FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW

By

ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON

Mens cujusque is est quisque

1906

NOTE. 

Twelve of the essays included in this volume appeared in the _CornhillMagazine_. My best thanks are due to the proprietor and editor of the_Cornhill Magazine_ for kind permission and encouragement to reprintthese. I have added six further papers, dealing with kindred subjects. 

A. C. B. 

CONTENTS

 I. The Point of View II. On Growing Older III. Books IV. Sociabilities V. Conversation VI. Beauty VII. Art VII. Egotism IX. Education X. Authorship XI. The Criticism of Others XII. Priest XIII. Ambition XIV. The Simple Life XV. Games XVI. Spiritualism XVII. Habits XVIII. Religion

I

THE POINT OF VIEW

I have lately come to perceive that the one thing which gives value toany piece of art, whether it be book, or picture, or music, is thatsubtle and evasive thing which is called personality. No amount oflabour, of zest, even of accomplishment, can make up for the absence ofthis quality. It must be an almost wholly instinctive thing, I believe. Of course, the mere presence of personality in a work of art is notsufficient, because the personality revealed may be lacking in charm;and charm, again, is an instinctive thing. No artist can set out tocapture charm; he will toil all the night and take nothing; but whatevery artist can and must aim at, is to have a perfectly sincere pointof view. He must take his chance as to whether his point of view is anattractive one; but sincerity is the one indispensable thing. It isuseless to take opinions on trust, to retail them, to adopt them; theymust be formed, created, truly felt. The work of a sincere artist isalmost certain to have some value; the work of an insincere artist isof its very nature worthless. 

I mean to try, in the pages that follow, to be as sincere as I can. Itis not an easy task, though it may seem so; for it means a certaindisentangling of the things that one has perceived and felt for oneselffrom the prejudices and preferences that have been inherited, or stucklike burrs upon the soul by education and circumstance. 

It may be asked why I should thus obtrude my point of view in print;why I should not keep my precious experience to myself; what the valueof it is to other people. Well, the answer to that is that it helps oursense of balance and proportion to know how other people are looking atlife, what they expect from it, what they find in it, and what they donot find. I have myself an intense curiosity about other people's pointof view, what they do when they are alone, and what they think about. Edward FitzGerald said that he wished we had more biographies ofobscure persons. How often have I myself wished to ask simple, silent, deferential people, such as station-masters, butlers, gardeners, whatthey make of it all! Yet one cannot do it, and even if one could, tento one they would not or could not tell you. But here is going to be asedate confession. I am going to take the world into my confidence, andsay, if I can, what I think and feel about the little bit of experiencewhich I call my life, which seems to me such a strange and often sobewildering a thing. 

Let me speak, then, plainly of what that life has been, and tell whatmy point of view is. I was brought up on ordinary English lines. Myfather, in a busy life, held a series of what may be called highofficial positions. He was an idealist, who, owing to a vigorous powerof practical organization and a mastery of detail, was essentially aman of affairs. Yet he contrived to be a student too. Thus, owing tothe fact that he often shifted his headquarters, I have seen a gooddeal of general society in several parts of England. Moreover, I wasbrought up in a distinctly intellectual atmosphere. 

I was at a big public school, and gained a scholarship at theUniversity. I was a moderate scholar and a competent athlete; but Iwill add that I had always a strong literary bent. I took in youngerdays little interest in history or polities, and tended rather to livean inner life in the region of friendship and the artistic emotions. IfI had been possessed of private means, I should, no doubt, have becomea full-fledged dilettante. But that doubtful privilege was denied me, and for a good many years I lived a busy and fairly successful life asa master at a big public school. I will not dwell upon this, but I willsay that I gained a great interest in the science of education, andacquired profound misgivings as to the nature of the intellectualprocess known by the name of secondary education. More and more I beganto perceive that it is conducted on diffuse, detailed, unbusiness-likelines. I tried my best, as far as it was consistent with loyalty to anestablished system, to correct the faulty bias. But it was with aprofound relief that I found myself suddenly provided with a literarytask of deep interest, and enabled to quit my scholastic labours. Atthe same time, I am deeply grateful for the practical experience I wasenabled to gain, and even more for the many true and pleasantfriendships with colleagues, parents, and boys that I was allowed toform. 

What a waste of mental energy it is to be careful and troubled aboutone's path in life! Quite unexpectedly, at this juncture, came myelection to a college Fellowship, giving me the one life that I hadalways eagerly desired, and the possibility of which had always seemedclosed to me. 

I became then a member of a small and definite society, with a fewprescribed duties, just enough, so to speak, to form a hem to my lifeof comparative leisure. I had acquired and kept, all through my life asa schoolmaster, the habit of continuous literary work; not from a senseof duty, but simply from instinctive pleasure. I found myself at onceat home in my small and beautiful college, rich with all kinds ofancient and venerable traditions, in buildings of humble and subtlegrace. The little dark-roofed chapel, where I have a stall of my own;the galleried hall, with its armorial glass; the low, book-linedlibrary; the panelled combination-room, with its dim portraits of oldworthies: how sweet a setting for a quiet life! Then, too, I have myown spacious rooms, with a peaceful outlook into a big close, halforchard, half garden, with bird-haunted thickets and immemorial trees, bounded by a slow river. 

And then, to teach me how "to borrow life and not grow old, " the happytide of fresh and vigorous life all about me, brisk, confident, cheerful young men, friendly, sensible, amenable, at that pleasant timewhen the world begins to open its rich pages of experience, undimmed atpresent by anxiety or care. 

My college is one of the smallest in the University. Last night in HallI sate next a distinguished man, who is, moreover, very accessible andpleasant. He unfolded to me his desires for the University. He wouldlike to amalgamate all the small colleges into groups, so as to haveabout half-a-dozen colleges in all. He said, and evidently thought, that little colleges are woefully circumscribed and petty places; thatmost of the better men go to the two or three leading colleges, whilethe little establishments are like small backwaters out of the mainstream. They elect, he said, their own men to Fellowships; they resistimprovements; much money is wasted in management, and the whole thingis minute and feeble. I am afraid it is true in a way; but, on theother hand, I think that a large college has its defects too. There isno real college spirit there; it is very nice for two or three sets. But the different schools which supply a big college form each its ownset there; and if a man goes there from a leading public school, hefalls into his respective set, lives under the traditions and in thegossip of his old school, and gets to know hardly any one from otherschools. Then the men who come up from smaller places just form smallinferior sets of their own, and really get very little good out of theplace. Big colleges keep up their prestige because the best men tend togo to them; but I think they do very little for the ordinary men whohave fewer social advantages to start with. 

The only cure, said my friend, for these smaller places is to throwtheir Fellowships open, and try to get public-spirited andliberal-minded Dons. Then, he added, they ought to specialize in someone branch of University teaching, so that the men who belonged to aparticular department would tend to go there. 

Well, to-day was a wet day, so I did what I particularly enjoy--I wentoff for a slow stroll, and poked about among some of the smallercolleges. I declare that the idea of tying them all together seemed tome to be a horrible piece of vandalism. These sweet and gentle littleplaces, with a quiet, dignified history and tradition of their own, arevery attractive and beautiful. I went and explored a little college Iam ashamed to say I had never visited before. It shows a poor plasteredfront to the street, but the old place is there behind the plaster. Iwent into a tiny, dark chapel, with a high pillared pediment of carvedwood behind the altar, a rich ceiling, and some fine columned alcoveswhere the dignitaries sit. Out of the gallery opens a venerablelibrary, with a regretful air of the past about its faded volumes intheir high presses, as though it sadly said, "I am of yesterday. " Thenwe found ourselves in a spacious panelled Hall, with a great oriellooking out into a peaceful garden, embowered in great trees, withsmiling lawns. All round the Hall hung portraits of oldworthies--peers, judges, and bishops, with some rubicund wiggedMasters. I like to think of the obscure and yet dignified lives thathave been lived in these quaint and stately chambers. I suppose thatthere used to be a great deal of tippling and low gossip in the olddays of the vinous, idle Fellows, who hung on for life, forgettingtheir books, and just trying to dissipate boredom. One tends to thinkthat it was all like that; and yet, doubtless, there were quiet livesof study and meditation led here by wise and simple men who have longsince mouldered into dust. And all that dull rioting is happily over. The whole place is full of activity and happiness. There is, ifanything, among the Dons, too much business, too many meetings, toomuch teaching, and the life of mere study is neglected. But it pleasesme to think that even now there are men who live quietly among theirbooks, unambitious, perhaps unproductive, but forgetting the flight oftime, and looking out into a pleasant garden, with its rustling trees, among the sound of mellow bells. We are, most of us, too much in a fussnowadays to live these gentle, innocent, and beautiful lives; and yetthe University is a place where a poor man, if he be virtuous, may leada life of dignity and simplicity, and refined happiness. We make themistake of thinking that all can be done by precept, when, as a matterof fact, example is no less potent a force. To make such quiet livespossible was to a great extent what these stately and beautiful placeswere founded for--that there should be in the busy world a corner whereactivities should not be so urgent, and where life should pass like anold dream, tinged with delicate colour and soft sound. I declare I donot know that it is more virtuous to be a clerk in a bank, toiling dayby day that others should be rich, than to live in thought andmeditation, with a heart open to sweet influences and pure hopes. Andyet it seems to be held nowadays that virtue is bound up with practicallife. If a man is content to abjure wealth and to forego marriage, tolive simply without luxuries, he may spend a very dignified, gentlelife here, and at the same time he may be really useful. It is a thingwhich is well worth doing to attempt the reconciliation between the oldand the young. Boys come up here under the impression that theirpastors and teachers are all about fifty; they think of them assensible, narrow-minded men, and, like Melchizedek, without beginningof days or end of life. They suppose that they like marking mistakes inexercises with blue pencil, and take delight in showing their power bysetting punishments. It does not often occur to them that schoolmastersmay be pathetically anxious to guide boys right, and to guard them fromevil. They think of them as devoid of passions and prejudices, with alittle dreary space to traverse before they sink into the tomb. Even inhomes, how seldom does a perfectly simple human relation exist betweena boy and his father! There is often a great deal of affection on bothsides, but little camaraderie. Little boys are odd, tiresome creaturesin many ways, with savage instincts; and I suppose many fathers feelthat, if they are to maintain their authority, they must be a littledistant and inscrutable. A boy goes for sympathy and companionship tohis mother and sisters, not often to his father. Now a Don may dosomething to put this straight, if he has the will. One of the bestfriends I ever had was an elderly Don at my own college, who had been acontemporary of my father's. He liked young men; and I used to consulthim and ask his advice in things in which I could not well consult myown contemporaries. It is not necessary to be extravagantly youthful, to slap people on the back, to run with the college boat, though thatis very pleasant if it is done naturally. All that is wanted is to beaccessible and quietly genial. And under such influences a young manmay, without becoming elderly, get to understand the older point ofview. 

The difficulty is that one acquires habits and mannerisms; one iscrusty and gruff if interfered with. But, as Pater said, to acquirehabits is failure in life. Of course, one must realize limitations, andlearn in what regions one can be effective. But no one need becase-hardened, smoke-dried, angular. The worst of a University is thatone sees men lingering on because they must earn a living, and there isnothing else that they can do; but for a human-hearted, good-humoured, and sensible man, a college life is a life where it is easy andpleasant to practise benevolence and kindliness, and where a smallinvestment of trouble pays a large percentage of happiness. Indeed, surveying it impartially--as impartially as I can--such a life seems tohold within it perhaps the greatest possibilities of happiness thatlife can hold. To have leisure and a degree of simple statelinessassured; to live in a wholesome dignity; to have the society of theyoung and generous; to have lively and intelligent talk; to have thechoice of society and solitude alike; to have one's working hoursrespected, and one's leisure hours solaced--is not this better than todrift into the so-called tide of professional success, with its drearyhours of work, its conventional domestic background? No doubt thedomestic background has its interests, its delights; but one must pay aprice for everything, and I am more than willing to pay the price ofcelibacy for my independence. 

The elderly Don in college rooms, interested in Greek particles, grumbling over his port wine, is a figure beloved by writers of fictionas a contrast to all that is brave, and bright, and wholesome in life. Could there be a more hopeless misconception? I do not know a singleextant example of the species at the University. Personally, I have nolove for Greek particles, and only a very moderate taste for port wine. But I do love, with all my heart, the grace of antiquity that mellowsour crumbling courts, the old tradition of multifarious humanity thathas century by century entwined itself with the very fabric of theplace. I love the youthful spirit that flashes and brightens in everycorner of the old courts, as the wallflower that rises spring by springwith its rich orange-tawny hue, its wild scent, on the tops of ourmouldering walls. It is a gracious and beautiful life for all who lovepeace and reflection, strength and youth. It is not a life for fieryand dominant natures, eager to conquer, keen to impress; but it is alife for any one who believes that the best rewards are not thebrightest, who is willing humbly to lend a cheerful hand, to listen aswell as to speak. It is a life for any one who has found that there isa world of tender, wistful, delicate emotions, subdued and softimpressions, in which it is peace to live; for one who has learned, however dimly, that wise and faithful love, quiet and patient hope, arethe bread by which the spirit is nourished--that religion is not anintellectual or even an ecclesiastical thing, but a far-off and remotevision of the soul. 

I know well the thoughts and hopes that I should desire to speak; butthey are evasive, subtle things, and too often, like shy birds, willhardly let you approach them. But I would add that life has not beenfor me a dreamy thing, lived in soft fantastic reveries; indeed, it hasbeen far the reverse. I have practised activity, I have mixed much withmy fellows; I have taught, worked, organized, directed. I have watchedmen and boys; I have found infinite food for mirth, for interest, andeven for grief. But I have grown to feel that the ambitions which wepreach and the successes for which we prepare are very often nothingbut a missing of the simple road, a troubled wandering among thornyby-paths and dark mountains. I have grown to believe that the one thingworth aiming at is simplicity of heart and life; that one's relationswith others should be direct and not diplomatic; that power leaves abitter taste in the mouth; that meanness, and hardness, and coldnessare the unforgivable sins; that conventionality is the mother ofdreariness; that pleasure exists not in virtue of material conditions, but in the joyful heart; that the world is a very interesting andbeautiful place; that congenial labour is the secret of happiness; andmany other things which seem, as I write them down, to be dull andtrite commonplaces, but are for me the bright jewels which I have foundbeside the way. 

It is, then, from College Windows that I look forth. But even so, though on the one hand I look upon the green and sheltered garden, withits air of secluded recollection and repose, a place of quiet pacing toand fro, of sober and joyful musing; yet on another side I see thecourt, with all its fresh and shifting life, its swift interchange ofstudy and activity; and on yet another side I can observe the streetwhere the infinite pageant of humanity goes to and fro, a tide full ofsound and foam, of business and laughter, and of sorrow too, andsickness, and the funeral pomp of death. 

This, then, is my point of view. I can truthfully say that it is notgloomy, and equally that it is not uproarious. I can boast of no deepphilosophy, for I feel, like Dr. Johnson's simple friend Edwards, that"I have tried, too, in my time, to be a philosopher, but--I don't knowhow--cheerfulness was always breaking in. " Neither is it the point ofview of a profound and erudite student, with a deep belief in theefficacy of useless knowledge. Neither am I a humorist, for I haveloved beauty better than laughter; nor a sentimentalist, for I haveabhorred a weak dalliance with personal emotions. It is hard, then, tosay what I am; but it is my hope that this may emerge. My desire is butto converse with my readers, to speak as in a comfortable tete-a-tete, of experience, and hope, and patience. I have no wish to disguise thehard and ugly things of life; they are there, whether one disguisesthem or not; but I think that unless one is a professed psychologist orstatistician, one gets little good by dwelling upon them. I have alwaysbelieved that it is better to stimulate than to correct, to fortifyrather than to punish, to help rather than to blame. If there is oneattitude that I fear and hate more than another it is the attitude ofthe cynic. I believe with all my soul in romance: that is, in a certainhigh-hearted, eager dealing with life. I think that one ought to expectto find things beautiful and people interesting, not to take delight indetecting meannesses and failures. And there is yet another class oftemperament for which I have a deep detestation. I mean the assured, the positive, the Pharisaical temper, that believes itself to beimpregnably in the right and its opponents indubitably in the wrong;the people who deal in axioms and certainties, who think thatcompromise is weak and originality vulgar. I detest authority in everyform; I am a sincere republican. In literature, in art, in life, Ithink that the only conclusions worth coming to are one's ownconclusions. If they march with the verdict of the connoisseurs, somuch the better for the connoisseurs; if they do not so march, so muchthe better for oneself. Every one cannot admire and love everything;but let a man look at things fairly and without prejudice, and make hisown selection, holding to it firmly, but not endeavouring to impose histaste upon others; defending, if needs be, his preferences, but makingno claim to authority. 

The time of my life that I consider to have been wasted, from theintellectual point of view, was the time when I tried, in a spirit ofdumb loyalty, to admire all the things that were said to be admirable. Better spent was the time when I was finding out that much that hadreceived the stamp of the world's approval was not to be approved, atleast by me; best of all was the time when I was learning to appraisethe value of things to myself, and learning to love them for their ownsake and mine. 

Respect of a deferential and constitutional type is out of place in artand literature. It is a good enough guide to begin one's pilgrimagewith, if one soon parts company from it. Rather one must learn to givehonour where honour is due, to bow down in true reverence before allspirits that are noble and adorable, whether they wear crowns and beartitles of honour, or whether they are simple and unnoted persons, whowear no gold on their garments. 

Sincerity and simplicity! if I could only say how I reverence them, howI desire to mould my life in accordance with them! And I would learn, too, swiftly to detect the living spirits, whether they be young orold, in which these great qualities reign. 

For I believe that there is in life a great and guarded city, of whichwe may be worthy to be citizens. We may, if we are blest, be always ofthe happy number, by some kindly gift of God; but we may also, throughmisadventure and pain, through errors and blunders, learn the waythither. And sometimes we discern the city afar off, with her radiantspires and towers, her walls of strength, her gates of pearl; and theremay come a day, too, when we have found the way thither, and enter in;happy if we go no more out, but happy, too, even if we may not restthere, because we know that, however far we wander, there is always ahearth for us and welcoming smiles. 

I speak in a parable, but those who are finding the way will understandme, however dimly; and those who have found the way, and seen a littleof the glory of the place, will smile at the page and say: "So he, too, is of the city. "

The city is known by many names, and wears different aspects todifferent hearts. But one thing is certain--that no one who has enteredthere is ever in any doubt again. He may wander far from the walls, hemay visit it but rarely, but it stands there in peace and glory, theone true and real thing for him in mortal time and in whatever liesbeyond. 

II

ON GROWING OLDER

The sun flares red behind leafless elms and battlemented towers as Icome in from a lonely walk beside the river; above the chimney-topshangs a thin veil of drifting smoke, blue in the golden light. Thegames in the Common are just coming to an end; a stream of long-coatedspectators sets towards the town, mingled with the parti-coloured, muddied figures of the players. I have been strolling half theafternoon along the river bank, watching the boats passing up and down;hearing the shrill cries of coxes, the measured plash of oars, therhythmical rattle of rowlocks, intermingled at intervals with the harshgrinding of the chain-ferries. Five-and-twenty years ago I was rowinghere myself in one of these boats, and I do not wish to renew theexperience. I cannot conceive why and in what moment of feeblegood-nature or misapplied patriotism I ever consented to lend a hand. Iwas not a good oar, and did not become a better one; I had no illusionsabout my performance, and any momentary complacency was generallysternly dispelled by the harsh criticism of the coach on the bank, whenwe rested for a moment to receive our meed of praise or blame. Butthough I have no sort of wish to repeat the process, to renew theslavery which I found frankly and consistently intolerable, I findmyself looking on at the cheerful scene with an amusement in whichmingles a shadow of pain, because I feel that I have parted withsomething, a certain buoyancy and elasticity of body, and perhapsspirit, of which I was not conscious at the time, but which I nowrealize that I must have possessed. It is with an admiration mingledwith envy that I see these youthful, shapely figures, bare-necked andbare-kneed, swinging rhythmically past. I watch a brisk crew lift aboat out of the water by a boat-house; half of them duck underneath toget hold of the other side, and they march up the grating gravel in asolemn procession. I see a pair of cheerful young men, released fromtubbing, execute a wild and inconsequent dance upon the water's edge; Isee a solemn conference of deep import between a stroke and a coach. Isee a neat, clean-limbed young man go airily up to a well-earned tea, without, I hope, a care, or an anxiety in his mind, expecting andintending to spend an agreeable evening. "Oh, Jones of Trinity, oh, Smith of Queen's, " I think to myself, "tua si bona noris! Make the bestof the good time, my boy, before you go off to the office, or thefourth-form room, or the country parish! Live virtuously, make honestfriends, read the good old books, lay up a store of kindlyrecollections, of firelit rooms in venerable courts, of pleasant talks, of innocent festivities. Very fresh is the cool morning air, veryfragrant is the newly-lighted bird's-eye, very lively is the clink ofknives and forks, very keen is the savour of the roast beef that floatsup to the dark rafters of the College Hall. But the days are short andthe terms are few; and do not forget to be a sensible as well as agood-humoured young man!"

Thackeray, in a delightful ballad, invites a pretty page to wait tillhe comes to forty years: well, I have waited--indeed, I have somewhatovershot the mark--and to-day the sight of all this brisk life, goingon just as it used to do, with the same insouciance and the samemerriment, makes me wish to reflect, to gather up the fragments, to seeif it is all loss, all declension, or whether there is something left, some strength in what remains behind. 

I have a theory that one ought to grow older in a tranquil andappropriate way, that one ought to be perfectly contented with one'stime of life, that amusements and pursuits ought to alter naturally andeasily, and not be regretfully abandoned. One ought not to be draggedprotesting from the scene, catching desperately at every doorway andbalustrade; one should walk off smiling. It is easier said than done. It is not a pleasant moment when a man first recognizes that he is outof place in the football field, that he cannot stoop with the oldagility to pick up a skimming stroke to cover-point, that dancing israther too heating to be decorous, that he cannot walk all day withoutundue somnolence after dinner, or rush off after a heavy meal withoutindigestion. These are sad moments which we all of us reach, but whichare better laughed over than fretted over. And a man who, out of sheerinability to part from boyhood, clings desperately and with apoplecticpuffings to these things is an essentially grotesque figure. To listento young men discussing one of these my belated contemporaries, and tohear one enforcing on another the amusement to be gained from watchingthe old buffer's manoeuvres, is a lesson against undue youthfulness. One can indeed give amusement without loss of dignity, by being open tobeing induced to join in such things occasionally in an elderly way, without any attempt to disguise deficiencies. But that is the most thatought to be attempted. Perhaps the best way of all is to subside intothe genial and interested looker-on, to be ready to applaud the gameyou cannot play, and to admire the dexterity you cannot rival. 

What then, if any, are the gains that make up for the lack of youthfulprowess? They are, I can contentedly say, many and great. In the firstplace, there is the loss of a quality which is productive of anextraordinary amount of pain among the young, the quality ofself-consciousness. How often was one's peace of mind ruined bygaucherie, by shyness, by the painful consciousness of having nothingto say, and the still more painful consciousness of having said thewrong thing in the wrong way! Of course, it was all immenselyexaggerated. If one went into chapel, for instance, with a straw hat, which one had forgotten to remove, over a surplice, one had the feelingfor several days that it was written in letters of fire on every wall. I was myself an ardent conversationalist in early years, and, with thecharming omniscience of youth, fancied that my opinion was far betterworth having than the opinions of Dons encrusted with pedantry andprejudice. But if I found myself in the society of these petrifiedpersons, by the time that I had composed a suitable remark, the slenderopening had already closed, and my contribution was either not utteredat all, or hopelessly belated in its appearance. Or some deepgeneralization drawn from the dark backward of my vast experience wouldbe produced, and either ruthlessly ignored or contemptuously correctedby some unsympathetic elder of unyielding voice and formed opinions. And then there was the crushing sense, at the conclusion of one ofthese interviews, of having been put down as a tiresome and heavy youngman. I fully believed in my own liveliness and sprightliness, but itseemed an impossible task to persuade my elders that these qualitieswere there. A good-natured, elderly friend used at times to rally meupon my shyness, and say that it all came from thinking too much aboutmyself. It was as useless as if one told a man with a toothache that itwas mere self-absorption that made him suffer. For I have no doubt thatthe disease of self-consciousness is incident to intelligent youth. Marie Bashkirtseff, in the terrible self-revealing journals which shewrote, describes a visit that she paid to some one who had expressed aninterest in her and a desire to see her. She says that as she passedthe threshold of the room she breathed a prayer, "O God, make me worthseeing!" How often used one to desire to make an impression, to makeoneself felt and appreciated!

Well, all that uneasy craving has left me. I no longer have anyparticular desire for or expectation of being impressive. One likes, ofcourse, to feel fresh and lively; but whereas in the old days I used toenter a circle with the intention of endeavouring to be felt, of givingpleasure and interest, I now go in the humble hope of receiving either. The result is that, having got rid to a great extent of this pompousand self-regarding attitude of mind, I not only find myself more atease, but I also find other people infinitely more interesting. Insteadof laying one's frigate alongside of another craft with the intentionof conducting a boarding expedition, one pays a genial visit by meansof the long-boat with all the circumstance of courtesy and amiability. Instead of desiring to make conquests, I am glad enough to betolerated. I dare, too, to say what I think, not alert for any symptomsof contradiction, but fully aware that my own point of view is but oneof many, and quite prepared to revise it. In the old days I demandedagreement; I am now amused by divergence. In the old days I desired toconvince; I am now only too thankful to be convinced of error andignorance. I now no longer shrink from saying that I know nothing of asubject; in old days I used to make a pretence of omniscience, and hadto submit irritably to being tamely unmasked. It seems to me that Imust have been an unpleasant young man enough, but I humbly hope that Iwas not so disagreeable as might appear. 

Another privilege of advancing years is the decreasing tyranny ofconvention. I used to desire to do the right thing, to know the rightpeople, to play the right games. I did not reflect whether it was worththe sacrifice of personal interest; it was all-important to be in theswim. Very gradually I discovered that other people troubled theirheads very little about what one did; that the right people were oftenthe most tiresome and the most conventional, and that the only gameswhich were worth playing were the games which one enjoyed. I used toundergo miseries in staying at uncongenial houses, in acceptingshooting invitations when I could not shoot, in going to dances becausethe people whom I knew were going. Of course one has plenty ofdisagreeable duties to perform in any case; but I discovered graduallythat to adopt the principle of doing disagreeable things which weresupposed to be amusing and agreeable was to misunderstand the wholesituation. Now, if I am asked to stay at a tiresome house, I refuse; Idecline invitations to garden parties and public dinners and dances, because I know that they will bore me; and as to games, I never playthem if I can help, because I find that they do not entertain me. Ofcourse there are occasions when one is wanted to fill a gap, and thenit is the duty of a Christian and a gentleman to conform, and to do itwith a good grace. Again, I am not at the mercy of small prejudices, asI used to be. As a young man, if I disliked the cut of a person'swhiskers or the fashion of his clothes, if I considered his manner tobe abrupt or unpleasing, if I was not interested in his subjects, I sethim down as an impossible person, and made no further attempt to formacquaintance. 

Now I know that these are superficial things, and that a kind heart andan interesting personality are not inconsistent with boots of agrotesque shape and even with mutton-chop whiskers. In fact, I thinkthat small oddities and differences have grown to have a distinctvalue, and form a pleasing variety. If a person's manner isunattractive, I often find that it is nothing more than a shyness or anawkwardness which disappears the moment that familiarity isestablished. My standard is, in fact, lower, and I am more tolerant. Iam not, I confess, wholly tolerant, but my intolerance is reserved forqualities and not for externals. I still fly swiftly from long-winded, pompous, and contemptuous persons; but if their company is unavoidable, I have at least learnt to hold my tongue. The other day I was at acountry-house where an old and extremely tiresome General laid down thelaw on the subject of the Mutiny, where he had fought as a youthfulsubaltern. I was pretty sure that he was making the most grotesquemisstatements, but I was not in a position to contradict them. Next theGeneral was a courteous, weary old gentleman, who sate with hisfinger-tips pressed together, smiling and nodding at intervals. Half-an-hour later we were lighting our candles. The General strodefiercely up to bed, leaving a company of yawning and dispirited menbehind. The old gentleman came up to me and, as he took a light, saidwith an inclination of his head in the direction of the parting figure, "The poor General is a good deal misinformed. I didn't choose to sayanything, but I know something about the subject, because I was privatesecretary to the Secretary for War. "

That was the right attitude, I thought, for the gentlemanlyphilosopher; and I have learnt from my old friend the lesson not tochoose to say anything if a turbulent and pompous person lays down thelaw on subjects with which I happen to be acquainted. 

Again, there is another gain that results from advancing years. I thinkit is true that there were sharper ecstasies in youth, keenerperceptions, more passionate thrills; but then the mind also dippedmore swiftly and helplessly into discouragement, dreariness, anddespair. I do not think that life is so rapturous, but it certainly isvastly more interesting. When I was young there were an abundance ofthings about which I did not care. I was all for poetry and art; Ifound history tedious, science tiresome, politics insupportable. Now Imay thankfully say it is wholly different. The time of youth was theopening to me of many doors of life. Sometimes a door opened upon amysterious and wonderful place, an enchanted forest, a solemn avenue, asleeping glade; often, too, it opened into some dusty work-a-day place, full of busy forms bent over intolerable tasks, whizzing wheels, darkgleaming machinery, the din of the factory and the workshop. Sometimes, too, a door would open into a bare and melancholy place, a hillsidestrewn with stones, an interminable plain of sand; worst of all, aplace would sometimes be revealed which was full of suffering, anguish, and hopeless woe, shadowed with fears and sins. From such prospects Iturned with groans unutterable; but the air of the accursed place wouldhang about me for days. These surprises, these strange surmises, crowded in fast upon me. How different the world was from what thecareless forecast of boyhood had pictured it! How strange, howbeautiful, and yet how terrible! As life went on the beauty increased, and a calmer, quieter beauty made itself revealed; in youth I lookedfor strange, impressive, haunted beauties, things that might deeplystir and move; but year by year a simpler, sweeter, healthier kind ofbeauty made itself felt; such beauty as lies on the bare, lightlywashed, faintly tinted hillside of winter, all delicate greens andbrowns, so far removed from the rich summer luxuriance, and yet soaustere, so pure. I grew to love different books too. In youth onedemanded a generous glow, a fire of passion, a strongly tinged currentof emotion; but by degrees came the love of sober, subdued reflection, a cooler world in which, if one could not rest, one might at leasttravel equably and gladly, with a far wider range of experience, alarger, if a fainter, hope. I grew to demand less of the world, less ofNature, less of people; and, behold, a whole range of subtler andgentler emotions came into sight, like the blue hills of the distance, pure and low. The whole movement of the world, past and present, becameintelligible and clear. I saw the humanity that lies behind politicaland constitutional questions, the strong, simple forces that move likea steady stream behind the froth and foam of personality. If in youth Ibelieved that personality and influence could sway and mould the world, in later years I have come to see that the strongest and fiercestcharacters are only the river-wrack, the broken boughs, the torngrasses that whirl and spin in the tongue of the creeping flood, andthat there is a dim resistless force behind them that marches onunheeding and drives them in the forefront of the inundation. Thingsthat had seemed drearily theoretical, dry, axiomatic, platitudinal, showed themselves to be great generalizations from a torrent of humaneffort and mortal endeavour. And thus all the mass of detail and humanrelation that had been rudely set aside by the insolent prejudices ofyouth under the generic name of business, came slowly to have anintense and living significance. I cannot trace the process in detail;but I became aware of the fulness, the energy, the matchless interestof the world, and the vitality of a hundred thoughts that had seemed tome the dreariest abstractions. 

Then, too, the greatest gain of all, there comes a sort of patience. Inyouth mistakes seemed irreparable, calamities intolerable, ambitionsrealizable, disappointments unbearable. An anxiety hung like a darkimpenetrable cloud, a disappointment poisoned the springs of life. Butnow I have learned that mistakes can often be set right, that anxietiesfade, that calamities have sometimes a compensating joy, that anambition realized is not always pleasurable, that a disappointment isoften of itself a great incentive to try again. One learns to look overtroubles, instead of looking into them; one learns that hope is moreunconquerable than grief. And so there flows into the gap the certaintythat one can make more of misadventures, of unpromising people, ofpainful experiences, than one had ever hoped. It may not be, nay, it isnot, so eager, so full-blooded a spirit; but it is a serener, a moreinteresting, a happier outlook. 

And so, like Robinson Crusoe on his island, striking a balance of myadvantages and disadvantages, I am inclined to think that the goodpoints predominate. Of course there still remains the intensely humaninstinct, which survives all the lectures of moralists, the desire toeat one's cake and also to have it. One wants to keep the gains ofmiddle life and not to part with the glow of youth. "The tragedy ofgrowing old, " says a brilliant writer, "is the remaining young;" thatis to say, that the spirit does not age as fast as the body. Thesorrows of life lie in the imagination, in the power to recall the gooddays that have been and the old sprightly feelings; and in the power, too, to forecast the slow overshadowing and decay of age. But LordBeaconsfield once said that the worst evil one has to endure is theanticipation of the calamities that do not happen; and I am sure thatthe thing to aim at is to live as far as possible in the day and forthe day. I do not mean in an epicurean fashion, by taking prodigallyall the pleasure that one can get, like a spendthrift of the happinessthat is meant to last a lifetime, but in the spirit of Newman's hymn--

 "I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me. "

Even now I find that I am gaining a certain power, instinctively, Isuppose, in making the most of the day and hour. In old days, if I hada disagreeable engagement ahead of me, something to which I lookedforward with anxiety or dislike, I used to find that it poisoned mycup. Now it is beginning to be the other way; and I find myself with aheightened sense of pleasure in the quiet and peaceful days that haveto intervene before the fateful morning dawns. I used to awake in themorning on the days that were still my own before the day which Idreaded, and begin, in that agitated mood which used to accompany thereturn of consciousness after sleep, when the mind is alert butunbalanced, to anticipate the thing I feared, and feel that I could notface it. Now I tend to awake and say to myself, "Well, at any rate Ihave still to-day in my own hands;" and then the very day itself has anincreased value from the feeling that the uncomfortable experience liesahead. I suppose that is the secret of the placid enjoyment which thevery old so often display. They seem so near the dark gate, and yet soentirely indifferent to the thought of it; so absorbed in littleleisurely trifles, happy with a childlike happiness. 

And thus I went slowly back to College in that gathering gloom thatseldom fails to bring a certain peace to the mind. The porter sate, with his feet on the fender, in his comfortable den, reading a paper. The lights were beginning to appear in the court, and the firelightflickered briskly upon walls hung with all the pleasant signs ofyouthful life, the groups, the family photographs, the suspended oar, the cap of glory. So when I entered my book-lined rooms, and heard thekettle sing its comfortable song on the hearth, and reflected that Ihad a few letters to write, an interesting book to turn over, apleasant Hall dinner to look forward to, and that, after a space oftalk, an undergraduate or two were coming to talk over a leisurelypiece of work, an essay or a paper, I was more than ever inclined toacquiesce in my disabilities, to purr like an elderly cat, and to feelthat while I had the priceless boon of leisure, set in a framework ofsmall duties, there was much to be said for life, and that I was a poorcreature if I could not be soberly content. 

Of course I know that I have missed the nearer ties of life, thehearth, the home, the companionship of a wife, the joys and interestsof growing girls and boys. But if a man is fatherly and kind-hearted, he will find plenty of young men who are responsive to a paternalinterest, and intensely grateful for the good-humoured care of one whowill listen to their troubles, their difficulties, and their dreams. Ihave two or three young friends who tell me what they are doing, andwhat they hope to do; I have many correspondents who were friends ofmine as boys, who tell me from time to time how it goes with them inthe bigger world, and who like in return to hear something of my owndoings. 

And so I sit, while the clock on the mantelpiece ticks out the pleasantminutes, and the fire winks and crumbles on the hearth, till the oldgyp comes tapping at the door to learn my intentions for the evening;and then, again, I pass out into the court, the lighted windows of theHall gleam with the ancient armorial glass, from staircase afterstaircase come troops of alert, gowned figures, while overhead, aboveall the pleasant stir and murmur of life, hang in the dark sky theunchanging stars. 

III

BOOKS

The one room in my College which I always enter with a certain sense ofdesolation and sadness is the College library. There used to be a storyin my days at Cambridge of a book-collecting Don who was fond ofdiscoursing in public of the various crosses he had to bear. He waslamenting one day in Hall the unwieldy size of his library. "I reallydon't know what to do with my books, " he said, and looked round forsympathy. "Why not read them?" said a sharp and caustic Fellowopposite. It may be thought that I am in need of the same advice, butit is not the case. There are, indeed, many books in our library; butmost of them, as D. G. Rossetti used to say in his childhood of hisfather's learned volumes, are "no good for reading. " The books of theCollege library are delightful, indeed, to look at; rows upon rows ofbig irregular volumes, with tarnished tooling and faded gilding on thesun-scorched backs. What are they? old editions of classics, oldvolumes of controversial divinity, folios of the Fathers, topographicaltreatises, cumbrous philosophers, pamphlets from which, like dry ashes, the heat of the fire that warmed them once has fled. Take one down: itis an agreeable sight enough; there is a gentle scent of antiquity; thebumpy page crackles faintly; the big irregular print meets the eye witha pleasant and leisurely mellowness. But what do they tell one? Verylittle, alas! that one need know, very much which it would be apositive mistake to believe. That is the worst of erudition--that thenext scholar sucks the few drops of honey that you have accumulated, sets right your blunders, and you are superseded. You have handed onthe torch, perhaps, and even trimmed it. Your errors, your patientexplanations, were a necessary step in the progress of knowledge; butnow the procession has turned the corner, and is out of sight. 

