THE NOTE-BOOKS OF SAMUEL BUTLER

PREFACE

Early in his life Samuel Butler began to carry a note-book and towrite down in it anything he wanted to remember; it might besomething he heard some one say, more commonly it was something hesaid himself. In one of these notes he gives a reason for makingthem:

"One's thoughts fly so fast that one must shoot them; it is no usetrying to put salt on their tails. "

So he bagged as many as he could hit and preserved them, re-writtenon loose sheets of paper which constituted a sort of museum storedwith the wise, beautiful, and strange creatures that were continuallywinging their way across the field of his vision. As he became amore expert marksman his collection increased and his museum grew socrowded that he wanted a catalogue. In 1874 he started an index, andthis led to his reconsidering the notes, destroying those that heremembered having used in his published books and re-writing theremainder. The re-writing shortened some but it lengthened othersand suggested so many new ones that the index was soon of little useand there seemed to be no finality about it ("Making Notes, " pp. 100-1 post). In 1891 he attached the problem afresh and made it a ruleto spend an hour every morning re-editing his notes and keeping hisindex up to date. At his death, in 1902, he left five bound volumes, with the contents dated and indexed, about 225 pages of closelywritten sermon paper to each volume, and more than enough unbound andunindexed sheets to made a sixth volume of equal size. 

In accordance with his own advice to a young writer (p. 363 post), hewrote the notes in copying ink and kept a pressed copy with me as aprecaution against fire; but during his lifetime, unless he wanted torefer to something while he was in my chambers, I never looked atthem. After his death I took them down and went through them. Iknew in a general way what I should find, but I was not prepared forsuch a multitude and variety of thoughts, reflections, conversations, incidents. There are entries about his early life at Langar, Handel, school days at Shrewsbury, Cambridge, Christianity, literature, NewZealand, sheep-farming, philosophy, painting, money, evolution, morality, Italy, speculation, photography, music, natural history, archaeology, botany, religion, book-keeping, psychology, metaphysics, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Sicily, architecture, ethics, the Sonnets ofShakespeare. I thought of publishing the books just as they stand, but too many of the entries are of no general interest and too manyare of a kind that must wait if they are ever to be published. Inaddition to these objections the confusion is very great. One wouldlook in the earlier volumes for entries about New Zealand andevolution and in the later ones for entries about the Odyssey and theSonnets, but there is no attempt at arrangement and anywhere one maycome upon something about Handel, or a philosophical reflection, between a note giving the name of the best hotel in an Italian townand another about Harry Nicholls and Herbert Campbell as the Babes inthe Wood in the pantomime at the Grecian Theatre. This confusion hasa charm, but it is a charm that would not, I fear, survive in printand, personally, I find that it makes the books distracting forcontinuous reading. Moreover they were not intended to be publishedas they stand ("Preface to Vol. II, " p. 215 post), they wereintended for his own private use as a quarry from which to takematerial for his writing, and it is remarkable that in practice hescarcely ever used them in this way ("These Notes, " p. 261 post). When he had written and re-written a note and spoken it and repeatedit in conversation, it became so much a part of him that, if hewanted to introduce it in a book, it was less trouble to re-state itagain from memory than to search through his "precious indexes" forit and copy it ("Gadshill and Trapani, " p. 194, "At Piora, " p. 272post). But he could not have re-stated a note from memory if he hadnot learnt it by writing it, so that it may be said that he did usethe notes for his books, though not precisely in the way heoriginally intended. And the constant re-writing and re-consideringwere useful also by forcing him to settle exactly what he thought andto state it as clearly and tersely as possible. In this way themaking of the notes must have had an influence on the formation ofhis style--though here again he had no such idea in his mind whenwriting them ("Style, " pp. 186-7 post)

In one of the notes he says:

"A man may make, as it were, cash entries of himself in a day-book, but the entries in the ledger and the balancing of the accountsshould be done by others. "

When I began to write the Memoir of Butler on which I am stillengaged, I marked all the more autobiographical notes and had themcopied; again I was struck by the interest, the variety, and theconfusion of those I left untouched. It seemed to me that any onewho undertook to become Butler's accountant and to post his entriesupon himself would have to settle first how many and what accounts toopen in the ledger, and this could not be done until it had beensettled which items were to be selected for posting. It was thedifficulty of those who dare not go into the water until after theyhave learnt to swim. I doubt whether I should ever have made theplunge if it had not been for the interest which Mr. DesmondMacCarthy took in Butler and his writings. He had occasionallybrowsed on my copy of the books, and when he became editor of areview, the New Quarterly, he asked for some of the notes forpublication, thus providing a practical and simple way of enteringupon the business without any very alarming plunge. I talked hisproposal over with Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, Butler's literary executor, and, having obtained his approval, set to work. From November 1907to May 1910, inclusive, the New Quarterly published six groups ofnotes and the long note on "Genius" (pp. 174-8 post). The experiencegained in selecting, arranging, and editing these items has been ofgreat use to me and I thank the proprietor and editor of the NewQuarterly for permission to republish such of the notes as appearedin their review. 

In preparing this book I began by going through the notes again andmarking all that seemed to fall within certain groups roughlyindicated by the arrangement in the review. I had these selecteditems copied, distributed them among those which were already inprint, shuffled them and turned them over, meditating on them, familiarising myself with them and tentatively forming new groups. While doing this I was continually gleaning from the books more noteswhich I had overlooked, and making such verbal alterations as seemednecessary to avoid repetition, to correct obvious errors and toremove causes of reasonable offence. The ease with which two or morenotes would condense into one was sometimes surprising, but therewere cases in which the language had to be varied and others in whicha few words had to be added to bridge over a gap; as a rule, however, the necessary words were lying ready in some other note. I alsoreconsidered the titles and provided titles for many notes which hadnone. In making these verbal alterations I bore in mind Butler's ownviews on the subject which I found in a note about editing letters:

"Granted that an editor, like a translator, should keep asreligiously close to the original text as he reasonably can, and, inevery alteration, should consider what the writer would have wishedand done if he or she could have been consulted, yet, subject tothese limitations, he should be free to alter according to hisdiscretion or indiscretion. "

My "discretion or indiscretion" was less seriously strained in makingtextual changes than in determining how many, and what, groups tohave and which notes, in what order, to include in each group. Hereis a note Butler made about classification:

"Fighting about words is like fighting about accounts, and allclassification is like accounts. Sometimes it is easy to see whichway the balance of convenience lies, sometimes it is very hard toknow whether an item should be carried to one account or to another. "

Except in the group headed "Higgledy-Piggledy, " I have endeavoured topost each note to a suitable account, but some of Butler's leadingideas, expressed in different forms, will be found posted to morethan one account, and this kind of repetition is in accordance withhis habit in conversation. It would probably be correct to say thatI have heard him speak the substance of every note many times indifferent contexts. In seeking for the most characteristic context, I have shifted and shifted the notes and considered and re-consideredthem under different aspects, taking hints from the delicatechameleon changes of significance that came over them as theyharmonised or discorded with their new surroundings. Presently Icaught myself restoring notes to positions they had previouslyoccupied instead of finding new places for them, and the increasingfrequency with which difficulties were solved by these restorationsat last forced me to the conclusion, which I accepted only with verygreat regret, that my labours were at an end. 

I do not expect every one to approve of the result. If I had beentrying to please every one, I should have made only a very short andunrepresentative selection which Mr. Fifield would have refused topublish. I have tried to make suck a book as I believe would havepleased Butler. That is to say, I have tried to please one who, byreason of his intimate knowledge of the subject and of thedifficulties, would have looked with indulgence upon the manymistakes which it is now too late to correct, even if knew how tocorrect them. Had it been possible for him to see what I have done, he would have detected all my sins, both of omission and ofcommission, and I like to imagine that he would have used some suchconsoling words as these: "Well, never mind; one cannot haveeverything; and, after all, 'Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. '"

Here will be found much of what he used to say as he talked with oneor two intimate friends in his own chambers or in mine at the closeof the day, or on a Sunday walk in the country round London, or as wewandered together through Italy and Sicily; and I would it werepossible to charge these pages with some echo of his voice and withsome reflection of his manner. But, again; one cannot haveeverything. 

"Men's work we have, " quoth one, "but we want them -Them palpable to touch and clear to view. "Is it so nothing, then, to have the gemBut we must cry to have the setting too?

In the New Quarterly each note was headed with a reference to itsplace in the Note-Books. This has not been done here because, onconsideration, it seemed useless, and even irritating, to keep onputting before the reader references which he could not verify. Iintend to give to the British Museum a copy of this volume whereineach note will show where the material of which it is composed can befound; thus, if the original Note-Books are also some day given tothe Museum, any one sufficiently interested will be able to seeexactly what I have done in selecting, omitting, editing, condensingand classifying. 

Some items are included that are not actually in the Note-Books; thelongest of these are the two New Zealand articles "Darwin among theMachines" and "Lucubratio Ebria" as to which something is said in thePrefatory Note to "The Germs of Erewhon and of Life and Habit" (pp. 39-42 post). In that Prefatory Note a Dialogue on Species by Butlerand an autograph letter from Charles Darwin are mentioned. Since thenote was in type I have received from New Zealand a copy of theWeekly Press of 19th June, 1912, containing the Dialogue againreprinted and a facsimile reproduction of Darwin's letter. I thankMr. W. H. Triggs, the present editor of the Press, Christchurch, NewZealand, also Miss Colborne-Veel and the members of the staff fortheir industry and perseverance in searching for and identifyingButler's early contributions to the newspaper. 

The other principal items not actually in the Note-Books, the letterto T. W. G. Butler (pp. 53-5 post), "A Psalm of Montreal" (pp. 388-9post) and "The Righteous Man" (pp. 390-1 post). I suppose Butlerkept all these out of his notes because he considered that they hadserved their purpose; but they have not hitherto appeared in a formnow accessible to the general reader. 

All the footnotes are mine and so are all those prefatory notes whichare printed in italics and the explanatory remarks in square bracketswhich occur occasionally in the text. I have also preserved, insquare brackets, the date of a note when anything seemed to turn onit. And I have made the index. 

The Biographical Statement is founded on a skeleton Diary which is inthe Note-Books. It is intended to show, among other things, howintimately the great variety of subjects touched upon in the notesentered into and formed part of Butler's working life. It does notstop at the 18th of June, 1902, because, as he says (p. 23 post), "Death is not more the end of some than it is the beginning ofothers"; and, again (p. 13 post), for those who come to the truebirth the life we live beyond the grave is our truest life. TheBiographical Statement has accordingly been carried on to the presenttime so as to include the principal events that have occurred duringthe opening period of the "good average three-score years and ten ofimmortality" which he modestly hoped he might inherit in the life ofthe world to come. 

HENRY FESTING JONES. Mount Eryx, Trapani, Sicily, August, 1912. 

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

1835. Dec. 4. Samuel Butler born at Langar Rectory, Nottingham, sonof the Rev. Thomas Butler, who was the son of Dr. Samuel Butler, Headmaster of Shrewsbury School from 1798 to 1836, and afterwardsBishop of Lichfield. 

1843-4. Spent the winter in Rome and Naples with his family. 

1846. Went to school at Allesley, near Coventry. 

1848. Went to school at Shrewsbury under Dr. Kennedy. 

Went to Italy for the second time with his family. 

First heard the music of Handel. 

1854. Entered at St. John's College, Cambridge. 

1858. Bracketed 12th in the first class of the Classical Tripos andtook his degree. 

Went to London and began to prepare for ordination, living among thepoor and doing parish work: this led to his doubting the efficacy ofinfant baptism and hence to his declining to take orders. 

1859. Sailed for New Zealand and started sheep-farming in CanterburyProvince: while in the colony he wrote much for the Press ofChristchurch, N. Z. 

1862. Dec. 20. "Darwin on The Origin of Species. A Dialogue, "unsigned but written by Butler, appeared in the Press and wasfollowed by correspondence to which Butler contributed. 

1863. A First Year in Canterbury Settlement: made out of hisletters home to his family together with two articles reprinted fromthe Eagle (the magazine of St. John's College, Cambridge): MS. Lost. 

1863. "Darwin among the Machines, " a letter signed "Cellarius"written by Butler, appeared in the Press. 

1864. Sold out his sheep run and returned to England in company withCharles Paine Pauli, whose acquaintance he had made in the colony. He brought back enough to enable him to live quietly, settled forgood at 15 Clifford's Inn, London, and began life as a painter, studying at Cary's, Heatherley's and the South Kensington Art Schoolsand exhibiting pictures occasionally at the Royal Academy and otherexhibitions: while studying art he made the acquaintance of, amongothers, Charles Gogin, William Ballard and Thomas William GaleButler. 

"Family Prayers": a small painting by Butler. 

1865. "Lucubratio Ebria, " an article, containing variations of theview in "Darwin among the Machines, " sent by Butler from England, appeared in the Press. 

The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as contained in theFour Evangelists critically examined: a pamphlet of VIII+48 pp. Written in New Zealand: the conclusion arrived at is that theevidence is insufficient to support the belief that Christ died androse from the dead: MS. Lost, probably used up in writing The FairHaven. 

1869-70. Was in Italy for four months, his health having broken downin consequence of over-work. 

1870 or 1871. First meeting with Miss Eliza Mary Ann Savage, fromwhom he drew Alethea in The Way of All Flesh. 

1872. Erewhon or Over the Range: a Work of Satire and Imagination:MS. In the British Museum. 

1873. Erewhon translated into Dutch. 

The Fair Haven: an ironical work, purporting to be "in defence ofthe miraculous element in our Lord's ministry upon earth, both asagainst rationalistic impugners and certain orthodox defenders, "written under the pseudonym of John Pickard Owen with a memoir of thesupposed author by his brother William Bickersteth Owen. This bookreproduces--the substance of his pamphlet on the resurrection: MS. At Christchurch, New Zealand. 

1874. "Mr. Heatherley's Holiday, " his most important oil painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition, now in the NationalGallery of British Art. 

1876. Having invested his money in various companies that failed, one of which had its works in Canada, and having spent much timeduring the last few years in that country, trying unsuccessfully tosave part of his capital, he now returned to London, and during thenext ten years experienced serious financial difficulties. 

First meeting with Henry Festing Jones. 

1877. Life and Habit: an Essay after a Completer View of Evolution:dedicated to Charles Paine Pauli: although dated 1878 the book waspublished on Butler's birthday, 4th December, 1877: MS. At theSchools, Shrewsbury. 

1878. "A Psalm of Montreal" in the Spectator: There are probablymany MSS. Of this poem in existence given by Butler to friends: one, which he gave to H. F. Jones, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 

A Portrait of Butler, painted in this year by himself, now at St. John's College, Cambridge. 

1879. Evolution Old and New: A comparison of the theories ofBuffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck with that of Charles Darwin:MS. In the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 

A Clergyman's Doubts and God the Known and God the Unknown appearedin the Examiner: MS. Lost. 

Erewhon translated into German. 

1880. Unconscious Memory: A comparison between the theory of Dr. Ewald Hering, Professor of Physiology in the University of Prague, and the Philosophy of the Unconscious of Dr. Edward von Hartmann, with translations from both these authors and preliminary chaptersbearing upon Life and Habit, Evolution Old and New, and CharlesDarwin's Edition of Dr. Krause's Erasmus Darwin. 

A Portrait of Butler, painted in this year by himself, now at theSchools, Shrewsbury. A third portrait of Butler, painted by himselfabout this time, is at Christchurch, New Zealand. 

1881. A property at Shrewsbury, in which under his grandfather'swill he had a reversionary interest contingent on his surviving hisfather, was re-settled so as to make his reversion absolute: hemortgaged this reversion and bought small property near London: thistemporarily alleviated his financial embarrassment but added to hiswork, for he spent much time in the management of the houses, learntbook-keeping by double-entry and kept elaborate accounts. 

Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino illustrated bythe author, Charles Gogin and Henry Festing Jones: an account of hisholiday travels with dissertations on most of the subjects thatinterested him: MS. With H. F. Jones. 

1882. A new edition of Evolution Old and New, with a short prefacealluding to the recent death of Charles Darwin, an appendix and anindex. 

1883. Began to compose music as nearly as he could in the style ofHandel. 

1884. Selections from Previous Works with "A Psalm of Montreal" and"Remarks on G. J. Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals. "

1885. Death of Miss Savage. 

Gavottes, Minuets, Fugues and other short pieces for the piano bySamuel Butler and Henry Festing Jones: MS. With H. F. Jones. 

1886. Holbein's La Danse: a note on a drawing in the Museum atBasel. 

Stood, unsuccessfully, for the Professorship of Fine Arts in theUniversity of Cambridge. 

Dec. 29. Death of his father and end of his financialembarrassments. 

1887. Engaged Alfred Emery Cathie as clerk and general attendant. 

Luck or Cunning as the main means of Organic Modification? Anattempt to throw additional light upon Charles Darwin's theory ofNatural Selection. 

Was entertained at dinner by the Municipio of Varallo-Sesia on theSacro Monte. 

1888. Took up photography. 

1888. Ex Voto: an account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem atVarallo-Sesia, with some notice of Tabachetti's remaining work atCrea and illustrations from photographs by the author: MS. AtVarallo-Sesia. 

Narcissus: a Cantata in the Handelian form, words and music bySamuel Butler and Henry Festing Jones: MS. Of the piano score in theBritish Museum. MS. Of the orchestral score with H. F. Jones. 

In this and the two following years contributed some articles to theUniversal Review, most of which were republished after his death asEssays on Life, Art, and Science (1904). 

1890. Began to study counterpoint with William Smith Rockstro andcontinued to do so until Rockstro's death in 1895. 

1892. The Humour of Homer. A Lecture delivered at the Working Men'sCollege, Great Ormond Street, London, January 30, 1892, reprintedwith preface and additional matter from the Eagle. 

Went to Sicily, the first of many visits, to collect evidence insupport of his theory identifying the Scheria and Ithaca of theOdyssey with Trapani and the neighbouring Mount Eryx. 

1893. "L'Origine Siciliana dell' Odissea. " Extracted from theRassegna della Letteratura Siciliana. 

"On the Trapanese Origin of the Odyssey" (Translation). 

1894. Ex Voto translated into Italian by Cavaliere Angelo Rizzetti. 

"Ancora sull' origine dell' Odissea. " Extracted from the Rassegnadella Letteratura Siciliana. 

1895. Went to Greece and the Troad to make up his mind about thetopography of the Iliad. 

1896. The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler (his grandfather) inso far as they illustrate the scholastic, religious and social lifeof England from 1790-1840: MS. At the Shrewsbury Town Library orMuseum. 

His portrait painted by Charles Gogin, now in the National PortraitGallery. 

1897. The Authoress of the Odyssey, where and when she wrote, whoshe was, the use she made of the Iliad and how the poem grew underher hands: MS. At Trapani. 

1897. Death of Charles Paine Pauli. 

1898. The Iliad rendered into English prose: MS. At St. John'sCollege, Cambridge. 

1899. Shakespeare's Sonnets reconsidered and in part rearranged, with introductory chapters, notes and a reprint of the original 1609edition: MS. With R. A. Streatfeild. 

1900. The Odyssey rendered into English prose: MS. At Aci-Reale, Sicily. 

1901. Erewhon Revisited twenty years later both by the OriginalDiscoverer of the Country and by his Son: this was a return not onlyto Erewhon but also to the subject of the pamphlet on theresurrection. MS. In the British Museum. 

1902. June, 18. Death of Samuel Butler. 

1902. "Samuel Butler, " an article by Richard Alexander Streatfeildin the Monthly Review (September). 

"Samuel Butler, " an obituary notice by Henry Festing Jones in theEagle (December). 

1903. Samuel Butler Records and Memorials, a collection of obituarynotices with a note by R. A. Streatfeild, his literary executor, printed for private circulation: with reproduction of a photographof Butler taken at Varallo in 1889. 

The Way of All Flesh, a novel, written between 1872 and 1885, published by R. A. Streatfeild: MS. With Mr. R. A. Streatfeild. 

1904. Seven Sonnets and A Psalm of Montreal printed for privatecirculation. 

Essays on Life, Art and Science, being reprints of his UniversalReview articles, together with two lectures. 

Ulysses, an Oratorio: Words and music by Samuel Butler and HenryFesting Jones: MS. Of the piano score in the British Museum, MS. Ofthe orchestral score with H. F. Jones. 

"The Author of Erewhon, " an article by Desmond MacCarthy in theIndependent Review (September). 

1904. Diary of a Journey through North Italy to Sicily (in thespring of 1903, undertaken for the purpose of leaving the MSS. Ofthree books by Samuel Butler at Varallo-Sesia, Aci-Reale and Trapani)by Henry Festing Jones, with reproduction of Gogin's portrait ofButler. Printed for private circulation. 

1907. Nov. Between this date and May, 1910, some Extracts from TheNote-Books of Samuel Butler appeared in the New Quarterly Reviewunder the editorship of Desmond MacCarthy. 

1908. July 16. The first Erewhon dinner at Pagani's Restaurant, Great Portland Street; 32 persons present: the day was fixed byProfessor Marcus Hartog. 

Second Edition of The Way of All Flesh. 

1909. God the Known and God the Unknown republished in book formfrom the Examiner (1879) by A. C. Fifield, with prefatory note by R. A. Streatfeild. 

July 15. The second Erewhon dinner at Pagani's; 53 present: the daywas fixed by Mr. George Bernard Shaw. 

1910. Feb. 10. Samuel Butler Author of Erewhon, a Paper read beforethe British Association of Homoeopathy at 43 Russell Square, W. C. , byHenry Festing Jones. Some of Butler's music was performed by MissGrainger Kerr, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild, Mr. J. A. Fuller Maitland andMr. H. J. T. Wood, the Secretary of the Association. 

June. Unconscious Memory, a new edition entirely reset with a noteby R. A. Streatfeild and an introduction by Professor Marcus Hartog, M. A. , D. Sc. , F. L. S. , F. R. H. S. , Professor of Zoology in UniversityCollege, Cork. 

July 14. The third Erewhon dinner at Pagani's Restaurant; 58present: the day was fixed by the Right Honourable AugustineBirrell, K. C. , M. P. 

Nov. 16. Samuel Butler Author of Erewhon. A paper read before theHistorical Society of St. John's College, Cambridge, in theCombination-room of the college, by Henry Festing Jones. The Master(Mr. R. F. Scott), who was also Vice-Chancellor of the University, was in the chair and a Vote of Thanks was proposed by ProfessorBateson, F. R. S. 

1910. Nov. 28. Life and Habit, a new edition with a preface by R. A. Streatfeild and author's addenda, being three pages containingpassages which Butler had cut out of the original book or hadintended to insert in a future edition. 

1911. May 25. The jubilee number of the Press, New Zealand, contained an account of Butler's connection with the newspaper andreprinted "Darwin among the Machines" and "Lucubratio Ebria. "

July 15. The fourth Erewhon dinner at Pagani's Restaurant; 75present: the day was fixed by Sir William Phipson Beale, Bart. , K. C. , M. P. 

Nov. Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler: A Step towardsReconciliation, by Henry Festing Jones. A pamphlet giving thesubstance of a correspondence between Mr. Francis Darwin and theauthor and reproducing letters by Charles Darwin about the quarrelbetween himself and Butler referred to in Chapter IV of UnconsciousMemory. 

Evolution Old and New, a reprint of the second edition (1882) withprefatory note by R. A. Streatfeild. 

1912. June 1. Letter from Henry Festing Jones in the Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, about Butler's Dialogue, which hadappeared originally in the Press December 20, 1862, and could not befound. 

June 8. "Darwin on the Origin of Species. A Dialogue "discovered inconsequence of the foregoing letter and reprinted in the Press. 

June 15. The Press reprinted some of the correspondence, etc. Whichfollowed on the original appearance of the Dialogue. 

Some of Butler's water-colour drawings having been given to theBritish Museum, two were included in an exhibition held there duringthe summer. 

July 12. The Fifth Erewhon Dinner at Pagani's Restaurant; 90present; the day was fixed by Mr. Edmund Gosse, C. B. , LL. D. 

I--LORD, WHAT IS MAN?

Man

i

We are like billiard balls in a game played by unskilful players, continually being nearly sent into a pocket, but hardly ever gettingright into one, except by a fluke. 

ii

We are like thistle-down blown about by the wind--up and down, hereand there--but not one in a thousand ever getting beyond seed-hood. 

iii

A man is a passing mood coming and going in the mind of his country;he is the twitching of a nerve, a smile, a frown, a thought of shameor honour, as it may happen. 

iv

How loosely our thoughts must hang together when the whiff of asmell, a band playing in the street, a face seen in the fire, or onthe gnarled stem of a tree, will lead them into such vagaries at amoment's warning. 

v

When I was a boy at school at Shrewsbury, old Mrs. Brown used to keepa tray of spoiled tarts which she sold cheaper. They most of themlooked pretty right till you handled them. We are all spoiled tarts. 

vi

He is a poor creature who does not believe himself to be better thanthe whole world else. No matter how ill we may be, or how low we mayhave fallen, we would not change identity with any other person. Hence our self-conceit sustains and always must sustain us till deathtakes us and our conceit together so that we need no more sustaining. 

vii

Man must always be a consuming fire or be consumed. As for hell, weare in a burning fiery furnace all our lives--for what is life but aprocess of combustion?

Life

i

We have got into life by stealth and petitio principii, by the freeuse of that contradiction in terms which we declare to be the mostoutrageous violation of our reason. We have wriggled into it byholding that everything is both one and many, both infinite in timeand space and yet finite, both like and unlike to the same thing, both itself and not itself, both free and yet inexorably fettered, both every adjective in the dictionary and at the same time the flatcontradiction of every one of them. 

ii

The beginning of life is the beginning of an illusion to the effectthat there is such a thing as free will and that there is suchanother thing as necessity--the recognition of the fact that there isan "I can" and an "I cannot, " an "I may" and an "I must. "

iii

Life is not so much a riddle to be read as a Gordian knot that willget cut sooner or later. 

iv

Life is the distribution of an error--or errors. 

v

Murray (the publisher) said that my Life of Dr. Butler was an omniumgatherum. Yes, but life is an omnium gatherum. 

vi

Life is a superstition. But superstitions are not without theirvalue. The snail's shell is a superstition, slugs have no shells andthrive just as well. But a snail without a shell would not be a slugunless it had also the slug's indifference to a shell. 

vii

Life is one long process of getting tired. 

viii

My days run through me as water through a sieve. 

ix

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficientpremises. 

x

Life is eight parts cards and two parts play, the unseen world ismade manifest to us in the play. 

xi

Lizards generally seem to have lost their tails by the time theyreach middle life. So have most men. 

xii

A sense of humour keen enough to show a man his own absurdities, aswell as those of other people, will keep him from the commission ofall sins, or nearly all, save those that are worth committing. 

xiii

Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for theysometimes guide in doubtful cases--though not often. 

xiv

There are two great rules of life, the one general and the otherparticular. The first is that every one can, in the end, get what hewants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particularrule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to thegeneral rule. 

xv

Nature is essentially mean, mediocre. You can have schemes forraising the level of this mean, but not for making every one twoinches taller than his neighbour, and this is what people really careabout. 

xvi

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part ofevery organism to live beyond its income. 

The World

i

The world is a gambling-table so arranged that all who enter thecasino must play and all must lose more or less heavily in the longrun, though they win occasionally by the way. 

ii

We play out our days as we play out cards, taking them as they come, not knowing what they will be, hoping for a lucky card and sometimesgetting one, often getting just the wrong one. 

iii

The world may not be particularly wise--still, we know of nothingwiser. 

iv

The world will always be governed by self-interest. We should nottry to stop this, we should try to make the self-interest of cads alittle more coincident with that of decent people. 

The Individual and the World

There is an eternal antagonism of interest between the individual andthe world at large. The individual will not so much care how much hemay suffer in this world provided he can live in men's good thoughtslong after he has left it. The world at large does not so much carehow much suffering the individual may either endure or cause in thislife, provided he will take himself clean away out of men's thoughts, whether for good or ill, when he has left it. 

My Life

i

I imagine that life can give nothing much better or much worse thanwhat I have myself experienced. I should say I had proved prettywell the extremes of mental pleasure and pain; and so I believe eachin his own way does, almost every man. 

ii

I have squandered my life as a schoolboy squanders a tip. But thenhalf, or more than half the fun a schoolboy gets out of a tipconsists in the mere fact of having something to squander. Squandering is in itself delightful, and so I found it with my lifein my younger days. I do not squander it now, but I am not sorrythat I have squandered a good deal of it. What a heap of rubbishthere would have been if I had not! Had I not better set aboutsquandering what is left of it?

The Life we Live in Others

A man should spend his life or, rather, does spend his life in beingborn. His life is his birth throes. But most men miscarry and nevercome to the true birth at all and some live but a very short time ina very little world and none are eternal. Still, the life we livebeyond the grave is our truest life, and our happiest, for we pass itin the profoundest sleep as though we were children in our cradles. If we are wronged it hurts us not; if we wrong others, we do notsuffer for it; and when we die, as even the Handels and Bellinis andShakespeares sooner or later do, we die easily, know neither fear norpain and live anew in the lives of those who have been begotten ofour work and who have for the time come up in our room. 

An immortal like Shakespeare knows nothing of his own immortalityabout which we are so keenly conscious. As he knows nothing of itwhen it is in its highest vitality, centuries, it may be, after hisapparent death, so it is best and happiest if during his bodily lifehe should think little or nothing about it and perhaps hardly suspectthat he will live after his death at all. 

And yet I do not know--I could not keep myself going at all if I didnot believe that I was likely to inherit a good average three-scoreyears and ten of immortality. There are very few workers who are notsustained by this belief, or at least hope, but it may well bedoubted whether this is not a sign that they are not going to beimmortal--and I am content (or try to be) to fare as my neighbours. 

The World Made to Enjoy

When we grumble about the vanity of all human things, inasmuch aseven the noblest works are not eternal but must become sooner orlater as though they had never been, we should remember that theworld, so far as we can see, was made to enjoy rather than to last. Come-and-go pervades everything of which we have knowledge, andthough great things go more slowly, they are built up of small onesand must fare as that which makes them. 

Are we to have our enjoyment of Handel and Shakespeare weakenedbecause a day will come when there will be no more of either Handelor Shakespeare nor yet of ears to hear them? Is it not enough thatthey should stir such countless multitudes so profoundly and kindlesuch intense and affectionate admiration for so many ages as theyhave done and probably will continue to do? The life of a greatthing may be so long as practically to come to immortality even now, but that is not the point. The point is that if anything was aimedat at all when things began to shape or to be shaped, it seems tohave been a short life and a merry one, with an extension of time incertain favoured cases, rather than a permanency even of the verybest and noblest. And, when one comes to think of it, death andbirth are so closely correlated that one could not destroy eitherwithout destroying the other at the same time. It is extinction thatmakes creation possible. 

