GKC All is Grist

All Is Grist

A Book of Essays, first published 1931

By G.K.Chesterton

Contents

CHAPTER

I. ON THE PRUDERY OF SLANG II. ON LIBERTIES AND LOTTERIES III. ON THE NUDISTS IV. ON BUSINESS EDUCATION V. ON THE INTELLECT OF YESTERDAY VI. ON TRAVEL’S SURPRISES VII. ON FLOCKING VIII. ON THE BEHAVIOURIST IX. ON THE PLEASURES OF NO LONGER BEING VERY YOUNG X. ON MR. MENCKEN AND FUNDAMENTALISM XI. ON ANTHONY TROLLOPE: HISTORIAN XII. ON THE WAY OF THE WORLD XIII. ON THE NEW INSULARITY XIV. ON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE XV. ON REST CURES FOR NATIONS XVI. ON PHILOSOPHY versus FICTION XVII. ON LOGIC AND LUNACY XVIII. ON THE THRILLS OF BOREDOM XIX. ON GOSSIP ABOUT HEREDITY XX. ON DANTE AND BEATRICE XXI. ON QUACKS IN THE HOME XXII. ON A GENERALLY ACCEPTED MISTAKE XXIII. ON THE LATER PORTIONS OF POEMS XXIV. ON THE ROMANCE OF CHILDHOOD XXV. ON THE RENAISSANCE XXVI. ON THE LAUREATESHIP XXVII. ON LIVING FOR POSTERITY XXVIII. ON MR. SHAW’S PURITANISM XXIX. ON THE TRUTH OF LEGENDS XXX. ON EXPERIENCE XXXI. ON SIGHTSEEING XXXII. ON CONDIMENTS AND CONDUCT XXXIII. ON OPTIMISM AND SCEPTICISM XXXIV. ON THOUGHTS IN CANADA XXXV. ON THE BAD WORD FOR GUILD XXXVI. ON SOPHISTICATION XXXVII. ON DRESS AND DECORUM XXXVIII. ON ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

I. On the Prudery of Slang

WHAT puzzles me is that so many things which boast of being wild and free, which are even abused for being wild and free, are in reality rather snobbish, not to say slavish. All that sort of unconventionality seems to me a great deal too conventional. The most obvious and everyday example is the fuss about divorce; which is unfortunately a very everyday example. But the point of divorce is not that people are professing to be reckless, but that people arc pretending to be respectable. The point of it is not in the parting of wives and husbands, which has unfortunately happened in various forms in nearly all the various lands and ages. The point of it is the covering of the disunion by the use of the old label of union. Many satirists in many periods have had occasion to note the domestic dissolution that seemed to threaten a social dissolution. Many have had occasion to strike the lyre and lament in the mournful language of Mr. Bentley’s Ballade:

Rupert has bolted with the children’s nurse, Claude has declared himself an Infidel.

The peculiarity of the recent social tendency is that a visiting-card inscribed ‘Mr. and Mrs. Rupert’ is carefully engraved to cover the fact that the children’s nurse is no longer looking after the children. The peculiarity of the position is not that Claude has proclaimed himself an Infidel; but, that Claude has proclaimed himself a Christian with a higher and more purely spiritual religion, which is too exalted to believe in any creeds or sacraments, but which does permit him to remain an ordinary respectable Anglican parson— or possibly even an Anglican bishop.

In all these compromises, it seems to me that the chief feature is the saving of the ordinary social position of the persons involved. And to think first about such social position is not the act of a sceptic but simply of a snob. What matters to a man with a free intelligence is what the man and woman are actually doing, or what the parson or bishop is actually teaching. Whether in the one case somebody gets a new wedding-ring, or in the other case retains an old dog-collar, is surely a matter comparatively conventional. Yet it is at the back of nearly all the pleas for freedom, which profess to be pleas for unconventionality. But there are a great many other examples of this curious contradiction with relation to convention. It appears not only in the manners, but in the language, and especially the slang, of society. There is a queer sort of prudery about slang, and modernity shows it most in what it calls ‘facing the facts of nature’.

For instance, there was a time when it was customary to call a father a father; which seems to me a very normal example of calling a spade a spade. There were, of course, many variations, both formal and familiar, in different times and communities. But most men have used a language as ancient and traditional as that of Esau when he cried aloud, ‘Hast thou not a blessing for me, O my father?’ Now as far as I can discover from the social authorities who tell us all about the Rising Generation and the Bright Young Things, it appears to be considered a mark of advanced intelligence to call your father a bean or a scream, or possibly Tom, Dick, and Harry, in reference (or without reference) to his Christian name. Broadly speaking, the parent of the progressive age appears to answer to ‘Hi!’ or to any loud cry; and it seems to be considered in itself a proof of progress that the cries are very loud indeed. But loud cries do not make any difference to logic; and in this case the logic is all the other way. It is obvious to me that calling the old gentleman ‘father’ is facing the facts of nature. It is also obvious that calling him ‘bean’ is not facing the facts of nature. It is, so far as that example is concerned, perhaps, merely weaving a graceful fairy-tale to cover the facts of nature. It is prettily pretending for a moment that the Heavy Father is an elf of the dimensions of Moth and Mustard-Seed, capable of concealing himself in the green hood of the bean. But that is a digression without being in any way an exception. The general truth obviously is that all these phrases that evade the family relation do therefore evade the facts of life. You may call your father Tom as if he were a total stranger from Australia, whom you had come rather to like at the Empire Club. But in that case it is you who are indulging in a fiction, and ultimately in a convention. The real facts of your relation are rather more remarkable; and to ignore them is to ignore something at once natural and notable. And it is to ignore it in favour of things much more superficial and trivial; the mere society slang or fashion of the passing moment. It is, in fact, to think the rules of the Empire Club more important than the laws of Nature. That does not strike me as being natural; to say nothing of being naked. That does not impress me as being realistic, but as being ready to go through any sort of antics rather than face a reality.

There are, indeed, human and historic aspects of this problem, which would in any case be rather too real for our realists to understand. The truth is that traditional humanity has always felt these natural facts to be so real that they were best expressed in some sort of ritual. Talking about them in detail did (and does) very little good; but recognizing them in conduct and courtesy and the very carriage of the body made all men feel sane and near to nature. Men were ceremonial towards their fathers and mothers, just as they were ceremonial about the harvest or the ploughing of the ground or the scattering of the seed. They were ceremonial about these things because these things were so very real; because they are the most real of all realities. They are the things by which we live and without which we die. In the same way, their gleams of simple intelligence enabled them to perceive that their parents were things without which they would never have been alive. The recognition of that fact is entirely realistic, not to say scientific; but the best recognition of it has always been in gesture and artistic form. It has been what I, for one, should unhesitatingly describe as good form.

There are some of the innovators whom I should not expect to understand what is meant by good form. They are far too much tied to convention to understand ritual. They cannot even understand courtesy, so long as the convention of the moment is a convention of discourtesy. But these deplorable people are very rare in any generation; and the majority of the young are doubtless what they always were; and no more than normally disposed to desert normality for the sake of novelty. The trouble is that very few people encourage them really to think about these things, or thrash them out in any intelligent fashion. They are sometimes blamed for not following the conventions of the last generation; to which the obvious answer is that they are following the conventions of this generation. The real trouble is that they are following the conventions far too much. As they have no defence against their fathers except a new fashion, so they will have no defence against their sons except an old fashion. The habit of uttering loud cries (of which I am a warm and enthusiastic supporter) can seldom be carried on absolutely continuously to the age of sixty, without any pause for rest or refreshment. And what is wanted here is not only a pause for refreshment but for reflection. There is a great deal to be said for rapidity; but it is not especially a good way of grasping reality. People merely going the pace, in any age, have generally missed everything except the most artificial and external costume and custom of that age. Men need to walk a little slower to look at the earth and to face the facts of nature.

II. On Liberties and Lotteries

ALMOST alone among my contemporaries I have not been a sceptic about Liberty; but I recognize the materials for scepticism in the discussion about liberties. The difference between the liberties valued by one community and those valued by another is doubtless very great. The vulgar modern argument used against religion, and lately against common decency, would be absolutely fatal to any idea of liberty. It is perpetually said that because there are a hundred religions claiming to be true, it is therefore impossible that one of them should really be true. The argument would appear on the face of it to be illogical, if any one nowadays troubled about logic. It would be as reasonable to say that because some people thought the earth was flat, and others (rather less incorrectly) imagined it was round, and because anybody is free to say that it is triangular or hexagonal, or a rhomboid, therefore it has no shape at all; or its shape can never be discovered; and, anyhow, modern science must be wrong in saying it is an oblate spheroid. The world must be some shape, and it must be that shape and no other; and it is not self-evident that nobody can possibly hit on the right one. What so obviously applies to the material shape of the world equally applies to the moral shape of the universe. The man who describes it may not be right; but it is no argument against his rightness that a number of other people must be wrong.

As I say, the same childish argument is now extended to ordinary morality or decency. It is insisted that, because the decorum of a Roman matron is not exactly the same as that of a Sandwich Islander, therefore there can be no superiority in the one over the other; no possible way of deciding which is the better of the two; and, ultimately, no meaning or value in dignity or propriety at all. The conclusion is so unnatural that, even if the argument were apparently logical, we might be excused for suspecting it of being sophistical. But, as a matter of fact, the argument is not logical enough to be called a sophistry. It is simply transparently untenable; for it rests on the same fallacy: that one man cannot be right because a number of other men are wrong. In this case, of course, it is true that the question is conditioned by different circumstances and that the principle must be applied in different ways. In this case it is true that we cannot say that the whole world is alike, in the sense that we can say that the whole world is round. It is true, but this fashionable argument does not prove it to be true. So far as that argument goes, there might be one costume suitable to all mankind, as there is one custom of washing suitable to all mankind, though some men neglect it and are dirty. All we complain of, in that aspect, is that the sceptic always refuses to be a rationalist.

But the point here is that, if this argument is fatal to faith or modesty, it is a thousand times fatal to liberty. If we simply say that this or that practice is tolerated in this or that place, if we refuse to look for any moral or metaphysical principle by which the differences can be tested, we shall find the definition of liberty dissolving into a dust of differentiations and exceptions. And I very much fear that this is exactly what the definition of liberty will really do. I am very much afraid, as things are going at present, that the next generation will have quite as little idea of what their fathers meant by dying for liberty, as the last generation had of what their fathers meant by dying for religion or sound theology or the true faith. There is already a large number of modern writers who talk as if the old notion of independence, national or personal, were something simply inconceivable as well as impossible; exactly as the champions of liberty, a hundred years ago, spoke of the mysterious dogmas of the Church. Indeed, it is quite as easy, by the methods of the rationalistic heckler, to suggest that freedom is nonsense as that faith is nonsense. It is a great deal too easy. That is what made me suspect it from the first in both cases. But, anyhow, it is perfectly true that variation gives the sceptic an opportunity in both cases. It is easy to show that liberties are local; it is much less easy to prove that Liberty is universal.

For instance, I am writing these words in a country which many of my countrymen regard as utterly crushed by a system destructive of every liberty. There is no doubt that Italy has restrained the liberty of the Press; it can easily be argued that it has restrained the liberty of the people. But it is quite certain that the people enjoy, and take for granted, quite definite forms of liberty that do not exist in England at all. The Italians would think Mussolini was mad if he forbade Lotteries, as the English law forbids Lotteries. It would seem to them very much what forbidding Lawn Tennis would seem to us. The whole Latin world regards the notion of not being allowed to drink beer between three and six very much as we should regard the idea of not being allowed to eat buns on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is quite inadequate to call it tyranny; because they would call it lunacy. Now I have argued often enough upon these points elsewhere, and I am not going to dwell on these particular points now. I am merely using them to point out that, even where we imagine there is a clear-cut issue against liberty, there is a considerable complexity when we come to argue about liberties. If the costume of the Sandwich Islander is an argument against abstract decency, then certainly the liberty of the lottery is an argument against abstract liberty. If the thousand and one religions make a case against religion, then the thousand and one liberties make a case against liberty. And I am very much afraid that, in the present mood of mankind, that case may carry weight. It will be very useful to the monopolist, or modern tyrant, who carries most weight in the modern world; and when he has taken away all English freedom from the Englishman and all Italian freedom from the Italian, he will smile broadly and say that, after all, men have never agreed about the definition of being free.

I am so paradoxical as to think that there is a real theory of freedom. Perhaps I may have a shot at expounding it in another essay. But the theory is bound to be rather theoretical; and the modern world, having tried in vain to be thoughtful, has fallen back on the abject alternative of being practical. And it looks to me as if liberty would suffer in that practical age much more than religion suffered in the age of the French Revolution. It can easily be derided, quite as successfully as Victorian decorum or the legend of Mrs. Grundy. But just as there are other kinds of decorum besides Victorian decorum, and yet a sense of dignity and decency behind them all, so there can be other kinds of freedom besides that of the free-born Englishman, and yet leave an ultimate significance in the ideal of being free. Broadly, I should say that the commonwealth is healthy in which all things are not common, but some things, in the exact sense of the phrase, ‘distinguished’. Many who talk about distinction mean only aristocratic distinction; and by that mean only fashion. But fashion is almost the opposite of distinction. A democracy can be distinguished, if its citizens are distinguishable; if each has an area of choice in which he really chooses. To keep that area of choice as large as possible is the real function of freedom. But, as there is no space here for me to develop my eleutheromaniac dogma on this page, I feel inclined to ask my readers to do it for me; or at least to think it out for themselves. I dare not offer a prize; I understand it is now likely to be classed with a Lottery. And it would be dreadful if free-born Englishmen were allowed to do what is permitted to Italian slaves. But if any one thinks he has a definition that will save Liberty, I should be interested … and, I will add, surprised.

III. On the Nudists

IN a great many illustrated papers there is a continuous and by this time rather monotonous stream of articles and illustrations advertising the new Gymnosophists of Germany. I mean the cult of cranks who insist in a crazy degree on certain notions connected with sun-cures; to me, more suggestive of sunstroke. An occasional article about them might be normal enough in any magazine, as being in the nature of a news-item. But the concentrated attempt to boom this barbaric sophistry is not a good sign of the turn of public opinion, and seems connected with that particular sort of glorification of the body which generally goes with a certain weakness in the head. There is, indeed, something singularly weak-minded about the sort of respect—we might almost say reverence—with which experiments of this sort are often described in our journalism. It seems quite sufficient to insist upon the seriousness of any persons engaged in such experiments, a seriousness which invariably marks faddists and fanatics and small provincial sects of every kind. Thus the admiring advertiser explains how very solemnly the German professor plays the goat, though not quite so seriously as a real goat. For goats do not laugh at anything, least of all at themselves, and in this the nature-worshippers in question are undoubtedly, as they would say, at one with Nature. Nature is inferior to man in many things, but most of all in respect of the human speciality of humour. For the rest, goatishness has often been made a sort of symbol of paganism; but even among the pagans it was not regarded as the highest form of paganism. ‘Half a beast is the great god Pan’ as the poet very truly observed; and the satyr and the faun were conceived as being half-human and half-goatish, presumably on the principle that half a goat is better than no beastliness. To a serene and philosophical judgment, it will not appear altogether inappropriate that, in the division of mankind, the goats were on the wrong side of the judgment seat.

But the fallacy in such a fashion is concerned with a certain ultimate common sense about mankind. The cult of nakedness, which used to be called the Adamite Heresy, does, in fact, reveal its falsity at the beginning, even in the merely material aspect. Man is not independent of artificial things, even in the most natural sense. Nakedness is not even practical, except on selected occasions that are entirely artificial. Even the physical conditions of the world bear witness to something in man that is strictly to be called metaphysical, that is unique and detached and raised above the obvious physical order. It is not native to man to go without clothes, unless it is native to man to die of double pneumonia in about a month. He cannot do it at all through the greater part of the year, or over the greater part of the globe. And the very fact that he has been left, as it were, without any aids to survival except what we call artificial aids, is a proof that in his case they can hardly even be called artificial. It is not a question so much of artificiality which departs from nature, but rather of art, which is the essence of human nature; art, which is almost the nature of man.

For instance, man could not exist at all, in the ordinary sense, if he had not discovered the dreadful and astonishing thing that is called fire. It would be just as easy to elaborate a philosophy against fire as a philosophy against clothes. In fact, the two things often serve the same purpose, but fire is by far the more questionable and dangerous of the two. It is not very often that a man is actually killed by a hat or tortured by a pair of trousers. There was, indeed, an instrument of torture called the Boot; it was used in seventeenth-century Scotland, and we hear a great deal about it when it was used by Royalists upon Whigs, and very little about it when it was afterwards used by Whigs upon Royalists. But even those who complain most of what Mr. H. G. Wells called the Misery of Boots would hardly compare it to being sentenced to the Boot, and certainly not to being sentenced to the fire. Yet it would be easy enough, in the accepted style of rhetoric about these things, to represent every advocate of ordinary warmth as invoking some such unnatural peril. All fuel would, in the medieval phrase, smell of the faggot, To defend the stove would be to defend the stake; and any housewife lighting a fire would be re-lighting the fires of Smithfield. Such talk would be no more ridiculous than many of the ravings of the reformers, who cry out that they arc being persecuted as by the Spanish Inquisition when they are required to wear common human clothes. There would be any number of other ways of giving the familiar element a permanent flavour of arson. Where, is it alleged, is Woman most oppressed and tormented; where is she enslaved and threatened with every type of tribal and ancestral brutality? Where but at the fireside? A little confused oratory and imagery, applied to that notion, would be quite enough to suggest a general idea that the woman was to be roasted like a leg of mutton. Indeed, the whole business of cookery would afford a most convenient and fitting parallel. Cooking is artificial, exactly as clothes are artificial. Some people do largely dispense with cookery, as some people do frequently dispense with clothes. There are prigs who live on nuts, as there are prigs who live in nakedness. But there are a good many other human beings as well, and most of them are of opinion that cookery is a part of something which we call culture. And, while we may argue for ever about whether it is natural, most of us know that it is normal.

The whole conception of culture is bound up with that first fact about man; that he is not himself, until he has added to himself certain things which are, in a sense, outside himself. As he is more powerful than any other creature with those things, so he is more helpless than any other creature without those things. It would be easy for the wild philosopher to argue that the very existence of fire is an insult to sunlight. It would be easy for him to denounce Prometheus as the rival of Apollo. I can imagine him elaborately explaining, in an endless series of lectures, that we ought not to need any such in direction or deflection of the rays of the sun; that we ought never to have come into a condition in which the sun’s rays are not sufficient to us; that it is an insult to the splendid solar unity to tear away flames from it, like rags from a golden garment. It is true that, as a minor matter of fact, the sun’s rays are not always there at all. But that is just as much an objection to the attack on clothes as to the attack on cooking. The point is that the whole of this philosophy is wrong at the root; is wrong in its whole conception of the nature and position of man on the earth; is wrong even in its relation to matter; and is wrong long before we come to the higher question of morals.

But when we do come to it, we shall not be surprised to find that the theory is as false in moral fact as it is in material fact. A human being is not even completely human without clothes, because they have become a part of him as the symbol of purely human things; of dignity, of modesty, of self-ownership, of property, and privacy and honour. Even in the purely artistic sense humanity would never have become human without them, because the range of self-expression and symbolic decoration would have been hopelessly limited, and there would have been no outlet even for the most primary instincts about colour and form. The Adamite heresy begins in madness, but it ends only in monotony. Some actually praise it because they think it would dull and blunt all sorts of human feelings, fancies, and shades of sentiment; and they are the sort of madmen who would actually boast of monotony. But the central civilization of mankind is not very likely to be deeply disturbed, in its immemorial intellectual instincts, by these crudities on the borderland. It takes a long time to explain such simple things; but, when a man disregards them, it is a shorter way to laugh at him and lock him up.

IV. On Business Education

A LONG time ago I pointed out the fallacy of crying out for a practical man. I noted, what should be obvious enough, that when a problem is really bad and basic, we should rather wail and pray and cry aloud for an unpractical man. The practical man only knows the machine in practice; just as many a man can drive a motor-car who could not mend it, still less design it. The more serious is the trouble, the more probable it is that some knowledge of scientific theory will be required; and though the theorist will be called unpractical, he will probably be also indispensable. What is generally meant by a business man is a man who knows the way in which our particular sort of modern business does generally work. It does not follow that he is imaginative enough to suggest something else, when it obviously does not work. And (unless I very much misread the signs of the modern transition) we are soon coming to a time when everybody will be looking for somebody who can suggest something else.

I am glad to see that what I applied to the unpractical reformer has been applied, by an unimpeachably practical man, to the unpractical instructor. Mr. John C. Parker, a hundred-per-cent American, a highly successful engineer, the vigorous agent of a company named after Edison—in short, a man with all the unquestioned stigmata of a Regular Guy, rigorous and energetic in the application of science to business, has recently astonished his friends by delivering an address with the truly admirable title, ‘Wanted—An Unpractical Education’. I have only read his remarks in an indirect form, but they seem to me quite excellent remarks. ‘My complaint would be rather that training youth to earn a living is not education at all; second, that a specific training may keep the youngster from earning the best kind of living; and third, that it can’t be done in school anyhow.’ Or, again, ‘I would infinitely prefer that education fit him for happiness and decency in poverty, than for wealth acquired through the sacrifice of himself and his character.’ These are almost startlingly sensible counsels; though what they would look like side by side with those shiny and strenuous advertisements inscribed ‘You Can Add Ten Thousand Dollars to Your Salary’, or ‘This Man Trebled his Turnover in Two Weeks’, it is not my province to conjecture.

But this extraordinary affair called Business Education, which has begun to be supported in England after having long subsisted in America, has another aspect perhaps not so easy to explain. When I say that we want to train the citizen and not the city man, or the equivocal ‘something in the city’, I mean even more than Mr. Parker’s just and rational ideal of ‘the fitting of students to live richly and fully and contribute most broadly to the welfare of the social group who have paid for their education’. Being myself a senile survival of the old republican idealism (I use the adjective to express the American political principle, not the American political party) I mean something else, as well as the mere social enjoyment of culture. I mean that to train a citizen is to train a critic. The whole point of education is that it should give a man abstract and eternal standards, by which he can judge material and fugitive conditions. If the citizen is to be a reformer, he must start with some ideal which he does not obtain merely by gazing reverently at the unreformed institutions. And if any one asks, as so many are asking: ‘What is the use of my son learning all about ancient Athens and remote China and medieval guilds and monasteries, and all sorts of dead or distant things, when he is going to be a superior scientific plumber in Pimlico?’ the answer is obvious enough. ‘The use of it is that he may have some power of comparison, which will not only prevent him from supposing that Pimlico covers the whole planet, but also enable him, while doing full credit to the beauties and virtues of Pimlico, to point out that, here and there, as revealed by alternative experiments, even Pimlico may conceal somewhere a defect.’

Now, the nuisance of all this notion of Business Education, of a training for certain trades, whether of plumber or plutocrat, is that they will prevent the intelligence being sufficiently active to criticize trade and business properly. They begin by stuffing the child, not with the sense of justice by which he can judge the world, but with the sense of inevitable doom or dedication by which he must accept that particular very worldly aspect of the world. Even while he is a baby he is a bank-clerk, and accepts the principles of banking which Mr. Joseph Finsbury so kindly explained to the banker. Even in the nursery he is an actuary or an accountant; he lisps in numbers and the numbers come. But he cannot criticize the principles of banking, or entertain the intellectual fancy that the modern world is made to turn too much on a Pythagorean worship of Numbers. But that is because he has never heard of the Pythagorean philosophy; or, indeed, of any other philosophy. He has never been taught to think, but only to count. He lives in a cold temple of abstract calculation, of which the pillars are columns of figures. But he has no basic sense of Comparative Religion (in the true sense of that tiresome phrase), by which he may discover whether he is in the right temple, or distinguish one temple from another. This is bad enough when we are dealing with the normal sense of number and quantity, the eternal foundations of rational and permanent commerce; which are in themselves as pure and abstract as Pythagoras. It becomes both preposterous and perilous when we are dealing with the mere scramble of speculation and economic illusion which is called business in America and elsewhere; with all its degrading publicity, with all its more dangerous secrecy. To begin a boy’s training by teaching him to admire these things, and then call it Business Education, is exactly like teaching him to worship Baal and Baphomet, and then calling it Religious Education. And much of what is called commercial training is really of this character. Stevenson, with the assistance of Lloyd Osbourne (himself an American), gives a very vivid and amusing sketch of it in The Wrecker. His American hero very justly resents being laughed at merely because he leaves the u out of ‘colour’; but adds that his critics might have had a better case had they known that his father ‘had paid large sums to have him brought up in a gambling-hell’.

Anyhow, that is what is the matter with Business Education; that it narrows the mind; whereas the whole object of education is to broaden the mind and especially to broaden it so as to enable it to criticize and condemn such narrowness. Everybody ought to learn first a general view of the history of man, of the nature of man, and (as I, for one, should add) of the nature of God. This may enable him to consider the rights and wrongs of slavery in a slave community, of cannibalism in a cannibal community, or of commerce in a commercial community. If he is immediately initiated into the mysteries of these institutions themselves, if he is sworn in infancy to take them as seriously as they take themselves, if he becomes a trader not only before he becomes a traveller, but even before he becomes a true citizen of his own town, he will never be able to denounce those institutions—or even to improve them. Such a state will never have the ideas or imagination to reform itself; and hustle and bustle and business activity will have resulted in the dead fixity of a fossil.

V. On the Intellect of Yesterday

IS the present generation better educated than the last generation? Is it more intelligent than any one of any number of past generations? Most of those writing on the subject say ‘Yes’. Most of them, by a curious coincidence, belong to the present generation, or some very recent generation. I have no axe to grind in the matter; neither the ancestral axe of Brutus, red with the blood of his sons, nor the latest pattern of guillotine on which a revolutionary son can enthusiastically execute his father. There are some matters in which the world has lately veered towards my own opinions; some matters in which it has turned away from them. But I have enough intellectual curiosity to have doubts, and certainly enough to make distinctions.

I think there would be a case for maintaining this: that the world has improved in everything except intellect. In artistic sensibilities, and even in social sympathies (at least, of a certain kind), I think there has been a quickening and a response. I think it probable that the number of people who can rapidly get used to a foreign fashion or style of ornament, who can guess what an eccentric artist is driving at, who can feel the emotions evoked by unusual music, is larger than it was in mid-Victorian times. But these things do not appeal to the intellect. And I think they appeal to the modern mood because they do not appeal to the intellect. They make signals to the sentimental part of human nature, and the code of those signals is learned more quickly than it would once have been. But when it comes to anything like a strain on the intellect as such, I think that most modern people are much stupider than those in the age of my father, and probably very much stupider than those in the age of my grandfather. I have reasons for my belief, but it illustrates my point that the modern reader would hardly listen to a long process of reasoning. I believe I could even prove it, if people now were patient enough to listen to proof.

First, it must be realized that liveliness in the preacher does not mean liveliness in the congregation. On the contrary, the extreme liveliness in the preacher is produced by dullness in the congregation. I am ready to believe, for instance, that Mr. Lloyd George is a more purely entertaining speaker than Cobden. But that is because Mr. Lloyd George speaks to men who want to be entertained. Cobden spoke to men who wanted to be convinced. The listeners provided something of the liveliness needed to carry them through a purely logical process. When there was a congregation of logicians, as there was in some of the old Scottish Calvinist kirks, the preacher could reckon on being followed when his discourse was a pure demonstration in logic. It is when the congregation is dull that it wants to be amused. Cobden stood for various views which I do not myself find convincing; but his audience was convinced, it was not merely amused. Now, a man cannot be convinced by an argument without following the argument. He can be amused, even if he goes to sleep in the middle of the argument and wakes up just in time to hear a joke about Tories drinking beer or Bolshevists sharing boots. I believe there is infinitely less of this intellectual attention to an argument than there used to be.

It is illustrated, for instance, in the great modern change in the Press. I am not now arguing about whether Lord Northcliffe’s revolution in journalistic methods was morally or socially good. I only say it may well stand for something which is intellectually very much to the bad. When I was a boy, the papers printed long and detailed reports of speeches by Gladstone or Goschen or Asquith, on complex controversies of economies and finance. Perhaps they were not worth printing; perhaps they were not worth reading; but they were read. Now, it may be very bright and pleasant to have all Gladstone’s subtle and searching logical distinctions swept away in favour of the fixed and unfailing headline of ‘What Did Mr. Gladstone Say in 1885?’ It may be very comfortable to forget all the luminous legal distinctions of Asquith, and agree that that statesman never said anything in this life except ‘Wait and See’. But it is not a proof of increased intellectual activity that we are satisfied with the simple and soothing quotations. The minds of our fathers may have been occupied in futile and pedantic hair-splitting, but their minds were really capable of splitting a hair. It may be more cosy to be stunned with a blow on the head by a club than to have one of your hairs split by a needle, but it is not any better tribute to the quality of your head, or of anybody else’s.

Or take another test from another type of inquiry. When all the drawing-rooms began to buzz suddenly with the name of Einstein, some of us were enabled to guess that they must once have buzzed quite as abruptly with the name of Darwin. Some of us are inclined to guess that Darwinism became a fashion long before anybody really thought it was a fact. Doubtless any number of society ladies went about saying that Professor Darwin was really too wonderful, just as they afterwards went about saying that Professor Einstein was really too wonderful. But, when all is said, there is no comparison between the two cases. Any number of people did really attack the study of biology, in order to agree or disagree with Darwin. Hardly one person in a thousand thought of attacking the higher mathematics in order to agree with Einstein. People did talk about Darwinism as well as about Darwin. Most of those who talk about Einstein talk about Einstein. They know nothing but the name and the notion that something very important has happened in connexion with the name. The talk about Darwin may have been popular science, but it was science, and it was popular. The talk about Einstein may rather be called popular nescience. He has not made astronomy really popular, as the other made biology really popular. And I believe that the reason is a certain increased laziness of the intellect; that fewer people are ready for a long, sustained logical demonstration, quite apart from whether we think that the demonstration really demonstrates. In my boyhood there were any number of funny little atheists running about ready and eager to prove what they had learned from the work of Darwin. So there were any number of fanatical little Free-Traders eager to prove what they had learned from the speeches of Cobden. I do not find men now so eager to prove things; but, at the most, to assure me that they have been proved.

One way of putting it is that this is a psychological age, which is the opposite of an intellectual age. It is not a question of persuading men, but of suggesting how they are persuaded. It is an age of Suggestion; that is, of appeal to the irrational part of man. Men discussed whether Free Trade was false or true; they do not so much discuss whether Empire Free Trade is false or true, as whether it is booming or slumping; whether it is based on an understanding of Mass Psychology, or whether its opponents or supporters have what Americans call Personality. It is all great fun, and there is doubtless a truth in it, as in other things. But, whatever else it is, it is not a mark of stronger mentality, and any old Scotch Calvinist farmer, who could follow his minister’s desolate and appalling sermon to Seventeenthly and Lastly, had an immeasurably better brain.

VI. On Travel’s Surprises

TRAVELLERS’ tales are supposed to be tall tales; but I have always found them fall short. I have nearly always felt that the real monument or landscape, when I saw it for myself, was something stranger and more striking than the indirect impression of reading. The old tale against travellers’ tales was that they magnified everything; that every lizard became a dragon and every savage tribe a race of giants. But my experience is that travellers in a strange land, especially if they have travelled in it long, tend too much to forget its strangeness. They become concerned with a dust of details, and tend to take the green lizards as casually as the green leaves. The danger is rather, I think, that a man can live in a tribe of gigantic savages, and grow to remark and record all sorts of details about their tribal taxes or their coinage of tusks or hides, and, at the end of his detailed narrative, forget even to mention that they were giants. For as there are things too big and obvious to be noticed, so especially there are things too big and obvious to be remembered.

There have, indeed, been many cases in which travellers have been accused of telling lies, which have often afterwards turned out to be truths. Modern research, which has justified so many medieval reputations, has made some reparation even to medieval travellers. It was Marco Polo, I think, who reported that he had met in Africa men who had the heads of dogs. And most modern critics treated it as a manifest fairy-tale, as if he claimed to have seen birds with the heads of elephants. But it is very likely indeed that the traveller saw baboons, or some of the larger apes; and his description is really more scientific and exact than the common popular impression about men and monkeys. For the higher apes have not that sort of hollow, half-human visage which we see in the little monkeys; they often have an aggressive and solid projection of nose and jaw, like the nozzle or muzzle of a dog. But even here the principle of comparison is true. It is one thing to read in a book about dog-headed men and believe it or not as we choose; it must have been quite another to see the first of the huge hairy anthropoids—monstrous, mysterious, erect; a premature provocation to the myth of the Missing Link. And I repeat that foreign sights have mostly affected me as the first ape must have affected the first explorer; not necessarily as something beautiful or charming, but certainly as something very surprising and entirely unexpected. When I first saw St. Mark’s, Venice, I am by no means sure that I liked it; but I am quite sure that I was surprised by it; that it was not only quite different from anything I had ever seen, but quite different from anything I had ever expected. I thought it looked like Aladdin’s Palace in a pantomime. And the impression was not altogether false for a man standing in that great merchant city of the Western Mediterranean is, by a paradox, standing deep in the golden gate of the East. There was always something a little too Oriental about the Venetian republic; and this, it has been suggested, was why it did, in a sense, fall like Carthage rather than survive like Rome. But, however that may be, the Christian who first looks at the Christian Church of St. Mark’s is as startled as if it were a Chinese pagoda. Yet I had often seen pictures of it; photographs, and even coloured photographs; but these never conveyed how extraordinary the thing really is. For the extraordinary thing is that anything so fantastic should be solid.

The queer thing is that what one would expect to be the first thing mentioned is generally the last thing mentioned. I had heard a thousand things about Jerusalem ever since my babyhood, and seen views of it, and plans of it, and read controversies about it. But, somehow or other, I had never got hold of the first fact that it is a mountain city. A city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid; but some how it seems as if the hill could be hid. All the photographs and descriptions I had seen were like glimpses of an Eastern bazaar; and suggested all the accompaniments of heat and stagnation and flat desert sands. Whereas the real city, relatively speaking, is much more like a castle on the crags of the Rhine, or set high among the rocks of Spain. From Spain itself it would be easy to take similar examples. I knew that the Escorial was a palace; I did not know that it looks much more like a prison; but especially I did not know the strange journey into the mountains by which it is reached, with the consequent sense of separation and unearthly loneliness in that huge habitation of a moody King. In short, I have sometimes positively disliked the famous spectacles of travel. But the thing I disliked was always utterly different from the thing that I was expected to like; so utterly different that I generally came at last to like it.

I had another experience of the same sort recently; I suddenly saw Canada. I had visited it before; but I had never seen it before. On the former occasion I crossed the frontier from the United States; and there is nothing particularly interesting about the frontier except the undignified fuss about Prohibition. On the second occasion I went up the St. Lawrence to Montreal. This also was a thing I had heard of often enough; but nothing I had ever heard of gave me any rumour of the reality. As is usual in such cases, the point of the experience is almost always missed. The point of the experience is that the traveller is carried far northward, almost as if he were going to the North Pole, or at least to find the North-West Passage. He sees icebergs and the Northern Lights and the whales of the northern waters; a hundred signs recall to him the Arctic adventures of which he read as a boy. Then the ship takes a sharp turn, which seems like one of the sharpest turns in navigation, and enters a new, an enormous, and yet a secret world. He feels, as the first explorers must have felt, that it is really a world set apart; that he had never guessed the earth contained anything so vast yet so concealed. And the impression is now increased when there begin to appear upon the narrowing coasts of that inland sea villages and the spires of churches that are not altogether like anything he has left behind. It is as if there were another Mediterranean, with another civilization in all its ports and shrines. So a man sails up the great St. Lawrence, wondering more and more, until the broad river seems to split about the great rock of Quebec.

I fancied that there might be here the beginning and the end of a quarrel I remember in my youth. Mr. Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem in praise of Canada, which very much annoyed the Canadians. Many of them stated with great sternness that, if he praised them any more, they would give him a good hard knock. The ground of the offence was that he had referred to the Dominion of Canada as ‘Our Lady of the Snows’. This was held to imply that Canada has no local industry except snowballing; that her principal exports are icebergs; and that the typical Canadian citizen is a sort of furry and inarticulate Eskimo. One Canadian poet haughtily replied that Canada contained glowing maple woods in which England might be lost. One Canadian painter painted an ironical allegory, representing the spirit of the Dominion sitting on a pile of gorgeous fruits and varied products of the sun, and entitled the picture, ‘Our Lady of the Snows’. I am no Imperialist in particular, but the days of my skirmishes with Mr. Kipling about Imperialism are long past, and I am affected by the thought of leaving Mr. Kipling and Canada in an embrace of reconciliation. I would therefore suggest that the impression of Arctic magnificence may be partly due to the fact that, though Canada is not made of snow, in a sense her gates are of ice. And though her woods are really as beautiful as any Canadian painter or poet can depict them, the true traveller really does have an impression of having travelled beyond the North Pole to find them.

VII. On Flocking

THE elusive, enormous, and nameless thing, with which I have so long wrestled, as with a slippery leviathan, in such places as this, suddenly heaved in sight the other day and took on a sort of formless form. I am always getting these brief glimpses of the monster, though they seldom last long enough for me to make head or tail of it. In this ease it appeared in a short letter to the Daily Express, which ran, word for word, as follows:

‘In reply to your article “What Youth Wants in Church”, I assert that it does not want sadness, ceremony, or humbug. Youth wants to know only about the present and future, not about what happened 2,000 years ago. If the churches forsake these things, young people will flock to them.’

The syntax is a little shaky, and the writer does not mean that the young people will flock to the things that happened 2,000 years ago if only the churches will desert them. He does actually mean (what is much more extraordinary) that the young people will flock to the churches merely because the churches have forsaken all the original objects of their existence. Every feature of every church, from a cross on a spire to an old hymn-book left in a pew, refers more or less to certain things that happened about 2,000 years ago. If we do not want to be reminded of those things, the natural inference is that we do not want any of the buildings built to remind us of them. So far from flocking to them, we shall naturally desire to get away from them; or still more to clear them away. But I cannot understand why something which is unpopular because of what it means should become frightfully popular because it no longer means anything. A War Memorial is a memorial of the war, and I can imagine that those who merely hate the memory might merely hate the memorial. But what would be the sense of saying that, if only all the names of the dead were scraped off the War Memorials, huge pilgrimages would be made from all the ends of the earth to visit and venerate the absence of names on a memorial of nothing?

Most of us would not devote our short summer holiday to visiting the ruin of what had once been the record of something that we did not want to think about. Nor would most people, indifferent to the Christian origin of Christian churches, waste their time in churches merely because they had ceased to be Christian. There are plenty of other places in which to spend our holidays, and plenty of other resorts to which young people can flock, without flocking to hollow shrines stripped of all traces of their history or their object. He would be a bold spirit who should hope to lure the duchess back from the Lido, or the typist from the seaside sun-cure, by offering to show them a chapel of no particular date, with no particular design, in which a total stranger had promised not to mention something that happened 2,000 years ago. Somehow I do not think there would be a flock of duchesses, or even typists, at the doors of that weirdly negative edifice. And this marks the first of the fallacies which beset this rather fashionable style of protest or proposal. Even supposing it were true that theology is unpopular, it does not follow that the absence of theology is popular. This need no more be true of the absence of theology than of the absence of conchology or bacteriology, or anything else. I may not want to hear a bore talking about bimetallism, but it does not follow that I want to go for a walking tour with the bore when he promises not to mention bimetallism. I may not wish to listen to the lecture on ‘Genetics and Genesis’ at the Co-educational Congress at Gum Springs, Ill., but neither do I want to go to the Co-educational Congress at Gum Springs, or anywhere else, even if there is to be no lecture on ‘Genetics and Genesis’. And surely those who are so innocently confident of the attraction of merely negative religion might realize that a broad-minded parson can be as much of a bore about nothing as anybody can be about anything.

But there is another, more subtle, more sunken and fundamental queerness about this way of looking at things. As I have said before, it is only occasionally that we get a real glimpse of its strange outline, as we get it for a moment in this letter. The minds of these people work backwards, from effect to cause, and not from cause to effect. The cause of the Church, the cause which produced it, the cause for which it stands, is regarded as something bad, some thing that ought to be abolished. In that case, one would naturally infer that the Church ought to be abolished. But this type of thinker does not begin with the cause; he begins with the result, and then turns on the cause and rends it, as if the cause were a disfigurement that had been added afterwards to the result, He suggests that the result must destroy its cause, and go off looking for another cause, in the hope of becoming the result of something else. It is as if the Union Jack were wandering about the world trying to mean the dragon standard of the Sacred Emperor of China, or the Blue Peter were bending all its efforts to become a flag of truce with the significance of the White Flag.

One explanation is that such people, who commonly call themselves progressive, are in the most stodgy sense conservative. They cannot bear to alter any concrete fact, but only the idea behind it. They cannot actually abolish the Union Jack or the White Flag, but only all that they stand for. So they see in front of them a solid block of brick called a church. They accept that; they cannot conceive a real revolt against that; they are even ready to throw themselves into all sorts of schemes for making this mere brick building fashionable, so that people shall ‘flock’ to it. It commands their strange loyalty in its own strange way, merely by being there. It is a solid fact; something must be done with it; and therefore something must be done for it. In pure reason, it is about as reasonable as saying that since we have a Post Office we had better turn it into a swimming-bath, or that the successful establishment of a tennis court necessitates our using it as a turnip field. But the practical man does not trouble about pure reason; he can confront, with an unsmiling visage, what is in reality pure unreason. For pure reason involves some degree of imagination, and not only creative but also destructive imagination. The thinker must not only be able to think things, but to unthink them; he must be imaginative enough to unimagine anything.

Now this sort of conservative cannot unthink anything that is perceptible to his senses. He can only unthink the theory on which it depends, because it is only a theory. He cannot unimagine the big brick church in front of him, as it actually bulks in the landscape. He cannot imagine the landscape without the church; he can only imagine the church without the religion, or the religion without the reason. In the world of ideas he can alter anything, however fundamental, as if it were something fanciful. But he cannot be fanciful about a fact like a brick building; that is a solid object, and must be made a solid success. People must be induced to ‘flock’ to it, even if it has to be turned into an aquarium or an aerodrome. In one sense, to do him justice, this melancholy materialist is the most disinterested of men. The mystic is one who will serve something invisible for his own reasons. The materialist is one who will serve anything visible for no reason. But there are a good many of him, and, even if he has not begun to flock very much into the churches of the present and future, he does already flock a good deal in the correspondence columns of the newspapers.

VIII. On the Behaviourist

EVERYBODY knows that a new school of sceptics has recently appeared, especially in America; they call themselves the Behaviourists, and the late Mr. Harvey Wickham called them the Misbehaviourists. So far as I can understand, their philosophy is rooted in a theory of physiology: the theory that thought is originally a sort of movement of the body rather than the brain. ‘There is nothing in the brain,’ I think one of them has written, ‘except a lot of neurons. We do not think with our minds. We think with our muscles.’ Those of us, that is, who are so old-fashioned as to think at all. For we have all seen vigorous representatives of the rising generation who suppose that everything can be done with the muscles, and whom nobody, not even a psychologist of the far-off nineteenth century, would accuse of merely using their minds. I am not especially concerned with the truth or falsehood of this fancy. While it is flourished, like the majority of such fancies, with a vague defiance directed towards orthodoxy or tradition, it really has no sort of importance for them. It is an excellent example of the rule about nearly all such new notions that are valued as new negations. The new scientific theory never does really deny the old religious theory. What it does do is to deny—or, rather, destroy— the old scientific theory. And it was precisely in the name of that old theory that religion was once to have been destroyed. The heretics never attack orthodoxy; the heretics only avenge orthodoxy on each other.

It does not matter to any Christian whether God has made a man to think with his brains or his big toe. But it did matter very much to the recent type of Materialist that a man could only think with his brains. He was perpetually basing all sorts of destructive arguments on an analysis of what he called the convolutions and the ‘matter’ in the brain. He was as devoted as M. Hercule Poirot to The Little Grey Cells; but, alas! with far less brilliant and entertaining results. All that the Behaviourist does is, in every sense, to dash out the brains of the old Materialist. There is no question of his touching the soul, even the soul of an old Materialist, for that escapes him as completely as it does every other kind of material analysis, including that of the old Materialist himself. What he abolishes is not the soul, but the cells on which his predecessor depended for the denial of the soul. If ever we do really come to talk about a brilliant idea flashing through our biceps, or a curious and original theory creeping up the calf of our leg, it may sound to some a little funny, or even fantastic. It will not make the slightest difference to those who believe that God made an invisible spirit as part of an invisible order. But it will make nonsense of pages and pages of recent realistic literature, in which the crumbling grey matter proved that nothing but death awaited even the primary form of mind, or in which the soul was supposed to have been tracked to its lair and killed in a cell under the cavern of the skull. Libraries of nineteenth-century scepticism would become so much lumber; but the mystical passage in St. Paul about the glorified body would not be in the least affected either way. It would be amusing to irreverent persons if men ever began to look for the Differential Calculus in their deltoid muscles or to conceal a joke somewhere near the joint of the elbow. But it would only contradict the man who said that all truths were in the human skull or all jokes a decay of brain-stuff; not the man who says that jokes come from man, or that man and mathematical truths come from God.

Nevertheless, there is another aspect of this fancy, whether or no it is anything more than a fancy, in which it may be used to suggest a rather neglected truth. If we were only allowed to accept scientific suggestion, as jokes, we could sometimes get some serious good out of them. If the young scientist would ever allow us to regard his hypothesis as anything so human as a half-truth, it might sometimes really be worth while to find the other half. If, instead of claiming that everything is covered by his explanation, he confined himself to pleading that there is something in his suggestion, he would look considerably less of a fool when the next man, with the new explanation, comes along in about thirty years. And there is something in the suggestion about mind and muscle, though there may be nothing but nonsense in an attempt to affirm muscle and deny mind. It is true, I think, that among the lesser guides to truth is a certain craving for creative movement: a longing to stretch the limbs, to smite, to scrawl, to make sweeping gestures, to lift up the hands as well as the heart. There is an instinctive movement of the body towards better and nobler things, as in the text that said, ‘I will lift up mine eyes to the hills’, or in that divine command of liberation that took the form of ‘Stretch forth thine hand’. The old ceremonial gestures of the human body are necessary to the health of the human soul: the gesture that pledged the guest in the goblet that strewed the flowers upon the grave; that drew the sword for the salute or set up the candle before the shrine. In that sense a man actually can think with his muscles; he can pray with his muscles; he can love with his muscles and lament with his muscles. All religion that is without that gesture, all Puritan or purely Intellectualist religion that rages at ritual, is raging at human nature. If an ancient pagan came from the city of Plato and the temple of Pallas, and found himself in a certain type of town of the Middle West, I admit that he would probably prefer to be a Behaviourist rather than a Baptist.

Now, if we take a fine poem of religious invocation, like that which Chaucer called his A.B.C., which consists of a series of apostrophes to the Virgin, each like the first salute at morning, we shall feel the almost physical presence of this sort of ancient or medieval Behaviourism. The words seem to carry with them a gesture; it is impossible not to feel that the poet is doing something; is bowing to a lady or standing up to salute a sovereign; is lifting an offering up or casting an offering down. Such an opening as ‘Almighty and all-mercyable Queen’ has a breadth about it beyond that of the brain, in the narrow sense, because such invocation is, among other things, one of the most ancient human habits of the body. Of course, that broad and expansive gesture can be found in other poets besides Chaucer, and other schools besides Chaucer’s. But it has not expanded with the particular modern type of expansion. Milton was capable of it:

Thine are these mighty works, Parent of Good, Almighty, thine this everlasting frame.

But it seems to me that, after Milton, there is in literature less and less of that sort of invocation, even when there are many other sorts of inspiration. Shelley invented half a hundred goddesses, but he could not pray to them, not even as well as the old atheist Lucretius could pray to Venus, Mother of Rome. All Shelley’s deities were abstractions; they were Beauty or Liberty or Love; but they might as well have been Algebra and Long Division, so far as inviting the gesture of worship goes. In this, as in everything else, what is the matter with the new pagan is that he is not a pagan; he has not any of the customs or consolations of a pagan. There is a little more of it, I admit, in the almost ironic invocations of Swinburne. But that is precisely because Swinburne was more deeply read, not in the new paganism, but in the old. He had at least gone into the temples of the old Greeks, even if it was to curse the gods as well as invoke them. But, on the whole, this gesture of invocation has rather gone out of poetry; and even our diabolists do not wave the wand with anything like a fine flourish, when they start to raise the devil.

IX. On the Pleasures of no Longer being Very Young

THERE are advantages in the advance through middle age into later life which are very seldom stated in a sensible way. Generally, they are stated in a sentimental way; in a general suggestion that all old men are equipped with beautiful snowy beards like Father Christmas and rejoice in unfathomable wisdom like Nestor. All this has caused the young people to be sceptical about the real advantages of the old people, and the true statement of those advantages sounds like a paradox. I would not say that old men grow wise, for men never grow wise and many old men retain a very attractive childishness and cheerful innocence. Elderly people are often much more romantic than younger people, and sometimes even more adventurous, having begun to realize how many things they do not know. It is a true proverb, no doubt, which says ‘There is no fool like an old fool’. Perhaps there is no fool who is half so happy in his own fool’s paradise. But, however this may be, it is true that the advantages of maturity are not those which are generally urged even in praise of it, and when they are truly urged they sound like an almost comic contradiction.

For instance, one pleasure attached to growing older is that many things seem to be growing younger; growing fresher and more lively than we once supposed them to be. We begin to see significance, or (in other words) to see life, in a large number of traditions, institutions, maxims, and codes of manners that seem in our first days to be dead. A young man grows up in a world that often seems to him intolerably old. He grows up among proverbs and precepts that appear to be quite stiff and senseless. He seems to be stuffed with stale things; to be given the stones of death instead of the bread of life; to be fed on the dust of the dead past; to live in a town of tombs. It is a very natural mistake, but it is a mistake. The advantage of advancing years lies in discovering that traditions are true, and therefore alive; indeed, a tradition is not even traditional except when it is alive. It is great fun to find out that the world has not repeated proverbs because they are proverbial, but because they are practical. Until I owned a dog, I never knew what is meant by the proverb about letting a sleeping dog lie, or the fable about the dog in the manger. Now those dead phrases are quite alive to me, for they are parts of a perfectly practical psychology. Until I went to live in the country, I had no notion of the meaning of the maxim, ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good’. Now it seems to me as pertinent and even pungent as if it were a new remark just made to me by a neighbour at the garden gate. It is something to come to live in a world of living and significant things instead of dead and unmeaning things. And it is youth in revolt, even in righteous revolt, which sees its surroundings as dead and unmeaning. It is old age, and even second childhood, that has come to see that everything means something and that life itself has never died.

For instance, we have just seen a staggering turn of the wheel of fortune which has brought all the modern material pride and prosperity to a standstill. America, which a year or two ago seemed to have become one vast Eldorado studded with cities of gold, is almost as much embarrassed as England, and really much more embarrassed than Ireland. The industrial countries are actually finding it difficult to be industrial, while the old agricultural countries still find it possible to be industrious. Now, I do not pretend to have prophesied or expected this, for a man may cheerfully call a thing rotten without really expecting it to rot. But neither, certainly, did the young, the progressive, the prosperous, or the adventurous expect it. Yet all history and culture is stiff with proverbs and prophecies telling them to expect it. The trouble is that they thought the proverbs and history a great deal too stiff. Again and again, with monotonous reiteration, both my young friends and myself had been told from childhood that fortune is fickle, that riches take to themselves wings and fly, that power can depart suddenly from the powerful, that pride goes before a fall, and insolence attracts the thunderbolt of the gods. But it was all unmeaning to us, and all the proverbs seemed stiff and stale, like dusty labels on neglected antiquities. We had heard of the fall of Wolsey, which was like the crash of a huge palace, still faintly rumbling through the ages; we had read of it in the words of Shakespeare, which possibly were not written by Shakespeare; we had learned them and learned nothing from them. We had read ten thousand times, to the point of tedium, of the difference between the Napoleon of Marengo and the Napoleon of Moscow; but we should never have expected Moscow if we had been looking at Marengo. We knew that Charles the Fifth resigned his crown, or that Charles the First lost his head; and we should have duly remarked ‘Sic transit gloria mundi’, after the incident, but not before it. We had been told that the Roman Empire declined, or that the Spanish Empire disintegrated; but no German ever really applied it to the German Empire, and no Briton to the British Empire. The very repetition of these truths will sound like the old interminable repetition of the truisms. And yet they are to me, at this moment, like amazing and startling discoveries, for I have lived to see the dead proverbs come alive.

This, like so many of the realizations of later life, is quite impossible to convey in words to anybody who has not reached it in this way. It is like a difference of dimension or plane, in which something which the young have long looked at, rather wearily, as a diagram has suddenly become a solid. It is like the indescribable transition from the inorganic to the organic; as if the stone snakes and birds of some ancient Egyptian inscription began to leap about like living things. The thing was a dead maxim when we were alive with youth. It becomes a living maxim when we are nearer to death. Even as we are dying, the whole world is coming to life.

Another paradox is this: that it is not the young people who realize the new world. The moderns do not realize modernity. They have never known anything else. They have stepped on to a moving platform which they hardly know to be moving, as a man cannot feel the daily movement of the earth. But he would feel it sharp enough if the earth suddenly moved the other way. The older generation consists of those who do remember a time when the world moved the other way. They do feel sharply and clearly the epoch which is beginning, for they were there before it began. It is one of the artistic advantages of the aged that they do see the new things relieved sharply against a background, their shape definite and distinct. To the young these new things are often themselves the background, and are hardly seen at all. Hence, even the most intelligent of innovators is often strangely mistaken about the nature of innovation and the things that are really new. And the Oldest Inhabitant will often indulge in a senile chuckle, as he listens to the Village Orator proclaiming that the village church will soon be swept away and replaced by a factory for chemicals. For the Oldest Inhabitant knows very well that nobody went to church in the days of his childhood except out of snobbishness, and that it is in his old age that the church has begun once more to be thronged with believers. In my capacity of Oldest Inhabitant (with senile chuckle), I will give one instance of a kindred kind. A man must be at least as old as I am in order to remember how utterly idiotic, inconceivable, and crazily incredible it once seemed that any educated or even reasonably shrewd person should confess that he believed in ghosts. You must be nearly the Oldest Inhabitant to know with what solid scorn and certainty the squire and the parson denied the possibility of the village ghost; the parson even more emphatically than the squire. The village ghost was instantly traced to the village drunkard or the village liar. Educated people knew that the dead do not return in the world of sense. Those who remember those times, and have lived to see a man of science like Sir Oliver Lodge founding quite a fashionable religion, are amused to hear a young man say the world is moving away from the supernatural. They know in what direction it has really moved.

X. On Mr. Mencken and Fundamentalism

IT is the custom to make fun of Fundamentalism and to suggest that American religion is rather antiquated. But I sometimes think that American irreligion is much more antiquated than American religion, and that the sceptic can be more of a fossil than the sectarian. Both, of course, are sects only representing sections. America contains many other brighter and better things; and certainly America is sufficiently advanced and adventurous, especially in certain forms of scientific practice, to balance any thing belated in certain forms of scientific theory. But the belated forms exist, and seem to be still under the illusion that they are advanced forms. There seem still to be places in the world where the earth shakes if the indomitable Darrow mentions the unmentionable Darwin. I am not sure that they may not be referring to Erasmus Darwin.

Mr. H. L. Mencken is at least a brilliant man of letters and ought to know better. But he, I gather, has just been coming out in defence of the dead and buried negations of the nineteenth century, and gallantly doing his best to prevent American science from moving with the times. His way of doing it seems to be to play about with the word ‘Scientist’ in opposition to some other word like the word ‘Physicist’. ‘Scientist’ is a horrible word to be driven to use, though I have often been driven to use it; but all these terms for the study of science are in a very unscientific confusion. It would be embarrassing to summon a physician and be visited by a physicist. Yet on the parallel of physics and metaphysics, the former word would seem more logical. Few of us have ever, in desperate haste, summoned a metaphysician. But it would be far more frightful and terrifying to be visited by a metaphysicist. Subject to the further clarification of the language, I presume Mr. Mencken to mean by a scientist either a man who specializes in all sciences (a somewhat alarming figure) or else a man who really specializes in one science in a scientific way. Mr. Mencken chooses to contradict flatly the principal living physicists, who have studied physics in a strictly scientific way. I do not know if he has studied the science in any way, but I am pretty sure that he has not studied it in that way. When, therefore, he says of the distinguished men whose close study of matter has not led them to materialism, that it only shows that they can be physicists without being scientists, it throws a yet more uncanny light on that very ugly word. Apparently a scientist is a man who surveys all the sciences, without any particular study of them, and then gives expression to his own moral principles or prejudices. In this way it is proved that Mr. Mencken is a scientist. I also am a scientist; but in my time it used to be called a journalist.

It is great fun, for what it really means is that the scientific materialist never cared for science but only for materialism. So long as he supposed that material inquiry supported materialism, he roared and bellowed at us that we must ‘accept the conclusions of science’. But he is not the least inclined himself to accept the conclusions of science, if they happen to go against his own crude and clumsy creed. The Darwinians would have been hysterical with horror if any Victorian journalist had told them that Darwin might be a biologist without being a scientist. Twenty years ago, it would have been atrociously antiquated to say that Haeckel was not really a scientist, though it is now much less clear that he was a scientist than that he was a monist. He was, anyhow, a propagandist, and a pretty unscrupulous propagandist; but we were all supposed to swallow what he said at once, because he was Science. The new physicists are not propagandists, but Mr. Mencken, so far from reverencing them as Science, desperately refuses to respect them even as scientists. And he takes up this extraordinary position for no reason in the world, except that they will not say exactly what he tells them to say, in the world of morals and metaphysics. But it is rather hard to ask them to drop all their scientific work for fear they should get a little ahead of Mr. Mencken.

God forbid that I should blame Mr. Mencken for being a Diehard and dying in the last ditch, even in the rather muddy ditch of a dead materialism. If he still thinks the old-fashioned science was right, he is perfectly right to be old-fashioned. But he will hardly expect us not to laugh at him, when we consider how we were derided as Diehards for being ready to die in a ditch which we thought more deep and rather less dirty. He is now, apparently, in exactly the same situation as we were, except that our principle has satisfied the intelligence of teeming populations for two thousand years, while his prejudice has broken down as soon as it was set up. So far as the teeming populations are concerned, it has ended before it had begun. For modern monism and materialism were never accepted by simple people, and are now being abandoned by scientific people. To be true to them when they lie under such a complication of disasters and disillusions may be admired as chivalric in the sense of quixotic; but Mr. Mencken would be the first to insist that it is allowable to smile at Don Quixote.

I have so warm an admiration for Mr. Mencken as the critic of Puritan pride and stupidity that I regret that he should thus try to make himself out a back number out of mere irreligious irritation. He has been the hammer of those false idealists who call themselves moral because they demand the Prohibition of a few hard drinks, and dare not say a word of the Prohibition of hard dealings, of hard bargains that break the poor, and the brutal ethics tolerated in business. I sympathize so much with this that I do not mind the hammer being flourished sometimes a little cheaply and ostentatiously, like an auctioneer’s hammer; nor do I demand in the present ease that it should tap as cautiously and scientifically as a geological hammer. But I do demand that it should go somewhere near hitting the right nail on the head, even if it be hit with all the windy violence of some Nietzschean imitation of the Hammer of Thor. I do not mind Mr. Mencken being destructive, like his master Nietzsche before him. What I complain of here is that he is not destructive enough. He not only dare not destroy, but he cannot even bear to watch the destruction of a few blunders and blind dogmas of old Victorian science. The Fundamentalists are funny enough, and the funniest thing about them is their name. For, whatever else the Fundamentalist is, he is not fundamental. He is content with the bare letter of Scripture— the translation of a translation, coming down to him by the tradition of a tradition—without venturing to ask for its original authority. But Mr. Mencken, in his latest phase, is almost as superficial as a Fundamentalist. I should have expected a man of his intelligence to be something fundamental, if it were only a fundamental sceptic. But a real fundamental sceptic, as he has existed in Hellas or in India, or possibly in the cavern of Zarathustra, would never be frightened because the new scientific study of matter leads to mathematical abstractions and abysses. He would never be alarmed because the world now revealed by the physicists is not even physical. It is the business of the agnostic to admit that he knows nothing; and he might the more gracefully admit it touching sciences about which he knows precious little. As it is, it seems as if the agnostic were transformed into the atheist, and a pretty stale and provincial sort of atheist; what might be called respectfully the village atheist. Even then, I suspect that I should sympathize with him in practice, in his free fight with the village Puritans in front of the village inn. But, just as I should prefer him to admit that even the village chemist knows something about chemistry, or the village physician about physic, I would suggest that even physicists do know something about physics.

XI. On Anthony Trollope: Historian

I WAS recently reading an article on Anthony Trollope, one of the many that have appeared in literary magazines since critics have discovered that his work can be treated as literature, when they used only to treat it as fiction. He is a rather rare example of a man who has been taken more seriously after his death than in his presence. The Victorians tended to regard Trollope as light literature, and Thackeray and even Dickens as more serious literature. The modern critics, rightly or wrongly, are disposed to treat Trollope more seriously, and even Dickens and Thackeray more lightly. Of course, Trollope is treated in both fashions, according to the taste of the critic. Mr. Hugh Walpole has cultivated the Trollope style both by precept and example; and Father Ronald Knox has made a most elaborate and detailed map of Barsetshire, and annotated it with stern queries about why Dr. Thorne took so long to get to Plumstead Episcopi, or what Mr. Gresham was doing on the wrong road to Framley Parsonage. These are not the right examples; for I, alas! have not the powerful detective and documentary brain of Father Knox. But it is broadly true that Trollope has again attracted many people from many aspects. And yet there is one aspect of Trollope which I think has been entirely neglected, and which I think is of very great and vital importance to the history of England.

The critic in question says of Trollope, truly enough in the main: ‘He scarcely concerned himself with the lower orders.’ We may add that the whole system of English squirearchy scarcely concerned itself with the lower orders; or only in the same vague and well meaning way as Trollope. But when the critic adds, ‘His values were those of the middle class’, he misses the point— the point which I think important about English history. It is not really true, as a whole, that his characters were middle class. It might be said more truly that Dickens dealt largely with the middle class, though doubt less more largely with the lower middle class, and even the lower class. But Trollope really deals with the upper middle class in so far as it is attached to the upper class. Squire Gresham was not middle class; and I fancy that Archdeacon Grantly would have been very much surprised to be told he was. I draw a veil over the fury of Mrs. Proudie, who would probably, I admit, have been even more indignant at the description if it happened to be true. Dr. Thorne was, in the ordinary sense, of the professional middle class but we are never allowed to forget that his family was older and prouder than the De Courcys. Most of the Government clerks are of the more or less aristocratic class from which Government clerks were, and to some extent still are, chiefly drawn. In other words, we shall not learn the first historical lesson from Trollope till we realize that he bears witness to England as an aristocratic State; and not, as our friends the Communists would say, as a bourgeois State. But there is a further development of this historical truth, which I think rather curious. Trollope bears witness to a big historical fact about our past, and does it all the more solidly and sincerely because he has no notion that he is doing it at all.

I know it was the fashion in the Victorian times to say that England was represented by its Great Middle Class and not by its aristocracy. That was the artfulness of its aristocracy. Never did a governing class govern so completely, by saying it did not govern at all. The middle-class English man was always pushed into the foreground; while the rulers remained in the background. It was the middle-class Englishman who wrote letters to The Times; it was not he who informed The Times. It was the middle-class man who went to the political meeting; it was not he who sent down the candidate. The governing class governed by the perfectly simple principle of keeping all the important things to themselves; and giving the papers and the public unimportant things to discuss. When Earl Balfour (one of the last great survivals of the governing class) said languidly that he never read the newspapers, everybody laughed, as if he had said that he could not read the alphabet. In fact, of course, he never read the newspapers because he had read the State papers. Why should he read all the nonsense that was served out to the public, when he knew all the real secrets which were kept as secrets of State?

But when we have realized that the England of Trollope was still an aristocratic England, there is a further distinction, which Trollope never notices, but always makes clear. His evidence is alone enough to upset Macaulay and Green and the whole Whig theory of our history taught in the schools. The really interesting fact to be inferred from Trollope is this. Nineteenth-century England is not a country in which we have a populace led by a Liberal middle class on one side and a powerful Tory nobility led by Dukes and Earls on the other. The division of the parties is totally different, and unconsciously betrays the real secret, not only of the nineteenth, but of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries. It betrays the truth about the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the nature of the new system which it really introduced. The Crown did not pass from James II to William III. Like many stolen treasures, it was cut up: it was cut up into coronets.

Let anybody, reading Trollope carefully, note what the real division between the parties was. There is a large proportion of minor gentry, who may be called middle class, if we will, who are certainly numerous and not very rich: doctors, parsons, small squires, and yeomen and all sorts of plain and hard-working people. Now these people are all Tories. They inherit the old Tory tradition of loyalty to a king, which belonged to purely middle-class people like Dr. Johnson or Dr. Goldsmith.

Far above all these people, like gods on Olympus, like higher beings living on a loftier plane, there are two or three people who are of prodigious public importance, like emperors or kings. The tone of everybody else in talking about them implies the remote condescension of a sovereign. The obvious example is the Duke of Omnium. He is spoken of as playing a great princely part like a prince. We need not deny him the credit, but we need not disguise the fact that his importance rested on being what we call a millionaire. More presentable, I admit, than the millionaires who are flattered to-day. But he is ruler of all England because he is gigantically rich. Now this kind of man is always a Whig.

What the serious historians have disguised the frivolous novelist has detected. Their histories are fiction and his fiction is history. That is the truth; and that is Trollope’s unconscious witness to what the Whigs really did in English history; why they were able to overthrow the Stuarts; why they were able to dominate the common traditional Tories like Dr. Thorne. What the Revolution did was obviously not to establish a democracy; not even to establish a normal and national gentry; not even to establish a mere rustic squirearchy. It was to establish certain great magnates, whose wealth and power was far out of proportion to that of the ordinary gentleman, let alone the ordinary citizen. They owned every thing, and Trollope knew it. What other possible meaning is there in the title of The Duke of Omnium? Thackeray also knew it. What possible other meaning is there in that fine satiric flourish, ‘I am not a Whig … but oh, how I should like to be!’? Even the waiters and couriers on the Continent knew it. What other meaning was in the Arabian Nights legend of the English Milord? Everybody seems to have known it, except the people who taught history in the schools and universities of England.

XII. On the Way of the World

IT was Matthew Arnold, if I remember right, who invented or popularized the phrase ‘the way the world is going’, a motto for social reformers only too easily adapted into a motto for snobs. It is not really even a simple, let alone a safe, guide, as can be easily tested in his own ease. After all, if it comes to that, what way was the world going in the time of Matthew Arnold? We are far enough from it to look back to it, and, when we look back to it, the world seems to be going all ways at once. It was certainly a time when the Philistines, as he called them, the middle-class mercantile Liberals of the school of Cobden and Bright, were still marching from victory to victory. And yet the end of the Liberal century was crowned, or crushed, by the Jingo journalism of the Kipling epoch, with War, Imperialism, and everything that the old Liberals loathed. In one sense the world was more sceptical and scientific; in every sense it seemed more sceptical and scientific; and yet the mystical and religious reaction increased steadily from then till now. In short, when we look back on that time we see not a tide but an eddy, or a welter of eddies, in which each person is paddling his own canoe desperately in his own direction. Arnold wanted to go back to Athens; Newman to go back to Rome; Carlyle to go back to Scandinavia; Schopenhauer to go back to India; Nietzsche to go back to chaos. I do not say there was no predominant influence among these influences, but I do say that it was not so simple as Arnold and some other people thought it; and, so far from simplifying itself with distance, it seems with distance to grow more dizzy and distracted. Wherever that age was drifting, it was to the place where we are now. And where in the world are we?

There is one case of this complexity that always amuses me: the way in which the abstract assumptions of an age are often contradicted by its concrete customs and amusements. The superficial examples are obvious enough. In theory this is the age of Prohibition; in practice it is the age of Cocktails. In theory women are working in the world on an assumption of absolute equality with men. In practice vast numbers are reading the novels of Miss Ethel M. Dell and all sorts of rubbishy tales and essays about the fascination of sheikhs and cavemen. In theory the State has been practically secularized and theology is a dead and threadbare thing, dismissed disdainfully in every other paragraph as a lumber of ‘creeds and dogmas’. In practice no newspaper can apparently pay its way without plastering itself all over with headlines and captions about the position of Christianity, the nature of Christ, the immortality of the soul, the future of the Churches, and a whole picture-gallery of portraits of popular clergymen. But there is one particular contradiction which I would note here, between the tone of such religious journalism and something else that might rather be called spiritual literature. At a moment when the popular religion, or at least the religion preached in the popular press, all points one way, the work of the most modern and independent artists points the other. The newspapers are all God and no devil. The novels are all devils and no God. The tone of that religious journalism, or whatever we call it, is something that people call Optimism. It is a bad word, but it can sometimes stand for a good thing. I have used it myself in other days, merely in opposition to Pessimism, and as meaning the primary conviction that life is worth living and the world is worthy of our efforts for it. But nowadays it means something much more; or, rather, something immeasurably less. It means a sort of cheap cheeriness, at the back of which there is a curious sort of hollow unbelief in reality. Men boasted of being Optimists about the war; which is like being Optimists about the weather. A man may try to be cheerful even if there is a thunderstorm; but these lunatics talked as if they could prevent a thunderstorm by being cheerful. Those who pro pose to be cheerful when struck by lightning introduce a more mystical question. So people now boast of being Optimists about Trade, this is more vulgar but less irrational, precisely because trade is a less real thing than war. Some are surprised that the same American civilization should produce Christian Science and commercial salesmanship. But in fact Christian Science is very like commercial salesmanship. Both rest on the idea that facts can be conjured away by moods and mesmerism. The perfect Scientist persuades a man that he hasn’t got what he has got. The perfect Salesman persuades a man that he does want what he doesn’t want. We may call it, in a complimentary phrase, the power of spirit over matter. We may call it, in a less complimentary phrase, the power of lies over facts. But this spirit of persuasion, or illusion, does pervade our time in good and bad forms, and especially in one popular religious form. I have remarked before that Spiritualism, for instance, while it does not affirm that all Spirits are good, does rather tend to ignore the suggestion that some are bad. And it will be agreed that the general tone of all the True Christianity and New Religions that pervades the newspapers rather leaves out the possibility that anything is bad. One would infer from these lay sermons that there is no difficulty about being happy, if it be only accompanied by being hazy. Some of the writers deal with the tremendous and pulverizing paradox of the Love of God, especially in the aspect of faith in the God of Love, as if it were not only perfectly self-evident, but as if it could have no effect except to make us self-satisfied. The thunderous riddle of the ‘Est Deus Caritatis’ which broke above the dying Brand after his life of agony on the peak of his perfect renunciation, seems to be uttered chirpily every morning to every clerk or stockbroker who will be sufficiently broadminded to play golf instead of going to church. Carlyle complained of people who were at ease in Zion. But the new Zion ism thinks it enough to prove that it is easier still not to be in Zion at all. Whatever else it does encourage, the dread of devilry or definite evil is admittedly a thing that it does not encourage. We could read reams and files of the new newspaper theology and not find even a mention of that fear of demons that was felt by all our fathers. Very well; that is the way the world is supposed to have gone in our time. But when we read the literature of our time, especially when it is really literary, we find something quite the contrary. The most distinguished men of letters, the novelists or the new poets, often have no more definite beliefs than the newspaper believers. They are quite as pure from the taint of creed, dogma, or intellectually intelligible statement of faith. Most of them are probably agnostics; and in that sense do not believe in God, let alone the devil. And yet they are perpetually writing about devils. They are always at it. Book after book comes out, of which the theme is some strange psychological wickedness, encouraged more or less by some more strange psychical influence. One distinguished novelist writes a book about Pan, as a positive influence and a highly unpleasant influence, fully worthy of his ancient association with Panic. Another distinguished novelist devotes another imaginative novel to a dark and terrible deity of the South Americans, worshipped in former ages with torture and blood. Among the master pieces of the last twenty or thirty years, those that stand out in my own memory with startling power arc almost all of them stories of necromancy or diabolic possession, often written by men who had no definite religious affiliations, but who had imagination carrying all the solidity of conviction. I look back over the whole of that long period, that has been littered to the sky with newspaper philosophies preaching cheerfulness and optimism, and ignorance of evil. And the two things that stand out in my memory for their solidity and sincerity and power, staring like stone gargoyles of gigantic stature, are both things that seem to face the other way from the whole recent movement of the world. I remember the real literary thrill which I felt long ago when reading The Turn of the Screw, and how it woke within me again long after, under the suffocating vividness of Seaton’s Aunt.

XIII. On the New Insularity

THAT a heresy is a half-truth is a very old and familiar example of a whole truth; but a truth that is not often realized as a whole. Most mistaken people mean well, and all mistaken people mean some thing. There is something to be said for every error, but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous. On the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, it ought to be true that half a truth is better than no verity. But in practice, it is not so much a case of the half loaf of the proverb as of the half apple of the fairy-tale; the apple of which one half was poisoned by the wicked stepmother for the good princess. At least, as modern mental feeding goes, to stop lathe middle of the meal is often to eat the poison without eating the antidote. And if we look back on history, we shall see it largely encumbered and crushed with half-truths; we shall wonder how it happened so often that a whole age or generation was content with a half-truth, without making the faintest effort to find the other half. We shall wonder how one fashion could be entirely set upon fame or glory, or another upon order and symmetry, or another upon discovery and adventure; and be unable to understand how men could sacrifice all other things to each of these things in turn. It may be that we shall never fully understand why our fathers did it, for we certainly do not in the least understand why we do it ourselves.

There are certain half-truths that are even now allowed to occupy the whole mind. There are certain statements that are true as far as they go, and even important and interesting as far as they go, which are yet incessantly being used to stop the mind from going any farther. One of these, for example, is the phrase we find in the phraseology of all our literature and journalism; ‘Rapid modern communications are bringing different parts of the world nearer and nearer together. It takes but a few days to go to Siberia by train; it may take but a few hours to go there by aeroplane. Instead of being at the ends of the earth, Siberia may yet be a sort of suburb like Surbiton.’ But nobody stops to ask himself whether Siberia really is like Surbiton; in what respect it is really unlike Surbiton, or, above all, whether it is not in some respects growing more unlike Surbiton. For another process is going on, parallel to the process of the connexion of routes, and it is the disconnexion of ideas. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that some bold and romantic adventurer from Surbiton had gone to Siberia a hundred years ago. Doubtless he would have found the people there something like savages; perhaps, to his too refined suburban eye, something hardly different from the beasts of the field. And yet, without claiming any antiquarian scholarship about that somewhat obscure district; I would undertake to say that there were some ideas common to the Siberian and the Suburban. I should guess, for instance, that the Asiatic savages had some rudimentary idea of private property. I suspect that a Siberian would have said, ‘This is my spear’, as confidently as the Surbitonian would have said, ‘This is my umbrella’. It is probable that there was some sort of religion in Siberia, as it is probable that there is some sort of religion in Surbiton. The traveller to-day could get ten times more quickly to the Siberian village than he could have got there a hundred ago. But it is no longer so absolutely certain that he would find these simple things if he got there. He might find it was already a Communist village, not in the old and normal sense of a communal village; but in the fixed fanatical sense of a Bolshevist village. He might find the villagers being dogmatically taught the doctrine of Bolshevism; taught that it is really wicked to own an umbrella or still more wicked to wield a spear. He might find, for almost the first time in human history, a people being systematically instructed in the theory that there is neither God nor gods. That means that the village, which is geographically so much nearer, is now philosophically much farther away. And this is due to a new division in the thoughts of man; to the rise of a new sect and the separation of a whole civilization from the general human tradition. There are many modern examples of the disproportionate size of such queer modern sects;—there is the rather comic example of Prohibition. It is only a half-truth to say that America comes nearer and nearer to Europe, as ships fly faster and faster across the Atlantic. A ship took heaven knows how long to get from England to America in the days of the American Revolution and the Fathers of the Republic. But the traveller in the ship found Washington drinking wine his house in Virginia, exactly as he had left Lord North drinking wine in his house in London. If you had told them that it was wicked to drink wine, Washington would have stared just as North would have stared at such a statement. A Moslem morality had not then arisen beyond the Atlantic, to divide America from Christendom. Wine was thicker than water. It united men of a common culture; and the English race on either side of the ocean was only divided by liquid and not by liquor.

For that matter, our own British politics have lately illustrated vividly enough the fact that a division accompanies such a unification. We have seen it, first in the case of Ireland and then in the case of India. It was exactly at the time when they were easiest to reach that they were hardest to hold. No improvement in the trains from Euston or the boats from Holyhead, can alter the fact that our folly allowed Ireland to float farther and farther away, in the sea of the spirit, till it was as remote as a South Sea Island. It was perhaps too much to expect that we should ever really understand India; but in the old days it was at least understood how much we proposed to understand. If a hostile critic likes to put it so, it was understood that we should continue to misunderstand. But at least something was understood; and in the present welter and dissolution of bonds, it is not too much to say that nothing is understood. The new India is more of a riddle than the old; and the country grows more mysterious as it grows more near, or even more new. For we are for the first time near enough to feel the full force of the differences; and that sort of silent shock of collision is occurring with the closer communications all over the world. But there is, moreover, as I have said, a moral division due to the growth of new ideas. When we dealt with the active resistance of Hyder Ali the Moslem, both sides were fighting with the same weapons and in the same world. When we deal with the passive resistance of Gandhi the Mahatma, we are in a world as unfamiliar as magic. The paradox of this parallel of contraction and expansion is really simple enough. It follows on the modern attempt to combine wild spiritual speculation with systematic scientific order. Philosophy sprouts and sprawls in every direction, and science tries in vain to tie the bundle together. Men were united by religions and loyalties, and then it did not matter how widely they were scattered. A clan or tribe would he spread thinly over a whole moorland or prairie. Each hut would be as solitary as a hermitage, but they would be hermits of the same creed. The modern method is to stick up a row of villas all exactly alike, and all close together for convenience of electricity and drainage. But the man living in the first house may be a Buddhist, and in the second a Papist, and in the third an atheist, and in the fourth a diabolist; and each villa is an isolated universe.

XIV. On Christian Science

THE friends of Christian Science say proudly that very good business men are Christian Scientists. The foes of Christian Science say, unkindly, that Christian Scientists are very good business men. I will not debate whether these are only two ways of saying the same thing, far less whether it is a nice thing to say. The former point radiantly to rows and rows of hard-headed millionaires, reverently listening to readings from Science and Health, under the rather extraordinary impression that the presence of millionaires helps them to prove that Christian Science is Christian. The latter explain that Mrs. Eddy, though doubtless unconscious of the existence of matter, was not wholly unconscious of the existence of money. I have no intention of entering upon these purely personal feuds here. But I should like to point out that there really is a moral connexion between the two things, that extends beyond the defined boundaries of either. Just as there are more invisible (and therefore, presumably, more spiritual) forms of money than mere material coin— such as dues, debts, expectations, dead men’s shoes, mortgage, usury, economic threats and blackmail, and all the other purer and more immaterial forms of wealth—so there are indirect and impalpable influences of Christian Science which affect many who do not profess to be Scientists and could not, without some implication of humour, pretend to be Christians.

The truth is that in one sense Christian Science has succeeded and really become the religion of the age, though it does not follow of necessity that this is a compliment to the age. I do not mean by this that most people have studied and accepted Mrs. Eddy’s original metaphysics; if, indeed, they were original, or if they were really Mrs. Eddy’s. Still less do I mean that the world accepts the original morals of Christian Science, for I am told that they are no longer accepted even by Christian Scientists. The primary principle of the cult obviously forbade them to run for a doctor if Mrs. Eddy broke her leg, since either the leg, or certainly the break, or possibly both, were illusions of Mortal Mind. Whether there really were people who would have let a man bleed to death, because the blood was a result of the mere flow of his thoughts, I have my doubts; but that did seem to be involved in some of the original definitions, though not, I understand, in some of the later modifications of them. But this practical morality about doctors does not here concern me, however practical or unpractical it may be. What I mean, when I say that this is the age of Christian Science, is not that most people living in it are in any sense Christian Scientists. I mean that the world is in a certain mood, of which Christian Science is the expression and exaggeration. It is not so much that the age could not find a more accommodating religion, as that the religion could not find a more accommodating age. Men have sometimes talked about people who were Christians before Christ, and in one sense there were certainly any number of people who were Christian Scientists before Christian Science. There was something in the whole air and movement of that time, and especially of that nation, and it was of a curious blind, sweeping, and abnormal sort. The air was rather like a whirl wind and the movement rather like a whirlpool. It had an element of formlessness that was rather that of abstraction than anarchy; that rushed head long, yet followed the curves of a tendency or a fate. Indeed, among the queer jokes so often to be found in American names, there is none more quaintly expressive than the very name of Mrs. Eddy.

The truth about the tendency was this: that the world had become a world of Commerce. And there is about Commerce an invisible thing that may be called Confidence; even if it sometimes means no more than the Confidence Trick. It depends on faith, even if it prove to be bad faith. It does not depend on plain matters of material fact and experience. The millionaires in the Church of Christ Scientist are supposed to be hard-headed; I have myself a suspicion that they are rather soft-headed. But, anyhow, they do not really deal in hardware; they do emphatically deal in what may be called soft goods. They deal in things that easily receive impressions from without, and are especially sensitive to the impressions that we call depressions. They deal in rumours, in understandings, in fictitious values, in temporary offers, in things that are never what they seem, and seldom do exactly what they promise. Business is such stuff as dreams are made on, and its little life is rounded with a slump.

This nervous and not very sane state of affairs is the origin of Optimism and the general advice to the salesman to Keep Smiling. If he left off smiling for one single second, he might blight the market for hundreds of miles around. The whole condition has now become so terribly atmospheric; not in the milder sense of men suffering from the atmosphere, but in the almost agonizing sense of men making the atmosphere. That is why the whole of this commercial world is struck by the stubborn dissatisfaction or harsh discontent of the more rooted rural populations. They say that the farmer always grumbles; and so he does, for he can afford to grumble. He thinks the weather is bad, but he knows that his grumbling will not make it worse. He knows he cannot produce a cloud in the sky by every curse that comes to his tongue; that he cannot blight his own crops, even by declaring falsely that they are blighted. He cannot create a slump in turnips merely by turning a melancholy face upon them, or frown at the cabbages until they close weak and quiet when they began brisk and strong. He is dealing with absolute and unalterable realities, and, as he is dealing with real facts, he can express his real feelings. He is, in a rather curious and eccentric sense, in a position in which the truth has made him free. He is a realist be cause he is dealing with realities. The commercial man almost has to be a romanticist because he so often deals with unrealities. And that is what Americans mean when they talk about The Romance of Salesmanship.

Now, for an atmosphere so atmospheric as that the obvious religion was Christian Science, with its general suggestion of men creating their own atmosphere. To say that there was no such thing as a headache was part of the same mentality as saying that there would be no such thing as a slump; it was of the very essence of that mythology and genealogy that the wish was father to the thought. It had all kinds of minor manifestations, apart from any acceptance of that particular creed; but it was obviously more in touch with that particular creed than with any other creed. It was closely akin to all that astonishing mass of advertisement and suggestion about Personality and Will-Power and all the rest which we see sprawling over so many American books and magazines. It is an ironic jest that the religion is revealed, or betrayed, by its images or icons. The American papers show portraits of men who have Personality; which is why they all look exactly alike.

I have remarked recently that the world is now occupied with the Study of the Mind rather than with the Use of the Mind. This is what is meant by calling it the Age of Psychology. It is also what is meant by calling it, in a somewhat sinister sense, the Age of Physical Jerks. It is a nervous and unrestful sort of optimism that is thus perpetually trying to impose a mood upon the objective universe, and the world, like Wall Street, is liable to reactions of panic. But certainly Christian Science did for a time suit the mood, if it does not for any long period suit the mind; if, indeed, we return to using the mind instead of merely doctoring it with drugs.

XV. On Rest Cures for Nations

WE certainly need a new theory of Progress, for all existing theories about the future have a very hopeless air of being things of the past. There is even a detachable grain of truth in the doctrine of Spengler, which roughly maintains that there is no such thing as Progress, but only Progresses. That is, there is such a thing as one civilization becoming completely civilized in its own way, and then getting out of the way to make room for a totally different civilization. Unfortunately, every heathen seems fated to be a fatalist, and every fatalist seems fated to be a pessimist. The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone; in other words, he is pitifully cramped and crushed by the study of botany and geology. Sometimes he even passes from botany to biology, or, worse still, to anthropology. Now, in these dead or undeveloped things, it is more or less true that there is no Progress, but only Progresses. It is not easy to compare one completed phase with another; it is idle to ask whether old red sandstone is redder than greengages are green. The fossil that was and the flower that is cannot call to each other across the ages, and though there may be, in one sense, an upward spiral of evolution, it is not a spiritual spiral, or, as the Yankees would say, a live wire. There is not, in that manifest manner, at least, a memory in nature; but there is a memory of mankind. Cultures do not so completely perish as the pessimists pretend. Men do own the cave-drawings of a Neolithic man, as birds do not own the fossil of a pterodactyl. Still, there is a truth in that substitution of Progresses for Progress.

The truth seems to me to be this: that men do from time to time make special efforts; these are often crowned with success, and when they are crowned with success they generally end in failure. But that leaves on one side the question of the ordinary human life, which existed before the effort and still exists after the effort. Rome made a great effort and civilized a great part of the world, and the effort was followed by the Dark Ages. But the Dark Ages were not sub-human, any more than the Roman Empire was superhuman. It has been said by historical scholars that the simplicity of the Dark Ages refreshed the world like a sleep. It is certainly true that nations can be notably vigorous and hopeful at the end of what is called a period of decline and might more properly be called a period of neglect. Spain is far more vigorous and hopeful at this moment than many parts of the vast industrial field of what are considered successful societies. Spain made a great effort in the sixteenth century, and opened a new world of wealth and discovery; then it began to sink slowly out of sight. But Spaniards were not stupid and stunted savages in the time of Goya any more than in the time of Velasquez. Very likely the time will soon come when the Spaniards will make another effort; and for this purpose it is likely enough that their repose or retirement will have left them healthier and happier than most other people. In fact, we need a new theory or conception in history; the conception of the historical holiday. Perhaps the Dark Ages were a holiday, if they were a little like a dull and rainy holiday. But there is something to be said for a vacation, even in the literal sense of a vacuum. Anyhow, I think it extremely probable that the Spaniards will turn up again as fresh as paint, even the paint of Velasquez. They have not been so much exhausted and depressed by our dismal industrial materialism or our vast capitalist responsibilities. They have been refreshed and rejuvenated by a little decay; and have thoroughly enjoyed themselves for three centuries as a dying nation.

I would not insist everywhere on substituting, for the respectable old theory of the Revolution, this disturbing and dangerous theory of the Rest Cure No doubt it might be overdone. People might go on decaying a little too long and degenerate more than was really good for their health. I propose only a moderate indulgence in ruin; a cautious and temperate use of a return to barbarism. There are many quite modern people in whom the merest touch of decomposition, the merest soupçon of corruption and rottenness, would be enough to reassure me. But there are some modern people who are a great deal too modern; who are quite certainly devouring and destroying themselves with the nonsense of novelty, and trying always to hear of something later than the very latest. They are visibly growing old in order to keep up with their youth. They are wasting away to nothing, for want of a little nothing to do. If only some of their friends would persuade them to go away for a few centuries of superstition and ignorance, like the people of the Dark Ages, they might come back and astonish the world by something that the world had never seen before, like Gothic architecture or the portraits in the Canterbury Tales.

Anyhow, there is something to be said for this theory of the periodical enterprise of humanity. One advantage of it is that it resettles in a sane proportion all that question which was discussed in an earlier article: the question of the real case for the Noble Savage and Rousseau’s conception of a return to Nature. So long as scientific men merely despised savages (much more than the missionaries who were charged with despising them), the ease seemed simple enough. If primitive people were always more cruel and vindictive, as well as more clumsy and ignorant, than we are, then it was possible to present a progressive humanity, which every day and in every way was growing better and better. But (as I remarked elsewhere) even the story of simple tribes is not so simple. There is evidence of simple tribes that are actually milder in their punishments than we are, or kinder to their children than we are; or at least than we very recently were. But though this upsets the whole progressive theory that we civilized people are better than the savages in all respects, it does not force us to the contrary conclusion that the savages are better than we are in all respects. It is arguable that when men marched out on a special enterprise, they had to adopt a special discipline. Civilization might in some ways have more severe laws, because it had more serious problems. There might be harder lessons to learn, because there was more to be learned. The progressive tribe might be under martial law, while the conservative tribe was under common law. But the former might none the less be marching to the promised land.

For instance, there is a tiresome journalistic habit of fulsomely praising ourselves, and fatuously despising our fathers, because we no longer hang a man for forgery. But, as a fact, it was not an early primitive habit, but a late progressive habit, to hang a man for forgery. The law punishing forgery with death appeared quite late in our history, and was a result of our advancing civilization. It was a highly modern sort of thing to do. For forgery did not become frightfully important until finance and commercial contracts, and banking business of all sorts, had become important. I am very glad that men are no longer hanged for forgery. But I can quite imagine a simple and artless tribe of savages among whom the habit of imitating another man’s handwriting would appear as gay and innocent as making faces in imitation of another man’s face. If Hiawatha wrote his name in picture-writing on the smooth bark of the birch-tree, there would be no particular harm in Chibiabos playfully copying his friend’s particular way of drawing a wigwam or a rising sun. No; there is something after all in the Noble Savage; there is something at least in the Happy Savage. But that does not prove that the tribe should not sacrifice some of its happiness when the Great Spirit bids it go forth to war.

XVI. On Philosophy versus Fiction

LOOKING back on a wild and wasted life, I realize that I have especially sinned in neglecting to read novels. I mean the really novel novels; for such old lumber as Dickens and Jane Austen I know fairly well. If instead of trifling away my time over pamphlets about Collectivism or Co-operation, plunging for mere pleasure into the unhealthy excitement of theological debates with dons, or enjoying the empty mirth of statistics about Poland and Czechoslovakia, I had quietly sat at home doing my duty and reading every novel as it comes out, I might be a more serious and earnest man than I am to-day. If instead of loitering to laugh over something, merely because it happened to be laughable, I had walked stiffly and sternly on to the Circulating Library, and put myself under the tuition of our more passionate lady novelists, I might by this time be as intense as they. If instead of leading a riotous life, scrapping with Mr. Shaw about Socialism, or Dean Inge about Science, I had believed everything I was told about marriage by an unmarried young woman in an avowedly imaginary story, I might now have a more undisturbed faith and simplicity. Novels are the great monument of the amazing credulity of the modern mind; for people believe them quite seriously even though they do not pretend to be true.

But it is really true, alas I that I have failed to follow adequately the development of serious fiction. I do not admit that I have entirely failed to follow the development of serious facts. Not only have I discussed Labour with Socialists, or Science with Scientists, but I have argued with myself about other things, so new and true that I cannot get anybody else to argue about them. The world wide power of trusts, for instance, is a thing that is never attacked and never defended. It seems to have been completed without ever having been proposed; we might say without ever having been begun. The small shopkeeper has been destroyed in the twentieth century, as the small yeoman was destroyed in the eighteenth century. But for the yeoman there was protest and regret; great poets sang his dirge, and great orators like Cobbett died trying to avenge his death. But the modern destructive changes seem to be too new to be noticed. Perhaps they are too enormous to be seen. No; I do not think it can be fairly said that I have neglected the most recent realities of the real world. It seems rather the real world that neglects them. Nor do I confess, thank heaven, to the more odious vice of neglecting funny or frivolous fiction; whether in the sense of reading everything from the first story of Mr. Jacobs to the last story of Mr. Wodehouse; or in that richer sense in which the joke consists entirely of a corpse, a blood-stained hat-peg, or the mysterious footprints of a three-legged man in the garden. I have been a munificent patron of fiction of that description; and have even presented the public with a corpse or two of my own. In short, the limitation of my literary experience is so altogether on the side of the modern serious novel; especially that very serious novel which is all about the psychology of flirting and jilting and going to jazz dances. I have read hundreds of books bearing titles like Socialism: The Way Out; or Society: the Way In; or Japanese Light on the Paulus Mythus; or Cannibalism the Clue to Catholicism; or Parricide: a Contribution to Progress; or The Traffic Problem: The Example of Greenland; or Must We Drink?; or Should We Eat?; or Do We Breathe? and all those grave and baffling questions. I have also read hundreds of books bearing titles like Who Killed Humphrey Higgleswick?; or The Blood on the Blotting paper; or The Secret of Piccadilly Circus; or The Clue of the Stolen Toothbrush; and so on and so on. But I have not read with sufficient regularity, diligence and piety all those other books that bear titles like The Grasswidowhood of Grace Bellow; or The Seventh Honeymoon of Sylphide Squeak; or Dear Lady Divorce; or The Sex of Samuel Stubbin; or Harold Hatrack, Soul-Thief; or The Hypnotist of Insomnia Smith. All these grave and laborious, and often carefully written books come out season after season; and somehow I have missed them. Sometimes they miss me, even when hurled at my head by publishers. It were vain to deny that I sometimes deliberately avoid them. I have a reason, of a reasonable sort for I do not think it is a really reasonable reason merely to say that they bore me. For I did once really try to read them; and I got lost. One reason is that I think there is in all literature a sort of purpose; quite different from the mere moralizing that is generally meant by a novel with a purpose.

There is something in the plan of the idea that is straight like a backbone and pointing like an arrow. It is meant to go somewhere, or at least to point somewhere; to its end, not only in the modern sense of an ending, but in the medieval sense of a fruition. Now, I think that many of the less intellectual stories have kept this, where the more intellectual stories have lost it. The writer of detective stories, having once asked who killed Humphrey Higgleswick, must, after all, end by telling us who did it, even by the mean subterfuge of saying it was Humphrey Higgleswick. But the serious novelist asks a question that he does not answer; often that he is really incompetent to answer. The sex of Samuel Stubbin may even remain in considerable doubt, in some of the more emotional passages, and the seventh honeymoon of Sylphide seems to have nothing to do with the probable prospect of her eighth. It is the custom of these writers to scoff at the old sentimental novel or novelette, in which the story always ended happily to the sound of church bells. But, judged by the highest standards of heroic or great literature, like the Greek tragedies or the great epics, the novelette was really far superior to the novel. It set itself to reach a certain goal—the marriage of two persons, with all its really vital culmination in the founding of a family and a vow to God; and all other incidents were interesting because they pointed to a consummation which was, by legitimate hypothesis, a grand consummation.

But the modern refusal both of the religious vow and the romantic hope has broken the backbone of the business altogether, and it is only an assorted bag of bones. People are minutely described as experiencing one idiotic passion after another, passions which they themselves recognize as idiotic, and which even their own wretched philosophy forbids them to regard as steps towards any end. The sentimental novelette was a simplified and limited convention of the thing; in which, for the sake of argument, marriage was made the prize. Of course marriage is not the only thing that happens in life; and somebody else may study another section with another goal. But the modern serious novelists deny that there is any goal. They can not point to the human happiness which the romantics associated with gaining the prize. They cannot point to the heavenly happiness which the religious associated with keeping the vow. They are driven back entirely on the microscopic description of these aimless appetites in themselves. And, microscopically studied in themselves, they are not very interesting to a middle-aged man with plenty of other things to think about. In short, the old literature, both great and trivial, was built on the idea that there is a purpose in life, even if it is not always completed in this life; and it really was interesting to follow the stages of such a purpose from the meeting to the wedding, from the wedding to the bells, and from the bells to the church. But modern philosophy has taken the life out of modern fiction. It is simply dissolving into separate fragments and then into formlessness; and deserves much more than the romantic novel the modern reproach of being ‘sloppy’.

XVII. On Logic and Lunacy

THE idea of logic is so entirely lost in this phase of philosophical history, that even those who invoke it do so rather as the Athenians once invoked the Unknown God, or the men of the Dark Ages retained a dim respect for Virgil as a conjurer. The very people who say, ‘be logical’, will generally be found to be quite illogical in their own notion of logic. One of the last men who understood logic in its full and impartial sense, died only lately: the late William Johnson of King’s College, Cambridge; one of the finest minds of the age and an exact measure of the modern contrast between notability and notoriety. I mean that somehow the glory has departed from glory, and the first men of the time are often the last men to be advertised or even adequately admired. He was as incapable of intellectual injustice as of infanticide; and while he and I differed about a thousand things, even if I had regarded his view as ultimately leading to falsehood, I should always have known that it was free from the faintest tinge of fallacy. If there had been any weed of weak logic in his own argument he would have torn it up with as much joy as any weed in the garden of the enemy. For he liked that sort of weeding as an amusement and an art— a sort of art for art’s sake. And when I wander in the jungle of journalistic nonsense in which we all live to-day, his memory again and again returns.

Let us begin with a trifle that does not matter in the least. He loved to argue about trifles that do not matter in the least. Some journalist the other day shook the foundation of the universe and the British Empire by raising the question of whether a girl ought to smoke a cigar. But what I noted about his, and about the hundred eager correspondents who pursued this great theme, was that they wrote again and again some such sentence as this: ‘If you like a girl to smoke a cigarette, why can’t you be logical and like her to smoke a cigar?’ Now I do not care an ounce of shag whether she smokes a cigarette or a cigar or a corn-cob pipe or a hubble-bubble, or whether she smokes three cigars at once, or whether she is an Anti-Tobacco crank. But it is none the less true that when a man writes that sentence telling us to ‘be logical’, he shows that he has never even heard of the nature of logic. He might just as well write: ‘You like the look of a horse; why won’t you be logical and like the look of a hippopotamus?’ The only answer is, ‘Well, I don’t; and it is not illogical, because it does not in any way invade the realm of logic. A man has a perfect right to say that he likes the look of one thing and does not like the look of another thing; or even that he likes the look of a smaller thing, but does not like the look of a larger but somewhat similar thing. It is all a question of liking; and not in the least a question of logic. There is no logical compulsion upon him whatever to go on from the smaller to the larger and like them both. The man who uses this phrase attaches some queer particular meaning to the word ‘logical’; something that is dimly adumbrated in the words, ‘extremist’ or ‘going the whole hog’. But if my appetite is so small that I only require half a hog for breakfast, I am not any less of a logician because I refuse to eat the whole hog for breakfast. The obligation to eat the whole hog, if it exists, must be a mystical or moral or transcendental obligation; but it is not a logical obligation. It is not logical, because it has not been deduced from any premises; it has simply been stated without reference to any premises.

And that is what is the matter with the modern man who says, ‘be logical’. He cannot take his own advice, and therefore he cannot state his own first principles. But though his logic is nonsense as he states it, it does refer to some first principles if he could only state them. It all depends on the reason for approving of cigarettes or cigars or girls or any other strange creatures. What he really means, at the back of his muddled modernistic mind, is some thing like this: ‘If I approve of Jennifer smoking a cigarette because Jennifer can jolly well do anything she likes, and does, then it is illogical in me to object to her liking a cigar; or for that matter an opium-pipe or a pint of laudanum or a bottle of prussic acid.’ And this statement would really be quite logical, because the logical reason is given. Or if he said, ‘It is my first principle that women may do anything that men do; therefore I am bound in logic to pass the cigars to my daughter as much as to my son,’ then that also is perfectly reasonable as the application of a stated principle. But to say that a man is bound in logic to like a cigar as much as a cigarette whether in his own mouth or that of his maiden aunt or his maternal grandmother, is stark staring unreason; and shows that the speaker is entirely illogical in dealing with the two ideas of liking and logic.

This half superstitious veneration for logic, combined with a complete misunderstanding of it, is very common in those popular works of fiction which are the joy of my existence; the crime novels and the police romances and the rest. There is a queer notion that the detective, who is distinguished from all human beings by having the gift of reason, is bound in logic not to like anything or anybody. Even Sherlock Holmes (the friend of my childhood to whom I shall always pay a tribute of piety) is described somewhere, I think, as being incapable of falling in love because of his logical nature. You might as well say that he could not be expected to have much appetite for lunch, because of his proficiency in mathematics. There is nothing intrinsically illogical in having affections or admirations or appetites, so long as we recognize them reasonably as what they are. But the romantic tradition, as it exists in all the romances, is that the logician cannot be romantic. It may be remarked that the word ‘cold’ will always be found coupled with the word ‘logical’; I imagine the printers keep such words together in one block of type. But the cold logician, though be must not be romantic, is almost entirely a creature of romance. As a matter of fact and experience, most of the very logical people I have known have been very warm-blooded, affectionate or enthusiastic people. Most of the very good debaters were very warm debaters. Some of the closest reasoners in history were men of the most enthusiastic convictions; like St. Thomas Aquinas or the great French preachers and orators. The truth is, I think, that it was because the English were originally taught to have a prejudice against logic, that even when they half overcame the prejudice, there remained something alien in the admiration. They could be brought to feel a sort of awe in the presence of a really reasonable person; as if he were a sort of monster. The fact that a man could think could only be explained on the hypothesis that he was a Martian or the Man in the Moon; that he was a Clockwork Man; that he was The Thinking Machine. They began by thinking that reason is inhuman; and only gradually conceded that it is superhuman.

Is it not about time somebody preached the older doctrine; that reason is human? Is there not some thing to be said for those medieval Schoolmen and antiquated sages, who held that man is a rational animal; and even more rational than the other animals? The modern experiment of first sneering at logic for not being a practical thing, and then timidly praising it for being a priggish thing, seems to have resulted in the general loss of it as a normal function of the mind. It is as if the same Victorian English had supported their railway-trains by forbidding anybody to walk; and then, when all human limbs were paralysed, had deified two or three athletes as gods because they had the power of walking. Logic is as normal as legs; but legs can be neglected as well as logic. All that is needed is a little ordinary training and practice; the knowledge that inferences rest on their first principles, as men rest on their feet. But without it the world seems to be drifting into an intellectual dissolution and destruction, which is at its very wildest when some wild voice shrieks out of the chaos; ‘Be logical’. This strange cry apparently means that you cannot stroke a cat without stroking a tiger; or that you are bound to wish the house was on fire because you sit by the fireside.

XVIII. On the Thrills of Boredom

IT is a dogma imposed on all, by the dogmatic secularism of the modern system, that Youth needs, must have, and cannot possibly be happy without, a riot of dances, plays, or entertainments. We all know the practical truth embodied in this; and yet I am so doubtful about the fashionable assumption that I think it very nearly untrue. I have no objection to dances, plays, and masquerades: on the contrary, I enjoy them enormously; but then I am not what is commonly called a Youth. And from what I remember of being young, and what I have read of the real reminiscences of youth, I incline to think that youth never shows its glorious vividness and vitality so much as when transfiguring what might be called monotony. I feel far more sense of a creative glow, and of something passionately alive, in the description of the dreary moorland and dark mansion of the Brontës, or even of the dismal coffee-houses that were filled with the first dreams of Dickens, than I feel in the faces and conversation of half the young people I see at shows and dances to-day. Nor do I think it was a case of imagination existing in spite of dreariness; I think it existed in some degree because of dreariness. There is a psychological paradox here which perhaps only a poet can fully understand; but young people are generally poets.

