WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD
by G.K. Chesterton
(1910)
(Scanned by Georges Allaire gall@globetrotter.net)
CONTENTS
PART ONE: THE HOMELESSNESS OF MAN
I The Medical Mistake II Wanted: An Unpractical Man III The New Hypocrite IV The Fear of the Past V The Unfinished Temple VI The Enemies of Property VII The Free Family XIII The Wildness of Domesticity IX History of Hudge and Gudge X Oppression by Optimism XI The Homelessness of Jones
PART TWO: IMPERIALISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT MAN
I The Charm of Jingoism II Wisdom and the Weather III The Common Vision IV The Insane Necessity
PART THREE: FEMINISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT WOMAN
I The Unmilitary Suffragette II The Universal Stick III The Emancipation of Domesticity IV The Romance of Thrift V The Coldness of Chloe VI The Pedant and the Savage VII The Modern Surrender of Woman VIII The Brand of the Fleur-de-Lis IX Sincerity and the Gallows X The Higher Anarchy XI The Queen and the Suffragettes XII The Modern Slave
PART FOUR: EDUCATION, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT THE CHILD
I The Calvinism of To-day II The Tribal Terror III The Tricks of Environment IV The Truth About Education V An Evil Cry VI Authority the Unavoidable VII The Humility of Mrs. Grundy VIII The Broken Rainbow IX The Need for Narrowness X The Case for the Public Schools XI The School for Hypocrites XII The Staleness of the New Schools XIII The Outlawed Parent XIV Folly and Female Education
PART FIVE: THE HOME OF MAN
I The Empire of the Insect II The Fallacy of the Umbrella Stand III The Dreadful Duty of Gudge IV A Last Instance V Conclusion
THREE NOTES
I On Female Suffrage II On Cleanliness in Education III On Peasant Proprietorship
DEDICATION
To C. F G. Masterman, M. P.
My Dear Charles,
I originally called this book “What is Wrong,” and it would have satisfied your sardonic temper to note the number of social misunderstandings that arose from the use of the title. Many a mild lady visitor opened her eyes when I remarked casually, “I have been doing ‘What is Wrong’ all this morning.” And one minister of religion moved quite sharply in his chair when I told him (as he understood it) that I had to run upstairs and do what was wrong, but should be down again in a minute. Exactly of what occult vice they silently accused me I cannot conjecture, but I know of what I accuse myself; and that is, of having written a very shapeless and inadequate book, and one quite unworthy to be dedicated to you. As far as literature goes, this book is what is wrong and no mistake.
It may seem a refinement of insolence to present so wild a composition to one who has recorded two or three of the really impressive visions of the moving millions of England. You are the only man alive who can make the map of England crawl with life; a most creepy and enviable accomplishment. Why then should I trouble you with a book which, even if it achieves its object (which is monstrously unlikely) can only be a thundering gallop of theory?
Well, I do it partly because I think you politicians are none the worse for a few inconvenient ideals; but more because you will recognise the many arguments we have had, those arguments which the most wonderful ladies in the world can never endure for very long. And, perhaps, you will agree with me that the thread of comradeship and conversation must be protected because it is so frivolous. It must be held sacred, it must not be snapped, because it is not worth tying together again. It is exactly because argument is idle that men (I mean males) must take it seriously; for when (we feel), until the crack of doom, shall we have so delightful a difference again? But most of all I offer it to you because there exists not only comradeship, but a very different thing, called friendship; an agreement under all the arguments and a thread which, please God, will never break.
Yours always,
G. K. Chesterton.
PART ONE
THE HOMELESSNESS OF MAN
THE MEDICAL MISTAKE
A book of modern social inquiry has a shape that is somewhat sharply defined. It begins as a rule with an analysis, with statistics, tables of population, decrease of crime among Congregationalists, growth of hysteria among policemen, and similar ascertained facts; it ends with a chapter that is generally called “The Remedy.” It is almost wholly due to this careful, solid, and scientific method that “The Remedy” is never found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder; the first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure before we find the disease.
The fallacy is one of the fifty fallacies that come from the modern madness for biological or bodily metaphors. It is convenient to speak of the Social Organism, just as it is convenient to speak of the British Lion. But Britain is no more an organism than Britain is a lion. The moment we begin to give a nation the unity and simplicity of an animal, we begin to think wildly. Because every man is a biped, fifty men are not a centipede. This has produced, for instance, the gaping absurdity of perpetually talking about “young nations” and “dying nations,” as if a nation had a fixed and physical span of life. Thus people will say that Spain has entered a final senility; they might as well say that Spain is losing all her teeth. Or people will say that Canada should soon produce a literature; which is like saying that Canada must soon grow a new moustache. Nations consist of people; the first generation may be decrepit, or the ten thousandth may be vigorous. Similar applications of the fallacy are made by those who see in the increasing size of national possessions, a simple increase in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. These people, indeed, even fall short in subtlety of the parallel of a human body. They do not even ask whether an empire is growing taller in its youth, or only growing fatter in its old age. But of all the instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the worst is that we have before us: the habit of exhaustively describing a social sickness, and then propounding a social drug.
Now we do talk first about the disease in cases of bodily breakdown; and that for an excellent reason. Because, though there may be doubt about the way in which the body broke down, there is no doubt at all about the shape in which it should be built up again. No doctor proposes to produce a new kind of man, with a new arrangement of eyes or limbs. The hospital, by necessity, may send a man home with one leg less: but it will not (in a creative rapture) send him home with one leg extra. Medical science is content with the normal human body, and only seeks to restore it.
But social science is by no means always content with the normal human soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale. Man as a social idealist will say “I am tired of being a Puritan; I want to be a Pagan,” or “Beyond this dark probation of Individualism I see the shining paradise of Collectivism.” Now in bodily ills there is none of this difference about the ultimate ideal. The patient may or may not want quinine; but he certainly wants health. No one says “I am tired of this headache; I want some toothache,” or “The only thing for this Russian influenza is a few German measles,” or “Through this dark probation of catarrh I see the shining paradise of rheumatism.” But exactly the whole difficulty in our public problems is that some men are aiming at cures which other men would regard as worse maladies; are offering ultimate conditions as states of health which others would uncompromisingly call states of disease. Mr. Belloc once said that he would no more part with the idea of property than with his teeth; yet to Mr. Bernard Shaw property is not a tooth, but a toothache. Lord Milner has sincerely attempted to introduce German efficiency; and many of us would as soon welcome German measles. Dr. Saleeby would honestly like to have Eugenics; but I would rather have rheumatics.
This is the arresting and dominant fact about modern social discussion; that the quarrel is not merely about the difficulties, but about the aim. We agree about the evil; it is about the good that we should tear each other’s eyes out. We all admit that a lazy aristocracy is a bad thing. We should not by any means all admit that an active aristocracy would be a good thing. We all feel angry with an irreligious priesthood; but some of us would go mad with disgust at a really religious one. Everyone is indignant if our army is weak, including the people who would be even more indignant if it were strong. The social case is exactly the opposite of the medical case. We do not disagree, like doctors, about the precise nature of the illness, while agreeing about the nature of health. On the contrary, we all agree that England is unhealthy, but half of us would not look at her in what the other half would call blooming health. Public abuses are so prominent and pestilent that they sweep all generous people into a sort of fictitious unanimity. We forget that, while we agree about the abuses of things, we should differ very much about the uses of them. Mr. Cadbury and I would agree about the bad public house. It would be precisely in front of the good public-house that our painful personal fracas would occur.
I maintain, therefore, that the common sociological method is quite useless: that of first dissecting abject poverty or cataloguing prostitution. We all dislike abject poverty; but it might be another business if we began to discuss independent and dignified poverty. We all disapprove of prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity. The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity? I have called this book “What Is Wrong with the World?” and the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right.
II
WANTED, AN UNPRACTICAL MAN
There is a popular philosophical joke intended to typify the endless and useless arguments of philosophers; I mean the joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not sure that properly understood, it is so futile an inquiry after all. I am not concerned here to enter on those deep metaphysical and theological differences of which the chicken and egg debate is a frivolous, but a very felicitous, type. The evolutionary materialists are appropriately enough represented in the vision of all things coming from an egg, a dim and monstrous oval germ that had laid itself by accident. That other supernatural school of thought (to which I personally adhere) would be not unworthily typified in the fancy that this round world of ours is but an egg brooded upon by a sacred unbegotten bird; the mystic dove of the prophets. But it is to much humbler functions that I here call the awful power of such a distinction. Whether or no the living bird is at the beginning of our mental chain, it is absolutely necessary that it should be at the end of our mental chain. The bird is the thing to be aimed at—not with a gun, but a life-bestowing wand. What is essential to our right thinking is this: that the egg and the bird must not be thought of as equal cosmic occurrences recurring alternatively forever. They must not become a mere egg and bird pattern, like the egg and dart pattern. One is a means and the other an end; they are in different mental worlds. Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself. Now our modern politics are full of a noisy forgetfulness; forgetfulness that the production of this happy and conscious life is after all the aim of all complexities and compromises. We talk of nothing but useful men and working institutions; that is, we only think of the chickens as things that will lay more eggs. Instead of seeking to breed our ideal bird, the eagle of Zeus or the Swan of Avon, or whatever we happen to want, we talk entirely in terms of the process and the embryo. The process itself, divorced from its divine object, becomes doubtful and even morbid; poison enters the embryo of everything; and our politics are rotten eggs.
Idealism is only considering everything in its practical essence. Idealism only means that we should consider a poker in reference to poking before we discuss its suitability for wife-beating; that we should ask if an egg is good enough for practical poultry-rearing before we decide that the egg is bad enough for practical politics. But I know that this primary pursuit of the theory (which is but pursuit of the aim) exposes one to the cheap charge of fiddling while Rome is burning. A school, of which Lord Rosebery is representative, has endeavored to substitute for the moral or social ideals which have hitherto been the motive of politics a general coherency or completeness in the social system which has gained the nick-name of “efficiency.” I am not very certain of the secret doctrine of this sect in the matter. But, as far as I can make out, “efficiency” means that we ought to discover everything about a machine except what it is for. There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things commonly work. When things will not work, you must have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it is quite right to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning.
It is then necessary to drop one’s daily agnosticism and attempt rerum cognoscere causas. If your aeroplane has a slight indisposition, a handy man may mend it. But, if it is seriously ill, it is all the more likely that some absent-minded old professor with wild white hair will have to be dragged out of a college or laboratory to analyze the evil. The more complicated the smash, the whiter-haired and more absent-minded will be the theorist who is needed to deal with it; and in some extreme cases, no one but the man (probably insane) who invented your flying-ship could possibly say what was the matter with it.
“Efficiency,” of course, is futile for the same reason that strong men, will-power and the superman are futile. That is, it is futile because it only deals with actions after they have been performed. It has no philosophy for incidents before they happen; therefore it has no power of choice. An act can only be successful or unsuccessful when it is over; if it is to begin, it must be, in the abstract, right or wrong. There is no such thing as backing a winner; for he cannot be a winner when he is backed. There is no such thing as fighting on the winning side; one fights to find out which is the winning side. If any operation has occurred, that operation was efficient. If a man is murdered, the murder was efficient. A tropical sun is as efficient in making people lazy as a Lancashire foreman bully in making them energetic. Maeterlinck is as efficient in filling a man with strange spiritual tremors as Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell are in filling a man with jam. But it all depends on what you want to be filled with. Lord Rosebery, being a modern skeptic, probably prefers the spiritual tremors. I, being an orthodox Christian, prefer the jam. But both are efficient when they have been effected; and inefficient until they are effected. A man who thinks much about success must be the drowsiest sentimentalist; for he must be always looking back. If he only likes victory he must always come late for the battle. For the man of action there is nothing but idealism.
This definite ideal is a far more urgent and practical matter in our existing English trouble than any immediate plans or proposals. For the present chaos is due to a sort of general oblivion of all that men were originally aiming at. No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get. Soon people forget what the man really wanted first; and after a successful and vigorous political life, he forgets it himself. The whole is an extravagant riot of second bests, a pandemonium of pis-aller. Now this sort of pliability does not merely prevent any heroic consistency, it also prevents any really practical compromise. One can only find the middle distance between two points if the two points will stand still. We may make an arrangement between two litigants who cannot both get what they want; but not if they will not even tell us what they want. The keeper of a restaurant would much prefer that each customer should give his order smartly, though it were for stewed ibis or boiled elephant, rather than that each customer should sit holding his head in his hands, plunged in arithmetical calculations about how much food there can be on the premises. Most of us have suffered from a certain sort of ladies who, by their perverse unselfishness, give more trouble than the selfish; who almost clamor for the unpopular dish and scramble for the worst seat. Most of us have known parties or expeditions full of this seething fuss of self-effacement. From much meaner motives than those of such admirable women, our practical politicians keep things in the same confusion through the same doubt about their real demands. There is nothing that so much prevents a settlement as a tangle of small surrenders. We are bewildered on every side by politicians who are in favor of secular education, but think it hopeless to work for it; who desire total prohibition, but are certain they should not demand it; who regret compulsory education, but resignedly continue it; or who want peasant proprietorship and therefore vote for something else. It is this dazed and floundering opportunism that gets in the way of everything. If our statesmen were visionaries something practical might be done. If we ask for something in the abstract we might get something in the concrete. As it is, it is not only impossible to get what one wants, but it is impossible to get any part of it, because nobody can mark it out plainly like a map. That clear and even hard quality that there was in the old bargaining has wholly vanished. We forget that the word “compromise” contains, among other things, the rigid and ringing word “promise.” Moderation is not vague; it is as definite as perfection. The middle point is as fixed as the extreme point.
If I am made to walk the plank by a pirate, it is vain for me to offer, as a common-sense compromise, to walk along the plank for a reasonable distance. It is exactly about the reasonable distance that the pirate and I differ. There is an exquisite mathematical split second at which the plank tips up. My common-sense ends just before that instant; the pirate’s common-sense begins just beyond it. But the point itself is as hard as any geometrical diagram; as abstract as any theological dogma.
III
THE NEW HYPOCRITE
But this new cloudy political cowardice has rendered useless the old English compromise. People have begun to be terrified of an improvement merely because it is complete. They call it utopian and revolutionary that anyone should really have his own way, or anything be really done, and done with. Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf.
As an instance to sharpen the argument, I take the one case of our everlasting education bills. We have actually contrived to invent a new kind of hypocrite. The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was a man whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that they were religious. The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really religious, while he pretends that they are worldly and practical. The Rev. Brown, the Wesleyan minister, sturdily declares that he cares nothing for creeds, but only for education; meanwhile, in truth, the wildest Wesleyanism is tearing his soul. The Rev. Smith, of the Church of England, explains gracefully, with the Oxford manner, that the only question for him is the prosperity and efficiency of the schools; while in truth all the evil passions of a curate are roaring within him. It is a fight of creeds masquerading as policies. I think these reverend gentlemen do themselves wrong; I think they are more pious than they will admit. Theology is not (as some suppose) expunged as an error. It is merely concealed, like a sin. Dr. Clifford really wants a theological atmosphere as much as Lord Halifax; only it is a different one. If Dr. Clifford would ask plainly for Puritanism and Lord Halifax ask plainly for Catholicism, something might be done for them. We are all, one hopes, imaginative enough to recognize the dignity and distinctness of another religion, like Islam or the cult of Apollo. I am quite ready to respect another man’s faith; but it is too much to ask that I should respect his doubt, his worldly hesitations and fictions, his political bargain and make-believe. Most Nonconformists with an instinct for English history could see something poetic and national about the Archbishop of Canterbury as an Archbishop of Canterbury. It is when he does the rational British statesman that they very justifiably get annoyed. Most Anglicans with an eye for pluck and simplicity could admire Dr. Clifford as a Baptist minister. It is when he says that he is simply a citizen that nobody can possibly believe him.
But indeed the case is yet more curious than this. The one argument that used to be urged for our creedless vagueness was that at least it saved us from fanaticism. But it does not even do that. On the contrary, it creates and renews fanaticism with a force quite peculiar to itself. This is at once so strange and so true that I will ask the reader’s attention to it with a little more precision.
Some people do not like the word “dogma.” Fortunately they are free, and there is an alternative for them. There are two things, and two things only, for the human mind, a dogma and a prejudice. The Middle Ages were a rational epoch, an age of doctrine. Our age is, at its best, a poetical epoch, an age of prejudice. A doctrine is a definite point; a prejudice is a direction. That an ox may be eaten, while a man should not be eaten, is a doctrine. That as little as possible of anything should be eaten is a prejudice; which is also sometimes called an ideal. Now a direction is always far more fantastic than a plan. I would rather have the most archaic map of the road to Brighton than a general recommendation to turn to the left. Straight lines that are not parallel must meet at last; but curves may recoil forever. A pair of lovers might walk along the frontier of France and Germany, one on the one side and one on the other, so long as they were not vaguely told to keep away from each other. And this is a strictly true parable of the effect of our modern vagueness in losing and separating men as in a mist.
It is not merely true that a creed unites men. Nay, a difference of creed unites men—so long as it is a clear difference. A boundary unites. Many a magnanimous Moslem and chivalrous Crusader must have been nearer to each other, because they were both dogmatists, than any two homeless agnostics in a pew of Mr. Campbell’s chapel. “I say God is One,” and “I say God is One but also Three,” that is the beginning of a good quarrelsome, manly friendship. But our age would turn these creeds into tendencies. It would tell the Trinitarian to follow multiplicity as such (because it was his “temperament”), and he would turn up later with three hundred and thirty-three persons in the Trinity. Meanwhile, it would turn the Moslem into a Monist: a frightful intellectual fall. It would force that previously healthy person not only to admit that there was one God, but to admit that there was nobody else. When each had, for a long enough period, followed the gleam of his own nose (like the Dong) they would appear again; the Christian a Polytheist, and the Moslem a Panegoist, both quite mad, and far more unfit to understand each other than before.
It is exactly the same with politics. Our political vagueness divides men, it does not fuse them. Men will walk along the edge of a chasm in clear weather, but they will edge miles away from it in a fog. So a Tory can walk up to the very edge of Socialism, if he knows what is Socialism. But if he is told that Socialism is a spirit, a sublime atmosphere, a noble, indefinable tendency, why, then he keeps out of its way; and quite right too. One can meet an assertion with argument; but healthy bigotry is the only way in which one can meet a tendency. I am told that the Japanese method of wrestling consists not of suddenly pressing, but of suddenly giving way. This is one of my many reasons for disliking the Japanese civilization. To use surrender as a weapon is the very worst spirit of the East. But certainly there is no force so hard to fight as the force which it is easy to conquer; the force that always yields and then returns. Such is the force of a great impersonal prejudice, such as possesses the modern world on so many points. Against this there is no weapon at all except a rigid and steely sanity, a resolution not to listen to fads, and not to be infected by diseases.
In short, the rational human faith must armor itself with prejudice in an age of prejudices, just as it armoured itself with logic in an age of logic. But the difference between the two mental methods is marked and unmistakable. The essential of the difference is this: that prejudices are divergent, whereas creeds are always in collision. Believers bump into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each other’s way. A creed is a collective thing, and even its sins are sociable. A prejudice is a private thing, and even its tolerance is misanthropic. So it is with our existing divisions. They keep out of each other’s way; the Tory paper and the Radical paper do not answer each other; they ignore each other. Genuine controversy, fair cut and thrust before a common audience, has become in our special epoch very rare. For the sincere controversialist is above all things a good listener. The really burning enthusiast never interrupts; he listens to the enemy’s arguments as eagerly as a spy would listen to the enemy’s arrangements. But if you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will find that no medium is admitted between violence and evasion. You will have no answer except slanging or silence. A modern editor must not have that eager ear that goes with the honest tongue. He may be deaf and silent; and that is called dignity. Or he may be deaf and noisy; and that is called slashing journalism. In neither case is there any controversy; for the whole object of modern party combatants is to charge out of earshot.
The only logical cure for all this is the assertion of a human ideal. In dealing with this, I will try to be as little transcendental as is consistent with reason; it is enough to say that unless we have some doctrine of a divine man, all abuses may be excused, since evolution may turn them into uses. It will be easy for the scientific plutocrat to maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any conditions which we now consider evil. The old tyrants invoked the past; the new tyrants will invoke the future evolution has produced the snail and the owl; evolution can produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, and no more light than an owl. The employer need not mind sending a Kaffir to work underground; he will soon become an underground animal, like a mole. He need not mind sending a diver to hold his breath in the deep seas; he will soon be a deep-sea animal. Men need not trouble to alter conditions, conditions will so soon alter men. The head can be beaten small enough to fit the hat. Do not knock the fetters off the slave; knock the slave until he forgets the fetters. To all this plausible modern argument for oppression, the only adequate answer is, that there is a permanent human ideal that must not be either confused or destroyed. The most important man on earth is the perfect man who is not there. The Christian religion has specially uttered the ultimate sanity of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the incarnate and human truth. Our lives and laws are not judged by divine superiority, but simply by human perfection. It is man, says Aristotle, who is the measure. It is the Son of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the quick and the dead.
Doctrine, therefore, does not cause dissensions; rather a doctrine alone can cure our dissensions. It is necessary to ask, however, roughly, what abstract and ideal shape in state or family would fulfil the human hunger; and this apart from whether we can completely obtain it or not. But when we come to ask what is the need of normal men, what is the desire of all nations, what is the ideal house, or road, or rule, or republic, or king, or priesthood, then we are confronted with a strange and irritating difficulty peculiar to the present time; and we must call a temporary halt and examine that obstacle.
IV
THE FEAR OF THE PAST
The last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation of the romance of the future. We seem to have made up our minds to misunderstand what has happened; and we turn, with a sort of relief, to stating what will happen—which is (apparently) much easier. The modern man no longer presents the memoirs of his great grandfather; but is engaged in writing a detailed and authoritative biography of his great-grandson. Instead of trembling before the specters of the dead, we shudder abjectly under the shadow of the babe unborn. This spirit is apparent everywhere, even to the creation of a form of futurist romance. Sir Walter Scott stands at the dawn of the nineteenth century for the novel of the past; Mr. H. G. Wells stands at the dawn of the twentieth century for the novel of the future. The old story, we know, was supposed to begin: “Late on a winter’s evening two horsemen might have been seen—.” The new story has to begin: “Late on a winter’s evening two aviators will be seen—.” The movement is not without its elements of charm; there is something spirited, if eccentric, in the sight of so many people fighting over again the fights that have not yet happened; of people still glowing with the memory of tomorrow morning. A man in advance of the age is a familiar phrase enough. An age in advance of the age is really rather odd.
But when full allowance has been made for this harmless element of poetry and pretty human perversity in the thing, I shall not hesitate to maintain here that this cult of the future is not only a weakness but a cowardice of the age. It is the peculiar evil of this epoch that even its pugnacity is fundamentally frightened; and the Jingo is contemptible not because he is impudent, but because he is timid. The reason why modern armaments do not inflame the imagination like the arms and emblazonments of the Crusades is a reason quite apart from optical ugliness or beauty. Some battleships are as beautiful as the sea; and many Norman nosepieces were as ugly as Norman noses. The atmospheric ugliness that surrounds our scientific war is an emanation from that evil panic which is at the heart of it. The charge of the Crusades was a charge; it was charging towards God, the wild consolation of the braver. The charge of the modern armaments is not a charge at all. It is a rout, a retreat, a flight from the devil, who will catch the hindmost. It is impossible to imagine a mediaeval knight talking of longer and longer French lances, with precisely the quivering employed about larger and larger German ships The man who called the Blue Water School the “Blue Funk School” uttered a psychological truth which that school itself would scarcely essentially deny. Even the two-power standard, if it be a necessity, is in a sense a degrading necessity. Nothing has more alienated many magnanimous minds from Imperial enterprises than the fact that they are always exhibited as stealthy or sudden defenses against a world of cold rapacity and fear. The Boer War, for instance, was colored not so much by the creed that we were doing something right, as by the creed that Boers and Germans were probably doing something wrong; driving us (as it was said) to the sea. Mr. Chamberlain, I think, said that the war was a feather in his cap and so it was: a white feather.
Now this same primary panic that I feel in our rush towards patriotic armaments I feel also in our rush towards future visions of society. The modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, not unmixed with terror, with which it regards the past. It is propelled towards the coming time; it is, in the exact words of the popular phrase, knocked into the middle of next week. And the goad which drives it on thus eagerly is not an affectation for futurity Futurity does not exist, because it is still future. Rather it is a fear of the past; a fear not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the past also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue of mankind. There have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; so many great efforts of monumental building or of military glory which seem to us at once sublime and pathetic. The future is a refuge from the fierce competition of our forefathers. The older generation, not the younger, is knocking at our door. It is agreeable to escape, as Henley said, into the Street of By-and-Bye, where stands the Hostelry of Never. It is pleasant to play with children, especially unborn children. The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the past I find already covered with illegible scribbles, such as Plato, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleon. I can make the future as narrow as myself; the past is obliged to be as broad and turbulent as humanity. And the upshot of this modern attitude is really this: that men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.
Now in history there is no Revolution that is not a Restoration. Among the many things that leave me doubtful about the modern habit of fixing eyes on the future, none is stronger than this: that all the men in history who have really done anything with the future have had their eyes fixed upon the past. I need not mention the Renaissance, the very word proves my case. The originality of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare began with the digging up of old vases and manuscripts. The mildness of poets absolutely arose out of the mildness of antiquaries. So the great mediaeval revival was a memory of the Roman Empire. So the Reformation looked back to the Bible and Bible times. So the modern Catholic movement has looked back to patristic times. But that modern movement which many would count the most anarchic of all is in this sense the most conservative of all. Never was the past more venerated by men than it was by the French Revolutionists. They invoked the little republics of antiquity with the complete confidence of one who invokes the gods. The Sans-culottes believed (as their name might imply) in a return to simplicity. They believed most piously in a remote past; some might call it a mythical past. For some strange reason man must always thus plant his fruit trees in a graveyard. Man can only find life among the dead. Man is a misshapen monster, with his feet set forward and his face turned back. He can make the future luxuriant and gigantic, so long as he is thinking about the past. When he tries to think about the future itself, his mind diminishes to a pin point with imbecility, which some call Nirvana. To-morrow is the Gorgon; a man must only see it mirrored in the shining shield of yesterday. If he sees it directly he is turned to stone. This has been the fate of all those who have really seen fate and futurity as clear and inevitable. The Calvinists, with their perfect creed of predestination, were turned to stone. The modern sociological scientists (with their excruciating Eugenics) are turned to stone. The only difference is that the Puritans make dignified, and the Eugenists somewhat amusing, statues.
But there is one feature in the past which more than all the rest defies and depresses the moderns and drives them towards this featureless future. I mean the presence in the past of huge ideals, unfulfilled and sometimes abandoned. The sight of these splendid failures is melancholy to a restless and rather morbid generation; and they maintain a strange silence about them—sometimes amounting to an unscrupulous silence. They keep them entirely out of their newspapers and almost entirely out of their history books. For example, they will often tell you (in their praises of the coming age) that we are moving on towards a United States of Europe. But they carefully omit to tell you that we are moving away from a United States of Europe, that such a thing existed literally in Roman and essentially in mediaeval times. They never admit that the international hatreds (which they call barbaric) are really very recent, the mere breakdown of the ideal of the Holy Roman Empire. Or again, they will tell you that there is going to be a social revolution, a great rising of the poor against the rich; but they never rub it in that France made that magnificent attempt, unaided, and that we and all the world allowed it to be trampled out and forgotten. I say decisively that nothing is so marked in modern writing as the prediction of such ideals in the future combined with the ignoring of them in the past. Anyone can test this for himself. Read any thirty or forty pages of pamphlets advocating peace in Europe and see how many of them praise the old Popes or Emperors for keeping the peace in Europe. Read any armful of essays and poems in praise of social democracy, and see how many of them praise the old Jacobins who created democracy and died for it. These colossal ruins are to the modern only enormous eyesores. He looks back along the valley of the past and sees a perspective of splendid but unfinished cities. They are unfinished, not always through enmity or accident, but often through fickleness, mental fatigue, and the lust for alien philosophies. We have not only left undone those things that we ought to have done, but we have even left undone those things that we wanted to do
It is very currently suggested that the modern man is the heir of all the ages, that he has got the good out of these successive human experiments. I know not what to say in answer to this, except to ask the reader to look at the modern man, as I have just looked at the modern man— in the looking-glass. Is it really true that you and I are two starry towers built up of all the most towering visions of the past? Have we really fulfilled all the great historic ideals one after the other, from our naked ancestor who was brave enough to kill a mammoth with a stone knife, through the Greek citizen and the Christian saint to our own grandfather or great-grandfather, who may have been sabred by the Manchester Yeomanry or shot in the ‘48? Are we still strong enough to spear mammoths, but now tender enough to spare them? Does the cosmos contain any mammoth that we have either speared or spared? When we decline (in a marked manner) to fly the red flag and fire across a barricade like our grandfathers, are we really declining in deference to sociologists—or to soldiers? Have we indeed outstripped the warrior and passed the ascetical saint? I fear we only outstrip the warrior in the sense that we should probably run away from him. And if we have passed the saint, I fear we have passed him without bowing.
This is, first and foremost, what I mean by the narrowness of the new ideas, the limiting effect of the future. Our modern prophetic idealism is narrow because it has undergone a persistent process of elimination. We must ask for new things because we are not allowed to ask for old things. The whole position is based on this idea that we have got all the good that can be got out of the ideas of the past. But we have not got all the good out of them, perhaps at this moment not any of the good out of them. And the need here is a need of complete freedom for restoration as well as revolution.
We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one’s grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, “You can’t put the clock back.” The simple and obvious answer is “You can.” A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed.
There is another proverb, “As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it”; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God I will make it again. We could restore the Heptarchy or the stage coaches if we chose. It might take some time to do, and it might be very inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, the first freedom that I claim: the freedom to restore. I claim a right to propose as a solution the old patriarchal system of a Highland clan, if that should seem to eliminate the largest number of evils. It certainly would eliminate some evils; for instance, the unnatural sense of obeying cold and harsh strangers, mere bureaucrats and policemen. I claim the right to propose the complete independence of the small Greek or Italian towns, a sovereign city of Brixton or Brompton, if that seems the best way out of our troubles. It would be a way out of some of our troubles; we could not have in a small state, for instance, those enormous illusions about men or measures which are nourished by the great national or international newspapers. You could not persuade a city state that Mr. Beit was an Englishman, or Mr. Dillon a desperado, any more than you could persuade a Hampshire Village that the village drunkard was a teetotaller or the village idiot a statesman. Nevertheless, I do not as a fact propose that the Browns and the Smiths should be collected under separate tartans. Nor do I even propose that Clapham should declare its independence. I merely declare my independence. I merely claim my choice of all the tools in the universe; and I shall not admit that any of them are blunted merely because they have been used.
V
THE UNFINISHED TEMPLE
The task of modern idealists indeed is made much too easy for them by the fact that they are always taught that if a thing has been defeated it has been disproved. Logically, the case is quite clearly the other way. The lost causes are exactly those which might have saved the world. If a man says that the Young Pretender would have made England happy, it is hard to answer him. If anyone says that the Georges made England happy, I hope we all know what to answer. That which was prevented is always impregnable; and the only perfect King of England was he who was smothered. Exactly be cause Jacobitism failed we cannot call it a failure. Precisely because the Commune collapsed as a rebellion we cannot say that it collapsed as a system. But such outbursts were brief or incidental. Few people realize how many of the largest efforts, the facts that will fill history, were frustrated in their full design and come down to us as gigantic cripples. I have only space to allude to the two largest facts of modern history: the Catholic Church and that modern growth rooted in the French Revolution.
When four knights scattered the blood and brains of St. Thomas of Canterbury, it was not only a sign of anger but of a sort of black admiration. They wished for his blood, but they wished even more for his brains. Such a blow will remain forever unintelligible unless we realise what the brains of St. Thomas were thinking about just before they were distributed over the floor. They were thinking about the great mediaeval conception that the church is the judge of the world. Becket objected to a priest being tried even by the Lord Chief Justice. And his reason was simple: because the Lord Chief Justice was being tried by the priest. The judiciary was itself sub judice. The kings were themselves in the dock. The idea was to create an invisible kingdom, without armies or prisons, but with complete freedom to condemn publicly all the kingdoms of the earth. Whether such a supreme church would have cured society we cannot affirm definitely; because the church never was a supreme church. We only know that in England at any rate the princes conquered the saints. What the world wanted we see before us; and some of us call it a failure. But we cannot call what the church wanted a failure, simply because the church failed. Tracy struck a little too soon. England had not yet made the great Protestant discovery that the king can do no wrong. The king was whipped in the cathedral; a performance which I recommend to those who regret the unpopularity of church-going. But the discovery was made; and Henry VIII scattered Becket’s bones as easily as Tracy had scattered his brains.
Of course, I mean that Catholicism was not tried; plenty of Catholics were tried, and found guilty. My point is that the world did not tire of the church’s ideal, but of its reality. Monasteries were impugned not for the chastity of monks, but for the unchastity of monks. Christianity was unpopular not because of the humility, but of the arrogance of Christians. Certainly, if the church failed it was largely through the churchmen. But at the same time hostile elements had certainly begun to end it long before it could have done its work. In the nature of things it needed a common scheme of life and thought in Europe. Yet the mediaeval system began to be broken to pieces intellectually, long before it showed the slightest hint of falling to pieces morally. The huge early heresies, like the Albigenses, had not the faintest excuse in moral superiority. And it is actually true that the Reformation began to tear Europe apart before the Catholic Church had had time to pull it together. The Prussians, for instance, were not converted to Christianity at all until quite close to the Reformation. The poor creatures hardly had time to become Catholics before they were told to become Protestants. This explains a great deal of their subsequent conduct. But I have only taken this as the first and most evident case of the general truth: that the great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
It is, of course, the same in the case of the French Revolution. A great part of our present perplexity arises from the fact that the French Revolution has half succeeded and half failed. In one sense, Valmy was the decisive battle of the West, and in another Trafalgar. We have, indeed, destroyed the largest territorial tyrannies, and created a free peasantry in almost all Christian countries except England; of which we shall say more anon. But representative government, the one universal relic, is a very poor fragment of the full republican idea. The theory of the French Revolution presupposed two things in government, things which it achieved at the time, but which it has certainly not bequeathed to its imitators in England, Germany, and America. The first of these was the idea of honorable poverty; that a statesman must be something of a stoic; the second was the idea of extreme publicity. Many imaginative English writers, including Carlyle, seem quite unable to imagine how it was that men like Robespierre and Marat were ardently admired. The best answer is that they were admired for being poor— poor when they might have been rich.
No one will pretend that this ideal exists at all in the haute politique of this country. Our national claim to political incorruptibility is actually based on exactly the opposite argument; it is based on the theory that wealthy men in assured positions will have no temptation to financial trickery. Whether the history of the English aristocracy, from the spoliation of the monasteries to the annexation of the mines, entirely supports this theory I am not now inquiring; but certainly it is our theory, that wealth will be a protection against political corruption. The English statesman is bribed not to be bribed. He is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, so that he may never afterwards be found with the silver spoons in his pocket. So strong is our faith in this protection by plutocracy, that we are more and more trusting our empire in the hands of families which inherit wealth without either blood or manners. Some of our political houses are parvenue by pedigree; they hand on vulgarity like a coat of-arms. In the case of many a modern statesman to say that he is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, is at once inadequate and excessive. He is born with a silver knife in his mouth. But all this only illustrates the English theory that poverty is perilous for a politician.
It will be the same if we compare the conditions that have come about with the Revolution legend touching publicity. The old democratic doctrine was that the more light that was let in to all departments of State, the easier it was for a righteous indignation to move promptly against wrong. In other words, monarchs were to live in glass houses, that mobs might throw stones. Again, no admirer of existing English politics (if there is any admirer of existing English politics) will really pretend that this ideal of publicity is exhausted, or even attempted. Obviously public life grows more private every day. The French have, indeed, continued the tradition of revealing secrets and making scandals; hence they are more flagrant and palpable than we, not in sin but in the confession of sin. The first trial of Dreyfus might have happened in England; it is exactly the second trial that would have been legally impossible. But, indeed, if we wish to realise how far we fall short of the original republican outline, the sharpest way to test it is to note how far we fall short even of the republican element in the older regime. Not only are we less democratic than Danton and Condorcet, but we are in many ways less democratic than Choiseul and Marie Antoinette. The richest nobles before the revolt were needy middle-class people compared with our Rothschilds and Roseberys. And in the matter of publicity the old French monarchy was infinitely more democratic than any of the monarchies of today. Practically anybody who chose could walk into the palace and see the king playing with his children, or paring his nails. The people possessed the monarch, as the people possess Primrose Hill; that is, they cannot move it, but they can sprawl all over it. The old French monarchy was founded on the excellent principle that a cat may look at a king. But nowadays a cat may not look at a king; unless it is a very tame cat. Even where the press is free for criticism it is only used for adulation. The substantial difference comes to something uncommonly like this: Eighteenth century tyranny meant that you could say “The K__ of Br__rd is a profligate.” Twentieth century liberty really means that you are allowed to say “The King of Brentford is a model family man.”
But we have delayed the main argument too long for the parenthetical purpose of showing that the great democratic dream, like the great mediaeval dream, has in a strict and practical sense been a dream unfulfilled. Whatever is the matter with modern England it is not that we have carried out too literally, or achieved with disappointing completeness, either the Catholicism of Becket or the equality of Marat. Now I have taken these two cases merely because they are typical of ten thousand other cases; the world is full of these unfulfilled ideas, these uncompleted temples. History does not consist of completed and crumbling ruins; rather it consists of half-built villas abandoned by a bankrupt-builder. This world is more like an unfinished suburb than a deserted cemetery.
VI
THE ENEMIES OF PROPERTY
But it is for this especial reason that such an explanation is necessary on the very threshold of the definition of ideals. For owing to that historic fallacy with which I have just dealt, numbers of readers will expect me, when I propound an ideal, to propound a new ideal. Now I have no notion at all of propounding a new ideal. There is no new ideal imaginable by the madness of modern sophists, which will be anything like so startling as fulfilling any one of the old ones. On the day that any copybook maxim is carried out there will be something like an earthquake on the earth. There is only one thing new that can be done under the sun; and that is to look at the sun. If you attempt it on a blue day in June, you will know why men do not look straight at their ideals. There is only one really startling thing to be done with the ideal, and that is to do it. It is to face the flaming logical fact, and its frightful consequences. Christ knew that it would be a more stunning thunderbolt to fulfil the law than to destroy it. It is true of both the cases I have quoted, and of every case. The pagans had always adored purity: Athena, Artemis, Vesta. It was when the virgin martyrs began defiantly to practice purity that they rent them with wild beasts, and rolled them on red-hot coals. The world had always loved the notion of the poor man uppermost; it can be proved by every legend from Cinderella to Whittington, by every poem from the Magnificat to the Marseillaise. The kings went mad against France not because she idealized this ideal, but because she realized it. Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia quite agreed that the people should rule; what horrified them was that the people did. The French Revolution, therefore, is the type of all true revolutions, because its ideal is as old as the Old Adam, but its fulfilment almost as fresh, as miraculous, and as new as the New Jerusalem.
But in the modern world we are primarily confronted with the extraordinary spectacle of people turning to new ideals because they have not tried the old. Men have not got tired of Christianity; they have never found enough Christianity to get tired of. Men have never wearied of political justice; they have wearied of waiting for it.
Now, for the purpose of this book, I propose to take only one of these old ideals; but one that is perhaps the oldest. I take the principle of domesticity: the ideal house; the happy family, the holy family of history. For the moment it is only necessary to remark that it is like the church and like the republic, now chiefly assailed by those who have never known it, or by those who have failed to fulfil it. Numberless modern women have rebelled against domesticity in theory because they have never known it in practice. Hosts of the poor are driven to the workhouse without ever having known the house. Generally speaking, the cultured class is shrieking to be let out of the decent home, just as the working class is shouting to be let into it.
Now if we take this house or home as a test, we may very generally lay the simple spiritual foundations of the idea. God is that which can make something out of nothing. Man (it may truly be said) is that which can make something out of anything. In other words, while the joy of God be unlimited creation, the special joy of man is limited creation, the combination of creation with limits. Man’s pleasure, therefore, is to possess conditions, but also to be partly possessed by them; to be half-controlled by the flute he plays or by the field he digs. The excitement is to get the utmost out of given conditions; the conditions will stretch, but not indefinitely. A man can write an immortal sonnet on an old envelope, or hack a hero out of a lump of rock. But hacking a sonnet out of a rock would be a laborious business, and making a hero out of an envelope is almost out of the sphere of practical politics. This fruitful strife with limitations, when it concerns some airy entertainment of an educated class, goes by the name of Art. But the mass of men have neither time nor aptitude for the invention of invisible or abstract beauty. For the mass of men the idea of artistic creation can only be expressed by an idea unpopular in present discussions—the idea of property. The average man cannot cut clay into the shape of a man; but he can cut earth into the shape of a garden; and though he arranges it with red geraniums and blue potatoes in alternate straight lines, he is still an artist; because he has chosen. The average man cannot paint the sunset whose colors be admires; but he can paint his own house with what color he chooses, and though he paints it pea green with pink spots, he is still an artist; because that is his choice. Property is merely the art of the democracy. It means that every man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is shaped in the image of heaven. But because he is not God, but only a graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits; properly with limits that are strict and even small.
I am well aware that the word “property” has been defied in our time by the corruption of the great capitalists. One would think, to hear people talk, that the Rothchilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of property. But obviously they are the enemies of property; because they are enemies of their own limitations. They do not want their own land; but other people’s. When they remove their neighbor’s landmark, they also remove their own. A man who loves a little triangular field ought to love it because it is triangular; anyone who destroys the shape, by giving him more land, is a thief who has stolen a triangle. A man with the true poetry of possession wishes to see the wall where his garden meets Smith’s garden; the hedge where his farm touches Brown’s. He cannot see the shape of his own land unless he sees the edges of his neighbor’s. It is the negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland should have all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the negation of marriage if he had all our wives in one harem.
VII
THE FREE FAMILY
As I have said, I propose to take only one central instance; I will take the institution called the private house or home; the shell and organ of the family. We will consider cosmic and political tendencies simply as they strike that ancient and unique roof. Very few words will suffice for all I have to say about the family itself. I leave alone the speculations about its animal origin and the details of its social reconstruction; I am concerned only with its palpable omnipresence. It is a necessity far mankind; it is (if you like to put it so) a trap for mankind. Only by the hypocritical ignoring of a huge fact can any one contrive to talk of “free love”; as if love were an episode like lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune. Suppose whenever a man lit a cigarette, a towering genie arose from the rings of smoke and followed him everywhere as a huge slave. Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune he “drew an angel down” and had to walk about forever with a seraph on a string. These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the earthquake consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is perfectly plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover; he is either a traitor or a tied man. The second element that creates the family is that its consequences, though colossal, are gradual; the cigarette produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph. Thence arises the necessity for some prolonged system of co-operation; and thence arises the family in its full educational sense.
It may be said that this institution of the home is the one anarchist institution. That is to say, it is older than law, and stands outside the State. By its nature it is refreshed or corrupted by indefinable forces of custom or kinship. This is not to be understood as meaning that the State has no authority over families; that State authority is invoked and ought to be invoked in many abnormal cases. But in most normal cases of family joys and sorrows, the State has no mode of entry. It is not so much that the law should not interfere, as that the law cannot. Just as there are fields too far off for law, so there are fields too near; as a man may see the North Pole before he sees his own backbone. Small and near matters escape control at least as much as vast and remote ones; and the real pains and pleasures of the family form a strong instance of this. If a baby cries for the moon, the policeman cannot procure the moon—but neither can he stop the baby. Creatures so close to each other as husband and wife, or a mother and children, have powers of making each other happy or miserable with which no public coercion can deal. If a marriage could be dissolved every morning it would not give back his night’s rest to a man kept awake by a curtain lecture; and what is the good of giving a man a lot of power where he only wants a little peace? The child must depend on the most imperfect mother; the mother may be devoted to the most unworthy children; in such relations legal revenges are vain. Even in the abnormal cases where the law may operate, this difficulty is constantly found; as many a bewildered magistrate knows. He has to save children from starvation by taking away their breadwinner. And he often has to break a wife’s heart because her husband has already broken her head. The State has no tool delicate enough to deracinate the rooted habits and tangled affections of the family; the two sexes, whether happy or unhappy, are glued together too tightly for us to get the blade of a legal penknife in between them. The man and the woman are one flesh—yes, even when they are not one spirit. Man is a quadruped. Upon this ancient and anarchic intimacy, types of government have little or no effect; it is happy or unhappy, by its own sexual wholesomeness and genial habit, under the republic of Switzerland or the despotism of Siam. Even a republic in Siam would not have done much towards freeing the Siamese Twins.
The problem is not in marriage, but in sex; and would be felt under the freest concubinage. Nevertheless, the overwhelming mass of mankind has not believed in freedom in this matter, but rather in a more or less lasting tie. Tribes and civilizations differ about the occasions on which we may loosen the bond, but they all agree that there is a bond to be loosened, not a mere universal detachment. For the purposes of this book I am not concerned to discuss that mystical view of marriage in which I myself believe: the great European tradition which has made marriage a sacrament. It is enough to say here that heathen and Christian alike have regarded marriage as a tie; a thing not normally to be sundered. Briefly, this human belief in a sexual bond rests on a principle of which the modern mind has made a very inadequate study. It is, perhaps, most nearly paralleled by the principle of the second wind in walking.
The principle is this: that in everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of learning him; the glow of the sea-bather comes after the icy shock of the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of the honeymoon. All human vows, laws, and contracts are so many ways of surviving with success this breaking point, this instant of potential surrender.
In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or honor. It is then that the Institution upholds a man and helps him on to the firmer ground ahead. Whether this solid fact of human nature is sufficient to justify the sublime dedication of Christian marriage is quite an other matter, it is amply sufficient to justify the general human feeling of marriage as a fixed thing, dissolution of which is a fault or, at least, an ignominy. The essential element is not so much duration as security. Two people must be tied together in order to do themselves justice; for twenty minutes at a dance, or for twenty years in a marriage In both cases the point is, that if a man is bored in the first five minutes he must go on and force himself to be happy. Coercion is a kind of encouragement; and anarchy (or what some call liberty) is essentially oppressive, because it is essentially discouraging. If we all floated in the air like bubbles, free to drift anywhere at any instant, the practical result would be that no one would have the courage to begin a conversation. It would be so embarrassing to start a sentence in a friendly whisper, and then have to shout the last half of it because the other party was floating away into the free and formless ether. The two must hold each other to do justice to each other. If Americans can be divorced for “incompatibility of temper” I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.
VIII
THE WILDNESS OF DOMESTICITY
In the course of this crude study we shall have to touch on what is called the problem of poverty, especially the dehumanized poverty of modern industrialism. But in this primary matter of the ideal the difficulty is not the problem of poverty, but the problem of wealth. It is the special psychology of leisure and luxury that falsifies life. Some experience of modern movements of the sort called “advanced” has led me to the conviction that they generally repose upon some experience peculiar to the rich. It is so with that fallacy of free love of which I have already spoken; the idea of sexuality as a string of episodes. That implies a long holiday in which to get tired of one woman, and a motor car in which to wander looking for others; it also implies money for maintenances. An omnibus conductor has hardly time to love his own wife, let alone other people’s. And the success with which nuptial estrangements are depicted in modern “problem plays” is due to the fact that there is only one thing that a drama cannot depict—that is a hard day’s work. I could give many other instances of this plutocratic assumption behind progressive fads. For instance, there is a plutocratic assumption behind the phrase “Why should woman be economically dependent upon man?” The answer is that among poor and practical people she isn’t; except in the sense in which he is dependent upon her. A hunter has to tear his clothes; there must be somebody to mend them. A fisher has to catch fish; there must be somebody to cook them. It is surely quite clear that this modern notion that woman is a mere “pretty clinging parasite,” “a plaything,” etc., arose through the somber contemplation of some rich banking family, in which the banker, at least, went to the city and pretended to do something, while the banker’s wife went to the Park and did not pretend to do anything at all. A poor man and his wife are a business partnership. If one partner in a firm of publishers interviews the authors while the other interviews the clerks, is one of them economically dependent? Was Hodder a pretty parasite clinging to Stoughton? Was Marshall a mere plaything for Snelgrove?
But of all the modern notions generated by mere wealth the worst is this: the notion that domesticity is dull and tame. Inside the home (they say) is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. This is indeed a rich man’s opinion. The rich man knows that his own house moves on vast and soundless wheels of wealth, is run by regiments of servants, by a swift and silent ritual. On the other hand, every sort of vagabondage of romance is open to him in the streets outside. He has plenty of money and can afford to be a tramp. His wildest adventure will end in a restaurant, while the yokel’s tamest adventure may end in a police-court. If he smashes a window he can pay for it; if he smashes a man he can pension him. He can (like the millionaire in the story) buy an hotel to get a glass of gin. And because he, the luxurious man, dictates the tone of nearly all “advanced” and “progressive” thought, we have almost forgotten what a home really means to the overwhelming millions of mankind.
For the truth is, that to the moderately poor the home is the only place of liberty. Nay, it is the only place of anarchy. It is the only spot on the earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. Everywhere else he goes he must accept the strict rules of the shop, inn, club, or museum that he happens to enter. He can eat his meals on the floor in his own house if he likes. I often do it myself; it gives a curious, childish, poetic, picnic feeling. There would be considerable trouble if I tried to do it in an A.B.C. tea-shop. A man can wear a dressing gown and slippers in his house; while I am sure that this would not be permitted at the Savoy, though I never actually tested the point. If you go to a restaurant you must drink some of the wines on the wine list, all of them if you insist, but certainly some of them. But if you have a house and garden you can try to make hollyhock tea or convolvulus wine if you like. For a plain, hard-working man the home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks. The home is the one place where he can put the carpet on the ceiling or the slates on the floor if he wants to. When a man spends every night staggering from bar to bar or from music-hall to music-hall, we say that he is living an irregular life. But he is not; he is living a highly regular life, under the dull, and often oppressive, laws of such places. Some times he is not allowed even to sit down in the bars; and frequently he is not allowed to sing in the music-halls. Hotels may be defined as places where you are forced to dress; and theaters may be defined as places where you are forbidden to smoke. A man can only picnic at home.
Now I take, as I have said, this small human omnipotence, this possession of a definite cell or chamber of liberty, as the working model for the present inquiry. Whether we can give every English man a free home of his own or not, at least we should desire it; and he desires it. For the moment we speak of what he wants, not of what he expects to get. He wants, for instance, a separate house; he does not want a semi-detached house. He may be forced in the commercial race to share one wall with another man. Similarly he might be forced in a three-legged race to share one leg with another man; but it is not so that he pictures himself in his dreams of elegance and liberty. Again, he does not desire a flat. He can eat and sleep and praise God in a flat; he can eat and sleep and praise God in a railway train. But a railway train is not a house, because it is a house on wheels. And a flat is not a house, because it is a house on stilts. An idea of earthy contact and foundation, as well as an idea of separation and independence, is a part of this instructive human picture.
I take, then, this one institution as a test. As every normal man desires a woman, and children born of a woman, every normal man desires a house of his own to put them into. He does not merely want a roof above him and a chair below him; he wants an objective and visible kingdom; a fire at which he can cook what food he likes, a door he can open to what friends he chooses. This is the normal appetite of men; I do not say there are not exceptions. There may be saints above the need and philanthropists below it. Opalstein, now he is a duke, may have got used to more than this; and when he was a convict may have got used to less. But the normality of the thing is enormous. To give nearly everybody ordinary houses would please nearly everybody; that is what I assert without apology. Now in modern England (as you eagerly point out) it is very difficult to give nearly everybody houses. Quite so; I merely set up the desideratum; and ask the reader to leave it standing there while he turns with me to a consideration of what really happens in the social wars of our time.
IX
HISTORY OF HUDGE AND GUDGE
There is, let us say, a certain filthy rookery in Hoxton, dripping with disease and honeycombed with crime and promiscuity. There are, let us say, two noble and courageous young men, of pure intentions and (if you prefer it) noble birth; let us call them Hudge and Gudge. Hudge, let us say, is of a bustling sort; he points out that the people must at all costs be got out of this den; he subscribes and collects money, but he finds (despite the large financial interests of the Hudges) that the thing will have to be done on the cheap if it is to be done on the spot. He therefore, runs up a row of tall bare tenements like beehives; and soon has all the poor people bundled into their little brick cells, which are certainly better than their old quarters, in so far as they are weather proof, well ventilated and supplied with clean water. But Gudge has a more delicate nature. He feels a nameless something lacking in the little brick boxes; he raises numberless objections; he even assails the celebrated Hudge Report, with the Gudge Minority Report; and by the end of a year or so has come to telling Hudge heatedly that the people were much happier where they were before. As the people preserve in both places precisely the same air of dazed amiability, it is very difficult to find out which is right. But at least one might safely say that no people ever liked stench or starvation as such, but only some peculiar pleasures en tangled with them. Not so feels the sensitive Gudge. Long before the final quarrel (Hudge v. Gudge and Another), Gudge has succeeded in persuading himself that slums and stinks are really very nice things; that the habit of sleeping fourteen in a room is what has made our England great; and that the smell of open drains is absolutely essential to the rearing of a viking breed.
But, meanwhile, has there been no degeneration in Hudge? Alas, I fear there has. Those maniacally ugly buildings which he originally put up as unpretentious sheds barely to shelter human life, grow every day more and more lovely to his deluded eye. Things he would never have dreamed of defending, except as crude necessities, things like common kitchens or infamous asbestos stoves, begin to shine quite sacredly before him, merely because they reflect the wrath of Gudge. He maintains, with the aid of eager little books by Socialists, that man is really happier in a hive than in a house. The practical difficulty of keeping total strangers out of your bedroom he describes as Brotherhood; and the necessity for climbing twenty-three flights of cold stone stairs, I dare say he calls Effort. The net result of their philanthropic adventure is this: that one has come to defending indefensible slums and still more indefensible slum-landlords, while the other has come to treating as divine the sheds and pipes which he only meant as desperate. Gudge is now a corrupt and apoplectic old Tory in the Carlton Club; if you mention poverty to him he roars at you in a thick, hoarse voice something that is conjectured to be “Do ‘em good!” Nor is Hudge more happy; for he is a lean vegetarian with a gray, pointed beard and an unnaturally easy smile, who goes about telling everybody that at last we shall all sleep in one universal bedroom; and he lives in a Garden City, like one forgotten of God.
Such is the lamentable history of Hudge and Gudge; which I merely introduce as a type of an endless and exasperating misunderstanding which is always occurring in modern England. To get men out of a rookery men are put into a tenement; and at the beginning the healthy human soul loathes them both. A man’s first desire is to get away as far as possible from the rookery, even should his mad course lead him to a model dwelling. The second desire is, naturally, to get away from the model dwelling, even if it should lead a man back to the rookery. But I am neither a Hudgian nor a Gudgian; and I think the mistakes of these two famous and fascinating persons arose from one simple fact. They arose from the fact that neither Hudge nor Gudge had ever thought for an instant what sort of house a man might probably like for himself. In short, they did not begin with the ideal; and, therefore, were not practical politicians.
We may now return to the purpose of our awkward parenthesis about the praise of the future and the failures of the past. A house of his own being the obvious ideal for every man, we may now ask (taking this need as typical of all such needs) why he hasn’t got it; and whether it is in any philosophical sense his own fault. Now, I think that in some philosophical sense it is his own fault, I think in a yet more philosophical sense it is the fault of his philosophy. And this is what I have now to attempt to explain.
Burke, a fine rhetorician, who rarely faced realities, said, I think, that an Englishman’s house is his castle. This is honestly entertaining; for as it happens the Englishman is almost the only man in Europe whose house is not his castle. Nearly everywhere else exists the assumption of peasant proprietorship; that a poor man may be a landlord, though he is only lord of his own land. Making the landlord and the tenant the same person has certain trivial advantages, as that the tenant pays no rent, while the landlord does a little work. But I am not concerned with the defense of small proprietorship, but merely with the fact that it exists almost everywhere except in England. It is also true, however, that this estate of small possession is attacked everywhere today; it has never existed among ourselves, and it may be destroyed among our neighbors. We have, therefore, to ask ourselves what it is in human affairs generally, and in this domestic ideal in particular, that has really ruined the natural human creation, especially in this country.
Man has always lost his way. He has been a tramp ever since Eden; but he always knew, or thought he knew, what he was looking for. Every man has a house somewhere in the elaborate cosmos; his house waits for him waist deep in slow Norfolk rivers or sunning itself upon Sussex downs. Man has always been looking for that home which is the subject matter of this book. But in the bleak and blinding hail of skepticism to which he has been now so long subjected, he has begun for the first time to be chilled, not merely in his hopes, but in his desires. For the first time in history he begins really to doubt the object of his wanderings on the earth. He has always lost his way; but now he has lost his address.
Under the pressure of certain upper-class philosophies (or in other words, under the pressure of Hudge and Gudge) the average man has really become bewildered about the goal of his efforts; and his efforts, therefore, grow feebler and feebler. His simple notion of having a home of his own is derided as bourgeois, as sentimental, or as despicably Christian. Under various verbal forms he is recommended to go on to the streets— which is called Individualism; or to the work-house—which is called Collectivism. We shall consider this process somewhat more carefully in a moment. But it may be said here that Hudge and Gudge, or the governing class generally, will never fail for lack of some modern phrase to cover their ancient predominance. The great lords will refuse the English peasant his three acres and a cow on advanced grounds, if they cannot refuse it longer on reactionary grounds. They will deny him the three acres on grounds of State Ownership. They will forbid him the cow on grounds of humanitarianism.
And this brings us to the ultimate analysis of this singular influence that has prevented doctrinal demands by the English people. There are, I believe, some who still deny that England is governed by an oligarchy. It is quite enough for me to know that a man might have gone to sleep some thirty years ago over the day’s newspaper and woke up last week over the later newspaper, and fancied he was reading about the same people. In one paper he would have found a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an Acland. In the other paper he would find a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an Acland. If this is not being governed by families I cannot imagine what it is. I suppose it is being governed by extraordinary democratic coincidences.
X
OPPRESSION BY OPTIMISM
But we are not here concerned with the nature and existence of the aristocracy, but with the origin of its peculiar power, why is it the last of the true oligarchies of Europe; and why does there seem no very immediate prospect of our seeing the end of it? The explanation is simple though it remains strangely unnoticed. The friends of aristocracy often praise it for preserving ancient and gracious traditions. The enemies of aristocracy often blame it for clinging to cruel or antiquated customs. Both its enemies and its friends are wrong. Generally speaking the aristocracy does not preserve either good or bad traditions; it does not preserve anything except game. Who would dream of looking among aristocrats anywhere for an old custom? One might as well look for an old costume! The god of the aristocrats is not tradition, but fashion, which is the opposite of tradition. If you wanted to find an old-world Norwegian head-dress, would you look for it in the Scandinavian Smart Set? No; the aristocrats never have customs; at the best they have habits, like the animals. Only the mob has customs.
The real power of the English aristocrats has lain in exactly the opposite of tradition. The simple key to the power of our upper classes is this: that they have always kept carefully on the side of what is called Progress. They have always been up to date, and this comes quite easy to an aristocracy. For the aristocracy are the supreme instances of that frame of mind of which we spoke just now. Novelty is to them a luxury verging on a necessity. They, above all, are so bored with the past and with the present, that they gape, with a horrible hunger, for the future.
But whatever else the great lords forgot they never forgot that it was their business to stand for the new things, for whatever was being most talked about among university dons or fussy financiers. Thus they were on the side of the Reformation against the Church, of the Whigs against the Stuarts, of the Baconian science against the old philosophy, of the manufacturing system against the operatives, and (to-day) of the increased power of the State against the old-fashioned individualists. In short, the rich are always modern; it is their business. But the immediate effect of this fact upon the question we are studying is somewhat singular.
In each of the separate holes or quandaries in which the ordinary Englishman has been placed, he has been told that his situation is, for some particular reason, all for the best. He woke up one fine morning and discovered that the public things, which for eight hundred years he had used at once as inns and sanctuaries, had all been suddenly and savagely abolished, to increase the private wealth of about six or seven men. One would think he might have been annoyed at that; in many places he was, and was put down by the soldiery. But it was not merely the army that kept him quiet. He was kept quiet by the sages as well as the soldiers; the six or seven men who took away the inns of the poor told him that they were not doing it for themselves, but for the religion of the future, the great dawn of Protestantism and truth. So whenever a seventeenth century noble was caught pulling down a peasant’s fence and stealing his field, the noble pointed excitedly at the face of Charles I or James II (which at that moment, perhaps, wore a cross expression) and thus diverted the simple peasant’s attention. The great Puritan lords created the Commonwealth, and destroyed the common land. They saved their poorer countrymen from the disgrace of paying Ship Money, by taking from them the plow money and spade money which they were doubtless too weak to guard. A fine old English rhyme has immortalized this easy aristocratic habit—
You prosecute the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common, But leave the larger felon loose Who steals the common from the goose.
But here, as in the case of the monasteries, we confront the strange problem of submission. If they stole the common from the goose, one can only say that he was a great goose to stand it. The truth is that they reasoned with the goose; they explained to him that all this was needed to get the Stuart fox over seas. So in the nineteenth century the great nobles who became mine-owners and railway directors earnestly assured everybody that they did not do this from preference, but owing to a newly discovered Economic Law. So the prosperous politicians of our own generation introduce bills to prevent poor mothers from going about with their own babies; or they calmly forbid their tenants to drink beer in public inns. But this insolence is not (as you would suppose) howled at by everybody as outrageous feudalism. It is gently rebuked as Socialism. For an aristocracy is always progressive; it is a form of going the pace. Their parties grow later and later at night; for they are trying to live to-morrow.
XI
THE HOMELESSNESS OF JONES
Thus the Future of which we spoke at the beginning has (in England at least) always been the ally of tyranny. The ordinary Englishman has been duped out of his old possessions, such as they were, and always in the name of progress. The destroyers of the abbeys took away his bread and gave him a stone, assuring him that it was a precious stone, the white pebble of the Lord’s elect. They took away his maypole and his original rural life and promised him instead the Golden Age of Peace and Commerce inaugurated at the Crystal Palace. And now they are taking away the little that remains of his dignity as a householder and the head of a family, promising him instead Utopias which are called (appropriately enough) “Anticipations” or “News from Nowhere.” We come back, in fact, to the main feature which has already been mentioned. The past is communal: the future must be individualist. In the past are all the evils of democracy, variety and violence and doubt, but the future is pure despotism, for the future is pure caprice. Yesterday, I know I was a human fool, but to-morrow I can easily be the Superman.
The modern Englishman, however, is like a man who should be perpetually kept out, for one reason after another, from the house in which he had meant his married life to begin. This man (Jones let us call him) has always desired the divinely ordinary things; he has married for love, he has chosen or built a small house that fits like a coat; he is ready to be a great grandfather and a local god. And just as he is moving in, something goes wrong. Some tyranny, personal or political, suddenly debars him from the home; and he has to take his meals in the front garden. A passing philosopher (who is also, by a mere coincidence, the man who turned him out) pauses, and leaning elegantly on the railings, explains to him that he is now living that bold life upon the bounty of nature which will be the life of the sublime future. He finds life in the front garden more bold than bountiful, and has to move into mean lodgings in the next spring. The philosopher (who turned him out), happening to call at these lodgings, with the probable intention of raising the rent, stops to explain to him that he is now in the real life of mercantile endeavor; the economic struggle between him and the landlady is the only thing out of which, in the sublime future, the wealth of nations can come. He is defeated in the economic struggle, and goes to the workhouse. The philosopher who turned him out (happening at that very moment to be inspecting the workhouse) assures him that he is now at last in that golden republic which is the goal of mankind; he is in an equal, scientific, Socialistic commonwealth, owned by the State and ruled by public officers; in fact, the commonwealth of the sublime future.
Nevertheless, there are signs that the irrational Jones still dreams at night of this old idea of having an ordinary home. He asked for so little, and he has been offered so much. He has been offered bribes of worlds and systems; he has been offered Eden and Utopia and the New Jerusalem, and he only wanted a house; and that has been refused him.
Such an apologue is literally no exaggeration of the facts of English history. The rich did literally turn the poor out of the old guest house on to the road, briefly telling them that it was the road of progress. They did literally force them into factories and the modern wage-slavery, assuring them all the time that this was the only way to wealth and civilization. Just as they had dragged the rustic from the convent food and ale by saying that the streets of heaven were paved with gold, so now they dragged him from the village food and ale by telling him that the streets of London were paved with gold. As he entered the gloomy porch of Puritanism, so he entered the gloomy porch of Industrialism, being told that each of them was the gate of the future. Hitherto he has only gone from prison to prison, nay, into darkening prisons, for Calvinism opened one small window upon heaven. And now he is asked, in the same educated and authoritative tones, to enter another dark porch, at which he has to surrender, into unseen hands, his children, his small possessions and all the habits of his fathers.
Whether this last opening be in truth any more inviting than the old openings of Puritanism and Industrialism can be discussed later. But there can be little doubt, I think, that if some form of Collectivism is imposed upon England it will be imposed, as everything else has been, by an instructed political class upon a people partly apathetic and partly hypnotized. The aristocracy will be as ready to “administer” Collectivism as they were to administer Puritanism or Manchesterism; in some ways such a centralized political power is necessarily attractive to them. It will not be so hard as some innocent Socialists seem to suppose to induce the Honorable Tomnoddy to take over the milk supply as well as the stamp supply—at an increased salary. Mr. Bernard Shaw has remarked that rich men are better than poor men on parish councils because they are free from “financial timidity.” Now, the English ruling class is quite free from financial timidity. The Duke of Sussex will be quite ready to be Administrator of Sussex at the same screw. Sir William Harcourt, that typical aristocrat, put it quite correctly. “We” (that is, the aristocracy) “are all Socialists now.”
But this is not the essential note on which I desire to end. My main contention is that, whether necessary or not, both Industrialism and Collectivism have been accepted as necessities— not as naked ideals or desires. Nobody liked the Manchester School; it was endured as the only way of producing wealth. Nobody likes the Marxian school; it is endured as the only way of preventing poverty. Nobody’s real heart is in the idea of preventing a free man from owning his own farm, or an old woman from cultivating her own garden, any more than anybody’s real heart was in the heartless battle of the machines. The purpose of this chapter is sufficiently served in indicating that this proposal also is a pis aller, a desperate second best— like teetotalism. I do not propose to prove here that Socialism is a poison; it is enough if I maintain that it is a medicine and not a wine.
The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house—this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world’s deliverance, but it is not the world’s desire.
PART TWO
IMPERIALISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT MAN
I
THE CHARM OF JINGOISM
I have cast about widely to find a title for this section; and I confess that the word “Imperialism” is a clumsy version of my meaning. But no other word came nearer; “Militarism” would have been even more misleading, and “The Superman” makes nonsense of any discussion that he enters. Perhaps, upon the whole, the word “Caesarism” would have been better; but I desire a popular word; and Imperialism (as the reader will perceive) does cover for the most part the men and theories that I mean to discuss.
This small confusion is increased, however, by the fact that I do also disbelieve in Imperialism in its popular sense, as a mode or theory of the patriotic sentiment of this country. But popular Imperialism in England has very little to do with the sort of Caesarean Imperialism I wish to sketch. I differ from the Colonial idealism of Rhodes’ and Kipling; but I do not think, as some of its opponents do, that it is an insolent creation of English harshness and rapacity. Imperialism, I think, is a fiction created, not by English hardness, but by English softness; nay, in a sense, even by English kindness.
The reasons for believing in Australia are mostly as sentimental as the most sentimental reasons for believing in heaven. New South Wales is quite literally regarded as a place where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest; that is, a paradise for uncles who have turned dishonest and for nephews who are born tired. British Columbia is in strict sense a fairyland, it is a world where a magic and irrational luck is supposed to attend the youngest sons. This strange optimism about the ends of the earth is an English weakness; but to show that it is not a coldness or a harshness it is quite sufficient to say that no one shared it more than that gigantic English sentimentalist—the great Charles Dickens. The end of “David Copperfield” is unreal not merely because it is an optimistic ending, but because it is an Imperialistic ending. The decorous British happiness planned out for David Copperfield and Agnes would be embarrassed by the perpetual presence of the hopeless tragedy of Emily, or the more hopeless farce of Micawber. Therefore, both Emily and Micawber are shipped off to a vague colony where changes come over them with no conceivable cause, except the climate. The tragic woman becomes contented and the comic man becomes responsible, solely as the result of a sea voyage and the first sight of a kangaroo.
To Imperialism in the light political sense, therefore, my only objection is that it is an illusion of comfort; that an Empire whose heart is failing should be specially proud of the extremities, is to me no more sublime a fact than that an old dandy whose brain is gone should still be proud of his legs. It consoles men for the evident ugliness and apathy of England with legends of fair youth and heroic strenuousness in distant continents and islands. A man can sit amid the squalor of Seven Dials and feel that life is innocent and godlike in the bush or on the veldt. Just so a man might sit in the squalor of Seven Dials and feel that life was innocent and godlike in Brixton and Surbiton. Brixton and Surbiton are “new”; they are expanding; they are “nearer to nature,” in the sense that they have eaten up nature mile by mile. The only objection is the objection of fact. The young men of Brixton are not young giants. The lovers of Surbiton are not all pagan poets, singing with the sweet energy of the spring. Nor are the people of the Colonies when you meet them young giants or pagan poets. They are mostly Cockneys who have lost their last music of real things by getting out of the sound of Bow Bells. Mr. Rudyard Kipling, a man of real though decadent genius, threw a theoretic glamour over them which is already fading. Mr. Kipling is, in a precise and rather startling sense, the exception that proves the rule. For he has imagination, of an oriental and cruel kind, but he has it, not because he grew up in a new country, but precisely because he grew up in the oldest country upon earth. He is rooted in a past— an Asiatic past. He might never have written “Kabul River” if he had been born in Melbourne.
I say frankly, therefore (lest there should be any air of evasion), that Imperialism in its common patriotic pretensions appears to me both weak and perilous. It is the attempt of a European country to create a kind of sham Europe which it can dominate, instead of the real Europe, which it can only share. It is a love of living with one’s inferiors. The notion of restoring the Roman Empire by oneself and for oneself is a dream that has haunted every Christian nation in a different shape and in almost every shape as a snare. The Spanish are a consistent and conservative people; therefore they embodied that attempt at Empire in long and lingering dynasties. The French are a violent people, and therefore they twice conquered that Empire by violence of arms. The English are above all a poetical and optimistic people; and therefore their Empire is something vague and yet sympathetic, something distant and yet dear. But this dream of theirs of being powerful in the uttermost places, though a native weakness, is still a weakness in them; much more of a weakness than gold was to Spain or glory to Napoleon. If ever we were in collision with our real brothers and rivals we should leave all this fancy out of account. We should no more dream of pitting Australian armies against German than of pitting Tasmanian sculpture against French. I have thus explained, lest anyone should accuse me of concealing an unpopular attitude, why I do not believe in Imperialism as commonly understood. I think it not merely an occasional wrong to other peoples, but a continuous feebleness, a running sore, in my own. But it is also true that I have dwelt on this Imperialism that is an amiable delusion partly in order to show how different it is from the deeper, more sinister and yet more persuasive thing that I have been forced to call Imperialism for the convenience of this chapter. In order to get to the root of this evil and quite un-English Imperialism we must cast back and begin anew with a more general discussion of the first needs of human intercourse.
II
WISDOM AND THE WEATHER
It is admitted, one may hope, that common things are never commonplace. Birth is covered with curtains precisely because it is a staggering and monstrous prodigy. Death and first love, though they happen to everybody, can stop one’s heart with the very thought of them. But while this is granted, something further may be claimed. It is not merely true that these universal things are strange; it is moreover true that they are subtle. In the last analysis most common things will be found to be highly complicated. Some men of science do indeed get over the difficulty by dealing only with the easy part of it: thus, they will call first love the instinct of sex, and the awe of death the instinct of self-preservation. But this is only getting over the difficulty of describing peacock green by calling it blue. There is blue in it. That there is a strong physical element in both romance and the Memento Mori makes them if possible more baffling than if they had been wholly intellectual. No man could say exactly how much his sexuality was colored by a clean love of beauty, or by the mere boyish itch for irrevocable adventures, like running away to sea. No man could say how far his animal dread of the end was mixed up with mystical traditions touching morals and religion. It is exactly because these things are animal, but not quite animal, that the dance of all the difficulties begins. The materialists analyze the easy part, deny the hard part and go home to their tea.
It is complete error to suppose that because a thing is vulgar therefore it is not refined; that is, subtle and hard to define. A drawing-room song of my youth which began “In the gloaming, O, my darling,” was vulgar enough as a song; but the connection between human passion and the twilight is none the less an exquisite and even inscrutable thing. Or to take another obvious instance: the jokes about a mother-in-law are scarcely delicate, but the problem of a mother-in-law is extremely delicate. A mother-in-law is subtle because she is a thing like the twilight. She is a mystical blend of two inconsistent things— law and a mother. The caricatures misrepresent her; but they arise out of a real human enigma. “Comic Cuts” deals with the difficulty wrongly, but it would need George Meredith at his best to deal with the difficulty rightly. The nearest statement of the problem perhaps is this: it is not that a mother-in-law must be nasty, but that she must be very nice.
But it is best perhaps to take in illustration some daily custom we have all heard despised as vulgar or trite. Take, for the sake of argument, the custom of talking about the weather. Stevenson calls it “the very nadir and scoff of good conversationalists.” Now there are very deep reasons for talking about the weather, reasons that are delicate as well as deep; they lie in layer upon layer of stratified sagacity. First of all it is a gesture of primeval worship. The sky must be invoked; and to begin everything with the weather is a sort of pagan way of beginning everything with prayer. Jones and Brown talk about the weather: but so do Milton and Shelley. Then it is an expression of that elementary idea in politeness—equality. For the very word politeness is only the Greek for citizenship. The word politeness is akin to the word policeman: a charming thought. Properly understood, the citizen should be more polite than the gentleman; perhaps the policeman should be the most courtly and elegant of the three. But all good manners must obviously begin with the sharing of something in a simple style. Two men should share an umbrella; if they have not got an umbrella, they should at least share the rain, with all its rich potentialities of wit and philosophy. “For He maketh His sun to shine…” This is the second element in the weather; its recognition of human equality in that we all have our hats under the dark blue spangled umbrella of the universe. Arising out of this is the third wholesome strain in the custom; I mean that it begins with the body and with our inevitable bodily brotherhood. All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. Those who will not begin at the bodily end of things are already prigs and may soon be Christian Scientists. Each human soul has in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.
Briefly, in the mere observation “a fine day” there is the whole great human idea of comradeship. Now, pure comradeship is another of those broad and yet bewildering things. We all enjoy it; yet when we come to talk about it we almost always talk nonsense, chiefly because we suppose it to be a simpler affair than it is. It is simple to conduct; but it is by no means simple to analyze. Comradeship is at the most only one half of human life; the other half is Love, a thing so different that one might fancy it had been made for another universe. And I do not mean mere sex love; any kind of concentrated passion, maternal love, or even the fiercer kinds of friendship are in their nature alien to pure comradeship. Both sides are essential to life; and both are known in differing degrees to everybody of every age or sex. But very broadly speaking it may still be said that women stand for the dignity of love and men for the dignity of comradeship. I mean that the institution would hardly be expected if the males of the tribe did not mount guard over it. The affections in which women excel have so much more authority and intensity that pure comradeship would be washed away if it were not rallied and guarded in clubs, corps, colleges, banquets and regiments. Most of us have heard the voice in which the hostess tells her husband not to sit too long over the cigars. It is the dreadful voice of Love, seeking to destroy Comradeship.
All true comradeship has in it those three elements which I have remarked in the ordinary exclamation about the weather. First, it has a sort of broad philosophy like the common sky, emphasizing that we are all under the same cosmic conditions. We are all in the same boat, the “winged rock” of Mr. Herbert Trench. Secondly, it recognizes this bond as the essential one; for comradeship is simply humanity seen in that one aspect in which men are really equal. The old writers were entirely wise when they talked of the equality of men; but they were also very wise in not mentioning women. Women are always authoritarian; they are always above or below; that is why marriage is a sort of poetical see-saw. There are only three things in the world that women do not understand; and they are Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. But men (a class little understood in the modern world) find these things the breath of their nostrils; and our most learned ladies will not even begin to understand them until they make allowance for this kind of cool camaraderie. Lastly, it contains the third quality of the weather, the insistence upon the body and its indispensable satisfaction. No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerness in eating, drinking, or smoking, an uproarious materialism which to many women appears only hoggish. You may call the thing an orgy or a sacrament; it is certainly an essential. It is at root a resistance to the superciliousness of the individual. Nay, its very swaggering and howling are humble. In the heart of its rowdiness there is a sort of mad modesty; a desire to melt the separate soul into the mass of unpretentious masculinity. It is a clamorous confession of the weakness of all flesh. No man must be superior to the things that are common to men. This sort of equality must be bodily and gross and comic. Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.
The word comradeship just now promises to become as fatuous as the word “affinity.” There are clubs of a Socialist sort where all the members, men and women, call each other “Comrade.” I have no serious emotions, hostile or otherwise, about this particular habit: at the worst it is conventionality, and at the best flirtation. I am convinced here only to point out a rational principle. If you choose to lump all flowers together, lilies and dahlias and tulips and chrysanthemums and call them all daisies, you will find that you have spoiled the very fine word daisy. If you choose to call every human attachment comradeship, if you include under that name the respect of a youth for a venerable prophetess, the interest of a man in a beautiful woman who baffles him, the pleasure of a philosophical old fogy in a girl who is impudent and innocent, the end of the meanest quarrel or the beginning of the most mountainous love; if you are going to call all these comradeship, you will gain nothing, you will only lose a word. Daisies are obvious and universal and open; but they are only one kind of flower. Comradeship is obvious and universal and open; but it is only one kind of affection; it has characteristics that would destroy any other kind. Anyone who has known true comradeship in a club or in a regiment, knows that it is impersonal. There is a pedantic phrase used in debating clubs which is strictly true to the masculine emotion; they call it “speaking to the question.” Women speak to each other; men speak to the subject they are speaking about. Many an honest man has sat in a ring of his five best friends under heaven and forgotten who was in the room while he explained some system. This is not peculiar to intellectual men; men are all theoretical, whether they are talking about God or about golf. Men are all impersonal; that is to say, republican. No one remembers after a really good talk who has said the good things. Every man speaks to a visionary multitude; a mystical cloud, that is called the club.
It is obvious that this cool and careless quality which is essential to the collective affection of males involves disadvantages and dangers. It leads to spitting; it leads to coarse speech; it must lead to these things so long as it is honorable; comradeship must be in some degree ugly. The moment beauty is mentioned in male friendship, the nostrils are stopped with the smell of abominable things. Friendship must be physically dirty if it is to be morally clean. It must be in its shirt sleeves. The chaos of habits that always goes with males when left entirely to themselves has only one honorable cure; and that is the strict discipline of a monastery. Anyone who has seen our unhappy young idealists in East End Settlements losing their collars in the wash and living on tinned salmon will fully understand why it was decided by the wisdom of St. Bernard or St. Benedict, that if men were to live without women, they must not live without rules. Something of the same sort of artificial exactitude, of course, is obtained in an army; and an army also has to be in many ways monastic; only that it has celibacy without chastity. But these things do not apply to normal married men. These have a quite sufficient restraint on their instinctive anarchy in the savage common-sense of the other sex. There is only one very timid sort of man that is not afraid of women.
III
THE COMMON VISION
Now this masculine love of an open and level camaraderie is the life within all democracies and attempts to govern by debate; without it the republic would be a dead formula. Even as it is, of course, the spirit of democracy frequently differs widely from the letter, and a pothouse is often a better test than a Parliament. Democracy in its human sense is not arbitrament by the majority; it is not even arbitrament by everybody. It can be more nearly defined as arbitrament by anybody. I mean that it rests on that club habit of taking a total stranger for granted, of assuming certain things to be inevitably common to yourself and him. Only the things that anybody may be presumed to hold have the full authority of democracy. Look out of the window and notice the first man who walks by. The Liberals may have swept England with an over-whelming majority; but you would not stake a button that the man is a Liberal. The Bible may be read in all schools and respected in all law courts; but you would not bet a straw that he believes in the Bible. But you would bet your week’s wages, let us say, that he believes in wearing clothes. You would bet that he believes that physical courage is a fine thing, or that parents have authority over children. Of course, he might be the millionth man who does not believe these things; if it comes to that, he might be the Bearded Lady dressed up as a man. But these prodigies are quite a different thing from any mere calculation of numbers. People who hold these views are not a minority, but a monstrosity. But of these universal dogmas that have full democratic authority the only test is this test of anybody. What you would observe before any newcomer in a tavern—that is the real English law. The first man you see from the window, he is the King of England.
The decay of taverns, which is but a part of the general decay of democracy, has undoubtedly weakened this masculine spirit of equality. I remember that a roomful of Socialists literally laughed when I told them that there were no two nobler words in all poetry than Public House. They thought it was a joke. Why they should think it a joke, since they want to make all houses public houses, I cannot imagine. But if anyone wishes to see the real rowdy egalitarianism which is necessary (to males, at least) he can find it as well as anywhere in the great old tavern disputes which come down to us in such books as Boswell’s Johnson. It is worth while to mention that one name especially because the modern world in its morbidity has done it a strange injustice. The demeanor of Johnson, it is said, was “harsh and despotic.” It was occasionally harsh, but it was never despotic. Johnson was not in the least a despot; Johnson was a demagogue, he shouted against a shouting crowd. The very fact that he wrangled with other people is proof that other people were allowed to wrangle with him. His very brutality was based on the idea of an equal scrimmage, like that of football. It is strictly true that he bawled and banged the table because he was a modest man. He was honestly afraid of being overwhelmed or even overlooked. Addison had exquisite manners and was the king of his company; he was polite to everybody; but superior to everybody; therefore he has been handed down forever in the immortal insult of Pope—
“Like Cato, give his little Senate laws And sit attentive to his own applause.”
Johnson, so far from being king of his company, was a sort of Irish Member in his own Parliament. Addison was a courteous superior and was hated. Johnson was an insolent equal and therefore was loved by all who knew him, and handed down in a marvellous book, which is one of the mere miracles of love.
This doctrine of equality is essential to conversation; so much may be admitted by anyone who knows what conversation is. Once arguing at a table in a tavern the most famous man on earth would wish to be obscure, so that his brilliant remarks might blaze like the stars on the background of his obscurity. To anything worth calling a man nothing can be conceived more cold or cheerless than to be king of your company. But it may be said that in masculine sports and games, other than the great game of debate, there is definite emulation and eclipse. There is indeed emulation, but this is only an ardent sort of equality. Games are competitive, because that is the only way of making them exciting. But if anyone doubts that men must forever return to the ideal of equality, it is only necessary to answer that there is such a thing as a handicap. If men exulted in mere superiority, they would seek to see how far such superiority could go; they would be glad when one strong runner came in miles ahead of all the rest. But what men like is not the triumph of superiors, but the struggle of equals; and, therefore, they introduce even into their competitive sports an artificial equality. It is sad to think how few of those who arrange our sporting handicaps can be supposed with any probability to realize that they are abstract and even severe republicans.
No; the real objection to equality and self-rule has nothing to do with any of these free and festive aspects of mankind; all men are democrats when they are happy. The philosophic opponent of democracy would substantially sum up his position by saying that it “will not work.” Before going further, I will register in passing a protest against the assumption that working is the one test of humanity. Heaven does not work; it plays. Men are most themselves when they are free; and if I find that men are snobs in their work but democrats on their holidays, I shall take the liberty to believe their holidays. But it is this question of work which really perplexes the question of equality; and it is with that that we must now deal. Perhaps the truth can be put most pointedly thus: that democracy has one real enemy, and that is civilization. Those utilitarian miracles which science has made are anti-democratic, not so much in their perversion, or even in their practical result, as in their primary shape and purpose. The Frame-Breaking Rioters were right; not perhaps in thinking that machines would make fewer men workmen; but certainly in thinking that machines would make fewer men masters. More wheels do mean fewer handles; fewer handles do mean fewer hands. The machinery of science must be individualistic and isolated. A mob can shout round a palace; but a mob cannot shout down a telephone. The specialist appears and democracy is half spoiled at a stroke.
IV
THE INSANE NECESSITY
The common conception among the dregs of Darwinian culture is that men have slowly worked their way out of inequality into a state of comparative equality. The truth is, I fancy, almost exactly the opposite. All men have normally and naturally begun with the idea of equality; they have only abandoned it late and reluctantly, and always for some material reason of detail. They have never naturally felt that one class of men was superior to another; they have always been driven to assume it through certain practical limitations of space and time.
For example, there is one element which must always tend to oligarchy—or rather to despotism; I mean the element of hurry. If the house has caught fire a man must ring up the fire engines; a committee cannot ring them up. If a camp is surprised by night somebody must give the order to fire; there is no time to vote it. It is solely a question of the physical limitations of time and space; not at all of any mental limitations in the mass of men commanded. If all the people in the house were men of destiny it would still be better that they should not all talk into the telephone at once; nay, it would be better that the silliest man of all should speak uninterrupted. If an army actually consisted of nothing but Hanibals and Napoleons, it would still be better in the case of a surprise that they should not all give orders together. Nay, it would be better if the stupidest of them all gave the orders. Thus, we see that merely military subordination, so far from resting on the inequality of men, actually rests on the equality of men. Discipline does not involve the Carlylean notion that somebody is always right when everybody is wrong, and that we must discover and crown that somebody. On the contrary, discipline means that in certain frightfully rapid circumstances, one can trust anybody so long as he is not everybody. The military spirit does not mean (as Carlyle fancied) obeying the strongest and wisest man. On the contrary, the military spirit means, if anything, obeying the weakest and stupidest man, obeying him merely because he is a man, and not a thousand men. Submission to a weak man is discipline. Submission to a strong man is only servility.
Now it can be easily shown that the thing we call aristocracy in Europe is not in its origin and spirit an aristocracy at all. It is not a system of spiritual degrees and distinctions like, for example, the caste system of India, or even like the old Greek distinction between free men and slaves. It is simply the remains of a military organization, framed partly to sustain the sinking Roman Empire, partly to break and avenge the awful onslaught of Islam. The word Duke simply means Colonel, just as the word Emperor simply means Commander-in-Chief. The whole story is told in the single title of Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, which merely means officers in the European army against the contemporary Yellow Peril. Now in an army nobody ever dreams of supposing that difference of rank represents a difference of moral reality. Nobody ever says about a regiment, “Your Major is very humorous and energetic; your Colonel, of course, must be even more humorous and yet more energetic.” No one ever says, in reporting a mess-room conversation, “Lieutenant Jones was very witty, but was naturally inferior to Captain Smith.” The essence of an army is the idea of official inequality, founded on unofficial equality. The Colonel is not obeyed because he is the best man, but because he is the Colonel. Such was probably the spirit of the system of dukes and counts when it first arose out of the military spirit and military necessities of Rome. With the decline of those necessities it has gradually ceased to have meaning as a military organization, and become honeycombed with unclean plutocracy. Even now it is not a spiritual aristocracy—it is not so bad as all that. It is simply an army without an enemy—billeted upon the people.
Man, therefore, has a specialist as well as comrade-like aspect; and the case of militarism is not the only case of such specialist submission. The tinker and tailor, as well as the soldier and sailor, require a certain rigidity of rapidity of action: at least, if the tinker is not organized that is largely why he does not tink on any large scale. The tinker and tailor often represent the two nomadic races in Europe: the Gipsy and the Jew; but the Jew alone has influence because he alone accepts some sort of discipline. Man, we say, has two sides, the specialist side where he must have subordination, and the social side where he must have equality. There is a truth in the saying that ten tailors go to make a man; but we must remember also that ten Poets Laureate or ten Astronomers Royal go to make a man, too. Ten million tradesmen go to make Man himself; but humanity consists of tradesmen when they are not talking shop. Now the peculiar peril of our time, which I call for argument’s sake Imperialism or Caesarism, is the complete eclipse of comradeship and equality by specialism and domination.
There are only two kinds of social structure conceivable— personal government and impersonal government. If my anarchic friends will not have rules—they will have rulers. Preferring personal government, with its tact and flexibility, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called Republicanism. Objecting broadmindedly both to kings and creeds is called Bosh; at least, I know no more philosophic word for it. You can be guided by the shrewdness or presence of mind of one ruler, or by the equality and ascertained justice of one rule; but you must have one or the other, or you are not a nation, but a nasty mess. Now men in their aspect of equality and debate adore the idea of rules; they develop and complicate them greatly to excess. A man finds far more regulations and definitions in his club, where there are rules, than in his home, where there is a ruler. A deliberate assembly, the House of Commons, for instance, carries this mummery to the point of a methodical madness. The whole system is stiff with rigid unreason; like the Royal Court in Lewis Carroll. You would think the Speaker would speak; therefore he is mostly silent. You would think a man would take off his hat to stop and put it on to go away; therefore he takes off his hat to walk out and puts it on to stop in. Names are forbidden, and a man must call his own father “my right honorable friend the member for West Birmingham.” These are, perhaps, fantasies of decay: but fundamentally they answer a masculine appetite. Men feel that rules, even if irrational, are universal; men feel that law is equal, even when it is not equitable. There is a wild fairness in the thing—as there is in tossing up.
Again, it is gravely unfortunate that when critics do attack such cases as the Commons it is always on the points (perhaps the few points) where the Commons are right. They denounce the House as the Talking-Shop, and complain that it wastes time in wordy mazes. Now this is just one respect in which the Commons are actually like the Common People. If they love leisure and long debate, it is because all men love it; that they really represent England. There the Parliament does approach to the virile virtues of the pothouse.
The real truth is that adumbrated in the introductory section when we spoke of the sense of home and property, as now we speak of the sense of counsel and community. All men do naturally love the idea of leisure, laughter, loud and equal argument; but there stands a specter in our hall. We are conscious of the towering modern challenge that is called specialism or cut-throat competition—Business. Business will have nothing to do with leisure; business will have no truck with comradeship; business will pretend to no patience with all the legal fictions and fantastic handicaps by which comradeship protects its egalitarian ideal. The modern millionaire, when engaged in the agreeable and typical task of sacking his own father, will certainly not refer to him as the right honorable clerk from the Laburnum Road, Brixton. Therefore there has arisen in modern life a literary fashion devoting itself to the romance of business, to great demigods of greed and to fairyland of finance. This popular philosophy is utterly despotic and anti-democratic; this fashion is the flower of that Caesarism against which I am concerned to protest. The ideal millionaire is strong in the possession of a brain of steel. The fact that the real millionaire is rather more often strong in the possession of a head of wood, does not alter the spirit and trend of the idolatry. The essential argument is “Specialists must be despots; men must be specialists. You cannot have equality in a soap factory; so you cannot have it anywhere. You cannot have comradeship in a wheat corner; so you cannot have it at all. We must have commercial civilization; therefore we must destroy democracy.” I know that plutocrats have seldom sufficient fancy to soar to such examples as soap or wheat. They generally confine themselves, with fine freshness of mind, to a comparison between the state and a ship. One anti-democratic writer remarked that he would not like to sail in a vessel in which the cabin-boy had an equal vote with the captain. It might easily be urged in answer that many a ship (the Victoria, for instance) was sunk because an admiral gave an order which a cabin-boy could see was wrong. But this is a debating reply; the essential fallacy is both deeper and simpler. The elementary fact is that we were all born in a state; we were not all born on a ship; like some of our great British bankers. A ship still remains a specialist experiment, like a diving-bell or a flying ship: in such peculiar perils the need for promptitude constitutes the need for autocracy. But we live and die in the vessel of the state; and if we cannot find freedom camaraderie and the popular element in the state, we cannot find it at all. And the modern doctrine of commercial despotism means that we shall not find it at all. Our specialist trades in their highly civilized state cannot (it says) be run without the whole brutal business of bossing and sacking, “too old at forty” and all the rest of the filth. And they must be run, and therefore we call on Caesar. Nobody but the Superman could descend to do such dirty work.
Now (to reiterate my title) this is what is wrong. This is the huge modern heresy of altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead of altering human conditions to fit the human soul. If soap boiling is really inconsistent with brotherhood, so much the worst for soap-boiling, not for brotherhood. If civilization really cannot get on with democracy, so much the worse for civilization, not for democracy. Certainly, it would be far better to go back to village communes, if they really are communes. Certainly, it would be better to do without soap rather than to do without society. Certainly, we would sacrifice all our wires, wheels, systems, specialties, physical science and frenzied finance for one half-hour of happiness such as has often come to us with comrades in a common tavern. I do not say the sacrifice will be necessary; I only say it will be easy.
PART THREE
FEMINISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT WOMAN
I
THE UNMILITARY SUFFRAGETTE
It will be better to adopt in this chapter the same process that appeared a piece of mental justice in the last. My general opinions on the feminine question are such as many suffragists would warmly approve; and it would be easy to state them without any open reference to the current controversy. But just as it seemed more decent to say first that I was not in favor of Imperialism even in its practical and popular sense, so it seems more decent to say the same of Female Suffrage, in its practical and popular sense. In other words, it is only fair to state, however hurriedly, the superficial objection to the Suffragettes before we go on to the really subtle questions behind the Suffrage.
Well, to get this honest but unpleasant business over, the objection to the Suffragettes is not that they are Militant Suffragettes. On the contrary, it is that they are not militant enough. A revolution is a military thing; it has all the military virtues; one of which is that it comes to an end. Two parties fight with deadly weapons, but under certain rules of arbitrary honor; the party that wins becomes the government and proceeds to govern. The aim of civil war, like the aim of all war, is peace. Now the Suffragettes cannot raise civil war in this soldierly and decisive sense; first, because they are women; and, secondly, because they are very few women. But they can raise something else; which is altogether another pair of shoes. They do not create revolution; what they do create is anarchy; and the difference between these is not a question of violence, but a question of fruitfulness and finality. Revolution of its nature produces government; anarchy only produces more anarchy. Men may have what opinions they please about the beheading of King Charles or King Louis, but they cannot deny that Bradshaw and Cromwell ruled, that Carnot and Napoleon governed. Someone conquered; something occurred. You can only knock off the King’s head once. But you can knock off the King’s hat any number of times. Destruction is finite, obstruction is infinite: so long as rebellion takes the form of mere disorder (instead of an attempt to enforce a new order) there is no logical end to it; it can feed on itself and renew itself forever. If Napoleon had not wanted to be a Consul, but only wanted to be a nuisance, he could, possibly, have prevented any government arising successfully out of the Revolution. But such a proceeding would not have deserved the dignified name of rebellion.
It is exactly this unmilitant quality in the Suffragettes that makes their superficial problem. The problem is that their action has none of the advantages of ultimate violence; it does not afford a test. War is a dreadful thing; but it does prove two points sharply and unanswerably—numbers, and an unnatural valor. One does discover the two urgent matters; how many rebels there are alive, and how many are ready to be dead. But a tiny minority, even an interested minority, may maintain mere disorder forever. There is also, of course, in the case of these women, the further falsity that is introduced by their sex. It is false to state the matter as a mere brutal question of strength. If his muscles give a man a vote, then his horse ought to have two votes and his elephant five votes. The truth is more subtle than that; it is that bodily outbreak is a man’s instinctive weapon, like the hoofs to the horse or the tusks to the elephant. All riot is a threat of war; but the woman is brandishing a weapon she can never use. There are many weapons that she could and does use. If (for example) all the women nagged for a vote they would get it in a month. But there again, one must remember, it would be necessary to get all the women to nag. And that brings us to the end of the political surface of the matter. The working objection to the Suffragette philosophy is simply that overmastering millions of women do not agree with it. I am aware that some maintain that women ought to have votes whether the majority wants them or not; but this is surely a strange and childish case of setting up formal democracy to the destruction of actual democracy. What should the mass of women decide if they do not decide their general place in the State? These people practically say that females may vote about everything except about Female Suffrage.
But having again cleared my conscience of my merely political and possibly unpopular opinion, I will again cast back and try to treat the matter in a slower and more sympathetic style; attempt to trace the real roots of woman’s position in the western state, and the causes of our existing traditions or perhaps prejudices upon the point. And for this purpose it is again necessary to travel far from the modern topic, the mere Suffragette of today, and to go back to subjects which, though much more old, are, I think, considerably more fresh.
II
THE UNIVERSAL STICK
Cast your eye round the room in which you sit, and select some three or four things that have been with man almost since his beginning; which at least we hear of early in the centuries and often among the tribes. Let me suppose that you see a knife on the table, a stick in the corner, or a fire on the hearth. About each of these you will notice one speciality; that not one of them is special. Each of these ancestral things is a universal thing; made to supply many different needs; and while tottering pedants nose about to find the cause and origin of some old custom, the truth is that it had fifty causes or a hundred origins. The knife is meant to cut wood, to cut cheese, to cut pencils, to cut throats; for a myriad ingenious or innocent human objects. The stick is meant partly to hold a man up, partly to knock a man down; partly to point with like a finger-post, partly to balance with like a balancing pole, partly to trifle with like a cigarette, partly to kill with like a club of a giant; it is a crutch and a cudgel; an elongated finger and an extra leg. The case is the same, of course, with the fire; about which the strangest modern views have arisen. A queer fancy seems to be current that a fire exists to warm people. It exists to warm people, to light their darkness, to raise their spirits, to toast their muffins, to air their rooms, to cook their chestnuts, to tell stories to their children, to make checkered shadows on their walls, to boil their hurried kettles, and to be the red heart of a man’s house and that hearth for which, as the great heathens said, a man should die.
Now it is the great mark of our modernity that people are always proposing substitutes for these old things; and these substitutes always answer one purpose where the old thing answered ten. The modern man will wave a cigarette instead of a stick; he will cut his pencil with a little screwing pencil-sharpener instead of a knife; and he will even boldly offer to be warmed by hot water pipes instead of a fire. I have my doubts about pencil-sharpeners even for sharpening pencils; and about hot water pipes even for heat. But when we think of all those other requirements that these institutions answered, there opens before us the whole horrible harlequinade of our civilization. We see as in a vision a world where a man tries to cut his throat with a pencil-sharpener; where a man must learn single-stick with a cigarette; where a man must try to toast muffins at electric lamps, and see red and golden castles in the surface of hot water pipes.
The principle of which I speak can be seen everywhere in a comparison between the ancient and universal things and the modern and specialist things. The object of a theodolite is to lie level; the object of a stick is to swing loose at any angle; to whirl like the very wheel of liberty. The object of a lancet is to lance; when used for slashing, gashing, ripping, lopping off heads and limbs, it is a disappointing instrument. The object of an electric light is merely to light (a despicable modesty); and the object of an asbestos stove… I wonder what is the object of an asbestos stove? If a man found a coil of rope in a desert he could at least think of all the things that can be done with a coil of rope; and some of them might even be practical. He could tow a boat or lasso a horse. He could play cat’s-cradle, or pick oakum. He could construct a rope-ladder for an eloping heiress, or cord her boxes for a travelling maiden aunt. He could learn to tie a bow, or he could hang himself. Far otherwise with the unfortunate traveller who should find a telephone in the desert. You can telephone with a telephone; you cannot do anything else with it. And though this is one of the wildest joys of life, it falls by one degree from its full delirium when there is nobody to answer you. The contention is, in brief, that you must pull up a hundred roots, and not one, before you uproot any of these hoary and simple expedients. It is only with great difficulty that a modern scientific sociologist can be got to see that any old method has a leg to stand on. But almost every old method has four or five legs to stand on. Almost all the old institutions are quadrupeds; and some of them are centipedes.
Consider these cases, old and new, and you will observe the operation of a general tendency. Everywhere there was one big thing that served six purposes; everywhere now there are six small things; or, rather (and there is the trouble), there are just five and a half. Nevertheless, we will not say that this separation and specialism is entirely useless or inexcusable. I have often thanked God for the telephone; I may any day thank God for the lancet; and there is none of these brilliant and narrow inventions (except, of course, the asbestos stove) which might not be at some moment necessary and lovely. But I do not think the most austere upholder of specialism will deny that there is in these old, many-sided institutions an element of unity and universality which may well be preserved in its due proportion and place. Spiritually, at least, it will be admitted that some all-round balance is needed to equalize the extravagance of experts. It would not be difficult to carry the parable of the knife and stick into higher regions. Religion, the immortal maiden, has been a maid-of-all-work as well as a servant of mankind. She provided men at once with the theoretic laws of an unalterable cosmos and also with the practical rules of the rapid and thrilling game of morality. She taught logic to the student and told fairy tales to the children; it was her business to confront the nameless gods whose fears are on all flesh, and also to see the streets were spotted with silver and scarlet, that there was a day for wearing ribbons or an hour for ringing bells. The large uses of religion have been broken up into lesser specialities, just as the uses of the hearth have been broken up into hot water pipes and electric bulbs. The romance of ritual and colored emblem has been taken over by that narrowest of all trades, modern art (the sort called art for art’s sake), and men are in modern practice informed that they may use all symbols so long as they mean nothing by them. The romance of conscience has been dried up into the science of ethics; which may well be called decency for decency’s sake, decency unborn of cosmic energies and barren of artistic flower. The cry to the dim gods, cut off from ethics and cosmology, has become mere Psychical Research. Everything has been sundered from everything else, and everything has grown cold. Soon we shall hear of specialists dividing the tune from the words of a song, on the ground that they spoil each other; and I did once meet a man who openly advocated the separation of almonds and raisins. This world is all one wild divorce court; nevertheless, there are many who still hear in their souls the thunder of authority of human habit; those whom Man hath joined let no man sunder.
This book must avoid religion, but there must (I say) be many, religious and irreligious, who will concede that this power of answering many purposes was a sort of strength which should not wholly die out of our lives. As a part of personal character, even the moderns will agree that many-sidedness is a merit and a merit that may easily be overlooked. This balance and universality has been the vision of many groups of men in many ages. It was the Liberal Education of Aristotle; the jack-of-all-trades artistry of Leonardo da Vinci and his friends; the august amateurishness of the Cavalier Person of Quality like Sir William Temple or the great Earl of Dorset. It has appeared in literature in our time in the most erratic and opposite shapes, set to almost inaudible music by Walter Pater and enunciated through a foghorn by Walt Whitman. But the great mass of men have always been unable to achieve this literal universality, because of the nature of their work in the world. Not, let it be noted, because of the existence of their work. Leonardo da Vinci must have worked pretty hard; on the other hand, many a government office clerk, village constable or elusive plumber may do (to all human appearance) no work at all, and yet show no signs of the Aristotelian universalism. What makes it difficult for the average man to be a universalist is that the average man has to be a specialist; he has not only to learn one trade, but to learn it so well as to uphold him in a more or less ruthless society. This is generally true of males from the first hunter to the last electrical engineer; each has not merely to act, but to excel. Nimrod has not only to be a mighty hunter before the Lord, but also a mighty hunter before the other hunters. The electrical engineer has to be a very electrical engineer, or he is outstripped by engineers yet more electrical. Those very miracles of the human mind on which the modern world prides itself, and rightly in the main, would be impossible without a certain concentration which disturbs the pure balance of reason more than does religious bigotry. No creed can be so limiting as that awful adjuration that the cobbler must not go beyond his last. So the largest and wildest shots of our world are but in one direction and with a defined trajectory: the gunner cannot go beyond his shot, and his shot so often falls short; the astronomer cannot go beyond his telescope and his telescope goes such a little way. All these are like men who have stood on the high peak of a mountain and seen the horizon like a single ring and who then descend down different paths towards different towns, traveling slow or fast. It is right; there must be people traveling to different towns; there must be specialists; but shall no one behold the horizon? Shall all mankind be specialist surgeons or peculiar plumbers; shall all humanity be monomaniac? Tradition has decided that only half of humanity shall be monomaniac. It has decided that in every home there shall be a tradesman and a Jack-of- all-trades. But it has also decided, among other things, that the Jack-of-all-trades shall be a Jill-of-all-trades. It has decided, rightly or wrongly, that this specialism and this universalism shall be divided between the sexes. Cleverness shall be left for men and wisdom for women. For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things.
But for women this ideal of comprehensive capacity (or common-sense) must long ago have been washed away. It must have melted in the frightful furnaces of ambition and eager technicality. A man must be partly a one-idead man, because he is a one-weaponed man—and he is flung naked into the fight. The world’s demand comes to him direct; to his wife indirectly. In short, he must (as the books on Success say) give “his best”; and what a small part of a man “his best” is! His second and third best are often much better. If he is the first violin he must fiddle for life; he must not remember that he is a fine fourth bagpipe, a fair fifteenth billiard-cue, a foil, a fountain pen, a hand at whist, a gun, and an image of God.