If, however, any work is to have long life it is not enough that itshould be good of its kind. Many ephemeral things are perfect intheir way. It must be of a durable kind as well. 

Living in Others

We had better live in others as much as we can if only because wethus live more in the race, which God really does seem to care abouta good deal, and less in the individual, to whom, so far as I cansee, he is indifferent. After we are dead it matters not to the lifewe have led in ourselves what people may say of us, but it mattersmuch to the life we lead in others and this should be our true life. 

Karma

When I am inclined to complain about having worked so many years andtaken nothing but debt, though I feel the want of money socontinually (much more, doubtless, than I ought to feel it), let meremember that I come in free, gratis, to the work of hundreds andthousands of better men than myself who often were much worse paidthan I have been. If a man's true self is his karma--the life whichhis work lives but which he knows very little about and by which hetakes nothing--let him remember at least that he can enjoy the karmaof others, and this about squares the account--or rather far morethan squares it. [1883. ]

Birth and Death

i

They are functions one of the other and if you get rid of one youmust get rid of the other also. There is birth in death and death inbirth. We are always dying and being born again. 

ii

Life is the gathering of waves to a head, at death they break into amillion fragments each one of which, however, is absorbed at onceinto the sea of life and helps to form a later generation which comesrolling on till it too breaks. 

iii

What happens to you when you die? But what happens to you when youare born? In the one case we are born and in the other we die, butit is not possible to get much further. 

iv

We commonly know that we are going to die though we do not know thatwe are going to be born. But are we sure this is so? We may havehad the most gloomy forebodings on this head and forgotten all aboutthem. At any rate we know no more about the very end of our livesthan about the very beginning. We come up unconsciously, and go downunconsciously; and we rarely see either birth or death. We seepeople, as consciousness, between the two extremes. 

Reproduction

Its base must be looked for not in the desire of the parents toreproduce but in the discontent of the germs with their surroundingsinside those parents, and a desire on their part to have a separatemaintenance. {16} [1880. ]

Thinking almost Identically

The ova, spermatozoa and embryos not only of all human races but ofall things that live, whether animal or vegetable, think little, butthat little almost identically on every subject. That "almost" isthe little rift within the lute which by and by will give suchdifferent character to the music. [1889. ]

Is Life Worth Living?

This is a question for an embryo, not for a man. [1883. ]

Evacuations

There is a resemblance, greater or less, between the pleasure wederive from all the evacuations. I believe that in all cases thepleasure arises from rest--rest, that is to say, from theconsiderable, though in most cases unconscious labour of retainingthat which it is a relief to us to be rid of. 

In ordinary cases the effort whereby we retain those things that wewould get rid of is unperceived by the central government, being, Isuppose, departmentally made; we--as distinguished from thesubordinate personalities of which we are composed--know nothingabout it, though the subordinates in question doubtless do. But whenthe desirability of removing is abnormally great, we know about theeffort of retaining perfectly well, and the gradual increase in ourperception of the effort suggests strongly that there has been effortall the time, descending to conscious and great through unconsciousand normal from unconscious and hardly any at all. The relaxation ofthis effort is what causes the sense of refreshment that follows allhealthy discharges. 

All our limbs and sensual organs, in fact our whole body and life, are but an accretion round and a fostering of the spermatozoa. Theyare the real "He. " A man's eyes, ears, tongue, nose, legs and armsare but so many organs and tools that minister to the protection, education, increased intelligence and multiplication of thespermatozoa; so that our whole life is in reality a series of complexefforts in respect of these, conscious or unconscious according totheir comparative commonness. They are the central fact in ourexistence, the point towards which all effort is directed. Relaxation of effort here, therefore, is the most complete andcomprehensive of all relaxations and, as such, the supremegratification--the most complete rest we can have, short of sleep anddeath. 

Man and His Organism

i

Man is but a perambulating tool-box and workshop, or office, fashioned for itself by a piece of very clever slime, as the resultof long experience; and truth is but its own most enlarged, generaland enduring sense of the coming togetherness or convenience of thevarious conventional arrangements which, for some reason or other, ithas been led to sanction. Hence we speak of man's body as his"trunk. "

ii

The body is but a pair of pincers set over a bellows and a stewpanand the whole fixed upon stilts. 

iii

A man should see himself as a kind of tool-box; this is simpleenough; the difficulty is that it is the tools themselves that makeand work the tools. The skill which now guides our organs and us inarts and inventions was at one time exercised upon the invention ofthese very organs themselves. Tentative bankruptcy acts afford goodillustrations of the manner in which organisms have been developed. The ligaments which bind the tendons of our feet or the valves of ourblood vessels are the ingenious enterprises of individual cells whosaw a want, felt that they could supply it, and have thus wonthemselves a position among the old aristocracy of the body politic. 

The most incorporate tool--as an eye or a tooth or the fist, when ablow is struck with it--has still something of the non-ego about it;and in like manner such a tool as a locomotive engine, apparentlyentirely separated from the body, must still from time to time, as itwere, kiss the soil of the human body and be handled, and thus becomeincorporate with man, if it is to remain in working order. 

Tools

A tool is anything whatsoever which is used by an intelligent beingfor realising its object. The idea of a desired end is inseparablefrom a tool. The very essence of a tool is the being an instrumentfor the achievement of a purpose. We say that a man is the tool ofanother, meaning that he is being used for the furtherance of thatother's ends, and this constitutes him a machine in use. Thereforethe word "tool" implies also the existence of a living, intelligentbeing capable of desiring the end for which the tool is used, forthis is involved in the idea of a desired end. And as few tools grownaturally fit for use (for even a stick or a fuller's teasel must becut from their places and modified to some extent before they can becalled tools), the word "tool" implies not only a purpose and apurposer, but a purposer who can see in what manner his purpose canbe achieved, and who can contrive (or find ready-made and fetch andemploy) the tool which shall achieve it. 

Strictly speaking, nothing is a tool unless during actual use. Nevertheless, if a thing has been made for the express purpose ofbeing used as a tool it is commonly called a tool, whether it is inactual use or no. Thus hammers, chisels, etc. , are called tools, though lying idle in a tool-box. What is meant is that, though notactually being used as instruments at the present moment, they bearthe impress of their object, and are so often in use that we mayspeak of them as though they always were so. Strictly, a thing is atool or not a tool just as it may happen to be in use or not. Thus astone may be picked up and used to hammer a nail with, but the stoneis not a tool until picked up with an eye to use; it is a tool assoon as this happens, and, if thrown away immediately the nail hasbeen driven home, the stone is a tool no longer. We see, therefore, matter alternating between a toolish or organic state and anuntoolish or inorganic. Where there is intention it is organic, where there is no intention it is inorganic. Perhaps, however, theword "tool" should cover also the remains of a tool so long as thereare manifest signs that the object was a tool once. 

The simplest tool I can think of is a piece of gravel used for makinga road. Nothing is done to it, it owes its being a tool simply tothe fact that it subserves a purpose. A broken piece of granite usedfor macadamising a road is a more complex instrument, about thetoolishness of which no doubt can be entertained. It will, however, I think, be held that even a piece of gravel found in situ and leftthere untouched, provided it is so left because it was deemedsuitable for a road which was designed to pass over the spot, wouldbecome a tool in virtue of the recognition of its utility, while asimilar piece of gravel a yard off on either side the proposed roadwould not be a tool. 

The essence of a tool, therefore, lies in something outside the toolitself. It is not in the head of the hammer, nor in the handle, norin the combination of the two that the essence of mechanicalcharacteristics exists, but in the recognition of its utility and inthe forces directed through it in virtue of this recognition. Thisappears more plainly when we reflect that a very complex machine, ifintended for use by children whose aim is not serious, ceases to rankin our minds as a tool, and becomes a toy. It is seriousness of aimand recognition of suitability for the achievement of that aim, andnot anything in the tool itself, that makes the tool. 

The goodness or badness, again, of a tool depends not upon anythingwithin the tool as regarded without relation to the user, but uponthe ease or difficulty experienced by the person using it incomparison with what he or others of average capacity wouldexperience if they had used a tool of a different kind. Thus thesame tool may be good for one man and bad for another. 

It seems to me that all tools resolve themselves into the hammer andthe lever, and that the lever is only an inverted hammer, or thehammer only an inverted lever, whichever one wills; so that all theproblems of mechanics are present to us in the simple stone which maybe used as a hammer, or in the stick that may be used as a lever, asmuch as in the most complicated machine. These are the primordialcells of mechanics. And an organ is only another name for a tool. 

Organs and Makeshifts

I have gone out sketching and forgotten my water-dipper; among mytraps I always find something that will do, for example, the top ofmy tin case (for holding pencils). This is how organs come to changetheir uses and hence their forms, or at any rate partly how. 

Joining and Disjoining

These are the essence of change. 

One of the earliest notes I made, when I began to make notes at all, I found not long ago in an old book, since destroyed, which I had inNew Zealand. It was to the effect that all things are either of thenature of a piece of string or a knife. That is, they are either forbringing and keeping things together, or for sending and keeping themapart. Nevertheless each kind contains a little of its opposite andsome, as the railway train and the hedge, combine many examples ofboth. Thus the train, on the whole, is used for bringing thingstogether, but it is also used for sending them apart, and itsdivisions into classes are alike for separating and keeping together. The hedge is also both for joining things (as a flock of sheep) andfor disjoining (as for keeping the sheep from getting into corn). These are the more immediate ends. The ulterior ends, both of trainand hedge, so far as we are concerned, and so far as anything canhave an end, are the bringing or helping to bring meat or dairyproduce into contact with man's inside, or wool on to his back, orthat he may go in comfort somewhere to converse with people and joinhis soul on to theirs, or please himself by getting something to comewithin the range of his senses or imagination. 

A piece of string is a thing that, in the main, makes fortogetheriness; whereas a knife is, in the main, a thing that makesfor splitty-uppiness; still, there is an odour of togetherinesshanging about a knife also, for it tends to bring potatoes into aman's stomach. 

In high philosophy one should never look at a knife withoutconsidering it also as a piece of string, nor at a piece of stringwithout considering it also as a knife. 

Cotton Factories

Surely the work done by the body is, in one way, more its true lifethan its limbs and organisation are. Which is the more true life ofa great cotton factory--the bales of goods which it turns out for theworld's wearing or the machinery whereby its ends are achieved? Themanufacture is only possible by reason of the machinery; it isproduced by this. The machinery only exists in virtue of its beingcapable of producing the manufacture; it is produced for this. Themachinery represents the work done by the factory that turned it out. 

Somehow or other when we think of a factory we think rather of thefabric and mechanism than of the work, and so we think of a man'slife and living body as constituting himself rather than of the workthat the life and living body turn out. The instinct being as strongas it is, I suppose it sound, but it seems as though the life shouldbe held to be quite as much in the work itself as in the tools thatproduce it--and perhaps more. 

Our Trivial Bodies

i

Though we think so much of our body, it is in reality a small part ofus. Before birth we get together our tools, in life we use them, andthus fashion our true life which consists not in our tools and tool-box but in the work we have done with our tools. It is Handel'swork, not the body with which he did the work, that pulls us halfover London. There is not an action of a muscle in a horse's legupon a winter's night as it drags a carriage to the Albert Hall butis in connection with, and part outcome of, the force generated whenHandel sat in his room at Gopsall and wrote the Messiah. Think ofall the forces which that force has controlled, and think, also, howsmall was the amount of molecular disturbance from which itproceeded. It is as though we saw a conflagration which a spark hadkindled. This is the true Handel, who is a more living power amongus one hundred and twenty-two years after his death than during thetime he was amongst us in the body. 

ii

The whole life of some people is a kind of partial death--a long, lingering death-bed, so to speak, of stagnation and nonentity onwhich death is but the seal, or solemn signing, as the abnegation ofall further act and deed on the part of the signer. Death robs thesepeople of even that little strength which they appeared to have andgives them nothing but repose. 

On others, again, death confers a more living kind of life than theycan ever possibly have enjoyed while to those about them they seemedto be alive. Look at Shakespeare; can he be properly said to havelived in anything like his real life till a hundred years or so afterhis death? His physical life was but as a dawn preceding the sunriseof that life of the world to come which he was to enjoy hereafter. True, there was a little stir--a little abiding of shepherds in thefields, keeping watch over their flocks by night--a little buzzing inknots of men waiting to be hired before the daybreak--a littlestealthy movement as of a burglar or two here and there--aninchoation of life. But the true life of the man was after death andnot before it. 

Death is not more the end of some than it is the beginning of others. So he that loses his soul may find it, and he that finds may lose it. 

II--ELEMENTARY MORALITY

The Foundations of Morality

i

These are like all other foundations; if you dig too much about themthe superstructure will come tumbling down. 

ii

The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us, likethe Kingdom of Heaven, rather than without. 

iii

To attempt to get at the foundations is to try to recoverconsciousness about things that have passed into the unconsciousstage; it is pretty sure to disturb and derange those who try it ontoo much. 

Counsels of Imperfection

It is all very well for mischievous writers to maintain that wecannot serve God and Mammon. Granted that it is not easy, butnothing that is worth doing ever is easy. Easy or difficult, possible or impossible, not only has the thing got to be done, but itis exactly in doing it that the whole duty of man consists. And whenthe righteous man turneth away from his righteousness that he hathcommitted and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quiteright, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability whathe has lost in holiness. 

If there are two worlds at all (and that there are I have no doubt)it stands to reason that we ought to make the best of both of them, and more particularly of the one with which we are most immediatelyconcerned. It is as immoral to be too good as to be too anythingelse. The Christian morality is just as immoral as any other. It isat once very moral and very immoral. How often do we not seechildren ruined through the virtues, real or supposed, of theirparents? Truly he visiteth the virtues of the fathers upon thechildren unto the third and fourth generation. The most that can besaid for virtue is that there is a considerable balance in itsfavour, and that it is a good deal better to be for it than againstit; but it lets people in very badly sometimes. 

If you wish to understand virtue you must be sub-vicious; for thereally virtuous man, who is fully under grace, will be virtuousunconsciously and will know nothing about it. Unless a man is out-and-out virtuous he is sub-vicious. 

Virtue is, as it were, the repose of sleep or death. Vice is theawakening to the knowledge of good and evil--without which there isno life worthy of the name. Sleep is, in a way, a happier, morepeaceful state than waking and, in a way, death may be said to bebetter than life, but it is in a very small way. We feel such talkto be blasphemy against good life and, whatever we may say in death'sfavour, so long as we do not blow our brains out we show that we donot mean to be taken seriously. To know good, other than as a heavysleeper, we must know vice also. There cannot, as Bacon said, be a"Hold fast that which is good" without a "Prove all things" goingbefore it. There is no knowledge of good without a knowledge of evilalso, and this is why all nations have devils as well as gods, andregard them with sneaking kindness. God without the devil is dead, being alone. 

Lucifer

We call him at once the Angel of Light and the Angel of Darkness: isthis because we instinctively feel that no one can know much till hehas sinned much--or because we feel that extremes meet, or how?

The Oracle in Erewhon

The answer given by the oracle was originally written concerning anyvice--say drunkenness, but it applies to many another--and I wrotenot "sins" but "knows": {26}

He who knows aughtKnows more than he ought;But he who knows noughtHas much to be taught. 

God's Laws

The true laws of God are the laws of our own well-being. 

Physical Excellence

The question whether such and such a course of conduct does or doesnot do physical harm is the safest test by which to try the questionwhether it is moral or no. If it does no harm to the body we oughtto be very chary of calling it immoral, while if it tends towardsphysical excellence there should be no hesitation in calling itmoral. In the case of those who are not forced to over-workthemselves--and there are many who work themselves to death from mereinability to restrain the passion for work, which masters them as thecraving for drink masters a drunkard--over-work in these cases is asimmoral as over-eating or drinking. This, so far as the individualis concerned. With regard to the body politic as a whole, it is, nodoubt, well that there should be some men and women so built thatthey cannot be stopped from working themselves to death, just as itis unquestionably well that there should be some who cannot bestopped from drinking themselves to death, if only that they may keepthe horror of the habit well in evidence. 

Intellectual Self-Indulgence

Intellectual over-indulgence is the most gratuitous and disgracefulform which excess can take, nor is there any the consequences ofwhich are more disastrous. 

Dodging Fatigue

When fatigued, I find it rests me to write very slowly with attentionto the formation of each letter. I am often thus able to go on whenI could not otherwise do so. 

Vice and Virtue

i

Virtue is something which it would be impossible to over-rate if ithad not been over-rated. The world can ill spare any vice which hasobtained long and largely among civilised people. Such a vice musthave some good along with its deformities. The question "How, ifevery one were to do so and so?" may be met with another "How, if noone were to do it?" We are a body corporate as well as a collectionof individuals. 

As a matter of private policy I doubt whether the moderately viciousare more unhappy than the moderately virtuous; "Very vicious" iscertainly less happy than "Tolerably virtuous, " but this is aboutall. What pass muster as the extremes of virtue probably make peoplequite as unhappy as extremes of vice do. 

The truest virtue has ever inclined toward excess rather thanasceticism; that she should do this is reasonable as well asobservable, for virtue should be as nice a calculator of chances asother people and will make due allowance for the chance of not beingfound out. Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on withoutcompromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allowfor an inevitable fall in playing. So the Psalmist says, "If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss: O Lord who mayabide it?" and by this he admits that the highest conceivable form ofvirtue still leaves room for some compromise with vice. So againShakespeare writes, "They say, best men are moulded out of faults;And, for the most, become much more the better For being a littlebad. "

ii

The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtueis as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone thedullnesses of it and the pomposities of it. 

iii

God does not intend people, and does not like people, to be too good. He likes them neither too good nor too bad, but a little too bad ismore venial with him than a little too good. 

iv

As there is less difference than we generally think between thehappiness of men who seem to differ widely in fortune, so is therealso less between their moral natures; the best are not so muchbetter than the worst, nor the worst so much below the best as wesuppose; and the bad are just as important an element in the generalprogress as the good, or perhaps more so. It is in strife that lifelies, and were there no opposing forces there would be neither moralnor immoral, neither victory nor defeat. 

v

If virtue had everything her own way she would be as insufferable asdominant factions generally are. It is the function of vice to keepvirtue within reasonable bounds. 

vi

Virtue has never yet been adequately represented by any who have hadany claim to be considered virtuous. It is the sub-vicious who bestunderstand virtue. Let the virtuous people stick to describing vice--which they can do well enough. 

My Virtuous Life

I have led a more virtuous life than I intended, or thought I wasleading. When I was young I thought I was vicious: now I know thatI was not and that my unconscious knowledge was sounder than myconscious. I regret some things that I have done, but not many. Iregret that so many should think I did much which I never did, andshould know of what I did in so garbled and distorted a fashion as tohave done me much mischief. But if things were known as theyactually happened, I believe I should have less to be ashamed of thana good many of my neighbours--and less also to be proud of. 

Sin

Sin is like a mountain with two aspects according to whether it isviewed before or after it has been reached: yet both aspects arereal. 

Morality

turns on whether the pleasure precedes or follows the pain. Thus, itis immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after thedrinking, but if the headache came first, and the drunkennessafterwards, it would be moral to get drunk. 

Change and Immorality

Every discovery and, indeed, every change of any sort is immoral, astending to unsettle men's minds, and hence their custom and hencetheir morals, which are the net residuum of their "mores" or customs. Wherefrom it should follow that there is nothing so absolutely moralas stagnation, except for this that, if perfect, it would destroy allmores whatever. So there must always be an immorality in moralityand, in like manner, a morality in immorality. For there will be anelement of habitual and legitimate custom even in the most unhabitualand detestable things that can be done at all. 

Cannibalism

Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling ofone's peers. Cannibalism is moral in a cannibal country. 

Abnormal Developments

If a man can get no other food it is more natural for him to killanother man and eat him than to starve. Our horror is rather at thecircumstances that make it natural for the man to do this than at theman himself. So with other things the desire for which is inheritedthrough countless ancestors, it is more natural for men to obtain thenearest thing they can to these, even by the most abnormal means ifthe ordinary channels are closed, than to forego them altogether. The abnormal growth should be regarded as disease but, nevertheless, as showing more health and vigour than no growth at all would do. Isaid this in Life and Habit (ch. Iii. P. 52) when I wrote "it is morerighteous in a man that he should eat strange food and that his cheekso much as lank not, than that he should starve if the strange foodbe at his command. " {30}

Young People

With regard to sexual matters, the best opinion of our best medicalmen, the practice of those nations which have proved most vigorousand comely, the evils that have followed this or that, the good thathas attended upon the other should be ascertained by men who, beingneither moral nor immoral and not caring two straws what theconclusion arrived at might be, should desire only to get hold of thebest available information. The result should be written down withsome fulness and put before the young of both sexes as soon as theyare old enough to understand such matters at all. There should be nomystery or reserve. None but the corrupt will wish to corrupt facts;honest people will accept them eagerly, whatever they may prove tobe, and will convey them to others as accurately as they can. Onwhat pretext therefore can it be well that knowledge should bewithheld from the universal gaze upon a matter of such universalinterest? It cannot be pretended that there is nothing to be knownon these matters beyond what unaided boys and girls can be leftwithout risk to find out for themselves. Not one in a hundred whoremembers his own boyhood will say this. How, then, are theyexcusable who have the care of young people and yet leave a matter ofsuch vital importance so almost absolutely to take care of itself, although they well know how common error is, how easy to fall intoand how disastrous in its effects both upon the individual and therace?

Next to sexual matters there are none upon which there is suchcomplete reserve between parents and children as on those connectedwith money. The father keeps his affairs as closely as he can tohimself and is most jealous of letting his children into a knowledgeof how he manages his money. His children are like monks in amonastery as regards money and he calls this training them up withthe strictest regard to principle. Nevertheless he thinks himselfill-used if his son, on entering life, falls a victim to designingpersons whose knowledge of how money is made and lost is greater thanhis own. 

The Family

i

I believe that more unhappiness comes from this source than from anyother--I mean from the attempt to prolong family connection undulyand to make people hang together artificially who would nevernaturally do so. The mischief among the lower classes is not sogreat, but among the middle and upper classes it is killing a largenumber daily. And the old people do not really like it much betterthan the young. 

ii

On my way down to Shrewsbury some time since I read the Bishop ofCarlisle's Walks in the Regions of Science and Faith, {31} then justpublished, and found the following on p. 129 in the essay which isentitled "Man's Place in Nature. " After saying that young sparrowsor robins soon lose sight of their fellow-nestlings and leave offcaring for them, the bishop continues:-

"Whereas 'children of one family' are constantly found joinedtogether by a love which only grows with years, and they part fortheir posts of duty in the world with the hope of having joyfulmeetings from time to time, and of meeting in a higher world whentheir life on earth is finished. "

I am sure my great-grandfather did not look forward to meeting hisfather in heaven--his father had cut him out of his will; nor can Icredit my grandfather with any great longing to rejoin my great-grandfather--a worthy man enough, but one with whom nothing everprospered. I am certain my father, after he was 40, did not wish tosee my grandfather any more--indeed, long before reaching that age hehad decided that Dr. Butler's life should not be written, though R. W. Evans would have been only too glad to write it. Speaking formyself, I have no wish to see my father again, and I think it likelythat the Bishop of Carlisle would not be more eager to see his than Imine. 

Unconscious Humour

"Writing to the Hon. Mrs. Watson in 1856, Charles Dickens says: 'Ihave always observed within my experience that THE MEN WHO HAVE LEFTHOME VERY YOUNG have, MANY LONG YEARS AFTERWARDS, had the tenderestregard for it. That's a pleasant thing to think of as one of thewise adjustments of this life of ours. '" {32a}

Homer's Odyssey

From the description of the meeting between Ulysses and Telemachus itis plain that Homer considered it quite as dreadful for relations whohad long been separated to come together again as for them toseparate in the first instance. And this is about true. {32b}

Melchisedec

He was a really happy man. He was without father, without mother andwithout descent. He was an incarnate bachelor. He was a bornorphan. 

Bacon for Breakfast

Now [1893] when I am abroad, being older and taking less exercise, Ido not want any breakfast beyond coffee and bread and butter, butwhen this note was written [1880] I liked a modest rasher of bacon inaddition, and used to notice the jealous indignation with which headsof families who enjoyed the privilege of Cephas and the brethren ofour Lord regarded it. There were they with three or four elderlyunmarried daughters as well as old mamma--how could they affordbacon? And there was I, a selfish bachelor--. The appetising, savoury smell of my rasher seemed to drive them mad. I used to feelvery uncomfortable, very small and quite aware how low it was of meto have bacon for breakfast and no daughters instead of daughters andno bacon. But when I consulted the oracles of heaven about it, I wasalways told to stick to my bacon and not to make a fool of myself. Idespised myself but have not withered under my own contempt socompletely as I ought to have done. 

God and Man

To love God is to have good health, good looks, good sense, experience, a kindly nature and a fair balance of cash in hand. "Weknow that all things work together for good to them that love God. "To be loved by God is the same as to love Him. We love Him becauseHe first loved us. 

The Homeric Deity and the Pall Mall Gazette

A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette (I think in 1874 or 1875, and inthe autumn months, but I cannot now remember) summed up Homer'sconception of a god as that of a "superlatively strong, amorous, beautiful, brave and cunning man. " This is pretty much what a goodworking god ought to be, but he should also be kind and have a strongsense of humour, together with a contempt for the vices of meannessand for the meannesses of virtue. After saying what I have quotedabove the writer in the Pall Mall Gazette goes on, "An impartialcritic can judge for himself how far, if at all, this is elevatedabove the level of mere fetish worship. " Perhaps it is that I am notan impartial critic, but, if I am allowed to be so, I should say thatthe elevation above mere fetish worship was very considerable. 

Good Breeding the Summum Bonum

When people ask what faith we would substitute for that which wewould destroy, we answer that we destroy no faith and need substitutenone. We hold the glory of God to be the summum bonum, and so doChristians generally. It is on the question of what is the glory ofGod that we join issue. We say it varies with the varying phases ofGod as made manifest in his works, but that, so far as we areourselves concerned, the glory of God is best advanced by advancingthat of man. If asked what is the glory of man we answer "Goodbreeding"--using the words in their double sense and meaning both thecontinuance of the race and that grace of manner which the words aremore commonly taken to signify. The double sense of the words is allthe more significant for the unconsciousness with which it is passedover. 

Advice to the Young

You will sometimes find your elders laying their heads together andsaying what a bad thing it is for young men to come into a littlemoney--that those always do best who have no expectancy, and thelike. They will then quote some drivel from one of the Kingsleysabout the deadening effect an income of 300 pounds a year will haveupon a man. Avoid any one whom you may hear talk in this way. Thefault lies not with the legacy (which would certainly be better ifthere were more of it) but with those who have so mismanaged oureducation that we go in even greater danger of losing the money thanother people are. 

Religion

Is there any religion whose followers can be pointed to as distinctlymore amiable and trustworthy than those of any other? If so, thisshould be enough. I find the nicest and best people generallyprofess no religion at all, but are ready to like the best men of allreligions. 

Heaven and Hell

Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell isthe work of prigs, pedants and professional truth-tellers. The worldis an attempt to make the best of both. 

Priggishness

The essence of priggishness is setting up to be better than one'sneighbour. Better may mean more virtuous, more clever, moreagreeable or what not. The worst of it is that one cannot doanything outside eating one's dinner or taking a walk without settingup to know more than one's neighbours. It was this that made me sayin Life and Habit [close of ch. Ii. ] that I was among the damned inthat I wrote at all. So I am; and I am often very sorry that I wasnever able to reach those more saintly classes who do not set up asinstructors of other people. But one must take one's lot. 

Lohengrin

He was a prig. In the bedroom scene with Elsa he should have saidthat her question put him rather up a tree but that, as she wanted toknow who he was, he would tell her and would let the Holy Grailslide. 

Swells

People ask complainingly what swells have done, or do, for societythat they should be able to live without working. The good swell isthe creature towards which all nature has been groaning andtravailing together until now. He is an ideal. He shows what may bedone in the way of good breeding, health, looks, temper and fortune. He realises men's dreams of themselves, at any rate vicariously. Hepreaches the gospel of grace. The world is like a spoilt child, ithas this good thing given it at great expense and then says it isuseless!

Science and Religion

These are reconciled in amiable and sensible people but nowhere else. 

Gentleman

If we are asked what is the most essential characteristic thatunderlies this word, the word itself will guide us to gentleness, toabsence of such things as brow-beating, overbearing manners and fuss, and generally to consideration for other people. 

The Finest Men

I suppose an Italian peasant or a Breton, Norman or Englishfisherman, is about the best thing nature does in the way of men--thericher and the poorer being alike mistakes. 

On being a Swell all Round

I have never in my life succeeded in being this. Sometimes I get anew suit and am tidy for a while in part, meanwhile the hat, tie, boots, gloves and underclothing all clamour for attention and, beforeI have got them well in hand, the new suit has lost its freshness. Still, if ever I do get any money, I will try and make myself reallyspruce all round till I find out, as I probably shall in about aweek, that if I give my clothes an inch they will take an ell. [1880. ]

Money

is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is fleshthere is money--or the want of money; but money is always on thebrain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order. 

A Luxurious Death

Death in anything like luxury is one of the most expensive things aman can indulge himself in. It costs a lot of money to diecomfortably, unless one goes off pretty quickly. 

Money, Health and Reputation

Money, if it live at all, that is to say if it be reproductive andput out at any interest, however low, is mortal and doomed to be lostone day, though it may go on living through many generations of onesingle family if it be taken care of. No man is absolutely safe. Itmay be said to any man, "Thou fool, this night thy money shall berequired of thee. " And reputation is like money: it may be requiredof us without warning. The little unsuspected evil on which we tripmay swell up in a moment and prove to be the huge, Janus-likemountain of unpardonable sin. And his health may be required of anyfool, any night or any day. 

A man will feel loss of money more keenly than loss of bodily health, so long as he can keep his money. Take his money away and deprivehim of the means of earning any more, and his health will soon breakup; but leave him his money and, even though his health breaks up andhe dies, he does not mind it so much as we think. Money losses arethe worst, loss of health is next worst and loss of reputation comesin a bad third. All other things are amusements provided money, health and good name are untouched. 