Yet even here, it pleases me to think, some mute and unsuspectedtreasure may lurk unknown. In a room like this, for over a couple ofcenturies, stood on one of the shelves an old rudely bound volume ofblank paper, the pages covered with a curious straggling cipher; no onepaid any heed to it, no one tried to spell its secrets. But the daycame when a Fellow who was both inquisitive and leisurely took up theold volume, and formed a resolve to decipher it. Through many bafflingdelays, through many patient windings, he carried his purpose out; andthe result was a celebrated Day-book, which cast much light upon thesocial conditions of a past age, as well as revealed one of the mostsimple and genial personalities that ever marched blithely through thepages of a Diary. 

But, in these days of cheap print and nasty paper, with a centrallibrary into which pours the annual cataract of literature, theselittle ancient libraries have no use left, save as repositories orstore-rooms. They belong to the days when books were few and expensive;when few persons could acquire a library of their own; when lecturersaccumulated knowledge that was not the property of the world; whennotes were laboriously copied and handed on; when one of the joys oflearning was the consciousness of possessing secrets not known to othermen. An ancient Dean of Christ Church is said to have given threereasons for the study of Greek: the first was that it enabled you toread the words of the Saviour in the original tongue; the second, thatit gave you a proper contempt for those who were ignorant of it; andthe third was that it led to situations of emolument. What a rich aromahangs about this judgment! The first reason is probably erroneous, thesecond is un-Christian, and the third is a gross motive which wouldequally apply to any professional training whatsoever. 

Well, the knowledge of Greek, except for the schoolmaster and theclergyman, has not now the same obvious commercial value. Knowledge ismore diffused, more accessible. It is no longer thought to be a secret, precious, rather terrible possession; the possessor is no longervenerated and revered; on the contrary, a learned man is ratherconsidered likely to be tiresome. Old folios have, indeed, becomemerely the stock-in-trade of the illustrators of sensational novels. Who does not know the absurd old man, with white silky hair, velvetskull-cap, and venerable appearance, who sits reading a folio at an oaktable, and who turns out to be the villain of the piece, a mine ofsecret and unsuccessful wickedness? But no one in real life reads afolio now, because anything that is worth reprinting, as well as a gooddeal that is not, is reprinted in convenient form, if not in England, at least in Germany. 

And the result of it is that these College libraries are almost whollyunvisited. It seems a pity, but it also seems inevitable. I wish thatsome use could be devised for them, for these old books make at allevents a very dignified and pleasant background, and the fragrance ofwell-warmed old leather is a delicate thing. But they are not even goodplaces for working in, now that one has one's own books and one's ownreading-chair. Moreover, if they were kept up to date, which would initself be an expensive thing, there would come in the eternaldifficulty of where to put the old books, which no one would have theheart to destroy. 

Perhaps the best thing for a library like this would be not to attemptto buy books, but to subscribe like a club to a circulating library, and to let a certain number of new volumes flow through the place andlie upon the tables for a time. But, on the other hand, here in theUniversity there seems to be little time for general reading; andindeed it is a great problem, as life goes on, as duties grow moredefined, and as one becomes more and more conscious of the shortness oflife, what the duty of a cultivated and open-minded man is with regardto general reading. I am inclined to think that as one grows older onemay read less; it is impossible to keep up with the vast output ofliterature, and it is hard enough to find time to follow even the oneor two branches in which one is specially interested. Almost the onlybooks which, I think, it is a duty to read, are the lives of greatcontemporaries; one gets thus to have an idea of what is going on inthe world, and to realize it from different points of view. Newfiction, new poetry, new travels are very hard to peruse diligently. The effort, I confess, of beginning a new novel, of making acquaintancewith an unfamiliar scene, of getting the individualities of a freshgroup of people into one's head, is becoming every year harder for me;but there are still one or two authors of fiction for whom I have apredilection, and whose works I look out for. New poetry demands aneven greater effort; and as to travels, they are written so much in thejournalistic style, and, consist so much of the meals our travellerobtains at wayside stations, of conversations with obviously reticentand even unintelligent persons; they have so many photogravures ofplaces that are exactly like other places, and of complacent people ingrotesque costumes, like supers in a play, that one feels the wholething to be hopelessly superficial and unreal. Imagine a journalisticforeigner visiting the University, lunching at the stationrefreshment-room, hurrying to half-a-dozen of the best known colleges, driving in a tram through the main thoroughfares, looking on at afootball match, interviewing a Town Councillor, and being presented tothe Vice-Chancellor--what would be the profit of such a record as hecould give us? What would he have seen of the quiet daily life, theinterests, the home-current of the place? The only books of travelworth reading are those where a person has settled deliberately in anunknown place, really lived the life of the people, and penetrated thesecret of the landscape and the buildings. 

I wish very much that there was a really good literary paper, with aneditor of catholic tastes, and half-a-dozen stimulating specialists onthe staff, whose duty would be to read the books that came out, each inhis own line, write reviews of appreciation and not of contemptuousfault-finding, let feeble books alone, and make it their business totell ordinary people what to read, not saving them the trouble ofreading the books that are worth reading, but sparing them the task ofglancing at a good many books that are not worth reading. Literarypapers, as a rule, either review a book with hopeless rapidity, or tendto lag behind too much. It would be of the essence of such a paper as Ihave described, that there should be no delay about telling one what tolook out for, and at the same time that the reviews should bedeliberate and careful. 

But I think that as one grows older one may take out a licence, so tospeak, to read less. One may go back to the old restful books, whereone knows the characters well, hear the old remarks, survey the samescenes. One may meditate more upon one's stores, stroll about more, just looking at life, seeing the quiet things that are happening, andbeaming through one's spectacles. One ought to have amassed, as lifegoes on and the shadows lengthen, a good deal of material forreflection. And, after all, reading is not in itself a virtue; it isonly one way of passing the time; talking is another way, watchingthings another. Bacon says that reading makes a full man; well, Icannot help thinking that many people are full to the brim when theyreach the age of forty, and that much which they afterwards put intothe overcharged vase merely drips and slobbers uncomfortably down theside and foot. 

The thing to determine then, as one's brain hardens or softens, is whatthe object of reading is. It is not, I venture to think, what used tobe called the pursuit of knowledge. Of course, if a man is aprofessional teacher or a professional writer, he must read forprofessional purposes, just as a coral insect must eat to enable it tosecrete the substances out of which it builds its branching house. ButI am not here speaking of professional studies, but of general reading. I suppose that there are three motives for reading--the first, purelypleasurable; the second, intellectual; the third, what may be calledethical. As to the first, a man who reads at all, reads just as heeats, sleeps, and takes exercise, because he likes it; and that isprobably the best reason that can be given for the practice. It is aninnocent mode of passing the time, it takes one out of oneself, it isamusing. Of course, it can be carried to an excess; and a man maybecome a mere book-eater, as a man may become an opium-eater. I used atone time to go and stay with an old friend, a clergyman in a remotepart of England. He was a bachelor and fairly well off. He did not careabout exercise or his garden, and he had no taste for general society. He subscribed to the London Library and to a lending library in thelittle town where he lived, and he bought too, a good many books. Hemust have spent, I used to calculate, about ten hours of thetwenty-four in reading. He seemed to me to have read everything, oldand new books alike, and he had an astonishing memory; anything that heput into his mind remained there exactly as fresh and clear as when helaid it away, so that he never needed to read a book twice. If he hadlived at a University he would have been a useful man; if one wanted toknow what books to read in any line, one had only to pick his brains. He could give one a list of authorities on almost every subject. But inhis country parish he was entirely thrown away. He had not the leastdesire to make anything of his stores, or to write. He had not the artof expression, and he was a distinctly tiresome talker. His idea ofconversation was to ask you whether you had read a number of modernnovels. If he found one that you had not read, he sketched the plot inan intolerably prolix manner, so that it was practically impossible tofix the mind on what he was saying. He seemed to have no preferences inliterature whatever; his one desire was to read everything that cameout, and his only idea of a holiday was to go up to London and getlists of books from a bookseller. That is, of course, an extreme case;and I cannot help feeling that he would have been nearly as usefullyemployed if he had confined himself to counting the number of words inthe books he read. But, after all, he was interested and amused, and aperfectly contented man. 

As to the intellectual motive for reading, it hardly needs discussing;the object is to get clear conceptions, to arrive at a critical senseof what is good in literature, to have a knowledge of events andtendencies of thought, to take a just view of history and of greatpersonalities; not to be at the mercy of theorists, but to be able tocorrect a faulty bias by having a large and wide view of the progressof events and the development of thought. One who reads from this pointof view will generally find some particular line which he tends tofollow, some special region of the mind where he is desirous to knowall that can be known; but he will, at the same time, wish to acquainthimself in a general way with other departments of thought, so that hemay be interested in subjects in which he is not wholly well-informed, and be able to listen, even to ask intelligent questions, in matterswith which he has no minute acquaintance. Such a man, if he steersclear of the contempt for indefinite views which is often the curse ofmen with clear and definite minds, makes the best kind of talker, stimulating and suggestive; his talk seems to open doors into gardensand corridors of the house of thought; and others, whose knowledge isfragmentary, would like to be at home, too, in that pleasant palace. But it is of the essence of such talk that it should be natural andattractive, not professional or didactic. People who are not used toUniversities tend to believe that academical persons are invariablyformidable. They think of them as possessed of vast stores of preciseknowledge, and actuated by a merciless desire to detect and to ridiculedeficiencies of attainment among unprofessional people. Of course, there are people of this type to be found at a University, just as inall other professions it is possible to find uncharitable specialistswho despise persons of hazy and leisurely views. But my own impressionis that it is a rare type among University Dons; I think that it is farcommoner at the University to meet men of great attainments combinedwith sincere humility and charity, for the simple reason that the mosterudite specialist at a University becomes aware both of the widediversity of knowledge and of his own limitations as well. 

Personally, direct bookish talk is my abomination. A knowledge of booksought to give a man a delicate allusiveness, an aptitude for pointedquotation. A book ought to be only incidentally, not anatomically, discussed; and I am pleased to be able to think that there is a gooddeal of this allusive talk at the University, and that the only reasonthat there is not more is that professional demands are so insistent, and work so thorough, that academical persons cannot keep up theirgeneral reading as they would like to do. 

And then we come to what I have called, for want of a better word, theethical motive for reading; it might sound at first as if I meant thatpeople ought to read improving books, but that is exactly what I do notmean. I have very strong opinions on this point, and hold that what Icall the ethical motive for reading is the best of all--indeed the onlytrue one. And yet I find a great difficulty in putting into words whatis a very elusive and delicate thought. But my belief is this. As Imake my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautifulmystery seems to gather and grow. I see that many people find the worlddreary--and, indeed, there must be spaces of dreariness in it for usall--some find it interesting; some surprising; some find it entirelysatisfactory. But those who find it satisfactory seem to me, as a rule, to be tough, coarse, healthy natures, who find success attractive andfood digestible: who do not trouble their heads very much about otherpeople, but go cheerfully and optimistically on their way, closingtheir eyes as far as possible to things painful and sorrowful, andgetting all the pleasure they can out of material enjoyments. 

Well, to speak very sincerely and humbly, such a life seems to me theworst kind of failure. It is the life that men were living in the daysof Noah, and out of such lives comes nothing that is wise or useful orgood. Such men leave the world as they found it, except for the factthat they have eaten a little way into it, like a mite into a cheese, and leave a track of decomposition behind them. 

I do not know why so much that is hard and painful and sad isinterwoven with our life here; but I see, or seem to see, that it ismeant to be so interwoven. All the best and most beautiful flowers ofcharacter and thought seem to me to spring up in the track ofsuffering; and what is the most sorrowful of all mysteries, the mysteryof death, the ceasing to be, the relinquishing of our hopes and dreams, the breaking of our dearest ties, becomes more solemn and awe-inspiringthe nearer we advance to it. 

I do not mean that we are to go and search for unhappiness; but, on theother hand, the only happiness worth seeking for is a happiness whichtakes all these dark things into account, looks them in the face, readsthe secret of their dim eyes and set lips, dwells with them, and learnsto be tranquil in their presence. 

In this mood--and it is a mood which no thoughtful man can hope orought to wish to escape--reading becomes less and less a searching forinstructive and impressive facts, and more and more a quest afterwisdom and truth and emotion. More and more I feel the impenetrabilityof the mystery that surrounds us; the phenomena of nature, thediscoveries of science, instead of raising the veil, seem only to makethe problem more complex, more bizarre, more insoluble; theinvestigation of the laws of light, of electricity, of chemical action, of the causes of disease, the influence of heredity--all these thingsmay minister to our convenience and our health, but they make the mindof God, the nature of the First Cause, an infinitely more mysteriousand inconceivable problem. 

But there still remains, inside, so to speak, of these astonishingfacts, a whole range of intimate personal phenomena, of emotion, ofrelationship, of mental or spiritual conceptions, such as beauty, affection, righteousness, which seem to be an even nearer concern, evenmore vital to our happiness than the vast laws of which it is possiblefor men to be so unconscious, that centuries have rolled past withouttheir being investigated. 

And thus in such a mood reading becomes a patient tracing out of humanemotion, human feeling, when confronted with the sorrows, the hopes, the motives, the sufferings which beckon us and threaten us on everyside. One desires to know what pure and wise and high-hearted natureshave made of the problem; one desires to let the sense of beauty--thatmost spiritual of all pleasures--sink deeper into the heart; onedesires to share the thoughts and hopes, the dreams and visions, in thestrength of which the human spirit has risen superior to suffering anddeath. 

And thus, as I say, the reading that is done in such a mood has littleof precise acquisition or definite attainment about it; it is a desirerather to feed and console the spirit--to enter the region in which itseems better to wonder than to know, to aspire rather than to define, to hope rather than to be satisfied. A spirit which walks expectantlyalong this path grows to learn that the secret of such happiness as wecan attain lies in simplicity and courage, in sincerity andloving-kindness; it grows more and more averse to material ambitionsand mean aims; it more and more desires silence and recollection andcontemplation. In this mood, the words of the wise fall like thetolling of sweet, grave bells upon the soul, the dreams of poets comelike music heard at evening from the depth of some enchanted forest, wafted over a wide water; we know not what instrument it is whence themusic wells, by what fingers swept, by what lips blown; but we knowthat there is some presence there that is sorrowful or glad, who haspower to translate his dream into the concord of sweet sounds. Such amood need not withdraw us from life, from toil, from kindlyrelationships, from deep affections; but it will rather send us back tolife with a renewed and joyful zest, with a desire to discern the truequality of beautiful things, of fair thoughts, of courageous hopes, ofwise designs. It will make us tolerant and forgiving, patient withstubbornness and prejudice, simple in conduct, sincere in word, gentlein deed; with pity for weakness, with affection for the lonely and thedesolate, with admiration for all that is noble and serene and strong. 

Those who read in such a spirit will tend to resort more and more tolarge and wise and beautiful books, to press the sweetness out of oldfamiliar thoughts, to look more for warmth and loftiness of feelingthan for elaborate and artful expression. They will value more and morebooks that speak to the soul, rather than books that appeal to the earand to the mind. They will realize that it is through wisdom and forceand nobility that books retain their hold upon the hearts of men, andnot by briskness and colour and epigram. A mind thus stored may havelittle grasp of facts, little garniture of paradox and jest; but itwill be full of compassion and hope, of gentleness and joy. . . . 

Well, this thought has taken me a long way from the College library, where the old books look somewhat pathetically from the shelves, likeaged dogs wondering why no one takes them for a walk. Monuments ofpathetic labour, tasks patiently fulfilled through slow hours! But yetI am sure that a great deal of joy went to the making of them, the joyof the old scholar who settled down soberly among his papers, and heardthe silvery bell above him tell out the dear hours that, perhaps, hewould have delayed if he could. Yes, the old books are a tender-heartedand a joyful company; the days slip past, the sunlight moves round thecourt, and steals warmly for an hour or two into the deserted room. Life--delightful life--spins merrily past; the perennial stream ofyouth flows on; and perhaps the best that the old books can do for usis to bid us cast back a wistful and loving thought into the past--alittle gift of love for the old labourers who wrote so diligently inthe forgotten hours, till the weary, failing hand laid down thefamiliar pen, and soon lay silent in the dust. 

IV

SOCIABILITIES

I have a friend here, an old friend, who, in refreshing contrast withthe majority of the human race, possesses strongly markedcharacteristics. He knows exactly the sort of life that suits him, andexactly what he likes. He is not, as Mr. Enfield said, one of thefellows who go about doing what is called "good. " But he contrives togive a great deal of happiness without having any programme. He is, inthe first place, a savant with a great reputation; but he makes noparade of his work, and sits down to it because he likes it, as ahungry man may sit down to a pleasant meal. He is thus the mostleisurely man that I know, while, at the same time, his output isamazing. His table is covered deep with books and papers; but he willwork at a corner, if he is fortunate enough to find one; and, if not, he will make a kind of cutting in the mass, and work in the shade, withsteep banks of stratified papers on either hand. He is alwaysaccessible, always ready to help any one. The undergraduate, that shybird in whose sight the net is so often spread in vain, even though itbe baited with the priceless privilege of tea, tobacco, and the talk ofa well-informed man, comes, in troops and companies, to see him. He isa man too with a deep vein of humour, and, what is far more rare, akeen vein of appreciation of the humour of others. He laughs as if hewere amused, not like a man discharging a painful duty. It is true thathe will not answer letters; but then his writing-paper is generallydrowned deeper than plummet can sound; his pens are rusty, and his inkis of the consistency of tar; but he will always answer questions, withan incredible patience and sympathy, correcting one's mistakes in agenial and tentative way, as if a matter admitted of many opinions. Ifa man, for instance, maintains that the Norman Conquest took place in1066 B. C. , he will say that some historians put it more than twothousand years later, but that of course it is difficult to arrive atexact accuracy in these matters. Thus one never feels snubbed orsnuffed out by him. 

Well, for the purposes of my argument, I will call my friend Perry, though it is not his name; and having finished my introduction I willgo on to my main story. 

I took in to dinner the other night a beautiful and accomplished lady, with whom it is always a pleasure to talk. The conversation turned uponMr. Perry. She said with a graceful air of judgment that she had butone fault to find with him, and that was that he hated women. Ihazarded a belief that he was shy, to which she replied with adignified assurance that he was not shy; he was lazy. 

Prudence and discretion forbade me to appeal against this decision; butI endeavoured to arrive at the principles that supported such averdict. I gathered that Egeria considered that every one owed acertain duty to society; that people had no business to pick andchoose, to cultivate the society of those who happened to please andinterest them, and to eschew the society of those who bored and weariedthem; that such a course was not fair to the uninteresting people, andso forth. But the point was that there was a duty involved, and thatsome sacrifice was required of virtuous people in the matter. 

Egeria herself is certainly blameless in the matter: she diffusessweetness and light in many tedious assemblies; she is true to herprinciples; but for all that I cannot agree with her on this point. 

In the first place I cannot agree that sociability is a duty at all, and to conceive of it as such seems to me to misunderstand the wholesituation. I think that a man loses a great deal by being unsociable, and that for his own happiness he had better make an effort to seesomething of his fellows. All kinds of grumpinesses and morbiditiesarise from solitude; and a shy man ought to take occasional dips intosociety from a medicinal point of view, as a man should take a coldbath; even if he confers no pleasure on others by so doing, the meresense, to a timid man, of having steered a moderately straight coursethrough a social entertainment is in itself enlivening andinvigorating, and gives the pleasing feeling of having escaped from agreat peril. But the accusation of unsociability does not apply toPerry, whose doors are open day and night, and whose welcome is alwaysperfectly sincere. Moreover, the frame of mind in which a man goes to aparty, determined to confer pleasure and exercise influence, is adangerously self-satisfied one. Society is, after all, a recreation anda delight, and ought to be sought for with pleasurable motives, notwith a consciousness of rectitude and justice. 

My own belief is that every one has a perfect right to choose his owncircle, and to make it large or small as he desires. It is a monstrousthing to hold that, if an agreeable or desirable person comes to aplace, one has but to leave a piece of pasteboard at his door to entailupon him the duty of coming round till he finds one at home, and ofdisporting himself gingerly, like a dancing bear among the teacups. Acard ought to be a species of charity, left on solitary strangers, togive them the chance of coming, if they like, to see the leaver of it, or as a preliminary to a real invitation. It ought to be a ticket ofadmission, which a man may use or not as he likes, not a legal summons. That any one should return a call should be a compliment and an honour, not regarded as the mere discharging of a compulsory duty. 

I have heard fair ladies complain of the boredom they endured attea-parties; they speak of themselves as the martyrs and victims of asense of duty. If such people talked of the duty of visiting the sickand afflicted as a thing which their conception of Christian loveentailed upon them, which they performed, reluctantly and unwillingly, from a sense of obligation, I should respect them deeply andprofoundly. But I have not often found that the people who complainmost of their social duties, and who discharge them most sedulously, complain because such duties interrupt a course of Christianbeneficence. It is, indeed, rather the other way; it is generally truethat those who see a good deal of society (from a sense of duty) andfind it dull, are the people who have no particular interests orpursuits of their own. 

There is less excuse in a University town than in any other foradopting this pompous and formal view of the duties of society, becausethere are very few unoccupied people in such a place. My ownoccupations, such as they are, fill the hours from breakfast toluncheon and from tea to dinner; men of sedentary lives, who do a gooddeal of brainwork, find an hour or two of exercise and fresh air anecessity in the afternoon. Indeed, a man who cares about his work, andwho regards it as a primary duty, finds no occupation more dispiriting, more apt to unfit him for serious work, than pacing from house to housein the early afternoon, delivering a pack of visiting-cards, varied bya perfunctory conversation, seated at the edge of an easy-chair, onsubjects of inconceivable triviality. Of course there are men soconstituted that they find this pastime a relief and a pleasure; buttheir felicity of temperament ought not to be made into a rule forserious-minded men. The only social institution which might reallyprove beneficial in a University is an informal evening salon. Ifpeople might drop in uninvited, in evening dress or not, as wasconvenient, from nine to ten in the evening, at a pleasant house, itwould be a rational practice; but few such experiments seem ever to betried. 

Moreover, the one thing that is fatal to all spontaneous socialenjoyment is that the guests should, like the maimed and blind in theparable, be compelled to come in. The frame of mind of an eminentCabinet Minister whom I once accompanied to an evening party risesbefore my mind. He was in deep depression at having to go; and when Iventured to ask his motive in going, he said, with an air ofunutterable self-sacrifice, "I suppose that we ought sometimes to beready to submit to the tortures we inflict on others. " Imagine a circleof guests assembled in such a frame of mind, and it would seem that onehad all the materials for a thoroughly pleasant party. 

I was lately taken by a friend, with whom I was staying in the country, to a garden party. I confess that I think it would be hard to conceivecircumstances less favourable to personal enjoyment. The day was hot, and I was uncomfortably dressed. I found myself first in a hot room, where the host and hostess were engaged in what is called receiving. Astream of pale, perspiring people moved slowly through, some of themfrankly miserable, some with an air of false geniality, which deceivedno one, written upon their faces. "So pleasant to see so many friends!""What a delightful day you have got for your party!" Such ineptitudeswere the current coin of the market. I passed on into another roomwhere refreshment, of a nature that I did not want, was sadly accepted. And I then passed out into the open air; the garden was disagreeablycrowded; there was "a din of doubtful talk, " as Rossetti says. The sunbeat down dizzily on my streaming brow. I joined group after group, where the conversation was all of the same easy and stimulatingcharacter, until I felt sick and faint (though of robust constitution)with the "mazes of heat and sound" in which my life seemed "turning, turning, " like the life of the heroine of "Requiescat. " I declare thatsuch a performance is the sort of thing that I should expect to find inhell, even down to the burning marl, as Milton says. I got away dizzy, unstrung, unfit for life, with that terrible sense of fatigueunaccompanied by wholesome tiredness, that comes of standing in hotbuzzing places. I had heard not a single word that amused or interestedme; and yet there were plenty of people present with whom I should haveenjoyed a leisurely talk, to whom I felt inclined to say, in the wordsof Prince Henry to Poins, "Prithee, Ned, come out of this fat room, andlend me thy hand to laugh a little!" But as I went away, I ponderedsadly upon the almost inconceivable nature of the motive which couldlead people to behave as I had seen them behaving, and resolutely tolabel it pleasure. I suppose that, as a matter of fact, many personsfind stir, and movement, and the presence of a crowd an agreeablestimulus. I imagine that people are divided into those who, if they seea crowd of human beings in a field, have a desire to join them, andthose who, at the same sight, long to fly swiftly to the uttermost endsof the earth. I am of the latter temperament; and I cannot believe thatthere is any duty which should lead me to resist the impulse as atemptation to evil. But the truth is that sociable people, likeliturgical people, require, for the full satisfaction of theirinstincts, that a certain number of other persons should be present atthe ceremonies which they affect, and that all should be occupied inthe same way. It is of little moment to the originators of the ceremonywhether those present are there willingly or unwillingly; and thus theonly resource of their victims is to go out on strike; so far fromthinking it a duty to be present at social or religious functions, inorder that my sociable or liturgical friends should have a suitablebackground for their pleasures, I think it a solemn duty to resist tothe uttermost this false and vexatious theory of society and religion!

I suppose, too, that inveterate talkers and discoursers require anaudience who should listen meekly and admiringly, and not interrupt. Ihave friends who are afflicted with this taste to such an extent, whoare so determined to hold the talk in their own hands, that I declarethey might as well have a company of stuffed seals to sit down todinner with, as a circle of living and breathing men. But I do notthink it right, or at all events necessary, in the interests of humankindliness, that I should victimize myself so for a man's pleasure. Neither do I think it necessary that I should attend a ceremony where Ineither get nor give anything of the nature of pleasure, simply inorder to conform to a social rule, invented and propagated by those whohappen to enjoy such gatherings. 

I remember being much struck by an artless reminiscence of anundergraduate, quoted in the Memoirs of a certain distinguishedacademical personage, who was fond of inviting young men to share hishospitality for experimental reasons. I cannot recollect the exactwords, but the undergraduate wrote of his celebrated entertainersomewhat to the following effect: "He asked me to sit down, so I satedown; he asked me to eat an apple, so I ate it. He asked me to take aglass of wine, so I poured one out, and drank it. I am told that hetries to get you to talk so that he may see the kind of fellow you are;but I didn't want him to know the kind of fellow I was, so I didn'ttalk; and presently I went away. " I think that this species ofretaliation is perfectly fair in the case of experimentalentertainments. Social gatherings must be conducted on a basis ofperfect equality, and the idea of duty in connection with them is abugbear invented in the interests of those who are greedy of society, and not in a position to contribute any pleasure to a social gathering. 

It might be inferred from the above considerations that I am aninveterately unsociable person; but such is not the case. I amextremely gregarious at the right time and place. I love to spend alarge part of the day alone; I think that a perfect day consists in asolitary breakfast and a solitary morning; a single companion forluncheon and exercise; again some solitary hours; but then I love todine in company and, if possible, to spend the rest of the evening withtwo or three congenial persons. But more and more, as life goes on, doI find the mixed company tiresome, and the tete-a-tete delightful. Theonly amusement of society is the getting to know what other peoplereally think and feel: what amuses them, what pleases them, what shocksthem; what they like and what they loathe; what they tolerate and whatthey condemn. A dinner-party is agreeable, principally because one isabsolutely tied down to make the best of two people. Very few Englishpeople have the art of conversing unaffectedly and sincerely before acircle; when one does come across it, it is a rare and beautiful art, like singing, or oratory. But the presence of such an improvisatore isthe only thing that makes a circle tolerable. On the other hand, agreat many English people have the art of tete-a-tete talking; and Ican honestly say that I have very seldom been brought into closerelations with an individual without finding an unsuspected depth andwidth of interest in the companionship. 

But in any case the whole thing is a mere question of pleasure; and Ireturn to my thesis, which is that the only possible theory is forevery one to find and create the kind of society that he or she maylike. Depend upon it, congenial society is the only kind of society to, and in which, any one will give his best. If people like the society ofthe restaurant, the club, the drawing-room, the dining-room, the openair, the cricket-field, the moor, the golf-course, in the name ofpleasure and common sense let them have it; but to condemn people, bybrandishing the fiery sword of duty over their heads, to attenduncongenial gatherings seems to me to be both absurd and unjust. 

The case of my friend Perry is, I must admit, complicated by the factthat he does add greatly to the happiness of any circle of which he isa member; he is an admirable listener and a sympathetic talker. But ifEgeria desires to make a Numa of him, and to inspire him with her owngentle wisdom, let her convince him quietly that he does owe a duty tosociety, and not censure him before his friends. If Egeria, in her owninimitable way, would say to him that the lives of academical ladieswere apt to be dull, and that it was a matter of graceful chivalry forhim to brighten the horizon, why, Perry could not resist her. Butchivalry is a thing which must be courteously and generously conceded, and must never be pettishly claimed; and indeed I do not want Perryinterfered with in this matter: he fills a very peculiar niche, he is alodestar to enthusiastic undergraduates; he is the joy of sobercommon-rooms. I wish with all my heart that the convenances of lifepermitted Egeria herself to stray into those book-lined rooms, dim withtobacco-smoke, to warble and sing to the accompaniment of Perry'scracked piano, to take her place among the casual company. But asEgeria cannot go to Perry, and as Perry will not go to Egeria, theymust respect each other from a distance, and do their best alone. 

And, after all, simple, sincere, and kindly persons are apt to find, asStevenson wisely said, their circle ready-made. The only people whocannot get the friends and companions they want are those whopetulantly claim attention; and the worst error of all consists inmistaking the gentle pleasures of life, such as society andintercourse, for the duties of life, and of codifying and formalizingthem. For myself, I wish with all my heart that I had Perry's power; Iwish that those throngs of young men would feel impelled to come in andtalk to me, easily and simply. I have, it is true, several faithfulfriends, but very few of them will come except in response to adefinite invitation; and really, if they do not want to come, I do notat all wish to force them to do so. It might amuse me; but if it amusedthem, they would come: as they do not come, I am quite ready toconclude that it does not amuse them. I am as conscious as every oneelse of the exquisitely stimulating and entertaining character of myown talk; it constantly pains me that so few people take advantage oftheir opportunities of visiting the healing fount. But the fact isincontestable that my talents are not appreciated at their right value;and I must be content with such slender encouragement as I receive. Invain do I purchase choice brands of cigars and cigarettes, and load myside-table with the best Scotch whisky. Not eyen with that solace willthe vagrant undergraduate consent to be douched under the stream of mysuggestive conversation. 

A humorous friend of mine, Tipton by name, an official of aneighbouring college, told me that he held receptions of undergraduateson Sunday evenings. I believe that he is in reality a model host, fullof resource and sprightliness, and that admission to his entertainmentsis eagerly coveted. But it pleases him to depreciate his own success. "Oh, yes, " he said, in answer to my questions as to the art hepractised, "a few of them come; one or two because they like me; somebecause they, think there is going to be a row about attendance atchapel, and hope to mend matters; one or two because they like to standwell with the dons, when there is a chance of a fellowship; but thelowest motive of all, " he went on, "was the motive which I heard fromthe lips of one on a summer evening, when my windows were all open, andI was just prepared to receive boarders; an ingenuous friend of minebeneath said to another unoccupied youth, 'What do you think aboutdoing a Tipper tonight?' To which the other replied, 'Well, yes, oneought to do one a term; let's go in at once and get it over. '"

V

CONVERSATION

I cannot help wishing sometimes that English people had more theoriesabout conversation. Really good talk is one of the greatest pleasuresthere is, and yet how rarely one comes across it! There are a good manypeople among my acquaintance who on occasions are capable of talkingwell. But what they seem to lack is initiative, and deliberate purpose. If people would only look upon conversation in a more serious light, much would be gained. I do not of course mean, Heaven forbid! thatpeople should try to converse seriously; that results in the worst kindof dreariness, in feeling, as Stevenson said, that one has the brain ofa sheep and the eyes of a boiled codfish. But I mean that the moreseriously one takes an amusement, the more amusing it becomes. What Iwish is that people would apply the same sort of seriousness to talkthat they apply to golf and bridge; that they should desire to improvetheir game, brood over their mistakes, try to do better. Why is it thatso many people would think it priggish and effeminate to try to improvetheir talk, and yet think it manly and rational to try to shoot better?Of course it must be done with a natural zest and enjoyment, or it isuseless. What a ghastly picture one gets of the old-fashioned talkersand wits, committing a number of subjects to memory, turning over acommonplace book for apposite anecdotes and jests, adding dates tothose selected that they may not tell the same story again too soon, learning up a list of epigrams, stuck in a shaving-glass, when they aredressing for dinner, and then sallying forth primed to bursting withconversation! It is all very well to know beforehand the kind of lineyou would wish to take, but spontaneity is a necessary ingredient oftalk, and to make up one's mind to get certain stories in, is todeprive talk of its fortuitous charm. When two celebrated talkers ofthe kind that I have described used to meet, the talk was nothing but asmart interchange of anecdotes. There is a story of Macaulay and someother great conversationalist getting into the swing at breakfast whenstaying, I think, with Lord Lansdowne. They drew their chairs to thefire, the rest of the company formed a circle round them, and listenedmeekly to the dialogue until luncheon. What an appalling picture! Onesympathizes with Carlyle on the occasion when he was asked to dinner tomeet a great talker, who poured forth a continuous flow of jest andanecdote until the meal was far advanced. Then came a lull; Carlylelaid down his knife and fork, and looking round with the famous"crucified" expression on his face, said in a voice of agonizedentreaty, "For God's sake take me away, and put me in a room by myself, and give me a pipe of tobacco!" He felt, as I have felt on suchoccasions, an imperative need of silence and recollection and repose. Indeed, as he said on another occasion, of one of Coleridge'sharangues, "to sit still and be pumped into is never an exhilaratingprocess. "

That species of talker is, however, practically extinct; though indeedI have met men whose idea of talk was a string of anecdotes, and whoemployed the reluctant intervals of silence imposed upon them by thedesperate attempt of fellow-guests to join in the fun, in arranging thepoints of their next anecdote. 

What seems to me so odd about a talker of that kind is the lack of anysense of justice about his talk. He presumably enjoys the exercise ofspeech, and it seems to me strange that it should not occur to him thatothers may like it too, and that he should not concede a certainopportunity to others to have their say, if only in the interests offair play. It is as though a gourmet's satisfaction in a good dinnerwere not complete unless he could prevent every one else from partakingof the food before them. 

What is really most needed in social gatherings is a kind of moderatorof the talk, an informal president. Many people, as I have said, arequite capable of talking interestingly, if they get a lead. The perfectmoderator should have a large stock of subjects of general interest. Heshould, so to speak, kick-off. And then he should either feel, or atleast artfully simulate, an interest in other people's point of view. He should ask questions, reply to arguments, encourage, elicitexpressions of opinion. He should not desire to steer his own course, but follow the line that the talk happens to take. If he aims at thereputation of being a good talker, he will win a far higher fame bypursuing this course; for it is a lamentable fact that, after a livelytalk, one is apt to remember far better what one has oneselfcontributed to the discussion than what other people have said; and ifyou can send guests away from a gathering feeling that they have talkedwell, they will be disposed in that genial mood to concedeconversational merit to the other participators. A naive andsimple-minded friend of my own once cast an extraordinary light on thesubject, by saying to me, the day after an agreeable symposium at myown house, "We had a very pleasant evening with you yesterday. I was ingreat form"!

The only two kinds of talker that I find tiresome are the talker ofparadoxes and the egotist. A few paradoxes are all very well; they arestimulating and gently provocative. But one gets tired of a string ofthem; they become little more than a sort of fence erected round aman's mind; one despairs of ever knowing what a paradoxical talkerreally thinks. Half the charm of good talk consists in the glimpses andpeeps one gets into the stuff of a man's thoughts; and it is wearisometo feel that a talker is for ever tossing subjects on his horns, perpetually trying to say the unexpected, the startling thing. In thebest talk of all, a glade suddenly opens up, like the glades in theAlpine forests through which they bring the timber down to the valley;one sees a long green vista, all bathed in shimmering sunshine, withthe dark head of a mountain at the top. So in the best talk one has asudden sight of something high, sweet, serious, austere. 