III
THE EMANCIPATION OF DOMESTICITY
And it should be remarked in passing that this force upon a man to develop one feature has nothing to do with what is commonly called our competitive system, but would equally exist under any rationally conceivable kind of Collectivism. Unless the Socialists are frankly ready for a fall in the standard of violins, telescopes and electric lights, they must somehow create a moral demand on the individual that he shall keep up his present concentration on these things. It was only by men being in some degree specialist that there ever were any telescopes; they must certainly be in some degree specialist in order to keep them going. It is not by making a man a State wage-earner that you can prevent him thinking principally about the very difficult way he earns his wages. There is only one way to preserve in the world that high levity and that more leisurely outlook which fulfils the old vision of universalism. That is, to permit the existence of a partly protected half of humanity; a half which the harassing industrial demand troubles indeed, but only troubles indirectly. In other words, there must be in every center of humanity one human being upon a larger plan; one who does not “give her best,” but gives her all.
Our old analogy of the fire remains the most workable one. The fire need not blaze like electricity nor boil like boiling water; its point is that it blazes more than water and warms more than light. The wife is like the fire, or to put things in their proper proportion, the fire is like the wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original and artistic tales, but tales— better tales than would probably be told by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking stones or lecturing. But she cannot be expected to endure anything like this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive schoolmistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the first in what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of women. Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades. But the woman’s professions, unlike the child’s, were all truly and almost terribly fruitful; so tragically real that nothing but her universality and balance prevented them being merely morbid. This is the substance of the contention I offer about the historic female position. I do not deny that women have been wronged and even tortured; but I doubt if they were ever tortured so much as they are tortured now by the absurd modern attempt to make them domestic empresses and competitive clerks at the same time. I do not deny that even under the old tradition women had a harder time than men; that is why we take off our hats. I do not deny that all these various female functions were exasperating; but I say that there was some aim and meaning in keeping them various. I do not pause even to deny that woman was a servant; but at least she was a general servant.
The shortest way of summarizing the position is to say that woman stands for the idea of Sanity; that intellectual home to which the mind must return after every excursion on extravagance. The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet’s; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic’s. There must in every machine be a part that moves and a part that stands still; there must be in everything that changes a part that is unchangeable. And many of the phenomena which moderns hastily condemn are really parts of this position of the woman as the center and pillar of health. Much of what is called her subservience, and even her pliability, is merely the subservience and pliability of a universal remedy; she varies as medicines vary, with the disease. She has to be an optimist to the morbid husband, a salutary pessimist to the happy-go-lucky husband. She has to prevent the Quixote from being put upon, and the bully from putting upon others. The French King wrote—
“Toujours femme varie Bien fol qui s’y fie,”
but the truth is that woman always varies, and that is exactly why we always trust her. To correct every adventure and extravagance with its antidote in common-sense is not (as the moderns seem to think) to be in the position of a spy or a slave. It is to be in the position of Aristotle or (at the lowest) Herbert Spencer, to be a universal morality, a complete system of thought. The slave flatters; the complete moralist rebukes. It is, in short, to be a Trimmer in the true sense of that honorable term; which for some reason or other is always used in a sense exactly opposite to its own. It seems really to be supposed that a Trimmer means a cowardly person who always goes over to the stronger side. It really means a highly chivalrous person who always goes over to the weaker side; like one who trims a boat by sitting where there are few people seated. Woman is a trimmer; and it is a generous, dangerous and romantic trade.
The final fact which fixes this is a sufficiently plain one. Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.
But though the essential of the woman’s task is universality, this does not, of course, prevent her from having one or two severe though largely wholesome prejudices. She has, on the whole, been more conscious than man that she is only one half of humanity; but she has expressed it (if one may say so of a lady) by getting her teeth into the two or three things which she thinks she stands for. I would observe here in parenthesis that much of the recent official trouble about women has arisen from the fact that they transfer to things of doubt and reason that sacred stubbornness only proper to the primary things which a woman was set to guard. One’s own children, one’s own altar, ought to be a matter of principle— or if you like, a matter of prejudice. On the other hand, who wrote Junius’s Letters ought not to be a principle or a prejudice, it ought to be a matter of free and almost indifferent inquiry. But take an energetic modern girl secretary to a league to show that George III wrote Junius, and in three months she will believe it, too, out of mere loyalty to her employers. Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it.
IV
THE ROMANCE OF THRIFT
The larger part of womankind, however, have had to fight for things slightly more intoxicating to the eye than the desk or the typewriter; and it cannot be denied that in defending these, women have developed the quality called prejudice to a powerful and even menacing degree. But these prejudices will always be found to fortify the main position of the woman, that she is to remain a general overseer, an autocrat within small compass but on all sides. On the one or two points on which she really misunderstands the man’s position, it is almost entirely in order to preserve her own. The two points on which woman, actually and of herself, is most tenacious may be roughly summarized as the ideal of thrift and the ideal of dignity.
Unfortunately for this book it is written by a male, and these two qualities, if not hateful to a man, are at least hateful in a man. But if we are to settle the sex question at all fairly, all males must make an imaginative attempt to enter into the attitude of all good women toward these two things. The difficulty exists especially, perhaps, in the thing called thrift; we men have so much encouraged each other in throwing money right and left, that there has come at last to be a sort of chivalrous and poetical air about losing sixpence. But on a broader and more candid consideration the case scarcely stands so.
Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance. Heaven knows I for one speak disinterestedly in the matter; for I cannot clearly remember saving a half-penny ever since I was born. But the thing is true; economy, properly understood, is the more poetic. Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste. It is prosaic to throw money away, because it is prosaic to throw anything away; it is negative; it is a confession of indifference, that is, it is a confession of failure. The most prosaic thing about the house is the dustbin, and the one great objection to the new fastidious and aesthetic homestead is simply that in such a moral menage the dustbin must be bigger than the house. If a man could undertake to make use of all things in his dustbin he would be a broader genius than Shakespeare. When science began to use by-products; when science found that colors could be made out of coaltar, she made her greatest and perhaps her only claim on the real respect of the human soul. Now the aim of the good woman is to use the by-products, or, in other words, to rummage in the dustbin.
A man can only fully comprehend it if he thinks of some sudden joke or expedient got up with such materials as may be found in a private house on a rainy day. A man’s definite daily work is generally run with such rigid convenience of modern science that thrift, the picking up of potential helps here and there, has almost become unmeaning to him. He comes across it most (as I say) when he is playing some game within four walls; when in charades, a hearthrug will just do for a fur coat, or a tea-cozy just do for a cocked hat; when a toy theater needs timber and cardboard, and the house has just enough firewood and just enough bandboxes. This is the man’s occasional glimpse and pleasing parody of thrift. But many a good housekeeper plays the same game every day with ends of cheese and scraps of silk, not because she is mean, but on the contrary, because she is magnanimous; because she wishes her creative mercy to be over all her works, that not one sardine should be destroyed, or cast as rubbish to the void, when she has made the pile complete.
The modern world must somehow be made to understand (in theology and other things) that a view may be vast, broad, universal, liberal and yet come into conflict with another view that is vast, broad, universal and liberal also. There is never a war between two sects, but only between two universal Catholic Churches. The only possible collision is the collision of one cosmos with another. So in a smaller way it must be first made clear that this female economic ideal is a part of that female variety of outlook and all-round art of life which we have already attributed to the sex: thrift is not a small or timid or provincial thing; it is part of that great idea of the woman watching on all sides out of all the windows of the soul and being answerable for everything. For in the average human house there is one hole by which money comes in and a hundred by which it goes out; man has to do with the one hole, woman with the hundred. But though the very stinginess of a woman is a part of her spiritual breadth, it is none the less true that it brings her into conflict with the special kind of spiritual breadth that belongs to the males of the tribe. It brings her into conflict with that shapeless cataract of Comradeship, of chaotic feasting and deafening debate, which we noted in the last section. The very touch of the eternal in the two sexual tastes brings them the more into antagonism; for one stands for a universal vigilance and the other for an almost infinite output. Partly through the nature of his moral weakness, and partly through the nature of his physical strength, the male is normally prone to expand things into a sort of eternity; he always thinks of a dinner party as lasting all night; and he always thinks of a night as lasting forever. When the working women in the poor districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to get their husbands home, simple minded “social workers” always imagine that every husband is a tragic drunkard and every wife a broken-hearted saint. It never occurs to them that the poor woman is only doing under coarser conventions exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and gossip over the teacups. These women are not exasperated merely at the amount of money that is wasted in beer; they are exasperated also at the amount of time that is wasted in talk. It is not merely what goeth into the mouth but what cometh out the mouth that, in their opinion, defileth a man. They will raise against an argument (like their sisters of all ranks) the ridiculous objection that nobody is convinced by it; as if a man wanted to make a body-slave of anybody with whom he had played single-stick. But the real female prejudice on this point is not without a basis; the real feeling is this, that the most masculine pleasures have a quality of the ephemeral. A duchess may ruin a duke for a diamond necklace; but there is the necklace. A coster may ruin his wife for a pot of beer; and where is the beer? The duchess quarrels with another duchess in order to crush her, to produce a result; the coster does not argue with another coster in order to convince him, but in order to enjoy at once the sound of his own voice, the clearness of his own opinions and the sense of masculine society. There is this element of a fine fruitlessness about the male enjoyments; wine is poured into a bottomless bucket; thought plunges into a bottomless abyss. All this has set woman against the Public House—that is, against the Parliament House. She is there to prevent waste; and the “pub” and the parliament are the very palaces of waste. In the upper classes the “pub” is called the club, but that makes no more difference to the reason than it does to the rhyme. High and low, the woman’s objection to the Public House is perfectly definite and rational, it is that the Public House wastes the energies that could be used on the private house.
As it is about feminine thrift against masculine waste, so it is about feminine dignity against masculine rowdiness. The woman has a fixed and very well-founded idea that if she does not insist on good manners nobody else will. Babies are not always strong on the point of dignity, and grown-up men are quite unpresentable. It is true that there are many very polite men, but none that I ever heard of who were not either fascinating women or obeying them. But indeed the female ideal of dignity, like the female ideal of thrift, lies deeper and may easily be misunderstood. It rests ultimately on a strong idea of spiritual isolation; the same that makes women religious. They do not like being melted down; they dislike and avoid the mob. That anonymous quality we have remarked in the club conversation would be common impertinence in a case of ladies. I remember an artistic and eager lady asking me in her grand green drawing-room whether I believed in comradeship between the sexes, and why not. I was driven back on offering the obvious and sincere answer “Because if I were to treat you for two minutes like a comrade you would turn me out of the house.” The only certain rule on this subject is always to deal with woman and never with women. “Women” is a profligate word; I have used it repeatedly in this chapter; but it always has a blackguard sound. It smells of oriental cynicism and hedonism. Every woman is a captive queen. But every crowd of women is only a harem broken loose.
I am not expressing my own views here, but those of nearly all the women I have known. It is quite unfair to say that a woman hates other women individually; but I think it would be quite true to say that she detests them in a confused heap. And this is not because she despises her own sex, but because she respects it; and respects especially that sanctity and separation of each item which is represented in manners by the idea of dignity and in morals by the idea of chastity.
V
THE COLDNESS OF CHLOE
We hear much of the human error which accepts what is sham and what is real. But it is worth while to remember that with unfamiliar things we often mistake what is real for what is sham. It is true that a very young man may think the wig of an actress is her hair. But it is equally true that a child yet younger may call the hair of a negro his wig. Just because the woolly savage is remote and barbaric he seems to be unnaturally neat and tidy. Everyone must have noticed the same thing in the fixed and almost offensive color of all unfamiliar things, tropic birds and tropic blossoms. Tropic birds look like staring toys out of a toy-shop. Tropic flowers simply look like artificial flowers, like things cut out of wax. This is a deep matter, and, I think, not unconnected with divinity; but anyhow it is the truth that when we see things for the first time we feel instantly that they are fictive creations; we feel the finger of God. It is only when we are thoroughly used to them and our five wits are wearied, that we see them as wild and objectless; like the shapeless tree-tops or the shifting cloud. It is the design in Nature that strikes us first; the sense of the crosses and confusions in that design only comes afterwards through experience and an almost eerie monotony. If a man saw the stars abruptly by accident he would think them as festive and as artificial as a firework. We talk of the folly of painting the lily; but if we saw the lily without warning we should think that it was painted. We talk of the devil not being so black as he is painted; but that very phrase is a testimony to the kinship between what is called vivid and what is called artificial. If the modern sage had only one glimpse of grass and sky, he would say that grass was not as green as it was painted; that sky was not as blue as it was painted. If one could see the whole universe suddenly, it would look like a bright-colored toy, just as the South American hornbill looks like a bright-colored toy. And so they are—both of them, I mean.
But it was not with this aspect of the startling air of artifice about all strange objects that I meant to deal. I mean merely, as a guide to history, that we should not be surprised if things wrought in fashions remote from ours seem artificial; we should convince ourselves that nine times out of ten these things are nakedly and almost indecently honest. You will hear men talk of the frosted classicism of Corneille or of the powdered pomposities of the eighteenth century, but all these phrases are very superficial. There never was an artificial epoch. There never was an age of reason. Men were always men and women women: and their two generous appetites always were the expression of passion and the telling of truth. We can see something stiff and quaint in their mode of expression, just as our descendants will see something stiff and quaint in our coarsest slum sketch or our most naked pathological play. But men have never talked about anything but important things; and the next force in femininity which we have to consider can be considered best perhaps in some dusty old volume of verses by a person of quality.
The eighteenth century is spoken of as the period of artificiality, in externals at least; but, indeed, there may be two words about that. In modern speech one uses artificiality as meaning indefinitely a sort of deceit; and the eighteenth century was far too artificial to deceive. It cultivated that completest art that does not conceal the art. Its fashions and costumes positively revealed nature by allowing artifice; as in that obvious instance of a barbering that frosted every head with the same silver. It would be fantastic to call this a quaint humility that concealed youth; but, at least, it was not one with the evil pride that conceals old age. Under the eighteenth century fashion people did not so much all pretend to be young, as all agree to be old. The same applies to the most odd and unnatural of their fashions; they were freakish, but they were not false. A lady may or may not be as red as she is painted, but plainly she was not so black as she was patched.
But I only introduce the reader into this atmosphere of the older and franker fictions that he may be induced to have patience for a moment with a certain element which is very common in the decoration and literature of that age and of the two centuries preceding it. It is necessary to mention it in such a connection because it is exactly one of those things that look as superficial as powder, and are really as rooted as hair.
In all the old flowery and pastoral love-songs, those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries especially, you will find a perpetual reproach against woman in the matter of her coldness; ceaseless and stale similes that compare her eyes to northern stars, her heart to ice, or her bosom to snow. Now most of us have always supposed these old and iterant phrases to be a mere pattern of dead words, a thing like a cold wall-paper. Yet I think those old cavalier poets who wrote about the coldness of Chloe had hold of a psychological truth missed in nearly all the realistic novels of today. Our psychological romancers perpetually represent wives as striking terror into their husbands by rolling on the floor, gnashing their teeth, throwing about the furniture or poisoning the coffee; all this upon some strange fixed theory that women are what they call emotional. But in truth the old and frigid form is much nearer to the vital fact. Most men if they spoke with any sincerity would agree that the most terrible quality in women, whether in friendship, courtship or marriage, was not so much being emotional as being unemotional.
There is an awful armor of ice which may be the legitimate protection of a more delicate organism; but whatever be the psychological explanation there can surely be no question of the fact. The instinctive cry of the female in anger is noli me tangere. I take this as the most obvious and at the same time the least hackneyed instance of a fundamental quality in the female tradition, which has tended in our time to be almost immeasurably misunderstood, both by the cant of moralists and the cant of immoralists. The proper name for the thing is modesty; but as we live in an age of prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it dignity. Whatever else it is, it is the thing which a thousand poets and a million lovers have called the coldness of Chloe. It is akin to the classical, and is at least the opposite of the grotesque. And since we are talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment as any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the rabid plagiarism which now passes everywhere for emancipation, that a little while ago it was common for an “advanced” woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a right about as grotesque as the right to wear a false nose. Whether female liberty is much advanced by the act of wearing a skirt on each leg I do not know; perhaps Turkish women might offer some information on the point. But if the western woman walks about (as it were) trailing the curtains of the harem with her, it is quite certain that the woven mansion is meant for a perambulating palace, not for a perambulating prison. It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would appear covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity The whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern.
VI
THE PEDANT AND THE SAVAGE
We say then that the female holds up with two strong arms these two pillars of civilization; we say also that she could do neither, but for her position; her curious position of private omnipotence, universality on a small scale. The first element is thrift; not the destructive thrift of the miser, but the creative thrift of the peasant; the second element is dignity, which is but the expression of sacred personality and privacy. Now I know the question that will be abruptly and automatically asked by all that know the dull tricks and turns of the modern sexual quarrel. The advanced person will at once begin to argue about whether these instincts are inherent and inevitable in woman or whether they are merely prejudices produced by her history and education. Now I do not propose to discuss whether woman could now be educated out of her habits touching thrift and dignity; and that for two excellent reasons. First it is a question which cannot conceivably ever find any answer: that is why modern people are so fond of it. From the nature of the case it is obviously impossible to decide whether any of the peculiarities of civilized man have been strictly necessary to his civilization. It is not self-evident (for instance), that even the habit of standing upright was the only path of human progress. There might have been a quadrupedal civilization, in which a city gentleman put on four boots to go to the city every morning. Or there might have been a reptilian civilization, in which he rolled up to the office on his stomach; it is impossible to say that intelligence might not have developed in such creatures. All we can say is that man as he is walks upright; and that woman is something almost more upright than uprightness.
And the second point is this: that upon the whole we rather prefer women (nay, even men) to walk upright; so we do not waste much of our noble lives in inventing any other way for them to walk. In short, my second reason for not speculating upon whether woman might get rid of these peculiarities, is that I do not want her to get rid of them; nor does she. I will not exhaust my intelligence by inventing ways in which mankind might unlearn the violin or forget how to ride horses; and the art of domesticity seems to me as special and as valuable as all the ancient arts of our race. Nor do I propose to enter at all into those formless and floundering speculations about how woman was or is regarded in the primitive times that we cannot remember, or in the savage countries which we cannot understand. Even if these people segregated their women for low or barbaric reasons it would not make our reasons barbaric; and I am haunted with a tenacious suspicion that these people’s feelings were really, under other forms, very much the same as ours. Some impatient trader, some superficial missionary, walks across an island and sees the squaw digging in the fields while the man is playing a flute; and immediately says that the man is a mere lord of creation and the woman a mere serf. He does not remember that he might see the same thing in half the back gardens in Brixton, merely because women are at once more conscientious and more impatient, while men are at once more quiescent and more greedy for pleasure. It may often be in Hawaii simply as it is in Hoxton. That is, the woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed. I do not affirm that this is the whole truth, but I do affirm that we have too little comprehension of the souls of savages to know how far it is untrue. It is the same with the relations of our hasty and surface science, with the problem of sexual dignity and modesty. Professors find all over the world fragmentary ceremonies in which the bride affects some sort of reluctance, hides from her husband, or runs away from him. The professor then pompously proclaims that this is a survival of Marriage by Capture. I wonder he never says that the veil thrown over the bride is really a net. I gravely doubt whether women ever were married by capture I think they pretended to be; as they do still.
It is equally obvious that these two necessary sanctities of thrift and dignity are bound to come into collision with the wordiness, the wastefulness, and the perpetual pleasure-seeking of masculine companionship. Wise women allow for the thing; foolish women try to crush it; but all women try to counteract it, and they do well. In many a home all round us at this moment, we know that the nursery rhyme is reversed. The queen is in the counting-house, counting out the money. The king is in the parlor, eating bread and honey. But it must be strictly understood that the king has captured the honey in some heroic wars. The quarrel can be found in moldering Gothic carvings and in crabbed Greek manuscripts. In every age, in every land, in every tribe and village, has been waged the great sexual war between the Private House and the Public House. I have seen a collection of mediaeval English poems, divided into sections such as “Religious Carols,” “Drinking Songs,” and so on; and the section headed, “Poems of Domestic Life” consisted entirely (literally, entirely) of the complaints of husbands who were bullied by their wives. Though the English was archaic, the words were in many cases precisely the same as those which I have heard in the streets and public houses of Battersea, protests on behalf of an extension of time and talk, protests against the nervous impatience and the devouring utilitarianism of the female. Such, I say, is the quarrel; it can never be anything but a quarrel; but the aim of all morals and all society is to keep it a lovers’ quarrel.
VII
THE MODERN SURRENDER OF WOMAN
But in this corner called England, at this end of the century, there has happened a strange and startling thing. Openly and to all appearance, this ancestral conflict has silently and abruptly ended; one of the two sexes has suddenly surrendered to the other. By the beginning of the twentieth century, within the last few years, the woman has in public surrendered to the man. She has seriously and officially owned that the man has been right all along; that the public house (or Parliament) is really more important than the private house; that politics are not (as woman had always maintained) an excuse for pots of beer, but are a sacred solemnity to which new female worshipers may kneel; that the talkative patriots in the tavern are not only admirable but enviable; that talk is not a waste of time, and therefore (as a consequence, surely) that taverns are not a waste of money. All we men had grown used to our wives and mothers, and grandmothers, and great aunts all pouring a chorus of contempt upon our hobbies of sport, drink and party politics. And now comes Miss Pankhurst with tears in her eyes, owning that all the women were wrong and all the men were right; humbly imploring to be admitted into so much as an outer court, from which she may catch a glimpse of those masculine merits which her erring sisters had so thoughtlessly scorned.
Now this development naturally perturbs and even paralyzes us. Males, like females, in the course of that old fight between the public and private house, had indulged in overstatement and extravagance, feeling that they must keep up their end of the see-saw. We told our wives that Parliament had sat late on most essential business; but it never crossed our minds that our wives would believe it. We said that everyone must have a vote in the country; similarly our wives said that no one must have a pipe in the drawing room. In both cases the idea was the same. “It does not matter much, but if you let those things slide there is chaos.” We said that Lord Huggins or Mr. Buggins was absolutely necessary to the country. We knew quite well that nothing is necessary to the country except that the men should be men and the women women. We knew this; we thought the women knew it even more clearly; and we thought the women would say it. Suddenly, without warning, the women have begun to say all the nonsense that we ourselves hardly believed when we said it. The solemnity of politics; the necessity of votes; the necessity of Huggins; the necessity of Buggins; all these flow in a pellucid stream from the lips of all the suffragette speakers. I suppose in every fight, however old, one has a vague aspiration to conquer; but we never wanted to conquer women so completely as this. We only expected that they might leave us a little more margin for our nonsense; we never expected that they would accept it seriously as sense. Therefore I am all at sea about the existing situation; I scarcely know whether to be relieved or enraged by this substitution of the feeble platform lecture for the forcible curtain-lecture. I am lost without the trenchant and candid Mrs. Caudle. I really do not know what to do with the prostrate and penitent Miss Pankhurst. This surrender of the modern woman has taken us all so much by surprise that it is desirable to pause a moment, and collect our wits about what she is really saying.
As I have already remarked, there is one very simple answer to all this; these are not the modern women, but about one in two thousand of the modern women. This fact is important to a democrat; but it is of very little importance to the typically modern mind. Both the characteristic modern parties believed in a government by the few; the only difference is whether it is the Conservative few or Progressive few. It might be put, somewhat coarsely perhaps, by saying that one believes in any minority that is rich and the other in any minority that is mad. But in this state of things the democratic argument obviously falls out for the moment; and we are bound to take the prominent minority, merely because it is prominent. Let us eliminate altogether from our minds the thousands of women who detest this cause, and the millions of women who have hardly heard of it. Let us concede that the English people itself is not and will not be for a very long time within the sphere of practical politics. Let us confine ourselves to saying that these particular women want a vote and to asking themselves what a vote is. If we ask these ladies ourselves what a vote is, we shall get a very vague reply. It is the only question, as a rule, for which they are not prepared. For the truth is that they go mainly by precedent; by the mere fact that men have votes already. So far from being a mutinous movement, it is really a very Conservative one; it is in the narrowest rut of the British Constitution. Let us take a little wider and freer sweep of thought and ask ourselves what is the ultimate point and meaning of this odd business called voting.
VIII
THE BRAND OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS
Seemingly from the dawn of man all nations have had governments; and all nations have been ashamed of them. Nothing is more openly fallacious than to fancy that in ruder or simpler ages ruling, judging and punishing appeared perfectly innocent and dignified. These things were always regarded as the penalties of the Fall; as part of the humiliation of mankind, as bad in themselves. That the king can do no wrong was never anything but a legal fiction; and it is a legal fiction still. The doctrine of Divine Right was not a piece of idealism, but rather a piece of realism, a practical way of ruling amid the ruin of humanity; a very pragmatist piece of faith. The religious basis of government was not so much that people put their trust in princes, as that they did not put their trust in any child of man. It was so with all the ugly institutions which disfigure human history. Torture and slavery were never talked of as good things; they were always talked of as necessary evils. A pagan spoke of one man owning ten slaves just as a modern business man speaks of one merchant sacking ten clerks: “It’s very horrible; but how else can society be conducted?” A mediaeval scholastic regarded the possibility of a man being burned to death just as a modern business man regards the possibility of a man being starved to death: “It is a shocking torture; but can you organize a painless world?” It is possible that a future society may find a way of doing without the question by hunger as we have done without the question by fire. It is equally possible, for the matter of that, that a future society may reestablish legal torture with the whole apparatus of rack and fagot. The most modern of countries, America, has introduced with a vague savor of science, a method which it calls “the third degree.” This is simply the extortion of secrets by nervous fatigue; which is surely uncommonly close to their extortion by bodily pain. And this is legal and scientific in America. Amateur ordinary America, of course, simply burns people alive in broad daylight, as they did in the Reformation Wars. But though some punishments are more inhuman than others there is no such thing as humane punishment. As long as nineteen men claim the right in any sense or shape to take hold of the twentieth man and make him even mildly uncomfortable, so long the whole proceeding must be a humiliating one for all concerned. And the proof of how poignantly men have always felt this lies in the fact that the headsman and the hangman, the jailors and the torturers, were always regarded not merely with fear but with contempt; while all kinds of careless smiters, bankrupt knights and swashbucklers and outlaws, were regarded with indulgence or even admiration. To kill a man lawlessly was pardoned. To kill a man lawfully was unpardonable. The most bare-faced duelist might almost brandish his weapon. But the executioner was always masked.
This is the first essential element in government, coercion; a necessary but not a noble element. I may remark in passing that when people say that government rests on force they give an admirable instance of the foggy and muddled cynicism of modernity. Government does not rest on force. Government is force; it rests on consent or a conception of justice. A king or a community holding a certain thing to be abnormal, evil, uses the general strength to crush it out; the strength is his tool, but the belief is his only sanction. You might as well say that glass is the real reason for telescopes. But arising from whatever reason the act of government is coercive and is burdened with all the coarse and painful qualities of coercion. And if anyone asks what is the use of insisting on the ugliness of this task of state violence since all mankind is condemned to employ it, I have a simple answer to that. It would be useless to insist on it if all humanity were condemned to it. But it is not irrelevant to insist on its ugliness so long as half of humanity is kept out of it.
All government then is coercive; we happen to have created a government which is not only coercive; but collective. There are only two kinds of government, as I have already said, the despotic and the democratic. Aristocracy is not a government, it is a riot; that most effective kind of riot, a riot of the rich. The most intelligent apologists of aristocracy, sophists like Burke and Nietzsche, have never claimed for aristocracy any virtues but the virtues of a riot, the accidental virtues, courage, variety and adventure. There is no case anywhere of aristocracy having established a universal and applicable order, as despots and democracies have often done; as the last Caesars created the Roman law, as the last Jacobins created the Code Napoleon. With the first of these elementary forms of government, that of the king or chieftain, we are not in this matter of the sexes immediately concerned. We shall return to it later when we remark how differently mankind has dealt with female claims in the despotic as against the democratic field. But for the moment the essential point is that in self-governing countries this coercion of criminals is a collective coercion. The abnormal person is theoretically thumped by a million fists and kicked by a million feet. If a man is flogged we all flogged him; if a man is hanged, we all hanged him. That is the only possible meaning of democracy, which can give any meaning to the first two syllables and also to the last two. In this sense each citizen has the high responsibility of a rioter. Every statute is a declaration of war, to be backed by arms. Every tribunal is a revolutionary tribunal. In a republic all punishment is as sacred and solemn as lynching.
IX
SINCERITY AND THE GALLOWS
When, therefore, it is said that the tradition against Female Suffrage keeps women out of activity, social influence and citizenship, let us a little more soberly and strictly ask ourselves what it actually does keep her out of. It does definitely keep her out of the collective act of coercion; the act of punishment by a mob. The human tradition does say that, if twenty men hang a man from a tree or lamp-post, they shall be twenty men and not women. Now I do not think any reasonable Suffragist will deny that exclusion from this function, to say the least of it, might be maintained to be a protection as well as a veto. No candid person will wholly dismiss the proposition that the idea of having a Lord Chancellor but not a Lady Chancellor may at least be connected with the idea of having a headsman but not a headswoman, a hangman but not a hangwoman. Nor will it be adequate to answer (as is so often answered to this contention) that in modern civilization women would not really be required to capture, to sentence, or to slay; that all this is done indirectly, that specialists kill our criminals as they kill our cattle. To urge this is not to urge the reality of the vote, but to urge its unreality. Democracy was meant to be a more direct way of ruling, not a more indirect way; and if we do not feel that we are all jailers, so much the worse for us, and for the prisoners. If it is really an unwomanly thing to lock up a robber or a tyrant, it ought to be no softening of the situation that the woman does not feel as if she were doing the thing that she certainly is doing. It is bad enough that men can only associate on paper who could once associate in the street; it is bad enough that men have made a vote very much of a fiction. It is much worse that a great class should claim the vote be cause it is a fiction, who would be sickened by it if it were a fact. If votes for women do not mean mobs for women they do not mean what they were meant to mean. A woman can make a cross on a paper as well as a man; a child could do it as well as a woman; and a chimpanzee after a few lessons could do it as well as a child. But nobody ought to regard it merely as making a cross on paper; everyone ought to regard it as what it ultimately is, branding the fleur-de-lis, marking the broad arrow, signing the death warrant. Both men and women ought to face more fully the things they do or cause to be done; face them or leave off doing them.
On that disastrous day when public executions were abolished, private executions were renewed and ratified, perhaps forever. Things grossly unsuited to the moral sentiment of a society cannot be safely done in broad daylight; but I see no reason why we should not still be roasting heretics alive, in a private room. It is very likely (to speak in the manner foolishly called Irish) that if there were public executions there would be no executions. The old open-air punishments, the pillory and the gibbet, at least fixed responsibility upon the law; and in actual practice they gave the mob an opportunity of throwing roses as well as rotten eggs; of crying “Hosannah” as well as “Crucify.” But I do not like the public executioner being turned into the private executioner. I think it is a crooked oriental, sinister sort of business, and smells of the harem and the divan rather than of the forum and the market place. In modern times the official has lost all the social honor and dignity of the common hangman. He is only the bearer of the bowstring.
Here, however, I suggest a plea for a brutal publicity only in order to emphasize the fact that it is this brutal publicity and nothing else from which women have been excluded. I also say it to emphasize the fact that the mere modern veiling of the brutality does not make the situation different, unless we openly say that we are giving the suffrage, not only because it is power but because it is not, or in other words, that women are not so much to vote as to play voting. No suffragist, I suppose, will take up that position; and a few suffragists will wholly deny that this human necessity of pains and penalties is an ugly, humiliating business, and that good motives as well as bad may have helped to keep women out of it. More than once I have remarked in these pages that female limitations may be the limits of a temple as well as of a prison, the disabilities of a priest and not of a pariah. I noted it, I think, in the case of the pontifical feminine dress. In the same way it is not evidently irrational, if men decided that a woman, like a priest, must not be a shedder of blood.
X
THE HIGHER ANARCHY
But there is a further fact; forgotten also because we moderns forget that there is a female point of view. The woman’s wisdom stands partly, not only for a wholesome hesitation about punishment, but even for a wholesome hesitation about absolute rules. There was something feminine and perversely true in that phrase of Wilde’s, that people should not be treated as the rule, but all of them as exceptions. Made by a man the remark was a little effeminate; for Wilde did lack the masculine power of dogma and of democratic cooperation. But if a woman had said it it would have been simply true; a woman does treat each person as a peculiar person. In other words, she stands for Anarchy; a very ancient and arguable philosophy; not anarchy in the sense of having no customs in one’s life (which is inconceivable), but anarchy in the sense of having no rules for one’s mind. To her, almost certainly, are due all those working traditions that cannot be found in books, especially those of education; it was she who first gave a child a stuffed stocking for being good or stood him in the corner for being naughty. This unclassified knowledge is sometimes called rule of thumb and sometimes motherwit. The last phrase suggests the whole truth, for none ever called it fatherwit.
Now anarchy is only tact when it works badly. Tact is only anarchy when it works well. And we ought to realize that in one half of the world—the private house—it does work well. We modern men are perpetually forgetting that the case for clear rules and crude penalties is not self-evident, that there is a great deal to be said for the benevolent lawlessness of the autocrat, especially on a small scale; in short, that government is only one side of life. The other half is called Society, in which women are admittedly dominant. And they have always been ready to maintain that their kingdom is better governed than ours, because (in the logical and legal sense) it is not governed at all. “Whenever you have a real difficulty,” they say, “when a boy is bumptious or an aunt is stingy, when a silly girl will marry somebody, or a wicked man won’t marry somebody, all your lumbering Roman Law and British Constitution come to a standstill. A snub from a duchess or a slanging from a fish-wife are much more likely to put things straight.” So, at least, rang the ancient female challenge down the ages until the recent female capitulation. So streamed the red standard of the higher anarchy until Miss Pankhurst hoisted the white flag.
It must be remembered that the modern world has done deep treason to the eternal intellect by believing in the swing of the pendulum. A man must be dead before he swings. It has substituted an idea of fatalistic alternation for the mediaeval freedom of the soul seeking truth. All modern thinkers are reactionaries; for their thought is always a reaction from what went before. When you meet a modern man he is always coming from a place, not going to it. Thus, mankind has in nearly all places and periods seen that there is a soul and a body as plainly as that there is a sun and moon. But because a narrow Protestant sect called Materialists declared for a short time that there was no soul, another narrow Protestant sect called Christian Science is now maintaining that there is no body. Now just in the same way the unreasonable neglect of government by the Manchester School has produced, not a reasonable regard for government, but an unreasonable neglect of everything else. So that to hear people talk to-day one would fancy that every important human function must be organized and avenged by law; that all education must be state education, and all employment state employment; that everybody and everything must be brought to the foot of the august and prehistoric gibbet. But a somewhat more liberal and sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the cross is even older than the gibbet, that voluntary suffering was before and independent of compulsory; and in short that in most important matters a man has always been free to ruin himself if he chose. The huge fundamental function upon which all anthropology turns, that of sex and childbirth, has never been inside the political state, but always outside of it. The state concerned itself with the trivial question of killing people, but wisely left alone the whole business of getting them born. A Eugenist might indeed plausibly say that the government is an absent-minded and inconsistent person who occupies himself with providing for the old age of people who have never been infants. I will not deal here in any detail with the fact that some Eugenists have in our time made the maniacal answer that the police ought to control marriage and birth as they control labor and death. Except for this inhuman handful (with whom I regret to say I shall have to deal with later) all the Eugenists I know divide themselves into two sections: ingenious people who once meant this, and rather bewildered people who swear they never meant it—nor anything else. But if it be conceded (by a breezier estimate of men) that they do mostly desire marriage to remain free from government, it does not follow that they desire it to remain free from everything. If man does not control the marriage market by law, is it controlled at all? Surely the answer is broadly that man does not control the marriage market by law, but the woman does control it by sympathy and prejudice. There was until lately a law forbidding a man to marry his deceased wife’s sister; yet the thing happened constantly. There was no law forbidding a man to marry his deceased wife’s scullery-maid; yet it did not happen nearly so often. It did not happen because the marriage market is managed in the spirit and by the authority of women; and women are generally conservative where classes are concerned. It is the same with that system of exclusiveness by which ladies have so often contrived (as by a process of elimination) to prevent marriages that they did not want and even sometimes procure those they did. There is no need of the broad arrow and the fleur-de lis, the turnkey’s chains or the hangman’s halter. You need not strangle a man if you can silence him. The branded shoulder is less effective and final than the cold shoulder; and you need not trouble to lock a man in when you can lock him out.
The same, of course, is true of the colossal architecture which we call infant education: an architecture reared wholly by women. Nothing can ever overcome that one enormous sex superiority, that even the male child is born closer to his mother than to his father. No one, staring at that frightful female privilege, can quite believe in the equality of the sexes. Here and there we read of a girl brought up like a tom-boy; but every boy is brought up like a tame girl. The flesh and spirit of femininity surround him from the first like the four walls of a house; and even the vaguest or most brutal man has been womanized by being born. Man that is born of a woman has short days and full of misery; but nobody can picture the obscenity and bestial tragedy that would belong to such a monster as man that was born of a man.
XI
THE QUEEN AND THE SUFFRAGETTES
But, indeed, with this educational matter I must of necessity embroil myself later. The fourth section of discussion is supposed to be about the child, but I think it will be mostly about the mother. In this place I have systematically insisted on the large part of life that is governed, not by man with his vote, but by woman with her voice, or more often, with her horrible silence. Only one thing remains to be added. In a sprawling and explanatory style has been traced out the idea that government is ultimately coercion, that coercion must mean cold definitions as well as cruel consequences, and that therefore there is something to be said for the old human habit of keeping one-half of humanity out of so harsh and dirty a business. But the case is stronger still.
Voting is not only coercion, but collective coercion. I think Queen Victoria would have been yet more popular and satisfying if she had never signed a death warrant. I think Queen Elizabeth would have stood out as more solid and splendid in history if she had not earned (among those who happen to know her history) the nickname of Bloody Bess. I think, in short, that the great historic woman is more herself when she is persuasive rather than coercive. But I feel all mankind behind me when I say that if a woman has this power it should be despotic power—not democratic power. There is a much stronger historic argument for giving Miss Pankhurst a throne than for giving her a vote. She might have a crown, or at least a coronet, like so many of her supporters; for these old powers are purely personal and therefore female. Miss Pankhurst as a despot might be as virtuous as Queen Victoria, and she certainly would find it difficult to be as wicked as Queen Bess, but the point is that, good or bad, she would be irresponsible— she would not be governed by a rule and by a ruler. There are only two ways of governing: by a rule and by a ruler. And it is seriously true to say of a woman, in education and domesticity, that the freedom of the autocrat appears to be necessary to her. She is never responsible until she is irresponsible. In case this sounds like an idle contradiction, I confidently appeal to the cold facts of history. Almost every despotic or oligarchic state has admitted women to its privileges. Scarcely one democratic state has ever admitted them to its rights The reason is very simple: that something female is endangered much more by the violence of the crowd. In short, one Pankhurst is an exception, but a thousand Pankhursts are a nightmare, a Bacchic orgie, a Witches Sabbath. For in all legends men have thought of women as sublime separately but horrible in a herd.
XII
THE MODERN SLAVE
Now I have only taken the test case of Female Suffrage because it is topical and concrete; it is not of great moment for me as a political proposal. I can quite imagine anyone substantially agreeing with my view of woman as universalist and autocrat in a limited area; and still thinking that she would be none the worse for a ballot paper. The real question is whether this old ideal of woman as the great amateur is admitted or not. There are many modern things which threaten it much more than suffragism; notably the increase of self-supporting women, even in the most severe or the most squalid employments. If there be something against nature in the idea of a horde of wild women governing, there is something truly intolerable in the idea of a herd of tame women being governed. And there are elements in human psychology that make this situation particularly poignant or ignominous. The ugly exactitudes of business, the bells and clocks the fixed hours and rigid departments, were all meant for the male: who, as a rule, can only do one thing and can only with the greatest difficulty be induced to do that. If clerks do not try to shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of women who are adopting the unprecedented and impossible course of taking the system seriously and doing it well. Their very efficiency is the definition of their slavery. It is generally a very bad sign when one is trusted very much by one’s employers. And if the evasive clerks have a look of being blackguards, the earnest ladies are often something very like blacklegs. But the more immediate point is that the modern working woman bears a double burden, for she endures both the grinding officialism of the new office and the distracting scrupulosity of the old home. Few men understand what conscientiousness is. They understand duty, which generally means one duty; but conscientiousness is the duty of the universalist. It is limited by no work days or holidays; it is a lawless, limitless, devouring decorum. If women are to be subjected to the dull rule of commerce, we must find some way of emancipating them from the wild rule of conscience. But I rather fancy you will find it easier to leave the conscience and knock off the commerce. As it is, the modern clerk or secretary exhausts herself to put one thing straight in the ledger and then goes home to put everything straight in the house.
This condition (described by some as emancipated) is at least the reverse of my ideal. I would give woman, not more rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in which she can be free. And with that we come to the last point of all; the point at which we can perceive the needs of women, like the rights of men, stopped and falsified by something which it is the object of this book to expose.
The Feminist (which means, I think, one who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics) has heard my loose monologue, bursting all the time with one pent-up protest. At this point he will break out and say, “But what are we to do? There is modern commerce and its clerks; there is the modern family with its unmarried daughters; specialism is expected everywhere; female thrift and conscientiousness are demanded and supplied. What does it matter whether we should in the abstract prefer the old human and housekeeping woman; we might prefer the Garden of Eden. But since women have trades they ought to have trades unions. Since women work in factories, they ought to vote on factory-acts. If they are unmarried they must be commercial; if they are commercial they must be political. We must have new rules for a new world— even if it be not a better one.” I said to a Feminist once: “The question is not whether women are good enough for votes: it is whether votes are good enough for women.” He only answered: “Ah, you go and say that to the women chain-makers on Cradley Heath.”
Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge heresy of Precedent. It is the view that because we have got into a mess we must grow messier to suit it; that because we have taken a wrong turn some time ago we must go forward and not backwards; that because we have lost our way we must lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal, we must forget it. “There are numbers of excellent people who do not think votes unfeminine; and there may be enthusiasts for our beautiful modern industry who do not think factories unfeminine.” But if these things are unfeminine it is no answer to say that they fit into each other. I am not satisfied with the statement that my daughter must have unwomanly powers because she has unwomanly wrongs. Industrial soot and political printer’s ink are two blacks which do not make a white. Most of the Feminists would probably agree with me that womanhood is under shameful tyranny in the shops and mills. But I want to destroy the tyranny. They want to destroy womanhood. That is the only difference.
Whether we can recover the clear vision of woman as a tower with many windows, the fixed eternal feminine from which her sons, the specialists, go forth; whether we can preserve the tradition of a central thing which is even more human than democracy and even more practical than politics; whether, in word, it is possible to re-establish the family, freed from the filthy cynicism and cruelty of the commercial epoch, I shall discuss in the last section of this book. But meanwhile do not talk to me about the poor chain-makers on Cradley Heath. I know all about them and what they are doing. They are engaged in a very wide-spread and flourishing industry of the present age. They are making chains.
PART FOUR
EDUCATION: OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT THE CHILD
I
THE CALVINISM OF TO-DAY
When I wrote a little volume on my friend Mr. Bernard Shaw, it is needless to say that he reviewed it. I naturally felt tempted to answer and to criticise the book from the same disinterested and impartial standpoint from which Mr. Shaw had criticised the subject of it. I was not withheld by any feeling that the joke was getting a little obvious; for an obvious joke is only a successful joke; it is only the unsuccessful clowns who comfort themselves with being subtle. The real reason why I did not answer Mr. Shaw’s amusing attack was this: that one simple phrase in it surrendered to me all that I have ever wanted, or could want from him to all eternity. I told Mr. Shaw (in substance) that he was a charming and clever fellow, but a common Calvinist. He admitted that this was true, and there (so far as I am concerned) is an end of the matter. He said that, of course, Calvin was quite right in holding that “if once a man is born it is too late to damn or save him.” That is the fundamental and subterranean secret; that is the last lie in hell.
The difference between Puritanism and Catholicism is not about whether some priestly word or gesture is significant and sacred. It is about whether any word or gesture is significant and sacred. To the Catholic every other daily act is dramatic dedication to the service of good or of evil. To the Calvinist no act can have that sort of solemnity, because the person doing it has been dedicated from eternity, and is merely filling up his time until the crack of doom. The difference is something subtler than plum-puddings or private theatricals; the difference is that to a Christian of my kind this short earthly life is intensely thrilling and precious; to a Calvinist like Mr. Shaw it is confessedly automatic and uninteresting. To me these threescore years and ten are the battle. To the Fabian Calvinist (by his own confession) they are only a long procession of the victors in laurels and the vanquished in chains. To me earthly life is the drama; to him it is the epilogue. Shavians think about the embryo; Spiritualists about the ghost; Christians about the man. It is as well to have these things clear.
Now all our sociology and eugenics and the rest of it are not so much materialist as confusedly Calvinist, they are chiefly occupied in educating the child before he exists. The whole movement is full of a singular depression about what one can do with the populace, combined with a strange disembodied gayety about what may be done with posterity. These essential Calvinists have, indeed, abolished some of the more liberal and universal parts of Calvinism, such as the belief in an intellectual design or an everlasting happiness. But though Mr. Shaw and his friends admit it is a superstition that a man is judged after death, they stick to their central doctrine, that he is judged before he is born.
In consequence of this atmosphere of Calvinism in the cultured world of to-day, it is apparently necessary to begin all arguments on education with some mention of obstetrics and the unknown world of the prenatal. All I shall have to say, however, on heredity will be very brief, because I shall confine myself to what is known about it, and that is very nearly nothing. It is by no means self-evident, but it is a current modern dogma, that nothing actually enters the body at birth except a life derived and compounded from the parents. There is at least quite as much to be said for the Christian theory that an element comes from God, or the Buddhist theory that such an element comes from previous existences. But this is not a religious work, and I must submit to those very narrow intellectual limits which the absence of theology always imposes. Leaving the soul on one side, let us suppose for the sake of argument that the human character in the first case comes wholly from parents; and then let us curtly state our knowledge rather than our ignorance.
II
THE TRIBAL TERROR
Popular science, like that of Mr. Blatchford, is in this matter as mild as old wives’ tales. Mr. Blatchford, with colossal simplicity, explained to millions of clerks and workingmen that the mother is like a bottle of blue beads and the father is like a bottle of yellow beads; and so the child is like a bottle of mixed blue beads and yellow. He might just as well have said that if the father has two legs and the mother has two legs, the child will have four legs. Obviously it is not a question of simple addition or simple division of a number of hard detached “qualities,” like beads. It is an organic crisis and transformation of the most mysterious sort; so that even if the result is unavoidable, it will still be unexpected. It is not like blue beads mixed with yellow beads; it is like blue mixed with yellow; the result of which is green, a totally novel and unique experience, a new emotion. A man might live in a complete cosmos of blue and yellow, like the “Edinburgh Review”; a man might never have seen anything but a golden cornfield and a sapphire sky; and still he might never have had so wild a fancy as green. If you paid a sovereign for a bluebell; if you spilled the mustard on the blue-books; if you married a canary to a blue baboon; there is nothing in any of these wild weddings that contains even a hint of green. Green is not a mental combination, like addition; it is a physical result like birth. So, apart from the fact that nobody ever really understands parents or children either, yet even if we could understand the parents, we could not make any conjecture about the children. Each time the force works in a different way; each time the constituent colors combine into a different spectacle. A girl may actually inherit her ugliness from her mother’s good looks. A boy may actually get his weakness from his father’s strength. Even if we admit it is really a fate, for us it must remain a fairy tale. Considered in regard to its causes, the Calvinists and materialists may be right or wrong; we leave them their dreary debate. But considered in regard to its results there is no doubt about it. The thing is always a new color; a strange star. Every birth is as lonely as a miracle. Every child is as uninvited as a monstrosity.
On all such subjects there is no science, but only a sort of ardent ignorance; and nobody has ever been able to offer any theories of moral heredity which justified themselves in the only scientific sense; that is that one could calculate on them beforehand. There are six cases, say, of a grandson having the same twitch of mouth or vice of character as his grandfather; or perhaps there are sixteen cases, or perhaps sixty. But there are not two cases, there is not one case, there are no cases at all, of anybody betting half a crown that the grandfather will have a grandson with the twitch or the vice. In short, we deal with heredity as we deal with omens, affinities and the fulfillment of dreams. The things do happen, and when they happen we record them; but not even a lunatic ever reckons on them. Indeed, heredity, like dreams and omens, is a barbaric notion; that is, not necessarily an untrue, but a dim, groping and unsystematized notion. A civilized man feels himself a little more free from his family. Before Christianity these tales of tribal doom occupied the savage north; and since the Reformation and the revolt against Christianity (which is the religion of a civilized freedom) savagery is slowly creeping back in the form of realistic novels and problem plays. The curse of Rougon-Macquart is as heathen and superstitious as the curse of Ravenswood; only not so well written. But in this twilight barbaric sense the feeling of a racial fate is not irrational, and may be allowed like a hundred other half emotions that make life whole. The only essential of tragedy is that one should take it lightly. But even when the barbarian deluge rose to its highest in the madder novels of Zola (such as that called “The Human Beast”, a gross libel on beasts as well as humanity), even then the application of the hereditary idea to practice is avowedly timid and fumbling. The students of heredity are savages in this vital sense; that they stare back at marvels, but they dare not stare forward to schemes. In practice no one is mad enough to legislate or educate upon dogmas of physical inheritance; and even the language of the thing is rarely used except for special modern purposes, such as the endowment of research or the oppression of the poor.
III
THE TRICKS OF ENVIRONMENT
After all the modern clatter of Calvinism, therefore, it is only with the born child that anybody dares to deal; and the question is not eugenics but education. Or again, to adopt that rather tiresome terminology of popular science, it is not a question of heredity but of environment. I will not needlessly complicate this question by urging at length that environment also is open to some of the objections and hesitations which paralyze the employment of heredity. I will merely suggest in passing that even about the effect of environment modern people talk much too cheerfully and cheaply. The idea that surroundings will mold a man is always mixed up with the totally different idea that they will mold him in one particular way. To take the broadest case, landscape no doubt affects the soul; but how it affects it is quite another matter. To be born among pine-trees might mean loving pine-trees. It might mean loathing pine-trees. It might quite seriously mean never having seen a pine-tree. Or it might mean any mixture of these or any degree of any of them. So that the scientific method here lacks a little in precision. I am not speaking without the book; on the contrary, I am speaking with the blue book, with the guide-book and the atlas. It may be that the Highlanders are poetical because they inhabit mountains; but are the Swiss prosaic because they inhabit mountains? It may be the Swiss have fought for freedom because they had hills; did the Dutch fight for freedom because they hadn’t? Personally I should think it quite likely. Environment might work negatively as well as positively. The Swiss may be sensible, not in spite of their wild skyline, but be cause of their wild skyline. The Flemings may be fantastic artists, not in spite of their dull skyline, but because of it.
I only pause on this parenthesis to show that, even in matters admittedly within its range, popular science goes a great deal too fast, and drops enormous links of logic. Nevertheless, it remains the working reality that what we have to deal with in the case of children is, for all practical purposes, environment; or, to use the older word, education. When all such deductions are made, education is at least a form of will-worship; not of cowardly fact-worship; it deals with a department that we can control; it does not merely darken us with the barbarian pessimism of Zola and the heredity-hunt. We shall certainly make fools of ourselves; that is what is meant by philosophy. But we shall not merely make beasts of ourselves; which is the nearest popular definition for merely following the laws of Nature and cowering under the vengeance of the flesh. Education contains much moonshine; but not of the sort that makes mere mooncalves and idiots the slaves of a silver magnet, the one eye of the world. In this decent arena there are fads, but not frenzies. Doubtless we shall often find a mare’s nest; but it will not always be the nightmare’s.
IV
When a man is asked to write down what he really thinks on education, a certain gravity grips and stiffens his soul, which might be mistaken by the superficial for disgust. If it be really true that men sickened of sacred words and wearied of theology, if this largely unreasoning irritation against “dogma” did arise out of some ridiculous excess of such things among priests in the past, then I fancy we must be laying up a fine crop of cant for our descendants to grow tired of. Probably the word “education” will some day seem honestly as old and objectless as the word “justification” now seems in a Puritan folio. Gibbon thought it frightfully funny that people should have fought about the difference between the “Homoousion” and the “Homoiousion.” The time will come when somebody will laugh louder to think that men thundered against Sectarian Education and also against Secular Education; that men of prominence and position actually denounced the schools for teaching a creed and also for not teaching a faith. The two Greek words in Gibbon look rather alike; but they really mean quite different things. Faith and creed do not look alike, but they mean exactly the same thing. Creed happens to be the Latin for faith.
Now having read numberless newspaper articles on education, and even written a good many of them, and having heard deafening and indeterminate discussion going on all around me almost ever since I was born, about whether religion was part of education, about whether hygiene was an essential of education, about whether militarism was inconsistent with true education, I naturally pondered much on this recurring substantive, and I am ashamed to say that it was comparatively late in life that I saw the main fact about it.
Of course, the main fact about education is that there is no such thing. It does not exist, as theology or soldiering exist. Theology is a word like geology, soldiering is a word like soldering; these sciences may be healthy or no as hobbies; but they deal with stone and kettles, with definite things. But education is not a word like geology or kettles. Education is a word like “transmission” or “inheritance”; it is not an object, but a method. It must mean the conveying of certain facts, views or qualities, to the last baby born. They might be the most trivial facts or the most preposterous views or the most offensive qualities; but if they are handed on from one generation to another they are education. Education is not a thing like theology, it is not an inferior or superior thing; it is not a thing in the same category of terms. Theology and education are to each other like a love-letter to the General Post Office. Mr. Fagin was quite as educational as Dr. Strong; in practice probably more educational. It is giving something—perhaps poison. Education is tradition, and tradition (as its name implies) can be treason.
This first truth is frankly banal; but it is so perpetually ignored in our political prosing that it must be made plain. A little boy in a little house, son of a little tradesman, is taught to eat his breakfast, to take his medicine, to love his country, to say his prayers, and to wear his Sunday clothes. Obviously Fagin, if he found such a boy, would teach him to drink gin, to lie, to betray his country, to blaspheme and to wear false whiskers. But so also Mr. Salt the vegetarian would abolish the boy’s breakfast; Mrs. Eddy would throw away his medicine; Count Tolstoi would rebuke him for loving his country; Mr. Blatchford would stop his prayers, and Mr. Edward Carpenter would theoretically denounce Sunday clothes, and perhaps all clothes. I do not defend any of these advanced views, not even Fagin’s. But I do ask what, between the lot of them, has become of the abstract entity called education. It is not (as commonly supposed) that the tradesman teaches education plus Christianity; Mr. Salt, education plus vegetarianism; Fagin, education plus crime. The truth is, that there is nothing in common at all between these teachers, except that they teach. In short, the only thing they share is the one thing they profess to dislike: the general idea of authority. It is quaint that people talk of separating dogma from education. Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It is education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.
V
AN EVIL CRY
The fashionable fallacy is that by education we can give people something that we have not got. To hear people talk one would think it was some sort of magic chemistry, by which, out of a laborious hotchpotch of hygienic meals, baths, breathing exercises, fresh air and freehand drawing, we can produce something splendid by accident; we can create what we cannot conceive. These pages have, of course, no other general purpose than to point out that we cannot create anything good until we have conceived it. It is odd that these people, who in the matter of heredity are so sullenly attached to law, in the matter of environment seem almost to believe in miracle. They insist that nothing but what was in the bodies of the parents can go to make the bodies of the children. But they seem somehow to think that things can get into the heads of the children which were not in the heads of the parents, or, indeed, anywhere else.
There has arisen in this connection a foolish and wicked cry typical of the confusion. I mean the cry, “Save the children.” It is, of course, part of that modern morbidity that insists on treating the State (which is the home of man) as a sort of desperate expedient in time of panic. This terrified opportunism is also the origin of the Socialist and other schemes. Just as they would collect and share all the food as men do in a famine, so they would divide the children from their fathers, as men do in a shipwreck. That a human community might conceivably not be in a condition of famine or shipwreck never seems to cross their minds. This cry of “Save the children” has in it the hateful implication that it is impossible to save the fathers; in other words, that many millions of grown-up, sane, responsible and self-supporting Europeans are to be treated as dirt or debris and swept away out of the discussion; called dipsomaniacs because they drink in public houses instead of private houses; called unemployables because nobody knows how to get them work; called dullards if they still adhere to conventions, and called loafers if they still love liberty. Now I am concerned, first and last, to maintain that unless you can save the fathers, you cannot save the children; that at present we cannot save others, for we cannot save ourselves. We cannot teach citizenship if we are not citizens; we cannot free others if we have forgotten the appetite of freedom. Education is only truth in a state of transmission; and how can we pass on truth if it has never come into our hand? Thus we find that education is of all the cases the clearest for our general purpose. It is vain to save children; for they cannot remain children. By hypothesis we are teaching them to be men; and how can it be so simple to teach an ideal manhood to others if it is so vain and hopeless to find one for ourselves?
I know that certain crazy pedants have attempted to counter this difficulty by maintaining that education is not instruction at all, does not teach by authority at all. They present the process as coming, not from the outside, from the teacher, but entirely from inside the boy. Education, they say, is the Latin for leading out or drawing out the dormant faculties of each person. Somewhere far down in the dim boyish soul is a primordial yearning to learn Greek accents or to wear clean collars; and the schoolmaster only gently and tenderly liberates this imprisoned purpose. Sealed up in the newborn babe are the intrinsic secrets of how to eat asparagus and what was the date of Bannockburn. The educator only draws out the child’s own unapparent love of long division; only leads out the child’s slightly veiled preference for milk pudding to tarts. I am not sure that I believe in the derivation; I have heard the disgraceful suggestion that “educator,” if applied to a Roman schoolmaster, did not mean leading our young functions into freedom; but only meant taking out little boys for a walk. But I am much more certain that I do not agree with the doctrine; I think it would be about as sane to say that the baby’s milk comes from the baby as to say that the baby’s educational merits do. There is, indeed, in each living creature a collection of forces and functions; but education means producing these in particular shapes and training them to particular purposes, or it means nothing at all. Speaking is the most practical instance of the whole situation. You may indeed “draw out” squeals and grunts from the child by simply poking him and pulling him about, a pleasant but cruel pastime to which many psychologists are addicted. But you will wait and watch very patiently indeed before you draw the English language out of him. That you have got to put into him; and there is an end of the matter.
VI
AUTHORITY THE UNAVOIDABLE
But the important point here is only that you cannot anyhow get rid of authority in education; it is not so much (as poor Conservatives say) that parental authority ought to be preserved, as that it cannot be destroyed. Mr. Bernard Shaw once said that he hated the idea of forming a child’s mind. In that case Mr. Bernard Shaw had better hang himself; for he hates something inseparable from human life. I only mentioned educere and the drawing out of the faculties in order to point out that even this mental trick does not avoid the inevitable idea of parental or scholastic authority. The educator drawing out is just as arbitrary and coercive as the instructor pouring in; for he draws out what he chooses. He decides what in the child shall be developed and what shall not be developed. He does not (I suppose) draw out the neglected faculty of forgery. He does not (so far at least) lead out, with timid steps, a shy talent for torture. The only result of all this pompous and precise distinction between the educator and the instructor is that the instructor pokes where he likes and the educator pulls where he likes. Exactly the same intellectual violence is done to the creature who is poked and pulled. Now we must all accept the responsibility of this intellectual violence. Education is violent; because it is creative. It is creative because it is human. It is as reckless as playing on the fiddle; as dogmatic as drawing a picture; as brutal as building a house. In short, it is what all human action is; it is an interference with life and growth. After that it is a trifling and even a jocular question whether we say of this tremendous tormentor, the artist Man, that he puts things into us like an apothecary, or draws things out of us, like a dentist.
The point is that Man does what he likes. He claims the right to take his mother Nature under his control; he claims the right to make his child the Superman, in his image. Once flinch from this creative authority of man, and the whole courageous raid which we call civilization wavers and falls to pieces. Now most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities. And Mr. Shaw and such people are especially shrinking from that awful and ancestral responsibility to which our fathers committed us when they took the wild step of becoming men. I mean the responsibility of affirming the truth of our human tradition and handing it on with a voice of authority, an unshaken voice. That is the one eternal education; to be sure enough that something is true that you dare to tell it to a child. From this high audacious duty the moderns are fleeing on every side; and the only excuse for them is, (of course,) that their modern philosophies are so half-baked and hypothetical that they cannot convince themselves enough to convince even a newborn babe. This, of course, is connected with the decay of democracy; and is somewhat of a separate subject. Suffice it to say here that when I say that we should instruct our children, I mean that we should do it, not that Mr. Sully or Professor Earl Barnes should do it. The trouble in too many of our modern schools is that the State, being controlled so specially by the few, allows cranks and experiments to go straight to the schoolroom when they have never passed through the Parliament, the public house, the private house, the church, or the marketplace. Obviously, it ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put first to the baby. But in a school to-day the baby has to submit to a system that is younger than himself. The flopping infant of four actually has more experience, and has weathered the world longer, than the dogma to which he is made to submit. Many a school boasts of having the last ideas in education, when it has not even the first idea; for the first idea is that even innocence, divine as it is, may learn something from experience. But this, as I say, is all due to the mere fact that we are managed by a little oligarchy; my system presupposes that men who govern themselves will govern their children. To-day we all use Popular Education as meaning education of the people. I wish I could use it as meaning education by the people.
The urgent point at present is that these expansive educators do not avoid the violence of authority an inch more than the old school masters. Nay, it might be maintained that they avoid it less. The old village schoolmaster beat a boy for not learning grammar and sent him out into the playground to play anything he liked; or at nothing, if he liked that better. The modern scientific schoolmaster pursues him into the playground and makes him play at cricket, because exercise is so good for the health. The modern Dr. Busby is a doctor of medicine as well as a doctor of divinity. He may say that the good of exercise is self-evident; but he must say it, and say it with authority. It cannot really be self-evident or it never could have been compulsory. But this is in modern practice a very mild case. In modern practice the free educationists forbid far more things than the old-fashioned educationists. A person with a taste for paradox (if any such shameless creature could exist) might with some plausibility maintain concerning all our expansion since the failure of Luther’s frank paganism and its replacement by Calvin’s Puritanism, that all this expansion has not been an expansion, but the closing in of a prison, so that less and less beautiful and humane things have been permitted. The Puritans destroyed images; the Rationalists forbade fairy tales. Count Tostoi practically issued one of his papal encyclicals against music; and I have heard of modern educationists who forbid children to play with tin soldiers. I remember a meek little madman who came up to me at some Socialist soiree or other, and asked me to use my influence (have I any influence?) against adventure stories for boys. It seems they breed an appetite for blood. But never mind that; one must keep one’s temper in this madhouse. I need only insist here that these things, even if a just deprivation, are a deprivation. I do not deny that the old vetoes and punishments were often idiotic and cruel; though they are much more so in a country like England (where in practice only a rich man decrees the punishment and only a poor man receives it) than in countries with a clearer popular tradition— such as Russia. In Russia flogging is often inflicted by peasants on a peasant. In modern England flogging can only in practice be inflicted by a gentleman on a very poor man. Thus only a few days ago as I write a small boy (a son of the poor, of course) was sentenced to flogging and imprisonment for five years for having picked up a small piece of coal which the experts value at 5d. I am entirely on the side of such liberals and humanitarians as have protested against this almost bestial ignorance about boys. But I do think it a little unfair that these humanitarians, who excuse boys for being robbers, should denounce them for playing at robbers. I do think that those who understand a guttersnipe playing with a piece of coal might, by a sudden spurt of imagination, understand him playing with a tin soldier. To sum it up in one sentence: I think my meek little madman might have understood that there is many a boy who would rather be flogged, and unjustly flogged, than have his adventure story taken away.
VII
THE HUMILITY OF MRS. GRUNDY
In short, the new education is as harsh as the old, whether or no it is as high. The freest fad, as much as the strictest formula, is stiff with authority. It is because the humane father thinks soldiers wrong that they are forbidden; there is no pretense, there can be no pretense, that the boy would think so. The average boy’s impression certainly would be simply this: “If your father is a Methodist you must not play with soldiers on Sunday. If your father is a Socialist you must not play with them even on week days.” All educationists are utterly dogmatic and authoritarian. You cannot have free education; for if you left a child free you would not educate him at all. Is there, then, no distinction or difference between the most hide-bound conventionalists and the most brilliant and bizarre innovators? Is there no difference between the heaviest heavy father and the most reckless and speculative maiden aunt? Yes; there is. The difference is that the heavy father, in his heavy way, is a democrat. He does not urge a thing merely because to his fancy it should be done; but, because (in his own admirable republican formula) “Everybody does it.” The conventional authority does claim some popular mandate; the unconventional authority does not. The Puritan who forbids soldiers on Sunday is at least expressing Puritan opinion; not merely his own opinion. He is not a despot; he is a democracy, a tyrannical democracy, a dingy and local democracy perhaps; but one that could do and has done the two ultimate virile things—fight and appeal to God. But the veto of the new educationist is like the veto of the House of Lords; it does not pretend to be representative. These innovators are always talking about the blushing modesty of Mrs. Grundy. I do not know whether Mrs. Grundy is more modest than they are; but I am sure she is more humble.
But there is a further complication. The more anarchic modern may again attempt to escape the dilemma by saying that education should only be an enlargement of the mind, an opening of all the organs of receptivity. Light (he says) should be brought into darkness; blinded and thwarted existences in all our ugly corners should merely be permitted to perceive and expand; in short, enlightenment should be shed over darkest London. Now here is just the trouble; that, in so far as this is involved, there is no darkest London. London is not dark at all; not even at night. We have said that if education is a solid substance, then there is none of it. We may now say that if education is an abstract expansion there is no lack of it. There is far too much of it. In fact, there is nothing else.
There are no uneducated people. Everybody in England is educated; only most people are educated wrong. The state schools were not the first schools, but among the last schools to be established; and London had been educating Londoners long before the London School Board. The error is a highly practical one. It is persistently assumed that unless a child is civilized by the established schools, he must remain a barbarian. I wish he did. Every child in London becomes a highly civilized person. But here are so many different civilizations, most of them born tired. Anyone will tell you that the trouble with the poor is not so much that the old are still foolish, but rather that the young are already wise. Without going to school at all, the gutter-boy would be educated. Without going to school at all, he would be over-educated. The real object of our schools should be not so much to suggest complexity as solely to restore simplicity. You will hear venerable idealists declare we must make war on the ignorance of the poor; but, indeed, we have rather to make war on their knowledge. Real educationists have to resist a kind of roaring cataract of culture. The truant is being taught all day. If the children do not look at the large letters in the spelling-book, they need only walk outside and look at the large letters on the poster. If they do not care for the colored maps provided by the school, they can gape at the colored maps provided by the Daily Mail. If they tire of electricity, they can take to electric trams. If they are unmoved by music, they can take to drink. If they will not work so as to get a prize from their school, they may work to get a prize from Prizy Bits. If they cannot learn enough about law and citizenship to please the teacher, they learn enough about them to avoid the policeman. If they will not learn history forwards from the right end in the history books, they will learn it backwards from the wrong end in the party newspapers. And this is the tragedy of the whole affair: that the London poor, a particularly quick-witted and civilized class, learn everything tail foremost, learn even what is right in the way of what is wrong. They do not see the first principles of law in a law book; they only see its last results in the police news. They do not see the truths of politics in a general survey. They only see the lies of politics, at a General Election.
But whatever be the pathos of the London poor, it has nothing to do with being uneducated. So far from being without guidance, they are guided constantly, earnestly, excitedly; only guided wrong. The poor are not at all neglected, they are merely oppressed; nay, rather they are persecuted. There are no people in London who are not appealed to by the rich; the appeals of the rich shriek from every hoarding and shout from every hustings. For it should always be remembered that the queer, abrupt ugliness of our streets and costumes are not the creation of democracy, but of aristocracy. The House of Lords objected to the Embankment being disfigured by trams. But most of the rich men who disfigure the street-walls with their wares are actually in the House of Lords. The peers make the country seats beautiful by making the town streets hideous. This, however, is parenthetical. The point is, that the poor in London are not left alone, but rather deafened and bewildered with raucous and despotic advice. They are not like sheep without a shepherd. They are more like one sheep whom twenty-seven shepherds are shouting at. All the newspapers, all the new advertisements, all the new medicines and new theologies, all the glare and blare of the gas and brass of modern times— it is against these that the national school must bear up if it can. I will not question that our elementary education is better than barbaric ignorance. But there is no barbaric ignorance. I do not doubt that our schools would be good for uninstructed boys. But there are no uninstructed boys. A modern London school ought not merely to be clearer, kindlier, more clever and more rapid than ignorance and darkness. It must also be clearer than a picture postcard, cleverer than a Limerick competition, quicker than the tram, and kindlier than the tavern. The school, in fact, has the responsibility of universal rivalry. We need not deny that everywhere there is a light that must conquer darkness. But here we demand a light that can conquer light.
VIII
THE BROKEN RAINBOW
I will take one case that will serve both as symbol and example: the case of color. We hear the realists (those sentimental fellows) talking about the gray streets and the gray lives of the poor. But whatever the poor streets are they are not gray; but motley, striped, spotted, piebald and patched like a quilt. Hoxton is not aesthetic enough to be monochrome; and there is nothing of the Celtic twilight about it. As a matter of fact, a London gutter-boy walks unscathed among furnaces of color. Watch him walk along a line of hoardings, and you will see him now against glowing green, like a traveler in a tropic forest; now black like a bird against the burning blue of the Midi; now passant across a field gules, like the golden leopards of England. He ought to understand the irrational rapture of that cry of Mr. Stephen Phillips about “that bluer blue, that greener green.” There is no blue much bluer than Reckitt’s Blue and no blacking blacker than Day and Martin’s; no more emphatic yellow than that of Colman’s Mustard. If, despite this chaos of color, like a shattered rainbow, the spirit of the small boy is not exactly intoxicated with art and culture, the cause certainly does not lie in universal grayness or the mere starving of his senses. It lies in the fact that the colors are presented in the wrong connection, on the wrong scale, and, above all, from the wrong motive. It is not colors he lacks, but a philosophy of colors. In short, there is nothing wrong with Reckitt’s Blue except that it is not Reckitt’s. Blue does not belong to Reckitt, but to the sky; black does not belong to Day and Martin, but to the abyss. Even the finest posters are only very little things on a very large scale. There is something specially irritant in this way about the iteration of advertisements of mustard: a condiment, a small luxury; a thing in its nature not to be taken in quantity. There is a special irony in these starving streets to see such a great deal of mustard to such very little meat. Yellow is a bright pigment; mustard is a pungent pleasure. But to look at these seas of yellow is to be like a man who should swallow gallons of mustard. He would either die, or lose the taste of mustard altogether.
Now suppose we compare these gigantic trivialities on the hoardings with those tiny and tremendous pictures in which the mediaevals recorded their dreams; little pictures where the blue sky is hardly longer than a single sapphire, and the fires of judgment only a pigmy patch of gold. The difference here is not merely that poster art is in its nature more hasty than illumination art; it is not even merely that the ancient artist was serving the Lord while the modern artist is serving the lords. It is that the old artist contrived to convey an impression that colors really were significant and precious things, like jewels and talismanic stones. The color was often arbitrary; but it was always authoritative. If a bird was blue, if a tree was golden, if a fish was silver, if a cloud was scarlet, the artist managed to convey that these colors were important and almost painfully intense; all the red red-hot and all the gold tried in the fire. Now that is the spirit touching color which the schools must recover and protect if they are really to give the children any imaginative appetite or pleasure in the thing. It is not so much an indulgence in color; it is rather, if anything, a sort of fiery thrift. It fenced in a green field in heraldry as straitly as a green field in peasant proprietorship. It would not fling away gold leaf any more than gold coin; it would not heedlessly pour out purple or crimson, any more than it would spill good wine or shed blameless blood. That is the hard task before educationists in this special matter; they have to teach people to relish colors like liquors. They have the heavy business of turning drunkards into wine tasters. If even the twentieth century succeeds in doing these things, it will almost catch up with the twelfth.
The principle covers, however, the whole of modern life. Morris and the merely aesthetic mediaevalists always indicated that a crowd in the time of Chaucer would have been brightly clad and glittering, compared with a crowd in the time of Queen Victoria. I am not so sure that the real distinction is here. There would be brown frocks of friars in the first scene as well as brown bowlers of clerks in the second. There would be purple plumes of factory girls in the second scene as well as purple lenten vestments in the first. There would be white waistcoats against white ermine; gold watch chains against gold lions. The real difference is this: that the brown earth-color of the monk’s coat was instinctively chosen to express labor and humility, whereas the brown color of the clerk’s hat was not chosen to express anything. The monk did mean to say that he robed himself in dust. I am sure the clerk does not mean to say that he crowns himself with clay. He is not putting dust on his head, as the only diadem of man. Purple, at once rich and somber, does suggest a triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy. But the factory girl does not intend her hat to express a triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy; far from it. White ermine was meant to express moral purity; white waistcoats were not. Gold lions do suggest a flaming magnanimity; gold watch chains do not. The point is not that we have lost the material hues, but that we have lost the trick of turning them to the best advantage. We are not like children who have lost their paint box and are left alone with a gray lead-pencil. We are like children who have mixed all the colors in the paint-box together and lost the paper of instructions. Even then (I do not deny) one has some fun.
Now this abundance of colors and loss of a color scheme is a pretty perfect parable of all that is wrong with our modern ideals and especially with our modern education. It is the same with ethical education, economic education, every sort of education. The growing London child will find no lack of highly controversial teachers who will teach him that geography means painting the map red; that economics means taxing the foreigner, that patriotism means the peculiarly un-English habit of flying a flag on Empire Day. In mentioning these examples specially I do not mean to imply that there are no similar crudities and popular fallacies upon the other political side. I mention them because they constitute a very special and arresting feature of the situation. I mean this, that there were always Radical revolutionists; but now there are Tory revolutionists also. The modern Conservative no longer conserves. He is avowedly an innovator. Thus all the current defenses of the House of Lords which describe it as a bulwark against the mob, are intellectually done for; the bottom has fallen out of them; because on five or six of the most turbulent topics of the day, the House of Lords is a mob itself; and exceedingly likely to behave like one.
IX
THE NEED FOR NARROWNESS
Through all this chaos, then we come back once more to our main conclusion. The true task of culture to-day is not a task of expansion, but very decidedly of selection—and rejection. The educationist must find a creed and teach it. Even if it be not a theological creed, it must still be as fastidious and as firm as theology. In short, it must be orthodox. The teacher may think it antiquated to have to decide precisely between the faith of Calvin and of Laud, the faith of Aquinas and of Swedenborg; but he still has to choose between the faith of Kipling and of Shaw, between the world of Blatchford and of General Booth. Call it, if you will, a narrow question whether your child shall be brought up by the vicar or the minister or the popish priest. You have still to face that larger, more liberal, more highly civilized question, of whether he shall be brought up by Harmsworth or by Pearson, by Mr. Eustace Miles with his Simple Life or Mr. Peter Keary with his Strenuous Life; whether he shall most eagerly read Miss Annie S. Swan or Mr. Bart Kennedy; in short, whether he shall end up in the mere violence of the S. D. F., or in the mere vulgarity of the Primrose League. They say that nowadays the creeds are crumbling; I doubt it, but at least the sects are increasing; and education must now be sectarian education, merely for practical purposes. Out of all this throng of theories it must somehow select a theory; out of all these thundering voices it must manage to hear a voice; out of all this awful and aching battle of blinding lights, without one shadow to give shape to them, it must manage somehow to trace and to track a star.
I have spoken so far of popular education, which began too vague and vast and which therefore has accomplished little. But as it happens there is in England something to compare it with. There is an institution, or class of institutions, which began with the same popular object, which has since followed a much narrower object, but which had the great advantage that it did follow some object, unlike our modern elementary schools.
In all these problems I should urge the solution which is positive, or, as silly people say, “optimistic.” I should set my face, that is, against most of the solutions that are solely negative and abolitionist. Most educators of the poor seem to think that they have to teach the poor man not to drink. I should be quite content if they teach him to drink; for it is mere ignorance about how to drink and when to drink that is accountable for most of his tragedies. I do not propose (like some of my revolutionary friends) that we should abolish the public schools. I propose the much more lurid and desperate experiment that we should make them public. I do not wish to make Parliament stop working, but rather to make it work; not to shut up churches, but rather to open them; not to put out the lamp of learning or destroy the hedge of property, but only to make some rude effort to make universities fairly universal and property decently proper.
In many cases, let it be remembered, such action is not merely going back to the old ideal, but is even going back to the old reality. It would be a great step forward for the gin shop to go back to the inn. It is incontrovertibly true that to mediaevalize the public schools would be to democratize the public schools. Parliament did once really mean (as its name seems to imply) a place where people were allowed to talk. It is only lately that the general increase of efficiency, that is, of the Speaker, has made it mostly a place where people are prevented from talking. The poor do not go to the modern church, but they went to the ancient church all right; and if the common man in the past had a grave respect for property, it may conceivably have been because he sometimes had some of his own. I therefore can claim that I have no vulgar itch of innovation in anything I say about any of these institutions. Certainly I have none in that particular one which I am now obliged to pick out of the list; a type of institution to which I have genuine and personal reasons for being friendly and grateful: I mean the great Tudor foundations, the public schools of England. They have been praised for a great many things, mostly, I am sorry to say, praised by themselves and their children. And yet for some reason no one has ever praised them the one really convincing reason.
X
THE CASE FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The word success can of course be used in two senses. It may be used with reference to a thing serving its immediate and peculiar purpose, as of a wheel going around; or it can be used with reference to a thing adding to the general welfare, as of a wheel being a useful discovery. It is one thing to say that Smith’s flying machine is a failure, and quite another to say that Smith has failed to make a flying machine. Now this is very broadly the difference between the old English public schools and the new democratic schools. Perhaps the old public schools are (as I personally think they are) ultimately weakening the country rather than strengthening it, and are therefore, in that ultimate sense, inefficient. But there is such a thing as being efficiently inefficient. You can make your flying ship so that it flies, even if you also make it so that it kills you. Now the public school system may not work satisfactorily, but it works; the public schools may not achieve what we want, but they achieve what they want. The popular elementary schools do not in that sense achieve anything at all. It is very difficult to point to any guttersnipe in the street and say that he embodies the ideal for which popular education has been working, in the sense that the fresh-faced, foolish boy in “Etons” does embody the ideal for which the headmasters of Harrow and Winchester have been working. The aristocratic educationists have the positive purpose of turning out gentlemen, and they do turn out gentlemen, even when they expel them. The popular educationists would say that they had the far nobler idea of turning out citizens. I concede that it is a much nobler idea, but where are the citizens? I know that the boy in “Etons” is stiff with a rather silly and sentimental stoicism, called being a man of the world. I do not fancy that the errand-boy is rigid with that republican stoicism that is called being a citizen. The schoolboy will really say with fresh and innocent hauteur, “I am an English gentleman.” I cannot so easily picture the errand-boy drawing up his head to the stars and answering, “Romanus civis sum.” Let it be granted that our elementary teachers are teaching the very broadest code of morals, while our great headmasters are teaching only the narrowest code of manners. Let it be granted that both these things are being taught. But only one of them is being learned.
It is always said that great reformers or masters of events can manage to bring about some specific and practical reforms, but that they never fulfill their visions or satisfy their souls. I believe there is a real sense in which this apparent platitude is quite untrue. By a strange inversion the political idealist often does not get what he asks for, but does get what he wants. The silent pressure of his ideal lasts much longer and reshapes the world much more than the actualities by which he attempted to suggest it. What perishes is the letter, which he thought so practical. What endures is the spirit, which he felt to be unattainable and even unutterable. It is exactly his schemes that are not fulfilled; it is exactly his vision that is fulfilled. Thus the ten or twelve paper constitutions of the French Revolution, which seemed so business-like to the framers of them, seem to us to have flown away on the wind as the wildest fancies. What has not flown away, what is a fixed fact in Europe, is the ideal and vision. The Republic, the idea of a land full of mere citizens all with some minimum of manners and minimum of wealth, the vision of the eighteenth century, the reality of the twentieth. So I think it will generally be with the creator of social things, desirable or undesirable. All his schemes will fail, all his tools break in his hands. His compromises will collapse, his concessions will be useless. He must brace himself to bear his fate; he shall have nothing but his heart’s desire.
Now if one may compare very small things with very great, one may say that the English aristocratic schools can claim something of the same sort of success and solid splendor as the French democratic politics. At least they can claim the same sort of superiority over the distracted and fumbling attempts of modern England to establish democratic education. Such success as has attended the public schoolboy throughout the Empire, a success exaggerated indeed by himself, but still positive and a fact of a certain indisputable shape and size, has been due to the central and supreme circumstance that the managers of our public schools did know what sort of boy they liked. They wanted something and they got something; instead of going to work in the broad-minded manner and wanting everything and getting nothing.
The only thing in question is the quality of the thing they got. There is something highly maddening in the circumstance that when modern people attack an institution that really does demand reform, they always attack it for the wrong reasons. Thus many opponents of our public schools, imagining themselves to be very democratic, have exhausted themselves in an unmeaning attack upon the study of Greek. I can understand how Greek may be regarded as useless, especially by those thirsting to throw themselves into the cut throat commerce which is the negation of citizenship; but I do not understand how it can be considered undemocratic. I quite understand why Mr. Carnegie has a hatred of Greek. It is obscurely founded on the firm and sound impression that in any self-governing Greek city he would have been killed. But I cannot comprehend why any chance democrat, say Mr. Quelch, or Mr. Will Crooks, I or Mr. John M. Robertson, should be opposed to people learning the Greek alphabet, which was the alphabet of liberty. Why should Radicals dislike Greek? In that language is written all the earliest and, Heaven knows, the most heroic history of the Radical party. Why should Greek disgust a democrat, when the very word democrat is Greek?
A similar mistake, though a less serious one, is merely attacking the athletics of public schools as something promoting animalism and brutality. Now brutality, in the only immoral sense, is not a vice of the English public schools. There is much moral bullying, owing to the general lack of moral courage in the public-school atmosphere. These schools do, upon the whole, encourage physical courage; but they do not merely discourage moral courage, they forbid it. The ultimate result of the thing is seen in the egregious English officer who cannot even endure to wear a bright uniform except when it is blurred and hidden in the smoke of battle. This, like all the affectations of our present plutocracy, is an entirely modern thing. It was unknown to the old aristocrats. The Black Prince would certainly have asked that any knight who had the courage to lift his crest among his enemies, should also have the courage to lift it among his friends. As regards moral courage, then it is not so much that the public schools support it feebly, as that they suppress it firmly. But physical courage they do, on the whole, support; and physical courage is a magnificent fundamental. The one great, wise Englishman of the eighteenth century said truly that if a man lost that virtue he could never be sure of keeping any other. Now it is one of the mean and morbid modern lies that physical courage is connected with cruelty. The Tolstoian and Kiplingite are nowhere more at one than in maintaining this. They have, I believe, some small sectarian quarrel with each other, the one saying that courage must be abandoned because it is connected with cruelty, and the other maintaining that cruelty is charming because it is a part of courage. But it is all, thank God, a lie. An energy and boldness of body may make a man stupid or reckless or dull or drunk or hungry, but it does not make him spiteful. And we may admit heartily (without joining in that perpetual praise which public-school men are always pouring upon themselves) that this does operate to the removal of mere evil cruelty in the public schools. English public school life is extremely like English public life, for which it is the preparatory school. It is like it specially in this, that things are either very open, common and conventional, or else are very secret indeed. Now there is cruelty in public schools, just as there is kleptomania and secret drinking and vices without a name. But these things do not flourish in the full daylight and common consciousness of the school, and no more does cruelty. A tiny trio of sullen-looking boys gather in corners and seem to have some ugly business always; it may be indecent literature, it may be the beginning of drink, it may occasionally be cruelty to little boys. But on this stage the bully is not a braggart. The proverb says that bullies are always cowardly, but these bullies are more than cowardly; they are shy.
As a third instance of the wrong form of revolt against the public schools, I may mention the habit of using the word aristocracy with a double implication. To put the plain truth as briefly as possible, if aristocracy means rule by a rich ring, England has aristocracy and the English public schools support it. If it means rule by ancient families or flawless blood, England has not got aristocracy, and the public schools systematically destroy it. In these circles real aristocracy, like real democracy, has become bad form. A modern fashionable host dare not praise his ancestry; it would so often be an insult to half the other oligarchs at table, who have no ancestry. We have said he has not the moral courage to wear his uniform; still less has he the moral courage to wear his coat-of-arms. The whole thing now is only a vague hotch-potch of nice and nasty gentlemen. The nice gentleman never refers to anyone else’s father, the nasty gentleman never refers to his own. That is the only difference, the rest is the public-school manner. But Eton and Harrow have to be aristocratic because they consist so largely of parvenues. The public school is not a sort of refuge for aristocrats, like an asylum, a place where they go in and never come out. It is a factory for aristocrats; they come out without ever having perceptibly gone in. The poor little private schools, in their old-world, sentimental, feudal style, used to stick up a notice, “For the Sons of Gentlemen only.” If the public schools stuck up a notice it ought to be inscribed, “For the Fathers of Gentlemen only.” In two generations they can do the trick.
XI
THE SCHOOL FOR HYPOCRITES
These are the false accusations; the accusation of classicism, the accusation of cruelty, and the accusation of an exclusiveness based on perfection of pedigree. English public-school boys are not pedants, they are not torturers; and they are not, in the vast majority of cases, people fiercely proud of their ancestry, or even people with any ancestry to be proud of. They are taught to be courteous, to be good tempered, to be brave in a bodily sense, to be clean in a bodily sense; they are generally kind to animals, generally civil to servants, and to anyone in any sense their equal, the jolliest companions on earth. Is there then anything wrong in the public-school ideal? I think we all feel there is something very wrong in it, but a blinding network of newspaper phraseology obscures and entangles us; so that it is hard to trace to its beginning, beyond all words and phrases, the faults in this great English achievement.
Surely, when all is said, the ultimate objection to the English public school is its utterly blatant and indecent disregard of the duty of telling the truth. I know there does still linger among maiden ladies in remote country houses a notion that English schoolboys are taught to tell the truth, but it cannot be maintained seriously for a moment. Very occasionally, very vaguely, English schoolboys are told not to tell lies, which is a totally different thing. I may silently support all the obscene fictions and forgeries in the universe, without once telling a lie. I may wear another man’s coat, steal another man’s wit, apostatize to another man’s creed, or poison another man’s coffee, all without ever telling a lie. But no English school-boy is ever taught to tell the truth, for the very simple reason that he is never taught to desire the truth. From the very first he is taught to be totally careless about whether a fact is a fact; he is taught to care only whether the fact can be used on his “side” when he is engaged in “playing the game.” He takes sides in his Union debating society to settle whether Charles I ought to have been killed, with the same solemn and pompous frivolity with which he takes sides in the cricket field to decide whether Rugby or Westminster shall win. He is never allowed to admit the abstract notion of the truth, that the match is a matter of what may happen, but that Charles I is a matter of what did happen—or did not. He is Liberal or Tory at the general election exactly as he is Oxford or Cambridge at the boat race. He knows that sport deals with the unknown; he has not even a notion that politics should deal with the known. If anyone really doubts this self-evident proposition, that the public schools definitely discourage the love of truth, there is one fact which I should think would settle him. England is the country of the Party System, and it has always been chiefly run by public-school men. Is there anyone out of Hanwell who will maintain that the Party System, whatever its conveniences or inconveniences, could have been created by people particularly fond of truth?
The very English happiness on this point is itself a hypocrisy. When a man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself is a liar. David said in his haste, that is, in his honesty, that all men are liars. It was afterwards, in some leisurely official explanation, that he said the Kings of Israel at least told the truth. When Lord Curzon was Viceroy he delivered a moral lecture to the Indians on their reputed indifference to veracity, to actuality and intellectual honor. A great many people indignantly discussed whether orientals deserved to receive this rebuke; whether Indians were indeed in a position to receive such severe admonition. No one seemed to ask, as I should venture to ask, whether Lord Curzon was in a position to give it. He is an ordinary party politician; a party politician means a politician who might have belonged to either party. Being such a person, he must again and again, at every twist and turn of party strategy, either have deceived others or grossly deceived himself. I do not know the East; nor do I like what I know. I am quite ready to believe that when Lord Curzon went out he found a very false atmosphere. I only say it must have been something startlingly and chokingly false if it was falser than that English atmosphere from which he came. The English Parliament actually cares for everything except veracity. The public-school man is kind, courageous, polite, clean, companionable; but, in the most awful sense of the words, the truth is not in him.
This weakness of untruthfulness in the English public schools, in the English political system, and to some extent in the English character, is a weakness which necessarily produces a curious crop of superstitions, of lying legends, of evident delusions clung to through low spiritual self-indulgence. There are so many of these public-school superstitions that I have here only space for one of them, which may be called the superstition of soap. It appears to have been shared by the ablutionary Pharisees, who resembled the English public-school aristocrats in so many respects: in their care about club rules and traditions, in their offensive optimism at the expense of other people, and above all in their unimaginative plodding patriotism in the worst interests of their country. Now the old human common sense about washing is that it is a great pleasure. Water (applied externally) is a splendid thing, like wine. Sybarites bathe in wine, and Nonconformists drink water; but we are not concerned with these frantic exceptions. Washing being a pleasure, it stands to reason that rich people can afford it more than poor people, and as long as this was recognized all was well; and it was very right that rich people should offer baths to poor people, as they might offer any other agreeable thing— a drink or a donkey ride. But one dreadful day, somewhere about the middle of the nineteenth century, somebody discovered (somebody pretty well off) the two great modern truths, that washing is a virtue in the rich and therefore a duty in the poor. For a duty is a virtue that one can’t do. And a virtue is generally a duty that one can do quite easily; like the bodily cleanliness of the upper classes. But in the public-school tradition of public life, soap has become creditable simply because it is pleasant. Baths are represented as a part of the decay of the Roman Empire; but the same baths are represented as part of the energy and rejuvenation of the British Empire. There are distinguished public school men, bishops, dons, headmasters, and high politicians, who, in the course of the eulogies which from time to time they pass upon themselves, have actually identified physical cleanliness with moral purity. They say (if I remember rightly) that a public-school man is clean inside and out. As if everyone did not know that while saints can afford to be dirty, seducers have to be clean. As if everyone did not know that the harlot must be clean, because it is her business to captivate, while the good wife may be dirty, because it is her business to clean. As if we did not all know that whenever God’s thunder cracks above us, it is very likely indeed to find the simplest man in a muck cart and the most complex blackguard in a bath.
There are other instances, of course, of this oily trick of turning the pleasures of a gentleman into the virtues of an Anglo-Saxon. Sport, like soap, is an admirable thing, but, like soap, it is an agreeable thing. And it does not sum up all mortal merits to be a sportsman playing the game in a world where it is so often necessary to be a workman doing the work. By all means let a gentleman congratulate himself that he has not lost his natural love of pleasure, as against the blase, and unchildlike. But when one has the childlike joy it is best to have also the childlike unconsciousness; and I do not think we should have special affection for the little boy who ever lastingly explained that it was his duty to play Hide and Seek and one of his family virtues to be prominent in Puss in the Corner.
Another such irritating hypocrisy is the oligarchic attitude towards mendicity as against organized charity. Here again, as in the case of cleanliness and of athletics, the attitude would be perfectly human and intelligible if it were not maintained as a merit. Just as the obvious thing about soap is that it is a convenience, so the obvious thing about beggars is that they are an inconvenience. The rich would deserve very little blame if they simply said that they never dealt directly with beggars, because in modern urban civilization it is impossible to deal directly with beggars; or if not impossible, at least very difficult. But these people do not refuse money to beggars on the ground that such charity is difficult. They refuse it on the grossly hypocritical ground that such charity is easy. They say, with the most grotesque gravity, “Anyone can put his hand in his pocket and give a poor man a penny; but we, philanthropists, go home and brood and travail over the poor man’s troubles until we have discovered exactly what jail, reformatory, workhouse, or lunatic asylum it will really be best for him to go to.” This is all sheer lying. They do not brood about the man when they get home, and if they did it would not alter the original fact that their motive for discouraging beggars is the perfectly rational one that beggars are a bother. A man may easily be forgiven for not doing this or that incidental act of charity, especially when the question is as genuinely difficult as is the case of mendicity. But there is something quite pestilently Pecksniffian about shrinking from a hard task on the plea that it is not hard enough. If any man will really try talking to the ten beggars who come to his door he will soon find out whether it is really so much easier than the labor of writing a check for a hospital.
XII
THE STALENESS OF THE NEW SCHOOLS
For this deep and disabling reason therefore, its cynical and abandoned indifference to the truth, the English public school does not provide us with the ideal that we require. We can only ask its modern critics to remember that right or wrong the thing can be done; the factory is working, the wheels are going around, the gentlemen are being produced, with their soap, cricket and organized charity all complete. And in this, as we have said before, the public school really has an advantage over all the other educational schemes of our time. You can pick out a public-school man in any of the many companies into which they stray, from a Chinese opium den to a German Jewish dinner-party. But I doubt if you could tell which little match girl had been brought up by undenominational religion and which by secular education. The great English aristocracy which has ruled us since the Reformation is really, in this sense, a model to the moderns. It did have an ideal, and therefore it has produced a reality.
We may repeat here that these pages propose mainly to show one thing: that progress ought to be based on principle, while our modern progress is mostly based on precedent. We go, not by what may be affirmed in theory, but by what has been already admitted in practice. That is why the Jacobites are the last Tories in history with whom a high-spirited person can have much sympathy. They wanted a specific thing; they were ready to go forward for it, and so they were also ready to go back for it. But modern Tories have only the dullness of defending situations that they had not the excitement of creating. Revolutionists make a reform, Conservatives only conserve the reform. They never reform the reform, which is often very much wanted. Just as the rivalry of armaments is only a sort of sulky plagiarism, so the rivalry of parties is only a sort of sulky inheritance. Men have votes, so women must soon have votes; poor children are taught by force, so they must soon be fed by force; the police shut public houses by twelve o’clock, so soon they must shut them by eleven o’clock; children stop at school till they are fourteen, so soon they will stop till they are forty. No gleam of reason, no momentary return to first principles, no abstract asking of any obvious question, can interrupt this mad and monotonous gallop of mere progress by precedent. It is a good way to prevent real revolution. By this logic of events, the Radical gets as much into a rut as the Conservative. We meet one hoary old lunatic who says his grandfather told him to stand by one stile. We meet another hoary old lunatic who says his grandfather told him only to walk along one lane.
I say we may repeat here this primary part of the argument, because we have just now come to the place where it is most startlingly and strongly shown. The final proof that our elementary schools have no definite ideal of their own is the fact that they so openly imitate the ideals of the public schools. In the elementary schools we have all the ethical prejudices and exaggerations of Eton and Harrow carefully copied for people to whom they do not even roughly apply. We have the same wildly disproportionate doctrine of the effect of physical cleanliness on moral character. Educators and educational politicians declare, amid warm cheers, that cleanliness is far more important than all the squabbles about moral and religious training. It would really seem that so long as a little boy washes his hands it does not matter whether he is washing off his mother’s jam or his brother’s gore. We have the same grossly insincere pretense that sport always encourages a sense of honor, when we know that it often ruins it. Above all, we have the same great upperclass assumption that things are done best by large institutions handling large sums of money and ordering everybody about; and that trivial and impulsive charity is in some way contemptible. As Mr. Blatchford says, “The world does not want piety, but soap— and Socialism.” Piety is one of the popular virtues, whereas soap and Socialism are two hobbies of the upper middle class.
These “healthy” ideals, as they are called, which our politicians and schoolmasters have borrowed from the aristocratic schools and applied to the democratic, are by no means particularly appropriate to an impoverished democracy. A vague admiration for organized government and a vague distrust of individual aid cannot be made to fit in at all into the lives of people among whom kindness means lending a saucepan and honor means keeping out of the workhouse. It resolves itself either into discouraging that system of prompt and patchwork generosity which is a daily glory of the poor, or else into hazy advice to people who have no money not to give it recklessly away. Nor is the exaggerated glory of athletics, defensible enough in dealing with the rich who, if they did not romp and race, would eat and drink unwholesomely, by any means so much to the point when applied to people, most of whom will take a great deal of exercise anyhow, with spade or hammer, pickax or saw. And for the third case, of washing, it is obvious that the same sort of rhetoric about corporeal daintiness which is proper to an ornamental class cannot, merely as it stands, be applicable to a dustman. A gentleman is expected to be substantially spotless all the time. But it is no more discreditable for a scavenger to be dirty than for a deep-sea diver to be wet. A sweep is no more disgraced when he is covered with soot than Michael Angelo when he is covered with clay, or Bayard when he is covered with blood. Nor have these extenders of the public-school tradition done or suggested anything by way of a substitute for the present snobbish system which makes cleanliness almost impossible to the poor; I mean the general ritual of linen and the wearing of the cast-off clothes of the rich. One man moves into another man’s clothes as he moves into another man’s house. No wonder that our educationists are not horrified at a man picking up the aristocrat’s second-hand trousers, when they themselves have only taken up the aristocrat’s second-hand ideas.
XIII
THE OUTLAWED PARENT
There is one thing at least of which there is never so much as a whisper inside the popular schools; and that is the opinion of the people. The only persons who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parents. Yet the English poor have very definite traditions in many ways. They are hidden under embarrassment and irony; and those psychologists who have disentangled them talk of them as very strange, barbaric and secretive things. But, as a matter of fact, the traditions of the poor are mostly simply the traditions of humanity, a thing which many of us have not seen for some time. For instance, workingmen have a tradition that if one is talking about a vile thing it is better to talk of it in coarse language; one is the less likely to be seduced into excusing it. But mankind had this tradition also, until the Puritans and their children, the Ibsenites, started the opposite idea, that it does not matter what you say so long as you say it with long words and a long face. Or again, the educated classes have tabooed most jesting about personal appearance; but in doing this they taboo not only the humor of the slums, but more than half the healthy literature of the world; they put polite nose-bags on the noses of Punch and Bardolph, Stiggins and Cyrano de Bergerac. Again, the educated classes have adopted a hideous and heathen custom of considering death as too dreadful to talk about, and letting it remain a secret for each person, like some private malformation. The poor, on the contrary, make a great gossip and display about bereavement; and they are right. They have hold of a truth of psychology which is at the back of all the funeral customs of the children of men. The way to lessen sorrow is to make a lot of it. The way to endure a painful crisis is to insist very much that it is a crisis; to permit people who must feel sad at least to feel important. In this the poor are simply the priests of the universal civilization; and in their stuffy feasts and solemn chattering there is the smell of the baked meats of Hamlet and the dust and echo of the funeral games of Patroclus.
The things philanthropists barely excuse (or do not excuse) in the life of the laboring classes are simply the things we have to excuse in all the greatest monuments of man. It may be that the laborer is as gross as Shakespeare or as garrulous as Homer; that if he is religious he talks nearly as much about hell as Dante; that if he is worldly he talks nearly as much about drink as Dickens. Nor is the poor man without historic support if he thinks less of that ceremonial washing which Christ dismissed, and rather more of that ceremonial drinking which Christ specially sanctified. The only difference between the poor man of to-day and the saints and heroes of history is that which in all classes separates the common man who can feel things from the great man who can express them. What he feels is merely the heritage of man. Now nobody expects of course that the cabmen and coal-heavers can be complete instructors of their children any more than the squires and colonels and tea merchants are complete instructors of their children. There must be an educational specialist in loco parentis. But the master at Harrow is in loco parentis; the master in Hoxton is rather contra parentem. The vague politics of the squire, the vaguer virtues of the colonel, the soul and spiritual yearnings of a tea merchant, are, in veritable practice, conveyed to the children of these people at the English public schools. But I wish here to ask a very plain and emphatic question. Can anyone alive even pretend to point out any way in which these special virtues and traditions of the poor are reproduced in the education of the poor? I do not wish the coster’s irony to appeal as coarsely in the school as it does in the tap room; but does it appear at all? Is the child taught to sympathize at all with his father’s admirable cheerfulness and slang? I do not expect the pathetic, eager pietas of the mother, with her funeral clothes and funeral baked meats, to be exactly imitated in the educational system; but has it any influence at all on the educational system? Does any elementary schoolmaster accord it even an instant’s consideration or respect? I do not expect the schoolmaster to hate hospitals and C.O.S. centers so much as the schoolboy’s father; but does he hate them at all? Does he sympathize in the least with the poor man’s point of honor against official institutions? Is it not quite certain that the ordinary elementary schoolmaster will think it not merely natural but simply conscientious to eradicate all these rugged legends of a laborious people, and on principle to preach soap and Socialism against beer and liberty? In the lower classes the school master does not work for the parent, but against the parent. Modern education means handing down the customs of the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority. Instead of their Christlike charity, their Shakespearean laughter and their high Homeric reverence for the dead, the poor have imposed on them mere pedantic copies of the prejudices of the remote rich. They must think a bathroom a necessity because to the lucky it is a luxury; they must swing Swedish clubs because their masters are afraid of English cudgels; and they must get over their prejudice against being fed by the parish, because aristocrats feel no shame about being fed by the nation.
XIV
FOLLY AND FEMALE EDUCATION
It is the same in the case of girls. I am often solemnly asked what I think of the new ideas about female education. But there are no new ideas about female education. There is not, there never has been, even the vestige of a new idea. All the educational reformers did was to ask what was being done to boys and then go and do it to girls; just as they asked what was being taught to young squires and then taught it to young chimney sweeps. What they call new ideas are very old ideas in the wrong place. Boys play football, why shouldn’t girls play football; boys have school colors, why shouldn’t girls have school-colors; boys go in hundreds to day-schools, why shouldn’t girls go in hundreds to day-schools; boys go to Oxford, why shouldn’t girls go to Oxford—in short, boys grow mustaches, why shouldn’t girls grow mustaches—that is about their notion of a new idea. There is no brain-work in the thing at all; no root query of what sex is, of whether it alters this or that, and why, anymore than there is any imaginative grip of the humor and heart of the populace in the popular education. There is nothing but plodding, elaborate, elephantine imitation. And just as in the case of elementary teaching, the cases are of a cold and reckless inappropriateness. Even a savage could see that bodily things, at least, which are good for a man are very likely to be bad for a woman. Yet there is no boy’s game, however brutal, which these mild lunatics have not promoted among girls. To take a stronger case, they give girls very heavy home-work; never reflecting that all girls have home-work already in their homes. It is all a part of the same silly subjugation; there must be a hard stick-up collar round the neck of a woman, because it is already a nuisance round the neck of a man. Though a Saxon serf, if he wore that collar of cardboard, would ask for his collar of brass.
It will then be answered, not without a sneer, “And what would you prefer? Would you go back to the elegant early Victorian female, with ringlets and smelling-bottle, doing a little in water colors, dabbling a little in Italian, playing a little on the harp, writing in vulgar albums and painting on senseless screens? Do you prefer that?” To which I answer, “Emphatically, yes.” I solidly prefer it to the new female education, for this reason, that I can see in it an intellectual design, while there is none in the other. I am by no means sure that even in point of practical fact that elegant female would not have been more than a match for most of the inelegant females. I fancy Jane Austen was stronger, sharper and shrewder than Charlotte Bronte; I am quite certain she was stronger, sharper and shrewder than George Eliot. She could do one thing neither of them could do: she could coolly and sensibly describe a man. I am not sure that the old great lady who could only smatter Italian was not more vigorous than the new great lady who can only stammer American; nor am I certain that the bygone duchesses who were scarcely successful when they painted Melrose Abbey, were so much more weak-minded than the modern duchesses who paint only their own faces, and are bad at that. But that is not the point. What was the theory, what was the idea, in their old, weak water-colors and their shaky Italian? The idea was the same which in a ruder rank expressed itself in home-made wines and hereditary recipes; and which still, in a thousand unexpected ways, can be found clinging to the women of the poor. It was the idea I urged in the second part of this book: that the world must keep one great amateur, lest we all become artists and perish. Somebody must renounce all specialist conquests, that she may conquer all the conquerors. That she may be a queen of life, she must not be a private soldier in it. I do not think the elegant female with her bad Italian was a perfect product, any more than I think the slum woman talking gin and funerals is a perfect product; alas! there are few perfect products. But they come from a comprehensible idea; and the new woman comes from nothing and nowhere. It is right to have an ideal, it is right to have the right ideal, and these two have the right ideal. The slum mother with her funerals is the degenerate daughter of Antigone, the obstinate priestess of the household gods. The lady talking bad Italian was the decayed tenth cousin of Portia, the great and golden Italian lady, the Renascence amateur of life, who could be a barrister because she could be anything. Sunken and neglected in the sea of modern monotony and imitation, the types hold tightly to their original truths. Antigone, ugly, dirty and often drunken, will still bury her father. The elegant female, vapid and fading away to nothing, still feels faintly the fundamental difference between herself and her husband: that he must be Something in the City, that she may be everything in the country.