Solicitors

A man must not think he can save himself the trouble of being asensible man and a gentleman by going to his solicitor, any more thanhe can get himself a sound constitution by going to his doctor; but asolicitor can do more to keep a tolerably well-meaning fool straightthan a doctor can do for an invalid. Money is to the solicitor whatsouls are to the parson or life to the physician. He is our money-doctor. 

Doctors

Going to your doctor is having such a row with your cells that yourefer them to your solicitor. Sometimes you, as it were, strikeagainst them and stop their food, when they go on strike againstyourself. Sometimes you file a bill in Chancery against them and goto bed. 

Priests

We may find an argument in favour of priests if we consider whetherman is capable of doing for himself in respect of his moral andspiritual welfare (than which nothing can be more difficult andintricate) what it is so clearly better for him to leave toprofessional advisers in the case of his money and his body which arecomparatively simple and unimportant. 

III--THE GERMS OF EREWHON AND OF LIFE AND HABIT

Prefatory Note

The Origin of Species was published in the autumn of 1859, and Butlerarrived in New Zealand about the same time and read the book soonafterwards. In 1880 he wrote in Unconscious Memory (close of Chapter1): "As a member of the general public, at that time residingeighteen miles from the nearest human habitation, and three days'journey on horseback from a bookseller's shop, I became one of Mr. Darwin's many enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophic dialogue(the most offensive form, except poetry and books of travel intosupposed unknown countries, that even literature can assume) upon theOrigin of Species. This production appeared in the Press, Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861 or 1862, but I have long lost theonly copy I had. "

The Press was founded by James Edward FitzGerald, the firstSuperintendent of the Province of Canterbury. Butler was an intimatefriend of FitzGerald, was closely associated with the newspaper andfrequently wrote for it. The first number appeared 25th May, 1861, and on 25th May, 1911, the Press celebrated its jubilee with a numberwhich contained particulars of its early life, of its editors, and ofButler; it also contained reprints of two of Butler's contributions, viz. Darwin among the Machines, which originally appeared in itscolumns 13 June, 1863, and Lucubratio Ebria, which originallyappeared 29 July, 1865. The Dialogue was not reprinted because, although the editor knew of its existence and searched for it, hecould not find it. At my request, after the appearance of thejubilee number, a further search was made, but the Dialogue was notfound and I gave it up for lost. 

In March, 1912, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild pointed out to me that Mr. Tregaskis, in Holborn, was advertising for sale an autograph letterby Charles Darwin sending to an unknown editor a Dialogue on Speciesfrom a New Zealand newspaper, described in the letter as being"remarkable from its spirit and from giving so clear and accurate aview of Mr. D. 's theory. " Having no doubt that this referred toButler's lost contribution to the Press, I bought the autographletter and sent it to New Zealand, where it now is in the CanterburyMuseum, Christchurch. With it I sent a letter to the editor of thePress, giving all further information in my possession about theDialogue. This letter, which appeared 1 June, 1912, together withthe presentation of Darwin's autograph, stimulated further search, and in the issue for 20th December, 1862, the Dialogue was found byMiss Colborne-Veel, whose father was editor of the paper at the timeButler was writing for it. The Press reprinted the Dialogue 8thJune, 1912. 

When the Dialogue first appeared it excited a great deal ofdiscussion in the colony and, to quote Butler's words in a letter toDarwin (1865), "called forth a contemptuous rejoinder from (Ibelieve) the Bishop of Wellington. " This rejoinder was an articleheaded "Barrel-Organs, " the idea being that there was nothing new inDarwin's book, it was only a grinding out of old tunes with which wewere all familiar. Butler alludes to this controversy in a note madeon a letter from Darwin which he gave to the British Museum. "Iremember answering an attack (in the Press, New Zealand) on me byBishop Abraham, of Wellington, as though I were someone else, and, tokeep up the deception, attacking myself also. But it was all veryyoung and silly. " The bishop's article and Butler's reply, which wasa letter signed A. M. And some of the resulting correspondence werereprinted in the Press, 15th June, 1912. 

At first I thought of including here the Dialogue, and perhaps theletter signed A. M. They are interesting as showing that Butler wasamong the earliest to study closely the Origin of Species, and alsoas showing the state of his mind before he began to think forhimself, before he wrote Darwin among the Machines from which so muchfollowed; but they can hardly be properly considered as germs ofErewhon and Life and Habit. They rather show the preparation of thesoil in which those germs sprouted and grew; and, remembering hislast remark on the subject that "it was all very young and silly, " Idecided to omit them. The Dialogue is no longer lost, and thenumbers of the Press containing it and the correspondence that ensuedcan be seen in the British Museum. 

Butler's other two contributions to the Press mentioned above docontain the germs of the machine chapters in Erewhon, and led him tothe theory put forward in Life and Habit. In 1901 he wrote in thepreface to the new and revised edition of Erewhon: "The first partof Erewhon written was an article headed Darwin among the Machinesand signed 'Cellarius. ' It was written in the Upper Rangitatadistrict of Canterbury Province (as it then was) of New Zealand, andappeared at Christchurch in the Press newspaper, June 13, 1863. Acopy of this article is indexed under my books in the British Museumcatalogue. "

The article is in the form of a letter, and the copy spoken of byButler, as indexed under his name in the British Museum, beingdefective, the reprint which appeared in the jubilee number of thePress has been used in completing the version which follows. 

Further on in the preface to the 1901 edition of Erewhon he writes:"A second article on the same subject as the one just referred toappeared in the Press shortly after the first, but I have no copy. It treated machines from a different point of view and was the basisof pp. 270-274 of the present edition of Erewhon. This viewultimately led me to the theory I put forward in Life and Habit, published in November, 1877. {41} I have put a bare outline of thistheory (which I believe to be quite sound) into the mouth of anErewhonian professor in Chapter XXVII of this book. "

This second article was Lucubratio Ebria, and was sent by Butler fromEngland to the editor of the Press in 1865, with a letter from whichthis is an extract:

"I send you an article which you can give to FitzGerald or not, justas you think it most expedient--for him. Is not the subject workedout, and are not the Canterbury people tired of Darwinism? For me--is it an article to my credit? I do not send it to FitzGeraldbecause I am sure he would put it into the paper. . . . I know theundue lenience which he lends to my performances, and believe you tobe the sterner critic of the two. That there are some good things init you will, I think, feel; but I am almost sure that consideringusque ad nauseam etc. , you will think it had better not appear. . . . I think you and he will like that sentence: 'There was a moralgovernment of the world before man came into it. ' There is hardly asentence in it written without deliberation; but I need hardly saythat it was done upon tea, not upon whiskey . . . 

"P. S. If you are in any doubt about the expediency of the articletake it to M. 

"P. P. S. Perhaps better take it to him anyhow. "

The preface to the 1901 edition of Erewhon contains some furtherparticulars of the genesis of that work, and there are still furtherparticulars in Unconscious Memory, Chapter II, "How I wrote Life andHabit. "

The first tentative sketch of the Life and Habit theory occurs in theletter to Thomas William Gale Butler which is given post. This T. W. G. Butler was not related to Butler, they met first as art-studentsat Heatherley's, and Butler used to speak of him as the mostbrilliant man he had ever known. He died many years ago. He was thewriter of the "letter from a friend now in New Zealand, " from which aquotation is given in Life and Habit, Chapter V (pp. 83, 84). Butlerkept a copy of his letter to T. W. G. Butler, but it was imperfectlypressed; he afterwards supplied some of the missing words frommemory, and gave it to the British Museum. 

Darwin among the Machines

[To the Editor of the Press, Christchurch, New Zealand--13 June, 1863. ]

Sir--There are few things of which the present generation is morejustly proud than of the wonderful improvements which are dailytaking place in all sorts of mechanical appliances. And indeed it ismatter for great congratulation on many grounds. It is unnecessaryto mention these here, for they are sufficiently obvious; our presentbusiness lies with considerations which may somewhat tend to humbleour pride and to make us think seriously of the future prospects ofthe human race. If we revert to the earliest primordial types ofmechanical life, to the lever, the wedge, the inclined plane, thescrew and the pulley, or (for analogy would lead us one step further)to that one primordial type from which all the mechanical kingdom hasbeen developed, we mean to the lever itself, and if we then examinethe machinery of the Great Eastern, we find ourselves almostawestruck at the vast development of the mechanical world, at thegigantic strides with which it has advanced in comparison with theslow progress of the animal and vegetable kingdom. We shall find itimpossible to refrain from asking ourselves what the end of thismighty movement is to be. In what direction is it tending? Whatwill be its upshot? To give a few imperfect hints towards a solutionof these questions is the object of the present letter. 

We have used the words "mechanical life, " "the mechanical kingdom, ""the mechanical world" and so forth, and we have done so advisedly, for as the vegetable kingdom was slowly developed from the mineral, and as, in like manner, the animal supervened upon the vegetable, sonow, in these last few ages, an entirely new kingdom has sprung up ofwhich we as yet have only seen what will one day be considered theantediluvian prototypes of the race. 

We regret deeply that our knowledge both of natural history and ofmachinery is too small to enable us to undertake the gigantic task ofclassifying machines into the genera and sub-genera, species, varieties and sub-varieties, and so forth, of tracing the connectinglinks between machines of widely different characters, of pointingout how subservience to the use of man has played that part amongmachines which natural selection has performed in the animal andvegetable kingdom, of pointing out rudimentary organs [see note]which exist in some few machines, feebly developed and perfectlyuseless, yet serving to mark descent from some ancestral type whichhas either perished or been modified into some new phase ofmechanical existence. We can only point out this field forinvestigation; it must be followed by others whose education andtalents have been of a much higher order than any which we can layclaim to. 

Some few hints we have determined to venture upon, though we do sowith the profoundest diffidence. Firstly we would remark that assome of the lowest of the vertebrata attained a far greater size thanhas descended to their more highly organised living representatives, so a diminution in the size of machines has often attended theirdevelopment and progress. Take the watch for instance. Examine thebeautiful structure of the little animal, watch the intelligent playof the minute members which compose it; yet this little creature isbut a development of the cumbrous clocks of the thirteenth century--it is no deterioration from them. The day may come when clocks, which certainly at the present day are not diminishing in bulk, maybe entirely superseded by the universal use of watches, in which caseclocks will become extinct like the earlier saurians, while the watch(whose tendency has for some years been rather to decrease in sizethan the contrary) will remain the only existing type of an extinctrace. 

The views of machinery which we are thus feebly indicating willsuggest the solution of one of the greatest and most mysteriousquestions of the day. We refer to the question: What sort ofcreature man's next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likelyto be. We have often heard this debated; but it appears to us thatwe are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding tothe beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are dailygiving them greater power and supplying, by all sorts of ingeniouscontrivances, that self-regulating, self-acting power which will beto them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course ofages we shall find ourselves the inferior race. Inferior in power, inferior in that moral quality of self-control, we shall look up tothem as the acme of all that the best and wisest man can ever dare toaim at. No evil passions, no jealousy, no avarice, no impure desireswill disturb the serene might of those glorious creatures. Sin, shame and sorrow will have no place among them. Their minds will bein a state of perpetual calm, the contentment of a spirit that knowsno wants, is disturbed by no regrets. Ambition will never torturethem. Ingratitude will never cause them the uneasiness of a moment. The guilty conscience, the hope deferred, the pains of exile, theinsolence of office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthytakes--these will be entirely unknown to them. If they want"feeding" (by the use of which very word we betray our recognition ofthem as living organism) they will be attended by patient slaveswhose business and interest it will be to see that they shall wantfor nothing. If they are out of order they will be promptly attendedto by physicians who are thoroughly acquainted with theirconstitutions; if they die, for even these glorious animals will notbe exempt from that necessary and universal consummation, they willimmediately enter into a new phase of existence, for what machinedies entirely in every part at one and the same instant?

We take it that when the state of things shall have arrived which wehave been above attempting to describe, man will have become to themachine what the horse and the dog are to man. He will continue toexist, nay even to improve, and will be probably better off in hisstate of domestication under the beneficent rule of the machines thanhe is in his present wild state. We treat our horses, dogs, cattleand sheep, on the whole, with great kindness, we give them whateverexperience teaches us to be best for them, and there can be no doubtthat our use of meat has added to the happiness of the lower animalsfar more than it has detracted from it; in like manner it isreasonable to suppose that the machines will treat us kindly, fortheir existence is as dependent upon ours as ours is upon the loweranimals. They cannot kill us and eat us as we do sheep, they willnot only require our services in the parturition of their young(which branch of their economy will remain always in our hands) butalso in feeding them, in setting them right if they are sick, andburying their dead or working up their corpses into new machines. Itis obvious that if all the animals in Great Britain save man alonewere to die, and if at the same time all intercourse with foreigncountries were by some sudden catastrophe to be rendered perfectlyimpossible, it is obvious that under such circumstances the loss ofhuman life would be something fearful to contemplate--in like manner, were mankind to cease, the machines would be as badly off or evenworse. The fact is that our interests are inseparable from theirs, and theirs from ours. Each race is dependent upon the other forinnumerable benefits, and, until the reproductive organs of themachines have been developed in a manner which we are hardly yet ableto conceive, they are entirely dependent upon man for even thecontinuance of their species. It is true that these organs may beultimately developed, inasmuch as man's interest lies in thatdirection; there is nothing which our infatuated race would desiremore than to see a fertile union between two steam engines; it istrue that machinery is even at this present time employed inbegetting machinery, in becoming the parent of machines often afterits own kind, but the days of flirtation, courtship and matrimonyappear to be very remote and indeed can hardly be realised by ourfeeble and imperfect imagination. 

Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day byday we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are dailybound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting theenergies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will comewhen the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and itsinhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for amoment question. 

Our opinion is that war to the death should be instantly proclaimedagainst them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by thewell-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, noquarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition ofthe race. If it be urged that this is impossible under the presentcondition of human affairs, this at once proves that the mischief isalready done, that our servitude has commenced in good earnest, thatwe have raised a race of beings whom it is beyond our power todestroy and that we are not only enslaved but are absolutelyacquiescent in our bondage. 

For the present we shall leave this subject which we present gratisto the members of the Philosophical Society. Should they consent toavail themselves of the vast field which we have pointed out, weshall endeavour to labour in it ourselves at some future andindefinite period. 

I am, Sir, &c. , CELLARIUS, NOTE. --We were asked by a learned brother philosopher who saw thisarticle in MS. What we meant by alluding to rudimentary organs inmachines. Could we, he asked, give any example of such organs? Wepointed to the little protuberance at the bottom of the bowl of ourtobacco pipe. This organ was originally designed for the samepurpose as the rim at the bottom of a tea-cup, which is but anotherform of the same function. Its purpose was to keep the heat of thepipe from marking the table on which it rested. Originally, as wehave seen in very early tobacco pipes, this protuberance was of avery different shape to what it is now. It was broad at the bottomand flat, so that while the pipe was being smoked, the bowl mightrest upon the table. Use and disuse have here come into play andserved to reduce the function to its present rudimentary condition. That these rudimentary organs are rarer in machinery than in animallife is owing to the more prompt action of the human selection ascompared with the slower but even surer operation of naturalselection. Man may make mistakes; in the long run nature never doesso. We have only given an imperfect example, but the intelligentreader will supply himself with illustrations. 

Lucubratio Ebria

[From the Press, 29 July, 1865]

There is a period in the evening, or more generally towards the stillsmall hours of the morning, in which we so far unbend as to take asingle glass of hot whisky and water. We will neither defend thepractice nor excuse it. We state it as a fact which must be borne inmind by the readers of this article; for we know not how, whether itbe the inspiration of the drink, or the relief from the harassingwork with which the day has been occupied, or from whatever othercause, yet we are certainly liable about this time to such aprophetic influence as we seldom else experience. We are rapt in adream such as we ourselves know to be a dream, and which, like otherdreams, we can hardly embody in a distinct utterance. We know thatwhat we see is but a sort of intellectual Siamese twins, of which oneis substance and the other shadow, but we cannot set either freewithout killing both. We are unable to rudely tear away the veil ofphantasy in which the truth is shrouded, so we present the readerwith a draped figure, and his own judgment must discriminate betweenthe clothes and the body. A truth's prosperity is like a jest's, itlies in the ear of him that hears it. Some may see our lucubrationas we saw it; and others may see nothing but a drunken dream, or thenightmare of a distempered imagination. To ourselves it as thespeaking with unknown tongues to the early Corinthians; we cannotfully understand our own speech, and we fear lest there be not asufficient number of interpreters present to make our utteranceedify. But there! (Go on straight to the body of the article)

The limbs of the lower animals have never been modified by any act ofdeliberation and forethought on their own part. Recent researcheshave thrown absolutely no light upon the origin of life--upon theinitial force which introduced a sense of identity, and a deliberatefaculty into the world; but they do certainly appear to show veryclearly that each species of the animal and vegetable kingdom hasbeen moulded into its present shape by chances and changes of manymillions of years, by chances and changes over which the creaturemodified had no control whatever, and concerning whose aim it wasalike unconscious and indifferent, by forces which seem insensate tothe pain which they inflict, but by whose inexorably beneficentcruelty the brave and strong keep coming to the fore, while the weakand bad drop behind and perish. There was a moral government of thisworld before man came near it--a moral government suited to thecapacities of the governed, and which, unperceived by them, has laidfast the foundations of courage, endurance and cunning. It laid themso fast that they became more and more hereditary. Horace says well, fortes creantur fortibus et bonis good men beget good children; therule held even in the geological period; good ichthyosauri begat goodichthyosauri, and would to our discomfort have gone on doing so tothe present time, had not better creatures been begetting betterthings than ichthyosauri, or famine, or fire, or convulsion put anend to them. Good apes begat good apes, and at last when humanintelligence stole like a late spring upon the mimicry of our semi-simious ancestry, the creature learnt how he could, of his ownforethought, add extra-corporaneous limbs to the members of his bodyand become not only a vertebrate mammal, but a vertebrate machinatemammal into the bargain. 

It was a wise monkey that first learned to carry a stick and a usefulmonkey that mimicked him. For the race of man has learned to walkuprightly much as a child learns the same thing. At first he crawlson all fours, then he clambers, laying hold of whatever he can; andlastly he stands upright alone and walks, but for a long time with anunsteady step. So when the human race was in its gorilla-hood itgenerally carried a stick; from carrying a stick for many millionyears it became accustomed and modified to an upright position. Thestick wherewith it had learned to walk would now serve it to beat itsyounger brothers and then it found out its service as a lever. Manwould thus learn that the limbs of his body were not the only limbsthat he could command. His body was already the most versatile inexistence, but he could render it more versatile still. With theimprovement in his body his mind improved also. He learnt toperceive the moral government under which he held the feudal tenureof his life--perceiving it he symbolised it, and to this day ourpoets and prophets still strive to symbolise it more and morecompletely. 

The mind grew because the body grew--more things were perceived--morethings were handled, and being handled became familiar. But thiscame about chiefly because there was a hand to handle with; withoutthe hand there would be no handling; and no method of holding andexamining is comparable to the human hand. The tail of an opossum isa prehensile thing, but it is too far from his eyes--the elephant'strunk is better, and it is probably to their trunks that theelephants owe their sagacity. It is here that the bee in spite ofher wings has failed. She has a high civilisation but it is onewhose equilibrium appears to have been already attained; theappearance is a false one, for the bee changes, though more slowlythan man can watch her; but the reason of the very gradual nature ofthe change is chiefly because the physical organisation of the insectchanges, but slowly also. She is poorly off for hands, and has neverfairly grasped the notion of tacking on other limbs to the limbs ofher own body and so, being short-lived to boot, she remains fromcentury to century to human eyes in statu quo. Her body neverbecomes machinate, whereas this new phase of organism, which has beenintroduced with man into the mundane economy, has made him a veryquicksand for the foundation of an unchanging civilisation; certainfundamental principles will always remain, but every century thechange in man's physical status, as compared with the elements aroundhim, is greater and greater; he is a shifting basis on which noequilibrium of habit and civilisation can be established; were it notfor this constant change in our physical powers, which our mechanicallimbs have brought about, man would have long since apparentlyattained his limit of possibility; he would be a creature of as muchfixity as the ants and bees--he would still have advanced but nofaster than other animals advance. If there were a race of menwithout any mechanical appliances we should see this clearly. Thereare none, nor have there been, so far as we can tell, for millionsand millions of years. The lowest Australian savage carries weaponsfor the fight or the chase, and has his cooking and drinking utensilsat home; a race without these things would be completely feraenaturae and not men at all. We are unable to point to any example ofa race absolutely devoid of extra-corporaneous limbs, but we can seeamong the Chinese that with the failure to invent new limbs, acivilisation becomes as much fixed as that of the ants; and amongsavage tribes we observe that few implements involve a state ofthings scarcely human at all. Such tribes only advance pari passuwith the creatures upon which they feed. 

It is a mistake, then, to take the view adopted by a previouscorrespondent of this paper; to consider the machines as identities, to animalise them, and to anticipate their final triumph overmankind. They are to be regarded as the mode of development by whichhuman organism is most especially advancing, and every freshinvention is to be considered as an additional member of theresources of the human body. Herein lies the fundamental differencebetween man and his inferiors. As regards his flesh and blood, hissenses, appetites, and affections, the difference is one of degreerather than of kind, but in the deliberate invention of such unity oflimbs as is exemplified by the railway train--that seven-leagued footwhich five hundred may own at once--he stands quite alone. 

In confirmation of the views concerning mechanism which we have beenadvocating above, it must be remembered that men are not merely thechildren of their parents, but they are begotten of the institutionsof the state of the mechanical sciences under which they are born andbred. These things have made us what we are. We are children of theplough, the spade, and the ship; we are children of the extendedliberty and knowledge which the printing press has diffused. Ourancestors added these things to their previously existing members;the new limbs were preserved by natural selection, and incorporatedinto human society; they descended with modifications, and henceproceeds the difference between our ancestors and ourselves. By theinstitutions and state of science under which a man is born it isdetermined whether he shall have the limbs of an Australian savage orthose of a nineteenth century Englishman. The former is supplementedwith little save a rug and a javelin; the latter varies his physiquewith the changes of the season, with age, and with advancing ordecreasing wealth. If it is wet he is furnished with an organ whichis called an umbrella and which seems designed for the purpose ofprotecting either his clothes or his lungs from the injurious effectsof rain. His watch is of more importance to him than a good deal ofhis hair, at any rate than of his whiskers; besides this he carries aknife, and generally a pencil case. His memory goes in a pocketbook. He grows more complex as he becomes older and he will then beseen with a pair of spectacles, perhaps also with false teeth and awig; but, if he be a really well-developed specimen of the race, hewill be furnished with a large box upon wheels, two horses, and acoachman. 

Let the reader ponder over these last remarks, and he will see thatthe principal varieties and sub-varieties of the human race are notnow to be looked for among the negroes, the Circassians, the Malays, or the American aborigines, but among the rich and the poor. Thedifference in physical organisation between these two species of manis far greater than that between the so-called types of humanity. The rich man can go from here to England whenever he feels soinclined. The legs of the other are by an invisible fatalityprevented from carrying him beyond certain narrow limits. Neitherrich nor poor as yet see the philosophy of the thing, or admit thathe who can tack a portion of one of the P. & O. Boats on to hisidentity is a much more highly organised being than one who cannot. Yet the fact is patent enough, if we once think it over, from themere consideration of the respect with which we so often treat thosewho are richer than ourselves. We observe men for the most part(admitting however some few abnormal exceptions) to be deeplyimpressed by the superior organisation of those who have money. Itis wrong to attribute this respect to any unworthy motive, for thefeeling is strictly legitimate and springs from some of the veryhighest impulses of our nature. It is the same sort of affectionatereverence which a dog feels for man, and is not infrequentlymanifested in a similar manner. 

We admit that these last sentences are open to question, and weshould hardly like to commit ourselves irrecoverably to thesentiments they express; but we will say this much for certain, namely, that the rich man is the true hundred-handed Gyges of thepoets. He alone possesses the full complement of limbs who stands atthe summit of opulence, and we may assert with strictly scientificaccuracy that the Rothschilds are the most astonishing organisms thatthe world has ever yet seen. For to the nerves or tissues, orwhatever it be that answers to the helm of a rich man's desires, there is a whole army of limbs seen and unseen attachable: he may bereckoned by his horse-power--by the number of foot-pounds which hehas money enough to set in motion. Who, then, will deny that a manwhose will represents the motive power of a thousand horses is abeing very different from the one who is equivalent but to the powerof a single one?

Henceforward, then, instead of saying that a man is hard up, let ussay that his organisation is at a low ebb, or, if we wish him well, let us hope that he will grow plenty of limbs. It must be rememberedthat we are dealing with physical organisations only. We do not saythat the thousand-horse man is better than a one-horse man, we onlysay that he is more highly organised, and should be recognised asbeing so by the scientific leaders of the period. A man's will, truth, endurance are part of him also, and may, as in the case of thelate Mr. Cobden, have in themselves a power equivalent to all thehorse-power which they can influence; but were we to go into thispart of the question we should never have done, and we are compelledreluctantly to leave our dream in its present fragmentary condition. 

Letter to Thomas William Gale ButlerFebruary 18th, 1876. 

MY DEAR NAMESAKE . . . 

My present literary business is a little essay some 25 or 30 pp. Long, which is still all in the rough and I don't know how it willshape, but the gist of it is somewhat as follows:-

1. Actions which we have acquired with difficulty and now performalmost unconsciously--as in playing a difficult piece of music, reading, talking, walking and the multitude of actions which escapeour notice inside other actions, etc. --all this worked out with somedetail, say, four or five pages. 

General deduction that we never do anything in this unconscious orsemi-conscious manner unless we know how to do it exceedingly welland have had long practice. 

Also that consciousness is a vanishing quantity and that as soon aswe know a thing really well we become unconscious in respect of it--consciousness being of attention and attention of uncertainty--andhence the paradox comes clear, that as long as we know that we know athing (or do an action knowingly) we do not know it (or do the actionwith thorough knowledge of our business) and that we only know itwhen we do not know of our knowledge. 

2. Whatever we do in this way is all one and the same in kind--thedifference being only in degree. Playing [almost?] unconsciously--writing, more unconsciously (as to each letter)--reading, veryunconsciously--talking, still more unconsciously (it is almostimpossible for us to notice the action of our tongue in everyletter)--walking, much the same--breathing, still to a certain extentwithin our own control--heart's beating, perceivable but beyond ourcontrol--digestion, unperceivable and beyond our control, digestionbeing the oldest of the . . . Habits. 

3. A baby, therefore, has known how to grow itself in the womb andhas only done it because it wanted to, on a balance ofconsiderations, in the same way as a man who goes into the City tobuy Great Northern A Shares . . . It is only unconscious of theseoperations because it has done them a very large number of timesalready. A man may do a thing by a fluke once, but to say that afoetus can perform so difficult an operation as the growth of a pairof eyes out of pure protoplasm without knowing how to do it, andwithout ever having done it before, is to contradict all humanexperience. Ipso facto that it does it, it knows how to do it, andipso facto that it knows how to do it, it has done it before. Itsunconsciousness (or speedy loss of memory) is simply the result ofover-knowledge, not of under-knowledge. It knows so well and hasdone it so often that its power of self-analysis is gone. If it knewwhat it was doing, or was conscious of its own act in oxidising itsblood after birth, I should suspect that it had not done it so oftenbefore; as it is I am confident that it must have done it more often--much more often--than any act which we perform consciously duringour whole lives. 

4. When, then, did it do it? Clearly when last it was an impregnateovum or some still lower form of life which resulted in thatimpregnate ovum. 

5. How is it, then, that it has not gained perceptible experience?Simply because a single repetition makes little or no difference; butgo back 20, 000 repetitions and you will find that it has gained inexperience and modified its performance very materially. 

6. But how about the identity? What is identity? Identity ofmatter? Surely no. There is no identity of matter between me as Inow am, and me as an impregnate ovum. Continuity of existence? Thenthere is identity between me as an impregnate ovum and my father andmother as impregnate ova. Drop out my father's and mother's livesbetween the dates of their being impregnate ova and the moment when Ibecame an impregnate ovum. See the ova only and consider the secondovum as the first two ova's means not of reproducing themselves butof continuing themselves--repeating themselves--the intermediatelives being nothing but, as it were, a long potato shoot from one eyeto the place where it will grow its next tuber. 

7. Given a single creature capable of reproducing itself and it mustgo on reproducing itself for ever, for it would not reproduce itself, unless it reproduced a creature that was going to reproduce itself, and so on ad infinitum. 

Then comes Descent with Modification. Similarity tempered withdissimilarity, and dissimilarity tempered with similarity--acontradiction in terms, like almost everything else that is true oruseful or indeed intelligible at all. In each case of what we calldescent, it is still the first reproducing creature identically thesame--doing what it has done before--only with such modifications asthe struggle for existence and natural selection have induced. Nomatter how highly it has been developed, it can never be other thanthe primordial cell and must always begin as the primordial cell andrepeat its last performance most nearly, but also, more or less, allits previous performances. 

A begets A' which is A with the additional experience of a dash. A'begets A'' which is A with the additional experiences of A' and A'';and so on to A(n) but you can never eliminate the A. 

8. Let A(n) stand for a man. He begins as the primordial cell--being verily nothing but the primordial cell which goes on splittingitself up for ever, but gaining continually in experience. Put himin the same position as he was in before and he will do as he didbefore. First he will do his tadpoles by rote, so to speak, on hishead, from long practice; then he does his fish trick; then he growsarms and legs, all unconsciously from the inveteracy of the habit, till he comes to doing his man, and this lesson he has not yet learntso thoroughly. Some part of it, as the breathing and oxidisationbusiness, he is well up to, inasmuch as they form part of previousroles, but the teeth and hair, the upright position, the power ofspeech, though all tolerably familiar, give him more trouble--for heis very stupid--a regular dunce in fact. Then comes his newer andmore complex environment, and this puzzles him--arrests hisattention--whereon consciousness springs into existence, as a sparkfrom a horse's hoof. 

To be continued--I see it will have to be more than 30 pp. It isstill foggy in parts, but I must clear it a little. It will go on toshow that we are all one animal and that death (which was at firstvoluntary, and has only come to be disliked because those who did notdislike it committed suicide too easily) and reproduction are onlyphases of the ordinary waste and repair which goes on in our bodiesdaily. 

Always very truly yours, S. BUTLER. 

