one leg
The Advantages of having One Leg
G.K.Chesterton
[From: Tremendous Trifles, 1909]
A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either insolent or weak, said at last, “I think one can live through these great sorrows and even be the better. What wears one is the little worries.” “That’s quite right, mum,” answered the old woman with emphasis, “and I ought to know, seeing I’ve had ten of ‘em.” It is, perhaps, in this sense that it is most true that little worries are most wearing. In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a truth, contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. People who have both small troubles and big ones have the right to say that they find the small ones the most bitter; and it is undoubtedly true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible can feel a faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and all its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is sometimes used or abused by people, becasue they have nothing but the very smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the crumpled rose-leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she would wear the crown of thorns—if she had to. The gentleman may permit himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much better if it were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that the grasshopper on man’s shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much respect to a gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We may concede that a straw may break the camel’s back, but we like to know that it really is the last straw and not the first.
I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about little ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very clear and happy daily life than I think we are justified in asking that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. I do not deny that molehills can sometimes be important. Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be more abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before, they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition that he was going to tumble over a hassock. William III. died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose that with all his varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental limitations that are always falling across our path—bad weather, confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding punctuality when we don’t. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn from all these that I sing—I sing with confidence because I have recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only alternative course of stinding on one leg like a stork. A stork is a poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it.
To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing itself symbolises something other than isolation. If we wish to see what a house is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish to depict what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or on a dark sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that humanity means; so long as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another figure and the picture is less human—not more so. One is company, two is none. If you wish to symbolize human building draw one dark tower on the horizon; if you wish to symbolize light let there be no star in the sky. Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we call our day there is but one star in the sky— a large, fierce star which we call the sun. One sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower of Giotto is sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. To express complete and perfect leggishness the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the tower in the wilderness. As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is that which stands most alone.
This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate use of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few days that I am thus unequally balanced the helplessness or dislocation of the one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and classic beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. George Meredith’s novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in the stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more literal exactitude, “He has a leg.” Notice how this famous literary phrase supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable thing. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. That having had one good leg he should have another—this would be to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do. She would have been as much bewildered by him as if he had been a centipede.
All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to realize how very much otherwise it might have been. The moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and beautiful than we ever know until some accident reminds us. If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a moment. If you wish to realize how fearfully and wonderfully God’s image is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realize the splendid vision of all visible things— wink the other eye.
one leg
The Advantages of having One Leg
G.K.Chesterton
[From: Tremendous Trifles, 1909]
A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either insolent or weak, said at last, “I think one can live through these great sorrows and even be the better. What wears one is the little worries.” “That’s quite right, mum,” answered the old woman with emphasis, “and I ought to know, seeing I’ve had ten of ‘em.” It is, perhaps, in this sense that it is most true that little worries are most wearing. In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a truth, contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error. People who have both small troubles and big ones have the right to say that they find the small ones the most bitter; and it is undoubtedly true that the back which is bowed under loads incredible can feel a faint addition to those loads; a giant holding up the earth and all its animal creation might still find the grasshopper a burden. But I am afraid that the maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is sometimes used or abused by people, becasue they have nothing but the very smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the crumpled rose-leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity she would wear the crown of thorns—if she had to. The gentleman may permit himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he would behave much better if it were a mere matter of starvation. We need not deny that the grasshopper on man’s shoulder is a burden; but we need not pay much respect to a gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We may concede that a straw may break the camel’s back, but we like to know that it really is the last straw and not the first.
I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about little ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very clear and happy daily life than I think we are justified in asking that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. I do not deny that molehills can sometimes be important. Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be more abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before, they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition that he was going to tumble over a hassock. William III. died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose that with all his varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental limitations that are always falling across our path—bad weather, confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding punctuality when we don’t. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn from all these that I sing—I sing with confidence because I have recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only alternative course of stinding on one leg like a stork. A stork is a poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it.