I can recall in my childhood the continuous excitement of long days in which nothing happened; and an indescribable sense of fullness in large and empty rooms. And with whatever I retain of childishness (and whether it be a weakness or otherwise, I think I retain more than most) I still feel a very strong and positive pleasure in being stranded in queer quiet places, in neglected corners where nothing happens and anything may happen; in unfashionable hotels, in empty waiting-rooms, or in watering-places out of the season. It seems as if we needed such places, and sufficient solitude in them, to let certain nameless suggestions soak into us and make a richer soil of the subconsciousness. Certainly, if there is such a need, it is a need that is now being everywhere neglected. Of course, all such views of youth or childhood or the past are a matter of proportion. Children did not like thrashings or even threatenings; they did not all like thunderstorms; they did not like solitude or darkness or horrors increased beyond their capacity for supporting them. But, allowing for that, the normal little boy likes solitude and loves horrors. Only, as I say, there is a fine shade that goes even beyond this, and suggests something of sustenance even in what many would now call merely stuffy and stagnant. The imagination can not only enjoy darkness; it can even enjoy dullness. I know that men like Dickens, writing recollections, have complained of dullness. But when I read their recollections, I doubt if they were ever for one instant dull. It must have been in those very hours that there first began that dance of the Dickens characters after which the world need never be dull again.

In that dance of Dickens characters, I trust I need not explain that I do not figure either as Mr. Stiggins the Puritan or Mr. Scrooge the Utilitarian. I have not the smallest intention of interfering with anybody’s dances or dramatic entertainments; and, in due proportion, I am prepared to interfere with any interference. But there is a moral and mental fact involved, which is being neglected in the concentration on communal or convivial enjoyment; and that fact consists precisely in the real vitality and power of youth. Youth is much more capable of amusing itself than is now supposed, and in much less mortal need of being amused. The only real warning against solitude and stagnation which needs to be uttered is that you do really need to be rather young and strong in order to get the fun out of them. The same principle applies to the monastic life; a career that requires very great vigour and vivacity. No normal person is expected to be so vigorous and vivacious as that. But most normal persons are now taught to neglect far too much the sort of excitement which the mind itself manufactures out of unexciting things. And anybody who can feel the fine shades, in fiction or philosophy will agree that the old school called Romantic, or even Byronic, which we feel still volcanic in the Brontës, had really about it a curious confidence in life, an unbroken hope in the heart, which is strangely stubborn in many people who had been as badly brought up as Byron. Byron himself, with all his parade of pessimism, had a sort of glamour of life about him that he could not get rid of, and a gusto that never left his language, even when he used it to deny its existence in his life.

Now, one need not belong to the extreme school of The Nightmare of the Night Club, or Vengeance on the Vamp, in order to observe around us a certain lack of that really romantic gusto and glamour. To mention another Dickens character, it will be remembered that the Infant Phenomenon was kept short by means of gin, so that she might go on dancing as a light and airy child. It seems to me that a good many people are kept from growing by cocktails, and stunted rather than stimulated by dancing. They are not allowed to grow, because they are always pulling themselves up by the roots to see how they are growing. In the ease of those who really have a heat and force of generous youth within them, I seriously think that imprisonment in a second-rate boarding-house during a rainy day at Worthing, or enforced retirement to a faded and forgotten tea-shop off the road to Wormwood Scrubs, would lead to their returning to their friends younger than ever. As to those who are already dried up, hopeless, cynical, and filled with intellectual despair, they can continue to be gay.

This need is a normal need; like other normal needs, it can be neglected for a period; like other normal needs, it will certainly be rediscovered at a later period. Perhaps it will be discovered incidentally and individually; perhaps it will be discovered darkly and secretly, as by the conspirators of individualism or the revolutionists of tradition. Perhaps the plotters will whisper to each other, amid the whirl of the latest jazz or ragtime, the forbidden assignation and the address of the Worthing boarding house. Perhaps a solitary figure will be seen slinking from the Scarlet Cuttlefish (that exclusive night club) and grimly taking the road to Wormwood Scrubs. Perhaps, on the other hand, it will come with a communal rush like the return of a fashion; and it will be all the rage to be found sitting speechless in a waiting-room at Willesden Junction; and all the best people will leave themselves lying about, like so much lost luggage, in the parlours of dilapidated public-houses or on the steps of derelict bathing-machines at dead Victorian resorts. These are the only places I can think of in which a modern man and woman could possibly have time or opportunity to think for themselves. These are the modern equivalents of sitting among the ruins or meditating among the tombs; and both were very healthy human exercises, very improving to the spirits.

In this connexion, by the way, I must once more express my astonishment that, in an age which will have ten professors of psychology to tea, or strew the world with pamphlets and books about subconsciousness and psycho-analysis, nobody seems to notice the most normal and elementary facts of practical psychology. Otherwise, it would not be left to an irresponsible and ignorant journalist to point out the elementary fact: that dullness can be a stimulant. There is hardly any need to point out, to any one acquainted with our lighter entertainments, that amusement can be a narcotic. But, anyhow, some one with more scientific authority ought really to study these strange reactions of stale and even oppressive atmospheres on the romantic spirit of youth. Who knows?—if something suggestive were written on the subject, even youth might be young once more.

XIX. On Gossip about Heredity

A SHORT time ago a distinguished scientific expert, pleading for a more normal and less panic-stricken treatment of consumptives, summed up one aspect in the decisive words: ‘Consumption is no more hereditary than measles.’ He said, of course, that it could attack successive members of the same family, and for the same reason as measles. I have no authority to speak on the technical point; but a statement like this, which may fairly be called authoritative, turns my mind back on the vast and sprawling treatment of the topic of heredity, in popular science and public opinion. And, though I do not claim to know much about the medical facts or falsehoods set forth in this particular case, I rather think I do know something of the moral facts and falsehoods that lie behind them and are their sole and continuous motive-power. There are undoubtedly individual professors, who fight each other on tiny points out of pure impersonal curiosity, or possibly out of pure personal dislike. But when any part of the general public is drawn into a debate on physical science, we may be certain that it has already become a debate on moral science. Mobs are always moral. There never was a mob that rose to demand the squaring of the circle or the closer observation of the Transit of Venus. Professor Higgle and Professor Haggle may argue the hind-leg off a donkey, or the hundredth leg off a centipede, to settle a question that nobody can understand but themselves. But if ever the dancing donkey and the writhing centipede become heraldic figures on the flags and ensigns of the crowd, then we may be quite certain that for some sort of reason (probably quite an unreasonable reason) these biological questions have somehow been entangled with faith and morals; and that what is raging in the street is the war of two philosophies.

Now, almost as soon as the word ‘heredity’ was invented or spoken aloud, it was caught up like a cry in the market-place, and repeated in every variation of gossip and chattering comment; applied to this, that, and the other, to which it was never in any case applicable; and trumpeted aloud by men who did not even know what it meant, long before even the most learned men knew even the little about it that they know now. Mendel the monk has explained it much more fully than did Darwin and all the material scientists; but even after that it remains a very obscure and subtle subject, as the scientists would be the first to admit.

But in the great days when Science was also Fashion, when the world had to bow down not only to Darwin but to all Darwinians, when anything labelled ‘Specimens’ or ‘Sections’ passed without challenge, and all the camp-followers of materialism were sacred, like the suite of an Embassy—in those days of one idea or one tendency there arose the most amazing fashion of talking about Heredity. It was simply taken for granted, for instance, in a hundred provincial homes that what they called Drink was hereditary. If they had used language in a rational manner they might have been quite right, for the disposition to drink something is a hereditary human instinct; and the objection to doing so, when it happens to be beer, is a superficial, artificial, and self-conscious pose. But what they meant was alcoholism; and what they meant was nonsense. Nobody has ever tasted alcohol. Nobody in the normal way has ever seen it. Nobody most certainly has ever liked it. What people liked was a certain pleasure, either of excitement or serenity, which can be gained through a variety of liquids, moderately by moderate indulgence, or excessively by excessive indulgence. Alcohol is simply a name which professors give (for the present) to some elements in all these liquids which they suppose (for the present) to be the cause of this mental pleasure. Now, it is obvious on the face of it that, if anything is hereditary, it cannot be a craving for the chemical process, which most people do not even know to exist. It can only be a craving for the mental result, which is simple pleasure. Now, all men have a craving for pleasure; and, though some men are weaker or more wilful in snatching at it, I cannot for the life of me see why such men should not snatch at other pleasures as much as this one. If what is inherited is anything so vague as a lack of vigilance and self-control against pleasure itself, I cannot see why the drunkard should not have one son who was a jewel-thief and another who was always flirting with barmaids or bolting with ballet-girls. Of course, many children of drunken families are drunken; not because there is heredity, but because there are a great many other things besides heredity. There is such a thing as tradition, which is nearly half of true history; and there is such a thing as suggestion, which is nearly all of modern journalism; and there are such things as education and environment, about which a still louder yell of human folly will go up—in short, there is something in morals which corresponds to infection in measles.

But this wild romance of popular science spread wider and wider. What is odd about it is not its truth or untruth, but the unresisted smoothness with which it spread over one field after another. I know so little of the scientific study itself that I should not think of denying the possibility of some sort of inherited drunkenness; though I cannot make any sense of the theory of inherited alcoholism. But why were hundreds and thousands of people, who knew even less science than I do, instantly and calmly assured that drunkenness was hereditary? Why did they begin at once to watch the doubtful steps of the curate, because his great-uncle the Admiral was found drunk in a ditch on Trafalgar Day? Why did they eagerly watch for the fire of alcoholic craving in the eyes of the new-born infant who was remotely descended from Three-Bottle Thumpington? The question grows wilder as the application grew wider. The next thing we heard was the cheerful news that Assassination was a regular family feature, like a family nose. As in the other cases, it was not so much stated by scientific people as spread by unscientific people as the last scientific news. A brilliant lady novelist lately based a whole novel upon it, called Red Sky at Morning, in which a hazy, good-natured youth kills somebody for a very insufficient reason, merely because his father fifty years ago had killed somebody quite different for a totally different reason. All this seems to me highly irrational. There are almost as many motives for murdering men as there are men to murder. A man kills because he is blackmailed, or because he is jilted, or because he is a political fanatic, and so on. But how do you inherit a blackmailer, or an unreliable girl, or a political theory? There certainly is inheritance, as of physical type, perhaps of physical temperament; of being indolent or restless and so on. But the number of lazy men who will murder a valet for waking them up is about as large as the number of impatient men who will murder him for keeping them waiting. That is to say, it is very small. The mysterious moral inhibition, or its absence, by which men do or do not murder, is in the individual soul; and I defy anybody to show that it is hereditary.

What is the meaning of this popular superstition? In existing relations of religion and good taste, I can only suggest it in a parable. On the highest and hoariest of the ashpits of hell sits the oldest of all the Demons, whose name is Doom; it is he who has always blighted mankind with superstitions of the destiny and death of races; who told the old Greeks like Oedipus that they were bound to their blind crimes; who told the old feudal tribes that there was a curse on a castle or an abortion that was the burden of a family. And when modern science said ‘Heredity’ the old fiend stirred, and saw a new chance of renewing the old bondage. For however we take the symbols, it was a wise instinct by which heaven was symbolized by wings that are free as the wind, and hell symbolized by chains.

XX. On Dante and Beatrice

THE interesting, one might almost say amusing, idea of ‘The Poets on the Poets’, the series published by Messrs. Faber and Faber, is described by those playful publishers themselves as based ‘on the impudent maxims, “Set a Poet to catch a Poet” and “Bards of a feather flock together”’. I am not sure that the latter motto is so exact as the former. Thus Mr. Humbert Wolfe is to write on Tennyson; and it would never have occurred to me that those two excellent bards had a single feather between them. But the former maxim is sound enough, and is well supported by the second of the series, in which an illuminating sketch of Dante is presented by Mr. T. S. Eliot.

In such cases we are all of us only picking up stray feathers here and there, as Browning picked up the eagle’s feather on the heath. Mr. T. S. Eliot would be the last to pretend that he had completely plucked the eagle of Florence and Ravenna. If it is not easy to write a short book about Dante, neither is it easy to write a short article about Mr. Eliot. As he naturally picks out two or three of Dante’s ideas, I can only pick out one or two of his own ideas, and the subject-matter necessarily narrows from the poet to the critic and from the critic to the critic of the critic. But all his ideas are both stimulating and subtle, including any number I have no space to estimate here. Perhaps the most out standing matter, in a popular sense, is his very just reconstruction of the business about the story of Beatrice, as she appears not only in the Divine Comedy, but in the Vita Nuova. There has always been a controversy about Beatrice, and as so often happens (I grieve to say) in the controversies of the very learned, a mass of the most extraordinary nonsense has been talked on both sides. At one extreme there was the school of those who pretended that Beatrice was in the position of Mrs. Harris; or that she was, at best (to quote another great female authority), an allegory on the banks of the Nile: at any rate, hardly human enough to have ever been on the banks of the Arno. Some of them said she was a symbol standing for Theology or Divine Wisdom or some such thing; others, from colleges even nearer Hanwell, said she was an allegory of United Italy or Liberty or the League of Nations or heaven knows what. About that, especially in the case of the Vita Nuova (though I am not learned, and hardly even educated, touching Italian language and letters), I have not myself the shadow of a doubt. The man—or, rather, boy—who remembered with such scorching delight the fact that a little girl had nodded and smiled at him on a particular morning, and with such scorching despair the fact that she had not nodded or smiled at him on another morning, was most certainly in love, It was first love, calf-love, moon-calf-love, no doubt, but certainly human love; and if it wasn’t I will modestly exclaim with Shakespeare, ‘I never writ nor no man ever loved.’ And that Dante does mean the same young woman to reappear in the Paradiso is obvious, not only from many phrases in the Paradiso, but from the quite definite words at the end of the Vita Nuova. But when the opposite extreme of criticism suggests that human love is the whole subject of both books, then, as Mr. Eliot shows, it makes even worse nonsense out of the whole business.

For the Romantics of the nineteenth century really implied that God and the Universe, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, were all one elaborate and rather laborious compliment to Beatrice Portinari. It is truer to say that, in the true sense, Beatrice is a compliment to God. She is lifted like flowers on an altar, or flames on a candlestick, to be an example of that earthly beauty which, used rightly, can lead us to heavenly beauty. And in this case the critics have missed the whole point of the comparison between the Vita Nuova and the Divine Comedy. The point is that the first slight, youthful, merely emotional story is really a sad story; it is only the completion in Paradise that is a joyful story. The former has an unhappy ending—or, rather, that most unhappy ending which consists in having no ending. It is the mere fragment of a human tragedy; it is only the religious epic that is, in the exact sense, a divine comedy. Dante is drawn as a dark and bitter spirit; but in fact he wrote the only one of the great epics that really has a happy ending.

The trouble was that the age of the Romantics was the age of the Rationalists, or those who thought they were Rationalists. Having figured as ruthless realists sweeping all spiritual visions like cobwebs out of the sky, they then suddenly became extravagant sentimentalists over some of the common or garden flowers they found growing naturally out of the earth. Having forbidden all belief in the legend of Adam and Eve, they demanded universal and absolute belief in the legend of Edwin and Angelina. They were not content with the natural sympathy we all have with such natural feelings; they really gave to them the supremacy of supernatural feelings— and (what is the real point) the only supernatural feelings. They did not use the coarse cant of our day; but they did, in fact, make Sex the supreme end of life for its own sake—in which they were much less sensible than the common or garden flowers. They therefore missed the whole meaning of Dante, which is that human love may indeed be a new life; but the new life must be dedicated to a supreme good as much as the old life. All other goods are only manifestations of that supreme good, and must ultimately be referred to it, as Beatrice to the Beatific Vision.

There is one comment, in this connexion, which occurred to me while reading Mr. Eliot’s book. The Beatific Vision is described by Dante about as well as it could be described by anybody— that is, chiefly by saying that it cannot be described at all. But Mr. Eliot has noticed, as I have often noticed, the very extraordinary effect of the ending, when, after a few grand hints (like that about a happy but forgotten dream), the poet suddenly introduces the vast but seemingly very distant simile about how Neptune must have felt when the Argo first sailed over him. At first sight it seems quite out of the picture; and yet for the imaginative it is right on the spot. Now there seem to be a number of these abrupt and abysmal irrelevancies in Dante’s poetry, and, indeed, in all great poetry. They seem to be suggesting a vivid image by suddenly introducing a totally different image. Instead of saying that Beatrice looked beautiful, Dante says that he felt like Glaucus when he ate the grass that made him seafellow of the gods. I do not know why that dim heathen dream delights me, but it does; much more, probably, than the best direct description of Beatrice’s beauty. It seems as if the sudden presentation of some quite remote vision, as imaginative as the main image, completes it and makes it convincing. There are many examples in other poets, including the rather hackneyed example of Keats, when he broke off a reasonably intelligent discourse on the nightingale to talk about perilous seas and magic casements, with which nightingales have nothing whatever to do. Like Dante, he had got beyond himself, and irrelevancy was the only expression of imagination. But there is something else in it relevant to Mr. Eliot’s thesis. This summoning of remote symbols, this calling of spirits from the vasty deep, like the sea-green Glaucus into the presence of Beatrice, does suggest something involved in the theology of the matter. It suggests that all beautiful images are shadows of the one real beauty, and can be, in a sense, shifted or interchanged for its service. It prevents mere fixed idolatry of one shadow in one minor, as if it were the origin of all. Beatrice is to be loved because she is beautiful; but she is beautiful because there is behind her a many sided mystery of beauty, to be seen also in the grass and the sea, and even in the dead gods. There is a promise in and yet beyond all such pictures; and the poet can see grass or the great sea or the great ship going over it, hearing a sort of whisper: ‘Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty.’

XXI. On Quacks in the Home

CAN anything be done to dam, not to say damn, the deluge of Quackery that is now being poured out everywhere to inform what is called the ignorance of the democracy? As the term implies, it is not only democracy that is ignorant. Those who would inform it are more ignorant still, or they would not invariably say the democracy when they mean the demos. Democracy does not mean the populace, or even the people; it means government by the people. Democracy is a very noble thing, and it does not exist—at any rate at present. Demos is a very jolly thing in its way, especially when it does all the things that ideal democrats generally abuse it for doing, such as drinking, shouting, and going to the Derby. But, what ever else it is doing, it is not ruling: it is not teaching, but being taught. And there might be a reasonable ease for its being taught, were it not for the unfortunate fact that it is being taught tosh. Which brings me back, after this parenthesis on the word democracy, to the more solemn and sacred subject of quackery.

Quackery is false science; it is everywhere apparent in cheap and popular science; and the chief mark of it is that men who begin by boasting that they have cast away all dogmas go on to be incessantly, impudently, and quite irrationally dogmatic. Let any one run his eye over any average newspaper or popular magazine, and note the number of positive assertions made in the name of popular science, without the least pretence of scientific proof, or even of any adequate scientific authority. It is all the worse because the dogmas are generally concerned with domes tic and very delicate human relations; with heredity and home environment; and everything that can be coloured by the pompous and pretentious polysyllables of Psychology and Education. At least many of the old dogmas, right or wrong, were concerned with cherubim and seraphim, with lost spirits and beatified souls; but these dogmas always directly attack fathers and wives and children, without offering either credentials or evidence. The general rule is that nothing must be accepted on any ancient or admitted authority, but everything must be accepted on any new or nameless authority, or accepted even more eagerly on no authority at all. It is quite satisfactory, of course, if any nobody says in any newspaper: ‘Dr. Binns, of Buffalo, has told us that, while aunts may be fond of nephews, great-aunts always have an instinctive hatred and aversion both for nephews and nieces.’ But it is even more convincing than that if the information is anonymous in every way, and the writer merely states: ‘Recent science has shown that second cousins are naturally antagonistic, but that in second cousins once removed, the antagonism is sometimes introverted into suicidal mania.’ Where all these statements come from nobody knows. Where they all go to everybody ought to know, since they go to everybody. But it is in practice very difficult to discover what becomes of them, and whether they are really treated as wisdom or waste paper. On the whole, I fear it is more likely that everybody believes them than that anybody takes the trouble to check them.

This evil is wilder in America, but I doubt if it is worse in America. It is scattered all over our own Press and public speech, and is all the more insidious because it is not so much associated with the conspicuous figures of picturesque charlatans and fantastic prophets, such as strut in strange plumage about the plains of the West. Anyhow, it is scattered so widely both here and there that the difficulty is to pick up any adequate example. For the triviality of one specimen does not convey the tremendous and mountainous multitude of specimens. Here is one example, however, which I find in a periodical of considerable intellectual pretensions, to judge by its title. Like most of these professed organs of thought, it is marked by a complete incapacity for any precision in thinking. But I mention it, not because it is worse than the rest, but because it is representative of the rest and all the rest are no better. The instructor informs us that there can be between parent and child a negative transference (the intense italics arc his), which seems to mean, not merely that the child will hate the parent, but that the child will love somebody who is the opposite of the hated parent. ‘Thus a child who is treated coldly by his mother will come to reject all people like his mother and seek for her opposite. We will say the mother is good, honest, moral, even pious. The boy will gravitate to some one crooked, immoral, or even wicked, in short, his mother’s goodness may send him to the devil, though all the time she may be wondering why her excellent precepts, her discipline, her goodness are failing to develop like traits in her son.’

You will note the utter chaos of terminology and definition, even in these few lines. Some of us, to begin with, might hesitate to insist on the goodness of a mother who treated a child coldly. But what is meant by the mother being good, as distinct from her being moral? What is meant by the mother’s mysterious rival being immoral, as distinct from being wicked? And what in the name of goodness (or morality) is meant by the mysterious word ‘even’, which is reserved only for wickedness and for piety? The transference of these thoughts, from writer to reader, is a very negative transference indeed. However, the writer, having said that the mother’s goodness, which seems to be the same as her coldness, may send the boy to the devil, goes on to say that it may be a good thing that he should go to the devil; in which case it was presumably a good thing that the mother should be cold. Revolt, we are told, sometimes leads to new ways of life, and it may be highly satisfactory that the boy should seek for the opposite of his mother. But what is the opposite of your mother? As a point of logic, it seems rather subtle; nor does the logician here instructing us give us very much help. ‘A rebel boy may, of course, become, like the proverbial minister’s son, a good-for-naught or a crook; on the other hand, a boy like Balzac who hated his practical father, became a great novelist—his father’s opposite. Or in a different way, Beethoven, whose father was a poor fiddler, a drunkard and ne’er-do-well, became one of the great composers of the world, doggedly determined to protect his mother and be as unlike his father as possible.’ If that was his object, we can hardly say that he succeeded very well. I am not quite sure what is the opposite of a poor fiddler, but certainly it is not a great composer. There may be many a great composer who has been a poor fiddler, and many a poor fiddler who may yet be a great composer. The same mysterious use of the word ‘opposite’ darkens the other instance given from the career of Balzac. I cannot understand why, in logic, a great novelist is the exact contrary of a practical father. I do not see why any child may not happen to rejoice in the possession of a great practical novelist-father. The children of Sir Walter Scott, for instance, to a great extent did so, despite the accident which ruined his later fortunes. But it is not only false in the typical case of Scott, it is far from true even in the actual case of Balzac. Balzac had a decidedly ‘practical’ side to him; he was not only busy, but business-like, in his own way; and, anyhow, all these crude contrasts about complex characters are all nonsense. Balzac did not become a great novelist because his father had annoyed him with practicality; he became a great novelist because he was a great man. Beethoven did not succeed because his father drank; it is much more likely that he was a composer for the same reason that made his father a fiddler. These are only a few random examples of these random statements which are thrown about everywhere, that the people may learn Science from men who have never learnt Logic. Now that everybody is talking about the public being informed of this or that, is there any way of stopping the public being misinformed in this endless and exuberant fashion?

XXII. On a Generally Accepted Mistake

THE current cant, which is a cant against cant, has produced a crop of modern proverbs, or phrases, which everybody repeats for the hundredth time and nobody examines for the first time, or they would instantly be found to be false. A typical case is that which we have all heard again and again in some such form as this: ‘In every age people have thought their own time prosaic and only the past poetical. If you think the medieval or any other period picturesque, that is only the glamour of antiquity; men in those days felt about them as you do about these days. Their costumes and customs were as dull and trivial to them as yours are to you.’ The maxim appeals in many ways to the modern mind; it merges something with something else; it levels downwards; it contradicts the claims of chivalry and religious devotion; it is comforting and it is entirely untrue.

Mr. Rudyard Kipling, always the poet of this popular modernity, has summarized the notion admirably in a poem about Romance being at all times actually in the present and apparently in the past— a poem beginning, I think:

‘Farewell, Romance,’ the cavemen cried, With bone and flint he went away.

I need hardly say that there is not a grain of anything remotely resembling evidence that the cavemen ever cried anything of the sort. It is one of the thousand things which are said about them because there is no evidence either way. But there are tons of evidence that the earliest men whose motives we can follow regarded their own rituals and traditions as reasonably dignified. There have been periods in which poets and satirists have said that society was degenerating through luxury or laxity, and many periods in which they were perfectly right in saying so. There have been some periods—not very many—in which men have been intensely interested in some special period of the past. So the men of the Renaissance vaguely regarded antiquity as a heroic age. But they did not regard their own as a prosaic age. Shakespeare might be thrilled by Plutarch’s tales of great men in togas and tunics; but that did not prevent him from conceiving Hamlet as an ordinary Elizabethan gentleman, fencing with rapier and dagger, wearing probably a ruff and almost certainly a beard. Every modern man, when he first heard of Hamlet in modern dress, felt a faint shiver of doubt; even if he was sympathetic, he feared that it might be comic. But Shakespeare probably did conceive Hamlet in modern dress—in his modern dress. And there is nothing to show that he thought it in the least comic.

The truth is that no other age except the nineteenth century (and perhaps our little bit of the twentieth) ever did regard its own dress and habits as ugly and undignified. The thing can be tested in a hundred ways, and one is even tolerably familiar. Sensational French artists, in the nineteenth century, deliberately and defiantly painted pictures from the Gospel in modern dress, with Christ standing among men in trousers and top-hats. It was purposely done to ‘shock’ the Salon; needless to say, it would have been far too shocking for the Royal Academy. Yet it was not the first time the thing had been done. It was only the first time it had been thought shocking. There is not a single one of the previous epochs of Christian art, from the stiffest primitive Byzantine to the last realism of the Venetians or Dutch, when artists had not painted the Gospel scenes with the dress and habits of their own time. It is not, in plain fact, a question of why men think the present fashion ugly and the past fashion beautiful. It is a question of why they think this of trousers and top-hats, when they did not think it of trunk-hose or togas or tunics. Many subtle explanations might be suggested; but I incline myself to suspect that the dark secret can, after all, be stated more simply. Might I tentatively suggest that top-hats and trousers give us this uncanny impression of ugliness because they are ugly? Might I suggest that the mercantile nineteenth century thought itself hideous because it was hideous?—and the perception did credit to its acumen and even to its humility.

In short, there was a moment in the middle of the nineteenth century which was the midnight of artistic instinct, just as there was a moment about the middle of the ninth century which was the midnight of law and organization. It was blackest in a commercial country like England, which was only saved by treating itself as comic because it could not treat itself as dignified. It produced, for instance, the figure of the policeman, who was so comic that he had to be put at once into a pantomime, because he could not be put into a pageant. But almost any other age or country would have clad and armed the city guard so as to be an ornament to any pageant. Our age was ugly and undignified; our nation was redeemed by the national sense of humour that at least would not pretend to be dignified. The things of that period are all stamped with the insignia of indignity. It is not true that this is affected by it being a past or a present period. Mr. Kipling himself in the poem quoted, gave the case away by saying that ‘Romance brought up the nine-fifteen’, implying that the clerks in the train did not yet realize their own romance. But since that was written steam has grown old compared to petrol, as stage-coaches grew old compared to steam. Yet taking a third-class ticket at Euston Station is not much more wildly poetic now than it was when railways ruled the land. Steam may grow stale, but it does not grow specially poetical. If the old coach was faintly poetical, it was because a faint tradition of quite another sort lingered with the ancient echoes of the horse and of the horn. If the railway carriage does not turn into a romantic ruin before our eyes, it is because there lingers in it a nameless something of the nineteenth century: something that was proud of being prosaic and rigidly refuses to be anything else. It is the stamp of that particularly barbarous interlude: the only age in history when men dared not put the Twelve Apostles in modern dress.

This particular matter, in which the medieval world differed from the modern, must be clearly understood to start with, for instance, as one of the conditions governing The Canterbury Tales. The creative imagination of Chaucer could do much; it could do much more than it is commonly credited with doing; but it could hardly have bridged the abyss between the sublime and the ridiculous which yawned in the imagination of a man of the nineteenth century. Chaucer did not regard his own age as comic and commonplace. He regarded some people in it as comic, and some, perhaps, as commonplace; but the clothes and externals of these people could be used just as easily to express what was most imaginative and ideal. The Knight as described, might have figured in any medieval picture as kneeling all clad in iron on one side of an enthroned Virgin and Child; his crusading spirit belongs altogether to that more remote region of delicate distances and golden clouds. But he is not out of the picture of The Canterbury Tales, nor of any medieval picture in which there might be grotesque dwarfs or gambolling dogs. But he would be out of the picture called ‘The Derby Day’, by Frith. That picture contains considerable variety; but it does not contain the Knight of The Canterbury Tales. For ‘The Derby Day’ was painted at that midnight moment of art when even the artist did not think that the world he saw was artistic. This unnatural sense of ugliness is so much our immediate inheritance that there are ordinary words that have never recovered from it. The very word ‘hat’ has a hazy air of farce about it; mentioned by itself it suggests first the hat of Charlie Chaplin or the admirable song of ‘Where Did You Get that Hat?’ The first lesson in medievalism is to understand that Chaucer did not feel about the word ‘hood’ as we do about the word ‘hat’. He knew there were knavish people who carried two faces under one hood; but the one face might be that of Friar Francis as well as of Friar Tuck. A halo round a hood did not seem queer, like a halo round a hat, for those who think only of modern hats. There had been plenty of preposterous fashions among the rich in Chaucer’s time, but their very limitations to the rich had left the landscape and colour-scheme of medievalism more or less what it is in the simplest medieval pictures. There was preposterous costume in that age, but he did not think all costume preposterous because it was of that age. He was as ready to be humorous in verse as any serious poet who ever lived, but his head was not filled with an endless, derisive echo of ‘Where Did You Get that Hood?’

XXIII. On the Later Portions of Poems

SOMETIMES I have a dark suspicion that there are many poems, and perhaps prose competitions also, which people think they know when they know only the first few lines. Possibly this might explain the sinister haste and eagerness with which the great Epic Poets cram into the first few lines a statement of the whole story, which they intend to tell in the ensuing twelve books. They always begin with a summary of this kind, perhaps because they have a craven fear that many of their readers will not read any more. Everybody knows the first three lines of Paradise Lost:

Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe.

But I strongly suspect that there is a sudden and enormous falling off in the numbers of those who could quote the fourth line. And Milton may himself have paused at that point, and heaved a sigh of relief, to think that he had got the whole story packed pretty thoroughly into the three lines, even if all his readers refused to read him any more. He had successfully informed the public of the incident called ‘The Fall of Man’, had explained its connexion with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and attached to it all the results of the doctrine of Original Sin. He did not, however, stop here, and leave this little trifle as a sort of epigram or short lyric. He went on for quite a long time; and it must have been with a sense of relief, not unmingled with fatigue, that he reached at last that quiet and beautiful ending, and saw the exiles, hand in hand, with faltering steps and slow, through Eden take their solitary way. It is perhaps an advantage to the epic poets that their story, as a rule, is already more or less known to the public; just as a considerable number of people have heard the story of Adam and Eve. All adventure stories, in Stevenson’s phrase, begin to end well; and in the greatest of adventure stories Ulysses is obviously meant to get home at last; nor are there many people who need to read to the end of the Iliad to find out what happened to Hector. In the case of longer and more elaborate, not to say more entangled, poems, like those of Ariosto and Spenser, it is legitimate to doubt whether everybody does know what happened to anybody. Lord Macaulay was the most persistent of readers, with the most perfect of memories; yet it is admitted that he came a cropper, or fell out of the race, in the forests of the Faërie Queene. He said that few readers were in at the death of the Blatant Beast, and if he had been there himself he would have known that the Beast does not even die. But while this lack of final perseverance is common in the case of the complicated epics, and not uncommon in that of the simpler epics, it may seem almost cynical to suggest that it is sometimes true even of shorter poems. It seems heartless to suggest that somebody may have fainted before he got to the end of ‘We Are Seven’. It is awful to think that some critic may have been so fastidious as to be unable to support more than two lines of ‘The Village Blacksmith’. And yet I fancy there are cases in which something like this is true; and I came across one recently, or rather I only recently fancied that I saw the true meaning of it.

Everybody quotes the opening lines of Shelley’s fine chorus of ‘Hellas’. And everybody quotes them as the expression of Shelley’s heroic hope for the human race, his idealism and his optimism about his ideals, his radiant faith in a final fulfilment in which humanity should be happy and free

The world’s great age begins anew, The golden years return.

And I suspect that of these a very considerable number have not read, or do not remember, or did not understand, the curious breaking-point which is the point of the poem. I have read it hundreds of times myself, but I confess that it was not until lately that I saw its full meaning, in connexion with cosmic and philosophical theories. I dare say every body else who has read it understood it much better and more immediately; I am not setting up as a discoverer, but I do think it curious that the discovery has not been more often rediscovered. Shelley’s poem mounts steadily in an ascending curve of choral thanksgiving to Nature for a new and glorious renovation of all things; and then, when it comes to its highest note of triumph, it breaks. The poet cries, with something like horror, that we must look no further and foresee no more:

O, drain not to the dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy.

It is obvious, to put it mildly, that something has occurred to him to put him out. And though all readers must have realized at least that, I fancy there have been a considerable number of quoters who were not readers. And I do not think that Shelley’s name would have been so innocently and irrevocably bound up with ideas of Progress and Perfectibility and A Good Time Coming, if every body had instantly realized to what he really referred.

This very obvious reflection, which must have occurred to hundreds of people, occurred to me when I was in the act of reading that very remarkable historical study called Progress and Religion, by Christopher Dawson, which Messrs. Sheed & Ward published some little time ago. It contains, among many other interesting things, a very complete account of that extraordinary theory of Recurrence, which many modern as well as ancient philosophers have held, but to which the ancient philosophers gave the name of ‘The Great Year’. The theory, of course, is broadly this: that when all possible permutations and combinations have been exhausted, the cosmic system will of its nature have to begin all over again and repeat everything we know exactly as we have known it. This will happen again and again for ever; for the same logic that brings the repetition must also bring the repetition of the repetition. And, indeed, it is odd to notice how the philosophers repeat themselves even in describing the repetition. Mr. Dawson quotes the case of a Greek sage who said, ‘This staff that I am holding I shall hold again,’ and the case of a Socialist thinker who said, ‘This pen I am holding I shall hold again,’ in almost exactly the same form of words. Every detail of every life will return with exactitude, and return again and again to eternity. And everybody knows how Nietzsche uttered this revelation, with something almost like a howl, from the last high and crazy peak of his strange existence; about the time, indeed, when he collapsed into complete insanity. I do not know whether he went mad because he believed the theory, or only believed the theory because he went mad. But it always struck me as an almost startling example of how a deathly fatalism overcomes the most lively sceptic. For Nietzsche’s views, in his best days, were wild enough, but wild at least on the side of Will and of Liberty. To see him entangled in that old necessitarian net is like seeing a great spider’s web entangle an eagle.

What interests me here is that it entangled the skylark as well as the eagle. It is surely obvious that Shelley, in the rise and fall of those remarkable lines of the Hellas Chorus, is referring to the old pagan conception of The Great Year. He feels that it justifies him in saying that the world’s great age will begin anew and the golden years return. But he does not want to drain the urn of prophecy to the dregs, because the same wheel of fate that has brought round the golden years will bring round also the leaden and the iron years; and we shall all be forced to repeat all the crimes and tyrannies of history. Without being unduly controversial, I think I may say that it is not a cheery prospect. And I am exceedingly proud to observe that it was before the coming of Christianity that it flourished, and after the neglect of Christianity that it returned.

XXIV. On the Romance of Childhood

I AM just old enough to remember the world before telephones. And I remember that my father and my uncle fitted up with their own metal and chemicals the first telephone I ever saw: a miniature telephone reaching from the top bedroom under the roof to the remote end of the garden. I was really impressed imaginatively by this; and I do not think I have ever been so much impressed since by any extension of it. The point is rather important in the whole theory of imagination. It did startle me that a voice should sound in the room when it was really as distant as the next street. It would hardly have startled me more if it had been as distant as the next town. It does not startle me any more if it is as distant as the next continent. The miracle is over. Thus I admired even the large scientific things most on a small scale. So I always found that I was much more attracted by the microscope than the telescope. I was not overwhelmed in childhood by being told of remote stars which the sun never reached, any more than in manhood by being told of the empire on which the sun never set. I had no use for an empire that had no sunsets. But I was inspired and thrilled by looking through a little hole at a crystal like a pin’s head, and seeing it change pattern and colour like a pygmy sunset.

I have already picked two quarrels with better men than myself, who were enthusiasts for childish romance, upon the reality of the romance of childhood. First, I disagree with them when they treat the infantile imagination as a sort of dream; whereas I remember it rather as a man dreaming might remember the world where he was awake. And second, I deny that children have suffered under a tyranny of moral tales. For I remember the time when it would have seemed the most hideous tyranny to take my moral tales away from me. And, in order to make this clear, I must contradict yet another common assumption in the romantic description of the dawn of life. The point is not very easy to explain; indeed, I have spent the greater part of my life in an unsuccessful attempt to explain it. Upon the cartloads of ill-constructed books in which I have completely failed to do so I have no desire to dwell. But perhaps, as a general definition, this might be useful; or, if not as a definition, at least a suggestion. From the first vaguely, and of late more and more clearly, I have felt that the world is conceiving liberty as something that merely works outwards. And I have always conceived it as something that works inwards.

The ordinary poetic description of the first dreams of life is a description of mere longing for larger and larger horizons. The imagination is supposed to work towards the infinite; though in that sense the infinite is the opposite of the imagination. For the imagination deals with an image, and an image is in its nature a thing that has an outline, and therefore a limit. Now I will maintain, paradoxical as it may seem, that the child does not desire merely to fall out of the window, or even to fly through the air or to be drowned in the sea. When he wishes to go to other places, they are still places, even if nobody has ever been there. But, in truth, the case is much stronger than that. It is plain on the face of the facts that the child is positively in love with limits. He uses his imagination to invent imaginary limits. The nurse and the governess have never told him that it is his moral duty to step on alternate paving-stones. He deliberately deprives this world of half its paving-stones, in order to exult in a challenge that he has offered to himself. I played that kind of game with myself all over the mats and boards and carpets of the house; and, at the risk of being detained during His Majesty’s pleasure, I will admit that I often play it still. In that sense I have constantly tried to cut down the actual space at my disposal; to divide and subdivide, into these happy prisons, the house in which I was quite free to run wild.

I believe that there is in this psychological freak a truth without which the whole modern world is missing its main opportunity. If we look at the favourite nursery romances, or at least if we have the patience to look at them twice, we shall find that they all really support this view, even when they have largely been accepted as supporting the opposite view. The charm of Robinson Crusoe is not in the fact that he could find his way to a remote island, but in the fact that he could not find any way of getting away from it. It is that fact which gives an intensive interest and excitement to all the things that he had with him on the island; the axe and the parrot and the guns and the little hoard of grain. The tale of Treasure Island is not the record of a vague desire to go on a sea voyage for one’s health. It ends where it began; and it began with Stevenson drawing a map of the island, with all its bays and capes cut out as clearly as fretwork. The eternal interest of the Noah’s Ark, considered as a toy, consists in its complete suggestion of compactness and isolation; of creatures so comically remote and fantastic being all locked up in one box; as if Noah had been told to pack up the sun and moon with his luggage. In other words, it is exactly the same game that I have played myself, by piling all the things I wanted on a sofa, and imagining that the carpet around me was the surrounding sea.

This game of self-limitation is one of the secret pleasures of life. As it says in the little manuals about such sports, the game is played in several forms. One very good way of playing it is to look at the nearest bookcase and wonder whether you would find sufficient entertainment in that chance collection, even if you had no other books. But always it is dominated by this principle of division and restriction, which begins with the game played by the child with the paving-stones. But I dwell upon it here because it must be understood as some thing real and rooted, so far as I am concerned, in order that the other views I have offered about these things may make any sort of sense. If anybody chooses to say that I have founded all my social philosophy on the antics of a baby, I am quite satisfied to bow and smile.

I have no great hopes that my own private Utopia, the Utopia of subdivision and self-limitation, is likely to be rapidly established in the real world. I do not immediately expect that the landlord with five hundred acres will instantly cut it down to fifty acres, and stand in startled admiration of the fresh and pleasing shape, the entirely new and attractive map or outline of his domains. I hardly suppose that he will be romantically enraptured, all at once, at the discovery of the enchanted island that I have cut out for him, out of the dull and dreary sea of his solid landed estate. I doubt whether the simple kindly act of stealing half his books will drive him to reading the other half; I am not sure that the traditional childish present, of a little garden marked out in the middle of his large garden, will instantly change him to a little child. But I do know that great historic changes always begin at exactly the opposite end to the end the world is pursuing, and that the human search, so long turned outwards, will turn inwards very soon.

XXV. On the Renaissance

IN Rome a man feels suddenly the paradox of the Renaissance. It was a Christian miracle if it called up a Pagan god. It was in itself a Christian notion that, if the dead could return, they would not be shadows from Hades, but human beings from Heaven or Hell. But as a fact, of course, the god who rose again was not pagan. He could not be, since he was carved by Christians, even by bad and blasphemous Christians. Something that had not been in heathen antiquity had entered the very blood and bones of the human race; and it entered equally into the stone and clay of all that the human race could make. Without it, even the worst of men would now have felt suddenly cold and strange, like fishes, or, rather, like fossils. To be a Greek god was as impossible as to be a fossil, though both might be beautiful mouldings or even beautiful models in stone. To be completely heathen was no longer to be completely human.

The examples are obvious. Many people must have pointed out that Michelangelo was really more like Michael the Angel than Apollo the Archer. It was not for nothing that his very name is Hebrew and Greek as well as Italian. Every one must have noticed that there is, in some mysterious way, more colour in the monochrome marbles and bronzes of the Renaissance than in many of the cold, clay-like pigments that were called colours in the pagan houses of Pompeii. Even where the work is materially a matter of light and shade, it is not something put down in black and white: the light is richer and the shadow glows. Of course, a great part of the problem here is connected with modern religious controversies. Because modern pagans wanted to go back to paganism, in the sense of destroying Christianity, they said that the sixteenth-century artists wanted it too, though there was not one of them that would not have drawn a sword or dagger and destroyed the critic who told him that he wanted to destroy the Cross. Benvenuto Cellini would have been as prompt as Giotto; for the Christian Church is not made for good men, but for men.

The difficulty of history is that historians seldom see the simple things, or even the obvious things, because they are too simple and obvious. It is sometimes said of the pictures of the Renaissance artists, especially of the pictures of Rubens, that we ought to stand far back in order to take in the whole stupendous design, and not be annoyed because some detail is technically careless or emotionally coarse. It is probably true of more than one Renaissance picture of the Resurrection; and it is certainly true of that general Resurrection that is called the Renaissance. There has been too much bickering over bits of the astonishing business; too much casuistry about whether this or that painter in this or that point surrendered to heathenism, or merely to human nature. The whole story consists of two staggering truths. First, that these men did really raise the dead. They did call up all heathenism, which might seem about as safe as calling up all hell. And, second, that they did really in a manner convert and christen the dead; that they did baptize all that bodily manifestation and materialization into the body of Christ. Even when it had been and was no more, it did become something that it had not been. They paraded before the world a wild hypothetical pageant of what old Greece and Rome would have been if they had not been pagan. To do this with any dead society is an amazing achievement. To copy the old body in any case is amazing; to copy the old body, and also put in a new soul, is amazing beyond praise, beyond question, and certainly beyond quibbling. The fact is so familiar that it has ceased to amaze; the only chance of conveying it would be to take some fantastic parallel in modern and ancient things. We should be mildly surprised to hear that the English in Egypt had reconstructed for themselves the ancient Egyptian civilization; that all the proclamations of Lord Lloyd had been carved on obelisks in Egyptian hieroglyphics; that Lord Cromer had been preserved on the premises in the form of a mummy; or that Lord Kitchener at Cairo had religiously gone the round of worshipping a series of stuffed cats. But we should be surprised, with something less of mildness, if we were told that all this was done in such a way as to cause no embarrassment, or even amusement, to the English gentlemen who were doing it; and who managed to do it without the least sense that their code of manners was altered, or that their religion, when they had any, was suffering neglect. Just as it would be a remarkable thing for men to become ancient Egyptians and yet remain modern Englishmen, so it was a remarkable thing when these men became ancient Greeks and yet remained medieval Christians.

There are many morals to the story; but one must be manifest in the mere word I have used. If the medieval religion had really been such a silly superstition as some of its simpler enemies represent, it quite certainly would have been swallowed up for ever in such an earthquake of enlightenment as the great Renaissance. The fact that the vision of a superb and many-sided human culture did not disturb the fundamental ideas of these late medieval Christians has a simple explanation: that the ideas are true. The application of these true ideas in medieval times had been very much hampered by local ignorance and feudal prejudice. But the truths were so true that they would have survived, in really thinking men, through ten Renaissances and twenty Revivals of Learning. We see this vividly in the intensely intellectual character of the religious conviction in men like Michelangelo and even Leonardo da Vinci. Nobody knew better than they that Christianity is really wiser, and even wider, than Paganism; that Aquinas was not only better but broader than Aristotle. Not from such men came the clumsy denials of the deep dogmas of the Faith. Michelangelo was not the man to dispute that the truly divine humanity would be crucified; nor could Raphael be reckoned on for a breezy protest against the respect felt for the Madonna. But if the whole thing had been a dirty asceticism of the desert, the mere monkey tricks of the Manichees, it would have fallen like filthy rags from men who had seen the grace of the Greek athletes. If it had been only a worship of dolls with tinsel crowns, it would have looked a paltry and pygmy affair in the presence of the great head of Jupiter. But the real men of the Renaissance knew that, as a matter of fact, there was much more humanity in the rules for the brethren gathered by St. Francis than in the rules for the boys beaten before the altar of Diana; and that, as a matter of fact, the Church had a much more logical idea about the exact position of Jesus in Heaven than the heathens had ever had about the exact position of Jupiter on Olympus. It was the intellectual value of the creed that preserved it through any revolution of aesthetic values, just as it preserves it still amid the wildest changes in aesthetic taste to-day. Michelangelo went on being a Christian then, just as Mr. Eric Gill goes on being a Christian now, because a man may be original without being separated from the origins; and because a man may be able to think, even if he can also draw.

I would not be provocative, but I think this rather neglected truth is due to these great artists, when so many people imagine them to have been Pagans and some can even imagine them as Puritans. It seems clear to me that those despised medieval superstitions, suited only for barbarians like Dante and St. Francis, were exactly the ideas that did remain rooted in the most civilized centres of the world, when they were disputed in the more barbarous provinces. When we consider how exciting the destructive quest of the intellect really is (though it is generally people totally devoid of intellect who say so), it is really rather remarkable that there was comparatively so little of it in these great adventurers, who were devoted to the creative quest of the imagination. When we consider how wild they often were in the matter of morals (though it is generally the sort of moderns who have no morals at all who darkly denounce the immorality of these later men of the medieval decline) it is really rather remarkable that they kept as much as they did of the faith from which the morals grew— or ought to have grown. When we consider that it really is a fact (though the first fool in the street will tell you so) that scepticism had begun to appear here and there even among priests and bishops, it is really singular, upon the balance, that it had not appeared more among painters and sculptors. We may talk, as they sometimes may have talked, about reviving the gods of Greece. But Moses is Moses and David is David, and a Pagan would have stood puzzled before them.

XXVI. On the Laureateship

IT is often said that the office of Poet Laureate is not fitted to our times. This is true; it is perhaps the most compact condemnation of our times. If we want to know exactly what is really lacking in current culture, we had better ask why it cannot support the idea of a real Poet Laureate. It is enough merely to look at the words which make up the title. Whenever it is suggested that some little modern man of letters, in a tail-coat and trousers, should be solemnly presented with a Crown of Laurel, everybody laughs, as if it were a joke. But it is not the laurel, but the little man, that is a joke. It is not the wreath of leaves, the lines of which are still as free and rhythmic and adapted to decoration as when they decorated a hundred marble monuments or golden frescoes; it is not the wreath that is ridiculous. It is the tail-coat and trousers it is the Modern Man; it is the Spirit of Our Time, to which the Laureateship is, we have agreed, so unsuited. As is the Laurel to modern dress, so is the Laureateship to modern manners. Nobody sees anything silly in those leaves when they cluster round the hood of some bust of Dante. Nobody saw anything silly in them when, at the high moment of the medieval renaissance, they were bound about the brows of Petrarch. It was partly that the same scheme of decoration, more or less unconsciously, ran through the whole world of costume and ornament. It was much more because, in those dim and barbarous ages, people did not think it undignified to be dignified. They were so strangely constituted that they laughed at ugly things, and not only at beautiful things. A gentleman who wished to be stared at or admired dressed in purple and cloth of gold, trailing trappings that went in great curves like those of a comet or a cataract. With such fashions a crown was actually a crown; it crowned the edifice; it was a crest or culmination of lines rising to and demanding such a diadem. Nowadays, by the tradition of the nineteenth century, a gentle man dresses like a comic waiter in a third-rate farce, and is surprised that the bay-wreath looks grotesque on his head. But it is not the bay-wreath that looks grotesque.

That is a parable of the whole practical problem. And it always is a problem, whether it is worth while to keep the habit when it no longer makes the monk, or one small rag torn from the habit when the monk no longer knows how to make himself. The psychology of the Laureateship, dating as it does from the days when Petrarch was crowned with laurel, implies a number of things not now vivid to any very large number of people. It implies the notion of a crowd being excited but quite serious: like devotees before a sacrament or children before a fairy-play. There is still a certain kind of popular enthusiasm, but it is not an enthusiasm for enthusiasts. It might almost be called an affection for anti-enthusiasts; an affection for mockers and cynics and artists in the antic view of life. They might be as much thrilled by meeting Charlie Chaplin as any medieval Italians by meeting Petrarch. But though they might be cheering without jeering, they would be cheering somebody who jeers: who jeers admirably at himself and this wicked world. Nobody can expect that sort of popular artist to wear a laurel round his remarkable bowler hat. But it has been possible, and it will be possible again, for the public to rejoice seriously, and even solemnly. In those older days the very word ‘solemn’ went with the word ‘joyous’; and ‘a high solemnity’ was almost always an affair of dancing and junketing. A modern crowd would cheer the critical faculty, as in Mr. Chaplin; it would not cheer the creative faculty, as in Dante. And unless we keep the idea of a high solemnity, or public function of state, like the famous scene of the tribute to Petrarch, there is indeed little point in keeping merely an office and a name. As we do not preserve the coronation it may seem idle to preserve the crown. Nevertheless, if there were a crown, I think I should preserve it—among the Crown Jewels. I should not attach any man to it, but leave it there and wait for better times.

For my part, though I have indulged in any amount of buffoonery, I regret the new and solitary pre-eminence of the buffoon. I regret the fact that the new popular hero must not be heroic as well as popular. He must not receive from the State a serious tribute for revealing a serious truth. When, for the moment, the most intelligent art is the most flippant art, it will mean a certain abdication of the old claims of the artist. But it may mean worse things than that. When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights. The pagan state, in which the artist is only a buffoon, will soon resemble the ancient pagan state in which he was only a slave. I am all for playing the goat; I am charitably disposed even to those enacting the funny dog; I have myself appeared more than once in public in the character of a performing elephant. But if we allow the Image of Man to fade away altogether in these animal antics, if it vanishes amid mere mockery and scepticism, the human being will find himself something very much worse than fair game. He may ultimately be tethered like the goat, or chained up like the dog, or ridden and prodded like the elephant.

The man who has exhibited himself—as in so much of modern prose and verse—in every attitude of abject and dishonourable ignominy will find it very much harder to spring up straight of a sudden and defend his honour, if his real intellectual and spiritual honour is attacked. Among the old ways of preserving this sense of honour was the system of honours; and, though most of them are now pretty thoroughly dishonoured, nobody suggests that the Poet Laureateship has been sold. Anyhow, among the wider ways of doing it was what may be called the Pageant of Poetry; the public acknowledgment of the Poet, ‘to whom the high gods gave of right their thunders and their laurels and their light’.

XXVII On Living for Posterity

WE all remember the story of that excess of aspiration, in the sense of the use of aspirates, which led somebody to say of somebody, ‘If you give him a Hinch, he’ll take a Hell.’ Some recent extensions of social liberty have made the accident of the last word sound strangely like an omen. But what strikes me as even more curious is this: that there are some people who are perpetually demanding an ell but cannot be persuaded to accept an inch. They demand certain forms of social liberty in the large, but refuse them in the small, and especially in the solid. They are like people who should furiously demand a hundred head of cattle, and then flee in terror at the first appearance of a cow. Or they are like a king who should claim to rule the waves and be afraid to have a well or a pond in his own garden. The little more, and how little it is and how lightly they will take the larger responsibility! The little less, and what miles they will run in order to be worlds away!

For instance, I read in any number of New Leaders and Labour weeklies, and all sorts of papers supposed to be both progressive and popular, that the working-classes will now take over the government of the country; that the majority of manual workers will have their proper proportional right to rule in all matters of education and humanitarian reform; that the poor will at last inherit the earth. But if I say that one workman is capable of deciding about the education of one child, that he has the right to select a certain school or resist a certain system, I shall have all those progressive papers roaring at me as a rotten reactionary. Why the workman should be clever enough to vote a curriculum for everybody else’s children, but not clever enough to choose one for his own children, I cannot for the life of me imagine. If I say that a decent costermonger is to be trusted with a donkey, or a decent rat-catcher with a dog, I shall be denounced as an obstacle to humanitarian legislation. But there is no objection to trusting a crowd of costermongers and rat-catchers to decide about the humanitarian legislation. And what is true of these particular cases of proprietorship is true of the whole ease of property. When the meek inherit the earth, it must only mean that the mob inherits the earth. It must not mean that the man inherits even the smallest portion of the earth. The mob is meek enough, certainly, when it is thus herded to its pastures by its sociological and educational pastors. It does not really mean that the many sheep, but that the few shepherds, will rule over all the meadows. And when the nomadic shepherd finds himself confronted with the static or domestic peasant, with the man who is actually ruling his own small meadow like a realm, there is always a collision and a sort of civil war in the country-side. In any case, the original paradox remains: that it was regarded as a simple thing that all the meadows should belong to all the men, but a frantic and fantastic thing that any man should own any meadow.

But there is another ease that is even more curious. In the works of Mr. Wells, and all the typical Utopias and futuristic world-systems of recent times, it is incessantly and impressively repeated that we must live for the Future, for the Young, for the Rising Generation or the Babe Unborn. The traditional obligations of the past are nothing, and even the temporary contracts and compromises of the present are comparatively little; but we really do have a duty to the future generations. It is apparently the only duty that remains. While we are kicking our grandfather downstairs, we must take care to be very polite to our great-great-grandson, who is not yet present; and if a more enlightened ethic should ever justify us in painlessly poisoning our mother, it will be well to distract the attention by dreaming of some perfect Woman of the Future who may never need to be poisoned. These examples are quoted but lightly and from memory, but nobody will deny that current culture is in fact full of this notion of living for posterity. It is preached as a democratic doctrine in the democratic organs to which I have referred. But it is always the People as a whole that is to live for the Posterity as a whole.

But if we present precisely the same idea, in a present and practical form, it is called antiquated. Its practical form is called Marriage or the Family. It really does demand that a man and a woman should live largely for the next generation. It does demand that they should, to some extent, defer their personal amusements, such as divorce and dissipation, for the benefit of the next generation. And whenever we suggest that, a wail goes up about the wickedness and cruelty of depriving the poor dear parents of the innocent gaieties of divorce. How can a poor father get any real fun out of being divorced, if his enjoyment is to be dashed by a morbid memory of the existence of his own son? Nay, can we even be certain that the mother will keep up her high standard of dancing all night and every night, if there is a new-born baby who (with curious taste) is crying for her all night long? When the problem of Posterity is presented in this practical form, poor old Posterity gets the knock pretty badly. The Present suddenly becomes much more important than the Future; and the rising generation is a mere drag on the risen generation, which intends to dance until it drops. In this case also, the new thinkers are only thinking of the general, and are afraid to think of the particular. Just as the Socialist must not confront a peasant with one concrete piece of land, so the Sociologist must not confront the parent with one concrete piece of Posterity. Otherwise the new parents will fly screaming, and in some cases adopt measures to ensure that there shall be next to no Posterity at all.

I grieve to say that I am not moved to a profound respect or admiration for this intellectual compromise. If the social idealist would take his inch I might be ready to trust him with his ell. If he could trust a poor man with the care of a cow or a cottage, or a common or garden child, I might believe he was sincere in wishing to trust all poor men with the destiny of all cottages and cows. As it is, I suspect that he is not going to trust that destiny to a democracy of poor men, but to an official or oligarch appointed to organize the poor men. Similarly, if the new social philosophies fervently encouraged people to think more about domesticity and less about divorce, I might believe that they really were preferring the future generation to their own. As it is, I think they want to procure all possible pleasures and amusements for their own, including the mild amusement of prophesying some Utopia that can only come long after they are dead. If their novels and newspapers were less filled with the sublime spiritual liberation of eloping with the chauffeur, and more filled with the duty and dignity of remaining with the baby, I might admit that their faces are set towards the Future and their souls full of the song of ‘A Good Time Coming’. As it is, it seems to be an impatient and even pessimistic lyric about ‘A Good Time Now’.

I am not at all pharisaical about these weaknesses considered as weaknesses, but I am rather bored with the pretence that they are strong with the strength of vigilant Watchers for the Dawn. And I am increasingly tired of the whole tone of that inverted idealism, which is terrified when told to make use of a single talent, but quite confident of its fitness to rule over ten cities. But I suspect, if I may describe the fashionable mood in terms of old-fashioned sentiment, that these people are only filling the Castle of Indolence with the Pleasures of Hope.

XXVIII On Mr Shaw’s Puritanism

THERE was a time when I was asked, with quite a curious persistence, what I thought of Mr. Bernard Shaw and what he thought of Professor Einstein. It was especially in connexion with certain remarks about the nature of Great Men, and his reasons for limiting the list to some and excluding others. I had no difficulty at the time in answering that I thought of Mr. Bernard Shaw very much as I have always thought of him, and that I shou1d have no difficulty in admitting him to my list of Great Men, though perhaps my list might be a little longer, and perhaps a little more liberal than his. I actually wrote a book about him in the ancient days, and I am happy to say that he reviewed it himself, with the typical opening: ‘This is the best book of criticism that I have yet produced.’ And what I said then is very much what I should say still: that there is no very fundamental antagonism between Mr. Bernard Shaw and myself except in one fact—that he is a Puritan and I am at least relatively a Pagan. It is true that I have become a Christian; but that is a thing that happened to quite a large number of Pagans. Only I never became a Puritan; and it seems to me that Mr. Shaw never became anything else.

Of course I know that there are a number of things to which his actual attitude would be merely negative or sceptical as compared with my own; but those things never affect me as real or ultimate disagreements, but merely as matters which he does not happen to have understood even sufficiently to disagree. They are part of a heritage of negation from the rebels of the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries: a rebellion that has become almost respectable with age. It is almost a mark of being behind the times to go on talking merely of traditional religion. What we have to deal with in the modern world is traditional irreligion. The period between Voltaire and Bernard Shaw is merely the period of the rise and decline of something that began as a joke and ended as a prejudice. Nobody will deny the wit of Shaw, any more than the wit of Voltaire; but these sceptical or negative notions are not even the jokes of Shaw: they are merely the prejudices of Shaw. The jokes of Shaw have been much more serious and socially useful things, and have been directed against things much more modern than ecclesiastical abuses which have long ago been more than sufficiently abused. They have been directed against the spiritual pride of physical science; against the Doctor’s Dilemma and not merely against the Curate’s Egg— a rather ancient egg which, after all, was always excellent in parts. They have been directed against the worldliness of San Francisco rather than the unworldliness of St. Francis. If he made fun of America, it was at least at the moment when America was being taken most seriously, and at the moment when the seriousness was certainly a form of snobbishness. I have never been disturbed by his disbelieving the things he does not understand, and I have always been delighted with his disbelieving the things he does understand: such as the Darwinian Theory or the Capitalist State. I should never be so stupid as to mistake Mr. Bernard Shaw for an irreligious man. He seems to me, in a rather special and vivid sense, to be a religious man. But there is always that deeper difference, and it is involved in the nature of the religion. And if I wanted a profound illustration of the difference that I mean, whether or no it is a difference I could explain, I could find it in a remark made in this discussion about Einstein and Great Men: a remark that may not seem to have anything to do with religion at all. Mr. Shaw is reported, and I apologize if he is misreported, as saying that he would hesitate to admit Napoleon into his select club of heroes; and that ‘it would have been better for the world if Napoleon had never lived’. To which I answer that if Napoleon had never lived, then certainly Bernard Shaw never would have lived. At any rate, if Napoleon had not succeeded in being Napoleon, Shaw would not have succeeded in being Shaw.

For certainly if Napoleon, or some revolutionary soldier nearly as competent as Napoleon (there may have been one or two others who could have proved competent), had not appeared to save the French Revolution from the invading forces of the aristocracies and autocracies, reaction would have shut down on the first republican hopes like a trap of iron, and all the democratic dreams that have since filled the intellect and imagination would have been utterly and perhaps finally destroyed. All that we call the modern world, with all its good and evil, was made by Napoleon; at any rate was made possible by Napoleon. And among the various products of that original revolutionary expansion was the particular theory of reconstruction which we call Socialism. I will leave Mr. Shaw to decide whether that particular product is to be classed among the good or evil products of the French Revolution. But surely nobody with historical sense can doubt that all these modern ideals of revolutionary improvement, with the purpose of social justice or equality, date from the great idealistic movement at the end of the eighteenth century. Now I take it as certain that if the Revolution had not become militant, and been successfully defended by a man of military genius, it would have been easily crushed by the old oligarchies and despotic systems; and, having been easily crushed, would have been easily forgotten. There would have remained no legend of revolutionary victory; and therefore, alas for human nature, very little of revolutionary heroism. There would probably have remained, for centuries afterwards, not a gleam of revolutionary hope. I am merely stating the historical and especially the practical probabilities. I do not discuss here how far the balance would have been for evil or good. We should doubtless have avoided many annoying forms of anarchical nonsense such as still manage to live on the tradition of the triumph of France. We should have been less troubled with some mistaken mob movements, and some much more poisonous secret societies. But we should have missed some good things as well. We should have missed social reform as the serious preoccupation of the nineteenth century, we should have missed Socialism, and we should have missed Shaw.

Now I can heartily respect, and even sympathize with, some jolly old English Tory who still regards Bonaparte as Boney. I can understand the genial reactionary, like Mr. Sapsea, who continues through all continental changes to drink the toast, ‘When the French come over, may we meet them at Dover.’ But I should hardly have thought of associating Mr. Sapsea with Mr. Shaw. And whatever may be the true story of the punishment of St. Helena, it seems rather hard on Napoleon that he should endure not only an eternal punishment, but a double punishment: one from all the reactionaries he defeated and the other from all the reformers he defended. It was the expansion of Napoleonic France that established everywhere the modern theories of civic right and equal opportunity; and the very name of that justice is the Code Napoleon. In the face of these facts, I naturally ask myself: Why does a man like Mr. Shaw hate Napoleon? Why does a man like Mr. Wells hate Napoleon? The only sincere answer is that it is the mark of the Nonconformist always to hate Napoleon.

It would take a long time to explain. A vague notion that a soldier is a naughty man; that he wears a cocked hat and sometimes even a cockade or a feather in it; that bodily fighting is always a blackguardly way of dealing with any position, however provocative; that soldiering is associated with canteens and cans; these and a thousand other things have created in the mind of the modern Puritan the mood of the modern Pacifist. We can all understand, and Napoleon himself would entirely understand, the higher sense in which it may be said that glory is vanity. But the Puritan always insists, not that glory is vanity, but that glory is infamy. He thinks this sort of action, this sort of ambition, not only the worst but the most horrible; he thinks there is no smell so foul as the smell of gunpowder. I think the smell of the hair-oil of hypocritical peace-mongering infinitely more offensive. Nobody will accuse Mr. Shaw’s work of smelling like that; but there does come from it sometimes, suddenly, this strange stale smell of the Puritan; and it is then that I can answer our old question: Do We Agree?

XXIX. On the Truth of Legends

I HAVE known all my life what is called the conflict between romance and realism, and I have always found that it was the realists who were romancing. I have found, in a fashion too curious to be a coincidence, that the romances were generally real after all. For instance, everybody knows how a boy is told that his boyish day-dreams are only day-dreams, and will not long survive in daylight; that his picturesque figures of the Red Indian or the Jolly Tar are only painted and pasteboard figures out of a toy-theatre, or melodramatic personalities out of a penny dreadful. It is taken for granted that he will begin by believing in them and end by disbelieving in them. In a number of solid historical cases, I myself began rather early to disbelieve them, and have come eventually to believe them. I seriously think that the popular sentiment that created those characters was often a tradition of truth, where the pedantic cynicism which destroyed them was often a much more deliberate perversion of truth. The tradition may have come down rather loosely and vaguely, through a long line of nurses and grandmothers. But the nurses and grandmothers were not paid to tell lies, and they did therefore, to a considerable and very valuable extent, tell the truth. The critics and historians were paid to tell lies though they may not have put the truth to themselves in quite so crude a fashion. They were academic officials of a certain academic system; achieving a fame which depended upon a fashion; successful or unsuccessful, according to the power of a theory; suiting themselves, consciously or unconsciously, to a certain school; and, when all is said, living by receiving salaries or selling books. They had not the disinterestedness or detachment of gossip. They were not merely mentioning the things they remembered, but remembering only the things they were supposed to mention. Their minds had formed a mechanical habit of recording only the things that were suited to the records, and writing only the records that were suited to the official record office. Some of them were stark liars; some of them, which is much more strange and uncanny, were honest men. But they were, at best, men telling untrue stories in the interest of the truth, or what they believed to be the truth. They were not ordinary people telling true stories, merely as stories that were curious because they were true. It is all the difference between the chronicler and the historian. And the difference is that the chronicler sometimes told fables; whereas the historian never tells fables, but only falsehoods. However this may be, I have known a curious number of cases in which mere sentimental gossip surrounded my childhood, and serious historical scholarship surrounded my manhood; and the sentimental gossip was right.

For instance, it was sentimental gossip that Mary Queen of Scots was very badly treated; or that Charles the First was to be pitied or even admired. I remember loving both the historical characters as legends, and then learning afterwards that the legends were entirely legendary. The historical realists of that time told me that the attraction of Mary Queen of Scots was merely that she was much prettier than Queen Elizabeth. They told me that the charm of the Cavalier consisted only in his wearing more picturesque clothes than the Puritan. Those who told me this were often learned, and those who had left me with the earlier impression were often ignorant; and I myself was unfathomably ignorant. I therefore believed what they told me; I proceeded to believe, to believe blindly, credulously, and in hopeless intellectual servitude; to believe in the much more fabulous fable, in the legend of the learned. I believed much more seriously—that is, much more superstitiously— in the school text-book than I had believed in the old wives’ tale. But the old wife was an old wife by the normal process of becoming a wife and growing old, and she employed the normal habit of talking to children about her childhood. But the schoolmaster was a professional schoolmaster; the schoolmaster was tied to his school; the schoolmaster was as much under discipline as the schoolboy.

In the case of Mary Queen of Scots or Charles the First, which I have mentioned, it is, of course, perfectly true that there are two sides to the story. What I complain of in the schoolmaster is that he always taught only one side of the story. So, it may be said, did the nursery story-teller. But her story was a story in the literary sense of a legend. His story was a story in the nursery sense of a lie. It was a lie in the very real sense that he was not merely reporting what he had heard, but very care fully selecting from what he had read. Of course, as I say, it is perfectly true that there is a case for the Calvinists who opposed Mary Stuart, or the later Calvinists who opposed Charles Stuart. Of course, it is arguable that Mary Stuart killed her husband, or that Charles Stuart broke his word. Of course, it is arguable that it was better for England that the Whigs should turn it into an aristocracy than that the Stuarts should turn it into an autocracy.

But that is not the point. The point is that the ignorant legend was much more true, as far as it went, than the learned legend as far as it went. To paint a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots as a lovely, unhappy, charming, and cultured lady, brutally baited by barbarous Puritans and tragically martyred by a jealous Tudor tyrant, is a process of portraiture very far from complete; but it is in its way true, even when it is not complete. To paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth as a prophetic lioness of Protestantism, upholding the Huguenots out of mere love of the Holy Scriptures, and brandishing a Bible to cow all the Papists of the world, is not a process of portraiture true but incomplete; it is simply completely untrue. It is contradicted by every fact in Elizabeth’s history, from her continuous invalidism or ill-health to her continuous intrigues about marrying Catholic princes. And the first truth, or half-truth, was a truth of tradition. The second lie, and complete lie, was a lie of scholarship. Similarly, the popular legend was not lying about the kind of atmosphere, or even the kind of glamour, surrounding King Charles and the Cavaliers. It may have been little more than a romance; the legend really recorded little more than a romance; but it was the real romance. It was not false when it represented the Cavalier with his goblet lifted and his sword drawn; ready to drink to the King, ready to die for the King. For thousands of such men did actually drink to him and did actually die for him. It was not romancing to say that the Royalist had a romantic loyalty. It would not have been romancing to say that the Puritan had a religious loyalty. He had a loyalty to the letter of Scripture, to the logic of Calvin, to the awful duty of spreading true religion.

But my schoolmasters did not tell me that the Puritan stood for religious loyalty, which is true. They told me that he stood for religious liberty, which is a lie of that mountainous and monstrous order which ignorant traditionalists call a Whopper. They were not concerned, like the traditionalists, with gathering up, however lazily, the loose fragments of a truth. They were concerned with covering up most carefully the most accidental glimpses of the truth; with so picking their words and arranging their sentences that no suspicion of the main truth of the matter should really penetrate to the reader. It is amazing to consider how carefully and how successfully they did cover up a truth so obvious and so enormous. There is, for instance, the perfectly simple fact, written in large letters across the history of two reigns and practically two revolutions, that the last Stuarts tried to establish religious toleration and the Puritans tried to prevent religious toleration. It would seem as impossible to hide so huge and simple an historic fact as to hide the fact that Nelson fought for England and Napoleon for France. Yet men like Macaulay and Green really did manage to hide it from a whole rising generation, the generation with which I myself originally rose. But, fortunately, I had learned some truths in my childhood before I began to learn lies in my boyhood. And all my subsequent knowledge has led me to prefer the pictures which honestly professed to be picturesque to the plans and diagrams which dishonestly pretended to be accurate.

XXX. On Experience

IT will be remarked that Experience, which was once claimed by the aged, is now claimed exclusively by the young. There used to be a system of morals and metaphysics that was specially known as the Experience Philosophy; but those who advanced it were grim rationalists and utilitarians who were already old in years, or, more commonly, old before their time. We all know that Experience now stands rather for the philosophy of those who claim to be young long after their time. But they preach something that may, in a sense, be called an Experience Philosophy, though some of the experiences seem to me the reverse of philosophical. So far as I can make it out, it consists of two dogmas first, that there is no such thing as right or wrong; and secondly, that they themselves have a right to experience. How they manage to have any rights if there is no such thing as right I do not know; nor do they. But perhaps the philosophy was best summed up in a phrase I saw recently in a very interesting and important American magazine, quoted from one of the more wild and fanciful of the American critics. I have not the text before me, but the substance of the remark was this. The critic demanded indignantly to know how many ordinary American novelists had any Experiences outside those of earning their bread, pottering about in a farm or a frame-house, helping to mind the baby, and so on. The question struck me as striking at the very root of all the rot and corruption and imbecility of the times.

On the face of it, of course, the whole question is rather a joke; only that these gay pleasure-seekers and revellers in the joy of life have seldom been known to see a joke. We might politely inquire exactly how much Experience is needed to equip a novelist to write novels? How many marks does he get for being vamped or for being intoxicated and which are the particular discreditable acts by which he can get credits? How many liaisons give him this singular rank as a literary liaison officer; and how many double lives does it take to constitute Life? Is it only after his fourth divorce that he may write his first novel? For my part, I do not see why the same principle should not be applied to all the other Ten Commandments as well as to that particular Commandment. It should surely be obvious that, if love affairs are necessary to the writing of this particular sort of love story, then it follows that crime is necessary to the writing of any kind of crime story. I have myself made arrangements (on paper) for no fewer than fifty-two murders in my time; they took the form of short stories; and I shall expose myself to the withering contempt of the young sages of Experience when I confess that I am not really a murderer, and have never yet committed an actual murder. And what about all the other forms of criminal Experience? Must a writer be a forger, and manufacture other men’s names before he is allowed to make his own? Must there be a journalistic apprenticeship in picking pockets as well as in picking brains; and have we to look to the establishment of an Academy of Anarchy, with the power of conferring degrees? Novelists might proudly print after their names the letters indicating the degrees they had taken; such as F.Y.B., meaning ‘Five Years for Burglary’, or T.N.H., for ‘Twice Nearly Hanged’. Altogether it may be said that writers do not rob, but it may be fortunate that robbers do not write. It is possible that the wild and wicked criminal might, after all, make almost as good a novelist as the novelist.

It would also be easy enough to attack the fallacy upon the facts. Everybody who has any real experience knows that good writing would not necessarily come from people with many experiences. Some of the art which is closest to life has been produced under marked limitations of living. Its prestige has generally lasted longer than the splash made by sensational social figures. Jane Austen has already survived Georges Sand. Even the most modern critic, if he is really a critic, will admit that Jane Austen is really realistic, in a sense in which Georges Sand is only romantic. She was, indeed, a flaming, fashionable figure created entirely by the Romantic Movement; but Jane Austen did not belong to any movement; she does not move, but she stays. And, though I do not agree with the too common depreciation of Byron, it is true that all his somewhat excessive Experience, in the new or juvenile sense, has not prevented people feeling him to be the very reverse of realistic, and in some ways strangely unreal.

But there is, of course, a much deeper objection to the whole of this new sort of Experience Philosophy, which is quite sufficiently exposed in the very examples I quoted from the magazine. There are certainly all sorts of experiences, some great and some small. But the small ones are those which the critic imagines to be great, and the great ones are those that he contemptuously dismisses as small. There are no more universal affairs than those which he imagines to be little and local. There are no events more tremendous than those which he regards as trivial. There are no experiences more exciting than those which he dully imagines to be dull. To take his own example, a literary man who cannot see that a baby is marvellous could not see that anything was marvellous. He has certainly no earthly logical reason for regarding a movie vamp as marvellous. The movie vamp is only what happens to the baby when it goes wrong; but, from a really imaginative and intellectual standpoint, there is nothing marvellous about either of them, except what is already marvellous in the mere existence of the baby. But this sort of moralist or immoralist has a queer, half-baked prejudice to the effect that there is no good in anything until it has gone bad. It is supposed to be a part of Experience for the woman to be a vamp, but not for the woman to be a mother; although it stares us all in the face, as a stark fact of common sense, that child-bearing really is an experience, and a highly realistic experience, while the other sort of experiment may not really be an experience at all. It may be in the exact sense mere play-acting; and, as the game is now played, the main preoccupation is to prevent its ending with an addition to the cast of characters. Whatever happens, it must not be the means of bringing on the scene a new, breathing, thinking, conscious creature like a baby. That would not be Life.

Now, if there is one thing of which I have been certain since my boyhood, and grow more certain as I advance in age, it is that nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze. All this talk of waiting for experiences in order to write is simply a confession of incapacity to experience anything. It is a confession of never having felt the big facts in such experiences as babyhood and the baby. A paralytic of this deaf-and-dumb description imagines he can be healed in strange waters or after strange wanderings; and announces himself ready to drink poisons, that they may stimulate him like drugs. But it is futile for him to suppose that this sort of quackery will teach him how to be a writer, for he has been from the first admittedly blind to everything that is worth writing about. He will find nothing in the wilderness but the broken shards or ruins of what should have been sacred in his own home; and if he can really make nothing of the second he will certainly make nothing of the first. The whole theory rests on a ridiculous confusion by which it is supposed that certain primary principles or relations will become interesting when they are damaged, but are bound to be depressing when they are intact. None of those who are perpetually suggesting this view ever states it thus plainly; for they are incapable of making plain statements, just as they are incapable of feeling plain things. But the point they have to prove, if they really want their Experience Philosophy accepted by those who do not care for catchwords, is that the high perils, pleasures, and creative joys of life do not occur on the high road of life, but only in certain crooked and rambling by-paths made entirely by people who have lost their way. As yet they have not even begun to prove it; and in any case, and in every sense, it could be disproved by a baby.

XXXI. On Sightseeing

I HAVE often done my best to consider, in various aspects, what is really the matter with Sightseeing. Or rather, I hope, I have done my best to consider what is the matter with me, when I find myself faintly fatigued by Sightseeing. For it is always wiser to consider not so much why a thing is not enjoyable, as why we ourselves do not enjoy it. In the case of Sightseeing, I have only got so far as to be quite certain that the fault is not in the Sights and is not in the Sightseers. This would seem to drive the speculative philosopher back upon the dreadful and shocking conclusion that the fault is entirely in me. But, before accepting so destructive a deduction, I think there are some further modifications to be made and some further distinctions to be drawn.

The mere fact that a mob is going to see a monument ought not in itself to depress any imaginative and sympathetic mind. On the contrary, such a mind ought to perceive that there is something of the same mystery or majesty in the mob as in the monument. It is a weakness to fail in feeling that a statue standing on a pedestal above a street, the statue of a hero, carved by an artist, for the honour and glory of a city, is, so far as it goes, a marvellous and impressive work of man. But it is far more of a weakness to fail in feeling that a hundred statues walking about the street, alive with the miracle of a mysterious vitality, are a marvellous and impressive work of God. In so far as that ultimate argument affects the matter, the sightseer might almost as well travel to see the sightseers as to see the sights. There are, of course, vulgar and repulsive sightseers. There are, for that matter, vulgar and repulsive statues. But this cannot be a complete excuse for my own lamentable coldness; for I have felt it creeping over me in the presence of the most earnest and refined sightseers, engaged in inspecting the most classical and correct statues. Indeed (if I must make the disgraceful confession in the interests of intellectual discovery), I will own that I have felt this mysterious wave of weariness pass over me rather more often when the elegant and distinguished Archdeacon was explaining the tombs to the Guild of Golden Thoughts than when an ordinary shouting showman was showing them to a jolly rabble of trippers with beer bottles and concertinas. I am very much troubled with this unnatural insensibility of mind; and I have made many attempts, none of them quite successful, to trace my mental malady to its origin. But I am not sure that some hint of the truth may not be found in the first popular example that I gave— the example of a statue standing in a street.

Now, men have stuck up statues in streets as part of the general and ancient instinct of popular monumental art, which they exhibited in erecting pillars, building pyramids, making monoliths and obelisks, and such things, from the beginning of the world. And the conception may be broadly stated thus—that this sort of sight was meant for two different kinds of sightseers. First, the monument was meant to be seen accidentally; it was actually set up purposely in order to be seen accidentally. In other words, a striking tower on a hill, an arresting statue on a pedestal, a remarkable relief over an archway, or any other piece of public art, was intended for the traveller, and even especially for the chance traveller. It was meant for the passer-by, perhaps in the hope that he would not merely pass by; perhaps in the hope that he would pause, and possibly even meditate. But he would be meditating not only on something that he had never seen before, but on something that he had never expected to see. The statue would almost spring out upon him like a stage brigand. The archway would arrest him and almost bar his path like a barricade. He would suddenly see the high tower like a sort of signal; like a rocket suddenly sent up to convey a message, and almost a warning. This is the way in which many popular monuments have been seen; and this, some may agree with me in thinking, is pretty much the best way to see them. No man will ever forget the sights he really saw when he was not a sightseer. Every man remembers the thing that struck him like the thunderbolt of an instant, though it had stood there waiting for him as the memorial of an aeon. But, whether or no this be the best way of treating popular memorials, it is not the only way, and certainly has not been the only popular way. Historic relics, as a whole, have been treated differently in history as a whole. But, in history as a whole, the other way of seeing such sights was not what we commonly call sightseeing.

We might put the point this way: that the two ways of visiting the statue or the shrine were the way of the Traveller and the way of the Pilgrim. But the way of the Pilgrim almost always involved the way of the Pilgrimage. It was a ritual or ceremonial way: the way of a procession which had indeed come to see that shrine, but had not come to see anything else. The pilgrim does not feel, as the tourist does often quite naturally feel, that he has had his tour interrupted by something that does not happen to interest him. The pilgrimage must interest him, or he would never have been a pilgrim. He knows exactly what he wants to do; and, what is perhaps even more valuable, he knows for certain when he has done it. He cannot be dragged on from one thing to another; from one thing that interests him mildly to another thing that bores him stiff. He has undertaken a certain expedition with a certain logical end: an end both in the sense of a purpose and in the sense of a termination. For a certain mystical reason of his own he wanted to visit a certain monument or shrine; and, now lie has visited it, he is free to visit the nearest public-house or any other place he pleases.

But all this is altered, because we have passed from the age of monuments to the age of museums. We have been afflicted with the modern idea of collecting all sorts of totally different things, with totally different types of interest, including a good many of no apparent interest at all, and stuffing them all into one building, that the stranger may stray among a hundred distracting monuments or the pilgrim be lost among a hundred hostile shrines. When the traveller saw the statue of the hero, he did not see written on the pedestal: ‘This way to the Collection of Tropical Fungi’, in which he possibly felt no interest at all. When the pilgrim found his way to the shrine, he did not find that the priest was eagerly waving him on to a glass case filled with the specimens of the local earthworms. Fungi and earthworms may be, and indeed are, exceedingly interesting things in themselves; but they are not things which men seek in the same mood which sends them to look at the statues of heroes or the shrines of saints. With the establishment of that entirely modern thing, the Museum, we have a new conception, which, like so many modern conceptions, is based on a blunder in psychology and a blindness to the true interests of culture. The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self-education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal. It is meant for the mere Sightseer, the man who must see all the sights.

Of course, I am only speaking of this kind of sight as it affects this kind of sightseer. I do not deny that museums and galleries and other collections serve a more serious purpose for specialists who can select special things. But the modern popular practice of which I complain is bad, not because it is popular, but because it is modern. It was not made by any of the ancestral instincts of mankind; either the instinct that erected the crucifix by the wayside, to arrest the wayfarer, or the instinct that erected the crucifix in the cathedral to be the goal of the worshipper. It is not a product of popular imagination, but of what is called popular education; the cold and compulsory culture which is not, and never will be, popular.

XXXII. On Condiments and Conduct

I HAVE always wondered why there is no New Religion forbidding the use of salt and pepper; not to mention the more monstrous case of mustard. I cannot understand how it is that no Moral Movement, no deeper stirring of social consciousness, no wave of higher citizenship and devotion to the ideal of Service, has appeared to start some people interfering with other people in the use of condiments— of all those pungent luxuries with which an effete and self-indulgent civilization has hitherto complicated its meals; taking salt with eggs, mustard with beef, pepper with mutton, and all sorts of strange, unnatural sauces with everything else. Surely there ought to be a Crusade against these things, since a Crusade is now commonly held to mean an attack upon some habit of Christian civilization. Very little would be needed to set the Puritans, who are above all Manicheans, denouncing these things exactly as they now denounce beer or tobacco, and are, indeed, already beginning to denounce coffee and tea. In contradiction of the advertisement recently so common, we should see the town plastered with the words ‘Join the No-Mustard Club’. By a slight emendation of Scripture (which is nothing to the devout Puritan) we should be told that the salt which has not lost its savour is fit only to be cast forth and trampled under foot of men.

Such a Puritan version of salt in the Gospel would be far less impudent than the Puritan version of wine in the Gospel. In a hundred ways we should be assured of the corrupting and degrading character of these condiments; and terrible stories would be told of ruined families weltering in anchovy sauce as if in gore, or darker stories of that darker drug, the sauce that bears the name of Worcester. I could myself, on the spur of the moment, easily make up all sorts of arguments and illustrations as convincing against condiments as others are against convivial liquors. I could point out that the old proverb about taking strange stories ‘with a grain of salt’ was itself an evidence of the connexion between strange substances and strange delusions, and bring out the result that salt is really a sort of opium. I could point out that the very fact of mustard being hot in the mouth is analogous to the old phrase about ginger being hot in the mouth, which has come to be a sort of euphemism for vice or violent self-indulgence. I could point out that pepper is actually used by criminals as something to fling in the faces of their pursuers, to blind and choke them. So that the pepper-pot takes its place in the police museum as being both a weapon of crime and an instrument of torture.

It seems as sensible to argue that some criminals make a bad use of pepper as to argue that some drunkards make a bad use of port wine. For those who sneer at tobacco may be expected, in the same sense, to sniff at snuff, and presumably to snivel over pepper, for a great part of their moral eloquence consists of sniffing and snivelling. Nothing is needed, for most of their moral movements, but a sort of gesture of priggish repugnance and small-minded superiority; and it would be just as easy for a moralist to make that sort of face over a jar of pickles as over a pot of porter. A curious mixture of the snobbish sneering of the middle classes against the working classes, with the more morbid snarling of the invalid against the healthy man, has made a large number of things that are simply common appear merely coarse. So perhaps we may look forward to fresh purifications of society, purging it of all the poisons of pepper and salt and sauce, and reducing it to plain living by this remarkable course of high thinking. Vinegar would be forbidden by the teetotallers, because of its wicked past when it was wine. Mustard would arouse a similar Moslem or Judaic fury, because it is generally eaten with ham. The equality of the sexes, in eternal ethics, would be asserted by saying that there shall be no sauce, either for the goose or for the gander.

By the way, though the point is a parenthesis, what a remarkable anticipation that proverb is of modern muddle-headedness about the sexes! It is, in fact, often used, in the sex controversy, as a metaphor meaning that one sex or sort must in all things be treated like the other. But nothing could be more unlucky than the metaphor, whatever we may think of the moral. If there is one thing to which this argument of sameness or assimilation does not apply, it is to the question of sex in connexion with the solemn question of supper. Suppose the sauce is egg-sauce; am I to wait patiently for eggs from the cock, as an alternative to eggs from the hen? I will not eat cow-beef if I can help it, merely on the ground that what is mustard for the bull is mustard for the cow. Nor will I look for milk from the bull, however much I may recognize the general necessity of milk rather than mustard. It is some thing rather typical of the way these things are treated that people should express their view in proverbs rather than principles. The scientific course is obviously to begin by clearing up the question of what is the real difference between a goose and a gander, and then pointing out that it does not affect the question of sauce, though it may very much affect the question of something else. But this laborious method is very unpopular with a generation which thinks that self-assertion is a complete substitute for self-criticism, or, indeed, for any other sort of criticism. In that world we are well acquainted with the sort of goose who possesses very little except sauce.

But this, as I have said, is merely a remark in brackets, in the course of other remarks about other heresies. We are chiefly concerned with the heresy of the Manichees, which has already expressed itself in the denunciation of wine and even tobacco, and might just as well express itself, I would suggest, in the denunciation of mustard or even salt. For the essence of that idea is that every pleasure as such is suspect; or that, unless a thing can be specially shown to be morally good, it is most probable that it is morally bad. There is no real defence of a luxury except to prove that it is a necessity. Now, it would be much easier to argue, in certain cases, that wine is a necessity than that vinegar is a necessity. There are certain practical good effects sometimes produced by the tobacco plant which are very seldom produced by the pepper plant. The enemies of these drinks or drugs, as they would call them, may think that the evil of them enormously outweighs the good; so enormously as to justify their extinction as pure evils. But they could not deny that the drug is a drug; in the double sense in which a drug is normally regarded as good and evil. They could not deny that such a thing is a drug, both in the sense of something consumed by a drug-fiend and of something sold by a druggist. They may think it unwise to use it for an immediate remedy, but it is used for an immediate remedy. Smoking has been known to serve for some time as a substitute for eating, and a cigarette does sometimes soothe the nerves of a neurotic. Brandy and champagne are constantly administered in illness, except among rank and raving lunatics. But I have seldom heard of an invalid leaping to life after a draught of anchovy sauce; or of anybody eating pepper for days on end; or of people in hysterics being quieted with pickles. If it ever comes to the old Manichean controversy about useless luxuries, I think it will be harder to defend the condiments than to defend the stimulants, or even the intoxicants. I am presuming that such Puritans will carry out the moral philosophy that is really at the back of their minds; it does not affect me, for I have quite a different moral philosophy at the back of my mind. It would occupy too much space to expound it here, and I have often enough expounded it elsewhere. But it might be indicated by saying that there is a truth behind the joke of the man who said: ‘Give us the luxuries of life and we will dispense with the necessities’; and the truth can be more soberly stated by saying that, in one sense, human beings are not even completely human, until they are civilized.

XXXIII. On Optimism and Scepticism

I SUPPOSE people will go on till the crack of doom saying (as somebody said the other day) that Browning expressed the opinion that God is in His heaven and therefore all is right with the world. I could mention a number of other opinions that Browning expressed, in exactly the same method and degree. I could point out that Browning said, in his gay and careless fashion: ‘Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?’ doubtless referring to Mrs. Browning. I could note that Browning observed, when brooding on his own immediate course of action: ‘Or there’s Satan … one might venture pledge one’s soul to him.’ It will occur to every reader of the poet that he observed on a celebrated occasion: ‘Lo! lieth flat and loveth Setebos’, presumably prostrating himself upon the carpet in Wimpole Street. It will also be recalled that Browning, after confessing to various frauds and lies, virulently cursed the patron to whom he had confessed them, saying: ‘I only wish I dared burn down the house and spoil your sniggering.’ If these incidents in the life of the poet cause any surprise, it may be well to explain that they are, in fact, incidents in the lives of his characters; and so is the much-quoted phrase about all being ‘right with the world’. It is not a remark made by Browning, but a remark made by Pippa in the dramatic work by Browning. Even those who know that the remark occurs in a lyric do not always know that the lyric occurs in a drama. It has therefore a double right to be considered dramatic. It is a remark made by a particular dramatic character on a particular dramatic occasion, and, above all, for a particular dramatic reason. And the reason is not a desire to show that all is right with the world, but to bring out in sharp contrast the fact that there is a great deal very wrong with it.

So far as that is concerned, the facts (as everybody knows, or ought to know) are these. The idea of the play called ‘Pippa Passes’ is that a very poor girl, on her one solitary holiday, goes singing through the world in a state of perfect innocence and therefore of perfect gaiety. In doing so she crosses various human groups who are the very reverse of innocent or gay, each of whom is at some crisis of crime or sin or sorrow. In each case, as she passes, she sings a song, of which the innocence tingles through them in the form of irony. She passes by a house where a wife has just seduced her lover into murdering her husband, and, by way of the last violence of contrast, sings a little song about the morning being so beautiful that all seems to be right with the world. One would have thought it would have occurred to most readers that Browning was not very likely to think that assassination and adultery were actually examples of the rightness of the world. The point was not, of course, that all was right with the world, but that all was right with Pippa, because she had kept herself unspotted from the world.

It is perhaps worth while to mention this queer old blunder about Browning, and what is called his optimism, because we have since seen a great deal of optimism that is very much less reasonable than his. Browning did, indeed, believe that God is in His heaven, though the mere fact of the song of Pippa would not prove that he did. He did believe in God; and, curiously enough, he is not entirely alone in that, and in some quarters the curious superstition is even spreading anew. But he did not believe that all was right with the world, in the sense that there is no wickedness, madness, or misery in it; his works possibly contain a larger and more varied assortment of blackguards, miscreants, maniacs, and miserably deluded people than those of any writer of his time. If you had gone to Robert Browning with the definite and deliberate doctrine, ‘There is no pain or evil’, he would certainly have classed you among the maniacs. He would very probably have written a long, ingenious, and partly incomprehensible poem about you in blank verse, but your portrait would be even less pleasing than that of Sludge the Medium or Caliban. Yet the same people who go on quoting poor Pippa’s little song as a proof that Browning was absurdly optimistic, have lived to see the preaching of an optimism that he would have thought utterly absurd.

Elsewhere I recently remarked that the new optimism, though it expresses itself in commerce and journalism, and especially in advertisement, probably has, like everything else, its roots in religion. Its essence, or at least its extreme expression, is to be found in what is called Christian Science. Anyhow, it does what Browning and the old optimists never dreamed of doing—it denies the actual reality of evil in experience. At any rate, it maintains that by ignoring evil we can expel it from experience. It is this which is the last phase of philosophy popular in America, and to some extent in England. And it has gone very much further than the human holiday cheerfulness of the poor Italian work-girl in Browning’s poem. For one thing, the American optimist especially insists that the work-girl shall sing optimistically about her work, as well as about her holiday. She must sing a new song of optimism even as she labours; to the effect that the Boss is in his office and all is right with the world.

Curiously enough, all this new sort of optimism can be traced back to a sort of scepticism which is very much nearer to pessimism. It may almost, in a sense, be traced back to a great pessimist. Nobody ever accused Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, as depicted by Shakespeare, of being an American optimist. Nobody ever reproached Hamlet with being a hustler, a go-getter, a business man with plenty of pep and sand, an active and animated member of Rotary. But these busy business men are all acting on a philosophical principle drawn from Hamlet, and thoroughly typical of Hamlet: ‘There’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ That is the original germ of Christian Science, but also the original germ of Business Optimism. I believe that those mystics, the members of the American business clubs, go about with large labels or buttons on their coats inscribed with the words ‘Trade is Good’. The savage who thinks he can hurt a man by writing his name in the dust could hardly be more superstitious. But, anyhow, for good or evil, whether it be superstition or science, it marks a belief in the power of words over things, or, if you will, of ideas over realities, which goes far beyond the dreams of the older optimists. Some of this sect of optimists, I believe, recently held a sort of religious ceremony in which they cursed an old woman dressed up as Mrs. Pessimism, and bowed down before a queen called Mrs. Optimism. That does not seem very far from lying flat and loving Setebos.

I protested a short time ago against the abominable slander of suggesting that most Americans are like these people. Most Americans laugh at them, even more derisively and destructively than we do. America may be a country of strange sects, but it is also a country of almost continuous satire on strange sects. Nobody needs to add anything to the satire of Mark Twain and some more recent writers on people like Mrs. Eddy. But it is worthy of remark that America has given birth, among many other strange sects, to this strange sect of the commercial optimist, who may perhaps be best defined as the Unrealist. The creed is perhaps the corruption of many good things, of the ancient American hope and pioneering courage gone wild. But, as there seems a tendency, even in England, to boost this mere religion of boosting, an Englishman may be allowed to protest that it is preposterously unsuited to England and is not really respected even in America. Christian Science may or may not start with the assumption that God is in His heaven and all is right with the world; it is a subject for a respectful debate with Christian Scientists. But Christianity emphatically began with the assumptions that God has come on earth because all is wrong with the world; and from those two things the whole Christian theory proceeds.

XXXIV. On Thoughts in Canada

I NEED not say what any normal Englishman feels, or ought to feel, when he sails up the St. Lawrence, under the high trophies on the Heights of Abraham, and I have never affected any new abnormality about such feeling. My thoughts, when I was there, went back in one flash to the little town in the hills of Kent where I had been but a few weeks before: the little town where James Wolfe was born and where his statue still stands, sword in hand, in a romantic but not inappropriate swagger. For Wolfe, who was one of the most interesting of English heroes, was himself a flat contradiction to the vulgar and prosaic version of English heroism. It is strange that people should ever have talked of the English as if they must be heavy, stupid, and brutal. It is still more astounding that they should ever have been proud of being heavy, stupid, and brutal. It would be nothing to be proud of; and, in fact, it is not even there for them to be ashamed of. In historical fact, it is a very recent affectation: a mixture of the bad fashion of copying Prussia and the growth of a modern materialism which is solemn about sports because it has no other rites to solemnize.

Englishmen were more sportive about sports in the days of General James Wolfe; and the battle of the Heights of Abraham was won on the village green, with very rotten old bats and stumps. And the men who represented England, in the days when her Empire was really an adventure, were the very opposite of the sort of stuck pigs who are called strong, silent men. Nelson and Wolfe, the two noblest names of England’s action by land and sea, were both of them men of exactly the opposite kind: sensitive, poetical, even cursed with what is called the artistic temperament. Nelson suffered from something which is even worse than the artistic temperament— sea-sickness. Wolfe was of the slight and high-strung sort, and owed nothing of his bravery to brutality. He was himself, I believe, an artist with the pencil, of considerable felicity and talent: he was devoted to books, and, whether he did or did not quote Gray’s Elegy as he sailed up the St. Lawrence to death and glory, it was exactly the sort of thing he would have done. But there is another aspect of the fine culture and dignity in Wolfe and the earlier English heroes which seems to me to teach a sad but salutary lesson. As I sailed past Quebec, I was told by a fellow-traveller a thing I had never heard before, which moved me very much. With all our talk of globe-trotting and sightseeing, it seems to me that some of the finest sights of the globe are neglected or not appreciated. It was only by such a casual stranger that I was once told, what I hope is the truth, that on the mountain range between two South American Republics, which had made peace with each other, there stands a colossal figure of Christ; apparently one of the largest, and surely one of the most impressive, statues in the world. But it stands, if it does stand, alone and enormous upon the mountains.

Somewhat in the same way I had seen many tributes to Wolfe, of a worthy or unworthy sort. I had seen him in patriotic posters, figuring side by side with people whom he would have intensely disliked, such as Cecil Rhodes. But it was only this chance information which informed me that a monument has been set up on that high place to Wolfe and Montcalm together, with a fine Latin inscription saying that fate gave to them the same death and the same honour.

And when I thought of that worthy commemoration, of those two great and gallant soldiers, it occurred to me that they were, in truth, nearer together, even in their lifetime, than most of their kindred are to-day. There were real differences, of course; Montcalm was a noble and Wolfe a man of the middle classes, risen by merit; but their notion of the manners, the code of honour, and the necessary information of a gentleman would have been very much the same. Neither would have thought it odd for a soldier to go about quoting poetry; both would have thought it quite ordinary and obvious to be quoting Horace. I fancy there was a far wider division, at the beginning of the Great War, between French and Foch. The older generals were nearer together as enemies than the modern generals were as allies. By which I do not mean to refer to any of the quarrels about quarrels, the reports of rivalries or irritations in the higher command, which occur in all wars, and can easily occur between fellow-countrymen. I mean that the whole make-up of the mind of a man like Foch was more exclusively French, and more puzzling to a man who was exclusively English, than was a great continental noble to a scholarly Englishman like Wolfe. The Latin of Horace was a link between two eighteenth-century gentlemen, whether French or English. The Latin of the Mass, as heard by a French soldier, is not a link with the Latin of the Latin grammar as vaguely remembered by an English soldier.

We are perpetually being told to-day that nations are drawing nearer to each other; Mr. Wells is supposed to be engaged in an Open Conspiracy in the matter; I can only say that, if it is open, it is not at all obvious. I grieve to say that I gravely doubt it. I fear that the French and English, at this moment, understand each other a great deal less than they did not only when they were allies in the Great War, but even when they were enemies in the older and lesser wars. Indeed, the farther we go back the closer the French and English come together. The Black Prince and Bertrand Duguesclin were even more capable of understanding each other than Montcalm and Wolfe. That would not, of course, have prevented them from killing each other, which was all in the game. But they would have agreed much more about the rules of the game, and especially about the rules of the killing. The truth is, of course, that France and England were very nearly one nation in the Middle Ages; at least, in the early Middle Ages. The English kings especially were always trying to make them one nation; but then it must be remembered that, in a sense, even the English kings were French kings.

Now, I do not wish myself to make England and France one nation; my views on that subject are the same as those energetically advanced by St. Joan of Arc. But I do think it a fitting subject for sober and prayerful consideration, whether with invocations to St. George or St. Denis, to St. Joan the fighter or St. Francis the peacemaker, that these two great Western nations have steadily drifted further and further apart through the centuries, and are now so very far apart as they are. The national division is really dangerous when it cuts across all other differences, and is really much deeper than they. There have always been strong hatreds against special types or tendencies, such as much of the medieval world felt against the Moslem or much of the modern world feels against the Bolshevist. But, though men may hate Russia because of Bolshevism, they do not hate France because of Republicanism or Roman Catholicism, or any one definable intellectual idea.

The ordinary Englishman does not understand either the French Republican or the French Royalist; he is equally mystified by the French atheist and the French Catholic. The English Radical cannot comprehend the French Radical; the Englishman who is most loyal to his own monarch is utterly ignorant of the French case for a return to monarchy. Yet France is still what she always was, the intellectual focus and creative crater of Christendom; the place where the ideas are hammered out and tested which are to build or to destroy a world. Those who do not understand what is happening in Paris are dangerously ignorant of what will soon be happening everywhere; for all Frenchmen are Radicals in the sense of going to the roots of things, and none more Radical than the Royalist. And it seems to me a very menacing and perilous thing that we have lost, so much as we have, that one flash of the ancient Western understanding which shone for an instant on the marching armies of the Marne.

XXXV. On the Bad Word for Guild

IT is a very old controversial custom to give a dog a bad name, which is generally the more learned scientific name for a cat. It is then, of course, a comparatively easy and natural matter to nail him up as a bat or a barn-door owl. Such fantasies of logic are the commonplaces of controversial history. The most usual form of the process, as we all know, is to fix some person with a definite label, and then proceed to deduce everything from the label and nothing from the person. I have experienced this, in my own small way often enough. Somebody will write: ‘Mr. Chesterton is a medievalist; and he is therefore quite justified (from his own benighted standpoint) in indulging as he does, in the sport of tearing out the teeth of Jews, burning hundreds of human beings alive, and perpetually seeking for the Philosopher’s Stone.’ But I never said I was a medievalist; and I have only the very vaguest idea of what it would mean. But I have a very vivid and definite idea of what I mean. And what I mean does not involve providing free dentistry for Jews; though indeed there is only one doubtful tale of King John doing to one Jew what it is now considered highly hygienic to do to everybody. Nor does it include seeking for the Philosopher’s Stone; though it might involve seeking, somewhat wearily, for the Philosopher. The simple truth, which some people, seem to find it so difficult to understand or to believe, is that what a reasonable man believes in is not this or that period, with all its ideas, good or bad, but in certain ideas that may happen to have been present in one period and relatively absent from another period. But nothing can convince his critics that he does not think in terms of hats and coats and caps and feathers and jerkins and hooded robes. Nothing will convince them that he thinks in terms of thought.