The other kind of talk that I find very disagreeable is the talk of afull-fledged egotist, who converses without reference to his hearers, and brings out what is in his mind. One gets interesting things in thisway from time to time; but the essence, as I have said, of good talk isthat one should have provoking and stimulating peeps into other minds, not that one should be compelled to gaze and stare into them. I have afriend, or rather an acquaintance, whose talk is just as if he opened atrap-door into his mind: you look into a dark place where somethingflows, stream or sewer; sometimes it runs clear and brisk, but at othertimes it seems to be charged with dirt and debris; and yet there is noescape; you have to stand and look, to breathe the very odours of themind, until he chooses to close the door. 

The mistake that many earnest and persevering talkers make is tosuppose that to be engrossed is the same thing as being engrossing. Itis true of conversation as of many other things, that the half isbetter than the whole. People who are fond of talking ought to bewareof being lengthy. How one knows the despair of conversing with a manwho is determined to make a clear and complete statement of everything, and not to let his hearer off anything! Arguments, questions, views, rise in the mind in the course of the harangue, and are swept away bythe moving stream. Such talkers suffer from a complacent feeling thattheir information is correct and complete, and that their deductionsare necessarily sound. But it is quite possible to form and hold astrong opinion, and yet to realize that it is after all only one pointof view, and that there is probably much to be said on the other side. The unhappiest feature of drifting into a habit of positive andcontinuous talk is that one has few friends faithful enough tocriticise such a habit and tell one the unvarnished truth; if the habitis once confirmed, it becomes almost impossible to break it off. I knowof a family conclave that was once summoned, in order, if possible, tocommunicate the fact to one of the circle that he was in danger ofbecoming a bore; the head of the family was finally deputed to conveythe fact as delicately as possible to the erring brother. He did so, with much tender circumlocution. The offender was deeply mortified, butendeavoured to thank his elderly relative for discharging so painful atask. He promised amendment. He sate glum and tongue-tied for severalweeks in the midst of cheerful gatherings. Very gradually the old habitprevailed. Within six months he was as tedious as ever; but what is thesaddest part of the whole business is that he has never quite forgiventhe teller of the unwelcome news, while at the same time he laboursunder the impression that he has cured himself of the habit. 

It is, of course, useless to attempt to make oneself into a brillianttalker, because the qualities needed--humour, quickness, the power ofseeing unexpected connections, picturesque phrasing, natural charm, sympathy, readiness, and so forth--are things hardly attainable byeffort. But much can be done by perseverance; and it is possible toform a deliberate habit of conversation by determining that howevermuch one may be indisposed to talk, however unpromising one'scompanions may seem, one will at all events keep up an end. I haveknown really shy and unready persons who from a sheer sense of dutyhave made themselves into very tolerable talkers. A friend of myacquaintance confesses that a device she has occasionally employed isto think of subjects in alphabetical order. I could not practise thisdevice myself, because when I had lighted upon, we will say, algebra, archery, and astigmatism, as possible subjects for talk, I should findit impossible to invent any gambit by which they could be successfullyintroduced. 

The only recipe which I would offer to a student of the art is not tobe afraid of apparent egotism, but to talk frankly of any subject inwhich he may be interested, from a personal point of view. Animpersonal talker is apt to be a dull dog. There is nothing like afrank expression of personal views to elicit an equally frankexpression of divergence or agreement. Neither is it well to despisethe day of small things; the weather, railway travelling, symptoms ofillness, visits to a dentist, sea-sickness, as representing theuniversal experiences and interests of humanity, will often serve aspoints d'appui. 

Of course there come to all people horrible tongue-tied moments whenthey can think of nothing to say, and, feel like a walrus on anice-floe, heavy, melancholy, ineffective. Such a catastrophe is almostinvariably precipitated in my own case by being told that some one isparticularly anxious to be introduced to me. A philosopher of myacquaintance, who was an admirable talker, told me that on a certainoccasion, an evening party, his hostess led up a young girl to him, like Iphigenia decked for the sacrifice, and said that Miss ---- wasdesirous of meeting him. The world became instantly a blank to him. Theenthusiastic damsel stared at him with large admiring eyes. After aperiod of agonized silence, a remark occurred to him which he feltmight have been appropriate if it had been made earlier in theencounter. He rejected it as useless, and after another interval athought came to him which he saw might have served, if the suspense hadnot been already so prolonged; this was also put aside; and after aseries of belated remarks had occurred to him, each of which seemed tobe hopelessly unworthy of the expectation he had excited, the hostess, seeing that things had gone wrong, came, like Artemis, and ledIphigenia away, without the philosopher having had the opportunity ofindulging in a single reflection. The experience, he said, was of soappalling a character, that he set to, and invented a remark which hesaid was applicable to persons of all ages and of either sex, under anycircumstances whatever; but, as he would never reveal this preciouspossession to the most ardent inquirers, the secret, whatever it was, has perished with him. 

One of my friends has a perfectly unique gift of conversation. He is aprominent man of affairs, a perfect mine of political secrets. He is aready talker, and has the art, both in a tete-a-tete as well as in amixed company, of mentioning things which are extremely interesting, and appear to be hopelessly indiscreet. He generally accompanies hisrelation of these incidents with a request that the subject may not bementioned outside. The result is that every one who is brought intocontact with him feels that he is selected by the great man because ofsome happy gift of temperament, trustworthiness, or discretion, or evenon grounds of personal importance, to be the recipient of this signalmark of confidence. On one occasion I endeavoured, after one of theseconversations, not for the sake of betraying him, but in the interestsof a diary which I keep, to formulate in precise and permanent termssome of this interesting intelligence. To my intense surprise anddisappointment, I found myself entirely unable to recollect, much lessto express, any of his statements. They had melted in the mind, likesome delicate confection, and left behind them nothing but a faintaroma of interest and pleasure. 

This would be a dangerous example to imitate, because it requires avery subtle species of art to select incidents and episodes whichshould both gratify the hearers, and which at the same time it shouldbe impossible to hand on. Most people who attempted such a task wouldsink into being miserable blabbers of tacenda, mere sieves throughwhich matters of secret importance would granulate into the hands ofardent journalists. But at once to stimulate and gratify curiosity, andto give a quiet circle the sense of being admitted to the inmostpenetralia of affairs, is a triumph of conversational art. 

Dr. Johnson used to say that he loved to stretch his legs and have histalk out; and the fact remains that the best conversation one gets isthe conversation that one does not scheme for, and even on occasionsfrom which one has expected but little. The talks that remain in mymind as of pre-eminent interest are long leisurely tete-a-tete talks, oftenest perhaps of all in the course of a walk, when exercise sendsthe blood coursing through the brain, when a pleasant countryside tunesthe spirit to a serene harmony of mood, and when the mind, stimulatedinto a joyful readiness by association with some quiet, just, andperceptive companion, visits its dusty warehouse, and turns over itsfantastic stores. Then is the time to penetrate into the inmostlabyrinths of a subject, to indulge in pleasing discursiveness, as thefancy leads one, and yet to return again and again with renewed relishto the central theme. Such talks as these, with no overshadowinganxiety upon the mind, held on breezy uplands or in pleasant countrylanes, make the moments, indeed, to which the mind, in the sad moodwhich remembers the days that are gone, turns with that sorrowfuldesolation of which Dante speaks, as to a treasure lightly spent andungratefully regarded. How such hours rise up before the mind! Even nowas I write I think of such a scene, when I walked with a friend, longdead, on the broad yellow sands beside a western sea. I can recall thesharp hiss of the shoreward wind, the wholesome savours of the brine, the soft clap of small waves, the sand-dunes behind the shore, prickedwith green tufts of grass, the ships moving slowly on the sea's rim, and the shadowy headland to which we hardly seemed to draw more near, while we spoke of all that was in our hearts, and all that we meant todo and be. That day was a great gift from God; and yet, as I receivedit, I did not know how fair a jewel of memory it would be. I like tothink that there are many such jewels of recollection clasped close inthe heart's casket, even in the minds of men and women that I meet, that seem so commonplace to me, so interesting to themselves!

It is strange, in reflecting about the memorable talks I have held withdifferent people, to find that I remember best the talks that I havehad with men, rather than with women. There is a kind of simpleopenness, an equal comradeship in talks with men, which I find itdifficult to attain in the case of women. I suppose that someunsuspected mystery of sex creeps in, and that with women there is awhole range of experiences and emotions that one does not share, sothat there is an invisible and intangible barrier erected between thetwo minds. I feel, too, in talking with women, that I am met withalmost too much sympathy and tact, so that one falls into anegotistical mood. It is difficult, too, I find, to be as frank intalking with women as with men; because I think that women tend morethan men to hold a preconceived idea of one's character and tastes; andit is difficult to talk simply and naturally to any one who has formeda mental picture of one, especially if one is aware that it is notcorrect. But men are slower to form impressions, and thus talk is moreexperimental; moreover, in talking with men, one encounters moreopposition, and opposition puts one more on one's mettle. 

Thus a tete-a-tete with a man of similar tastes, who is just and yetsympathetic, critical yet appreciative, whose point of view justdiffers enough to make it possible for him to throw sidelights on asubject, and to illumine aspects of it that were unperceived andneglected--this is a high intellectual pleasure, a potion to bedelicately sipped at leisure. 

But after all it is impossible to say what makes a conversationalist. There are people who seem to possess every qualification for conversingexcept the power to converse. The two absolutely essential things are, in the first place, a certain charm of mind and even manner, which is apurely instinctive gift; and, in the second place, real sympathy with, real interest in the deuteragonist. 

People can be useful talkers, even interesting talkers, without thesegifts. One may like to hear what a man of vigorous mind may have to sayon a subject that he knows well, even if he is unsympathetic. But thenone listens in a receptive frame of mind, as though one were preparedto attend a lecture. There are plenty of useful talkers at aUniversity, men whom it is a pleasure to meet occasionally, men withwhom one tries, so to speak, a variety of conversational flies, and whowill give one fine sport when they are fairly hooked. But though aUniversity is a place where one ought to expect to find abundance ofthe best talk, the want of leisure among the present generation of Donsis a serious bar to interesting talk. By the evening the majority ofDons are apt to be tired. They have been hard at work most of the day, and they look upon the sociable evening hours as a time to be given upto what the Scotch call "daffing"; that is to say, a sort of nimbleinterchange of humorous or interesting gossip; a man who pursues asubject intently is apt to be thought a bore. I think that themiddle-aged Don is apt to be less interesting than either the elderlyor the youthful Don. The middle-aged Don is, like all successfulprofessional men, full to the brim of affairs. He has little time forgeneral reading. He lectures, he attends meetings, his table is coveredwith papers, and his leisure hours are full of interviews. But theyounger Don is generally less occupied and more enthusiastic; and bestof all is the elderly Don, who is beginning to take things more easily, has a knowledge of men, a philosophy and a good-humoured tolerancewhich makes him more accessible. He is not in a hurry, he is notpreoccupied. He studies the daily papers with deliberation, and he hasjust enough duties to make him feel wholesomely busy. His ambitions arethings of the past, and he is gratified by attention and deference. 

I suppose the same is the case, in a certain degree, all the worldover. But the truth about conversation is that, to make anything of it, people must realize it as a definite mental occupation, and not merelya dribbling into words of casual thoughts. To do it well implies acertain deliberate intention, a certain unselfishness, a certain zest. The difficulty is that it demands a catholicity of interests, a fullmind. Yet it does not do to have a subject on the brain, and tointroduce it into all companies. The pity is that conversation is notmore recognized as a definite accomplishment. People who care about thesuccess of social gatherings are apt to invite an instrumentalist or asinger, or a man with what may be called parlour tricks; but few peopleare equally careful to plant out two or three conversationalists amongtheir parties, or to take care that their conversationalists areprovided with a sympathetic background. 

For the fact remains that conversation is a real art, and depends likeall other arts upon congenial circumstances and suitable surroundings. People are too apt to believe that, because they have interests intheir minds and can put those interests into words, they are equippedfor the pretty and delicate game of talk. But a rare admixture ofqualities is needed, and a subtle conversational effect, a suddenfancy, that throws a charming or a bizarre light on a subject, a powerof pleasing metaphorical expression, the communication of animaginative interest to a familiar topic--all these things are of thenature of instinctive art. I have heard well-informed and sensiblepeople talk of a subject in a way that made me feel that I desirednever to hear it mentioned again; but I have heard, on the other hand, people talk of matters which I had believed to be worn threadbare byuse, and yet communicate a rich colour, a fragrant sentiment to them, which made me feel that I had never thought adequately on the topicbefore. One should be careful, I think, to express to such personsone's appreciation and admiration of their gifts, for the art is sorare that we ought to welcome it when we find it; and, like all arts, it depends to a great extent for its sustenance on the avowed gratitudeof those who enjoy it. It is on these subtle half-toned glimpses ofpersonality and difference that most of our happy impressions of lifedepend; and no one can afford wilfully to neglect sources of innocentjoy, or to lose opportunities of pleasure through a stupid or brutalcontempt for the slender resources out of which these gentle effectsare produced. 

VI

BEAUTY

I was visited, as I sate in my room to-day, by one of those suddenimpressions of rare beauty that come and go like flashes, and whichleave one desiring a similar experience. The materials of theimpression were simple and familiar enough. My room looks out into alittle court; there is a plot of grass, and to the right of it an oldstone-built wall, close against which stands a row of aged lime-trees. Straight opposite, at right angles to the wall, is the east side of theHall, with its big plain traceried window enlivened with a few heraldicshields of stained glass. While I was looking out to-day there came aflying burst of sun, and the little corner became a sudden feast ofdelicate colour; the fresh green of the grass, the foliage of thelime-trees, their brown wrinkled stems, the pale moss on the walls, thebright points of colour in the emblazonries of the window, made asudden delicate harmony of tints. I had seen the place a hundred timesbefore without ever guessing what a perfect picture it made. 

What a strange power the perception of beauty is! It seems to ebb andflow like some secret tide, independent alike of health or disease, ofjoy or sorrow. There are times in our lives when we seem to go singingon our way, and when the beauty of the world sits itself like a quietharmony to the song we uplift. Then again come seasons when all is wellwith us, when we are prosperous and contented, interested in life andall its concerns, when no perception of beauty comes near us; when weare tranquil and content, and take no heed of the delicate visions ofthe day; when music has no inner voice, and poetry seems a merecheerful jingling of ordered phrases. Then again we have a time ofgloom and dreariness; work has no interest, pleasure no savour; we goabout our business and our delight alike in a leaden mood of dulness;and yet again, when we are surrounded with care and trouble, perhaps inpain or weakness of body, there flashes into the darkened life anexquisite perception of things beautiful and rare; the vision of aspring copse with all its tapestry of flowers, bright points of radiantcolour, fills us with a strange yearning, a delightful pain; in such amood a few chords of music, the haunting melody of some familiar lineof verse, the song of a bird at dawn, the light of sunset on lonelyfields, thrill us with an inexpressible rapture. Perhaps some of thosewho read these words will say that it is all an unreal, a fantasticexperience of which I speak. Of course there are many tranquil, wholesome, equable natures to whom such an experience is unknown; butit is to me one of the truest and commonest things of my life to bevisited by this strange perception and appreciation of beauty, whichgives the days in which I am conscious of it a memorable quality, thatseems to make them the momentous days of my life; and yet again themood is so utterly withdrawn at intervals, that the despondent spiritfeels that it can never return; and then a new day dawns, and the sensecomes back again to bless me. 

If the emotion which I describe followed the variations of bodilyhealth; if it came when all was prosperous and joyful, and waswithdrawn when the light was low; if it deserted me in seasons ofrobust vigour, and came when the bodily vitality was depressed, I couldrefer it to some physical basis. But it contradicts all material laws, and seems to come and go with a whimsical determination of its own. When it is with me, nothing can banish it; it pulls insistently at myelbow; it diverts my attention in the midst of the gravest business;and, on the other hand, no extremity of sorrow or gloom can suspend it. I have stood beside the grave of one I loved, with the shadow of urgentbusiness, of hard detailed arrangements of a practical kind, hangingover me, with the light gone out of life, and the prospect unutterablydreary; and yet the strange spirit has been with me, so that a strainof music should have power to affect me to tears, and the delicatepetals of the very funeral wreaths should draw me into a rapturouscontemplation of their fresh curves, their lovely intricacy, theirpenetrating fragrance. In such a moment one could find it in one'sheart to believe that some ethereal soulless creature, like Ariel ofthe "Tempest, " was floating at one's side, directing one's attention, like a petulant child, to the things that touched its light-heartedfancy, and constraining one into an unsought enjoyment. 

Neither does it seem to be an intellectual process; because it comes inthe same self-willed way, alike when one's mind is deeply engrossed incongenial work, as well as when one is busy and distracted; one raisesone's head for an instant, and the sunlight on a flowing water or on anancient wall, the sound of the wind among trees, the calling of birds, take one captive with the mysterious spell; or on another day when I amworking, under apparently the same conditions, the sun may fall goldenon the old garden, the dove may murmur in the high elm, the daffodilsmay hang their sweet heads among the meadow-grass, and yet the scene, may be dark to me and silent, with no charm and no significance. 

It all seems to enact itself in a separate region of the spirit, neither in the physical nor in the mental region. It may come for a fewmoments in a day, and then it may depart in an instant. I was taking aweek ago what, for the sake of the associations, I call my holiday. Iwalked with a cheerful companion among spring woods, lying nestled inthe folds and dingles of the Sussex hills; the sky was full of flyinggleams; the distant ridges, clothed in wood, lay blue and remote in thewarm air; but I cared for none of these things. Then, when we stood fora moment in a place where I have stood a hundred times before, where afull stream spills itself over a pair of broken lock-gates into adeserted lock, where the stonecrop grows among the masonry, and thealders root themselves among the mouldering brickwork, the mood cameupon me, and I felt like a thirsty soul that has found a bubblingspring coming out cool from its hidden caverns on the hot hillside. Thesight, the sound, fed and satisfied my spirit; and yet I had not knownthat I had needed anything. 

That it is, I will not say, a wholly capricious thing, but a thing thatdepends upon a certain harmony of mood, is best proved by the fact thatthe same poem or piece of music which can at one time evoke thesensation most intensely, will at another time fail to convey theslightest hint of charm, so that one can even wonder in a dreary waywhat it could be that one had ever admired and loved. But it is thisvery evanescent quality which gives me a certain sense of security. Ifone reads the lives of people with strong aesthetic perceptions, suchas Rossetti, Pater, J. A. Symonds, one feels that these natures ran acertain risk of being absorbed in delicate perception. One feels that asensation of beauty was to them so rapturous a thing that they ran therisk of making the pursuit of such sensations the one object andbusiness of their existence; of sweeping the waters of life with busynets, in the hope of entangling some creature "of bright hue and sharpfin"; of considering the days and hours that were unvisited by suchperceptions barren and dreary. This is, I cannot help feeling, adangerous business; it is to make of the soul nothing but a delicateinstrument for registering aesthetic perceptions; and the result is aloss of balance and proportion, an excess of sentiment. The peril isthat, as life goes on, and as the perceptive faculty gets blunted andjaded, a mood of pessimism creeps over the mind. 

From this I am personally saved by the fact that the sense of beautyis, as I have said, so whimsical in its movements. I should never thinkof setting out deliberately to capture these sensations, because itwould be so futile a task. No kind of occupation, however prosaic, however absorbing, seems to be either favourable to this perception, orthe reverse. It is not even like bodily health, which has itsvariations, but is on the whole likely to result from a certain definedregime of diet, exercise, and habits; and what would still morepreserve me from making a deliberate attempt to capture it would bethat it comes perhaps most poignantly and insistently of all when I amuneasy, overstrained, and melancholy. No! the only thing to do is tolive one's life without reference to it, to be thankful when it comes, and to be contented when it is withdrawn. 

I sometimes think that a great deal of stuff is both written and talkedabout the beauties of nature. By this I do not mean for a moment thatnature is less beautiful than is supposed, but that many of therapturous expressions one hears and sees used about the enjoyment ofnature are very insincere; though it is equally true on the other handthat a great deal of genuine admiration of natural beauty is notexpressed, perhaps hardly consciously felt. To have a true and deepappreciation of nature demands a certain poetical force, which is rare;and a great many people who have a considerable power of expression, but little originality, feel bound to expend a portion of this uponexpressing an admiration for nature which they do not so much actuallyfeel as think themselves bound to feel, because they believe thatpeople in general expect it of them. 

But on the other hand there is, I am sure, in the hearts of many quietpeople a real love for and delight in the beauty of the kindly earth, the silent and exquisite changes, the influx and efflux of life, whichwe call the seasons, the rich transfiguring influences of sunrise andsunset, the slow or swift lapse of clear streams, the march and plungeof sea-billows, the bewildering beauty and aromatic scents of thosedelicate toys of God which we call flowers, the large air and the sun, the star-strewn spaces of the night. 

Those who are fortunate enough to spend their lives in the quietcountry-side have much of this tranquil and unuttered love of nature;and others again, who are condemned by circumstances to spend theirdays in toilsome towns, and yet have the instinct, derived perhaps fromlong generations of country forefathers, feel this beauty, in the shortweeks when they are enabled to approach it, more poignantly still. 

FitzGerald tells a story of how he went to see Thomas Carlyle inLondon, and sate with him in a room at the top of his house, with awide prospect of house-backs and chimney-pots; and how the sage reviledand vituperated the horrors of city life, and yet left on FitzGerald'smind the impression that perhaps after all he did not really wish toleave it. 

The fact remains, however, that a love of nature is part of the panoplyof cultivation which at the present time people above a certain socialstanding feel bound to assume. Very few ordinary persons would care toavow that they took no interest in national politics, in games andsport, in literature, in appreciation of nature, or in religion. As amatter of fact the vital interest that is taken in these subjects, except perhaps in games and sport, is far below the interest that isexpressed in them. A person who said frankly that he thought that anyof these subjects were uninteresting, tiresome or absurd, would bethought stupid or affected, even brutal. Probably most of the peoplewho express a deep concern for these things believe that they aregiving utterance to a sincere feeling; but not to expatiate on theemotions which they mistake for the real emotion in the otherdepartments, there are probably a good many people who mistake for alove of nature the pleasure of fresh air, physical movement, and changeof scene. Many worthy golfers, for instance, who do not know that theyare speaking insincerely, attribute, in conversation, the pleasure theyfeel in pursuing their game to the agreeable surroundings in which itis pursued; but my secret belief is that they pay more attention to thelie of the little white ball, and the character of bunkers, than to thepageantry of sea and sky. 

As with all other refined pleasures, there is no doubt that thepleasure derived from the observation of nature can be, if notacquired, immensely increased by practice. I am not now speaking of thepursuit of natural history but the pursuit of natural emotion. Thething to aim at, as is the case with all artistic pleasures, is theperception of quality, of small effects. Many of the people Who believethemselves to have an appreciation of natural scenery cannot appreciateit except on a sensational scale. They can derive a certain pleasurefrom wide prospects of startling beauty, rugged mountains, steepgorges, great falls of water--all the things that are supposed to bepicturesque. But though this is all very well as far as it goes, it isa very elementary kind of thing. The perception of which I speak is aperception which can be fed in the most familiar scene, in the shorteststroll, even in a momentary glance from a window. The things to lookout for are little accidents of light and colour, little effects ofchance grouping, the transfiguration of some well-known and evencommonplace object, such as is produced by the sudden burst intogreenness of the trees that peep over some suburban garden wall, or bythe sunlight falling, by a happy fortune, on pool or flower. Much ofcourse depends upon the inner mood; there are days when it seemsimpossible to be thrilled by anything, when a perverse dreariness holdsthe mind; and then all of a sudden the gentle and wistful mood flowsback, and the world is full of beauty to the brim. 

Here, if anywhere, in this town of ancient colleges, is abundantmaterial of beauty for eye and mind. It is not, it is true, the simplebeauty of nature; but nature has been invoked to sanctify and mellowart. These stately stone-fronted buildings have weathered like cragsand precipices. They rise out of dark ancient embowered gardens. Theyare like bright birds of the forest dwelling contentedly in gildedcages. These great palaces of learning, beautiful when seen in thesetting of sunny gardens, and with even a sterner dignity when planted, like a fortress of quiet, close to the very dust and din of the street, hold many treasures of stately loveliness and fair association; thiscity of palaces, thick-set with spires and towers, as rich and dim asCamelot, is invested with a romance that few cities can equal; and thenthe waterside pleasaunces with their trim alleys, their air of ancientsecurity and wealthy seclusion, have an incomparable charm; day by day, as one hurries or saunters through the streets, the charm strikesacross the mind with an incredible force, a newness of impression whichis the test of the highest beauty. Yet these again are beauties of asensational order which beat insistently upon the dullest mind. Thetrue connoisseur of natural beauty acquiesces in, nay prefers, aneconomy, an austerity of effect. The curve of a wood seen a hundredtimes before, the gentle line of a fallow, a little pool among thepastures, fringed with rushes, the long blue line of the distant downs, the cloud-perspective, the still sunset glow--these will give him evernew delights, and delights that grow with observation and intuition. 

I have spoken hitherto of nature as she appears; to the unruffled, theperceptive mind; but let us further consider what relation nature canbear to the burdened heart and the overshadowed mood. Is there indeed avis medicatrix in nature which can heal our grief and console ouranxieties? "The country for a wounded heart" says the old proverb. Isthat indeed true? I am here inclined to part company with wise men andpoets who have spoken and sung of the consoling power of nature. Ithink it is not so. It is true that anything which we love very deeplyhas a certain power of distracting the mind. But I think there is nogreater agony than to be confronted with tranquil passionate beauty, when the heart and spirit are out of tune with it. In the days of one'sjoy, nature laughs with us; in the days of vague and fantasticmelancholy, there is an air of wistfulness, of mystery, that ministersto our luxurious sadness. But when one bears about the heavy burden ofa harassing anxiety of sorrow, then the smile on the face of nature hassomething poisonous, almost maddening about it. It breeds an emotionthat is like the rage of Othello when he looks upon the face ofDesdemona, and believes her false. Nature has no sympathy, no pity. Shehas her work to do, and the swift and bright process goes on; she castsher failures aside with merciless glee; she seems to say to menoppressed by sorrow and sickness, "This is no world for you; rejoiceand make merry, or I have no need of you. " In a far-off way, indeed, the gentle beauty of nature may help a sad heart, by seeming to assureone that the mind of God is set upon what is fair and sweet; butneither God nor nature seems to have any direct message to the strickenheart. 

 "Not till the fire is dying in the grate Look we for any kinship with the stars, "

says a subtle poet; and such comfort as nature can give is not thedirect comfort of sympathy and tenderness, but only the comfort thatcan be resolutely distilled from the contemplation of nature by man'sindomitable spirit. For nature tends to replace rather than to heal;and the sadness of life consists for most of us in theirreplaceableness of the things we love and lose. The lesson is a hardone, that "Nature tolerates, she does not need. " Let us only be surethat it is a true one, for nothing but the truth can give us ultimaterepose. To the youthful spirit it is different, for all that the youngand ardent need is that, if the old fails them, some new delight shouldbe substituted. They but desire that the truth should be hidden fromtheir gaze; as in the childish stories, when the hero and heroine havebeen safely piloted through danger and brought into prosperity, thedoor is closed with a snap. "They lived happily ever afterwards. " Butthe older spirit knows that the "ever" must be deleted, makes questionof the "afterwards, " and looks through to the old age of bereavementand sorrow, when the two must again be parted. 

But I would have every one who cares to establish a wise economy oflife and joy, cultivate, by all means in his power, a sympathy with anda delight in nature. We tend, in this age of ours, when communicationis so easy and rapid, when the daily paper brings the whole course ofthe world into our secluded libraries, to be too busy, too muchpreoccupied; to value excitement, above tranquillity, and interestabove peace. It is good for us all to be much alone, not to fly fromsociety, but resolutely to determine that we will not be dependent uponit for our comfort. I would have all busy people make times in theirlives when, at the cost of some amusement, and paying the price perhapsof a little melancholy, they should try to be alone with nature andtheir own hearts. They should try to realize the quiet unwearying lifethat manifests itself in field and wood. They should wander alone insolitary places, where the hazel-hidden stream makes music, and thebird sings out of the heart of the forest; in meadows where the flowersgrow brightly, or through the copse, purple with bluebells or starredwith anemones; or they may climb the crisp turf of the down, and seethe wonderful world lie spread out beneath their feet, with someclustering town "smouldering and glittering" in the distance; or lieupon the cliff-top, with the fields of waving wheat behind, and the seaspread out like a wrinkled marble floor in front; or walk on the sandbeside the falling waves. Perhaps a soi-disant sensible man may seethese words and think that I am a sad sentimentalist. I cannot help it;it is what I believe; nay, I will go further, and say that a man whodoes not wish to do these things is shutting one of the doors of hisspirit, a door through which many sweet and true things come in. "Consider the lilies of the field" said long ago One whom we profess tofollow as our Guide and Master. And a quiet receptiveness, an opennessof eye, a simple readiness to take in these gentle impressions is, Ibelieve with all my heart, of the essence of true wisdom. We have allof us our work to do in the world; but we have our lesson to learn aswell. The man with the muck-rake in the old parable, who raked togetherthe straws and the dust of the street, was faithful enough if he wasset to do that lowly work; but had he only cared to look up, had heonly had a moment's leisure, he would have seen that the celestialcrown hung close above his head, and within reach of his forgetful hand. 

There is a well-known passage in a brilliant modern satire, where atrenchant satirist declares that he has tracked all human emotions totheir lair, and has discovered that they all consist of some dilutionof primal and degrading instincts. But the pure and passionless love ofnatural beauty can have nothing that is acquisitive or reproductiveabout it. There is no physical instinct to which it can be referred; itarouses no sense of proprietorship; it cannot be connected with anyimpulse for self-preservation. If it were merely aroused by tranquil, comfortable amenities of scene, it might be referable to the generalsense of well-being, and of contented life under pleasant conditions. But it is aroused just as strongly by prospects that are inimical tolife and comfort, lashing storms, inaccessible peaks, desolate moors, wild sunsets, foaming seas. It is a sense of wonder, of mystery; itarouses a strange and yearning desire for we know not what; very oftena rich melancholy attends it, which is yet not painful or sorrowful, but heightens and intensifies the significance, the value of life. I donot know how to interpret it, but it seems to me to be a call fromwithout, a beckoning of some large and loving power to the soul. Theprimal instincts of which I have spoken all tend to concentrate themind upon itself, to strengthen it for a selfish part; but the beautyof nature seems to be a call to the spirit to come forth, like thevoice which summoned Lazarus from the rock-hewn sepulchre. It bids usto believe that our small identities, our limited desires, do not saythe last word for us, but that there is something larger and strongeroutside, in which we may claim a share. As I write these words I lookout upon a strange transfiguration of a familiar scene. The sky is fullof black and inky clouds, but from the low setting sun there pours anintense pale radiance, which lights up house-roofs, trees, and fields, with a white light; a flight of pigeons, wheeling high in the air, become brilliant specks of moving light upon a background of darkrolling vapour. What is the meaning of the intense and rapturous thrillthat this sends through me? It is no selfish delight, no personalprofit that it gives me. It promises me nothing, it sends me nothingbut a deep and mysterious satisfaction, which seems to make light of mysullen and petty moods. 

I was reading the other day, in a strange book, of the influence ofmagic upon the spirit, the vague dreams of the deeper mind that couldbe awakened by the contemplation of symbols. It seemed to me to beunreal and fantastic, a manufacturing of secrets, a playing ofwhimsical tricks with the mind; and yet I ought not to say that, because it was evidently written in good faith. But I have sincereflected that it is true in a sense of all those who are sensitive tothe influences of the spirit. Nature has a magic for many of us--thatis to say, a secret power that strikes across our lives at intervals, with a message from an unknown region. And this message is aroused tooby symbols; a tree, a flash of light on lonely clouds, a flower, astream--simple things that we have seen a thousand times--havesometimes the power to cast a spell over our spirit, and to bringsomething that is great and incommunicable near us. This must be calledmagic, for it is not a thing which can be explained by ordinary laws, or defined in precise terms; but the spell is there, real, insistent, undeniable; it seems to make a bridge for the spirit to pass into afar-off, dimly apprehended region; it gives us a sense of great issuesand remote visions; it leaves us with a longing which has no mortalfulfilment. 

These are of course merely idiosyncrasies of perception; but it is afar more difficult task to attempt to indicate what the perception ofbeauty is, and whence the mind derives the unhesitating canons withwhich it judges and appraises beauty. The reason, I believe, why thesense is weaker than it need be in many people, is that, instead oftrusting their own instinct in the matter, they from their earliestyears endeavour to correct their perception of what is beautiful by theopinions of other people, and to superimpose on their own taste thetaste of others. I myself hold strongly that nothing is worth admiringwhich is not admired sincerely. Of course, one must not form one'sopinions too early, or hold them arrogantly or self-sufficiently. Ifone finds a large number of people admiring or professing to admire acertain class of objects, a certain species of scene, one ought to makea resolute effort to see what it is that appeals to them. But thereought to come a time, when one has imbibed sufficient experience, whenone should begin to decide and to distinguish, and to form one's owntaste. And then I believe it is better to be individual than catholic, and better to attempt to feed one's own genuine sense of preference, than to continue attempting to correct it by the standard of otherpeople. 

It remains that the whole instinct for admiring beauty is one of themost mysterious experiences of the mind. There are certain things, likethe curves and colours of flowers, the movements of young animals, thatseem to have a perennial attraction for the human spirit. But theenjoyment of natural scenery, at all events of wild and ruggedprospects, seems hardly to have existed among ancient writers, and tohave originated as late as the eighteenth century. Dr. Johnson spoke ofmountains with disgust, and Gray seems to have been probably the firstman who deliberately cultivated a delight in the sight of those"monstrous creatures of God, " as he calls mountains. Till his time, theemotions that "nodding rocks" and "cascades" gave our forefathers seemmostly to have been emotions of terror; but Gray seems to have had aperception of the true quality of landscape beauty, as indeed thatwonderful, chilly, unsatisfied, critical nature seems to have had ofalmost everything. His letters are full of beautiful vignettes, and itpleases me to think that he visited Rydal and thought it beautiful, about the time that Wordsworth first drew breath. 

But the perception of beauty in art, in architecture, in music, is afar more complicated thing, for there seem to be no fixed canons here;what one needs in art, for instance, is not that things should beperfectly seen and accurately presented; a picture of hard fidelity isoften entirely displeasing; but one craves for a certain sense ofpersonality, of emotion, of inner truth; something that seizestyrannously upon the soul, and makes one desire more of the intangibleand indescribable essence. 

I always feel that the instinct for beauty is perhaps the surestindication of some essence of immortality in the soul; and indeed thereare moments when it gives one the sense of pre-existence, the feelingthat one has loved these fair things in a region that is further backeven than the beginnings of consciousness. Blake, indeed, in one of hiswild half-inspired utterances, went even further, and announced that aman's hopes of immortality depended not upon virtuous conduct but uponintellectual perception. And it is hard to resist the belief, when oneis brought into the presence of perfect beauty, in whatever form it maycome, that the deep craving it arouses is meant to receive asatisfaction more deep and real than the act of mere contemplation cangive. I have felt in such moments as if I were on the verge of graspingsome momentous secret, as if only the thinnest of veils hung between meand some knowledge that would set my whole life and being on adifferent plane. But the moment passes, and the secret delays. Yet weare right to regard such emotions as direct messages from God; becausethey bring with them no desire of possession, which is the sign ofmortality, but rather the divine desire to be possessed by them; thatthe reality, whatever it be, of which beauty is the symbol, may enterin and enthral the soul. It remains a mystery, like all the best thingsto which we draw near. And the joy of all mysteries is the certaintywhich comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet forthe soul to open on her upward and inward way; that we are at thethreshold and not near the goal; and then, like the glow of sunset, rises the hope that the grave, far from being the gate of death, may beindeed the gate of life. 

VII

ART

I often wish that we had a more beautiful word than "art" for sobeautiful a thing; it is in itself a snappish explosive word, like thecry of an angry animal; and it has, too, to bear the sad burden of itsown misuse by affected people. Moreover, it stands for so many things, that one is never quite sure what the people who use it intend it tomean; some people use it in an abstract, some in a concrete sense; andit is unfortunate, too, in bearing, in certain usages, a nuance ofunreality and scheming. 

What I mean by art, in its deepest and truest sense, is a certainperceptiveness, a power of seeing what is characteristic, coupled as arule, in the artistic temperament, with a certain power of expression, an imaginative gift which can raise a large fabric out of slenderresources, building a palace, like the Genie in the story of Aladdin, in a single night. 

The artistic temperament is commoner, I think, than is supposed. Mostpeople find it difficult to believe in the existence of it, unless itis accompanied by certain fragile signs of its existence, such aswater-colour drawing, or a tendency to strum on a piano. But, as amatter of fact, the possession of an artistic temperament, without thepower of expression, is one of the commonest causes of unhappiness inthe world. Who does not know those ill-regulated, fastidious people, who have a strong sense of their own significance and position, a sensewhich is not justified by any particular performance, who arecontemptuous of others, critical, hard to satisfy, who have a generalsense of disappointment and dreariness, a craving for recognition, anda feeling that they are not appreciated at their true worth? To suchpeople, sensitive, ineffective, proud, every circumstance of life givesfood for discontent. They have vague perceptions which they cannottranslate into words or symbols. They find their work humdrum andunexciting, their relations with others tiresome; they think that underdifferent circumstances and in other surroundings they might haveplayed a braver part; they never realize that the root of theirunhappiness lies in themselves; and, perhaps, it is merciful that theydo not, for the fact that they can accumulate blame upon the conditionsimposed on them by fate is the only thing that saves them fromirreclaimable depression. 

