rima. La parola meravigliosa «return» reca in sé, non solo nel suono ma anche nel senso, un accenno all’intero segreto del canto. Non è soltanto che la sua stessa forma sia un bell’esempio di una certa qualità dell’inglese, alquanto simile a quella che la signora Meynell analizzò mirabilmente in un numero precedente di questa rivista a proposito di parole come «unforgiven». È che essa descrive la poesia stessa, non solo in senso meccanico ma morale. Il canto non è soltanto una ricorrenza, è un ritorno. Non si limita, come il bambino nella stanza dei giochi, a godere nel vedere girare le ruote. Vuole anche tornare indietro non meno che girare in tondo; tornare alla stanza dei giochi dove tali piaceri si trovano. O, per variare leggermente la metafora, non gioisce soltanto della rotazione di una ruota sulla strada, come se fosse una ruota fissa nell’aria. Non è soltanto la ruota ma il carro che ritorna. Quella faticosa carovana è sempre in cammino verso qualche accampamento che ha perduto e non riesce più a ritrovare. Nessun amante della poesia ha bisogno che gli si dica che tutte le poesie sono piene di quel rumore di ruote che ritornano; e nessuna più delle poesie dello stesso Milton. L’intera verità è evidente, non solo nel poema, ma persino nelle due parole del titolo. Tutte le poesie potrebbero essere raccolte in un solo libro col titolo di «Paradise Lost». E l’unico scopo di scrivere «Paradise Lost» è trasformarlo, foss’anche per una magica e momentanea illusione, in «Paradise Regained».
È in questo più profondo significato del ritorno che dobbiamo cercare il singolare potere insito in quella ricorrenza che chiamiamo rima. Sarebbe abbastanza facile replicare alle censure di Milton contro la rima nello spirito di una liberalità sensata ma superficiale, dicendo che ci vuole di tutto per fare un mondo, e specialmente il mondo dei poeti. È abbastanza evidente che Milton poté avere ragione a fare a meno della rima senza avere ragione a disprezzarla. È ovvio che la singolare dignità della sua epopea religiosa sarebbe stata indebolita se fosse stata un’epopea in rima, che cominciasse:—
Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal root.
Ma è altrettanto ovvio che Milton stesso non avrebbe danzato sulla punta del piede leggero e fantastico con altrettanta grazia e allegria nei versi:—
But come thou Goddess fair and free In heaven yclept Euphrosyne
se la dea fosse stata chiamata altrimenti, poniamo, per amor di discussione, Siringa. Milton, nei suoi momenti più ragionevoli, avrebbe concesso alla rima, in teoria, un posto in tutta la poesia, come glielo concesse in pratica nella propria. Ma avrebbe certamente detto, in questo tempo e forse in ogni tempo, di concederle un posto inferiore, o almeno un posto secondario. Ma è davvero secondario il suo posto; ed è in qualche senso inferiore?
Il fascino romantico della rima non consiste soltanto nel piacere di una cantilena, per quanto questo sia un piacere di cui nessuno dovrebbe vergognarsi. Certo la maggior parte degli uomini vi trova piacere, che se ne vergognino o no. Lo vediamo nell’antica usanza di prolungare il ritornello di una canzone con sillabe come «rumty tumty» o «tooral looral». Lo vediamo nell’usanza simile ma più tarda di discutere se una verità sia oggettiva o soggettiva, o se una riforma sia costruttiva o distruttiva, o se un argomento sia deduttivo o induttivo: tutte cose che testimoniano un amore molto naturale per quelle ricorrenze da filastrocca che fanno una specie di canto senza parole, o almeno privo di qualsiasi significato intellettuale. Ma qualcosa di assai più profondo è coinvolto nell’amore per la rima, a differenza di altre forme poetiche, qualcosa che è forse troppo profondo e sottile per essere descritto. L’approssimazione più vicina alla verità che io riesca a concepire è pressappoco questa: che, mentre tutte le forme di verso autentico ricorrono, nella rima vi è un senso di ritorno esattamente allo stesso luogo. Tutte le modalità del canto vanno avanti e indietro come le maree del mare; ma nel grande mare degli esametri omerici o virgiliani, il mare che portò le faticose navi di Ulisse ed Enea, il tuono dei frangenti è ritmico, ma il margine della spuma è necessariamente irregolare e vago. Nella rima vi è piuttosto un senso di acqua versata al sicuro in un solo pozzo familiare, o (per usare una metafora più nobile) di birra versata al sicuro in un solo boccale familiare. Gli eserciti di Omero e di Virgilio avanzano e si ritirano attraverso una vasta contrada, e suggeriscono su di essa sentimenti vasti e profondissimi, se cioè sia la loro patria o soltanto una contrada straniera. Ma quando l’antica ballata senza nome rima arditamente «the bonny ivy tree» con «my ain countree», la visione d’un tratto si restringe e si fa più acuta in un’immagine vivissima di un solo soldato che passa sotto l’edera che oscura la propria soglia. Il ritmo ha a che fare con la somiglianza, ma la rima con l’identità. Ora, nell’unica parola identità sono racchiuse forse le cose umane più profonde e certamente le più care. Chi ha nostalgia di casa non desidera case e neppure focolari. Chi è malato d’amore non vuole vedere tutte le donne di cui potrebbe essersi innamorato. Soltanto chi soffre il mal di mare, forse, si può dire che abbia una brama cosmopolita di tutte le terre o di qualsiasi genere di terra. Ed è probabilmente per questo che il mal di mare, come il cosmopolitismo, non è mai stato finora un’alta ispirazione al canto. Le canzoni, specie le più struggenti, si riferiscono in genere a qualche assoluto, a un luogo o a una persona ben precisi per cui nessuna somiglianza può fare da surrogato. In tal caso ogni approssimazione è meramente asintotica. Il figliol prodigo ritorna alla casa di suo padre e non alla casa accanto, a meno che non sia ancora un prodigo imperfettamente sobrio; l’amante desidera la sua dama e non la gemella di lei, salvo che nelle antiche complicazioni del romanzo cavalleresco; e persino lo spiritista in genere cerca un fantasma e non semplicemente dei fantasmi. Credo che l’intollerabile tortura dello spiritismo debba essere un dubbio sull’identità. Comunque sia, si troverà in genere che, dove questo richiamo dell’identico è stato pronunciato nel modo più squillante e inequivocabile nella letteratura, esso è stato pronunciato in rima. Un altro scopo cui questa forma acuta e definita si presta moltissimo è l’espressione del dogma, in quanto distinto dal dubbio o persino dall’opinione. Ecco perché, pur tenendo conto di un declino negli effetti più classici della lingua classica, il latino rimato degli inni medievali esprime ciò che aveva da esprimere in maniera poetica assai penetrante, se paragonato al reverente agnosticismo così nobilmente espresso nei cadenzati metri senza rima degli antichi. Poiché, anche se consideriamo la materia dei versi medievali come un sogno, era almeno un sogno vivido, un sogno pieno di volti, un sogno d’amore e di cose perdute. E qualcosa dello stesso spirito percorre in modo più vago i proverbi e le frasi che non sono propriamente religiose, ma piuttosto, in senso rozzo, filosofiche, e che tutte si muovono col peso del ritorno; cose che si sentono solo in frammenti familiari… on revient toujours… è la vecchia storia—è l’amore che fa girare il mondo; e tutte le strade portano a Roma: potremmo quasi dire che tutte le strade portano alla Rima.
Milton’s revolt against rhyme must be read in the light of history. Milton is the Renascence frozen into a Puritan form; the beginning of a period which was in a sense classic, but was in a still more definite sense aristocratic. There the Classicist was the artistic aristocrat because the Calvinist was the spiritual aristocrat. The seventeenth century was intensely individualistic; it had both in the noble and the ignoble sense a respect for persons. It had no respect whatever for popular traditions; and it was in the midst of its purely logical and legal excitement that most of the popular traditions died. The Parliament appeared and the people disappeared. The arts were put under patrons, where they had once been under patron saints. The schools and colleges at once strengthened and narrowed the New Learning, making it something rather peculiar to one country and one class. A few men talked a great deal of good Latin, where all men had once talked a little bad Latin. But they talked even the good Latin so that no Latinist in the world could understand them. They confined all study of the classics to that of the most classical period, and grossly exaggerated the barbarity and barrenness of patriotic Greek or mediaeval Latin. It is as if a man said that because the English translation of the Bible is perhaps the best English in the world, therefore Addison and Pater and Newman are not worth reading. We can imagine what men in such a mood would have said of the rude rhymed hexametres of the monks; and it is not unnatural that they should have felt a reaction against rhyme itself. For the history of rhyme is the history of something else, very vast and sometimes invisible, certainly somewhat indefinable, against which they were in aristocratic rebellion.
That thing is difficult to define in impartial modern terms. It might well be called Romance, and that even in a more technical sense, since it corresponds to the rise of the Romance languages as distinct from the Roman language. It might more truly be called Religion, for historically it was the gradual re-emergence of Europe through the Dark Ages, because it still had one religion, though no longer one rule. It was, in short, the creation of Christendom. It may be called Legend, for it is true that the most overpowering presence in it is that of omnipresent and powerful popular Legend; so that things that may never have happened, or, as some say, could never have happened, are nevertheless rooted in our racial memory like things that have happened to ourselves. The whole Arthurian Cycle, for instance, seems something more real than reality. If the faces in that darkness of the Dark Ages, Lancelot and Arthur and Merlin and Modred, are indeed faces in a dream, they are like faces in a real dream: a dream in a bed and not a dream in a book. Sub-consciously at least, I should be much less surprised if Arthur was to come again than I should be if the Superman were to come at all. Again, the thing might be called Gossip: a noble name, having in it the name of God and one of the most generous and genial of the relations of men. For I suppose there has seldom been a time when such a mass of culture and good traditions of craft and song have been handed down orally, by one universal buzz of conversation, through centuries of ignorance down to centuries of greater knowledge. Education must have been an eternal viva voce examination; but the men passed their examination. At least they went out in such rude sense masters of art as to create the Song of Roland and the round Roman arches that carry the weight of so many Gothic towers. Finally, of course, it can be called ignorance, barbarism, black superstition, a reaction towards obscurantism and old night; and such a vie is eminently complete and satisfactory, only that it leaves behind it a sort of weak wonder as to why the very youngest poets do still go on writing poems about the sword of Arthur and the horn of Roland.
All this was but the beginning of a process which has two great points of interest. The first is the way in which the mediaeval movement did rebuild the old Roman civilization; the other was the way in which it did not. A strange interest attaches to the things which had never existed in the pagan culture and did appear in the Christian culture. I think it is true of most of them that they had a quality that can very approximately be described as popular, or perhaps as vulgar, as indeed we still talk of the languages which at that time liberated themselves from Latin as the vulgar tongues. And to many Classicists these things would appear to be vulgar in a more vulgar sense. They were vulgar in the sense of being vivid almost to excess, of making a very direct and unsophisticated appeal to the emotions. The first law of heraldry was to wear the heart upon the sleeve. Such mediaevalism was the reverse of mere mysticism, in the sense of mere mystery; it might more truly be described as sensationalism. One of these things, for instance, was a hot and even an impatient love of colour. It learned to paint before it could draw, and could afford the twopence coloured long before it could manage the penny plain. It culminated at last, of course, in the energy and gaiety of the Gothic; but even the richness of Gothic rested on a certain psychological simplicity. We can contrast it with the classic by noting its popular passion for telling a story in stone. We may admit that a Doric portico is a poem, but no one would describe it as an anecdote. The time was to come when much of the imagery of the cathedrals was to be lost; but it would have mattered the less that it was defaced by its enemies if it had not been already neglected by its friends. It would have mattered less if the whole tide of taste among the rich had not turned against the old popular masterpieces. The Puritans defaced them, but the Cavaliers did not truly defend them. The Cavaliers were also aristocrats of the new classical culture, and used the word Gothic in the sense of barbaric. For the benefit of the Teutonists we may note in parenthesis that, if this phrase meant that Gothic was despised, it also meant that the Goths were despised. But when the Cavaliers came back, after the Puritan interregnum, they restored not in the style of Pugin but in the style of Wren. The very thing we call the Restoration, which was the restoration of King Charles, was also the restoration of St. Paul’s. And it was a very modern restoration.
La rivolta di Milton contro la rima va letta alla luce della storia. Milton è il Rinascimento congelato in una forma puritana; l’inizio di un periodo che fu in un certo senso classico, ma in un senso ancor più preciso aristocratico. Là il Classicista era l’aristocratico dell’arte perché il Calvinista era l’aristocratico dello spirito. Il Seicento fu intensamente individualista; aveva, tanto nel senso nobile quanto in quello ignobile, un riguardo per le persone. Non aveva alcun riguardo per le tradizioni popolari; e fu nel pieno della sua eccitazione puramente logica e legale che gran parte delle tradizioni popolari morì. Comparve il Parlamento e scomparve il popolo. Le arti furono poste sotto i mecenati, là dove un tempo erano state sotto i santi patroni. Le scuole e i collegi al tempo stesso rafforzarono e ristrinsero il Nuovo Sapere, facendone qualcosa di piuttosto peculiare a un solo paese e a una sola classe. Pochi uomini parlavano moltissimo buon latino, là dove tutti gli uomini un tempo avevano parlato un po’ di cattivo latino. Ma parlavano perfino il buon latino in modo che nessun latinista al mondo potesse capirli. Confinavano ogni studio dei classici a quello del periodo più classico, ed esageravano grossolanamente la barbarie e la sterilità del greco patriottico o del latino medievale. È come se un uomo dicesse che, poiché la traduzione inglese della Bibbia è forse il miglior inglese del mondo, allora Addison e Pater e Newman non valgono la lettura. Possiamo immaginare che cosa uomini di tale umore avrebbero detto dei rozzi esametri rimati dei monaci; e non è innaturale che avessero sentito una reazione contro la rima stessa. Poiché la storia della rima è la storia di qualcos’altro, di assai vasto e talora invisibile, certamente alquanto indefinibile, contro cui essi erano in ribellione aristocratica.
Quella cosa è difficile da definire in termini moderni imparziali. La si potrebbe bene chiamare Romanticismo, e ciò anche in un senso più tecnico, poiché corrisponde al sorgere delle lingue romanze in quanto distinte dalla lingua romana. La si potrebbe con maggior verità chiamare Religione, poiché storicamente fu il graduale riemergere dell’Europa attraverso i Secoli Bui, perché essa aveva ancora una sola religione, sebbene non più una sola legge. Fu, in breve, la creazione della Cristianità. La si può chiamare Leggenda, poiché è vero che la presenza più soverchiante in essa è quella di una Leggenda popolare onnipresente e potente; cosicché cose che forse non sono mai accadute, o, come dicono alcuni, non sarebbero mai potute accadere, sono nondimeno radicate nella nostra memoria di stirpe come cose accadute a noi stessi. L’intero Ciclo Arturiano, per esempio, sembra qualcosa di più reale della realtà. Se i volti in quell’oscurità dei Secoli Bui, Lancillotto e Artù e Merlino e Mordred, sono davvero volti in un sogno, sono come volti in un sogno reale: un sogno in un letto e non un sogno in un libro. Almeno nel subconscio, mi stupirei assai meno se Artù dovesse tornare, di quanto mi stupirei se il Superuomo dovesse mai venire. Ancora, la cosa potrebbe chiamarsi Pettegolezzo: un nome nobile, che porta in sé il nome di Dio e una delle più generose e cordiali fra le relazioni umane. Poiché suppongo che di rado vi sia stato un tempo in cui una tale massa di cultura e di buone tradizioni d’arte e di canto sia stata tramandata oralmente, per un solo universale brusio di conversazione, attraverso secoli d’ignoranza fino a secoli di maggior sapere. L’istruzione dev’essere stata un eterno esame viva voce; ma gli uomini superarono il loro esame. Perlomeno ne uscirono maestri d’arte, in quel rozzo senso, tanto da creare la Canzone di Rolando e i tondi archi romani che reggono il peso di tante torri gotiche. Infine, naturalmente, la si può chiamare ignoranza, barbarie, nera superstizione, una reazione verso l’oscurantismo e l’antica notte; e una tale visione è eminentemente completa e soddisfacente, solo che essa lascia dietro di sé una specie di debole stupore sul perché i più giovani poeti continuino tuttora a scrivere poesie sulla spada di Artù e sul corno di Rolando.
Tutto questo non fu che l’inizio di un processo che presenta due grandi punti d’interesse. Il primo è il modo in cui il movimento medievale ricostruì davvero l’antica civiltà romana; l’altro fu il modo in cui non lo fece. Uno strano interesse si lega alle cose che non erano mai esistite nella cultura pagana e comparvero nella cultura cristiana. Credo sia vero della maggior parte di esse che avevano una qualità descrivibile assai approssimativamente come popolare, o forse come volgare, così come tuttora chiamiamo lingue volgari quelle che a quel tempo si liberarono dal latino. E a molti Classicisti queste cose apparirebbero volgari in un senso più volgare. Erano volgari nel senso di essere vivide quasi all’eccesso, di rivolgersi alle emozioni in modo assai diretto e ingenuo. La prima legge dell’araldica era portare il cuore sulla manica. Un tale medievalismo era l’opposto del mero misticismo, nel senso del mero mistero; lo si potrebbe più veramente descrivere come sensazionalismo. Una di queste cose, per esempio, era un caldo e persino impaziente amore per il colore. Imparò a dipingere prima di saper disegnare, e poté permettersi la stampa colorata da due soldi assai prima di riuscire a maneggiare quella in bianco da un soldo. Culminò infine, s’intende, nell’energia e nella gaiezza del gotico; ma perfino la ricchezza del gotico riposava su una certa semplicità psicologica. Possiamo contrapporlo al classico notando la sua popolare passione per il raccontare una storia nella pietra. Possiamo ammettere che un portico dorico sia una poesia, ma nessuno lo descriverebbe come un aneddoto. Doveva venire il tempo in cui gran parte delle immagini delle cattedrali sarebbe andata perduta; ma sarebbe importato meno che fosse sfregiata dai suoi nemici, se non fosse stata già trascurata dai suoi amici. Sarebbe importato meno se l’intera marea del gusto fra i ricchi non si fosse rivolta contro gli antichi capolavori popolari. I Puritani li sfregiarono, ma i Cavalieri non li difesero davvero. Anche i Cavalieri erano aristocratici della nuova cultura classica, e usavano la parola gotico nel senso di barbaro. A beneficio dei Teutonisti possiamo notare tra parentesi che, se questa frase significava che il gotico era disprezzato, significava anche che i Goti erano disprezzati. Ma quando i Cavalieri tornarono, dopo l’interregno puritano, non restaurarono nello stile di Pugin ma nello stile di Wren. La cosa stessa che chiamiamo la Restaurazione, che fu la restaurazione di re Carlo, fu anche la restaurazione di St. Paul. E fu una restaurazione assai moderna.
So far we might say that simple people do not like simple things. This is certainly true if we compare the classic with these highly coloured things of mediaevalism, or all the vivid visions which first began to glow in the night of the Dark Ages. Now one of these things was the romantic expedient called rhyme. And even in this, if we compare the two, we shall see something of the same paradox by which the simple like complexities and the complex like simplicities. The ignorant like rich carvings and melodious and often ingenious rhymes. The learned like bare walls and blank verse. But in the case of rhyme it is peculiarly difficult to define the double and yet very definite truth. It is difficult to define the sense in which rhyme is artificial and the sense in which it is simple. In truth it is simple because it is artificial. It is an artifice of the kind enjoyed by children and other poetic people; it is a toy. As a technical accomplishment it stands at the same distance from the popular experience as the old popular sports. Like swimming, like dancing, like drawing the bow, anybody can do it, but nobody can do it without taking the trouble to do it; and only a few can do it very well. In a hundred ways it was akin to that simple and even humble energy that made all the lost glory of the guilds. Thus their rhyme was useful as well as ornamental. It was not merely a melody but also a mnemonic; just as their towers were not merely trophies but beacons and belfries. In another aspect rhyme is akin to rhetoric, but of a very positive and emphatic sort: the coincidence of sound giving the effect of saying, “It is certainly so.” Shakespeare realized this when he rounded off a fierce or romantic scene with a rhymed couplet. I know that some critics do not like this, but I think there is a moment when a drama ought to become a melodrama. Then there is a much older effect of rhyme that can only be called mystical, which may seem the very opposite of the utilitarian, and almost equally remote from the rhetorical. Yet it shares with the former the tough texture of something not easily forgotten, and with the latter the touch of authority which is the aim of all oratory. The thing I mean may be found in the fact that so many of the old proverbial prophecies, from Merlin to Mother Shipton, were handed down in rhyme. It can be found in the very name of Thomas the Rhymer.
But the simplest way of putting this popular quality is in a single word: it is a song. Rhyme corresponds to a melody so simple that it goes straight like an arrow to the heart. It corresponds to a chorus so familiar and obvious that all men can join in it. I am not disturbed by the suggestion that such an arrow of song, when it hits the heart, may entirely miss the head. I am not concerned to deny that the chorus may sometimes be a drunken chorus, in which men have lost their heads to find their tongues. I am not defending but defining; I am trying to find words for a large but elusive distinction between certain things that are certainly poetry and certain other things which are also song. Of course it is only an accident that Horace opens his greatest series of odes by saying that he detests the profane populace and wishes to drive them from his temple of poetry. But it is the sort of accident that is almost an allegory. There is even a sense in which it has a practical side. When all is said, could a whole crowd of men sing the “Descende Coelo,” that noble ode, as a crowd can certainly sing the “Dies Irae,” or for that matter “Down among the Dead Men”? Did Horace himself sing the Horatian odes in the sense in which Shakespeare could sing, or could hardly help singing, the Shakespearean songs. I do not know, having no kind of scholarship on these points. But I do not feel that it could have been at all the same thing; and my only purpose is to attempt a rude description of that thing. Rhyme is consonant to the particular kind of song that can be a popular song, whether pathetic or passionate or comic; and Milton is entitled to his true distinction; nobody is likely to sing “Paradise Lost” as if it were a song of that kind. I have tried to suggest my sympathy with rhyme, in terms true enough to be accepted by the other side as expressing their antipathy for it. I have admitted that rhyme is a toy and even a trick, of the sort that delights children. I have admitted that every rhyme is a nursery rhyme. What I will never admit is that anyone who is too big for the nursery is big enough for the Kingdom of God, though the God were only Apollo.
A good critic should be like God in the great saying of a Scottish mystic. George Macdonald said that God was easy to please and hard to satisfy. That paradox is the poise of all good artistic appreciation. Without the first part of the paradox appreciation perishes, because it loses the power to appreciate. Good criticism, I repeat, combines the subtle pleasure in a thing being done well with the simple pleasure in it being done at all. It combines the pleasure of the scientific engineer in seeing how the wheels work together to a logical end with the pleasure of the baby in seeing the wheels go round. It combines the pleasure of the artistic draughtsman in the fact that his lines of charcoal, light and apparently loose, fall exactly right and in a perfect relation with the pleasure of the child in the fact that the charcoal makes marks of any kind on the paper. And in the same fashion it combines the critic’s pleasure in a poem with the child’s pleasure in a rhyme. The historical point about this kind of poetry, the rhymed romantic kind, is that it rose out of the Dark Ages with the whole of this huge popular power behind it, the human love of a song, a riddle, a proverb, a pun or a nursery rhyme; the sing-song of innumerable children’s games, the chorus of a thousand camp-fires and a thousand taverns. When poetry loses its link with all these people who are easily pleased it loses all its power of giving pleasure. When a poet looks down on a rhyme it is, I will not say as if he looked down on a daisy (which might seem possible to the more literal-minded), but rather as if he looked down on a lark because he had been up in a balloon. It is cutting away the very roots of poetry; it is revolting against nature because it is natural, against sunshine because it is bright, or mountains because they are high, or moonrise because it is mysterious. The freezing process began after the Reformation with a fastidious search for finer yet freer forms; to-day it has ended in formlessness.
Finora potremmo dire che le persone semplici non amano le cose semplici. Ciò è certamente vero se paragoniamo il classico con queste cose dai vivaci colori del medievalismo, o con tutte le vivide visioni che cominciarono a risplendere nella notte dei Secoli Bui. Ora, una di queste cose fu l’espediente romantico chiamato rima. E anche in questo, se paragoniamo le due cose, vedremo qualcosa dello stesso paradosso per cui i semplici amano le complessità e i complessi amano le semplicità. Gli ignoranti amano i ricchi intagli e le rime melodiose e spesso ingegnose. I dotti amano le pareti nude e il verso sciolto. Ma nel caso della rima è particolarmente difficile definire la duplice e tuttavia assai precisa verità. È difficile definire il senso in cui la rima è artificiale e il senso in cui è semplice. In verità essa è semplice perché è artificiale. È un artificio del genere che diletta i bambini e altre persone poetiche; è un giocattolo. Come conquista tecnica, sta alla medesima distanza dall’esperienza popolare cui stavano gli antichi sport popolari. Come il nuoto, come la danza, come il tirare con l’arco, chiunque può farlo, ma nessuno può farlo senza darsi la pena di farlo; e solo pochi possono farlo assai bene. In cento modi era affine a quella semplice e persino umile energia che fece tutta la perduta gloria delle corporazioni. Così la loro rima era utile oltre che ornamentale. Non era soltanto una melodia ma anche un aiuto mnemonico; proprio come le loro torri non erano soltanto trofei ma fari e campanili. Sotto un altro aspetto la rima è affine alla retorica, ma di una specie assai positiva ed enfatica: la coincidenza del suono che dà l’effetto di dire: «È certamente così». Shakespeare lo comprese quando concludeva una scena feroce o romantica con un distico rimato. So che ad alcuni critici questo non piace, ma penso che vi sia un momento in cui un dramma dovrebbe diventare un melodramma. Poi vi è un effetto assai più antico della rima che può dirsi soltanto mistico, il quale può sembrare l’esatto opposto dell’utilitario, e quasi altrettanto remoto dal retorico. Eppure condivide col primo la dura trama di qualcosa che non si dimentica facilmente, e col secondo quel tocco d’autorità che è lo scopo di ogni oratoria. La cosa cui alludo si può trovare nel fatto che tante delle antiche profezie proverbiali, da Merlino a Mother Shipton, furono tramandate in rima. La si può trovare nel nome stesso di Thomas il Rimatore.
Ma il modo più semplice di esprimere questa qualità popolare è in una sola parola: è una canzone. La rima corrisponde a una melodia così semplice da andare dritta come una freccia al cuore. Corrisponde a un ritornello così familiare e ovvio che tutti gli uomini possono unirvisi. Non mi turba il rilievo che una tale freccia di canto, quando colpisce il cuore, possa mancare del tutto la testa. Non mi preme negare che il coro possa talvolta essere un coro da ubriachi, in cui gli uomini hanno perso la testa per ritrovare la lingua. Non sto difendendo ma definendo; sto cercando parole per una vasta ma sfuggente distinzione fra certe cose che sono certamente poesia e certe altre cose che sono anch’esse canzone. Naturalmente è solo un caso che Orazio apra la sua più grande serie di odi dicendo che detesta la plebe profana e vuole cacciarla dal suo tempio della poesia. Ma è il genere di caso che è quasi un’allegoria. Vi è persino un senso in cui ha un lato pratico. In fin dei conti, potrebbe un’intera folla di uomini cantare il «Descende Coelo», quella nobile ode, come una folla può certamente cantare il «Dies Irae», o, se è per questo, «Down among the Dead Men»? Cantava Orazio stesso le odi oraziane nel senso in cui Shakespeare poteva cantare, o quasi non poteva fare a meno di cantare, le canzoni shakespeariane? Non lo so, non avendo alcuna erudizione su questi punti. Ma non sento che possa essere stata affatto la stessa cosa; e il mio unico scopo è tentare una rozza descrizione di quella cosa. La rima è consona a quel particolare genere di canzone che può essere una canzone popolare, sia patetica sia appassionata sia comica; e a Milton spetta la sua vera distinzione: è improbabile che qualcuno canti «Paradise Lost» come se fosse una canzone di quel genere. Ho cercato di suggerire la mia simpatia per la rima, in termini abbastanza veri da essere accettati dall’altra parte come espressione della loro antipatia per essa. Ho ammesso che la rima è un giocattolo e persino un trucco, del genere che diletta i bambini. Ho ammesso che ogni rima è una filastrocca. Ciò che non ammetterò mai è che chiunque sia troppo grande per la stanza dei giochi sia abbastanza grande per il Regno di Dio, foss’anche il Dio soltanto Apollo.
Un buon critico dovrebbe essere come Dio nel grande detto di un mistico scozzese. George Macdonald disse che Dio è facile da compiacere e difficile da soddisfare. Quel paradosso è l’equilibrio di ogni buon apprezzamento artistico. Senza la prima parte del paradosso l’apprezzamento perisce, perché perde la capacità di apprezzare. La buona critica, lo ripeto, combina il sottile piacere per una cosa fatta bene col semplice piacere per il fatto che essa sia stata fatta. Combina il piacere dell’ingegnere scientifico nel vedere come le ruote lavorino insieme verso un fine logico col piacere del bimbo nel vedere girare le ruote. Combina il piacere del disegnatore artistico per il fatto che le sue linee di carboncino, leggere e in apparenza sciolte, cadano esattamente giuste e in perfetta relazione, col piacere del bambino per il fatto che il carboncino lascia segni di qualsiasi genere sulla carta. E allo stesso modo combina il piacere del critico per una poesia col piacere del bambino per una rima. Il punto storico riguardo a questo genere di poesia, quello romantico e rimato, è che essa sorse dai Secoli Bui con tutta questa immensa potenza popolare alle spalle, l’umano amore per una canzone, un indovinello, un proverbio, un gioco di parole o una filastrocca; la cantilena di innumerevoli giochi infantili, il coro di mille fuochi da campo e di mille taverne. Quando la poesia perde il suo legame con tutte queste persone facili da compiacere, perde ogni suo potere di dare piacere. Quando un poeta guarda dall’alto in basso una rima, non dirò che sia come se guardasse dall’alto in basso una margherita (il che potrebbe sembrare possibile alle menti più letterali), ma piuttosto come se guardasse dall’alto in basso un’allodola perché è salito su una mongolfiera. È tagliar via le radici stesse della poesia; è ribellarsi alla natura perché è naturale, al sole perché è luminoso, o alle montagne perché sono alte, o al sorgere della luna perché è misterioso. Il processo di congelamento cominciò dopo la Riforma con una fastidiosa ricerca di forme più fini eppure più libere; oggi è finito nell’informe.
But the joke of it is that even when it is formless it is still fastidious. The new anarchic artists are not ready to accept everything. They are not ready to accept anything except anarchy. Unless it observes the very latest conventions of unconventionality, they would rule out anything classic as coldly as any classic ever ruled out anything romantic. But the classic was a form; and there was even a time when it was a new form. The men who invented Sapphics did invent a new metre; the introduction of Elizabethan blank verse was a real revolution in literary form. But vers libre, or nine-tenths of it, is not a new metre any more than sleeping in a ditch is a new school of architecture. It is no more a revolution in literary form than eating meat raw is an innovation in cookery. It is not even original, because it is not creative; the artist does not invent anything, but only abolishes something. But the only point about it that is to my present purpose is expressed in the word “pride.” It is not merely proud in the sense of being exultant, but proud in the sense of being disdainful. Such outlaws are more exclusive than aristocrats; and their anarchical arrogance goes far beyond the pride of Milton and the aristocrats of the New Learning. And this final refinement has completed the work which the saner aristocrats began, the work now most evident in the world: the separation of art from the people. I need not insist on the sensational and self-evident character of that separation. I need not recommend the modern poet to attempt to sing his vers libres in a public-house. I need not even urge the young Imagist to read out a number of his disconnected Images to a public meeting. The thing is not only admitted but admired. The old artist remained proud in spite of his unpopularity; the new artist is proud because of his unpopularity; perhaps it is his chief ground for pride.
Dwelling as I do in the Dark Ages, or at latest along the mediaeval fairy tales, I am yet moved to remember something I once read in a modern fairy tale. As it happens, I have already used the name of George Macdonald; and in the best of his books there is a description of how a young miner in the mountains could always drive away the subterranean goblins if he could remember and repeat any kind of rhyme. The impromptu rhymes were often doggerel, as was the dog-Latin of many monkish hexametres or the burden of many rude Border ballads. But I have a notion that they drove away the devils, blue devils of pessimism and black devils of pride. Anyhow Madame Montessori, who has apparently been deploring the educational effects of fairy tales, would probably see in me a pitiable example of such early perversion, for that image which was one of my first impressions seems likely enough to be one of my last; and when the noise of many new and original musical instruments, with strange shapes and still stranger noises, has passed away like a procession, I shall bear in the succeeding silence only a rustle and scramble among the rocks and a boy singing on the mountain.
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HAMLET AND THE PSYCHO-ANALYST
THIS morning, for a long stretch of hours before breakfast, and even as it were merging into breakfast, and almost overlapping breakfast, I was engaged in scientific researches in the great new department of psycho-analysis. Every journalist knows by this time that psycho-analysis largely depends on the study of dreams. But in order to study our dreams it is necessary to dream; and in order to dream it is necessary to sleep. So, while others threw away the golden hours in lighter and less learned occupations, while ignorant and superstitious peasants were already digging in their ignorant and superstitious kitchen-gardens, to produce their ignorant and superstitious beans and potatoes, while priests were performing their pious mummeries and poets composing lyrics on listening to the skylark—I myself was pioneering hundreds of years ahead of this benighted century; ruthlessly and progressively probing into all the various horrible nightmares, from which a happier future will take its oracles and its commandments. I will not describe my dreams in detail; I am not quite so ruthless a psychologist as all that. And indeed it strikes me as possible that the new psychologist will be rather a bore at breakfast. My dream was something about wandering in some sort of catacombs under the Albert Hall, and it involved eating jumbles (a brown flexible cake now almost gone from us, like so many glories of England) and also arguing with a Theosophist. I cannot fit this in very well with Freud and his theory of suppressed impulses. For I swear I never in my life suppressed the impulse to eat a jumble or to argue with a Theosophist. And as for wandering about in the Albert Hall, nobody could ever have had an impulse to do that.
When I came down to breakfast I looked at the morning paper; not (as you humorously suggest) at the evening paper. I had not pursued my scientific studies quite so earnestly as that. I looked at the morning paper, as I say, and found it contained a good deal about Psycho-Analysis, indeed it explained almost everything about Psycho-Analysis except what it was. This was naturally a thing which newspapers would present in a rather fragmentary fashion; and I fitted the fragments together as best I could. Apparently the dreams were merely symbols; and apparently symbols of something very savage and horrible which remained a secret. This seems to me a highly unscientific use of the word symbol. A symbol is not a disguise but rather a display; the best expression of something that cannot otherwise be expressed. Eating a jumble may mean that I wished to bite off my father’s nose (the mother-complex being strong on me); but it does not seem to show much symbolic talent. The Albert Hall may imply the murder of an uncle; but it hardly makes itself very clear. And we do not seem to be getting much nearer the truth by dreaming, if we hide things by night more completely than we repress them by day. Anyhow, the murdered uncle reminds me of Hamlet, of whom more anon; at the moment I am merely remarking that my newspaper was a little vague; and I was all the more relieved to open my “London Mercury” and find an article on the subject by so able and suggestive a writer as Mr. J. D. Beresford.
Ma il bello è che, persino quando è informe, resta pur sempre schizzinoso. I nuovi artisti anarchici non sono disposti ad accettare qualunque cosa. Non sono disposti ad accettare nulla, tranne l’anarchia. A meno che non osservi le ultimissime convenzioni della sconvenzionalità, escluderebbero qualsiasi cosa classica con la medesima freddezza con cui un classico escludeva qualsiasi cosa romantica. Ma il classico era una forma; e vi fu persino un tempo in cui era una forma nuova. Gli uomini che inventarono le saffiche inventarono davvero un metro nuovo; l’introduzione del verso sciolto elisabettiano fu una vera rivoluzione nella forma letteraria. Ma il vers libre, o nove decimi di esso, non è un metro nuovo più di quanto dormire in un fosso sia una nuova scuola di architettura. Non è una rivoluzione nella forma letteraria più di quanto mangiare la carne cruda sia un’innovazione culinaria. Non è neppure originale, perché non è creativo; l’artista non inventa nulla, ma si limita ad abolire qualcosa. Ma l’unico aspetto che a me qui interessa è espresso nella parola «orgoglio». Non è orgoglioso soltanto nel senso di essere esultante, ma orgoglioso nel senso di essere sdegnoso. Simili fuorilegge sono più esclusivi degli aristocratici; e la loro arroganza anarchica va ben oltre l’orgoglio di Milton e degli aristocratici della Nuova Cultura. E questo raffinamento estremo ha portato a compimento l’opera che gli aristocratici più assennati avevano iniziato, l’opera oggi più evidente al mondo: la separazione dell’arte dal popolo. Non ho bisogno di insistere sul carattere sensazionale ed evidente di per sé di tale separazione. Non ho bisogno di raccomandare al poeta moderno di provare a cantare i suoi vers libres in un’osteria. Non ho bisogno neppure di esortare il giovane imagista a leggere un certo numero delle sue Immagini sconnesse a un pubblico comizio. La cosa non è soltanto ammessa, ma ammirata. Il vecchio artista restava orgoglioso a dispetto della propria impopolarità; il nuovo artista è orgoglioso a causa della propria impopolarità; forse è il suo principale motivo di orgoglio.
Dimorando io, come faccio, nei Secoli Bui, o al più tardi tra le fiabe medievali, mi sento tuttavia spinto a ricordare qualcosa che una volta lessi in una fiaba moderna. Si dà il caso che io abbia già usato il nome di George Macdonald; e nel migliore dei suoi libri vi è la descrizione di come un giovane minatore delle montagne potesse sempre scacciare i folletti sotterranei purché riuscisse a ricordare e recitare una rima di qualsiasi genere. Le rime improvvisate erano spesso versacci, come lo era il latino maccheronico di molti esametri monacali o il ritornello di molte rozze ballate di confine. Ma ho l’idea che scacciassero i diavoli, i diavoli azzurri del pessimismo e i diavoli neri dell’orgoglio. Comunque sia, Madame Montessori, che a quanto pare va deplorando gli effetti educativi delle fiabe, vedrebbe probabilmente in me un esempio pietoso di una simile precoce perversione, perché quell’immagine, che fu una delle mie prime impressioni, ha tutta l’aria di poter essere una delle mie ultime; e quando il rumore di tanti strumenti musicali nuovi e originali, dalle forme strane e dai rumori ancor più strani, sarà passato via come una processione, io porterò nel silenzio che seguirà soltanto un fruscio e un arrancare tra le rocce e un ragazzo che canta sulla montagna.
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AMLETO E LO PSICO-ANALISTA
QUESTA mattina, per una lunga distesa di ore prima della colazione, e persino, per così dire, fondendosi con la colazione, e quasi sovrapponendosi alla colazione, sono stato impegnato in ricerche scientifiche nel grande nuovo dipartimento della psico-analisi. Ogni giornalista sa ormai da tempo che la psico-analisi dipende in gran parte dallo studio dei sogni. Ma per studiare i nostri sogni è necessario sognare; e per sognare è necessario dormire. Così, mentre altri sprecavano le ore d’oro in occupazioni più frivole e meno dotte, mentre ignoranti e superstiziosi contadini stavano già vangando nei loro ignoranti e superstiziosi orti, per produrre i loro ignoranti e superstiziosi fagioli e patate, mentre i preti eseguivano le loro pie pantomime e i poeti componevano liriche sull’ascoltare l’allodola—io stesso stavo aprendo la strada centinaia di anni avanti a questo secolo ottenebrato; sondando spietatamente e progressivamente tutti i vari orribili incubi, dai quali un futuro più felice trarrà i propri oracoli e i propri comandamenti. Non descriverò i miei sogni in dettaglio; non sono uno psicologo così del tutto spietato. E in verità mi pare possibile che il nuovo psicologo sarà piuttosto noioso a colazione. Il mio sogno riguardava un certo vagabondare in una sorta di catacombe sotto l’Albert Hall, e comportava il mangiare dei jumble (un biscotto scuro e flessibile ormai quasi scomparso da noi, come tante altre glorie d’Inghilterra) e anche il discutere con un teosofo. Non riesco a far quadrare tutto questo molto bene con Freud e la sua teoria degli impulsi repressi. Poiché giuro di non aver mai in vita mia represso l’impulso di mangiare un jumble o di discutere con un teosofo. E quanto al vagabondare per l’Albert Hall, nessuno potrebbe mai aver avuto l’impulso di farlo.
Quando scesi a colazione, guardai il giornale del mattino; non (come voi suggerite scherzosamente) il giornale della sera. Non avevo perseguito i miei studi scientifici tanto seriamente. Guardai il giornale del mattino, come dico, e trovai che conteneva parecchio sulla Psico-Analisi, anzi spiegava quasi tutto della Psico-Analisi tranne che cosa fosse. Questa era naturalmente una cosa che i giornali avrebbero presentato in modo piuttosto frammentario; e io ricomposi i frammenti come meglio potei. A quanto pare i sogni erano semplici simboli; e a quanto pare simboli di qualcosa di assai selvaggio e orribile che restava un segreto. Questo mi pare un uso altamente antiscientifico della parola simbolo. Un simbolo non è un travestimento, ma piuttosto una manifestazione; la migliore espressione di qualcosa che non può essere espresso altrimenti. Mangiare un jumble può voler dire che desideravo staccare a morsi il naso di mio padre (essendo forte in me il complesso materno); ma non pare dimostrare gran talento simbolico. L’Albert Hall può alludere all’omicidio di uno zio; ma è ben poco chiaro. E non pare che ci avviciniamo granché alla verità sognando, se nascondiamo le cose di notte più completamente di quanto le reprimiamo di giorno. Comunque sia, lo zio assassinato mi ricorda Amleto, di cui più oltre; per il momento sto solo osservando che il mio giornale era un po’ vago; e fui tanto più sollevato di aprire il mio «London Mercury» e trovarvi un articolo sull’argomento di uno scrittore così abile e suggestivo come il signor J. D. Beresford.
Mr. J. D. Beresford practically asked himself whether he should become a psycho-analyst or continue to be a novelist. It will readily be understood that he did not put it precisely in these words; he would probably put psycho-analysis higher, and very possibly his own fiction lower; for men of genius are often innocent enough of their own genuine originality. That is a form of the unconscious mind with which none of us will quarrel. But I have no desire to watch a man of genius tying himself in knots, and perhaps dying in agony, in the attempt to be conscious of his own unconsciousness. I have seen too many unfortunate sceptics thus committing suicide by self-contradiction. Haeckel and his Determinists, in my youth, bullied us all about the urgent necessity of choosing a philosophy which would prove the impossibility of choosing anything. No doubt the new psychology will somehow enable us to know what we are doing, about all that we do without knowing it. These things come and go, and pass through their phases in order, from the time when they are as experimental as Freudism to the time when they are as exploded as Darwinism. But I never can understand men allowing things so visibly fugitive to hide things that are visibly permanent, like morals and religion and (what is in question here) the art of letters. Ars longa, scientia brevis.
Anyhow, as has been said, psycho-analysis depends in practice upon the interpretation of dreams. I do not know whether making masses of people, chiefly children, confess their dreams, would lead to a great output of literature; though it would certainly lead, if I know anything of human nature, to a glorious output of lies. There is something touching in the inhuman innocence of the psychologist, who is already talking of the scientific exactitude of results reached by the one particular sort of evidence that cannot conceivably be checked or tested in any way whatever. But, as Mr. Beresford truly says, the general notion of finding signs in dreams is as old as the world; but even the special theory of it is older than many seem to suppose. Indeed, it is not only old, but obvious; and was never discovered, because it was always noticed. Long before the present fashion I myself (who, heaven knows, am no psychologist) remember saying that as there is truth in all popular traditions, there is truth in the popular saying that dreams go by the rule of contraries. That is, that a man does often think at night about the very things he does not think by day. But the popular saying had in it a certain virtue never found in the anti-popular sciences of our day. Popular superstition has one enormous element of sanity; it is never serious. We talk of ages like the mediaeval as the ages of faith; but it would be quite as true a tribute to call them the ages of doubt; of a healthy doubt, and even a healthy derision. There was always something more or less consciously grotesque about an old ghost story. There was fun mixed with the fear; and the yokels knew too much about turnips not occasionally to think of turnip-ghosts. There is no fun about psycho-analysis. One yokel would say, “‘Ar,’ they do say dreams go by contraries.” And then the others would say, “Ar,” and they would all laugh in a deep internal fashion. But when Mr. J. D. Beresford says that Freud’s theory is among scientific theories the most attractive for novelists, “it was a theory of sex, the all but universal theme of the novel,” it is clear that our audience is slower and more solemn than the yokels. For nobody laughs at all. People seem to have lost the power of reacting to the humorous stimulus. When one milkmaid dreamed of a funeral, the other milkmaid said, “That means a wedding,” and then they would both giggle. But when Mr. J. D. Beresford says that the theory “adumbrated the suggestion of a freer morality, by dwelling upon the physical and spiritual necessity for the liberation of impulse,” the point seems somehow to be missed. Not a single giggle is heard in the deep and disappointing silence. It seems truly strange that when a modern and brilliant artist actually provides jokes far more truly humorous than the rude jests of the yokels and the milkmaids, the finer effort should meet with the feebler response. It is but an example of the unnatural solemnity, like an artificial vacuum, in which all these modern experiments are conducted. But no doubt if Freud had enjoyed the opportunity of explaining his ideas in an ancient ale-house, they would have met with more spontaneous applause.
I hope I do not seem unsympathetic with Mr. Beresford; for I not only admire his talent, but I am at this moment acting in strict obedience to his theories. I am—I say it proudly—acting as a disciple of Freud, who apparently forbids me to conceal any impulse, presumably including the impulse to laugh. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Beresford; but my first duty, of course, is to my own psychological inside. And goodness knows what damage might not be done to the most delicate workings of my own mental apparatus (as Mr. Arnold Bennett called it) if I were to subject it to the sudden and violent strain of not smiling at the scientific theory which is attractive because it is sexual, or of forcing my features into a frightful composure when I hear of the spiritual necessity for the liberation of impulse. I am not quite sure how far the liberation of impulse is to be carried out in practice by its exponents in theory; I do not know whether it is better to liberate the impulse to throw somebody else out of an express train in order to have the carriage to oneself all the way; or what may be the penalties for repressing the native instinct to shoot Mr. Lloyd George. But obviously the greater includes the less; and it would be very illogical if we were allowed to chuck out our fellow-traveller but not to chaff him; or if I were permitted to shoot at Mr. George but not to smile at Mr. Beresford. And though I am not so serious as he is, I assure him that in this I am quite as sincere as he is. In that sense I do seriously regret his seriousness; I do seriously think such seriousness a very serious evil. For some healthy human impulses are really the better for the relief by words and gestures, and one of them is the universal human sense that there is something comic about the relations of the sexes. The impulse to laugh at the mention of morality as “free” or of sex science as “attractive” is one of the impulses which is already gratified by most people who have never heard of psycho-analysis and is only mortified by people like the psycho-analysts.
Il signor J. D. Beresford in pratica si chiese se dovesse diventare psicoanalista o continuare a fare il romanziere. Si comprenderà agevolmente che non se lo pose proprio in questi termini; egli collocherebbe probabilmente la psicoanalisi più in alto, e molto verosimilmente la propria narrativa più in basso; giacché gli uomini di genio sono spesso innocenti a tal punto della propria genuina originalità. È questa una forma dell’inconscio con cui nessuno di noi vorrà litigare. Ma io non ho alcun desiderio di stare a guardare un uomo di genio che si annoda su sé stesso, e magari muore tra le spasmi, nel tentativo di essere conscio della propria incoscienza. Ho visto troppi sventurati scettici commettere così il suicidio per auto-contraddizione. Haeckel e i suoi Deterministi, ai tempi della mia giovinezza, ci tiranneggiavano tutti sull’urgente necessità di scegliere una filosofia che dimostrasse l’impossibilità di scegliere alcunché. Non v’è dubbio che la nuova psicologia in qualche modo ci metterà in grado di sapere quel che facciamo, riguardo a tutto ciò che facciamo senza saperlo. Queste cose vanno e vengono, e attraversano le loro fasi in ordine, dal tempo in cui sono sperimentali come il freudismo al tempo in cui sono screditate come il darwinismo. Ma non riuscirò mai a capire gli uomini che permettono a cose così visibilmente fugaci di nascondere cose che sono visibilmente permanenti, come la morale e la religione e (ciò che qui è in questione) l’arte delle lettere. Ars longa, scientia brevis.
Comunque sia, come s’è detto, la psicoanalisi dipende in pratica dall’interpretazione dei sogni. Non so se il far confessare a masse di persone, per lo più bambini, i loro sogni, condurrebbe a una grande produzione di letteratura; benché condurrebbe di certo, se conosco un poco la natura umana, a una gloriosa produzione di menzogne. C’è qualcosa di commovente nella disumana innocenza dello psicologo, il quale già parla dell’esattezza scientifica dei risultati raggiunti con quell’unico particolare genere di prova che non può in alcun modo concepibile essere verificato o messo alla prova in nessuna maniera. Ma, come dice giustamente il signor Beresford, l’idea generale di trovare segni nei sogni è antica quanto il mondo; ma perfino la teoria speciale al riguardo è più antica di quanto molti sembrino supporre. In verità, non è solo antica, ma ovvia; e non fu mai scoperta, perché fu sempre notata. Molto prima della moda odierna io stesso (che, il cielo lo sa, non sono affatto psicologo) ricordo di aver detto che, come c’è verità in tutte le tradizioni popolari, così c’è verità nel detto popolare secondo cui i sogni vanno per la regola dei contrari. Vale a dire, che un uomo di notte pensa spesso proprio alle cose a cui non pensa di giorno. Ma il detto popolare aveva in sé una certa virtù che non si trova mai nelle scienze anti-popolari dei nostri giorni. La superstizione popolare ha un enorme elemento di sanità mentale: non è mai seria. Noi parliamo di epoche come quella medievale come delle epoche della fede; ma sarebbe un omaggio altrettanto veritiero chiamarle le epoche del dubbio; di un sano dubbio, e perfino di una sana irrisione. C’era sempre qualcosa di più o meno consciamente grottesco in una vecchia storia di fantasmi. C’era il divertimento mescolato alla paura; e i villani sapevano troppo di rape per non pensare di tanto in tanto ai fantasmi-rapa. Non c’è nulla di divertente nella psicoanalisi. Un villano diceva: «Aah, dicono che i sogni vanno per i contrari». E allora gli altri dicevano «Aah», e ridevano tutti in una profonda maniera interiore. Ma quando il signor J. D. Beresford dice che la teoria di Freud è, tra le teorie scientifiche, la più attraente per i romanzieri, «era una teoria del sesso, il tema pressoché universale del romanzo», è chiaro che il nostro pubblico è più lento e più solenne dei villani. Perché nessuno ride affatto. La gente sembra aver perduto il potere di reagire allo stimolo comico. Quando una lattaia sognava un funerale, l’altra lattaia diceva: «Vuol dire nozze», e allora ridacchiavano entrambe. Ma quando il signor J. D. Beresford dice che la teoria «adombrava il suggerimento di una morale più libera, insistendo sulla necessità fisica e spirituale della liberazione dell’impulso», il punto pare in qualche modo sfuggire. Non una sola risatina si ode nel profondo e deludente silenzio. Sembra davvero strano che, quando un artista moderno e brillante fornisce effettivamente battute assai più veramente umoristiche dei rozzi scherzi dei villani e delle lattaie, lo sforzo più fine debba incontrare la risposta più fiacca. Non è che un esempio dell’innaturale solennità, simile a un vuoto artificiale, in cui tutti questi esperimenti moderni vengono condotti. Ma non v’è dubbio che, se Freud avesse goduto dell’occasione di spiegare le sue idee in un’antica osteria, esse avrebbero incontrato un applauso più spontaneo.
Spero di non sembrare privo di simpatia verso il signor Beresford; giacché non solo ne ammiro il talento, ma in questo preciso momento agisco in stretta obbedienza alle sue teorie. Io sto — lo dico con fierezza — agendo da discepolo di Freud, il quale a quanto pare mi vieta di celare qualsiasi impulso, presumibilmente compreso l’impulso a ridere. Non intendo mancare di rispetto al signor Beresford; ma il mio primo dovere, s’intende, è verso il mio interiore psicologico. E Dio solo sa quale danno potrebbe non venir arrecato ai più delicati meccanismi del mio proprio apparato mentale (come lo chiamava il signor Arnold Bennett) se dovessi sottoporlo allo sforzo improvviso e violento di non sorridere alla teoria scientifica che è attraente perché è sessuale, o di costringere i miei lineamenti in una spaventosa compostezza quando odo parlare della necessità spirituale della liberazione dell’impulso. Non sono del tutto certo di fino a che punto la liberazione dell’impulso debba essere posta in pratica dai suoi fautori in teoria; non so se sia meglio liberare l’impulso di gettare qualcun altro fuori da un treno espresso allo scopo di avere lo scompartimento tutto per sé per l’intero tragitto; o quali possano essere le pene per aver represso l’istinto naturale di sparare al signor Lloyd George. Ma ovviamente il più comprende il meno; e sarebbe assai illogico se ci fosse concesso di scaraventar fuori il nostro compagno di viaggio, ma non di canzonarlo; o se mi fosse permesso di sparare al signor George, ma non di sorridere al signor Beresford. E benché io non sia serio quanto lui, gli assicuro che in questo sono altrettanto sincero quanto lui. In tal senso io deploro seriamente la sua serietà; penso seriamente che una simile serietà sia un male molto serio. Poiché certi sani impulsi umani stanno davvero meglio se alleviati con parole e gesti, e uno di essi è l’universale senso umano che c’è qualcosa di comico nelle relazioni fra i sessi. L’impulso di ridere alla menzione della morale come «libera» o della scienza del sesso come «attraente» è uno di quegli impulsi che è già gratificato dalla maggior parte delle persone che non hanno mai sentito parlare di psicoanalisi, ed è mortificato soltanto da persone come gli psicoanalisti.
Mr. Beresford must therefore excuse me if, with a sincere desire to follow his serious argument seriously, I note at the beginning a certain normal element of comedy of which critics of his school seem to be rather unconscious. When he asks whether this theory of the Nemesis of suppression can serve the purposes of great literary work, it would seem natural at first to test it by the example of the greatest literary works. And, judged by this scientific test, it must be admitted that our literary classics would appear to fail. Lady Macbeth does not suffer as a sleep-walker because she has resisted the impulse to murder Duncan, but rather (by some curious trick of thought) because she has yielded to it. Hamlet’s uncle is in a morbid frame of mind, not, as one would naturally expect, because he had thwarted his own development by leaving his own brother alive and in possession; but actually because he has triumphantly liberated himself from the morbid impulse to pour poison in his brother’s ear. On the theory of psycho-analysis, as expounded, a man ought to be haunted by the ghosts of all the men he has not murdered. Even if they were limited to those he has felt a vague fancy for murdering, they might make a respectable crowd to follow at his heels. Yet Shakespeare certainly seems to represent Macbeth as haunted by Banquo, whom he removed at one blow from the light of the sun and from his own sub-consciousness. Hell ought to mean the regret for lost opportunities for crime; the insupportable thought of houses still standing unburned or unburgled, or of wealthy uncles still walking about alive with their projecting watch-chains. Yet Dante certainly seemed to represent it as concerned exclusively with things done and done with, and not as merely the morbidly congested imagination of a thief who had not thieved and a murderer who had not murdered. In short, it is only too apparent that the poets and sages of the past knew very little of psycho-analysis, and whether or no Mr. Beresford can achieve great literary effects with it, they managed to achieve their literary effects without it. This is but a preliminary point, and I touch the more serious problem in a few minutes, if the fashion has not changed before then. For the moment I only take the test of literary experience, and of how independent of such theories have been the real masterpieces of man. Men are still excited over the poetic parts of poets like Shakespeare and Dante; if they go to sleep it is over the scientific parts. It is over some system of the spheres which Dante thought the very latest astronomy or some argument about the humours of the body which Shakespeare thought the very latest physiology. I appeal to Mr. Beresford’s indestructible sense of humanity and his still undestroyed sense of humour. What would have become of the work of Dickens if it had been rewritten to illustrate the thesis of Darwin? What even of the work of Mr. Kipling if modified to meet the theories of Mr. Kidd? Believe me, the proportions are as I have said. Art is long, but science is fleeting; and Mr. Beresford’s sub-consciousness, though stout and brave, is in danger of being not so much a muffled drum as a drum which somebody silences for ever; by knocking a hole in it, only to find nothing inside.
But there is one incidental moral in the matter that seems to me topical and rather arresting. It concerns the idea of punishment.
The psycho-analysts continue to buzz in a mysterious manner round the problem of Hamlet. They are especially interested in the things of which Hamlet was unconscious, not to mention the things of which Shakespeare was unconscious. It is in vain for old-fashioned rationalists like myself to point out that this is like dissecting the brain of Puck or revealing the real private life of Punch and Judy. The discussion no longer revolves round whether Hamlet is mad, but whether everybody is mad, especially the experts investigating the madness. And the curious thing about this process is that even when the critics are really subtle enough to see subtle things, they are never simple enough to see self-evident things. A really fine critic is reported as arguing that in Hamlet the consciousness willed one thing and the sub-consciousness another. Apparently the conscious Hamlet had unreservedly embraced and even welcomed the obligation of vengeance, but the shock (we are told) had rendered the whole subject painful, and started a strange and secret aversion to the scheme. It did not seem to occur to the writers that there might possibly be something slightly painful, at the best, in cutting the throat of your own uncle and the husband of your own mother. There might certainly be an aversion from the act; but I do not quite see why it should be an unconscious aversion. It seems just possible that a man might be quite conscious of not liking such a job. Where he differed from the modern morality was that he believed in the possibility of disliking it and yet doing it.
But to follow the argument of these critics, one would think that murdering the head of one’s family was a sort of family festivity or family joke; a gay and innocent indulgence into which the young prince would naturally have thrown himself with thoughtless exuberance, were it not for the dark and secretive thoughts that had given him an unaccountable distaste for it. Suppose it were borne in upon one of these modern middle-class critics, of my own rank and routine of life (possibly through his confidence in the messages at a Spiritualist séance) that it was his business to go home to Brompton or Surbiton and stick the carving-knife into Uncle William, who had poisoned somebody and was beyond the reach of the law. It is possible that the critic’s first thought would be that it was a happy way of spending a half-holiday; and that only in the critic’s sub-consciousness the suspicion would stir that there was something unhappy about the whole business. But it seems also possible that the regret might not be confined to his sub-consciousness, but might swim almost to the surface of his consciousness. In plain words, this sort of criticism has lost the last rags of common sense. Hamlet requires no such sub-conscious explanation, for he explains himself, and was perhaps rather too fond of doing so. He was a man to whom duty had come in a very dreadful and repulsive form, and to a man not fitted for that form of duty. There was a conflict, but he was conscious of it from beginning to end. He was not an unconscious person; but a far too conscious one.
Il signor Beresford dovrà dunque scusarmi se, con un sincero desiderio di seguire seriamente il suo serio argomento, noto fin dall’inizio un certo normale elemento di commedia di cui i critici della sua scuola sembrano piuttosto inconsapevoli. Quando egli chiede se questa teoria della Nemesi della repressione possa servire agli scopi di una grande opera letteraria, parrebbe naturale a prima vista metterla alla prova con l’esempio delle più grandi opere letterarie. E, giudicati con questa prova scientifica, si deve ammettere che i nostri classici della letteratura apparirebbero fallire. Lady Macbeth non soffre da sonnambula perché ha resistito all’impulso di assassinare Duncan, ma piuttosto (per qualche curioso gioco del pensiero) perché vi ha ceduto. Lo zio di Amleto è in uno stato d’animo morboso non, come ci si aspetterebbe naturalmente, perché ha ostacolato il proprio sviluppo lasciando in vita e in possesso il proprio fratello; ma in realtà perché si è trionfalmente liberato dall’impulso morboso di versare veleno nell’orecchio del fratello. Secondo la teoria della psicoanalisi, così come viene esposta, un uomo dovrebbe essere perseguitato dai fantasmi di tutti gli uomini che non ha assassinato. Anche se questi fossero limitati a quelli per cui ha provato una vaga voglia di assassinarli, potrebbero formare una folla rispettabile che gli si accalca alle calcagna. Eppure Shakespeare pare certamente rappresentare Macbeth come perseguitato da Banquo, che egli tolse d’un colpo solo dalla luce del sole e dalla propria sub-coscienza. L’inferno dovrebbe significare il rimpianto per le occasioni perdute di delinquere; l’insopportabile pensiero delle case ancora in piedi, non arse né svaligiate, o di ricchi zii ancora in giro vivi con le loro sporgenti catene dell’orologio. Eppure Dante pareva certamente rappresentarlo come concernente esclusivamente cose fatte e finite, e non come la immaginazione morbosamente congestionata di un ladro che non aveva rubato e di un assassino che non aveva assassinato. In breve, è fin troppo evidente che i poeti e i saggi del passato sapevano assai poco di psicoanalisi, e, che il signor Beresford possa o meno conseguire con essa grandi effetti letterari, essi riuscirono a conseguire i loro effetti letterari senza di essa. Questo non è che un punto preliminare, e affronto il problema più serio fra pochi minuti, se la moda non sarà cambiata prima di allora. Per il momento prendo soltanto la prova dell’esperienza letteraria, e di quanto indipendenti da simili teorie siano stati i veri capolavori dell’uomo. Gli uomini si esaltano ancora sulle parti poetiche di poeti come Shakespeare e Dante; se prendono sonno, è sulle parti scientifiche. È su qualche sistema delle sfere che Dante riteneva l’astronomia più recente, o su qualche argomento circa gli umori del corpo che Shakespeare riteneva la fisiologia più recente. Mi appello all’indistruttibile senso di umanità del signor Beresford e al suo ancora non distrutto senso dell’umorismo. Che ne sarebbe stato dell’opera di Dickens se fosse stata riscritta per illustrare la tesi di Darwin? E persino dell’opera del signor Kipling se modificata per venire incontro alle teorie del signor Kidd? Credetemi, le proporzioni sono quali le ho dette. L’arte è lunga, ma la scienza è fugace; e la sub-coscienza del signor Beresford, per quanto robusta e prode, corre il rischio di essere non tanto un tamburo attutito quanto un tamburo che qualcuno mette a tacere per sempre, bucandolo, solo per scoprire che dentro non c’è nulla.
Ma c’è un’incidentale morale nella faccenda che mi pare attuale e piuttosto sorprendente. Riguarda l’idea della punizione.
Gli psicoanalisti continuano a ronzare in maniera misteriosa attorno al problema di Amleto. Sono particolarmente interessati alle cose di cui Amleto era inconsapevole, per non parlare delle cose di cui era inconsapevole Shakespeare. È vano per razionalisti all’antica come me far notare che questo è come dissezionare il cervello di Puck o rivelare la vera vita privata di Pulcinella e sua moglie. La discussione non ruota più intorno alla questione se Amleto sia pazzo, ma se lo siano tutti, specialmente gli esperti che indagano la pazzia. E la cosa curiosa di questo processo è che, anche quando i critici sono davvero sottili abbastanza da vedere cose sottili, non sono mai semplici abbastanza da vedere cose auto-evidenti. Si riferisce che un critico davvero fine sostenne che in Amleto la coscienza voleva una cosa e la sub-coscienza un’altra. A quanto pare l’Amleto cosciente aveva senza riserve abbracciato e persino accolto con favore l’obbligo della vendetta, ma lo shock (ci vien detto) aveva reso penoso l’intero soggetto, e aveva dato origine a una strana e segreta avversione per il piano. Non parve venire in mente agli scrittori che potesse esserci forse qualcosa di lievemente penoso, nel migliore dei casi, nel tagliare la gola al proprio zio nonché marito della propria madre. Poteva certamente esserci un’avversione per l’atto; ma non vedo bene perché dovesse essere un’avversione inconscia. Sembra appena possibile che un uomo possa essere del tutto conscio di non gradire un simile compito. In ciò egli si distingueva dalla morale moderna: credeva nella possibilità di non gradirlo e tuttavia farlo.
Ma, a seguire l’argomento di questi critici, si penserebbe che assassinare il capo della propria famiglia fosse una sorta di festa di famiglia o di scherzo familiare; un gaio e innocente sollazzo nel quale il giovane principe si sarebbe naturalmente gettato con sconsiderata esuberanza, se non fosse stato per i pensieri oscuri e riservati che gli avevano dato un’inspiegabile ripugnanza per esso. Si supponga che a uno di questi moderni critici della classe media, del mio stesso rango e della mia stessa routine di vita (magari attraverso la sua fiducia nei messaggi di una seduta spiritica), venisse fatto capire che era suo compito andare a casa a Brompton o a Surbiton e piantare il coltello da trinciare nello zio William, che aveva avvelenato qualcuno ed era fuori dalla portata della legge. È possibile che il primo pensiero del critico sarebbe che si trattava di un felice modo di trascorrere un mezzo giorno di vacanza; e che solo nella sub-coscienza del critico si agiterebbe il sospetto che ci fosse qualcosa di infelice nell’intera faccenda. Ma sembra anche possibile che il rammarico possa non restare confinato alla sua sub-coscienza, ma possa affiorare quasi alla superficie della sua coscienza. In parole povere, questo genere di critica ha perduto gli ultimi brandelli di buon senso. Amleto non richiede alcuna simile spiegazione sub-conscia, perché egli spiega sé stesso, e forse era anche troppo incline a farlo. Era un uomo al quale il dovere era giunto in una forma assai spaventosa e ripugnante, e un uomo non adatto a quella forma di dovere. C’era un conflitto, ma egli ne fu conscio dal principio alla fine. Non era una persona inconscia; ma una fin troppo conscia.
Strangely enough, this theory of sub-conscious repulsion in the dramatic character is itself an example of sub-conscious repulsion in the modern critic. It is the critic who has a sort of subliminal prejudice which makes him avoid something, that seems very simple to others. The thing which he secretly and obscurely avoids, from the start, is the very simple fact of the morality in which Shakespeare did believe, as distinct from all the crude psychology in which he almost certainly did not believe. Shakespeare certainly did believe in the struggle between duty and inclination. The critic instinctively avoids the admission that Hamlet’s was a struggle between duty and inclination; and tries to substitute a struggle between consciousness and sub-consciousness. He gives Hamlet a complex to avoid giving him a conscience. But he is actually forced to talk as if it was a man’s natural inclination to kill an uncle, because he does not want to admit that it might be his duty to kill him. He is really driven to talking as if some dark and secretive monomania alone prevented us all from killing our uncles. He is driven to this because he will not even take seriously the simple and, if you will, primitive morality upon which the tragedy is built. For that morality involves three moral propositions, from which the whole of the morbid modern sub-consciousness does really recoil as from an ugly jar of pain. These principles are: first, that it may be our main business to do the right thing, even when we detest doing it; second, that the right thing may involve punishing some person, especially some powerful person; third, that the just process of punishment may take the form of fighting and killing. The modern critic is prejudiced against the first principle and calls it asceticism; he is prejudiced against the second principle and calls it vindictiveness; he is prejudiced against the third and generally calls it militarism. That it actually might be the duty of a young man to risk his own life, much against his own inclination, by drawing a sword and killing a tyrant, that is an idea instinctively avoided by this particular mood of modern times. That is why tyrants have such a good time in modern times. And in order to avoid this plain and obvious meaning, of war as a duty and peace as a temptation, the critic has to turn the whole play upside down, and seek its meaning in modern notions so remote as to be in this connexion meaningless. He has to make William Shakespeare of Stratford one of the pupils of Professor Freud. He has to make him a champion of psycho-analysis, which is like making him a champion of vaccination. He has to fit Hamlet’s soul somehow into the classifications of Freud and Jung; which is just as if he had to fit Hamlet’s father into the classifications of Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He has to interpret the whole thing by a new morality that Shakespeare had never heard of, because he has an intense internal dislike of the old morality that Shakespeare could not help hearing of. And that morality, which some of us believe to be based on a much more realistic psychology, is that punishment as punishment is a perfectly healthy process, not merely because it is reform, but also because it is expiation. What the modern world means by proposing to substitute pity for punishment is really very simple. It is that the modern world dare not punish those who are punishable, but only those who are pitiable. It would never touch anyone so important as King Claudius—or Kaiser William.
Now this truth is highly topical just now. The point about Hamlet was that he wavered, very excusably, in something that had to be done; and this is the point quite apart from whether we ourselves would have done it. That was pointed out long ago by Browning in “The Statue and the Bust.” He argued that even if the motive for acting was bad, the motive for not acting was worse. And an action or inaction is judged by its real motive, not by whether somebody else might have done the same thing from a better motive. Whether or no the tyrannicide of Hamlet was a duty, it was accepted as a duty and it was shirked as a duty. And that is precisely true of a tyrannicide like that for which everybody clamoured at the conclusion of the Great War. It may have been right or wrong to punish the Kaiser; it was certainly no more right to punish the German generals and admirals for their atrocities. But even if it was wrong, it was not abandoned because it was wrong. It was abandoned because it was troublesome. It was abandoned for all those motives—weakness and mutability of mood which we associate with the name of Hamlet. It might be glory or ignominy to shed the blood of imperial enemies, but it is certainly ignominy to shout for what you dare not shed; “to fall a-cursing like a common drab, a scullion.” Granted that we had no better motives than we had then or have now, it would certainly have been more dignified if we had fatted all the region-kites with this slave’s offal. The motive is the only moral test. A saint might provide us with a higher motive for forgiving the War-Lords who butchered Fryatt and Edith Cavell. But we have not forgiven the War-Lords. We have simply forgotten the War. We have not pardoned like Christ; we have only procrastinated like Hamlet. Our highest motive has been laziness; our commonest motive has been money. In this respect indeed I must apologize to the charming and chivalrous Prince of Denmark for comparing him, even on a single point, with the princes of finance and the professional politicians of our time. At least Hamlet did not spare Claudius solely because he hoped to get money out of him for the salaries of the Players, or meant to do a deal with him about wine supplied to Elsinore or debts contracted at Wittenburg. Still less was Hamlet acting entirely in the interests of Shylock, an inhabitant of the distant city of Venice. Doubtless Hamlet was sent to England in order that he might develop further these higher motives for peace and pardon. “‘Twill not be noticed in him there; there the men are as mad as he.”
Stranamente, questa teoria della repulsione sub-conscia nel personaggio drammatico è essa stessa un esempio di repulsione sub-conscia nel critico moderno. È il critico ad avere una sorta di pregiudizio subliminale che gli fa evitare qualcosa che ad altri appare molto semplice. La cosa che egli segretamente e oscuramente evita, fin dal principio, è il fatto assai semplice della morale in cui Shakespeare credeva davvero, distinta da tutta la rozza psicologia in cui egli quasi certamente non credeva. Shakespeare credeva certamente nella lotta tra dovere e inclinazione. Il critico istintivamente evita l’ammissione che quella di Amleto fosse una lotta tra dovere e inclinazione; e cerca di sostituirvi una lotta tra coscienza e sub-coscienza. Egli dà ad Amleto un complesso pur di non dargli una coscienza morale. Ma è di fatto costretto a parlare come se fosse la naturale inclinazione di un uomo uccidere uno zio, perché non vuole ammettere che potrebbe essere suo dovere ucciderlo. È spinto davvero a parlare come se soltanto una qualche oscura e riservata monomania ci impedisse tutti, da soli, di uccidere i nostri zii. È spinto a questo perché non vuole nemmeno prendere sul serio la semplice e, se volete, primitiva morale su cui è costruita la tragedia. Poiché quella morale implica tre proposizioni morali, dalle quali tutta la morbosa sub-coscienza moderna davvero rifugge come da un brutto urto di dolore. Questi princìpi sono: primo, che possa essere il nostro principale compito fare la cosa giusta, anche quando detestiamo farla; secondo, che la cosa giusta possa comportare il punire qualcuno, specialmente qualche persona potente; terzo, che il giusto processo della punizione possa assumere la forma del combattere e dell’uccidere. Il critico moderno è prevenuto contro il primo principio e lo chiama ascetismo; è prevenuto contro il secondo principio e lo chiama vendicatività; è prevenuto contro il terzo e generalmente lo chiama militarismo. Che possa essere davvero il dovere di un giovane rischiare la propria vita, assai contro la propria inclinazione, sguainando una spada e uccidendo un tiranno: questa è un’idea istintivamente evitata da questo particolare stato d’animo dei tempi moderni. Ecco perché i tiranni godono di un così bel tempo ai tempi moderni. E allo scopo di evitare questo semplice e ovvio significato, della guerra come dovere e della pace come tentazione, il critico deve capovolgere l’intera opera, e cercarne il senso in nozioni moderne così remote da essere, in questo nesso, prive di senso. Deve fare di William Shakespeare di Stratford uno degli allievi del professor Freud. Deve farne un campione della psicoanalisi, il che è come farne un campione della vaccinazione. Deve incastrare in qualche modo l’anima di Amleto nelle classificazioni di Freud e di Jung; proprio come se dovesse incastrare il padre di Amleto nelle classificazioni di Sir Oliver Lodge e di Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Deve interpretare l’intera faccenda con una nuova morale di cui Shakespeare non aveva mai sentito parlare, perché nutre un intenso interiore disgusto per la vecchia morale di cui Shakespeare non poté fare a meno di sentir parlare. E quella morale, che alcuni di noi ritengono fondata su una psicologia assai più realistica, è che la punizione in quanto punizione è un processo perfettamente sano, non solo perché è emenda, ma anche perché è espiazione. Ciò che il mondo moderno intende col proporre di sostituire la pietà alla punizione è in realtà assai semplice. È che il mondo moderno non osa punire coloro che sono punibili, ma soltanto coloro che sono compassionevoli. Non toccherebbe mai qualcuno d’importante come re Claudius — o il Kaiser Guglielmo.
Ora questa verità è quanto mai attuale proprio adesso. Il punto su Amleto era che egli vacillò, in modo assai scusabile, in qualcosa che doveva essere fatto; e questo è il punto, del tutto a prescindere dal fatto che noi stessi l’avremmo fatto o meno. Ciò fu messo in luce molto tempo fa da Browning in «The Statue and the Bust». Egli argomentò che, anche se il movente per agire era cattivo, il movente per non agire era peggiore. E un’azione o un’inazione si giudica dal suo vero movente, non dal fatto che qualcun altro possa aver fatto la stessa cosa per un movente migliore. Che il tirannicidio di Amleto fosse o meno un dovere, esso fu accettato come un dovere e fu schivato come un dovere. E questo è precisamente vero di un tirannicidio come quello che tutti reclamavano a gran voce alla conclusione della Grande Guerra. Poteva essere giusto o sbagliato punire il Kaiser; non era certo più giusto punire i generali e gli ammiragli tedeschi per le loro atrocità. Ma anche se fu sbagliato, non fu abbandonato perché sbagliato. Fu abbandonato perché era seccante. Fu abbandonato per tutti quei moventi — debolezza e mutevolezza d’umore che associamo al nome di Amleto. Poteva essere gloria o ignominia versare il sangue dei nemici imperiali, ma è certamente ignominia gridare per ciò che non si osa versare; «mettersi a imprecare come una volgare sgualdrina, uno sguattero». Ammesso pure che non avessimo moventi migliori di quanti ne avessimo allora o ne abbiamo ora, sarebbe certamente stato più dignitoso se avessimo ingozzato tutti i nibbi della regione con queste frattaglie di schiavo. Il movente è l’unico criterio morale. Un santo potrebbe fornirci un movente più alto per perdonare i Signori della Guerra che macellarono Fryatt ed Edith Cavell. Ma noi non abbiamo perdonato i Signori della Guerra. Abbiamo semplicemente dimenticato la Guerra. Non abbiamo perdonato come Cristo; abbiamo soltanto procrastinato come Amleto. Il nostro movente più alto è stato la pigrizia; il nostro movente più comune è stato il denaro. A questo riguardo, in verità, devo chiedere scusa all’affascinante e cavalleresco Principe di Danimarca per averlo paragonato, anche solo su un unico punto, ai principi della finanza e ai politici di professione del nostro tempo. Perlomeno Amleto non risparmiò Claudio unicamente perché sperava di cavargli del denaro per gli stipendi dei Commedianti, o intendeva concludere con lui un affare sul vino fornito a Elsinore o sui debiti contratti a Wittenberg. Ancor meno Amleto agiva interamente nell’interesse di Shylock, abitante della lontana città di Venezia. Senza dubbio Amleto fu mandato in Inghilterra affinché potesse sviluppare ulteriormente questi più alti moventi di pace e di perdono. «Là non lo si noterà in lui; là gli uomini sono pazzi quanto lui».