There was a time when you and I and all of us were all very close to God; so that even now the color of a pebble (or a paint), the smell of a flower (or a firework), comes to our hearts with a kind of authority and certainty; as if they were fragments of a muddled message, or features of a forgotten face. To pour that fiery simplicity upon the whole of life is the only real aim of education; and closest to the child comes the woman—she understands. To say what she understands is beyond me; save only this, that it is not a solemnity. Rather it is a towering levity, an uproarious amateurishness of the universe, such as we felt when we were little, and would as soon sing as garden, as soon paint as run. To smatter the tongues of men and angels, to dabble in the dreadful sciences, to juggle with pillars and pyramids and toss up the planets like balls, this is that inner audacity and indifference which the human soul, like a conjurer catching oranges, must keep up forever. This is that insanely frivolous thing we call sanity. And the elegant female, drooping her ringlets over her water-colors, knew it and acted on it. She was juggling with frantic and flaming suns. She was maintaining the bold equilibrium of inferiorities which is the most mysterious of superiorities and perhaps the most unattainable. She was maintaining the prime truth of woman, the universal mother: that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
PART FIVE
THE HOME OF MAN
I
THE EMPIRE OF THE INSECT
A cultivated Conservative friend of mine once exhibited great distress because in a gay moment I once called Edmund Burke an atheist. I need scarcely say that the remark lacked something of biographical precision; it was meant to. Burke was certainly not an atheist in his conscious cosmic theory, though he had not a special and flaming faith in God, like Robespierre. Nevertheless, the remark had reference to a truth which it is here relevant to repeat. I mean that in the quarrel over the French Revolution, Burke did stand for the atheistic attitude and mode of argument, as Robespierre stood for the theistic. The Revolution appealed to the idea of an abstract and eternal justice, beyond all local custom or convenience. If there are commands of God, then there must be rights of man. Here Burke made his brilliant diversion; he did not attack the Robespierre doctrine with the old mediaeval doctrine of jus divinum (which, like the Robespierre doctrine, was theistic), he attacked it with the modern argument of scientific relativity; in short, the argument of evolution. He suggested that humanity was everywhere molded by or fitted to its environment and institutions; in fact, that each people practically got, not only the tyrant it deserved, but the tyrant it ought to have. “I know nothing of the rights of men,” he said, “but I know something of the rights of Englishmen.” There you have the essential atheist. His argument is that we have got some protection by natural accident and growth; and why should we profess to think beyond it, for all the world as if we were the images of God! We are born under a House of Lords, as birds under a house of leaves; we live under a monarchy as niggers live under a tropic sun; it is not their fault if they are slaves, and it is not ours if we are snobs. Thus, long before Darwin struck his great blow at democracy, the essential of the Darwinian argument had been already urged against the French Revolution. Man, said Burke in effect, must adapt himself to everything, like an animal; he must not try to alter everything, like an angel. The last weak cry of the pious, pretty, half-artificial optimism and deism of the eighteenth century came in the voice of Sterne, saying, “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.” And Burke, the iron evolutionist, essentially answered, “No; God tempers the shorn lamb to the wind.” It is the lamb that has to adapt himself. That is, he either dies or becomes a particular kind of lamb who likes standing in a draught.
The subconscious popular instinct against Darwinism was not a mere offense at the grotesque notion of visiting one’s grandfather in a cage in the Regent’s Park. Men go in for drink, practical jokes and many other grotesque things; they do not much mind making beasts of themselves, and would not much mind having beasts made of their forefathers. The real instinct was much deeper and much more valuable. It was this: that when once one begins to think of man as a shifting and alterable thing, it is always easy for the strong and crafty to twist him into new shapes for all kinds of unnatural purposes. The popular instinct sees in such developments the possibility of backs bowed and hunch-backed for their burden, or limbs twisted for their task. It has a very well-grounded guess that whatever is done swiftly and systematically will mostly be done by a successful class and almost solely in their interests. It has therefore a vision of inhuman hybrids and half-human experiments much in the style of Mr. Wells’s “Island of Dr. Moreau.” The rich man may come to breeding a tribe of dwarfs to be his jockeys, and a tribe of giants to be his hall-porters. Grooms might be born bow-legged and tailors born cross-legged; perfumers might have long, large noses and a crouching attitude, like hounds of scent; and professional wine-tasters might have the horrible expression of one tasting wine stamped upon their faces as infants. Whatever wild image one employs it cannot keep pace with the panic of the human fancy, when once it supposes that the fixed type called man could be changed. If some millionaire wanted arms, some porter must grow ten arms like an octopus; if he wants legs, some messenger-boy must go with a hundred trotting legs like a centipede. In the distorted mirror of hypothesis, that is, of the unknown, men can dimly see such monstrous and evil shapes; men run all to eye, or all to fingers, with nothing left but one nostril or one ear. That is the nightmare with which the mere notion of adaptation threatens us. That is the nightmare that is not so very far from the reality.
It will be said that not the wildest evolutionist really asks that we should become in any way unhuman or copy any other animal. Pardon me, that is exactly what not merely the wildest evolutionists urge, but some of the tamest evolutionists too. There has risen high in recent history an important cultus which bids fair to be the religion of the future—which means the religion of those few weak-minded people who live in the future. It is typical of our time that it has to look for its god through a microscope; and our time has marked a definite adoration of the insect. Like most things we call new, of course, it is not at all new as an idea; it is only new as an idolatry. Virgil takes bees seriously but I doubt if he would have kept bees as carefully as he wrote about them. The wise king told the sluggard to watch the ant, a charming occupation—for a sluggard. But in our own time has appeared a very different tone, and more than one great man, as well as numberless intelligent men, have in our time seriously suggested that we should study the insect because we are his inferiors. The old moralists merely took the virtues of man and distributed them quite decoratively and arbitrarily among the animals. The ant was an almost heraldic symbol of industry, as the lion was of courage, or, for the matter of that, the pelican of charity. But if the mediaevals had been convinced that a lion was not courageous, they would have dropped the lion and kept the courage; if the pelican is not charitable, they would say, so much the worse for the pelican. The old moralists, I say, permitted the ant to enforce and typify man’s morality; they never allowed the ant to upset it. They used the ant for industry as the lark for punctuality; they looked up at the flapping birds and down at the crawling insects for a homely lesson. But we have lived to see a sect that does not look down at the insects, but looks up at the insects, that asks us essentially to bow down and worship beetles, like ancient Egyptians.
Maurice Maeterlinck is a man of unmistakable genius, and genius always carries a magnifying glass. In the terrible crystal of his lens we have seen the bees not as a little yellow swarm, but rather in golden armies and hierarchies of warriors and queens. Imagination perpetually peers and creeps further down the avenues and vistas in the tubes of science, and one fancies every frantic reversal of proportions; the earwig striding across the echoing plain like an elephant, or the grasshopper coming roaring above our roofs like a vast aeroplane, as he leaps from Hertfordshire to Surrey. One seems to enter in a dream a temple of enormous entomology, whose architecture is based on something wilder than arms or backbones; in which the ribbed columns have the half-crawling look of dim and monstrous caterpillars; or the dome is a starry spider hung horribly in the void. There is one of the modern works of engineering that gives one something of this nameless fear of the exaggerations of an underworld; and that is the curious curved architecture of the under ground railway, commonly called the Twopenny Tube. Those squat archways, without any upright line or pillar, look as if they had been tunneled by huge worms who have never learned to lift their heads. It is the very underground palace of the Serpent, the spirit of changing shape and color, that is the enemy of man.
But it is not merely by such strange aesthetic suggestions that writers like Maeterlinck have influenced us in the matter; there is also an ethical side to the business. The upshot of M. Maeterlinck’s book on bees is an admiration, one might also say an envy, of their collective spirituality; of the fact that they live only for something which he calls the Soul of the Hive. And this admiration for the communal morality of insects is expressed in many other modern writers in various quarters and shapes; in Mr. Benjamin Kidd’s theory of living only for the evolutionary future of our race, and in the great interest of some Socialists in ants, which they generally prefer to bees, I suppose, because they are not so brightly colored. Not least among the hundred evidences of this vague insectolatry are the floods of flattery poured by modern people on that energetic nation of the Far East of which it has been said that “Patriotism is its only religion”; or, in other words, that it lives only for the Soul of the Hive. When at long intervals of the centuries Christendom grows weak, morbid or skeptical, and mysterious Asia begins to move against us her dim populations and to pour them westward like a dark movement of matter, in such cases it has been very common to compare the invasion to a plague of lice or incessant armies of locusts. The Eastern armies were indeed like insects; in their blind, busy destructiveness, in their black nihilism of personal outlook, in their hateful indifference to individual life and love, in their base belief in mere numbers, in their pessimistic courage and their atheistic patriotism, the riders and raiders of the East are indeed like all the creeping things of the earth. But never before, I think, have Christians called a Turk a locust and meant it as a compliment. Now for the first time we worship as well as fear; and trace with adoration that enormous form advancing vast and vague out of Asia, faintly discernible amid the mystic clouds of winged creatures hung over the wasted lands, thronging the skies like thunder and discoloring the skies like rain; Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies.
In resisting this horrible theory of the Soul of the Hive, we of Christendom stand not for ourselves, but for all humanity; for the essential and distinctive human idea that one good and happy man is an end in himself, that a soul is worth saving. Nay, for those who like such biological fancies it might well be said that we stand as chiefs and champions of a whole section of nature, princes of the house whose cognizance is the backbone, standing for the milk of the individual mother and the courage of the wandering cub, representing the pathetic chivalry of the dog, the humor and perversity of cats, the affection of the tranquil horse, the loneliness of the lion. It is more to the point, however, to urge that this mere glorification of society as it is in the social insects is a transformation and a dissolution in one of the outlines which have been specially the symbols of man. In the cloud and confusion of the flies and bees is growing fainter and fainter, as is finally disappearing, the idea of the human family. The hive has become larger than the house, the bees are destroying their captors; what the locust hath left, the caterpillar hath eaten; and the little house and garden of our friend Jones is in a bad way.
II
THE FALLACY OF THE UMBRELLA STAND
When Lord Morley said that the House of Lords must be either mended or ended, he used a phrase which has caused some confusion; because it might seem to suggest that mending and ending are somewhat similar things. I wish specially to insist on the fact that mending and ending are opposite things. You mend a thing because you like it; you end a thing because you don’t. To mend is to strengthen. I, for instance, disbelieve in oligarchy; so I would no more mend the House of Lords than I would mend a thumbscrew. On the other hand, I do believe in the family; therefore I would mend the family as I would mend a chair; and I will never deny for a moment that the modern family is a chair that wants mending. But here comes in the essential point about the mass of modern advanced sociologists. Here are two institutions that have always been fundamental with mankind, the family and the state. Anarchists, I believe, disbelieve in both. It is quite unfair to say that Socialists believe in the state, but do not believe in the family; thousands of Socialists believe more in the family than any Tory. But it is true to say that while anarchists would end both, Socialists are specially engaged in mending (that is, strengthening and renewing) the state; and they are not specially engaged in strengthening and renewing the family. They are not doing anything to define the functions of father, mother, and child, as such; they are not tightening the machine up again; they are not blackening in again the fading lines of the old drawing. With the state they are doing this; they are sharpening its machinery, they are blackening in its black dogmatic lines, they are making mere government in every way stronger and in some ways harsher than before. While they leave the home in ruins, they restore the hive, especially the stings. Indeed, some schemes of labor and Poor Law reform recently advanced by distinguished Socialists, amount to little more than putting the largest number of people in the despotic power of Mr. Bumble. Apparently, progress means being moved on— by the police.
The point it is my purpose to urge might perhaps be suggested thus: that Socialists and most social reformers of their color are vividly conscious of the line between the kind of things that belong to the state and the kind of things that belong to mere chaos or uncoercible nature; they may force children to go to school before the sun rises, but they will not try to force the sun to rise; they will not, like Canute, banish the sea, but only the sea-bathers. But inside the outline of the state their lines are confused, and entities melt into each other. They have no firm instinctive sense of one thing being in its nature private and another public, of one thing being necessarily bond and another free. That is why piece by piece, and quite silently, personal liberty is being stolen from Englishmen, as personal land has been silently stolen ever since the sixteenth century.
I can only put it sufficiently curtly in a careless simile. A Socialist means a man who thinks a walking-stick like an umbrella because they both go into the umbrella-stand. Yet they are as different as a battle-ax and a bootjack. The essential idea of an umbrella is breadth and protection. The essential idea of a stick is slenderness and, partly, attack. The stick is the sword, the umbrella is the shield, but it is a shield against another and more nameless enemy— the hostile but anonymous universe. More properly, therefore, the umbrella is the roof; it is a kind of collapsible house. But the vital difference goes far deeper than this; it branches off into two kingdoms of man’s mind, with a chasm between. For the point is this: that the umbrella is a shield against an enemy so actual as to be a mere nuisance; whereas the stick is a sword against enemies so entirely imaginary as to be a pure pleasure. The stick is not merely a sword, but a court sword; it is a thing of purely ceremonial swagger. One cannot express the emotion in any way except by saying that a man feels more like a man with a stick in his hand, just as he feels more like a man with a sword at his side. But nobody ever had any swelling sentiments about an umbrella; it is a convenience, like a door scraper. An umbrella is a necessary evil. A walking-stick is a quite unnecessary good. This, I fancy, is the real explanation of the perpetual losing of umbrellas; one does not hear of people losing walking sticks. For a walking-stick is a pleasure, a piece of real personal property; it is missed even when it is not needed. When my right hand forgets its stick may it forget its cunning. But anybody may forget an umbrella, as anybody might forget a shed that he has stood up in out of the rain. Anybody can forget a necessary thing.
If I might pursue the figure of speech, I might briefly say that the whole Collectivist error consists in saying that because two men can share an umbrella, therefore two men can share a walking-stick. Umbrellas might possibly be replaced by some kind of common awnings covering certain streets from particular showers. But there is nothing but nonsense in the notion of swinging a communal stick; it is as if one spoke of twirling a communal mustache. It will be said that this is a frank fantasia and that no sociologists suggest such follies. Pardon me if they do. I will give a precise parallel to the case of confusion of sticks and umbrellas, a parallel from a perpetually reiterated suggestion of reform. At least sixty Socialists out of a hundred, when they have spoken of common laundries, will go on at once to speak of common kitchens. This is just as mechanical and unintelligent as the fanciful case I have quoted. Sticks and umbrellas are both stiff rods that go into holes in a stand in the hall. Kitchens and washhouses are both large rooms full of heat and damp and steam. But the soul and function of the two things are utterly opposite. There is only one way of washing a shirt; that is, there is only one right way. There is no taste and fancy in tattered shirts. Nobody says, “Tompkins likes five holes in his shirt, but I must say, give me the good old four holes.” Nobody says, “This washerwoman rips up the left leg of my pyjamas; now if there is one thing I insist on it is the right leg ripped up.” The ideal washing is simply to send a thing back washed. But it is by no means true that the ideal cooking is simply to send a thing back cooked. Cooking is an art; it has in it personality, and even perversity, for the definition of an art is that which must be personal and may be perverse. I know a man, not otherwise dainty, who cannot touch common sausages unless they are almost burned to a coal. He wants his sausages fried to rags, yet he does not insist on his shirts being boiled to rags. I do not say that such points of culinary delicacy are of high importance. I do not say that the communal ideal must give way to them. What I say is that the communal ideal is not conscious of their existence, and therefore goes wrong from the very start, mixing a wholly public thing with a highly individual one. Perhaps we ought to accept communal kitchens in the social crisis, just as we should accept communal cat’s-meat in a siege. But the cultured Socialist, quite at his ease, by no means in a siege, talks about communal kitchens as if they were the same kind of thing as communal laundries. This shows at the start that he misunderstands human nature. It is as different as three men singing the same chorus from three men playing three tunes on the same piano.
III
THE DREADFUL DUTY OF GUDGE
In the quarrel earlier alluded to between the energetic Progressive and the obstinate Conservative (or, to talk a tenderer language, between Hudge and Gudge), the state of cross-purposes is at the present moment acute. The Tory says he wants to preserve family life in Cindertown; the Socialist very reasonably points out to him that in Cindertown at present there isn’t any family life to preserve. But Hudge, the Socialist, in his turn, is highly vague and mysterious about whether he would preserve the family life if there were any; or whether he will try to restore it where it has disappeared. It is all very confusing. The Tory sometimes talks as if he wanted to tighten the domestic bonds that do not exist; the Socialist as if he wanted to loosen the bonds that do not bind anybody. The question we all want to ask of both of them is the original ideal question, “Do you want to keep the family at all?” If Hudge, the Socialist, does want the family he must be prepared for the natural restraints, distinctions and divisions of labor in the family. He must brace himself up to bear the idea of the woman having a preference for the private house and a man for the public house. He must manage to endure somehow the idea of a woman being womanly, which does not mean soft and yielding, but handy, thrifty, rather hard, and very humorous. He must confront without a quiver the notion of a child who shall be childish, that is, full of energy, but without an idea of independence; fundamentally as eager for authority as for information and butter-scotch. If a man, a woman and a child live together any more in free and sovereign households, these ancient relations will recur; and Hudge must put up with it. He can only avoid it by destroying the family, driving both sexes into sexless hives and hordes, and bringing up all children as the children of the state—like Oliver Twist. But if these stern words must be addressed to Hudge, neither shall Gudge escape a somewhat severe admonition. For the plain truth to be told pretty sharply to the Tory is this, that if he wants the family to remain, if he wants to be strong enough to resist the rending forces of our essentially savage commerce, he must make some very big sacrifices and try to equalize property. The overwhelming mass of the English people at this particular instant are simply too poor to be domestic. They are as domestic as they can manage; they are much more domestic than the governing class; but they cannot get what good there was originally meant to be in this institution, simply because they have not got enough money. The man ought to stand for a certain magnanimity, quite lawfully expressed in throwing money away: but if under given circumstances he can only do it by throwing the week’s food away, then he is not magnanimous, but mean. The woman ought to stand for a certain wisdom which is well expressed in valuing things rightly and guarding money sensibly; but how is she to guard money if there is no money to guard? The child ought to look on his mother as a fountain of natural fun and poetry; but how can he unless the fountain, like other fountains, is allowed to play? What chance have any of these ancient arts and functions in a house so hideously topsy-turvy; a house where the woman is out working and the man isn’t; and the child is forced by law to think his schoolmaster’s requirements more important than his mother’s? No, Gudge and his friends in the House of Lords and the Carlton Club must make up their minds on this matter, and that very quickly. If they are content to have England turned into a beehive and an ant-hill, decorated here and there with a few faded butterflies playing at an old game called domesticity in the intervals of the divorce court, then let them have their empire of insects; they will find plenty of Socialists who will give it to them. But if they want a domestic England, they must “shell out,” as the phrase goes, to a vastly greater extent than any Radical politician has yet dared to suggest; they must endure burdens much heavier than the Budget and strokes much deadlier than the death duties; for the thing to be done is nothing more nor less than the distribution of the great fortunes and the great estates. We can now only avoid Socialism by a change as vast as Socialism. If we are to save property, we must distribute property, almost as sternly and sweepingly as did the French Revolution. If we are to preserve the family we must revolutionize the nation.
IV
A LAST INSTANCE
And now, as this book is drawing to a close, I will whisper in the reader’s ear a horrible suspicion that has sometimes haunted me: the suspicion that Hudge and Gudge are secretly in partnership. That the quarrel they keep up in public is very much of a put-up job, and that the way in which they perpetually play into each other’s hands is not an everlasting coincidence. Gudge, the plutocrat, wants an anarchic industrialism; Hudge, the idealist, provides him with lyric praises of anarchy. Gudge wants women-workers because they are cheaper; Hudge calls the woman’s work “freedom to live her own life.” Gudge wants steady and obedient workmen, Hudge preaches teetotalism— to workmen, not to Gudge—Gudge wants a tame and timid population who will never take arms against tyranny; Hudge proves from Tolstoi that nobody must take arms against anything. Gudge is naturally a healthy and well-washed gentleman; Hudge earnestly preaches the perfection of Gudge’s washing to people who can’t practice it. Above all, Gudge rules by a coarse and cruel system of sacking and sweating and bi-sexual toil which is totally inconsistent with the free family and which is bound to destroy it; therefore Hudge, stretching out his arms to the universe with a prophetic smile, tells us that the family is something that we shall soon gloriously outgrow.
I do not know whether the partnership of Hudge and Gudge is conscious or unconscious. I only know that between them they still keep the common man homeless. I only know I still meet Jones walking the streets in the gray twilight, looking sadly at the poles and barriers and low red goblin lanterns which still guard the house which is none the less his because he has never been in it.
V
CONCLUSION
Here, it may be said, my book ends just where it ought to begin. I have said that the strong centers of modern English property must swiftly or slowly be broken up, if even the idea of property is to remain among Englishmen. There are two ways in which it could be done, a cold administration by quite detached officials, which is called Collectivism, or a personal distribution, so as to produce what is called Peasant Proprietorship. I think the latter solution the finer and more fully human, because it makes each man as somebody blamed somebody for saying of the Pope, a sort of small god. A man on his own turf tastes eternity or, in other words, will give ten minutes more work than is required. But I believe I am justified in shutting the door on this vista of argument, instead of opening it. For this book is not designed to prove the case for Peasant Proprietorship, but to prove the case against modern sages who turn reform to a routine. The whole of this book has been a rambling and elaborate urging of one purely ethical fact. And if by any chance it should happen that there are still some who do not quite see what that point is, I will end with one plain parable, which is none the worse for being also a fact.
A little while ago certain doctors and other persons permitted by modern law to dictate to their shabbier fellow-citizens, sent out an order that all little girls should have their hair cut short. I mean, of course, all little girls whose parents were poor. Many very unhealthy habits are common among rich little girls, but it will be long before any doctors interfere forcibly with them. Now, the case for this particular interference was this, that the poor are pressed down from above into such stinking and suffocating underworlds of squalor, that poor people must not be allowed to have hair, because in their case it must mean lice in the hair. Therefore, the doctors propose to abolish the hair. It never seems to have occurred to them to abolish the lice. Yet it could be done. As is common in most modern discussions the unmentionable thing is the pivot of the whole discussion. It is obvious to any Christian man (that is, to any man with a free soul) that any coercion applied to a cabman’s daughter ought, if possible, to be applied to a Cabinet Minister’s daughter. I will not ask why the doctors do not, as a matter of fact apply their rule to a Cabinet Minister’s daughter. I will not ask, because I know. They do not because they dare not. But what is the excuse they would urge, what is the plausible argument they would use, for thus cutting and clipping poor children and not rich? Their argument would be that the disease is more likely to be in the hair of poor people than of rich. And why? Because the poor children are forced (against all the instincts of the highly domestic working classes) to crowd together in close rooms under a wildly inefficient system of public instruction; and because in one out of the forty children there may be offense. And why? Because the poor man is so ground down by the great rents of the great ground landlords that his wife often has to work as well as he. Therefore she has no time to look after the children, therefore one in forty of them is dirty. Because the workingman has these two persons on top of him, the landlord sitting (literally) on his stomach, and the schoolmaster sitting (literally) on his head, the workingman must allow his little girl’s hair, first to be neglected from poverty, next to be poisoned by promiscuity, and, lastly, to be abolished by hygiene. He, perhaps, was proud of his little girl’s hair. But he does not count.
Upon this simple principle (or rather precedent) the sociological doctor drives gayly ahead. When a crapulous tyranny crushes men down into the dirt, so that their very hair is dirty, the scientific course is clear. It would be long and laborious to cut off the heads of the tyrants; it is easier to cut off the hair of the slaves. In the same way, if it should ever happen that poor children, screaming with toothache, disturbed any schoolmaster or artistic gentleman, it would be easy to pull out all the teeth of the poor; if their nails were disgustingly dirty, their nails could be plucked out; if their noses were indecently blown, their noses could be cut off. The appearance of our humbler fellow-citizen could be quite strikingly simplified before we had done with him. But all this is not a bit wilder than the brute fact that a doctor can walk into the house of a free man, whose daughter’s hair may be as clean as spring flowers, and order him to cut it off. It never seems to strike these people that the lesson of lice in the slums is the wrongness of slums, not the wrongness of hair. Hair is, to say the least of it, a rooted thing. Its enemy (like the other insects and oriental armies of whom we have spoken) sweep upon us but seldom. In truth, it is only by eternal institutions like hair that we can test passing institutions like empires. If a house is so built as to knock a man’s head off when he enters it, it is built wrong.
The mob can never rebel unless it is conservative, at least enough to have conserved some reasons for rebelling. It is the most awful thought in all our anarchy, that most of the ancient blows struck for freedom would not be struck at all to-day, because of the obscuration of the clean, popular customs from which they came. The insult that brought down the hammer of Wat Tyler might now be called a medical examination. That which Virginius loathed and avenged as foul slavery might now be praised as free love. The cruel taunt of Foulon, “Let them eat grass,” might now be represented as the dying cry of an idealistic vegetarian. Those great scissors of science that would snip off the curls of the poor little school children are ceaselessly snapping closer and closer to cut off all the corners and fringes of the arts and honors of the poor. Soon they will be twisting necks to suit clean collars, and hacking feet to fit new boots. It never seems to strike them that the body is more than raiment; that the Sabbath was made for man; that all institutions shall be judged and damned by whether they have fitted the normal flesh and spirit. It is the test of political sanity to keep your head. It is the test of artistic sanity to keep your hair on.
Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all these pages, is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl’s hair. That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set fire to all modern civilization. Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home: because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution. That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict’s; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.
THREE NOTES
I
ON FEMALE SUFFRAGE
Not wishing to overload this long essay with too many parentheses, apart from its thesis of progress and precedent, I append here three notes on points of detail that may possibly be misunderstood.
The first refers to the female controversy. It may seem to many that I dismiss too curtly the contention that all women should have votes, even if most women do not desire them. It is constantly said in this connection that males have received the vote (the agricultural laborers for instance) when only a minority of them were in favor of it. Mr. Galsworthy, one of the few fine fighting intellects of our time, has talked this language in the “Nation.” Now, broadly, I have only to answer here, as everywhere in this book, that history is not a toboggan slide, but a road to be reconsidered and even retraced. If we really forced General Elections upon free laborers who definitely disliked General Elections, then it was a thoroughly undemocratic thing to do; if we are democrats we ought to undo it. We want the will of the people, not the votes of the people; and to give a man a vote against his will is to make voting more valuable than the democracy it declares.
But this analogy is false, for a plain and particular reason. Many voteless women regard a vote as unwomanly. Nobody says that most voteless men regarded a vote as unmanly. Nobody says that any voteless men regarded it as unmanly. Not in the stillest hamlet or the most stagnant fen could you find a yokel or a tramp who thought he lost his sexual dignity by being part of a political mob. If he did not care about a vote it was solely because he did not know about a vote; he did not understand the word any better than Bimetallism. His opposition, if it existed, was merely negative. His indifference to a vote was really indifference.
But the female sentiment against the franchise, whatever its size, is positive. It is not negative; it is by no means indifferent. Such women as are opposed to the change regard it (rightly or wrongly) as unfeminine. That is, as insulting certain affirmative traditions to which they are attached. You may think such a view prejudiced; but I violently deny that any democrat has a right to override such prejudices, if they are popular and positive. Thus he would not have a right to make millions of Moslems vote with a cross if they had a prejudice in favor of voting with a crescent. Unless this is admitted, democracy is a farce we need scarcely keep up. If it is admitted, the Suffragists have not merely to awaken an indifferent, but to convert a hostile majority.
II
ON CLEANLINESS IN EDUCATION
On re-reading my protest, which I honestly think much needed, against our heathen idolatry of mere ablution, I see that it may possibly be misread. I hasten to say that I think washing a most important thing to be taught both to rich and poor. I do not attack the positive but the relative position of soap. Let it be insisted on even as much as now; but let other things be insisted on much more. I am even ready to admit that cleanliness is next to godliness; but the moderns will not even admit godliness to be next to cleanliness. In their talk about Thomas Becket and such saints and heroes they make soap more important than soul; they reject godliness whenever it is not cleanliness. If we resent this about remote saints and heroes, we should resent it more about the many saints and heroes of the slums, whose unclean hands cleanse the world. Dirt is evil chiefly as evidence of sloth; but the fact remains that the classes that wash most are those that work least. Concerning these, the practical course is simple; soap should be urged on them and advertised as what it is—a luxury. With regard to the poor also the practical course is not hard to harmonize with our thesis. If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then emphatically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for being dirty.
III
ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP
I have not dealt with any details touching distributed ownership, or its possibility in England, for the reason stated in the text. This book deals with what is wrong, wrong in our root of argument and effort. This wrong is, I say, that we will go forward because we dare not go back. Thus the Socialist says that property is already concentrated into Trusts and Stores: the only hope is to concentrate it further in the State. I say the only hope is to unconcentrate it; that is, to repent and return; the only step forward is the step backward.
But in connection with this distribution I have laid myself open to another potential mistake. In speaking of a sweeping redistribution, I speak of decision in the aim, not necessarily of abruptness in the means. It is not at all too late to restore an approximately rational state of English possessions without any mere confiscation. A policy of buying out landlordism, steadily adopted in England as it has already been adopted in Ireland (notably in Mr. Wyndham’s wise and fruitful Act), would in a very short time release the lower end of the see-saw and make the whole plank swing more level. The objection to this course is not at all that it would not do, only that it will not be done. If we leave things as they are, there will almost certainly be a crash of confiscation. If we hesitate, we shall soon have to hurry. But if we start doing it quickly we have still time to do it slowly.
This point, however, is not essential to my book. All I have to urge between these two boards is that I dislike the big Whiteley shop, and that I dislike Socialism because it will (according to Socialists) be so like that shop. It is its fulfilment, not its reversal. I do not object to Socialism because it will revolutionize our commerce, but because it will leave it so horribly the same.
PART ONE: THE HOMELESSNESS OF MAN
I The Medical Mistake II Wanted: An Unpractical Man III The New Hypocrite IV The Fear of the Past V The Unfinished Temple VI The Enemies of Property VII The Free Family XIII The Wildness of Domesticity IX History of Hudge and Gudge X Oppression by Optimism XI The Homelessness of Jones
PARTE PRIMA: L’UOMO SENZA CASA
I L’errore medico II Cercasi: un uomo poco pratico III Il nuovo ipocrita IV La Paura del passato V Il tempio incompiuto VI I nemici della proprietà VII La famiglia libera XIII La selvatichezza del focolare domestico IX Storia di Hudge e Gudge X L’oppressione dell’ottimismo XI Jones senza casa
PART TWO: IMPERIALISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT MAN
I The Charm of Jingoism II Wisdom and the Weather III The Common Vision IV The Insane Necessity
PARTE SECONDA: L’IMPERIALISMO, OVVERO L’ERRORE SULL’UOMO
I Il fascino del jingoismo II La saggezza e il tempo atmosferico III La visione comune IV La folle necessità
PART THREE: FEMINISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT WOMAN
I The Unmilitary Suffragette II The Universal Stick III The Emancipation of Domesticity IV The Romance of Thrift V The Coldness of Chloe VI The Pedant and the Savage VII The Modern Surrender of Woman VIII The Brand of the Fleur-de-Lis IX Sincerity and the Gallows X The Higher Anarchy XI The Queen and the Suffragettes XII The Modern Slave
PART FOUR: EDUCATION, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT THE CHILD
I The Calvinism of To-day II The Tribal Terror III The Tricks of Environment IV The Truth About Education V An Evil Cry VI Authority the Unavoidable VII The Humility of Mrs. Grundy VIII The Broken Rainbow IX The Need for Narrowness X The Case for the Public Schools XI The School for Hypocrites XII The Staleness of the New Schools XIII The Outlawed Parent XIV Folly and Female Education
PARTE TERZA: FEMMINISMO, OVVERO L’ERRORE SULLA DONNA
I La Suffragetta Non Militare II Il Bastone Universale III L’Emancipazione della Domesticità IV Il Romanzo del Risparmio V La Freddezza di Cloe VI Il Pedante e il Selvaggio VII La Moderna Resa della Donna VIII Il Marchio del Giglio IX La Sincerità e la Forca X L’Anarchia Superiore XI La Regina e le Suffragette XII Lo Schiavo Moderno
PARTE QUARTA: EDUCAZIONE, OVVERO L’ERRORE SUL BAMBINO
I Il Calvinismo di Oggi II Il Terrore Tribale III I Trucchi dell’Ambiente IV La Verità sull’Educazione V Un Grido Malvagio VI L’Autorità Inevitabile VII L’Umiltà della Signora Grundy VIII L’Arcobaleno Spezzato IX Il Bisogno di Ristrettezza X In Difesa delle Scuole Pubbliche XI La Scuola per Ipocriti XII Il Ristagno delle Nuove Scuole XIII Il Genitore Messo al Bando XIV La Follia e l’Educazione Femminile
PART FIVE: THE HOME OF MAN
I The Empire of the Insect II The Fallacy of the Umbrella Stand III The Dreadful Duty of Gudge IV A Last Instance V Conclusion
THREE NOTES
I On Female Suffrage II On Cleanliness in Education III On Peasant Proprietorship
DEDICATION
To C. F G. Masterman, M. P.
My Dear Charles,
I originally called this book “What is Wrong,” and it would have satisfied your sardonic temper to note the number of social misunderstandings that arose from the use of the title. Many a mild lady visitor opened her eyes when I remarked casually, “I have been doing ‘What is Wrong’ all this morning.” And one minister of religion moved quite sharply in his chair when I told him (as he understood it) that I had to run upstairs and do what was wrong, but should be down again in a minute. Exactly of what occult vice they silently accused me I cannot conjecture, but I know of what I accuse myself; and that is, of having written a very shapeless and inadequate book, and one quite unworthy to be dedicated to you. As far as literature goes, this book is what is wrong and no mistake.
It may seem a refinement of insolence to present so wild a composition to one who has recorded two or three of the really impressive visions of the moving millions of England. You are the only man alive who can make the map of England crawl with life; a most creepy and enviable accomplishment. Why then should I trouble you with a book which, even if it achieves its object (which is monstrously unlikely) can only be a thundering gallop of theory?
Well, I do it partly because I think you politicians are none the worse for a few inconvenient ideals; but more because you will recognise the many arguments we have had, those arguments which the most wonderful ladies in the world can never endure for very long. And, perhaps, you will agree with me that the thread of comradeship and conversation must be protected because it is so frivolous. It must be held sacred, it must not be snapped, because it is not worth tying together again. It is exactly because argument is idle that men (I mean males) must take it seriously; for when (we feel), until the crack of doom, shall we have so delightful a difference again? But most of all I offer it to you because there exists not only comradeship, but a very different thing, called friendship; an agreement under all the arguments and a thread which, please God, will never break.
Yours always,
G. K. Chesterton.
PARTE QUINTA: LA CASA DELL’UOMO
I L’Impero dell’Insetto II La Fallacia del Portaombrelli III Il Terribile Dovere di Gudge IV Un Ultimo Esempio V Conclusione
TRE NOTE
I Sul Suffragio Femminile II Sulla Pulizia nell’Istruzione III Sulla Piccola Proprietà Contadina
DEDICA
A C. F G. Masterman, M. P.
Mio caro Charles,
In origine intitolai questo libro “What is Wrong”, e avrebbe soddisfatto il tuo umore sardonico notare il numero di malintesi sociali sorti dall’uso di quel titolo. Più d’una mite signora in visita sgranava gli occhi quando osservavo con noncuranza: “Ho passato tutta la mattinata a fare ‘What is Wrong’.” E un ministro del culto si mosse assai bruscamente sulla sedia quando gli dissi (per come lui intese) che dovevo correre di sopra a fare ciò che è sbagliato, ma che sarei tornato giù di lì a un minuto. Di quale occulto vizio mi accusassero in silenzio non so congetturare, ma so di che cosa accuso me stesso; e cioè, di aver scritto un libro assai informe e inadeguato, e del tutto indegno di esserti dedicato. Per quanto riguarda la letteratura, questo libro è proprio ciò che è sbagliato, non c’è dubbio.
Può sembrare un raffinamento d’insolenza presentare una composizione così sfrenata a chi ha registrato due o tre delle visioni davvero imponenti dei milioni in movimento dell’Inghilterra. Sei l’unico uomo vivente capace di far brulicare di vita la mappa dell’Inghilterra; un talento quanto mai inquietante e invidiabile. Perché dunque dovrei importunarti con un libro che, anche se raggiungesse il suo scopo (cosa mostruosamente improbabile), non può essere altro che un fragoroso galoppo di teoria?
Ebbene, lo faccio in parte perché credo che a voi politici non faccia male qualche ideale scomodo; ma più ancora perché riconoscerai le molte discussioni che abbiamo avuto, quelle discussioni che le donne più meravigliose del mondo non riescono mai a sopportare a lungo. E, forse, converrai con me che il filo del cameratismo e della conversazione va protetto proprio perché è così frivolo. Va tenuto sacro, non va spezzato, perché non varrebbe la pena riannodarlo. È proprio perché discutere è ozioso che gli uomini (intendo i maschi) devono prenderlo sul serio; poiché quando mai (sentiamo), fino allo schianto del giudizio universale, avremo di nuovo una divergenza così deliziosa? Ma soprattutto te lo offro perché esiste non solo il cameratismo, ma una cosa molto diversa, chiamata amicizia; un accordo che sta sotto tutte le discussioni e un filo che, a Dio piacendo, non si spezzerà mai.
Sempre tuo,
G. K. Chesterton.
PART ONE
THE HOMELESSNESS OF MAN
THE MEDICAL MISTAKE
A book of modern social inquiry has a shape that is somewhat sharply defined. It begins as a rule with an analysis, with statistics, tables of population, decrease of crime among Congregationalists, growth of hysteria among policemen, and similar ascertained facts; it ends with a chapter that is generally called “The Remedy.” It is almost wholly due to this careful, solid, and scientific method that “The Remedy” is never found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder; the first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure before we find the disease.
The fallacy is one of the fifty fallacies that come from the modern madness for biological or bodily metaphors. It is convenient to speak of the Social Organism, just as it is convenient to speak of the British Lion. But Britain is no more an organism than Britain is a lion. The moment we begin to give a nation the unity and simplicity of an animal, we begin to think wildly. Because every man is a biped, fifty men are not a centipede. This has produced, for instance, the gaping absurdity of perpetually talking about “young nations” and “dying nations,” as if a nation had a fixed and physical span of life. Thus people will say that Spain has entered a final senility; they might as well say that Spain is losing all her teeth. Or people will say that Canada should soon produce a literature; which is like saying that Canada must soon grow a new moustache. Nations consist of people; the first generation may be decrepit, or the ten thousandth may be vigorous. Similar applications of the fallacy are made by those who see in the increasing size of national possessions, a simple increase in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. These people, indeed, even fall short in subtlety of the parallel of a human body. They do not even ask whether an empire is growing taller in its youth, or only growing fatter in its old age. But of all the instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the worst is that we have before us: the habit of exhaustively describing a social sickness, and then propounding a social drug.
Now we do talk first about the disease in cases of bodily breakdown; and that for an excellent reason. Because, though there may be doubt about the way in which the body broke down, there is no doubt at all about the shape in which it should be built up again. No doctor proposes to produce a new kind of man, with a new arrangement of eyes or limbs. The hospital, by necessity, may send a man home with one leg less: but it will not (in a creative rapture) send him home with one leg extra. Medical science is content with the normal human body, and only seeks to restore it.
But social science is by no means always content with the normal human soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale. Man as a social idealist will say “I am tired of being a Puritan; I want to be a Pagan,” or “Beyond this dark probation of Individualism I see the shining paradise of Collectivism.” Now in bodily ills there is none of this difference about the ultimate ideal. The patient may or may not want quinine; but he certainly wants health. No one says “I am tired of this headache; I want some toothache,” or “The only thing for this Russian influenza is a few German measles,” or “Through this dark probation of catarrh I see the shining paradise of rheumatism.” But exactly the whole difficulty in our public problems is that some men are aiming at cures which other men would regard as worse maladies; are offering ultimate conditions as states of health which others would uncompromisingly call states of disease. Mr. Belloc once said that he would no more part with the idea of property than with his teeth; yet to Mr. Bernard Shaw property is not a tooth, but a toothache. Lord Milner has sincerely attempted to introduce German efficiency; and many of us would as soon welcome German measles. Dr. Saleeby would honestly like to have Eugenics; but I would rather have rheumatics.
This is the arresting and dominant fact about modern social discussion; that the quarrel is not merely about the difficulties, but about the aim. We agree about the evil; it is about the good that we should tear each other’s eyes out. We all admit that a lazy aristocracy is a bad thing. We should not by any means all admit that an active aristocracy would be a good thing. We all feel angry with an irreligious priesthood; but some of us would go mad with disgust at a really religious one. Everyone is indignant if our army is weak, including the people who would be even more indignant if it were strong. The social case is exactly the opposite of the medical case. We do not disagree, like doctors, about the precise nature of the illness, while agreeing about the nature of health. On the contrary, we all agree that England is unhealthy, but half of us would not look at her in what the other half would call blooming health. Public abuses are so prominent and pestilent that they sweep all generous people into a sort of fictitious unanimity. We forget that, while we agree about the abuses of things, we should differ very much about the uses of them. Mr. Cadbury and I would agree about the bad public house. It would be precisely in front of the good public-house that our painful personal fracas would occur.
I maintain, therefore, that the common sociological method is quite useless: that of first dissecting abject poverty or cataloguing prostitution. We all dislike abject poverty; but it might be another business if we began to discuss independent and dignified poverty. We all disapprove of prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity. The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity? I have called this book “What Is Wrong with the World?” and the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right.
PARTE PRIMA
LA MANCANZA DI CASA DELL’UOMO
L’ERRORE MEDICO
Un libro di moderna indagine sociale ha una forma alquanto nettamente definita. Comincia di regola con un’analisi, con statistiche, tavole della popolazione, decremento del crimine tra i congregazionalisti, crescita dell’isteria tra i poliziotti, e simili fatti accertati; si conclude con un capitolo che generalmente si intitola «Il Rimedio». È quasi interamente per merito di questo metodo attento, solido e scientifico che «Il Rimedio» non viene mai trovato. Poiché questo schema di domanda e risposta medica è un abbaglio; il primo grande abbaglio della sociologia. Lo si chiama sempre enunciare la malattia prima di trovare la cura. Ma è l’intera definizione e dignità dell’uomo che nelle questioni sociali dobbiamo in realtà trovare la cura prima di trovare la malattia.
La fallacia è una delle cinquanta fallacie che provengono dalla moderna follia per le metafore biologiche o corporee. È comodo parlare dell’Organismo Sociale, così come è comodo parlare del Lion britannico. Ma la Gran Bretagna non è un organismo più di quanto la Gran Bretagna sia un leone. Nell’attimo in cui cominciamo a dare a una nazione l’unity unità e la semplicità di un animale, cominciamo a pensare stravagantemente. Poiché ogni uomo è un bipede, cinquanta uomini non sono un centopiedi. Questo ha prodotto, per esempio, l’assurdità sbadigliante del parlare perpetuamente di «giovani nazioni» e «nazioni morenti», come se una nazione avesse un arco di vita fisso e fisico. Così la gente dirà che la Spagna è entrata in una senilità finale; tanto varrebbe dire che la Spagna sta perdendo tutti i denti. Oppure la gente dirà che il Canada dovrebbe presto produrre una letteratura; il che equivale a dire che al Canada deve presto crescere un nuovo paio di baffi. Le nazioni consistono di persone; la prima generazione può essere decrepita, o la decimillesima può essere vigorosa. Simili applicazioni della fallacia sono fatte da coloro che vedono nella crescente estensione dei possedimenti nazionali un semplice incremento di saggezza e di statura, e di favore presso Dio e presso gli uomini. Costoro, invero, restano perfino al di sotto, in sottigliezza, del parallelo di un corpo umano. Non si chiedono neppure se un impero stia diventando più alto nella sua giovinezza, o stia solo diventando più grasso nella sua vecchiaia. Ma di tutti gli esempi di errore che sorgono da questa fantasticheria fisica, il peggiore è quello che abbiamo davanti: l’abitudine di descrivere esaurientemente una malattia sociale, e poi di propinare un farmaco sociale.
Ora, noi parliamo bensì per prima cosa della malattia nei casi di collasso corporeo; e ciò per un’eccellente ragione. Perché, sebbene possa esservi dubbio sul modo in cui il corpo è crollato, non vi è dubbio alcuno sulla forma in cui esso dovrebbe essere ricostruito. Nessun medico si propone di produrre un nuovo tipo d’uomo, con una nuova disposizione di occhi o di membra. L’ospedale, per necessità, può rimandare un uomo a casa con una gamba di meno: ma non lo rimanderà (in un rapimento creativo) a casa con una gamba in più. La scienza medica si accontenta del normale corpo umano, e cerca soltanto di ripristinarlo.
Ma la scienza sociale non si accontenta affatto sempre della normale anima umana; ha ogni sorta di anime di fantasia in vendita. L’uomo come idealista sociale dirà «Sono stanco di essere un puritano; voglio essere un pagano», oppure «Al di là di questa oscura prova dell’Individualism individualismo io scorgo lo splendente paradiso del collettivismo». Ora nei mali corporei non c’è nulla di questa divergenza sull’ideale ultimo. Il paziente può volere o non volere il chinino; ma di certo vuole la salute. Nessuno dice «Sono stanco di questo mal di testa; voglio un po’ di mal di denti», oppure «L’unica cosa per questa influenza russa è qualche morbillo tedesco», oppure «Attraverso questa oscura prova del catarro io scorgo lo splendente paradiso del reumatismo». Ma proprio l’intera difficoltà nei nostri problemi pubblici è che alcuni uomini mirano a cure che altri uomini considererebbero mali peggiori; offrono condizioni ultime come stati di salute che altri, senza compromessi, chiamerebbero stati di malattia. Il signor Belloc disse una volta che non si separerebbe dall’idea della proprietà più di quanto si separerebbe dai suoi denti; eppure per il signor Bernard Shaw la proprietà non è un dente, ma un mal di denti. Lord Milner ha sinceramente tentato di introdurre l’efficienza tedesca; e molti di noi darebbero volentieri il benvenuto al morbillo tedesco. Il dottor Saleeby vorrebbe onestamente avere l’Eugenics eugenetica; ma io preferirei avere i reumatismi.
Questo è il fatto arrestante e dominante della moderna discussione sociale; che la lite non riguarda meramente le difficoltà, ma il fine. Concordiamo sul male; è sul bene che ci caveremmo gli occhi a vicenda. Ammettiamo tutti che un’aristocrazia pigra sia una cosa cattiva. Non ammetteremmo affatto tutti che un’aristocrazia attiva sarebbe una cosa buona. Ci sentiamo tutti adirati con un clero irreligioso; ma alcuni di noi impazzirebbero di disgusto davanti a uno davvero religioso. Chiunque è indignato se il nostro esercito è debole, comprese le persone che sarebbero ancora più indignate se fosse forte. Il caso sociale è esattamente l’opposto del caso medico. Non siamo in disaccordo, come i medici, sulla precisa natura della malattia, pur concordando sulla natura della salute. Al contrario, concordiamo tutti che l’Inghilterra sia malsana, ma metà di noi non la guarderebbe in quella che l’altra metà chiamerebbe florida salute. Gli abusi pubblici sono così cospicui e pestilenziali che travolgono tutte le persone generose in una sorta di unanimità fittizia. Dimentichiamo che, mentre concordiamo sugli abusi delle cose, differiremmo assai sugli usi di esse. Il signor Cadbury e io concorderemmo sulla cattiva house osteria. Sarebbe proprio davanti alla buona house osteria che si verificherebbe la nostra penosa zuffa personale.
Sostengo, perciò, che il comune metodo sociologico è del tutto inutile: quello di sezionare per primo l’abietta povertà o di catalogare la prostituzione. A tutti spiace l’abietta povertà; ma potrebbe essere un altro paio di maniche se cominciassimo a discutere di una povertà indipendente e dignitosa. Disapproviamo tutti la prostituzione; ma non approviamo tutti la purezza. L’unico modo per discutere del male sociale è arrivare subito all’ideale sociale. Possiamo tutti vedere la follia nazionale; ma che cos’è la sanità mentale nazionale? Ho intitolato questo libro «Che cosa c’è di storto nel mondo?» e la conclusione del titolo può essere enunciata con facilità e chiarezza. Ciò che è storto è che non chiediamo che cosa sia giusto.
II
WANTED, AN UNPRACTICAL MAN
There is a popular philosophical joke intended to typify the endless and useless arguments of philosophers; I mean the joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not sure that properly understood, it is so futile an inquiry after all. I am not concerned here to enter on those deep metaphysical and theological differences of which the chicken and egg debate is a frivolous, but a very felicitous, type. The evolutionary materialists are appropriately enough represented in the vision of all things coming from an egg, a dim and monstrous oval germ that had laid itself by accident. That other supernatural school of thought (to which I personally adhere) would be not unworthily typified in the fancy that this round world of ours is but an egg brooded upon by a sacred unbegotten bird; the mystic dove of the prophets. But it is to much humbler functions that I here call the awful power of such a distinction. Whether or no the living bird is at the beginning of our mental chain, it is absolutely necessary that it should be at the end of our mental chain. The bird is the thing to be aimed at—not with a gun, but a life-bestowing wand. What is essential to our right thinking is this: that the egg and the bird must not be thought of as equal cosmic occurrences recurring alternatively forever. They must not become a mere egg and bird pattern, like the egg and dart pattern. One is a means and the other an end; they are in different mental worlds. Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself. Now our modern politics are full of a noisy forgetfulness; forgetfulness that the production of this happy and conscious life is after all the aim of all complexities and compromises. We talk of nothing but useful men and working institutions; that is, we only think of the chickens as things that will lay more eggs. Instead of seeking to breed our ideal bird, the eagle of Zeus or the Swan of Avon, or whatever we happen to want, we talk entirely in terms of the process and the embryo. The process itself, divorced from its divine object, becomes doubtful and even morbid; poison enters the embryo of everything; and our politics are rotten eggs.
Idealism is only considering everything in its practical essence. Idealism only means that we should consider a poker in reference to poking before we discuss its suitability for wife-beating; that we should ask if an egg is good enough for practical poultry-rearing before we decide that the egg is bad enough for practical politics. But I know that this primary pursuit of the theory (which is but pursuit of the aim) exposes one to the cheap charge of fiddling while Rome is burning. A school, of which Lord Rosebery is representative, has endeavored to substitute for the moral or social ideals which have hitherto been the motive of politics a general coherency or completeness in the social system which has gained the nick-name of “efficiency.” I am not very certain of the secret doctrine of this sect in the matter. But, as far as I can make out, “efficiency” means that we ought to discover everything about a machine except what it is for. There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things commonly work. When things will not work, you must have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it is quite right to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning.
It is then necessary to drop one’s daily agnosticism and attempt rerum cognoscere causas. If your aeroplane has a slight indisposition, a handy man may mend it. But, if it is seriously ill, it is all the more likely that some absent-minded old professor with wild white hair will have to be dragged out of a college or laboratory to analyze the evil. The more complicated the smash, the whiter-haired and more absent-minded will be the theorist who is needed to deal with it; and in some extreme cases, no one but the man (probably insane) who invented your flying-ship could possibly say what was the matter with it.
“Efficiency,” of course, is futile for the same reason that strong men, will-power and the superman are futile. That is, it is futile because it only deals with actions after they have been performed. It has no philosophy for incidents before they happen; therefore it has no power of choice. An act can only be successful or unsuccessful when it is over; if it is to begin, it must be, in the abstract, right or wrong. There is no such thing as backing a winner; for he cannot be a winner when he is backed. There is no such thing as fighting on the winning side; one fights to find out which is the winning side. If any operation has occurred, that operation was efficient. If a man is murdered, the murder was efficient. A tropical sun is as efficient in making people lazy as a Lancashire foreman bully in making them energetic. Maeterlinck is as efficient in filling a man with strange spiritual tremors as Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell are in filling a man with jam. But it all depends on what you want to be filled with. Lord Rosebery, being a modern skeptic, probably prefers the spiritual tremors. I, being an orthodox Christian, prefer the jam. But both are efficient when they have been effected; and inefficient until they are effected. A man who thinks much about success must be the drowsiest sentimentalist; for he must be always looking back. If he only likes victory he must always come late for the battle. For the man of action there is nothing but idealism.
II
CERCASI UN UOMO NON PRATICO
C’è una popolare facezia filosofica intesa a tipizzare gli interminabili e inutili ragionamenti dei filosofi; alludo alla facezia su chi sia venuto prima, la gallina o l’uovo. Non sono sicuro che, propriamente intesa, sia poi un’indagine tanto futile, dopotutto. Non mi preme qui addentrarmi in quelle profonde differenze metafisiche e teologiche di cui il debate dibattito sulla gallina e l’uovo è un tipo frivolo, ma assai felice. I materialisti evoluzionisti sono opportunamente rappresentati nella visione di tutte le cose provenienti da un uovo, un germe ovale, fosco e mostruoso, che si era deposto da sé per caso. Quell’altra scuola di pensiero soprannaturale (alla quale io personalmente aderisco) sarebbe non indegnamente tipizzata nella fantasia che questo nostro mondo rotondo non sia che un uovo covato da un sacro e ingenerato uccello; la mistica colomba dei profeti. Ma è a funzioni assai più umili che qui chiamo il tremendo potere di una simile distinzione. Che l’uccello vivente sia o no all’inizio della nostra catena mentale, è assolutamente necessario che sia alla fine della nostra catena mentale. L’uccello è la cosa a cui mirare, non con un fucile, ma con una bacchetta datrice di vita. Ciò che è essenziale al nostro retto pensare è questo: che l’uovo e l’uccello non debbono essere pensati come uguali eventi cosmici ricorrenti alternativamente in eterno. Non debbono divenire un mero motivo a uovo e uccello, come il motivo a uovo e dardo. L’uno è un mezzo e l’altro un fine; sono in mondi mentali diversi. Lasciando fuori conto le complicazioni della tavola della colazione umana, in senso elementare, l’uovo esiste soltanto per produrre il pulcino. Ma il pulcino non esiste soltanto al fine di produrre un altro uovo. Può anche esistere per divertirsi, per lodare Dio, e perfino per suggerire idee a un drammaturgo francese. Essendo una vita cosciente, egli è, o può essere, prezioso in sé. Ora la nostra politica moderna è piena di una rumorosa dimenticanza; la dimenticanza che la produzione di questa felice e cosciente vita è dopotutto il fine di tutte le complessità e i compromessi. Non parliamo d’altro che di uomini utili e istituzioni funzionanti; cioè, pensiamo ai pulcini soltanto come cose che deporranno più uova. Invece di cercare di allevare il nostro uccello ideale, l’aquila di Zeus o il Cigno dell’Avon, o qualunque cosa ci capiti di volere, parliamo interamente in termini di processo e di embrione. Il processo stesso, divorziato dal suo oggetto divino, diviene dubbioso e perfino morboso; il veleno entra nell’embrione di ogni cosa; e la nostra politica è fatta di uova marce.
L’idealismo non è che considerare ogni cosa nella sua essenza pratica. L’idealismo significa soltanto che dovremmo considerare un attizzatoio in riferimento all’attizzare prima di discuterne l’idoneità a picchiare la moglie; che dovremmo chiederci se un uovo sia abbastanza buono per il pratico allevamento del pollame prima di decidere che l’uovo sia abbastanza cattivo per la politica pratica. Ma so che questa primaria ricerca della teoria (che non è che ricerca del fine) espone alla dozzinale accusa di suonare il violino mentre Roma brucia. Una scuola, di cui Lord Rosebery è rappresentante, si è adoperata per sostituire agli ideali morali o sociali che finora sono stati il movente della politica una generale coerenza o completezza nel sistema sociale, che ha guadagnato il soprannome di «efficienza». Non sono molto certo della dottrina segreta di questa setta in proposito. Ma, per quel che riesco a capire, «efficienza» significa che dovremmo scoprire ogni cosa di una macchina tranne a che cosa serva. È sorta nel nostro tempo una fantasticheria assai singolare: la fantasticheria che quando le cose vanno molto storte ci occorre un uomo pratico. Sarebbe assai più vero dire che quando le cose vanno molto storte ci occorre un uomo non pratico. Certamente, almeno, ci occorre un teorico. Un uomo pratico significa un uomo avvezzo alla mera pratica quotidiana, al modo in cui le cose comunemente funzionano. Quando le cose non funzionano, occorre il pensatore, l’uomo che ha una qualche dottrina sul perché esse funzionino affatto. È sbagliato suonare il violino mentre Roma brucia; ma è del tutto giusto studiare la teoria dell’idraulica mentre Roma brucia.
È allora necessario deporre il proprio agnosticismo quotidiano e tentare il rerum cognoscere causas. Se il vostro aeroplano ha una lieve indisposizione, un uomo ingegnoso può ripararlo. Ma, se è gravemente malato, è tanto più probabile che qualche vecchio professore distratto, dai selvaggi capelli bianchi, debba essere trascinato fuori da un collegio o da un laboratorio per analizzare il male. Più complicato è lo sfacelo, più canuto e più distratto sarà il teorico che occorre per farvi fronte; e in qualche caso estremo, nessuno tranne l’uomo (probabilmente pazzo) che inventò la vostra nave volante potrebbe forse dire quale fosse la cosa che non andava in essa.
L’«efficienza», naturalmente, è futile per la stessa ragione per cui gli uomini forti, la forza di volontà e il superuomo sono futili. Cioè, è futile perché si occupa soltanto delle azioni dopo che sono state compiute. Non ha philosophy filosofia per gli avvenimenti prima che accadano; perciò non ha potere di scelta. Un atto può essere riuscito o fallito solo quando è concluso; se deve cominciare, deve essere, in astratto, giusto o sbagliato. Non esiste cosa come puntare su un vincitore; poiché egli non può essere un vincitore quando ci si punta sopra. Non esiste cosa come combattere dalla parte vincente; si combatte per scoprire quale sia la parte vincente. Se una qualsiasi operazione è avvenuta, quell’operazione fu efficiente. Se un uomo è assassinato, l’assassinio fu efficiente. Un sole tropicale è efficiente nel rendere la gente pigra quanto un caposquadra prepotente del Lancashire nel renderla energica. Maeterlinck è efficiente nel riempire un uomo di strani tremori spirituali quanto i signori Crosse e Blackwell sono efficienti nel riempire un uomo di marmellata. Ma tutto dipende da ciò di cui volete essere riempiti. Lord Rosebery, essendo un moderno skeptic scettico, preferisce probabilmente i tremori spirituali. Io, essendo un cristiano ortodosso, preferisco la marmellata. Ma entrambe sono efficienti quando sono state effettuate; e inefficienti finché non sono effettuate. Un uomo che pensa molto al success successo deve essere il più sonnolento dei sentimentali; poiché deve sempre guardare indietro. Se ama soltanto la vittoria deve sempre arrivare tardi alla battaglia. Per l’uomo d’azione non c’è nulla se non l’idealismo.
This definite ideal is a far more urgent and practical matter in our existing English trouble than any immediate plans or proposals. For the present chaos is due to a sort of general oblivion of all that men were originally aiming at. No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get. Soon people forget what the man really wanted first; and after a successful and vigorous political life, he forgets it himself. The whole is an extravagant riot of second bests, a pandemonium of pis-aller. Now this sort of pliability does not merely prevent any heroic consistency, it also prevents any really practical compromise. One can only find the middle distance between two points if the two points will stand still. We may make an arrangement between two litigants who cannot both get what they want; but not if they will not even tell us what they want. The keeper of a restaurant would much prefer that each customer should give his order smartly, though it were for stewed ibis or boiled elephant, rather than that each customer should sit holding his head in his hands, plunged in arithmetical calculations about how much food there can be on the premises. Most of us have suffered from a certain sort of ladies who, by their perverse unselfishness, give more trouble than the selfish; who almost clamor for the unpopular dish and scramble for the worst seat. Most of us have known parties or expeditions full of this seething fuss of self-effacement. From much meaner motives than those of such admirable women, our practical politicians keep things in the same confusion through the same doubt about their real demands. There is nothing that so much prevents a settlement as a tangle of small surrenders. We are bewildered on every side by politicians who are in favor of secular education, but think it hopeless to work for it; who desire total prohibition, but are certain they should not demand it; who regret compulsory education, but resignedly continue it; or who want peasant proprietorship and therefore vote for something else. It is this dazed and floundering opportunism that gets in the way of everything. If our statesmen were visionaries something practical might be done. If we ask for something in the abstract we might get something in the concrete. As it is, it is not only impossible to get what one wants, but it is impossible to get any part of it, because nobody can mark it out plainly like a map. That clear and even hard quality that there was in the old bargaining has wholly vanished. We forget that the word “compromise” contains, among other things, the rigid and ringing word “promise.” Moderation is not vague; it is as definite as perfection. The middle point is as fixed as the extreme point.
If I am made to walk the plank by a pirate, it is vain for me to offer, as a common-sense compromise, to walk along the plank for a reasonable distance. It is exactly about the reasonable distance that the pirate and I differ. There is an exquisite mathematical split second at which the plank tips up. My common-sense ends just before that instant; the pirate’s common-sense begins just beyond it. But the point itself is as hard as any geometrical diagram; as abstract as any theological dogma.
III
THE NEW HYPOCRITE
But this new cloudy political cowardice has rendered useless the old English compromise. People have begun to be terrified of an improvement merely because it is complete. They call it utopian and revolutionary that anyone should really have his own way, or anything be really done, and done with. Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf.
As an instance to sharpen the argument, I take the one case of our everlasting education bills. We have actually contrived to invent a new kind of hypocrite. The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was a man whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that they were religious. The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really religious, while he pretends that they are worldly and practical. The Rev. Brown, the Wesleyan minister, sturdily declares that he cares nothing for creeds, but only for education; meanwhile, in truth, the wildest Wesleyanism is tearing his soul. The Rev. Smith, of the Church of England, explains gracefully, with the Oxford manner, that the only question for him is the prosperity and efficiency of the schools; while in truth all the evil passions of a curate are roaring within him. It is a fight of creeds masquerading as policies. I think these reverend gentlemen do themselves wrong; I think they are more pious than they will admit. Theology is not (as some suppose) expunged as an error. It is merely concealed, like a sin. Dr. Clifford really wants a theological atmosphere as much as Lord Halifax; only it is a different one. If Dr. Clifford would ask plainly for Puritanism and Lord Halifax ask plainly for Catholicism, something might be done for them. We are all, one hopes, imaginative enough to recognize the dignity and distinctness of another religion, like Islam or the cult of Apollo. I am quite ready to respect another man’s faith; but it is too much to ask that I should respect his doubt, his worldly hesitations and fictions, his political bargain and make-believe. Most Nonconformists with an instinct for English history could see something poetic and national about the Archbishop of Canterbury as an Archbishop of Canterbury. It is when he does the rational British statesman that they very justifiably get annoyed. Most Anglicans with an eye for pluck and simplicity could admire Dr. Clifford as a Baptist minister. It is when he says that he is simply a citizen that nobody can possibly believe him.
Questo ideale definito è una faccenda assai più urgente e pratica nel nostro attuale travaglio inglese di qualsiasi piano o proposta immediati. Poiché il presente caos è dovuto a una sorta di generale oblio di tutto ciò a cui gli uomini in origine miravano. Nessun uomo domanda ciò che desidera; ciascun uomo domanda ciò che gli pare di poter ottenere. Presto la gente dimentica ciò che l’uomo davvero voleva per primo; e dopo una vita politica riuscita e vigorosa, egli stesso lo dimentica. Il tutto è uno stravagante tumulto di ripieghi, un pandemonio di pis-aller. Ora questa sorta di pieghevolezza non impedisce soltanto ogni eroica coerenza, impedisce anche ogni compromesso davvero pratico. Si può trovare la distanza mediana fra due punti soltanto se i due punti staranno fermi. Possiamo stipulare un accordo fra due litiganti che non possono entrambi ottenere ciò che vogliono; ma non se non vogliono neppure dirci ciò che vogliono. Il gestore di un ristorante preferirebbe di gran lunga che ciascun cliente ordinasse svelto, foss’anche ibis in umido o elefante lesso, piuttosto che ciascun cliente sedesse tenendosi la testa fra le mani, immerso in calcoli aritmetici su quanto cibo possa esserci nel locale. La maggior parte di noi ha sofferto per una certa sorta di signore che, con il loro perverso altruismo, danno più fastidio degli egoisti; che quasi strepitano per il piatto impopolare e si accapigliano per il posto peggiore. La maggior parte di noi ha conosciuto ricevimenti o spedizioni pieni di questo ribollente trambusto di annullamento di sé. Per moventi assai più meschini di quelli di tali ammirevoli donne, i nostri politici pratici tengono le cose nella medesima confusione attraverso il medesimo dubbio circa le loro reali richieste. Non c’è nulla che tanto impedisca una composizione quanto un groviglio di piccole rese. Siamo sconcertati da ogni lato da politici che sono favorevoli all’istruzione laica, ma la ritengono senza speranza da perseguire; che desiderano il proibizionismo totale, ma sono certi di non doverlo pretendere; che rimpiangono l’istruzione obbligatoria, ma rassegnatamente la proseguono; o che vogliono la piccola proprietà contadina e perciò votano per qualcos’altro. È questo stordito e brancolante opportunismo che si mette di traverso a ogni cosa. Se i nostri statisti fossero visionari, qualcosa di pratico potrebbe farsi. Se chiedessimo qualcosa in astratto, potremmo ottenere qualcosa in concreto. Così com’è, non solo è impossibile ottenere ciò che si vuole, ma è impossibile ottenerne una qualsiasi parte, perché nessuno riesce a delinearlo chiaramente come una carta geografica. Quella chiara e perfino dura qualità che c’era nell’antico mercanteggiare è del tutto svanita. Dimentichiamo che la parola «compromesso» contiene, tra le altre cose, la rigida e squillante parola «promessa». La moderazione non è vaga; è definita quanto la perfezione. Il punto mediano è fisso quanto il punto estremo.
Se sono costretto a camminare sull’asse da un pirata, è vano per me offrire, come compromesso di buon senso, di camminare lungo l’asse per una distanza ragionevole. È esattamente sulla distanza ragionevole che il pirata e io divergiamo. C’è uno squisito, matematico frazione di secondo in cui l’asse si ribalta. Il mio buon senso finisce appena prima di quell’istante; il buon senso del pirata comincia appena oltre di esso. Ma il punto stesso è duro quanto qualsiasi diagramma geometrico; astratto quanto qualsiasi dogma teologico.
III
IL NUOVO IPOCRITA
Ma questa nuova, nebulosa codardia politica ha reso inutile l’antico compromesso inglese. La gente ha cominciato a essere terrorizzata da un miglioramento meramente perché esso è completo. Chiamano utopistico e rivoluzionario che qualcuno debba davvero avere la propria strada, o che qualcosa venga davvero fatto, e concluso. Compromesso soleva significare che mezza pagnotta era meglio di niente pane. Fra gli statisti moderni sembra davvero significare che mezza pagnotta è meglio di una pagnotta intera.
Come esempio per affilare l’argomento, prendo l’unico caso delle nostre eterne leggi sull’istruzione. Siamo effettivamente riusciti a inventare un nuovo tipo di ipocrita. Il vecchio ipocrita, Tartufo o Pecksniff, era un uomo i cui fini erano davvero mondani e pratici, mentre fingeva che fossero religiosi. Il nuovo ipocrita è colui i cui fini sono davvero religiosi, mentre finge che siano mondani e pratici. Il reverendo Brown, il ministro wesleyano, dichiara risolutamente che non gli importa nulla dei credi, ma solo dell’istruzione; mentre, in verità, il più selvaggio wesleyanesimo gli dilania l’anima. Il reverendo Smith, della Chiesa d’Inghilterra, spiega con grazia, alla maniera di Oxford, che l’unica questione per lui è la prosperità e l’efficienza delle scuole; mentre in verità tutte le male passioni di un curato gli ruggiscono dentro. È una lotta di credi mascherati da politiche. Penso che questi reverendi signori facciano torto a sé stessi; penso che siano più devoti di quanto vogliano ammettere. La teologia non è (come alcuni suppongono) cassata come un errore. È semplicemente celata, come un peccato. Il dottor Clifford vuole davvero un’atmosfera teologica quanto Lord Halifax; solo che è una diversa. Se il dottor Clifford chiedesse apertamente il Puritanism puritanesimo e Lord Halifax chiedesse apertamente il cattolicesimo, qualcosa potrebbe farsi per loro. Siamo tutti, si spera, abbastanza dotati d’immaginazione da riconoscere la dignità e la distinzione di un’altra religione, come l’Islam o il culto di Apollo. Sono del tutto pronto a rispettare la fede di un altro uomo; ma è troppo chiedere che io debba rispettare il suo dubbio, le sue mondane esitazioni e finzioni, il suo baratto politico e la sua finzione. La maggior parte dei non-conformisti con un istinto per la history storia inglese potrebbe scorgere qualcosa di poetico e nazionale nell’ arcivescovo di Canterbury in quanto arcivescovo di Canterbury. È quando fa il razionale statista britannico che essi assai giustificatamente si irritano. La maggior parte degli anglicani con un occhio per il fegato e la semplicità potrebbe ammirare il dottor Clifford come ministro battista. È quando dice di essere semplicemente un cittadino che nessuno può in alcun modo credergli.
But indeed the case is yet more curious than this. The one argument that used to be urged for our creedless vagueness was that at least it saved us from fanaticism. But it does not even do that. On the contrary, it creates and renews fanaticism with a force quite peculiar to itself. This is at once so strange and so true that I will ask the reader’s attention to it with a little more precision.
Some people do not like the word “dogma.” Fortunately they are free, and there is an alternative for them. There are two things, and two things only, for the human mind, a dogma and a prejudice. The Middle Ages were a rational epoch, an age of doctrine. Our age is, at its best, a poetical epoch, an age of prejudice. A doctrine is a definite point; a prejudice is a direction. That an ox may be eaten, while a man should not be eaten, is a doctrine. That as little as possible of anything should be eaten is a prejudice; which is also sometimes called an ideal. Now a direction is always far more fantastic than a plan. I would rather have the most archaic map of the road to Brighton than a general recommendation to turn to the left. Straight lines that are not parallel must meet at last; but curves may recoil forever. A pair of lovers might walk along the frontier of France and Germany, one on the one side and one on the other, so long as they were not vaguely told to keep away from each other. And this is a strictly true parable of the effect of our modern vagueness in losing and separating men as in a mist.
It is not merely true that a creed unites men. Nay, a difference of creed unites men—so long as it is a clear difference. A boundary unites. Many a magnanimous Moslem and chivalrous Crusader must have been nearer to each other, because they were both dogmatists, than any two homeless agnostics in a pew of Mr. Campbell’s chapel. “I say God is One,” and “I say God is One but also Three,” that is the beginning of a good quarrelsome, manly friendship. But our age would turn these creeds into tendencies. It would tell the Trinitarian to follow multiplicity as such (because it was his “temperament”), and he would turn up later with three hundred and thirty-three persons in the Trinity. Meanwhile, it would turn the Moslem into a Monist: a frightful intellectual fall. It would force that previously healthy person not only to admit that there was one God, but to admit that there was nobody else. When each had, for a long enough period, followed the gleam of his own nose (like the Dong) they would appear again; the Christian a Polytheist, and the Moslem a Panegoist, both quite mad, and far more unfit to understand each other than before.
It is exactly the same with politics. Our political vagueness divides men, it does not fuse them. Men will walk along the edge of a chasm in clear weather, but they will edge miles away from it in a fog. So a Tory can walk up to the very edge of Socialism, if he knows what is Socialism. But if he is told that Socialism is a spirit, a sublime atmosphere, a noble, indefinable tendency, why, then he keeps out of its way; and quite right too. One can meet an assertion with argument; but healthy bigotry is the only way in which one can meet a tendency. I am told that the Japanese method of wrestling consists not of suddenly pressing, but of suddenly giving way. This is one of my many reasons for disliking the Japanese civilization. To use surrender as a weapon is the very worst spirit of the East. But certainly there is no force so hard to fight as the force which it is easy to conquer; the force that always yields and then returns. Such is the force of a great impersonal prejudice, such as possesses the modern world on so many points. Against this there is no weapon at all except a rigid and steely sanity, a resolution not to listen to fads, and not to be infected by diseases.
In short, the rational human faith must armor itself with prejudice in an age of prejudices, just as it armoured itself with logic in an age of logic. But the difference between the two mental methods is marked and unmistakable. The essential of the difference is this: that prejudices are divergent, whereas creeds are always in collision. Believers bump into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each other’s way. A creed is a collective thing, and even its sins are sociable. A prejudice is a private thing, and even its tolerance is misanthropic. So it is with our existing divisions. They keep out of each other’s way; the Tory paper and the Radical paper do not answer each other; they ignore each other. Genuine controversy, fair cut and thrust before a common audience, has become in our special epoch very rare. For the sincere controversialist is above all things a good listener. The really burning enthusiast never interrupts; he listens to the enemy’s arguments as eagerly as a spy would listen to the enemy’s arrangements. But if you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will find that no medium is admitted between violence and evasion. You will have no answer except slanging or silence. A modern editor must not have that eager ear that goes with the honest tongue. He may be deaf and silent; and that is called dignity. Or he may be deaf and noisy; and that is called slashing journalism. In neither case is there any controversy; for the whole object of modern party combatants is to charge out of earshot.
The only logical cure for all this is the assertion of a human ideal. In dealing with this, I will try to be as little transcendental as is consistent with reason; it is enough to say that unless we have some doctrine of a divine man, all abuses may be excused, since evolution may turn them into uses. It will be easy for the scientific plutocrat to maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any conditions which we now consider evil. The old tyrants invoked the past; the new tyrants will invoke the future evolution has produced the snail and the owl; evolution can produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, and no more light than an owl. The employer need not mind sending a Kaffir to work underground; he will soon become an underground animal, like a mole. He need not mind sending a diver to hold his breath in the deep seas; he will soon be a deep-sea animal. Men need not trouble to alter conditions, conditions will so soon alter men. The head can be beaten small enough to fit the hat. Do not knock the fetters off the slave; knock the slave until he forgets the fetters. To all this plausible modern argument for oppression, the only adequate answer is, that there is a permanent human ideal that must not be either confused or destroyed. The most important man on earth is the perfect man who is not there. The Christian religion has specially uttered the ultimate sanity of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the incarnate and human truth. Our lives and laws are not judged by divine superiority, but simply by human perfection. It is man, says Aristotle, who is the measure. It is the Son of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the quick and the dead.
Ma in verità il caso è ancora più curioso di così. L’unico argomento che si soleva addurre a favore della nostra vaghezza priva di credo era che almeno ci salvava dal fanatismo. Ma non fa nemmeno questo. Al contrario, esso crea e rinnova il fanatismo con una forza tutta sua propria. Ciò è insieme tanto strano e tanto vero che chiederò al lettore di prestarvi attenzione con un poco più di precisione.
Ad alcuni non piace la parola “dogma”. Per loro fortuna sono liberi, e c’è un’alternativa per loro. Vi sono due cose, e due cose soltanto, per la mente umana: un dogma e un pregiudizio. Il Medioevo fu un’epoca razionale, un’età di dottrina. La nostra età è, nel migliore dei casi, un’epoca poetica, un’età di pregiudizio. Una dottrina è un punto preciso; un pregiudizio è una direzione. Che un bue si possa mangiare, mentre un uomo non si debba mangiare, è una dottrina. Che si debba mangiare il meno possibile di qualsiasi cosa è un pregiudizio; che talvolta viene anche chiamato ideale. Ora, una direzione è sempre assai più fantastica di un piano. Preferirei avere la più arcaica delle mappe della strada per Brighton piuttosto che una generica raccomandazione di svoltare a sinistra. Rette che non siano parallele devono infine incontrarsi; ma le curve possono scartare all’infinito. Una coppia di innamorati potrebbe camminare lungo il confine tra Francia e Germania, l’uno da una parte e l’altra dall’altra, finché non fosse loro vagamente ingiunto di tenersi lontani l’uno dall’altra. E questa è una parabola rigorosamente vera dell’effetto della nostra moderna vaghezza nel perdere e separare gli uomini come in una nebbia.
Non è soltanto vero che un credo unisce gli uomini. Anzi, una differenza di credo unisce gli uomini—purché sia una differenza chiara. Un confine unisce. Più d’un magnanimo Musulmano e più d’un cavalleresco Crociato devono essere stati più vicini l’uno all’altro, perché entrambi dogmatici, di quanto lo siano due agnostici senza patria in un banco della cappella del signor Campbell. “Io dico che Dio è Uno” e “Io dico che Dio è Uno ma anche Trino”, ecco l’inizio di una buona, litigiosa, virile amicizia. Ma la nostra età trasformerebbe questi credi in tendenze. Direbbe al Trinitario di seguire la molteplicità in quanto tale (perché era il suo “temperamento”), ed egli si ripresenterebbe più tardi con trecento trentatré persone nella Trinità. Nel frattempo, trasformerebbe il Musulmano in un Monista: una spaventosa caduta intellettuale. Costringerebbe quella persona prima sana non solo ad ammettere che vi era un solo Dio, ma ad ammettere che non vi era nessun altro. Quando ciascuno avesse, per un periodo abbastanza lungo, seguito il bagliore del proprio naso (come il Dong) essi ricomparirebbero; il Cristiano un Politeista, e il Musulmano un Panegoista, entrambi del tutto pazzi, e assai più incapaci di comprendersi a vicenda di prima.
È esattamente lo stesso con la politica. La nostra vaghezza politica divide gli uomini, non li fonde. Gli uomini camminano lungo l’orlo di un precipizio col tempo sereno, ma se ne allontanano di miglia nella nebbia. Così un Tory può spingersi fin sull’orlo stesso del Socialismo, se sa che cosa sia il Socialismo. Ma se gli si dice che il Socialismo è uno spirito, un’atmosfera sublime, una nobile, indefinibile tendenza, ebbene, allora si tiene alla larga; e giustamente, per giunta. Si può fronteggiare un’asserzione con l’argomentazione; ma un sano fanatismo è l’unico modo in cui si possa fronteggiare una tendenza. Mi dicono che il metodo giapponese di lotta consiste non nel premere all’improvviso, ma nel cedere all’improvviso. Questa è una delle mie molte ragioni per detestare la civiltà giapponese. Usare la resa come un’arma è il peggiore spirito dell’Oriente. Ma certo non v’è forza tanto difficile da combattere quanto la forza che è facile vincere; la forza che sempre cede e poi ritorna. Tale è la forza di un grande pregiudizio impersonale, quale possiede il mondo moderno su tanti punti. Contro di essa non v’è arma alcuna se non una rigida e ferrea sanità di mente, una risoluzione a non prestare orecchio alle mode, e a non lasciarsi contagiare dalle malattie.
In breve, la razionale fede umana deve corazzarsi di pregiudizio in un’età di pregiudizi, proprio come si corazzò di logica in un’età di logica. Ma la differenza tra i due metodi mentali è marcata e inconfondibile. L’essenza della differenza è questa: che i pregiudizi sono divergenti, mentre i credi sono sempre in collisione. I credenti si urtano fra loro; mentre i fanatici si scansano l’un l’altro. Un credo è cosa collettiva, e persino i suoi peccati sono socievoli. Un pregiudizio è cosa privata, e persino la sua tolleranza è misantropica. Così è con le nostre divisioni esistenti. Si scansano a vicenda; il giornale Tory e il giornale Radicale non si rispondono l’un l’altro; si ignorano a vicenda. La controversia genuina, il leale duello di stoccate davanti a un pubblico comune, è divenuta nella nostra speciale epoca assai rara. Poiché il sincero polemista è soprattutto un buon ascoltatore. L’entusiasta davvero ardente non interrompe mai; ascolta gli argomenti del nemico con la stessa avidità con cui una spia ascolterebbe le disposizioni del nemico. Ma se tentate un’argomentazione effettiva con un moderno giornale di politica opposta, scoprirete che non è ammessa via di mezzo tra la violenza e l’evasione. Non avrete altra risposta che l’ingiuria o il silenzio. Un moderno direttore di giornale non deve avere quell’orecchio avido che accompagna la lingua onesta. Può essere sordo e silenzioso; e questo si chiama dignità. Oppure può essere sordo e chiassoso; e questo si chiama giornalismo mordace. In nessuno dei due casi vi è controversia alcuna; giacché tutto lo scopo dei moderni combattenti di parte è di caricare fuori dalla portata dell’udito.
L’unica cura logica per tutto questo è l’affermazione di un ideale umano. Nel trattarne, cercherò di essere il meno trascendentale possibile, per quanto è conciliabile con la ragione; basti dire che a meno che non abbiamo qualche dottrina di un uomo divino, tutti gli abusi possono essere scusati, poiché l’evoluzione può mutarli in usi. Sarà facile per il plutocrate scientifico sostenere che l’umanità si adatterà a qualsiasi condizione che noi ora consideriamo malvagia. I vecchi tiranni invocavano il passato; i nuovi tiranni invocheranno il futuro: l’evoluzione ha prodotto la lumaca e il gufo; l’evoluzione può produrre un operaio che non voglia più spazio d’una lumaca, né più luce d’un gufo. Il datore di lavoro non abbia scrupolo a mandare un Cafro a lavorare sottoterra; diverrà presto un animale sotterraneo, come una talpa. Non abbia scrupolo a mandare un palombaro a trattenere il fiato negli abissi marini; diverrà presto un animale d’alto mare. Gli uomini non abbiano la briga di alterare le condizioni: le condizioni altereranno assai presto gli uomini. La testa può essere ridotta a picchiate quanto basta perché entri nel cappello. Non togliete i ceppi allo schiavo; picchiate lo schiavo finché non dimentica i ceppi. A tutto questo plausibile argomento moderno a favore dell’oppressione, l’unica risposta adeguata è che vi è un permanente ideale umano che non deve essere né confuso né distrutto. L’uomo più importante sulla terra è l’uomo perfetto che non c’è. La religione cristiana ha specialmente proclamato l’ultima sanità di mente dell’Uomo, dice la Scrittura, che giudicherà la verità incarnata e umana. Le nostre vite e le nostre leggi non sono giudicate da una superiorità divina, ma semplicemente dalla perfezione umana. È l’uomo, dice Aristotele, che è la misura. È il Figlio dell’Uomo, dice la Scrittura, che giudicherà i vivi e i morti.
Doctrine, therefore, does not cause dissensions; rather a doctrine alone can cure our dissensions. It is necessary to ask, however, roughly, what abstract and ideal shape in state or family would fulfil the human hunger; and this apart from whether we can completely obtain it or not. But when we come to ask what is the need of normal men, what is the desire of all nations, what is the ideal house, or road, or rule, or republic, or king, or priesthood, then we are confronted with a strange and irritating difficulty peculiar to the present time; and we must call a temporary halt and examine that obstacle.
IV
THE FEAR OF THE PAST
The last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation of the romance of the future. We seem to have made up our minds to misunderstand what has happened; and we turn, with a sort of relief, to stating what will happen—which is (apparently) much easier. The modern man no longer presents the memoirs of his great grandfather; but is engaged in writing a detailed and authoritative biography of his great-grandson. Instead of trembling before the specters of the dead, we shudder abjectly under the shadow of the babe unborn. This spirit is apparent everywhere, even to the creation of a form of futurist romance. Sir Walter Scott stands at the dawn of the nineteenth century for the novel of the past; Mr. H. G. Wells stands at the dawn of the twentieth century for the novel of the future. The old story, we know, was supposed to begin: “Late on a winter’s evening two horsemen might have been seen—.” The new story has to begin: “Late on a winter’s evening two aviators will be seen—.” The movement is not without its elements of charm; there is something spirited, if eccentric, in the sight of so many people fighting over again the fights that have not yet happened; of people still glowing with the memory of tomorrow morning. A man in advance of the age is a familiar phrase enough. An age in advance of the age is really rather odd.
But when full allowance has been made for this harmless element of poetry and pretty human perversity in the thing, I shall not hesitate to maintain here that this cult of the future is not only a weakness but a cowardice of the age. It is the peculiar evil of this epoch that even its pugnacity is fundamentally frightened; and the Jingo is contemptible not because he is impudent, but because he is timid. The reason why modern armaments do not inflame the imagination like the arms and emblazonments of the Crusades is a reason quite apart from optical ugliness or beauty. Some battleships are as beautiful as the sea; and many Norman nosepieces were as ugly as Norman noses. The atmospheric ugliness that surrounds our scientific war is an emanation from that evil panic which is at the heart of it. The charge of the Crusades was a charge; it was charging towards God, the wild consolation of the braver. The charge of the modern armaments is not a charge at all. It is a rout, a retreat, a flight from the devil, who will catch the hindmost. It is impossible to imagine a mediaeval knight talking of longer and longer French lances, with precisely the quivering employed about larger and larger German ships The man who called the Blue Water School the “Blue Funk School” uttered a psychological truth which that school itself would scarcely essentially deny. Even the two-power standard, if it be a necessity, is in a sense a degrading necessity. Nothing has more alienated many magnanimous minds from Imperial enterprises than the fact that they are always exhibited as stealthy or sudden defenses against a world of cold rapacity and fear. The Boer War, for instance, was colored not so much by the creed that we were doing something right, as by the creed that Boers and Germans were probably doing something wrong; driving us (as it was said) to the sea. Mr. Chamberlain, I think, said that the war was a feather in his cap and so it was: a white feather.
Now this same primary panic that I feel in our rush towards patriotic armaments I feel also in our rush towards future visions of society. The modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, not unmixed with terror, with which it regards the past. It is propelled towards the coming time; it is, in the exact words of the popular phrase, knocked into the middle of next week. And the goad which drives it on thus eagerly is not an affectation for futurity Futurity does not exist, because it is still future. Rather it is a fear of the past; a fear not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the past also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue of mankind. There have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; so many great efforts of monumental building or of military glory which seem to us at once sublime and pathetic. The future is a refuge from the fierce competition of our forefathers. The older generation, not the younger, is knocking at our door. It is agreeable to escape, as Henley said, into the Street of By-and-Bye, where stands the Hostelry of Never. It is pleasant to play with children, especially unborn children. The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the past I find already covered with illegible scribbles, such as Plato, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleon. I can make the future as narrow as myself; the past is obliged to be as broad and turbulent as humanity. And the upshot of this modern attitude is really this: that men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.
La dottrina, dunque, non causa dissensi; piuttosto una dottrina soltanto può guarire i nostri dissensi. È necessario chiedersi, tuttavia, per sommi capi, quale forma astratta e ideale nello Stato o nella famiglia appagherebbe la fame umana; e ciò a prescindere dal fatto che possiamo o no ottenerla appieno. Ma quando veniamo a chiederci quale sia il bisogno degli uomini normali, quale sia il desiderio di tutte le nazioni, quale sia la casa ideale, o strada, o regola, o repubblica, o re, o sacerdozio, allora ci troviamo di fronte a una difficoltà strana e irritante peculiare al tempo presente; e dobbiamo fare una sosta temporanea ed esaminare quell’ostacolo.
IV
LA PAURA DEL PASSATO
Gli ultimi decenni sono stati segnati da una speciale coltivazione del romanzesco del futuro. Pare che ci siamo decisi a fraintendere ciò che è accaduto; e ci volgiamo, con una sorta di sollievo, a enunciare ciò che accadrà—il che è (a quanto sembra) assai più facile. L’uomo moderno non presenta più le memorie del suo bisnonno; ma è impegnato a scrivere una dettagliata e autorevole biografia del suo pronipote. Invece di tremare dinanzi agli spettri dei morti, rabbrividiamo abbiettamente sotto l’ombra del bimbo non ancora nato. Questo spirito è manifesto ovunque, fin nella creazione di una forma di romanzo futurista. Sir Walter Scott sta all’alba del diciannovesimo secolo per il romanzo del passato; il signor H. G. Wells sta all’alba del ventesimo secolo per il romanzo del futuro. La vecchia storia, lo sappiamo, si supponeva iniziasse: “Sul tardi di una sera d’inverno si sarebbero potuti scorgere due cavalieri—.” La nuova storia deve iniziare: “Sul tardi di una sera d’inverno si vedranno due aviatori —.” Il movimento non è privo dei suoi elementi di fascino; v’è qualcosa di animoso, se pur eccentrico, nello spettacolo di tante persone che tornano a combattere le battaglie che non sono ancora accadute; di gente ancora accesa dal ricordo di domani mattina. Un uomo in anticipo sui tempi è espressione abbastanza familiare. Un’età in anticipo sull’età è davvero piuttosto bizzarra.
Ma quando si sia fatta piena concessione a questo innocuo elemento di poesia e di graziosa perversità umana nella cosa, non esiterò a sostenere qui che questo culto del futuro non è soltanto una debolezza ma una viltà dell’età. È il male peculiare di questa epoca che persino la sua combattività è fondamentalmente spaventata; e lo Jingo è spregevole non perché sia sfrontato, ma perché è timoroso. La ragione per cui gli armamenti moderni non infiammano l’immaginazione come le armi e i blasoni delle Crociate è una ragione del tutto estranea alla bruttezza o alla bellezza ottica. Certe corazzate sono belle quanto il mare; e molti nasali normanni erano brutti quanto i nasi normanni. La bruttezza atmosferica che circonda la nostra guerra scientifica è un’emanazione di quel maligno panico che le sta al cuore. La carica delle Crociate era una carica; era una carica verso Dio, la selvaggia consolazione dei più coraggiosi. La carica degli armamenti moderni non è affatto una carica. È una rotta, una ritirata, una fuga dal diavolo, che afferrerà il più tardo. È impossibile immaginare un cavaliere medievale che parli di lance francesi sempre più lunghe, con esattamente il tremore adoperato a proposito di navi tedesche sempre più grandi. L’uomo che chiamò la Scuola dell’Acqua Blu la “Scuola dello Sgomento Blu” enunciò una verità psicologica che quella scuola stessa difficilmente negherebbe nella sostanza. Persino lo standard delle due potenze, se è una necessità, è in un certo senso una necessità degradante. Nulla ha più alienato molte menti magnanime dalle imprese imperiali del fatto che esse sono sempre esibite come furtive o improvvise difese contro un mondo di gelida rapacità e paura. La Guerra Boera, per esempio, fu colorata non tanto dal credo che noi stessimo facendo qualcosa di giusto, quanto dal credo che i Boeri e i Tedeschi stessero probabilmente facendo qualcosa di sbagliato; sospingendoci (come si diceva) verso il mare. Il signor Chamberlain, credo, disse che la guerra era una piuma nel suo cappello: e così era, una piuma bianca.
Ora, questo stesso panico primordiale che avverto nella nostra corsa verso gli armamenti patriottici lo avverto anche nella nostra corsa verso visioni future della società. La mente moderna è spinta verso il futuro da un certo senso di stanchezza, non scevro di terrore, con cui essa guarda al passato. È sospinta verso il tempo a venire; è, con le esatte parole della frase popolare, spedita a calci in mezzo alla settimana ventura. E il pungolo che così avidamente la incalza non è un’affettazione per la futurità: la futurità non esiste, perché è ancora futura. Piuttosto è una paura del passato; una paura non solo del male nel passato, ma anche del bene nel passato. Il cervello cede sotto l’insopportabile virtù del genere umano. Vi sono state tante fedi fiammeggianti che non possiamo tenere; tanti aspri eroismi che non possiamo imitare; tanti grandi sforzi di edificazione monumentale o di gloria militare che ci appaiono a un tempo sublimi e patetici. Il futuro è un rifugio dalla feroce competizione dei nostri antenati. La generazione più anziana, non la più giovane, bussa alla nostra porta. È gradevole fuggire, come diceva Henley, nella Via del Poi-e-Poi, dove sorge l’Osteria del Mai. È piacevole giocare coi bambini, specialmente coi bambini non ancora nati. Il futuro è un muro bianco su cui ogni uomo può scrivere il proprio nome grande quanto gli piace; il passato lo trovo già coperto di scarabocchi illeggibili, come Platone, Isaia, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleone. Posso rendere il futuro angusto quanto me stesso; il passato è costretto a essere vasto e turbolento quanto l’umanità. E l’esito di questo atteggiamento moderno è in realtà questo: che gli uomini inventano nuovi ideali perché non osano tentare i vecchi ideali. Guardano avanti con entusiasmo, perché hanno paura di guardare indietro.
Now in history there is no Revolution that is not a Restoration. Among the many things that leave me doubtful about the modern habit of fixing eyes on the future, none is stronger than this: that all the men in history who have really done anything with the future have had their eyes fixed upon the past. I need not mention the Renaissance, the very word proves my case. The originality of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare began with the digging up of old vases and manuscripts. The mildness of poets absolutely arose out of the mildness of antiquaries. So the great mediaeval revival was a memory of the Roman Empire. So the Reformation looked back to the Bible and Bible times. So the modern Catholic movement has looked back to patristic times. But that modern movement which many would count the most anarchic of all is in this sense the most conservative of all. Never was the past more venerated by men than it was by the French Revolutionists. They invoked the little republics of antiquity with the complete confidence of one who invokes the gods. The Sans-culottes believed (as their name might imply) in a return to simplicity. They believed most piously in a remote past; some might call it a mythical past. For some strange reason man must always thus plant his fruit trees in a graveyard. Man can only find life among the dead. Man is a misshapen monster, with his feet set forward and his face turned back. He can make the future luxuriant and gigantic, so long as he is thinking about the past. When he tries to think about the future itself, his mind diminishes to a pin point with imbecility, which some call Nirvana. To-morrow is the Gorgon; a man must only see it mirrored in the shining shield of yesterday. If he sees it directly he is turned to stone. This has been the fate of all those who have really seen fate and futurity as clear and inevitable. The Calvinists, with their perfect creed of predestination, were turned to stone. The modern sociological scientists (with their excruciating Eugenics) are turned to stone. The only difference is that the Puritans make dignified, and the Eugenists somewhat amusing, statues.
But there is one feature in the past which more than all the rest defies and depresses the moderns and drives them towards this featureless future. I mean the presence in the past of huge ideals, unfulfilled and sometimes abandoned. The sight of these splendid failures is melancholy to a restless and rather morbid generation; and they maintain a strange silence about them—sometimes amounting to an unscrupulous silence. They keep them entirely out of their newspapers and almost entirely out of their history books. For example, they will often tell you (in their praises of the coming age) that we are moving on towards a United States of Europe. But they carefully omit to tell you that we are moving away from a United States of Europe, that such a thing existed literally in Roman and essentially in mediaeval times. They never admit that the international hatreds (which they call barbaric) are really very recent, the mere breakdown of the ideal of the Holy Roman Empire. Or again, they will tell you that there is going to be a social revolution, a great rising of the poor against the rich; but they never rub it in that France made that magnificent attempt, unaided, and that we and all the world allowed it to be trampled out and forgotten. I say decisively that nothing is so marked in modern writing as the prediction of such ideals in the future combined with the ignoring of them in the past. Anyone can test this for himself. Read any thirty or forty pages of pamphlets advocating peace in Europe and see how many of them praise the old Popes or Emperors for keeping the peace in Europe. Read any armful of essays and poems in praise of social democracy, and see how many of them praise the old Jacobins who created democracy and died for it. These colossal ruins are to the modern only enormous eyesores. He looks back along the valley of the past and sees a perspective of splendid but unfinished cities. They are unfinished, not always through enmity or accident, but often through fickleness, mental fatigue, and the lust for alien philosophies. We have not only left undone those things that we ought to have done, but we have even left undone those things that we wanted to do
It is very currently suggested that the modern man is the heir of all the ages, that he has got the good out of these successive human experiments. I know not what to say in answer to this, except to ask the reader to look at the modern man, as I have just looked at the modern man— in the looking-glass. Is it really true that you and I are two starry towers built up of all the most towering visions of the past? Have we really fulfilled all the great historic ideals one after the other, from our naked ancestor who was brave enough to kill a mammoth with a stone knife, through the Greek citizen and the Christian saint to our own grandfather or great-grandfather, who may have been sabred by the Manchester Yeomanry or shot in the ‘48? Are we still strong enough to spear mammoths, but now tender enough to spare them? Does the cosmos contain any mammoth that we have either speared or spared? When we decline (in a marked manner) to fly the red flag and fire across a barricade like our grandfathers, are we really declining in deference to sociologists—or to soldiers? Have we indeed outstripped the warrior and passed the ascetical saint? I fear we only outstrip the warrior in the sense that we should probably run away from him. And if we have passed the saint, I fear we have passed him without bowing.
This is, first and foremost, what I mean by the narrowness of the new ideas, the limiting effect of the future. Our modern prophetic idealism is narrow because it has undergone a persistent process of elimination. We must ask for new things because we are not allowed to ask for old things. The whole position is based on this idea that we have got all the good that can be got out of the ideas of the past. But we have not got all the good out of them, perhaps at this moment not any of the good out of them. And the need here is a need of complete freedom for restoration as well as revolution.
Ora nella storia non v’è Rivoluzione che non sia una Restaurazione. Fra le molte cose che mi lasciano dubbioso circa la moderna abitudine di fissare gli occhi sul futuro, nessuna è più forte di questa: che tutti gli uomini della storia che hanno davvero fatto qualcosa col futuro avevano gli occhi fissi sul passato. Non ho bisogno di menzionare il Rinascimento, la parola stessa prova la mia tesi. L’originalità di Michael Angelo e di Shakespeare cominciò col disseppellimento di vecchi vasi e manoscritti. La mitezza dei poeti sorse per l’appunto dalla mitezza degli antiquari. Così la grande rinascita medievale fu un ricordo dell’Impero Romano. Così la Riforma guardò indietro alla Bibbia e ai tempi biblici. Così il moderno movimento cattolico ha guardato indietro ai tempi patristici. Ma quel movimento moderno che molti riterrebbero il più anarchico di tutti è in questo senso il più conservatore di tutti. Mai il passato fu più venerato dagli uomini di quanto lo fu dai Rivoluzionari francesi. Essi invocavano le piccole repubbliche dell’antichità con la piena fiducia di chi invoca gli dèi. I Sanculotti credevano (come il loro nome potrebbe implicare) in un ritorno alla semplicità. Credevano piissimamente in un passato remoto; alcuni potrebbero chiamarlo un passato mitico. Per qualche strana ragione l’uomo deve sempre piantare così i suoi alberi da frutto in un cimitero. L’uomo può trovare la vita solo tra i morti. L’uomo è un deforme mostro, coi piedi rivolti in avanti e il volto rivolto all’indietro. Egli può rendere il futuro lussureggiante e gigantesco, purché stia pensando al passato. Quando cerca di pensare al futuro in sé, la sua mente si riduce a una capocchia di spillo per imbecillità, che alcuni chiamano Nirvana. Il domani è la Gorgone; l’uomo deve solo vederlo riflesso nello scudo lucente dell’ieri. Se lo vede direttamente è mutato in pietra. Questo è stato il destino di tutti coloro che hanno davvero visto il fato e la futurità chiari e inevitabili. I Calvinisti, col loro perfetto credo della predestinazione, furono mutati in pietra. I moderni scienziati sociologi (con la loro straziante Eugenetica) sono mutati in pietra. L’unica differenza è che i Puritani formano statue dignitose, e gli Eugenisti statue alquanto divertenti.
Ma v’è un tratto nel passato che più di tutti gli altri sfida e deprime i moderni e li sospinge verso questo futuro senza tratti. Intendo la presenza nel passato di enormi ideali, incompiuti e talvolta abbandonati. La vista di questi splendidi fallimenti è malinconica a una generazione irrequieta e piuttosto morbosa; ed essi mantengono uno strano silenzio intorno ad essi—che talvolta arriva a un silenzio senza scrupoli. Li tengono del tutto fuori dai loro giornali e quasi del tutto fuori dai loro libri di storia. Per esempio, spesso vi diranno (nelle loro lodi dell’età a venire) che stiamo procedendo verso degli Stati Uniti d’Europa. Ma omettono accuratamente di dirvi che ci stiamo allontanando dagli Stati Uniti d’Europa, che una cosa siffatta esistette letteralmente in epoca romana ed essenzialmente in epoca medievale. Non ammettono mai che gli odii internazionali (che essi chiamano barbarici) sono in realtà assai recenti, il mero crollo dell’ideale del Sacro Romano Impero. O ancora, vi diranno che ci sarà una rivoluzione sociale, una grande insurrezione dei poveri contro i ricchi; ma non vi ricordano mai a fondo che la Francia fece quel magnifico tentativo, senza aiuto, e che noi e tutto il mondo lasciammo che fosse calpestato e dimenticato. Dico risolutamente che nulla è tanto marcato nella scrittura moderna quanto la predizione di simili ideali nel futuro unita all’ ignorarli nel passato. Chiunque può verificarlo da sé. Leggete trenta o quaranta pagine qualsiasi di opuscoli che perorano la pace in Europa e vedete quanti di essi lodano i vecchi Papi o Imperatori per aver mantenuto la pace in Europa. Leggete una bracciata qualsiasi di saggi e di poesie in lode della democrazia sociale, e vedete quanti di essi lodano i vecchi Giacobini che crearono la democrazia e morirono per essa. Queste colossali rovine sono per il moderno soltanto enormi pugni negli occhi. Egli guarda indietro lungo la valle del passato e vede una prospettiva di città splendide ma incompiute. Sono incompiute, non sempre per inimicizia o per accidente, ma spesso per incostanza, stanchezza mentale e brama di filosofie aliene. Non solo abbiamo lasciato incompiute quelle cose che avremmo dovuto fare, ma abbiamo persino lasciato incompiute quelle cose che desideravamo fare.
Assai correntemente si suggerisce che l’uomo moderno è l’erede di tutte le età, che ha tratto il bene da questi successivi esperimenti umani. Non so che dire in risposta a ciò, se non chiedere al lettore di guardare l’uomo moderno, come io l’ho appena guardato— nello specchio. È davvero vero che voi e io siamo due torri stellate edificate di tutte le più torreggianti visioni del passato? Abbiamo davvero adempiuto tutti i grandi ideali storici uno dopo l’altro, dal nostro nudo antenato che ebbe il coraggio di uccidere un mammut con un coltello di pietra, attraverso il cittadino greco e il santo cristiano fino a nostro nonno o bisnonno, che può essere stato sciabolato dalla Yeomanry di Manchester o fucilato nel ‘48? Siamo ancora abbastanza forti da infilzare mammut, ma ora abbastanza teneri da risparmiarli? Contiene il cosmo alcun mammut che noi abbiamo o infilzato o risparmiato? Quando ci rifiutiamo (in maniera marcata) di innalzare la bandiera rossa e di far fuoco attraverso una barricata come i nostri nonni, stiamo davvero declinando in deferenza ai sociologi—o ai soldati? Abbiamo davvero superato il guerriero e sorpassato il santo ascetico? Temo che superiamo il guerriero solo nel senso che probabilmente scapperemmo via da lui. E se abbiamo sorpassato il santo, temo che lo abbiamo sorpassato senza inchinarci.
Questo è, in primo luogo e soprattutto, ciò che intendo con la ristrettezza delle nuove idee, l’effetto limitante del futuro. Il nostro moderno idealismo profetico è ristretto perché ha subito un persistente processo di eliminazione. Dobbiamo chiedere cose nuove perché non ci è permesso chiedere cose vecchie. L’intera posizione è fondata su questa idea che abbiamo ottenuto tutto il bene che si può ottenere dalle idee del passato. Ma non abbiamo ottenuto tutto il bene da esse, forse in questo momento nemmeno un briciolo del bene da esse. E il bisogno qui è un bisogno di completa libertà per la restaurazione come pure per la rivoluzione.
We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one’s grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, “You can’t put the clock back.” The simple and obvious answer is “You can.” A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed.
There is another proverb, “As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it”; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God I will make it again. We could restore the Heptarchy or the stage coaches if we chose. It might take some time to do, and it might be very inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, the first freedom that I claim: the freedom to restore. I claim a right to propose as a solution the old patriarchal system of a Highland clan, if that should seem to eliminate the largest number of evils. It certainly would eliminate some evils; for instance, the unnatural sense of obeying cold and harsh strangers, mere bureaucrats and policemen. I claim the right to propose the complete independence of the small Greek or Italian towns, a sovereign city of Brixton or Brompton, if that seems the best way out of our troubles. It would be a way out of some of our troubles; we could not have in a small state, for instance, those enormous illusions about men or measures which are nourished by the great national or international newspapers. You could not persuade a city state that Mr. Beit was an Englishman, or Mr. Dillon a desperado, any more than you could persuade a Hampshire Village that the village drunkard was a teetotaller or the village idiot a statesman. Nevertheless, I do not as a fact propose that the Browns and the Smiths should be collected under separate tartans. Nor do I even propose that Clapham should declare its independence. I merely declare my independence. I merely claim my choice of all the tools in the universe; and I shall not admit that any of them are blunted merely because they have been used.