To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing itself symbolises something other than isolation. If we wish to see what a house is it must be a house in some uninhabited landscape. If we wish to depict what a man really is we must depict a man alone in a desert or on a dark sea sand. So long as he is a single figure he means all that humanity means; so long as he is solitary he means sociability and comradeship. Add another figure and the picture is less human—not more so. One is company, two is none. If you wish to symbolize human building draw one dark tower on the horizon; if you wish to symbolize light let there be no star in the sky. Indeed, all through that strangely lit season which we call our day there is but one star in the sky— a large, fierce star which we call the sun. One sun is splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower of Giotto is sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower; the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. To express complete and perfect leggishness the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the tower in the wilderness. As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is that which stands most alone.
una gamba
I Vantaggi dell’Avere una Sola Gamba
G.K.Chesterton
[Da: Tremendous Trifles, 1909]
Un mio amico che stava visitando una povera donna in lutto, e andava cercando qualche frase di conforto che non fosse né insolente né fiacca, disse infine: «Credo che si possa attraversare questi grandi dolori e persino uscirne migliori. Ciò che logora sono le piccole preoccupazioni». «Verissimo, signore», rispose la vecchia con enfasi, «e me ne intendo, dato che ne ho avute dieci». È forse in questo senso che è più vero dire che le piccole preoccupazioni sono le più logoranti. Nel suo significato più vago la frase, per quanto contenga una verità, contiene anche qualche possibilità di autoinganno e di errore. Chi ha insieme piccoli guai e grandi ha il diritto di dire che trova i piccoli i più amari; ed è indubbiamente vero che la schiena curva sotto pesi incredibili può avvertire una lieve aggiunta a quei pesi: un gigante che regge la terra e tutta la sua creazione animale potrebbe ancora trovare un peso la cavalletta. Ma temo che la massima secondo cui le più piccole preoccupazioni sono le peggiori venga talvolta usata, o abusata, da persone che non hanno altro che le più piccole preoccupazioni. La dama può scusarsi d’imprecare contro la rosa sgualcita riflettendo con quale straordinaria dignità porterebbe la corona di spine — se dovesse. Il gentiluomo può permettersi di maledire il pranzo e dirsi che si comporterebbe molto meglio se si trattasse di pura e semplice fame. Non occorre negare che la cavalletta sulla spalla dell’uomo sia un peso; ma non occorre nutrire troppo rispetto per un gentiluomo che va sempre gridando che preferirebbe un elefante quando sa bene che nel paese non ci sono elefanti. Possiamo concedere che una pagliuzza possa spezzare la schiena del cammello, ma ci piace sapere che è davvero l’ultima pagliuzza e non la prima.
Ammetto che chi ha torti gravi ha un vero diritto di brontolare, purché brontoli di qualcos’altro. È un fatto singolare che, se sono sani di mente, quasi sempre brontolino di qualcos’altro. Parlare con perfetta ragionevolezza dei propri torti realissimi è il modo più spiccio per uscir di senno. Ma le persone dai grandi guai parlano dei piccoli, e l’uomo che si lamenta della rosa sgualcita ha spessissimo la carne piena di spine. Ma se un uomo ha di solito una vita quotidiana molto serena e felice, allora penso che siamo autorizzati a chiedergli di non fare montagne di nonnulla. Non nego che i nonnulla possano talvolta essere importanti. I piccoli fastidi hanno questo di malvagio, che possono essere più repentini perché più invisibili; non proiettano innanzi alcuna ombra, non hanno atmosfera. Nessuno ha mai avuto una mistica premonizione di stare per inciampare in uno sgabello. Guglielmo III morì cadendo su una talpaia; non suppongo che, con tutte le sue varie capacità, sarebbe riuscito a cadere da una montagna. Ma, fatta la tara di tutto ciò, ripeto che possiamo chiedere a un uomo felice (non a Guglielmo III) di sopportare puri inconvenienti, e persino di farne parte della sua felicità. Del dolore positivo o della povertà positiva non parlo qui. Parlo di quelle innumerevoli limitazioni accidentali che continuamente ci attraversano il cammino: il maltempo, la costrizione a questa o a quella casa o stanza, il fallimento di appuntamenti o accordi, l’attesa alle stazioni ferroviarie, la posta persa, il trovare impuntualità quando vogliamo puntualità, o, ciò che è peggio, il trovare puntualità quando non la vogliamo. È dei poetici piaceri che si possono trarre da tutto questo che io canto — canto con fiducia perché ho di recente sperimentato i poetici piaceri che nascono dal dover stare seduto su una sola sedia con un piede slogato, con l’unica alternativa di stare ritto su una gamba sola come una cicogna. La cicogna è una similitudine poetica; perciò l’ho adottata con entusiasmo.