A very good working example is in the word Guild. As a matter of fact, it is the moderns and not the medievals who use the word in a romantic and irrational way. Anything in the world may be called a Guild nowadays: a society for picking up orange-peel may be the Guild of the Golden Gleaners; or a company of pierrots performing at Margate and Ramsgate may be the Guild of the Ghostly Guitars; or a movement for muzzling cats as well as dogs may be a Guild for Equal Rights for Four-Footed Friends. But whenever we, who are accused of this mysterious medievalism, happen to say a word in favour of the Guild idea, nobody seems to imagine for a moment that it is really an idea. Now, as a matter of fact, it is an idea, and in that sense nothing less or more than an idea. It is an economic and ethical theory for the construction of certain parts of society; and it has nothing in the world to do with the romance or ritual externals or picturesque costume of that society. To say that you believe in Guilds is like saying that you believe in Trusts, or in State Ownership, or in Syndicalism, or in any other definite way of managing certain matters of trade and employment and exchange. In my opinion, the Middle Ages were fortunate in having begun to develop industry in this way. But the Middle Ages were extremely unfortunate in many other ways; and not least in being ultimately unable to develop it. But if anybody says that I merely behold, as in a dream, ideal craftsmen in coloured garments carving exquisite masterpieces, or happy apprentices dancing round the maypole or distributing the Christmas ale, then he is a hundred miles away from the point at issue. The case for the Guild has nothing to do with the romance of medievalism; nothing whatever.

The theory of a Guild, as distinct from Socialism as generally defined, and Capitalism as at present practised, is simply this. The men working in a particular trade remain independent tradesmen; in the sense that they are independent and therefore up to a point competitive. Each is working for himself, with his own capital or machinery, and in that sense each is working against the others. But each has entered into an agreement with the others, that he will not compete past a certain point or work against the others in certain unfair and forbidden ways. In other words, there is a competition, but it is a deliberately limited competition; or, if you will, an artificially limited competition. The object is perfectly simple: that it should remain a competition, and not merely turn into a combine. Capitalist competition, which started avowedly as unlimited competition, has only been running freely for about a hundred years, and everywhere it has turned into a combine. I use the word combine as a polite convention; for, of course, we all know that it involves no equality of combination. The true story of the thing is that when all the shops are let loose to compete anyhow and everywhere, by any method good or bad, one shop swallows all the rest. To speak more rightly and worthily, one man swallows all the rest. It is very often, by the nature of the competition, the worst shop and the worst man.

Now the Guild method is no more medieval than it is modern, in so far as it is a principle apart from time. The best proof is that it does still exist in a practical profession with which we are all acquainted. The Doctor, the ordinary general practitioner, whom most of us know and to whom many of us owe our lives, is a typical example of the member of a Guild. He is not a Socialist official; he is not a State servant; he is an example of private enterprise. That is to say, he owns his own lancet and stethoscope; he has to buy his own practice; he does in a certain degree compete with the men of his own trade. But he is forbidden to compete with them by certain methods; he is forbidden to drive another doctor out of his practice by certain expedients of self-assertion or self-advertisement.; he has to observe towards his fellow-doctor a certain respect and consideration. He has to do this because he has joined a Guild or confraternity, which exists for the maintenance of the members of his profession as a whole. Its definite and deliberate policy is to keep all the doctors in existence, as far as possible, and prevent one of them destroying all the rest. Once it is admitted that a man may use any methods of advancement and advertisement, the chances are that about twenty honest doctors will be swallowed up by one quack. We know this is what has happened in journalism and in commerce, and in any number of other things.

It is also to be noted that the other side of the old Guild idea, which balances this idea of preserving the small man in independence, the idea of testing him as to his claims to such independence, is also true of the modern doctor, as of the medieval Master. It is often regretted that Trade Unions do not insist, as did the Guilds, on a standard of work and finish. They cannot do so under modern conditions, because they exist to contend with another and specially modern evil. But it is quite true that, before the Guild protected a man from unfair competition, it examined him in the mastery of his craft; and all that obviously corresponds to modern medical examinations and medical degrees. Now a man may quite reasonably disapprove of this system, just as I, in my own opinion, quite reasonably approve of it. He may say quite truly that it has evils of its own. He may say quite tenably that in his view those evils outweigh the good. But his attitude is neither true nor tenable if he pretends that the case for this social system is a mass of romantic rubbish about the perfect beauty of the Middle Ages. He is simply making a fool of himself when he talks of the method by which all the most modern surgery accomplished and all the most novel medical theories advanced as if it were a mere fantastic dream of bringing back falconry and tilting-armour; or as if nobody could trust Sir Stanley Hewett or Sir Thomas Horder without wanting to wave a pennon or wear a tabard.

XXXVI. On Sophistication

SOME are complaining that the rising generation is sophisticated; and it is true that some members of it are too sophisticated even to believe in sophistry. They believe in nothing; which I suppose is one way of returning to simplicity. The golden age of the sophists was somewhere about the last half of the nineteenth century. The Victorians were lectured and led a dance by any number of sophists; but that was because the Victorians were unsophisticated. They believed the most crazy paradoxes; as that it was more practical not to be logical; which is like saying that we should make sure of having a chain and not bother whether it consists of missing links. They believed that men must always have the same morality, though they had a new religion or no religion; that is, they said that what was done now for a definite reason would be done indefinitely for no reason. Those sturdy Saxon ideas were all sophistries; but that did not mean that the sturdy Saxon who accepted them was necessarily a sophist. What I think has really happened, in the ease of the more sophisticated youth of to-day, is that they have become sceptical of everything, including scepticism. And though two blacks do not make a white, it has sometimes been known, in grammar and philosophy, that two negatives make a positive. So that the sophisticated youth who has seen through the sophistical old men, may even yet see something worth seeing.

But there is one way in which the young seem to me not sophistical but very simple; and there is one type or section of them that is sufficiently simple to be called silly. A great deal of the current cult of pleasure, of luxury, of liberty in love, and all the rest of it, appears to me to be perfectly childish and childish in the literal sense that it is greedy without any grasp of consequences. I read novels and poems in which the seeker after pleasure simply goes on saying, over and over again: ‘I must have Happiness. I must have Life. I must have Love. Why do you reproach me because I cannot live without passing from ecstasy to ecstasy?’ This seems to me about as simple as the speech of a savage who should say: ‘I must have Gin. I like Gin. I like more and more Gin. Why will you not instantly provide me with a hundred bottles of Gin?’ It does not seem to require much intellectual strenuousness to say this. It is, like other simple things, quite true as far as it goes. But in the matter of connected thought and the sense of consequence it does not go very far. Gin does make a man happy; up to a point more gin will make him more happy; but even more gin will make him many other things as well. By a succession of phases not contemplated by the philosopher in his first phase, it will make him first drunk, then dead drunk, and then dead to the world, and then very possibly dead altogether. That also seems to be a simple truth, requiring no great subtlety; but the savage cannot see it, and the sex novelist cannot see it. He cannot see, what nearly everybody in history has hitherto seen, that there are certain laws and limits to the mind, as there are certain laws and limits to the body. There is such a thing as concentration; there is such a thing as contrast; there is such a thing as proportion; there is emphatically such a thing as boredom. Above all, there is such a thing as a contradiction in terms; and it is a contradiction in terms to have every moment a crisis, every event an escapade, every fact an exception, every person an eccentric, every day a holiday, or society an endless Saturnalia. If people try to do that, they will find it dull; just as certainly as, if they drink unlimited gin, we shall find them drunk. If you do literally paint the town red, you will not be able to use it as a background, either to the red flag of Bolshevism or the red flower of a blameful life. If you do literally go on till all is blue, you will not be able to distinguish the special and delicate blueness even of the decadents’ blue roses and blue wine. These are laws of the mind, analogous to laws of the eye. And the laws of the eye are not altered by everybody putting on the same sort of horned spectacles, that each one of them may look separate and distinguished.

But there is one particular form of this modern simplicity that has always puzzled me very much. I mean the way in which those who dislike certain old things, such as war or discipline or various forms of danger, talk about ending them without asking how they begin. They always assume an association between these things, which none of us particularly likes, and other things which they particularly dislike. They say, for instance, that kings or capitalists, or some other privileged class, have invented flags and frontiers, that we may be drilled to defend them with guns and bayonets. They do not seem to see that they might need the guns and bayonets even if they were not defending the frontiers and flags. They might need them if they were defending anything. They might need them if they were defending their own ideal social state. And, as a matter of historical fact, they always do find that they need them to defend the very state that was invented to do away with them. But I am very much puzzled by the childlike simplicity with which idealists walk into this trap. It was true to some extent of the eighteenth century republicans, though those old republicans were a hundred times more intelligent than most of our twentieth century sceptics. Still, some of those charming philosophical gentlemen, of the age of Rousseau and Voltaire, did tend to talk as if the Natural Man would find it easy to break the sword when once he had broken the sceptre. They did talk as if nobody but kings would ever want cannons, and battles could only arise out of the dynastic ambitions of despotic states. We all know the ironic but very inspiring sequel. The sequel was that the Republic was born amid the roar of its own cannons; that it could only manage to survive by fighting battle after battle with merciless valour and armies growing more military every day; until the final fury of that militancy sent forth the greatest warrior of the world.

In the face of this example, the Bolshevists did exactly the same. In face even of the Bolshevist example, our own English Communists are doing exactly the same. The Russian revolutionists also began by being pacifists. They also set all their hopes on merely dissolving the discipline of the despotic armies. They also seem never to have reflected that they would want to have revolutionist armies, if only to fight the despotic armies. And of course, in an incredibly short period of time, they found out the very simple fact that revolutionists cannot be pacifists. They may set up what they call a peaceful republic, but they have to make up their minds what to do, if other people will not leave it in peace.

Suppose the Utopian has founded his Utopia, and another country makes war on Utopia. What, when all is said and done, is he to do? Is he to allow his perfect state (or what he is so simple as to think his perfect state) to be destroyed and disappear? Or is he to defend it by the only weapons that will defend it? One would think this dilemma was so staringly obvious that anybody must have seen it from the very first. That dilemma has nothing in the world to do with crowns or sceptres or capitalism or private property. Let anybody imagine any sort of simplified society, and I can imagine it being attacked. That fact seems simple enough for an infant to see. Yet I have read scores of young pacifist poets and prophets who could not see it. That is an example of what I mean by a sort of simplicity almost more exasperating than sophistry. That is a case of the same sort of simplicity as supposing that cocktails can be unlimited or gate-crashing continue when there are no gates.

XXXVII. On Dress and Decorum

T HE newspapers very frequently, perhaps too frequently, describe to us the Victorian Girl, who was always covered with blushes and confusion. On the other hand, the Modern Girl has more and more of the confusion, as she has less and less of the blushes. Confusion of thought, confusion of phraseology, confusion of philosophy, deepen and darken upon her as she advances into what she regards as the daylight, or the sunlight of the Sun Cure. She and all her world seem to have got into a hopeless chaos about deciding the real principles of convention and civilization. Whatever theory we may hold, we find that she holds all the theories and none of the theories; that her theories contradict each other and cancel out. The ordinary argument in the newspapers, on the subject of Dress and Decorum, for instance, is a hash of half a hundred inconsistent philosophies. It may be worth while that some of them should be sorted out, before there are too many of them to be counted.

To begin with, there is the great contradiction that the modern person pretends to be at once too innocent and too sophisticated. First he says that certain sins are so remote and repulsive that only a low-minded spy would suspect their existence. Then he goes on to say that these sins are not so very bad, even if they exist. He shouts at the top of his voice ‘To the pure in heart all things are pure’; and then goes on to explain that there is really no such thing as purity. He calls the moralist a Puritan, as the most withering of all terms of abuse; which is very amusing to some of us, who remember how recently we were called upon to admire the Puritanism of the Mayflower and the execution of Charles the First, and to pardon the massacre of Wexford and the witch-smelling of Salem merely because they were Puritan. He describes any decent citizen as Nosey Parker or (with a touch of fierce anti-feminism) as Mrs. Grundy; all with the object of suggesting that nobody but a person with an impure imagination could see anything but spotless purity in the pagan habits of our time.

Well, all that is applicable enough, when there is really anybody to apply it to. I have myself protested against Puritanism and Parkerism and the sour vigilance that would arrest the amusements of the populace. I entirely agree that it is disgusting to be nosey about anything that is normal; such as dancing or swimming, considered in themselves. My position on that point is what it has always been, and my position is perfectly clear. But the position of the New Pagan is not in the least clear. For the New Pagan attempts to maintain, at the same time, that the real violation of Christian morals is unimportant to the Pagan moralist. But in that case, how can it be wrong for the Christian moralist to accuse the Pagan moralist? The Christian cannot be merely morbid in saying that sin is involved, if the Pagan says that sin is irrelevant even if it is involved. I may be mad if I accuse my friend Smith of stealing the spoons, when he is a respectable person with the ordinary respect for private property. But I cannot be morbidly and insanely malicious when I say he might steal the spoons, if he says himself that he will steal the spoons. I may call it being a thief, and he may call it being a Class-conscious Communist Expropriator. But it is absurd to pretend that property does not matter, and then to be indignant at the charge of thinking it does not matter. It is equally absurd to deny propriety as to deny property, and then to say that only a fiend would suspect you of disregarding the property or propriety that you deny.

This is an obvious example of the modern muddle, but it is an annoying one. Whether certain acts are wicked or no we will debate when the statement is clearly made to us. But a thing cannot be so wicked that it is insane to suggest it, and so innocent that it is blameless to do it. There are, however, a large number of other confusions which any clear-thinking man can see in the modern commentary. We talk about the pagan philosophy; but the trouble with our own pagans is that they have no philosophy. We talk, by a sort of habit, about Modern Thought, forgetting the familiar fact that moderns do not think. They only feel, and that is why they are so much stronger in fiction than in facts; why their novels are so much better than their newspapers. The current comment on all these things is not even pagan; it is the queerest sort of patchwork of pagan and purely Christian ideas.

For instance, somebody is sure to say in the debate about Decorum: ‘Is not the human body beautiful?’ To which somebody a little more sensible will be quite entitled to answer ‘No’. If he is a Scot, and therefore a Socratic philosopher, he will be entitled to answer the question with a question, and say: ‘Is the hippopotamus beautiful?’ The hippopotamus is certainly natural, even if he looks unnatural. He is certainly naked, and accepts no regulations about bathing-tents or bathing-costumes. But the mere fact that he is natural does not make us, in the ordinary sense, admit that he is beautiful. Personally, for my own part, I think he is beautiful; but then, I have a Gothic taste for the grotesque, nourished upon gargoyles. I know what I mean by saying that gargoyles may be beautiful. But the modern materialists do not know what they mean by saying that men must be beautiful.

All that talk about the divinity and dignity of the human body is stolen from theology, and is quite meaningless without theology. It dates from the Garden of Eden, and the idea (which I happen to hold firmly) that God created Man in His own image. But, if you remove that religious idea, there is no more sense in saying that every human being is lovely than in saying that every hippopotamus is lovely. It is a matter of taste; and many of us, after watching a sufficient number of human beings at Brighton, might prefer the hippopotamus.

The old atheists had a theory of life, that could be stated as a connected train of thought. The old theologians had a theory of life, that could be stated as a connected train of thought. But the moderns who call themselves Pagans have no connected theory that can be stated at all. Their view of life is a hotch-potch of human and superhuman and subhuman ideas, collected everywhere and connected nowhere. The modern muddler likes to think he is the Superman; likes to think he is the image of God; likes to think as he pleases; but prefers not to think at all. If he had the humility to behave like a beast, we should at least be free from the obligation to regard him as a god. We should not be bound to admit that every beast is beautiful; having religious doubts, perhaps, about the hippopotamus or the hornbill. If he would clearly and consistently aspire to beauty, we might ask him to add to it a little dignity. But in fact he has returned to chaos, where there is no asking, nor is there any answer. If man comes out of chaos, by blind evolution or merely groping growth, there is no more sense in calling his body noble than in calling any lump of fungus or cactus noble. If it is noble, it is so by some patent of nobility; and nobility is conferred by a King. But I advise such writers to defer the study of the Body and begin to employ the Mind.

XXXVIII. On Algernon Charles Swinburne

I

MOST modern titles and slogans have to say the precise opposite of what they mean, for the sake of brevity. Sometimes the organizers are so sincere as to explain this immediately afterwards and use the sub-title to prove that the title is not true. A little while ago a series of short stories appeared, proclaiming in its editorial title that each author had chosen his best story. But the editor, who evidently suffered from intelligence (and it does sometimes entail suffering) was perfectly well aware that no sane author would say that any one story was absolutely and in all aspects the best; indeed, a sane author is more likely to be hag-ridden with the horrid memory of the worst. So the editor put in a note to explain his own title, which he said was necessary, because it was so much shorter. It is true that the phrase ‘My Best Story’ is very much shorter than the more accurate phrase, ‘I think this story is one of the relatively few by which I might possibly consent that people should judge my general intelligence, such as it is.’ It is also true that the phrase, ‘This story is utter trash,’ is very much shorter than the phrase, ‘This story is not, fairly considered, quite absolute and utter trash.’ But they do not, to say the least of it, mean the same thing. And selecting the shorter would be unwise, even in a publicity expert.

A rather similar problem arose about a recent selection of English essays, made and introduced by the late Lord Birkenhead; it was a very good selection, and it was not alone in suffering from the particular problem. In large letters on the title-page it had to bear the title of ‘The Hundred Best English Essays’; and in the very first words of the introduction Lord Birkenhead very sensibly said that there could not possibly be any such thing as ‘The Hundred Best English Essays’. He proceeded, in a very frank and sympathetic manner, to explain that it was not only impossible for anybody to do anything except make a reasonable collection of very good essays, but that he (for his part) had practically put in all the essays simply because he liked them. I really do not know what else any one can do with essays but like them—except, of course, if one has such darker reactions, dislike them. Of all forms of literature they are perhaps the least to be fitted into the old standards of judgment, by which it was in some sense possible to legislate for the drama or the ode. But, anyhow, there is something a little amusing about the claims of publicity and business requiring us to reverse all that we mean, in order to get anybody to listen to what we say. There is something comic about sacrificing everything to the headline, and letting it insist that the article should stand on its head.

I did not mention this book of essays, however, with the purpose of passing in review all its essays, still less the nature of the essay. I have to thank the compiler for bringing back many good things I may have missed or forgotten; but the one which especially caught my eye and concerns my pen is an excellent study by a critic lately dead of a poet whom he knew well and of whom he writes admirably. I refer to the essay on Swinburne by Sir Edmund Gosse. It contains any amount of matter upon which others could pronounce with much more authority than I. I only met Swinburne once; and though I met Gosse a great many times, I would never claim to have got past the guard of that polished rapier any more than anybody else. I had one letter from him about Stevenson, which I count one of the great honours of my life; for the rest, I was only one of a crowd of younger men to whom he was both ironical and kind. But there is something in the general and very vivid picture of Swinburne which he presents, which makes me inclined to linger perhaps belatedly on that name and on the poetry which, as poetry, was as straight as a singing arrow; but, considered as philosophy, has always puzzled me very much. In other words, if we consider the target of the arrow, we find that there is nothing to consider; it is not even so clear a concentric scheme as a labyrinth; it is rather a labyrinth without a centre.

In plain words, after reading Gosse’s essay again, I asked myself: ‘What on earth did Swinbume mean? Or did he mean anything?’ It is easy enough after reading some of the poems, especially the later, longer and generally lesser poems, to say that he did not mean anything; that he was simply a musician gone wrong; a lunatic with something singing in his head; a creature throbbing with suppressed dancing; a creature who could not help foaming at the mouth with flowers and flames and blood and blossoms and the sea. But it is not easy, after reading Gosse’s essay, to deny that he did in some way take something seriously; and something not himself, if his contemporaries doubted whether it was something for making righteousness. He did take counsel with Landor and Hugo as if they were grave gods making a world of justice or right reason. He did seem really to believe that some Utopia depended on the success of Cavour or the failure of Louis Bonaparte. But exactly how he connected it in his own mind with the queer licentious pessimism, like the last debauch of a suicide, which fills his other verses, I cannot make out; nor how he supposed that anything, even a Utopia, could be made of such flames and foamings. Surely he was not hoping for a republic in which all the citizens should be free to bite each other. Surely the hounds of spring, so hopefully upon winter’s traces, were not all of them frothing at the mouth like mad dogs?

Yet it is his taste in virtue rather than his taste in vice that puzzles me. In the worst and most world-famous of all his lines he wrote something about the raptures and roses of vice and the lilies and languors of virtue. The obvious thing to say is that he cannot have known much about virtue, if he thought it was languid. But, to do him justice, his own appeals to public virtue were anything but languid. When talking of his own favourite type, which used to be called Republican Virtue, he seems to have understood all that Roman dignity and decency which he tore to rags in his ravings about sex. He used another nonsensical tag about somebody being ‘noble and nude and antique’. So good a scholar ought to have known that, in the real world of the antique, a noble would never have desired to be nude. He would have regarded it as the mark, not of a noble, but a slave. In reality Swinburne knew all this; indeed one could hardly be a friend of so very ancient a Roman as Landor without knowing it.

Then, again, the Pagan philosophy he pitted against Christianity is a mass of such inconsistencies. In Songs Before Sunrise he offers Pantheism as the religion of the revolution. Pantheism may or may not be a good creed for a philosopher; Pantheism is certainly in one sense a very good creed for a Pagan philosopher. But Pantheism is a hopeless creed for a revolutionist. If all things are equally divine, then the tyrant and the bigot are as divine as the tribune and the truth-seeker. In ‘Hertha’ he imagines the universe as a vast tree, out of which all things in turn bud and bloom; and then takes refuge in the miserable metaphor of saying that ‘creeds’ are merely worms that have got into the bark—the devil knows how. If all things are equally unfolded from one natural root, the worms of oppression are as natural as the flowers of freedom. If they came otherwise, then the universe is not universal; and the worm in the tree of nature is as theological as the snake in the tree of knowledge. There might indeed be a war of spring sproutings against dead leaves or decayed fruit; but that only means that each is equally good in its season. And what is the good of a revolutionary creed that cannot denounce a tyrant in his season of strength? I believe that this folly of making Pantheism the creed of liberals has a great deal to do with the decline of liberal politics and the reactions against it to-day. Hertha, explaining (at some length) that she is everything, remarks, if I remember right:

I the mark that is missed And the arrows that miss.

It will strike a thoughtful mind that such arrows are rather likely to miss. William Tell will not fight well for Freedom, if he thinks that he and his bow and the target and the tyrant are all the same thing.

II

When I say that Swinburne’s praise of virtue puzzles me more than his praise of vice, I do not (I may respectfully explain) mean that my natural taste in villainy makes me regard it as normal to be a villain, or that my brain reels with mystification when I contemplate any proved and public act of decency. I do not mean that crime is second nature to me, or that I set myself like a sleuth to track down a man and discover why he is not a murderer. What I mean is this: that in the case of Swinburne the loose poetry was really loose. It was flowing, both in form and spirit, and rather after the fashion of the flowing of tears. It was self-expression, but it was not self-assertion; and it certainly was not any other kind of assertion, like the assertion of a definite heresy or sophistry. In so far as there was some thing indefensible, he was not defending it. He was, perhaps, describing it, and it may be a bad thing that such things should be described; but such things are not in any case the materials of a moral or political system. Such hysterical, half-involuntary confession is not uncommon in literature, especially when (as is almost certainly the case with Swinburne) the literary man is confessing what he has never done. Anyhow, over the whole of this department of the poet’s work there is a spirit of appealing and almost engaging despair, a pessimism about the impotence of man. He does not pretend that the pagan gods are good; he only confesses that they are strong—or, in other words, that he is weak. What puzzled me was how he really reconciled this part of his work with the other part, in which he professed to see a new hope for men in the virile and universal Republic, in which men should become heroes in becoming citizens. There is hardly a hopeful line in Songs Before Sunrise that could not be answered with a hopeless line from Poems and Ballads. Perhaps the most musical and magical verse in ‘Dolores’ is that in open glorification of ‘the implacable beautiful tyrant’; and what is the use, after that, of denouncing all tyrants as implacable? What is the good of remaining rigid with horror of Napoleon, when you have flung yourself in a lyric ecstasy before Nero? What is the use of saying that you bring seed by night to sow, that men to come may reap and eat by day, when it is apparently so very easy for anybody at any moment to be tired of ‘what may come hereafter to men that sow and reap’? What is the sense of shouting about crowning man as the king of all things, if ‘the crown of his life, as it closes, is darkness; the fruit thereof dust’?

Nevertheless, there is another sense in which I would not dwell harshly upon the looser type of verse, as part of the real problem of this strange personality. I say that the poet in the poem does not defend himself. The poet in prose was less wise, and defended himself indefensibly. I do not care so much as Gosse did for the ranting and railing prose in which Swinburne accused his critics of being unjust to him; nevertheless, I think that they were unjust to him. I do not mean that he was right; but I do mean that they were wrong. The critics were wrong in the worst way in which a critic can be wrong about a poem: in being wrong about the point of it. The poem may contain a great deal that is pointless or beside the point; it may contain a great deal that is lawless and shameless and really at enmity with morals—in which case I am so old-fashioned as to think that it ought to be denounced and even destroyed as such. But even in condemning it we must condemn its point; and to condemn its point we must comprehend its point. We must understand what the man has really said, and not hang him as a heretic for saying something he never said. Now much of the wilder part of Poems and Ballads is not meant to describe merely a rush towards the antics of animal love, but a reaction from the tragedy of true love. The poet, in a morbid mood of mockery, is bitterly professing (we might say pretending) to prefer the gutter to the palaces of ideal enchantment, from which he has been cast forth by fickleness or pride. It is not a nice state of mind. it is a very nasty state of mind; but it is that state of mind and no other, and not the state of one who always preferred gutters because he was a gutter-snipe. To put the point shortly, we cannot understand the poem called ‘Dolores’ without reading it side by side with the poem called ‘The Triumph of Time’. For instance, I have condemned, as every sane critic has condemned, all that hydrophobiac nonsense of Swinburne about people ‘biting’ each other. But it is not quite fair, even to that infernal nonsense, to read it without remembering the verse to which it in some sense leads up, and which is the true inner burden of the poem:

In yesterday’s reach and to-morrow’s, Out of sight though they lie of to-day, There have been and there yet shall be sorrows That smite not and bite not in play. The life and the love thou despisest, These hurt us indeed, and in vain— O wise among women, and wisest, Our Lady of Pain.

I do not think the heartless woman is the wisest woman; I venture to doubt whether Swinburne thought so. But Swinburne did say so; and this is what he said; and what he meant was that the pains of a nobler love are so much more terrible that perhaps the coarse person has the best of it, after all. He repeats this main theme again and again in the poem, so that it is incredible that the critics did not see the point, even if they were right to condemn it. He says it plainly in the lines

No thorns go as deep as a rose’s, And love is more cruel than lust; Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses and wives, And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.

And it is then only that he says, in words horrible enough, but with something of a moral horror:

And pale with the past we draw nigh thee And satiate with comfortless hours: And we know thee, how all men belie thee, And we gather the fruit of thy flowers.

Or again, elsewhere:

Of languors rekindled and rallied, Of barren delights and unclean; Things monstrous and fruitless; a pallid And poisonous queen.

This is not praising sin, though it may be practising it. This is rather emphasizing the disgust that is the alternative to the disappointment. It is about as idolatrous as a disappointed lover talking to a bottle of gin, and saying, ‘Damn your ugly face, I believe you’re my only friend, after all!’

I have dwelt a little on this particular point about the poet, because it involves this very vital matter of the point about a poem. Even when it is understood, the attitude may be condemned— indeed, it should be condemned. But it should not be condemned for being something else. It is a morbid view, an unmanly view, a view immoral in its practical effects. But, above all, as seems to me most striking in this connexion, it is the very worst possible view of life for anybody proposing to raise a political revolution and to found a perfect Republic. That is the question which I asked first: why it is that men who seem so keen on reforming the world equip themselves with the worst possible philosophies for doing it? It is hard to say whether poor Swinburne was a more hopeless revolutionist in being a pessimist or in being an optimist. His pantheism could only prove that the worst things are good, because they are a part of nature; and his pessimism only proved that the best things are bad, because they are doomed to disappointment and sorrow. It seems either way a weak motive for dying on a barricade for the belief that one thing is better than another. We need a fixed idea of truth to establish a reign of justice. But though Swinburne could hardly have given justice to men, he has a right to get justice from them. And I say this to show that on one point he did not receive justice—not even the justice that condemns.

III

‘I have lived long enough to have seen one thing; that love hath an end’ : so runs, as every one will remember, the first line of Swinburne’s beautiful ‘Hymn to Proserpine’, the dirge of a Pagan farewell to Paganism. I have lived long enough to have seen one thing: that the love of Swinburne hath an end. Not the admiration for Swinburne, not the reasonable appreciation of Swinburne; but that particular sort of love of Swinburne which is like first love in youth; perhaps (one is sometimes tempted to think) the only sort of real love that Swinburne had ever known anything about. I mean that sort of mere magic spell or enchantment by Swinburne which so many young people had in the period when, as Mr. Maurice Baring has very truly said, Swinburne seems to them not so much the best poet as simply the only poet. That sort of love certainly hath an end, and most of us have lived long enough to have seen it. But it is symbolic of something larger; something that is connected not only with Swinburne but with Swinburnianism.

Any man who has ‘lived long enough’, and not actually stiffened with negative prejudices, must know by this time that the modern movement, and every sort of movement, revolves round and round the central pillar of the old Christian tradition. It is emphatically not leaving that pillar behind and rushing right away towards some other winning-post. He knows it, for the perfectly simple reason that he has seen it careering in two totally opposite directions, and neither of them has succeeded in getting away from the post. He knows by this time, if he is honest with himself, that the whole thing is like a Giddy-go-Round at a country fair; full of rush and romantic enjoyment, but revolving upon one centre that supports all the movement by being immovable. It is a glorious experience for children, and therefore for poets, who share some of the wisdom of children. It consists of concentric rings of hobby-horses, and a hobby-horse, like a hobby, is a very good thing to make a thinking man happy. In most Giddy-go-Rounds there are outer and inner rings of horses, nearer or farther from the centre; and this also is an allegory. In some Giddy-go-Rounds there are revolving rings going opposite ways which greatly increase the godlike quality of giddiness. In youth or childhood especially it is quite natural to be giddy, even if it sometimes begins to approximate to being sick. Of recent literature we might not unfairly say that for the first half of the time most of the modern poets were giddy; and now, in the second half of the time, most of the modern poets are sick.

Anyhow, Swinburne certainly rode his hobby-horse with great fire and galloping energy; but, when he fancied that he was leaving the central pillar of his childhood and his ancestry far behind him, he was really very far from the truth and very close to the pillar. And this is proved by the fact that both poetical and political energy has since galloped in exactly the contrary direction, and is still at about the same distance from the ancestral pillar as before. If anything, the more recent poets have tended to take their seats in the ring rather nearer to the pillar. I imagine that, if a man had gone round during the last ten years asking the young people in the literary world whom they regarded as their hope and hero and leader, as the young of my youth regarded Swinburne, it is about ten to one that most of them would mention Mr. T. S. Eliot. Wilde said that Swinburne was the only true Laureate, for the poet praised by all other poets must always wear the laurel. Laurels and Laureates are not so much in the style of our more cynical and realistic time. But the young would probably support a young writer like Mr. Eliot, even if both the young writer and the young admirers strike older people as being rather prematurely old. Anyhow, the two poets will serve very well for the purpose of the parallel about poetry, or even about polities.

Swinburne was quite certain that he and the world were galloping nearer and nearer to the new Republic and farther and farther from the old Church. If he had been right, it would follow that, by this time, a man like Mr. Eliot would be even more Republican than Swinburne. As a matter of fact, Mr. Eliot has actually walked out of a real live Republic and loudly announced that he is a Royalist. He has also declared himself an Anglo-Catholic; but I will leave the religious issue as far as possible on one side, because though even more cogent, it is much more controversial. But even in the matter of politics alone it is quite obvious that there has been a complete turn of the tide. The Giddy-go-Round is going round in the reverse direction, but, I am glad to say, almost as giddily. The wooden horses are galloping with their accustomed fervour, and I hope the children who ride on them are happy. But one who has seen this complete reversal of direction since his own childhood will not be able to believe that the horses broke loose from the post and fled farther and farther from it for ever merely because he was told so in childhood. Swinburne’s hobby-horse, for instance, had a perpetual impulse to gallop away over the Alps into Italy. But suppose he were really still galloping into Italy, like Hannibal or Napoleon, what sort of Italy would he find? The political ideas of Swinburne were the ideas of the period of Mazzini. The political ideas of T. S. Eliot are the ideas of the period of Mussolini. It might be maintained that the new poet is nearer than the old poet to the old Roman pillar of the past. It is stark nonsense to pretend that he is farther away.

I am not dealing directly here with things that I myself accept or reject. Many people know that my own religion is even more Roman than Mr. Eliot’s. Yet in many ways my polities are much more Republican than Mr. Eliot’s; perhaps much more really Republican than Swinburne’s. But I am not arguing about what is right or wrong in any of these views. I am merely remarking on an actual revolution in the ideas of a large number of other people, and noting that it is more like the real revolution of a Giddy-go-Round than the mere riot of a gallop. In one sense it has been revolution against revolution; that is, revolution in one sense reversing revolution in the other. But nobody who notes the real movements in the intellectual world just now can doubt that there has been the sort of revolution that is called a reaction. In every country there has been a reaction, either practical or theoretical, in the direction of order or authority or classical proportion. In France there has been the influence of Maurras in polities or Maritain in religion. In Germany the Dictator is a vision; in Italy he is a fact. In America, the very last place where most people would look for classicism, there has arisen an influential school of classicists. Those who most fiercely denounce the fact most clearly confess the fact, and even their denunciations are witness that it is a universal fact. The enemies of Humanism denounce it as intellectual Fascism. The enemies of Fascism make fun of its appeal to classicism. Of course a man may quite reasonably like some of these things and dislike others, or like some parts of these things and dislike others, as I do myself. But, as I say, I am not talking about likes or dislikes, and I am not talking about myself. I am talking about the way the world goes round, and pointing out that the moral world does not always go round from right to left. It is, at this moment, most certainly going round from left to right. The sort of political party that used to be called the Extreme Right contains more of the really original modern thinkers than the party called the Extreme Left. I only say that the return to traditionalism is obviously strong enough to be recognized. I think it very possible that it may soon be strong enough to be resisted. But when strange survivals of the Swinburnian epoch, imagining themselves to be young, actually come and tell me that the world is on an endless march towards wild liberty and indefinite relaxation of everything, I really do not know how to answer, except with a melancholy smile. ‘I have lived long enough to have seen one thing …’

CHAPTER

I. ON THE PRUDERY OF SLANG II. ON LIBERTIES AND LOTTERIES III. ON THE NUDISTS IV. ON BUSINESS EDUCATION V. ON THE INTELLECT OF YESTERDAY VI. ON TRAVEL’S SURPRISES VII. ON FLOCKING VIII. ON THE BEHAVIOURIST IX. ON THE PLEASURES OF NO LONGER BEING VERY YOUNG X. ON MR. MENCKEN AND FUNDAMENTALISM XI. ON ANTHONY TROLLOPE: HISTORIAN XII. ON THE WAY OF THE WORLD XIII. ON THE NEW INSULARITY XIV. ON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE XV. ON REST CURES FOR NATIONS XVI. ON PHILOSOPHY versus FICTION XVII. ON LOGIC AND LUNACY XVIII. ON THE THRILLS OF BOREDOM XIX. ON GOSSIP ABOUT HEREDITY XX. ON DANTE AND BEATRICE XXI. ON QUACKS IN THE HOME XXII. ON A GENERALLY ACCEPTED MISTAKE XXIII. ON THE LATER PORTIONS OF POEMS XXIV. ON THE ROMANCE OF CHILDHOOD XXV. ON THE RENAISSANCE XXVI. ON THE LAUREATESHIP XXVII. ON LIVING FOR POSTERITY XXVIII. ON MR. SHAW’S PURITANISM XXIX. ON THE TRUTH OF LEGENDS XXX. ON EXPERIENCE XXXI. ON SIGHTSEEING XXXII. ON CONDIMENTS AND CONDUCT XXXIII. ON OPTIMISM AND SCEPTICISM XXXIV. ON THOUGHTS IN CANADA XXXV. ON THE BAD WORD FOR GUILD XXXVI. ON SOPHISTICATION XXXVII. ON DRESS AND DECORUM XXXVIII. ON ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

I. On the Prudery of Slang

WHAT puzzles me is that so many things which boast of being wild and free, which are even abused for being wild and free, are in reality rather snobbish, not to say slavish. All that sort of unconventionality seems to me a great deal too conventional. The most obvious and everyday example is the fuss about divorce; which is unfortunately a very everyday example. But the point of divorce is not that people are professing to be reckless, but that people arc pretending to be respectable. The point of it is not in the parting of wives and husbands, which has unfortunately happened in various forms in nearly all the various lands and ages. The point of it is the covering of the disunion by the use of the old label of union. Many satirists in many periods have had occasion to note the domestic dissolution that seemed to threaten a social dissolution. Many have had occasion to strike the lyre and lament in the mournful language of Mr. Bentley’s Ballade:

Rupert has bolted with the children’s nurse, Claude has declared himself an Infidel.

The peculiarity of the recent social tendency is that a visiting-card inscribed ‘Mr. and Mrs. Rupert’ is carefully engraved to cover the fact that the children’s nurse is no longer looking after the children. The peculiarity of the position is not that Claude has proclaimed himself an Infidel; but, that Claude has proclaimed himself a Christian with a higher and more purely spiritual religion, which is too exalted to believe in any creeds or sacraments, but which does permit him to remain an ordinary respectable Anglican parson— or possibly even an Anglican bishop.

In all these compromises, it seems to me that the chief feature is the saving of the ordinary social position of the persons involved. And to think first about such social position is not the act of a sceptic but simply of a snob. What matters to a man with a free intelligence is what the man and woman are actually doing, or what the parson or bishop is actually teaching. Whether in the one case somebody gets a new wedding-ring, or in the other case retains an old dog-collar, is surely a matter comparatively conventional. Yet it is at the back of nearly all the pleas for freedom, which profess to be pleas for unconventionality. But there are a great many other examples of this curious contradiction with relation to convention. It appears not only in the manners, but in the language, and especially the slang, of society. There is a queer sort of prudery about slang, and modernity shows it most in what it calls ‘facing the facts of nature’.

For instance, there was a time when it was customary to call a father a father; which seems to me a very normal example of calling a spade a spade. There were, of course, many variations, both formal and familiar, in different times and communities. But most men have used a language as ancient and traditional as that of Esau when he cried aloud, ‘Hast thou not a blessing for me, O my father?’ Now as far as I can discover from the social authorities who tell us all about the Rising Generation and the Bright Young Things, it appears to be considered a mark of advanced intelligence to call your father a bean or a scream, or possibly Tom, Dick, and Harry, in reference (or without reference) to his Christian name. Broadly speaking, the parent of the progressive age appears to answer to ‘Hi!’ or to any loud cry; and it seems to be considered in itself a proof of progress that the cries are very loud indeed. But loud cries do not make any difference to logic; and in this case the logic is all the other way. It is obvious to me that calling the old gentleman ‘father’ is facing the facts of nature. It is also obvious that calling him ‘bean’ is not facing the facts of nature. It is, so far as that example is concerned, perhaps, merely weaving a graceful fairy-tale to cover the facts of nature. It is prettily pretending for a moment that the Heavy Father is an elf of the dimensions of Moth and Mustard-Seed, capable of concealing himself in the green hood of the bean. But that is a digression without being in any way an exception. The general truth obviously is that all these phrases that evade the family relation do therefore evade the facts of life. You may call your father Tom as if he were a total stranger from Australia, whom you had come rather to like at the Empire Club. But in that case it is you who are indulging in a fiction, and ultimately in a convention. The real facts of your relation are rather more remarkable; and to ignore them is to ignore something at once natural and notable. And it is to ignore it in favour of things much more superficial and trivial; the mere society slang or fashion of the passing moment. It is, in fact, to think the rules of the Empire Club more important than the laws of Nature. That does not strike me as being natural; to say nothing of being naked. That does not impress me as being realistic, but as being ready to go through any sort of antics rather than face a reality.

CAPITOLO

I. SULLA PRUDERIA DELLO SLANG II. SU LIBERTÀ E LOTTERIE III. SUI NUDISTI IV. SULL’EDUCAZIONE AGLI AFFARI V. SULL’INTELLETTO DI IERI VI. SULLE SORPRESE DEL VIAGGIO VII. SULL’ACCALCARSI VIII. SUL COMPORTAMENTISTA IX. SUL PIACERE DI NON ESSERE PIÙ MOLTO GIOVANI X. SU MR. MENCKEN E IL FONDAMENTALISMO XI. SU ANTHONY TROLLOPE: STORICO XII. SUL CORSO DEL MONDO XIII. SUL NUOVO INSULARISMO XIV. SULLA CHRISTIAN SCIENCE XV. SULLE CURE DI RIPOSO PER LE NAZIONI XVI. SULLA FILOSOFIA contro la NARRATIVA XVII. SULLA LOGICA E LA FOLLIA XVIII. SUI BRIVIDI DELLA NOIA XIX. SUI PETTEGOLEZZI INTORNO ALL’EREDITÀ XX. SU DANTE E BEATRICE XXI. SUI CIARLATANI IN CASA XXII. SU UN ERRORE GENERALMENTE ACCETTATO XXIII. SULLE PARTI PIÙ TARDE DEI POEMI XXIV. SUL ROMANZO DELL’INFANZIA XXV. SUL RINASCIMENTO XXVI. SULLA CARICA DI POETA LAUREATO XXVII. SUL VIVERE PER I POSTERI XXVIII. SUL PURITANESIMO DI MR. SHAW XXIX. SULLA VERITÀ DELLE LEGGENDE XXX. SULL’ESPERIENZA XXXI. SUL FARE TURISMO XXXII. SUI CONDIMENTI E LA CONDOTTA XXXIII. SULL’OTTIMISMO E LO SCETTICISMO XXXIV. SU PENSIERI IN CANADA XXXV. SULLA CATTIVA PAROLA PER GILDA XXXVI. SULLA SOFISTICAZIONE XXXVII. SULL’ABITO E IL DECORO XXXVIII. SU ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

I. Sulla pruderia dello slang

Ciò che mi lascia perplesso è che tante cose le quali si vantano di essere selvagge e libere, che anzi vengono biasimate perché selvagge e libere, sono in realtà piuttosto snob, per non dire servili. Tutta quella sorta di anticonformismo mi pare fin troppo conformista. L’esempio più ovvio e quotidiano è il gran clamore intorno al divorzio; che è purtroppo un esempio assai quotidiano. Ma il nodo del divorzio non sta nel fatto che la gente si professa spregiudicata, bensì nel fatto che la gente finge di essere rispettabile. Il nodo non è nella separazione di mogli e mariti, che purtroppo è avvenuta in varie forme in quasi tutte le varie terre e le varie epoche. Il nodo sta nel coprire la disunione ricorrendo alla vecchia etichetta dell’unione. Molti satirici, in molte epoche, hanno avuto occasione di notare quella dissoluzione domestica che pareva minacciare una dissoluzione sociale. Molti hanno avuto occasione di percuotere la lira e di lamentarsi nel mesto linguaggio della Ballade del signor Bentley:

Rupert è fuggito con la bambinaia dei figli, Claude s’è dichiarato Miscredente.

La particolarità della recente tendenza sociale è che un biglietto da visita con la scritta «Mr. e Mrs. Rupert» viene accuratamente inciso per nascondere il fatto che la bambinaia dei figli non bada più ai figli. La particolarità della situazione non è che Claude si sia proclamato Miscredente; bensì che Claude si sia proclamato Cristiano di una religione più alta e più puramente spirituale, troppo sublime per credere in un qualsiasi credo o sacramento, ma che gli consente tuttavia di restare un normale e rispettabile pastore anglicano — o magari perfino un vescovo anglicano.

In tutti questi compromessi, mi pare che il tratto principale sia la salvaguardia dell’ordinaria posizione sociale delle persone coinvolte. E pensare anzitutto a una simile posizione sociale non è l’atto di uno scettico, ma semplicemente di uno snob. Ciò che importa a un uomo dall’intelligenza libera è che cosa l’uomo e la donna stiano effettivamente facendo, o che cosa il pastore o il vescovo stia effettivamente insegnando. Che nell’un caso qualcuno riceva una nuova fede nuziale, o che nell’altro conservi un vecchio collare da prete, è di certo faccenda relativamente convenzionale. Eppure è ciò che sta dietro quasi tutte le perorazioni in favore della libertà, che pretendono di essere perorazioni in favore dell’anticonformismo. Ma vi sono moltissimi altri esempi di questa curiosa contraddizione in rapporto alla convenzione. Essa compare non solo nei costumi, ma nel linguaggio, e specialmente nello slang, della società. C’è una strana sorta di pruderia intorno allo slang, e la modernità la manifesta soprattutto in ciò che chiama «guardare in faccia i fatti della natura».

Per esempio, ci fu un tempo in cui era consuetudine chiamare un padre un padre; il che mi sembra un esempio del tutto normale del dire pane al pane. C’erano, naturalmente, molte varianti, tanto formali quanto familiari, in tempi e comunità diversi. Ma la maggior parte degli uomini si è servita di un linguaggio antico e tradizionale quanto quello di Esaù quando gridò ad alta voce: «Non hai forse una benedizione per me, o padre mio?». Ora, per quanto riesco a scoprire dalle autorità sociali che ci raccontano ogni cosa sulla Nuova Generazione e sui Brillanti Giovani, pare che venga considerato un segno di intelligenza avanzata chiamare il proprio padre un fagiolo o uno spasso, o magari Tizio, Caio e Sempronio, in riferimento (o senza riferimento) al suo nome di battesimo. In linea di massima, il genitore dell’età progressista pare rispondere a «Ehi!» o a un qualunque grido sonoro; e sembra considerarsi di per sé una prova di progresso che quei gridi siano davvero assordanti. Ma i gridi sonori non mutano di una virgola la logica; e in questo caso la logica va tutta in senso contrario. Per me è evidente che chiamare «padre» il vecchio signore significa guardare in faccia i fatti della natura. È altrettanto evidente che chiamarlo «fagiolo» non significa guardare in faccia i fatti della natura. Significa, per quel che riguarda quell’esempio, forse soltanto tessere una graziosa favola per coprire i fatti della natura. Significa fingere con grazia, per un istante, che il Padre Austero sia un elfo delle dimensioni di Falena e Grano-di-Senape, capace di celarsi nel verde baccello del fagiolo. Ma questa è una digressione, senza essere in alcun modo un’eccezione. La verità generale è evidentemente che tutte queste frasi che eludono il rapporto familiare eludono perciò i fatti della vita. Potete chiamare vostro padre Tom come se fosse un perfetto sconosciuto venuto dall’Australia, che vi è capitato di trovare piuttosto simpatico all’Empire Club. Ma in tal caso siete voi a indulgere in una finzione, e in ultima analisi in una convenzione. I fatti reali del vostro rapporto sono piuttosto più notevoli; e ignorarli significa ignorare qualcosa di insieme naturale e degno di nota. E significa ignorarlo a favore di cose assai più superficiali e insignificanti: il mero slang mondano o la moda dell’istante che passa. Significa, di fatto, ritenere le regole dell’Empire Club più importanti delle leggi della Natura. La qual cosa non mi pare naturale; per non dire nuda. La qual cosa non mi si presenta come realistica, ma come disposta a compiere ogni sorta di contorsioni pur di non guardare in faccia una realtà.

There are, indeed, human and historic aspects of this problem, which would in any case be rather too real for our realists to understand. The truth is that traditional humanity has always felt these natural facts to be so real that they were best expressed in some sort of ritual. Talking about them in detail did (and does) very little good; but recognizing them in conduct and courtesy and the very carriage of the body made all men feel sane and near to nature. Men were ceremonial towards their fathers and mothers, just as they were ceremonial about the harvest or the ploughing of the ground or the scattering of the seed. They were ceremonial about these things because these things were so very real; because they are the most real of all realities. They are the things by which we live and without which we die. In the same way, their gleams of simple intelligence enabled them to perceive that their parents were things without which they would never have been alive. The recognition of that fact is entirely realistic, not to say scientific; but the best recognition of it has always been in gesture and artistic form. It has been what I, for one, should unhesitatingly describe as good form.

There are some of the innovators whom I should not expect to understand what is meant by good form. They are far too much tied to convention to understand ritual. They cannot even understand courtesy, so long as the convention of the moment is a convention of discourtesy. But these deplorable people are very rare in any generation; and the majority of the young are doubtless what they always were; and no more than normally disposed to desert normality for the sake of novelty. The trouble is that very few people encourage them really to think about these things, or thrash them out in any intelligent fashion. They are sometimes blamed for not following the conventions of the last generation; to which the obvious answer is that they are following the conventions of this generation. The real trouble is that they are following the conventions far too much. As they have no defence against their fathers except a new fashion, so they will have no defence against their sons except an old fashion. The habit of uttering loud cries (of which I am a warm and enthusiastic supporter) can seldom be carried on absolutely continuously to the age of sixty, without any pause for rest or refreshment. And what is wanted here is not only a pause for refreshment but for reflection. There is a great deal to be said for rapidity; but it is not especially a good way of grasping reality. People merely going the pace, in any age, have generally missed everything except the most artificial and external costume and custom of that age. Men need to walk a little slower to look at the earth and to face the facts of nature.

II. On Liberties and Lotteries

ALMOST alone among my contemporaries I have not been a sceptic about Liberty; but I recognize the materials for scepticism in the discussion about liberties. The difference between the liberties valued by one community and those valued by another is doubtless very great. The vulgar modern argument used against religion, and lately against common decency, would be absolutely fatal to any idea of liberty. It is perpetually said that because there are a hundred religions claiming to be true, it is therefore impossible that one of them should really be true. The argument would appear on the face of it to be illogical, if any one nowadays troubled about logic. It would be as reasonable to say that because some people thought the earth was flat, and others (rather less incorrectly) imagined it was round, and because anybody is free to say that it is triangular or hexagonal, or a rhomboid, therefore it has no shape at all; or its shape can never be discovered; and, anyhow, modern science must be wrong in saying it is an oblate spheroid. The world must be some shape, and it must be that shape and no other; and it is not self-evident that nobody can possibly hit on the right one. What so obviously applies to the material shape of the world equally applies to the moral shape of the universe. The man who describes it may not be right; but it is no argument against his rightness that a number of other people must be wrong.

As I say, the same childish argument is now extended to ordinary morality or decency. It is insisted that, because the decorum of a Roman matron is not exactly the same as that of a Sandwich Islander, therefore there can be no superiority in the one over the other; no possible way of deciding which is the better of the two; and, ultimately, no meaning or value in dignity or propriety at all. The conclusion is so unnatural that, even if the argument were apparently logical, we might be excused for suspecting it of being sophistical. But, as a matter of fact, the argument is not logical enough to be called a sophistry. It is simply transparently untenable; for it rests on the same fallacy: that one man cannot be right because a number of other men are wrong. In this case, of course, it is true that the question is conditioned by different circumstances and that the principle must be applied in different ways. In this case it is true that we cannot say that the whole world is alike, in the sense that we can say that the whole world is round. It is true, but this fashionable argument does not prove it to be true. So far as that argument goes, there might be one costume suitable to all mankind, as there is one custom of washing suitable to all mankind, though some men neglect it and are dirty. All we complain of, in that aspect, is that the sceptic always refuses to be a rationalist.

But the point here is that, if this argument is fatal to faith or modesty, it is a thousand times fatal to liberty. If we simply say that this or that practice is tolerated in this or that place, if we refuse to look for any moral or metaphysical principle by which the differences can be tested, we shall find the definition of liberty dissolving into a dust of differentiations and exceptions. And I very much fear that this is exactly what the definition of liberty will really do. I am very much afraid, as things are going at present, that the next generation will have quite as little idea of what their fathers meant by dying for liberty, as the last generation had of what their fathers meant by dying for religion or sound theology or the true faith. There is already a large number of modern writers who talk as if the old notion of independence, national or personal, were something simply inconceivable as well as impossible; exactly as the champions of liberty, a hundred years ago, spoke of the mysterious dogmas of the Church. Indeed, it is quite as easy, by the methods of the rationalistic heckler, to suggest that freedom is nonsense as that faith is nonsense. It is a great deal too easy. That is what made me suspect it from the first in both cases. But, anyhow, it is perfectly true that variation gives the sceptic an opportunity in both cases. It is easy to show that liberties are local; it is much less easy to prove that Liberty is universal.

Ci sono, in verità, aspetti umani e storici di questo problema che sarebbero comunque un po’ troppo reali perché i nostri realisti li comprendano. La verità è che l’umanità tradizionale ha sempre sentito questi fatti naturali come tanto reali da essere meglio espressi in una qualche sorta di rito. Parlarne per esteso serviva (e serve) assai poco; ma riconoscerli nella condotta, nella cortesia e nel portamento stesso del corpo faceva sentire tutti gli uomini sani di mente e vicini alla natura. Gli uomini erano cerimoniosi verso i loro padri e le loro madri, proprio come erano cerimoniosi riguardo alla mietitura, all’aratura della terra o allo spargimento del seme. Erano cerimoniosi riguardo a queste cose perché queste cose erano quanto mai reali; perché sono le più reali di tutte le realtà. Sono le cose per cui viviamo e senza le quali moriamo. Allo stesso modo, i loro barlumi di semplice intelligenza consentivano loro di percepire che i genitori erano cose senza le quali essi non sarebbero mai stati in vita. Il riconoscimento di quel fatto è del tutto realistico, per non dire scientifico; ma il miglior riconoscimento di esso è sempre stato nel gesto e nella forma artistica. È stato ciò che io, da parte mia, non esiterei a definire buona forma.

Ci sono, fra gli innovatori, alcuni dai quali non mi aspetterei che comprendano che cosa si intenda per buona forma. Sono troppo legati alla convenzione per capire il rito. Non riescono nemmeno a capire la cortesia, finché la convenzione del momento è una convenzione di scortesia. Ma queste persone deplorevoli sono assai rare in ogni generazione; e la maggioranza dei giovani è senza dubbio quel che è sempre stata; né più che normalmente disposta a disertare la normalità per amore della novità. Il guaio è che pochissimi li incoraggiano a pensare davvero a queste cose, o a discuterle a fondo in modo intelligente. Talvolta vengono biasimati per non seguire le convenzioni della generazione passata; al che l’ovvia risposta è che seguono le convenzioni di questa generazione. Il vero guaio è che seguono le convenzioni fin troppo. Poiché non hanno difesa contro i loro padri se non una moda nuova, così non avranno difesa contro i loro figli se non una moda vecchia. L’abitudine di lanciare gridi sonori (della quale sono un caloroso ed entusiasta sostenitore) di rado può essere protratta con assoluta continuità fino all’età di sessant’anni, senza alcuna pausa di riposo o di ristoro. E ciò che qui occorre non è soltanto una pausa di ristoro, ma di riflessione. Molto si può dire in favore della rapidità; ma essa non è propriamente un buon modo di afferrare la realtà. Chi si limita ad andare di gran carriera, in qualunque epoca, di solito si è lasciato sfuggire ogni cosa tranne il costume e l’usanza più artificiali ed esteriori di quell’epoca. Gli uomini hanno bisogno di camminare un po’ più adagio, per guardare la terra e per guardare in faccia i fatti della natura.

II. Su libertà e lotterie

Quasi solo fra i miei contemporanei non sono stato scettico riguardo alla Libertà; ma riconosco i materiali per lo scetticismo nella discussione intorno alle libertà. La differenza fra le libertà tenute in pregio da una comunità e quelle tenute in pregio da un’altra è senza dubbio grandissima. Il volgare argomento moderno usato contro la religione, e da ultimo contro la comune decenza, sarebbe assolutamente fatale a qualsiasi idea di libertà. Si dice di continuo che, poiché vi sono cento religioni che pretendono di essere vere, è perciò impossibile che una di esse sia realmente vera. L’argomento apparirebbe a prima vista illogico, se al giorno d’oggi qualcuno si desse pensiero della logica. Sarebbe altrettanto ragionevole dire che, poiché alcuni ritenevano la terra piatta, e altri (in modo un po’ meno scorretto) la immaginavano rotonda, e poiché chiunque è libero di dire che è triangolare o esagonale, o un romboide, essa perciò non ha forma alcuna; oppure la sua forma non potrà mai essere scoperta; e, in ogni caso, la scienza moderna deve sbagliarsi a dire che è uno sferoide oblato. Il mondo deve pur avere una qualche forma, e deve avere quella forma e nessun’altra; e non è di per sé evidente che nessuno possa mai indovinare quella giusta. Ciò che così ovviamente vale per la forma materiale del mondo vale del pari per la forma morale dell’universo. L’uomo che la descrive può non avere ragione; ma non è un argomento contro la sua ragione il fatto che un certo numero di altri debbano avere torto.

Come dico, lo stesso argomento puerile viene ora esteso alla comune moralità o decenza. Si insiste che, poiché il decoro di una matrona romana non è esattamente lo stesso di quello di un isolano delle Sandwich, non può perciò esservi alcuna superiorità dell’uno sull’altro; nessun modo possibile di decidere quale dei due sia il migliore; e, in ultima analisi, nessun significato o valore nella dignità o nella convenienza. La conclusione è tanto innaturale che, anche se l’argomento fosse in apparenza logico, ci sarebbe perdonato di sospettarlo sofistico. Ma, in realtà, l’argomento non è abbastanza logico da poter essere chiamato un sofisma. È semplicemente, in modo trasparente, insostenibile; perché poggia sulla stessa fallacia: che un uomo non possa avere ragione perché un certo numero di altri uomini hanno torto. In questo caso, certo, è vero che la questione è condizionata da circostanze diverse e che il principio va applicato in modi diversi. In questo caso è vero che non possiamo dire che il mondo intero sia uguale, nel senso in cui possiamo dire che il mondo intero è rotondo. È vero, ma questo argomento alla moda non prova che sia vero. Per quel che vale quell’argomento, potrebbe esserci un solo costume adatto a tutto il genere umano, come c’è una sola usanza del lavarsi adatta a tutto il genere umano, per quanto alcuni la trascurino e siano sudici. L’unica cosa di cui ci lamentiamo, sotto quell’aspetto, è che lo scettico si rifiuta sempre di essere un razionalista.

Ma il punto, qui, è che se questo argomento è fatale alla fede o al pudore, è mille volte fatale alla libertà. Se ci limitiamo a dire che questa o quella pratica è tollerata in questo o quel luogo, se rifiutiamo di cercare un qualche principio morale o metafisico con cui saggiare le differenze, troveremo che la definizione di libertà si dissolve in un pulviscolo di distinzioni ed eccezioni. E temo moltissimo che sia proprio questo ciò che la definizione di libertà finirà davvero per fare. Ho gran paura, per come vanno le cose al presente, che la prossima generazione avrà un’idea altrettanto scarsa di ciò che i loro padri intendevano col morire per la libertà, quanto l’ultima generazione ne aveva di ciò che i loro padri intendevano col morire per la religione, o per la sana teologia, o per la vera fede. C’è già un gran numero di scrittori moderni che parlano come se la vecchia nozione d’indipendenza, nazionale o personale, fosse qualcosa di semplicemente inconcepibile, nonché impossibile; esattamente come i campioni della libertà, cent’anni fa, parlavano dei misteriosi dogmi della Chiesa. Anzi, coi metodi del contestatore razionalista è altrettanto facile insinuare che la libertà sia un’assurdità quanto che la fede sia un’assurdità. È fin troppo facile. È questo che me l’ha fatta sospettare fin dal principio in entrambi i casi. Ma, comunque, è perfettamente vero che la variazione offre allo scettico un’occasione in entrambi i casi. È facile mostrare che le libertà sono locali; è molto meno facile provare che la Libertà è universale.

For instance, I am writing these words in a country which many of my countrymen regard as utterly crushed by a system destructive of every liberty. There is no doubt that Italy has restrained the liberty of the Press; it can easily be argued that it has restrained the liberty of the people. But it is quite certain that the people enjoy, and take for granted, quite definite forms of liberty that do not exist in England at all. The Italians would think Mussolini was mad if he forbade Lotteries, as the English law forbids Lotteries. It would seem to them very much what forbidding Lawn Tennis would seem to us. The whole Latin world regards the notion of not being allowed to drink beer between three and six very much as we should regard the idea of not being allowed to eat buns on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is quite inadequate to call it tyranny; because they would call it lunacy. Now I have argued often enough upon these points elsewhere, and I am not going to dwell on these particular points now. I am merely using them to point out that, even where we imagine there is a clear-cut issue against liberty, there is a considerable complexity when we come to argue about liberties. If the costume of the Sandwich Islander is an argument against abstract decency, then certainly the liberty of the lottery is an argument against abstract liberty. If the thousand and one religions make a case against religion, then the thousand and one liberties make a case against liberty. And I am very much afraid that, in the present mood of mankind, that case may carry weight. It will be very useful to the monopolist, or modern tyrant, who carries most weight in the modern world; and when he has taken away all English freedom from the Englishman and all Italian freedom from the Italian, he will smile broadly and say that, after all, men have never agreed about the definition of being free.

I am so paradoxical as to think that there is a real theory of freedom. Perhaps I may have a shot at expounding it in another essay. But the theory is bound to be rather theoretical; and the modern world, having tried in vain to be thoughtful, has fallen back on the abject alternative of being practical. And it looks to me as if liberty would suffer in that practical age much more than religion suffered in the age of the French Revolution. It can easily be derided, quite as successfully as Victorian decorum or the legend of Mrs. Grundy. But just as there are other kinds of decorum besides Victorian decorum, and yet a sense of dignity and decency behind them all, so there can be other kinds of freedom besides that of the free-born Englishman, and yet leave an ultimate significance in the ideal of being free. Broadly, I should say that the commonwealth is healthy in which all things are not common, but some things, in the exact sense of the phrase, ‘distinguished’. Many who talk about distinction mean only aristocratic distinction; and by that mean only fashion. But fashion is almost the opposite of distinction. A democracy can be distinguished, if its citizens are distinguishable; if each has an area of choice in which he really chooses. To keep that area of choice as large as possible is the real function of freedom. But, as there is no space here for me to develop my eleutheromaniac dogma on this page, I feel inclined to ask my readers to do it for me; or at least to think it out for themselves. I dare not offer a prize; I understand it is now likely to be classed with a Lottery. And it would be dreadful if free-born Englishmen were allowed to do what is permitted to Italian slaves. But if any one thinks he has a definition that will save Liberty, I should be interested … and, I will add, surprised.

III. On the Nudists

IN a great many illustrated papers there is a continuous and by this time rather monotonous stream of articles and illustrations advertising the new Gymnosophists of Germany. I mean the cult of cranks who insist in a crazy degree on certain notions connected with sun-cures; to me, more suggestive of sunstroke. An occasional article about them might be normal enough in any magazine, as being in the nature of a news-item. But the concentrated attempt to boom this barbaric sophistry is not a good sign of the turn of public opinion, and seems connected with that particular sort of glorification of the body which generally goes with a certain weakness in the head. There is, indeed, something singularly weak-minded about the sort of respect—we might almost say reverence—with which experiments of this sort are often described in our journalism. It seems quite sufficient to insist upon the seriousness of any persons engaged in such experiments, a seriousness which invariably marks faddists and fanatics and small provincial sects of every kind. Thus the admiring advertiser explains how very solemnly the German professor plays the goat, though not quite so seriously as a real goat. For goats do not laugh at anything, least of all at themselves, and in this the nature-worshippers in question are undoubtedly, as they would say, at one with Nature. Nature is inferior to man in many things, but most of all in respect of the human speciality of humour. For the rest, goatishness has often been made a sort of symbol of paganism; but even among the pagans it was not regarded as the highest form of paganism. ‘Half a beast is the great god Pan’ as the poet very truly observed; and the satyr and the faun were conceived as being half-human and half-goatish, presumably on the principle that half a goat is better than no beastliness. To a serene and philosophical judgment, it will not appear altogether inappropriate that, in the division of mankind, the goats were on the wrong side of the judgment seat.

But the fallacy in such a fashion is concerned with a certain ultimate common sense about mankind. The cult of nakedness, which used to be called the Adamite Heresy, does, in fact, reveal its falsity at the beginning, even in the merely material aspect. Man is not independent of artificial things, even in the most natural sense. Nakedness is not even practical, except on selected occasions that are entirely artificial. Even the physical conditions of the world bear witness to something in man that is strictly to be called metaphysical, that is unique and detached and raised above the obvious physical order. It is not native to man to go without clothes, unless it is native to man to die of double pneumonia in about a month. He cannot do it at all through the greater part of the year, or over the greater part of the globe. And the very fact that he has been left, as it were, without any aids to survival except what we call artificial aids, is a proof that in his case they can hardly even be called artificial. It is not a question so much of artificiality which departs from nature, but rather of art, which is the essence of human nature; art, which is almost the nature of man.

Scrivo, ad esempio, queste parole in un paese che molti dei miei connazionali considerano interamente schiacciato da un sistema distruttore di ogni libertà. Non v’è alcun dubbio che l’Italia abbia posto restrizioni alla libertà di stampa; e si può agevolmente sostenere che abbia posto restrizioni alla libertà del popolo. Ma è del tutto certo che il popolo gode, e dà per scontate, forme di libertà ben precise che in Inghilterra non esistono affatto. Gli italiani penserebbero che Mussolini fosse impazzito se proibisse le lotterie, come la legge inglese proibisce le lotterie. Sarebbe ai loro occhi press’a poco quel che sarebbe ai nostri il proibire il tennis su prato. Tutto il mondo latino considera l’idea di non poter bere birra fra le tre e le sei press’a poco come noi considereremmo l’idea di non poter mangiare focaccine il martedì e il giovedì. È del tutto insufficiente chiamarla tirannia; perché essi la chiamerebbero follia. Ora, ho già discusso abbastanza spesso questi punti altrove, e non intendo soffermarmi ora su questi punti particolari. Me ne servo soltanto per far notare che, perfino là dove immaginiamo esservi una questione netta e definita contro la libertà, si presenta una notevole complessità quando veniamo a discutere delle libertà. Se il costume dell’isolano delle Sandwich è un argomento contro la decenza astratta, allora di certo la libertà della lotteria è un argomento contro la libertà astratta. Se le mille e una religioni costituiscono un’accusa contro la religione, allora le mille e una libertà costituiscono un’accusa contro la libertà. E temo assai che, nell’attuale disposizione d’animo dell’umanità, tale accusa possa avere il suo peso. Tornerà molto utile al monopolista, ovvero al tiranno moderno, che nel mondo moderno ha il peso maggiore; e quando avrà tolto ogni libertà inglese all’inglese e ogni libertà italiana all’italiano, sorriderà ampiamente e dirà che, dopotutto, gli uomini non si sono mai messi d’accordo sulla definizione dell’essere liberi.

Sono tanto paradossale da ritenere che esista una vera teoria della libertà. Forse tenterò di esporla in un altro saggio. Ma la teoria è per forza di cose alquanto teorica; e il mondo moderno, avendo tentato invano di essere meditativo, è ripiegato sull’abietta alternativa di essere pratico. E a me pare che la libertà soffrirà in quest’età pratica assai più di quanto la religione soffrì nell’età della Rivoluzione francese. La si può facilmente mettere in ridicolo, con altrettanto successo del decoro vittoriano o della leggenda della signora Grundy. Ma proprio come vi sono altre specie di decoro oltre a quello vittoriano, e tuttavia dietro tutte quante un senso di dignità e di decenza, così possono esservi altre specie di libertà oltre a quella dell’inglese nato libero, e tuttavia rimane un significato ultimo nell’ideale dell’essere liberi. In termini generali, direi che è sana quella comunità nella quale non tutte le cose sono comuni, ma alcune cose sono, nel senso esatto della parola, «distinte». Molti che parlano di distinzione intendono soltanto la distinzione aristocratica; e con ciò intendono soltanto la moda. Ma la moda è quasi l’opposto della distinzione. Una democrazia può essere distinta, se i suoi cittadini sono distinguibili; se ciascuno ha un àmbito di scelta entro il quale sceglie davvero. Mantenere quell’àmbito di scelta il più ampio possibile è la vera funzione della libertà. Ma, poiché qui non ho spazio per svolgere il mio dogma eleuteromaniaco su questa pagina, mi sento incline a chiedere ai miei lettori di svolgerlo per me; o almeno di pensarci da sé. Non oso offrire un premio; capisco che ora rischierebbe di essere classificato alla stregua di una lotteria. E sarebbe spaventoso che agli inglesi nati liberi fosse consentito di fare ciò che è permesso agli schiavi italiani. Ma se qualcuno crede di avere una definizione capace di salvare la Libertà, ne sarei interessato… e, aggiungo, sorpreso.

III. Sui nudisti

IN un gran numero di periodici illustrati vi è un flusso continuo, e ormai piuttosto monotono, di articoli e illustrazioni che reclamizzano i nuovi ginnosofisti della Germania. Intendo quel culto di svitati che insistono in misura demenziale su certe nozioni collegate alle cure solari; a me più suggestive dell’insolazione. Un articolo occasionale sul loro conto potrebbe essere abbastanza normale in una qualsiasi rivista, in quanto avente natura di notizia di cronaca. Ma il concentrato tentativo di lanciare in voga questa sofisticheria barbara non è un buon segno per la piega dell’opinione pubblica, e sembra collegato a quella particolare specie di glorificazione del corpo che di solito va di pari passo con una certa debolezza di testa. Vi è, in effetti, qualcosa di singolarmente debole di mente in quella sorta di rispetto — potremmo quasi dire di riverenza — con cui esperimenti di tal genere vengono spesso descritti nel nostro giornalismo. Sembra del tutto sufficiente insistere sulla serietà delle persone impegnate in simili esperimenti, una serietà che immancabilmente contraddistingue i maniaci e i fanatici e le piccole sette provinciali di ogni sorta. Così l’ammirato imbonitore spiega con quanta solennità il professore tedesco faccia la capra, benché non del tutto sul serio quanto una capra vera. Poiché le capre non ridono di nulla, e meno che mai di se stesse, e in questo gli adoratori della natura in questione sono senza dubbio, come direbbero loro, tutt’uno con la Natura. La Natura è inferiore all’uomo in molte cose, ma soprattutto riguardo a quella specialità umana che è l’umorismo. Del resto, la caprinità è stata spesso fatta una sorta di simbolo del paganesimo; ma perfino tra i pagani non era considerata la forma più alta di paganesimo. «Mezza bestia è il gran dio Pan», come molto giustamente osservò il poeta; e il satiro e il fauno furono concepiti come mezzo umani e mezzo caprini, presumibilmente in base al principio che mezza capra è meglio di nessuna bestialità. A un giudizio sereno e filosofico non apparirà del tutto inopportuno che, nella divisione del genere umano, le capre si trovassero dalla parte sbagliata del seggio del giudizio.

Ma la fallacia insita in una simile moda ha a che fare con un certo ultimo buon senso riguardo al genere umano. Il culto della nudità, che un tempo si chiamava eresia adamitica, rivela di fatto la propria falsità fin dal principio, perfino nel suo aspetto meramente materiale. L’uomo non è indipendente dalle cose artificiali, nemmeno nel senso più naturale. La nudità non è nemmeno pratica, se non in occasioni selezionate che sono interamente artificiali. Perfino le condizioni fisiche del mondo attestano nell’uomo qualcosa che va propriamente chiamato metafisico, che è unico e distaccato e innalzato al di sopra dell’ovvio ordine fisico. Non è connaturato all’uomo andare senza vestiti, a meno che non sia connaturato all’uomo morire di doppia polmonite nel giro di un mese circa. Non può affatto farlo per la maggior parte dell’anno, né sulla maggior parte del globo. E il fatto stesso che egli sia stato lasciato, per così dire, privo di ogni aiuto alla sopravvivenza tranne ciò che chiamiamo aiuti artificiali, è una prova che nel suo caso essi possono a stento perfino chiamarsi artificiali. Non è tanto questione di artificiosità che si allontana dalla natura, quanto piuttosto di arte, che è l’essenza della natura umana; l’arte, che è quasi la natura dell’uomo.

For instance, man could not exist at all, in the ordinary sense, if he had not discovered the dreadful and astonishing thing that is called fire. It would be just as easy to elaborate a philosophy against fire as a philosophy against clothes. In fact, the two things often serve the same purpose, but fire is by far the more questionable and dangerous of the two. It is not very often that a man is actually killed by a hat or tortured by a pair of trousers. There was, indeed, an instrument of torture called the Boot; it was used in seventeenth-century Scotland, and we hear a great deal about it when it was used by Royalists upon Whigs, and very little about it when it was afterwards used by Whigs upon Royalists. But even those who complain most of what Mr. H. G. Wells called the Misery of Boots would hardly compare it to being sentenced to the Boot, and certainly not to being sentenced to the fire. Yet it would be easy enough, in the accepted style of rhetoric about these things, to represent every advocate of ordinary warmth as invoking some such unnatural peril. All fuel would, in the medieval phrase, smell of the faggot, To defend the stove would be to defend the stake; and any housewife lighting a fire would be re-lighting the fires of Smithfield. Such talk would be no more ridiculous than many of the ravings of the reformers, who cry out that they arc being persecuted as by the Spanish Inquisition when they are required to wear common human clothes. There would be any number of other ways of giving the familiar element a permanent flavour of arson. Where, is it alleged, is Woman most oppressed and tormented; where is she enslaved and threatened with every type of tribal and ancestral brutality? Where but at the fireside? A little confused oratory and imagery, applied to that notion, would be quite enough to suggest a general idea that the woman was to be roasted like a leg of mutton. Indeed, the whole business of cookery would afford a most convenient and fitting parallel. Cooking is artificial, exactly as clothes are artificial. Some people do largely dispense with cookery, as some people do frequently dispense with clothes. There are prigs who live on nuts, as there are prigs who live in nakedness. But there are a good many other human beings as well, and most of them are of opinion that cookery is a part of something which we call culture. And, while we may argue for ever about whether it is natural, most of us know that it is normal.

The whole conception of culture is bound up with that first fact about man; that he is not himself, until he has added to himself certain things which are, in a sense, outside himself. As he is more powerful than any other creature with those things, so he is more helpless than any other creature without those things. It would be easy for the wild philosopher to argue that the very existence of fire is an insult to sunlight. It would be easy for him to denounce Prometheus as the rival of Apollo. I can imagine him elaborately explaining, in an endless series of lectures, that we ought not to need any such in direction or deflection of the rays of the sun; that we ought never to have come into a condition in which the sun’s rays are not sufficient to us; that it is an insult to the splendid solar unity to tear away flames from it, like rags from a golden garment. It is true that, as a minor matter of fact, the sun’s rays are not always there at all. But that is just as much an objection to the attack on clothes as to the attack on cooking. The point is that the whole of this philosophy is wrong at the root; is wrong in its whole conception of the nature and position of man on the earth; is wrong even in its relation to matter; and is wrong long before we come to the higher question of morals.

But when we do come to it, we shall not be surprised to find that the theory is as false in moral fact as it is in material fact. A human being is not even completely human without clothes, because they have become a part of him as the symbol of purely human things; of dignity, of modesty, of self-ownership, of property, and privacy and honour. Even in the purely artistic sense humanity would never have become human without them, because the range of self-expression and symbolic decoration would have been hopelessly limited, and there would have been no outlet even for the most primary instincts about colour and form. The Adamite heresy begins in madness, but it ends only in monotony. Some actually praise it because they think it would dull and blunt all sorts of human feelings, fancies, and shades of sentiment; and they are the sort of madmen who would actually boast of monotony. But the central civilization of mankind is not very likely to be deeply disturbed, in its immemorial intellectual instincts, by these crudities on the borderland. It takes a long time to explain such simple things; but, when a man disregards them, it is a shorter way to laugh at him and lock him up.

IV. On Business Education

A LONG time ago I pointed out the fallacy of crying out for a practical man. I noted, what should be obvious enough, that when a problem is really bad and basic, we should rather wail and pray and cry aloud for an unpractical man. The practical man only knows the machine in practice; just as many a man can drive a motor-car who could not mend it, still less design it. The more serious is the trouble, the more probable it is that some knowledge of scientific theory will be required; and though the theorist will be called unpractical, he will probably be also indispensable. What is generally meant by a business man is a man who knows the way in which our particular sort of modern business does generally work. It does not follow that he is imaginative enough to suggest something else, when it obviously does not work. And (unless I very much misread the signs of the modern transition) we are soon coming to a time when everybody will be looking for somebody who can suggest something else.

Per esempio, l’uomo non potrebbe affatto esistere, nel senso comune del termine, se non avesse scoperto quella cosa spaventosa e sbalorditiva che si chiama fuoco. Sarebbe altrettanto facile elaborare una filosofia contro il fuoco quanto una filosofia contro i vestiti. Di fatto, le due cose servono spesso allo stesso scopo, ma il fuoco è di gran lunga il più discutibile e pericoloso dei due. Non capita molto spesso che un uomo venga effettivamente ucciso da un cappello o torturato da un paio di pantaloni. C’era, in verità, uno strumento di tortura chiamato lo Stivale; lo si adoperava nella Scozia del Seicento, e ne sentiamo parlare a lungo quando fu usato dai Realisti sui Whigs, e assai poco quando in seguito fu usato dai Whigs sui Realisti. Ma persino coloro che più si lamentano di ciò che il signor H. G. Wells chiamava la Miseria degli Stivali difficilmente la paragonerebbero all’essere condannati allo Stivale, e di certo non all’essere condannati al fuoco. Eppure sarebbe abbastanza facile, nel consueto stile retorico che si usa a proposito di queste cose, rappresentare ogni fautore del semplice calore come colui che invoca qualche perigliо altrettanto innaturale. Ogni combustibile, secondo l’espressione medievale, saprebbe di fascina; difendere la stufa equivarrebbe a difendere il rogo; e qualsiasi massaia che accendesse un fuoco riaccenderebbe i fuochi di Smithfield. Un simile discorso non sarebbe più ridicolo di molti dei deliri dei riformatori, i quali gridano di essere perseguitati come dall’Inquisizione spagnola quando si chiede loro di indossare comuni abiti umani. Vi sarebbe un numero infinito di altri modi per conferire all’elemento familiare un sentore perenne di incendio doloso. Dove, si sostiene, è la Donna più oppressa e tormentata; dove è resa schiava e minacciata da ogni sorta di brutalità tribale e ancestrale? Dove, se non presso il focolare? Un po’ di oratoria e di immagini confuse, applicate a quell’idea, basterebbero a suggerire l’idea generale che la donna dovesse essere arrostita come un cosciotto di montone. Anzi, l’intera faccenda della cucina fornirebbe un parallelo quanto mai comodo e calzante. Cucinare è artificiale, esattamente come sono artificiali i vestiti. Alcuni fanno in larga misura a meno della cucina, come alcuni fanno di frequente a meno dei vestiti. Vi sono saccenti che vivono di noci, come vi sono saccenti che vivono nella nudità. Ma vi sono anche parecchi altri esseri umani inoltre, e la maggior parte di essi è dell’opinione che la cucina sia parte di qualcosa che chiamiamo cultura. E, per quanto possiamo discutere in eterno se essa sia naturale, la maggior parte di noi sa che è normale.

L’intera concezione della cultura è legata a quel primo fatto riguardo all’uomo: che egli non è veramente sé stesso finché non ha aggiunto a sé certe cose che sono, in un certo senso, fuori di sé. Come con quelle cose è più potente di qualsiasi altra creatura, così senza di esse è più indifeso di qualsiasi altra creatura. Sarebbe facile, per il filosofo selvaggio, sostenere che la stessa esistenza del fuoco è un insulto alla luce del sole. Gli sarebbe facile denunciare Prometeo come rivale di Apollo. Riesco a immaginarlo mentre spiega minuziosamente, in una serie interminabile di conferenze, che non dovremmo aver bisogno di alcuna simile deviazione o deflessione dei raggi del sole; che non avremmo mai dovuto trovarci in una condizione in cui i raggi del sole non ci bastano; che è un insulto alla splendida unità solare strapparle via le fiamme, come stracci da una veste dorata. È vero che, come dettaglio secondario, i raggi del sole non sono sempre presenti. Ma questa è tanto un’obiezione all’attacco contro i vestiti quanto all’attacco contro la cucina. Il punto è che l’intera filosofia è sbagliata alla radice; è sbagliata nell’intera concezione della natura e della posizione dell’uomo sulla terra; è sbagliata perfino nel suo rapporto con la materia; ed è sbagliata molto prima che si giunga alla questione più alta della morale.

Ma quando vi giungeremo, non ci sorprenderà scoprire che la teoria è tanto falsa nel fatto morale quanto lo è nel fatto materiale. Un essere umano non è nemmeno completamente umano senza vestiti, perché essi sono diventati parte di lui in quanto simbolo di cose puramente umane: della dignità, del pudore, del possesso di sé, della proprietà, dell’intimità e dell’onore. Persino nel senso puramente artistico l’umanità non sarebbe mai divenuta umana senza di essi, perché la gamma dell’espressione di sé e della decorazione simbolica sarebbe stata irrimediabilmente limitata, e non vi sarebbe stato alcuno sfogo neppure per i più elementari istinti riguardo al colore e alla forma. L’eresia adamitica comincia nella follia, ma finisce soltanto nella monotonia. Alcuni la lodano addirittura perché pensano che smorzerebbe e ottunderebbe ogni sorta di sentimenti, fantasie e sfumature d’animo umani; e sono il genere di folli che si vanterebbero davvero della monotonia. Ma è ben poco probabile che la civiltà centrale dell’umanità venga profondamente turbata, nei suoi immemorabili istinti intellettuali, da queste rozzezze di frontiera. Ci vuole molto tempo per spiegare cose tanto semplici; ma, quando un uomo le trascura, la via più breve è ridere di lui e rinchiuderlo.

IV. Sull’educazione negli affari

MOLTO tempo fa segnalai la fallacia dell’invocare a gran voce un uomo pratico. Notavo, cosa che dovrebbe essere abbastanza ovvia, che quando un problema è davvero grave e fondamentale, dovremmo piuttosto lamentarci, pregare e invocare a gran voce un uomo poco pratico. L’uomo pratico conosce la macchina soltanto nella pratica; proprio come molti sanno guidare un’automobile ma non saprebbero ripararla, e ancor meno progettarla. Più il guasto è serio, più è probabile che occorra una qualche conoscenza della teoria scientifica; e sebbene il teorico venga definito poco pratico, sarà probabilmente anche indispensabile. Ciò che di solito si intende per uomo d’affari è un uomo che conosce il modo in cui il nostro particolare tipo di affari moderni generalmente funziona. Non ne consegue che egli abbia abbastanza immaginazione da suggerire qualcos’altro, quando esso palesemente non funziona. E (a meno che io non fraintenda del tutto i segni della transizione moderna) ci avviciniamo presto a un tempo in cui tutti andranno cercando qualcuno che sappia suggerire qualcos’altro.

I am glad to see that what I applied to the unpractical reformer has been applied, by an unimpeachably practical man, to the unpractical instructor. Mr. John C. Parker, a hundred-per-cent American, a highly successful engineer, the vigorous agent of a company named after Edison—in short, a man with all the unquestioned stigmata of a Regular Guy, rigorous and energetic in the application of science to business, has recently astonished his friends by delivering an address with the truly admirable title, ‘Wanted—An Unpractical Education’. I have only read his remarks in an indirect form, but they seem to me quite excellent remarks. ‘My complaint would be rather that training youth to earn a living is not education at all; second, that a specific training may keep the youngster from earning the best kind of living; and third, that it can’t be done in school anyhow.’ Or, again, ‘I would infinitely prefer that education fit him for happiness and decency in poverty, than for wealth acquired through the sacrifice of himself and his character.’ These are almost startlingly sensible counsels; though what they would look like side by side with those shiny and strenuous advertisements inscribed ‘You Can Add Ten Thousand Dollars to Your Salary’, or ‘This Man Trebled his Turnover in Two Weeks’, it is not my province to conjecture.

But this extraordinary affair called Business Education, which has begun to be supported in England after having long subsisted in America, has another aspect perhaps not so easy to explain. When I say that we want to train the citizen and not the city man, or the equivocal ‘something in the city’, I mean even more than Mr. Parker’s just and rational ideal of ‘the fitting of students to live richly and fully and contribute most broadly to the welfare of the social group who have paid for their education’. Being myself a senile survival of the old republican idealism (I use the adjective to express the American political principle, not the American political party) I mean something else, as well as the mere social enjoyment of culture. I mean that to train a citizen is to train a critic. The whole point of education is that it should give a man abstract and eternal standards, by which he can judge material and fugitive conditions. If the citizen is to be a reformer, he must start with some ideal which he does not obtain merely by gazing reverently at the unreformed institutions. And if any one asks, as so many are asking: ‘What is the use of my son learning all about ancient Athens and remote China and medieval guilds and monasteries, and all sorts of dead or distant things, when he is going to be a superior scientific plumber in Pimlico?’ the answer is obvious enough. ‘The use of it is that he may have some power of comparison, which will not only prevent him from supposing that Pimlico covers the whole planet, but also enable him, while doing full credit to the beauties and virtues of Pimlico, to point out that, here and there, as revealed by alternative experiments, even Pimlico may conceal somewhere a defect.’

Now, the nuisance of all this notion of Business Education, of a training for certain trades, whether of plumber or plutocrat, is that they will prevent the intelligence being sufficiently active to criticize trade and business properly. They begin by stuffing the child, not with the sense of justice by which he can judge the world, but with the sense of inevitable doom or dedication by which he must accept that particular very worldly aspect of the world. Even while he is a baby he is a bank-clerk, and accepts the principles of banking which Mr. Joseph Finsbury so kindly explained to the banker. Even in the nursery he is an actuary or an accountant; he lisps in numbers and the numbers come. But he cannot criticize the principles of banking, or entertain the intellectual fancy that the modern world is made to turn too much on a Pythagorean worship of Numbers. But that is because he has never heard of the Pythagorean philosophy; or, indeed, of any other philosophy. He has never been taught to think, but only to count. He lives in a cold temple of abstract calculation, of which the pillars are columns of figures. But he has no basic sense of Comparative Religion (in the true sense of that tiresome phrase), by which he may discover whether he is in the right temple, or distinguish one temple from another. This is bad enough when we are dealing with the normal sense of number and quantity, the eternal foundations of rational and permanent commerce; which are in themselves as pure and abstract as Pythagoras. It becomes both preposterous and perilous when we are dealing with the mere scramble of speculation and economic illusion which is called business in America and elsewhere; with all its degrading publicity, with all its more dangerous secrecy. To begin a boy’s training by teaching him to admire these things, and then call it Business Education, is exactly like teaching him to worship Baal and Baphomet, and then calling it Religious Education. And much of what is called commercial training is really of this character. Stevenson, with the assistance of Lloyd Osbourne (himself an American), gives a very vivid and amusing sketch of it in The Wrecker. His American hero very justly resents being laughed at merely because he leaves the u out of ‘colour’; but adds that his critics might have had a better case had they known that his father ‘had paid large sums to have him brought up in a gambling-hell’.

Anyhow, that is what is the matter with Business Education; that it narrows the mind; whereas the whole object of education is to broaden the mind and especially to broaden it so as to enable it to criticize and condemn such narrowness. Everybody ought to learn first a general view of the history of man, of the nature of man, and (as I, for one, should add) of the nature of God. This may enable him to consider the rights and wrongs of slavery in a slave community, of cannibalism in a cannibal community, or of commerce in a commercial community. If he is immediately initiated into the mysteries of these institutions themselves, if he is sworn in infancy to take them as seriously as they take themselves, if he becomes a trader not only before he becomes a traveller, but even before he becomes a true citizen of his own town, he will never be able to denounce those institutions—or even to improve them. Such a state will never have the ideas or imagination to reform itself; and hustle and bustle and business activity will have resulted in the dead fixity of a fossil.

Sono lieto di constatare che ciò che avevo riferito al riformatore poco pratico è stato riferito, da un uomo di indiscutibile senso pratico, all’insegnante poco pratico. Il signor John C. Parker, un americano al cento per cento, un ingegnere di grande successo, il vigoroso rappresentante di una società intitolata a Edison — in breve, un uomo che porta impresse tutte le indiscusse stigmate del Bravo Ragazzo, rigoroso ed energico nell’applicazione della scienza agli affari, ha di recente stupito i suoi amici pronunciando un discorso dal titolo davvero mirabile: «Cercasi — un’educazione poco pratica». Ho letto le sue osservazioni soltanto in forma indiretta, ma mi paiono osservazioni del tutto eccellenti. «La mia rimostranza sarebbe piuttosto che addestrare i giovani a guadagnarsi da vivere non è affatto educazione; in secondo luogo, che un addestramento specifico può impedire al ragazzo di guadagnarsi il migliore dei modi di vivere; e in terzo luogo, che comunque sia non lo si può fare a scuola». Oppure, ancora: «Preferirei infinitamente che l’educazione lo rendesse adatto alla felicità e alla dignità nella povertà, piuttosto che alla ricchezza acquistata col sacrificio di sé e del proprio carattere». Sono consigli quasi sconcertanti per la loro assennatezza; sebbene quale figura farebbero accanto a quelle lucide e strenue pubblicità che recano la scritta «Puoi aggiungere diecimila dollari al tuo stipendio», oppure «Quest’uomo ha triplicato il suo giro d’affari in due settimane», non spetta a me congetturare.

Ma questa straordinaria faccenda che va sotto il nome di Educazione Aziendale, la quale ha cominciato a trovare sostegno in Inghilterra dopo aver a lungo prosperato in America, ha un altro aspetto forse non così facile da spiegare. Quando dico che vogliamo formare il cittadino e non l’uomo di città, o l’equivoco «qualcosa nella City», intendo qualcosa di più del giusto e razionale ideale del signor Parker di «rendere gli studenti adatti a vivere riccamente e pienamente e a contribuire nel modo più ampio al benessere del gruppo sociale che ha pagato la loro educazione». Essendo io stesso un senile residuo del vecchio idealismo repubblicano (uso l’aggettivo per esprimere il principio politico americano, non il partito politico americano) intendo qualcos’altro, oltre al mero godimento sociale della cultura. Intendo che formare un cittadino significa formare un critico. Tutto il senso dell’educazione è che essa dovrebbe fornire all’uomo criteri astratti ed eterni, con i quali possa giudicare le condizioni materiali e fuggevoli. Se il cittadino deve essere un riformatore, deve partire da qualche ideale che non ottiene semplicemente contemplando con reverenza le istituzioni non riformate. E se qualcuno domanda, come tanti domandano: «A che serve che mio figlio impari tutto sull’antica Atene e sulla remota Cina e sulle corporazioni e i monasteri medievali, e su ogni sorta di cose morte o lontane, quando diventerà un idraulico scientifico di prim’ordine a Pimlico?», la risposta è abbastanza ovvia. «Serve a questo: che egli possa avere una qualche capacità di paragone, la quale non solo gli impedirà di supporre che Pimlico copra l’intero pianeta, ma gli consentirà anche, pur rendendo pieno merito alle bellezze e alle virtù di Pimlico, di far notare che, qua e là, come rivelano esperimenti alternativi, perfino Pimlico può celare da qualche parte un difetto».

Ora, la seccatura di tutta questa nozione di Educazione Aziendale, di un addestramento a certi mestieri, sia quello dell’idraulico o del plutocrate, è che essi impediranno all’intelligenza di essere sufficientemente attiva per criticare come si conviene il commercio e gli affari. Cominciano col rimpinzare il bambino non del senso di giustizia con cui può giudicare il mondo, ma del senso di un destino ineluttabile o di una consacrazione con cui egli deve accettare quel particolarissimo aspetto mondano del mondo. Ancora in fasce, egli è già un impiegato di banca, e accetta i principii del sistema bancario che il signor Joseph Finsbury così gentilmente spiegò al banchiere. Persino nella stanza dei bambini è un attuario o un contabile; balbetta in numeri e i numeri arrivano. Ma non sa criticare i principii del sistema bancario, né concepire la fantasia intellettuale che il mondo moderno sia fatto ruotare troppo attorno a un culto pitagorico dei Numeri. Ma questo perché non ha mai sentito parlare della filosofia pitagorica; né, invero, di alcun’altra filosofia. Non gli è mai stato insegnato a pensare, ma soltanto a contare. Vive in un freddo tempio di calcolo astratto, i cui pilastri sono colonne di cifre. Ma non ha alcun senso fondamentale di Religione Comparata (nel vero senso di quella tediosa espressione), col quale possa scoprire se si trova nel tempio giusto, o distinguere un tempio dall’altro. Questo è già abbastanza grave quando abbiamo a che fare con il senso normale del numero e della quantità, gli eterni fondamenti di un commercio razionale e durevole; che sono di per sé puri e astratti quanto Pitagora. Diventa insieme grottesco e pericoloso quando abbiamo a che fare con la mera zuffa della speculazione e dell’illusione economica che si chiama affari in America e altrove; con tutta la sua avvilente pubblicità, con tutta la sua ben più pericolosa segretezza. Cominciare l’addestramento di un ragazzo insegnandogli ad ammirare queste cose, e poi chiamarlo Educazione Aziendale, è esattamente come insegnargli ad adorare Baal e Bafometto, e poi chiamarlo Educazione Religiosa. E buona parte di ciò che si chiama addestramento commerciale è in realtà di questa natura. Stevenson, con l’aiuto di Lloyd Osbourne (egli stesso americano), ne dà uno schizzo assai vivace e divertente in The Wrecker. Il suo eroe americano si risente molto giustamente di essere deriso soltanto perché tralascia la u in «colour»; ma aggiunge che i suoi critici avrebbero potuto avere miglior partita se avessero saputo che suo padre «aveva pagato ingenti somme per farlo crescere in una bisca».

A ogni modo, ecco che cosa c’è che non va nell’Educazione Aziendale: che essa restringe la mente; mentre l’intero scopo dell’educazione è di allargare la mente e specialmente di allargarla in modo da metterla in grado di criticare e condannare una simile ristrettezza. Ognuno dovrebbe imparare anzitutto una visione generale della storia dell’uomo, della natura dell’uomo, e (come io, per parte mia, aggiungerei) della natura di Dio. Questo potrebbe metterlo in grado di considerare i pro e i contro della schiavitù in una comunità di schiavi, del cannibalismo in una comunità di cannibali, o del commercio in una comunità commerciale. Se viene immediatamente iniziato ai misteri di queste istituzioni stesse, se viene votato fin dall’infanzia a prenderle sul serio quanto esse prendono se stesse, se diventa un mercante non solo prima di diventare un viaggiatore, ma persino prima di diventare un vero cittadino della propria città, egli non sarà mai capace di denunciare quelle istituzioni — e nemmeno di migliorarle. Uno Stato siffatto non avrà mai le idee o l’immaginazione per riformare se stesso; e la frenesia, il trambusto e l’attività degli affari saranno approdati alla fissità inerte di un fossile.

V. On the Intellect of Yesterday

IS the present generation better educated than the last generation? Is it more intelligent than any one of any number of past generations? Most of those writing on the subject say ‘Yes’. Most of them, by a curious coincidence, belong to the present generation, or some very recent generation. I have no axe to grind in the matter; neither the ancestral axe of Brutus, red with the blood of his sons, nor the latest pattern of guillotine on which a revolutionary son can enthusiastically execute his father. There are some matters in which the world has lately veered towards my own opinions; some matters in which it has turned away from them. But I have enough intellectual curiosity to have doubts, and certainly enough to make distinctions.

I think there would be a case for maintaining this: that the world has improved in everything except intellect. In artistic sensibilities, and even in social sympathies (at least, of a certain kind), I think there has been a quickening and a response. I think it probable that the number of people who can rapidly get used to a foreign fashion or style of ornament, who can guess what an eccentric artist is driving at, who can feel the emotions evoked by unusual music, is larger than it was in mid-Victorian times. But these things do not appeal to the intellect. And I think they appeal to the modern mood because they do not appeal to the intellect. They make signals to the sentimental part of human nature, and the code of those signals is learned more quickly than it would once have been. But when it comes to anything like a strain on the intellect as such, I think that most modern people are much stupider than those in the age of my father, and probably very much stupider than those in the age of my grandfather. I have reasons for my belief, but it illustrates my point that the modern reader would hardly listen to a long process of reasoning. I believe I could even prove it, if people now were patient enough to listen to proof.

First, it must be realized that liveliness in the preacher does not mean liveliness in the congregation. On the contrary, the extreme liveliness in the preacher is produced by dullness in the congregation. I am ready to believe, for instance, that Mr. Lloyd George is a more purely entertaining speaker than Cobden. But that is because Mr. Lloyd George speaks to men who want to be entertained. Cobden spoke to men who wanted to be convinced. The listeners provided something of the liveliness needed to carry them through a purely logical process. When there was a congregation of logicians, as there was in some of the old Scottish Calvinist kirks, the preacher could reckon on being followed when his discourse was a pure demonstration in logic. It is when the congregation is dull that it wants to be amused. Cobden stood for various views which I do not myself find convincing; but his audience was convinced, it was not merely amused. Now, a man cannot be convinced by an argument without following the argument. He can be amused, even if he goes to sleep in the middle of the argument and wakes up just in time to hear a joke about Tories drinking beer or Bolshevists sharing boots. I believe there is infinitely less of this intellectual attention to an argument than there used to be.

It is illustrated, for instance, in the great modern change in the Press. I am not now arguing about whether Lord Northcliffe’s revolution in journalistic methods was morally or socially good. I only say it may well stand for something which is intellectually very much to the bad. When I was a boy, the papers printed long and detailed reports of speeches by Gladstone or Goschen or Asquith, on complex controversies of economies and finance. Perhaps they were not worth printing; perhaps they were not worth reading; but they were read. Now, it may be very bright and pleasant to have all Gladstone’s subtle and searching logical distinctions swept away in favour of the fixed and unfailing headline of ‘What Did Mr. Gladstone Say in 1885?’ It may be very comfortable to forget all the luminous legal distinctions of Asquith, and agree that that statesman never said anything in this life except ‘Wait and See’. But it is not a proof of increased intellectual activity that we are satisfied with the simple and soothing quotations. The minds of our fathers may have been occupied in futile and pedantic hair-splitting, but their minds were really capable of splitting a hair. It may be more cosy to be stunned with a blow on the head by a club than to have one of your hairs split by a needle, but it is not any better tribute to the quality of your head, or of anybody else’s.

Or take another test from another type of inquiry. When all the drawing-rooms began to buzz suddenly with the name of Einstein, some of us were enabled to guess that they must once have buzzed quite as abruptly with the name of Darwin. Some of us are inclined to guess that Darwinism became a fashion long before anybody really thought it was a fact. Doubtless any number of society ladies went about saying that Professor Darwin was really too wonderful, just as they afterwards went about saying that Professor Einstein was really too wonderful. But, when all is said, there is no comparison between the two cases. Any number of people did really attack the study of biology, in order to agree or disagree with Darwin. Hardly one person in a thousand thought of attacking the higher mathematics in order to agree with Einstein. People did talk about Darwinism as well as about Darwin. Most of those who talk about Einstein talk about Einstein. They know nothing but the name and the notion that something very important has happened in connexion with the name. The talk about Darwin may have been popular science, but it was science, and it was popular. The talk about Einstein may rather be called popular nescience. He has not made astronomy really popular, as the other made biology really popular. And I believe that the reason is a certain increased laziness of the intellect; that fewer people are ready for a long, sustained logical demonstration, quite apart from whether we think that the demonstration really demonstrates. In my boyhood there were any number of funny little atheists running about ready and eager to prove what they had learned from the work of Darwin. So there were any number of fanatical little Free-Traders eager to prove what they had learned from the speeches of Cobden. I do not find men now so eager to prove things; but, at the most, to assure me that they have been proved.

V. Sull’intelletto di ieri

È forse la presente generazione meglio istruita di quella che l’ha preceduta? È forse più intelligente di una qualsiasi tra un numero qualsiasi di generazioni passate? La maggior parte di coloro che scrivono sull’argomento rispondono «Sì». La maggior parte di essi, per una curiosa coincidenza, appartiene alla presente generazione, o a qualche generazione assai recente. Io non ho alcun tornaconto in questa faccenda; né l’ascia ancestrale di Bruto, rossa del sangue dei suoi figli, né l’ultimo modello di ghigliottina sul quale un figlio rivoluzionario può con entusiasmo giustiziare il proprio padre. Vi sono certe questioni nelle quali il mondo ha di recente virato verso le mie opinioni; e certe altre nelle quali se ne è allontanato. Ma ho abbastanza curiosità intellettuale da nutrire dubbi, e di certo abbastanza da saper fare distinzioni.

Credo che si potrebbe sostenere questa tesi: che il mondo sia migliorato in ogni cosa fuorché nell’intelletto. Nelle sensibilità artistiche, e persino nelle simpatie sociali (almeno di una certa specie), penso vi siano stati un risveglio e una risposta. Ritengo probabile che il numero di persone capaci di adattarsi rapidamente a una foggia o a uno stile ornamentale straniero, di indovinare a che cosa miri un artista eccentrico, di provare le emozioni suscitate da una musica insolita, sia maggiore di quanto fosse ai tempi del medio periodo vittoriano. Ma queste cose non fanno appello all’intelletto. E credo facciano appello all’umore moderno proprio perché non fanno appello all’intelletto. Esse lanciano segnali alla parte sentimentale della natura umana, e il codice di quei segnali si impara più in fretta di quanto un tempo sarebbe avvenuto. Ma quando si tratti di qualcosa che somigli a uno sforzo dell’intelletto in quanto tale, penso che la maggior parte delle persone moderne sia assai più ottusa di quelle dell’età di mio padre, e probabilmente molto più ottusa di quelle dell’età di mio nonno. Ho le mie ragioni per crederlo, ma è proprio la conferma di quel che dico il fatto che il lettore moderno a stento starebbe a sentire un lungo processo di ragionamento. Credo che potrei addirittura dimostrarlo, se solo la gente d’oggi avesse la pazienza di ascoltare una dimostrazione.