V
THE UNFINISHED TEMPLE
The task of modern idealists indeed is made much too easy for them by the fact that they are always taught that if a thing has been defeated it has been disproved. Logically, the case is quite clearly the other way. The lost causes are exactly those which might have saved the world. If a man says that the Young Pretender would have made England happy, it is hard to answer him. If anyone says that the Georges made England happy, I hope we all know what to answer. That which was prevented is always impregnable; and the only perfect King of England was he who was smothered. Exactly be cause Jacobitism failed we cannot call it a failure. Precisely because the Commune collapsed as a rebellion we cannot say that it collapsed as a system. But such outbursts were brief or incidental. Few people realize how many of the largest efforts, the facts that will fill history, were frustrated in their full design and come down to us as gigantic cripples. I have only space to allude to the two largest facts of modern history: the Catholic Church and that modern growth rooted in the French Revolution.
When four knights scattered the blood and brains of St. Thomas of Canterbury, it was not only a sign of anger but of a sort of black admiration. They wished for his blood, but they wished even more for his brains. Such a blow will remain forever unintelligible unless we realise what the brains of St. Thomas were thinking about just before they were distributed over the floor. They were thinking about the great mediaeval conception that the church is the judge of the world. Becket objected to a priest being tried even by the Lord Chief Justice. And his reason was simple: because the Lord Chief Justice was being tried by the priest. The judiciary was itself sub judice. The kings were themselves in the dock. The idea was to create an invisible kingdom, without armies or prisons, but with complete freedom to condemn publicly all the kingdoms of the earth. Whether such a supreme church would have cured society we cannot affirm definitely; because the church never was a supreme church. We only know that in England at any rate the princes conquered the saints. What the world wanted we see before us; and some of us call it a failure. But we cannot call what the church wanted a failure, simply because the church failed. Tracy struck a little too soon. England had not yet made the great Protestant discovery that the king can do no wrong. The king was whipped in the cathedral; a performance which I recommend to those who regret the unpopularity of church-going. But the discovery was made; and Henry VIII scattered Becket’s bones as easily as Tracy had scattered his brains.
Of course, I mean that Catholicism was not tried; plenty of Catholics were tried, and found guilty. My point is that the world did not tire of the church’s ideal, but of its reality. Monasteries were impugned not for the chastity of monks, but for the unchastity of monks. Christianity was unpopular not because of the humility, but of the arrogance of Christians. Certainly, if the church failed it was largely through the churchmen. But at the same time hostile elements had certainly begun to end it long before it could have done its work. In the nature of things it needed a common scheme of life and thought in Europe. Yet the mediaeval system began to be broken to pieces intellectually, long before it showed the slightest hint of falling to pieces morally. The huge early heresies, like the Albigenses, had not the faintest excuse in moral superiority. And it is actually true that the Reformation began to tear Europe apart before the Catholic Church had had time to pull it together. The Prussians, for instance, were not converted to Christianity at all until quite close to the Reformation. The poor creatures hardly had time to become Catholics before they were told to become Protestants. This explains a great deal of their subsequent conduct. But I have only taken this as the first and most evident case of the general truth: that the great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
Leggiamo spesso, oggigiorno, del valore o dell’audacia con cui qualche ribelle assale una canuta tirannia o un’antiquata superstizione. Non v’è in realtà coraggio alcuno nell’assalire cose canute o antiquate, non più che nell’offrirsi di combattere la propria nonna. L’uomo davvero coraggioso è colui che sfida tirannie giovani come il mattino e superstizioni fresche come i primi fiori. L’unico vero libero pensatore è colui il cui intelletto è libero dal futuro tanto quanto dal passato. Gli importa tanto poco di ciò che sarà quanto di ciò che è stato; gli importa soltanto di ciò che dovrebbe essere. E per il mio presente scopo insisto specialmente su questa astratta indipendenza. Se devo discutere ciò che non va, una delle prime cose che non vanno è questa: il profondo e silente presupposto moderno che le cose passate siano divenute impossibili. V’è una metafora di cui i moderni sono assai ghiotti; vanno sempre dicendo: “Non si può rimettere indietro l’orologio.” La risposta semplice e ovvia è “Lo si può.” Un orologio, essendo un manufatto umano, può essere riportato dal dito umano a qualsiasi cifra o ora. Allo stesso modo la società, essendo un manufatto umano, può essere ricostruita secondo qualsiasi disegno che sia mai esistito.
V’è un altro proverbio: “Come hai fatto il letto, così devi coricarti”; che di nuovo è semplicemente una menzogna. Se ho fatto il letto scomodo, a Dio piacendo lo rifarò. Potremmo restaurare l’Eptarchia o le diligenze, se lo scegliessimo. Potrebbe richiedere del tempo farlo, e potrebbe essere assai sconsigliabile farlo; ma certo non è impossibile come è impossibile far tornare venerdì scorso. Questa è, come dico, la prima libertà che rivendico: la libertà di restaurare. Rivendico il diritto di proporre come soluzione il vecchio sistema patriarcale di un clan delle Highland, se ciò dovesse parere eliminare il maggior numero di mali. Certo eliminerebbe alcuni mali; per esempio, l’innaturale senso dell’obbedire a freddi e aspri estranei, meri burocrati e poliziotti. Rivendico il diritto di proporre la completa indipendenza delle piccole città greche o italiane, una sovrana città di Brixton o Brompton, se ciò pare la migliore via d’uscita dai nostri guai. Sarebbe una via d’uscita da alcuni dei nostri guai; non potremmo avere in un piccolo stato, per esempio, quelle enormi illusioni su uomini o provvedimenti che sono nutrite dai grandi giornali nazionali o internazionali. Non si potrebbe persuadere una città-stato che il signor Beit fosse un Inglese, o il signor Dillon un fuorilegge, non più di quanto si potrebbe persuadere un villaggio dello Hampshire che l’ubriacone del villaggio fosse un astemio o l’idiota del villaggio uno statista. Nondimeno, in realtà io non propongo che i Brown e gli Smith siano riuniti sotto tartan separati. Né propongo nemmeno che Clapham debba dichiarare la propria indipendenza. Io dichiaro semplicemente la mia indipendenza. Rivendico semplicemente la mia scelta di tutti gli strumenti dell’universo; e non ammetterò che alcuno di essi sia spuntato solo perché è stato usato.
V
IL TEMPIO INCOMPIUTO
Il compito degli idealisti moderni è invero reso fin troppo facile per loro dal fatto che viene sempre insegnato loro che se una cosa è stata sconfitta è stata confutata. Logicamente, il caso è del tutto chiaramente all’opposto. Le cause perdute sono esattamente quelle che avrebbero potuto salvare il mondo. Se un uomo dice che il Giovane Pretendente avrebbe reso felice l’Inghilterra, è arduo ribattergli. Se qualcuno dice che i Giorgio resero felice l’Inghilterra, spero che tutti sappiamo che cosa rispondere. Ciò che fu impedito è sempre imprendibile; e l’unico perfetto Re d’Inghilterra fu colui che venne soffocato. Proprio perché il Giacobitismo fallì non possiamo chiamarlo un fallimento. Proprio perché la Comune crollò come ribellione non possiamo dire che crollò come sistema. Ma simili scoppi furono brevi o incidentali. Poca gente si rende conto di quanti dei più grandi sforzi, i fatti che riempiranno la storia, siano stati frustrati nel loro pieno disegno e giungano a noi come giganteschi storpi. Ho soltanto lo spazio per accennare ai due fatti più grandi della storia moderna: la Chiesa cattolica e quella moderna crescita radicata nella Rivoluzione francese.
Quando quattro cavalieri sparsero il sangue e le cervella di San Tommaso di Canterbury, non fu solo un segno d’ira ma d’una sorta di nera ammirazione. Bramavano il suo sangue, ma bramavano ancor più le sue cervella. Un tal colpo resterà per sempre inintelligibile a meno che non ci rendiamo conto di che cosa le cervella di San Tommaso stessero pensando appena prima di essere distribuite sul pavimento. Stavano pensando alla grande concezione medievale che la chiesa è il giudice del mondo. Becket si opponeva a che un prete fosse processato persino dal Lord Presidente della Corte. E la sua ragione era semplice: perché il Lord Presidente della Corte era processato dal prete. La magistratura era essa stessa sub judice. I re erano essi stessi sul banco degli imputati. L’idea era di creare un regno invisibile, senza eserciti né prigioni, ma con completa libertà di condannare pubblicamente tutti i regni della terra. Se una tale chiesa suprema avrebbe guarito la società non possiamo affermarlo con certezza; perché la chiesa non fu mai una chiesa suprema. Sappiamo soltanto che in Inghilterra, a ogni modo, i principi conquistarono i santi. Ciò che il mondo volle lo vediamo davanti a noi; e alcuni di noi lo chiamano un fallimento. Ma non possiamo chiamare fallimento ciò che la chiesa volle, semplicemente perché la chiesa fallì. Tracy colpì un poco troppo presto. L’Inghilterra non aveva ancora fatto la grande scoperta protestante che il re non può fare torto. Il re fu flagellato nella Cattedrale; una rappresentazione che raccomando a coloro che rimpiangono l’impopolarità del recarsi in chiesa. Ma la scoperta fu fatta; ed Enrico VIII disperse le ossa di Becket con la stessa facilità con cui Tracy ne aveva disperso le cervella.
Naturalmente, intendo che il Cattolicesimo non fu messo alla prova; molti cattolici furono messi alla prova, e trovati colpevoli. Il mio punto è che il mondo non si stancò dell’ideale della chiesa, ma della sua realtà. I monasteri furono impugnati non per la castità dei monaci, ma per la lascivia dei monaci. Il Cristianesimo fu impopolare non per l’umiltà, ma per l’arroganza dei cristiani. Certo, se la chiesa fallì fu in gran parte per colpa degli uomini di chiesa. Ma nello stesso tempo elementi ostili avevano di certo cominciato a porvi fine assai prima che essa avesse potuto compiere la sua opera. Per la natura stessa delle cose essa aveva bisogno di uno schema comune di vita e di pensiero in Europa. Eppure il sistema medievale cominciò a essere fatto a pezzi intellettualmente, assai prima che mostrasse il minimo indizio di cadere a pezzi moralmente. Le enormi prime eresie, come gli Albigesi, non avevano il più tenue pretesto di superiorità morale. Ed è realmente vero che la Riforma cominciò a lacerare l’Europa prima che la Chiesa cattolica avesse avuto il tempo di riunirla. I Prussiani, per esempio, non furono affatto convertiti al Cristianesimo se non assai a ridosso della Riforma. Quelle povere creature ebbero appena il tempo di diventare cattoliche prima che fosse loro detto di diventare protestanti. Questo spiega gran parte della loro condotta successiva. Ma ho preso questo soltanto come il primo e più evidente caso della verità generale: che i grandi ideali del passato fallirono non per essere sopravvissuti (il che deve significare troppo vissuti), ma per non essere stati vissuti abbastanza. Il genere umano non è passato attraverso il Medioevo. Piuttosto il genere umano si è ritirato dal Medioevo in reazione e in rotta. L’ideale cristiano non è stato provato e trovato manchevole. È stato trovato difficile; e lasciato non provato.
It is, of course, the same in the case of the French Revolution. A great part of our present perplexity arises from the fact that the French Revolution has half succeeded and half failed. In one sense, Valmy was the decisive battle of the West, and in another Trafalgar. We have, indeed, destroyed the largest territorial tyrannies, and created a free peasantry in almost all Christian countries except England; of which we shall say more anon. But representative government, the one universal relic, is a very poor fragment of the full republican idea. The theory of the French Revolution presupposed two things in government, things which it achieved at the time, but which it has certainly not bequeathed to its imitators in England, Germany, and America. The first of these was the idea of honorable poverty; that a statesman must be something of a stoic; the second was the idea of extreme publicity. Many imaginative English writers, including Carlyle, seem quite unable to imagine how it was that men like Robespierre and Marat were ardently admired. The best answer is that they were admired for being poor— poor when they might have been rich.
No one will pretend that this ideal exists at all in the haute politique of this country. Our national claim to political incorruptibility is actually based on exactly the opposite argument; it is based on the theory that wealthy men in assured positions will have no temptation to financial trickery. Whether the history of the English aristocracy, from the spoliation of the monasteries to the annexation of the mines, entirely supports this theory I am not now inquiring; but certainly it is our theory, that wealth will be a protection against political corruption. The English statesman is bribed not to be bribed. He is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, so that he may never afterwards be found with the silver spoons in his pocket. So strong is our faith in this protection by plutocracy, that we are more and more trusting our empire in the hands of families which inherit wealth without either blood or manners. Some of our political houses are parvenue by pedigree; they hand on vulgarity like a coat of-arms. In the case of many a modern statesman to say that he is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, is at once inadequate and excessive. He is born with a silver knife in his mouth. But all this only illustrates the English theory that poverty is perilous for a politician.
It will be the same if we compare the conditions that have come about with the Revolution legend touching publicity. The old democratic doctrine was that the more light that was let in to all departments of State, the easier it was for a righteous indignation to move promptly against wrong. In other words, monarchs were to live in glass houses, that mobs might throw stones. Again, no admirer of existing English politics (if there is any admirer of existing English politics) will really pretend that this ideal of publicity is exhausted, or even attempted. Obviously public life grows more private every day. The French have, indeed, continued the tradition of revealing secrets and making scandals; hence they are more flagrant and palpable than we, not in sin but in the confession of sin. The first trial of Dreyfus might have happened in England; it is exactly the second trial that would have been legally impossible. But, indeed, if we wish to realise how far we fall short of the original republican outline, the sharpest way to test it is to note how far we fall short even of the republican element in the older regime. Not only are we less democratic than Danton and Condorcet, but we are in many ways less democratic than Choiseul and Marie Antoinette. The richest nobles before the revolt were needy middle-class people compared with our Rothschilds and Roseberys. And in the matter of publicity the old French monarchy was infinitely more democratic than any of the monarchies of today. Practically anybody who chose could walk into the palace and see the king playing with his children, or paring his nails. The people possessed the monarch, as the people possess Primrose Hill; that is, they cannot move it, but they can sprawl all over it. The old French monarchy was founded on the excellent principle that a cat may look at a king. But nowadays a cat may not look at a king; unless it is a very tame cat. Even where the press is free for criticism it is only used for adulation. The substantial difference comes to something uncommonly like this: Eighteenth century tyranny meant that you could say “The K__ of Br__rd is a profligate.” Twentieth century liberty really means that you are allowed to say “The King of Brentford is a model family man.”
But we have delayed the main argument too long for the parenthetical purpose of showing that the great democratic dream, like the great mediaeval dream, has in a strict and practical sense been a dream unfulfilled. Whatever is the matter with modern England it is not that we have carried out too literally, or achieved with disappointing completeness, either the Catholicism of Becket or the equality of Marat. Now I have taken these two cases merely because they are typical of ten thousand other cases; the world is full of these unfulfilled ideas, these uncompleted temples. History does not consist of completed and crumbling ruins; rather it consists of half-built villas abandoned by a bankrupt-builder. This world is more like an unfinished suburb than a deserted cemetery.
VI
THE ENEMIES OF PROPERTY
But it is for this especial reason that such an explanation is necessary on the very threshold of the definition of ideals. For owing to that historic fallacy with which I have just dealt, numbers of readers will expect me, when I propound an ideal, to propound a new ideal. Now I have no notion at all of propounding a new ideal. There is no new ideal imaginable by the madness of modern sophists, which will be anything like so startling as fulfilling any one of the old ones. On the day that any copybook maxim is carried out there will be something like an earthquake on the earth. There is only one thing new that can be done under the sun; and that is to look at the sun. If you attempt it on a blue day in June, you will know why men do not look straight at their ideals. There is only one really startling thing to be done with the ideal, and that is to do it. It is to face the flaming logical fact, and its frightful consequences. Christ knew that it would be a more stunning thunderbolt to fulfil the law than to destroy it. It is true of both the cases I have quoted, and of every case. The pagans had always adored purity: Athena, Artemis, Vesta. It was when the virgin martyrs began defiantly to practice purity that they rent them with wild beasts, and rolled them on red-hot coals. The world had always loved the notion of the poor man uppermost; it can be proved by every legend from Cinderella to Whittington, by every poem from the Magnificat to the Marseillaise. The kings went mad against France not because she idealized this ideal, but because she realized it. Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia quite agreed that the people should rule; what horrified them was that the people did. The French Revolution, therefore, is the type of all true revolutions, because its ideal is as old as the Old Adam, but its fulfilment almost as fresh, as miraculous, and as new as the New Jerusalem.
È, naturalmente, lo stesso nel caso della Rivoluzione francese. Gran parte della nostra presente perplessità nasce dal fatto che la Rivoluzione francese è a metà riuscita e a metà fallita. In un senso, Valmy fu la battaglia decisiva dell’Occidente, e in un altro Trafalgar. Abbiamo, invero, distrutto le maggiori tirannie territoriali, e creato un contadinato libero in quasi tutti i paesi cristiani tranne l’Inghilterra; di cui diremo di più fra poco. Ma il governo rappresentativo, l’unica reliquia universale, è un ben misero frammento della piena idea repubblicana. La teoria della Rivoluzione francese presupponeva due cose nel governo, cose che essa conseguì al suo tempo, ma che di certo non ha lasciato in eredità ai suoi imitatori in Inghilterra, Germania e America. La prima di queste era l’idea dell’onorevole povertà; che uno statista deve avere in sé qualcosa dello stoico; la seconda era l’idea dell’estrema pubblicità. Molti fantasiosi scrittori inglesi, compreso Carlyle, paiono del tutto incapaci di immaginare come fosse possibile che uomini come Robespierre e Marat fossero ardentemente ammirati. La miglior risposta è che essi erano ammirati per essere poveri— poveri quando avrebbero potuto essere ricchi.
Nessuno pretenderà che questo ideale esista minimamente nella haute politique di questo paese. La nostra pretesa nazionale all’incorruttibilità politica è in realtà fondata sull’argomento esattamente opposto; è fondata sulla teoria che gli uomini ricchi in posizioni sicure non avranno tentazione alcuna di frode finanziaria. Se la storia dell’aristocrazia inglese, dalla spoliazione dei monasteri all’annessione delle miniere, avvalori pienamente questa teoria non è ciò che ora indago; ma di certo è la nostra teoria, che la ricchezza sarà una protezione contro la corruzione politica. Lo statista inglese è corrotto affinché non si lasci corrompere. Nasce con un cucchiaio d’argento in bocca, così che possa non essere mai poi trovato coi cucchiai d’argento in tasca. Tanto forte è la nostra fede in questa protezione da parte della plutocrazia, che affidiamo sempre più il nostro impero nelle mani di famiglie che ereditano ricchezza senza sangue né maniere. Alcune delle nostre casate politiche sono parvenue per lignaggio; tramandano la volgarità come uno stemma araldico. Nel caso di molti statisti moderni dire che sono nati con un cucchiaio d’argento in bocca è a un tempo insufficiente ed eccessivo. Sono nati con un coltello d’argento in bocca. Ma tutto questo non fa che illustrare la teoria inglese che la povertà è perigliosa per un politico.
Sarà lo stesso se confrontiamo le condizioni che sono sopravvenute con la leggenda rivoluzionaria riguardante la pubblicità. La vecchia dottrina democratica era che quanta più luce si lasciava entrare in tutti i dipartimenti dello Stato, tanto più facile era per una giusta indignazione muoversi prontamente contro il torto. In altre parole, i monarchi dovevano vivere in case di vetro, affinché le folle potessero scagliar pietre. Di nuovo, nessun ammiratore dell’esistente politica inglese (se v’è alcun ammiratore dell’esistente politica inglese) pretenderà davvero che questo ideale di pubblicità sia esaurito, o anche solo tentato. Ovviamente la vita pubblica si fa più privata ogni giorno. I Francesi hanno, invero, continuato la tradizione di rivelare segreti e di fare scandali; perciò sono più flagranti e palpabili di noi, non nel peccato ma nella confessione del peccato. Il primo processo a Dreyfus sarebbe potuto avvenire in Inghilterra; è esattamente il secondo processo che sarebbe stato legalmente impossibile. Ma, invero, se vogliamo renderci conto di quanto siamo al di sotto dell’originario abbozzo repubblicano, il modo più acuto di metterlo alla prova è notare quanto siamo al di sotto persino dell’elemento repubblicano del vecchio regime. Non solo siamo meno democratici di Danton e Condorcet, ma siamo per molti versi meno democratici di Choiseul e Maria Antonietta. I nobili più ricchi prima della rivolta erano bisognosi borghesi in confronto ai nostri Rothschild e Rosebery. E in fatto di pubblicità la vecchia monarchia francese era infinitamente più democratica di qualsiasi monarchia odierna. Praticamente chiunque lo scegliesse poteva entrare nel palazzo e vedere il re che giocava coi suoi figli, o si tagliava le unghie. Il popolo possedeva il monarca, come il popolo possiede Primrose Hill; vale a dire, non possono spostarlo, ma possono sdraiarcisi sopra a piacimento. La vecchia monarchia francese era fondata sull’eccellente principio che un gatto può guardare un re. Ma oggigiorno un gatto non può guardare un re; a meno che non sia un gatto assai mansueto. Persino dove la stampa è libera di criticare, essa è usata solo per l’adulazione. La differenza sostanziale si riduce a qualcosa di straordinariamente simile a questo: la tirannia del diciottesimo secolo significava che si poteva dire “Il R__ di Br__rd è un dissoluto.” La libertà del ventesimo secolo significa in realtà che vi è permesso dire “Il Re di Brentford è un modello di padre di famiglia.”
Ma abbiamo indugiato troppo a lungo nell’argomento principale per lo scopo parentetico di mostrare che il grande sogno democratico, come il grande sogno medievale, è stato in senso stretto e pratico un sogno non adempiuto. Qualunque cosa ci sia di sbagliato nell’Inghilterra moderna non è che abbiamo attuato troppo alla lettera, o realizzato con deludente completezza, o il Cattolicesimo di Becket o l’uguaglianza di Marat. Ora, ho preso questi due casi soltanto perché sono tipici di diecimila altri casi; il mondo è pieno di queste idee non adempiute, di questi templi incompiuti. La Storia non consiste di rovine compiute e diroccate; piuttosto essa consiste di villini a metà costruiti e abbandonati da un costruttore in bancarotta. Questo mondo somiglia più a un sobborgo incompiuto che a un cimitero deserto.
VI
I NEMICI DELLA PROPRIETÀ
Ma è proprio per questa speciale ragione che una tale spiegazione è necessaria sulla soglia stessa della definizione degli ideali. Poiché, a causa di quella fallacia storica di cui ho appena trattato, numerosi lettori si aspetteranno che io, quando propongo un ideale, proponga un ideale nuovo. Ora, non ho alcuna intenzione di proporre un ideale nuovo. Non v’è ideale nuovo immaginabile dalla follia dei moderni sofisti, che sarà mai qualcosa di così sconvolgente quanto l’adempiere anche uno solo dei vecchi. Il giorno in cui una qualsiasi massima da quaderno di scuola sarà messa in atto, vi sarà qualcosa di simile a un terremoto sulla terra. V’è una sola cosa nuova che si possa fare sotto il sole; ed è guardare il sole. Se lo tentate in un giorno azzurro di giugno, capirete perché gli uomini non guardano dritto ai loro ideali. V’è una sola cosa davvero sconvolgente da fare con l’ideale, ed è farlo. È affrontare il fiammeggiante fatto logico, e le sue spaventose conseguenze. Cristo sapeva che sarebbe stato un fulmine più stordente adempiere la legge che distruggerla. Ciò è vero di entrambi i casi che ho citato, e di ogni caso. I pagani avevano sempre adorato la purezza: Atena, Artemide, Vesta. Fu quando le vergini martiri cominciarono a praticare con sfida la purezza che essi le sbranarono con le bestie feroci, e le rotolarono su carboni ardenti. Il mondo aveva sempre amato l’idea del povero al di sopra di tutti; lo prova ogni leggenda da Cenerentola a Whittington, ogni poema dal Magnificat alla Marsigliese. I re impazzirono contro la Francia non perché essa idealizzava questo ideale, ma perché essa lo realizzava. Giuseppe d’Austria e Caterina di Russia concordavano pienamente che il popolo dovesse governare; ciò che li inorridì fu che il popolo governasse. La Rivoluzione francese, dunque, è il tipo di tutte le vere rivoluzioni, perché il suo ideale è antico quanto il Vecchio Adamo, ma il suo adempimento fresco, miracoloso e nuovo quasi quanto la Nuova Gerusalemme.
But in the modern world we are primarily confronted with the extraordinary spectacle of people turning to new ideals because they have not tried the old. Men have not got tired of Christianity; they have never found enough Christianity to get tired of. Men have never wearied of political justice; they have wearied of waiting for it.
Now, for the purpose of this book, I propose to take only one of these old ideals; but one that is perhaps the oldest. I take the principle of domesticity: the ideal house; the happy family, the holy family of history. For the moment it is only necessary to remark that it is like the church and like the republic, now chiefly assailed by those who have never known it, or by those who have failed to fulfil it. Numberless modern women have rebelled against domesticity in theory because they have never known it in practice. Hosts of the poor are driven to the workhouse without ever having known the house. Generally speaking, the cultured class is shrieking to be let out of the decent home, just as the working class is shouting to be let into it.
Now if we take this house or home as a test, we may very generally lay the simple spiritual foundations of the idea. God is that which can make something out of nothing. Man (it may truly be said) is that which can make something out of anything. In other words, while the joy of God be unlimited creation, the special joy of man is limited creation, the combination of creation with limits. Man’s pleasure, therefore, is to possess conditions, but also to be partly possessed by them; to be half-controlled by the flute he plays or by the field he digs. The excitement is to get the utmost out of given conditions; the conditions will stretch, but not indefinitely. A man can write an immortal sonnet on an old envelope, or hack a hero out of a lump of rock. But hacking a sonnet out of a rock would be a laborious business, and making a hero out of an envelope is almost out of the sphere of practical politics. This fruitful strife with limitations, when it concerns some airy entertainment of an educated class, goes by the name of Art. But the mass of men have neither time nor aptitude for the invention of invisible or abstract beauty. For the mass of men the idea of artistic creation can only be expressed by an idea unpopular in present discussions—the idea of property. The average man cannot cut clay into the shape of a man; but he can cut earth into the shape of a garden; and though he arranges it with red geraniums and blue potatoes in alternate straight lines, he is still an artist; because he has chosen. The average man cannot paint the sunset whose colors be admires; but he can paint his own house with what color he chooses, and though he paints it pea green with pink spots, he is still an artist; because that is his choice. Property is merely the art of the democracy. It means that every man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is shaped in the image of heaven. But because he is not God, but only a graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits; properly with limits that are strict and even small.
I am well aware that the word “property” has been defied in our time by the corruption of the great capitalists. One would think, to hear people talk, that the Rothchilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of property. But obviously they are the enemies of property; because they are enemies of their own limitations. They do not want their own land; but other people’s. When they remove their neighbor’s landmark, they also remove their own. A man who loves a little triangular field ought to love it because it is triangular; anyone who destroys the shape, by giving him more land, is a thief who has stolen a triangle. A man with the true poetry of possession wishes to see the wall where his garden meets Smith’s garden; the hedge where his farm touches Brown’s. He cannot see the shape of his own land unless he sees the edges of his neighbor’s. It is the negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland should have all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the negation of marriage if he had all our wives in one harem.
VII
THE FREE FAMILY
As I have said, I propose to take only one central instance; I will take the institution called the private house or home; the shell and organ of the family. We will consider cosmic and political tendencies simply as they strike that ancient and unique roof. Very few words will suffice for all I have to say about the family itself. I leave alone the speculations about its animal origin and the details of its social reconstruction; I am concerned only with its palpable omnipresence. It is a necessity far mankind; it is (if you like to put it so) a trap for mankind. Only by the hypocritical ignoring of a huge fact can any one contrive to talk of “free love”; as if love were an episode like lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune. Suppose whenever a man lit a cigarette, a towering genie arose from the rings of smoke and followed him everywhere as a huge slave. Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune he “drew an angel down” and had to walk about forever with a seraph on a string. These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the earthquake consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is perfectly plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover; he is either a traitor or a tied man. The second element that creates the family is that its consequences, though colossal, are gradual; the cigarette produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph. Thence arises the necessity for some prolonged system of co-operation; and thence arises the family in its full educational sense.
Ma nel mondo moderno siamo anzitutto messi di fronte allo straordinario spettacolo di gente che si volge a nuovi ideali perché non ha provato i vecchi. Gli uomini non si sono stancati del Cristianesimo; non hanno mai trovato abbastanza Cristianesimo da stancarsene. Gli uomini non si sono mai stancati della giustizia politica; si sono stancati di attenderla.
Ora, ai fini di questo libro, mi propongo di prendere uno solo di questi vecchi ideali; ma uno che è forse il più antico. Prendo il principio della domesticità: la casa ideale; la famiglia felice, la sacra famiglia della storia. Per il momento è solo necessario osservare che essa, come la chiesa e come la repubblica, è ora assalita principalmente da coloro che non l’hanno mai conosciuta, o da coloro che hanno mancato di adempierla. Innumerevoli donne moderne si sono ribellate alla domesticità in teoria perché non l’hanno mai conosciuta in pratica. Schiere di poveri sono sospinte all’ospizio senza aver mai conosciuto la casa. Generalmente parlando, la classe colta strilla per essere fatta uscire dalla decorosa dimora, proprio come la classe operaia grida per esservi fatta entrare.
Ora, se prendiamo questa casa o dimora come banco di prova, possiamo assai generalmente porre le semplici fondamenta spirituali dell’idea. Dio è ciò che può fare qualcosa dal nulla. L’uomo (si può in verità dire) è ciò che può fare qualcosa da qualsiasi cosa. In altre parole, mentre la gioia di Dio è la creazione illimitata, la speciale gioia dell’uomo è la creazione limitata, la combinazione della creazione coi limiti. Il piacere dell’uomo, dunque, è di possedere condizioni, ma anche di esserne in parte posseduto; di essere per metà controllato dal flauto che suona o dal campo che scava. L’eccitazione è trarre il massimo da condizioni date; le condizioni si tenderanno, ma non all’infinito. Un uomo può scrivere un immortale sonetto su una vecchia busta, o cavare un eroe da un blocco di roccia. Ma cavare un sonetto da una roccia sarebbe un’impresa laboriosa, e fare un eroe da una busta è quasi fuori dalla sfera della politica pratica. Questa feconda lotta coi limiti, quando riguarda qualche aereo passatempo di una classe colta, va sotto il nome di Arte. Ma la massa degli uomini non ha né tempo né attitudine per l’invenzione di una bellezza invisibile o astratta. Per la massa degli uomini l’idea della creazione artistica può essere espressa solo da un’idea impopolare nelle presenti discussioni—l’idea della proprietà. L’uomo medio non sa tagliare l’argilla nella forma di un uomo; ma sa tagliare la terra nella forma di un giardino; e per quanto lo disponga con gerani rossi e patate blu in alterne righe diritte, egli è pur sempre un artista; perché ha scelto. L’uomo medio non sa dipingere il tramonto i cui colori ammira; ma sa dipingere la propria casa col colore che sceglie, e per quanto la dipinga verde pisello a pois rosa, egli è pur sempre un artista; perché quella è la sua scelta. La proprietà è semplicemente l’arte della democrazia. Significa che ogni uomo dovrebbe avere qualcosa che possa plasmare a propria immagine, così come egli è plasmato a immagine del cielo. Ma poiché egli non è Dio, ma solo un’immagine scolpita di Dio, la sua auto-espressione deve fare i conti coi limiti; propriamente con limiti che sono rigorosi e persino piccoli.
Sono ben consapevole che la parola “proprietà” è stata sfidata nel nostro tempo dalla corruzione dei grandi capitalisti. A sentire parlare la gente, si penserebbe che i Rothschild e i Rockefeller fossero dalla parte della proprietà. Ma ovviamente essi sono i nemici della proprietà; perché sono nemici dei propri limiti. Non vogliono la propria terra; ma quella altrui. Quando rimuovono il confine del vicino, rimuovono anche il proprio. Un uomo che ama un piccolo campo triangolare dovrebbe amarlo perché è triangolare; chiunque ne distrugge la forma, dandogli più terra, è un ladro che ha rubato un triangolo. Un uomo con la vera poesia del possesso desidera vedere il muro dove il suo giardino incontra il giardino di Smith; la siepe dove la sua fattoria tocca quella di Brown. Non può vedere la forma della propria terra se non vede i margini di quella del vicino. È la negazione della proprietà che il Duca di Sutherland debba avere tutte le fattorie in un unico latifondo; proprio come sarebbe la negazione del matrimonio se egli avesse tutte le nostre mogli in un unico harem.
VII
LA LIBERA FAMIGLIA
Come ho detto, mi propongo di prendere un solo caso centrale; prenderò l’istituzione chiamata la casa privata o dimora; il guscio e l’organo della famiglia. Considereremo le tendenze cosmiche e politiche semplicemente come esse colpiscono quell’antico e unico tetto. Pochissime parole basteranno per tutto ciò che ho da dire sulla famiglia in sé. Lascio da parte le speculazioni sulla sua origine animale e i dettagli della sua ricostruzione sociale; mi occupo soltanto della sua palpabile onnipresenza. È una necessità per il genere umano; è (se vi piace metterla così) una trappola per il genere umano. Solo con l’ipocrita ignorare di un enorme fatto chiunque può riuscire a parlare di “libero amore”; come se l’amore fosse un episodio come accendere una sigaretta, o fischiettare un motivo. Supponete che ogni volta che un uomo accende una sigaretta, un torreggiante genio si levi dagli anelli di fumo e lo segua ovunque come un enorme schiavo. Supponete che ogni volta che un uomo fischietta un motivo egli “faccia scendere un angelo” e debba camminare per sempre con un serafino al guinzaglio. Queste immagini catastrofiche non sono che deboli parallelismi delle conseguenze tellurico che la Natura ha legato al sesso; ed è perfettamente chiaro fin dal principio che un uomo non può essere un libero amante; egli è o un traditore o un uomo legato. Il secondo elemento che crea la famiglia è che le sue conseguenze, per quanto colossali, sono graduali; la sigaretta produce un bimbo gigante, la canzone solo un serafino in fasce. Di lì sorge la necessità di qualche prolungato sistema di cooperazione; e di lì sorge la famiglia nel suo pieno senso educativo.
It may be said that this institution of the home is the one anarchist institution. That is to say, it is older than law, and stands outside the State. By its nature it is refreshed or corrupted by indefinable forces of custom or kinship. This is not to be understood as meaning that the State has no authority over families; that State authority is invoked and ought to be invoked in many abnormal cases. But in most normal cases of family joys and sorrows, the State has no mode of entry. It is not so much that the law should not interfere, as that the law cannot. Just as there are fields too far off for law, so there are fields too near; as a man may see the North Pole before he sees his own backbone. Small and near matters escape control at least as much as vast and remote ones; and the real pains and pleasures of the family form a strong instance of this. If a baby cries for the moon, the policeman cannot procure the moon—but neither can he stop the baby. Creatures so close to each other as husband and wife, or a mother and children, have powers of making each other happy or miserable with which no public coercion can deal. If a marriage could be dissolved every morning it would not give back his night’s rest to a man kept awake by a curtain lecture; and what is the good of giving a man a lot of power where he only wants a little peace? The child must depend on the most imperfect mother; the mother may be devoted to the most unworthy children; in such relations legal revenges are vain. Even in the abnormal cases where the law may operate, this difficulty is constantly found; as many a bewildered magistrate knows. He has to save children from starvation by taking away their breadwinner. And he often has to break a wife’s heart because her husband has already broken her head. The State has no tool delicate enough to deracinate the rooted habits and tangled affections of the family; the two sexes, whether happy or unhappy, are glued together too tightly for us to get the blade of a legal penknife in between them. The man and the woman are one flesh—yes, even when they are not one spirit. Man is a quadruped. Upon this ancient and anarchic intimacy, types of government have little or no effect; it is happy or unhappy, by its own sexual wholesomeness and genial habit, under the republic of Switzerland or the despotism of Siam. Even a republic in Siam would not have done much towards freeing the Siamese Twins.
The problem is not in marriage, but in sex; and would be felt under the freest concubinage. Nevertheless, the overwhelming mass of mankind has not believed in freedom in this matter, but rather in a more or less lasting tie. Tribes and civilizations differ about the occasions on which we may loosen the bond, but they all agree that there is a bond to be loosened, not a mere universal detachment. For the purposes of this book I am not concerned to discuss that mystical view of marriage in which I myself believe: the great European tradition which has made marriage a sacrament. It is enough to say here that heathen and Christian alike have regarded marriage as a tie; a thing not normally to be sundered. Briefly, this human belief in a sexual bond rests on a principle of which the modern mind has made a very inadequate study. It is, perhaps, most nearly paralleled by the principle of the second wind in walking.
The principle is this: that in everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of learning him; the glow of the sea-bather comes after the icy shock of the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of the honeymoon. All human vows, laws, and contracts are so many ways of surviving with success this breaking point, this instant of potential surrender.
In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or honor. It is then that the Institution upholds a man and helps him on to the firmer ground ahead. Whether this solid fact of human nature is sufficient to justify the sublime dedication of Christian marriage is quite an other matter, it is amply sufficient to justify the general human feeling of marriage as a fixed thing, dissolution of which is a fault or, at least, an ignominy. The essential element is not so much duration as security. Two people must be tied together in order to do themselves justice; for twenty minutes at a dance, or for twenty years in a marriage In both cases the point is, that if a man is bored in the first five minutes he must go on and force himself to be happy. Coercion is a kind of encouragement; and anarchy (or what some call liberty) is essentially oppressive, because it is essentially discouraging. If we all floated in the air like bubbles, free to drift anywhere at any instant, the practical result would be that no one would have the courage to begin a conversation. It would be so embarrassing to start a sentence in a friendly whisper, and then have to shout the last half of it because the other party was floating away into the free and formless ether. The two must hold each other to do justice to each other. If Americans can be divorced for “incompatibility of temper” I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.
VIII
THE WILDNESS OF DOMESTICITY
Si può dire che questa istituzione della dimora è l’unica istituzione anarchica. Vale a dire, essa è più antica della legge, e sta al di fuori dello Stato. Per sua natura essa è ravvivata o corrotta da indefinibili forze di consuetudine o di parentela. Ciò non va inteso come se lo Stato non avesse autorità alcuna sulle famiglie; l’autorità dello Stato è invocata e va invocata in molti casi anomali. Ma nella maggior parte dei casi normali di gioie e dolori familiari, lo Stato non ha modo d’ingresso. Non è tanto che la legge non debba interferire, quanto che la legge non può. Come vi sono campi troppo lontani per la legge, così vi sono campi troppo vicini; come un uomo può vedere il Polo Nord prima di vedere la propria spina dorsale. Le cose piccole e vicine sfuggono al controllo almeno tanto quanto quelle vaste e remote; e le vere pene e i veri piaceri della famiglia ne sono un forte esempio. Se un bimbo piange per la luna, il poliziotto non può procurargli la luna—ma nemmeno può far tacere il bimbo. Creature così vicine l’una all’altra come marito e moglie, o una madre e i figli, hanno il potere di rendersi a vicenda felici o infelici, con cui nessuna coercizione pubblica può misurarsi. Se un matrimonio potesse essere sciolto ogni mattina non restituirebbe il riposo notturno a un uomo tenuto sveglio da una ramanzina in camera da letto; e a che giova dare a un uomo un mucchio di potere là dove egli vuole solo un po’ di pace? Il bambino deve dipendere dalla più imperfetta delle madri; la madre può essere devota ai più indegni dei figli; in tali relazioni le vendette legali sono vane. Persino nei casi anomali in cui la legge può operare, questa difficoltà si riscontra di continuo; come sa più d’un magistrato sconcertato. Egli deve salvare i bambini dalla fame togliendo loro chi porta il pane. E spesso deve spezzare il cuore d’una moglie perché il marito le ha già spezzato la testa. Lo Stato non ha strumento abbastanza delicato da sradicare le radicate abitudini e i grovigliati affetti della famiglia; i due sessi, felici o infelici che siano, sono incollati insieme troppo strettamente perché possiamo insinuare tra loro la lama d’un temperino legale. L’uomo e la donna sono una sola carne—sì, anche quando non sono un solo spirito. L’uomo è un quadrupede. Su questa antica e anarchica intimità, le forme di governo hanno poco o nessun effetto; essa è felice o infelice, per la propria sanità sessuale e per l’affabile consuetudine, sotto la repubblica di Svizzera o il dispotismo del Siam. Persino una repubblica nel Siam non avrebbe fatto molto per liberare i Gemelli Siamesi.
Il problema non è nel matrimonio, ma nel sesso; e si avvertirebbe sotto il più libero dei concubinaggi. Nondimeno, la stragrande massa del genere umano non ha creduto nella libertà in questa materia, bensì in un vincolo più o meno duraturo. Tribù e civiltà differiscono circa le occasioni in cui possiamo allentare il legame, ma tutte concordano che v’è un legame da allentare, non un mero distacco universale. Ai fini di questo libro non mi preme discutere quella visione mistica del matrimonio in cui io stesso credo: la grande tradizione europea che ha fatto del matrimonio un sacramento. Basti dire qui che pagani e cristiani del pari hanno considerato il matrimonio come un vincolo; una cosa che normalmente non si deve spezzare. In breve, questa umana credenza in un legame sessuale poggia su un principio di cui la mente moderna ha fatto uno studio assai inadeguato. Esso è, forse, meglio paragonato al principio del secondo fiato nel camminare.
Il principio è questo: che in ogni cosa che valga la pena avere, persino in ogni piacere, v’è un punto di dolore o di tedio che deve essere superato, affinché il piacere possa rinascere e durare. La gioia della battaglia viene dopo la prima paura della morte; la gioia di leggere Virgilio viene dopo la noia di impararlo; l’ardore del bagnante marino viene dopo il gelido shock del bagno di mare; e il successo del matrimonio viene dopo il fallimento della luna di miele. Tutti i voti, le leggi e i contratti umani sono altrettanti modi di sopravvivere con successo a questo punto di rottura, a questo istante di potenziale resa.
In ogni cosa su questa terra che valga la pena fare, v’è uno stadio in cui nessuno la farebbe, se non per necessità od onore. È allora che l’Istituzione sorregge un uomo e lo aiuta ad avanzare verso il terreno più fermo dinanzi. Se questo solido fatto della natura umana sia sufficiente a giustificare la sublime dedizione del matrimonio cristiano è tutt’altra questione; è ampiamente sufficiente a giustificare il generale sentimento umano del matrimonio come cosa fissa, la cui dissoluzione è una colpa o, quanto meno, un’ignominia. L’elemento essenziale non è tanto la durata quanto la sicurezza. Due persone devono essere legate insieme per rendere giustizia a se stesse; per venti minuti a un ballo, o per vent’anni in un matrimonio. In entrambi i casi il punto è che, se un uomo si annoia nei primi cinque minuti, deve andare avanti e costringersi a essere felice. La coercizione è una sorta di incoraggiamento; e l’anarchia (o ciò che alcuni chiamano libertà) è essenzialmente oppressiva, perché è essenzialmente scoraggiante. Se tutti fluttuassimo nell’aria come bolle, liberi di andare alla deriva ovunque in ogni istante, il risultato pratico sarebbe che nessuno avrebbe il coraggio di avviare una conversazione. Sarebbe così imbarazzante cominciare una frase in un amichevole sussurro, per poi dover gridarne l’ultima metà perché l’altra parte se ne fluttuava via nell’etere libero e informe. I due devono trattenersi a vicenda per rendersi giustizia a vicenda. Se gli Americani possono divorziare per “incompatibilità di carattere” non riesco a concepire perché non divorzino tutti. Ho conosciuto molti matrimoni felici, ma mai uno compatibile. Tutto lo scopo del matrimonio è di lottare fino in fondo e sopravvivere all’istante in cui l’incompatibilità diviene indiscutibile. Poiché un uomo e una donna, in quanto tali, sono incompatibili.
VIII
LA SELVATICHEZZA DELLA DOMESTICITÀ
In the course of this crude study we shall have to touch on what is called the problem of poverty, especially the dehumanized poverty of modern industrialism. But in this primary matter of the ideal the difficulty is not the problem of poverty, but the problem of wealth. It is the special psychology of leisure and luxury that falsifies life. Some experience of modern movements of the sort called “advanced” has led me to the conviction that they generally repose upon some experience peculiar to the rich. It is so with that fallacy of free love of which I have already spoken; the idea of sexuality as a string of episodes. That implies a long holiday in which to get tired of one woman, and a motor car in which to wander looking for others; it also implies money for maintenances. An omnibus conductor has hardly time to love his own wife, let alone other people’s. And the success with which nuptial estrangements are depicted in modern “problem plays” is due to the fact that there is only one thing that a drama cannot depict—that is a hard day’s work. I could give many other instances of this plutocratic assumption behind progressive fads. For instance, there is a plutocratic assumption behind the phrase “Why should woman be economically dependent upon man?” The answer is that among poor and practical people she isn’t; except in the sense in which he is dependent upon her. A hunter has to tear his clothes; there must be somebody to mend them. A fisher has to catch fish; there must be somebody to cook them. It is surely quite clear that this modern notion that woman is a mere “pretty clinging parasite,” “a plaything,” etc., arose through the somber contemplation of some rich banking family, in which the banker, at least, went to the city and pretended to do something, while the banker’s wife went to the Park and did not pretend to do anything at all. A poor man and his wife are a business partnership. If one partner in a firm of publishers interviews the authors while the other interviews the clerks, is one of them economically dependent? Was Hodder a pretty parasite clinging to Stoughton? Was Marshall a mere plaything for Snelgrove?
But of all the modern notions generated by mere wealth the worst is this: the notion that domesticity is dull and tame. Inside the home (they say) is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. This is indeed a rich man’s opinion. The rich man knows that his own house moves on vast and soundless wheels of wealth, is run by regiments of servants, by a swift and silent ritual. On the other hand, every sort of vagabondage of romance is open to him in the streets outside. He has plenty of money and can afford to be a tramp. His wildest adventure will end in a restaurant, while the yokel’s tamest adventure may end in a police-court. If he smashes a window he can pay for it; if he smashes a man he can pension him. He can (like the millionaire in the story) buy an hotel to get a glass of gin. And because he, the luxurious man, dictates the tone of nearly all “advanced” and “progressive” thought, we have almost forgotten what a home really means to the overwhelming millions of mankind.
For the truth is, that to the moderately poor the home is the only place of liberty. Nay, it is the only place of anarchy. It is the only spot on the earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. Everywhere else he goes he must accept the strict rules of the shop, inn, club, or museum that he happens to enter. He can eat his meals on the floor in his own house if he likes. I often do it myself; it gives a curious, childish, poetic, picnic feeling. There would be considerable trouble if I tried to do it in an A.B.C. tea-shop. A man can wear a dressing gown and slippers in his house; while I am sure that this would not be permitted at the Savoy, though I never actually tested the point. If you go to a restaurant you must drink some of the wines on the wine list, all of them if you insist, but certainly some of them. But if you have a house and garden you can try to make hollyhock tea or convolvulus wine if you like. For a plain, hard-working man the home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks. The home is the one place where he can put the carpet on the ceiling or the slates on the floor if he wants to. When a man spends every night staggering from bar to bar or from music-hall to music-hall, we say that he is living an irregular life. But he is not; he is living a highly regular life, under the dull, and often oppressive, laws of such places. Some times he is not allowed even to sit down in the bars; and frequently he is not allowed to sing in the music-halls. Hotels may be defined as places where you are forced to dress; and theaters may be defined as places where you are forbidden to smoke. A man can only picnic at home.
Now I take, as I have said, this small human omnipotence, this possession of a definite cell or chamber of liberty, as the working model for the present inquiry. Whether we can give every English man a free home of his own or not, at least we should desire it; and he desires it. For the moment we speak of what he wants, not of what he expects to get. He wants, for instance, a separate house; he does not want a semi-detached house. He may be forced in the commercial race to share one wall with another man. Similarly he might be forced in a three-legged race to share one leg with another man; but it is not so that he pictures himself in his dreams of elegance and liberty. Again, he does not desire a flat. He can eat and sleep and praise God in a flat; he can eat and sleep and praise God in a railway train. But a railway train is not a house, because it is a house on wheels. And a flat is not a house, because it is a house on stilts. An idea of earthy contact and foundation, as well as an idea of separation and independence, is a part of this instructive human picture.
Nel corso di questo studio grezzo dovremo toccare quello che si chiama il problema della povertà, specialmente la povertà disumanizzata dell’industrialismo moderno. Ma in questa questione primaria dell’ideale la difficoltà non è il problema della povertà, bensì il problema della ricchezza. È la particolare psicologia dell’ozio e del lusso a falsare la vita. Una certa esperienza dei movimenti moderni del genere detto “avanzato” mi ha condotto alla convinzione che essi in genere riposano su qualche esperienza propria dei ricchi. Così è per quella fallacia del libero amore di cui ho già parlato; l’idea della sessualità come una sfilza di episodi. Ciò presuppone una lunga vacanza in cui stancarsi di una donna, e un’automobile con cui vagare in cerca di altre; presuppone anche denaro per i mantenimenti. Un bigliettaio d’autobus ha a malapena il tempo di amare la propria moglie, per non parlare di quelle altrui. E il successo con cui le estraniazioni coniugali vengono dipinte nei moderni “drammi a tesi” è dovuto al fatto che c’è una sola cosa che un dramma non può rappresentare: una dura giornata di lavoro. Potrei fornire molti altri esempi di questa presunzione plutocratica che sta dietro le mode progressiste. Per esempio, c’è una presunzione plutocratica dietro la frase “Perché la donna dovrebbe essere economicamente dipendente dall’uomo?” La risposta è che tra la gente povera e pratica non lo è; salvo nel senso in cui lui è dipendente da lei. Un cacciatore deve strapparsi i vestiti; ci dev’essere qualcuno che li rammendi. Un pescatore deve prendere il pesce; ci dev’essere qualcuno che lo cucini. È del tutto chiaro, di certo, che questa nozione moderna secondo cui la donna è un mero “grazioso parassita aggrappato”, “un giocattolo”, ecc., sorse dalla cupa contemplazione di qualche ricca famiglia di banchieri, in cui il banchiere, almeno, andava in città e fingeva di fare qualcosa, mentre la moglie del banchiere andava al Parco e non fingeva di fare proprio nulla. Un uomo povero e sua moglie sono una società d’affari. Se un socio in una casa editrice riceve gli autori mentre l’altro riceve gli impiegati, uno dei due è economicamente dipendente? Era forse Hodder un grazioso parassita aggrappato a Stoughton? Era forse Marshall un mero giocattolo per Snelgrove?
Ma di tutte le nozioni moderne generate dalla sola ricchezza la peggiore è questa: la nozione che la vita domestica sia noiosa e mansueta. Dentro la casa (dicono) regnano il decoro morto e la routine; fuori c’è avventura e varietà. Questa è davvero l’opinione di un uomo ricco. L’uomo ricco sa che la propria casa si muove su vaste e silenziose ruote di ricchezza, è gestita da reggimenti di servitori, da un rituale rapido e silenzioso. D’altra parte, ogni sorta di vagabondaggio romanzesco gli è aperto nelle strade là fuori. Ha denaro in abbondanza e può permettersi di fare il barbone. La sua avventura più selvaggia finirà in un ristorante, mentre l’avventura più mansueta del villano può finire davanti a un tribunale di polizia. Se rompe una finestra può pagarla; se ammacca un uomo può pensionarlo. Può (come il milionario della storia) comprare un albergo per un bicchiere di gin. E poiché egli, l’uomo lussuoso, detta il tono di quasi tutto il pensiero “avanzato” e “progressista”, abbiamo quasi dimenticato che cosa significhi davvero una casa per gli schiaccianti milioni dell’umanità.
Perché la verità è che, per chi è moderatamente povero, la casa è l’unico luogo di libertà. Anzi, è l’unico luogo di anarchia. È l’unico punto sulla terra in cui un uomo può alterare gli assetti all’improvviso, fare un esperimento o concedersi un capriccio. Ovunque altro vada, egli deve accettare le rigide regole del negozio, della locanda, del club o del museo in cui capita di entrare. Può mangiare i suoi pasti sul pavimento, nella propria casa, se gli va. Lo faccio spesso io stesso; dà una curiosa sensazione infantile, poetica, da pic-nic. Ci sarebbero notevoli guai se provassi a farlo in una sala da tè dell’A.B.C. Un uomo può indossare vestaglia e pantofole nella propria casa; mentre sono certo che ciò non sarebbe permesso al Savoy, benché non abbia mai messo davvero alla prova la cosa. Se vai in un ristorante devi bere qualcuno dei vini nella carta dei vini, tutti quanti se insisti, ma di certo qualcuno. Ma se hai una casa e un giardino puoi provare a fare tè di malvarosa o vino di convolvolo, se ti va. Per un uomo semplice e laborioso la casa non è l’unico luogo mansueto nel mondo dell’avventura. È l’unico luogo selvaggio nel mondo delle regole e dei compiti prestabiliti. La casa è l’unico luogo in cui egli può mettere il tappeto sul soffitto o le tegole sul pavimento, se lo desidera. Quando un uomo passa ogni notte barcollando di bar in bar o da un caffè-concerto all’altro, diciamo che vive una vita irregolare. Ma non è così; egli vive una vita altamente regolare, sotto le noiose, e spesso opprimenti, leggi di tali luoghi. Talvolta non gli è permesso nemmeno di sedersi nei bar; e spesso non gli è permesso di cantare nei caffè-concerto. Gli alberghi si possono definire come luoghi in cui sei costretto a vestirti bene; e i teatri si possono definire come luoghi in cui ti è proibito fumare. Un uomo può fare pic-nic solo a casa.
Ora prendo, come ho detto, questa piccola onnipotenza umana, questo possesso di una cella o camera ben definita di libertà, come modello operativo per la presente indagine. Che si possa dare o no a ogni inglese una libera casa tutta sua, per lo meno dovremmo desiderarla; ed egli la desidera. Per il momento parliamo di ciò che egli vuole, non di ciò che si aspetta di ottenere. Egli vuole, per esempio, una casa separata; non vuole una casa bifamiliare. Può essere costretto nella corsa commerciale a condividere un muro con un altro uomo. Allo stesso modo potrebbe essere costretto, in una corsa a tre gambe, a condividere una gamba con un altro uomo; ma non è così che si raffigura se stesso nei suoi sogni di eleganza e libertà. Di nuovo, egli non desidera un appartamento. Può mangiare e dormire e lodare Dio in un appartamento; può mangiare e dormire e lodare Dio in un treno. Ma un treno non è una casa, perché è una casa su ruote. E un appartamento non è una casa, perché è una casa su trampoli. Un’idea di contatto e fondamenta terrene, così come un’idea di separazione e indipendenza, è parte di questa istruttiva immagine umana.
I take, then, this one institution as a test. As every normal man desires a woman, and children born of a woman, every normal man desires a house of his own to put them into. He does not merely want a roof above him and a chair below him; he wants an objective and visible kingdom; a fire at which he can cook what food he likes, a door he can open to what friends he chooses. This is the normal appetite of men; I do not say there are not exceptions. There may be saints above the need and philanthropists below it. Opalstein, now he is a duke, may have got used to more than this; and when he was a convict may have got used to less. But the normality of the thing is enormous. To give nearly everybody ordinary houses would please nearly everybody; that is what I assert without apology. Now in modern England (as you eagerly point out) it is very difficult to give nearly everybody houses. Quite so; I merely set up the desideratum; and ask the reader to leave it standing there while he turns with me to a consideration of what really happens in the social wars of our time.
IX
HISTORY OF HUDGE AND GUDGE
There is, let us say, a certain filthy rookery in Hoxton, dripping with disease and honeycombed with crime and promiscuity. There are, let us say, two noble and courageous young men, of pure intentions and (if you prefer it) noble birth; let us call them Hudge and Gudge. Hudge, let us say, is of a bustling sort; he points out that the people must at all costs be got out of this den; he subscribes and collects money, but he finds (despite the large financial interests of the Hudges) that the thing will have to be done on the cheap if it is to be done on the spot. He therefore, runs up a row of tall bare tenements like beehives; and soon has all the poor people bundled into their little brick cells, which are certainly better than their old quarters, in so far as they are weather proof, well ventilated and supplied with clean water. But Gudge has a more delicate nature. He feels a nameless something lacking in the little brick boxes; he raises numberless objections; he even assails the celebrated Hudge Report, with the Gudge Minority Report; and by the end of a year or so has come to telling Hudge heatedly that the people were much happier where they were before. As the people preserve in both places precisely the same air of dazed amiability, it is very difficult to find out which is right. But at least one might safely say that no people ever liked stench or starvation as such, but only some peculiar pleasures en tangled with them. Not so feels the sensitive Gudge. Long before the final quarrel (Hudge v. Gudge and Another), Gudge has succeeded in persuading himself that slums and stinks are really very nice things; that the habit of sleeping fourteen in a room is what has made our England great; and that the smell of open drains is absolutely essential to the rearing of a viking breed.
But, meanwhile, has there been no degeneration in Hudge? Alas, I fear there has. Those maniacally ugly buildings which he originally put up as unpretentious sheds barely to shelter human life, grow every day more and more lovely to his deluded eye. Things he would never have dreamed of defending, except as crude necessities, things like common kitchens or infamous asbestos stoves, begin to shine quite sacredly before him, merely because they reflect the wrath of Gudge. He maintains, with the aid of eager little books by Socialists, that man is really happier in a hive than in a house. The practical difficulty of keeping total strangers out of your bedroom he describes as Brotherhood; and the necessity for climbing twenty-three flights of cold stone stairs, I dare say he calls Effort. The net result of their philanthropic adventure is this: that one has come to defending indefensible slums and still more indefensible slum-landlords, while the other has come to treating as divine the sheds and pipes which he only meant as desperate. Gudge is now a corrupt and apoplectic old Tory in the Carlton Club; if you mention poverty to him he roars at you in a thick, hoarse voice something that is conjectured to be “Do ‘em good!” Nor is Hudge more happy; for he is a lean vegetarian with a gray, pointed beard and an unnaturally easy smile, who goes about telling everybody that at last we shall all sleep in one universal bedroom; and he lives in a Garden City, like one forgotten of God.
Such is the lamentable history of Hudge and Gudge; which I merely introduce as a type of an endless and exasperating misunderstanding which is always occurring in modern England. To get men out of a rookery men are put into a tenement; and at the beginning the healthy human soul loathes them both. A man’s first desire is to get away as far as possible from the rookery, even should his mad course lead him to a model dwelling. The second desire is, naturally, to get away from the model dwelling, even if it should lead a man back to the rookery. But I am neither a Hudgian nor a Gudgian; and I think the mistakes of these two famous and fascinating persons arose from one simple fact. They arose from the fact that neither Hudge nor Gudge had ever thought for an instant what sort of house a man might probably like for himself. In short, they did not begin with the ideal; and, therefore, were not practical politicians.
We may now return to the purpose of our awkward parenthesis about the praise of the future and the failures of the past. A house of his own being the obvious ideal for every man, we may now ask (taking this need as typical of all such needs) why he hasn’t got it; and whether it is in any philosophical sense his own fault. Now, I think that in some philosophical sense it is his own fault, I think in a yet more philosophical sense it is the fault of his philosophy. And this is what I have now to attempt to explain.
Prendo dunque questa sola istituzione come banco di prova. Come ogni uomo normale desidera una donna, e figli nati da una donna, così ogni uomo normale desidera una casa tutta sua in cui metterli. Non vuole soltanto un tetto sopra di sé e una sedia sotto di sé; vuole un regno oggettivo e visibile; un fuoco sul quale possa cuocere il cibo che preferisce, una porta che possa aprire agli amici che sceglie. Questo è il normale appetito degli uomini; non dico che non vi siano eccezioni. Vi possono essere santi al di sopra di questo bisogno e filantropi al di sotto. Opalstein, ora che è duca, può essersi abituato a ben più di questo; e quando era un galeotto può essersi abituato a ben meno. Ma la normalità della cosa è enorme. Dare a quasi tutti case ordinarie farebbe piacere a quasi tutti; questo è ciò che affermo senza chiedere scusa. Ora, nell’Inghilterra moderna (come voi ansiosamente fate notare) è assai difficile dare a quasi tutti una casa. Verissimo; io mi limito a porre il desideratum; e chiedo al lettore di lasciarlo lì ritto mentre si volge con me a considerare ciò che davvero accade nelle guerre sociali del nostro tempo.
IX
STORIA DI HUDGE E GUDGE
C’è, mettiamo, un certo lurido casamento in Hoxton, grondante di malattia e crivellato di crimine e promiscuità. Ci sono, mettiamo, due giovani nobili e coraggiosi, di puri intenti e (se preferite) di nobili natali; chiamiamoli Hudge e Gudge. Hudge, mettiamo, è di indole affaccendata; egli fa notare che la gente dev’essere a ogni costo tolta da quella tana; si sottoscrive e raccoglie denaro, ma trova (nonostante i grandi interessi finanziari degli Hudge) che la cosa dovrà esser fatta a buon mercato se dev’esser fatta sul posto. Perciò tira su una fila di alti e nudi caseggiati come alveari; e presto ha tutti i poveri stipati nelle loro piccole celle di mattoni, che sono certo migliori dei loro vecchi alloggi, in quanto sono a prova d’intemperie, ben ventilate e provviste d’acqua pulita. Ma Gudge ha una natura più delicata. Egli avverte un non so che d’ineffabile che manca nelle piccole scatole di mattoni; solleva innumerevoli obiezioni; assale perfino il celebre Rapporto Hudge, con il Rapporto di Minoranza Gudge; e verso la fine di un anno o giù di lì è arrivato a dire a Hudge, con foga, che la gente era assai più felice dov’era prima. Poiché la gente conserva in entrambi i luoghi esattamente la stessa aria di stordita amabilità, è assai difficile scoprire chi abbia ragione. Ma almeno si potrebbe dire con sicurezza che nessun popolo amò mai il fetore o la fame in quanto tali, ma solo certi peculiari piaceri a essi intrecciati. Non così sente il sensibile Gudge. Molto prima della lite finale (Hudge contro Gudge e Altri), Gudge è riuscito a persuadere se stesso che i tuguri e i lezzi sono in realtà cose assai belle; che l’abitudine di dormire in quattordici in una stanza è ciò che ha reso grande la nostra Inghilterra; e che l’odore delle fogne a cielo aperto è assolutamente essenziale all’allevamento di una stirpe di vichinghi.
Ma, intanto, non c’è stata degenerazione alcuna in Hudge? Ahimè, temo che ci sia stata. Quegli edifici maniacalmente brutti che egli in origine tirò su come baracche senza pretese, appena buone a riparare la vita umana, si fanno ogni giorno più e più leggiadri al suo occhio illuso. Cose che non avrebbe mai sognato di difendere, se non come rozze necessità, cose come le cucine comuni o le infami stufe d’amianto, cominciano a risplendere del tutto sacralmente dinanzi a lui, solo perché riflettono l’ira di Gudge. Egli sostiene, con l’aiuto di zelanti libriccini di socialisti, che l’uomo è in realtà più felice in un alveare che in una casa. La difficoltà pratica di tenere perfetti sconosciuti fuori dalla vostra camera da letto la descrive come Fratellanza; e la necessità di salire ventitré rampe di gelide scale di pietra, oserei dire, la chiama Sforzo. Il risultato netto della loro impresa filantropica è questo: che l’uno è arrivato a difendere tuguri indifendibili e padroni di tuguri ancor più indifendibili, mentre l’altro è arrivato a trattare come divine le baracche e i tubi che intendeva solo come rimedio disperato. Gudge è ora un vecchio Tory corrotto e apoplettico al Carlton Club; se gli menzionate la povertà vi ruggisce con voce spessa e rauca qualcosa che si congettura essere “Gli fa bene!” Né Hudge è più felice; poiché è un magro vegetariano con una barba grigia e appuntita e un sorriso innaturalmente disinvolto, che va in giro dicendo a tutti che alla fine dormiremo tutti in un’unica camera da letto universale; e vive in una Città giardino, come uno dimenticato da Dio.
Tale è la lamentevole storia di Hudge e Gudge; che io introduco soltanto come tipo di un fraintendimento senza fine ed esasperante che sempre si ripete nell’Inghilterra moderna. Per togliere gli uomini da un casamento li si caccia in un caseggiato; e all’inizio la sana anima umana li aborre entrambi. Il primo desiderio di un uomo è di allontanarsi il più possibile dal casamento, anche se la sua folle corsa dovesse condurlo a un’abitazione modello. Il secondo desiderio è, naturalmente, di allontanarsi dall’ abitazione modello, anche se ciò dovesse ricondurre l’uomo al casamento. Ma io non sono né hudgiano né gudgiano; e penso che gli errori di questi due famosi e affascinanti personaggi nascano da un solo semplice fatto. Nacquero dal fatto che né Hudge né Gudge avevano mai pensato per un istante quale sorta di casa un uomo potesse verosimilmente desiderare per sé. In breve, essi non partirono dall’ideale; e, perciò, non erano politici pratici.
Possiamo ora tornare allo scopo della nostra goffa parentesi sulla lode del futuro e i fallimenti del passato. Essendo una casa propria l’ovvio ideale di ogni uomo, possiamo ora chiederci (prendendo questo bisogno come tipico di tutti i bisogni simili) perché egli non ce l’abbia; e se in qualche senso filosofico sia colpa sua. Ora, io penso che in un certo senso filosofico sia colpa sua, penso che in un senso ancor più filosofico sia colpa della sua filosofia. Ed è questo ciò che ora devo tentare di spiegare.
Burke, a fine rhetorician, who rarely faced realities, said, I think, that an Englishman’s house is his castle. This is honestly entertaining; for as it happens the Englishman is almost the only man in Europe whose house is not his castle. Nearly everywhere else exists the assumption of peasant proprietorship; that a poor man may be a landlord, though he is only lord of his own land. Making the landlord and the tenant the same person has certain trivial advantages, as that the tenant pays no rent, while the landlord does a little work. But I am not concerned with the defense of small proprietorship, but merely with the fact that it exists almost everywhere except in England. It is also true, however, that this estate of small possession is attacked everywhere today; it has never existed among ourselves, and it may be destroyed among our neighbors. We have, therefore, to ask ourselves what it is in human affairs generally, and in this domestic ideal in particular, that has really ruined the natural human creation, especially in this country.
Man has always lost his way. He has been a tramp ever since Eden; but he always knew, or thought he knew, what he was looking for. Every man has a house somewhere in the elaborate cosmos; his house waits for him waist deep in slow Norfolk rivers or sunning itself upon Sussex downs. Man has always been looking for that home which is the subject matter of this book. But in the bleak and blinding hail of skepticism to which he has been now so long subjected, he has begun for the first time to be chilled, not merely in his hopes, but in his desires. For the first time in history he begins really to doubt the object of his wanderings on the earth. He has always lost his way; but now he has lost his address.
Under the pressure of certain upper-class philosophies (or in other words, under the pressure of Hudge and Gudge) the average man has really become bewildered about the goal of his efforts; and his efforts, therefore, grow feebler and feebler. His simple notion of having a home of his own is derided as bourgeois, as sentimental, or as despicably Christian. Under various verbal forms he is recommended to go on to the streets— which is called Individualism; or to the work-house—which is called Collectivism. We shall consider this process somewhat more carefully in a moment. But it may be said here that Hudge and Gudge, or the governing class generally, will never fail for lack of some modern phrase to cover their ancient predominance. The great lords will refuse the English peasant his three acres and a cow on advanced grounds, if they cannot refuse it longer on reactionary grounds. They will deny him the three acres on grounds of State Ownership. They will forbid him the cow on grounds of humanitarianism.
And this brings us to the ultimate analysis of this singular influence that has prevented doctrinal demands by the English people. There are, I believe, some who still deny that England is governed by an oligarchy. It is quite enough for me to know that a man might have gone to sleep some thirty years ago over the day’s newspaper and woke up last week over the later newspaper, and fancied he was reading about the same people. In one paper he would have found a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an Acland. In the other paper he would find a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an Acland. If this is not being governed by families I cannot imagine what it is. I suppose it is being governed by extraordinary democratic coincidences.
X
OPPRESSION BY OPTIMISM
But we are not here concerned with the nature and existence of the aristocracy, but with the origin of its peculiar power, why is it the last of the true oligarchies of Europe; and why does there seem no very immediate prospect of our seeing the end of it? The explanation is simple though it remains strangely unnoticed. The friends of aristocracy often praise it for preserving ancient and gracious traditions. The enemies of aristocracy often blame it for clinging to cruel or antiquated customs. Both its enemies and its friends are wrong. Generally speaking the aristocracy does not preserve either good or bad traditions; it does not preserve anything except game. Who would dream of looking among aristocrats anywhere for an old custom? One might as well look for an old costume! The god of the aristocrats is not tradition, but fashion, which is the opposite of tradition. If you wanted to find an old-world Norwegian head-dress, would you look for it in the Scandinavian Smart Set? No; the aristocrats never have customs; at the best they have habits, like the animals. Only the mob has customs.
The real power of the English aristocrats has lain in exactly the opposite of tradition. The simple key to the power of our upper classes is this: that they have always kept carefully on the side of what is called Progress. They have always been up to date, and this comes quite easy to an aristocracy. For the aristocracy are the supreme instances of that frame of mind of which we spoke just now. Novelty is to them a luxury verging on a necessity. They, above all, are so bored with the past and with the present, that they gape, with a horrible hunger, for the future.
But whatever else the great lords forgot they never forgot that it was their business to stand for the new things, for whatever was being most talked about among university dons or fussy financiers. Thus they were on the side of the Reformation against the Church, of the Whigs against the Stuarts, of the Baconian science against the old philosophy, of the manufacturing system against the operatives, and (to-day) of the increased power of the State against the old-fashioned individualists. In short, the rich are always modern; it is their business. But the immediate effect of this fact upon the question we are studying is somewhat singular.
Burke, fine retore che di rado si trovò davanti alla realtà, disse, mi pare, che la casa di un inglese è il suo castello. La cosa è francamente spassosa; giacché, guarda caso, l’inglese è quasi l’unico uomo d’Europa la cui casa non è il suo castello. Quasi ovunque altrove vige il presupposto della piccola proprietà contadina; che un pover’uomo possa essere padrone di terra, benché signore soltanto della propria terra. Fare del padrone e dell’affittuario la stessa persona ha certi vantaggi da poco, come quello che l’affittuario non paga alcun affitto, mentre il padrone fa un po’ di lavoro. Ma non mi curo qui di difendere la piccola proprietà, bensì soltanto del fatto ch’essa esiste quasi dappertutto tranne che in Inghilterra. È anche vero, tuttavia, che questa condizione di piccolo possesso è oggi attaccata ovunque; da noi non è mai esistita, e presso i nostri vicini potrebbe venire distrutta. Dobbiamo dunque chiederci che cosa vi sia nelle vicende umane in generale, e in questo ideale domestico in particolare, che ha davvero rovinato la naturale creazione umana, specialmente in questo paese.
L’uomo ha sempre smarrito la strada. È stato un vagabondo fin dall’Eden; ma sempre sapeva, o credeva di sapere, ciò che andava cercando. Ogni uomo ha una casa in qualche punto dell’elaborato cosmo; la sua casa lo attende immersa fino alla cintola nei lenti fiumi del Norfolk o crogiolandosi al sole sulle dune del Sussex. L’uomo ha sempre cercato quella casa che è l’argomento di questo libro. Ma nella tetra e accecante grandine di scetticismo cui è ormai da tanto tempo sottoposto, ha cominciato per la prima volta a intirizzirsi, non solo nelle sue speranze, ma nei suoi desideri. Per la prima volta nella storia comincia davvero a dubitare dell’oggetto del suo peregrinare sulla terra. Ha sempre smarrito la strada; ma ora ha smarrito il proprio recapito.
Sotto la pressione di certe filosofie delle classi alte (o, in altre parole, sotto la pressione di Hudge e Gudge) l’uomo comune è davvero rimasto sconcertato circa la meta dei suoi sforzi; e i suoi sforzi, perciò, si fanno sempre più fiacchi. La sua semplice idea di avere una casa propria è derisa come borghese, come sentimentale, o come spregevolmente cristiana. Sotto varie forme verbali gli si raccomanda di andarsene per le strade— il che si chiama Individualismo; oppure all’ospizio dei poveri—il che si chiama Collettivismo. Esamineremo questo processo un poco più attentamente tra breve. Ma qui si può dire che Hudge e Gudge, o la classe dirigente in generale, non resteranno mai a corto di qualche frase moderna per coprire il loro antico predominio. I grandi signori negheranno al contadino inglese i suoi tre acri e una mucca su basi progressiste, se non potranno più negarglieli su basi reazionarie. Gli negheranno i tre acri in nome della Proprietà Statale. Gli proibiranno la mucca in nome dell’umanitarismo.
E questo ci conduce all’analisi ultima di quel singolare influsso che ha impedito rivendicazioni dottrinali da parte del popolo inglese. Vi sono, credo, alcuni che ancora negano che l’Inghilterra sia governata da un’oligarchia. A me basta ampiamente sapere che un uomo avrebbe potuto addormentarsi una trentina d’anni fa sul giornale del giorno e risvegliarsi la settimana scorsa sul giornale più recente, e figurarsi di leggere degli stessi personaggi. In un giornale avrebbe trovato un Lord Robert Cecil, un signor Gladstone, un signor Lyttleton, un Churchill, un Chamberlain, un Trevelyan, un Acland. Nell’altro giornale troverebbe un Lord Robert Cecil, un signor Gladstone, un signor Lyttleton, un Churchill, un Chamberlain, un Trevelyan, un Acland. Se questo non è essere governati da famiglie, non riesco a immaginare che cosa sia. Suppongo che sia essere governati da straordinarie coincidenze democratiche.
X
L’OPPRESSIONE PER MEZZO DELL’OTTIMISMO
Ma qui non ci occupiamo della natura e dell’esistenza dell’aristocrazia, bensì dell’origine del suo peculiare potere, del perché essa sia l’ultima delle vere oligarchie d’Europa; e del perché non paia esservi prospettiva alcuna, molto prossima, di vederne la fine. La spiegazione è semplice, benché resti stranamente inosservata. Gli amici dell’aristocrazia spesso la lodano per aver conservato antiche e gentili tradizioni. I nemici dell’aristocrazia spesso la biasimano per l’attaccamento a usanze crudeli o antiquate. Tanto i suoi nemici quanto i suoi amici sbagliano. In linea di massima l’aristocrazia non conserva tradizioni né buone né cattive; non conserva nulla eccetto la selvaggina. Chi mai si sognerebbe di cercare tra gli aristocrati, dovunque, una vecchia usanza? Tanto varrebbe cercare un vecchio costume! Il dio degli aristocratici non è la tradizione, ma la moda, che della tradizione è l’opposto. Se voleste trovare un antico copricapo norvegese, lo cerchereste forse nel Bel Mondo scandinavo? No; gli aristocratici non hanno mai usanze; al più hanno abitudini, come gli animali. Solo la plebe ha usanze.
Il vero potere degli aristocratici inglesi è consistito esattamente nell’opposto della tradizione. La semplice chiave del potere delle nostre classi alte è questa: che si sono sempre tenute con cura dalla parte di ciò che si chiama Progresso. Sono sempre state al passo coi tempi, e ciò riesce assai facile a un’aristocrazia. Poiché l’aristocrazia è l’esempio supremo di quella disposizione d’animo di cui poc’anzi parlavamo. La novità è per essa un lusso che rasenta la necessità. Essi, più di tutti, sono così annoiati del passato e del presente, che spalancano la bocca, con orribile fame, verso il futuro.
Ma qualunque altra cosa i grandi signori dimenticassero, non dimenticarono mai che era loro compito farsi paladini delle cose nuove, di qualunque cosa si stesse discutendo di più tra i dotti universitari o i pignoli finanzieri. Così stettero dalla parte della Riforma contro la Chiesa, dei Whig contro gli Stuart, della scienza baconiana contro la vecchia filosofia, del sistema manifatturiero contro gli operai, e (oggi) dell’accresciuto potere dello Stato contro gli individualisti all’antica. Insomma, i ricchi sono sempre moderni; è il loro mestiere. Ma l’effetto immediato di questo fatto sulla questione che stiamo studiando è alquanto singolare.
In each of the separate holes or quandaries in which the ordinary Englishman has been placed, he has been told that his situation is, for some particular reason, all for the best. He woke up one fine morning and discovered that the public things, which for eight hundred years he had used at once as inns and sanctuaries, had all been suddenly and savagely abolished, to increase the private wealth of about six or seven men. One would think he might have been annoyed at that; in many places he was, and was put down by the soldiery. But it was not merely the army that kept him quiet. He was kept quiet by the sages as well as the soldiers; the six or seven men who took away the inns of the poor told him that they were not doing it for themselves, but for the religion of the future, the great dawn of Protestantism and truth. So whenever a seventeenth century noble was caught pulling down a peasant’s fence and stealing his field, the noble pointed excitedly at the face of Charles I or James II (which at that moment, perhaps, wore a cross expression) and thus diverted the simple peasant’s attention. The great Puritan lords created the Commonwealth, and destroyed the common land. They saved their poorer countrymen from the disgrace of paying Ship Money, by taking from them the plow money and spade money which they were doubtless too weak to guard. A fine old English rhyme has immortalized this easy aristocratic habit—
You prosecute the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common, But leave the larger felon loose Who steals the common from the goose.
But here, as in the case of the monasteries, we confront the strange problem of submission. If they stole the common from the goose, one can only say that he was a great goose to stand it. The truth is that they reasoned with the goose; they explained to him that all this was needed to get the Stuart fox over seas. So in the nineteenth century the great nobles who became mine-owners and railway directors earnestly assured everybody that they did not do this from preference, but owing to a newly discovered Economic Law. So the prosperous politicians of our own generation introduce bills to prevent poor mothers from going about with their own babies; or they calmly forbid their tenants to drink beer in public inns. But this insolence is not (as you would suppose) howled at by everybody as outrageous feudalism. It is gently rebuked as Socialism. For an aristocracy is always progressive; it is a form of going the pace. Their parties grow later and later at night; for they are trying to live to-morrow.
XI
THE HOMELESSNESS OF JONES
Thus the Future of which we spoke at the beginning has (in England at least) always been the ally of tyranny. The ordinary Englishman has been duped out of his old possessions, such as they were, and always in the name of progress. The destroyers of the abbeys took away his bread and gave him a stone, assuring him that it was a precious stone, the white pebble of the Lord’s elect. They took away his maypole and his original rural life and promised him instead the Golden Age of Peace and Commerce inaugurated at the Crystal Palace. And now they are taking away the little that remains of his dignity as a householder and the head of a family, promising him instead Utopias which are called (appropriately enough) “Anticipations” or “News from Nowhere.” We come back, in fact, to the main feature which has already been mentioned. The past is communal: the future must be individualist. In the past are all the evils of democracy, variety and violence and doubt, but the future is pure despotism, for the future is pure caprice. Yesterday, I know I was a human fool, but to-morrow I can easily be the Superman.
The modern Englishman, however, is like a man who should be perpetually kept out, for one reason after another, from the house in which he had meant his married life to begin. This man (Jones let us call him) has always desired the divinely ordinary things; he has married for love, he has chosen or built a small house that fits like a coat; he is ready to be a great grandfather and a local god. And just as he is moving in, something goes wrong. Some tyranny, personal or political, suddenly debars him from the home; and he has to take his meals in the front garden. A passing philosopher (who is also, by a mere coincidence, the man who turned him out) pauses, and leaning elegantly on the railings, explains to him that he is now living that bold life upon the bounty of nature which will be the life of the sublime future. He finds life in the front garden more bold than bountiful, and has to move into mean lodgings in the next spring. The philosopher (who turned him out), happening to call at these lodgings, with the probable intention of raising the rent, stops to explain to him that he is now in the real life of mercantile endeavor; the economic struggle between him and the landlady is the only thing out of which, in the sublime future, the wealth of nations can come. He is defeated in the economic struggle, and goes to the workhouse. The philosopher who turned him out (happening at that very moment to be inspecting the workhouse) assures him that he is now at last in that golden republic which is the goal of mankind; he is in an equal, scientific, Socialistic commonwealth, owned by the State and ruled by public officers; in fact, the commonwealth of the sublime future.
Nevertheless, there are signs that the irrational Jones still dreams at night of this old idea of having an ordinary home. He asked for so little, and he has been offered so much. He has been offered bribes of worlds and systems; he has been offered Eden and Utopia and the New Jerusalem, and he only wanted a house; and that has been refused him.
In ciascuno dei diversi buchi o impacci in cui l’inglese comune è stato cacciato, gli è stato detto che la sua situazione è, per qualche ragione particolare, tutta per il meglio. Una bella mattina si svegliò e scoprì che i beni pubblici, che per ottocento anni aveva usato al tempo stesso come locande e come santuari, erano stati tutti d’improvviso e ferocemente aboliti, per accrescere la ricchezza privata di sei o sette uomini circa. Si direbbe che avrebbe potuto seccarsene; in molti luoghi se ne seccò, e fu domato dalla soldataglia. Ma non fu soltanto l’esercito a tenerlo tranquillo. Lo tennero tranquillo i saggi non meno dei soldati; i sei o sette uomini che portarono via le locande dei poveri gli dissero che non lo facevano per sé, ma per la religione del futuro, la grande alba del protestantesimo e della verità. Così, ogni volta che un nobile del Seicento veniva colto ad abbattere lo steccato di un contadino e a rubargli il campo, il nobile additava tutto eccitato il volto di Carlo I o di Giacomo II (che in quel momento, forse, portava un’espressione contrariata) e distoglieva così l’attenzione del contadino ingenuo. I grandi lord puritani crearono il Commonwealth, e distrussero le terre comuni. Salvarono i loro più poveri connazionali dall’onta di pagare la Ship Money, togliendo loro il denaro dell’aratro e il denaro della vanga che erano senza dubbio troppo deboli per difendere. Una bella vecchia rima inglese ha immortalato questa comoda abitudine aristocratica—
Voi perseguitate l’uomo o la donna che dal comune ruba via l’oca, ma lasciate libero il fellone maggiore che all’oca ruba il comune intero.
Ma qui, come nel caso dei monasteri, ci troviamo davanti allo strano problema della sottomissione. Se rubarono il comune all’oca, si può solo dire che essa fu una gran oca a sopportarlo. La verità è che ragionarono con l’oca; le spiegarono che tutto questo serviva per far passare oltremare la volpe degli Stuart. Così, nell’Ottocento, i grandi nobili che divennero proprietari di miniere e direttori di ferrovie assicurarono con fervore a tutti che non lo facevano per scelta, ma a causa di una Legge Economica appena scoperta. Così i prosperi politici della nostra generazione presentano progetti di legge per impedire alle povere madri di andare in giro con i propri bambini; oppure vietano placidamente ai loro affittuari di bere birra nelle locande pubbliche. Ma questa insolenza non è (come si potrebbe supporre) additata a gran voce da tutti come feudalesimo scandaloso. Viene dolcemente rimproverata come Socialismo. Perché un’aristocrazia è sempre progressista; è una forma dell’andare al passo coi tempi. I loro ricevimenti si fanno sempre più tardi nella notte; perché cercano di vivere già il domani.
XI
LA MANCANZA DI CASA DI JONES
Così il Futuro di cui parlavamo all’inizio è stato (in Inghilterra almeno) sempre l’alleato della tirannia. All’inglese comune sono stati sottratti con l’inganno i suoi antichi possessi, quali che fossero, e sempre in nome del progresso. I distruttori delle abbazie gli tolsero il pane e gli diedero una pietra, assicurandogli che era una pietra preziosa, il bianco ciottolo degli eletti del Signore. Gli tolsero il suo albero di maggio e la sua originaria vita rurale e gli promisero in cambio l’Età dell’Oro di Pace e Commercio inaugurata al Crystal Palace. E ora gli stanno togliendo il poco che resta della sua dignità di padrone di casa e capofamiglia, promettendogli in cambio Utopie che si chiamano (assai appropriatamente) “Anticipazioni” o “Notizie da nessun luogo”. Ritorniamo, di fatto, al tratto principale già ricordato. Il passato è comunitario: il futuro dev’essere individualista. Nel passato stanno tutti i mali della democrazia, la varietà e la violenza e il dubbio, ma il futuro è puro dispotismo, perché il futuro è puro capriccio. Ieri, lo so, ero uno sciocco umano, ma domani posso facilmente essere il Superuomo.
L’inglese moderno, tuttavia, è come un uomo che dovrebbe essere tenuto perpetuamente fuori, per una ragione dopo l’altra, dalla casa in cui aveva pensato di dare inizio alla sua vita coniugale. Quest’uomo (chiamiamolo Jones) ha sempre desiderato le cose divinamente ordinarie; si è sposato per amore, ha scelto o costruito una piccola casa che gli sta addosso come un abito; è pronto a diventare un bisnonno e un dio locale. E proprio mentre sta traslocando, qualcosa va storto. Qualche tirannia, personale o politica, d’improvviso gli sbarra la casa; ed egli deve consumare i suoi pasti nel giardino antistante. Un filosofo di passaggio (che è anche, per pura coincidenza, l’uomo che l’ha buttato fuori) si ferma e, appoggiandosi con eleganza alla ringhiera, gli spiega che ora sta vivendo quella vita ardita sulla generosità della natura che sarà la vita del sublime futuro. Egli trova la vita nel giardino antistante più ardita che generosa, ed è costretto a trasferirsi in un misero alloggio nella primavera successiva. Il filosofo (che l’ha buttato fuori), capitando a far visita a quell’alloggio, con la probabile intenzione di alzare l’affitto, si ferma a spiegargli che ora è nella vera vita dell’impresa mercantile; la lotta economica fra lui e la padrona di casa è l’unica cosa da cui, nel sublime futuro, può nascere la ricchezza delle nazioni. Egli è sconfitto nella lotta economica, e va all’ospizio dei poveri. Il filosofo che l’ha buttato fuori (trovandosi in quel preciso momento a ispezionare l’ospizio) gli assicura che è ora finalmente in quella repubblica dorata che è la meta dell’umanità; è in un uguale, scientifico, socialistico commonwealth, di proprietà dello Stato e governato da pubblici ufficiali; di fatto, il commonwealth del sublime futuro.
Nondimeno, vi sono segni che l’irrazionale Jones ancora sogna di notte questa vecchia idea di avere una casa ordinaria. Ha chiesto così poco, e gli è stato offerto così tanto. Gli sono stati offerti in dono mondi e sistemi; gli sono stati offerti l’Eden e l’Utopia e la Nuova Gerusalemme, ed egli voleva soltanto una casa; e quella gli è stata negata.
Such an apologue is literally no exaggeration of the facts of English history. The rich did literally turn the poor out of the old guest house on to the road, briefly telling them that it was the road of progress. They did literally force them into factories and the modern wage-slavery, assuring them all the time that this was the only way to wealth and civilization. Just as they had dragged the rustic from the convent food and ale by saying that the streets of heaven were paved with gold, so now they dragged him from the village food and ale by telling him that the streets of London were paved with gold. As he entered the gloomy porch of Puritanism, so he entered the gloomy porch of Industrialism, being told that each of them was the gate of the future. Hitherto he has only gone from prison to prison, nay, into darkening prisons, for Calvinism opened one small window upon heaven. And now he is asked, in the same educated and authoritative tones, to enter another dark porch, at which he has to surrender, into unseen hands, his children, his small possessions and all the habits of his fathers.
Whether this last opening be in truth any more inviting than the old openings of Puritanism and Industrialism can be discussed later. But there can be little doubt, I think, that if some form of Collectivism is imposed upon England it will be imposed, as everything else has been, by an instructed political class upon a people partly apathetic and partly hypnotized. The aristocracy will be as ready to “administer” Collectivism as they were to administer Puritanism or Manchesterism; in some ways such a centralized political power is necessarily attractive to them. It will not be so hard as some innocent Socialists seem to suppose to induce the Honorable Tomnoddy to take over the milk supply as well as the stamp supply—at an increased salary. Mr. Bernard Shaw has remarked that rich men are better than poor men on parish councils because they are free from “financial timidity.” Now, the English ruling class is quite free from financial timidity. The Duke of Sussex will be quite ready to be Administrator of Sussex at the same screw. Sir William Harcourt, that typical aristocrat, put it quite correctly. “We” (that is, the aristocracy) “are all Socialists now.”
But this is not the essential note on which I desire to end. My main contention is that, whether necessary or not, both Industrialism and Collectivism have been accepted as necessities— not as naked ideals or desires. Nobody liked the Manchester School; it was endured as the only way of producing wealth. Nobody likes the Marxian school; it is endured as the only way of preventing poverty. Nobody’s real heart is in the idea of preventing a free man from owning his own farm, or an old woman from cultivating her own garden, any more than anybody’s real heart was in the heartless battle of the machines. The purpose of this chapter is sufficiently served in indicating that this proposal also is a pis aller, a desperate second best— like teetotalism. I do not propose to prove here that Socialism is a poison; it is enough if I maintain that it is a medicine and not a wine.
The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house—this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world’s deliverance, but it is not the world’s desire.
Un simile apologo non è letteralmente esagerazione alcuna dei fatti della storia inglese. I ricchi letteralmente cacciarono i poveri dalla vecchia casa dell’ospite sulla strada, dicendo loro in breve che era la strada del progresso. Li spinsero letteralmente con la forza nelle fabbriche e nella moderna schiavitù del salario, assicurando loro per tutto il tempo che questa era l’unica via alla ricchezza e alla civiltà. Proprio come avevano strappato il contadino dal cibo e dalla birra del convento dicendo che le strade del cielo erano lastricate d’oro, così ora lo strapparono dal cibo e dalla birra del villaggio dicendogli che le strade di Londra erano lastricate d’oro. Come era entrato nel tetro portico del Puritanesimo, così entrò nel tetro portico dell’Industrialismo, sentendosi dire che ciascuno di essi era la porta del futuro. Finora egli è passato soltanto di prigione in prigione, anzi, in prigioni sempre più buie, poiché il Calvinismo apriva una piccola finestra sul cielo. E ora gli si chiede, con gli stessi toni istruiti e autorevoli, di entrare in un altro oscuro portico, alla cui soglia deve consegnare, in mani non viste, i suoi figli, i suoi piccoli averi e tutte le abitudini dei suoi padri.
Se quest’ultima apertura sia in verità più invitante delle vecchie aperture del Puritanesimo e dell’Industrialismo, lo si potrà discutere in seguito. Ma vi può essere ben poco dubbio, credo, che se qualche forma di Collettivismo verrà imposta all’Inghilterra, essa verrà imposta, come tutto il resto, da una classe politica istruita sopra un popolo in parte apatico e in parte ipnotizzato. L’aristocrazia sarà pronta ad “amministrare” il Collettivismo quanto lo fu ad amministrare il Puritanesimo o il Manchesterismo; per certi versi un simile potere politico centralizzato è necessariamente attraente per essa. Non sarà così arduo come certi ingenui Socialisti sembrano supporre indurre l’Onorevole Tomnoddy a farsi carico della fornitura del latte al pari di quella dei francobolli—con uno stipendio maggiorato. Il signor Bernard Shaw ha osservato che i ricchi sono migliori dei poveri nei consigli parrocchiali perché sono liberi dalla “timidezza finanziaria”. Ora, la classe dirigente inglese è del tutto libera dalla timidezza finanziaria. Il Duca del Sussex sarà pronto a farsi Amministratore del Sussex per la stessa paga. Sir William Harcourt, quel tipico aristocratico, lo espresse assai correttamente. “Noi” (cioè, l’aristocrazia) “siamo tutti Socialisti, ormai”.
Ma non è questa la nota essenziale su cui desidero concludere. La mia tesi principale è che, necessari o no, tanto l’Industrialismo quanto il Collettivismo sono stati accettati come necessità— non come ideali o desideri nudi e crudi. Nessuno amava la Scuola di Manchester; la si sopportava come l’unico modo di produrre ricchezza. Nessuno ama la scuola Marxiana; la si sopporta come l’unico modo di prevenire la povertà. Il cuore di nessuno è davvero nell’idea d’impedire a un uomo libero di possedere la propria fattoria, o a una vecchia di coltivare il proprio orto, non più di quanto il cuore di alcuno fosse davvero nella spietata battaglia delle macchine. Lo scopo di questo capitolo è sufficientemente adempiuto nell’indicare che anche questa proposta è un pis aller, un disperato ripiego— come l’astinenzialismo. Non mi propongo di dimostrare qui che il Socialismo è un veleno; mi basta sostenere che è una medicina e non un vino.
L’idea della proprietà privata universale ma privata, l’idea di famiglie libere ma pur sempre famiglie, di domesticità democratica ma pur sempre domestica, di un uomo una casa—questa rimane la vera visione e la calamita dell’umanità. Il mondo potrà accettare qualcosa di più ufficiale e generale, meno umano e intimo. Ma il mondo sarà come una donna dal cuore infranto che fa un matrimonio scialbo perché non le è dato farne uno felice; il Socialismo potrà essere la liberazione del mondo, ma non è il desiderio del mondo.
PART TWO
IMPERIALISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT MAN
I
THE CHARM OF JINGOISM
I have cast about widely to find a title for this section; and I confess that the word “Imperialism” is a clumsy version of my meaning. But no other word came nearer; “Militarism” would have been even more misleading, and “The Superman” makes nonsense of any discussion that he enters. Perhaps, upon the whole, the word “Caesarism” would have been better; but I desire a popular word; and Imperialism (as the reader will perceive) does cover for the most part the men and theories that I mean to discuss.
This small confusion is increased, however, by the fact that I do also disbelieve in Imperialism in its popular sense, as a mode or theory of the patriotic sentiment of this country. But popular Imperialism in England has very little to do with the sort of Caesarean Imperialism I wish to sketch. I differ from the Colonial idealism of Rhodes’ and Kipling; but I do not think, as some of its opponents do, that it is an insolent creation of English harshness and rapacity. Imperialism, I think, is a fiction created, not by English hardness, but by English softness; nay, in a sense, even by English kindness.
The reasons for believing in Australia are mostly as sentimental as the most sentimental reasons for believing in heaven. New South Wales is quite literally regarded as a place where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest; that is, a paradise for uncles who have turned dishonest and for nephews who are born tired. British Columbia is in strict sense a fairyland, it is a world where a magic and irrational luck is supposed to attend the youngest sons. This strange optimism about the ends of the earth is an English weakness; but to show that it is not a coldness or a harshness it is quite sufficient to say that no one shared it more than that gigantic English sentimentalist—the great Charles Dickens. The end of “David Copperfield” is unreal not merely because it is an optimistic ending, but because it is an Imperialistic ending. The decorous British happiness planned out for David Copperfield and Agnes would be embarrassed by the perpetual presence of the hopeless tragedy of Emily, or the more hopeless farce of Micawber. Therefore, both Emily and Micawber are shipped off to a vague colony where changes come over them with no conceivable cause, except the climate. The tragic woman becomes contented and the comic man becomes responsible, solely as the result of a sea voyage and the first sight of a kangaroo.
To Imperialism in the light political sense, therefore, my only objection is that it is an illusion of comfort; that an Empire whose heart is failing should be specially proud of the extremities, is to me no more sublime a fact than that an old dandy whose brain is gone should still be proud of his legs. It consoles men for the evident ugliness and apathy of England with legends of fair youth and heroic strenuousness in distant continents and islands. A man can sit amid the squalor of Seven Dials and feel that life is innocent and godlike in the bush or on the veldt. Just so a man might sit in the squalor of Seven Dials and feel that life was innocent and godlike in Brixton and Surbiton. Brixton and Surbiton are “new”; they are expanding; they are “nearer to nature,” in the sense that they have eaten up nature mile by mile. The only objection is the objection of fact. The young men of Brixton are not young giants. The lovers of Surbiton are not all pagan poets, singing with the sweet energy of the spring. Nor are the people of the Colonies when you meet them young giants or pagan poets. They are mostly Cockneys who have lost their last music of real things by getting out of the sound of Bow Bells. Mr. Rudyard Kipling, a man of real though decadent genius, threw a theoretic glamour over them which is already fading. Mr. Kipling is, in a precise and rather startling sense, the exception that proves the rule. For he has imagination, of an oriental and cruel kind, but he has it, not because he grew up in a new country, but precisely because he grew up in the oldest country upon earth. He is rooted in a past— an Asiatic past. He might never have written “Kabul River” if he had been born in Melbourne.
I say frankly, therefore (lest there should be any air of evasion), that Imperialism in its common patriotic pretensions appears to me both weak and perilous. It is the attempt of a European country to create a kind of sham Europe which it can dominate, instead of the real Europe, which it can only share. It is a love of living with one’s inferiors. The notion of restoring the Roman Empire by oneself and for oneself is a dream that has haunted every Christian nation in a different shape and in almost every shape as a snare. The Spanish are a consistent and conservative people; therefore they embodied that attempt at Empire in long and lingering dynasties. The French are a violent people, and therefore they twice conquered that Empire by violence of arms. The English are above all a poetical and optimistic people; and therefore their Empire is something vague and yet sympathetic, something distant and yet dear. But this dream of theirs of being powerful in the uttermost places, though a native weakness, is still a weakness in them; much more of a weakness than gold was to Spain or glory to Napoleon. If ever we were in collision with our real brothers and rivals we should leave all this fancy out of account. We should no more dream of pitting Australian armies against German than of pitting Tasmanian sculpture against French. I have thus explained, lest anyone should accuse me of concealing an unpopular attitude, why I do not believe in Imperialism as commonly understood. I think it not merely an occasional wrong to other peoples, but a continuous feebleness, a running sore, in my own. But it is also true that I have dwelt on this Imperialism that is an amiable delusion partly in order to show how different it is from the deeper, more sinister and yet more persuasive thing that I have been forced to call Imperialism for the convenience of this chapter. In order to get to the root of this evil and quite un-English Imperialism we must cast back and begin anew with a more general discussion of the first needs of human intercourse.
PARTE SECONDA
L’IMPERIALISMO, OVVERO L’ERRORE SULL’UOMO
I
IL FASCINO DEL SCIOVINISMO
Ho cercato a lungo e in ogni direzione un titolo per questa sezione; e confesso che la parola «Imperialismo» è una versione goffa di ciò che intendo. Ma nessun’altra parola vi si avvicinava di più; «Militarismo» sarebbe stato ancora più fuorviante, e «Il Superuomo» rende insensata qualunque discussione in cui entri. Forse, tutto sommato, la parola «Cesarismo» sarebbe stata migliore; ma io desidero una parola popolare; e Imperialismo (come il lettore intuirà) copre in gran parte gli uomini e le teorie di cui intendo discutere.
Questa piccola confusione è però accresciuta dal fatto che io non credo affatto nell’Imperialismo nel suo senso corrente, come modo o teoria del sentimento patriottico di questo paese. Ma l’Imperialismo popolare in Inghilterra ha ben poco a che fare con quella sorta di Imperialismo cesareo che desidero tratteggiare. Mi discosto dall’idealismo coloniale di Rhodes e di Kipling; ma non penso, come pensano alcuni dei suoi oppositori, che esso sia un’insolente creazione della durezza e della rapacità inglesi. L’Imperialismo, io credo, è una finzione creata non dalla durezza inglese, ma dalla mollezza inglese; anzi, in un certo senso, perfino dalla bontà inglese.
Le ragioni per credere nell’Australia sono per lo più sentimentali quanto le più sentimentali ragioni per credere nel paradiso. Il Nuovo Galles del Sud è considerato quasi alla lettera come un luogo dove i malvagi cessano di tormentare e gli stanchi trovano riposo; ossia un paradiso per zii che si sono dati alla disonestà e per nipoti che nascono già stanchi. La Columbia Britannica è in senso stretto un paese delle fate, un mondo dove si suppone che una fortuna magica e irrazionale accompagni i figli minori. Questo strano ottimismo sui confini della terra è una debolezza inglese; ma per mostrare che non è una freddezza né una durezza è del tutto sufficiente dire che nessuno la condivise più di quel gigantesco sentimentalista inglese: il grande Charles Dickens. La conclusione di «David Copperfield» è irreale non soltanto perché è una conclusione ottimistica, ma perché è una conclusione imperialistica. La decorosa felicità britannica architettata per David Copperfield e Agnese sarebbe imbarazzata dalla presenza perpetua della disperata tragedia di Emily, o della più disperata farsa di Micawber. Perciò tanto Emily quanto Micawber vengono spediti in una vaga colonia dove dei mutamenti li colgono senza alcuna causa concepibile, se non il clima. La donna tragica diventa contenta e l’uomo comico diventa responsabile, unicamente per effetto di un viaggio per mare e della prima vista di un canguro.
All’Imperialismo nel senso politico leggero, dunque, la mia unica obiezione è che esso è un’illusione di conforto; che un Impero il cui cuore sta venendo meno debba andare specialmente fiero delle estremità, non è per me un fatto più sublime di quanto lo sia che un vecchio bellimbusto il cui cervello se n’è andato vada ancora fiero delle proprie gambe. Esso consola gli uomini per l’evidente bruttezza e apatia dell’Inghilterra con leggende di bella giovinezza e di eroica alacrità in continenti e isole lontani. Un uomo può sedere in mezzo allo squallore di Seven Dials e sentire che la vita è innocente e divina nella boscaglia o nel veldt. Proprio così un uomo potrebbe sedere nello squallore di Seven Dials e sentire che la vita era innocente e divina a Brixton e a Surbiton. Brixton e Surbiton sono «nuove»; si stanno espandendo; sono «più vicine alla natura», nel senso che hanno divorato la natura miglio dopo miglio. L’unica obiezione è l’obiezione del fatto. I giovani di Brixton non sono giovani giganti. Gli innamorati di Surbiton non sono tutti poeti pagani, che cantano con la dolce energia della primavera. Né la gente delle Colonie, quando la incontri, è fatta di giovani giganti o di poeti pagani. Sono per lo più cockney che hanno perduto la loro ultima musica delle cose reali uscendo dalla portata del suono delle campane di Bow. Il signor Rudyard Kipling, uomo di genio reale benché decadente, gettò su di loro un fascino teorico che va già svanendo. Il signor Kipling è, in un senso preciso e piuttosto sorprendente, l’eccezione che conferma la regola. Poiché egli ha immaginazione, di una specie orientale e crudele, ma la possiede non perché sia cresciuto in un paese nuovo, bensì appunto perché è cresciuto nel più antico paese della terra. Egli affonda le radici in un passato: un passato asiatico. Non avrebbe forse mai scritto «Il fiume di Kabul» se fosse nato a Melbourne.
Dico dunque francamente (perché non vi sia alcuna aria di evasione), che l’Imperialismo, nelle sue comuni pretese patriottiche, mi appare a un tempo debole e pericoloso. È il tentativo di un paese europeo di creare una specie di Europa fasulla che possa dominare, invece dell’Europa reale, che può soltanto condividere. È un amore del vivere con i propri inferiori. L’idea di restaurare l’Impero Romano da sé e per sé è un sogno che ha ossessionato ogni nazione cristiana sotto forme diverse e in quasi ogni forma come un tranello. Gli Spagnoli sono un popolo coerente e conservatore; perciò incarnarono quel tentativo d’Impero in lunghe e persistenti dinastie. I Francesi sono un popolo violento, e perciò conquistarono per due volte quell’Impero con la violenza delle armi. Gli Inglesi sono soprattutto un popolo poetico e ottimista; e perciò il loro Impero è qualcosa di vago eppure di simpatico, qualcosa di distante eppure di caro. Ma questo loro sogno di essere potenti nei luoghi più remoti, benché sia una debolezza connaturata, è pur sempre una debolezza in loro; assai più una debolezza di quanto l’oro lo fosse per la Spagna o la gloria per Napoleone. Se mai ci trovassimo in urto con i nostri veri fratelli e rivali, lasceremmo del tutto fuori conto questa fantasticheria. Non ci sogneremmo di opporre eserciti australiani ai tedeschi più di quanto ci sogneremmo di opporre la scultura tasmaniana a quella francese. Ho così spiegato, perché nessuno mi accusi di celare un atteggiamento impopolare, perché non creda nell’Imperialismo comunemente inteso. Lo ritengo non soltanto un torto occasionale verso altri popoli, ma una debolezza continua, una piaga che suppura, nel mio. Ma è pur vero che mi sono soffermato su questo Imperialismo che è un’amabile illusione in parte per mostrare quanto sia diverso dalla cosa più profonda, più sinistra e tuttavia più persuasiva che sono stato costretto a chiamare Imperialismo per comodità di questo capitolo. Per arrivare alla radice di questo malvagio e affatto non inglese Imperialismo dobbiamo tornare indietro e ricominciare da capo con una discussione più generale dei primi bisogni del commercio umano.