IV--MEMORY AND DESIGN

Clergymen and Chickens

[Extract from a lecture On Memory as a Key to the Phenomena ofHeredity delivered by Butler at the Working Men's College, GreatOrmond Street, on Saturday, 2nd December, 1882. ]

Why, let me ask, should a hen lay an egg which egg can become achicken in about three weeks and a full-grown hen in less than atwelvemonth, while a clergyman and his wife lay no eggs but givebirth to a baby which will take three-and-twenty years before it canbecome another clergyman? Why should not chickens be born andclergymen be laid and hatched? Or why, at any rate, should not theclergyman be born full grown and in Holy Orders, not to say alreadybeneficed? The present arrangement is not convenient, it is notcheap, it is not free from danger, it is not only not perfect but isso much the reverse that we could hardly find words to express oursense of its awkwardness if we could look upon it with new eyes, oras the cuckoo perhaps observes it. 

The explanation usually given is that it is a law of nature thatchildren should be born as they are, but this is like the parched peawhich St. Anthony set before the devil when he came to supper withhim and of which the devil said that it was good as far as it went. We want more; we want to know with what familiar set of facts we areto connect the one in question which, though in our midst, at presentdwells apart as a mysterious stranger of whose belongings, reason forcoming amongst us, antecedents, and so forth, we believe ourselves tobe ignorant, though we know him by sight and name and have a fairidea what sort of man he is to deal with. 

We say it is a phenomenon of heredity that chickens should be laid aseggs in the first instance and clergymen born as babies, but, beyondthe fact that we know heredity extremely well to look at and to dobusiness with, we say that we know nothing about it. I have for someyears maintained this to be a mistake and have urged, in company withProfessor Hering, of Prague, and others, that the connection betweenmemory and heredity is so close that there is no reason for regardingthe two as generically different, though for convenience sake it maybe well to specify them by different names. If I can persuade youthat this is so, I believe I shall be able to make you understand whyit is that chickens are hatched as eggs and clergymen born as babies. 

When I say I can make you understand why this is so, I only mean thatI can answer the first "why" that any one is likely to ask about it, and perhaps a "why" or two behind this. Then I must stop. This isall that is ever meant by those who say they can tell us why a thingis so and so. No one professes to be able to reach back to the last"why" that any one can ask, and to answer it. Fortunately forphilosophers, people generally become fatigued after they have heardthe answer to two or three "whys" and are glad enough to let thematter drop. If, however, any one will insist on pushing questionbehind question long enough, he will compel us to admit that we cometo the end of our knowledge which is based ultimately upon ignorance. To get knowledge out of ignorance seems almost as hopeless a task asto get something out of any number of nothings, but this in practiceis what we have to do and the less fuss we make over it the better. 

When, therefore, we say that we know "why" a thing is so and so, wemean that we know its immediate antecedents and connections, and findthem familiar to us. I say that the immediate antecedent of, and thephenomenon most closely connected with, heredity is memory. I do notprofess to show why anything can remember at all, I only maintainthat whereas, to borrow an illustration from mathematics, life wasformerly an equation of, say, 100 unknown quantities, it is now oneof only, inasmuch as memory and heredity have been shown to be oneand the same thing. 

Memory

i

Memory is a kind of way (or weight--whichever it should be) that themind has got upon it, in virtue of which the sensation excitedendures a little longer than the cause which excited it. There isthus induced a state of things in which mental images, and evenphysical sensations (if there can be such a thing as a physicalsensation) exist by virtue of association, though the conditionswhich originally called them into existence no longer continue. 

This is as the echo continuing to reverberate after the sound hasceased. 

ii

To be is to think and to be thinkable. To live is to continuethinking and to remember having done so. Memory is to mind asviscosity is to protoplasm, it gives a tenacity to thought--a kind ofpied a terre from which it can, and without which it could not, advance. 

Thought, in fact, and memory seem inseparable; no thought, no memory;and no memory, no thought. And, as conscious thought and consciousmemory are functions one of another, so also are unconscious thoughtand unconscious memory. Memory is, as it were, the body of thought, and it is through memory that body and mind are linked together inrhythm or vibration; for body is such as it is by reason of thecharacteristics of the vibrations that are going on in it, and memoryis only due to the fact that the vibrations are of suchcharacteristics as to catch on to and be caught on to by othervibrations that flow into them from without--no catch, no memory. 

Antitheses

Memory and forgetfulness are as life and death to one another. Tolive is to remember and to remember is to live. To die is to forgetand to forget is to die. Everything is so much involved in and is somuch a process of its opposite that, as it is almost fair to calldeath a process of life and life a process of death, so it is to callmemory a process of forgetting and forgetting a process ofremembering. There is never either absolute memory or absoluteforgetfulness, absolute life or absolute death. So with light anddarkness, heat and cold, you never can get either all the light, orall the heat, out of anything. So with God and the devil; so witheverything. Everything is like a door swinging backwards andforwards. Everything has a little of that from which it is mostremote and to which it is most opposed and these antitheses serve toexplain one another. 

Unconscious Memory

A man at the Century Club was falling foul of me the other night formy use of the word "memory. " There was no such thing, he said, as"unconscious memory"--memory was always conscious, and so forth. Mybusiness is--and I think it can be easily done--to show that theycannot beat me off my unconscious memory without my being able tobeat them off their conscious memory; that they cannot deny thelegitimacy of my maintaining the phenomena of heredity to bephenomena of memory without my being able to deny the legitimacy oftheir maintaining the recollection of what they had for dinneryesterday to be a phenomenon of memory. My theory of the unconsciousdoes not lead to universal unconsciousness, but only to pigeon-holingand putting by. We shall always get new things to worry about. If Ithought that by learning more and more I should ever arrive at theknowledge of absolute truth, I would leave off studying. But Ibelieve I am pretty safe. 

Reproduction and Memory

There is the reproduction of an idea which has been produced oncealready, and there is the reproduction of a living form which hasbeen produced once already. The first reproduction is certainly aneffort of memory. It should not therefore surprise us if the secondreproduction should turn out to be an effort of memory also. Indeedall forms of reproduction that we can follow are based directly orindirectly upon memory. It is only the one great act of reproductionthat we cannot follow which we disconnect from memory. 

Personal Identity

We are so far identical with our ancestors and our contemporariesthat it is very rarely we can see anything that they do not see. Itis not unjust that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon thechildren, for the children committed the sins when in the persons oftheir fathers; they ate the sour grapes before they were born: true, they have forgotten the pleasure now, but so has a man with a sickheadache forgotten the pleasure of getting drunk the night before. 

Sensations

Our sensations are only distinguishable because we feel them indifferent places and at different times. If we feel them at verynearly the same time and place we cannot distinguish them. 

Cobwebs in the Dark

If you walk at night and your face comes up against a spider's webwoven across the road, what a shock that thin line gives you! Youfristle through every nerve of your body. 

Shocks and Memory

Memory is our sense that we are being shocked now as we were shockedthen. 

Shocks

Given matter conscious in one part of itself of a shock in anotherpart (i. E. Knowing in what part of itself it is shocked) retaining amemory of each shock for a little while afterwards, able to feelwhether two shocks are simultaneous or in succession, and able toknow whether it has been shocked much or little--given also thatassociation does not stick to the letter of its bond--and the restwill follow. 

Design

i

There is often connection but no design, as when I stamp my foot withdesign and shake something down without design, or as when a man runsup against another in the street and knocks him down withoutintending it. This is undesign within design. 

Fancied insults are felt by people who see design in a connectionwhere they should see little connection, and no design. 

Connection with design is sometimes hard to distinguish fromconnection without design; as when a man treads on another's corns, it is not always easy to say whether he has done so accidentally oron purpose. 

Men have been fond in all ages of ascribing connection where there isnone. Thus astrology has been believed in. Before last Christmas Isaid I had neglected the feasts of the Church too much, and that Ishould probably be more prosperous if I paid more attention to them:so I hung up three pieces of ivy in my rooms on Xmas Eve. A fewmonths afterwards I got the entail cut off my reversion, but I shouldhardly think there was much connection between the two things. Nevertheless I shall hang some holly up this year. 

ii

It seems also designed, ab extra (though who can say whether this isso?), that no one should know anything whatever about the ultimate, or even deeper springs of growth and action. If not designed theresult is arrived at as effectually as though it were so. 

Accident, Design and Memory

It is right to say either that heredity and memory are one and thesame thing, or that heredity is a mode of memory, or that heredity isdue to memory, if it is thereby intended that animals can only growin virtue of being able to recollect. Memory and heredity are themeans of preserving experiences, of building them together, ofuniting a mass of often confused detail into homogeneous andconsistent mind and matter, but they do not originate. The incrementin each generation, at the moment of its being an increment, hasnothing to do with memory or heredity, it is due to the chances andchanges of this mortal state. Design comes in at the moment that aliving being either feels a want and forecasts for its gratification, or utilises some waif or stray of accident on the principle, whichunderlies all development, that enough is a little more than what onehas. It is the business of memory and heredity to conserve and totransmit from one generation to another that which has been furnishedby design, or by accident designedly turned to account. 

It is therefore not right to say, as some have supposed me to mean, that we can do nothing which we do not remember to have done before. We can do nothing very difficult or complicated which we have notdone before, unless as by a tour de force, once in a way, underexceptionally favourable circumstances, but our whole conscious lifeis the performance of acts either imperfectly remembered or notremembered at all. There are rain-drops of new experiences in everylife which are not within the hold of our memory or past experience, and, as each one of these rain-drops came originally from somethingoutside, the whole river of our life has in its inception nothing todo with memory, though it is only through memory that the rain-dropsof new experience can ever unite to form a full flowing river ofvariously organised life and intelligence. 

Memory and Mistakes

Memory vanishes with extremes of resemblance or difference. Thingswhich put us in mind of others must be neither too like nor toounlike them. It is our sense that a position is not quite the samewhich makes us find it so nearly the same. We remember by the aid ofdifferences as much as by that of samenesses. If there could be nodifference there would be no memory, for the two positions wouldbecome absolutely one and the same, and the universe would repeatitself for ever and ever as between these two points. 

When ninety-nine hundredths of one set of phenomena are presentedwhile the hundredth is withdrawn without apparent cause, so that wecan no longer do something which according to our past experience weought to find no difficulty in doing, then we may guess what a beemust feel as it goes flying up and down a window-pane. Then we havedoubts thrown upon the fundamental axiom of life, i. E. That likeantecedents will be followed by like consequents. On this we go madand die in a short time. 

Mistaken memory may be as potent as genuine recollection, so far asits effects go, unless it happens to come more into collision withother and not mistaken memories than it is able to contend against. 

Mistakes or delusions occur mainly in two ways. 

First, when the circumstances have changed a little but not enough tomake us recognise the fact: this may happen either because of wantof attention on our part or because of the hidden nature of thealteration, or because of its slightness in itself, the importancedepending upon its relations to something else which make a verysmall change have an importance it would not otherwise have: inthese cases the memory reverts to the old circumstances unmodified, asufficient number of the associated ideas having been reproduced tomake us assume the remainder without further inspection, and hencefollows a want of harmony between action and circumstances whichresults in trouble somewhere. 

Secondly, through the memory not reverting in full perfection, thoughthe circumstances are reproduced fully and accurately. 

Remembering

When asked to remember "something" indefinitely you cannot: you lookround at once for something to suggest what you shall try andremember. For thought must be always about some "thing" which thingmust either be a thing by courtesy, as an air of Handel's, or else asolid, tangible object, as a piano or an organ, but always the thingmust be linked on to matter by a longer or shorter chain as the casemay be. I was thinking of this once while walking by the side of theSerpentine and, looking round, saw some ducks alighting on the water;their feet reminded me of the way the sea-birds used to alight when Iwas going to New Zealand and I set to work recalling attendant facts. Without help from outside I should have remembered nothing. 

A Torn Finger-Nail

Henry Hoare [a college friend], when a young man of about five-and-twenty, one day tore the quick of his fingernail--I mean he separatedthe fleshy part of the finger from the nail--and this reminded himthat many years previously, while quite a child, he had done the samething. Thereon he fell to thinking of that time which was impressedupon his memory partly because there was a great disturbance in thehouse about a missing five-pound note and partly because it was whilehe had the scarlet fever. 

Following the train of thought aroused by his torn finger, he askedhimself how he had torn it, and after a while it came back to himthat he had been lying ill in bed as a child of seven at the house ofan aunt who lived in Hertfordshire. His arms often hung out of thebed and, as his hands wandered over the wooden frame, he felt thatthere was a place where nut had come out so that he could put hisfingers in. One day, in trying to stuff a piece of paper into thishole, he stuffed it in so far and so tightly that he tore the quickof nail. The whole thing came back vividly and, though he had notthought of it for nearly twenty years, he could see the room in hisaunt's house and remembered how his aunt use to sit by his bedsidewriting at a little table from which he had got the piece of paperwhich he had stuffed into the hole. 

So far so good. But then there flashed upon him an idea that was notso pleasant. I mean it came upon him with irresistible force thatthe piece of paper, he had stuffed into the hole in the bedstead wasthe missing five-pound note about which there had been so muchdisturbance. At that time he was so young that a five-pound note wasto him only a piece of paper; when he heard that the money wasmissing, he had thought it was five sovereigns; or perhaps he was tooill to think anything, or to be questioned; I forget what I was toldabout this--at any rate he had no idea of the value of the piece ofpaper he was stuffing into the hole. But now the matter had recurredto him at all he felt so sure that it was the note that heimmediately went down to Hertfordshire, where his aunt was stillliving, and asked, to the surprise of every one, to be allowed towash his hands in the room he had occupied as a child. He was toldthat there were friends staying in the house who had the room atpresent, but, on his saying he had a reason and particularly beggingto be allowed to remain alone a little while in this room, he wastaken upstairs and left there. 

He went to the bed, lifted up the chintz which then covered theframe, and found his old friend the hole. A nut had been suppliedand he could no longer get his finger into it. He rang the bell andwhen the servant came asked for a bed-key. All this time he wasrapidly acquiring the reputation of being a lunatic throughout thewhole house, but the key was brought, and by the help of it he gotthe nut off. When he had done so, there, sure enough, by dint ofpicking with his pocket-knife, he found the missing five-pound note. 

See how the return of a given present brings back the presents thathave been associated with it. 

Unconscious Association

One morning I was whistling to myself the air "In Sweetest Harmony"from Saul. Jones heard me and said:

"Do you know why you are whistling that?"

I said I did not. 

Then he said: "Did you not hear me, two minutes ago, whistling'Eagles were not so Swift'?"

I had not noticed his doing so, and it was so long since I had playedthat chorus myself that I doubt whether I should have consciouslyrecognised it. That I did recognise it unconsciously is tolerablyclear from my having gone on with "In Sweetest Harmony, " which is theair that follows it. 

Association

If you say "Hallelujah" to a cat, it will excite no fixed set offibres in connection with any other set and the cat will exhibit noneof the phenomena of consciousness. But if you say "Me-e-at, " the catwill be there in a moment, for the due connection between the sets offibres has been established. 

Language

The reason why words recall ideas is that the word has beenartificially introduced among the associated ideas, and the presenceof one idea recalls the others. 

V--VIBRATIONS

Contributions to Evolution

To me it seems that my contributions to the theory of evolution havebeen mainly these:

1. The identification of heredity and memory and the corollariesrelating to sports, the reversion to remote ancestors, the phenomenaof old age, the causes of the sterility of hybrids and the principlesunderlying longevity--all of which follow as a matter of course. This was Life and Habit. [1877. ]

2. The re-introduction of teleology into organic life which, to me, seems hardly (if at all) less important than the Life and Habittheory. This was Evolution Old and New. [1879. ]

3. An attempt to suggest an explanation of the physics of memory. Iwas alarmed by the suggestion and fathered it upon Professor Heringwho never, that I can see, meant to say anything of the kind, but Iforced my view on him, as it were, by taking hold of a sentence ortwo in his lecture, on Memory as a Universal Function of OrganisedMatter and thus connected memory with vibrations. This wasUnconscious Memory. [1880. ]

What I want to do now [1885] is to connect vibrations not only withmemory but with the physical constitution of that body in which thememory resides, thus adopting Newland's law (sometimes calledMendelejeff's law) that there is only one substance, and that thecharacteristics of the vibrations going on within it at any giventime will determine whether it will appear to us as (say) hydrogen, or sodium, or chicken doing this, or chicken doing the other. [Thistouched upon in the concluding chapter of Luck or Cunning? 1887. ]

I would make not only the mind, but the body of the organism todepend on the characteristics of the vibrations going on within it. The same vibrations which remind the chicken that it wants iron forits blood actually turn the pre-existing matter in the egg into therequired material. According to this view the form andcharacteristics of the elements are as much the living expositions ofcertain vibrations--are as much our manner of perceiving that thevibrations going on in that part of the one universal substance aresuch and such--as the colour yellow is our perception that asubstance is being struck by vibrations of light, so many to thesecond, or as the action of a man walking about is our mode ofperceiving that such and such another combination of vibrations is, for the present, going on in the substance which, in consequence, hasassumed the shape of the particular man. 

It is somewhere in this neighbourhood that I look for the connectionbetween organic and inorganic. 

The Universal Substance

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We shall never get straight till we leave off trying to separate mindand matter. Mind is not a thing or, if it be, we know nothing aboutit; it is a function of matter. Matter is not a thing or, if it be, we know nothing about it; it is a function of mind. 

We should see an omnipotent, universal substance, sometimes in adynamical and sometimes in a statical condition and, in eithercondition, always retaining a little of its opposite; and we shouldsee this substance as at once both material and mental, whether it bein the one condition or in the other. The statical conditionrepresents content, the dynamical, discontent; and both content anddiscontent, each still retaining a little of its opposite, must becarried down to the lowest atom. 

Action is the process whereby thought, which is mental, ismaterialised and whereby substance, which is material, is mentalised. It is like the present, which unites times past and future and whichis the only time worth thinking of and yet is the only time which hasno existence. 

I do not say that thought actually passes into substance, or mindinto matter, by way of action--I do not know what thought is--butevery thought involves bodily change, i. E. Action, and every actioninvolves thought, conscious or unconscious. The action is the pointof juncture between bodily change, visible and otherwise sensible, and mental change which is invisible except as revealed throughaction. So that action is the material symbol of certain states ofmind. It translates the thought into a corresponding bodily change. 

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When the universal substance is at rest, that is, not vibrating atall, it is absolutely imperceptible whether by itself or anythingelse. It is to all intents and purposes fast asleep or, rather, socompletely non-existent that you can walk through it, or it throughyou, and it knows neither time nor space but presents all theappearance of perfect vacuum. It is in an absolutely statical state. But when it is not at rest, it becomes perceptible both to itself andothers; that is to say, it assumes material guise such as makes itimperceptible both to itself and others. It is then tending towardsrest, i. E. In a dynamical state. The not being at rest is the beingin a vibratory condition. It is the disturbance of the repose of theuniversal, invisible and altogether imperceptible substance by way ofvibration which constitutes matter at all; it is the character of thevibrations which constitutes the particular kind of matter. (May weimagine that some vibrations vibrate with a rhythm which has atendency to recur like the figures in a recurring decimal, and thathere we have the origin of the reproductive system?)

We should realise that all space is at all times full of a stuffendowed with a mind and that both stuff and mind are immaterial andimperceptible so long as they are undisturbed, but the moment theyare disturbed the stuff becomes material and the mind perceptible. It is not easy to disturb them, for the atmosphere protects them. Solong as they are undisturbed they transmit light, etc. , just asthough they were a rigid substance, for, not being disturbed, theydetract nothing from any vibration which enters them. 

What will cause a row will be the hitting upon some plan for wakingup the ether. It is here that we must look for the extension of theworld when it has become over-peopled or when, through its gradualcooling down, it becomes less suitable for a habitation. By and bywe shall make new worlds. 

Mental and Physical

A strong hope of 20, 000 pounds in the heart of a poor but capable manmay effect a considerable redistribution of the forces of nature--mayeven remove mountains. The little, unseen impalpable hope sets up avibrating movement in a messy substance shut in a dark warm placeinside the man's skull. The vibrating substance undergoes a changethat none can note, whereupon rings of rhythm circle outwards from itas from a stone thrown into a pond, so that the Alps are pierced inconsequence. 

Vibrations, Memory and Chemical Properties

The quality of every substance depends upon its vibrations, but sodoes the quality of all thought and action. Quality is only one modeof action; the action of developing, the desire to make this or that, and do this or that, and the stuff we make are alike due to thenature and characteristics of vibrations. 

I want to connect the actual manufacture of the things a chickenmakes inside an egg with the desire and memory of the chickens, so asto show that one and the same set of vibrations at once change theuniversal substratum into the particular phase of it required andawaken a consciousness of, and a memory of and a desire towards, thisparticular phase on the part of the molecules which are beingvibrated into it. So, for example, that a set of vibrations shall atonce turn plain white and yolk of egg into the feathers, blood andbones of a chicken and, at the same time, make the mind of the embryoto be such or such as it is. 

Protoplasm and Reproduction

The reason why the offspring of protoplasm progressed, and theoffspring of nothing else does so, is that the viscid nature ofprotoplasm allows vibrations to last a very long time, and so veryold vibrations get carried into any fragment that is broken off;whereas in the case of air and water, vibrations get soon effaced andonly very recent vibrations get carried into the young air and theyoung water which are, therefore, born fully grown; they cannot growany more nor can they decay till they are killed outright bysomething decomposing them. If protoplasm was more viscid it wouldnot vibrate easily enough; if less, it would run away into thesurrounding water. 

Germs within Germs

When we say that the germ within the hen's egg remembers having madeitself into a chicken on past occasions, or that each one of 100, 000salmon germs remembers to have made itself into a salmon (male orfemale) in the persons of the single pair of salmon its parents, dowe intend that each single one of these germs was a witness of, and aconcurring agent in, the development of the parent forms from theirrespective germs, and that each one of them therefore, was shut upwithin the parent germ, like a small box inside a big one?

If so, then the parent germ with its millions of brothers and sisterswas in like manner enclosed within a grand-parental germ, and so ontill we are driven to admit, after even a very few generations, thateach ancestor has contained more germs than could be expressed by anumber written in small numerals, beginning at St. Paul's and endingat Charing Cross. Mr. Darwin's provisional theory of pangenesiscomes to something very like this, so far as it can be understood atall. 

Therefore it will save trouble (and we should observe no otherconsideration) to say that the germs that unite to form any givensexually produced individual were not present in the germs, or withthe germs, from which the parents sprang, but that they came into theparents' bodies at some later period. 

We may perhaps find it convenient to account for their intimateacquaintance with the past history of the body into which they havebeen introduced by supposing that in virtue of assimilation they haveacquired certain periodical rhythms already pre-existing in theparental bodies, and that the communication of the characteristics ofthese rhythms determines at once the physical and psychicaldevelopment of the individual in a course as nearly like that of theparents as changed surroundings will allow. 

For, according to my Life and Habit theory, everything in connectionwith embryonic development is referred to memory, and this involvesthat the thing remembering should have been present and an actor inthe development which it is supposed to remember; but we have justsettled that the germs which unite to form any individual, and whichwhen united proceed to develop according to what I suppose to betheir memory of their previous developments, were not participatorsin any previous development and cannot therefore remember it. Theycannot remember even a single development, much less can theyremember that infinite series of developments the recollection andepitomisation of which is a sine qua non for the unconsciousnesswhich we note in normal development. I see no way of getting out ofthis difficulty so convenient as to say that a memory is thereproduction and recurrence of a rhythm communicated directly orindirectly from one substance to another, and that where a certainrhythm exists there is a certain stock of memories, whether theactual matter in which the rhythm now subsists was present with thematter in which it arose or not. 

There is another little difficulty in the question whether the matterthat I suppose introduced into the parents' bodies during their life-histories, and that goes to form the germs that afterwards becometheir offspring, is living or non-living. If living, then it has itsown memories and life-histories which must be cancelled and undonebefore the assimilation and the becoming imbued with new rhythms canbe complete. That is to say it must become as near non-living asanything can become. 

Sooner or later, then, we get this introduced matter to be non-living(as we may call it) and the puzzle is how to get it living again. For we strenuously deny equivocal generation. When matter is livingwe contend that it can only have been begotten of other like livingmatter; we deny that it can have become living from non-living. Here, however, within the bodies of animals and vegetables we findequivocal generation a necessity; nor do I see any way out of itexcept by maintaining that nothing is ever either quite dead or quitealive, but that a little leaven of the one is always left in theother. For it would be as difficult to get the thing dead if it isonce all alive, as alive if once all dead. 

According to this view to beget offspring is to communicate to twopieces of protoplasm (which afterwards combine) certain rhythmicvibrations which, though too feeble to generate visible action untilthey receive accession of fresh similar rhythms from exteriorobjects, yet on receipt of such accession set the game of developmentgoing and maintain it. It will be observed that the rhythms supposedto be communicated to any germs are such as have been alreadyrepeatedly refreshed by rhythms from exterior objects in precedinggenerations, so that a consonance is rehearsed and pre-arranged, asit were, between the rhythm in the germ and those that in the normalcourse of its ulterior existence are likely to flow into it. Ifthere is too serious a discord between inner and outer rhythms theorganism dies. 

Atoms and Fixed Laws

When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are eitherascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or theyare talking nonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at anyrate a potentiality of disobeying. 

No objection can lie to our supposing potential or elementaryvolition and consciousness to exist in atoms, on the score that theiraction would be less regular or uniform if they had free will than ifthey had not. By giving them free will we do no more than those whomake them bound to obey fixed laws. They will be as certain to usetheir freedom of will only in particular ways as to be driven intothose ways by obedience to fixed laws. 

The little element of individual caprice (supposing we start withfree will), or (supposing we start with necessity) the little elementof stiffneckedness, both of which elements we find everywhere innature, these are the things that prevent even the most reliablethings from being absolutely reliable. It is they that form thepoint of contact between this universe and something else quitedifferent in which none of those fundamental ideas obtain withoutwhich we cannot think at all. So we say that nitrous acid is morereliable than nitric for etching. 

Atoms have a mind as much smaller and less complex than ours as theirbodies are smaller and less complex. 

Complex mind involves complex matter and vice versa. On the whole Ithink it would be most convenient to endow all atoms with a somethingof consciousness and volition, and to hold them to be pro tanto, living. We must suppose them able to remember and forget, i. E. Toretain certain vibrations that have been once established--graduallyto lose them and to receive others instead. We must suppose somemore intelligent, versatile and of greater associative power thanothers. 

Thinking

All thinking is of disturbance, dynamical, a state of unrest tendingtowards equilibrium. It is all a mode of classifying and ofcriticising with a view of knowing whether it gives us, or is likelyto give us, pleasure or no. 

Equilibrium

In the highest consciousness there is still unconsciousness, in thelowest unconsciousness there is still consciousness. If there is noconsciousness there is no thing, or nothing. To understand perfectlywould be to cease to understand at all. 

It is in the essence of heaven that we are not to be thwarted orirritated, this involves absolute equilibrium and absoluteequilibrium involves absolute unconsciousness. Christ isequilibrium--the not wanting anything, either more or less. Deathalso is equilibrium. But Christ is a more living kind of death thandeath is. 

VI--MIND AND MATTER

Motion

We cannot define either motion or matter, but we have certain roughand ready ideas concerning them which, right or wrong, we must makethe best of without more words, for the chances are ten to one thatattempted definition will fuzz more than it will clear. 

Roughly, matter and motion are functions one of another, as are mindand matter; they are essentially concomitant with one another, andneither can vary but the other varies also. You cannot have a thing"matter" by itself which shall have no motion in it, nor yet a thing"motion" by itself which shall exist apart from matter; you must haveboth or neither. You can have matter moving much, or little, and inall conceivable ways; but you cannot have matter without any motionmore than you can have motion without any matter that is moving. 

Its states, its behaviour under varying circumstances, that is to saythe characteristics of its motions, are all that we can cognise inrespect of matter. We recognise certain varying states or conditionsof matter and give one state one name, and another another, as thoughit were a man or a dog; but it is the state not the matter that wecognise, just as it is the man's moods and outward semblance that wealone note, while knowing nothing of the man. Of matter in itsultimate essence and apart from motion we know nothing whatever. Asfar as we are concerned there is no such thing: it has no existence:for de non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio. 

It is a mistake, therefore, to speak about an "eternal unchangeableunderlying substance" as I am afraid I did in the last pages of Luckor Cunning? but I am not going to be at the trouble of seeing. For, if the substance is eternal and unknowable and unchangeable, it istantamount to nothing. Nothing can be nearer non-existence thaneternal unknowableness and unchangeableness. 

If, on the other hand, the substance changes, then it is notunknowable, or uncognisable, for by cognising its changes we cogniseit. Changes are the only things that we can cognise. Besides, wecannot have substance changing without condition changing, and if wecould we might as well ignore condition. Does it not seem as though, since the motions or states are all that we cognise, they should beall that we need take account of? Change of condition is change ofsubstance. Then what do we want with substance? Why have two ideaswhen one will do?

I suppose it has all come about because there are so many tables andchairs and stones that appear not to be moving, and this gave us theidea of a solid substance without any motion in it. 

How would it be to start with motion approximately patent, and motionapproximately latent (absolute patency and absolute latency beingunattainable), and lay down that motion latent as motion becomespatent as substance, or matter of chair-and-table order; and thatwhen patent as motion it is latent as matter and substance?

I am only just recovering from severe influenza and have no doubt Ihave been writing nonsense. 

Matter and Mind

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People say we can conceive the existence of matter and the existenceof mind. I doubt it. I doubt how far we have any definiteconception of mind or of matter, pure and simple. 

What is meant by conceiving a thing or understanding it? When wehear of a piece of matter instinct with mind, as protoplasm, forexample, there certainly comes up before our closed eyes an idea, apicture which we imagine to bear some resemblance to the thing we arehearing of. But when we try to think of matter apart from everyattribute of matter (and this I suspect comes ultimately to "apartfrom every attribute of mind") we get no image before our closedeyes--we realise nothing to ourselves. Perhaps we surreptitiouslyintroduce some little attribute, and then we think we have conceivedof matter pure and simple, but this I think is as far as we can go. The like holds good for mind: we must smuggle in a little matterbefore we get any definite idea at all. 

ii

Matter and mind are as heat and cold, as life and death, certaintyand uncertainty, union and separateness. There is no absolute heat, life, certainty, union, nor is there any absolute cold, death, uncertainty or separateness. 

We can conceive of no ultimate limit beyond which a thing cannotbecome either hotter or colder, there is no limit; there are degreesof heat and cold, but there is no heat so great that we cannot fancyits becoming a little hotter, that is we cannot fancy its not havingstill a few degrees of cold in it which can be extracted. Heat andcold are always relative to one another, they are never absolute. Sowith life and death, there is neither perfect life nor perfect death, but in the highest life there is some death and in the lowest deaththere is still some life. The fraction is so small that in practiceit may and must be neglected; it is neglected, however, not as ofright but as of grace, and the right to insist on it is never finallyand indefeasibly waived. 

iii

An energy is a soul--a something working in us. 