Anzitutto, occorre rendersi conto che la vivacità nel predicatore non significa vivacità nella congregazione. Al contrario, l’estrema vivacità del predicatore è prodotta dall’ottusità della congregazione. Sono pronto a credere, per esempio, che il signor Lloyd George sia un oratore più puramente divertente di Cobden. Ma ciò avviene perché il signor Lloyd George parla a uomini che vogliono essere divertiti. Cobden parlava a uomini che volevano essere convinti. Gli ascoltatori fornivano loro stessi un poco della vivacità necessaria a sostenerli attraverso un processo puramente logico. Quando vi era una congregazione di logici, come ve n’erano in alcune delle vecchie chiese calviniste scozzesi, il predicatore poteva contare di essere seguito anche quando il suo discorso fosse una pura dimostrazione di logica. È quando la congregazione è ottusa che essa vuole essere divertita. Cobden sosteneva svariate tesi che io, per parte mia, non trovo convincenti; ma il suo uditorio ne era convinto, non semplicemente divertito. Ora, un uomo non può essere convinto da un ragionamento senza seguire il ragionamento. Può invece essere divertito, anche se si addormenta nel sonno a metà dell’argomentazione e si sveglia giusto in tempo per udire una battuta sui Tory che tracannano birra o sui bolscevichi che si spartiscono gli stivali. Credo che vi sia infinitamente meno di questa attenzione intellettuale a un ragionamento di quanta ve ne fosse un tempo.

Lo si può vedere, per esempio, nel grande mutamento moderno della stampa. Non sto ora discutendo se la rivoluzione di Lord Northcliffe nei metodi giornalistici sia stata moralmente o socialmente un bene. Dico soltanto che essa può ben stare a rappresentare qualcosa che, intellettualmente, è assai in perdita. Quand’ero ragazzo, i giornali stampavano resoconti lunghi e minuziosi dei discorsi di Gladstone o di Goschen o di Asquith, su complesse controversie di economia e di finanza. Forse non meritavano di essere stampati; forse non meritavano di essere letti; ma venivano letti. Ora, può essere assai brillante e piacevole veder tutte le sottili e penetranti distinzioni logiche di Gladstone spazzate via in favore del fisso e infallibile titolo di testa: «Che cosa disse il signor Gladstone nel 1885?» Può essere assai comodo dimenticare tutte le luminose distinzioni giuridiche di Asquith, e convenire che quello statista non abbia mai detto nulla in vita sua fuorché «Aspetta e vedrai». Ma non è una prova di accresciuta attività intellettuale il fatto che ci si appaghi di citazioni semplici e rassicuranti. Le menti dei nostri padri potevano essere occupate in futili e pedanti spaccature di capelli, ma le loro menti erano davvero capaci di spaccare un capello. Può essere più confortevole essere storditi da un colpo di clava sulla testa che vedersi spaccare un capello con un ago, ma non è per questo un miglior tributo alla qualità della vostra testa, né di quella di chiunque altro.

Oppure si prenda un’altra prova, da un altro tipo d’indagine. Quando tutti i salotti presero d’un tratto a ronzare del nome di Einstein, alcuni di noi furono in grado di intuire che dovevano un tempo aver ronzato con altrettanta bruschezza del nome di Darwin. Alcuni di noi sono inclini a supporre che il darwinismo sia divenuto una moda molto prima che qualcuno pensasse davvero che fosse un fatto. Senza dubbio innumerevoli dame dell’alta società andavano in giro dicendo che il professor Darwin era davvero troppo meraviglioso, così come in seguito andarono in giro dicendo che il professor Einstein era davvero troppo meraviglioso. Ma, a conti fatti, non c’è paragone tra i due casi. Un gran numero di persone si mise davvero a studiare la biologia, per potersi trovare d’accordo o in disaccordo con Darwin. A stento una persona su mille pensò di attaccarsi alla matematica superiore per trovarsi d’accordo con Einstein. La gente parlava del darwinismo tanto quanto di Darwin. La maggior parte di coloro che parlano di Einstein parlano di Einstein. Non conoscono che il nome, e la nozione che qualcosa di molto importante sia accaduto in connessione con quel nome. I discorsi su Darwin potevano essere scienza divulgata, ma erano scienza, ed erano divulgati. I discorsi su Einstein andrebbero piuttosto chiamati ignoranza divulgata. Egli non ha reso l’astronomia davvero popolare, come l’altro rese davvero popolare la biologia. E credo che la ragione stia in una certa accresciuta pigrizia dell’intelletto; nel fatto che meno persone siano pronte per una lunga e sostenuta dimostrazione logica, del tutto a prescindere dal fatto che si ritenga che quella dimostrazione dimostri davvero. Nella mia fanciullezza c’erano innumerevoli buffi piccoli atei che scorrazzavano pronti e ansiosi di provare ciò che avevano appreso dall’opera di Darwin. Così pure c’erano innumerevoli piccoli liberoscambisti fanatici, ansiosi di provare ciò che avevano appreso dai discorsi di Cobden. Non trovo che gli uomini d’oggi siano tanto ansiosi di provare le cose; ma tutt’al più di assicurarmi che esse sono state provate.

One way of putting it is that this is a psychological age, which is the opposite of an intellectual age. It is not a question of persuading men, but of suggesting how they are persuaded. It is an age of Suggestion; that is, of appeal to the irrational part of man. Men discussed whether Free Trade was false or true; they do not so much discuss whether Empire Free Trade is false or true, as whether it is booming or slumping; whether it is based on an understanding of Mass Psychology, or whether its opponents or supporters have what Americans call Personality. It is all great fun, and there is doubtless a truth in it, as in other things. But, whatever else it is, it is not a mark of stronger mentality, and any old Scotch Calvinist farmer, who could follow his minister’s desolate and appalling sermon to Seventeenthly and Lastly, had an immeasurably better brain.

VI. On Travel’s Surprises

TRAVELLERS’ tales are supposed to be tall tales; but I have always found them fall short. I have nearly always felt that the real monument or landscape, when I saw it for myself, was something stranger and more striking than the indirect impression of reading. The old tale against travellers’ tales was that they magnified everything; that every lizard became a dragon and every savage tribe a race of giants. But my experience is that travellers in a strange land, especially if they have travelled in it long, tend too much to forget its strangeness. They become concerned with a dust of details, and tend to take the green lizards as casually as the green leaves. The danger is rather, I think, that a man can live in a tribe of gigantic savages, and grow to remark and record all sorts of details about their tribal taxes or their coinage of tusks or hides, and, at the end of his detailed narrative, forget even to mention that they were giants. For as there are things too big and obvious to be noticed, so especially there are things too big and obvious to be remembered.

There have, indeed, been many cases in which travellers have been accused of telling lies, which have often afterwards turned out to be truths. Modern research, which has justified so many medieval reputations, has made some reparation even to medieval travellers. It was Marco Polo, I think, who reported that he had met in Africa men who had the heads of dogs. And most modern critics treated it as a manifest fairy-tale, as if he claimed to have seen birds with the heads of elephants. But it is very likely indeed that the traveller saw baboons, or some of the larger apes; and his description is really more scientific and exact than the common popular impression about men and monkeys. For the higher apes have not that sort of hollow, half-human visage which we see in the little monkeys; they often have an aggressive and solid projection of nose and jaw, like the nozzle or muzzle of a dog. But even here the principle of comparison is true. It is one thing to read in a book about dog-headed men and believe it or not as we choose; it must have been quite another to see the first of the huge hairy anthropoids—monstrous, mysterious, erect; a premature provocation to the myth of the Missing Link. And I repeat that foreign sights have mostly affected me as the first ape must have affected the first explorer; not necessarily as something beautiful or charming, but certainly as something very surprising and entirely unexpected. When I first saw St. Mark’s, Venice, I am by no means sure that I liked it; but I am quite sure that I was surprised by it; that it was not only quite different from anything I had ever seen, but quite different from anything I had ever expected. I thought it looked like Aladdin’s Palace in a pantomime. And the impression was not altogether false for a man standing in that great merchant city of the Western Mediterranean is, by a paradox, standing deep in the golden gate of the East. There was always something a little too Oriental about the Venetian republic; and this, it has been suggested, was why it did, in a sense, fall like Carthage rather than survive like Rome. But, however that may be, the Christian who first looks at the Christian Church of St. Mark’s is as startled as if it were a Chinese pagoda. Yet I had often seen pictures of it; photographs, and even coloured photographs; but these never conveyed how extraordinary the thing really is. For the extraordinary thing is that anything so fantastic should be solid.

The queer thing is that what one would expect to be the first thing mentioned is generally the last thing mentioned. I had heard a thousand things about Jerusalem ever since my babyhood, and seen views of it, and plans of it, and read controversies about it. But, somehow or other, I had never got hold of the first fact that it is a mountain city. A city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid; but some how it seems as if the hill could be hid. All the photographs and descriptions I had seen were like glimpses of an Eastern bazaar; and suggested all the accompaniments of heat and stagnation and flat desert sands. Whereas the real city, relatively speaking, is much more like a castle on the crags of the Rhine, or set high among the rocks of Spain. From Spain itself it would be easy to take similar examples. I knew that the Escorial was a palace; I did not know that it looks much more like a prison; but especially I did not know the strange journey into the mountains by which it is reached, with the consequent sense of separation and unearthly loneliness in that huge habitation of a moody King. In short, I have sometimes positively disliked the famous spectacles of travel. But the thing I disliked was always utterly different from the thing that I was expected to like; so utterly different that I generally came at last to like it.

Un modo di dirlo è che questa è un’età psicologica, la quale è l’opposto di un’età intellettuale. Non si tratta di persuadere gli uomini, ma di suggerire in qual modo essi vengano persuasi. È un’età della Suggestione; vale a dire, dell’appello alla parte irrazionale dell’uomo. Gli uomini discutevano se il libero scambio fosse falso o vero; oggi non tanto discutono se il libero scambio imperiale sia falso o vero, quanto se sia in ascesa o in declino; se si fondi su una comprensione della Psicologia delle Masse, o se i suoi oppositori o sostenitori possiedano quella che gli americani chiamano Personalità. È tutto un gran divertimento, e vi è senza dubbio una verità in ciò, come in altre cose. Ma, qualunque altra cosa sia, non è un segno di mentalità più forte, e qualunque vecchio contadino calvinista scozzese, capace di seguire il desolante e spaventoso sermone del suo pastore fino al Diciassettesimo Punto e al Punto Ultimo, aveva un cervello incommensurabilmente migliore.

VI. Sulle sorprese del viaggio

I racconti dei viaggiatori passano per racconti esagerati; ma io li ho sempre trovati al di sotto del vero. Ho quasi sempre sentito che il monumento o il paesaggio reale, quando lo vedevo coi miei occhi, era qualcosa di più strano e di più impressionante dell’impressione indiretta della lettura. La vecchia accusa contro i racconti dei viaggiatori era che ingigantivano ogni cosa; che ogni lucertola diventava un drago e ogni tribù selvaggia una stirpe di giganti. Ma la mia esperienza è che i viaggiatori in una terra straniera, specie se vi hanno viaggiato a lungo, tendono troppo a dimenticarne la stranezza. Si assorbono in una polvere di dettagli, e tendono a prendere le lucertole verdi con la stessa disinvoltura con cui prendono le foglie verdi. Il pericolo è piuttosto, io credo, che un uomo possa vivere in una tribù di giganteschi selvaggi, e finisca per notare e registrare ogni sorta di dettaglio sulle loro tasse tribali o sulla loro moneta di zanne o di cuoio, e, al termine del suo minuzioso resoconto, dimentichi persino di menzionare che erano giganti. Poiché, come vi sono cose troppo grandi e ovvie per essere notate, così soprattutto vi sono cose troppo grandi e ovvie per essere ricordate.

Vi sono stati, in verità, molti casi in cui i viaggiatori sono stati accusati di raccontare menzogne, che spesso in seguito si sono rivelate verità. La ricerca moderna, che ha reso giustizia a tante reputazioni medievali, ha fatto qualche riparazione persino ai viaggiatori medievali. Fu Marco Polo, credo, a riferire di aver incontrato in Africa uomini che avevano teste di cane. E la maggior parte dei critici moderni la trattò come una manifesta fiaba, come se egli avesse preteso di aver visto uccelli con teste di elefante. Ma è invece molto probabile che il viaggiatore avesse visto babbuini, o qualcuna delle scimmie più grandi; e la sua descrizione è in realtà più scientifica ed esatta della comune impressione popolare sugli uomini e sulle scimmie. Poiché le scimmie superiori non hanno quella sorta di volto incavato e semiumano che vediamo nelle piccole scimmie; esse hanno spesso una proiezione aggressiva e massiccia di naso e mascella, simile al muso o alla canna di un cane. Ma anche qui il principio del paragone è vero. Una cosa è leggere in un libro di uomini dalla testa di cane e crederci o no come ci pare; ben altra cosa deve essere stato vedere il primo dei grandi antropoidi pelosi — mostruoso, misterioso, eretto; una prematura provocazione al mito dell’Anello Mancante. E ripeto che gli spettacoli stranieri mi hanno per lo più colpito come la prima scimmia deve aver colpito il primo esploratore; non necessariamente come qualcosa di bello o di affascinante, ma di certo come qualcosa di assai sorprendente e del tutto inatteso. Quando vidi per la prima volta San Marco, a Venezia, non sono affatto sicuro che mi sia piaciuto; ma sono ben sicuro di esserne stato sorpreso; sicuro che non fosse soltanto del tutto diverso da qualunque cosa avessi mai visto, ma del tutto diverso da qualunque cosa mi fossi mai aspettato. Pensai che somigliasse al Palazzo di Aladino in una pantomima. E l’impressione non era del tutto falsa, poiché un uomo che sta in quella grande città mercantile del Mediterraneo occidentale sta, per un paradosso, immerso nella porta d’oro dell’Oriente. Vi fu sempre qualcosa di un po’ troppo orientale nella repubblica veneziana; e questa, si è ipotizzato, fu la ragione per cui essa, in un certo senso, cadde come Cartagine anziché sopravvivere come Roma. Ma, comunque stiano le cose, il cristiano che per la prima volta guarda la chiesa cristiana di San Marco resta sbalordito come se fosse una pagoda cinese. Eppure ne avevo spesso visto immagini; fotografie, e persino fotografie a colori; ma queste non trasmettevano mai quanto straordinaria sia in realtà la cosa. Poiché la cosa straordinaria è che qualcosa di così fantastico possa essere solido.

Lo strano è che ciò che ci si aspetterebbe fosse la prima cosa menzionata è generalmente l’ultima cosa menzionata. Avevo udito mille cose su Gerusalemme fin dalla mia più tenera infanzia, e ne avevo viste vedute, e piante, e letto controversie a suo riguardo. Ma, in un modo o nell’altro, non avevo mai afferrato il primo fatto, cioè che è una città di montagna. Una città posta sopra un monte non può rimanere nascosta; eppure in qualche modo pare che il monte possa esser nascosto. Tutte le fotografie e le descrizioni che avevo visto erano come scorci di un bazar orientale; e suggerivano tutti gli accompagnamenti del calore e della stagnazione e delle piatte sabbie del deserto. Laddove la città reale, relativamente parlando, somiglia molto più a un castello sulle rupi del Reno, o incastonato in alto tra le rocce di Spagna. Dalla Spagna stessa sarebbe facile trarre esempi analoghi. Sapevo che l’Escorial era un palazzo; non sapevo che somiglia molto più a una prigione; ma soprattutto non conoscevo lo strano viaggio tra le montagne per cui vi si giunge, con il conseguente senso di separazione e di ultraterrena solitudine in quella immensa dimora di un re malinconico. Insomma, talvolta gli spettacoli famosi del viaggio mi sono positivamente dispiaciuti. Ma la cosa che mi dispiaceva era sempre del tutto diversa dalla cosa che ci si aspettava mi piacesse; così del tutto diversa che finivo generalmente per amarla.

I had another experience of the same sort recently; I suddenly saw Canada. I had visited it before; but I had never seen it before. On the former occasion I crossed the frontier from the United States; and there is nothing particularly interesting about the frontier except the undignified fuss about Prohibition. On the second occasion I went up the St. Lawrence to Montreal. This also was a thing I had heard of often enough; but nothing I had ever heard of gave me any rumour of the reality. As is usual in such cases, the point of the experience is almost always missed. The point of the experience is that the traveller is carried far northward, almost as if he were going to the North Pole, or at least to find the North-West Passage. He sees icebergs and the Northern Lights and the whales of the northern waters; a hundred signs recall to him the Arctic adventures of which he read as a boy. Then the ship takes a sharp turn, which seems like one of the sharpest turns in navigation, and enters a new, an enormous, and yet a secret world. He feels, as the first explorers must have felt, that it is really a world set apart; that he had never guessed the earth contained anything so vast yet so concealed. And the impression is now increased when there begin to appear upon the narrowing coasts of that inland sea villages and the spires of churches that are not altogether like anything he has left behind. It is as if there were another Mediterranean, with another civilization in all its ports and shrines. So a man sails up the great St. Lawrence, wondering more and more, until the broad river seems to split about the great rock of Quebec.

I fancied that there might be here the beginning and the end of a quarrel I remember in my youth. Mr. Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem in praise of Canada, which very much annoyed the Canadians. Many of them stated with great sternness that, if he praised them any more, they would give him a good hard knock. The ground of the offence was that he had referred to the Dominion of Canada as ‘Our Lady of the Snows’. This was held to imply that Canada has no local industry except snowballing; that her principal exports are icebergs; and that the typical Canadian citizen is a sort of furry and inarticulate Eskimo. One Canadian poet haughtily replied that Canada contained glowing maple woods in which England might be lost. One Canadian painter painted an ironical allegory, representing the spirit of the Dominion sitting on a pile of gorgeous fruits and varied products of the sun, and entitled the picture, ‘Our Lady of the Snows’. I am no Imperialist in particular, but the days of my skirmishes with Mr. Kipling about Imperialism are long past, and I am affected by the thought of leaving Mr. Kipling and Canada in an embrace of reconciliation. I would therefore suggest that the impression of Arctic magnificence may be partly due to the fact that, though Canada is not made of snow, in a sense her gates are of ice. And though her woods are really as beautiful as any Canadian painter or poet can depict them, the true traveller really does have an impression of having travelled beyond the North Pole to find them.

VII. On Flocking

THE elusive, enormous, and nameless thing, with which I have so long wrestled, as with a slippery leviathan, in such places as this, suddenly heaved in sight the other day and took on a sort of formless form. I am always getting these brief glimpses of the monster, though they seldom last long enough for me to make head or tail of it. In this ease it appeared in a short letter to the Daily Express, which ran, word for word, as follows:

‘In reply to your article “What Youth Wants in Church”, I assert that it does not want sadness, ceremony, or humbug. Youth wants to know only about the present and future, not about what happened 2,000 years ago. If the churches forsake these things, young people will flock to them.’

The syntax is a little shaky, and the writer does not mean that the young people will flock to the things that happened 2,000 years ago if only the churches will desert them. He does actually mean (what is much more extraordinary) that the young people will flock to the churches merely because the churches have forsaken all the original objects of their existence. Every feature of every church, from a cross on a spire to an old hymn-book left in a pew, refers more or less to certain things that happened about 2,000 years ago. If we do not want to be reminded of those things, the natural inference is that we do not want any of the buildings built to remind us of them. So far from flocking to them, we shall naturally desire to get away from them; or still more to clear them away. But I cannot understand why something which is unpopular because of what it means should become frightfully popular because it no longer means anything. A War Memorial is a memorial of the war, and I can imagine that those who merely hate the memory might merely hate the memorial. But what would be the sense of saying that, if only all the names of the dead were scraped off the War Memorials, huge pilgrimages would be made from all the ends of the earth to visit and venerate the absence of names on a memorial of nothing?

Most of us would not devote our short summer holiday to visiting the ruin of what had once been the record of something that we did not want to think about. Nor would most people, indifferent to the Christian origin of Christian churches, waste their time in churches merely because they had ceased to be Christian. There are plenty of other places in which to spend our holidays, and plenty of other resorts to which young people can flock, without flocking to hollow shrines stripped of all traces of their history or their object. He would be a bold spirit who should hope to lure the duchess back from the Lido, or the typist from the seaside sun-cure, by offering to show them a chapel of no particular date, with no particular design, in which a total stranger had promised not to mention something that happened 2,000 years ago. Somehow I do not think there would be a flock of duchesses, or even typists, at the doors of that weirdly negative edifice. And this marks the first of the fallacies which beset this rather fashionable style of protest or proposal. Even supposing it were true that theology is unpopular, it does not follow that the absence of theology is popular. This need no more be true of the absence of theology than of the absence of conchology or bacteriology, or anything else. I may not want to hear a bore talking about bimetallism, but it does not follow that I want to go for a walking tour with the bore when he promises not to mention bimetallism. I may not wish to listen to the lecture on ‘Genetics and Genesis’ at the Co-educational Congress at Gum Springs, Ill., but neither do I want to go to the Co-educational Congress at Gum Springs, or anywhere else, even if there is to be no lecture on ‘Genetics and Genesis’. And surely those who are so innocently confident of the attraction of merely negative religion might realize that a broad-minded parson can be as much of a bore about nothing as anybody can be about anything.

Ho avuto di recente un’altra esperienza dello stesso genere; d’improvviso vidi il Canada. L’avevo già visitato in precedenza; ma non l’avevo mai visto prima. Nella prima occasione varcai la frontiera venendo dagli Stati Uniti; e non vi è nulla di particolarmente interessante alla frontiera, salvo l’indecoroso trambusto attorno al Proibizionismo. Nella seconda occasione risalii il San Lorenzo fino a Montreal. Anche questa era una cosa di cui avevo sentito parlare abbastanza spesso; ma nulla di ciò che avevo mai udito mi aveva dato il minimo sentore della realtà. Come accade di solito in casi simili, il punto essenziale dell’esperienza va quasi sempre perduto. Il punto essenziale dell’esperienza è che il viaggiatore viene trasportato assai lontano verso settentrione, quasi come se andasse al Polo Nord, o almeno a cercare il Passaggio a Nord-Ovest. Vede iceberg e l’Aurora Boreale e le balene delle acque settentrionali; cento segni gli richiamano alla mente le avventure artiche di cui leggeva da ragazzo. Poi la nave compie una svolta netta, che sembra una delle svolte più nette della navigazione, ed entra in un mondo nuovo, enorme, eppure segreto. Egli sente, come devono aver sentito i primi esploratori, che si tratta davvero di un mondo a parte; che non aveva mai supposto che la terra contenesse qualcosa di così vasto e insieme così celato. E l’impressione ora si accresce quando cominciano ad apparire, sulle coste che si restringono di quel mare interno, villaggi e campanili di chiese che non somigliano affatto a nulla di ciò che si è lasciato alle spalle. È come se vi fosse un altro Mediterraneo, con un’altra civiltà in tutti i suoi porti e i suoi santuari. Così un uomo risale il grande San Lorenzo, meravigliandosi sempre più, finché l’ampio fiume pare dividersi attorno alla grande rocca del Quebec.

Immaginai che qui potessero trovarsi il principio e la fine di una lite che ricordo dalla mia giovinezza. Il signor Rudyard Kipling scrisse una poesia in lode del Canada, che irritò moltissimo i canadesi. Molti di loro dichiararono con grande severità che, se avesse continuato a lodarli, gli avrebbero rifilato un bel colpo secco. Il motivo dell’offesa era che egli aveva definito il Dominion del Canada «Nostra Signora delle Nevi». Ciò fu inteso a insinuare che il Canada non ha alcuna industria locale se non il lanciarsi palle di neve; che le sue esportazioni principali sono gli iceberg; e che il tipico cittadino canadese è una sorta di eschimese peloso e inarticolato. Un poeta canadese replicò altezzosamente che il Canada conteneva boschi d’aceri fiammeggianti nei quali l’Inghilterra si sarebbe potuta smarrire. Un pittore canadese dipinse un’allegoria ironica, raffigurante lo spirito del Dominion seduto su un cumulo di frutti sfarzosi e svariati prodotti del sole, e intitolò il quadro «Nostra Signora delle Nevi». Io non sono in particolare un imperialista, ma i giorni delle mie schermaglie con il signor Kipling a proposito dell’imperialismo sono ormai lontani, e mi commuove il pensiero di lasciare il signor Kipling e il Canada in un abbraccio di riconciliazione. Suggerirei perciò che l’impressione di magnificenza artica possa in parte esser dovuta al fatto che, sebbene il Canada non sia fatto di neve, in un certo senso le sue porte sono di ghiaccio. E benché i suoi boschi siano davvero belli quanto qualsiasi pittore o poeta canadese possa raffigurarli, il vero viaggiatore ha davvero l’impressione di aver viaggiato oltre il Polo Nord per trovarli.

VII. Sull’accorrere in massa

L’inafferrabile, enorme e innominabile cosa, con la quale ho tanto a lungo lottato, come con uno sdrucciolevole leviatano, in luoghi come questo, d’improvviso l’altro giorno emerse in vista e assunse una sorta di forma informe. Colgo continuamente queste brevi apparizioni del mostro, per quanto raramente durino abbastanza a lungo perché io possa venirne a capo. In questo caso esso comparve in una breve lettera al Daily Express, che diceva, parola per parola, così:

«In risposta al vostro articolo “Ciò che la Gioventù vuole nella Chiesa”, affermo che essa non vuole tristezza, cerimonia, né fandonie. La gioventù vuole sapere soltanto del presente e del futuro, non di ciò che accadde 2.000 anni fa. Se le chiese abbandoneranno queste cose, i giovani accorreranno a esse in massa.»

La sintassi è un po’ malferma, e lo scrivente non intende dire che i giovani accorreranno in massa alle cose accadute 2.000 anni fa, purché le chiese le abbandonino. Egli intende in realtà dire (cosa assai più straordinaria) che i giovani accorreranno in massa alle chiese semplicemente perché le chiese hanno abbandonato tutti gli scopi originari della loro esistenza. Ogni tratto di ogni chiesa, da una croce su un campanile a un vecchio libro di inni dimenticato in un banco, si riferisce più o meno a certe cose che accaddero circa 2.000 anni fa. Se non vogliamo che ci vengano ricordate quelle cose, la naturale conseguenza è che non vogliamo alcuno degli edifici costruiti per rammentarcele. Ben lungi dall’accorrervi in massa, desidereremo naturalmente allontanarcene; o ancor più spazzarle via. Ma non riesco a capire perché qualcosa che è impopolare a causa di ciò che significa dovrebbe divenire spaventosamente popolare perché non significa più nulla. Un Monumento ai Caduti è un memoriale della guerra, e posso immaginare che coloro che semplicemente odiano il ricordo possano semplicemente odiare il monumento. Ma che senso avrebbe dire che, se solo tutti i nomi dei morti venissero raschiati via dai Monumenti ai Caduti, si compirebbero immensi pellegrinaggi da ogni angolo della terra per visitare e venerare l’assenza di nomi su un memoriale del nulla?

La maggior parte di noi non dedicherebbe la sua breve vacanza estiva a visitare la rovina di ciò che un tempo era stato il ricordo di qualcosa a cui non voleva pensare. Né la maggior parte della gente, indifferente all’origine cristiana delle chiese cristiane, sprecherebbe il proprio tempo in chiese solo perché queste hanno cessato di essere cristiane. Vi sono un’infinità di altri luoghi in cui trascorrere le nostre vacanze, e un’infinità di altri villeggiature verso cui i giovani possono accorrere in massa, senza accorrere a vuoti santuari spogliati di ogni traccia della loro storia o del loro scopo. Sarebbe uno spirito assai ardito colui che sperasse di riadescare la duchessa dal Lido, o la dattilografa dalla cura del sole al mare, offrendo loro di mostrare una cappella di nessuna data particolare, di nessun disegno particolare, in cui un perfetto sconosciuto avesse promesso di non menzionare qualcosa che accadde 2.000 anni fa. In qualche modo non credo che vi sarebbe uno stormo di duchesse, e nemmeno di dattilografe, alle porte di quel bizzarramente negativo edificio. E questo segna il primo degli errori che affliggono questo stile alquanto alla moda di protesta o di proposta. Anche ammettendo che sia vero che la teologia è impopolare, non ne consegue che l’assenza di teologia sia popolare. Ciò non ha bisogno di essere più vero dell’assenza di teologia di quanto lo sia dell’assenza di conchiliologia o di batteriologia, o di qualsiasi altra cosa. Posso non aver voglia di sentire un noioso che parla di bimetallismo, ma non ne consegue che io voglia fare un’escursione a piedi con quel noioso quando egli promette di non menzionare il bimetallismo. Posso non desiderare di ascoltare la conferenza su «Genetica e Genesi» al Congresso Misto di Gum Springs, Illinois, ma neppure ho voglia di andare al Congresso Misto di Gum Springs, o in qualsiasi altro luogo, anche se non vi si dovesse tenere alcuna conferenza su «Genetica e Genesi». E di certo coloro che con tanta innocenza confidano nel potere d’attrazione di una religione meramente negativa potrebbero rendersi conto che un parroco dalla mente aperta può risultare noioso a proposito di nulla tanto quanto chiunque possa esserlo a proposito di qualcosa.

But there is another, more subtle, more sunken and fundamental queerness about this way of looking at things. As I have said before, it is only occasionally that we get a real glimpse of its strange outline, as we get it for a moment in this letter. The minds of these people work backwards, from effect to cause, and not from cause to effect. The cause of the Church, the cause which produced it, the cause for which it stands, is regarded as something bad, some thing that ought to be abolished. In that case, one would naturally infer that the Church ought to be abolished. But this type of thinker does not begin with the cause; he begins with the result, and then turns on the cause and rends it, as if the cause were a disfigurement that had been added afterwards to the result, He suggests that the result must destroy its cause, and go off looking for another cause, in the hope of becoming the result of something else. It is as if the Union Jack were wandering about the world trying to mean the dragon standard of the Sacred Emperor of China, or the Blue Peter were bending all its efforts to become a flag of truce with the significance of the White Flag.

One explanation is that such people, who commonly call themselves progressive, are in the most stodgy sense conservative. They cannot bear to alter any concrete fact, but only the idea behind it. They cannot actually abolish the Union Jack or the White Flag, but only all that they stand for. So they see in front of them a solid block of brick called a church. They accept that; they cannot conceive a real revolt against that; they are even ready to throw themselves into all sorts of schemes for making this mere brick building fashionable, so that people shall ‘flock’ to it. It commands their strange loyalty in its own strange way, merely by being there. It is a solid fact; something must be done with it; and therefore something must be done for it. In pure reason, it is about as reasonable as saying that since we have a Post Office we had better turn it into a swimming-bath, or that the successful establishment of a tennis court necessitates our using it as a turnip field. But the practical man does not trouble about pure reason; he can confront, with an unsmiling visage, what is in reality pure unreason. For pure reason involves some degree of imagination, and not only creative but also destructive imagination. The thinker must not only be able to think things, but to unthink them; he must be imaginative enough to unimagine anything.

Now this sort of conservative cannot unthink anything that is perceptible to his senses. He can only unthink the theory on which it depends, because it is only a theory. He cannot unimagine the big brick church in front of him, as it actually bulks in the landscape. He cannot imagine the landscape without the church; he can only imagine the church without the religion, or the religion without the reason. In the world of ideas he can alter anything, however fundamental, as if it were something fanciful. But he cannot be fanciful about a fact like a brick building; that is a solid object, and must be made a solid success. People must be induced to ‘flock’ to it, even if it has to be turned into an aquarium or an aerodrome. In one sense, to do him justice, this melancholy materialist is the most disinterested of men. The mystic is one who will serve something invisible for his own reasons. The materialist is one who will serve anything visible for no reason. But there are a good many of him, and, even if he has not begun to flock very much into the churches of the present and future, he does already flock a good deal in the correspondence columns of the newspapers.

VIII. On the Behaviourist

EVERYBODY knows that a new school of sceptics has recently appeared, especially in America; they call themselves the Behaviourists, and the late Mr. Harvey Wickham called them the Misbehaviourists. So far as I can understand, their philosophy is rooted in a theory of physiology: the theory that thought is originally a sort of movement of the body rather than the brain. ‘There is nothing in the brain,’ I think one of them has written, ‘except a lot of neurons. We do not think with our minds. We think with our muscles.’ Those of us, that is, who are so old-fashioned as to think at all. For we have all seen vigorous representatives of the rising generation who suppose that everything can be done with the muscles, and whom nobody, not even a psychologist of the far-off nineteenth century, would accuse of merely using their minds. I am not especially concerned with the truth or falsehood of this fancy. While it is flourished, like the majority of such fancies, with a vague defiance directed towards orthodoxy or tradition, it really has no sort of importance for them. It is an excellent example of the rule about nearly all such new notions that are valued as new negations. The new scientific theory never does really deny the old religious theory. What it does do is to deny—or, rather, destroy— the old scientific theory. And it was precisely in the name of that old theory that religion was once to have been destroyed. The heretics never attack orthodoxy; the heretics only avenge orthodoxy on each other.

It does not matter to any Christian whether God has made a man to think with his brains or his big toe. But it did matter very much to the recent type of Materialist that a man could only think with his brains. He was perpetually basing all sorts of destructive arguments on an analysis of what he called the convolutions and the ‘matter’ in the brain. He was as devoted as M. Hercule Poirot to The Little Grey Cells; but, alas! with far less brilliant and entertaining results. All that the Behaviourist does is, in every sense, to dash out the brains of the old Materialist. There is no question of his touching the soul, even the soul of an old Materialist, for that escapes him as completely as it does every other kind of material analysis, including that of the old Materialist himself. What he abolishes is not the soul, but the cells on which his predecessor depended for the denial of the soul. If ever we do really come to talk about a brilliant idea flashing through our biceps, or a curious and original theory creeping up the calf of our leg, it may sound to some a little funny, or even fantastic. It will not make the slightest difference to those who believe that God made an invisible spirit as part of an invisible order. But it will make nonsense of pages and pages of recent realistic literature, in which the crumbling grey matter proved that nothing but death awaited even the primary form of mind, or in which the soul was supposed to have been tracked to its lair and killed in a cell under the cavern of the skull. Libraries of nineteenth-century scepticism would become so much lumber; but the mystical passage in St. Paul about the glorified body would not be in the least affected either way. It would be amusing to irreverent persons if men ever began to look for the Differential Calculus in their deltoid muscles or to conceal a joke somewhere near the joint of the elbow. But it would only contradict the man who said that all truths were in the human skull or all jokes a decay of brain-stuff; not the man who says that jokes come from man, or that man and mathematical truths come from God.

Ma vi è un’altra stranezza, più sottile, più sommersa e fondamentale, in questo modo di guardare le cose. Come ho già detto, è solo di quando in quando che ne cogliamo un vero scorcio del profilo bizzarro, come lo cogliamo per un istante in questa lettera. Le menti di questa gente lavorano a ritroso, dall’effetto alla causa, e non dalla causa all’effetto. La causa della Chiesa, la causa che l’ha prodotta, la causa che essa rappresenta, viene considerata come qualcosa di cattivo, qualcosa che andrebbe abolito. In tal caso, se ne dedurrebbe naturalmente che la Chiesa andrebbe abolita. Ma questo tipo di pensatore non comincia dalla causa; comincia dal risultato, e poi si rivolta contro la causa e la lacera, come se la causa fosse uno sfregio aggiunto in seguito al risultato. Egli suggerisce che il risultato debba distruggere la propria causa, e andarsene alla ricerca di un’altra causa, nella speranza di diventare il risultato di qualcos’altro. È come se l’Union Jack andasse errando per il mondo cercando di significare lo stendardo del drago del Sacro Imperatore della Cina, o come se il Blue Peter tendesse tutti i suoi sforzi a divenire una bandiera di tregua col significato della Bandiera Bianca.

Una spiegazione è che tale gente, la quale comunemente si definisce progressista, è nel senso più indigesto conservatrice. Non sopporta di alterare alcun fatto concreto, ma soltanto l’idea che vi sta dietro. Non può realmente abolire l’Union Jack o la Bandiera Bianca, ma soltanto tutto ciò che essi rappresentano. Così essa vede davanti a sé un solido blocco di mattoni chiamato chiesa. Lo accetta; non sa concepire una vera rivolta contro di esso; è persino pronta a gettarsi in ogni sorta di progetti per rendere di moda questo mero edificio di mattoni, così che la gente vi «accorra in massa». Esso comanda la sua strana lealtà a suo strano modo, semplicemente essendo lì. È un fatto solido; qualcosa se ne deve fare; e perciò qualcosa se ne deve fare per esso. In pura ragione, ciò è pressappoco ragionevole quanto dire che, poiché abbiamo un Ufficio Postale, faremmo meglio a trasformarlo in una piscina, o che il fortunato allestimento di un campo da tennis ci obbliga a usarlo come campo di rape. Ma l’uomo pratico non si preoccupa della pura ragione; egli può affrontare, con volto impassibile, ciò che in realtà è pura irragionevolezza. Poiché la pura ragione implica un certo grado di immaginazione, e non solo di immaginazione creatrice, ma anche di immaginazione distruttrice. Il pensatore deve non solo saper pensare le cose, ma saperle spensare; deve avere immaginazione bastante per disimmaginare qualsiasi cosa.

Ora, questa specie di conservatore non può spensare nulla di ciò che è percepibile ai suoi sensi. Può solo spensare la teoria da cui esso dipende, perché quella è soltanto una teoria. Non può disimmaginare la grande chiesa di mattoni che gli sta davanti, così come essa realmente incombe sul paesaggio. Non può immaginare il paesaggio senza la chiesa; può solo immaginare la chiesa senza la religione, o la religione senza la ragione. Nel mondo delle idee egli può alterare qualsiasi cosa, per quanto fondamentale, come se fosse qualcosa di fantasioso. Ma non può fantasticare su un fatto come un edificio di mattoni; quello è un oggetto solido, e dev’essere trasformato in un solido successo. La gente dev’essere indotta ad «accorrervi in massa», anche se lo si dovesse trasformare in un acquario o in un aerodromo. In un certo senso, per rendergli giustizia, questo malinconico materialista è il più disinteressato degli uomini. Il mistico è colui che serve qualcosa di invisibile per proprie ragioni. Il materialista è colui che serve qualsiasi cosa visibile per nessuna ragione. Ma ce n’è un buon numero, e, anche se non ha ancora cominciato ad accorrere granché in massa nelle chiese del presente e del futuro, di certo già accorre in buon numero nelle colonne della corrispondenza dei giornali.

VIII. Sul comportamentista

TUTTI sanno che una nuova scuola di scettici è comparsa di recente, specie in America; essi si definiscono comportamentisti, e il defunto signor Harvey Wickham li chiamava scomportamentisti. Per quanto io possa capire, la loro filosofia affonda le radici in una teoria della fisiologia: la teoria che il pensiero sia in origine una sorta di movimento del corpo piuttosto che del cervello. «Non vi è nulla nel cervello», credo abbia scritto uno di loro, «se non un mucchio di neuroni. Non pensiamo con le nostre menti. Pensiamo con i nostri muscoli.» Quelli di noi, s’intende, che siano tanto all’antica da pensare ancora. Poiché tutti abbiamo visto vigorosi rappresentanti della nuova generazione i quali suppongono che ogni cosa si possa fare con i muscoli, e che nessuno, neppure uno psicologo del remoto Ottocento, accuserebbe di usare semplicemente la mente. Non mi sta particolarmente a cuore la verità o la falsità di questa fantasia. Mentre viene sventolata, come la maggior parte di simili fantasie, con una vaga sfida diretta contro l’ortodossia o la tradizione, essa in realtà non ha per loro alcuna sorta di importanza. È un eccellente esempio della regola che vale per quasi tutte queste nuove nozioni apprezzate in quanto nuove negazioni. La nuova teoria scientifica non nega mai davvero la vecchia teoria religiosa. Ciò che essa fa è negare — o, piuttosto, distruggere — la vecchia teoria scientifica. Ed era proprio in nome di quella vecchia teoria che un tempo la religione doveva essere distrutta. Gli eretici non attaccano mai l’ortodossia; gli eretici non fanno che vendicare l’ortodossia gli uni sugli altri.

Non importa nulla ad alcun cristiano se Dio abbia fatto l’uomo per pensare con il cervello o con l’alluce. Ma importava moltissimo al recente tipo di materialista che un uomo potesse pensare soltanto con il cervello. Egli fondava perpetuamente ogni sorta di argomenti distruttivi su un’analisi di ciò che chiamava le circonvoluzioni e la «materia» del cervello. Era devoto quanto il signor Hercule Poirot alle Piccole Cellule Grigie; ma, ahimè!, con risultati assai meno brillanti e divertenti. Tutto ciò che il comportamentista fa è, in ogni senso, fare schizzare fuori il cervello del vecchio materialista. Non si tratta che egli sfiori l’anima, neppure l’anima di un vecchio materialista, poiché quella gli sfugge tanto completamente quanto sfugge a ogni altra sorta di analisi materiale, compresa quella del vecchio materialista stesso. Ciò che egli abolisce non è l’anima, ma le cellule sulle quali il suo predecessore faceva affidamento per negare l’anima. Se mai giungeremo davvero a parlare di un’idea brillante che guizza attraverso i nostri bicipiti, o di una curiosa e originale teoria che striscia su per il polpaccio della nostra gamba, potrà suonare a taluni un po’ buffo, o persino fantastico. Non farà la minima differenza per coloro che credono che Dio abbia fatto uno spirito invisibile come parte di un ordine invisibile. Ma renderà insensate pagine e pagine di recente letteratura realistica, in cui la friabile materia grigia dimostrava che nient’altro che la morte attendeva persino la forma primaria della mente, o in cui si supponeva che l’anima fosse stata braccata fino alla sua tana e uccisa in una cella sotto la caverna del cranio. Biblioteche di scetticismo ottocentesco diverrebbero altrettanto ciarpame; ma il mistico passo di san Paolo sul corpo glorificato non ne sarebbe minimamente toccato né nell’uno né nell’altro senso. Sarebbe divertente per gli irriverenti se gli uomini cominciassero mai a cercare il Calcolo Differenziale nei loro muscoli deltoidi o a nascondere una battuta di spirito da qualche parte presso l’articolazione del gomito. Ma ciò non farebbe che contraddire chi diceva che tutte le verità stavano nel cranio umano o che tutte le battute erano un decadimento della sostanza cerebrale; non l’uomo che dice che le battute vengono dall’uomo, o che l’uomo e le verità matematiche vengono da Dio.

Nevertheless, there is another aspect of this fancy, whether or no it is anything more than a fancy, in which it may be used to suggest a rather neglected truth. If we were only allowed to accept scientific suggestion, as jokes, we could sometimes get some serious good out of them. If the young scientist would ever allow us to regard his hypothesis as anything so human as a half-truth, it might sometimes really be worth while to find the other half. If, instead of claiming that everything is covered by his explanation, he confined himself to pleading that there is something in his suggestion, he would look considerably less of a fool when the next man, with the new explanation, comes along in about thirty years. And there is something in the suggestion about mind and muscle, though there may be nothing but nonsense in an attempt to affirm muscle and deny mind. It is true, I think, that among the lesser guides to truth is a certain craving for creative movement: a longing to stretch the limbs, to smite, to scrawl, to make sweeping gestures, to lift up the hands as well as the heart. There is an instinctive movement of the body towards better and nobler things, as in the text that said, ‘I will lift up mine eyes to the hills’, or in that divine command of liberation that took the form of ‘Stretch forth thine hand’. The old ceremonial gestures of the human body are necessary to the health of the human soul: the gesture that pledged the guest in the goblet that strewed the flowers upon the grave; that drew the sword for the salute or set up the candle before the shrine. In that sense a man actually can think with his muscles; he can pray with his muscles; he can love with his muscles and lament with his muscles. All religion that is without that gesture, all Puritan or purely Intellectualist religion that rages at ritual, is raging at human nature. If an ancient pagan came from the city of Plato and the temple of Pallas, and found himself in a certain type of town of the Middle West, I admit that he would probably prefer to be a Behaviourist rather than a Baptist.

Now, if we take a fine poem of religious invocation, like that which Chaucer called his A.B.C., which consists of a series of apostrophes to the Virgin, each like the first salute at morning, we shall feel the almost physical presence of this sort of ancient or medieval Behaviourism. The words seem to carry with them a gesture; it is impossible not to feel that the poet is doing something; is bowing to a lady or standing up to salute a sovereign; is lifting an offering up or casting an offering down. Such an opening as ‘Almighty and all-mercyable Queen’ has a breadth about it beyond that of the brain, in the narrow sense, because such invocation is, among other things, one of the most ancient human habits of the body. Of course, that broad and expansive gesture can be found in other poets besides Chaucer, and other schools besides Chaucer’s. But it has not expanded with the particular modern type of expansion. Milton was capable of it:

Thine are these mighty works, Parent of Good, Almighty, thine this everlasting frame.

But it seems to me that, after Milton, there is in literature less and less of that sort of invocation, even when there are many other sorts of inspiration. Shelley invented half a hundred goddesses, but he could not pray to them, not even as well as the old atheist Lucretius could pray to Venus, Mother of Rome. All Shelley’s deities were abstractions; they were Beauty or Liberty or Love; but they might as well have been Algebra and Long Division, so far as inviting the gesture of worship goes. In this, as in everything else, what is the matter with the new pagan is that he is not a pagan; he has not any of the customs or consolations of a pagan. There is a little more of it, I admit, in the almost ironic invocations of Swinburne. But that is precisely because Swinburne was more deeply read, not in the new paganism, but in the old. He had at least gone into the temples of the old Greeks, even if it was to curse the gods as well as invoke them. But, on the whole, this gesture of invocation has rather gone out of poetry; and even our diabolists do not wave the wand with anything like a fine flourish, when they start to raise the devil.

IX. On the Pleasures of no Longer being Very Young

THERE are advantages in the advance through middle age into later life which are very seldom stated in a sensible way. Generally, they are stated in a sentimental way; in a general suggestion that all old men are equipped with beautiful snowy beards like Father Christmas and rejoice in unfathomable wisdom like Nestor. All this has caused the young people to be sceptical about the real advantages of the old people, and the true statement of those advantages sounds like a paradox. I would not say that old men grow wise, for men never grow wise and many old men retain a very attractive childishness and cheerful innocence. Elderly people are often much more romantic than younger people, and sometimes even more adventurous, having begun to realize how many things they do not know. It is a true proverb, no doubt, which says ‘There is no fool like an old fool’. Perhaps there is no fool who is half so happy in his own fool’s paradise. But, however this may be, it is true that the advantages of maturity are not those which are generally urged even in praise of it, and when they are truly urged they sound like an almost comic contradiction.

For instance, one pleasure attached to growing older is that many things seem to be growing younger; growing fresher and more lively than we once supposed them to be. We begin to see significance, or (in other words) to see life, in a large number of traditions, institutions, maxims, and codes of manners that seem in our first days to be dead. A young man grows up in a world that often seems to him intolerably old. He grows up among proverbs and precepts that appear to be quite stiff and senseless. He seems to be stuffed with stale things; to be given the stones of death instead of the bread of life; to be fed on the dust of the dead past; to live in a town of tombs. It is a very natural mistake, but it is a mistake. The advantage of advancing years lies in discovering that traditions are true, and therefore alive; indeed, a tradition is not even traditional except when it is alive. It is great fun to find out that the world has not repeated proverbs because they are proverbial, but because they are practical. Until I owned a dog, I never knew what is meant by the proverb about letting a sleeping dog lie, or the fable about the dog in the manger. Now those dead phrases are quite alive to me, for they are parts of a perfectly practical psychology. Until I went to live in the country, I had no notion of the meaning of the maxim, ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good’. Now it seems to me as pertinent and even pungent as if it were a new remark just made to me by a neighbour at the garden gate. It is something to come to live in a world of living and significant things instead of dead and unmeaning things. And it is youth in revolt, even in righteous revolt, which sees its surroundings as dead and unmeaning. It is old age, and even second childhood, that has come to see that everything means something and that life itself has never died.

Ciò nondimeno, vi è un altro aspetto di questa fantasia, sia essa o no qualcosa di più di una fantasia, per cui la si può usare a suggerire una verità alquanto trascurata. Se solo ci fosse permesso di accogliere le suggestioni scientifiche come battute di spirito, potremmo talora ricavarne qualche serio giovamento. Se il giovane scienziato ci consentisse mai di considerare la sua ipotesi come qualcosa di così umano quale una mezza verità, varrebbe talora davvero la pena di cercarne l’altra metà. Se, invece di pretendere che ogni cosa sia coperta dalla sua spiegazione, si limitasse a sostenere che vi è qualcosa di vero nel suo suggerimento, apparirebbe assai meno sciocco quando, tra una trentina d’anni, si presentasse il prossimo con la nuova spiegazione. E vi è qualcosa di vero nel suggerimento circa la mente e il muscolo, per quanto non vi possa essere che assurdità nel tentativo di affermare il muscolo e negare la mente. È vero, io credo, che tra le guide minori alla verità vi è una certa brama di movimento creatore: un desiderio di distendere le membra, di colpire, di scarabocchiare, di compiere gesti ampi, di levare tanto le mani quanto il cuore. Vi è un movimento istintivo del corpo verso cose migliori e più nobili, come nel versetto che dice: «Alzerò i miei occhi ai monti», o in quel divino comando di liberazione che prese la forma di «Stendi la tua mano». Gli antichi gesti cerimoniali del corpo umano sono necessari alla salute dell’anima umana: il gesto che brindava all’ospite nel calice, che spargeva i fiori sulla tomba; che sguainava la spada per il saluto o accendeva il cero davanti al sacrario. In quel senso un uomo può davvero pensare con i muscoli; può pregare con i muscoli; può amare con i muscoli e lamentarsi con i muscoli. Ogni religione che sia priva di quel gesto, ogni religione puritana o puramente intellettualistica che si adiri contro il rito, si adira contro la natura umana. Se un antico pagano venisse dalla città di Platone e dal tempio di Pallade, e si ritrovasse in un certo tipo di cittadina del Middle West, ammetto che egli probabilmente preferirebbe essere comportamentista anziché battista.

Ora, se prendiamo una bella poesia d’invocazione religiosa, come quella che Chaucer chiamò il suo A.B.C., la quale consiste in una serie di apostrofi alla Vergine, ciascuna simile al primo saluto del mattino, sentiremo la presenza quasi fisica di questa sorta di comportamentismo antico o medievale. Le parole paiono recar con sé un gesto; è impossibile non sentire che il poeta sta facendo qualcosa; che s’inchina a una dama o si leva in piedi per salutare un sovrano; che solleva in alto un’offerta o getta a terra un’offerta. Un esordio come «Onnipotente e tutta-misericordiosa Regina» ha in sé un’ampiezza che va oltre quella del cervello, nel senso stretto, perché una tale invocazione è, tra le altre cose, una delle più antiche abitudini umane del corpo. Certo, quel gesto ampio ed espansivo si può trovare in altri poeti oltre a Chaucer, e in altre scuole oltre a quella di Chaucer. Ma esso non si è espanso con il particolare tipo moderno di espansione. Milton ne era capace:

Tue sono queste possenti opere, Genitore del Bene, Onnipotente, tua questa eterna compagine.

Ma mi pare che, dopo Milton, vi sia in letteratura sempre meno di quella sorta d’invocazione, anche quando vi sono molte altre sorte d’ispirazione. Shelley inventò una cinquantina di dee, ma non sapeva pregarle, e neppure altrettanto bene di quanto il vecchio ateo Lucrezio sapesse pregare Venere, Madre di Roma. Tutte le divinità di Shelley erano astrazioni; erano la Bellezza o la Libertà o l’Amore; ma avrebbero potuto benissimo essere l’Algebra e la Divisione con più cifre, per quel che riguarda l’invito al gesto dell’adorazione. In questo, come in ogni altra cosa, ciò che non va nel nuovo pagano è che egli non è un pagano; non possiede nulla dei costumi o delle consolazioni di un pagano. Ve n’è un poco di più, lo ammetto, nelle invocazioni quasi ironiche di Swinburne. Ma ciò è appunto perché Swinburne era versato più a fondo, non nel nuovo paganesimo, ma nell’antico. Egli era almeno entrato nei templi degli antichi greci, foss’anche per maledire gli dèi non meno che per invocarli. Ma, nel complesso, questo gesto d’invocazione è piuttosto uscito dalla poesia; e persino i nostri diabolisti non agitano la bacchetta con nulla che somigli a un bel gesto elegante, quando si mettono a evocare il diavolo.

IX. Sui piaceri del non essere più molto giovani

VI SONO vantaggi nell’avanzare attraverso la mezza età verso la vita più tarda che assai di rado vengono enunciati in modo assennato. Generalmente, vengono enunciati in modo sentimentale; in una vaga insinuazione che tutti i vecchi siano forniti di belle barbe nevose come Babbo Natale e godano di una saggezza insondabile come Nestore. Tutto ciò ha indotto i giovani a essere scettici sui veri vantaggi dei vecchi, e la vera enunciazione di quei vantaggi suona come un paradosso. Non direi che i vecchi diventino saggi, poiché gli uomini non diventano mai saggi e molti vecchi conservano una fanciullaggine assai attraente e un’allegra innocenza. Le persone anziane sono spesso assai più romantiche delle più giovani, e talora persino più avventurose, avendo cominciato a rendersi conto di quante cose non sanno. È un vero proverbio, senza dubbio, quello che dice: «Non c’è sciocco peggiore d’un vecchio sciocco». Forse non c’è sciocco che sia altrettanto felice nel suo proprio paradiso da sciocchi. Ma, comunque stiano le cose, è vero che i vantaggi della maturità non sono quelli che generalmente si adducono anche in sua lode, e quando li si adduce davvero suonano come una contraddizione quasi comica.

Per esempio, un piacere connesso al farsi più vecchi è che molte cose paiono farsi più giovani; farsi più fresche e più vive di quanto un tempo le supponessimo. Cominciamo a vedere significato, o (in altre parole) a vedere vita, in un gran numero di tradizioni, istituzioni, massime e codici di costume che nei nostri primi giorni ci parevano morti. Un giovane cresce in un mondo che spesso gli sembra intollerabilmente vecchio. Cresce tra proverbi e precetti che paiono del tutto rigidi e insensati. Gli sembra di essere rimpinzato di cose stantie; di ricevere le pietre della morte invece del pane della vita; di essere nutrito con la polvere del passato defunto; di vivere in una città di tombe. È un errore assai naturale, ma è un errore. Il vantaggio degli anni che avanzano sta nello scoprire che le tradizioni sono vere, e perciò vive; anzi, una tradizione non è nemmeno tradizionale se non quando è viva. È un gran divertimento scoprire che il mondo non ha ripetuto i proverbi perché sono proverbiali, ma perché sono pratici. Finché non ebbi un cane, non seppi mai che cosa significhi il proverbio sul lasciar dormire il cane che dorme, o la favola del cane nella greppia. Ora quelle frasi morte sono ben vive per me, poiché sono parti di una psicologia perfettamente pratica. Finché non andai a vivere in campagna, non avevo idea del significato della massima: «È un cattivo vento quello che non porta bene a nessuno». Ora mi pare pertinente e persino pungente come se fosse un’osservazione nuova appena rivoltami da un vicino al cancello del giardino. È già qualcosa il giungere a vivere in un mondo di cose vive e significanti anziché di cose morte e prive di senso. Ed è la gioventù in rivolta, anche in giusta rivolta, che vede ciò che la circonda come morto e privo di senso. È la vecchiaia, e persino la seconda fanciullezza, che è giunta a vedere che ogni cosa significa qualcosa e che la vita stessa non è mai morta.

For instance, we have just seen a staggering turn of the wheel of fortune which has brought all the modern material pride and prosperity to a standstill. America, which a year or two ago seemed to have become one vast Eldorado studded with cities of gold, is almost as much embarrassed as England, and really much more embarrassed than Ireland. The industrial countries are actually finding it difficult to be industrial, while the old agricultural countries still find it possible to be industrious. Now, I do not pretend to have prophesied or expected this, for a man may cheerfully call a thing rotten without really expecting it to rot. But neither, certainly, did the young, the progressive, the prosperous, or the adventurous expect it. Yet all history and culture is stiff with proverbs and prophecies telling them to expect it. The trouble is that they thought the proverbs and history a great deal too stiff. Again and again, with monotonous reiteration, both my young friends and myself had been told from childhood that fortune is fickle, that riches take to themselves wings and fly, that power can depart suddenly from the powerful, that pride goes before a fall, and insolence attracts the thunderbolt of the gods. But it was all unmeaning to us, and all the proverbs seemed stiff and stale, like dusty labels on neglected antiquities. We had heard of the fall of Wolsey, which was like the crash of a huge palace, still faintly rumbling through the ages; we had read of it in the words of Shakespeare, which possibly were not written by Shakespeare; we had learned them and learned nothing from them. We had read ten thousand times, to the point of tedium, of the difference between the Napoleon of Marengo and the Napoleon of Moscow; but we should never have expected Moscow if we had been looking at Marengo. We knew that Charles the Fifth resigned his crown, or that Charles the First lost his head; and we should have duly remarked ‘Sic transit gloria mundi’, after the incident, but not before it. We had been told that the Roman Empire declined, or that the Spanish Empire disintegrated; but no German ever really applied it to the German Empire, and no Briton to the British Empire. The very repetition of these truths will sound like the old interminable repetition of the truisms. And yet they are to me, at this moment, like amazing and startling discoveries, for I have lived to see the dead proverbs come alive.

This, like so many of the realizations of later life, is quite impossible to convey in words to anybody who has not reached it in this way. It is like a difference of dimension or plane, in which something which the young have long looked at, rather wearily, as a diagram has suddenly become a solid. It is like the indescribable transition from the inorganic to the organic; as if the stone snakes and birds of some ancient Egyptian inscription began to leap about like living things. The thing was a dead maxim when we were alive with youth. It becomes a living maxim when we are nearer to death. Even as we are dying, the whole world is coming to life.

Another paradox is this: that it is not the young people who realize the new world. The moderns do not realize modernity. They have never known anything else. They have stepped on to a moving platform which they hardly know to be moving, as a man cannot feel the daily movement of the earth. But he would feel it sharp enough if the earth suddenly moved the other way. The older generation consists of those who do remember a time when the world moved the other way. They do feel sharply and clearly the epoch which is beginning, for they were there before it began. It is one of the artistic advantages of the aged that they do see the new things relieved sharply against a background, their shape definite and distinct. To the young these new things are often themselves the background, and are hardly seen at all. Hence, even the most intelligent of innovators is often strangely mistaken about the nature of innovation and the things that are really new. And the Oldest Inhabitant will often indulge in a senile chuckle, as he listens to the Village Orator proclaiming that the village church will soon be swept away and replaced by a factory for chemicals. For the Oldest Inhabitant knows very well that nobody went to church in the days of his childhood except out of snobbishness, and that it is in his old age that the church has begun once more to be thronged with believers. In my capacity of Oldest Inhabitant (with senile chuckle), I will give one instance of a kindred kind. A man must be at least as old as I am in order to remember how utterly idiotic, inconceivable, and crazily incredible it once seemed that any educated or even reasonably shrewd person should confess that he believed in ghosts. You must be nearly the Oldest Inhabitant to know with what solid scorn and certainty the squire and the parson denied the possibility of the village ghost; the parson even more emphatically than the squire. The village ghost was instantly traced to the village drunkard or the village liar. Educated people knew that the dead do not return in the world of sense. Those who remember those times, and have lived to see a man of science like Sir Oliver Lodge founding quite a fashionable religion, are amused to hear a young man say the world is moving away from the supernatural. They know in what direction it has really moved.

X. On Mr. Mencken and Fundamentalism

IT is the custom to make fun of Fundamentalism and to suggest that American religion is rather antiquated. But I sometimes think that American irreligion is much more antiquated than American religion, and that the sceptic can be more of a fossil than the sectarian. Both, of course, are sects only representing sections. America contains many other brighter and better things; and certainly America is sufficiently advanced and adventurous, especially in certain forms of scientific practice, to balance any thing belated in certain forms of scientific theory. But the belated forms exist, and seem to be still under the illusion that they are advanced forms. There seem still to be places in the world where the earth shakes if the indomitable Darrow mentions the unmentionable Darwin. I am not sure that they may not be referring to Erasmus Darwin.

Per esempio, abbiamo appena visto un vertiginoso giro della ruota della fortuna che ha portato tutto il moderno orgoglio e la moderna prosperità materiale a un punto morto. L’America, che un anno o due fa pareva essere divenuta un vasto Eldorado costellato di città d’oro, è quasi tanto imbarazzata quanto l’Inghilterra, e davvero assai più imbarazzata dell’Irlanda. I paesi industriali trovano di fatto difficile essere industriali, mentre i vecchi paesi agricoli trovano ancora possibile essere operosi. Ora, non pretendo di aver profetizzato o previsto questo, poiché un uomo può allegramente dichiarare marcia una cosa senza davvero aspettarsi che marcisca. Ma nemmeno, di certo, se l’aspettavano i giovani, i progressisti, i prosperi o gli avventurosi. Eppure tutta la storia e la cultura sono irte di proverbi e di profezie che dicevano loro di aspettarselo. Il guaio è che essi ritenevano i proverbi e la storia fin troppo rigidi. Più e più volte, con monotona reiterazione, tanto i miei giovani amici quanto io stesso ci eravamo sentiti ripetere fin dall’infanzia che la fortuna è volubile, che le ricchezze mettono le ali e volano via, che il potere può d’un tratto abbandonare i potenti, che la superbia precede la caduta, e che l’insolenza attira il fulmine degli dèi. Ma tutto ciò era per noi privo di senso, e tutti i proverbi ci parevano rigidi e stantii, come etichette polverose su antichità trascurate. Avevamo udito della caduta di Wolsey, che fu come il crollo di un immenso palazzo, ancora debolmente rombante attraverso i secoli; l’avevamo letta nelle parole di Shakespeare, che forse non furono scritte da Shakespeare; le avevamo imparate e da esse non avevamo imparato nulla. Avevamo letto diecimila volte, fino alla noia, della differenza tra il Napoleone di Marengo e il Napoleone di Mosca; ma non ci saremmo mai aspettati Mosca se avessimo guardato Marengo. Sapevamo che Carlo Quinto abdicò alla corona, o che Carlo Primo perse la testa; e avremmo debitamente osservato «Sic transit gloria mundi» dopo l’evento, ma non prima. Ci era stato detto che l’Impero Romano decadde, o che l’Impero Spagnolo si disgregò; ma nessun tedesco lo applicò mai davvero all’Impero Tedesco, né alcun britanno all’Impero Britannico. La stessa ripetizione di queste verità suonerà come l’antica interminabile ripetizione dei luoghi comuni. Eppure esse sono per me, in questo momento, come scoperte stupefacenti e sorprendenti, poiché sono vissuto abbastanza da veder rivivere i proverbi morti.

Questo, come tante delle rivelazioni della vita più tarda, è del tutto impossibile da trasmettere a parole a chiunque non vi sia giunto per questa via. È come una differenza di dimensione o di piano, per cui qualcosa che i giovani hanno a lungo guardato, con una certa stanchezza, come un diagramma è d’un tratto divenuto un solido. È come l’indescrivibile transizione dall’inorganico all’organico; come se i serpenti e gli uccelli di pietra di qualche antica iscrizione egizia cominciassero a saltellare come cose viventi. La cosa era una massima morta quando eravamo vivi di gioventù. Diviene una massima viva quando siamo più vicini alla morte. Proprio mentre stiamo morendo, il mondo intero prende vita.

Un altro paradosso è questo: che non sono i giovani a rendersi conto del mondo nuovo. I moderni non si rendono conto della modernità. Non hanno mai conosciuto nient’altro. Sono saliti su una piattaforma mobile che a stento sanno essere in movimento, come un uomo non può sentire il quotidiano movimento della terra. Ma lo sentirebbe abbastanza acutamente se la terra si mettesse d’un tratto a muoversi nell’altro senso. La generazione più anziana è composta di coloro che ricordano un tempo in cui il mondo si muoveva nell’altro senso. Essi sentono in modo acuto e chiaro l’epoca che sta cominciando, poiché erano già lì prima che essa cominciasse. È uno dei vantaggi artistici degli anziani il fatto che essi vedono le cose nuove stagliarsi nette contro uno sfondo, la loro forma definita e distinta. Per i giovani queste cose nuove sono spesso esse stesse lo sfondo, e a stento vengono viste. Perciò, persino il più intelligente degli innovatori si sbaglia spesso stranamente sulla natura dell’innovazione e sulle cose che sono davvero nuove. E l’Abitante Più Vecchio si concederà spesso una senile risatina, mentre ascolta l’Oratore del Villaggio proclamare che la chiesa del villaggio sarà presto spazzata via e sostituita da una fabbrica di prodotti chimici. Poiché l’Abitante Più Vecchio sa assai bene che nessuno andava in chiesa ai giorni della sua fanciullezza se non per snobismo, e che è nella sua vecchiaia che la chiesa ha ripreso a essere gremita di credenti. Nella mia veste di Abitante Più Vecchio (con senile risatina), addurrò un esempio di specie affine. Un uomo dev’essere almeno tanto vecchio quanto lo sono io per ricordare quanto assolutamente idiota, inconcepibile e follemente incredibile un tempo sembrasse che una persona istruita o anche solo ragionevolmente accorta confessasse di credere nei fantasmi. Bisogna essere quasi l’Abitante Più Vecchio per sapere con quale massiccio disprezzo e quale certezza lo squire e il parroco negassero la possibilità del fantasma del villaggio; il parroco ancor più enfaticamente dello squire. Il fantasma del villaggio veniva all’istante ricondotto all’ubriacone del villaggio o al bugiardo del villaggio. Le persone istruite sapevano che i morti non ritornano nel mondo dei sensi. Coloro che ricordano quei tempi, e sono vissuti abbastanza da vedere un uomo di scienza come Sir Oliver Lodge fondare una religione addirittura di moda, si divertono a udire un giovane dire che il mondo si sta allontanando dal soprannaturale. Essi sanno in quale direzione esso si sia realmente mosso.

X. Sul signor Mencken e il fondamentalismo

È COSTUME farsi beffe del fondamentalismo e insinuare che la religione americana sia alquanto antiquata. Ma talvolta penso che l’irreligione americana sia assai più antiquata della religione americana, e che lo scettico possa essere più fossile del settario. Entrambi, s’intende, sono sette che rappresentano soltanto delle sezioni. L’America contiene molte altre cose più luminose e migliori; e di certo l’America è sufficientemente avanzata e avventurosa, specialmente in certe forme di pratica scientifica, da controbilanciare qualsiasi cosa d’attardato in certe forme di teoria scientifica. Ma le forme attardate esistono, e paiono ancora vivere nell’illusione di essere forme avanzate. Paiono esservi ancora luoghi al mondo dove la terra trema se l’indomabile Darrow menziona l’immenzionabile Darwin. Non sono sicuro che non si stiano riferendo a Erasmus Darwin.

Mr. H. L. Mencken is at least a brilliant man of letters and ought to know better. But he, I gather, has just been coming out in defence of the dead and buried negations of the nineteenth century, and gallantly doing his best to prevent American science from moving with the times. His way of doing it seems to be to play about with the word ‘Scientist’ in opposition to some other word like the word ‘Physicist’. ‘Scientist’ is a horrible word to be driven to use, though I have often been driven to use it; but all these terms for the study of science are in a very unscientific confusion. It would be embarrassing to summon a physician and be visited by a physicist. Yet on the parallel of physics and metaphysics, the former word would seem more logical. Few of us have ever, in desperate haste, summoned a metaphysician. But it would be far more frightful and terrifying to be visited by a metaphysicist. Subject to the further clarification of the language, I presume Mr. Mencken to mean by a scientist either a man who specializes in all sciences (a somewhat alarming figure) or else a man who really specializes in one science in a scientific way. Mr. Mencken chooses to contradict flatly the principal living physicists, who have studied physics in a strictly scientific way. I do not know if he has studied the science in any way, but I am pretty sure that he has not studied it in that way. When, therefore, he says of the distinguished men whose close study of matter has not led them to materialism, that it only shows that they can be physicists without being scientists, it throws a yet more uncanny light on that very ugly word. Apparently a scientist is a man who surveys all the sciences, without any particular study of them, and then gives expression to his own moral principles or prejudices. In this way it is proved that Mr. Mencken is a scientist. I also am a scientist; but in my time it used to be called a journalist.

It is great fun, for what it really means is that the scientific materialist never cared for science but only for materialism. So long as he supposed that material inquiry supported materialism, he roared and bellowed at us that we must ‘accept the conclusions of science’. But he is not the least inclined himself to accept the conclusions of science, if they happen to go against his own crude and clumsy creed. The Darwinians would have been hysterical with horror if any Victorian journalist had told them that Darwin might be a biologist without being a scientist. Twenty years ago, it would have been atrociously antiquated to say that Haeckel was not really a scientist, though it is now much less clear that he was a scientist than that he was a monist. He was, anyhow, a propagandist, and a pretty unscrupulous propagandist; but we were all supposed to swallow what he said at once, because he was Science. The new physicists are not propagandists, but Mr. Mencken, so far from reverencing them as Science, desperately refuses to respect them even as scientists. And he takes up this extraordinary position for no reason in the world, except that they will not say exactly what he tells them to say, in the world of morals and metaphysics. But it is rather hard to ask them to drop all their scientific work for fear they should get a little ahead of Mr. Mencken.

God forbid that I should blame Mr. Mencken for being a Diehard and dying in the last ditch, even in the rather muddy ditch of a dead materialism. If he still thinks the old-fashioned science was right, he is perfectly right to be old-fashioned. But he will hardly expect us not to laugh at him, when we consider how we were derided as Diehards for being ready to die in a ditch which we thought more deep and rather less dirty. He is now, apparently, in exactly the same situation as we were, except that our principle has satisfied the intelligence of teeming populations for two thousand years, while his prejudice has broken down as soon as it was set up. So far as the teeming populations are concerned, it has ended before it had begun. For modern monism and materialism were never accepted by simple people, and are now being abandoned by scientific people. To be true to them when they lie under such a complication of disasters and disillusions may be admired as chivalric in the sense of quixotic; but Mr. Mencken would be the first to insist that it is allowable to smile at Don Quixote.

I have so warm an admiration for Mr. Mencken as the critic of Puritan pride and stupidity that I regret that he should thus try to make himself out a back number out of mere irreligious irritation. He has been the hammer of those false idealists who call themselves moral because they demand the Prohibition of a few hard drinks, and dare not say a word of the Prohibition of hard dealings, of hard bargains that break the poor, and the brutal ethics tolerated in business. I sympathize so much with this that I do not mind the hammer being flourished sometimes a little cheaply and ostentatiously, like an auctioneer’s hammer; nor do I demand in the present ease that it should tap as cautiously and scientifically as a geological hammer. But I do demand that it should go somewhere near hitting the right nail on the head, even if it be hit with all the windy violence of some Nietzschean imitation of the Hammer of Thor. I do not mind Mr. Mencken being destructive, like his master Nietzsche before him. What I complain of here is that he is not destructive enough. He not only dare not destroy, but he cannot even bear to watch the destruction of a few blunders and blind dogmas of old Victorian science. The Fundamentalists are funny enough, and the funniest thing about them is their name. For, whatever else the Fundamentalist is, he is not fundamental. He is content with the bare letter of Scripture— the translation of a translation, coming down to him by the tradition of a tradition—without venturing to ask for its original authority. But Mr. Mencken, in his latest phase, is almost as superficial as a Fundamentalist. I should have expected a man of his intelligence to be something fundamental, if it were only a fundamental sceptic. But a real fundamental sceptic, as he has existed in Hellas or in India, or possibly in the cavern of Zarathustra, would never be frightened because the new scientific study of matter leads to mathematical abstractions and abysses. He would never be alarmed because the world now revealed by the physicists is not even physical. It is the business of the agnostic to admit that he knows nothing; and he might the more gracefully admit it touching sciences about which he knows precious little. As it is, it seems as if the agnostic were transformed into the atheist, and a pretty stale and provincial sort of atheist; what might be called respectfully the village atheist. Even then, I suspect that I should sympathize with him in practice, in his free fight with the village Puritans in front of the village inn. But, just as I should prefer him to admit that even the village chemist knows something about chemistry, or the village physician about physic, I would suggest that even physicists do know something about physics.

Il signor H. L. Mencken è quantomeno un brillante uomo di lettere e dovrebbe saperne di più. Ma egli, a quanto arguisco, è appena uscito a difesa delle morte e sepolte negazioni dell’Ottocento, e sta gagliardamente facendo del suo meglio per impedire alla scienza americana di muoversi coi tempi. Il suo modo di farlo pare consistere nel gingillarsi con la parola «scienziato» in opposizione a qualche altra parola come «fisico». «Scienziato» è una parola orribile da esser costretti a usare, benché io vi sia stato spesso costretto; ma tutti questi termini per lo studio della scienza si trovano in una confusione assai poco scientifica. Sarebbe imbarazzante convocare un medico e vedersi visitare da un fisico. Eppure, sul parallelo di fisica e metafisica, la prima parola parrebbe più logica. Pochi di noi hanno mai, in disperata fretta, convocato un metafisico. Ma sarebbe assai più spaventoso e terrificante vedersi visitare da un metafisicista. Fatta salva l’ulteriore chiarificazione della lingua, presumo che il signor Mencken intenda per scienziato o un uomo che si specializza in tutte le scienze (figura alquanto allarmante) oppure un uomo che si specializza davvero in una scienza in modo scientifico. Il signor Mencken sceglie di contraddire recisamente i principali fisici viventi, i quali hanno studiato la fisica in modo rigorosamente scientifico. Non so se egli abbia studiato quella scienza in qualsivoglia modo, ma sono abbastanza certo che non l’abbia studiata in quel modo. Quando, dunque, egli dice degli illustri uomini il cui approfondito studio della materia non li ha condotti al materialismo, che ciò dimostra soltanto che possono essere fisici senza essere scienziati, getta una luce ancor più inquietante su quella bruttissima parola. A quanto pare, uno scienziato è un uomo che passa in rassegna tutte le scienze, senza uno studio particolare di esse, e poi dà espressione ai propri principi o pregiudizi morali. In questo modo si dimostra che il signor Mencken è uno scienziato. Anch’io sono uno scienziato; ma ai miei tempi lo si chiamava giornalista.

È un gran divertimento, poiché ciò che realmente significa è che il materialista scientifico non si curò mai della scienza ma soltanto del materialismo. Finché suppose che l’indagine materiale sostenesse il materialismo, ci ruggì e ci tuonò addosso che dovevamo «accettare le conclusioni della scienza». Ma egli non è minimamente incline, per parte sua, ad accettare le conclusioni della scienza, qualora esse vengano a contrastare il suo rozzo e goffo credo. I darwiniani sarebbero stati isterici d’orrore se un qualsiasi giornalista vittoriano avesse detto loro che Darwin poteva essere un biologo senza essere uno scienziato. Vent’anni fa sarebbe stato atrocemente antiquato dire che Haeckel non era veramente uno scienziato, benché ora sia assai meno chiaro che egli fosse uno scienziato di quanto lo sia che fosse un monista. Egli era, comunque, un propagandista, e un propagandista alquanto senza scrupoli; ma tutti dovevamo inghiottire ciò che egli diceva all’istante, perché egli era la Scienza. I nuovi fisici non sono propagandisti, ma il signor Mencken, ben lungi dal riverirli come Scienza, rifiuta disperatamente di rispettarli persino come scienziati. Ed egli assume questa straordinaria posizione senza alcuna ragione al mondo, se non che essi non vogliono dire esattamente ciò che egli ordina loro di dire, nel mondo della morale e della metafisica. Ma è piuttosto duro chiedere loro di abbandonare tutto il loro lavoro scientifico per paura che si spingano un po’ più avanti del signor Mencken.

Dio mi guardi dal biasimare il signor Mencken per essere un irriducibile e per morire nell’ultima trincea, foss’anche nella trincea alquanto fangosa di un materialismo morto. Se egli pensa ancora che la scienza all’antica avesse ragione, ha perfettamente ragione a essere all’antica. Ma non si aspetterà certo che noi non ridiamo di lui, quando consideriamo come venivamo derisi come irriducibili per la nostra prontezza a morire in una trincea che ritenevamo più profonda e alquanto meno sudicia. Egli ora, a quanto pare, si trova esattamente nella stessa situazione in cui eravamo noi, salvo che il nostro principio ha soddisfatto l’intelligenza di popolazioni brulicanti per duemila anni, mentre il suo pregiudizio è crollato non appena fu innalzato. Per quanto riguarda le popolazioni brulicanti, esso è finito prima ancora di cominciare. Poiché il monismo e il materialismo moderni non furono mai accettati dalla gente semplice, e ora vengono abbandonati dalla gente di scienza. Restar fedele a essi mentre giacciono sotto una tale complicazione di disastri e di disillusioni potrà essere ammirato come cavalleresco nel senso di donchisciottesco; ma il signor Mencken sarebbe il primo a insistere che è lecito sorridere di Don Chisciotte.

Nutro un’ammirazione così calorosa per il signor Mencken quale critico dell’orgoglio e della stupidità puritana, che mi rincresce ch’egli tenti così di rendersi un uomo del passato per mera irritazione irreligiosa. Egli è stato il martello di quei falsi idealisti che si dicono morali perché reclamano il Proibizionismo di qualche liquore forte, e non osano dire una parola sul proibire i traffici disonesti, gli affari spietati che rovinano i poveri, e l’etica brutale tollerata nel commercio. Simpatizzo talmente con questo che non mi dispiace che il martello venga talora brandito un po’ a buon mercato e ostentatamente, come il martello di un banditore d’aste; né pretendo, nel caso presente, che esso picchietti con la cautela e la scientificità di un martello da geologo. Ma pretendo che vada almeno vicino a colpire il chiodo giusto sulla testa, anche se lo si colpisce con tutta la ventosa violenza di qualche nietzschiana imitazione del Martello di Thor. Non mi dispiace che il signor Mencken sia distruttivo, come il suo maestro Nietzsche prima di lui. Ciò di cui mi lagno qui è che egli non è distruttivo abbastanza. Non solo non osa distruggere, ma non sopporta neppure di assistere alla distruzione di qualche svista e di qualche cieco dogma della vecchia scienza vittoriana. I fondamentalisti sono abbastanza buffi, e la cosa più buffa a loro riguardo è il loro nome. Poiché, qualunque altra cosa sia il fondamentalista, egli non è fondamentale. Si accontenta della nuda lettera della Scrittura — la traduzione di una traduzione, giunta fino a lui per la tradizione di una tradizione — senza arrischiarsi a chiederne l’autorità originaria. Ma il signor Mencken, nella sua ultima fase, è quasi altrettanto superficiale di un fondamentalista. Mi sarei aspettato da un uomo della sua intelligenza che fosse qualcosa di fondamentale, non fosse altro che uno scettico fondamentale. Ma un vero scettico fondamentale, quale è esistito nell’Ellade o in India, o forse nella caverna di Zarathustra, non si spaventerebbe mai perché il nuovo studio scientifico della materia conduce ad astrazioni e ad abissi matematici. Non si allarmerebbe mai perché il mondo ora rivelato dai fisici non è nemmeno fisico. È compito dell’agnostico ammettere che non sa nulla; e potrebbe ammetterlo con maggior grazia riguardo a scienze delle quali sa pochissimo. Così com’è, pare che l’agnostico si sia trasformato nell’ateo, e in un genere di ateo alquanto stantio e provinciale; ciò che si potrebbe rispettosamente chiamare l’ateo di villaggio. E anche allora, sospetto che simpatizzerei con lui nella pratica, nella sua libera zuffa con i puritani del villaggio davanti alla locanda del villaggio. Ma, così come preferirei che egli ammettesse che persino il farmacista del villaggio sa qualcosa di chimica, o il medico del villaggio qualcosa di medicina, suggerirei che persino i fisici sanno qualcosa di fisica.

XI. On Anthony Trollope: Historian

I WAS recently reading an article on Anthony Trollope, one of the many that have appeared in literary magazines since critics have discovered that his work can be treated as literature, when they used only to treat it as fiction. He is a rather rare example of a man who has been taken more seriously after his death than in his presence. The Victorians tended to regard Trollope as light literature, and Thackeray and even Dickens as more serious literature. The modern critics, rightly or wrongly, are disposed to treat Trollope more seriously, and even Dickens and Thackeray more lightly. Of course, Trollope is treated in both fashions, according to the taste of the critic. Mr. Hugh Walpole has cultivated the Trollope style both by precept and example; and Father Ronald Knox has made a most elaborate and detailed map of Barsetshire, and annotated it with stern queries about why Dr. Thorne took so long to get to Plumstead Episcopi, or what Mr. Gresham was doing on the wrong road to Framley Parsonage. These are not the right examples; for I, alas! have not the powerful detective and documentary brain of Father Knox. But it is broadly true that Trollope has again attracted many people from many aspects. And yet there is one aspect of Trollope which I think has been entirely neglected, and which I think is of very great and vital importance to the history of England.

The critic in question says of Trollope, truly enough in the main: ‘He scarcely concerned himself with the lower orders.’ We may add that the whole system of English squirearchy scarcely concerned itself with the lower orders; or only in the same vague and well meaning way as Trollope. But when the critic adds, ‘His values were those of the middle class’, he misses the point— the point which I think important about English history. It is not really true, as a whole, that his characters were middle class. It might be said more truly that Dickens dealt largely with the middle class, though doubt less more largely with the lower middle class, and even the lower class. But Trollope really deals with the upper middle class in so far as it is attached to the upper class. Squire Gresham was not middle class; and I fancy that Archdeacon Grantly would have been very much surprised to be told he was. I draw a veil over the fury of Mrs. Proudie, who would probably, I admit, have been even more indignant at the description if it happened to be true. Dr. Thorne was, in the ordinary sense, of the professional middle class but we are never allowed to forget that his family was older and prouder than the De Courcys. Most of the Government clerks are of the more or less aristocratic class from which Government clerks were, and to some extent still are, chiefly drawn. In other words, we shall not learn the first historical lesson from Trollope till we realize that he bears witness to England as an aristocratic State; and not, as our friends the Communists would say, as a bourgeois State. But there is a further development of this historical truth, which I think rather curious. Trollope bears witness to a big historical fact about our past, and does it all the more solidly and sincerely because he has no notion that he is doing it at all.

I know it was the fashion in the Victorian times to say that England was represented by its Great Middle Class and not by its aristocracy. That was the artfulness of its aristocracy. Never did a governing class govern so completely, by saying it did not govern at all. The middle-class English man was always pushed into the foreground; while the rulers remained in the background. It was the middle-class Englishman who wrote letters to The Times; it was not he who informed The Times. It was the middle-class man who went to the political meeting; it was not he who sent down the candidate. The governing class governed by the perfectly simple principle of keeping all the important things to themselves; and giving the papers and the public unimportant things to discuss. When Earl Balfour (one of the last great survivals of the governing class) said languidly that he never read the newspapers, everybody laughed, as if he had said that he could not read the alphabet. In fact, of course, he never read the newspapers because he had read the State papers. Why should he read all the nonsense that was served out to the public, when he knew all the real secrets which were kept as secrets of State?

But when we have realized that the England of Trollope was still an aristocratic England, there is a further distinction, which Trollope never notices, but always makes clear. His evidence is alone enough to upset Macaulay and Green and the whole Whig theory of our history taught in the schools. The really interesting fact to be inferred from Trollope is this. Nineteenth-century England is not a country in which we have a populace led by a Liberal middle class on one side and a powerful Tory nobility led by Dukes and Earls on the other. The division of the parties is totally different, and unconsciously betrays the real secret, not only of the nineteenth, but of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries. It betrays the truth about the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the nature of the new system which it really introduced. The Crown did not pass from James II to William III. Like many stolen treasures, it was cut up: it was cut up into coronets.

Let anybody, reading Trollope carefully, note what the real division between the parties was. There is a large proportion of minor gentry, who may be called middle class, if we will, who are certainly numerous and not very rich: doctors, parsons, small squires, and yeomen and all sorts of plain and hard-working people. Now these people are all Tories. They inherit the old Tory tradition of loyalty to a king, which belonged to purely middle-class people like Dr. Johnson or Dr. Goldsmith.

XI. Su Anthony Trollope: storico

DI RECENTE leggevo un articolo su Anthony Trollope, uno dei tanti apparsi sulle riviste letterarie da quando i critici hanno scoperto che la sua opera può essere trattata come letteratura, mentre un tempo la si trattava soltanto come narrativa. È un esempio piuttosto raro di uomo preso più sul serio dopo la sua morte che in vita. I vittoriani tendevano a considerare Trollope letteratura leggera, e Thackeray e persino Dickens letteratura più seria. I critici moderni, a torto o a ragione, sono inclini a trattare Trollope più seriamente, e perfino Dickens e Thackeray più alla leggera. Naturalmente Trollope è trattato in entrambe le maniere, secondo il gusto del critico. Il signor Hugh Walpole ha coltivato lo stile di Trollope tanto con il precetto quanto con l’esempio; e padre Ronald Knox ha tracciato una mappa quanto mai elaborata e minuziosa del Barsetshire, corredandola di severi interrogativi sul perché il dottor Thorne impiegasse tanto tempo a raggiungere Plumstead Episcopi, o su che cosa facesse il signor Gresham sulla strada sbagliata per Framley Parsonage. Non sono questi gli esempi giusti; ché io, ahimè!, non possiedo il potente cervello investigativo e documentario di padre Knox. Ma è in larga misura vero che Trollope ha nuovamente attirato molte persone da molti punti di vista. Eppure c’è un aspetto di Trollope che, a mio parere, è stato interamente trascurato, e che ritengo di grandissima e vitale importanza per la storia d’Inghilterra.

Il critico in questione dice di Trollope, abbastanza veridicamente nel complesso: «Si occupò a stento delle classi inferiori». Possiamo aggiungere che l’intero sistema della piccola nobiltà terriera inglese si occupò a stento delle classi inferiori; o solo in quel modo vago e ben intenzionato di Trollope. Ma quando il critico soggiunge: «I suoi valori erano quelli della classe media», egli manca il punto — il punto che io ritengo importante riguardo alla storia inglese. Non è affatto vero, nel complesso, che i suoi personaggi appartenessero alla classe media. Si potrebbe dire con più verità che Dickens si occupò in gran parte della classe media, benché senza dubbio più largamente della piccola borghesia, e persino della classe inferiore. Ma Trollope si occupa in realtà dell’alta borghesia in quanto essa è legata alla classe alta. Il possidente Gresham non era di classe media; e immagino che l’arcidiacono Grantly sarebbe rimasto assai sorpreso a sentirsi dire di esserlo. Stendo un velo sulla furia della signora Proudie, la quale, lo ammetto, sarebbe stata probabilmente ancor più indignata della descrizione se questa fosse per caso stata vera. Il dottor Thorne apparteneva, nel senso comune, alla classe media delle professioni, ma non ci è mai concesso di dimenticare che la sua famiglia era più antica e più fiera dei De Courcy. La maggior parte dei funzionari del Governo appartiene alla classe più o meno aristocratica dalla quale i funzionari del Governo erano, e in una certa misura sono tuttora, principalmente tratti. In altre parole, non apprenderemo la prima lezione storica da Trollope finché non ci renderemo conto che egli reca testimonianza dell’Inghilterra come di uno Stato aristocratico; e non, come direbbero i nostri amici comunisti, come di uno Stato borghese. Ma c’è un ulteriore sviluppo di questa verità storica, che ritengo piuttosto curioso. Trollope reca testimonianza di un grande fatto storico riguardo al nostro passato, e lo fa tanto più solidamente e sinceramente in quanto non ha la minima idea di farlo affatto.

So che nei tempi vittoriani era di moda dire che l’Inghilterra era rappresentata dalla sua Grande Classe Media e non dalla sua aristocrazia. Era l’astuzia della sua aristocrazia. Mai una classe dirigente governò tanto compiutamente, dicendo di non governare affatto. L’inglese della classe media veniva sempre spinto in primo piano, mentre i governanti rimanevano sullo sfondo. Era l’inglese della classe media a scrivere lettere al Times; non era lui a informare il Times. Era l’uomo della classe media ad andare al comizio politico; non era lui a mandar giù il candidato. La classe dirigente governava secondo il principio perfettamente semplice di tenere tutte le cose importanti per sé, e di dare ai giornali e al pubblico cose senza importanza da discutere. Quando il conte Balfour (uno degli ultimi grandi superstiti della classe dirigente) disse languidamente di non leggere mai i giornali, tutti risero, come se avesse detto di non saper leggere l’alfabeto. In realtà, naturalmente, egli non leggeva mai i giornali perché aveva letto i documenti di Stato. Perché avrebbe dovuto leggere tutte le sciocchezze propinate al pubblico, quando conosceva tutti i veri segreti, custoditi come segreti di Stato?

Ma una volta che ci siamo resi conto che l’Inghilterra di Trollope era ancora un’Inghilterra aristocratica, c’è un’ulteriore distinzione, che Trollope non nota mai, ma rende sempre chiara. La sua sola testimonianza basta da sola a mandare all’aria Macaulay e Green e tutta la teoria whig della nostra storia insegnata nelle scuole. Il fatto davvero interessante che si può desumere da Trollope è questo. L’Inghilterra del diciannovesimo secolo non è un paese in cui si abbia una plebe guidata da una classe media liberale da un lato e una potente nobiltà tory guidata da duchi e conti dall’altro. La divisione dei partiti è del tutto diversa, e tradisce inconsapevolmente il vero segreto non soltanto del diciannovesimo, ma anche del diciottesimo e del diciassettesimo secolo. Tradisce la verità sulla Gloriosa Rivoluzione del 1688 e la natura del nuovo sistema che essa realmente introdusse. La Corona non passò da Giacomo II a Guglielmo III. Come molti tesori rubati, fu fatta a pezzi: fu fatta a pezzi in coronette.

Chiunque, leggendo Trollope con attenzione, noti quale fosse la vera divisione tra i partiti. C’è una larga porzione di piccola nobiltà minore, che si può chiamare classe media, se vogliamo, e che è certamente numerosa e non molto ricca: medici, parroci, piccoli possidenti, e piccoli proprietari terrieri e gente d’ogni sorta, semplice e laboriosa. Ora, tutta questa gente è tory. Essa eredita l’antica tradizione tory di lealtà a un re, che apparteneva a gente puramente di classe media come il dottor Johnson o il dottor Goldsmith.

Far above all these people, like gods on Olympus, like higher beings living on a loftier plane, there are two or three people who are of prodigious public importance, like emperors or kings. The tone of everybody else in talking about them implies the remote condescension of a sovereign. The obvious example is the Duke of Omnium. He is spoken of as playing a great princely part like a prince. We need not deny him the credit, but we need not disguise the fact that his importance rested on being what we call a millionaire. More presentable, I admit, than the millionaires who are flattered to-day. But he is ruler of all England because he is gigantically rich. Now this kind of man is always a Whig.

What the serious historians have disguised the frivolous novelist has detected. Their histories are fiction and his fiction is history. That is the truth; and that is Trollope’s unconscious witness to what the Whigs really did in English history; why they were able to overthrow the Stuarts; why they were able to dominate the common traditional Tories like Dr. Thorne. What the Revolution did was obviously not to establish a democracy; not even to establish a normal and national gentry; not even to establish a mere rustic squirearchy. It was to establish certain great magnates, whose wealth and power was far out of proportion to that of the ordinary gentleman, let alone the ordinary citizen. They owned every thing, and Trollope knew it. What other possible meaning is there in the title of The Duke of Omnium? Thackeray also knew it. What possible other meaning is there in that fine satiric flourish, ‘I am not a Whig … but oh, how I should like to be!’? Even the waiters and couriers on the Continent knew it. What other meaning was in the Arabian Nights legend of the English Milord? Everybody seems to have known it, except the people who taught history in the schools and universities of England.

XII. On the Way of the World

IT was Matthew Arnold, if I remember right, who invented or popularized the phrase ‘the way the world is going’, a motto for social reformers only too easily adapted into a motto for snobs. It is not really even a simple, let alone a safe, guide, as can be easily tested in his own ease. After all, if it comes to that, what way was the world going in the time of Matthew Arnold? We are far enough from it to look back to it, and, when we look back to it, the world seems to be going all ways at once. It was certainly a time when the Philistines, as he called them, the middle-class mercantile Liberals of the school of Cobden and Bright, were still marching from victory to victory. And yet the end of the Liberal century was crowned, or crushed, by the Jingo journalism of the Kipling epoch, with War, Imperialism, and everything that the old Liberals loathed. In one sense the world was more sceptical and scientific; in every sense it seemed more sceptical and scientific; and yet the mystical and religious reaction increased steadily from then till now. In short, when we look back on that time we see not a tide but an eddy, or a welter of eddies, in which each person is paddling his own canoe desperately in his own direction. Arnold wanted to go back to Athens; Newman to go back to Rome; Carlyle to go back to Scandinavia; Schopenhauer to go back to India; Nietzsche to go back to chaos. I do not say there was no predominant influence among these influences, but I do say that it was not so simple as Arnold and some other people thought it; and, so far from simplifying itself with distance, it seems with distance to grow more dizzy and distracted. Wherever that age was drifting, it was to the place where we are now. And where in the world are we?

There is one case of this complexity that always amuses me: the way in which the abstract assumptions of an age are often contradicted by its concrete customs and amusements. The superficial examples are obvious enough. In theory this is the age of Prohibition; in practice it is the age of Cocktails. In theory women are working in the world on an assumption of absolute equality with men. In practice vast numbers are reading the novels of Miss Ethel M. Dell and all sorts of rubbishy tales and essays about the fascination of sheikhs and cavemen. In theory the State has been practically secularized and theology is a dead and threadbare thing, dismissed disdainfully in every other paragraph as a lumber of ‘creeds and dogmas’. In practice no newspaper can apparently pay its way without plastering itself all over with headlines and captions about the position of Christianity, the nature of Christ, the immortality of the soul, the future of the Churches, and a whole picture-gallery of portraits of popular clergymen. But there is one particular contradiction which I would note here, between the tone of such religious journalism and something else that might rather be called spiritual literature. At a moment when the popular religion, or at least the religion preached in the popular press, all points one way, the work of the most modern and independent artists points the other. The newspapers are all God and no devil. The novels are all devils and no God. The tone of that religious journalism, or whatever we call it, is something that people call Optimism. It is a bad word, but it can sometimes stand for a good thing. I have used it myself in other days, merely in opposition to Pessimism, and as meaning the primary conviction that life is worth living and the world is worthy of our efforts for it. But nowadays it means something much more; or, rather, something immeasurably less. It means a sort of cheap cheeriness, at the back of which there is a curious sort of hollow unbelief in reality. Men boasted of being Optimists about the war; which is like being Optimists about the weather. A man may try to be cheerful even if there is a thunderstorm; but these lunatics talked as if they could prevent a thunderstorm by being cheerful. Those who pro pose to be cheerful when struck by lightning introduce a more mystical question. So people now boast of being Optimists about Trade, this is more vulgar but less irrational, precisely because trade is a less real thing than war. Some are surprised that the same American civilization should produce Christian Science and commercial salesmanship. But in fact Christian Science is very like commercial salesmanship. Both rest on the idea that facts can be conjured away by moods and mesmerism. The perfect Scientist persuades a man that he hasn’t got what he has got. The perfect Salesman persuades a man that he does want what he doesn’t want. We may call it, in a complimentary phrase, the power of spirit over matter. We may call it, in a less complimentary phrase, the power of lies over facts. But this spirit of persuasion, or illusion, does pervade our time in good and bad forms, and especially in one popular religious form. I have remarked before that Spiritualism, for instance, while it does not affirm that all Spirits are good, does rather tend to ignore the suggestion that some are bad. And it will be agreed that the general tone of all the True Christianity and New Religions that pervades the newspapers rather leaves out the possibility that anything is bad. One would infer from these lay sermons that there is no difficulty about being happy, if it be only accompanied by being hazy. Some of the writers deal with the tremendous and pulverizing paradox of the Love of God, especially in the aspect of faith in the God of Love, as if it were not only perfectly self-evident, but as if it could have no effect except to make us self-satisfied. The thunderous riddle of the ‘Est Deus Caritatis’ which broke above the dying Brand after his life of agony on the peak of his perfect renunciation, seems to be uttered chirpily every morning to every clerk or stockbroker who will be sufficiently broadminded to play golf instead of going to church. Carlyle complained of people who were at ease in Zion. But the new Zion ism thinks it enough to prove that it is easier still not to be in Zion at all. Whatever else it does encourage, the dread of devilry or definite evil is admittedly a thing that it does not encourage. We could read reams and files of the new newspaper theology and not find even a mention of that fear of demons that was felt by all our fathers. Very well; that is the way the world is supposed to have gone in our time. But when we read the literature of our time, especially when it is really literary, we find something quite the contrary. The most distinguished men of letters, the novelists or the new poets, often have no more definite beliefs than the newspaper believers. They are quite as pure from the taint of creed, dogma, or intellectually intelligible statement of faith. Most of them are probably agnostics; and in that sense do not believe in God, let alone the devil. And yet they are perpetually writing about devils. They are always at it. Book after book comes out, of which the theme is some strange psychological wickedness, encouraged more or less by some more strange psychical influence. One distinguished novelist writes a book about Pan, as a positive influence and a highly unpleasant influence, fully worthy of his ancient association with Panic. Another distinguished novelist devotes another imaginative novel to a dark and terrible deity of the South Americans, worshipped in former ages with torture and blood. Among the master pieces of the last twenty or thirty years, those that stand out in my own memory with startling power arc almost all of them stories of necromancy or diabolic possession, often written by men who had no definite religious affiliations, but who had imagination carrying all the solidity of conviction. I look back over the whole of that long period, that has been littered to the sky with newspaper philosophies preaching cheerfulness and optimism, and ignorance of evil. And the two things that stand out in my memory for their solidity and sincerity and power, staring like stone gargoyles of gigantic stature, are both things that seem to face the other way from the whole recent movement of the world. I remember the real literary thrill which I felt long ago when reading The Turn of the Screw, and how it woke within me again long after, under the suffocating vividness of Seaton’s Aunt.

Ben al di sopra di tutta questa gente, come dèi sull’Olimpo, come esseri superiori che vivono su un piano più elevato, ci sono due o tre persone di prodigiosa importanza pubblica, come imperatori o re. Il tono di chiunque altro nel parlare di loro implica la remota condiscendenza di un sovrano. L’esempio ovvio è il duca di Omnium. Se ne parla come di uno che recita una gran parte principesca, alla maniera di un principe. Non abbiamo bisogno di negargli il merito, ma non abbiamo bisogno di dissimulare il fatto che la sua importanza poggiava sull’essere quel che noi chiamiamo un milionario. Più presentabile, lo ammetto, dei milionari adulati oggigiorno. Ma egli è signore di tutta l’Inghilterra perché è gigantescamente ricco. Ora, questo genere d’uomo è sempre un whig.

Ciò che gli storici seri hanno dissimulato, il frivolo romanziere l’ha scoperto. Le loro storie sono narrativa e la sua narrativa è storia. Questa è la verità; ed è la testimonianza inconsapevole di Trollope su ciò che i whig fecero realmente nella storia inglese; sul perché essi furono in grado di rovesciare gli Stuart; sul perché furono in grado di dominare i tory comuni e tradizionali come il dottor Thorne. Ciò che la Rivoluzione fece non fu evidentemente instaurare una democrazia; e nemmeno instaurare una normale e nazionale nobiltà terriera; e nemmeno instaurare una semplice piccola nobiltà rustica. Fu instaurare certi grandi magnati, la cui ricchezza e potenza erano del tutto sproporzionate rispetto a quelle del gentiluomo comune, per non dire del comune cittadino da solo. Possedevano ogni cosa, e Trollope lo sapeva. Quale altro possibile significato c’è nel titolo di Duca di Omnium? Anche Thackeray lo sapeva. Quale altro possibile significato c’è in quel bel guizzo satirico: «Non sono un whig… ma oh, quanto vorrei esserlo!»? Persino i camerieri e i corrieri sul Continente lo sapevano. Quale altro significato c’era nella leggenda delle Mille e una notte del Milord inglese? Tutti sembrano averlo saputo, tranne coloro che insegnavano storia nelle scuole e nelle università d’Inghilterra.

XII. Sull’andazzo del mondo

FU Matthew Arnold, se ben ricordo, a inventare o a rendere popolare la frase «la direzione in cui il mondo sta andando», un motto per i riformatori sociali fin troppo facilmente adattabile a motto per gli snob. Non è nemmeno, in realtà, una guida semplice, e tanto meno sicura, come si può facilmente verificare nel suo stesso caso. Dopotutto, a ben vedere, in quale direzione stava andando il mondo al tempo di Matthew Arnold? Ne siamo abbastanza lontani da poterlo guardare a ritroso e, quando lo guardiamo a ritroso, il mondo sembra andare in tutte le direzioni contemporaneamente. Era certamente un tempo in cui i filistei, come li chiamava lui, i mercantili liberali della classe media della scuola di Cobden e Bright, marciavano ancora di vittoria in vittoria. Eppure la fine del secolo liberale fu coronata, o schiacciata, dal giornalismo bellicoso dell’epoca di Kipling, con la Guerra, l’Imperialismo e tutto ciò che i vecchi liberali aborrivano. In un senso il mondo era più scettico e scientifico; in ogni senso appariva più scettico e scientifico; eppure la reazione mistica e religiosa crebbe costantemente da allora fino a oggi. In breve, quando guardiamo a ritroso quel tempo vediamo non una marea ma un vortice, o un groviglio di vortici, in cui ciascuno rema disperatamente la propria canoa nella propria direzione. Arnold voleva tornare ad Atene; Newman a Roma; Carlyle in Scandinavia; Schopenhauer in India; Nietzsche al caos. Non dico che non vi fosse un’influenza predominante tra queste influenze, ma dico che non era così semplice come pensavano Arnold e alcuni altri; e, lungi dal semplificarsi con la distanza, sembra con la distanza farsi più vertiginoso e sconvolto. Verso qualunque luogo quell’età andasse alla deriva, andava verso il luogo in cui ci troviamo ora. E dove diamine ci troviamo?