It is therefore very natural that men should be trying to dissolve the moral problem of Hamlet into the unmoral elements of consciousness and unconsciousness. The sort of duty that Hamlet shirked is exactly the sort of duty that we are all shirking; that of dethroning justice and vindicating truth. Many are now in a mood to deny that it is a duty because it is a danger. This applies, of course, not only to international but internal and especially industrial matters. Capitalism was allowed to grow into a towering tyranny in England because the English were always putting off their popular revolution, just as the Prince of Denmark put off his palace revolution. They lectured the French about their love of bloody revolutions, exactly as they are now lecturing the French about their love of bloody wars. But the patience which suffered England to be turned into a plutocracy was not the patience of the saints; it was that patience which paralyzed the noble prince of the tragedy; accidia and the great refusal. In any case, the vital point is that by refusing to punish the powerful we soon lost the very idea of punishment; and turned our police into a mere persecution of the poor.
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THE MEANING OF MOCK TURKEY
HAVING lately taken part in a pageant of Nursery Rhymes, in the character of Old King Cole, I meditated not so much on the glorious past of the great kingdom of Colchester, as on the more doubtful future of Nursery Rhymes. The Modern Movements cannot produce a nursery rhyme; it is one of the many such things they cannot even be conceived as doing. But if they cannot create the nursery rhyme, will they destroy it? The new poets have already abolished rhyme; and presumably the new educationalists will soon abolish nurseries. Or if they do not destroy, will they reform; which is worse? Nursery rhymes are a positive network of notions and allusions of which the enlightened disapprove. To take only my own allotted rhyme as an example, some might think the very mention of a king a piece of reactionary royalism, inconsistent with that democratic self-determination we all enjoy under some five Controllers and a committee of the Cabinet. Perhaps in the amended version he will be called President Cole. Probably he will be confused with Mr. G. D. H. Cole, the first President of the Guild Socialistic Republic. With the greatest admiration for Mr. Cole, I cannot quite picture him as so festive a figure; and I incline to think that the same influences will probably eliminate the festivity. It is said that America, having already abolished the bowl, is now attempting to abolish the pipe. After that it might very reasonably go on to abolish the fiddlers; for music can be far more maddening than wine. Tolstoy, the only consistent prophet of the Simple Life, did really go on to denounce music as a mere drug. Anyhow, it is quite intolerable that the innocent minds of children should be poisoned with the idea of anybody calling for his pipe and his bowl. There will have to be some other version, such as: “He called for his milk and he called for his lozenge,” or whatever form of bodily pleasure is still permitted to mankind. This particular verse will evidently have to be altered a great deal; it is founded on so antiquated a philosophy, that I fear even the alteration will not be easy or complete. I am not sure, for instance, that there is not a memory of animism and spiritism in the very word “soul,” used in calling the monarch a merry old soul. It would seem that some other simple phrase, such as “a merry old organism,” might be used with advantage. Indeed it would save more advantages than one; for if the reader will say the amended line in a flowing and lyrical manner, he cannot but observe that the experiment has burst the fetters of formal metre, and achieved one of these larger and lovelier melodies that we associate with vers libre.
It is needless to note the numberless other examples of nursery rhymes to which the same criticism applies. Some of the other cases are even more shocking to the true scientific spirit. For instance, in the typically old-world rhyme of “Girls and boys come out to play,” there appear the truly appalling words: “Leave your supper and leave your sleep.” As the great medical reformer of our day observed, in a striking and immortal phrase, “All Eugenists are agreed upon the importance of sleep.” The case of supper may be more complex and controversial. If the supper were a really hygienic and wholesome supper, it might not be so difficult to leave it. But it is obvious that the whole vision which the rhyme calls up is utterly incompatible with a wise educational supervision. It is a wild vision of children playing in the streets by moonlight, for all the world as if they were fairies. Moonlight, like music, is credited with a power of upsetting the reason; and it is at least obvious that the indulgence is both unseasonable and unreasonable. No scientific reformer desires hasty and destructive action; for his reform is founded on that evolution which has produced the anthropoid from the amoeba, a process which none have ever stigmatized as hasty. But when the eugenist recalls the reckless and romantic love affairs encouraged by such moonlight, he will have to consider seriously the problem of abolishing the moon.
But indeed I have much more sympathy with the simplicity of the baby who cries for the moon than with the sort of simplicity that dismisses the moon as all moonshine. And indeed I think that these two antagonistic types of simplicity are perhaps the pivotal terms of the present transition. It is a new thing called the Simple Life against an older thing which may be called the Simple Soul; possibly exemplified, so far as nursery rhymes are concerned, by the incident of Simple Simon. I prefer the old Simple Simon, who, though ignorant of the economic theory of exchange, had at least a positive and poetic enthusiasm for pies. I think him far wiser than the new Simple Simon, who simplifies his existence by means of a perverse and pedantic antipathy to pies. It is unnecessary to add that this philosophy of pies is applicable with peculiar force to mince-pies; and thus to the whole of the Christmas tradition which descended from the first carols to the imaginative world of Dickens. The morality of that tradition is much too simple and obvious to be understood to-day. Awful as it may seem to many modern people, it means no less than that Simple Simon should have his pies, even in the absence of his pennies.
È dunque molto naturale che gli uomini stiano cercando di dissolvere il problema morale di Amleto negli elementi amorali della coscienza e dell’incoscienza. Il genere di dovere che Amleto schivò è esattamente il genere di dovere che tutti noi stiamo schivando: quello di detronizzare la giustizia e rivendicare la verità. Molti sono ora in uno stato d’animo tale da negare che sia un dovere perché è un pericolo. Questo si applica, s’intende, non solo alle faccende internazionali, ma a quelle interne e specialmente industriali. Al capitalismo fu concesso di crescere fino a diventare una torreggiante tirannide in Inghilterra perché gli inglesi rimandavano sempre la loro rivoluzione popolare, proprio come il Principe di Danimarca rimandava la sua rivoluzione di palazzo. Facevano la predica ai francesi sul loro amore per le sanguinose rivoluzioni, esattamente come ora fanno la predica ai francesi sul loro amore per le sanguinose guerre. Ma la pazienza che permise che l’Inghilterra fosse trasformata in una plutocrazia non era la pazienza dei santi; era quella pazienza che paralizzò il nobile principe della tragedia; accidia e il gran rifiuto. In ogni caso, il punto vitale è che, rifiutando di punire i potenti, presto perdemmo l’idea stessa della punizione; e mutammo la nostra polizia in una mera persecuzione dei poveri.
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IL SIGNIFICATO DEL FINTO TACCHINO
AVENDO da poco preso parte a una rappresentazione di Filastrocche, nella parte del vecchio Re Cole, meditai non tanto sul glorioso passato del gran regno di Colchester, quanto sul più dubbio avvenire delle Filastrocche. I Movimenti Moderni non sanno produrre una filastrocca; è una delle molte cose che non li si può nemmeno concepire nell’atto di fare. Ma se non sanno creare la filastrocca, la distruggeranno? I nuovi poeti hanno già abolito la rima; e presumibilmente i nuovi pedagogisti aboliranno presto le stanze dei bambini. Oppure, se non distruggeranno, riformeranno; il che è peggio? Le filastrocche sono una vera e propria rete di nozioni e allusioni che gli illuminati disapprovano. Per prendere a esempio solo la filastrocca che mi toccò in sorte, alcuni potrebbero ritenere la sola menzione di un re un pezzo di realismo reazionario, incoerente con quell’auto-determinazione democratica di cui tutti godiamo sotto qualche cinque Controllori e un comitato del Gabinetto. Forse nella versione emendata egli sarà chiamato Presidente Cole. Probabilmente lo si confonderà con il signor G. D. H. Cole, primo Presidente della Repubblica Socialista Corporativa. Con la più grande ammirazione per il signor Cole, non riesco proprio a immaginarmelo come figura così festosa; e sono incline a pensare che le medesime influenze probabilmente elimineranno la festosità. Si dice che l’America, avendo già abolito la coppa, stia ora tentando di abolire la pipa. Dopo di che potrebbe assai ragionevolmente proseguire abolendo i violinisti; giacché la musica può far impazzire assai più del vino. Tolstoj, l’unico coerente profeta della Vita Semplice, giunse davvero a denunciare la musica come una mera droga. Comunque sia, è del tutto intollerabile che le innocenti menti dei bambini vengano avvelenate con l’idea di qualcuno che chiede la sua pipa e la sua coppa. Ci dovrà essere qualche altra versione, tipo: «Chiese il suo latte e chiese la sua pastiglia», o qualunque forma di piacere corporeo sia ancora concessa al genere umano. Questa particolare strofa dovrà evidentemente essere alterata parecchio; è fondata su una filosofia così antiquata che temo che perfino l’alterazione non sarà facile né completa. Non sono sicuro, per esempio, che non ci sia un ricordo di animismo e di spiritismo nella parola stessa «anima», usata nel chiamare il monarca una vecchia anima allegra. Parrebbe che qualche altra semplice espressione, come «un vecchio organismo allegro», potrebbe essere usata con vantaggio. Anzi, essa salverebbe più di un vantaggio; giacché, se il lettore vorrà dire la riga emendata in maniera fluente e lirica, non potrà non osservare che l’esperimento ha infranto i ceppi del metro formale, e ha conseguito una di quelle melodie più ampie e più leggiadre che associamo al vers libre.
È inutile annotare i numerosi altri esempi di filastrocche a cui si applica la stessa critica. Alcuni degli altri casi sono perfino più scandalosi per il vero spirito scientifico. Per esempio, nella tipicamente vecchia filastrocca di «Ragazze e ragazzi venite fuori a giocare», compaiono le parole davvero spaventose: «Lasciate la vostra cena e lasciate il vostro sonno». Come osservò il grande riformatore medico dei nostri giorni, in una frase suggestiva e immortale: «Tutti gli Eugenisti sono concordi sull’importanza del sonno». Il caso della cena può essere più complesso e controverso. Se la cena fosse una cena davvero igienica e salubre, potrebbe non essere così difficile lasciarla. Ma è ovvio che l’intera visione che la filastrocca evoca è del tutto incompatibile con una saggia supervisione educativa. È una selvaggia visione di bambini che giocano nelle strade al chiaro di luna, per tutto il mondo come se fossero fate. Al chiaro di luna, come alla musica, si attribuisce un potere di sconvolgere la ragione; ed è quantomeno ovvio che l’indulgenza è sia inopportuna sia irragionevole. Nessun riformatore scientifico desidera un’azione precipitosa e distruttiva; giacché la sua riforma è fondata su quell’evoluzione che ha prodotto l’antropoide dall’ameba, un processo che nessuno ha mai bollato come precipitoso. Ma quando l’eugenista rammenta gli sconsiderati e romantici amori incoraggiati da un simile chiaro di luna, dovrà considerare seriamente il problema di abolire la luna.
Ma in verità io ho molta più simpatia per la semplicità del bimbo che piange per la luna che per il genere di semplicità che liquida la luna come pura luce di luna. E in verità penso che questi due antagonistici tipi di semplicità siano forse i termini cardine della presente transizione. È una cosa nuova chiamata Vita Semplice contro una cosa più antica che potrebbe essere chiamata l’Anima Semplice; esemplificata forse, per quanto concerne le filastrocche, dall’episodio del Semplice Simone. Io preferisco il vecchio Semplice Simone, il quale, benché ignaro della teoria economica dello scambio, aveva perlomeno un positivo e poetico entusiasmo per le torte. Lo ritengo assai più saggio del nuovo Semplice Simone, che semplifica la propria esistenza per mezzo di una perversa e pedante antipatia per le torte. È superfluo aggiungere che questa filosofia delle torte è applicabile con particolare forza alle torte di frutta secca; e quindi all’intera tradizione natalizia che discese dai primi canti al mondo immaginativo di Dickens. La morale di quella tradizione è troppo semplice e ovvia per essere compresa oggigiorno. Per quanto tremendo possa sembrare a molti moderni, essa significa niente meno che questo: che il Semplice Simone dovrebbe avere le sue torte, anche in assenza dei suoi soldi.
But the philosophy of the two Simple Simons is plain enough. The former is an expansion of simplicity towards complexity; Simon, conscious that he cannot himself make pies, approaches them with an ardour not unmixed with awe. But the latter is a reaction of complexity towards simplicity; in other words the other Simon refuses pies for various reasons, often including the fact that he has eaten too many of them. Most of the Simple Life as we see it to-day is, of course, a thing having this character of the surfeit or satiety of Simon, when he has become less simple and certainly less greedy. This reaction may take two diverse forms; it may send Simon searching for more and more expensive and extravagant confectionery, or it may reduce him to nibbling at some new kind of nut biscuit. For it may be noted, in passing, that it probably will not reduce him to eating dry bread. The Simple Life never accepts anything that is simple in the sense of self-evident and familiar. The thing must be uncommonly simple; it must not be simply common. Its philosophy must be something higher than the ordinary breakfast table, and something drier than dry bread. The usual process, as I have observed it in vegetarian and other summaries, seems in one sense indeed to be simple enough. The pie-man produces what looks like the same sort of pie, or is supposed to look like it; only it has thinner crust outside and nothing at all inside. Then instead of asking Simple Simon for a penny he asks him for a pound, or possibly a guinea or a five-pound note. And what is strangest of all, the customer is often so singularly Simple a Simon that he pays for it. For that is perhaps the final and most marked difference between Simon of the Simple Spirit and Simon of the Simple Life. It is the fact that the ardent and appreciative Simon was not in possession of a penny. The more refined and exalted Simon is generally in possession of far too many pennies. He is often very rich and needs to be; for the drier and thinner and emptier are the pies, the more he is charged for them. But this alone will reveal another side of the same paradox; and if it be possible to spend a lot of money on the Simple Life, it is also possible to make a great deal of money out of it. There are several self-advertisers doing very well out of the new self-denial. But wealth is always at one end of it or the other; and that is the great difference between the two Simons. Perhaps it is the difference between Simon Peter and Simon Magus.
I have before me a little pamphlet in which the most precise directions are given for a Mock Turkey, for a vegetarian mince-pie, and for a cautious and hygienic Christmas pudding. I have never quite understood why it should be a part of the Simple Life to have anything so deceptive and almost conspiratorial as an imitation turkey. The coarse and comic alderman may be expected, in his festive ribaldry, to mock a turtle; but surely a lean and earnest humanitarian ought not to mock a turkey. Nor do I understand the theory of the imitation in its relation to the ideal. Surely one who thinks meat eating mere cannibalism ought not to arrange vegetables so as to look like an animal. It is as if a converted cannibal in the Sandwich Islands were to arrange joints of meat in the shape of a missionary. The missionaries would surely regard the proceedings of their convert with something less than approval, and perhaps with something akin to alarm. But the consistency of these concessions I will leave on one side, because I am not here concerned with the concessions but with the creed itself. And I am concerned with the creed not merely as affecting its practice in diet or cookery but its general theory. For the compilers of the little book before me are great on philosophy and ethics. There are whole pages about brotherhood and fellowship and happiness and healing. In short, as the writer observes, we have “also some Mental Helps, as set forth in the flood of Psychology Literature to-day—but raised to a higher plane.” It may be a little risky to set a thing forth in a flood, or a little difficult to raise a flood to a higher plane; but there is behind these rather vague expressions a very real modern intelligence and point of view, common to considerable numbers of cultivated people, and well worthy of some further study.
Under the title of “How to Think” there are twenty-four rules of which the first few are: “Empty Your Mind,” “Think of the Best Things,” “Appreciate,” “Analyze,” “Prepare Physically,” “Prepare Mentally,” and so on. I have met some earnest students of this school, who had apparently entered on this course, but at the time of our meeting had only graduated so far as the fulfilment of the first rule. It was more obvious, on the whole, that they had succeeded in the preliminary process of emptying the mind than that they had as yet thought of the best things, or analyzed or appreciated anything in particular. But there were others, I willingly admit, who had really thought of certain things in a genuinely thoughtful fashion, though whether they were really the best things might involve a difference of opinion between us. Still, so far as they are concerned, it is a school of thought, and therefore worth thinking about. Having been able to this extent to appreciate, I will now attempt to analyze. I have attempted to discover in my own mind where the difference between us really lies, apart from all these superficial jests and journalistic points; to ask myself why it is exactly that their ideal vegetarian differs so much from my ideal Christian. And the result of the concentrated contemplation of their ideal is, I confess, a somewhat impatient forward plunge in the progress of their initiation. I am strongly disposed to “Prepare Physically” for a conflict with the ideal vegetarian, with the only hope of hitting him on the nose. In one of Mr. P. G. Wodehouse’s stories the vegetarian rebukes his enemy for threatening to skin him, by reminding him that man should only think beautiful thoughts; to which the enemy gives the unanswerable answer: “Skinning you is a beautiful thought.” In the same way I am quite prepared to think of the best things; but I think hitting the ideal vegetarian on the nose would be one of the best things in the world. This may be an extreme example; but it involves a much more serious principle. What such philosophers often forget is that among the best things in the world are the very things which their placid universalism forbids; and that there is nothing better or more beautiful than a noble hatred. I do not profess to feel it for them; but they themselves do not seem to feel it for anything.
Ma la filosofia dei due Simplicio è abbastanza chiara. Il primo è un’espansione della semplicità verso la complessità; Simplicio, consapevole di non saper fare da sé le torte, si accosta ad esse con un ardore non privo di reverenza. Il secondo, invece, è una reazione della complessità verso la semplicità; in altre parole l’altro Simplicio rifiuta le torte per varie ragioni, spesso compresa quella di averne mangiate troppe. La maggior parte della Vita Semplice quale la vediamo oggi ha, naturalmente, questo carattere della sazietà o dell’ingozzatura di Simplicio, quando ormai è divenuto meno semplice e certo meno goloso. Questa reazione può assumere due forme diverse: può spingere Simplicio a cercare dolciumi sempre più costosi e stravaganti, oppure può ridurlo a sgranocchiare qualche nuova sorta di biscotto alle noci. Perché conviene notare, di sfuggita, che con ogni probabilità non lo ridurrà a mangiare pane secco. La Vita Semplice non accetta mai nulla che sia semplice nel senso di evidente di per sé e familiare. La cosa dev’essere insolitamente semplice; non dev’essere semplicemente comune. La sua filosofia dev’essere qualcosa di più alto della normale tavola della colazione, e qualcosa di più secco del pane secco. Il procedimento consueto, per come l’ho osservato nei compendi vegetariani e in altri, sembra in un certo senso davvero abbastanza semplice. Il pasticciere produce quella che pare la stessa specie di torta, o dovrebbe parerlo; solo che ha la crosta più sottile fuori e nulla del tutto dentro. Poi, invece di chiedere un penny a Simplicio, gliene chiede una sterlina, o forse una ghinea o un biglietto da cinque sterline. E, cosa più strana di tutte, il cliente è spesso un Simplicio così singolarmente Semplice che paga. Perché quella è forse la differenza ultima e più marcata tra il Simplicio dello Spirito Semplice e il Simplicio della Vita Semplice. È il fatto che l’ardente e riconoscente Simplicio non era in possesso di un penny. Il Simplicio più raffinato ed esaltato è generalmente in possesso di fin troppi penny. È spesso molto ricco, e deve esserlo; perché quanto più secche e sottili e vuote sono le torte, tanto più caro gliele fanno pagare. Ma questo soltanto rivelerà un altro lato dello stesso paradosso; e se è possibile spendere un mucchio di denaro nella Vita Semplice, è anche possibile ricavarne un mucchio di denaro. Vi sono parecchi reclamisti che se la passano molto bene con la nuova rinuncia. Ma la ricchezza sta sempre a un capo o all’altro della faccenda; ed è questa la grande differenza tra i due Simplicio. Forse è la differenza tra Simon Pietro e Simon Mago.
Ho davanti a me un piccolo opuscolo in cui si danno le indicazioni più precise per un Finto Tacchino, per un pasticcio di carne vegetariano, e per un budino di Natale cauto e igienico. Non ho mai del tutto capito perché debba far parte della Vita Semplice avere qualcosa di tanto ingannevole e quasi cospiratorio come un tacchino d’imitazione. Al rozzo e comico assessore si potrà perdonare, nella sua festosa buffoneria, di burlarsi di una tartaruga; ma di certo un umanitario magro e serioso non dovrebbe burlarsi di un tacchino. Né capisco la teoria dell’imitazione nel suo rapporto con l’ideale. Di certo chi ritiene il mangiar carne mero cannibalismo non dovrebbe disporre le verdure in modo da farle sembrare un animale. È come se un cannibale convertito delle Isole Sandwich disponesse i tagli di carne nella forma di un missionario. I missionari guarderebbero di certo all’operato del loro convertito con qualcosa di meno dell’approvazione, e forse con qualcosa di affine all’allarme. Ma la coerenza di queste concessioni la lascerò da parte, perché qui non mi occupo delle concessioni bensì del credo stesso. E mi occupo del credo non solo in quanto influisce sulla sua pratica nella dieta o nella cucina, ma della sua teoria generale. Perché i compilatori del libretto che ho davanti sono grandi in filosofia ed etica. Vi sono pagine intere sulla fratellanza e la comunione e la felicità e la guarigione. In breve, come osserva lo scrittore, abbiamo «anche alcuni Aiuti Mentali, quali sono esposti nel diluvio della Letteratura Psicologica odierna — ma elevati a un piano più alto.» Può essere un po’ rischioso esporre una cosa in un diluvio, o un po’ difficile elevare un diluvio a un piano più alto; ma dietro queste espressioni piuttosto vaghe c’è un’intelligenza e un punto di vista moderni assai reali, comuni a un considerevole numero di persone colte, e ben degni di qualche ulteriore studio.
Sotto il titolo «Come Pensare» ci sono ventiquattro regole di cui le prime poche sono: «Svuota la Mente», «Pensa alle Cose Migliori», «Apprezza», «Analizza», «Preparati Fisicamente», «Preparati Mentalmente», e così via. Ho incontrato alcuni studenti seri di questa scuola, che a quanto pareva si erano incamminati su questo corso, ma al momento del nostro incontro avevano preso il diploma solo fino all’adempimento della prima regola. Era più evidente, nel complesso, che erano riusciti nel processo preliminare di svuotare la mente piuttosto che aver già pensato alle cose migliori, o analizzato o apprezzato alcunché in particolare. Ma ce n’erano altri, lo ammetto volentieri, che avevano davvero pensato a certe cose in modo genuinamente riflessivo, per quanto se fossero davvero le cose migliori potrebbe comportare una divergenza d’opinione tra noi. Comunque, per quanto li riguarda, è una scuola di pensiero, e perciò degna di essere pensata. Essendo stato in grado, fino a questo punto, di apprezzare, tenterò ora di analizzare. Ho tentato di scoprire nella mia stessa mente dove stia realmente la differenza tra noi, a prescindere da tutte queste facezie superficiali e argomentazioni giornalistiche; di chiedermi perché mai esattamente il loro ideale vegetariano differisca tanto dal mio ideale cristiano. E il risultato della concentrata contemplazione del loro ideale è, lo confesso, un piuttosto impaziente balzo in avanti nel percorso della loro iniziazione. Sono fortemente disposto a «Prepararmi Fisicamente» a un conflitto con il vegetariano ideale, con l’unica speranza di colpirlo sul naso. In uno dei racconti del signor P. G. Wodehouse il vegetariano rimprovera il suo nemico per aver minacciato di scuoiarlo, ricordandogli che l’uomo dovrebbe pensare solo pensieri belli; al che il nemico dà la risposta inconfutabile: «Scuoiarti è un bel pensiero.» Allo stesso modo io sono del tutto pronto a pensare alle cose migliori; ma penso che colpire il vegetariano ideale sul naso sarebbe una delle cose migliori del mondo. Questo può essere un esempio estremo; ma implica un principio assai più serio. Ciò che simili filosofi dimenticano spesso è che tra le cose migliori del mondo vi sono proprio quelle che il loro placido universalismo proibisce; e che non c’è nulla di meglio o di più bello di un nobile odio. Non pretendo di provarlo per loro; ma essi stessi non paiono provarlo per nulla.
But as my new idealistic instructor tells me to analyze, I will attempt to analyze. In the ordinary way it would perhaps be enough to say that I do not like his ideals, and that I prefer my own, as I should say I did not like the taste of nut cutlet so much as the taste of veal cutlet. But just as it is possible to resolve the food into formulas about proteids, so it is partly possible to resolve the religious preference into formulas about principles. The most we can hope to do is to find out which of these principles are the first principles. And in this connexion I should like to speak a little more seriously, and even a little more respectfully, of the formulas about emptying the mind. I do not deny that it is sometimes a good thing to empty the mind of the mere accumulation of secondary and tertiary impressions. If what is meant is something which a friend of mine once called “a mental spring clean,” then I can see what it means. But the most drastic spring clean in a house does not generally wash away the house. It does not tear down the roof like a cobweb, or pluck up the walls like weeds. And the true formula is not so much to empty the mind as to discover that we cannot empty the mind, by emptying it as much as we can. In other words we always came back to certain fundamentals which are convictions, because we can hardly even conceive their contraries. But it is the paradox of human language that though these truths are in a manner past all parallel, hard and clear, yet any attempt to talk about them always has the appearance of being hazy and elusive.
Now this antagonism, when thus analyzed, seems to me to arise from one ultimate thing at the back of the minds of these men; that they believe in taking the body seriously. The body is a sort of pagan god, though the pagans are more often stoics than epicureans. To begin with, it is itself a beginning. The body, if not the creator of the soul in Heaven, is regarded as the practical producer of it on earth. In this their materialism is the very foundation of their asceticism. They wish us to consume clean fruit and clear water that our minds may be clear or our lives clean. The body is a sort of magical factory where these things go in as vegetables and come out as virtues. Thus digestion has the first sign of a deity; that of being an origin. It has the next sign of a deity; that if it is satisfied other things do not matter, or at any rate other things follow in their place. And so, they would say, the services of the body should be serious and not grotesque; and its smallest hints should be taken as terrible warnings. Art has a place in it because the body must be draped like an altar; and science is paraded in it because the service must be in Latin or Greek or some hieratic tongue. I quite understand these things surrounding a god or an altar; but I do not happen to worship at that altar or to believe in that god. I do not think the body ought to be taken seriously; I think it is far safer and saner when it is taken comically and even coarsely. And I think that when the body is given a holiday, as it is in a great feast, I think it should be set free not merely for wisdom but for folly, not merely to dance but to turn head over heels. In short, when it is really allowed to exaggerate its own pleasures, it ought also to exaggerate its own absurdity. The body has its own rank, and its own rights, and its own place under government; but the body is not the king but rather the Court Jester. And the human and historical importance of the old jests and buffooneries of Christmas, however vulgar or stale or trivial they appear, is that in them the popular instinct always resisted this pagan solemnity about sensual things. A man was meant to feel rather a goose when he was eating goose; and to realize that he is such stuff as stuffing is made of. That is why anyone who has in these things the touch of the comic will also have the taste for the conservative; he will be unwilling to alter what that popular instinct has made in its own absurd image. He will be doubtful about a Christmas pudding moulded in the shape of the Pyramid or the Parthenon, or anything that is not as round and ridiculous as the world. And when Mr. Pickwick, as round and ridiculous as any Christmas pudding or any world worth living in, stood straddling and smiling under the mistletoe he disinfected that vegetable of its ancient and almost vegetarian sadness and heathenism, of the blood of Baldur and the human sacrifice of the Druids.
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SHAKESPEARE AND THE LEGAL LADY
I WONDER how long liberated woman will endure the invidious ban which excludes her from being a hangman. Or rather, to speak with more exactitude, a hangwoman. The very fact that there seems something vaguely unfamiliar and awkward about the word, is but a proof of the ages of sex oppression that have accustomed us to this sex privilege. The ambition would not perhaps have been understood by the prudish and sentimental heroines of Fanny Burney and Jane Austen. But it is now agreed that the farther we go beyond these faded proprieties the better; and I really do not see how we could go farther. There are always torturers of course; who will probably return under some scientific name. Obscurantists may use the old argument, that woman has never risen to the first rank in this or other arts; that Jack Ketch was not Jemima Ketch, and that the headsman was called Samson and not Delilah. And they will be overwhelmed with the old retort: that until we have hundreds of healthy women happily engaged in this healthful occupation, it will be impossible to judge whether they can rise above the average or no. Tearful sentimentalists may feel something unpleasing, something faintly repugnant, about the new feminine trade. But, as the indignant policewoman said the other day, when a magistrate excluded some of her sex and service from revolting revelations, “crime is a disease,” and must be studied scientifically, however hideous it may be. Death also is a disease; and frequently a fatal one. Experiments must be made in it; and it must be inflicted in any form, however hideous, in a cool and scientific manner.
Ma poiché il mio nuovo istruttore idealista mi dice di analizzare, tenterò di analizzare. Nel modo ordinario forse basterebbe dire che non mi piacciono i suoi ideali, e che preferisco i miei, come direi che non mi piace il sapore della cotoletta di noci quanto il sapore della cotoletta di vitello. Ma proprio come è possibile risolvere il cibo in formule sui proteidi, così è in parte possibile risolvere la preferenza religiosa in formule sui princìpi. Il massimo che possiamo sperare di fare è scoprire quali di questi princìpi siano i primi princìpi. E a questo proposito vorrei parlare un po’ più seriamente, e persino un po’ più rispettosamente, delle formule sullo svuotare la mente. Non nego che sia talvolta una buona cosa svuotare la mente della mera accumulazione di impressioni secondarie e terziarie. Se ciò che s’intende è qualcosa che un mio amico una volta chiamò «una pulizia mentale di primavera», allora capisco cosa significa. Ma la più drastica pulizia di primavera in una casa non lava via, di norma, la casa. Non abbatte il tetto come una ragnatela, né estirpa i muri come erbacce. E la vera formula non è tanto svuotare la mente quanto scoprire che non possiamo svuotare la mente, svuotandola quanto più possiamo. In altre parole, torniamo sempre a certi fondamenti che sono convinzioni, perché a malapena riusciamo persino a concepirne i contrari. Ma è il paradosso del linguaggio umano che, per quanto queste verità siano in un certo modo senza pari, dure e chiare, pure ogni tentativo di parlarne ha sempre l’apparenza di essere nebuloso ed elusivo.
Ora questo antagonismo, quando è così analizzato, mi pare sorgere da un’ultima cosa in fondo alle menti di questi uomini: che essi credono nel prendere sul serio il corpo. Il corpo è una sorta di dio pagano, benché i pagani siano più spesso stoici che epicurei. Tanto per cominciare, esso è esso stesso un principio. Il corpo, se non il creatore dell’anima in Cielo, è considerato il pratico produttore di essa sulla terra. In questo il loro materialismo è il fondamento stesso del loro ascetismo. Essi vogliono che consumiamo frutta pulita e acqua limpida affinché le nostre menti siano limpide o le nostre vite pulite. Il corpo è una sorta di magica fabbrica dove queste cose entrano come verdure ed escono come virtù. Così la digestione ha il primo segno di una divinità: quello di essere un’origine. Ha il secondo segno di una divinità: che, se essa è soddisfatta, le altre cose non contano, o comunque le altre cose seguono al loro posto. E così, direbbero, i servigi del corpo dovrebbero essere seri e non grotteschi; e i suoi più piccoli cenni dovrebbero essere presi come terribili avvertimenti. L’arte vi ha un posto perché il corpo deve essere drappeggiato come un altare; e la scienza vi è ostentata perché il servizio dev’essere in latino o in greco o in qualche lingua ieratica. Comprendo benissimo queste cose che circondano un dio o un altare; ma io non mi trovo a venerare a quell’altare né a credere in quel dio. Non penso che il corpo debba essere preso sul serio; penso che sia assai più sicuro e sano quando è preso comicamente e persino grossolanamente. E penso che, quando al corpo viene concessa una vacanza, come gli è concessa in un grande banchetto, esso dovrebbe essere lasciato libero non solo per la saggezza ma per la follia, non solo di danzare ma di fare capriole a gambe all’aria. In breve, quando gli è davvero permesso di esagerare i propri piaceri, esso dovrebbe anche esagerare la propria assurdità. Il corpo ha il proprio rango, e i propri diritti, e il proprio posto sotto il governo; ma il corpo non è il re, bensì piuttosto il Buffone di Corte. E l’umana e storica importanza dei vecchi scherzi e delle buffonerie del Natale, per quanto volgari o triti o triviali appaiano, sta nel fatto che in essi l’istinto popolare resistette sempre a questa pagana solennità sulle cose sensuali. Un uomo era destinato a sentirsi piuttosto un’oca mentre mangiava l’oca; e a rendersi conto d’essere fatto della stessa materia di cui è fatto il ripieno. Ecco perché chiunque abbia in queste cose il tocco del comico avrà anche il gusto del conservatore; sarà restio a mutare ciò che quell’istinto popolare ha foggiato a propria assurda immagine. Sarà dubbioso riguardo a un budino di Natale modellato nella forma della Piramide o del Partenone, o di qualsiasi cosa che non sia tonda e ridicola come il mondo. E quando il signor Pickwick, tondo e ridicolo come qualsiasi budino di Natale o qualsiasi mondo che valga la pena di vivere, se ne stava a gambe larghe e sorridente sotto il vischio, egli disinfettò quel vegetale della sua antica e quasi vegetariana tristezza e del suo paganesimo, del sangue di Baldur e del sacrificio umano dei Druidi.
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SHAKESPEARE E LA DAMA LEGALE
MI DOMANDO quanto a lungo la donna emancipata sopporterà l’odioso bando che la esclude dal fare il boia. O piuttosto, per parlare con maggiore esattezza, la boia. Il fatto stesso che ci sia qualcosa di vagamente insolito e goffo nella parola non è che una prova dei secoli di oppressione sessuale che ci hanno abituati a questo privilegio sessuale. L’ambizione non sarebbe forse stata compresa dalle eroine pudiche e sentimentali di Fanny Burney e di Jane Austen. Ma è ormai convenuto che quanto più andiamo oltre queste appassite convenienze, tanto meglio è; e io davvero non vedo come potremmo andare oltre. Ci sono sempre i torturatori, s’intende; i quali probabilmente ritorneranno sotto qualche nome scientifico. Gli oscurantisti potranno usare il vecchio argomento, che la donna non si è mai elevata al primo rango in quest’arte o in altre; che Jack Ketch non fu Jemima Ketch, e che il carnefice si chiamava Sansone e non Dalila. E saranno travolti dalla vecchia replica: che finché non avremo centinaia di donne sane felicemente impegnate in questa salubre occupazione, sarà impossibile giudicare se possano elevarsi al di sopra della media oppure no. I lacrimosi sentimentali possono avvertire qualcosa di sgradevole, qualcosa di lievemente ripugnante, nel nuovo mestiere femminile. Ma, come disse l’indignata donna-poliziotto l’altro giorno, quando un magistrato escluse alcune del suo sesso e servizio da rivelazioni rivoltanti, «il crimine è una malattia», e dev’essere studiato scientificamente, per quanto orrendo possa essere. Anche la morte è una malattia; e frequentemente una malattia fatale. Su di essa vanno fatti esperimenti; ed essa dev’essere inflitta in qualsiasi forma, per quanto orrenda, in maniera fredda e scientifica.
It is not true, of course, that crime is a disease. It is criminology that is a disease. But the suggestion about the painful duties of a policewoman leads naturally to my deduction about the painful duties of a hangwoman. And I make it in the faint hope of waking up some of the feminists, that they may at least be moved to wonder what they are doing, and to attempt to find out. What they are not doing is obvious enough. They are not asking themselves two perfectly plain questions; first, whether they want anybody to be a hangman; and second, whether they want everybody to be a hangman. They simply assume, with panting impetuosity, that we want everybody to be everything, criminologists, constables, barristers, executioners, torturers. It never seems to occur to them that some of us doubt the beauty and blessedness of these things, and are rather glad to limit them like other necessary evils. And this applies especially to the doubtful though defensible case of the advocate.
There is one phrase perpetually repeated and now practically stereotyped, which to my mind concentrates and sums up all the very worst qualities in the very worst journalism; all its paralysis of thought, all its monotony of chatter, all its sham culture and shoddy picturesqueness, all its perpetual readiness to cover any vulgarity of the present with any sentimentalism about the past. There is one phrase that does measure to how low an ebb the mind of my unfortunate profession can sink. It is the habit of perpetually calling any of the new lady barristers “Portia.”
First of all, of course, it is quite clear that the journalist does not know who Portia was. If he has ever heard of the story of the “Merchant of Venice” he has managed to miss the only point of the story. Suppose a man had been so instructed in the story of “As You Like It” that he remained under the impression that Rosalind merely was a boy, and was the brother of Celia. We should say that the plot of the comedy had reached his mind in a rather confused form. Suppose a man had seen a whole performance of the play of “Twelfth Night” without discovering the fact that the page called Cesario was really a girl called Viola. We should say that he had succeeded in seeing the play without exactly seeing the point. But there is exactly the same blind stupidity in calling a barrister Portia; or even in calling Portia a barrister. It misses in exactly the same sense the whole meaning of the scene. Portia is no more a barrister than Rosalind is a boy. She is no more the learned jurist whom Shylock congratulates than Viola is the adventurous page whom Olivia loves. The whole point of her position is that she is a heroic and magnanimous fraud. She has not taken up the legal profession, or any profession; she has not sought that public duty, or any public duty. Her action, from first to last, is wholly and entirely private. Her motives are not professional but private. Her ideal is not public but private. She acts as much on personal grounds in the Trial Scene as she does in the Casket Scene. She acts in order to save a friend, and especially a friend of the husband whom she loves. Anything less like the attitude of an advocate, for good or evil, could not be conceived. She seeks individually to save an individual; and in order to do so is ready to break all the existing laws of the profession and the public tribunal; to assume lawlessly powers she has not got, to intrude where she would never be legally admitted, to pretend to be somebody else, to dress up as a man; to do what is actually a crime against the law. This is not what is now called the attitude of a public woman; it is certainly not the attitude of a lady lawyer, any more than of any other kind of lawyer. But it is emphatically the attitude of a private woman; that much more ancient and much more powerful thing.
Suppose that Portia had really become an advocate, merely by advocating the cause of Antonio against Shylock. The first thing that follows is that, as like as not, she would be briefed in the next case to advocate the cause of Shylock against Antonio. She would, in the ordinary way of business, have to help Shylock to punish with ruin the private extravagances of Gratiano. She would have to assist Shylock to distrain on poor Launcelot Gobbo and sell up all his miserable sticks. She might well be employed by him to ruin the happiness of Lorenzo and Jessica, by urging some obsolete parental power or some technical flaw in the marriage service. Shylock evidently had a great admiration for her forensic talents; and indeed that sort of lucid and detached admission of the talents of a successful opponent is a very Jewish characteristic. There seems no reason why he should not have employed her regularly, whenever he wanted some one to recover ruthless interest, to ruin needy households, to drive towards theft or suicide the souls of desperate men. But there seems every reason to doubt whether the Portia whom Shakespeare describes for us is likely to have taken on the job.
Anyhow, that is the job; and I am not here arguing that it is not a necessary job; or that it is always an indefensible job. Many honourable men have made an arguable case for the advocate who has to support Shylock, and men much worse than Shylock. But that is the job; and to cover up its ugly realities with a loose literary quotation that really refers to the exact opposite, is one of those crawling and cowardly evasions and verbal fictions which make all this sort of servile journalism so useless for every worthy or working purpose. If we wish to consider whether a lady should be a barrister, we should consider sanely and clearly what a barrister is and what a lady is; and then come to our conclusion according to what we considered worthy or worthless in the traditions of the two things. But the spirit of advertisement, which tries to associate soap with sunlight or grapenuts with grapes, calls to its rescue an old romance of Venice and tries to cover up a practical problem in the robes of a romantic heroine of the stage. This is the sort of confusion that really leads to corruption. In one sense it would matter very little that the legal profession was formally open to women, for it is only a very exceptional sort of woman who would see herself as a vision of beauty in the character of Mr. Sergeant Buzfuz. And most girls are more likely to be stage-struck, and want to be the real Portia on the stage, rather than law-struck and want to be the very reverse of Portia in a law court. For that matter, it would make relatively little difference if formal permission were given to a woman to be a hangman or a torturer. Very few women would have a taste for it; and very few men would have a taste for the women who had a taste for it. But advertisement, by its use of the vulgar picturesque, can hide the realities of this professional problem, as it can hide the realities of tinned meats and patent medicines. It can conceal the fact that the hangman exists to hang, and that the torturer exists to torture. Similarly it can conceal the fact that the Buzfuz barrister exists to bully. It can hide from the innocent female aspirants outside even the perils and potential abuses that would be admitted by the honest male advocate inside. And that is part of a very much larger problem, which extends beyond this particular profession to a great many other professions; and not least to the lowest and most lucrative of all modern professions: that of professional politics.
Non è vero, naturalmente, che il delitto sia una malattia. È la criminologia a essere una malattia. Ma il rilievo sui penosi doveri di una donna poliziotto conduce naturalmente alla mia deduzione sui penosi doveri di una donna boia. E lo avanzo nella fioca speranza di risvegliare qualcuna delle femministe, perché almeno siano indotte a domandarsi che cosa stiano facendo, e a tentare di scoprirlo. Ciò che non stanno facendo è abbastanza ovvio. Non si pongono due domande perfettamente chiare: primo, se vogliano che qualcuno sia boia; e secondo, se vogliano che tutti siano boia. Danno semplicemente per scontato, con ansante impetuosità, che noi vogliamo che tutti siano tutto: criminologi, poliziotti, avvocati, carnefici, torturatori. Non par mai venire loro in mente che alcuni di noi dubitano della bellezza e beatitudine di queste cose, e sono anzi lieti di limitarle come ogni altro male necessario. E ciò vale specialmente per il caso dubbio, benché difendibile, dell’avvocato difensore.
C’è una frase perpetuamente ripetuta e ormai praticamente stereotipata, che a mio giudizio concentra e riassume tutte le peggiori qualità del peggior giornalismo: tutta la sua paralisi del pensiero, tutta la sua monotonia di chiacchiere, tutta la sua cultura fasulla e la sua pittoresca dozzinalità, tutta la sua perpetua prontezza a coprire qualsiasi volgarità del presente con qualche sentimentalismo sul passato. C’è una frase che misura davvero fino a che bassa marea può discendere la mente della mia sventurata professione. È l’abitudine di chiamare perpetuamente una qualsiasi delle nuove signore avvocatesse «Portia».
Anzitutto, s’intende, è del tutto chiaro che il giornalista non sa chi fosse Portia. Se mai ha udito la storia del «Mercante di Venezia», è riuscito a mancarne l’unico punto. Supponiamo che un uomo sia stato istruito nella vicenda di «As You Like It» in modo tale da rimanere convinto che Rosalind fosse semplicemente un ragazzo, e fosse fratello di Celia. Diremmo che la trama della commedia è giunta alla sua mente in forma alquanto confusa. Supponiamo che un uomo abbia assistito a un’intera rappresentazione della commedia «Twelfth Night» senza scoprire il fatto che il paggio chiamato Cesario era in realtà una fanciulla chiamata Viola. Diremmo che è riuscito a vedere la commedia senza vederne propriamente il punto. Ma vi è esattamente la stessa cieca stupidità nel chiamare avvocatessa Portia; o persino nel chiamare Portia un’avvocatessa. Si manca, nel medesimo senso, tutto il significato della scena. Portia è avvocatessa non più di quanto Rosalind sia un ragazzo. Non è più la dotta giurista che Shylock felicita di quanto Viola sia l’avventuroso paggio che Olivia ama. Tutto il punto della sua posizione è che ella è una frode eroica e magnanima. Non ha abbracciato la professione legale, né alcuna professione; non ha cercato quel dovere pubblico, né alcun dovere pubblico. La sua azione, dal principio alla fine, è interamente e integralmente privata. I suoi moventi non sono professionali ma privati. Il suo ideale non è pubblico ma privato. Agisce per ragioni personali nella Scena del Processo tanto quanto nella Scena degli Scrigni. Agisce per salvare un amico, e specialmente un amico del marito che ella ama. Nulla di meno simile all’atteggiamento di un avvocato, nel bene o nel male, si potrebbe concepire. Ella cerca individualmente di salvare un individuo; e per farlo è pronta a infrangere tutte le leggi vigenti della professione e del pubblico tribunale; ad assumere illegalmente poteri che non possiede, a intromettersi dove non sarebbe mai legalmente ammessa, a fingersi qualcun altro, a travestirsi da uomo; a compiere ciò che è in realtà un reato contro la legge. Questo non è ciò che oggi si chiama l’atteggiamento di una donna pubblica; non è certo l’atteggiamento di una signora avvocatessa, più di quanto lo sia di qualsiasi altra specie di avvocato. Ma è enfaticamente l’atteggiamento di una donna privata: cosa assai più antica e assai più potente.
Supponiamo che Portia fosse davvero divenuta avvocatessa, semplicemente col patrocinare la causa di Antonio contro Shylock. La prima cosa che ne segue è che, con ogni probabilità, sarebbe stata incaricata nella causa successiva di patrocinare la causa di Shylock contro Antonio. Dovrebbe, nel normale corso degli affari, aiutare Shylock a punire con la rovina le stravaganze private di Gratiano. Dovrebbe assistere Shylock a pignorare il povero Launcelot Gobbo e a vendergli fino all’ultima delle sue misere masserizie. Potrebbe bene essere impiegata da lui per rovinare la felicità di Lorenzo e Jessica, invocando qualche patria potestà obsoleta o qualche cavillo tecnico nel rito del matrimonio. Shylock nutriva evidentemente una grande ammirazione per il suo talento forense; e in verità quella sorta di lucida e distaccata ammissione dei talenti di un avversario vittorioso è un tratto assai ebraico. Non pare esservi ragione per cui egli non avrebbe dovuto impiegarla regolarmente, ogni volta che gli occorreva qualcuno per riscuotere spietati interessi, per rovinare famiglie bisognose, per spingere al furto o al suicidio le anime di uomini disperati. Ma pare esservi ogni ragione per dubitare che la Portia che Shakespeare ci descrive fosse tipo da accettare l’incarico.
Comunque sia, l’incarico è quello; e io non sto qui sostenendo che non sia un incarico necessario, o che sia sempre un incarico indifendibile. Molti uomini onorevoli hanno costruito un caso plausibile a favore dell’avvocato che deve sostenere Shylock, e uomini assai peggiori di Shylock. Ma l’incarico è quello; e coprirne le brutte realtà con una vaga citazione letteraria che in realtà si riferisce all’esatto contrario è una di quelle striscianti e codarde evasioni e finzioni verbali che rendono tutto questo genere di giornalismo servile tanto inutile a ogni scopo degno od operoso. Se vogliamo considerare se una signora debba fare l’avvocatessa, dovremmo considerare sanamente e chiaramente che cosa sia un avvocato e che cosa sia una signora; e poi giungere alla nostra conclusione secondo ciò che avremo giudicato degno o spregevole nelle tradizioni delle due cose. Ma lo spirito della réclame, che cerca di associare il sapone alla luce del sole o i grapenuts all’uva, chiama in suo soccorso un vecchio romanzo di Venezia e cerca di ammantare un problema pratico nelle vesti di un’eroina romantica del palcoscenico. È questo il genere di confusione che davvero conduce alla corruzione. In un certo senso importerebbe assai poco che la professione legale fosse formalmente aperta alle donne, poiché è solo una specie assai eccezionale di donna che si vedrebbe come una visione di bellezza nel personaggio del signor sergente Buzfuz. E la maggior parte delle fanciulle è più incline a essere invaghita del palcoscenico, e a voler essere la vera Portia sulla scena, che non invaghita del diritto e a voler essere l’esatto contrario di Portia in un’aula di tribunale. Del resto, farebbe relativamente poca differenza se il permesso formale fosse concesso a una donna di fare il boia o il torturatore. Assai poche donne ne avrebbero il gusto; e assai pochi uomini avrebbero il gusto delle donne che ne avessero il gusto. Ma la réclame, con il suo uso del pittoresco volgare, può nascondere le realtà di questo problema professionale, come può nascondere le realtà delle carni in scatola e delle medicine brevettate. Può celare il fatto che il boia esiste per impiccare, e che il torturatore esiste per torturare. Similmente può celare il fatto che l’avvocato alla Buzfuz esiste per angariare. Può nascondere alle innocenti aspiranti donne che stanno fuori persino i pericoli e i potenziali abusi che sarebbero ammessi dall’onesto avvocato maschio che sta dentro. E ciò fa parte di un problema assai più vasto, che si estende oltre questa particolare professione a molte altre professioni; e non ultima alla più bassa e lucrosa di tutte le professioni moderne: quella della politica di mestiere.
I wonder how many people are still duped by the story of the extension of the franchise. I wonder how many Radicals have been a little mystified, in remarking how many Tories and reactionaries have helped in the extension of the franchise. The truth is that calling in crowds of new voters will very often be to the interest, not only of Tories, but of really tyrannical Tories. It will often be in the interest of the guilty to appeal to the innocent; if they are innocent in the matter of other people’s conduct as well as of their own. The tyrant calls in those he has not wronged, to defend him against those he has wronged. He is not afraid of the new and ignorant masses who know too little; he is afraid of the older and nearer nucleus of those who know too much. And there is nothing that would please the professional politician more than to flood the constituencies with innocent negroes or remote Chinamen, who might possibly admire him more, because they knew him less. I should not wonder if the Party System had been saved three or four times at the point of extinction, by the introduction of new voters who had never had time to discover why it deserved to be extinguished. The last of these rescues by an inrush of dupes was the enfranchisement of women.
What is true of the political is equally true of the professional ambition. Much of the mere imitation of masculine tricks and trades is indeed trivial enough; it is a mere masquerade. The greatest of Roman satirists noted that in his day the more fast of the fashionable ladies liked to fight as gladiators in the amphitheatre. In that one statement he pinned and killed, like moths on a cork, a host of women prophets and women pioneers and large-minded liberators of their sex in modern England and America. But besides these more showy she-gladiators there are also multitudes of worthy and sincere women who take the new (or rather old) professions seriously. The only disadvantage is that in many of those professions they can only continue to be serious by ceasing to be sincere. But the simplicity with which they first set out is an enormous support to old and complex and corrupt institutions. No modest person setting out to learn an elaborate science can be expected to start with the assumption that it is not worth learning. The young lady will naturally begin to learn Law as gravely as she begins to learn Greek. It is not in that mood that she will conceive independent doubts about the ultimate relations of Law and Justice. Just as the Suffragettes are already complaining that the realism of industrial revolution interferes with their new hobby of voting, so the lady lawyers are quite likely to complain that the realism of legal reformers interferes with their new hobby of legalism. We are suffering in every department from the same cross-purposes that can be seen in the case of any vulgar patent medicine. In Law and Medicine, we have the thing advertised in the public press instead of analyzed by the public authority. What we want is not the journalistic Portia but the theatrical Portia, who is also the real Portia. We do not want the woman who will enter the law court with the solemn sense of a lasting vocation. We want a Portia; a woman who will enter it as lightly, and leave it as gladly as she did.
The same thing is true of a fact nobler than any fiction; the story, so often quoted, of the woman who won back mediaeval France. Joan of Arc was a soldier; but she was not a normal soldier. If she had been, she would have been vowed, not to the war for France, but to any war with Flanders, Spain or the Italian cities to which her feudal lord might lead her. If she were a modern conscript, she would be bound to obey orders not always coming from St. Michael. But the point is here that merely making all women soldiers, under either system, could do nothing at all except whitewash and ratify feudalism or conscription. And both feudalism and conscription are much more magnanimous things than our modern system of police and prisons.
In fact there are few sillier implications than that in the phrase that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. A cook who really rules a kitchen on that principle would wait patiently for milk from the bull, because he got it from the cow. It is neither a perceptible fact nor a first principle that the sexes must not specialize; and if one sex must specialize in adopting dubious occupations, we ought to be very glad that the other sex specializes in abstaining from them. That is how the balance of criticism in the Commonwealth is maintained; as by a sort of government and opposition. In this, as in other things, the new régime is that everybody shall join the government. The government of the moment will be monstrously strengthened; for everybody will be a tyrant and everybody will be a slave. The detached criticism of official fashions will disappear; and none was ever so detached as the deadly criticism that came from women. When all women wear uniforms, all women will wear gags; for a gag is part of every uniform in the world.
—
ON BEING AN OLD BEAN
I WAS looking at some press cuttings that had pursued me down to a remote cottage beside a river of Norfolk; and as it happened, those that caught my eye were mostly not from the vulgar monopolist press, but from all sorts of quieter and even more studious publications. But what struck me as curious about the collection as a whole was the selection, among half a hundred things that were hardly worth saying, of the things that were considered worth repeating. There seemed to be a most disproportionate importance attached to a trivial phrase I had used about the alleged indecorum of a gentleman calling his father an old bean. I had been asked to join in a discussion in the “Morning Post,” touching the alleged disrespect of youth towards age, and I had done so; chiefly because I have a respect for the “Morning Post” for its courage about political corruption and cosmopolitan conspiracies, in spite of deep disagreement on other very vital things. And I said what I should have thought was so true as to be trite. I said that it makes life narrower and not broader to lose the special note of piety or respect for the past still living; and that to call an old man an old bean is merely to lose all intelligent sense of the significance of an old man. Since then, to my great entertainment, I seem to have figured in various papers as a sort of ferocious heavy father, come out on my own account to curse the numerous young sprigs who have called me an old bean. But this is an error. I should be the last to deny that I am heavy, but I am not fatherly; nor am I ferocious, at any rate I am not ferocious about this. Individually I regard the question with a detachment verging on indifference. I cannot imagine anybody except an aged and very lean vegetarian positively dancing with joy at being called an old bean; and I am not a very lean vegetarian. But still less can I imagine anyone regarding the accusation with horror or resentment; the sins and crimes blackening the career of a bean must be comparatively few; its character must be simple and free from complexity, and its manner of life innocent. A philosophic rationalist wrote to me the other day to say that my grubbing in the grossest superstitions of the past reminded him of “an old sow pig rooting in the refuse of the kitchen heap,” and expressed a hope that I should be dragged from this occupation and made to resume “the cap and bells of yore.” That is something like a vigorous and vivid comparison; though my Feminist friends may be distressed at my being compared to a sow as well as a pig; and though I am not quite clear myself about how the animal would get on when he had resumed the cap and bells of yore. But it would certainly be a pity, when it was possible to find this image in the kitchen heap, to be content with one from the kitchen-garden. It would indeed be a lost opportunity to work yourself up to the furious pitch of calling your enemy a beast, and then only call him a bean.
Mi domando quante persone siano ancora ingannate dalla favola dell’estensione del suffragio. Mi domando quanti radicali siano rimasti un poco sconcertati nel notare quanti Tory e reazionari abbiano contribuito all’estensione del suffragio. La verità è che chiamare a raccolta folle di nuovi elettori sarà assai spesso nell’interesse non solo dei Tory, ma di Tory realmente tirannici. Sarà spesso nell’interesse dei colpevoli fare appello agli innocenti; purché essi siano innocenti in fatto della condotta altrui tanto quanto della propria. Il tiranno chiama a raccolta coloro cui non ha fatto torto, per difendersi da coloro cui ha fatto torto. Non teme le nuove e ignoranti masse che sanno troppo poco; teme il più antico e più prossimo nucleo di coloro che sanno troppo. E nulla piacerebbe di più al politico di mestiere che inondare le circoscrizioni di innocenti negri o di remoti cinesi, che potrebbero magari ammirarlo di più perché lo conoscono di meno. Non mi meraviglierei se il Sistema dei Partiti fosse stato salvato tre o quattro volte sull’orlo dell’estinzione, dall’introduzione di nuovi elettori che non avevano mai avuto tempo di scoprire perché meritasse di essere estinto. L’ultimo di questi salvataggi mediante un fiotto di gonzi fu la concessione del voto alle donne.
Ciò che è vero dell’ambizione politica è ugualmente vero di quella professionale. Molta della mera imitazione di trucchi e mestieri maschili è invero abbastanza triviale; è una semplice mascherata. Il più grande dei satirici romani osservò che ai suoi tempi le più sfrenate fra le dame alla moda amavano combattere come gladiatrici nell’anfiteatro. In quell’unica affermazione egli infilzò e uccise, come falene su un sughero, una schiera di donne profetesse e donne pioniere e magnanime liberatrici del proprio sesso nell’Inghilterra e nell’America moderne. Ma oltre a queste più vistose gladiatrici vi sono anche moltitudini di donne degne e sincere che prendono sul serio le nuove (o piuttosto vecchie) professioni. L’unico svantaggio è che in molte di quelle professioni esse possono continuare a essere serie solo cessando di essere sincere. Ma la semplicità con cui esordiscono è un enorme sostegno alle vecchie e complesse e corrotte istituzioni. Non si può pretendere che una persona modesta, accingendosi a imparare una scienza elaborata, cominci con l’assunto che non valga la pena impararla. La giovane signora comincerà naturalmente a imparare il Diritto con la stessa gravità con cui comincia a imparare il greco. Non è in quello stato d’animo che concepirà dubbi indipendenti sui rapporti ultimi fra Diritto e Giustizia. Proprio come le suffragette già si lamentano che il realismo della rivoluzione industriale interferisca col loro nuovo passatempo del votare, così le signore avvocatesse molto probabilmente si lamenteranno che il realismo dei riformatori del diritto interferisca col loro nuovo passatempo del legalismo. Noi soffriamo, in ogni settore, dei medesimi contrasti di scopi che si possono osservare nel caso di qualsiasi volgare medicina brevettata. In Diritto e in Medicina abbiamo la cosa pubblicizzata sulla stampa anziché analizzata dalla pubblica autorità. Ciò che vogliamo non è la Portia giornalistica ma la Portia teatrale, che è anche la vera Portia. Non vogliamo la donna che entrerà nell’aula del tribunale con il solenne senso di una duratura vocazione. Vogliamo una Portia; una donna che vi entri con la stessa leggerezza, e ne esca con la stessa gioia con cui lei ne uscì.
La stessa cosa vale per un fatto più nobile di ogni finzione: la storia, così spesso citata, della donna che riconquistò la Francia medievale. Giovanna d’Arco fu una soldatessa; ma non fu una soldatessa normale. Se lo fosse stata, sarebbe stata votata non alla guerra per la Francia, ma a una qualsiasi guerra con le Fiandre, la Spagna o le città italiane verso cui il suo signore feudale l’avesse condotta. Se fosse una moderna coscritta, sarebbe tenuta a obbedire a ordini non sempre provenienti da San Michele. Ma il punto qui è che il semplice fare di tutte le donne soldati, sotto l’uno o l’altro sistema, non potrebbe fare assolutamente nulla se non imbiancare e ratificare il feudalesimo o la coscrizione. E tanto il feudalesimo quanto la coscrizione sono cose assai più magnanime del nostro moderno sistema di polizia e prigioni.
In verità vi sono pochi sottintesi più sciocchi di quello contenuto nel detto che ciò che è salsa per l’oca è salsa per il papero. Un cuoco che governasse davvero una cucina secondo quel principio aspetterebbe pazientemente il latte dal toro, per il fatto di ottenerlo dalla mucca. Non è né un fatto percepibile né un primo principio che i sessi non debbano specializzarsi; e se un sesso deve specializzarsi nell’adottare occupazioni dubbie, dovremmo essere ben lieti che l’altro sesso si specializzi nell’astenersene. È così che si mantiene l’equilibrio della critica nel Commonwealth; come per una sorta di governo e opposizione. In questo, come in altre cose, il nuovo regime è che tutti debbano entrare nel governo. Il governo del momento ne sarà mostruosamente rafforzato; poiché tutti saranno un tiranno e tutti saranno uno schiavo. La critica distaccata delle mode ufficiali scomparirà; e nessuna fu mai tanto distaccata quanto la mortale critica che veniva dalle donne. Quando tutte le donne indosseranno l’uniforme, tutte le donne indosseranno il bavaglio; poiché il bavaglio è parte di ogni uniforme del mondo.
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SULL’ESSERE UN VECCHIO FAGIOLO
STAVO guardando alcuni ritagli di stampa che mi avevano inseguito fino a un remoto casolare in riva a un fiume del Norfolk; e per caso quelli che mi colpirono l’occhio non erano per lo più della volgare stampa monopolista, ma di ogni sorta di pubblicazioni più quiete e persino più studiose. Ma ciò che mi parve curioso della raccolta nel suo insieme fu la selezione, tra una cinquantina di cose che valeva a stento la pena di dire, delle cose che venivano ritenute degne di essere ripetute. Sembrava esservi un’importanza quanto mai sproporzionata attribuita a una frase banale che avevo usato circa il presunto sconveniente costume di un gentiluomo che chiama il proprio padre un vecchio fagiolo. Ero stato invitato a partecipare a una discussione sul «Morning Post», a proposito della presunta irriverenza della gioventù verso la vecchiaia, e vi avevo partecipato; principalmente perché nutro rispetto per il «Morning Post» per il suo coraggio contro la corruzione politica e le cospirazioni cosmopolite, malgrado un profondo dissenso su altre questioni assai vitali. E dissi ciò che avrei creduto tanto vero da essere trito. Dissi che rende la vita più angusta e non più larga il perdere la nota speciale di pietà o rispetto per il passato ancora vivo; e che chiamare un vecchio un vecchio fagiolo è semplicemente perdere ogni intelligente senso del significato di un vecchio. Da allora, con mio grande divertimento, sembra che io abbia figurato in vari giornali come una sorta di feroce padre severo, uscito di persona a maledire i numerosi giovani rampolli che mi hanno chiamato vecchio fagiolo. Ma questo è un errore. Sarei l’ultimo a negare di essere pesante, ma non sono paterno; né sono feroce, o almeno non sono feroce su questo. Individualmente considero la questione con un distacco che rasenta l’indifferenza. Non riesco a immaginare nessuno, tranne un attempato e assai magro vegetariano, che positivamente danzi di gioia all’essere chiamato vecchio fagiolo; e io non sono un vegetariano molto magro. Ma ancor meno riesco a immaginare chicchessia che consideri l’accusa con orrore o risentimento; i peccati e i delitti che anneriscono la carriera di un fagiolo devono essere comparativamente pochi; il suo carattere dev’essere semplice e libero da complicazioni, e il suo modo di vivere innocente. Un razionalista filosofo mi scrisse l’altro giorno per dirmi che il mio rovistare nelle più grossolane superstizioni del passato gli ricordava «una vecchia scrofa che grufola tra i rifiuti del mucchio di cucina», ed espresse la speranza che io fossi strappato a questa occupazione e costretto a riprendere «il berretto e i sonagli d’un tempo». Questo è qualcosa come un vigoroso e vivido paragone; benché le mie amiche femministe possano affliggersi al vedermi paragonato a una scrofa oltre che a un maiale; e benché io stesso non sia del tutto certo di come se la caverebbe l’animale una volta ripresi il berretto e i sonagli d’un tempo. Ma sarebbe certamente un peccato, potendo trovare questa immagine nel mucchio di cucina, accontentarsi di una tratta dall’orto di cucina. Sarebbe invero un’occasione perduta il montarsi fino alla furiosa altezza di chiamare bestia il proprio nemico, e poi chiamarlo soltanto fagiolo.
From the extracts I saw, it would seem that certain ladies were especially lively in their protest against my antiquated prejudices; and rioted in quite a bean-feast of old beans. The form the argument generally takes is to ask why parents and children should not be friends, or, as they often put it (I deeply regret to say), pals. Neither term seems to me to convey a sufficiently distinctive meaning; and I take it that the best term for what they really mean is that they should be comrades. Now comradeship is a very real and splendid thing; but this is simply the cant of comradeship. A boy does not take his mother with him when he goes bird-nesting; and his affection for his mother is of another kind unconnected with the idea of her climbing a tree. Three men do not generally take an aged and beloved aunt with them as part of their luggage on a walking tour; and if they did, it would not be so much disrespectful to age as unjust to youth. For this confusion between two valuable but varied things, like most of such modern confusions, is quite as liable to obscurantist as to mutinous abuse; and is as easy to turn into tyranny as into licence. If a boy’s aunts are his comrades, why should he need any comrades except his aunts? If his father and mother are perfect and consummate pals, why should he fool away his time with more ignorant, immature and insufficient pals? As in a good many other modern things, the end of the old parental dignity would be the beginning of a new parental tyranny. I would rather the boy loved his father as his father than feared him as a Frankenstein giant of a superior and supercilious friend, armed in that unequal friendship with all the weapons of psychology and psycho-analysis. If he loves him as a father he loves him as an older man; and if we are to abolish all differences of tone towards those older than ourselves, we must presumably do the same to those younger than ourselves. All healthy people, for instance, feel an instinctive and almost impersonal affection for a baby. Is a baby a comrade? Is he to climb the tree and go on the walking tour; or are we on his account to abolish all trees and tours? Are the grandfather aged ninety, the son aged thirty, and the grandson aged three, all to set out together on their travels, with the same knapsacks and knickerbockers? I have read somewhere that in one of the Ten or Twelve or Two Hundred Types of Filial Piety reverenced by the Chinese, one was an elderly sage and statesman, who dressed up as a child of four and danced before his yet more elderly parents, to delight them with the romantic illusion that they were still quite young. This in itself could not but attract remark; but this in itself I am prepared to defend. It was an exceptional and even extraordinary festivity, like the reversals of the Saturnalia; and I wish we could have seen some vigorous old gentleman like Lord Halsbury or the Archbishop of Canterbury performing a similar act of piety. But in the Utopia of comradeship now commended to us, old and young are expected normally to think alike, feel alike and talk alike; and may therefore normally and permanently be supposed to dress alike. Whether the parents dress as children or the children as parents, it is clear that they must all dress as pals, whatever be the ceremonial dress of that rank. I imagine it as something in tweeds, with rather a loud check.
As I considered these things I looked across the kitchen-garden of the cottage, and the association of peas and beans brought the fancy back to the foolish figure of speech with which the discussion began. There is a proverb, which is like most of our popular sayings, a country proverb, about things that are as like as two peas. There is something significant in the fact that this is as near as the rural imagination could get to a mere mechanical monotony. For as a matter of fact it is highly improbable that any two peas are exactly alike. A survey of the whole world of peas, with all their forms and uses, would probably reveal every sort of significance between the sweet peas of sentiment and the dried peas of asceticism. Modern machinery has gone far beyond such rude rural attempts at dullness. Things are not as like as two peas in the sense that they are as like as two pins. But the flippant phrase under discussion does really imply that they are as like as two beans. It is really part of the low and levelling philosophy that assimilates all things too much to each other. It does not mean that we see any fanciful significance in the use of the term, as in a country proverb. It is not that we see an old gentleman with fine curling white hair and say to him poetically, “Permit me, venerable cauliflower, to inquire after your health.” It is not that we address an old farmer with a deep and rich complexion, saying, “I trust, most admirable of beetroots, that you are as well as you look.” When we say, “How are you, old bean,” the error is not so much that we say something rude, but that we may say nothing because we mean nothing.
As I happened to meet at that moment a girl belonging to the family of the cottage, I showed her the cutting, and asked her opinion upon the great progressive problem of calling your father an old bean. At which she laughed derisively, and merely said, “As if anybody would!”
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THE FEAR OF THE FILM
LONG lists are being given of particular cases in which children have suffered in spirits or health from alleged horrors of the kinema. One child is said to have had a fit after seeing a film; another to have been sleepless with some fixed idea taken from a film; another to have killed his father with a carving-knife through having seen a knife used in a film. This may possibly have occurred; though if it did, anybody of common sense would prefer to have details about that particular child, rather than about that particular picture. But what is supposed to be the practical moral of it, in any case? Is it that the young should never see a story with a knife in it? Are they to be brought up in complete ignorance of “The Merchant of Venice” because Shylock flourishes a knife for a highly disagreeable purpose? Are they never to hear of Macbeth, lest it should slowly dawn upon their trembling intelligence that it is a dagger that they see before them? It would be more practical to propose that a child should never see a real carving-knife, and still more practical that he should never see a real father. All that may come; the era of preventive and prophetic science has only begun. We must not be impatient. But when we come to the cases of morbid panic after some particular exhibition, there is yet more reason to clear the mind of cant. It is perfectly true that a child will have the horrors after seeing some particular detail. It is quite equally true that nobody can possibly predict what that detail will be. It certainly need not be anything so obvious as a murder or even a knife. I should have thought anybody who knew anything about children, or for that matter anybody who had been a child, would know that these nightmares are quite incalculable. The hint of horror may come by any chance in any connexion. If the kinema exhibited nothing but views of country vicarages or vegetarian restaurants, the ugly fancy is as likely to be stimulated by these things as by anything else. It is like seeing a face in the carpet; it makes no difference that it is the carpet at the vicarage.
Dagli estratti che ho visto, parrebbe che certe signore fossero particolarmente vivaci nella loro protesta contro i miei pregiudizi antiquati; e sguazzassero in un vero e proprio festino di vecchi fagioli. La forma che l’argomento assume generalmente è di chiedere perché genitori e figli non dovrebbero essere amici, o, come spesso si esprimono (con mio profondo rincrescimento a dirlo), compagnoni. Nessuno dei due termini mi sembra recare un significato sufficientemente distintivo; e ritengo che il termine migliore per ciò che davvero intendono sia che essi dovrebbero essere camerati. Ora la cameratismo è cosa quanto mai reale e splendida; ma questo è semplicemente il cascame retorico del cameratismo. Un ragazzo non si porta la madre quando va a cercare nidi; e il suo affetto per la madre è di altra specie, senza rapporto con l’idea che ella si arrampichi su un albero. Tre uomini in genere non si portano dietro una zia attempata e amatissima come parte del loro bagaglio in una gita a piedi; e se lo facessero, sarebbe non tanto irrispettoso verso la vecchiaia quanto ingiusto verso la gioventù. Poiché questa confusione fra due cose pregevoli ma diverse, come la maggior parte di tali confusioni moderne, è tanto soggetta all’abuso oscurantista quanto a quello ribelle; ed è facile a mutarsi in tirannia quanto in licenza. Se le zie di un ragazzo sono i suoi camerati, perché mai dovrebbe aver bisogno di altri camerati oltre alle zie? Se suo padre e sua madre sono compagnoni perfetti e consumati, perché mai dovrebbe sciupare il suo tempo con compagnoni più ignoranti, immaturi e insufficienti? Come in parecchie altre cose moderne, la fine dell’antica dignità paterna sarebbe il principio di una nuova tirannia paterna. Preferirei che il ragazzo amasse suo padre in quanto padre, piuttosto che lo temesse come un gigante alla Frankenstein di amico superiore e sdegnoso, armato in quell’ineguale amicizia di tutte le armi della psicologia e della psicoanalisi. Se lo ama come padre, lo ama come un uomo più vecchio; e se dobbiamo abolire ogni differenza di tono verso coloro che sono più vecchi di noi, dobbiamo presumibilmente fare lo stesso verso coloro che sono più giovani di noi. Tutte le persone sane, per esempio, provano un affetto istintivo e quasi impersonale per un neonato. È forse un camerata un neonato? Deve arrampicarsi sull’albero e andare in gita a piedi; oppure per riguardo a lui dobbiamo abolire tutti gli alberi e tutte le gite? Il nonno di novant’anni, il figlio di trenta e il nipote di tre, devono tutti mettersi in viaggio insieme, con gli stessi zaini e gli stessi calzoni alla zuava? Ho letto da qualche parte che in uno dei Dieci o Dodici o Duecento Tipi di Pietà Filiale venerati dai cinesi, uno era un anziano saggio e statista, che si travestiva da bambino di quattro anni e danzava dinanzi ai suoi genitori ancor più anziani, per deliziarli con la romantica illusione che fossero ancora del tutto giovani. Ciò in sé non potrebbe non attirare l’attenzione; ma ciò in sé sono disposto a difenderlo. Era una festività eccezionale e persino straordinaria, come le inversioni dei Saturnali; e vorrei che avessimo potuto vedere qualche vigoroso vecchio gentiluomo come Lord Halsbury o l’Arcivescovo di Canterbury compiere un simile atto di pietà. Ma nell’Utopia del cameratismo ora raccomandataci, vecchi e giovani ci si aspetta che normalmente pensino allo stesso modo, sentano allo stesso modo e parlino allo stesso modo; e si può dunque presumere che normalmente e permanentemente si vestano allo stesso modo. Che i genitori si vestano da bambini o i bambini da genitori, è chiaro che devono tutti vestirsi da compagnoni, quale che sia l’abito cerimoniale di quel rango. Lo immagino come qualcosa in tweed, con un motivo a quadri piuttosto vistoso.
Mentre andavo rimuginando queste cose, guardai al di là dell’orto di cucina del casolare, e l’associazione dei piselli e dei fagioli riportò la fantasia alla sciocca figura retorica con cui la discussione aveva avuto inizio. C’è un proverbio, che è come la maggior parte dei nostri detti popolari, un proverbio campagnolo, sulle cose che si somigliano come due piselli. C’è qualcosa di significativo nel fatto che questo è il più vicino a cui l’immaginazione rurale sia riuscita ad arrivare a una mera monotonia meccanica. Poiché in effetti è altamente improbabile che due piselli qualsiasi siano esattamente uguali. Un’indagine sull’intero mondo dei piselli, con tutte le loro forme e i loro usi, rivelerebbe probabilmente ogni sorta di significato tra i dolci piselli del sentimento e i piselli secchi dell’ascetismo. La macchina moderna è andata assai oltre tali rozzi tentativi rurali di uniformità. Le cose non si somigliano come due piselli nel senso in cui si somigliano come due spilli. Ma la frase frivola in discussione implica davvero che si somiglino come due fagioli. Fa realmente parte di quella bassa e livellatrice filosofia che assimila tutte le cose troppo l’una all’altra. Non intende che noi vediamo qualche fantasioso significato nell’uso del termine, come in un proverbio campagnolo. Non è che vediamo un vecchio gentiluomo dai bei capelli bianchi arricciati e gli diciamo poeticamente: «Permettetemi, venerabile cavolfiore, di informarmi sulla vostra salute». Non è che ci rivolgiamo a un vecchio contadino dalla carnagione fonda e ricca dicendo: «Confido, ammirevolissima fra le barbabietole, che voi stiate tanto bene quanto sembrate». Quando diciamo: «Come stai, vecchio fagiolo», l’errore non è tanto che diciamo qualcosa di scortese, ma che possiamo non dire nulla perché non intendiamo nulla.
Poiché mi accadde in quel momento di incontrare una ragazza appartenente alla famiglia del casolare, le mostrai il ritaglio e le chiesi la sua opinione sul grande problema progressista del chiamare tuo padre un vecchio fagiolo. Al che ella rise beffarda, e disse soltanto: «Come se qualcuno lo facesse davvero!».
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LA PAURA DEL FILM
LUNGHI elenchi vengono forniti di casi particolari in cui bambini hanno sofferto nell’animo o nella salute per i presunti orrori del cinematografo. Si dice che un bambino abbia avuto una crisi convulsiva dopo aver visto un film; un altro sia rimasto insonne per qualche idea fissa presa da un film; un altro abbia ucciso il padre con un trinciante per aver visto usare un coltello in un film. Ciò può essere accaduto; benché, se accadde, chiunque di buon senso preferirebbe avere particolari su quel particolare bambino, piuttosto che su quella particolare pellicola. Ma quale si suppone sia la morale pratica di ciò, in ogni caso? Che i giovani non dovrebbero mai vedere una storia con un coltello dentro? Devono essere allevati nella completa ignoranza del «Mercante di Venezia» perché Shylock brandisce un coltello per uno scopo quanto mai sgradevole? Non devono mai sentir parlare del Macbeth, per timore che lentamente albeggi nella loro tremante intelligenza che è un pugnale quello che vedono dinanzi a sé? Sarebbe più pratico proporre che un bambino non veda mai un vero trinciante, e ancor più pratico che non veda mai un vero padre. Tutto ciò può venire; l’era della scienza preventiva e profetica è appena cominciata. Non dobbiamo essere impazienti. Ma quando veniamo ai casi di morboso panico dopo una particolare esibizione, vi è ancor più ragione di sgombrare la mente dai luoghi comuni. È perfettamente vero che un bambino avrà i suoi terrori dopo aver visto un particolare dettaglio. È altrettanto vero che nessuno può in alcun modo prevedere quale sarà quel dettaglio. Non occorre certo che sia qualcosa di così ovvio come un assassinio o persino un coltello. Avrei creduto che chiunque sapesse qualcosa dei bambini, o se è per questo chiunque sia stato bambino, saprebbe che questi incubi sono del tutto incalcolabili. L’accenno d’orrore può giungere per un caso qualsiasi in un nesso qualsiasi. Se il cinematografo non esibisse altro che vedute di canoniche di campagna o di ristoranti vegetariani, è probabile che la brutta fantasia venga stimolata da queste cose quanto da qualsiasi altra. È come vedere un volto nel tappeto; non fa differenza che sia il tappeto della canonica.