As we cannot imagine heat apart from something which is hot, normotion without something that is moving, so we cannot imagine anenergy, or working power, without matter through which it manifestsitself. 

On the other hand, we cannot imagine matter without thinking of it ascapable of some kind of working power or energy--we cannot think ofmatter without thinking of it as in some way ensouled. 

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Matter and mind form one another, i. E. They give to one another theform in which we see them. They are the helpmeets to one anotherthat cross each other and undo each other and, in the undoing, doand, in the doing, undo, and so see-saw ad infinitum. 

Organic and Inorganic

Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have deniedthat they can understand their own. What we call inorganic mattercannot understand the animals' and plants' business, we havetherefore denied that it can understand anything whatever. 

What we call inorganic is not so really, but the organisation is toosubtle for our senses or for any of those appliances with which weassist them. It is deducible however as a necessity by an exerciseof the reasoning faculties. 

People looked at glaciers for thousands of years before they foundout that ice was a fluid, so it has taken them and will continue totake them not less before they see that the inorganic is not whollyinorganic. 

The Power to make Mistakes

This is one of the criteria of life as we commonly think of it. Ifoxygen could go wrong and mistake some other gas for hydrogen andthus learn not to mistake it any more, we should say oxygen wasalive. The older life is, the more unerring it becomes in respect ofthings about which it is conversant--the more like, in fact, itbecomes to such a thing as the force of gravity, both as regardsunerringness and unconsciousness. 

Is life such a force as gravity in process of formation, and wasgravity once--or rather, were things once liable to make mistakes onsuch a subject as gravity?

If any one will tell me what life is I will tell him whether theinorganic is alive or not. 

The Omnipresence of Intelligence

A little while ago no one would admit that animals had intelligence. This is now conceded. At any rate, then, vegetables had nointelligence. This is being fast disputed. Even Darwin leanstowards the view that they have intelligence. At any rate, then, theinorganic world has not got an intelligence. Even this is now beingdenied. Death is being defeated at all points. No sooner do wethink we have got a bona fide barrier than it breaks down. Thedivisions between varieties, species, genus, all gone; betweeninstinct and reason, gone; between animals and plants, gone; betweenman and the lower animals, gone; so, ere long, the division betweenorganic and inorganic will go and will take with it the divisionbetween mind and matter. 

The Super-Organic Kingdom

As the solid inorganic kingdom supervened upon the gaseous (vestigesof the old being, nevertheless, carried over into and stillpersisting in the new) and as the organic kingdom supervened upon theinorganic (vestiges of the old being, again, carried over into andstill persisting in the new) so a third kingdom is now in process ofdevelopment, the super-organic, of which we see the germs in the lesspractical and more emotional side of our nature. 

Man, for example, is the only creature that interests himself in hisown past, or forecasts his future to any considerable extent. Thistendency I would see as the monad of a new regime--a regime that willbe no more governed by the ideas and habits now prevailing amongourselves than we are by those still obtaining among stones or water. Nevertheless, if a man be shot out of a cannon, or fall from a greatheight, he is to all intents and purposes a mere stone. Placeanything in circumstances entirely foreign to its immediateantecedents, and those antecedents become non-existent to it, itreturns to what it was before they existed, to the last stage that itcan recollect as at all analogous to its present. 

Feeling

Man is a substance, he knows not what, feeling, he knows not how, arest and unrest that he can only in part distinguish. He is asubstance feeling equilibrium or want of equilibrium; that is to say, he is a substance in a statical or dynamical condition and feelingthe passage from one state into the other. 

Feeling is an art and, like any other art, can be acquired by takingpains. The analogy between feelings and words is very close. Bothhave their foundation in volition and deal largely in convention; aswe should not be word-ridden so neither should we be feeling-ridden;feelings can deceive us; they can lie; they can be used in a non-natural, artificial sense; they can be forced; they can carry usaway; they can be restrained. 

When the surroundings are familiar, we know the right feeling andfeel it accordingly, or if "we" (that is the central government ofour personality) do not feel it, the subordinate departmentalpersonality, whose business it is, feels it in the usual way and thengoes on to something else. When the surroundings are less familiarand the departmental personality cannot deal with them, the positionis reported through the nervous system to the central governmentwhich is frequently at a loss to know what feeling to apply. Sometimes it happens to discern the right feeling and apply it, sometimes it hits upon an inappropriate one and is thus induced toproceed from solecism to solecism till the consequences lead to acrisis from which we recover and which, then becoming a leading case, forms one of the decisions on which our future action is based. Sometimes it applies a feeling that is too inappropriate, as when theposition is too horribly novel for us to have had any experience thatcan guide the central government in knowing how to feel about it, andthis results in a cessation of the effort involved in trying to feel. Hence we may hope that the most horrible apparent suffering is notfelt beyond a certain point, but is passed through unconsciouslyunder a natural, automatic anaesthetic--the unconsciousness, inextreme cases, leading to death. 

It is generally held that animals feel; it will soon be generallyheld that plants feel; after that it will be held that stones alsocan feel. For, as no matter is so organic that there is not some ofthe inorganic in it, so, also, no matter is so inorganic that thereis not some of the organic in it. We know that we have nerves andthat we feel, it does not follow that other things do not feelbecause they have no nerves--it only follows that they do not feel aswe do. The difference between the organic and the inorganic kingdomswill some day be seen to lie in the greater power of discriminatingits feelings which is possessed by the former. Both are made of thesame universal substance but, in the case of the organic world, thissubstance is able to feel more fully and discreetly and to show usthat it feels. 

Animals and plants, as they advance in the scale of lifedifferentiate their feelings more and more highly; they record thembetter and recognise them more readily. They get to know what theyare doing and feeling, not step by step only, nor sentence bysentence, but in long flights, forming chapters and whole books ofaction and sensation. The difference as regards feeling between manand the lower animals is one of degree and not of kind. Theinorganic is less expert in differentiating its feelings, thereforeits memory of them must be less enduring; it cannot recognise what itcould scarcely cognise. One might as well for some purposes, perhaps, say at once, as indeed people generally do for mostpurposes, that the inorganic does not feel; nevertheless the somewhatperiphrastic way of putting it, by saying that the inorganic feelsbut does not know, or knows only very slightly, how to differentiateits feelings, has the advantage of expressing the fact that feelingdepends upon differentiation and sense of relation inter se of thethings differentiated--a fact which, if never expressed, is apt to belost sight of. 

As, therefore, human discrimination is to that of the lower animals, so the discrimination of the lower animals and plants is to that ofinorganic things. In each case it is greater discriminating power(and this is mental power) that underlies the differentiation, but inno case can there be a denial of mental power altogether. 

Opinion and Matter

Moral force and material force do pass into one another; a conflictof opinion often ends in a fight. Putting it the other way, there isno material conflict without attendant clash of opinion. Opinion andmatter act and react as do all things else; they come up hand in handout of something which is both and neither, but, so far as we cancatch sight of either first on our mental horizon, it is opinion thatis the prior of the two. 

Moral Influence

The caracal lies on a shelf in its den in the Zoological Gardensquietly licking its fur. I go up and stand near it. It makes a faceat me. I come a little nearer. It makes a worse face and raisesitself up on its haunches. I stand and look. It jumps down from itsshelf and makes as if it intended to go for me. I move back. Thecaracal has exerted a moral influence over me which I have beenunable to resist. 

Moral influence means persuading another that one can make that othermore uncomfortable than that other can make oneself. 

Mental and Physical Pabulum

When we go up to the shelves in the reading-room of the BritishMuseum, how like it is to wasps flying up and down an apricot treethat is trained against a wall, or cattle coming down to drink at apool!

Eating and Proselytising

All eating is a kind of proselytising--a kind of dogmatising--amaintaining that the eater's way of looking at things is better thanthe eatee's. We convert the food, or try to do so, to our own way ofthinking, and, when it sticks to its own opinion and refuses to beconverted, we say it disagrees with us. An animal that refuses tolet another eat it has the courage of its convictions and, if it getseaten, dies a martyr to them. So we can only proselytise fresh meat, the convictions of putrid meat begin to be too strong for us. 

It is good for a man that he should not be thwarted--that he shouldhave his own way as far, and with as little difficulty, as possible. Cooking is good because it makes matters easier by unsettling themeat's mind and preparing it for new ideas. All food must first beprepared for us by animals and plants, or we cannot assimilate it;and so thoughts are more easily assimilated that have been alreadydigested by other minds. A man should avoid converse with thingsthat have been stunted or starved, and should not eat such meat ashas been overdriven or underfed or afflicted with disease, nor shouldhe touch fruit or vegetables that have not been well grown. 

Sitting quiet after eating is akin to sitting still during divineservice so as not to disturb the congregation. We are catechisingand converting our proselytes, and there should be no row. As we getolder we must digest more quietly still, our appetite is less, ourgastric juices are no longer so eloquent, they have lost that cogentfluency which carried away all that came in contact with it. Theyhave become sluggish and unconciliatory. This is what happens to anyman when he suffers from an attack of indigestion. 

Sea-Sickness

Or, indeed, any other sickness is the inarticulate expression of thepain we feel on seeing a proselyte escape us just as we were on thepoint of converting it. 

Indigestion

This, as I have said above, may be due to the naughtiness of thestiff-necked things that we have eaten, or to the poverty of our ownarguments; but it may also arise from an attempt on the part of thestomach to be too damned clever, and to depart from precedentinconsiderately. The healthy stomach is nothing if not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions. 

Assimilation and Persecution

We cannot get rid of persecution; if we feel at all we must persecutesomething; the mere acts of feeding and growing are acts ofpersecution. Our aim should be to persecute nothing but such thingsas are absolutely incapable of resisting us. Man is the only animalthat can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eatuntil he eats them. 

Matter Infinitely Subdivisible

We must suppose it to be so, but it does not follow that we can knowanything about it if it is divided into pieces smaller than a certainsize; and, if we can know nothing about it when so divided, then, quaus, it has no existence and therefore matter, qua us, is notinfinitely subdivisible. 

Differences

We often say that things differ in degree but not in kind, as thoughthere were a fixed line at which degree ends and kind begins. Thereis no such line. All differences resolve themselves into differencesof degree. Everything can in the end be united with everything byeasy stages if a way long enough and round-about enough be taken. Hence to the metaphysician everything will become one, being unitedwith everything else by degrees so subtle that there is no escapefrom seeing the universe as a single whole. This in theory; but inpractice it would get us into such a mess that we had better go ontalking about differences of kind as well as of degree. 

Union and Separation

In the closest union there is still some separate existence ofcomponent parts; in the most complete separation there is still areminiscence of union. When they are most separate, the atoms seemto bear in mind that they may one day have to come together again;when most united, they still remember that they may come to fall outsome day and do not give each other their full, unreservedconfidence. 

The difficulty is how to get unity and separateness at one and thesame time. The two main ideas underlying all action are desire forcloser unity and desire for more separateness. Nature is the puzzledsense of a vast number of things which feel they are in an illogicalposition and should be more either of one thing or the other thanthey are. So they will first be this and then that, and act and re-act and keep the balance as near equal as they can, yet they know allthe time that it isn't right and, as they incline one way or theother, they will love or hate. 

When we love, we draw what we love closer to us; when we hate athing, we fling it away from us. All disruption and dissolution is amode of hating; and all that we call affinity is a mode of loving. 

The puzzle which puzzles every atom is the puzzle which puzzlesourselves--a conflict of duties--our duty towards ourselves, and ourduty as members of a body politic. It is swayed by its sense ofbeing a separate thing--of having a life to itself which nothing canshare; it is also swayed by the feeling that, in spite of this, it isonly part of an individuality which is greater than itself and whichabsorbs it. Its action will vary with the predominance of either ofthese two states of opinion. 

Unity and Multitude

We can no longer separate things as we once could: everything tendstowards unity; one thing, one action, in one place, at one time. Onthe other hand, we can no longer unify things as we once could; weare driven to ultimate atoms, each one of which is an individuality. So that we have an infinite multitude of things doing an infinitemultitude of actions in infinite time and space; and yet they are notmany things, but one thing. 

The Atom

The idea of an indivisible, ultimate atom is inconceivable by the laymind. If we can conceive an idea of the atom at all, we can conceiveit as capable of being cut in half indeed, we cannot conceive it atall unless we so conceive it. The only true atom, the only thingwhich we cannot subdivide and cut in half, is the universe. Wecannot cut a bit off the universe and put it somewhere else. Therefore, the universe is a true atom and, indeed, is the smallestpiece of indivisible matter which our minds can conceive; and theycannot conceive it any more than they can the indivisible, ultimateatom. 

Our Cells

A string of young ducklings as they sidle along through grass besidea ditch--how like they are to a single serpent! I said in Life andHabit that a colossal being, looking at the earth through amicroscope, would probably think the ants and flies of one year thesame as those of the preceding year. I should have added:- So wethink we are composed of the same cells from year to year, whereas intruth the cells are a succession of generations. The mostcontinuous, homogeneous things we know are only like a lot of cow-bells on an alpine pasture. 

Nerves and Postmen

A letter, so long as it is connected with one set of nerves, is onething; loose it from connection with those nerves--open your fingersand drop it in the opening of a pillar box--and it becomes part andparcel of another nervous system. Letters in transitu contain allmanner of varied stimuli and shocks, yet to the postman, who is thenerve that conveys them, they are all alike, except as regards meresize and weight. I should think, therefore, that our nerves andganglia really see no difference in the stimuli that they convey. 

And yet the postman does see some difference: he knows a businessletter from a valentine at a glance and practice teaches him to knowmuch else which escapes ourselves. Who, then, shall say what thenerves and ganglia know and what they do not know? True, to us, aswe think of a piece of brain inside our own heads, it seems as absurdto consider that it knows anything at all as it seems to considerthat a hen's egg knows anything; but then if the brain could see us, perhaps the brain might say it was absurd to suppose that that thingcould know this or that. Besides what is the self of which we saythat we are self-conscious? No one can say what it is that we areconscious of. This is one of the things which lie altogether outsidethe sphere of words. 

The postman can open a letter if he likes and know all about themessage he is conveying, but, if he does this, he is diseased quapostman. So, maybe, a nerve might open a stimulus or a shock on theway sometimes, but it would not be a good nerve. 

Night-Shirts and Babies

On Hindhead, last Easter, we saw a family wash hung out to dry. There were papa's two great night-shirts and mamma's two lessernight-gowns and then the children's smaller articles of clothing andmamma's drawers and the girls' drawers, all full swollen with astrong north-east wind. But mamma's night-gown was not so wellpinned on and, instead of being full of steady wind like the others, kept blowing up and down as though she were preaching wildly. Westood and laughed for ten minutes. The housewife came to the windowand wondered at us, but we could not resist the pleasure of watchingthe absurdly life-like gestures which the night-gowns made. I shouldlike a Santa Famiglia with clothes drying in the background. 

A love story might be told in a series of sketches of the clothes oftwo families hanging out to dry in adjacent gardens. Then agentleman's night-shirt from one garden, and a lady's night-gown fromthe other should be shown hanging in a third garden by themselves. By and by there should be added a little night-shirt. 

A philosopher might be tempted, on seeing the little night-shirt, tosuppose that the big night-shirts had made it. What we do is muchthe same, for the body of a baby is not much more made by the two oldbabies, after whose pattern it has cut itself out, than the littlenight-shirt is made by the big ones. The thing that makes either thelittle night-shirt or the little baby is something about which weknow nothing whatever at all. 

Our Organism

Man is a walking tool-box, manufactory, workshop and bazaar workedfrom behind the scenes by someone or something that we never see. Weare so used to never seeing more than the tools, and these work sosmoothly, that we call them the workman himself, making much the samemistake as though we should call the saw the carpenter. The onlyworkman of whom we know anything at all is the one that runsourselves and even this is not perceivable by any of our grosspalpable senses. 

The senses seem to be the link between mind and matter--neverforgetting that we can never have either mind or matter pure andwithout alloy of the other. 

Beer and My Cat

Spilt beer or water seems sometimes almost human in its uncertaintywhether or no it is worth while to get ever such a little nearer tothe earth's centre by such and such a slight trickle forward. 

I saw my cat undecided in his mind whether he should get up on thetable and steal the remains of my dinner or not. The chair was someeighteen inches away with its back towards the table, so it was alittle troublesome for him to get his feet first on the bar and thenon the table. He was not at all hungry but he tried, saw it wouldnot be quite easy and gave it up; then he thought better of it andtried again, and saw again that it was not all perfectly plainsailing; and so backwards and forwards with the first-he-would-and-then-he-wouldn'tism of a mind so nearly in equilibrium that a hair'sweight would turn the scale one way or the other. 

I thought how closely it resembled the action of beer trickling on aslightly sloping table. 

The Union Bank

There is a settlement in the Union Bank building, Chancery Lane, which has made three large cracks in the main door steps. I rememberthese cracks more than twenty years ago, just after the bank wasbuilt, as mere thin lines and now they must be some half an inch wideand are still slowly widening. They have altered very gradually, butnot an hour or a minute has passed without a groaning and travailingtogether on the part of every stone and piece of timber in thebuilding to settle how a modus vivendi should be arrived at. This iswhy the crack is said to be caused by a settlement--some parts of thebuilding willing this and some that, and the battle going on, as eventhe steadiest and most unbroken battles must go, by fits and startswhich, though to us appearing as an even tenor, would, if we couldsee them under a microscope, prove to be a succession of bloodyengagements between regiments that sometimes lost and sometimes won. Sometimes, doubtless, strained relations have got settled by peacefularbitration and reference to the solicitors of the contending partswithout open visible rupture; at other times, again, discontent hasgathered on discontent as the snow upon a sub-alpine slope, flake byflake, till the last is one too many and the whole comes crashingdown--whereon the cracks have opened some minute fraction of an inchwider. 

Of this we see nothing. All we note is that a score of years havegone by and that the cracks are rather wider. So, doubtless, if thematerials of which the bank is built could speak, they would say theyknew nothing of the varied interests that sometimes coalesce andsometimes conflict within the building. The joys of the richdepositor, the anguish of the bankrupt are nothing to them; thestream of people coming in and going out is as steady, continuous athing to them as a blowing wind or a running river to ourselves; allthey know or care about is that they have a trifle more weight ofbooks and clerks and bullion than they once had, and that thishinders them somewhat in their effort after a permanent settlement. 

The Unity of Nature

I meet a melancholy old Savoyard playing on a hurdy-gurdy, grisly, dejected, dirty, with a look upon him as though the iron had longsince entered into his soul. It is a frosty morning but he has verylittle clothing, and there is a dumb despairing look about him whichis surely genuine. There passes him a young butcher boy with histray of meat upon his shoulder. He is ruddy, lusty, full of life andhealth and spirits, and he vents these in a shrill whistle whicheclipses the hurdy-gurdy of the Savoyard. 

The like holds good with the horses and cats and dogs which I meetdaily, with the flies in window panes and with plants, some aresuccessful, other have now passed their prime. Look at the failuresper se and they make one very unhappy, but it helps matters to lookat them in their capacities as parts of a whole rather than asisolated. 

I cannot see things round about me without feeling that they are allparts of one whole which is trying to do something; it has notperhaps a perfectly clear idea of what it is trying after, but it isdoing its best. I see old age, decay and failure as the relaxation, after effort, of a muscle in the corporation of things, or as atentative effort in a wrong direction, or as the dropping off ofparticles of skin from a healthy limb. This dropping off is thedeath of any given generation of our cells as they work their waynearer and nearer to our skins and then get rubbed off and go away. It is as though we sent people to live nearer and nearer thechurchyard the older they grew. As for the skin that is shed, in thefirst place it has had its turn, in the second it starts anew underfresh auspices, for it can at no time cease to be part of theuniverse, it must always live in one way or another. 

Croesus and His Kitchen-Maid

I want people to see either their cells as less parts of themselvesthan they do, or their servants as more. 

Croesus's kitchen-maid is part of him, bone of his bone and flesh ofhis flesh, for she eats what comes from his table and, being fed ofone flesh, are they not brother and sister to one another in virtueof community of nutriment which is but a thinly veiled travesty ofdescent? When she eats peas with her knife, he does so too; there isnot a bit of bread and butter she puts into her mouth, nor a lump ofsugar she drops into her tea, but he knoweth it altogether, though heknows nothing whatever about it. She is en-Croesused and heenscullery-maided so long as she remains linked to him by the goldenchain which passes from his pocket to hers, and which is greatest ofall unifiers. 

True, neither party is aware of the connection at all as long asthings go smoothly. Croesus no more knows the name of, or feels theexistence of, his kitchen-maid than a peasant in health knows abouthis liver; nevertheless he is awakened to a dim sense of an undefinedsomething when he pays his grocer or his baker. She is moredefinitely aware of him than he of her, but it is by way of anovershadowing presence rather than a clear and intelligentcomprehension. And though Croesus does not eat his kitchen-maid'smeals otherwise than vicariously, still to eat vicariously is to eat:the meals so eaten by his kitchen-maid nourish the better ordering ofthe dinner which nourishes and engenders the better ordering ofCroesus himself. He is fed therefore by the feeding of his kitchen-maid. 

And so with sleep. When she goes to bed he, in part, does so too. When she gets up and lays the fire in the back-kitchen he, in part, does so. He lays it through her and in her, though knowing no morewhat he is doing than we know when we digest, but still doing it asby what we call a reflex action. Qui facit per alium facit per se, and when the back-kitchen fire is lighted on Croesus's behalf, it isCroesus who lights it, though he is all the time fast asleep in bed. 

Sometimes things do not go smoothly. Suppose the kitchen-maid to betaken with fits just before dinner-time; there will be areverberating echo of disturbance throughout the whole organisationof the palace. But the oftener she has fits, the more easily willthe household know what it is all about when she is taken with them. On the first occasion Lady Croesus will send some one rushing downinto the kitchen, there will, in fact, be a general flow of blood(i. E. Household) to the part affected (that is to say, to thescullery-maid); the doctor will be sent for and all the rest of it. On each repetition of the fits the neighbouring organs, reverting toa more primary undifferentiated condition, will discharge duties forwhich they were not engaged, in a manner for which no one would havegiven them credit, and the disturbance will be less and less eachtime, till by and by, at the sound of the crockery smashing below, Lady Croesus will just look up to papa and say:

"My dear, I am afraid Sarah has got another fit. "

And papa will say she will probably be better again soon, and will goon reading his newspaper. 

In course of time the whole thing will come to be managedautomatically downstairs without any reference either to papa, thecerebrum, or to mamma, the cerebellum, or even to the medullaoblongata, the housekeeper. A precedent or routine will beestablished, after which everything will work quite smoothly. 

But though papa and mamma are unconscious of the reflex action whichhas been going on within their organisation, the kitchen-maid and thecells in her immediate vicinity (that is to say her fellow-servants)will know all about it. Perhaps the neighbours will think thatnobody in the house knows, and that because the master and mistressshow no sign of disturbance therefore there is no consciousness. They forget that the scullery-maid becomes more and more conscious ofthe fits if they grow upon her, as they probably will, and thatCroesus and his lady do show more signs of consciousness, if they arewatched closely, than can be detected on first inspection. There isnot the same violent perturbation that there was on the previousoccasions, but the tone of the palace is lowered. A dinner party hasto be put off; the cooking is more homogeneous and uncertain, it isless highly differentiated than when the scullery-maid was well; andthere is a grumble when the doctor has to be paid and also when thesmashed crockery has to be replaced. 

If Croesus discharges his kitchen-maid and gets another, it is asthough he cut out a small piece of his finger and replaced it in duecourse by growth. But even the slightest cut may lead to blood-poisoning, and so even the dismissal of a kitchen-maid may be bigwith the fate of empires. Thus the cook, a valued servant, may takethe kitchen-maid's part and go too. The next cook may spoil thedinner and upset Croesus's temper, and from this all manner ofconsequences may be evolved, even to the dethronement and death ofthe king himself. Nevertheless as a general rule an injury to such alow part of a great monarch's organism as a kitchen-maid has noimportant results. It is only when we are attacked in such vitalorgans as the solicitor or the banker that we need be uneasy. Awound in the solicitor is a very serious thing, and many a man hasdied from failure of his bank's action. 

It is certain, as we have seen, that when the kitchen-maid lights thefire it is really Croesus who is lighting it, but it is less obviousthat when Croesus goes to a ball the scullery-maid goes also. Stillthis should be held in the same way as it should be also held thatshe eats vicariously when Croesus dines. For he must return theballs and the dinner parties and this comes out in his requiring tokeep a large establishment whereby the scullery-maid retains herplace as part of his organism and is nourished and amused also. 

On the other hand, when Croesus dies it does not follow that thescullery-maid should die at the same time. She may grow a newCroesus, as Croesus, if the maid dies, will probably grow a newkitchen-maid, Croesus's son or successor may take over the kingdomand palace, and the kitchen-maid, beyond having to wash up a fewextra plates and dishes at Coronation time, will know little aboutthe change. It is as though the establishment had had its hair cutand its beard trimmed; it is smartened up a little, but there is noother change. If, on the other hand, he goes bankrupt, or hiskingdom is taken from him and his whole establishment is broken upand dissipated at the auction mart, then, even though not one of itscomponent cells actually dies, the organism as a whole does so, andit is interesting to see that the lowest, least specialised and leasthighly differentiate parts of the organism, such as the scullery-maidand the stable-boys, most readily find an entry into the life of somenew system, while the more specialised and highly differentiatedparts, such as the steward, the old housekeeper and, still more so, the librarian or the chaplain may never be able to attach themselvesto any new combination, and may die in consequence. I heard once ofa large builder who retired unexpectedly from business and broke uphis establishment to the actual death of several of his olderemployes. So a bit of flesh or even a finger may be taken from onebody and grafted on to another, but a leg cannot be grafted; if a legis cut off it must die. It may, however, be maintained that theowner dies too, even though he recovers, for a man who has lost a legis not the man he was. {92}

VII--ON THE MAKING OF MUSIC, PICTURES AND BOOKS

Thought and Word

i

Thought pure and simple is as near to God as we can get; it isthrough this that we are linked with God. The highest thought isineffable; it must be felt from one person to another but cannot bearticulated. All the most essential and thinking part of thought isdone without words or consciousness. It is not till doubt andconsciousness enter that words become possible. 

The moment a thing is written, or even can be written, and reasonedabout, it has changed its nature by becoming tangible, and hencefinite, and hence it will have an end in disintegration. It hasentered into death. And yet till it can be thought about andrealised more or less definitely it has not entered into life. Bothlife and death are necessary factors of each other. But ourprofoundest and most important convictions are unspeakable. 

So it is with unwritten and indefinable codes of honour, conventions, art-rules--things that can be felt but not explained--these are themost important, and the less we try to understand them, or even tothink about them, the better. 

ii

Words are organised thoughts, as living forms are organised actions. How a thought can find embodiment in words is nearly, though perhapsnot quite, as mysterious as how an action can find embodiment inform, and appears to involve a somewhat analogous transformation andcontradiction in terms. 

There was a time when language was as rare an accomplishment aswriting was in the days when it was first invented. Probably talkingwas originally confined to a few scholars, as writing was in themiddle ages, and gradually became general. Even now speech is stillgrowing; poor folks cannot understand the talk of educated people. Perhaps reading and writing will indeed one day come by nature. Analogy points in this direction, and though analogy is oftenmisleading, it is the least misleading thing we have. 

iii

Communications between God and man must always be either above wordsor below them; for with words come in translations, and all theinterminable questions therewith connected. 

iv

The mere fact that a thought or idea can be expressed articulately inwords involves that it is still open to question; and the mere factthat a difficulty can be definitely conceived involves that it isopen to solution. 

v

We want words to do more than they can. We try to do with them whatcomes to very much like trying to mend a watch with a pickaxe or topaint a miniature with a mop; we expect them to help us to grip anddissect that which in ultimate essence is as ungrippable as shadow. Nevertheless there they are; we have got to live with them, and thewise course is to treat them as we do our neighbours, and make thebest and not the worst of them. But they are parvenu people ascompared with thought and action. What we should read is not thewords but the man whom we feel to be behind the words. 

vi

Words impede and either kill, or are killed by, perfect thought; butthey are, as a scaffolding, useful, if not indispensable, for thebuilding up of imperfect thought and helping to perfect it. 

vii

All words are juggles. To call a thing a juggle of words is often abigger juggle than the juggle it is intended to complain of. Thequestion is whether it is a greater juggle than is generallyconsidered fair trading. 

viii

Words are like money; there is nothing so useless, unless when inactual use. 

ix

Gold and silver coins are only the tokens, symbols, outward andvisible signs and sacraments of money. When not in actual process ofbeing applied in purchase they are no more money than words not inuse are language. Books are like imprisoned souls until some onetakes them down from a shelf and reads them. The coins are potentialmoney as the words are potential language, it is the power and willto apply the counters that make them vibrate with life; when thepower and the will are in abeyance the counters lie dead as a log. 

The Law

The written law is binding, but the unwritten law is much more so. You may break the written law at a pinch and on the sly if you can, but the unwritten law--which often comprises the written--must not bebroken. Not being written, it is not always easy to know what it is, but this has got to be done. 

Ideas

They are like shadows--substantial enough until we try to grasp them. 

Expression

The fact that every mental state is intensified by expression is of apiece with the fact that nothing has any existence at all save in itsexpression. 

Development

All things are like exposed photographic plates that have no visibleimage on them till they have been developed. 

Acquired Characteristics

If there is any truth in the theory that these are inherited--and whocan doubt it?--the eye and the finger are but the aspiration, orword, made manifest in flesh. 

Physical and Spiritual

The bodies of many abandoned undertakings lie rotting unburied up anddown the country and their ghosts haunt the law-courts. 

Trail and Writing

Before the invention of writing the range of one man's influence overanother was limited to the range of sight, sound and scent; besidesthis there was trail, of many kinds. Trail unintentionally left is, as it were, hidden sight. Left intentionally, it is the unit ofliterature. It is the first mode of writing, from which grew thatpower of extending men's influence over one another by the help ofwritten symbols of all kinds without which the development of moderncivilisation would have been impossible. 

Conveyancing and the Arts

In conveyancing the ultimately potent thing is not the deed but theinvisible intention and desire of the parties to the deed; thewritten document itself is only evidence of this intention anddesire. So it is with music, the written notes are not the mainthing, nor is even the heard performance; these are only evidences ofan internal invisible emotion that can be felt but never fullyexpressed. And so it is with the words of literature and with theforms and colours of painting. 