C’è un caso di questa complessità che sempre mi diverte: il modo in cui gli assunti astratti di un’epoca sono spesso contraddetti dalle sue usanze e dai suoi svaghi concreti. Gli esempi superficiali sono abbastanza ovvii. In teoria questa è l’età del Proibizionismo; in pratica è l’età dei Cocktail. In teoria le donne lavorano nel mondo sul presupposto di un’assoluta uguaglianza con gli uomini. In pratica un gran numero di esse legge i romanzi della signorina Ethel M. Dell e ogni sorta di scipite storielle e saggi sul fascino degli sceicchi e degli uomini delle caverne. In teoria lo Stato è stato praticamente secolarizzato e la teologia è cosa morta e logora, liquidata sdegnosamente in un paragrafo sì e uno no come un ciarpame di «credi e dogmi». In pratica nessun giornale sembra riuscire a far quadrare i conti senza tappezzarsi da cima a fondo di titoloni e didascalie sulla posizione del cristianesimo, la natura di Cristo, l’immortalità dell’anima, il futuro delle Chiese, e un’intera galleria di ritratti di ecclesiastici alla moda. Ma c’è una particolare contraddizione che vorrei rilevare qui, tra il tono di simile giornalismo religioso e qualcos’altro che si potrebbe piuttosto chiamare letteratura spirituale. In un momento in cui la religione popolare, o almeno la religione predicata sulla stampa popolare, punta tutta in una direzione, l’opera degli artisti più moderni e indipendenti punta in quella opposta. I giornali sono tutti Dio e niente diavolo. I romanzi sono tutti diavoli e niente Dio. Il tono di quel giornalismo religioso, o comunque lo si voglia chiamare, è qualcosa che la gente chiama Ottimismo. È una brutta parola, ma talvolta può stare per una buona cosa. L’ho usata io stesso in altri tempi, semplicemente in opposizione al Pessimismo, e nel senso della convinzione fondamentale che la vita val la pena di essere vissuta e che il mondo è degno dei nostri sforzi in suo favore. Ma oggigiorno essa significa qualcosa di molto più; o, piuttosto, qualcosa di incommensurabilmente meno. Significa una sorta di allegria a buon mercato, dietro la quale c’è una curiosa specie di cava incredulità nella realtà. Gli uomini si vantavano d’essere Ottimisti riguardo alla guerra; il che è come essere Ottimisti riguardo al tempo atmosferico. Un uomo può cercare di essere allegro anche se c’è un temporale; ma quei folli parlavano come se potessero impedire un temporale con l’essere allegri. Coloro che si propongono di essere allegri quando li colpisce un fulmine sollevano una questione più mistica. Così adesso la gente si vanta d’essere Ottimista riguardo al Commercio; il che è più volgare ma meno irrazionale, appunto perché il commercio è cosa meno reale della guerra. Alcuni si stupiscono che la medesima civiltà americana possa produrre la Scienza Cristiana e l’arte commerciale del vendere. Ma di fatto la Scienza Cristiana è molto simile all’arte commerciale del vendere. Entrambe poggiano sull’idea che i fatti possano essere fatti sparire con gli stati d’animo e il mesmerismo. Il perfetto Scienziato persuade un uomo di non avere ciò che ha. Il perfetto Venditore persuade un uomo di volere ciò che non vuole. Possiamo chiamarlo, con espressione lusinghiera, il potere dello spirito sulla materia. Possiamo chiamarlo, con espressione meno lusinghiera, il potere delle menzogne sui fatti. Ma questo spirito di persuasione, o d’illusione, pervade davvero il nostro tempo in forme buone e cattive, e specialmente in una forma religiosa popolare. Ho già osservato altrove che lo Spiritismo, per esempio, pur non affermando che tutti gli Spiriti siano buoni, tende piuttosto a ignorare l’ipotesi che alcuni siano cattivi. E si converrà che il tono generale di tutto quel Vero Cristianesimo e di quelle Nuove Religioni che pervadono i giornali tralascia piuttosto la possibilità che qualcosa sia cattivo. Da queste prediche laiche si dedurrebbe che non c’è alcuna difficoltà a essere felici, purché lo si sia insieme all’essere nebulosi. Alcuni scrittori trattano il tremendo e polverizzante paradosso dell’Amore di Dio, specie nell’aspetto della fede nel Dio d’Amore, come se non fosse soltanto perfettamente evidente di per sé, ma come se non potesse avere altro effetto che renderci compiaciuti di noi stessi. Il tonante enigma dell’«Est Deus Caritatis» che proruppe sopra il morente Brand dopo la sua vita d’agonia sulla vetta della sua perfetta rinuncia, sembra venir cinguettato ogni mattina a ogni impiegato o agente di cambio abbastanza di larghe vedute da giocare a golf invece di andare in chiesa. Carlyle si lagnava di coloro che erano a proprio agio in Sion. Ma il nuovo sionismo ritiene sufficiente dimostrare che è ancor più facile non essere affatto in Sion. Qualunque altra cosa incoraggi, il timore della diavoleria o del male preciso è, per ammissione, cosa che esso non incoraggia. Potremmo leggere risme e pile della nuova teologia da giornale senza trovare nemmeno una menzione di quel timore dei demoni che era sentito da tutti i nostri padri. Molto bene; è così che si suppone che il mondo sia andato ai nostri tempi. Ma quando leggiamo la letteratura del nostro tempo, specialmente quando è davvero letteraria, troviamo qualcosa di ben contrario. Gli uomini di lettere più illustri, i romanzieri o i nuovi poeti, spesso non hanno credenze più precise dei credenti da giornale. Sono altrettanto immuni dal contagio del credo, del dogma o di un enunciato di fede intellettualmente intelligibile. Molti di loro sono probabilmente agnostici; e in questo senso non credono in Dio, per non dire nel diavolo da solo. Eppure scrivono di continuo di diavoli. Ci sono sempre dietro. Esce libro dopo libro il cui tema è qualche strana perfidia psicologica, incoraggiata più o meno da qualche influsso psichico ancor più strano. Un illustre romanziere scrive un libro su Pan, come influsso positivo e influsso oltremodo sgradevole, pienamente degno della sua antica associazione col Panico. Un altro illustre romanziere dedica un altro romanzo fantasioso a una tenebrosa e terribile divinità dei Sudamericani, adorata in epoche passate con la tortura e il sangue. Tra i capolavori degli ultimi venti o trent’anni, quelli che spiccano nella mia stessa memoria con potenza sconvolgente sono quasi tutti racconti di negromanzia o di possessione diabolica, spesso scritti da uomini che non avevano precise affiliazioni religiose, ma che avevano un’immaginazione carica di tutta la solidità della convinzione. Ripercorro con lo sguardo l’intero arco di quel lungo periodo, che è stato disseminato fino al cielo di filosofie da giornale predicanti allegria e ottimismo, e ignoranza del male. E le due cose che spiccano nella mia memoria per la loro solidità, sincerità e potenza, fissandomi come gargolle di pietra di gigantesca statura, sono entrambe cose che sembrano rivolte dalla parte opposta rispetto all’intero recente movimento del mondo. Ricordo il vero brivido letterario che provai tanto tempo fa leggendo Il giro di vite, e come si ridestò dentro di me molto dopo, sotto la soffocante vividezza di La zia di Seaton.

XIII. On the New Insularity

THAT a heresy is a half-truth is a very old and familiar example of a whole truth; but a truth that is not often realized as a whole. Most mistaken people mean well, and all mistaken people mean some thing. There is something to be said for every error, but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous. On the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, it ought to be true that half a truth is better than no verity. But in practice, it is not so much a case of the half loaf of the proverb as of the half apple of the fairy-tale; the apple of which one half was poisoned by the wicked stepmother for the good princess. At least, as modern mental feeding goes, to stop lathe middle of the meal is often to eat the poison without eating the antidote. And if we look back on history, we shall see it largely encumbered and crushed with half-truths; we shall wonder how it happened so often that a whole age or generation was content with a half-truth, without making the faintest effort to find the other half. We shall wonder how one fashion could be entirely set upon fame or glory, or another upon order and symmetry, or another upon discovery and adventure; and be unable to understand how men could sacrifice all other things to each of these things in turn. It may be that we shall never fully understand why our fathers did it, for we certainly do not in the least understand why we do it ourselves.

There are certain half-truths that are even now allowed to occupy the whole mind. There are certain statements that are true as far as they go, and even important and interesting as far as they go, which are yet incessantly being used to stop the mind from going any farther. One of these, for example, is the phrase we find in the phraseology of all our literature and journalism; ‘Rapid modern communications are bringing different parts of the world nearer and nearer together. It takes but a few days to go to Siberia by train; it may take but a few hours to go there by aeroplane. Instead of being at the ends of the earth, Siberia may yet be a sort of suburb like Surbiton.’ But nobody stops to ask himself whether Siberia really is like Surbiton; in what respect it is really unlike Surbiton, or, above all, whether it is not in some respects growing more unlike Surbiton. For another process is going on, parallel to the process of the connexion of routes, and it is the disconnexion of ideas. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that some bold and romantic adventurer from Surbiton had gone to Siberia a hundred years ago. Doubtless he would have found the people there something like savages; perhaps, to his too refined suburban eye, something hardly different from the beasts of the field. And yet, without claiming any antiquarian scholarship about that somewhat obscure district; I would undertake to say that there were some ideas common to the Siberian and the Suburban. I should guess, for instance, that the Asiatic savages had some rudimentary idea of private property. I suspect that a Siberian would have said, ‘This is my spear’, as confidently as the Surbitonian would have said, ‘This is my umbrella’. It is probable that there was some sort of religion in Siberia, as it is probable that there is some sort of religion in Surbiton. The traveller to-day could get ten times more quickly to the Siberian village than he could have got there a hundred ago. But it is no longer so absolutely certain that he would find these simple things if he got there. He might find it was already a Communist village, not in the old and normal sense of a communal village; but in the fixed fanatical sense of a Bolshevist village. He might find the villagers being dogmatically taught the doctrine of Bolshevism; taught that it is really wicked to own an umbrella or still more wicked to wield a spear. He might find, for almost the first time in human history, a people being systematically instructed in the theory that there is neither God nor gods. That means that the village, which is geographically so much nearer, is now philosophically much farther away. And this is due to a new division in the thoughts of man; to the rise of a new sect and the separation of a whole civilization from the general human tradition. There are many modern examples of the disproportionate size of such queer modern sects;—there is the rather comic example of Prohibition. It is only a half-truth to say that America comes nearer and nearer to Europe, as ships fly faster and faster across the Atlantic. A ship took heaven knows how long to get from England to America in the days of the American Revolution and the Fathers of the Republic. But the traveller in the ship found Washington drinking wine his house in Virginia, exactly as he had left Lord North drinking wine in his house in London. If you had told them that it was wicked to drink wine, Washington would have stared just as North would have stared at such a statement. A Moslem morality had not then arisen beyond the Atlantic, to divide America from Christendom. Wine was thicker than water. It united men of a common culture; and the English race on either side of the ocean was only divided by liquid and not by liquor.

For that matter, our own British politics have lately illustrated vividly enough the fact that a division accompanies such a unification. We have seen it, first in the case of Ireland and then in the case of India. It was exactly at the time when they were easiest to reach that they were hardest to hold. No improvement in the trains from Euston or the boats from Holyhead, can alter the fact that our folly allowed Ireland to float farther and farther away, in the sea of the spirit, till it was as remote as a South Sea Island. It was perhaps too much to expect that we should ever really understand India; but in the old days it was at least understood how much we proposed to understand. If a hostile critic likes to put it so, it was understood that we should continue to misunderstand. But at least something was understood; and in the present welter and dissolution of bonds, it is not too much to say that nothing is understood. The new India is more of a riddle than the old; and the country grows more mysterious as it grows more near, or even more new. For we are for the first time near enough to feel the full force of the differences; and that sort of silent shock of collision is occurring with the closer communications all over the world. But there is, moreover, as I have said, a moral division due to the growth of new ideas. When we dealt with the active resistance of Hyder Ali the Moslem, both sides were fighting with the same weapons and in the same world. When we deal with the passive resistance of Gandhi the Mahatma, we are in a world as unfamiliar as magic. The paradox of this parallel of contraction and expansion is really simple enough. It follows on the modern attempt to combine wild spiritual speculation with systematic scientific order. Philosophy sprouts and sprawls in every direction, and science tries in vain to tie the bundle together. Men were united by religions and loyalties, and then it did not matter how widely they were scattered. A clan or tribe would he spread thinly over a whole moorland or prairie. Each hut would be as solitary as a hermitage, but they would be hermits of the same creed. The modern method is to stick up a row of villas all exactly alike, and all close together for convenience of electricity and drainage. But the man living in the first house may be a Buddhist, and in the second a Papist, and in the third an atheist, and in the fourth a diabolist; and each villa is an isolated universe.

XIII. Sulla nuova insularità

CHE un’eresia sia una mezza verità è un esempio assai vecchio e familiare di una verità intera; ma di una verità che non spesso viene còlta nella sua interezza. La maggior parte delle persone in errore intende il bene, e tutte le persone in errore intendono qualcosa. C’è qualcosa da dire in favore di ogni errore, ma, qualunque cosa se ne possa dire, la cosa più importante da dire in proposito è che esso è erroneo. Secondo il principio che mezzo pane è meglio che niente pane, dovrebbe esser vero che mezza verità è meglio che niente verità. Ma in pratica, non si tratta tanto del mezzo pane del proverbio quanto della mezza mela della fiaba; la mela di cui una metà fu avvelenata dalla malvagia matrigna per la buona principessa. Almeno, per come va oggi il nutrimento della mente, fermarsi a metà del pasto significa spesso mangiare il veleno senza mangiare l’antidoto. E se guardiamo a ritroso alla storia, la vedremo in gran parte ingombra e schiacciata da mezze verità; ci meraviglieremo di come sia accaduto così spesso che un’intera epoca o generazione si contentasse di una mezza verità, senza compiere il minimo sforzo per trovare l’altra metà. Ci meraviglieremo di come una moda potesse essere interamente rivolta alla fama o alla gloria, o un’altra all’ordine e alla simmetria, o un’altra alla scoperta e all’avventura; e non riusciremo a capire come gli uomini potessero sacrificare tutte le altre cose a ciascuna di queste cose a turno. Può darsi che non capiremo mai appieno perché i nostri padri lo facessero, giacché noi certamente non capiamo minimamente perché lo facciamo noi stessi.

Ci sono certe mezze verità a cui persino oggi è concesso di occupare l’intera mente. Ci sono certe affermazioni vere fin dove arrivano, e persino importanti e interessanti fin dove arrivano, che pure vengono incessantemente usate per impedire alla mente di andare oltre. Una di queste, per esempio, è la frase che troviamo nella fraseologia di tutta la nostra letteratura e del nostro giornalismo: «Le rapide comunicazioni moderne stanno avvicinando sempre più le diverse parti del mondo. Bastano pochi giorni per andare in Siberia in treno; possono bastare poche ore per andarci in aeroplano. Invece di trovarsi ai confini della terra, la Siberia potrebbe un giorno essere una sorta di sobborgo come Surbiton». Ma nessuno si ferma a chiedersi se la Siberia sia davvero come Surbiton; sotto quale riguardo essa sia davvero diversa da Surbiton, o, soprattutto, se non stia sotto certi riguardi diventando sempre più diversa da Surbiton. Poiché un altro processo è in corso, parallelo al processo della connessione delle vie di comunicazione, ed è la disconnessione delle idee. Supponiamo, per amor di discussione, che qualche audace e romantico avventuriero di Surbiton fosse andato in Siberia un centinaio d’anni fa. Senza dubbio vi avrebbe trovato gente pressappoco selvaggia; forse, al suo occhio suburbano troppo raffinato, qualcosa di appena diverso dalle bestie dei campi. Eppure, senza pretendere alcuna erudizione antiquaria su quel distretto alquanto oscuro, oserei affermare che c’erano alcune idee comuni al siberiano e al suburbano. Immaginerei, per esempio, che i selvaggi asiatici avessero qualche rudimentale idea della proprietà privata. Sospetto che un siberiano avrebbe detto: «Questa è la mia lancia», con la stessa sicurezza con cui il surbitoniano avrebbe detto: «Questo è il mio ombrello». È probabile che ci fosse una qualche sorta di religione in Siberia, come è probabile che ci sia una qualche sorta di religione a Surbiton. Il viaggiatore di oggi potrebbe raggiungere il villaggio siberiano dieci volte più in fretta di quanto avrebbe potuto raggiungerlo un centinaio d’anni fa. Ma non è più così assolutamente certo che vi troverebbe queste cose semplici, una volta giunto. Potrebbe trovare che è già un villaggio comunista, non nel vecchio e normale senso di villaggio comunitario, ma nel senso fisso e fanatico di villaggio bolscevico. Potrebbe trovare gli abitanti dogmaticamente istruiti nella dottrina del bolscevismo; a cui si insegna che è davvero malvagio possedere un ombrello, o ancor più malvagio impugnare una lancia. Potrebbe trovare, quasi per la prima volta nella storia umana, un popolo sistematicamente istruito nella teoria che non esistono né Dio né dèi. Ciò significa che il villaggio, che è geograficamente tanto più vicino, è ora filosoficamente molto più lontano. E questo è dovuto a una nuova divisione nei pensieri dell’uomo; al sorgere di una nuova setta e alla separazione di un’intera civiltà dalla tradizione umana generale. Ci sono molti esempi moderni delle dimensioni sproporzionate di simili strane sette moderne; — c’è l’esempio piuttosto comico del Proibizionismo. È solo una mezza verità dire che l’America si avvicina sempre più all’Europa, man mano che le navi solcano sempre più veloci l’Atlantico. Una nave impiegava Dio solo sa quanto tempo per andare dall’Inghilterra all’America ai giorni della Rivoluzione americana e dei Padri della Repubblica. Ma il viaggiatore sulla nave trovava Washington a bere vino nella sua casa in Virginia, esattamente come aveva lasciato Lord North a bere vino nella sua casa a Londra. Se aveste detto loro che era malvagio bere vino, Washington avrebbe strabuzzato gli occhi proprio come li avrebbe strabuzzati North a una simile affermazione. Una morale musulmana non era ancora sorta al di là dell’Atlantico, a separare l’America dalla Cristianità. Il vino era più denso dell’acqua. Univa uomini di una cultura comune; e la razza inglese sulle due sponde dell’oceano era divisa soltanto dal liquido e non dal liquore.

Del resto, la nostra stessa politica britannica ha di recente illustrato abbastanza vividamente il fatto che una divisione accompagna una simile unificazione. L’abbiamo visto, prima nel caso dell’Irlanda e poi nel caso dell’India. Fu esattamente nel momento in cui erano più facili da raggiungere che divennero più difficili da tenere. Nessun miglioramento nei treni da Euston o nei battelli da Holyhead può mutare il fatto che la nostra follia lasciò l’Irlanda allontanarsi sempre più alla deriva, nel mare dello spirito, finché divenne remota come un’isola dei Mari del Sud. Era forse troppo aspettarsi che comprendessimo mai davvero l’India; ma ai vecchi tempi si comprendeva almeno quanto ci proponessimo di comprendere. Se a un critico ostile piace metterla così, si comprendeva che avremmo continuato a fraintendere. Ma almeno qualcosa si comprendeva; e nell’attuale groviglio e dissoluzione dei legami, non è troppo dire che nulla si comprende. La nuova India è più un enigma della vecchia; e il paese diventa più misterioso man mano che diventa più vicino, o addirittura più nuovo. Poiché per la prima volta siamo abbastanza vicini da sentire tutta la forza delle differenze; e quella sorta di silenzioso urto di collisione si sta verificando con le comunicazioni più strette in tutto il mondo. Ma c’è, inoltre, come ho detto, una divisione morale dovuta alla crescita di nuove idee. Quando avemmo a che fare con la resistenza attiva di Hyder Ali il musulmano, entrambe le parti combattevano con le medesime armi e nel medesimo mondo. Quando abbiamo a che fare con la resistenza passiva di Gandhi il Mahatma, siamo in un mondo estraneo come la magia. Il paradosso di questo parallelo di contrazione ed espansione è in realtà abbastanza semplice. Deriva dal tentativo moderno di combinare la selvaggia speculazione spirituale con l’ordine scientifico sistematico. La filosofia germoglia e si dilata in ogni direzione, e la scienza cerca invano di legare il fascio insieme. Gli uomini erano uniti da religioni e lealtà, e allora non importava quanto ampiamente fossero dispersi. Un clan o una tribù si spargeva rada su un’intera brughiera o prateria. Ogni capanna sarebbe stata solitaria come un eremitaggio, ma sarebbero stati eremiti del medesimo credo. Il metodo moderno consiste nel piantare una fila di villini tutti perfettamente uguali, e tutti vicini gli uni agli altri per comodità di elettricità e fognature. Ma l’uomo che abita nella prima casa può essere un buddista, e nella seconda un papista, e nella terza un ateo, e nella quarta un adoratore del diavolo; e ogni villino è un universo isolato.

XIV. On Christian Science

THE friends of Christian Science say proudly that very good business men are Christian Scientists. The foes of Christian Science say, unkindly, that Christian Scientists are very good business men. I will not debate whether these are only two ways of saying the same thing, far less whether it is a nice thing to say. The former point radiantly to rows and rows of hard-headed millionaires, reverently listening to readings from Science and Health, under the rather extraordinary impression that the presence of millionaires helps them to prove that Christian Science is Christian. The latter explain that Mrs. Eddy, though doubtless unconscious of the existence of matter, was not wholly unconscious of the existence of money. I have no intention of entering upon these purely personal feuds here. But I should like to point out that there really is a moral connexion between the two things, that extends beyond the defined boundaries of either. Just as there are more invisible (and therefore, presumably, more spiritual) forms of money than mere material coin— such as dues, debts, expectations, dead men’s shoes, mortgage, usury, economic threats and blackmail, and all the other purer and more immaterial forms of wealth—so there are indirect and impalpable influences of Christian Science which affect many who do not profess to be Scientists and could not, without some implication of humour, pretend to be Christians.

The truth is that in one sense Christian Science has succeeded and really become the religion of the age, though it does not follow of necessity that this is a compliment to the age. I do not mean by this that most people have studied and accepted Mrs. Eddy’s original metaphysics; if, indeed, they were original, or if they were really Mrs. Eddy’s. Still less do I mean that the world accepts the original morals of Christian Science, for I am told that they are no longer accepted even by Christian Scientists. The primary principle of the cult obviously forbade them to run for a doctor if Mrs. Eddy broke her leg, since either the leg, or certainly the break, or possibly both, were illusions of Mortal Mind. Whether there really were people who would have let a man bleed to death, because the blood was a result of the mere flow of his thoughts, I have my doubts; but that did seem to be involved in some of the original definitions, though not, I understand, in some of the later modifications of them. But this practical morality about doctors does not here concern me, however practical or unpractical it may be. What I mean, when I say that this is the age of Christian Science, is not that most people living in it are in any sense Christian Scientists. I mean that the world is in a certain mood, of which Christian Science is the expression and exaggeration. It is not so much that the age could not find a more accommodating religion, as that the religion could not find a more accommodating age. Men have sometimes talked about people who were Christians before Christ, and in one sense there were certainly any number of people who were Christian Scientists before Christian Science. There was something in the whole air and movement of that time, and especially of that nation, and it was of a curious blind, sweeping, and abnormal sort. The air was rather like a whirl wind and the movement rather like a whirlpool. It had an element of formlessness that was rather that of abstraction than anarchy; that rushed head long, yet followed the curves of a tendency or a fate. Indeed, among the queer jokes so often to be found in American names, there is none more quaintly expressive than the very name of Mrs. Eddy.

The truth about the tendency was this: that the world had become a world of Commerce. And there is about Commerce an invisible thing that may be called Confidence; even if it sometimes means no more than the Confidence Trick. It depends on faith, even if it prove to be bad faith. It does not depend on plain matters of material fact and experience. The millionaires in the Church of Christ Scientist are supposed to be hard-headed; I have myself a suspicion that they are rather soft-headed. But, anyhow, they do not really deal in hardware; they do emphatically deal in what may be called soft goods. They deal in things that easily receive impressions from without, and are especially sensitive to the impressions that we call depressions. They deal in rumours, in understandings, in fictitious values, in temporary offers, in things that are never what they seem, and seldom do exactly what they promise. Business is such stuff as dreams are made on, and its little life is rounded with a slump.

This nervous and not very sane state of affairs is the origin of Optimism and the general advice to the salesman to Keep Smiling. If he left off smiling for one single second, he might blight the market for hundreds of miles around. The whole condition has now become so terribly atmospheric; not in the milder sense of men suffering from the atmosphere, but in the almost agonizing sense of men making the atmosphere. That is why the whole of this commercial world is struck by the stubborn dissatisfaction or harsh discontent of the more rooted rural populations. They say that the farmer always grumbles; and so he does, for he can afford to grumble. He thinks the weather is bad, but he knows that his grumbling will not make it worse. He knows he cannot produce a cloud in the sky by every curse that comes to his tongue; that he cannot blight his own crops, even by declaring falsely that they are blighted. He cannot create a slump in turnips merely by turning a melancholy face upon them, or frown at the cabbages until they close weak and quiet when they began brisk and strong. He is dealing with absolute and unalterable realities, and, as he is dealing with real facts, he can express his real feelings. He is, in a rather curious and eccentric sense, in a position in which the truth has made him free. He is a realist be cause he is dealing with realities. The commercial man almost has to be a romanticist because he so often deals with unrealities. And that is what Americans mean when they talk about The Romance of Salesmanship.

XIV. Sulla Scienza Cristiana

GLI amici della Scienza Cristiana dicono con orgoglio che ottimi uomini d’affari sono seguaci della Scienza Cristiana. I nemici della Scienza Cristiana dicono, sgarbatamente, che i seguaci della Scienza Cristiana sono ottimi uomini d’affari. Non starò a discutere se questi siano soltanto due modi di dire la medesima cosa, e ancor meno se sia una cosa gentile da dire. I primi additano raggianti file e file di milionari dalla testa dura, in reverente ascolto delle letture da Scienza e Salute, sotto l’impressione piuttosto straordinaria che la presenza di milionari li aiuti a dimostrare che la Scienza Cristiana è cristiana. I secondi spiegano che la signora Eddy, per quanto senza dubbio inconsapevole dell’esistenza della materia, non era del tutto inconsapevole dell’esistenza del denaro. Non ho alcuna intenzione di addentrarmi qui in queste faide puramente personali. Ma vorrei far notare che esiste davvero una connessione morale tra le due cose, che si estende oltre i confini definiti dell’una e dell’altra. Proprio come esistono forme di denaro più invisibili (e perciò, presumibilmente, più spirituali) della semplice moneta materiale — quali tributi, debiti, aspettative, eredità in attesa, ipoteche, usura, minacce economiche e ricatti, e tutte le altre forme più pure e più immateriali di ricchezza — così esistono influenze indirette e impalpabili della Scienza Cristiana che toccano molti i quali non professano d’esser Scienziati e non potrebbero, senza una qualche sfumatura d’umorismo, pretendere d’esser cristiani.

La verità è che in un certo senso la Scienza Cristiana ha avuto successo ed è davvero diventata la religione dell’epoca, benché non ne segua necessariamente che questo sia un complimento all’epoca. Non intendo con ciò che la maggior parte delle persone abbia studiato e accettato la metafisica originale della signora Eddy; ammesso che fosse davvero originale, o che fosse davvero della signora Eddy. Ancor meno intendo che il mondo accetti la morale originale della Scienza Cristiana, poiché mi si dice che essa non è più accettata nemmeno dai seguaci della Scienza Cristiana. Il principio primo del culto proibiva loro evidentemente di correre a chiamare un medico se la signora Eddy si fosse rotta una gamba, giacché o la gamba, o certamente la frattura, o forse entrambe, erano illusioni della Mente Mortale. Se ci fossero davvero persone che avrebbero lasciato un uomo dissanguarsi a morte, perché il sangue era il risultato del semplice fluire dei suoi pensieri, ne dubito; ma questo pareva essere implicito in alcune delle definizioni originali, benché non, a quanto capisco, in alcune delle loro modificazioni successive. Ma questa morale pratica sui medici non mi riguarda qui, per quanto pratica o impratica possa essere. Ciò che intendo, quando dico che questa è l’età della Scienza Cristiana, non è che la maggior parte delle persone che vi vivono siano in qualche senso seguaci della Scienza Cristiana. Intendo che il mondo si trova in un certo stato d’animo, di cui la Scienza Cristiana è l’espressione e l’esagerazione. Non è tanto che l’epoca non potesse trovare una religione più accomodante, quanto che la religione non poteva trovare un’epoca più accomodante. Si è talvolta parlato di persone che furono cristiane prima di Cristo, e in un certo senso ci fu certamente un gran numero di persone che furono seguaci della Scienza Cristiana prima della Scienza Cristiana. C’era qualcosa nell’intera aria e nell’intero movimento di quel tempo, e specialmente di quella nazione, ed era di una specie curiosamente cieca, travolgente e anormale. L’aria era piuttosto simile a un turbine e il movimento piuttosto simile a un gorgo. Aveva un elemento d’informità che era piuttosto quello dell’astrazione che dell’anarchia; che si precipitava a capofitto, eppure seguiva le curve di una tendenza o di un destino. Invero, tra le curiose facezie che così spesso si trovano nei nomi americani, non ve n’è alcuna più bizzarramente espressiva del nome stesso della signora Eddy.

La verità sulla tendenza era questa: che il mondo era diventato un mondo di Commercio. E c’è nel Commercio una cosa invisibile che si può chiamare Fiducia; anche se talvolta non significa più del Gioco della Fiducia. Dipende dalla fede, anche se questa si riveli malafede. Non dipende da semplici questioni di fatto materiale e d’esperienza. Si suppone che i milionari nella Chiesa di Cristo Scienziato abbiano la testa dura; io stesso ho il sospetto che l’abbiano piuttosto molle. Ma, comunque sia, essi non trattano davvero in ferramenta; trattano enfaticamente in ciò che si può chiamare merce soffice. Trattano in cose che ricevono facilmente impressioni dall’esterno, e sono specialmente sensibili alle impressioni che chiamiamo depressioni. Trattano in dicerie, in intese, in valori fittizi, in offerte temporanee, in cose che non sono mai ciò che sembrano, e di rado fanno esattamente ciò che promettono. Gli affari sono la stessa materia di cui sono fatti i sogni, e la loro piccola vita è cinta da un crollo.

Questo stato di cose nervoso e non troppo sano è l’origine dell’Ottimismo e del consiglio generale al venditore di Continuare a Sorridere. Se smettesse di sorridere per un solo istante, potrebbe rovinare il mercato per centinaia di miglia all’intorno. L’intera condizione è ormai diventata così terribilmente atmosferica; non nel senso più mite di uomini che soffrono a causa dell’atmosfera, ma nel senso quasi angoscioso di uomini che fabbricano l’atmosfera. Ecco perché l’intero mondo commerciale resta colpito dalla ostinata insoddisfazione o dall’aspro malcontento delle più radicate popolazioni rurali. Dicono che il contadino brontola sempre; e così fa, poiché può permettersi di brontolare. Pensa che il tempo sia cattivo, ma sa che il suo brontolare non lo renderà peggiore. Sa di non poter produrre una nuvola nel cielo con ogni imprecazione che gli sale alla lingua; di non poter rovinare i propri raccolti nemmeno dichiarando falsamente che sono rovinati. Non può creare un crollo delle rape semplicemente volgendo loro una faccia malinconica, o accigliarsi davanti ai cavoli finché si chiudano deboli e quieti quando erano cominciati vivaci e forti. Ha a che fare con realtà assolute e inalterabili, e, poiché ha a che fare con fatti reali, può esprimere i suoi sentimenti reali. Egli si trova, in un senso piuttosto curioso ed eccentrico, in una posizione in cui la verità lo ha reso libero. È un realista perché ha a che fare con realtà. L’uomo del commercio deve quasi essere un romanticista perché ha così spesso a che fare con irrealtà. Ed è questo che gli americani intendono quando parlano del Romanzo del Vendere.

Now, for an atmosphere so atmospheric as that the obvious religion was Christian Science, with its general suggestion of men creating their own atmosphere. To say that there was no such thing as a headache was part of the same mentality as saying that there would be no such thing as a slump; it was of the very essence of that mythology and genealogy that the wish was father to the thought. It had all kinds of minor manifestations, apart from any acceptance of that particular creed; but it was obviously more in touch with that particular creed than with any other creed. It was closely akin to all that astonishing mass of advertisement and suggestion about Personality and Will-Power and all the rest which we see sprawling over so many American books and magazines. It is an ironic jest that the religion is revealed, or betrayed, by its images or icons. The American papers show portraits of men who have Personality; which is why they all look exactly alike.

I have remarked recently that the world is now occupied with the Study of the Mind rather than with the Use of the Mind. This is what is meant by calling it the Age of Psychology. It is also what is meant by calling it, in a somewhat sinister sense, the Age of Physical Jerks. It is a nervous and unrestful sort of optimism that is thus perpetually trying to impose a mood upon the objective universe, and the world, like Wall Street, is liable to reactions of panic. But certainly Christian Science did for a time suit the mood, if it does not for any long period suit the mind; if, indeed, we return to using the mind instead of merely doctoring it with drugs.

XV. On Rest Cures for Nations

WE certainly need a new theory of Progress, for all existing theories about the future have a very hopeless air of being things of the past. There is even a detachable grain of truth in the doctrine of Spengler, which roughly maintains that there is no such thing as Progress, but only Progresses. That is, there is such a thing as one civilization becoming completely civilized in its own way, and then getting out of the way to make room for a totally different civilization. Unfortunately, every heathen seems fated to be a fatalist, and every fatalist seems fated to be a pessimist. The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone; in other words, he is pitifully cramped and crushed by the study of botany and geology. Sometimes he even passes from botany to biology, or, worse still, to anthropology. Now, in these dead or undeveloped things, it is more or less true that there is no Progress, but only Progresses. It is not easy to compare one completed phase with another; it is idle to ask whether old red sandstone is redder than greengages are green. The fossil that was and the flower that is cannot call to each other across the ages, and though there may be, in one sense, an upward spiral of evolution, it is not a spiritual spiral, or, as the Yankees would say, a live wire. There is not, in that manifest manner, at least, a memory in nature; but there is a memory of mankind. Cultures do not so completely perish as the pessimists pretend. Men do own the cave-drawings of a Neolithic man, as birds do not own the fossil of a pterodactyl. Still, there is a truth in that substitution of Progresses for Progress.

The truth seems to me to be this: that men do from time to time make special efforts; these are often crowned with success, and when they are crowned with success they generally end in failure. But that leaves on one side the question of the ordinary human life, which existed before the effort and still exists after the effort. Rome made a great effort and civilized a great part of the world, and the effort was followed by the Dark Ages. But the Dark Ages were not sub-human, any more than the Roman Empire was superhuman. It has been said by historical scholars that the simplicity of the Dark Ages refreshed the world like a sleep. It is certainly true that nations can be notably vigorous and hopeful at the end of what is called a period of decline and might more properly be called a period of neglect. Spain is far more vigorous and hopeful at this moment than many parts of the vast industrial field of what are considered successful societies. Spain made a great effort in the sixteenth century, and opened a new world of wealth and discovery; then it began to sink slowly out of sight. But Spaniards were not stupid and stunted savages in the time of Goya any more than in the time of Velasquez. Very likely the time will soon come when the Spaniards will make another effort; and for this purpose it is likely enough that their repose or retirement will have left them healthier and happier than most other people. In fact, we need a new theory or conception in history; the conception of the historical holiday. Perhaps the Dark Ages were a holiday, if they were a little like a dull and rainy holiday. But there is something to be said for a vacation, even in the literal sense of a vacuum. Anyhow, I think it extremely probable that the Spaniards will turn up again as fresh as paint, even the paint of Velasquez. They have not been so much exhausted and depressed by our dismal industrial materialism or our vast capitalist responsibilities. They have been refreshed and rejuvenated by a little decay; and have thoroughly enjoyed themselves for three centuries as a dying nation.

I would not insist everywhere on substituting, for the respectable old theory of the Revolution, this disturbing and dangerous theory of the Rest Cure No doubt it might be overdone. People might go on decaying a little too long and degenerate more than was really good for their health. I propose only a moderate indulgence in ruin; a cautious and temperate use of a return to barbarism. There are many quite modern people in whom the merest touch of decomposition, the merest soupçon of corruption and rottenness, would be enough to reassure me. But there are some modern people who are a great deal too modern; who are quite certainly devouring and destroying themselves with the nonsense of novelty, and trying always to hear of something later than the very latest. They are visibly growing old in order to keep up with their youth. They are wasting away to nothing, for want of a little nothing to do. If only some of their friends would persuade them to go away for a few centuries of superstition and ignorance, like the people of the Dark Ages, they might come back and astonish the world by something that the world had never seen before, like Gothic architecture or the portraits in the Canterbury Tales.

Ora, per un’atmosfera tanto atmosferica quanto quella, l’ovvia religione era la Scienza Cristiana, con la sua generale suggestione di uomini che creano la propria atmosfera. Dire che non esisteva una cosa come il mal di testa faceva parte della medesima mentalità che diceva che non ci sarebbe stata una cosa come un crollo; era proprio dell’essenza di quella mitologia e genealogia che il desiderio fosse padre del pensiero. Aveva ogni sorta di manifestazioni minori, a prescindere da qualsiasi accettazione di quel particolare credo; ma era evidentemente più in sintonia con quel particolare credo che con qualsiasi altro. Era strettamente affine a tutta quella sbalorditiva massa di pubblicità e suggestione sulla Personalità e la Forza di Volontà e tutto il resto che vediamo dilagare su tanti libri e riviste americani. È un’ironica beffa che la religione si riveli, o si tradisca, attraverso le sue immagini o icone. I giornali americani mostrano ritratti di uomini dotati di Personalità; ed è per questo che hanno tutti esattamente lo stesso aspetto.

Ho osservato di recente che il mondo è ora occupato con lo Studio della Mente piuttosto che con l’Uso della Mente. È questo che si intende chiamandola l’Età della Psicologia. È anche questo che si intende chiamandola, in un senso alquanto sinistro, l’Età degli Esercizi Fisici a Scatti. È un ottimismo nervoso e inquieto quello che così perpetuamente tenta d’imporre uno stato d’animo all’universo oggettivo, e il mondo, come Wall Street, è soggetto a reazioni di panico. Ma certamente la Scienza Cristiana per un certo tempo si adattò allo stato d’animo, se pure non si adatta per alcun lungo periodo alla mente; se, invero, torneremo a usare la mente invece di limitarci a curarla con le droghe.

XV. Sulle cure di riposo per le nazioni

CI serve certamente una nuova teoria del Progresso, giacché tutte le teorie esistenti sul futuro hanno un’aria assai disperante di essere cose del passato. C’è persino un granello staccabile di verità nella dottrina di Spengler, la quale sostiene grosso modo che non esiste una cosa come il Progresso, ma soltanto dei Progressi. Vale a dire, esiste una cosa come una civiltà che diventa completamente civilizzata a modo suo, e poi si toglie di mezzo per far posto a una civiltà del tutto diversa. Sfortunatamente, ogni pagano sembra destinato a essere un fatalista, e ogni fatalista sembra destinato a essere un pessimista. Il pagano nella sua cecità si prostra davanti al legno e alla pietra; in altre parole, è pietosamente costretto e schiacciato dallo studio della botanica e della geologia. Talvolta passa persino dalla botanica alla biologia, o, peggio ancora, all’antropologia. Ora, in queste cose morte o non sviluppate, è più o meno vero che non c’è Progresso, ma soltanto Progressi. Non è facile paragonare una fase compiuta a un’altra; è ozioso chiedersi se la vecchia arenaria rossa sia più rossa di quanto le susine verdi siano verdi. Il fossile che fu e il fiore che è non possono chiamarsi l’un l’altro attraverso le ère, e per quanto vi possa essere, in un certo senso, una spirale ascendente d’evoluzione, non è una spirale spirituale, o, come direbbero gli yankee, un filo sotto tensione. Non c’è, almeno in quel modo manifesto, una memoria nella natura; ma c’è una memoria dell’umanità. Le culture non periscono così completamente come pretendono i pessimisti. Gli uomini possiedono davvero i disegni rupestri di un uomo neolitico, mentre gli uccelli non possiedono il fossile di uno pterodattilo. Eppure, c’è una verità in quella sostituzione dei Progressi al Progresso.

La verità mi sembra essere questa: che gli uomini di tanto in tanto compiono sforzi speciali; questi sono spesso coronati da successo, e quando sono coronati da successo generalmente finiscono nel fallimento. Ma ciò lascia da parte la questione della vita umana ordinaria, che esisteva prima dello sforzo ed esiste ancora dopo lo sforzo. Roma compì un grande sforzo e civilizzò gran parte del mondo, e allo sforzo seguirono i Secoli Bui. Ma i Secoli Bui non erano sub-umani, non più di quanto l’Impero Romano fosse sovrumano. È stato detto da studiosi di storia che la semplicità dei Secoli Bui rinfrescò il mondo come un sonno. È certamente vero che le nazioni possono essere notevolmente vigorose e piene di speranza alla fine di quello che si chiama un periodo di declino e che più propriamente si potrebbe chiamare un periodo di abbandono. La Spagna è assai più vigorosa e piena di speranza in questo momento di molte parti del vasto campo industriale di quelle che sono considerate società di successo. La Spagna compì un grande sforzo nel sedicesimo secolo, e aprì un nuovo mondo di ricchezza e di scoperta; poi cominciò a sprofondare lentamente fuori dalla vista. Ma gli spagnoli non erano stupidi e rattrappiti selvaggi al tempo di Goya, più di quanto lo fossero al tempo di Velázquez. È assai probabile che presto verrà il tempo in cui gli spagnoli compiranno un altro sforzo; e a questo scopo è assai verosimile che il loro riposo o ritiro li avrà lasciati più sani e più felici della maggior parte degli altri popoli. Di fatto, ci serve una nuova teoria o concezione nella storia: la concezione della vacanza storica. Forse i Secoli Bui furono una vacanza, se pur furono un poco simili a una vacanza tediosa e piovosa. Ma c’è qualcosa da dire in favore di una vacanza, persino nel senso letterale di un vuoto. Comunque sia, ritengo estremamente probabile che gli spagnoli ricompariranno freschi come vernice fresca, persino la vernice di Velázquez. Non sono stati tanto esauriti e depressi dal nostro tetro materialismo industriale o dalle nostre vaste responsabilità capitaliste. Sono stati rinfrescati e ringiovaniti da un po’ di decadenza; e si sono spassati appieno per tre secoli in qualità di nazione morente.

Non insisterei ovunque nel sostituire, alla rispettabile vecchia teoria della Rivoluzione, questa perturbante e pericolosa teoria della Cura di Riposo. Senza dubbio la si potrebbe esagerare. La gente potrebbe continuare a decadere un po’ troppo a lungo e degenerare più di quanto fosse davvero salutare. Propongo soltanto una moderata concessione alla rovina; un uso cauto e temperato di un ritorno alla barbarie. Ci sono molte persone del tutto moderne in cui il minimo tocco di decomposizione, il più lieve soupçon di corruzione e di marciume, basterebbe a rassicurarmi. Ma ci sono alcune persone moderne che sono di gran lunga troppo moderne; che si stanno quasi certamente divorando e distruggendo con l’assurdità della novità, e cercano sempre di sentir parlare di qualcosa di più recente dell’ultimissima cosa. Stanno visibilmente invecchiando per tenere il passo con la propria giovinezza. Si stanno consumando fino al nulla, per mancanza di un po’ di nulla da fare. Se solo qualcuno dei loro amici li persuadesse ad andarsene via per qualche secolo di superstizione e ignoranza, come la gente dei Secoli Bui, potrebbero tornare e stupire il mondo con qualcosa che il mondo non aveva mai visto prima, come l’architettura gotica o i ritratti nei Racconti di Canterbury.

Anyhow, there is something to be said for this theory of the periodical enterprise of humanity. One advantage of it is that it resettles in a sane proportion all that question which was discussed in an earlier article: the question of the real case for the Noble Savage and Rousseau’s conception of a return to Nature. So long as scientific men merely despised savages (much more than the missionaries who were charged with despising them), the ease seemed simple enough. If primitive people were always more cruel and vindictive, as well as more clumsy and ignorant, than we are, then it was possible to present a progressive humanity, which every day and in every way was growing better and better. But (as I remarked elsewhere) even the story of simple tribes is not so simple. There is evidence of simple tribes that are actually milder in their punishments than we are, or kinder to their children than we are; or at least than we very recently were. But though this upsets the whole progressive theory that we civilized people are better than the savages in all respects, it does not force us to the contrary conclusion that the savages are better than we are in all respects. It is arguable that when men marched out on a special enterprise, they had to adopt a special discipline. Civilization might in some ways have more severe laws, because it had more serious problems. There might be harder lessons to learn, because there was more to be learned. The progressive tribe might be under martial law, while the conservative tribe was under common law. But the former might none the less be marching to the promised land.

For instance, there is a tiresome journalistic habit of fulsomely praising ourselves, and fatuously despising our fathers, because we no longer hang a man for forgery. But, as a fact, it was not an early primitive habit, but a late progressive habit, to hang a man for forgery. The law punishing forgery with death appeared quite late in our history, and was a result of our advancing civilization. It was a highly modern sort of thing to do. For forgery did not become frightfully important until finance and commercial contracts, and banking business of all sorts, had become important. I am very glad that men are no longer hanged for forgery. But I can quite imagine a simple and artless tribe of savages among whom the habit of imitating another man’s handwriting would appear as gay and innocent as making faces in imitation of another man’s face. If Hiawatha wrote his name in picture-writing on the smooth bark of the birch-tree, there would be no particular harm in Chibiabos playfully copying his friend’s particular way of drawing a wigwam or a rising sun. No; there is something after all in the Noble Savage; there is something at least in the Happy Savage. But that does not prove that the tribe should not sacrifice some of its happiness when the Great Spirit bids it go forth to war.

XVI. On Philosophy versus Fiction

LOOKING back on a wild and wasted life, I realize that I have especially sinned in neglecting to read novels. I mean the really novel novels; for such old lumber as Dickens and Jane Austen I know fairly well. If instead of trifling away my time over pamphlets about Collectivism or Co-operation, plunging for mere pleasure into the unhealthy excitement of theological debates with dons, or enjoying the empty mirth of statistics about Poland and Czechoslovakia, I had quietly sat at home doing my duty and reading every novel as it comes out, I might be a more serious and earnest man than I am to-day. If instead of loitering to laugh over something, merely because it happened to be laughable, I had walked stiffly and sternly on to the Circulating Library, and put myself under the tuition of our more passionate lady novelists, I might by this time be as intense as they. If instead of leading a riotous life, scrapping with Mr. Shaw about Socialism, or Dean Inge about Science, I had believed everything I was told about marriage by an unmarried young woman in an avowedly imaginary story, I might now have a more undisturbed faith and simplicity. Novels are the great monument of the amazing credulity of the modern mind; for people believe them quite seriously even though they do not pretend to be true.

But it is really true, alas I that I have failed to follow adequately the development of serious fiction. I do not admit that I have entirely failed to follow the development of serious facts. Not only have I discussed Labour with Socialists, or Science with Scientists, but I have argued with myself about other things, so new and true that I cannot get anybody else to argue about them. The world wide power of trusts, for instance, is a thing that is never attacked and never defended. It seems to have been completed without ever having been proposed; we might say without ever having been begun. The small shopkeeper has been destroyed in the twentieth century, as the small yeoman was destroyed in the eighteenth century. But for the yeoman there was protest and regret; great poets sang his dirge, and great orators like Cobbett died trying to avenge his death. But the modern destructive changes seem to be too new to be noticed. Perhaps they are too enormous to be seen. No; I do not think it can be fairly said that I have neglected the most recent realities of the real world. It seems rather the real world that neglects them. Nor do I confess, thank heaven, to the more odious vice of neglecting funny or frivolous fiction; whether in the sense of reading everything from the first story of Mr. Jacobs to the last story of Mr. Wodehouse; or in that richer sense in which the joke consists entirely of a corpse, a blood-stained hat-peg, or the mysterious footprints of a three-legged man in the garden. I have been a munificent patron of fiction of that description; and have even presented the public with a corpse or two of my own. In short, the limitation of my literary experience is so altogether on the side of the modern serious novel; especially that very serious novel which is all about the psychology of flirting and jilting and going to jazz dances. I have read hundreds of books bearing titles like Socialism: The Way Out; or Society: the Way In; or Japanese Light on the Paulus Mythus; or Cannibalism the Clue to Catholicism; or Parricide: a Contribution to Progress; or The Traffic Problem: The Example of Greenland; or Must We Drink?; or Should We Eat?; or Do We Breathe? and all those grave and baffling questions. I have also read hundreds of books bearing titles like Who Killed Humphrey Higgleswick?; or The Blood on the Blotting paper; or The Secret of Piccadilly Circus; or The Clue of the Stolen Toothbrush; and so on and so on. But I have not read with sufficient regularity, diligence and piety all those other books that bear titles like The Grasswidowhood of Grace Bellow; or The Seventh Honeymoon of Sylphide Squeak; or Dear Lady Divorce; or The Sex of Samuel Stubbin; or Harold Hatrack, Soul-Thief; or The Hypnotist of Insomnia Smith. All these grave and laborious, and often carefully written books come out season after season; and somehow I have missed them. Sometimes they miss me, even when hurled at my head by publishers. It were vain to deny that I sometimes deliberately avoid them. I have a reason, of a reasonable sort for I do not think it is a really reasonable reason merely to say that they bore me. For I did once really try to read them; and I got lost. One reason is that I think there is in all literature a sort of purpose; quite different from the mere moralizing that is generally meant by a novel with a purpose.

Comunque sia, c’è qualcosa da dire in favore di questa teoria dell’impresa periodica dell’umanità. Uno dei suoi vantaggi è che riccolloca in una sana proporzione tutta quella questione che è stata discussa in un articolo precedente: la questione della reale ragione del Buon Selvaggio e della concezione di Rousseau di un ritorno alla Natura. Finché gli uomini di scienza si limitavano a disprezzare i selvaggi (molto più dei missionari, accusati di disprezzarli), la faccenda sembrava abbastanza semplice. Se i popoli primitivi fossero stati sempre più crudeli e vendicativi, oltre che più goffi e ignoranti di noi, allora sarebbe stato possibile presentare un’umanità progressiva, che ogni giorno e in ogni modo diventava sempre migliore. Ma (come ho osservato altrove) persino la storia delle tribù semplici non è così semplice. Vi sono prove di tribù semplici che sono in realtà più miti di noi nelle loro punizioni, o più gentili di noi con i loro figli; o almeno di quanto lo fossimo noi assai di recente. Ma benché ciò mandi all’aria l’intera teoria progressista secondo cui noi popoli civilizzati siamo migliori dei selvaggi sotto ogni riguardo, non ci costringe alla conclusione contraria che i selvaggi siano migliori di noi sotto ogni riguardo. È sostenibile che quando gli uomini si mettevano in marcia per un’impresa speciale, dovessero adottare una disciplina speciale. La civiltà potrebbe per certi versi avere leggi più severe, perché aveva problemi più seri. Potrebbero esserci lezioni più dure da imparare, perché c’era di più da imparare. La tribù progressista potrebbe essere sottoposta alla legge marziale, mentre la tribù conservatrice era sottoposta al diritto comune. Ma la prima potrebbe nondimeno essere in marcia verso la terra promessa.

Per esempio, c’è una noiosa abitudine giornalistica di lodare noi stessi con piaggeria, e di disprezzare fatuamente i nostri padri, perché non impicchiamo più un uomo per falsificazione. Ma, di fatto, non era un’abitudine antica e primitiva, bensì un’abitudine tardiva e progressista, quella di impiccare un uomo per falsificazione. La legge che puniva con la morte la falsificazione comparve assai tardi nella nostra storia, e fu il risultato della nostra civiltà in progresso. Era una cosa da fare oltremodo moderna. Poiché la falsificazione non divenne spaventosamente importante finché la finanza e i contratti commerciali, e le operazioni bancarie di ogni sorta, non divennero importanti. Sono ben lieto che gli uomini non vengano più impiccati per falsificazione. Ma posso benissimo immaginare una semplice e ingenua tribù di selvaggi presso i quali l’abitudine di imitare la calligrafia di un altro uomo apparirebbe altrettanto allegra e innocente del fare smorfie a imitazione della faccia di un altro uomo. Se Hiawatha scrivesse il proprio nome in scrittura per immagini sulla liscia corteccia della betulla, non ci sarebbe alcun male particolare nel fatto che Chibiabos copiasse per gioco il modo particolare dell’amico di disegnare un wigwam o un sole nascente. No; c’è qualcosa dopotutto nel Buon Selvaggio; c’è qualcosa almeno nel Selvaggio Felice. Ma ciò non dimostra che la tribù non debba sacrificare un po’ della sua felicità quando il Grande Spirito le ordina di andare in guerra.

XVI. Sulla filosofia contro la narrativa

RIPENSANDO a una vita sregolata e sprecata, mi rendo conto di aver peccato in special modo trascurando di leggere romanzi. Intendo i romanzi davvero nuovi; ché di vecchi rottami come Dickens e Jane Austen me ne intendo abbastanza bene. Se, invece di sciupare il mio tempo su opuscoli sul Collettivismo o la Cooperazione, tuffandomi per puro piacere nell’eccitazione malsana dei dibattiti teologici con i dotti, o godendo dell’ilarità vuota delle statistiche sulla Polonia e la Cecoslovacchia, me ne fossi stato quietamente a casa a fare il mio dovere e a leggere ogni romanzo man mano che usciva, potrei essere un uomo più serio e più zelante di quanto sono oggi. Se, invece di attardarmi a ridere di qualcosa, semplicemente perché si dava il caso che facesse ridere, avessi camminato rigido e severo fino alla Biblioteca Circolante, e mi fossi posto sotto la tutela delle nostre più appassionate romanziere, potrei ormai essere intenso quanto loro. Se, invece di condurre una vita sregolata, azzuffandomi con il signor Shaw a proposito del Socialismo, o con il decano Inge a proposito della Scienza, avessi creduto tutto ciò che mi veniva detto sul matrimonio da una giovane donna nubile in una storia dichiaratamente immaginaria, potrei ora avere una fede e una semplicità più imperturbate. I romanzi sono il grande monumento della sbalorditiva credulità della mente moderna; poiché la gente ci crede con tutta serietà anche se essi non pretendono di essere veri.

Ma è davvero vero, ahimè!, che ho mancato di seguire adeguatamente lo sviluppo della narrativa seria. Non ammetto di aver del tutto mancato di seguire lo sviluppo dei fatti seri. Non solo ho discusso di Lavoro con i socialisti, o di Scienza con gli scienziati, ma ho discusso con me stesso di altre cose, così nuove e vere che non riesco a trovare nessun altro con cui discuterne. Il potere mondiale dei trust, per esempio, è una cosa che non viene mai attaccata né mai difesa. Sembra essersi compiuta senza essere mai stata proposta; potremmo dire senza essere mai stata cominciata. Il piccolo bottegaio è stato distrutto nel ventesimo secolo, come il piccolo proprietario terriero fu distrutto nel diciottesimo secolo. Ma per il proprietario terriero ci furono protesta e rimpianto; grandi poeti ne cantarono il canto funebre, e grandi oratori come Cobbett morirono nel tentativo di vendicarne la morte. Ma i moderni mutamenti distruttivi sembrano troppo nuovi per essere notati. Forse sono troppo enormi per essere visti. No; non credo si possa dire con equità che io abbia trascurato le più recenti realtà del mondo reale. Sembra piuttosto il mondo reale a trascurarle. Né confesso, grazie al cielo, il più odioso vizio di trascurare la narrativa comica o frivola; sia nel senso di leggere tutto, dal primo racconto del signor Jacobs all’ultimo racconto del signor Wodehouse; sia in quel senso più ricco in cui la burla consiste interamente in un cadavere, un attaccapanni macchiato di sangue, o le misteriose orme di un uomo a tre gambe nel giardino. Sono stato un munifico mecenate della narrativa di tal fatta; e ho persino presentato al pubblico un cadavere o due di mia produzione. In breve, la limitazione della mia esperienza letteraria è tutta quanta dalla parte del moderno romanzo serio; specialmente di quel romanzo assai serio che tratta interamente della psicologia del flirtare e del piantare in asso e dell’andare a ballare il jazz. Ho letto centinaia di libri con titoli come Il Socialismo: la via d’uscita; oppure La società: la via d’ingresso; oppure Luce giapponese sul Mito Paolino; oppure Il cannibalismo, chiave del cattolicesimo; oppure Il parricidio: un contributo al progresso; oppure Il problema del traffico: l’esempio della Groenlandia; oppure Dobbiamo bere?; oppure Dovremmo mangiare?; oppure Respiriamo? e tutti quei gravi e sconcertanti interrogativi. Ho letto anche centinaia di libri con titoli come Chi ha ucciso Humphrey Higgleswick?; oppure Il sangue sulla carta assorbente; oppure Il segreto di Piccadilly Circus; oppure L’indizio dello spazzolino rubato; e così via e così via. Ma non ho letto con sufficiente regolarità, diligenza e devozione tutti quegli altri libri che portano titoli come La vedovanza in vita di Grace Bellow; oppure La settima luna di miele di Sylphide Squeak; oppure Cara Lady Divorzio; oppure Il sesso di Samuel Stubbin; oppure Harold Hatrack, ladro d’anime; oppure L’ipnotizzatore di Insomnia Smith. Tutti questi libri gravi e laboriosi, e spesso scritti con cura, escono stagione dopo stagione; e in qualche modo me li sono lasciati sfuggire. Talvolta sono loro a sfuggire a me, persino quando mi vengono scagliati in testa dagli editori. Sarebbe vano negare che talvolta li evito deliberatamente. Ho una ragione, di sorta ragionevole, giacché non credo che sia una ragione davvero ragionevole limitarsi a dire che mi annoiano. Poiché una volta cercai davvero di leggerli; e mi persi. Una ragione è che credo esista in tutta la letteratura una sorta di scopo; del tutto diverso dal semplice moralismo che generalmente si intende per romanzo a tesi.

There is something in the plan of the idea that is straight like a backbone and pointing like an arrow. It is meant to go somewhere, or at least to point somewhere; to its end, not only in the modern sense of an ending, but in the medieval sense of a fruition. Now, I think that many of the less intellectual stories have kept this, where the more intellectual stories have lost it. The writer of detective stories, having once asked who killed Humphrey Higgleswick, must, after all, end by telling us who did it, even by the mean subterfuge of saying it was Humphrey Higgleswick. But the serious novelist asks a question that he does not answer; often that he is really incompetent to answer. The sex of Samuel Stubbin may even remain in considerable doubt, in some of the more emotional passages, and the seventh honeymoon of Sylphide seems to have nothing to do with the probable prospect of her eighth. It is the custom of these writers to scoff at the old sentimental novel or novelette, in which the story always ended happily to the sound of church bells. But, judged by the highest standards of heroic or great literature, like the Greek tragedies or the great epics, the novelette was really far superior to the novel. It set itself to reach a certain goal—the marriage of two persons, with all its really vital culmination in the founding of a family and a vow to God; and all other incidents were interesting because they pointed to a consummation which was, by legitimate hypothesis, a grand consummation.

But the modern refusal both of the religious vow and the romantic hope has broken the backbone of the business altogether, and it is only an assorted bag of bones. People are minutely described as experiencing one idiotic passion after another, passions which they themselves recognize as idiotic, and which even their own wretched philosophy forbids them to regard as steps towards any end. The sentimental novelette was a simplified and limited convention of the thing; in which, for the sake of argument, marriage was made the prize. Of course marriage is not the only thing that happens in life; and somebody else may study another section with another goal. But the modern serious novelists deny that there is any goal. They can not point to the human happiness which the romantics associated with gaining the prize. They cannot point to the heavenly happiness which the religious associated with keeping the vow. They are driven back entirely on the microscopic description of these aimless appetites in themselves. And, microscopically studied in themselves, they are not very interesting to a middle-aged man with plenty of other things to think about. In short, the old literature, both great and trivial, was built on the idea that there is a purpose in life, even if it is not always completed in this life; and it really was interesting to follow the stages of such a purpose from the meeting to the wedding, from the wedding to the bells, and from the bells to the church. But modern philosophy has taken the life out of modern fiction. It is simply dissolving into separate fragments and then into formlessness; and deserves much more than the romantic novel the modern reproach of being ‘sloppy’.

XVII. On Logic and Lunacy

THE idea of logic is so entirely lost in this phase of philosophical history, that even those who invoke it do so rather as the Athenians once invoked the Unknown God, or the men of the Dark Ages retained a dim respect for Virgil as a conjurer. The very people who say, ‘be logical’, will generally be found to be quite illogical in their own notion of logic. One of the last men who understood logic in its full and impartial sense, died only lately: the late William Johnson of King’s College, Cambridge; one of the finest minds of the age and an exact measure of the modern contrast between notability and notoriety. I mean that somehow the glory has departed from glory, and the first men of the time are often the last men to be advertised or even adequately admired. He was as incapable of intellectual injustice as of infanticide; and while he and I differed about a thousand things, even if I had regarded his view as ultimately leading to falsehood, I should always have known that it was free from the faintest tinge of fallacy. If there had been any weed of weak logic in his own argument he would have torn it up with as much joy as any weed in the garden of the enemy. For he liked that sort of weeding as an amusement and an art— a sort of art for art’s sake. And when I wander in the jungle of journalistic nonsense in which we all live to-day, his memory again and again returns.

Let us begin with a trifle that does not matter in the least. He loved to argue about trifles that do not matter in the least. Some journalist the other day shook the foundation of the universe and the British Empire by raising the question of whether a girl ought to smoke a cigar. But what I noted about his, and about the hundred eager correspondents who pursued this great theme, was that they wrote again and again some such sentence as this: ‘If you like a girl to smoke a cigarette, why can’t you be logical and like her to smoke a cigar?’ Now I do not care an ounce of shag whether she smokes a cigarette or a cigar or a corn-cob pipe or a hubble-bubble, or whether she smokes three cigars at once, or whether she is an Anti-Tobacco crank. But it is none the less true that when a man writes that sentence telling us to ‘be logical’, he shows that he has never even heard of the nature of logic. He might just as well write: ‘You like the look of a horse; why won’t you be logical and like the look of a hippopotamus?’ The only answer is, ‘Well, I don’t; and it is not illogical, because it does not in any way invade the realm of logic. A man has a perfect right to say that he likes the look of one thing and does not like the look of another thing; or even that he likes the look of a smaller thing, but does not like the look of a larger but somewhat similar thing. It is all a question of liking; and not in the least a question of logic. There is no logical compulsion upon him whatever to go on from the smaller to the larger and like them both. The man who uses this phrase attaches some queer particular meaning to the word ‘logical’; something that is dimly adumbrated in the words, ‘extremist’ or ‘going the whole hog’. But if my appetite is so small that I only require half a hog for breakfast, I am not any less of a logician because I refuse to eat the whole hog for breakfast. The obligation to eat the whole hog, if it exists, must be a mystical or moral or transcendental obligation; but it is not a logical obligation. It is not logical, because it has not been deduced from any premises; it has simply been stated without reference to any premises.

C’è qualcosa nel disegno dell’idea che è diritto come una spina dorsale e puntato come una freccia. È fatto per andare da qualche parte, o almeno per puntare verso qualche parte; verso il suo fine, non solo nel senso moderno di una conclusione, ma nel senso medievale di un compimento. Ora, io credo che molte delle storie meno intellettuali abbiano conservato questo, là dove le storie più intellettuali lo hanno perduto. Lo scrittore di storie poliziesche, avendo una volta chiesto chi ha ucciso Humphrey Higgleswick, deve, dopotutto, finire col dirci chi è stato, sia pure col meschino sotterfugio di dire che è stato Humphrey Higgleswick. Ma il romanziere serio pone una domanda a cui non risponde; spesso a cui è realmente incapace di rispondere. Il sesso di Samuel Stubbin può persino rimanere in considerevole dubbio, in alcuni dei passaggi più emotivi, e la settima luna di miele di Sylphide sembra non aver nulla a che fare con la probabile prospettiva della sua ottava. È costume di questi scrittori dileggiare il vecchio romanzo o romanzetto sentimentale, in cui la storia finiva sempre felicemente al suono delle campane di chiesa. Ma, giudicato secondo i più alti canoni della letteratura eroica o grande, come le tragedie greche o i grandi poemi epici, il romanzetto era in realtà assai superiore al romanzo. Si prefiggeva di raggiungere una certa mèta — l’unione di due persone, con tutto il suo culmine davvero vitale nella fondazione di una famiglia e in un voto a Dio; e tutti gli altri episodi erano interessanti perché puntavano verso un coronamento che era, per legittima ipotesi, un grandioso coronamento.

Ma il moderno rifiuto tanto del voto religioso quanto della speranza romantica ha spezzato del tutto la spina dorsale della faccenda, ed essa non è più che un sacco disordinato di ossa. Si descrivono minutamente persone che provano una sciocca passione dopo l’altra, passioni che esse stesse riconoscono come sciocche, e che persino la loro stessa miserabile filosofia proibisce loro di considerare come passi verso un qualsiasi fine. Il romanzetto sentimentale era una convenzione semplificata e limitata della cosa; in cui, per amor di discussione, il matrimonio veniva posto come premio. Certo il matrimonio non è l’unica cosa che accade nella vita; e qualcun altro può studiare un’altra sezione con un’altra mèta. Ma i moderni romanzieri seri negano che vi sia una qualsiasi mèta. Non possono additare la felicità umana che i romantici associavano al conseguimento del premio. Non possono additare la felicità celeste che i religiosi associavano al mantenimento del voto. Sono ricacciati interamente sulla descrizione microscopica di questi appetiti senza scopo in sé stessi. E, studiati microscopicamente in sé stessi, essi non sono molto interessanti per un uomo di mezza età che ha in abbondanza altre cose a cui pensare. In breve, la vecchia letteratura, tanto grande quanto triviale, era costruita sull’idea che c’è uno scopo nella vita, anche se non sempre viene compiuto in questa vita; ed era davvero interessante seguire le tappe di un simile scopo dall’incontro alle nozze, dalle nozze alle campane, e dalle campane alla chiesa. Ma la filosofia moderna ha tolto la vita alla narrativa moderna. Essa si sta semplicemente dissolvendo in frammenti separati e poi nell’informità; e merita assai più del romanzo romantico il moderno rimprovero di essere «sdolcinata».

XVII. Sulla Logica e la follia

L’IDEA della logica è così interamente perduta in questa fase della storia filosofica, che persino coloro che la invocano lo fanno piuttosto come gli ateniesi un tempo invocavano il Dio Ignoto, o come gli uomini dei Secoli Bui conservavano un vago rispetto per Virgilio in quanto mago. Le persone stesse che dicono «sii logico» si troveranno generalmente a essere del tutto illogiche nella loro stessa nozione di logica. Uno degli ultimi uomini che comprendevano la logica nel suo pieno e imparziale significato è morto solo di recente: il defunto William Johnson del King’s College di Cambridge; una delle menti più fini dell’epoca e un’esatta misura del moderno contrasto tra la notabilità e la notorietà. Voglio dire che in qualche modo la gloria si è dipartita dalla gloria, e i primi uomini del tempo sono spesso gli ultimi a essere reclamizzati o anche solo adeguatamente ammirati. Egli era tanto incapace di un’ingiustizia intellettuale quanto di un infanticidio; e mentre lui e io divergevamo su un migliaio di cose, anche se avessi considerato la sua visione come conducente in ultima analisi alla falsità, avrei sempre saputo che essa era priva della più lieve sfumatura di fallacia. Se ci fosse stata una qualsiasi erbaccia di logica debole nel suo stesso ragionamento, egli l’avrebbe strappata via con la stessa gioia di qualsiasi erbaccia nel giardino del nemico. Poiché amava quella sorta di diserbo come divertimento e come arte — una specie di arte per l’arte. E quando vago nella giungla di sciocchezze giornalistiche in cui tutti viviamo oggigiorno, la sua memoria mi ritorna ancora e ancora.

Cominciamo con un’inezia che non ha la minima importanza. Egli amava discutere di inezie che non hanno la minima importanza. Un giornalista, l’altro giorno, scosse le fondamenta dell’universo e dell’Impero Britannico sollevando la questione se una ragazza debba fumare un sigaro. Ma ciò che notai riguardo a lui, e riguardo alle cento zelanti corrispondenti che inseguirono questo grande tema, fu che scrivevano ancora e ancora qualche frase di questo tenore: «Se ti piace che una ragazza fumi una sigaretta, perché non puoi essere logico e gradire che fumi un sigaro?». Ora, a me non importa un’oncia di trinciato se ella fumi una sigaretta o un sigaro o una pipa di pannocchia o un narghilè, o se fumi tre sigari in una volta, o se sia una fanatica antitabacco. Ma non è per questo meno vero che quando un uomo scrive quella frase esortandoci a «essere logici», egli mostra di non aver mai nemmeno sentito parlare della natura della logica. Potrebbe altrettanto bene scrivere: «Ti piace l’aspetto di un cavallo; perché non vuoi essere logico e gradire l’aspetto di un ippopotamo?». L’unica risposta è: «Ebbene, non mi piace; e non è illogico, perché non invade in alcun modo il regno della logica». Un uomo ha il perfetto diritto di dire che gli piace l’aspetto di una cosa e non gli piace l’aspetto di un’altra cosa; o persino che gli piace l’aspetto di una cosa più piccola, ma non gli piace l’aspetto di una cosa più grande ma alquanto simile. È tutta una questione di gusto; e non minimamente una questione di logica. Non vi è su di lui alcuna costrizione logica a passare dal più piccolo al più grande e a gradirli entrambi. L’uomo che usa questa frase attribuisce alla parola «logico» un qualche strano significato particolare; qualcosa che è vagamente adombrato nelle parole «estremista» o «andare fino in fondo». Ma se il mio appetito è così scarso che mi occorre solo mezzo maiale per colazione, non sono per questo meno logico se rifiuto di mangiare l’intero maiale a colazione. L’obbligo di mangiare l’intero maiale, se esiste, dev’essere un obbligo mistico o morale o trascendentale; ma non è un obbligo logico. Non è logico, perché non è stato dedotto da alcuna premessa; è stato semplicemente affermato senza riferimento ad alcuna premessa.

And that is what is the matter with the modern man who says, ‘be logical’. He cannot take his own advice, and therefore he cannot state his own first principles. But though his logic is nonsense as he states it, it does refer to some first principles if he could only state them. It all depends on the reason for approving of cigarettes or cigars or girls or any other strange creatures. What he really means, at the back of his muddled modernistic mind, is some thing like this: ‘If I approve of Jennifer smoking a cigarette because Jennifer can jolly well do anything she likes, and does, then it is illogical in me to object to her liking a cigar; or for that matter an opium-pipe or a pint of laudanum or a bottle of prussic acid.’ And this statement would really be quite logical, because the logical reason is given. Or if he said, ‘It is my first principle that women may do anything that men do; therefore I am bound in logic to pass the cigars to my daughter as much as to my son,’ then that also is perfectly reasonable as the application of a stated principle. But to say that a man is bound in logic to like a cigar as much as a cigarette whether in his own mouth or that of his maiden aunt or his maternal grandmother, is stark staring unreason; and shows that the speaker is entirely illogical in dealing with the two ideas of liking and logic.

This half superstitious veneration for logic, combined with a complete misunderstanding of it, is very common in those popular works of fiction which are the joy of my existence; the crime novels and the police romances and the rest. There is a queer notion that the detective, who is distinguished from all human beings by having the gift of reason, is bound in logic not to like anything or anybody. Even Sherlock Holmes (the friend of my childhood to whom I shall always pay a tribute of piety) is described somewhere, I think, as being incapable of falling in love because of his logical nature. You might as well say that he could not be expected to have much appetite for lunch, because of his proficiency in mathematics. There is nothing intrinsically illogical in having affections or admirations or appetites, so long as we recognize them reasonably as what they are. But the romantic tradition, as it exists in all the romances, is that the logician cannot be romantic. It may be remarked that the word ‘cold’ will always be found coupled with the word ‘logical’; I imagine the printers keep such words together in one block of type. But the cold logician, though be must not be romantic, is almost entirely a creature of romance. As a matter of fact and experience, most of the very logical people I have known have been very warm-blooded, affectionate or enthusiastic people. Most of the very good debaters were very warm debaters. Some of the closest reasoners in history were men of the most enthusiastic convictions; like St. Thomas Aquinas or the great French preachers and orators. The truth is, I think, that it was because the English were originally taught to have a prejudice against logic, that even when they half overcame the prejudice, there remained something alien in the admiration. They could be brought to feel a sort of awe in the presence of a really reasonable person; as if he were a sort of monster. The fact that a man could think could only be explained on the hypothesis that he was a Martian or the Man in the Moon; that he was a Clockwork Man; that he was The Thinking Machine. They began by thinking that reason is inhuman; and only gradually conceded that it is superhuman.

Is it not about time somebody preached the older doctrine; that reason is human? Is there not some thing to be said for those medieval Schoolmen and antiquated sages, who held that man is a rational animal; and even more rational than the other animals? The modern experiment of first sneering at logic for not being a practical thing, and then timidly praising it for being a priggish thing, seems to have resulted in the general loss of it as a normal function of the mind. It is as if the same Victorian English had supported their railway-trains by forbidding anybody to walk; and then, when all human limbs were paralysed, had deified two or three athletes as gods because they had the power of walking. Logic is as normal as legs; but legs can be neglected as well as logic. All that is needed is a little ordinary training and practice; the knowledge that inferences rest on their first principles, as men rest on their feet. But without it the world seems to be drifting into an intellectual dissolution and destruction, which is at its very wildest when some wild voice shrieks out of the chaos; ‘Be logical’. This strange cry apparently means that you cannot stroke a cat without stroking a tiger; or that you are bound to wish the house was on fire because you sit by the fireside.

XVIII. On the Thrills of Boredom

IT is a dogma imposed on all, by the dogmatic secularism of the modern system, that Youth needs, must have, and cannot possibly be happy without, a riot of dances, plays, or entertainments. We all know the practical truth embodied in this; and yet I am so doubtful about the fashionable assumption that I think it very nearly untrue. I have no objection to dances, plays, and masquerades: on the contrary, I enjoy them enormously; but then I am not what is commonly called a Youth. And from what I remember of being young, and what I have read of the real reminiscences of youth, I incline to think that youth never shows its glorious vividness and vitality so much as when transfiguring what might be called monotony. I feel far more sense of a creative glow, and of something passionately alive, in the description of the dreary moorland and dark mansion of the Brontës, or even of the dismal coffee-houses that were filled with the first dreams of Dickens, than I feel in the faces and conversation of half the young people I see at shows and dances to-day. Nor do I think it was a case of imagination existing in spite of dreariness; I think it existed in some degree because of dreariness. There is a psychological paradox here which perhaps only a poet can fully understand; but young people are generally poets.

Ed è proprio questo che non va nell’uomo moderno il quale dice: «sii logico». Non sa seguire il consiglio che dà, e perciò non sa enunciare i propri primi princìpi. Ma per quanto la sua logica sia un’assurdità, così come la formula, essa rinvia pur sempre a certi primi princìpi, se solo egli sapesse enunciarli. Tutto dipende dalla ragione per cui si approvano le sigarette, o i sigari, o le ragazze, o qualunque altra strana creatura. Ciò che egli intende davvero, in fondo alla sua confusa mente modernista, è qualcosa di simile: «Se approvo che Jennifer fumi una sigaretta perché Jennifer può benissimo fare tutto ciò che le pare, e lo fa, allora è illogico da parte mia obiettare che le piaccia un sigaro; o, se è per questo, una pipa d’oppio, o una pinta di laudano, o una bottiglia di acido prussico». E questa affermazione sarebbe in realtà del tutto logica, perché la ragione logica viene addotta. Oppure, se dicesse: «È mio primo principio che le donne possano fare tutto ciò che fanno gli uomini; dunque sono tenuto per logica a porgere i sigari a mia figlia non meno che a mio figlio», anche questo è perfettamente ragionevole come applicazione di un principio enunciato. Ma dire che un uomo è tenuto per logica ad amare un sigaro quanto una sigaretta, sia nella propria bocca sia in quella della sua zitella zia o della sua nonna materna, è una sconclusionata, sfacciata insensatezza; e dimostra che chi parla è del tutto illogico nel maneggiare le due idee del piacere e della logica.

Questa venerazione semi-superstiziosa per la logica, unita a un completo fraintendimento di essa, è assai comune in quelle opere di narrativa popolare che sono la gioia della mia esistenza: i romanzi polizieschi, i racconti gialli e tutto il resto. Corre una bizzarra convinzione secondo cui l’investigatore, che si distingue da tutti gli altri esseri umani per il dono della ragione, sarebbe tenuto per logica a non amare nulla e nessuno. Persino Sherlock Holmes (l’amico della mia infanzia, cui renderò sempre un tributo di devozione) viene descritto in qualche punto, mi pare, come incapace di innamorarsi a causa della sua natura logica. Tanto varrebbe dire che non ci si potrebbe aspettare da lui molto appetito per il pranzo, a causa della sua bravura in matematica. Non c’è nulla di intrinsecamente illogico nell’avere affetti, o ammirazioni, o appetiti, purché li riconosciamo ragionevolmente per ciò che sono. Ma la tradizione romanzesca, così come esiste in tutti i romanzi, vuole che il logico non possa essere romantico. Si può osservare che la parola «freddo» si troverà sempre accoppiata alla parola «logico»; immagino che i tipografi tengano simili parole insieme in un unico blocco di caratteri. Ma il freddo logico, benché non debba essere romantico, è quasi interamente una creatura da romanzo. In fatto e per esperienza, la maggior parte delle persone davvero logiche che ho conosciuto erano persone dal sangue caldo, affettuose o entusiaste. La maggior parte dei bravissimi disputatori erano disputatori assai accalorati. Alcuni dei più serrati ragionatori della storia furono uomini dalle convinzioni più entusiaste, come san Tommaso d’Aquino o i grandi predicatori e oratori francesi. La verità, credo, è che, poiché gli inglesi furono in origine educati a nutrire un pregiudizio contro la logica, anche quando ebbero mezzo superato quel pregiudizio, rimase qualcosa di estraneo in quell’ammirazione. Li si poteva indurre a provare una sorta di reverente stupore al cospetto di una persona davvero ragionevole, come se fosse una specie di mostro. Il fatto che un uomo sapesse pensare non poteva spiegarsi se non con l’ipotesi che fosse un marziano, o l’Uomo della Luna; che fosse un Uomo a Orologeria; che fosse la Macchina Pensante. Cominciarono col pensare che la ragione fosse inumana; e solo a poco a poco concessero che fosse sovrumana.

Non è forse tempo che qualcuno predichi l’antica dottrina, secondo cui la ragione è umana? Non c’è forse qualcosa da dire in favore di quei medievali Dottori della Scolastica e di quegli antiquati sapienti, i quali ritenevano che l’uomo sia un animale razionale; e persino più razionale degli altri animali? L’esperimento moderno, che prima sogghigna alla logica perché non sarebbe cosa pratica, e poi timidamente la loda perché sarebbe cosa da pedanti, sembra aver avuto per esito la perdita generale di essa come normale funzione della mente. È come se quegli stessi inglesi vittoriani avessero sostenuto i loro treni a vapore vietando a chiunque di camminare; e poi, quando tutte le membra umane furono paralizzate, avessero deificato due o tre atleti come dèi, per il fatto che avevano il potere di camminare. La logica è normale come le gambe; ma le gambe possono essere trascurate non meno della logica. Tutto ciò che occorre è un po’ di ordinario esercizio e pratica: la consapevolezza che le inferenze poggiano sui loro primi princìpi, come gli uomini poggiano sui loro piedi. Ma senza di essa il mondo sembra andare alla deriva verso una dissoluzione e una distruzione intellettuale, che tocca il suo culmine più sfrenato quando qualche voce forsennata strilla fuori dal caos: «Sii logico». Questo strano grido pare significare che non si possa accarezzare un gatto senza accarezzare una tigre; o che si sia tenuti a desiderare che la casa vada a fuoco per il solo fatto che si siede accanto al focolare.

XVIII. Sui brividi della noia

È un dogma imposto a tutti, dal dogmatico laicismo del sistema moderno, che la Gioventù abbia bisogno, non possa fare a meno, e non possa in alcun modo essere felice senza, un tripudio di balli, spettacoli e divertimenti. Tutti conosciamo la verità pratica racchiusa in ciò; eppure sono tanto dubbioso di questa assunzione alla moda da ritenerla quasi del tutto falsa. Non ho nulla in contrario ai balli, agli spettacoli e alle mascherate: al contrario, li godo enormemente; ma d’altronde io non sono ciò che comunemente si chiama un Giovane. E da quel che ricordo dell’essere giovane, e da quel che ho letto delle vere reminiscenze della giovinezza, sono incline a pensare che la giovinezza non mostri mai la sua gloriosa vividezza e vitalità così tanto come quando trasfigura ciò che potrebbe chiamarsi monotonia. Avverto molto più il senso di un ardore creativo, e di qualcosa di appassionatamente vivo, nella descrizione della squallida brughiera e della tetra dimora delle Brontë, o persino delle lugubri caffetterie che si riempivano dei primi sogni di Dickens, di quanto ne avverta nei volti e nei discorsi di metà dei giovani che vedo agli spettacoli e ai balli d’oggi. Né credo che si trattasse di immaginazione esistente a dispetto dello squallore; credo che essa esistesse in qualche misura a causa dello squallore. C’è qui un paradosso psicologico che forse solo un poeta può comprendere appieno; ma i giovani sono generalmente poeti.

I can recall in my childhood the continuous excitement of long days in which nothing happened; and an indescribable sense of fullness in large and empty rooms. And with whatever I retain of childishness (and whether it be a weakness or otherwise, I think I retain more than most) I still feel a very strong and positive pleasure in being stranded in queer quiet places, in neglected corners where nothing happens and anything may happen; in unfashionable hotels, in empty waiting-rooms, or in watering-places out of the season. It seems as if we needed such places, and sufficient solitude in them, to let certain nameless suggestions soak into us and make a richer soil of the subconsciousness. Certainly, if there is such a need, it is a need that is now being everywhere neglected. Of course, all such views of youth or childhood or the past are a matter of proportion. Children did not like thrashings or even threatenings; they did not all like thunderstorms; they did not like solitude or darkness or horrors increased beyond their capacity for supporting them. But, allowing for that, the normal little boy likes solitude and loves horrors. Only, as I say, there is a fine shade that goes even beyond this, and suggests something of sustenance even in what many would now call merely stuffy and stagnant. The imagination can not only enjoy darkness; it can even enjoy dullness. I know that men like Dickens, writing recollections, have complained of dullness. But when I read their recollections, I doubt if they were ever for one instant dull. It must have been in those very hours that there first began that dance of the Dickens characters after which the world need never be dull again.

In that dance of Dickens characters, I trust I need not explain that I do not figure either as Mr. Stiggins the Puritan or Mr. Scrooge the Utilitarian. I have not the smallest intention of interfering with anybody’s dances or dramatic entertainments; and, in due proportion, I am prepared to interfere with any interference. But there is a moral and mental fact involved, which is being neglected in the concentration on communal or convivial enjoyment; and that fact consists precisely in the real vitality and power of youth. Youth is much more capable of amusing itself than is now supposed, and in much less mortal need of being amused. The only real warning against solitude and stagnation which needs to be uttered is that you do really need to be rather young and strong in order to get the fun out of them. The same principle applies to the monastic life; a career that requires very great vigour and vivacity. No normal person is expected to be so vigorous and vivacious as that. But most normal persons are now taught to neglect far too much the sort of excitement which the mind itself manufactures out of unexciting things. And anybody who can feel the fine shades, in fiction or philosophy will agree that the old school called Romantic, or even Byronic, which we feel still volcanic in the Brontës, had really about it a curious confidence in life, an unbroken hope in the heart, which is strangely stubborn in many people who had been as badly brought up as Byron. Byron himself, with all his parade of pessimism, had a sort of glamour of life about him that he could not get rid of, and a gusto that never left his language, even when he used it to deny its existence in his life.

Now, one need not belong to the extreme school of The Nightmare of the Night Club, or Vengeance on the Vamp, in order to observe around us a certain lack of that really romantic gusto and glamour. To mention another Dickens character, it will be remembered that the Infant Phenomenon was kept short by means of gin, so that she might go on dancing as a light and airy child. It seems to me that a good many people are kept from growing by cocktails, and stunted rather than stimulated by dancing. They are not allowed to grow, because they are always pulling themselves up by the roots to see how they are growing. In the ease of those who really have a heat and force of generous youth within them, I seriously think that imprisonment in a second-rate boarding-house during a rainy day at Worthing, or enforced retirement to a faded and forgotten tea-shop off the road to Wormwood Scrubs, would lead to their returning to their friends younger than ever. As to those who are already dried up, hopeless, cynical, and filled with intellectual despair, they can continue to be gay.

This need is a normal need; like other normal needs, it can be neglected for a period; like other normal needs, it will certainly be rediscovered at a later period. Perhaps it will be discovered incidentally and individually; perhaps it will be discovered darkly and secretly, as by the conspirators of individualism or the revolutionists of tradition. Perhaps the plotters will whisper to each other, amid the whirl of the latest jazz or ragtime, the forbidden assignation and the address of the Worthing boarding house. Perhaps a solitary figure will be seen slinking from the Scarlet Cuttlefish (that exclusive night club) and grimly taking the road to Wormwood Scrubs. Perhaps, on the other hand, it will come with a communal rush like the return of a fashion; and it will be all the rage to be found sitting speechless in a waiting-room at Willesden Junction; and all the best people will leave themselves lying about, like so much lost luggage, in the parlours of dilapidated public-houses or on the steps of derelict bathing-machines at dead Victorian resorts. These are the only places I can think of in which a modern man and woman could possibly have time or opportunity to think for themselves. These are the modern equivalents of sitting among the ruins or meditating among the tombs; and both were very healthy human exercises, very improving to the spirits.

Ricordo, nella mia infanzia, la continua eccitazione di lunghe giornate in cui non accadeva nulla; e un indescrivibile senso di pienezza in stanze grandi e vuote. E con quel tanto di fanciullesco che mi resta (e, sia esso una debolezza o altro, credo di conservarne più della maggior parte della gente) provo ancora un piacere assai forte e positivo nel ritrovarmi arenato in luoghi bizzarri e quieti, in angoli negletti dove nulla accade e tutto può accadere; in alberghi fuori moda, in sale d’attesa deserte, o in stazioni balneari fuori stagione. Sembra quasi che avessimo bisogno di simili luoghi, e di sufficiente solitudine in essi, per lasciare che certe innominabili suggestioni ci penetrino e rendano più fertile il suolo del subconscio. Certo, se un tale bisogno esiste, è un bisogno che oggi viene ovunque trascurato. Naturalmente, tutte queste visioni della giovinezza, o dell’infanzia, o del passato, sono questione di proporzioni. Ai bambini non piacevano le sculacciate, e nemmeno le minacce; non a tutti piacevano i temporali; non piacevano loro la solitudine, o l’oscurità, o gli orrori accresciuti oltre la loro capacità di sopportarli. Ma, tenuto conto di ciò, il normale bambino ama la solitudine e adora gli orrori. Solo che, come dico, c’è una sottile sfumatura che va persino oltre questo, e suggerisce qualcosa di nutriente perfino in ciò che molti oggi definirebbero soltanto soffocante e stagnante. L’immaginazione non solo sa godere dell’oscurità; sa godere persino della monotonia. So che uomini come Dickens, scrivendo le loro rimembranze, si sono lamentati della monotonia. Ma quando leggo le loro rimembranze, dubito che siano mai stati, per un solo istante, annoiati. Dev’essere stato proprio in quelle ore che ebbe inizio quella danza dei personaggi di Dickens, dopo la quale il mondo non ha più bisogno di annoiarsi.

In quella danza dei personaggi di Dickens, spero non occorra spiegare che io non figuro né come Mr. Stiggins il Puritano né come Mr. Scrooge l’Utilitarista. Non ho la minima intenzione di intromettermi nei balli o negli spettacoli di chicchessia; e, nella debita proporzione, sono pronto a intromettermi in ogni intromissione. Ma è in gioco un fatto morale e mentale, che viene trascurato nella concentrazione sul godimento comunitario o conviviale; e quel fatto consiste precisamente nella reale vitalità e forza della giovinezza. La giovinezza è assai più capace di divertirsi da sé di quanto oggi si supponga, e ha assai meno mortale bisogno di essere divertita. L’unico vero ammonimento contro la solitudine e il ristagno che occorra pronunciare è che bisogna davvero essere piuttosto giovani e forti per trarne godimento. Lo stesso principio si applica alla vita monastica: una carriera che richiede grandissimo vigore e vivacità. Da nessuna persona normale ci si aspetta di essere così vigorosa e vivace. Ma la maggior parte delle persone normali oggi è educata a trascurare troppo quel genere di eccitazione che la mente stessa fabbrica a partire da cose non eccitanti. E chiunque sappia avvertire le sottili sfumature, nella narrativa o nella filosofia, converrà che l’antica scuola detta Romantica, o persino Byroniana, che sentiamo ancora vulcanica nelle Brontë, aveva davvero in sé una curiosa fiducia nella vita, una speranza intatta nel cuore, che è stranamente ostinata in molte persone allevate tanto male quanto Byron. Byron stesso, con tutta la sua ostentazione di pessimismo, aveva intorno a sé una sorta di incantesimo della vita di cui non riusciva a liberarsi, e un gusto che non abbandonò mai il suo linguaggio, anche quando lo usava per negarne l’esistenza nella propria vita.

Ora, non occorre appartenere alla scuola estrema dell’Incubo del Night Club, o della Vendetta sulla Vamp, per osservare intorno a noi una certa mancanza di quel gusto e di quell’incanto veramente romantici. Per menzionare un altro personaggio di Dickens, si ricorderà che il Fenomeno Infantile veniva tenuto piccolo per mezzo del gin, così da poter continuare a danzare come una bambina leggera ed eterea. Mi pare che parecchie persone siano tenute lontane dalla crescita dai cocktail, e stentate anziché stimolate dal ballo. Non è loro concesso di crescere, perché si sradicano continuamente per vedere come stanno crescendo. Nel caso di coloro che hanno davvero in sé il calore e la forza di una generosa giovinezza, penso seriamente che l’imprigionamento in una pensione di second’ordine durante una giornata di pioggia a Worthing, o il ritiro forzato in una sbiadita e dimenticata sala da tè lungo la strada per Wormwood Scrubs, li ricondurrebbe agli amici più giovani che mai. Quanto a coloro che sono già inariditi, disperati, cinici e colmi di disperazione intellettuale, essi possono continuare a essere allegri.

Questo bisogno è un bisogno normale; come gli altri bisogni normali, può essere trascurato per un periodo; come gli altri bisogni normali, verrà certamente riscoperto in un periodo successivo. Forse sarà scoperto incidentalmente e individualmente; forse sarà scoperto oscuramente e segretamente, come dai cospiratori dell’individualismo o dai rivoluzionari della tradizione. Forse i congiurati si sussurreranno l’un l’altro, in mezzo al vortice dell’ultimo jazz o ragtime, il proibito appuntamento e l’indirizzo della pensione di Worthing. Forse si vedrà una figura solitaria svignarsela dalla Seppia Scarlatta (quell’esclusivo night club) e imboccare cupamente la strada per Wormwood Scrubs. Forse, d’altra parte, esso arriverà con una ressa comunitaria, come il ritorno di una moda; e diventerà l’ultimo grido farsi trovare seduti in silenzio in una sala d’attesa a Willesden Junction; e tutte le persone più in vista si lasceranno abbandonate qua e là, come tanti bagagli smarriti, nei salotti di malandate osterie o sui gradini di sgangherate cabine da bagno in morte località di villeggiatura vittoriane. Questi sono i soli luoghi che io riesca a immaginare in cui un uomo e una donna moderni potrebbero avere il tempo o l’occasione di pensare con la propria testa. Questi sono gli equivalenti moderni del sedere tra le rovine o del meditare tra le tombe; ed entrambi erano esercizi umani assai salubri, molto giovevoli allo spirito.

In this connexion, by the way, I must once more express my astonishment that, in an age which will have ten professors of psychology to tea, or strew the world with pamphlets and books about subconsciousness and psycho-analysis, nobody seems to notice the most normal and elementary facts of practical psychology. Otherwise, it would not be left to an irresponsible and ignorant journalist to point out the elementary fact: that dullness can be a stimulant. There is hardly any need to point out, to any one acquainted with our lighter entertainments, that amusement can be a narcotic. But, anyhow, some one with more scientific authority ought really to study these strange reactions of stale and even oppressive atmospheres on the romantic spirit of youth. Who knows?—if something suggestive were written on the subject, even youth might be young once more.

XIX. On Gossip about Heredity

A SHORT time ago a distinguished scientific expert, pleading for a more normal and less panic-stricken treatment of consumptives, summed up one aspect in the decisive words: ‘Consumption is no more hereditary than measles.’ He said, of course, that it could attack successive members of the same family, and for the same reason as measles. I have no authority to speak on the technical point; but a statement like this, which may fairly be called authoritative, turns my mind back on the vast and sprawling treatment of the topic of heredity, in popular science and public opinion. And, though I do not claim to know much about the medical facts or falsehoods set forth in this particular case, I rather think I do know something of the moral facts and falsehoods that lie behind them and are their sole and continuous motive-power. There are undoubtedly individual professors, who fight each other on tiny points out of pure impersonal curiosity, or possibly out of pure personal dislike. But when any part of the general public is drawn into a debate on physical science, we may be certain that it has already become a debate on moral science. Mobs are always moral. There never was a mob that rose to demand the squaring of the circle or the closer observation of the Transit of Venus. Professor Higgle and Professor Haggle may argue the hind-leg off a donkey, or the hundredth leg off a centipede, to settle a question that nobody can understand but themselves. But if ever the dancing donkey and the writhing centipede become heraldic figures on the flags and ensigns of the crowd, then we may be quite certain that for some sort of reason (probably quite an unreasonable reason) these biological questions have somehow been entangled with faith and morals; and that what is raging in the street is the war of two philosophies.

Now, almost as soon as the word ‘heredity’ was invented or spoken aloud, it was caught up like a cry in the market-place, and repeated in every variation of gossip and chattering comment; applied to this, that, and the other, to which it was never in any case applicable; and trumpeted aloud by men who did not even know what it meant, long before even the most learned men knew even the little about it that they know now. Mendel the monk has explained it much more fully than did Darwin and all the material scientists; but even after that it remains a very obscure and subtle subject, as the scientists would be the first to admit.

But in the great days when Science was also Fashion, when the world had to bow down not only to Darwin but to all Darwinians, when anything labelled ‘Specimens’ or ‘Sections’ passed without challenge, and all the camp-followers of materialism were sacred, like the suite of an Embassy—in those days of one idea or one tendency there arose the most amazing fashion of talking about Heredity. It was simply taken for granted, for instance, in a hundred provincial homes that what they called Drink was hereditary. If they had used language in a rational manner they might have been quite right, for the disposition to drink something is a hereditary human instinct; and the objection to doing so, when it happens to be beer, is a superficial, artificial, and self-conscious pose. But what they meant was alcoholism; and what they meant was nonsense. Nobody has ever tasted alcohol. Nobody in the normal way has ever seen it. Nobody most certainly has ever liked it. What people liked was a certain pleasure, either of excitement or serenity, which can be gained through a variety of liquids, moderately by moderate indulgence, or excessively by excessive indulgence. Alcohol is simply a name which professors give (for the present) to some elements in all these liquids which they suppose (for the present) to be the cause of this mental pleasure. Now, it is obvious on the face of it that, if anything is hereditary, it cannot be a craving for the chemical process, which most people do not even know to exist. It can only be a craving for the mental result, which is simple pleasure. Now, all men have a craving for pleasure; and, though some men are weaker or more wilful in snatching at it, I cannot for the life of me see why such men should not snatch at other pleasures as much as this one. If what is inherited is anything so vague as a lack of vigilance and self-control against pleasure itself, I cannot see why the drunkard should not have one son who was a jewel-thief and another who was always flirting with barmaids or bolting with ballet-girls. Of course, many children of drunken families are drunken; not because there is heredity, but because there are a great many other things besides heredity. There is such a thing as tradition, which is nearly half of true history; and there is such a thing as suggestion, which is nearly all of modern journalism; and there are such things as education and environment, about which a still louder yell of human folly will go up—in short, there is something in morals which corresponds to infection in measles.

A questo proposito, per inciso, devo ancora una volta esprimere il mio stupore che, in un’epoca la quale invita a prendere il tè dieci professori di psicologia per volta, o dissemina il mondo di opuscoli e libri sul subconscio e la psicoanalisi, nessuno sembri accorgersi dei fatti più normali ed elementari della psicologia pratica. Altrimenti non toccherebbe a un giornalista irresponsabile e ignorante segnalare il fatto elementare: che la monotonia può essere uno stimolante. Non c’è quasi bisogno di far notare, a chiunque abbia dimestichezza con i nostri divertimenti più leggeri, che il divertimento può essere un narcotico. Ma, in ogni caso, qualcuno di maggiore autorità scientifica dovrebbe davvero studiare queste strane reazioni delle atmosfere stantie e persino opprimenti sullo spirito romantico della giovinezza. Chissà?—se qualcosa di suggestivo venisse scritto sull’argomento, forse persino la giovinezza tornerebbe a essere giovane.

XIX. Sulle chiacchiere intorno all’ereditarietà

Poco tempo fa un illustre esperto di scienze, perorando un trattamento più normale e meno preso dal panico dei tubercolotici, riassunse un aspetto della questione con parole decisive: «La tisi non è più ereditaria del morbillo». Egli disse, s’intende, che essa poteva colpire membri successivi della stessa famiglia, e per la stessa ragione del morbillo. Non ho l’autorità per pronunciarmi sul punto tecnico; ma un’affermazione come questa, che si può ben dire autorevole, riporta la mia mente al vasto e disordinato trattamento del tema dell’ereditarietà nella scienza divulgativa e nell’opinione pubblica. E, sebbene io non pretenda di sapere molto sui fatti o sulle falsità mediche esposte in questo caso particolare, credo piuttosto di sapere qualcosa dei fatti e delle falsità morali che stanno dietro di essi e ne sono l’unica e continua forza motrice. Vi sono senza dubbio singoli professori che si combattono su minuscoli punti per pura curiosità impersonale, o forse per pura antipatia personale. Ma quando una qualunque parte del pubblico generale viene trascinata in un dibattito di scienze fisiche, possiamo essere certi che esso è già diventato un dibattito di scienze morali. Le folle sono sempre morali. Non ci fu mai una folla che si levasse a reclamare la quadratura del cerchio o l’osservazione più accurata del transito di Venere. Il professor Higgle e il professor Haggle possono discutere fino a staccare la zampa posteriore a un asino, o la centesima gamba a un centopiedi, per dirimere una questione che nessuno può comprendere tranne loro. Ma se mai l’asino danzante e il centopiedi contorto diventeranno figure araldiche sulle bandiere e sugli stendardi della folla, allora potremo essere del tutto certi che, per qualche ragione (probabilmente del tutto irragionevole), quelle questioni biologiche si sono in qualche modo intrecciate con la fede e la morale; e che ciò che infuria nelle strade è la guerra di due filosofie.

Ora, quasi appena la parola «ereditarietà» fu inventata o pronunciata ad alta voce, essa venne raccolta come un grido nella piazza del mercato, e ripetuta in ogni variazione di pettegolezzo e di ciarliero commento; applicata a questo, a quello e a quell’altro, cui in nessun caso era applicabile; e trombettata a gran voce da uomini che non sapevano neppure che cosa significasse, molto prima che perfino gli uomini più dotti sapessero anche solo quel poco che ora ne sanno. Mendel il monaco l’ha spiegata assai più compiutamente di quanto abbiano fatto Darwin e tutti gli scienziati materialisti; ma anche dopo di ciò essa rimane un argomento assai oscuro e sottile, come gli scienziati sarebbero i primi ad ammettere.

Ma nei grandi giorni in cui la Scienza era anche Moda, quando il mondo doveva inchinarsi non solo a Darwin ma a tutti i darwiniani, quando qualunque cosa etichettata «Campioni» o «Sezioni» passava senza contestazione, e tutti i seguaci del materialismo erano sacri, come il séguito di un’Ambasciata—in quei giorni di un’unica idea o di un’unica tendenza sorse la più stupefacente moda di parlare dell’Ereditarietà. Si dava semplicemente per scontato, per esempio, in cento case di provincia, che ciò che chiamavano il Bere fosse ereditario. Se avessero usato il linguaggio in modo razionale, avrebbero forse avuto pienamente ragione, poiché la disposizione a bere qualcosa è un istinto umano ereditario; e l’obiezione a farlo, quando si tratti di birra, è una posa superficiale, artificiosa e autocosciente. Ma ciò che intendevano era l’alcolismo; e ciò che intendevano era un’assurdità. Nessuno ha mai assaggiato l’alcol. Nessuno, per via normale, l’ha mai visto. Nessuno, con assoluta certezza, l’ha mai amato. Ciò che la gente amava era un certo piacere, o di eccitazione o di serenità, che può essere ottenuto attraverso una varietà di liquidi, moderatamente con un moderato indulgere, o eccessivamente con un eccessivo indulgere. L’alcol è semplicemente un nome che i professori danno (per ora) a certi elementi presenti in tutti questi liquidi, che essi suppongono (per ora) siano la causa di questo piacere mentale. Ora, è evidente di per sé che, se qualcosa è ereditario, non può essere una brama del processo chimico, che la maggior parte della gente non sa nemmeno esistere. Può essere solo una brama del risultato mentale, che è puro e semplice piacere. Ora, tutti gli uomini hanno una brama di piacere; e, sebbene alcuni uomini siano più deboli o più ostinati nell’afferrarlo, non riesco proprio a vedere perché tali uomini non dovrebbero afferrare altri piaceri tanto quanto questo. Se ciò che si eredita è qualcosa di tanto vago come una mancanza di vigilanza e di autocontrollo contro il piacere stesso, non vedo perché l’ubriacone non dovrebbe avere un figlio ladro di gioielli e un altro sempre a corteggiare cameriere o a scappare con ballerine. Naturalmente, molti figli di famiglie di ubriaconi sono ubriaconi; non perché ci sia l’ereditarietà, ma perché ci sono moltissime altre cose oltre all’ereditarietà. Esiste una cosa chiamata tradizione, che è quasi metà della vera storia; ed esiste una cosa chiamata suggestione, che è quasi tutto il giornalismo moderno; ed esistono cose come l’educazione e l’ambiente, sulle quali si leverà un urlo ancora più alto di umana follia—in breve, c’è nella morale qualcosa che corrisponde al contagio nel morbillo.

But this wild romance of popular science spread wider and wider. What is odd about it is not its truth or untruth, but the unresisted smoothness with which it spread over one field after another. I know so little of the scientific study itself that I should not think of denying the possibility of some sort of inherited drunkenness; though I cannot make any sense of the theory of inherited alcoholism. But why were hundreds and thousands of people, who knew even less science than I do, instantly and calmly assured that drunkenness was hereditary? Why did they begin at once to watch the doubtful steps of the curate, because his great-uncle the Admiral was found drunk in a ditch on Trafalgar Day? Why did they eagerly watch for the fire of alcoholic craving in the eyes of the new-born infant who was remotely descended from Three-Bottle Thumpington? The question grows wilder as the application grew wider. The next thing we heard was the cheerful news that Assassination was a regular family feature, like a family nose. As in the other cases, it was not so much stated by scientific people as spread by unscientific people as the last scientific news. A brilliant lady novelist lately based a whole novel upon it, called Red Sky at Morning, in which a hazy, good-natured youth kills somebody for a very insufficient reason, merely because his father fifty years ago had killed somebody quite different for a totally different reason. All this seems to me highly irrational. There are almost as many motives for murdering men as there are men to murder. A man kills because he is blackmailed, or because he is jilted, or because he is a political fanatic, and so on. But how do you inherit a blackmailer, or an unreliable girl, or a political theory? There certainly is inheritance, as of physical type, perhaps of physical temperament; of being indolent or restless and so on. But the number of lazy men who will murder a valet for waking them up is about as large as the number of impatient men who will murder him for keeping them waiting. That is to say, it is very small. The mysterious moral inhibition, or its absence, by which men do or do not murder, is in the individual soul; and I defy anybody to show that it is hereditary.