I will give two examples from my own most personal circle; I could give hundreds from hearsay. I know a child who screamed steadily for hours if he had been taken past the Albert Memorial. This was not a precocious precision or excellence in his taste in architecture. Nor was it a premature protest against all that gimcrack German culture which nearly entangled us in the downfall of the barbaric tyranny. It was the fear of something which he himself described with lurid simplicity as “The Cow with the India-rubber Tongue.” It sounds rather a good title for a creepy short story. At the base of the Albert Memorial (I may explain for those who have never enjoyed that monument) are four groups of statuary representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. America especially is very overwhelming; borne onward on a snorting bison who plunges forward in a fury of western progress, and is surrounded with Red Indians, Mexicans, and all sorts of pioneers, 0 pioneers, armed to the teeth. The child passed this transatlantic tornado with complete coolness and indifference. Europe however is seated on a bull so mild as to look like a cow; the tip of its tongue is showing and happened to be discoloured by weather; suggesting, I suppose, a living thing coming out of the dead marble. Now nobody could possibly foretell that a weather-stain would occur in that particular place, and fill that particular child with that particular fancy. Nobody is likely to propose meeting it by forbidding graven images, like the Moslems and the Jews. Nobody has said (as yet) that it is bad morals to make a picture of a cow. Nobody has even pleaded that it is bad manners for a cow to put its tongue out. These things are utterly beyond calculation; they are also beyond counting, for they occur all over the place, not only to morbid children but to any children. I knew this particular child very well, being a rather older child myself at the time. He certainly was not congenitally timid or feeble-minded; for he risked going to prison to expose the Marconi Scandal and died fighting in the Great War.
Here is another example out of scores. A little girl, now a very normal and cheerful young lady, had an insomnia of insane terror entirely arising from the lyric of “Little Bo-Peep.” After an inquisition like that of the confessor or the psycho-analyst, it was found that the word “bleating” had some obscure connexion in her mind with the word “bleeding.” There was thus perhaps an added horror in the phrase “heard”; in hearing rather than seeing the flowing of blood. Nobody could possibly provide against that sort of mistake. Nobody could prevent the little girl from hearing about sheep, any more than the little boy from hearing about cows. We might abolish all nursery rhymes; and as they are happy and popular and used with universal success, it is very likely that we shall. But the whole point of the mistake about that phrase is that it might have been a mistake about any phrase. We cannot foresee all the fancies that might arise, not only out of what we say, but of what we do not say. We cannot avoid promising a child a caramel lest he should think we say cannibal, or conceal the very word “hill” lest it should sound like “hell.”
All the catalogues and calculations offered us by the party of caution in this controversy are therefore quite worthless. It is perfectly true that examples can be given of a child being frightened of this, that or the other. But we can never be certain of his being frightened of the same thing twice. It is not on the negative side, by making lists of vetoes, that the danger can be avoided; it can never indeed be entirely avoided. We can only fortify the child on the positive side by giving him health and humour and a trust in God; not omitting (what will much mystify the moderns) an intelligent appreciation of the idea of authority, which is only the other side of confidence, and which alone can suddenly and summarily cast out such devils. But we may be sure that most modern people will not look at it in this way. They will think it more scientific to attempt to calculate the incalculable. So soon as they have realized that it is not so simple as it looks, they will try to map it out, however complicated it may be. When they discover that the terrible detail need not be a knife, but might just as well be a fork, they will only say there is a fork complex as well as a knife complex. And that increasing complexity of complexes is the net in which liberty will be taken.
Instead of seeing in the odd cases of the cow’s tongue or the bleating sheep the peril of their past generalizations, they will see them only as starting points for new generalizations. They will get yet another theory out of it. And they will begin acting on the theory long before they have done thinking about it. They will start out with some new and crude conception that sculpture has made children scream or that nursery rhymes have made children sleepless; and the thing will be a clause in a programme of reform before it has begun to be a conclusion in a serious study of psychology. That is the practical problem about modern liberty which the critics will not see; of which eugenics is one example and all this amateur child-psychology is another. So long as an old morality was in black and white like a chess-board, even a man who wanted more of it made white was certain that no more of it would be made black. Now he is never certain what vices may not be released, but neither is he certain what virtues may be forbidden. Even if he did not think it wrong to run away with a married woman, he knew that his neighbours only thought it wrong because the woman was married. They did not think it wrong to run away with a red-haired woman, or a left-handed woman, or a woman subject to headaches. But when we let loose a thousand eugenical speculations, all adopted before they are verified and acted on even before they are adopted, he is just as likely as not to find himself separated from the woman for those or any other reasons. Similarly there was something to be said for restrictions, even rather puritanical and provincial restrictions, upon what children should read or see, so long as they fenced in certain fixed departments like sex or sensational tortures. But when we begin to speculate on whether other sensations may not stimulate as dangerously as sex, those other sensations may be as closely controlled as sex. When, let us say, we hear that the eye and brain are weakened by the rapid turning of wheels as well as by the most revolting torturing of men, we have come into a world in which cart-wheels and steam-engines may become as obscene as racks and thumbscrews. In short, so long as we combine ceaseless and often reckless scientific speculation with rapid and often random social reform, the result must inevitably be not anarchy but ever-increasing tyranny. There must be a ceaseless and almost mechanical multiplication of things forbidden. The resolution to cure all the ills that flesh is heir to, combined with the guesswork about all possible ills that flesh and nerve and brain-cell may be heir to—these two things conducted simultaneously must inevitably spread a sort of panic of prohibition. Scientific imagination and social reform between them will quite logically and almost legitimately have made us slaves. This seems to me a very clear, a very fair and a very simple point of public criticism; and I am much mystified about why so many publicists cannot even see what it is, but take refuge in charges of anarchism, which firstly are not true, and secondly have nothing to do with it.
Darò due esempi tratti dalla mia cerchia più personale; potrei darne a centinaia per sentito dire. Conosco un bambino che strillava incessantemente per ore se lo si conduceva davanti all’Albert Memorial. Non si trattava di una precoce precisione o eccellenza nel suo gusto architettonico. Né era una prematura protesta contro tutta quella paccottiglia di cultura tedesca che per poco non ci trascinò nella caduta della tirannia barbarica. Era la paura di qualcosa che egli stesso descriveva con lugubre semplicità come «La Mucca dalla Lingua di Caucciù». Suona come un buon titolo per un raccapricciante racconto del brivido. Alla base dell’Albert Memorial (posso spiegarlo per coloro che non hanno mai goduto di quel monumento) vi sono quattro gruppi scultorei che rappresentano l’Europa, l’Asia, l’Africa e l’America. L’America specialmente è quanto mai travolgente; portata avanti su un bisonte sbuffante che si lancia in avanti in una furia di progresso occidentale, ed è circondata da Pellirosse, Messicani e ogni sorta di pionieri, o pionieri, armati fino ai denti. Il bambino passava davanti a questo tornado transatlantico con completa freddezza e indifferenza. L’Europa tuttavia siede su un toro tanto mite da parere una mucca; la punta della sua lingua è visibile, e capitava che fosse scolorita dalle intemperie; suggerendo, suppongo, una cosa viva che esce dal marmo morto. Ora nessuno avrebbe potuto in alcun modo prevedere che una macchia d’intemperie si sarebbe formata in quel punto particolare, e avrebbe riempito quel particolare bambino di quella particolare fantasia. Non è probabile che qualcuno proponga di ovviarvi vietando le immagini scolpite, come i musulmani e gli ebrei. Nessuno ha detto (finora) che sia cattiva morale fare il ritratto di una mucca. Nessuno ha nemmeno sostenuto che sia cattiva educazione, per una mucca, tirar fuori la lingua. Queste cose sono assolutamente al di là di ogni calcolo; sono anche al di là di ogni conteggio, poiché avvengono dappertutto, non solo ai bambini morbosi ma a qualsiasi bambino. Conoscevo assai bene questo particolare bambino, essendo io stesso al tempo un bambino alquanto più grande. Egli certamente non era congenitamente timido o deficiente; poiché rischiò la prigione per smascherare lo Scandalo Marconi e morì combattendo nella Grande Guerra.
Ecco un altro esempio fra decine. Una bambina, ora una signorina quanto mai normale e allegra, ebbe un’insonnia di folle terrore interamente derivante dalla filastrocca di «Little Bo-Peep». Dopo un’inquisizione simile a quella del confessore o dello psicoanalista, si scoprì che la parola «bleating» (belare) aveva nella sua mente qualche oscuro legame con la parola «bleeding» (sanguinare). Vi era così forse un orrore aggiunto nella parola «udito»; nell’udire piuttosto che nel vedere lo scorrere del sangue. Nessuno avrebbe potuto in alcun modo premunirsi contro quel genere di equivoco. Nessuno avrebbe potuto impedire alla bambina di sentir parlare di pecore, non più di quanto si potesse impedire al bambino di sentir parlare di mucche. Potremmo abolire tutte le filastrocche della nursery; e poiché sono liete e popolari e usate con universale successo, è molto probabile che lo faremo. Ma tutto il punto dell’equivoco su quella frase è che avrebbe potuto essere un equivoco su qualsiasi frase. Non possiamo prevedere tutte le fantasie che potrebbero sorgere, non solo da ciò che diciamo, ma da ciò che non diciamo. Non possiamo evitare di promettere una caramella a un bambino per timore che creda che diciamo cannibale, o celare la parola stessa «collina» per timore che suoni come «inferno».
Tutti i cataloghi e i calcoli offertici dal partito della cautela in questa controversia sono perciò del tutto privi di valore. È perfettamente vero che si possono addurre esempi di un bambino spaventato da questo, quello o quell’altro. Ma non possiamo mai essere certi che sia spaventato due volte dalla stessa cosa. Non è sul versante negativo, facendo elenchi di veti, che il pericolo può essere evitato; e in verità non può mai essere del tutto evitato. Possiamo solo fortificare il bambino sul versante positivo, dandogli salute e umorismo e una fiducia in Dio; senza omettere (ciò che assai sconcerterà i moderni) un’intelligente apprezzamento dell’idea di autorità, che è solo l’altra faccia della fiducia, e che sola può d’un tratto e sommariamente scacciare tali demoni. Ma possiamo star certi che la maggior parte della gente moderna non la vedrà a questo modo. Riterrà più scientifico tentare di calcolare l’incalcolabile. Non appena si sarà resa conto che la cosa non è così semplice come sembra, cercherà di tracciarne la mappa, per quanto complicata essa sia. Quando scopriranno che il dettaglio terribile non deve essere un coltello, ma potrebbe altrettanto bene essere una forchetta, diranno soltanto che c’è un complesso della forchetta oltre a un complesso del coltello. E quella crescente complessità di complessi è la rete in cui la libertà verrà catturata.
Invece di vedere nei bizzarri casi della lingua della mucca o della pecora belante il pericolo delle loro passate generalizzazioni, li vedranno solo come punti di partenza per nuove generalizzazioni. Ne ricaveranno ancora un’altra teoria. E cominceranno ad agire secondo la teoria assai prima di aver finito di ragionarci sopra. Partiranno con qualche nuova e rozza concezione secondo cui la scultura ha fatto strillare i bambini o le filastrocche li hanno resi insonni; e la cosa sarà una clausola in un programma di Riforma prima ancora di aver cominciato a essere una conclusione in un serio studio di psicologia. È questo il problema pratico riguardo alla libertà moderna che i critici non vogliono vedere; di cui l’eugenetica è un esempio e tutta questa dilettantesca psicologia del bambino è un altro. Finché una vecchia morale era in bianco e nero come una scacchiera, persino un uomo che ne voleva di più fatto bianco era certo che non se ne sarebbe fatto di più nero. Ora egli non è mai certo di quali vizi possano essere liberati, ma neppure è certo di quali virtù possano essere proibite. Anche se non ritenesse sbagliato fuggire con una donna sposata, sapeva che i suoi vicini lo ritenevano sbagliato solo perché la donna era sposata. Non ritenevano sbagliato fuggire con una donna dai capelli rossi, o con una donna mancina, o con una donna soggetta a mal di testa. Ma quando scateniamo mille speculazioni eugenetiche, tutte adottate prima di essere verificate e messe in atto prima ancora di essere adottate, egli ha altrettante probabilità di ritrovarsi separato dalla donna per quelle o per qualsiasi altra ragione. Similmente vi era qualcosa da dire a favore delle restrizioni, anche di restrizioni piuttosto puritane e provinciali, su ciò che i bambini dovessero leggere o vedere, finché esse recintavano certi settori fissi come il sesso o le torture sensazionalistiche. Ma quando cominciamo a speculare se altre sensazioni non possano stimolare tanto pericolosamente quanto il sesso, quelle altre sensazioni potranno essere controllate tanto strettamente quanto il sesso. Quando, poniamo, udiamo che l’occhio e il cervello sono indeboliti tanto dal rapido girare delle ruote quanto dalla più rivoltante tortura degli uomini, siamo entrati in un mondo in cui le ruote dei carri e le locomotive a vapore possono divenire oscene quanto i cavalletti e le morse. In breve, finché combineremo una incessante e spesso avventata speculazione scientifica con una rapida e spesso casuale Riforma sociale, il risultato dev’essere inevitabilmente non l’anarchia ma una tirannia sempre crescente. Vi dev’essere una incessante e quasi meccanica moltiplicazione delle cose proibite. La risoluzione di curare tutti i mali di cui la carne è erede, combinata con la congettura circa tutti i possibili mali di cui la carne e il nervo e la cellula cerebrale possono essere eredi—queste due cose condotte simultaneamente devono inevitabilmente diffondere una sorta di panico proibizionista. L’immaginazione scientifica e la Riforma sociale insieme ci avranno, in modo del tutto logico e quasi legittimo, fatti schiavi. Questo mi sembra un punto di critica pubblica assai chiaro, assai equo e assai semplice; e sono molto sconcertato sul perché tanti pubblicisti non riescano nemmeno a vedere di che si tratti, ma si rifugino in accuse di anarchismo, che in primo luogo non sono vere, e in secondo luogo non c’entrano nulla.
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WINGS AND THE HOUSEMAID
AMONG the numberless fictitious things that I have fortunately never written, there was a little story about a logical maiden lady engaging apartments in which she was not allowed to keep a cat or dog, who, nevertheless, stipulated for permission to keep a bird, and who eventually walked round to her new lodgings accompanied by an ostrich. There was a moral to the fable, connected with that exaggeration of small concessions, in which, for instance, the Germans indulged about espionage, or the Jews about interest. But this faded fancy returned to my mind in another fashion when a very humane lady suggested the other day that every domestic servant, including the butler, I presume, should be described as “a home-bird.” Unless the lady is mis-reported, which is likely enough, she wanted servants called home-birds because they keep the home-fires burning, which, as many will be ready to point out, is hardly the particular form in which the domesticity of the nest commonly expresses itself. But I am not at all disposed to deride the lady’s real meaning, still less her real motives, which referred to a real movement of social conscience and sentiment, however wrongly expressed. She was troubled about the implied insolence of calling servants servants and apparently even of talking about “maids” or “the cook.” Therefore she evolved the ornithological substitute; about which, of course, it would be easy to evolve a whole aviary of allegorical parodies. It would be easy to ask whether a private secretary is to be called a secretary bird, or, perhaps, the telephone girl a humming-bird; but it will be enough to say generally of the proposal, in its present verbal form, that one has only to submit it to any living and human house-maid in order to find that particular home-bird developing rapidly into a mocking-bird. Nevertheless, as I have said, we should not merely dismiss any social doubts thus suggested, or any impulse towards a warmer respect for work generally grossly under-valued. Too many people, of the more snobbish social strata, have treated their servants as home-birds; as owls, for instance, who can be up all night, or as vultures, who can eat the refuse fit for the dustbin. I would not throw cold water on any indignation on this score; but I note it as typical of the time that the indignation should fail on the side of intelligence. For it is the mark of our time, above almost everything else, that it goes by associations and not by arguments; that is why it has a hundred arts and no philosophy.
Thus, for instance, the lady in question lumps together a number of terms that have no logical connexion at all. There is at least a meaning in objecting to one person calling another a servant. As I shall suggest in a moment, there is not much sense in changing the name when you do not change the thing; and there is a great deal of nonsense in denying the status of the servant at the moment when you are making it more servile. Still, anybody can see how the term might be held to hurt human dignity; but the other terms mentioned cannot hurt human dignity at all. I cannot conceive why it should insult a cook to call her a cook, any more than it insults a cashier to call him a cashier; to say nothing of the fact that dealing with cookery is far nobler than dealing with cash. And the third title certainly tells entirely the other way. The word “maid” is not only a noble old English word, with no note of social distinction; for a mediaeval king might have praised his daughter as “a good maid.” It is a word loaded with magnificent memories, in history, literature, and religion. Joan the Maid suggests a little more than Joan the maid-servant; and, as it says in Mr. Belloc’s stirring little poem:—
By God who made the Master Maids, I know not whence she came; But the sword she bore to save the soul Went up like an altar flame.
It is needless here to trace the idea back to its splendid sources; or to explain how the word maid has been the highest earthly title, not only on earth but in Heaven. “Mother and maiden was never none but she.” Here at least modern humanitarian criticism has gone curiously astray, even for its own purposes; any servant may well be satisfied with the dignity of being called the maid, just as any workman may be rightly honoured by the accident which calls him the man. For in a modern industrial dispute, as reported in the papers, I always feel there is a final verdict and sentence in the very statement of the case of Masters versus Men.
The true objection lies much farther back. It begins with the simple fact that the home-bird is not in her own home. When that particular sparrow stokes the fire, as above described, it is not her own fireside; when we happen to meet a canary carrying a coal scuttle, the canary is not generally a coal-owner. In short, wherever we find pelicans, penguins, or flamingoes keeping the home-fires burning, they may all be earnestly wishing that they could fly away to their homes. Now a moderate amount of this temporary and vicarious domesticity is a natural enough accident in social relations, so long as it does not obscure and obstruct more individual and direct domesticity. In short, there is no particular harm in the maid being a housemaid in some one else’s house, if she normally has a chance of being a housewife in her own. As I shall suggest in a moment, this is what was really implied in certain older institutions to which the wisest are now looking back. But in any case it is odd that the home-bird should thus plume itself at this moment; for the trend of the time is certainly not towards any domesticity, direct or indirect. The birds have long been netted or caged, by cold, fear and hunger, into larger and more terrorist systems. The happy home-birds are keeping the factory fires burning. The only legal and industrial tendency seems to be to shut up more and more of the women, those strange wild fowl, in those colossal cages of iron. Nor is the change one of mere aesthetic atmosphere; we know now that it is one of economic fact and may soon be one of legal definition. In a word, it is queer that we should suddenly grow sensitive about calling people servants when we are in the act of making them slaves. Indeed, in many concrete cases we may already be said to be making them convicts. The true moral meaning of much that is called the improvement of prisons is not that we are turning prisoners into a better sort of people, but rather that we are treating a better sort of people as prisoners. The broad arrow is broadened in so liberal a fashion as to cover those who would once have been counted respectable and there is a sense in which the broad arrow, becoming broader, is bound to become blunter. The prison becomes utilitarian as well as disciplinary, as the factory becomes disciplinary as well as utilitarian. The two become simply and substantially the same; for they have to treat the same sort of impecunious people in the same sort of impersonal way. People may differ about the definition of that common condition or status. Some may eagerly salute persons involved as home-birds; others may prefer to describe them as jail-birds.
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ALI E LA CAMERIERA
FRA le innumerevoli cose fittizie che ho avuto la fortuna di non scrivere mai, vi era una storiella su una logica zitella che prendeva in affitto un appartamento in cui non le era consentito tenere un gatto o un cane, e che ciò nonostante pattuiva il permesso di tenere un uccello, e che alla fine se ne andava a piedi verso il nuovo alloggio accompagnata da uno struzzo. Vi era una morale nella favola, connessa con quell’esagerazione delle piccole concessioni in cui, per esempio, i tedeschi si compiacevano a proposito dello spionaggio, o gli ebrei a proposito dell’interesse. Ma questa sbiadita fantasia mi tornò alla mente sotto altra forma quando, l’altro giorno, una signora quanto mai umana suggerì che ogni domestico, compreso il maggiordomo, presumo, dovesse essere descritto come «un uccello di casa». A meno che la signora non sia stata malamente riferita, il che è abbastanza probabile, ella voleva che i servitori fossero chiamati uccelli di casa perché tengono acceso il focolare domestico, il che, come molti saranno pronti a far notare, è ben poco la forma particolare in cui la domesticità del nido comunemente si esprime. Ma io non sono affatto disposto a deridere il vero significato della signora, ancor meno i suoi veri moventi, che si riferivano a un reale movimento della coscienza e del sentimento sociale, per quanto malamente espresso. Ella era turbata dall’implicita insolenza del chiamare i servitori servitori, e a quanto pare persino del parlare di «cameriere» o de «la cuoca». Perciò ella elaborò il surrogato ornitologico; sul quale, s’intende, sarebbe facile elaborare un’intera voliera di parodie allegoriche. Sarebbe facile chiedere se un segretario privato debba essere chiamato uccello segretario, o, forse, la ragazza del telefono un colibrì; ma basterà dire in generale della proposta, nella sua presente forma verbale, che non si ha che da sottoporla a una qualsiasi cameriera viva e umana per scoprire che quel particolare uccello di casa si trasforma rapidamente in un uccello beffeggiatore. Nondimeno, come ho detto, non dovremmo semplicemente scartare qualsiasi dubbio sociale così suggerito, o qualsiasi impulso verso un più caldo rispetto per un lavoro generalmente e grossolanamente sottovalutato. Troppe persone, degli strati sociali più snobistici, hanno trattato i loro servitori come uccelli di casa; come gufi, per esempio, che possono restare svegli tutta la notte, o come avvoltoi, che possono mangiare i rifiuti buoni per la pattumiera. Non getterei acqua fredda su alcuna indignazione a questo riguardo; ma la noto come tipica del nostro tempo che l’indignazione fallisca sul lato dell’intelligenza. Poiché è il marchio del nostro tempo, quasi più di ogni altra cosa, che esso proceda per associazioni e non per argomenti; ecco perché ha cento arti e nessuna filosofia.
Così, per esempio, la signora in questione accozza insieme un certo numero di termini che non hanno alcun nesso logico fra loro. Vi è almeno un significato nell’obiettare che una persona ne chiami un’altra servitore. Come suggerirò tra un momento, non ha molto senso cambiare il nome quando non si cambia la cosa; e vi è un gran mucchio di sciocchezze nel negare lo statuto del servitore proprio nel momento in cui lo si rende più servile. Tuttavia, chiunque può vedere come il termine possa essere ritenuto lesivo della dignità umana; ma gli altri termini menzionati non possono affatto ledere la dignità umana. Non riesco a concepire perché dovrebbe insultare una cuoca il chiamarla cuoca, più di quanto insulti un cassiere il chiamarlo cassiere; per non parlare del fatto che aver a che fare con la cucina è assai più nobile che aver a che fare col contante. E il terzo titolo depone certamente tutto in senso contrario. La parola «cameriera» non è solo una nobile e antica parola inglese, priva di ogni nota di distinzione sociale; poiché un re medievale avrebbe potuto lodare sua figlia come «una buona cameriera». È una parola carica di magnifiche memorie, nella storia, nella letteratura e nella religione. Giovanna la Pulzella suggerisce qualcosa di più di Giovanna la serva; e, come dice nella vigorosa poesiola del signor Belloc:—
Per Dio che fece le Somme Pulzelle, non so donde ella venne; ma la spada che portò a salvar l’anima si levò come fiamma d’altare.
È qui superfluo risalire l’idea alle sue splendide sorgenti; o spiegare come la parola «pulzella» sia stata il più alto titolo terreno, non solo in terra ma in Cielo. «Madre e pulzella non fu mai nessuna se non lei.» Qui almeno la moderna critica umanitaria è andata curiosamente fuori strada, persino ai propri fini; qualsiasi servitrice può ben essere soddisfatta della dignità di essere chiamata la cameriera, proprio come qualsiasi operaio può essere giustamente onorato dall’accidente che lo chiama l’uomo. Poiché in una moderna vertenza industriale, così come è riferita sui giornali, sento sempre che vi è un verdetto e una sentenza finale nella formulazione stessa del caso di Padroni contro Uomini.
La vera obiezione risiede assai più a fondo. Comincia col semplice fatto che l’uccello di casa non è nella propria casa. Quando quel particolare passero attizza il fuoco, come sopra descritto, non è il suo proprio focolare; quando ci accade di incontrare un canarino che porta un secchio del carbone, il canarino non è in genere un proprietario di miniere di carbone. In breve, dovunque troviamo pellicani, pinguini o fenicotteri che tengono acceso il focolare domestico, essi possono tutti star desiderando ardentemente di poter volar via alle proprie case. Ora una moderata dose di questa temporanea e vicaria domesticità è un accidente abbastanza naturale nelle relazioni sociali, purché non offuschi e non ostruisca una domesticità più individuale e diretta. In breve, non c’è alcun male particolare nel fatto che la cameriera sia cameriera nella casa di qualcun altro, se normalmente ha la possibilità di essere padrona di casa nella propria. Come suggerirò tra un momento, è questo ciò che era realmente implicito in certe istituzioni più antiche cui i più saggi ora tornano a guardare. Ma in ogni caso è strano che l’uccello di casa debba impennacchiarsi a questo modo proprio in questo momento; poiché la tendenza del tempo non è certo verso alcuna domesticità, diretta o indiretta. Gli uccelli sono da tempo stati intrappolati nelle reti o ingabbiati, dal freddo, dalla paura e dalla fame, in sistemi più vasti e più terroristici. I felici uccelli di casa tengono accesi i fuochi della fabbrica. L’unica tendenza legale e industriale sembra essere quella di rinchiudere sempre più donne, quegli strani volatili selvatici, in quelle colossali gabbie di ferro. Né il mutamento è di mera atmosfera estetica; sappiamo ormai che è un mutamento di fatto economico e presto potrà essere un mutamento di definizione legale. In una parola, è bizzarro che di colpo ci facciamo scrupolo di chiamare la gente servitori proprio mentre siamo in atto di farne schiavi. In verità, in molti casi concreti si può già dire che ne stiamo facendo dei forzati. Il vero significato morale di gran parte di ciò che si chiama il miglioramento delle prigioni non è che stiamo trasformando i prigionieri in una specie migliore di persone, ma piuttosto che stiamo trattando una specie migliore di persone come prigionieri. La freccia larga è allargata in modo così liberale da coprire coloro che un tempo sarebbero stati contati fra i rispettabili, e vi è un senso in cui la freccia larga, facendosi più larga, è destinata a farsi più ottusa. La prigione diviene utilitaristica non meno che disciplinare, come la fabbrica diviene disciplinare non meno che utilitaristica. Le due divengono semplicemente e sostanzialmente la stessa cosa; poiché devono trattare la stessa specie di gente squattrinata nella stessa specie di modo impersonale. Le persone possono discordare sulla definizione di quella comune condizione o status. Alcuni possono con entusiasmo salutare le persone coinvolte come uccelli di casa; altri possono preferire descriverle come uccelli da galera.
For the rest, if anybody wants to strike the central stream of moderate sanity in the servant problem, I recommend him first to read with a close attention or preferably to sing in a loud voice, the song called “Sally in Our Alley.” In that great and gloriously English lyric, the poet does not disguise the accidental discomforts of the great system of apprenticeship which was part of the glory of the Guilds. He even exhibits his Christian prejudices by comparing his master to a Turk. He actually entertains, as every reflective social reformer must, the hypothetical alternative of the Servile State, and considers the relative advantages of a slave that rows a galley. But the point is that what makes him refuse and endure is hope, the sure and certain hope of a glorious emancipation; not the hopeless hope of a chance in a scramble, with a general recommendation to get on or get out, but a charter of knowledge and honour, that “when his seven long years are past,” a door shall open to him, which our age has shut on the great multitude of mankind.
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THE SLAVERY OF FREE VERSE
THE truth most needed to-day is that the end is never the right end. The beginning is the right end at which to begin. The modern man has to read everything backwards; as when he reads journalism first and history afterwards—if at all. He is like a blind man exploring an elephant, and condemned to begin at the very tip of its tail. But he is still more unlucky; for when be has a first principle, it is generally the very last principle that he ought to have. He starts, as it were, with one infallible dogma about the elephant; that its tail is its trunk. He works the wrong way round on principle; and tries to fit all the practical facts to his principle. Because the elephant has no eyes in its tail-end, he calls it a blind elephant; and expatiates on its ignorance, superstition, and need of compulsory education. Because it has no tusks at its tail-end, he says that tusks are a fantastic flourish attributed to a fabulous creature, an ivory chimera that must have come through the ivory gate. Because it does not as a rule pick up things with its tail, he dismisses the magical story that it can pick up things with its trunk. He probably says it is plainly a piece of anthropomorphism to suppose that an elephant can pack its trunk. The result is that he becomes as pallid and worried as a pessimist; the world to him is not only an elephant, but a white elephant. He does not know what to do with it, and cannot be persuaded of the perfectly simple explanation; which is that he has not made the smallest real attempt to make head or tail of the animal. He will not begin at the right end; because he happens to have come first on the wrong end.
But in nothing do I feel this modern trick, of trusting to a fag-end rather than a first principle, more than in the modern treatment of poetry. With this or that particular metrical form, or unmetrical form, or unmetrical formlessness, I might be content or not, as it achieves some particular effect or not. But the whole general tendency, regarded as an emancipation, seems to me more or less of an enslavement. It seems founded on one sub-conscious idea; that talk is freer than verse; and that verse, therefore, should claim the freedom of talk. But talk, especially in our time, is not free at all. It is tripped up by trivialities, tamed by conventions loaded with dead words, thwarted by a thousand meaningless things. It does not liberate the soul so much, when a man can say, “You always look so nice,” as when he can say, “But your eternal summer shall not fade.” The first is an awkward and constrained sentence ending with the weakest word ever used, or rather misused, by man. The second is like the gesture of a giant or the sweeping flight of an archangel; it has the very rush of liberty. I do not despise the man who says the first, because he means the second; and what he means is more important than what he says. I have always done my best to emphasize the inner dignity of these daily things, in spite of their dull externals; but I do not think it an improvement that the inner spirit itself should grow more external and more dull. It is thought right to discourage numbers of prosaic people trying to be poetical; but I think it much more of a bore to watch numbers of poetical people trying to be prosaic. In short, it is another case of tail-foremost philosophy; instead of watering the laurel hedge of the cockney villa, we bride the cockney to brick in the plant of Apollo.
I have always had the fancy that if a man were really free, he would talk in rhythm and even in rhyme. His most hurried post card would be a sonnet; and his most hasty wires like harp-strings. He would breathe a song into the telephone; a song which would be a lyric or an epic, according to the time involved in awaiting the call; or in his inevitable altercation with the telephone girl, the duel would be also a duet. He would express his preference among the dishes at dinner in short impromptu poems, combining the more mystical gratitude of grace with a certain epigrammatic terseness, more convenient for domestic good feeling. If Mr. Yeats can say, in exquisite verse, the exact number of bean-rows he would like on his plantation, why not the number of beans he would like on his plate? If he can issue a rhymed request to procure the honey-bee, why not pass the honey? Misunderstandings might arise at first with the richer and more fantastic poets; and Francis Thompson might have asked several times for “the gold skins of undelirious wine” before anybody understood that he wanted the grapes. Nevertheless, I will maintain that his magnificent phrase would be a far more real expression of God’s most glorious gift of the vine, than if he had simply said in a peremptory manner “grapes”; especially if the culture of compulsory education had carefully taught him to pronounce it as if it were “gripes.” And if a man could ask for a potato in the form of a poem, the poem would not be merely a more romantic but a much more realistic rendering of a potato. For a potato is a poem; it is even an ascending scale of poems; beginning at the root, in subterranean grotesques in the Gothic manner, with humps like the deformities of a goblin and eyes like a beast of Revelation, and rising up through the green shades of the earth to a crown that has the shape of stars and the hue of Heaven.
Del resto, se qualcuno vuole cogliere la corrente centrale di una moderata saggezza nella questione della servitù, gli raccomando anzitutto di leggere con attenzione, o meglio ancora di cantare a piena voce, la canzone intitolata «Sally in Our Alley». In quel grande e gloriosamente inglese componimento lirico, il poeta non nasconde i disagi accidentali del grande sistema dell’apprendistato, che era parte della gloria delle Corporazioni. Esibisce persino i suoi pregiudizi cristiani paragonando il suo padrone a un Turco. Prende davvero in considerazione, come deve fare ogni riflessivo riformatore sociale, l’ipotetica alternativa dello Stato Servile, e soppesa i relativi vantaggi di uno schiavo che voga su una galera. Ma il punto è che ciò che lo spinge a rifiutare e a resistere è la speranza, la sicura e certa speranza di una gloriosa emancipazione; non la disperata speranza di un colpo di fortuna in una ressa, con la generica esortazione a farsi strada o a sloggiare, bensì una carta di conoscenza e di onore, per cui «quando i suoi sette lunghi anni saranno trascorsi», una porta gli si aprirà: quella che la nostra epoca ha chiuso in faccia alla gran moltitudine del genere umano.
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LA SCHIAVITÙ DEL VERSO LIBERO
La verità di cui oggi più si ha bisogno è che la fine non è mai il capo giusto. L’inizio è il capo giusto da cui cominciare. L’uomo moderno è costretto a leggere ogni cosa a rovescio; come quando legge prima il giornalismo e poi la storia—sempre che la legga. È simile a un cieco che esplora un elefante ed è condannato a cominciare proprio dalla punta della coda. Ma è ancora più sfortunato di lui; perché, quando possiede un primo principio, in genere è proprio l’ultimo principio che dovrebbe avere. Egli parte, per così dire, da un unico dogma infallibile sull’elefante: che la sua coda sia la sua proboscide. Lavora per principio nel verso sbagliato, e cerca di adattare tutti i fatti pratici al suo principio. Poiché l’elefante non ha occhi in fondo alla coda, lo dichiara un elefante cieco; e si dilunga sulla sua ignoranza, sulla sua superstizione e sul suo bisogno di istruzione obbligatoria. Poiché non ha zanne in fondo alla coda, afferma che le zanne sono un fantastico svolazzo attribuito a una creatura favolosa, una chimera d’avorio che dev’essere passata per la porta d’avorio. Poiché di regola non raccoglie le cose con la coda, respinge come favola la storia magica che possa raccoglierle con la proboscide. Probabilmente dice che è palesemente un pezzo di antropomorfismo supporre che un elefante possa fare i bagagli con la proboscide. Il risultato è che diventa pallido e angosciato come un pessimista; il mondo, per lui, non è soltanto un elefante, ma un elefante bianco. Non sa che farsene, e non c’è verso di persuaderlo della spiegazione perfettamente semplice: e cioè che non ha fatto il minimo tentativo reale di venire a capo dell’animale. Non vuole cominciare dal capo giusto, perché gli è capitato di imbattersi prima nel capo sbagliato.
Ma in nulla avverto questo trucco moderno, di affidarsi a un mozzicone anziché a un primo principio, più che nel moderno trattamento della poesia. Di questa o quella particolare forma metrica, o forma non metrica, o informità non metrica, potrei anche essere pago o no, a seconda che raggiunga o meno un certo effetto particolare. Ma l’intera tendenza generale, considerata come un’emancipazione, mi sembra più o meno un asservimento. Pare fondata su un’unica idea subconscia: che il parlare sia più libero del verso; e che il verso, dunque, debba rivendicare la libertà del parlare. Ma il parlare, specie ai nostri tempi, non è affatto libero. È fatto inciampare dalle banalità, addomesticato da convenzioni cariche di parole morte, ostacolato da mille cose prive di senso. Non libera l’anima tanto, quando un uomo può dire «Hai sempre un bell’aspetto», quanto quando può dire «Ma la tua eterna estate non appassirà». La prima è una frase goffa e impacciata, che finisce con la parola più debole mai usata, o piuttosto abusata, dall’uomo. La seconda è come il gesto di un gigante o il volo spiegato di un arcangelo; ha in sé lo slancio stesso della libertà. Non disprezzo l’uomo che pronuncia la prima, perché egli intende la seconda; e ciò che intende è più importante di ciò che dice. Ho sempre fatto del mio meglio per sottolineare la dignità interiore di queste cose quotidiane, a dispetto della loro spenta apparenza esteriore; ma non ritengo un progresso che lo stesso spirito interiore si faccia più esteriore e più spento. Si giudica giusto scoraggiare frotte di gente prosaica che cerca di farsi poetica; ma trovo assai più noioso osservare frotte di gente poetica che cerca di farsi prosaica. In breve, è un altro caso di filosofia a coda in avanti: invece di annaffiare la siepe di allori della villetta del cockney, corrompiamo il cockney perché muri dentro la pianta di Apollo.
Ho sempre coltivato la fantasia che, se un uomo fosse davvero libero, parlerebbe in ritmo e persino in rima. La sua cartolina più frettolosa sarebbe un sonetto; e i suoi telegrammi più affrettati sarebbero come corde d’arpa. Soffierebbe una canzone dentro il telefono; una canzone che sarebbe una lirica o un poema epico, secondo il tempo richiesto dall’attesa della chiamata; oppure, nell’immancabile battibecco con la signorina del centralino, il duello sarebbe anche un duetto. Esprimerebbe la sua preferenza tra le pietanze a cena in brevi poesie improvvisate, unendo la gratitudine più mistica del ringraziamento sacro a una certa concisione epigrammatica, più adatta alla buona armonia domestica. Se il signor Yeats può dire, in versi squisiti, il numero esatto di filari di fagioli che vorrebbe nella sua piantagione, perché non il numero di fagioli che vorrebbe nel suo piatto? Se può inoltrare una richiesta in rima per procurarsi l’ape mellifera, perché non chiedere che gli si passi il miele? Sulle prime potrebbero sorgere fraintendimenti con i poeti più ricchi e fantasiosi; e Francis Thompson avrebbe potuto chiedere più volte «le auree bucce del vino non delirante» prima che qualcuno capisse che voleva l’uva. Ciononostante, sosterrò che quella sua magnifica frase sarebbe un’espressione assai più reale del dono più glorioso di Dio, la vite, di quanto non lo sarebbe stato se avesse semplicemente detto, in tono perentorio, «uva»; specie se la cultura dell’istruzione obbligatoria gli avesse accuratamente insegnato a pronunciarla come se fosse «uga». E se un uomo potesse chiedere una patata sotto forma di poesia, la poesia non sarebbe soltanto una resa più romantica, ma una resa molto più realistica della patata. Perché una patata è una poesia; è anzi una scala ascendente di poesie; comincia alla radice, in grotteschi sotterranei alla maniera gotica, con gobbe simili alle deformità di un folletto e occhi simili a una bestia dell’Apocalisse, e s’innalza attraverso le verdi ombre della terra fino a una corona che ha la forma delle stelle e la tinta del Cielo.
But the truth behind all this is that expressed in that very ancient mystical notion, the music of the spheres. It is the idea that, at the back of everything, existence begins with a harmony and not a chaos; and, therefore, when we really spread our wings and find a wider freedom, we find it in something more continuous and recurrent, and not in something more fragmentary and crude. Freedom is fullness, especially fullness of life; and a full vessel is more rounded and complete than an empty one, and not less so. To vary Browning’s phrase, we find in prose the broken arcs, in poetry the perfect round. Prose is not the freedom of poetry; rather prose is the fragments of poetry. Prose, at least in the prosaic sense, is poetry interrupted, held up and cut off from its course; the chariot of Phoebus stopped by a block in the Strand. But when it begins to move again at all, I think we shall find certain old-fashioned things move with it, such as repetition and even measure, rhythm and even rhyme. We shall discover with horror that the wheels of the chariot go round and round; and even that the horses of the chariot have the usual number of feet.
Anyhow, the right way to encourage the cortège is not to put the cart before the horse. It is to make poetry more poetical by ignoring what distinguishes it from prose. There may be many new ways of making the chariot move again; but I confess that most of the modern theorists seem to me to be lecturing on a new theory of its mechanics, while it is standing still. If a wizard before my very eyes works a miracle with a rope, a boy and a mango plant, I am only theoretically interested in the question of a sceptic, who asks why it should not be done with a garden hose, a maiden aunt and a monkey-tree. Why not, indeed, if he can do it? If a saint performs a miracle to-morrow, by turning a stone into a fish, I shall be the less concerned at being asked, in the abstract, why a man should not also turn a camp-stool into a cockatoo; but let him do it, and not merely explain how it can be done. It is certain that words such as “birds” and “sweet,” which are as plain as “fish” or “stone,” can be combined in such a miracle as “Bare ruined quires where late the sweet birds sang.” So far as I can follow my own feelings, the metre and fall of the feet, even the rhyme and place in the sonnet, have a great deal to do with producing such an effect. I do not say there is no other way of producing such an effect. I only ask, not without longing, where else in this wide and weary time is it produced? I know I cannot produce it; and I do not in fact feel it when I hear vers libres. I know not where is that Promethean heat; and, even to express my ignorance, I am glad to find better words than my own.
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PROHIBITION AND THE PRESS
AN organ of the Nonconformist Conscience, while commenting very kindly on my recent remarks about America, naturally went on to criticize, though equally kind, my remarks about Prohibition. Now, so far as I am concerned, the problem is not so much Prohibition with a large P as prohibition with a small one. I mean, I am interested not so much in liquor as in liberty. I want to know on what principle the prohibitionists are proceeding in this case, and how they think it applies to any other case. And I cannot for the life of me make out. They might be expected to argue that there is something peculiar in principle about the position of liquor, and make that the basis for attacking liquor. But in point of fact they do not attack liquor; they do quite simply attack liberty. I mean that they are satisfied with saying about this liberty what can obviously be said about any liberty—that it can be, and is, abominably abused. If that had been a final objection to any form of freedom, there never would have been any form of freedom. And there most notably would never have been the particular forms of freedom which are most sacred to the Nonconformist Conscience. The Nonconformists have demanded liberty to secede, though they knew it led to an anarchy of sects and spiteful controversies. They had demanded the licence to print, though they knew it involved the licence to print twenty falsehoods to one truth. I suppose there is nothing in history of which the modern Puritan would be more innocently proud than the thing called the Liberty of the Press, which arose out of the pamphleteering of the seventeenth century, and especially the great pamphlet of Milton. Yet everything that Milton says, about allowing controversy in spite of its dangers, could be applied word for word to the case of allowing drinking in spite of its dangers. Is not the virtue that shuts itself up in a temperance hotel a fugitive and cloistered virtue? Is not the morality that dare not have wine on the table, or in the town, emphatically one that dares not sally out to meet its enemy? All Milton’s arguments for freedom are arguments for beer; and, of course, Milton himself would certainly have applied them to beer. The highly successful brewer to whom he was Latin secretary— a gentleman of the name of Williams, otherwise Cromwell—would hardly have been pleased with him if he had not applied them to beer.
For instance the critic whom I am here venturing to criticize says that people differ about Prohibition according to their knowledge or ignorance of the dreadful state of the slums, the ravages of alcoholism in our industrial cities, and all the rest of it. Whether or no this be a good argument against the public-house, there is no doubt that I could easily turn it against the public press. I could insist that I am a common Cockney Fleet Street journalist who has done nightly work for daily papers and fed off nocturnal potato-stalls; whereas he is probably a cultivated Congregationalist minister writing in a library of theological works. I might say that I know better than he does, or than most people do, the cynicism and the vulgarity and the vices of journalism. But, as a matter of fact, the vices of journalism have by this time become as evident to the people who read journals as to the people who write them. All responsible people are complaining of the power and condition of the press, and no people more than these earnest and ethical Nonconformists. It is they who complain most bitterly that a Jingo press can manufacture war. It is they who declare most indignantly that a sensational press is undermining morality. They often, to my mind, unduly confuse matters of morality with matters of taste. They often, to my mind, denounce as mere Jingoism what is simply the deeply democratic and popular character of patriotism. But nobody will deny that to a large extent they are legitimately and logically alarmed about the abuses and absurdities of the newspapers. But they have not yet used this as an argument for a veto upon all newspapers. Why in the world should they use the parallel evils as an argument for a veto on all public-houses?
Ma la verità dietro tutto questo è quella espressa in quell’antichissima nozione mistica, la musica delle sfere. È l’idea che, in fondo a ogni cosa, l’esistenza cominci con un’armonia e non con un caos; e che, perciò, quando spieghiamo davvero le ali e troviamo una libertà più ampia, la troviamo in qualcosa di più continuo e ricorrente, non in qualcosa di più frammentario e rozzo. La libertà è pienezza, soprattutto pienezza di vita; e un vaso colmo è più tondo e compiuto di uno vuoto, non meno. Per variare la frase di Browning, nella prosa troviamo gli archi spezzati, nella poesia il cerchio perfetto. La prosa non è la libertà della poesia; la prosa è piuttosto i frammenti della poesia. La prosa, almeno nel senso prosaico, è poesia interrotta, trattenuta e recisa dal suo corso; il carro di Febo fermato da un ingorgo nello Strand. Ma quando pure ricomincia a muoversi, credo che troveremo muoversi con essa certe cose all’antica, come la ripetizione e persino la misura, il ritmo e persino la rima. Scopriremo con orrore che le ruote del carro girano e rigirano; e persino che i cavalli del carro hanno il consueto numero di zampe.
Comunque, il modo giusto di incoraggiare il corteo non è mettere il carro davanti al cavallo. È rendere la poesia più poetica ignorando ciò che la distingue dalla prosa. Vi possono essere molti nuovi modi di rimettere in moto il carro; ma confesso che la maggior parte dei teorici moderni mi pare stia tenendo conferenze su una nuova teoria della sua meccanica mentre esso se ne sta fermo. Se un mago, sotto i miei stessi occhi, compie un miracolo con una corda, un ragazzo e una pianta di mango, la domanda dello scettico mi interessa solo in teoria: quello che chiede perché non lo si possa fare con la canna di un giardino, una zia zitella e un’araucaria. E perché no, in effetti, se ci riesce? Se domani un santo compisse un miracolo mutando una pietra in un pesce, mi darebbe assai meno pensiero sentirmi chiedere, in astratto, perché un uomo non possa anche mutare uno sgabello da campo in una cacatua; ma che lo faccia, e non si limiti a spiegare come lo si possa fare. È certo che parole come «uccelli» e «dolci», tanto piane quanto «pesce» o «pietra», possono combinarsi in un miracolo come «Nudi cori in rovina dove un tempo cantavano i dolci uccelli». Per quanto riesco a seguire i miei stessi sentimenti, il metro e la caduta dei piedi, e perfino la rima e la posizione nel sonetto, hanno molto a che fare col produrre un simile effetto. Non dico che non vi sia altro modo di produrre un tale effetto. Chiedo soltanto, non senza struggimento, in quale altro luogo di questo vasto e stanco tempo esso venga prodotto. So di non saperlo produrre io; e di fatto non lo avverto quando odo i vers libres. Non so dove sia quel calore prometeico; e, anche solo per esprimere la mia ignoranza, sono lieto di trovare parole migliori delle mie.
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IL PROIBIZIONISMO E LA STAMPA
Un organo della Coscienza Nonconformista, mentre commentava assai benevolmente le mie recenti osservazioni sull’America, è passato naturalmente a criticare, seppur con pari benevolenza, le mie osservazioni sul Proibizionismo. Ora, per quanto mi riguarda, il problema non è tanto il Proibizionismo con la P maiuscola quanto il proibire con la minuscola. Voglio dire che non mi interessano tanto i liquori quanto la libertà. Voglio sapere su quale principio procedano i proibizionisti in questo caso, e come pensino che esso si applichi a qualunque altro caso. E non riesco proprio a raccapezzarmici. Ci si aspetterebbe che sostenessero esserci qualcosa di peculiare, in linea di principio, nella posizione dei liquori, e su ciò fondassero l’attacco ai liquori. Ma di fatto essi non attaccano i liquori; attaccano molto semplicemente la libertà. Voglio dire che si accontentano di dire, di questa libertà, ciò che ovviamente si può dire di qualunque libertà: che può essere, ed è, abominevolmente abusata. Se ciò fosse stato un’obiezione decisiva contro qualsiasi forma di libertà, non ci sarebbe mai stata alcuna forma di libertà. E soprattutto non ci sarebbero mai state quelle particolari forme di libertà che sono più sacre alla Coscienza Nonconformista. I Nonconformisti hanno preteso la libertà di separarsi, pur sapendo che essa conduceva a un’anarchia di sette e a controversie livorose. Avevano preteso la licenza di stampare, pur sapendo che essa comportava la licenza di stampare venti falsità per ogni verità. Suppongo che non vi sia nulla, nella storia, di cui il puritano moderno andrebbe più innocentemente fiero della cosa chiamata Libertà di Stampa, sorta dalla pubblicistica del Seicento, e specialmente dal grande pamphlet di Milton. Eppure tutto ciò che Milton dice, sul permettere la controversia a dispetto dei suoi pericoli, potrebbe applicarsi parola per parola al caso del permettere il bere a dispetto dei suoi pericoli. Non è forse, la virtù che si chiude in un albergo temperante, una virtù fuggitiva e claustrale? Non è forse, la moralità che non osa avere il vino in tavola, o in città, per l’appunto quella che non osa uscire in campo per affrontare il proprio nemico? Tutti gli argomenti di Milton a favore della libertà sono argomenti a favore della birra; e, naturalmente, Milton stesso li avrebbe di certo applicati alla birra. Il birraio di grandissimo successo di cui egli fu segretario latino—un signore di nome Williams, altrimenti detto Cromwell—difficilmente sarebbe stato contento di lui, se non li avesse applicati alla birra.
Per esempio, il critico che qui mi arrischio a criticare dice che sul Proibizionismo la gente si divide a seconda della propria conoscenza o ignoranza del terribile stato dei bassifondi, delle devastazioni dell’alcolismo nelle nostre città industriali, e via dicendo. Che questo sia o no un buon argomento contro l’osteria pubblica, non c’è dubbio che potrei facilmente rivolgerlo contro la stampa pubblica. Potrei insistere sul fatto che sono un comune giornalista cockney di Fleet Street, che ha fatto lavoro notturno per i quotidiani e si è sfamato ai banchetti notturni delle patate; mentre lui è probabilmente un colto pastore congregazionalista che scrive in una biblioteca di opere teologiche. Potrei dire di conoscere, meglio di lui o della maggior parte della gente, il cinismo, la volgarità e i vizi del giornalismo. Ma, di fatto, i vizi del giornalismo sono ormai divenuti tanto evidenti a chi legge i giornali quanto a chi li scrive. Tutte le persone responsabili si lamentano del potere e delle condizioni della stampa, e nessuno più di questi seri ed etici Nonconformisti. Sono loro a lamentarsi più amaramente che una stampa sciovinista possa fabbricare la guerra. Sono loro a dichiarare più indignati che una stampa sensazionalistica sta minando la moralità. Spesso, a mio avviso, confondono indebitamente questioni di moralità con questioni di gusto. Spesso, a mio avviso, denunciano come mero sciovinismo ciò che è semplicemente il carattere profondamente democratico e popolare del patriottismo. Ma nessuno negherà che, in larga misura, essi siano legittimamente e logicamente allarmati per gli abusi e le assurdità dei giornali. Eppure non hanno ancora usato ciò come argomento per un veto su tutti i giornali. Perché mai dovrebbero usare i mali paralleli come argomento per un veto su tutte le osterie?
For my part I do feel very strongly about the frivolity and irresponsibility of the press. It seems impossible to exaggerate the evil that can be done by a corrupt and unscrupulous press. If drink directly ruins the family, it only indirectly ruins the nation. But bad journalism does directly ruin the nation, considered as a nation; it acts on the corporate national will and sways the common national decision. It may force a decision in a few hours that will be an incurable calamity for hundreds of years. It may drive a whole civilization to defeat, to slavery, to bankruptcy, to universal famine. Even at this moment there are prominent papers wildly urging us to war—not with our foes but with our friends. There are some journalists so wicked as to want war, almost for its own sake; there are more journalists so weak-minded as to work for war without even wanting it. Let us give one example out of fifty of the sort of phrases that flash by us when we turn over the papers. A headline in enormous letters announces that the French are “scuttling” out of the disputed areas in the Near East. The phrase about scuttling, and the policy of scuttle, has been familiar and firmly established in English journalism as meaning a cowardly and servile surrender, admitting abject defeat. And the suggestion is that the French, being notoriously a nation of cowards, having that tendency to panic produced by a habit of dancing and a diet of frogs, can vividly be pictured as scampering with screams of terror from the sight of a Turk with a drawn sabre. This is the way our newspapers improve our relations with our Allies. Only the newspaper men seem to have got a little mixed in their eagerness to expatiate on the wide field of French vileness and ignominy. Only a little while ago the same papers were telling us that the French were furious filibusters, forcing war in every corner of the world. We were told that it was France which was militaristic and aggressive, and all her rivals were made to scuttle. We were told that it was, the Frenchman and not the Turk who was the terrible person holding the drawn sabre. In plain words, these journalists are resolved to show that whatever the French do is wrong. If they advance, they are arrogant; if they retreat, they are cowardly. If they keep an army beyond the Rhine, they are pursuing a policy of militarism; if they withdraw an army from somewhere else, they are pursuing a policy of scuttle. Where M. Poincaré is ready to fight, he is a fire-eater who cares for nothing but fighting; where he is not ready to fight, he is a poltroon who is always notoriously too timid to fight. The careful selection of language of this sort, for a given period, might quite possibly land us in a European war—a war in which we should be certainly on the wrong side, and almost certainly on the losing side.
Suppose I come forward with this great reform of the Prohibition of the Press. Suppose I suggest that the police should forcibly shut up all the newspaper-offices, as the other reformers wish to shut up all the public-houses. What answer will the Puritan moralists make to me, or on what principle do they distinguish between the one reform and the other? There is no kind of doubt about the harm that journalism does; and their own line of argument precludes them from appealing merely to the good that it does. As a matter of fact, far better poems have been written in taverns than are ever likely to appear in daily papers. And, from Pantagruel to Pickwick, this form of festivity has a roll of literary glory to its credit which is never likely to be found in the back files of any newspaper that I know of. But the Puritans do not discuss the healthier tradition of wine; they consider their argument sufficiently supported by the unhealthy effects of gin and bad beer in the slums. And if we adopt that principle of judging by the worst, then the worst effects of the press are far wider than the worst effects of the public-house. What exactly is the principle by which they distinguish between lawful and unlawful liberty, or mixed and unmixed licence? I have a rough-and-ready test, which may be right or wrong, but which I can at least state; but where has their test been stated? I say that the simplest form of freedom is that which distinguishes the free man from the slave—the ownership of his own body and his own bodily activities. That there is a risk in allowing him this ownership is obvious, and has always been obvious. The risk is not confined to the question of drink, but covers the whole question of health. But surely the other forms of freedom, such as freedom to print, are very much more indirect and disputable. A newspaper may be made the instrument of the vilest sort of swindling or starving of a whole people. Why are we to grant the remote right, and deny the intimate right? Moreover, a newspaper is a new thing; if our fathers had the right to it, they never knew it. Fermented liquor is as old as civilization, or older. But what I have asked for again and again is simply the principle of the Prohibitionists: and I am asking still.
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THE MERCY OF MR. ARNOLD BENNETT
MR. ARNOLD BENNETT recently wrote one of his humorous and humane causeries, pleading very properly for social imagination and the better understanding of our fellows. He carried it, however, to the point of affirming, as some fatalists do, that we should never judge anybody in the sense of condemning anybody, in connexion with his moral conduct. Some time ago the same distinguished writer showed that his mercy and magnanimity were indeed on a heroic scale by reviewing a book of mine, and even saying many kind things about it. But to these he added a doubt about whether true intelligence could be consistent with the acceptance of any dogma. In truth there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it. My only advantage over the gifted novelist lies in my belonging to the former class. I suspect that his unconsciousness of his dogmas extends to an unconsciousness of what he means by a dogma. If it means merely the popular idea of being dogmatic, it might be suggested that saying that all dogmatism is unintelligent is itself somewhat dogmatic. And something of what is true of his veto on dogma is also true of his veto on condemnation; which is really a veto on vetoes.
Da parte mia, provo sentimenti molto forti riguardo alla frivolezza e all’irresponsabilità della stampa. Pare impossibile esagerare il male che può fare una stampa corrotta e senza scrupoli. Se il bere rovina direttamente la famiglia, rovina la nazione solo in modo indiretto. Ma il cattivo giornalismo rovina direttamente la nazione, considerata come nazione; agisce sulla volontà nazionale collettiva e fa oscillare la comune decisione nazionale. Può forzare in poche ore una decisione che sarà una calamità incurabile per centinaia d’anni. Può trascinare un’intera civiltà alla sconfitta, alla schiavitù, alla bancarotta, alla carestia universale. Persino in questo momento vi sono giornali di primo piano che ci spingono forsennatamente alla guerra—non contro i nostri nemici, ma contro i nostri amici. Vi sono alcuni giornalisti tanto malvagi da volere la guerra quasi per se stessa; ve ne sono altri, in maggior numero, tanto deboli di mente da adoperarsi per la guerra senza neppure volerla. Diamo un solo esempio su cinquanta del genere di frasi che ci sfrecciano davanti quando sfogliamo i giornali. Un titolo a caratteri enormi annuncia che i Francesi «se la battono» dalle zone contese del Vicino Oriente. La frase sul battersela, e la politica del battere in ritirata, si è fatta familiare e saldamente radicata nel giornalismo inglese col significato di una resa vile e servile, che ammette una disfatta abietta. E l’insinuazione è che i Francesi, essendo notoriamente una nazione di codardi, con quella tendenza al panico prodotta dall’abitudine di ballare e da una dieta di rane, possano essere vividamente raffigurati mentre scappano, con strida di terrore, alla vista di un Turco con la sciabola sguainata. Ecco il modo in cui i nostri giornali migliorano i rapporti con i nostri Alleati. Senonché i giornalisti paiono essersi un po’ confusi nella loro smania di dilungarsi sull’ampio campo della viltà e dell’ignominia francese. Solo poco tempo fa gli stessi giornali ci raccontavano che i Francesi erano furiosi filibustieri, che imponevano la guerra in ogni angolo del mondo. Ci veniva detto che era la Francia a essere militarista e aggressiva, e che tutte le sue rivali erano costrette a battere in ritirata. Ci veniva detto che era il Francese, e non il Turco, la persona terribile che impugnava la sciabola sguainata. In parole povere, questi giornalisti sono decisi a dimostrare che qualunque cosa facciano i Francesi è sbagliata. Se avanzano, sono arroganti; se si ritirano, sono codardi. Se tengono un esercito oltre il Reno, perseguono una politica di militarismo; se ritirano un esercito da qualche altra parte, perseguono una politica di fuga. Quando il signor Poincaré è pronto a combattere, è un mangiafuoco che non ha a cuore altro che il combattere; quando non è pronto a combattere, è un vigliacco notoriamente sempre troppo timido per combattere. L’accurata selezione di un linguaggio di questo genere, per un dato periodo, potrebbe benissimo trascinarci in una guerra europea—una guerra in cui staremmo di certo dalla parte del torto, e quasi di certo dalla parte dei perdenti.
Supponiamo che io mi faccia avanti con questa grande riforma della Proibizione della Stampa. Supponiamo che io proponga che la polizia chiuda con la forza tutte le redazioni dei giornali, come gli altri riformatori vogliono chiudere tutte le osterie. Quale risposta mi daranno i moralisti puritani, o in base a quale principio distinguono tra l’una riforma e l’altra? Non c’è alcun dubbio sul danno che il giornalismo arreca; e la loro stessa linea di ragionamento impedisce loro di appellarsi semplicemente al bene che esso fa. Di fatto, nelle taverne sono state scritte poesie assai migliori di quante mai potranno comparire sui quotidiani. E, da Pantagruel a Pickwick, questa forma di allegria vanta un albo di gloria letteraria che difficilmente si troverà negli archivi di qualsiasi giornale io conosca. Ma i Puritani non discutono la più salubre tradizione del vino; ritengono il loro argomento sufficientemente sostenuto dagli effetti malsani del gin e della cattiva birra nei bassifondi. E se adottiamo quel principio di giudicare dal peggio, allora i peggiori effetti della stampa sono assai più vasti dei peggiori effetti dell’osteria. Qual è esattamente il principio in base al quale distinguono tra libertà lecita e illecita, o tra licenza mista e non mista? Io ho un criterio spiccio, che può essere giusto o sbagliato, ma che almeno so enunciare; e il loro criterio, dove è stato enunciato? Io dico che la forma più semplice di libertà è quella che distingue l’uomo libero dallo schiavo: la proprietà del proprio corpo e delle proprie attività corporee. Che vi sia un rischio nel concedergli questa proprietà è ovvio, ed è sempre stato ovvio. Il rischio non si limita alla questione del bere, ma copre l’intera questione della salute. Ma di certo le altre forme di libertà, come la libertà di stampa, sono assai più indirette e discutibili. Un giornale può essere reso strumento del più vile genere di truffa o di affamamento di un intero popolo. Perché mai dovremmo concedere il diritto remoto e negare il diritto intimo? Per di più, un giornale è una cosa nuova; se i nostri padri ne avessero avuto il diritto, non l’hanno mai saputo. Il liquore fermentato è vecchio quanto la civiltà, o più vecchio. Ma ciò che ho chiesto più e più volte è semplicemente il principio dei Proibizionisti: e lo sto chiedendo ancora.
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LA CLEMENZA DEL SIGNOR ARNOLD BENNETT
Il signor Arnold Bennett ha scritto di recente una delle sue causeries umoristiche e umane, perorando molto giustamente la causa dell’immaginazione sociale e di una migliore comprensione dei nostri simili. La spinse, però, fino al punto di affermare, come fanno certi fatalisti, che non dovremmo mai giudicare nessuno, nel senso di condannare nessuno, in rapporto alla sua condotta morale. Qualche tempo fa lo stesso illustre scrittore mostrò che la sua clemenza e la sua magnanimità erano davvero di scala eroica, recensendo un mio libro, e dicendone perfino molte cose gentili. Ma a queste aggiunse un dubbio sul fatto che la vera intelligenza potesse conciliarsi con l’accettazione di un qualsiasi dogma. In verità vi sono soltanto due specie di persone: quelle che accettano i dogmi e lo sanno, e quelle che accettano i dogmi e non lo sanno. Il mio unico vantaggio sul geniale romanziere sta nell’appartenere alla prima specie. Sospetto che la sua inconsapevolezza dei propri dogmi si estenda a un’inconsapevolezza di ciò che egli intende per dogma. Se esso significa soltanto l’idea popolare dell’essere dogmatici, si potrebbe far notare che dire che ogni dogmatismo è privo d’intelligenza è a sua volta alquanto dogmatico. E qualcosa di ciò che vale per il suo veto sul dogma vale anche per il suo veto sulla condanna; che è in realtà un veto sui veti.
Mr. Arnold Bennett does not darken the question with the dreary metaphysics of determinism; he is far too bright and adroit a journalist for that. But he does make a simple appeal to charity, and even Christianity, basing on it the idea that we should not judge people at all, or even blame them at all. Like everybody else who argues thus, he imagines himself to be pleading for mercy and humanity. Like everybody else who argues thus, he is doing the direct contrary. This particular notion of not judging people really means hanging them without trial. It would really substitute for judgment not mercy but something much more like murder. For the logical process through which the discussion passes is always the same; I have seen it in a hundred debates about fate and free-will. First somebody says, like Mr. Bennett: “Let us be kinder to our brethren, and not blame them for faults we cannot judge.” Then some casual common-sense person says: “Do you really mean you would let anybody pick your pocket or cut your throat without protest?” Then the first man always answers as Mr. Bennett does: “Oh, no; I would punish him to protect myself and protect society; but I would not blame him, because I would not venture to judge him.” The philosopher seems to have forgotten that he set out with the idea of being kinder to the cut-throat and the pick-pocket. His sense of humour should suggest to him that the pick-pocket might possibly prefer to be blamed, rather than go to penal servitude for the protection of society.
Now of course Mr. Bennett is quite right in the most mystical and therefore the most deeply moral sense. We do not know what God knows about the merits of a man. Nor do we know what God knows about the needs of a community. A man who poisons his little niece for money may have mysterious motives and excuses we cannot understand. And so he may serve mysterious social purposes we cannot follow. We are not infallible when we think we are punishing criminals; but neither are we infallible when we think we are protecting society. Our inevitable ignorance seems to me to cut both ways. But even in our ignorance one thing is vividly clear. Mr. Bennett’s solution is not the more merciful, but the less merciful of the two. To say that we may punish people, but not blame them, is to say that we have a right to be cruel to them, but not a right to be kind to them.
For after all, blame is itself a compliment. It is a compliment because it is an appeal; and an appeal to a man as a creative artist making his soul. To say to a man, “rascal” or “villain” in ordinary society may seem abrupt; but it is also elliptical. It is an abbreviation of a sublime spiritual apostrophe for which there may be no time in our busy social life. When you meet a millionaire, the cornerer of many markets, out at dinner in Mayfair, and greet him (as is your custom) with the exclamation “Scoundrel!” you are merely shortening for convenience some such expression as: “How can you, having the divine spirit of man that might be higher than the angels, drag it down so far as to be a scoundrel?” When you are introduced at a garden party to a Cabinet Minister who takes tips on Government contracts, and when you say to him in the ordinary way “Scamp!” you are merely using the last word of a long moral disquisition; which is in effect, “How pathetic is the spiritual spectacle of this Cabinet Minister, who being from the first made glorious by the image of God, condescends so far to lesser ambitions as to allow them to turn him into a scamp.” It is a mere taking of the tail of a sentence to stand for the rest; like saying ‘bus for omnibus. It is even more like the case of that seventeenth century Puritan whose name was something like “If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned, Higgins”; but who was, for popular convenience, referred to as “Damned Higgins.” But it is obvious, anyhow, that when we call a man a coward, we are in so doing asking him how he can be a coward when he could be a hero. When we rebuke a man for being a sinner, we imply that he has the powers of a saint.
But punishing him for the protection of society involves no regard for him at all. It involves no limit of proportion in the punishment at all. There are some limits to what ordinary men are likely to say that an ordinary man deserves. But there are no limits to what the danger of the community may be supposed to demand. We would not, even if we could, boil the millionaire in oil or skin the poor little politician alive; for we do not think a man deserves to be skinned alive for taking commissions on contracts. But it is by no means so certain that the skinning him alive might not protect the community. Corruption can destroy communities; and torture can deter men. At any rate the thing is not so self-evidently useless as it is self-evidently unjust and vindictive. We refrain from such fantastic punishments, largely because we do have some notion of making the punishment fit the crime, and not merely fit the community. If the State were the sole consideration, it may be inferred a priori that people might be much more cruel. And in fact, where the State was the sole consideration, it was found in experience that they were much more cruel. They were much more cruel precisely because they were freed from all responsibilities about the innocence or guilt of the individual. I believe that in heathen Rome, the model of a merely civic and secular loyalty, it was a common practice to torture the slaves of any household subjected to legal enquiry. If you had remonstrated, because no crime had been proved against the slaves, the State would have answered in the modern manner: “We are not punishing the crime; we are protecting the community.”
Now that example is relevant just now in more ways than one. Of course I do not mean that this was the motive of all historical cruelties, or that some did not spring from quite an opposite motive. But it was the motive of such tyranny in the heathen world; and in this, as in other things, the modern world has largely become a heathen world. And modern tyranny can find its prototype in the torturing of heathen slaves in two fundamental respects. First, that the modern world has returned to the test of the heathen world, that of considering service to the state and not justice to the individual. And second, that the modern world, like the heathen world, is here inflicting it chiefly on subordinate and submerged classes of society; on slaves or those who are almost slaves.
Il signor Arnold Bennett non oscura la questione con la lugubre metafisica del determinismo; è un giornalista troppo brillante e scaltro per fare una cosa simile. Ma si appella pur sempre, in modo schietto, alla carità, e perfino al Cristianesimo, fondandovi l’idea che non dovremmo giudicare affatto le persone, né tantomeno biasimarle. Come chiunque altro ragioni in questo modo, egli si immagina di perorare la causa della misericordia e dell’umanità. Come chiunque altro ragioni in questo modo, sta facendo esattamente il contrario. Questa singolare idea di non giudicare le persone significa in realtà impiccarle senza processo. Sostituirebbe davvero al giudizio non la misericordia, ma qualcosa che somiglia assai più a un assassinio. Poiché il processo logico attraverso cui la discussione passa è sempre il medesimo; l’ho visto in cento dibattiti sul fato e sul libero arbitrio. Dapprima qualcuno dice, come il signor Bennett: «Siamo più benevoli verso i nostri fratelli, e non li biasimiamo per colpe che non possiamo giudicare». Poi una qualche persona di comune buon senso ribatte: «Vuoi davvero dire che lasceresti chiunque sfilarti il portafogli o tagliarti la gola senza protestare?». Allora il primo risponde sempre come risponde il signor Bennett: «Oh, no; lo punirei per proteggere me stesso e proteggere la società; ma non lo biasimerei, perché non oserei giudicarlo». Il filosofo pare aver dimenticato di essere partito con l’idea di essere più benevolo verso il tagliagole e il tagliaborse. Il suo senso dell’umorismo dovrebbe suggerirgli che il tagliaborse potrebbe forse preferire d’essere biasimato, piuttosto che finire ai lavori forzati per la protezione della società.
Ora, naturalmente, il signor Bennett ha perfettamente ragione nel senso più mistico e perciò più profondamente morale. Non sappiamo ciò che Dio sa dei meriti di un uomo. Né sappiamo ciò che Dio sa dei bisogni di una comunità. Un uomo che avvelena la sua piccola nipote per denaro può avere motivi e scusanti misteriosi che non possiamo comprendere. E così può servire misteriosi fini sociali che non possiamo seguire. Non siamo infallibili quando crediamo di punire i criminali; ma non siamo infallibili neppure quando crediamo di proteggere la società. La nostra inevitabile ignoranza mi sembra tagliare da entrambe le parti. Ma persino nella nostra ignoranza una cosa è chiara in modo vivido. La soluzione del signor Bennett non è la più misericordiosa, bensì la meno misericordiosa delle due. Dire che possiamo punire le persone, ma non biasimarle, equivale a dire che abbiamo il diritto di essere crudeli con loro, ma non il diritto di essere benevoli.
Perché, dopotutto, il biasimo è di per sé un complimento. È un complimento perché è un appello; e un appello a un uomo in quanto artista creativo che plasma la propria anima. Dire a un uomo «canaglia» o «furfante» nella società ordinaria può sembrare brusco; ma è anche ellittico. È l’abbreviazione di un sublime apostrofe spirituale, per il quale può non esservi tempo nella nostra affaccendata vita sociale. Quando incontrate un milionario, l’accaparratore di molti mercati, a cena a Mayfair, e lo salutate (com’è vostra abitudine) con l’esclamazione «Mascalzone!», non fate che accorciare, per comodità, un’espressione come questa: «Come potete voi, che avete lo spirito divino dell’uomo, il quale potrebbe essere più alto degli angeli, trascinarlo tanto in basso da farvi mascalzone?». Quando venite presentati, a un ricevimento in giardino, a un ministro del Gabinetto che intasca mance su appalti governativi, e quando gli dite, nel modo consueto, «Briccone!», non fate che usare l’ultima parola di una lunga dissertazione morale; la quale, in effetti, suona: «Quanto è patetico lo spettacolo spirituale di questo ministro del Gabinetto, che essendo fin da principio reso glorioso dall’immagine di Dio, si china tanto verso ambizioni minori da lasciarsene trasformare in un briccone». È un mero prendere la coda di una frase perché stia per tutto il resto; come dire ‘bus per omnibus. È ancora più simile al caso di quel puritano del diciassettesimo secolo il cui nome suonava press’a poco così: «Se-Gesù-Cristo-Non-Fosse-Morto-Per-Te-Saresti-Stato-Dannato, Higgins»; ma che, per popolare comodità, veniva chiamato «Dannato Higgins». Ma è comunque evidente che quando diamo a un uomo del vigliacco, così facendo gli stiamo chiedendo come possa essere un vigliacco quando potrebbe essere un eroe. Quando rimproveriamo un uomo d’essere un peccatore, sottintendiamo che egli abbia le facoltà di un santo.
Ma punirlo per la protezione della società non comporta alcun riguardo per lui. Non comporta alcun limite di proporzione nella punizione. Vi sono alcuni limiti a ciò che gli uomini comuni sono propensi a dire che un uomo comune meriti. Ma non vi sono limiti a ciò che il pericolo della comunità possa supporsi esigere. Non vorremmo, neppure se potessimo, bollire il milionario nell’olio o scorticare vivo il povero piccolo politicante; poiché non pensiamo che un uomo meriti d’essere scorticato vivo per aver preso commissioni sugli appalti. Ma non è affatto così certo che scorticarlo vivo non possa proteggere la comunità. La corruzione può distruggere le comunità; e la tortura può dissuadere gli uomini. Comunque sia, la cosa non è tanto evidentemente inutile quanto è evidentemente ingiusta e vendicativa. Ci asteniamo da simili fantastiche punizioni, in gran parte perché abbiamo una certa idea di far corrispondere la pena al reato, e non soltanto di farla corrispondere alla comunità. Se lo Stato fosse l’unica considerazione, se ne potrebbe dedurre a priori che gli uomini sarebbero assai più crudeli. E infatti, là dove lo Stato fu l’unica considerazione, si scoprì per esperienza che erano assai più crudeli. Erano assai più crudeli proprio perché erano affrancati da ogni responsabilità circa l’innocenza o la colpa dell’individuo. Credo che nella Roma pagana, il modello di una lealtà meramente civica e secolare, fosse pratica comune torturare gli schiavi di ogni casa sottoposta a inchiesta legale. Se aveste protestato, poiché nessun delitto era stato provato a carico degli schiavi, lo Stato avrebbe risposto alla maniera moderna: «Non stiamo punendo il delitto; stiamo proteggendo la comunità».
Ora, quell’esempio è pertinente proprio adesso in più modi d’uno. Naturalmente non intendo dire che questo fosse il movente di tutte le crudeltà storiche, o che alcune non scaturissero da un movente affatto opposto. Ma fu il movente di una simile tirannia nel mondo pagano; e in questo, come in altre cose, il mondo moderno è divenuto in gran parte un mondo pagano. E la tirannia moderna può trovare il proprio prototipo nella tortura degli schiavi pagani sotto due aspetti fondamentali. Primo, che il mondo moderno è tornato al criterio del mondo pagano, quello di considerare il servizio allo Stato e non la giustizia verso l’individuo. E secondo, che il mondo moderno, come il mondo pagano, la infligge qui principalmente sulle classi subordinate e sommerse della società; sugli schiavi o su coloro che sono quasi schiavi.
For the heathen state is a Servile State. And no one has more of this view of the state than the State Socialists. The official Labour Politician would be the first to say in theory that punishment must not be a moral recompense, but merely a social regulation. And he would be the first to say in practice that it is the poor and ignorant who must be regulated. Doubtless it is one thing to be regulated and another to be tortured. But when once the principle is admitted broadly, the progress towards torture may proceed pretty briskly. In the psychological sphere, it is already as bad as it has ever been. It may come as a surprise to the humanitarian to learn it; but it is none the less true, that a mother may undergo moral torture in the last degree, when her children are taken from her by brute force. And that incident has become so common in the policing of the poor nowadays as hardly to call for notice. And that example is particularly relevant to the present argument. Nobody could pretend that the affectionate mother of a rather backward child deserves to be punished by having all the happiness taken out of her life. But anybody can pretend that the act is needed for the happiness of the community. Nobody will say it was so wicked of her to love her baby that she deserves to lose it. But it is always easy to say that some remote social purpose will be served by taking it away. Thus the elimination of punishment means the extension of tyranny. Men would not do things so oppressive so long as they were vindictive. It is only when punishment is purged of vengeance that it can be as villainous as that.
For that matter, it would be easy to find examples much nearer than this one to the torturing of the Roman slaves. There is a very close parallel in the Third Degree, as applied by the police to the criminal class on suspicion, especially in America; for the criminal class is a submerged class like the slaves; and it is but an experiment on the nerves in one way instead of another, like a preference for the rack rather than the thumbscrew. But the point is that it is applied to the criminal type without any proof that it is in this case criminal; and the thing is justified not by the criminality of the individual but by the needs of the State. The police would answer exactly as the pagans answered: “We are not punishing the crime; we are protecting the community.”
This tyranny is spreading. And there is no hope for liberty or democracy until we all demand again, with a tongue of thunder, the right to be blamed. We shall never feel like free men until we assert again our sacred claim to be punished. The denunciation of a man for what he chose to do is itself the confession that he chose to do it; and it is beneath his dignity to admit that he could have done nothing else. The only alternative theory is that we can do nothing but what we do, and our rulers can do anything whatever to restrain us. Compared with that, it would be better that roaring mobs should rise all over England, uproariously demanding to be hanged.