The Rules for Making Literature, Music and Pictures

The arts of the musician, the painter and the writer are essentiallythe same. In composing a fugue, after you have exposed your subject, which must not be too unwieldly, you introduce an episode or episodeswhich must arise out of your subject. The great thing is that allshall be new, and yet nothing new, at the same time; the details mustminister to the main effect and not obscure it; in other words, youmust have a subject, develop it and not wander from it very far. This holds just as true for literature and painting and for art ofall kinds. 

No man should try even to allude to the greater part of what he seesin his subject, and there is hardly a limit to what he may omit. What is required is that he shall say what he elects to saydiscreetly; that he shall be quick to see the gist of a matter, andgive it pithily without either prolixity or stint of words. 

Relative Importances

It is the painter's business to help memory and imagination, not tosupersede them. He cannot put the whole before the spectator, nothing can do this short of the thing itself; he should, therefore, not try to realise, and the less he looks as if he were trying to doso the more signs of judgment he will show. His business is tosupply those details which will most readily bring the whole beforethe mind along with them. He must not give too few, but it is stillmore imperative on him not to give too many. 

Seeing, thought and expression are rendered possible only by the factthat our minds are always ready to compromise and to take the partfor the whole. We associate a number of ideas with any given object, and if a few of the most characteristic of these are put before us wetake the rest as read, jump to a conclusion and realise the whole. If we did not conduct our thought on this principle--simplifying bysuppression of detail and breadth of treatment--it would take us atwelvemonth to say that it was a fine morning and another for thehearer to apprehend our statement. Any other principle reducesthought to an absurdity. 

All painting depends upon simplification. All simplification dependsupon a perception of relative importances. All perception ofrelative importances depends upon a just appreciation of whichletters in association's bond association will most readily dispensewith. This depends upon the sympathy of the painter both with hissubject and with him who is to look at the picture. And this dependsupon a man's common sense. 

He therefore tells best in painting, as in literature, who has bestestimated the relative values or importances of the more specialfeatures characterising his subject: that is to say, who appreciatesmost accurately how much and how fast each one of them will carry, and is at most pains to give those only that will say most in thefewest words or touches. It is here that the most difficult, themost important, and the most generally neglected part of an artist'sbusiness will be found to lie. 

The difficulties of doing are serious enough, nevertheless we canmost of us overcome them with ordinary perseverance for they aresmall as compared with those of knowing what not to do--with those oflearning to disregard the incessant importunity of small nobody-details that persist in trying to thrust themselves above theirbetters. It is less trouble to give in to these than to snub themduly and keep them in their proper places, yet it is precisely herethat strength or weakness resides. It is success or failure in thisrespect that constitutes the difference between the artist who mayclaim to rank as a statesman and one who can rise no higher than avillage vestryman. 

It is here, moreover, that effort is most remunerative. For when wefeel that a painter has made simplicity and subordination ofimportances his first aim, it is surprising how much shortcoming wewill condone as regards actual execution. Whereas, let the executionbe perfect, if the details given be ill-chosen in respect of relativeimportance the whole effect is lost--it becomes top-heavy, as itwere, and collapses. As for the number of details given, this doesnot matter: a man may give as few or as many as he chooses; he maystop at outline, or he may go on to Jean Van Eyck; what is essentialis that, no matter how far or how small a distance he may go, heshould have begun with the most important point and added eachsubsequent feature in due order of importance, so that if he stoppedat any moment there should be no detail ungiven more important thananother which has been insisted on. 

Supposing, by way of illustration, that the details are as grapes ina bunch, they should be eaten from the best grape to the next best, and so on downwards, never eating a worse grape while a better oneremains uneaten. 

Personally, I think that, as the painter cannot go the whole way, thesooner he makes it clear that he has no intention of trying to do sothe better. When we look at a very highly finished picture (socalled), unless we are in the hands of one who has attendedsuccessfully to the considerations insisted on above, we feel asthough we were with a troublesome cicerone who will not let us lookat things with our own eyes but keeps intruding himself at everytouch and turn and trying to exercise that undue influence upon uswhich generally proves to have been the accompaniment of concealmentand fraud. This is exactly what we feel with Van Mieris and, thoughin a less degree, with Gerard Dow; whereas with Jean Van Eyck andMetsu, no matter how far they may have gone, we find them essentiallyas impressionist as Rembrandt or Velasquez. 

For impressionism only means that due attention has been paid to therelative importances of the impressions made by the variouscharacteristics of a given subject, and that they have been presentedto us in order of precedence. 

Eating Grapes Downwards

Always eat grapes downwards--that is, always eat the best grapefirst; in this way there will be none better left on the bunch, andeach grape will seem good down to the last. If you eat the otherway, you will not have a good grape in the lot. Besides, you will betempting Providence to kill you before you come to the best. This iswhy autumn seems better than spring: in the autumn we are eating ourdays downwards, in the spring each day still seems "Very bad. "People should live on this principle more than they do, but they dolive on it a good deal; from the age of, say, fifty we eat our daysdownwards. 

In New Zealand for a long time I had to do the washing-up after eachmeal. I used to do the knives first, for it might please God to takeme before I came to the forks, and then what a sell it would havebeen to have done the forks rather than the knives!

Terseness

Talking with Gogin last night, I said that in writing it took moretime and trouble to get a thing short than long. He said it was thesame in painting. It was harder not to paint a detail than to paintit, easier to put in all that one can see than to judge what may gowithout saying, omit it and range the irreducible minima in due orderof precedence. Hence we all lean towards prolixity. 

The difficulty lies in the nice appreciation of relative importancesand in the giving each detail neither more nor less than its due. This is the difference between Gerard Dow and Metsu. Gerard Dowgives all he can, but unreflectingly; hence it does not reflect thesubject effectively into the spectator. We see it, but it does notcome home to us. Metsu on the other hand omits all he can, but omitsintelligently, and his reflection excites responsive enthusiasm inourselves. We are continually trying to see as much as we can, andto put it down. More wisely we should consider how much we can avoidseeing and dispense with. 

So it is also in music. Cherubini says the number of things that canbe done in fugue with a very simple subject is endless, but that thetrouble lies in knowing which to choose from all these infinitepossibilities. 

As regards painting, any one can paint anything in the minute mannerwith a little practice, but it takes an exceedingly able man to paintso much as an egg broadly and simply. Bearing in mind the shortnessof life and the complexity of affairs, it stands to reason that weowe most to him who packs our trunks for us, so to speak, mostintelligently, neither omitting what we are likely to want, norincluding what we can dispense with, and who, at the same time, arranges things so that they will travel most safely and be got atmost conveniently. So we speak of composition and arrangement in allarts. 

Making Notes

My notes always grow longer if I shorten them. I mean the process ofcompression makes them more pregnant and they breed new notes. Inever try to lengthen them, so I do not know whether they would growshorter if I did. Perhaps that might be a good way of getting themshorter. 

Shortening

A young author is tempted to leave anything he has written throughfear of not having enough to say if he goes cutting out too freely. But it is easier to be long than short. I have always foundcompressing, cutting out, and tersifying a passage suggests more thananything else does. Things pruned off in this way are like the headsof the hydra, two grow for every two that is lopped off. 

Omission

If a writer will go on the principle of stopping everywhere andanywhere to put down his notes, as the true painter will stopanywhere and everywhere to sketch, he will be able to cut down hisworks liberally. He will become prodigal not of writing--any foolcan be this--but of omission. You become brief because you have morethings to say than time to say them in. One of the chief arts isthat of knowing what to neglect and the more talk increases the morenecessary does this art become. 

Brevity

Handel's jig in the ninth Suite de Pieces, in G minor, is very finebut it is perhaps a little long. Probably Handel was in a hurry, forit takes much more time to get a thing short than to leave it alittle long. Brevity is not only the soul of wit, but the soul ofmaking oneself agreeable and of getting on with people, and, indeed, of everything that makes life worth living. So precious a thing, however, cannot be got without more expense and trouble than most ofus have the moral wealth to lay out. 

Diffuseness

This sometimes helps, as, for instance, when the subject is hard;words that may be, strictly speaking, unnecessary still may makethings easier for the reader by giving him more time to master thethought while his eye is running over the verbiage. So, a littlewater may prevent a strong drink from burning throat and stomach. Astyle that is too terse is as fatiguing as one that is too diffuse. But when a passage is written a little long, with consciousness andcompunction but still deliberately, as what will probably be mosteasy for the reader, it can hardly be called diffuse. 

Difficulties in Art, Literature and Music

The difficult and the unintelligible are only conceivable at all invirtue of their catching on to something less difficult and lessunintelligible and, through this, to things easily done andunderstood. It is at these joints in their armour that difficultiesshould be attacked. 

Never tackle a serious difficulty as long as something which must bedone, and about which you see your way fairly well, remains undone;the settling of this is sure to throw light upon the way in which theserious difficulty is to be resolved. It is doing the What-you-canthat will best help you to do the What-you-cannot. 

Arrears of small things to be attended to, if allowed to accumulate, worry and depress like unpaid debts. The main work should alwaysstand aside for these, not these for the main work, as large debtsshould stand aside for small ones, or truth for common charity andgood feeling. If we attend continually and promptly to the littlethat we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how littleremains that we cannot do. 

Knowledge is Power

Yes, but it must be practical knowledge. There is nothing lesspowerful than knowledge unattached, and incapable of application. That is why what little knowledge I have has done myself personallyso much harm. I do not know much, but if I knew a good deal lessthan that little I should be far more powerful. The rule should benever to learn a thing till one is pretty sure one wants it, or thatone will want it before long so badly as not to be able to get onwithout it. This is what sensible people do about money, and thereis no reason why people should throw away their time and trouble morethan their money. There are plenty of things that most boys wouldgive their ears to know, these and these only are the proper thingsfor them to sharpen their wits upon. 

If a boy is idle and does not want to learn anything at all, the sameprinciple should guide those who have the care of him--he shouldnever be made to learn anything till it is pretty obvious that hecannot get on without it. This will save trouble both to boys andteachers, moreover it will be far more likely to increase a boy'sdesire to learn. I know in my own case no earthly power could makeme learn till I had my head given me; and nothing has been able tostop me from incessant study from that day to this. 

Academicism

Handicapped people sometimes owe their success to the misfortunewhich weights them. They seldom know beforehand how far they aregoing to reach, and this helps them; for if they knew the greatnessof the task before them they would not attempt it. He who knows heis infirm, and would yet climb, does not think of the summit which hebelieves to be beyond his reach but climbs slowly onwards, takingvery short steps, looking below as often as he likes but not abovehim, never trying his powers but seldom stopping, and then, sometimes, behold! he is on the top, which he would never have evenaimed at could he have seen it from below. It is only in novels andsensational biographies that handicapped people, "fired by aknowledge of the difficulties that others have overcome, resolve totriumph over every obstacle by dint of sheer determination, and inthe end carry everything before them. " In real life the person whostarts thus almost invariably fails. This is the worst kind ofstart. 

The greatest secret of good work whether in music, literature orpainting lies in not attempting too much; if it be asked, "What istoo much?" the answer is, "Anything that we find difficult orunpleasant. " We should not ask whether others find this same thingdifficult or no. If we find the difficulty so great that theovercoming it is a labour and not a pleasure, we should either changeour aim altogether, or aim, at any rate for a time, at some lowerpoint. It must be remembered that no work is required to be morethan right as far as it goes; the greatest work cannot get beyondthis and the least comes strangely near the greatest if this can besaid of it. 

The more I see of academicism the more I distrust it. If I hadapproached painting as I have approached bookwriting and music, thatis to say by beginning at once to do what I wanted, or as near as Icould to what I could find out of this, and taking pains not by wayof solving academic difficulties, in order to provide againstpractical ones, but by waiting till a difficulty arose in practiceand then tackling it, thus making the arising of each difficulty bethe occasion for learning what had to be learnt about it--if I hadapproached painting in this way I should have been all right. As itis I have been all wrong, and it was South Kensington andHeatherley's that set me wrong. I listened to the nonsense about howI ought to study before beginning to paint, and about never paintingwithout nature, and the result was that I learned to study but not topaint. Now I have got too much to do and am too old to do what Imight easily have done, and should have done, if I had found outearlier what writing Life and Habit was the chief thing to teach me. 

So I painted study after study, as a priest reads his breviary, andat the end of ten years knew no more what the face of nature waslike, unless I had it immediately before me, than I did at thebeginning. I am free to confess that in respect of painting I am afailure. I have spent far more time on painting than I have onanything else, and have failed at it more than I have failed in anyother respect almost solely for the reasons given above. I triedvery hard, but I tried the wrong way. 

Fortunately for me there are no academies for teaching people how towrite books, or I should have fallen into them as I did into thosefor painting and, instead of writing, should have spent my time andmoney in being told that I was learning how to write. If I had onething to say to students before I died (I mean, if I had got to die, but might tell students one thing first) I should say:-

"Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on aprepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough andtumble of the world; only, of course, let them be on a small scale inthe first instance till you feel your feet safe under you. Act moreand rehearse less. "

A friend once asked me whether I liked writing books, composing musicor painting pictures best. I said I did not know. I like them all;but I never find time to paint a picture now and only do smallsketches and studies. I know in which I am strongest--writing; Iknow in which I am weakest--painting; I am weakest where I have takenmost pains and studied most. 

Agonising

In art, never try to find out anything, or try to learn anythinguntil the not knowing it has come to be a nuisance to you for sometime. Then you will remember it, but not otherwise. Let knowledgeimportune you before you will hear it. Our schools and universitiesgo on the precisely opposite system. 

Never consciously agonise; the race is not to the swift, nor thebattle to the strong. Moments of extreme issue are unconscious andmust be left to take care of themselves. During conscious momentstake reasonable pains but no more and, above all, work so slowly asnever to get out of breath. Take it easy, in fact, until forced notto do so. 

There is no mystery about art. Do the things that you can see; theywill show you those that you cannot see. By doing what you can youwill gradually get to know what it is that you want to do and cannotdo, and so to be able to do it. 

The Choice of Subjects

Do not hunt for subjects, let them choose you, not you them. Only dothat which insists upon being done and runs right up against you, hitting you in the eye until you do it. This calls you and you hadbetter attend to it, and do it as well as you can. But till calledin this way do nothing. 

Imaginary Countries

Each man's mind is an unknown land to himself, so that we need not beat such pains to frame a mechanism of adventure for getting toundiscovered countries. We have not far to go before we reach them. They are, like the Kingdom of Heaven, within us. 

My Books

I never make them: they grow; they come to me and insist on beingwritten, and on being such and such. I did not want to writeErewhon, I wanted to go on painting and found it an abominablenuisance being dragged willy-nilly into writing it. So with all mybooks--the subjects were never of my own choosing; they pressedthemselves upon me with more force than I could resist. If I had notliked the subjects I should have kicked, and nothing would have gotme to do them at all. As I did like the subjects and the books cameand said they were to be written, I grumbled a little and wrote them. {106}

Great Works

These have always something of the "de profundis" about them. 

New Ideas

Every new idea has something of the pain and peril of childbirthabout it; ideas are just as mortal and just as immortal as organisedbeings are. 

Books and Children

If the literary offspring is not to die young, almost as much troublemust be taken with it as with the bringing up of a physical child. Still, the physical child is the harder work of the two. 

The Life of Books

Some writers think about the life of books as some savages thinkabout the life of men--that there are books which never die. Theyall die sooner or later; but that will not hinder an author fromtrying to give his book as long a life as he can get for it. Thefact that it will have to die is no valid reason for letting it diesooner than can be helped. 

Criticism

Critics generally come to be critics by reason not of their fitnessfor this but of their unfitness for anything else. Books should betried by a judge and jury as though they were crimes, and counselshould be heard on both sides. 

Le Style c'est 1'Homme

It is with books, music, painting and all the arts as with children--only those live that have drained much of their author's own lifeinto them. The personality of the author is what interests us morethan his work. When we have once got well hold of the personality ofthe author we care comparatively little about the history of the workor what it means or even its technique; we enjoy the work withoutthinking of more than its beauty, and of how much we like theworkman. "Le style c'est l'homme"--that style of which, if I mayquote from memory, Buffon, again, says that it is like happiness, and"vient de la douceur de l'ame" {107}--and we care more about knowingwhat kind of person a man was than about knowing of his achievements, no matter how considerable they may have been. If he has made itclear that he was trying to do what we like, and meant what we shouldlike him to have meant, it is enough; but if the work does notattract us to the workman, neither does it attract us to itself. 

Portraits

A great portrait is always more a portrait of the painter than of thepainted. When we look at a portrait by Holbein or Rembrandt it is ofHolbein or Rembrandt that we think more than of the subject of theirpicture. Even a portrait of Shakespeare by Holbein or Rembrandtcould tell us very little about Shakespeare. It would, however, tellus a great deal about Holbein or Rembrandt. 

A Man's Style

A man's style in any art should be like his dress--it should attractas little attention as possible. 

The Gauntlet of Youth

Everything that is to age well must have run the gauntlet of itsyouth. Hardly ever does a work of art hold its own against time ifit was not treated somewhat savagely at first--I should say "artist"rather than "work of art. "

Greatness in Art

If a work of art--music, literature or painting--is for all time, itmust be independent of the conventions, dialects, costumes andfashions of any time; if not great without help from such unessentialaccessories, no help from them can greaten it. A man must wear thedress of his own time, but no dressing can make a strong man of aweak one. 

Literary Power

They say the test of this is whether a man can write an inscription. I say "Can he name a kitten?" And by this test I am condemned, for Icannot. 

Subject and Treatment

It is often said that treatment is more important than subject, butno treatment can make a repulsive subject not repulsive. It can makea trivial, or even a stupid, subject interesting, but a really badflaw in a subject cannot be treated out. Happily the man who hassense enough to treat a subject well will generally have sense enoughto choose a good one, so that the case of a really repulsive subjecttreated in a masterly manner does not often arise. It is often saidto have arisen, but in nine cases out of ten the treatment will befound to have been overpraised. 

Public Opinion

People say how strong it is; and indeed it is strong while it is inits prime. In its childhood and old age it is as weak as any otherorganism. I try to make my own work belong to the youth of a publicopinion. The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion, as geology is the record of thedecay of those bodily organisms in which opinions have found materialexpression. 

A Literary Man's Test

Moliere's reading to his housemaid has, I think, been misunderstoodas though he in some way wanted to see the effect upon the housemaidand make her a judge of his work. If she was an unusually clever, smart girl, this might be well enough, but the supposition commonlyis that she was a typical housemaid and nothing more. 

If Moliere ever did read to her, it was because the mere act ofreading aloud put his work before him in a new light and, byconstraining his attention to every line, made him judge it morerigorously. I always intend to read, and generally do read, what Iwrite aloud to some one; any one almost will do, but he should not beso clever that I am afraid of him. I feel weak places at once when Iread aloud where I thought, as long as I read to myself only, thatthe passage was all right. 

What Audience to Write for

People between the ages of twenty and thirty read a good deal, afterthirty their reading drops off and by forty is confined to eachperson's special subject, newspapers and magazines; so that the mostimportant part of one's audience, and that which should be mainlywritten for, consists of specialists and people between twenty andthirty. 

Writing for a Hundred Years Hence

When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it willoften guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred yearshence. 

VIII--HANDEL AND MUSIC

Handel and Beethoven

As a boy, from 12 years old or so, I always worshipped Handel. Beethoven was a terra incognita to me till I went up to Cambridge; Iknew and liked a few of his waltzes but did not so much as know thathe had written any sonatas or symphonies. At Cambridge Sykes triedto teach me Beethoven but I disliked his music and would go away assoon as Sykes began with any of his sonatas. After a long while Ibegan to like some of the slow movements and then some entiresonatas, several of which I could play once fairly well withoutnotes. I used also to play Bach and Mendelssohn's Songs withoutWords and thought them lovely, but I always liked Handel best. Little by little, however, I was talked over into placing Bach andBeethoven on a par as the greatest and I said I did not know whichwas the best man. I cannot tell now whether I really liked Beethovenor found myself carried away by the strength of the Beethoven currentwhich surrounded me; at any rate I spent a great deal of time on him, for some ten or a dozen years. 

One night, when I was about 30, I was at an evening party at Mrs. Longden's and met an old West End clergyman of the name of Smalley(Rector, I think, of Bayswater). I said I did not know which wasgreatest Handel, Bach or Beethoven. 

He said: "I am surprised at that; I should have thought you wouldhave known. "

"Which, " said I, "is the greatest?"

"Handel. "

I knew he was right and have never wavered since. I suppose I wasreally of this opinion already, but it was not till I got a littletouch from outside that I knew it. From that moment Beethoven beganto go back, and now I feel towards him much as I did when I firstheard his work, except, of course, that I see a gnosis in him ofwhich as a young man I knew nothing. But I do not greatly care aboutgnosis, I want agape; and Beethoven's agape is not the healthy robusttenderness of Handel, it is a sickly maudlin thing in comparison. Anyhow I do not like him. I like Mozart and Haydn better, but not somuch better as I should like to like them. 

Handel and Domenico Scarlatti

Handel and Domenico Scarlatti were contemporaries almost to a year, both as regards birth and death. They knew each other very well inItaly and Scarlatti never mentioned Handel's name without crossinghimself, but I have not heard that Handel crossed himself at themention of Scarlatti's name. I know very little of Scarlatti's musicand have not even that little well enough in my head to write aboutit; I retain only a residuary impression that it is often verycharming and links Haydn with Bach, moreover that it is distinctlyun-Handelian. 

Handel must have known and comprehended Scarlatti's tendenciesperfectly well: his rejection, therefore, of the principles thatlead to them must have been deliberate. Scarlatti leads to Haydn, Haydn to Mozart and hence, through Beethoven, to modern music. ThatHandel foresaw this I do not doubt, nor yet that he felt, as I domyself, that modern music means something, I know not what, which isnot what I mean by music. It is playing another game and has setitself aims which, no doubt, are excellent but which are not mine. 

Of course I know that this may be all wrong: I know how very limitedand superficial my own acquaintance with music is. Still I have astrong feeling as though from John Dunstable, or whoever it may havebeen, to Handel the tide of music was rising, intermittently no doubtbut still rising, and that since Handel's time it has been falling. Or, rather perhaps I should say that music bifurcated with Handel andBach--Handel dying musically as well as physically childless, whileBach was as prolific in respect of musical disciples as he was inthat of children. 

What, then, was it, supposing I am right at all, that Handeldistrusted in the principles of Scarlatti as deduced from those ofBach? I imagine that he distrusted chiefly the abuse of theappoggiatura, the abuse of the unlimited power of modulation whichequal temperament placed at the musician's disposition and departurefrom well-marked rhythm, beat or measured tread. At any rate Ibelieve the music I like best myself to be sparing of theappoggiatura, to keep pretty close to tonic and dominant and to havea well-marked beat, measure and rhythm. 

Handel and Homer

Handel was a greater man than Homer (I mean the author of the Iliad);but the very people who are most angry with me for (as theyincorrectly suppose) sneering at Homer are generally the ones whonever miss an opportunity of cheapening and belittling Handel, and, which is very painful to myself, they say I was laughing at him inNarcissus. Perhaps--but surely one can laugh at a person and adorehim at the same time. 

Handel and Bach

i

If you tie Handel's hands by debarring him from the rendering ofhuman emotion, and if you set Bach's free by giving him no humanemotion to render--if, in fact, you rob Handel of his opportunitiesand Bach of his difficulties--the two men can fight after a fashion, but Handel will even so come off victorious. Otherwise it is absurdto let Bach compete at all. Nevertheless the cultured vulgar have atall times preferred gymnastics and display to reticence and thehealthy, graceful, normal movements of a man of birth and education, and Bach is esteemed a more profound musician than Handel in virtueof his frequent and more involved complexity of construction. Inreality Handel was profound enough to eschew such wildernesses ofcounterpoint as Bach instinctively resorted to, but he knew also thatpublic opinion would be sure to place Bach on a level with himself, if not above him, and this probably made him look askance at Bach. At any rate he twice went to Germany without being at any pains tomeet him, and once, if not twice, refused Bach's invitation. 

ii

Rockstro says that Handel keeps much more closely to the oldPalestrina rules of counterpoint than Bach does, and that when Handeltakes a licence it is a good bold one taken rarely, whereas Bach isniggling away with small licences from first to last. 

Handel and the British Public

People say the generous British public supported Handel. It didnothing of the kind. On the contrary, for some 30 years it did itsbest to ruin him, twice drove him to bankruptcy, badgered him till in1737 he had a paralytic seizure which was as near as might be thedeath of him and, if he had died then, we should have no Israel, norMessiah, nor Samson, nor any of his greatest oratorios. The Britishpublic only relented when he had become old and presently blind. Handel, by the way, is a rare instance of a man doing his greatestwork subsequently to an attack of paralysis. What kept Handel up wasnot the public but the court. It was the pensions given him byGeorge I and George II that enabled him to carry on at all. So that, in point of fact, it is to these two very prosaic kings that we owethe finest musical poems the world knows anything about. 

Handel and Madame Patey

Rockstro told me that Sir Michael Costa, after his severe paralyticstroke, had to conduct at some great performance--I cannot be sure, but I think he said a Birmingham Festival--at any rate he came inlooking very white and feeble and sat down in front of the orchestrato conduct a morning rehearsal. Madame Patey was there, went up tothe poor old gentleman and kissed his forehead. 

It is a curious thing about this great singer that not only shouldshe have been (as she has always seemed to me) strikingly like Handelin the face, and not only should she have been such an incomparablerenderer of Handel's music--I cannot think that I shall ever againhear any one who seemed to have the spirit of Handel's music sothoroughly penetrating his or her whole being--but that she shouldhave been struck with paralysis at, so far as I can remember, thesame age that Handel was. Handel was struck in 1737 when he was 53years old, but happily recovered. I forget Madame Patey's exact age, but it was somewhere about this. 

Handel and Shakespeare

Jones and I had been listening to Gaetano Meo's girls playing Handeland were talking about him and Shakespeare, and how those two men canalike stir us more than any one else can. Neither were self-conscious in production, but when the thing had come out Shakespearelooks at it and wonders, whereas Handel takes it as a matter ofcourse. 

A Yankee Handelian

I only ever met one American who seemed to like and understandHandel. How far he did so in reality I do not know, but inter aliahe said that Handel "struck ile with the Messiah, " and that "itpanned out well, the Messiah did. "

Waste

Handel and Shakespeare have left us the best that any have left us;yet, in spite of this, how much of their lives was wasted. FancyHandel expending himself upon the Moabites and Ammonites, or even theJews themselves, year after year, as he did in the fulness of hispower; and fancy what we might have had from Shakespeare if he hadgossipped to us about himself and his times and the people he met inLondon and at Stratford-on-Avon instead of writing some of what hedid write. Nevertheless we have the men, seen through their worknotwithstanding their subjects, who stand and live to us. It is thefigure of Handel as a man, and of Shakespeare as a man, which wevalue even more than their work. I feel the presence of Handelbehind every note of his music. 

Handel a Conservative

He left no school because he was a protest. There were men in histime, whose music he perfectly well knew, who are far more modernthan Handel. He was opposed to the musically radical tendencies ofhis age and, as a musician, was a decided conservative in allessential respects--though ready, of course, to go any length in anydirection if he had a fancy at the moment for doing so. 

Handel and Ernest Pontifex

It cost me a great deal to make Ernest [in The Way of All Flesh] playBeethoven and Mendelssohn; I did it simply ad captandum. As a matterof fact he played only the music of Handel and of the early Italianand old English composers--but Handel most of all. 

Handel's Commonplaces

It takes as great a composer as Handel--or rather it would take asgreat a composer if he could be found--to be able to be as easily andtriumphantly commonplace as Handel often is, just as it takes--orrather would take--as great a composer as Handel to write anotherHallelujah chorus. It is only the man who can do the latter who cando the former as Handel has done it. Handel is so great and sosimple that no one but a professional musician is unable tounderstand him. 

Handel and Dr. Morell

After all, Dr. Morell suited Handel exactly well--far better thanTennyson would have done. I don't believe even Handel could have setTennyson to music comfortably. What a mercy it is that he did notlive in Handel's time! Even though Handel had set him ever so wellhe would have spoiled the music, and this Dr. Morell does not in theleast do. 

Wordsworth

And I have been as far as Hull to seeWhat clothes he left or other property. 

I am told that these lines occur in a poem by Wordsworth. (Think ofthe expense!) How thankful we ought to be that Wordsworth was only apoet and not a musician. Fancy a symphony by Wordsworth! Fancyhaving to sit it out! And fancy what it would have been if he hadwritten fugues!

Sleeping Beauties

There are plenty of them. Take Handel; look at such an air as"Loathsome urns, disclose your treasure" or "Come, O Time, and thybroad wings displaying, " both in The Triumph of Time and Truth, or at"Convey me to some peaceful shore, " in Alexander Balus, especiallywhen he comes to "Forgetting and forgot the will of fate. " Who knowthese? And yet, can human genius do more?

"And the Glory of the Lord"

It would be hard to find a more satisfactory chorus even in theMessiah, but I do not think the music was originally intended forthese words:

[Music score which cannot be reproduced]And the glo-ry, the glo-ry of the Lord. 

If Handel had approached these words without having in his head asubject the spirit of which would do, and which he thought the wordswith a little management might be made to fit, he would not, I think, have repeated "the glory" at all, or at any rate not here. If thesewords had been measured, as it were, for a new suit instead of being, as I suppose, furnished with a good second-hand one, the word "the"would not have been tacked on to the "glory" which precedes it andmade to belong to it rather than to the "glory" which follows. Itdoes not matter one straw, and if Handel had asked me whether Iminded his forcing the words a little, I should have said, "Certainlynot, nor more than a little, if you like. " Nevertheless I think as amatter of fact that there is a little forcing. I remember that as aboy this always struck me as a strange arrangement of the words, butit was not until I came to write a chorus myself that I saw how itcame about. I do not suspect any forcing when it comes to "And allflesh shall see it together. "

Handel and the Speaking Voice

[Music score which cannot be reproduced]While now with-out mea-sure we re---vel in plea-sure. 

[Music score which cannot be reproduced]With--their vain mys--te--rios art;

The former of these two extracts is from the chorus "Venus laughingfrom the skies" in Theodora; the other is from the air "Wise menflattering" in Judas Maccabaeus. I know no better examples of theway Handel sometimes derives his melody from the natural intonationof the speaking voice. The "pleasure" (in bar four of the chorus)suggests a man saying "with pleasure" when accepting an invitation todinner. Of course one can say, "with pleasure" in a variety oftones, but a sudden exaltation on the second syllable is very common. 