Sometimes, again, the temperament exists with a certain power ofexpression, but without sufficient perseverance or hard technical meritto produce artistic successes; and thus we get the amateur. Sometimesit is the other way, and the technical power of production is developedbeyond the inner perceptiveness; and this produces a species of dullsoulless art, and the role of the professional artist. Very rarely onesees the outward and the inward combined, but then we get the humble, hopeful artist who lives for and in his work; he is humble because hecannot reach the perfection for which he strives; he is hopeful becausehe gets nearer to it day by day. But, speaking generally, thetemperament is not one that brings steady happiness; it brings with itmoments of rapture, when some bright dream is being realized; but itbrings with it also moments of deep depression, when dreams are silent, and the weary brain fears that the light is quenched. There are, indeed, instances of the equable disposition being found in connectionwith the artistic temper; such were Reynolds, Handel, Wordsworth. Butthe annals of art are crowded with the figures of those who have had tobear the doom of art, and have been denied the tranquil spirit. 

But besides all these, there are artistic temperaments which do notexpress themselves in any of the recognized mediums of art, but whichapply their powers direct to life itself. I do not mean successful, professional people, who win their triumphs by a happy sanity anddirectness of view, to whom labour is congenial and success enjoyable;but I mean those who have a fine perception of quality in innumerableforms; who are interested in the salient points of others, who delightto enter into appropriate relations with those they meet, to whom lifeitself, its joys and sorrows, its gifts and its losses, has a certainromantic, beautiful, mysterious savour. Such people have a strong senseof the significance of their relations with others, they enjoy dealingwith characters, with problems, with situations. Having both interestand sympathy, they get the best out of other people; they piercethrough the conventional fence that so many of us erect as a protectionagainst intrusion. Such people bring the same perception to bear ontechnical art. They enjoy books, art, music, without any envious desireto produce; they can enjoy the noble pleasure of admiring and praising. Again and again, in reading the lives of artists, one comes acrosstraces of these wise and generous spirits, who have loved the societyof artists, have understood them, and whose admiration has never beenclouded by the least shadow of that jealousy which is the curse of mostartistic natures. People without artistic sensibilities find thesociety of artists trying; because they see only their irritability, their vanity, their egotism, and cannot sympathize with the visions bywhich they are haunted. But those who can understand without jealousy, pass by the exacting vagaries of the artist with a gentle and tendercompassion, and evoke what is sincere and generous and lovable, withoutany conscious effort. 

It is not, I think, often enough realized that the basis of thesuccessful artistic temperament is a certain hardness combined withgreat superficial sensitiveness. Those who see the artistic natureswiftly and emotionally affected by a beautiful or a pathetic thing, who see that a thought, a line of poetry, a bar of music, a sketch, will evoke a thrill of feeling to which they cannot themselves aspire, are apt to think that such a spirit is necessarily fair and tender, andthat it possesses unfathomable reserves of noble feeling. This is oftena great mistake; far below the rapid current of changing and glitteringemotion there often lies, in the artistic nature, a reserve, not oftenderness or depth, but of cold and critical calm. There are very fewpeople who are highly developed in one faculty who do not pay for it insome other part of their natures. Below the emotion itself there sitsenthroned a hard intellectual force, a power of appraising quality, aRhadamanthine judgment. It is this hardness which has so often madeartists such excellent men of business, so alert to strike favourablebargains. In those artists whose medium is words this hardness is notso often detected as it is in the case of other artists, for they havethe power of rhetoric, the power of luxuriously heighteningimpressions, indeed of imaginatively simulating a force which is inreality of a superficial nature. One of the greatest powers of greatartists is that of hinting at an emotion which they have very possiblynever intimately gauged. 

I have sometimes thought that this is in all probability the reason whywomen, with all their power of swift impression, of subtle intuition, have so seldom achieved the highest stations in art. It is, I think, because they seldom or never have that calm, strong egotism at the baseof their natures, which men so constantly have, and which indeed seemsalmost a condition of attaining the highest success in art. The maleartist can believe whole-heartedly and with entire absorption in thevalue of what he is doing, can realize it as the one end of his being, the object for which his life was given him. He can believe that allexperience, all relations with others, all emotions, are and must besubservient to this one aim; they can deepen for him the channels inwhich his art flows; they can reveal and illustrate to him thesignificance of the world of which he is the interpreter. Such anaspiration can be a very high and holy thing; it can lead a man to livepurely and laboriously, to make sacrifices, to endure hardness. But thealtar on which the sacrifice is made, stands, when all is said anddone, before the idol of self. With women, though, it is different. Thedeepest quality in their hearts is, one may gratefully say, an intensedevotion to others, an unselfishness which is unconscious of itself;and thus their aim is to help, to encourage, to sympathize; and theirartistic gifts are subordinated to a deeper purpose, the desire ofgiving and serving. One with such a passion in the heart is incapableof believing art to be the deepest thing in the world; it is to such anone more like the lily which floats upwards, to bloom on the surface ofsome dim pool, a thing exquisitely fair and symbolical of mysteries;but all growing out of the depths of life, and not a thing which isdeeper and truer than life. 

It is useless to try to dive deeper than the secrets of personality andtemperament. One must merely be grateful for the beauty which springsfrom them. We must reflect that the hard, vigorous, hammered quality, which is characteristic of the best art, can only be produced, in amood of blind and unquestioning faith, by a temperament which believesthat such production is its highest end. But one who stands a littleapart from the artistic world, and yet ardently loves it, can see that, beautiful as is the dream of the artist, true and pure as hisaspiration is, there is yet a deeper mystery of life still, of whichart is nothing but a symbol and an evidence. Perhaps that very beliefmay of itself weaken a man's possibilities in art. But, for myself, Iknow that I regard the absorption in art as a terrible and strongtemptation for one whose chief pleasure lies in the delight ofexpression, and who seems, in the zest of shaping a melodious sentenceto express as perfectly and lucidly as possible the shape of thethought within, to touch the highest joy of which the spirit iscapable. A thought, a scene of beauty comes home with an irresistiblesense of power and meaning to the mind or eye; for God to have devisedthe pale liquid green of the enamelled evening sky, to have set thedark forms of trees against it, and to have hung a star in thethickening gloom--to have done this, and to see that it is good, seems, in certain moods, to be the dearest work of the Divine mind; and thedesire to express it, to speak simply of the sight, and of the joy thatit arouses, comes upon the mind with a sweet agony; an irresistiblespell; life would seem to have been well spent if one had only caught afew such imperishable ecstasies, and written them down in a record thatmight convey the same joy to others. But behind this rises the deeperconviction that this is not the end; that there are deeper and sweetersecrets in the heavenly treasure-house; and then comes in the shadow ofa fear that, in yielding thus delightedly to these imperative joys, oneis blinding the inner eye to the perception of the remoter and moredivine truth. And then at last comes the conviction, in which it ispossible alike to rest and to labour, that it is right to devote one'stime and energy to presenting these rich emotions as perfectly as theycan be presented, so long as one keeps open the further avenues of thesoul, and believes that art is but one of the antechambers throughwhich one must take one's faithful way, before the doors of thePresence itself can be flung wide. 

But whether one be of the happy number or not who have the hauntinginstinct for some special form of expression, one may learn at allevents to deal with life in an artistic spirit. I do not at all mean bythat that one should learn to overvalue the artistic side of life, tohold personal emotion to be a finer thing than unselfish usefulness. Imean rather that one should aim at the perception of quality, thequality of actions, the quality of thoughts, the quality of character;that one should not be misled by public opinion, that one should notconsider the value of a man's thoughts to be affected by his socialposition; but that one should look out for and appreciate sense, vigour, faithfulness, kindness, rectitude, and originality, in howeverhumble a sphere these qualities may be displayed. That one should fighthard against conventionality, that one should welcome beauty, both thebeauty of natural things, as well as the beauty displayed in sincereand simple lives in every rank of life. I have heard conventionalprofessional people, who thought they were giving utterance to manlyand independent sentiments, speak slightingly of dukes and duchesses, as if the possession of high rank necessarily forfeited all claims tosimplicity and true-heartedness. Such an attitude is as inartistic andoffensive as for a duchess to think that fine courtesy andconsideration could not be found among washerwomen. The truth is thatbeauty of character is just as common and just as uncommon among peopleof high rank as it is among bagmen; and the only just attitude to adoptis to approach all persons simply and directly on the grounds of ourcommon humanity. One who does this will find simplicity, tenderness, and rectitude among persons of high rank; he will also findconventionality, meanness, and complacency among them; when he isbrought into contact with bagmen, he will find bagmen of sincerity, directness, and delicacy, while he will also find pompous, complacent, and conventional bagmen. 

Of course the special circumstances of any life tend to develop certaininnate faults of character into prominence; but it may safely be saidthat circumstances never develop a fault that is not naturally there;and, not to travel far for instances, I will only say that one of themost unaffected and humble-minded persons I have ever met was a duke, while one of the proudest and most affected Pharisees I everencountered was a servant. It all depends upon a consciousness ofvalues, a sense of proportion; the only way in which wealth andpoverty, rank and insignificance, can affect a life, is in a certaindegree of personal comfort; and it is one of the most elementarylessons that one can learn, that it is not either wealth or povertythat can confer even comfort, but the sound constitution and thecontented mind. 

What I would here plead is that the artistic sense, of which I havespoken, should be deliberately and consciously cultivated. It is not aneasy thing to get rid of conventionality, if one has been brought up onconventional lines; but I know by personal experience that the meredesire for simplicity and sincerity can effect something. 

All persons engaged in education, whether formally or informally, whether as professed teachers or parents, ought to regard it as asacred duty to cultivate this sense among the objects of their care. They ought to demand that all people, whether high or low, should bemet with the same simple courtesy and consideration; they ought totrain children both to speak their mind, and also to pay respect to theopinion of others; they ought not to insist upon obedience, withoutgiving the reasons why it is desirable and necessary; they oughtresolutely to avoid malicious gossip, but not the interested discussionof other personalities; they ought to follow, and to give, direct andsimple motives for action, and to learn, if they do not know it, thatit is from this simple and quiet independence of mind that the bestblessings, the best happinesses come; above all, they ought to practisea real and perceptive sympathy, to allow for differences of characterand taste, not to try so much to form children on the model of theirown characters, as to encourage them to develop on their own lines. Todo this completely needs wisdom, tact, and justice; but nothing canexcuse us from attempting it. 

The reason why life is so often made into a dull and dreary businessfor ourselves and others, is that we accept some conventional standardof duty and rectitude, and heavily enforce it; we neglect the interest, the zest, the beauty of life. In my own career as an educator, I cantruthfully say that when I arrived at some of the perceptionsenunciated above, it made an immense difference to me. I saw that itwas a mistake to coerce, to correct, to enforce; of course such thingshave to be done occasionally with wilful and perverse natures; but Irealized, after I had gained some practice in dealing with boys, thatgenerous and simple praise, outspoken encouragement, admiration, directness, could win victories that no amount of strictness orrepression could win. I began to see that enthusiasm and interest werethe contagious things, and that it was possible to sympathize genuinelywith tastes which one did not share. Of course there were plenty offailures on my own part, failures of irritability, stupidity, andindolence; but I soon realized that these were failures; and, afterall, in education it matters more which way one's face is set than howfast one proceeds!

I seem, perhaps, to have strayed into the educational point of view;but it is only an instance of how the artistic method may be applied ina region which is believed by many to be remote from the region of art. The principle, after all, is a very clear one; it is that life can bemade with a little effort into a beautiful thing; that the realugliness of life consists not in its conditions, not in good or badfortune, not in joy or sorrow, not in health or illness, but upon theperceptive attitude of mind which we can apply to all experiences. Everything that comes from the hand of God has the quality of which Iam speaking; our business is to try to disentangle it from theprejudices, the false judgments, the severities, the heavinesses, withwhich human nature tends to overlay it. Imagine a man oppressed by allthe ills which humanity can suffer, by shame and disease and failure. Can it be denied, in the presence of the life of Christ, that it is yetpossible to make out of such a situation a noble and a beautiful thing?And that is the supreme value of the example of Christ to the world, that He displayed, if I may so speak, the instinct which I havedescribed in its absolute perfection. He met all humanity face to face, with perfect directness, perfect sympathy, perfect perception. He neverceased to protest, with shame and indignation, against theunhappinesses which men bring upon themselves, by the yielding to lowerdesires, by prejudice, by complacency; but He made allowance forweakness, and despaired of none; and in the presence of those darkerand sadder afflictions of body and spirit, which it seems that Godpermits, if He does not authorize, He bore Himself with dignity, patience, and confidence; He proved that nothing was unbearable, butthat the human spirit can face the worst calamities with an indomitablesimplicity, which adorns it with an imperishable beauty, and proves itto be indeed divine. 

VIII

EGOTISM

I had an experience the other day, very disagreeable but mostwholesome, which held up for a moment a mirror to my life andcharacter. I suppose that, at least once in his life, every one hasknown what it is, in some corridor or stairway, to see a figureadvancing towards him, and then to discover with a shock of surprisethat he has been advancing to a mirror, and that the stranger ishimself. This happened to me some short while ago, and I was by nomeans favourably impressed by what I saw!

Well, the other day I was conducting an argument with an irascible man. His temper suddenly boiled over, and he said several personal things tome, of which I did not at once recognize the truth; but I have sinceconsidered the criticisms, and have decided that they are mainly true, heightened perhaps by a little tinge of temper. 

I am sorry my friend said the things, because it is difficult to meet, on cordial terms, a man whom one knows to hold an unfavourable opinionof oneself. But in one way I am glad he said them, because I do notthink I could in any other manner have discerned the truth. If a friendhad said them without anger, he would no doubt have so gilded the pillthat it would have seemed rather a precious ornament than a bitterremedy. 

I will not here say in detail what my friend accused me of, but itamounted to a charge of egotism; and as egotism is a common fault, andparticularly common with lonely and unmarried men, I will make noexcuse for propounding a few considerations on the point, and how itmay perhaps be cured, or, if not cured, at least modified. 

I suppose that the egotist is the man who regards the world as asetting for himself, as opposed to the man who realizes that he is asmall unit in a gigantic system. The characteristic of the egotist isto consider himself of too great importance, while the danger of thenon-egotist is not sufficiently to realize his significance. Egotism isthe natural temptation of all those whose individuality is strong; theman of intense desires, of acute perceptions, of vigorous preferences, of eager temperament, is in danger of trying to construct his life toosedulously on his own lines; and yet these are the very people who helpother people most, and in whom the hope of the race lies. Meek, humble, timid persons, who accept things as they are, who tread in beatenpaths, who are easily persuaded, who are cautious, prudent, andsubmissive, leave things very much as they find them. I need make noattempt at indicating the line that such people ought to follow, because it is, unhappily, certain that they will follow the line ofleast resistance, and that they have no more power of initiative thanthe bricks of a wall or the waters of a stream. The followingconsiderations will be addressed to people of a certain vividness ofnature, who have strong impulses, fervent convictions, vigorousdesires. I shall try to suggest a species of discipline that can bepractised by such persons, a line that they can follow, in order thatthey may aim at, and perhaps attain, a due subordination andco-ordination of themselves and their temperaments. 

To treat of intellectual egotism first, the danger that besets suchpeople as I have described is a want of sympathy with other points ofview, and the first thing that such natures must aim at, is the gettingrid of what I will call the sectarian spirit. We ought to realize thatabsolute truth is not the property of any creed or school or nation;the whole lesson of history is the lesson of the danger of affirmation. The great difference between the modern and the ancient world is thegrowth of the scientific spirit, and the meaning and value of evidence. There are many kinds of certainties. There is the absolute scientificcertainty of such propositions as that two and two make four, andcannot possibly make five. This is of course only the principle thattwo and two CANNOT be said to MAKE four, but that they ARE four, andthat 2 + 2 and 4 are only different ways of describing the samephenomenon. Then there come the lesser certainties, that is to say, thecertainties that justify practical action. A man who is aware that hehas twenty thousand pounds in the hands of trustees, whose duty it isto pay him the interest, is justified in spending a certain income; buthe cannot be said to know at any moment that the capital is there, because the trustees may have absconded with the money, and the man maynot have been informed of the fact. The danger of the egotist is thathe is apt to regard as scientific certainties what are only relativecertainties; and the first step towards the tolerant attitude is to getrid of these prejudices as far as possible, and to perceive that thefirst duty of the philosopher is not to deal in assumptions, but torealize that other people's regions of what may be called practicalcertainties--that is to say, the assurances which justify practicalaction--may be both smaller or even larger than his own. The first dutythen of the man of vivid nature is to fight resolutely against the sinof impatience. He must realize that some people may regard as acertainty what is to him a questionable opinion, and that his businessis not the destruction of the certainties of others, but the definingthe limits of his own. The sympathy that can be practisedintellectually is the resolute attempt to enter into the position ofothers. The temptation to argue with people of convinced views shouldbe resolutely resisted; argument only strengthens and fortifies theconvictions of opponents, and I can honestly say that I have never yetmet a man of strong intellectual fibre who was ever converted byargument. Yet I am sure that it is a duty for all of us to aim at ajust appreciation of various points of view, and that we ought to tryto understand others rather than to persuade them. 

So far I have been speaking of the intellectual region, and I would sumit up by saying that I think that the duty of every thoughtful person, who desires to avoid egotism in the intellectual region, is tocultivate what may be called the scientific, or even the scepticalspirit, to weigh evidence, and not to form conclusions withoutevidence. Thus one avoids the dangers of egotism best, because egotismis the frame of mind of the man who says credo quia credo. Whereas theaim of the philosopher should be to take nothing for granted, and to beready to give up personal preferences in the light of truth. In dealingwith others in the intellectual region, the object should be not toconvince, but to get people to state their own views, and to realizethat unless a man converts himself, no one else can; the methodtherefore should be not to attack conclusions, but to ask patiently forthe evidence upon which those conclusions are based. 

But there is a danger in lingering too long in the intellectualregions; the other regions of the human spirit may be called theaesthetic and the mystical regions. To take the aesthetic region next, the duty of the philosopher is to realize at the outset that theperception of beauty is essentially an individual thing, and that thecanons of what are called good taste are of all things the mostshifting. In this region the danger of dogmatism is very great, becausethe more that a man indulges the rapturous perception of the beautythat appeals to himself, the more likely he is to believe that there isno beauty outside of his own perceptions. The duty of a man who wishesto avoid egotism in this region is to try and recognize faithfulconception and firm execution everywhere; to realize that half, andmore than half, of the beauty of everything is the beauty of age, remoteness, and association. There is no temptation so strong for theaesthetic nature, as to deride and contemn the beauty of the art thatwe have just outgrown. To take a simple case. The Early Victorianupholsterers derided the stiffness and austerity of Queen Annefurniture, and the public genuinely admired the florid and rococo formsof Early Victorian art. A generation passed, and Early Victorian artwas relentlessly derided, while the Queen Anne was reinstalled. Nowthere are signs of a growing tolerance among connoisseurs of the EarlyVictorian taste again. The truth is that there is no absolute beauty ineither; that the thing to aim at is progress and development in art, and that probably the most dangerous and decadent sign of all is thereverting to the beauty of a previous age rather than striking out anew line of our own. The aim then of the man who would avoid aestheticegotism should be, not to lay down canons of what is or what is notgood art, but to try to recognize, as I have said, faithful conceptionand firm execution wherever he can discern it; and, for himself, toexpress as vividly as he can his own keenest and acutest perceptions ofbeauty. The only beauty that is worth anything, is the beauty perceivedin sincerity, and here again the secret lies in resolutely abstainingfrom laying down laws, from judging, from condemning. The victoryalways remains with those who admire, rather than with those whoderide, and the power of appreciating is worth any amount of the powerof despising. 

And now we pass to the third and most intangible region of the spirit, the region that I will call the mystical region. This is in a senseakin to the aesthetic region, because it partly consists in theappreciation of beauty in ethical things. Here the danger of the vividpersonality is to let his preferences be his guide, and to contemncertain types of character, certain qualities, certain modes ofthought, certain points of view. Here again one's duty is plain. It isthe resolute avoidance of the critical attitude, the attempt todisentangle the golden thread, the nobility, the purity, the strength, the intensity, that may underlie characters and views that do notsuperficially appeal to oneself. The philosopher need not seek thesociety of uncongenial persons: such a practice is a uselessexpenditure of time and energy; but no one can avoid a certain contactwith dissimilar natures, and the aim of the philosopher must be to tryand do sympathetic justice to them, to seek earnestly for points ofcontact, rather than to attempt to emphasize differences. For instance, if the philosopher is thrown into the society of a man who can talknothing but motor jargon or golfing shop--I select the instances of theconversation that is personally to me the dreariest--he need notattempt to talk of golf or motors, and he is equally bound not todiscourse of his own chosen intellectual interests; but he ought toendeavour to find a common region, in which he can meet the golfer orthe motorist without mutual dreariness. 

Perhaps it may be thought that I have drifted out of the mysticalregion, but it is not so, for the relations of human beings with eachother appear to me to belong to this region. The strange affinities andhostilities of temperament, the inexplicable and undeniable thingcalled charm, the attraction and repulsion of character--all this is inthe mystical region of the spirit, the region of intuition andinstinct, which is a far stronger, more vital, and more general regionthan the intellectual or the artistic. And further, there comes thedeepest intuition of all, the relation of the human spirit to itsMaker, its originating cause. Whether this relation can be a direct oneis a matter for each person to decide from his own experience; butperhaps the only two things of which a human being can be said to beabsolutely conscious are his own identity, and the existence of acontrolling Power outside of him. And here lies the deepest danger ofall, that a man should attempt to limit or define his conception of thePower that originated him, by his own preferences. The deepest mysteryof all lies in the conviction, which seems to be inextricably rooted inthe human spirit, namely, the instinct to distinguish between theimpulses which we believe emanate from God, and the impulses which webelieve emanate from ourselves. It is incontestable that the greaterpart of the human race have the instinct that in following beneficent, unselfish, noble impulses they are following the will of their Maker;but that in yielding to cruel, sensual, low impulses they are actingcontrary to the will of the Creator. And this intuition is one whichmany of us do not doubt, though it is a principle, which cannot bescientifically proved. Indeed, it is incontestable that, though webelieve the will of God to be on the side of what is good, yet He putsmany obstacles, or permits them to be put, in the way of the man whodesires to act rightly. 

The only way, I believe, in this last region, in which we can hope toimprove, to win victories, is the way of a quiet and sinceresubmission. It is easy to submit to the Will of God when it sends usjoy and peace, when it makes us courageous, high-hearted, and just. Thedifficulty is to acquiesce when He sends us adversity, ill-health, suffering; when He permits us to sin, or if that is a faithless phrase, does not grant us strength to resist. But we must try to be patient, wemust try to interpret the value of suffering, the meaning of failure, the significance of shame. Perhaps it may be urged that this too is atemptation of egotism in another guise, and that we grow thus toconceive of ourselves as filling too large a space in the mind of God. But unless we do this, we can only conceive of ourselves as the victimsof God's inattention or neglect, which is a wholly despairing thought. 

In one sense we must be egotistic, if self-knowledge is egotism. Wemust try to take the measure of our faculties, and we must try to usethem. But while we must wisely humiliate ourselves before the majestyof God, the vast and profound scheme of the Universe, we must at thesame time believe that we have our place and our work; that God indeedpurposely set us where we find ourselves; and among the complicateddifficulties of sense, of temptation, of unhappiness, of failure, wemust try to fix our eyes humbly and faithfully upon the best, and seekto be worthy of it. We must try not to be self-sufficient, but to behumble and yet diligent. 

I do not think that we practise this simple resignation often enough;it is astonishing how the act of placing our own will as far aspossible in unison with the Will of God restores our tranquillity. 

It was only a short time ago that I was walking alone among fields andvillages. It was one of those languid days of early spring, when theframe and the mind alike seem unstrung and listless. The orchards werewhite with flower, and the hedges were breaking into fresh green. I hadjust returned to my work after a brief and delightful holiday, and wasovershadowed with the vague depression that the resumption of worktends to bring to anxious minds. I entered a little ancient church thatstood open; it was full of sunlight, and had been tenderly decked withan abundance of spring flowers. If I had been glad at heart it wouldhave seemed a sweet place, full of peace and beautiful mysteries. Butit had no voice, no message for me. I was overshadowed too by a sadanxiety about one whom I loved, who was acting perversely andunworthily. There came into my mind a sudden gracious thought to commitmyself to the heart of God, not to disguise my weakness and anxiety, not to ask that the load should be lightened, but that I might endureHis will to the uttermost. 

In a moment came the strength I sought; no lightening of the load, buta deeper serenity, a desire to bear it faithfully. The very fragranceof the flowers seemed to mingle like a sweet incense with my vow. Theold walls whispered of patience and hope. I do not know where the peacethat then settled upon me came from, but not, it seemed, out of theslender resources of my own vexed spirit. 

But after all, the wonder is, in this mysterious world, not that thereis so much egotism abroad, but that there is so little! Considering thenarrow space, the little cage of bones and skin, in which our spirit isconfined, like a fluttering bird, it often astonished me to find howmuch of how many people's thoughts is not given to themselves, but totheir work, their friends, their families. 

The simplest and most practical cure for egotism, after all, isresolutely to suppress public manifestations of it; and it is best toovercome it as a matter of good manners, rather than as a matter ofreligious principle. One does not want people to be impersonal; all onedesires to feel is that their interest and sympathy is not, so tospeak, tethered by the leg, and only able to hobble in a small andtrodden circle. One does not want people to suppress their personality, but to be ready to compare it with the personalities of others, ratherthan to refer other personalities to the standard of their own; to begenerous and expansive, if possible, and if that is not possible, ornot easy, to be prepared, at least, to take such deliberate steps asall can take, in the right direction. We can all force ourselves toexpress interest in the tastes and idiosyncrasies of others, we can askquestions, we can cultivate relations. The one way in which we can allof us improve, is to commit ourselves to a course of action from whichwe shall be ashamed to draw back. Many people who would otherwise driftinto self-regarding ways do this when they marry. They may marry foregotistical reasons; but once inside the fence, affection and duty andthe amazing experience of having children of their own give them thestimulus they need. But even the most helpless celibate has only toembark upon relations with others, to find them multiply and increase. After all, egotism has little to do with the forming or holding ofstrong opinions, or even with the intentness with which we pursue ouraims. The dog is the intentest of all animals, and throws himself mosteagerly into his pursuits, but he is also the least egotistical and themost sympathetic of creatures. Egotism resides more in a kind of proudisolation, in a species of contempt for the opinions and aims ofothers. It is not, as a rule, the most successful men who are the mostegotistical. The most uncompromisingly egotist I know is a would-beliterary man, who has the most pathetic belief in the interest andsignificance of his own very halting performances, a belief which noamount of rejection or indifference can shake, and who has hardly agood word for the books of other writers. I have sometimes thought thatit is in his case a species of mental disease, because he is an acutecritic of all work except his own. Doctors will indeed tell one thattranscendent egotism is very nearly allied to insanity; but in ordinarycases a little common sense and a little courtesy will soon suppressthe manifestations of the tendency, if a man can only realize that theforming of decided opinions is the cheapest luxury in the world, whilea licence to express them uncompromisingly is one of the mostexpensive. Perhaps the hardest kind of egotism to cure, is the egotismthat is combined with a deferential courtesy, and the power ofdisplaying a superficial sympathy, because an egotist of this type soseldom encounters any checks which would convince him of his fault. Such people, if they have natural ability, often achieve great success, because they pursue their own ambitions with relentless perseverance, and have the tact to do it without appearing to interfere with thedesigns of others. They bide their time; they are all consideration anddelicacy; they are never importunate or tiresome; if they fail, theyaccept the failure as though it were a piece of undeserved goodfortune; they never have a grievance; they simply wipe up the spiltmilk, and say no more about it; baffled at one point, they go quietlyround the corner, and continue their quest. They never for a momentreally consider any one's interests except their own; even theirgenerous impulses are deliberately calculated for the sake of theartistic effect. Such people make it hard to believe in disinterestedvirtue; yet they join with the meek in inheriting the earth, and theirprosperity seems the sign of Divine approval. 

But apart from the definite steps that the ordinary, moderatelyinteresting, moderately successful man may take, in the direction of acure for egotism, the best cure, after all, for all faults, is a humbledesire to be different. That is the most transforming power in theworld; we may fail a thousand times, but as long as we are ashamed ofour failure, as long as we do not helplessly acquiesce, as long as wedo not try to comfort ourselves for it by a careful parade of our othervirtues, we are in the pilgrim's road. It is a childish fault, afterall. I watched to-day a party of children at play. One detestablelittle boy, the clumsiest and most incapable of the party, spent thewhole time in climbing up a step and jumping from it, while heentreated all the others to see how far he could project himself. Therewas not a child there who could not have jumped twice as far, but theywere angelically patient and sympathetic with the odious little wretch. It seemed to me a sad, small parable of what we so many of us areengaged all our lives long in doing. The child had no eyes for and nothoughts of the rest; he simply reiterated his ridiculous performance, and claimed admiration. There came into my mind that exquisite andbeautiful ode, the work too, strange to say, of a transcendent egotist, Coventry Patmore, and the prayer he made:

 "Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath, Nor vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say, 'I will be sorry for their childishness. '"

This is where we may leave our problem; leave it, that is to say, if wehave faithfully struggled with it, if we have tried to amend ourselvesand to encourage others; if we have done all this, and reached a pointbeyond which progress seems impossible. But we must not fling ourproblems and perplexities, as we are apt to do, upon the knees of God, the very instant they begin to bewilder us, as children bring a tangledskein, or a toy bent crooked, to a nurse. We must not, I say; and yet, after all, I am not sure that it is not the best and simplest way ofall!

IX

EDUCATION

I said that I was a public-school master for nearly twenty years; andnow that it is over I sometimes sit and wonder, rather sadly, I amafraid, what we were all about. 

We were a strictly classical school; that is to say, all the boys inthe school were practically specialists in classics, whether they hadany aptitude for them or not. We shoved and rammed in a good many othersubjects into the tightly packed budget we called the curriculum. Butit was not a sincere attempt to widen our education, or to give boys areal chance to work at the things they cared for; it was only acompromise with the supposed claims of the public, in order that wemight try to believe that we taught things we did not really teach. Wehad an enormous and elaborate machine; the boys worked hard, and themasters were horribly overworked. The whole thing whizzed, banged, grumbled, and hummed like a factory; but very little education was theresult. It used to go to my heart to see a sparkling stream of bright, keen, lively little boys arrive, half after half, ready to work, fullof interest, ready to listen breathlessly to anything that struck theirfancy, ready to ask questions--such excellent material, I used tothink. At the other end used to depart a slow river of cheerful andconventional boys, well-dressed, well-mannered, thoroughly nice, reasonable, sensible, and good-humoured creatures, but knowing next tonothing, without intellectual interests, and, indeed, honestlydespising them. I do not want to exaggerate; and I will frankly confessthat there were always a few well-educated boys among them; but thesewere boys of real ability, with an aptitude for classics. And asproviding a classical education, the system was effective, thoughcumbrous; hampered and congested by the other subjects, which were wellenough taught, but which had no adequate time given to them, andintruded upon the classics without having opportunity to developthemselves. It is a melancholy picture, but the result certainly wasthat intellectual cynicism was the note of the place. 

The pity of it is that the machinery was all there; cheerful industryamong masters and boys alike; but the whole thing frozen and chilled, partly by the congestion of subjects, partly by antiquated methods. 

Moreover, to provide a classical education for the best boys, everything else was sacrificed. The boys were taught classics, not onthe literary method, but on the academic method, as if they were all toenter for triposes and scholarships, and to end by becoming professors. Instead of simply reading away at interesting and beautiful books, andtrying, to cover some ground, a great quantity of pedantic grammar wastaught; time was wasted in trying to make the boys compose in bothLatin and Greek, when they had no vocabulary, and no knowledge of thelanguages. It was like setting children of six and seven to writeEnglish in the style of Milton and Carlyle. 

The solution is a very obvious one; it is, at all costs to simplify, and to relieve pressure. The staple of education should be French, easymathematics, history, geography, and popular science. I would not evenbegin Latin or Greek at first. Then, when the first stages were over, Iwould have every boy with any special gift put to a single subject, inwhich he should try to make real progress, but so that there would betime to keep up the simpler subjects as well. The result would be thatwhen a boy had finished his course, he would have some one subjectwhich he could reasonably be expected to have mastered up to a certainpoint. He would have learnt classics, or mathematics, or history, ormodern languages, or science, thoroughly; while all might hope to havea competent knowledge of French, English, history, easy mathematics, and easy science. Boys who had obviously no special aptitude would bekept on at the simple subjects. And if the result was only that aschool sent out boys who could read French easily, and write simpleFrench grammatically, who knew something of modern history andgeography, could work out sums in arithmetic, and had some conceptionof elementary science--well, they would, I believe, be very fairlyeducated boys. 

The reason why intellectual cynicism sets in, is because the boys, asthey go on, feel that they have mastered nothing. They have been set tocompose in Greek and Latin and French; the result is that they have nopower of composing in any of these languages, when they might havelearnt to compose in one. Meanwhile, they have not had time to read anyEnglish to speak of, or to be practised in writing it. They knownothing of their own history or of modern geography; and the blame isnot with them if they find all knowledge arid and unattractive. 

I would try all sorts of experiments. I would make boys do easyprecis-writing; to give a set of boys a simple printed correspondenceand tell them to analyse it, would be to give them a task in which thedullest would find some amusement. I should read a story aloud, or ashort episode of history, and require them to re-tell it in their ownwords. Or I would relate a simple incident, and make them write it inFrench; make them write letters in French. And it would be easy thus tomake one subject play into another, because they could be made to givean account in French of something that they had done in science orhistory. 

At present each of the roads--Latin, Greek, French, mathematics, science--leads off in a separate direction, and seems to lead nowherein particular. 

The defenders of the classical system say that it fortifies the mindand makes it a strong and vigorous instrument. Where is the proof ofit? It is true that it fortifies and invigorates minds which have, tostart with, plenty of grip and interest; but pure classics are, as theresults abundantly prove, too hard a subject for ordinary minds, andthey are taught in too abstruse and elaborate a way. If it weredetermined by the united good sense of educational authorities thatLatin and Greek must be retained at all costs, then the only thing todo would be to sacrifice all other subjects, and to alter all themethods of teaching the classics. I do not think it would be a goodsolution; but it would be better than the present system ofintellectual starvation. 

The truth is that the present results are so poor that any experimentsare justified. The one quality which you can depend upon in boys isinterest, and interest is ruthlessly sacrificed. When I used to pressthis fact upon my sterner colleagues, they would say that I only wantedto make things amusing, and that the result would be that we shouldonly turn out amateurs. But amateurs are at least better thanbarbarians; and my complaint is that the majority of the boys are notturned out even professionally equipped in the elaborate subjects theyare supposed to have been taught. 

The same melancholy thing goes on in the older Universities. Theclassics are retained as a subject in which all must qualify; and theeducation provided for the ordinary passman is of a contemptible, smattering kind; it is really no education at all. It gives no grip, orvigour, or stimulus. Here again no one takes any interest in theaverage man. If the more liberal residents try to get rid of theintolerable tyranny of compulsory classics, a band of earnest, conventional people streams up from the country and outvotes them, saying solemnly, and obviously believing, that education is in danger. The truth is that the intellectual education of the average Englishmanis sacrificed to an antiquated humanist system, administered byunimaginative and pedantic people. 

The saddest part of it all is that we have, most of us, so little ideaof what we want to effect by education. My own theory is a simple one. I think that we ought first of all to equip boys, as, far as we can, toplay a useful part in the world. Such a theory is decried byeducational theorists as being utilitarian; but if education is not tobe useful, we had better close our schools at once. The idealist says, "Never mind the use; get the best educational instrument for thetraining of the mind, and, when you have finished your work, the mindwill be bright and strong, and capable of discharging any labour. " Thatis a beautiful theory; but it is not borne out by results; and one ofthe reasons of the profound disbelief which is rapidly spreading in thecountry with regard to our public schools, is that we send out so manyboys, not only without intellectual life, but not even capable ofhumble usefulness. These theorists continue to talk of classics as asplendid gymnastic, but in their hands it becomes a rack; instead ofleaving the limbs supple and well knit, they are strained, disjointed, and feeble. Even the flower of our classical system are too often leftwithout any original power of expression; critical, fastidious minds, admiring erudition, preferring the elucidation of second-rate authorsto the study of the best. A man who reads Virgil for pleasure is abetter result of a system of education than one who re-edits Tibullus. Instead of having original thoughts, and a style of their own toexpress them in, these high classicists are left with a profoundknowledge of the style and usage of ancient authors, a thing not to beundervalued as a step in a progress, but still essentially an anteroomof the mind. 