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A DEFENCE OF DRAMATIC UNITIES
INJUSTICE is done to the old classical rules of artistic criticism, because we do not treat them as artistic criticism. We first turn them into police regulations, and then complain of them for being so. But I suspect, with the submission proper to ignorance, that the art canons of Aristotle and others were much more generally artistic, in the sense of atmospheric. We allow a romantic critic to be as dogmatic as Ruskin, and still feel that he is not really being so despotic as Boileau. If a modern, like Maeterlinck, says that all drama is in an open door at the end of an empty passage, we do not take it literally, like a notice requiring an extra exit in case of fire. But if an ancient, like Horace, says that all drama demands a closed door, which shall hide Medea while she murders her children, then we do receive it as something rigid and formal, like the order to close the shutters on Zeppelin nights. Now how far the classical critics took their rules absolutely I do not know. But I am substantially sure that there is a true instinct at the back of them, whatever exceptions be allowed at the edges. The unities of time and place, that is the idea of keeping figures and events within the frame of a few hours or a few yards, is naturally decided as a specially artificial affront to the intellect. But I am sure it is an especially true suggestion to the imagination. It is exactly in the artistic atmosphere, where rules and reasons are so hard to define, that this unification would be most easy to defend. This limitation to a few scenes and actors really has something in it that pleases the imagination and not the reason. There are instances in which it may be broken boldly: there are types of art to which it does not apply at all. But wherever it can be satisfied, something not superficial but rather sub-conscious is satisfied. Something re-visits us that is the strange soul of single places; the shadow of haunting ghosts or of household gods. Like all such things, it is indescribable when it is successful: it is easier to describe the disregard of it as unsuccessful. Thus Stevenson’s masterpiece, “The Master of Ballantrae,” always seems to me to fall into two parts, the finer which revolves round Durisdeer and the inferior which rambles through India and America. The slender and sinister figure in black, standing on the shore or vanishing from the shrubbery, does really seem to have come from the ends of the earth. In the chapters of travel he only serves to show that, for a boy’s adventure tale, a good villain makes a bad hero. And even about Hamlet I am so heretical as to be almost classical; I doubt whether the exile in England does not rather dwarf than dignify the prisoner of Denmark. I am not sure that he got anything out of the pirates he could not have got out of the players. And I am very sure indeed that this figure in black, like the other, produces a true though intangible effect of tragedy when, and because, we see him against the great grey background of the house of his fathers. In a word it is what Mr. J. B. Yeats, the poet’s stimulating parent, calls in his excellent book of essays “the drama of the home.” The drama is domestic, and is dramatic because it is domestic.
Poiché lo Stato pagano è uno Stato Servile. E nessuno condivide questa visione dello Stato più dei Socialisti di Stato. Il Politico laburista ufficiale sarebbe il primo a dire, in teoria, che la punizione non deve essere una ricompensa morale, bensì una mera regolazione sociale. E sarebbe il primo a dire, in pratica, che sono i poveri e gli ignoranti a dover essere regolati. Senza dubbio un conto è essere regolati, un altro essere torturati. Ma una volta che il principio sia ammesso in senso ampio, il cammino verso la tortura può procedere piuttosto spedito. Nella sfera psicologica, esso è già cattivo quanto lo è mai stato. Potrà giungere come una sorpresa, per l’umanitario, apprenderlo; ma non è men vero che una madre può subire una tortura morale all’ultimo grado, quando i suoi figli le vengono strappati con la forza bruta. E oggidì un simile fatto è divenuto tanto comune, nella sorveglianza poliziesca dei poveri, da non richiedere quasi menzione. E quell’esempio è particolarmente pertinente al presente ragionamento. Nessuno potrebbe pretendere che l’affettuosa madre di un bambino piuttosto ritardato meriti di essere punita col vedersi togliere dalla vita ogni felicità. Ma chiunque può pretendere che l’atto sia necessario alla felicità della comunità. Nessuno dirà che fu tanto malvagio, da parte sua, amare il proprio piccolo, da meritare di perderlo. Ma è sempre facile dire che qualche remoto scopo sociale sarà servito dal portarglielo via. Così l’eliminazione della punizione significa l’estensione della tirannia. Gli uomini non farebbero cose tanto oppressive finché fossero vendicativi. È solo quando la punizione è purgata di ogni vendetta che essa può farsi tanto scellerata.
Del resto, sarebbe facile trovare esempi assai più vicini di questo alla tortura degli schiavi romani. Vi è un parallelo strettissimo nel Terzo Grado, quale viene applicato dalla polizia alla classe criminale sulla base di un sospetto, specie in America; poiché la classe criminale è una classe sommersa al pari degli schiavi; ed è soltanto un esperimento sui nervi condotto in un modo anziché in un altro, come il preferire il cavalletto alla morsa per i pollici. Ma il punto è che esso viene applicato al tipo criminale senza alcuna prova che in questo caso sia criminale; e la cosa è giustificata non dalla criminalità dell’individuo, ma dai bisogni dello Stato. La polizia risponderebbe esattamente come rispondevano i pagani: «Non stiamo punendo il delitto; stiamo proteggendo la comunità».
Questa tirannia si va diffondendo. E non c’è speranza per la libertà o per la democrazia finché non torneremo tutti a reclamare, con lingua di tuono, il diritto di essere biasimati. Non ci sentiremo mai uomini liberi finché non torneremo ad affermare la nostra sacra pretesa di essere puniti. La denuncia di un uomo per ciò che ha scelto di fare è essa stessa la confessione che egli scelse di farlo; ed è al di sotto della sua dignità ammettere che non avrebbe potuto fare nient’altro. L’unica teoria alternativa è che noi non possiamo fare nulla se non ciò che facciamo, e che i nostri governanti possono fare qualsiasi cosa per costringerci. Al confronto, sarebbe meglio che folle ruggenti insorgessero in tutta l’Inghilterra, chiedendo fragorosamente di essere impiccate.
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IN DIFESA DELLE UNITÀ DRAMMATICHE
Si fa torto alle antiche regole classiche della critica artistica, perché non le trattiamo come critica artistica. Dapprima le trasformiamo in regolamenti di polizia, e poi ce ne lamentiamo appunto perché tali. Ma sospetto, con la sottomissione che si conviene all’ignoranza, che i canoni artistici di Aristotele e di altri fossero assai più generalmente artistici, nel senso di atmosferici. Concediamo a un critico romantico di essere dogmatico quanto Ruskin, e sentiamo comunque che egli non è in realtà così dispotico come Boileau. Se un moderno, come Maeterlinck, dice che tutto il dramma sta in una porta aperta in fondo a un corridoio vuoto, non lo prendiamo alla lettera, come un avviso che imponga un’uscita supplementare in caso di incendio. Ma se un antico, come Orazio, dice che ogni dramma esige una porta chiusa, che nasconda Medea mentre uccide i propri figli, allora lo accogliamo come qualcosa di rigido e formale, come l’ordine di chiudere le imposte nelle notti degli Zeppelin. Ora, fino a che punto i critici classici prendessero le loro regole in senso assoluto, non lo so. Ma sono sostanzialmente certo che dietro di esse vi sia un vero istinto, quali che siano le eccezioni ammesse ai margini. Le unità di tempo e di luogo, cioè l’idea di mantenere figure ed eventi entro la cornice di poche ore o di pochi metri, viene naturalmente giudicata un affronto particolarmente artificioso all’intelletto. Ma sono sicuro che è un suggerimento particolarmente vero per l’immaginazione. È esattamente nell’atmosfera artistica, dove regole e ragioni sono tanto difficili da definire, che questa unificazione sarebbe più facile da difendere. Questa limitazione a poche scene e a pochi attori ha davvero in sé qualcosa che piace all’immaginazione e non alla ragione. Vi sono casi in cui la si può infrangere arditamente: vi sono tipi d’arte a cui non si applica affatto. Ma ovunque possa essere soddisfatta, qualcosa di non superficiale, bensì piuttosto subconscio, viene soddisfatto. Qualcosa torna a visitarci che è la strana anima dei luoghi singoli; l’ombra di fantasmi ossessivi o di dèi domestici. Come tutte queste cose, è indescrivibile quando riesce: è più facile descrivere come fallimentare il disprezzo di essa. Così il capolavoro di Stevenson, «The Master of Ballantrae», mi pare sempre dividersi in due parti, la più fine che ruota attorno a Durisdeer e l’inferiore che vagabonda per l’India e l’America. La figura esile e sinistra vestita di nero, ritta sulla riva o dileguantesi dal boschetto, sembra davvero venuta dai confini della terra. Nei capitoli di viaggio serve soltanto a mostrare che, in un racconto d’avventura per ragazzi, un buon malvagio fa un cattivo eroe. E persino a proposito di Amleto sono tanto eretico da risultare quasi classico; dubito che l’esilio in Inghilterra non finisca piuttosto per rimpicciolire che per nobilitare il prigioniero di Danimarca. Non sono sicuro che egli abbia ricavato dai pirati alcunché che non avrebbe potuto ricavare dai commedianti. E sono anzi sicurissimo che questa figura vestita di nero, come l’altra, produce un vero, benché intangibile, effetto di tragedia quando, e perché, la vediamo contro il grande sfondo grigio della casa dei suoi padri. In una parola, è ciò che il signor J. B. Yeats, lo stimolante genitore del poeta, chiama nel suo eccellente libro di saggi «il dramma della casa». Il dramma è domestico, ed è drammatico perché è domestico.
We might say that superior literature is centripetal, while inferior literature is centrifugal. But oddly enough, the same truth may be found by studying inferior as well as superior literature. What is true of a Shakespearean play is equally true of a shilling shocker. The shocker is at its worst when it wanders and escapes through new scenes and new characters. The shocker is at its best when it shocks by something familiar; a figure or fact that is already known though not understood. A good detective story also can keep the classic unities; or otherwise play the game. I for one devour detective stories; I am delighted when the dagger of the curate is found to be the final clue to the death of the vicar. But there is a point of honour for the author; he may conceal the curate’s crime, but he must not conceal the curate. I feel I am cheated when the last chapter hints for the first time that the vicar had a curate. I am annoyed when a curate, who is a total stranger to me, is produced from a cupboard or a box in a style at once abrupt and belated. I am annoyed most of all when the new curate is only the tool of a terrible secret society ramifying from Moscow or Thibet. These cosmopolitan complications are the dull and not the dramatic element in the ingenious tales of Mr. Oppenheim or Mr. Le Queux. They entirely spoil the fine domesticity of a good murder. It is unsportsmanlike to call spies from the end of the earth, as it is to call spirits from the vasty deep, in a story that does not imply them from the start. And this because the supply is infinite; and the infinite, as Coventry Patmore well said, is generally alien to art. Everybody knows that the universe contains enough spies or enough spectres to kill the most healthy and vigorous vicar. The drama of detection is in discovering how he can be killed decently and economically, within the classic unities of time and place.
In short the good mystery story should narrow its circles like an eagle about to swoop. The spiral should curve inwards and not outwards. And this inward movement is in true poetic mysteries as well as mere police mystifications. It will be assumed that I am joking if I say there is a serious social meaning in this novel-reader’s notion of keeping a crime in the family. It must seem mere nonsense to find a moral in this fancy, about washing gory linen at home. It will naturally be asked whether I have idealized the home merely as a good place for assassinations. I have not; any more than I have idealized the Church as a thing in which the curates can kill the vicars. Nevertheless the thing, like many things, is symbolic though it is not serious. And the objection to it implies a subtle misunderstanding, in many minds, of the whole case for the home as I have sometimes had occasion to urge it. When we defend the family we do not mean it is always a peaceful family; when we maintain the thesis of marriage we do not mean that it is always a happy marriage. We mean that it is the theatre of the spiritual drama, the place where things happen, especially the things that matter. It is not so much the place where a man kills his wife as the place where he can take the equally sensational step of not killing his wife. There is truth in the cynicism that calls marriage a trial; but even the cynic will admit that a trial may end in an acquittal. And the reason that the family has this central and crucial character is the same reason that makes it in politics the only prop of liberty. The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself. Other institutions must largely be made for him by strangers, whether the institutions be despotic or democratic. There is no other way of organizing mankind which can give this power and dignity, not only to mankind but to men. If anybody likes to put it so, we cannot really make all men democrats unless we make all men despots. That is to say, the co-operation of the common-wealth will be a mere automatic unanimity like that of insects, unless the citizen has some province of purely voluntary action; unless he is so far not only a citizen but a king. In the world of ethics this is called liberty; in the world of economics it is called property, and in the world of aesthetics, necessarily so much more dim and indefinable, it is darkly adumbrated in the old dramatic unities of place or time. It must indeed be a mistake in any case to treat such artistic rules as rigidly as if they were moral rules. It was an error if they ever were so treated; it may well be a question whether they were ever meant to be so treated. But when critics have suggested that these classical canons were a mere superficial varnish, it may safely be said that it is the critics who are superficial. Modern artists would have been wiser if they had developed sympathetically some of the Aristotelian aesthetics, as mediaeval philosophers developed sympathetically the Aristotelian logic and ethics. For a more subtle study of the unities of time and place, for example, as outlined for the Greek drama, might have led us towards what is perhaps the last secret of all legend and literature. It might have suggested why poets, pagan or not, returned perpetually to the idea of happiness as a place for humanity as a person. It might suggest why the world is always seeking for absolutes that are not abstractions; why fairyland was always a land, and even the Superman was almost a man.
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THE BOREDOM OF BUTTERFLIES
THERE is one thing which critics perhaps tend to forget when they complain that Mr. H. G. Wells no longer concerns himself with telling a story. It is that nobody else could interest and excite us so much without telling a story. It is possible to read one of his recent novels almost without knowing the story at all. It is possible to dip into it as into a book of essays, and pick up opinions here and there. But all the essays are brilliant essays, and all the opinions are striking opinions. It does not much matter who holds the opinions; it is possible that the author does not hold them at all, and pretty certain that he will not hold them long. But nobody else could make such splendid stuff out of the very refuse of his rejected opinions. Seen from this side, even what is called his failure must be recognized as a remarkable success. The personal story may fade away, but it is something of an achievement to be still interesting after becoming impersonal; like the achievement of the Cheshire cat who could grin when he was no longer there. Moreover, these impersonal and even irresponsible opinions of Mr. Wells, though never conclusive, are always suggestive; each is a good starting-point for thought, if only for the thought that refutes it. In short, the critics of Mr. Wells rather exaggerate the danger of his story running to speculation, as if it were merely running to seed. Anyhow, they ought to remember that there are two meanings in running to seed; and one of them is connected with seed-time. I have, however, a particular reason for mentioning the matter here. I confess there is more than one of Mr. Wells’s recent novels that I have both read and not read. I am never quite sure that I have read all Shakespeare or all Boswell’s Johnson; because I have so long had the habit of opening them anywhere. So I have opened the works of Mr. Wells anywhere, and had great fun out of the essays that would have seemed only long parentheses in the story. But, on getting to rather closer grips with the last of his stories, “The Secret Places of the Heart,” I think I have caught a glimpse of a difficulty in this sort of narrative which is something deeper than mere digression. In a story like “Pickwick” or “Tristram Shandy” digression is never disappointment. But in this case, differing as I do from the merely hostile critics, I cannot dispel the atmosphere of disappointment. The story seems inconclusive in a sense beyond anything merely inconsistent; and I fancy I can guess why.
A pedantic logician may perhaps imagine that a thing can only be inconclusive at the conclusion. But I will boldly claim the liberty in language of saying that this sort of thing is inconclusive from the start. It begins inconclusive, and in that sense begins dull. The hero begins by telling the doctor about a mutable flux of flirtation, about his own experiments as a philanderer, always flitting like a butterfly from flower to flower. Now, it is highly probable that the diary of a butterfly would be very dull, even if it were only the diary of a day. His round need be no more really amusing than a postman’s, since he has no serious spiritual interest in any of his places of call. Now, by starting his hero as a philosopher and also philanderer, and taking seriously his philosophy of philandering, the author as good as tells us, to start with, that his hero will not have any serious adventures at all. At the beginning of the story, he practically tells us that there will be no story. The story of a fickle man is not a story at all; because there is no strain or resistance in it. Somebody talked about tales with a twist; and it is certain that all tales are tales with a tug.
All the most subtle truths of literature are to be found in legend. There is no better test of the truth of serious fiction than the simple truths to be found in a fairy tale or an old ballad. Now, in the whole of folk-lore there is no such thing as free love. There is such a thing as false love. There is also another thing, which the old ballads always talk of as true love. But the story always turns on the keeping of a bond or the breaking of it; and this quite apart from orthodox morality in the matter of the marriage bond. The love may be in the strict sense sinful, but it is never anarchical. There was quite as little freedom for Lancelot as for Arthur; quite as little mere philandering in the philosophy of Tristram as in the philosophy of Galahad. It may have been unlawful love, but it certainly was not lawless love. In the old ballads there is the triumph of true love, as in “The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington”; or the tragedy of true love, as in “Helen of Kirkconnel Lea”; or the tragedy of false love as in the ballad of “Oh, waly, waly up the bank.” But there is neither triumph nor tragedy in the idea of avowedly transient love; and no literature will ever be made out of it, except the very lightest literature of satire. And even the satire must be a satire on fickleness, and therefore involve an indirect ideal of fidelity. But you cannot make any enduring literature out of love conscious that it will not endure. Even if this mutability were working as morality, it would still be unworkable as art.
The decadents used to say that things like the marriage vow might be very convenient for common-place public purposes, but had no place in the world of beauty and imagination. The truth is exactly the other way. The truth is that if marriage had not existed it would have been necessary for artists to invent it. The truth is that if constancy had never been needed as a social requirement, it would still have been created out of cloud and air as a poetical requirement. If ever monogamy is abandoned in practice, it will linger in legend and in literature. When society is haunted by the butterfly flitting from flower to flower, poetry will still be describing the desire of the moth for the star; and it will be a fixed star. Literature must always revolve round loyalties; for a rudimentary psychological reason, which is simply the nature of narrative. You cannot tell a story without the idea of pursuing a purpose and sticking to a point. You cannot tell a story without the idea of the Quest, the idea of the Vow; even if it be only the idea of the Wager.
Perhaps the most modern equivalent to the man who makes a vow is the man who makes a bet. But he must not hedge on a bet; still less must he welsh, or do a bolt when he has made a bet. Even if the story ends with his doing so, the dramatic emotion depends on our realizing the dishonesty of his doing so. That is, the drama depends on the keeping or breaking of a bond, if it be only a bet. A man wandering about a race-course, making bets that nobody took seriously, would be merely a bore. And so the hero wandering through a novel, making vows of love that nobody took seriously, is merely a bore. The point here is not so much that morally it cannot be a creditable story, but that artistically it cannot be a story at all. Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal; the shock of beauty is when the irresistible force hits the immovable post.
Thus in the last novel of Mr. Wells, what is inconclusive in the second part is largely due to what is convincing in the first part. By the time that the hero meets his new heroine on Salisbury Plain, he has seriously convinced us that there is nothing heroic about him, and that nothing heroic will happen to him; at any rate in that department. He disenchants the enchantment beforehand, and warns the reader against even a momentary illusion. When once a man looks forward as well as backward to disillusionment, no romance can be made of him.
Profligacy may be made romantic, precisely because it implies some betrayal or breaking of a law. But polygamy is not in the least romantic. Polygamy is dull to the point of respectability. When a man looks forward to a number of wives as he does to a number of cigarettes, you can no more make a book out of them than out of the bills from his tobacconist. Anything having the character of a Turkish harem has also something of the character of a Turkey carpet. It is not a portrait, or even a picture, but a pattern. We may at the moment be looking at one highly coloured and even flamboyant figure in the carpet; but we know that on every side, in front as well as behind, the image is repeated without purpose and without finality.
Un logico pedante potrà forse immaginare che una cosa possa essere inconcludente solo alla conclusione. Ma io rivendicherò arditamente la libertà, nel linguaggio, di dire che questo genere di cose è inconcludente fin dal principio. Comincia inconcludente, e in tal senso comincia noioso. L’eroe comincia raccontando al medico un mutevole flusso di civetterie, i propri esperimenti da farfallone, sempre a svolazzare come una farfalla di fiore in fiore. Ora, è altamente probabile che il diario di una farfalla sarebbe assai noioso, anche se fosse soltanto il diario di una giornata. Il suo giro non ha da essere più divertente di quello di un postino, giacché egli non nutre alcun serio interesse spirituale per nessuna delle sue tappe. Ora, facendo cominciare il suo eroe come filosofo e insieme farfallone, e prendendo sul serio la sua filosofia del farfalleggiare, l’autore ci dice, tanto per cominciare, che il suo eroe non avrà affatto avventure serie. All’inizio della storia, ci dice praticamente che non ci sarà storia. La storia di un uomo incostante non è affatto una storia; perché non v’è in essa né tensione né resistenza. Qualcuno ha parlato di racconti con un colpo di scena; ed è certo che tutti i racconti sono racconti con uno strappo.
Tutte le più sottili verità della letteratura si ritrovano nella leggenda. Non c’è banco di prova migliore della verità della narrativa seria delle semplici verità che si trovano in una fiaba o in un’antica ballata. Ora, in tutto il folklore non esiste una cosa quale il libero amore. Esiste una cosa quale il falso amore. E ne esiste anche un’altra, di cui le antiche ballate parlano sempre come del vero amore. Ma la storia verte sempre sul mantenere un vincolo o sullo spezzarlo; e ciò del tutto a prescindere dalla morale ortodossa in materia di vincolo matrimoniale. L’amore potrà essere in senso stretto peccaminoso, ma non è mai anarchico. Vi era altrettanto poca libertà per Lancillotto quanta per Artù; altrettanto poco puro farfalleggiare nella filosofia di Tristano quanto nella filosofia di Galahad. Sarà stato un amore illecito, ma non fu certo un amore senza legge. Nelle antiche ballate c’è il trionfo del vero amore, come in “The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington”; o la tragedia del vero amore, come in “Helen of Kirkconnel Lea”; o la tragedia del falso amore, come nella ballata “Oh, waly, waly up the bank”. Ma non c’è né trionfo né tragedia nell’idea di un amore dichiaratamente transitorio; e non se ne farà mai letteratura, se non la letteratura più leggera di tutte, quella della satira. E perfino la satira dev’essere una satira sull’incostanza, e perciò implicare un indiretto ideale di fedeltà. Ma non si può fare alcuna letteratura duratura da un amore consapevole che non durerà. Anche se questa mutevolezza funzionasse come morale, resterebbe comunque inservibile come arte.
I decadenti solevano dire che cose come il voto matrimoniale potevano essere assai convenienti per i banali scopi pubblici, ma non avevano posto nel mondo della bellezza e dell’immaginazione. La verità è esattamente l’opposto. La verità è che se il matrimonio non fosse esistito, sarebbe stato necessario che gli artisti lo inventassero. La verità è che se la costanza non fosse mai stata richiesta come esigenza sociale, sarebbe comunque stata creata dalla nube e dall’aria come esigenza poetica. Se mai la monogamia verrà abbandonata nella pratica, essa perdurerà nella leggenda e nella letteratura. Quando la società sarà ossessionata dalla farfalla che svolazza di fiore in fiore, la poesia continuerà a descrivere il desiderio della falena per la stella; e sarà una stella fissa. La letteratura deve sempre ruotare attorno a delle fedeltà; per una ragione psicologica rudimentale, che è semplicemente la natura della narrazione. Non si può raccontare una storia senza l’idea di perseguire uno scopo e di attenersi a un punto. Non si può raccontare una storia senza l’idea della Ricerca, l’idea del Voto; anche se non fosse che l’idea della Scommessa.
Forse l’equivalente più moderno dell’uomo che fa un voto è l’uomo che fa una scommessa. Ma non deve tirarsi indietro da una scommessa; ancor meno deve svignarsela senza pagare, o darsela a gambe dopo aver scommesso. Anche se la storia si conclude con lui che fa proprio questo, l’emozione drammatica dipende dal fatto che ci rendiamo conto della disonestà del suo gesto. Vale a dire, il dramma dipende dal mantenere o dallo spezzare un vincolo, foss’anche solo una scommessa. Un uomo che gironzolasse per un ippodromo, facendo scommesse che nessuno prende sul serio, sarebbe semplicemente un seccatore. E così l’eroe che vaga attraverso un romanzo, facendo voti d’amore che nessuno prende sul serio, è semplicemente un seccatore. Il punto qui non è tanto che moralmente non possa essere una storia lodevole, ma che artisticamente non possa essere affatto una storia. L’arte nasce quando il temporaneo tocca l’eterno; l’urto della bellezza è quando la forza irresistibile colpisce il palo immobile.
Così, nell’ultimo romanzo del signor Wells, ciò che è inconcludente nella seconda parte è in gran parte dovuto a ciò che è convincente nella prima. Quando l’eroe incontra la sua nuova eroina nella piana di Salisbury, egli ci ha ormai seriamente convinti che non v’è nulla di eroico in lui, e che nulla di eroico gli accadrà; almeno in quel reparto. Egli disincanta l’incanto in anticipo, e mette in guardia il lettore anche solo contro un’illusione momentanea. Una volta che un uomo guarda tanto in avanti quanto all’indietro verso la disillusione, non se ne può fare nulla di romanzesco.
La dissolutezza può esser resa romantica, precisamente perché implica un tradimento o l’infrazione di una legge. Ma la poligamia non è per nulla romantica. La poligamia è noiosa fino alla rispettabilità. Quando un uomo pregusta un certo numero di mogli come pregusta un certo numero di sigarette, non se ne può cavare un libro più di quanto se ne possa cavare dalle fatture del suo tabaccaio. Qualunque cosa abbia il carattere di un harem turco ha anche qualcosa del carattere di un tappeto turco. Non è un ritratto, e nemmeno un quadro, ma un motivo ricorrente. Possiamo per un momento star guardando una figura del tappeto assai colorita e persino sgargiante; ma sappiamo che da ogni lato, tanto davanti quanto dietro, l’immagine si ripete senza scopo e senza finalità.
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THE TERROR OF A TOY
IT would be too high and hopeful a compliment to say that the world is becoming absolutely babyish. For its chief weak-mindedness is an inability to appreciate the intelligence of babies. On every side we hear whispers and warnings that would have appeared half-witted to the Wise Men of Gotham. Only this Christmas I was told in a toy-shop that not so many bows and arrows were being made for little boys; because they were considered dangerous. It might in some circumstances be dangerous to have a little bow. It is always dangerous to have a little boy. But no other society, claiming to be sane, would have dreamed of supposing that you could abolish all bows unless you could abolish all boys. With the merits of the latter reform I will not deal here. There is a great deal to be said for such a course; and perhaps we shall soon have an opportunity of considering it. For the modern mind seems quite incapable of distinguishing between the means and the end, between the organ and the disease, between the use and the abuse; and would doubtless break the boy along with the bow, as it empties out the baby with the bath.
But let us, by way of a little study in this mournful state of things, consider this case of the dangerous toy. Now the first and most self-evident truth is that, of all the things a child sees and touches, the most dangerous toy is about the least dangerous thing. There is hardly a single domestic utensil that is not much more dangerous than a little bow and arrow. He can burn himself in the fire, he can boil himself in the bath, he can cut his throat with the carving-knife, he can scald himself with the kettle, he can choke himself with anything small enough, he can break his neck off anything high enough. He moves all day long amid a murderous machinery, as capable of killing and maiming as the wheels of the most frightful factory. He plays all day in a house fitted up with engines of torture like the Spanish Inquisition. And while he thus dances in the shadow of death, he is to be saved from all the perils of possessing a piece of string, tied to a bent bough or twig. When he is a little boy it generally takes him some time even to learn how to hold the bow. When he does hold it, he is delighted if the arrow flutters for a few yards like a feather or an autumn leaf. But even if he grows a little older and more skilful and has yet not learned to despise arrows in favour of aeroplanes, the amount of damage he could conceivably do with his little arrows would be about one hundredth part of the damage that he could always in any case have done by simply picking up a stone in the garden.
Now you do not keep a little boy from throwing stones by preventing him from ever seeing stones. You do not do it by locking up all the stones in the Geological Museum, and only issuing tickets of admission to adults. You do not do it by trying to pick up all the pebbles on the beach, for fear he should practise throwing them into the sea. You do not even adopt so obvious and even pressing a social reform as forbidding roads to be made of anything but asphalt, or directing that all gardens shall be made on clay and none on gravel. You neglect all these great opportunities opening before you; you neglect all these inspiring vistas of social science and enlightenment. When you want to prevent a child from throwing stones, you fall back on the stalest and most sentimental and even most superstitious methods. You do it by trying to preserve some reasonable authority and influence over the child. You trust to your private relation with the boy, and not to your public relation with the stone. And what is true of the natural missile is just as true, of course, of the artificial missile; especially as it is a very much more ineffectual and therefore innocuous missile. A man could be really killed, like St. Stephen, with the stones in the road. I doubt if he could be really killed, like St. Sebastian, with the arrows in the toyshop. But anyhow the very plain principle is the same. If you can teach a child not to throw a stone, you can teach him when to shoot an arrow; if you cannot teach him anything, he will always have something to throw. If he can be persuaded not to smash the Archdeacon’s hat with a heavy flint, it will probably be possible to dissuade him from transfixing that head-dress with a toy arrow. If his training deters him from heaving half a brick at the postman, it will probably also warn him against constantly loosening shafts of death against the policeman. But the notion that the child depends upon particular implements, labelled dangerous, in order to be a danger to himself and other people, is a notion so nonsensical that it is hard to see how any human mind can entertain it for a moment. The truth is that all sorts of faddism, both official and theoretical, have broken down the natural authority of the domestic institution, especially among the poor; and the faddists are now casting about desperately for a substitute for the thing they have themselves destroyed. The normal thing is for the parents to prevent a boy from doing more than a reasonable amount of damage with his bow and arrow; and for the rest, to leave him to a reasonable enjoyment of them. Officialism cannot thus follow the life of the individual boy, as can the individual guardian. You cannot appoint a particular policeman for each boy, to pursue him when he climbs trees or falls into ponds. So the modern spirit has descended to the indescribable mental degradation of trying to abolish the abuse of things by abolishing the things themselves; which is as if it were to abolish ponds or abolish trees. Perhaps it will have a try at that before long. Thus we have all heard of savages who try a tomahawk for murder, or burn a wooden club for the damage it has done to society. To such intellectual levels may the world return.
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IL TERRORE DI UN GIOCATTOLO
SAREBBE un complimento troppo alto e troppo lusinghiero dire che il mondo sta diventando assolutamente puerile. Poiché la sua principale debolezza mentale è un’incapacità di apprezzare l’intelligenza dei bambini. Da ogni parte udiamo bisbigli e ammonimenti che sarebbero parsi da mezzi scemi ai Saggi di Gotham. Proprio questo Natale mi è stato detto, in un negozio di giocattoli, che non si fabbricano più tanti archi e frecce per i maschietti; perché sono considerati pericolosi. Potrebbe, in certe circostanze, essere pericoloso avere un piccolo arco. È sempre pericoloso avere un maschietto. Ma nessun’altra società, che pretenda d’essere sana di mente, avrebbe mai sognato di supporre che si possano abolire tutti gli archi a meno di poter abolire tutti i maschi. Dei meriti di quest’ultima riforma non mi occuperò qui. C’è molto da dire in favore di un simile corso; e forse presto avremo occasione di prenderlo in esame. Poiché la mente moderna sembra del tutto incapace di distinguere fra il mezzo e il fine, fra l’organo e la malattia, fra l’uso e l’abuso; e getterebbe via senza dubbio il maschio insieme all’arco, come getta via il bambino con l’acqua del bagno.
Ma, a mo’ di piccolo studio su questo lugubre stato di cose, consideriamo questo caso del giocattolo pericoloso. Ora, la prima e più autoevidente verità è che, di tutte le cose che un bambino vede e tocca, il giocattolo più pericoloso è pressappoco la cosa meno pericolosa. Non c’è quasi un solo utensile domestico che non sia assai più pericoloso di un piccolo arco con la freccia. Può bruciarsi nel fuoco, può lessarsi nella vasca, può tagliarsi la gola col trinciante, può scottarsi col bollitore, può soffocarsi con qualunque cosa abbastanza piccola, può rompersi il collo cadendo da qualunque cosa abbastanza alta. Si muove tutto il giorno in mezzo a un macchinario micidiale, capace di uccidere e mutilare al pari delle ruote della più spaventosa delle fabbriche. Gioca tutto il giorno in una casa attrezzata con strumenti di tortura come quelli dell’Inquisizione spagnola. E mentre così danza all’ombra della morte, lo si vuole salvare da tutti i pericoli del possedere un pezzo di spago, legato a un ramo o a un rametto piegato. Quando è un maschietto, di solito gli occorre un po’ di tempo anche solo per imparare a tenere l’arco. Quando riesce a tenerlo, è deliziato se la freccia svolazza per qualche metro come una piuma o una foglia d’autunno. Ma anche se cresce un po’ e diventa più abile, e non ha ancora imparato a disprezzare le frecce in favore degli aeroplani, la quantità di danno che potrebbe concepibilmente fare con le sue piccole frecce sarebbe pressappoco la centesima parte del danno che avrebbe comunque sempre potuto fare semplicemente raccogliendo una pietra nel giardino.
Ora, non si impedisce a un maschietto di tirare pietre impedendogli di vedere per sempre delle pietre. Non lo si fa rinchiudendo tutte le pietre nel Museo Geologico, e rilasciando biglietti d’ingresso ai soli adulti. Non lo si fa cercando di raccogliere tutti i ciottoli della spiaggia, per paura che si eserciti a scagliarli in mare. Non si adotta neppure una riforma sociale tanto ovvia e persino tanto pressante quale il vietare che le strade siano fatte d’altro che d’asfalto, o il disporre che tutti i giardini siano fatti sull’argilla e nessuno sulla ghiaia. Trascuri tutte queste grandi occasioni che ti si aprono davanti; trascuri tutte queste esaltanti prospettive di scienza sociale e di illuminismo. Quando vuoi impedire a un bambino di tirare pietre, ripieghi sui metodi più triti, più sentimentali e persino più superstiziosi. Lo fai cercando di conservare una qualche ragionevole autorità e influenza sul bambino. Ti affidi al tuo rapporto privato col ragazzo, e non al tuo rapporto pubblico con la pietra. E ciò che è vero del proiettile naturale è altrettanto vero, naturalmente, del proiettile artificiale; tanto più che questo è un proiettile assai più inefficace e perciò innocuo. Un uomo potrebbe davvero essere ucciso, come santo Stefano, con le pietre della strada. Dubito che possa davvero essere ucciso, come san Sebastiano, con le frecce del negozio di giocattoli. Ma comunque il principio, semplicissimo, è lo stesso. Se sai insegnare a un bambino a non tirare una pietra, saprai insegnargli quando scoccare una freccia; se non sai insegnargli nulla, avrà sempre qualcosa da lanciare. Se lo si può persuadere a non fracassare il cappello dell’arcidiacono con una pesante selce, sarà probabilmente possibile dissuaderlo dal trafiggere quel copricapo con una freccia giocattolo. Se la sua educazione lo trattiene dallo scagliare mezzo mattone contro il postino, probabilmente lo metterà in guardia anche contro il continuo scoccare dardi di morte contro il poliziotto. Ma l’idea che il bambino dipenda da particolari arnesi, etichettati come pericolosi, per essere un pericolo per sé e per gli altri, è un’idea tanto insensata che è difficile vedere come una mente umana possa accarezzarla anche solo per un istante. La verità è che ogni sorta di fissazione, tanto ufficiale quanto teorica, ha demolito l’autorità naturale dell’istituzione domestica, specialmente fra i poveri; e i fissati vanno ora cercando disperatamente un surrogato della cosa che essi stessi hanno distrutto. La cosa normale è che i genitori impediscano a un ragazzo di fare più d’una ragionevole quantità di danno col suo arco e la sua freccia; e per il resto, che lo lascino a un ragionevole godimento di essi. Il burocratismo non può così seguire la vita del singolo ragazzo, come può il singolo tutore. Non si può assegnare un particolare poliziotto a ciascun ragazzo, perché lo insegua quando si arrampica sugli alberi o cade negli stagni. Così lo spirito moderno è disceso all’indescrivibile degradazione mentale di cercare di abolire l’abuso delle cose abolendo le cose stesse; il che è come se volesse abolire gli stagni o abolire gli alberi. Forse ci proverà, tra non molto. Così abbiamo tutti sentito di selvaggi che processano un tomahawk per omicidio, o bruciano una clava di legno per il danno che ha arrecato alla società. A tali livelli intellettuali può ritornare il mondo.
There are indeed yet lower levels. There is a story from America about a little boy who gave up his toy cannon to assist the disarmament of the world. I do not know if it is true, but on the whole I prefer to think so; for it is perhaps more tolerable to imagine one small monster who could do such a thing than many more mature monsters who could invent or admire it. There were some doubtless who neither invented nor admired. It is one of the peculiarities of the Americans that they combine a power of producing what they satirize as “sob-stuff” with a parallel power of satirizing it. And of the two American tall stories, it is sometimes hard to say which is the story and which the satire. But it seems clear that some people did really repeat this story in a reverential spirit. And it marks, as I have said, another stage of cerebral decay. You can (with luck) break a window with a toy arrow; but you can hardly bombard a town with a toy gun. If people object to the mere model of a cannon, they must equally object to the picture of a cannon, and so to every picture in the world that depicts a sword or a spear. There would be a splendid clearance of all the great art-galleries of the world. But it would be nothing to the destruction of all the great libraries of the world, if we logically extended the principle to all the literary masterpieces that admit the glory of arms. When this progress had gone on for a century or two, it might begin to dawn on people that there was something wrong with their moral principle. What is wrong with their moral principle is that it is immoral. Arms, like every other adventure or art of man, have two sides according as they are invoked for the infliction or the defiance of wrong. They have also an element of real poetry and an element of realistic and therefore repulsive prose. The child’s symbolic sword and bow are simply the poetry without the prose; the good without the evil. The toy sword is the abstraction and emanation of the heroic, apart from all its horrible accidents. It is the soul of the sword, that will never be stained with blood.
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FALSE THEORY AND THE THEATRE
A THEATRICAL manager recently insisted on introducing Chinese labour into the theatrical profession. He insisted on having real Chinamen to take the parts of Chinese servants; and some actors seem to have resented it—as I think, very reasonably. A distinguished actress, who is clever enough to know better, defended it on the ground that nothing must interfere with the perfection of a work of art. I dispute the moral thesis in any case; and Nero would no doubt have urged it in defence of having real deaths in the amphitheatre. I do not admit in any case that the artist can be entirely indifferent to hunger and unemployment, any more than to lions or boiling oil. But, as a matter of fact, there is no need to raise the moral question, because the case is equally strong in relation to the artistic question. I do not think that a Chinese character being represented by a Chinese actor is the finishing touch to the perfection of a work of art. I think it is the last and lowest phase of the vulgarity that is called realism. It is in the same style and taste as the triumphs on which, I believe, some actor-managers have prided themselves: the triumphs of having real silver for goblets or real jewels for crowns. That is not the spirit of a perfect artist, but rather of a purse-proud parvenu. The perfect artist would be he who could put on a crown of gilt wire or tinsel and make us feel he was a king.
Moreover, if the principle is to be extended from properties to persons, it is not easy to see where the principle can stop. If we are to insist on real Asiatics to act “Chu Chin Chow,” why not insist on real Venetians to act “The Merchant of Venice”? We did experiment recently and I believe very successfully, in having the Jew acted by a real Jew. But I hardly think we should like to make it a rule that nobody must be allowed to act Shylock unless he can prove his racial right to call upon his father Abraham. Must the characters of Macbeth and Macduff only be represented by men with names like Macpherson and Macnab? Must the Prince of Denmark always be in private life a Dane? Must we import a crowd of Greeks before we are allowed to act “Troilus and Cressida,” or a mob of real Egyptians to form the background of “Antony and Cleopatra”? Will it be necessary to kidnap an African gentleman out of Africa, by the methods of the slave trade, and force him into acting Othello? It was rather foolishly suggested at one time that our allies in Japan might be offended at the fantastic satire of “The Mikado.” As a matter of fact, the satire of “The Mikado” is not at all directed against Japanese things, but exclusively against English things. But I certainly think there might be some little ill-feeling in Japan if gangs of Japanese coolies were shipped across two continents merely in order to act in it. If once this singular rule be recognized, a dramatist will certainly be rather shy of introducing Zulus or Red Indians into his dramas, owing to the difficulty in securing appropriate dramatic talent. He will hesitate before making his hero an Eskimo. He will abandon his intention of seeking his heroine in the Sandwich Islands. If he were to insist on introducing real cannibals, it seems possible that they might insist on introducing real cannibalism. This would be quite in the spirit of Nero and all the art critics of the Roman realism of the amphitheatre. But surely it would be putting almost too perfect a finishing touch to the perfection of a work of art. That kind of finishing touch is a little too finishing.
The irony grew more intense when the newspapers that had insisted on Chinamen because they could not help being Chinamen began to praise them with admiration and astonishment because they looked Chinese. This opens up a speculation so complex and contradictory that I do not propose to follow it, for I am interested here not in the particular incident but in the general idea. It will be a sufficient statement of the fundamental fact of all the arts if I say simply that I do not believe in the resemblance. I do not believe that a Chinaman does look like a Chinaman. That is, I do not believe that any Chinaman will necessarily look like the Chinaman—the Chinaman in the imagination of the artist and the interest of the crowd. We all know the fable of the man who imitated a pig, and his rival who was hooted by the crowd because he could only produce what was (in fact) the squeak of a real pig. The crowd was perfectly right. The crowd was a crowd of very penetrating and philosophical art critics. They had come there not to hear an ordinary pig, which they could hear by poking in any ordinary pig-sty. They had come to hear how the voice of the pig affects the immortal mind and spirit of man; what sort of satire he would make of it; what sort of fun he can get out of it; what sort of exaggeration he feels to be an exaggeration of its essence, and not of its accidents. In other words, they had come to hear a squeak, but the sort of squeak which expresses what a man thinks of a pig— not the vastly inferior squeak which only expresses what a pig thinks of a man. I have myself a poetical enthusiasm for pigs, and the paradise of my fancy is one where the pigs have wings. But it is only men, especially wise men, who discuss whether pigs can fly; we have no particular proof that pigs ever discuss it. Therefore the actor who imitated the quadruped may well have put into his squeak something of the pathetic cry of one longing for the wings of the dove. The quadruped himself might express no such sentiment; he might appear, and generally does appear, singularly unconscious of his own lack of feathers. But the same principle is true of things more dignified than the most dignified porker, though clad in the most superb plumage. If a vision of a stately Arab has risen in the imagination of an author who is an artist, he will be wise if he confides it to an actor who is also an artist. He will be much wiser to confide it to an actor than to an Arab. The actor, being a fellow-countryman and a fellow-artist, may bring out what the author thinks the Arab stands for; whereas the real Arab might be a particular individual who at that particular moment refused to stand for anything of the sort, or for anything at all. The principle is a general one; and I mean no disrespect to China in the porcine parallel, or in the figurative association of pigs and pig-tails.
Vi sono, in verità, livelli ancora più bassi. C’è una storia che viene dall’America, su un bambino che rinunciò al suo cannone giocattolo per contribuire al disarmo del mondo. Non so se sia vera, ma nel complesso preferisco pensare che lo sia; poiché è forse più tollerabile immaginare un solo piccolo mostro capace di fare una cosa simile che tanti mostri più maturi capaci di inventarla o di ammirarla. Ve n’erano senza dubbio alcuni che né la inventarono né l’ammirarono. È una delle peculiarità degli americani il combinare la capacità di produrre ciò che essi stessi satireggiano come “roba da lacrime facili” con una parallela capacità di satireggiarla. E delle due iperboliche storie americane, è talvolta difficile dire quale sia la storia e quale la satira. Ma sembra chiaro che alcuni ripeterono davvero questa storia in spirito reverente. E ciò segna, come ho detto, un altro stadio di decadimento cerebrale. Si può (con fortuna) rompere una finestra con una freccia giocattolo; ma difficilmente si può bombardare una città con un fucile giocattolo. Se si obietta al semplice modellino di un cannone, si deve obiettare del pari all’immagine di un cannone, e quindi a ogni quadro al mondo che raffiguri una spada o una lancia. Ci sarebbe uno splendido sgombero di tutte le grandi pinacoteche del mondo. Ma non sarebbe nulla a paragone della distruzione di tutte le grandi biblioteche del mondo, se estendessimo logicamente il principio a tutti i capolavori letterari che ammettono la gloria delle armi. Quando questo progresso fosse durato un secolo o due, potrebbe cominciare a balenare nella mente della gente che c’era qualcosa di sbagliato nel loro principio morale. Ciò che è sbagliato nel loro principio morale è che è immorale. Le armi, come ogni altra avventura o arte dell’uomo, hanno due facce, a seconda che siano invocate per infliggere o per sfidare il torto. Hanno anche un elemento di vera poesia e un elemento di prosa realistica e perciò ripugnante. La spada e l’arco simbolici del bambino sono semplicemente la poesia senza la prosa; il bene senza il male. La spada giocattolo è l’astrazione e l’emanazione dell’eroico, a prescindere da tutti i suoi orribili accidenti. È l’anima della spada, che non sarà mai macchiata di sangue.
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FALSA TEORIA E IL TEATRO
UN impresario teatrale ha di recente insistito per introdurre manodopera cinese nella professione teatrale. Ha insistito per avere veri cinesi che interpretassero le parti dei servi cinesi; e alcuni attori pare se ne siano risentiti — a mio avviso, molto ragionevolmente. Una distinta attrice, abbastanza intelligente da saperne di più, difese la cosa adducendo che nulla deve interferire con la perfezione di un’opera d’arte. Contesto la tesi morale in ogni caso; e Nerone l’avrebbe senza dubbio sostenuta a difesa dell’avere morti reali nell’anfiteatro. Non ammetto in alcun caso che l’artista possa essere del tutto indifferente alla fame e alla disoccupazione, più di quanto lo sia ai leoni o all’olio bollente. Ma, di fatto, non c’è bisogno di sollevare la questione morale, perché il caso è altrettanto forte rispetto alla questione artistica. Non credo che un personaggio cinese rappresentato da un attore cinese sia il tocco finale della perfezione di un’opera d’arte. Credo che sia l’ultima e più infima fase della volgarità che va sotto il nome di realismo. È dello stesso stile e gusto dei trionfi di cui, credo, alcuni attori-impresari si sono vantati: i trionfi dell’avere argento vero per i calici o gioielli veri per le corone. Non è questo lo spirito di un artista perfetto, ma piuttosto di un parvenu tronfio della propria borsa. L’artista perfetto sarebbe colui che, mettendosi in capo una corona di fil di ferro dorato o d’orpello, sapesse farci sentire che era un re.
Inoltre, se il principio va esteso dagli oggetti di scena alle persone, non è facile vedere dove il principio possa fermarsi. Se dobbiamo pretendere veri asiatici per recitare “Chu Chin Chow”, perché non pretendere veri veneziani per recitare “The Merchant of Venice”? Abbiamo di recente fatto un esperimento, credo molto riuscito, facendo interpretare l’ebreo da un vero ebreo. Ma non credo proprio che ci piacerebbe farne una regola, che a nessuno sia consentito recitare Shylock a meno che non possa provare il proprio diritto razziale a invocare il padre Abramo. Devono forse i personaggi di Macbeth e Macduff essere rappresentati soltanto da uomini con nomi come Macpherson e Macnab? Deve forse il Principe di Danimarca essere sempre, nella vita privata, un danese? Dobbiamo forse importare una folla di greci prima di poter recitare “Troilus and Cressida”, o una calca di veri egiziani a formare lo sfondo di “Antony and Cleopatra”? Sarà necessario rapire un gentiluomo africano fuori dall’Africa, con i metodi della tratta degli schiavi, e costringerlo a recitare Othello? Fu piuttosto scioccamente suggerito a un certo momento che i nostri alleati del Giappone potessero offendersi per la fantastica satira di “The Mikado”. Di fatto, la satira di “The Mikado” non è affatto diretta contro cose giapponesi, ma esclusivamente contro cose inglesi. Ma certo credo che potrebbe esserci qualche piccolo malumore in Giappone se squadre di coolie giapponesi venissero trasportate attraverso due continenti soltanto per recitarvi. Una volta riconosciuta questa singolare regola, un drammaturgo sarà di certo piuttosto restio a introdurre zulù o pellirosse nei suoi drammi, per la difficoltà di procurarsi il talento drammatico appropriato. Esiterà prima di fare del suo eroe un eschimese. Abbandonerà l’intenzione di cercare la sua eroina nelle isole Sandwich. Se insistesse per introdurre veri cannibali, sembra possibile che essi insistano per introdurre il vero cannibalismo. Il che sarebbe del tutto nello spirito di Nerone e di tutti i critici d’arte del realismo romano dell’anfiteatro. Ma di certo sarebbe dare un tocco finale quasi troppo perfetto alla perfezione di un’opera d’arte. Un tocco finale di quel genere finisce un po’ troppo.
L’ironia si fece più intensa quando i giornali che avevano preteso i cinesi perché non potevano fare a meno d’essere cinesi cominciarono a lodarli con ammirazione e stupore perché avevano l’aria cinese. Ciò apre una speculazione tanto complessa e contraddittoria che non mi propongo di seguirla, poiché qui mi interessa non il particolare episodio ma l’idea generale. Sarà una sufficiente enunciazione del fatto fondamentale di tutte le arti se dico semplicemente che non credo alla somiglianza. Non credo che un cinese abbia davvero l’aria di un cinese. Vale a dire, non credo che un cinese qualsiasi assomiglierà necessariamente al cinese — il cinese nell’immaginazione dell’artista e nell’interesse della folla. Tutti conosciamo la favola dell’uomo che imitava un maiale, e del suo rivale che fu fischiato dalla folla perché non seppe produrre altro che quello che era (di fatto) lo strillo di un vero maiale. La folla aveva perfettamente ragione. La folla era una folla di critici d’arte assai penetranti e filosofici. Non erano venuti lì per udire un maiale qualunque, che avrebbero potuto udire frugando in un porcile qualunque. Erano venuti per udire come la voce del maiale agisca sulla mente e sullo spirito immortale dell’uomo; che sorta di satira egli ne farebbe; che sorta di divertimento potrebbe trarne; che sorta di esagerazione egli senta come un’esagerazione della sua essenza, e non dei suoi accidenti. In altre parole, erano venuti per udire uno strillo, ma quel genere di strillo che esprime ciò che un uomo pensa di un maiale — non lo strillo enormemente inferiore che esprime soltanto ciò che un maiale pensa di un uomo. Io stesso ho un entusiasmo poetico per i maiali, e il paradiso della mia fantasia è quello dove i maiali hanno le ali. Ma sono solo gli uomini, specialmente gli uomini saggi, a discutere se i maiali possano volare; non abbiamo alcuna prova particolare che i maiali ne discutano mai. Perciò l’attore che imitava il quadrupede può ben aver messo nel suo strillo qualcosa del grido patetico di chi anela alle ali della colomba. Il quadrupede stesso potrebbe non esprimere alcun sentimento simile; potrebbe apparire, e generalmente appare, singolarmente inconsapevole della propria mancanza di penne. Ma lo stesso principio vale per cose più dignitose del più dignitoso porcello, per quanto rivestito del più superbo piumaggio. Se la visione di un maestoso arabo è sorta nell’immaginazione di un autore che è un artista, egli sarà saggio se la affiderà a un attore che è anch’esso un artista. Sarà assai più saggio affidarla a un attore che a un arabo. L’attore, essendo un connazionale e un collega artista, potrà far emergere ciò che l’autore ritiene che l’arabo rappresenti; mentre l’arabo vero potrebbe essere un particolare individuo che in quel particolare momento si rifiutasse di rappresentare alcunché del genere, o alcunché in assoluto. Il principio è generale; e non intendo alcuna mancanza di rispetto verso la Cina nel parallelo porcino, o nell’associazione figurata di maiali e codini.
But, as a matter of fact, the argument is especially apt in the case of China. For I fear that China is chiefly interesting to most of us as the other end of the world. It is valued as something far-off, and therefore fantastical, like a kingdom in the clouds of sunrise. It is not the very real virtues of the Chinese tradition— its stoicism, its sense of honour, its ancient peasant cults— that most people want to put into a play. It is the ordinary romantic feeling about something remote and extravagant, like the Martians or the Man in the Moon. It is perfectly reasonable to have that romantic feeling in moderation, like other amusements. But it is not reasonable to expect the remote person to feel remote from himself, or the man at the other end of the world not to feel it as this end. We must not ask the outlandish Oriental to feel outlandish, or a Chinaman to be astonished at being Chinese. If, therefore, the literary artist has the legitimate literary purpose of expressing the mysterious and alien atmosphere which China implies to him, he will probably do it much better with the aid of an actor who is not Chinese. Of course, I am not criticizing the particular details of the particular performance, of which I know little or nothing. I do not know the circumstances; and under the circumstances, for all I know, the experiment may have been very necessary or very successful. I merely protest against a theory of dramatic truth, urged in defence of the dramatic experiment, which seems to me calculated to falsify the whole art of the drama. It is founded on exactly the same fallacy as that of the infant in Stevenson’s nursery rhyme, who thought that the Japanese children must suffer from home-sickness through being always abroad in Japan.
This brings us very near to an old and rather threadbare theatrical controversy, about whether staging should be simple or elaborate. I do not mean to begin that argument all over again. What is really wanted is not so much the simple stage-manager as the simple spectator. In a very real sense, what is wanted is the simple critic, who would be in truth the most subtle critic. The healthy human instincts in these things are at least as much spoiled by sophistication in the stalls as by elaboration on the stage. A really simple mind would enjoy a simple scene and also a gorgeous scene. A popular instinct, to be found in all folk-lore, would know well enough when the one or the other was appropriate. But what is involved here is not the whole of that sophistication, but only one particular sophistry, and against that sophistry we may well pause to protest. It is the critical fallacy of cutting off a real donkey’s head to put it on Bottom the Weaver; when the head is symbolical, and in that case more appropriate to the critic than to the actor.
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THE SECRET SOCIETY OF MANKIND
WITH that fantastic love of paradox which gives pain to so many critics, I once suggested that there may be some truth in the notion of the brotherhood of men. This was naturally a subject for severe criticism from the modern or modernist standpoint; and I remember that the cleverest refutation of it occurred in a book which was called “We Moderns.” It was written by a Mr. Edward Moore, and very well written too; indeed the author did himself some injustice in insisting on his own modernity; for he was not so very modern after all, but really quite lucid and coherent. But I will venture to take his remark as a text here because it concerns a matter on which most moderns darken council in a highly incoherent manner. It concerns the nature of the unity of men; which I did certainly state in its more defiant form as the equality of man. And I said that this norm or meeting-place of mankind can be found in the two extremes of the comic and the tragic. I said that no individual tragedy could be so tragic as having to die; and all men have equally to die. I said that nothing can be funnier than having two legs; and all men can join equally in the joke.
The critic in question was terribly severe on this remark. I believe that the words of his condemnation ran as follows: “Well, in this passage, there is an error so plain, it is almost inconceivable that a responsible thinker could have put it forward even in jest. For it is clear that the tragic and comic elements of which Mr. Chesterton speaks make not only mankind, but all life, equal. Everything that lives must die; and therefore it is, in Mr. Chesterton’s sense, tragic. Everything that lives has shape; and therefore it is, in Mr. Chesterton’s sense, comic. His premises lead to the equality not of mankind, but of all that lives; whether it be leviathan or butterfly, oak or violet, worm or eagle. … Would that he had said this! Then we who affirm inequality would be the first to echo him.” I do not feel it hard to show that where Mr. Moore thinks equality wrong is exactly where it is right; and I will begin with mortality; premising that the same is true (for those who believe it) of immortality. Both are absolutes: a man cannot be somewhat mortal; nor can he be rather immortal.
To begin with, it must be understood that having an equality in being black or white is not even the same as being equally black or white. It is generally fair to take a familiar illustration; and I will take the ordinary expression about being all in the same boat. Mr. Moore and I and all men are not only all in the same boat, but have a very real equality implied in that fact. Nevertheless, since there is a word “inner” as well as a word “in,” there is a sense in which some of us might be more in the boat than others. My fellow passengers might have stowed me at the bottom of the boat and sat on top of me, moved by a natural distaste for my sitting on top of them. I have noticed that I am often thus packed in a preliminary fashion into the back seats or basic parts of cabs, cars, or boats; there being evidently a feeling that I am the stuff of which the foundations of an edifice are made rather than its toppling minarets or tapering spires. Meanwhile Mr. Moore might be surveying the world from the masthead, if there were one, or leaning out over the prow with the forward gestures of a leader of men, or even sitting by preference on the edge of the boat with his feet paddling in the water, to indicate the utmost possible aristocratic detachment from us and our concerns. Nevertheless, in the large and ultimate matters which are the whole meaning of the phrase “all in the same boat,” we should be all equally in the same boat. We should be all equally dependent upon the reassuring fact that a boat can float. If it did not float but sink, each one of us would have lost his one and only boat at the same decisive time and in the same disconcerting manner. If the King of the Cannibal Islands, upon whose principal island we might suffer the inconvenience of being wrecked, were to exclaim in a loud voice, “I will eat every single man who has arrived by that identical boat and no other,” we should all be eaten, and we should all be equally eaten. For being eaten, considered as a tragedy, is not a matter of degree.
Ma, di fatto, l’argomento è particolarmente calzante nel caso della Cina. Poiché temo che la Cina interessi la maggior parte di noi soprattutto in quanto altro capo del mondo. È apprezzata come qualcosa di lontano, e perciò di fantastico, come un regno tra le nubi dell’alba. Non sono le virtù ben reali della tradizione cinese — il suo stoicismo, il suo senso dell’onore, i suoi antichi culti contadini — che la maggior parte della gente vuol mettere in una commedia. È l’ordinario sentimento romantico verso qualcosa di remoto e stravagante, come i marziani o l’Uomo nella Luna. È perfettamente ragionevole nutrire quel sentimento romantico con moderazione, come gli altri svaghi. Ma non è ragionevole aspettarsi che la persona remota si senta remota da se stessa, o che l’uomo all’altro capo del mondo non lo senta come questo capo. Non dobbiamo chiedere allo strambo orientale di sentirsi strambo, o a un cinese di stupirsi d’essere cinese. Se, dunque, l’artista letterario ha il legittimo scopo letterario di esprimere l’atmosfera misteriosa e aliena che la Cina evoca in lui, probabilmente lo farà assai meglio con l’aiuto di un attore che non sia cinese. Naturalmente, non sto criticando i particolari specifici di quella specifica rappresentazione, di cui so poco o nulla. Non conosco le circostanze; e in quelle circostanze, per quel che ne so, l’esperimento può essere stato molto necessario o molto riuscito. Protesto soltanto contro una teoria della verità drammatica, addotta a difesa dell’esperimento drammatico, che mi sembra fatta apposta per falsificare l’intera arte del dramma. Si fonda esattamente sulla stessa fallacia di quella del bimbo nella filastrocca di Stevenson, il quale pensava che i bambini giapponesi dovessero soffrire di nostalgia di casa per il fatto d’essere sempre all’estero in Giappone.
Questo ci porta assai vicino a un’antica e piuttosto trita controversia teatrale, sul se l’allestimento debba essere semplice o elaborato. Non intendo ricominciare da capo quella disputa. Ciò di cui c’è davvero bisogno non è tanto il semplice direttore di scena quanto il semplice spettatore. In un senso ben reale, ciò che serve è il critico semplice, che sarebbe in verità il più sottile dei critici. I sani istinti umani in queste cose sono guastati almeno tanto dalla raffinatezza in platea quanto dall’elaborazione sul palco. Una mente davvero semplice godrebbe di una scena semplice e anche di una scena sfarzosa. Un istinto popolare, che si trova in tutto il folklore, saprebbe bene abbastanza quando l’una o l’altra fosse appropriata. Ma ciò che qui è in gioco non è l’intera raffinatezza, bensì soltanto un particolare sofisma, e contro quel sofisma possiamo ben soffermarci a protestare. È la fallacia critica di tagliare la testa a un vero asino per metterla addosso a Bottom il Tessitore; quando la testa è simbolica, e in tal caso più appropriata al critico che all’attore.
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LA SOCIETÀ SEGRETA DEL GENERE UMANO
CON quel fantastico amore del paradosso che dà pena a tanti critici, io una volta suggerii che potrebbe esservi una qualche verità nella nozione della fratellanza degli uomini. Questo fu naturalmente argomento di severa critica dal punto di vista moderno o modernista; e ricordo che la sua confutazione più arguta comparve in un libro che si intitolava “We Moderns”. Era scritto da un signor Edward Moore, e scritto per giunta assai bene; anzi, l’autore fece a se stesso una certa ingiustizia insistendo sulla propria modernità; poiché non era poi così moderno, ma davvero piuttosto lucido e coerente. Ma mi arrischierò a prendere qui la sua osservazione come testo, perché concerne una materia sulla quale la maggior parte dei moderni offusca il consiglio in modo altamente incoerente. Concerne la natura dell’unità degli uomini; che io certamente enunciai, nella sua forma più sfidante, come l’uguaglianza dell’uomo. E dissi che questa norma, o luogo d’incontro del genere umano, si può trovare nei due estremi del comico e del tragico. Dissi che nessuna tragedia individuale potrebbe essere tanto tragica quanto il dover morire; e tutti gli uomini devono ugualmente morire. Dissi che nulla può essere più buffo dell’avere due gambe; e tutti gli uomini possono ugualmente partecipare alla burla.
Il critico in questione fu terribilmente severo su questa osservazione. Credo che le parole della sua condanna suonassero così: «Ebbene, in questo passo c’è un errore tanto palese che è quasi inconcepibile che un pensatore responsabile abbia potuto avanzarlo persino per scherzo. Poiché è chiaro che gli elementi tragico e comico di cui parla il signor Chesterton rendono uguali non solo il genere umano, ma tutta la vita. Tutto ciò che vive deve morire; e perciò è, nel senso del signor Chesterton, tragico. Tutto ciò che vive ha una forma; e perciò è, nel senso del signor Chesterton, comico. Le sue premesse conducono all’uguaglianza non del genere umano, ma di tutto ciò che vive; sia esso leviatano o farfalla, quercia o violetta, verme o aquila. … Avesse detto questo! Allora noi che affermiamo la disuguaglianza saremmo i primi a fargli eco.» Non mi riesce difficile mostrare che là dove il signor Moore crede che l’uguaglianza sia errata è esattamente là dove essa è giusta; e comincerò dalla mortalità; premettendo che lo stesso vale (per chi ci crede) dell’immortalità. Entrambe sono assoluti: un uomo non può essere alquanto mortale; né può essere piuttosto immortale.
Per cominciare, bisogna intendere che avere un’uguaglianza nell’essere neri o bianchi non è nemmeno la stessa cosa che essere ugualmente neri o bianchi. È generalmente lecito ricorrere a un’illustrazione familiare; e prenderò l’espressione corrente dell’essere tutti nella stessa barca. Il signor Moore, io e tutti gli uomini non solo siamo tutti nella stessa barca, ma abbiamo un’uguaglianza ben reale implicita in quel fatto. Nondimeno, poiché esiste la parola “dentro” non meno della parola “in”, c’è un senso in cui alcuni di noi potrebbero essere nella barca più di altri. I miei compagni di viaggio potrebbero avermi stivato in fondo alla barca ed essersi seduti sopra di me, mossi da una naturale avversione al mio sedermi sopra di loro. Ho notato che spesso vengo così stipato, a titolo preliminare, nei sedili posteriori o nelle parti basilari di carrozze, automobili o barche; essendovi evidentemente la sensazione che io sia la materia di cui si fanno le fondamenta di un edificio piuttosto che i suoi svettanti minareti o le sue affusolate guglie. Nel frattempo il signor Moore potrebbe scrutare il mondo dalla cima dell’albero, se ve ne fosse una, o sporgersi oltre la prua con i gesti protesi in avanti di un capo di uomini, o persino sedere di preferenza sull’orlo della barca con i piedi che sguazzano nell’acqua, a indicare il massimo distacco aristocratico possibile da noi e dalle nostre faccende. Nondimeno, nelle grandi e ultime questioni che sono l’intero significato della frase “tutti nella stessa barca”, saremmo tutti ugualmente nella stessa barca. Dipenderemmo tutti ugualmente dal fatto rassicurante che una barca può galleggiare. Se non galleggiasse ma affondasse, ciascuno di noi avrebbe perduto la sua unica e sola barca nel medesimo momento decisivo e nel medesimo sconcertante modo. Se il Re delle Isole dei Cannibali, sulla cui isola principale potremmo patire l’inconveniente di far naufragio, esclamasse a gran voce: «Mangerò ogni singolo uomo giunto con quella identica barca e con nessun’altra», saremmo tutti mangiati, e saremmo tutti ugualmente mangiati. Poiché l’essere mangiati, considerato come tragedia, non è questione di grado.
Now there is a fault in every analogy; but the fault in my analogy is not a fault in my argument; it is the chief fault in Mr. Moore’s argument. It may be said that even in a shipwreck men are not equal, for some of us might be so strong that we could swim to the shore, or some of us might be so tough that the island king would repent of his rash vow after the first bite. But it is precisely here that I have again, as delicately as possible, to draw the reader’s attention to the modest and little-known institution called death. We are all in a boat which will certainly drown us all, and drown us equally, the strongest with the weakest; we sail to the land of an ogre, edax rerum, who devours all without distinction. And the meaning in the phrase about being all in the same boat is, not that there are no degrees among the people in a boat, but that all those degrees are nothing compared with the stupendous fact that the boat goes home or goes down. And it is when I come to the particular criticism on my remarks about “the fact of having to die” that I feel most confident that I was right and that Mr. Moore is wrong.
It will be noted that I spoke of the fact of having to die, not of the fact of dying. The brotherhood of men, being a spiritual thing, is not concerned merely with the truth that all men will die, but with the truth that all men know it. It is true, as Mr. Moore says, that everything will die, “whether it be leviathan or butterfly, oak or violet, worm or eagle”; but exactly what, at the very start, we do not know is whether they know it. Can Mr. Moore draw forth leviathan with a hook, and extract his hopes and fears about the heavenly harpooner? Can he worm its philosophy out of a worm, or get the caterpillar to talk about the faint possibility of a butterfly? The caterpillar on the leaf may repeat to Blake his mother’s grief; but it does not repeat to anybody its own grief about its own mother. Can he know whether oaks confront their fate with hearts of oak, as the phrase is used in a sailor’s song? He cannot; and this is the whole point about human brotherhood, the point the vegetarians cannot see. This is why a harpooner is not an assassin; this is why eating whale’s blubber, though not attractive to the fancy, is not repulsive to the conscience. We do not know what a whale thinks of death; still less what the other whales think of his being killed and eaten. He may be a pessimistic whale, and be perpetually wishing that this too, too solid blubber would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew. He may be a fanatical whale, and feel frantically certain of passing instantly into a polar paradise of whales, ruled by the sacred whale who swallowed Jonah. But we can elicit no sign or gesture from him suggestive of such reflections; and the working common sense of the thing is that no creatures outside man seem to have any sense of death at all. Mr. Moore has therefore chosen a strangely unlucky point upon which to challenge the true egalitarian doctrine. Almost the most arresting and even startling stamp of the solidarity and sameness of mankind is precisely this fact, not only of death, but of the shadow of death. We do know of any man whatever what we do not know of any other thing whatever, that his death is what we call a tragedy. From the fact that it is a tragedy flow all the forms and tests by which we say it is a murder or an execution, a martyrdom or a suicide. They all depend on an echo or vibration, not only in the soul of man; but in the souls of all men.
Oddly enough, Mr. Moore has made exactly the same mistake about the comic as about the tragic. It is true, I think, that almost everything which has a shape is humorous; but it is not true that everything which has a shape has a sense of humour. The whale may be laughable, but it is not the whale who laughs; the image indeed is almost alarming. And the instant the question is raised, we collide with another colossal fact, dwarfing all human differentiations; the fact that man is the only creature who does laugh. In the presence of this prodigious fact, the fact that men laugh in different degrees, and at different things, shrivels not merely into insignificance but into invisibility. It is true that I have often felt the physical universe as something like a firework display: the most practical of all practical jokes. But if the cosmos is meant for a joke, men seem to be the only cosmic conspirators who have been let into the joke. There could be no fraternity like our freemasonry in that secret pleasure. It is true that there are no limits to this jesting faculty, that it is not confined to common human jests; but it is confined to human jesters. Mr. Moore may burst out laughing when he beholds the morning star, or be thrown into convulsions of amusement by the effect of moonrise seen through a mist. He may, to quote his own catalogue, see all the fun of an eagle or an oak tree. We may come upon him in some quiet dell rolling about in uproarious mirth, at the sight of a violet. But we shall not find the violet in a state of uproarious mirth at Mr. Moore. He may laugh at the worm; but the worm will not turn and laugh at him. For that comfort he must come to his fellow-sinners: I shall always be ready to oblige.
The truth involved here has had many names; that man is the image of God; that he is the microcosm; that he is the measure of all things. He is the microcosm in the sense that he is the mirror, the only crystal we know in which the fantasy and fear in things are, in the double and real sense, things of reflection. In the presence of this mysterious monopoly the differences of men are like dust. That is what the equality of men means to me; and that is the only intelligible thing it ever meant to anybody. The common things of men infinitely outclass all classes. For a man to disagree with this it is necessary that he should understand it; Mr. Moore may really disagree with it; but the ordinary modern anti-egalitarian does not understand it, or apparently anything else. If a man says he had some transcendental dogma of his own, as Mr. Moore may possibly have, which mixes man with nature or claims to see other values in men, I shall say no more than that my religion is different from his, and I am uncommonly glad of it. But if he simply says that men cannot be equal because some of them are clever and some of them are stupid—why then I shall merely agree (not without tears) that some of them are very stupid.
Ora, c’è un difetto in ogni analogia; ma il difetto nella mia analogia non è un difetto nel mio ragionamento; è il difetto principale del ragionamento del signor Moore. Si potrebbe dire che perfino in un naufragio gli uomini non sono uguali, poiché alcuni di noi potrebbero essere tanto forti da riuscire a nuotare fino a riva, o alcuni di noi potrebbero essere tanto coriacei che il re dell’isola si pentirebbe del suo avventato voto dopo il primo morso. Ma è precisamente qui che devo di nuovo, con la maggior delicatezza possibile, attirare l’attenzione del lettore su quella modesta e poco nota istituzione che si chiama morte. Siamo tutti in una barca che certamente ci annegherà tutti, e ci annegherà ugualmente, il più forte insieme al più debole; navighiamo verso la terra di un orco, edax rerum, che divora tutto senza distinzione. E il senso della frase sull’essere tutti nella stessa barca è, non che non vi siano gradi fra le persone in una barca, ma che tutti quei gradi sono nulla a paragone dello stupendo fatto che la barca torni a casa o vada a fondo. Ed è quando giungo alla particolare critica alle mie osservazioni sul “fatto di dover morire” che mi sento più sicuro d’aver avuto ragione io e che il signor Moore ha torto.
Si noterà che ho parlato del fatto di dover morire, non del fatto di morire. La fratellanza degli uomini, essendo cosa spirituale, non riguarda semplicemente la verità che tutti gli uomini moriranno, ma la verità che tutti gli uomini lo sanno. È vero, come dice il signor Moore, che tutto morirà, «sia esso leviatano o farfalla, quercia o violetta, verme o aquila»; ma esattamente ciò che, fin dal principio, non sappiamo è se essi lo sappiano. Può il signor Moore tirar su il leviatano con un amo, ed estrarne le speranze e i timori riguardo al celeste ramponiere? Può cavar di soppiatto la filosofia da un verme, o indurre il bruco a parlare della debole possibilità di una farfalla? Il bruco sulla foglia potrà ripetere a Blake il dolore di sua madre; ma non ripete a nessuno il proprio dolore per la propria madre. Può egli sapere se le querce affrontino il loro destino con cuore di quercia, come vuole la frase in una canzone di marinai? Non può; ed è questo tutto il punto della fratellanza umana, il punto che i vegetariani non riescono a vedere. È per questo che un ramponiere non è un assassino; è per questo che mangiare il grasso di balena, benché non attraente per la fantasia, non è ripugnante per la coscienza. Non sappiamo che cosa una balena pensi della morte; ancor meno che cosa le altre balene pensino del suo essere uccisa e mangiata. Potrebbe essere una balena pessimista, e desiderare perpetuamente che questo troppo, troppo solido grasso si sciogliesse, si liquefacesse e si risolvesse in rugiada. Potrebbe essere una balena fanatica, e sentirsi freneticamente certa di passare all’istante in un polare paradiso di balene, governato dalla sacra balena che inghiottì Giona. Ma non possiamo strapparle alcun segno o gesto che suggerisca simili riflessioni; e il buon senso pratico della cosa è che nessuna creatura al di fuori dell’uomo sembra avere alcun senso della morte. Il signor Moore ha dunque scelto un punto stranamente sfortunato su cui sfidare la vera dottrina egualitaria. Quasi il più notevole e persino sbalorditivo suggello della solidarietà e identità del genere umano è precisamente questo fatto, non solo della morte, ma dell’ombra della morte. Di qualunque uomo sappiamo ciò che non sappiamo di qualunque altra cosa: che la sua morte è ciò che chiamiamo una tragedia. Dal fatto che essa è una tragedia discendono tutte le forme e le prove per cui diciamo che è un assassinio o un’esecuzione, un martirio o un suicidio. Tutte dipendono da un’eco o vibrazione, non solo nell’anima dell’uomo; ma nelle anime di tutti gli uomini.
Stranamente, il signor Moore ha commesso esattamente lo stesso errore riguardo al comico che riguardo al tragico. È vero, credo, che quasi tutto ciò che ha una forma è umoristico; ma non è vero che tutto ciò che ha una forma abbia il senso dell’umorismo. La balena potrà essere ridicola, ma non è la balena che ride; l’immagine, anzi, è quasi allarmante. E nell’istante in cui la questione è sollevata, ci scontriamo con un altro fatto colossale, che rimpicciolisce tutte le differenziazioni umane: il fatto che l’uomo è l’unica creatura che rida. Al cospetto di questo fatto prodigioso, il fatto che gli uomini ridano in diversa misura, e di cose diverse, si raggrinzisce non solo nell’insignificanza ma nell’invisibilità. È vero che ho spesso sentito l’universo fisico come qualcosa di simile a uno spettacolo pirotecnico: il più concreto di tutti gli scherzi. Ma se il cosmo è concepito per uno scherzo, gli uomini sembrano essere gli unici cospiratori cosmici a essere stati messi a parte dello scherzo. Non potrebbe esservi fratellanza pari alla nostra massoneria in quel piacere segreto. È vero che non vi sono limiti a questa facoltà di scherzare, che essa non è confinata ai comuni scherzi umani; ma è confinata agli scherzitori umani. Il signor Moore potrà scoppiare a ridere quando contempla la stella del mattino, o essere gettato in convulsioni di ilarità dall’effetto del sorgere della luna visto attraverso una foschia. Potrà, per citare il suo stesso catalogo, cogliere tutto lo spasso di un’aquila o di una quercia. Potremmo imbatterci in lui, in qualche quieta valletta, che si rotola in fragorosa allegria alla vista di una violetta. Ma non troveremo la violetta in stato di fragorosa allegria per il signor Moore. Egli potrà ridere del verme; ma il verme non si volterà a ridere di lui. Per quel conforto egli dovrà rivolgersi ai suoi compagni di peccato: io sarò sempre pronto a compiacerlo.
La verità qui in gioco ha avuto molti nomi: che l’uomo è l’immagine di Dio; che è il microcosmo; che è la misura di tutte le cose. È il microcosmo nel senso che è lo specchio, l’unico cristallo che conosciamo in cui la fantasia e il timore nelle cose sono, nel duplice e reale senso, cose di riflesso. Al cospetto di questo misterioso monopolio le differenze fra gli uomini sono come polvere. È questo che l’uguaglianza degli uomini significa per me; ed è l’unica cosa intelligibile che essa abbia mai significato per chiunque. Le cose comuni agli uomini surclassano infinitamente tutte le classi. Perché un uomo dissenta da questo è necessario che lo comprenda; il signor Moore potrà davvero dissentirne; ma l’ordinario antiegualitario moderno non lo comprende, né a quanto pare comprende alcunché d’altro. Se un uomo dice d’avere un proprio dogma trascendentale, come forse il signor Moore può averlo, che mescola l’uomo con la natura o pretende di scorgere altri valori negli uomini, non dirò altro se non che la mia religione è diversa dalla sua, e ne sono straordinariamente lieto. Ma se egli dice semplicemente che gli uomini non possono essere uguali perché alcuni di essi sono intelligenti e alcuni sono stupidi — ebbene, allora mi limiterò a convenire (non senza lacrime) che alcuni di essi sono davvero molto stupidi.
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THE SENTIMENTALISM OF DIVORCE
DIVORCE is a thing which the newspapers now not only advertise, but advocate, almost as if it were a pleasure in itself. It may be, indeed, that all the flowers and festivities will now be transferred from the fashionable wedding to the fashionable divorce. A superb iced and frosted divorce-cake will be provided for the feast, and in military circles will be cut with the co-respondent’s sword. A dazzling display of divorce presents will be laid out for the inspection of the company, watched by a detective dressed as an ordinary divorce guest. Perhaps the old divorce breakfast will be revived; anyhow, toasts will be drunk, the guests will assemble on the doorstep to see the husband and wife go off in opposite directions; and all will go merry as a divorce-court bell. All this, though to some it might seem a little fanciful, would really be far less fantastic than the sort of things that are really said on the subject. I am not going to discuss the depth and substance of that subject. I myself hold a mystical view of marriage; but I am not going to debate it here. But merely in the interests of light and logic I would protest against the way in which it is frequently debated. The process cannot rationally be called a debate at all. It is a sort of chorus of sentimentalists in the sensational newspapers, perpetually intoning some such formula as this: “We respect marriage, we reverence marriage, holy, sacred, ineffably exquisite and ideal marriage. True marriage is love, and when love alters, marriage alters, and when love stops or begins again, marriage does the same; wonderful, beautiful, beatific marriage.”