In the other example, the first bar of the accompaniment puts theargument in a most persuasive manner; the second simply re-states it;the third is the clincher, I cannot understand any man's holding outagainst bar three. The fourth bar re-states the clincher, but at alower pitch, as by one who is quite satisfied that he has convincedhis adversary. 

Handel and the Wetterhorn

When last I saw the Wetterhorn I caught myself involuntarilyhumming:-

[Music score which cannot be reproduced]And the go-vernment shall be up-on his shoul-der. 

The big shoulder of the Wetterhorn seemed to fall just like the runon "shoulder. "

"Tyrants now no more shall Dread"

The music to this chorus in Hercules is written from the tyrant'spoint of view. This is plain from the jubilant defiance with whichthe chorus opens, and becomes still plainer when the magnificentstrain to which he has set the words "All fear of punishment, allfear is o'er" bursts upon us. Here he flings aside allconsiderations save that of the gospel of doing whatever we pleasewithout having to pay for it. He has, however, remembered himselfand become almost puritanical over "The world's avenger is no more. "Here he is quite proper. 

From a dramatic point of view Handel's treatment of these words mustbe condemned for reasons in respect of which Handel was very rarelyat fault. It puzzles the listener who expects the words to betreated from the point of view of the vanquished slaves and not fromthat of the tyrants. There is no pretence that these particulartyrants are not so bad as ordinary tyrants, nor these particularvanquished slaves not so good as ordinary vanquished slaves, and, unless this has been made clear in some way, it is dramatically derigueur that the tyrants should come to grief, or be about to come togrief. The hearer should know which way his sympathies are expectedto go, and here we have the music dragging us one way and the wordsanother. 

Nevertheless, we pardon the departure from the strict rules of thegame, partly because of the welcome nature of good tidings soexultantly announced to us about all fear of punishment being o'er, and partly because the music is, throughout, so much stronger thanthe words that we lose sight of them almost entirely. Handelprobably wrote as he did from a profound, though perhaps unconscious, perception of the fact that even in his day there was a great deal ofhumanitarian nonsense talked and that, after all, the tyrants weregenerally quite as good sort of people as the vanquished slaves. Having begun on this tack, it was easy to throw morality to the windswhen he came to the words about all fear of punishment being over. 

Handel and Marriage

To man God's universal lawGave power to keep the wife in awe

sings Handel in a comically dogmatic little chorus in Samson. Butthe universality of the law must be held to have failed in the caseof Mr. And Mrs. M'Culloch. 

Handel and a Letter to a Solicitor

Jones showed me a letter that had been received by the solicitor inwhose office he was working:

"Dear Sir; I enclose the name of the lawyer of the lady I am engagedto and her name and address are Miss B. Richmond. His address is W. W. Esq. Manchester. 

"I remain, Yours truly W. D. C. "

I said it reminded me of the opening bars of "Welcome, welcome, Mighty King" in Saul:

[Music score which cannot be reproduced]

Handel's Shower of Rain

The falling shower in the air "As cheers the sun" in Joshua is, Ithink, the finest description of a warm sunny refreshing rain that Ihave ever come across and one of the most wonderfully descriptivepieces of music that even Handel ever did. 

Theodora and Susanna

In my preface to Evolution Old and New I imply a certaindissatisfaction with Theodora and Susanna, and imply also that Handelhimself was so far dissatisfied that in his next work, Jephtha (whichI see I inadvertently called his last), he returned to his earliermanner. It is true that these works are not in Handel's usualmanner; they are more difficult and more in the style of Bach. I amglad that Handel gave us these two examples of a slightly (for it isnot much) varied manner and I am interested to observe that he didnot adhere to that manner in Jephtha, but I should be sorry to conveyan impression that I think Theodora and Susanna are in any wayunworthy of Handel. I prefer both to Judas Maccabaeus which, inspite of the many fine things it contains, I like perhaps the leastof all his oratorios. I have played Theodora and Susanna allthrough, and most parts (except the recitatives) many times over, Jones and I have gone through them again and again; I have heardSusanna performed once, and Theodora twice, and I find no singlepiece in either work which I do not admire, while many are as good asanything which it is in my power to conceive. I like the chorus "Hesaw the lovely youth" the least of anything in Theodora so far as Iremember at this moment, but knowing it to have been a favourite withHandel himself I am sure that I must have missed understanding it. 

How comes it, I wonder, that the chorale-like air "Blessing, Honour, Adoration" is omitted in Novello's edition? It is given in Clarke'sedition and is very beautiful. 

Jones says of "With darkness deep", that in the accompaniment to thisair the monotony of dazed grief is just varied now and again with alittle writhing passage. Whether Handel meant this or no, theinterpretation put upon the passage fits the feeling of the air. 

John Sebastian Bach

It is imputed to him for righteousness that he goes over the heads ofthe general public and appeals mainly to musicians. But the greatestmen do not go over the heads of the masses, they take them rather bythe hand. The true musician would not snub so much as a musicalcritic. His instinct is towards the man in the street rather thanthe Academy. Perhaps I say this as being myself a man in the streetmusically. I do not know, but I know that Bach does not appeal to meand that I do appeal from Bach to the man in the street and not tothe Academy, because I believe the first of these to be the sounder. 

Still, I own Bach does appeal to me sometimes. In my own poor musicI have taken passages from him before now, and have my eye on otherswhich I have no doubt will suit me somewhere. Whether Bach wouldknow them again when I have worked my will on them, and much morewhether he would own them, I neither know nor care. I take or leaveas I choose, and alter or leave untouched as I choose. I prefer mymusic to be an outgrowth from a germ whose source I know, rather thana waif and stray which I fancy to be my own child when it was all thetime begotten of a barrel organ. It is a wise tune that knows itsown father and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring ofrespectable parents. Roughly, however, as I have said over and overagain, if I think something that I know and greatly like in music, nomatter whose, is appropriate, I appropriate it. I should say I wasunder most obligations to Handel, Purcell and Beethoven. 

For example, any one who looked at my song "Man in Vain" in Ulyssesmight think it was taken from "Batti, batti. " I should like to sayit was taken from, or suggested by, a few bars in the opening ofBeethoven's pianoforte sonata op. 78, and a few bars in theaccompaniment to the duet "Hark how the Songsters" in Purcell's Timonof Athens. I am not aware of having borrowed more in the song thanwhat follows as natural development of these two passages which runthus:

[Music score by Beethoven which cannot be reproduced][Music score by Purcell which cannot be reproduced]

From the pianoforte arrangement in The Beauties of Purcell by JohnClarke, Mus. Doc. 

Honesty

Honesty consists not in never stealing but in knowing where to stopin stealing, and how to make good use of what one does steal. It isonly great proprietors who can steal well and wisely. A goodstealer, a good user of what he takes, is ipso facto a good inventor. Two men can invent after a fashion to one who knows how to make thebest use of what has been done already. 

Musical Criticism

I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart's Requiem. I didnot rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which Idisliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes. Yet nextmorning in the Times I saw this able, heartless failure, compact ofgnosis as much as any one pleases but without one spark of eithertrue pathos or true humour, called "the crowning achievement ofdramatic music. " The writer continues: "To the unintelligent, musicof this order does not appeal"; which only means "I am intelligentand you had better think as I tell you. " I am glad that such peopleshould call Handel a thieving plagiarist. 

On Borrowing in Music

In books it is easy to make mention of the forgotten dead to whom weare indebted, and to acknowledge an obligation at the same time andplace that we incur it. The more original a writer is, the morepleasure will he take in calling attention to the forgotten work ofthose who have gone before him. The conventions of painting andmusic, on the other hand, while they admit of borrowing no lessfreely than literature does, do not admit of acknowledgement; it isimpossible to interrupt a piece of music, or paint some words upon apicture to explain that the composer or painter was at such and sucha point indebted to such and such a source for his inspiration, butit is not less impossible to avoid occasionally borrowing, or rathertaking, for there is no need of euphemism, from earlier work. Where, then, is the line to be drawn between lawful and unlawful adoption ofwhat has been done by others? This question is such a nice one thatthere are almost as many opinions upon it as there are painters andmusicians. 

To leave painting on one side, if a musician wants some forgottenpassage in an earlier writer, is he, knowing where this sleepingbeauty lies, to let it sleep on unknown and unenjoyed, or shall henot rather wake it and take it--as likely enough the earlier masterdid before him--with, or without modification? It may be said thisshould be done by republishing the original work with its composer'sname, giving him his due laurels. So it should, if the work willbear it; but more commonly times will have so changed that it willnot. A composer may want a bar, or bar and a half, out of, say, adozen pages--he may not want even this much without more or lessmodification--is he to be told that he must republish the ten ordozen original pages within which the passage he wants lies buried, as the only righteous way of giving it new life? No one should beallowed such dog-in-the-manger-like ownership in beauty that becauseit has once been revealed to him therefore none for ever after shallenjoy it unless he be their cicerone. If this rule were sanctioned, he who first produced anything beautiful would sign its death warrantfor an earlier or later date, or at best would tether that whichshould forthwith begin putting girdles round the world. 

Beauty lives not for the self-glorification of the priests of anyart, but for the enjoyment of priests and laity alike. He is thebest art-priest who brings most beauty most home to the hearts ofmost men. If any one tells an artist that part of what he hasbrought home is not his but another's, "Yea, let him take all, "should be his answer. He should know no self in the matter. He is afisher of men's hearts from love of winning them, and baits his hookwith what will best take them without much heed where he gets itfrom. He can gain nothing by offering people what they know or oughtto know already, he will not therefore take from the living or latelydead; for the same reason he will instinctively avoid anything withwhich his hearers will be familiar, except as recognised common form, but beyond these limits he should take freely even as he hopes to beone day taken from. 

True, there is a hidden mocking spirit in things which ensures thathe alone can take well who can also make well, but it is no less truethat he alone makes well who takes well. A man must command all theresources of his art, and of these none is greater than knowledge ofwhat has been done by predecessors. What, I wonder, may he take fromthese--how may he build himself upon them and grow out of them--if heis to make it his chief business to steer clear of them? A safercanon is that the development of a musician should be like that of afugue or first movement, in which, the subject having been enounced, it is essential that thenceforward everything shall be both new andold at one and the same time--new, but not too new--old, but not tooold. 

Indeed no musician can be original in respect of any large percentageof his work. For independently of his turning to his own use thepast labour involved in musical notation, which he makes his own asof right without more thanks to those who thought it out than we giveto him who invented wheels when we hire a cab, independently of this, it is surprising how large a part even of the most original musicconsists of common form scale passages, and closes. Mutatismutandis, the same holds good with even the most original book orpicture; these passages or forms are as light and air, common to allof us; but the principle having been once admitted that some parts ofa man's work cannot be original--not, that is to say, if he hasdescended with only a reasonable amount of modification--where is theline to be drawn? Where does common form begin and end?

The answer is that it is not mere familiarity that should forbidborrowing, but familiarity with a passage as associated with specialsurroundings. If certain musical progressions are already associatedwith many different sets of antecedents and consequents, they have nospecial association, except in so far as they may be connected with aschool or epoch; no one, therefore, is offended at finding themassociated with one set the more. Familiarity beyond a certain pointceases to be familiarity, or at any rate ceases to be open to theobjections that lie against that which, though familiar, is still notfamiliar as common form. Those on the other hand who hold that amusician should never knowingly borrow will doubtless say that commonform passages are an obvious and notorious exception to their rule, and the one the limits of which are easily recognised in practicehowever hard it may be to define them neatly on paper. 

It is not suggested that when a musician wants to compose an air orchorus he is to cast about for some little-known similar piece andlay it under contribution. This is not to spring from the loins ofliving ancestors but to batten on dead men's bones. He who takesthus will ere long lose even what little power to take he may haveever had. On the other hand there is no enjoyable work in any artwhich is not easily recognised as the affiliated outcome of somethingthat has gone before it. This is more especially true of music, whose grammar and stock in trade are so much simpler than those ofany other art. He who loves music will know what the best men havedone, and hence will have numberless passages from older writersfloating at all times in his mind, like germs in the air, ready tohook themselves on to anything of an associated character. Some ofthese he will reject at once, as already too strongly wedded toassociations of their own; some are tried and found not so suitableas was thought; some one, however, will probably soon assert itselfas either suitable, or easily altered so as to become exactly what iswanted; if, indeed, it is the right passage in the right man's mind, it will have modified itself unbidden already. How, then, let me askagain, is the musician to comport himself towards those uninvitedguests of his thoughts? Is he to give them shelter, cherish them, and be thankful? or is he to shake them rudely off, bid them begone, and go out of his way so as not to fall in with them again?

Can there be a doubt what the answer to this question should be? Asit is fatal deliberately to steer on to the work of other composers, so it is no less fatal deliberately to steer clear of it; music to beof any value must be a man's freest and most instinctive expression. Instinct in the case of all the greatest artists, whatever their artmay be, bids them attach themselves to, and grow out of thosepredecessors who are most congenial to them. Beethoven grew out ofMozart and Haydn, adding a leaven which in the end leavened the wholelump, but in the outset adding little; Mozart grew out of Haydn, inthe outset adding little; Haydn grew out of Domenico Scarlatti andEmmanuel Bach, adding, in the outset, little. These men grew out ofJohn Sebastian Bach, for much as both of them admired Handel I cannotsee that they allowed his music to influence theirs. Handel even inhis own lifetime was more or less of a survival and protest; he sawthe rocks on to which music was drifting and steered his own goodship wide of them; as for his musical parentage, he grew out of theearly Italians and out of Purcell. 

The more original a composer is the more certain is he to have madehimself a strong base of operations in the works of earlier men, striking his roots deep into them, so that he, as it were, getsinside them and lives in them, they in him, and he in them; then, this firm foothold having been obtained, he sallies forth asopportunity directs, with the result that his works will reflect atonce the experiences of his own musical life and of those musicalprogenitors to whom a loving instinct has more particularly attachedhim. The fact that his work is deeply imbued with their ideas andlittle ways, is not due to his deliberately taking from them. Hemakes their ways his own as children model themselves upon thoseolder persons who are kind to them. He loves them because he feelsthey felt as he does, and looked on men and things much as he looksupon them himself; he is an outgrowth in the same direction as thatin which they grew; he is their son, bound by every law of heredityto be no less them than himself; the manner, therefore, which camemost naturally to them will be the one which comes also mostnaturally to him as being their descendant. Nevertheless no matterhow strong a family likeness may be, (and it is sometimes, as betweenHandel and his forerunners, startlingly close) two men of differentgenerations will never be so much alike that the work of each willnot have a character of its own--unless indeed the one ismasquerading as the other, which is not tolerable except on rareoccasions and on a very small scale. No matter how like his father aman may be we can always tell the two apart; but this once given, sothat he has a clear life of his own, then a strong family likeness tosome one else is no more to be regretted or concealed if it existsthan to be affected if it does not. 

It is on these terms alone that attractive music can be written, andit is a musician's business to write attractive music. He is, as itwere, tenant for life of the estate of and trustee for that school towhich he belongs. Normally, that school will be the one which hasobtained the firmest hold upon his own countrymen. An Englishmancannot successfully write like a German or a Hungarian, nor is itdesirable that he should try. If, by way of variety, we want Germanor Hungarian music we shall get a more genuine article by goingdirect to German or Hungarian composers. For the most part, however, the soundest Englishmen will be stay-at-homes, in spite of theirbeing much given to summer flings upon the continent. Whether aswriters, therefore, or as listeners, Englishmen should stick chieflyto Purcell, Handel, and Sir Arthur Sullivan. True, Handel was not anEnglishman by birth, but no one was ever more thoroughly English inrespect of all the best and most distinguishing features ofEnglishmen. As a young man, though Italy and Germany were open tohim, he adopted the country of Purcell, feeling it, doubtless, to be, as far as he was concerned, more Saxon than Saxony itself. He choseEngland; nor can there be a doubt that he chose it because hebelieved it to be the country in which his music had the best chanceof being appreciated. And what does this involve, if not thatEngland, take it all round, is the most musically minded country inthe world? That this is so, that it has produced the finest musicthe world has known, and is therefore the finest school of music inthe world, cannot be reasonably disputed. 

To the born musician, it is hardly necessary to say, neither theforegoing remarks nor any others about music, except those that maybe found in every text book, can be of the smallest use. Handel knewthis and no man ever said less about his art--or did more in it. There are some semi-apocryphal {128} rules for tuning the harpsichordthat pretend, with what truth I know not, to hail from him, but herehis theoretical contributions to music begin and end. The rulesbegin "In this chord" (the tonic major triad) "tune the fifth prettyflat, and the third considerably too sharp. " There is an absence offuss about these words which suggests Handel himself. 

The written and spoken words of great painters or musicians who cantalk or write is seldom lasting--artists are a dumb inarticulatefolk, whose speech is in their hands not in their tongues. They lookat us like seals, but cannot talk to us. To the musician, therefore, what has been said above is useless, if not worse; its object willhave been attained if it aids the uncreative reader to criticise whathe hears with more intelligence. 

Music

So far as I can see, this is the least stable of the arts. From theearliest records we learn that there were musicians, and people seemto have been just as fond of music as we are ourselves, but, whereaswe find the old sculpture, painting (what there is of it) andliterature to have been in all essentials like our own, and not onlythis but whereas we find them essentially the same in existingnations in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, this is not so asregards music either looking to antiquity or to the various existingnations. I believe we should find old Greek and Roman music ashideous as we do Persian and Japanese, or as Persians and Japanesefind our own. 

I believe therefore that the charm of music rests on a moreunreasoning basis, and is more dependent on what we are accustomedto, than the pleasure given by the other arts. We now find all theecclesiastical modes, except the Ionian and the AEolian, unsatisfactory, indeed almost intolerable, but I question whether, ifwe were as much in the habit of using the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydianand Mixo-Lydian modes as we are of using the later AEolian mode (theminor scale), we should not find these just as satisfactory. Is itnot possible that our indisputable preference for the Ionian mode(the major scale) is simply the result of its being the one to whichwe are most accustomed? If another mode were to become habitual, might not this scale or mode become first a kind of supplementarymoon-like mode (as the AEolian now is) and finally might it notbecome intolerable to us? Happily it will last my time as it is. 

Discords

Formerly all discords were prepared, and Monteverde's innovation oftaking the dominant seventh unprepared was held to be cataclysmic, but in modern music almost any conceivable discord may be takenunprepared. We have grown so used to this now that we think nothingof it, still, whenever it can be done without sacrificing somethingmore important, I think even a dominant seventh is better prepared. 

It is only the preparation, however, of discords which is now lessrigorously insisted on; their resolution--generally by the climbingdown of the offending note--is as necessary as ever if the music isto flow on smoothly. 

This holds good exactly in our daily life. If a discord has to beintroduced, it is better to prepare it as a concord, take it on astrong beat, and resolve it downwards on a weak one. The preparationbeing often difficult or impossible may be dispensed with, but theresolution is still de rigueur. 

Anachronism

It has been said "Thou shalt not masquerade in costumes not of thineown period, " but the history of art is the history of revivals. Musical criticism, so far as I can see, is the least intelligent ofthe criticisms on this score. Unless a man writes in the exoticstyle of Brahms, Wagner, Dvorak and I know not what other Slav, Czech, Teuton or Hebrew, the critics are sure to accuse him of beingan anachronism. The only man in England who is permitted to write ina style which is in the main of home growth is the Irish Jew, SirArthur Sullivan. If we may go to a foreign style why may we not goto one of an earlier period? But surely we may do whatever we like, and the better we like it the better we shall do it. The great thingis to make sure that we like the style we choose better than we likeany other, that we engraft on it whatever we hear that we think willbe a good addition, and depart from it wherever we dislike it. If aman does this he may write in the style of the year one and he willbe no anachronism; the musical critics may call him one but theycannot make him one. 

Chapters in Music

The analogy between literature, painting and music, so close in somany respects, suggests that the modern custom of making a wholescene, act or even drama into a single, unbroken movement withoutsubdivision is like making a book without chapters, or a picture, like Bernardino Luini's great Lugano fresco in which a long subjectis treated within the compass of a single piece. Better advised, asit seems to me, Gaudenzio Ferrari broke up a space of the same shapeand size at Varallo into many compartments, each more or lesscomplete in itself, grouped round a central scene. The subdivisionof books into chapters, each with a more or less emphatic full closein its own key, is found to be a help as giving the attention haltingplaces by the way. Everything that is worth attending to fatigues aswell as delights, much as the climbing of a mountain does so. Chapters and short pieces give rests during which the attentiongathers renewed strength and attacks with fresh ardour a new stretchof the ascent. Each bar is, as it were, a step cut in ice and onedoes not see, if set pieces are objected to, why phrases and barsshould not be attacked next. 

At the Opera

Jones and I went last Friday to Don Giovanni, Mr. Kemp {131} puttingus in free. It bored us both, and we like Narcissus better. Weadmit the beauty of many of the beginnings of the airs, but thisbeauty is not maintained, in every case the air tails off intosomething that is much too near being tiresome. The plot, of course, is stupid to a degree, but plot has very little to do with it; whatcan be more uninteresting than the plot of many of Handel'soratorios? We both believe the scheme of Italian opera to be a badone; we think that music should never be combined with acting to agreater extent than is done, we will say, in the Mikado; that theoratorio form is far more satisfactory than opera; and we agreed thatwe had neither of us ever yet been to an opera (I mean a Grand Opera)without being bored by it. I am not sorry to remember that Handelnever abandoned oratorio after he had once fairly taken to it. 

At a Philharmonic Concert

We went last night to the Philharmonic and sat in the shillingorchestra, just behind the drums, so that we could see and hear whateach instrument was doing. The concert began with Mozart's G MinorSymphony. We liked this fairly well, especially the last movement, but we found all the movements too long and, speaking for myself, ifI had a tame orchestra for which I might write programmes, I shouldprobably put it down once or twice again, not from any spontaneouswish to hear more of it but as a matter of duty that I might judge itwith fuller comprehension--still, if each movement had been half aslong I should probably have felt cordially enough towards it, exceptof course in so far as that the spirit of the music is alien to thatof the early Italian school with which alone I am in genuine sympathyand of which Handel is the climax. 

Then came a terribly long-winded recitative by Beethoven and an airwith a good deal of "Che faro" in it. I do not mind this, and if ithad been "Che faro" absolutely I should, I daresay, have liked itbetter. I never want to hear it again and my orchestra should neverplay it. 

Beethoven's Concerto for violin and orchestra (op. 61) which followedwas longer and more tedious still. I have not a single good word forit. If the subject of the last movement was the tune of one ofArthur Robert's comic songs, or of any music-hall song, it would dovery nicely and I daresay we should often hum it. I do not mean atthe opening of the movement but about half way through, where thecharacter is just that of a common music-hall song and, so far, good. 

Part II opened with a suite in F Major for orchestra (op. 39) byMoszkowski. This was much more clear and, in every way, interestingthan the Beethoven; every now and then there were passages that werepleasing, not to say more. Jones liked it better than I did; still, one could not feel that any of the movements were the mere drivellingshow stuff of which the concerto had been full. But it, likeeverything else done at these concerts, is too long, cut down one-half it would have been all right and we should have liked to hear ittwice. As it was, all we could say was that it was much better thanwe had expected. I did not like the look of the young man who wroteit and who also conducted. He had long yellowish hair and kepttossing his head to fling it back on to his shoulders, instead ofkeeping it short as Jones and I keep ours. 

Then came Schubert's "Erl Konig, " which, I daresay, is very fine butwith which I have absolutely nothing in common. 

And finally there was a tiresome characteristic overture by Berlioz, which, if Jones could by any possibility have written anything sodreary, I should certainly have begged him not to publish. 

The general impression left upon me by the concert is that all themovements were too long, and that, no matter how clever thedevelopment may be, it spoils even the most pleasing and interestingsubject if there is too much of it. Handel knew when to stop and, when he meant stopping, he stopped much as a horse stops, withlittle, if any, peroration. Who can doubt that he kept his movementsshort because he knew that the worst music within a reasonablecompass is better than the best which is made tiresome by being spunout unduly? I only know one concerted piece of Handel's which Ithink too long, I mean the overture to Saul, but I have no doubt thatif I were to try to cut it down I should find some excellent reasonthat had made Handel decide on keeping it as it is. 

At the Wind Concerts

There have been some interesting wind concerts lately; I sayinteresting, because they brought home to us the unsatisfactorycharacter of wind unsupported by strings. I rather pleased Jones bysaying that the hautbois was the clarionet with a cold in its head, and the bassoon the same with a cold on its chest. 

At a Handel Festival

i

The large sweeps of sound floated over the orchestra like the windplaying upon a hill-side covered with young heather, and I sat andwondered which of the Alpine passes Handel crossed when he went intoItaly. What time of the year was it? What kind of weather did hehave? Were the spring flowers out? Did he walk the greater part ofthe way as we do now? And what did he hear? For he must sometimeshave heard music inside him--and that, too, as much above what he haswritten down as what he has written down is above all other music. No man can catch all, or always the best, of what is put for a momentor two within his reach. Handel took as much and as near the best, doubtless, as mortal man can take; but he must have had moments andglimpses which were given to him alone and which he could tell noman. 

ii

I saw the world a great orchestra filled with angels whoseinstruments were of gold. And I saw the organ on the top of the axisround which all should turn, but nothing turned and nothing moved andthe angels stirred not and all was as still as a stone, and I wasmyself also, like the rest, as still as a stone. 

Then I saw some huge, cloud-like forms nearing, and behold! it wasthe Lord bringing two of his children by the hand. 

"O Papa!" said one, "isn't it pretty?"

"Yes, my dear, " said the Lord, "and if you drop a penny into the boxthe figures will work. "

Then I saw that what I had taken for the keyboard of the organ was nokeyboard but only a slit, and one of the little Lords dropped aplaque of metal into it. And then the angels played and the worldturned round and the organ made a noise and the people began killingone another and the two little Lords clapped their hands and weredelighted. 

Handel and Dickens

They buried Dickens in the very next grave, cheek by jowl withHandel. It does not matter, but it pained me to think that peoplewho could do this could become Deans of Westminster. 

IX--A PAINTER'S VIEWS ON PAINTING

The Old Masters and Their Pupils

The old masters taught, not because they liked teaching, nor yet fromany idea of serving the cause of art, nor yet because they were paidto teach by the parents of their pupils. The parents probably paidno money at first. The masters took pupils and taught them becausethey had more work to do than they could get through and wanted someone to help them. They sold the pupil's work as their own, just aspeople do now who take apprentices. When people can sell a pupil'swork, they will teach the pupil all they know and will see he learnsit. This is the secret of the whole matter. 

The modern schoolmaster does not aim at learning from his pupils, hehardly can, but the old masters did. See how Giovanni Bellinilearned from Titian and Giorgione who both came to him in the sameyear, as boys, when Bellini was 63 years old. What a day forpainting was that! All Bellini's best work was done thenceforward. I know nothing in the history of art so touching as this. [1883. ]

P. S. I have changed my mind about Titian. I don't like him. [1897. ]

The Academic System and Repentance

The academic system goes almost on the principle of offering placesfor repentance, and letting people fall soft, by assuming that theyshould be taught how to do things before they do them, and not by thedoing of them. Good economy requires that there should be littleplace for repentance, and that when people fall they should fall hardenough to remember it. 

The Jubilee Sixpence

We have spent hundreds of thousands, or more probably of millions, onnational art collections, schools of art, preliminary training andacademicism, without wanting anything in particular, but when thenation did at last try all it knew to design a sixpence, it failed. {136} The other coins are all very well in their way, and so are thestamps--the letters get carried, and the money passes; but bothstamps and coins would have been just as good, and very likelybetter, if there had not been an art-school in the country. [1888. ]

Studying from Nature

When is a man studying from nature, and when is he only flatteringhimself that he is doing so because he is painting with a model orlay-figure before him? A man may be working his eight or nine hoursa day from the model and yet not be studying from nature. He ispainting but not studying. He is like the man in the Bible who looksat himself in a glass and goeth away forgetting what manner of man hewas. He will know no more about nature at the end of twenty yearsthan a priest who has been reading his breviary day after day withoutcommitting it to memory will know of its contents. Unless he getswhat he has seen well into his memory, so as to have it at hisfingers' ends as familiarly as the characters with which he writes aletter, he can be no more held to be familiar with, and to havecommand over, nature than a man who only copies his signature from acopy kept in his pocket, as I have known French Canadians do, can besaid to be able to write. It is painting without nature that willgive a man this, and not painting directly from her. He must do boththe one and the other, and the one as much as the other. 

The Model and the Lay-Figure

It may be doubted whether they have not done more harm than good. They are an attempt to get a bit of stuffed nature and to study fromthat instead of studying from the thing itself. Indeed, the man whonever has a model but studies the faces of people as they sitopposite him in an omnibus, and goes straight home and puts down whatlittle he can of what he has seen, dragging it out piecemeal from hismemory, and going into another omnibus to look again for what he hasforgotten as near as he can find it--that man is studying from natureas much as he who has a model four or five hours daily--and probablymore. For you may be painting from nature as much without natureactually before you as with; and you may have nature before you allthe while you are painting and yet not be painting from her. 

Sketching from Nature

Is very like trying to put a pinch of salt on her tail. And yet manymanage to do it very nicely. 

Great Art and Sham Art

Art has no end in view save the emphasising and recording in the mosteffective way some strongly felt interest or affection. Where thereis neither interest nor desire to record with good effect, there isbut sham art, or none at all: where both these are fully present, nomatter how rudely and inarticulately, there is great art. Art is atbest a dress, important, yet still nothing in comparison with thewearer, and, as a general rule, the less it attracts attention thebetter. 

Inarticulate Touches

An artist's touches are sometimes no more articulate than the barkingof a dog who would call attention to something without exactlyknowing what. This is as it should be, and he is a great artist whocan be depended on not to bark at nothing. 

Detail

One reason why it is as well not to give very much detail is that, nomatter how much is given, the eye will always want more; it will knowvery well that it is not being paid in full. On the other hand, nomatter how little one gives, the eye will generally compromise bywanting only a little more. In either case the eye will want more, so one may as well stop sooner or later. Sensible painting, likesensible law, sensible writing, or sensible anything else, consistsas much in knowing what to omit as what to insist upon. It consistsin the tact that tells the painter where to stop. 

Painting and Association

Painting is only possible by reason of association's not sticking tothe letter of its bond, so that we jump to conclusions. 