Per apprezzare qualcosa dobbiamo sempre isolarla, anche se la cosa stessa simboleggia qualcosa di diverso dall’isolamento. Se vogliamo vedere che cos’è una casa, dev’essere una casa in un paesaggio disabitato. Se vogliamo raffigurare ciò che un uomo è davvero, dobbiamo raffigurare un uomo solo in un deserto o sulla scura sabbia di un mare. Finché è una figura sola, egli significa tutto ciò che significa l’umanità; finché è solitario, egli significa socievolezza e cameratismo. Aggiungi un’altra figura e il quadro è meno umano, non più. Uno fa compagnia, due nessuna. Se vuoi simboleggiare l’edificare umano, disegna una sola torre scura all’orizzonte; se vuoi simboleggiare la luce, non vi sia stella nel cielo. Anzi, per tutta quella stagione stranamente illuminata che chiamiamo il nostro giorno non v’è che una sola stella nel cielo — una stella grande e fiera che chiamiamo il sole. Un solo sole è splendido; sei soli sarebbero soltanto volgari. Una sola Torre di Giotto è sublime; una fila di Torri di Giotto sarebbe soltanto come una fila di pali bianchi. La poesia dell’arte sta nel contemplare la torre unica; la poesia della natura nel vedere l’albero unico; la poesia dell’amore nel seguire la donna unica; la poesia della religione nell’adorare la stella unica. E così, nella medesima pensosa lucidità, trovo la poesia di tutta l’anatomia umana nello stare ritto su una gamba sola. Per esprimere completa e perfetta gambaggine, la gamba deve stare in sublime isolamento, come la torre nel deserto. Come dice così finemente Ibsen, la gamba più forte è quella che sta più da sola.
This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate use of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few days that I am thus unequally balanced the helplessness or dislocation of the one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and classic beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr. George Meredith’s novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in the stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more literal exactitude, “He has a leg.” Notice how this famous literary phrase supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable thing. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant, a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. That having had one good leg he should have another—this would be to use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do. She would have been as much bewildered by him as if he had been a centipede.
All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet and the other. The way to love anything is to realize how very much otherwise it might have been. The moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and beautiful than we ever know until some accident reminds us. If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a moment. If you wish to realize how fearfully and wonderfully God’s image is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realize the splendid vision of all visible things— wink the other eye.
Questa gamba solitaria su cui mi reggo ha tutta la semplicità di una colonna dorica. Gli studiosi di architettura ci dicono che l’unico uso legittimo di una colonna è sostenere un peso. Questa mia colonna adempie alla sua funzione legittima. Sostiene un peso. Essendo di sostanza animale e organica, può persino migliorare con il processo, e in questi pochi giorni in cui mi trovo così iniquamente in bilico l’impotenza o la dislocazione dell’una gamba può trovare compenso nella prodigiosa forza e nella classica bellezza dell’altra. La signora Mountstuart Jenkinson, nel romanzo del signor George Meredith, potrebbe passare da un momento all’altro, e vedendomi nell’atteggiamento della cicogna esclamerebbe, con pari ammirazione e più letterale esattezza: «Che gamba ha!» Si noti come questa celebre frase letteraria sostiene la mia tesi sull’isolamento di ogni cosa ammirevole. La signora Mountstuart Jenkinson, volendo comporre un quadro chiaro e perfetto della grazia umana, disse che Sir Willoughby Patterne aveva una gamba. Sorvolò con delicatezza e nascose il fatto goffo e sconveniente che ne aveva in realtà due. Due gambe erano superflue e irrilevanti, una riflessione e una confusione. Due gambe avrebbero confuso la signora Mountstuart Jenkinson come due Monumenti a Londra. Che, avendo avuto una buona gamba, dovesse averne un’altra: sarebbe stato usare vane ripetizioni come fanno i pagani. Ne sarebbe rimasta tanto sconcertata quanto se egli fosse stato un centopiedi.
Ogni pessimismo ha per suo oggetto un segreto ottimismo. Ogni rinuncia alla vita, ogni diniego del piacere, ogni tenebra, ogni austerità, ogni desolazione ha per suo vero scopo questa separazione di qualcosa, affinché possa essere goduto acutamente e perfettamente. Sono grato alla lieve slogatura che ha introdotto questa misteriosa e affascinante divisione fra uno dei miei piedi e l’altro. Il modo di amare qualcosa è rendersi conto di quanto diversamente avrebbe potuto essere. La morale della cosa è del tutto esilarante. Questo mondo e tutte le nostre facoltà in esso sono assai più terribili e belli di quanto mai sappiamo, finché qualche accidente non ce lo rammenta. Se vuoi percepire quella felicità sconfinata, limita te stesso, foss’anche per un solo istante. Se vuoi capire quanto tremendamente e mirabilmente sia fatta l’immagine di Dio, reggiti su una gamba sola. Se vuoi cogliere la splendida visione di tutte le cose visibili: chiudi l’altro occhio.