What is the meaning of this popular superstition? In existing relations of religion and good taste, I can only suggest it in a parable. On the highest and hoariest of the ashpits of hell sits the oldest of all the Demons, whose name is Doom; it is he who has always blighted mankind with superstitions of the destiny and death of races; who told the old Greeks like Oedipus that they were bound to their blind crimes; who told the old feudal tribes that there was a curse on a castle or an abortion that was the burden of a family. And when modern science said ‘Heredity’ the old fiend stirred, and saw a new chance of renewing the old bondage. For however we take the symbols, it was a wise instinct by which heaven was symbolized by wings that are free as the wind, and hell symbolized by chains.

XX. On Dante and Beatrice

THE interesting, one might almost say amusing, idea of ‘The Poets on the Poets’, the series published by Messrs. Faber and Faber, is described by those playful publishers themselves as based ‘on the impudent maxims, “Set a Poet to catch a Poet” and “Bards of a feather flock together”’. I am not sure that the latter motto is so exact as the former. Thus Mr. Humbert Wolfe is to write on Tennyson; and it would never have occurred to me that those two excellent bards had a single feather between them. But the former maxim is sound enough, and is well supported by the second of the series, in which an illuminating sketch of Dante is presented by Mr. T. S. Eliot.

In such cases we are all of us only picking up stray feathers here and there, as Browning picked up the eagle’s feather on the heath. Mr. T. S. Eliot would be the last to pretend that he had completely plucked the eagle of Florence and Ravenna. If it is not easy to write a short book about Dante, neither is it easy to write a short article about Mr. Eliot. As he naturally picks out two or three of Dante’s ideas, I can only pick out one or two of his own ideas, and the subject-matter necessarily narrows from the poet to the critic and from the critic to the critic of the critic. But all his ideas are both stimulating and subtle, including any number I have no space to estimate here. Perhaps the most out standing matter, in a popular sense, is his very just reconstruction of the business about the story of Beatrice, as she appears not only in the Divine Comedy, but in the Vita Nuova. There has always been a controversy about Beatrice, and as so often happens (I grieve to say) in the controversies of the very learned, a mass of the most extraordinary nonsense has been talked on both sides. At one extreme there was the school of those who pretended that Beatrice was in the position of Mrs. Harris; or that she was, at best (to quote another great female authority), an allegory on the banks of the Nile: at any rate, hardly human enough to have ever been on the banks of the Arno. Some of them said she was a symbol standing for Theology or Divine Wisdom or some such thing; others, from colleges even nearer Hanwell, said she was an allegory of United Italy or Liberty or the League of Nations or heaven knows what. About that, especially in the case of the Vita Nuova (though I am not learned, and hardly even educated, touching Italian language and letters), I have not myself the shadow of a doubt. The man—or, rather, boy—who remembered with such scorching delight the fact that a little girl had nodded and smiled at him on a particular morning, and with such scorching despair the fact that she had not nodded or smiled at him on another morning, was most certainly in love, It was first love, calf-love, moon-calf-love, no doubt, but certainly human love; and if it wasn’t I will modestly exclaim with Shakespeare, ‘I never writ nor no man ever loved.’ And that Dante does mean the same young woman to reappear in the Paradiso is obvious, not only from many phrases in the Paradiso, but from the quite definite words at the end of the Vita Nuova. But when the opposite extreme of criticism suggests that human love is the whole subject of both books, then, as Mr. Eliot shows, it makes even worse nonsense out of the whole business.

Ma questo sfrenato romanzesco della scienza divulgativa si diffuse sempre più largamente. Ciò che vi è di curioso non è la sua verità o falsità, ma la scorrevolezza senza ostacoli con cui si estese da un campo all’altro. So così poco dello studio scientifico in sé che non mi sognerei di negare la possibilità di una qualche forma di ubriachezza ereditaria; benché non riesca a trovare alcun senso nella teoria dell’alcolismo ereditario. Ma perché centinaia e migliaia di persone, che di scienza ne sapevano ancora meno di me, furono all’istante e con tutta calma persuase che l’ubriachezza fosse ereditaria? Perché si misero subito a sorvegliare i passi malfermi del curato, per il fatto che il suo prozio l’Ammiraglio era stato trovato ubriaco in un fosso il giorno di Trafalgar? Perché scrutavano avidamente in cerca del fuoco della brama alcolica negli occhi del neonato che discendeva alla lontana da Thumpington-Tre-Bottiglie? La questione si fa più insensata via via che l’applicazione si faceva più ampia. La cosa successiva che ci toccò udire fu la lieta notizia che l’Assassinio era un consueto tratto di famiglia, come un naso di famiglia. Come negli altri casi, la cosa non era tanto affermata dalle persone di scienza quanto diffusa dalle persone digiune di scienza come l’ultima novità scientifica. Una brillante scrittrice di romanzi vi ha di recente fondato un intero romanzo, intitolato Red Sky at Morning, in cui un giovane nebuloso e bonario uccide qualcuno per una ragione del tutto insufficiente, semplicemente perché suo padre, cinquant’anni prima, aveva ucciso qualcuno di tutt’altro genere per una ragione del tutto diversa. Tutto ciò mi pare altamente irrazionale. Ci sono quasi altrettanti moventi per assassinare gli uomini quanti sono gli uomini da assassinare. Un uomo uccide perché è ricattato, o perché è stato piantato, o perché è un fanatico politico, e così via. Ma come si eredita un ricattatore, o una ragazza infida, o una teoria politica? Vi è certamente ereditarietà, quanto al tipo fisico, forse quanto al temperamento fisico; all’essere indolente o irrequieto e così via. Ma il numero degli uomini pigri che assassinerebbero un valletto per averli svegliati è pressappoco pari al numero degli uomini impazienti che lo assassinerebbero per averli fatti aspettare. Vale a dire, è piccolissimo. La misteriosa inibizione morale, o la sua assenza, per cui gli uomini uccidono o non uccidono, è nella singola anima; e sfido chiunque a dimostrare che sia ereditaria.

Qual è il significato di questa superstizione popolare? Nelle attuali convenienze di religione e di buon gusto, posso solo suggerirlo in una parabola. Sul più alto e canuto dei mucchi di cenere dell’inferno siede il più vecchio di tutti i Dèmoni, il cui nome è Fato; è lui che ha sempre funestato l’umanità con le superstizioni del destino e della morte delle stirpi; che disse ai vecchi Greci come Edipo che erano vincolati ai loro ciechi delitti; che disse alle vecchie tribù feudali che gravava una maledizione su un castello, o un aborto che era il fardello di una famiglia. E quando la scienza moderna disse «Ereditarietà», l’antico demonio si scosse, e vide una nuova occasione di rinnovare l’antica schiavitù. Poiché, comunque si prendano i simboli, fu un saggio istinto quello per cui il cielo venne simboleggiato da ali libere come il vento, e l’inferno simboleggiato da catene.

XX. Su Dante e Beatrice

L’idea interessante, si potrebbe quasi dire spassosa, di «I Poeti sui Poeti», la collana pubblicata dai signori Faber e Faber, è descritta da quei giocosi editori stessi come fondata «sulle impudenti massime: “A prender per la coda un Poeta ci vuole un Poeta” e “Bardi della stessa piuma volano insieme”». Non sono sicuro che quest’ultimo motto sia altrettanto esatto del primo. Così, il signor Humbert Wolfe deve scrivere su Tennyson; e non mi sarebbe mai venuto in mente che quei due eccellenti bardi avessero fra loro una sola piuma in comune. Ma la prima massima è abbastanza sensata, ed è ben avvalorata dal secondo volume della collana, in cui un illuminante ritratto di Dante ci viene presentato dal signor T. S. Eliot.

In simili casi, tutti noi non facciamo che raccogliere qua e là piume sparse, come Browning raccolse la piuma dell’aquila sulla brughiera. Il signor T. S. Eliot sarebbe l’ultimo a pretendere di aver spennato completamente l’aquila di Firenze e di Ravenna. Se non è facile scrivere un breve libro su Dante, non è nemmeno facile scrivere un breve articolo sul signor Eliot. Poiché egli naturalmente sceglie due o tre delle idee di Dante, io posso soltanto scegliere una o due delle sue proprie idee, e la materia necessariamente si restringe dal poeta al critico e dal critico al critico del critico. Ma tutte le sue idee sono a un tempo stimolanti e sottili, comprese quelle innumerevoli che qui non ho spazio di valutare. Forse la questione più notevole, in senso popolare, è la sua giustissima ricostruzione della faccenda intorno alla storia di Beatrice, quale ella appare non solo nella Divina Commedia, ma nella Vita Nuova. C’è sempre stata una controversia intorno a Beatrice, e, come tanto spesso accade (mi duole dirlo) nelle controversie dei sommamente dotti, una massa delle più straordinarie assurdità è stata pronunciata da entrambe le parti. A un estremo c’era la scuola di coloro che pretendevano che Beatrice si trovasse nella posizione della signora Harris; o che fosse, nel migliore dei casi (per citare un’altra grande autorità femminile), un’allegoria sulle rive del Nilo: comunque, a stento abbastanza umana da essere mai stata sulle rive dell’Arno. Alcuni di loro dicevano che era un simbolo che stava per la Teologia o la Sapienza Divina o qualcosa del genere; altri, provenienti da collegi ancora più vicini a Hanwell, dicevano che era un’allegoria dell’Italia Unita o della Libertà o della Società delle Nazioni o chissà che cosa. Su questo, specialmente nel caso della Vita Nuova (benché io non sia dotto, e a stento perfino istruito, in fatto di lingua e lettere italiane), non ho da parte mia l’ombra di un dubbio. L’uomo—o, piuttosto, il ragazzo—che ricordava con tanto cocente diletto il fatto che una bambina gli avesse fatto un cenno e un sorriso in un certo mattino, e con tanta cocente disperazione il fatto che ella non gli avesse fatto un cenno né un sorriso in un altro mattino, era con assoluta certezza innamorato. Era primo amore, amore di ragazzo, amore da vitello lunatico, senza dubbio, ma certamente amore umano; e se non lo era, esclamerò modestamente con Shakespeare: «Allora io non ho mai scritto, né mai alcun uomo ha amato». E che Dante intenda far riapparire la medesima giovane donna nel Paradiso è evidente, non solo da molte frasi del Paradiso, ma dalle parole del tutto precise alla fine della Vita Nuova. Ma quando l’estremo opposto della critica insinua che l’amore umano sia l’intero soggetto di entrambi i libri, allora, come mostra il signor Eliot, se ne cava fuori un’assurdità ancora peggiore da tutta la faccenda.

For the Romantics of the nineteenth century really implied that God and the Universe, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, were all one elaborate and rather laborious compliment to Beatrice Portinari. It is truer to say that, in the true sense, Beatrice is a compliment to God. She is lifted like flowers on an altar, or flames on a candlestick, to be an example of that earthly beauty which, used rightly, can lead us to heavenly beauty. And in this case the critics have missed the whole point of the comparison between the Vita Nuova and the Divine Comedy. The point is that the first slight, youthful, merely emotional story is really a sad story; it is only the completion in Paradise that is a joyful story. The former has an unhappy ending—or, rather, that most unhappy ending which consists in having no ending. It is the mere fragment of a human tragedy; it is only the religious epic that is, in the exact sense, a divine comedy. Dante is drawn as a dark and bitter spirit; but in fact he wrote the only one of the great epics that really has a happy ending.

The trouble was that the age of the Romantics was the age of the Rationalists, or those who thought they were Rationalists. Having figured as ruthless realists sweeping all spiritual visions like cobwebs out of the sky, they then suddenly became extravagant sentimentalists over some of the common or garden flowers they found growing naturally out of the earth. Having forbidden all belief in the legend of Adam and Eve, they demanded universal and absolute belief in the legend of Edwin and Angelina. They were not content with the natural sympathy we all have with such natural feelings; they really gave to them the supremacy of supernatural feelings— and (what is the real point) the only supernatural feelings. They did not use the coarse cant of our day; but they did, in fact, make Sex the supreme end of life for its own sake—in which they were much less sensible than the common or garden flowers. They therefore missed the whole meaning of Dante, which is that human love may indeed be a new life; but the new life must be dedicated to a supreme good as much as the old life. All other goods are only manifestations of that supreme good, and must ultimately be referred to it, as Beatrice to the Beatific Vision.

There is one comment, in this connexion, which occurred to me while reading Mr. Eliot’s book. The Beatific Vision is described by Dante about as well as it could be described by anybody— that is, chiefly by saying that it cannot be described at all. But Mr. Eliot has noticed, as I have often noticed, the very extraordinary effect of the ending, when, after a few grand hints (like that about a happy but forgotten dream), the poet suddenly introduces the vast but seemingly very distant simile about how Neptune must have felt when the Argo first sailed over him. At first sight it seems quite out of the picture; and yet for the imaginative it is right on the spot. Now there seem to be a number of these abrupt and abysmal irrelevancies in Dante’s poetry, and, indeed, in all great poetry. They seem to be suggesting a vivid image by suddenly introducing a totally different image. Instead of saying that Beatrice looked beautiful, Dante says that he felt like Glaucus when he ate the grass that made him seafellow of the gods. I do not know why that dim heathen dream delights me, but it does; much more, probably, than the best direct description of Beatrice’s beauty. It seems as if the sudden presentation of some quite remote vision, as imaginative as the main image, completes it and makes it convincing. There are many examples in other poets, including the rather hackneyed example of Keats, when he broke off a reasonably intelligent discourse on the nightingale to talk about perilous seas and magic casements, with which nightingales have nothing whatever to do. Like Dante, he had got beyond himself, and irrelevancy was the only expression of imagination. But there is something else in it relevant to Mr. Eliot’s thesis. This summoning of remote symbols, this calling of spirits from the vasty deep, like the sea-green Glaucus into the presence of Beatrice, does suggest something involved in the theology of the matter. It suggests that all beautiful images are shadows of the one real beauty, and can be, in a sense, shifted or interchanged for its service. It prevents mere fixed idolatry of one shadow in one minor, as if it were the origin of all. Beatrice is to be loved because she is beautiful; but she is beautiful because there is behind her a many sided mystery of beauty, to be seen also in the grass and the sea, and even in the dead gods. There is a promise in and yet beyond all such pictures; and the poet can see grass or the great sea or the great ship going over it, hearing a sort of whisper: ‘Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty.’

XXI. On Quacks in the Home

CAN anything be done to dam, not to say damn, the deluge of Quackery that is now being poured out everywhere to inform what is called the ignorance of the democracy? As the term implies, it is not only democracy that is ignorant. Those who would inform it are more ignorant still, or they would not invariably say the democracy when they mean the demos. Democracy does not mean the populace, or even the people; it means government by the people. Democracy is a very noble thing, and it does not exist—at any rate at present. Demos is a very jolly thing in its way, especially when it does all the things that ideal democrats generally abuse it for doing, such as drinking, shouting, and going to the Derby. But, what ever else it is doing, it is not ruling: it is not teaching, but being taught. And there might be a reasonable ease for its being taught, were it not for the unfortunate fact that it is being taught tosh. Which brings me back, after this parenthesis on the word democracy, to the more solemn and sacred subject of quackery.

Poiché i Romantici dell’Ottocento in realtà lasciavano intendere che Dio e l’Universo, il Cielo, l’Inferno e il Purgatorio fossero tutti un elaborato e piuttosto laborioso omaggio a Beatrice Portinari. È più vero dire che, nel senso autentico, Beatrice è un omaggio a Dio. Ella è innalzata come fiori su un altare, o fiamme su un candeliere, per essere un esempio di quella bellezza terrena che, usata rettamente, può condurci alla bellezza celeste. E in questo caso i critici hanno mancato del tutto il punto del confronto tra la Vita Nuova e la Divina Commedia. Il punto è che la prima storia, esile, giovanile, meramente emotiva, è in realtà una storia triste; è solo il compimento in Paradiso a essere una storia gioiosa. La prima ha un finale infelice—o, piuttosto, quel finale infelicissimo che consiste nel non avere alcun finale. È il mero frammento di una tragedia umana; è solo l’epica religiosa a essere, nel senso esatto, una divina commedia. Dante viene ritratto come uno spirito cupo e amaro; ma in realtà egli scrisse l’unica fra le grandi epopee che abbia davvero un lieto fine.

Il guaio era che l’età dei Romantici era l’età dei Razionalisti, o di coloro che si credevano Razionalisti. Dopo aver posato da realisti spietati, spazzando via dal cielo tutte le visioni spirituali come ragnatele, essi si mutarono poi d’un tratto in sentimentali stravaganti verso alcuni di quei comuni fiori da giardino che trovavano crescere spontaneamente dalla terra. Dopo aver proibito ogni credenza nella leggenda di Adamo ed Eva, esigevano una credenza universale e assoluta nella leggenda di Edwin e Angelina. Non si accontentavano della naturale simpatia che tutti nutriamo per simili sentimenti naturali; conferivano loro davvero la supremazia dei sentimenti soprannaturali—e (questo è il vero punto) gli unici sentimenti soprannaturali. Non usavano la volgare cantilena dei nostri giorni; ma di fatto facevano del Sesso il fine supremo della vita per se stesso—in che erano assai meno sensati dei comuni fiori da giardino. Mancavano perciò l’intero significato di Dante, che è questo: l’amore umano può davvero essere una vita nuova; ma la vita nuova dev’essere consacrata a un sommo bene non meno della vita antica. Tutti gli altri beni sono soltanto manifestazioni di quel sommo bene, e devono in ultima analisi essere ricondotti a esso, come Beatrice alla Visione Beatifica.

C’è un’osservazione, a questo proposito, che mi è venuta in mente leggendo il libro del signor Eliot. La Visione Beatifica è descritta da Dante press’a poco tanto bene quanto potrebbe descriverla chiunque—vale a dire, principalmente col dire che non può essere descritta affatto. Ma il signor Eliot ha notato, come io ho spesso notato, l’effetto davvero straordinario del finale, quando, dopo pochi grandi accenni (come quello sul sogno felice ma dimenticato), il poeta introduce all’improvviso la vasta ma apparentemente lontanissima similitudine su come dovette sentirsi Nettuno quando la nave Argo per la prima volta gli passò sopra a vela spiegata. A prima vista sembra del tutto fuori quadro; eppure, per chi ha immaginazione, è precisamente a segno. Ora, sembra esservi un certo numero di queste brusche e abissali digressioni nella poesia di Dante, e, in verità, in tutta la grande poesia. Esse paiono suggerire un’immagine vivida introducendo all’improvviso un’immagine del tutto diversa. Invece di dire che Beatrice appariva bella, Dante dice di essersi sentito come Glauco quando mangiò l’erba che lo rese compagno di mare degli dèi. Non so perché quel fosco sogno pagano mi diletti, ma è così; assai più, probabilmente, della migliore descrizione diretta della bellezza di Beatrice. Sembra quasi che l’improvvisa presentazione di una visione del tutto remota, immaginosa quanto l’immagine principale, la completi e la renda convincente. Vi sono molti esempi in altri poeti, compreso l’esempio piuttosto trito di Keats, quando egli interruppe un discorso ragionevolmente assennato sull’usignolo per parlare di mari perigliosi e di magiche finestre, con cui gli usignoli non hanno assolutamente nulla a che fare. Come Dante, egli era andato al di là di se stesso, e la digressione era la sola espressione dell’immaginazione. Ma c’è in ciò qualcos’altro che riguarda la tesi del signor Eliot. Questa evocazione di simboli remoti, questo chiamare spiriti dai vasti abissi, come il verdemare Glauco al cospetto di Beatrice, suggerisce davvero qualcosa di implicato nella teologia della cosa. Suggerisce che tutte le immagini belle sono ombre dell’unica vera bellezza, e possono, in un certo senso, essere scambiate o alternate al suo servizio. Impedisce la mera fissa idolatria di un’unica ombra in un unico specchio, come se essa fosse l’origine di tutto. Beatrice va amata perché è bella; ma è bella perché dietro di lei sta un multiforme mistero di bellezza, che si vede anche nell’erba e nel mare, e persino negli dèi morti. C’è una promessa in tutte queste immagini, e insieme al di là di esse; e il poeta può guardare l’erba, o il grande mare, o la grande nave che vi passa sopra, e udire una sorta di sussurro: «I tuoi occhi vedranno il Re nella sua bellezza».

XXI. Sui ciarlatani in casa

Si può fare qualcosa per arginare, per non dire maledire, il diluvio di Ciarlataneria che ora viene riversato ovunque per istruire quella che si chiama l’ignoranza della democrazia? Come il termine implica, non è solo la democrazia a essere ignorante. Coloro che vorrebbero istruirla sono ancora più ignoranti, altrimenti non direbbero invariabilmente la democrazia quando intendono il demos. Democrazia non significa la plebe, e nemmeno il popolo; significa governo del popolo. La democrazia è una cosa assai nobile, e non esiste—almeno per ora. Il demos è una cosa assai gioviale a suo modo, specialmente quando fa tutte le cose per cui i democratici ideali di solito lo biasimano, come bere, sbraitare e andare al Derby. Ma, qualunque altra cosa faccia, esso non governa: non insegna, ma è insegnato. E ci sarebbe un ragionevole motivo perché venga insegnato, se non fosse per lo sfortunato fatto che gli si insegnano sciocchezze. Il che mi riconduce, dopo questa parentesi sulla parola democrazia, al più solenne e sacro tema della ciarlataneria.

Quackery is false science; it is everywhere apparent in cheap and popular science; and the chief mark of it is that men who begin by boasting that they have cast away all dogmas go on to be incessantly, impudently, and quite irrationally dogmatic. Let any one run his eye over any average newspaper or popular magazine, and note the number of positive assertions made in the name of popular science, without the least pretence of scientific proof, or even of any adequate scientific authority. It is all the worse because the dogmas are generally concerned with domes tic and very delicate human relations; with heredity and home environment; and everything that can be coloured by the pompous and pretentious polysyllables of Psychology and Education. At least many of the old dogmas, right or wrong, were concerned with cherubim and seraphim, with lost spirits and beatified souls; but these dogmas always directly attack fathers and wives and children, without offering either credentials or evidence. The general rule is that nothing must be accepted on any ancient or admitted authority, but everything must be accepted on any new or nameless authority, or accepted even more eagerly on no authority at all. It is quite satisfactory, of course, if any nobody says in any newspaper: ‘Dr. Binns, of Buffalo, has told us that, while aunts may be fond of nephews, great-aunts always have an instinctive hatred and aversion both for nephews and nieces.’ But it is even more convincing than that if the information is anonymous in every way, and the writer merely states: ‘Recent science has shown that second cousins are naturally antagonistic, but that in second cousins once removed, the antagonism is sometimes introverted into suicidal mania.’ Where all these statements come from nobody knows. Where they all go to everybody ought to know, since they go to everybody. But it is in practice very difficult to discover what becomes of them, and whether they are really treated as wisdom or waste paper. On the whole, I fear it is more likely that everybody believes them than that anybody takes the trouble to check them.

This evil is wilder in America, but I doubt if it is worse in America. It is scattered all over our own Press and public speech, and is all the more insidious because it is not so much associated with the conspicuous figures of picturesque charlatans and fantastic prophets, such as strut in strange plumage about the plains of the West. Anyhow, it is scattered so widely both here and there that the difficulty is to pick up any adequate example. For the triviality of one specimen does not convey the tremendous and mountainous multitude of specimens. Here is one example, however, which I find in a periodical of considerable intellectual pretensions, to judge by its title. Like most of these professed organs of thought, it is marked by a complete incapacity for any precision in thinking. But I mention it, not because it is worse than the rest, but because it is representative of the rest and all the rest are no better. The instructor informs us that there can be between parent and child a negative transference (the intense italics arc his), which seems to mean, not merely that the child will hate the parent, but that the child will love somebody who is the opposite of the hated parent. ‘Thus a child who is treated coldly by his mother will come to reject all people like his mother and seek for her opposite. We will say the mother is good, honest, moral, even pious. The boy will gravitate to some one crooked, immoral, or even wicked, in short, his mother’s goodness may send him to the devil, though all the time she may be wondering why her excellent precepts, her discipline, her goodness are failing to develop like traits in her son.’

You will note the utter chaos of terminology and definition, even in these few lines. Some of us, to begin with, might hesitate to insist on the goodness of a mother who treated a child coldly. But what is meant by the mother being good, as distinct from her being moral? What is meant by the mother’s mysterious rival being immoral, as distinct from being wicked? And what in the name of goodness (or morality) is meant by the mysterious word ‘even’, which is reserved only for wickedness and for piety? The transference of these thoughts, from writer to reader, is a very negative transference indeed. However, the writer, having said that the mother’s goodness, which seems to be the same as her coldness, may send the boy to the devil, goes on to say that it may be a good thing that he should go to the devil; in which case it was presumably a good thing that the mother should be cold. Revolt, we are told, sometimes leads to new ways of life, and it may be highly satisfactory that the boy should seek for the opposite of his mother. But what is the opposite of your mother? As a point of logic, it seems rather subtle; nor does the logician here instructing us give us very much help. ‘A rebel boy may, of course, become, like the proverbial minister’s son, a good-for-naught or a crook; on the other hand, a boy like Balzac who hated his practical father, became a great novelist—his father’s opposite. Or in a different way, Beethoven, whose father was a poor fiddler, a drunkard and ne’er-do-well, became one of the great composers of the world, doggedly determined to protect his mother and be as unlike his father as possible.’ If that was his object, we can hardly say that he succeeded very well. I am not quite sure what is the opposite of a poor fiddler, but certainly it is not a great composer. There may be many a great composer who has been a poor fiddler, and many a poor fiddler who may yet be a great composer. The same mysterious use of the word ‘opposite’ darkens the other instance given from the career of Balzac. I cannot understand why, in logic, a great novelist is the exact contrary of a practical father. I do not see why any child may not happen to rejoice in the possession of a great practical novelist-father. The children of Sir Walter Scott, for instance, to a great extent did so, despite the accident which ruined his later fortunes. But it is not only false in the typical case of Scott, it is far from true even in the actual case of Balzac. Balzac had a decidedly ‘practical’ side to him; he was not only busy, but business-like, in his own way; and, anyhow, all these crude contrasts about complex characters are all nonsense. Balzac did not become a great novelist because his father had annoyed him with practicality; he became a great novelist because he was a great man. Beethoven did not succeed because his father drank; it is much more likely that he was a composer for the same reason that made his father a fiddler. These are only a few random examples of these random statements which are thrown about everywhere, that the people may learn Science from men who have never learnt Logic. Now that everybody is talking about the public being informed of this or that, is there any way of stopping the public being misinformed in this endless and exuberant fashion?

La ciarlataneria è falsa scienza; essa è ovunque manifesta nella scienza a buon mercato e divulgativa; e il suo tratto principale è che gli uomini i quali cominciano vantandosi di aver gettato via tutti i dogmi finiscono per essere incessantemente, sfacciatamente e del tutto irrazionalmente dogmatici. Chiunque scorra con lo sguardo un qualsiasi giornale medio o una rivista popolare noti il numero di asserzioni categoriche fatte in nome della scienza divulgativa, senza la minima pretesa di prova scientifica, né di alcuna adeguata autorità scientifica. È tanto peggio in quanto i dogmi riguardano generalmente le relazioni umane domestiche e delicatissime; l’ereditarietà e l’ambiente domestico; e tutto ciò che può essere colorato dai pomposi e pretenziosi polisillabi della Psicologia e dell’Educazione. Almeno molti degli antichi dogmi, giusti o sbagliati, riguardavano cherubini e serafini, spiriti perduti e anime beatificate; ma questi dogmi aggrediscono sempre direttamente i padri, le mogli e i figli, senza offrire né credenziali né prove. La regola generale è che nulla dev’essere accettato in base a un’autorità antica o riconosciuta, ma tutto dev’essere accettato in base a una qualunque autorità nuova o senza nome, o accettato con ancor maggiore avidità in base a nessuna autorità affatto. È del tutto soddisfacente, s’intende, se un qualsiasi signor nessuno dice su un qualsiasi giornale: «Il dottor Binns, di Buffalo, ci ha detto che, mentre le zie possono essere affezionate ai nipoti, le prozie provano sempre un istintivo odio e un’avversione tanto per i nipoti quanto per le nipoti». Ma è persino più convincente di così se l’informazione è anonima sotto ogni riguardo, e chi scrive si limita ad affermare: «La scienza recente ha dimostrato che i cugini di secondo grado sono naturalmente antagonisti, ma che nei cugini di secondo grado una volta rimossi l’antagonismo si introverte talvolta in mania suicida». Da dove provengano tutte queste affermazioni, nessuno lo sa. Dove vadano a finire tutte, ognuno dovrebbe saperlo, giacché vanno a finire da ognuno. Ma in pratica è assai difficile scoprire che ne sia di esse, e se siano davvero trattate come saggezza o come carta straccia. Nel complesso, temo sia più probabile che ognuno vi creda, piuttosto che qualcuno si prenda la briga di verificarle.

Questo male è più sfrenato in America, ma dubito che sia peggiore in America. È sparso per tutta la nostra stampa e i nostri discorsi pubblici, ed è tanto più insidioso in quanto non è tanto associato alle figure vistose di pittoreschi ciarlatani e fantastici profeti, quali si pavoneggiano in strani piumaggi per le pianure dell’Ovest. In ogni caso, è sparso così largamente sia qua sia là che la difficoltà sta nel raccogliere un esempio adeguato. Poiché la banalità di un solo campione non rende la tremenda e montuosa moltitudine dei campioni. Eccone tuttavia un esempio, che trovo in un periodico dalle considerevoli pretese intellettuali, a giudicare dal titolo. Come la maggior parte di questi sedicenti organi del pensiero, esso è contrassegnato da una completa incapacità di qualunque precisione nel pensare. Ma lo menziono, non perché sia peggiore degli altri, ma perché è rappresentativo degli altri, e tutti gli altri non sono migliori. L’istruttore ci informa che può esistere tra genitore e figlio un transfert negativo (il forte corsivo è suo), il che sembra significare, non semplicemente che il figlio odierà il genitore, ma che il figlio amerà qualcuno che è l’opposto del genitore odiato. «Così un bambino trattato con freddezza dalla madre finirà per respingere tutte le persone simili alla madre e cercarne l’opposto. Poniamo che la madre sia buona, onesta, morale, persino pia. Il ragazzo graviterà verso qualcuno di storto, immorale, o persino malvagio; in breve, la bontà di sua madre può mandarlo al diavolo, mentre lei per tutto il tempo può domandarsi perché i suoi eccellenti precetti, la sua disciplina, la sua bontà non riescano a sviluppare tratti simili nel figlio».

Noterete l’assoluto caos di terminologia e di definizione, anche in queste poche righe. Alcuni di noi, tanto per cominciare, potrebbero esitare a insistere sulla bontà di una madre che tratta un bambino con freddezza. Ma che cosa si intende con l’essere buona della madre, distinto dal suo essere morale? Che cosa si intende con l’essere immorale della misteriosa rivale della madre, distinto dall’essere malvagia? E che cosa, in nome della bontà (o della moralità), si intende con la misteriosa parola «persino», riservata soltanto alla malvagità e alla pietà? Il transfert di questi pensieri, da chi scrive a chi legge, è davvero un transfert oltremodo negativo. Tuttavia, chi scrive, dopo aver detto che la bontà della madre, la quale sembra essere la stessa cosa della sua freddezza, può mandare il ragazzo al diavolo, prosegue affermando che potrebbe essere un bene che egli vada al diavolo; nel qual caso era presumibilmente un bene che la madre fosse fredda. La rivolta, ci vien detto, conduce talvolta a nuovi modi di vivere, e può essere altamente soddisfacente che il ragazzo cerchi l’opposto di sua madre. Ma qual è l’opposto di vostra madre? Come punto di logica, sembra piuttosto sottile; né il logico che qui ci istruisce ci porge un grande aiuto. «Un ragazzo ribelle può, s’intende, diventare, come il proverbiale figlio del pastore, un buono a nulla o un imbroglione; d’altra parte, un ragazzo come Balzac, che odiava il padre pratico, divenne un grande romanziere—l’opposto del padre. Oppure, in altro modo, Beethoven, il cui padre era un povero suonatore di violino, un ubriacone e un buono a nulla, divenne uno dei grandi compositori del mondo, ostinatamente risoluto a proteggere la madre e a essere il più dissimile possibile dal padre». Se questo era il suo scopo, difficilmente possiamo dire che vi sia riuscito molto bene. Non so con certezza quale sia l’opposto di un povero suonatore di violino, ma di sicuro non è un grande compositore. Può esservi più d’un grande compositore che è stato un povero suonatore di violino, e più d’un povero suonatore di violino che potrebbe ancora diventare un grande compositore. Il medesimo misterioso uso della parola «opposto» ottenebra l’altro esempio tratto dalla carriera di Balzac. Non riesco a capire perché, in logica, un grande romanziere sia l’esatto contrario di un padre pratico. Non vedo perché un figlio non possa darsi che si rallegri del possesso di un padre-romanziere grande e pratico. I figli di Sir Walter Scott, per esempio, in larga misura lo fecero, nonostante la sventura che rovinò le sue fortune più tarde. Ma non solo è falso nel caso tipico di Scott, è ben lontano dall’esser vero perfino nel caso reale di Balzac. Balzac aveva in sé un lato decisamente «pratico»; era non solo indaffarato, ma metodico, a suo modo; e, comunque, tutti questi rozzi contrasti a proposito di caratteri complessi sono pure sciocchezze. Balzac non divenne un grande romanziere perché suo padre lo aveva infastidito con la praticità; divenne un grande romanziere perché era un grande uomo. Beethoven non riuscì perché suo padre beveva; è assai più probabile che egli fosse un compositore per la stessa ragione che rese suo padre un suonatore di violino. Questi sono soltanto alcuni esempi presi a caso di quelle affermazioni casuali che vengono gettate qua e là dappertutto, affinché il popolo apprenda la Scienza da uomini che non hanno mai appreso la Logica. Ora che tutti parlano dell’essere informato il pubblico su questo o quello, c’è un modo di impedire che il pubblico venga disinformato in questa maniera interminabile ed esuberante?

XXII. On a Generally Accepted Mistake

THE current cant, which is a cant against cant, has produced a crop of modern proverbs, or phrases, which everybody repeats for the hundredth time and nobody examines for the first time, or they would instantly be found to be false. A typical case is that which we have all heard again and again in some such form as this: ‘In every age people have thought their own time prosaic and only the past poetical. If you think the medieval or any other period picturesque, that is only the glamour of antiquity; men in those days felt about them as you do about these days. Their costumes and customs were as dull and trivial to them as yours are to you.’ The maxim appeals in many ways to the modern mind; it merges something with something else; it levels downwards; it contradicts the claims of chivalry and religious devotion; it is comforting and it is entirely untrue.

Mr. Rudyard Kipling, always the poet of this popular modernity, has summarized the notion admirably in a poem about Romance being at all times actually in the present and apparently in the past— a poem beginning, I think:

‘Farewell, Romance,’ the cavemen cried, With bone and flint he went away.

I need hardly say that there is not a grain of anything remotely resembling evidence that the cavemen ever cried anything of the sort. It is one of the thousand things which are said about them because there is no evidence either way. But there are tons of evidence that the earliest men whose motives we can follow regarded their own rituals and traditions as reasonably dignified. There have been periods in which poets and satirists have said that society was degenerating through luxury or laxity, and many periods in which they were perfectly right in saying so. There have been some periods—not very many—in which men have been intensely interested in some special period of the past. So the men of the Renaissance vaguely regarded antiquity as a heroic age. But they did not regard their own as a prosaic age. Shakespeare might be thrilled by Plutarch’s tales of great men in togas and tunics; but that did not prevent him from conceiving Hamlet as an ordinary Elizabethan gentleman, fencing with rapier and dagger, wearing probably a ruff and almost certainly a beard. Every modern man, when he first heard of Hamlet in modern dress, felt a faint shiver of doubt; even if he was sympathetic, he feared that it might be comic. But Shakespeare probably did conceive Hamlet in modern dress—in his modern dress. And there is nothing to show that he thought it in the least comic.

The truth is that no other age except the nineteenth century (and perhaps our little bit of the twentieth) ever did regard its own dress and habits as ugly and undignified. The thing can be tested in a hundred ways, and one is even tolerably familiar. Sensational French artists, in the nineteenth century, deliberately and defiantly painted pictures from the Gospel in modern dress, with Christ standing among men in trousers and top-hats. It was purposely done to ‘shock’ the Salon; needless to say, it would have been far too shocking for the Royal Academy. Yet it was not the first time the thing had been done. It was only the first time it had been thought shocking. There is not a single one of the previous epochs of Christian art, from the stiffest primitive Byzantine to the last realism of the Venetians or Dutch, when artists had not painted the Gospel scenes with the dress and habits of their own time. It is not, in plain fact, a question of why men think the present fashion ugly and the past fashion beautiful. It is a question of why they think this of trousers and top-hats, when they did not think it of trunk-hose or togas or tunics. Many subtle explanations might be suggested; but I incline myself to suspect that the dark secret can, after all, be stated more simply. Might I tentatively suggest that top-hats and trousers give us this uncanny impression of ugliness because they are ugly? Might I suggest that the mercantile nineteenth century thought itself hideous because it was hideous?—and the perception did credit to its acumen and even to its humility.

In short, there was a moment in the middle of the nineteenth century which was the midnight of artistic instinct, just as there was a moment about the middle of the ninth century which was the midnight of law and organization. It was blackest in a commercial country like England, which was only saved by treating itself as comic because it could not treat itself as dignified. It produced, for instance, the figure of the policeman, who was so comic that he had to be put at once into a pantomime, because he could not be put into a pageant. But almost any other age or country would have clad and armed the city guard so as to be an ornament to any pageant. Our age was ugly and undignified; our nation was redeemed by the national sense of humour that at least would not pretend to be dignified. The things of that period are all stamped with the insignia of indignity. It is not true that this is affected by it being a past or a present period. Mr. Kipling himself in the poem quoted, gave the case away by saying that ‘Romance brought up the nine-fifteen’, implying that the clerks in the train did not yet realize their own romance. But since that was written steam has grown old compared to petrol, as stage-coaches grew old compared to steam. Yet taking a third-class ticket at Euston Station is not much more wildly poetic now than it was when railways ruled the land. Steam may grow stale, but it does not grow specially poetical. If the old coach was faintly poetical, it was because a faint tradition of quite another sort lingered with the ancient echoes of the horse and of the horn. If the railway carriage does not turn into a romantic ruin before our eyes, it is because there lingers in it a nameless something of the nineteenth century: something that was proud of being prosaic and rigidly refuses to be anything else. It is the stamp of that particularly barbarous interlude: the only age in history when men dared not put the Twelve Apostles in modern dress.

XXII. Su un errore generalmente accettato

Il luogo comune corrente, che è un luogo comune contro i luoghi comuni, ha prodotto un raccolto di proverbi, o di frasi moderne, che tutti ripetono per la centesima volta e nessuno esamina per la prima volta, altrimenti si scoprirebbero all’istante false. Un caso tipico è quello che tutti abbiamo udito più e più volte in qualche forma di questo genere: «In ogni epoca gli uomini hanno ritenuto prosaico il proprio tempo e poetico soltanto il passato. Se tu ritieni pittoresco il periodo medievale o qualunque altro, ciò è solo l’incanto dell’antichità; gli uomini di quei giorni sentivano intorno a sé come tu senti intorno a questi giorni. I loro costumi e le loro usanze erano per loro tanto insulsi e triviali quanto i tuoi lo sono per te». La massima piace alla mente moderna sotto molti aspetti; fonde una cosa con un’altra; livella verso il basso; contraddice le pretese della cavalleria e della devozione religiosa; è consolante ed è del tutto falsa.

Il signor Rudyard Kipling, sempre il poeta di questa modernità popolare, ha riassunto ammirevolmente l’idea in una poesia sul Romanticismo, che è in ogni tempo realmente nel presente e apparentemente nel passato—una poesia che comincia, mi pare, così:

«Addio, Romanticismo», gridarono gli uomini delle caverne, e con l’osso e la selce esso se ne andò.

Non ho quasi bisogno di dire che non c’è un grano di alcunché che rassomigli anche solo lontanamente a una prova che gli uomini delle caverne abbiano mai gridato qualcosa del genere. È una delle mille cose che si dicono di loro perché non c’è prova in un senso né nell’altro. Ma vi sono tonnellate di prove che i più antichi uomini di cui possiamo seguire i moventi consideravano i propri riti e le proprie tradizioni ragionevolmente dignitosi. Ci sono stati periodi in cui poeti e satirici hanno detto che la società stava degenerando per lusso o lassismo, e molti periodi in cui avevano perfettamente ragione a dirlo. Ci sono stati alcuni periodi—non molti—in cui gli uomini si sono intensamente interessati a qualche particolare epoca del passato. Così gli uomini del Rinascimento consideravano vagamente l’antichità un’età eroica. Ma non consideravano la propria un’età prosaica. Shakespeare poteva emozionarsi ai racconti di Plutarco su grandi uomini in toga e tunica; ma ciò non gli impedì di concepire Amleto come un ordinario gentiluomo elisabettiano, che tirava di scherma con stocco e pugnale, portando probabilmente una gorgiera e quasi certamente la barba. Ogni uomo moderno, la prima volta che udì di un Amleto in abito moderno, provò un lieve brivido di dubbio; anche se era ben disposto, temeva che potesse riuscire comico. Ma Shakespeare probabilmente concepì davvero Amleto in abito moderno—nel suo abito moderno. E non c’è nulla che dimostri che lo trovasse minimamente comico.

La verità è che nessun’altra età, tranne l’Ottocento (e forse il nostro piccolo scampolo di Novecento), considerò mai il proprio abito e le proprie abitudini brutti e indegni. La cosa può essere verificata in cento modi, e uno è addirittura discretamente noto. Sensazionalistici artisti francesi, nell’Ottocento, dipinsero deliberatamente e provocatoriamente quadri tratti dal Vangelo in abito moderno, con Cristo ritto in mezzo a uomini in pantaloni e cappello a cilindro. Lo si faceva di proposito per «scandalizzare» il Salon; inutile dire che sarebbe stato di gran lunga troppo scandaloso per la Royal Academy. Eppure non era la prima volta che la cosa veniva fatta. Era solo la prima volta che veniva ritenuta scandalosa. Non c’è una sola delle precedenti epoche dell’arte cristiana, dal più rigido primitivo bizantino all’ultimo realismo dei veneziani o degli olandesi, in cui gli artisti non avessero dipinto le scene evangeliche con l’abito e le abitudini del proprio tempo. Non è, a dirla chiara, questione del perché gli uomini ritengano brutta la moda presente e bella la moda passata. È questione del perché lo pensino dei pantaloni e dei cappelli a cilindro, quando non lo pensavano delle brache a sbuffo o delle toghe o delle tuniche. Molte sottili spiegazioni si potrebbero suggerire; ma io per parte mia inclino a sospettare che il tenebroso segreto possa, dopo tutto, essere enunciato più semplicemente. Potrei avanzare timidamente l’ipotesi che i cappelli a cilindro e i pantaloni ci diano questa inquietante impressione di bruttezza perché sono brutti? Potrei suggerire che il mercantile Ottocento si ritenesse orribile perché era orribile?—e la percezione fece onore al suo acume e persino alla sua umiltà.

In breve, ci fu un momento, verso la metà dell’Ottocento, che fu la mezzanotte dell’istinto artistico, proprio come ci fu un momento, verso la metà del secolo nono, che fu la mezzanotte della legge e dell’organizzazione. Fu più fitto in un paese commerciale come l’Inghilterra, che si salvò soltanto trattando se stessa come comica, perché non poteva trattarsi come dignitosa. Essa produsse, per esempio, la figura del poliziotto, che era così comico da dover essere subito messo in una pantomima, perché non poteva essere messo in un corteo solenne. Ma quasi ogni altra età o nazione avrebbe vestito e armato la guardia cittadina in modo da farne un ornamento per qualunque corteo. La nostra età era brutta e indegna; la nostra nazione fu redenta dal nazionale senso dell’umorismo, che almeno non voleva fingersi dignitosa. Le cose di quel periodo sono tutte marchiate con le insegne dell’indegnità. Non è vero che questo dipenda dal suo essere un periodo passato o presente. Lo stesso signor Kipling, nella poesia citata, tradì la propria causa dicendo che «il Romanticismo portò il treno delle nove e un quarto», lasciando intendere che gli impiegati sul treno non avevano ancora colto il proprio romanticismo. Ma da quando ciò fu scritto, il vapore è invecchiato a confronto della benzina, come le diligenze invecchiarono a confronto del vapore. Eppure fare un biglietto di terza classe alla stazione di Euston non è oggi molto più selvaggiamente poetico di quanto lo fosse quando le ferrovie regnavano sul paese. Il vapore può diventare stantìo, ma non diventa particolarmente poetico. Se la vecchia diligenza era vagamente poetica, era perché una vaga tradizione di tutt’altro genere indugiava con le antiche eco del cavallo e del corno. Se la carrozza ferroviaria non si muta sotto i nostri occhi in una romantica rovina, è perché indugia in essa un innominabile non-so-che dell’Ottocento: qualcosa che era orgoglioso di essere prosaico e che rigidamente si rifiuta di essere altro. È il marchio di quell’intermezzo particolarmente barbaro: l’unica età della storia in cui gli uomini non osarono mettere i Dodici Apostoli in abito moderno.

This particular matter, in which the medieval world differed from the modern, must be clearly understood to start with, for instance, as one of the conditions governing The Canterbury Tales. The creative imagination of Chaucer could do much; it could do much more than it is commonly credited with doing; but it could hardly have bridged the abyss between the sublime and the ridiculous which yawned in the imagination of a man of the nineteenth century. Chaucer did not regard his own age as comic and commonplace. He regarded some people in it as comic, and some, perhaps, as commonplace; but the clothes and externals of these people could be used just as easily to express what was most imaginative and ideal. The Knight as described, might have figured in any medieval picture as kneeling all clad in iron on one side of an enthroned Virgin and Child; his crusading spirit belongs altogether to that more remote region of delicate distances and golden clouds. But he is not out of the picture of The Canterbury Tales, nor of any medieval picture in which there might be grotesque dwarfs or gambolling dogs. But he would be out of the picture called ‘The Derby Day’, by Frith. That picture contains considerable variety; but it does not contain the Knight of The Canterbury Tales. For ‘The Derby Day’ was painted at that midnight moment of art when even the artist did not think that the world he saw was artistic. This unnatural sense of ugliness is so much our immediate inheritance that there are ordinary words that have never recovered from it. The very word ‘hat’ has a hazy air of farce about it; mentioned by itself it suggests first the hat of Charlie Chaplin or the admirable song of ‘Where Did You Get that Hat?’ The first lesson in medievalism is to understand that Chaucer did not feel about the word ‘hood’ as we do about the word ‘hat’. He knew there were knavish people who carried two faces under one hood; but the one face might be that of Friar Francis as well as of Friar Tuck. A halo round a hood did not seem queer, like a halo round a hat, for those who think only of modern hats. There had been plenty of preposterous fashions among the rich in Chaucer’s time, but their very limitations to the rich had left the landscape and colour-scheme of medievalism more or less what it is in the simplest medieval pictures. There was preposterous costume in that age, but he did not think all costume preposterous because it was of that age. He was as ready to be humorous in verse as any serious poet who ever lived, but his head was not filled with an endless, derisive echo of ‘Where Did You Get that Hood?’

XXIII. On the Later Portions of Poems

SOMETIMES I have a dark suspicion that there are many poems, and perhaps prose competitions also, which people think they know when they know only the first few lines. Possibly this might explain the sinister haste and eagerness with which the great Epic Poets cram into the first few lines a statement of the whole story, which they intend to tell in the ensuing twelve books. They always begin with a summary of this kind, perhaps because they have a craven fear that many of their readers will not read any more. Everybody knows the first three lines of Paradise Lost:

Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe.

But I strongly suspect that there is a sudden and enormous falling off in the numbers of those who could quote the fourth line. And Milton may himself have paused at that point, and heaved a sigh of relief, to think that he had got the whole story packed pretty thoroughly into the three lines, even if all his readers refused to read him any more. He had successfully informed the public of the incident called ‘The Fall of Man’, had explained its connexion with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and attached to it all the results of the doctrine of Original Sin. He did not, however, stop here, and leave this little trifle as a sort of epigram or short lyric. He went on for quite a long time; and it must have been with a sense of relief, not unmingled with fatigue, that he reached at last that quiet and beautiful ending, and saw the exiles, hand in hand, with faltering steps and slow, through Eden take their solitary way. It is perhaps an advantage to the epic poets that their story, as a rule, is already more or less known to the public; just as a considerable number of people have heard the story of Adam and Eve. All adventure stories, in Stevenson’s phrase, begin to end well; and in the greatest of adventure stories Ulysses is obviously meant to get home at last; nor are there many people who need to read to the end of the Iliad to find out what happened to Hector. In the case of longer and more elaborate, not to say more entangled, poems, like those of Ariosto and Spenser, it is legitimate to doubt whether everybody does know what happened to anybody. Lord Macaulay was the most persistent of readers, with the most perfect of memories; yet it is admitted that he came a cropper, or fell out of the race, in the forests of the Faërie Queene. He said that few readers were in at the death of the Blatant Beast, and if he had been there himself he would have known that the Beast does not even die. But while this lack of final perseverance is common in the case of the complicated epics, and not uncommon in that of the simpler epics, it may seem almost cynical to suggest that it is sometimes true even of shorter poems. It seems heartless to suggest that somebody may have fainted before he got to the end of ‘We Are Seven’. It is awful to think that some critic may have been so fastidious as to be unable to support more than two lines of ‘The Village Blacksmith’. And yet I fancy there are cases in which something like this is true; and I came across one recently, or rather I only recently fancied that I saw the true meaning of it.

Questa particolare questione, in cui il mondo medievale differiva da quello moderno, va compresa con chiarezza fin dal principio, per esempio come una delle condizioni che governano The Canterbury Tales. L’immaginazione creativa di Chaucer poteva molto; poteva assai più di quanto comunemente le si riconosca; ma difficilmente avrebbe potuto gettare un ponte sull’abisso tra il sublime e il ridicolo che si spalancava nell’immaginazione di un uomo del diciannovesimo secolo. Chaucer non considerava la propria epoca comica e volgare. Considerava comiche alcune persone di essa, e forse volgari alcune altre; ma gli abiti e le apparenze esteriori di costoro potevano servire con altrettanta facilità a esprimere ciò che vi era di più immaginoso e ideale. Il Cavaliere, così come è descritto, avrebbe potuto figurare in un qualsiasi quadro medievale mentre s’inginocchia tutto rivestito di ferro accanto a una Vergine in trono col Bambino; il suo spirito crociato appartiene interamente a quella regione più remota di delicate lontananze e di nuvole dorate. Ma egli non stona nel quadro dei The Canterbury Tales, né in alcun quadro medievale in cui possano comparire nani grotteschi o cani saltellanti. Stonerebbe però nel quadro intitolato «The Derby Day», di Frith. Quel quadro contiene una notevole varietà; ma non contiene il Cavaliere dei The Canterbury Tales. Poiché «The Derby Day» fu dipinto in quel momento di mezzanotte dell’arte in cui persino l’artista non pensava che il mondo da lui veduto fosse artistico. Questo innaturale senso di bruttezza è a tal punto la nostra immediata eredità che vi sono parole comuni che non se ne sono mai riavute. La parola stessa «hat», cappello, ha attorno a sé una vaga aria di farsa; menzionata da sola, evoca dapprima il cappello di Charlie Chaplin o l’ammirevole canzone «Where Did You Get that Hat?». La prima lezione di medievalismo consiste nel capire che Chaucer non provava per la parola «hood», cappuccio, ciò che noi proviamo per la parola «hat», cappello. Sapeva bene che vi erano furfanti che portavano due facce sotto un solo cappuccio; ma l’una faccia poteva essere quella di frate Francesco come pure quella di frate Tuck. Un’aureola attorno a un cappuccio non appariva strana, come un’aureola attorno a un cappello, a chi pensa soltanto ai cappelli moderni. Vi erano state moltissime mode assurde tra i ricchi ai tempi di Chaucer, ma proprio il loro limitarsi ai ricchi aveva lasciato il paesaggio e la gamma cromatica del medioevo pressappoco quali appaiono nei più semplici quadri medievali. In quell’epoca vi era un abbigliamento assurdo, ma egli non riteneva assurdo ogni abbigliamento per il solo fatto che appartenesse a quell’epoca. Era pronto a essere spiritoso in versi quanto qualsiasi poeta serio mai vissuto, ma la sua testa non era gremita da un’eco derisoria e senza fine di «Where Did You Get that Hood?».

XXIII. Sulle parti finali delle poesie

A volte nutro l’oscuro sospetto che vi siano molte poesie, e forse anche componimenti in prosa, che la gente crede di conoscere quando ne conosce soltanto i primi versi. Forse ciò spiegherebbe la sinistra fretta e premura con cui i grandi Poeti Epici stipano nei primi versi l’enunciato dell’intera vicenda, che intendono narrare nei dodici libri seguenti. Cominciano sempre con un riassunto di questo genere, forse perché hanno il vile timore che molti dei loro lettori non leggeranno oltre. Tutti conoscono i primi tre versi del Paradise Lost:

Della prima disubbidienza dell’uomo e del frutto di quell’Albero proibito, il cui mortale sapore recò la morte nel mondo e ogni nostra sventura.

Ma sospetto fortemente che vi sia un crollo improvviso ed enorme nel numero di coloro che saprebbero citare il quarto verso. E Milton stesso può essersi fermato a quel punto, e aver tirato un sospiro di sollievo, al pensiero di aver racchiuso l’intera storia in maniera piuttosto completa nei tre versi, anche se tutti i suoi lettori si fossero rifiutati di leggerlo oltre. Aveva informato con successo il pubblico dell’episodio chiamato «La Caduta dell’Uomo», ne aveva spiegato il nesso col frutto dell’Albero della Conoscenza, e vi aveva annesso tutte le conseguenze della dottrina del Peccato Originale. Non si fermò, tuttavia, a questo punto, lasciando questa piccola inezia come una sorta di epigramma o di breve lirica. Proseguì per un tempo piuttosto lungo; e dovette essere con un senso di sollievo, non disgiunto dalla stanchezza, che raggiunse infine quella quieta e bella conclusione, e vide gli esuli, mano nella mano, con passo esitante e lento, prendere per l’Eden la loro solitaria via. È forse un vantaggio per i poeti epici che la loro storia, di regola, sia già più o meno nota al pubblico; così come un considerevole numero di persone ha udito la storia di Adamo ed Eva. Tutte le storie d’avventura, secondo l’espressione di Stevenson, cominciano a finire bene; e nella più grande delle storie d’avventura Ulisse è evidentemente destinato a tornare infine a casa; né vi sono molti che abbiano bisogno di leggere fino alla fine dell’Iliade per scoprire che ne fu di Ettore. Nel caso di poemi più lunghi e più elaborati, per non dire più aggrovigliati, come quelli dell’Ariosto e di Spenser, è legittimo dubitare che tutti sappiano davvero che cosa sia accaduto a chicchessia. Lord Macaulay era il più tenace dei lettori, dotato della più perfetta delle memorie; eppure si ammette che ruzzolò, o uscì di gara, nelle foreste della Faërie Queene. Diceva che pochi lettori erano presenti alla morte della Bestia Blaterante, e se vi fosse stato lui stesso avrebbe saputo che la Bestia non muore neppure. Ma se questa mancanza di perseveranza finale è comune nel caso dei poemi complicati, e non rara in quello dei poemi più semplici, può sembrare quasi cinico suggerire che talvolta valga anche per poesie più brevi. Sembra spietato suggerire che qualcuno possa essere svenuto prima di giungere alla fine di «We Are Seven». È tremendo pensare che qualche critico possa essere stato tanto schizzinoso da non riuscire a sopportare più di due versi di «The Village Blacksmith». Eppure immagino vi siano casi in cui qualcosa del genere è vero; e uno ne ho incontrato di recente, o piuttosto solo di recente ho immaginato di coglierne il vero significato.

Everybody quotes the opening lines of Shelley’s fine chorus of ‘Hellas’. And everybody quotes them as the expression of Shelley’s heroic hope for the human race, his idealism and his optimism about his ideals, his radiant faith in a final fulfilment in which humanity should be happy and free

The world’s great age begins anew, The golden years return.

And I suspect that of these a very considerable number have not read, or do not remember, or did not understand, the curious breaking-point which is the point of the poem. I have read it hundreds of times myself, but I confess that it was not until lately that I saw its full meaning, in connexion with cosmic and philosophical theories. I dare say every body else who has read it understood it much better and more immediately; I am not setting up as a discoverer, but I do think it curious that the discovery has not been more often rediscovered. Shelley’s poem mounts steadily in an ascending curve of choral thanksgiving to Nature for a new and glorious renovation of all things; and then, when it comes to its highest note of triumph, it breaks. The poet cries, with something like horror, that we must look no further and foresee no more:

O, drain not to the dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy.

It is obvious, to put it mildly, that something has occurred to him to put him out. And though all readers must have realized at least that, I fancy there have been a considerable number of quoters who were not readers. And I do not think that Shelley’s name would have been so innocently and irrevocably bound up with ideas of Progress and Perfectibility and A Good Time Coming, if every body had instantly realized to what he really referred.

This very obvious reflection, which must have occurred to hundreds of people, occurred to me when I was in the act of reading that very remarkable historical study called Progress and Religion, by Christopher Dawson, which Messrs. Sheed & Ward published some little time ago. It contains, among many other interesting things, a very complete account of that extraordinary theory of Recurrence, which many modern as well as ancient philosophers have held, but to which the ancient philosophers gave the name of ‘The Great Year’. The theory, of course, is broadly this: that when all possible permutations and combinations have been exhausted, the cosmic system will of its nature have to begin all over again and repeat everything we know exactly as we have known it. This will happen again and again for ever; for the same logic that brings the repetition must also bring the repetition of the repetition. And, indeed, it is odd to notice how the philosophers repeat themselves even in describing the repetition. Mr. Dawson quotes the case of a Greek sage who said, ‘This staff that I am holding I shall hold again,’ and the case of a Socialist thinker who said, ‘This pen I am holding I shall hold again,’ in almost exactly the same form of words. Every detail of every life will return with exactitude, and return again and again to eternity. And everybody knows how Nietzsche uttered this revelation, with something almost like a howl, from the last high and crazy peak of his strange existence; about the time, indeed, when he collapsed into complete insanity. I do not know whether he went mad because he believed the theory, or only believed the theory because he went mad. But it always struck me as an almost startling example of how a deathly fatalism overcomes the most lively sceptic. For Nietzsche’s views, in his best days, were wild enough, but wild at least on the side of Will and of Liberty. To see him entangled in that old necessitarian net is like seeing a great spider’s web entangle an eagle.

What interests me here is that it entangled the skylark as well as the eagle. It is surely obvious that Shelley, in the rise and fall of those remarkable lines of the Hellas Chorus, is referring to the old pagan conception of The Great Year. He feels that it justifies him in saying that the world’s great age will begin anew and the golden years return. But he does not want to drain the urn of prophecy to the dregs, because the same wheel of fate that has brought round the golden years will bring round also the leaden and the iron years; and we shall all be forced to repeat all the crimes and tyrannies of history. Without being unduly controversial, I think I may say that it is not a cheery prospect. And I am exceedingly proud to observe that it was before the coming of Christianity that it flourished, and after the neglect of Christianity that it returned.

XXIV. On the Romance of Childhood

I AM just old enough to remember the world before telephones. And I remember that my father and my uncle fitted up with their own metal and chemicals the first telephone I ever saw: a miniature telephone reaching from the top bedroom under the roof to the remote end of the garden. I was really impressed imaginatively by this; and I do not think I have ever been so much impressed since by any extension of it. The point is rather important in the whole theory of imagination. It did startle me that a voice should sound in the room when it was really as distant as the next street. It would hardly have startled me more if it had been as distant as the next town. It does not startle me any more if it is as distant as the next continent. The miracle is over. Thus I admired even the large scientific things most on a small scale. So I always found that I was much more attracted by the microscope than the telescope. I was not overwhelmed in childhood by being told of remote stars which the sun never reached, any more than in manhood by being told of the empire on which the sun never set. I had no use for an empire that had no sunsets. But I was inspired and thrilled by looking through a little hole at a crystal like a pin’s head, and seeing it change pattern and colour like a pygmy sunset.

Tutti citano i versi iniziali del bel coro shelleyano di «Hellas». E tutti li citano come l’espressione dell’eroica speranza di Shelley per il genere umano, del suo idealismo e del suo ottimismo riguardo ai propri ideali, della sua radiosa fede in un compimento finale in cui l’umanità sarebbe stata felice e libera

La grande età del mondo ricomincia, tornano gli anni d’oro.

E sospetto che di costoro un numero assai considerevole non abbia letto, o non ricordi, o non abbia compreso, il curioso punto di rottura che è il fulcro della poesia. L’ho letta io stesso centinaia di volte, ma confesso che solo di recente ne ho colto il pieno significato, in connessione con teorie cosmiche e filosofiche. Oserei dire che chiunque altro l’abbia letta l’abbia compresa assai meglio e più immediatamente; non mi ergo a scopritore, ma trovo davvero curioso che la scoperta non sia stata riscoperta più spesso. La poesia di Shelley sale costante in una curva ascendente di corale ringraziamento alla Natura per una nuova e gloriosa rinnovazione di tutte le cose; e poi, quando giunge alla sua più alta nota di trionfo, si spezza. Il poeta grida, con qualcosa di simile all’orrore, che non dobbiamo guardare oltre né più nulla presagire:

Oh, non vuotare fino alla feccia l’urna dell’amara profezia.

È ovvio, a dir poco, che gli sia sopraggiunto qualcosa a turbarlo. E per quanto tutti i lettori debbano aver perlomeno compreso questo, immagino vi sia stato un considerevole numero di citatori che non erano lettori. E non credo che il nome di Shelley sarebbe stato tanto innocentemente e irrevocabilmente legato alle idee di Progresso e Perfettibilità e di un Bel Tempo che Verrà, se tutti avessero subito compreso a che cosa realmente egli alludesse.

Questa riflessione tanto ovvia, che dev’essere venuta in mente a centinaia di persone, venne in mente a me mentre stavo leggendo quel notevolissimo studio storico intitolato Progress and Religion, di Christopher Dawson, che i signori Sheed & Ward hanno pubblicato non molto tempo fa. Contiene, tra molte altre cose interessanti, un resoconto assai completo di quella straordinaria teoria del Ritorno, sostenuta da molti filosofi tanto moderni quanto antichi, ma a cui i filosofi antichi diedero il nome di «Grande Anno». La teoria, s’intende, è a grandi linee questa: che quando tutte le possibili permutazioni e combinazioni siano state esaurite, il sistema cosmico dovrà per sua natura ricominciare da capo e ripetere tutto ciò che conosciamo esattamente come l’abbiamo conosciuto. Ciò accadrà ancora e ancora in eterno; poiché la stessa logica che porta la ripetizione deve portare anche la ripetizione della ripetizione. E, in effetti, è strano notare come i filosofi si ripetano perfino nel descrivere la ripetizione. Il signor Dawson cita il caso di un saggio greco che disse: «Questo bastone che tengo in mano lo terrò di nuovo», e il caso di un pensatore socialista che disse: «Questa penna che tengo in mano la terrò di nuovo», quasi esattamente con le medesime parole. Ogni dettaglio di ogni vita ritornerà con esattezza, e ritornerà ancora e ancora fino all’eternità. E tutti sanno come Nietzsche proferì questa rivelazione, con qualcosa di quasi simile a un ululato, dall’ultima alta e folle vetta della sua strana esistenza; proprio all’incirca nel tempo in cui sprofondò nella completa follia. Non so se impazzì perché credeva alla teoria, o se credette alla teoria solo perché impazzì. Ma mi ha sempre colpito come un esempio quasi sbalorditivo di come un fatalismo mortale abbia la meglio sullo scettico più vivace. Poiché le vedute di Nietzsche, nei suoi giorni migliori, erano abbastanza sfrenate, ma sfrenate almeno dalla parte della Volontà e della Libertà. Vederlo impigliato in quella vecchia rete necessitaristica è come vedere una grande tela di ragno imprigionare un’aquila.

Ciò che qui m’interessa è che essa impigliò l’allodola come pure l’aquila. È certo evidente che Shelley, nell’ascesa e nella caduta di quei notevoli versi del Coro di Hellas, si riferisce all’antica concezione pagana del Grande Anno. Sente che essa lo autorizza a dire che la grande età del mondo ricomincerà e torneranno gli anni d’oro. Ma non vuole vuotare fino alla feccia l’urna della profezia, perché la stessa ruota del destino che ha fatto tornare gli anni d’oro farà tornare anche gli anni di piombo e di ferro; e saremo tutti costretti a ripetere tutti i delitti e le tirannidi della storia. Senza voler essere indebitamente polemico, credo di poter dire che non è una prospettiva allegra. E sono oltremodo fiero di osservare che fu prima dell’avvento del Cristianesimo che essa fiorì, e dopo l’abbandono del Cristianesimo che essa ritornò.

XXIV. Sul romanzesco dell’infanzia

Sono giusto abbastanza vecchio da ricordare il mondo prima dei telefoni. E ricordo che mio padre e mio zio costruirono, col loro metallo e i loro prodotti chimici, il primo telefono che io abbia mai visto: un telefono in miniatura che andava dalla camera più alta sotto il tetto all’estremità remota del giardino. Ne fui davvero colpito nell’immaginazione; e non credo di essere mai stato tanto colpito, da allora, da alcun suo perfezionamento. Il punto è piuttosto importante nell’intera teoria dell’immaginazione. Mi sbalordiva davvero che una voce risuonasse nella stanza quando in realtà era lontana quanto la via accanto. Non mi avrebbe sbalordito molto di più se fosse stata lontana quanto la città accanto. Non mi sbalordisce più se è lontana quanto il continente accanto. Il miracolo è finito. Così ammiravo anche le grandi cose della scienza soprattutto su piccola scala. Trovavo perciò di essere sempre assai più attratto dal microscopio che dal telescopio. Non ero sopraffatto, nell’infanzia, dal sentir parlare di stelle remote che il sole non raggiungeva mai, più di quanto lo fossi, da uomo, nel sentir parlare dell’impero su cui il sole non tramontava mai. Non sapevo che farmene di un impero privo di tramonti. Ma ero ispirato ed elettrizzato dal guardare attraverso un forellino un cristallo grande come una capocchia di spillo, e dal vederlo mutare disegno e colore come un tramonto pigmeo.

I have already picked two quarrels with better men than myself, who were enthusiasts for childish romance, upon the reality of the romance of childhood. First, I disagree with them when they treat the infantile imagination as a sort of dream; whereas I remember it rather as a man dreaming might remember the world where he was awake. And second, I deny that children have suffered under a tyranny of moral tales. For I remember the time when it would have seemed the most hideous tyranny to take my moral tales away from me. And, in order to make this clear, I must contradict yet another common assumption in the romantic description of the dawn of life. The point is not very easy to explain; indeed, I have spent the greater part of my life in an unsuccessful attempt to explain it. Upon the cartloads of ill-constructed books in which I have completely failed to do so I have no desire to dwell. But perhaps, as a general definition, this might be useful; or, if not as a definition, at least a suggestion. From the first vaguely, and of late more and more clearly, I have felt that the world is conceiving liberty as something that merely works outwards. And I have always conceived it as something that works inwards.

The ordinary poetic description of the first dreams of life is a description of mere longing for larger and larger horizons. The imagination is supposed to work towards the infinite; though in that sense the infinite is the opposite of the imagination. For the imagination deals with an image, and an image is in its nature a thing that has an outline, and therefore a limit. Now I will maintain, paradoxical as it may seem, that the child does not desire merely to fall out of the window, or even to fly through the air or to be drowned in the sea. When he wishes to go to other places, they are still places, even if nobody has ever been there. But, in truth, the case is much stronger than that. It is plain on the face of the facts that the child is positively in love with limits. He uses his imagination to invent imaginary limits. The nurse and the governess have never told him that it is his moral duty to step on alternate paving-stones. He deliberately deprives this world of half its paving-stones, in order to exult in a challenge that he has offered to himself. I played that kind of game with myself all over the mats and boards and carpets of the house; and, at the risk of being detained during His Majesty’s pleasure, I will admit that I often play it still. In that sense I have constantly tried to cut down the actual space at my disposal; to divide and subdivide, into these happy prisons, the house in which I was quite free to run wild.

I believe that there is in this psychological freak a truth without which the whole modern world is missing its main opportunity. If we look at the favourite nursery romances, or at least if we have the patience to look at them twice, we shall find that they all really support this view, even when they have largely been accepted as supporting the opposite view. The charm of Robinson Crusoe is not in the fact that he could find his way to a remote island, but in the fact that he could not find any way of getting away from it. It is that fact which gives an intensive interest and excitement to all the things that he had with him on the island; the axe and the parrot and the guns and the little hoard of grain. The tale of Treasure Island is not the record of a vague desire to go on a sea voyage for one’s health. It ends where it began; and it began with Stevenson drawing a map of the island, with all its bays and capes cut out as clearly as fretwork. The eternal interest of the Noah’s Ark, considered as a toy, consists in its complete suggestion of compactness and isolation; of creatures so comically remote and fantastic being all locked up in one box; as if Noah had been told to pack up the sun and moon with his luggage. In other words, it is exactly the same game that I have played myself, by piling all the things I wanted on a sofa, and imagining that the carpet around me was the surrounding sea.

This game of self-limitation is one of the secret pleasures of life. As it says in the little manuals about such sports, the game is played in several forms. One very good way of playing it is to look at the nearest bookcase and wonder whether you would find sufficient entertainment in that chance collection, even if you had no other books. But always it is dominated by this principle of division and restriction, which begins with the game played by the child with the paving-stones. But I dwell upon it here because it must be understood as some thing real and rooted, so far as I am concerned, in order that the other views I have offered about these things may make any sort of sense. If anybody chooses to say that I have founded all my social philosophy on the antics of a baby, I am quite satisfied to bow and smile.

I have no great hopes that my own private Utopia, the Utopia of subdivision and self-limitation, is likely to be rapidly established in the real world. I do not immediately expect that the landlord with five hundred acres will instantly cut it down to fifty acres, and stand in startled admiration of the fresh and pleasing shape, the entirely new and attractive map or outline of his domains. I hardly suppose that he will be romantically enraptured, all at once, at the discovery of the enchanted island that I have cut out for him, out of the dull and dreary sea of his solid landed estate. I doubt whether the simple kindly act of stealing half his books will drive him to reading the other half; I am not sure that the traditional childish present, of a little garden marked out in the middle of his large garden, will instantly change him to a little child. But I do know that great historic changes always begin at exactly the opposite end to the end the world is pursuing, and that the human search, so long turned outwards, will turn inwards very soon.

Ho già ingaggiato due dispute con uomini migliori di me, entusiasti del romanzesco infantile, sulla realtà del romanzesco dell’infanzia. Primo, dissento da loro quando trattano l’immaginazione infantile come una sorta di sogno; laddove io la ricordo piuttosto come un uomo che sogna potrebbe ricordare il mondo in cui era desto. E secondo, nego che i bambini abbiano sofferto sotto una tirannia di racconti morali. Poiché ricordo il tempo in cui mi sarebbe parsa la più orribile tirannia togliermi i miei racconti morali. E, per chiarire questo, devo contraddire ancora un altro comune presupposto della descrizione romantica dell’alba della vita. Il punto non è molto facile da spiegare; in verità, ho trascorso la maggior parte della mia vita in un vano tentativo di spiegarlo. Non ho alcun desiderio di soffermarmi sulle carrettate di libri malcostruiti in cui ho completamente fallito nel farlo. Ma forse, come definizione generale, questo potrebbe tornare utile; o, se non come definizione, almeno come suggerimento. Dapprima vagamente, e di recente sempre più chiaramente, ho sentito che il mondo concepisce la libertà come qualcosa che opera soltanto verso l’esterno. E io l’ho sempre concepita come qualcosa che opera verso l’interno.

La consueta descrizione poetica dei primi sogni della vita è la descrizione di una mera brama di orizzonti sempre più vasti. Si suppone che l’immaginazione operi verso l’infinito; sebbene, in tal senso, l’infinito sia l’opposto dell’immaginazione. Poiché l’immaginazione ha a che fare con un’immagine, e un’immagine è per sua natura una cosa che ha un contorno, e dunque un limite. Ora io sosterrò, per quanto paradossale possa sembrare, che il bambino non desidera semplicemente cadere dalla finestra, né tantomeno volare per l’aria o annegare nel mare. Quando desidera andare in altri luoghi, essi sono pur sempre luoghi, anche se nessuno vi è mai stato. Ma, in verità, l’argomento è assai più forte di così. È lampante alla luce dei fatti che il bambino è addirittura innamorato dei limiti. Usa la sua immaginazione per inventare limiti immaginari. La bambinaia e la governante non gli hanno mai detto che è suo dovere morale calpestare le lastre del selciato una sì e una no. Egli priva deliberatamente questo mondo della metà del suo selciato, per esultare in una sfida che ha lanciato a se stesso. Giocavo a quel genere di gioco con me stesso su tutte le stuoie, le assi e i tappeti della casa; e, a rischio di essere trattenuto a discrezione di Sua Maestà, ammetterò che spesso ci gioco ancora. In tal senso ho continuamente cercato di ridurre lo spazio effettivo a mia disposizione; di dividere e suddividere, in queste felici prigioni, la casa in cui ero del tutto libero di scorrazzare.

Credo che in questa stranezza psicologica vi sia una verità senza la quale l’intero mondo moderno sta perdendo la sua occasione principale. Se guardiamo ai racconti prediletti della nostra infanzia, o almeno se abbiamo la pazienza di guardarli due volte, scopriremo che tutti in realtà sostengono questa tesi, anche quando sono stati in gran parte accolti come sostenitori della tesi opposta. Il fascino di Robinson Crusoe non sta nel fatto che egli seppe trovare la via per un’isola remota, ma nel fatto che non riuscì a trovare alcuna via per andarsene da essa. È proprio quel fatto a conferire un interesse e un’eccitazione intensi a tutte le cose che aveva con sé sull’isola: l’ascia e il pappagallo e i fucili e la piccola scorta di grano. Il racconto dell’Isola del Tesoro non è la cronaca di un vago desiderio di intraprendere un viaggio per mare a scopo di salute. Finisce dove è cominciato; ed è cominciato con Stevenson che disegnava una mappa dell’isola, con tutte le sue baie e i suoi promontori ritagliati con la nitidezza di un traforo. L’eterno interesse dell’Arca di Noè, considerata come giocattolo, consiste nella sua compiuta suggestione di compattezza e isolamento; di creature così comicamente remote e fantastiche tutte rinchiuse in una sola scatola; come se a Noè fosse stato ordinato di riporre il sole e la luna insieme al suo bagaglio. In altre parole, è esattamente lo stesso gioco che ho fatto io stesso, ammucchiando su un divano tutte le cose che volevo, e immaginando che il tappeto intorno a me fosse il mare circostante.

Questo gioco dell’auto-limitazione è uno dei piaceri segreti della vita. Come dicono i manualetti su tali passatempi, il gioco si pratica in diverse forme. Un ottimo modo di praticarlo è guardare la libreria più vicina e domandarsi se si troverebbe sufficiente svago in quella raccolta casuale, quand’anche non si avessero altri libri. Ma è sempre dominato da questo principio di divisione e restrizione, che comincia col gioco praticato dal bambino con le lastre del selciato. Ma mi ci soffermo qui perché deve essere inteso come qualcosa di reale e radicato, per quanto mi riguarda, affinché le altre vedute che ho proposto su queste cose possano avere un qualche senso. Se qualcuno vuol dire che ho fondato tutta la mia filosofia sociale sulle buffonate di un bambino, mi accontento volentieri di inchinarmi e sorridere.

Non nutro grandi speranze che la mia personale Utopia, l’Utopia della suddivisione e dell’auto-limitazione, possa venire rapidamente instaurata nel mondo reale. Non mi aspetto certo che il proprietario di cinquecento acri li riduca all’istante a cinquanta, per poi restare in sbalordita ammirazione dinanzi alla forma fresca e piacevole, alla mappa o al profilo del tutto nuovi e attraenti dei suoi possedimenti. Difficilmente suppongo che sarà romanticamente rapito, tutt’a un tratto, dalla scoperta dell’isola incantata che ho ritagliato per lui dal mare cupo e tetro della sua solida proprietà terriera. Dubito che il semplice e gentile atto di rubargli metà dei libri lo spingerà a leggere l’altra metà; non sono sicuro che il tradizionale regalo infantile di un piccolo giardino delimitato in mezzo al suo grande giardino lo cambierà all’istante in un piccolo bambino. Ma so bene che i grandi mutamenti storici cominciano sempre esattamente dall’estremità opposta a quella che il mondo persegue, e che la ricerca umana, così a lungo rivolta all’esterno, si volgerà molto presto verso l’interno.

XXV. On the Renaissance

IN Rome a man feels suddenly the paradox of the Renaissance. It was a Christian miracle if it called up a Pagan god. It was in itself a Christian notion that, if the dead could return, they would not be shadows from Hades, but human beings from Heaven or Hell. But as a fact, of course, the god who rose again was not pagan. He could not be, since he was carved by Christians, even by bad and blasphemous Christians. Something that had not been in heathen antiquity had entered the very blood and bones of the human race; and it entered equally into the stone and clay of all that the human race could make. Without it, even the worst of men would now have felt suddenly cold and strange, like fishes, or, rather, like fossils. To be a Greek god was as impossible as to be a fossil, though both might be beautiful mouldings or even beautiful models in stone. To be completely heathen was no longer to be completely human.

The examples are obvious. Many people must have pointed out that Michelangelo was really more like Michael the Angel than Apollo the Archer. It was not for nothing that his very name is Hebrew and Greek as well as Italian. Every one must have noticed that there is, in some mysterious way, more colour in the monochrome marbles and bronzes of the Renaissance than in many of the cold, clay-like pigments that were called colours in the pagan houses of Pompeii. Even where the work is materially a matter of light and shade, it is not something put down in black and white: the light is richer and the shadow glows. Of course, a great part of the problem here is connected with modern religious controversies. Because modern pagans wanted to go back to paganism, in the sense of destroying Christianity, they said that the sixteenth-century artists wanted it too, though there was not one of them that would not have drawn a sword or dagger and destroyed the critic who told him that he wanted to destroy the Cross. Benvenuto Cellini would have been as prompt as Giotto; for the Christian Church is not made for good men, but for men.

The difficulty of history is that historians seldom see the simple things, or even the obvious things, because they are too simple and obvious. It is sometimes said of the pictures of the Renaissance artists, especially of the pictures of Rubens, that we ought to stand far back in order to take in the whole stupendous design, and not be annoyed because some detail is technically careless or emotionally coarse. It is probably true of more than one Renaissance picture of the Resurrection; and it is certainly true of that general Resurrection that is called the Renaissance. There has been too much bickering over bits of the astonishing business; too much casuistry about whether this or that painter in this or that point surrendered to heathenism, or merely to human nature. The whole story consists of two staggering truths. First, that these men did really raise the dead. They did call up all heathenism, which might seem about as safe as calling up all hell. And, second, that they did really in a manner convert and christen the dead; that they did baptize all that bodily manifestation and materialization into the body of Christ. Even when it had been and was no more, it did become something that it had not been. They paraded before the world a wild hypothetical pageant of what old Greece and Rome would have been if they had not been pagan. To do this with any dead society is an amazing achievement. To copy the old body in any case is amazing; to copy the old body, and also put in a new soul, is amazing beyond praise, beyond question, and certainly beyond quibbling. The fact is so familiar that it has ceased to amaze; the only chance of conveying it would be to take some fantastic parallel in modern and ancient things. We should be mildly surprised to hear that the English in Egypt had reconstructed for themselves the ancient Egyptian civilization; that all the proclamations of Lord Lloyd had been carved on obelisks in Egyptian hieroglyphics; that Lord Cromer had been preserved on the premises in the form of a mummy; or that Lord Kitchener at Cairo had religiously gone the round of worshipping a series of stuffed cats. But we should be surprised, with something less of mildness, if we were told that all this was done in such a way as to cause no embarrassment, or even amusement, to the English gentlemen who were doing it; and who managed to do it without the least sense that their code of manners was altered, or that their religion, when they had any, was suffering neglect. Just as it would be a remarkable thing for men to become ancient Egyptians and yet remain modern Englishmen, so it was a remarkable thing when these men became ancient Greeks and yet remained medieval Christians.

There are many morals to the story; but one must be manifest in the mere word I have used. If the medieval religion had really been such a silly superstition as some of its simpler enemies represent, it quite certainly would have been swallowed up for ever in such an earthquake of enlightenment as the great Renaissance. The fact that the vision of a superb and many-sided human culture did not disturb the fundamental ideas of these late medieval Christians has a simple explanation: that the ideas are true. The application of these true ideas in medieval times had been very much hampered by local ignorance and feudal prejudice. But the truths were so true that they would have survived, in really thinking men, through ten Renaissances and twenty Revivals of Learning. We see this vividly in the intensely intellectual character of the religious conviction in men like Michelangelo and even Leonardo da Vinci. Nobody knew better than they that Christianity is really wiser, and even wider, than Paganism; that Aquinas was not only better but broader than Aristotle. Not from such men came the clumsy denials of the deep dogmas of the Faith. Michelangelo was not the man to dispute that the truly divine humanity would be crucified; nor could Raphael be reckoned on for a breezy protest against the respect felt for the Madonna. But if the whole thing had been a dirty asceticism of the desert, the mere monkey tricks of the Manichees, it would have fallen like filthy rags from men who had seen the grace of the Greek athletes. If it had been only a worship of dolls with tinsel crowns, it would have looked a paltry and pygmy affair in the presence of the great head of Jupiter. But the real men of the Renaissance knew that, as a matter of fact, there was much more humanity in the rules for the brethren gathered by St. Francis than in the rules for the boys beaten before the altar of Diana; and that, as a matter of fact, the Church had a much more logical idea about the exact position of Jesus in Heaven than the heathens had ever had about the exact position of Jupiter on Olympus. It was the intellectual value of the creed that preserved it through any revolution of aesthetic values, just as it preserves it still amid the wildest changes in aesthetic taste to-day. Michelangelo went on being a Christian then, just as Mr. Eric Gill goes on being a Christian now, because a man may be original without being separated from the origins; and because a man may be able to think, even if he can also draw.

XXV. Sul Rinascimento

A Roma si avverte all’improvviso il paradosso del Rinascimento. Fu un miracolo cristiano, se evocò un dio pagano. Era di per sé un’idea cristiana che, se i morti potessero tornare, non sarebbero ombre venute dall’Ade, ma esseri umani venuti dal Cielo o dall’Inferno. Ma di fatto, s’intende, il dio che risorse non era pagano. Non poteva esserlo, giacché fu scolpito da cristiani, sia pure da cristiani cattivi e blasfemi. Qualcosa che non era esistito nell’antichità pagana era entrato nel sangue stesso e nelle ossa del genere umano; ed era entrato ugualmente nella pietra e nella creta di tutto ciò che il genere umano poteva fare. Senza di esso, persino il peggiore degli uomini si sarebbe ormai sentito improvvisamente freddo ed estraneo, come i pesci, o piuttosto come i fossili. Essere un dio greco era impossibile quanto essere un fossile, sebbene entrambi potessero essere bei calchi o perfino bei modelli in pietra. Essere completamente pagano non significava più essere completamente umano.

Gli esempi sono evidenti. Molti avranno certo fatto notare che Michelangelo somigliava in realtà più a Michele Angelo che ad Apollo l’Arciere. Non per nulla il suo stesso nome è ebraico e greco oltre che italiano. Chiunque avrà notato che vi è, in qualche misteriosa maniera, più colore nei marmi e nei bronzi monocromi del Rinascimento che in molti dei freddi pigmenti simili a creta che venivano chiamati colori nelle case pagane di Pompei. Anche là dove l’opera è materialmente una questione di luce e ombra, non è qualcosa reso in bianco e nero: la luce è più ricca e l’ombra risplende. Naturalmente, gran parte del problema qui è connessa con le moderne controversie religiose. Poiché i pagani moderni volevano tornare al paganesimo, nel senso di distruggere il Cristianesimo, dissero che anche gli artisti del Cinquecento lo volevano, benché non ve ne fosse uno solo che non avrebbe sguainato una spada o un pugnale per far fuori il critico che gli avesse detto che voleva distruggere la Croce. Benvenuto Cellini sarebbe stato pronto quanto Giotto; poiché la Chiesa cristiana non è fatta per gli uomini buoni, ma per gli uomini.

La difficoltà della storia è che gli storici di rado vedono le cose semplici, o perfino le cose ovvie, perché sono troppo semplici e ovvie. Talvolta si dice dei quadri degli artisti del Rinascimento, specie dei quadri di Rubens, che dovremmo tenerci ben indietro per abbracciare l’intero stupendo disegno, e non irritarci perché qualche dettaglio è tecnicamente trascurato o emotivamente rozzo. È probabilmente vero di più di un quadro rinascimentale della Resurrezione; ed è certamente vero di quella generale Resurrezione che si chiama il Rinascimento. Si è litigato troppo su frammenti di questa sbalorditiva faccenda; troppa casuistica sul se questo o quel pittore in questo o quel punto si sia arreso al paganesimo, o soltanto alla natura umana. L’intera storia consiste di due verità sconvolgenti. Primo, che questi uomini risuscitarono davvero i morti. Evocarono davvero tutto il paganesimo, il che poteva sembrare press’a poco sicuro quanto evocare tutto l’inferno. E, secondo, che in un certo modo davvero convertirono e battezzarono i morti; che battezzarono tutta quella manifestazione e materializzazione corporea nel Corpo di Cristo. Anche quando era stata e non era più, essa divenne qualcosa che non era stata. Fecero sfilare davanti al mondo uno sfrenato e ipotetico corteo di ciò che l’antica Grecia e l’antica Roma sarebbero state se non fossero state pagane. Farlo con una qualsiasi società morta è un’impresa stupefacente. Copiare l’antico corpo è comunque stupefacente; copiare l’antico corpo, e per giunta infondervi una nuova anima, è stupefacente al di là di ogni lode, di ogni obiezione, e di certo al di là di ogni cavillo. Il fatto è tanto familiare che ha cessato di stupire; l’unica possibilità di renderlo sarebbe ricorrere a qualche fantastico parallelo tra cose moderne e antiche. Ci sorprenderebbe blandamente udire che gli inglesi in Egitto avessero ricostruito per sé l’antica civiltà egizia; che tutti i proclami di Lord Lloyd fossero stati incisi su obelischi in geroglifici egizi; che Lord Cromer fosse stato conservato in loco sotto forma di mummia; o che Lord Kitchener al Cairo avesse religiosamente compiuto il giro adorando una serie di gatti impagliati. Ma ci sorprenderemmo, con qualcosa di meno blando, se ci venisse detto che tutto ciò fosse fatto in modo tale da non provocare alcun imbarazzo, né perfino divertimento, ai gentiluomini inglesi che lo facevano; e che riuscivano a farlo senza il minimo sentore che il loro codice di buone maniere fosse mutato, o che la loro religione, quando ne avevano una, patisse abbandono. Come sarebbe cosa notevole che degli uomini divenissero antichi egizi e rimanessero tuttavia inglesi moderni, così fu cosa notevole quando questi uomini divennero antichi greci e rimasero tuttavia cristiani medievali.

La storia ha molte morali; ma una dev’essere manifesta nella semplice parola che ho usato. Se la religione medievale fosse stata davvero una sciocca superstizione quale la rappresentano alcuni dei suoi nemici più semplici, sarebbe stata quasi certamente inghiottita per sempre in un terremoto di illuminazione quale il grande Rinascimento. Il fatto che la visione di una superba e multiforme cultura umana non turbasse le idee fondamentali di questi cristiani del tardo medioevo ha una spiegazione semplice: che le idee sono vere. L’applicazione di queste idee vere in epoca medievale era stata assai ostacolata dall’ignoranza locale e dal pregiudizio feudale. Ma le verità erano così vere che sarebbero sopravvissute, negli uomini che davvero pensano, attraverso dieci Rinascimenti e venti Rinascite del Sapere. Lo vediamo con vividezza nel carattere intensamente intellettuale della convinzione religiosa in uomini come Michelangelo e persino Leonardo da Vinci. Nessuno sapeva meglio di loro che il Cristianesimo è davvero più saggio, e perfino più ampio, del Paganesimo; che Tommaso d’Aquino non era soltanto migliore ma più vasto di Aristotele. Non da tali uomini vennero le goffe negazioni dei profondi dogmi della Fede. Michelangelo non era uomo da contestare che la veramente divina umanità sarebbe stata crocifissa; né su Raffaello si poteva contare per una spensierata protesta contro il rispetto nutrito per la Madonna. Ma se il tutto fosse stato uno sporco ascetismo del deserto, le mere scimmiottature dei Manichei, sarebbe caduto come luridi stracci da uomini che avevano visto la grazia degli atleti greci. Se fosse stato solo un’adorazione di bambole con corone di lustrini, sarebbe apparso una faccenda meschina e pigmea al cospetto della grande testa di Giove. Ma i veri uomini del Rinascimento sapevano che, di fatto, vi era assai più umanità nelle regole per i confratelli riuniti da san Francesco che nelle regole per i fanciulli fustigati dinanzi all’altare di Diana; e che, di fatto, la Chiesa aveva un’idea assai più logica sull’esatta posizione di Gesù in Cielo di quanta i pagani ne avessero mai avuta sull’esatta posizione di Giove sull’Olimpo. Fu il valore intellettuale del credo a preservarlo attraverso ogni rivoluzione dei valori estetici, così come lo preserva ancora oggi in mezzo ai più sfrenati mutamenti del gusto estetico. Michelangelo continuò a essere cristiano allora, così come il signor Eric Gill continua a esserlo ora, perché un uomo può essere originale senza essere separato dalle origini; e perché un uomo può saper pensare, anche se sa pure disegnare.

I would not be provocative, but I think this rather neglected truth is due to these great artists, when so many people imagine them to have been Pagans and some can even imagine them as Puritans. It seems clear to me that those despised medieval superstitions, suited only for barbarians like Dante and St. Francis, were exactly the ideas that did remain rooted in the most civilized centres of the world, when they were disputed in the more barbarous provinces. When we consider how exciting the destructive quest of the intellect really is (though it is generally people totally devoid of intellect who say so), it is really rather remarkable that there was comparatively so little of it in these great adventurers, who were devoted to the creative quest of the imagination. When we consider how wild they often were in the matter of morals (though it is generally the sort of moderns who have no morals at all who darkly denounce the immorality of these later men of the medieval decline) it is really rather remarkable that they kept as much as they did of the faith from which the morals grew— or ought to have grown. When we consider that it really is a fact (though the first fool in the street will tell you so) that scepticism had begun to appear here and there even among priests and bishops, it is really singular, upon the balance, that it had not appeared more among painters and sculptors. We may talk, as they sometimes may have talked, about reviving the gods of Greece. But Moses is Moses and David is David, and a Pagan would have stood puzzled before them.

XXVI. On the Laureateship

IT is often said that the office of Poet Laureate is not fitted to our times. This is true; it is perhaps the most compact condemnation of our times. If we want to know exactly what is really lacking in current culture, we had better ask why it cannot support the idea of a real Poet Laureate. It is enough merely to look at the words which make up the title. Whenever it is suggested that some little modern man of letters, in a tail-coat and trousers, should be solemnly presented with a Crown of Laurel, everybody laughs, as if it were a joke. But it is not the laurel, but the little man, that is a joke. It is not the wreath of leaves, the lines of which are still as free and rhythmic and adapted to decoration as when they decorated a hundred marble monuments or golden frescoes; it is not the wreath that is ridiculous. It is the tail-coat and trousers it is the Modern Man; it is the Spirit of Our Time, to which the Laureateship is, we have agreed, so unsuited. As is the Laurel to modern dress, so is the Laureateship to modern manners. Nobody sees anything silly in those leaves when they cluster round the hood of some bust of Dante. Nobody saw anything silly in them when, at the high moment of the medieval renaissance, they were bound about the brows of Petrarch. It was partly that the same scheme of decoration, more or less unconsciously, ran through the whole world of costume and ornament. It was much more because, in those dim and barbarous ages, people did not think it undignified to be dignified. They were so strangely constituted that they laughed at ugly things, and not only at beautiful things. A gentleman who wished to be stared at or admired dressed in purple and cloth of gold, trailing trappings that went in great curves like those of a comet or a cataract. With such fashions a crown was actually a crown; it crowned the edifice; it was a crest or culmination of lines rising to and demanding such a diadem. Nowadays, by the tradition of the nineteenth century, a gentle man dresses like a comic waiter in a third-rate farce, and is surprised that the bay-wreath looks grotesque on his head. But it is not the bay-wreath that looks grotesque.

That is a parable of the whole practical problem. And it always is a problem, whether it is worth while to keep the habit when it no longer makes the monk, or one small rag torn from the habit when the monk no longer knows how to make himself. The psychology of the Laureateship, dating as it does from the days when Petrarch was crowned with laurel, implies a number of things not now vivid to any very large number of people. It implies the notion of a crowd being excited but quite serious: like devotees before a sacrament or children before a fairy-play. There is still a certain kind of popular enthusiasm, but it is not an enthusiasm for enthusiasts. It might almost be called an affection for anti-enthusiasts; an affection for mockers and cynics and artists in the antic view of life. They might be as much thrilled by meeting Charlie Chaplin as any medieval Italians by meeting Petrarch. But though they might be cheering without jeering, they would be cheering somebody who jeers: who jeers admirably at himself and this wicked world. Nobody can expect that sort of popular artist to wear a laurel round his remarkable bowler hat. But it has been possible, and it will be possible again, for the public to rejoice seriously, and even solemnly. In those older days the very word ‘solemn’ went with the word ‘joyous’; and ‘a high solemnity’ was almost always an affair of dancing and junketing. A modern crowd would cheer the critical faculty, as in Mr. Chaplin; it would not cheer the creative faculty, as in Dante. And unless we keep the idea of a high solemnity, or public function of state, like the famous scene of the tribute to Petrarch, there is indeed little point in keeping merely an office and a name. As we do not preserve the coronation it may seem idle to preserve the crown. Nevertheless, if there were a crown, I think I should preserve it—among the Crown Jewels. I should not attach any man to it, but leave it there and wait for better times.

For my part, though I have indulged in any amount of buffoonery, I regret the new and solitary pre-eminence of the buffoon. I regret the fact that the new popular hero must not be heroic as well as popular. He must not receive from the State a serious tribute for revealing a serious truth. When, for the moment, the most intelligent art is the most flippant art, it will mean a certain abdication of the old claims of the artist. But it may mean worse things than that. When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights. The pagan state, in which the artist is only a buffoon, will soon resemble the ancient pagan state in which he was only a slave. I am all for playing the goat; I am charitably disposed even to those enacting the funny dog; I have myself appeared more than once in public in the character of a performing elephant. But if we allow the Image of Man to fade away altogether in these animal antics, if it vanishes amid mere mockery and scepticism, the human being will find himself something very much worse than fair game. He may ultimately be tethered like the goat, or chained up like the dog, or ridden and prodded like the elephant.

Non vorrei essere provocatorio, ma penso che questa verità piuttosto trascurata sia dovuta a questi grandi artisti, quando tanta gente li immagina Pagani e alcuni riescono perfino a immaginarli Puritani. Mi pare chiaro che quelle disprezzate superstizioni medievali, adatte solo a barbari come Dante e san Francesco, furono precisamente le idee che rimasero radicate nei centri più civili del mondo, quando venivano contestate nelle province più barbare. Quando consideriamo quanto sia davvero eccitante la ricerca distruttiva dell’intelletto (per quanto siano in genere persone totalmente prive d’intelletto ad affermarlo), è davvero piuttosto notevole che ve ne fosse comparativamente così poca in questi grandi avventurieri, che erano votati alla ricerca creativa dell’immaginazione. Quando consideriamo quanto sfrenati fossero spesso in fatto di morale (per quanto siano in genere quel tipo di moderni che non hanno morale alcuna a denunciare cupamente l’immoralità di questi ultimi uomini del declino medievale), è davvero piuttosto notevole che serbassero quanto serbarono della fede da cui la morale era cresciuta—o sarebbe dovuta crescere. Quando consideriamo che è davvero un fatto (per quanto ve lo dirà il primo sciocco che incontrate per strada) che lo scetticismo avesse cominciato ad apparire qua e là perfino tra preti e vescovi, è davvero singolare, a conti fatti, che non fosse apparso di più tra pittori e scultori. Possiamo parlare, come talvolta essi possono aver parlato, di far rivivere gli dèi della Grecia. Ma Mosè è Mosè e Davide è Davide, e un Pagano sarebbe rimasto perplesso davanti a loro.

XXVI. Sull’ufficio di Poeta Laureato

Si dice spesso che la carica di Poeta Laureato non si addice ai nostri tempi. Questo è vero; è forse la più concisa condanna dei nostri tempi. Se vogliamo sapere esattamente che cosa manchi davvero alla cultura odierna, faremmo meglio a chiederci perché essa non sappia reggere l’idea di un vero Poeta Laureato. Basta semplicemente guardare le parole che compongono il titolo. Ogni volta che si propone che un qualche omuncolo moderno di lettere, in marsina e pantaloni, venga solennemente insignito di una Corona d’Alloro, tutti ridono, come se fosse uno scherzo. Ma non è l’alloro, bensì l’omuncolo, a essere uno scherzo. Non è la ghirlanda di foglie, le cui linee sono ancora così libere e ritmiche e adatte alla decorazione come quando ornavano cento monumenti di marmo o affreschi dorati; non è la ghirlanda a essere ridicola. È la marsina e i pantaloni, è l’Uomo Moderno; è lo Spirito del Nostro Tempo, a cui la carica di Poeta Laureato è, come abbiamo convenuto, tanto disadatta. Come sta l’Alloro all’abito moderno, così sta la carica di Poeta Laureato ai costumi moderni. Nessuno vede nulla di sciocco in quelle foglie quando si accalcano attorno al cappuccio di qualche busto di Dante. Nessuno vi vedeva nulla di sciocco quando, nell’alto momento del rinascimento medievale, esse venivano cinte attorno alla fronte del Petrarca. Ciò era in parte perché il medesimo schema decorativo, più o meno inconsciamente, percorreva l’intero mondo del costume e dell’ornamento. Ma molto di più perché, in quelle età oscure e barbare, la gente non riteneva indegno l’essere dignitosa. Erano così stranamente fatti da ridere delle cose brutte, e non soltanto delle cose belle. Un gentiluomo che desiderasse essere fissato o ammirato si vestiva di porpora e di drappo d’oro, trascinando bardature che si dispiegavano in grandi curve simili a quelle di una cometa o di una cateratta. Con simili fogge una corona era davvero una corona; coronava l’edificio; era il fastigio o il culmine di linee che salivano verso un tale diadema e lo esigevano. Oggigiorno, per la tradizione del diciannovesimo secolo, un gentiluomo si veste come un cameriere comico in una farsa di terz’ordine, e si stupisce che la corona d’alloro appaia grottesca sul suo capo. Ma non è la corona d’alloro ad apparire grottesca.

Questa è una parabola dell’intero problema pratico. Ed è sempre un problema, se valga la pena di conservare l’abito quando esso non fa più il monaco, o un piccolo brandello strappato dall’abito quando il monaco non sa più come fare se stesso. La psicologia della carica di Poeta Laureato, risalendo com’essa risale ai giorni in cui il Petrarca fu incoronato d’alloro, implica una serie di cose oggi non vivide per un numero molto ampio di persone. Implica la nozione di una folla eccitata eppure del tutto seria: come devoti dinanzi a un sacramento o bambini dinanzi a una recita fiabesca. Vi è ancora un certo tipo di entusiasmo popolare, ma non è un entusiasmo per gli entusiasti. Lo si potrebbe quasi chiamare un affetto per gli anti-entusiasti; un affetto per i beffardi e i cinici e gli artisti della visione grottesca della vita. Potrebbero essere elettrizzati dall’incontrare Charlie Chaplin quanto un qualsiasi italiano medievale dall’incontrare il Petrarca. Ma per quanto potrebbero acclamare senza sghignazzare, acclamerebbero qualcuno che sghignazza: che sghignazza mirabilmente di sé e di questo malvagio mondo. Nessuno può aspettarsi che quella specie di artista popolare porti un alloro attorno alla sua notevole bombetta. Ma è stato possibile, e sarà di nuovo possibile, che il pubblico gioisca seriamente, e perfino solennemente. In quei tempi più antichi la parola stessa «solenne» andava di pari passo con la parola «gioioso»; e «un’alta solennità» era quasi sempre una faccenda di danze e di baldorie. Una folla moderna acclamerebbe la facoltà critica, come nel signor Chaplin; non acclamerebbe la facoltà creativa, come in Dante. E a meno che non conserviamo l’idea di un’alta solennità, o pubblica funzione di stato, come la celebre scena del tributo al Petrarca, vi è davvero poco senso nel conservare semplicemente una carica e un nome. Poiché non conserviamo l’incoronazione, può sembrare vano conservare la corona. Nondimeno, se una corona ci fosse, penso che la conserverei—tra i Gioielli della Corona. Non vi assegnerei alcun uomo, ma la lascerei lì e aspetterei tempi migliori.

Da parte mia, per quanto mi sia concesso qualsiasi quantità di buffoneria, deploro la nuova e solitaria preminenza del buffone. Deploro il fatto che il nuovo eroe popolare non debba essere eroico oltre che popolare. Non deve ricevere dallo Stato un serio tributo per aver rivelato una seria verità. Quando, per il momento, l’arte più intelligente è l’arte più frivola, ciò significherà una certa abdicazione delle antiche pretese dell’artista. Ma può significare cose peggiori di questa. Quando la gente comincia a ignorare la dignità umana, non passerà molto prima che cominci a ignorare i diritti umani. Lo stato pagano, in cui l’artista è soltanto un buffone, somiglierà presto all’antico stato pagano in cui egli era soltanto uno schiavo. Sono tutto per fare la capra; sono caritatevolmente disposto perfino verso coloro che recitano il cane buffo; io stesso sono comparso più di una volta in pubblico nella parte dell’elefante ammaestrato. Ma se lasciamo che l’Immagine dell’Uomo svanisca del tutto in queste buffonate animalesche, se essa si dilegua in mezzo a mera derisione e scetticismo, l’essere umano si ritroverà qualcosa di assai peggiore di una facile preda. Potrà infine essere legato come la capra, o incatenato come il cane, o cavalcato e pungolato come l’elefante.