Now, with all reasonable sympathy with everything sentimental, I may remark that all that talk is tosh. Marriage is an institution like any other, set up deliberately to have certain functions and limitations; it is an institution like private property, or conscription, or the legal liberties of the subject. To talk as if it were made or melted with certain changing moods is a mere waste of words. The object of private property is that as many citizens as possible should have a certain dignity and pleasure in being masters of material things. But suppose a dog-stealer were to say that as soon as a man was bored with his dog it ceased to be his dog, and he ceased to be responsible for it. Suppose he were to say that by merely coveting the dog, he could immediately morally possess the dog. The answer would be that the only way to make men responsible for dogs was to make the relation a legal one, apart from the likes and dislikes of the moment. Suppose a burglar were to say: “Private property I venerate, private property I revere; but I am convinced that Mr. Brown does not truly value his silver Apostle spoons as such sacred objects should be valued; they have therefore ceased to be his property; in reality they have already become my property, for I appreciate their precious character as nobody else can do.” Suppose a murderer were to say: “What can be more amiable and admirable than human life lived with a due sense of its priceless opportunity! But I regret to observe that Mr. Robinson has lately been looking decidedly tired and melancholy; life accepted in this depressing and demoralizing spirit can no longer truly be called life; it is rather my own exuberant and perhaps exaggerated joy of life which I must gratify by cutting his throat with a carving-knife.”
It is obvious that these philosophers would fail to understand what we mean by a rule, quite apart from the problem of its exceptions. They would fail to grasp what we mean by an institution, whether it be the institution of law, of property, or of marriage. A reasonable person will certainly reply to the burglar: “You will hardly soothe us by merely poetical praises of property; because your case would be much more convincing if you denied, as the Communists do, that property ought to exist at all. There may be, there certainly are, gross abuses in private property; but, so long as it is an institution at all, it cannot alter merely with moods and emotions. A farm cannot simply float away from a farmer, in proportion as his interest in it grows fainter than it was. A house cannot shift away by inches from a householder, by certain fine shades of feeling that he happens to have about it. A dog cannot drift away like a dream, and begin to belong to somebody else who happens just then to be dreaming of him. And neither can the serious social relation of husband and wife, of mother and father, or even of man and woman, be resolved in all its relations by passions and reactions of sentiment.” This question is quite apart from the question of whether there are exceptions to the rule of loyalty, or what they are. The primary point is that there is an institution to which to be loyal. If the new sentimentalists mean what they say, when they say they venerate that institution, they must not suggest that an institution can be actually identical with an emotion. And that is what their rhetoric does suggest, so far as it can be said to suggest anything.
These writers are always explaining to us why they believe in divorce. I think I can easily understand why they believe in divorce. What I do not understand is why they believe in marriage. Just as the philosophical burglar would be more philosophical if he were a Bolshevist, so this sort of divorce advocate would be more philosophical if he were a free-lover. For his arguments never seem to touch on marriage as an institution, or anything more than an individual experience. The real explanation of this strange indifference to the institutional idea is, I fancy, something not only deeper, but wider; something affecting all the institutions of the modern world. The truth is that these sociologists are not at all interested in promoting the sort of social life that marriage does promote. The sort of society of which marriage has always been the strongest pillar is what is sometimes called the distributive society; the society in which most of the citizens have a tolerable share of property, especially property in hand. Everywhere, all over the world, the farm goes with the family and the family with the farm. Unless the whole domestic group hold together with a sort of loyalty or local patriotism, unless the inheritance of property is logical and legitimate, unless the family quarrels are kept out of the courts of officialism, the tradition of family ownership cannot be handed on unimpaired. On the other hand, the Servile State, which is the opposite of the distributive state, has always been rather embarrassed by the institution of marriage. It is an old story that the negro slavery of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” did its worst work in the breaking-up of families. But, curiously enough, the same story is told from both sides. For the apologists of the Slave States, or, at least, of the Southern States, make the same admission even in their own defence. If they denied breaking up the slave family, it was because they denied that there was any slave family to break up.
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IL SENTIMENTALISMO DEL DIVORZIO
Il DIVORZIO è una cosa che i giornali ora non solo pubblicizzano, ma caldeggiano, quasi fosse un piacere in sé. Potrebbe darsi, in verità, che tutti i fiori e i festeggiamenti vengano ormai trasferiti dallo sposalizio alla moda al divorzio alla moda. Una superba torta di divorzio, ghiacciata e glassata, sarà fornita per il banchetto, e negli ambienti militari verrà tagliata con la spada del correo. Uno sfolgorante spiegamento di regali di divorzio sarà disposto per l’ispezione della compagnia, sorvegliato da un investigatore travestito da comune invitato al divorzio. Forse verrà rispolverata l’antica colazione di divorzio; comunque sia, si leveranno i brindisi, gli invitati si raccoglieranno sulla soglia per veder partire marito e moglie in direzioni opposte; e tutto andrà allegro come una campana da tribunale del divorzio. Tutto ciò, benché ad alcuni possa sembrare un po’ fantasioso, sarebbe in realtà assai meno fantastico del genere di cose che davvero si dicono sull’argomento. Non intendo discutere la profondità e la sostanza di quell’argomento. Io stesso professo una visione mistica del matrimonio; ma non intendo dibatterla qui. Ma, semplicemente nell’interesse della chiarezza e della logica, vorrei protestare contro il modo in cui esso viene di frequente dibattuto. Il procedimento non può razionalmente chiamarsi affatto un dibattito. È una sorta di coro di sentimentali nei giornali sensazionalistici, che intonano perpetuamente qualche formula come questa: «Rispettiamo il matrimonio, riveriamo il matrimonio, santo, sacro, ineffabilmente squisito e ideale matrimonio. Il vero matrimonio è amore, e quando l’amore muta, il matrimonio muta, e quando l’amore cessa o ricomincia, il matrimonio fa altrettanto; meraviglioso, bellissimo, beatifico matrimonio.»
Ora, con tutta la ragionevole simpatia per ogni cosa sentimentale, posso osservare che tutte quelle chiacchiere sono fandonie. Il matrimonio è un’istituzione come un’altra, istituita deliberatamente per avere certe funzioni e certi limiti; è un’istituzione come la proprietà privata, o la coscrizione, o le libertà legali del cittadino. Parlarne come se fosse creato o disciolto da certi mutevoli stati d’animo è un puro spreco di parole. Lo scopo della proprietà privata è che quanti più cittadini possibile abbiano una certa dignità e un certo piacere nell’essere padroni di cose materiali. Ma si supponga che un ladro di cani dicesse che, non appena un uomo si annoia del proprio cane, questo cessa d’essere il suo cane, ed egli cessa d’esserne responsabile. Si supponga che dicesse che, per il semplice fatto di bramare il cane, egli potrebbe immediatamente possederlo moralmente. La risposta sarebbe che l’unico modo per rendere gli uomini responsabili dei cani era fare della relazione una relazione legale, a prescindere dalle simpatie e antipatie del momento. Si supponga che uno scassinatore dicesse: «La proprietà privata io la venero, la proprietà privata io la riverisco; ma sono convinto che il signor Brown non apprezzi davvero i suoi cucchiai d’argento con gli Apostoli come simili oggetti sacri meriterebbero d’essere apprezzati; essi hanno perciò cessato d’essere sua proprietà; in realtà sono già divenuti proprietà mia, poiché ne apprezzo il prezioso carattere come nessun altro sa fare.» Si supponga che un assassino dicesse: «Cosa può esservi di più amabile e ammirevole della vita umana vissuta con il dovuto senso della sua inestimabile opportunità! Ma mi rincresce osservare che il signor Robinson ha ultimamente un aspetto decisamente stanco e malinconico; la vita accettata in questo spirito deprimente e demoralizzante non può più veramente chiamarsi vita; è piuttosto la mia stessa esuberante e forse esagerata gioia di vivere che debbo soddisfare tagliandogli la gola con un trinciante.»
È ovvio che questi filosofi non riuscirebbero a capire ciò che intendiamo per regola, del tutto a prescindere dal problema delle sue eccezioni. Non riuscirebbero ad afferrare ciò che intendiamo per istituzione, sia essa l’istituzione della legge, della proprietà, o del matrimonio. Una persona ragionevole risponderà certamente allo scassinatore: «Difficilmente ci placherai con meri elogi poetici della proprietà; perché la tua tesi sarebbe assai più convincente se tu negassi, come fanno i comunisti, che la proprietà debba esistere del tutto. Ci possono essere, e certamente ci sono, gravi abusi nella proprietà privata; ma, finché essa è un’istituzione, non può mutare semplicemente con gli stati d’animo e le emozioni. Una fattoria non può semplicemente allontanarsi galleggiando dal fattore, in proporzione all’affievolirsi del suo interesse per essa. Una casa non può scostarsi a poco a poco dal padrone di casa, per certe sottili sfumature di sentimento che egli si trovi a nutrire verso di essa. Un cane non può andarsene alla deriva come un sogno, e cominciare ad appartenere a qualcun altro che si trovi proprio allora a sognarlo. E nemmeno la seria relazione sociale di marito e moglie, di madre e padre, o persino di uomo e donna, può essere risolta in tutte le sue relazioni da passioni e reazioni del sentimento.» Questa questione è del tutto distinta dalla questione se vi siano eccezioni alla regola della lealtà, o quali esse siano. Il punto primario è che esiste un’istituzione verso cui essere leali. Se i nuovi sentimentali intendono ciò che dicono, quando dicono di venerare quell’istituzione, non devono lasciar intendere che un’istituzione possa essere effettivamente identica a un’emozione. Ed è questo che la loro retorica lascia intendere, per quanto si possa dire che lasci intendere alcunché.
Questi scrittori ci spiegano sempre perché credono nel divorzio. Credo di poter capire facilmente perché credono nel divorzio. Ciò che non capisco è perché credano nel matrimonio. Proprio come lo scassinatore filosofo sarebbe più filosofico se fosse un bolscevico, così questo genere di fautore del divorzio sarebbe più filosofico se fosse un libero amante. Poiché i suoi argomenti non sembrano mai toccare il matrimonio come istituzione, o come qualcosa di più che un’esperienza individuale. La vera spiegazione di questa strana indifferenza all’idea istituzionale è, immagino, qualcosa non solo di più profondo, ma di più ampio; qualcosa che riguarda tutte le istituzioni del mondo moderno. La verità è che questi sociologi non sono affatto interessati a promuovere quel genere di vita sociale che il matrimonio promuove. Quel genere di società di cui il matrimonio è sempre stato il pilastro più saldo è ciò che talvolta si chiama la società distributiva; la società in cui la maggior parte dei cittadini possiede una tollerabile quota di proprietà, specialmente proprietà a portata di mano. Dovunque, in tutto il mondo, la fattoria va con la famiglia e la famiglia con la fattoria. Se l’intero gruppo domestico non si tiene unito con una sorta di lealtà o di patriottismo locale, se l’eredità della proprietà non è logica e legittima, se le liti familiari non sono tenute fuori dai tribunali del burocratismo, la tradizione della proprietà familiare non può essere trasmessa intatta. D’altro canto, lo Stato Servile, che è l’opposto dello Stato distributivo, è sempre stato piuttosto imbarazzato dall’istituzione del matrimonio. È una vecchia storia che la schiavitù dei negri di “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” facesse la sua opera peggiore nello sfascio delle famiglie. Ma, per quanto curioso, la stessa storia è raccontata da entrambe le parti. Poiché gli apologeti degli Stati schiavisti, o, per lo meno, degli Stati del Sud, fanno la medesima ammissione persino a propria difesa. Se negavano di distruggere la famiglia degli schiavi, era perché negavano che vi fosse alcuna famiglia di schiavi da distruggere.
Free love is the direct enemy of freedom. It is the most obvious of all the bribes that can be offered by slavery. In servile societies a vast amount of sexual laxity can go on in practice, and even in theory, save when now and then some cranky speculator or crazy squire has a fad for some special breed of slaves like a breed of cattle. And even that lunacy would not last long; for lunatics are the minority among slave-owners. Slavery has a much more sane and a much more subtle appeal to human nature than that. It is much more likely that, after a few such fads and freaks, the new Servile State would settle down into the sleepy resignation of the old Servile State; the old pagan repose in slavery, as it was before Christianity came to trouble and perplex the world with ideals of liberty and chivalry. One of the conveniences of that pagan world is that, below a certain level of society, nobody really need bother about pedigree or paternity at all. A new world began when slaves began to stand on their dignity as virgin martyrs. Christendom is the civilization that such martyrs made; and slavery is its returning enemy. But of all the bribes that the old pagan slavery can offer, this luxury and laxity is the strongest; nor do I deny that the influences desiring the degradation of human dignity have here chosen their instrument well.
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STREET CRIES AND STRETCHING THE LAW
ABOUT a hundred years ago some enemy sowed among our people the heresy that it is more practical to use a corkscrew to open a sardine-tin, or to employ a door-scraper as a paper-weight. Practical politics came to mean the habit of using everything for some other purpose than its own; of snatching up anything as a substitute for something else. A law that had been meant to do one thing, and had conspicuously failed to do it, was always excused because it might do something totally different and perhaps directly contrary. A custom that was supposed to keep everything white was allowed to survive on condition that it made everything black. In reality this is so far from being practical that it does not even rise to the dignity of being lazy. At the best it can only claim to save trouble, and it does not even do that. What it really means is that some people will take every other kind of trouble in the world, if they are saved the trouble of thinking. They will sit for hours trying to open the tin with a corkscrew, rather than make the mental effort of pursuing the abstract, academic, logical connexion between a corkscrew and a cork.
Here is an example of the sort of thing I mean, which I came across in a daily paper to-day. A headline announces in staring letters, and with startled notes of exclamation, that some abominable judicial authority has made the monstrous decision that musicians playing in the street are not beggars. The journalist bitterly remarks that they may shove their hats under our very noses for money, but yet we must not call them beggars. He follows this remark with several notes of exclamation, and I feel inclined to add a few of my own. The most astonishing thing about the matter, to my mind, is that the journalist is quite innocent in his own indignation. It never so much as crosses his mind that organ-grinders are not classed as beggars because they are not beggars. They may be as much of a nuisance as beggars; they may demand special legislation like beggars; it may be right and proper for every philanthropist to stop them, starve them, harry them, and hound them to death just as if they were beggars. But they are not beggars, by any possible definition of begging. Nobody can be said to be a mere mendicant who is offering something in exchange for money, especially if it is something which some people like and are willing to pay for. A street singer is no more of a mendicant than Madame Clara Butt, though the method (and the scale) of remuneration differs more or less. Anybody who sells anything, in the streets or in the shops, is begging in the sense of begging people to buy. Mr. Selfridge is begging people to buy; the Imperial International Universal Cosmic Stores is begging people to buy. The only possible definition of the actual beggar is not that he is begging people to buy, but that he has nothing to sell.
Now, it is interesting to ask ourselves what the newspaper really meant, when it was so wildly illogical in what it said. Superficially, and as a matter of mood or feeling, we can all guess what was meant. The writer meant that street musicians looked very much like beggars, because they wore thinner and dirtier clothes than his own; and that he had grown quite used to people who looked like that being treated anyhow and arrested for everything. That is a state of mind not uncommon among those whom economic security has kept as superficial as a varnish. But what was intellectually involved in his vague argument was more interesting. What he meant was, in that deeper sense, that it would be a great convenience if the law that punishes beggars could be stretched to cover people who are certainly not beggars, but who may be as much of a botheration as beggars. In other words, he wanted to use the mendacity laws in a matter quite unconnected with mendacity; but he wanted to use the old laws because it would save the trouble of making new laws—as the corkscrew would save the trouble of going to look for the tin-opener. And for this notion of the crooked and anomalous use of laws, for ends logically different from their own, he could, of course, find much support in the various sophists who have attacked reason in recent times. But, as I have said, it does not really save trouble; and it is becoming increasingly doubtful whether it will even save disaster. It used to be said that this rough-and-ready method made the country richer; but it will be found less and less consoling to explain why the country is richer when the country is steadily growing poorer. It will not comfort us in the hour of failure to listen to long and ingenious explanations of our success. The truth is that this sort of practical compromise has not led to practical success. The success of England came as the culmination of the highly logical and theoretical eighteenth century. The method was already beginning to fail by the time we came to the end of the compromising and constitutional nineteenth century. Modern scientific civilization was launched by logicians. It was only wrecked by practical men. Anyhow, by this time everybody in England has given up pretending to be particularly rich. It is, therefore, no appropriate moment for proving that a course of being consistently unreasonable will always lead to riches.
L’amore libero è il nemico diretto della libertà. È la più ovvia di tutte le lusinghe che possa offrire la schiavitù. Nelle società servili una gran quantità di lassismo sessuale può prosperare nella pratica, e perfino nella teoria, salvo quando di tanto in tanto qualche speculatore stravagante o qualche possidente folle si intestardisce nel volere una razza speciale di schiavi come si vuole una razza di bestiame. E anche quella follia non durerebbe a lungo; ché i folli sono la minoranza tra i proprietari di schiavi. La Slavery rivolge alla natura umana un richiamo assai più sano e assai più sottile di quello. È molto più probabile che, dopo qualche ghiribizzo e capriccio del genere, il nuovo Stato Servile finisca per adagiarsi nella sonnolenta rassegnazione del vecchio Stato Servile; nell’antico riposo pagano nella schiavitù, come era prima che il Cristianesimo venisse a turbare e a sconcertare il mondo con ideali di libertà e di cavalleria. Una delle comodità di quel mondo pagano è che, al di sotto di un certo livello della società, nessuno aveva davvero bisogno di curarsi affatto di lignaggio o di paternità. Un mondo nuovo cominciò quando gli schiavi cominciarono a far valere la propria dignità come vergini martiri. La Cristianità è la civiltà che tali martiri edificarono; e la schiavitù è il suo nemico che ritorna. Ma di tutte le lusinghe che l’antica schiavitù pagana può offrire, questo lusso e questo lassismo sono la più forte; né io nego che le influenze le quali desiderano la degradazione della dignità umana abbiano qui scelto bene il loro strumento.
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I RICHIAMI DI STRADA E LO STIRACCHIAMENTO DELLA LEGGE
CIRCA cento anni fa qualche nemico seminò tra la nostra gente l’eresia che sia più pratico usare un cavatappi per aprire una scatoletta di sardine, o adoperare un raschietto da porta come fermacarte. La politica pratica finì per significare l’abitudine di usare ogni cosa per uno scopo diverso dal proprio; di afferrare qualsiasi cosa come surrogato di qualcos’altro. Una legge che era stata pensata per fare una cosa, e aveva vistosamente mancato di farla, veniva sempre giustificata perché avrebbe potuto farne un’altra del tutto diversa e forse direttamente contraria. Un’usanza che si supponeva mantenesse ogni cosa bianca era lasciata sopravvivere a patto che rendesse ogni cosa nera. In realtà ciò è tanto lontano dall’essere pratico che non si eleva neppure alla dignità dell’essere pigro. Nel migliore dei casi può soltanto pretendere di risparmiare fatica, e nemmeno questo fa. Ciò che davvero significa è che certa gente si prenderà ogni altra sorta di fatica al mondo, pur di essere risparmiata dalla fatica di pensare. Se ne starà seduta per ore a tentare di aprire la scatoletta con un cavatappi, piuttosto che compiere lo sforzo mentale di inseguire l’astratto, accademico, logico nesso tra un cavatappi e un tappo.
Ecco un esempio del genere di cosa che intendo, nel quale mi sono imbattuto oggi in un quotidiano. Un titolo annuncia a caratteri cubitali, e con trasecolati punti esclamativi, che una qualche abominevole autorità giudiziaria ha preso la mostruosa decisione che i musicisti i quali suonano per la strada non sono mendicanti. Il giornalista osserva con amarezza che essi possono ficcarci il cappello proprio sotto il naso per ottenere denaro, eppure non dobbiamo chiamarli mendicanti. Fa seguire a questa osservazione parecchi punti esclamativi, e io mi sento incline ad aggiungerne qualcuno di mio. La cosa più sbalorditiva della faccenda, a mio parere, è che il giornalista è del tutto innocente nella sua stessa indignazione. Non gli passa neppure per la mente che i suonatori d’organetto non siano classificati come mendicanti perché non sono mendicanti. Possono essere una seccatura al pari dei mendicanti; possono esigere una legislazione speciale come i mendicanti; può essere giusto e opportuno che ogni filantropo li fermi, li affami, li tormenti e li perseguiti fino alla morte proprio come se fossero mendicanti. Ma non sono mendicanti, per nessuna definizione possibile del mendicare. Non si può dire mero accattone chi offre qualcosa in cambio di denaro, specie se è qualcosa che a taluni piace e per cui sono disposti a pagare. Un cantante di strada non è più accattone di Madame Clara Butt, per quanto il metodo (e la scala) della rimunerazione differiscano più o meno. Chiunque venda qualcosa, per le strade o nelle botteghe, sta mendicando nel senso di pregare la gente di comprare. Il signor Selfridge sta pregando la gente di comprare; gli Imperial International Universal Cosmic Stores stanno pregando la gente di comprare. L’unica definizione possibile del mendicante vero e proprio non è che egli preghi la gente di comprare, ma che non ha nulla da vendere.
Ora, è interessante chiederci che cosa il giornale intendesse davvero, quando fu così selvaggiamente illogico in ciò che disse. Superficialmente, e come questione di umore o di sentimento, possiamo tutti indovinare che cosa si volesse dire. Lo scrittore intendeva che i musicisti di strada somigliavano moltissimo a mendicanti, perché portavano abiti più logori e più sporchi dei suoi; e che si era ormai bene abituato a vedere le persone che avevano quell’aspetto trattate comunque e arrestate per qualsiasi cosa. È uno stato d’animo non insolito tra coloro che la sicurezza economica ha mantenuti superficiali quanto una vernice. Ma ciò che era intellettualmente implicato nel suo vago argomento era più interessante. Ciò che egli intendeva era, in quel senso più profondo, che sarebbe stata una gran comodità se la legge che punisce i mendicanti potesse essere stirata fino a coprire persone che di certo non sono mendicanti, ma che possono essere una seccatura al pari dei mendicanti. In altre parole, egli voleva usare le leggi sull’accattonaggio in una faccenda del tutto slegata dall’accattonaggio; ma voleva usare le vecchie leggi perché ciò avrebbe risparmiato la fatica di farne di nuove — come il cavatappi avrebbe risparmiato la fatica di andare in cerca dell’apriscatole. E per questa idea dell’uso storto e anomalo delle leggi, per fini logicamente diversi dai loro, poteva, s’intende, trovare molto sostegno nei vari sofisti che hanno attaccato la ragione in tempi recenti. Ma, come ho detto, esso non risparmia davvero fatica; e diventa sempre più dubbio che risparmi persino il disastro. Si usava dire che questo metodo alla buona rendeva il paese più ricco; ma si troverà sempre meno consolante spiegare perché il paese sia più ricco quando il paese va costantemente impoverendosi. Non ci conforterà nell’ora del fallimento ascoltare lunghe e ingegnose spiegazioni del nostro successo. La verità è che questo genere di compromesso pratico non ha condotto al successo pratico. Il successo dell’Inghilterra venne come culmine del logicissimo e teorico Settecento. Il metodo cominciava già a fallire ormai al tempo in cui giungemmo alla fine dell’accomodante e costituzionale Ottocento. La civiltà scientifica moderna fu varata da logici. Fu soltanto mandata a picco da uomini pratici. Comunque sia, ormai a questo tempo ognuno in Inghilterra ha smesso di fingersi particolarmente ricco. Non è dunque il momento adatto per dimostrare che una condotta costantemente irragionevole condurrà sempre alla ricchezza.
In truth, it would be much more practical to be more logical. If street musicians are a nuisance, let them be legislated against for being a nuisance. If begging is really wrong, a logical law should be imposed on all beggars, and not merely on those whom particular persons happen to regard as being also nuisances. What this sort of opportunism does is simply to prevent any question being considered as a whole. I happen to think the whole modern attitude towards beggars is entirely heathen and inhuman. I should be prepared to maintain, as a matter of general morality, that it is intrinsically indefensible to punish human beings for asking for human assistance. I should say that it is intrinsically insane to urge people to give charity and forbid people to accept charity. Nobody is penalized for crying for help when he is drowning; why should he be penalized for crying for help when he is starving? Every one would expect to have to help a man to save his life in a shipwreck; why not a man who has suffered a shipwreck of his life? A man may be in such a position by no conceivable fault of his own; but in any case his fault is never urged against him in the parallel cases. A man is saved from shipwreck without inquiry about whether he has blundered in the steering of his ship; and we fish him out of a pond before asking whose fault it was that he fell into it. A striking social satire might be written about a man who was rescued again and again out of mere motives of humanity in all the wildest places of the world; who was heroically rescued from a lion and skilfully saved out of a sinking ship; who was sought out on a desert island and scientifically recovered from a deadly swoon; and who only found himself suddenly deserted by all humanity when he reached the city that was his home.
In the ultimate sense, therefore, I do not myself disapprove of mendicants. Nor do I disapprove of musicians. It may not unfairly be retorted that this is because I am not a musician. I allow full weight to the fairness of the retort, but I cannot think it a good thing that even musicians should lose all their feelings except the feeling for music. And it may surely be said that a man must have lost most of his feelings if be does not feel the pathos of a barrel-organ in a poor street. But there are other feelings besides pathos covered by any comprehensive veto upon street music and minstrelsy. There are feelings of history, and even of patriotism. I have seen in certain rich and respectable quarters of London a notice saying that all street cries are forbidden. If there were a notice up to say that all old tombstones should be carted away like lumber, it would be rather less of an act of vandalism. Some of the old street cries of London are among the last links that we have with the London of Shakespeare and the London of Chaucer. When I meet a man who utters one I am so far from regarding him as a beggar; it is I who should be a beggar, and beg him to say it again.
But in any case it should be made clear that we cannot make one law do the work of another. If we have real reasons for forbidding something like a street cry, we should give the reasons that are real; we should forbid it because it is a cry, because it is a noise, because it is a nuisance, or perhaps, according to our tastes, because it is old, because it is popular, because it is historic and a memory of Merry England. I suspect that the sub-conscious prejudice against it is rooted in the fact that the pedlar or hawker is one of the few free men left in the modern city; that he often sells his own wares directly to the consumer, and does not pay rent for a shop. But if the modern spirit wishes to veto him, to harry him, or to hang, draw, and quarter him for being free, at least let it so far recognize his dignity as to define him; and let the law deal with him in principle as well as in practice.
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WHY REFORMS GO WRONG
EVERYBODY says that each generation revolts against the last. Nobody seems to notice that it generally revolts against the revolt of the last. I mean that the latest grievance is really the last reform. To take but one example in passing. There is a new kind of novel which I have seen widely reviewed in the newspapers. No; it is not an improper novel. On the contrary, it is more proper— almost in the sense of prim—than its authors probably imagine. It is really a reaction towards a more old-fashioned morality, and away from a new-fashioned one. It is not so much a revolt of the daughters as a return of the grandmothers.
Miss May Sinclair wrote a novel of the kind I mean, about a spinster whose life had been blighted by a tender and sensitive touch in her education, which had taught her—or rather, expected her— always to “behave beautifully.” Mrs. Delafield wrote a story with the refreshing name of “Humbug” on somewhat similar lines. It suggests that children are actually trained to deception, and especially self-deception, by a delicate and considerate treatment that continually appealed to their better feelings, which was always saying, “You would not hurt father.” Now, certainly a more old-fashioned and simple style of education did not invariably say “You would not hurt father.” Sometimes it preferred to say, “Father will hurt you.” I am not arguing for or against the father with the big stick. I am pointing out that Miss Sinclair and the modern novelists really are arguing for the father with the big stick, and against a more recent movement that is supposed to have reformed him. I myself can remember the time when the progressives offered us, as a happy prospect, the very educational method which the novelists now describe so bitterly in retrospect. We were told that true education would only appeal to the better feelings of children; that it would devote itself entirely to telling them to live beautifully; that it would use no argument more arbitrary than saying, “You would not hurt father.” That ethical education was the whole plan for the rising generation in the days of my youth. We were assured beforehand how much more effective such a psychological treatment would be than the bullying and blundering idea of authority. The hope of the future was in this humanitarian optimism in the training of the young; in other words, the hope was set on something which, when it is established, Mrs. Delafield instantly calls humbug and Miss Sinclair appears to hate as a sort of hell. What they are suffering from, apparently, is not the abuses of their grandfathers, but the most modern reforms of their fathers. These complaints are the first fruits of reformed education, of ethical societies, and social idealists. I repeat that I am for the moment talking about their opinions and not mine. I am not eulogizing either big sticks or psychological scalpels; I am pointing out that the outcry against the scalpel inevitably involves something of a case for the stick. I have never tied myself to a final belief in either; but I point out that the progressive, generation after generation, does elaborately tie himself up in new knots, and then roar and yell aloud to be untied.
In verità, sarebbe assai più pratico essere più logici. Se i musicisti di strada sono una seccatura, che si legiferi contro di loro in quanto seccatura. Se il mendicare è davvero un male, una legge logica dovrebbe imporsi a tutti i mendicanti, e non soltanto a quelli che certune persone si trovano per caso a considerare anche come seccature. Ciò che questa sorta di opportunismo fa è semplicemente impedire che una questione venga considerata nel suo insieme. Mi accade di pensare che l’intero atteggiamento moderno verso i mendicanti sia del tutto pagano e disumano. Sarei disposto a sostenere, come questione di morale generale, che sia intrinsecamente indifendibile punire esseri umani per aver chiesto assistenza umana. Direi che è intrinsecamente insano esortare la gente a fare la carità e proibire alla gente di accettare la carità. Nessuno è penalizzato per aver gridato aiuto mentre annega; perché dovrebbe esserlo per aver gridato aiuto mentre muore di fame? Chiunque si aspetterebbe di dover soccorrere un uomo per salvargli la vita in un naufragio; perché non un uomo che ha subìto il naufragio della propria vita? Un uomo può trovarsi in una simile condizione senza alcuna colpa immaginabile da parte sua; ma in ogni caso la sua colpa non gli viene mai rinfacciata nei casi paralleli. Un uomo è salvato da un naufragio senza che ci si chieda se abbia commesso errori nel governare la sua nave; e lo ripeschiamo da uno stagno prima di domandare per colpa di chi vi sia caduto. Si potrebbe scrivere una notevole satira sociale intorno a un uomo che fu soccorso più e più volte per meri motivi di umanità in tutti i luoghi più selvaggi del mondo; che fu eroicamente salvato da un leone e abilmente strappato a una nave che affondava; che fu ricercato su un’isola deserta e scientificamente rianimato da uno svenimento mortale; e che si ritrovò improvvisamente abbandonato da tutta l’umanità soltanto quando raggiunse la città che era la sua casa.
Nel senso ultimo, dunque, io stesso non disapprovo i mendicanti. Né disapprovo i musicisti. Non senza qualche ragione mi si potrebbe ribattere che questo è perché io non sono un musicista. Concedo tutto il peso all’equità della replica, ma non posso ritenere cosa buona che perfino i musicisti perdano ogni loro sentimento tranne il sentimento per la musica. E si può ben dire che un uomo deve aver perduto quasi tutti i suoi sentimenti se non sente il pathos di un organetto in una strada povera. Ma vi sono altri sentimenti oltre al pathos che qualsiasi veto onnicomprensivo sulla musica e sul canto di strada finirebbe per colpire. Vi sono sentimenti di storia, e persino di patriottismo. Ho visto in certi quartieri ricchi e rispettabili di Londra un avviso che diceva vietati tutti i richiami di strada. Se vi fosse un avviso a dire che tutte le vecchie lapidi vanno portate via come ciarpame, sarebbe un atto di vandalismo alquanto minore. Alcuni degli antichi richiami di strada di Londra sono tra gli ultimi legami che ci restano con la Londra di Shakespeare e la Londra di Chaucer. Quando incontro un uomo che ne lancia uno, sono così lontano dal considerarlo un mendicante; sono io semmai a dover essere il mendicante, e a pregarlo di dirlo di nuovo.
Ma in ogni caso si dovrebbe chiarire che non possiamo far fare a una legge il lavoro di un’altra. Se abbiamo ragioni reali per vietare qualcosa come un richiamo di strada, dovremmo addurre le ragioni che sono reali; dovremmo vietarlo perché è un grido, perché è un rumore, perché è una seccatura, o forse, secondo i nostri gusti, perché è antico, perché è popolare, perché è storico e una memoria della Merry England. Sospetto che il pregiudizio subconscio contro di esso affondi le radici nel fatto che il venditore ambulante o il girovendolo è uno dei pochi uomini liberi rimasti nella città moderna; che spesso vende le proprie mercanzie direttamente al consumatore, e non paga l’affitto di una bottega. Ma se lo spirito moderno vuole porgli il veto, tormentarlo, o squartarlo e appenderlo per il fatto di essere libero, che almeno ne riconosca in tanto la dignità da definirlo; e che la legge lo tratti in linea di principio così come in pratica.
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PERCHÉ LE RIFORME VANNO STORTE
TUTTI dicono che ogni generazione si ribella alla precedente. Nessuno sembra accorgersi che essa in genere si ribella alla ribellione della precedente. Voglio dire che l’ultima lagnanza è in realtà l’ultima riforma. Per prendere di sfuggita un solo esempio. C’è un nuovo genere di romanzo che ho visto ampiamente recensito sui giornali. No; non è un romanzo scabroso. Al contrario, è più decoroso — quasi nel senso di compassato — di quanto i suoi autori probabilmente immaginino. È in realtà una reazione verso una morale più all’antica, e in fuga da una all’ultima moda. Non è tanto una rivolta delle figlie quanto un ritorno delle nonne.
Miss May Sinclair scrisse un romanzo del genere che intendo, su una zitella la cui vita era stata inaridita da un tocco tenero e delicato nella sua educazione, che le aveva insegnato — o piuttosto, si era aspettato da lei — di «comportarsi sempre in modo bellissimo». Mrs. Delafield scrisse una storia dal rinfrescante titolo di «Humbug» su linee alquanto simili. Essa suggerisce che i bambini vengano di fatto addestrati all’inganno, e specialmente all’autoinganno, da un trattamento delicato e premuroso che di continuo faceva appello ai loro sentimenti migliori, che diceva sempre: «Non vorrai far male al papà». Ora, di certo uno stile di educazione più all’antica e più semplice non diceva invariabilmente: «Non vorrai far male al papà». Talvolta preferiva dire: «Il papà farà male a te». Non sto argomentando né a favore né contro il padre col grosso bastone. Sto facendo notare che Miss Sinclair e i romanzieri moderni stanno realmente argomentando a favore del padre col grosso bastone, e contro un movimento più recente che si suppone lo abbia riformato. Io stesso ricordo il tempo in cui i progressisti ci offrivano, come felice prospettiva, proprio quel metodo educativo che i romanzieri ora descrivono così amaramente in retrospettiva. Ci veniva detto che la vera educazione avrebbe fatto appello soltanto ai sentimenti migliori dei bambini; che si sarebbe dedicata interamente a dir loro di vivere in modo bellissimo; che non avrebbe usato argomento più arbitrario del dire: «Non vorrai far male al papà». Quell’educazione etica era l’intero piano per la nuova generazione ai giorni della mia giovinezza. Ci veniva assicurato in anticipo quanto più efficace sarebbe stato un simile trattamento psicologico rispetto alla prepotente e maldestra idea dell’autorità. La speranza del futuro stava in questo ottimismo umanitario nell’educazione dei giovani; in altre parole, la speranza era riposta in qualcosa che, una volta instaurato, Mrs. Delafield chiama all’istante fandonia e Miss Sinclair pare odiare come una sorta d’inferno. Ciò di cui essi soffrono, a quanto pare, non sono gli abusi dei loro nonni, ma le più moderne riforme dei loro padri. Queste lagnanze sono le primizie dell’educazione riformata, delle società etiche e degli idealisti sociali. Ripeto che per il momento sto parlando delle loro opinioni e non delle mie. Non sto elogiando né i grossi bastoni né i bisturi psicologici; sto facendo notare che il clamore contro il bisturi comporta inevitabilmente qualcosa a favore del bastone. Non mi sono mai legato a una fede definitiva né nell’uno né nell’altro; ma faccio notare che il progressista, generazione dopo generazione, si lega elaboratamente in nodi nuovi, e poi ruggisce e strilla a squarciagola per essere slegato.
It seems a little hard on the late Victorian idealist to be so bitterly abused merely for being kind to his children. There is something a little unconsciously comic about the latest generation of critics, who are crying out against their parents, “Never, never can I forgive the tenderness with which my mother treated me.” There is a certain irony in the bitterness which says, “My soul cries for vengeance when I remember that papa was always polite at the breakfast-table; my soul is seared by the persistent insolence of Uncle William in refraining from clouting me over the head.” It seems harsh to blame these idealists for idealizing human life, when they were only following what was seriously set before them as the only ideal of education. But, if this is to be said for the late Victorian idealist, there is also something to be said for the early Victorian authoritarian. Upon their own argument, there is something to be said for Uncle William if he did clout them over the head. It is rather hard, even on the great-grandfather with the big stick, that we should still abuse him merely for having neglected the persuasive methods that we have ourselves abandoned. It is hard to revile him for not having discovered to be sound the very sentimentalities that we have since discovered to be rotten.
For the case of these moderns is worst of all when they do try to find any third ideal, which is neither the authority which they once condemned for not being persuasion, nor the persuasion which they now condemn for being worse than authority. The nearest they can get to any other alternative is some notion about individuality; about drawing out the true personality of the child, or allowing a human being to find his real self. It is, perhaps, the most utterly meaningless talk in the whole muddle of the modern world. How is a child of seven to decide whether he has or has not found his true individuality? How, for that matter, is any grown-up person to tell it for him? How is anybody to know whether anybody has become his true self? In the highest sense it can only be a matter of mysticism; it can only mean that there was a purpose in his creation. It can only be the purpose of God, and even then it is a mystery. In anybody who does not accept the purpose of God, it can only be a muddle. It is so unmeaning that it cannot be called mystery but only mystification. Humanly considered, a human personality is the only thing that does in fact emerge out of a combination of the forces inside the child and the forces outside. The child cannot grow up in a void or vacuum with no forces outside. Circumstances will control or contribute to his character, whether they are the grandfather’s stick or the father’s persuasion or the conversations among the characters of Miss May Sinclair. Who in the world is to say positively which of these things has or has not helped his real personality?
What is his real personality? These philosophers talk as if there was a complete and complex animal curled up inside every baby, and we had nothing to do but to let it come out with a yell. As a matter of fact, we all know, in the case of the finest and most distinguished personalities, that it would be very difficult to disentangle them from the trials they have suffered, as well as from the truths they have found. But, anyhow, these thinkers must give us some guidance as to how they propose to tell whether their transcendental notion of a true self has been realized or no. As it is, anybody can say of any part of any personality that it is or is not an artificial addition obscuring that personality. In fiction, most of the wild and anarchical characters strike me as entirely artificial. In real life they would no doubt be much the same, if they could ever be met with in real life. But anyhow, they would be the products of experience as well as of elemental impulses; they would be influenced in some way by all they had gone through; and anybody would be free to speculate on what they would have been like if they had never had such experiences. Anybody might amuse himself by trying to subtract the experiences and find the self; anybody who wanted to waste his time.
Therefore, without feeling any fixed fanaticism for all the old methods, whether coercive or persuasive, I do think they both had a basis of common sense which is wanting in this third theory. The parent, whether persuading or punishing the child, was at least aware of one simple truth. He knew that, in the most serious sense, God alone knows what the child is really like, or is meant to be really like. All we can do to him is to fill him with those truths which we believe to be equally true whatever he is like. We must have a code of morals which we believe to be applicable to all children, and impose it on this child because it is applicable to all children. If it seems to be a part of his personality to be a swindler or a torturer, we must tell him that we do not want any personalities to be swindlers and torturers. In other words, we must believe in a religion or philosophy firmly enough to take the responsibility of acting on it, however much the rising generations may knock or kick at the door. I know all about the word education meaning drawing things out, and mere instruction meaning putting things in. And I respectfully reply that God alone knows what there is to draw out; but we can be reasonably responsible for what we are ourselves putting in.
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THE INNOCENCE OF THE CRIMINAL
A PHRASE, which we have all heard, is sometimes uttered by some small man sentenced to some small town of imprisonment, for either or both of the two principal reasons for imprisoning a man in modern England: that he is known to the police, and that he is not known to the magistrate. When such a man receives a more or less temperate term of imprisonment, he is often reported as having left the dock saying that he would “do it on his head.” In his own self-consciousness, he is merely seeking to maintain his equilibrium by that dazed and helpless hilarity which is the only philosophy allowed to him. But the phrase itself, like a great part of really popular slang, is highly symbolic. The English pauper (who tends to become numerically the preponderant Englishman) does really reconcile himself to existence by putting himself in an inverted and grotesque posture towards it. He does really stand on his head, because he is living in topsy-turvydom. He finds himself in an Upsidonia fully as fantastic as Mr. Archibald Marshall’s, and far less fair and logical; in a landscape as wild as if the trees grew downwards or the moon hung below his feet. He lives in a world in which the man who lends him money makes him a beggar; in which, when he is a beggar, the man who gives him money makes him a criminal; in which, when he is a criminal and “known to the police,” he becomes permanently liable to be arrested for other people’s crimes.
Sembra un po’ duro, per l’idealista tardo-vittoriano, essere così aspramente ingiuriato semplicemente per essere stato buono con i propri figli. C’è qualcosa di un po’ inconsapevolmente comico nell’ultima generazione di critici, che levano alte grida contro i loro genitori: «Mai, mai potrò perdonare la tenerezza con cui mia madre mi trattò». C’è una certa ironia nell’amarezza che dice: «La mia anima grida vendetta quando ricordo che papà era sempre cortese a colazione; la mia anima è marchiata a fuoco dalla persistente insolenza dello zio William nell’astenersi dallo scappellottarmi sulla testa». Sembra severo biasimare questi idealisti per aver idealizzato la vita umana, quando essi non facevano che seguire ciò che seriamente era stato posto loro davanti come l’unico ideale di educazione. Ma, se questo si può dire a difesa dell’idealista tardo-vittoriano, c’è anche qualcosa da dire a favore dell’autoritario primo-vittoriano. Secondo il loro stesso argomento, c’è qualcosa da dire a favore dello zio William se davvero li scappellottava sulla testa. È piuttosto duro, anche verso il bisnonno col grosso bastone, che dovremmo ancora ingiuriarlo semplicemente per aver trascurato i metodi persuasivi che noi stessi abbiamo abbandonato. È duro vituperarlo per non aver scoperto sane proprio quelle sentimentalità che noi abbiamo poi scoperto marce.
Ché la condizione di questi moderni è peggiore di tutte quando essi tentano davvero di trovare un terzo ideale, che non sia né l’autorità che un tempo condannavano perché non era persuasione, né la persuasione che ora condannano perché peggiore dell’autorità. Il più che riescano ad avvicinarsi a qualsiasi altra alternativa è una qualche nozione intorno all’individualità; intorno al far emergere la vera personalità del bambino, o al permettere a un essere umano di trovare il proprio vero io. È, forse, il discorso più totalmente privo di senso in tutto il guazzabuglio del mondo moderno. Come può un bambino di sette anni decidere se ha o non ha trovato la propria vera individualità? E come, se è per questo, può una qualsiasi persona adulta stabilirlo per lui? Come può chiunque sapere se qualcuno sia divenuto il proprio vero io? Nel senso più alto può essere soltanto una questione di misticismo; può significare soltanto che vi era uno scopo nella sua creazione. Può essere soltanto lo scopo di Dio, e persino allora è un mistero. In chiunque non accetti lo scopo di Dio, può essere soltanto un guazzabuglio. È tanto privo di senso che non può chiamarsi mistero ma soltanto mistificazione. Umanamente considerata, una personalità umana è l’unica cosa che di fatto emerge da una combinazione delle forze interne al bambino e delle forze esterne. Il bambino non può crescere in un vuoto o in un vacuo senza forze esterne. Le circostanze controlleranno il suo carattere o vi contribuiranno, siano esse il bastone del nonno o la persuasione del padre o le conversazioni tra i personaggi di Miss May Sinclair. Chi mai al mondo può dire con certezza quale di queste cose abbia o non abbia giovato alla sua vera personalità?
Che cos’è la sua vera personalità? Questi filosofi parlano come se dentro ogni neonato ci fosse un animale completo e complesso rannicchiato, e noi non avessimo altro da fare che lasciarlo uscire con uno strillo. In realtà, tutti sappiamo, nel caso delle personalità più raffinate e distinte, che sarebbe assai difficile districarle dalle prove che hanno patito, come pure dalle verità che hanno trovato. Ma, comunque sia, questi pensatori devono pur darci qualche indicazione su come si propongano di stabilire se la loro trascendentale nozione di un vero io sia stata realizzata oppure no. Così come stanno le cose, chiunque può dire di qualsiasi parte di qualsiasi personalità che essa è o non è un’aggiunta artificiale che oscura quella personalità. Nella narrativa, la maggior parte dei personaggi selvaggi e anarchici mi colpisce come del tutto artificiale. Nella vita reale non sarebbero senza dubbio molto diversi, se mai fosse possibile incontrarli nella vita reale. Ma comunque sia, essi sarebbero i prodotti dell’esperienza non meno che degli impulsi elementari; sarebbero in qualche modo influenzati da tutto ciò che hanno attraversato; e chiunque sarebbe libero di speculare su come sarebbero stati se non avessero mai avuto simili esperienze. Chiunque potrebbe divertirsi a tentare di sottrarre le esperienze e trovare l’io; chiunque volesse sprecare il proprio tempo.
Perciò, senza provare alcun fisso fanatismo per tutti i vecchi metodi, coercitivi o persuasivi che siano, io credo davvero che entrambi avessero una base di buon senso di cui questa terza teoria è priva. Il genitore, sia che persuadesse sia che punisse il bambino, era almeno consapevole di una semplice verità. Sapeva che, nel senso più serio, Dio soltanto sa com’è davvero il bambino, o com’è destinato a essere davvero. Tutto ciò che possiamo fare per lui è riempirlo di quelle verità che crediamo egualmente vere qualunque cosa egli sia. Dobbiamo avere un codice morale che crediamo applicabile a tutti i bambini, e imporlo a questo bambino perché è applicabile a tutti i bambini. Se sembra far parte della sua personalità l’essere un truffatore o un torturatore, dobbiamo dirgli che non vogliamo che alcuna personalità sia truffatrice e torturatrice. In altre parole, dobbiamo credere in una religione o filosofia con tanta fermezza da assumerci la responsabilità di agire in conseguenza, per quanto le nuove generazioni possano bussare o scalciare alla porta. So tutto del fatto che la parola educazione significa trarre fuori le cose, e la mera istruzione significa mettere dentro le cose. E rispondo rispettosamente che Dio soltanto sa che cosa vi sia da trarre fuori; ma noi possiamo ragionevolmente rispondere di ciò che stiamo noi stessi mettendo dentro.
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L’INNOCENZA DEL CRIMINALE
UNA FRASE, che tutti abbiamo udito, viene talvolta pronunciata da qualche ometto condannato a qualche piccolo periodo di prigione, per l’una o l’altra, o per entrambe, delle due principali ragioni per incarcerare un uomo nell’Inghilterra moderna: che è noto alla polizia, e che non è noto al magistrato. Quando un uomo simile riceve un termine di prigione più o meno temperato, viene spesso riferito che ha lasciato il banco degli imputati dicendo che «la farà stando a testa in giù». Nella propria autocoscienza, egli cerca soltanto di mantenere il proprio equilibrio con quella stordita e impotente ilarità che è l’unica filosofia a lui concessa. Ma la frase in sé, come gran parte del gergo davvero popolare, è altamente simbolica. Il povero inglese (che tende a diventare numericamente l’inglese preponderante) si riconcilia davvero con l’esistenza mettendosi in una postura rovesciata e grottesca rispetto a essa. Egli sta davvero a testa in giù, perché vive alla rovescia. Si ritrova in un’Upsidonia altrettanto fantastica di quella di Mr. Archibald Marshall, e assai meno equa e logica; in un paesaggio selvaggio come se gli alberi crescessero all’ingiù o la luna pendesse sotto i suoi piedi. Vive in un mondo in cui l’uomo che gli presta denaro lo rende un mendicante; in cui, quando è un mendicante, l’uomo che gli dà denaro lo rende un criminale; in cui, quando è un criminale ed è «noto alla polizia», diventa permanentemente passibile d’arresto per i delitti altrui.
He is punished if his home is neglected though there is nobody to look after it, and punished again if it is not neglected, and the children are kept from school to look after it. He is arrested for sleeping on private land, and arrested again for sleeping on public land, and arrested, be it noted, for the positive and explicit reason that he has no money to sleep anywhere else. In short, he is under laws of such naked and admitted lunacy that they might quite as well tell him to pluck all the feathers off the cows, or to amputate the left leg of a whale. There is no possible way of behaving in such a pantomime city except as a sort of comic acrobat, a knockabout comedian who does as many things as possible on his head. He is, both by accident and design, a tumbler. It is a proverb about his children that they tumble up; it is the whole joke about his drunkenness that he tumbles down. But he is in a world in which standing straight or standing still have become both impossible and fatal. Meredith rightly conceived the only possible philosophy of this modern outlaw as that of Juggling Jerry; and even what is called his swindling is mostly this sort of almost automatic juggling. His nearest approach to social status is mere kinetic stability, like a top. There was, indeed, another tumbler called in tradition Our Lady’s Tumbler, who performed happier antics before a shrine in the days of superstition; and whose philosophy was perhaps more positive than Juggling Jerry’s, or Meredith’s. But a strenuous reform has passed through our own cities, careful of the survival of the fittest, and we have been able to preserve the antic while abolishing the altar.
But though this form of reaction into ridicule, and even self-ridicule, is very natural, it is also very national; it is not the only human reaction against injustice, nor perhaps the most obvious. The Irishman has shot his landlord, the Italian has joined a revolutionary Secret Society, the Russian has either thrown a bomb or gone on a pilgrimage, long before the Englishman has come finally to the conclusion that existence is a joke. Even as he does so he is too fully conscious that it would be too bad as a tragedy if it were not so good as a farce. It is further to be noticed, for the fact is of ominous importance, that this topsy-turvy English humour has, during the last six or seven generations, been more and more abandoned to the poorer orders. Sir John Falstaff is a knight; Tony Weller is a coachman; his son Sam is a servant to the middle classes, and the recent developments of social discipline seem calculated to force Sam Weller into the status of the Artful Dodger. It is certain that a youth of that class who should do to-day a tenth of the things that Sam Weller did would in one way or another spend most of his life in jail. To-day, indeed, it is the main object of social reform that he should spend the whole of his life in jail; but in a jail that can be used as a factory. That is the real meaning of all the talk about scientific criminology and remedial penalties. For such outcasts punishment is to be abolished by being perpetuated. When men propose to eliminate retribution as “vindictive,” they mean two very simple things: ceasing altogether to punish the few who are rich, and enslaving all the rest for being poor.
Nevertheless this half-conscious buffoon who is the butt of our society is also the satirist of it. He is even the judge of it, in the sense that he is the normal test by which it will be judged. In a number of quite practical matters it is he who represents historic humanity, and speaks naturally and truthfully where his judges and critics are crooked, crabbed and superstitious. This can be seen, for instance, if we see him for a moment not in the dock but in the witness-box. In several books and newspapers I happened to read lately, I have noticed a certain tone touching the uneducated witness; phrases like “the vagueness characteristic of their class,” or “easily confused, as such witnesses are.” Now such vagueness is simple truthfulness. Nine times out of ten, it is the confusion any man would show at any given instant about the complications which crowd human life. Nine times out of ten, it is avoided in the case of educated witnesses by the mere expedient of a legal fiction. The witness has a brief, like the barrister: he has consulted dates, he has made memoranda, he has frequently settled with solicitors exactly what he can safely say. His evidence is artificial even when it is not fictitious; we might almost say it is fictitious even when it is not false. The model testimony, regarded as the most regular of all in a law court, is constabulary testimony; if what the soldier said is not evidence, what the policeman says is often the only evidence. And what the policeman says is incredible, as he says it. It is something like this: “I met the prisoner coming out of Clapham Junction Station and he told me he went to see Mrs. Nehemiah Blagg, of 192 Paardeburg Terrace, West Ealing, about a cat which he had left there last Tuesday week which she was going to keep if it was a good mouser, and she told him it had killed a mouse in the back kitchen on Sunday morning so he had better leave it. She gave him a shilling for his trouble, and he went to West Ealing post-office where he bought two half-penny stamps and a ball of string, and then to the Imperial Stores at Ealing Broadway, and bought a pennyworth of mixed sweets. Coming out he met a friend, and they went to the Green Dolphin and made an appointment for 5.30 next day at the third lamp-post in Eckstein Street,” and so on. It is frankly impossible for anybody to say such a sentence; still more for anybody to remember it. If the thing is not a tissue of mere inventions, it can only be the arbitrary summary of a very arbitrary cross-examination, conducted precisely as are the examinations of a secret police in Russia. The story was not only discovered bit by bit, but discovered backwards. Mountains were in labour to bring forth that mouse in West Ealing. The police made a thorough official search of the man’s mental boxes and baggage, before that cat was let out of the bag. I am not here supposing the tale to be untrue—I am pointing out that the telling of it is unreal. The right way to tell a story is the way in which the prisoner told it to the policeman, and not the way in which the policeman tells it to the court. It is the way in which all true tales are told, the way in which all men learn the news about their neighbours, the way in which we all learned everything we know in childhood; it is the only real evidence for anything on this earth, and it is not evidence in a court of law. The man who tells it is vague about some things, less vague about others, and so on in proportion; but at his very vaguest, among the stiff unreason of modern conditions, he is a judgment on those conditions. His very bewilderment is a criticism, and his very indecision is a decision against us. It is an old story that we are judged by the innocence of a child, and every child is, in the French phrase, a terrible child. There is a true sense in which all our laws are judged by the innocence of a criminal.
Viene punito se la sua casa è trascurata benché non vi sia nessuno a badarvi, e punito di nuovo se non è trascurata, e i figli vengono tenuti lontani dalla scuola per badarvi. Viene arrestato per aver dormito su terreno privato, e arrestato di nuovo per aver dormito su terreno pubblico, e arrestato, si badi bene, per la ragione positiva ed esplicita che non ha denaro per dormire altrove. In breve, egli è sotto leggi di così nuda e ammessa follia che potrebbero benissimo ordinargli di spennare tutte le penne alle mucche, o di amputare la zampa sinistra a una balena. Non c’è modo possibile di comportarsi in una simile città da pantomima se non come una sorta di comico acrobata, un pagliaccio da farsa che fa quante più cose possibili a testa in giù. Egli è, per caso e per disegno, un saltimbanco. È un proverbio, riguardo ai suoi figli, che essi ruzzolino su; è tutto lo scherzo, riguardo alla sua ubriachezza, che egli ruzzoli giù. Ma egli è in un mondo in cui stare dritti o stare fermi sono divenuti insieme impossibili e fatali. Meredith concepì giustamente l’unica filosofia possibile di questo fuorilegge moderno come quella di Juggling Jerry; e persino quel che si chiama il suo imbrogliare è per lo più questa sorta di giocoleria quasi automatica. Il suo più prossimo avvicinamento a uno status sociale è la mera stabilità cinetica, come quella di una trottola. Vi era, in verità, un altro saltimbanco chiamato dalla tradizione il Saltimbanco della Madonna, che eseguiva più liete acrobazie dinanzi a un santuario ai giorni della superstizione; e la cui filosofia era forse più positiva di quella di Juggling Jerry, o di quella di Meredith. Ma una strenua riforma è passata attraverso le nostre stesse città, sollecita della sopravvivenza del più adatto, e siamo stati capaci di preservare l’acrobazia pur abolendo l’altare.
Ma per quanto questa forma di reazione nel ridicolo, e persino nell’auto-ridicolo, sia molto naturale, essa è anche molto nazionale; non è l’unica reazione umana contro l’ingiustizia, né forse la più ovvia. L’irlandese ha sparato al suo padrone, l’italiano si è unito a una Società Segreta rivoluzionaria, il russo ha o lanciato una bomba o intrapreso un pellegrinaggio, molto prima che l’inglese sia giunto finalmente alla conclusione che l’esistenza è uno scherzo. E persino mentre vi giunge, egli è fin troppo consapevole che sarebbe troppo brutta come tragedia se non fosse così buona come farsa. Va inoltre notato, ché il fatto è di ominosa importanza, che questo capovolto umorismo inglese è stato, durante le ultime sei o sette generazioni, sempre più abbandonato ai ceti più poveri. Sir John Falstaff è un cavaliere; Tony Weller è un cocchiere; suo figlio Sam è un servitore delle classi medie, e i recenti sviluppi della disciplina sociale sembrano fatti apposta per costringere Sam Weller nella condizione dell’Artful Dodger. È certo che un giovane di quella classe che facesse oggi un decimo delle cose che fece Sam Weller passerebbe in un modo o nell’altro gran parte della sua vita in prigione. Oggi, in verità, è il principale obiettivo della riforma sociale che egli passi in prigione l’intera sua vita; ma in una prigione che possa essere usata come fabbrica. Questo è il vero significato di tutte le chiacchiere sulla criminologia scientifica e sulle pene correttive. Per simili reietti la punizione dev’essere abolita col renderla perpetua. Quando gli uomini si propongono di eliminare la retribuzione in quanto «vendicativa», intendono due cose semplicissime: cessare del tutto di punire i pochi che sono ricchi, e ridurre in schiavitù tutto il resto per il fatto di essere povero.
Nondimeno questo semicosciente buffone che è lo zimbello della nostra società ne è anche il satirico. Ne è persino il giudice, nel senso che è il metro normale con cui essa sarà giudicata. In un certo numero di questioni assai pratiche è lui a rappresentare l’umanità storica, e a parlare in modo naturale e veritiero là dove i suoi giudici e critici sono storti, bisbetici e superstiziosi. Ciò si può vedere, per esempio, se lo vediamo per un momento non al banco degli imputati ma al banco dei testimoni. In parecchi libri e giornali che mi è capitato di leggere di recente, ho notato un certo tono a proposito del testimone incolto; frasi come «la vaghezza caratteristica della loro classe», oppure «facilmente confusi, come simili testimoni sono». Ora, tale vaghezza è semplice veridicità. Nove volte su dieci, è la confusione che qualsiasi uomo mostrerebbe in un dato istante riguardo alle complicazioni che affollano la vita umana. Nove volte su dieci, essa è evitata nel caso dei testimoni istruiti col mero espediente di una finzione giuridica. Il testimone ha un memoriale, come l’avvocato: ha consultato date, ha preso appunti, ha spesso concordato con i procuratori esattamente ciò che può dire senza pericolo. La sua testimonianza è artificiale anche quando non è fittizia; potremmo quasi dire che è fittizia anche quando non è falsa. La testimonianza modello, considerata la più regolare di tutte in una corte di giustizia, è la testimonianza della polizia; se ciò che dice il soldato non è prova, ciò che dice il poliziotto è spesso l’unica prova. E ciò che il poliziotto dice è incredibile, così come lo dice. È qualcosa del genere: «Ho incontrato il prigioniero mentre usciva dalla stazione di Clapham Junction e mi ha detto che era andato a trovare Mrs. Nehemiah Blagg, di 192 Paardeburg Terrace, West Ealing, a proposito di un gatto che aveva lasciato là martedì di otto giorni prima e che lei avrebbe tenuto se fosse stato un buon cacciatore di topi, e lei gli aveva detto che aveva ucciso un topo nel retrocucina la mattina di domenica cosicché era meglio che lo lasciasse. Lei gli diede uno scellino per il disturbo, ed egli andò all’ufficio postale di West Ealing dove comprò due francobolli da mezzo penny e un gomitolo di spago, e poi agli Imperial Stores a Ealing Broadway, e comprò un penny di caramelle assortite. Uscendo incontrò un amico, e andarono al Green Dolphin e fissarono un appuntamento per le 5.30 del giorno dopo al terzo lampione di Eckstein Street», e così via. È francamente impossibile per chiunque pronunciare una simile frase; e ancor più per chiunque ricordarla. Se la cosa non è un tessuto di mere invenzioni, può essere soltanto il riassunto arbitrario di un assai arbitrario controinterrogatorio, condotto esattamente come sono condotti gli interrogatori di una polizia segreta in Russia. La storia non solo fu scoperta pezzo per pezzo, ma scoperta a ritroso. Le montagne furono in travaglio per partorire quel topo a West Ealing. La polizia fece una minuziosa perquisizione ufficiale delle scatole e dei bagagli mentali dell’uomo, prima che quel gatto fosse tolto dal sacco. Non sto qui supponendo che il racconto sia falso — sto facendo notare che il modo di raccontarlo è irreale. Il modo giusto di raccontare una storia è quello in cui il prigioniero la raccontò al poliziotto, e non quello in cui il poliziotto la racconta alla corte. È il modo in cui si raccontano tutti i racconti veri, il modo in cui tutti gli uomini apprendono le notizie sui loro vicini, il modo in cui tutti abbiamo appreso ogni cosa che sappiamo nell’infanzia; è l’unica prova reale di qualsiasi cosa su questa terra, e non è prova in una corte di giustizia. L’uomo che la racconta è vago su alcune cose, meno vago su altre, e così via in proporzione; ma nel suo momento più vago, tra la rigida irragionevolezza delle condizioni moderne, egli è un giudizio su quelle condizioni. Il suo stesso smarrimento è una critica, e la sua stessa indecisione è una decisione contro di noi. È una vecchia storia che siamo giudicati dall’innocenza di un bambino, e ogni bambino è, secondo la frase francese, un bambino terribile. C’è un senso vero in cui tutte le nostre leggi sono giudicate dall’innocenza di un criminale.
In politics, of course, the case is the same. I will defer the question of whether the democracy knows how to answer questions until the oligarchy knows how to ask them. Asking a man if he approves of Tariff Reform is not only a silly but an insane question, for it covers the wildest possibilities, just as asking him whether he approves of Trouser Reform might mean anything from wearing no trousers to wearing a particular pattern of yellow trousers decorated with scarlet snakes. Talking about Temperance, when you mean pouring wine down the gutter, is quite literally as senseless as talking about Thrift, when you mean throwing money into the sea. The rambling speech of yokels and tramps is as much wiser than this as a rambling walk in the woods is wiser than the mathematical straightness of a fall from a precipice. The present leaders of progress are, I think, very near to that precipice; about all their schemes and ideals there is a savour of suicide. But the clown will go on talking in a living and, therefore, a leisurely fashion, and the great truth of pure gossip which sprang up in simpler ages and was the fountain of all the literatures, will flow on when our intricate and tortured society has died of its sins.
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THE PRUDERY OF THE FEMINISTS
IN the ultimate and universal sense I am astonished at the lack of astonishment. Starting from scratch, so to speak, we are all in the position of the first frog, whose pious and compact prayer was “Lord, how you made me jump!” Matthew Arnold told us to see life steadily and see it whole. But the flaw in his whole philosophy is that when we do see life whole we do not see it steadily, in Arnold’s sense, but as a staggering prodigy of creation. There is a primeval light in which all stones are precious stones; a primeval darkness against which all flowers are as vivid as fireworks. Nevertheless, there is one kind of surprise that does surprise me, the more, perhaps, because it is not true surprise but a supercilious fuss. There is a kind of man who not only claims that his stone is the only pebble on the beach, but declares it must be the one and only philosopher’s stone, because he is the one and only philosopher. He does not discover suddenly the sensational fact that grass is green. He discovers it very slowly, and proves it still more slowly, bringing us one blade of grass at a time. He is made haughty instead of humble by hitting on the obvious. The flowers do not make him open his eyes, but, rather, cover them with spectacles; and this is even more true of the weeds and thorns. Even his bad news is banal. A young man told me he had abandoned his Bible religion and vicarage environment at the withering touch of the one line of Fitzgerald: “The flower that once has blown, for ever dies.” I vainly pointed out that the Bible or the English burial service could have told him that man cometh up as a flower and is cut down. If that were self-evidently final, there would never have been any Bibles or any vicarages. I do not see how the flower can be any more dead, when a mower can cut it down, merely because a botanist can cut it up. It should further be remembered that the belief in the soul, right or wrong, arose and flourished among men who knew all there is to know about cutting down, not unfrequently cutting each other down, with considerable vivacity. The physical fact of death, in a hundred horrid shapes, was more naked and less veiled in times of faith or superstition than in times of science or scepticism. Often it was not merely those who had seen a man die, but those who had seen him rot, who were most certain that he was everlastingly alive.
There is another case somewhat analogous to this discovery of the new disease of death. I am puzzled in somewhat the same way when I hear, as we often hear just now, somebody saying that he was formerly opposed to Female Suffrage but was converted to it by the courage and patriotism shown by women in nursing and similar war work. Really, I do not wish to be superior in my turn, when I can only express my wonder in a question. But from what benighted dens can these people have crawled, that they did not know that women are brave? What horrible sort of women have they known all their lives? Where do they come from? Or, what is a still more apposite question, where do they think they come from? Do they think they fell from the moon, or were really found under cabbage-leaves, or brought over the sea by storks? Do they (as seems more likely) believe they were produced chemically, by Mr. Schefer on principles of abiogenesis? Should we any of us be here at all if women were not brave? Are we not all trophies of that war and triumph? Does not every man stand on the earth like a graven statue as the monument of the valour of a woman?
As a matter of fact, it is men much more than women who needed a war to redeem their reputation, and who have redeemed it. There was much more plausibility in the suspicion that the old torture of blood and iron would prove too much for a somewhat drugged and materialistic male population long estranged from it. I have always suspected that this doubt about manhood was the real sting in the strange sex quarrel, and the meaning of the new and nervous tattoo about the unhappiness of women. Man, like the Master Builder, was suspected by the female intelligence of having lost his nerve for climbing that dizzy battle-tower he had built in times gone by. In this the war did certainly straighten out the sex tangle; but it did also make clear on how terrible a thread of tenure we hold our privileges—and even our pleasures. For even bridge parties and champagne suppers take place on the top of that toppling war-tower; an hour can come when even a man who cared for nothing but bridge would have to defend it like Horatius; or when the man who only lives for champagne would have to die for champagne, as certainly as thousands of French soldiers have died for that flat land of vines; when he would have to fight as hard for the wine as Jeanne D’Arc for the oil of Rheims.
In politica, s’intende, il caso è lo stesso. Rimanderò la questione se la democrazia sappia rispondere alle domande fino a quando l’oligarchia saprà porle. Chiedere a un uomo se approva la Riforma Tariffaria non è soltanto una domanda sciocca ma insana, ché essa copre le più selvagge possibilità, proprio come chiedergli se approva la Riforma dei Pantaloni potrebbe significare qualsiasi cosa, dal non portare pantaloni al portare un particolare modello di pantaloni gialli decorati con serpenti scarlatti. Parlare di Temperanza, quando si intende versare il vino nel rigagnolo, è alla lettera altrettanto insensato che parlare di Parsimonia, quando si intende gettare denaro in mare. Il discorso divagante di villani e vagabondi è più saggio di questo tanto quanto una passeggiata divagante nei boschi è più saggia della rettilinea matematicità di una caduta da un precipizio. Gli attuali capi del progresso sono, io penso, assai vicini a quel precipizio; su tutti i loro schemi e ideali aleggia un sentore di suicidio. Ma il pagliaccio continuerà a parlare in modo vivo e, perciò, senza fretta, e la grande verità del puro pettegolezzo che sgorgò in età più semplici e fu la fonte di tutte le letterature, continuerà a scorrere quando la nostra intricata e tormentata società sarà morta dei suoi peccati.
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LA PRUDERIE DELLE FEMMINISTE
NEL senso ultimo e universale sono stupito della mancanza di stupore. Partendo da zero, per così dire, siamo tutti nella condizione della prima rana, la cui pia e compatta preghiera fu: «Signore, come m’hai fatto saltare!». Matthew Arnold ci disse di guardare la vita con costanza e di guardarla nella sua interezza. Ma il difetto di tutta la sua filosofia sta nel fatto che quando davvero guardiamo la vita nella sua interezza non la guardiamo con costanza, nel senso di Arnold, ma come uno sbalorditivo prodigio della creazione. Vi è una luce primeva nella quale tutte le pietre sono pietre preziose; una tenebra primeva contro cui tutti i fiori sono vividi come fuochi d’artificio. Nondimeno, vi è una sorta di sorpresa che davvero mi sorprende, tanto più, forse, perché non è vera sorpresa ma uno sdegnoso strepito. Vi è un genere di uomo che non solo pretende che il suo sasso sia l’unico ciottolo sulla spiaggia, ma dichiara che dev’essere l’unica e sola pietra filosofale, perché egli è l’unico e solo filosofo. Egli non scopre d’un tratto lo strabiliante fatto che l’erba è verde. Lo scopre assai lentamente, e lo dimostra ancor più lentamente, portandoci un filo d’erba per volta. È reso altero anziché umile dall’imbattersi nell’ovvio. I fiori non gli fanno aprire gli occhi, ma piuttosto glieli coprono di occhiali; e ciò è ancor più vero delle erbacce e delle spine. Persino le sue cattive notizie sono banali. Un giovane mi disse di aver abbandonato la sua religione della Bibbia e il suo ambiente di canonica al tocco appassitore dell’unico verso di Fitzgerald: «Il fiore che una volta è sbocciato, per sempre muore». Feci invano notare che la Bibbia o il servizio funebre inglese avrebbero potuto dirgli che l’uomo spunta come un fiore ed è reciso. Se ciò fosse di per sé evidentemente definitivo, non ci sarebbero mai state Bibbie né canoniche. Non vedo come il fiore possa essere più morto, quando un falciatore può reciderlo, per il solo fatto che un botanico può sezionarlo. Va inoltre ricordato che la fede nell’anima, giusta o sbagliata che sia, sorse e fiorì tra uomini che sapevano tutto ciò che c’è da sapere sul recidere, non di rado recidendosi l’un l’altro, con considerevole vivacità. Il fatto fisico della morte, in cento orride forme, era più nudo e meno velato nei tempi di fede o di superstizione che nei tempi di scienza o di scetticismo. Spesso non erano soltanto coloro che avevano visto un uomo morire, ma coloro che l’avevano visto imputridire, a essere più certi che egli fosse eternamente vivo.
C’è un altro caso in qualche modo analogo a questa scoperta della nuova malattia della morte. Sono perplesso in modo alquanto simile quando odo, come spesso odiamo proprio adesso, qualcuno dire che era in passato contrario al Suffragio Femminile ma vi fu convertito dal coraggio e dal patriottismo mostrati dalle donne nell’assistenza infermieristica e in simili opere di guerra. Davvero, non desidero mostrarmi a mia volta superiore, quando posso soltanto esprimere il mio stupore in una domanda. Ma da quali oscure tane possono essere strisciate fuori queste persone, per non aver saputo che le donne sono coraggiose? Che orribile sorta di donne hanno conosciuto per tutta la vita? Da dove vengono? O, ciò che è una domanda ancor più appropriata, da dove credono di venire? Credono di essere cadute dalla luna, o di essere state davvero trovate sotto le foglie di cavolo, o portate oltre il mare dalle cicogne? Credono forse (come sembra più probabile) di essere state prodotte chimicamente, dal signor Schefer secondo i princìpi dell’abiogenesi? Saremmo qui, alcuno di noi, se le donne non fossero state coraggiose? Non siamo tutti trofei di quella guerra e di quel trionfo? Non sta forse ogni uomo sulla terra come una statua scolpita a monumento del valore di una donna?
In realtà, sono gli uomini assai più delle donne ad aver avuto bisogno di una guerra per riscattare la propria reputazione, e ad averla riscattata. C’era assai più plausibilità nel sospetto che l’antica tortura del sangue e del ferro si sarebbe rivelata troppo per una popolazione maschile alquanto narcotizzata e materialistica, da tempo estranea a essa. Ho sempre sospettato che questo dubbio sulla virilità fosse il vero pungiglione nella strana querela dei sessi, e il significato del nuovo e nervoso strepito intorno all’infelicità delle donne. L’uomo, come il Capomastro, era sospettato dall’intelligenza femminile di aver perduto il coraggio di arrampicarsi su quella vertiginosa torre di battaglia che aveva edificato in tempi ormai passati. In questo la guerra sciolse di certo il groviglio dei sessi; ma rese anche chiaro su quale terribile filo di possesso teniamo i nostri privilegi — e persino i nostri piaceri. Ché persino le partite a bridge e le cene a champagne hanno luogo in cima a quella traballante torre di guerra; può venire un’ora in cui persino un uomo che non tenesse a nulla se non al bridge dovrebbe difenderla come Orazio; o in cui l’uomo che vive solo per lo champagne dovrebbe morire per lo champagne, con altrettanta certezza con cui migliaia di soldati francesi sono morti per quella piatta terra di vigne; quando dovrebbe combattere per il vino con lo stesso accanimento con cui Jeanne D’Arc combatté per l’olio di Reims.
Just as civilization is guarded by potential war, so it is guarded by potential revolution. We ought never to indulge in either without extreme provocation; but we ought to be cured for ever of the fancy that extreme provocation is impossible. Against the tyrant within, as against the barbarian without, every voter should be a potential volunteer. “Thou goest with women, forget not thy whip,” said the Prussian philosopher; and some such echo probably infected those who wanted a war to make them respect their wives and mothers. But there would really be a symbolic sense in saying, “Thou goest with men, forget not thy sword.” Men coming to the council of the tribe should sheathe their swords, but not surrender them. Now I am not going to talk about Female Suffrage at this time of day; but these were the elements upon which a fair and sane opposition to it were founded. These are the risks of real politics; and the woman was not called upon to run such a risk, for the very simple reason that she was already running another risk. It was not laws that fixed her in the family; it was the very nature of the family. If the family was a fact in any very full sense, and if popular rule was also a fact in any very full sense, it was simply physically impossible for the woman to play the same part in such politics as the man. The difficulty was only evaded because the democracy was not a free democracy or the family not a free family. But whether this view was right or wrong, it is at least clear that the only honourable basis for any limitations of womanhood is the same as the basis of the respect for womanhood. It consisted in certain realities, which it may be undesirable to discuss, but is certainly even more undesirable to ignore. And my complaint against the more fussy Feminists (so called from their detestation of everything feminine) is that they do ignore these realities. I do not even propose the alternative of discussing them; on that point I am myself content to be what some call conventional, and others, civilized. I do not in the least demand that anyone should accept my own deduction from them; and I do not care a brass farthing what deduction anybody accepts about such a rag as modern ballot paper. But I do suggest that the peril with which one half of humanity is perpetually at war should be at least present in the minds of those who are perpetually bragging about breaking conventions, rending veils, and violating antiquated taboos. And, in nine cases out of ten, it seems to be quite absent from their minds. The mere fact of using the argument before mentioned, of women’s strength vindicated by war work, shows that it is absent from their minds.
If this oddity of the new obscurantism means, rather, that women have shown the moral courage and mental capacity needed for important concerns, I am equally unable to summon up any surprise at the revelation. Nothing can well be more important than our own souls and bodies; and they, at their most delicate and determining period, are almost always and almost entirely confided to women. Those who have been appointed as educational experts in every age are not surely a new order of priestesses? If it means that in a historic crisis all kinds of people must do all kinds of work, and that women are the more to be admired for doing work to which they are unaccustomed, or even unsuited, it is a point which I should quite as easily concede. But if it means that in planning the foundations of a future society we should ignore the one eternal and incurable contrast in humanity; if it means that we may now go ahead gaily as if there were really no difference at all; if it means, as I read in a magazine to-day, and as almost anyone may now read almost anywhere, that if such and such work is bad for women it must be bad for men; if it means that patriotic women in munition factories prove that any women can be happy in any factories; if, in short, it means that the huge and primeval facts of the family no longer block the way to a mere social assimilation and regimentation— then I say that the prospect is not one of liberty but of perpetuation of the dreariest sort of humbug. It is not emancipation, it is not even anarchy; it is simply prudery in the thoughts. It means that we have Bowdlerized our brains as well as our books. It is every bit as senseless a surrender to a superstitious decorum as it would be to force every woman to cut herself with a razor, because it was not etiquette to admit that she cannot grow a beard.