II
WISDOM AND THE WEATHER
It is admitted, one may hope, that common things are never commonplace. Birth is covered with curtains precisely because it is a staggering and monstrous prodigy. Death and first love, though they happen to everybody, can stop one’s heart with the very thought of them. But while this is granted, something further may be claimed. It is not merely true that these universal things are strange; it is moreover true that they are subtle. In the last analysis most common things will be found to be highly complicated. Some men of science do indeed get over the difficulty by dealing only with the easy part of it: thus, they will call first love the instinct of sex, and the awe of death the instinct of self-preservation. But this is only getting over the difficulty of describing peacock green by calling it blue. There is blue in it. That there is a strong physical element in both romance and the Memento Mori makes them if possible more baffling than if they had been wholly intellectual. No man could say exactly how much his sexuality was colored by a clean love of beauty, or by the mere boyish itch for irrevocable adventures, like running away to sea. No man could say how far his animal dread of the end was mixed up with mystical traditions touching morals and religion. It is exactly because these things are animal, but not quite animal, that the dance of all the difficulties begins. The materialists analyze the easy part, deny the hard part and go home to their tea.
It is complete error to suppose that because a thing is vulgar therefore it is not refined; that is, subtle and hard to define. A drawing-room song of my youth which began “In the gloaming, O, my darling,” was vulgar enough as a song; but the connection between human passion and the twilight is none the less an exquisite and even inscrutable thing. Or to take another obvious instance: the jokes about a mother-in-law are scarcely delicate, but the problem of a mother-in-law is extremely delicate. A mother-in-law is subtle because she is a thing like the twilight. She is a mystical blend of two inconsistent things— law and a mother. The caricatures misrepresent her; but they arise out of a real human enigma. “Comic Cuts” deals with the difficulty wrongly, but it would need George Meredith at his best to deal with the difficulty rightly. The nearest statement of the problem perhaps is this: it is not that a mother-in-law must be nasty, but that she must be very nice.
But it is best perhaps to take in illustration some daily custom we have all heard despised as vulgar or trite. Take, for the sake of argument, the custom of talking about the weather. Stevenson calls it “the very nadir and scoff of good conversationalists.” Now there are very deep reasons for talking about the weather, reasons that are delicate as well as deep; they lie in layer upon layer of stratified sagacity. First of all it is a gesture of primeval worship. The sky must be invoked; and to begin everything with the weather is a sort of pagan way of beginning everything with prayer. Jones and Brown talk about the weather: but so do Milton and Shelley. Then it is an expression of that elementary idea in politeness—equality. For the very word politeness is only the Greek for citizenship. The word politeness is akin to the word policeman: a charming thought. Properly understood, the citizen should be more polite than the gentleman; perhaps the policeman should be the most courtly and elegant of the three. But all good manners must obviously begin with the sharing of something in a simple style. Two men should share an umbrella; if they have not got an umbrella, they should at least share the rain, with all its rich potentialities of wit and philosophy. “For He maketh His sun to shine…” This is the second element in the weather; its recognition of human equality in that we all have our hats under the dark blue spangled umbrella of the universe. Arising out of this is the third wholesome strain in the custom; I mean that it begins with the body and with our inevitable bodily brotherhood. All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. Those who will not begin at the bodily end of things are already prigs and may soon be Christian Scientists. Each human soul has in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.
Briefly, in the mere observation “a fine day” there is the whole great human idea of comradeship. Now, pure comradeship is another of those broad and yet bewildering things. We all enjoy it; yet when we come to talk about it we almost always talk nonsense, chiefly because we suppose it to be a simpler affair than it is. It is simple to conduct; but it is by no means simple to analyze. Comradeship is at the most only one half of human life; the other half is Love, a thing so different that one might fancy it had been made for another universe. And I do not mean mere sex love; any kind of concentrated passion, maternal love, or even the fiercer kinds of friendship are in their nature alien to pure comradeship. Both sides are essential to life; and both are known in differing degrees to everybody of every age or sex. But very broadly speaking it may still be said that women stand for the dignity of love and men for the dignity of comradeship. I mean that the institution would hardly be expected if the males of the tribe did not mount guard over it. The affections in which women excel have so much more authority and intensity that pure comradeship would be washed away if it were not rallied and guarded in clubs, corps, colleges, banquets and regiments. Most of us have heard the voice in which the hostess tells her husband not to sit too long over the cigars. It is the dreadful voice of Love, seeking to destroy Comradeship.
II
LA SAGGEZZA E IL TEMPO
Si ammette, così almeno si può sperare, che le cose comuni non sono mai banali. La nascita è avvolta di cortine proprio perché è un prodigio sconvolgente e mostruoso. La morte e il primo amore, per quanto accadano a chiunque, possono fermare il cuore alla sola idea di essi. Ma pur concedendo questo, si può rivendicare qualcosa di più. Non è soltanto vero che queste cose universali sono strane; è vero, per giunta, che sono sottili. In ultima analisi la maggior parte delle cose comuni si rivelerà assai complicata. Alcuni uomini di scienza superano davvero la difficoltà occupandosi soltanto della parte facile: così chiameranno il primo amore l’istinto sessuale, e il timore reverenziale della morte l’istinto di autoconservazione. Ma questo non è che superare la difficoltà di descrivere il verde pavone chiamandolo azzurro. Un po’ d’azzurro c’è. Il fatto che vi sia un forte elemento fisico tanto nel romanticismo quanto nel Memento Mori li rende, se possibile, più sconcertanti che se fossero stati del tutto intellettuali. Nessun uomo saprebbe dire esattamente quanto la sua sessualità fosse tinta da un puro amore della bellezza, o dal semplice prurito adolescenziale di avventure irrevocabili, come fuggire per mare. Nessun uomo saprebbe dire fino a che punto il suo animalesco terrore della fine si mescolasse a tradizioni mistiche che toccano la morale e la religione. È precisamente perché queste cose sono animali, ma non del tutto animali, che comincia la danza di tutte le difficoltà. I materialisti analizzano la parte facile, negano la parte difficile e se ne tornano a casa a prendere il tè.
È errore completo supporre che, poiché una cosa è volgare, essa non sia perciò raffinata; cioè sottile e difficile da definire. Una canzone da salotto della mia gioventù che cominciava «Nel crepuscolo, o mia diletta», era abbastanza volgare come canzone; ma il legame tra la passione umana e il crepuscolo non è per questo meno una cosa squisita e persino imperscrutabile. O, per prendere un altro esempio ovvio: le battute sulla suocera sono ben poco delicate, ma il problema di una suocera è estremamente delicato. Una suocera è sottile perché è una cosa come il crepuscolo. È una mistica fusione di due cose incoerenti: la legge e una madre. Le caricature la travisano; ma nascono da un vero enigma umano. «Comic Cuts» affronta la difficoltà nel modo sbagliato, ma occorrerebbe George Meredith al suo meglio per affrontare la difficoltà nel modo giusto. L’enunciato più prossimo del problema è forse questo: non è che una suocera debba essere odiosa, ma che debba essere molto gentile.
Ma forse è meglio prendere come illustrazione qualche usanza quotidiana che tutti abbiamo sentito disprezzare come volgare o trita. Prendiamo, per amor di ragionamento, l’usanza di parlare del tempo. Stevenson la chiama «il nadir stesso e lo scherno dei buoni conversatori». Ora, vi sono ragioni assai profonde per parlare del tempo, ragioni tanto delicate quanto profonde; giacciono in strato su strato di stratificata sagacia. Anzitutto è un gesto di adorazione primordiale. Il cielo deve essere invocato; e cominciare ogni cosa col tempo è una sorta di modo pagano di cominciare ogni cosa con la preghiera. Jones e Brown parlano del tempo: ma così fanno anche Milton e Shelley. Poi è un’espressione di quell’idea elementare che è la cortesia: l’uguaglianza. Poiché la parola stessa «cortesia» non è che il greco per «cittadinanza». La parola cortesia è affine alla parola poliziotto: pensiero incantevole. Bene inteso, il cittadino dovrebbe essere più cortese del gentiluomo; forse il poliziotto dovrebbe essere il più garbato ed elegante dei tre. Ma ogni buona maniera deve ovviamente cominciare con la condivisione di qualcosa in stile semplice. Due uomini dovrebbero condividere un ombrello; se non hanno un ombrello, dovrebbero almeno condividere la pioggia, con tutte le sue ricche potenzialità di spirito e filosofia. «Poiché Egli fa splendere il suo sole…» Questo è il secondo elemento del tempo; il suo riconoscimento dell’uguaglianza umana in quanto tutti teniamo il cappello sotto l’azzurro cupo e trapunto ombrello dell’universo. Da ciò sorge la terza salutare venatura di questa usanza; intendo che comincia col corpo e con la nostra inevitabile fratellanza corporea. Ogni vera cordialità comincia col fuoco e col cibo e la bevanda e col riconoscimento della pioggia o del gelo. Quelli che non vogliono cominciare dal capo corporeo delle cose sono già saccenti e potrebbero presto diventare Scientisti Cristiani. Ogni anima umana deve in un certo senso recitare per sé la gigantesca umiltà dell’Incarnazione. Ogni uomo deve discendere nella carne per incontrare l’umanità.
In breve, nella semplice osservazione «bella giornata» c’è tutta la grande idea umana del cameratismo. Ora, il puro cameratismo è un’altra di quelle cose ampie e tuttavia sconcertanti. Tutti lo godiamo; eppure, quando arriviamo a parlarne, quasi sempre diciamo sciocchezze, soprattutto perché lo supponiamo faccenda più semplice di quel che è. È semplice da praticare; ma non è affatto semplice da analizzare. Il cameratismo è al più soltanto una metà della vita umana; l’altra metà è l’amore, cosa tanto diversa che si potrebbe immaginare fosse stata fatta per un altro universo. E non intendo il mero amore sessuale; ogni sorta di passione concentrata, l’amore materno, o persino le specie più feroci dell’amicizia sono per loro natura estranee al puro cameratismo. Entrambi i lati sono essenziali alla vita; ed entrambi sono conosciuti, in gradi diversi, da chiunque, di ogni età o sesso. Ma, parlando molto in generale, si può ancora dire che le donne stanno per la dignità dell’amore e gli uomini per la dignità del cameratismo. Intendo che l’istituzione difficilmente ci si aspetterebbe se i maschi della tribù non montassero la guardia su di essa. Gli affetti in cui le donne eccellono hanno tanta più autorità e intensità che il puro cameratismo verrebbe spazzato via se non fosse raccolto e custodito in club, corpi, collegi, banchetti e reggimenti. La maggior parte di noi ha udito la voce con cui la padrona di casa dice al marito di non attardarsi troppo sui sigari. È la voce tremenda dell’amore, che cerca di distruggere il cameratismo.
All true comradeship has in it those three elements which I have remarked in the ordinary exclamation about the weather. First, it has a sort of broad philosophy like the common sky, emphasizing that we are all under the same cosmic conditions. We are all in the same boat, the “winged rock” of Mr. Herbert Trench. Secondly, it recognizes this bond as the essential one; for comradeship is simply humanity seen in that one aspect in which men are really equal. The old writers were entirely wise when they talked of the equality of men; but they were also very wise in not mentioning women. Women are always authoritarian; they are always above or below; that is why marriage is a sort of poetical see-saw. There are only three things in the world that women do not understand; and they are Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. But men (a class little understood in the modern world) find these things the breath of their nostrils; and our most learned ladies will not even begin to understand them until they make allowance for this kind of cool camaraderie. Lastly, it contains the third quality of the weather, the insistence upon the body and its indispensable satisfaction. No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerness in eating, drinking, or smoking, an uproarious materialism which to many women appears only hoggish. You may call the thing an orgy or a sacrament; it is certainly an essential. It is at root a resistance to the superciliousness of the individual. Nay, its very swaggering and howling are humble. In the heart of its rowdiness there is a sort of mad modesty; a desire to melt the separate soul into the mass of unpretentious masculinity. It is a clamorous confession of the weakness of all flesh. No man must be superior to the things that are common to men. This sort of equality must be bodily and gross and comic. Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.
The word comradeship just now promises to become as fatuous as the word “affinity.” There are clubs of a Socialist sort where all the members, men and women, call each other “Comrade.” I have no serious emotions, hostile or otherwise, about this particular habit: at the worst it is conventionality, and at the best flirtation. I am convinced here only to point out a rational principle. If you choose to lump all flowers together, lilies and dahlias and tulips and chrysanthemums and call them all daisies, you will find that you have spoiled the very fine word daisy. If you choose to call every human attachment comradeship, if you include under that name the respect of a youth for a venerable prophetess, the interest of a man in a beautiful woman who baffles him, the pleasure of a philosophical old fogy in a girl who is impudent and innocent, the end of the meanest quarrel or the beginning of the most mountainous love; if you are going to call all these comradeship, you will gain nothing, you will only lose a word. Daisies are obvious and universal and open; but they are only one kind of flower. Comradeship is obvious and universal and open; but it is only one kind of affection; it has characteristics that would destroy any other kind. Anyone who has known true comradeship in a club or in a regiment, knows that it is impersonal. There is a pedantic phrase used in debating clubs which is strictly true to the masculine emotion; they call it “speaking to the question.” Women speak to each other; men speak to the subject they are speaking about. Many an honest man has sat in a ring of his five best friends under heaven and forgotten who was in the room while he explained some system. This is not peculiar to intellectual men; men are all theoretical, whether they are talking about God or about golf. Men are all impersonal; that is to say, republican. No one remembers after a really good talk who has said the good things. Every man speaks to a visionary multitude; a mystical cloud, that is called the club.
It is obvious that this cool and careless quality which is essential to the collective affection of males involves disadvantages and dangers. It leads to spitting; it leads to coarse speech; it must lead to these things so long as it is honorable; comradeship must be in some degree ugly. The moment beauty is mentioned in male friendship, the nostrils are stopped with the smell of abominable things. Friendship must be physically dirty if it is to be morally clean. It must be in its shirt sleeves. The chaos of habits that always goes with males when left entirely to themselves has only one honorable cure; and that is the strict discipline of a monastery. Anyone who has seen our unhappy young idealists in East End Settlements losing their collars in the wash and living on tinned salmon will fully understand why it was decided by the wisdom of St. Bernard or St. Benedict, that if men were to live without women, they must not live without rules. Something of the same sort of artificial exactitude, of course, is obtained in an army; and an army also has to be in many ways monastic; only that it has celibacy without chastity. But these things do not apply to normal married men. These have a quite sufficient restraint on their instinctive anarchy in the savage common-sense of the other sex. There is only one very timid sort of man that is not afraid of women.
III
THE COMMON VISION
Now this masculine love of an open and level camaraderie is the life within all democracies and attempts to govern by debate; without it the republic would be a dead formula. Even as it is, of course, the spirit of democracy frequently differs widely from the letter, and a pothouse is often a better test than a Parliament. Democracy in its human sense is not arbitrament by the majority; it is not even arbitrament by everybody. It can be more nearly defined as arbitrament by anybody. I mean that it rests on that club habit of taking a total stranger for granted, of assuming certain things to be inevitably common to yourself and him. Only the things that anybody may be presumed to hold have the full authority of democracy. Look out of the window and notice the first man who walks by. The Liberals may have swept England with an over-whelming majority; but you would not stake a button that the man is a Liberal. The Bible may be read in all schools and respected in all law courts; but you would not bet a straw that he believes in the Bible. But you would bet your week’s wages, let us say, that he believes in wearing clothes. You would bet that he believes that physical courage is a fine thing, or that parents have authority over children. Of course, he might be the millionth man who does not believe these things; if it comes to that, he might be the Bearded Lady dressed up as a man. But these prodigies are quite a different thing from any mere calculation of numbers. People who hold these views are not a minority, but a monstrosity. But of these universal dogmas that have full democratic authority the only test is this test of anybody. What you would observe before any newcomer in a tavern—that is the real English law. The first man you see from the window, he is the King of England.
Ogni vero cameratismo contiene quei tre elementi che ho notato nella comune esclamazione sul tempo. Primo, possiede una sorta di ampia filosofia simile al cielo comune, che sottolinea come siamo tutti sotto le medesime condizioni cosmiche. Siamo tutti nella stessa barca, la «roccia alata» del signor Herbert Trench. Secondo, riconosce questo legame come quello essenziale; perché il cameratismo è semplicemente l’umanità vista in quell’unico aspetto in cui gli uomini sono davvero uguali. Gli antichi scrittori furono del tutto saggi quando parlarono dell’uguaglianza degli uomini; ma furono anche molto saggi a non menzionare le donne. Le donne sono sempre autoritarie; stanno sempre al di sopra o al di sotto; ecco perché il matrimonio è una sorta di altalena poetica. Vi sono solo tre cose al mondo che le donne non comprendono; e sono la Libertà, l’Uguaglianza e la Fraternità. Ma gli uomini (una classe poco compresa nel mondo moderno) trovano in queste cose il respiro delle loro narici; e le nostre più dotte signore non cominceranno nemmeno a comprenderle finché non terranno conto di questa specie di fresco cameratismo. Infine, contiene la terza qualità del tempo, l’insistenza sul corpo e sulla sua indispensabile soddisfazione. Nessuno ha nemmeno cominciato a comprendere il cameratismo se non accetta insieme ad esso una certa cordiale avidità nel mangiare, bere o fumare, un materialismo fragoroso che a molte donne appare soltanto porcino. Potete chiamare la cosa un’orgia o un sacramento; è certamente un elemento essenziale. Alla radice è una resistenza alla superbia dell’individuo. Anzi, il suo stesso spavaldo urlare è umile. Nel cuore del suo baccano c’è una sorta di folle modestia; un desiderio di fondere l’anima separata nella massa della schietta mascolinità. È una clamorosa confessione della debolezza di ogni carne. Nessun uomo deve essere superiore alle cose che sono comuni agli uomini. Questa sorta di uguaglianza dev’essere corporea e grossolana e comica. Non solo siamo tutti nella stessa barca, ma abbiamo tutti il mal di mare.
La parola cameratismo promette in questo momento di diventare tanto fatua quanto la parola «affinità». Vi sono circoli di tipo socialista in cui tutti i membri, uomini e donne, si chiamano l’un l’altro «Compagno». Non nutro emozioni serie, ostili o d’altro genere, riguardo a questa particolare abitudine: nel peggiore dei casi è convenzionalità, e nel migliore civetteria. Mi soffermo qui solo per additare un principio razionale. Se scegliete di mettere insieme tutti i fiori, gigli e dalie e tulipani e crisantemi, e li chiamate tutti margherite, scoprirete di aver rovinato la bellissima parola margherita. Se scegliete di chiamare cameratismo ogni affetto umano, se includete sotto quel nome il rispetto di un giovane per una venerabile profetessa, l’interesse di un uomo per una bella donna che lo confonde, il piacere di un vecchio brontolone filosofico per una ragazza impertinente e innocente, la fine della più meschina lite o l’inizio del più montuoso amore; se avete intenzione di chiamare tutte queste cose cameratismo, non guadagnerete nulla, perderete soltanto una parola. Le margherite sono ovvie e universali e aperte; ma sono solo un tipo di fiore. Il cameratismo è ovvio e universale e aperto; ma è solo un tipo di affetto; ha caratteristiche che distruggerebbero qualunque altro tipo. Chiunque abbia conosciuto il vero cameratismo in un circolo o in un reggimento sa che è impersonale. C’è una frase pedantesca usata nei circoli di dibattito che è rigorosamente fedele all’emozione maschile; la chiamano «parlare alla questione». Le donne parlano l’una all’altra; gli uomini parlano dell’argomento di cui stanno parlando. Più d’un uomo onesto è stato seduto in un cerchio dei suoi cinque migliori amici sotto il cielo e ha dimenticato chi fosse nella stanza mentre spiegava qualche sistema. Questo non è peculiare degli uomini intellettuali; gli uomini sono tutti teorici, sia che parlino di Dio sia che parlino di golf. Gli uomini sono tutti impersonali; vale a dire, repubblicani. Nessuno ricorda, dopo una conversazione davvero buona, chi abbia detto le cose buone. Ogni uomo parla a una moltitudine visionaria; una nube mistica, che si chiama il circolo.
È evidente che questa qualità fredda e noncurante che è essenziale all’affetto collettivo dei maschi comporta svantaggi e pericoli. Conduce allo sputare; conduce al parlare grossolano; deve condurre a queste cose finché è onorevole; il cameratismo dev’essere in qualche misura brutto. Nel momento in cui la bellezza viene menzionata nell’amicizia maschile, le narici vengono turate dall’odore di cose abominevoli. L’amicizia dev’essere fisicamente sudicia se vuol essere moralmente pulita. Dev’essere in maniche di camicia. Il caos di abitudini che sempre accompagna i maschi lasciati interamente a se stessi ha un solo rimedio onorevole; ed è la severa disciplina di un monastero. Chiunque abbia visto i nostri infelici giovani idealisti negli East End Settlements perdere i colletti in lavanderia e vivere di salmone in scatola comprenderà appieno perché fu deciso dalla saggezza di san Bernardo o di san Benedetto, che, se gli uomini dovevano vivere senza donne, non dovevano vivere senza regole. Qualcosa dello stesso genere di esattezza artificiale, naturalmente, si ottiene in un esercito; e anche un esercito dev’essere per molti versi monastico; solo che ha il celibato senza la castità. Ma queste cose non si applicano ai normali uomini sposati. Questi hanno un freno del tutto sufficiente alla loro anarchia istintiva nel selvaggio buon senso dell’altro sesso. C’è un solo tipo di uomo, molto timido, che non ha paura delle donne.
III
LA VISIONE COMUNE
Ora questo maschile amore per un cameratismo aperto e paritario è la vita entro tutte le democrazie e i tentativi di governare mediante il dibattito; senza di esso la repubblica sarebbe una formula morta. Persino così com’è, naturalmente, lo spirito della democrazia differisce spesso ampiamente dalla lettera, e una bettola è spesso una prova migliore di un Parlamento. La democrazia nel suo senso umano non è l’arbitrato della maggioranza; non è nemmeno l’arbitrato di tutti. Può essere definita più esattamente come l’arbitrato di chiunque. Intendo che si fonda su quell’abitudine da circolo di dare per scontato un perfetto sconosciuto, di presumere che certe cose siano inevitabilmente comuni a voi e a lui. Solo le cose che si può presumere che chiunque sostenga hanno la piena autorità della democrazia. Guardate fuori dalla finestra e osservate il primo uomo che passa. I liberali possono aver travolto l’Inghilterra con una maggioranza schiacciante; ma non scommettereste un bottone che quell’uomo sia un liberale. La Bibbia può essere letta in tutte le scuole e rispettata in tutti i tribunali; ma non scommettereste un fuscello ch’egli creda nella Bibbia. Ma scommettereste la paga di una settimana, diciamo, ch’egli creda nel portare abiti. Scommettereste ch’egli creda che il coraggio fisico sia una bella cosa, o che i genitori abbiano autorità sui figli. Certo, potrebbe essere l’uomo su un milione che non crede a queste cose; se è per questo, potrebbe essere la Donna Barbuta travestita da uomo. Ma questi prodigi sono tutt’altra cosa rispetto a qualsiasi mero calcolo di numeri. Le persone che sostengono queste idee non sono una minoranza, ma una mostruosità. Ma di questi dogmi universali che hanno piena autorità democratica l’unico banco di prova è questo banco di prova di chiunque. Ciò che osservereste davanti a qualsiasi nuovo venuto in una taverna: questa è la vera legge inglese. Il primo uomo che vedete dalla finestra, egli è il Re d’Inghilterra.
The decay of taverns, which is but a part of the general decay of democracy, has undoubtedly weakened this masculine spirit of equality. I remember that a roomful of Socialists literally laughed when I told them that there were no two nobler words in all poetry than Public House. They thought it was a joke. Why they should think it a joke, since they want to make all houses public houses, I cannot imagine. But if anyone wishes to see the real rowdy egalitarianism which is necessary (to males, at least) he can find it as well as anywhere in the great old tavern disputes which come down to us in such books as Boswell’s Johnson. It is worth while to mention that one name especially because the modern world in its morbidity has done it a strange injustice. The demeanor of Johnson, it is said, was “harsh and despotic.” It was occasionally harsh, but it was never despotic. Johnson was not in the least a despot; Johnson was a demagogue, he shouted against a shouting crowd. The very fact that he wrangled with other people is proof that other people were allowed to wrangle with him. His very brutality was based on the idea of an equal scrimmage, like that of football. It is strictly true that he bawled and banged the table because he was a modest man. He was honestly afraid of being overwhelmed or even overlooked. Addison had exquisite manners and was the king of his company; he was polite to everybody; but superior to everybody; therefore he has been handed down forever in the immortal insult of Pope—
“Like Cato, give his little Senate laws And sit attentive to his own applause.”
Johnson, so far from being king of his company, was a sort of Irish Member in his own Parliament. Addison was a courteous superior and was hated. Johnson was an insolent equal and therefore was loved by all who knew him, and handed down in a marvellous book, which is one of the mere miracles of love.
This doctrine of equality is essential to conversation; so much may be admitted by anyone who knows what conversation is. Once arguing at a table in a tavern the most famous man on earth would wish to be obscure, so that his brilliant remarks might blaze like the stars on the background of his obscurity. To anything worth calling a man nothing can be conceived more cold or cheerless than to be king of your company. But it may be said that in masculine sports and games, other than the great game of debate, there is definite emulation and eclipse. There is indeed emulation, but this is only an ardent sort of equality. Games are competitive, because that is the only way of making them exciting. But if anyone doubts that men must forever return to the ideal of equality, it is only necessary to answer that there is such a thing as a handicap. If men exulted in mere superiority, they would seek to see how far such superiority could go; they would be glad when one strong runner came in miles ahead of all the rest. But what men like is not the triumph of superiors, but the struggle of equals; and, therefore, they introduce even into their competitive sports an artificial equality. It is sad to think how few of those who arrange our sporting handicaps can be supposed with any probability to realize that they are abstract and even severe republicans.
No; the real objection to equality and self-rule has nothing to do with any of these free and festive aspects of mankind; all men are democrats when they are happy. The philosophic opponent of democracy would substantially sum up his position by saying that it “will not work.” Before going further, I will register in passing a protest against the assumption that working is the one test of humanity. Heaven does not work; it plays. Men are most themselves when they are free; and if I find that men are snobs in their work but democrats on their holidays, I shall take the liberty to believe their holidays. But it is this question of work which really perplexes the question of equality; and it is with that that we must now deal. Perhaps the truth can be put most pointedly thus: that democracy has one real enemy, and that is civilization. Those utilitarian miracles which science has made are anti-democratic, not so much in their perversion, or even in their practical result, as in their primary shape and purpose. The Frame-Breaking Rioters were right; not perhaps in thinking that machines would make fewer men workmen; but certainly in thinking that machines would make fewer men masters. More wheels do mean fewer handles; fewer handles do mean fewer hands. The machinery of science must be individualistic and isolated. A mob can shout round a palace; but a mob cannot shout down a telephone. The specialist appears and democracy is half spoiled at a stroke.
IV
THE INSANE NECESSITY
The common conception among the dregs of Darwinian culture is that men have slowly worked their way out of inequality into a state of comparative equality. The truth is, I fancy, almost exactly the opposite. All men have normally and naturally begun with the idea of equality; they have only abandoned it late and reluctantly, and always for some material reason of detail. They have never naturally felt that one class of men was superior to another; they have always been driven to assume it through certain practical limitations of space and time.
For example, there is one element which must always tend to oligarchy—or rather to despotism; I mean the element of hurry. If the house has caught fire a man must ring up the fire engines; a committee cannot ring them up. If a camp is surprised by night somebody must give the order to fire; there is no time to vote it. It is solely a question of the physical limitations of time and space; not at all of any mental limitations in the mass of men commanded. If all the people in the house were men of destiny it would still be better that they should not all talk into the telephone at once; nay, it would be better that the silliest man of all should speak uninterrupted. If an army actually consisted of nothing but Hanibals and Napoleons, it would still be better in the case of a surprise that they should not all give orders together. Nay, it would be better if the stupidest of them all gave the orders. Thus, we see that merely military subordination, so far from resting on the inequality of men, actually rests on the equality of men. Discipline does not involve the Carlylean notion that somebody is always right when everybody is wrong, and that we must discover and crown that somebody. On the contrary, discipline means that in certain frightfully rapid circumstances, one can trust anybody so long as he is not everybody. The military spirit does not mean (as Carlyle fancied) obeying the strongest and wisest man. On the contrary, the military spirit means, if anything, obeying the weakest and stupidest man, obeying him merely because he is a man, and not a thousand men. Submission to a weak man is discipline. Submission to a strong man is only servility.
Il decadimento delle taverne, che non è se non una parte del generale decadimento della democrazia, ha senza dubbio indebolito questo spirito virile di uguaglianza. Ricordo che una stanza gremita di socialisti si mise letteralmente a ridere quando dissi loro che in tutta la poesia non esistono due parole più nobili di Casa Pubblica. Credettero fosse uno scherzo. Perché mai debbano ritenerlo uno scherzo, dal momento che vogliono trasformare tutte le case in case pubbliche, non riesco a immaginarlo. Ma se qualcuno desidera vedere il vero, chiassoso egualitarismo che è necessario (agli uomini, almeno) può trovarlo altrettanto bene che altrove nelle grandi, antiche dispute da taverna che ci sono giunte in libri come il Johnson di Boswell. Vale la pena di menzionare quel nome in particolare, perché il mondo moderno, nella sua morbosità, gli ha fatto una strana ingiustizia. Il contegno di Johnson, si dice, era «aspro e dispotico». Era di quando in quando aspro, ma non fu mai dispotico. Johnson non era affatto un despota; Johnson era un demagogo, gridava contro una folla che gridava. Il fatto stesso che egli si accapigliasse con gli altri è la prova che agli altri era permesso di accapigliarsi con lui. La sua stessa brutalità si fondava sull’idea di una mischia fra pari, come quella del calcio. È rigorosamente vero che egli sbraitava e batteva i pugni sul tavolo perché era un uomo modesto. Aveva onestamente paura di essere sopraffatto o persino trascurato. Addison aveva maniere squisite ed era il re della sua compagnia; era cortese con tutti; ma superiore a tutti; perciò è stato tramandato per sempre nell’immortale insulto di Pope—
«Come Catone, dà leggi al suo piccolo Senato E siede attento al proprio applauso.»
Johnson, ben lungi dall’essere il re della sua compagnia, era una sorta di Deputato Irlandese nel proprio Parlamento. Addison era un superiore cortese ed era odiato. Johnson era un pari insolente e perciò era amato da tutti quelli che lo conoscevano, e tramandato in un libro meraviglioso, che è uno dei semplici miracoli dell’amore.
Questa dottrina dell’uguaglianza è essenziale alla conversazione; tanto può essere ammesso da chiunque sappia che cosa sia la conversazione. Discutendo una volta a un tavolo in una taverna, l’uomo più famoso della terra desidererebbe essere oscuro, affinché le sue osservazioni brillanti possano fiammeggiare come le stelle sullo sfondo della sua oscurità. Per qualunque cosa meriti d’essere chiamata uomo, nulla si può concepire di più freddo o desolante che essere il re della propria compagnia. Ma si potrebbe obiettare che negli sport e nei giochi virili, diversi dal grande gioco del dibattito, vi è una netta emulazione ed eclissi. Vi è in effetti emulazione, ma questa non è che una sorta ardente di uguaglianza. I giochi sono competitivi, perché quello è l’unico modo di renderli entusiasmanti. Ma se qualcuno dubita che gli uomini debbano per sempre tornare all’ideale dell’uguaglianza, basta rispondere che esiste una cosa chiamata handicap. Se gli uomini esultassero nella mera superiorità, cercherebbero di vedere fin dove tale superiorità potesse spingersi; sarebbero lieti quando un corridore forte giungesse miglia avanti a tutti gli altri. Ma ciò che agli uomini piace non è il trionfo dei superiori, bensì la lotta fra pari; e, perciò, essi introducono persino nei loro sport competitivi un’uguaglianza artificiale. È triste pensare quanto pochi fra coloro che dispongono i nostri handicap sportivi si possano supporre con qualche probabilità consapevoli di essere astratti e persino severi repubblicani.
No; la vera obiezione all’uguaglianza e all’auto-governo del sé non ha nulla a che fare con nessuno di questi aspetti liberi e festosi del genere umano; tutti gli uomini sono democratici quando sono felici. L’avversario filosofico della democrazia riassumerebbe in sostanza la propria posizione dicendo che essa «non funzionerà». Prima di procedere oltre, registrerò di sfuggita una protesta contro l’assunto che il funzionare sia l’unica prova dell’umanità. Il Cielo non lavora; gioca. Gli uomini sono più sé stessi quando sono liberi; e se scopro che gli uomini sono snob nel loro lavoro ma democratici nelle loro vacanze, mi prenderò la libertà di credere alle loro vacanze. Ma è questa questione del lavoro che davvero complica la questione dell’uguaglianza; ed è di quella che dobbiamo ora occuparci. Forse la verità può essere espressa nel modo più incisivo così: che la democrazia ha un solo vero nemico, e questo è la civiltà. Quei miracoli utilitaristici che la scienza ha compiuto sono anti-democratici, non tanto nella loro perversione, o persino nel loro risultato pratico, quanto nella loro forma e finalità primaria. I Rivoltosi Distruttori di Telai avevano ragione; non forse nel pensare che le macchine avrebbero reso operai un minor numero di uomini; ma certamente nel pensare che le macchine avrebbero reso padroni un minor numero di uomini. Più ruote significano meno manopole; meno manopole significano meno mani. Il macchinario della scienza dev’essere individualistico e isolato. Una folla può gridare intorno a un palazzo; ma una folla non può gridare dentro un telefono. Compare lo specialista e la democrazia è mezza rovinata in un colpo solo.
IV
LA FOLLE NECESSITÀ
La concezione comune fra la feccia della cultura darwiniana è che gli uomini si siano lentamente aperti la strada fuori dalla disuguaglianza verso uno stato di relativa uguaglianza. La verità, mi pare, è quasi esattamente l’opposto. Tutti gli uomini hanno normalmente e naturalmente cominciato con l’idea dell’uguaglianza; l’hanno abbandonata solo tardi e con riluttanza, e sempre per qualche ragione materiale di dettaglio. Non hanno mai sentito naturalmente che una classe di uomini fosse superiore a un’altra; sono sempre stati costretti a presumerlo attraverso certe limitazioni pratiche di spazio e di tempo.
Per esempio, vi è un elemento che deve sempre tendere all’oligarchia—o piuttosto al dispotismo; intendo l’elemento della fretta. Se la casa ha preso fuoco un uomo deve chiamare i pompieri; un comitato non può chiamarli. Se un accampamento è sorpreso di notte qualcuno deve dare l’ordine di far fuoco; non c’è tempo di metterlo ai voti. È unicamente una questione delle limitazioni fisiche di tempo e spazio; niente affatto di qualche limitazione mentale nella massa degli uomini comandati. Se tutte le persone nella casa fossero uomini del destino sarebbe pur sempre meglio che non parlassero tutte insieme nel telefono; anzi, sarebbe meglio che l’uomo più sciocco di tutti parlasse senza essere interrotto. Se un esercito consistesse effettivamente di null’altro che Annibali e Napoleoni, sarebbe pur sempre meglio, nel caso di una sorpresa, che non dessero tutti gli ordini insieme. Anzi, sarebbe meglio che il più stupido di tutti desse gli ordini. Così, vediamo che la mera subordinazione militare, ben lungi dal poggiare sulla disuguaglianza degli uomini, poggia in realtà sull’uguaglianza degli uomini. La disciplina non implica la nozione carlyliana che qualcuno abbia sempre ragione quando tutti hanno torto, e che dobbiamo scoprire e incoronare quel qualcuno. Al contrario, la disciplina significa che in certe circostanze spaventosamente rapide, ci si può fidare di chiunque purché non sia chiunque. Lo spirito militare non significa (come Carlyle immaginava) obbedire all’uomo più forte e più saggio. Al contrario, lo spirito militare significa, semmai, obbedire all’uomo più debole e più stupido, obbedirgli semplicemente perché è un uomo, e non mille uomini. La sottomissione a un uomo debole è disciplina. La sottomissione a un uomo forte è soltanto servilismo.
Now it can be easily shown that the thing we call aristocracy in Europe is not in its origin and spirit an aristocracy at all. It is not a system of spiritual degrees and distinctions like, for example, the caste system of India, or even like the old Greek distinction between free men and slaves. It is simply the remains of a military organization, framed partly to sustain the sinking Roman Empire, partly to break and avenge the awful onslaught of Islam. The word Duke simply means Colonel, just as the word Emperor simply means Commander-in-Chief. The whole story is told in the single title of Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, which merely means officers in the European army against the contemporary Yellow Peril. Now in an army nobody ever dreams of supposing that difference of rank represents a difference of moral reality. Nobody ever says about a regiment, “Your Major is very humorous and energetic; your Colonel, of course, must be even more humorous and yet more energetic.” No one ever says, in reporting a mess-room conversation, “Lieutenant Jones was very witty, but was naturally inferior to Captain Smith.” The essence of an army is the idea of official inequality, founded on unofficial equality. The Colonel is not obeyed because he is the best man, but because he is the Colonel. Such was probably the spirit of the system of dukes and counts when it first arose out of the military spirit and military necessities of Rome. With the decline of those necessities it has gradually ceased to have meaning as a military organization, and become honeycombed with unclean plutocracy. Even now it is not a spiritual aristocracy—it is not so bad as all that. It is simply an army without an enemy—billeted upon the people.
Man, therefore, has a specialist as well as comrade-like aspect; and the case of militarism is not the only case of such specialist submission. The tinker and tailor, as well as the soldier and sailor, require a certain rigidity of rapidity of action: at least, if the tinker is not organized that is largely why he does not tink on any large scale. The tinker and tailor often represent the two nomadic races in Europe: the Gipsy and the Jew; but the Jew alone has influence because he alone accepts some sort of discipline. Man, we say, has two sides, the specialist side where he must have subordination, and the social side where he must have equality. There is a truth in the saying that ten tailors go to make a man; but we must remember also that ten Poets Laureate or ten Astronomers Royal go to make a man, too. Ten million tradesmen go to make Man himself; but humanity consists of tradesmen when they are not talking shop. Now the peculiar peril of our time, which I call for argument’s sake Imperialism or Caesarism, is the complete eclipse of comradeship and equality by specialism and domination.
There are only two kinds of social structure conceivable— personal government and impersonal government. If my anarchic friends will not have rules—they will have rulers. Preferring personal government, with its tact and flexibility, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called Republicanism. Objecting broadmindedly both to kings and creeds is called Bosh; at least, I know no more philosophic word for it. You can be guided by the shrewdness or presence of mind of one ruler, or by the equality and ascertained justice of one rule; but you must have one or the other, or you are not a nation, but a nasty mess. Now men in their aspect of equality and debate adore the idea of rules; they develop and complicate them greatly to excess. A man finds far more regulations and definitions in his club, where there are rules, than in his home, where there is a ruler. A deliberate assembly, the House of Commons, for instance, carries this mummery to the point of a methodical madness. The whole system is stiff with rigid unreason; like the Royal Court in Lewis Carroll. You would think the Speaker would speak; therefore he is mostly silent. You would think a man would take off his hat to stop and put it on to go away; therefore he takes off his hat to walk out and puts it on to stop in. Names are forbidden, and a man must call his own father “my right honorable friend the member for West Birmingham.” These are, perhaps, fantasies of decay: but fundamentally they answer a masculine appetite. Men feel that rules, even if irrational, are universal; men feel that law is equal, even when it is not equitable. There is a wild fairness in the thing—as there is in tossing up.
Again, it is gravely unfortunate that when critics do attack such cases as the Commons it is always on the points (perhaps the few points) where the Commons are right. They denounce the House as the Talking-Shop, and complain that it wastes time in wordy mazes. Now this is just one respect in which the Commons are actually like the Common People. If they love leisure and long debate, it is because all men love it; that they really represent England. There the Parliament does approach to the virile virtues of the pothouse.
The real truth is that adumbrated in the introductory section when we spoke of the sense of home and property, as now we speak of the sense of counsel and community. All men do naturally love the idea of leisure, laughter, loud and equal argument; but there stands a specter in our hall. We are conscious of the towering modern challenge that is called specialism or cut-throat competition—Business. Business will have nothing to do with leisure; business will have no truck with comradeship; business will pretend to no patience with all the legal fictions and fantastic handicaps by which comradeship protects its egalitarian ideal. The modern millionaire, when engaged in the agreeable and typical task of sacking his own father, will certainly not refer to him as the right honorable clerk from the Laburnum Road, Brixton. Therefore there has arisen in modern life a literary fashion devoting itself to the romance of business, to great demigods of greed and to fairyland of finance. This popular philosophy is utterly despotic and anti-democratic; this fashion is the flower of that Caesarism against which I am concerned to protest. The ideal millionaire is strong in the possession of a brain of steel. The fact that the real millionaire is rather more often strong in the possession of a head of wood, does not alter the spirit and trend of the idolatry. The essential argument is “Specialists must be despots; men must be specialists. You cannot have equality in a soap factory; so you cannot have it anywhere. You cannot have comradeship in a wheat corner; so you cannot have it at all. We must have commercial civilization; therefore we must destroy democracy.” I know that plutocrats have seldom sufficient fancy to soar to such examples as soap or wheat. They generally confine themselves, with fine freshness of mind, to a comparison between the state and a ship. One anti-democratic writer remarked that he would not like to sail in a vessel in which the cabin-boy had an equal vote with the captain. It might easily be urged in answer that many a ship (the Victoria, for instance) was sunk because an admiral gave an order which a cabin-boy could see was wrong. But this is a debating reply; the essential fallacy is both deeper and simpler. The elementary fact is that we were all born in a state; we were not all born on a ship; like some of our great British bankers. A ship still remains a specialist experiment, like a diving-bell or a flying ship: in such peculiar perils the need for promptitude constitutes the need for autocracy. But we live and die in the vessel of the state; and if we cannot find freedom camaraderie and the popular element in the state, we cannot find it at all. And the modern doctrine of commercial despotism means that we shall not find it at all. Our specialist trades in their highly civilized state cannot (it says) be run without the whole brutal business of bossing and sacking, “too old at forty” and all the rest of the filth. And they must be run, and therefore we call on Caesar. Nobody but the Superman could descend to do such dirty work.
Now (to reiterate my title) this is what is wrong. This is the huge modern heresy of altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead of altering human conditions to fit the human soul. If soap boiling is really inconsistent with brotherhood, so much the worst for soap-boiling, not for brotherhood. If civilization really cannot get on with democracy, so much the worse for civilization, not for democracy. Certainly, it would be far better to go back to village communes, if they really are communes. Certainly, it would be better to do without soap rather than to do without society. Certainly, we would sacrifice all our wires, wheels, systems, specialties, physical science and frenzied finance for one half-hour of happiness such as has often come to us with comrades in a common tavern. I do not say the sacrifice will be necessary; I only say it will be easy.
Ora si può facilmente dimostrare che la cosa che chiamiamo aristocrazia in Europa non è affatto un’aristocrazia per origine e spirito. Non è un sistema di gradi spirituali e distinzioni come, ad esempio, il sistema delle caste dell’India o anche come l’antica distinzione greca tra uomini liberi e schiavi. È semplicemente i resti di un’organizzazione militare, creata in parte per sostenere l’impero romano morente, in parte per fermare e vendicare il terribile assalto dell’Islam. La parola duca significa semplicemente colonnello, proprio come la parola imperatore significa semplicemente comandante in capo. Tutto il racconto è contenuto nel singolo titolo dei Conti del Sacro Romano Impero, che significa semplicemente ufficiali nell’esercito europeo contro il contemporaneo Pericolo Giallo. Ora, in un esercito nessuno sogna mai di supporre che la differenza di rango rappresenti una differenza di realtà morale. Nessuno dice mai riguardo a un reggimento: “Il vostro maggiore è molto umoristico ed energico; il vostro colonnello, naturalmente, deve essere ancora più umoristico e ancor più energico”. Nessuno dice mai, riferendo una conversazione in mensa: “Il tenente Jones era molto arguto, ma era naturalmente inferiore al capitano Smith. L’essenza di un esercito è l’idea di uguaglianza non ufficiale alla base di disuguaglianze ufficiali. Il colonnello non viene obbedito perché è l’uomo migliore, ma perché è il colonnello. Probabilmente questo era lo spirito del sistema dei duchi e conti quando emerse per la prima volta dallo spirito militare e dalle necessità militari di Roma. Con il declino di queste necessità ha gradualmente smesso di avere significato come organizzazione militare, ed è diventato infestato da una plutocrazia impura. Anche ora non è un’aristocrazia spirituale - non è così male. È semplicemente un esercito senza nemico - alloggiato sul popolo.
L’uomo ha quindi un aspetto sia di specialista che cameratesco; e il caso del militarismo non è l’unico caso di tale sottomissione specialistica. Anche il maniscalco e il sarto, come pure il soldato e il marinaio, richiedono una certa rigidità e rapidità d’azione: almeno, se il maniscalco non è organizzato questo è in gran parte il motivo per cui non lavora su scala ampia. Il maniscalco e il sarto spesso rappresentano le due razze nomadi dell’Europa: lo zingaro e l’ebreo; ma solo l’ebreo ha influenza perché solo lui accetta una certa disciplina. L’uomo, diciamo, ha due lati, il lato specialista dove deve esserci subordinazione, e il lato sociale dove deve esserci uguaglianza. C’è un fondamento nel detto che dieci sarti fanno un uomo; ma dobbiamo ricordare anche che dieci poeti laureati o dieci astronomi reali fanno anch’essi un uomo. Dieci milioni di commercianti fanno l’uomo stesso; ma l’umanità consiste in commercianti quando non parlano bottega. Ora il pericolo peculiare del nostro tempo, che io chiamo, per amore di discussione, Imperialismo o Cesareismo, è l’eclissi completa della camerataggine e dell’uguaglianza da parte dello specialismo e del dominio.
Esistono solo due tipi di struttura sociale concepibili: il governo personale e il governo impersonale. Se i miei amici anarchici non vogliono regole, avranno governanti. Preferire il governo personale, con la sua tattica e flessibilità, si chiama realismo. Preferire il governo impersonale, con i suoi dogmi e definizioni, si chiama repubblicanesimo. Opporsi in modo aperto sia ai re che alle credenze si chiama sciocchezza; almeno non conosco una parola più filosofica per indicarla. Si può essere guidati dall’astuzia o dalla presenza di spirito di un governante, oppure dall’uguaglianza e dalla giustizia accertata di una regola; ma bisogna avere l’uno o l’altra, altrimenti non si è una nazione, ma un brutto pasticcio. Ora gli uomini nella loro veste di uguaglianza e dibattito adorano l’idea delle regole; le sviluppano e complicano enormemente in eccesso. Un uomo trova molte più norme e definizioni nel suo club, dove ci sono regole, che nella sua casa, dove c’è un governante. Un’assemblea deliberativa, la Camera dei Comuni, per esempio, porta questa farsa al punto di una metodica pazzia. L’intero sistema è rigido e irragionevole; come la corte reale in Lewis Carroll. Si penserebbe che il presidente parlasse; quindi resta per lo più in silenzio. Si penserebbe che un uomo si toglierebbe il cappello per fermarsi e lo indosserebbe per andarsene; quindi si toglie il cappello per uscire e lo indossa per rimanere. I nomi sono proibiti, e un uomo deve chiamare suo padre “il mio onorevole amico deputato per Birmingham Ovest”. Queste sono forse fantasie di decadimento: ma fondamentalmente rispondono a un appetito maschile. Gli uomini sentono che le regole, anche se irrazionali, sono universali; gli uomini sentono che la legge è uguale, anche quando non è equa. C’è una giustizia selvaggia in questa cosa - come c’è nel lancio di una moneta.
Anche questa volta è gravemente sfortunato che quando i critici attaccano casi come quello della Camera dei Comuni, lo facciano sempre su punti (forse i pochi) in cui la Camera ha ragione. Denunciano la Camera come il luogo delle chiacchiere e si lamentano del fatto che sprecano tempo in labirinti verbosi. Ora, questo è proprio uno degli aspetti in cui i Comuni sono effettivamente simili alla gente comune. Se essi amano il tempo libero e lunghi dibattiti, è perché tutti gli uomini amano farlo; che rappresentino veramente l’Inghilterra. Lì, il Parlamento si avvicina alle virtù virili della taverna.
La vera verità è quella delineata nella sezione introduttoria, quando abbiamo parlato del senso di casa e proprietà, come ora parliamo del senso di consiglio e comunità. Tutti gli uomini amano naturalmente l’idea di tempo libero, risate, discussioni forti ed eguali; ma c’è uno spettro nella nostra sala. Siamo consapevoli della torreggiante sfida moderna chiamata specializzazione o concorrenza sleale: il Business. Il business non ha nulla a che fare con il tempo libero; il business non vuole saperne di camaraderie; il business finge di non avere pazienza per tutte le finzioni legali e gli ostacoli fantastici con cui la camaraderia protegge il suo ideale egualitario. Il milionario moderno, quando si dedica al compito piacevole e tipico di licenziare suo padre, certamente non lo chiamerà l’onorevole impiegato della strada del Laburnum, Brixton. Perciò è sorta nella vita moderna una moda letteraria che si dedica al romanzo degli affari, ai grandi semidei dell’avidità e alla fiaba della finanza. Questa filosofia popolare è del tutto dispotica e antidemocratica; questa moda è il fiore di quel cesarismo contro cui sono preoccupato di protestare. L’ideale milionario è forte nel possesso di un cervello d’acciaio. Il fatto che il vero milionario sia piuttosto più spesso forte nel possesso di una testa di legno, non cambia lo spirito e la tendenza dell’idolatria. L’argomento essenziale è “Gli specialisti devono essere despoti; gli uomini devono essere specialisti. Non si può avere uguaglianza in una fabbrica di sapone; quindi non si può avere da nessuna parte. Non si può avere camaraderia in un angolo del grano; quindi non si può avere affatto. Dobbiamo avere la civiltà commerciale; dunque dobbiamo distruggere la democrazia.” So che i plutocrati hanno raramente sufficiente fantasia per elevarsi a tali esempi come il sapone o il grano. Di solito si limitano, con una squisita freschezza di mente, a un paragone tra lo stato e una nave. Un autore antidemocratico ha osservato che non gli piacerebbe navigare su una nave in cui il mozzo avesse voto uguale al capitano. Si potrebbe facilmente obiettare che molte navi (la Victoria, per esempio) affondarono perché un ammiraglio diede un ordine che un mozzo poteva vedere essere sbagliato. Ma questa è una risposta dialettica; l’errore essenziale è sia più profondo che più semplice. Il fatto elementare è che siamo tutti nati in uno stato; non siamo tutti nati su una nave; come alcuni dei nostri grandi banchieri britannici. Una nave rimane ancora un esperimento specialistico, come un campanile o un velivolo: in tali pericoli peculiari la necessità di prontezza costituisce la necessità di autocrazia. Ma viviamo e moriamo nella nave dello stato; e se non possiamo trovare libertà, cameratismo e l’elemento popolare nello stato, non lo troveremo affatto. E la dottrina moderna del dispotismo commerciale significa che non lo troveremo affatto. Le nostre attività specialistiche nel loro stato altamente civilizzato non possono (dice) essere gestite senza tutta la brutale faccenda di comandare e licenziare, “troppo vecchio a quaranta” e tutto il resto della sporcizia. E devono essere gestite, quindi chiamiamo Cesare. Nessuno tranne il Superuomo potrebbe scendere a fare un lavoro così sporco.
Ora (per ribadire il mio titolo) questo è ciò che non va. Questa è l’enorme eresia moderna di modificare l’anima umana per adattarla alle sue condizioni, anziché modificare le condizioni umane per adattarle all’anima umana. Se la produzione del sapone è davvero incompatibile con la fratellanza, tanto peggio per il sapone e non per la fratellanza. Se la civiltà non può davvero andare d’accordo con la democrazia, tanto peggio per la civiltà e non per la democrazia. Certo, sarebbe molto meglio tornare ai comuni rurali, se sono veramente comuni. Certo, sarebbe meglio fare a meno del sapone piuttosto che della società. Certamente, sacrificheremmo tutti i nostri fili, ruote, sistemi, specializzazioni, scienza fisica e finanza frenetica per mezz’ora di felicità come quella che spesso ci è capitata con i compagni in una taverna comune. Non dico che il sacrificio sarà necessario; dico solo che sarà facile.
PART THREE
FEMINISM, OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT WOMAN
I
THE UNMILITARY SUFFRAGETTE
It will be better to adopt in this chapter the same process that appeared a piece of mental justice in the last. My general opinions on the feminine question are such as many suffragists would warmly approve; and it would be easy to state them without any open reference to the current controversy. But just as it seemed more decent to say first that I was not in favor of Imperialism even in its practical and popular sense, so it seems more decent to say the same of Female Suffrage, in its practical and popular sense. In other words, it is only fair to state, however hurriedly, the superficial objection to the Suffragettes before we go on to the really subtle questions behind the Suffrage.
Well, to get this honest but unpleasant business over, the objection to the Suffragettes is not that they are Militant Suffragettes. On the contrary, it is that they are not militant enough. A revolution is a military thing; it has all the military virtues; one of which is that it comes to an end. Two parties fight with deadly weapons, but under certain rules of arbitrary honor; the party that wins becomes the government and proceeds to govern. The aim of civil war, like the aim of all war, is peace. Now the Suffragettes cannot raise civil war in this soldierly and decisive sense; first, because they are women; and, secondly, because they are very few women. But they can raise something else; which is altogether another pair of shoes. They do not create revolution; what they do create is anarchy; and the difference between these is not a question of violence, but a question of fruitfulness and finality. Revolution of its nature produces government; anarchy only produces more anarchy. Men may have what opinions they please about the beheading of King Charles or King Louis, but they cannot deny that Bradshaw and Cromwell ruled, that Carnot and Napoleon governed. Someone conquered; something occurred. You can only knock off the King’s head once. But you can knock off the King’s hat any number of times. Destruction is finite, obstruction is infinite: so long as rebellion takes the form of mere disorder (instead of an attempt to enforce a new order) there is no logical end to it; it can feed on itself and renew itself forever. If Napoleon had not wanted to be a Consul, but only wanted to be a nuisance, he could, possibly, have prevented any government arising successfully out of the Revolution. But such a proceeding would not have deserved the dignified name of rebellion.
It is exactly this unmilitant quality in the Suffragettes that makes their superficial problem. The problem is that their action has none of the advantages of ultimate violence; it does not afford a test. War is a dreadful thing; but it does prove two points sharply and unanswerably—numbers, and an unnatural valor. One does discover the two urgent matters; how many rebels there are alive, and how many are ready to be dead. But a tiny minority, even an interested minority, may maintain mere disorder forever. There is also, of course, in the case of these women, the further falsity that is introduced by their sex. It is false to state the matter as a mere brutal question of strength. If his muscles give a man a vote, then his horse ought to have two votes and his elephant five votes. The truth is more subtle than that; it is that bodily outbreak is a man’s instinctive weapon, like the hoofs to the horse or the tusks to the elephant. All riot is a threat of war; but the woman is brandishing a weapon she can never use. There are many weapons that she could and does use. If (for example) all the women nagged for a vote they would get it in a month. But there again, one must remember, it would be necessary to get all the women to nag. And that brings us to the end of the political surface of the matter. The working objection to the Suffragette philosophy is simply that overmastering millions of women do not agree with it. I am aware that some maintain that women ought to have votes whether the majority wants them or not; but this is surely a strange and childish case of setting up formal democracy to the destruction of actual democracy. What should the mass of women decide if they do not decide their general place in the State? These people practically say that females may vote about everything except about Female Suffrage.
But having again cleared my conscience of my merely political and possibly unpopular opinion, I will again cast back and try to treat the matter in a slower and more sympathetic style; attempt to trace the real roots of woman’s position in the western state, and the causes of our existing traditions or perhaps prejudices upon the point. And for this purpose it is again necessary to travel far from the modern topic, the mere Suffragette of today, and to go back to subjects which, though much more old, are, I think, considerably more fresh.
II
THE UNIVERSAL STICK
Cast your eye round the room in which you sit, and select some three or four things that have been with man almost since his beginning; which at least we hear of early in the centuries and often among the tribes. Let me suppose that you see a knife on the table, a stick in the corner, or a fire on the hearth. About each of these you will notice one speciality; that not one of them is special. Each of these ancestral things is a universal thing; made to supply many different needs; and while tottering pedants nose about to find the cause and origin of some old custom, the truth is that it had fifty causes or a hundred origins. The knife is meant to cut wood, to cut cheese, to cut pencils, to cut throats; for a myriad ingenious or innocent human objects. The stick is meant partly to hold a man up, partly to knock a man down; partly to point with like a finger-post, partly to balance with like a balancing pole, partly to trifle with like a cigarette, partly to kill with like a club of a giant; it is a crutch and a cudgel; an elongated finger and an extra leg. The case is the same, of course, with the fire; about which the strangest modern views have arisen. A queer fancy seems to be current that a fire exists to warm people. It exists to warm people, to light their darkness, to raise their spirits, to toast their muffins, to air their rooms, to cook their chestnuts, to tell stories to their children, to make checkered shadows on their walls, to boil their hurried kettles, and to be the red heart of a man’s house and that hearth for which, as the great heathens said, a man should die.
PARTE TERZA
IL FEMMINISMO, OVVERO L’ERRORE SULLA DONNA
I
LA SUFFRAGETTA NON MILITARE
Sarà meglio adottare in questo capitolo lo stesso procedimento che è parso un atto di giustizia mentale nel precedente. Le mie opinioni generali sulla questione femminile sono tali che molti suffragisti approverebbero con calore; e sarebbe facile enunciarle senza alcun riferimento esplicito all’attuale controversia. Ma proprio come è parso più decoroso dire anzitutto che non ero a favore dell’Imperialismo neppure nel suo senso pratico e popolare, così pare più decoroso dire lo stesso del Suffragio Femminile, nel suo senso pratico e popolare. In altre parole, è solo giusto enunciare, per quanto frettolosamente, l’obiezione superficiale alle Suffragette prima di passare alle questioni davvero sottili che stanno dietro il Suffragio.
Ebbene, per sbrigare questa faccenda onesta ma sgradevole, l’obiezione alle Suffragette non è che siano Suffragette Militanti. Al contrario, è che non sono abbastanza militanti. Una rivoluzione è una cosa militare; possiede tutte le virtù militari; una delle quali è che giunge a una fine. Due parti combattono con armi letali, ma sotto certe regole di onore arbitrario; la parte che vince diventa il governo e procede a governare. Lo scopo della guerra civile, come lo scopo di ogni guerra, è la pace. Ora le Suffragette non possono suscitare una guerra civile in questo senso soldatesco e decisivo; primo, perché sono donne; e, secondo, perché sono pochissime donne. Ma possono suscitare qualcos’altro; che è tutt’altro paio di maniche. Non creano una rivoluzione; ciò che creano è l’anarchia; e la differenza fra queste non è una questione di violenza, ma una questione di fecondità e finalità. La rivoluzione per sua natura produce governo; l’anarchia produce soltanto altra anarchia. Gli uomini possono avere le opinioni che vogliono sulla decapitazione di re Carlo o di re Luigi, ma non possono negare che Bradshaw e Cromwell governarono, che Carnot e Napoleone governarono. Qualcuno vinse; qualcosa accadde. Si può mozzare la testa al re una sola volta. Ma si può far cadere il cappello del re un numero qualsiasi di volte. La distruzione è finita, l’ostruzione è infinita: finché la ribellione prende la forma di mero disordine (invece di un tentativo di imporre un nuovo ordine) non vi è fine logica ad essa; può nutrirsi di sé stessa e rinnovarsi per sempre. Se Napoleone non avesse voluto essere Console, ma avesse voluto solo essere una seccatura, avrebbe potuto, forse, impedire a qualsiasi governo di sorgere con successo dalla Rivoluzione. Ma un tale procedere non avrebbe meritato il dignitoso nome di ribellione.
È esattamente questa qualità non militante nelle Suffragette a costituire il loro problema superficiale. Il problema è che la loro azione non possiede nessuno dei vantaggi della violenza definitiva; non offre una prova. La guerra è una cosa terribile; ma dimostra due punti in modo netto e inconfutabile—il numero, e un valore innaturale. Si scoprono davvero le due questioni urgenti; quanti ribelli vi siano in vita, e quanti siano pronti a essere morti. Ma una minuscola minoranza, persino una minoranza interessata, può mantenere il mero disordine per sempre. Vi è inoltre, naturalmente, nel caso di queste donne, l’ulteriore falsità che è introdotta dal loro sesso. È falso presentare la faccenda come una mera brutale questione di forza. Se i suoi muscoli danno a un uomo un voto, allora il suo cavallo dovrebbe avere due voti e il suo elefante cinque voti. La verità è più sottile di così; è che l’esplosione fisica è l’arma istintiva dell’uomo, come gli zoccoli per il cavallo o le zanne per l’elefante. Ogni tumulto è una minaccia di guerra; ma la donna brandisce un’arma che non potrà mai usare. Vi sono molte armi che essa potrebbe usare e usa. Se (per esempio) tutte le donne assillassero per ottenere il voto lo otterrebbero in un mese. Ma anche lì, bisogna ricordare, sarebbe necessario indurre tutte le donne ad assillare. E questo ci porta alla fine della superficie politica della faccenda. L’obiezione pratica alla filosofia delle Suffragette è semplicemente che milioni schiaccianti di donne non sono d’accordo con essa. So bene che alcuni sostengono che le donne dovrebbero avere il voto sia che la maggioranza lo voglia sia che no; ma questo è certo uno strano e puerile caso di erigere una democrazia formale a distruzione della democrazia reale. Che cosa dovrebbe decidere la massa delle donne se non decide il proprio posto generale nello Stato? Questa gente in pratica dice che le femmine possono votare su tutto tranne che sul Suffragio Femminile.
Ma avendo di nuovo sgombrato la mia coscienza dalla mia opinione meramente politica e forse impopolare, tornerò di nuovo indietro e cercherò di trattare la faccenda in uno stile più lento e più comprensivo; tenterò di rintracciare le vere radici della posizione della donna nello stato occidentale, e le cause delle nostre tradizioni esistenti o forse dei pregiudizi su questo punto. E a tale scopo è ancora una volta necessario viaggiare lontano dal tema moderno, la mera Suffragetta di oggi, e risalire a soggetti che, benché assai più antichi, sono, credo, considerevolmente più freschi.
II
IL BASTONE UNIVERSALE
Girate l’occhio per la stanza in cui sedete, e scegliete tre o quattro cose che sono state con l’uomo quasi fin dal suo principio; delle quali almeno sentiamo parlare presto nei secoli e spesso fra le tribù. Supponiamo che vediate un coltello sul tavolo, un bastone nell’angolo, o un fuoco sul focolare. Riguardo a ciascuna di queste noterete una particolarità; che non una di esse è particolare. Ciascuna di queste cose ancestrali è una cosa universale; fatta per soddisfare molti bisogni differenti; e mentre pedanti traballanti vanno ficcando il naso in giro per trovare la causa e l’origine di qualche vecchia usanza, la verità è che essa aveva cinquanta cause o cento origini. Il coltello è fatto per tagliare la legna, per tagliare il formaggio, per temperare le matite, per tagliare le gole; per una miriade di scopi umani ingegnosi o innocenti. Il bastone è fatto in parte per sorreggere un uomo, in parte per abbattere un uomo; in parte per indicare come un dito, in parte per bilanciarsi come un bilanciere, in parte per gingillarsi come una sigaretta, in parte per uccidere come la clava di un gigante; è una stampella e un randello; un dito allungato e una gamba in più. Lo stesso vale, naturalmente, per il fuoco; a proposito del quale sono sorte le più strane concezioni moderne. Pare corra una bizzarra fantasia secondo cui un fuoco esiste per riscaldare la gente. Esso esiste per riscaldare la gente, per illuminare la sua oscurità, per risollevarne lo spirito, per tostare i suoi muffin, per arieggiare le sue stanze, per cuocere le sue castagne, per raccontare storie ai suoi bambini, per fare ombre screziate sui suoi muri, per far bollire i suoi frettolosi bollitori, e per essere il cuore rosso della casa di un uomo e quel focolare per cui, come dissero i grandi pagani, un uomo dovrebbe morire.
Now it is the great mark of our modernity that people are always proposing substitutes for these old things; and these substitutes always answer one purpose where the old thing answered ten. The modern man will wave a cigarette instead of a stick; he will cut his pencil with a little screwing pencil-sharpener instead of a knife; and he will even boldly offer to be warmed by hot water pipes instead of a fire. I have my doubts about pencil-sharpeners even for sharpening pencils; and about hot water pipes even for heat. But when we think of all those other requirements that these institutions answered, there opens before us the whole horrible harlequinade of our civilization. We see as in a vision a world where a man tries to cut his throat with a pencil-sharpener; where a man must learn single-stick with a cigarette; where a man must try to toast muffins at electric lamps, and see red and golden castles in the surface of hot water pipes.
The principle of which I speak can be seen everywhere in a comparison between the ancient and universal things and the modern and specialist things. The object of a theodolite is to lie level; the object of a stick is to swing loose at any angle; to whirl like the very wheel of liberty. The object of a lancet is to lance; when used for slashing, gashing, ripping, lopping off heads and limbs, it is a disappointing instrument. The object of an electric light is merely to light (a despicable modesty); and the object of an asbestos stove… I wonder what is the object of an asbestos stove? If a man found a coil of rope in a desert he could at least think of all the things that can be done with a coil of rope; and some of them might even be practical. He could tow a boat or lasso a horse. He could play cat’s-cradle, or pick oakum. He could construct a rope-ladder for an eloping heiress, or cord her boxes for a travelling maiden aunt. He could learn to tie a bow, or he could hang himself. Far otherwise with the unfortunate traveller who should find a telephone in the desert. You can telephone with a telephone; you cannot do anything else with it. And though this is one of the wildest joys of life, it falls by one degree from its full delirium when there is nobody to answer you. The contention is, in brief, that you must pull up a hundred roots, and not one, before you uproot any of these hoary and simple expedients. It is only with great difficulty that a modern scientific sociologist can be got to see that any old method has a leg to stand on. But almost every old method has four or five legs to stand on. Almost all the old institutions are quadrupeds; and some of them are centipedes.
Consider these cases, old and new, and you will observe the operation of a general tendency. Everywhere there was one big thing that served six purposes; everywhere now there are six small things; or, rather (and there is the trouble), there are just five and a half. Nevertheless, we will not say that this separation and specialism is entirely useless or inexcusable. I have often thanked God for the telephone; I may any day thank God for the lancet; and there is none of these brilliant and narrow inventions (except, of course, the asbestos stove) which might not be at some moment necessary and lovely. But I do not think the most austere upholder of specialism will deny that there is in these old, many-sided institutions an element of unity and universality which may well be preserved in its due proportion and place. Spiritually, at least, it will be admitted that some all-round balance is needed to equalize the extravagance of experts. It would not be difficult to carry the parable of the knife and stick into higher regions. Religion, the immortal maiden, has been a maid-of-all-work as well as a servant of mankind. She provided men at once with the theoretic laws of an unalterable cosmos and also with the practical rules of the rapid and thrilling game of morality. She taught logic to the student and told fairy tales to the children; it was her business to confront the nameless gods whose fears are on all flesh, and also to see the streets were spotted with silver and scarlet, that there was a day for wearing ribbons or an hour for ringing bells. The large uses of religion have been broken up into lesser specialities, just as the uses of the hearth have been broken up into hot water pipes and electric bulbs. The romance of ritual and colored emblem has been taken over by that narrowest of all trades, modern art (the sort called art for art’s sake), and men are in modern practice informed that they may use all symbols so long as they mean nothing by them. The romance of conscience has been dried up into the science of ethics; which may well be called decency for decency’s sake, decency unborn of cosmic energies and barren of artistic flower. The cry to the dim gods, cut off from ethics and cosmology, has become mere Psychical Research. Everything has been sundered from everything else, and everything has grown cold. Soon we shall hear of specialists dividing the tune from the words of a song, on the ground that they spoil each other; and I did once meet a man who openly advocated the separation of almonds and raisins. This world is all one wild divorce court; nevertheless, there are many who still hear in their souls the thunder of authority of human habit; those whom Man hath joined let no man sunder.
This book must avoid religion, but there must (I say) be many, religious and irreligious, who will concede that this power of answering many purposes was a sort of strength which should not wholly die out of our lives. As a part of personal character, even the moderns will agree that many-sidedness is a merit and a merit that may easily be overlooked. This balance and universality has been the vision of many groups of men in many ages. It was the Liberal Education of Aristotle; the jack-of-all-trades artistry of Leonardo da Vinci and his friends; the august amateurishness of the Cavalier Person of Quality like Sir William Temple or the great Earl of Dorset. It has appeared in literature in our time in the most erratic and opposite shapes, set to almost inaudible music by Walter Pater and enunciated through a foghorn by Walt Whitman. But the great mass of men have always been unable to achieve this literal universality, because of the nature of their work in the world. Not, let it be noted, because of the existence of their work. Leonardo da Vinci must have worked pretty hard; on the other hand, many a government office clerk, village constable or elusive plumber may do (to all human appearance) no work at all, and yet show no signs of the Aristotelian universalism. What makes it difficult for the average man to be a universalist is that the average man has to be a specialist; he has not only to learn one trade, but to learn it so well as to uphold him in a more or less ruthless society. This is generally true of males from the first hunter to the last electrical engineer; each has not merely to act, but to excel. Nimrod has not only to be a mighty hunter before the Lord, but also a mighty hunter before the other hunters. The electrical engineer has to be a very electrical engineer, or he is outstripped by engineers yet more electrical. Those very miracles of the human mind on which the modern world prides itself, and rightly in the main, would be impossible without a certain concentration which disturbs the pure balance of reason more than does religious bigotry. No creed can be so limiting as that awful adjuration that the cobbler must not go beyond his last. So the largest and wildest shots of our world are but in one direction and with a defined trajectory: the gunner cannot go beyond his shot, and his shot so often falls short; the astronomer cannot go beyond his telescope and his telescope goes such a little way. All these are like men who have stood on the high peak of a mountain and seen the horizon like a single ring and who then descend down different paths towards different towns, traveling slow or fast. It is right; there must be people traveling to different towns; there must be specialists; but shall no one behold the horizon? Shall all mankind be specialist surgeons or peculiar plumbers; shall all humanity be monomaniac? Tradition has decided that only half of humanity shall be monomaniac. It has decided that in every home there shall be a tradesman and a Jack-of- all-trades. But it has also decided, among other things, that the Jack-of-all-trades shall be a Jill-of-all-trades. It has decided, rightly or wrongly, that this specialism and this universalism shall be divided between the sexes. Cleverness shall be left for men and wisdom for women. For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few sad and certain things.
Ora è il gran segno della nostra modernità che la gente propone sempre sostituti a queste vecchie cose; e questi sostituti rispondono sempre a uno scopo là dove la vecchia cosa ne rispondeva dieci. L’uomo moderno agiterà una sigaretta invece di un bastone; temperà la sua matita con un piccolo temperamatite a vite invece che con un coltello; e persino offrirà arditamente di essere riscaldato da tubi d’acqua calda invece che da un fuoco. Ho i miei dubbi sui temperamatite persino per temperare le matite; e sui tubi d’acqua calda persino per il calore. Ma quando pensiamo a tutti quegli altri requisiti a cui queste istituzioni rispondevano, si spalanca dinanzi a noi l’intera orribile arlecchinata della nostra civiltà. Vediamo come in una visione un mondo in cui un uomo cerca di tagliarsi la gola con un temperamatite; in cui un uomo deve imparare la scherma col bastone servendosi di una sigaretta; in cui un uomo deve cercare di tostare i muffin alle lampade elettriche, e vedere castelli rossi e dorati nella superficie di tubi d’acqua calda.
Il principio di cui parlo può essere visto ovunque in un confronto fra le cose antiche e universali e le cose moderne e specialistiche. L’oggetto di un teodolite è di stare in piano; l’oggetto di un bastone è di oscillare libero a qualunque angolo; di roteare come la ruota stessa della libertà. L’oggetto di una lancetta è di lancinare; quando la si usa per fendere, squarciare, sventrare, mozzare teste e membra, è uno strumento deludente. L’oggetto di una luce elettrica è meramente di illuminare (una spregevole modestia); e l’oggetto di una stufa d’amianto… Mi domando quale sia l’oggetto di una stufa d’amianto? Se un uomo trovasse una matassa di corda in un deserto potrebbe almeno pensare a tutte le cose che si possono fare con una matassa di corda; e alcune di esse potrebbero persino essere pratiche. Potrebbe rimorchiare una barca o prendere al lazo un cavallo. Potrebbe giocare al gioco del ripiglino, o sfilacciare stoppa. Potrebbe costruire una scala di corda per un’ereditiera in fuga, o legare i bauli di una zia zitella in viaggio. Potrebbe imparare ad annodare un fiocco, oppure potrebbe impiccarsi. Ben diversamente per lo sfortunato viaggiatore che trovasse un telefono nel deserto. Con un telefono si può telefonare; non se ne può fare nient’altro. E benché questo sia uno dei più selvaggi piaceri della vita, decade di un grado dal suo pieno delirio quando non c’è nessuno a risponderti. La tesi è, in breve, che si devono strappare cento radici, e non una, prima di sradicare uno qualsiasi di questi canuti e semplici espedienti. È solo con grande difficoltà che si può indurre un moderno sociologo scientifico a vedere che qualche vecchio metodo abbia una gamba su cui reggersi. Ma quasi ogni vecchio metodo ha quattro o cinque gambe su cui reggersi. Quasi tutte le vecchie istituzioni sono quadrupedi; e alcune di esse sono centopiedi.
Considerate questi casi, vecchi e nuovi, e osserverete l’operare di una tendenza generale. Ovunque c’era una grande cosa che serviva a sei scopi; ovunque ora vi sono sei piccole cose; o, piuttosto (e qui sta il guaio), ve ne sono appena cinque e mezzo. Nondimeno, non diremo che questa separazione e questo specialismo siano interamente inutili o inescusabili. Ho spesso ringraziato Dio per il telefono; potrò un giorno qualsiasi ringraziare Dio per la lancetta; e non ve n’è alcuna di queste brillanti e anguste invenzioni (eccetto, naturalmente, la stufa d’amianto) che non possa in qualche momento essere necessaria e amabile. Ma non credo che il più austero sostenitore dello specialismo negherà che in queste vecchie istituzioni dai molti lati vi sia un elemento di unità e universalità che può ben essere preservato nella sua giusta proporzione e collocazione. Spiritualmente, almeno, si ammetterà che è necessario un qualche equilibrio a tutto tondo per pareggiare la stravaganza degli esperti. Non sarebbe difficile portare la parabola del coltello e del bastone in regioni più alte. La religione, l’immortale fanciulla, è stata una serva tuttofare non meno bene che una serva del genere umano. Essa forniva agli uomini a un tempo le leggi teoriche di un cosmo immutabile e insieme le regole pratiche del rapido ed emozionante gioco della moralità. Insegnava la logica allo studente e raccontava fiabe ai bambini; era compito suo affrontare gli innominati dèi i cui terrori gravano su ogni carne, e insieme badare che le strade fossero macchiate d’argento e di scarlatto, che vi fosse un giorno per portare nastri o un’ora per suonare le campane. I grandi usi della religione sono stati spezzettati in specialità minori, proprio come gli usi del focolare sono stati spezzettati in tubi d’acqua calda e lampadine elettriche. Il romanticismo del rito e dell’emblema colorato è stato assunto da quella più angusta di tutte le arti, l’arte moderna (quella detta arte per l’arte), e agli uomini nella pratica moderna si fa sapere che possono usare tutti i simboli purché con essi non intendano nulla. Il romanticismo della coscienza è stato prosciugato nella scienza dell’etica; che può ben chiamarsi decenza per amor di decenza, decenza non nata da energie cosmiche e sterile di fiore artistico. Il grido ai fiochi dèi, reciso dall’etica e dalla cosmologia, è divenuto mera Ricerca Psichica. Ogni cosa è stata scissa da ogni altra cosa, e ogni cosa si è raffreddata. Presto sentiremo di specialisti che dividono la melodia dalle parole di una canzone, col pretesto che si guastino a vicenda; e io una volta incontrai davvero un uomo che apertamente propugnava la separazione delle mandorle dall’uva passa. Questo mondo è tutto un unico selvaggio tribunale di divorzio; nondimeno, vi sono molti che ancora odono nelle loro anime il tuono dell’autorità dell’abitudine umana; coloro che l’Uomo ha congiunto nessun uomo separi.
Questo libro deve evitare la religione, ma vi devono (dico) essere molti, religiosi e irreligiosi, che concederanno che questo potere di rispondere a molti scopi era una sorta di forza che non dovrebbe del tutto estinguersi dalle nostre vite. Come parte del carattere personale, persino i moderni ammetteranno che la poliedricità è un pregio, e un pregio che può facilmente essere trascurato. Questo equilibrio e questa universalità sono stati la visione di molti gruppi di uomini in molte epoche. Furono l’Educazione Liberale di Aristotele; l’arte da tuttofare di Leonardo da Vinci e dei suoi amici; l’augusto dilettantismo del Cavaliere di Qualità come Sir William Temple o il grande Conte di Dorset. È apparso in letteratura ai nostri tempi nelle forme più erratiche e opposte, messo in musica quasi inudibile da Walter Pater ed enunciato attraverso una sirena da nebbia da Walt Whitman. Ma la gran massa degli uomini è sempre stata incapace di raggiungere questa universalità letterale, a causa della natura del proprio lavoro nel mondo. Non, si badi, a causa dell’esistenza del proprio lavoro. Leonardo da Vinci deve aver lavorato assai duramente; d’altro canto, più d’un impiegato di governo, poliziotto di villaggio o idraulico inafferrabile può non fare (a ogni umana apparenza) alcun lavoro, e tuttavia non mostrare alcun segno dell’universalismo aristotelico. Ciò che rende difficile all’uomo medio essere un universalista è che l’uomo medio deve essere uno specialista; egli non solo deve imparare un mestiere, ma impararlo tanto bene da sostenersi in una società più o meno spietata. Questo è generalmente vero degli uomini dal primo cacciatore all’ultimo ingegnere elettrotecnico; ciascuno non deve semplicemente agire, ma eccellere. Nimrod non solo deve essere un potente cacciatore al cospetto del Signore, ma anche un potente cacciatore al cospetto degli altri cacciatori. L’ingegnere elettrotecnico deve essere un ingegnere assai elettrotecnico, o è superato da ingegneri ancor più elettrotecnici. Quegli stessi miracoli della mente umana di cui il mondo moderno si vanta, e a ragione nel complesso, sarebbero impossibili senza una certa concentrazione che turba il puro equilibrio della ragione più di quanto non faccia il bigottismo religioso. Nessun credo può essere tanto limitante quanto quella tremenda ingiunzione che il calzolaio non debba andare oltre la sua forma. Così i più grandi e selvaggi colpi del nostro mondo non vanno che in una sola direzione e con una traiettoria definita: l’artigliere non può andare oltre il suo colpo, e il suo colpo così spesso cade corto; l’astronomo non può andare oltre il suo telescopio e il suo telescopio arriva così poco lontano. Tutti costoro sono come uomini che sono stati sull’alta vetta di una montagna e hanno visto l’orizzonte come un unico anello e che poi discendono per sentieri diversi verso città diverse, viaggiando lenti o veloci. È giusto; vi devono essere persone che viaggiano verso città diverse; vi devono essere specialisti; ma non dovrà nessuno contemplare l’orizzonte? Dovrà tutto il genere umano essere fatto di chirurghi specialisti o di idraulici peculiari; dovrà tutta l’umanità essere monomaniaca? La tradizione ha deciso che solo metà dell’umanità sarà monomaniaca. Ha deciso che in ogni casa vi sarà un mercante e un tuttofare. Ma ha anche deciso, fra le altre cose, che il tuttofare sarà una donna-tuttofare. L’ingegno sarà lasciato agli uomini e la saggezza alle donne. Poiché l’ingegno uccide la saggezza; questa è una delle poche cose tristi e certe.
But for women this ideal of comprehensive capacity (or common-sense) must long ago have been washed away. It must have melted in the frightful furnaces of ambition and eager technicality. A man must be partly a one-idead man, because he is a one-weaponed man—and he is flung naked into the fight. The world’s demand comes to him direct; to his wife indirectly. In short, he must (as the books on Success say) give “his best”; and what a small part of a man “his best” is! His second and third best are often much better. If he is the first violin he must fiddle for life; he must not remember that he is a fine fourth bagpipe, a fair fifteenth billiard-cue, a foil, a fountain pen, a hand at whist, a gun, and an image of God.
III
THE EMANCIPATION OF DOMESTICITY
And it should be remarked in passing that this force upon a man to develop one feature has nothing to do with what is commonly called our competitive system, but would equally exist under any rationally conceivable kind of Collectivism. Unless the Socialists are frankly ready for a fall in the standard of violins, telescopes and electric lights, they must somehow create a moral demand on the individual that he shall keep up his present concentration on these things. It was only by men being in some degree specialist that there ever were any telescopes; they must certainly be in some degree specialist in order to keep them going. It is not by making a man a State wage-earner that you can prevent him thinking principally about the very difficult way he earns his wages. There is only one way to preserve in the world that high levity and that more leisurely outlook which fulfils the old vision of universalism. That is, to permit the existence of a partly protected half of humanity; a half which the harassing industrial demand troubles indeed, but only troubles indirectly. In other words, there must be in every center of humanity one human being upon a larger plan; one who does not “give her best,” but gives her all.
Our old analogy of the fire remains the most workable one. The fire need not blaze like electricity nor boil like boiling water; its point is that it blazes more than water and warms more than light. The wife is like the fire, or to put things in their proper proportion, the fire is like the wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original and artistic tales, but tales— better tales than would probably be told by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking stones or lecturing. But she cannot be expected to endure anything like this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive schoolmistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the first in what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of women. Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades. But the woman’s professions, unlike the child’s, were all truly and almost terribly fruitful; so tragically real that nothing but her universality and balance prevented them being merely morbid. This is the substance of the contention I offer about the historic female position. I do not deny that women have been wronged and even tortured; but I doubt if they were ever tortured so much as they are tortured now by the absurd modern attempt to make them domestic empresses and competitive clerks at the same time. I do not deny that even under the old tradition women had a harder time than men; that is why we take off our hats. I do not deny that all these various female functions were exasperating; but I say that there was some aim and meaning in keeping them various. I do not pause even to deny that woman was a servant; but at least she was a general servant.
The shortest way of summarizing the position is to say that woman stands for the idea of Sanity; that intellectual home to which the mind must return after every excursion on extravagance. The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet’s; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic’s. There must in every machine be a part that moves and a part that stands still; there must be in everything that changes a part that is unchangeable. And many of the phenomena which moderns hastily condemn are really parts of this position of the woman as the center and pillar of health. Much of what is called her subservience, and even her pliability, is merely the subservience and pliability of a universal remedy; she varies as medicines vary, with the disease. She has to be an optimist to the morbid husband, a salutary pessimist to the happy-go-lucky husband. She has to prevent the Quixote from being put upon, and the bully from putting upon others. The French King wrote—
“Toujours femme varie Bien fol qui s’y fie,”
Ma per le donne questo ideale di capacità onnicomprensiva (o buon senso) deve da lungo tempo essere stato spazzato via. Deve essersi fuso nelle spaventose fornaci dell’ambizione e dell’avida tecnicità. Un uomo dev’essere in parte un uomo di una sola idea, perché è un uomo di una sola arma—ed è scagliato nudo nella lotta. La richiesta del mondo giunge a lui direttamente; a sua moglie indirettamente. In breve, egli deve (come dicono i libri sul Successo) dare «il meglio di sé»; e che piccola parte di un uomo è «il meglio di sé»! Il suo secondo e terzo meglio sono spesso assai migliori. Se è il primo violino deve suonare per tutta la vita; non deve ricordare di essere una buona quarta cornamusa, una discreta quindicesima stecca da biliardo, un fioretto, una penna stilografica, un giocatore di whist, un fucile, e un’immagine di Dio.
III
L’EMANCIPAZIONE DELLA DOMESTICITÀ
E si dovrebbe osservare di sfuggita che questa costrizione su un uomo a sviluppare un solo tratto non ha nulla a che fare con ciò che comunemente si chiama il nostro sistema competitivo, ma esisterebbe ugualmente sotto qualunque forma razionalmente concepibile di Collettivismo. A meno che i socialisti non siano francamente pronti a un abbassamento del livello dei violini, dei telescopi e delle luci elettriche, essi devono in qualche modo creare una domanda morale sull’individuo affinché mantenga la sua attuale concentrazione su queste cose. Fu solo per il fatto che gli uomini erano in qualche grado specialisti che vi furono mai dei telescopi; essi devono certamente essere in qualche grado specialisti per tenerli in funzione. Non è facendo di un uomo un salariato dello Stato che gli si può impedire di pensare principalmente al modo assai difficile in cui guadagna il suo salario. Vi è un solo modo di preservare nel mondo quell’alta levità e quello sguardo più agiato che adempie l’antica visione dell’universalismo. Ossia, permettere l’esistenza di una metà parzialmente protetta dell’umanità; una metà che l’assillante domanda industriale turba certo, ma turba solo indirettamente. In altre parole, vi dev’essere in ogni centro dell’umanità un essere umano concepito su un piano più vasto; uno che non dà «il meglio di sé», ma dà tutta sé stessa.
La nostra vecchia analogia del fuoco rimane la più praticabile. Il fuoco non ha bisogno di fiammeggiare come l’elettricità né di bollire come l’acqua bollente; il suo punto è che fiammeggia più dell’acqua e riscalda più della luce. La moglie è come il fuoco, o, per mettere le cose nella loro giusta proporzione, il fuoco è come la moglie. Come il fuoco, ci si aspetta che la donna cucini: non che eccella nel cucinare, ma che cucini; che cucini meglio del marito che guadagna il coke tenendo conferenze di botanica o spaccando pietre. Come il fuoco, ci si aspetta che la donna racconti storie ai bambini, non storie originali e artistiche, ma storie—storie migliori di quelle che probabilmente racconterebbe un cuoco di prim’ordine. Come il fuoco, ci si aspetta che la donna illumini e ventili, non con le rivelazioni più sbalorditive o i più selvaggi venti del pensiero, ma meglio di quanto possa fare un uomo dopo aver spaccato pietre o tenuto conferenze. Ma non le si può chiedere di sopportare qualcosa come questo dovere universale se deve anche sopportare la diretta crudeltà della fatica competitiva o burocratica. La donna dev’essere una cuoca, ma non una cuoca competitiva; una maestra, ma non una maestra competitiva; una decoratrice di case ma non una decoratrice di case competitiva; una sarta, ma non una sarta competitiva. Non dovrebbe avere un solo mestiere ma venti passatempi; essa, a differenza dell’uomo, può sviluppare tutti i suoi secondi meglio. Questo è ciò a cui si è realmente mirato fin dal principio in ciò che si chiama la segregazione, o persino l’oppressione, delle donne. Le donne non erano tenute in casa per renderle anguste; al contrario, erano tenute in casa per renderle ampie. Il mondo fuori dalla casa era una massa unica di angustia, un labirinto di sentieri angusti, un manicomio di monomaniaci. Fu solo limitando e proteggendo in parte la donna che le fu consentito di giocare a cinque o sei professioni e così arrivare quasi vicina a Dio come il fanciullo quando gioca a cento mestieri. Ma le professioni della donna, a differenza di quelle del fanciullo, erano tutte veramente e quasi terribilmente feconde; così tragicamente reali che nulla se non la sua universalità ed equilibrio impediva loro di essere meramente morbose. Questa è la sostanza della tesi che offro sulla storica posizione femminile. Non nego che le donne siano state offese e persino torturate; ma dubito che siano mai state torturate tanto quanto lo sono ora dall’assurdo tentativo moderno di renderle imperatrici domestiche e impiegate competitive nello stesso tempo. Non nego che persino sotto la vecchia tradizione le donne avessero un tempo più duro degli uomini; è per questo che ci togliamo il cappello. Non nego che tutte queste svariate funzioni femminili fossero esasperanti; ma dico che vi era un qualche scopo e significato nel mantenerle svariate. Non mi fermo neppure a negare che la donna fosse una serva; ma almeno era una serva tuttofare.
Il modo più breve di riassumere la posizione è dire che la donna sta per l’idea di Sanità mentale; quella casa intellettuale a cui la mente deve ritornare dopo ogni escursione nella stravaganza. La mente che trova la strada verso luoghi selvaggi è quella del poeta; ma la mente che non ritrova mai la strada del ritorno è quella del pazzo. Vi dev’essere in ogni macchina una parte che si muove e una parte che sta ferma; vi dev’essere in ogni cosa che cambia una parte che è immutabile. E molti dei fenomeni che i moderni condannano frettolosamente sono in realtà parti di questa posizione della donna come centro e pilastro della salute. Molto di ciò che si chiama la sua remissività, e persino la sua arrendevolezza, è semplicemente la remissività e l’arrendevolezza di un rimedio universale; essa varia come variano le medicine, con la malattia. Deve essere un’ottimista per il marito morboso, una salutare pessimista per il marito spensierato. Deve impedire che il Chisciotte sia raggirato, e che il prepotente prevarichi sugli altri. Il re francese scrisse—
«Toujours femme varie Bien fol qui s’y fie,»
but the truth is that woman always varies, and that is exactly why we always trust her. To correct every adventure and extravagance with its antidote in common-sense is not (as the moderns seem to think) to be in the position of a spy or a slave. It is to be in the position of Aristotle or (at the lowest) Herbert Spencer, to be a universal morality, a complete system of thought. The slave flatters; the complete moralist rebukes. It is, in short, to be a Trimmer in the true sense of that honorable term; which for some reason or other is always used in a sense exactly opposite to its own. It seems really to be supposed that a Trimmer means a cowardly person who always goes over to the stronger side. It really means a highly chivalrous person who always goes over to the weaker side; like one who trims a boat by sitting where there are few people seated. Woman is a trimmer; and it is a generous, dangerous and romantic trade.
The final fact which fixes this is a sufficiently plain one. Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.
But though the essential of the woman’s task is universality, this does not, of course, prevent her from having one or two severe though largely wholesome prejudices. She has, on the whole, been more conscious than man that she is only one half of humanity; but she has expressed it (if one may say so of a lady) by getting her teeth into the two or three things which she thinks she stands for. I would observe here in parenthesis that much of the recent official trouble about women has arisen from the fact that they transfer to things of doubt and reason that sacred stubbornness only proper to the primary things which a woman was set to guard. One’s own children, one’s own altar, ought to be a matter of principle— or if you like, a matter of prejudice. On the other hand, who wrote Junius’s Letters ought not to be a principle or a prejudice, it ought to be a matter of free and almost indifferent inquiry. But take an energetic modern girl secretary to a league to show that George III wrote Junius, and in three months she will believe it, too, out of mere loyalty to her employers. Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it.
IV
THE ROMANCE OF THRIFT
The larger part of womankind, however, have had to fight for things slightly more intoxicating to the eye than the desk or the typewriter; and it cannot be denied that in defending these, women have developed the quality called prejudice to a powerful and even menacing degree. But these prejudices will always be found to fortify the main position of the woman, that she is to remain a general overseer, an autocrat within small compass but on all sides. On the one or two points on which she really misunderstands the man’s position, it is almost entirely in order to preserve her own. The two points on which woman, actually and of herself, is most tenacious may be roughly summarized as the ideal of thrift and the ideal of dignity.
ma la verità è che la donna varia sempre, ed è esattamente per questo che sempre le prestiamo fiducia. Correggere ogni avventura e stravaganza col suo antidoto nel buon senso non significa (come i moderni paiono credere) trovarsi nella posizione di una spia o di una schiava. Significa trovarsi nella posizione di Aristotele o (al minimo) di Herbert Spencer, essere una moralità universale, un completo sistema di pensiero. La schiava adula; il moralista completo rimprovera. Significa, in breve, essere un Trimmer nel vero senso di quel termine onorevole; che per una ragione o l’altra è sempre usato in un senso esattamente opposto al proprio. Pare davvero si supponga che un Trimmer significhi una persona codarda che passa sempre dalla parte più forte. Significa in realtà una persona altamente cavalleresca che passa sempre dalla parte più debole; come chi bilancia una barca sedendosi dove pochi sono seduti. La donna è un trimmer; ed è un mestiere generoso, pericoloso e romantico.
Il fatto conclusivo che fissa questo è abbastanza evidente. Ammesso che si conceda che l’umanità ha agito almeno non innaturalmente dividendosi in due metà, che tipizzano rispettivamente gli ideali del talento speciale e della sanità mentale generale (poiché sono genuinamente difficili da combinare completamente in una sola mente), non è difficile capire perché la linea di frattura abbia seguito la linea del sesso, o perché la femmina sia divenuta l’emblema dell’universale e il maschio quello dello speciale e superiore. Due giganteschi fatti di natura la fissarono così: primo, che la donna che frequentemente adempiva letteralmente le sue funzioni non poteva essere particolarmente in vista nell’esperimento e nell’avventura; e secondo, che la stessa operazione naturale la circondava di bambini piccolissimi, che hanno bisogno che si insegni loro non tanto qualcosa quanto ogni cosa. I neonati non hanno bisogno che si insegni loro un mestiere, ma che li si introduca a un mondo. Per dirla in breve, la donna è generalmente rinchiusa in una casa con un essere umano nel momento in cui costui pone tutte le domande che esistono, e alcune che non esistono. Sarebbe strano se essa conservasse un po’ dell’angustia di uno specialista. Ora se qualcuno dice che questo dovere di illuminazione generale (anche quando è liberato dalle regole e dagli orari moderni, ed esercitato più spontaneamente da una persona più protetta) è in sé troppo gravoso e opprimente, posso comprendere il punto di vista. Posso solo rispondere che la nostra razza ha ritenuto valesse la pena di gettare questo fardello sulle donne per mantenere il buon senso nel mondo. Ma quando la gente comincia a parlare di questo dovere domestico come non soltanto difficile ma triviale e tetro, rinuncio semplicemente alla questione. Poiché non riesco, con la massima energia dell’immaginazione, a concepire che cosa intendano. Quando la domesticità, per esempio, è chiamata sgobbata, tutta la difficoltà nasce da un doppio significato nella parola. Se sgobbata significa solo lavoro spaventosamente duro, ammetto che la donna sgobbi in casa, come un uomo potrebbe sgobbare alla Cattedrale di Amiens o sgobbare dietro un cannone a Trafalgar. Ma se significa che il duro lavoro è più gravoso perché è insignificante, incolore e di poca importanza per l’anima, allora, come dico, rinuncio; non so che cosa vogliano dire le parole. Essere Regina Elisabetta entro un’area definita, decidendo vendite, banchetti, fatiche e vacanze; essere Whiteley entro una certa area, fornendo giocattoli, stivali, lenzuola, dolci e libri, essere Aristotele entro una certa area, insegnando morale, buone maniere, teologia e igiene; posso capire come questo possa sfinire la mente, ma non riesco a immaginare come possa restringerla. Come può essere una grande carriera insegnare ai figli altrui la regola del tre, e una piccola carriera insegnare ai propri figli l’universo? Come può essere ampio essere la stessa cosa per tutti, e angusto essere ogni cosa per qualcuno? No; la funzione della donna è laboriosa, ma perché è gigantesca, non perché è minuta. Compiangerò la signora Jones per l’enormità del suo compito; non la compiangerò mai per la sua piccolezza.
Ma benché l’essenziale del compito della donna sia l’universalità, questo non le impedisce, naturalmente, di avere uno o due pregiudizi severi benché in gran parte salutari. Essa è stata, nel complesso, più consapevole dell’uomo di essere solo una metà dell’umanità; ma l’ha espresso (se così si può dire di una signora) piantando i denti nelle due o tre cose per cui pensa di stare. Osserverei qui tra parentesi che gran parte dei recenti guai ufficiali riguardo alle donne è sorta dal fatto che esse trasferiscono a cose di dubbio e di ragione quella sacra ostinazione propria soltanto delle cose primarie che una donna era posta a custodire. I propri figli, il proprio altare, dovrebbero essere una questione di principio—o, se preferite, una questione di pregiudizio. D’altro canto, chi abbia scritto le Lettere di Junius non dovrebbe essere un principio o un pregiudizio, dovrebbe essere una questione di libera e quasi indifferente indagine. Ma prendete un’energica moderna ragazza segretaria di una lega volta a dimostrare che Giorgio III scrisse Junius, e in tre mesi lo crederà anche lei, per pura lealtà verso i suoi datori di lavoro. Le donne moderne difendono il proprio ufficio con tutta la ferocia della domesticità. Combattono per la scrivania e la macchina da scrivere come per il focolare e la casa, e sviluppano una sorta di lupesca moglieria in favore dell’invisibile capo della ditta. È per questo che svolgono il lavoro d’ufficio così bene; ed è per questo che non dovrebbero farlo.
IV
IL ROMANTICISMO DELLA PARSIMONIA
La parte maggiore del genere femminile, tuttavia, ha dovuto combattere per cose leggermente più inebrianti per l’occhio della scrivania o della macchina da scrivere; e non si può negare che, nel difenderle, le donne abbiano sviluppato la qualità chiamata pregiudizio a un grado potente e persino minaccioso. Ma questi pregiudizi si troveranno sempre a fortificare la posizione principale della donna, che è di rimanere una sovrintendente generale, un’autocrate entro un piccolo raggio ma su tutti i lati. Sull’uno o due punti su cui essa realmente fraintende la posizione dell’uomo, è quasi interamente per preservare la propria. I due punti su cui la donna, effettivamente e di per sé, è più tenace possono essere riassunti grossolanamente come l’ideale della parsimonia e l’ideale della dignità.
Unfortunately for this book it is written by a male, and these two qualities, if not hateful to a man, are at least hateful in a man. But if we are to settle the sex question at all fairly, all males must make an imaginative attempt to enter into the attitude of all good women toward these two things. The difficulty exists especially, perhaps, in the thing called thrift; we men have so much encouraged each other in throwing money right and left, that there has come at last to be a sort of chivalrous and poetical air about losing sixpence. But on a broader and more candid consideration the case scarcely stands so.
Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance. Heaven knows I for one speak disinterestedly in the matter; for I cannot clearly remember saving a half-penny ever since I was born. But the thing is true; economy, properly understood, is the more poetic. Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste. It is prosaic to throw money away, because it is prosaic to throw anything away; it is negative; it is a confession of indifference, that is, it is a confession of failure. The most prosaic thing about the house is the dustbin, and the one great objection to the new fastidious and aesthetic homestead is simply that in such a moral menage the dustbin must be bigger than the house. If a man could undertake to make use of all things in his dustbin he would be a broader genius than Shakespeare. When science began to use by-products; when science found that colors could be made out of coaltar, she made her greatest and perhaps her only claim on the real respect of the human soul. Now the aim of the good woman is to use the by-products, or, in other words, to rummage in the dustbin.
A man can only fully comprehend it if he thinks of some sudden joke or expedient got up with such materials as may be found in a private house on a rainy day. A man’s definite daily work is generally run with such rigid convenience of modern science that thrift, the picking up of potential helps here and there, has almost become unmeaning to him. He comes across it most (as I say) when he is playing some game within four walls; when in charades, a hearthrug will just do for a fur coat, or a tea-cozy just do for a cocked hat; when a toy theater needs timber and cardboard, and the house has just enough firewood and just enough bandboxes. This is the man’s occasional glimpse and pleasing parody of thrift. But many a good housekeeper plays the same game every day with ends of cheese and scraps of silk, not because she is mean, but on the contrary, because she is magnanimous; because she wishes her creative mercy to be over all her works, that not one sardine should be destroyed, or cast as rubbish to the void, when she has made the pile complete.
The modern world must somehow be made to understand (in theology and other things) that a view may be vast, broad, universal, liberal and yet come into conflict with another view that is vast, broad, universal and liberal also. There is never a war between two sects, but only between two universal Catholic Churches. The only possible collision is the collision of one cosmos with another. So in a smaller way it must be first made clear that this female economic ideal is a part of that female variety of outlook and all-round art of life which we have already attributed to the sex: thrift is not a small or timid or provincial thing; it is part of that great idea of the woman watching on all sides out of all the windows of the soul and being answerable for everything. For in the average human house there is one hole by which money comes in and a hundred by which it goes out; man has to do with the one hole, woman with the hundred. But though the very stinginess of a woman is a part of her spiritual breadth, it is none the less true that it brings her into conflict with the special kind of spiritual breadth that belongs to the males of the tribe. It brings her into conflict with that shapeless cataract of Comradeship, of chaotic feasting and deafening debate, which we noted in the last section. The very touch of the eternal in the two sexual tastes brings them the more into antagonism; for one stands for a universal vigilance and the other for an almost infinite output. Partly through the nature of his moral weakness, and partly through the nature of his physical strength, the male is normally prone to expand things into a sort of eternity; he always thinks of a dinner party as lasting all night; and he always thinks of a night as lasting forever. When the working women in the poor districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to get their husbands home, simple minded “social workers” always imagine that every husband is a tragic drunkard and every wife a broken-hearted saint. It never occurs to them that the poor woman is only doing under coarser conventions exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and gossip over the teacups. These women are not exasperated merely at the amount of money that is wasted in beer; they are exasperated also at the amount of time that is wasted in talk. It is not merely what goeth into the mouth but what cometh out the mouth that, in their opinion, defileth a man. They will raise against an argument (like their sisters of all ranks) the ridiculous objection that nobody is convinced by it; as if a man wanted to make a body-slave of anybody with whom he had played single-stick. But the real female prejudice on this point is not without a basis; the real feeling is this, that the most masculine pleasures have a quality of the ephemeral. A duchess may ruin a duke for a diamond necklace; but there is the necklace. A coster may ruin his wife for a pot of beer; and where is the beer? The duchess quarrels with another duchess in order to crush her, to produce a result; the coster does not argue with another coster in order to convince him, but in order to enjoy at once the sound of his own voice, the clearness of his own opinions and the sense of masculine society. There is this element of a fine fruitlessness about the male enjoyments; wine is poured into a bottomless bucket; thought plunges into a bottomless abyss. All this has set woman against the Public House—that is, against the Parliament House. She is there to prevent waste; and the “pub” and the parliament are the very palaces of waste. In the upper classes the “pub” is called the club, but that makes no more difference to the reason than it does to the rhyme. High and low, the woman’s objection to the Public House is perfectly definite and rational, it is that the Public House wastes the energies that could be used on the private house.
Sfortunatamente per questo libro, esso è scritto da un maschio, e queste due qualità, se non odiose a un uomo, sono per lo meno odiose in un uomo. Ma se dobbiamo regolare la questione dei sessi in modo un minimo equo, tutti i maschi devono compiere un tentativo immaginativo di entrare nell’atteggiamento di tutte le buone donne verso queste due cose. La difficoltà esiste specialmente, forse, nella cosa chiamata parsimonia; noi uomini ci siamo tanto incoraggiati a vicenda a gettare denaro a destra e a manca, che è finito per esservi una sorta di aria cavalleresca e poetica nel perdere sei pence. Ma a una considerazione più ampia e più candida il caso a stento sta così.