The man who has exhibited himself—as in so much of modern prose and verse—in every attitude of abject and dishonourable ignominy will find it very much harder to spring up straight of a sudden and defend his honour, if his real intellectual and spiritual honour is attacked. Among the old ways of preserving this sense of honour was the system of honours; and, though most of them are now pretty thoroughly dishonoured, nobody suggests that the Poet Laureateship has been sold. Anyhow, among the wider ways of doing it was what may be called the Pageant of Poetry; the public acknowledgment of the Poet, ‘to whom the high gods gave of right their thunders and their laurels and their light’.

XXVII On Living for Posterity

WE all remember the story of that excess of aspiration, in the sense of the use of aspirates, which led somebody to say of somebody, ‘If you give him a Hinch, he’ll take a Hell.’ Some recent extensions of social liberty have made the accident of the last word sound strangely like an omen. But what strikes me as even more curious is this: that there are some people who are perpetually demanding an ell but cannot be persuaded to accept an inch. They demand certain forms of social liberty in the large, but refuse them in the small, and especially in the solid. They are like people who should furiously demand a hundred head of cattle, and then flee in terror at the first appearance of a cow. Or they are like a king who should claim to rule the waves and be afraid to have a well or a pond in his own garden. The little more, and how little it is and how lightly they will take the larger responsibility! The little less, and what miles they will run in order to be worlds away!

For instance, I read in any number of New Leaders and Labour weeklies, and all sorts of papers supposed to be both progressive and popular, that the working-classes will now take over the government of the country; that the majority of manual workers will have their proper proportional right to rule in all matters of education and humanitarian reform; that the poor will at last inherit the earth. But if I say that one workman is capable of deciding about the education of one child, that he has the right to select a certain school or resist a certain system, I shall have all those progressive papers roaring at me as a rotten reactionary. Why the workman should be clever enough to vote a curriculum for everybody else’s children, but not clever enough to choose one for his own children, I cannot for the life of me imagine. If I say that a decent costermonger is to be trusted with a donkey, or a decent rat-catcher with a dog, I shall be denounced as an obstacle to humanitarian legislation. But there is no objection to trusting a crowd of costermongers and rat-catchers to decide about the humanitarian legislation. And what is true of these particular cases of proprietorship is true of the whole ease of property. When the meek inherit the earth, it must only mean that the mob inherits the earth. It must not mean that the man inherits even the smallest portion of the earth. The mob is meek enough, certainly, when it is thus herded to its pastures by its sociological and educational pastors. It does not really mean that the many sheep, but that the few shepherds, will rule over all the meadows. And when the nomadic shepherd finds himself confronted with the static or domestic peasant, with the man who is actually ruling his own small meadow like a realm, there is always a collision and a sort of civil war in the country-side. In any case, the original paradox remains: that it was regarded as a simple thing that all the meadows should belong to all the men, but a frantic and fantastic thing that any man should own any meadow.

But there is another ease that is even more curious. In the works of Mr. Wells, and all the typical Utopias and futuristic world-systems of recent times, it is incessantly and impressively repeated that we must live for the Future, for the Young, for the Rising Generation or the Babe Unborn. The traditional obligations of the past are nothing, and even the temporary contracts and compromises of the present are comparatively little; but we really do have a duty to the future generations. It is apparently the only duty that remains. While we are kicking our grandfather downstairs, we must take care to be very polite to our great-great-grandson, who is not yet present; and if a more enlightened ethic should ever justify us in painlessly poisoning our mother, it will be well to distract the attention by dreaming of some perfect Woman of the Future who may never need to be poisoned. These examples are quoted but lightly and from memory, but nobody will deny that current culture is in fact full of this notion of living for posterity. It is preached as a democratic doctrine in the democratic organs to which I have referred. But it is always the People as a whole that is to live for the Posterity as a whole.

But if we present precisely the same idea, in a present and practical form, it is called antiquated. Its practical form is called Marriage or the Family. It really does demand that a man and a woman should live largely for the next generation. It does demand that they should, to some extent, defer their personal amusements, such as divorce and dissipation, for the benefit of the next generation. And whenever we suggest that, a wail goes up about the wickedness and cruelty of depriving the poor dear parents of the innocent gaieties of divorce. How can a poor father get any real fun out of being divorced, if his enjoyment is to be dashed by a morbid memory of the existence of his own son? Nay, can we even be certain that the mother will keep up her high standard of dancing all night and every night, if there is a new-born baby who (with curious taste) is crying for her all night long? When the problem of Posterity is presented in this practical form, poor old Posterity gets the knock pretty badly. The Present suddenly becomes much more important than the Future; and the rising generation is a mere drag on the risen generation, which intends to dance until it drops. In this case also, the new thinkers are only thinking of the general, and are afraid to think of the particular. Just as the Socialist must not confront a peasant with one concrete piece of land, so the Sociologist must not confront the parent with one concrete piece of Posterity. Otherwise the new parents will fly screaming, and in some cases adopt measures to ensure that there shall be next to no Posterity at all.

L’uomo che si è esibito—come in tanta prosa e poesia moderna—in ogni atteggiamento di abietta e disonorevole ignominia troverà assai più arduo balzare improvvisamente in piedi e difendere il proprio onore, se il suo vero onore intellettuale e spirituale viene attaccato. Tra i vecchi modi di preservare questo senso dell’onore vi era il sistema delle onorificenze; e, benché la maggior parte di esse sia oggi assai completamente disonorata, nessuno insinua che la carica di Poeta Laureato sia stata venduta. Ad ogni modo, tra i modi più ampi di farlo vi era ciò che si può chiamare il Corteo della Poesia; il pubblico riconoscimento del Poeta, «a cui gli alti dèi diedero di diritto i loro tuoni e i loro allori e la loro luce».

XXVII. Sul vivere per la Posterità

Tutti ricordiamo la storia di quell’eccesso di aspirazione, nel senso dell’uso delle aspirate, che indusse un tale a dire di un altro: «If you give him a Hinch, he’ll take a Hell» — ossia «se gli dài un dito, si prende tutto il braccio», con l’ultima parola aspirata a sproposito che suonava come «Hell», inferno. Certe recenti estensioni della libertà sociale hanno fatto sì che il caso di quell’ultima parola suoni stranamente come un presagio. Ma ciò che mi colpisce come ancor più curioso è questo: che vi sono persone le quali reclamano perpetuamente un braccio ma non si lasciano persuadere ad accettare un dito. Reclamano certe forme di libertà sociale in grande, ma le rifiutano in piccolo, e specialmente nel concreto. Sono come chi reclamasse furiosamente un centinaio di capi di bestiame, per poi fuggire terrorizzato alla prima apparizione di una mucca. Oppure sono come un re che pretendesse di dominare i flutti e avesse paura di avere un pozzo o uno stagno nel proprio giardino. Il poco di più, e com’è poco e con quanta leggerezza si assumeranno la responsabilità più grande! Il poco di meno, e quante miglia percorreranno pur di trovarsi a mondi di distanza!

Per esempio, leggo in innumerevoli New Leader e settimanali laburisti, e in ogni sorta di giornali che si suppongono al tempo stesso progressisti e popolari, che le classi lavoratrici assumeranno ora il governo del paese; che la maggioranza dei lavoratori manuali avrà il suo giusto diritto proporzionale a governare in tutte le materie dell’istruzione e della riforma umanitaria; che i poveri erediteranno finalmente la terra. Ma se dico che un lavoratore è capace di decidere sull’istruzione di un figlio, che ha il diritto di scegliere una certa scuola o di opporsi a un certo sistema, mi ritroverò tutti quei giornali progressisti a ruggirmi contro come a un marcio reazionario. Perché il lavoratore dovrebbe essere abbastanza accorto da votare un programma di studi per i figli di tutti gli altri, ma non abbastanza accorto da sceglierne uno per i propri figli, non riesco a immaginarlo per quanto mi sforzi. Se dico che a un onesto venditore ambulante si può affidare un asino, o a un onesto acchiappatopi un cane, sarò denunciato come un ostacolo alla legislazione umanitaria. Ma non vi è alcuna obiezione ad affidare a una folla di venditori ambulanti e di acchiappatopi la decisione sulla legislazione umanitaria stessa. E ciò che è vero di questi particolari casi di proprietà è vero dell’intera questione della proprietà. Quando i miti erediteranno la terra, ciò deve significare soltanto che la folla eredita la terra. Non deve significare che l’uomo erediti anche solo la più piccola porzione della terra. La folla è certo abbastanza mite, quando è così condotta ai suoi pascoli dai suoi pastori sociologici ed educativi. Non significa realmente che le molte pecore, bensì i pochi pastori, regneranno su tutti i prati. E quando il pastore nomade si trova di fronte al contadino stanziale o domestico, all’uomo che sta effettivamente governando il proprio piccolo prato come un regno, vi è sempre uno scontro e una sorta di guerra civile nelle campagne. In ogni caso, il paradosso originario permane: che si considerava cosa semplice che tutti i prati appartenessero a tutti gli uomini, ma cosa frenetica e stravagante che un uomo qualsiasi possedesse un prato qualsiasi.

Ma vi è un’altra faccenda ancor più curiosa. Nelle opere del signor Wells, e in tutte le tipiche Utopie e in tutti i futuristici sistemi-mondo dei tempi recenti, si ripete incessantemente e in modo impressionante che dobbiamo vivere per il Futuro, per i Giovani, per la Generazione Nascente o per il Pargolo non ancora Nato. Gli obblighi tradizionali del passato sono nulla, e persino i contratti e i compromessi temporanei del presente sono comparativamente poca cosa; ma abbiamo davvero un dovere verso le generazioni future. È a quanto pare l’unico dovere che rimane. Mentre scaraventiamo giù per le scale nostro nonno, dobbiamo aver cura di essere assai cortesi col nostro trisnipote, che non è ancora presente; e se un’etica più illuminata dovesse mai giustificarci nell’avvelenare senza dolore nostra madre, sarà bene distrarre l’attenzione sognando una qualche perfetta Donna del Futuro che potrebbe non aver mai bisogno di essere avvelenata. Questi esempi sono citati solo alla leggera e a memoria, ma nessuno negherà che la cultura odierna è di fatto colma di questa nozione del vivere per la posterità. È predicata come dottrina democratica negli organi democratici a cui ho fatto riferimento. Ma è sempre il Popolo nel suo insieme che deve vivere per la Posterità nel suo insieme.

Ma se presentiamo esattamente la stessa idea, in una forma presente e pratica, la si dice antiquata. La sua forma pratica si chiama Matrimonio o Famiglia. Essa esige davvero che un uomo e una donna vivano in gran parte per la generazione successiva. Esige davvero che essi, in qualche misura, differiscano i propri svaghi personali, come il divorzio e la dissipazione, a beneficio della generazione successiva. E ogni volta che lo suggeriamo, si leva un lamento sulla malvagità e la crudeltà di privare i poveri cari genitori delle innocenti allegrie del divorzio. Come può un povero padre trarre un vero divertimento dal divorziare, se il suo godimento dev’essere guastato dal morboso ricordo dell’esistenza del proprio figlio? Anzi, possiamo persino essere certi che la madre manterrà il suo alto tenore di danzare tutta la notte e ogni notte, se c’è un neonato che (con curioso gusto) la reclama piangendo per tutta la notte? Quando il problema della Posterità viene presentato in questa forma pratica, la povera vecchia Posterità ne esce piuttosto malconcia. Il Presente diventa d’un tratto assai più importante del Futuro; e la generazione nascente non è che un peso morto per la generazione già sorta, la quale intende danzare fino a stramazzare. Anche in questo caso, i nuovi pensatori pensano soltanto al generale, e hanno paura di pensare al particolare. Proprio come il Socialista non deve porre un contadino di fronte a un concreto pezzo di terra, così il Sociologo non deve porre il genitore di fronte a un concreto pezzo di Posterità. Altrimenti i nuovi genitori fuggiranno urlando, e in certi casi adotteranno misure per assicurarsi che di Posterità non ve ne sia quasi affatto.

I grieve to say that I am not moved to a profound respect or admiration for this intellectual compromise. If the social idealist would take his inch I might be ready to trust him with his ell. If he could trust a poor man with the care of a cow or a cottage, or a common or garden child, I might believe he was sincere in wishing to trust all poor men with the destiny of all cottages and cows. As it is, I suspect that he is not going to trust that destiny to a democracy of poor men, but to an official or oligarch appointed to organize the poor men. Similarly, if the new social philosophies fervently encouraged people to think more about domesticity and less about divorce, I might believe that they really were preferring the future generation to their own. As it is, I think they want to procure all possible pleasures and amusements for their own, including the mild amusement of prophesying some Utopia that can only come long after they are dead. If their novels and newspapers were less filled with the sublime spiritual liberation of eloping with the chauffeur, and more filled with the duty and dignity of remaining with the baby, I might admit that their faces are set towards the Future and their souls full of the song of ‘A Good Time Coming’. As it is, it seems to be an impatient and even pessimistic lyric about ‘A Good Time Now’.

I am not at all pharisaical about these weaknesses considered as weaknesses, but I am rather bored with the pretence that they are strong with the strength of vigilant Watchers for the Dawn. And I am increasingly tired of the whole tone of that inverted idealism, which is terrified when told to make use of a single talent, but quite confident of its fitness to rule over ten cities. But I suspect, if I may describe the fashionable mood in terms of old-fashioned sentiment, that these people are only filling the Castle of Indolence with the Pleasures of Hope.

XXVIII On Mr Shaw’s Puritanism

THERE was a time when I was asked, with quite a curious persistence, what I thought of Mr. Bernard Shaw and what he thought of Professor Einstein. It was especially in connexion with certain remarks about the nature of Great Men, and his reasons for limiting the list to some and excluding others. I had no difficulty at the time in answering that I thought of Mr. Bernard Shaw very much as I have always thought of him, and that I shou1d have no difficulty in admitting him to my list of Great Men, though perhaps my list might be a little longer, and perhaps a little more liberal than his. I actually wrote a book about him in the ancient days, and I am happy to say that he reviewed it himself, with the typical opening: ‘This is the best book of criticism that I have yet produced.’ And what I said then is very much what I should say still: that there is no very fundamental antagonism between Mr. Bernard Shaw and myself except in one fact—that he is a Puritan and I am at least relatively a Pagan. It is true that I have become a Christian; but that is a thing that happened to quite a large number of Pagans. Only I never became a Puritan; and it seems to me that Mr. Shaw never became anything else.

Of course I know that there are a number of things to which his actual attitude would be merely negative or sceptical as compared with my own; but those things never affect me as real or ultimate disagreements, but merely as matters which he does not happen to have understood even sufficiently to disagree. They are part of a heritage of negation from the rebels of the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries: a rebellion that has become almost respectable with age. It is almost a mark of being behind the times to go on talking merely of traditional religion. What we have to deal with in the modern world is traditional irreligion. The period between Voltaire and Bernard Shaw is merely the period of the rise and decline of something that began as a joke and ended as a prejudice. Nobody will deny the wit of Shaw, any more than the wit of Voltaire; but these sceptical or negative notions are not even the jokes of Shaw: they are merely the prejudices of Shaw. The jokes of Shaw have been much more serious and socially useful things, and have been directed against things much more modern than ecclesiastical abuses which have long ago been more than sufficiently abused. They have been directed against the spiritual pride of physical science; against the Doctor’s Dilemma and not merely against the Curate’s Egg— a rather ancient egg which, after all, was always excellent in parts. They have been directed against the worldliness of San Francisco rather than the unworldliness of St. Francis. If he made fun of America, it was at least at the moment when America was being taken most seriously, and at the moment when the seriousness was certainly a form of snobbishness. I have never been disturbed by his disbelieving the things he does not understand, and I have always been delighted with his disbelieving the things he does understand: such as the Darwinian Theory or the Capitalist State. I should never be so stupid as to mistake Mr. Bernard Shaw for an irreligious man. He seems to me, in a rather special and vivid sense, to be a religious man. But there is always that deeper difference, and it is involved in the nature of the religion. And if I wanted a profound illustration of the difference that I mean, whether or no it is a difference I could explain, I could find it in a remark made in this discussion about Einstein and Great Men: a remark that may not seem to have anything to do with religion at all. Mr. Shaw is reported, and I apologize if he is misreported, as saying that he would hesitate to admit Napoleon into his select club of heroes; and that ‘it would have been better for the world if Napoleon had never lived’. To which I answer that if Napoleon had never lived, then certainly Bernard Shaw never would have lived. At any rate, if Napoleon had not succeeded in being Napoleon, Shaw would not have succeeded in being Shaw.

Mi rammarico di dover dire che non sono spinto a un profondo rispetto o a un’ammirazione per questo compromesso intellettuale. Se l’idealista sociale volesse prendersi il suo dito, sarei forse pronto ad affidargli il suo braccio. Se sapesse affidare a un pover’uomo la cura di una mucca o di un cottage, o di un comunissimo bambino, potrei credere che sia sincero nel desiderare di affidare a tutti i poveri il destino di tutti i cottage e di tutte le mucche. Così com’è, sospetto che non affiderà quel destino a una democrazia di poveri, ma a un funzionario o a un oligarca incaricato di organizzare i poveri. Similmente, se le nuove filosofie sociali incoraggiassero con fervore la gente a pensare più alla vita domestica e meno al divorzio, potrei credere che stiano davvero preferendo la generazione futura alla propria. Così com’è, penso che vogliano procurare alla propria tutti i piaceri e gli svaghi possibili, compreso il blando svago di profetizzare qualche Utopia che potrà venire solo assai tempo dopo che essi saranno morti. Se i loro romanzi e giornali fossero meno colmi della sublime liberazione spirituale del fuggire con l’autista, e più colmi del dovere e della dignità del restare col bambino, potrei ammettere che i loro volti sono rivolti verso il Futuro e le loro anime piene del canto di «A Good Time Coming». Così com’è, sembra piuttosto una lirica impaziente e perfino pessimistica su «A Good Time Now».

Non sono affatto farisaico riguardo a queste debolezze considerate come debolezze, ma sono piuttosto annoiato dalla pretesa che esse siano forti della forza di vigili Sentinelle dell’Alba. E sono sempre più stanco dell’intero tono di quell’idealismo rovesciato, che è terrorizzato quando gli si dice di far uso di un solo talento, ma del tutto fiducioso della propria idoneità a governare dieci città. Ma sospetto, se mi è concesso descrivere l’umore alla moda in termini di sentimento all’antica, che questa gente non faccia altro che riempire il Castello dell’Indolenza con i Piaceri della Speranza.

XXVIII. Sul Puritanesimo del signor Shaw

Vi fu un tempo in cui mi si chiedeva, con una persistenza davvero curiosa, che cosa pensassi del signor Bernard Shaw e che cosa egli pensasse del professor Einstein. Era specialmente in connessione con certe osservazioni sulla natura dei Grandi Uomini, e sulle sue ragioni per limitare la lista ad alcuni ed escluderne altri. Non ebbi allora difficoltà a rispondere che pensavo del signor Bernard Shaw pressappoco ciò che ho sempre pensato di lui, e che non avrei avuto difficoltà ad ammetterlo nella mia lista dei Grandi Uomini, benché forse la mia lista potesse essere un po’ più lunga, e forse un po’ più liberale della sua. In verità scrissi un libro su di lui nei tempi antichi, e sono lieto di dire che lo recensì egli stesso, col tipico esordio: «Questo è il miglior libro di critica che io abbia finora prodotto». E ciò che dissi allora è pressappoco ciò che direi ancora: che non vi è alcun antagonismo davvero fondamentale tra il signor Bernard Shaw e me, tranne che in un fatto—ch’egli è un Puritano e io sono almeno relativamente un Pagano. È vero che sono diventato cristiano; ma è una cosa che è capitata a un numero piuttosto grande di Pagani. Solo che io non divenni mai un Puritano; e mi pare che il signor Shaw non sia mai diventato nient’altro.

Naturalmente so che vi sono parecchie cose verso le quali il suo effettivo atteggiamento sarebbe meramente negativo o scettico rispetto al mio; ma quelle cose non mi appaiono mai come disaccordi reali o ultimi, bensì soltanto come questioni che egli semplicemente non ha compreso nemmeno abbastanza da poter dissentire. Fanno parte di un’eredità di negazione lasciata dai ribelli del diciannovesimo e del diciottesimo secolo: una ribellione che con l’età è divenuta quasi rispettabile. È quasi un segno di essere indietro coi tempi il continuare a parlare soltanto di religione tradizionale. Ciò con cui dobbiamo fare i conti nel mondo moderno è l’irreligione tradizionale. Il periodo tra Voltaire e Bernard Shaw non è che il periodo dell’ascesa e del declino di qualcosa che cominciò come uno scherzo e finì come un pregiudizio. Nessuno negherà lo spirito di Shaw, non più di quanto neghi lo spirito di Voltaire; ma queste nozioni scettiche o negative non sono neppure gli scherzi di Shaw: sono soltanto i pregiudizi di Shaw. Gli scherzi di Shaw sono stati cose ben più serie e socialmente utili, e sono stati diretti contro cose assai più moderne degli abusi ecclesiastici, che da gran tempo sono stati fin troppo abusati. Sono stati diretti contro l’orgoglio spirituale della scienza fisica; contro il Dilemma del Dottore e non soltanto contro l’Uovo del Curato—un uovo piuttosto antico che, dopo tutto, era sempre eccellente a tratti. Sono stati diretti contro la mondanità di San Francisco più che contro la spiritualità di san Francesco. Se si fece beffe dell’America, fu almeno nel momento in cui l’America veniva presa più sul serio, e nel momento in cui quella serietà era di certo una forma di snobismo. Non sono mai stato turbato dal suo non credere alle cose che non capisce, e sono sempre stato deliziato dal suo non credere alle cose che capisce: come la Teoria Darwiniana o lo Stato Capitalista. Non sarei mai tanto sciocco da scambiare il signor Bernard Shaw per un uomo irreligioso. Egli mi sembra, in un senso piuttosto particolare e vivido, un uomo religioso. Ma vi è sempre quella differenza più profonda, ed è insita nella natura della religione. E se volessi un’illustrazione profonda della differenza che intendo, che sia o no una differenza ch’io possa spiegare, potrei trovarla in un’osservazione fatta in questa discussione su Einstein e i Grandi Uomini: un’osservazione che potrebbe non sembrare avere nulla a che fare con la religione. Del signor Shaw si riferisce, e mi scuso se gli si attribuiscono parole non sue, ch’egli esiterebbe ad ammettere Napoleone nel suo club selezionato di eroi; e che «sarebbe stato meglio per il mondo se Napoleone non fosse mai vissuto». Al che rispondo che se Napoleone non fosse mai vissuto, allora di certo Bernard Shaw non sarebbe mai vissuto. In ogni caso, se Napoleone non fosse riuscito a essere Napoleone, Shaw non sarebbe riuscito a essere Shaw.

For certainly if Napoleon, or some revolutionary soldier nearly as competent as Napoleon (there may have been one or two others who could have proved competent), had not appeared to save the French Revolution from the invading forces of the aristocracies and autocracies, reaction would have shut down on the first republican hopes like a trap of iron, and all the democratic dreams that have since filled the intellect and imagination would have been utterly and perhaps finally destroyed. All that we call the modern world, with all its good and evil, was made by Napoleon; at any rate was made possible by Napoleon. And among the various products of that original revolutionary expansion was the particular theory of reconstruction which we call Socialism. I will leave Mr. Shaw to decide whether that particular product is to be classed among the good or evil products of the French Revolution. But surely nobody with historical sense can doubt that all these modern ideals of revolutionary improvement, with the purpose of social justice or equality, date from the great idealistic movement at the end of the eighteenth century. Now I take it as certain that if the Revolution had not become militant, and been successfully defended by a man of military genius, it would have been easily crushed by the old oligarchies and despotic systems; and, having been easily crushed, would have been easily forgotten. There would have remained no legend of revolutionary victory; and therefore, alas for human nature, very little of revolutionary heroism. There would probably have remained, for centuries afterwards, not a gleam of revolutionary hope. I am merely stating the historical and especially the practical probabilities. I do not discuss here how far the balance would have been for evil or good. We should doubtless have avoided many annoying forms of anarchical nonsense such as still manage to live on the tradition of the triumph of France. We should have been less troubled with some mistaken mob movements, and some much more poisonous secret societies. But we should have missed some good things as well. We should have missed social reform as the serious preoccupation of the nineteenth century, we should have missed Socialism, and we should have missed Shaw.

Now I can heartily respect, and even sympathize with, some jolly old English Tory who still regards Bonaparte as Boney. I can understand the genial reactionary, like Mr. Sapsea, who continues through all continental changes to drink the toast, ‘When the French come over, may we meet them at Dover.’ But I should hardly have thought of associating Mr. Sapsea with Mr. Shaw. And whatever may be the true story of the punishment of St. Helena, it seems rather hard on Napoleon that he should endure not only an eternal punishment, but a double punishment: one from all the reactionaries he defeated and the other from all the reformers he defended. It was the expansion of Napoleonic France that established everywhere the modern theories of civic right and equal opportunity; and the very name of that justice is the Code Napoleon. In the face of these facts, I naturally ask myself: Why does a man like Mr. Shaw hate Napoleon? Why does a man like Mr. Wells hate Napoleon? The only sincere answer is that it is the mark of the Nonconformist always to hate Napoleon.

It would take a long time to explain. A vague notion that a soldier is a naughty man; that he wears a cocked hat and sometimes even a cockade or a feather in it; that bodily fighting is always a blackguardly way of dealing with any position, however provocative; that soldiering is associated with canteens and cans; these and a thousand other things have created in the mind of the modern Puritan the mood of the modern Pacifist. We can all understand, and Napoleon himself would entirely understand, the higher sense in which it may be said that glory is vanity. But the Puritan always insists, not that glory is vanity, but that glory is infamy. He thinks this sort of action, this sort of ambition, not only the worst but the most horrible; he thinks there is no smell so foul as the smell of gunpowder. I think the smell of the hair-oil of hypocritical peace-mongering infinitely more offensive. Nobody will accuse Mr. Shaw’s work of smelling like that; but there does come from it sometimes, suddenly, this strange stale smell of the Puritan; and it is then that I can answer our old question: Do We Agree?

XXIX. On the Truth of Legends

I HAVE known all my life what is called the conflict between romance and realism, and I have always found that it was the realists who were romancing. I have found, in a fashion too curious to be a coincidence, that the romances were generally real after all. For instance, everybody knows how a boy is told that his boyish day-dreams are only day-dreams, and will not long survive in daylight; that his picturesque figures of the Red Indian or the Jolly Tar are only painted and pasteboard figures out of a toy-theatre, or melodramatic personalities out of a penny dreadful. It is taken for granted that he will begin by believing in them and end by disbelieving in them. In a number of solid historical cases, I myself began rather early to disbelieve them, and have come eventually to believe them. I seriously think that the popular sentiment that created those characters was often a tradition of truth, where the pedantic cynicism which destroyed them was often a much more deliberate perversion of truth. The tradition may have come down rather loosely and vaguely, through a long line of nurses and grandmothers. But the nurses and grandmothers were not paid to tell lies, and they did therefore, to a considerable and very valuable extent, tell the truth. The critics and historians were paid to tell lies though they may not have put the truth to themselves in quite so crude a fashion. They were academic officials of a certain academic system; achieving a fame which depended upon a fashion; successful or unsuccessful, according to the power of a theory; suiting themselves, consciously or unconsciously, to a certain school; and, when all is said, living by receiving salaries or selling books. They had not the disinterestedness or detachment of gossip. They were not merely mentioning the things they remembered, but remembering only the things they were supposed to mention. Their minds had formed a mechanical habit of recording only the things that were suited to the records, and writing only the records that were suited to the official record office. Some of them were stark liars; some of them, which is much more strange and uncanny, were honest men. But they were, at best, men telling untrue stories in the interest of the truth, or what they believed to be the truth. They were not ordinary people telling true stories, merely as stories that were curious because they were true. It is all the difference between the chronicler and the historian. And the difference is that the chronicler sometimes told fables; whereas the historian never tells fables, but only falsehoods. However this may be, I have known a curious number of cases in which mere sentimental gossip surrounded my childhood, and serious historical scholarship surrounded my manhood; and the sentimental gossip was right.

Poiché è certo che, se Napoleone, o un qualche soldato rivoluzionario quasi altrettanto capace di Napoleone (forse ve ne furono uno o due altri che avrebbero potuto rivelarsi capaci), non fosse comparso a salvare la Rivoluzione francese dalle forze invaditrici delle aristocrazie e delle autocrazie, la reazione si sarebbe abbattuta sulle prime speranze repubblicane come una trappola di ferro, e tutti i sogni democratici che da allora hanno riempito l’intelletto e l’immaginazione sarebbero stati interamente, e forse definitivamente, distrutti. Tutto ciò che chiamiamo mondo moderno, con tutto il suo bene e il suo male, fu fatto da Napoleone; o quantomeno fu reso possibile da Napoleone. E fra i vari prodotti di quell’originaria espansione rivoluzionaria vi era quella particolare teoria di ricostruzione che chiamiamo Socialismo. Lascerò al signor Shaw decidere se quel particolare prodotto vada annoverato fra i prodotti buoni o cattivi della Rivoluzione francese. Ma nessuno, di sicuro, dotato di senso storico può dubitare che tutti questi moderni ideali di miglioramento rivoluzionario, aventi per fine la giustizia o l’uguaglianza sociale, risalgano al grande movimento idealistico della fine del diciottesimo secolo. Ora, ritengo per certo che, se la Rivoluzione non fosse divenuta militante, e non fosse stata difesa con successo da un uomo di genio militare, sarebbe stata facilmente schiacciata dalle vecchie oligarchie e dai sistemi dispotici; e, una volta facilmente schiacciata, sarebbe stata facilmente dimenticata. Non sarebbe rimasta alcuna leggenda di vittoria rivoluzionaria; e perciò, ahimè per la natura umana, ben poco eroismo rivoluzionario. Probabilmente non sarebbe rimasto, per secoli a venire, il minimo barlume di speranza rivoluzionaria. Mi limito a enunciare le probabilità storiche e soprattutto pratiche. Non discuto qui fino a che punto la bilancia avrebbe pesato verso il male o verso il bene. Avremmo certamente evitato molte forme fastidiose di sciocchezze anarchiche che ancora riescono a sopravvivere sulla tradizione del trionfo della Francia. Saremmo stati meno tormentati da certi malaccorti movimenti di piazza, e da certe società segrete assai più velenose. Ma avremmo perduto anche alcune cose buone. Avremmo perduto la riforma sociale come seria preoccupazione del diciannovesimo secolo, avremmo perduto il Socialismo, e avremmo perduto Shaw.

Ora, posso rispettare di tutto cuore, e persino simpatizzare con, qualche allegro vecchio Tory inglese che ancora considera Bonaparte come «Boney». Posso comprendere il gioviale reazionario, come il signor Sapsea, che attraverso tutti i mutamenti continentali continua a levare il brindisi: «Quando i francesi verranno a invaderci, possa io incontrarli a Dover». Ma difficilmente mi sarebbe venuto in mente di associare il signor Sapsea al signor Shaw. E qualunque sia la vera storia del castigo di Sant’Elena, sembra piuttosto duro nei confronti di Napoleone che egli debba subire non solo un castigo eterno, ma un doppio castigo: uno da parte di tutti i reazionari che sconfisse, e l’altro da parte di tutti i riformatori che difese. Fu l’espansione della Francia napoleonica a stabilire ovunque le moderne teorie del diritto civico e delle pari opportunità; e il nome stesso di quella giustizia è il Codice Napoleonico. Di fronte a questi fatti, mi domando naturalmente: perché un uomo come il signor Shaw odia Napoleone? Perché un uomo come il signor Wells odia Napoleone? L’unica risposta sincera è che è il segno distintivo del Nonconformista odiare sempre Napoleone.

Ci vorrebbe molto tempo a spiegarlo. Una vaga nozione che il soldato sia un uomo malvagio; che porti un cappello a punta e talvolta persino una coccarda o una piuma su di esso; che il combattere corporalmente sia sempre un modo da mascalzone di affrontare qualsiasi situazione, per quanto provocatoria; che il mestiere delle armi si accompagni a cantine e gavette; queste e mille altre cose hanno creato nella mente del Puritano moderno lo stato d’animo del Pacifista moderno. Tutti possiamo comprendere, e Napoleone stesso comprenderebbe pienamente, il senso più alto in cui si può dire che la gloria è vanità. Ma il Puritano insiste sempre, non che la gloria sia vanità, bensì che la gloria sia infamia. Egli reputa questo genere di azione, questo genere di ambizione, non solo il peggiore ma il più orribile; reputa che non vi sia odore tanto immondo quanto l’odore della polvere da sparo. Io reputo l’odore dell’olio da capelli del predicatore ipocrita di pace infinitamente più ripugnante. Nessuno accuserà l’opera del signor Shaw di puzzare in tal modo; ma da essa proviene talora, all’improvviso, questo strano odore stantio del Puritano; ed è allora che posso rispondere alla nostra vecchia domanda: siamo d’accordo?

XXIX. Sulla verità delle leggende

HO CONOSCIUTO per tutta la vita ciò che si chiama il conflitto fra il romanzesco e il realismo, e ho sempre trovato che erano i realisti a fantasticare. Ho scoperto, in un modo troppo curioso per essere una coincidenza, che le storie romanzesche erano generalmente reali, dopotutto. Per esempio, tutti sanno come a un ragazzo venga detto che i suoi fanciulleschi sogni a occhi aperti sono soltanto sogni a occhi aperti, e non sopravvivranno a lungo alla luce del giorno; che le sue pittoresche figure del Pellerossa o del Marinaio Allegro sono soltanto figure dipinte e di cartone uscite da un teatrino di burattini, o personalità melodrammatiche uscite da un romanzetto d’appendice. Si dà per scontato che egli comincerà col credervi e finirà col non credervi. In un buon numero di solidi casi storici, io stesso cominciai piuttosto presto a non credervi, e sono giunto infine a credervi. Penso seriamente che il sentimento popolare che creò quei personaggi fosse spesso una tradizione di verità, laddove il pedantesco cinismo che li distruggeva era spesso una perversione assai più deliberata della verità. La tradizione può essere giunta fin qui in modo piuttosto sciolto e vago, attraverso una lunga schiera di balie e di nonne. Ma le balie e le nonne non erano pagate per raccontare menzogne, e perciò dicevano, in misura considerevole e assai preziosa, la verità. I critici e gli storici erano pagati per raccontare menzogne, per quanto possano non aver formulato a se stessi la verità in maniera così cruda. Erano funzionari accademici di un certo sistema accademico; conseguivano una fama che dipendeva da una moda; avevano successo o insuccesso a seconda della forza di una teoria; si adattavano, consapevolmente o inconsapevolmente, a una certa scuola; e, a conti fatti, vivevano ricevendo stipendi o vendendo libri. Non possedevano il disinteresse o il distacco della chiacchiera. Non si limitavano a menzionare le cose che ricordavano, ma ricordavano soltanto le cose che erano tenuti a menzionare. Le loro menti avevano contratto l’abitudine meccanica di registrare soltanto le cose adatte agli archivi, e di scrivere soltanto gli archivi adatti all’ufficio ufficiale degli archivi. Alcuni di loro erano bugiardi bell’e buoni; alcuni di loro, il che è assai più strano e inquietante, erano uomini onesti. Ma erano, nel migliore dei casi, uomini che raccontavano storie non vere nell’interesse della verità, o di ciò che credevano essere la verità. Non erano persone comuni che raccontavano storie vere, semplicemente come storie curiose perché vere. È tutta la differenza che passa fra il cronista e lo storico. E la differenza è che il cronista talvolta raccontava favole; mentre lo storico non racconta mai favole, ma soltanto falsità. Comunque stiano le cose, ho conosciuto un curioso numero di casi in cui la mera chiacchiera sentimentale circondava la mia fanciullezza, e la seria erudizione storica circondava la mia età adulta; e la chiacchiera sentimentale aveva ragione.

For instance, it was sentimental gossip that Mary Queen of Scots was very badly treated; or that Charles the First was to be pitied or even admired. I remember loving both the historical characters as legends, and then learning afterwards that the legends were entirely legendary. The historical realists of that time told me that the attraction of Mary Queen of Scots was merely that she was much prettier than Queen Elizabeth. They told me that the charm of the Cavalier consisted only in his wearing more picturesque clothes than the Puritan. Those who told me this were often learned, and those who had left me with the earlier impression were often ignorant; and I myself was unfathomably ignorant. I therefore believed what they told me; I proceeded to believe, to believe blindly, credulously, and in hopeless intellectual servitude; to believe in the much more fabulous fable, in the legend of the learned. I believed much more seriously—that is, much more superstitiously— in the school text-book than I had believed in the old wives’ tale. But the old wife was an old wife by the normal process of becoming a wife and growing old, and she employed the normal habit of talking to children about her childhood. But the schoolmaster was a professional schoolmaster; the schoolmaster was tied to his school; the schoolmaster was as much under discipline as the schoolboy.

In the case of Mary Queen of Scots or Charles the First, which I have mentioned, it is, of course, perfectly true that there are two sides to the story. What I complain of in the schoolmaster is that he always taught only one side of the story. So, it may be said, did the nursery story-teller. But her story was a story in the literary sense of a legend. His story was a story in the nursery sense of a lie. It was a lie in the very real sense that he was not merely reporting what he had heard, but very care fully selecting from what he had read. Of course, as I say, it is perfectly true that there is a case for the Calvinists who opposed Mary Stuart, or the later Calvinists who opposed Charles Stuart. Of course, it is arguable that Mary Stuart killed her husband, or that Charles Stuart broke his word. Of course, it is arguable that it was better for England that the Whigs should turn it into an aristocracy than that the Stuarts should turn it into an autocracy.

But that is not the point. The point is that the ignorant legend was much more true, as far as it went, than the learned legend as far as it went. To paint a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots as a lovely, unhappy, charming, and cultured lady, brutally baited by barbarous Puritans and tragically martyred by a jealous Tudor tyrant, is a process of portraiture very far from complete; but it is in its way true, even when it is not complete. To paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth as a prophetic lioness of Protestantism, upholding the Huguenots out of mere love of the Holy Scriptures, and brandishing a Bible to cow all the Papists of the world, is not a process of portraiture true but incomplete; it is simply completely untrue. It is contradicted by every fact in Elizabeth’s history, from her continuous invalidism or ill-health to her continuous intrigues about marrying Catholic princes. And the first truth, or half-truth, was a truth of tradition. The second lie, and complete lie, was a lie of scholarship. Similarly, the popular legend was not lying about the kind of atmosphere, or even the kind of glamour, surrounding King Charles and the Cavaliers. It may have been little more than a romance; the legend really recorded little more than a romance; but it was the real romance. It was not false when it represented the Cavalier with his goblet lifted and his sword drawn; ready to drink to the King, ready to die for the King. For thousands of such men did actually drink to him and did actually die for him. It was not romancing to say that the Royalist had a romantic loyalty. It would not have been romancing to say that the Puritan had a religious loyalty. He had a loyalty to the letter of Scripture, to the logic of Calvin, to the awful duty of spreading true religion.

But my schoolmasters did not tell me that the Puritan stood for religious loyalty, which is true. They told me that he stood for religious liberty, which is a lie of that mountainous and monstrous order which ignorant traditionalists call a Whopper. They were not concerned, like the traditionalists, with gathering up, however lazily, the loose fragments of a truth. They were concerned with covering up most carefully the most accidental glimpses of the truth; with so picking their words and arranging their sentences that no suspicion of the main truth of the matter should really penetrate to the reader. It is amazing to consider how carefully and how successfully they did cover up a truth so obvious and so enormous. There is, for instance, the perfectly simple fact, written in large letters across the history of two reigns and practically two revolutions, that the last Stuarts tried to establish religious toleration and the Puritans tried to prevent religious toleration. It would seem as impossible to hide so huge and simple an historic fact as to hide the fact that Nelson fought for England and Napoleon for France. Yet men like Macaulay and Green really did manage to hide it from a whole rising generation, the generation with which I myself originally rose. But, fortunately, I had learned some truths in my childhood before I began to learn lies in my boyhood. And all my subsequent knowledge has led me to prefer the pictures which honestly professed to be picturesque to the plans and diagrams which dishonestly pretended to be accurate.

XXX. On Experience

IT will be remarked that Experience, which was once claimed by the aged, is now claimed exclusively by the young. There used to be a system of morals and metaphysics that was specially known as the Experience Philosophy; but those who advanced it were grim rationalists and utilitarians who were already old in years, or, more commonly, old before their time. We all know that Experience now stands rather for the philosophy of those who claim to be young long after their time. But they preach something that may, in a sense, be called an Experience Philosophy, though some of the experiences seem to me the reverse of philosophical. So far as I can make it out, it consists of two dogmas first, that there is no such thing as right or wrong; and secondly, that they themselves have a right to experience. How they manage to have any rights if there is no such thing as right I do not know; nor do they. But perhaps the philosophy was best summed up in a phrase I saw recently in a very interesting and important American magazine, quoted from one of the more wild and fanciful of the American critics. I have not the text before me, but the substance of the remark was this. The critic demanded indignantly to know how many ordinary American novelists had any Experiences outside those of earning their bread, pottering about in a farm or a frame-house, helping to mind the baby, and so on. The question struck me as striking at the very root of all the rot and corruption and imbecility of the times.

Per esempio, era chiacchiera sentimentale quella secondo cui Maria Regina di Scozia fu trattata malissimo; o quella secondo cui Carlo I era da compiangere o persino da ammirare. Ricordo di aver amato entrambi i personaggi storici come leggende, per poi apprendere in seguito che le leggende erano interamente leggendarie. I realisti storici di quel tempo mi dissero che l’attrattiva di Maria Regina di Scozia consisteva soltanto nel fatto che era assai più graziosa della Regina Elisabetta. Mi dissero che il fascino del Cavaliere consisteva unicamente nel fatto che indossava abiti più pittoreschi del Puritano. Coloro che mi dicevano ciò erano spesso dotti, e coloro che mi avevano lasciato l’impressione precedente erano spesso ignoranti; e io stesso ero insondabilmente ignorante. Perciò credetti a ciò che mi dicevano; presi a credere, a credere ciecamente, credulamente, e in una disperata servitù intellettuale; a credere nella favola assai più favolosa, nella leggenda dei dotti. Credetti assai più seriamente — cioè, assai più superstiziosamente — al libro di testo scolastico di quanto avessi creduto al racconto della vecchia comare. Ma la vecchia comare era una vecchia comare per il normale processo del diventar comare e dell’invecchiare, e adottava la normale abitudine di parlare ai bambini della propria fanciullezza. Il maestro, invece, era un maestro di professione; il maestro era legato alla sua scuola; il maestro era soggetto alla disciplina non meno dello scolaro.

Nel caso di Maria Regina di Scozia o di Carlo I, che ho menzionato, è naturalmente perfettamente vero che vi sono due versioni della storia. Ciò di cui mi lagno nel maestro è che egli insegnava sempre una sola versione della storia. Così faceva, si potrà dire, anche la narratrice della camera dei bambini. Ma la sua storia era una storia nel senso letterario di una leggenda. La storia di lui era una storia nel senso infantile di una bugia. Era una bugia nel senso quanto mai reale che egli non si limitava a riferire ciò che aveva udito, ma sceglieva con estrema cura fra ciò che aveva letto. Naturalmente, come dico, è perfettamente vero che vi sono ragioni a favore dei Calvinisti che si opposero a Maria Stuarda, o dei Calvinisti posteriori che si opposero a Carlo Stuart. Naturalmente, è sostenibile che Maria Stuarda uccise il proprio marito, o che Carlo Stuart venne meno alla parola data. Naturalmente, è sostenibile che fosse meglio per l’Inghilterra che i Whig la trasformassero in un’aristocrazia piuttosto che gli Stuart la trasformassero in un’autocrazia.

Ma non è questo il punto. Il punto è che la leggenda ignorante era assai più vera, per quel che diceva, di quanto la leggenda dotta lo fosse per quel che diceva. Dipingere un ritratto di Maria Regina di Scozia come una dama leggiadra, infelice, affascinante e colta, brutalmente tormentata da barbari Puritani e tragicamente martirizzata da un geloso tiranno Tudor, è un procedimento di ritrattistica ben lungi dall’essere completo; ma è, a suo modo, vero, anche quando non è completo. Dipingere un ritratto della Regina Elisabetta come una profetica leonessa del Protestantesimo, che sostiene gli Ugonotti per puro amore delle Sacre Scritture, e che brandisce una Bibbia per intimorire tutti i Papisti del mondo, non è un procedimento di ritrattistica vero ma incompleto; è semplicemente del tutto falso. È contraddetto da ogni fatto della storia di Elisabetta, dalla sua continua malferma salute alle sue continue intriganti manovre per sposare principi cattolici. E la prima verità, o mezza verità, era una verità di tradizione. La seconda bugia, e bugia completa, era una bugia di erudizione. Analogamente, la leggenda popolare non mentiva riguardo al genere di atmosfera, o persino al genere di fascino, che circondava il Re Carlo e i Cavalieri. Può essere stata poco più di un romanzo; la leggenda registrava davvero poco più di un romanzo; ma era il vero romanzo. Non era falsa quando raffigurava il Cavaliere con la coppa levata e la spada sguainata; pronto a brindare al Re, pronto a morire per il Re. Poiché migliaia di uomini simili brindarono davvero a lui e davvero morirono per lui. Non era fantasticare dire che il Realista nutriva una lealtà romantica. Non sarebbe stato fantasticare dire che il Puritano nutriva una lealtà religiosa. Egli nutriva una lealtà verso la lettera della Scrittura, verso la logica di Calvino, verso il tremendo dovere di diffondere la vera religione.

Ma i miei maestri non mi dicevano che il Puritano rappresentava la lealtà religiosa, il che è vero. Mi dicevano che egli rappresentava la libertà religiosa, il che è una bugia di quell’ordine montuoso e mostruoso che i tradizionalisti ignoranti chiamano una Panzana. Essi non si curavano, come i tradizionalisti, di raccogliere, per quanto pigramente, i frammenti sciolti di una verità. Si curavano di coprire con la massima cura i più accidentali barlumi della verità; di scegliere le parole e disporre le frasi in modo tale che nessun sospetto della verità principale della faccenda potesse davvero penetrare fino al lettore. È stupefacente considerare con quanta cura e con quanto successo essi riuscirono a coprire una verità tanto ovvia e tanto enorme. Vi è, per esempio, il fatto perfettamente semplice, scritto a caratteri cubitali attraverso la storia di due regni e praticamente di due rivoluzioni, che gli ultimi Stuart cercarono di instaurare la tolleranza religiosa e i Puritani cercarono di impedire la tolleranza religiosa. Sembrerebbe altrettanto impossibile nascondere un fatto storico tanto imponente e semplice quanto nascondere il fatto che Nelson combatté per l’Inghilterra e Napoleone per la Francia. Eppure uomini come Macaulay e Green riuscirono davvero a nasconderlo a un’intera generazione nascente, la generazione con cui io stesso in origine sorsi. Ma, per fortuna, avevo appreso alcune verità nella mia fanciullezza prima di cominciare ad apprendere menzogne nella mia adolescenza. E tutta la mia conoscenza successiva mi ha portato a preferire i quadri che onestamente dichiaravano di essere pittoreschi alle piante e ai diagrammi che disonestamente fingevano di essere accurati.

XXX. Sull’Esperienza

SI OSSERVERÀ che l’Esperienza, un tempo rivendicata dagli anziani, oggi è rivendicata esclusivamente dai giovani. Un tempo esisteva un sistema di morale e di metafisica particolarmente noto come la Filosofia dell’Esperienza; ma coloro che lo sostenevano erano arcigni razionalisti e utilitaristi già avanti negli anni, o, più comunemente, vecchi prima del tempo. Sappiamo tutti che l’Esperienza sta ora piuttosto per la filosofia di coloro che pretendono di essere giovani ben oltre il proprio tempo. Ma costoro predicano qualcosa che può, in un certo senso, chiamarsi una Filosofia dell’Esperienza, sebbene alcune delle esperienze mi paiano l’opposto del filosofico. Per quel che riesco a capirne, essa consiste di due dogmi: primo, che non esiste cosa alcuna come il bene o il male; e secondo, che essi stessi hanno diritto all’esperienza. Come riescano ad avere diritti qualsiasi, se non esiste cosa alcuna come il diritto, non lo so; e non lo sanno nemmeno loro. Ma forse la filosofia fu meglio riassunta in una frase che ho visto di recente in una rivista americana assai interessante e importante, citata da uno dei più stravaganti e fantasiosi fra i critici americani. Non ho il testo davanti a me, ma la sostanza dell’osservazione era questa. Il critico domandava indignato di sapere quanti dei comuni romanzieri americani avessero mai avuto Esperienze al di fuori di quelle di guadagnarsi il pane, di gingillarsi in una fattoria o in una casa di legno, di aiutare a badare al neonato, e così via. La domanda mi parve colpire alla radice stessa di tutto il marciume e la corruzione e l’imbecillità dei tempi.

On the face of it, of course, the whole question is rather a joke; only that these gay pleasure-seekers and revellers in the joy of life have seldom been known to see a joke. We might politely inquire exactly how much Experience is needed to equip a novelist to write novels? How many marks does he get for being vamped or for being intoxicated and which are the particular discreditable acts by which he can get credits? How many liaisons give him this singular rank as a literary liaison officer; and how many double lives does it take to constitute Life? Is it only after his fourth divorce that he may write his first novel? For my part, I do not see why the same principle should not be applied to all the other Ten Commandments as well as to that particular Commandment. It should surely be obvious that, if love affairs are necessary to the writing of this particular sort of love story, then it follows that crime is necessary to the writing of any kind of crime story. I have myself made arrangements (on paper) for no fewer than fifty-two murders in my time; they took the form of short stories; and I shall expose myself to the withering contempt of the young sages of Experience when I confess that I am not really a murderer, and have never yet committed an actual murder. And what about all the other forms of criminal Experience? Must a writer be a forger, and manufacture other men’s names before he is allowed to make his own? Must there be a journalistic apprenticeship in picking pockets as well as in picking brains; and have we to look to the establishment of an Academy of Anarchy, with the power of conferring degrees? Novelists might proudly print after their names the letters indicating the degrees they had taken; such as F.Y.B., meaning ‘Five Years for Burglary’, or T.N.H., for ‘Twice Nearly Hanged’. Altogether it may be said that writers do not rob, but it may be fortunate that robbers do not write. It is possible that the wild and wicked criminal might, after all, make almost as good a novelist as the novelist.

It would also be easy enough to attack the fallacy upon the facts. Everybody who has any real experience knows that good writing would not necessarily come from people with many experiences. Some of the art which is closest to life has been produced under marked limitations of living. Its prestige has generally lasted longer than the splash made by sensational social figures. Jane Austen has already survived Georges Sand. Even the most modern critic, if he is really a critic, will admit that Jane Austen is really realistic, in a sense in which Georges Sand is only romantic. She was, indeed, a flaming, fashionable figure created entirely by the Romantic Movement; but Jane Austen did not belong to any movement; she does not move, but she stays. And, though I do not agree with the too common depreciation of Byron, it is true that all his somewhat excessive Experience, in the new or juvenile sense, has not prevented people feeling him to be the very reverse of realistic, and in some ways strangely unreal.

But there is, of course, a much deeper objection to the whole of this new sort of Experience Philosophy, which is quite sufficiently exposed in the very examples I quoted from the magazine. There are certainly all sorts of experiences, some great and some small. But the small ones are those which the critic imagines to be great, and the great ones are those that he contemptuously dismisses as small. There are no more universal affairs than those which he imagines to be little and local. There are no events more tremendous than those which he regards as trivial. There are no experiences more exciting than those which he dully imagines to be dull. To take his own example, a literary man who cannot see that a baby is marvellous could not see that anything was marvellous. He has certainly no earthly logical reason for regarding a movie vamp as marvellous. The movie vamp is only what happens to the baby when it goes wrong; but, from a really imaginative and intellectual standpoint, there is nothing marvellous about either of them, except what is already marvellous in the mere existence of the baby. But this sort of moralist or immoralist has a queer, half-baked prejudice to the effect that there is no good in anything until it has gone bad. It is supposed to be a part of Experience for the woman to be a vamp, but not for the woman to be a mother; although it stares us all in the face, as a stark fact of common sense, that child-bearing really is an experience, and a highly realistic experience, while the other sort of experiment may not really be an experience at all. It may be in the exact sense mere play-acting; and, as the game is now played, the main preoccupation is to prevent its ending with an addition to the cast of characters. Whatever happens, it must not be the means of bringing on the scene a new, breathing, thinking, conscious creature like a baby. That would not be Life.

Now, if there is one thing of which I have been certain since my boyhood, and grow more certain as I advance in age, it is that nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze. All this talk of waiting for experiences in order to write is simply a confession of incapacity to experience anything. It is a confession of never having felt the big facts in such experiences as babyhood and the baby. A paralytic of this deaf-and-dumb description imagines he can be healed in strange waters or after strange wanderings; and announces himself ready to drink poisons, that they may stimulate him like drugs. But it is futile for him to suppose that this sort of quackery will teach him how to be a writer, for he has been from the first admittedly blind to everything that is worth writing about. He will find nothing in the wilderness but the broken shards or ruins of what should have been sacred in his own home; and if he can really make nothing of the second he will certainly make nothing of the first. The whole theory rests on a ridiculous confusion by which it is supposed that certain primary principles or relations will become interesting when they are damaged, but are bound to be depressing when they are intact. None of those who are perpetually suggesting this view ever states it thus plainly; for they are incapable of making plain statements, just as they are incapable of feeling plain things. But the point they have to prove, if they really want their Experience Philosophy accepted by those who do not care for catchwords, is that the high perils, pleasures, and creative joys of life do not occur on the high road of life, but only in certain crooked and rambling by-paths made entirely by people who have lost their way. As yet they have not even begun to prove it; and in any case, and in every sense, it could be disproved by a baby.

A prima vista, s’intende, l’intera questione è piuttosto uno scherzo; se non fosse che questi gai cercatori di piaceri e gaudenti della gioia di vivere raramente si sono visti cogliere uno scherzo. Potremmo educatamente domandare quanta Esperienza, esattamente, occorra per attrezzare un romanziere a scrivere romanzi. Quanti voti guadagna per essere stato sedotto o per essere stato ubriaco, e quali sono precisamente gli atti disonorevoli grazie ai quali può guadagnare crediti? Quante relazioni gli conferiscono questo singolare grado di ufficiale di collegamento letterario; e quante doppie vite occorrono per costituire la Vita? È solo dopo il suo quarto divorzio che gli è concesso scrivere il suo primo romanzo? Da parte mia, non vedo perché il medesimo principio non debba applicarsi a tutti gli altri Dieci Comandamenti al pari di quel particolare Comandamento. Dovrebbe essere di sicuro ovvio che, se le storie d’amore sono necessarie alla scrittura di questo particolare genere di storia d’amore, allora ne consegue che il delitto è necessario alla scrittura di qualsiasi genere di storia di delitti. Io stesso ho predisposto (sulla carta) non meno di cinquantadue omicidi ai miei tempi; presero la forma di racconti brevi; e mi esporrò al fulminante disprezzo dei giovani saggi dell’Esperienza quando confesserò di non essere in realtà un assassino, e di non aver mai ancora commesso un omicidio effettivo. E che dire di tutte le altre forme di Esperienza criminale? Uno scrittore deve forse essere un falsario, e fabbricare i nomi altrui prima che gli sia concesso di farsi il proprio? Deve forse esservi un apprendistato giornalistico nel borseggiare le tasche al pari che nel borseggiare i cervelli; e dobbiamo forse attenderci l’istituzione di un’Accademia dell’Anarchia, con il potere di conferire titoli? I romanzieri potrebbero stampare con orgoglio, dopo il proprio nome, le lettere indicanti i titoli conseguiti; come F.Y.B., che sta per «Cinque Anni per Furto con Scasso», o T.N.H., per «Due Volte Quasi Impiccato». Tutto sommato si può dire che gli scrittori non rubano, ma può essere una fortuna che i ladri non scrivano. È possibile che il criminale scellerato e selvaggio potrebbe, dopotutto, riuscire romanziere quasi altrettanto buono del romanziere.

Sarebbe altresì facile attaccare la fallacia sul terreno dei fatti. Chiunque abbia una qualche reale esperienza sa che una buona scrittura non verrebbe necessariamente da persone dalle molte esperienze. Parte dell’arte più prossima alla vita è stata prodotta sotto spiccate limitazioni del vivere. Il suo prestigio è generalmente durato più a lungo del clamore suscitato da figure mondane sensazionali. Jane Austen è già sopravvissuta a Georges Sand. Persino il critico più moderno, se è davvero un critico, ammetterà che Jane Austen è davvero realistica, in un senso in cui Georges Sand è soltanto romantica. Costei fu, invero, una figura fiammeggiante e alla moda, creata interamente dal Movimento Romantico; ma Jane Austen non apparteneva ad alcun movimento; ella non si muove, ma rimane. E, per quanto io non concordi con il troppo comune disprezzo di Byron, è vero che tutta la sua Esperienza alquanto eccessiva, nel senso nuovo o giovanile, non ha impedito alla gente di sentirlo come l’esatto opposto del realistico, e per certi versi stranamente irreale.

Ma vi è, s’intende, un’obiezione assai più profonda a tutta questa nuova sorta di Filosofia dell’Esperienza, obiezione sufficientemente esposta proprio negli esempi che ho citato dalla rivista. Vi sono di certo esperienze d’ogni sorta, alcune grandi e alcune piccole. Ma quelle piccole sono quelle che il critico immagina grandi, e quelle grandi sono quelle che egli sprezzantemente liquida come piccole. Non vi sono faccende più universali di quelle che egli immagina esigue e locali. Non vi sono eventi più tremendi di quelli che egli considera triviali. Non vi sono esperienze più eccitanti di quelle che egli, ottusamente, immagina ottuse. Per prendere il suo stesso esempio, un uomo di lettere che non sappia vedere che un neonato è meraviglioso non saprebbe vedere che alcunché è meraviglioso. Egli non ha di certo alcuna terrena ragione logica per considerare meravigliosa una seduttrice del cinematografo. La seduttrice del cinematografo non è altro che ciò che accade al neonato quando prende una cattiva strada; ma, da un punto di vista realmente immaginativo e intellettuale, non vi è nulla di meraviglioso in nessuno dei due, salvo ciò che è già meraviglioso nella mera esistenza del neonato. Ma questo genere di moralista o immoralista nutre uno strano pregiudizio mal cotto, secondo il quale non vi è nulla di buono in cosa alcuna finché essa non sia andata a male. Si suppone che sia parte dell’Esperienza per la donna l’essere una seduttrice, ma non per la donna l’essere una madre; sebbene ci fissi tutti in faccia, come nudo fatto di buon senso, che il portare in grembo un figlio è davvero un’esperienza, e un’esperienza altamente realistica, mentre l’altra sorta di esperimento può in realtà non essere affatto un’esperienza. Può essere, nel senso preciso, mera recitazione; e, per come il gioco viene ora giocato, la preoccupazione principale è impedire che esso finisca con un’aggiunta all’elenco dei personaggi. Comunque vada, esso non deve essere il mezzo per portare sulla scena una nuova creatura che respira, pensa ed è cosciente, come un neonato. Quella non sarebbe Vita.

Ora, se vi è una cosa di cui sono stato certo fin dalla mia adolescenza, e divengo sempre più certo man mano che avanzo negli anni, è che nulla è poetico se la pura luce del giorno non è poetica; e nessun mostro dovrebbe stupirci se l’uomo normale non stupisce. Tutto questo parlare dell’attendere le esperienze per poter scrivere è semplicemente una confessione d’incapacità a fare esperienza di alcunché. È una confessione di non aver mai sentito i grandi fatti in esperienze quali la prima infanzia e il neonato. Un paralitico di questa specie sorda e muta immagina di poter essere guarito in acque strane o dopo strani vagabondaggi; e si proclama pronto a bere veleni, affinché lo stimolino al pari di droghe. Ma è vano per lui supporre che questo genere di ciarlataneria gli insegnerà come divenire scrittore, poiché egli è stato fin dal principio, per sua stessa ammissione, cieco a tutto ciò che val la pena di scrivere. Nella terra selvaggia non troverà altro che i cocci rotti o le rovine di ciò che avrebbe dovuto essere sacro nella sua stessa casa; e se davvero non sa cavar nulla dalla seconda, di certo non caverà nulla dalla prima. L’intera teoria riposa su una ridicola confusione, per cui si suppone che certi principi o rapporti primari divengano interessanti quando sono danneggiati, ma siano fatalmente deprimenti quando sono intatti. Nessuno di coloro che perpetuamente suggeriscono questa veduta la enuncia mai in modo tanto piano; poiché sono incapaci di formulare enunciazioni piane, proprio come sono incapaci di sentire le cose piane. Ma il punto che devono dimostrare, se davvero vogliono la propria Filosofia dell’Esperienza accettata da coloro che non si curano degli slogan, è che gli alti pericoli, i piaceri e le gioie creative della vita non hanno luogo sull’alta strada della vita, ma soltanto in certi sentieri secondari tortuosi e serpeggianti, tracciati interamente da gente che ha smarrito la via. Finora non hanno nemmeno cominciato a dimostrarlo; e in ogni caso, e in ogni senso, ciò potrebbe essere confutato da un neonato.

XXXI. On Sightseeing

I HAVE often done my best to consider, in various aspects, what is really the matter with Sightseeing. Or rather, I hope, I have done my best to consider what is the matter with me, when I find myself faintly fatigued by Sightseeing. For it is always wiser to consider not so much why a thing is not enjoyable, as why we ourselves do not enjoy it. In the case of Sightseeing, I have only got so far as to be quite certain that the fault is not in the Sights and is not in the Sightseers. This would seem to drive the speculative philosopher back upon the dreadful and shocking conclusion that the fault is entirely in me. But, before accepting so destructive a deduction, I think there are some further modifications to be made and some further distinctions to be drawn.

The mere fact that a mob is going to see a monument ought not in itself to depress any imaginative and sympathetic mind. On the contrary, such a mind ought to perceive that there is something of the same mystery or majesty in the mob as in the monument. It is a weakness to fail in feeling that a statue standing on a pedestal above a street, the statue of a hero, carved by an artist, for the honour and glory of a city, is, so far as it goes, a marvellous and impressive work of man. But it is far more of a weakness to fail in feeling that a hundred statues walking about the street, alive with the miracle of a mysterious vitality, are a marvellous and impressive work of God. In so far as that ultimate argument affects the matter, the sightseer might almost as well travel to see the sightseers as to see the sights. There are, of course, vulgar and repulsive sightseers. There are, for that matter, vulgar and repulsive statues. But this cannot be a complete excuse for my own lamentable coldness; for I have felt it creeping over me in the presence of the most earnest and refined sightseers, engaged in inspecting the most classical and correct statues. Indeed (if I must make the disgraceful confession in the interests of intellectual discovery), I will own that I have felt this mysterious wave of weariness pass over me rather more often when the elegant and distinguished Archdeacon was explaining the tombs to the Guild of Golden Thoughts than when an ordinary shouting showman was showing them to a jolly rabble of trippers with beer bottles and concertinas. I am very much troubled with this unnatural insensibility of mind; and I have made many attempts, none of them quite successful, to trace my mental malady to its origin. But I am not sure that some hint of the truth may not be found in the first popular example that I gave— the example of a statue standing in a street.

Now, men have stuck up statues in streets as part of the general and ancient instinct of popular monumental art, which they exhibited in erecting pillars, building pyramids, making monoliths and obelisks, and such things, from the beginning of the world. And the conception may be broadly stated thus—that this sort of sight was meant for two different kinds of sightseers. First, the monument was meant to be seen accidentally; it was actually set up purposely in order to be seen accidentally. In other words, a striking tower on a hill, an arresting statue on a pedestal, a remarkable relief over an archway, or any other piece of public art, was intended for the traveller, and even especially for the chance traveller. It was meant for the passer-by, perhaps in the hope that he would not merely pass by; perhaps in the hope that he would pause, and possibly even meditate. But he would be meditating not only on something that he had never seen before, but on something that he had never expected to see. The statue would almost spring out upon him like a stage brigand. The archway would arrest him and almost bar his path like a barricade. He would suddenly see the high tower like a sort of signal; like a rocket suddenly sent up to convey a message, and almost a warning. This is the way in which many popular monuments have been seen; and this, some may agree with me in thinking, is pretty much the best way to see them. No man will ever forget the sights he really saw when he was not a sightseer. Every man remembers the thing that struck him like the thunderbolt of an instant, though it had stood there waiting for him as the memorial of an aeon. But, whether or no this be the best way of treating popular memorials, it is not the only way, and certainly has not been the only popular way. Historic relics, as a whole, have been treated differently in history as a whole. But, in history as a whole, the other way of seeing such sights was not what we commonly call sightseeing.

We might put the point this way: that the two ways of visiting the statue or the shrine were the way of the Traveller and the way of the Pilgrim. But the way of the Pilgrim almost always involved the way of the Pilgrimage. It was a ritual or ceremonial way: the way of a procession which had indeed come to see that shrine, but had not come to see anything else. The pilgrim does not feel, as the tourist does often quite naturally feel, that he has had his tour interrupted by something that does not happen to interest him. The pilgrimage must interest him, or he would never have been a pilgrim. He knows exactly what he wants to do; and, what is perhaps even more valuable, he knows for certain when he has done it. He cannot be dragged on from one thing to another; from one thing that interests him mildly to another thing that bores him stiff. He has undertaken a certain expedition with a certain logical end: an end both in the sense of a purpose and in the sense of a termination. For a certain mystical reason of his own he wanted to visit a certain monument or shrine; and, now lie has visited it, he is free to visit the nearest public-house or any other place he pleases.

XXXI. Sul turismo dei monumenti

HO SPESSO fatto del mio meglio per considerare, sotto vari aspetti, che cosa non vada davvero nel visitare i monumenti. O piuttosto, spero, ho fatto del mio meglio per considerare che cosa non vada in me, quando mi ritrovo lievemente affaticato dal visitare i monumenti. Poiché è sempre più saggio considerare non tanto perché una cosa non sia godibile, quanto perché noi stessi non la godiamo. Nel caso del visitare i monumenti, sono giunto soltanto al punto di essere del tutto certo che la colpa non è nei Monumenti e non è in coloro che li visitano. Ciò parrebbe ricacciare il filosofo speculativo verso la spaventosa e sconvolgente conclusione che la colpa è interamente in me. Ma, prima di accettare una deduzione tanto distruttiva, ritengo che vi siano ancora alcune modifiche da apportare e alcune distinzioni da tracciare.

Il mero fatto che una folla stia andando a vedere un monumento non dovrebbe di per sé deprimere alcuna mente immaginativa e comprensiva. Al contrario, una mente simile dovrebbe percepire che vi è qualcosa del medesimo mistero o della medesima maestà nella folla come nel monumento. È una debolezza il non riuscire a sentire che una statua eretta su un piedistallo al di sopra di una strada, la statua di un eroe, scolpita da un artista, per l’onore e la gloria di una città, è, per quel che vale, un’opera dell’uomo meravigliosa e imponente. Ma è debolezza assai maggiore il non riuscire a sentire che un centinaio di statue che camminano per la strada, vive del miracolo di una misteriosa vitalità, sono un’opera di Dio meravigliosa e imponente. Nella misura in cui quell’argomento ultimo influisce sulla faccenda, tanto varrebbe che chi visita i monumenti viaggiasse per vedere gli altri visitatori quanto per vedere i monumenti. Vi sono, s’intende, visitatori volgari e ripugnanti. Vi sono, se è per questo, statue volgari e ripugnanti. Ma ciò non può costituire una scusa completa per la mia stessa deplorevole freddezza; poiché l’ho sentita insinuarsi in me alla presenza dei visitatori più fervidi e raffinati, intenti a ispezionare le statue più classiche e corrette. Anzi (se devo fare la vergognosa confessione nell’interesse della scoperta intellettuale), ammetterò di aver sentito questa misteriosa ondata di stanchezza passarmi addosso piuttosto più spesso quando l’elegante e distinto Arcidiacono spiegava le tombe alla Gilda dei Pensieri d’Oro che non quando un comune imbonitore vociante le mostrava a un’allegra marmaglia di gitanti con bottiglie di birra e concertine. Sono assai turbato da questa innaturale insensibilità della mente; e ho fatto molti tentativi, nessuno dei quali del tutto riuscito, di rintracciare la mia malattia mentale alla sua origine. Ma non sono sicuro che un qualche indizio della verità non possa trovarsi nel primo esempio popolare che ho addotto: l’esempio di una statua eretta in una strada.

Ora, gli uomini hanno piantato statue nelle strade come parte dell’istinto generale e antico dell’arte monumentale popolare, che essi manifestarono erigendo colonne, costruendo piramidi, foggiando monoliti e obelischi, e cose simili, fin dal principio del mondo. E la concezione può essere ampiamente enunciata così: che questo genere di spettacolo era destinato a due diverse specie di spettatori. Anzitutto, il monumento era destinato a essere visto accidentalmente; veniva effettivamente eretto di proposito allo scopo di essere visto accidentalmente. In altre parole, una torre imponente su un colle, una statua che cattura lo sguardo su un piedistallo, un rilievo notevole sopra un arco, o qualsiasi altro pezzo d’arte pubblica, era inteso per il viaggiatore, e persino specialmente per il viaggiatore di passaggio. Era destinato al passante, forse nella speranza che egli non si limitasse a passare oltre; forse nella speranza che egli si soffermasse, e magari persino meditasse. Ma egli mediterebbe non soltanto su qualcosa che non aveva mai visto prima, bensì su qualcosa che non si era mai aspettato di vedere. La statua quasi gli balzerebbe addosso come un brigante da palcoscenico. L’arco lo arresterebbe e quasi gli sbarrerebbe il cammino come una barricata. Egli scorgerebbe d’un tratto l’alta torre come una sorta di segnale; come un razzo lanciato all’improvviso per recare un messaggio, e quasi un avvertimento. È in questo modo che sono stati veduti molti monumenti popolari; e questo, alcuni potranno convenire con me nel pensare, è pressappoco il modo migliore di vederli. Nessun uomo dimenticherà mai le cose che vide davvero quando non era un turista di monumenti. Ogni uomo ricorda la cosa che lo colpì come il fulmine di un istante, benché essa fosse rimasta lì ad attenderlo come il memoriale di un’era. Ma, che questo sia o no il modo migliore di trattare i monumenti popolari, non è l’unico modo, e di certo non è stato l’unico modo popolare. I cimeli storici, nel loro complesso, sono stati trattati diversamente nella storia nel suo complesso. Ma, nella storia nel suo complesso, l’altro modo di vedere tali spettacoli non era ciò che comunemente chiamiamo turismo dei monumenti.

Potremmo porre la questione così: che i due modi di visitare la statua o il santuario erano il modo del Viaggiatore e il modo del Pellegrino. Ma il modo del Pellegrino comportava quasi sempre il modo del Pellegrinaggio. Era un modo rituale o cerimoniale: il modo di una processione che era davvero venuta a vedere quel santuario, ma non era venuta a vedere nient’altro. Il pellegrino non sente, come sente spesso in modo del tutto naturale il turista, che il suo giro è stato interrotto da qualcosa che non gli interessa. Il pellegrinaggio deve interessarlo, altrimenti non sarebbe mai stato un pellegrino. Egli sa esattamente ciò che vuole fare; e, il che è forse ancor più prezioso, sa con certezza quando l’ha fatto. Non lo si può trascinare da una cosa all’altra; da una cosa che lo interessa blandamente a un’altra cosa che lo annoia a morte. Egli ha intrapreso una certa spedizione con un certo fine logico: un fine tanto nel senso di uno scopo quanto nel senso di una conclusione. Per una certa mistica ragione tutta sua egli voleva visitare un certo monumento o santuario; e, ora che l’ha visitato, è libero di visitare la più vicina osteria o qualsiasi altro luogo gli piaccia.

But all this is altered, because we have passed from the age of monuments to the age of museums. We have been afflicted with the modern idea of collecting all sorts of totally different things, with totally different types of interest, including a good many of no apparent interest at all, and stuffing them all into one building, that the stranger may stray among a hundred distracting monuments or the pilgrim be lost among a hundred hostile shrines. When the traveller saw the statue of the hero, he did not see written on the pedestal: ‘This way to the Collection of Tropical Fungi’, in which he possibly felt no interest at all. When the pilgrim found his way to the shrine, he did not find that the priest was eagerly waving him on to a glass case filled with the specimens of the local earthworms. Fungi and earthworms may be, and indeed are, exceedingly interesting things in themselves; but they are not things which men seek in the same mood which sends them to look at the statues of heroes or the shrines of saints. With the establishment of that entirely modern thing, the Museum, we have a new conception, which, like so many modern conceptions, is based on a blunder in psychology and a blindness to the true interests of culture. The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self-education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal. It is meant for the mere Sightseer, the man who must see all the sights.

Of course, I am only speaking of this kind of sight as it affects this kind of sightseer. I do not deny that museums and galleries and other collections serve a more serious purpose for specialists who can select special things. But the modern popular practice of which I complain is bad, not because it is popular, but because it is modern. It was not made by any of the ancestral instincts of mankind; either the instinct that erected the crucifix by the wayside, to arrest the wayfarer, or the instinct that erected the crucifix in the cathedral to be the goal of the worshipper. It is not a product of popular imagination, but of what is called popular education; the cold and compulsory culture which is not, and never will be, popular.

XXXII. On Condiments and Conduct

I HAVE always wondered why there is no New Religion forbidding the use of salt and pepper; not to mention the more monstrous case of mustard. I cannot understand how it is that no Moral Movement, no deeper stirring of social consciousness, no wave of higher citizenship and devotion to the ideal of Service, has appeared to start some people interfering with other people in the use of condiments— of all those pungent luxuries with which an effete and self-indulgent civilization has hitherto complicated its meals; taking salt with eggs, mustard with beef, pepper with mutton, and all sorts of strange, unnatural sauces with everything else. Surely there ought to be a Crusade against these things, since a Crusade is now commonly held to mean an attack upon some habit of Christian civilization. Very little would be needed to set the Puritans, who are above all Manicheans, denouncing these things exactly as they now denounce beer or tobacco, and are, indeed, already beginning to denounce coffee and tea. In contradiction of the advertisement recently so common, we should see the town plastered with the words ‘Join the No-Mustard Club’. By a slight emendation of Scripture (which is nothing to the devout Puritan) we should be told that the salt which has not lost its savour is fit only to be cast forth and trampled under foot of men.

Such a Puritan version of salt in the Gospel would be far less impudent than the Puritan version of wine in the Gospel. In a hundred ways we should be assured of the corrupting and degrading character of these condiments; and terrible stories would be told of ruined families weltering in anchovy sauce as if in gore, or darker stories of that darker drug, the sauce that bears the name of Worcester. I could myself, on the spur of the moment, easily make up all sorts of arguments and illustrations as convincing against condiments as others are against convivial liquors. I could point out that the old proverb about taking strange stories ‘with a grain of salt’ was itself an evidence of the connexion between strange substances and strange delusions, and bring out the result that salt is really a sort of opium. I could point out that the very fact of mustard being hot in the mouth is analogous to the old phrase about ginger being hot in the mouth, which has come to be a sort of euphemism for vice or violent self-indulgence. I could point out that pepper is actually used by criminals as something to fling in the faces of their pursuers, to blind and choke them. So that the pepper-pot takes its place in the police museum as being both a weapon of crime and an instrument of torture.

It seems as sensible to argue that some criminals make a bad use of pepper as to argue that some drunkards make a bad use of port wine. For those who sneer at tobacco may be expected, in the same sense, to sniff at snuff, and presumably to snivel over pepper, for a great part of their moral eloquence consists of sniffing and snivelling. Nothing is needed, for most of their moral movements, but a sort of gesture of priggish repugnance and small-minded superiority; and it would be just as easy for a moralist to make that sort of face over a jar of pickles as over a pot of porter. A curious mixture of the snobbish sneering of the middle classes against the working classes, with the more morbid snarling of the invalid against the healthy man, has made a large number of things that are simply common appear merely coarse. So perhaps we may look forward to fresh purifications of society, purging it of all the poisons of pepper and salt and sauce, and reducing it to plain living by this remarkable course of high thinking. Vinegar would be forbidden by the teetotallers, because of its wicked past when it was wine. Mustard would arouse a similar Moslem or Judaic fury, because it is generally eaten with ham. The equality of the sexes, in eternal ethics, would be asserted by saying that there shall be no sauce, either for the goose or for the gander.

Ma tutto questo è mutato, perché siamo passati dall’età dei monumenti all’età dei musei. Siamo stati afflitti dalla moderna idea di raccogliere ogni sorta di cose totalmente diverse, con tipi d’interesse totalmente diversi, comprese parecchie prive di qualsiasi apparente interesse, e di stiparle tutte in un solo edificio, sicché il forestiero possa smarrirsi fra un centinaio di monumenti che lo distraggono, o il pellegrino perdersi fra un centinaio di santuari ostili. Quando il viaggiatore vedeva la statua dell’eroe, non vedeva scritto sul piedistallo: «Di qui per la Collezione di Funghi Tropicali», per la quale forse non provava alcun interesse. Quando il pellegrino trovava la via del santuario, non trovava il sacerdote che con foga lo sospingeva verso una teca di vetro colma di esemplari dei lombrichi locali. I funghi e i lombrichi possono essere, e invero sono, cose oltremodo interessanti in sé; ma non sono cose che gli uomini cercano nel medesimo stato d’animo che li spinge a guardare le statue degli eroi o i santuari dei santi. Con l’istituzione di quella cosa interamente moderna, il Museo, abbiamo una nuova concezione che, come tante concezioni moderne, si fonda su un abbaglio psicologico e su una cecità ai veri interessi della cultura. Il Museo non è destinato né al viandante che lo veda per caso né al pellegrino che lo veda con reverenza. È destinato al mero schiavo di una routine di autoistruzione, perché si rimpinzi di ogni sorta d’incongruo cibo intellettuale in un unico pasto indigesto. È destinato al mero Turista di monumenti, l’uomo che deve vedere tutte le cose da vedere.

Naturalmente, sto parlando di questo genere di spettacolo soltanto per come esso influisce su questo genere di turista. Non nego che i musei e le gallerie e le altre collezioni servano a un fine più serio per gli specialisti che sanno selezionare cose speciali. Ma la moderna pratica popolare di cui mi lagno è cattiva, non perché è popolare, ma perché è moderna. Non fu creata da alcuno degli istinti ancestrali dell’umanità; né dall’istinto che eresse il crocifisso lungo la strada, per arrestare il viandante, né dall’istinto che eresse il crocifisso nella cattedrale, perché fosse la meta dell’adoratore. Non è un prodotto dell’immaginazione popolare, bensì di ciò che si chiama educazione popolare; la cultura fredda e obbligatoria che non è, e non sarà mai, popolare.

XXXII. Sui condimenti e sulla condotta

MI SONO SEMPRE domandato perché non vi sia una Nuova Religione che vieti l’uso del sale e del pepe; per non parlare del caso più mostruoso della senape. Non riesco a capire come mai nessun Movimento Morale, nessun più profondo fremito della coscienza sociale, nessun’ondata di più alta cittadinanza e di devozione all’ideale del Servizio, sia comparsa a spingere alcuni a interferire con altri nell’uso dei condimenti — di tutti quei pungenti lussi con cui una civiltà rammollita e indulgente ha finora complicato i propri pasti; prendendo il sale con le uova, la senape con il manzo, il pepe con il montone, e ogni sorta di strane, innaturali salse con tutto il resto. Di certo dovrebbe esservi una Crociata contro queste cose, giacché per Crociata s’intende ormai comunemente un attacco a qualche abitudine della civiltà cristiana. Ben poco occorrerebbe per indurre i Puritani, che sono soprattutto Manichei, a denunciare queste cose esattamente come ora denunciano la birra o il tabacco, e come, invero, già cominciano a denunciare il caffè e il tè. In contraddizione con la pubblicità di recente tanto comune, vedremmo la città tappezzata delle parole «Iscriviti al Club del Niente-Senape». Con una lieve emendazione della Scrittura (che è cosa da nulla per il devoto Puritano) ci verrebbe detto che il sale che non ha perduto il suo sapore è buono soltanto per essere gettato via e calpestato dagli uomini.

Una simile versione puritana del sale nel Vangelo sarebbe assai meno sfrontata della versione puritana del vino nel Vangelo. In cento modi ci verrebbe assicurato il carattere corruttore e degradante di questi condimenti; e si racconterebbero terribili storie di famiglie rovinate che si dibattono nella salsa d’acciughe come nel sangue, o storie più cupe di quella droga più cupa, la salsa che porta il nome di Worcester. Io stesso potrei, lì per lì, foggiare facilmente ogni sorta di argomenti e di esempi convincenti contro i condimenti quanto altri lo sono contro i liquori conviviali. Potrei far notare che il vecchio proverbio dell’accogliere le storie strane «con un granello di sale» era esso stesso una prova del nesso fra le sostanze strane e le strane illusioni, e trarne la conclusione che il sale è in realtà una sorta di oppio. Potrei far notare che il fatto stesso che la senape sia piccante in bocca è analogo alla vecchia frase sullo zenzero piccante in bocca, divenuta una sorta di eufemismo per il vizio o per la violenta dissolutezza. Potrei far notare che il pepe è realmente usato dai criminali come qualcosa da gettare in faccia agli inseguitori, per accecarli e soffocarli. Sicché la pepiera prende posto nel museo della polizia in quanto arma del delitto e insieme strumento di tortura.

Sembra tanto sensato sostenere che alcuni criminali fanno cattivo uso del pepe quanto sostenere che alcuni ubriaconi fanno cattivo uso del vino di Porto. Poiché da coloro che sogghignano sul tabacco ci si può attendere, nel medesimo senso, che arriccino il naso sul tabacco da fiuto, e presumibilmente che frignino sul pepe, giacché gran parte della loro eloquenza morale consiste nell’arricciare il naso e nel frignare. Nulla occorre, per la maggior parte dei loro movimenti morali, se non una sorta di gesto di ripugnanza da moralista impettito e di superiorità meschina; e per un moralista sarebbe altrettanto facile fare quella smorfia davanti a un barattolo di sottaceti quanto davanti a un boccale di birra scura. Una curiosa mescolanza dello snobistico sogghigno delle classi medie contro le classi lavoratrici, con il più morboso ringhio dell’infermo contro l’uomo sano, ha fatto apparire meramente grossolane un gran numero di cose che sono semplicemente comuni. Sicché forse potremo attenderci nuove purificazioni della società, che la purghino di tutti i veleni del pepe e del sale e della salsa, e la riducano al vivere sobrio mediante questo notevole corso di alto pensiero. L’aceto sarebbe vietato dagli astemi, a causa del suo malvagio passato, quando era vino. La senape susciterebbe una simile furia mussulmana o giudaica, perché generalmente la si mangia con il prosciutto. L’uguaglianza dei sessi, nell’etica eterna, verrebbe affermata dicendo che non vi sarà salsa né per l’oca né per il papero.

By the way, though the point is a parenthesis, what a remarkable anticipation that proverb is of modern muddle-headedness about the sexes! It is, in fact, often used, in the sex controversy, as a metaphor meaning that one sex or sort must in all things be treated like the other. But nothing could be more unlucky than the metaphor, whatever we may think of the moral. If there is one thing to which this argument of sameness or assimilation does not apply, it is to the question of sex in connexion with the solemn question of supper. Suppose the sauce is egg-sauce; am I to wait patiently for eggs from the cock, as an alternative to eggs from the hen? I will not eat cow-beef if I can help it, merely on the ground that what is mustard for the bull is mustard for the cow. Nor will I look for milk from the bull, however much I may recognize the general necessity of milk rather than mustard. It is some thing rather typical of the way these things are treated that people should express their view in proverbs rather than principles. The scientific course is obviously to begin by clearing up the question of what is the real difference between a goose and a gander, and then pointing out that it does not affect the question of sauce, though it may very much affect the question of something else. But this laborious method is very unpopular with a generation which thinks that self-assertion is a complete substitute for self-criticism, or, indeed, for any other sort of criticism. In that world we are well acquainted with the sort of goose who possesses very little except sauce.

But this, as I have said, is merely a remark in brackets, in the course of other remarks about other heresies. We are chiefly concerned with the heresy of the Manichees, which has already expressed itself in the denunciation of wine and even tobacco, and might just as well express itself, I would suggest, in the denunciation of mustard or even salt. For the essence of that idea is that every pleasure as such is suspect; or that, unless a thing can be specially shown to be morally good, it is most probable that it is morally bad. There is no real defence of a luxury except to prove that it is a necessity. Now, it would be much easier to argue, in certain cases, that wine is a necessity than that vinegar is a necessity. There are certain practical good effects sometimes produced by the tobacco plant which are very seldom produced by the pepper plant. The enemies of these drinks or drugs, as they would call them, may think that the evil of them enormously outweighs the good; so enormously as to justify their extinction as pure evils. But they could not deny that the drug is a drug; in the double sense in which a drug is normally regarded as good and evil. They could not deny that such a thing is a drug, both in the sense of something consumed by a drug-fiend and of something sold by a druggist. They may think it unwise to use it for an immediate remedy, but it is used for an immediate remedy. Smoking has been known to serve for some time as a substitute for eating, and a cigarette does sometimes soothe the nerves of a neurotic. Brandy and champagne are constantly administered in illness, except among rank and raving lunatics. But I have seldom heard of an invalid leaping to life after a draught of anchovy sauce; or of anybody eating pepper for days on end; or of people in hysterics being quieted with pickles. If it ever comes to the old Manichean controversy about useless luxuries, I think it will be harder to defend the condiments than to defend the stimulants, or even the intoxicants. I am presuming that such Puritans will carry out the moral philosophy that is really at the back of their minds; it does not affect me, for I have quite a different moral philosophy at the back of my mind. It would occupy too much space to expound it here, and I have often enough expounded it elsewhere. But it might be indicated by saying that there is a truth behind the joke of the man who said: ‘Give us the luxuries of life and we will dispense with the necessities’; and the truth can be more soberly stated by saying that, in one sense, human beings are not even completely human, until they are civilized.

XXXIII. On Optimism and Scepticism

I SUPPOSE people will go on till the crack of doom saying (as somebody said the other day) that Browning expressed the opinion that God is in His heaven and therefore all is right with the world. I could mention a number of other opinions that Browning expressed, in exactly the same method and degree. I could point out that Browning said, in his gay and careless fashion: ‘Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?’ doubtless referring to Mrs. Browning. I could note that Browning observed, when brooding on his own immediate course of action: ‘Or there’s Satan … one might venture pledge one’s soul to him.’ It will occur to every reader of the poet that he observed on a celebrated occasion: ‘Lo! lieth flat and loveth Setebos’, presumably prostrating himself upon the carpet in Wimpole Street. It will also be recalled that Browning, after confessing to various frauds and lies, virulently cursed the patron to whom he had confessed them, saying: ‘I only wish I dared burn down the house and spoil your sniggering.’ If these incidents in the life of the poet cause any surprise, it may be well to explain that they are, in fact, incidents in the lives of his characters; and so is the much-quoted phrase about all being ‘right with the world’. It is not a remark made by Browning, but a remark made by Pippa in the dramatic work by Browning. Even those who know that the remark occurs in a lyric do not always know that the lyric occurs in a drama. It has therefore a double right to be considered dramatic. It is a remark made by a particular dramatic character on a particular dramatic occasion, and, above all, for a particular dramatic reason. And the reason is not a desire to show that all is right with the world, but to bring out in sharp contrast the fact that there is a great deal very wrong with it.

A proposito, benché la cosa sia una parentesi, che notevole anticipazione è quel proverbio della moderna confusione di idee intorno ai sessi! Esso è, di fatto, spesso usato, nella controversia sui sessi, come una metafora che significa che un sesso o una specie deve in ogni cosa essere trattato come l’altro. Ma nulla potrebbe essere più infelice di quella metafora, qualunque cosa possiamo pensare della morale. Se c’è una cosa a cui questo argomento dell’identità o dell’assimilazione non si applica, è alla questione del sesso in connessione con la solenne questione della cena. Poniamo che la salsa sia salsa d’uovo; devo forse attendere pazientemente le uova dal gallo, come alternativa alle uova della gallina? Non mangerò carne di vacca, se posso evitarlo, per il solo motivo che ciò che è senape per il toro è senape per la vacca. Né cercherò il latte dal toro, per quanto io possa riconoscere la generale necessità del latte piuttosto che della senape. È cosa piuttosto tipica del modo in cui queste cose vengono trattate che la gente esprima la propria veduta in proverbi anziché in principi. La via scientifica è ovviamente quella di cominciare col chiarire la questione di quale sia la reale differenza fra un’oca e un papero, e poi di far notare che essa non tocca la questione della salsa, per quanto possa toccare moltissimo la questione di qualcos’altro. Ma questo laborioso metodo è assai impopolare presso una generazione che ritiene l’autoaffermazione un completo surrogato dell’autocritica, o, invero, di qualsiasi altra sorta di critica. In quel mondo conosciamo bene la sorta di oca che non possiede quasi nulla tranne la salsa.

Ma questa, come ho detto, è una mera osservazione fra parentesi, nel corso di altre osservazioni intorno ad altre eresie. Ci occupiamo principalmente dell’eresia dei Manichei, che si è già espressa nella denuncia del vino e persino del tabacco, e potrebbe altrettanto bene esprimersi, io suggerirei, nella denuncia della senape o persino del sale. Poiché l’essenza di quell’idea è che ogni piacere in quanto tale è sospetto; ovvero che, a meno che una cosa non si possa specialmente dimostrare moralmente buona, è assai probabile che sia moralmente cattiva. Non vi è reale difesa di un lusso se non provare che è una necessità. Ora, sarebbe assai più facile sostenere, in certi casi, che il vino è una necessità piuttosto che sostenere che l’aceto è una necessità. Vi sono certi buoni effetti pratici talora prodotti dalla pianta del tabacco che assai di rado sono prodotti dalla pianta del pepe. I nemici di queste bevande o droghe, come le chiamerebbero, possono ritenere che il loro male superi enormemente il bene; tanto enormemente da giustificarne l’estinzione in quanto puri mali. Ma non potrebbero negare che la droga sia una droga; nel doppio senso in cui una droga viene normalmente considerata buona e cattiva. Non potrebbero negare che una cosa simile sia una droga, tanto nel senso di qualcosa consumato da un drogato quanto nel senso di qualcosa venduto da un droghiere. Possono ritenere imprudente usarla come rimedio immediato, ma la si usa come rimedio immediato. È noto che il fumo è servito per qualche tempo da surrogato del cibo, e una sigaretta talora calma davvero i nervi di un nevrotico. Il brandy e lo champagne vengono costantemente somministrati nella malattia, salvo che fra i pazzi furiosi e sbraitanti. Ma di rado ho sentito di un infermo balzato in vita dopo un sorso di salsa d’acciughe; o di qualcuno che mangiasse pepe per giorni interi; o di persone in preda all’isteria acquietate coi sottaceti. Se mai si arriverà alla vecchia controversia manichea intorno ai lussi inutili, penso che sarà più arduo difendere i condimenti che difendere gli stimolanti, o persino gli inebrianti. Presumo che simili Puritani porteranno alle estreme conseguenze la filosofia morale che sta davvero in fondo alla loro mente; ciò non mi tange, poiché ho una filosofia morale del tutto diversa in fondo alla mia. Occuperebbe troppo spazio esporla qui, e l’ho esposta abbastanza spesso altrove. Ma la si potrebbe indicare dicendo che vi è una verità dietro lo scherzo dell’uomo che disse: «Dateci i lussi della vita e faremo a meno delle necessità»; e la verità può essere enunciata più sobriamente dicendo che, in un certo senso, gli esseri umani non sono nemmeno completamente umani, finché non sono civilizzati.

XXXIII. Sull’ottimismo e lo scetticismo

SUPPONGO che la gente andrà avanti fino al giorno del giudizio a dire (come qualcuno ha detto l’altro giorno) che Browning espresse l’opinione che Dio è nel suo cielo e che perciò tutto va bene nel mondo. Potrei menzionare un buon numero di altre opinioni che Browning espresse, esattamente con lo stesso metodo e nella stessa misura. Potrei far notare che Browning disse, alla sua maniera gaia e sbadata: «Qual è il veleno per avvelenarla, di grazia?», riferendosi senza dubbio alla signora Browning. Potrei rilevare che Browning osservò, meditando sul proprio immediato corso d’azione: «Oppure c’è Satana… si potrebbe azzardare a impegnargli la propria anima». Verrà in mente a ogni lettore del poeta che egli osservò, in una celebre occasione: «Ecco! giace prono e ama Setebos», prostrandosi presumibilmente sul tappeto di Wimpole Street. Si ricorderà altresì che Browning, dopo aver confessato varie frodi e menzogne, maledisse virulentemente il protettore al quale le aveva confessate, dicendo: «Vorrei soltanto osare dar fuoco alla casa e guastare i vostri risolini». Se questi episodi della vita del poeta destano una qualche sorpresa, sarà forse bene spiegare che essi sono, in realtà, episodi delle vite dei suoi personaggi; e così pure lo è la tanto citata frase sul fatto che tutto «va bene nel mondo». Non è un’osservazione fatta da Browning, ma un’osservazione fatta da Pippa nell’opera drammatica di Browning. Persino coloro che sanno che l’osservazione compare in una lirica non sempre sanno che la lirica compare in un dramma. Essa ha perciò un doppio diritto di essere considerata drammatica. È un’osservazione fatta da un particolare personaggio drammatico in una particolare occasione drammatica, e, soprattutto, per una particolare ragione drammatica. E la ragione non è un desiderio di mostrare che tutto va bene nel mondo, bensì di mettere in netto contrasto il fatto che vi è moltissimo di assai storto in esso.

So far as that is concerned, the facts (as everybody knows, or ought to know) are these. The idea of the play called ‘Pippa Passes’ is that a very poor girl, on her one solitary holiday, goes singing through the world in a state of perfect innocence and therefore of perfect gaiety. In doing so she crosses various human groups who are the very reverse of innocent or gay, each of whom is at some crisis of crime or sin or sorrow. In each case, as she passes, she sings a song, of which the innocence tingles through them in the form of irony. She passes by a house where a wife has just seduced her lover into murdering her husband, and, by way of the last violence of contrast, sings a little song about the morning being so beautiful that all seems to be right with the world. One would have thought it would have occurred to most readers that Browning was not very likely to think that assassination and adultery were actually examples of the rightness of the world. The point was not, of course, that all was right with the world, but that all was right with Pippa, because she had kept herself unspotted from the world.

It is perhaps worth while to mention this queer old blunder about Browning, and what is called his optimism, because we have since seen a great deal of optimism that is very much less reasonable than his. Browning did, indeed, believe that God is in His heaven, though the mere fact of the song of Pippa would not prove that he did. He did believe in God; and, curiously enough, he is not entirely alone in that, and in some quarters the curious superstition is even spreading anew. But he did not believe that all was right with the world, in the sense that there is no wickedness, madness, or misery in it; his works possibly contain a larger and more varied assortment of blackguards, miscreants, maniacs, and miserably deluded people than those of any writer of his time. If you had gone to Robert Browning with the definite and deliberate doctrine, ‘There is no pain or evil’, he would certainly have classed you among the maniacs. He would very probably have written a long, ingenious, and partly incomprehensible poem about you in blank verse, but your portrait would be even less pleasing than that of Sludge the Medium or Caliban. Yet the same people who go on quoting poor Pippa’s little song as a proof that Browning was absurdly optimistic, have lived to see the preaching of an optimism that he would have thought utterly absurd.

Elsewhere I recently remarked that the new optimism, though it expresses itself in commerce and journalism, and especially in advertisement, probably has, like everything else, its roots in religion. Its essence, or at least its extreme expression, is to be found in what is called Christian Science. Anyhow, it does what Browning and the old optimists never dreamed of doing—it denies the actual reality of evil in experience. At any rate, it maintains that by ignoring evil we can expel it from experience. It is this which is the last phase of philosophy popular in America, and to some extent in England. And it has gone very much further than the human holiday cheerfulness of the poor Italian work-girl in Browning’s poem. For one thing, the American optimist especially insists that the work-girl shall sing optimistically about her work, as well as about her holiday. She must sing a new song of optimism even as she labours; to the effect that the Boss is in his office and all is right with the world.

Curiously enough, all this new sort of optimism can be traced back to a sort of scepticism which is very much nearer to pessimism. It may almost, in a sense, be traced back to a great pessimist. Nobody ever accused Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, as depicted by Shakespeare, of being an American optimist. Nobody ever reproached Hamlet with being a hustler, a go-getter, a business man with plenty of pep and sand, an active and animated member of Rotary. But these busy business men are all acting on a philosophical principle drawn from Hamlet, and thoroughly typical of Hamlet: ‘There’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ That is the original germ of Christian Science, but also the original germ of Business Optimism. I believe that those mystics, the members of the American business clubs, go about with large labels or buttons on their coats inscribed with the words ‘Trade is Good’. The savage who thinks he can hurt a man by writing his name in the dust could hardly be more superstitious. But, anyhow, for good or evil, whether it be superstition or science, it marks a belief in the power of words over things, or, if you will, of ideas over realities, which goes far beyond the dreams of the older optimists. Some of this sect of optimists, I believe, recently held a sort of religious ceremony in which they cursed an old woman dressed up as Mrs. Pessimism, and bowed down before a queen called Mrs. Optimism. That does not seem very far from lying flat and loving Setebos.

I protested a short time ago against the abominable slander of suggesting that most Americans are like these people. Most Americans laugh at them, even more derisively and destructively than we do. America may be a country of strange sects, but it is also a country of almost continuous satire on strange sects. Nobody needs to add anything to the satire of Mark Twain and some more recent writers on people like Mrs. Eddy. But it is worthy of remark that America has given birth, among many other strange sects, to this strange sect of the commercial optimist, who may perhaps be best defined as the Unrealist. The creed is perhaps the corruption of many good things, of the ancient American hope and pioneering courage gone wild. But, as there seems a tendency, even in England, to boost this mere religion of boosting, an Englishman may be allowed to protest that it is preposterously unsuited to England and is not really respected even in America. Christian Science may or may not start with the assumption that God is in His heaven and all is right with the world; it is a subject for a respectful debate with Christian Scientists. But Christianity emphatically began with the assumptions that God has come on earth because all is wrong with the world; and from those two things the whole Christian theory proceeds.

Per quanto concerne questo, i fatti (come tutti sanno, o dovrebbero sapere) sono questi. L’idea del dramma intitolato «Pippa Passes» è che una fanciulla assai povera, nel suo unico e solitario giorno di festa, se ne va cantando per il mondo in uno stato di perfetta innocenza e perciò di perfetta allegria. Così facendo, ella attraversa vari gruppi umani che sono l’esatto opposto dell’innocente o dell’allegro, ciascuno dei quali si trova in qualche crisi di delitto o di peccato o di dolore. In ogni caso, mentre passa, ella canta una canzone, la cui innocenza li trafigge in forma d’ironia. Ella passa accanto a una casa dove una moglie ha appena sedotto il proprio amante inducendolo ad assassinare il marito, e, a mo’ dell’estrema violenza del contrasto, canta una breve canzone sul mattino così bello che tutto sembra andare bene nel mondo. Si sarebbe pensato che sarebbe venuto in mente alla maggior parte dei lettori che difficilmente Browning avrebbe ritenuto l’assassinio e l’adulterio esempi effettivi della bontà del mondo. Il punto non era, s’intende, che tutto andava bene nel mondo, ma che tutto andava bene in Pippa, perché ella si era mantenuta immacolata dal mondo.

Forse vale la pena di menzionare questo strano vecchio abbaglio intorno a Browning, e a ciò che si chiama il suo ottimismo, perché da allora abbiamo visto una gran quantità di ottimismo assai meno ragionevole del suo. Browning credeva davvero che Dio sia nel suo cielo, benché il mero fatto della canzone di Pippa non basti a provarlo. Egli credeva in Dio; e, cosa abbastanza curiosa, non è del tutto solo in ciò, e in certi ambienti la curiosa superstizione va persino diffondendosi di nuovo. Ma egli non credeva che tutto andasse bene nel mondo, nel senso che non vi sia in esso malvagità, follia o miseria; le sue opere contengono forse un più ampio e vario assortimento di mascalzoni, miscredenti, maniaci e persone miseramente illuse di quelle di qualsiasi scrittore del suo tempo. Se foste andati da Robert Browning con la dottrina definita e deliberata: «Non esiste dolore né male», egli vi avrebbe di certo annoverato fra i maniaci. Assai probabilmente avrebbe scritto su di voi un lungo, ingegnoso e in parte incomprensibile poema in versi sciolti, ma il vostro ritratto sarebbe stato ancor meno piacevole di quello di Sludge il Medium o di Calibano. Eppure le stesse persone che continuano a citare la breve canzone della povera Pippa come prova che Browning fosse assurdamente ottimista, sono vissute abbastanza da vedere la predicazione di un ottimismo che egli avrebbe reputato del tutto assurdo.

Altrove ho di recente osservato che il nuovo ottimismo, benché si esprima nel commercio e nel giornalismo, e specialmente nella pubblicità, ha probabilmente, come ogni altra cosa, le sue radici nella religione. La sua essenza, o quantomeno la sua espressione estrema, si trova in ciò che si chiama Scienza Cristiana. Comunque sia, esso fa ciò che Browning e i vecchi ottimisti non sognarono mai di fare: nega la realtà effettiva del male nell’esperienza. In ogni caso, sostiene che, ignorando il male, possiamo espellerlo dall’esperienza. È questa l’ultima fase della filosofia popolare in America, e in qualche misura in Inghilterra. Ed essa è andata assai più oltre dell’umana allegria festiva della povera operaia italiana nel poema di Browning. Anzitutto, l’ottimista americano insiste in particolare che l’operaia canti ottimisticamente del proprio lavoro, non meno che del proprio giorno di festa. Ella deve cantare una nuova canzone di ottimismo persino mentre fatica; nel senso che il Padrone è nel suo ufficio e tutto va bene nel mondo.