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HOW MAD LAWS ARE MADE
ANY one of the strange laws we suffer is a compromise between a fad and a vested interest. The fashionable way of effecting a social reform is as follows. To make the story clearer, and worthier of its wild and pointless process, I will call the two chief agents in it the March Hare and the Hatter. The Hatter is mad, in a quiet way; but he is merely mad on making hats, or rather on making money. He has a huge and prosperous emporium which advertises all possible hats to fit all possible heads; but he certainly nourishes an occult conviction that it is really the duty of the heads to fit the hats. This is his mild madness; in other respects he is a stodgy and rather stupid millionaire. Now, the man whom we will call the March Hare is at first sight the flat contrary of this. He is a wild intellectual and the leader of the Hatless Brigade. It does not much matter why there is this quarrel between the Hare and the Hat; it may be any progressive sophistry. Perhaps it is because he is a March Hare; and finds it hard to keep his hat on in a March wind. Perhaps it is because his ears are too long to allow him to wear a hat; or perhaps he hopes that every emancipated member of the Hatless Brigade will eventually evolve ears as long as a hare’s—or a donkey’s. The point is that anyone would fancy that the Hare and the Hatter would collide. As a matter of fact they co-operate. In other words, every “reform” to-day is a treaty between the two most influential modern figures— the great capitalist and the small faddist. They are the father and mother of a new law; and therefore it is so much of a mongrel as to be a monster.
Proprio come la civiltà è custodita dalla guerra potenziale, così è custodita dalla rivoluzione potenziale. Non dovremmo mai indulgere né nell’una né nell’altra senza estrema provocazione; ma dovremmo essere guariti per sempre dalla fantasticheria che l’estrema provocazione sia impossibile. Contro il tiranno interno, come contro il barbaro esterno, ogni elettore dovrebbe essere un volontario potenziale. «Tu vai dalle donne, non dimenticare la tua frusta», disse il filosofo prussiano; e qualche eco del genere infettò probabilmente coloro che volevano una guerra per farsi rispettare dalle mogli e dalle madri. Ma ci sarebbe davvero un senso simbolico nel dire: «Tu vai dagli uomini, non dimenticare la tua spada». Gli uomini che vengono al consiglio della tribù dovrebbero rinfoderare le spade, ma non consegnarle. Ora non sto per parlare di Suffragio Femminile a questo punto della faccenda; ma questi erano gli elementi su cui era fondata un’equa e sana opposizione a esso. Questi sono i rischi della politica reale; e la donna non era chiamata a correre un simile rischio, per la semplicissima ragione che ne stava già correndo un altro. Non erano le leggi a fissarla nella famiglia; era la natura stessa della famiglia. Se la famiglia era un fatto in un senso davvero pieno, e se il governo popolare era anch’esso un fatto in un senso davvero pieno, era semplicemente fisicamente impossibile per la donna recitare in tale politica la stessa parte dell’uomo. La difficoltà veniva elusa soltanto perché la democrazia non era una libera democrazia o la famiglia non era una libera famiglia. Ma che questa veduta fosse giusta o sbagliata, è almeno chiaro che l’unica base onorevole per qualsiasi limitazione della femminilità è la stessa base del rispetto per la femminilità. Essa consisteva in certe realtà, che può essere indesiderabile discutere, ma è certamente ancor più indesiderabile ignorare. E la mia lagnanza contro le più petulanti Femministe (così chiamate dalla loro detestazione di tutto ciò che è femminile) è che esse ignorano queste realtà. Non propongo neppure l’alternativa di discuterle; su quel punto io stesso mi accontento di essere ciò che alcuni chiamano convenzionale, e altri, civilizzato. Non pretendo minimamente che alcuno accetti la mia propria deduzione da esse; e non m’importa un fico secco quale deduzione chiunque accetti riguardo a uno straccio come la moderna scheda elettorale. Ma suggerisco davvero che il pericolo con cui una metà dell’umanità è perpetuamente in guerra dovrebbe essere almeno presente alle menti di coloro che perpetuamente si vantano di infrangere convenzioni, lacerare veli e violare tabù antiquati. E, in nove casi su dieci, esso sembra essere del tutto assente dalle loro menti. Il solo fatto di usare l’argomento prima menzionato, della forza delle donne comprovata dalle opere di guerra, mostra che esso è assente dalle loro menti.
Se questa stranezza del nuovo oscurantismo significa, piuttosto, che le donne hanno mostrato il coraggio morale e la capacità mentale necessari per faccende importanti, sono egualmente incapace di suscitare in me alcuna sorpresa alla rivelazione. Nulla può davvero essere più importante delle nostre stesse anime e dei nostri stessi corpi; ed essi, nel loro periodo più delicato e determinante, sono quasi sempre e quasi interamente affidati alle donne. Coloro che sono state designate come esperte educative in ogni età non sono forse un nuovo ordine di sacerdotesse? Se ciò significa che in una crisi storica ogni sorta di persone deve fare ogni sorta di lavoro, e che le donne sono tanto più da ammirare per aver fatto un lavoro cui non sono abituate, o persino inadatte, è un punto che concederei con altrettanta facilità. Ma se ciò significa che nel progettare le fondamenta di una società futura dovremmo ignorare l’unico eterno e incurabile contrasto nell’umanità; se ciò significa che possiamo ora andare avanti allegramente come se non vi fosse davvero alcuna differenza; se ciò significa, come leggo oggi in una rivista, e come quasi chiunque può ormai leggere quasi ovunque, che se un dato lavoro è cattivo per le donne dev’essere cattivo per gli uomini; se ciò significa che le donne patriottiche nelle fabbriche di munizioni provano che qualsiasi donna può essere felice in qualsiasi fabbrica; se, in breve, ciò significa che gli enormi e primevi fatti della famiglia non ostruiscono più la via a una mera assimilazione e regimentazione sociale — allora io dico che la prospettiva non è di libertà ma di perpetuazione della più tetra sorta di fandonia. Non è emancipazione, non è nemmeno anarchia; è semplicemente pruderie nei pensieri. Significa che abbiamo espurgato i nostri cervelli non meno dei nostri libri. È una resa a un decoro superstizioso altrettanto insensata di quanto sarebbe costringere ogni donna a tagliarsi con un rasoio, perché non era etichetta ammettere che non le può crescere la barba.
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COME SI FANNO LE LEGGI FOLLI
QUALSIASI delle strane leggi che patiamo è un compromesso tra un capriccio e un interesse costituito. Il modo alla moda di attuare una riforma sociale è il seguente. Per rendere la storia più chiara, e più degna del suo processo selvaggio e senza scopo, chiamerò i due principali agenti in essa la Lepre Marzolina e il Cappellaio. Il Cappellaio è matto, in modo tranquillo; ma è matto soltanto per il fare cappelli, o piuttosto per il fare denaro. Ha un enorme e prospero emporio che reclamizza tutti i cappelli possibili per adattarsi a tutte le teste possibili; ma di certo nutre l’occulta convinzione che sia in realtà dovere delle teste adattarsi ai cappelli. Questa è la sua mite follia; per il resto è un pesante e piuttosto stupido milionario. Ora, l’uomo che chiameremo la Lepre Marzolina è a prima vista il piatto contrario di questo. È un selvaggio intellettuale e il capo della Brigata Senza Cappello. Non importa granché perché ci sia questa querela tra la Lepre e il Cappello; può essere un qualsiasi sofisma progressista. Forse è perché è una Lepre Marzolina; e trova difficile tenersi il cappello in un vento di marzo. Forse è perché le sue orecchie sono troppo lunghe per permettergli di portare un cappello; o forse spera che ogni membro emancipato della Brigata Senza Cappello finirà per sviluppare orecchie lunghe come quelle di una lepre — o di un asino. Il punto è che chiunque immaginerebbe che la Lepre e il Cappellaio si scontrerebbero. In realtà essi cooperano. In altre parole, ogni «riforma» al giorno d’oggi è un trattato tra le due figure moderne più influenti — il grande capitalista e il piccolo maniaco. Essi sono il padre e la madre di una nuova legge; e perciò essa è a tal punto un bastardo da essere un mostro.
What happens is something like this. The line of least resistance is found between the two by a more subtle analysis of their real respective aims. The intuitive eye of friendship detects a fine shade in the feelings of the Hatter. The desire of his heart, when delicately apprehended, is not necessarily that people should wear his hats, but rather that they should buy them. On the other hand, even his fanatically consistent colleague has no particular objection to a human being purchasing a hat, so long as he does not wreck his health, blast his prospects and generally blow his brains out, by the one suicidal act of putting it on. Between them they construct a law called the Habitual Hat-Pegs Act, which lays it down that every householder shall have not less than twenty-three hat-pegs and that, lest these should accumulate unwholesome dust, each must be covered by a hat in uninterrupted occupation. Or the thing might be managed some other way; as by arranging that a great modern nobleman should wear an accumulation of hats, one on top of the other, in pleasing memory of what has often been the itinerant occupation of his youth. Broadly, it would be enacted that hats might be used in various ways; to take rabbits out of, as in the case of conjurers, or put pennies into, as in the case of beggars, or smash on the heads of scarecrows, or stick on the tops of poles; if only it were guaranteed that as many citizens as possible should be forced to go bareheaded. Thus, the two most powerful elements in the governing class are satisfied; of which the first is finance and the second fidgets. The Capitalist has made money; and he only wanted to make money. The Social Reformer has done something; and he only wanted something to do.
Now every one of the recent tricks about temperance and economy has been literally of this type. I have chosen the names from a nonsense story merely for algebraic lucidity and universality; what has really happened in our own shops and streets is every bit as nonsensical. But quite recent events have confirmed this analysis with an accuracy which even the unconverted can hardly regard as a coincidence. I have already traced the truth in the case of the liquor traffic; but many public-spirited persons of the Prohibitionist school have found it very difficult to believe. All “temperance legislation” is a compromise between a liquor merchant who wants to get rid of his liquor and a teetotaller who does not want his neighbours to get it. But as the capitalist is much stronger than the crank, the compromise is lop-sided as such; the neighbours do get it, but always in the wrong way. But again, since the crank has not a true creed, but only an intellectual itch, he cares much more to be up and doing than to understand what he has done. As I said above, he only wants to do something; he has increased drunkenness. Anyhow, all such reforms are upon the plan of my parable. Sometimes it is decreed that drink shall only be sold in large quantities suitable to large incomes; that is exactly like allowing one nobleman to wear twenty hats. Sometimes it is proposed that the State should take over the liquor traffic; we hardly need to be told what that means, when it is the Plutocratic State. It means quite simply this: the policeman goes to the hatter and buys his whole stock of hats at a hundred pounds a piece, and then parades the street handing out hats to those who may take his fancy, and by blows of the truncheon forcing every man Jack of the rest of them to pay a hundred pounds for a hat he does not get. Merely to divert the rivers of ale or gin from private power to public power or from poor men to rich men, or from good taverns to bad taverns, is the sort of effort with which the faddists are satisfied and the liquor lords much more than satisfied.
There was a curious case of the same thing in the attempt to economize food during the Great War. The reformers did not wish really to economize food; the great food profiteers would not let them. The fussy person wants to force or forbid something, under the conditions defining all such effort; it must be something that will interfere with the citizen and will not interfere with the profiteer. Given such a problem, we might almost predict, for instance, that he will propose the limitation of the number of courses at a restaurant. It will not save the beef; it is not meant to save the beef; but to save the beef merchant. There will actually be more food bought, if the cook is not allowed to turn the scraps into kickshaws. But why should a plutocracy including food profiteers object to more food being bought? Why, for that matter, should the pure-minded social idealist object to more food being bought, as long as it is the wrong food that is sold? His quite disinterested aim is not that food should be restricted, but merely that freedom should be restricted. When once he is assured that a sufficient number of thoughtless persons are really getting what they don’t want, he says he is building Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land. And so he is; if the expression signifies handing over England to the wealthier Jews.
Now the only way in which this conclusive explanation can be countered is by ridiculing as impossible the notion that so fantastic a compact can be clearly and coolly made. The two attitudes are not logically interlocked, like the antlers of stags; they simply squeeze each other out of shape, as in a wrestle of two rival jelly-fish. We should be far safer if they had the intellectual honesty of a bargain or a bribe. As it is, they have an almost creepy quality which justifies the comparison to shapeless beasts of the sea. I defy any rational man to deny that he has noticed something moonstruck and mis-shapen, as apart from anything unjust or uncomfortable, about the little laws which have lately been tripping him up; laws which may tell him at any minute that he must not purchase turpentine before a certain tick of the clock, or that if he buys a pound of tea he must also buy a pennyworth of tin-tacks. The strictly correct word for such things is half-witted; and they are half-witted because each of the two incongruous partners has only half his will. They have not, for instance, the sweeping simplicity of the old sumptuary laws or even the old Puritan persecutions. But they are also half-witted because even the one mind is not the whole mind; it is largely the sub-conscious mind, which dares not trust itself in speech. The Drink Capitalist dares not actually say to the teetotaller, “Let me sell a quart bottle of whisky to be drunk in a day, and then I will let you pester a poor fellow who makes a pot of beer last half an hour.” That is exactly what happens in essence; but it is easy to guess what happens in external form. The teetotaller has twenty schemes for cutting off free citizens from the beverage of their fathers; and out of these twenty the liquor lord, without whose permission nothing can be done, selects the one scheme which will not interfere with him and his money. It is even more probable that the temperance reformer himself selects, by an instinct for what he would call practical politics, the one scheme which the liquor lord is likely to look at. And it matters nothing that it is a scheme too witless for Wonderland; a scheme for abolishing hats while preserving hatters.
Ciò che accade è qualcosa del genere. La linea di minor resistenza tra i due viene trovata mediante un’analisi più sottile dei loro reali scopi rispettivi. L’occhio intuitivo dell’amicizia scorge una fine sfumatura nei sentimenti del Cappellaio. Il desiderio del suo cuore, quando lo si coglie con delicatezza, non è necessariamente che la gente porti i suoi cappelli, ma piuttosto che li compri. D’altra parte, persino il suo collega fanaticamente coerente non ha alcuna particolare obiezione a che un essere umano acquisti un cappello, purché non rovini la propria salute, non annienti le proprie prospettive e non si faccia in generale saltare le cervella, con l’unico atto suicida di metterselo in testa. Insieme costruiscono una legge chiamata Legge sugli Attaccapanni Abituali, la quale stabilisce che ogni capofamiglia debba avere non meno di ventitré attaccapanni e che, affinché questi non accumulino polvere malsana, ciascuno debba essere coperto da un cappello in ininterrotta occupazione. Oppure la cosa potrebbe essere gestita in qualche altro modo; come col disporre che un gran nobiluomo moderno porti un cumulo di cappelli, l’uno sopra l’altro, in gradevole memoria di quella che è stata spesso l’itinerante occupazione della sua giovinezza. In linea di massima, si stabilirebbe che i cappelli possano essere usati in vari modi; per cavarne conigli, come nel caso dei prestigiatori, o per infilarvi monetine, come nel caso dei mendicanti, o per fracassarli sulle teste degli spauracchi, o per infilarli in cima ai pali; purché soltanto fosse garantito che quanti più cittadini possibile fossero costretti ad andare a capo scoperto. Così, i due elementi più potenti della classe dirigente sono soddisfatti; dei quali il primo è la finanza e il secondo l’agitazione. Il Capitalista ha fatto denaro; e voleva soltanto fare denaro. Il Riformatore Sociale ha fatto qualcosa; e voleva soltanto qualcosa da fare.
Ora ognuno dei recenti trucchi in fatto di temperanza ed economia è stato alla lettera di questo tipo. Ho scelto i nomi da una storia senza senso semplicemente per lucidità algebrica e universalità; ciò che è realmente accaduto nelle nostre stesse botteghe e strade è altrettanto insensato. Ma eventi assai recenti hanno confermato questa analisi con un’esattezza che persino i non convertiti possono a stento considerare una coincidenza. Ho già rintracciato la verità nel caso del commercio degli alcolici; ma molte persone di spirito pubblico della scuola proibizionista l’hanno trovata assai difficile da credere. Tutta la «legislazione sulla temperanza» è un compromesso tra un mercante di liquori che vuole disfarsi del suo liquore e un astemio che non vuole che i suoi vicini lo ottengano. Ma poiché il capitalista è assai più forte del maniaco, il compromesso è sbilenco come tale; i vicini lo ottengono, ma sempre nel modo sbagliato. Ma di nuovo, poiché il maniaco non ha un vero credo, ma soltanto un prurito intellettuale, gli importa assai più di essere in piedi e in azione che di comprendere ciò che ha fatto. Come ho detto sopra, vuole soltanto fare qualcosa; ha accresciuto l’ubriachezza. Comunque sia, tutte queste riforme sono sul modello della mia parabola. Talvolta si decreta che l’alcol si venda soltanto in grandi quantità adatte a grandi redditi; ciò è esattamente come permettere a un nobiluomo di portare venti cappelli. Talvolta si propone che lo Stato assuma il commercio degli alcolici; non abbiamo certo bisogno che ci si dica cosa ciò significhi, quando è lo Stato Plutocratico. Significa molto semplicemente questo: il poliziotto va dal cappellaio e gli compra l’intera scorta di cappelli a cento sterline l’uno, e poi sfila per la strada distribuendo cappelli a chi gli va a genio, e a colpi di manganello costringe ogni singolo tra i restanti a pagare cento sterline per un cappello che non ottiene. Il mero deviare i fiumi di birra o di gin dal potere privato al potere pubblico o dai poveri ai ricchi, o dalle buone taverne alle cattive taverne, è il genere di sforzo di cui i maniaci si accontentano e i signori del liquore assai più che accontentano.
Ci fu un curioso caso della stessa cosa nel tentativo di economizzare il cibo durante la Grande Guerra. I riformatori non desideravano realmente economizzare il cibo; i grandi profittatori del cibo non li lasciavano fare. La persona petulante vuole costringere o proibire qualcosa, sotto le condizioni che definiscono ogni sforzo del genere; dev’essere qualcosa che interferirà col cittadino e non interferirà col profittatore. Dato un simile problema, potremmo quasi predire, per esempio, che egli proporrà la limitazione del numero delle portate in un ristorante. Non salverà il manzo; non è pensato per salvare il manzo; ma per salvare il mercante di manzo. Ci sarà in realtà più cibo comprato, se al cuoco non è permesso di trasformare gli avanzi in ghiottonerie. Ma perché una plutocrazia che include i profittatori del cibo dovrebbe obiettare a che si compri più cibo? E perché, se è per questo, il puro idealista sociale dovrebbe obiettare a che si compri più cibo, purché sia il cibo sbagliato a essere venduto? Il suo scopo del tutto disinteressato non è che il cibo sia ristretto, ma soltanto che la libertà sia ristretta. Una volta che sia certo che un numero sufficiente di persone sconsiderate stia realmente ottenendo ciò che non vuole, egli dice di star costruendo Gerusalemme nella verde e amena terra d’Inghilterra. E così è; se l’espressione significa consegnare l’Inghilterra agli Ebrei più ricchi.
Ora l’unico modo in cui questa conclusiva spiegazione può essere confutata è mettendo in ridicolo come impossibile l’idea che un patto tanto fantastico possa essere stretto in modo chiaro e a mente fredda. I due atteggiamenti non sono logicamente incastrati, come i palchi dei cervi; essi semplicemente si spremono l’un l’altro fuori forma, come in una lotta tra due meduse rivali. Saremmo assai più al sicuro se avessero l’onestà intellettuale di un affare o di una bustarella. Così come stanno le cose, essi hanno una qualità quasi raccapricciante che giustifica il paragone con informi bestie del mare. Sfido qualsiasi uomo razionale a negare di aver notato qualcosa di lunatico e malformato, a prescindere da qualcosa di ingiusto o di scomodo, nelle piccole leggi che di recente lo hanno fatto inciampare; leggi che possono dirgli in qualsiasi momento che non deve acquistare acquaragia prima di un certo scoccare dell’orologio, o che se compra una libbra di tè deve anche comprare un penny di bullette. La parola strettamente corretta per simili cose è mezzo-scemo; ed esse sono mezzo-sceme perché ciascuno dei due incongrui soci ha soltanto metà della propria volontà. Non hanno, per esempio, la travolgente semplicità delle vecchie leggi suntuarie o persino delle vecchie persecuzioni puritane. Ma sono anche mezzo-sceme perché persino l’unica mente non è la mente intera; è in gran parte la mente subconscia, che non osa fidarsi di sé nella parola. Il Capitalista del Bere non osa dire davvero all’astemio: «Lasciami vendere una bottiglia da un quarto di whisky da bere in un giorno, e allora ti lascerò tormentare un poveraccio che si fa durare mezz’ora un boccale di birra». Questo è esattamente ciò che accade nella sostanza; ma è facile indovinare ciò che accade nella forma esteriore. L’astemio ha venti schemi per tagliar fuori i liberi cittadini dalla bevanda dei loro padri; e di questi venti il signore del liquore, senza il cui permesso nulla può esser fatto, sceglie l’unico schema che non interferirà con lui e col suo denaro. È ancor più probabile che il riformatore della temperanza stesso scelga, per un istinto di ciò che chiamerebbe politica pratica, l’unico schema che il signore del liquore è disposto a prendere in considerazione. E non importa nulla che sia uno schema troppo balordo per il Paese delle Meraviglie; uno schema per abolire i cappelli pur preservando i cappellai.
It might be a good thing to give the control of drink to the State— if there were a State to give it to. But there is not. There is nothing but a congested compromise made by the pressure of powerful interests on each other. The liquor lords may bargain with the other lords to take their abnormal tribute in a lump instead of a lifetime; but not one of them will live the poorer. The main point is that, in passing through that plutocratic machinery, even a mad opinion will always emerge in a shape more maniacal than its own; and even the silliest fool can only do what the stupidest fool will let him.
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THE PAGODA OF PROGRESS
THERE is one fashionable fallacy that crops up everywhere like a weed, until a man feels inclined to devote the rest of his life to the hopeless task of weeding it out. I take one example of it from a newspaper correspondence headed “Have Women Gone Far Enough?” It is immediately concerned with alleged impropriety in dress; but I am not directly interested in that. I quote one paragraph from a lady correspondent, not because it is any worse than the same thing as stated by countless scholars and thinkers, but rather because it is more clearly stated—
“‘Women have gone far enough.’ That has always been the cry of the individual with the unprogressive mind. It seems to me that until Doomsday there will always be the type of man who will cry ‘Women have gone far enough’; but no one can stop the tide of evolution, and women will still go on.”
Which raises the interesting question of where they will go to. Now, as a matter of fact, every thinking person wants to stop the tide of evolution at some particular mark in his own mind. If I were to propose that people should wear no clothes at all, the lady might be shocked. But I should have as much right as anyone else to say that she was obviously an individual with an unprogressive mind. If I were to propose that this reform should be imposed on people by force, she would be justly indignant. But I could answer her with her own argument—that there had always been unprogressive people, and would be till Doomsday. If I then proposed that people should not only be stripped, but skinned alive, she might, perhaps, see several moral objections. But her own argument would still hold good, or as good as it held in her own case; and I could say that evolution would not stop and the skinning would go on. The argument is quite as good on my side as on hers; and it is worthless on both.
Of course, it would be just as easy to urge people to progress or evolve in exactly the opposite direction. It would be as easy to maintain that they ought to go on wearing more and more clothes. It might be argued that savages wear fewer clothes, that clothes are a mark of civilization, and that the evolution of them will go on. I am highly civilized if I wear ten hats, and more highly civilized if I wear twelve hats. When I have already evolved so far as to put on six pairs of trousers, I must still hail the appearance of the seventh pair of trousers with the joy due to the waving banner of a great reform. When we balance these two lunacies against each other, the central point of sanity is surely apparent. The man who headed his inquiry: “Have Women Gone Far Enough?” was at least in a real sense stating the point rightly. The point is that there is a “far enough.” There is a point at which something that was once neglected becomes exaggerated; something that is valuable up to that stage becomes undesirable after that stage. It is possible for the human intellect to consider clearly at what stage, or in what condition, it would have enough complication of clothes, or enough simplification of clothes, or enough of any other social element or tendency. It is possible to set a limit to the pagoda of human hats, rising for ever into infinity. It is possible to count the human legs, and, after a brief calculation, allot to them the appropriate number of trousers. There is such a thing as the miscalculation of making hats for a hydra or boots for a centipede, just as there are such things as bare-footed friars or the Hatless Brigade. There are exceptions and exaggerations, good and bad; but the point is that they are not only both good and bad, but they are good and bad in opposite directions. Let a man have what ideal of human costume or custom he likes. That ideal must still consist of elements in a certain proportion; and if that proportion is disturbed that ideal is destroyed. Let him once be clear in his own mind about what he wants, and then, whatever it is that he wants, he will not want the tide of evolution to wash it away. His ideal may be as revolutionary as he likes or as reactionary as he likes, but it must remain as he likes it. To make it more revolutionary or more reactionary is distortion; to suggest its growing more and more reactionary or revolutionary for ever is demented nonsense. How can a man know what he wants, how can he even want what he wants, if it will not even remain the same while he wants it?
The particular argument about women is not primarily the point; but as a matter of fact it is a very good illustration of the point. If a man thinks the Victorian conventions kept women out of things they would be the happier for having, his natural course is to consider what things they are; not to think that any things will do, so long as there are more of them. This is only the sort of living logic everybody acts in life. Suppose somebody says, “Don’t you think all this wood could be used for something else besides palings?” We shall very probably answer, “Well, I dare say it could,” and perhaps begin to think of wooden boxes or wooden stools. But we shall not see, as in a sort of vision, a vista of wooden razors, wooden carving-knives, wooden coats and hats, wooden pillows and pocket-handkerchiefs. If people had made a false and insufficient list of the uses of wood, we shall try to make a true and sufficient list of them; but not imagine that the list can go on for ever, or include more and more of everything in the world. I am not establishing a scientific parallel between wood and womanhood. But there would be nothing disrespectful in the symbol, considered as a symbol; for wood is the most sacred of all substances: it typifies the divine trade of the carpenter, and men count themselves fortunate to touch it. Here it is only a working simile, but the point of it is this—that all this nonsense about progressive and unprogressive minds, and the tide of evolution, divides people into those who stick ignorantly to wood for one thing and those who attempt insanely to use wood for everything. Both seem to think it a highly eccentric suggestion that we should find out what wood is really useful for, and use it for that. They either profess to worship a wooden womanhood inside the wooden fences of certain trivial and temporary Victorian conventions; or else they profess to see the future as a forest of dryads growing more and more feminine for ever.
Potrebbe essere una buona cosa affidare allo Stato il controllo delle bevande alcoliche — se ci fosse uno Stato a cui affidarlo. Ma non c’è. Non c’è altro che un compromesso congestionato prodotto dalla pressione di potenti interessi gli uni sugli altri. I signori del liquore potranno pattuire con gli altri signori di riscuotere il loro tributo abnorme in un’unica soluzione anziché lungo tutta una vita; ma nessuno di loro ne vivrà più povero. Il punto essenziale è che, passando attraverso quel meccanismo plutocratico, persino un’opinione folle ne uscirà sempre in una forma più maniacale della propria; e persino il più insulso sciocco può fare soltanto ciò che il più ottuso sciocco gli permetterà di fare.
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LA PAGODA DEL PROGRESSO
C’È una fallacia di moda che spunta dappertutto come un’erbaccia, finché a un uomo viene voglia di dedicare il resto della vita all’impresa disperata di estirparla. Ne prendo un esempio da un carteggio di giornale intitolato «Le donne sono andate abbastanza in là?». Esso concerne direttamente una presunta sconvenienza nell’abbigliamento; ma non è questo che m’interessa in modo diretto. Cito un capoverso di una lettrice, non perché sia peggiore della medesima cosa enunciata da innumerevoli dotti e pensatori, ma piuttosto perché è formulata con maggiore chiarezza —
«“Le donne sono andate abbastanza in là.” Questo è sempre stato il grido dell’individuo dalla mente non progressista. Mi pare che fino al Giorno del Giudizio esisterà sempre il tipo d’uomo che griderà “Le donne sono andate abbastanza in là”; ma nessuno può fermare la marea dell’evoluzione, e le donne continueranno comunque ad andare avanti.»
Il che solleva l’interessante domanda di dove andranno a finire. Ora, in verità, ogni persona che pensa vuole fermare la marea dell’evoluzione a un qualche segno particolare tracciato nella propria mente. Se io proponessi che la gente non indossasse alcun abito, la signora potrebbe scandalizzarsi. Ma avrei tanto diritto quanto chiunque altro di dire che ella è manifestamente un individuo dalla mente non progressista. Se proponessi che questa riforma venisse imposta alla gente con la forza, ella si indignerebbe a ragione. Ma potrei risponderle con il suo stesso argomento: che c’erano sempre stati individui non progressisti, e ce ne sarebbero stati fino al Giorno del Giudizio. Se poi proponessi che la gente non solo fosse spogliata, ma scorticata viva, ella forse scorgerebbe parecchie obiezioni morali. Ma il suo stesso argomento reggerebbe ancora, o reggerebbe quanto reggeva nel suo caso; e io potrei dire che l’evoluzione non si fermerebbe e che lo scorticamento andrebbe avanti. L’argomento vale tanto dalla mia parte quanto dalla sua; ed è privo di valore da entrambe.
Naturalmente, sarebbe altrettanto facile esortare la gente a progredire o a evolversi esattamente nella direzione opposta. Sarebbe altrettanto facile sostenere che dovrebbe continuare a indossare sempre più abiti. Si potrebbe argomentare che i selvaggi portano meno abiti, che gli abiti sono un segno di civiltà, e che la loro evoluzione proseguirà. Sono altamente civilizzato se porto dieci cappelli, e ancor più altamente civilizzato se ne porto dodici. Quando mi sono già evoluto al punto di infilarmi sei paia di calzoni, devo pur salutare la comparsa del settimo paio di calzoni con la gioia dovuta allo sventolare del vessillo di una grande riforma. Quando poniamo sui due piatti della bilancia queste due follie, il punto centrale della ragione appare di certo evidente. L’uomo che intitolò la sua inchiesta «Le donne sono andate abbastanza in là?» stava perlomeno, in un senso reale, ponendo la questione nel modo giusto. Il punto è che esiste un «abbastanza in là». C’è un punto in cui qualcosa che un tempo era trascurato diventa esagerato; qualcosa che è prezioso fino a quello stadio diventa indesiderabile oltre quello stadio. È possibile per l’intelletto umano considerare con chiarezza a quale stadio, o in quale condizione, avrebbe abbastanza complicazione di abiti, o abbastanza semplificazione di abiti, o abbastanza di qualsiasi altro elemento o tendenza sociale. È possibile porre un limite alla pagoda dei cappelli umani, che si eleva per sempre verso l’infinito. È possibile contare le gambe umane e, dopo un breve calcolo, assegnare loro il numero appropriato di calzoni. Esiste una cosa come l’errore di calcolo di fabbricare cappelli per un’idra o stivali per un centopiedi, così come esistono cose quali i frati scalzi o la Brigata Senza Cappello. Ci sono eccezioni ed esagerazioni, buone e cattive; ma il punto è che non sono soltanto buone e cattive insieme, bensì buone e cattive in direzioni opposte. Si abbia pure l’ideale di costume o d’usanza umana che si preferisce. Quell’ideale dovrà comunque constare di elementi in una certa proporzione; e se quella proporzione viene turbata, quell’ideale è distrutto. Che l’uomo abbia una volta le idee chiare su ciò che vuole, e allora, qualunque cosa sia ciò che vuole, non vorrà che la marea dell’evoluzione gliela porti via. Il suo ideale sarà rivoluzionario quanto gli pare o reazionario quanto gli pare, ma dovrà restare com’egli lo vuole. Renderlo più rivoluzionario o più reazionario è una distorsione; suggerire che diventi sempre più reazionario o rivoluzionario all’infinito è un delirio insensato. Come può un uomo sapere ciò che vuole, come può persino volere ciò che vuole, se esso non rimane nemmeno lo stesso mentre lo vuole?
L’argomento particolare relativo alle donne non è il punto principale; ma in verità ne è un’ottima illustrazione. Se un uomo ritiene che le convenzioni vittoriane abbiano tenuto le donne lontane da cose che le renderebbero più felici, la sua via naturale è considerare quali cose siano; non pensare che vada bene qualsiasi cosa, purché ce ne sia di più. Questa è soltanto quella specie di logica viva secondo cui ognuno agisce nella vita. Supponiamo che qualcuno dica: «Non credi che tutto questo legno potrebbe servire a qualcos’altro oltre che a fare steccati?». Con ogni probabilità risponderemo: «Beh, oserei dire di sì», e forse cominceremo a pensare a scatole di legno o a sgabelli di legno. Ma non vedremo, come in una sorta di visione, una prospettiva di rasoi di legno, di trincianti di legno, di cappotti e cappelli di legno, di cuscini e fazzoletti da tasca di legno. Se la gente avesse compilato un elenco falso e insufficiente degli usi del legno, cercheremo di compilarne uno vero e sufficiente; ma non immagineremo che l’elenco possa continuare all’infinito, o includere sempre più cose d’ogni genere al mondo. Non sto stabilendo un parallelo scientifico tra il legno e la femminilità. Ma non ci sarebbe nulla d’irriverente nel simbolo, considerato come simbolo; ché il legno è la più sacra di tutte le sostanze: raffigura il divino mestiere del falegname, e gli uomini si reputano fortunati a toccarlo. Qui è soltanto una similitudine di comodo, ma il suo punto è questo: che tutte queste sciocchezze sulle menti progressiste e non progressiste, e sulla marea dell’evoluzione, dividono la gente in coloro che si attaccano ignorantemente al legno per una cosa sola e coloro che tentano follemente di usare il legno per ogni cosa. Entrambi sembrano ritenere un suggerimento assai eccentrico che si debba scoprire a che cosa il legno sia davvero utile, e usarlo per quello. O professano di adorare una femminilità di legno dentro gli steccati di legno di certe convenzioni vittoriane insignificanti e temporanee; oppure professano di vedere il futuro come una foresta di driadi che diventano sempre più femminili all’infinito.
But it does not matter to the main question whether anybody else draws the line exactly where I do. The point is that I am not doing an illogical thing, but the only logical thing, in drawing the line. I think tennis for women normal, and football for women quite abnormal; and I am no more inconsistent than I am in having a wooden walking-stick and not a wooden hat. I do not particularly object to a female despot; but I do object to a female demagogue. And my distinction is as much founded on the substance of things as my eccentric conduct in having a wooden chair and table but not a wooden knife and fork. You may think my division wrong; the point is that it is not wrong in being a division. All this fallacy of false progress tends to obscure the old common sense of all mankind, which is still the common sense of every man in his own daily dealings: that everything has its place and proportion and proper use, and that it is rational to trust its use and distrust its abuse. Progress, in the good sense, does not consist in looking for a direction in which one can go on indefinitely. For there is no such direction, unless it be in quite transcendental things, like the love of God. It would be far truer to say that true progress consists in looking for the place where we can stop.
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THE MYTH OF THE “MAYFLOWER”
AGNOSTICISM, the ancient confession of ignorance, was a singularly sane and healthy thing so far as it went. Unfortunately it has not gone as far as the twentieth century. It has declared in all ages, as a heathen chief declared in the dark ages, that the life of a man is like the flight of a bird across a firelit room, because we know nothing of whence it comes or whither it goes. It would seem natural to apply it not only to man but to mankind. But the moderns do not apply the same principle but the very opposite principle. They specialize in the unknown origins and in the unknown future. They dwell on the prehistoric and on the post-historic or prophetic; and neglect only the historic. They will give a most detailed description of the habits of the bird when he was a sort of pterodactyl only faintly to be traced in a fossil. They will give an equally detailed description of the habits of the bird a hundred years hence, when he shall have turned into a super-bird, or the dove of universal peace. But the bird in the hand is worth far less to them than the two mysterious birds in these two impenetrable bushes. They will publish a portrait with life, letters, and table-talk of the Missing Link, although he is missing; they will publish a plan and documented history of how the Social Revolution happened, though it has not happened yet. It is the men who are not missing and the revolutions that have happened that they have rather a habit of overlooking. Anyone who has argued, for instance, with the young Jewish intellectuals who are the brain of Bolshevism knows that their whole system turns on the two pivots of the prehistoric and the prophetic. They talk of the Communism of prehistoric ages as if it were a thing like the Crusades in the Middle Ages; not even a probable conjecture but a proved and familiar fact. They will tell you exactly how private property arose in primitive times, just as if they had been there. And then they will take one gigantic leap over all human history, and tell you about the inevitable Communism of the future. Nothing seems to matter unless it is either new enough to be foretold or old enough to be forgotten.
Mr. H. G. Wells has hit off his human habit in the account of a very human character, the American girl who glorifies Stonehenge in his last novel. I do not make Mr. Wells responsible for her opinions, though she is an attractive person and much too good for her Lothario. But she interests me here because she typifies very truly another variation upon this same tendency. To the prehistoric and the post-historic must be added a third thing, which may be called the unhistoric. I mean the bad teaching of real history that such intelligent people so often suffer. She sums up exactly what I mean when she says humorously that Stonehenge has been “kept from her,” that Notre Dame is far less important, and that this is the real starting-point of the “Mayflower.”
Now the “Mayflower” is a myth. It is an intensely interesting example of a real modern myth. I do not mean of course that the “Mayflower” never sailed, any more than I admit that King Arthur never lived or that Roland never died. I do not mean that the incident had no historic interest, or that the men who figured in it had no heroic qualities; any more than I deny that Charlemagne was a great man because the legend says he was two hundred years old; any more than I deny that the resistance of Roman Britain to the heathen invasion was valiant and valuable, because the legend says that Arthur at Mount Badon killed nine hundred men with his own hand. I mean that there exists in millions of modern minds a traditional image or vision called the “Mayflower,” which has far less relation to the real facts than Charlemagne’s two hundred years or Arthur’s nine hundred corpses. Multitudes of people in England and America, as intelligent and sympathetic as the young lady in Mr. Wells’s novel, think of the “Mayflower” as an origin, or archetype, like the Ark or at least the Argo. Perhaps it would be an exaggeration to say that they think the “Mayflower” discovered America. They do really talk as if the “Mayflower” populated America. Above all, they talk as if the establishment of New England had been the first and formative example of the expansion of England. They believe that English expansion was a Puritan experiment; and that an expansion of Puritan ideas was also the expansion of what have been claimed as English ideas, especially ideas of liberty. The Puritans of New England were champions of religious freedom, seeking to found a newer and freer state beyond the sea, and thus becoming the origin and model of modern democracy. All this betrays a lack of exactitude. It is certainly nearer to exact truth to say that Merlin built the castle at Camelot by magic, or that Roland broke the mountains in pieces with his unbroken sword.
Ma per la questione principale non importa se qualcun altro tracci la linea esattamente dove la traccio io. Il punto è che, nel tracciare la linea, non compio un atto illogico, bensì l’unico atto logico. Ritengo normale il tennis per le donne, e del tutto abnorme il calcio per le donne; e non sono più incoerente di quanto lo sia nell’avere un bastone da passeggio di legno e non un cappello di legno. Non ho particolari obiezioni contro una despota donna; ma ne ho contro una demagoga donna. E la mia distinzione è fondata sulla sostanza delle cose tanto quanto la mia condotta eccentrica nell’avere una sedia e un tavolo di legno ma non un coltello e una forchetta di legno. Potrete ritenere sbagliata la mia divisione; il punto è che non è sbagliata in quanto divisione. Tutta questa fallacia del falso progresso tende a offuscare l’antico buon senso di tutta l’umanità, che è ancora il buon senso di ogni uomo nelle sue faccende quotidiane: che ogni cosa ha il suo posto e la sua proporzione e il suo uso appropriato, e che è razionale fidarsi del suo uso e diffidare del suo abuso. Il progresso, nel senso buono, non consiste nel cercare una direzione in cui si possa procedere indefinitamente. Poiché una tale direzione non esiste, a meno che non sia in cose del tutto trascendentali, come l’amore di Dio. Sarebbe assai più vero dire che il vero progresso consiste nel cercare il luogo in cui possiamo fermarci.
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IL MITO DEL «MAYFLOWER»
L’AGNOSTICISMO, l’antica confessione dell’ignoranza, era una cosa singolarmente sana e salutare per quel tanto che valeva. Purtroppo non è arrivato fino al ventesimo secolo. Esso ha dichiarato in tutte le epoche, come un capo pagano dichiarò nei secoli bui, che la vita di un uomo è simile al volo di un uccello attraverso una stanza illuminata dal fuoco, poiché nulla sappiamo di donde venga o dove vada. Parrebbe naturale applicarlo non soltanto all’uomo ma all’umanità. Ma i moderni non applicano lo stesso principio, bensì il principio esattamente opposto. Si specializzano nelle origini ignote e nel futuro ignoto. Si soffermano sul preistorico e sul post-storico o profetico; e trascurano soltanto lo storico. Vi daranno una descrizione minuziosissima delle abitudini dell’uccello quando era una sorta di pterodattilo rintracciabile solo debolmente in un fossile. Vi daranno una descrizione altrettanto minuziosa delle abitudini dell’uccello di qui a cent’anni, quando si sarà mutato in un super-uccello, o nella colomba della pace universale. Ma l’uccello in mano vale per loro assai meno dei due misteriosi uccelli in quei due cespugli impenetrabili. Pubblicheranno un ritratto, con vita, lettere e conversazioni a tavola, dell’Anello Mancante, benché sia mancante; pubblicheranno un progetto e una storia documentata di come avvenne la Rivoluzione Sociale, benché non sia ancora avvenuta. Sono gli uomini che non mancano e le rivoluzioni che sono avvenute che essi hanno piuttosto l’abitudine di trascurare. Chiunque abbia discusso, ad esempio, con i giovani intellettuali ebrei che sono il cervello del bolscevismo sa che tutto il loro sistema ruota sui due perni del preistorico e del profetico. Parlano del comunismo delle epoche preistoriche come se fosse una cosa simile alle Crociate nel Medioevo; non già una probabile congettura, ma un fatto provato e familiare. Vi diranno esattamente come sorse la proprietà privata nei tempi primitivi, proprio come se fossero stati là. E poi faranno un salto gigantesco al di sopra di tutta la storia umana, e vi parleranno dell’inevitabile comunismo del futuro. Nulla sembra contare, a meno che non sia abbastanza nuovo da essere predetto o abbastanza vecchio da essere dimenticato.
Il signor H. G. Wells ha colto quest’abitudine umana nel ritratto di un personaggio molto umano, la ragazza americana che esalta Stonehenge nel suo ultimo romanzo. Non ritengo il signor Wells responsabile delle opinioni di lei, benché ella sia una persona attraente e troppo buona per il suo Lotario. Ma ella qui m’interessa perché incarna assai fedelmente un’altra variazione sulla medesima tendenza. Al preistorico e al post-storico va aggiunta una terza cosa, che si può chiamare lo a-storico. Intendo il cattivo insegnamento della storia reale di cui persone tanto intelligenti così spesso soffrono. Ella riassume esattamente ciò che intendo quando dice scherzosamente che Stonehenge le è stata «tenuta nascosta», che Notre Dame è assai meno importante, e che questo è il vero punto di partenza del «Mayflower».
Ora, il «Mayflower» è un mito. È un esempio intensamente interessante di un vero mito moderno. Non intendo, s’intende, che il «Mayflower» non sia mai salpato, non più di quanto ammetta che Re Artù non sia mai vissuto o che Orlando non sia mai morto. Non intendo che l’episodio non avesse alcun interesse storico, o che gli uomini che vi figurarono non avessero qualità eroiche; non più di quanto neghi che Carlo Magno fu un grande uomo perché la leggenda dice che aveva duecento anni; non più di quanto neghi che la resistenza della Britannia romana all’invasione pagana fu valorosa e preziosa, perché la leggenda dice che Artù a Monte Badon uccise novecento uomini con la propria mano. Intendo che esiste in milioni di menti moderne un’immagine o visione tradizionale chiamata il «Mayflower», che ha assai meno rapporto con i fatti reali dei duecento anni di Carlo Magno o dei novecento cadaveri di Artù. Moltitudini di persone in Inghilterra e in America, intelligenti e ben disposte quanto la giovane signora del romanzo del signor Wells, pensano al «Mayflower» come a un’origine, o archetipo, alla stregua dell’Arca o almeno di Argo. Forse sarebbe un’esagerazione dire che credono che il «Mayflower» abbia scoperto l’America. Ma parlano davvero come se il «Mayflower» avesse popolato l’America. Soprattutto, parlano come se la fondazione del New England fosse stata il primo e formativo esempio dell’espansione dell’Inghilterra. Credono che l’espansione inglese sia stata un esperimento puritano; e che un’espansione di idee puritane sia stata anche l’espansione di ciò che è stato rivendicato come idee inglesi, in particolare le idee di libertà. I puritani del New England furono campioni della libertà religiosa, in cerca di fondare uno stato più nuovo e più libero al di là del mare, divenendo così l’origine e il modello della democrazia moderna. Tutto ciò tradisce una mancanza di esattezza. È certamente più vicino all’esatta verità dire che Merlino edificò il castello di Camelot con la magia, o che Orlando spezzò in pezzi le montagne con la sua spada mai spezzata.
For at least the old fables are faults on the right side. They are symbols of the truth and not of the opposite of the truth. They described Roland as brandishing his unbroken sword against the Moslems, but not in favour of the Moslems. And the New England Puritans would have regarded the establishment of real religious liberty exactly as Roland would have regarded the establishment of the religion of Mahound. The fables described Merlin as building a palace for a king and not a public hall for the London School of Economics. And it would be quite as sensible to read the Fabian politics of Mr. Sidney Webb into the local kingships of the Dark Ages, as to read anything remotely resembling modern liberality into the most savage of all the savage theological frenzies of the seventeenth century. Thus the “Mayflower” is not merely a fable, but is much more false than fables generally are. The revolt of the Puritans against the Stuarts was really a revolt against religious toleration. I do not say the Puritans were never persecuted by their opponents; but I do say, to their great honour and glory, that the Puritans never descended to the hypocrisy of pretending for a moment that they did not mean to persecute their opponents. And in the main their quarrel with the Stuarts was that the Stuarts would not persecute those opponents enough. Not only was it then the Catholics who were proposing toleration, but it was they who had already actually established toleration in the State of Maryland, before the Puritans began to establish the most intolerant sort of intolerance in the State of New England. And if the fable is fabulous touching the emancipation of religion, it is yet more fabulous touching the expansion of empire. That had been started long before either New England or Maryland, by Raleigh who started it in Virginia. Virginia is still perhaps the most English of the states, certainly more English than New England. And it was also the most typical and important of the states, almost up to Lee’s last battle in the Wilderness. But I have only taken the “Mayflower” as an example of the general truth; and in a way the truth has its consoling side. Modern men are not allowed to have any history; but at least nothing can prevent men from having legends.
We have thus before us, in a very true and typical modern picture, the two essential parts of modern culture. It consists first of false history and second of fancy history. What the American tourist believed about Plymouth Rock was untrue; what she believed about Stonehenge was only unfounded. The popular story of Primitive Man cannot be proved. The popular story of Puritanism can be disproved. I can fully sympathize with Mr. Wells and his heroine in feeling the imaginative stimulus of mysteries like Stonehenge; but the imagination springs from the mystery; that is, the imagination springs from the ignorance. It is the very greatness of Stonehenge that there is very little of it left. It is its chief feature to be featureless. We are very naturally and rightly moved to mystical emotions about signals from so far away along the path of the past; but part of the poetry lies in our inability really to read the signals. And this is what gives an interest, and even an irony, to the comparison half consciously invoked by the American lady herself when she asked “What’s Notre Dame to this?” And the answer that should be given to her is: “Notre Dame, compared to this, is true. It is history. It is humanity. It is what has really happened, what we know has really happened, what we know is really happening still. It is the central fact of your own civilization. And it is the thing that has really been kept from you.”
Notre Dame is not a myth. Notre Dame is not a theory. Its interest does not spring from ignorance but from knowledge; from a culture complicated with a hundred controversies and revolutions. It is not featureless, but carved into an incredible forest and labyrinth of fascinating features, any one of which we could talk about for days. It is not great because there is little of it, but great because there is a great deal of it. It is true that though there is a great deal of it, Puritans may not be allowed to see a great deal in it; whether they were those brought over in the “Mayflower” or only those brought up on the “Mayflower.” But that is not the fault of Notre Dame; but of the extraordinary evasion by which such people can dodge to right or left of it, taking refuge in things more recent or things more remote. Notre Dame, on its merely human side, is mediaeval civilization, and therefore not a fable or a guess but a great solid determining part of modern civilization. It is the whole modern debate about guilds; for such cathedrals were built by the guilds. It is the whole modern question of religion and irreligion; for we know what religion it stands for, while we really have not a notion what religion Stonehenge stands for. A Druid temple is a ruin, and a Puritan ship by this time may well be called a wreck. But a church is a challenge; and that is why it is not answered.
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MUCH TOO MODERN HISTORY
ALL wise men will agree that history ought to be taught more fully in the form of world history. In that respect at least Mr. Wells gave us an excellent working model. England is meaningless without Europe, more meaningless than England without Empire. But those who would broaden history with human brotherhood too often suffer from a limitation not absent even from Mr. Wells. They exchange the narrowness of a nation for the narrowness of a theory, or even a fad. They think they have a world-wide philosophy because they extend their own narrowness to the whole world. A distinguished professor, who is a member of the League of Nations Union, has been telling an interviewer what he thinks history-books should teach. And it seems to me that, according to his views if correctly reported, the new histories would be rather more prejudiced and limited than the old.
Poiché almeno le antiche favole sono errori dalla parte giusta. Sono simboli della verità e non dell’opposto della verità. Descrivevano Orlando mentre brandiva la sua spada mai spezzata contro i Maomettani, ma non in favore dei Maomettani. E i puritani del New England avrebbero considerato l’instaurazione di una reale libertà religiosa esattamente come Orlando avrebbe considerato l’instaurazione della religione di Maometto. Le favole descrivevano Merlino mentre edificava un palazzo per un re e non una sala pubblica per la London School of Economics. E sarebbe altrettanto sensato leggere la politica fabiana del signor Sidney Webb nei regni locali dei secoli bui, quanto leggere qualcosa che remotamente somigli alla liberalità moderna nel più selvaggio di tutti i selvaggi deliri teologici del diciassettesimo secolo. Così il «Mayflower» non è soltanto una favola, ma è assai più falso di quanto le favole di solito siano. La rivolta dei puritani contro gli Stuart fu in realtà una rivolta contro la tolleranza religiosa. Non dico che i puritani non furono mai perseguitati dai loro avversari; ma dico, a loro grande onore e gloria, che i puritani non discesero mai all’ipocrisia di fingere anche solo per un istante di non aver intenzione di perseguitare i loro avversari. E in sostanza la loro contesa con gli Stuart era che gli Stuart non volevano perseguitare abbastanza quegli avversari. Non solo erano allora i cattolici a proporre la tolleranza, ma erano essi che avevano già effettivamente instaurato la tolleranza nello Stato del Maryland, prima che i puritani cominciassero a instaurare la più intollerante specie d’intolleranza nello Stato del New England. E se la favola è favolosa riguardo all’emancipazione della religione, lo è ancor più riguardo all’espansione dell’impero. Quella era stata avviata molto prima sia del New England sia del Maryland, da Raleigh, che la avviò in Virginia. La Virginia è forse ancora il più inglese degli stati, di certo più inglese del New England. Ed era anche il più tipico e importante degli stati, quasi fino all’ultima battaglia di Lee nella Wilderness. Ma ho preso il «Mayflower» soltanto come esempio della verità generale; e in un certo senso la verità ha il suo lato consolante. Agli uomini moderni non è concesso di avere alcuna storia; ma almeno nulla può impedire agli uomini di avere leggende.
Abbiamo dunque dinanzi a noi, in un quadro moderno assai vero e tipico, le due parti essenziali della cultura moderna. Essa consta in primo luogo di storia falsa e in secondo luogo di storia di fantasia. Ciò che la turista americana credeva riguardo alla Roccia di Plymouth era falso; ciò che credeva riguardo a Stonehenge era soltanto infondato. La storia popolare dell’Uomo Primitivo non può essere provata. La storia popolare del puritanesimo può essere confutata. Posso simpatizzare pienamente con il signor Wells e la sua eroina nel provare lo stimolo immaginativo di misteri come Stonehenge; ma l’immaginazione scaturisce dal mistero; vale a dire, l’immaginazione scaturisce dall’ignoranza. È proprio la grandezza di Stonehenge il fatto che ne resti pochissimo. La sua caratteristica principale è di essere priva di caratteristiche. Siamo, in modo assai naturale e giusto, mossi a emozioni mistiche riguardo a segnali provenienti da così lontano lungo il sentiero del passato; ma parte della poesia risiede nella nostra incapacità di leggere davvero i segnali. Ed è questo che conferisce un interesse, e persino un’ironia, al paragone evocato a metà consapevolmente dalla stessa signora americana quando chiese: «Che cos’è Notre Dame in confronto a questa?». E la risposta che le si dovrebbe dare è: «Notre Dame, in confronto a questa, è vera. È storia. È umanità. È ciò che è realmente accaduto, ciò che sappiamo essere realmente accaduto, ciò che sappiamo star realmente ancora accadendo. È il fatto centrale della vostra stessa civiltà. Ed è la cosa che vi è stata realmente tenuta nascosta.»
Notre Dame non è un mito. Notre Dame non è una teoria. Il suo interesse non scaturisce dall’ignoranza ma dalla conoscenza; da una cultura complicata da cento controversie e rivoluzioni. Non è priva di caratteristiche, ma è scolpita in un’incredibile foresta e labirinto di tratti affascinanti, di ognuno dei quali potremmo parlare per giorni. Non è grande perché ce n’è poca, ma grande perché ce n’è moltissima. È vero che, per quanto ce ne sia moltissima, ai puritani potrebbe non esser concesso di vederci molto; sia che fossero quelli portati oltremare sul «Mayflower», sia che fossero soltanto quelli allevati sul mito del «Mayflower». Ma questo non è colpa di Notre Dame; bensì della straordinaria evasione con cui simile gente riesce a scansarla a destra o a sinistra, rifugiandosi in cose più recenti o in cose più remote. Notre Dame, nel suo lato meramente umano, è la civiltà medievale, e perciò non una favola o una congettura, ma una grande, solida, determinante parte della civiltà moderna. È tutto il dibattito moderno sulle corporazioni; ché tali cattedrali furono edificate dalle corporazioni. È tutta la questione moderna della religione e dell’irreligione; ché noi sappiamo quale religione essa rappresenti, mentre non abbiamo davvero la minima idea di quale religione rappresenti Stonehenge. Un tempio druidico è una rovina, e una nave puritana, col tempo, potrebbe ormai bene esser detta un relitto. Ma una chiesa è una sfida; ed è per questo che non trova risposta.
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STORIA FIN TROPPO MODERNA
TUTTI gli uomini saggi converranno che la storia dovrebbe essere insegnata più pienamente nella forma di storia mondiale. Sotto questo aspetto almeno il signor Wells ci ha dato un eccellente modello di lavoro. L’Inghilterra è priva di senso senza l’Europa, più priva di senso di quanto l’Inghilterra lo sia senza l’Impero. Ma coloro che vorrebbero allargare la storia con la fratellanza umana troppo spesso soffrono di una limitazione non assente nemmeno dal signor Wells. Barattano la ristrettezza di una nazione con la ristrettezza di una teoria, o addirittura di una mania. Credono di possedere una filosofia valida per il mondo intero perché estendono la propria ristrettezza al mondo intero. Un illustre professore, membro dell’Unione della Società delle Nazioni, ha spiegato a un intervistatore che cosa a suo avviso i libri di storia dovrebbero insegnare. E mi pare che, stando alle sue vedute se correttamente riferite, le nuove storie sarebbero piuttosto più prevenute e limitate delle vecchie.
He begins with a small but singular error, which itself shows some lack of the imagination that can see two sides of a question. He says, “Textbooks of history should aim at truth. It should not be possible for one version of the American War of Independence to be taught in American schools, and another in English schools.”
Now, in point of fact, the same version of that story is taught both in English and American schools. It is the other version, a very tenable one, that is not allowed to be taught anywhere. No American historian, however American, could be more positive that George III was wrong and George Washington right than all the English historians are. What would show real independence of mind would be to state the case for George III. And there was a very real case for George III. I will not go into it here, but every honest historical student will agree with me. Perhaps the fairest way of putting it is this: that it was not really a case of a government resolved on tyranny, but of a nation resolved on independence.
But if we sympathize with national independence, surely there is something to be said for intellectual independence. And the professor is far from being really sympathetic with intellectual independence. He is so far from it that he wants both sides forced to tell the same story, apparently whether they like it or not. As a fact, they do agree; but apparently in any case the professor would coerce them into agreement. And his extraordinary reason for this course is that history should aim at truth.
But suppose I do aim at truth, and sincerely come to the conclusion that North was a patriot and Burke a sophist? How would the professor prevent it being “possible” for me to teach what I think is true? The truth is that it has never occurred to these progressive professors that there could be any view of any question except their own, or what they call their own. For it is only a tradition they have been taught; a tradition as narrow as North’s and now nearly as old.
But the professor goes on to say something much more interesting and curious. After saying very truly that the past, the Plantagenet period, for instance, should not be made a mere matter of kings and battles, he goes on to say, “What we want to see is the textbook of history and the teaching of it brought more closely into touch with the realities of the modern world— the world of the division of labour between different countries, of the application of science to industry, of the shortening of the spaces of the earth by improvements in transport— and with all that these realities imply.”
Now it seems to me obvious that what we want is exactly the opposite. A child can see these realities of the modern world, whether he is taught any history or not. He will see them whether you want him to or not. As he grows up he will learn by experience all about the improvements in transport, its acceleration by Zeppelins and its interruption by submarines. He will realize for himself that the modern world is the world of the division of labour between nations. For he will know that England has been turned into an isolated workshop with hardly food enough for a fortnight, with the potential alternative of surrender or starvation or eating nails. He will by the light of nature know all about the application of science to industry—in war by chemical analyses of poison gas, in peace by bright little pamphlets about phossy jaw. He will know “all that these realities imply,” about which also there is very much that might be said. But even if we consider only the somewhat cheerier products of the division of labour and the application of science to industry, there is quite as little need laboriously to instruct the infant in what he can see for himself. A child has a very pure and poetical love of machinery, a love in which there is nothing in the least evil or materialistic. But it is hardly necessary to devote years to proving to him that motor-cars have been invented, as he can see them going by in the street. It is not necessary to read up in the British Museum the details with which to demonstrate that there are really such things as tube stations or motor bicycles. The child can see these things everywhere, and the real danger obviously is that he should think they had existed always. The danger is that he should know nothing of humanity, except as it is under these special and sometimes cramping conditions of scientific industry and the division of labour. It is that he should be unable to imagine any civilization without tube stations, whatever its substitutes in the way of temples or trophies of war. It is that he should see man as a sort of cyclist-centaur, inseparable from his motor-bike. In short, the whole danger of historical ignorance is that he may be as limited to his local circumstances as a savage on an island, or a provincial in a decayed town, or a historical professor in the League of Nations Union.
The whole object of history is to enlarge experience by imagination. And this sort of history would enlarge neither imagination nor experience. The whole object of history is to make us realize that humanity could be great and glorious, under conditions quite different and even contrary to our own. It is to teach us that men could achieve most profitable labour without our own division of labour. It is to teach us that men could be industrious without being industrial. It is to make us understand that there might be a world in which there was far less improvement in the transport for visiting various places, and there might still be a very great improvement in the places visited.
The professor is perfectly right in saying that a history of the Plantagenet period ought not merely to record the succession of kings and battles. But what ought it to record? Is it to record only the absence of motors and electric lights? Should we say nothing of the Plantagenet period except that it did not have motor-bikes? I venture to suggest that we might record the presence of some things which the whole people had then and have not got now, such as the guilds, the great popular universities, the use of the common lands, the fraternity of the common creed.
Egli comincia con un piccolo ma singolare errore, che di per sé rivela una certa mancanza di quell’immaginazione capace di vedere i due lati di una questione. Dice: «I manuali di storia dovrebbero mirare alla verità. Non dovrebbe essere possibile che una versione della Guerra d’Indipendenza americana sia insegnata nelle scuole americane, e un’altra nelle scuole inglesi.»
Ora, in verità, la medesima versione di quella storia è insegnata tanto nelle scuole inglesi quanto in quelle americane. È l’altra versione, assai sostenibile, che non è ammessa in alcun luogo all’insegnamento. Nessuno storico americano, per quanto americano, potrebbe essere più categorico di tutti gli storici inglesi nel sostenere che Giorgio III aveva torto e George Washington ragione. Ciò che rivelerebbe una reale indipendenza di spirito sarebbe esporre le ragioni di Giorgio III. E c’erano ragioni assai reali in favore di Giorgio III. Non entrerò qui nel merito, ma ogni onesto studioso di storia converrà con me. Forse il modo più equo di dirlo è questo: che non si trattava in realtà del caso di un governo risoluto alla tirannia, ma di una nazione risoluta all’indipendenza.
Ma se simpatizziamo con l’indipendenza nazionale, di certo qualcosa si può dire in favore dell’indipendenza intellettuale. E il professore è ben lungi dall’essere davvero solidale con l’indipendenza intellettuale. Ne è tanto lontano che vuole entrambe le parti costrette a raccontare la medesima storia, a quanto pare che piaccia loro o no. Di fatto, esse concordano; ma a quanto pare il professore, in ogni caso, le costringerebbe con la forza all’accordo. E la sua straordinaria ragione per tale procedere è che la storia dovrebbe mirare alla verità.
Ma supponiamo che io miri effettivamente alla verità, e giunga sinceramente alla conclusione che North era un patriota e Burke un sofista? Come farebbe il professore a impedire che sia «possibile» per me insegnare ciò che ritengo vero? La verità è che a questi professori progressisti non è mai venuto in mente che potesse esistere un qualsiasi punto di vista su una qualsiasi questione all’infuori del proprio, o di ciò che chiamano il proprio. Poiché non è che una tradizione che è stata loro insegnata; una tradizione angusta quanto quella di North e ormai quasi altrettanto antica.
Ma il professore prosegue dicendo qualcosa di assai più interessante e curioso. Dopo aver detto, con molta verità, che il passato, il periodo dei Plantageneti ad esempio, non dovrebbe essere ridotto a una mera faccenda di re e di battaglie, prosegue dicendo: «Ciò che vogliamo vedere è il manuale di storia e il suo insegnamento posti più strettamente in contatto con le realtà del mondo moderno — il mondo della divisione del lavoro tra i diversi paesi, dell’applicazione della scienza all’industria, dell’accorciamento degli spazi della terra grazie ai progressi nei trasporti — e con tutto ciò che tali realtà implicano.»
Ora mi pare ovvio che ciò che vogliamo è esattamente l’opposto. Un bambino può vedere queste realtà del mondo moderno, che gli sia insegnata o no un po’ di storia. Le vedrà, che lo vogliate o no. Crescendo apprenderà per esperienza tutto ciò che riguarda i progressi nei trasporti, la loro accelerazione ad opera degli Zeppelin e la loro interruzione ad opera dei sommergibili. Si renderà conto da sé che il mondo moderno è il mondo della divisione del lavoro tra le nazioni. Poiché saprà che l’Inghilterra è stata trasformata in un’officina isolata con a stento cibo sufficiente per una quindicina di giorni, con la potenziale alternativa fra la resa, la fame o il mangiare chiodi. Saprà, al lume di natura, tutto ciò che riguarda l’applicazione della scienza all’industria: in guerra con le analisi chimiche dei gas velenosi, in pace con lucidi opuscoletti sulla necrosi fosforica della mascella. Saprà «tutto ciò che tali realtà implicano», riguardo a cui pure vi sarebbe moltissimo da dire. Ma anche se consideriamo soltanto i prodotti alquanto più allegri della divisione del lavoro e dell’applicazione della scienza all’industria, vi è altrettanto poco bisogno di istruire faticosamente l’infante in ciò che può vedere da sé. Un bambino ha un amore purissimo e poetico per i macchinari, un amore in cui non c’è nulla di minimamente malvagio o materialistico. Ma non è certo necessario dedicare anni a dimostrargli che le automobili sono state inventate, giacché può vederle passare per la strada. Non è necessario andare a documentarsi al British Museum sui particolari con cui provare che esistono davvero cose come le stazioni della metropolitana o le motociclette. Il bambino può vedere queste cose dappertutto, e il vero pericolo, ovviamente, è che egli pensi che siano sempre esistite. Il pericolo è che egli non sappia nulla dell’umanità, se non quale essa è sotto queste condizioni particolari e talora anguste dell’industria scientifica e della divisione del lavoro. È che egli sia incapace d’immaginare una qualsiasi civiltà priva di stazioni della metropolitana, quali che ne siano i sostituti sotto forma di templi o di trofei di guerra. È che egli veda l’uomo come una sorta di centauro-ciclista, inseparabile dalla sua motocicletta. In breve, tutto il pericolo dell’ignoranza storica è che egli possa essere limitato alle proprie circostanze locali quanto un selvaggio su un’isola, o un provinciale in una città decaduta, o un professore di storia nell’Unione della Società delle Nazioni.
Tutto lo scopo della storia è ampliare l’esperienza mediante l’immaginazione. E questa specie di storia non amplierebbe né l’immaginazione né l’esperienza. Tutto lo scopo della storia è farci comprendere che l’umanità poteva essere grande e gloriosa, in condizioni del tutto diverse e persino contrarie alle nostre. È insegnarci che gli uomini potevano compiere il più proficuo dei lavori senza la nostra divisione del lavoro. È insegnarci che gli uomini potevano essere operosi senza essere industriali. È farci intendere che potrebbe esistere un mondo in cui vi fosse assai meno perfezionamento nei trasporti per visitare i vari luoghi, e vi potrebbe pur essere un grandissimo perfezionamento nei luoghi visitati.
Il professore ha perfettamente ragione nel dire che una storia del periodo dei Plantageneti non dovrebbe limitarsi a registrare la successione di re e di battaglie. Ma che cosa dovrebbe registrare? Deve registrare soltanto l’assenza di automobili e di luci elettriche? Dovremmo dire del periodo dei Plantageneti null’altro se non che non aveva le motociclette? Mi permetto di suggerire che potremmo registrare la presenza di alcune cose che l’intero popolo aveva allora e ora non ha più, come le corporazioni, le grandi università popolari, l’uso delle terre comuni, la fraternità del credo comune.
I fear the professor will not follow me into matters so disturbing to his perfect picture of progress. But, in conclusion, there is one little question I should like to ask him, and it is this: If you cannot see Man, divine and democratic, under the disguises of all the centuries, why on earth should you suppose you will be able to see him under the disguises of all the nations and tribes? If the Dark Ages must be as dark as they look, why are the black men not so black as they are painted? If I may feel supercilious towards a Chaldean, why not towards a Chinaman? If I may despise a Roman for not having a steam-plough, why not a Russian for not wanting a steam-plough? If scientific industry is the supreme historical test, it divides us as much from backward peoples as from bygone peoples. It divides even European peoples from each other. And if that be the test, why bother to join the League of Nations Union?
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THE EVOLUTION OF SLAVES
A VERY curious and interesting thing has recently happened in America. There has suddenly appeared an organized political attack on Darwinian Evolution, led by an old demagogue appealing entirely to the ideals of democracy. I mean no discredit to Mr. Bryan in calling him a demagogue; for I should have been far more heartily on his side in the days when he was a demagogue than in the days when he was a diplomatist. He was a much wiser man when he refused to allow the financiers to crucify humanity on a golden cross, than when he consented to allow the Kaiser to crucify it on an iron cross. The movement is religious and therefore popular; but it is Protestant and therefore provincial. Its opponents, the old guard of materialism, will of course do their best to represent it as something like the village that voted the earth was flat. But there is one sharp difference, which is the point of the whole position. If an ignorant man went about saying that the earth was flat, the scientific man would promptly and confidently answer, “Oh, nonsense; of course it’s round.” He might even condescend to give the real reasons, which I believe are quite different from the current ones. But when the private citizen rushes wild-eyed down the streets of Heliopolis, Neb., calling out “Have you heard the news? Darwin’s wrong!” the scientific man does not say, “Oh, nonsense, of course he’s right.” He says tremulously, “Not entirely wrong; surely not entirely wrong”; and we can draw our conclusions. But I believe myself there is a deeper and more democratic force behind this reaction; and I think it worthy of further study.
I recently heard a debate on that American system of class privilege which we call for convenience Prohibition; and I was very much amused by one argument that was advanced in its favour. A very intelligent young American, a Rhodes scholar from Oxford, advanced the thesis that Prohibition was not a violation of liberty because, if it were fully established, its victims would never know what they had lost. If a generation of total abstainers could once grow up “without the desire” for drink, they would not be conscious of any restraint on their freedom. The argument is ingenious and promising and opens up a wide field of application. Thus, if I happen to find it convenient to keep miners or other proletarians permanently underground, I have only to make sure that all their babies are born in pitch darkness and they will certainly never imagine the light of day. My action therefore will not only be just and benevolent in itself, but will obviously involve not even the faintest infringement of the ideal of freedom. Or if I merely kidnap all the babies from all the mothers in the country, it is obvious that the infants will not remember their mothers, and in that sense will not miss them. There is therefore no reason why I should not adopt this course; and even if I hide the babies from their mothers by locking them up in boxes, I shall not be violating the principle of liberty; because the babies will not understand what I have done. Or, to take a comparison even closer in many ways, there is an ordinary social problem like dress. I come to the conclusion that ladies spend too much money on dress, that it is a social evil because families suffer from the extravagance, and rivalries and seductions distract the State. I therefore decree, on the lines of Prohibitionist logic, that the law shall forbid anybody to wear any clothes at all. Nobody who grows up naked, according to this theory, will ever have any regrets for beauty or dignity or decency; and therefore will have suffered no loss. I cannot sufficiently express my admiration for the extraordinary simplicity which can smooth the path of Prussianism with this large, elementary and satisfactory principle. So long as we tyrannize enough we are not tyrannizing at all; and so long as we steal enough our victims will never know what has been stolen. Seriously, everybody knows that the rich planning the oppression of the poor will never lack a sycophant to act as a sophist. But I never dreamed that I should live to enjoy so crude and stark and startling a sophistry as this.
But the last example I gave, that of the normality of clothes or of nakedness, has a further relevance in this connection. What is really at the back of the minds of the people who say these strange things is one very simple error. They imagine that the drinking of fermented liquor has been an artifice and a luxury; something odd like the strange self-indulgences praised by the decadent poets. This is simply an accident of the ignorance of history and humanity. Drinking fermented liquor is not a fashion like wearing a green carnation. It is a habit like wearing clothes. It is one of the habits that are indeed man’s second nature; if indeed they are not his first nature. Wine is purest and healthiest in the highest civilization, just as clothing is most complete in the highest civilization. But there is nothing to show that the savage has not shed the clothes of a higher civilization, retaining only the ornaments; as a good many fashionable people in our own civilization seem to be doing now. And there is nothing to show that ruder races who brew their “native beers” in Africa or Polynesia have not lost the art of brewing something better; just as Prohibitionist America, before our very eyes, has left off brewing Christian beer and taken to drinking fermented wood-pulp and methylated spirit. The very example of modern America falling from better to baser drinks, under a dismal taboo, is a perfect model of the way in which civilizations have relapsed into savagery, and produced the savages we know. But the point is that drink, like dress, is the rule; and the exceptions only prove the rule. There are individuals who for personal and particular reasons are right to drink no liquor but water; just as there are individuals who have to stay in bed, and wear no clothes but bedclothes. There have been sects of Moslems and there have been sects of Adamites. There have been, as I have said, barbarized peoples fallen so far from civilization as to wear grotesque garments or none, or to drink bad beer or none. But nobody has ever seen Primitive Man, naked and drinking water; he is a myth of the modern mythologists. Man, as Aristotle saw long ago, is an abnormal animal whose nature it is to be civilized. In so far as he ever becomes uncivilized he becomes unnatural, and even artificial.
Temo che il professore non mi seguirà in materie tanto perturbanti per il suo perfetto quadro del progresso. Ma, in conclusione, c’è una piccola domanda che vorrei porgli, ed è questa: se non riuscite a scorgere l’Uomo, divino e democratico, sotto le maschere di tutti i secoli, perché mai dovreste supporre di riuscire a scorgerlo sotto le maschere di tutte le nazioni e di tutte le tribù? Se i secoli bui devono essere bui quanto appaiono, perché gli uomini neri non sono così neri come li si dipinge? Se posso sentirmi altezzoso verso un caldeo, perché non verso un cinese? Se posso disprezzare un romano per non aver avuto l’aratro a vapore, perché non un russo per non volere l’aratro a vapore? Se l’industria scientifica è il supremo criterio storico, essa ci separa dai popoli arretrati tanto quanto dai popoli trascorsi. Separa persino i popoli europei l’uno dall’altro. E se questo è il criterio, perché darsi la pena di aderire all’Unione della Società delle Nazioni?
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L’EVOLUZIONE DEGLI SCHIAVI
UNA cosa assai curiosa e interessante è avvenuta di recente in America. È comparso all’improvviso un attacco politico organizzato contro l’Evoluzione darwiniana, guidato da un vecchio demagogo che si appella interamente agli ideali della democrazia. Non intendo screditare il signor Bryan nel chiamarlo demagogo; ché sarei stato assai più cordialmente dalla sua parte ai tempi in cui era un demagogo che ai tempi in cui era un diplomatico. Era un uomo assai più saggio quando rifiutava di lasciare che i finanzieri crocifiggessero l’umanità su una croce d’oro, che quando acconsentì a lasciare che il Kaiser la crocifiggesse su una croce di ferro. Il movimento è religioso e perciò popolare; ma è protestante e perciò provinciale. I suoi avversari, la vecchia guardia del materialismo, faranno naturalmente del loro meglio per rappresentarlo come qualcosa di simile al villaggio che votò essere piatta la terra. Ma c’è una netta differenza, che è il punto dell’intera faccenda. Se un uomo ignorante andasse in giro dicendo che la terra è piatta, l’uomo di scienza risponderebbe pronto e sicuro: «Oh, sciocchezze; è tonda, naturalmente.» Potrebbe persino degnarsi di fornire le vere ragioni, che credo siano assai diverse da quelle correnti. Ma quando il privato cittadino si precipita con gli occhi stralunati per le vie di Heliopolis, nel Nebraska, gridando: «Avete sentito la notizia? Darwin ha torto!», l’uomo di scienza non dice: «Oh, sciocchezze, ha ragione, naturalmente.» Dice tremante: «Non del tutto in errore; di certo non del tutto in errore»; e noi possiamo trarne le nostre conclusioni. Ma io credo che dietro questa reazione vi sia una forza più profonda e più democratica; e la ritengo degna di ulteriore studio.
Ho udito di recente un dibattito su quel sistema americano di privilegio di classe che per comodità chiamiamo Proibizionismo; e mi divertì assai un argomento che vi fu avanzato in suo favore. Un giovane americano assai intelligente, uno studente Rhodes proveniente da Oxford, avanzò la tesi che il Proibizionismo non fosse una violazione della libertà perché, se fosse pienamente instaurato, le sue vittime non saprebbero mai che cosa avessero perduto. Se una generazione di astemi totali potesse una buona volta crescere «senza il desiderio» del bere, non sarebbe consapevole di alcuna costrizione della propria libertà. L’argomento è ingegnoso e promettente e apre un ampio campo di applicazione. Così, se mi càpita di trovar comodo tenere i minatori o altri proletari permanentemente sottoterra, non ho che da assicurarmi che tutti i loro neonati vengano al mondo in un buio pesto, ed essi non immagineranno di certo mai la luce del giorno. La mia azione dunque non solo sarà in sé giusta e benevola, ma ovviamente non comporterà nemmeno la più lieve violazione dell’ideale della libertà. Oppure, se mi limito a rapire tutti i neonati a tutte le madri del paese, è ovvio che gli infanti non ricorderanno le loro madri, e in tal senso non ne sentiranno la mancanza. Non c’è perciò ragione per cui io non debba seguire questa via; e persino se nascondo i neonati alle loro madri rinchiudendoli in scatole, non starò violando il principio della libertà; perché i neonati non capiranno che cosa ho fatto. Oppure, per prendere un paragone per molti versi ancor più stretto, c’è un ordinario problema sociale come l’abbigliamento. Giungo alla conclusione che le signore spendono troppo denaro in abiti, che ciò è un male sociale perché le famiglie soffrono per la prodigalità, e le rivalità e le seduzioni distraggono lo Stato. Decreto perciò, sulla falsariga della logica proibizionista, che la legge vieti a chiunque di indossare qualsivoglia abito. Nessuno che cresca nudo, secondo questa teoria, proverà mai alcun rimpianto per la bellezza o la dignità o il decoro; e perciò non avrà subìto alcuna perdita. Non riesco a esprimere abbastanza la mia ammirazione per la straordinaria semplicità capace di spianare la via al prussianesimo con questo ampio, elementare e soddisfacente principio. Finché tiranneggiamo abbastanza non stiamo affatto tiranneggiando; e finché rubiamo abbastanza le nostre vittime non sapranno mai che cosa è stato rubato. Sul serio, tutti sanno che i ricchi che tramano l’oppressione dei poveri non mancheranno mai di un adulatore pronto a fare da sofista. Ma non avrei mai immaginato di vivere abbastanza per godermi un sofisma così crudo, così nudo e così sbalorditivo come questo.