The further task that lies before us educators, when we have trained amind to be useful, consists in the awakening, in whatever regions maybe possible, of the soul. By this I do not mean the ethical soul, butthe spirit of fine perception of beauty, of generous admiration forwhat is noble and true and high. And here I am sure that we fail, andfail miserably. For one thing, these great classicists make the mistakeof thinking that only through literature, and, what is more, theaustere literature of Greece and Rome, can this sense be developed. Imyself have a deep admiration for Greek literature. I think it one ofthe brightest flowers of the human spirit, and I think it well that anyboy with a real literary sense should be brought into contact with it. I do not think highly of Latin literature. There are very few writersof the first rank. Virgil is, of course, one; and Horace is a splendidcraftsman, but not a high master of literature. There is hardly anyprose in Latin fit for boys to read. Cicero is diffuse, and oftenaffords little more than small-talk on abstract topics; Tacitus abrilliant but affected prosateur, Caesar a dull and uninspiring author. But to many boys the path to literary appreciation cannot lie throughLatin, or even Greek, because the old language hangs like a veilbetween them and the thought within. To some boys the enkindling of theintellectual soul comes through English literature, to some throughhistory, to some through a knowledge of other lands, which can beapproached by geography. To some through art and music; and of thesetwo things we trifle with the latter and hardly touch upon the former. I cannot see that a knowledge of the lives, the motives, theperformances of artists is in itself a less valuable instrument ofeducation than a knowledge of the lives, motives, and performances ofwriters, even though they be Greek. 

What our teachers fail in--and the most enthusiastic often fail mosthopelessly--is sympathy and imagination. They cannot conceive that whatmoves, touches, and inspires themselves may have no meaning for boyswith a different type of mind. 

The result of our education can be well reviewed by one who, likemyself, after wrestling, often very sorrowfully, with the problems ofschool education, comes up to a university and gets to know somethingof these boys at a later stage. Many of them are fine, vigorousfellows; but they often tend to look upon their work as a disagreeablenecessity, which they do conscientiously, expecting nothing inparticular from it. They play games ardently, and fill their hours ofleisure with talk about them. Yet one discerns in mind after mind thegerms of intellectual things, undeveloped and bewildered. Many of themhave an interest in something, but they are often ashamed to talk aboutit. They have a deep horror of being supposed to be superior; theylisten politely to talk about books and pictures, conscious ofignorance, not ill-disposed to listen; but it is all an unreal world tothem. 

I am all for hard and strenuous work. I do not at all wish to make workslipshod and dilettante. I would raise the standards of simpleeducation, and force boys to show that they are working honestly. Iwant energy and zeal above everything. But my honest belief is that youcannot get strenuous and zealous work unless you also have interest andbelief in work. At present, education as conducted in our public-schooland university system appears to me to be neither utilitarian norintellectual. It aims at being intellectual first and utilitarianafterwards, and it misses both. 

Whether anything can be done on a big scale to help us out of the poortangle in which we are involved, I do not know. I fear not. I do notthink that the time is ripe. I do not believe that great movements canbe brought about by prophets, however enlightened their views, howevervigorous their personalities, unless there is a corresponding energybelow. An individual may initiate and control a great force of publicopinion; I do not think he can originate it. There is certainly a vagueand widespread discontent with our present results; but it is all anegative opinion, a dissatisfaction with what is being done. Themovement must have a certain positive character before it can takeshape. There must arise a desire and a respect for intellectual things, a certain mental tone, which is wanting. At present, public opiniononly indicates that the rising generation is not well trained, and thatboys, after going through an elaborate education, seem to be verylittle equipped for practical life. There is no complaint that boys aremade unpractical; the feeling rather is that they are turned outhealthy, well-drilled creatures, fond of games, manly, obedient, butwith a considerable aversion to settling down to work, and with a firmresolve to extract what amusement they can out of life. All that is, Ifeel, perfectly true; but there is little demand on the part of parentsthat boys should have intellectual interests or enthusiasms for thethings of the mind. What teachers ought to aim at is to communicatesomething of this enthusiasm, by devising a form of education whichshould appeal to the simpler forms of intellectual curiosity, insteadof starving boys upon an ideal of inaccessible dignity. I do not for amoment deny that those who defend the old classical tradition have ahigh intellectual ideal. But it is an unpractical ideal, and takes noaccount of the plain facts of experience. 

The result is that we teachers have forfeited confidence; and we mustsomehow or other regain it. We are tolerated, as all ancient andrespectable things are tolerated. We have become a part of the socialorder, and we have still the prestige of wealth and dignity. But whatwealthy people ever dream nowadays of building and endowing colleges onpurely literary lines? All the buildings which have arisen of late inmy University are either buildings for scientific purposes or clericalfoundations for ecclesiastical ends. The vitality of our literaryeducation is slowly fading out of it. This lack of vitality is not soevident until you go a little way beneath the surface. Classicalproficiency is still liberally rewarded by scholarships andfellowships; and while the classical tradition remains in our schools, there are a good many men, who intend to be teachers, who enter forclassical examinations. But where we fail grievously is in ourprovision for average men; they are provided with feeble examinationsin desultory and diffuse subjects, in which a high standard is notrequired. It is difficult to imagine a condition of greater vacuitythan that in which a man leaves the University after taking a passdegree. No one has endeavoured to do anything for him, or to cultivatehis intelligence in any line. And yet these are our parents in the nextgeneration. And the only way in which we stifle mental revolt is byleaving our victims in such a condition of mental abjectness andintellectual humility, that it does not even occur to them to complainof how unjustly they have been treated. After all, we have interferedwith them so little that they have contrived to have a good time at theUniversity. They have made friends, played games, and lived a healthylife enough; they resolve that their boys shall have a good time too, if possible; and so the poor educational farce is played on fromgeneration to generation. It is melancholy to read the sonnet whichTennyson wrote, more than sixty years ago, a grave and bitterindictment of Cambridge--

 "Because you do profess to teach, And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart. "

That is the mistake: we do not feed the heart; we are too professional;we concern ourselves with methods and details; we swallow blindly theelaborate tradition under which we have ourselves been educated; wecontinue to respect the erudite mind, and to decry the appreciativespirit as amateurish and dilettante. We continue to think that a boy iswell trained in history if he has a minute knowledge of the sequence ofevents--that is, of course, a necessary part of the equipment of aprofessor or a teacher; but here again lies one of the fatal fallaciesof our system--that we train from the professorial point of view. Omniscience is not even desirable in the ordinary mind. A boy who hasappreciated the force of a few great historical characters, who haslearnt generous insight into the unselfish patriotism that wins thegreat victories of the world, who can see the horror of tyranny and thewrongs done to humanity in the name of authority, who has seen how anation in earlier stages is best ruled by an enlightened despotism, until it has learnt vigour and honesty and truth, who has: learnt toperceive that political agitation only survives in virtue of thejustice which underlies its demands--a boy, I say, who has been taughtto perceive such things, has learnt the lesson of history in a waywhich a student crammed with dates and facts may have wholly missed. 

The truth is that we do not know what we are aiming at. Our school anduniversity systems aim at present at an austere standard of mentaldiscipline, and then fail to enforce it, by making inevitableconcessions to the mental weakness inherited from long generationstrained upon the system of starvation. The system, indeed, too oftenreminds me of an old picture in Punch, of genteel poverty dining instate; in a room hung with portraits, attended by footmen, twoattenuated persons sit, while a silver cover is removed from a dishcontaining a roasted mouse. The resources that ought to be spent on awholesome meal are wasted in keeping up an ideal of state. Of coursethere is something noble in all sacrifice of personal comfort andhealth to a dignified ideal; but it is our business at present to fillthe dish rather than to insist on the cover being of silver. 

One very practical proof of the disbelief which the public has ineducation is that, while the charges of public schools have risengreatly in the last fifty years, the margin is all expended in thecomfort of boys, and in opportunities for athletic exercises; whilemasters, at all but a very few public schools, are still so poorly paidthat it is impossible for the best men to adopt the profession, unlessthey have an enthusiasm which causes them to put considerations ofpersonal comfort aside. It is only too melancholy to observe at theUniversity that the men of vigour and force tend to choose the CivilService or the Bar in preference to educational work. I cannot wonderat it. The drudgery of falling in with the established system, ofteaching things in which there is no interest to be communicated, ofinsisting on details in the value of which one does not believe, issuch that few people, except unambitious men, who have no specialmental bent, adopt the profession; and these only because the impartingof the slender accomplishments that they have gained is an obvious andsimple method of earning a livelihood. 

The blame must, I fear, fall first upon the Universities. I am notspeaking of the education there provided for the honour men, which isoften excellent of its kind; though it must be confessed that thekeenest and best enthusiasm seems to me there to be drifting away fromthe literary side of education. But while an old and outworn humanisttradition is allowed to prevail, while the studies of the averagepassman are allowed to be diffuse, desultory, and aimless, and of akind from which it is useless to expect either animation or precision, so long will a blight rest upon the education of the country. Whileboys of average abilities continue to be sent to the Universities, andwhile the Universities maintain the classical fence, so long will theso-called modern sides at schools continue to be collections of more orless incapable boys. And in decrying modern sides, as even headmastersof great schools have been often known to do, it is very seldom statedthat the average of ability in these departments tends to be so lowthat even the masters who teach in them teach without faith or interest. 

It may be thought of these considerations that they resemble theattitude of Carlyle, of whom FitzGerald said that he had sat for manyyears pretty comfortably in his study at Chelsea, scolding all theworld for not being heroic, but without being very precise in tellingthem how. But this is a case where individual action is out of thequestion; and if I am asked to name a simple reform which would have aneffect, I would suggest that a careful revision of the education ofpassmen at our Universities is the best and most practical step to take. 

And, for the schools, the only solution possible is that the directorsof secondary education should devise a real and simple form ofcurriculum. If they whole-heartedly believe in the classics as the bestpossible form of education, then let them realize that the classicsform a large and complicated subject, which demands the WHOLE of theenergies of boys. Let them resist utilitarian demands altogether, andbundle all other subjects, except classics, out of the curriculum, sothat classics may, at all events, be learnt thoroughly and completely. At present they make large and reluctant concessions to utilitariandemands, and spoil the effect of the classics to which they cling, andin which they sincerely believe, by admitting modern subjects to thecurriculum in deference to the clamour of utilitarians. A rigid system, faithfully administered, would be better than a slatternly compromise. Of course, one would like to teach all boys everything if it werepossible! But the holding capacity of tender minds is small, and a fewsubjects thoroughly taught are infinitely better than a large number ofsubjects flabbily taught. 

I say, quite honestly, that I had rather have the old system ofclassics pure and simple, taught with relentless accuracy, than thepresent hotchpotch. But I earnestly hope myself that the pressure ofthe demand for modern subjects is too strong to be resisted. 

It seems to me that, when the whole world is expanding and thrillingwith new life all around us, it is an intolerable mistake not to bringthe minds of boys in touch with the modern spirit. The history ofGreece and Rome may well form a part of modern education; but we wantrather to bring the minds of those who are being educated into contactwith the Greek and Roman spirit, as part of the spirit of the world, than to make them acquainted with the philological and syntacticalpeculiarities of the two languages. It may be said that we cannot comeinto contact with the Greek and the Roman spirit except through readingtheir respective literatures; but if that is the case, how can a systemof teaching classics be defended which never brings the vast majorityof the boys, who endure it, in contact with the literature or thenational spirit of the Greeks and Romans at all? I do not think thatclassical teachers can sincerely maintain that the average product of aclassical school has any real insight into, or familiarity with, eitherthe language or the spirit of these two great nations. 

And if that is true of average boys educated on this system, what is itthat classical teachers profess to have given them? They will say grip, vigour, the fortified mind. But where is the proof of it? If I sawclassically educated boys flinging themselves afterwards with energyand ardour into modern literature, history, philosophy, science, Ishould be the first to concur in the value of the system. But I see, instead, intellectual cynicism, intellectual apathy, an absorbing loveof physical exercise, an appetite for material pleasures, a distastefor books and thought. I do not say that these tendencies would at onceyield to a simpler and more enlightened system of education; but theresults of the present system seem to me so negative, sounsatisfactory, as to justify, and indeed necessitate, the trying ofeducational experiments. It is terrible to see the patientacquiescence, the humble conscientiousness with which the presentsystem is administered. It is pathetic to see so much labour expendedupon an impossible task. There is something, of course, morallyimpressive about the courage and loyalty of those who stick to asinking ship, and attempt to bale out with teacups the inrush of theoverwhelming tide. But one cannot help feeling that too much is atstake; that year by year the younger generation, which ought to be sentout alive to intellectual interests of every kind, in a period which ispalpitating with problems and thrilled by wonderful surprises, is beingstarved and cramped by an obstinate clinging to an old tradition, to asystem which reveals its inadequacy to all who pass by; or, rather, ourboys are being sacrificed to a weak compromise between two systems, theold and the new, which are struggling together. The new system cannotat present eject the old, and the old can only render the new futilewithout exercising its own complete influence. 

The best statesmanship in the world is not to break rudely with oldtraditions, but to cause the old to run smoothly into the new. My ownsincere belief is that it is not too late to attempt this; but that ifthe subject continues to be shelved, if our educational authoritiesrefuse to consider the question of reform, the growing dissatisfactionwill reach such a height that the old system will be swept away rootand branch, and that many venerable and beautiful associations willthereby be sacrificed. And with all my heart do I deprecate this, believing, as I do, that a wise continuity, a tendency to temperatereform, is one of the best notes of the English character. We have agreat and instinctive tact in England for avoiding revolutions, and formaking freedom broaden slowly down; that is what, one ventures to hope, may be the issue of the present discontent. But I would rather have arevolution, with all its destructive agencies, than an unintelligentand oppressive tyranny. 

X

AUTHORSHIP

I have been sometimes consulted by young aspirants in literature as tothe best mode of embarking upon the profession of letters; and if myinquirer has confessed that he will be obliged to earn his living, Ihave always replied, dully but faithfully, that the best way to realizehis ambition is to enter some other profession without delay. Writingis indeed the most delightful thing in the world, if one has not todepend upon it for a livelihood; and the truth is that, if a man hasthe real literary gift, there are very few professions which do notafford a margin of time sufficient for him to indulge what is thehappiest and simplest of hobbies. Sometimes the early impulse has noroot, and withers; but if, after a time, a man finds that his heart isentirely in his writing, and if he feels that he may without imprudencegive himself to the practice of the beloved art, then he may formallyadopt it as a profession. But he must not hope for much monetaryreward. A successful writer of plays may make a fortune, a novelist ora journalist of the first rank may earn a handsome income; but toachieve conspicuous mundane success in literature, a certain degree ofgood fortune is almost more important than genius, or even than talent. Ability by itself, even literary ability of a high order, is notsufficient; it is necessary to have a vogue, to create or satisfy aspecial demand, to hit the taste of the age. But the writer ofbelles-lettres, the literary writer pure and simple, can hardly hope toearn a living wage, unless he is content to do, and indeed fortunateenough to obtain, a good deal of hackwork as well. He must be ready towrite reviews and introductions; to pour out occasional articles, tocompile, to edit, to select; and the chances are that if his livelihooddepends upon his labour, he will have little of the tranquillity, theserenity, the leisure, upon the enjoyment of which the quality of thebest work depends. John Addington Symonds makes a calculation, in oneof his published letters, to the effect that his entire earnings forthe years in which he had been employed in writing his history of theItalian Renaissance, had been at the rate of about L100 a year, fromwhich probably nearly half had to be subtracted for inevitableincidental expenses, such as books and travelling. The conclusion isthat unless a man has private resources, or a sufficiently robustconstitution to be able to carry on his literary work side by side withhis professional work, he can hardly afford to turn his attention tobelles-lettres. 

Nowadays literature has become a rather fashionable pursuit thanotherwise. Times have changed since Gray refused to accept money forhis publications, and gave it to be understood that he was an eccentricgentleman who wrote solely for his own amusement; since the inheritorof Rokeby found among the family portraits of the magnates that adornedhis walls a picture of the novelist Richardson, and was at the pains ofadding a ribbon and a star, in order to turn it into a portrait of SirRobert Walpole, that he might free his gallery from such degradingassociations. 

But now a social personage is hardly ashamed of writing a book, oftravels, perhaps, or even of literary appreciations, so long as it isuntainted by erudition; he is not averse to publishing a volume of mildlyrics, or a piece of simple fiction, just to show how easy it is, andwhat he could do, if only, as Charles Lamb said, he had the mind. Itadds a pleasant touch of charming originality to a great lady if shecan bring out a little book. Such compositions are indubitably books;they generally have a title-page, an emotional dedication, anultra-modest preface, followed by a certain number of pages ofundeniable print. It is common enough too, at a big dinner-party, tomeet three or four people, without the least professional dinginess, who have written books. Mr. Winston Churchill said the other day, withmuch humour, that he could not reckon himself a professional authorbecause he had only written five books--the same number as Moses. * AndI am far from decrying the pleasant labours of these amateurs. Thewriting of such books as I have described has been a real amusement tothe author, not entailing any particular strain; the sweet pride ofauthorship enlarges one's sympathies, and gives an agreeable glow tolife. No inconvenient rivalry results. The little volumes just flutterinto the sunshine, like gauzy flies from some tiny cocoon, and spreadtheir slender wings very gracefully in the sun. 

* This sentence was, of course, written before the publication by Mr. Churchill of the Life of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill. 

I would not, then, like some austere critics, forbid such leisurelywriters as I have described to indulge in the pleasant diversion ofwriting books. There are reviewers who think it a sacred duty to huntand chase these amiable and well-meaning amateurs out of the field, asthough they had trespassed upon some sacred enclosure. I do not thinkthat it is necessary or even kind to do this. I would rather regardliterature as a kind of Tom Tiddler's ground, where there is gold aswell as silver to be picked up. Amateurs tend, it is true, rather toscatter gold and silver in the field of literature than to acquire it;and I had just as soon, after all, that they should lavish theirsuperfluous wealth there, to be picked up by honest publishers, as thatthey should lavish it in other regions of unnecessary expenditure. Itis not a crime, when all is said, to write or even to print an inferiorbook; I would indeed go further, and say that writing in any shape isat worst a harmless diversion; and I see no reason why people should bediscouraged from such diversion, any more than that they should bediscouraged from practising music, or making sketches in water-colour, because they only attain a low standard of execution in such pursuits. Indeed, I think that hours devoted to the production of inferiorliterature, by persons of leisure, are quite as well bestowed as hoursspent in golfing and motoring; to engage in the task of writing a bookimplies a certain sympathy with intellectual things; and I am disposedto applaud and encourage anything which increases intellectualappreciation in our country at the present time. There is not too muchof it abroad; and I care very little how it is acquired, if only it isacquired. The only way in which these amateurs can be tiresome is ifthey insist upon reading their compositions aloud in a domestic circle, or if they request one to read a published book and give them a candidopinion. I once stayed with a worthy country gentleman who, eveningafter evening, after we had returned from shooting, insisted on readingaloud in the smoking-room, with solemn zest, the novel on which he wasengaged. It was heavy work! The shooting was good, but I am not surethat it was not dearly purchased at the price. The plot of the book wasintricate, the characters numerous; and I found it almost impossible tokeep the dramatis personae apart. But I did not grudge my friend thepleasure he took in his composition; I only grudged the time I wasobliged to spend in listening to it. The novel was not worth writingfrom the point of view of its intrinsic merits; but it gave my oldfriend an occupation; he was never bored; he flew back to his bookwhenever he had an hour to spare. It saved him from dulness and ennui;it gave him, I doubt not, many a glowing hour of secret joy; it was anunmixed benefit to himself and his family that he had this indoorsresource; it entailed no expense; it was simply the cheapest and mostharmless hobby that it is possible to conceive. 

It is characteristic of our nation to feel an imperative need foroccupation. I suppose that there is no nation in the world which has solittle capacity for doing nothing gracefully, and enjoying it, as theEnglish. This characteristic is part of our strength, because ittestifies to a certain childlike vitality. We are impatient, restless, unsatisfied. We cannot be happy unless we have a definite end in view. The result of this temperament is to be seen at the present time in theenormous and consuming passion for athletic exercise in the open air. We are not an intellectual nation, and we must do something; we arewealthy and secure, and, in default of regular work, we have got toorganize our hours of leisure on the supposition that we have somethingto do. I have little doubt that if we became a more intellectual nationthe change would be signalized by an immense output of inferior books, because we have not the student temperament, the gift of absorbingliterature. We have a deep instinct for publicity. If we areathletically gifted, we must display our athletic prowess in public. Ifwe have thoughts of our own, we must have a hearing; we look uponmeditation, contemplation, conversation, the arts of leisurely living, as a waste of time; we are above all things practical. 

But I would pass on to consider the case of more serious writers; and Iwould begin by making a personal confession. My own occupations aremainly literary; and I would say frankly that there seems to me to beno pleasure comparable to the pleasure of writing. To find a congenialsubject, and to express that subject as lucidly, as sincerely, asfrankly as possible, appears to me to be the most delightful occupationin the world. Nature is full of exquisite sights and sounds, day byday; the stage of the world is crowded with interesting and fascinatingpersonalities, rich in contrasts, in characteristics, in humour, inpathos. We are surrounded, the moment we pass outside of the complexmaterial phenomena which surround us, by all kinds of wonderful secretsand incomprehensible mysteries. What is this strange pageant thatunrolls itself before us from hour to hour? this panorama of night andday, sun and moon, summer and winter, joy and sorrow, life and death?We have all of us, like Jack Horner, our slice of pie to eat. Which ofus does not know the delighted complacency with which we pull out theplums? The poet is silent of the moment when the plate is empty, whennothing is left but the stones; but that is no less impressive anexperience. 

The wonderful thing to me is, not that there is so much desire in theworld to express our little portion of the joy, the grief, the mysteryof it all, but that there is so little. I wish with all my heart thatthere was more instinct for personal expression; Edward FitzGerald saidthat he wished we had more lives of obscure persons; one wants to knowwhat other people are thinking and feeling about it all; what joys theyanticipate, what fears they sustain, how they regard the end andcessation of life and perception, which waits for us all. The worst ofit is that people are often so modest; they think that their ownexperience is so dull, so unromantic, so uninteresting. It is an entiremistake. If the dullest person in the world would only put downsincerely what he or she thought about his or her life, about work andlove, religion and emotion, it would be a fascinating document. My onlysorrow is that the amateurs of whom I have spoken above will not dothis; they rather turn to external and impersonal impressions, relatedefinite things, what they see on their travels, for instance, describing just the things which any one can see. They tend to indulgein the melancholy labour of translation, or employ customary, familiarforms, such as the novel or the play. If only they would write diariesand publish them; compose imaginary letters; let one inside the houseof self instead of keeping one wandering in the park! The real interestof literature is the apprehending of other points of view; one spendsan immense time in what is called society, in the pursuit of otherpeople's views; but what a very little grain results from anintolerable deal of chaff! And all because people are conventional andnot simple-minded; because they will not say what they think; indeedthey will not as a rule try to find out what they do think, but preferto traffic with the conventional counters. Yet what a refreshment it isto meet with a perfectly sincere person, who makes you feel that youare in real contact with a human being! This is what we ought to aim atin writing: at a perfectly sincere presentment of our thoughts. Wecannot, of course, all of us hope to have views upon art, upontheology, upon politics, upon education, because we may not have anyexperience in these subjects; but we have all of us experience in life, in nature, in emotion, in religion; and to express what we feel, assincerely as we can, is certainly useful to ourselves, because itclears our view, leads us not to confuse hopes with certainties, enables us to disentangle what we really believe from what weconventionally adopt. 

Of course this cannot be done all at once; when we first begin towrite, we find how difficult it is to keep the thread of our thoughts;we keep turning out of the main road to explore attractive by-paths; wecannot arrange our ideas. All writers who produce original work passthrough a stage in which they are conscious of a throng of kindrednotions, all more or less bearing on the central thought, but themovements of which they cannot wholly control. Their thoughts are likea turbulent crowd, and one's business is to drill them into an orderedregiment. A writer has to pass through a certain apprenticeship; andthe cure for this natural vagueness is to choose small precisesubjects, to say all that we have in our minds about them, and to stopwhen we have finished; not to aim at fine writing, but at definitenessand clearness. 

I suppose people arrive at their end in different ways; but my ownbelief is that, in writing, one cannot do much by correction. I believethat the best way to arrive at lucidity is by incessant practice; wemust be content to abandon and sacrifice faulty manuscripts altogether;we ought not to fret over them and rewrite them. The two things that Ihave found to be of infinite service to myself, in learning to writeprose, have been keeping a full diary, and writing poetry. The habit ofdiarizing is easily acquired, and as soon as it becomes habitual, theday is no more complete without it than it is complete without a coldbath and regular meals. People say that they have not time to keep adiary; but they would never say that they had not time to take a bathor to have their meals. A diary need not be a dreary chronicle of one'smovements; it should aim rather at giving a salient account of someparticular episode, a walk, a book, a conversation. It is a practicewhich brings its own reward in many ways; it is a singularly delightfulthing to look at old diaries, to see how one was occupied, say, tenyears ago; what one was reading, the people one was meeting, one'searlier point of view. And then, further, as I have said, it has theimmense advantage of developing style; the subjects are ready to hand;and one may learn, by diarizing, the art of sincere and frankexpression. 

And then there is the practice of writing poetry; there are certainyears in the life of most people with a literary temperament, whenpoetry seems the most natural and desirable mode of self-expression. This impulse should be freely yielded to. The poetry need not be verygood; I have no illusions, for instance, as to the merits of my own;but it gives one a copious vocabulary, it teaches the art of poise, ofcadence, of choice in words, of picturesqueness. There comes a timewhen one abandons poetry, or is abandoned by it; and, after all, proseis the most real and natural form of expression. There arrives, in thecase of one who has practised poetical expression diligently, awonderful sense of freedom, of expansiveness, of delight, when hebegins to use what has been material for poetry for the purposes ofprose. Poetical expression is strictly conditioned by length ofstanzas, dignity of vocabulary, and the painful exigencies of rhyme. How good are the days when one has escaped from all that tyranny, whenone can say the things that stir the emotion, freely and liberally, inflowing phrases, without being brought to a stop by the severe fencesof poetical form! The melody, the cadence, the rise and fall of thesentence, antithesis, contrast, mellifluous energy--these are the joysof prose; but there is nothing like the writing of verse to make themeasy and instinctive. 

A word may be said about style. Stevenson said that he arrived atflexibility of style by frank and unashamed imitation of other writers;he played, as he said, "the sedulous ape" to great authors. This systemhas its merits, but it also has its dangers. A sensitive literarytemperament is apt to catch, to repeat, to perpetuate the charmingmannerisms of great writers. I have sometimes had to write criticalmonographs on the work of great stylists. It is a perilous business! Iffor several months one studies the work of a contagious and delicatewriter, critically and appreciatively, one is apt to shape one'ssentences with a dangerous resemblance to the cadences of the authorwhom one is supposed to be criticising. More than once, when mymonograph has been completed, I have felt that it might almost havebeen written by the author under examination; and there is no merit inthat. I am sure that one should not aim at practising a particularstyle. The one aim should be to present the matter as clearly, asvigorously, as forcibly as one can; if one does this sincerely, one'sown personality will make the style; and thus I feel that people whoseaim is to write vigorously should abstain from even reading authorswhose style affects them strongly. Stevenson himself dared not readLivy; Pater confessed that he could not afford to read Stevenson; headded, that he did not consider his own style better than the style ofStevenson--rather the reverse--but he had his own theory, his ownmethod of expression, deliberately adopted and diligently pursued. Hetherefore carefully refrained from reading an author whom he feltunconsciously compelled to imitate. The question of style, then, is onewhich a writer who desires originality should leave altogether alone. It must emerge of itself, or it is sure to lack distinctiveness. I sawonce a curious instance of this. I knew a diligent writer, whose hastyand unconsidered writings were forcible, lively, and lucid, penetratedby his own poetical and incisive personality; but he set no store bythese writings, and if they were ever praised in his presence, he saidthat he was ashamed of them for being so rough. This man devoted manyyears to the composition of a great literary work. He took infinitepains with it; he concentrated whole sentences into epithets; hehammered and chiselled his phrases; he was for ever retouching andrewriting. But when the book at last appeared it was a completedisappointment. The thing was really unintelligible; it had no motion, no space about it; the reader had to devote heart-breaking thought tothe exploration of a paragraph, and was as a rule only rewarded byfinding that it was a simple thought, expressed with profoundobscurity; whereas the object of the writer ought to be to express aprofound and difficult thought clearly and lucidly. The only piece ofliterary advice that I have ever found to be of real and abiding use, is the advice I once heard given by Professor Seeley to a youthfulessayist, who had involved a simple subject in mazes of irrelevantintricacy. "Don't be afraid, " said the Professor, "of letting the bonesshow. " That is the secret: a piece of literary art must not be merelydry bones; the skeleton must be overlaid with delicate flesh andappropriate muscle; but the structure must be there, and it must bevisible. 

The perfection of lucid writing, which one sees in books such asNewman's Apologia or Ruskin's Praeterita, seems to resemble a crystalstream, which flows limpidly and deliciously over its pebbly bed; thevery shape of the channel is revealed; there are transparent glassywater-breaks over the pale gravel; but though the very stream has abeauty of its own, a beauty of liquid curve and delicate murmur, itschief beauty is in the exquisite transfiguring effect which it has overthe shingle, the vegetation that glimmers and sways beneath thesurface. How dry, how commonplace the pebbles on the edge look! Howstiff and ruinous the plants from which the water has receded! But seenthrough the hyaline medium, what coolness, what romance, what secretand remote mystery, lingers over the tiny pebbles, the little reefs ofrock, the ribbons of weed, that poise so delicately in the glidingstream! What a vision of unimagined peace, of cool refreshment, ofgentle tranquillity, it all gives!

Thus it is with the transfiguring power of art, of style. The objectsby themselves, in the commonplace light, in the dreary air, are trivialand unromantic enough; one can hold them in one's hand, one seems tohave seen them a hundred times before; but, plunged beneath that clearand fresh medium, they have a unity, a softness, a sweetness which seemthe result of a magical spell, an incommunicable influence; they bringall heaven before the eyes; they whisper the secrets of a region whichis veritably there, which we can discern and enjoy, but the charm ofwhich we can neither analyse nor explain; we can only confess itsexistence with a grateful heart. One who devotes himself to writingshould find, then, his chief joy in the practice of his art, not in therewards of it; publication has its merits, because it entails upon onethe labour of perfecting the book as far as possible; if one wrotewithout publication in view, one would be tempted to shirk the finallabour of the file; one would leave sentences incomplete, paragraphsunfinished; and then, too, imperfect as reviews often are, it iswholesome as well as interesting to see the impression that one's workmakes on others. If one's work is generally contemned, it is bracing toknow that one fails in one's appeal, that one cannot amuse and interestreaders. High literature has often met at first with unmerited neglectand even obloquy; but to incur neglect and obloquy is not in itself aproof that one's standard is high and one's taste fastidious. Moreover, if one has done one's best, and expressed sincerely what one feels andbelieves, one sometimes has the true and rare pleasure of eliciting agrateful letter from an unknown person, who has derived pleasure, perhaps even encouragement, from a book. These are some of the pleasantrewards of writing, and though one should not write with one's eye onthe rewards, yet they may be accepted with a sober gratitude. 

Of course there will come moods of discouragement to all authors, whenthey will ask themselves, as even Tennyson confesses that he wastempted to do, what, after all, it amounts to? The author must bewareof rating his own possibilities too high. In looking back at one's ownlife, in trying to trace what are the things that have had a deep andpermanent influence on one's character, how rarely is it possible topoint to a particular book, and say, "That book gave me the message Imost needed, made me take the right turn, gave me the requisite bias, the momentous impulse"? We tend to want to do things on too large ascale, to affect great masses of people, to influence numerous hearts. An author should be more than content if he finds he has made adifference to a handful of people, or given innocent pleasure to asmall company. Only to those whose heart is high, whose patience isinexhaustible, whose vigour is great, whose emotion is passionate, isit given to make a deep mark upon the age; and there is needed too themagical charm of personality, overflowing in "thoughts that breathe andwords that burn. " But we can all take a hand in the great game; and ifthe leading parts are denied us, if we are told off to sit among a rowof supers, drinking and whispering on a bench, while the greatcharacters soliloquize, let us be sure that we drain our empty cup withzest, and do our whispering with intentness; not striving to divertattention to ourselves, but contributing with all our might to thenaturalness, the effectiveness of the scene. 

XI

THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS

I was staying the other day in the house of an old friend, a publicman, who is a deeply interesting character, energetic, able, vigorous, with very definite limitations. The only male guest in the house, it sohappened, was also an old friend of mine, a serious man. One night, when we were all three in the smoking-room, our host rose, and excusedhimself, saying that he had some letters to write. When he was gone, Isaid to my serious friend: "What an interesting fellow our host is! Heis almost more interesting because of the qualities that he does notpossess, than because of the qualities that he does possess. " Mycompanion, who is remarkable for his power of blunt statement, lookedat me gravely, and said: "If you propose to discuss our host, you mustfind some one else to conduct the argument; he is my friend, whom Iesteem and love, and I am not in a position to criticise him. " Ilaughed, and said: "Well, he is my friend, too, and _I_ esteem and lovehim; and that is the very reason why I should like to discuss him. Nothing that either you or I could say would make me love him less; butI wish to understand him. I have a very clear impression of him, and Ihave no doubt you have a very clear impression too; yet we shouldprobably differ about him in many points, and I should like to see whatlight you could throw upon his character. " My companion said: "No; itis inconsistent with my idea of loyalty to criticise my friends. Besides, you know I am an old-fashioned person, and I disapprove ofcriticising people altogether. I think it is a violation of the ninthcommandment; I do not think we are justified in bearing false witnessagainst our neighbour. "

"But you beg the question, " I said, "by saying 'FALSE witness. ' I quiteagree that to discuss people in a malicious spirit, or in a spirit ofmockery, with the intention of exaggerating their faults and making agrotesque picture of their foibles, is wrong. But two just persons, such as you and I are, may surely talk over our friends, in what Mr. Chadband called a spirit of love?" My companion shook his head. "No, "he said, "I think it is altogether wrong. Our business is to see thegood points of our friends, and to be blind to their faults. " "Well, " Isaid, "then let us 'praise him soft and low, call him worthiest to beloved, ' like the people in 'The Princess. ' You shall make a panegyric, and I will say 'Hear, hear!'" "You are making a joke out of it, " saidmy companion, "and I shall stick to my principles--and you won't mindmy saying, " he went on, "that I think your tendency is to criticisepeople much too much. You are always discussing people's faults, and Ithink it ends in your having a lower estimate of human nature than iseither kind or necessary. To-night, at dinner, it made me quitemelancholy to hear the way in which you spoke of several of our bestfriends. " "Not leaving Lancelot brave nor Galahad pure!" I said; "infact you think that I behaved like the ingenious demon in the Acts, whoalways seems to me to have had a strong sense of humour. It was theseven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, was it not, who tried to exorcise anevil spirit? But he 'leapt upon them and overcame them, so that theyfled out of the house naked and wounded. ' You mean that I use myfriends like that, strip off their reputations, belabour them, andleave them without a rag of virtue or honour?" My companion frowned, and said: "Yes; that is more or less what I mean, though I think yourillustration is needlessly profane. My idea is that we ought to makethe best of people, and try as far as possible to be blind to theirfaults. " "Unless their fault happens to be criticism?" I said. Mycompanion turned to me very solemnly, and said: "I think we ought notto be afraid, if necessary, of telling our friends about their faults;but that is quite a different thing from amusing oneself by discussingtheir faults with others. " "Well" I said, "I believe that one is in amuch better position to speak to people about their faults, if oneknows them; and personally I think I arrive at a juster view both of myfriends' faults and virtues by discussing them with others. I think onetakes a much fairer view, by seeing the impression that one's friendsmake on other people; and I think that I generally arrive at admiringmy friends more by seeing them reflected in the mind of another, than Ido when they are merely reflected in my own mind. Besides, if one ispossessed of critical faculties, it seems to me absurd to rule out onepart of life, and that, perhaps, the most important--one'sfellow-beings, I mean--and to say that one is not to exercise thefaculty of criticism there. You would not think it wrong, for instance, to criticise books?" "No, " said my companion, "certainly not. I thinkthat it is not only legitimate, but a duty, to bring one's criticalfaculties to bear on books; it is one of the most valuable methods ofself-education. " "And yet books are nothing but an expression of anauthor's personality, " I said. "Would you go so far as to say that onehas no business to criticise one's friends' books?" "You are onlyarguing for the sake of arguing, " said my companion. "With books it isquite different; they are a public expression of a man's opinions, andconsequently they are submitted to the world for criticism. " "Iconfess, " I said, "that I do not think the distinction is a real one. Ifeel sure one has a right to criticise a man's opinions, delivered inconversation; and I think that much of our lives is nothing but a moreor less public expression of ourselves. Your position seems to me nomore reasonable than if a man was to say: 'I look upon the whole world, and all that is in it, as the work of God; and I am not in a positionto criticise any of the works of God. ' If one may not criticise thecharacter of a friend whom one esteems and loves, surely, a fortiori, we ought not to criticise anything in the world at all. The whole ofethics, the whole of religion, is nothing else than bringing ourcritical faculties to bear upon actions and qualities; and it seems tome that if our critical faculty means anything at all, we are bound toapply it to all the phenomena we see about us. " My companion saiddisdainfully that I was indulging in the merest sophistry, and that hethought that we had better go to bed, which we presently did. 