Cosa abbastanza curiosa, tutta questa nuova sorta di ottimismo si può ricondurre a una sorta di scetticismo che è assai più vicino al pessimismo. La si può quasi, in un certo senso, ricondurre a un grande pessimista. Nessuno accusò mai Amleto, principe di Danimarca, quale rappresentato da Shakespeare, di essere un ottimista americano. Nessuno rimproverò mai ad Amleto di essere un affarista sbrigativo, un arrampicatore, un uomo d’affari pieno di grinta e di fegato, un attivo e animato membro del Rotary. Ma questi indaffarati uomini d’affari agiscono tutti in base a un principio filosofico tratto da Amleto, e assolutamente tipico di Amleto: «Non v’è nulla di buono o di cattivo, ma è il pensiero a renderlo tale». Questo è il germe originario della Scienza Cristiana, ma anche il germe originario dell’Ottimismo degli Affari. Credo che quei mistici, i membri dei circoli d’affari americani, se ne vadano in giro con grandi etichette o spille sulla giacca recanti le parole «Gli Affari Vanno Bene». Il selvaggio che crede di poter nuocere a un uomo scrivendone il nome nella polvere difficilmente potrebbe essere più superstizioso. Ma, comunque sia, nel bene o nel male, sia essa superstizione o scienza, ciò segnala una fede nel potere delle parole sulle cose, o, se si vuole, delle idee sulle realtà, che va assai oltre i sogni dei vecchi ottimisti. Una parte di questa setta di ottimisti, credo, tenne di recente una sorta di cerimonia religiosa nella quale maledissero una vecchia travestita da signora Pessimismo, e si prostrarono dinanzi a una regina chiamata signora Ottimismo. Ciò non sembra molto lontano dal giacere prono e amare Setebos.

Ho protestato poco tempo fa contro l’abominevole calunnia di insinuare che la maggior parte degli americani sia come queste persone. La maggior parte degli americani ride di loro, in modo persino più beffardo e distruttivo di quanto facciamo noi. L’America potrà essere un paese di strane sette, ma è anche un paese di satira quasi ininterrotta contro le strane sette. Nessuno ha bisogno di aggiungere alcunché alla satira di Mark Twain e di alcuni scrittori più recenti su gente come la signora Eddy. Ma è degno di nota che l’America abbia dato i natali, fra molte altre strane sette, a questa strana setta dell’ottimista commerciale, che si può forse meglio definire l’Irrealista. Il credo è forse la corruzione di molte cose buone, dell’antica speranza americana e del coraggio pioniere impazziti. Ma, poiché sembra esservi una tendenza, persino in Inghilterra, a reclamizzare questa mera religione della réclame, sia consentito a un inglese di protestare che essa è assurdamente inadatta all’Inghilterra e non è realmente rispettata neppure in America. La Scienza Cristiana può partire o no dall’assunto che Dio è nel suo cielo e tutto va bene nel mondo; è argomento per un rispettoso dibattito con gli Scienziati Cristiani. Ma il Cristianesimo cominciò enfaticamente con gli assunti che Dio è venuto sulla terra perché tutto va male nel mondo; e da queste due cose procede l’intera teoria cristiana.

XXXIV. On Thoughts in Canada

I NEED not say what any normal Englishman feels, or ought to feel, when he sails up the St. Lawrence, under the high trophies on the Heights of Abraham, and I have never affected any new abnormality about such feeling. My thoughts, when I was there, went back in one flash to the little town in the hills of Kent where I had been but a few weeks before: the little town where James Wolfe was born and where his statue still stands, sword in hand, in a romantic but not inappropriate swagger. For Wolfe, who was one of the most interesting of English heroes, was himself a flat contradiction to the vulgar and prosaic version of English heroism. It is strange that people should ever have talked of the English as if they must be heavy, stupid, and brutal. It is still more astounding that they should ever have been proud of being heavy, stupid, and brutal. It would be nothing to be proud of; and, in fact, it is not even there for them to be ashamed of. In historical fact, it is a very recent affectation: a mixture of the bad fashion of copying Prussia and the growth of a modern materialism which is solemn about sports because it has no other rites to solemnize.

Englishmen were more sportive about sports in the days of General James Wolfe; and the battle of the Heights of Abraham was won on the village green, with very rotten old bats and stumps. And the men who represented England, in the days when her Empire was really an adventure, were the very opposite of the sort of stuck pigs who are called strong, silent men. Nelson and Wolfe, the two noblest names of England’s action by land and sea, were both of them men of exactly the opposite kind: sensitive, poetical, even cursed with what is called the artistic temperament. Nelson suffered from something which is even worse than the artistic temperament— sea-sickness. Wolfe was of the slight and high-strung sort, and owed nothing of his bravery to brutality. He was himself, I believe, an artist with the pencil, of considerable felicity and talent: he was devoted to books, and, whether he did or did not quote Gray’s Elegy as he sailed up the St. Lawrence to death and glory, it was exactly the sort of thing he would have done. But there is another aspect of the fine culture and dignity in Wolfe and the earlier English heroes which seems to me to teach a sad but salutary lesson. As I sailed past Quebec, I was told by a fellow-traveller a thing I had never heard before, which moved me very much. With all our talk of globe-trotting and sightseeing, it seems to me that some of the finest sights of the globe are neglected or not appreciated. It was only by such a casual stranger that I was once told, what I hope is the truth, that on the mountain range between two South American Republics, which had made peace with each other, there stands a colossal figure of Christ; apparently one of the largest, and surely one of the most impressive, statues in the world. But it stands, if it does stand, alone and enormous upon the mountains.

Somewhat in the same way I had seen many tributes to Wolfe, of a worthy or unworthy sort. I had seen him in patriotic posters, figuring side by side with people whom he would have intensely disliked, such as Cecil Rhodes. But it was only this chance information which informed me that a monument has been set up on that high place to Wolfe and Montcalm together, with a fine Latin inscription saying that fate gave to them the same death and the same honour.

And when I thought of that worthy commemoration, of those two great and gallant soldiers, it occurred to me that they were, in truth, nearer together, even in their lifetime, than most of their kindred are to-day. There were real differences, of course; Montcalm was a noble and Wolfe a man of the middle classes, risen by merit; but their notion of the manners, the code of honour, and the necessary information of a gentleman would have been very much the same. Neither would have thought it odd for a soldier to go about quoting poetry; both would have thought it quite ordinary and obvious to be quoting Horace. I fancy there was a far wider division, at the beginning of the Great War, between French and Foch. The older generals were nearer together as enemies than the modern generals were as allies. By which I do not mean to refer to any of the quarrels about quarrels, the reports of rivalries or irritations in the higher command, which occur in all wars, and can easily occur between fellow-countrymen. I mean that the whole make-up of the mind of a man like Foch was more exclusively French, and more puzzling to a man who was exclusively English, than was a great continental noble to a scholarly Englishman like Wolfe. The Latin of Horace was a link between two eighteenth-century gentlemen, whether French or English. The Latin of the Mass, as heard by a French soldier, is not a link with the Latin of the Latin grammar as vaguely remembered by an English soldier.

We are perpetually being told to-day that nations are drawing nearer to each other; Mr. Wells is supposed to be engaged in an Open Conspiracy in the matter; I can only say that, if it is open, it is not at all obvious. I grieve to say that I gravely doubt it. I fear that the French and English, at this moment, understand each other a great deal less than they did not only when they were allies in the Great War, but even when they were enemies in the older and lesser wars. Indeed, the farther we go back the closer the French and English come together. The Black Prince and Bertrand Duguesclin were even more capable of understanding each other than Montcalm and Wolfe. That would not, of course, have prevented them from killing each other, which was all in the game. But they would have agreed much more about the rules of the game, and especially about the rules of the killing. The truth is, of course, that France and England were very nearly one nation in the Middle Ages; at least, in the early Middle Ages. The English kings especially were always trying to make them one nation; but then it must be remembered that, in a sense, even the English kings were French kings.

XXXIV. Pensieri in Canada

Non ho bisogno di dire ciò che prova, o dovrebbe provare, ogni inglese normale quando risale il San Lorenzo, sotto gli alti trofei delle Alture di Abraham, né ho mai ostentato alcuna nuova stravaganza a proposito di un simile sentimento. I miei pensieri, mentre ero là, tornarono in un lampo alla piccola città fra le colline del Kent dove ero stato appena poche settimane prima: la piccola città dove nacque James Wolfe e dove ancora si erge la sua statua, la spada in pugno, in una posa spavalda, romantica ma non fuori luogo. Poiché Wolfe, che fu uno dei più interessanti eroi inglesi, era egli stesso una netta smentita della volgare e prosaica versione dell’eroismo inglese. È strano che si sia mai potuto parlare degli inglesi come se dovessero essere pesanti, ottusi e brutali. È ancor più sbalorditivo che essi abbiano mai potuto essere fieri di essere pesanti, ottusi e brutali. Non ci sarebbe nulla di cui esser fieri; e, di fatto, non è neppure qualcosa di cui vergognarsi. Storicamente parlando, è un’affettazione recentissima: un misto della cattiva moda di scimmiottare la Prussia e della crescita di un materialismo moderno che si fa solenne sullo sport perché non ha altri riti da solennizzare.

Gli inglesi erano più sportivi nello sport ai tempi del generale James Wolfe; e la battaglia delle Alture di Abraham fu vinta sul prato del villaggio, con mazze e paletti vecchi e fradici. E gli uomini che rappresentarono l’Inghilterra, nei giorni in cui il suo Impero era davvero un’avventura, erano l’esatto opposto di quella sorta di maiali impagliati che si chiamano uomini forti e taciturni. Nelson e Wolfe, i due nomi più nobili dell’azione inglese per terra e per mare, erano entrambi uomini di specie esattamente opposta: sensibili, poetici, perfino afflitti da ciò che si chiama temperamento artistico. Nelson soffriva di qualcosa che è persino peggiore del temperamento artistico: il mal di mare. Wolfe era del tipo esile e sensibile, e non doveva nulla del suo coraggio alla brutalità. Egli stesso, credo, era un artista di matita, di notevole grazia e talento: era devoto ai libri, e, che citasse o meno l’Elegia di Gray mentre risaliva il San Lorenzo verso la morte e la gloria, era esattamente il genere di cosa che avrebbe fatto. Ma vi è un altro aspetto della fine cultura e della dignità in Wolfe e nei più antichi eroi inglesi che mi sembra insegnare una lezione triste ma salutare. Mentre passavo davanti a Quebec, un compagno di viaggio mi raccontò una cosa che non avevo mai udito prima, e che molto mi commosse. Con tutto il nostro parlare di giri del mondo e di turismo, mi pare che alcuni degli spettacoli più belli del globo siano trascurati o non apprezzati. Fu solo da un simile straniero occasionale che mi fu detto una volta, ciò che spero sia vero, che sulla catena montuosa fra due Repubbliche sudamericane, che avevano fatto pace fra loro, sorge una colossale figura di Cristo; a quanto pare una delle più grandi, e certo una delle più impressionanti, statue del mondo. Ma essa sorge, se davvero sorge, sola ed enorme sulle montagne.

In modo alquanto simile avevo veduto molti tributi a Wolfe, d’ogni sorta, degni e indegni. L’avevo visto in manifesti patriottici, raffigurato fianco a fianco con persone che avrebbe intensamente detestato, come Cecil Rhodes. Ma fu solo questa informazione fortuita a rivelarmi che su quel luogo elevato è stato eretto un monumento a Wolfe e Montcalm insieme, con una bella iscrizione latina che dice come la sorte diede loro la stessa morte e lo stesso onore.

E quando pensai a quella degna commemorazione, di quei due grandi e valorosi soldati, mi venne in mente che essi erano, in verità, più vicini fra loro, persino in vita, di quanto lo siano oggi la maggior parte dei loro consanguinei. V’erano differenze reali, s’intende; Montcalm era un nobile e Wolfe un uomo del ceto medio, salito per merito; ma la loro idea delle maniere, del codice d’onore, e del sapere necessario a un gentiluomo sarebbe stata pressoché la stessa. Nessuno dei due avrebbe trovato strano che un soldato andasse in giro citando poesia; entrambi avrebbero trovato del tutto ordinario e ovvio citare Orazio. Immagino vi fosse una separazione assai più vasta, all’inizio della Grande Guerra, fra French e Foch. I generali di un tempo erano più vicini fra loro come nemici di quanto lo fossero i generali moderni come alleati. Con ciò non intendo riferirmi ad alcuno di quei litigi sui litigi, alle voci di rivalità o d’attriti nell’alto comando, che si verificano in tutte le guerre, e possono facilmente verificarsi anche fra concittadini. Intendo dire che l’intera costituzione della mente di un uomo come Foch era più esclusivamente francese, e più enigmatica per un uomo che fosse esclusivamente inglese, di quanto lo fosse un grande nobile continentale per un inglese erudito come Wolfe. Il latino di Orazio era un legame fra due gentiluomini del Settecento, fossero francesi o inglesi. Il latino della Messa, udito da un soldato francese, non è un legame con il latino della grammatica latina vagamente ricordato da un soldato inglese.

Ci viene detto di continuo, oggi, che le nazioni si vanno avvicinando l’una all’altra; si suppone che il signor Wells sia impegnato in una Cospirazione Aperta in materia; posso solo dire che, se è aperta, non è affatto ovvia. Mi duole dire che ne dubito gravemente. Temo che i francesi e gli inglesi, in questo momento, si comprendano assai meno di quanto facessero non solo quando erano alleati nella Grande Guerra, ma persino quando erano nemici nelle guerre più antiche e minori. Anzi, più indietro andiamo, più i francesi e gli inglesi si avvicinano. Il Principe Nero e Bertrand Duguesclin erano persino più capaci di comprendersi a vicenda di quanto lo fossero Montcalm e Wolfe. Ciò non avrebbe impedito loro, s’intende, di uccidersi a vicenda, il che rientrava tutto nel gioco. Ma sarebbero stati assai più d’accordo circa le regole del gioco, e specialmente circa le regole dell’uccidere. La verità è, s’intende, che Francia e Inghilterra erano quasi una sola nazione nel Medioevo; almeno nell’alto Medioevo. I re inglesi, in particolare, cercavano sempre di farne una sola nazione; ma bisogna allora ricordare che, in un certo senso, persino i re inglesi erano re francesi.

Now, I do not wish myself to make England and France one nation; my views on that subject are the same as those energetically advanced by St. Joan of Arc. But I do think it a fitting subject for sober and prayerful consideration, whether with invocations to St. George or St. Denis, to St. Joan the fighter or St. Francis the peacemaker, that these two great Western nations have steadily drifted further and further apart through the centuries, and are now so very far apart as they are. The national division is really dangerous when it cuts across all other differences, and is really much deeper than they. There have always been strong hatreds against special types or tendencies, such as much of the medieval world felt against the Moslem or much of the modern world feels against the Bolshevist. But, though men may hate Russia because of Bolshevism, they do not hate France because of Republicanism or Roman Catholicism, or any one definable intellectual idea.

The ordinary Englishman does not understand either the French Republican or the French Royalist; he is equally mystified by the French atheist and the French Catholic. The English Radical cannot comprehend the French Radical; the Englishman who is most loyal to his own monarch is utterly ignorant of the French case for a return to monarchy. Yet France is still what she always was, the intellectual focus and creative crater of Christendom; the place where the ideas are hammered out and tested which are to build or to destroy a world. Those who do not understand what is happening in Paris are dangerously ignorant of what will soon be happening everywhere; for all Frenchmen are Radicals in the sense of going to the roots of things, and none more Radical than the Royalist. And it seems to me a very menacing and perilous thing that we have lost, so much as we have, that one flash of the ancient Western understanding which shone for an instant on the marching armies of the Marne.

XXXV. On the Bad Word for Guild

IT is a very old controversial custom to give a dog a bad name, which is generally the more learned scientific name for a cat. It is then, of course, a comparatively easy and natural matter to nail him up as a bat or a barn-door owl. Such fantasies of logic are the commonplaces of controversial history. The most usual form of the process, as we all know, is to fix some person with a definite label, and then proceed to deduce everything from the label and nothing from the person. I have experienced this, in my own small way often enough. Somebody will write: ‘Mr. Chesterton is a medievalist; and he is therefore quite justified (from his own benighted standpoint) in indulging as he does, in the sport of tearing out the teeth of Jews, burning hundreds of human beings alive, and perpetually seeking for the Philosopher’s Stone.’ But I never said I was a medievalist; and I have only the very vaguest idea of what it would mean. But I have a very vivid and definite idea of what I mean. And what I mean does not involve providing free dentistry for Jews; though indeed there is only one doubtful tale of King John doing to one Jew what it is now considered highly hygienic to do to everybody. Nor does it include seeking for the Philosopher’s Stone; though it might involve seeking, somewhat wearily, for the Philosopher. The simple truth, which some people, seem to find it so difficult to understand or to believe, is that what a reasonable man believes in is not this or that period, with all its ideas, good or bad, but in certain ideas that may happen to have been present in one period and relatively absent from another period. But nothing can convince his critics that he does not think in terms of hats and coats and caps and feathers and jerkins and hooded robes. Nothing will convince them that he thinks in terms of thought.

A very good working example is in the word Guild. As a matter of fact, it is the moderns and not the medievals who use the word in a romantic and irrational way. Anything in the world may be called a Guild nowadays: a society for picking up orange-peel may be the Guild of the Golden Gleaners; or a company of pierrots performing at Margate and Ramsgate may be the Guild of the Ghostly Guitars; or a movement for muzzling cats as well as dogs may be a Guild for Equal Rights for Four-Footed Friends. But whenever we, who are accused of this mysterious medievalism, happen to say a word in favour of the Guild idea, nobody seems to imagine for a moment that it is really an idea. Now, as a matter of fact, it is an idea, and in that sense nothing less or more than an idea. It is an economic and ethical theory for the construction of certain parts of society; and it has nothing in the world to do with the romance or ritual externals or picturesque costume of that society. To say that you believe in Guilds is like saying that you believe in Trusts, or in State Ownership, or in Syndicalism, or in any other definite way of managing certain matters of trade and employment and exchange. In my opinion, the Middle Ages were fortunate in having begun to develop industry in this way. But the Middle Ages were extremely unfortunate in many other ways; and not least in being ultimately unable to develop it. But if anybody says that I merely behold, as in a dream, ideal craftsmen in coloured garments carving exquisite masterpieces, or happy apprentices dancing round the maypole or distributing the Christmas ale, then he is a hundred miles away from the point at issue. The case for the Guild has nothing to do with the romance of medievalism; nothing whatever.

The theory of a Guild, as distinct from Socialism as generally defined, and Capitalism as at present practised, is simply this. The men working in a particular trade remain independent tradesmen; in the sense that they are independent and therefore up to a point competitive. Each is working for himself, with his own capital or machinery, and in that sense each is working against the others. But each has entered into an agreement with the others, that he will not compete past a certain point or work against the others in certain unfair and forbidden ways. In other words, there is a competition, but it is a deliberately limited competition; or, if you will, an artificially limited competition. The object is perfectly simple: that it should remain a competition, and not merely turn into a combine. Capitalist competition, which started avowedly as unlimited competition, has only been running freely for about a hundred years, and everywhere it has turned into a combine. I use the word combine as a polite convention; for, of course, we all know that it involves no equality of combination. The true story of the thing is that when all the shops are let loose to compete anyhow and everywhere, by any method good or bad, one shop swallows all the rest. To speak more rightly and worthily, one man swallows all the rest. It is very often, by the nature of the competition, the worst shop and the worst man.

Ora, io non desidero affatto fare di Inghilterra e Francia una sola nazione; le mie vedute su tale argomento sono le stesse sostenute con tanta energia da Santa Giovanna d’Arco. Ma penso davvero che sia un tema degno di sobria e devota considerazione, sia con invocazioni a San Giorgio o a San Dionigi, a Santa Giovanna la guerriera o a San Francesco il pacificatore, il fatto che queste due grandi nazioni occidentali siano andate costantemente allontanandosi sempre più l’una dall’altra attraverso i secoli, e siano ora così lontane come oggi sono. La divisione nazionale è davvero pericolosa quando taglia di traverso tutte le altre differenze, ed è davvero assai più profonda di esse. Vi sono sempre stati forti odii contro tipi o tendenze particolari, come quello che gran parte del mondo medievale nutriva contro il musulmano o quello che gran parte del mondo moderno nutre contro il bolscevico. Ma, per quanto gli uomini possano odiare la Russia a causa del bolscevismo, non odiano la Francia a causa del repubblicanesimo o del cattolicesimo romano, o di una qualsiasi definibile idea intellettuale.

L’inglese comune non comprende né il repubblicano francese né il monarchico francese; è ugualmente disorientato dall’ateo francese e dal cattolico francese. Il radicale inglese non riesce a comprendere il radicale francese; l’inglese più fedele al proprio monarca ignora del tutto le ragioni francesi per un ritorno alla monarchia. Eppure la Francia è ancora ciò che sempre fu, il fuoco intellettuale e il cratere creativo della Cristianità; il luogo dove vengono forgiate e messe alla prova le idee destinate a costruire o a distruggere un mondo. Coloro che non comprendono ciò che accade a Parigi sono pericolosamente ignari di ciò che presto accadrà ovunque; poiché tutti i francesi sono radicali nel senso di andare alle radici delle cose, e nessuno più radicale del monarchico. E mi sembra cosa assai minacciosa e pericolosa che abbiamo perduto, per quanto l’abbiamo perduto, quell’unico lampo dell’antica intesa occidentale che brillò per un istante sugli eserciti in marcia della Marna.

XXXV. La cattiva fama della Corporazione

È una consuetudine polemica antichissima dare a un cane un cattivo nome, che di solito è il nome scientifico più dotto per un gatto. È allora, s’intende, cosa relativamente facile e naturale inchiodarlo come pipistrello o come gufo da fienile. Simili fantasie della logica sono i luoghi comuni della storia delle polemiche. La forma più consueta di questo procedimento, come tutti sappiamo, è appiccicare a una persona un’etichetta ben definita, per poi procedere a dedurre tutto dall’etichetta e nulla dalla persona. L’ho sperimentato, nel mio piccolo, abbastanza spesso. Qualcuno scriverà: «Il signor Chesterton è un medievalista; ed è perciò del tutto giustificato (dal suo tenebroso punto di vista) nel dedicarsi, come fa, allo sport di strappare i denti agli ebrei, di bruciare vive centinaia di esseri umani, e di cercare perpetuamente la Pietra Filosofale.» Ma io non ho mai detto di essere un medievalista; e ho solo l’idea più vaga di che cosa ciò significherebbe. Ho invece un’idea assai vivida e definita di ciò che intendo. E ciò che intendo non comporta fornire cure dentarie gratuite agli ebrei; per quanto in verità vi sia una sola dubbia storia di King John che fece a un ebreo ciò che oggi si ritiene assai igienico fare a chiunque. Né comporta la ricerca della Pietra Filosofale; sebbene possa comportare la ricerca, alquanto stanca, del Filosofo. La semplice verità, che alcuni sembrano trovare così difficile da comprendere o da credere, è che ciò in cui un uomo ragionevole crede non è questo o quel periodo, con tutte le sue idee, buone o cattive, ma certe idee che può darsi siano state presenti in un periodo e relativamente assenti in un altro. Ma nulla può convincere i suoi critici che egli non pensa in termini di cappelli e cappotti e berretti e piume e giustacuori e vesti col cappuccio. Nulla li convincerà che egli pensa in termini di pensiero.

Un ottimo esempio pratico sta nella parola Corporazione. Di fatto, sono i moderni e non i medievali a usare la parola in modo romantico e irrazionale. Qualsiasi cosa al mondo può essere chiamata Corporazione al giorno d’oggi: una società per raccogliere le bucce d’arancia può essere la Corporazione dei Dorati Spigolatori; o una compagnia di pierrot che si esibiscono a Margate e Ramsgate può essere la Corporazione delle Chitarre Spettrali; o un movimento per mettere la museruola ai gatti oltre che ai cani può essere una Corporazione per la Parità di Diritti degli Amici a Quattro Zampe. Ma ogni volta che noi, accusati di questo misterioso medievalismo, ci capita di dire una parola in favore dell’idea di Corporazione, nessuno pare immaginare neppure per un istante che si tratti davvero di un’idea. Ora, di fatto, è un’idea, e in tal senso niente di meno e niente di più che un’idea. È una teoria economica ed etica per la costruzione di certe parti della società; e non ha nulla a che vedere con il romanticismo o con gli orpelli rituali o con il pittoresco costume di quella società. Dire che si crede nelle Corporazioni è come dire che si crede nei Trust, o nella proprietà statale, o nel sindacalismo, o in qualunque altro modo definito di gestire certe faccende di commercio e di lavoro e di scambio. A mio parere, il Medioevo fu fortunato ad aver cominciato a sviluppare l’industria in questo modo. Ma il Medioevo fu estremamente sfortunato in molti altri modi; e non ultimo nell’essere infine incapace di svilupparla. Ma se qualcuno dice che io contemplo soltanto, come in un sogno, ideali artigiani in vesti colorate che intagliano squisiti capolavori, o felici apprendisti che danzano attorno all’albero di maggio o distribuiscono la birra di Natale, allora è lontano cento miglia dal punto in questione. Le ragioni della Corporazione non hanno nulla a che vedere con il romanticismo del medievalismo; nulla di nulla.

La teoria di una Corporazione, distinta dal socialismo come generalmente definito, e dal capitalismo come attualmente praticato, è semplicemente questa. Gli uomini che lavorano in un determinato mestiere restano artigiani indipendenti; nel senso che sono indipendenti e perciò, fino a un certo punto, concorrenti. Ciascuno lavora per sé, con il proprio capitale o macchinario, e in tal senso ciascuno lavora contro gli altri. Ma ciascuno ha stipulato un accordo con gli altri, che non concorrerà oltre un certo punto né lavorerà contro gli altri in certi modi sleali e proibiti. In altre parole, vi è una concorrenza, ma è una concorrenza deliberatamente limitata; o, se si vuole, una concorrenza artificialmente limitata. Lo scopo è perfettamente semplice: che essa rimanga una concorrenza, e non si muti semplicemente in un cartello. La concorrenza capitalistica, che è cominciata dichiaratamente come concorrenza illimitata, corre liberamente solo da un centinaio d’anni circa, e dappertutto si è mutata in cartello. Uso la parola cartello come cortese convenzione; poiché, s’intende, tutti sappiamo che essa non comporta alcuna eguaglianza nella combinazione. La vera storia della cosa è che quando tutte le botteghe sono lasciate libere di farsi concorrenza comunque e ovunque, con qualsiasi metodo buono o cattivo, una bottega inghiotte tutte le altre. Per dirla più giustamente e più degnamente, un uomo inghiotte tutti gli altri. È assai spesso, per la natura stessa della concorrenza, la peggiore bottega e il peggiore uomo.

Now the Guild method is no more medieval than it is modern, in so far as it is a principle apart from time. The best proof is that it does still exist in a practical profession with which we are all acquainted. The Doctor, the ordinary general practitioner, whom most of us know and to whom many of us owe our lives, is a typical example of the member of a Guild. He is not a Socialist official; he is not a State servant; he is an example of private enterprise. That is to say, he owns his own lancet and stethoscope; he has to buy his own practice; he does in a certain degree compete with the men of his own trade. But he is forbidden to compete with them by certain methods; he is forbidden to drive another doctor out of his practice by certain expedients of self-assertion or self-advertisement.; he has to observe towards his fellow-doctor a certain respect and consideration. He has to do this because he has joined a Guild or confraternity, which exists for the maintenance of the members of his profession as a whole. Its definite and deliberate policy is to keep all the doctors in existence, as far as possible, and prevent one of them destroying all the rest. Once it is admitted that a man may use any methods of advancement and advertisement, the chances are that about twenty honest doctors will be swallowed up by one quack. We know this is what has happened in journalism and in commerce, and in any number of other things.

It is also to be noted that the other side of the old Guild idea, which balances this idea of preserving the small man in independence, the idea of testing him as to his claims to such independence, is also true of the modern doctor, as of the medieval Master. It is often regretted that Trade Unions do not insist, as did the Guilds, on a standard of work and finish. They cannot do so under modern conditions, because they exist to contend with another and specially modern evil. But it is quite true that, before the Guild protected a man from unfair competition, it examined him in the mastery of his craft; and all that obviously corresponds to modern medical examinations and medical degrees. Now a man may quite reasonably disapprove of this system, just as I, in my own opinion, quite reasonably approve of it. He may say quite truly that it has evils of its own. He may say quite tenably that in his view those evils outweigh the good. But his attitude is neither true nor tenable if he pretends that the case for this social system is a mass of romantic rubbish about the perfect beauty of the Middle Ages. He is simply making a fool of himself when he talks of the method by which all the most modern surgery accomplished and all the most novel medical theories advanced as if it were a mere fantastic dream of bringing back falconry and tilting-armour; or as if nobody could trust Sir Stanley Hewett or Sir Thomas Horder without wanting to wave a pennon or wear a tabard.

XXXVI. On Sophistication

SOME are complaining that the rising generation is sophisticated; and it is true that some members of it are too sophisticated even to believe in sophistry. They believe in nothing; which I suppose is one way of returning to simplicity. The golden age of the sophists was somewhere about the last half of the nineteenth century. The Victorians were lectured and led a dance by any number of sophists; but that was because the Victorians were unsophisticated. They believed the most crazy paradoxes; as that it was more practical not to be logical; which is like saying that we should make sure of having a chain and not bother whether it consists of missing links. They believed that men must always have the same morality, though they had a new religion or no religion; that is, they said that what was done now for a definite reason would be done indefinitely for no reason. Those sturdy Saxon ideas were all sophistries; but that did not mean that the sturdy Saxon who accepted them was necessarily a sophist. What I think has really happened, in the ease of the more sophisticated youth of to-day, is that they have become sceptical of everything, including scepticism. And though two blacks do not make a white, it has sometimes been known, in grammar and philosophy, that two negatives make a positive. So that the sophisticated youth who has seen through the sophistical old men, may even yet see something worth seeing.

But there is one way in which the young seem to me not sophistical but very simple; and there is one type or section of them that is sufficiently simple to be called silly. A great deal of the current cult of pleasure, of luxury, of liberty in love, and all the rest of it, appears to me to be perfectly childish and childish in the literal sense that it is greedy without any grasp of consequences. I read novels and poems in which the seeker after pleasure simply goes on saying, over and over again: ‘I must have Happiness. I must have Life. I must have Love. Why do you reproach me because I cannot live without passing from ecstasy to ecstasy?’ This seems to me about as simple as the speech of a savage who should say: ‘I must have Gin. I like Gin. I like more and more Gin. Why will you not instantly provide me with a hundred bottles of Gin?’ It does not seem to require much intellectual strenuousness to say this. It is, like other simple things, quite true as far as it goes. But in the matter of connected thought and the sense of consequence it does not go very far. Gin does make a man happy; up to a point more gin will make him more happy; but even more gin will make him many other things as well. By a succession of phases not contemplated by the philosopher in his first phase, it will make him first drunk, then dead drunk, and then dead to the world, and then very possibly dead altogether. That also seems to be a simple truth, requiring no great subtlety; but the savage cannot see it, and the sex novelist cannot see it. He cannot see, what nearly everybody in history has hitherto seen, that there are certain laws and limits to the mind, as there are certain laws and limits to the body. There is such a thing as concentration; there is such a thing as contrast; there is such a thing as proportion; there is emphatically such a thing as boredom. Above all, there is such a thing as a contradiction in terms; and it is a contradiction in terms to have every moment a crisis, every event an escapade, every fact an exception, every person an eccentric, every day a holiday, or society an endless Saturnalia. If people try to do that, they will find it dull; just as certainly as, if they drink unlimited gin, we shall find them drunk. If you do literally paint the town red, you will not be able to use it as a background, either to the red flag of Bolshevism or the red flower of a blameful life. If you do literally go on till all is blue, you will not be able to distinguish the special and delicate blueness even of the decadents’ blue roses and blue wine. These are laws of the mind, analogous to laws of the eye. And the laws of the eye are not altered by everybody putting on the same sort of horned spectacles, that each one of them may look separate and distinguished.

Ora il metodo della Corporazione non è più medievale di quanto sia moderno, in quanto è un principio indipendente dal tempo. La miglior prova è che esso esiste ancora in una professione pratica che a tutti è nota. Il Medico, l’ordinario medico di famiglia, che quasi tutti conosciamo e a cui molti di noi devono la vita, è un tipico esempio di membro di una Corporazione. Non è un funzionario socialista; non è un servitore dello Stato; è un esempio d’iniziativa privata. Vale a dire, possiede la propria lancetta e il proprio stetoscopio; deve comprarsi la propria clientela; in certa misura fa concorrenza agli uomini del suo stesso mestiere. Ma gli è vietato far loro concorrenza con certi metodi; gli è vietato scacciare un altro medico dalla sua clientela con certi espedienti di autoaffermazione o di autoréclame; deve osservare verso il collega medico un certo rispetto e una certa considerazione. Deve farlo perché è entrato in una Corporazione o confraternita, che esiste per il mantenimento dei membri della sua professione nel loro insieme. La sua politica precisa e deliberata è mantenere in vita tutti i medici, per quanto possibile, e impedire che uno di essi distrugga tutti gli altri. Una volta ammesso che un uomo possa usare qualunque metodo d’avanzamento e di réclame, è probabile che una ventina di medici onesti vengano inghiottiti da un solo ciarlatano. Sappiamo che è ciò che è accaduto nel giornalismo e nel commercio, e in un numero qualsiasi di altre cose.

Va inoltre notato che l’altro lato dell’antica idea di Corporazione, che bilancia questa idea di preservare il piccolo nella sua indipendenza, l’idea cioè di metterne alla prova le pretese a tale indipendenza, è vero anch’esso del medico moderno, come lo era del Maestro medievale. Spesso ci si duole che i sindacati non insistano, come facevano le Corporazioni, su uno standard di lavoro e di rifinitura. Non possono farlo nelle condizioni moderne, perché esistono per contendere con un altro male, specialmente moderno. Ma è del tutto vero che, prima di proteggere un uomo dalla concorrenza sleale, la Corporazione lo esaminava nella padronanza del suo mestiere; e tutto ciò corrisponde ovviamente agli esami di medicina e alle lauree in medicina moderni. Ora un uomo può ben ragionevolmente disapprovare questo sistema, proprio come io, a mio parere, ben ragionevolmente lo approvo. Può dire con tutta verità che ha mali propri. Può dire con tutta plausibilità che, a suo avviso, quei mali superano il bene. Ma il suo atteggiamento non è né vero né sostenibile se pretende che le ragioni di questo sistema sociale siano un cumulo di ciarpame romantico sulla perfetta bellezza del Medioevo. Fa semplicemente la figura dello sciocco quando parla del metodo con cui si compie tutta la chirurgia più moderna e si avanzano tutte le più nuove teorie mediche come se fosse un mero fantastico sogno di far tornare la falconeria e l’armatura da torneo; o come se nessuno potesse fidarsi di Sir Stanley Hewett o di Sir Thomas Horder senza voler sventolare un pennone o indossare una cotta d’arme.

XXXVI. Sulla raffinatezza

Alcuni si lamentano che la generazione nascente sia raffinata; ed è vero che alcuni suoi membri sono troppo raffinati persino per credere nella sofistica. Non credono in nulla; il che, suppongo, è un modo di tornare alla semplicità. L’età dell’oro dei sofisti fu all’incirca nell’ultima metà del diciannovesimo secolo. I vittoriani furono predicati e menati per il naso da un numero infinito di sofisti; ma ciò accadeva perché i vittoriani erano ingenui. Credevano ai più folli paradossi; come che fosse più pratico non essere logici; il che è come dire che dovremmo assicurarci d’avere una catena e non curarci se essa consti di anelli mancanti. Credevano che gli uomini dovessero sempre avere la stessa morale, pur avendo una nuova religione o nessuna religione; cioè dicevano che ciò che ora si faceva per una ragione precisa si sarebbe fatto indefinitamente senza ragione. Quelle robuste idee sassoni erano tutte sofismi; ma ciò non significava che il robusto sassone che le accettava fosse necessariamente un sofista. Ciò che penso sia realmente accaduto, nel caso della gioventù più raffinata d’oggi, è che essa è divenuta scettica di tutto, scetticismo compreso. E sebbene due negri non facciano un bianco, si è talvolta constatato, in grammatica e in filosofia, che due negazioni fanno un’affermazione. Cosicché la gioventù raffinata che ha smascherato i vecchi sofisti può ancora, nonostante tutto, scorgere qualcosa che valga la pena di scorgere.

Ma c’è un modo in cui i giovani mi paiono non raffinati bensì assai semplici; e c’è un tipo o una sezione di essi che è sufficientemente semplice da potersi dire sciocca. Gran parte dell’odierno culto del piacere, del lusso, della libertà in amore, e di tutto il resto, mi appare perfettamente puerile, e puerile nel senso letterale che è avida senza alcuna comprensione delle conseguenze. Leggo romanzi e poemi in cui il cercatore di piacere continua semplicemente a ripetere, di continuo: «Devo avere la Felicità. Devo avere la Vita. Devo avere l’Amore. Perché mi rimproverate se io non posso vivere senza passare da un’estasi all’altra?» Ciò mi sembra press’a poco tanto semplice quanto il discorso di un selvaggio che dicesse: «Devo avere del Gin. Mi piace il Gin. Mi piace sempre più Gin. Perché non mi procurate all’istante cento bottiglie di Gin?» Non pare richiedere gran sforzo intellettuale dire questo. È, come altre cose semplici, del tutto vero fin dove arriva. Ma in fatto di pensiero connesso e di senso delle conseguenze non arriva molto lontano. Il gin rende felice un uomo; fino a un certo punto più gin lo renderà più felice; ma ancora più gin lo renderà molte altre cose per giunta. Attraverso una successione di fasi non contemplate dal filosofo nella sua prima fase, lo renderà dapprima ubriaco, poi ubriaco fradicio, e poi morto al mondo, e poi assai probabilmente morto del tutto. Anche questa pare essere una semplice verità, che non richiede grande sottigliezza; ma il selvaggio non riesce a vederla, e il romanziere del sesso non riesce a vederla. Non riesce a vedere ciò che quasi tutti nella storia hanno finora veduto, cioè che vi sono certe leggi e certi limiti per la mente, come vi sono certe leggi e certi limiti per il corpo. Esiste una cosa come la concentrazione; esiste una cosa come il contrasto; esiste una cosa come la proporzione; esiste, con enfasi, una cosa come la noia. Soprattutto, esiste una cosa come la contraddizione in termini; ed è una contraddizione in termini avere ogni momento una crisi, ogni evento una scappatella, ogni fatto un’eccezione, ogni persona un eccentrico, ogni giorno una festa, o la società un interminabile Saturnale. Se si prova a fare questo, lo si troverà tedioso; con la stessa certezza con cui, se si beve gin illimitato, li troveremo ubriachi. Se davvero si dipinge di rosso la città, non la si potrà usare come sfondo, né alla rossa bandiera del bolscevismo né al rosso fiore di una vita colpevole. Se davvero si continua finché tutto è azzurro, non si potrà distinguere lo speciale e delicato azzurro nemmeno delle rose azzurre e del vino azzurro dei decadenti. Queste sono leggi della mente, analoghe alle leggi dell’occhio. E le leggi dell’occhio non vengono mutate dal fatto che tutti indossino lo stesso tipo di occhiali cornuti, affinché ciascuno di loro appaia distinto e insigne.

But there is one particular form of this modern simplicity that has always puzzled me very much. I mean the way in which those who dislike certain old things, such as war or discipline or various forms of danger, talk about ending them without asking how they begin. They always assume an association between these things, which none of us particularly likes, and other things which they particularly dislike. They say, for instance, that kings or capitalists, or some other privileged class, have invented flags and frontiers, that we may be drilled to defend them with guns and bayonets. They do not seem to see that they might need the guns and bayonets even if they were not defending the frontiers and flags. They might need them if they were defending anything. They might need them if they were defending their own ideal social state. And, as a matter of historical fact, they always do find that they need them to defend the very state that was invented to do away with them. But I am very much puzzled by the childlike simplicity with which idealists walk into this trap. It was true to some extent of the eighteenth century republicans, though those old republicans were a hundred times more intelligent than most of our twentieth century sceptics. Still, some of those charming philosophical gentlemen, of the age of Rousseau and Voltaire, did tend to talk as if the Natural Man would find it easy to break the sword when once he had broken the sceptre. They did talk as if nobody but kings would ever want cannons, and battles could only arise out of the dynastic ambitions of despotic states. We all know the ironic but very inspiring sequel. The sequel was that the Republic was born amid the roar of its own cannons; that it could only manage to survive by fighting battle after battle with merciless valour and armies growing more military every day; until the final fury of that militancy sent forth the greatest warrior of the world.

In the face of this example, the Bolshevists did exactly the same. In face even of the Bolshevist example, our own English Communists are doing exactly the same. The Russian revolutionists also began by being pacifists. They also set all their hopes on merely dissolving the discipline of the despotic armies. They also seem never to have reflected that they would want to have revolutionist armies, if only to fight the despotic armies. And of course, in an incredibly short period of time, they found out the very simple fact that revolutionists cannot be pacifists. They may set up what they call a peaceful republic, but they have to make up their minds what to do, if other people will not leave it in peace.

Suppose the Utopian has founded his Utopia, and another country makes war on Utopia. What, when all is said and done, is he to do? Is he to allow his perfect state (or what he is so simple as to think his perfect state) to be destroyed and disappear? Or is he to defend it by the only weapons that will defend it? One would think this dilemma was so staringly obvious that anybody must have seen it from the very first. That dilemma has nothing in the world to do with crowns or sceptres or capitalism or private property. Let anybody imagine any sort of simplified society, and I can imagine it being attacked. That fact seems simple enough for an infant to see. Yet I have read scores of young pacifist poets and prophets who could not see it. That is an example of what I mean by a sort of simplicity almost more exasperating than sophistry. That is a case of the same sort of simplicity as supposing that cocktails can be unlimited or gate-crashing continue when there are no gates.

XXXVII. On Dress and Decorum

T HE newspapers very frequently, perhaps too frequently, describe to us the Victorian Girl, who was always covered with blushes and confusion. On the other hand, the Modern Girl has more and more of the confusion, as she has less and less of the blushes. Confusion of thought, confusion of phraseology, confusion of philosophy, deepen and darken upon her as she advances into what she regards as the daylight, or the sunlight of the Sun Cure. She and all her world seem to have got into a hopeless chaos about deciding the real principles of convention and civilization. Whatever theory we may hold, we find that she holds all the theories and none of the theories; that her theories contradict each other and cancel out. The ordinary argument in the newspapers, on the subject of Dress and Decorum, for instance, is a hash of half a hundred inconsistent philosophies. It may be worth while that some of them should be sorted out, before there are too many of them to be counted.

To begin with, there is the great contradiction that the modern person pretends to be at once too innocent and too sophisticated. First he says that certain sins are so remote and repulsive that only a low-minded spy would suspect their existence. Then he goes on to say that these sins are not so very bad, even if they exist. He shouts at the top of his voice ‘To the pure in heart all things are pure’; and then goes on to explain that there is really no such thing as purity. He calls the moralist a Puritan, as the most withering of all terms of abuse; which is very amusing to some of us, who remember how recently we were called upon to admire the Puritanism of the Mayflower and the execution of Charles the First, and to pardon the massacre of Wexford and the witch-smelling of Salem merely because they were Puritan. He describes any decent citizen as Nosey Parker or (with a touch of fierce anti-feminism) as Mrs. Grundy; all with the object of suggesting that nobody but a person with an impure imagination could see anything but spotless purity in the pagan habits of our time.

Well, all that is applicable enough, when there is really anybody to apply it to. I have myself protested against Puritanism and Parkerism and the sour vigilance that would arrest the amusements of the populace. I entirely agree that it is disgusting to be nosey about anything that is normal; such as dancing or swimming, considered in themselves. My position on that point is what it has always been, and my position is perfectly clear. But the position of the New Pagan is not in the least clear. For the New Pagan attempts to maintain, at the same time, that the real violation of Christian morals is unimportant to the Pagan moralist. But in that case, how can it be wrong for the Christian moralist to accuse the Pagan moralist? The Christian cannot be merely morbid in saying that sin is involved, if the Pagan says that sin is irrelevant even if it is involved. I may be mad if I accuse my friend Smith of stealing the spoons, when he is a respectable person with the ordinary respect for private property. But I cannot be morbidly and insanely malicious when I say he might steal the spoons, if he says himself that he will steal the spoons. I may call it being a thief, and he may call it being a Class-conscious Communist Expropriator. But it is absurd to pretend that property does not matter, and then to be indignant at the charge of thinking it does not matter. It is equally absurd to deny propriety as to deny property, and then to say that only a fiend would suspect you of disregarding the property or propriety that you deny.

Ma c’è una particolare forma di questa moderna semplicità che mi ha sempre lasciato assai perplesso. Intendo il modo in cui coloro che detestano certe cose antiche, come la guerra o la disciplina o le varie forme di pericolo, parlano di porvi fine senza chiedersi come esse comincino. Presumono sempre un’associazione fra queste cose, che nessuno di noi particolarmente ama, e altre cose che essi particolarmente detestano. Dicono, per esempio, che i re o i capitalisti, o qualche altra classe privilegiata, hanno inventato le bandiere e le frontiere, affinché noi si venga addestrati a difenderle con fucili e baionette. Non paiono accorgersi che potrebbero aver bisogno dei fucili e delle baionette anche se non stessero difendendo le frontiere e le bandiere. Potrebbero averne bisogno se stessero difendendo qualsiasi cosa. Potrebbero averne bisogno se stessero difendendo il proprio ideale stato sociale. E, come dato di fatto storico, essi trovano sempre di averne bisogno per difendere proprio lo stato che era stato inventato per abolirle. Ma mi lascia assai perplesso la puerile semplicità con cui gli idealisti cascano in questa trappola. Era vero in certa misura dei repubblicani del diciottesimo secolo, sebbene quei vecchi repubblicani fossero cento volte più intelligenti della maggior parte dei nostri scettici del ventesimo secolo. Eppure alcuni di quei deliziosi gentiluomini filosofi, dell’età di Rousseau e di Voltaire, tendevano a parlare come se l’Uomo Naturale avrebbe trovato facile spezzare la spada una volta spezzato lo scettro. Parlavano come se nessuno tranne i re avrebbe mai voluto cannoni, e le battaglie potessero nascere solo dalle ambizioni dinastiche degli Stati dispotici. Tutti conosciamo il seguito ironico ma assai istruttivo. Il seguito fu che la Repubblica nacque fra il rombo dei propri cannoni; che riuscì a sopravvivere solo combattendo battaglia dopo battaglia con valore spietato ed eserciti ogni giorno più militari; finché la furia finale di quella militanza mandò innanzi il più grande guerriero del mondo.

Di fronte a questo esempio, i bolscevichi fecero esattamente la stessa cosa. Di fronte persino all’esempio bolscevico, i nostri stessi comunisti inglesi stanno facendo esattamente la stessa cosa. Anche i rivoluzionari russi cominciarono con l’essere pacifisti. Anch’essi riponevano tutte le loro speranze nel mero dissolvimento della disciplina degli eserciti dispotici. Anch’essi paiono non aver mai riflettuto che avrebbero voluto avere eserciti rivoluzionari, non foss’altro per combattere gli eserciti dispotici. E naturalmente, in un periodo di tempo incredibilmente breve, scoprirono il fatto semplicissimo che i rivoluzionari non possono essere pacifisti. Possono fondare quella che chiamano una repubblica pacifica, ma devono decidere che cosa fare, se gli altri non la lasceranno in pace.

Supponiamo che l’utopista abbia fondato la sua Utopia, e un altro paese muova guerra all’Utopia. Che cosa, alla fin dei conti, deve fare? Deve permettere che il suo Stato perfetto (o ciò che è tanto ingenuo da ritenere il suo Stato perfetto) sia distrutto e scompaia? O deve difenderlo con le sole armi che lo difenderanno? Si penserebbe che questo dilemma fosse così clamorosamente ovvio che chiunque dovesse averlo visto fin dal primo istante. Quel dilemma non ha nulla al mondo a che fare con corone o scettri o capitalismo o proprietà privata. Si immagini una qualsiasi sorta di società semplificata, e io posso immaginarla attaccata. Quel fatto pare abbastanza semplice perché un infante lo veda. Eppure ho letto decine di giovani poeti e profeti pacifisti che non riuscivano a vederlo. È un esempio di ciò che intendo per una sorta di semplicità quasi più esasperante della sofistica. È un caso della stessa sorta di semplicità del supporre che i cocktail possano essere illimitati o che l’intrufolarsi alle feste possa continuare quando non ci sono più cancelli.

XXXVII. Sull’abito e il decoro

I giornali assai di frequente, forse troppo di frequente, ci descrivono la Ragazza Vittoriana, che era sempre coperta di rossori e di confusione. D’altra parte, la Ragazza Moderna ha sempre più confusione, quanto meno ha di rossori. Confusione di pensiero, confusione di fraseologia, confusione di filosofia, s’addensano e s’oscurano su di lei mentre avanza in ciò che considera la luce del giorno, o la luce solare della Cura del Sole. Ella e tutto il suo mondo paiono essere caduti in un caos disperato nel decidere i veri principi della convenzione e della civiltà. Qualunque teoria noi si sostenga, troviamo che ella sostiene tutte le teorie e nessuna delle teorie; che le sue teorie si contraddicono a vicenda e si annullano. L’ordinario argomento dei giornali, sul tema dell’Abito e del Decoro, per esempio, è un guazzabuglio di una cinquantina di filosofie incoerenti. Varrebbe la pena che alcune di esse fossero messe in ordine, prima che ce ne siano troppe per poterle contare.

Anzitutto, c’è la grande contraddizione che la persona moderna pretende d’essere a un tempo troppo innocente e troppo raffinata. Prima dice che certi peccati sono così remoti e ripugnanti che solo una spia dalla mente bassa ne sospetterebbe l’esistenza. Poi prosegue dicendo che questi peccati non sono poi così terribili, anche se esistono. Grida a squarciagola: «Per i puri di cuore tutte le cose sono pure»; e poi prosegue spiegando che in realtà non esiste cosa alcuna come la purezza. Chiama il moralista un Puritano, il più annientante di tutti i termini d’ingiuria; il che è assai divertente per alcuni di noi, che ricordano quanto di recente si fosse invitati ad ammirare il puritanesimo della Mayflower e l’esecuzione di Carlo Primo, e a perdonare il massacro di Wexford e la caccia alle streghe di Salem soltanto perché erano puritani. Descrive qualsiasi cittadino perbene come un Ficcanaso o (con un tocco di feroce antifemminismo) come la signora Grundy; il tutto con lo scopo di suggerire che nessuno, tranne una persona dall’immaginazione impura, potrebbe vedere altro che immacolata purezza nelle abitudini pagane del nostro tempo.

Ebbene, tutto ciò è abbastanza applicabile, quando c’è davvero qualcuno a cui applicarlo. Io stesso ho protestato contro il puritanesimo e il ficcanasismo e la vigilanza acida che vorrebbe arrestare gli svaghi del popolo. Concordo pienamente che è disgustoso ficcare il naso in qualsiasi cosa sia normale; come il ballare o il nuotare, considerati in sé. La mia posizione su quel punto è quella che è sempre stata, e la mia posizione è perfettamente chiara. Ma la posizione del Nuovo Pagano non è affatto chiara. Poiché il Nuovo Pagano tenta di sostenere, al tempo stesso, che la reale violazione della morale cristiana è irrilevante per il moralista pagano. Ma in tal caso, come può essere sbagliato che il moralista cristiano accusi il moralista pagano? Il cristiano non può essere semplicemente morboso nel dire che vi è peccato, se il pagano dice che il peccato è irrilevante anche quando vi è. Posso essere pazzo se accuso il mio amico Smith di rubare i cucchiai, quand’egli è una persona rispettabile con l’ordinario rispetto per la proprietà privata. Ma non posso essere morbosamente e follemente malevolo quando dico che egli potrebbe rubare i cucchiai, se egli stesso dice che ruberà i cucchiai. Io posso chiamarlo essere un ladro, ed egli può chiamarlo essere un Espropriatore Comunista dalla coscienza di classe. Ma è assurdo pretendere che la proprietà non conti, e poi indignarsi all’accusa di ritenere che non conti. È del pari assurdo negare la decenza come negare la proprietà, e poi dire che solo un demonio potrebbe sospettarti di disprezzare la proprietà o la decenza che neghi.

This is an obvious example of the modern muddle, but it is an annoying one. Whether certain acts are wicked or no we will debate when the statement is clearly made to us. But a thing cannot be so wicked that it is insane to suggest it, and so innocent that it is blameless to do it. There are, however, a large number of other confusions which any clear-thinking man can see in the modern commentary. We talk about the pagan philosophy; but the trouble with our own pagans is that they have no philosophy. We talk, by a sort of habit, about Modern Thought, forgetting the familiar fact that moderns do not think. They only feel, and that is why they are so much stronger in fiction than in facts; why their novels are so much better than their newspapers. The current comment on all these things is not even pagan; it is the queerest sort of patchwork of pagan and purely Christian ideas.

For instance, somebody is sure to say in the debate about Decorum: ‘Is not the human body beautiful?’ To which somebody a little more sensible will be quite entitled to answer ‘No’. If he is a Scot, and therefore a Socratic philosopher, he will be entitled to answer the question with a question, and say: ‘Is the hippopotamus beautiful?’ The hippopotamus is certainly natural, even if he looks unnatural. He is certainly naked, and accepts no regulations about bathing-tents or bathing-costumes. But the mere fact that he is natural does not make us, in the ordinary sense, admit that he is beautiful. Personally, for my own part, I think he is beautiful; but then, I have a Gothic taste for the grotesque, nourished upon gargoyles. I know what I mean by saying that gargoyles may be beautiful. But the modern materialists do not know what they mean by saying that men must be beautiful.

All that talk about the divinity and dignity of the human body is stolen from theology, and is quite meaningless without theology. It dates from the Garden of Eden, and the idea (which I happen to hold firmly) that God created Man in His own image. But, if you remove that religious idea, there is no more sense in saying that every human being is lovely than in saying that every hippopotamus is lovely. It is a matter of taste; and many of us, after watching a sufficient number of human beings at Brighton, might prefer the hippopotamus.

The old atheists had a theory of life, that could be stated as a connected train of thought. The old theologians had a theory of life, that could be stated as a connected train of thought. But the moderns who call themselves Pagans have no connected theory that can be stated at all. Their view of life is a hotch-potch of human and superhuman and subhuman ideas, collected everywhere and connected nowhere. The modern muddler likes to think he is the Superman; likes to think he is the image of God; likes to think as he pleases; but prefers not to think at all. If he had the humility to behave like a beast, we should at least be free from the obligation to regard him as a god. We should not be bound to admit that every beast is beautiful; having religious doubts, perhaps, about the hippopotamus or the hornbill. If he would clearly and consistently aspire to beauty, we might ask him to add to it a little dignity. But in fact he has returned to chaos, where there is no asking, nor is there any answer. If man comes out of chaos, by blind evolution or merely groping growth, there is no more sense in calling his body noble than in calling any lump of fungus or cactus noble. If it is noble, it is so by some patent of nobility; and nobility is conferred by a King. But I advise such writers to defer the study of the Body and begin to employ the Mind.

XXXVIII. On Algernon Charles Swinburne

Questo è un ovvio esempio del pasticcio moderno, ma è un esempio irritante. Se certi atti siano malvagi o no lo dibatteremo quando l’affermazione ci sarà fatta chiaramente. Ma una cosa non può essere tanto malvagia da render folle il solo suggerirla, e tanto innocente da render incolpevole il farla. Vi sono, tuttavia, un gran numero di altre confusioni che ogni uomo dal pensiero chiaro può scorgere nel commento moderno. Parliamo della filosofia pagana; ma il guaio dei nostri pagani è che non hanno filosofia. Parliamo, per una sorta d’abitudine, di Pensiero Moderno, dimenticando il fatto notorio che i moderni non pensano. Essi soltanto sentono, ed è per questo che sono tanto più forti nella narrativa che nei fatti; per questo i loro romanzi sono tanto migliori dei loro giornali. Il commento corrente su tutte queste cose non è nemmeno pagano; è la più bizzarra sorta di rappezzatura di idee pagane e puramente cristiane.

Per esempio, qualcuno di sicuro dirà nel dibattito sul Decoro: «Non è forse bello il corpo umano?» A cui qualcuno un po’ più sensato sarà pienamente in diritto di rispondere: «No». Se è scozzese, e perciò filosofo socratico, sarà in diritto di rispondere alla domanda con una domanda, e dire: «È bello l’ippopotamo?» L’ippopotamo è certamente naturale, anche se ha un aspetto innaturale. È certamente nudo, e non accetta regolamento alcuno su tende da bagno o costumi da bagno. Ma il mero fatto che sia naturale non ci fa, nel senso ordinario, ammettere che sia bello. Personalmente, per parte mia, lo trovo bello; ma d’altronde ho un gusto gotico per il grottesco, nutrito di gargolle. So che cosa intendo quando dico che le gargolle possono essere belle. Ma i materialisti moderni non sanno che cosa intendano quando dicono che gli uomini debbono essere belli.

Tutto quel discorso sulla divinità e la dignità del corpo umano è rubato dalla teologia, ed è del tutto privo di senso senza la teologia. Risale al Giardino dell’Eden, e all’idea (che mi capita di tenere fermamente) che Dio creò l’Uomo a Sua immagine. Ma, se si rimuove quell’idea religiosa, non v’è più senso nel dire che ogni essere umano è amabile di quanto ve ne sia nel dire che ogni ippopotamo è amabile. È questione di gusti; e molti di noi, dopo aver osservato un numero sufficiente di esseri umani a Brighton, potrebbero preferire l’ippopotamo.

I vecchi atei avevano una teoria della vita, che poteva enunciarsi come un ragionamento connesso. I vecchi teologi avevano una teoria della vita, che poteva enunciarsi come un ragionamento connesso. Ma i moderni che si dicono Pagani non hanno alcuna teoria connessa che si possa affatto enunciare. La loro visione della vita è un guazzabuglio di idee umane e sovrumane e infraumane, raccolte dappertutto e connesse in nessun luogo. Il pasticcione moderno ama pensare d’essere il Superuomo; ama pensare d’essere l’immagine di Dio; ama pensare come gli aggrada; ma preferisce non pensare affatto. Se avesse l’umiltà di comportarsi da bestia, saremmo almeno liberi dall’obbligo di considerarlo un dio. Non saremmo tenuti ad ammettere che ogni bestia è bella; nutrendo forse dubbi religiosi sull’ippopotamo o sul bucero. Se aspirasse chiaramente e coerentemente alla bellezza, potremmo chiedergli d’aggiungervi un po’ di dignità. Ma di fatto egli è tornato al caos, dove non v’è domanda, né v’è risposta alcuna. Se l’uomo esce dal caos, per cieca evoluzione o per mera crescita a tentoni, non v’è più senso nel chiamar nobile il suo corpo di quanto ve ne sia nel chiamar nobile un qualsiasi grumo di fungo o di cactus. Se è nobile, lo è per qualche patente di nobiltà; e la nobiltà è conferita da un Re. Ma consiglio simili scrittori di rimandare lo studio del Corpo e cominciare a impiegare la Mente.

XXXVIII. Su Algernon Charles Swinburne

I

MOST modern titles and slogans have to say the precise opposite of what they mean, for the sake of brevity. Sometimes the organizers are so sincere as to explain this immediately afterwards and use the sub-title to prove that the title is not true. A little while ago a series of short stories appeared, proclaiming in its editorial title that each author had chosen his best story. But the editor, who evidently suffered from intelligence (and it does sometimes entail suffering) was perfectly well aware that no sane author would say that any one story was absolutely and in all aspects the best; indeed, a sane author is more likely to be hag-ridden with the horrid memory of the worst. So the editor put in a note to explain his own title, which he said was necessary, because it was so much shorter. It is true that the phrase ‘My Best Story’ is very much shorter than the more accurate phrase, ‘I think this story is one of the relatively few by which I might possibly consent that people should judge my general intelligence, such as it is.’ It is also true that the phrase, ‘This story is utter trash,’ is very much shorter than the phrase, ‘This story is not, fairly considered, quite absolute and utter trash.’ But they do not, to say the least of it, mean the same thing. And selecting the shorter would be unwise, even in a publicity expert.

A rather similar problem arose about a recent selection of English essays, made and introduced by the late Lord Birkenhead; it was a very good selection, and it was not alone in suffering from the particular problem. In large letters on the title-page it had to bear the title of ‘The Hundred Best English Essays’; and in the very first words of the introduction Lord Birkenhead very sensibly said that there could not possibly be any such thing as ‘The Hundred Best English Essays’. He proceeded, in a very frank and sympathetic manner, to explain that it was not only impossible for anybody to do anything except make a reasonable collection of very good essays, but that he (for his part) had practically put in all the essays simply because he liked them. I really do not know what else any one can do with essays but like them—except, of course, if one has such darker reactions, dislike them. Of all forms of literature they are perhaps the least to be fitted into the old standards of judgment, by which it was in some sense possible to legislate for the drama or the ode. But, anyhow, there is something a little amusing about the claims of publicity and business requiring us to reverse all that we mean, in order to get anybody to listen to what we say. There is something comic about sacrificing everything to the headline, and letting it insist that the article should stand on its head.

I did not mention this book of essays, however, with the purpose of passing in review all its essays, still less the nature of the essay. I have to thank the compiler for bringing back many good things I may have missed or forgotten; but the one which especially caught my eye and concerns my pen is an excellent study by a critic lately dead of a poet whom he knew well and of whom he writes admirably. I refer to the essay on Swinburne by Sir Edmund Gosse. It contains any amount of matter upon which others could pronounce with much more authority than I. I only met Swinburne once; and though I met Gosse a great many times, I would never claim to have got past the guard of that polished rapier any more than anybody else. I had one letter from him about Stevenson, which I count one of the great honours of my life; for the rest, I was only one of a crowd of younger men to whom he was both ironical and kind. But there is something in the general and very vivid picture of Swinburne which he presents, which makes me inclined to linger perhaps belatedly on that name and on the poetry which, as poetry, was as straight as a singing arrow; but, considered as philosophy, has always puzzled me very much. In other words, if we consider the target of the arrow, we find that there is nothing to consider; it is not even so clear a concentric scheme as a labyrinth; it is rather a labyrinth without a centre.

In plain words, after reading Gosse’s essay again, I asked myself: ‘What on earth did Swinbume mean? Or did he mean anything?’ It is easy enough after reading some of the poems, especially the later, longer and generally lesser poems, to say that he did not mean anything; that he was simply a musician gone wrong; a lunatic with something singing in his head; a creature throbbing with suppressed dancing; a creature who could not help foaming at the mouth with flowers and flames and blood and blossoms and the sea. But it is not easy, after reading Gosse’s essay, to deny that he did in some way take something seriously; and something not himself, if his contemporaries doubted whether it was something for making righteousness. He did take counsel with Landor and Hugo as if they were grave gods making a world of justice or right reason. He did seem really to believe that some Utopia depended on the success of Cavour or the failure of Louis Bonaparte. But exactly how he connected it in his own mind with the queer licentious pessimism, like the last debauch of a suicide, which fills his other verses, I cannot make out; nor how he supposed that anything, even a Utopia, could be made of such flames and foamings. Surely he was not hoping for a republic in which all the citizens should be free to bite each other. Surely the hounds of spring, so hopefully upon winter’s traces, were not all of them frothing at the mouth like mad dogs?

Yet it is his taste in virtue rather than his taste in vice that puzzles me. In the worst and most world-famous of all his lines he wrote something about the raptures and roses of vice and the lilies and languors of virtue. The obvious thing to say is that he cannot have known much about virtue, if he thought it was languid. But, to do him justice, his own appeals to public virtue were anything but languid. When talking of his own favourite type, which used to be called Republican Virtue, he seems to have understood all that Roman dignity and decency which he tore to rags in his ravings about sex. He used another nonsensical tag about somebody being ‘noble and nude and antique’. So good a scholar ought to have known that, in the real world of the antique, a noble would never have desired to be nude. He would have regarded it as the mark, not of a noble, but a slave. In reality Swinburne knew all this; indeed one could hardly be a friend of so very ancient a Roman as Landor without knowing it.

Then, again, the Pagan philosophy he pitted against Christianity is a mass of such inconsistencies. In Songs Before Sunrise he offers Pantheism as the religion of the revolution. Pantheism may or may not be a good creed for a philosopher; Pantheism is certainly in one sense a very good creed for a Pagan philosopher. But Pantheism is a hopeless creed for a revolutionist. If all things are equally divine, then the tyrant and the bigot are as divine as the tribune and the truth-seeker. In ‘Hertha’ he imagines the universe as a vast tree, out of which all things in turn bud and bloom; and then takes refuge in the miserable metaphor of saying that ‘creeds’ are merely worms that have got into the bark—the devil knows how. If all things are equally unfolded from one natural root, the worms of oppression are as natural as the flowers of freedom. If they came otherwise, then the universe is not universal; and the worm in the tree of nature is as theological as the snake in the tree of knowledge. There might indeed be a war of spring sproutings against dead leaves or decayed fruit; but that only means that each is equally good in its season. And what is the good of a revolutionary creed that cannot denounce a tyrant in his season of strength? I believe that this folly of making Pantheism the creed of liberals has a great deal to do with the decline of liberal politics and the reactions against it to-day. Hertha, explaining (at some length) that she is everything, remarks, if I remember right:

I the mark that is missed And the arrows that miss.

It will strike a thoughtful mind that such arrows are rather likely to miss. William Tell will not fight well for Freedom, if he thinks that he and his bow and the target and the tyrant are all the same thing.

I

La maggior parte dei titoli e degli slogan moderni deve dire l’esatto contrario di ciò che intende, per amor di brevità. Talvolta gli organizzatori sono così sinceri da spiegarlo immediatamente dopo e da usare il sottotitolo per dimostrare che il titolo non è vero. Poco tempo fa apparve una serie di racconti brevi, che proclamava nel suo titolo editoriale come ciascun autore avesse scelto il proprio racconto migliore. Ma il curatore, che evidentemente soffriva d’intelligenza (e talvolta ciò comporta davvero sofferenza), era perfettamente ben consapevole che nessun autore sano di mente avrebbe detto che un dato racconto fosse assolutamente e sotto ogni aspetto il migliore; anzi, un autore sano di mente è più probabile che sia ossessionato dall’orrido ricordo del peggiore. Così il curatore aggiunse una nota per spiegare il proprio titolo, che diceva necessario, perché era tanto più breve. È vero che la frase «Il mio racconto migliore» è assai più breve della frase, più esatta, «Ritengo che questo racconto sia uno dei relativamente pochi in base ai quali potrei forse acconsentire che la gente giudichi la mia intelligenza generale, quale essa è». È altresì vero che la frase «Questo racconto è pura spazzatura» è assai più breve della frase «Questo racconto non è, a considerarlo con equità, del tutto e assoluta spazzatura». Ma esse non significano, a dir poco, la stessa cosa. E scegliere la più breve sarebbe imprudente, persino in un esperto di pubblicità.

Un problema alquanto simile sorse a proposito di una recente selezione di saggi inglesi, compiuta e introdotta dal defunto Lord Birkenhead; era un’ottima selezione, e non era sola a soffrire di quel particolare problema. A grandi lettere sul frontespizio doveva recare il titolo di «I Cento Migliori Saggi Inglesi»; e nelle primissime parole dell’introduzione Lord Birkenhead disse assai sensatamente che non poteva esistere alcuna cosa come «I Cento Migliori Saggi Inglesi». Proseguì, in maniera assai franca e affabile, spiegando che non era soltanto impossibile per chiunque fare alcunché se non una ragionevole raccolta di saggi molto buoni, ma che egli (per parte sua) aveva praticamente incluso tutti i saggi semplicemente perché gli piacevano. Davvero non so che altro si possa fare con i saggi se non apprezzarli — salvo, s’intende, chi abbia reazioni più cupe, disprezzarli. Di tutte le forme di letteratura essi sono forse la meno adatta a essere incasellata negli antichi canoni di giudizio, con cui in un certo senso era possibile legiferare per il dramma o per l’ode. Ma, ad ogni modo, c’è qualcosa di un po’ divertente nelle pretese della pubblicità e degli affari che ci impongono di rovesciare tutto ciò che intendiamo, per indurre qualcuno ad ascoltare ciò che diciamo. C’è qualcosa di comico nel sacrificare ogni cosa al titolo a effetto, lasciando che esso imponga all’articolo di reggersi a testa in giù.

Non ho menzionato questo libro di saggi, tuttavia, allo scopo di passare in rassegna tutti i suoi saggi, e ancor meno la natura del saggio. Devo ringraziare il compilatore per avermi restituito molte belle cose che posso aver trascurato o dimenticato; ma quella che specialmente ha colto il mio occhio e riguarda la mia penna è un eccellente studio di un critico da poco scomparso su un poeta che egli conosceva bene e di cui scrive mirabilmente. Mi riferisco al saggio su Swinburne di Sir Edmund Gosse. Contiene una quantità di materia su cui altri potrebbero pronunciarsi con assai più autorità di me. Incontrai Swinburne una sola volta; e sebbene incontrassi Gosse moltissime volte, non pretenderei mai d’aver oltrepassato la guardia di quel forbito stocco più di quanto lo fece chiunque altro. Ricevetti da lui una lettera su Stevenson, che considero uno dei grandi onori della mia vita; per il resto, ero soltanto uno di una folla di uomini più giovani con cui egli era insieme ironico e gentile. Ma c’è qualcosa nel quadro generale e assai vivido di Swinburne che egli presenta, che m’induce a indugiare forse tardivamente su quel nome e su quella poesia che, come poesia, era diritta come una freccia canora; ma, considerata come filosofia, mi ha sempre lasciato assai perplesso. In altre parole, se consideriamo il bersaglio della freccia, troviamo che non c’è nulla da considerare; non è nemmeno uno schema concentrico tanto chiaro quanto un labirinto; è piuttosto un labirinto senza centro.

In parole povere, dopo aver riletto il saggio di Gosse, mi chiesi: «Che diamine intendeva Swinburne? O intendeva qualcosa?» È abbastanza facile, dopo aver letto alcune delle poesie, specialmente le più tarde, più lunghe e in genere minori, dire che non intendeva nulla; che era semplicemente un musicista sviato; un pazzo con qualcosa che gli cantava in testa; una creatura fremente di danza repressa; una creatura che non poteva fare a meno di schiumare dalla bocca fiori e fiamme e sangue e boccioli e il mare. Ma non è facile, dopo aver letto il saggio di Gosse, negare che egli in qualche modo prendesse qualcosa sul serio; e qualcosa che non era sé stesso, se i suoi contemporanei dubitavano che fosse qualcosa capace di produrre giustizia. Egli prendeva davvero consiglio da Landor e da Hugo come se fossero gravi dèi intenti a creare un mondo di giustizia o di retta ragione. Sembrava davvero credere che una qualche Utopia dipendesse dal successo di Cavour o dal fallimento di Luigi Bonaparte. Ma come esattamente lo connettesse nella sua mente con lo strano pessimismo licenzioso, simile all’ultima crapula di un suicida, che riempie i suoi altri versi, non riesco a capirlo; né come supponesse che qualcosa, foss’anche un’Utopia, potesse esser fatto di tali fiamme e schiumeggiamenti. Di certo non sperava in una repubblica in cui tutti i cittadini fossero liberi di mordersi a vicenda. Di certo i segugi della primavera, così fiduciosi sulle tracce dell’inverno, non schiumavano tutti dalla bocca come cani rabbiosi?

Eppure è il suo gusto in fatto di virtù, più che il suo gusto in fatto di vizio, che mi lascia perplesso. Nel peggiore e più universalmente famoso di tutti i suoi versi scrisse qualcosa sui rapimenti e le rose del vizio e i gigli e i languori della virtù. La cosa ovvia da dire è che egli non poteva saperne molto della virtù, se la riteneva languida. Ma, per rendergli giustizia, i suoi stessi appelli alla virtù pubblica erano tutt’altro che languidi. Quando parlava del suo tipo prediletto, che si soleva chiamare Virtù Repubblicana, sembra aver compreso tutta quella romana dignità e decenza che fece a brandelli nei suoi deliri sul sesso. Usò un’altra frase insensata a proposito di qualcuno «nobile e nudo e antico». Uno studioso tanto buono avrebbe dovuto sapere che, nel reale mondo dell’antichità, un nobile non avrebbe mai desiderato essere nudo. L’avrebbe considerato il marchio non di un nobile, bensì di uno schiavo. In realtà Swinburne sapeva tutto questo; anzi, difficilmente si poteva essere amico di un romano tanto antico quale Landor senza saperlo.

Poi, di nuovo, la filosofia pagana che egli oppose al Cristianesimo è un cumulo di simili incoerenze. In Songs Before Sunrise egli offre il panteismo come religione della rivoluzione. Il panteismo può essere o no un buon credo per un filosofo; il panteismo è certamente, in un senso, un ottimo credo per un filosofo pagano. Ma il panteismo è un credo disperato per un rivoluzionario. Se tutte le cose sono egualmente divine, allora il tiranno e il bigotto sono divini quanto il tribuno e il cercatore di verità. In «Hertha» egli immagina l’universo come un vasto albero, da cui tutte le cose a turno germogliano e fioriscono; e poi si rifugia nella miserabile metafora del dire che i «credi» sono meri vermi penetrati nella corteccia — il diavolo sa come. Se tutte le cose si dispiegano egualmente da una sola radice naturale, i vermi dell’oppressione sono naturali quanto i fiori della libertà. Se venissero altrimenti, allora l’universo non è universale; e il verme nell’albero della natura è teologico quanto il serpente nel- l’albero della conoscenza. Vi potrebbe in verità essere una guerra di germogli primaverili contro foglie morte o frutti marci; ma ciò significa soltanto che ciascuno è egualmente buono nella sua stagione. E che giova un credo rivoluzionario che non può denunciare un tiranno nella sua stagione di forza? Credo che questa follia di fare del panteismo il credo dei liberali abbia molto a che vedere con il declino della politica liberale e con le reazioni contro di essa oggi. Hertha, spiegando (con una certa ampiezza) di essere ogni cosa, osserva, se ben ricordo:

Io il bersaglio che è mancato E le frecce che mancano.

Colpirà una mente riflessiva che simili frecce siano piuttosto propense a mancare. Guglielmo Tell non combatterà bene per la Libertà, se pensa che egli e il suo arco e il bersaglio e il tiranno siano tutti la stessa cosa.

II

When I say that Swinburne’s praise of virtue puzzles me more than his praise of vice, I do not (I may respectfully explain) mean that my natural taste in villainy makes me regard it as normal to be a villain, or that my brain reels with mystification when I contemplate any proved and public act of decency. I do not mean that crime is second nature to me, or that I set myself like a sleuth to track down a man and discover why he is not a murderer. What I mean is this: that in the case of Swinburne the loose poetry was really loose. It was flowing, both in form and spirit, and rather after the fashion of the flowing of tears. It was self-expression, but it was not self-assertion; and it certainly was not any other kind of assertion, like the assertion of a definite heresy or sophistry. In so far as there was some thing indefensible, he was not defending it. He was, perhaps, describing it, and it may be a bad thing that such things should be described; but such things are not in any case the materials of a moral or political system. Such hysterical, half-involuntary confession is not uncommon in literature, especially when (as is almost certainly the case with Swinburne) the literary man is confessing what he has never done. Anyhow, over the whole of this department of the poet’s work there is a spirit of appealing and almost engaging despair, a pessimism about the impotence of man. He does not pretend that the pagan gods are good; he only confesses that they are strong—or, in other words, that he is weak. What puzzled me was how he really reconciled this part of his work with the other part, in which he professed to see a new hope for men in the virile and universal Republic, in which men should become heroes in becoming citizens. There is hardly a hopeful line in Songs Before Sunrise that could not be answered with a hopeless line from Poems and Ballads. Perhaps the most musical and magical verse in ‘Dolores’ is that in open glorification of ‘the implacable beautiful tyrant’; and what is the use, after that, of denouncing all tyrants as implacable? What is the good of remaining rigid with horror of Napoleon, when you have flung yourself in a lyric ecstasy before Nero? What is the use of saying that you bring seed by night to sow, that men to come may reap and eat by day, when it is apparently so very easy for anybody at any moment to be tired of ‘what may come hereafter to men that sow and reap’? What is the sense of shouting about crowning man as the king of all things, if ‘the crown of his life, as it closes, is darkness; the fruit thereof dust’?

Nevertheless, there is another sense in which I would not dwell harshly upon the looser type of verse, as part of the real problem of this strange personality. I say that the poet in the poem does not defend himself. The poet in prose was less wise, and defended himself indefensibly. I do not care so much as Gosse did for the ranting and railing prose in which Swinburne accused his critics of being unjust to him; nevertheless, I think that they were unjust to him. I do not mean that he was right; but I do mean that they were wrong. The critics were wrong in the worst way in which a critic can be wrong about a poem: in being wrong about the point of it. The poem may contain a great deal that is pointless or beside the point; it may contain a great deal that is lawless and shameless and really at enmity with morals—in which case I am so old-fashioned as to think that it ought to be denounced and even destroyed as such. But even in condemning it we must condemn its point; and to condemn its point we must comprehend its point. We must understand what the man has really said, and not hang him as a heretic for saying something he never said. Now much of the wilder part of Poems and Ballads is not meant to describe merely a rush towards the antics of animal love, but a reaction from the tragedy of true love. The poet, in a morbid mood of mockery, is bitterly professing (we might say pretending) to prefer the gutter to the palaces of ideal enchantment, from which he has been cast forth by fickleness or pride. It is not a nice state of mind. it is a very nasty state of mind; but it is that state of mind and no other, and not the state of one who always preferred gutters because he was a gutter-snipe. To put the point shortly, we cannot understand the poem called ‘Dolores’ without reading it side by side with the poem called ‘The Triumph of Time’. For instance, I have condemned, as every sane critic has condemned, all that hydrophobiac nonsense of Swinburne about people ‘biting’ each other. But it is not quite fair, even to that infernal nonsense, to read it without remembering the verse to which it in some sense leads up, and which is the true inner burden of the poem:

In yesterday’s reach and to-morrow’s, Out of sight though they lie of to-day, There have been and there yet shall be sorrows That smite not and bite not in play. The life and the love thou despisest, These hurt us indeed, and in vain— O wise among women, and wisest, Our Lady of Pain.

I do not think the heartless woman is the wisest woman; I venture to doubt whether Swinburne thought so. But Swinburne did say so; and this is what he said; and what he meant was that the pains of a nobler love are so much more terrible that perhaps the coarse person has the best of it, after all. He repeats this main theme again and again in the poem, so that it is incredible that the critics did not see the point, even if they were right to condemn it. He says it plainly in the lines

No thorns go as deep as a rose’s, And love is more cruel than lust; Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses and wives, And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.

And it is then only that he says, in words horrible enough, but with something of a moral horror:

And pale with the past we draw nigh thee And satiate with comfortless hours: And we know thee, how all men belie thee, And we gather the fruit of thy flowers.

Or again, elsewhere:

Of languors rekindled and rallied, Of barren delights and unclean; Things monstrous and fruitless; a pallid And poisonous queen.

This is not praising sin, though it may be practising it. This is rather emphasizing the disgust that is the alternative to the disappointment. It is about as idolatrous as a disappointed lover talking to a bottle of gin, and saying, ‘Damn your ugly face, I believe you’re my only friend, after all!’

I have dwelt a little on this particular point about the poet, because it involves this very vital matter of the point about a poem. Even when it is understood, the attitude may be condemned— indeed, it should be condemned. But it should not be condemned for being something else. It is a morbid view, an unmanly view, a view immoral in its practical effects. But, above all, as seems to me most striking in this connexion, it is the very worst possible view of life for anybody proposing to raise a political revolution and to found a perfect Republic. That is the question which I asked first: why it is that men who seem so keen on reforming the world equip themselves with the worst possible philosophies for doing it? It is hard to say whether poor Swinburne was a more hopeless revolutionist in being a pessimist or in being an optimist. His pantheism could only prove that the worst things are good, because they are a part of nature; and his pessimism only proved that the best things are bad, because they are doomed to disappointment and sorrow. It seems either way a weak motive for dying on a barricade for the belief that one thing is better than another. We need a fixed idea of truth to establish a reign of justice. But though Swinburne could hardly have given justice to men, he has a right to get justice from them. And I say this to show that on one point he did not receive justice—not even the justice that condemns.

II

Quando dico che la lode della virtù in Swinburne mi lascia più perplesso della sua lode del vizio, non intendo (mi sia permesso spiegarlo rispettosamente) che il mio naturale gusto per la scelleratezza mi faccia ritenere normale essere un malvagio, o che il mio cervello vacilli per la perplessità quando contemplo un qualsiasi comprovato e pubblico atto di decenza. Non intendo che il crimine sia per me una seconda natura, o che mi metta come un segugio a dar la caccia a un uomo per scoprire perché non sia un assassino. Ciò che intendo è questo: che nel caso di Swinburne la poesia sciolta era davvero sciolta. Era fluente, tanto nella forma quanto nello spirito, e piuttosto alla maniera del fluire delle lacrime. Era auto-espressione, ma non era auto-affermazione; e non era di certo alcun altro tipo di affermazione, come l’affermazione di una precisa eresia o sofistica. Nella misura in cui vi era qualcosa d’indifendibile, egli non lo difendeva. Lo descriveva, forse, e può darsi che sia un male che simili cose siano descritte; ma simili cose non sono in ogni caso i materiali di un sistema morale o politico. Una simile isterica, semi-involontaria confessione non è rara in letteratura, specialmente quando (come è quasi certamente il caso di Swinburne) il letterato confessa ciò che non ha mai fatto. Comunque, sull’intero settore di quest’opera del poeta aleggia uno spirito di disperazione accorata e quasi accattivante, un pessimismo circa l’impotenza dell’uomo. Egli non pretende che gli dèi pagani siano buoni; confessa soltanto che sono forti — o, in altre parole, che egli è debole. Ciò che mi lasciava perplesso era come conciliasse davvero questa parte della sua opera con l’altra parte, in cui professava di scorgere una nuova speranza per gli uomini nella virile e universale Repubblica, in cui gli uomini sarebbero divenuti eroi divenendo cittadini. Non c’è quasi un solo verso di speranza in Songs Before Sunrise che non si potrebbe controbattere con un verso disperato di Poems and Ballads. Forse il verso più musicale e magico di «Dolores» è quello in aperta glorificazione dell’«implacabile bellissimo tiranno»; e a che giova, dopo ciò, denunciare tutti i tiranni come implacabili? Che pro rimanere rigidi d’orrore per Napoleone, quando ti sei prostrato in un’estasi lirica dinanzi a Nerone? A che giova dire che porti il seme di notte a seminare, affinché gli uomini a venire mietano e mangino di giorno, quando pare così facile per chiunque, in qualsiasi momento, stancarsi di «ciò che potrà venire in seguito agli uomini che seminano e mietono»? Che senso ha gridare di incoronare l’uomo re di tutte le cose, se «la corona della sua vita, al suo chiudersi, è tenebra; il frutto di essa è polvere»?

Nondimeno, vi è un altro senso in cui non vorrei indugiare severamente sul tipo più sciolto di verso, come parte del vero problema di questa strana personalità. Dico che il poeta nella poesia non difende sé stesso. Il poeta in prosa fu meno saggio, e difese sé stesso indifendibilmente. Non m’importa tanto quanto importava a Gosse della sbraitante e inveente prosa in cui Swinburne accusava i suoi critici d’essere ingiusti con lui; nondimeno, penso che furono ingiusti con lui. Non intendo che egli avesse ragione; ma intendo che essi avevano torto. I critici sbagliarono nel modo peggiore in cui un critico può sbagliare su una poesia: sbagliando sul suo intento. La poesia può contenere moltissimo che è privo d’intento o fuori tema; può contenere moltissimo che è illegale e svergognato e davvero in inimicizia con la morale — nel qual caso io sono tanto all’antica da ritenere che debba essere denunciata e persino distrutta in quanto tale. Ma anche nel condannarla dobbiamo condannarne l’intento; e per condannarne l’intento dobbiamo comprenderne l’intento. Dobbiamo capire ciò che l’uomo ha realmente detto, e non impiccarlo come eretico per aver detto qualcosa che non ha mai detto. Ora, gran parte della porzione più sfrenata di Poems and Ballads non intende descrivere semplicemente uno slancio verso le buffonate dell’amore animale, bensì una reazione alla tragedia del vero amore. Il poeta, in un morboso umore di scherno, professa amaramente (potremmo dire finge) di preferire il rigagnolo ai palazzi dell’ideale incanto, da cui è stato scacciato per volubilità o orgoglio. Non è un bello stato d’animo, è uno stato d’animo assai brutto; ma è quello stato d’animo e nessun altro, e non lo stato di chi ha sempre preferito i rigagnoli perché era un monello di strada. Per dirla in breve, non possiamo comprendere la poesia intitolata «Dolores» senza leggerla fianco a fianco con la poesia intitolata «The Triumph of Time». Per esempio, ho condannato, come ogni critico sano ha condannato, tutta quell’idrofoba insensatezza di Swinburne sul fatto che la gente si «morda» a vicenda. Ma non è del tutto giusto, nemmeno verso quell’infernale insensatezza, leggerla senza ricordare il verso a cui essa in un certo senso conduce, e che è il vero intimo tema della poesia:

Nella distesa di ieri e in quella di domani, Benché giacciano fuori dalla vista dell’oggi, Vi sono stati e vi saranno ancora dolori Che non colpiscono né mordono per gioco. La vita e l’amore che tu disprezzi, Questi ci feriscono davvero, e invano — O saggia fra le donne, e sapientissima, Nostra Signora del Dolore.

Non penso che la donna senza cuore sia la donna più saggia; oso dubitare che Swinburne lo pensasse. Ma Swinburne lo disse davvero; e questo è ciò che disse; e ciò che intendeva era che le pene di un amore più nobile sono tanto più terribili che forse la persona volgare, dopo tutto, la spunta. Egli ripete questo tema principale più e più volte nella poesia, sicché è incredibile che i critici non ne vedessero l’intento, anche se avevano ragione a condannarlo. Lo dice chiaramente nei versi

Nessuna spina va tanto in fondo quanto quella d’una rosa, E l’amore è più crudele della brama; Il Tempo volge i vecchi giorni in derisione, I nostri amori in cadaveri e in mogli, E il matrimonio e la morte e la divisione Rendono sterili le nostre vite.

Ed è solo allora che egli dice, con parole abbastanza orribili, ma con qualcosa di un orrore morale:

E pallidi del passato ci accostiamo a te E satolli d’ore senza conforto: E ti conosciamo, come tutti gli uomini ti smentiscono, E cogliamo il frutto dei tuoi fiori.

Oppure, di nuovo, altrove:

Di languori riaccesi e ravvivati, Di sterili delizie e immonde; Cose mostruose e infruttuose; una pallida E velenosa regina.

Questo non è lodare il peccato, per quanto possa essere praticarlo. Questo è piuttosto porre l’accento sul disgusto che è l’alternativa alla delusione. È idolatrico press’a poco quanto un deluso amante che parli a una bottiglia di gin, e dica: «Maledetta la tua brutta faccia, credo che tu sia il mio unico amico, dopo tutto!»

Ho indugiato un poco su questo particolare punto riguardo al poeta, perché esso coinvolge questa vitalissima questione dell’intento di una poesia. Anche quando è compreso, l’atteggiamento può essere condannato — anzi, dovrebbe essere condannato. Ma non dovrebbe essere condannato per essere qualcos’altro. È una visione morbosa, una visione non virile, una visione immorale nei suoi effetti pratici. Ma, soprattutto, come mi pare più notevole a questo proposito, è la peggiore visione possibile della vita per chiunque si proponga di suscitare una rivoluzione politica e di fondare una Repubblica perfetta. È questa la domanda che ho posto per primo: perché mai gli uomini che paiono così ansiosi di riformare il mondo si equipaggiano con le peggiori filosofie possibili per farlo? È difficile dire se il povero Swinburne fosse un rivoluzionario più disperato nell’essere pessimista o nell’essere ottimista. Il suo panteismo poteva solo provare che le cose peggiori sono buone, perché sono parte della natura; e il suo pessimismo provava soltanto che le cose migliori sono cattive, perché sono condannate alla delusione e al dolore. In un modo o nell’altro pare un debole motivo per morire su una barricata per la convinzione che una cosa sia migliore di un’altra. Ci occorre un’idea fissa di verità per instaurare un regno di giustizia. Ma per quanto Swinburne difficilmente avrebbe potuto rendere giustizia agli uomini, egli ha diritto a riceverne giustizia. E dico questo per mostrare che su un punto egli non ricevette giustizia — nemmeno la giustizia che condanna.

III

‘I have lived long enough to have seen one thing; that love hath an end’ : so runs, as every one will remember, the first line of Swinburne’s beautiful ‘Hymn to Proserpine’, the dirge of a Pagan farewell to Paganism. I have lived long enough to have seen one thing: that the love of Swinburne hath an end. Not the admiration for Swinburne, not the reasonable appreciation of Swinburne; but that particular sort of love of Swinburne which is like first love in youth; perhaps (one is sometimes tempted to think) the only sort of real love that Swinburne had ever known anything about. I mean that sort of mere magic spell or enchantment by Swinburne which so many young people had in the period when, as Mr. Maurice Baring has very truly said, Swinburne seems to them not so much the best poet as simply the only poet. That sort of love certainly hath an end, and most of us have lived long enough to have seen it. But it is symbolic of something larger; something that is connected not only with Swinburne but with Swinburnianism.

Any man who has ‘lived long enough’, and not actually stiffened with negative prejudices, must know by this time that the modern movement, and every sort of movement, revolves round and round the central pillar of the old Christian tradition. It is emphatically not leaving that pillar behind and rushing right away towards some other winning-post. He knows it, for the perfectly simple reason that he has seen it careering in two totally opposite directions, and neither of them has succeeded in getting away from the post. He knows by this time, if he is honest with himself, that the whole thing is like a Giddy-go-Round at a country fair; full of rush and romantic enjoyment, but revolving upon one centre that supports all the movement by being immovable. It is a glorious experience for children, and therefore for poets, who share some of the wisdom of children. It consists of concentric rings of hobby-horses, and a hobby-horse, like a hobby, is a very good thing to make a thinking man happy. In most Giddy-go-Rounds there are outer and inner rings of horses, nearer or farther from the centre; and this also is an allegory. In some Giddy-go-Rounds there are revolving rings going opposite ways which greatly increase the godlike quality of giddiness. In youth or childhood especially it is quite natural to be giddy, even if it sometimes begins to approximate to being sick. Of recent literature we might not unfairly say that for the first half of the time most of the modern poets were giddy; and now, in the second half of the time, most of the modern poets are sick.

Anyhow, Swinburne certainly rode his hobby-horse with great fire and galloping energy; but, when he fancied that he was leaving the central pillar of his childhood and his ancestry far behind him, he was really very far from the truth and very close to the pillar. And this is proved by the fact that both poetical and political energy has since galloped in exactly the contrary direction, and is still at about the same distance from the ancestral pillar as before. If anything, the more recent poets have tended to take their seats in the ring rather nearer to the pillar. I imagine that, if a man had gone round during the last ten years asking the young people in the literary world whom they regarded as their hope and hero and leader, as the young of my youth regarded Swinburne, it is about ten to one that most of them would mention Mr. T. S. Eliot. Wilde said that Swinburne was the only true Laureate, for the poet praised by all other poets must always wear the laurel. Laurels and Laureates are not so much in the style of our more cynical and realistic time. But the young would probably support a young writer like Mr. Eliot, even if both the young writer and the young admirers strike older people as being rather prematurely old. Anyhow, the two poets will serve very well for the purpose of the parallel about poetry, or even about polities.

Swinburne was quite certain that he and the world were galloping nearer and nearer to the new Republic and farther and farther from the old Church. If he had been right, it would follow that, by this time, a man like Mr. Eliot would be even more Republican than Swinburne. As a matter of fact, Mr. Eliot has actually walked out of a real live Republic and loudly announced that he is a Royalist. He has also declared himself an Anglo-Catholic; but I will leave the religious issue as far as possible on one side, because though even more cogent, it is much more controversial. But even in the matter of politics alone it is quite obvious that there has been a complete turn of the tide. The Giddy-go-Round is going round in the reverse direction, but, I am glad to say, almost as giddily. The wooden horses are galloping with their accustomed fervour, and I hope the children who ride on them are happy. But one who has seen this complete reversal of direction since his own childhood will not be able to believe that the horses broke loose from the post and fled farther and farther from it for ever merely because he was told so in childhood. Swinburne’s hobby-horse, for instance, had a perpetual impulse to gallop away over the Alps into Italy. But suppose he were really still galloping into Italy, like Hannibal or Napoleon, what sort of Italy would he find? The political ideas of Swinburne were the ideas of the period of Mazzini. The political ideas of T. S. Eliot are the ideas of the period of Mussolini. It might be maintained that the new poet is nearer than the old poet to the old Roman pillar of the past. It is stark nonsense to pretend that he is farther away.

I am not dealing directly here with things that I myself accept or reject. Many people know that my own religion is even more Roman than Mr. Eliot’s. Yet in many ways my polities are much more Republican than Mr. Eliot’s; perhaps much more really Republican than Swinburne’s. But I am not arguing about what is right or wrong in any of these views. I am merely remarking on an actual revolution in the ideas of a large number of other people, and noting that it is more like the real revolution of a Giddy-go-Round than the mere riot of a gallop. In one sense it has been revolution against revolution; that is, revolution in one sense reversing revolution in the other. But nobody who notes the real movements in the intellectual world just now can doubt that there has been the sort of revolution that is called a reaction. In every country there has been a reaction, either practical or theoretical, in the direction of order or authority or classical proportion. In France there has been the influence of Maurras in polities or Maritain in religion. In Germany the Dictator is a vision; in Italy he is a fact. In America, the very last place where most people would look for classicism, there has arisen an influential school of classicists. Those who most fiercely denounce the fact most clearly confess the fact, and even their denunciations are witness that it is a universal fact. The enemies of Humanism denounce it as intellectual Fascism. The enemies of Fascism make fun of its appeal to classicism. Of course a man may quite reasonably like some of these things and dislike others, or like some parts of these things and dislike others, as I do myself. But, as I say, I am not talking about likes or dislikes, and I am not talking about myself. I am talking about the way the world goes round, and pointing out that the moral world does not always go round from right to left. It is, at this moment, most certainly going round from left to right. The sort of political party that used to be called the Extreme Right contains more of the really original modern thinkers than the party called the Extreme Left. I only say that the return to traditionalism is obviously strong enough to be recognized. I think it very possible that it may soon be strong enough to be resisted. But when strange survivals of the Swinburnian epoch, imagining themselves to be young, actually come and tell me that the world is on an endless march towards wild liberty and indefinite relaxation of everything, I really do not know how to answer, except with a melancholy smile. ‘I have lived long enough to have seen one thing …’

III

«Ho vissuto abbastanza a lungo da vedere una cosa: che l’amore ha una fine»: così recita, come tutti ricorderanno, il primo verso del bellissimo «Inno a Proserpina» di Swinburne, il canto funebre di un pagano che dà l’addio al Paganesimo. Io ho vissuto abbastanza a lungo da vedere una cosa: che l’amore per Swinburne ha una fine. Non l’ammirazione per Swinburne, non la ragionevole stima di Swinburne; ma quella particolare specie di amore per Swinburne che somiglia al primo amore della giovinezza; forse (talvolta si è tentati di pensarlo) l’unica specie di vero amore di cui Swinburne abbia mai saputo qualcosa. Intendo quella sorta di puro incantesimo o sortilegio magico esercitato da Swinburne, che tanti giovani provarono nell’epoca in cui, come ha detto con molta verità il signor Maurice Baring, Swinburne appariva loro non tanto il miglior poeta quanto semplicemente l’unico poeta. Quella specie di amore ha certamente una fine, e i più tra noi hanno vissuto abbastanza a lungo da vederla. Ma è il simbolo di qualcosa di più grande; qualcosa che è legato non solo a Swinburne ma allo swinburnianesimo.

Ogni uomo che abbia «vissuto abbastanza a lungo», e non si sia davvero irrigidito in pregiudizi negativi, deve ormai sapere che il movimento moderno, e ogni sorta di movimento, gira e rigira attorno al pilastro centrale dell’antica tradizione cristiana. Non sta affatto lasciandosi alle spalle quel pilastro per slanciarsi verso qualche altro traguardo. Lo sa, per la ragione semplicissima che l’ha visto correre in due direzioni del tutto opposte, e nessuna delle due è riuscita ad allontanarsi dal palo. Ormai sa, se è onesto con sé stesso, che tutta la faccenda è come una giostra a un luna park di campagna; piena di corsa e di godimento romantico, ma che ruota su un unico centro il quale sostiene tutto il movimento appunto perché resta immobile. È un’esperienza gloriosa per i bambini, e perciò per i poeti, che condividono un po’ della saggezza dei bambini. È fatta di anelli concentrici di cavalli a dondolo, e un cavallo a dondolo, come un pallino, è un’ottima cosa per rendere felice un uomo che pensa. Nella maggior parte delle giostre vi sono anelli di cavalli esterni e interni, più vicini o più lontani dal centro; e anche questo è un’allegoria. In certe giostre vi sono anelli che ruotano in senso opposto, i quali accrescono grandemente la divina qualità della vertigine. Nella giovinezza, e specialmente nell’infanzia, è del tutto naturale avere il capogiro, anche se talvolta comincia ad assomigliare alla nausea. Della letteratura recente potremmo dire, senza troppa ingiustizia, che nella prima metà del tempo la maggior parte dei poeti moderni aveva il capogiro; e ora, nella seconda metà del tempo, la maggior parte dei poeti moderni ha la nausea.

Comunque sia, Swinburne cavalcò certamente il suo cavallo a dondolo con gran foga ed energia galoppante; ma, quando si illudeva di lasciarsi molto indietro il pilastro centrale della sua infanzia e del suo lignaggio, era in realtà lontanissimo dalla verità e vicinissimo al pilastro. E ciò è provato dal fatto che da allora l’energia poetica e politica ha galoppato esattamente nella direzione contraria, e si trova ancora press’a poco alla stessa distanza dal pilastro ancestrale di prima. Semmai, i poeti più recenti hanno teso a prendere posto nell’anello un po’ più vicino al pilastro. Immagino che, se qualcuno negli ultimi dieci anni fosse andato in giro a chiedere ai giovani del mondo letterario chi considerassero la loro speranza, il loro eroe e la loro guida, come i giovani della mia giovinezza consideravano Swinburne, vi siano circa dieci probabilità su una che i più menzionerebbero il signor T. S. Eliot. Wilde disse che Swinburne era l’unico vero Poeta Laureato, poiché il poeta lodato da tutti gli altri poeti deve sempre portare l’alloro. Allori e Poeti Laureati non sono molto nello stile del nostro tempo più cinico e realistico. Ma i giovani sosterrebbero probabilmente un giovane scrittore come il signor Eliot, anche se tanto il giovane scrittore quanto i giovani ammiratori appaiono alle persone più anziane invecchiati piuttosto prematuramente. Comunque sia, i due poeti serviranno benissimo allo scopo del parallelo sulla poesia, o anche sulla politica.

Swinburne era assolutamente certo che lui e il mondo galoppassero sempre più vicino alla nuova Repubblica e sempre più lontano dalla vecchia Chiesa. Se avesse avuto ragione, ne seguirebbe che, a quest’ora, un uomo come il signor Eliot sarebbe ancor più repubblicano di Swinburne. Di fatto, il signor Eliot è addirittura uscito da una Repubblica reale e vivente e ha annunciato ad alta voce di essere un Realista. Si è anche dichiarato anglo-cattolico; ma lascerò per quanto possibile da parte la questione religiosa, perché, benché ancora più stringente, è assai più controversa. Ma anche solo in materia di politica è del tutto evidente che vi è stata una completa inversione della marea. La giostra gira in senso inverso, ma, mi fa piacere dirlo, quasi altrettanto vertiginosamente. I cavalli di legno galoppano col loro consueto fervore, e spero che i bambini che li montano siano felici. Ma chi ha visto questa completa inversione di direzione fin dalla propria infanzia non potrà credere che i cavalli si siano staccati dal palo e ne siano fuggiti sempre più lontano per sempre solo perché gli fu detto così da bambino. Il cavallo a dondolo di Swinburne, per esempio, aveva un impulso perpetuo a galoppare oltre le Alpi fino in Italia. Ma supponiamo che stesse davvero ancora galoppando verso l’Italia, come Annibale o Napoleone: quale sorta di Italia troverebbe? Le idee politiche di Swinburne erano le idee dell’epoca di Mazzini. Le idee politiche di T. S. Eliot sono le idee dell’epoca di Mussolini. Si potrebbe sostenere che il nuovo poeta è più vicino del vecchio poeta all’antico pilastro romano del passato. È pura assurdità pretendere che ne sia più lontano.

Non mi occupo qui direttamente delle cose che io stesso accetto o rifiuto. Molti sanno che la mia religione è ancora più romana di quella del signor Eliot. Eppure per molti versi la mia politica è assai più repubblicana di quella del signor Eliot; forse assai più realmente repubblicana di quella di Swinburne. Ma non sto discutendo di ciò che è giusto o sbagliato in nessuna di queste opinioni. Mi limito a osservare un’effettiva rivoluzione nelle idee di un gran numero di altre persone, e a notare che essa somiglia più alla vera rivoluzione di una giostra che al semplice tumulto di un galoppo. In un certo senso è stata rivoluzione contro rivoluzione; vale a dire, rivoluzione in un senso che rovescia la rivoluzione nell’altro. Ma nessuno che osservi i reali movimenti del mondo intellettuale in questo momento può dubitare che vi sia stata quella sorta di rivoluzione che si chiama reazione. In ogni paese vi è stata una reazione, pratica o teorica, nella direzione dell’ordine o dell’autorità o della proporzione classica. In Francia vi è stata l’influenza di Maurras in politica o di Maritain in religione. In Germania il Dittatore è una visione; in Italia è un fatto. In America, l’ultimissimo luogo in cui i più cercherebbero il classicismo, è sorta un’influente scuola di classicisti. Coloro che più ferocemente denunciano il fatto lo confessano più chiaramente, e persino le loro denunce testimoniano che è un fatto universale. I nemici dell’Umanesimo lo denunciano come Fascismo intellettuale. I nemici del Fascismo si fanno beffe del suo richiamo al classicismo. Naturalmente un uomo può ben ragionevolmente amare alcune di queste cose e detestarne altre, o amare alcune parti di queste cose e detestarne altre, come faccio io stesso. Ma, come dico, non sto parlando di simpatie o antipatie, e non sto parlando di me stesso. Sto parlando del modo in cui il mondo gira, e faccio notare che il mondo morale non gira sempre da destra a sinistra. In questo momento, con ogni certezza, sta girando da sinistra a destra. Il tipo di partito politico che si soleva chiamare Estrema Destra contiene più veri pensatori moderni originali del partito chiamato Estrema Sinistra. Dico solo che il ritorno al tradizionalismo è evidentemente abbastanza forte da essere riconosciuto. Ritengo assai possibile che presto possa essere abbastanza forte da essere combattuto. Ma quando strani superstiti dell’epoca swinburniana, immaginando di essere giovani, vengono davvero a dirmi che il mondo è in una marcia senza fine verso la libertà sfrenata e il rilassamento indefinito di ogni cosa, davvero non so come rispondere, se non con un malinconico sorriso. «Ho vissuto abbastanza a lungo da vedere una cosa…»