Ma l’ultimo esempio che ho fatto, quello della normalità degli abiti o della nudità, ha un’ulteriore pertinenza a questo riguardo. Ciò che sta davvero in fondo alla mente delle persone che dicono queste strane cose è un errore molto semplice. Esse immaginano che il bere liquori fermentati sia stato un artificio e un lusso; qualcosa di bizzarro come le strane compiacenze verso se stessi lodate dai poeti decadenti. Questo è semplicemente un accidente dell’ignoranza della storia e dell’umanità. Bere liquore fermentato non è una moda come portare un garofano verde. È un’abitudine come portare gli abiti. È una di quelle abitudini che sono davvero la seconda natura dell’uomo; se pure non sono la sua prima natura. Il vino è più puro e più salubre nella più alta civiltà, così come l’abbigliamento è più completo nella più alta civiltà. Ma nulla dimostra che il selvaggio non si sia spogliato degli abiti di una civiltà superiore, conservandone soltanto gli ornamenti; come parecchie persone alla moda nella nostra stessa civiltà paiono fare ora. E nulla dimostra che le razze più rozze che fabbricano le loro «birre indigene» in Africa o in Polinesia non abbiano perduto l’arte di fabbricare qualcosa di migliore; proprio come l’America proibizionista, sotto i nostri stessi occhi, ha smesso di fabbricare birra cristiana e si è messa a bere polpa di legno fermentata e alcol denaturato. Proprio l’esempio dell’America moderna che decade da bevande migliori a bevande più vili, sotto un tetro tabù, è un modello perfetto del modo in cui le civiltà sono ricadute nella barbarie, e hanno prodotto i selvaggi che conosciamo. Ma il punto è che il bere, come il vestire, è la regola; e le eccezioni non fanno che confermare la regola. Vi sono individui che per ragioni personali e particolari fanno bene a non bere altro liquore che acqua; proprio come vi sono individui che devono restare a letto, e non indossare altri panni che quelli del letto. Vi sono state sette di maomettani e vi sono state sette di adamiti. Vi sono stati, come ho detto, popoli imbarbariti caduti così in basso dalla civiltà da indossare vesti grottesche o nessuna, o da bere birra cattiva o nessuna. Ma nessuno ha mai visto l’Uomo Primitivo, nudo e in atto di bere acqua; egli è un mito dei mitologi moderni. L’uomo, come vide Aristotele molto tempo fa, è un animale anormale la cui natura è di essere civilizzato. Nella misura in cui mai divenga incivile, egli diventa innaturale, e persino artificiale.
Now at the back of all this, of course, the real difference is religious. I only take this one case of what is called temperance for the sake of the wider philosophy that underlies it. When my young American friend talked of the next generation growing up without the desire for “alcohol,” he had at the back of his mind a certain idea. It is the idea which I have just seen expressed by another American in a high-brow article, in the words: “Evolution does not stand still. We are not finished. The world is not finished.” What it means is that the nature of man can be modified to suit the convenience of particular men; and this would certainly be very convenient. If the rich man wants the miners to live underground, he may really breed for it a new race as blind as bats and owls. If he finds it cheaper to run the school and school inspections on Adamite principles, he can hope to produce Adamites not merely as a sect but as a species. And the same will be true of teetotalism or vegetarianism; nature, having evolved man, who is an ale-drinking animal, may now evolve a super-man, or a sub-man, who shall be a water-drinking animal. Having risen from a monkey who eats nuts to a man who eats mutton, he may rise yet higher by eating nuts again.
Thinking people, of course, know that all that is nonsense. They know there is no such constant flux of adaption. So far from saying that the evolution of man has not finished, they will point out that (as far as we know) it has not begun. In all the five thousand years of recorded history, and in all the prehistoric indications before it, there is not a shadow or suspicion of movement or change in the human biological type. Even evolution, let alone natural selection, is only a conjecture about things unknown, compared with the broad daylight of things known in all those thousands of years. The only difference is that evolution seems a probable conjecture, and natural selection is on the face of it an extravagantly improbable one. All this, which is obvious to thinking people, has at last become obvious even to the most unthinking; and that is the meaning of the attack on Darwinism in America and the battle of Mr. Bryan against the Missing Link. The secret is out. The obscurantism of the professors is over. Those of us who have humbly hammered on this point from time to time suddenly find ourselves hammering on an open door. For these changes almost always come suddenly; which is alone enough to show that human history at least has never been merely an evolution. As Darwinism came with a rush, so anti-Darwinism has come with a rush; and just as people who accepted evolution could not be held back from embracing natural selection, so it is likely enough that many, who now see reason to reject natural selection, will not be stopped in their course till they have also rejected evolution. They will merely have a vague but angry conviction that the professors have been kidding them. But behind all this there will be a very real moral and religious reaction; the meaning of which is what I have described in this article. It is the profound popular impression that scientific materialism, at the end of its hundred years, is found to have been used chiefly for the oppression of the people. Of this the most evident example is that evolution itself can be offered as something able to evolve a people who can be oppressed. As in the argument about Prohibition, it will offer to breed slaves; to produce a new race indifferent to its rights. Morally the argument is quite indistinguishable from justifying assassination by promising to bring up children as suicides, who will prefer to be poisoned.
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IS DARWIN DEAD?
MR. ERNEST NEWMAN, that lively and acute critic, once rebuked the arrogance of those of us who confessed that we knew nothing about music. Why he should suppose we are arrogant about it, if he does think so, I cannot quite understand. I, for one, am fully conscious of my inferiority to him and others through this deficiency; nor is it, alas, the only deficiency. I have sometimes thought it would be wholesome for anybody who has succeeded pretty well by some trick of some trade, to have a huge notice board or diagram hung in front of him all day; showing exactly where he stood in all the other crafts and competitions of mankind. Thus the poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling, as it rose from the paper on which an entirely new type of villanelle had just sprung into being, would encounter the disconcerting facts and figures about his suitability to be a professional acrobat or a pearl-diver. On the other hand, the radiant victor in the great International Egg and Spoon Race can see at a glance how very far down he stands, so to speak, in the queue of those waiting for the post of Astronomer Royal. Most of us have at least one or two gaps in our general culture and information; and sometimes whole departments of knowledge are practically hidden from whole generations and classes of mankind. There is something very defective and disproportionate about even the ideal culture of a modern man. It may be that Mr. Newman is deeply read in that mediaeval theology which is still the sub-conscious basis of most morality; but it is also possible that he is not. He may have at his fingers’ ends that military art which has often turned the fortunes of history; but he may not. He would be none the less a highly cultivated gentleman, if he did not. Yet the mystical and the military mind have been at least as pivotal and practical in history as the musical mind. I can admire them all, but I have no claim to possess any of them.
But my ignorance of music happens to assist me with a convenient metaphor in the more controversial matter of my ignorance of science. I once made some remarks about the decline of Darwinism, in a review of the Wells “Outline of History.” This aroused rather excited criticism; but one comparatively calm critic challenged what really interests me in the matter: he said that my conundrums about the wing of the bat and similar things “could easily be solved on purely Darwinian lines by any competent zoologist, or even by one so incompetent as myself.” The conundrum in question, of course, concerns the survival value of features in their unfinished state. If a thing can fly it may survive, and if it has a wing it may fly; but if it cannot fly with half a wing, why should it survive with half a wing? Yet Darwinism pre-supposes that numberless generations could survive before one generation could fly. Now it is quite true that I am not even an incompetent zoologist; and that my critic is more competent than I, if only in the mere fact of being a zoologist at all. Nevertheless, I adhere to my opinion, and do so for a reason that seems to me worthy of some little consideration. I do it because this does happen to be exactly one of those questions on which, as it seems to me, the independent critic has really a right to check the specialist. For it is a larger question of logic, and not a smaller question of fact. It is like the difficulty of believing that a halfpenny can fall head or tail a hundred times running; which has nothing to do with the numismatic value of the coin. It is like the difficulty of believing that a mere tax could make a loaf cheaper, which has nothing to do with the agrarian craft of growing corn. There is a general tide of reason flowing against such improbabilities, even if they are possibilities; they would still be exceptions, and reason would be on the side of the rule. And whatever the details of natural history, this thing is against the very nature of things.
Ora, in fondo a tutto questo, naturalmente, la vera differenza è religiosa. Prendo questo unico caso di ciò che si chiama temperanza soltanto per amore della più ampia filosofia che vi soggiace. Quando il mio giovane amico americano parlava della prossima generazione che sarebbe cresciuta senza il desiderio di «alcol», aveva in fondo alla mente una certa idea. È l’idea che ho appena visto espressa da un altro americano in un articolo di alto profilo, con queste parole: «L’evoluzione non si ferma. Noi non siamo finiti. Il mondo non è finito.» Ciò che essa significa è che la natura dell’uomo può essere modificata per adattarsi alla convenienza di uomini particolari; e questo sarebbe di certo assai comodo. Se il ricco vuole che i minatori vivano sottoterra, può davvero allevare a tal fine una nuova razza cieca come i pipistrelli e i gufi. Se trova più economico gestire la scuola e le ispezioni scolastiche secondo princìpi adamiti, può sperare di produrre adamiti non soltanto come una setta, ma come una specie. E lo stesso varrà per l’astinenza totale o il vegetarianismo; la natura, avendo evoluto l’uomo, che è un animale bevitore di birra, potrà ora evolvere un super-uomo, o un sotto-uomo, che sarà un animale bevitore d’acqua. Essendo asceso da una scimmia che mangia noci a un uomo che mangia montone, egli potrà ascendere ancor più in alto mangiando di nuovo noci.
Le persone che pensano, s’intende, sanno che tutto ciò è una sciocchezza. Sanno che non esiste un simile flusso costante di adattamento. Ben lungi dal dire che l’evoluzione dell’uomo non è finita, faranno notare che (per quanto ne sappiamo) essa non è nemmeno cominciata. In tutti i cinquemila anni di storia documentata, e in tutte le indicazioni preistoriche che li precedono, non c’è ombra o sospetto di movimento o mutamento nel tipo biologico umano. Persino l’evoluzione, figuriamoci la selezione naturale, è soltanto una congettura su cose ignote, se paragonata alla piena luce del giorno delle cose note in tutte quelle migliaia di anni. L’unica differenza è che l’evoluzione appare una congettura probabile, mentre la selezione naturale è a prima vista una congettura stravagantemente improbabile. Tutto ciò, che è ovvio per le persone che pensano, è finalmente divenuto ovvio persino per i più sconsiderati; ed è questo il significato dell’attacco al darwinismo in America e della battaglia del signor Bryan contro l’Anello Mancante. Il segreto è svelato. L’oscurantismo dei professori è finito. Quelli fra noi che umilmente hanno martellato su questo punto di tempo in tempo si ritrovano d’improvviso a martellare su una porta aperta. Poiché questi cambiamenti giungono quasi sempre all’improvviso; il che solo basta a mostrare che la storia umana, quantomeno, non è mai stata una mera evoluzione. Come il darwinismo giunse in un impeto, così l’antidarwinismo è giunto in un impeto; e proprio come coloro che accettarono l’evoluzione non poterono essere trattenuti dall’abbracciare la selezione naturale, così è assai probabile che molti, i quali ora vedono ragione di respingere la selezione naturale, non si fermeranno nel loro corso finché non avranno respinto anche l’evoluzione. Avranno soltanto la vaga ma rabbiosa convinzione che i professori li abbiano presi in giro. Ma dietro tutto ciò vi sarà una reazione morale e religiosa quanto mai reale; il cui significato è ciò che ho descritto in questo articolo. È la profonda impressione popolare che il materialismo scientifico, al termine dei suoi cent’anni, si scopra essere stato usato principalmente per l’oppressione del popolo. Di ciò l’esempio più evidente è che l’evoluzione stessa può essere offerta come qualcosa in grado di far evolvere un popolo che possa essere oppresso. Come nell’argomento sul Proibizionismo, essa si offrirà di allevare schiavi; di produrre una nuova razza indifferente ai propri diritti. Sul piano morale l’argomento è del tutto indistinguibile dal giustificare l’assassinio promettendo di allevare i figli come suicidi, che preferiranno essere avvelenati.
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DARWIN È MORTO?
IL SIGNOR ERNEST NEWMAN, quel critico vivace e acuto, un tempo rimproverò l’arroganza di quelli fra noi che confessavano di non saperne nulla di musica. Perché egli debba supporci arroganti al riguardo, se davvero lo pensa, non riesco bene a capirlo. Io, per parte mia, sono pienamente conscio della mia inferiorità rispetto a lui e ad altri per via di questa deficienza; né essa è, ahimè, l’unica deficienza. Ho talvolta pensato che sarebbe salutare, per chiunque sia riuscito piuttosto bene grazie a qualche trucco di qualche mestiere, avere per tutto il giorno appeso dinanzi a sé un enorme cartello o diagramma; che mostrasse esattamente a che punto egli si trovi in tutte le altre arti e competizioni dell’umanità. Così l’occhio del poeta, roteante in una nobile frenesia, mentre si levava dal foglio su cui era appena venuto all’essere un tipo del tutto nuovo di villanella, incontrerebbe gli sconcertanti fatti e cifre circa la sua idoneità a fare l’acrobata professionista o il pescatore di perle. D’altra parte, il raggiante vincitore della grande Corsa Internazionale con l’Uovo e il Cucchiaio può vedere a colpo d’occhio quanto in basso egli si trovi, per così dire, nella fila di coloro che attendono il posto di Astronomo Reale. La maggior parte di noi ha almeno una o due lacune nella propria cultura e informazione generale; e talvolta interi settori del sapere sono praticamente celati a intere generazioni e classi dell’umanità. C’è qualcosa di assai difettoso e sproporzionato persino nella cultura ideale di un uomo moderno. Può darsi che il signor Newman sia profondamente versato in quella teologia medievale che è ancora la base subcosciente della maggior parte della morale; ma è anche possibile che non lo sia. Può avere sulla punta delle dita quell’arte militare che ha spesso mutato le sorti della storia; ma può darsi di no. Non sarebbe per questo meno un gentiluomo altamente coltivato, se non l’avesse. Eppure la mente mistica e la mente militare sono state nella storia almeno tanto cardinali e pratiche quanto la mente musicale. Posso ammirarle tutte, ma non ho titolo a possederne alcuna.
Ma la mia ignoranza della musica si dà il caso mi soccorra con una comoda metafora nella più controversa faccenda della mia ignoranza della scienza. Feci un tempo alcune osservazioni sul declino del darwinismo, in una recensione dell’«Outline of History» di Wells. Ciò suscitò critiche piuttosto eccitate; ma un critico comparativamente calmo mise in discussione ciò che davvero m’interessa nella questione: disse che i miei indovinelli sull’ala del pipistrello e cose simili «potrebbero facilmente essere risolti su basi puramente darwiniane da qualunque zoologo competente, o persino da uno incompetente come me». L’indovinello in questione, s’intende, riguarda il valore di sopravvivenza di caratteri nel loro stato incompiuto. Se una cosa può volare può sopravvivere, e se ha un’ala può volare; ma se non può volare con mezza ala, perché dovrebbe sopravvivere con mezza ala? Eppure il darwinismo presuppone che innumerevoli generazioni potessero sopravvivere prima che una generazione potesse volare. Ora è verissimo che io non sono nemmeno uno zoologo incompetente; e che il mio critico è più competente di me, non foss’altro per il mero fatto di essere in qualche modo uno zoologo. Ciò nonostante, tengo fermo alla mia opinione, e lo faccio per una ragione che mi pare degna di qualche piccola considerazione. Lo faccio perché questa si dà il caso sia esattamente una di quelle questioni sulle quali, a quanto mi pare, il critico indipendente ha davvero il diritto di controllare lo specialista. Poiché è una più ampia questione di logica, e non una più piccola questione di fatto. È come la difficoltà di credere che una monetina possa cadere testa o croce cento volte di seguito; il che nulla ha a che vedere con il valore numismatico della moneta. È come la difficoltà di credere che una semplice tassa possa render più a buon mercato una pagnotta, il che nulla ha a che vedere con l’arte agraria del coltivare il grano. C’è una generale marea di ragione che scorre contro tali improbabilità, anche se sono possibilità; resterebbero comunque eccezioni, e la ragione starebbe dalla parte della regola. E quali che siano i particolari della storia naturale, questa cosa è contro la natura stessa delle cose.
To explain what I mean I will take this parallel of the technique of music, of which I know even less than of the technique of natural history. To begin with a simple though moving musical instrument, suppose an expert told me that a coach-horn could be blown quite as well if it were only two feet long. I should believe him; partly because it seems probable enough, and partly because I know nothing about the matter. I am not even an incompetent coach-horn blower. But I should certainly not believe him if he told me, as a generalization about all musical instruments, that half a musical instrument was better than no music, or even as good as any music. I should disbelieve it because it is inconsistent with the general nature of a musical instrument, or any instrument. I should disbelieve it long before I had thought of the thousand particular instruments to which it does not apply. I should not primarily need to think of the particular examples, though they are obvious enough. A stringed instrument cannot even be called stringed without two fixed points to hold both ends of the string. At the stage when the fiddle-strings floated like filaments in the void, feeling their way towards an evolutionary other end of nowhere, there could be nothing serving any purpose of a fiddle. A drum with a hole in is not a drum at all. But an evolutionary drum has to turn slowly into a drum, when it has begun by being only a hole. I cannot see any survival for a bagpipe that begins by being slit; I think such bagpipes would die with all their music in them. I feel a faint doubt, mingled with fascination, about the idea that a violin could grow out of the ground like a tree; it would at least make a charming fairy story. But whether or no a fiddle could grow like a tree, I feel sure nobody could play on it while it was still only a twig. But all these, as I say, are only examples that throng into the mind afterwards, of a principle seen in a flash from the first. Of things serving particular purposes, by a balance and arrangement of parts, it cannot be generally true that they are fit for use before they are finished for use. It is against the general nature of such things; and can only be true by an individual coincidence. I can see for myself, for instance, that some particular case like the trunk of an elephant might really be compared to the simpler case of the coach-horn. Length and flexibility are mere matters of degree; and I might possibly find it convenient if my nose were six inches longer, and sufficiently lively to be able to point right and left at various objects on the tea-table. But this is simply an accident of the particular qualities of length and laxity, not a general truth about the qualities of growth and use. It is not in the least true that I should experience the least convenience from the membrane between my fingers thickening or widening a little; even if an evolutionist at my elbow comforted and inspired me with the far-off divine event when my descendant should have the wings of a bat. Until the membrane can really be spread properly from point to point it is like the fiddle-string before it is stretched properly from point to point. It is no nearer serving its ultimate purpose than if it were not there at all. But it would be easy to find a similar animal parallel to the drum with a hole in it. There are monsters who would die instantly if they could not close the holes in their head under water. One supposes they would have died swiftly, before their closing apparatus could develop slowly. But the principle is a general one, and is involved in the very nature of any apparatus. It is only by way of figure of speech, in defence of the freedom of the ignorant, that I take the type of a musical apparatus. I take it because I am entirely ignorant of musical instruments. I am of the candid class of those who have “never tried” to perform on the violin. I cannot play upon this pipe; especially if it be a bagpipe. But if anybody tells me that the wildest pibroch rose from a whisper gradually, as a hole in the wind-bag was filled up gradually—why then, I shall not be so rude, I hope, as to say that there is a wind-bag in his head, but I shall venture to say that there is a hole in his argument. And if he says that pieces of wood came together slowly, stick by stick, to form a fiddle, and that before it was yet a fiddle at all the sticks discoursed most excellent music—why, I fear I shall be content to say “fiddlesticks.”
There is another answer often made which seems to me even more illogical. The critic generally says it is unreasonable to expect from the geological record that continuous gradation of types which the challengers of Darwinism demand. He says that only a part of the earth can be examined and that it could not in any case prove so much. This mode of argument involves an amazing oblivion of what is the thing to be proved, and who is trying to prove it. By hypothesis the Darwinians are trying to prove Darwinism. The Anti-Darwinians are not trying to prove anything; except that the Darwinians have not proved it. I do not demand anything, in the sense of complaining anything or the absence of anything. I am quite comfortable in a completely mysterious cosmos. I am not reviling the rocks or cursing the eternal hills for not containing these things. I am only saying that these are the things they would have to contain to make me believe something that somebody else wants me to believe. These traces are not things that the Anti-Darwinian demands. They are things that the Darwinian requires. The Darwinian requires them in order to convince his opponent of Darwinism; his opponent may be right or wrong, but he cannot be expected to accept the mere absence of them as proof of Darwinism. If the evidences in support of the theory are unfortunately hidden, why then, we do not know whether they were in support of the theory. If the proofs of natural selection are lost, why then, there are no proofs of natural selection; and there is an end of it.
Per spiegare ciò che intendo prenderò questo parallelo della tecnica della musica, di cui so ancor meno che della tecnica della storia naturale. Per cominciare con uno strumento musicale semplice benché toccante, supponiamo che un esperto mi dicesse che un corno da postiglione può essere suonato altrettanto bene se fosse lungo appena due piedi. Gli crederei; in parte perché sembra abbastanza probabile, e in parte perché non ne so nulla. Non sono nemmeno un incompetente suonatore di corno da postiglione. Ma di certo non gli crederei se mi dicesse, come generalizzazione su tutti gli strumenti musicali, che mezzo strumento musicale è meglio di nessuna musica, o addirittura buono quanto una qualsiasi musica. Non ci crederei perché è incoerente con la natura generale di uno strumento musicale, o di un qualsiasi strumento. Non ci crederei molto prima di aver pensato ai mille strumenti particolari a cui non si applica. Non avrei bisogno, in primo luogo, di pensare agli esempi particolari, per quanto siano abbastanza evidenti. Uno strumento a corde non può nemmeno dirsi a corde senza due punti fissi che trattengano le due estremità della corda. Allo stadio in cui le corde del violino fluttuavano come filamenti nel vuoto, cercando a tastoni la via verso un’altra evolutiva estremità del nulla, non poteva esservi nulla che assolvesse ad alcuna funzione di un violino. Un tamburo con un buco non è affatto un tamburo. Ma un tamburo evolutivo deve mutarsi lentamente in tamburo, quando ha cominciato con l’essere soltanto un buco. Non riesco a scorgere alcuna sopravvivenza per una cornamusa che cominci con l’essere fessa; penso che tali cornamuse morrebbero con tutta la loro musica dentro. Provo un lieve dubbio, misto a fascino, riguardo all’idea che un violino possa crescere dal terreno come un albero; ne verrebbe almeno una graziosa fiaba. Ma che un violino possa o no crescere come un albero, sono certo che nessuno potrebbe suonarci sopra finché fosse ancora soltanto un ramoscello. Ma tutti questi, come dico, sono soltanto esempi che si affollano nella mente in un secondo momento, di un principio còlto in un lampo fin dal principio. Delle cose che assolvono a funzioni particolari, mediante un equilibrio e una disposizione di parti, non può essere generalmente vero che siano atte all’uso prima di essere finite per l’uso. È contro la natura generale di tali cose; e può essere vero soltanto per una coincidenza individuale. Vedo da me, ad esempio, che qualche caso particolare come la proboscide di un elefante potrebbe davvero essere paragonato al caso più semplice del corno da postiglione. La lunghezza e la flessibilità sono mere questioni di grado; e potrei magari trovar comodo se il mio naso fosse più lungo di sei pollici, e sufficientemente vivace da poter indicare a destra e a sinistra vari oggetti sul tavolo da tè. Ma questo è semplicemente un accidente delle particolari qualità della lunghezza e della lassità, non una verità generale sulle qualità della crescita e dell’uso. Non è affatto vero che trarrei il minimo comodo dall’ispessirsi o dall’allargarsi un poco della membrana fra le mie dita; anche se un evoluzionista al mio fianco mi confortasse e m’ispirasse con il remoto e divino evento in cui il mio discendente avrà le ali di un pipistrello. Finché la membrana non può davvero essere spiegata come si deve da un punto all’altro, essa è come la corda del violino prima di essere tesa come si deve da un punto all’altro. Non è più vicina ad assolvere al suo scopo ultimo di quanto lo sarebbe se non ci fosse affatto. Ma sarebbe facile trovare un parallelo animale simile al tamburo col buco. Vi sono mostri che morrebbero all’istante se non potessero chiudere i fori della testa sott’acqua. Si suppone che sarebbero morti rapidamente, prima che il loro apparato di chiusura potesse svilupparsi lentamente. Ma il principio è generale, ed è insito nella natura stessa di qualsiasi apparato. È soltanto per modo di dire, in difesa della libertà degli ignoranti, che prendo il tipo di un apparato musicale. Lo prendo perché sono del tutto ignorante di strumenti musicali. Appartengo alla candida schiera di coloro che «non hanno mai provato» a suonare il violino. Non so suonare questa canna; specialmente se è una cornamusa. Ma se qualcuno mi dice che il più selvaggio dei pibroch sorse gradualmente da un sussurro, man mano che un buco nell’otre veniva gradualmente colmato — ebbene, non sarò così scortese, spero, da dire che c’è un otre nella sua testa, ma mi arrischierò a dire che c’è un buco nel suo argomento. E se dice che pezzi di legno si unirono lentamente, stecca dopo stecca, a formare un violino, e che prima ancora di essere un violino le stecche intonavano una musica eccellentissima — ebbene, temo che mi accontenterò di dire «stecche da violino».
C’è un’altra risposta che si dà spesso e che mi pare persino più illogica. Il critico dice di solito che è irragionevole aspettarsi dal registro geologico quella continua gradazione di tipi che i contestatori del darwinismo esigono. Dice che si può esaminare soltanto una parte della terra e che essa non potrebbe in ogni caso provare tanto. Questo modo di argomentare comporta uno stupefacente oblio di quale sia la cosa da provare, e di chi stia cercando di provarla. Per ipotesi i darwiniani stanno cercando di provare il darwinismo. Gli antidarwiniani non stanno cercando di provare nulla; se non che i darwiniani non lo hanno provato. Io non esigo nulla, nel senso di lamentare alcunché o l’assenza di alcunché. Mi trovo perfettamente a mio agio in un cosmo del tutto misterioso. Non sto ingiuriando le rocce né maledicendo le colline eterne per non contenere queste cose. Dico soltanto che queste sono le cose che esse dovrebbero contenere per farmi credere qualcosa che qualcun altro vuole farmi credere. Queste tracce non sono cose che l’antidarwiniano esige. Sono cose che il darwiniano richiede. Il darwiniano le richiede per convincere il proprio avversario del darwinismo; il suo avversario potrà aver ragione o torto, ma non ci si può aspettare che accetti la loro semplice assenza come prova del darwinismo. Se le prove a sostegno della teoria sono purtroppo nascoste, ebbene, non sappiamo se fossero a sostegno della teoria. Se le prove della selezione naturale sono perdute, ebbene, non ci sono prove della selezione naturale; e la faccenda finisce lì.
And I would respectfully ask these critics what would be thought of a theological or miraculous argument which thus based itself on the very gaps in its own evidence. Let them indulge in the flight of fancy that I have just told them, let us say, that I saw the Devil at Brighton: and that the proof of his presence there can still be seen on the sands, in gigantic marks of a cloven hoof as big as the foot of an elephant. Suppose we all search the sands of Brighton and find no such thing. And suppose I then say that, after all, the tide might have washed away the footprints, or that the fiend may have flown through the air from his little country seat at the Dyke, or that he may have walked along the hard asphalt of Brighton parade, as proudly as once upon the flaming marl. To those acquainted with Brighton parade this will seem probable enough; but there would be a fallacy in merely saying that the evil spirit may have done all this. The sceptic will not unnaturally reply: “Yes, he may; and he may not; and it may be a legend; and you may be a liar; and I think our little investigation is now concluded.” I am very far indeed from calling the Darwinian a liar; but I shall continue to say that he is not always a logician.
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TURNING INSIDE OUT
WHEN the author of “If Winter Comes” brought out another book about the life of the family, it was almost as much criticized as the first book was praised. I do not say that there was nothing to criticize, but I do say that I was not convinced by the abstract logic of the criticism. Probably the critics would have accepted it as a true story if the author had not been so incautious as to give it a true moral. And the moral is not fashionable in the Press at the moment; for it is to the effect that a woman may gain a professional success at the price of a domestic failure. And it is the convention of journalism at this moment to support what is feminist against what is feminine. Anyhow, while the story might be criticized, the criticisms can certainly be criticized. It is not really conclusive to say that a woman may be ambitious in business without her children going to the bad. It is just as easy to say that a woman may be ambitious in politics without helping to murder an old gentleman in his bed. But that does not make “Macbeth” either inartistic or untrue. It is just as easy to say that a woman may be ambitious in society without tricking her husband into a debtor’s prison, so that she may spend the time with a bald-headed nobleman with red whiskers. But that does not make the great scene in “Vanity Fair” unconvincing either in detail or design. The question in fiction is not whether that thing must occur, but whether that sort of thing may occur, and whether it is significant of larger things. Now this business of the woman at work and the woman at home is a very large thing, and this story about it is highly significant.
For in this matter the modern mind is inconsistent with itself. It has managed to get one of its rather crude ideals in flat contradiction to the other. People of the progressive sort are perpetually telling us that the hope of the world is in education. Education is everything. Nothing is so important as training the rising generation. Nothing is really, important except the rising generation. They tell us this over and over again, with slight variations of the same formula, and never seem to see what it involves. For if there be any word of truth in all this talk about the education of the child, then there is certainly nothing but nonsense in nine-tenths of the talk about the emancipation of the woman. If education is the highest function in the State, why should anybody want to be emancipated from the highest function in the State? It is as if we talked of commuting the sentence that condemned a man to be President of the United States; or a reprieve coming in time to save him from being Pope. If education is the largest thing in the world, what is the sense of talking about a woman being liberated from the largest thing in the world? It is as if we were to rescue her from the cruel doom of being a poet like Shakespeare; or to pity the limitations of an all-round artist like Leonardo da Vinci. Nor can there be any doubt that there is truth in this claim for education. Only precisely the sort of which it is particularly true is the sort called domestic education. Private education really is universal. Public education can be comparatively narrow. It would really be an exaggeration to say that the school-master who takes his pupils in freehand drawing is training them in all the uses of freedom. It really would be fantastic to say that the harmless foreigner who instructs a class in French or German is talking with all the tongues of men and angels. But the mother dealing with her own daughters in her own home does literally have to deal with all forms of freedom, because she has to deal with all sides of a single human soul. She is obliged, if not to talk with the tongues of men and angels, at least to decide how much she shall talk about angels and how much about men.
In short, if education is really the larger matter, then certainly domestic life is the larger matter; and official or commercial life the lesser matter. It is a mere matter of arithmetic that anything taken from the larger matter will leave it less. It is a mere matter of simple subtraction that the mother must have less time for the family if she has more time for the factory. If education, ethical and cultural, really were a trivial and mechanical matter, the mother might possibly rattle through it as a rapid routine, before going about her more serious business of serving a capitalist for hire. If education were merely instruction, she might briefly instruct her babies in the multiplication tables, before she mounted to higher and nobler spheres as the servant of a Milk Trust or the secretary of a Drug Combine. But the moderns are perpetually assuring us that education is not instruction; they are perpetually insisting that it is not a mechanical exercise, and must on no account be an abbreviated exercise. It must go on at every hour. It must cover every subject. But if it must go on at all hours, it must not be neglected in business hours. And if the child is to be free to cover every subject, the parent must be free to cover every subject too.
E vorrei rispettosamente domandare a questi critici che cosa si penserebbe di un argomento teologico o miracoloso che si fondasse in tal modo proprio sulle lacune delle sue stesse prove. Concedo loro il volo di fantasia che ho appena raccontato, poniamo, di aver visto il Diavolo a Brighton: e che la prova della sua presenza colà si possa ancora scorgere sulla sabbia, in giganteschi segni d’uno zoccolo fesso grosso quanto il piede d’un elefante. Supponiamo che tutti perlustriamo la sabbia di Brighton e non troviamo nulla di simile. E supponiamo che io allora dica che, dopotutto, la marea potrebbe avere spazzato via le orme, o che il demonio potrebbe essere volato per l’aria dalla sua piccola tenuta di campagna al Dyke, o che potrebbe avere camminato sul duro asfalto della passeggiata di Brighton, altrettanto fieramente quanto un tempo sul suolo fiammeggiante. A chi conosce la passeggiata di Brighton questo parrà abbastanza probabile; ma ci sarebbe una fallacia nel dire semplicemente che lo spirito maligno può aver fatto tutto ciò. Lo scettico non senza ragione risponderà: «Sì, può darsi; e può darsi di no; e può darsi che sia una leggenda; e può darsi che tu sia un bugiardo; e credo che la nostra piccola indagine sia ormai conclusa». Sono ben lungi, in verità, dal dare del bugiardo al darwinista; ma continuerò a dire che egli non è sempre un logico.
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ROVESCIARE COME UN GUANTO
QUANDO l’autore di «If Winter Comes» diede alle stampe un altro libro sulla vita della famiglia, esso fu criticato quasi altrettanto quanto il primo era stato lodato. Non dico che non vi fosse nulla da criticare, ma dico che non fui convinto dalla logica astratta della critica. Probabilmente i critici l’avrebbero accettato come una storia vera se l’autore non fosse stato tanto imprudente da darle una morale vera. E la morale non è alla moda sulla stampa in questo momento; poiché essa sostiene che una donna può conseguire un successo professionale al prezzo d’un fallimento domestico. Ed è convenzione del giornalismo in questo momento sostenere ciò che è femminista contro ciò che è femminile. Comunque sia, mentre la storia poteva essere criticata, le critiche possono di certo essere criticate. Non è affatto conclusivo dire che una donna può essere ambiziosa negli affari senza che i suoi figli vadano in rovina. È altrettanto facile dire che una donna può essere ambiziosa in politica senza contribuire ad assassinare un vecchio gentiluomo nel suo letto. Ma ciò non rende il «Macbeth» né inartistico né falso. È altrettanto facile dire che una donna può essere ambiziosa in società senza far cadere con l’inganno il marito in una prigione per debiti, così da poter trascorrere il tempo con un nobiluomo calvo dai favoriti rossi. Ma ciò non rende la grande scena di «Vanity Fair» poco convincente né nel dettaglio né nel disegno. La questione nella narrativa non è se quella cosa debba accadere, ma se quel genere di cosa possa accadere, e se sia significativo di cose più grandi. Ora, questa faccenda della donna al lavoro e della donna in casa è una cosa assai grande, e questa storia intorno ad essa è oltremodo significativa.
Poiché in questa materia la mente moderna è incoerente con sé stessa. È riuscita a porre uno dei suoi ideali piuttosto rozzi in aperta contraddizione con l’altro. Le persone di tipo progressista ci vanno perpetuamente ripetendo che la speranza del mondo è nell’educazione. L’educazione è tutto. Nulla è tanto importante quanto istruire la generazione nascente. Nulla è davvero importante tranne la generazione nascente. Ce lo ripetono all’infinito, con lievi variazioni della medesima formula, e mai paiono vedere ciò che essa comporta. Poiché se c’è una parola di verità in tutto questo discorso sull’educazione del fanciullo, allora non c’è di certo altro che insensatezza nei nove decimi dei discorsi sull’emancipazione della donna. Se l’educazione è la più alta funzione dello Stato, perché qualcuno dovrebbe voler essere emancipato dalla più alta funzione dello Stato? È come se parlassimo di commutare la sentenza che condanna un uomo a essere Presidente degli Stati Uniti; o di una grazia giunta in tempo per salvarlo dal diventare Papa. Se l’educazione è la cosa più grande al mondo, che senso ha parlare di una donna liberata dalla cosa più grande al mondo? È come se dovessimo sottrarla al crudele destino d’essere un poeta come Shakespeare; o compiangere i limiti di un artista completo come Leonardo da Vinci. Né vi può essere alcun dubbio che vi sia verità in questa rivendicazione a favore dell’educazione. Solo che il genere di cui essa è particolarmente vera è quello chiamato educazione domestica. L’educazione privata è davvero universale. L’educazione pubblica può essere comparativamente angusta. Sarebbe davvero un’esagerazione dire che il maestro di scuola che istruisce i suoi allievi nel disegno a mano libera li stia addestrando a tutti gli usi della libertà. Sarebbe davvero fantastico dire che l’innocuo straniero che istruisce una classe in francese o tedesco stia parlando tutte le lingue degli uomini e degli angeli. Ma la madre che si occupa delle proprie figlie nella propria casa deve letteralmente avere a che fare con tutte le forme di libertà, poiché deve avere a che fare con tutti i lati d’una singola anima umana. Ella è tenuta, se non a parlare con le lingue degli uomini e degli angeli, almeno a decidere quanto debba parlare degli angeli e quanto degli uomini.
In breve, se l’educazione è davvero la questione più grande, allora di certo la vita domestica è la questione più grande; e la vita ufficiale o commerciale la questione minore. È una mera questione di aritmetica che tutto ciò che si toglie alla questione più grande la rende minore. È una mera questione di semplice sottrazione che la madre debba avere meno tempo per la famiglia se ha più tempo per la fabbrica. Se l’educazione, etica e culturale, fosse davvero una faccenda banale e meccanica, la madre potrebbe forse sbrigarla in fretta come una rapida routine, prima di dedicarsi al suo più serio affare di servire un capitalista a pagamento. Se l’educazione fosse mera istruzione, ella potrebbe brevemente istruire i suoi pargoli nelle tavole pitagoriche, prima di ascendere a sfere più alte e più nobili come serva di un Trust del Latte o segretaria di un Consorzio Farmaceutico. Ma i moderni ci vanno perpetuamente assicurando che l’educazione non è istruzione; insistono perpetuamente che non è un esercizio meccanico, e che non deve in alcun modo essere un esercizio abbreviato. Deve proseguire a ogni ora. Deve coprire ogni materia. Ma se deve proseguire a tutte le ore, non deve essere trascurata nelle ore di lavoro. E se il fanciullo deve essere libero di coprire ogni materia, il genitore deve essere libero di coprire anch’egli ogni materia.
For the idea of a non-parental substitute is simply an illusion of wealth. The advanced advocate of this inconsistent and infinite education for the child is generally thinking of the rich child; and all this particular sort of liberty should rather be called luxury. It is natural enough for a fashionable lady to leave her little daughter with the French governess or the Czecho-Slovakian governess or the Ancient Sanskrit governess, and know that one or other of these sides of the infant’s intelligence is being developed; while she, the mother, figures in public as a money-lender or some other modern position of dignity. But among poorer people there cannot be five teachers to one pupil. Generally there are about fifty pupils to one teacher. There it is impossible to cut up the soul of a single child and distribute it among specialists. It is all we can do to tear in pieces the soul of a single schoolmaster, and distribute it in rags and scraps to a whole mob of boys. And even in the case of the wealthy child it is by no means clear that specialists are a substitute for spiritual authority. Even a millionaire can never be certain that he has not left out one governess, in the long procession of governesses perpetually under his marble portico; and the omission may be as fatal as that of the king who forgot to ask the bad fairy to the christening. The daughter, after a life of ruin and despair, may look back and say, “Had I but also had a Lithuanian governess, my fate as a diplomatist’s wife in Eastern Europe would have been very different.” But it seems rather more probable, on the whole, that what she would miss would not be one or other of these special accomplishments, but some common sense code of morals or general view of life. The millionaire could, no doubt, hire a mahatma or mystical prophet to give his child a general philosophy. But I doubt if the philosophy would be very successful even for the rich child, and it would be quite impossible for the poor child. In the case of comparative poverty, which is the common lot of mankind, we come back to a general parental responsibility, which is the common sense of mankind. We come back to the parent as the person in charge of education. If you exalt the education, you must exalt the parental power with it. If you exaggerate the education, you must exaggerate the parental power with it. If you depreciate the parental power, you must depreciate education with it. If the young are always right and can do as they like, well and good; let us all be jolly, old and young, and free from every kind of responsibility. But in that case do not come pestering us with the importance of education, when nobody has any authority to educate anybody. Make up your mind whether you want unlimited education or unlimited emancipation, but do not be such a fool as to suppose you can have both at once.
There is evidence, as I have noted, that the more hard-headed people, even of the most progressive sort, are beginning to come back to realities in this respect. The new work of Mr. Hutchinson’s is only one of many indications among the really independent intelligences, working on modern fiction, that the cruder culture of merely commercial emancipation is beginning to smell a little stale. The work of Miss Clemence Dane and even of Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith contains more than one suggestion of what I mean. People are no longer quite so certain that a woman’s liberty consists of having a latch-key without a house. They are no longer wholly convinced that every housekeeper is dull and prosaic, while every bookkeeper is wild and poetical. And among the intelligent the reaction is actually strengthened by all the most modern excitements about psychology and hygiene. We cannot insist that every trick of nerves or train of thought is important enough to be searched for in libraries and laboratories, and not important enough for anybody to watch by simply staying at home. We cannot insist that the first years of infancy are of supreme importance, and that mothers are not of supreme importance; or that motherhood is a topic of sufficient interest for men, but not of sufficient interest for mothers. Every word that is said about the tremendous importance of trivial nursery habits goes to prove that being a nurse is not trivial. All tends to the return of the simple truth that the private work is the great one and the public work the small. The human house is a paradox, for it is larger inside than out.
But in the problem of private versus public life there is another neglected truth. It is true of many masculine problems as well as of this feminine problem. Indeed, feminism falls here into exactly the same mistake as militarism and imperialism. I mean that anything on a grand scale gives the illusion of a grand success. Curiously enough, multiplication acts as a concealment. Repetition actually disguises failure. Take a particular man, and tell him to put on a particular kind of hat and coat and trousers, and to stand in particular attitudes in the back garden; and you will have great difficulty in persuading yourself (or him) that he has passed through a triumph and transfiguration. Order four hundred such hats, and eight hundred such trousers, and you will have turned the fancy costume into a uniform. Make all the four hundred men stand in the special attitudes on Salisbury Plain, and there will rise up before you the spirit of a regiment. Let the regiment march past, and, if you have any life in you above the brutes that perish, you will have an overwhelming sense that something splendid has just happened, or is just going to begin. I sympathize with this moral emotion in militarism; I think it does symbolize something great in the soul, which has given us the image of St. Michael. But I also realize that in practical relations that emotion can get mixed up with an illusion. It is not really possible to know the characters of all the four hundred men in the marching column as well as one might know the character of the one man attitudinizing in the back garden. If all the four hundred men were individual failures, we could still vaguely feel that the whole thing was a success. If we know the one man to be a failure, we cannot think him a success. That is why a footman has become rather a foolish figure, while a foot-soldier remains rather a sublime one. Or rather, that is one of the reasons; for there are others much more worthy. Anyhow, footmen were only formidable or dignified when they could come in large numbers like foot-soldiers— when they were in fact the feudal army of some great local family, having some of the loyalty of local patriotism. Then a livery was as dignified as a uniform, because it really was a uniform. A man who said he served the Nevilles or rode with the Douglases could once feel much like a man fighting for France or England. But military feeling is mob feeling, noble as mob feeling may be. Parading one footman is like lunching on one pea, or curing baldness by the growth of one hair. There ought not to be anything but a plural for flunkeys, any more than for measles or vermin or animalculae or the sweets called hundreds and thousands. Strictly speaking, I suppose that a logical Latinist could say, “I have seen an animalcula”; but I never heard of a child having the moderation to remark, “I have eaten a hundred and thousand.” Similarly, any one of us can feel that to have hundreds and thousands of slaves, let alone soldiers, might give a certain imaginative pleasure in magnificence. To have one slave reveals all the meanness of slavery. For the solitary flunkey really is the man in fancy dress, the man standing in the back garden in the strange and the fantastic coat and breeches. His isolation reveals our illusion. We find our failure in the back garden, when we have been dreaming a dream of success in the market-place. When you ride through the streets amid a great mob of vassals (you may have noticed) you have a genial and not ungenerous sense of being at one with them all. You cannot remember their names or count their numbers, but their very immensity seems a substitute for intimacy. That is what great men have felt at the head of great armies; and the reason why Napoleon or Foch would call his soldiers “mes enfants.” He feels at that moment that they are a part of him, as if he had a million arms and legs. But it is very different if you disband your army of lackeys; or if (as is, after all, possible) you have not got an army of lackeys. It is very different if you look at one lackey; one solitary solemn footman standing in your front hall. You never have the sense of being caught up into a rapture of unity with him. All your sense of social solidarity with your social inferiors has dropped from you. It is only in public that people can be so intimate as that. When you look into the eyes of the lonely footman, you see that his soul is far away.
Poiché l’idea di un surrogato non parentale è semplicemente un’illusione della ricchezza. L’avanzato fautore di questa incoerente e infinita educazione per il fanciullo pensa in genere al fanciullo ricco; e tutta questa particolare specie di libertà andrebbe piuttosto chiamata lusso. È abbastanza naturale per una dama alla moda lasciare la propria piccola figlia con la governante francese o la governante cecoslovacca o la governante di sanscrito antico, e sapere che l’uno o l’altro di questi lati dell’intelligenza dell’infante sta venendo sviluppato; mentre lei, la madre, figura in pubblico come prestatrice di denaro o in qualche altra moderna posizione di dignità. Ma tra la gente più povera non possono esserci cinque maestri per un allievo. In genere ci sono circa cinquanta allievi per un maestro. Là è impossibile spartire l’anima di un singolo fanciullo e distribuirla tra specialisti. È già molto se riusciamo a fare a pezzi l’anima di un singolo maestro, e a distribuirla in brandelli e ritagli a un’intera turba di ragazzi. E persino nel caso del fanciullo benestante non è affatto chiaro che gli specialisti siano un surrogato dell’autorità spirituale. Persino un milionario non può mai essere certo di non aver tralasciato una governante, nella lunga processione di governanti perpetuamente sotto il suo portico di marmo; e l’omissione potrebbe essere fatale quanto quella del re che dimenticò d’invitare la cattiva fata al battesimo. La figlia, dopo una vita di rovina e disperazione, potrà volgersi indietro e dire: «Se avessi avuto anche una governante lituana, il mio destino di moglie di diplomatico nell’Europa orientale sarebbe stato ben diverso». Ma pare piuttosto più probabile, nel complesso, che ciò che le mancherebbe non sarebbe l’una o l’altra di queste speciali competenze, bensì qualche codice morale di buon senso o veduta generale della vita. Il milionario potrebbe, senza dubbio, assoldare un mahatma o mistico profeta per dare al suo fanciullo una filosofia generale. Ma dubito che la filosofia avrebbe gran successo anche per il fanciullo ricco, e sarebbe del tutto impossibile per il fanciullo povero. Nel caso della povertà relativa, che è la sorte comune dell’umanità, torniamo a una generale responsabilità parentale, che è il buon senso dell’umanità. Torniamo al genitore come persona incaricata dell’educazione. Se esalti l’educazione, devi esaltare con essa la potestà parentale. Se esageri l’educazione, devi esagerare con essa la potestà parentale. Se svaluti la potestà parentale, devi svalutare con essa l’educazione. Se i giovani hanno sempre ragione e possono fare come vogliono, ebbene, sta bene; siamo tutti allegri, vecchi e giovani, e liberi da ogni sorta di responsabilità. Ma in tal caso non venite a tormentarci con l’importanza dell’educazione, quando nessuno ha alcuna autorità di educare alcuno. Decidetevi se volete un’educazione illimitata o un’emancipazione illimitata, ma non siate tanto sciocchi da supporre di poterle avere entrambe insieme.
Vi sono indizi, come ho notato, che le persone più assennate, anche del tipo più progressista, comincino a tornare alle realtà sotto questo riguardo. La nuova opera del signor Hutchinson è solo una delle molte indicazioni, tra le intelligenze davvero indipendenti, che lavorano nella narrativa moderna, che la cultura più rozza della mera emancipazione commerciale comincia a odorare un po’ di stantio. L’opera della signorina Clemence Dane e persino della signorina Sheila Kaye-Smith contiene più d’un accenno a ciò che intendo. La gente non è più del tutto così certa che la libertà d’una donna consista nell’avere una chiave di casa senza una casa. Non è più del tutto convinta che ogni massaia sia noiosa e prosaica, mentre ogni contabile sia sfrenato e poetico. E tra le persone intelligenti la reazione è addirittura rafforzata da tutte le più moderne eccitazioni intorno alla psicologia e all’igiene. Non possiamo insistere che ogni sussulto dei nervi o corso del pensiero sia abbastanza importante da essere cercato in biblioteche e laboratori, e non abbastanza importante perché qualcuno lo sorvegli semplicemente restando in casa. Non possiamo insistere che i primi anni dell’infanzia siano di suprema importanza, e che le madri non siano di suprema importanza; o che la maternità sia un tema di sufficiente interesse per gli uomini, ma non di sufficiente interesse per le madri. Ogni parola che si spende sull’enorme importanza delle banali abitudini della nursery vale a provare che essere bambinaia non è banale. Tutto tende al ritorno della semplice verità che il lavoro privato è quello grande e il lavoro pubblico il piccolo. La casa umana è un paradosso, poiché è più grande dentro che fuori.
Ma nel problema della vita privata contro la vita pubblica c’è un’altra verità trascurata. Essa è vera di molti problemi maschili come pure di questo problema femminile. In verità, il femminismo cade qui esattamente nel medesimo errore del militarismo e dell’imperialismo. Intendo che qualsiasi cosa su grande scala dà l’illusione di un grande successo. Per quanto strano, la moltiplicazione agisce come un mascheramento. La ripetizione in realtà maschera il fallimento. Prendi un dato uomo, e digli di indossare un dato genere di cappello, giacca e pantaloni, e di stare in date positure nel giardino sul retro; e avrai gran difficoltà a persuadere te stesso (o lui) che egli sia passato attraverso un trionfo e una trasfigurazione. Ordina quattrocento cappelli siffatti, e ottocento pantaloni siffatti, e avrai mutato il costume di fantasia in una divisa. Fai stare tutti i quattrocento uomini nelle positure speciali sulla piana di Salisbury, e sorgerà davanti a te lo spirito d’un reggimento. Lascia sfilare il reggimento, e, se hai in te una qualche vita al di sopra delle bestie che periscono, avrai un travolgente senso che qualcosa di splendido sia appena accaduto, o stia appena per cominciare. Simpatizzo con questa emozione morale nel militarismo; penso che essa simboleggi davvero qualcosa di grande nell’anima, che ci ha dato l’immagine di San Michele. Ma mi rendo anche conto che nelle relazioni pratiche quell’emozione può mescolarsi a un’illusione. Non è davvero possibile conoscere il carattere di tutti i quattro- cento uomini della colonna in marcia altrettanto bene quanto si potrebbe conoscere il carattere del singolo uomo che si atteggia nel giardino sul retro. Se tutti i quattrocento uomini fossero individualmente dei falliti, potremmo ancora sentire vagamente che l’intera cosa fosse un successo. Se sappiamo che il singolo uomo è un fallito, non possiamo pensarlo un successo. Ecco perché un valletto è divenuto una figura piuttosto ridicola, mentre un fante rimane una figura piuttosto sublime. O meglio, questa è una delle ragioni; poiché ve ne sono altre assai più degne. Comunque sia, i valletti erano formidabili o dignitosi soltanto quando potevano venire in gran numero come i fanti— quando erano in effetti l’esercito feudale d’una qualche grande famiglia locale, partecipe di parte della lealtà del patriottismo locale. Allora una livrea era dignitosa quanto una divisa, perché era davvero una divisa. Un uomo che diceva di servire i Neville o di cavalcare con i Douglas poteva un tempo sentirsi assai simile a un uomo che combatte per la Francia o l’Inghilterra. Ma il sentimento militare è sentimento di folla, per quanto nobile possa essere il sentimento di folla. Sfoggiare un solo valletto è come pranzare con un solo pisello, o curare la calvizie con la crescita d’un solo capello. Non dovrebbe esistere che il plurale per i lacchè, non più che per il morbillo o i parassiti o gli animalculi o i confetti chiamati «cento e mille». A rigor di termini, suppongo che un latinista logico potrebbe dire: «Ho visto un animalculo»; ma non ho mai sentito d’un fanciullo tanto moderato da osservare: «Ho mangiato un cento e mille». Similmente, ognuno di noi può sentire che avere centinaia e migliaia di schiavi, per non dire soldati, potrebbe dare un certo piacere immaginativo nella magnificenza. Avere un solo schiavo rivela tutta la meschinità della schiavitù. Poiché il lacchè solitario è davvero l’uomo in costume di fantasia, l’uomo che sta nel giardino sul retro nella strana e fantastica giacca e nei calzoni. Il suo isolamento rivela la nostra illusione. Troviamo il nostro fallimento nel giardino sul retro, quando abbiamo sognato un sogno di successo nella piazza del mercato. Quando cavalchi per le strade in mezzo a una gran folla di vassalli (potresti averlo notato) hai un senso geniale e non ingeneroso d’essere una cosa sola con tutti loro. Non riesci a ricordare i loro nomi né a contare il loro numero, ma la loro stessa immensità pare un surrogato dell’intimità. È ciò che i grandi uomini hanno sentito a capo di grandi eserciti; ed è la ragione per cui Napoleone o Foch chiamavano i loro soldati «mes enfants.» In quel momento egli sente che essi sono una parte di lui, come se avesse un milione di braccia e di gambe. Ma è assai diverso se congedi il tuo esercito di lacchè; o se (come, dopotutto, è possibile) non hai un esercito di lacchè. È assai diverso se guardi un solo lacchè; un solitario e solenne valletto ritto nel tuo atrio d’ingresso. Non hai mai il senso d’essere rapito in un’estasi di unità con lui. Tutto il tuo senso di solidarietà sociale con i tuoi inferiori sociali t’è caduto di dosso. È solo in pubblico che le persone possono essere tanto intime. Quando guardi negli occhi il solitario valletto, vedi che la sua anima è lontana lontana.
In other words, you find yourself at the foot of a steep and staggering mountain crag, that is the real character and conscience of a man. To be really at one with that man, you would have to solve real problems and believe that your own solutions were real. In dealing with the one man you would really have a far huger and harder job than in dealing with your throng of thousands. And that is the job that people run away from when they wish to escape from domesticity to public work, especially educational work. They wish to escape from a sense of failure which is simply a sense of fact. They wish to recapture the illusion of the market-place. It is an illusion that departs in the dark interiors of domesticity, where the realities dwell. As I have said, I am very far from condemning it altogether; it is a lawful pleasure, and a part of life, in its proper proportion, like any other. But I am concerned to point out to the feminists and the faddists that it is not an approach to truth, but rather the opposite. Publicity is rather of the nature of a harmless romance. Public life at its very best will contain a great deal of harmless romancing, and much more often a very harmful romancing. In other words, I am concerned with pointing out that the passage from private life to public life, while it may be right or wrong, or necessary or unnecessary, or desirable or undesirable, is always of necessity a passage from a greater work to a smaller one, and from a harder work to an easier one. And that is why most of the moderns do wish to pass from the great domestic task to the smaller and easier commercial one. They would rather provide the liveries of a hundred footmen than be bothered with the love-affairs of one. They would rather take the salutes of a hundred soldiers than try to save the soul of one. They would rather serve out income-tax papers or telegraph forms to a hundred men than meals, conversation, and moral support to one. They would rather arrange the educational course in history or geography, or correct the examination papers in algebra or trigonometry, for a hundred children, than struggle with the whole human character of one. For anyone who makes himself responsible for one small baby, as a whole, will soon find that he is wrestling with gigantic angels and demons.
In another way there is something of illusion, or of irresponsibility, about the purely public function, especially in the case of public education. The educationist generally deals with only one section of the pupil’s mind. But he always deals with only one section of the pupil’s life. The parent has to deal, not only with the whole of the child’s character, but also with the whole of the child’s career. The teacher sows the seed, but the parent reaps as well as sows. The schoolmaster sees more children, but it is not clear that he sees more childhood; certainly he sees less youth and no maturity. The number of little girls who take prussic acid is necessarily small. The boys who hang themselves on bed-posts, after a life of crime, are generally the minority. But the parent has to envisage the whole life of the individual, and not merely the school life of the scholar. It is not probable that the parent will exactly anticipate crime and prussic acid as the crown of the infant’s career. But he will anticipate hearing of the crime if it is committed; he will probably be told of the suicide if it takes place. It is quite doubtful whether the schoolmaster or schoolmistress will ever hear of it at all. Everybody knows that teachers have a harassing and often heroic task, but it is not unfair to them to remember that in this sense they have an exceptionally happy task. The cynic would say that the teacher is happy in never seeing the results of his own teaching. I prefer to confine myself to saying that he has not the extra worry of having to estimate it from the other end. The teacher is seldom in at the death. To take a milder theatrical metaphor, he is seldom there on the night. But this is only one of many instances of the same truth: that what is called public life is not larger than private life, but smaller. What we call public life is a fragmentary affair of sections and seasons and impressions; it is only in private life that dwells the fullness of our life bodily.
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STRIKES AND THE SPIRIT OF WONDER
THERE is a story which pleases me so much that I feel sure I have repeated it in print, about an alleged and perhaps legendary lady secretary of Madam Blavatsky or Mrs. Besant, who was so much delighted with a new sofa or ottoman that she sat on it by preference when resting or reading her correspondence. At last it moved slightly, and she found it was a mahatma covered with his Eastern robe and rigid in prayer, or some more impersonal ecstasy. That a lady secretary should have a seat any gentleman will approve; that a mahatma should be sat on no Christian will deny; nevertheless, there is another possible moral to the fable which is a reproach rather to the sitter than the seat. It might be put, as in a sort of vision or allegory, by imagining that all our furniture really was made thus of living limbs instead of dead sticks. Suppose the legs of the table were literally legs— the legs of slaves standing still. Suppose the arms of an armchair really were arms—the arms of a patient domestic permanently held out, like those of an old nurse waiting for a baby. It would be calculated to make the luxurious occupant of the easy chair feel rather like a baby; which might do him good. Suppose every sofa were like that of Mrs. Besant’s secretary—simply made of a man. They need not be made merely of Theosophists or Buddhists—God forbid. Many of us would greatly prefer to trust ourselves to a Moslem or Turk. This might, with strict accuracy, be called sitting on an Ottoman. I have even read, I think, of some oriental potentate who rejoiced in a name sounding like “sofa.” It might even be hinted that some of them might be Christians, but there is no reason, of course, why all of them should not be praying. To sit on a man while he was praying would doubtless require some confidence. It would also give a more literal version of the possession of a prie-dieu chair. It would be easy to expand the extravagance into a vision of a whole house alive, an architecture of arms and legs, a temple of temples of the spirit. The four walls might be made of men like the squares in military formation. There is even, perhaps, a shadow of the fantasy in the popular phrases that compare the roof to the human head, that name the chimney-pot hat after the chimney, or lightly allude to all modern masculine head-dresses as “tiles.” But the only value of the vision, as of most visions—even the most topsy-turvy ones— is a moral value. It figures forth, in emblem enigma, the truth that we do treat merely as furniture a number of people who are, at the very least, live stock. And the proof of it is that when they move we are startled like the secretary sitting on the praying man; but perhaps it is we who should begin to pray.
In altre parole, ti ritrovi ai piedi d’una rupe montana ripida e vertiginosa, che è il vero carattere e la coscienza d’un uomo. Per essere davvero una cosa sola con quell’uomo, dovresti risolvere problemi reali e credere che le tue stesse soluzioni fossero reali. Nel trattare con quell’unico uomo avresti in realtà un compito assai più immane e più arduo che nel trattare con la tua ressa di migliaia. Ed è il compito da cui la gente fugge quando desidera scampare dalla domesticità al lavoro pubblico, e specialmente al lavoro educativo. Desiderano scampare da un senso di fallimento che è semplicemente un senso di realtà. Desiderano riconquistare l’illusione della piazza del mercato. È un’illusione che si dilegua negli interni oscuri della domesticità, dove dimorano le realtà. Come ho detto, sono ben lungi dal condannarla del tutto; è un piacere lecito, e una parte della vita, nella sua debita proporzione, come ogni altro. Ma mi preme far notare alle femministe e ai fanatici delle mode che non è un avvicinamento alla verità, bensì piuttosto il contrario. La pubblicità è piuttosto della natura d’un innocuo romanzesco. La vita pubblica, nel suo meglio, conterrà una gran dose di innocuo fantasticare romanzesco, e assai più spesso un fantasticare assai dannoso. In altre parole, mi preme far notare che il passaggio dalla vita privata alla vita pubblica, per quanto possa essere giusto o sbagliato, o necessario o non necessario, o desiderabile o indesiderabile, è sempre di necessità un passaggio da un lavoro più grande a uno più piccolo, e da un lavoro più arduo a uno più facile. Ed ecco perché la maggior parte dei moderni desidera davvero passare dal grande compito domestico a quello commerciale più piccolo e più facile. Preferirebbero fornire le livree a cento valletti piuttosto che scomodarsi con le faccende d’amore d’uno solo. Preferirebbero ricevere i saluti di cento soldati piuttosto che tentare di salvare l’anima d’uno solo. Preferirebbero distribuire moduli d’imposta sul reddito o moduli del telegrafo a cento uomini piuttosto che pasti, conversazione e sostegno morale a uno solo. Preferirebbero organizzare il corso educativo di storia o geografia, o correggere i compiti d’esame di algebra o trigonometria, per cento fanciulli, piuttosto che lottare con l’intero carattere umano d’uno solo. Poiché chiunque si renda responsabile d’un solo piccolo pargolo, nella sua interezza, scoprirà presto di star lottando con giganteschi angeli e demoni.
In un altro senso c’è qualcosa d’illusorio, o d’irresponsabile, nella funzione puramente pubblica, specie nel caso dell’ educazione pubblica. L’educatore in genere si occupa d’una sola sezione della mente dell’allievo. Ma sempre si occupa d’una sola sezione della vita dell’allievo. Il genitore deve occuparsi, non soltanto dell’intero carattere del fanciullo, ma anche dell’intera carriera del fanciullo. Il maestro semina il seme, ma il genitore miete oltre che seminare. Il maestro di scuola vede più fanciulli, ma non è chiaro che egli veda più fanciullezza; di certo vede meno gioventù e nessuna maturità. Il numero di bambine che assumono acido prussico è necessariamente esiguo. I ragazzi che si impiccano ai pilastri del letto, dopo una vita di crimine, sono in genere la minoranza. Ma il genitore deve prefigurarsi l’intera vita dell’individuo, e non semplicemente la vita scolastica dello scolaro. Non è probabile che il genitore anticipi esattamente il crimine e l’acido prussico come corona della carriera dell’infante. Ma anticiperà d’udire del crimine se sarà commesso; gli sarà probabilmente riferito del suicidio se avrà luogo. È del tutto dubbio se il maestro o la maestra ne udranno mai parlare affatto. Tutti sanno che gli insegnanti hanno un compito estenuante e spesso eroico, ma non è ingiusto verso di loro ricordare che in questo senso essi hanno un compito eccezionalmente felice. Il cinico direbbe che l’insegnante è felice nel non vedere mai i risultati del proprio insegnamento. Preferisco limitarmi a dire che egli non ha la fatica supplementare di doverlo stimare dall’altro capo. L’insegnante è di rado presente alla morte. Per usare una più mite metafora teatrale, di rado è presente la sera dello spettacolo. Ma questo è solo uno dei molti esempi della medesima verità: che ciò che si chiama vita pubblica non è più grande della vita privata, bensì più piccola. Ciò che chiamiamo vita pubblica è una faccenda frammentaria di sezioni e stagioni e impressioni; è solo nella vita privata che dimora la pienezza della nostra vita corporea.
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GLI SCIOPERI E LO SPIRITO DELLA MERAVIGLIA
C’È una storia che mi diletta tanto che sono certo d’averla ripetuta a stampa, intorno a una presunta e forse leggendaria segretaria di Madame Blavatsky o della signora Besant, che fu talmente deliziata da un nuovo sofà o ottomana che vi sedeva di preferenza mentre riposava o leggeva la propria corrispondenza. Alla fine esso si mosse leggermente, ed ella scoprì ch’era un mahatma coperto dalla sua veste orientale e rigido in preghiera, o in qualche più impersonale estasi. Che una segretaria debba avere un sedile ogni gentiluomo l’approverà; che ci si debba sedere su un mahatma nessun cristiano lo negherà; ciononostante, c’è un’altra possibile morale nella favola che è un rimprovero piuttosto a chi siede che al sedile. La si potrebbe esporre, come in una sorta di visione o allegoria, immaginando che tutto il nostro mobilio fosse davvero fatto così di membra vive invece che di legni morti. Supponiamo che le gambe della tavola fossero letteralmente gambe— le gambe di schiavi che stanno immobili. Supponiamo che i braccioli d’una poltrona fossero davvero braccia—le braccia d’un paziente domestico tese in permanenza, come quelle d’una vecchia bambinaia in attesa d’un pargolo. Sarebbe fatto apposta per far sentire l’agiato occupante della comoda poltrona piuttosto come un pargolo; il che potrebbe giovargli. Supponiamo che ogni sofà fosse come quello della segretaria della signora Besant—fatto semplicemente d’un uomo. Non occorre che siano fatti soltanto di teosofi o buddisti—Dio ne scampi. Molti di noi preferirebbero di gran lunga affidarsi a un musulmano o a un turco. Questo potrebbe, con stretta esattezza, chiamarsi sedersi su un ottomano. Ho persino letto, mi pare, di qualche potentato orientale che gioiva d’un nome dal suono simile a «sofà». Si potrebbe persino insinuare che alcuni di essi potrebbero essere cristiani, ma non c’è ragione, s’intende, per cui tutti non dovrebbero star pregando. Sedersi su un uomo mentre esso prega richiederebbe senza dubbio una certa disinvoltura. Darebbe anche una versione più letterale del possesso d’un inginocchiatoio. Sarebbe facile dilatare la stravaganza in una visione d’un’intera casa viva, un’architettura di braccia e di gambe, un tempio di templi dello spirito. Le quattro pareti potrebbero esser fatte d’uomini come i quadrati nelle formazioni militari. C’è persino, forse, un’ombra della fantasia nelle frasi popolari che paragonano il tetto alla testa umana, che chiamano cilindro il cappello a canna di fumo, o alludono leggermente a tutti i moderni copricapi maschili come «tegole». Ma l’unico valore della visione, come della maggior parte delle visioni—anche le più capovolte— è un valore morale. Essa raffigura, in emblema ed enigma, la verità che noi trattiamo davvero come semplice mobilio un certo numero di persone che sono, per lo meno, bestiame vivo. E la prova di ciò è che quando esse si muovono trasaliamo come la segretaria seduta sull’uomo in preghiera; ma forse siamo noi che dovremmo cominciare a pregare.
In the current criticisms of the Strikes there is a particular tone, which affects me not as a matter of politics, but rather of philosophy, or even of poetry. It is, indeed, the servile spirit expressed, if not in its poetry, at least in its rhetoric. But it is a spirit I can honestly claim to have hated and done my best to hammer long before I ever heard of the Servile State, long before I ever dreamed of applying this test to Strikes, or indeed of applying it to any political question. I felt it originally touching things at once elemental and everyday— things like grass or daylight, like stones or daisies. But in the light of it at least, I always rebelled against the trend or tone of which I speak. It may roughly be described as the spirit of taking things for granted. But, indeed, oddly enough, the very form of this phrase rather misses its own meaning. The spirit, I mean, strictly speaking, does not take things for granted. It takes them as if they had not been granted. It takes them as if it held them by something more autocratic than a right; by a cold and unconscious occupation, as stiff as a privilege and as baseless as a caprice. As a fact, things generally are granted ultimately by God, but often immediately by men. But this type of man is so unconscious of what he has been given that he is almost unconscious of what he has got; not realizing things as gifts, he hardly realizes them as goods. About the natural things, with which I began, this oblivion has only inward and spiritual, and not outward and political, effects. If we forget the sun the sun will not forget us, or, rather, he will not remember us to revenge himself by “striking” at us with a sunstroke. The stars will not go on strike or extinguish the illumination of the universe as the electricians would extinguish the illumination of the city. And so, while we repeat that there is a special providence in a falling star, we can ignore it in a fixed star. But when we at once ignore and assume thousands of thinking, brooding, free, lonely and capricious human creatures, they will remind us that we can no more order souls than we can order stars. This primary duty of doubt and wonder has nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of special industrial quarrels. The workmen might be quite wrong to go on strike, and we should still be much more wrong in never expecting them to go on strike. Ultimately, it is a mystical but most necessary mood of astonishment at everything outside one’s own soul—even one’s own body. It may even involve a wild vision in which one’s own boots on one’s own feet seem to be things distant and unfamiliar. And if this sound a shade fantastic, it is far less fantastic than the opposite extreme—the state of the man who feels as if he owned not only his own feet, but hundreds of other human feet like a huge centipede, or as if he were a universal octopus, and all rails, tubes and tramlines were his own tentacles, the nerves of his own body, or the circulation of his own blood. That is a much worse nightmare, and at this moment a much commoner one.
Tennyson struck a true note of the nineteenth century when he talked about “the fairy tales of science and the long result of time.” The Victorians had a very real and even childlike wonder at things like the steam-engine or the telephone, considered as toys. Unfortunately the long result of time, on the fairy tales of science, has been to extend the science and lessen the fairy tale, that is, the sense of the fairy tale. Take for example the current case of the Tubes. Suppose that at an age of innocence you had met a strange man who had promised to drive you by the force of the lightning through the bowels of the earth. Suppose he had offered, in a friendly way, to throw you from one end of London to the other, not only like a thunderbolt, but by the same force as a thunderbolt. Or if we picture it a pneumatic and not an electric railway; suppose he gaily promised to blow you through a pea-shooter to the other side of London Bridge. Suppose he indicated all these fascinating opportunities by pointing to a hole in the ground and telling you he would take you there in a sort of flying or falling room. I hope you would have agreed that there was a special providence in a falling room. But whether or no you could call it providential, you would agree to call it special. You would at least think that the strange man was a very strange man. You would perhaps call him a very strange and special liar, if he merely undertook to do it. You might even call him a magician, if he did do it. But the point is this, that you would not call him a Bolshevik merely because he did not do it. You would think it a wonderful thing that it should be done at all; passing in that swift car through those secret caverns, you would feel yourself whirled away like Cinderella carried off in the coach that had once been a pumpkin. But though such things happened in every fairy tale, they were not expected in any fairy tale. Nobody turned on the fairies and complained that they were not working because they were not always working wonders. The Press in those parts did not break into big headlines of “Pumpkins held up; no Transformation Scenes,” or “Wands Won’t Work; Famine of Coaches.” They did not announce with horror a “Strike of Fairy Godmothers.” They did not draw panic-stricken pictures of mobs of fairy godmothers, meeting in parks and squares, merely because the majority of pumpkins still continued to be pumpkins. Now I do not argue that we ought to treat every tube-girl as our fairy godmother; she might resent the familiarity, especially the suggestion of anything so near to a grandmother. But I do suggest that we should, by a return to earlier sentiments, realize that the tube servants are doing something for us that we could not do for ourselves; something that is no part of our natural capacities, or even of our natural rights. It is not inevitable, or in the nature of things, that when we have walked as we can or want to, somebody else should carry us further in a cart, even for hire: or that when we have wandered up a road and come to a river, a total stranger should take us over in a boat, even if we bribe him to do so. If we would look at things in this plain white daylight of wonder, that shines on all the roads of the fairy tales, we come to see at last the simplest truth about the Strikes, which is utterly missed in all contemporary comments on them. It is merely the fact that Strikers are not doing something: they are doing nothing. If you mean that they should be made to do something, say so, and establish slavery. But do not be muddled by the mere word “strike” into mixing it up with breaking a window or hitting a policeman on the nose. Do not be stunned by a metaphor; there are no metaphors in fairy tales.
Nelle correnti critiche agli Scioperi c’è un tono particolare, che mi tocca non come questione di politica, bensì piuttosto di filosofia, o persino di poesia. È, in verità, lo spirito servile espresso, se non nella sua poesia, almeno nella sua retorica. Ma è uno spirito che posso onestamente dichiarare d’aver odiato e fatto del mio meglio per martellare assai prima d’aver mai udito parlare dello Stato Servile, assai prima d’aver mai sognato d’applicare questa prova agli Scioperi, o anzi d’applicarla a una qualsiasi questione politica. Lo sentii originariamente sfiorando cose insieme elementari e quotidiane— cose come l’erba o la luce del giorno, come le pietre o le margherite. Ma alla loro luce, per lo meno, mi sono sempre ribellato alla tendenza o al tono di cui parlo. Lo si potrebbe grossolanamente descrivere come lo spirito di dare le cose per scontate. Ma, in verità, per quanto strano, la forma stessa di questa frase manca piuttosto il proprio significato. Lo spirito, intendo, a rigore, non dà le cose per concesse. Le prende come se non fossero state concesse. Le prende come se le detenesse per qualcosa di più autocratico d’un diritto; per una fredda e inconscia occupazione, rigida come un privilegio e infondata come un capriccio. In realtà, le cose in genere sono concesse in ultima istanza da Dio, ma spesso immediatamente dagli uomini. Ma questo tipo d’uomo è tanto inconscio di ciò che gli è stato dato ch’egli è quasi inconscio di ciò che ha ottenuto; non rendendosi conto delle cose come doni, a stento se ne rende conto come beni. Riguardo alle cose naturali, con cui ho cominciato, questo oblio ha solo effetti interiori e spirituali, e non esteriori e politici. Se dimentichiamo il sole il sole non dimenticherà noi, o meglio, egli non si ricorderà di noi per vendicarsi «scioperando» contro di noi con un’insolazione. Le stelle non si metteranno in sciopero né estingueranno l’illuminazione dell’universo come gli elettricisti estinguerebbero l’illuminazione della città. E così, mentre ripetiamo che c’è una speciale provvidenza in una stella cadente, possiamo ignorarla in una stella fissa. Ma quando insieme ignoriamo e diamo per scontate migliaia di creature umane pensanti, meditabonde, libere, sole e capricciose, esse ci ricorderanno che non possiamo comandare le anime più di quanto possiamo comandare le stelle. Questo dovere primario del dubbio e della meraviglia non ha nulla a che fare con i torti o le ragioni delle particolari contese industriali. Gli operai potrebbero aver del tutto torto a scioperare, e noi dovremmo comunque avere assai più torto nel non aspettarci mai che essi scioperino. In ultima analisi, è un umore mistico ma quanto mai necessario di stupore di fronte a tutto ciò che sta fuori dalla propria anima—persino il proprio corpo. Può persino comportare una visione selvaggia in cui i propri stivali ai propri piedi paiono cose distanti e non familiari. E se ciò suona un po’ fantastico, è assai meno fantastico dell’estremo opposto—lo stato dell’uomo che si sente come se possedesse non solo i propri piedi, ma centinaia di altri piedi umani come un enorme millepiedi, o come se fosse un piovra universale, e tutte le rotaie, i tubi e i binari del tram fossero i suoi propri tentacoli, i nervi del suo proprio corpo, o la circolazione del suo proprio sangue. Quello è un incubo assai peggiore, e in questo momento assai più comune.
Tennyson toccò una nota vera dell’Ottocento quando parlò delle «fiabe della scienza e del lungo risultato del tempo». I vittoriani provavano una meraviglia assai reale e persino infantile davanti a cose come la macchina a vapore o il telefono, considerate come giocattoli. Sfortunatamente il lungo risultato del tempo, sulle fiabe della scienza, è stato quello di estendere la scienza e sminuire la fiaba, ossia il senso della fiaba. Prendi ad esempio il caso attuale delle Metropolitane. Supponi che in un’età dell’innocenza tu avessi incontrato uno strano uomo che ti avesse promesso di trasportarti per la forza del fulmine attraverso le viscere della terra. Supponi che ti avesse offerto, in modo amichevole, di scagliarti da un capo all’altro di Londra, non solo come un fulmine, ma per la stessa forza d’un fulmine. O se lo raffiguriamo come una ferrovia pneumatica e non elettrica; supponi che allegramente ti avesse promesso di soffiarti attraverso una cerbottana fino all’altro lato del ponte di Londra. Supponi che ti avesse indicato tutte queste affascinanti opportunità additando un buco nel terreno e dicendoti che ti avrebbe portato laggiù in una sorta di stanza volante o cadente. Spero che tu avresti convenuto che c’era una speciale provvidenza in una stanza cadente. Ma che tu potessi o meno chiamarla provvidenziale, avresti convenuto di chiamarla speciale. Avresti per lo meno pensato che lo strano uomo fosse un uomo assai strano. L’avresti forse chiamato un bugiardo assai strano e speciale, se si fosse limitato a impegnarsi a farlo. L’avresti persino potuto chiamare un mago, se l’avesse fatto davvero. Ma il punto è questo, che tu non l’avresti chiamato bolscevico solo perché non l’avesse fatto. Avresti considerato una cosa meravigliosa che fosse fatto affatto; sfrecciando in quella rapida carrozza attraverso quelle segrete caverne, ti sentiresti trascinato via come Cenerentola portata via nella carrozza ch’era stata un tempo una zucca. Ma per quanto tali cose accadessero in ogni fiaba, non ci si aspettavano in alcuna fiaba. Nessuno se la prendeva con le fate e si lamentava che non lavorassero perché non compivano sempre prodigi. La stampa in quelle contrade non prorompeva in grandi titoloni «Zucche in stallo; niente scene di trasformazione», o «Le bacchette non funzionano; carestia di carrozze». Non annunciavano con orrore uno «Sciopero delle fate madrine». Non tracciavano quadri pieni di panico di folle di fate madrine, radunate in parchi e piazze, solo perché la maggioranza delle zucche continuava tuttora a essere zucca. Ora io non sostengo che dovremmo trattare ogni ragazza della metropolitana come la nostra fata madrina; ella potrebbe risentirsi della familiarità, specie della suggestione di qualcosa di tanto prossimo a una nonna. Ma suggerisco che dovremmo, con un ritorno a sentimenti più antichi, renderci conto che gli inservienti della metropolitana stanno facendo per noi qualcosa che non potremmo fare da noi stessi; qualcosa che non è affatto parte delle nostre capacità naturali, o persino dei nostri diritti naturali. Non è inevitabile, né nella natura delle cose, che quando abbiamo camminato quanto possiamo o vogliamo, qualcun altro debba portarci più oltre su un carro, sia pure a pagamento: o che quando abbiamo vagato su per una strada e siamo giunti a un fiume, un perfetto sconosciuto debba traghettarci in una barca, anche se lo corrompiamo perché lo faccia. Se guardassimo le cose in questa chiara bianca luce del giorno della meraviglia, che risplende su tutte le strade delle fiabe, giungeremmo a vedere infine la più semplice verità sugli Scioperi, che è del tutto mancata in tutti i commenti contemporanei su di essi. È semplicemente il fatto che gli scioperanti non stanno facendo qualcosa: non stanno facendo nulla. Se intendi che dovrebbero essere costretti a fare qualcosa, dillo, e istituisci la schiavitù. Ma non lasciarti confondere dalla mera parola «sciopero» al punto di scambiarla per rompere una finestra o colpire un poliziotto sul naso. Non lasciarti sbalordire da una metafora; non ci sono metafore nelle fiabe.