I have, since this conversation, been reflecting about the wholesubject, and I am not inclined to admit that my companion was right. Inthe first place, if every one were to follow the principle that one hadno business to criticise one's friends, it would end in beingdeplorably dull. Imagine the appalling ponderosity of a conversation inwhich one felt bound to praise every one who was mentioned. Think ofthe insensate chorus which would arise. "How tall and stately A---- is!How sturdy and compact B---- is! Then there is dear C----; how wise, judicious, prudent, and sensible! And the excellent D----, whatcandour, what impulsiveness! E----, how worthy, how business-like! Yes, how true that is! How thankful we should be for the examples of A----, B----, C----, D----, and E----!" A very little of such conversationwould go a long way. How it would refresh and invigorate the mind! Whata field for humour and subtlety it would open up!

It may be urged that we ought not to regulate our conduct upon thebasis of trying to avoid what is dull; but I am myself of opinion thatdulness is responsible for a large amount of human error and misery. Readers of The Pilgrim's Progress will no doubt remember the youngwoman whose name was Dull, and her choice of companions--Simple, Sloth, Presumption, Short-mind, Slow-pace, No-heart, Linger-after-lust, andSleepy-head. These are the natural associates of Madam Dull. The dangerof dulness, whether natural or acquired, is the danger of complacentlylingering among stupid and conventional ideas, and losing all thebright interchange of the larger world. The dull people are not, as arule, the simple people--they are generally provided with a narrow andself-sufficient code; they are often entirely self-satisfied, and aptto disapprove of everything that is lively, romantic, and vigorous. Simplicity, as a rule, is either a natural gift, or else can beattained only by people of strong critical powers, who will, firmly andvigorously, test, examine, and weigh motives, and arrive throughexperience at a direct and natural method of dealing with men andcircumstances. True simplicity is not an inherited poverty of spirit;it is rather like the poverty of one who has deliberately discardedwhat is hampering, vexatious, and unnecessary, and has learnt that theart of life consists in disentangling the spirit from all conventionalclaims, in living by trained impulse and fine instinct, rather than bytradition and authority. I do not say that the dull people are notprobably, in a way, the happier people; I suppose that anything thatleads to self-satisfaction is, in a sense, a cause of happiness; but itis not a species of happiness that people ought to pursue. 

Perhaps one ought not to use the word dulness, because it may bemisunderstood. The kind of dulness of which I speak is not inconsistentwith a high degree, not only of practical, but even of mental, ability. I know several people of very great intellectual power who are modelsof dulness. Their memories are loaded with what is no doubt veryvaluable information, and their conclusions are of the weightiestcharacter; but they have no vivid perception, no alertness, they arenot open to new ideas, they never say an interesting or a suggestivething; their presence is a load on the spirits of a lively party, theirvery facial expression is a rebuke to all light-mindedness andtriviality. Sometimes these people are silent, and then to be in theirpresence is like being in a thick mist; there is no outlook, noenlivening prospect. Sometimes they are talkers; and I am not sure thatthat is not even worse, because they generally discourse on their ownsubjects with profound and serious conviction. They have no power ofconversation, because they are not interested in any one else's pointof view; they care no more who their companions are, than a pump careswhat sort of a vessel is put under it--they only demand that peopleshould listen in silence. I remember not long ago meeting one of thespecies, in this case an antiquarian. He discoursed continuously, witha hard eye, fixed as a rule upon the table, about the antiquities ofthe neighbourhood. I was on one side of him, and was far too muchcrushed to attempt resistance. I ate and drank mechanically; I said"Yes" and "Very interesting" at intervals; and the only ray of hopeupon the horizon was that the hands of the clock upon the mantelpiecedid undoubtedly move, though they moved with leaden slowness. On theother side of the savant was a lively talker, Matthews by name, whogrew very restive under the process. The great man had selectedDorchester as his theme, because he had unhappily discovered that I hadrecently visited it. My friend Matthews, who had been included in theaudience, made desperate attempts to escape; and once, seeing that Iwas fairly grappled, began a conversation with his next neighbour. Butthe antiquary was not to be put off. He stopped, and looked at Matthewswith a relentless eye. "Matthews, " he said, "MATTHEWS!" raising hisvoice. Matthews looked round. "I was saying that Dorchester was a veryinteresting place. " Matthews made no further attempt to escape, andresigned himself to his fate. 

Such men as the antiquary are certainly very happy people; they areabsorbed in their subject, and consider it to be of immense importance. I suppose that their lives are, in a sense, well spent, and that theworld is in a way the gainer by their labours. My friend the antiquaryhas certainly, according to his own account, proved that certainancient earthworks near Dorchester are of a date at least five hundredyears anterior to the received date. It took him a year or two to findout, and I suppose that the human race has benefited in some way orother by the conclusion; but, on the other hand, the antiquary seems tomiss all the best things of life. If life is an educative process, people who have lived and loved, who have smiled and suffered, who haveperceived beautiful things, who have felt the rapturous and bewilderingmysteries of the world--well, they have learnt something of the mind ofGod, and, when they close their eyes upon the world, take with them analert, a hopeful, an inquisitive, an ardent spirit, into whatever maybe the next act of the drama; but my friend the antiquary, when hecrosses the threshold of the unseen, when he is questioned as to whathas been his relation to life, will have seen and perceived, and learntnothing, except the date of the Dorchester earthworks, and similarmonuments of history. 

And of all the shifting pageant of life, by far the most interestingand exquisite part is our relations with the other souls who are boundon the same pilgrimage. One desires ardently to know what other peoplefeel about it all--what their points of view are, what their motivesare, what are the data on which they form their opinions--so that tocut off the discussion of other personalities, on ethical grounds, islike any other stiff and Puritanical attempt to limit interests, tocircumscribe experience, to maim life. The criticism, then, or thediscussion, of other people is not so much a CAUSE of interest in life, as a SIGN of it; it is no more to be suppressed by codes or edicts thanany other form of temperamental activity. It is no more necessary tojustify the habit, than it is necessary to give good reasons for eatingor for breathing; the only thing that it is advisable to do, is to laydown certain rules about it, and prescribe certain methods ofpractising it. The people who do not desire to discuss others, or whodisapprove of doing it, may be pronounced to be, as a rule, eitherstupid, or egotistical, or Pharisaical; and sometimes they are allthree. The only principle to bear in mind is the principle of justice. If a man discusses others spitefully or malevolently, with the soleintention of either extracting amusement out of their foibles, or withthe still more odious intention of emphasizing his own virtues bydiscovering the weakness of others, or with the cynical desire--whichis perhaps the lowest of all--of proving the whole business of humanlife to be a vile and sordid spectacle, then he may be franklydisapproved of, and if possible avoided; but if a man takes a generousview of humanity, if he admires what is large and noble, if he givesfull credit for kindliness, strength, usefulness, vigour, sympathy, then his humorous perception of faults and deficiencies, of whims andmannerisms, of prejudices and unreasonablenesses, will have nothingthat is hard or bitter about it. For the truth is that, if we are surethat a man is generous and just, his little mannerisms, his fads, hisways, are what mostly endear him to us. The man of lavish liberality isall the more lovable if he has an intense dislike to cutting the stringof a parcel, and loves to fill his drawers with little hanks of twine, the untying of which stands for many wasted hours. If we know a man tobe simple-minded, forbearing, and conscientious, we like him all thebetter when he tells for the fiftieth time an ancient story, prefacingit by anxious inquiries, which are smilingly rebutted, as to whetherany of his hearers have ever heard the anecdote before. 

But we must not let this tendency, to take a man in his entirety, tolove him as he is, carry us too far; we must be careful that thefoibles that endear him to us are in themselves innocent. 

There is one particular form of priggishness, in this matter ofcriticism of others, which is apt to beset literary people, and moreespecially at a time when it seems to be considered by many writersthat the first duty of a critic--they would probably call him an artistfor the sake of the associations--is to get rid of all sense of rightand wrong. I was reading the other day a sensible and appreciativereview of Mr. Lucas's new biography of Charles Lamb. The reviewerquoted with cordial praise Mr. Lucas's remark--referring, of course, tothe gin-and-water, which casts, I fear, in my own narrow view, something of a sordid shadow over Lamb's otherwise innocent life--"Aman must be very secure in his own righteousness who would passcondemnatory judgment upon Charles Lamb's only weakness. " I do notmyself think this a sound criticism. We ought not to abstain fromcondemning the weakness, we must abstain from condemning Charles Lamb. His beautiful virtues, his tenderness, his extraordinary sweetness andpurity of nature, far outweigh this weakness. But what are we to do?Are we to ignore, to condone, to praise the habit? Are we to think thebetter of Charles Lamb and love him more because he tippled? Would henot have been more lovable without it?

And the fact that one may be conscious of similar faults and moralweaknesses, ought not to make one more, but less, indulgent to such afault when we see it in a beautiful nature. The fault in question is nomore in itself adorable, than it is in another man who does not possessLamb's genius. 

We have a perfect right--nay, we do well--to condemn in others faultswhich we frankly condemn in ourselves. It does not help on the world ifwe go about everywhere slobbering with forgiveness and affection; it isthe most mawkish sentimentality to love people in such a way that wecondone grave faults in them; and to condone a fault because a man isgreat, when we condemn it if he is not great, is only a species ofsnobbishness. It is right to compassionate sinners, to find excuse forthe faults of every one but ourselves; but we ought not to love sofoolishly and irrationally, that we cannot even bring ourselves to wishour hero's faults away. 

I confess to feeling the most minute and detailed interest in thesmallest matters connected with other people's lives andidiosyncrasies. I cannot bear biographies of the dignified order, whichdo not condescend to give what are called personal details, but confinethemselves to matters of undoubted importance. When I have finishedreading such books I feel as if I had been reading The Statesman'sYear-book, or The Annual Register. I have no mental picture of thehero; he is merely like one of those bronze statues, in frockcoat andtrousers, that decorate our London squares. 

I was reading, the other day, an ecclesiastical biography. The subjectof it, a high dignitary of the Church, had attended the funeral of oneof his episcopal colleagues, with whom he had had several technicalcontroversies. On the evening of the day he wrote a very tender andbeautiful account of the funeral in his diary, which is quoted atlength: "How little, " he wrote, "the sense of difference, and howstrong my feeling of his power and solid sense; how little I care thathe was wrong about the Discipline Bill, how much that he was so happywith us in the summer; how much that he was, as all the family told me, so 'devoted' to my Nellie!"

That is a thoroughly human statement, and preserves a due sense ofproportion. In the presence of death it is the kindly human relationsthat matter more than policies and statesmanship. 

And so it may be said, in conclusion, that we cannot taste the fulnessof life, unless we can honestly say, Nihil humani a me alienum puto. Ifwe grow absorbed in work, in business, in literature, in art, inpolicy, to the exclusion of the nearer human elements, we dock and maimour lives. We cannot solve the mystery of this difficult world; but wemay be sure of this--that it is not for nothing that we are set in themidst of interests and relationships, of liking and loving, oftenderness and mirth, of sorrow and pain. If we are to get the most andthe best out of life, we must not seclude ourselves from these things;and one of the nearest and simplest of duties is the perception ofothers' points of view, of sympathy, in no limited sense; and thatsympathy we can only gain through looking at humanity in its wholeness. If we allow ourselves to be blinded by false conscience, by tradition, by stupidity, even by affection, from realizing what others are, wesuffer, as we always suffer from any wilful blindness; indeed, wilfulblindness is the most desperate of all faults, perhaps the only onethat can hardly be condoned, because it argues a confidence in one'sown opinion, a self-sufficiency, a self-estimation, which shut out, asby an opaque and sordid screen, the light of heaven from the soul. 

XII

PRIESTS

I have been fortunate in the course of my life in knowing, more or lessintimately, several eminent priests; and by this I do not meannecessarily eminent ecclesiastics; several famous ecclesiastics withwhom circumstances have brought me into contact have not been priestlypersons at all; they have been vigorous, wise, energetic, statesmanlikemen, such as I suppose the Pontifex Maximus at Rome might have been, with a kind of formal, almost hereditary, priesthood. And, on the otherhand, I have known more than one layman of distinctly priestlycharacter, priestly after the order of Melchizedek, who had not, Isuppose, received any religious consecration for his ministry, apartfrom perhaps a kingly initiation. 

The essence of the priest is that he should believe himself, howeverhumbly and secretly, to be set in a certain sense between humanity andGod. He is conscious, if not of a mission, at least of a vocation, asan interpreter of secrets, a guardian of mysteries; he would believethat there are certain people in the world who are called to beapostles, whose work it is to remind men of God, and to justify theways of God to men. He feels that he stands, like Aaron, to makeatonement; that he is in a certain definite relation to God, a relationwhich all do not share; and that this gives him, in a special sense, something of the divine and fatherly relation to men. In the hands of aperfectly humble, perfectly disinterested man, this may become a verybeautiful and tender thing. Such a man, from long and intimaterelations with humanity, will have a very deep knowledge of the humanheart. He will be surprised at no weakness or frailty; he will bepatient with all perverseness and obduracy; he will be endlesslycompassionate, because he will realize the strength and insistence oftemptation; he will be endlessly hopeful, because he will have seen, ahundred times over, the flower of virtue and love blooming in an aridand desolate heart. He will have seen close at hand the transformingpower of faith, even in natures which have become the shudderingvictims of evil habit. 

Such a priest as I describe had occasion once to interview a greatdoctor about the terrible case of a woman of high social position whohad become the slave of drink. The doctor was a man of great force andability, and of unwearying devotion; but he was what would be called asceptic and a materialist. The priest asked if the case was hopeless;the great doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, " he said, "pathologically speaking, it is hopeless; there may be periods ofrecovery, but the course that the case will normally run will be aseries of relapses, each more serious and of longer duration than thelast. " "Is there no chance of recovery on any line that you couldsuggest?" said the priest. The two looked at each other, both good menand true. "Well, " said the doctor after a pause, "this is more in yourline than mine; the only possible chance lies in the will, and that canonly be touched through an emotion. I have seen a religious emotionsuccessful, where everything else failed. " The priest smiled and said, "I suppose that would seem to you a species of delusion? You would notadmit that there was any reality behind it?" "Yes, " said the doctor, "acertain reality, no doubt; the emotional processes are at presentsomewhat obscure from the scientific point of view: it is a forlornhope. " "Yes, " said the priest, "and it is thus the kind of task forwhich I and those of my calling feel bound to volunteer. "

Of course one of the difficulties that the priest has to struggleagainst is his inheritance. If we trace back the vocation of the priestto the earliest times, we find their progenitors connected with some ofthe darkest and saddest things in human history. They are of the sametribe as wizards and magicians, sorcerers and medicine-men, thecelebrators of cruel and unholy rites. The priests of Moloch, ofChemosh, of Baal, are the dark and ancient ancestors of the samevocation. All who have trafficked in the terrors of mankind, who havegained power by trading on superstitious imaginings, who have professedto propitiate wrathful and malignant spirits, to stand between men andtheir dreadful Maker--all these have contributed their share to thedark and sad burden which the priest has to bear. As soon as man, rising out of pure savagery, began to have any conception of the lawsof nature, he found in himself a deep instinct for happiness, a terrorof suffering and death; yet, at the same time, he found himself set ina world where afflictions seemed to be rained down upon humanity bysome mysterious, unseen, and awful power. Could man believe that Godwished him well, who racked him with cruel pain, sent plagues among hiscattle, swept away those whom he loved, destroyed his crops with hailand thunderbolts, and at the end of all dragged him reluctant andshuddering into the darkness, out of a world where so much was kind andcheerful, and where, after all, it was sweet to live?

He turned in his despair to any one who could profess to hold out anyshield over him, who could claim to read the dreadful mind of God, andto propitiate His mercy. Even then a demand created a supply. Men havealways loved power and influence; and so spirits of sterner and moretenacious mould, who could perhaps despise the lesser terrors ofmankind, and who desired, above all things, to hold the destinies ofothers in their hands, to make themselves felt, naturally seized theopportunity of surrounding themselves with the awe and dignity that thesupposed possession of deeper knowledge and more recondite powersoffered them. 

Then as the world broadened and widened, as reason began to extend itssway, the work of the priest became more beneficent, and tended tobless and hallow rather than to blast and curse. But still thetemptation remains a terribly strong one for men of a certain type, menwho can afford to despise the more material successes of the world, whocan merge their personal ambition in ambitions for an order and acaste, still to claim to stand between man and God, to profess towithhold His blessings, to grasp the keys of His mysteries, to save menfrom the consequences of sin. As long as human terror exists, as longas men fear suffering and darkness and death, they will turn to any onewho can profess to give them relief; and relief, too, will come; forthe essence of courage is, for many timid hearts, the dependence upon astronger will. And if a man can say, with a tranquil conviction, to asuffering and terrified comrade, "There is no need to fear, " the fearloses half its terrors and half its sting. 

Now, when religion of any kind becomes a part of the definite sociallife of the world, there must of course be an order of ministers whosebusiness it is to preach it, and to bring it home to the minds of men. Such men will be set apart by a solemn initiation to their office; themore solemn the initiation is, the more faithful they will be. Thequestion rather is what extent of spiritual power such ministers mayclaim. The essence of religious liberty is that men should feel thatthere is nothing whatever that stands between themselves and God; thatthey can approach God with perfect and simple access; that they canspeak to Him without concealment of their sins, and receive from Himthe comforting sense of the possibility of forgiveness. Of course thesense of sin is a terribly complicated one, because it seems to be madeup partly of an inner sense of transgression, a sense of failure, aconsciousness that we have acted unworthily, meanly, miserably. Yet thesense of sin follows many acts that are not in themselves necessarilydisastrous either to oneself or the community. Then there is a furthersense of sin, perhaps developed by long inheritance of instinct, whichseems to attend acts not in themselves sinful, but which menace thesecurity of society. For instance, there is nothing sinful in a man'sdesiring to save himself, and in fact saving himself, from a suddendanger. If a man leaps out of the way of a runaway cart, or throwshimself on the ground to avoid the accidental discharge of a gun, hewould never be blamed, nor would he blame himself, for any want ofcourage. Yet if a man in a battle saves himself from death by flight, he would regard himself, and be regarded by others, as having failed inhis duty, and he would be apt to feel a lifelong shame and remorse forhaving yielded to the impulse. Again, the deliberate killing of anotherhuman being in a fit of anger, however just, would be regarded by theoffender as a deeply sinful act, and he would not quarrel with thejustice of the sentence of death which would be meted out to him; butwhen we transfer the same act to the region of war, which isconsecrated by the usage of society, a man who had slain a hundredenemies would regard the fact with a certain complacency, and would notbe even encouraged by a minister of religion to repent of his hundredheinous crimes upon his deathbed. 

The sense, then, of sin is in a certain degree an artificial sense, andwould seem to consist partly of a deep and divine instinct whicharraigns the soul for acts, which may be in themselves trifling, butwhich seem to possess the sinful quality; and partly of a conventionalinstinct which considers certain things to be abominable, which are notnecessarily in themselves sinful, because it is the custom of the worldto consider them so. 

And then to the philosopher there falls a darker tinge upon the wholematter, when he considers that the evil impulses, to yield to which issin, are in themselves deliberately implanted in man by his Creator, orat least not apparently eradicated; and that many of those whose wholelife has been darkened, embittered, and wrecked by sin, have incurredtheir misery by yielding to tendencies which in themselves are, byinheritance, practically irresistible. 

What room is there, then, in these latter days, when reason and sciencetogether have dispelled the darkness of superstition, have diminishedthe possibility of miraculous occurrences, have laughed empiricaloccultism out of the field, for the priest?

There is no room for him if there lingers in the depth of his mind anytaint of the temptation to serve his own ends, or to exalt himself orhis order, by trading on the fears of irrational and creduloushumanity. Against such priestcraft as this the true priest must arrayhimself, together with the scientist, the statesman, the physician. Against all personal and priestly domination all lovers of liberty andGod must combine. Theirs is the sin of Simon Magus, the sin of Hophni, the sin of Caiaphas; the sin that desires that men should still bebound, in order that they may themselves win worship and honour. It isthe deadliest and vilest tyranny in the world. 

But of the true priesthood there is more need than there ever was, asthe minds of men awaken to the truth; for in a world where there is somuch that is dark, men need to be constantly encouraged, reminded, evenrebuked. The true priest must leave the social conscience alone, andentrust it to the hands of statesmen and officials. His concern must bewith the individual; he must endeavour to make men realize thattranquillity and security of heart can only be won by victories overself, that law is only a cumbrous and incomplete organization forenforcing upon men a sense of equality; and he must show how far lawlags behind morality, and that a man may be legally respectable yetmorally abominable. The true priest must not obscure the oracles ofGod; he must beware of, teaching that faith is an intricateintellectual process. He must pare religion to the bone, and show thatthe essence of it is a perfectly simple relation with God andneighbour. He must not concern himself with policy or ceremony; he mustwarn men against mistaking aesthetic impulse for the perception ofvirtue; he must fight against precedent and tradition and custom; hemust realize that one point of union is more important than a hundredpoints of difference. He must set himself against upholsteries anduniforms, against formalities and rituals. He must abjure wealth andposition, in favour of humble kindliness and serviceableness. He musthave a sense of poetry and romance and beauty about life; where othermen are artists in words, in musical tones, in pigments or sculpturedstone, he must be an artist in virtue. He must be the friend and loverof humble, inefficient, inarticulate, unpleasing persons; and he mustbe able to show that there is a desirable quality of beauty in the mostsordid and commonplace action, if faithfully performed. 

Against such an ideal are arrayed all the forces of the world. Christand Christ-like men have held up such an ideal to humanity; and thesorrow of it is that, the moment that such thoughts have won forthemselves the incredible and instant power that they do win amongmortals, men of impure motive, who have desired the power more than theservice, have seized upon the source, have fenced it off, havesystematized its distribution, have enriched themselves by withholdingand denying it to all but those who can pay a price, if not of wealth, at all events of submission and obedience and recognition. 

A man who desires the true priesthood may perhaps find it readiest tohis hand in some ecclesiastical organization; yet there he issurrounded by danger; his impulses are repressed; he must sacrificethem for the sake of the caste to which he belongs; he is told to becautious and prudent; he is praised and rewarded for beingconventional. But a man may also take such a consecration for himself, as a king takes a crown from the altar and crowns himself with might;he need not require it at the hands of another. If a man resolves notto live for himself or his own ambitions, but to walk up and down inthe earth, praising simplicity and virtue and the love of God whereverhe sees it, protesting against tyranny and selfishness, bearing others'burdens as far as he can, he may exercise the priesthood of God. Suchmen are to be found in every Church, and even holding the highestplaces in them; but such a priesthood is found, though perhaps fewsuspect it, by thousands among women where it is found by tens amongmen. Perhaps it may be said that if a man adds the tenderness of awoman to the serene strength of a man, he is best fitted for the task;but the truth lies in the fact that the qualities for the exercise ofsuch an influence are to be found far more commonly among women thanamong men, though accompanied as a rule by less consciousness of it, and little desire to exercise it officially; indeed it is the veryabsence of egotism among women, the absence of the personal claim, thatmakes them less effective than they otherwise might be, because they donot hold an object or an aim dear enough. They desire to achieve, rather than to be known to have achieved; and yet in this unperceptiveworld, human beings are apt to choose for their guides and counsellorspeople whom they know by reputation, rather than those whom they knowfamiliarly. And thus mere recognition often brings with it a power ofwider influence, because people are apt to trust the judgment of othersrather than their own. In seeking for an adviser, men are apt toconsider who has the greatest reputation for wisdom, rather than whomthey themselves have found wisest; and thus the man who seeks forinfluence often attains it, because he has a wider circle of those whorecommend him. It is this absence of independent judgment that givesstrength to the self-seeking priest; while the natural priesthood ofwomen is less recognized because it is attended with no advertisement. 

The natural priest is one whom one can instinctively and utterly trust, in whom one can deposit secrets as one deposits them in the custody ofa bank, without any fear that they will be used for other purposes. Inthe true priest one finds a tender compassion, a deep and patient love;it is not worth while to wear disguises before him, because his keen, weary, and amused eye sees through the mask. It is not worth while tokeep back, as Ananias did, part of the price of the land, to leavesordid temptations untold, because the true priest loves the sinnereven more than he hates the sin; it is best to be utterly sincere withhim, because he loves sincerity even more than unstained virtue; andone can confess to him one's desires for good with as little falseshame as one can confess one's hankering after evil. Perhaps in onerespect the man is more fitted to be a confessor than a woman, becausehe has a deeper experience of the ardour and the pleasure oftemptation; and yet the deeper tenderness of the woman gives her asympathy for the tempted, which is not even communicated by a widerexperience of sin. 

Perhaps there is nothing that reflects our anthropomorphic ideas of Godmore strongly than the fact that no revelation of prophets has everconceived of the Supreme Deity as other than masculine; and no doubtthe Mariolatry of the Church of Rome is the reflection of the growinginfluence in the world of the feminine element; and yet the conceptionof God as masculine is in itself a limitation of His infiniteperfection. That we should carry our conception of sex into theinfinite is perhaps a mere failure of imagination, and if we coulddivest ourselves of a thought which possibly has no reality in it, weshould perhaps grow to feel that the true priesthood of life could beexercised as well by women as by men, or even better. The trueprinciple is that all those who are set free by a natural grace, adivine instinct, from grosser temptations, and whose freedom leads themnot to a cold self-sufficiency, to a contempt for what is weaker, butto an ardent desire to save, to renew, to upraise, are the naturalpriests or priestesses of the world; for the only way in which thepriest can stand between man and God is, when smaller and more hamperednatures realize that he has a divine freedom and compassion conferredupon him, which sets him above themselves; when they can feel that inreligion it is better to agree with the saints than to differ fromthem; when they can see that there are certain people whose religiousintuitions can be trusted, because they are wider and deeper than thenarrower intuitions of more elementary natures. 

The priest, then, that I would recognize is not the celebrator oflonely and forlorn mysteries, the proprietor of divine blessings, theposturer in solemn ceremonies, but the man or woman of candid gaze, offearless heart, of deep compassion, of infinite concern. It is thesequalities which, if they are there, lend to rite and solemnity aholiness and a significance which they cannot win from antiquity ortradition. Such priests as these are the interpreters of the Divinewill, the channels of Divine grace; and the hope of the race lies inthe fact that such men and women are sent into the world, and go in andout among us, more than in all the stately organizations, themysterious secrets, the splendid shrines, devised by the art of man tomake fences about the healing spring; shrines where, though sound andcolour may lavish their rich hues, their moving tones, yet the raimentof the priest may hide a proud and greedy heart, and the very altar maybe cold. 

XIII

AMBITION

I am afraid that Milton's great line about ambition, "That last infirmity of noble minds, "

is responsible for a good deal of harm, because it induces high-mindedpersons of inexact ideas to think ambition a noble infirmity, or atleast to believe that they need not try to get rid of their personalambitions until they have conquered all their other evil dispositions. I suppose that what Milton meant was that it was the hardest of allfaults to get rid of; and the reason why it is so difficult to ejectit, is because it is so subtle and ingenious a spirit, and masqueradesunder such splendid disguises, arrayed in robes of light. A man whodesires to fill a high position in the world is so apt to disguise hiscraving to himself by thinking, or trying to think, that he desires agreat place because of the beneficent influence he can exert, and allthe good that he will be able to do, which shall stream from him aslight from the sun. Of course to a high-minded man that is naturallyone of the honest pleasures of an important post; but he ought to bequite sure that his motive is that the good should be done, and notthat he should have the credit of doing it. I have burnt my own fingersnot once nor twice at the fire of ambition, and the subject has beenoften in my mind. But my experiences were so wholly unlike anythingthat I had anticipated, though I suppose they are in reality normalenough, that I will venture to set them down here. The first curiousexperience was how, on a nearer survey of the prospect of obtaining animportant post, all the incidental advantages and conveniences of theposition sank into nothingness. This was a quite unexpecteddevelopment; I had imagined that a prospect of dignity and importancewould have had something vaguely sustaining about it. A brilliantsatirist once said that a curate did not as a rule desire to be abishop that he might exercise a wide and useful influence, butprimarily that he might be called "my lord. " I myself was brought, as achild, in contact with one who was somewhat unexpectedly called to ahigh office. I was much with him in the days when his honours firstinvested him, and I confess with a certain shame that it didundoubtedly seem to me that the dignity of the office, the sense ofpower, the obvious respect paid to him by people of position, werethings that must pleasantly sweeten a mortal cup. The other day I wasin the company of an eminent prelate; there were three curates present:they hovered round the great man like bees round a flower; they gazedwith innocent rapture upon his shapely legs, somewhat strangelyswathed, as Carlyle said, his bright, grotesque hat; and I could nothelp feeling that they thought how well such raiment would becomethemselves. It is of course a childish view; but then how long ourchildish views survive, though hidden under grave pretences! To see agreat personage move with dignity to his appointed place in a greatceremony, attended by all the circumstances of pomp, a congregationgazing, with an organ above thundering out rich and solemn music, howimpressive it all appears! How hard to think that the central actor insuch a scene does not feel his heart swell with a complacent joy! Andyet I suppose that any sensible man under such conditions is far morelikely to be oppressed with a sense of weakness and anxiousresponsibility; how soon such surroundings ought to, nay, do find theirtrue value in a wise man's mind! The triumph rather is if, in the midstof all this glitter and glory, when a silence is made, the worshipfulman speaks simple and strong words out of a pure and noble heart; andthen one can feel that the pomp is nothing but the due homage ofmankind for real greatness, and that it has followed him rather thanbeen followed by him. 

It was a relief to find, as I say, that, on a nearer prospect, all thecircumstance of greatness vanished into shadow--indeed more thanthat--it became one of the distinct disadvantages of the position. Ifelt that time and money and thought would have to be spent on theuseless and fatiguing mise-en-scene, and that it would all entail aquantity of futile worry, of tiresome publicity, of intolerablefunctions, that meant nothing but weariness of spirit. I think that menof high official position are most to be pitied because of the timethat they have to spend, not in their work, but in the ornamentalappearances entailed on them by their duties. These things have acertain value, I suppose, in stimulating the imagination of gazers; butsurely it is a poor value after all. A secretary of state in his study, working out the hard and tiresome details of a plan that will benefitperhaps a whole nation in humble ways, is a more admirable figure thanthe same man, in ribbon and star, bowing and smiling at an eveningparty. And yet the dignified trappings of the post are what ordinarymen desire. 

The next step in my own progress when confronted, as I say, with theprospect of the possibility that I might feel bound to accept animportant position, was the consciousness of the anxious and wearingresponsibilities that it involved. I felt that a millstone was to bebound round my neck, and that I must bid farewell to what is after allthe best gift of heaven, my liberty; a liberty won by anxious years ofhard toil. 

And here I have no doubt, though I tried hard not to let it affect me, that my desire not to sacrifice my liberty did make me exaggerate thedifficulties that lay before me; difficulties which I should probablyhave unconsciously minimized if I had desired the position which was inprospect. It was a happy moment when I found myself relieved from theresponsibility of undertaking an impossible task. I felt, too, that Iwas further disqualified by my reluctance to attempt the task; areluctance which a near prospect of the position had poignantlyrevealed to me. A great task ought to be taken up with a certainbuoyancy and eagerness of spirit, not in heaviness and sadness. Acertain tremor of nerves, a stage fright, is natural to all sensitiveperformers. But this is merely a kind of anteroom through which onemust needs pass to a part which one desires to play; but if one doesnot sincerely desire to play the part, it is clear that to attempt itmerely from a sense of duty is an ill omen for success. And so I feltsincerely and humbly that I ought not to feel compelled to attempt it. The conviction came in a flash like a divine intuition, and wasfollowed by a peace of mind which showed me that I was acting rightly. I seemed too to perceive that the best work in the world was not thework of administration and organization, but humble and individualministries performed in a corner without tangible rewards. For suchwork I was both equipped and prepared, and I turned back to thefallentis semita vitae, which is the true path for the sincere spirit, aware that I had been truly and tenderly saved from committing a gravemistake. 

Perhaps if one could have looked at the whole question in a simpler andlarger-minded way, the result might have been different. But heretemperament comes in, and the very complexities and intricacies thatclouded the matter were of themselves evidence that after all it wasthe temperament that was at fault. Cecil Rhodes, it is recorded, onceasked Lord Acton why Mr. Bent, the explorer, did not pronounce certainruins to be of Phoenician origin. Lord Acton replied with a smile thatit was probably because he was not sure. "Ah!" said Cecil Rhodes, "thatis not the way that Empires are made. " A true, interesting, andcharacteristic comment; but it also contains a lesson that people whoare not sure should not attempt to make empires, or undertake tasksthat involve the welfare of many. 

And so there remains the duty to me, after my piece of experience, togather up the fragments that remain, to interpret. Dante assigns thelowest place in the lower world to those who refuse a greatopportunity, but he is speaking of those who perversely reject a greattask, which is plainly in their power, for some false and low motive. But the case is different for those who have a great temptation putbefore them, and who, desiring to do what is right, have it broughthome to them in a convincing way that it is not their opportunity. Noone ought to assume great responsibilities if he is not equal to them. One of the saddest things ever said on a human deathbed was what wassaid by a great ecclesiastic, who had disappointed the hopes that hadbeen formed of him. In his last moments he turned to one who stood nearhim and murmured, "I have held a great post, and I have not been equalto it. " The misery was that no one could sincerely contradict him. Itis not a piece of noble self-sacrifice to have assumed confidently agreat responsibility to which one is not equal. It is a mere mistake, and a mistake which is even more reprehensible than the mistake ofbeing over-persuaded into attempting a task for which one is notfitted. One is given reason and common sense and prudence that one mayuse them, and to act contrary to their dictates because those who donot know you so well as you know yourself advise you cheerfully that itwill probably be all right, is an act of criminal folly. Heavyresponsibilities are lightly assumed nowadays, because the temptationsof power and publicity are very strong, and because too high a value isset upon worldly success. It is a plainer and simpler duty for thosewho wish to act rightly, and who have formed a deliberate idea of ownlimitations, to refuse great positions humbly and seriously, if theyknow that they will be unequal to them. 

Of course I knew that I should be reproached with indolence and evencowardice. I knew that I should be supposed to be one of thoseconsistently impracticable people who insist on going off at a tangentwhen the straight course lies before them. That I should be relegatedto the class of persons who have failed in life through somedeep-seated defect of will. The worst of a serious decision of the kindis that, whichever step one takes, one is sure to be blamed. I saw allthis with painful clearness, but it is better to be arraigned beforethe tribunal of other men's consciences than to be condemned beforeone's own. It is better to refuse and be disappointed, than to acceptand be disappointed. Failure in the course marked out, in the event ofacceptance, would have been disastrous, not only to myself but to theinstitution I was to be set to rule and guide. Far better that the taskshould be entrusted to one who had no diffidence, no hesitation, but asincere confidence in his power of dealing with the difficulties of thesituation, and an ardent desire to grapple with them. 

The only difficulty, if one believes very strongly, as I do, in a greatand wise Providence that guides our path, is to interpret why thepossibility of a great task is indicated to one if it is not intendedthat one should perform it. But the essence of a true belief in thecall of Providence seems to me to lie not in the rash acceptance of anyinvitation that happens to come in one's way, but a stern and austerejudgment of one's own faculties and powers. I have not the smallestdoubt that Providence intended that this great task should be refusedby me; my only difficulty is to see what to make of it, and why it waseven suggested. One lesson is that one must beware of personal vanity, another that one should not indulge in the temptation to desireimportant posts for any reason except the best: the humble hope to dowork that is useful and valuable. If I had sternly repressed thesetendencies at an earlier stage of life, this temptation would not havebeen necessary, nor the humiliation which inevitably succeeds it. 

But

 that is down need fear no fall, He that is low no pride. 

And there can be now no more chance of these bitter and self-revealingincidents, which show one, as in a clear mirror, the secret weaknessesof the heart. 

But in setting aside the desire for the crowns and thrones of ambition, we must be very careful that we are not merely yielding to temptationsof indolence, of fastidiousness, of cowardice, and calling a personalmotive unworldliness for the sake of the associations. No man need sethimself to seek great positions, but a man who is diffident, andpossibly indolent, will do well to pin himself down in a position ofresponsibility and influence, if it comes naturally in his way. Thereare a good many men with high natural gifts of an instinctive kind whoare yet averse to using them diligently, who, indeed, from the veryfacility with which they exercise them, hardly know their value. Suchmen as these--and I have known several--undertake a greatresponsibility if they refuse to take advantage of obviousopportunities to use their gifts. Men of this kind have often a certainvague, poetical, and dreamy quality of mind; a contemplative gift. Theysee and exaggerate the difficulties and perils of posts of highresponsibility. If they yield to temptations of temperament, they oftenbecome ineffective, dilettante, half-hearted natures, playing with lifeand speculating over it, instead of setting to work on a corner of thetangle. They hang spiritless upon the verge of the battle instead ofmingling with the fray. The curse of such temperaments is that theyseem destined to be unhappy whichever way they decide. If they acceptpositions of responsibility, they are fretted and strained bydifficulties and obstacles; they live uneasily and anxiously; they losethe buoyancy with which great work should be done; if, on the otherhand, they refuse to come forward, they are tortured with regrets forhaving abstained; they become conscious of ineffectiveness andindecision; they are haunted by the spectres of what might have been. 