La parsimonia è la cosa davvero romantica; l’economia è più romantica della prodigalità. Il Cielo sa che io, per parte mia, parlo in modo disinteressato in questa faccenda; poiché non riesco a ricordare chiaramente di aver risparmiato un mezzo penny da quando sono nato. Ma la cosa è vera; l’economia, propriamente intesa, è la più poetica. La parsimonia è poetica perché è creativa; lo spreco è impoetico perché è spreco. È prosaico gettar via il denaro, perché è prosaico gettar via qualsiasi cosa; è negativo; è una confessione di indifferenza, cioè, è una confessione di fallimento. La cosa più prosaica riguardo alla casa è la pattumiera, e l’unica grande obiezione al nuovo focolare schizzinoso ed estetico è semplicemente che in un tale ménage morale la pattumiera dev’essere più grande della casa. Se un uomo potesse impegnarsi a far uso di tutte le cose nella sua pattumiera sarebbe un genio più ampio di Shakespeare. Quando la scienza cominciò a usare i sottoprodotti; quando la scienza scoprì che i colori potevano essere ricavati dal catrame di carbone, essa avanzò la sua più grande e forse unica pretesa al vero rispetto dell’anima umana. Ora lo scopo della buona donna è di usare i sottoprodotti, o, in altre parole, di rovistare nella pattumiera.
Un uomo può comprenderlo pienamente solo se pensa a qualche improvviso scherzo o espediente escogitato con materiali quali si possono trovare in una casa privata in un giorno di pioggia. Il preciso lavoro quotidiano di un uomo è generalmente condotto con una tale rigida comodità della scienza moderna che la parsimonia, il raccogliere qua e là aiuti potenziali, è divenuta quasi priva di significato per lui. Vi si imbatte soprattutto (come dico) quando gioca a qualche gioco entro quattro mura; quando negli sciarada, un tappeto da focolare andrà benissimo per una pelliccia, o un copriteiera andrà benissimo per una feluca; quando un teatrino di giocattoli ha bisogno di legname e cartone, e la casa ha giusto abbastanza legna da ardere e giusto abbastanza scatole da cappelli. Questo è l’occasionale scorcio, e piacevole parodia, della parsimonia da parte dell’uomo. Ma più d’una brava massaia gioca lo stesso gioco ogni giorno con avanzi di formaggio e ritagli di seta, non perché sia meschina, ma al contrario, perché è magnanima; perché desidera che la sua creativa misericordia sia sopra tutte le sue opere, che non una sola sardina sia distrutta, o gettata come rifiuto nel vuoto, quando essa ha completato la catasta.
Il mondo moderno dev’essere in qualche modo indotto a comprendere (in teologia e in altre cose) che una veduta può essere vasta, ampia, universale, liberale e tuttavia entrare in conflitto con un’altra veduta che è vasta, ampia, universale e liberale anch’essa. Non vi è mai una guerra fra due sette, ma solo fra due universali Chiese Cattoliche. L’unica collisione possibile è la collisione di un cosmo con un altro. Così, in modo minore, dev’essere anzitutto chiarito che questo ideale economico femminile è una parte di quella varietà di veduta femminile e di quell’arte di vivere a tutto tondo che abbiamo già attribuito al sesso: la parsimonia non è una cosa piccola o timida o provinciale; è parte di quella grande idea della donna che veglia da tutti i lati fuori da tutte le finestre dell’anima ed è responsabile di ogni cosa. Poiché nella casa umana media vi è un solo buco da cui il denaro entra e cento da cui esce; l’uomo ha a che fare con l’unico buco, la donna con i cento. Ma benché la stessa spilorceria di una donna sia una parte della sua ampiezza spirituale, non è per questo meno vero che essa la porta in conflitto con quel particolare genere di ampiezza spirituale che appartiene ai maschi della tribù. La porta in conflitto con quell’informe cateratta di Cameratismo, di caotico banchettare e assordante dibattito, che abbiamo notato nell’ultima sezione. Il tocco stesso dell’eterno nei due gusti sessuali li porta ancor più in antagonismo; poiché l’uno sta per una vigilanza universale e l’altro per una produzione quasi infinita. In parte per la natura della sua debolezza morale, e in parte per la natura della sua forza fisica, il maschio è normalmente incline a espandere le cose in una sorta di eternità; egli pensa sempre a una cena come se durasse tutta la notte; e pensa sempre a una notte come se durasse per sempre. Quando le donne lavoratrici nei quartieri poveri vengono alle porte delle case pubbliche e cercano di riportare i loro mariti a casa, i «lavoratori sociali» dalla mente semplice immaginano sempre che ogni marito sia un tragico ubriacone e ogni moglie una santa dal cuore spezzato. Non viene loro mai in mente che la povera donna sta solo facendo, sotto convenzioni più rozze, esattamente ciò che ogni padrona di casa alla moda fa quando cerca di distogliere gli uomini dal discutere sui sigari per venire a chiacchierare davanti alle tazze da tè. Queste donne non sono esasperate solo dalla quantità di denaro che si spreca in birra; sono esasperate anche dalla quantità di tempo che si spreca in chiacchiere. Non è soltanto ciò che entra nella bocca ma ciò che esce dalla bocca che, a loro parere, contamina un uomo. Solleveranno contro un ragionamento (come le loro sorelle di ogni ceto) la ridicola obiezione che nessuno ne è convinto; come se un uomo volesse fare uno schiavo del corpo di chiunque con cui abbia giocato alla scherma col bastone. Ma il vero pregiudizio femminile su questo punto non è privo di fondamento; il vero sentimento è questo, che i più maschili piaceri hanno una qualità di effimero. Una duchessa può rovinare un duca per una collana di diamanti; ma la collana c’è. Un venditore ambulante può rovinare la moglie per un boccale di birra; e dov’è la birra? La duchessa litiga con un’altra duchessa allo scopo di schiacciarla, di produrre un risultato; il venditore ambulante non discute con un altro venditore allo scopo di convincerlo, ma allo scopo di godere all’istante il suono della propria voce, la chiarezza delle proprie opinioni e il senso della società maschile. Vi è questo elemento di una raffinata infruttuosità nei godimenti maschili; il vino è versato in un secchio senza fondo; il pensiero si tuffa in un abisso senza fondo. Tutto questo ha posto la donna contro la Casa Pubblica—cioè, contro la Casa del Parlamento. Essa è lì per impedire lo spreco; e il «pub» e il parlamento sono i veri palazzi dello spreco. Nelle classi superiori il «pub» è chiamato il club, ma questo non fa più differenza per la ragione di quanta ne faccia per la rima. In alto e in basso, l’obiezione della donna alla Casa Pubblica è perfettamente definita e razionale: è che la Casa Pubblica spreca le energie che potrebbero essere usate sulla casa privata.
As it is about feminine thrift against masculine waste, so it is about feminine dignity against masculine rowdiness. The woman has a fixed and very well-founded idea that if she does not insist on good manners nobody else will. Babies are not always strong on the point of dignity, and grown-up men are quite unpresentable. It is true that there are many very polite men, but none that I ever heard of who were not either fascinating women or obeying them. But indeed the female ideal of dignity, like the female ideal of thrift, lies deeper and may easily be misunderstood. It rests ultimately on a strong idea of spiritual isolation; the same that makes women religious. They do not like being melted down; they dislike and avoid the mob. That anonymous quality we have remarked in the club conversation would be common impertinence in a case of ladies. I remember an artistic and eager lady asking me in her grand green drawing-room whether I believed in comradeship between the sexes, and why not. I was driven back on offering the obvious and sincere answer “Because if I were to treat you for two minutes like a comrade you would turn me out of the house.” The only certain rule on this subject is always to deal with woman and never with women. “Women” is a profligate word; I have used it repeatedly in this chapter; but it always has a blackguard sound. It smells of oriental cynicism and hedonism. Every woman is a captive queen. But every crowd of women is only a harem broken loose.
I am not expressing my own views here, but those of nearly all the women I have known. It is quite unfair to say that a woman hates other women individually; but I think it would be quite true to say that she detests them in a confused heap. And this is not because she despises her own sex, but because she respects it; and respects especially that sanctity and separation of each item which is represented in manners by the idea of dignity and in morals by the idea of chastity.
V
THE COLDNESS OF CHLOE
We hear much of the human error which accepts what is sham and what is real. But it is worth while to remember that with unfamiliar things we often mistake what is real for what is sham. It is true that a very young man may think the wig of an actress is her hair. But it is equally true that a child yet younger may call the hair of a negro his wig. Just because the woolly savage is remote and barbaric he seems to be unnaturally neat and tidy. Everyone must have noticed the same thing in the fixed and almost offensive color of all unfamiliar things, tropic birds and tropic blossoms. Tropic birds look like staring toys out of a toy-shop. Tropic flowers simply look like artificial flowers, like things cut out of wax. This is a deep matter, and, I think, not unconnected with divinity; but anyhow it is the truth that when we see things for the first time we feel instantly that they are fictive creations; we feel the finger of God. It is only when we are thoroughly used to them and our five wits are wearied, that we see them as wild and objectless; like the shapeless tree-tops or the shifting cloud. It is the design in Nature that strikes us first; the sense of the crosses and confusions in that design only comes afterwards through experience and an almost eerie monotony. If a man saw the stars abruptly by accident he would think them as festive and as artificial as a firework. We talk of the folly of painting the lily; but if we saw the lily without warning we should think that it was painted. We talk of the devil not being so black as he is painted; but that very phrase is a testimony to the kinship between what is called vivid and what is called artificial. If the modern sage had only one glimpse of grass and sky, he would say that grass was not as green as it was painted; that sky was not as blue as it was painted. If one could see the whole universe suddenly, it would look like a bright-colored toy, just as the South American hornbill looks like a bright-colored toy. And so they are—both of them, I mean.
But it was not with this aspect of the startling air of artifice about all strange objects that I meant to deal. I mean merely, as a guide to history, that we should not be surprised if things wrought in fashions remote from ours seem artificial; we should convince ourselves that nine times out of ten these things are nakedly and almost indecently honest. You will hear men talk of the frosted classicism of Corneille or of the powdered pomposities of the eighteenth century, but all these phrases are very superficial. There never was an artificial epoch. There never was an age of reason. Men were always men and women women: and their two generous appetites always were the expression of passion and the telling of truth. We can see something stiff and quaint in their mode of expression, just as our descendants will see something stiff and quaint in our coarsest slum sketch or our most naked pathological play. But men have never talked about anything but important things; and the next force in femininity which we have to consider can be considered best perhaps in some dusty old volume of verses by a person of quality.
The eighteenth century is spoken of as the period of artificiality, in externals at least; but, indeed, there may be two words about that. In modern speech one uses artificiality as meaning indefinitely a sort of deceit; and the eighteenth century was far too artificial to deceive. It cultivated that completest art that does not conceal the art. Its fashions and costumes positively revealed nature by allowing artifice; as in that obvious instance of a barbering that frosted every head with the same silver. It would be fantastic to call this a quaint humility that concealed youth; but, at least, it was not one with the evil pride that conceals old age. Under the eighteenth century fashion people did not so much all pretend to be young, as all agree to be old. The same applies to the most odd and unnatural of their fashions; they were freakish, but they were not false. A lady may or may not be as red as she is painted, but plainly she was not so black as she was patched.
Poiché riguarda l’astuzia femminile contro lo spreco maschile, così riguarda la dignità femminile contro il chiasso maschile. La donna ha un’idea fissa e molto ben fondata che se non insiste sul buon comportamento nessun altro lo farà. I bambini non sono sempre forti nel punto della dignità, e gli uomini adulti sono del tutto sgradevoli. È vero che ci sono molti uomini molto cortesi, ma nessuno di cui abbia mai sentito parlare che non fosse affascinante con le donne o non le obbedisse. Ma in effetti l’ideale femminile della dignità, come l’ideale femminile dell’astuzia, è più profondo e può essere facilmente frainteso. Riposa infine su una forte idea di isolamento spirituale; la stessa che rende le donne religiose. Non amano essere fuse; non gradiscono né cercano la folla. Quella qualità anonima che abbiamo notato nella conversazione del club sarebbe comune impertinenza in un caso di signore. Ricordo una signora artista e appassionata che mi chiedeva nel suo grande salotto verde se credevo nell’camaraderie tra i sessi, e perché no. Ero costretto a offrire la risposta ovvia e sincera: “Perché se dovessi trattarti per due minuti come un compagno tu mi caccerebbe fuori di casa.” L’unica regola certa su questo argomento è sempre trattare la donna e mai le donne. “Donne” è una parola sperperata; l’ho usata ripetutamente in questo capitolo; ma ha sempre un suono da mascalzone. Puzza di cinismo edonistico orientale. Ogni donna è una regina prigioniera. Ma ogni folla di donne è solo un harem sfuggito al controllo.
Non sto esprimendo qui le mie opinioni personali, ma quelle di quasi tutte le donne che ho conosciuto. È del tutto ingiusto dire che una donna odia le altre donne singolarmente; ma credo sarebbe del tutto vero dire che le detesta in un mucchio confuso. E questo non è perché disprezza il proprio sesso, ma perché lo rispetta; e rispetta soprattutto quella santità e separazione di ogni individuo che si rappresenta nei modi con l’idea della dignità e nella morale con l’idea della castità.
V
Il freddo di Chloe
Si sente molto parlare dell’errore umano che accetta ciò che è falso e ciò che è reale. Ma vale la pena ricordare che con le cose non familiari spesso scambiamo ciò che è reale per ciò che è falso. È vero che un ragazzo molto giovane può pensare che la parrucca di un’attrice sia i suoi capelli. Ma è altrettanto vero che un bambino ancora più piccolo può chiamare i capelli di un negro la sua parrucca. Proprio perché il selvaggio lanoso è remoto e barbarico sembra essere innaturalmente ordinato e pulito. Tutti devono aver notato la stessa cosa nel colore fisso e quasi offensivo di tutte le cose non familiari, gli uccelli tropicali uccelli e i fiori tropicali. Gli uccelli tropicali uccelli sembrano giocattoli che fissano da un negozio di giocattoli. I fiori tropicali fiori semplicemente sembrano fiori artificiali fiori, come cose tagliate fuori dalla cera. Questa è una questione profonda, e, penso, non sconnessa dalla divinità; ma comunque è la verità che quando vediamo le cose per la prima volta sentiamo istantaneamente che sono creazioni fittizie; sentiamo il dito di Dio. È solo quando siamo completamente abituati a loro e i nostri cinque sensi sono stanchi, che li vediamo come selvaggi e senza scopo; come le cime degli alberi informi o la nuvola mutevole. È il disegno nella Natura che ci colpisce per primo; il senso delle croci e delle confusioni in quel disegno arriva solo dopo attraverso l’esperienza e una monotonia quasi inquietante. Se un uomo vedesse le stelle all’improvviso per caso penserebbe che sono festose e artificiali come un fuoco d’artificio. Parliamo della follia di dipingere il giglio; ma se vedessimo il giglio senza preavviso penseremmo che è stato dipinto. Parliamo del diavolo non essendo così nero come è dipinto; ma quella stessa frase è una testimonianza dell’imparentamento tra ciò che viene chiamato vivido e ciò che viene chiamato artificiale. Se il saggio moderno avesse solo uno sguardo di erba e cielo, direbbe che l’erba non è così verde come è dipinta; che il cielo non è così blu come è dipinto. Se si potesse vedere l’intero universo all’improvviso, sembrerebbe un giocattolo dai colori vivaci, proprio come il calao sudamericano sembra un giocattolo dai colori vivaci. E così sono—entrambi, voglio dire.
Ma non era di questo aspetto dell’aria sorprendente e artificiosa che circonda tutti gli oggetti strani che volevo parlare. Volevo semplicemente, come guida alla storia, dire che non dovremmo stupirci se le cose realizzate in stili lontani dal nostro ci sembrano artificiali; dovremmo convincerci che nove volte su dieci queste cose sono nello stato più puro e quasi indecente di onestà. Sentirete parlare degli uomini del classicismo gelido di Corneille o delle pomposità incipriate del diciottesimo secolo, ma tutte queste frasi sono molto superficiali. Non è mai esistita un’epoca artificiale. Non c’è mai stato un’età della ragione. Gli uomini sono sempre stati uomini e le donne donne: e i loro due generosi appetiti sono sempre stati l’espressione della passione e la narrazione della verità. Possiamo vedere qualcosa di rigido e strano nel loro modo di esprimersi, proprio come i nostri discendenti vedranno qualcosa di rigido e strano nella nostra più grossolana bozza di quartiere o nel nostro più nudo dramma patologico. Ma gli uomini non hanno mai parlato d’altro che di cose importanti; e la prossima forza della femminilità che dobbiamo considerare può essere meglio considerata forse in qualche vecchio volume polveroso di versi di una persona di qualità.
Del diciottesimo secolo si parla come del periodo dell’artificialità, almeno nelle apparenze; ma in realtà su questo potremmo discutere. Nel linguaggio moderno si usa il termine artificialità per indicare indefinitamente una sorta di inganno; ma il diciottesimo secolo era troppo artificioso per ingannare. Coltivava quell’arte più completa che non nasconde l’artificio. Le sue mode e i suoi costumi rivelavano positivamente la natura permettendo l’artificio; come in quel caso evidente di una toelettatura che imbiancava ogni capo con lo stesso argento. Sarebbe fantasioso chiamare questo un pittoresco umiltà che nascondesse la giovinezza; ma, almeno, non era uno con il malvagio orgoglio che nasconde la vecchiaia. Sotto le mode del diciottesimo secolo le persone non fingevano di essere tutte giovani, ma erano d’accordo nel sembrare vecchie. Lo stesso vale per le più strane e innaturali delle loro mode; erano eccentriche, ma non false. Una signora poteva o meno essere rossa come dipinta, ma chiaramente non era così nera come imbellettata.
But I only introduce the reader into this atmosphere of the older and franker fictions that he may be induced to have patience for a moment with a certain element which is very common in the decoration and literature of that age and of the two centuries preceding it. It is necessary to mention it in such a connection because it is exactly one of those things that look as superficial as powder, and are really as rooted as hair.
In all the old flowery and pastoral love-songs, those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries especially, you will find a perpetual reproach against woman in the matter of her coldness; ceaseless and stale similes that compare her eyes to northern stars, her heart to ice, or her bosom to snow. Now most of us have always supposed these old and iterant phrases to be a mere pattern of dead words, a thing like a cold wall-paper. Yet I think those old cavalier poets who wrote about the coldness of Chloe had hold of a psychological truth missed in nearly all the realistic novels of today. Our psychological romancers perpetually represent wives as striking terror into their husbands by rolling on the floor, gnashing their teeth, throwing about the furniture or poisoning the coffee; all this upon some strange fixed theory that women are what they call emotional. But in truth the old and frigid form is much nearer to the vital fact. Most men if they spoke with any sincerity would agree that the most terrible quality in women, whether in friendship, courtship or marriage, was not so much being emotional as being unemotional.
There is an awful armor of ice which may be the legitimate protection of a more delicate organism; but whatever be the psychological explanation there can surely be no question of the fact. The instinctive cry of the female in anger is noli me tangere. I take this as the most obvious and at the same time the least hackneyed instance of a fundamental quality in the female tradition, which has tended in our time to be almost immeasurably misunderstood, both by the cant of moralists and the cant of immoralists. The proper name for the thing is modesty; but as we live in an age of prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it dignity. Whatever else it is, it is the thing which a thousand poets and a million lovers have called the coldness of Chloe. It is akin to the classical, and is at least the opposite of the grotesque. And since we are talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment as any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the rabid plagiarism which now passes everywhere for emancipation, that a little while ago it was common for an “advanced” woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a right about as grotesque as the right to wear a false nose. Whether female liberty is much advanced by the act of wearing a skirt on each leg I do not know; perhaps Turkish women might offer some information on the point. But if the western woman walks about (as it were) trailing the curtains of the harem with her, it is quite certain that the woven mansion is meant for a perambulating palace, not for a perambulating prison. It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would appear covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity The whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern.
VI
THE PEDANT AND THE SAVAGE
We say then that the female holds up with two strong arms these two pillars of civilization; we say also that she could do neither, but for her position; her curious position of private omnipotence, universality on a small scale. The first element is thrift; not the destructive thrift of the miser, but the creative thrift of the peasant; the second element is dignity, which is but the expression of sacred personality and privacy. Now I know the question that will be abruptly and automatically asked by all that know the dull tricks and turns of the modern sexual quarrel. The advanced person will at once begin to argue about whether these instincts are inherent and inevitable in woman or whether they are merely prejudices produced by her history and education. Now I do not propose to discuss whether woman could now be educated out of her habits touching thrift and dignity; and that for two excellent reasons. First it is a question which cannot conceivably ever find any answer: that is why modern people are so fond of it. From the nature of the case it is obviously impossible to decide whether any of the peculiarities of civilized man have been strictly necessary to his civilization. It is not self-evident (for instance), that even the habit of standing upright was the only path of human progress. There might have been a quadrupedal civilization, in which a city gentleman put on four boots to go to the city every morning. Or there might have been a reptilian civilization, in which he rolled up to the office on his stomach; it is impossible to say that intelligence might not have developed in such creatures. All we can say is that man as he is walks upright; and that woman is something almost more upright than uprightness.
And the second point is this: that upon the whole we rather prefer women (nay, even men) to walk upright; so we do not waste much of our noble lives in inventing any other way for them to walk. In short, my second reason for not speculating upon whether woman might get rid of these peculiarities, is that I do not want her to get rid of them; nor does she. I will not exhaust my intelligence by inventing ways in which mankind might unlearn the violin or forget how to ride horses; and the art of domesticity seems to me as special and as valuable as all the ancient arts of our race. Nor do I propose to enter at all into those formless and floundering speculations about how woman was or is regarded in the primitive times that we cannot remember, or in the savage countries which we cannot understand. Even if these people segregated their women for low or barbaric reasons it would not make our reasons barbaric; and I am haunted with a tenacious suspicion that these people’s feelings were really, under other forms, very much the same as ours. Some impatient trader, some superficial missionary, walks across an island and sees the squaw digging in the fields while the man is playing a flute; and immediately says that the man is a mere lord of creation and the woman a mere serf. He does not remember that he might see the same thing in half the back gardens in Brixton, merely because women are at once more conscientious and more impatient, while men are at once more quiescent and more greedy for pleasure. It may often be in Hawaii simply as it is in Hoxton. That is, the woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed. I do not affirm that this is the whole truth, but I do affirm that we have too little comprehension of the souls of savages to know how far it is untrue. It is the same with the relations of our hasty and surface science, with the problem of sexual dignity and modesty. Professors find all over the world fragmentary ceremonies in which the bride affects some sort of reluctance, hides from her husband, or runs away from him. The professor then pompously proclaims that this is a survival of Marriage by Capture. I wonder he never says that the veil thrown over the bride is really a net. I gravely doubt whether women ever were married by capture I think they pretended to be; as they do still.
Ma introduco il lettore in questa atmosfera delle più antiche e più franche opere di finzione solo perché sia indotto ad avere per un momento pazienza con un certo elemento che è assai comune nella decorazione e nella letteratura di quell’epoca e dei due secoli che la precedettero. È necessario menzionarlo in tale contesto perché è esattamente una di quelle cose che sembrano superficiali come la cipria, e sono in realtà radicate come i capelli.
In tutte le vecchie canzoni d’amore fiorite e pastorali, specialmente quelle del diciassettesimo e diciottesimo secolo, troverete un perpetuo rimprovero alla donna in fatto di freddezza; incessanti e trite similitudini che paragonano i suoi occhi a stelle settentrionali, il suo cuore al ghiaccio, o il suo seno alla neve. Ora la maggior parte di noi ha sempre supposto che queste vecchie e reiterate frasi fossero un mero disegno di parole morte, una cosa come una fredda tappezzeria. Eppure penso che quei vecchi poeti cavalieri che scrivevano della freddezza di Cloe avessero còlto una verità psicologica mancata in quasi tutti i romanzi realistici di oggi. I nostri romanzieri psicologici rappresentano perpetuamente le mogli mentre incutono terrore ai loro mariti rotolandosi sul pavimento, digrignando i denti, scagliando in giro i mobili o avvelenando il caffè; tutto questo sulla base di qualche strana teoria fissa secondo cui le donne sono ciò che essi chiamano emotive. Ma in verità la vecchia e frigida forma è assai più vicina al fatto vitale. La maggior parte degli uomini, se parlasse con un minimo di sincerità, converrebbe che la qualità più terribile nelle donne, sia nell’amicizia, nel corteggiamento o nel matrimonio, non era tanto l’essere emotive quanto l’essere non emotive.
Vi è una tremenda armatura di ghiaccio che può essere la legittima protezione di un organismo più delicato; ma qualunque sia la spiegazione psicologica non vi può certo essere alcun dubbio sul fatto. Il grido istintivo della femmina in collera è noli me tangere. Prendo questo come l’esempio più ovvio e al tempo stesso il meno abusato di una qualità fondamentale nella tradizione femminile, che ha teso ai nostri tempi a essere fraintesa quasi incommensurabilmente, sia dalla cantilena dei moralisti sia dalla cantilena degli immoralisti. Il nome proprio della cosa è modestia; ma poiché viviamo in un’epoca di pregiudizio e non dobbiamo chiamare le cose col loro giusto nome, cederemo a una nomenclatura più moderna e la chiameremo dignità. Qualunque altra cosa sia, è la cosa che mille poeti e un milione di amanti hanno chiamato la freddezza di Cloe. È affine al classico, ed è per lo meno l’opposto del grottesco. E poiché parliamo qui principalmente per tipi e simboli, forse una realizzazione dell’idea buona quanto qualunque altra si può trovare nel semplice fatto di una donna che indossa una gonna. È altamente tipico del rabbioso plagio che ora passa dappertutto per emancipazione, che poco tempo fa fosse comune per una donna «avanzata» rivendicare il diritto di portare i pantaloni; un diritto grottesco press’a poco quanto il diritto di portare un naso finto. Se la libertà femminile sia molto avanzata dall’atto di portare una gonna su ciascuna gamba non so; forse le donne turche potrebbero offrire qualche informazione sul punto. Ma se la donna occidentale va in giro (per così dire) trascinandosi dietro le tende dell’harem, è del tutto certo che la dimora tessuta è intesa come un palazzo ambulante, non come una prigione ambulante. È del tutto certo che la gonna significa dignità femminile, non sottomissione femminile; lo si può provare con la più semplice di tutte le prove. Nessun sovrano si vestirebbe deliberatamente delle riconosciute catene di uno schiavo; nessun giudice apparirebbe coperto di frecce larghe. Ma quando gli uomini desiderano essere sicuramente imponenti, come giudici, sacerdoti o re, indossano effettivamente gonne, le lunghe vesti strascicate della dignità femminile. Il mondo intero è sotto il governo della sottana; poiché persino gli uomini portano sottane quando desiderano governare.
VI
IL PEDANTE E IL SELVAGGIO
Diciamo dunque che la femmina sostiene con due forti braccia questi due pilastri della civiltà; diciamo anche che essa non potrebbe fare né l’uno né l’altro, se non fosse per la sua posizione; la sua curiosa posizione di privata onnipotenza, universalità su piccola scala. Il primo elemento è la parsimonia; non la parsimonia distruttiva dell’avaro, ma la parsimonia creativa del contadino; il secondo elemento è la dignità, che non è se non l’espressione della sacra personalità e riservatezza. Ora conosco la domanda che sarà bruscamente e automaticamente posta da tutti coloro che conoscono i banali trucchi e giravolte della moderna disputa sui sessi. La persona avanzata comincerà subito a discutere se questi istinti siano inerenti e inevitabili nella donna o se siano meri pregiudizi prodotti dalla sua storia ed educazione. Ora non mi propongo di discutere se la donna possa ora essere educata fuori dalle sue abitudini che toccano la parsimonia e la dignità; e ciò per due eccellenti ragioni. Primo, è una questione che non può concepibilmente mai trovare risposta alcuna: è per questo che i moderni ne sono tanto ghiotti. Dalla natura del caso è ovviamente impossibile decidere se qualcuna delle peculiarità dell’uomo civilizzato sia stata strettamente necessaria alla sua civiltà. Non è di per sé evidente (per esempio) che persino l’abitudine di stare eretti sia stata l’unica via del progresso umano. Vi avrebbe potuto essere una civiltà quadrupede, in cui un gentiluomo di città si infilava quattro stivali per andare in città ogni mattina. O vi avrebbe potuto essere una civiltà rettiliana, in cui costui rotolava in ufficio sul ventre; è impossibile dire che l’intelligenza non sarebbe potuta svilupparsi in tali creature. Tutto ciò che possiamo dire è che l’uomo com’è cammina eretto; e che la donna è qualcosa di quasi più eretto dell’eretto.
E il secondo punto è questo: che nel complesso preferiamo piuttosto che le donne (anzi, persino gli uomini) camminino erette; perciò non sprechiamo gran parte delle nostre nobili vite a inventare qualche altro modo perché camminino. In breve, la mia seconda ragione per non speculare se la donna possa liberarsi di queste peculiarità, è che non voglio che se ne liberi; né lo vuole lei. Non esaurirò la mia intelligenza inventando modi in cui il genere umano potrebbe disimparare il violino o dimenticare come si cavalcano i cavalli; e l’arte della domesticità mi sembra tanto speciale e preziosa quanto tutte le antiche arti della nostra razza. Né mi propongo di entrare affatto in quelle informi e maldestre speculazioni su come la donna fosse o sia considerata nei tempi primitivi che non possiamo ricordare, o nei paesi selvaggi che non possiamo comprendere. Anche se questa gente segregava le proprie donne per ragioni basse o barbare, ciò non renderebbe barbare le nostre ragioni; e mi perseguita un tenace sospetto che i sentimenti di questa gente fossero in realtà, sotto altre forme, assai simili ai nostri. Qualche impaziente mercante, qualche superficiale missionario, attraversa a piedi un’isola e vede la squaw scavare nei campi mentre l’uomo suona un flauto; e immediatamente dice che l’uomo è un mero signore del creato e la donna una mera serva della gleba. Non ricorda che potrebbe vedere la stessa cosa in metà dei giardinetti sul retro di Brixton, solo perché le donne sono a un tempo più coscienziose e più impazienti, mentre gli uomini sono a un tempo più quieti e più avidi di piacere. Può spesso essere alle Hawaii semplicemente come è a Hoxton. Ossia, la donna non lavora perché l’uomo le dice di lavorare ed essa obbedisce. Al contrario, la donna lavora perché ha detto all’uomo di lavorare ed egli non ha obbedito. Non affermo che questa sia tutta la verità, ma affermo che abbiamo troppo poca comprensione delle anime dei selvaggi per sapere fin dove sia falsa. Lo stesso vale per le relazioni della nostra frettolosa e superficiale scienza, col problema della dignità e modestia sessuale. I professori trovano in tutto il mondo cerimonie frammentarie in cui la sposa affetta una sorta di riluttanza, si nasconde dal marito, o gli scappa via. Il professore allora pomposamente proclama che questa è una sopravvivenza del Matrimonio per Ratto. Mi stupisco che non dica mai che il velo gettato sulla sposa è in realtà una rete. Dubito gravemente che le donne siano mai state sposate per ratto; penso che fingessero di esserlo; come fanno ancora.
It is equally obvious that these two necessary sanctities of thrift and dignity are bound to come into collision with the wordiness, the wastefulness, and the perpetual pleasure-seeking of masculine companionship. Wise women allow for the thing; foolish women try to crush it; but all women try to counteract it, and they do well. In many a home all round us at this moment, we know that the nursery rhyme is reversed. The queen is in the counting-house, counting out the money. The king is in the parlor, eating bread and honey. But it must be strictly understood that the king has captured the honey in some heroic wars. The quarrel can be found in moldering Gothic carvings and in crabbed Greek manuscripts. In every age, in every land, in every tribe and village, has been waged the great sexual war between the Private House and the Public House. I have seen a collection of mediaeval English poems, divided into sections such as “Religious Carols,” “Drinking Songs,” and so on; and the section headed, “Poems of Domestic Life” consisted entirely (literally, entirely) of the complaints of husbands who were bullied by their wives. Though the English was archaic, the words were in many cases precisely the same as those which I have heard in the streets and public houses of Battersea, protests on behalf of an extension of time and talk, protests against the nervous impatience and the devouring utilitarianism of the female. Such, I say, is the quarrel; it can never be anything but a quarrel; but the aim of all morals and all society is to keep it a lovers’ quarrel.
VII
THE MODERN SURRENDER OF WOMAN
But in this corner called England, at this end of the century, there has happened a strange and startling thing. Openly and to all appearance, this ancestral conflict has silently and abruptly ended; one of the two sexes has suddenly surrendered to the other. By the beginning of the twentieth century, within the last few years, the woman has in public surrendered to the man. She has seriously and officially owned that the man has been right all along; that the public house (or Parliament) is really more important than the private house; that politics are not (as woman had always maintained) an excuse for pots of beer, but are a sacred solemnity to which new female worshipers may kneel; that the talkative patriots in the tavern are not only admirable but enviable; that talk is not a waste of time, and therefore (as a consequence, surely) that taverns are not a waste of money. All we men had grown used to our wives and mothers, and grandmothers, and great aunts all pouring a chorus of contempt upon our hobbies of sport, drink and party politics. And now comes Miss Pankhurst with tears in her eyes, owning that all the women were wrong and all the men were right; humbly imploring to be admitted into so much as an outer court, from which she may catch a glimpse of those masculine merits which her erring sisters had so thoughtlessly scorned.
Now this development naturally perturbs and even paralyzes us. Males, like females, in the course of that old fight between the public and private house, had indulged in overstatement and extravagance, feeling that they must keep up their end of the see-saw. We told our wives that Parliament had sat late on most essential business; but it never crossed our minds that our wives would believe it. We said that everyone must have a vote in the country; similarly our wives said that no one must have a pipe in the drawing room. In both cases the idea was the same. “It does not matter much, but if you let those things slide there is chaos.” We said that Lord Huggins or Mr. Buggins was absolutely necessary to the country. We knew quite well that nothing is necessary to the country except that the men should be men and the women women. We knew this; we thought the women knew it even more clearly; and we thought the women would say it. Suddenly, without warning, the women have begun to say all the nonsense that we ourselves hardly believed when we said it. The solemnity of politics; the necessity of votes; the necessity of Huggins; the necessity of Buggins; all these flow in a pellucid stream from the lips of all the suffragette speakers. I suppose in every fight, however old, one has a vague aspiration to conquer; but we never wanted to conquer women so completely as this. We only expected that they might leave us a little more margin for our nonsense; we never expected that they would accept it seriously as sense. Therefore I am all at sea about the existing situation; I scarcely know whether to be relieved or enraged by this substitution of the feeble platform lecture for the forcible curtain-lecture. I am lost without the trenchant and candid Mrs. Caudle. I really do not know what to do with the prostrate and penitent Miss Pankhurst. This surrender of the modern woman has taken us all so much by surprise that it is desirable to pause a moment, and collect our wits about what she is really saying.
As I have already remarked, there is one very simple answer to all this; these are not the modern women, but about one in two thousand of the modern women. This fact is important to a democrat; but it is of very little importance to the typically modern mind. Both the characteristic modern parties believed in a government by the few; the only difference is whether it is the Conservative few or Progressive few. It might be put, somewhat coarsely perhaps, by saying that one believes in any minority that is rich and the other in any minority that is mad. But in this state of things the democratic argument obviously falls out for the moment; and we are bound to take the prominent minority, merely because it is prominent. Let us eliminate altogether from our minds the thousands of women who detest this cause, and the millions of women who have hardly heard of it. Let us concede that the English people itself is not and will not be for a very long time within the sphere of practical politics. Let us confine ourselves to saying that these particular women want a vote and to asking themselves what a vote is. If we ask these ladies ourselves what a vote is, we shall get a very vague reply. It is the only question, as a rule, for which they are not prepared. For the truth is that they go mainly by precedent; by the mere fact that men have votes already. So far from being a mutinous movement, it is really a very Conservative one; it is in the narrowest rut of the British Constitution. Let us take a little wider and freer sweep of thought and ask ourselves what is the ultimate point and meaning of this odd business called voting.
È altrettanto ovvio che queste due necessarie sacralità dell’economia e della dignità sono destinate a entrare in conflitto con la verbosità, lo sperpero e l’incessante ricerca del piacere dell’amicizia maschile. Le donne sagge tollerano la cosa; le donne sciocche cercano di reprimerla; ma tutte le donne cercano di contrastarla, e fanno bene. In molte case intorno a noi in questo momento, sappiamo che la filastrocca è invertita. La regina è nella cassa, contando i soldi. Il re è nel salotto, mangiando pane e miele. Ma deve essere inteso rigorosamente che il re ha conquistato il miele in guerre eroiche. La disputa si trova in scolpite decorazioni gotiche ormai polverose e in ingarbugliati manoscritti greci. In ogni epoca, in ogni terra, in ogni tribù e villaggio, è stata combattuta la grande guerra sessuale tra la Casa Privata e la Casa Pubblica. Ho visto una raccolta di poesie inglesi medievali, divise in sezioni come “Villanelle Religiose”, “Canzoni da bere,” e così via; e la sezione intitolata, “Poesie della Vita Domestica” consisteva interamente (letteralmente, interamente) nelle lamentele dei mariti vessati dalle mogli. Sebbene l’inglese fosse arcaico, le parole erano in molti casi esattamente le stesse di quelle che ho sentito nelle strade e nei pub di Battersea, proteste a favore di una proroga del tempo e della conversazione, proteste contro l’impazienza nervosa e il divorante utilitarismo delle donne. Tale, dico, è la disputa; non può mai essere altro che una disputa; ma lo scopo di ogni morale e di ogni società è mantenerla come una disputa tra amanti.
VII
LA RESA MODERNA DELLE DONNE
Ma in questo angolo chiamato Inghilterra, a questa fine del secolo, è accaduta una cosa strana e sorprendente. Apertamente e all’apparenza, questo conflitto ancestrale è finito silenziosamente e bruscamente; uno dei due sessi ha improvvisamente ceduto all’altro. All’inizio del ventesimo secolo, negli ultimi anni, la donna in pubblico si è arresa all’uomo. Ha seriamente e ufficialmente riconosciuto che l’uomo aveva ragione tutto il tempo; che la casa pubblica (o Parlamento) è davvero più importante della casa privata; che la politica non è (come le donne hanno sempre sostenuto) una scusa per boccali di birra, ma è una sacra solennità a cui nuove adoratrici femminili possono inginocchiarsi; che i patriottici chiacchieroni al pub non sono solo ammirabili ma invidiabili; che parlare non è uno spreco di tempo, e quindi (come conseguenza, sicuramente) che i pub non sono uno spreco di denaro. Tutti noi uomini ci eravamo abituati a nostre mogli e madri, nonne e prozie che versavano tutte insieme un coro di disprezzo sui nostri hobby dello sport, del bere e della politica di partito. Ed ecco ora arrivare Miss Pankhurst con le lacrime negli occhi, riconoscendo che tutte le donne avevano torto e tutti gli uomini ragione; implorando umilmente di essere ammessa anche solo in un tribunale esterno da cui può cogliere uno sguardo a quei meriti maschili che le sue sorelle erranti avevano così distrattamente disprezzato.
Ora questo sviluppo ci perturba e addirittura ci paralizza. Gli uomini, come le donne, nel corso di quella vecchia lotta tra la casa pubblica e privata, si erano abbandonati a esagerazioni e stravaganze, sentendo che dovevano sostenere la loro parte del gioco. Dicevamo alle nostre mogli che il Parlamento era rimasto in seduta fino a tardi per affari di grande importanza; ma non ci passava mai per la mente che le nostre mogli l’avrebbero creduto. Dicevamo che tutti dovevano avere diritto al voto nel paese; allo stesso modo le nostre mogli dicevano che nessuno poteva fumare in salotto. In entrambi i casi l’idea era la stessa. “Non è una cosa importante, ma se lasci scivolare queste cose c’è il caos.” Dicevamo che Lord Huggins o Mr. Buggins erano assolutamente necessari al paese. Sapevamo benissimo che nulla era necessario al paese tranne che gli uomini fossero uomini e le donne donne. Lo sapevamo; pensavamo che le donne lo sapessero ancora più chiaramente; e pensavamo che le donne l’avrebbero detto. Improvvisamente, senza preavviso, le donne hanno iniziato a dire tutta la sciocchezza che noi stessi non credevamo quasi quando la dicevamo. La solennità della politica; la necessità del voto; la necessità di Huggins; la necessità di Buggins; tutto questo fluisce in un ruscello limpido dalle labbra di tutte le oratrici suffragiste. Suppongo che in ogni lotta, per quanto vecchia, si abbia una vaga aspirazione a conquistare; ma non abbiamo mai voluto conquistare le donne così completamente come questa. Ci aspettavamo solo che ci lasciassero un po’ più di margine per la nostra sciocchezza; non ci siamo mai aspettati che l’avrebbero accettata seriamente come senno. Pertanto sono completamente disorientato riguardo alla situazione attuale; non so quasi se essere sollevato o infuriato da questa sostituzione della debole conferenza pubblica con la vigorosa lezione dietro le tende. Sono perso senza la schietta e candida Mrs. Caudle. Non so davvero cosa fare con la prostrata e pentita Miss Pankhurst. Questa resa della donna moderna ci ha colti tutti così tanto di sorpresa che è desiderabile fermarsi un momento, e raccogliere i nostri sensi su ciò che sta realmente dicendo.
Come ho già osservato, c’è una risposta molto semplice a tutto questo: non si tratta delle donne moderne, ma di una su duemila delle donne moderne. Questo dato è importante per un democratico; ma ha ben poca importanza per la mentalità tipicamente moderna. Entrambe le caratteristiche fazioni moderne credevano in un governo di pochi; l’unica differenza è se si tratti dei Conservatori pochi o dei Progressisti pochi. Si potrebbe dire, forse un po’ grossolanamente, che uno crede in qualsiasi minoranza che sia ricca e l’altro in qualsiasi minoranza che sia pazza. Ma in questo stato di cose l’argomento democratico ovviamente cade per il momento; e siamo costretti a prendere la minoranza prominente, semplicemente perché è prominente. Eliminiamo del tutto dalle nostre menti le migliaia di donne che detestano questa causa, e i milioni di donne che ne hanno a malapena sentito parlare. Concediamo che il popolo inglese stesso non sia e non sarà per un tempo molto lungo all’interno della sfera della politica pratica. Limitiamoci a dire che queste donne in particolare vogliono votare e chiedersi cosa sia un voto. Se chiediamo a queste signore stesse cosa sia un voto, otterremo una risposta molto vaga. È l’unica domanda, di solito, per cui non sono preparate. Perché la verità è che si basano principalmente sul precedente; sul semplice fatto che gli uomini hanno già il diritto di voto. Lungi dall’essere un movimento ribelle, è in realtà molto conservatore; è nella più stretta tradizione della Costituzione britannica. Facciamo un pensiero un po’ più ampio e libero e chiediamoci qual è il punto finale e il significato di questa strana faccenda chiamata voto.
VIII
THE BRAND OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS
Seemingly from the dawn of man all nations have had governments; and all nations have been ashamed of them. Nothing is more openly fallacious than to fancy that in ruder or simpler ages ruling, judging and punishing appeared perfectly innocent and dignified. These things were always regarded as the penalties of the Fall; as part of the humiliation of mankind, as bad in themselves. That the king can do no wrong was never anything but a legal fiction; and it is a legal fiction still. The doctrine of Divine Right was not a piece of idealism, but rather a piece of realism, a practical way of ruling amid the ruin of humanity; a very pragmatist piece of faith. The religious basis of government was not so much that people put their trust in princes, as that they did not put their trust in any child of man. It was so with all the ugly institutions which disfigure human history. Torture and slavery were never talked of as good things; they were always talked of as necessary evils. A pagan spoke of one man owning ten slaves just as a modern business man speaks of one merchant sacking ten clerks: “It’s very horrible; but how else can society be conducted?” A mediaeval scholastic regarded the possibility of a man being burned to death just as a modern business man regards the possibility of a man being starved to death: “It is a shocking torture; but can you organize a painless world?” It is possible that a future society may find a way of doing without the question by hunger as we have done without the question by fire. It is equally possible, for the matter of that, that a future society may reestablish legal torture with the whole apparatus of rack and fagot. The most modern of countries, America, has introduced with a vague savor of science, a method which it calls “the third degree.” This is simply the extortion of secrets by nervous fatigue; which is surely uncommonly close to their extortion by bodily pain. And this is legal and scientific in America. Amateur ordinary America, of course, simply burns people alive in broad daylight, as they did in the Reformation Wars. But though some punishments are more inhuman than others there is no such thing as humane punishment. As long as nineteen men claim the right in any sense or shape to take hold of the twentieth man and make him even mildly uncomfortable, so long the whole proceeding must be a humiliating one for all concerned. And the proof of how poignantly men have always felt this lies in the fact that the headsman and the hangman, the jailors and the torturers, were always regarded not merely with fear but with contempt; while all kinds of careless smiters, bankrupt knights and swashbucklers and outlaws, were regarded with indulgence or even admiration. To kill a man lawlessly was pardoned. To kill a man lawfully was unpardonable. The most bare-faced duelist might almost brandish his weapon. But the executioner was always masked.
This is the first essential element in government, coercion; a necessary but not a noble element. I may remark in passing that when people say that government rests on force they give an admirable instance of the foggy and muddled cynicism of modernity. Government does not rest on force. Government is force; it rests on consent or a conception of justice. A king or a community holding a certain thing to be abnormal, evil, uses the general strength to crush it out; the strength is his tool, but the belief is his only sanction. You might as well say that glass is the real reason for telescopes. But arising from whatever reason the act of government is coercive and is burdened with all the coarse and painful qualities of coercion. And if anyone asks what is the use of insisting on the ugliness of this task of state violence since all mankind is condemned to employ it, I have a simple answer to that. It would be useless to insist on it if all humanity were condemned to it. But it is not irrelevant to insist on its ugliness so long as half of humanity is kept out of it.
All government then is coercive; we happen to have created a government which is not only coercive; but collective. There are only two kinds of government, as I have already said, the despotic and the democratic. Aristocracy is not a government, it is a riot; that most effective kind of riot, a riot of the rich. The most intelligent apologists of aristocracy, sophists like Burke and Nietzsche, have never claimed for aristocracy any virtues but the virtues of a riot, the accidental virtues, courage, variety and adventure. There is no case anywhere of aristocracy having established a universal and applicable order, as despots and democracies have often done; as the last Caesars created the Roman law, as the last Jacobins created the Code Napoleon. With the first of these elementary forms of government, that of the king or chieftain, we are not in this matter of the sexes immediately concerned. We shall return to it later when we remark how differently mankind has dealt with female claims in the despotic as against the democratic field. But for the moment the essential point is that in self-governing countries this coercion of criminals is a collective coercion. The abnormal person is theoretically thumped by a million fists and kicked by a million feet. If a man is flogged we all flogged him; if a man is hanged, we all hanged him. That is the only possible meaning of democracy, which can give any meaning to the first two syllables and also to the last two. In this sense each citizen has the high responsibility of a rioter. Every statute is a declaration of war, to be backed by arms. Every tribunal is a revolutionary tribunal. In a republic all punishment is as sacred and solemn as lynching.
VIII
IL MARCHIO DEL FIORDALISO
Apparentemente fin dal alba dell’uomo tutte le nazioni hanno avuto governi; e tutte le nazioni ne sono state sempre imbarazzate. Nulla è più apertamente fallace che immaginare che in epoche più rozze o semplici governare, giudicare e punire apparissero perfettamente innocenti e dignitosi. Queste cose sono sempre state considerate le pene della Caduta; parte dell’umiliazione dell’umanità, cattive in sé. Che il re non possa fare nulla di sbagliato non è mai stato altro che una finzione legale; ed è ancora oggi una finzione legale. La dottrina del Diritto Divino non era un pezzo di idealismo, ma piuttosto un pezzo di realismo, un modo pratico di governare tra le rovine dell’umanità; un pezzo di fede molto pragmatico. La base religiosa del governo non era tanto che la gente mettesse fiducia nei principi, quanto che non mettesse fiducia in alcun figlio dell’uomo. Così è stato per tutte le istituzioni brutte che disfigurano la storia umana. La tortura e lo schiavitù non sono mai state discusse come cose buone; sono sempre state discusse come mali necessari. Un pagano parlava di un uomo che possedeva dieci schiavi proprio come un moderno imprenditore parla di un commerciante che licenzia dieci impiegati: “È molto orribile; ma altrimenti, come potrebbe essere condotta la società?” Un scolastico medievale considerava la possibilità che un uomo venisse bruciato fino alla morte proprio come un moderno imprenditore considera la possibilità che un uomo muoia di fame fino alla morte: “È una tortura scioccante; ma puoi organizzare un mondo senza dolore?” È possibile che una società futura trovi il modo di fare a meno della questione della fame come abbiamo fatto a meno della questione del fuoco. È altrettanto possibile, per quel che ne sappiamo, che una società futura possa reistituire la tortura legale con tutto l’apparato di ruota e rogo. Il paese più moderno, gli Stati Uniti, ha introdotto con un vago sapore di scienza, un metodo che chiama “il terzo grado.” Questo è semplicemente l’estorsione dei segreti tramite affaticamento nervoso; che è sicuramente molto vicino alla loro estorsione tramite dolore fisico. E questo è legale e scientifico negli Stati Uniti. L’America ordinaria amatoriale, naturalmente, semplicemente brucia le persone vive in pieno giorno, come facevano nelle guerre della Riforma. Ma sebbene alcune punizioni siano più disumane di altre non esiste una cosa come la punizione umana. Finché diciannove uomini rivendicano il diritto in qualsiasi senso o forma di prendere il ventesimo uomo e renderlo anche moderatamente a disagio, finché l’intera procedura deve essere un’umiliazione per tutti i coinvolti. E la prova di quanto gli uomini abbiano sempre sentito acutamente questo sta nel fatto che il boia e l’impiccatore, i carcerieri e i torturatori, sono stati sempre considerati non solo con paura ma con disprezzo; mentre tutti i tipi di colpitori distratti, cavalieri falliti e spacconi e fuorilegge, erano considerati con indulgenza o anche ammirazione. Uccidere un uomo illegalmente era perdonato. Uccidere un uomo legalmente era imperdonabile. Il duellante più sfacciato poteva quasi brandire la sua arma. Ma l’esecutore era sempre mascherato.
Questo è il primo elemento essenziale del governo, la coercizione; un elemento necessario, ma non nobile. Posso osservare di sfuggita che quando le persone dicono che il governo si basa sulla forza, offrono un esempio ammirevole del cinismo nebuloso e confuso della modernità. Il governo non si basa sulla forza. Il governo è la forza; si fonda sul consenso o su una concezione di giustizia. Un re o una comunità che considera un certo fatto anormale, malvagio, usa la forza generale per annientarlo; la forza è il suo strumento, ma la credenza è l’unica sua sanzione. Potreste altrettanto bene dire che il vetro è la vera ragione dei telescopi. Ma derivando da qualsiasi motivo, l’atto del governo è coercitivo e gravato di tutte le qualità rozze e dolorose della coercizione. E se qualcuno chiede a cosa serve insistere sulla bruttezza di questo compito di violenza statale dal momento che tutta l’umanità è condannata ad impiegarla, ho una semplice risposta a ciò. Sarebbe inutile insistervi se tutta l’umanità fosse condannata ad essa. Ma non è irrilevante insistere sulla sua bruttezza finché metà dell’umanità ne viene esclusa.
Allora ogni governo è coercitivo; ci è capitato di creare un governo che non solo è coercitivo, ma anche collettivo. Esistono solo due tipi di governo, come ho già detto: il dispotico e il democratico. L’aristocrazia non è un governo, è una rivolta; la più efficace delle rivolte, quella dei ricchi. I più intelligenti apologeti dell’aristocrazia, sofisti come Burke e Nietzsche, non hanno mai attribuito all’aristocrazia altre virtù se non quelle di una rivolta: le virtù accidentali, il coraggio, la varietà e l’avventura. Non esiste alcun caso in cui l’aristocrazia abbia stabilito un ordine universale ed applicabile, come hanno spesso fatto i dispotici e i democratici; come gli ultimi Cesari crearono il diritto romano, o gli ultimi giacobini crearono il Codice Napoleonico. Con la prima di queste forme elementari di governo, quella del re o capo tribù, non siamo direttamente coinvolti in questa questione dei sessi. Ci torneremo sopra più tardi quando osserveremo come l’umanità abbia trattato le rivendicazioni femminili in modo diverso nei campi dispotico e democratico. Ma per il momento il punto essenziale è che nei paesi auto-governati questa coercizione dei criminali è una coercizione collettiva. La persona anormale viene teoricamente percossa da un milione di pugni e calciata da un milione di piedi. Se un uomo viene frustato, siamo tutti noi a frustarlo; se un uomo viene impiccato, siamo tutti noi ad impiccarlo. Questo è l’unico significato possibile della democrazia, che può dare senso sia alle prime due sillabe che alle ultime due. In questo senso ogni cittadino ha la grande responsabilità di un rivoltoso. Ogni statuto è una dichiarazione di guerra, da sostenere con le armi. Ogni tribunale è un tribunale rivoluzionario. In una repubblica tutte le punizioni sono sacre e solenni come il linciaggio.
IX
SINCERITY AND THE GALLOWS
When, therefore, it is said that the tradition against Female Suffrage keeps women out of activity, social influence and citizenship, let us a little more soberly and strictly ask ourselves what it actually does keep her out of. It does definitely keep her out of the collective act of coercion; the act of punishment by a mob. The human tradition does say that, if twenty men hang a man from a tree or lamp-post, they shall be twenty men and not women. Now I do not think any reasonable Suffragist will deny that exclusion from this function, to say the least of it, might be maintained to be a protection as well as a veto. No candid person will wholly dismiss the proposition that the idea of having a Lord Chancellor but not a Lady Chancellor may at least be connected with the idea of having a headsman but not a headswoman, a hangman but not a hangwoman. Nor will it be adequate to answer (as is so often answered to this contention) that in modern civilization women would not really be required to capture, to sentence, or to slay; that all this is done indirectly, that specialists kill our criminals as they kill our cattle. To urge this is not to urge the reality of the vote, but to urge its unreality. Democracy was meant to be a more direct way of ruling, not a more indirect way; and if we do not feel that we are all jailers, so much the worse for us, and for the prisoners. If it is really an unwomanly thing to lock up a robber or a tyrant, it ought to be no softening of the situation that the woman does not feel as if she were doing the thing that she certainly is doing. It is bad enough that men can only associate on paper who could once associate in the street; it is bad enough that men have made a vote very much of a fiction. It is much worse that a great class should claim the vote be cause it is a fiction, who would be sickened by it if it were a fact. If votes for women do not mean mobs for women they do not mean what they were meant to mean. A woman can make a cross on a paper as well as a man; a child could do it as well as a woman; and a chimpanzee after a few lessons could do it as well as a child. But nobody ought to regard it merely as making a cross on paper; everyone ought to regard it as what it ultimately is, branding the fleur-de-lis, marking the broad arrow, signing the death warrant. Both men and women ought to face more fully the things they do or cause to be done; face them or leave off doing them.
On that disastrous day when public executions were abolished, private executions were renewed and ratified, perhaps forever. Things grossly unsuited to the moral sentiment of a society cannot be safely done in broad daylight; but I see no reason why we should not still be roasting heretics alive, in a private room. It is very likely (to speak in the manner foolishly called Irish) that if there were public executions there would be no executions. The old open-air punishments, the pillory and the gibbet, at least fixed responsibility upon the law; and in actual practice they gave the mob an opportunity of throwing roses as well as rotten eggs; of crying “Hosannah” as well as “Crucify.” But I do not like the public executioner being turned into the private executioner. I think it is a crooked oriental, sinister sort of business, and smells of the harem and the divan rather than of the forum and the market place. In modern times the official has lost all the social honor and dignity of the common hangman. He is only the bearer of the bowstring.
Here, however, I suggest a plea for a brutal publicity only in order to emphasize the fact that it is this brutal publicity and nothing else from which women have been excluded. I also say it to emphasize the fact that the mere modern veiling of the brutality does not make the situation different, unless we openly say that we are giving the suffrage, not only because it is power but because it is not, or in other words, that women are not so much to vote as to play voting. No suffragist, I suppose, will take up that position; and a few suffragists will wholly deny that this human necessity of pains and penalties is an ugly, humiliating business, and that good motives as well as bad may have helped to keep women out of it. More than once I have remarked in these pages that female limitations may be the limits of a temple as well as of a prison, the disabilities of a priest and not of a pariah. I noted it, I think, in the case of the pontifical feminine dress. In the same way it is not evidently irrational, if men decided that a woman, like a priest, must not be a shedder of blood.
X
THE HIGHER ANARCHY
But there is a further fact; forgotten also because we moderns forget that there is a female point of view. The woman’s wisdom stands partly, not only for a wholesome hesitation about punishment, but even for a wholesome hesitation about absolute rules. There was something feminine and perversely true in that phrase of Wilde’s, that people should not be treated as the rule, but all of them as exceptions. Made by a man the remark was a little effeminate; for Wilde did lack the masculine power of dogma and of democratic cooperation. But if a woman had said it it would have been simply true; a woman does treat each person as a peculiar person. In other words, she stands for Anarchy; a very ancient and arguable philosophy; not anarchy in the sense of having no customs in one’s life (which is inconceivable), but anarchy in the sense of having no rules for one’s mind. To her, almost certainly, are due all those working traditions that cannot be found in books, especially those of education; it was she who first gave a child a stuffed stocking for being good or stood him in the corner for being naughty. This unclassified knowledge is sometimes called rule of thumb and sometimes motherwit. The last phrase suggests the whole truth, for none ever called it fatherwit.
IX
SINCERITÀ E FORCA
Quando, dunque, si dice che la tradizione contraria al Suffragio Femminile tiene le donne fuori dall’attività, dall’influenza sociale e dalla cittadinanza, chiediamoci con un poco più di sobrietà e di rigore da che cosa effettivamente essa la tenga fuori. La tiene fuori, in modo assai preciso, dall’atto collettivo di coercizione; dall’atto di punizione compiuto da una folla. La tradizione umana dice bensì che, se venti uomini impiccano un uomo a un albero o a un lampione, essi dovranno essere venti uomini e non venti donne. Ora, non credo che alcun ragionevole Suffragista negherà che l’esclusione da tale funzione, per dirla al minimo, potrebbe sostenersi essere una protezione oltre che bene un veto. Nessuna persona schietta respingerà del tutto la proposizione che l’idea di avere un Lord Cancelliere ma non una Lady Cancelliera possa quantomeno essere connessa con l’idea di avere un boia ma non una boia, un impiccatore ma non un’impiccatrice. Né sarà sufficiente rispondere (come tanto spesso si risponde a questa tesi) che nella civiltà moderna non si richiederebbe realmente alle donne di catturare, di condannare o di uccidere; che tutto ciò si compie indirettamente, che degli specialisti ammazzano i nostri criminali come ammazzano il nostro bestiame. Addurre questo non è addurre la realtà del voto, ma la sua irrealtà. La Democrazia doveva essere un modo più diretto di governare, non un modo più indiretto; e se non sentiamo di essere tutti carcerieri, tanto peggio per noi, e per i prigionieri. Se è davvero cosa disdicevole a una donna rinchiudere un ladro o un tiranno, non dovrebbe attenuare la situazione il fatto che la donna non senta di star facendo la cosa che di certo sta facendo. È già abbastanza grave che gli uomini possano ormai associarsi solo sulla carta là dove un tempo si associavano nella strada; è già abbastanza grave che gli uomini abbiano fatto del voto assai più una finzione. È assai peggio che una grande classe reclami il voto perché esso è una finzione, quella stessa classe che ne sarebbe nauseata se fosse un fatto. Se il voto alle donne non significa folle di donne, non significa ciò che era destinato a significare. Una donna può tracciare una croce su un foglio bene quanto un uomo; un bambino potrebbe farlo bene quanto una donna; e uno scimpanzé, dopo qualche lezione, potrebbe farlo bene quanto un bambino. Ma nessuno dovrebbe considerarlo come un mero tracciare una croce su un foglio; ognuno dovrebbe considerarlo per ciò che in ultimo è: marchiare a fuoco il giglio, imprimere la larga freccia, firmare la condanna a morte. Tanto gli uomini quanto le donne dovrebbero guardare più pienamente in faccia le cose che fanno o fanno fare; guardarle in faccia, o smettere di farle.
In quel giorno disastroso in cui le esecuzioni pubbliche furono abolite, le esecuzioni private furono rinnovate e ratificate, forse per sempre. Le cose grossolanamente inadatte al sentimento morale di una società non possono compiersi senza pericolo alla luce del sole; ma non vedo ragione per cui non dovremmo tuttora arrostire vivi gli eretici, in una stanza privata. È assai probabile (per parlare in quel modo scioccamente detto irlandese) che, se vi fossero esecuzioni pubbliche, non vi sarebbero affatto esecuzioni. Gli antichi castighi all’aria aperta, la gogna e il patibolo, quantomeno fissavano la responsabilità sulla legge; e nella pratica effettiva davano alla folla l’occasione di gettare rose bene quanto uova marce; di gridare «Osanna» bene quanto «Crocifiggilo». Ma non mi piace che il pubblico carnefice sia mutato in carnefice privato. Penso che sia un affare storto, orientale, sinistro, che sa d’harem e di divano piuttosto che di foro e di piazza del mercato. Nei tempi moderni il funzionario ha perduto tutto l’onore sociale e la dignità del comune impiccatore. Non è più che il portatore della corda dello strangolo.
Qui, tuttavia, avanzo una perorazione in favore di una brutale pubblicità solo per porre in rilievo il fatto che è da questa brutale pubblicità, e da nient’altro, che le donne sono state escluse. Lo dico anche per porre in rilievo il fatto che il mero velamento moderno della brutalità non rende la situazione diversa, a meno che non diciamo apertamente che concediamo il suffragio non solo perché esso è potere, ma perché non lo è; ovvero, in altre parole, che le donne non tanto debbano votare quanto giocare a votare. Nessun suffragista, suppongo, assumerà quella posizione; e pochi suffragisti negheranno del tutto che questa umana necessità di pene e di castighi sia un affare brutto, umiliante, e che buoni moventi bene quanto cattivi possano aver contribuito a tenerne fuori le donne. Più d’una volta ho osservato in queste pagine che i limiti femminili possono essere i limiti di un tempio bene quanto di una prigione, le inabilità di un sacerdote e non di un paria. Lo notai, credo, nel caso della veste femminile pontificale. Allo stesso modo non è manifestamente irrazionale, se gli uomini decisero che una donna, al pari di un sacerdote, non debba essere una versatrice di sangue.
X
L’ANARCHIA SUPERIORE
Ma vi è un ulteriore fatto; dimenticato anch’esso perché noi moderni dimentichiamo che esiste un punto di vista femminile. La saggezza della donna sta in parte non solo per una salutare esitazione riguardo al castigo, ma persino per una salutare esitazione riguardo alle regole assolute. Vi era qualcosa di femminile e perversamente vero in quella frase di Wilde, che le persone non dovrebbero essere trattate come la regola, ma tutte quante come eccezioni. Fatta da un uomo, l’osservazione risultava un po’ effeminata; poiché a Wilde mancava davvero la virile potenza del dogma e della cooperazione democratica. Ma se l’avesse detta una donna, sarebbe stata semplicemente vera; una donna tratta bensì ciascuna persona come una persona a sé. In altre parole, essa sta per l’Anarchia; una filosofia assai antica e discutibile; non l’anarchia nel senso di non avere costumi nella propria vita (il che è inconcepibile), ma l’anarchia nel senso di non avere regole per la propria mente. A lei, quasi certamente, si devono tutte quelle tradizioni operanti che non si trovano nei libri, specialmente quelle dell’educazione; fu lei che per prima diede a un bambino una calza imbottita perché era stato buono, o lo mise in castigo nell’angolo perché era stato cattivo. Questa conoscenza non catalogata è talora chiamata regola empirica e talora buonsenso materno. Quest’ultima espressione lascia intendere l’intera verità, poiché nessuno mai la chiamò buonsenso paterno.
Now anarchy is only tact when it works badly. Tact is only anarchy when it works well. And we ought to realize that in one half of the world—the private house—it does work well. We modern men are perpetually forgetting that the case for clear rules and crude penalties is not self-evident, that there is a great deal to be said for the benevolent lawlessness of the autocrat, especially on a small scale; in short, that government is only one side of life. The other half is called Society, in which women are admittedly dominant. And they have always been ready to maintain that their kingdom is better governed than ours, because (in the logical and legal sense) it is not governed at all. “Whenever you have a real difficulty,” they say, “when a boy is bumptious or an aunt is stingy, when a silly girl will marry somebody, or a wicked man won’t marry somebody, all your lumbering Roman Law and British Constitution come to a standstill. A snub from a duchess or a slanging from a fish-wife are much more likely to put things straight.” So, at least, rang the ancient female challenge down the ages until the recent female capitulation. So streamed the red standard of the higher anarchy until Miss Pankhurst hoisted the white flag.
It must be remembered that the modern world has done deep treason to the eternal intellect by believing in the swing of the pendulum. A man must be dead before he swings. It has substituted an idea of fatalistic alternation for the mediaeval freedom of the soul seeking truth. All modern thinkers are reactionaries; for their thought is always a reaction from what went before. When you meet a modern man he is always coming from a place, not going to it. Thus, mankind has in nearly all places and periods seen that there is a soul and a body as plainly as that there is a sun and moon. But because a narrow Protestant sect called Materialists declared for a short time that there was no soul, another narrow Protestant sect called Christian Science is now maintaining that there is no body. Now just in the same way the unreasonable neglect of government by the Manchester School has produced, not a reasonable regard for government, but an unreasonable neglect of everything else. So that to hear people talk to-day one would fancy that every important human function must be organized and avenged by law; that all education must be state education, and all employment state employment; that everybody and everything must be brought to the foot of the august and prehistoric gibbet. But a somewhat more liberal and sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the cross is even older than the gibbet, that voluntary suffering was before and independent of compulsory; and in short that in most important matters a man has always been free to ruin himself if he chose. The huge fundamental function upon which all anthropology turns, that of sex and childbirth, has never been inside the political state, but always outside of it. The state concerned itself with the trivial question of killing people, but wisely left alone the whole business of getting them born. A Eugenist might indeed plausibly say that the government is an absent-minded and inconsistent person who occupies himself with providing for the old age of people who have never been infants. I will not deal here in any detail with the fact that some Eugenists have in our time made the maniacal answer that the police ought to control marriage and birth as they control labor and death. Except for this inhuman handful (with whom I regret to say I shall have to deal with later) all the Eugenists I know divide themselves into two sections: ingenious people who once meant this, and rather bewildered people who swear they never meant it—nor anything else. But if it be conceded (by a breezier estimate of men) that they do mostly desire marriage to remain free from government, it does not follow that they desire it to remain free from everything. If man does not control the marriage market by law, is it controlled at all? Surely the answer is broadly that man does not control the marriage market by law, but the woman does control it by sympathy and prejudice. There was until lately a law forbidding a man to marry his deceased wife’s sister; yet the thing happened constantly. There was no law forbidding a man to marry his deceased wife’s scullery-maid; yet it did not happen nearly so often. It did not happen because the marriage market is managed in the spirit and by the authority of women; and women are generally conservative where classes are concerned. It is the same with that system of exclusiveness by which ladies have so often contrived (as by a process of elimination) to prevent marriages that they did not want and even sometimes procure those they did. There is no need of the broad arrow and the fleur-de lis, the turnkey’s chains or the hangman’s halter. You need not strangle a man if you can silence him. The branded shoulder is less effective and final than the cold shoulder; and you need not trouble to lock a man in when you can lock him out.
The same, of course, is true of the colossal architecture which we call infant education: an architecture reared wholly by women. Nothing can ever overcome that one enormous sex superiority, that even the male child is born closer to his mother than to his father. No one, staring at that frightful female privilege, can quite believe in the equality of the sexes. Here and there we read of a girl brought up like a tom-boy; but every boy is brought up like a tame girl. The flesh and spirit of femininity surround him from the first like the four walls of a house; and even the vaguest or most brutal man has been womanized by being born. Man that is born of a woman has short days and full of misery; but nobody can picture the obscenity and bestial tragedy that would belong to such a monster as man that was born of a man.
Ora l’anarchia non è che tatto quando funziona male. Il tatto non è che anarchia quando funziona bene. E dovremmo renderci conto che in una metà del mondo—la casa privata—esso funziona davvero bene. Noi uomini moderni dimentichiamo di continuo che le ragioni a favore di regole chiare e di pene brutali non sono evidenti di per sé, che molto si può dire in favore della benevola illegalità dell’autocrate, specie su piccola scala; in breve, che il governo è soltanto un lato della vita. L’altra metà si chiama Società, nella quale le donne sono, per comune ammissione, dominanti. E sono sempre state pronte a sostenere che il loro regno è meglio governato del nostro, perché (in senso logico e legale) non è affatto governato. «Ogni volta che vi trovate davanti a una vera difficoltà,» dicono, «quando un ragazzo è impertinente o una zia è tirchia, quando una sciocca fanciulla vuole sposare qualcuno, o un uomo malvagio non vuole sposare nessuno, tutto il vostro pesante Diritto romano e la Costituzione britannica si arrestano di colpo. Uno sgarbo di una duchessa o una lavata di capo di una pescivendola hanno molte più probabilità di rimettere le cose a posto.» Così, almeno, risuonò l’antica sfida femminile lungo i secoli, fino alla recente capitolazione femminile. Così sventolò lo stendardo rosso della più alta anarchia, finché la signorina Pankhurst non issò la bianca bandiera.
Bisogna ricordare che il mondo moderno ha commesso un profondo tradimento verso l’intelletto eterno credendo nell’oscillazione del pendolo. Un uomo dev’essere morto prima di oscillare. Esso ha sostituito un’idea di alternanza fatalistica alla medievale libertà dell’anima in cerca della verità. Tutti i pensatori moderni sono reazionari; poiché il loro pensiero è sempre una reazione a ciò che è venuto prima. Quando incontri un uomo moderno, egli viene sempre da un luogo, non vi si sta dirigendo. Così, il genere umano ha in quasi tutti i luoghi e in tutte le epoche visto che esiste un’anima e un corpo con la stessa evidenza con cui esistono un sole e una luna. Ma poiché una ristretta setta protestante detta dei Materialisti dichiarò per un breve tempo che non c’era alcuna anima, un’altra ristretta setta protestante detta Scienza Cristiana sostiene ora che non c’è alcun corpo. Ora, esattamente allo stesso modo, l’irragionevole negligenza del governo da parte della Scuola di Manchester ha prodotto, non un ragionevole riguardo per il governo, ma un’irragionevole negligenza di ogni altra cosa. Tanto che a sentir parlare la gente oggi si direbbe che ogni importante funzione umana debba essere organizzata e vendicata dalla legge; che ogni istruzione debba essere istruzione statale, e ogni impiego impiego statale; che tutti e tutto debbano essere condotti ai piedi dell’augusta e preistorica forca. Ma un esame un poco più liberale e comprensivo del genere umano ci convincerà che la croce è ancora più antica della forca, che la sofferenza volontaria fu prima e indipendente da quella obbligatoria; e, in breve, che nelle questioni più importanti un uomo è sempre stato libero di rovinarsi se lo sceglieva. L’enorme funzione fondamentale attorno a cui ruota tutta l’antropologia, quella del sesso e della nascita, non è mai stata dentro lo Stato politico, ma sempre al di fuori di esso. Lo Stato si occupò della banale questione di uccidere gli uomini, ma lasciò saggiamente in pace tutta la faccenda di farli nascere. Un eugenista potrebbe in effetti sostenere con una certa plausibilità che il governo è una persona distratta e incoerente che si occupa di provvedere alla vecchiaia di gente che non è mai stata infante. Non tratterò qui in dettaglio il fatto che alcuni eugenisti abbiano ai nostri tempi dato la maniacale risposta che la polizia dovrebbe controllare il matrimonio e la nascita come controlla il lavoro e la morte. Eccezion fatta per questa disumana manciata (di cui, mi spiace dirlo, dovrò occuparmi più avanti) tutti gli eugenisti che conosco si dividono in due sezioni: persone ingegnose che un tempo intendevano questo, e piuttosto sconcertate persone che giurano di non averlo mai inteso—né alcun’altra cosa. Ma se si concede (con una stima più spensierata degli uomini) che essi per lo più desiderino che il matrimonio resti libero dal governo, non ne consegue che lo desiderino libero da ogni cosa. Se l’uomo non controlla il mercato del matrimonio con la legge, è controllato in qualche modo? Certamente la risposta è, in linea di massima, che l’uomo non controlla il mercato del matrimonio con la legge, ma la donna lo controlla con la simpatia e il pregiudizio. Vi era fino a poco tempo fa una legge che vietava a un uomo di sposare la sorella della moglie defunta; eppure la cosa accadeva di continuo. Non vi era alcuna legge che vietasse a un uomo di sposare la sguattera della moglie defunta; eppure non accadeva affatto altrettanto spesso. Non accadeva perché il mercato del matrimonio è governato nello spirito e con l’autorità delle donne; e le donne sono generalmente conservatrici quando si tratta di classi. Lo stesso vale per quel sistema di esclusività con cui le signore hanno così spesso saputo escogitare (come per un processo di eliminazione) di impedire i matrimoni che non volevano e persino talvolta di procurare quelli che volevano. Non c’è bisogno della freccia larga e del giglio, delle catene del carceriere o del capestro del boia. Non occorre strangolare un uomo se lo si può ridurre al silenzio. La spalla marchiata è meno efficace e definitiva della spalla fredda; e non occorre darsi la pena di chiudere un uomo dentro se lo si può chiudere fuori.
Lo stesso, naturalmente, vale per la colossale architettura che chiamiamo istruzione infantile: un’architettura eretta interamente dalle donne. Nulla potrà mai vincere quell’unica enorme superiorità sessuale, ossia che perfino il bambino maschio nasce più vicino alla madre che al padre. Nessuno, contemplando quello spaventoso privilegio femminile, può davvero credere all’uguaglianza dei sessi. Qua e là leggiamo di una fanciulla allevata come un maschiaccio; ma ogni ragazzo è allevato come una docile fanciulla. La carne e lo spirito della femminilità lo circondano fin dal primo istante come le quattro pareti di una casa; e persino l’uomo più vago o più brutale è stato femminilizzato dal nascere. L’uomo nato da donna ha giorni brevi e colmi di miseria; ma nessuno può raffigurarsi l’oscenità e la bestiale tragedia che apparterrebbero a un simile mostro quale sarebbe un uomo nato da un uomo.
XI
THE QUEEN AND THE SUFFRAGETTES
But, indeed, with this educational matter I must of necessity embroil myself later. The fourth section of discussion is supposed to be about the child, but I think it will be mostly about the mother. In this place I have systematically insisted on the large part of life that is governed, not by man with his vote, but by woman with her voice, or more often, with her horrible silence. Only one thing remains to be added. In a sprawling and explanatory style has been traced out the idea that government is ultimately coercion, that coercion must mean cold definitions as well as cruel consequences, and that therefore there is something to be said for the old human habit of keeping one-half of humanity out of so harsh and dirty a business. But the case is stronger still.
Voting is not only coercion, but collective coercion. I think Queen Victoria would have been yet more popular and satisfying if she had never signed a death warrant. I think Queen Elizabeth would have stood out as more solid and splendid in history if she had not earned (among those who happen to know her history) the nickname of Bloody Bess. I think, in short, that the great historic woman is more herself when she is persuasive rather than coercive. But I feel all mankind behind me when I say that if a woman has this power it should be despotic power—not democratic power. There is a much stronger historic argument for giving Miss Pankhurst a throne than for giving her a vote. She might have a crown, or at least a coronet, like so many of her supporters; for these old powers are purely personal and therefore female. Miss Pankhurst as a despot might be as virtuous as Queen Victoria, and she certainly would find it difficult to be as wicked as Queen Bess, but the point is that, good or bad, she would be irresponsible— she would not be governed by a rule and by a ruler. There are only two ways of governing: by a rule and by a ruler. And it is seriously true to say of a woman, in education and domesticity, that the freedom of the autocrat appears to be necessary to her. She is never responsible until she is irresponsible. In case this sounds like an idle contradiction, I confidently appeal to the cold facts of history. Almost every despotic or oligarchic state has admitted women to its privileges. Scarcely one democratic state has ever admitted them to its rights The reason is very simple: that something female is endangered much more by the violence of the crowd. In short, one Pankhurst is an exception, but a thousand Pankhursts are a nightmare, a Bacchic orgie, a Witches Sabbath. For in all legends men have thought of women as sublime separately but horrible in a herd.
XII
THE MODERN SLAVE
Now I have only taken the test case of Female Suffrage because it is topical and concrete; it is not of great moment for me as a political proposal. I can quite imagine anyone substantially agreeing with my view of woman as universalist and autocrat in a limited area; and still thinking that she would be none the worse for a ballot paper. The real question is whether this old ideal of woman as the great amateur is admitted or not. There are many modern things which threaten it much more than suffragism; notably the increase of self-supporting women, even in the most severe or the most squalid employments. If there be something against nature in the idea of a horde of wild women governing, there is something truly intolerable in the idea of a herd of tame women being governed. And there are elements in human psychology that make this situation particularly poignant or ignominous. The ugly exactitudes of business, the bells and clocks the fixed hours and rigid departments, were all meant for the male: who, as a rule, can only do one thing and can only with the greatest difficulty be induced to do that. If clerks do not try to shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of women who are adopting the unprecedented and impossible course of taking the system seriously and doing it well. Their very efficiency is the definition of their slavery. It is generally a very bad sign when one is trusted very much by one’s employers. And if the evasive clerks have a look of being blackguards, the earnest ladies are often something very like blacklegs. But the more immediate point is that the modern working woman bears a double burden, for she endures both the grinding officialism of the new office and the distracting scrupulosity of the old home. Few men understand what conscientiousness is. They understand duty, which generally means one duty; but conscientiousness is the duty of the universalist. It is limited by no work days or holidays; it is a lawless, limitless, devouring decorum. If women are to be subjected to the dull rule of commerce, we must find some way of emancipating them from the wild rule of conscience. But I rather fancy you will find it easier to leave the conscience and knock off the commerce. As it is, the modern clerk or secretary exhausts herself to put one thing straight in the ledger and then goes home to put everything straight in the house.
This condition (described by some as emancipated) is at least the reverse of my ideal. I would give woman, not more rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in which she can be free. And with that we come to the last point of all; the point at which we can perceive the needs of women, like the rights of men, stopped and falsified by something which it is the object of this book to expose.
XI
LA REGINA E LE SUFFRAGETTE
Ma, in verità, con questa faccenda dell’educazione dovrò per forza invischiarmi più avanti. La quarta sezione della discussione dovrebbe vertere sul fanciullo, ma credo che verterà soprattutto sulla madre. In questa sede ho insistito sistematicamente sulla gran parte della vita che è governata non dall’uomo col suo voto, ma dalla donna con la sua voce, o più spesso, col suo orribile silenzio. Resta da aggiungere soltanto una cosa. In uno stile disteso e prolisso è stata tratteggiata l’idea che il governo sia in ultima analisi coercizione, che la coercizione debba significare fredde definizioni non meno che crudeli conseguenze, e che dunque qualcosa si possa dire a favore dell’antica abitudine umana di tenere una metà dell’umanità fuori da un affare tanto duro e sudicio. Ma il ragionamento è ancora più forte.
Il voto non è solo coercizione, ma coercizione collettiva. Penso che la regina Vittoria sarebbe stata ancor più amata e soddisfacente se non avesse mai firmato una condanna a morte. Penso che la regina Elisabetta sarebbe risaltata più solida e splendida nella storia se non si fosse guadagnata (fra quanti conoscono per caso la sua storia) il soprannome di Bess la Sanguinaria. Penso, insomma, che la grande donna storica sia più se stessa quando è persuasiva anziché coercitiva. Ma sento tutta l’umanità dietro di me quando dico che se una donna ha questo potere esso dovrebbe essere un potere dispotico—non un potere democratico. Vi è un argomento storico assai più forte per dare a Miss Pankhurst un trono che per darle un voto. Potrebbe avere una corona, o quantomeno un coroncina, come tanti suoi sostenitori; poiché questi antichi poteri sono puramente personali e perciò femminili. Miss Pankhurst come despota potrebbe essere virtuosa quanto la regina Vittoria, e certo troverebbe difficile essere malvagia quanto la regina Bess, ma il punto è che, buona o cattiva, sarebbe irresponsabile— non sarebbe governata da una regola e da un governante. Vi sono soltanto due modi di governare: con una regola e con un governante. Ed è seriamente vero dire di una donna, nell’educazione e nella vita domestica, che la libertà dell’autocrate le appare necessaria. Non è mai responsabile finché non è irresponsabile. Nel caso ciò suoni come un’oziosa contraddizione, mi appello con fiducia ai freddi fatti della storia. Quasi ogni stato dispotico od oligarchico ha ammesso le donne ai suoi privilegi. Quasi nessuno stato democratico le ha mai ammesse ai suoi diritti. La ragione è molto semplice: che qualcosa di femminile è messo in pericolo assai più dalla violenza della folla. In breve, una Pankhurst è un’eccezione, ma mille Pankhurst sono un incubo, un’orgia bacchica, un sabba di streghe. Poiché in tutte le leggende gli uomini hanno pensato alla donna come sublime presa a sé ma orribile in branco.
XII
LA SCHIAVA MODERNA
Ora, ho preso il caso di prova del Suffragio Femminile soltanto perché è d’attualità e concreto; non ha per me gran peso come proposta politica. Posso benissimo immaginare che qualcuno concordi in sostanza con la mia visione della donna come universalista e autocrate in un ambito limitato; e tuttavia pensi che ella non se ne troverebbe per nulla peggio con una scheda elettorale. La vera questione è se questo antico ideale della donna come grande dilettante sia ammesso oppure no. Vi sono molte cose moderne che lo minacciano assai più del suffragismo; notevolmente l’aumento delle donne che sé stesse mantengono, persino negli impieghi più duri o più squallidi. Se v’è qualcosa contro natura nell’idea di un’orda di donne selvagge che governano, v’è qualcosa di veramente intollerabile nell’idea di un gregge di donne mansuete che vengono governate. E vi sono elementi nella psicologia umana che rendono questa situazione particolarmente straziante o ignominiosa. Le brutte esattezze degli affari, le campane e gli orologi, le ore fisse e i reparti rigidi, furono tutti pensati per il maschio: il quale, di regola, sa fare una sola cosa e solo con la più grande difficoltà può essere indotto a farla. Se gli impiegati non cercassero di scansare il loro lavoro, tutto il nostro grande sistema commerciale crollerebbe. Sta crollando, sotto l’irruzione delle donne che adottano la condotta senza precedenti e impossibile di prendere il sistema sul serio e di svolgerlo bene. La loro stessa efficienza è la definizione della loro schiavitù. È in genere un pessimo segno quando si è troppo fidati dai propri datori di lavoro. E se gli impiegati evasivi hanno l’aria d’essere mascalzoni, le donne coscienziose sono spesso qualcosa di molto simile a crumiri. Ma il punto più immediato è che la donna che lavora oggi porta un duplice fardello, perché sopporta sia il logorante burocratismo del nuovo ufficio sia la distraente scrupolosità dell’antica casa. Pochi uomini capiscono cos’è la coscienziosità. Capiscono il dovere, che di solito significa un solo dovere; ma la coscienziosità è il dovere dell’universalista. Non è limitata da giorni feriali o festivi; è un decoro senza legge, senza limiti, divorante. Se le donne devono essere assoggettate alla scialba regola del commercio, dobbiamo trovare qualche modo di emanciparle dalla selvaggia regola della coscienza. Ma sospetto piuttosto che troverete più facile lasciare la coscienza e liberarsi del commercio. Così com’è, la moderna impiegata o segretaria si sfianca per mettere una cosa in ordine nel registro e poi torna a casa a mettere ogni cosa in ordine nella casa.
Questa condizione (definita da alcuni emancipata) è quantomeno l’opposto del mio ideale. Alla donna darei, non più diritti, ma più privilegi. Invece di mandarla a cercare quella libertà che notoriamente regna nelle banche e nelle fabbriche, progetterei appositamente una casa in cui ella possa essere libera. E con ciò giungiamo all’ultimo punto di tutti; il punto in cui possiamo scorgere i bisogni delle donne, come i diritti degli uomini, arrestati e falsati da qualcosa che è l’oggetto che questo libro si propone di smascherare.
The Feminist (which means, I think, one who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics) has heard my loose monologue, bursting all the time with one pent-up protest. At this point he will break out and say, “But what are we to do? There is modern commerce and its clerks; there is the modern family with its unmarried daughters; specialism is expected everywhere; female thrift and conscientiousness are demanded and supplied. What does it matter whether we should in the abstract prefer the old human and housekeeping woman; we might prefer the Garden of Eden. But since women have trades they ought to have trades unions. Since women work in factories, they ought to vote on factory-acts. If they are unmarried they must be commercial; if they are commercial they must be political. We must have new rules for a new world— even if it be not a better one.” I said to a Feminist once: “The question is not whether women are good enough for votes: it is whether votes are good enough for women.” He only answered: “Ah, you go and say that to the women chain-makers on Cradley Heath.”
Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge heresy of Precedent. It is the view that because we have got into a mess we must grow messier to suit it; that because we have taken a wrong turn some time ago we must go forward and not backwards; that because we have lost our way we must lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal, we must forget it. “There are numbers of excellent people who do not think votes unfeminine; and there may be enthusiasts for our beautiful modern industry who do not think factories unfeminine.” But if these things are unfeminine it is no answer to say that they fit into each other. I am not satisfied with the statement that my daughter must have unwomanly powers because she has unwomanly wrongs. Industrial soot and political printer’s ink are two blacks which do not make a white. Most of the Feminists would probably agree with me that womanhood is under shameful tyranny in the shops and mills. But I want to destroy the tyranny. They want to destroy womanhood. That is the only difference.
Whether we can recover the clear vision of woman as a tower with many windows, the fixed eternal feminine from which her sons, the specialists, go forth; whether we can preserve the tradition of a central thing which is even more human than democracy and even more practical than politics; whether, in word, it is possible to re-establish the family, freed from the filthy cynicism and cruelty of the commercial epoch, I shall discuss in the last section of this book. But meanwhile do not talk to me about the poor chain-makers on Cradley Heath. I know all about them and what they are doing. They are engaged in a very wide-spread and flourishing industry of the present age. They are making chains.
Il Femminista (che significa, credo, chi ha in antipatia i principali caratteri femminili) ha ascoltato il mio sciolto monologo, scoppiando in ogni momento d’un represso grido di protesta. A questo punto proromperà e dirà: “Ma che dobbiamo fare? C’è il commercio moderno e i suoi impiegati; c’è la famiglia moderna con le sue figlie nubili; ovunque si esige lo specialismo; la parsimonia e la coscienziosità femminile sono richieste e fornite. Che importa se in astratto preferiremmo l’antica donna umana e domestica; potremmo preferire il Giardino dell’Eden. Ma poiché le donne hanno mestieri devono avere sindacati. Poiché le donne lavorano nelle fabbriche, devono votare sulle leggi di fabbrica. Se sono nubili devono essere in commercio; se sono in commercio devono essere in politica. Ci vogliono regole nuove per un mondo nuovo, anche se non è migliore”. Dissi una volta a un Femminista: “La questione non è se le donne siano abbastanza buone per il voto: è se il voto sia abbastanza buono per le donne”. Egli non rispose che: “Ah, andate a dirlo alle fabbricatrici di catene di Cradley Heath”.
Ora questo è l’atteggiamento che io attacco. È l’immane eresia del Precedente. È l’idea che, perché ci siamo cacciati in un pasticcio, dobbiamo farci più impasticciati per adattarci; che, perché abbiamo preso una svolta sbagliata tempo fa, dobbiamo andare avanti e non indietro; che, perché abbiamo perso la strada, dobbiamo perdere anche la mappa; e perché abbiamo mancato il nostro ideale, dobbiamo dimenticarlo. “Vi sono numerose eccellenti persone che non trovano il voto poco femminile; e vi possono essere entusiasti della nostra bella industria moderna che non trovano le fabbriche poco femminili”. Ma se queste cose sono poco femminili non è una risposta dire che si incastrano l’una nell’altra. Non mi accontento dell’affermazione che mia figlia debba avere poteri poco femminili perché ha torti poco femminili. La fuliggine industriale e l’inchiostro da stampa politico sono due neri che non fanno un bianco. La maggior parte dei Femministi converrebbe probabilmente con me che la femminilità è sotto una vergognosa tirannia nelle botteghe e negli opifici. Ma io voglio distruggere la tirannia. Essi vogliono distruggere la femminilità. È questa l’unica differenza.
Se potremo recuperare la limpida visione della donna come una torre dalle molte finestre, l’eterno femminino immoto da cui i suoi figli, gli specialisti, muovono; se potremo preservare la tradizione d’una cosa centrale che è ancor più umana della democrazia e ancor più pratica della politica; se, in una parola, sia possibile ristabilire la famiglia, affrancata dallo sporco cinismo e dalla crudeltà dell’epoca commerciale, lo discuterò nell’ultima sezione di questo libro. Ma nel frattempo non parlatemi delle povere fabbricatrici di catene di Cradley Heath. So tutto di loro e di ciò che fanno. Sono impegnate in una industria assai diffusa e fiorente dell’età presente. Fabbricano catene.
PART FOUR
EDUCATION: OR THE MISTAKE ABOUT THE CHILD
I
THE CALVINISM OF TO-DAY
When I wrote a little volume on my friend Mr. Bernard Shaw, it is needless to say that he reviewed it. I naturally felt tempted to answer and to criticise the book from the same disinterested and impartial standpoint from which Mr. Shaw had criticised the subject of it. I was not withheld by any feeling that the joke was getting a little obvious; for an obvious joke is only a successful joke; it is only the unsuccessful clowns who comfort themselves with being subtle. The real reason why I did not answer Mr. Shaw’s amusing attack was this: that one simple phrase in it surrendered to me all that I have ever wanted, or could want from him to all eternity. I told Mr. Shaw (in substance) that he was a charming and clever fellow, but a common Calvinist. He admitted that this was true, and there (so far as I am concerned) is an end of the matter. He said that, of course, Calvin was quite right in holding that “if once a man is born it is too late to damn or save him.” That is the fundamental and subterranean secret; that is the last lie in hell.
The difference between Puritanism and Catholicism is not about whether some priestly word or gesture is significant and sacred. It is about whether any word or gesture is significant and sacred. To the Catholic every other daily act is dramatic dedication to the service of good or of evil. To the Calvinist no act can have that sort of solemnity, because the person doing it has been dedicated from eternity, and is merely filling up his time until the crack of doom. The difference is something subtler than plum-puddings or private theatricals; the difference is that to a Christian of my kind this short earthly life is intensely thrilling and precious; to a Calvinist like Mr. Shaw it is confessedly automatic and uninteresting. To me these threescore years and ten are the battle. To the Fabian Calvinist (by his own confession) they are only a long procession of the victors in laurels and the vanquished in chains. To me earthly life is the drama; to him it is the epilogue. Shavians think about the embryo; Spiritualists about the ghost; Christians about the man. It is as well to have these things clear.
Now all our sociology and eugenics and the rest of it are not so much materialist as confusedly Calvinist, they are chiefly occupied in educating the child before he exists. The whole movement is full of a singular depression about what one can do with the populace, combined with a strange disembodied gayety about what may be done with posterity. These essential Calvinists have, indeed, abolished some of the more liberal and universal parts of Calvinism, such as the belief in an intellectual design or an everlasting happiness. But though Mr. Shaw and his friends admit it is a superstition that a man is judged after death, they stick to their central doctrine, that he is judged before he is born.
In consequence of this atmosphere of Calvinism in the cultured world of to-day, it is apparently necessary to begin all arguments on education with some mention of obstetrics and the unknown world of the prenatal. All I shall have to say, however, on heredity will be very brief, because I shall confine myself to what is known about it, and that is very nearly nothing. It is by no means self-evident, but it is a current modern dogma, that nothing actually enters the body at birth except a life derived and compounded from the parents. There is at least quite as much to be said for the Christian theory that an element comes from God, or the Buddhist theory that such an element comes from previous existences. But this is not a religious work, and I must submit to those very narrow intellectual limits which the absence of theology always imposes. Leaving the soul on one side, let us suppose for the sake of argument that the human character in the first case comes wholly from parents; and then let us curtly state our knowledge rather than our ignorance.
II
THE TRIBAL TERROR
Popular science, like that of Mr. Blatchford, is in this matter as mild as old wives’ tales. Mr. Blatchford, with colossal simplicity, explained to millions of clerks and workingmen that the mother is like a bottle of blue beads and the father is like a bottle of yellow beads; and so the child is like a bottle of mixed blue beads and yellow. He might just as well have said that if the father has two legs and the mother has two legs, the child will have four legs. Obviously it is not a question of simple addition or simple division of a number of hard detached “qualities,” like beads. It is an organic crisis and transformation of the most mysterious sort; so that even if the result is unavoidable, it will still be unexpected. It is not like blue beads mixed with yellow beads; it is like blue mixed with yellow; the result of which is green, a totally novel and unique experience, a new emotion. A man might live in a complete cosmos of blue and yellow, like the “Edinburgh Review”; a man might never have seen anything but a golden cornfield and a sapphire sky; and still he might never have had so wild a fancy as green. If you paid a sovereign for a bluebell; if you spilled the mustard on the blue-books; if you married a canary to a blue baboon; there is nothing in any of these wild weddings that contains even a hint of green. Green is not a mental combination, like addition; it is a physical result like birth. So, apart from the fact that nobody ever really understands parents or children either, yet even if we could understand the parents, we could not make any conjecture about the children. Each time the force works in a different way; each time the constituent colors combine into a different spectacle. A girl may actually inherit her ugliness from her mother’s good looks. A boy may actually get his weakness from his father’s strength. Even if we admit it is really a fate, for us it must remain a fairy tale. Considered in regard to its causes, the Calvinists and materialists may be right or wrong; we leave them their dreary debate. But considered in regard to its results there is no doubt about it. The thing is always a new color; a strange star. Every birth is as lonely as a miracle. Every child is as uninvited as a monstrosity.
PARTE QUARTA
L’EDUCAZIONE: OVVERO L’ERRORE INTORNO AL FANCIULLO
I
IL CALVINISMO DI OGGI
Quando scrissi un piccolo volume sul mio amico il signor Bernard Shaw, è superfluo dire che egli ne fece la recensione. Naturalmente fui tentato di rispondere e di criticare il libro da quello stesso punto di vista disinteressato e imparziale dal quale il signor Shaw aveva criticato l’argomento del libro medesimo. Non mi trattenne alcuna sensazione che lo scherzo cominciasse a farsi un po’ scontato; poiché uno scherzo scontato è soltanto uno scherzo riuscito; sono soltanto i buffoni maldestri a consolarsi d’essere sottili. La vera ragione per cui non risposi al divertente attacco del signor Shaw fu questa: che una sola frase, in esso contenuta, mi consegnava tutto ciò che io abbia mai voluto, o potessi mai volere da lui per tutta l’eternità. Avevo detto al signor Shaw (in sostanza) che egli era un individuo affascinante e brillante, ma un comune calvinista. Egli ammise che ciò era vero, e lì (per quanto mi riguarda) la faccenda si conclude. Disse che, naturalmente, Calvino aveva pienamente ragione nel sostenere che «una volta che un uomo è nato, è troppo tardi per dannarlo o salvarlo». Questo è il segreto fondamentale e sotterraneo; questa è l’ultima menzogna dell’inferno.
La differenza tra il puritanesimo e il cattolicesimo non riguarda se una qualche parola o gesto sacerdotale sia significativo e sacro. Riguarda se una qualsiasi parola o gesto sia significativo e sacro. Per il cattolico ogni singolo atto quotidiano è una drammatica dedizione al servizio del bene o del male. Per il calvinista nessun atto può avere quel genere di solennità, perché la persona che lo compie è stata predestinata fin dall’eternità, e non fa che colmare il proprio tempo fino allo schianto del giudizio. La differenza è qualcosa di più sottile dei budini di prugne o delle recite private; la differenza è che per un cristiano della mia specie questa breve vita terrena è intensamente emozionante e preziosa; per un calvinista come il signor Shaw essa è, per sua stessa ammissione, automatica e priva d’interesse. Per me questi settant’anni sono la battaglia. Per il calvinista fabiano (per sua stessa confessione) essi sono soltanto un lungo corteo di vincitori inghirlandati d’alloro e di vinti in catene. Per me la vita terrena è il dramma; per lui è l’epilogo. Gli shaviani pensano all’embrione; gli spiritisti al fantasma; i cristiani all’uomo. È bene avere chiare queste cose.
Ora, tutta la nostra sociologia e l’eugenetica e tutto il resto non sono tanto materialisti quanto confusamente calvinisti; essi sono principalmente occupati a educare il fanciullo prima che esso esista. L’intero movimento è pervaso da una singolare depressione riguardo a ciò che si può fare con la plebe, unita a una strana allegria disincarnata riguardo a ciò che si potrà fare con la posterità. Questi calvinisti essenziali hanno, in verità, abolito alcune delle parti più liberali e universali del calvinismo, come la fede in un disegno intellettuale o in una felicità eterna. Ma per quanto il signor Shaw e i suoi amici ammettano che sia una superstizione che un uomo venga giudicato dopo la morte, essi restano fedeli alla loro dottrina centrale, cioè che egli venga giudicato prima di nascere.
In conseguenza di questa atmosfera di calvinismo nel mondo colto d’oggi, pare necessario cominciare ogni argomentazione sull’educazione con qualche accenno all’ostetricia e al mondo ignoto del prenatale. Tutto ciò che avrò da dire, tuttavia, sull’ereditarietà sarà molto breve, perché mi limiterò a ciò che se ne conosce, e cioè pressoché nulla. Non è affatto evidente di per sé, ma è un corrente dogma moderno, che nulla entri realmente nel corpo alla nascita se non una vita derivata e composta dai genitori. C’è almeno altrettanto da dire in favore della teoria cristiana secondo cui un elemento proviene da Dio, o della teoria buddhista secondo cui tale elemento proviene da esistenze precedenti. Ma questa non è un’opera religiosa, e io devo sottomettermi a quegli angustissimi limiti intellettuali che l’assenza di teologia sempre impone. Lasciando da parte l’anima, supponiamo per amor di discussione che il carattere umano, nel primo caso, provenga interamente dai genitori; e poi esponiamo bruscamente ciò che sappiamo piuttosto che ciò che ignoriamo.
II
IL TERRORE TRIBALE
La scienza popolare, come quella del signor Blatchford, è in questa materia mite quanto le fiabe delle vecchie comari. Il signor Blatchford, con colossale semplicità, spiegò a milioni di impiegati e operai che la madre è come una bottiglia di perline azzurre e il padre è come una bottiglia di perline gialle; e così il fanciullo è come una bottiglia di perline azzurre e gialle mescolate. Avrebbe potuto altrettanto bene dire che se il padre ha due gambe e la madre ha due gambe, il fanciullo avrà quattro gambe. Evidentemente non si tratta di una semplice addizione o di una semplice divisione di un certo numero di dure e staccate «qualità», come le perline. È una crisi organica e una trasformazione del genere più misterioso; cosicché anche se il risultato è inevitabile, sarà pur sempre inaspettato. Non è come perline azzurre mescolate a perline gialle; è come l’azzurro mescolato al giallo; il cui risultato è il verde, un’esperienza del tutto nuova e unica, un’emozione nuova. Un uomo potrebbe vivere in un intero cosmo di azzurro e di giallo, come la «Edinburgh Review»; un uomo potrebbe non aver mai visto altro che un aureo campo di grano e un cielo di zaffiro; e tuttavia potrebbe non aver mai concepito una fantasia tanto sfrenata quanto il verde. Se pagaste una sterlina per una campanula; se rovesciaste la senape sui libri azzurri; se maritaste un canarino a un babbuino azzurro; non v’è nulla, in nessuna di queste sfrenate nozze, che contenga anche solo un accenno di verde. Il verde non è una combinazione mentale, come l’addizione; è un risultato fisico, come la nascita. Così, a parte il fatto che nessuno comprende mai davvero né i genitori né i figli, tuttavia perfino se potessimo comprendere i genitori, non potremmo formulare alcuna congettura sui figli. Ogni volta la forza opera in un modo diverso; ogni volta i colori costituenti si combinano in uno spettacolo diverso. Una ragazza può in realtà ereditare la propria bruttezza dalla bellezza di sua madre. Un ragazzo può in realtà trarre la propria debolezza dalla forza di suo padre. Anche ammettendo che sia davvero un destino, per noi deve restare una fiaba. Considerata riguardo alle sue cause, i calvinisti e i materialisti possono aver ragione o torto; lasciamo loro il loro tetro dibattito. Ma considerata riguardo ai suoi risultati non v’è alcun dubbio al riguardo. La cosa è sempre un nuovo colore; una strana stella. Ogni nascita è solitaria quanto un miracolo. Ogni fanciullo è indesiderato quanto una mostruosità.
On all such subjects there is no science, but only a sort of ardent ignorance; and nobody has ever been able to offer any theories of moral heredity which justified themselves in the only scientific sense; that is that one could calculate on them beforehand. There are six cases, say, of a grandson having the same twitch of mouth or vice of character as his grandfather; or perhaps there are sixteen cases, or perhaps sixty. But there are not two cases, there is not one case, there are no cases at all, of anybody betting half a crown that the grandfather will have a grandson with the twitch or the vice. In short, we deal with heredity as we deal with omens, affinities and the fulfillment of dreams. The things do happen, and when they happen we record them; but not even a lunatic ever reckons on them. Indeed, heredity, like dreams and omens, is a barbaric notion; that is, not necessarily an untrue, but a dim, groping and unsystematized notion. A civilized man feels himself a little more free from his family. Before Christianity these tales of tribal doom occupied the savage north; and since the Reformation and the revolt against Christianity (which is the religion of a civilized freedom) savagery is slowly creeping back in the form of realistic novels and problem plays. The curse of Rougon-Macquart is as heathen and superstitious as the curse of Ravenswood; only not so well written. But in this twilight barbaric sense the feeling of a racial fate is not irrational, and may be allowed like a hundred other half emotions that make life whole. The only essential of tragedy is that one should take it lightly. But even when the barbarian deluge rose to its highest in the madder novels of Zola (such as that called “The Human Beast”, a gross libel on beasts as well as humanity), even then the application of the hereditary idea to practice is avowedly timid and fumbling. The students of heredity are savages in this vital sense; that they stare back at marvels, but they dare not stare forward to schemes. In practice no one is mad enough to legislate or educate upon dogmas of physical inheritance; and even the language of the thing is rarely used except for special modern purposes, such as the endowment of research or the oppression of the poor.
III
THE TRICKS OF ENVIRONMENT
After all the modern clatter of Calvinism, therefore, it is only with the born child that anybody dares to deal; and the question is not eugenics but education. Or again, to adopt that rather tiresome terminology of popular science, it is not a question of heredity but of environment. I will not needlessly complicate this question by urging at length that environment also is open to some of the objections and hesitations which paralyze the employment of heredity. I will merely suggest in passing that even about the effect of environment modern people talk much too cheerfully and cheaply. The idea that surroundings will mold a man is always mixed up with the totally different idea that they will mold him in one particular way. To take the broadest case, landscape no doubt affects the soul; but how it affects it is quite another matter. To be born among pine-trees might mean loving pine-trees. It might mean loathing pine-trees. It might quite seriously mean never having seen a pine-tree. Or it might mean any mixture of these or any degree of any of them. So that the scientific method here lacks a little in precision. I am not speaking without the book; on the contrary, I am speaking with the blue book, with the guide-book and the atlas. It may be that the Highlanders are poetical because they inhabit mountains; but are the Swiss prosaic because they inhabit mountains? It may be the Swiss have fought for freedom because they had hills; did the Dutch fight for freedom because they hadn’t? Personally I should think it quite likely. Environment might work negatively as well as positively. The Swiss may be sensible, not in spite of their wild skyline, but be cause of their wild skyline. The Flemings may be fantastic artists, not in spite of their dull skyline, but because of it.
I only pause on this parenthesis to show that, even in matters admittedly within its range, popular science goes a great deal too fast, and drops enormous links of logic. Nevertheless, it remains the working reality that what we have to deal with in the case of children is, for all practical purposes, environment; or, to use the older word, education. When all such deductions are made, education is at least a form of will-worship; not of cowardly fact-worship; it deals with a department that we can control; it does not merely darken us with the barbarian pessimism of Zola and the heredity-hunt. We shall certainly make fools of ourselves; that is what is meant by philosophy. But we shall not merely make beasts of ourselves; which is the nearest popular definition for merely following the laws of Nature and cowering under the vengeance of the flesh. Education contains much moonshine; but not of the sort that makes mere mooncalves and idiots the slaves of a silver magnet, the one eye of the world. In this decent arena there are fads, but not frenzies. Doubtless we shall often find a mare’s nest; but it will not always be the nightmare’s.