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A NOTE ON OLD NONSENSE
THE Suffragettes have found out that they were wrong; I might even be so egotistical as to say they have found out that we were right. At least they have found out that the modern plutocratic parliamentary franchise is what I for one always said it was. In other words, they are startled and infuriated to find that the most vital modern matters are not settled in Parliament at all, but mostly by a conflict or compromise between Trusts and Trade Unions. Hence Mrs. Flora Drummond actually cries aloud that she is being robbed of her precious vote; and says dramatically, “We women are being disenfranchised”—apparently by “Soviets.” It is as if somebody who had just spent half a million on a sham diamond, that ought never to have deceived anybody, should shriek from the window that thieves had stolen the real diamond that never existed at all.
Whether or no there are Soviets, there are undoubtedly Strikes; and I do not under-rate the difficulty or danger of the hour. There is at least a case for blaming men for striking right and left, illogically and without a system; there is a case for blaming them for striking steadily and logically in accordance with a false system; there is a case for saying that “direct action” implies such a false system. But there is no case whatever for blaming them for having depreciated the waste paper of the Westminster ballot-box; for that was depreciated long before the war, and long before the word “Soviet” came to soothe and satisfy the mind of Mrs. Drummond. It is absurd to blame the poor miners for discrediting the members of Parliament, who could always be trusted to discredit themselves. It was not the wild destructive Soviet which decided that Parliament should not know who paid the bills of its own political parties; it was Parliament itself. It was not a mad Bolshevist addressing a mob who said that the men of the parliamentary group have to treat charges of corruption among themselves differently from those outside; it was the greatest living parliamentarian in a great parliamentary debate. Miners had no more to be with it than missionaries in the Cannibal Islands; it was not because men could not get coal that they wanted to get coronets; and the empty coal-scuttle did not fill the party chest. But in any case the policy of people like Mrs. Drummond seems to require explanation. I can only fall back on the suggestion I have already made; that she and her friends insisted on taking shares in a rotten concern. They were quite sincere; so far as anybody can be quite sincere who flatly refuses to listen to reason. They have no right to complain if those who had to listen to their lawlessness will not listen to their legalism.
As a fact such a lady is rather contemptuous than complaining. She says the miners do not want Nationalization; which may or may not be true. But she explains the demand by the old disdainful allusion to agitators; or Labour leaders who “have to beat the big drum or lose their jobs.” Nobody of course could possibly connect Mrs. Flora Drummond with the idea of a big drum; any more than with a big horse or a uniform or a self-created military rank. But this particular school of Feminists must not be too fastidious in the present case. The miners are poor and rudely instructed men; and cannot be expected to have that touch of quiet persuasiveness and softening courtesy, by which the Militant Suffragettes did so much to defend the historic dignity of their sex. They have to fall back on something only too like a big drum, having no skill in the silvery flutings of the W.S.P.U., or that tender lute which Miss Pankhurst touched at twilight. But under all the disadvantages of the coarser sex, the advocates of Nationalization have not yet used all the methods that precedent might suggest to them. Mr. Smillie has not cut up any Raphaels or Rembrandts at the National Gallery; nor even set fire to any of the theatres he may happen to pass when he is out for a walk. Mr. Bonar Law, on returning home at evening, does not find Mr. Sidney Webb, a solitary figure chained to his railings. One of the Suffragettes distinguished herself by getting inside a grand piano; but it is seldom that we open our own private piano and find a large coal-miner inside the instrument. The coal-miner may be better at the big drum than the grand piano; but he remains on the outside of both; and his drum is really smaller than some. The big drum, however, is rather a convenient metaphor for something obvious and loud and hollow; and the true moral in the matter is that recent English history was a procession led far too much by the big drum; and the agitation about mere Parliamentary votes was one of the most recent and most remarkable examples of it.
What will be the future of the present industrial crisis I will not prophesy; but I do know that every element in the past, which has led to this impasse in the present, has been thus glorified as a mere novelty by such a noisy minority. It was just because sanguine and shallow people found it easier to act than to write, and easier to write than to think, that every one of the changes came which now complicate our position. The very industrialism which makes us dependent on coal, and therefore on coal-miners and coal-owners, was forced on us by fussy inefficient fools, for whom anything fresh seemed to be free. Neither miners nor mine-owners could have put out the fire by which Shakespeare told his Winter’s Tale. The unequal ownership, which has justly alienated the workers, was hurried happily through because the owners were new, and it did not matter that they were few. The blind hypocrisy with which our press and publicists hardened their hearts in the great strikes before the war, was made possible by loud evasions about political progress and especially by the big drum of Votes for Women. I have begun this essay on a controversial note, with the echo of an old controversy; and yet I do not mean to be merely provocative. The Suffragettes are only doing what we all do; and I have only put them first as an example of accumulated abuses for which we are all responsible. I do not mean to blame the Suffragettes as they blame the Socialists; but only to point to an impasse of impenitence for which we are all to blame.
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UNA NOTA SU UNA VECCHIA SCIOCCHEZZA
LE Suffragette hanno scoperto d’aver avuto torto; potrei persino essere tanto egoista da dire che hanno scoperto che noi avevamo ragione. Per lo meno hanno scoperto che il moderno plutocratico suffragio parlamentare è ciò che io, per parte mia, ho sempre detto che fosse. In altre parole, sono trasecolate e furibonde nel constatare che le questioni moderne più vitali non si decidono affatto in Parlamento, bensì per lo più mediante un conflitto o un compromesso tra Trust e Sindacati. Onde la signora Flora Drummond grida davvero a gran voce d’essere stata derubata del suo prezioso voto; e dice drammaticamente: «Noi donne siamo private del diritto di voto»—a quanto pare dai «Soviet». È come se qualcuno che avesse appena speso mezzo milione per un diamante finto, che non avrebbe mai dovuto ingannare nessuno, gridasse dalla finestra che i ladri avevano rubato il vero diamante che non era mai esistito affatto.
Che vi siano o no dei Soviet, vi sono indubbiamente degli Scioperi; e non sottovaluto la difficoltà o il pericolo dell’ora. C’è almeno un motivo per biasimare gli uomini che scioperano a destra e a manca, illogicamente e senza un sistema; c’è un motivo per biasimarli per lo scioperare costante e logico in conformità a un falso sistema; c’è un motivo per dire che l’«azione diretta» implica un falso sistema siffatto. Ma non c’è alcun motivo di sorta per biasimarli per aver deprezzato la cartaccia dell’urna elettorale di Westminster; poiché quella era deprezzata assai prima della guerra, e assai prima che la parola «Soviet» venisse a lenire e appagare la mente della signora Drummond. È assurdo biasimare i poveri minatori per aver screditato i membri del Parlamento, sui quali si poteva sempre contare perché screditassero sé stessi. Non fu il selvaggio distruttivo Soviet a decidere che il Parlamento non dovesse sapere chi pagava i conti dei suoi stessi partiti politici; fu il Parlamento medesimo. Non fu un folle bolscevico che arringava una folla a dire che gli uomini del gruppo parlamentare devono trattare le accuse di corruzione tra loro in modo diverso da quelle rivolte agli esterni; fu il più grande parlamentare vivente in un grande dibattito parlamentare. I minatori vi avevano a che fare non più dei missionari nelle Isole dei Cannibali; non fu perché gli uomini non riuscivano a procurarsi il carbone che volevano procurarsi coronet nobiliari; e il vuoto secchio del carbone non riempiva la cassa del partito. Ma in ogni caso la politica di persone come la signora Drummond pare richiedere una spiegazione. Non posso che ripiegare sul suggerimento che ho già avanzato; che lei e le sue amiche si ostinarono a prendere quote in un’impresa marcia. Erano del tutto sincere; per quanto possa esserlo del tutto chiunque si rifiuti recisamente di dare ascolto alla ragione. Non hanno diritto di lamentarsi se coloro che dovettero dare ascolto alla loro illegalità non danno ascolto al loro legalismo.
Di fatto una tal dama è sprezzante piuttosto che lamentosa. Dice che i minatori non vogliono la Nazionalizzazione; il che può essere o non essere vero. Ma spiega la rivendicazione con la vecchia sdegnosa allusione agli agitatori; o ai capi laburisti che «devono battere la gran cassa o perdere il posto». Nessuno, s’intende, potrebbe mai associare la signora Flora Drummond all’idea d’una gran cassa; non più che a un gran cavallo o a una divisa o a un grado militare auto-conferito. Ma questa particolare scuola di Femministe non dev’essere troppo schizzinosa nel caso presente. I minatori sono uomini poveri e rozzamente istruiti; e non ci si può aspettare che abbiano quel tocco di quieta persuasività e di raddolcente cortesia, con cui le Suffragette Militanti tanto fecero per difendere la storica dignità del loro sesso. Devono ripiegare su qualcosa di troppo simile a una gran cassa, non avendo alcuna perizia nei flauti argentini della W.S.P.U., o in quel tenero liuto che la signorina Pankhurst sfiorava al crepuscolo. Ma sotto tutti gli svantaggi del sesso più rozzo, i fautori della Nazionalizzazione non hanno ancora usato tutti i metodi che il precedente potrebbe suggerire loro. Il signor Smillie non ha squarciato alcun Raffaello o Rembrandt alla National Gallery; né dato fuoco ad alcuno dei teatri davanti a cui gli capiti di passare quando è fuori a passeggio. Il signor Bonar Law, tornando a casa la sera, non trova il signor Sidney Webb, figura solitaria incatenata alla sua cancellata. Una delle Suffragette si distinse infilandosi dentro un pianoforte a coda; ma di rado apriamo il nostro pianoforte privato e vi troviamo dentro un grosso minatore di carbone. Il minatore di carbone può essere più abile con la gran cassa che con il pianoforte a coda; ma resta al di fuori d’entrambi; e la sua cassa è in realtà più piccola di alcune. La gran cassa, tuttavia, è una metafora piuttosto comoda per qualcosa d’ovvio e di fragoroso e di vuoto; e la vera morale della faccenda è che la recente storia inglese fu una processione guidata fin troppo dalla gran cassa; e l’agitazione intorno ai meri voti parlamentari fu uno degli esempi più recenti e più notevoli di ciò.
Quale sarà il futuro dell’attuale crisi industriale io non profetizzerò; ma so bene che ogni elemento del passato, che ha condotto a questo vicolo cieco nel presente, è stato così glorificato come mera novità da una simile rumorosa minoranza. Fu proprio perché le persone sanguigne e superficiali trovavano più facile agire che scrivere, e più facile scrivere che pensare, che ognuno dei mutamenti che ora complicano la nostra posizione ebbe luogo. Lo stesso industrialismo che ci rende dipendenti dal carbone, e perciò dai minatori di carbone e dai proprietari di carbone, ci fu imposto da affaccendati inetti sciocchi, per i quali qualsiasi cosa nuova pareva gratuita. Né i minatori né i proprietari di miniere avrebbero potuto spegnere il fuoco con cui Shakespeare narrò il suo Racconto d’Inverno. La proprietà ineguale, che ha giustamente alienato i lavoratori, fu affrettata lietamente perché i proprietari erano nuovi, e non importava che fossero pochi. La cieca ipocrisia con cui la nostra stampa e i nostri pubblicisti indurirono i loro cuori nei grandi scioperi prima della guerra, fu resa possibile da rumorose evasioni sul progresso politico e specialmente dalla gran cassa del Voto alle Donne. Ho iniziato questo saggio su una nota polemica, con l’eco d’una vecchia polemica; eppure non intendo essere meramente provocatorio. Le Suffragette non fanno che ciò che tutti facciamo; e le ho messe prima solo come esempio d’abusi accumulati di cui siamo tutti responsabili. Non intendo biasimare le Suffragette come esse biasimano i Socialisti; ma solo additare un vicolo cieco d’impenitenza di cui siamo tutti da biasimare.
I am more and more convinced that what is wanted nowadays is not optimism or pessimism, but a sort of reform that might more truly be called repentance. The reform of a State ought to be a thing more like the reform of a thief, which involves the admission that he has been a thief. We ought not to be merely inventing consolations, or even merely prophesying disasters; we ought, first and foremost, to be confessing our own very bad mistakes. It is easy enough to say that the world is getting better, by some mysterious thing called progress—which seems to mean providence without purpose. But it is almost as easy to say the world is getting worse, if we assume that it is only the younger generation that has just begun to make it worse. It is easy enough to say that the country is going to the dogs, if we are careful to identify the dogs with the puppies. What we need is not the assertion that other people are going to the dogs, but the confession that we ourselves have only just come back from the swine. We also are the younger generation, in the sense of being the Prodigal Son. As somebody said, there is such a thing as the Prodigal Father. We could purchase hope at the dreadful price of humility. But all thinkers and writers, of all political parties and philosophical sects, seem to shrink from this notion of admitting they are on the wrong road and getting back on to the right one. They are always trying to pretend, by hook or crook, that they are all on the same somewhat meandering road, and that they were right in going east yesterday, though they are right in going west to-day. They will try to make out that every school of thought was an advance on the last school of thought, and that no apology is due to anybody. For instance, we might really have a moderate, cautious, and even conservative reform of the evils affecting Labour, if we would only confess that Capitalism itself was a blunder which it is very difficult to undo. As it is, men seem to be divided into those that think it an achievement so admirable that it cannot be improved upon, and those who think it an achievement so encouraging that it can be improved upon. The former will leave it in chaos, and the latter will probably improve it into slavery. Neither will admit what is the truth— that we have got to get back to a better distribution of property, as it was before we fell into the blunder of allowing property to be clotted into monstrous monopolies. For that involves admitting that we have made a mistake; and that we none of us have the moral courage to do.
I suggest very seriously that it will do good to our credit for courage and right reason if we drop this way of doing things. The conversions that have converted the world were not effected by this sort of evolutionary curve. St. Paul did not pretend that he had changed slowly and imperceptibly from a Pharisee to a Christian. Victor Hugo did not maintain that he had been very right to be a Royalist, and only a little more right to be a Republican. If we have come to the conclusion that we have been wrong, let us say so, and congratulate ourselves on being now right; not insinuate that in some relative fashion we were just as right when we were wrong. For in this respect the progressive is the worst sort of conservative. He insists on conserving, in the most obstinate and obscurantist fashion, all the courses that have been marked out for progress in the past. He does literally, in the rather unlucky metaphor of Tennyson, “let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.” For anyone who changes in that fashion has only got into a groove. There is no obligation on anybody to invent evolutionary excuses for all these experiments. There is no need to be so much ashamed of our blunders as all that. It is human to err; and the only final and deadly error, among all our errors, is denying that we have ever erred.
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MILTON AND MERRY ENGLAND
MR. FREEMAN, in contributing to the “London Mercury” some of those critical analyses which we all admire, remarked about myself (along with compliments only too generous and strictures almost entirely just) that there was very little autobiography in my writings. I hope the reader will not have reason to curse him for this kindly provocation, watching me assume the graceful poses of Marie Bashkirtseff, but I feel tempted to plead it in extenuation or excuse for this article, which can hardly avoid being egotistical. For though it concerns one of those problems of literature, of philosophy and of history that certainly interest me more than my own psychology, it is one on which I can hardly explain myself without seeming to expose myself.
That valuable public servant, “The Gentleman with the Duster,” has passed on from Downing Street, from polishing up the Mirrors and polishing off the Ministers, to a larger world of reflections in “The Glass of Fashion.” I call the glass a world of reflections rather than a world of shadows: especially as I myself am one of those tenuous shades. And the matter which interests me here is that the critic in question complains that I have been very unjust to Puritans and Puritanism, and especially to a certain ethical idealism in them, which he declares to have been more essential than the Calvinism of which I “make so much.” He puts the point in a genial but somewhat fantastic fashion by saying that the world owes something to the jokes of Mr. G. K. Chesterton, but more to the moral earnestness of John Milton. This involves rather a dizzy elevation than a salutary depression; and the comparison is rather too overwhelming to be crushing. For I suppose the graceful duster of mirrors himself would hardly feel crushed if I told him he did not hold the mirror up to Nature quite so successfully as Shakespeare. Nor can I be described as exactly reeling from the shock of being informed that I am a less historic figure than Milton. I know not how to answer, unless it be in the noble words of Sam Weller: “That’s what we call a self-evident proposition, as the cats’-meat-man said to the housemaid when she said he was no gentleman.” But for all that I have a controversial issue with the critic about the moral earnestness of Milton, and I have a confession to make which will seem to many only too much in the personal manner referred to by Mr. Freeman.
Sono sempre più convinto che ciò che occorre oggigiorno non sia ottimismo o pessimismo, ma una sorta di riforma che si potrebbe più veramente chiamare pentimento. La riforma d’uno Stato dovrebbe essere una cosa più simile alla correzione d’un ladro, che comporta l’ammissione ch’egli è stato un ladro. Non dovremmo limitarci a inventare consolazioni, o anche solo a profetizzare disastri; dovremmo, prima e innanzitutto, confessare i nostri propri errori assai gravi. È abbastanza facile dire che il mondo va migliorando, per opera d’una cosa misteriosa chiamata progresso—che pare significare provvidenza senza scopo. Ma è quasi altrettanto facile dire che il mondo va peggiorando, se supponiamo che sia solo la generazione più giovane ad aver appena cominciato a peggiorarlo. È abbastanza facile dire che il paese sta andando in malora, se abbiamo cura d’identificare i cani con i cuccioli. Ciò che ci occorre non è l’asserzione che gli altri stanno andando in malora, bensì la confessione che noi stessi siamo appena tornati dal porcile. Anche noi siamo la generazione più giovane, nel senso d’essere il Figliuol Prodigo. Come qualcuno disse, esiste una cosa quale il Padre Prodigo. Potremmo acquistare la speranza al terribile prezzo dell’umiltà. Ma tutti i pensatori e gli scrittori, di tutti i partiti politici e le sette filosofiche, paiono rifuggire da questa nozione d’ammettere d’essere sulla strada sbagliata e di tornare su quella giusta. Cercano sempre di fingere, in un modo o nell’altro, d’essere tutti sulla medesima piuttosto tortuosa strada, e d’aver avuto ragione ad andare verso oriente ieri, benché abbiano ragione ad andare verso occidente oggi. Cercheranno di far apparire che ogni scuola di pensiero fu un progresso sulla scuola di pensiero precedente, e che nessuna scusa è dovuta ad alcuno. Ad esempio, potremmo davvero avere una moderata, cauta e persino conservatrice riforma dei mali che affliggono il Lavoro, se solo confessassimo che il Capitalismo stesso fu un abbaglio difficilissimo da disfare. Così stando le cose, gli uomini paiono divisi tra coloro che lo giudicano una conquista tanto ammirevole da non poter essere migliorata, e coloro che lo giudicano una conquista tanto incoraggiante da poter essere migliorata. I primi lo lasceranno nel caos, e i secondi probabilmente lo miglioreranno fino a farne schiavitù. Nessuno dei due ammetterà qual è la verità— che dobbiamo tornare indietro a una migliore distribuzione della proprietà, com’era prima che cadessimo nell’abbaglio di lasciare che la proprietà si aggrumasse in mostruosi monopoli. Poiché ciò comporta l’ammettere che abbiamo commesso un errore; e questo nessuno di noi ha il coraggio morale di fare.
Suggerisco assai seriamente che gioverà al nostro credito per coraggio e retta ragione se abbandoniamo questo modo di fare le cose. Le conversioni che hanno convertito il mondo non furono operate da questa sorta di curva evolutiva. San Paolo non finse d’essere mutato lentamente e impercettibilmente da fariseo a cristiano. Victor Hugo non sostenne d’aver avuto assai ragione a essere monarchico, e solo un po’ più ragione a essere repubblicano. Se siamo giunti alla conclusione d’aver avuto torto, diciamolo, e congratuliamoci d’aver ora ragione; non insinuiamo che in qualche modo relativo avessimo altrettanto ragione quando avevamo torto. Poiché sotto questo riguardo il progressista è il peggior tipo di conservatore. Insiste nel conservare, nel modo più ostinato e oscurantista, tutte le rotte che sono state tracciate per il progresso nel passato. Egli letteralmente, nella piuttosto infelice metafora di Tennyson, «lascia che il gran mondo giri per sempre giù per i risonanti solchi del mutamento». Poiché chiunque muti a quel modo non ha fatto che imboccare un solco. Non c’è alcun obbligo per nessuno d’inventare scuse evolutive per tutti questi esperimenti. Non c’è alcun bisogno di vergognarsi tanto dei nostri abbagli. È umano errare; e il solo errore finale e mortale, tra tutti i nostri errori, è negare d’aver mai errato.
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MILTON E L’ALLEGRA INGHILTERRA
IL SIGNOR FREEMAN, contribuendo al «London Mercury» con alcune di quelle analisi critiche che tutti ammiriamo, osservò a mio riguardo (insieme a complimenti fin troppo generosi e a censure quasi interamente giuste) che nei miei scritti c’era pochissima autobiografia. Spero che il lettore non abbia motivo di maledirlo per questa gentile provocazione, vedendomi assumere le graziose pose di Marie Bashkirtseff, ma mi sento tentato d’addurla a discolpa o scusa di questo articolo, che difficilmente può evitare d’essere egoistico. Poiché, sebbene esso riguardi uno di quei problemi di letteratura, di filosofia e di storia che di certo m’interessano più della mia stessa psicologia, è uno su cui difficilmente posso spiegarmi senza parere d’espormi.
Quel prezioso pubblico funzionario, «Il Gentiluomo con lo Straccio», è passato da Downing Street, dal lustrare gli Specchi e dallo spolverare via i Ministri, a un più vasto mondo di riflessi ne «Lo Specchio della Moda». Chiamo lo specchio un mondo di riflessi anziché un mondo d’ombre: tanto più che io stesso sono una di quelle tenui ombre. E la questione che qui m’interessa è che il critico in parola si duole ch’io sia stato assai ingiusto verso i Puritani e il Puritanesimo, e specialmente verso un certo idealismo etico in essi, che egli dichiara essere stato più essenziale del Calvinismo di cui io «faccio tanto conto». Egli espone il punto in modo geniale ma alquanto fantastico dicendo che il mondo deve qualcosa ai motti di spirito del signor G. K. Chesterton, ma di più alla serietà morale di John Milton. Ciò comporta piuttosto un vertiginoso innalzamento che una salutare mortificazione; e il paragone è piuttosto troppo schiacciante per schiacciare. Poiché suppongo che il grazioso spolveratore di specchi stesso difficilmente si sentirebbe schiacciato se gli dicessi ch’egli non regge lo specchio alla Natura con tanto successo quanto Shakespeare. Né posso essere descritto come esattamente vacillante per l’urto d’essere informato d’essere una figura meno storica di Milton. Non so come rispondere, se non con le nobili parole di Sam Weller: «Questa è ciò che noi chiamiamo una proposizione auto-evidente, come disse il venditore di carne per gatti alla domestica quando lei gli disse ch’egli non era un gentiluomo». Ma ciò nondimeno ho una questione controversa con il critico circa la serietà morale di Milton, e ho una confessione da fare che parrà a molti fin troppo nella maniera personale cui si riferiva il signor Freeman.
My first impulse to write, and almost my first impulse to think, was a revolt of disgust with the Decadents and the aesthetic pessimism of the ‘nineties. It is now almost impossible to bring home to anybody, even to myself, how final that fin de siècle seemed to be; not the end of the century but the end of the world. To a boy his first hatred is almost as immortal as his first love. He does not realize that the objects of either can alter; and I did not know that the twilight of the gods was only a mood. I thought that all the wit and wisdom in the world were banded together to slander and depress the world, and in becoming an optimist I had the feelings of an outlaw. Like Prince Florizel of Bohemia, I felt myself to be alone in a luxurious Suicide Club. But even the death seemed to be a living or rather everlasting death. To-day the whole thing is merely dead; it was not sufficiently immortal to be damned, but then the image of Dorian Gray was really an idol, with something of the endless youth of a god. To-day the picture of Dorian Gray has really grown old. Dodo then was not merely an amusing female; she was the eternal feminine. To-day the Dodo is extinct. Then, above all, everyone claiming intelligence insisted on what was called “Art for art’s sake.” To-day even the biographer of Oscar Wilde proposes to abandon “art for art’s sake,” and to substitute “art for life’s sake.” But at the time I was more inclined to substitute “no art, for God’s sake.” I would rather have had no art at all than one which occupies itself in matching shades of peacock and turquoise for a decorative scheme of blue devils. I started to think it out, and the more I thought of it the more certain I grew that the whole thing was a fallacy; that art could not exist apart from, still less in opposition to, life; especially the life of the soul, which is salvation; and that great art never had been so much detached as that from conscience and common sense, or from what my critic would call moral earnestness. Unfortunately, by the time I had exposed it as a fallacy it had entirely evaporated as a fashion. Since then I have taken universal annihilations more lightly. But I can still be stirred, as man always can be by memories of their first excitements or ambitions, by anything that shows the cloven hoof of that particular blue devil. I am still ready to knock him about, though I no longer think he has a cloven hoof or even a lame leg to stand on. But for all that there is one real argument which I still recognize on his side; and that argument is in a single word. There is still one word which the aesthete can whisper; and the whisper will bring back all my childish fears that the aesthete may be right after all. There is one name that does seem to me a strong argument for the decadent doctrine that “art is unmoral.” When that name is uttered, the world of Wilde and Whistler comes back with all its cold levity and cynical connoisseurship; the butterfly becomes a burden, and the green carnation flourishes like the green baytree. For the moment I do believe in “art for art’s sake.” And that name is John Milton.
It does really seem to me that Milton was an artist, and nothing but an artist; and yet so great an artist as to sustain by his own strength the idea that art can exist alone. He seems to me an almost solitary example of a man of magnificent genius whose greatness does not depend at all upon moral earnestness, or upon anything connected with morality. His greatness is in a style, and a style which seems to me rather unusually separate from its substance. What is the exact nature of the pleasure which I, for one, take in reading and repeating some such lines, for instance, as those familiar ones:
Dying put on the weeds of Dominic Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.
So far as I can see, the whole effect is in a certain unexpected order and arrangement of words, independent and distinguished, like the perfect manners of an eccentric gentleman. Say instead “Put on in death the weeds of Dominic,” and the whole unique dignity of the line has broken down. It is something in the quiet but confident inversion of “Dying put on” which exactly achieves that perpetual slight novelty which Aristotle profoundly said was the language of poetry. The idea itself is at best an obvious and even conventional condemnation of superstition, and in the ultimate sense a rather superficial one. Coming where it does, indeed, it does not so much suggest moral earnestness as rather a moralizing priggishness. For it is dragged in very laboriously into the very last place where it is wanted, before a splendidly large and luminous vision of the world newly created, and the first innocence of earth and sky. It is that passage in which the wanderer through space approaches Eden; one of the most unquestionable triumphs of all human literature. That one book at least of “Paradise Lost” could claim the more audacious title of “Paradise Found.” But if it was necessary for the poet going to Eden to pass through Limbo, why was it necessary to pass through Lambeth and Little Bethel? Why should he go there via Rome and Geneva? Why was it necessary to compare the débris of Limbo to the details of ecclesiastical quarrels in the seventeenth century, when he was moving in a world before the dawn of all the centuries, or the shadow of the first quarrel? Why did he talk as if the Church was reformed before the world was made, or as if Latimer lit his candle before God made the sun and moon? Matthew Arnold made fun of those who claimed divine sanction for episcopacy by suggesting that when God said, “Let there be light,” He also said “Let there be Bishops.” But his own favourite Milton went very near suggesting that when God said, “Let there be light,” He soon afterwards remarked, “Let there be Nonconformists,” I do not feel this merely because my own religious sympathies happen to be rather on the other side. It is indeed probable that Milton did not appreciate a whole world of ideas in which he saw merely the corruptions: the idea of relics and symbolic acts and the drama of the deathbed. It does not enlarge his place in the philosophy of history that this should be his only relation either to the divine demagogy of the Dogs of God or to the fantastical fraternity of the Jugglers of God. But I should feel exactly the same incongruity if the theological animus were the other way. It would be equally disproportionate if the approach to Eden were interrupted with jokes against Puritans, or if Limbo were littered with steeple-crowned hats and the scrolls of interminable Calvinistic sermons. We should still feel that a book of “Paradise Lost” was not the right place for a passage from Hudibras. So far from being morally earnest, in the best sense, there is something almost philosophically frivolous in the incapacity to think firmly and magnanimously about the First Things, and the primary colours of the creative palette, without spoiling the picture with this ink-slinging of sectarian politics. Speaking from the standpoint of moral earnestness, I confess it seems to me trivial and spiteful and even a little vulgar. After which impertinent criticism, I Will now repeat in a loud voice, and for the mere lust of saying it as often as possible:
Il mio primo impulso a scrivere, e quasi il mio primo impulso a pensare, fu una rivolta di disgusto verso i Decadenti e il pessimismo estetico degli anni Novanta. Ora è quasi impossibile far penetrare in chicchessia, persino in me stesso, quanto definitiva quella fin de siècle sembrasse; non la fine del secolo ma la fine del mondo. Per un ragazzo il suo primo odio è quasi altrettanto immortale del suo primo amore. Egli non si rende conto che gli oggetti dell’uno e dell’altro possono mutare; e io non sapevo che il crepuscolo degli dèi era soltanto un umore. Pensavo che tutto l’ingegno e la saggezza del mondo si fossero collegati per calunniare e deprimere il mondo, e nel divenire ottimista provavo i sentimenti d’un fuorilegge. Come il Principe Florizel di Boemia, mi sentivo solo in un lussuoso Club del Suicidio. Ma persino la morte pareva essere una morte viva o piuttosto eterna. Oggi l’intera faccenda è semplicemente morta; non era sufficientemente immortale per essere dannata, ma allora l’immagine di Dorian Gray era davvero un idolo, con qualcosa dell’infinita giovinezza d’un dio. Oggi il ritratto di Dorian Gray è davvero invecchiato. Dodo allora non era una femmina meramente divertente; era l’eterno femminino. Oggi il Dodo è estinto. Allora, soprattutto, chiunque rivendicasse intelligenza insisteva su ciò che si chiamava «l’Arte per l’Arte». Oggi persino il biografo di Oscar Wilde propone d’abbandonare «l’arte per l’arte», e di sostituirvi «l’arte per la vita». Ma al tempo io ero più incline a sostituirvi «niente arte, per l’amor di Dio». Avrei preferito non avere alcuna arte piuttosto che una che si occupasse d’accordare sfumature di pavone e turchese per uno schema decorativo di diavoli azzurri. Presi a rifletterci, e più ci pensavo più mi facevo certo che l’intera faccenda era una fallacia; che l’arte non poteva esistere separata, e ancor meno in opposizione, dalla vita; specie dalla vita dell’anima, che è salvezza; e che la grande arte non era mai stata tanto distaccata quanto ciò dalla coscienza e dal buon senso, o da ciò che il mio critico chiamerebbe serietà morale. Sfortunatamente, quando col tempo avevo smascherato la fallacia essa era interamente evaporata come moda. Da allora ho preso le annichilazioni universali con più leggerezza. Ma posso ancora essere scosso, come sempre lo può l’uomo dai ricordi delle sue prime eccitazioni o ambizioni, da qualsiasi cosa mostri lo zoccolo fesso di quel particolare diavolo azzurro. Sono ancora pronto a bastonarlo, benché non pensi più ch’egli abbia uno zoccolo fesso o anche solo una zampa zoppa su cui reggersi. Ma ciò nondimeno c’è un solo argomento reale che io riconosco ancora dalla sua parte; e quell’argomento sta in una sola parola. C’è ancora una parola che l’esteta può sussurrare; e il sussurro riporterà tutte le mie paure infantili che l’esteta possa aver ragione dopo tutto. C’è un nome che davvero mi pare un forte argomento a favore della dottrina decadente secondo cui «l’arte è amorale». Quando quel nome è pronunciato, il mondo di Wilde e di Whistler torna con tutta la sua fredda levità e il suo cinico intenditismo; la farfalla diviene un peso, e il garofano verde prospera come il verde alloro. Per un istante credo davvero nell’«arte per l’arte». E quel nome è John Milton.
Mi pare davvero che Milton fosse un artista, e nient’altro che un artista; e tuttavia un artista tanto grande da sostenere con la propria forza l’idea che l’arte possa esistere da sola. Mi pare un esempio quasi solitario d’un uomo di magnifico genio la cui grandezza non dipende affatto dalla serietà morale, o da alcunché di connesso con la moralità. La sua grandezza sta in uno stile, e in uno stile che mi pare piuttosto insolitamente separato dalla sua sostanza. Qual è l’esatta natura del piacere che io, per parte mia, provo nel leggere e ripetere alcuni versi siffatti, ad esempio, come quelli familiari:
Dying put on the weeds of Dominic Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.
Per quanto posso vedere, l’intero effetto sta in un certo inaspettato ordine e disposizione di parole, indipendente e distinto, come i perfetti modi d’un eccentrico gentiluomo. Di’ invece «Put on in death the weeds of Dominic», e l’intera unica dignità del verso è crollata. È qualcosa nella quieta ma sicura inversione di «Dying put on» che raggiunge esattamente quella perpetua lieve novità che Aristotele profondamente disse essere il linguaggio della poesia. L’idea in sé è nel migliore dei casi un’ovvia e persino convenzionale condanna della superstizione, e in ultimo senso piuttosto superficiale. Giungendo là dove giunge, in verità, essa non tanto suggerisce serietà morale quanto piuttosto una moraleggiante pedanteria. Poiché è trascinata dentro assai laboriosamente proprio nell’ultimo luogo in cui la si desidera, davanti a una splendidamente vasta e luminosa visione del mondo appena creato, e della prima innocenza della terra e del cielo. È quel passo in cui il viandante per lo spazio s’avvicina all’Eden; uno dei più incontestabili trionfi di tutta la letteratura umana. Quel libro almeno del «Paradise Lost» potrebbe rivendicare il più audace titolo di «Paradiso Ritrovato». Ma se era necessario per il poeta diretto all’Eden passare per il Limbo, perché era necessario passare per Lambeth e Little Bethel? Perché egli doveva andarvi via Roma e Ginevra? Perché era necessario paragonare i detriti del Limbo ai dettagli delle contese ecclesiastiche del Seicento, quando egli si muoveva in un mondo anteriore all’alba di tutti i secoli, o all’ombra della prima contesa? Perché parlava come se la Chiesa fosse riformata prima che il mondo fosse fatto, o come se Latimer accendesse la sua candela prima che Dio facesse il sole e la luna? Matthew Arnold si fece beffe di coloro che rivendicavano una sanzione divina per l’episcopato suggerendo che quando Dio disse: «Sia la luce», Egli disse anche: «Siano i Vescovi». Ma il suo prediletto Milton andò assai vicino a suggerire che quando Dio disse: «Sia la luce», Egli subito dopo osservò: «Siano i Non Conformisti». Non provo questo semplicemente perché le mie simpatie religiose si trovano a essere piuttosto dall’altra parte. È in verità probabile che Milton non apprezzasse un intero mondo d’idee in cui egli non vedeva che le corruzioni: l’idea delle reliquie e degli atti simbolici e il dramma del letto di morte. Non allarga il suo posto nella filosofia della storia che questo debba essere il suo unico rapporto o con la divina demagogia dei Cani di Dio o con la fantastica confraternita dei Giocolieri di Dio. Ma proverei esattamente la medesima incongruità se l’animosità teologica fosse rivolta all’altro verso. Sarebbe altrettanto sproporzionato se l’avvicinamento all’Eden fosse interrotto da facezie contro i Puritani, o se il Limbo fosse cosparso di cappelli a punta di campanile e di rotoli d’interminabili sermoni calvinisti. Sentiremmo comunque che un libro del «Paradise Lost» non era il luogo adatto per un passo dell’Hudibras. Tanto lungi dall’essere moralmente serio, nel senso migliore, c’è qualcosa di quasi filosoficamente frivolo nell’incapacità di pensare fermamente e magnanimamente alle Cose Prime, e ai colori primari della tavolozza creatrice, senza guastare il quadro con questo spargere inchiostro di politica settaria. Parlando dal punto di vista della serietà morale, confesso che mi pare banale e maligno e persino un po’ volgare. Dopo la quale impertinente critica, ripeterò ora a gran voce, e per il mero gusto di dirlo il più spesso possibile:
Dying put on the weeds of Dominic Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.
And the exuberant joy I take in it is the nearest thing I have ever known to art for art’s sake.
In short it seems to me that Milton was a great artist, and that he was also a great accident. It was rather in the same sense that his master Cromwell was a great accident. It is not true that all the moral virtues were crystallized in Milton and his Puritans. It is not true that all the military virtues were concentrated in Cromwell and his Ironsides. There were masses of moral devotion on the one side, and masses of military valour on the other side. But it did so happen that Milton had more ability and success in literary expression, and Cromwell more ability and success in military science, than any of their many rivals. To represent Cromwell as a fiend or Milton as a hypocrite is to rush to another extreme and be ridiculous; they both believed sincerely enough in certain moral ideas of their time. Only they were not, as seems to be supposed, the only moral ideas of their time. And they were not, in my private opinion, the best moral ideas of their time. One of them was the idea that wisdom is more or less weakened by laughter and a popular taste in pleasure; and we may call this moral earnestness if we like. But the point is that Cromwell did not succeed by his moral earnestness, but by his strategy; and Milton did not succeed by his moral earnestness, but by his style.
And, first of all, let me touch on the highest form of moral earnestness and the relation of Milton to the religious poetry of his day. “Paradise Lost” is certainly a religious poem; but, for many of its admirers, the religion is the least admirable part of it. The poet professes indeed to justify the ways of God to men; but I never heard of any men who read it in order to have them justified, as men do still read a really religious poem, like the dark and almost sceptical Book of Job. A poem can hardly be said to justify the ways of God, when its most frequent effect is admittedly to make people sympathize with Satan. In all this I am in a sense arguing against myself; for all my instincts, as I have said, are against the aesthetic theory that art so great can be wholly irreligious. And I agree that even in Milton there are gleams of Christianity. Nobody quite without them could have written the single line: “By the dear might of Him that walked the waves.” But it is hardly too much to say that it is the one place where that Figure walks in the whole world of Milton. Nobody, I imagine, has ever been able to recognize Christ in the cold conqueror who drives a chariot in the war in Heaven, like Apollo warring on the Titans. Nobody has ever heard Him in the stately disquisitions either of the Council in Heaven or of “Paradise Regained.” But apart from all these particular problems, it is surely the general truth that the great religious epic strikes us with a sense of disproportion; the sense of how little it is religious considering how manifestly it is great. It seems almost strange that a man should have written so much and so well without stumbling on Christian tradition.
Now in the age of Milton there was a riot of religious poetry. Most of it had moral earnestness, and much of it had splendid spiritual conviction. But most of it was not the poetry of the Puritans; on the contrary, it was mostly the poetry of the Cavaliers. The most real religion—we might say the most realistic religion— is not to be found in Milton, but in Vaughan, in Traherne, in Crashaw, in Herbert, and even in Herrick. The best proof of it is that the religion is alive to-day, as religion and not merely as literature. A Roman Catholic can read Crashaw, an Anglo-Catholic can read Herbert, in a direct devotional spirit; I gravely doubt whether many modern Congregationalists read the theology of “Paradise Lost” in that spirit. For the moment I mention only this purely religious emotion; I do not deny that Milton’s poetry, like all great poetry, can awaken other great emotions. For instance, a man bereaved by one of the tragedies of the Great War might well find a stoical serenity in the great lines beginning, “Nothing is here, for tears.” That sort of consolation is uttered, as nobly as it could be uttered, by Milton; but it might be uttered by Sophocles or Goethe, or even by Lucretius or Voltaire. But supposing that a man were seeking a more Christian kind of consolation, he would not find it in Milton at all, as he would find it in the lines beginning, “They are all gone into the world of light.” The whole of the two great Puritan epics do not contain all that is said in saying, “0 holy hope and high humility.” Neither hope nor humility were Puritan specialties.
But it was not only in devotional mysticism that these Cavaliers could challenge the great Puritan; it was in a mysticism more humanistic and even more modern. They shine with that white mystery of daylight which many suppose to have dawned with Wordsworth and with Blake. In that sense they make earth mystical where Milton only made Heaven material. Nor are they inferior in philosophic freedom; the single line of Crashaw, addressed to a woman, “By thy large draughts of intellectual day,” is less likely, I fancy, to have been addressed by Adam to Eve, or by Milton to Mrs. Milton. It seems to me that these men were superior to Milton in magnanimity, in chivalry, in joy of life, in the balance of sanity and subtlety, in everything except the fact (not wholly remote from literary criticism) that they did not write so well as he did. But they wrote well enough to lift the load of materialism from the English name and show us the shining fields of a Paradise that is not wholly lost.
Dying put on the weeds of Dominic Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.
E la gioia esuberante che ne traggo è la cosa più vicina che io abbia mai conosciuto all’arte per l’arte.
Insomma, mi pare che Milton sia stato un grande artista, e che sia stato anche un grande accidente. Fu press’a poco nello stesso senso in cui il suo maestro Cromwell fu un grande accidente. Non è vero che tutte le virtù morali si cristallizzarono in Milton e nei suoi Puritani. Non è vero che tutte le virtù militari si concentrarono in Cromwell e nei suoi Ironsides. Vi erano masse di devozione morale da una parte, e masse di valore militare dall’altra. Ma accadde proprio che Milton avesse più abilità e successo nell’espressione letteraria, e Cromwell più abilità e successo nella scienza militare, di qualunque dei loro molti rivali. Rappresentare Cromwell come un demonio o Milton come un ipocrita significa correre all’estremo opposto e rendersi ridicoli; entrambi credettero abbastanza sinceramente in certe idee morali del loro tempo. Solo che quelle non erano, come pare si supponga, le uniche idee morali del loro tempo. E non erano, a mio privato giudizio, le migliori idee morali del loro tempo. Una di esse era l’idea che la saggezza sia più o meno indebolita dal riso e da un gusto popolare per il piacere; e possiamo chiamarla serietà morale, se ci piace. Ma il punto è che Cromwell non ebbe successo per la sua serietà morale, bensì per la sua strategia; e Milton non ebbe successo per la sua serietà morale, bensì per il suo stile.
E, prima di tutto, lasciatemi toccare la forma più alta di serietà morale e il rapporto di Milton con la poesia religiosa del suo tempo. «Paradise Lost» è certamente un poema religioso; ma, per molti dei suoi ammiratori, la religione ne è la parte meno ammirevole. Il poeta si propone in verità di giustificare agli uomini le vie di Dio; ma io non ho mai sentito di alcuno che lo leggesse per vederle giustificate, come ancora si legge un poema davvero religioso, quale l’oscuro e quasi scettico Libro di Giobbe. Difficilmente si può dire che un poema giustifichi le vie di Dio, quando il suo effetto più frequente è, per ammissione generale, di far simpatizzare la gente con Satana. In tutto questo, in un certo senso, argomento contro me stesso; poiché tutti i miei istinti, come ho detto, sono contrari alla teoria estetica secondo cui un’arte così grande possa essere del tutto irreligiosa. E convengo che perfino in Milton vi siano bagliori di cristianesimo. Nessuno che ne fosse del tutto privo avrebbe potuto scrivere il solo verso: «By the dear might of Him that walked the waves.» Ma non è troppo dire che sia l’unico luogo in cui quella Figura cammini nell’intero mondo di Milton. Nessuno, immagino, è mai riuscito a riconoscere Cristo nel freddo conquistatore che guida un carro nella guerra in Cielo, come Apollo in guerra contro i Titani. Nessuno L’ha mai udito nelle solenni disquisizioni, sia del Concilio in Cielo sia del «Paradise Regained». Ma a parte tutti questi problemi particolari, è certo la verità generale che il grande poema epico religioso ci colpisce con un senso di sproporzione; il senso di quanto poco esso sia religioso, considerando quanto manifestamente sia grande. Pare quasi strano che un uomo abbia scritto tanto e così bene senza inciampare nella tradizione cristiana.
Ora, nell’età di Milton vi fu un tripudio di poesia religiosa. La maggior parte di essa aveva serietà morale, e molta possedeva splendida convinzione spirituale. Ma per lo più non era la poesia dei Puritani; al contrario, era per lo più la poesia dei Cavalieri. La religione più vera — potremmo dire la religione più realistica — non si trova in Milton, ma in Vaughan, in Traherne, in Crashaw, in Herbert, e perfino in Herrick. La prova migliore ne è che la religione è viva ancor oggi, come religione e non semplicemente come letteratura. Un cattolico romano può leggere Crashaw, un anglo-cattolico può leggere Herbert, in uno spirito direttamente devozionale; io dubito gravemente che molti moderni Congregazionalisti leggano la teologia di «Paradise Lost» in quello spirito. Per il momento accenno soltanto a questa emozione puramente religiosa; non nego che la poesia di Milton, come ogni grande poesia, possa destare altre grandi emozioni. Per esempio, un uomo colpito da uno dei lutti della Grande Guerra potrebbe bene trovare una serenità stoica nei grandi versi che cominciano: «Nothing is here, for tears.» Quella sorta di consolazione è espressa, con quanta nobiltà si potrebbe esprimere, da Milton; ma potrebbe essere espressa da Sofocle o da Goethe, o perfino da Lucrezio o da Voltaire. Ma supponendo che un uomo cercasse una consolazione di specie più cristiana, non la troverebbe affatto in Milton, come la troverebbe nei versi che cominciano: «They are all gone into the world of light.» I due grandi poemi puritani nel loro insieme non contengono tutto ciò che si dice dicendo: «O holy hope and high humility.» Né la speranza né l’umiltà furono specialità puritane.
Ma non era soltanto nel misticismo devozionale che questi Cavalieri potevano sfidare il grande Puritano; era in un misticismo più umanistico e persino più moderno. Essi risplendono di quel bianco mistero della luce del giorno che molti suppongono sia sorto con Wordsworth e con Blake. In quel senso essi rendono mistica la terra là dove Milton rese soltanto materiale il Cielo. Né sono inferiori in libertà filosofica; il solo verso di Crashaw, rivolto a una donna, «By thy large draughts of intellectual day», è meno probabile, immagino, che sia stato rivolto da Adamo a Eva, o da Milton alla signora Milton. Mi pare che questi uomini fossero superiori a Milton in magnanimità, in cavalleria, in gioia di vivere, nell’equilibrio di assennatezza e sottigliezza, in tutto tranne che nel fatto (non del tutto estraneo alla critica letteraria) che essi non scrivevano così bene come lui. Ma scrivevano abbastanza bene da sollevare il peso del materialismo dal nome inglese e mostrarci i campi splendenti di un Paradiso che non è del tutto perduto.
Of such was the anti-Puritan party; and the reader may learn more about it from the author of “The Glass of Fashion.” There he may form a general idea of how, but for the Puritans, England would have been abandoned to mere ribaldry and licence; blasted by the blasphemies of George Herbert; rolled in the mire of the vile materialism of Vaughan; tickled to ribald laughter by the cheap cynicism and tap-room familiarities of Crashaw and Traherne. But the same Cavalier tradition continued into the next age, and indeed into the next century; and the critic must extend his condemnation to include the brutal buffooneries of Bishop Ken or the gay and careless worldliness of Jeremy Collier. Nay, he must extend it to cover the last Tories who kept the tradition of the Jacobites; the careless merriment of Dean Swift, the godless dissipation of Dr. Johnson. None of these men were Puritans; all of them were strong opponents of political and religious Puritanism. The truth is that English literature bears a very continuous and splendid testimony to the fact that England was not merely Puritan. Ben Jonson in “Bartholomew Fair” spoke for most English people, and certainly for most English poets. Anti-Puritanism was the one thing common to Shakespeare and Dryden, to Swift and Jonson, to Cobbett and Dickens. And the historical bias the other way has come, not from Puritan superiority, but simply from Puritan success. It was the political triumph of the party, in the Revolution and the resultant commercial industrialism, that suppressed the testimony of the populace and the poets. Loyalty died away in a few popular songs; the Cromwellians never had any popular song to die. English history has moved away from English literature. Our culture, like our agriculture, is at once very native and very neglected. And as this neglect is regrettable, if only as neglect of literature, I will pause in conclusion upon the later period, two generations after Milton, when the last of the true Tories drank wine with Bolingbroke or tea with Johnson.
The truth that is missed about the Tories of this tradition is that they were rebels. They had the virtues of rebels; they also had the vices of rebels. Swift had the fury of a rebel; Johnson the surliness of a rebel; Goldsmith the morbid sensibility of a rebel; and Scott, at the end of the process, something of the despair and mere retrospection of a defeated rebel. And the Whig school of literary criticism, like the Whig school of political history, has omitted or missed this truth about them, because it necessarily omitted the very existence of the thing against which they rebelled. For Macaulay and Thackeray and the average of Victorian liberality the Revolution of 1688 was simply an emancipation, the defeat of the Stuarts was simply a downfall of tyranny and superstition; the politics of the eighteenth century were simply a progress leading up to the pure and happy politics of the nineteenth century; freedom slowly broadening down, etc., etc. This makes the attitude of the Tory rebels entirely meaningless; so that the critics in question have been forced to represent some of the greatest Englishmen who ever lived as a mere procession of lunatics and ludicrous eccentrics. But these rebels, right or wrong, can only be understood in relation to the real power against which they were rebelling; and their titanic figures can best be traced in the light of the lightning which they defied. That power was a positive thing; it was anything but a mere negative emancipation of everybody. It was as definite as the monarchy which it had replaced; for it was an aristocracy that replaced it. It was the oligarchy of the great Whig families, a very close corporation indeed, having Parliament for its legal form, but the new wealth for its essential substance. That is why these lingering Jacobites appear most picturesque when they are pitted against some of the princes of the new aristocratic order. That is why Bolingbroke remains in the memory, standing in his box at the performance of “Cato,” and flinging forth his defiance to Marlborough. That is why Johnson remains rigid in his magnificent disdain, hurling his defiance at Chesterfield. Churchill and Chesterfield were not small men, either in personality or in power; they were brilliant ornaments of the triumph of the world. They represented the English governing class when it could really govern; the modern plutocracy when it still deserved to be called an aristocracy also. And the whole point of the position of these men of letters is that they were denying and denouncing something which was growing every day in prestige and prosperity; which seemed to have, and indeed had, not only the present but the future on its side. The only thing it had not got on its side was the ancient tradition of the English populace. That populace was being more and more harried by evictions and enclosures, that its old common lands and yeomen freeholds might be added to the enormous estates of the all-powerful aristocracy. One of the Tory rebels has himself made that infamy immortal in the great lines of the “Deserted Village.” At least, it is immortal in the sense that it can never now be lost for lovers of English literature; but even this record was for a long time lost to the public by under-valuation and neglect. In recent times the “Deserted Village” was very much of a deserted poem. But of that I may have occasion to speak later. The point for the moment is that the psychology of these men, in its evil as well as its good, is to be interpreted not so much in terms of a lingering loyalty as of a frustrated revolution. Some of them had, of course, elements of extravagance and morbidity peculiar to their own characters; but they grew ten times more extravagant and more morbid as their souls swelled within them at the success of the shameless and the insolence of the fortunate. I doubt whether anybody ever felt so bitter against the Stuarts. Now this misunderstanding has made a very regrettable gap in literary criticism. The masterpieces of these men are represented as much more crabbed or cranky or inconsequent than they really were, because their objective is not seen objectively. It is like judging the raving of some Puritan preacher without allowing for the fact that the Pope or the King had ever possessed any power at all. To ignore the fact of the great Whig families because of the legal fiction of a free Parliament is like ignoring the feelings of the Christian martyrs about Nero, because of the legal fiction that the Imperator was only a military general. These fictions do not prevent imaginative persons from writing books like the “Apocalypse” or books like “Gulliver’s Travels.”
Di tal fatta era il partito anti-puritano; e il lettore potrà apprenderne di più dall’autore di «The Glass of Fashion». Là potrà farsi un’idea generale di come, senza i Puritani, l’Inghilterra sarebbe stata abbandonata alla mera scurrilità e licenza; devastata dalle bestemmie di George Herbert; rotolata nel fango del vile materialismo di Vaughan; solleticata a un riso sguaiato dal facile cinismo e dalle familiarità da taverna di Crashaw e Traherne. Ma la stessa tradizione dei Cavalieri proseguì nell’età seguente, e anzi nel secolo seguente; e il critico deve estendere la sua condanna fino a includere le brutali buffonerie del vescovo Ken o la gaia e spensierata mondanità di Jeremy Collier. Anzi, deve estenderla fino a comprendere gli ultimi Tories che serbarono la tradizione dei Giacobiti; l’allegria spensierata del decano Swift, la dissipazione senza Dio del dottor Johnson. Nessuno di questi uomini fu Puritano; tutti quanti furono strenui avversari del puritanesimo politico e religioso. La verità è che la letteratura inglese reca una testimonianza assai continua e splendida del fatto che l’Inghilterra non fu semplicemente puritana. Ben Jonson in «Bartholomew Fair» parlò per la maggior parte degli inglesi, e certamente per la maggior parte dei poeti inglesi. L’anti-puritanesimo fu la sola cosa comune a Shakespeare e a Dryden, a Swift e a Jonson, a Cobbett e a Dickens. E il pregiudizio storico in senso contrario è venuto, non dalla superiorità puritana, ma semplicemente dal successo puritano. Fu il trionfo politico del partito, nella Rivoluzione e nel conseguente industrialismo commerciale, a soffocare la testimonianza del popolo e dei poeti. La lealtà svanì in poche canzoni popolari; i Cromwelliani non ebbero mai alcuna canzone popolare da veder morire. La storia inglese si è allontanata dalla letteratura inglese. La nostra cultura, come la nostra agricoltura, è a un tempo assai indigena e assai trascurata. E poiché tale trascuratezza è deplorevole, non fosse che come trascuratezza della letteratura, mi soffermerò in conclusione sul periodo posteriore, due generazioni dopo Milton, quando l’ultimo dei veri Tories bevve vino con Bolingbroke o tè con Johnson.
La verità che sfugge riguardo ai Tories di questa tradizione è che erano ribelli. Avevano le virtù dei ribelli; avevano anche i vizi dei ribelli. Swift aveva il furore di un ribelle; Johnson la ruvidezza di un ribelle; Goldsmith la morbosa sensibilità di un ribelle; e Scott, al termine del processo, qualcosa della disperazione e della mera retrospezione di un ribelle sconfitto. E la scuola Whig di critica letteraria, come la scuola Whig di storia politica, ha omesso o mancato questa verità sul loro conto, perché necessariamente ometteva la stessa esistenza della cosa contro cui essi si ribellavano. Per Macaulay e Thackeray e la media della liberalità vittoriana la Rivoluzione del 1688 fu semplicemente un’emancipazione, la sconfitta degli Stuart fu semplicemente una caduta di tirannia e superstizione; la politica del Settecento fu semplicemente un progresso che conduceva alla pura e felice politica dell’Ottocento; la libertà che lentamente si allargava, eccetera, eccetera. Questo rende l’atteggiamento dei ribelli Tory del tutto privo di senso; sicché i critici in questione sono stati costretti a rappresentare alcuni dei più grandi inglesi mai vissuti come una mera processione di pazzi e di ridicoli eccentrici. Ma questi ribelli, a torto o a ragione, possono essere compresi soltanto in rapporto al reale potere contro cui si ribellavano; e le loro titaniche figure si tracciano meglio alla luce del lampo che essi sfidavano. Quel potere era una cosa positiva; era tutt’altro che una mera negativa emancipazione di tutti. Era definito quanto la monarchia che aveva sostituito; poiché fu un’aristocrazia a sostituirla. Era l’oligarchia delle grandi famiglie Whig, una consorteria davvero assai chiusa, che aveva il Parlamento per forma legale, ma la nuova ricchezza per sostanza essenziale. Ecco perché questi Giacobiti attardati appaiono più pittoreschi quando sono contrapposti ad alcuni dei principi del nuovo ordine aristocratico. Ecco perché Bolingbroke resta nella memoria, ritto nel suo palco alla rappresentazione del «Cato», scagliando la sua sfida a Marlborough. Ecco perché Johnson resta rigido nel suo magnifico disdegno, scagliando la sua sfida a Chesterfield. Churchill e Chesterfield non erano uomini da poco, né per personalità né per potere; erano brillanti ornamenti del trionfo del mondo. Rappresentavano la classe dirigente inglese quando essa poteva davvero governare; la moderna plutocrazia quando meritava ancora di essere chiamata anche aristocrazia. E tutto il senso della posizione di questi uomini di lettere è che essi negavano e denunciavano qualcosa che cresceva ogni giorno in prestigio e prosperità; qualcosa che sembrava avere, e in effetti aveva, non solo il presente ma il futuro dalla sua parte. La sola cosa che non aveva dalla sua parte era l’antica tradizione del popolo inglese. Quel popolo veniva sempre più tormentato da sfratti e recinzioni, affinché le sue antiche terre comuni e i possedimenti dei piccoli proprietari fossero aggiunti agli enormi latifondi dell’onnipotente aristocrazia. Uno dei ribelli Tory ha egli stesso reso immortale quell’infamia nei grandi versi del «Deserted Village». Almeno, è immortale nel senso che ormai non potrà mai andar perduto per gli amanti della letteratura inglese; ma persino questa testimonianza fu per lungo tempo perduta al pubblico per sottovalutazione e trascuratezza. In tempi recenti il «Deserted Village» fu proprio un poema abbandonato. Ma di ciò avrò forse occasione di parlare più avanti. Il punto per il momento è che la psicologia di questi uomini, nel suo male come nel suo bene, va interpretata non tanto in termini di una lealtà attardata quanto di una rivoluzione frustrata. Alcuni di loro avevano, certo, elementi di stravaganza e morbosità peculiari dei loro caratteri; ma divennero dieci volte più stravaganti e più morbosi man mano che le loro anime si gonfiavano dentro di loro al successo degli spudorati e all’insolenza dei fortunati. Dubito che qualcuno abbia mai provato tanta amarezza contro gli Stuart. Ora, questo malinteso ha prodotto una lacuna assai deplorevole nella critica letteraria. I capolavori di questi uomini sono rappresentati come assai più contorti o bislacchi o incoerenti di quanto realmente fossero, perché il loro obiettivo non è visto obiettivamente. È come giudicare i deliri di qualche predicatore puritano senza tener conto del fatto che il Papa o il Re avessero mai posseduto alcun potere. Ignorare il fatto delle grandi famiglie Whig a causa della finzione legale di un libero Parlamento è come ignorare i sentimenti dei martiri cristiani verso Nerone, a causa della finzione legale che l’Imperatore fosse soltanto un generale militare. Queste finzioni non impediscono alle persone dotate di immaginazione di scrivere libri come l’«Apocalisse» o libri come i «Gulliver’s Travels».
I will take only one example of what I mean by this purely literary misunderstanding: an example from “Gulliver’s Travels” itself. The case of the under-valuation of Swift is a particularly subtle one, for Swift was really unbalanced as an individual, which has made it much easier for critics not to keep the rather delicate balance of justice about him. There is a superficial case for saying he was mad, apart from the physical accident of his madness; but the point is that even those who have realized that he was sometimes mad with rage have not realized what he was in a rage with. And there is a curious illustration of this in the conclusion of the story of Gulliver. Everyone remembers the ugly business about the Yahoos, and the still uglier business about the real human beings who reminded the returned traveller of Yahoos; how Gulliver shrank at first from his friends, and would only gradually consent to sit near his wife. And everybody remembers the picturesque but hostile sketch which Thackeray gives of the satire and the satirist; of Swift as the black and evil blasphemer sitting down to write his terrible allegory, of which the only moral is that all things are, and always must be, valueless and vile. I say that everybody remembers both these literary passages; but, indeed, I fear that many remember the critical who do not really remember the creative passage, and that many have read Thackeray who have not read Swift.
Now it is here that purely literary criticism has a word to say. A man of letters may be mad or sane in his cerebral constitution; he may be right or wrong in his political antipathies; he may be anything we happen to like or dislike from our own individual standpoint. But there is one thing to which a man of letters has a right, whatever he is, and that is a fair critical comprehension of any particular literary effect which he obviously aims at and achieves. He has a right to his climax, and a right not to be judged without reference to his climax. It would not be fair to leave out the beautiful last lines of “Paradise Lost” as mere bathos; without realizing that the poet had a fine intention in allowing that conclusion, after all the thunder and the trumps of doom, to fall and fade away on a milder note of mercy and reasonable hope. It would not be fair to stigmatize the incident of Ignorance, damned at the very doors of Heaven at the end of Bunyan’s book, as a mere blot of black Calvinist cruelty and spite, without realizing that the writer fully intended its fearful irony, like a last touch of the finger of fear. But this justice which is done to the Puritan masters of imagination has hardly been done to the great Tory masters of irony. No critic I have read has noticed the real point and climax of that passage about the Yahoos. Swift leads up to it ruthlessly enough, for an artist of that sort is often ruthless; and it is increased by his natural talent for a sort of mad reality of detail, as in his description of the slowly diminished distance between himself and his wife at the dinner-table. But he was working up to something that he really wished to say, something which was well worth saying, but which few seem to have thought worth hearing. He suggests that he gradually lost the loathing for humanity with which the Yahoo parallel had inspired him, that although men are in many ways petty and animal, he came to feel them to be normal and tolerable; that the sense of their unworthiness now very seldom returns; and indeed that there is only one thing that revives it. If one of these creatures exhibits Pride.
That is the voice of Swift, and the cry arraigning aristocracy. It is natural for a monkey to collect nuts, and it may be pardonable for John Churchill to collect guineas. But to think that John Churchill can be proud of his heap of guineas, can convert them into stars and coronets, and can carry that calm and classic face disdainful above the multitude! It is natural for she-monkeys to be mated somehow; but to think that the Duchess of Yarmouth is proud of being the Duchess of Yarmouth! It may not be surprising that the nobility should have scrambled like screaming Yahoos for the rags and ribbons of the Revolution, tripping up and betraying anybody and everybody in turn, with every dirty trick of treason, for anything and everything they could get. But that those of them who had got everything should then despise those who had got nothing, that the rich should sneer at the poor for having no part of the plunder, that this oligarchy of Yahoos should actually feel superior to anything or anybody—that does move the prophet of the losing side to an indignation which is something much deeper and nobler than the negative flippancies that we call blasphemy. Swift was perhaps more of a Jeremiah than an Isaiah, and a faulty Jeremiah at that; but in his great climax of his grim satire he is none the less a seer and a speaker of the things of God; because he gives the testimony of the strongest and most searching of human intellects to the profound truth of the meanness and imbecility of pride.
And the other men of the same tradition had essentially the same instinct. Johnson was in many ways unjust to Swift, just as Cobbett was afterwards unjust to Johnson. But looking back up the perspective of history we can all see that those three great men were all facing the same way; that they all regretted the rise of a rapacious and paganized commercial aristocracy, and its conquest over the old popular traditions, which some would call popular prejudices. When Johnson said that the devil was the first Whig, he might have merely varied the phrase by saying that he was the first aristocrat. For the men of this Tory tradition, in spirit if not in definition, distinguished between the privilege of monarchy and that of the new aristocracy by a very tenable test. The mark of aristocracy is ambition. The king cannot be ambitious. We might put it now by saying that monarchy is authority; but in its essence aristocracy is always anarchy. But the men of that school did not criticize the oligarch merely as a rebel against those above; they were well aware of his activities as an oppressor of those below. This aspect, as has already been noted, was best described by a friend of Johnson, for whom Johnson had a very noble and rather unique appreciation—Oliver Goldsmith.
Prenderò un solo esempio di ciò che intendo per questo malinteso puramente letterario: un esempio dagli stessi «Gulliver’s Travels». Il caso della sottovalutazione di Swift è particolarmente sottile, poiché Swift era realmente squilibrato come individuo, cosa che ha reso assai più facile ai critici il non mantenere il piuttosto delicato equilibrio della giustizia sul suo conto. Vi è un motivo superficiale per dire che fosse pazzo, a prescindere dall’accidente fisico della sua follia; ma il punto è che perfino coloro che hanno compreso che egli era talvolta pazzo di rabbia non hanno compreso contro che cosa fosse in rabbia. E ve n’è una curiosa illustrazione nella conclusione della storia di Gulliver. Tutti ricordano la brutta faccenda degli Yahoo, e la faccenda ancor più brutta degli esseri umani reali che ricordavano al viaggiatore reduce gli Yahoo; come Gulliver dapprima rifuggisse dai suoi amici, e solo gradualmente acconsentisse a sedere accanto alla moglie. E tutti ricordano il pittoresco ma ostile ritratto che Thackeray fa della satira e del satirico; di Swift come nero e malvagio bestemmiatore che si mette a scrivere la sua terribile allegoria, la cui unica morale è che tutte le cose sono, e sempre devono essere, prive di valore e vili. Dico che tutti ricordano entrambi questi passi letterari; ma, in verità, temo che molti ricordino il passo critico senza ricordare davvero il passo creativo, e che molti abbiano letto Thackeray senza aver letto Swift.
Ora, è qui che la critica letteraria pura ha una parola da dire. Un uomo di lettere può essere pazzo o sano nella sua costituzione cerebrale; può aver ragione o torto nelle sue antipatie politiche; può essere qualunque cosa ci accada di amare o detestare dal nostro individuale punto di vista. Ma c’è una cosa a cui un uomo di lettere ha diritto, qualunque egli sia, ed è una giusta comprensione critica di qualsiasi particolare effetto letterario a cui manifestamente mira e che consegue. Ha diritto al suo culmine, e diritto a non essere giudicato senza riferimento al suo culmine. Non sarebbe giusto tralasciare i bellissimi ultimi versi del «Paradise Lost» come mero anticlimax; senza comprendere che il poeta ebbe una nobile intenzione nel permettere che quella conclusione, dopo tutto il tuono e le trombe del giudizio, cadesse e si spegnesse su una nota più mite di misericordia e di ragionevole speranza. Non sarebbe giusto marchiare l’episodio di Ignoranza, dannato proprio alle porte del Cielo alla fine del libro di Bunyan, come una mera macchia di nera crudeltà e livore calvinista, senza comprendere che lo scrittore intese pienamente la sua tremenda ironia, come un ultimo tocco del dito della paura. Ma questa giustizia che si rende ai maestri puritani dell’immaginazione non è stata quasi mai resa ai grandi maestri Tory dell’ironia. Nessun critico che io abbia letto ha notato il vero punto e il culmine di quel passo sugli Yahoo. Swift vi conduce abbastanza spietatamente, poiché un artista di quella sorta è spesso spietato; e ciò è accresciuto dal suo naturale talento per una specie di folle realtà del dettaglio, come nella descrizione della distanza lentamente diminuita tra sé e la moglie alla tavola da pranzo. Ma egli stava lavorando verso qualcosa che desiderava davvero dire, qualcosa che valeva bene la pena di dire, ma che pochi paiono aver ritenuto degno di essere udito. Egli fa capire di aver a poco a poco perduto la ripugnanza per l’umanità di cui il parallelo con gli Yahoo lo aveva riempito, che, sebbene gli uomini siano per molti versi meschini e animaleschi, giunse a sentirli normali e tollerabili; che il senso della loro indegnità ora torna assai di rado; e che, in verità, c’è una sola cosa che lo ravviva. Se una di queste creature esibisce Orgoglio.
Questa è la voce di Swift, e il grido che mette sotto accusa l’aristocrazia. È naturale che una scimmia raccolga noci, e può essere perdonabile che John Churchill raccolga ghinee. Ma pensare che John Churchill possa essere orgoglioso del suo mucchio di ghinee, possa convertirle in stelle e corone, e possa portare quel volto calmo e classico sdegnoso al di sopra della moltitudine! È naturale che le scimmie femmine vengano in qualche modo accoppiate; ma pensare che la Duchessa di Yarmouth sia orgogliosa di essere la Duchessa di Yarmouth! Può non sorprendere che la nobiltà si sia accapigliata come Yahoo strillanti per gli stracci e i nastri della Rivoluzione, facendo lo sgambetto e tradendo chiunque e tutti a turno, con ogni sudicia astuzia del tradimento, per qualunque cosa potessero arraffare. Ma che quelli di loro che avevano ottenuto tutto disprezzassero poi quelli che non avevano ottenuto nulla, che i ricchi sogghignassero dei poveri perché non avevano parte del bottino, che questa oligarchia di Yahoo si sentisse davvero superiore a qualunque cosa o a chiunque — questo sì muove il profeta della parte perdente a un’indignazione che è qualcosa di assai più profondo e più nobile delle negative frivolezze che chiamiamo bestemmia. Swift fu forse più un Geremia che un Isaia, e per giunta un Geremia difettoso; ma nel grande culmine della sua tetra satira egli è nondimeno un veggente e un dicitore delle cose di Dio; perché rende la testimonianza del più forte e più penetrante degli intelletti umani alla profonda verità della meschinità e imbecillità dell’orgoglio.
E gli altri uomini della stessa tradizione avevano essenzialmente lo stesso istinto. Johnson fu per molti versi ingiusto verso Swift, proprio come Cobbett fu poi ingiusto verso Johnson. Ma guardando indietro lungo la prospettiva della storia possiamo tutti vedere che quei tre grandi uomini erano tutti rivolti nella stessa direzione; che tutti rimpiangevano l’ascesa di una rapace e paganizzata aristocrazia commerciale, e la sua conquista sulle antiche tradizioni popolari, che taluni chiamerebbero pregiudizi popolari. Quando Johnson disse che il diavolo era il primo Whig, avrebbe potuto semplicemente variare la frase dicendo che era il primo aristocratico. Poiché gli uomini di questa tradizione Tory, nello spirito se non nella definizione, distinguevano tra il privilegio della monarchia e quello della nuova aristocrazia mediante un criterio assai sostenibile. Il segno dell’aristocrazia è l’ambizione. Il re non può essere ambizioso. Potremmo dirlo oggi affermando che la monarchia è autorità; ma nella sua essenza l’aristocrazia è sempre anarchia. Ma gli uomini di quella scuola non criticavano l’oligarca soltanto come ribelle contro chi gli stava sopra; erano ben consapevoli delle sue attività come oppressore di chi gli stava sotto. Questo aspetto, come già si è notato, fu descritto meglio da un amico di Johnson, per il quale Johnson nutriva un apprezzamento assai nobile e piuttosto unico — Oliver Goldsmith.
I hope that the author of an admirable study of Mr. Belloc in this magazine will not think that I am merely traversing one of his criticisms if I venture to add something to it. He used the phrase that Mr. Belloc had been anticipated by Disraeli in his view of England as having evolved into a Venetian oligarchy. The truth is that Disraeli was anticipated by Bolingbroke and the many highly intelligent men who agreed with him; and not least by Goldsmith. The whole view, including the very parallel with Venice, can be found stated with luminous logic and cogency in the “Vicar of Wakefield.” And Goldsmith attacked the problem entirely from the popular side. Nobody can mistake his Toryism for a snobbish submission to a privilege or title:
Princes and lords, the shadow of a shade, A breath can make them, as a breath has made: But a bold peasantry, a nation’s pride, When once destroyed can never be supplied.
I hope he was wrong; but I sometimes have a horrible feeling that he may have been right.
But I have here, thank God, no cause for touching upon modern politics. I was educated, as much as my critic, in the belief that Whiggism was a pure deliverance; and I hope I am still as willing as he to respect Puritans for their individual virtue as well as for their individual genius. But it moves all my memories of the unmorality of the ‘nineties to be charged with indifference to the importance of being earnest. And it is for the sake of English literature that I protest against the suggestion that we had no purity except Puritanism, or that only a man like the author of “Paradise Lost” could manage to be on the side of the angels.
On Peace Day I set up outside my house two torches, and twined them with laurel; because I thought at least there was nothing pacifist about laurel. But that night, after the bonfire and the fireworks had faded, a wind grew and blew with gathering violence, blowing away the rain. And in the morning I found one of the laurelled posts torn off and lying at random on the rainy ground; while the other still stood erect, green and glittering in the sun. I thought that the pagans would certainly have called it an omen; and it was one that strangely fitted my own sense of some great work half fulfilled and half frustrated. And I thought vaguely of that man in Virgil, who prayed that he might slay his foe and return to his country; and the gods heard half the prayer, and the other half was scattered to the winds. For I knew we were right to rejoice; since the tyrant was indeed slain and his tyranny fallen for ever; but I know not when we shall find our way back to our own land.
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THE END
Spero che l’autore di un pregevole studio sul signor Belloc apparso in questa rivista non pensi che io mi limiti a contraddire una delle sue osservazioni se mi azzardo ad aggiungervi qualcosa. Egli usò la frase che il signor Belloc era stato anticipato da Disraeli nella sua visione dell’Inghilterra come evolutasi in un’oligarchia veneziana. La verità è che Disraeli fu anticipato da Bolingbroke e dai molti uomini altamente intelligenti che erano d’accordo con lui; e non ultimo da Goldsmith. L’intera veduta, compreso proprio il parallelo con Venezia, si può trovare enunciata con luminosa logica e forza persuasiva nel «Vicar of Wakefield». E Goldsmith affrontò il problema interamente dal lato popolare. Nessuno può scambiare il suo torysmo per una snobistica sottomissione a un privilegio o a un titolo:
Principi e signori, l’ombra di un’ombra, un soffio può crearli, come un soffio li ha creati: ma un ardito contadinato, l’orgoglio di una nazione, una volta distrutto non potrà mai più esser rimpiazzato.
Spero che avesse torto; ma talvolta ho l’orribile sensazione che possa aver avuto ragione.
Ma qui, grazie a Dio, non ho motivo di toccare la politica moderna. Fui educato, non meno del mio critico, nella convinzione che il whiggismo fosse una pura liberazione; e spero di essere ancora disposto quanto lui a rispettare i Puritani per la loro virtù individuale come pure per il loro genio individuale. Ma smuove tutti i miei ricordi dell’immoralità degli anni Novanta l’essere accusato di indifferenza verso l’importanza di essere seri. Ed è per amore della letteratura inglese che protesto contro l’insinuazione che non avessimo altra purezza se non il puritanesimo, o che soltanto un uomo come l’autore del «Paradise Lost» potesse riuscire a stare dalla parte degli angeli.
Nel giorno della Pace collocai fuori dalla mia casa due torce, e le intrecciai con l’alloro; perché pensavo che almeno non vi fosse nulla di pacifista nell’alloro. Ma quella notte, dopo che il falò e i fuochi d’artificio si furono spenti, si levò un vento che soffiò con crescente violenza, spazzando via la pioggia. E al mattino trovai uno dei pali inghirlandati d’alloro divelto e disteso a caso sul suolo bagnato di pioggia; mentre l’altro stava ancora eretto, verde e scintillante al sole. Pensai che i pagani lo avrebbero certamente chiamato un presagio; ed era un presagio che stranamente si accordava al mio senso di qualche grande opera per metà compiuta e per metà frustrata. E pensai vagamente a quell’ uomo di Virgilio, che pregò di poter uccidere il suo nemico e tornare alla sua patria; e gli dèi udirono metà della preghiera, e l’altra metà fu dispersa ai venti. Poiché sapevo che avevamo ragione di rallegrarci; giacché il tiranno era davvero ucciso e la sua tirannia caduta per sempre; ma non so quando ritroveremo la via del ritorno alla nostra terra.
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FINE