The only course for such natures is to endeavour to see where theirtrue life lies, and to follow the dictates of reason and conscience asfar as possible. They must resolve not to be tempted by the glamour ofpossible success, but to take the true measure of their powers. Theymust not yield to the temptation to trust to the flattering judgmentthat others may form of their capacities, nor light-heartedly toshoulder a burden which they may be able to lift but not to carry. Suchnatures will sometimes attempt a great task with a certain glow andenthusiasm; but they must ask themselves humbly how they will continueto discharge it when the novelty has worn off, and when the prospectthat lies before them is one of patient and unpraised labour. It leadsto worse disasters to over-estimate one's powers than to under-estimatethem. A man who over-estimates his capacities is apt to grow impatient, and even tyrannical, in the presence of difficulties. 

And after all it may be said that humility is a rarer virtue thanconfidence; and though it is not so popular, though it does not appealso much to the imagination, it is a quality that may well be exercised, if it is done without self-consciousness, in these busy days and inthese active western climes. The best work of the world is done, as Ihave said, not by those who organize on a large scale, but by those whowork faithfully on individual lines, in corners and byways. Indeed, thesuccess of those who organize and rule is due in part no doubt to thepower that they may possess of inspiring silent effort, but is stillmore largely due to the faithful workers whose labours are unnoted, whocarry out great designs in a simple and quiet spirit. There is strongwarrant in the teaching of Christ for the work of those who arefaithful in a few things. There is no warrant for the action of thosewho stride into the front, and clamour to be entrusted with thedestinies of others. There can be no question that Christ does notadmit the value of ambition in any form as a motive for character. Thelives that He praises are the lives of quiet, affectionate persons, more concerned with the things of the spirit than with the things ofthe intellect. The Christian must concern himself, not with grasping atinfluence, not even with setting his mark upon the world, but with thequality of his decisions, his work, his words, his thoughts. The onlything possible for him is to go forward step by step, trusting more tothe guidance of God than to his own designs, to what are calledintuitions more than to reasoned conclusions. In that spirit, if he canattain to it, he begins to be able to estimate things at their truevalue. Instead of being dazzled with the bright glare which the worldthrows upon the objects of his desire, he sees all things in a pale, clear light of dawn, and true aims begin to glow with an innerradiance. He may tremble and hesitate before a decision, but once takenthere is no looking back; he knows that he has been guided, and thatGod has told him, by silent and eloquent motions of the spirit, what itis that He would have him to do; he has but to interpret and to trust. 

But even supposing that one has learnt one's own lesson in the schoolof ambition, the question comes in as to how far it should be used as amotive for the young, by those who are entrusted with educationalresponsibilities. It is one of the most difficult things to decide asto what extent it is permissible to use motives that are lower than thehighest, because they may possess a greater effectiveness in the caseof immature minds. It is easy enough to say sincerely that one oughtalways to appeal to the highest possible motive; but when one isconscious that the highest motive is quite out of the horizon of theperson concerned, and practically is no motive at all, is it not merelypedantry to insist upon appealing to the highest motive for one's ownsatisfaction? It is not perhaps so difficult where the lower reason fora course of action is still a sound reason in itself, as, for instance, if one is trying to help a man out of drunken habits. The highestmotive to appeal to is the truth that in yielding to sensual impulses, in such a matter, a man is falling short of his best ideal; but a morepractical motive is to point out the loss of health and respectabilitythat results from the practice. Yet when one appeals to a boy'sambition, and encourages him to be ambitious, one cannot be quitecertain whether one is not appealing to a false motive altogether. Theexcuse for using it is the hope that, when for the sake of ambition hehas learnt diligence and perseverance, he may grow to perceive that thecompetitive instinct, which in its barest form is the desire to obtaindesirable things at the expense of others, is not in reality a goodmotive at all. With immature characters part of the joy of success isthat others have been beaten, the pride of having carried off a prizewhich others are disappointed of obtaining. And if one talks to anambitious boy, and tries to inculcate the principle that one should doone's best without caring about results, one is generally consciousthat he believes it to be only a tiresome professional platitude, thekind of sentiment in which older people think fit to indulge for thepurpose, if possible, of throwing cold water on innocent enjoyment. 

Yet, after all, how very few people there are who do learn the furtherlesson! The successful man generally continues to show to the end ofhis life a contempt for unsuccessful persons, which is onlygood-humoured because of the consciousness of his own triumph; howrare, again, it is to find an unsuccessful person who does not attempt, if he can, to belittle the attainments of his successful rival, or whoat least, if he overcomes that temptation from a sense of propriety, feels entitled to nourish a secret satisfaction at any indication offailure on the part of the man who has obtained the prize that hehimself coveted in vain. Yet if one has ever seen, as I have, theastonishing change of both work and even character which may come overa boy or a young man who is perhaps diffident and indolent, if one canget him to do a successful piece of work, or push an opportunity in hisway and help him to seize it, one hesitates before ruling out the useof ambition as an incentive. Perhaps it is uneasy and casuisticalmorality to shrink from using this incentive, so long as one faithfullyputs the higher side of the question before a boy as well. But when oneis quite sure that the larger aspect of the case will fall on deafears, and that only the lower stimulus will be absorbed, one is apt tohesitate. I am inclined, however, to think that such hesitation is onthe whole misplaced, and that in dealing with immature minds one mustbe content to use immature motives. There is a temptation to try andkeep the education of people too much in one's own hands, and to feeloneself to be too responsible in the matter. I have a friend who errsin this respect, and who is apt to assume too wide a responsibility indealing with others, who was gently rebuked by a wise-hearted teacherof wide and deep experience, who said on one occasion, whenover-anxiety had spoilt the effect of my friend's attempts, that heought to be content to leave something for God to do. 

But for oneself, one must try to learn the large lesson in the courseof time, to learn that the sense of ambition is often, in reality, onlya sense of personal vanity and self-confidence disguised; and that theone possible attitude of mind is to go humbly and patiently forward, desiring the best, labouring faithfully and abundantly, neither seekingnor avoiding great opportunities, not failing in courage nor giving wayto rash impulses, and realizing the truth of the wise old Greek proverbthat the greatest of all disasters for a man is to be opened and foundto be empty; the wise application of which to life is not to avoid theoccasions of opening, but to make sure that if the opening comesinevitably, we shall be found not to have devoted ourselves to theadorning of the casket, but to have piled with careful hands thetreasure high within. 

XIV

THE SIMPLE LIFE

There is a good deal of talk just now about "the simple life, " andthough I would not go so far as to say that there is a movement in thedirection of it, yet the talk that one hears on many sides proves, atall events, that people take a certain interest in the question. 

Part of it is a pose no doubt; there is a distinguished, and I wouldadd very charming, lady of my acquaintance, who has the subjectconstantly on her lips. Her method of practising simplicity is adelightful one, as all her methods are. In addition to the threemagnificent residences which she already possesses, she has bought acottage in a secluded part of the country; she has spent a large sum ofmoney in adding to it; it is furnished with that stately austeritywhich can only be achieved at great expense. She motors down there, perhaps three times in the year, and spends three days there, on eachvisit, with two or three friends who are equally in love withsimplicity; I was fortunate enough, the other day, to be included inone of these parties; the only signs of simplicity to the complex mindwere that there were only five courses at dinner, that we drankchampagne out of rather old-fashioned long glasses, and that two goatswere tethered in a corner of the lawn. The goats I understood were theseal and symbol of the simple life. No use was made of them, and theywere decidedly in the way, but without them life would have beencomplicated at once. 

When we went off again in the motor, my charming hostess waved her handat the little cottage, as we turned the corner, with a sigh, as of onecondemned by a stern fate to abjure the rural felicity which she loved, and then settled down with delighted zest to discuss her programme ofsocial engagements for the next few weeks. 

It had certainly been very delightful; we had talked all day long; wehad wandered, adoring simplicity, on the village green; we had attendedan evening service in the church; we had consumed exquisitely cookedmeals about an hour before the usual time, because to breakfast ateight and to dine at seven was all part of the pretty game. I venturedto ask my hostess how she would like to spend six months in her cottagecomparatively alone, and she replied with deep conviction, "I shouldadore it; I would give all I possess to be able to do it. " "Then it isnothing, " I said, "but a sense of duty that tears you away?" To whichshe made no answer except to shake her head mournfully, and to give mea penetrating smile. 

I cannot help wondering whether the people who talk about the simplelife have any idea what it means; I do not think that my fair hostess'sdesire for it is altogether a pose. One who lives, as she does, in thecentre of the fashionable world, must inevitably tire of it from timeto time. She meets the same people over and over again, she hears thesame stories, the same jokes; she is not exactly an intellectual woman, though she has a taste for books and music; the interest for her, inthe world in which she lives, is the changing relations of people, their affinities, their aversions, their loves and hates, their warmthand their coldness. What underlies the shifting scene, the endlessentertainments, the country-house visits, the ebb and flow of society, is really the mystery of sex. People with not very much to do but toamuse themselves, with no prescribed duties, with few intellectualinterests, become preoccupied in what is the great underlying force inthe world, the passion of love; the talk that goes on, dull andtiresome as it appears to an outsider, is all charged with the secretinfluence; it is not what is said that matters; it is what is impliedby manner and glance and inflection of tone. This atmosphere ofelectrical emotion is, for a good many years of their lives, the nativeair of these fair and unoccupied women. Men drift into it and out ofit, and it provides for them often no more than a beautiful andthrilling episode; they become interested in sport, in agriculture, inpolitics, in business; but with women it is different; lovers andhusbands, emotional friendships with other women--these constitute thebusiness of life for a time; and then perhaps the tranquillizing andpurer love of children, the troubles and joys of growing boys andgirls, come in to fill the mind with a serener and kindlier, though notless passionate an emotion; and so life passes, and age draws near. 

It is thus easier for men to lead the simple life than women, becausethey find it natural to grow absorbed in some definite and tangibleoccupation; and, after all, the essence of the simple life is that itcan be lived in any milieu and under any circumstances. It does notrequire a cottage orne and a motor, though these are not inconsistentwith it, if only they are natural. 

I would try to trace what I believe the essence of the simple life tobe; it lies very far down in the spirit, among the roots of life. Thefirst requisite is a perfect sincerity of character. This implies manythings: it means a joyful temperance of soul, a certain clearness andstrength of temperament. The truly simple person must not be vague andindeterminate, swayed by desire or shifting emotion; he must meetothers with a candid frankness, he must have no petty ambitions, hemust have wide and genial interests, he must be quick to discern whatis beautiful and wise; he must have a clear and straightforward pointof view; he must act on his own intuitions and beliefs, not simply tryto find out what other people are thinking and try to think it too; hemust in short be free from conventionality. The essence of the reallysimple character is that a man should accept his environment andcircle; if he is born in the so-called world, he need not seek to flyfrom it. Such a character as I have described has a marvellous power ofevoking what is sincere and simple in other natures; such a one willtend to believe that other people are as straightforward and genuine ashimself; and he will not be wholly mistaken, because when they are withhim, they will be simple too. The simple person will have a strong, butnot a Pharisaical, sense of duty; he will probably credit other peoplewith the same sense of duty, and he will not often feel himself boundto disapprove of others, reserving his indignation for any instances ofcruelty, meanness, falseness, and selfishness that he may encounter. Hewill not be suspicious or envious. Yet he will not necessarily be whatis called a religious man, because his religion will be rather vitalthan technical. To be religious in the technical sense of the word--tocare, that is, for religious services and solemnities, for priestlyinfluences, for intricate doctrinal emotions--implies a strong artisticsense, and is often very far removed from any simplicity of conduct. But on the other hand the simple man will have a strong sense ofresponsibility, a deep confidence in the Will of God and His highpurposes. 

And thus the simple man will scarcely be a man of leisure, becausethere is so much that he will desire to do, and which he will feelcalled upon to do. Whatever he considers to be his work, he will dowith a cheerful energy, which will sustain him far beyond the thresholdof fatigue. His personal wants will be few; he will not care forspending money for the sake of spending it, but he will be liberal andgenerous whenever there is need. He will be uneasy in luxury. He willbe a lover of the open air and of the country, but his aim will beexercise, and the sense of health and vigour, rather than amusement. Hewill never be reduced to asking himself how he is going to spend theday, for the present day, and a long perspective of days ahead, willalready be full by anticipation. He will take work, amusement, people, as they come, and he will not be apt to make plans or to arrangeparties, because he will expect to find in ordinary life the amusementand the interest that he desires. He will be above all thingstender-hearted, kind, and fearless. He will not take fancies to people, or easily discard a friend; but he will be courteous, kind to allweakness, compassionate to awkwardness, fond of children, good-natured, loving laughter and peacefulness; he will not be easily disappointed, and he will have no time to be fretful, if things do not turn outexactly as he desires. 

I have known such persons in every rank of life. They are the peoplewho can be depended upon to do what they undertake, to understand thedifficulties of others, to sympathize, to help. The essence of it allis a great absence of self-consciousness, and such people as I havedescribed would be genuinely surprised, as a rule, if they were toldthat they were living a different life from the lives of others. 

This simplicity of nature is not often found in conjunction with verygreat artistic or intellectual gifts; but when it is so found, it isone of the most perfect combinations in the world. 

The one thing that is entirely fatal to simplicity is the desire tostimulate the curiosity of others in the matter. The most conspicuousinstance of this, in literature, is the case of Thoreau, who is by manyregarded as the apostle of the simple life. Thoreau was a man ofextremely simple tastes, it is true. He ate pulse, whatever that maybe, and drank water; he was deeply interested in the contemplation ofnature, and he loved to disembarrass himself of all the apparatus oflife. It was really that he hated trouble more than anything in theworld; he found that by working six weeks in the year, he could earnenough to enable him to live in a hut in a wood for the rest of thetwelvemonth; he did his household work himself, and his little stock ofmoney sufficed to buy him food and clothes, and to meet his smallexpenses. But Thoreau was indolent rather than simple; and what spoilthis simplicity was that he was for ever hoping that he would beobserved and admired; he was for ever peeping out of the corner of hiseye, to see if inquisitive strangers were hovering about to observe thehermit at his contemplation. If he had really loved simplicity best, hewould have lived his life and not troubled himself about what otherpeople thought of him; but instead of that he found his own simplicitya deeply interesting and refreshing subject of contemplation. He wasfor ever looking at himself in the glass, and describing to others therugged, sunbrowned, slovenly, solemn person that he saw there. 

And then, too, it was easier for Thoreau to make money than it would befor the ordinary artisan. When Thoreau wrote his famous maxim, "Tomaintain oneself on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, " he didnot add that he was himself a man of remarkable mechanical gifts; hemade, when he was disposed, admirable pencils, he was an excellentland-surveyor, and an author as well; moreover, he was a celibate bynature. He would no doubt have found, if he had had a wife andchildren, and no aptitude for skilled labour, that he would have had towork as hard as any one else. 

Thoreau had, too, a quality which is in itself an economical thing. Hedid not care in the least for society. He said that he would rather"keep bachelor's hall in hell than go to board in heaven. " He was not asociable man, and sociability is in itself expensive. He had, it istrue, some devoted friends, but it seems that he would have doneanything for them except see them. He was a man of many virtues and novices, but he was most at his ease with faddists. Not that he avoidedhis fellow-men; he was always ready to see people, to talk, to playwith children, but on the other hand society was not essential to him. Yet, just and virtuous as he was, there was something radicallyunamiable about him: "I love Henry, " one of his friends said of him, "but I cannot like him; and as for taking his arm I should as soonthink of taking the arm of an elm-tree. " He was in fact an egotist withstrong fancies and preferences; and, though he was an ascetic bypreference, he cannot be called a simple-minded man, because theessence of simplicity is not to ride a hobby hard. He thought andtalked too much about simplicity; and the fact is that simplicity, likehumility, cannot exist side by side with self-consciousness. The momentthat a man is conscious that he is simple and humble, he is simple andhumble no longer. You cannot become humble by reminding peopleconstantly, like Uriah Heep, of your humility; similarly you cannotbecome simple, by doing elaborately, and making a parade of doing, thethings that the simple man would do without thinking about them. 

It is almost true to say that the people who are most in love withsimplicity are often the most complicated natures. They become weary oftheir own complexity, and they fancy that by acting on a certainregimen they can arrive at tranquillity of soul. It is in reality justthe other way. One must become simple in soul first, and the simplesetting follows as a matter of course. If a man can purge himself ofambition, and social pride, and ostentation, and the desire of praise, his life falls at once into a simple mould, because keeping upappearances is the most expensive thing in the world; to begin witheating pulse and drinking water, is as if a man were to wear his hairlike Tennyson, and expect to become a poet thereby. Asceticism is thesign and not the cause of simplicity. The simple life will become easyand common enough when people have simple minds and hearts, when theydo the duties that lie ready to their hand, and do not crave forrecognition. 

Neither can simplicity be brought about by a movement. There is nothingwhich is more fatal to it than that people should meet to discuss thesubject; it can only be done by individuals, and in comparativeisolation. A friend of mine dreamed the other day that she wasdiscussing the subject of mission services with a stranger; shedefended them in her dream with great warmth and rhetoric: when she haddone, her companion said, "Well, to tell you the truth, I don't believein people being inspired IN ROWS. " This oracular saying has a profoundtruth in it--that salvation is not to be found in public meetings; andthat to assemble a number of persons, and to address them on thesubject of simplicity, is the surest way to miss the charm of thatsecluded virtue. 

The worst of it is that the real, practical, moral simplicity of whichI have been speaking is not an attractive thing to a generation fond ofmovement and excitement; what they desire is a picturesquemise-en-scene, a simplicity which comes as a little pretty interlude tobusy life; they do not desire it in its entirety and continuously. Theywould find it dull, triste, ennuyant. 

Thus it must fall into the hands of individuals to practise it, who aresincerely enamoured of quietness and peace. The simple man must have adeep fund of natural joy and zest; he must bring his own seasoning tothe plain fare of life; but if he loves the face of nature, and books, and his fellow-men, and above all, work, there is no need for him to goout into the wilderness in pursuit of a transcendental ideal. But thosewhose spirits flag and droop in solitude; who open their eyes upon theworld, and wonder what they will find to do; who love talk and laughterand amusement; who crave for alcoholic mirth, and the song of them thatfeast, had better make no pretence of pursuing a spirit which hauntsthe country lane and the village street, the rough pasture beside thebrimming stream, the forest glade, with the fragrant breeze blowingcool out of the wood. Simplicity, to be successfully attained, must bethe result of a passionate instinct, not of a picturesque curiosity;and it is useless to lament that one has no time to possess one's soul, if, when one visits the innermost chamber, there is nothing there butcobwebs and ugly dust. 

XV

GAMES

It requires almost more courage to write about games nowadays than itdoes to write about the Decalogue, because the higher criticism istending to make a belief in the Decalogue a matter of taste, while tothe ordinary Englishman a belief in games is a matter of faith andmorals. 

I will begin by saying frankly that I do not like games; but I say it, not because any particular interest attaches to my own dislikes andlikes, but to raise a little flag of revolt against a species of socialtyranny. I believe that there are a good many people who do not likegames, but who do not dare to say so. Perhaps it may be thought that Iam speaking from the point of view of a person who has never been ableto play them. A vision rises in the mind of a spectacled owlish man, trotting feebly about a football field, and making desperate attemptsto avoid the proximity of the ball; or joining in a game of cricket, and fielding a drive with the air of a man trying to catch an insect onthe ground, or sitting in a boat with the oar fixed under his chin, being forced backwards with an air of smiling and virtuous confusion. Ihasten to say that this is not a true picture. I arrived at areasonable degree of proficiency in several games: I was a competent, though not a zealous, oar; I captained a college football team, and Ido not hesitate to say that I have derived more pleasure from footballthan from any other form of exercise. I have climbed some mountains, and am even a member of the Alpine Club; I may add that I am a keen, though not a skilful, sportsman, and am indeed rather a martyr toexercise and open air. I make these confessions simply to show that Ido not approach the subject from the point of view of a sedentaryperson but indeed rather the reverse. No weather appears to me to betoo bad to go out in, and I do not suppose there are a dozen days inthe year in which I do not contrive to get exercise. 

But exercise in the open air is one thing, and games are quite another. It seems to me that when a man has reached an age of discretion, heought no longer to need the stimulus of competition, the desire to hitor kick balls about, the wish to do such things better than otherpeople. It seems to me that the elaborate organization of athletics isa really rather serious thing, because it makes people unable to get onwithout some species of excitement. I was staying the other day at aquiet house in the country, where there was nothing particular to do;there was not, strange to say, even a golf course within reach. Therecame to stay there for a few days an eminent golfer, who fell into acondition of really pitiable dejection. The idea of taking a walk orriding a bicycle was insupportable to him; and I think he never leftthe house except for a rueful stroll in the garden. When I was aschoolmaster it used to distress me to find how invariably the parentsof boys discoursed with earnestness and solemnity about a boy's games;one was told that a boy was a good field, and really had the makings ofan excellent bat; eager inquiries were made as to whether it waspossible for the boy to get some professional coaching; in the case ofmore philosophically inclined parents it generally led on to astatement of the social advantages of being a good cricketer, and oftento the expression of a belief that virtue was in some way indissolublyconnected with keenness in games. For one parent who said anythingabout a boy's intellectual interests, there were ten whosepreoccupation in the boy's athletics was deep and vital. 

It is no wonder that, with all this parental earnestness, boys tendedto consider success in games the one paramount object of their lives;it was all knit up with social ambitions, and it was viewed, I do nothesitate to say, as of infinitely more importance than anything else. Ido not mean to say that many of the boys did not consider it importantto be good, and did not desire to be conscientious about their work. But as a practical matter games were what they thought about and talkedabout, and what aroused genuine enthusiasm. They were disposed todespise boys who could not play games, however virtuous, kindly, andsensible they might be; an entire lack of conscientiousness, and evengrave moral obliquity, were apt to be condoned in the case of asuccessful athlete. We masters, I must frankly confess, did not makeany serious attempt to fight the tendency. We spent our spare time inwalking about the cricket and football fields, in looking on, indiscussing the fine nuances in the style of individual players. It wasvery natural to take an interest in the thing which was to the boys amatter of profound concern; but what I should be inclined to censurewas that it was really a matter of profound concern with ourselves; andwe did not take a kindly and paternal interest in the matter, so muchas the interest of enthusiasts and partisans. 

It is very difficult to see how to alter this. Probably, like otherdeep-seated national tendencies, it will have to cure itself. It wouldbe impossible to insist that the educators of youth should suppress theinterest which they instinctively and genuinely feel in games, andprofess an interest in intellectual matters which they do not reallyfeel. No good would come out of practising hypocrisy in the matter, from however high a motive. While schoolmasters rush off to golfwhenever they get a chance, and fill their holidays to the brim withgames of various kinds, it would be simply hypocritical to attempt toconceal the truth; and the difficulty is increased by the fact that, while parents and boys alike feel as they do about the essentialimportance of games, head-masters are more or less bound to select menfor masterships who are proficient in them; because whatever else hasto be attended to at school, games have to be attended to; and, moreover, a man whom the boys respect as an athlete is likely to bemore effective both as a disciplinarian and a teacher. If a man is afirst-rate slow bowler, the boys will consider his views on Thucydidesand Euclid more worthy of consideration than the views of a man who hasonly a high university degree. 

The other day I was told of the case of a head-master of a smallproprietary private school, who was treated with open insolence andcontempt by one of his assistants, who neglected his work, smoked inhis class-room, and even absented himself on occasions without leave. It may be asked why the head-master did not dismiss his recalcitrantassistant. It was because he had secured a man who was a 'Varsitycricket-blue, and whose presence on the staff gave the parentsconfidence, and provided an excellent advertisement. The assistant, onthe other hand, knew that he could get a similar post for the asking, and on the whole preferred a school where he might consult his ownconvenience. This is, of course, an extreme case; but would to God, asDr. Johnson said, that it were an impossible one! I do not wish to tiltagainst athletics, nor do I at all undervalue the benefits of open airand exercise for growing boys. But surely there is a lamentable want ofproportion about the whole view! The truth is that we English are inmany respects barbarians still, and as we happen at the present time tobe wealthy barbarians, we devote our time and our energies to thethings for which we really care. I do not at all want to see gamesdiminished, or played with less keenness. I only desire to see themduly subordinated. I do not think it ought to be considered slightlyeccentric for a boy to care very much about his work, or to take aninterest in books. I should like it to be recognized at schools thatthe one quality that was admirable was keenness, and that it wasadmirable in whatever department it was displayed; but nowadayskeenness about games is considered admirable and heroic, while keennessabout work or books is considered slightly grovelling and priggish. 

The same spirit has affected what is called sport. People no longerlook upon it as an agreeable interlude, but as a business in itself;they will not accept invitations to shoot, unless the sport is likelyto be good; a moderate performer with the gun is treated as if it was acrime for him to want to shoot at all; then the motoring craze has comein upon the top of the golfing craze; and all the spare time of peopleof leisure tends to be filled up with bridge. The difficulty in dealingwith the situation is that the thing itself is not only not wrong, butreally beneficial; it is better to be occupied than to be idle, and itis hard to preach against a thing which is excellent in moderation andonly mischievous in excess. 

Personally I am afraid that I only look upon games as a pis-aller. Iwould always rather take a walk than play golf, and read a book thanplay bridge. Bridge, indeed, I should regard as only one degree betterthan absolutely vacuous conversation, which is certainly the mostfatiguing thing in the world. But the odd thing is that while it isregarded as rather vicious to do nothing, it is regarded as positivelyvirtuous to play a game. Personally I think competition always a moreor less disagreeable thing. I dislike it in real life, and I do not seewhy it should be introduced into one's amusements. If it amuses me todo a thing, I do not very much care whether I do it better than anotherperson. I have no desire to be always comparing my skill with the skillof others. 

Then, too, I am afraid that I must confess to lamentably feeblepleasure in mere country sights and sounds. I love to watch the curiousand beautiful things that go on in every hedgerow and every field; itis a ceaseless delight to see the tender uncrumpling leaves of thecopse in spring, and no a pleasure to see the woodland streaked andstained with the flaming glories of autumn. It is a joy in highmidsummer to see the clear dwindled stream run under the thick hazels, among the lush water-plants; it is no less a joy to see the same streamrunning full and turbid in winter, when the banks are bare, and thetrees are leafless, and the pasture is wrinkled with frost. Half thejoy, for instance, of shooting, in which I frankly confess I take achildish delight, is the quiet tramping over the clean-cut stubble, thedistant view of field and wood, the long, quiet wait at the covert-end, where the spindle-wood hangs out her quaint rosy berries, and therabbits come scampering up the copse, as the far-off tapping of thebeaters draws near in the frosty air. The delights of the country-sidegrow upon me every month and every year. I love to stroll in the lanesin spring, with white clouds floating in the blue above, and to see theglade carpeted with steel-blue hyacinths. I love to walk on countryroads or by woodland paths, on a rain-drenched day of summer, when thesky is full of heavy inky clouds, and the earth smells fresh and sweet;I love to go briskly homeward on a winter evening, when the sunsetsmoulders low in the west, when the pheasants leap trumpeting to theirroosts, and the lights begin to peep in cottage windows. 

Such joys as these are within the reach of every one; and to call thecountry dull because one has not the opportunity of hitting andpursuing a little white ball round and round among the same fields, with elaborately contrived obstacles to test the skill and the temper, seems to me to be grotesque, if it were not also so distressing. 

I cannot help feeling that games are things that are appropriate to therestless days of boyhood, when one will take infinite trouble and toilover anything of the nature of a make-believe, so long as it isunderstood not to be work; but as one gets older and perhaps wiser, asimpler and quieter range of interests ought to take their place. I canhumbly answer for it that it need imply no loss of zest; my own powerof enjoyment is far deeper and stronger than it was in early years; thepleasures I have described, of sight and sound, mean infinitely more tome than the definite occupations of boyhood ever did. But the danger isthat if we are brought up ourselves to depend upon games, and if webring up all our boys to depend on them, we are not able to do withoutthem as we grow older; and thus we so often have the melancholyspectacle of the elderly man, who is hopelessly bored with existence, and who is the terror of the smoking-room and the dinner-table, becausehe is only capable of indulging in lengthy reminiscences of his ownastonishing athletic performances, and in lamentations over thedegeneracy of the human race. 

Another remarkable fact about the conventionality that attends games isthat certain games are dismissed as childish and contemptible whileothers are crowned with glory and worship. One knows of eminentclergymen who play golf; and that they should do so seems to constituteso high a title to the respect and regard with which normal personsview them, that one sometimes wonders whether they do not take up thepractice with the wisdom of the serpent that is recommended in theGospels, or because of the Pauline doctrine of adaptability, that byall means they may save some. 

But as far as mere air and exercise goes, the childish game of playingat horses is admirably calculated to increase health and vigour andneeds no expensive resources. Yet what would be said and thought if aprelate and his suffragan ran nimbly out of a palace gate in acathedral close, with little bells tinkling, whips cracking, and reinsof red ribbon drawn in to repress the curvetting of the gaitered steed?There is nothing in reality more undignified about that than in hittinga little ball about over sandy bunkers. If the Prime Minister and theLord Chief Justice trundled hoops round and round after breakfast inthe gravelled space behind the Horse Guards, who could allege that theywould not be the better for the exercise? Yet they would be held forsome mysterious reason to have forfeited respect. To the mind of thephilosopher all games are either silly or reasonable; and nothing soreveals the stupid conventionality of the ordinary mind as the factthat men consider a series of handbooks on Great Bowlers to be aserious and important addition to literature, while they would holdthat a little manual on Blind-man's Buff was a fit subject forderision. St. Paul said that when he became a man he put away childishthings. He could hardly afford to say that now, if he hoped to beregarded as a man of sense and weight. 

I do not wish to be a mere Jeremiah in the region of prophecy, and todeplore, sarcastically and incisively, what I cannot amend. What Irather wish to do is to make a plea for greater simplicity in thematter, and to try and destroy some of the terrible priggishness in thematter of athletics, which appears to me to prevail. After all, athletics are only one form of leisurely amusement; and I maintain thatit is of the essence of priggishness to import solemnity into a matterwhich does not need it, and which would be better without it. Becausethe tyranny is a real one; the man of many games is not content withsimply enjoying them; he has a sense of complacent superiority, and ahardly disguised contempt for the people who do not play them. 

I was staying in a house the other day where a distinguishedphilosopher had driven over to pay an afternoon call. The callconcluded, he wished to make a start, so I went down to the stable withhim to see about putting his pony in. The stables were deserted. I wasforced to confess that I knew nothing about the harnessing of steeds, however humble. We discovered portions of what appeared to be theequipment of a pony, and I held them for him, while he gingerly triedthem on, applying them cautiously to various portions of the innocentanimal's person. Eventually we had to give it up as a bad job, and seekfor professional assistance. I described the scene for the benefit of alively lady of my acquaintance, who is a devotee of anything connectedwith horses, and she laughed unmercifully at the description, andexpressed the contempt, which she sincerely felt, in no measured terms. But, after all, it is no part of my business to harness horses; it is aconvenience that there should be persons who possess the requisiteknowledge; for me horses only represent a convenient form oflocomotion. I did not mind her being amused--indeed, that was theobject of my narrative--but her contempt was just as much misplaced asif I had despised her for not being able to tell the difference betweensapphics and alcaics, which it was my business to know. 

It is the complacency, the self-satisfaction, that results from theworship of games, which is one of its most serious features. I wishwith all my heart that I could suggest a remedy for it; but the onlything that I can do is to pursue my own inclinations, with a ferventconviction that they are at least as innocent as the pursuit ofathletic exercises; and I can also, as I have said, wave a little flagof revolt, and rally to my standard the quieter and more simple-mindedpersons, who love their liberty, and decline to part with it unlessthey can find a better reason than the merely comfortable desire to dowhat every one else is doing. 

XVI

SPIRITUALISM

I was sitting the other day in a vicarage garden with my friend thevicar. It was a pretty, well-kept place, with old shrubberies andumbrageous trees; to the right, the tower of the church rose among itselms. We sate out of the wind, looking over a rough pasture field, apparently a common, divided from the garden by a little ha-ha ofbrick. The surface of the field was very irregular, as though there hadbeen excavations made in it for gravel at some time or other; incertain parts of the field there appeared fragments of a stone wall, just showing above the ground. 

The vicar pointed to the field. "Do you see that wall?" he said; "Iwill tell you a very curious story about that. When I came here, fortyyears ago, I asked the old gardener what the field was, as I never sawany one in it, or any beasts grazing there; and yet it was unfenced, and appeared to be common land--it was full of little thickets andthorn-bushes then. He was not very willing to tell me, I thought, butby dint of questions I discovered that it was a common, and that it wasknown locally by the curious name of Heaven's Walls. He went on to saythat it was considered unlucky to set foot in it; and that, as a matterof fact, no villager would ever dream of going there; he would not saywhy, but at last it came out that it was supposed to be haunted by aspirit. No one, it seemed, had ever seen anything there, but it was anunlucky place. 

"Well, I thought no more of it at the time, though I often went intothe field. It was a quiet and pretty place enough; full of thickets, asI have said, where the birds built unmolested--there was generally agoldfinch's nest there. 

"It became necessary to lay a drain across it, and a big trench wasdug. One day they came and told me that the workmen had foundsomething--would I go and look at it? I went out and found that theyhad unearthed a large Roman cinerary urn, containing some calcinedbones. I told the lord of the manor, who is a squire in the nextparish, and he and I after that kept a look-out over the workmen. Wefound another urn, and another, both full of bones. Then we found a bigglass vessel, also containing bones. The squire got interested in thething, and eventually had the whole place dug out. We found a largeenclosure, once surrounded by a stone wall, of which you see theremains; in two of the corners there was an enormous deposit of woodashes, in deep pits, which looked as if great fires had burnt there;and the walls in those two corners were all calcined and smoke-stained. We found fifty or sixty urns, all full of bones; and in another cornerthere was a deep shaft, like a well, dug in the chalk, with handholdsdown the sides, also full of calcined bones. We found a few coins, andin one place a conglomeration of rust that looked as if it might havebeen a heap of tools or weapons. We set the antiquaries to work, andthey pronounced it to be what is called a Roman Ustrinum--that is tosay, a public crematorium, where people who could not afford a separatefuneral might bring a corpse to be burnt. If they had no place todeposit the urn, in which the bones were enclosed, they were allowed, it seems, to bury the urn there, until such time as they cared toremove it. There was a big Roman settlement here, you know. There was afort on the hill there, and the sites of several large Roman villashave been discovered in the neighbourhood. This place must have stoodrather lonely, away from the town, probably in the wood which thencovered the whole of this county; but it is curious, is it not?" saidthe vicar, "that the tradition should have been handed down through allthese centuries of its being an ill-omened place, long after anytradition of what the uses of the spot were!"

It was curious indeed! The vicar was presently called away, and I satemusing over the strange old story. I could fancy the place as it musthave been, standing with its high blank walls in a clearing of theforest, with perhaps a great column of evil-smelling smoke drifting inoily waves over the corner of the wall, telling of the sad rites thatwere going on within. I could fancy heavy-eyed mourners dragging a bierup to the gates, with a silent form lying upon it, waiting in paledismay until the great doors were flung open by the sombre roughattendants of the place; until they could see the ugly enclosure, withthe wood piled high in the pit for the last sad service. Then wouldfollow the burning and the drenching of the ashes, the gathering of thebones--all that was left of one so dear, father or mother, boy ormaiden--the enclosing of them in the urn, and the final burial. Whatagonies of simple grief the place must have witnessed! Then, I suppose, the place was deserted by the Romans, the walls crumbled down intoruin, grass and bushes grew over the place. Then perhaps the forest wasgradually felled and stubbed up, as the area of cultivation widened;but still the sad tradition of the spot left it desolate, until allrecollection of its purpose was gone. No doubt, in Saxon days, it wasthought to be haunted by the old wailing, restless spirits of those whohad suffered the last rites there; so that still the place wascondemned to a sinister solitude. 