IV
When a man is asked to write down what he really thinks on education, a certain gravity grips and stiffens his soul, which might be mistaken by the superficial for disgust. If it be really true that men sickened of sacred words and wearied of theology, if this largely unreasoning irritation against “dogma” did arise out of some ridiculous excess of such things among priests in the past, then I fancy we must be laying up a fine crop of cant for our descendants to grow tired of. Probably the word “education” will some day seem honestly as old and objectless as the word “justification” now seems in a Puritan folio. Gibbon thought it frightfully funny that people should have fought about the difference between the “Homoousion” and the “Homoiousion.” The time will come when somebody will laugh louder to think that men thundered against Sectarian Education and also against Secular Education; that men of prominence and position actually denounced the schools for teaching a creed and also for not teaching a faith. The two Greek words in Gibbon look rather alike; but they really mean quite different things. Faith and creed do not look alike, but they mean exactly the same thing. Creed happens to be the Latin for faith.
Su tutti questi argomenti non esiste alcuna scienza, ma soltanto una specie di ardente ignoranza; e nessuno è mai stato in grado di offrire teorie sull’eredità morale che si giustificassero nell’unico senso scientifico che conti, vale a dire che su di esse si potesse fare un calcolo in anticipo. Vi sono sei casi, poniamo, di un nipote che ha lo stesso tic della bocca o vizio di carattere del nonno; o forse ve ne sono sedici, o forse sessanta. Ma non vi sono due casi, non ve n’è uno solo, non ve n’è alcuno, di chicchessia che scommetta mezza corona che il nonno avrà un nipote col medesimo tic o vizio. In breve, trattiamo l’eredità come trattiamo i presagi, le affinità e l’avverarsi dei sogni. Queste cose accadono, e quando accadono le registriamo; ma nemmeno un pazzo ci fa mai conto sopra. Anzi, l’eredità, come i sogni e i presagi, è una nozione barbarica; cioè non necessariamente falsa, ma una nozione confusa, brancolante e non sistematizzata. L’uomo civile si sente un poco più libero dalla propria famiglia. Prima del Cristianesimo questi racconti di condanna tribale occupavano il selvaggio nord; e dopo la Riforma e la rivolta contro il Cristianesimo (che è la religione di una libertà civile) la barbarie va lentamente riaffiorando sotto forma di romanzi realistici e drammi a tesi. La maledizione dei Rougon-Macquart è pagana e superstiziosa quanto la maledizione di Ravenswood; solo, non così ben scritta. Ma in questo crepuscolare senso barbarico il sentimento di un destino di stirpe non è irrazionale, e può essere ammesso come cento altre mezze emozioni che rendono la vita intera. L’unica cosa essenziale della tragedia è che la si prenda alla leggera. Ma anche quando il diluvio barbarico salì al suo culmine nei più folli romanzi di Zola (come quello intitolato “La bestia umana”, una grossolana calunnia contro le bestie non meno che contro l’umanità), anche allora l’applicazione dell’idea ereditaria alla pratica è dichiaratamente timida e maldestra. Gli studiosi dell’eredità sono selvaggi in questo senso vitale: che fissano lo sguardo indietro sui prodigi, ma non osano fissarlo avanti sui progetti. In pratica nessuno è tanto pazzo da legiferare o educare sui dogmi dell’eredità fisica; e persino il linguaggio della cosa è raramente adoperato, se non per certi speciali scopi moderni, come il finanziamento della ricerca o l’oppressione dei poveri.
III
I TRUCCHI DELL’AMBIENTE
Dopo tutto il moderno clamore del calvinismo, dunque, è soltanto col bambino già nato che qualcuno osa avere a che fare; e la questione non è l’eugenetica ma l’educazione. Ovvero, ancora, per adottare quella piuttosto tediosa terminologia della scienza popolare, non è questione di eredità ma di ambiente. Non complicherò inutilmente questa questione insistendo a lungo sul fatto che anche l’ambiente è soggetto ad alcune delle obiezioni e delle esitazioni che paralizzano l’impiego dell’eredità. Mi limiterò a suggerire di sfuggita che perfino riguardo all’effetto dell’ambiente la gente moderna parla con troppa disinvoltura e leggerezza. L’idea che l’ambiente plasmi l’uomo è sempre confusa con l’idea del tutto diversa che lo plasmerà in un modo particolare. Per prendere il caso più ampio, il paesaggio senza dubbio influisce sull’anima; ma come vi influisca è tutt’altra faccenda. Nascere fra i pini potrebbe significare amare i pini. Potrebbe significare detestare i pini. Potrebbe assai seriamente significare non aver mai visto un pino. Oppure potrebbe significare una qualsiasi mescolanza di queste cose o un qualsiasi grado di ciascuna di esse. Cosicché il metodo scientifico qui difetta un poco di precisione. Non parlo senza il libro; al contrario, parlo col libro azzurro, con la guida e con l’atlante. Può darsi che gli Highlander siano poetici perché abitano fra i monti; ma sono forse prosaici gli Svizzeri perché abitano fra i monti? Può darsi che gli Svizzeri abbiano combattuto per la libertà perché avevano le montagne; combatterono forse gli Olandesi per la libertà perché non le avevano? Personalmente lo riterrei assai probabile. L’ambiente potrebbe agire negativamente non meno che positivamente. Gli Svizzeri possono essere assennati non a dispetto del loro selvaggio orizzonte, ma a causa del loro selvaggio orizzonte. I Fiamminghi possono essere artisti fantastici non a dispetto del loro spento orizzonte, ma proprio a causa di esso.
Mi soffermo su questa parentesi solo per mostrare che, perfino nelle materie ammesse come rientranti nella sua portata, la scienza popolare procede un bel po’ troppo in fretta, e lascia cadere enormi anelli della logica. Ciononostante, resta la realtà operante che ciò con cui dobbiamo avere a che fare nel caso dei fanciulli è, a tutti i fini pratici, l’ambiente; o, per usare la parola più antica, l’educazione. Fatte tutte queste sottrazioni, l’educazione è quantomeno una forma di culto della volontà; non di vile culto del fatto; si occupa di un ambito che possiamo controllare; non si limita a ottenebrarci col pessimismo barbarico di Zola e della caccia all’eredità. Certamente faremo di noi degli sciocchi; ed è questo che s’intende per filosofia. Ma non faremo semplicemente di noi delle bestie; che è la più prossima definizione popolare del semplice seguire le leggi della Natura e acquattarsi sotto la vendetta della carne. L’Educazione contiene molta luce di luna; ma non di quella specie che rende meri lunatici e idioti schiavi di una calamita d’argento, l’unico occhio del mondo. In questa decorosa arena vi sono fisime, ma non frenesie. Senza dubbio troveremo spesso il nido della cavalla; ma non sarà sempre quello dell’incubo.
IV
LA VERITÀ SULL’EDUCAZIONE
Quando a un uomo si chiede di mettere per iscritto ciò che pensa davvero sull’educazione, una certa gravità gli afferra e irrigidisce l’anima, che potrebbe essere scambiata dal superficiale per disgusto. Se è davvero vero che gli uomini si nausearono delle parole sacre e si stancarono della teologia, se questa irritazione in gran parte irragionevole contro il “dogma” sorse realmente da qualche ridicolo eccesso di simili cose fra i preti del passato, allora immagino che dobbiamo star mettendo da parte un bel raccolto di ipocrisie di cui i nostri discendenti si stancheranno. Probabilmente la parola “educazione” un giorno parrà onestamente antica e priva di oggetto quanto la parola “giustificazione” pare oggi in un in-folio puritano. Gibbon trovava tremendamente buffo che la gente avesse combattuto per la differenza fra “Homoousion” e “Homoiousion”. Verrà il tempo in cui qualcuno riderà più forte al pensiero che gli uomini tuonassero contro l’Educazione settaria e insieme contro l’Educazione laica; che uomini di spicco e di posizione denunciassero davvero le scuole perché insegnavano un credo e insieme perché non insegnavano una fede. Le due parole greche in Gibbon si somigliano parecchio; ma significano in realtà cose del tutto diverse. Fede e credo non si somigliano, eppure significano esattamente la stessa cosa. Credo si dà il caso che sia il latino per fede.
Now having read numberless newspaper articles on education, and even written a good many of them, and having heard deafening and indeterminate discussion going on all around me almost ever since I was born, about whether religion was part of education, about whether hygiene was an essential of education, about whether militarism was inconsistent with true education, I naturally pondered much on this recurring substantive, and I am ashamed to say that it was comparatively late in life that I saw the main fact about it.
Of course, the main fact about education is that there is no such thing. It does not exist, as theology or soldiering exist. Theology is a word like geology, soldiering is a word like soldering; these sciences may be healthy or no as hobbies; but they deal with stone and kettles, with definite things. But education is not a word like geology or kettles. Education is a word like “transmission” or “inheritance”; it is not an object, but a method. It must mean the conveying of certain facts, views or qualities, to the last baby born. They might be the most trivial facts or the most preposterous views or the most offensive qualities; but if they are handed on from one generation to another they are education. Education is not a thing like theology, it is not an inferior or superior thing; it is not a thing in the same category of terms. Theology and education are to each other like a love-letter to the General Post Office. Mr. Fagin was quite as educational as Dr. Strong; in practice probably more educational. It is giving something—perhaps poison. Education is tradition, and tradition (as its name implies) can be treason.
This first truth is frankly banal; but it is so perpetually ignored in our political prosing that it must be made plain. A little boy in a little house, son of a little tradesman, is taught to eat his breakfast, to take his medicine, to love his country, to say his prayers, and to wear his Sunday clothes. Obviously Fagin, if he found such a boy, would teach him to drink gin, to lie, to betray his country, to blaspheme and to wear false whiskers. But so also Mr. Salt the vegetarian would abolish the boy’s breakfast; Mrs. Eddy would throw away his medicine; Count Tolstoi would rebuke him for loving his country; Mr. Blatchford would stop his prayers, and Mr. Edward Carpenter would theoretically denounce Sunday clothes, and perhaps all clothes. I do not defend any of these advanced views, not even Fagin’s. But I do ask what, between the lot of them, has become of the abstract entity called education. It is not (as commonly supposed) that the tradesman teaches education plus Christianity; Mr. Salt, education plus vegetarianism; Fagin, education plus crime. The truth is, that there is nothing in common at all between these teachers, except that they teach. In short, the only thing they share is the one thing they profess to dislike: the general idea of authority. It is quaint that people talk of separating dogma from education. Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It is education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.
V
AN EVIL CRY
The fashionable fallacy is that by education we can give people something that we have not got. To hear people talk one would think it was some sort of magic chemistry, by which, out of a laborious hotchpotch of hygienic meals, baths, breathing exercises, fresh air and freehand drawing, we can produce something splendid by accident; we can create what we cannot conceive. These pages have, of course, no other general purpose than to point out that we cannot create anything good until we have conceived it. It is odd that these people, who in the matter of heredity are so sullenly attached to law, in the matter of environment seem almost to believe in miracle. They insist that nothing but what was in the bodies of the parents can go to make the bodies of the children. But they seem somehow to think that things can get into the heads of the children which were not in the heads of the parents, or, indeed, anywhere else.
There has arisen in this connection a foolish and wicked cry typical of the confusion. I mean the cry, “Save the children.” It is, of course, part of that modern morbidity that insists on treating the State (which is the home of man) as a sort of desperate expedient in time of panic. This terrified opportunism is also the origin of the Socialist and other schemes. Just as they would collect and share all the food as men do in a famine, so they would divide the children from their fathers, as men do in a shipwreck. That a human community might conceivably not be in a condition of famine or shipwreck never seems to cross their minds. This cry of “Save the children” has in it the hateful implication that it is impossible to save the fathers; in other words, that many millions of grown-up, sane, responsible and self-supporting Europeans are to be treated as dirt or debris and swept away out of the discussion; called dipsomaniacs because they drink in public houses instead of private houses; called unemployables because nobody knows how to get them work; called dullards if they still adhere to conventions, and called loafers if they still love liberty. Now I am concerned, first and last, to maintain that unless you can save the fathers, you cannot save the children; that at present we cannot save others, for we cannot save ourselves. We cannot teach citizenship if we are not citizens; we cannot free others if we have forgotten the appetite of freedom. Education is only truth in a state of transmission; and how can we pass on truth if it has never come into our hand? Thus we find that education is of all the cases the clearest for our general purpose. It is vain to save children; for they cannot remain children. By hypothesis we are teaching them to be men; and how can it be so simple to teach an ideal manhood to others if it is so vain and hopeless to find one for ourselves?
Avendo letto innumerevoli articoli di giornale sull’educazione, e avendone scritti anche parecchi io stesso, e avendo ascoltato discussioni assordanti e indefinite che mi circondavano quasi fin dalla mia nascita, sul fatto se la religione facesse parte dell’educazione, se l’igiene fosse un elemento essenziale dell’educazione, se il militarismo fosse incompatibile con una vera educazione, ho naturalmente riflettuto molto su questo sostantivo ricorrente, e mi vergogno di dire che è stato relativamente tardi nella vita che ho visto il fatto principale al riguardo.
Naturalmente, il fatto principale riguardo all’educazione è che non esiste. Non esiste come esistono la teologia o l’essere soldati. La teologia è una parola come geologia, essere soldati è una parola come saldare; queste scienze possono essere sane o meno come hobby; ma si occupano di pietre e pentole, di cose definite. Ma educazione non è una parola come geologia o pentole. Educazione è una parola come “trasmissione” o “eredità”; non è un oggetto, ma un metodo. Deve significare la trasmissione di certi fatti, punti di vista o qualità, all’ultimo bambino nato. Potrebbero essere i fatti più banali o i punti di vista più assurdi o le qualità più offensive; ma se vengono tramandati da una generazione all’altra sono educazione. Educazione non è una cosa come la teologia, non è una cosa inferiore o superiore; non è una cosa nella stessa categoria di termini. La teologia e l’educazione sono tra loro come una lettera d’amore all’ufficio postale generale. Il signor Fagin era altrettanto educativo del Dr. Strong; nella pratica probabilmente più educativo. È dare qualcosa—forse il veleno. L’educazione è tradizione, e la tradizione (come implica il suo nome) può essere tradimento.
Questa prima verità è francamente banale; ma viene così perpetuamente ignorata nelle nostre prosopopee politiche che bisogna renderla chiara. Un bambino in una piccola casa, figlio di un piccolo commerciante, impara a fare colazione, a prendere le medicine, ad amare la sua patria, a dire le preghiere e a indossare i vestiti della domenica. Ovviamente Fagin, se trovasse un bambino del genere, gli insegnerebbe a bere gin, a mentire, a tradire la patria, a bestemmiare e ad indossare baffi finti. Ma anche il signor Salt, il vegetariano, abolirebbe la colazione del bambino; la signora Eddy getterebbe via le sue medicine; il conte Tolstoi lo rimprovererebbe per aver amato la patria; il signor Blatchford gli impedirebbe di pregare, e il signor Edward Carpenter denuncierebbe teoricamente i vestiti della domenica, e forse tutti i vestiti. Non difendo nessuna di queste vedute avanzate, nemmeno quelle di Fagin. Ma chiedo che cosa, tra loro, sia diventato dell’ente astratto chiamato educazione. Non è (come comunemente si suppone) che il commerciante insegna l’educazione più il cristianesimo; il signor Salt, l’educazione più il vegetarianismo; Fagin, l’educazione più il crimine. La verità è che non c’è niente in comune tra questi insegnanti, salvo che insegnano. In breve, l’unica cosa che condividono è l’unica cosa che professano di non gradire: l’idea generale dell’autorità. È curioso che la gente parli di separare il dogma dall’educazione. Il dogma è in realtà l’unica cosa che non può essere separata dall’educazione. È educazione. Un insegnante che non sia dogmatico è semplicemente un insegnante che non sta insegnando.
V
Un grido malvagio
L’errore di moda è che con l’educazione possiamo dare alle persone qualcosa che noi non abbiamo. Ascoltando la gente parlare si direbbe che sia una specie di magia chimica, per cui, da un laborioso miscuglio di pasti igienici, bagni, esercizi respiratori, aria fresca e disegno libero, possiamo produrre qualcosa di splendido per caso; possiamo creare ciò che non siamo in grado di concepire. Queste pagine hanno, naturalmente, nessun altro scopo generale se non quello di sottolineare che non possiamo creare nulla di buono finché non l’abbiamo concepito. È strano che queste persone, che nella questione dell’ereditarietà sono così cupamente attaccate alla legge, nella questione dell’ambiente sembrino quasi credere nel miracolo. Insistono sul fatto che nulla di ciò che non era nei corpi dei genitori può contribuire a formare i corpi dei figli. Ma sembra in qualche modo che pensino che nelle menti dei figli possano entrare cose che non erano nelle menti dei genitori, o addirittura da nessun’altra parte.
È sorto in questo contesto un grido sciocco e malvagio, tipico della confusione. Intendo il grido: “Salviamo i bambini”. È, naturalmente, parte di quella morbosa modernità che insiste nel trattare lo Stato (che è la casa dell’uomo) come una sorta di disperata soluzione in tempo di panico. Questo opportunismo terrorizzato è anche l’origine degli schemi socialisti e di altri. Proprio come raccoglierebbero e condividerebbero tutto il cibo, come fanno gli uomini durante una carestia, così vorrebbero separare i bambini dai loro padri, come si fa in un naufragio. Che una comunità umana potrebbe non trovarsi in condizioni di carestia o di naufragio sembra non venire mai in mente a questi uomini. Questo grido “Salviamo i bambini” contiene l’odiosa implicazione che sia impossibile salvare i padri; in altre parole, che milioni e milioni di europei adulti, sani, responsabili e autonomi debbano essere trattati come spazzatura o detriti e spazzati via dalla discussione; chiamati alcolisti perché bevono nei pub invece che nelle case private; chiamati inoccupabili perché nessuno sa come dargli lavoro; chiamati ottusi se ancora aderiscono alle convenzioni, e chiamati fannulloni se ancora amano la libertà. Ora io sono preoccupato, prima e dopo tutto, di sostenere che a meno che non si possa salvare i padri, non si può salvare i bambini; che attualmente non possiamo salvare gli altri, perché non possiamo salvarci noi stessi. Non possiamo insegnare la cittadinanza se non siamo cittadini; non possiamo liberare gli altri se abbiamo dimenticato il desiderio di libertà. Educazione è solo verità in uno stato di trasmissione; e come possiamo trasmettere la verità se non ci è mai giunta tra le mani? Così scopriamo che l’educazione è, tra tutti i casi, il più chiaro per il nostro scopo generale. È vano salvare i bambini; perché non possono rimanere bambini. Per ipotesi stiamo insegnando loro a diventare uomini; e come può essere così semplice insegnare un’idealità di virilità agli altri se è così vano e disperato trovarla per noi stessi?
I know that certain crazy pedants have attempted to counter this difficulty by maintaining that education is not instruction at all, does not teach by authority at all. They present the process as coming, not from the outside, from the teacher, but entirely from inside the boy. Education, they say, is the Latin for leading out or drawing out the dormant faculties of each person. Somewhere far down in the dim boyish soul is a primordial yearning to learn Greek accents or to wear clean collars; and the schoolmaster only gently and tenderly liberates this imprisoned purpose. Sealed up in the newborn babe are the intrinsic secrets of how to eat asparagus and what was the date of Bannockburn. The educator only draws out the child’s own unapparent love of long division; only leads out the child’s slightly veiled preference for milk pudding to tarts. I am not sure that I believe in the derivation; I have heard the disgraceful suggestion that “educator,” if applied to a Roman schoolmaster, did not mean leading our young functions into freedom; but only meant taking out little boys for a walk. But I am much more certain that I do not agree with the doctrine; I think it would be about as sane to say that the baby’s milk comes from the baby as to say that the baby’s educational merits do. There is, indeed, in each living creature a collection of forces and functions; but education means producing these in particular shapes and training them to particular purposes, or it means nothing at all. Speaking is the most practical instance of the whole situation. You may indeed “draw out” squeals and grunts from the child by simply poking him and pulling him about, a pleasant but cruel pastime to which many psychologists are addicted. But you will wait and watch very patiently indeed before you draw the English language out of him. That you have got to put into him; and there is an end of the matter.
VI
AUTHORITY THE UNAVOIDABLE
But the important point here is only that you cannot anyhow get rid of authority in education; it is not so much (as poor Conservatives say) that parental authority ought to be preserved, as that it cannot be destroyed. Mr. Bernard Shaw once said that he hated the idea of forming a child’s mind. In that case Mr. Bernard Shaw had better hang himself; for he hates something inseparable from human life. I only mentioned educere and the drawing out of the faculties in order to point out that even this mental trick does not avoid the inevitable idea of parental or scholastic authority. The educator drawing out is just as arbitrary and coercive as the instructor pouring in; for he draws out what he chooses. He decides what in the child shall be developed and what shall not be developed. He does not (I suppose) draw out the neglected faculty of forgery. He does not (so far at least) lead out, with timid steps, a shy talent for torture. The only result of all this pompous and precise distinction between the educator and the instructor is that the instructor pokes where he likes and the educator pulls where he likes. Exactly the same intellectual violence is done to the creature who is poked and pulled. Now we must all accept the responsibility of this intellectual violence. Education is violent; because it is creative. It is creative because it is human. It is as reckless as playing on the fiddle; as dogmatic as drawing a picture; as brutal as building a house. In short, it is what all human action is; it is an interference with life and growth. After that it is a trifling and even a jocular question whether we say of this tremendous tormentor, the artist Man, that he puts things into us like an apothecary, or draws things out of us, like a dentist.
The point is that Man does what he likes. He claims the right to take his mother Nature under his control; he claims the right to make his child the Superman, in his image. Once flinch from this creative authority of man, and the whole courageous raid which we call civilization wavers and falls to pieces. Now most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities. And Mr. Shaw and such people are especially shrinking from that awful and ancestral responsibility to which our fathers committed us when they took the wild step of becoming men. I mean the responsibility of affirming the truth of our human tradition and handing it on with a voice of authority, an unshaken voice. That is the one eternal education; to be sure enough that something is true that you dare to tell it to a child. From this high audacious duty the moderns are fleeing on every side; and the only excuse for them is, (of course,) that their modern philosophies are so half-baked and hypothetical that they cannot convince themselves enough to convince even a newborn babe. This, of course, is connected with the decay of democracy; and is somewhat of a separate subject. Suffice it to say here that when I say that we should instruct our children, I mean that we should do it, not that Mr. Sully or Professor Earl Barnes should do it. The trouble in too many of our modern schools is that the State, being controlled so specially by the few, allows cranks and experiments to go straight to the schoolroom when they have never passed through the Parliament, the public house, the private house, the church, or the marketplace. Obviously, it ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put first to the baby. But in a school to-day the baby has to submit to a system that is younger than himself. The flopping infant of four actually has more experience, and has weathered the world longer, than the dogma to which he is made to submit. Many a school boasts of having the last ideas in education, when it has not even the first idea; for the first idea is that even innocence, divine as it is, may learn something from experience. But this, as I say, is all due to the mere fact that we are managed by a little oligarchy; my system presupposes that men who govern themselves will govern their children. To-day we all use Popular Education as meaning education of the people. I wish I could use it as meaning education by the people.
So bene che certi folli pedanti hanno tentato di aggirare questa difficoltà sostenendo che l’educazione non è affatto istruzione, non insegna affatto per via d’autorità. Essi presentano il processo come proveniente non dall’esterno, dal maestro, ma interamente dall’interno del ragazzo. Educazione, dicono, è il latino per condurre fuori o trarre fuori le facoltà dormienti di ciascuno. In qualche punto giù nel fondo della fosca anima del ragazzo c’è un primordiale desiderio d’imparare gli accenti greci o di portare colletti puliti; e il maestro non fa che liberare, dolcemente e teneramente, questo intento imprigionato. Sigillati nel neonato stanno gli intrinseci segreti di come mangiare gli asparagi e quale fosse la data di Bannockburn. L’educatore non fa che trarre fuori dal bambino il suo stesso inapparente amore per la divisione lunga; non fa che condurre fuori la leggermente velata preferenza del bambino per il budino di latte piuttosto che per le crostate. Non sono certo di credere all’etimologia; ho udito la vergognosa insinuazione che «educatore», se applicato a un maestro romano, non significava condurre le nostre giovani funzioni verso la libertà; ma significava soltanto portare i ragazzini a passeggio. Ma sono assai più certo di non concordare con la dottrina; credo sarebbe sensato press’a poco come dire che il latte del bambino viene dal bambino, il dire che ne vengono i suoi meriti educativi. Vi è, in effetti, in ogni creatura vivente una raccolta di forze e di funzioni; ma educazione significa produrle in forme particolari e addestrarle a scopi particolari, oppure non significa proprio nulla. Il parlare è l’esempio più pratico dell’intera faccenda. Puoi certo «trarre fuori» strilli e grugniti dal bambino semplicemente punzecchiandolo e strattonandolo, un passatempo piacevole ma crudele a cui molti psicologi sono dediti. Ma aspetterai e osserverai davvero con molta pazienza prima di trarre fuori da lui la lingua inglese. Quella gliela devi mettere dentro; e qui finisce la questione.
VI
L’AUTORITÀ L’INEVITABILE
Ma il punto importante qui è soltanto che non puoi in alcun modo sbarazzarti dell’autorità nell’educazione; non si tratta tanto (come dicono i poveri conservatori) che l’autorità paterna debba essere preservata, quanto che non può essere distrutta. Il signor Bernard Shaw disse una volta di odiare l’idea di plasmare la mente di un bambino. In tal caso il signor Bernard Shaw farebbe meglio a impiccarsi; poiché odia qualcosa d’inseparabile dalla vita umana. Ho menzionato l’educere e il trarre fuori le facoltà solo per far notare che perfino questo trucco mentale non evita l’inevitabile idea dell’autorità paterna o scolastica. L’educatore che trae fuori è altrettanto arbitrario e coercitivo dell’istruttore che versa dentro; poiché egli trae fuori ciò che sceglie. Egli decide che cosa nel bambino debba essere sviluppato e che cosa non debba esserlo. Egli non (suppongo) trae fuori la trascurata facoltà della falsificazione. Egli non (almeno finora) conduce fuori, con timidi passi, un ritroso talento per la tortura. L’unico risultato di tutta questa pomposa e precisa distinzione tra l’educatore e l’istruttore è che l’istruttore punzecchia dove gli pare e l’educatore tira dove gli pare. Esattamente la stessa violenza intellettuale è fatta alla creatura che viene punzecchiata e tirata. Ora dobbiamo tutti accettare la responsabilità di questa violenza intellettuale. L’educazione è violenta; perché è creativa. È creativa perché è umana. È temeraria come suonare il violino; dogmatica come disegnare un quadro; brutale come costruire una casa. In breve, è ciò che è ogni azione umana; è un’interferenza con la vita e la crescita. Dopodiché è una questione futile e persino faceta se diciamo di questo tremendo tormentatore, l’artista Uomo, che ci mette dentro le cose come uno speziale, o ce le trae fuori, come un dentista.
Il punto è che l’Uomo fa ciò che gli pare. Egli reclama il diritto di prendere sotto il proprio controllo sua madre Natura; reclama il diritto di fare del suo figlio il Superuomo, a sua immagine. Una volta che si rifugga da questa autorità creativa dell’uomo, e l’intera coraggiosa incursione che chiamiamo civiltà vacilla e cade a pezzi. Ora gran parte della moderna libertà è alla radice paura. Non è tanto che siamo troppo audaci per sopportare regole; è piuttosto che siamo troppo timidi per sopportare responsabilità. E il signor Shaw e simile gente si ritraggono specialmente da quella tremenda e ancestrale responsabilità a cui i nostri padri ci vincolarono quando compirono il passo selvaggio di diventare uomini. Intendo la responsabilità di affermare la verità della nostra umana tradizione e di tramandarla con una voce d’autorità, una voce incrollabile. Quella è l’unica eterna educazione; essere sicuri abbastanza che qualcosa sia vero da osare di dirlo a un bambino. Da questo alto e audace dovere i moderni fuggono da ogni parte; e l’unica scusa per loro è, (naturalmente,) che le loro moderne filosofie sono così mal cotte e ipotetiche che essi non riescono a convincere se stessi abbastanza da convincere perfino un neonato. Ciò, naturalmente, è connesso col declino della democrazia; ed è in qualche modo un argomento a sé. Basti dire qui che quando dico che dovremmo istruire i nostri figli, intendo che dovremmo farlo noi, non che dovrebbero farlo il signor Sully o il professor Earl Barnes. Il guaio in troppe delle nostre scuole moderne è che lo Stato, essendo controllato così specialmente dai pochi, permette a fissazioni ed esperimenti di andar dritti all’aula scolastica quando non sono mai passati per il Parlamento, l’osteria, la casa privata, la chiesa o la piazza del mercato. Ovviamente, dovrebbero essere le cose più antiche quelle insegnate alle persone più giovani; le verità sicure e sperimentate quelle poste per prime al neonato. Ma in una scuola d’oggi il neonato deve sottomettersi a un sistema che è più giovane di lui stesso. Il floscio bimbo di quattro anni ha in realtà più esperienza, e ha affrontato il mondo più a lungo, del dogma a cui è costretto a sottomettersi. Più d’una scuola si vanta di avere le ultime idee in educazione, quando non ha neppure la prima idea; poiché la prima idea è che perfino l’innocenza, per quanto divina, può imparare qualcosa dall’esperienza. Ma questo, come dico, è tutto dovuto al mero fatto che siamo governati da una piccola oligarchia; il mio sistema presuppone che gli uomini che governano se stessi governeranno i propri figli. Oggi tutti usiamo Educazione Popolare nel senso di educazione del popolo. Vorrei poterla usare nel senso di educazione da parte del popolo.
The urgent point at present is that these expansive educators do not avoid the violence of authority an inch more than the old school masters. Nay, it might be maintained that they avoid it less. The old village schoolmaster beat a boy for not learning grammar and sent him out into the playground to play anything he liked; or at nothing, if he liked that better. The modern scientific schoolmaster pursues him into the playground and makes him play at cricket, because exercise is so good for the health. The modern Dr. Busby is a doctor of medicine as well as a doctor of divinity. He may say that the good of exercise is self-evident; but he must say it, and say it with authority. It cannot really be self-evident or it never could have been compulsory. But this is in modern practice a very mild case. In modern practice the free educationists forbid far more things than the old-fashioned educationists. A person with a taste for paradox (if any such shameless creature could exist) might with some plausibility maintain concerning all our expansion since the failure of Luther’s frank paganism and its replacement by Calvin’s Puritanism, that all this expansion has not been an expansion, but the closing in of a prison, so that less and less beautiful and humane things have been permitted. The Puritans destroyed images; the Rationalists forbade fairy tales. Count Tostoi practically issued one of his papal encyclicals against music; and I have heard of modern educationists who forbid children to play with tin soldiers. I remember a meek little madman who came up to me at some Socialist soiree or other, and asked me to use my influence (have I any influence?) against adventure stories for boys. It seems they breed an appetite for blood. But never mind that; one must keep one’s temper in this madhouse. I need only insist here that these things, even if a just deprivation, are a deprivation. I do not deny that the old vetoes and punishments were often idiotic and cruel; though they are much more so in a country like England (where in practice only a rich man decrees the punishment and only a poor man receives it) than in countries with a clearer popular tradition— such as Russia. In Russia flogging is often inflicted by peasants on a peasant. In modern England flogging can only in practice be inflicted by a gentleman on a very poor man. Thus only a few days ago as I write a small boy (a son of the poor, of course) was sentenced to flogging and imprisonment for five years for having picked up a small piece of coal which the experts value at 5d. I am entirely on the side of such liberals and humanitarians as have protested against this almost bestial ignorance about boys. But I do think it a little unfair that these humanitarians, who excuse boys for being robbers, should denounce them for playing at robbers. I do think that those who understand a guttersnipe playing with a piece of coal might, by a sudden spurt of imagination, understand him playing with a tin soldier. To sum it up in one sentence: I think my meek little madman might have understood that there is many a boy who would rather be flogged, and unjustly flogged, than have his adventure story taken away.
VII
THE HUMILITY OF MRS. GRUNDY
In short, the new education is as harsh as the old, whether or no it is as high. The freest fad, as much as the strictest formula, is stiff with authority. It is because the humane father thinks soldiers wrong that they are forbidden; there is no pretense, there can be no pretense, that the boy would think so. The average boy’s impression certainly would be simply this: “If your father is a Methodist you must not play with soldiers on Sunday. If your father is a Socialist you must not play with them even on week days.” All educationists are utterly dogmatic and authoritarian. You cannot have free education; for if you left a child free you would not educate him at all. Is there, then, no distinction or difference between the most hide-bound conventionalists and the most brilliant and bizarre innovators? Is there no difference between the heaviest heavy father and the most reckless and speculative maiden aunt? Yes; there is. The difference is that the heavy father, in his heavy way, is a democrat. He does not urge a thing merely because to his fancy it should be done; but, because (in his own admirable republican formula) “Everybody does it.” The conventional authority does claim some popular mandate; the unconventional authority does not. The Puritan who forbids soldiers on Sunday is at least expressing Puritan opinion; not merely his own opinion. He is not a despot; he is a democracy, a tyrannical democracy, a dingy and local democracy perhaps; but one that could do and has done the two ultimate virile things—fight and appeal to God. But the veto of the new educationist is like the veto of the House of Lords; it does not pretend to be representative. These innovators are always talking about the blushing modesty of Mrs. Grundy. I do not know whether Mrs. Grundy is more modest than they are; but I am sure she is more humble.
But there is a further complication. The more anarchic modern may again attempt to escape the dilemma by saying that education should only be an enlargement of the mind, an opening of all the organs of receptivity. Light (he says) should be brought into darkness; blinded and thwarted existences in all our ugly corners should merely be permitted to perceive and expand; in short, enlightenment should be shed over darkest London. Now here is just the trouble; that, in so far as this is involved, there is no darkest London. London is not dark at all; not even at night. We have said that if education is a solid substance, then there is none of it. We may now say that if education is an abstract expansion there is no lack of it. There is far too much of it. In fact, there is nothing else.
Il punto urgente al momento è che questi educatori espansivi non evitano la violenza dell’autorità un pollice più dei vecchi maestri di scuola. Anzi, si potrebbe sostenere che la evitino meno. Il vecchio maestro di villaggio picchiava un ragazzo perché non imparava la grammatica e lo mandava fuori nel cortile a giocare a ciò che voleva; o a nulla, se preferiva così. Il moderno maestro scientifico lo insegue nel cortile e lo costringe a giocare a cricket, perché l’esercizio fa tanto bene alla salute. Il moderno Dr. Busby è dottore in medicina non meno che dottore in teologia. Egli può dire che il bene dell’esercizio è autoevidente; ma deve dirlo, e dirlo con autorità. Non può essere davvero autoevidente o non sarebbe mai potuto diventare obbligatorio. Ma questo è, nella pratica moderna, un caso assai mite. Nella pratica moderna gli educatori liberi proibiscono assai più cose degli educatori all’antica. Una persona con il gusto del paradosso (se una simile creatura spudorata potesse esistere) potrebbe con qualche plausibilità sostenere, riguardo a tutta la nostra espansione dopo il fallimento del franco paganesimo di Lutero e la sua sostituzione col puritanesimo di Calvino, che tutta questa espansione non è stata un’espansione, ma il chiudersi di una prigione, sicché sempre meno cose belle e umane sono state permesse. I Puritani distrussero le immagini; i Razionalisti proibirono le fiabe. Il Conte Tolstoj emanò praticamente una delle sue encicliche papali contro la musica; e ho sentito di educatori moderni che vietano ai bambini di giocare con i soldatini di stagno. Ricordo un piccolo mite folle che mi si avvicinò a un qualche ricevimento socialista, e mi chiese di usare la mia influenza (ne ho forse qualcuna?) contro i racconti d’avventura per ragazzi. Pare che essi generino un appetito per il sangue. Ma non importa; bisogna conservare la calma in questo manicomio. Devo solo insistere qui che queste cose, anche se giusta privazione, sono una privazione. Non nego che i vecchi divieti e le vecchie punizioni fossero spesso idioti e crudeli; benché lo siano assai di più in un paese come l’Inghilterra (dove in pratica solo un ricco decreta la punizione e solo un povero la riceve) che nei paesi con una più chiara tradizione popolare— come la Russia. In Russia la fustigazione è spesso inflitta da contadini a un contadino. Nell’Inghilterra moderna la fustigazione può in pratica solo essere inflitta da un gentiluomo a un uomo molto povero. Così, solo pochi giorni fa mentre scrivo, un ragazzino (figlio di poveri, s’intende) fu condannato alla fustigazione e alla reclusione per cinque anni per aver raccolto un piccolo pezzo di carbone che gli esperti valutano 5 pence. Sono interamente dalla parte di quei liberali e umanitari che hanno protestato contro questa quasi bestiale ignoranza sui ragazzi. Ma trovo un po’ ingiusto che questi umanitari, che scusano i ragazzi per essere ladri, li denuncino per giocare ai ladri. Trovo che chi comprende un monello che gioca con un pezzo di carbone potrebbe, con un improvviso slancio d’immaginazione, comprenderlo mentre gioca con un soldatino di stagno. Per riassumere in una frase: penso che il mio piccolo mite folle avrebbe potuto capire che c’è più d’un ragazzo che preferirebbe essere fustigato, e ingiustamente fustigato, piuttosto che vedersi togliere il suo racconto d’avventura.
VII
L’UMILTÀ DELLA SIGNORA GRUNDY
In breve, la nuova educazione è dura quanto la vecchia, sia o no altrettanto alta. La più libera delle manie, non meno della più rigida formula, è rigida d’autorità. È perché il padre umano ritiene i soldati un male che essi sono proibiti; non c’è finzione, non ci può essere finzione, che il ragazzo la pensi così. L’impressione del ragazzo medio sarebbe certo semplicemente questa: «Se tuo padre è metodista non devi giocare con i soldati di domenica. Se tuo padre è socialista non devi giocare con essi neppure nei giorni feriali.» Tutti gli educatori sono del tutto dogmatici e autoritari. Non si può avere una libera educazione; perché se lasciassi libero un bambino non lo educheresti affatto. Non c’è dunque distinzione o differenza tra i più impastoiati convenzionalisti e i più brillanti e bizzarri innovatori? Non c’è differenza tra il più greve dei gravi padri e la più avventata e speculativa delle zie zitelle? Sì; c’è. La differenza è che il grave padre, alla sua greve maniera, è un democratico. Egli non caldeggia una cosa soltanto perché al suo capriccio dovrebbe esser fatta; ma perché (nella sua ammirevole formula repubblicana) «Tutti lo fanno.» L’autorità convenzionale rivendica almeno un qualche mandato popolare; l’autorità non convenzionale no. Il Puritano che proibisce i soldati di domenica esprime almeno un’opinione puritana; non soltanto la propria opinione. Non è un despota; è una democrazia, una democrazia tirannica, una democrazia fosca e locale forse; ma tale da poter fare e aver fatto le due ultime cose virili—combattere e appellarsi a Dio. Ma il veto del nuovo educatore è come il veto della Camera dei Lords; non pretende di essere rappresentativo. Questi innovatori parlano sempre della modestia che arrossisce della Signora Grundy. Non so se la Signora Grundy sia più modesta di loro; ma sono certo che è più umile.
Ma c’è un’ulteriore complicazione. Il moderno più anarchico può di nuovo tentare di sfuggire al dilemma dicendo che l’educazione dovrebbe essere solo un ampliamento della mente, un’apertura di tutti gli organi della recettività. La luce (egli dice) dovrebbe essere portata nelle tenebre; le esistenze accecate e ostacolate in tutti i nostri brutti angoli dovrebbero solo essere lasciate percepire ed espandersi; in breve, l’illuminazione dovrebbe essere diffusa sulla più oscura Londra. Ora, qui sta proprio il guaio; che, in quanto ciò è implicato, non esiste la più oscura Londra. Londra non è affatto oscura; nemmeno di notte. Abbiamo detto che se l’educazione è una sostanza solida, allora non ce n’è affatto. Possiamo ora dire che se l’educazione è un’espansione astratta non ne manca. Ce n’è fin troppa. In effetti, non c’è altro.
There are no uneducated people. Everybody in England is educated; only most people are educated wrong. The state schools were not the first schools, but among the last schools to be established; and London had been educating Londoners long before the London School Board. The error is a highly practical one. It is persistently assumed that unless a child is civilized by the established schools, he must remain a barbarian. I wish he did. Every child in London becomes a highly civilized person. But here are so many different civilizations, most of them born tired. Anyone will tell you that the trouble with the poor is not so much that the old are still foolish, but rather that the young are already wise. Without going to school at all, the gutter-boy would be educated. Without going to school at all, he would be over-educated. The real object of our schools should be not so much to suggest complexity as solely to restore simplicity. You will hear venerable idealists declare we must make war on the ignorance of the poor; but, indeed, we have rather to make war on their knowledge. Real educationists have to resist a kind of roaring cataract of culture. The truant is being taught all day. If the children do not look at the large letters in the spelling-book, they need only walk outside and look at the large letters on the poster. If they do not care for the colored maps provided by the school, they can gape at the colored maps provided by the Daily Mail. If they tire of electricity, they can take to electric trams. If they are unmoved by music, they can take to drink. If they will not work so as to get a prize from their school, they may work to get a prize from Prizy Bits. If they cannot learn enough about law and citizenship to please the teacher, they learn enough about them to avoid the policeman. If they will not learn history forwards from the right end in the history books, they will learn it backwards from the wrong end in the party newspapers. And this is the tragedy of the whole affair: that the London poor, a particularly quick-witted and civilized class, learn everything tail foremost, learn even what is right in the way of what is wrong. They do not see the first principles of law in a law book; they only see its last results in the police news. They do not see the truths of politics in a general survey. They only see the lies of politics, at a General Election.
But whatever be the pathos of the London poor, it has nothing to do with being uneducated. So far from being without guidance, they are guided constantly, earnestly, excitedly; only guided wrong. The poor are not at all neglected, they are merely oppressed; nay, rather they are persecuted. There are no people in London who are not appealed to by the rich; the appeals of the rich shriek from every hoarding and shout from every hustings. For it should always be remembered that the queer, abrupt ugliness of our streets and costumes are not the creation of democracy, but of aristocracy. The House of Lords objected to the Embankment being disfigured by trams. But most of the rich men who disfigure the street-walls with their wares are actually in the House of Lords. The peers make the country seats beautiful by making the town streets hideous. This, however, is parenthetical. The point is, that the poor in London are not left alone, but rather deafened and bewildered with raucous and despotic advice. They are not like sheep without a shepherd. They are more like one sheep whom twenty-seven shepherds are shouting at. All the newspapers, all the new advertisements, all the new medicines and new theologies, all the glare and blare of the gas and brass of modern times— it is against these that the national school must bear up if it can. I will not question that our elementary education is better than barbaric ignorance. But there is no barbaric ignorance. I do not doubt that our schools would be good for uninstructed boys. But there are no uninstructed boys. A modern London school ought not merely to be clearer, kindlier, more clever and more rapid than ignorance and darkness. It must also be clearer than a picture postcard, cleverer than a Limerick competition, quicker than the tram, and kindlier than the tavern. The school, in fact, has the responsibility of universal rivalry. We need not deny that everywhere there is a light that must conquer darkness. But here we demand a light that can conquer light.
VIII
THE BROKEN RAINBOW
I will take one case that will serve both as symbol and example: the case of color. We hear the realists (those sentimental fellows) talking about the gray streets and the gray lives of the poor. But whatever the poor streets are they are not gray; but motley, striped, spotted, piebald and patched like a quilt. Hoxton is not aesthetic enough to be monochrome; and there is nothing of the Celtic twilight about it. As a matter of fact, a London gutter-boy walks unscathed among furnaces of color. Watch him walk along a line of hoardings, and you will see him now against glowing green, like a traveler in a tropic forest; now black like a bird against the burning blue of the Midi; now passant across a field gules, like the golden leopards of England. He ought to understand the irrational rapture of that cry of Mr. Stephen Phillips about “that bluer blue, that greener green.” There is no blue much bluer than Reckitt’s Blue and no blacking blacker than Day and Martin’s; no more emphatic yellow than that of Colman’s Mustard. If, despite this chaos of color, like a shattered rainbow, the spirit of the small boy is not exactly intoxicated with art and culture, the cause certainly does not lie in universal grayness or the mere starving of his senses. It lies in the fact that the colors are presented in the wrong connection, on the wrong scale, and, above all, from the wrong motive. It is not colors he lacks, but a philosophy of colors. In short, there is nothing wrong with Reckitt’s Blue except that it is not Reckitt’s. Blue does not belong to Reckitt, but to the sky; black does not belong to Day and Martin, but to the abyss. Even the finest posters are only very little things on a very large scale. There is something specially irritant in this way about the iteration of advertisements of mustard: a condiment, a small luxury; a thing in its nature not to be taken in quantity. There is a special irony in these starving streets to see such a great deal of mustard to such very little meat. Yellow is a bright pigment; mustard is a pungent pleasure. But to look at these seas of yellow is to be like a man who should swallow gallons of mustard. He would either die, or lose the taste of mustard altogether.
Non esistono persone prive di istruzione. In Inghilterra sono tutti istruiti; solo che i più sono istruiti male. Le scuole statali non furono le prime scuole, ma tra le ultime a essere fondate; e Londra educava i londinesi molto prima che esistesse il Provveditorato scolastico di Londra. L’errore è di indole quanto mai pratica. Si dà per scontato con ostinazione che, se un bambino non viene incivilito dalle scuole ufficiali, debba rimanere un barbaro. Vorrei che fosse così. Ogni bambino di Londra diventa una persona altamente civile. Ma qui vi sono tante diverse civiltà, e la maggior parte nasce già stanca. Chiunque vi dirà che il guaio dei poveri non è tanto che i vecchi siano ancora sciocchi, quanto piuttosto che i giovani siano già scaltri. Senza andare affatto a scuola, il monello di strada sarebbe istruito. Senza andare affatto a scuola, sarebbe istruito fin troppo. Il vero scopo delle nostre scuole non dovrebbe essere tanto quello di suggerire complessità, quanto unicamente di restituire semplicità. Sentirete venerabili idealisti dichiarare che dobbiamo muover guerra all’ignoranza dei poveri; ma, in verità, dobbiamo piuttosto muover guerra al loro sapere. I veri educatori devono resistere a una sorta di fragorosa cateratta di cultura. Il ragazzo che marina la scuola viene istruito tutto il giorno. Se i bambini non guardano le grandi lettere del sillabario, basta che escano fuori a guardare le grandi lettere del manifesto. Se non si curano delle carte geografiche colorate fornite dalla scuola, possono restare a bocca aperta davanti alle carte colorate fornite dal Daily Mail. Se si stancano dell’elettricità, possono darsi ai tram elettrici. Se non li commuove la musica, possono darsi al bere. Se non vogliono lavorare per ottenere un premio dalla loro scuola, possono lavorare per ottenere un premio dai Prizy Bits. Se non riescono a imparare abbastanza di legge e di cittadinanza per compiacere il maestro, ne imparano abbastanza da scansare il poliziotto. Se non vogliono imparare la storia in avanti, dal capo giusto, sui libri di storia, la impareranno all’indietro, dal capo sbagliato, sui giornali di partito. E questa è la tragedia di tutta la faccenda: che i poveri di Londra, una classe particolarmente svelta di mente e civile, imparano ogni cosa a rovescio, imparano persino ciò che è giusto per la via di ciò che è sbagliato. Non vedono i primi princìpi della legge in un codice; ne vedono soltanto gli ultimi effetti nella cronaca nera. Non vedono le verità della politica in una rassegna generale. Ne vedono soltanto le menzogne, a un’Elezione Generale.
Ma qualunque sia il pathos dei poveri di Londra, esso nulla ha a che fare con l’essere privi di istruzione. Ben lungi dall’essere senza guida, sono guidati di continuo, con zelo, con foga; solo, guidati male. I poveri non sono affatto trascurati, sono semplicemente oppressi; anzi, piuttosto perseguitati. Non c’è persona a Londra alla quale i ricchi non facciano appello; gli appelli dei ricchi strillano da ogni tabellone e gridano da ogni comizio. Poiché si dovrebbe sempre ricordare che la strana, brusca bruttezza delle nostre strade e delle nostre fogge non è creazione della democrazia, ma dell’aristocrazia. La Camera dei Lord si oppose a che il Lungofiume venisse deturpato dai tram. Ma la maggior parte dei ricchi che deturpano i muri delle strade con le loro mercanzie siede proprio nella Camera dei Lord. I pari rendono belle le residenze di campagna rendendo orribili le strade cittadine. Questo, tuttavia, è per inciso. Il punto è che i poveri di Londra non sono lasciati soli, ma piuttosto assordati e disorientati da consigli rauchi e dispotici. Non sono come pecore senza pastore. Sono piuttosto come una sola pecora alla quale ventisette pastori stanno gridando. Tutti i giornali, tutte le nuove réclame, tutte le nuove medicine e le nuove teologie, tutto il bagliore e il fragore del gas e dell’ottone dei tempi moderni: è contro tutto questo che la scuola pubblica deve reggere, se può. Non metterò in dubbio che la nostra istruzione elementare sia meglio dell’ignoranza barbarica. Ma non esiste ignoranza barbarica. Non dubito che le nostre scuole sarebbero buone per ragazzi non ammaestrati. Ma non esistono ragazzi non ammaestrati. Una moderna scuola di Londra non dovrebbe soltanto essere più chiara, più benevola, più intelligente e più rapida dell’ignoranza e delle tenebre. Deve anche essere più chiara di una cartolina illustrata, più arguta di un concorso di Limerick, più veloce del tram, e più benevola dell’osteria. La scuola, di fatto, ha la responsabilità di una rivalità universale. Non c’è bisogno di negare che ovunque vi sia una luce che deve vincere le tenebre. Ma qui esigiamo una luce che sappia vincere la luce.
VIII
L’ARCOBALENO INFRANTO
Prenderò un solo caso che servirà insieme da simbolo e da esempio: il caso del colore. Sentiamo i realisti (quei tipi sentimentali) parlare delle strade grigie e delle vite grigie dei poveri. Ma qualunque cosa siano le strade dei poveri, grigie non sono; bensì screziate, striate, chiazzate, pezzate e rappezzate come una trapunta. Hoxton non è abbastanza estetica da essere monocroma; e non vi è in essa nulla del crepuscolo celtico. In realtà, un monello di strada di Londra cammina indenne tra fornaci di colore. Guardatelo camminare lungo una fila di tabelloni, e lo vedrete ora stagliarsi contro un verde ardente, come un viaggiatore in una foresta tropicale; ora nero come un uccello contro l’azzurro incandescente del Mezzogiorno; ora passante su un campo di rosso, come i leopardi d’oro d’Inghilterra. Dovrebbe comprendere l’irrazionale rapimento di quel grido del signor Stephen Phillips a proposito di “quell’azzurro più azzurro, quel verde più verde.” Non c’è azzurro molto più azzurro dell’Azzurro Reckitt né lucido da scarpe più nero di quello di Day and Martin; nessun giallo più marcato di quello della Senape Colman. Se, malgrado questo caos di colore, simile a un arcobaleno frantumato, l’animo del ragazzino non è propriamente inebriato d’arte e di cultura, la causa non risiede certo in un grigiore universale o nel semplice affamare dei suoi sensi. Risiede nel fatto che i colori gli sono presentati nella connessione sbagliata, nella scala sbagliata e, soprattutto, per il motivo sbagliato. Non è di colori che egli manca, ma di una filosofia dei colori. In breve, non c’è nulla di sbagliato nell’Azzurro Reckitt, se non che non è Reckitt. L’azzurro non appartiene a Reckitt, ma al cielo; il nero non appartiene a Day and Martin, ma all’abisso. Perfino i più bei manifesti sono solo cose piccolissime su scala grandissima. Vi è qualcosa di particolarmente irritante, in questo senso, nel ripetersi delle réclame della senape: un condimento, un piccolo lusso; una cosa che per sua natura non va presa in quantità. Vi è una speciale ironia, in queste strade affamate, nel vedere tanta senape a fronte di così poca carne. Il giallo è un pigmento vivace; la senape è un piacere pungente. Ma guardare questi mari di giallo è come essere un uomo che dovesse inghiottire galloni di senape. O morirebbe, o perderebbe del tutto il gusto della senape.
Now suppose we compare these gigantic trivialities on the hoardings with those tiny and tremendous pictures in which the mediaevals recorded their dreams; little pictures where the blue sky is hardly longer than a single sapphire, and the fires of judgment only a pigmy patch of gold. The difference here is not merely that poster art is in its nature more hasty than illumination art; it is not even merely that the ancient artist was serving the Lord while the modern artist is serving the lords. It is that the old artist contrived to convey an impression that colors really were significant and precious things, like jewels and talismanic stones. The color was often arbitrary; but it was always authoritative. If a bird was blue, if a tree was golden, if a fish was silver, if a cloud was scarlet, the artist managed to convey that these colors were important and almost painfully intense; all the red red-hot and all the gold tried in the fire. Now that is the spirit touching color which the schools must recover and protect if they are really to give the children any imaginative appetite or pleasure in the thing. It is not so much an indulgence in color; it is rather, if anything, a sort of fiery thrift. It fenced in a green field in heraldry as straitly as a green field in peasant proprietorship. It would not fling away gold leaf any more than gold coin; it would not heedlessly pour out purple or crimson, any more than it would spill good wine or shed blameless blood. That is the hard task before educationists in this special matter; they have to teach people to relish colors like liquors. They have the heavy business of turning drunkards into wine tasters. If even the twentieth century succeeds in doing these things, it will almost catch up with the twelfth.
The principle covers, however, the whole of modern life. Morris and the merely aesthetic mediaevalists always indicated that a crowd in the time of Chaucer would have been brightly clad and glittering, compared with a crowd in the time of Queen Victoria. I am not so sure that the real distinction is here. There would be brown frocks of friars in the first scene as well as brown bowlers of clerks in the second. There would be purple plumes of factory girls in the second scene as well as purple lenten vestments in the first. There would be white waistcoats against white ermine; gold watch chains against gold lions. The real difference is this: that the brown earth-color of the monk’s coat was instinctively chosen to express labor and humility, whereas the brown color of the clerk’s hat was not chosen to express anything. The monk did mean to say that he robed himself in dust. I am sure the clerk does not mean to say that he crowns himself with clay. He is not putting dust on his head, as the only diadem of man. Purple, at once rich and somber, does suggest a triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy. But the factory girl does not intend her hat to express a triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy; far from it. White ermine was meant to express moral purity; white waistcoats were not. Gold lions do suggest a flaming magnanimity; gold watch chains do not. The point is not that we have lost the material hues, but that we have lost the trick of turning them to the best advantage. We are not like children who have lost their paint box and are left alone with a gray lead-pencil. We are like children who have mixed all the colors in the paint-box together and lost the paper of instructions. Even then (I do not deny) one has some fun.
Now this abundance of colors and loss of a color scheme is a pretty perfect parable of all that is wrong with our modern ideals and especially with our modern education. It is the same with ethical education, economic education, every sort of education. The growing London child will find no lack of highly controversial teachers who will teach him that geography means painting the map red; that economics means taxing the foreigner, that patriotism means the peculiarly un-English habit of flying a flag on Empire Day. In mentioning these examples specially I do not mean to imply that there are no similar crudities and popular fallacies upon the other political side. I mention them because they constitute a very special and arresting feature of the situation. I mean this, that there were always Radical revolutionists; but now there are Tory revolutionists also. The modern Conservative no longer conserves. He is avowedly an innovator. Thus all the current defenses of the House of Lords which describe it as a bulwark against the mob, are intellectually done for; the bottom has fallen out of them; because on five or six of the most turbulent topics of the day, the House of Lords is a mob itself; and exceedingly likely to behave like one.
IX
THE NEED FOR NARROWNESS
Through all this chaos, then we come back once more to our main conclusion. The true task of culture to-day is not a task of expansion, but very decidedly of selection—and rejection. The educationist must find a creed and teach it. Even if it be not a theological creed, it must still be as fastidious and as firm as theology. In short, it must be orthodox. The teacher may think it antiquated to have to decide precisely between the faith of Calvin and of Laud, the faith of Aquinas and of Swedenborg; but he still has to choose between the faith of Kipling and of Shaw, between the world of Blatchford and of General Booth. Call it, if you will, a narrow question whether your child shall be brought up by the vicar or the minister or the popish priest. You have still to face that larger, more liberal, more highly civilized question, of whether he shall be brought up by Harmsworth or by Pearson, by Mr. Eustace Miles with his Simple Life or Mr. Peter Keary with his Strenuous Life; whether he shall most eagerly read Miss Annie S. Swan or Mr. Bart Kennedy; in short, whether he shall end up in the mere violence of the S. D. F., or in the mere vulgarity of the Primrose League. They say that nowadays the creeds are crumbling; I doubt it, but at least the sects are increasing; and education must now be sectarian education, merely for practical purposes. Out of all this throng of theories it must somehow select a theory; out of all these thundering voices it must manage to hear a voice; out of all this awful and aching battle of blinding lights, without one shadow to give shape to them, it must manage somehow to trace and to track a star.
Supponiamo ora di confrontare queste gigantesche banalità sui cartelloni pubblicitari con quei piccoli e terribili dipinti nei quali i medievali registrarono i loro sogni; piccoli dipinti in cui il cielo azzurro è appena più lungo di un solo zaffiro, e le fiamme del giudizio non sono che una minuscola macchia d’oro. La differenza qui non sta semplicemente nel fatto che l’arte dei manifesti per sua natura sia più affrettata dell’arte miniaturistica; né è neppure solo il fatto che l’antico artista servisse il Signore mentre l’artista moderno serve i signori. È che l’antico artista riusciva a trasmettere un’impressione che i colori fossero davvero cose significative e preziose, come gioielli e pietre talismaniche. Il colore era spesso arbitrario; ma era sempre autorevole. Se un uccello era blu, se un albero era dorato, se un pesce era argenteo, se una nuvola era scarlatta, l’artista riusciva a trasmettere che questi colori erano importanti e quasi dolorosamente intensi; tutto il rosso incandescente e tutto l’oro provato nel fuoco. Ora, questo è lo spirito riguardo al colore che le scuole devono recuperare e proteggere se vogliono davvero dare ai bambini un qualche appetito immaginativo o piacere per la cosa. Non si tratta tanto di indulgere nel colore; è piuttosto, se mai, una sorta di parsimonia ardente. Delimitava un campo verde nell’araldica con altrettanta precisione come un campo verde nella proprietà contadina. Non avrebbe sprecato foglia d’oro più che moneta d’oro; non avrebbe versato porpora o cremisi in modo sconsiderato, più di quanto avrebbe rovesciato buon vino o sparso sangue innocente. Questa è la difficile impresa davanti agli educatori in questa materia specifica: devono insegnare alle persone ad apprezzare i colori come liquori. Hanno il compito arduo di trasformare gli ubriaconi in assaggiatori di vino. Se anche il ventesimo secolo riuscirà a fare queste cose, quasi raggiungerà il dodicesimo.
Il principio si estende, tuttavia, a tutta la vita moderna. Morris e i semplici medievalisti estetici indicavano sempre che una folla nell’epoca di Chaucer sarebbe stata vestita in modo vivace e scintillante, rispetto a una folla nell’epoca della Regina Vittoria. Non sono così sicuro che la vera distinzione sia qui. Ci sarebbero state tonache marroni di frati nella prima scena, come pure cappelli marroni da impiegato nella seconda. Ci sarebbero stati piumaggi viola delle operaie della fabbrica nella seconda scena, come pure paramenti viola quaresimali nella prima. Ci sarebbero state giubbe bianche contro ermellino bianco; catene d’oro degli orologi contro leoni dorati. La vera differenza è questa: il marrone terroso del mantello del monaco fu scelto istintivamente per esprimere lavoro e umiltà, mentre il colore marrone del cappello dell’impiegato non fu scelto per esprimere nulla. Il monaco intendeva dire che si vestiva di polvere. Sono sicuro che l’impiegato non intende dire che si incorona con l’argilla. Non sta mettendo la polvere sulla sua testa, come unico diadema dell’uomo. Il viola, allo stesso tempo ricco e cupo, suggerisce davvero un trionfo temporaneamente eclissato da una tragedia. Ma l’operaia della fabbrica non intende che il suo cappello esprima un trionfo temporaneamente eclissato da una tragedia; tutt’altro. L’ermellino bianco doveva esprimere purezza morale; le giubbe bianche no. I leoni dorati suggeriscono davvero una magnanimità infuocata; le catene d’oro degli orologi non lo fanno. Il punto non è che abbiamo perso i colori materiali, ma che abbiamo perso la capacità di sfruttarli al meglio. Non siamo come bambini che hanno perso il loro scatolone dei colori e sono rimasti soli con una matita grigia. Siamo come bambini che hanno mescolato tutti i colori dello scatolone insieme e hanno perso le istruzioni per l’uso. Anche allora (non nego) si ha un po’ di divertimento.
Ora questa abbondanza di colori e perdita di uno schema cromatico è una piuttosto perfetta parabola di tutto ciò che non va nei nostri ideali moderni, e specialmente nella nostra moderna educazione. È la stessa cosa con l’educazione etica, l’educazione economica, ogni tipo di educazione. Il crescente bambino di Londra non troverà mancanza di insegnanti altamente controversi che gli insegneranno che la geografia significa dipingere la mappa di rosso; che l’economia significa tassare lo straniero, che il patriottismo significa l’abitudine peculiare e non inglese di sventolare una bandiera nel Giorno dell’Impero. Nel menzionare questi esempi in modo particolare non intendo implicare che non ci siano crudeltà simili e fallacie popolari anche dall’altra parte politica. Li menziono perché costituiscono una caratteristica molto speciale e sorprendente della situazione. Intendo dire che c’erano sempre rivoluzionari radicali; ma ora ci sono anche rivoluzionari conservatori. Il moderno conservatore non conserva più. È dichiaratamente un innovatore. Così tutte le attuali difese della Camera dei Lord che la descrivono come un baluardo contro la folla, sono intellettualmente finite; il fondo è caduto; perché su cinque o sei degli argomenti più turbolenti del giorno, la Camera dei Lord è essa stessa una folla; e molto probabile che si comporti come tale.
IX
LA NECESSITÀ DELLA STREZZA
Attraverso tutto questo caos, torniamo ancora una volta alla nostra conclusione principale. Il vero compito della cultura oggi non è un compito di espansione, ma decisamente di selezione - e rifiuto. L’educatore deve trovare un credo e insegnarlo. Anche se non fosse un credo teologico, dovrebbe comunque essere altrettanto esigente e saldo come la teologia. In breve, deve essere ortodosso. L’insegnante può pensare che sia antiquato dover decidere precisamente tra la fede di Calvino e quella di Laud, la fede di Aquinate e quella di Swedenborg; ma deve comunque scegliere tra la fede di Kipling e quella di Shaw, tra il mondo di Blatchford e quello del Generale Booth. Chiamatela, se volete, una questione ristretta se il vostro figlio debba essere educato dal vicario o dal ministro o dal prete cattolico. Dovete comunque affrontare quella questione più ampia, più liberale, più altamente civilizzata, di se dovrà essere educato da Harmsworth o da Pearson, dal signor Eustace Miles con la sua Vita Semplice o dal signor Peter Keary con la sua Vita Intensa; se dovrà leggere con maggiore entusiasmo Miss Annie S. Swan o il signor Bart Kennedy; in breve, se dovrà finire nella mera violenza del S.D.F., o nella mera volgarità della Primrose League. Dicono che oggigiorno i credi stiano crollando; io ne dubito, ma almeno le sette sono in aumento; e l’educazione deve ora essere un’educazione settaria, semplicemente per scopi pratici. Da tutta questa folla di teorie deve in qualche modo selezionare una teoria; da tutte queste voci tonanti deve riuscire a sentire una voce; da tutta questa terribile e dolorosa battaglia di luci accecanti, senza un’ombra che dia loro forma, deve in qualche modo riuscire a tracciare e seguire una stella.
I have spoken so far of popular education, which began too vague and vast and which therefore has accomplished little. But as it happens there is in England something to compare it with. There is an institution, or class of institutions, which began with the same popular object, which has since followed a much narrower object, but which had the great advantage that it did follow some object, unlike our modern elementary schools.
In all these problems I should urge the solution which is positive, or, as silly people say, “optimistic.” I should set my face, that is, against most of the solutions that are solely negative and abolitionist. Most educators of the poor seem to think that they have to teach the poor man not to drink. I should be quite content if they teach him to drink; for it is mere ignorance about how to drink and when to drink that is accountable for most of his tragedies. I do not propose (like some of my revolutionary friends) that we should abolish the public schools. I propose the much more lurid and desperate experiment that we should make them public. I do not wish to make Parliament stop working, but rather to make it work; not to shut up churches, but rather to open them; not to put out the lamp of learning or destroy the hedge of property, but only to make some rude effort to make universities fairly universal and property decently proper.
In many cases, let it be remembered, such action is not merely going back to the old ideal, but is even going back to the old reality. It would be a great step forward for the gin shop to go back to the inn. It is incontrovertibly true that to mediaevalize the public schools would be to democratize the public schools. Parliament did once really mean (as its name seems to imply) a place where people were allowed to talk. It is only lately that the general increase of efficiency, that is, of the Speaker, has made it mostly a place where people are prevented from talking. The poor do not go to the modern church, but they went to the ancient church all right; and if the common man in the past had a grave respect for property, it may conceivably have been because he sometimes had some of his own. I therefore can claim that I have no vulgar itch of innovation in anything I say about any of these institutions. Certainly I have none in that particular one which I am now obliged to pick out of the list; a type of institution to which I have genuine and personal reasons for being friendly and grateful: I mean the great Tudor foundations, the public schools of England. They have been praised for a great many things, mostly, I am sorry to say, praised by themselves and their children. And yet for some reason no one has ever praised them the one really convincing reason.
X
THE CASE FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The word success can of course be used in two senses. It may be used with reference to a thing serving its immediate and peculiar purpose, as of a wheel going around; or it can be used with reference to a thing adding to the general welfare, as of a wheel being a useful discovery. It is one thing to say that Smith’s flying machine is a failure, and quite another to say that Smith has failed to make a flying machine. Now this is very broadly the difference between the old English public schools and the new democratic schools. Perhaps the old public schools are (as I personally think they are) ultimately weakening the country rather than strengthening it, and are therefore, in that ultimate sense, inefficient. But there is such a thing as being efficiently inefficient. You can make your flying ship so that it flies, even if you also make it so that it kills you. Now the public school system may not work satisfactorily, but it works; the public schools may not achieve what we want, but they achieve what they want. The popular elementary schools do not in that sense achieve anything at all. It is very difficult to point to any guttersnipe in the street and say that he embodies the ideal for which popular education has been working, in the sense that the fresh-faced, foolish boy in “Etons” does embody the ideal for which the headmasters of Harrow and Winchester have been working. The aristocratic educationists have the positive purpose of turning out gentlemen, and they do turn out gentlemen, even when they expel them. The popular educationists would say that they had the far nobler idea of turning out citizens. I concede that it is a much nobler idea, but where are the citizens? I know that the boy in “Etons” is stiff with a rather silly and sentimental stoicism, called being a man of the world. I do not fancy that the errand-boy is rigid with that republican stoicism that is called being a citizen. The schoolboy will really say with fresh and innocent hauteur, “I am an English gentleman.” I cannot so easily picture the errand-boy drawing up his head to the stars and answering, “Romanus civis sum.” Let it be granted that our elementary teachers are teaching the very broadest code of morals, while our great headmasters are teaching only the narrowest code of manners. Let it be granted that both these things are being taught. But only one of them is being learned.
It is always said that great reformers or masters of events can manage to bring about some specific and practical reforms, but that they never fulfill their visions or satisfy their souls. I believe there is a real sense in which this apparent platitude is quite untrue. By a strange inversion the political idealist often does not get what he asks for, but does get what he wants. The silent pressure of his ideal lasts much longer and reshapes the world much more than the actualities by which he attempted to suggest it. What perishes is the letter, which he thought so practical. What endures is the spirit, which he felt to be unattainable and even unutterable. It is exactly his schemes that are not fulfilled; it is exactly his vision that is fulfilled. Thus the ten or twelve paper constitutions of the French Revolution, which seemed so business-like to the framers of them, seem to us to have flown away on the wind as the wildest fancies. What has not flown away, what is a fixed fact in Europe, is the ideal and vision. The Republic, the idea of a land full of mere citizens all with some minimum of manners and minimum of wealth, the vision of the eighteenth century, the reality of the twentieth. So I think it will generally be with the creator of social things, desirable or undesirable. All his schemes will fail, all his tools break in his hands. His compromises will collapse, his concessions will be useless. He must brace himself to bear his fate; he shall have nothing but his heart’s desire.
Ho parlato finora dell’istruzione popolare, che nacque troppo vaga e sconfinata e che perciò ha realizzato ben poco. Ma si dà il caso che in Inghilterra vi sia qualcosa con cui confrontarla. Esiste un’istituzione, o una categoria di istituzioni, che cominciò con lo stesso scopo popolare, che da allora ha perseguito un fine assai più angusto, ma che ebbe il grande vantaggio di perseguire davvero un fine, a differenza delle nostre moderne scuole elementari.
In tutti questi problemi vorrei sostenere la soluzione che è positiva, o, come dice la gente sciocca, “ottimistica”. Vorrei cioè oppormi alla maggior parte delle soluzioni che sono soltanto negative e abolizioniste. La maggior parte degli educatori dei poveri sembra credere di dover insegnare al povero a non bere. Io sarei ben contento se gli insegnassero a bere; poiché è la mera ignoranza su come bere e su quando bere che è responsabile della maggior parte delle sue tragedie. Non propongo (come alcuni dei miei amici rivoluzionari) di abolire le scuole pubbliche. Propongo l’esperimento assai più cupo e disperato di renderle pubbliche. Non desidero far cessare il lavoro del Parlamento, ma piuttosto farlo lavorare; non chiudere le chiese, ma piuttosto aprirle; non spegnere la lampada del sapere né abbattere la siepe della proprietà, ma solo compiere qualche rozzo sforzo per rendere le università discretamente universali e la proprietà decentemente propria.
In molti casi, si tenga a mente, tale azione non è un mero ritorno all’antico ideale, ma è addirittura un ritorno all’antica realtà. Sarebbe un gran passo avanti per la bettola tornare alla locanda. È incontrovertibilmente vero che medievalizzare le scuole pubbliche significherebbe democratizzare le scuole pubbliche. Un tempo il Parlamento significava davvero (come il suo nome par suggerire) un luogo dove alle persone era permesso di parlare. È solo di recente che il generale aumento dell’efficienza, cioè dello Speaker, lo ha reso perlopiù un luogo dove alle persone è impedito di parlare. I poveri non vanno alla chiesa moderna, ma andavano alla chiesa antica benissimo; e se l’uomo comune nel passato aveva un grave rispetto per la proprietà, può ben darsi che fosse perché talvolta ne possedeva un po’ di propria. Posso dunque affermare di non avere alcun volgare prurito di innovazione in nulla di ciò che dico su alcuna di queste istituzioni. Certamente non ne ho alcuno in quella particolare che ora sono costretto a estrarre dall’elenco; un tipo di istituzione verso cui ho ragioni genuine e personali per essere amico e riconoscente: intendo le grandi fondazioni Tudor, le scuole pubbliche d’Inghilterra. Sono state lodate per moltissime cose, per lo più, mi rincresce dirlo, lodate da se stesse e dai loro figli. E tuttavia per qualche ragione nessuno le ha mai lodate per l’unica ragione davvero convincente.
X
LE RAGIONI IN FAVORE DELLE SCUOLE PUBBLICHE
La parola successo può naturalmente essere usata in due sensi. Può essere usata in riferimento a una cosa che serve al suo scopo immediato e peculiare, come di una ruota che gira; oppure può essere usata in riferimento a una cosa che accresce il benessere generale, come di una ruota che è un’utile invenzione. Una cosa è dire che la macchina volante di Smith è un fallimento, e tutt’altra è dire che Smith ha fallito nel costruire una macchina volante. Ora questa è, molto in generale, la differenza tra le vecchie scuole pubbliche inglesi e le nuove scuole democratiche. Forse le vecchie scuole pubbliche stanno (come io personalmente credo) in ultima analisi indebolendo il paese anziché rafforzarlo, e sono perciò, in quel senso ultimo, inefficienti. Ma esiste una cosa come l’essere efficientemente inefficienti. Puoi costruire la tua nave volante così che voli, anche se la costruisci pure così che ti uccida. Ora il sistema delle scuole pubbliche può non funzionare in modo soddisfacente, ma funziona; le scuole pubbliche possono non raggiungere ciò che noi vogliamo, ma raggiungono ciò che esse vogliono. Le scuole elementari popolari non raggiungono, in quel senso, proprio nulla. È assai difficile additare un qualsiasi monello per strada e dire che egli incarna l’ideale per cui l’istruzione popolare ha lavorato, nel senso in cui il ragazzo dal viso fresco e sciocco in “abito da Eton” incarna davvero l’ideale per cui i presidi di Harrow e Winchester hanno lavorato. Gli educatori aristocratici hanno lo scopo positivo di sfornare gentiluomini, ed essi sfornano davvero gentiluomini, anche quando li espellono. Gli educatori popolari direbbero di avere l’idea assai più nobile di sfornare cittadini. Concedo che sia un’idea assai più nobile, ma dove sono i cittadini? So che il ragazzo in “abito da Eton” è impettito in uno stoicismo piuttosto sciocco e sentimentale, chiamato l’essere un uomo di mondo. Non m’immagino che il fattorino sia rigido in quello stoicismo repubblicano che si chiama l’essere un cittadino. Lo scolaro dirà davvero con fresca e innocente alterigia: “Sono un gentiluomo inglese”. Non riesco a raffigurarmi così facilmente il fattorino che leva il capo alle stelle e risponde: “Romanus civis sum”. Si conceda pure che i nostri maestri elementari insegnino il codice morale più ampio in assoluto, mentre i nostri grandi presidi insegnano soltanto il codice di buone maniere più angusto. Si conceda pure che entrambe queste cose vengano insegnate. Ma solo una di esse viene appresa.
Si dice sempre che i grandi riformatori o padroni degli eventi riescano a portare a compimento alcune riforme specifiche e pratiche, ma che non realizzino mai le loro visioni né appaghino le loro anime. Credo che vi sia un senso reale in cui questa apparente banalità è del tutto falsa. Per una strana inversione l’idealista politico spesso non ottiene ciò che chiede, ma ottiene ciò che vuole. La silenziosa pressione del suo ideale dura assai più a lungo e riplasma il mondo assai più delle realtà con cui egli tentò di suggerirlo. Ciò che perisce è la lettera, che egli riteneva tanto pratica. Ciò che perdura è lo spirito, che egli sentiva irraggiungibile e persino indicibile. Sono proprio i suoi progetti a non compiersi; è proprio la sua visione a compiersi. Così le dieci o dodici costituzioni cartacee della Rivoluzione francese, che parevano tanto pratiche a chi le redigeva, sembrano a noi essere volate via al vento come le più sfrenate fantasie. Ciò che non è volato via, ciò che è un fatto stabile in Europa, è l’ideale e la visione. La Repubblica, l’idea di una terra piena di meri cittadini tutti con un qualche minimo di buone maniere e minimo di ricchezza, la visione del diciottesimo secolo, la realtà del ventesimo. Così credo che generalmente sarà con il creatore di cose sociali, desiderabili o indesiderabili. Tutti i suoi progetti falliranno, tutti i suoi strumenti si spezzeranno tra le sue mani. I suoi compromessi crolleranno, le sue concessioni saranno inutili. Egli dovrà farsi forza per sopportare il proprio destino; non avrà nulla se non il desiderio del proprio cuore.
Now if one may compare very small things with very great, one may say that the English aristocratic schools can claim something of the same sort of success and solid splendor as the French democratic politics. At least they can claim the same sort of superiority over the distracted and fumbling attempts of modern England to establish democratic education. Such success as has attended the public schoolboy throughout the Empire, a success exaggerated indeed by himself, but still positive and a fact of a certain indisputable shape and size, has been due to the central and supreme circumstance that the managers of our public schools did know what sort of boy they liked. They wanted something and they got something; instead of going to work in the broad-minded manner and wanting everything and getting nothing.
The only thing in question is the quality of the thing they got. There is something highly maddening in the circumstance that when modern people attack an institution that really does demand reform, they always attack it for the wrong reasons. Thus many opponents of our public schools, imagining themselves to be very democratic, have exhausted themselves in an unmeaning attack upon the study of Greek. I can understand how Greek may be regarded as useless, especially by those thirsting to throw themselves into the cut throat commerce which is the negation of citizenship; but I do not understand how it can be considered undemocratic. I quite understand why Mr. Carnegie has a hatred of Greek. It is obscurely founded on the firm and sound impression that in any self-governing Greek city he would have been killed. But I cannot comprehend why any chance democrat, say Mr. Quelch, or Mr. Will Crooks, I or Mr. John M. Robertson, should be opposed to people learning the Greek alphabet, which was the alphabet of liberty. Why should Radicals dislike Greek? In that language is written all the earliest and, Heaven knows, the most heroic history of the Radical party. Why should Greek disgust a democrat, when the very word democrat is Greek?
A similar mistake, though a less serious one, is merely attacking the athletics of public schools as something promoting animalism and brutality. Now brutality, in the only immoral sense, is not a vice of the English public schools. There is much moral bullying, owing to the general lack of moral courage in the public-school atmosphere. These schools do, upon the whole, encourage physical courage; but they do not merely discourage moral courage, they forbid it. The ultimate result of the thing is seen in the egregious English officer who cannot even endure to wear a bright uniform except when it is blurred and hidden in the smoke of battle. This, like all the affectations of our present plutocracy, is an entirely modern thing. It was unknown to the old aristocrats. The Black Prince would certainly have asked that any knight who had the courage to lift his crest among his enemies, should also have the courage to lift it among his friends. As regards moral courage, then it is not so much that the public schools support it feebly, as that they suppress it firmly. But physical courage they do, on the whole, support; and physical courage is a magnificent fundamental. The one great, wise Englishman of the eighteenth century said truly that if a man lost that virtue he could never be sure of keeping any other. Now it is one of the mean and morbid modern lies that physical courage is connected with cruelty. The Tolstoian and Kiplingite are nowhere more at one than in maintaining this. They have, I believe, some small sectarian quarrel with each other, the one saying that courage must be abandoned because it is connected with cruelty, and the other maintaining that cruelty is charming because it is a part of courage. But it is all, thank God, a lie. An energy and boldness of body may make a man stupid or reckless or dull or drunk or hungry, but it does not make him spiteful. And we may admit heartily (without joining in that perpetual praise which public-school men are always pouring upon themselves) that this does operate to the removal of mere evil cruelty in the public schools. English public school life is extremely like English public life, for which it is the preparatory school. It is like it specially in this, that things are either very open, common and conventional, or else are very secret indeed. Now there is cruelty in public schools, just as there is kleptomania and secret drinking and vices without a name. But these things do not flourish in the full daylight and common consciousness of the school, and no more does cruelty. A tiny trio of sullen-looking boys gather in corners and seem to have some ugly business always; it may be indecent literature, it may be the beginning of drink, it may occasionally be cruelty to little boys. But on this stage the bully is not a braggart. The proverb says that bullies are always cowardly, but these bullies are more than cowardly; they are shy.
As a third instance of the wrong form of revolt against the public schools, I may mention the habit of using the word aristocracy with a double implication. To put the plain truth as briefly as possible, if aristocracy means rule by a rich ring, England has aristocracy and the English public schools support it. If it means rule by ancient families or flawless blood, England has not got aristocracy, and the public schools systematically destroy it. In these circles real aristocracy, like real democracy, has become bad form. A modern fashionable host dare not praise his ancestry; it would so often be an insult to half the other oligarchs at table, who have no ancestry. We have said he has not the moral courage to wear his uniform; still less has he the moral courage to wear his coat-of-arms. The whole thing now is only a vague hotch-potch of nice and nasty gentlemen. The nice gentleman never refers to anyone else’s father, the nasty gentleman never refers to his own. That is the only difference, the rest is the public-school manner. But Eton and Harrow have to be aristocratic because they consist so largely of parvenues. The public school is not a sort of refuge for aristocrats, like an asylum, a place where they go in and never come out. It is a factory for aristocrats; they come out without ever having perceptibly gone in. The poor little private schools, in their old-world, sentimental, feudal style, used to stick up a notice, “For the Sons of Gentlemen only.” If the public schools stuck up a notice it ought to be inscribed, “For the Fathers of Gentlemen only.” In two generations they can do the trick.
Ora, se è lecito paragonare cose piccolissime a cose grandissime, si può dire che le scuole aristocratiche inglesi possono vantare qualcosa dello stesso genere di successo e di solido splendore della politica democratica francese. Perlomeno possono rivendicare lo stesso genere di superiorità sui tentativi distratti e maldestri dell’Inghilterra moderna di istituire un’istruzione democratica. Il successo che ha accompagnato l’allievo delle public school in tutto l’Impero, un successo certo esagerato da lui stesso, ma pur sempre positivo e fatto di una forma e di una grandezza indiscutibili, è dovuto alla circostanza centrale e suprema che i responsabili delle nostre public school sapevano che tipo di ragazzo prediligevano. Volevano qualcosa e qualcosa ottenevano; invece di mettersi all’opera in quel modo dalle vedute larghe, volendo ogni cosa e non ottenendo nulla.
L’unica questione è la qualità di ciò che ottennero. C’è qualcosa di profondamente esasperante nella circostanza che, quando le persone moderne attaccano un’istituzione che davvero esige una riforma, la attaccano sempre per le ragioni sbagliate. Così molti avversari delle nostre public school, immaginandosi democraticissimi, si sono sfiancati in un attacco insensato allo studio del greco. Posso capire come il greco possa essere ritenuto inutile, specie da chi anela a gettarsi in quel commercio spietato che è la negazione della cittadinanza; ma non capisco come possa essere considerato antidemocratico. Capisco benissimo perché Mr. Carnegie odii il greco. È oscuramente fondato sulla ferma e giusta impressione che in qualsiasi città greca autogovernata egli sarebbe stato ucciso. Ma non riesco a comprendere perché un qualsiasi democratico d’occasione, poniamo Mr. Quelch, o Mr. Will Crooks, o Mr. John M. Robertson, dovrebbe opporsi a che la gente impari l’alfabeto greco, che fu l’alfabeto della libertà. Perché i Radicali dovrebbero detestare il greco? In quella lingua è scritta tutta la più antica e, Dio sa, la più eroica storia del partito radicale. Perché il greco dovrebbe disgustare un democratico, quando la parola stessa democratico è greca?
Un errore analogo, benché meno grave, è il semplice attacco all’atletismo delle public school come a qualcosa che promuove l’animalità e la brutalità. Ora la brutalità, nell’unico senso immorale, non è un vizio delle public school inglesi. Vi è molto sopruso morale, dovuto alla generale mancanza di coraggio morale nell’atmosfera delle public school. Queste scuole, nel complesso, incoraggiano il coraggio fisico; ma non si limitano a scoraggiare il coraggio morale, lo proibiscono. Il risultato ultimo della cosa si vede nell’egregio ufficiale inglese che non sopporta nemmeno di indossare una divisa sgargiante se non quando è offuscata e nascosta nel fumo della battaglia. Questo, come tutte le affettazioni della nostra attuale plutocrazia, è cosa interamente moderna. Era ignoto agli antichi aristocratici. Il Principe Nero avrebbe certo preteso che ogni cavaliere che avesse il coraggio di levare il proprio cimiero tra i nemici, avesse anche il coraggio di levarlo tra gli amici. Quanto al coraggio morale, dunque, non è tanto che le public school lo sostengano debolmente, quanto che lo reprimano fermamente. Ma il coraggio fisico lo sostengono, nel complesso; e il coraggio fisico è un fondamento magnifico. Il solo grande, saggio inglese del diciottesimo secolo disse con verità che se un uomo perdeva quella virtù non poteva mai esser sicuro di conservarne alcun’altra. Ora è una delle meschine e morbose menzogne moderne che il coraggio fisico sia connesso alla crudeltà. Il tolstoiano e il kiplingiano in nulla sono più d’accordo che nel sostenere questo. Hanno, credo, qualche piccola disputa settaria fra loro, dicendo l’uno che il coraggio va abbandonato perché è connesso alla crudeltà, e sostenendo l’altro che la crudeltà è affascinante perché è parte del coraggio. Ma è tutto, grazie a Dio, una menzogna. Un’energia e un’audacia del corpo possono rendere un uomo stupido o temerario o ottuso o ubriaco o affamato, ma non lo rendono maligno. E possiamo ammettere di cuore (senza unirci a quella perpetua lode che gli uomini delle public school si riversano di continuo addosso) che ciò opera per la rimozione della mera cattiva crudeltà nelle public school. La vita delle public school inglesi è estremamente simile alla vita pubblica inglese, di cui è la scuola preparatoria. Le somiglia specialmente in questo, che le cose o sono molto aperte, comuni e convenzionali, oppure sono davvero molto segrete. Ora vi è crudeltà nelle public school, proprio come vi è cleptomania e bere di nascosto e vizi senza nome. Ma queste cose non prosperano nella piena luce del giorno e nella comune coscienza della scuola, e nemmeno la crudeltà lo fa. Un minuscolo terzetto di ragazzi dall’aria imbronciata si raduna negli angoli e pare avere sempre qualche losco affare; può essere letteratura indecente, può essere l’inizio del bere, può essere di quando in quando crudeltà verso i ragazzini. Ma su questo palcoscenico il prepotente non è un fanfarone. Il proverbio dice che i prepotenti sono sempre codardi, ma questi prepotenti sono più che codardi; sono timidi.
Come terzo esempio della forma sbagliata di rivolta contro le public school, posso citare l’abitudine di usare la parola aristocrazia con un doppio sottinteso. Per dire la verità schietta nel modo più breve possibile, se aristocrazia significa dominio di una ricca cricca, l’Inghilterra ha l’aristocrazia e le public school inglesi la sostengono. Se significa dominio di famiglie antiche o di sangue immacolato, l’Inghilterra non ha l’aristocrazia, e le public school sistematicamente la distruggono. In questi ambienti la vera aristocrazia, come la vera democrazia, è divenuta cattivo gusto. Un moderno anfitrione alla moda non osa lodare i propri antenati; sarebbe così spesso un insulto a metà degli altri oligarchi a tavola, che di antenati non ne hanno. Abbiamo detto che non ha il coraggio morale di indossare la divisa; ancor meno ha il coraggio morale di portare il proprio stemma. Il tutto ormai è solo un vago guazzabuglio di gentiluomini piacevoli e sgradevoli. Il gentiluomo piacevole non allude mai al padre di qualcun altro, il gentiluomo sgradevole non allude mai al proprio. È questa la sola differenza, il resto è il modo delle public school. Ma Eton e Harrow devono essere aristocratiche perché constano in gran parte di parvenu. La public school non è una sorta di rifugio per aristocratici, come un asilo, un luogo dove essi entrano e non escono più. È una fabbrica di aristocratici; ne escono senza esservi mai percettibilmente entrati. Le povere piccole scuole private, nel loro stile antico, sentimentale, feudale, usavano affiggere un avviso: “Solo per i Figli di Gentiluomini”. Se le public school affiggessero un avviso, dovrebbe recare l’iscrizione: “Solo per i Padri di Gentiluomini”. In due generazioni possono compiere il trucco.
XI
THE SCHOOL FOR HYPOCRITES
These are the false accusations; the accusation of classicism, the accusation of cruelty, and the accusation of an exclusiveness based on perfection of pedigree. English public-school boys are not pedants, they are not torturers; and they are not, in the vast majority of cases, people fiercely proud of their ancestry, or even people with any ancestry to be proud of. They are taught to be courteous, to be good tempered, to be brave in a bodily sense, to be clean in a bodily sense; they are generally kind to animals, generally civil to servants, and to anyone in any sense their equal, the jolliest companions on earth. Is there then anything wrong in the public-school ideal? I think we all feel there is something very wrong in it, but a blinding network of newspaper phraseology obscures and entangles us; so that it is hard to trace to its beginning, beyond all words and phrases, the faults in this great English achievement.
Surely, when all is said, the ultimate objection to the English public school is its utterly blatant and indecent disregard of the duty of telling the truth. I know there does still linger among maiden ladies in remote country houses a notion that English schoolboys are taught to tell the truth, but it cannot be maintained seriously for a moment. Very occasionally, very vaguely, English schoolboys are told not to tell lies, which is a totally different thing. I may silently support all the obscene fictions and forgeries in the universe, without once telling a lie. I may wear another man’s coat, steal another man’s wit, apostatize to another man’s creed, or poison another man’s coffee, all without ever telling a lie. But no English school-boy is ever taught to tell the truth, for the very simple reason that he is never taught to desire the truth. From the very first he is taught to be totally careless about whether a fact is a fact; he is taught to care only whether the fact can be used on his “side” when he is engaged in “playing the game.” He takes sides in his Union debating society to settle whether Charles I ought to have been killed, with the same solemn and pompous frivolity with which he takes sides in the cricket field to decide whether Rugby or Westminster shall win. He is never allowed to admit the abstract notion of the truth, that the match is a matter of what may happen, but that Charles I is a matter of what did happen—or did not. He is Liberal or Tory at the general election exactly as he is Oxford or Cambridge at the boat race. He knows that sport deals with the unknown; he has not even a notion that politics should deal with the known. If anyone really doubts this self-evident proposition, that the public schools definitely discourage the love of truth, there is one fact which I should think would settle him. England is the country of the Party System, and it has always been chiefly run by public-school men. Is there anyone out of Hanwell who will maintain that the Party System, whatever its conveniences or inconveniences, could have been created by people particularly fond of truth?
The very English happiness on this point is itself a hypocrisy. When a man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself is a liar. David said in his haste, that is, in his honesty, that all men are liars. It was afterwards, in some leisurely official explanation, that he said the Kings of Israel at least told the truth. When Lord Curzon was Viceroy he delivered a moral lecture to the Indians on their reputed indifference to veracity, to actuality and intellectual honor. A great many people indignantly discussed whether orientals deserved to receive this rebuke; whether Indians were indeed in a position to receive such severe admonition. No one seemed to ask, as I should venture to ask, whether Lord Curzon was in a position to give it. He is an ordinary party politician; a party politician means a politician who might have belonged to either party. Being such a person, he must again and again, at every twist and turn of party strategy, either have deceived others or grossly deceived himself. I do not know the East; nor do I like what I know. I am quite ready to believe that when Lord Curzon went out he found a very false atmosphere. I only say it must have been something startlingly and chokingly false if it was falser than that English atmosphere from which he came. The English Parliament actually cares for everything except veracity. The public-school man is kind, courageous, polite, clean, companionable; but, in the most awful sense of the words, the truth is not in him.
This weakness of untruthfulness in the English public schools, in the English political system, and to some extent in the English character, is a weakness which necessarily produces a curious crop of superstitions, of lying legends, of evident delusions clung to through low spiritual self-indulgence. There are so many of these public-school superstitions that I have here only space for one of them, which may be called the superstition of soap. It appears to have been shared by the ablutionary Pharisees, who resembled the English public-school aristocrats in so many respects: in their care about club rules and traditions, in their offensive optimism at the expense of other people, and above all in their unimaginative plodding patriotism in the worst interests of their country. Now the old human common sense about washing is that it is a great pleasure. Water (applied externally) is a splendid thing, like wine. Sybarites bathe in wine, and Nonconformists drink water; but we are not concerned with these frantic exceptions. Washing being a pleasure, it stands to reason that rich people can afford it more than poor people, and as long as this was recognized all was well; and it was very right that rich people should offer baths to poor people, as they might offer any other agreeable thing— a drink or a donkey ride. But one dreadful day, somewhere about the middle of the nineteenth century, somebody discovered (somebody pretty well off) the two great modern truths, that washing is a virtue in the rich and therefore a duty in the poor. For a duty is a virtue that one can’t do. And a virtue is generally a duty that one can do quite easily; like the bodily cleanliness of the upper classes. But in the public-school tradition of public life, soap has become creditable simply because it is pleasant. Baths are represented as a part of the decay of the Roman Empire; but the same baths are represented as part of the energy and rejuvenation of the British Empire. There are distinguished public school men, bishops, dons, headmasters, and high politicians, who, in the course of the eulogies which from time to time they pass upon themselves, have actually identified physical cleanliness with moral purity. They say (if I remember rightly) that a public-school man is clean inside and out. As if everyone did not know that while saints can afford to be dirty, seducers have to be clean. As if everyone did not know that the harlot must be clean, because it is her business to captivate, while the good wife may be dirty, because it is her business to clean. As if we did not all know that whenever God’s thunder cracks above us, it is very likely indeed to find the simplest man in a muck cart and the most complex blackguard in a bath.
XI
LA SCUOLA PER IPOCRITI
Queste sono le false accuse; l’accusa di classicismo, l’accusa di crudeltà, e l’accusa di un’esclusività fondata sulla perfezione del lignaggio. I ragazzi delle public school inglesi non sono pedanti, non sono aguzzini; e non sono, nella stragrande maggioranza dei casi, persone ferocemente orgogliose dei propri antenati, e nemmeno persone che abbiano antenati di cui andare fiere. Vengono educati a essere cortesi, a essere di buon carattere, a essere coraggiosi in senso corporeo, a essere puliti in senso corporeo; sono in genere gentili con gli animali, in genere civili con i domestici, e con chiunque sia in qualche senso loro pari, i più allegri compagni della terra. C’è dunque qualcosa di sbagliato nell’ideale della public school? Credo che tutti sentiamo esservi qualcosa di assai sbagliato in esso, ma un’accecante rete di fraseologia giornalistica ci offusca e ci imbriglia; sicché è difficile risalire fino al principio, al di là di tutte le parole e le frasi, dei difetti di questa grande conquista inglese.
Di certo, quando tutto è stato detto, l’obiezione ultima alla public school inglese è il suo disprezzo assolutamente sfacciato e indecente del dovere di dire la verità. So che indugia ancora fra le zitelle nelle remote case di campagna l’idea che agli scolari inglesi si insegni a dire la verità, ma essa non può essere sostenuta seriamente neppure per un istante. Molto di rado, molto vagamente, agli scolari inglesi si dice di non dire bugie, il che è una cosa del tutto diversa. Io posso sostenere in silenzio tutte le oscene finzioni e falsificazioni dell’universo, senza mai dire una sola bugia. Posso indossare il cappotto di un altro, rubare l’arguzia di un altro, apostatare al credo di un altro, o avvelenare il caffè di un altro, il tutto senza mai dire una bugia. Ma a nessuno scolaro inglese si insegna mai a dire la verità, per la semplicissima ragione che non gli si insegna mai a desiderare la verità. Fin dal primo momento gli si insegna a essere totalmente incurante del fatto che un fatto sia un fatto; gli si insegna a curarsi soltanto se il fatto possa essere usato dalla sua “parte” mentre è impegnato a “giocare la partita”. Prende posizione nella sua società di dibattito della Union per stabilire se Carlo I avrebbe dovuto essere ucciso, con la stessa solenne e pomposa frivolezza con cui prende posizione sul campo di cricket per decidere se debbano vincere Rugby o Westminster. Non gli è mai concesso di ammettere la nozione astratta della verità, che la partita è una questione di ciò che può accadere, ma che Carlo I è una questione di ciò che è accaduto—o non è accaduto. È Liberale o Tory alle elezioni generali esattamente come è Oxford o Cambridge alla gara di canottaggio. Sa che lo sport ha a che fare con l’ignoto; non ha nemmeno la minima idea che la politica dovrebbe avere a che fare con il noto. Se qualcuno dubita davvero di questa proposizione auto-evidente, che le public school scoraggiano decisamente l’amore della verità, c’è un fatto che, credo, lo metterebbe a tacere. L’Inghilterra è il paese del Sistema dei Partiti, ed è sempre stata governata principalmente da uomini di public school. C’è qualcuno, fuori da Hanwell, che voglia sostenere che il Sistema dei Partiti, quali che siano le sue comodità o scomodità, avrebbe potuto essere creato da gente particolarmente amante della verità?
La stessa felicità inglese su questo punto è essa stessa un’ipocrisia. Quando un uomo dice davvero la verità, la prima verità che dice è che egli stesso è un bugiardo. Davide disse nella sua fretta, ossia nella sua onestà, che tutti gli uomini sono bugiardi. Fu in seguito, in qualche pacata spiegazione ufficiale, che disse che i Re d’Israele almeno dicevano la verità. Quando Lord Curzon era Viceré tenne una predica morale agli indiani sulla loro reputata indifferenza per la veridicità, per l’effettualità e per l’onore intellettuale. Moltissime persone discussero con indignazione se gli orientali meritassero di ricevere questo rimprovero; se gli indiani fossero davvero nella posizione di ricevere un ammonimento tanto severo. Nessuno parve chiedersi, come io oserei chiedermi, se Lord Curzon fosse nella posizione di darlo. È un comune politico di partito; un politico di partito significa un politico che avrebbe potuto appartenere all’uno o all’altro partito. Essendo una tale persona, egli deve, di continuo, a ogni giro e svolta della strategia di partito, aver ingannato altri o aver grossolanamente ingannato se stesso. Non conosco l’Oriente; né mi piace ciò che ne conosco. Sono del tutto disposto a credere che, quando Lord Curzon vi si recò, trovò un’atmosfera assai falsa. Dico soltanto che deve essere stata qualcosa di sbalorditivamente e soffocantemente falso se era più falsa di quell’atmosfera inglese da cui egli proveniva. Il Parlamento inglese in realtà si cura di ogni cosa tranne che della veridicità. L’uomo di public school è gentile, coraggioso, garbato, pulito, socievole; ma, nel senso più tremendo delle parole, la verità non è in lui.
Questa debolezza della falsità nelle public school inglesi, nel sistema politico inglese, e in certa misura nel carattere inglese, è una debolezza che produce necessariamente una curiosa messe di superstizioni, di leggende menzognere, di evidenti illusioni a cui ci si aggrappa per bassa auto-indulgenza spirituale. Vi sono tante di queste superstizioni da public school che qui ho spazio soltanto per una di esse, che si potrebbe chiamare la superstizione del sapone. Pare che essa fosse condivisa dai Farisei abluzionari, che assomigliavano agli aristocratici delle public school inglesi sotto tanti aspetti: nella loro cura per le regole e le tradizioni del club, nel loro offensivo ottimismo a spese degli altri, e soprattutto nel loro sfaticato e privo di immaginazione patriottismo esercitato nel peggior interesse del loro paese. Ora, l’antico buon senso umano intorno al lavarsi è che esso è un grande piacere. L’acqua (applicata esternamente) è una cosa splendida, come il vino. I sibariti si bagnano nel vino, e i Non-conformisti bevono l’acqua; ma noi non ci occupiamo di queste frenetiche eccezioni. Essendo il lavarsi un piacere, è logico che i ricchi possano permetterselo più dei poveri, e finché ciò fu riconosciuto tutto andava bene; ed era giustissimo che i ricchi offrissero bagni ai poveri, come potevano offrire qualsiasi altra cosa piacevole— una bevanda o una cavalcata sull’asino. Ma un giorno terribile, verso la metà del diciannovesimo secolo, qualcuno scoprì (qualcuno piuttosto benestante) le due grandi verità moderne, che il lavarsi è una virtù nei ricchi e perciò un dovere nei poveri. Poiché un dovere è una virtù che non si può compiere. E una virtù è generalmente un dovere che si può compiere assai facilmente; come la pulizia corporea delle classi superiori. Ma nella tradizione da public school della vita pubblica, il sapone è divenuto meritevole di lode semplicemente perché è piacevole. I bagni vengono rappresentati come una parte della decadenza dell’Impero Romano; ma quegli stessi bagni vengono rappresentati come parte dell’energia e del ringiovanimento dell’Impero Britannico. Vi sono illustri uomini di public school, vescovi, docenti, presidi e alti politici, i quali, nel corso degli elogi che di tempo in tempo rivolgono a se stessi, hanno addirittura identificato la pulizia fisica con la purezza morale. Dicono (se ricordo bene) che un uomo di public school è pulito dentro e fuori. Come se non tutti sapessero che, mentre i santi possono permettersi di essere sudici, i seduttori devono essere puliti. Come se non tutti sapessero che la meretrice deve essere pulita, perché è suo mestiere ammaliare, mentre la buona moglie può essere sudicia, perché è suo mestiere pulire. Come se non sapessimo tutti che, ogni volta che il tuono di Dio scoppia sopra di noi, è davvero assai probabile che trovi l’uomo più semplice su un carro di letame e il più complesso furfante in una vasca da bagno.
There are other instances, of course, of this oily trick of turning the pleasures of a gentleman into the virtues of an Anglo-Saxon. Sport, like soap, is an admirable thing, but, like soap, it is an agreeable thing. And it does not sum up all mortal merits to be a sportsman playing the game in a world where it is so often necessary to be a workman doing the work. By all means let a gentleman congratulate himself that he has not lost his natural love of pleasure, as against the blase, and unchildlike. But when one has the childlike joy it is best to have also the childlike unconsciousness; and I do not think we should have special affection for the little boy who ever lastingly explained that it was his duty to play Hide and Seek and one of his family virtues to be prominent in Puss in the Corner.
Another such irritating hypocrisy is the oligarchic attitude towards mendicity as against organized charity. Here again, as in the case of cleanliness and of athletics, the attitude would be perfectly human and intelligible if it were not maintained as a merit. Just as the obvious thing about soap is that it is a convenience, so the obvious thing about beggars is that they are an inconvenience. The rich would deserve very little blame if they simply said that they never dealt directly with beggars, because in modern urban civilization it is impossible to deal directly with beggars; or if not impossible, at least very difficult. But these people do not refuse money to beggars on the ground that such charity is difficult. They refuse it on the grossly hypocritical ground that such charity is easy. They say, with the most grotesque gravity, “Anyone can put his hand in his pocket and give a poor man a penny; but we, philanthropists, go home and brood and travail over the poor man’s troubles until we have discovered exactly what jail, reformatory, workhouse, or lunatic asylum it will really be best for him to go to.” This is all sheer lying. They do not brood about the man when they get home, and if they did it would not alter the original fact that their motive for discouraging beggars is the perfectly rational one that beggars are a bother. A man may easily be forgiven for not doing this or that incidental act of charity, especially when the question is as genuinely difficult as is the case of mendicity. But there is something quite pestilently Pecksniffian about shrinking from a hard task on the plea that it is not hard enough. If any man will really try talking to the ten beggars who come to his door he will soon find out whether it is really so much easier than the labor of writing a check for a hospital.
XII
THE STALENESS OF THE NEW SCHOOLS
For this deep and disabling reason therefore, its cynical and abandoned indifference to the truth, the English public school does not provide us with the ideal that we require. We can only ask its modern critics to remember that right or wrong the thing can be done; the factory is working, the wheels are going around, the gentlemen are being produced, with their soap, cricket and organized charity all complete. And in this, as we have said before, the public school really has an advantage over all the other educational schemes of our time. You can pick out a public-school man in any of the many companies into which they stray, from a Chinese opium den to a German Jewish dinner-party. But I doubt if you could tell which little match girl had been brought up by undenominational religion and which by secular education. The great English aristocracy which has ruled us since the Reformation is really, in this sense, a model to the moderns. It did have an ideal, and therefore it has produced a reality.
We may repeat here that these pages propose mainly to show one thing: that progress ought to be based on principle, while our modern progress is mostly based on precedent. We go, not by what may be affirmed in theory, but by what has been already admitted in practice. That is why the Jacobites are the last Tories in history with whom a high-spirited person can have much sympathy. They wanted a specific thing; they were ready to go forward for it, and so they were also ready to go back for it. But modern Tories have only the dullness of defending situations that they had not the excitement of creating. Revolutionists make a reform, Conservatives only conserve the reform. They never reform the reform, which is often very much wanted. Just as the rivalry of armaments is only a sort of sulky plagiarism, so the rivalry of parties is only a sort of sulky inheritance. Men have votes, so women must soon have votes; poor children are taught by force, so they must soon be fed by force; the police shut public houses by twelve o’clock, so soon they must shut them by eleven o’clock; children stop at school till they are fourteen, so soon they will stop till they are forty. No gleam of reason, no momentary return to first principles, no abstract asking of any obvious question, can interrupt this mad and monotonous gallop of mere progress by precedent. It is a good way to prevent real revolution. By this logic of events, the Radical gets as much into a rut as the Conservative. We meet one hoary old lunatic who says his grandfather told him to stand by one stile. We meet another hoary old lunatic who says his grandfather told him only to walk along one lane.