I went on to reflect over the strange and obstinate tradition thatlingers still with such vitality among the human race, that certainplaces are haunted by the spirits of the dead. It is hard to believethat such tradition, so widespread, so universal, should have no kindof justification in fact. And yet there appears to be no justificationfor the idea, unless the spiritual conditions of the world havealtered, unless there were real phenomena, which have for some causeceased to manifest themselves, which originated the tradition. Butthere is certainly no scientific evidence of the fact. The PsychicalSociety, which has faced some ridicule for its serious attempt to findout the truth about these matters, have announced that investigationsof so-called haunted houses have produced no evidence whatever. Theyseem to be a wholly unreliable type of stories, which always break downunder careful inquiry. I am inclined myself to believe that suchstories arose in a perfectly natural way. It is perfectly natural tosimple people to believe that the spirit which animated a mortal bodywould, on leaving it, tend to linger about the scene of suffering anddeath. Indeed, it is impossible not to feel that, if the spirit has anyconscious identity, it would be sure to desire to remain in theneighbourhood of those whom it loved so well. But the unsatisfactoryelement in these stories is that it generally appears to be the victimof some heinous deed, and not the perpetrator, who is condemned to makeits sad presence known, by wailing and by sorrowful gestures, on thescene of its passion. But once given the belief that a spirit mighttend to remain for a time in the place where its earthly life waslived, the terrors of man, his swift imagination, his power ofself-delusion, would do the rest. 

The only class of stories, say the investigators, which appear to beproved beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt, is the class ofstories dealing with apparitions at the time of death; and this theyexplain by supposing a species of telepathy, which is indeed an obscureforce, but obviously an existing one, though its conditions andlimitations are not clearly understood. Telepathy is the power ofcommunication between mind and mind without the medium of speech, andindeed in certain cases exercised at an immense distance. The theory isthat the thought of the dying person is so potently exercised on someparticular living person, as to cause the recipient to project a figureof the other upon the air. That power of visualization is not a veryuncommon one; indeed, we all possess it more or less; we can allremember what we believe we have seen in our dreams, and we rememberthe figures of our dreams as optical images, though they have beenpurely mental conceptions, translated into the terms of actual sight. The impression of a dream-figure, indeed, appears to us to be as muchthe impression of an image received upon the retina of the eye, as ourimpressions of images actually so received. The whole thing is strange, of course, but not stranger than wireless telegraphy. It may be thatthe conditions of telepathy may some day be scientifically defined; andin that case it will probably make a clear and coherent connectionbetween a number of phenomena which we do not connect together, just asthe discovery of electricity connected together phenomena which all hadobserved, like the adhering of substances to charged amber, as well asthe lightning-flash which breaks from the thunder-cloud. No one informer days traced any connection between these two phenomena, but wenow know that they are only two manifestations of the same force. Inthe same way we may find that phenomena of which we are all conscious, but of which we do not know the reason, may prove to be manifestationsof some central telepathic force--such phenomena, I mean, as thebravery of armies in action, or the excitement which may seize upon alarge gathering of men. 

We ought, I think, to admire and praise the patient work of thePsychical Society, --though is common enough to hear quite sensiblepeople deride it, --because it is an attempt to treat a subjectscientifically. What we have every right to deride is the dabbling inspiritualistic things by credulous and feeble-minded persons. Thesepractices open to our view one of the most lamentable and deplorableprovinces of the human mind, its power of convincing itself of anythingwhich it desires to believe, its debility, its childishness. If theprofessions of so-called mediums were true, why cannot they exhibittheir powers in some open and incontestable way, not surroundingthemselves with all the conditions of darkness and excitability, inwhich the human power of self-delusion finds its richest field?

A friend of mine told me the other day what he evidently felt to be anextremely impressive story about a dignitary of the Church. Thisclergyman was overcome one day by an intense mental conviction that hewas wanted at Bristol. He accordingly went there by train, wanderedabout aimlessly, and finally put up at a hotel for the night. In themorning he found a friend in the coffee-room, to whom he confided thecause of his presence in Bristol, and announced his intention of goingaway by the next train. The friend then told him that an Australian wasdying in the hotel, and that his wife was very anxious to find aclergyman. The dignitary went to see the lady, with the intention ofoffering her his services, when he discovered that he had met her whentravelling in Australia, and that her husband had been deeply impressedby a sermon which he had then delivered, and had been entreating forsome days that he might be summoned to administer the last consolationsof religion. The clergyman went in to see the patient, administered thelast rites, comforted and encouraged him, and was with him when hedied. He afterwards told the widow the story of his mysterious summonsto Bristol, and she replied that she had been praying night and daythat he might come and that he had no doubt come in answer to herprayers. 

But the unsatisfactory part of the story is that one is asked tocondone the extremely unbusinesslike, sloppy, and troublesome methodsemployed by this spiritual agency. The lady knew the name and positionof the clergyman perfectly well, and might have written or wired tohim. He could thus have been spared his aimless and mysterious journey, the expense of spending a night at the hotel; and moreover it was onlythe fortuitous meeting with a third person, not closely connected withthe story, which prevented the clergyman from leaving the place, hismission unfulfilled. One cannot help feeling that, if a spiritualagency was at work, it was working either in a very clumsy way, or witha relish for mystery which reminds one of the adventures of SherlockHolmes; if one is expected to accept the story as a manifestation ofsupernatural power, one can only conceive of it as the work of a verytricksy spirit, like Ariel in the "Tempest"; it seems like a veryelaborate and melodramatic attempt to bring about a result, that couldhave been far more satisfactorily achieved by a little common sense. Ifinstead of inspiring the lady to earnest prayer--which appears too tohave been very slow in its action--why could not the supernatural powerat work have inspired her with the much simpler idea of looking at theClergy List? And yet the story no doubt produces on the ordinary mindan impressive effect, when as a matter of fact, if it is fairlyconsidered, it can only be regarded, if true, as the work of an amiableand rather dilettante power, with a strong relish for the elaboratelymarvellous. 

The truth is that what the ordinary human being desires, in matters ofthis kind, is not scientific knowledge but picturesqueness. As long aspeople frankly confess that it is the latter element of which they arein search, that, like the fat boy in Pickwick, they merely want to maketheir flesh creep, no harm is done. The harm is done by people who arereally in search of sensation, who yet profess to be approaching thequestion in a scientific spirit of inquiry. I enjoy a good ghost storyas much as any one; and I am interested, too, in hearing thephilosophical conclusions of earnest-minded people; but to hear thequestion discussed, as one so often hears it, with a pretentiousattempt to treat it scientifically, by people who, like the White Queenin Through the Looking-glass, find it pleasant to train themselves tobelieve a dozen impossible things before breakfast, afflicts me with adeep mental and moral nausea. 

One, at least, of the patient investigators of this accumulated mass ofhuman delusion, took up the quest in the hope that he might receivescientific evidence of the continued existence of identity. He wasforced to confess that the evidence went all the other way, and thatall the tales which appeared to substantiate the fact, were hopelesslydiscredited. The only thing, as I have said, that the investigationsseem to have substantiated, is evidence which none but a determinedlysceptical mind would disallow, that there does exist, in certainabnormal cases, a possibility of direct communication between two ormore living minds. 

But, as I pondered thus, the day began to darken over the rough pasturewith its ruined wall, and I felt creeping upon me that old inheritanceof humanity, that terror in the presence of the unseen, which sets themind at work, distorting and exaggerating the impressions of eye andear. How easy, in such a mood, to grow tense and expectant--

 "Till sight and hearing ache For something that may keep The awful inner sense Unroused, lest it should mark The life that haunts the emptiness And horror of the dark. "

Face to face with the impenetrable mystery, with the thought of thosewhom we have loved, who have slipped without a word or a sign over thedark threshold, what wonder if we beat with unavailing hands againstthe closed door? It would be strange if we did not, for we too mustsome day enter in; well, the souls of all those who have died, alikethose whom we have loved, and the spirits of those old Romans whosemortal bodies melted into smoke year after year in the little enclosureinto which I look, know whatever there is to know. That is a stern anddreadful truth; the secret is impenetrably sealed from us; but, "thoughthe heart ache to contemplate it, it is there. "

XVII

HABITS

Walter Pater says, in his most oracular mood, in that fine manifesto ofa lofty Epicureanism which is known as the Conclusion to theRenaissance essays, that to form habits is failure in life. Thedifficulty in uttering oracles is that one is obliged for the sake ofbeing forcible to reduce a statement to its simplest terms; and whenone does that, there are generally a whole group of cases which appearto be covered by the statement, which contradict it. It is nearlyimpossible to make any general statement both simple enough and largeenough. In the case of Pater's pronouncement, he had fixed his mentalgaze so firmly on a particular phenomenon, that he forgot that hiswords might prove misleading when applied to the facts of life. What hemeant, no doubt, was that one of the commonest of mental dangers is toform intellectual and moral prejudices early in life, and so tostereotype them that we are unable to look round them, or to giveanything that we instinctively dislike a fair trial. Most people infact, in matters of opinion, tend to get infected with a species ofToryism by the time that they reach middle age, until they get into theframe of mind which Montaigne describes, of thinking so highly of theirown conjectures as to be prepared to burn other people for notregarding them as certainties. This frame of mind is much to bereprobated, but it is unhappily common. How often does one meetsensible, shrewd, and intelligent men, who say frankly that they arenot prepared to listen to any evidence which tells against theirbeliefs. How rare it is to meet a man who in the course of an argumentwill say, "Well, I had never thought of that before; it must be takeninto account, and it modifies my view. " Such an attitude is looked uponby active-minded and energetic men as having something weak and evensentimental about it. How common it is to hear people say that a manought to have the courage of his opinions; how rare it is to find a manwho will say that one ought to have the courage to change one'sopinions. Indeed, in public life it is generally considered a kind oftreachery to change, because people value what they call loyalty abovetruth. Pater no doubt meant that the duty and privilege of thephilosopher is to keep his inner eye open to new impressions, to beready to see beauty in new forms, not to love comfortable and settledways, but to bring the same fresh apprehension that youth brings, toart and to life. 

He is merely speaking of a mental process in these words; what he iscondemning is the dulling and encrusting of the mind with prejudicesand habits, the tendency, as Charles Lamb wittily said, whenever a newbook comes out, to read an old one, to get into thefireside-and-slippers frame of mind, to grumble at novelty, to complainthat the young men are violating all the sacred canons of faith and art. 

This is not at all the same thing as knowing one's own limitations;every one, whether he be artist or writer, critic or practitioner, ought to take the measure of his forces, and to determine in whatregions he can be effective; indeed it is often necessary for a man ofartistic impulses to confine his energies to one specific department, although he may be attracted by several. Pater was himself an instanceof this. He knew, for instance, that his dramatic sense was weak, andhe wisely let drama alone; he found that certain vigorous writersexercised a contagious influence over his own style, and therefore hegave up reading them. But within his own region he endeavoured to becatholic and sympathetic; he never tied up the contents of his mindinto packets and labelled them, a task which most men between thirtyand forty find highly congenial. 

But I desire here to go into the larger question of forming habits; andas a general rule it may be said that Pater's dictum is entirelyuntrue, and that success in life depends more upon forming habits thanupon anything else, except good health. Indeed, Pater himself is anexcellent instance in point. He achieved his large output of beautifulliterary work, the amazing amount of perfectly finished and exquisitelyexpressed writing that he gave to the world, by an extreme and patientregularity of labour. He did not, as some writers do, have periods ofenergetic creation, interrupted by periods of fallow idleness. Perhapshis work might have been more spontaneous if he could, like Milton'sfriend, have been wise enough "of such delights to judge, and interposethem oft. " But the achievement of Pater was to realize and to carry outhis own individual method, and it is upon doing this that successfulproductivity depends. 

I could name, if I chose, two or three friends of my own, men of highand subtle intelligence, admirable humour, undiminished zest, who havefailed, and will fail, to realize their possibilities, simply by a lackof method. Who does not know the men whom Mr. Mallock so wittilydescribes, of whom, up to the age of forty, their friends say that theycould do anything if they only chose, and after the age of forty thatthey could have done anything if they had chosen? I have one particularfriend in my eye at this moment, the possessor of wealth and leisure, who is a born writer if any man ever was. He has no particular duties, except the duties of a small landowner and the father of a family; heis a wide reader, and a critic of delicate and sympathetic acuteness. He is bent on writing; and he has written a single book crammed fromend to end with good and beautiful things, the stuff of which wouldhave sufficed, in the hands of a facile writer, for half-a-dozenexcellent books. He is, moreover, sincerely anxious to write, but hedoes nothing. If you ask him--and I conceive it to be my duty atintervals to chide him for not producing more--what he does with histime, he says with a melancholy smile: "Oh, I hardly know: it goes!" Itrace his failure to produce, simply to the fact that he has never setapart any particular portion of the day for writing; he allows himselfto be interrupted; he entertains many guests whom he has no particularwish to see; he "sets around and looks ornery, " like the frog; he talksdelightfully; an industrious Boswell could, by asking him questions andtaking careful notes of his talk, fill a charming volume in a month outof his shrewd and suggestive conversation; of course it is possible tosay that he practises the art of living, to talk of "gems of purest rayserene" and flowers "born to blush unseen" and all the rest of it. Buthis talk streams to waste among guests who do not as a rule appreciateit; and if there is any duty or responsibility in the world at all, itis a duty for men of great endowments, admirable humour, and poeticalsuggestiveness, to sow the seed of the mind freely and lavishly. WeEnglish are of course the chosen race; but we should be none the worsefor a little more intellectual apprehension, a little more amiablecharm. If my friend had been a professional man, obliged to earn aliving by his pen, he would, I do not doubt, have given to the world aseries of great books, which would have done something to spread theinfluence of the kingdom of heaven. 

Of course there is a sense in which it is a mistake to let habitsbecome too tyrannical; one ought not to find oneself hopelesslydistracted and irritated if one's daily programme is interfered with atany point; one ought to be able to enjoy leisure, to pay visits, toconverse volubly. Like Dr. Johnson, one ought to be ready for a frolic. But, on the other hand, if a man takes himself seriously--and I am herenot speaking of people with definite engagements, but of people, likewriters and artists, who may choose their own times to do theirwork--he ought to have a regular though not an invariable programme. Ifhe is possessed of such superabundant energy as Walter Scott possessed, he may rise at five, and write ten immortal octavo pages before heappears at breakfast. But as a rule the vitality of ordinary people ismore limited, and they are bound to husband it, if they mean to doanything that is worth the name; an artist then ought to have hissacred hours, secure from interruption; and then, let him fill the restof the day with any amusement that he finds to be congenial. 

Of course the thing is easy enough if one's work is really the thing inwhich one is most interested. There is very little danger, in the caseof a man who likes and relishes the work he is doing more than herelishes any form of amusement; but we many of us have the unhappyfeeling that we enjoy our work very much, if we can once sit down toit; only we do not care about beginning it. We read the paper, we writea few letters, we look out an address in Who's Who, and we becomeabsorbed in the biographies of our fellow-men; very soon it is time forluncheon, and then we think that we shall feel fresher if we take alittle exercise; after tea, the weather is so beautiful that we thinkit would be a pity not to enjoy the long sunset lights; we come in; thepiano stands invitingly open, and we must strike a few chords; then thebell rings for dressing, and the day is gone, because we mistrust thework that we do late at night, and so we go to bed in good time. Not sodoes a big book get written!

We ought rather to find out all about ourselves; when we can work ourbest, how long we can work continuously with full vigour; and thenround these fixed points we should group our sociability, our leisure, our amusement. If we are altruistically inclined, we probably say thatit is a duty to see something of our fellow-creatures, that we oughtnot to grow morose and solitary; there is an abundance of excuses thatcan be made; but the artist and the writer ought to realize that theirduty to the world is to perceive what is beautiful and to express it asresolutely, as attractively as they can; if a writer can write a goodbook, he can talk in its pages to a numerous audience; and he is rightto save up his best thoughts for his readers, rather than to let themflow away in diffuse conversation. Of course a writer of fiction isbound to make the observation of varieties of temperament a duty; it ishis material; if he becomes isolated and self-absorbed, his workbecomes narrow and mannerized; and it is true, too, that, with mostwriters, the collision of mind with mind is what produces the brightestsparks. 

And then to step into a still wider field, there is no sort of doubtthat the formation of reasonable habits, of method, of punctuality, isa duty, not from an exalted point of view, but because it makesenormously for the happiness and convenience of every one about us. Inthe old-fashioned story-books a prodigious value, perhaps anexaggerated value, was set upon time; one was told to redeem the time, whatever that might mean. The ideal mother of the family, in the littlebooks which I used to read in my childhood, was a lady who appearedpunctually at breakfast, and had a bunch of keys hanging at her girdle. Breakfast over, she paid a series of visits, looked into the larder, weighed out stores, and then settled down to some solid reading orembroidered a fire-screen; the afternoon would be spent in visits ofbenevolence, carrying portions of the midday dinner to her poorerneighbours; the evening would be given to working at the fire-screenagain, while some one read aloud. Somehow it is not an attractivepicture, though it need not have been so dull as it appears. The pointis whether the solid reading had a useful effect or not. In the books Ihave in view, it generally led the materfamilias into having an unduerespect for correct information, and a pharisaical contempt for peoplewho indulged their fancy. In Harry and Lucy, for instance, Lucy, who isthe only human figure in the book, is perpetually being snubbed by theterrible hard-headed Harry, with his desperate interest in machinery, by the repellent father who delights to explain the laws of gravity andthe parabola described by the stone which Harry throws. What wasundervalued in those old, dry, high-principled books was the charm ofvivid apprehension, of fanciful imagination, of simple, neighbourlykindliness. The aim was too much to improve everybody and everything, to impart and retain correct information. Nowadays the pendulum hasswung a little too far the other way, and children are too muchencouraged, if anything, to be childish; but there is a certain austerecharm in the old simple high-minded household life for all that. 

The point is that habit should be there, like the hem of ahandkerchief, to keep the fabric together; but that it should not berelentlessly and oppressively paraded; the triumph is to have habitsand to conceal them, just as in Ruskin's celebrated dictum, that theartist's aim should be to be fit for the best society, and then that heshould renounce it. One ought to be reliable, to perform the work thatone undertakes without ceaseless reminders, to discharge duties easilyand satisfactorily; and then, if to this one can add the grace ofapparent leisureliness, the power of never appearing to be interrupted, the good-humoured readiness to amuse and to be amused, one is high uponthe ladder of perfection. It is absolutely necessary, if one is to playa satisfactory part in the world, to be in earnest, to be serious; andit is no less necessary to abstain from ostentatiously parading thatseriousness. One has to take for granted that others are serious too;and far more is effected by example than by precept, in this, as inmost matters. But if one cannot do both, it is better to be serious andto show it, than to make a show of despising seriousness and decryingit. It is better to have habits and to let others know it, than to loseone's soul by endeavouring to escape the reproach of priggishness, aquality which in these easy-going days incurs an excessive degree ofodium. 

XVIII

RELIGION

There is a motto which I should like to see written over the door ofevery place of worship, both as an invitation and a warning: THOU SHALTMAKE ME TO UNDERSTAND WISDOM SECRETLY. It is an invitation to those whoenter, to come and participate in a great and holy mystery; and it is awarning to those who believe that in the formalities of religion aloneis the secret of religion to be found. I will not here speak ofworship, of the value of the symbol, the winged prayer, the utteredword; I wish rather to speak for a little of religion itself, a thing, as I believe, greatly misunderstood. How much it is misunderstood maybe seen from the fact that, though the word itself, religion, standsfor one of the most beautiful and simple things in the world, there yethangs about it an aroma which is not wholly pleasing. What difficultservice that great and humble name has seen! With what strange and evilmeanings it has been charged! How dinted and battered it is with hardusage! how dimmed its radiance, how stained its purity! It is the bestword, perhaps the only word, for the thing that I mean; and yetsomething dusty and technical hangs about it, which makes it wearisomeinstead of delightful, dreary rather than joyful. The same is the casewith many of the words which stand for great things. They have beenweapons in the hands of dry, bigoted, offensive persons, until theirbrightness is clouded, their keen edge hacked and broken. 

By religion I mean the power, whatever it be, which makes a man choosewhat is hard rather than what is easy, what is lofty and noble ratherthan what is mean and selfish; that puts courage into timorous hearts, and gladness into clouded spirits; that consoles men in grief, misfortune, and disappointment; that makes them joyfully accept a heavyburden; that, in a word, uplifts men out of the dominion of materialthings, and sets their feet in a purer and simpler region. 

Yet this great thing, which lies so near us that we can take it intoour grasp by merely reaching out a hand; which is as close to us as theair and the sunlight, has been by the sad, misguided efforts, veryoften of the best and noblest-minded men, who knew how precious a thingit was, so guarded, so wrapped up, made so remote from, so alien to, life and thought, that many people who live by its light, and draw itin as simply as the air they breathe, never even know that they havecome within hail of it. "Is he a good man?" said a simple Methodistonce, in reply to a question about a friend. "Yes, he is good, but notreligious-good. " By which he meant that he lived kindly, purely, andunselfishly as a Christian should, but did not attend any particularplace of worship, and therefore could not be held to have any religiousmotive for his actions, but was guided by a mere worthless instinct, apreference for unworldly living. 

Now, if ever there was a Divine attempt made in the world to shakereligion free of its wrappings, it was the preaching of Christ. So faras we can gather from records of obscure and mysterious origin, transcriptions, it would seem, of something oral and traditional, Christ aimed at bringing religion within the reach of the humblest andsimplest souls. Whatever doubt men may feel as to the literal accuracyof these records in matters of fact, however much it may be held thatthe relation of incidents was coloured by the popular belief of thetime in the possibility of miraculous manifestations, yet the words andsayings of Christ emerge from the narrative, though in places it seemsas though they had been imperfectly apprehended, as containing andexpressing thoughts quite outside the range of the minds that recordedthem; and thus possess an authenticity, which is confirmed and provedby the immature mental grasp of those who compiled the records, in away in which it would not have been proved, if the compilers had beenobviously men of mental acuteness and far-reaching philosophical grasp. 

To express the religion of Christ in precise words would be a mightytask; but it may be said that it was not merely a system, nor primarilya creed; it was a message to individual hearts, bewildered by thecomplexity of the world and the intricacy of religious observances. Christ bade men believe that their Creator was also a Father; that theonly way to escape from the overwhelming difficulties presented by theworld was the way of simplicity, sincerity, and love; that a man shouldkeep out of his life all that insults and hurts the soul, and that heshould hold the interests of others as dear as he holds his own. It wasa protest against all ambition, and cruelty, and luxury, andself-conceit. It showed that a man should accept his temperament andhis place in life, as gifts from the hands of his Father; and that heshould then be peaceful, pure, humble, and loving. Christ brought intothe world an entirely new standard; He showed that many respected andreverenced persons were very far indeed from the Father; while manyobscure, sinful, miserable outcasts found the secret which therespectable and contemptuous missed. Never was there a message whichcast so much hope abroad in rich handfuls to the world. The astonishingpart of the revelation was that it was so absolutely simple; neitherwealth, nor intellect, nor position, nor even moral perfection, wereneeded. The simplest child, the most abandoned sinner, could take thegreat gift as easily as the most honoured statesman, the wisestsage--indeed more easily; for it was the very complexity of affairs, ofmotives, of wealth, that entangled the soul and prevented it fromrealizing its freedom. 

Christ lived His human life on these principles; and sank from dangerto danger, from disaster to disaster, and having touched the wholegamut of human suffering, and disappointment, and shame, died a deathin which no element of disgust, and terror, and pain was wanting. 

And from that moment the deterioration began. At first the great secretran silently through the world from soul to soul, till the world wasleavened. But even so the process of capturing and transforming thefaith in accordance with human weakness began. The intellectual spiritlaid hold on it first. Metaphysicians scrutinized the humble and sweetmystery, overlaid it with definitions, harmonized it with ancientsystems, dogmatized it, made it hard, and subtle, and uninspiring. Vivid metaphors and illustrations were seized upon and converted intoprecise statements of principles. The very misapprehensions of theoriginal hearers were invested with the same sanctity that belonged tothe Master Himself. But even so the bright and beautiful spirit madeits way, like a stream of clear water, refreshing thirsty places andmaking the desert bloom like the rose, till at last the world itself, in the middle of its luxuries and pomp, became aware that here was amighty force abroad which must be reckoned with; and then the worlditself determined upon the capture of Christianity; and how sadly itsucceeded can be read in the pages of history; until at last the purecreature, like a barbarian captive, bright with youth and beauty, wasbound with golden chains, and bidden, bewildered and amazed, to gracethe triumph and ride in the very chariot of its conqueror. 

Let me take one salient instance. Could there, to any impartialobserver, be anything in the world more incredible than that the Pope, surrounded by ritual and pomp, and hierarchies, and policies, should beheld to be the representative on earth of the peasant-teacher ofGalilee? And yet the melancholy process of development is plain enough. As the world became Christianized, it could not be expected to give upits social order, its ambitions, its love of power and influence. Christianity uncurbed is an inconvenient, a dangerous, a subversiveforce; it must be tamed and muzzled; it must be robed and crowned; itmust be given a high and honoured place among institutions. And so ithas fallen a victim to bribery and intrigue and worldly power. 

I do not for a moment say that it does not even thus inspire thousandsof hearts to simple, loving, and heroic conduct. The secret is far toovital to lose its power. It is a vast force in the world, and indeedsurvives its capture in virtue of its truth and beauty. But instead ofbeing the most free, the most independent, the most individualisticforce in the world, it has become the most authoritarian, the mosttraditional, the most rigid of systems. As in the tale of Gulliver, itis a giant indeed, and can yet perform gigantic services; but it isbound and fettered by a puny race. 

Further, there are some who would divide religion sharply into twoaspects, the objective and the subjective. Those who emphasize theobjective aspect, would maintain that the theory that underlies allreligion is the idea of sacrifice. This view is held strongly by RomanCatholics and by a large section of Anglicans as well. They would holdthat the duty of the priest is the offering of this sacrifice, and thatthe essential truth of the Christian revelation was the sacrifice ofGod Himself upon God's own altar. This sacrifice, this atonement, theywould say, can be and must be made, over and over, upon the altar ofGod. They would hold that this offering had its objective value, eventhough it were offered without the mental concurrence of those for whomit was offered. They would urge that the primal necessity for thefaithful is that by an act of the will, --not necessarily an emotionalact, but an act of pure and definite volition, --they should associatethemselves with the true and perfect sacrifice; that souls that do thissincerely are caught up, so to speak, into the heavenly chariot of God, and move upward thus; while the merely subjective and emotionalreligion is, to continue the metaphor, as if a man should gird up hisloins to run in company with the heavenly impulse. They would say thatthe objective act of worship may have a subjective emotional effect, but that it has a true value quite independent of any subjectiveeffect. They would say that the idea of sacrifice is a primal instinctof human nature, implanted in hearts by God Himself, and borne witnessto by the whole history of man. 

Those who, like myself, believe rather in the subjective side, theemotional effect of religion, would hold that the idea of sacrifice iscertainly a primal human instinct, but that the true interpretation hasbeen put upon it by the teaching of Christ. I should myself feel thatthe idea of sacrifice belonged wholly to the old dispensation. Thatman, when he began to form some mental picture of the mysterious natureof the world of which he found himself a part, saw that there was, inthe background of life, a vast and awful power, whose laws weremysterious and not, apparently, wholly benevolent; that this powersometimes sent happiness and prosperity, sometimes sorrow andadversity; and that though to a certain extent calamities were broughtabout by individual misconduct, yet that there were innumerableinstances in the world where innocence and even conscientious conductwere just as heavily penalized as guilt and sin. The apparentlyfortuitous distribution of happiness would alarm and bewilder him. Thenatural instinct of man, thus face to face with a Deity which he couldnot hope to overcome or struggle with, would be to conciliate andpropitiate him by all the means in his power, as he would offer giftsto a prince or chief. He would hope thus to win his favour and not toincur his wrath. 

But the teaching of the Saviour that God was indeed a Father of menseems to me to have changed all this instantaneously. Man would learnthat misfortune was sent him, not wantonly nor cruelly, but that it wasan educative process. If even so he saw cases, such as a child torturedby agonizing pain, where there seemed to be no personal educativemotive that could account for it, no sense of punishment which could bemeant to improve the sufferer, he would fall back on the thought thateach man is not isolated or solitary, but that there is some essentialunity that binds humanity together, and that suffering at one pointmust, in some mysterious way that he cannot understand, meanamelioration at another. To feel this would require the exercise offaith, because no human ingenuity could grasp the method by which sucha system could be applied. But there would be no choice betweenbelieving this, or deciding that whatever the essential nature of theMind of God was, it was not based on human ideas of justice andbenevolence. 

The theory of religion would then be that the crude idea ofpropitiatory and conciliatory sacrifice would fall to the ground; thatto use the inspired words of the old Roman poet--

 "Aptissima quaeque dabunt Di. Carior est illis homo quam sibi;"

and that the only sacrifices required of man would be, on the one hand, the sacrifice of selfish desires, evil tendencies, sinful appetites;and, on the other hand, the voluntary abnegation of comfortable anddesirable things, in the presence of a noble aim, a great idea, agenerous purpose. 

Religion would then become a purely subjective thing; an intense desireto put the human will in harmony with the Divine will, a hopeful, generous, and trustful attitude of soul, a determination to receivesuffering and pain as a gift from the Father, as bravely and sincerelyas the gifts of happiness and joy, with a fervent faith that God didindeed, by implanting in men so ardent a longing for strength and joy, and so deeply rooted a terror of pain and weakness, imply that Heintended joy, of a purified and elevated kind, to be the ultimateinheritance of His creatures; and the sacrifice of man would then bethe willing resignation of everything which could in any degree thwartthe ultimate purpose of God. 

That I believe from the depths of my heart to be the meaning of theChristian revelation; and I should look upon the thought of objectivesacrifice as being an unworthy survival from a time when men had littletrue knowledge of the Fatherly Heart of God. 

And thus, to my mind, the only possible theory of worship is that it isa deliberate act, an opening of the door that leads to the Heavenlypresence. Any influence is religious which fills the mind withgratitude and peace, which makes a man humble and patient and wise, which teaches him that the only happiness possible is to attune andharmonize his mind with the gracious purpose of God. 

And so religion and worship grow to have a larger and widersignificance; for though the solemnities of religion are one of thedoors through which the soul can approach God, yet what is known asreligious worship is only as it were a postern by the side of the greatportals of beauty and nobility and truth. One whose heart is filledwith a yearning mystery at the sight of the starry heavens, who canadore the splendour of noble actions, courageous deeds, patientaffections, who can see and love the beauty so abundantly shed abroadin the world, who can be thrilled with ecstasy and joy by art andmusic, can at all these moments draw near to God, and open his soul tothe influx of the Divine Spirit. 

Religion can only be of avail so long as it takes account of all theavenues by which the soul can reach the central presence; and the errorinto which professional ecclesiastics fall is the error of the scribesand Pharisees, who said that thus and thus only, by these rites andsacrifices and ceremonies, shall the soul have access to the Father ofall living. It is as false a doctrine as would be the claim ofscientific men or artists, if they maintained that only through scienceor only through art should men draw near to God. For all the intuitionsby which men can perceive the Father are sacred, are religious. And noone may perversely bind that which is free, or make unclean that whichis pure, without suffering the doom of those who would delude humanityinto worshipping an idol of man's devising, rather than the Spirit ofGod Himself. 

Now the question must be asked, how are those who are Christiansindeed, who adore in the inmost shrine of their spirit the true Christ, who believe that the Star of the East still shines in unveiledsplendour over the place where the young child is, how are they to betrue to their Lord? Are they to protest against the tyranny ofintellect, of authority, of worldliness, over the Gospel? I would saythat they have no need thus to protest. I would say that, if they aretrue to the spirit of Christ, they have no concern with revolutionaryideals at all; Christ's own example teaches us to leave all that on oneside, to conform to worldly institutions, to accept the framework ofsociety. The tyranny of which I have spoken is not to be directlyattacked. The true concern of the believer is to be his own attitude tolife, his relations with the circle, small or great, in which he findshimself. He knows that if indeed the spirit of Christ could trulyleaven the world, the pomps, the glories, the splendours which veil it, would melt like unsubstantial wreaths of smoke. He need not troublehimself about traditional ordinances, elaborate ceremonials, subtledoctrines, metaphysical definitions. He must concern himself with fardifferent things. Let him be sure that no sin is allowed to lurkunresisted in the depths of his spirit; let him be sure that he ispatient, and just, and tender-hearted, and sincere; let him try toremedy true affliction, not the affliction which falls upon men throughtheir desire to conform to the elaborate usage of society, but theaffliction which seems to be bound up with God's own world. Let him bequiet and peaceable; let him take freely the comfort of the holyinfluences which Churches, for all their complex fabric of traditionsand ceremony, still hold out to the spirit; let him drink largely fromall sources of beauty, both natural and human; the Churches themselveshave gained, by age, and gentle associations, and artistic perception, a large treasure of things that are full of beauty--architecture andmusic and ceremony--that are only hurtful when held to be special andpeculiar channels of holiness and sweetness, when they are supposed tohave a definite sanctification which is opposed to the sanctificationof the beauty exterior to them. Let the Christian be grateful for thebeauty they hold, and use it freely and simply. Only let him beware ofthinking that what is the open inheritance of the world is in thepossession of any one smaller circle. Let him not even seek to gooutside of the persuasion, as it is so strangely called, in which hewas born. Christ spoke little of sects, and the fusion of sects, because He contemplated no Church, in the sense in which it is now toooften used, but a unity of feeling which should overspread the earth. The true Christian will recognize his brethren not necessarily in theChurch or sect to which he belongs, but in all who live humbly, purely, and lovingly, in dependence on the Great Father of all living. 

For after all, disguise it from ourselves as we will, we are all girtabout with dark mysteries, into which we have to look whether we dareor not. We fill our life as full as we can of occupation andamusements, of warmth and comfort; yet sometimes, as we sit in ourpeaceful room, the gust pipes thin and shrill round the corners of thecourt, the rain rustles in the tree; we drop the book which we hold, and wonder what manner of things we indeed are, and what we shall be. Perhaps one of our companions is struck down, and goes without a wordor sign on his last journey; or some heavy calamity, some loss, somebereavement hangs over our lives, and we enter into the shadow; or someinexplicable or hopeless suffering involves one whom we love, fromwhich the only deliverance is death; and we realize that there is noexplanation, no consolation possible. In such moments we tend to thinkthat the world is a very terrible place, and that we pay a heavy pricefor our share in it. How unsubstantial then appear our hopes anddreams, our little ambitions, our paltry joys! In such a mood we feelthat the most definite creed illumines, as it were, but a tiny streakof the shadowy orb; and we are visited, too, by the fear that the moredefinite the creed, the more certain it is that it is only a desperatehuman attempt to state a mystery which cannot be stated, in a worldwhere all is dark. 

In such a despairing mood, we can but resign ourselves to the awfulWill of God, who sets us here, we know not why, and hurries us hence, we know not whither. Yet the very sternness and inexorability of thatdread purpose has something that sustains and invigorates. We look backupon our life, and feel that it has all followed a plan and a design, and that the worst evils we have had to bear have been our faithlessterrors about what should be; and then we feel the strength that ebbedfrom us drawing back to sustain us; we recognize that our presentsufferings have never been unbearable, that there has always been someresidue of hope; we read of how brave men have borne intolerablecalamities, and have smiled in the midst of them, at the reflectionthat they have never been so hard as was anticipated; and then we arehappy if we can determine that, whatever comes, we will try to do ourbest, in our small sphere, to live as truly and purely as we can, topractise courage and sincerity, to help our fellow-sufferers along, toguard innocence, to guide faltering feet, to encourage all the sweetand wholesome joys of life, to be loving, tender-hearted, generous, tolift up our hearts; not to be downcast and resentful because we do notunderstand everything at once, but humbly and gratefully to read thescroll as it is unrolled. 

 * * * * *

The night grows late. I rise to close my outer door to shut myself outfrom the world; I shall have no more visitors now. The moonlight liescold and clear on the little court; the shadow of the cloister pillarsfalls black on the pavement. Outside, the town lies hushed in sleep; Isee the gables and chimneys of the clustered houses standing in a quietdream over the old ivy-covered wall. The college is absolutely still, though one or two lights still burn in studious rooms, and peep throughcurtained chinks. What a beautiful place to live one's life in, a placewhich greets one with delicate associations, with venerable beauty, atevery turn! The moonlight falls through the tall oriel of the Hall, andthe armorial shields burn and glow with rich points of colour. I paceto and fro, wondering, musing. All here seems so permanent, so still, so secure, and yet we are spinning and whirling through space to someunknown goal. What are the thoughts of the mighty unresting Heart, towhose vastness and agelessness the whole mass of these flying andglowing suns are but as a handful of dust that a boy flings upon theair? How has He set me here, a tiny moving atom, yet more sure of myown minute identity than I am of all the vast panorama of things whichlie outside of me? Has He indeed a tender and a patient thought of me, the frail creature whom He has moulded and made? I do not doubt it; Ilook up among the star-sown spaces, and the old aspiration rises in myheart, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come eveninto His presence!" How would I go, like a tired and sorrowful child tohis father's knee, to be comforted and encouraged, in perfect trust andlove, to be raised in His arms, to be held to His heart! He would butlook in my face, and I should understand without a question, without aword. 

Now in its mouldering turret the old clock wakes and stirs, moves itsjarring wires, and the soft bell strikes midnight. Another of my fewshort days gone, another step nearer to the unseen. Slowly but notsadly I return, for I have been for a moment nearer God; the verythought that rises in my mind, and turns my heart to His, comes fromHim. He would make all plain, if He could; He gives us what we need;and when we at last awake we shall be satisfied. 

THE END