I say we may repeat here this primary part of the argument, because we have just now come to the place where it is most startlingly and strongly shown. The final proof that our elementary schools have no definite ideal of their own is the fact that they so openly imitate the ideals of the public schools. In the elementary schools we have all the ethical prejudices and exaggerations of Eton and Harrow carefully copied for people to whom they do not even roughly apply. We have the same wildly disproportionate doctrine of the effect of physical cleanliness on moral character. Educators and educational politicians declare, amid warm cheers, that cleanliness is far more important than all the squabbles about moral and religious training. It would really seem that so long as a little boy washes his hands it does not matter whether he is washing off his mother’s jam or his brother’s gore. We have the same grossly insincere pretense that sport always encourages a sense of honor, when we know that it often ruins it. Above all, we have the same great upperclass assumption that things are done best by large institutions handling large sums of money and ordering everybody about; and that trivial and impulsive charity is in some way contemptible. As Mr. Blatchford says, “The world does not want piety, but soap— and Socialism.” Piety is one of the popular virtues, whereas soap and Socialism are two hobbies of the upper middle class.
Vi sono naturalmente altri esempi di questo untuoso trucco di trasformare i piaceri di un gentiluomo nelle virtù di un anglosassone. Lo sport, come il sapone, è cosa ammirevole, ma, come il sapone, è cosa gradevole. E non riassume tutti i meriti mortali l’essere uno sportivo che gioca la sua partita in un mondo in cui è così spesso necessario essere un operaio che fa il suo lavoro. Con tutto il cuore lasciamo pure che un gentiluomo si congratuli con sé stesso di non aver perduto il suo naturale amore del piacere, a differenza degli individui blasé e privi d’infanzia. Ma quando si possiede la gioia fanciullesca è meglio possedere anche l’incoscienza fanciullesca; e non credo che dovremmo nutrire particolare affetto per quel bambino che spiegasse in eterno che era suo dovere giocare a Rimpiattino e una delle virtù di famiglia il distinguersi al gioco del Gatto nell’angolo.
Un’altra ipocrisia altrettanto irritante è l’atteggiamento oligarchico verso l’accattonaggio contrapposto alla carità organizzata. Anche qui, come nel caso della pulizia e dell’atletica, l’atteggiamento sarebbe perfettamente umano e comprensibile se non fosse sostenuto come un merito. Proprio come la cosa evidente riguardo al sapone è che è una comodità, così la cosa evidente riguardo ai mendicanti è che sono una scomodità. I ricchi meriterebbero ben poco biasimo se dicessero semplicemente di non avere mai a che fare direttamente con i mendicanti, perché nella moderna civiltà urbana è impossibile avere a che fare direttamente con i mendicanti; o se non impossibile, almeno assai difficile. Ma costoro non rifiutano il denaro ai mendicanti col pretesto che tale carità sia difficile. Lo rifiutano sull’ipocritissimo pretesto che tale carità sia facile. Dicono, con la più grottesca gravità: “Chiunque può mettere la mano in tasca e dare a un pover’uomo un soldo; ma noi, filantropi, torniamo a casa e rimuginiamo e ci affanniamo sui guai del pover’uomo finché non abbiamo scoperto esattamente quale prigione, riformatorio, ospizio o manicomio sia davvero meglio per lui frequentare”. Tutto questo è pura menzogna. Non rimuginano affatto sull’uomo quando arrivano a casa, e se anche lo facessero non muterebbe il fatto originario che il loro motivo per scoraggiare i mendicanti è quello perfettamente razionale che i mendicanti sono una seccatura. Un uomo può essere facilmente perdonato per non aver compiuto questo o quell’atto occasionale di carità, specialmente quando la questione è genuinamente difficile come nel caso dell’accattonaggio. Ma vi è qualcosa di pestilenzialmente pecksniffiano nel tirarsi indietro davanti a un compito arduo col pretesto che non sia abbastanza arduo. Se un uomo proverà davvero a parlare con i dieci mendicanti che giungono alla sua porta, scoprirà presto se sia davvero tanto più facile della fatica di scrivere un assegno per un ospedale.
XII
LA STANTIA DELLE NUOVE SCUOLE
Per questa profonda e paralizzante ragione, dunque, per la sua cinica e dissoluta indifferenza verso la verità, la public school inglese non ci fornisce l’ideale di cui abbiamo bisogno. Possiamo soltanto chiedere ai suoi critici moderni di ricordare che, a torto o a ragione, la cosa può essere fatta; la fabbrica è in funzione, le ruote girano, i gentiluomini vengono prodotti, col loro sapone, il loro cricket e la loro carità organizzata al completo. E in questo, come abbiamo già detto, la public school ha davvero un vantaggio su tutti gli altri schemi educativi del nostro tempo. Puoi riconoscere un uomo di public school in una qualsiasi delle molte compagnie in cui costoro si smarriscono, da una fumeria d’oppio cinese a un pranzo di ebrei tedeschi. Ma dubito che tu possa dire quale piccola fiammiferaia sia stata allevata dalla religione non confessionale e quale dall’educazione laica. La grande aristocrazia inglese che ci governa fin dalla Riforma è davvero, in questo senso, un modello per i moderni. Essa ebbe un ideale, e perciò ha prodotto una realtà.
Possiamo ripetere qui che queste pagine si propongono soprattutto di mostrare una cosa: che il progresso dovrebbe fondarsi sul principio, mentre il nostro progresso moderno si fonda per lo più sul precedente. Procediamo non secondo ciò che può essere affermato in teoria, ma secondo ciò che è già stato ammesso nella pratica. Ecco perché i giacobiti sono gli ultimi Tory nella storia verso i quali una persona di nobile animo possa nutrire molta simpatia. Volevano una cosa precisa; erano pronti ad andare avanti per essa, e così erano anche pronti a tornare indietro per essa. Ma i Tory moderni hanno soltanto la tediosità di difendere situazioni che non ebbero l’emozione di creare. I rivoluzionari fanno una riforma, i conservatori si limitano a conservare la riforma. Non riformano mai la riforma, cosa che è spesso quanto mai necessaria. Proprio come la rivalità degli armamenti è solo una sorta di imbronciato plagio, così la rivalità dei partiti è solo una sorta di imbronciata eredità. Gli uomini hanno il voto, dunque le donne dovranno presto avere il voto; i bambini poveri sono istruiti a forza, dunque dovranno presto essere nutriti a forza; la polizia chiude le osterie alle dodici in punto, dunque presto dovrà chiuderle alle undici in punto; i bambini restano a scuola finché non hanno quattordici anni, dunque presto vi resteranno finché non ne avranno quaranta. Nessun barlume di ragione, nessun momentaneo ritorno ai primi principi, nessuna astratta formulazione di una qualche ovvia domanda può interrompere questo folle e monotono galoppo del mero progresso per precedente. È un ottimo modo per prevenire la rivoluzione vera. Per questa logica degli eventi, il Radicale finisce in un solco proprio quanto il Conservatore. Incontriamo un vecchio pazzo incanutito che dice che suo nonno gli ordinò di restare presso una certa staccionata. Incontriamo un altro vecchio pazzo incanutito che dice che suo nonno gli ordinò di camminare soltanto lungo un certo vicolo.
Dico che possiamo ripetere qui questa parte fondamentale dell’argomentazione, perché siamo appena giunti al punto in cui essa si mostra nel modo più sorprendente e più forte. La prova definitiva che le nostre scuole elementari non hanno alcun ideale definito proprio è il fatto che imitano così apertamente gli ideali delle public school. Nelle scuole elementari abbiamo tutti i pregiudizi etici e le esagerazioni di Eton e Harrow accuratamente copiati per gente a cui non si applicano nemmeno alla lontana. Abbiamo la stessa dottrina selvaggiamente sproporzionata riguardo all’effetto della pulizia fisica sul carattere morale. Educatori e politici dell’istruzione dichiarano, tra calorosi applausi, che la pulizia è assai più importante di tutte le baruffe sull’educazione morale e religiosa. Parrebbe davvero che, purché un bambino si lavi le mani, non importi se stia lavando via la marmellata di sua madre o il sangue di suo fratello. Abbiamo la stessa grossolanamente insincera pretesa che lo sport incoraggi sempre il senso dell’onore, quando sappiamo che spesso lo rovina. Soprattutto, abbiamo la stessa grande presunzione dell’alta classe secondo cui le cose si fanno meglio con grandi istituzioni che maneggiano grandi somme di denaro e comandano tutti; e che la carità modesta e impulsiva sia in qualche modo spregevole. Come dice il signor Blatchford: “Il mondo non vuole la pietà, ma il sapone… e il Socialismo”. La pietà è una delle virtù popolari, mentre il sapone e il Socialismo sono due hobby della media borghesia alta.
These “healthy” ideals, as they are called, which our politicians and schoolmasters have borrowed from the aristocratic schools and applied to the democratic, are by no means particularly appropriate to an impoverished democracy. A vague admiration for organized government and a vague distrust of individual aid cannot be made to fit in at all into the lives of people among whom kindness means lending a saucepan and honor means keeping out of the workhouse. It resolves itself either into discouraging that system of prompt and patchwork generosity which is a daily glory of the poor, or else into hazy advice to people who have no money not to give it recklessly away. Nor is the exaggerated glory of athletics, defensible enough in dealing with the rich who, if they did not romp and race, would eat and drink unwholesomely, by any means so much to the point when applied to people, most of whom will take a great deal of exercise anyhow, with spade or hammer, pickax or saw. And for the third case, of washing, it is obvious that the same sort of rhetoric about corporeal daintiness which is proper to an ornamental class cannot, merely as it stands, be applicable to a dustman. A gentleman is expected to be substantially spotless all the time. But it is no more discreditable for a scavenger to be dirty than for a deep-sea diver to be wet. A sweep is no more disgraced when he is covered with soot than Michael Angelo when he is covered with clay, or Bayard when he is covered with blood. Nor have these extenders of the public-school tradition done or suggested anything by way of a substitute for the present snobbish system which makes cleanliness almost impossible to the poor; I mean the general ritual of linen and the wearing of the cast-off clothes of the rich. One man moves into another man’s clothes as he moves into another man’s house. No wonder that our educationists are not horrified at a man picking up the aristocrat’s second-hand trousers, when they themselves have only taken up the aristocrat’s second-hand ideas.
XIII
THE OUTLAWED PARENT
There is one thing at least of which there is never so much as a whisper inside the popular schools; and that is the opinion of the people. The only persons who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parents. Yet the English poor have very definite traditions in many ways. They are hidden under embarrassment and irony; and those psychologists who have disentangled them talk of them as very strange, barbaric and secretive things. But, as a matter of fact, the traditions of the poor are mostly simply the traditions of humanity, a thing which many of us have not seen for some time. For instance, workingmen have a tradition that if one is talking about a vile thing it is better to talk of it in coarse language; one is the less likely to be seduced into excusing it. But mankind had this tradition also, until the Puritans and their children, the Ibsenites, started the opposite idea, that it does not matter what you say so long as you say it with long words and a long face. Or again, the educated classes have tabooed most jesting about personal appearance; but in doing this they taboo not only the humor of the slums, but more than half the healthy literature of the world; they put polite nose-bags on the noses of Punch and Bardolph, Stiggins and Cyrano de Bergerac. Again, the educated classes have adopted a hideous and heathen custom of considering death as too dreadful to talk about, and letting it remain a secret for each person, like some private malformation. The poor, on the contrary, make a great gossip and display about bereavement; and they are right. They have hold of a truth of psychology which is at the back of all the funeral customs of the children of men. The way to lessen sorrow is to make a lot of it. The way to endure a painful crisis is to insist very much that it is a crisis; to permit people who must feel sad at least to feel important. In this the poor are simply the priests of the universal civilization; and in their stuffy feasts and solemn chattering there is the smell of the baked meats of Hamlet and the dust and echo of the funeral games of Patroclus.
The things philanthropists barely excuse (or do not excuse) in the life of the laboring classes are simply the things we have to excuse in all the greatest monuments of man. It may be that the laborer is as gross as Shakespeare or as garrulous as Homer; that if he is religious he talks nearly as much about hell as Dante; that if he is worldly he talks nearly as much about drink as Dickens. Nor is the poor man without historic support if he thinks less of that ceremonial washing which Christ dismissed, and rather more of that ceremonial drinking which Christ specially sanctified. The only difference between the poor man of to-day and the saints and heroes of history is that which in all classes separates the common man who can feel things from the great man who can express them. What he feels is merely the heritage of man. Now nobody expects of course that the cabmen and coal-heavers can be complete instructors of their children any more than the squires and colonels and tea merchants are complete instructors of their children. There must be an educational specialist in loco parentis. But the master at Harrow is in loco parentis; the master in Hoxton is rather contra parentem. The vague politics of the squire, the vaguer virtues of the colonel, the soul and spiritual yearnings of a tea merchant, are, in veritable practice, conveyed to the children of these people at the English public schools. But I wish here to ask a very plain and emphatic question. Can anyone alive even pretend to point out any way in which these special virtues and traditions of the poor are reproduced in the education of the poor? I do not wish the coster’s irony to appeal as coarsely in the school as it does in the tap room; but does it appear at all? Is the child taught to sympathize at all with his father’s admirable cheerfulness and slang? I do not expect the pathetic, eager pietas of the mother, with her funeral clothes and funeral baked meats, to be exactly imitated in the educational system; but has it any influence at all on the educational system? Does any elementary schoolmaster accord it even an instant’s consideration or respect? I do not expect the schoolmaster to hate hospitals and C.O.S. centers so much as the schoolboy’s father; but does he hate them at all? Does he sympathize in the least with the poor man’s point of honor against official institutions? Is it not quite certain that the ordinary elementary schoolmaster will think it not merely natural but simply conscientious to eradicate all these rugged legends of a laborious people, and on principle to preach soap and Socialism against beer and liberty? In the lower classes the school master does not work for the parent, but against the parent. Modern education means handing down the customs of the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority. Instead of their Christlike charity, their Shakespearean laughter and their high Homeric reverence for the dead, the poor have imposed on them mere pedantic copies of the prejudices of the remote rich. They must think a bathroom a necessity because to the lucky it is a luxury; they must swing Swedish clubs because their masters are afraid of English cudgels; and they must get over their prejudice against being fed by the parish, because aristocrats feel no shame about being fed by the nation.
Questi ideali “sani”, come li chiamano, che i nostri politici e i nostri maestri hanno preso in prestito dalle scuole aristocratiche per applicarli a quelle democratiche, non sono affatto particolarmente adatti a una democrazia impoverita. Una vaga ammirazione per il governo organizzato e una vaga diffidenza verso l’aiuto individuale non possono in alcun modo conciliarsi con la vita di gente presso la quale la gentilezza significa prestare una pentola e l’onore significa tenersi fuori dall’ospizio. Si risolve o nello scoraggiare quel sistema di generosità pronta e rappezzata che è una gloria quotidiana dei poveri, oppure in un vago consiglio, rivolto a chi non ha denaro, di non buttarlo via sconsideratamente. E neppure l’esagerata gloria dell’atletica, abbastanza difendibile quando si tratta dei ricchi che, se non corressero e non si scapigliassero, mangerebbero e berrebbero in modo malsano, è per nulla tanto pertinente quando la si applica a gente che, per la maggior parte, farà comunque un bel po’ di esercizio, con la vanga o il martello, il piccone o la sega. E quanto al terzo caso, quello del lavarsi, è evidente che quella stessa retorica sulla delicatezza corporea che si addice a una classe ornamentale non può, presa così com’è, applicarsi a uno spazzino. Da un gentiluomo ci si aspetta che sia sostanzialmente immacolato per tutto il tempo. Ma non è più disonorevole per un netturbino essere sudicio di quanto lo sia per un palombaro essere bagnato. Uno spazzacamino non è più svergognato quando è coperto di fuliggine di quanto lo sia Michael Angelo quando è coperto d’argilla, o Bayard quando è coperto di sangue. Né questi propagatori della tradizione delle public school hanno fatto o proposto alcunché a mo’ di sostituto dell’attuale sistema snobistico che rende la pulizia quasi impossibile ai poveri; intendo il generale rituale della biancheria e l’uso degli abiti smessi dei ricchi. Un uomo entra negli abiti di un altro come entra nella casa di un altro. Non c’è da meravigliarsi se i nostri educatori non inorridiscono davanti a un uomo che raccoglie i calzoni di seconda mano dell’aristocratico, quando essi stessi non hanno fatto altro che raccogliere le idee di seconda mano dell’aristocratico.
XIII
IL GENITORE MESSO AL BANDO
C’è almeno una cosa di cui non si sente mai neppure un sussurro dentro le scuole popolari; ed è l’opinione del popolo. Le uniche persone che sembrano non avere nulla a che fare con l’educazione dei fanciulli sono i genitori. Eppure i poveri inglesi hanno, per molti versi, tradizioni ben precise. Sono nascoste sotto l’imbarazzo e l’ironia; e quegli psicologi che le hanno districate ne parlano come di cose stranissime, barbariche e segrete. Ma, in verità, le tradizioni dei poveri sono per lo più semplicemente le tradizioni dell’umanità, una cosa che molti di noi non vedono da qualche tempo. Per esempio, gli operai hanno la tradizione che, se si parla di una cosa vile, è meglio parlarne in linguaggio crudo; si è meno esposti al rischio di essere sedotti a scusarla. Ma anche l’umanità ebbe questa tradizione, finché i Puritani e i loro figli, gli Ibseniani, avviarono l’idea opposta, secondo cui non importa che cosa si dica purché lo si dica con paroloni e col viso lungo. O ancora, le classi colte hanno messo al bando quasi ogni scherzo sull’aspetto fisico; ma facendo questo mettono al bando non solo l’umorismo dei bassifondi, ma più di metà della sana letteratura del mondo; mettono educate musette sul naso di Punch e di Bardolfo, di Stiggins e di Cirano di Bergerac. Di nuovo, le classi colte hanno adottato l’orribile e pagana usanza di considerare la morte come una cosa troppo terribile per parlarne, lasciando che rimanga un segreto per ciascuno, come una qualche malformazione privata. I poveri, al contrario, fanno un gran chiacchiericcio e una gran mostra del lutto; e hanno ragione. Essi posseggono una verità psicologica che sta dietro a tutte le usanze funebri dei figli degli uomini. Il modo per attenuare il dolore è farne molto. Il modo per sopportare una crisi penosa è insistere fortemente sul fatto che è una crisi; permettere a chi non può non sentirsi triste di sentirsi almeno importante. In questo i poveri sono semplicemente i sacerdoti della civiltà universale; e nei loro banchetti soffocanti e nel loro solenne cicaleccio c’è l’odore delle carni arrostite di Amleto e la polvere e l’eco dei giochi funebri di Patroclo.
Le cose che i filantropi a stento scusano (o non scusano affatto) nella vita delle classi lavoratrici sono semplicemente le cose che dobbiamo scusare in tutti i più grandi monumenti dell’uomo. Può darsi che il lavoratore sia grossolano come Shakespeare o loquace come Omero; che, se è religioso, parli quasi tanto dell’inferno quanto Dante; che, se è mondano, parli quasi tanto del bere quanto Dickens. Né il povero è privo di appoggio storico se dà meno peso a quella abluzione cerimoniale che Cristo respinse, e piuttosto più a quella bevuta cerimoniale che Cristo espressamente santificò. La sola differenza tra il povero di oggi e i santi e gli eroi della storia è quella che, in tutte le classi, separa l’uomo comune che sa sentire le cose dal grande uomo che sa esprimerle. Ciò che egli sente non è che l’eredità dell’uomo. Ora, nessuno si aspetta naturalmente che i vetturini e i portatori di carbone possano essere istruttori completi dei loro figli, non più di quanto lo siano gli squire, i colonnelli e i mercanti di tè per i loro. Ci deve essere uno specialista dell’educazione in loco parentis. Ma il maestro di Harrow è in loco parentis; il maestro di Hoxton è piuttosto contra parentem. Le vaghe idee politiche dello squire, le ancor più vaghe virtù del colonnello, l’anima e le aspirazioni spirituali di un mercante di tè, vengono, nella pratica reale, trasmesse ai figli di queste persone nelle public school inglesi. Ma qui desidero porre una domanda molto chiara ed enfatica. Può qualcuno al mondo anche solo fingere di indicare un qualche modo in cui queste virtù e tradizioni particolari dei poveri siano riprodotte nell’educazione dei poveri? Non desidero che l’ironia del venditore ambulante risuoni nella scuola con la stessa crudezza con cui risuona nella bettola; ma vi compare affatto? Al fanciullo viene insegnato a simpatizzare in qualche misura con l’ammirevole allegria e col gergo di suo padre? Non mi aspetto che la patetica, ardente pietas della madre, con i suoi abiti da lutto e le sue carni funebri arrostite, venga esattamente imitata nel sistema educativo; ma ha essa una qualche influenza sul sistema educativo? Un qualsiasi maestro elementare le concede anche solo un istante di considerazione o di rispetto? Non mi aspetto che il maestro odii gli ospedali e i centri della C.O.S. tanto quanto il padre dello scolaro; ma li odia affatto? Simpatizza minimamente con il punto d’onore del povero contro le istituzioni ufficiali? Non è forse del tutto certo che l’ordinario maestro elementare riterrà non solo naturale ma addirittura scrupoloso sradicare tutte queste rudi leggende di un popolo laborioso, e per principio predicare sapone e Socialismo contro birra e libertà? Nelle classi inferiori il maestro non lavora per il genitore, ma contro il genitore. L’educazione moderna significa tramandare le usanze della minoranza e sradicare le usanze della maggioranza. Al posto della loro carità cristica, della loro risata shakespeariana e del loro alto omerico rispetto per i morti, ai poveri vengono imposte mere copie pedantesche dei pregiudizi dei ricchi lontani. Devono ritenere un bagno una necessità perché per i fortunati esso è un lusso; devono roteare clave svedesi perché i loro padroni hanno paura dei randelli inglesi; e devono superare il loro pregiudizio contro l’essere nutriti dalla parrocchia, perché gli aristocratici non provano alcuna vergogna nell’essere nutriti dalla nazione.
XIV
FOLLY AND FEMALE EDUCATION
It is the same in the case of girls. I am often solemnly asked what I think of the new ideas about female education. But there are no new ideas about female education. There is not, there never has been, even the vestige of a new idea. All the educational reformers did was to ask what was being done to boys and then go and do it to girls; just as they asked what was being taught to young squires and then taught it to young chimney sweeps. What they call new ideas are very old ideas in the wrong place. Boys play football, why shouldn’t girls play football; boys have school colors, why shouldn’t girls have school-colors; boys go in hundreds to day-schools, why shouldn’t girls go in hundreds to day-schools; boys go to Oxford, why shouldn’t girls go to Oxford—in short, boys grow mustaches, why shouldn’t girls grow mustaches—that is about their notion of a new idea. There is no brain-work in the thing at all; no root query of what sex is, of whether it alters this or that, and why, anymore than there is any imaginative grip of the humor and heart of the populace in the popular education. There is nothing but plodding, elaborate, elephantine imitation. And just as in the case of elementary teaching, the cases are of a cold and reckless inappropriateness. Even a savage could see that bodily things, at least, which are good for a man are very likely to be bad for a woman. Yet there is no boy’s game, however brutal, which these mild lunatics have not promoted among girls. To take a stronger case, they give girls very heavy home-work; never reflecting that all girls have home-work already in their homes. It is all a part of the same silly subjugation; there must be a hard stick-up collar round the neck of a woman, because it is already a nuisance round the neck of a man. Though a Saxon serf, if he wore that collar of cardboard, would ask for his collar of brass.
It will then be answered, not without a sneer, “And what would you prefer? Would you go back to the elegant early Victorian female, with ringlets and smelling-bottle, doing a little in water colors, dabbling a little in Italian, playing a little on the harp, writing in vulgar albums and painting on senseless screens? Do you prefer that?” To which I answer, “Emphatically, yes.” I solidly prefer it to the new female education, for this reason, that I can see in it an intellectual design, while there is none in the other. I am by no means sure that even in point of practical fact that elegant female would not have been more than a match for most of the inelegant females. I fancy Jane Austen was stronger, sharper and shrewder than Charlotte Bronte; I am quite certain she was stronger, sharper and shrewder than George Eliot. She could do one thing neither of them could do: she could coolly and sensibly describe a man. I am not sure that the old great lady who could only smatter Italian was not more vigorous than the new great lady who can only stammer American; nor am I certain that the bygone duchesses who were scarcely successful when they painted Melrose Abbey, were so much more weak-minded than the modern duchesses who paint only their own faces, and are bad at that. But that is not the point. What was the theory, what was the idea, in their old, weak water-colors and their shaky Italian? The idea was the same which in a ruder rank expressed itself in home-made wines and hereditary recipes; and which still, in a thousand unexpected ways, can be found clinging to the women of the poor. It was the idea I urged in the second part of this book: that the world must keep one great amateur, lest we all become artists and perish. Somebody must renounce all specialist conquests, that she may conquer all the conquerors. That she may be a queen of life, she must not be a private soldier in it. I do not think the elegant female with her bad Italian was a perfect product, any more than I think the slum woman talking gin and funerals is a perfect product; alas! there are few perfect products. But they come from a comprehensible idea; and the new woman comes from nothing and nowhere. It is right to have an ideal, it is right to have the right ideal, and these two have the right ideal. The slum mother with her funerals is the degenerate daughter of Antigone, the obstinate priestess of the household gods. The lady talking bad Italian was the decayed tenth cousin of Portia, the great and golden Italian lady, the Renascence amateur of life, who could be a barrister because she could be anything. Sunken and neglected in the sea of modern monotony and imitation, the types hold tightly to their original truths. Antigone, ugly, dirty and often drunken, will still bury her father. The elegant female, vapid and fading away to nothing, still feels faintly the fundamental difference between herself and her husband: that he must be Something in the City, that she may be everything in the country.
There was a time when you and I and all of us were all very close to God; so that even now the color of a pebble (or a paint), the smell of a flower (or a firework), comes to our hearts with a kind of authority and certainty; as if they were fragments of a muddled message, or features of a forgotten face. To pour that fiery simplicity upon the whole of life is the only real aim of education; and closest to the child comes the woman—she understands. To say what she understands is beyond me; save only this, that it is not a solemnity. Rather it is a towering levity, an uproarious amateurishness of the universe, such as we felt when we were little, and would as soon sing as garden, as soon paint as run. To smatter the tongues of men and angels, to dabble in the dreadful sciences, to juggle with pillars and pyramids and toss up the planets like balls, this is that inner audacity and indifference which the human soul, like a conjurer catching oranges, must keep up forever. This is that insanely frivolous thing we call sanity. And the elegant female, drooping her ringlets over her water-colors, knew it and acted on it. She was juggling with frantic and flaming suns. She was maintaining the bold equilibrium of inferiorities which is the most mysterious of superiorities and perhaps the most unattainable. She was maintaining the prime truth of woman, the universal mother: that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.
XIV
FOLLIA E EDUCAZIONE FEMMINILE
Lo stesso vale nel caso delle ragazze. Mi si chiede spesso, con solennità, cosa io pensi delle nuove idee sull’educazione femminile. Ma non esistono nuove idee sull’educazione femminile. Non c’è, non c’è mai stata, neppure la traccia di una nuova idea. Tutto ciò che i riformatori dell’educazione fecero fu chiedersi cosa si stesse facendo ai maschi, e poi andare a farlo alle femmine; proprio come si chiesero cosa si insegnasse ai giovani signorotti e poi lo insegnarono ai giovani spazzacamini. Ciò che essi chiamano nuove idee sono idee vecchissime nel posto sbagliato. I maschi giocano a calcio, perché non dovrebbero giocare a calcio le femmine; i maschi hanno i colori della scuola, perché non dovrebbero avere i colori della scuola le femmine; i maschi vanno a centinaia nelle scuole diurne, perché non dovrebbero andare a centinaia nelle scuole diurne le femmine; i maschi vanno a Oxford, perché non dovrebbero andare a Oxford le femmine—in breve, ai maschi cresce il baffo, perché non dovrebbe crescere il baffo alle femmine—questa è più o meno la loro nozione di nuova idea. Non c’è alcun lavoro di cervello nella cosa; nessuna domanda radicale su cosa sia il sesso, se esso alteri questo o quello, e perché, non più di quanto vi sia una presa immaginativa sull’umorismo e sul cuore del popolo nell’educazione popolare. Non c’è nulla se non pesante, elaborata, elefantiaca imitazione. E proprio come nel caso dell’insegnamento elementare, i casi sono di una fredda e sconsiderata inopportunità. Persino un selvaggio potrebbe vedere che le cose corporee, almeno, che fanno bene a un uomo assai probabilmente faranno male a una donna. Eppure non c’è gioco da maschi, per quanto brutale, che questi miti lunatici non abbiano promosso tra le femmine. Per prendere un caso più forte, danno alle ragazze compiti a casa pesantissimi; senza mai riflettere che tutte le ragazze hanno già compiti a casa nelle loro case. È tutto parte della stessa sciocca soggezione; ci deve essere un duro colletto inamidato attorno al collo di una donna, perché è già una seccatura attorno al collo di un uomo. Eppure un servo sassone, se portasse quel colletto di cartone, chiederebbe il suo colletto d’ottone.
A ciò si risponderà, non senza un sogghigno: “E cosa preferireste? Tornereste all’elegante donna del primo periodo vittoriano, coi boccoli e il flaconcino di sali, che si dilettava un po’ con gli acquerelli, si azzardava un po’ con l’italiano, suonava un po’ l’arpa, scriveva in album di cattivo gusto e dipingeva su insensati paraventi? Preferite questo?” Al che rispondo: “Con enfasi, sì.” Lo preferisco decisamente alla nuova educazione femminile, per questa ragione: che in esso posso vedere un disegno intellettuale, mentre non ve n’è alcuno nell’altra. Non sono affatto sicuro che, anche sul piano dei fatti pratici, quell’elegante donna non sarebbe stata più che all’altezza della maggior parte delle donne ineleganti. Immagino che Jane Austen fosse più forte, più acuta e più scaltra di Charlotte Bronte; sono del tutto certo che fosse più forte, più acuta e più scaltra di George Eliot. Sapeva fare una cosa che nessuna delle due sapeva fare: sapeva descrivere un uomo con freddezza e buon senso. Non sono sicuro che la vecchia gran dama che sapeva solo farfugliare l’italiano non fosse più vigorosa della nuova gran dama che sa solo balbettare l’americano; né sono certo che le duchesse d’un tempo, che ebbero scarso successo quando dipinsero l’Abbazia di Melrose, fossero tanto più deboli di mente delle moderne duchesse che dipingono solo il proprio volto, e sono cattive persino in quello. Ma non è questo il punto. Qual era la teoria, qual era l’idea, nei loro vecchi, deboli acquerelli e nel loro malfermo italiano? L’idea era la stessa che, in un rango più rozzo, si esprimeva nei vini fatti in casa e nelle ricette ereditarie; e che ancora, in mille modi inaspettati, si può trovare aggrappata alle donne dei poveri. Era l’idea che ho sostenuto nella seconda parte di questo libro: che il mondo deve conservare un grande dilettante, per timore che tutti diventiamo artisti e periamo. Qualcuno deve rinunciare a tutte le conquiste specialistiche, affinché possa conquistare tutti i conquistatori. Affinché possa essere una regina della vita, non deve esserne un soldato semplice. Non penso che l’elegante donna col suo cattivo italiano fosse un prodotto perfetto, non più di quanto pensi che la donna dei bassifondi che parla di gin e funerali sia un prodotto perfetto; ahimè! pochi sono i prodotti perfetti. Ma esse provengono da un’idea comprensibile; e la nuova donna proviene dal nulla e da nessun luogo. È giusto avere un ideale, è giusto avere l’ideale giusto, e queste due hanno l’ideale giusto. La madre dei bassifondi coi suoi funerali è la figlia degenerata di Antigone, l’ostinata sacerdotessa degli dèi domestici. La dama che parlava cattivo italiano era la decaduta cugina di decimo grado di Portia, la grande e aurea dama italiana, la dilettante di vita del Rinascimento, che poteva essere un avvocato perché poteva essere qualsiasi cosa. Sommersi e trascurati nel mare della monotonia e dell’imitazione moderne, i tipi si aggrappano saldamente alle loro verità originarie. Antigone, brutta, sudicia e spesso ubriaca, seppellirà comunque suo padre. L’elegante donna, insulsa e dileguantesi nel nulla, sente ancora debolmente la differenza fondamentale tra sé e suo marito: che egli deve essere Qualcosa nella Città, affinché ella possa essere ogni cosa nella campagna.
Ci fu un tempo in cui tu ed io e tutti noi eravamo assai vicini a Dio; tanto che ancora adesso il colore di un ciottolo (o di una vernice), il profumo di un fiore (o di un fuoco d’artificio), giungono ai nostri cuori con una sorta di autorità e certezza; come se fossero frammenti di un messaggio confuso, o lineamenti di un volto dimenticato. Riversare quella infuocata semplicità sull’intera vita è l’unico vero scopo dell’educazione; e più vicina al bambino viene la donna—ella comprende. Dire cosa ella comprenda è al di là delle mie forze; salvo solo questo, che non è una solennità. Piuttosto è una torreggiante leggerezza, un fragoroso dilettantismo dell’universo, quale sentivamo quando eravamo piccoli, e cantavamo con la stessa prontezza con cui coltivavamo il giardino, dipingevamo con la stessa prontezza con cui correvamo. Farfugliare le lingue degli uomini e degli angeli, dilettarsi nelle terribili scienze, giocolare con colonne e piramidi e lanciare in alto i pianeti come palle, questa è quell’intima audacia e indifferenza che l’anima umana, come un prestigiatore che afferra arance, deve mantenere per sempre. Questa è quella cosa follemente frivola che chiamiamo sanità mentale. E l’elegante donna, chinando i suoi boccoli sui suoi acquerelli, lo sapeva e vi agiva di conseguenza. Ella giocolava con soli frenetici e fiammeggianti. Ella manteneva il coraggioso equilibrio di inferiorità che è la più misteriosa delle superiorità e forse la più irraggiungibile. Ella manteneva la prima verità della donna, la madre universale: che se una cosa vale la pena di essere fatta, vale la pena di essere fatta male.
PART FIVE
THE HOME OF MAN
I
THE EMPIRE OF THE INSECT
A cultivated Conservative friend of mine once exhibited great distress because in a gay moment I once called Edmund Burke an atheist. I need scarcely say that the remark lacked something of biographical precision; it was meant to. Burke was certainly not an atheist in his conscious cosmic theory, though he had not a special and flaming faith in God, like Robespierre. Nevertheless, the remark had reference to a truth which it is here relevant to repeat. I mean that in the quarrel over the French Revolution, Burke did stand for the atheistic attitude and mode of argument, as Robespierre stood for the theistic. The Revolution appealed to the idea of an abstract and eternal justice, beyond all local custom or convenience. If there are commands of God, then there must be rights of man. Here Burke made his brilliant diversion; he did not attack the Robespierre doctrine with the old mediaeval doctrine of jus divinum (which, like the Robespierre doctrine, was theistic), he attacked it with the modern argument of scientific relativity; in short, the argument of evolution. He suggested that humanity was everywhere molded by or fitted to its environment and institutions; in fact, that each people practically got, not only the tyrant it deserved, but the tyrant it ought to have. “I know nothing of the rights of men,” he said, “but I know something of the rights of Englishmen.” There you have the essential atheist. His argument is that we have got some protection by natural accident and growth; and why should we profess to think beyond it, for all the world as if we were the images of God! We are born under a House of Lords, as birds under a house of leaves; we live under a monarchy as niggers live under a tropic sun; it is not their fault if they are slaves, and it is not ours if we are snobs. Thus, long before Darwin struck his great blow at democracy, the essential of the Darwinian argument had been already urged against the French Revolution. Man, said Burke in effect, must adapt himself to everything, like an animal; he must not try to alter everything, like an angel. The last weak cry of the pious, pretty, half-artificial optimism and deism of the eighteenth century came in the voice of Sterne, saying, “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.” And Burke, the iron evolutionist, essentially answered, “No; God tempers the shorn lamb to the wind.” It is the lamb that has to adapt himself. That is, he either dies or becomes a particular kind of lamb who likes standing in a draught.
The subconscious popular instinct against Darwinism was not a mere offense at the grotesque notion of visiting one’s grandfather in a cage in the Regent’s Park. Men go in for drink, practical jokes and many other grotesque things; they do not much mind making beasts of themselves, and would not much mind having beasts made of their forefathers. The real instinct was much deeper and much more valuable. It was this: that when once one begins to think of man as a shifting and alterable thing, it is always easy for the strong and crafty to twist him into new shapes for all kinds of unnatural purposes. The popular instinct sees in such developments the possibility of backs bowed and hunch-backed for their burden, or limbs twisted for their task. It has a very well-grounded guess that whatever is done swiftly and systematically will mostly be done by a successful class and almost solely in their interests. It has therefore a vision of inhuman hybrids and half-human experiments much in the style of Mr. Wells’s “Island of Dr. Moreau.” The rich man may come to breeding a tribe of dwarfs to be his jockeys, and a tribe of giants to be his hall-porters. Grooms might be born bow-legged and tailors born cross-legged; perfumers might have long, large noses and a crouching attitude, like hounds of scent; and professional wine-tasters might have the horrible expression of one tasting wine stamped upon their faces as infants. Whatever wild image one employs it cannot keep pace with the panic of the human fancy, when once it supposes that the fixed type called man could be changed. If some millionaire wanted arms, some porter must grow ten arms like an octopus; if he wants legs, some messenger-boy must go with a hundred trotting legs like a centipede. In the distorted mirror of hypothesis, that is, of the unknown, men can dimly see such monstrous and evil shapes; men run all to eye, or all to fingers, with nothing left but one nostril or one ear. That is the nightmare with which the mere notion of adaptation threatens us. That is the nightmare that is not so very far from the reality.
It will be said that not the wildest evolutionist really asks that we should become in any way unhuman or copy any other animal. Pardon me, that is exactly what not merely the wildest evolutionists urge, but some of the tamest evolutionists too. There has risen high in recent history an important cultus which bids fair to be the religion of the future—which means the religion of those few weak-minded people who live in the future. It is typical of our time that it has to look for its god through a microscope; and our time has marked a definite adoration of the insect. Like most things we call new, of course, it is not at all new as an idea; it is only new as an idolatry. Virgil takes bees seriously but I doubt if he would have kept bees as carefully as he wrote about them. The wise king told the sluggard to watch the ant, a charming occupation—for a sluggard. But in our own time has appeared a very different tone, and more than one great man, as well as numberless intelligent men, have in our time seriously suggested that we should study the insect because we are his inferiors. The old moralists merely took the virtues of man and distributed them quite decoratively and arbitrarily among the animals. The ant was an almost heraldic symbol of industry, as the lion was of courage, or, for the matter of that, the pelican of charity. But if the mediaevals had been convinced that a lion was not courageous, they would have dropped the lion and kept the courage; if the pelican is not charitable, they would say, so much the worse for the pelican. The old moralists, I say, permitted the ant to enforce and typify man’s morality; they never allowed the ant to upset it. They used the ant for industry as the lark for punctuality; they looked up at the flapping birds and down at the crawling insects for a homely lesson. But we have lived to see a sect that does not look down at the insects, but looks up at the insects, that asks us essentially to bow down and worship beetles, like ancient Egyptians.
PARTE QUINTA
LA CASA DELL’UOMO
I
L’impero degli insetti
Un mio amico conservatore colto mostrò un giorno grande turbamento perché in un momento di allegria chiamai una volta Edmund Burke un ateo. Non c’è bisogno che dica che l’osservazione mancava di precisione biografica; era proprio questo lo scopo. Burke non era certamente un ateo nella sua teoria cosmica cosciente, sebbene non avesse una fiammante e speciale fede in Dio come Robespierre. Tuttavia, l’osservazione faceva riferimento a una verità che qui è pertinente ripetere. Intendo dire che nella disputa sulla Rivoluzione Francese, Burke rappresentava l’atteggiamento e il modo di argomentare atei, così come Robespierre rappresentava quello teista. La Rivoluzione faceva appello all’idea di una giustizia astratta ed eterna, al di là di ogni costume locale o convenienza. Se esistono comandi di Dio, allora devono esserci diritti dell’uomo. Qui Burke fece la sua brillante diversione; non attaccò la dottrina di Robespierre con l’antica dottrina medievale del jus divinum (che, come la dottrina di Robespierre, era teistica), ma la attaccò con l’argomento moderno della relatività scientifica; in breve, l’argomento dell’evoluzione. Suggerì che l’umanità fosse ovunque modellata o adattata al suo ambiente e alle sue istituzioni; in pratica, che ogni popolo ottenesse praticamente non solo il tiranno che meritava, ma il tiranno che avrebbe dovuto avere. “Non so nulla dei diritti dell’uomo”, disse, “ma so qualcosa dei diritti degli inglesi”. Ecco l’ateo essenziale. Il suo argomento è che abbiamo ottenuto una certa protezione per caso naturale e crescita; e perché dovremmo pretese di pensare oltre, come se fossimo immagini di Dio! Nasce sotto una Camera dei Lord, così come gli uccelli nascono sotto una casa di foglie; viviamo sotto una monarchia come i negri vivono sotto un sole tropicale; non è colpa loro se sono schiavi, e non è nostra se siamo snob. Così, molto prima che Darwin desse il suo grande colpo alla democrazia, l’essenza dell’argomento darwiniano era già stato avanzato contro la Rivoluzione Francese. L’uomo, disse in effetti Burke, deve adattarsi a tutto, come un animale; non deve cercare di cambiare tutto, come un angelo. L’ultimo debole grido del pio, grazioso, mezzo artificiale ottimismo e deismo del diciottesimo secolo giunse nella voce di Sterne, che diceva: “Dio tempera il vento al agnello tosato.” E Burke, l’evoluzionista di ferro, rispose essenzialmente: “No; Dio tempera l’agnello tosato al vento.” È l’agnello che deve adattarsi. Cioè, o muore o diventa un particolare tipo di agnello che ama stare in corrente d’aria.
L’istinto popolare inconscio contro il darwinismo non era un semplice sdegno per la nozione grottesca di andare a trovare il proprio nonno in una gabbia al Regent’s Park. Gli uomini si abbandonano all’alcool, ai scherzi e ad altre cose grottesche; non gli dà molto fastidio fare i porci, e non gliene importerebbe nulla se facessero dei loro antenati degli animali. L’istinto reale era molto più profondo e molto più valido. Era questo: che quando si comincia a pensare all’uomo come una cosa mutevole e modificabile, è sempre facile per i forti e gli astuti modellarlo in nuove forme per ogni sorta di scopi innaturali. L’istinto popolare vede in tali sviluppi la possibilità di schiene curve sotto il peso o arti contorti per svolgere un compito. Ha una congettura ben fondata che qualunque cosa sia fatta rapidamente e sistematicamente sarà fatta soprattutto da una classe di successo e quasi esclusivamente nei suoi interessi. Ha quindi la visione di ibridi disumani ed esperimenti semiumani molto nello stile dell‘“Isola del dottor Moreau” di Wells. Il ricco potrebbe arrivare a far crescere una tribù di nani per i suoi fantini, e una tribù di giganti per i portieri. I cocchieri potrebbero nascere con le gambe arcuate e i sarti con le gambe incrociate; i profumieri potrebbero avere il naso lungo e largo, e un atteggiamento rannicchiato come quello dei cani da fiuto; e i degustatori professionisti di vino potrebbero avere l’orribile espressione di chi assaggia il vino stampata sul volto fin dall’infanzia. Qualunque immagine selvaggia si impieghi, non può tenere il passo con il panico della fantasia umana quando suppone che il tipo fisso chiamato uomo possa cambiare. Se qualche milionario vuole delle braccia, qualche portiere deve far crescere dieci braccia come un polpo; se vuole le gambe, un ragazzo messaggero dovrà andarsene con cento zampette che trotterellano come un centopiedi. Nello specchio distorto dell’ipotesi, cioè dell’ignoto, gli uomini possono scorgere vagamente tali forme mostruose e malvagie; gli uomini diventano tutti occhi o tutte dita, senza lasciare altro che un solo narice o un solo orecchio. Questo è il incubo con cui la mera nozione di adattamento ci minaccia. Questo è l’incubo che non è poi così lontano dalla realtà.
Si dirà che neppure il più sfrenato evoluzionista pretende davvero che diventiamo in qualche modo non umani o imitiamo un altro animale. Mi scusi, ma è esattamente ciò che non solo i più sfrenati evoluzionisti chiedono, ma anche alcuni dei più moderati. Nell’storia recente si è levato in alto un culto importante che promette di essere la religione del futuro — il che significa la religione di quelle poche persone deboli di mente che vivranno nel futuro. È tipico del nostro tempo dover cercare il suo dio attraverso un microscopio; e il nostro tempo ha segnato una definitiva adorazione dell’insetto. Come la maggior parte delle cose che chiamiamo nuove, naturalmente non è affatto nuova come idea; è solo nuova come idolatria. Virgilio prendeva sul serio le api ma dubito che avrebbe allevato le api con la stessa cura con cui scriveva di loro. Il saggio re disse al pigro di osservare la formica, un’occupazione affascinante — per un pigro. Ma nel nostro tempo è apparso un tono molto diverso, e più di un grande uomo, oltre a innumerevoli uomini intelligenti, hanno seriamente suggerito nel nostro tempo che dovremmo studiare l’insetto perché siamo suoi inferiori. I vecchi moralisti prendevano semplicemente le virtù dell’uomo e le distribuivano in modo abbastanza decorativo e arbitrario tra gli animali. La formica era un simbolo quasi araldico di industriosità, come il leone era di coraggio, o, per quel che ne sappiamo, il pellicano di carità. Ma se i medievali fossero stati convinti che un leone non era coraggioso, avrebbero abbandonato il leone e mantenuto il coraggio; se il pellicano non è caritatevole, avrebbero detto, tanto peggio per il pellicano. I vecchi moralisti, dico, permettevano alla formica di far rispettare e tipificare la moralità dell’uomo; non le hanno mai permesso di sconvolgerla. Usavano la formica per l’industria come il lucherino per la puntualità; guardavano in alto verso gli agitati uccelli e in basso verso i gattonanti insetti per una lezione semplice. Ma abbiamo vissuto abbastanza a lungo da vedere una setta che non guarda in basso agli insetti, ma li guarda dall’alto, che ci chiede essenzialmente di inchinarci e adorare i coleotteri, come gli antichi Egizi.
Maurice Maeterlinck is a man of unmistakable genius, and genius always carries a magnifying glass. In the terrible crystal of his lens we have seen the bees not as a little yellow swarm, but rather in golden armies and hierarchies of warriors and queens. Imagination perpetually peers and creeps further down the avenues and vistas in the tubes of science, and one fancies every frantic reversal of proportions; the earwig striding across the echoing plain like an elephant, or the grasshopper coming roaring above our roofs like a vast aeroplane, as he leaps from Hertfordshire to Surrey. One seems to enter in a dream a temple of enormous entomology, whose architecture is based on something wilder than arms or backbones; in which the ribbed columns have the half-crawling look of dim and monstrous caterpillars; or the dome is a starry spider hung horribly in the void. There is one of the modern works of engineering that gives one something of this nameless fear of the exaggerations of an underworld; and that is the curious curved architecture of the under ground railway, commonly called the Twopenny Tube. Those squat archways, without any upright line or pillar, look as if they had been tunneled by huge worms who have never learned to lift their heads. It is the very underground palace of the Serpent, the spirit of changing shape and color, that is the enemy of man.
But it is not merely by such strange aesthetic suggestions that writers like Maeterlinck have influenced us in the matter; there is also an ethical side to the business. The upshot of M. Maeterlinck’s book on bees is an admiration, one might also say an envy, of their collective spirituality; of the fact that they live only for something which he calls the Soul of the Hive. And this admiration for the communal morality of insects is expressed in many other modern writers in various quarters and shapes; in Mr. Benjamin Kidd’s theory of living only for the evolutionary future of our race, and in the great interest of some Socialists in ants, which they generally prefer to bees, I suppose, because they are not so brightly colored. Not least among the hundred evidences of this vague insectolatry are the floods of flattery poured by modern people on that energetic nation of the Far East of which it has been said that “Patriotism is its only religion”; or, in other words, that it lives only for the Soul of the Hive. When at long intervals of the centuries Christendom grows weak, morbid or skeptical, and mysterious Asia begins to move against us her dim populations and to pour them westward like a dark movement of matter, in such cases it has been very common to compare the invasion to a plague of lice or incessant armies of locusts. The Eastern armies were indeed like insects; in their blind, busy destructiveness, in their black nihilism of personal outlook, in their hateful indifference to individual life and love, in their base belief in mere numbers, in their pessimistic courage and their atheistic patriotism, the riders and raiders of the East are indeed like all the creeping things of the earth. But never before, I think, have Christians called a Turk a locust and meant it as a compliment. Now for the first time we worship as well as fear; and trace with adoration that enormous form advancing vast and vague out of Asia, faintly discernible amid the mystic clouds of winged creatures hung over the wasted lands, thronging the skies like thunder and discoloring the skies like rain; Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies.
In resisting this horrible theory of the Soul of the Hive, we of Christendom stand not for ourselves, but for all humanity; for the essential and distinctive human idea that one good and happy man is an end in himself, that a soul is worth saving. Nay, for those who like such biological fancies it might well be said that we stand as chiefs and champions of a whole section of nature, princes of the house whose cognizance is the backbone, standing for the milk of the individual mother and the courage of the wandering cub, representing the pathetic chivalry of the dog, the humor and perversity of cats, the affection of the tranquil horse, the loneliness of the lion. It is more to the point, however, to urge that this mere glorification of society as it is in the social insects is a transformation and a dissolution in one of the outlines which have been specially the symbols of man. In the cloud and confusion of the flies and bees is growing fainter and fainter, as is finally disappearing, the idea of the human family. The hive has become larger than the house, the bees are destroying their captors; what the locust hath left, the caterpillar hath eaten; and the little house and garden of our friend Jones is in a bad way.
II
THE FALLACY OF THE UMBRELLA STAND
When Lord Morley said that the House of Lords must be either mended or ended, he used a phrase which has caused some confusion; because it might seem to suggest that mending and ending are somewhat similar things. I wish specially to insist on the fact that mending and ending are opposite things. You mend a thing because you like it; you end a thing because you don’t. To mend is to strengthen. I, for instance, disbelieve in oligarchy; so I would no more mend the House of Lords than I would mend a thumbscrew. On the other hand, I do believe in the family; therefore I would mend the family as I would mend a chair; and I will never deny for a moment that the modern family is a chair that wants mending. But here comes in the essential point about the mass of modern advanced sociologists. Here are two institutions that have always been fundamental with mankind, the family and the state. Anarchists, I believe, disbelieve in both. It is quite unfair to say that Socialists believe in the state, but do not believe in the family; thousands of Socialists believe more in the family than any Tory. But it is true to say that while anarchists would end both, Socialists are specially engaged in mending (that is, strengthening and renewing) the state; and they are not specially engaged in strengthening and renewing the family. They are not doing anything to define the functions of father, mother, and child, as such; they are not tightening the machine up again; they are not blackening in again the fading lines of the old drawing. With the state they are doing this; they are sharpening its machinery, they are blackening in its black dogmatic lines, they are making mere government in every way stronger and in some ways harsher than before. While they leave the home in ruins, they restore the hive, especially the stings. Indeed, some schemes of labor and Poor Law reform recently advanced by distinguished Socialists, amount to little more than putting the largest number of people in the despotic power of Mr. Bumble. Apparently, progress means being moved on— by the police.
Maurice Maeterlinck è un uomo di genio inconfondibile, e il genio porta sempre con sé una lente d’ingrandimento. Nel terribile cristallo della sua lente abbiamo veduto le api non come un piccolo sciame giallo, ma piuttosto in eserciti dorati e gerarchie di guerrieri e di regine. L’immaginazione scruta e s’insinua perpetuamente sempre più giù per i viali e le prospettive nei cannocchiali della scienza, e ci si figura ogni frenetico rovesciamento delle proporzioni; la forbicina che avanza a grandi passi per la pianura risonante come un elefante, o la cavalletta che viene rombando sopra i nostri tetti come un vasto aeroplano, mentre balza dall’Hertfordshire al Surrey. Sembra di entrare in un sogno in un tempio di enorme entomologia, la cui architettura si fonda su qualcosa di più selvaggio delle braccia o delle spine dorsali; in cui le colonne nervate hanno l’aspetto semistrisciante di bruchi fiocamente mostruosi; o la cupola è un ragno stellato appeso orribilmente nel vuoto. V’è una delle moderne opere d’ingegneria che dà qualcosa di questa innominabile paura delle esagerazioni di un mondo sotterraneo; ed è la curiosa architettura curva della ferrovia sotterranea, comunemente chiamata Twopenny Tube. Quelle arcate tozze, prive di ogni linea o pilastro verticale, sembrano scavate come tunnel da vermi enormi che non hanno mai imparato a sollevare il capo. È il vero palazzo sotterraneo del Serpente, lo spirito del mutare di forma e di colore, che è il nemico dell’uomo.
Ma non è soltanto per tali strane suggestioni estetiche che scrittori come Maeterlinck ci hanno influenzato in questa materia; vi è anche un lato etico della faccenda. La conclusione del libro di M. Maeterlinck sulle api è un’ammirazione, si potrebbe anche dire un’invidia, per la loro spiritualità collettiva; per il fatto che esse vivono soltanto per qualcosa che egli chiama l’Anima dell’Alveare. E questa ammirazione per la moralità comunitaria degli insetti è espressa in molti altri scrittori moderni in vari ambienti e forme; nella teoria del signor Benjamin Kidd del vivere soltanto per l’avvenire evolutivo della nostra razza, e nel grande interesse di alcuni socialisti per le formiche, che generalmente preferiscono alle api, suppongo, perché non sono così vivacemente colorate. Non ultima fra le cento prove di questa vaga insettolatria sono i fiumi di adulazione riversati dai moderni su quell’ energica nazione dell’Estremo Oriente della quale è stato detto che «il patriottismo è la sua unica religione»; ossia, in altre parole, che essa vive soltanto per l’Anima dell’Alveare. Quando a lunghi intervalli di secoli la Cristianità s’indebolisce, si fa morbosa o scettica, e la misteriosa Asia comincia a muovere contro di noi le sue fosche popolazioni e a riversarle verso occidente come un oscuro movimento di materia, in tali casi è stato assai comune paragonare l’invasione a una piaga di pidocchi o a incessanti eserciti di locuste. Gli eserciti orientali erano davvero simili agli insetti; nella loro cieca, affaccendata capacità di distruzione, nel loro nero nichilismo di visione personale, nella loro odiosa indifferenza verso la vita e l’amore individuali, nella loro vile fede nel puro numero, nel loro pessimistico coraggio e nel loro patriottismo ateo, i cavalieri e i predoni dell’Oriente sono davvero simili a tutti gli esseri striscianti della terra. Ma mai prima, io credo, i cristiani avevano chiamato locusta un Turco intendendolo come un complimento. Ora per la prima volta noi adoriamo tanto quanto temiamo; e seguiamo con adorazione quell’enorme forma che avanza vasta e vaga fuori dall’Asia, appena discernibile in mezzo alle mistiche nubi di creature alate sospese sopra le terre devastate, affollando i cieli come tuono e scolorando i cieli come pioggia; Belzebù, il Signore delle Mosche.
Nel resistere a questa orribile teoria dell’Anima dell’Alveare, noi della Cristianità non stiamo per noi stessi, ma per tutta l’umanità; per l’idea umana essenziale e distintiva che un uomo buono e felice sia un fine in sé, che un’anima valga la pena di essere salvata. Anzi, per coloro che amano tali fantasie biologiche si potrebbe bene dire che noi stiamo come capi e campioni di tutta una sezione della natura, principi della casa il cui blasone è la spina dorsale, sostenendo il latte della madre individuale e il coraggio del cucciolo errante, rappresentando la patetica cavalleria del cane, l’umorismo e la perversità dei gatti, l’affetto del tranquillo cavallo, la solitudine del leone. È più al punto, tuttavia, insistere sul fatto che questa mera glorificazione della società com’è negli insetti sociali è una trasformazione e una dissoluzione insieme di uno dei profili che sono stati specialmente i simboli dell’uomo. Nella nube e nella confusione delle mosche e delle api si fa sempre più fioca e più fioca, fino a scomparire del tutto, l’idea della famiglia umana. L’alveare è divenuto più grande della casa, le api stanno distruggendo i loro carcerieri; ciò che la locusta ha lasciato, il bruco l’ha divorato; e la piccola casa e il giardino del nostro amico Jones sono in cattivo stato.
II
LA FALLACIA DEL PORTAOMBRELLI
Quando Lord Morley disse che la Camera dei Lord doveva essere o riparata o soppressa, usò una frase che ha causato qualche confusione; perché potrebbe sembrare che suggerisca che il riparare e il sopprimere siano cose in qualche modo simili. Desidero specialmente insistere sul fatto che il riparare e il sopprimere sono cose opposte. Si ripara una cosa perché la si ama; si sopprime una cosa perché non la si ama. Riparare è rafforzare. Io, per esempio, non credo nell’oligarchia; perciò non riparerei la Camera dei Lord più di quanto riparerei uno schiacciapollici. D’altra parte, credo nella famiglia; perciò riparerei la famiglia come riparerei una sedia; e non negherò mai per un istante che la famiglia moderna sia una sedia che ha bisogno di riparazione. Ma qui entra il punto essenziale riguardo alla massa dei moderni sociologi avanzati. Ecco due istituzioni che sono sempre state fondamentali per l’umanità, la famiglia e lo stato. Gli anarchici, credo, non credono in nessuna delle due. È del tutto ingiusto dire che i socialisti credono nello stato, ma non credono nella famiglia; migliaia di socialisti credono nella famiglia più di qualsiasi Tory. Ma è vero dire che, mentre gli anarchici sopprimerebbero entrambe, i socialisti sono specialmente impegnati a riparare (cioè a rafforzare e rinnovare) lo stato; e non sono specialmente impegnati a rafforzare e rinnovare la famiglia. Non stanno facendo nulla per definire le funzioni del padre, della madre, e del figlio, in quanto tali; non stanno riavvitando di nuovo la macchina; non stanno annerendo di nuovo le linee sbiadite del vecchio disegno. Con lo stato fanno questo; ne affilano il macchinario, ne anneriscono le nere linee dogmatiche, rendono il puro governo in ogni modo più forte e per certi versi più aspro di prima. Mentre lasciano la casa in rovina, restaurano l’alveare, specialmente i pungiglioni. Anzi, alcuni progetti di lavoro e di riforma della Poor Law recentemente avanzati da illustri socialisti, non equivalgono a poco più che a porre il maggior numero di persone nel potere dispotico del signor Bumble. A quanto pare, progresso significa essere fatti circolare— dalla polizia.
The point it is my purpose to urge might perhaps be suggested thus: that Socialists and most social reformers of their color are vividly conscious of the line between the kind of things that belong to the state and the kind of things that belong to mere chaos or uncoercible nature; they may force children to go to school before the sun rises, but they will not try to force the sun to rise; they will not, like Canute, banish the sea, but only the sea-bathers. But inside the outline of the state their lines are confused, and entities melt into each other. They have no firm instinctive sense of one thing being in its nature private and another public, of one thing being necessarily bond and another free. That is why piece by piece, and quite silently, personal liberty is being stolen from Englishmen, as personal land has been silently stolen ever since the sixteenth century.
I can only put it sufficiently curtly in a careless simile. A Socialist means a man who thinks a walking-stick like an umbrella because they both go into the umbrella-stand. Yet they are as different as a battle-ax and a bootjack. The essential idea of an umbrella is breadth and protection. The essential idea of a stick is slenderness and, partly, attack. The stick is the sword, the umbrella is the shield, but it is a shield against another and more nameless enemy— the hostile but anonymous universe. More properly, therefore, the umbrella is the roof; it is a kind of collapsible house. But the vital difference goes far deeper than this; it branches off into two kingdoms of man’s mind, with a chasm between. For the point is this: that the umbrella is a shield against an enemy so actual as to be a mere nuisance; whereas the stick is a sword against enemies so entirely imaginary as to be a pure pleasure. The stick is not merely a sword, but a court sword; it is a thing of purely ceremonial swagger. One cannot express the emotion in any way except by saying that a man feels more like a man with a stick in his hand, just as he feels more like a man with a sword at his side. But nobody ever had any swelling sentiments about an umbrella; it is a convenience, like a door scraper. An umbrella is a necessary evil. A walking-stick is a quite unnecessary good. This, I fancy, is the real explanation of the perpetual losing of umbrellas; one does not hear of people losing walking sticks. For a walking-stick is a pleasure, a piece of real personal property; it is missed even when it is not needed. When my right hand forgets its stick may it forget its cunning. But anybody may forget an umbrella, as anybody might forget a shed that he has stood up in out of the rain. Anybody can forget a necessary thing.
If I might pursue the figure of speech, I might briefly say that the whole Collectivist error consists in saying that because two men can share an umbrella, therefore two men can share a walking-stick. Umbrellas might possibly be replaced by some kind of common awnings covering certain streets from particular showers. But there is nothing but nonsense in the notion of swinging a communal stick; it is as if one spoke of twirling a communal mustache. It will be said that this is a frank fantasia and that no sociologists suggest such follies. Pardon me if they do. I will give a precise parallel to the case of confusion of sticks and umbrellas, a parallel from a perpetually reiterated suggestion of reform. At least sixty Socialists out of a hundred, when they have spoken of common laundries, will go on at once to speak of common kitchens. This is just as mechanical and unintelligent as the fanciful case I have quoted. Sticks and umbrellas are both stiff rods that go into holes in a stand in the hall. Kitchens and washhouses are both large rooms full of heat and damp and steam. But the soul and function of the two things are utterly opposite. There is only one way of washing a shirt; that is, there is only one right way. There is no taste and fancy in tattered shirts. Nobody says, “Tompkins likes five holes in his shirt, but I must say, give me the good old four holes.” Nobody says, “This washerwoman rips up the left leg of my pyjamas; now if there is one thing I insist on it is the right leg ripped up.” The ideal washing is simply to send a thing back washed. But it is by no means true that the ideal cooking is simply to send a thing back cooked. Cooking is an art; it has in it personality, and even perversity, for the definition of an art is that which must be personal and may be perverse. I know a man, not otherwise dainty, who cannot touch common sausages unless they are almost burned to a coal. He wants his sausages fried to rags, yet he does not insist on his shirts being boiled to rags. I do not say that such points of culinary delicacy are of high importance. I do not say that the communal ideal must give way to them. What I say is that the communal ideal is not conscious of their existence, and therefore goes wrong from the very start, mixing a wholly public thing with a highly individual one. Perhaps we ought to accept communal kitchens in the social crisis, just as we should accept communal cat’s-meat in a siege. But the cultured Socialist, quite at his ease, by no means in a siege, talks about communal kitchens as if they were the same kind of thing as communal laundries. This shows at the start that he misunderstands human nature. It is as different as three men singing the same chorus from three men playing three tunes on the same piano.
III
THE DREADFUL DUTY OF GUDGE
In the quarrel earlier alluded to between the energetic Progressive and the obstinate Conservative (or, to talk a tenderer language, between Hudge and Gudge), the state of cross-purposes is at the present moment acute. The Tory says he wants to preserve family life in Cindertown; the Socialist very reasonably points out to him that in Cindertown at present there isn’t any family life to preserve. But Hudge, the Socialist, in his turn, is highly vague and mysterious about whether he would preserve the family life if there were any; or whether he will try to restore it where it has disappeared. It is all very confusing. The Tory sometimes talks as if he wanted to tighten the domestic bonds that do not exist; the Socialist as if he wanted to loosen the bonds that do not bind anybody. The question we all want to ask of both of them is the original ideal question, “Do you want to keep the family at all?” If Hudge, the Socialist, does want the family he must be prepared for the natural restraints, distinctions and divisions of labor in the family. He must brace himself up to bear the idea of the woman having a preference for the private house and a man for the public house. He must manage to endure somehow the idea of a woman being womanly, which does not mean soft and yielding, but handy, thrifty, rather hard, and very humorous. He must confront without a quiver the notion of a child who shall be childish, that is, full of energy, but without an idea of independence; fundamentally as eager for authority as for information and butter-scotch. If a man, a woman and a child live together any more in free and sovereign households, these ancient relations will recur; and Hudge must put up with it. He can only avoid it by destroying the family, driving both sexes into sexless hives and hordes, and bringing up all children as the children of the state—like Oliver Twist. But if these stern words must be addressed to Hudge, neither shall Gudge escape a somewhat severe admonition. For the plain truth to be told pretty sharply to the Tory is this, that if he wants the family to remain, if he wants to be strong enough to resist the rending forces of our essentially savage commerce, he must make some very big sacrifices and try to equalize property. The overwhelming mass of the English people at this particular instant are simply too poor to be domestic. They are as domestic as they can manage; they are much more domestic than the governing class; but they cannot get what good there was originally meant to be in this institution, simply because they have not got enough money. The man ought to stand for a certain magnanimity, quite lawfully expressed in throwing money away: but if under given circumstances he can only do it by throwing the week’s food away, then he is not magnanimous, but mean. The woman ought to stand for a certain wisdom which is well expressed in valuing things rightly and guarding money sensibly; but how is she to guard money if there is no money to guard? The child ought to look on his mother as a fountain of natural fun and poetry; but how can he unless the fountain, like other fountains, is allowed to play? What chance have any of these ancient arts and functions in a house so hideously topsy-turvy; a house where the woman is out working and the man isn’t; and the child is forced by law to think his schoolmaster’s requirements more important than his mother’s? No, Gudge and his friends in the House of Lords and the Carlton Club must make up their minds on this matter, and that very quickly. If they are content to have England turned into a beehive and an ant-hill, decorated here and there with a few faded butterflies playing at an old game called domesticity in the intervals of the divorce court, then let them have their empire of insects; they will find plenty of Socialists who will give it to them. But if they want a domestic England, they must “shell out,” as the phrase goes, to a vastly greater extent than any Radical politician has yet dared to suggest; they must endure burdens much heavier than the Budget and strokes much deadlier than the death duties; for the thing to be done is nothing more nor less than the distribution of the great fortunes and the great estates. We can now only avoid Socialism by a change as vast as Socialism. If we are to save property, we must distribute property, almost as sternly and sweepingly as did the French Revolution. If we are to preserve the family we must revolutionize the nation.
Il punto che mi propongo di sostenere potrebbe forse essere formulato così: che i socialisti e la maggior parte dei riformatori sociali del loro stampo hanno viva coscienza della linea che separa le cose appartenenti allo Stato dalle cose appartenenti al puro caos o alla natura incoercibile; possono costringere i bambini ad andare a scuola prima che sorga il sole, ma non tenteranno di costringere il sole a sorgere; non bandiranno il mare, come Canuto, ma soltanto i bagnanti. Dentro il perimetro dello Stato, però, le loro linee si confondono e le entità si fondono l’una nell’altra. Non hanno alcun saldo senso istintivo che una cosa sia per sua natura privata e un’altra pubblica, che una cosa sia necessariamente vincolata e un’altra libera. Ecco perché, pezzo per pezzo e del tutto in silenzio, la libertà personale viene sottratta agli inglesi, come la terra personale è stata silenziosamente rubata fin dal sedicesimo secolo.
Non so esprimerlo con sufficiente concisione se non in una similitudine noncurante. Un socialista è un uomo che ritiene un bastone da passeggio simile a un ombrello perché entrambi finiscono nel portaombrelli. Eppure sono diversi come un’ascia da battaglia e un cavastivali. L’idea essenziale dell’ombrello è ampiezza e protezione. L’idea essenziale del bastone è snellezza e, in parte, attacco. Il bastone è la spada, l’ombrello è lo scudo, ma è uno scudo contro un altro e più innominabile nemico: l’universo ostile ma anonimo. Più propriamente, dunque, l’ombrello è il tetto; è una sorta di casa pieghevole. Ma la differenza vitale va assai più a fondo di questo; si dirama in due regni della mente dell’uomo, con un abisso a separarli. Il punto infatti è questo: che l’ombrello è uno scudo contro un nemico tanto reale da essere una mera seccatura; mentre il bastone è una spada contro nemici tanto interamente immaginari da essere un puro piacere. Il bastone non è soltanto una spada, ma una spada da corte; è un oggetto di spavalderia puramente cerimoniale. Non si può esprimere l’emozione in altro modo se non dicendo che un uomo si sente più uomo con un bastone in mano, proprio come si sente più uomo con una spada al fianco. Ma nessuno ha mai provato sentimenti trepidanti per un ombrello; è una comodità, come un raschietto da porta. Un ombrello è un male necessario. Un bastone da passeggio è un bene del tutto superfluo. Questa, immagino, è la vera spiegazione del perpetuo smarrimento degli ombrelli; non si sente mai dire che qualcuno abbia perso un bastone da passeggio. Perché un bastone da passeggio è un piacere, un pezzo di autentica proprietà personale; se ne sente la mancanza anche quando non serve. Quando la mia mano destra dimenticherà il suo bastone, dimentichi pure la sua abilità. Ma chiunque può dimenticare un ombrello, come chiunque può dimenticare una tettoia sotto cui si è riparato dalla pioggia. Chiunque può dimenticare una cosa necessaria.
Se mi fosse concesso proseguire la figura retorica, potrei dire in breve che l’intero errore collettivista consiste nell’affermare che, poiché due uomini possono condividere un ombrello, allora due uomini possono condividere un bastone da passeggio. Gli ombrelli potrebbero forse essere sostituiti da una sorta di tende comuni che riparino certe strade da particolari acquazzoni. Ma non c’è che assurdità nell’idea di brandire un bastone comunitario; è come parlare di arricciarsi un baffo comunitario. Si dirà che questa è una schietta fantasia e che nessun sociologo propone simili follie. Perdonatemi se lo fanno. Darò un parallelo preciso al caso della confusione tra bastoni e ombrelli, un parallelo tratto da un suggerimento di riforma perpetuamente ripetuto. Almeno sessanta socialisti su cento, dopo aver parlato di lavanderie comuni, passeranno subito a parlare di cucine comuni. Questo è altrettanto meccanico e privo d’intelligenza quanto il caso fantasioso che ho citato. Bastoni e ombrelli sono entrambi rigide aste che entrano nei fori di un portaoggetti nell’ingresso. Cucine e lavatoi sono entrambi grandi stanze piene di calore, umidità e vapore. Ma l’anima e la funzione delle due cose sono del tutto opposte. C’è un solo modo di lavare una camicia; ossia, c’è un solo modo giusto. Non c’è gusto né fantasia nelle camicie stracciate. Nessuno dice: “Tompkins ama cinque fori nella sua camicia, ma io, devo dirlo, dammi i buoni vecchi quattro fori.” Nessuno dice: “Questa lavandaia mi strappa la gamba sinistra del pigiama; ebbene, se c’è una cosa su cui insisto è che si strappi la gamba destra.” Il lavaggio ideale è semplicemente restituire una cosa lavata. Ma non è affatto vero che la cucina ideale sia semplicemente restituire una cosa cotta. Cucinare è un’arte; ha in sé personalità, e persino perversità, perché la definizione di un’arte è ciò che deve essere personale e può essere perverso. Conosco un uomo, per il resto per nulla schizzinoso, che non sa toccare le comuni salsicce se non sono quasi carbonizzate. Le vuole fritte fino a ridurle in stracci, eppure non pretende che le sue camicie siano bollite fino a ridurle in stracci. Non dico che simili punti di raffinatezza culinaria siano di grande importanza. Non dico che l’ideale comunitario debba cedere loro il passo. Ciò che dico è che l’ideale comunitario non è consapevole della loro esistenza, e perciò sbaglia fin dal primo istante, mescolando una cosa del tutto pubblica con una altamente individuale. Forse dovremmo accettare le cucine comuni nella crisi sociale, proprio come dovremmo accettare la carne comune per i gatti durante un assedio. Ma il socialista colto, del tutto a suo agio, per nulla in stato d’assedio, parla di cucine comuni come se fossero la stessa cosa delle lavanderie comuni. Questo mostra fin dall’inizio che egli fraintende la natura umana. È diverso come tre uomini che cantano lo stesso coro da tre uomini che suonano tre melodie sullo stesso pianoforte.
III
IL TREMENDO DOVERE DI GUDGE
Nella disputa cui si è accennato prima tra l’energico Progressista e l’ostinato Conservatore (o, per usare un linguaggio più tenero, tra Hudge e Gudge), lo stato di equivoci reciproci è in questo preciso momento acuto. Il Tory dice di voler preservare la vita familiare a Cindertown; il socialista molto ragionevolmente gli fa notare che a Cindertown, al momento, non c’è alcuna vita familiare da preservare. Ma Hudge, il socialista, a sua volta, è assai vago e misterioso sul fatto se preserverebbe la vita familiare qualora ve ne fosse una; o se cercherà di ripristinarla là dove è scomparsa. È tutto molto confuso. Il Tory a volte parla come se volesse stringere i vincoli domestici che non esistono; il socialista come se volesse allentare i vincoli che non legano nessuno. La domanda che tutti vorremmo porre a entrambi è la domanda ideale originaria: “Volete conservare la famiglia, sì o no?” Se Hudge, il socialista, vuole davvero la famiglia, deve essere preparato ai freni, alle distinzioni e alle divisioni del lavoro naturali della famiglia. Deve farsi forza per sopportare l’idea che la donna abbia una preferenza per la casa privata e l’uomo per la casa pubblica. Deve riuscire in qualche modo a tollerare l’idea di una donna che sia femminile, il che non significa molle e arrendevole, bensì pratica, parsimoniosa, piuttosto dura e assai spiritosa. Deve affrontare senza un fremito l’idea di un bambino che sia infantile, cioè pieno di energia, ma privo di ogni idea di indipendenza; fondamentalmente avido di autorità quanto di informazioni e di caramelle mou. Se un uomo, una donna e un bambino vivranno ancora insieme in nuclei domestici liberi e sovrani, queste antiche relazioni riaffioreranno; e Hudge dovrà rassegnarvisi. Può evitarlo solo distruggendo la famiglia, spingendo entrambi i sessi in alveari e orde asessuati, e allevando tutti i bambini come figli dello Stato, come Oliver Twist. Ma se queste severe parole devono essere rivolte a Hudge, neppure Gudge sfuggirà a un ammonimento alquanto severo. Perché la semplice verità da dire piuttosto bruscamente al Tory è questa: che se vuole che la famiglia sopravviva, se vuole essere abbastanza forte da resistere alle forze laceranti del nostro commercio essenzialmente selvaggio, deve compiere sacrifici molto grandi e cercare di uguagliare la proprietà. La schiacciante massa del popolo inglese, in questo preciso istante, è semplicemente troppo povera per essere domestica. Sono domestici quanto riescono a esserlo; sono assai più domestici della classe dirigente; ma non possono ottenere quel bene che in origine questa istituzione doveva contenere, semplicemente perché non hanno abbastanza denaro. L’uomo dovrebbe rappresentare una certa magnanimità, del tutto legittimamente espressa nel gettar via il denaro: ma se in date circostanze può farlo soltanto gettando via il cibo della settimana, allora non è magnanimo, bensì meschino. La donna dovrebbe rappresentare una certa saggezza, ben espressa nel valutare le cose rettamente e nel custodire il denaro con buon senso; ma come può custodire il denaro se non c’è denaro da custodire? Il bambino dovrebbe guardare alla madre come a una fonte di naturale allegria e poesia; ma come può, se alla fonte, come alle altre fontane, non è concesso di zampillare? Che possibilità hanno mai queste antiche arti e funzioni in una casa così spaventosamente sottosopra; una casa dove la donna è fuori a lavorare e l’uomo no; e il bambino è costretto dalla legge a ritenere le esigenze del suo maestro più importanti di quelle della madre? No, Gudge e i suoi amici nella Camera dei Lord e al Carlton Club devono decidersi su questa faccenda, e molto rapidamente. Se si accontentano di veder l’Inghilterra trasformata in un alveare e in un formicaio, decorati qua e là con qualche sbiadita farfalla che gioca a un vecchio gioco chiamato domesticità negli intervalli del tribunale del divorzio, allora abbiano pure il loro impero di insetti; troveranno un mucchio di socialisti disposti a darglielo. Ma se vogliono un’Inghilterra domestica, devono “sganciare”, come si suol dire, in misura assai maggiore di quanto qualsiasi politico radicale abbia finora osato suggerire; devono sopportare oneri molto più pesanti del Bilancio e colpi molto più letali delle imposte di successione; perché ciò che va fatto non è né più né meno che la distribuzione delle grandi fortune e delle grandi tenute. Ormai possiamo evitare il socialismo solo con un mutamento vasto quanto il socialismo. Se vogliamo salvare la proprietà, dobbiamo distribuire la proprietà, quasi con la stessa severità e ampiezza con cui fece la Rivoluzione francese. Se vogliamo preservare la famiglia, dobbiamo rivoluzionare la nazione.
IV
A LAST INSTANCE
And now, as this book is drawing to a close, I will whisper in the reader’s ear a horrible suspicion that has sometimes haunted me: the suspicion that Hudge and Gudge are secretly in partnership. That the quarrel they keep up in public is very much of a put-up job, and that the way in which they perpetually play into each other’s hands is not an everlasting coincidence. Gudge, the plutocrat, wants an anarchic industrialism; Hudge, the idealist, provides him with lyric praises of anarchy. Gudge wants women-workers because they are cheaper; Hudge calls the woman’s work “freedom to live her own life.” Gudge wants steady and obedient workmen, Hudge preaches teetotalism— to workmen, not to Gudge—Gudge wants a tame and timid population who will never take arms against tyranny; Hudge proves from Tolstoi that nobody must take arms against anything. Gudge is naturally a healthy and well-washed gentleman; Hudge earnestly preaches the perfection of Gudge’s washing to people who can’t practice it. Above all, Gudge rules by a coarse and cruel system of sacking and sweating and bi-sexual toil which is totally inconsistent with the free family and which is bound to destroy it; therefore Hudge, stretching out his arms to the universe with a prophetic smile, tells us that the family is something that we shall soon gloriously outgrow.
I do not know whether the partnership of Hudge and Gudge is conscious or unconscious. I only know that between them they still keep the common man homeless. I only know I still meet Jones walking the streets in the gray twilight, looking sadly at the poles and barriers and low red goblin lanterns which still guard the house which is none the less his because he has never been in it.
V
CONCLUSION
Here, it may be said, my book ends just where it ought to begin. I have said that the strong centers of modern English property must swiftly or slowly be broken up, if even the idea of property is to remain among Englishmen. There are two ways in which it could be done, a cold administration by quite detached officials, which is called Collectivism, or a personal distribution, so as to produce what is called Peasant Proprietorship. I think the latter solution the finer and more fully human, because it makes each man as somebody blamed somebody for saying of the Pope, a sort of small god. A man on his own turf tastes eternity or, in other words, will give ten minutes more work than is required. But I believe I am justified in shutting the door on this vista of argument, instead of opening it. For this book is not designed to prove the case for Peasant Proprietorship, but to prove the case against modern sages who turn reform to a routine. The whole of this book has been a rambling and elaborate urging of one purely ethical fact. And if by any chance it should happen that there are still some who do not quite see what that point is, I will end with one plain parable, which is none the worse for being also a fact.
A little while ago certain doctors and other persons permitted by modern law to dictate to their shabbier fellow-citizens, sent out an order that all little girls should have their hair cut short. I mean, of course, all little girls whose parents were poor. Many very unhealthy habits are common among rich little girls, but it will be long before any doctors interfere forcibly with them. Now, the case for this particular interference was this, that the poor are pressed down from above into such stinking and suffocating underworlds of squalor, that poor people must not be allowed to have hair, because in their case it must mean lice in the hair. Therefore, the doctors propose to abolish the hair. It never seems to have occurred to them to abolish the lice. Yet it could be done. As is common in most modern discussions the unmentionable thing is the pivot of the whole discussion. It is obvious to any Christian man (that is, to any man with a free soul) that any coercion applied to a cabman’s daughter ought, if possible, to be applied to a Cabinet Minister’s daughter. I will not ask why the doctors do not, as a matter of fact apply their rule to a Cabinet Minister’s daughter. I will not ask, because I know. They do not because they dare not. But what is the excuse they would urge, what is the plausible argument they would use, for thus cutting and clipping poor children and not rich? Their argument would be that the disease is more likely to be in the hair of poor people than of rich. And why? Because the poor children are forced (against all the instincts of the highly domestic working classes) to crowd together in close rooms under a wildly inefficient system of public instruction; and because in one out of the forty children there may be offense. And why? Because the poor man is so ground down by the great rents of the great ground landlords that his wife often has to work as well as he. Therefore she has no time to look after the children, therefore one in forty of them is dirty. Because the workingman has these two persons on top of him, the landlord sitting (literally) on his stomach, and the schoolmaster sitting (literally) on his head, the workingman must allow his little girl’s hair, first to be neglected from poverty, next to be poisoned by promiscuity, and, lastly, to be abolished by hygiene. He, perhaps, was proud of his little girl’s hair. But he does not count.
Upon this simple principle (or rather precedent) the sociological doctor drives gayly ahead. When a crapulous tyranny crushes men down into the dirt, so that their very hair is dirty, the scientific course is clear. It would be long and laborious to cut off the heads of the tyrants; it is easier to cut off the hair of the slaves. In the same way, if it should ever happen that poor children, screaming with toothache, disturbed any schoolmaster or artistic gentleman, it would be easy to pull out all the teeth of the poor; if their nails were disgustingly dirty, their nails could be plucked out; if their noses were indecently blown, their noses could be cut off. The appearance of our humbler fellow-citizen could be quite strikingly simplified before we had done with him. But all this is not a bit wilder than the brute fact that a doctor can walk into the house of a free man, whose daughter’s hair may be as clean as spring flowers, and order him to cut it off. It never seems to strike these people that the lesson of lice in the slums is the wrongness of slums, not the wrongness of hair. Hair is, to say the least of it, a rooted thing. Its enemy (like the other insects and oriental armies of whom we have spoken) sweep upon us but seldom. In truth, it is only by eternal institutions like hair that we can test passing institutions like empires. If a house is so built as to knock a man’s head off when he enters it, it is built wrong.
IV
UN ULTIMO ESEMPIO
E ora, mentre questo libro volge al termine, sussurrerò all’orecchio del lettore un sospetto orribile che a volte mi ha perseguitato: il sospetto che Hudge e Gudge siano segretamente in combutta. Che la lite che mantengono in pubblico sia in gran parte una messinscena, e che il modo in cui perpetuamente si fanno il gioco a vicenda non sia un’eterna coincidenza. Gudge, il plutocrate, vuole un industrialismo anarchico; Hudge, l’idealista, gli fornisce liriche lodi dell’anarchia. Gudge vuole operaie donne perché costano meno; Hudge chiama il lavoro della donna “libertà di vivere la propria vita”. Gudge vuole operai fermi e obbedienti, Hudge predica l’astinenza dall’alcol— agli operai, non a Gudge—Gudge vuole una popolazione docile e timorosa che non prenda mai le armi contro la tirannia; Hudge dimostra con Tolstoj che nessuno deve prendere le armi contro alcunché. Gudge è per natura un gentiluomo sano e ben-lavato; Hudge predica con fervore la perfezione del bagno di Gudge a gente che non può praticarlo. Soprattutto, Gudge governa con un rozzo e crudele sistema di licenziamenti, sfruttamenti e fatica di entrambi i sessi, del tutto incompatibile con la libera famiglia e che è destinato a distruggerla; perciò Hudge, tendendo le braccia verso l’universo con un sorriso profetico, ci dice che la famiglia è qualcosa che presto supereremo gloriosamente.
Non so se la combutta di Hudge e Gudge sia consapevole o inconsapevole. So soltanto che fra loro due tengono ancora l’uomo comune senza tetto. So soltanto che incontro ancora Jones che cammina per le strade nel grigio crepuscolo, guardando tristemente i pali e le barriere e le basse lanterne rosse da folletto che ancora custodiscono la casa che non è meno sua per il fatto che non vi è mai entrato.
V
CONCLUSIONE
Qui, si potrebbe dire, il mio libro finisce proprio dove dovrebbe cominciare. Ho detto che i forti centri della moderna proprietà inglese devono, in fretta o lentamente, essere spezzati, se anche solo l’idea di proprietà deve rimanere fra gli inglesi. Ci sono due modi in cui lo si potrebbe fare: una fredda amministrazione da parte di funzionari del tutto distaccati, che si chiama Collettivismo, oppure una distribuzione personale, così da produrre ciò che si chiama Proprietà Contadina. Ritengo la seconda soluzione la più bella e più pienamente umana, perché rende ogni uomo, come qualcuno rimproverò a qualcun altro di aver detto del Papa, una sorta di piccolo dio. Un uomo sulla propria zolla assapora l’eternità o, in altre parole, darà dieci minuti di lavoro in più di quanto sia richiesto. Ma credo di essere giustificato nel chiudere la porta su questo scorcio di argomento, invece di aprirla. Perché questo libro non è concepito per dimostrare la tesi a favore della Proprietà Contadina, ma per dimostrare la tesi contro i moderni saggi che riducono la riforma a una routine. L’intero libro è stato un’esortazione divagante ed elaborata di un fatto puramente etico. E se per caso dovesse accadere che ci siano ancora alcuni che non vedono bene quale sia quel punto, concluderò con una semplice parabola, che non è da meno per il fatto di essere anche un fatto reale.
Poco tempo fa certi medici e altre persone autorizzate dalla legge moderna a dettare legge ai loro concittadini più malmessi, emisero un ordine secondo cui a tutte le bambine dovevano essere tagliati i capelli corti. Intendo, naturalmente, tutte le bambine i cui genitori erano poveri. Molte abitudini assai malsane sono comuni tra le bambine ricche, ma passerà molto tempo prima che qualche medico interferisca con esse con la forza. Ora, il motivo di questa particolare interferenza era questo, che i poveri sono schiacciati dall’alto dentro bassifondi di squallore tanto puzzolenti e soffocanti che alla povera gente non si deve permettere di avere capelli, perché nel loro caso ciò deve significare pidocchi nei capelli. Perciò i medici propongono di abolire i capelli. Non sembra mai venir loro in mente di abolire i pidocchi. Eppure si potrebbe fare. Come è comune nella maggior parte delle discussioni moderne, la cosa innominabile è il perno dell’intera discussione. È ovvio a qualunque cristiano (cioè a qualunque uomo dotato di un’ anima libera) che ogni coercizione applicata alla figlia di un vetturino dovrebbe, se possibile, essere applicata alla figlia di un Ministro. Non chiederò perché i medici non, di fatto, applichino la loro regola alla figlia di un Ministro. Non lo chiederò, perché lo so. Non lo fanno perché non osano. Ma qual è la scusa che addurrebbero, qual è il plausibile argomento che userebbero, per tagliare e tosare così i bambini poveri e non i ricchi? Il loro argomento sarebbe che la malattia è più probabile nei capelli dei poveri che dei ricchi. E perché? Perché i bambini poveri sono costretti (contro tutti gli istinti delle classi lavoratrici, altamente domestiche) ad ammassarsi in stanze anguste sotto un sistema di pubblica istruzione follemente inefficiente; e perché in uno su quaranta bambini può esservi contagio. E perché? Perché il povero è talmente schiacciato dalle grandi rendite dei grandi proprietari terrieri che sua moglie spesso deve lavorare quanto lui. Perciò non ha tempo di badare ai figli, perciò uno su quaranta di essi è sporco. Poiché il lavoratore ha queste due persone addosso, il proprietario terriero seduto (letteralmente) sul suo stomaco, e il maestro seduto (letteralmente) sulla sua testa, il lavoratore deve lasciare che i capelli della sua bambina siano dapprima trascurati per povertà, poi avvelenati dalla promiscuità, e, infine, aboliti dall’igiene. Egli, forse, era orgoglioso dei capelli della sua bambina. Ma egli non conta.
Su questo semplice principio (o piuttosto precedente) il medico sociologo procede allegramente. Quando una crapulona tirannia schiaccia gli uomini nel fango, così che i loro stessi capelli sono sporchi, la via scientifica è chiara. Sarebbe lungo e faticoso tagliare le teste dei tiranni; è più facile tagliare i capelli degli schiavi. Allo stesso modo, se mai dovesse accadere che bambini poveri, urlanti per il mal di denti, disturbassero qualche maestro o qualche signore artistico, sarebbe facile strappare tutti i denti dei poveri; se le loro unghie fossero disgustosamente sporche, le loro unghie potrebbero essere estirpate; se i loro nasi fossero soffiati in modo indecente, i loro nasi potrebbero essere tagliati via. L’aspetto dei nostri più umili concittadini potrebbe essere semplificato in modo assai notevole prima che avessimo finito con loro. Ma tutto questo non è per nulla più folle del bruto fatto che un medico possa entrare nella casa di un uomo libero, i cui capelli della figlia possono essere puliti come fiori di primavera, e ordinargli di tagliarli. Non sembra mai colpire questa gente che la lezione dei pidocchi nei bassifondi è l’iniquità dei bassifondi, non l’iniquità dei capelli. I capelli sono, a dir poco, una cosa radicata. Il loro nemico (come gli altri insetti e le armate orientali di cui abbiamo parlato) piomba su di noi ma di rado. In verità, è solo mediante istituzioni eterne come i capelli che possiamo mettere alla prova istituzioni passeggere come gli imperi. Se una casa è costruita in modo da staccare la testa a un uomo quando vi entra, è costruita male.
The mob can never rebel unless it is conservative, at least enough to have conserved some reasons for rebelling. It is the most awful thought in all our anarchy, that most of the ancient blows struck for freedom would not be struck at all to-day, because of the obscuration of the clean, popular customs from which they came. The insult that brought down the hammer of Wat Tyler might now be called a medical examination. That which Virginius loathed and avenged as foul slavery might now be praised as free love. The cruel taunt of Foulon, “Let them eat grass,” might now be represented as the dying cry of an idealistic vegetarian. Those great scissors of science that would snip off the curls of the poor little school children are ceaselessly snapping closer and closer to cut off all the corners and fringes of the arts and honors of the poor. Soon they will be twisting necks to suit clean collars, and hacking feet to fit new boots. It never seems to strike them that the body is more than raiment; that the Sabbath was made for man; that all institutions shall be judged and damned by whether they have fitted the normal flesh and spirit. It is the test of political sanity to keep your head. It is the test of artistic sanity to keep your hair on.
Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all these pages, is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl’s hair. That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set fire to all modern civilization. Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home: because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution. That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict’s; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.
THREE NOTES
I
ON FEMALE SUFFRAGE
Not wishing to overload this long essay with too many parentheses, apart from its thesis of progress and precedent, I append here three notes on points of detail that may possibly be misunderstood.
The first refers to the female controversy. It may seem to many that I dismiss too curtly the contention that all women should have votes, even if most women do not desire them. It is constantly said in this connection that males have received the vote (the agricultural laborers for instance) when only a minority of them were in favor of it. Mr. Galsworthy, one of the few fine fighting intellects of our time, has talked this language in the “Nation.” Now, broadly, I have only to answer here, as everywhere in this book, that history is not a toboggan slide, but a road to be reconsidered and even retraced. If we really forced General Elections upon free laborers who definitely disliked General Elections, then it was a thoroughly undemocratic thing to do; if we are democrats we ought to undo it. We want the will of the people, not the votes of the people; and to give a man a vote against his will is to make voting more valuable than the democracy it declares.
But this analogy is false, for a plain and particular reason. Many voteless women regard a vote as unwomanly. Nobody says that most voteless men regarded a vote as unmanly. Nobody says that any voteless men regarded it as unmanly. Not in the stillest hamlet or the most stagnant fen could you find a yokel or a tramp who thought he lost his sexual dignity by being part of a political mob. If he did not care about a vote it was solely because he did not know about a vote; he did not understand the word any better than Bimetallism. His opposition, if it existed, was merely negative. His indifference to a vote was really indifference.
But the female sentiment against the franchise, whatever its size, is positive. It is not negative; it is by no means indifferent. Such women as are opposed to the change regard it (rightly or wrongly) as unfeminine. That is, as insulting certain affirmative traditions to which they are attached. You may think such a view prejudiced; but I violently deny that any democrat has a right to override such prejudices, if they are popular and positive. Thus he would not have a right to make millions of Moslems vote with a cross if they had a prejudice in favor of voting with a crescent. Unless this is admitted, democracy is a farce we need scarcely keep up. If it is admitted, the Suffragists have not merely to awaken an indifferent, but to convert a hostile majority.
II
ON CLEANLINESS IN EDUCATION
On re-reading my protest, which I honestly think much needed, against our heathen idolatry of mere ablution, I see that it may possibly be misread. I hasten to say that I think washing a most important thing to be taught both to rich and poor. I do not attack the positive but the relative position of soap. Let it be insisted on even as much as now; but let other things be insisted on much more. I am even ready to admit that cleanliness is next to godliness; but the moderns will not even admit godliness to be next to cleanliness. In their talk about Thomas Becket and such saints and heroes they make soap more important than soul; they reject godliness whenever it is not cleanliness. If we resent this about remote saints and heroes, we should resent it more about the many saints and heroes of the slums, whose unclean hands cleanse the world. Dirt is evil chiefly as evidence of sloth; but the fact remains that the classes that wash most are those that work least. Concerning these, the practical course is simple; soap should be urged on them and advertised as what it is—a luxury. With regard to the poor also the practical course is not hard to harmonize with our thesis. If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then emphatically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for being dirty.
III
ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP
I have not dealt with any details touching distributed ownership, or its possibility in England, for the reason stated in the text. This book deals with what is wrong, wrong in our root of argument and effort. This wrong is, I say, that we will go forward because we dare not go back. Thus the Socialist says that property is already concentrated into Trusts and Stores: the only hope is to concentrate it further in the State. I say the only hope is to unconcentrate it; that is, to repent and return; the only step forward is the step backward.
But in connection with this distribution I have laid myself open to another potential mistake. In speaking of a sweeping redistribution, I speak of decision in the aim, not necessarily of abruptness in the means. It is not at all too late to restore an approximately rational state of English possessions without any mere confiscation. A policy of buying out landlordism, steadily adopted in England as it has already been adopted in Ireland (notably in Mr. Wyndham’s wise and fruitful Act), would in a very short time release the lower end of the see-saw and make the whole plank swing more level. The objection to this course is not at all that it would not do, only that it will not be done. If we leave things as they are, there will almost certainly be a crash of confiscation. If we hesitate, we shall soon have to hurry. But if we start doing it quickly we have still time to do it slowly.
This point, however, is not essential to my book. All I have to urge between these two boards is that I dislike the big Whiteley shop, and that I dislike Socialism because it will (according to Socialists) be so like that shop. It is its fulfilment, not its reversal. I do not object to Socialism because it will revolutionize our commerce, but because it will leave it so horribly the same.
La folla non può mai ribellarsi se non è conservatrice, almeno abbastanza da aver conservato qualche ragione per ribellarsi. È il pensiero più tremendo in tutta la nostra anarchia, che la maggior parte degli antichi colpi vibrati per la libertà non verrebbero oggi affatto vibrati, a causa dell’oscuramento di quelle limpide consuetudini popolari da cui essi nacquero. L’oltraggio che fece calare il martello di Wat Tyler potrebbe oggi esser chiamato una visita medica. Ciò che Virginio detestò e vendicò come turpe schiavitù potrebbe oggi essere lodato come libero amore. Il crudele scherno di Foulon, “Che mangino erba,” potrebbe oggi esser rappresentato come il grido morente di un idealistico vegetariano. Quelle grandi forbici della scienza che vorrebbero tagliare i riccioli dei poveri scolaretti si serrano incessantemente sempre più vicine per recidere tutti gli angoli e le frange delle arti e degli onori dei poveri. Presto torceranno i colli per adattarli a colletti puliti, e mozzeranno i piedi per farli entrare in stivali nuovi. Non par mai venir loro in mente che il corpo è più della veste; che il Sabato fu fatto per l’uomo; che tutte le istituzioni saranno giudicate e condannate a seconda che si siano adattate alla carne e allo spirito normali. È la prova della sanità politica il conservare la testa. È la prova della sanità artistica il conservare i propri capelli.
Ora, l’intera parabola e lo scopo di queste ultime pagine, e invero di tutte queste pagine, è questo: affermare che dobbiamo immediatamente ricominciare tutto daccapo, e cominciare dall’altro capo. Io comincio dai capelli di una bambina. Questo, almeno, so che è una cosa buona. Qualunque altra cosa sia malvagia, l’orgoglio di una buona madre per la bellezza della figlia è cosa buona. È una di quelle tenerezze adamantine che sono le pietre di paragone di ogni epoca e di ogni stirpe. Se altre cose le si oppongono, altre cose devono cadere. Se proprietari terrieri e leggi e scienze le si oppongono, proprietari terrieri e leggi e scienze devono cadere. Con i capelli rossi di una monella nel rigagnolo io darò fuoco a tutta la civiltà moderna. Poiché una bambina deve avere i capelli lunghi, deve avere i capelli puliti; poiché deve avere i capelli puliti, non deve avere una casa sudicia: poiché non deve avere una casa sudicia, deve avere una madre libera e disoccupata; poiché deve avere una madre libera, non deve avere un proprietario usuraio; poiché non deve esservi un proprietario usuraio, deve esservi una ridistribuzione della proprietà; poiché deve esservi una ridistribuzione della proprietà, vi sarà una rivoluzione. Quella piccola monella dai capelli rosso-oro, che ho appena osservata passare barcollando davanti alla mia casa, non sarà potata né azzoppata né alterata; i suoi capelli non saranno tagliati corti come quelli di un galeotto; no, tutti i regni della terra saranno fatti a pezzi e mutilati per adattarsi a lei. Ella è l’immagine umana e sacra; tutt’intorno a lei il tessuto sociale oscillerà e si spaccherà e cadrà; le colonne della società saranno scosse, e i tetti dei secoli verranno giù rovinando, e non un capello del suo capo sarà toccato.
TRE NOTE
I
SUL SUFFRAGIO FEMMINILE
Non volendo sovraccaricare questo lungo saggio con troppe parentesi, al di fuori della sua tesi di progresso e precedente, aggiungo qui tre note su punti di dettaglio che potrebbero forse essere fraintesi.
La prima riguarda la controversia femminile. Potrà sembrare a molti che io respinga troppo bruscamente la tesi secondo cui tutte le donne dovrebbero avere il voto, anche se la maggior parte delle donne non lo desidera. In questo contesto si dice di continuo che i maschi hanno ricevuto il voto (i braccianti agricoli, ad esempio) quando solo una minoranza di essi ne era favorevole. Il signor Galsworthy, uno dei pochi begli intelletti battaglieri del nostro tempo, ha parlato questo linguaggio nella “Nation.” Ora, in generale, non ho che da rispondere qui, come dappertutto in questo libro, che la storia non è una discesa in slittino, ma una strada da riconsiderare e persino da ripercorrere. Se davvero abbiamo imposto le Elezioni Generali a braccianti liberi che detestavano decisamente le Elezioni Generali, allora fu una cosa profondamente antidemocratica da farsi; se siamo democratici dovremmo disfarla. Vogliamo la volontà del popolo, non i voti del popolo; e dare a un uomo un voto contro la sua volontà significa rendere il votare più prezioso della democrazia che esso proclama.
Ma questa analogia è falsa, per una ragione semplice e particolare. Molte donne prive del voto considerano il voto come cosa non femminile. Nessuno dice che la maggior parte degli uomini privi del voto considerasse il voto come cosa non virile. Nessuno dice che alcun uomo privo del voto lo considerasse come cosa non virile. Nemmeno nel più quieto villaggio o nella più stagnante palude potresti trovare un villano o un vagabondo che credesse di perdere la propria dignità sessuale per il fatto di far parte di una folla politica. Se non gli importava di un voto, era unicamente perché non sapeva nulla di un voto; non comprendeva quella parola meglio di quanto comprendesse Bimetallismo. La sua opposizione, se esisteva, era meramente negativa. La sua indifferenza verso un voto era realmente indifferenza.
Ma il sentimento femminile contro il diritto di voto, quale che ne sia l’entità, è positivo. Non è negativo; non è affatto indifferente. Quelle donne che si oppongono al mutamento lo considerano (a torto o a ragione) come non femminile. Cioè, come un affronto a certe tradizioni affermative a cui esse sono legate. Puoi ritenere prevenuta una simile veduta; ma io nego con veemenza che alcun democratico abbia il diritto di calpestare tali pregiudizi, se essi sono popolari e positivi. Così egli non avrebbe il diritto di far votare milioni di musulmani con una croce se essi avessero un pregiudizio in favore del votare con una mezzaluna. A meno che ciò non venga ammesso, la democrazia è una farsa che a stento vale la pena di mantenere. Se ciò viene ammesso, le suffragette non hanno soltanto da risvegliare una maggioranza indifferente, ma da convertire una maggioranza ostile.
II
SULLA PULIZIA NELL’EDUCAZIONE
Rileggendo la mia protesta, che onestamente credo assai necessaria, contro la nostra pagana idolatria della mera abluzione, mi accorgo che essa potrebbe forse essere fraintesa. Mi affretto a dire che ritengo il lavarsi una cosa importantissima da insegnare tanto ai ricchi quanto ai poveri. Non attacco la posizione positiva, ma quella relativa del sapone. Vi si insista pure quanto ora; ma su altre cose si insista molto di più. Sono persino pronto ad ammettere che la pulizia viene subito dopo la santità; ma i moderni non ammetteranno nemmeno che la santità venga subito dopo la pulizia. Nei loro discorsi su Thomas Becket e simili santi ed eroi essi rendono il sapone più importante dell’anima; respingono la santità ogniqualvolta essa non sia pulizia. Se ci indigniamo di questo riguardo a remoti santi ed eroi, dovremmo indignarcene ancor più riguardo ai molti santi ed eroi dei bassifondi, le cui mani sudicie mondano il mondo. La sporcizia è male soprattutto come prova di accidia; ma resta il fatto che le classi che si lavano di più sono quelle che lavorano di meno. Riguardo a costoro, la via pratica è semplice; il sapone dovrebbe esser loro raccomandato e reclamizzato per quel che è—un lusso. Anche riguardo ai poveri la via pratica non è difficile da armonizzare con la nostra tesi. Se vogliamo dare ai poveri il sapone, dobbiamo proporci deliberatamente di dar loro dei lussi. Se non vogliamo renderli abbastanza ricchi da esser puliti, allora enfaticamente dobbiamo fare ciò che facemmo con i santi. Dobbiamo riverirli per il fatto di essere sudici.
III
SULLA PICCOLA PROPRIETÀ CONTADINA
Non ho trattato alcun dettaglio concernente la proprietà distribuita, o la sua possibilità in Inghilterra, per la ragione esposta nel testo. Questo libro tratta di ciò che è sbagliato, sbagliato nella radice stessa del nostro ragionare e del nostro adoperarci. Questo sbaglio è, dico, che noi andiamo avanti perché non osiamo tornare indietro. Così il socialista dice che la proprietà è già concentrata in Trust e Grandi Magazzini: l’unica speranza è concentrarla ulteriormente nello Stato. Io dico che l’unica speranza è disconcentrarla; cioè, pentirsi e ritornare; l’unico passo avanti è il passo indietro.
Ma a proposito di questa distribuzione mi sono esposto a un altro possibile equivoco. Nel parlare di una radicale ridistribuzione, parlo di decisione nel fine, non necessariamente di bruschezza nei mezzi. Non è affatto troppo tardi per ristabilire uno stato pressoché razionale dei possessi inglesi senza alcuna semplice confisca. Una politica di riscatto del possesso fondiario, adottata con costanza in Inghilterra come è già stata adottata in Irlanda (notevolmente nell’Atto saggio e fecondo del signor Wyndham), in un tempo assai breve libererebbe l’estremità più bassa dell’altalena e farebbe oscillare l’intera asse più in piano. L’obiezione a questa via non è affatto che essa non funzionerebbe, ma soltanto che non verrà attuata. Se lasciamo le cose come stanno, vi sarà quasi certamente un crollo per confisca. Se esitiamo, dovremo presto affrettarci. Ma se cominciamo a farlo in fretta, abbiamo ancora tempo di farlo con calma.
Questo punto, tuttavia, non è essenziale al mio libro. Tutto ciò che ho da sostenere tra queste due copertine è che detesto il grande emporio Whiteley, e che detesto il Socialismo perché esso (a detta dei socialisti) sarà tanto simile a quell’emporio. Ne è il compimento, non il rovesciamento. Non mi oppongo al Socialismo perché rivoluzionerà il nostro commercio, ma perché lo lascerà così orribilmente identico.