The Credulous Eye

Painters should remember that the eye, as a general rule, is a good, simple, credulous organ--very ready to take things on trust if it betold them with any confidence of assertion. 

Truths from Nature

We must take as many as we can, but the difficulty is that it isoften so hard to know what the truths of nature are. 

Accuracy

After having spent years striving to be accurate, we must spend asmany more in discovering when and how to be inaccurate. 

Herbert Spencer

He is like nature to Fuseli--he puts me out. 

Shade Colour and Reputation

When a thing is near and in light, colour and form are important;when far and in shadow, they are unimportant. Form and colour arelike reputations which when they become shady are much of a muchness. 

Money and Technique

Money is very like technique (or vice versa). We see that bothmusicians or painters with great command of technique seldom knowwhat to do with it, while those who have little often know how to usewhat they have. 

Action and Study

These things are antagonistic. The composer is seldom a greattheorist; the theorist is never a great composer. Each is equallyfatal to and essential in the other. 

Sacred and Profane Statues

I have never seen statues of Jove, Neptune, Apollo or any of thepagan gods that are not as great failures as the statues of Christand the Apostles. 

Seeing

If a man has not studied painting, or at any rate black and whitedrawing, his eyes are wild; learning to draw tames them. The firststep towards taming the eyes is to teach them not to see too much. 

Quickness in seeing as in everything else comes from long sustainedeffort after rightness and comes unsought. It never comes fromeffort after quickness. 

Improvement in Art

Painting depends upon seeing; seeing depends upon looking for this orthat, at least in great part it does so. 

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it you are lost. 

Any man, as old Heatherley used to say, will go on improving as longas he is bona fide dissatisfied with his work. 

Improvement in one's painting depends upon how we look at our work. If we look at it to see where it is wrong, we shall see this and makeit righter. If we look at it to see where it is right, we shall seethis and shall not make it righter. We cannot see it both wrong andright at the same time. 

Light and Shade

Tell the young artist that he wants a black piece here or there, whenhe sees no such black piece in nature, and that he must continue thisor that shadow thus, and break this light into this or that other, when in nature he sees none of these things, and you will puzzle himvery much. He is trying to put down what he sees; he does not caretwo straws about composition or light and shade; if he sees two tonesof such and such relative intensity in nature, he will give them asnear as he can the same relative intensity in his picture, and totell him that he is perhaps exactly to reverse the natural order indeference to some canon of the academicians, and that at the sametime he is drawing from nature, is what he cannot understand. 

I am very doubtful how far people do not arrange their light andshade too much with the result with which we are familiar in drawing-masters' copies; it may be right or it may not, I don't know--I amafraid I ought to know, but I don't; but I do know that thosepictures please me best which were painted without the slightestregard to any of these rules. 

I suppose the justification of those who talk as above lies in thefact that, as we cannot give all nature, we lie by suppressio veriwhether we like it or no, and that you sometimes lie less by puttingin something which does not exist at the moment, but which easilymight exist and which gives a lot of facts which you otherwise couldnot give at all, than by giving so much as you can alone give if youadhere rigidly to the facts. If this is so the young painter wouldunderstand the matter, if it were thus explained to him, better thanhe is likely to do if he is merely given it as a canon. 

At the same time, I admit it to be true that one never sees light butit has got dark in it, nor vice versa, and that this comes to sayingthat if you are to be true to nature you must break your lights intoyour shadows and vice versa; and so usual is this that, if therehappens here or there to be an exception, the painter had better saynothing about it, for it is more true to nature's general practicenot to have it so than to have it. 

Certainly as regards colour, I never remember to have seen a piece ofone colour without finding a bit of a very similar colour not faroff, but having no connection with it. This holds good in such anextraordinary way that if it happens to fail the matter should bepassed over in silence. 

Colour

The expression "seeing colour" used to puzzle me. I was aware thatsome painters made their pictures more pleasing in colour than othersand more like the colour of the actual thing as a whole, still therewere any number of bits of brilliant colour in their work which forthe life of me I could not see in nature. I used to hear people sayof a man who got pleasing and natural colour, "Does he not see colourwell?" and I used to say he did, but, as far as I was concerned, itwould have been more true to say that he put down colour which he didnot see well, or at any rate that he put down colour which I couldnot see myself. 

In course of time I got to understand that seeing colour does notmean inventing colour, or exaggerating it, but being on the look outfor it, thus seeing it where another will not see it, and giving itthe preference as among things to be preserved and rendered amid thewholesale slaughter of innocents which is inevitable in any painting. Painting is only possible as a quasi-hieroglyphic epitomising ofnature; this means that the half goes for the whole, whereon thequestion arises which half is to be taken and which made to go? Thecolourist will insist by preference on the coloured half, the man whohas no liking for colour, however much else he may sacrifice, willnot be careful to preserve this and, as a natural consequence, hewill not preserve it. 

Good, that is to say, pleasing, beautiful, or even pretty colourcannot be got by putting patches of pleasing, beautiful or prettycolour upon one's canvas and, which is a harder matter, leaving themwhen they have been put. It is said of money that it is more easilymade than kept and this is true of many things, such as friendship;and even life itself is more easily got than kept. The same holdsgood of colour. It is also true that, as with money, more is made bysaving than in any other way, and the surest way to lose colour is toplay with it inconsiderately, not knowing how to leave well alone. Atouch of pleasing colour should on no account be stirred withoutconsideration. 

That we can see in a natural object more colour than strikes us at aglance, if we look for it attentively, will not be denied by any whohave tried to look for it. Thus, take a dull, dead, level, grimy oldLondon wall: at a first glance we can see no colour in it, nothingbut a more or less purplish mass, got, perhaps as nearly as in anyother way, by a tint mixed with black, Indian red and white. If, however, we look for colour in this, we shall find here and there abroken brick with a small surface of brilliant crimson, hard by therewill be another with a warm orange hue perceivable through the grimeby one who is on the look out for it, but by no one else. Then theremay be bits of old advertisement of which here and there a gailycoloured fragment may remain, or a rusty iron hook or a bit of brightgreen moss; few indeed are the old walls, even in the grimiest partsof London, on which no redeeming bits of colour can be found by thosewho are practised in looking for them. To like colour, to wish tofind it, and thus to have got naturally into a habit of looking forit, this alone will enable a man to see colour and to make a note ofit when he has seen it, and this alone will lead him towards apleasing and natural scheme of colour in his work. 

Good colour can never be got by putting down colour which is notseen; at any rate only a master who has long served accuracy canventure on occasional inaccuracy--telling a lie, knowing it to be alie, and as, se non vera, ben trovata. The grown man in his art maydo this, and indeed is not a man at all unless he knows how to do itdaily and hourly without departure from the truth even in his boldestlie; but the child in art must stick to what he sees. If he looksharder he will see more, and may put more, but till he sees itwithout being in any doubt about it, he must not put it. There is nosuch sure way of corrupting one's colour sense as the habitualpractice of putting down colour which one does not see; this and theneglecting to look for it are equal faults. The first error leads tomelodramatic vulgarity, the other to torpid dullness, and it is hardto say which is worse. 

It may be said that the preservation of all the little episodes ofcolour which can be discovered in an object whose general effect isdingy and the suppression of nothing but the uninteresting colourlessdetails amount to what is really a forcing and exaggeration ofnature, differing but little from downright fraud, so far as itseffect goes, since it gives an undue preference to the colour side ofthe matter. In equity, if the exigencies of the convention underwhich we are working require a sacrifice of a hundred details, themajority of which are uncoloured, while in the minority colour can befound if looked for, the sacrifice should be made pro rata fromcoloured and uncoloured alike. If the facts of nature are a hundred, of which ninety are dull in colour and ten interesting, and thepainter can only give ten, he must not give the ten interesting bitsof colour and neglect the ninety soberly coloured details. Strictly, he should sacrifice eighty-one sober details and nine coloured ones;he will thus at any rate preserve the balance and relation whichobtain in nature between coloured and uncoloured. 

This, no doubt, is what he ought to do if he leaves the creative, poetic and more properly artistic aspect of his own function out ofthe question; if he is making himself a mere transcriber, holding themirror up to nature with such entire forgetfulness of self as to berather looking-glass than man, this is what he must do. But themoment he approaches nature in this spirit he ceases to be an artist, and the better he succeeds as painter of something that might passfor a coloured photograph, the more inevitably must he fail tosatisfy, or indeed to appeal to us at all as poet--as one whosesympathies with nature extend beyond her superficial aspect, or asone who is so much at home with her as to be able readily todissociate the permanent and essential from the accidental which maybe here to-day and gone to-morrow. If he is to come before us as anartist, he must do so as a poet or creator of that which is not, aswell as a mirror of that which is. True, experience in all kinds ofpoetical work shows that the less a man creates the better, that themore, in fact, he makes, the less is he of a maker; but experiencealso shows that the course of true nature, like that of true love, never does run smooth, and that occasional, judicious, slightdepartures from the actual facts, by one who knows the value of a lietoo well to waste it, bring nature more vividly and admirably beforeus than any amount of adherence to the letter of strict accuracy. Itis the old story, the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life. 

With colour, then, he who does not look for it will begin by notseeing it unless it is so obtrusive that there is no escaping it; hewill therefore, in his rendering of the hundred facts of nature abovereferred to, not see the ten coloured bits at all, supposing them tobe, even at their brightest, somewhat sober, and his work will becolourless or disagreeable in colour. The faithful copyist, who isstill a mere copyist, will give nine details of dull uninterestingcolour and one of interesting. The artist or poet will find somereason for slightly emphasising the coloured details and will scatterhere and there a few slight, hardly perceptible, allusions to morecoloured details than come within the letter of his bond, but will becareful not to overdo it. The vulgar sensational painter will forcein his colour everywhere, and of all colourists he must be pronouncedthe worst. 

Briefly then, to see colour is simply to have got into a habit of notoverlooking the patches of colour which are seldom far to seek orhard to see by those who look for them. It is not the making one'sself believe that one sees all manner of colours which are not there, it is only the getting oneself into a mental habit of looking out forepisodes of colour, and of giving them a somewhat undue preference inthe struggle for rendering, wherever anything like a reasonablepretext can be found for doing so. For if a picture is to bepleasing in colour, pleasing colours must be put upon the canvas, andreasons have got to be found for putting them there. [1886. ]

P. S. --The foregoing note wants a great deal of reconsideration forwhich I cannot find time just now. Jan. 31, 1898. 

Words and Colour

A man cannot be a great colourist unless he is a great deal more. Agreat colourist is no better than a great wordist unless the colouris well applied to a subject which at any rate is not repellent. 

Amateurs and Professionals

There is no excuse for amateur work being bad. Amateurs often excusetheir shortcomings on the ground that they are not professionals, theprofessional could plead with greater justice that he is not anamateur. The professional has not, he might well say, the leisureand freedom from money anxieties which will let him devote himself tohis art in singleness of heart, telling of things as he sees themwithout fear of what man shall say unto him; he must think not ofwhat appears to him right and loveable but of what his patrons willthink and of what the critics will tell his patrons to say theythink; he has got to square everyone all round and will assuredlyfail to make his way unless he does this; if, then, he betrays histrust he does so under temptation. Whereas the amateur who workswith no higher aim than that of immediate recognition betrays it fromthe vanity and wantonness of his spirit. The one is naughty becausehe is needy, the other from natural depravity. Besides, the amateurcan keep his work to himself, whereas the professional man mustexhibit or starve. 

The question is what is the amateur an amateur of? What is he reallyin love with? Is he in love with other people, thinking he seessomething which he would like to show them, which he feels sure theywould enjoy if they could only see it as he does, which he istherefore trying as best he can to put before the few nice peoplewhom he knows? If this is his position he can do no wrong, thespirit in which he works will ensure that his defects will be only asbad spelling or bad grammar in some pretty saying of a child. If, onthe other hand, he is playing for social success and to get areputation for being clever, then no matter how dexterous his workmay be, it is but another mode of the speaking with the tongues ofmen and angels without charity; it is as sounding brass or a tinklingcymbal, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. 

The Ansidei Raffaelle

This picture is inspired by no deeper feeling than a determination toadhere to the conventions of the time. These conventions ensure aneffect of more or less devotional character, and this, coupled withour reverence for the name of Raffaelle, the sentiments arising fromantiquity and foreignness, and the inability of most people to judgeof the work on technical grounds, because they can neither paint nordraw, prevents us from seeing what a mere business picture it is andhow poor the painting is throughout. A master in any art should befirst man, then poet, then craftsman; this picture must have beenpainted by one who was first worldling, then religious-property-manufacturer, then painter with brains not more than average and noheart. 

The Madonna's head has indeed a certain prettiness of a not veryuncommon kind; the paint has been sweetened with a soft brush andlicked smooth till all texture as of flesh is gone and the head iswooden and tight; I can see no expression in it; the hand upon theopen book is as badly drawn as the hand of S. Catharine (also byRaffaelle) in our gallery, or even worse; so is the part of the otherhand which can be seen; they are better drawn than the hands in theEcce homo of Correggio in our gallery, for the fingers appear to havethe right number of joints, which none of those in the Correggiohave, but this is as much as can be said. 

The dress is poorly painted, the gold thread work being of thecheapest, commonest kind, both as regards pattern and the quantityallowed; especially note the meagre allowance and poor pattern of theembroidery on the virgin's bosom; it is done as by one who knew sheought to have, and must have, a little gold work, but was determinedshe should have no more than he could help. This is so whereverthere is gold thread work in the picture. It is so on S. Nicholas'scloak where a larger space is covered, but the pattern is dull andthe smallest quantity of gold is made to go the longest way. Thegold cording which binds this is more particularly badly done. Compare the embroidery and gold thread work in "The Virgin adoringthe Infant Christ, " ascribed to Andrea Verrocchio, No. 296, Room V;"The Annunciation" by Carlo Crivelli, No. 739, Room VIII; in "TheAngel Raphael accompanies Tobias on his Journey into Media"attributed to Botticini, No. 781, Room V; in "Portrait of a Lady, "school of Pollaiuolo, No. 585, Room V; in "A Canon of the Church withhis Patron Saints" by Gheeraert David, No. 1045, Room XI; or indeedthe general run of the gold embroidery of the period as shown in ourgallery. {147}

So with the jewels; there are examples of jewels in most of thepictures named above, none of them, perhaps, very first-rate, but allof them painted with more care and serious aim than the eighteen-penny trinket which serves S. Nicholas for a brooch. The jewels inthe mitre are rather better than this, but much depends upon the kindof day on which the picture is seen; on a clear bright day they, andindeed every part of the picture, look much worse than on a dull onebecause the badness can be more clearly seen. As for the mitreitself, it is made of the same hard unyielding material as theportico behind the saint, whatever this may be, presumably wood. 

Observe also the crozier which S. Nicholas is holding; observe thecheap streak of high light exactly the same thickness all the way andonly broken in one place; so with the folds in the draperies; all ismonotonous, unobservant, unimaginative--the work of a feeble manwhose pains will never extend much beyond those necessary to make himpass as stronger than he is; especially the folds in the white linenover S. Nicholas's throat, and about his girdle--weaker drapery canhardly be than this, unless, perhaps, that from under which S. Nicholas's hands come. There is not only no art here to conceal, butthere is not even pains to conceal the want of art. As for the handsthemselves, and indeed all the hands and feet throughout the picture, there is not one which is even tolerably drawn if judged by thestandard which Royal Academicians apply to Royal Academy studentsnow. 

Granted that this is an early work, nevertheless I submit that thedrawing here is not that of one who is going to do better by and by, it is that of one who is essentially insincere and who will never aimhigher than immediate success. Those who grow to the best workalmost always begin by laying great stress on details which are allthey as yet have strength for; they cannot do much, but the littlethey can do they do and never tire of doing; they grow by gettingjuster notions of proportion and subordination of parts to the wholerather than by any greater amount of care and patience bestowed upondetails. Here there are no bits of detail worked out as by one whowas interested in them and enjoyed them. Wherever a thing can bescamped it is scamped. As the whole is, so are the details, and asthe details are, so is the whole; all is tainted with eye-service andwith a vulgarity not the less profound for being veiled by a dueobservance of conventionality. 

I shall be told that Raffaelle did come to draw and paint much betterthan he has done here. I demur to this. He did a little better; hejust took so much pains as to prevent him from going down-hillheadlong, and, with practice, he gained facility, but he was neververy good, either as a draughtsman or as a painter. His reputation, indeed, rests mainly on his supposed exquisitely pure and tenderfeeling. His colour is admittedly inferior, his handling is nothighly praised by any one, his drawing has been much praised, but itis of a penmanship freehand kind which is particularly apt to takepeople in. Of course he could draw in some ways, no one giving allhis time to art and living in Raffaelle's surroundings could, witheven ordinary pains, help becoming a facile draughtsman, but it isthe expression and sentiment of his pictures which are supposed to beso ineffable and to make him the prince of painters. 

I do not think this reputation will be maintained much longer. I cansee no ineffable expression in the Ansidei Madonna's head, nor yet inthat of the Garvagh Madonna in our gallery, nor in the S. Catharine. He has the saint-touch, as some painters have the tree-touch andothers the water-touch. I remember the time when I used to think Isaw religious feeling in these last two pictures, but each time I seethem I wonder more and more how I can have been taken in by them. Ihear people admire the head of S. Nicholas in the Ansidei picture. Ican see nothing in it beyond the power of a very ordinary painter, and nothing that a painter of more than very ordinary power would besatisfied with. When I look at the head of Bellini's Doge, LoredanoLoredani, I can see defects, as every one can see defects in everypicture, but the more I see it the more I marvel at it, and the moreprofoundly I respect the painter. With Raffaelle I find exactly thereverse; I am carried away at first, as I was when a young man byMendelssohn's Songs Without Words, only to be very angry with myselfpresently on finding that I could have believed even for a short timein something that has no real hold upon me. I know the S. Catharinein our gallery has been said by some not to be by Raffaelle. No onewill doubt its genuineness who compares the drawing, painting andfeeling of S. Catharine's eyes and nose with those of the S. John inthe Ansidei picture. The doubts have only been raised owing to thefact that the picture, being hung on a level with the eye, is soeasily seen to be bad that people think Raffaelle cannot have paintedit. 

Returning to the S. Nicholas; apart from the expression, or as itseems to me want of expression, the modelling of the head is not onlypoor but very poor. The forehead is formless and boneless, the noseis entirely wanting in that play of line and surface which an oldman's nose affords; no one ever yet drew or painted a nose absolutelyas nature has made it, but he who compares carefully drawn noses, asthat in Rembrandt's younger portrait of himself, in his old woman, inthe three Van Eycks, in the Andrea Solario, in the Loredano Loredaniby Bellini, all in our gallery, with the nose of Raffaelle's S. Nicholas will not be long in finding out how slovenly Raffaelle'streatment in reality is. Eyes, eyebrows, mouth, cheeks and chin aretreated with the same weakness, and this not the weakness of a childwho is taking much pains to do something beyond his strength, andwhose intention can be felt through and above the imperfections ofhis performance (as in the case of the two Apostles' heads by Giottoin our gallery), but of one who is not even conscious of weaknesssave by way of impatience that his work should cost him time andtrouble at all, and who is satisfied if he can turn it out wellenough to take in patrons who have themselves never either drawn orpainted. 

Finally, let the spectator turn to the sky and landscape. It is thecheapest kind of sky with no clouds and going down as low aspossible, so as to save doing more country details than could behelped. As for the little landscape there is, let the reader compareit with any of the examples by Bellini, Basaiti, or even Cima daConegliano, which may be found in the same or the adjoining rooms. 

How, then, did Raffaelle get his reputation? It may be answered, Howdid Virgil get his? or Dante? or Bacon? or Plato? or Mendelssohn? ora score of others who not only get the public ear but keep itsometimes for centuries? How did Guido, Guercino and Domenichino gettheir reputations? A hundred years ago these men were held as hardlyinferior to Raffaelle himself. They had a couple of hundred years orso of triumph--why so much? And if so much, why not more? If webegin asking questions, we may ask why anything at all? Populus vultdecipi is the only answer, and nine men out of ten will follow onwith et decipiatur. The immediate question, however, is not howRaffaelle came by his reputation but whether, having got it, he willcontinue to hold it now that we have a fair amount of his work at theNational Gallery. 

I grant that the general effect of the picture if looked at as a merepiece of decoration is agreeable, but I have seen many a picturewhich though not bearing consideration as a serious work yet lookedwell from a purely decorative standpoint. I believe, however, thatat least half of those who sit gazing before this Ansidei Raffaelleby the half-hour at a time do so rather that they may be seen thansee; half, again, of the remaining half come because they are made todo so, the rest see rather what they bring with them and put into thepicture than what the picture puts into them. 

And then there is the charm of mere age. Any Italian picture of theearly part of the sixteenth century, even though by a worse painterthan Raffaelle, can hardly fail to call up in us a solemn, old-worldfeeling, as though we had stumbled unexpectedly on some holy, peaceful survivors of an age long gone by, when the struggle was notso fierce and the world was a sweeter, happier place than we now findit, when men and women were comelier, and we should like to havelived among them, to have been golden-hued as they, to have done asthey did; we dream of what might have been if our lines had been castin more pleasant places--and so on, all of it rubbish, but still notwholly unpleasant rubbish so long as it is not dwelt upon. 

Bearing in mind the natural tendency to accept anything which givesus a peep as it were into a golden age, real or imaginary, bearing inmind also the way in which this particular picture has been writtenup by critics, and the prestige of Raffaelle's name, the wonder isnot that so many let themselves be taken in and carried away with itbut that there should not be a greater gathering before it than theregenerally is. 

Buying a Rembrandt

As an example of the evenness of the balance of advantages betweenthe principles of staying still and taking what comes, and goingabout to look for things, {151} I might mention my small Rembrandt, "The Robing of Joseph before Pharaoh. " I have wanted a Rembrandt allmy life, and I have wanted not to give more than a few shillings forit. I might have travelled all Europe over for no one can say howmany years, looking for a good, well-preserved, forty-shillingRembrandt (and this was what I wanted), but on two occasions of mylife cheap Rembrandts have run right up against me. The first was ahead cut out of a ruined picture that had only in part escapeddestruction when Belvoir Castle was burned down at the beginning ofthis century. I did not see the head but have little doubt it wasgenuine. It was offered me for a pound; I was not equal to theoccasion and did not at once go to see it as I ought, and when Iattended to it some months later the thing had gone. My only excusemust be that I was very young. 

I never got another chance till a few weeks ago when I saw what Itook, and take, to be an early, but very interesting, work byRembrandt in the window of a pawnbroker opposite St. Clement DanesChurch in the Strand. I very nearly let this slip too. I saw it andwas very much struck with it, but, knowing that I am a little apt tobe too sanguine, distrusted my judgment; in the evening I mentionedthe picture to Gogin who went and looked at it; finding him not lessimpressed than I had been with the idea that the work was an earlyone by Rembrandt, I bought it, and the more I look at it the moresatisfied I am that we are right. 

People talk as though the making the best of what comes was such aneasy matter, whereas nothing in reality requires more experience andgood sense. It is only those who know how not to let the luck thatruns against them slip, who will be able to find things, no matterhow long and how far they go in search of them. [1887. ]

Trying to Buy a Bellini

Flushed with triumph in the matter of Rembrandt, a fortnight or soafterwards I was at Christie's and saw two pictures that fired me. One was a Madonna and Child by Giovanni Bellini, I do not doubtgenuine, not in a very good state, but still not repainted. TheMadonna was lovely, the Child very good, the landscape sweet andBelliniesque. I was much smitten and determined to bid up to ahundred pounds; I knew this would be dirt cheap and was not going tobuy at all unless I could get good value. I bid up to a hundredguineas, but there was someone else bent on having it and when he bid105 guineas I let him have it, not without regret. I saw in theTimes that the purchaser's name was Lesser. 

The other picture I tried to get at the same sale (this day week); itwas a small sketch numbered 72 (I think) and purporting to be byGiorgione but, I fully believe, by Titian. I bid up to 10 pounds andthen let it go. It went for 28 pounds, and I should say would havebeen well bought at 40 pounds. [1887. ]

Watts

I was telling Gogin how I had seen at Christie's some pictures byWatts and how much I had disliked them. He said some of them hadbeen exhibited in Paris a few years ago and a friend of his led himup to one of them and said in a serious, puzzled, injured tone:

"Mon cher ami, racontez-moi donc ceci, s'il vous plait, " as thoughtheir appearance in such a place at all were something that must havean explanation not obvious upon the face of it. 

Lombard Portals

The crouching beasts, on whose backs the pillars stand, generallyhave a little one beneath them or some animal which they have killed, or something, in fact, to give them occupation; it was felt that, though an animal by itself was well, an animal doing something wasmuch better. The mere fact of companionship and silent sympathy isenough to interest, but without this, sculptured animals are stupid, as our lions in Trafalgar Square--which, among other faults, havethat of being much too well done. 

So Jones's cat, Prince, picked up a little waif in the court andbrought it home, and the two lay together and were much lovelier thanPrince was by himself. {153}

Holbein at Basle

How well he has done Night in his "Crucifixion"! Also he has triedto do the Alps, putting them as background to the city, but he hasnot done them as we should do them now. I think the tower on thehill behind the city is the tower which we see on leaving Basle onthe road for Lucerne, I mean I think Holbein had this tower in hishead. 

Van Eyck

Van Eyck is delightful rather in spite of his high finish thanbecause of it. De Hooghe finishes as highly as any one need do. VanEyck's finish is saved because up to the last he is essentiallyimpressionist, that is, he keeps a just account of relativeimportances and keeps them in their true subordination one toanother. The only difference between him and Rembrandt or Velasquezis that these, as a general rule, stay their hand at an earlier stageof impressionism. 

Giotto

There are few modern painters who are not greater technically thanGiotto, but I cannot call to mind a single one whose work impressesme as profoundly as his does. How is it that our so greatly bettershould be so greatly worse--that the farther we go beyond him thehigher he stands above us? Time no doubt has much to do with it, for, great as Giotto was, there are painters of to-day not less so, if they only dared express themselves as frankly and unaffectedly ashe did. 

Early Art

The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its mostinteresting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good andevil it is stronger, but we care less about it. 

Sincerity

It is not enough that the painter should make the spectator feel whathe meant him to feel; he must also make him feel that this feelingwas shared by the painter himself bona fide and without affectation. Of all the lies a painter can tell the worst is saying that he likeswhat he does not like. But the poor wretch seldom knows himself; forthe art of knowing what gives him pleasure has been so neglected thatit has been lost to all but a very few. The old Italians knew wellenough what they liked and were as children in saying it. 

X--THE POSITION OF A HOMO UNIUS LIBRI

Trubner and Myself

When I went back to Trubner, after Bogue had failed, I had a talkwith him and his partner. I could see they had lost all faith in myliterary prospects. Trubner told me I was a homo unius libri, meaning Erewhon. He said I was in a very solitary position. Ireplied that I knew I was, but it suited me. I said:

"I pay my way; when I was with you before, I never owed you money;you find me now not owing my publisher money, but my publisher indebt to me; I never owe so much as a tailor's bill; beyond secureddebts, I do not owe 5 pounds in the world and never have" (which isquite true). "I get my summer's holiday in Italy every year; I livevery quietly and cheaply, but it suits my health and tastes, and Ihave no acquaintances but those I value. My friends stick by me. IfI was to get in with these literary and scientific people I shouldhate them and they me. I should fritter away my time and my freedomwithout getting a quid pro quo: as it is, I am free and I give theswells every now and then such a facer as they get from no one else. Of course I don't expect to get on in a commercial sense at present, I do not go the right way to work for this; but I am going the rightway to secure a lasting reputation and this is what I do care for. Aman cannot have both, he must make up his mind which he means goingin for. I have gone in for posthumous fame and I see no step in myliterary career which I do not think calculated to promote my beingheld in esteem when the heat of passion has subsided. "

Trubner shrugged his shoulders. He plainly does not believe that Ishall succeed in getting a hearing; he thinks the combination of thereligious and cultured world too strong for me to stand against. 

If he means that the reviewers will burke me as far as they can, nodoubt he is right; but when I am dead there will be other reviewersand I have already done enough to secure that they shall from time totime look me up. They won't bore me then but they will be just likethe present ones. [1882. ]

Capping a Success

When I had written Erewhon people wanted me at once to set to workand write another book like it. How could I? I cannot think how Iescaped plunging into writing some laboured stupid book. I am veryglad I did escape. Nothing is so cruel as to try and force a manbeyond his natural pace. If he has got more stuff in him it willcome out in its own time and its own way: if he has not--let thepoor wretch alone; to have done one decent book should be enough; thevery worst way to get another out of him is to press him. The morepromise a young writer has given, the more his friends should urgehim not to over-tax himself. 

A Lady Critic

A lady, whom I meet frequently in the British Museum reading-room andelsewhere, said to me the other day:

"Why don't you write another Erewhon?"

"Why, my dear lady, " I replied, "Life and Habit was another Erewhon. "

They say these things to me continually to plague me and make outthat I could do one good book but never any more. She is the sort ofperson who if she had known Shakespeare would have said to him, whenhe wrote Henry the IVth:

"Ah, Mr. Shakespeare, why don't you write us another TitusAndronicus? Now that was a sweet play, that was. "

And when he had done Antony and Cleopatra she would have told himthat her favourite plays were the three parts of King Henry VI. 

Compensation

If I die prematurely, at any rate I shall be saved from being boredby my own success. 

Hudibras and Erewhon

I was completing the purchase of some small houses at Lewisham andhad to sign my name. The vendor, merely seeing the name and knowingnone of my books, said to me, rather rudely, but without meaning anymischief:

"Have you written any books like Hudibras?"

I said promptly: "Certainly; Erewhon is quite as good a book asHudibras. "

This was coming it too strong for him, so he thought I had not heardand repeated his question. I said again as before, and he shut up. I sent him a copy of Erewhon immediately after we had completed. Itwas rather tall talk on my part, I admit, but he should not havechallenged me unprovoked. 

Life and Habit and Myself

At the Century Club I was talking with a man who asked me why I didnot publish the substance of what I had been saying. I believed heknew me and said:

"Well, you know, there's Life and Habit. "

He did not seem to rise at all, so I asked him if he had seen thebook. 

"Seen it?" he answered. "Why, I should think every one has seen Lifeand Habit: but what's that got to do with it?"

I said it had taken me so much time lately that I had had none tospare for anything else. Again he did not seem to see the force ofthe remark and a friend, who was close by, said:

"You know, Butler wrote Life and Habit. "

He would not believe it, and it was only after repeated assurancethat he accepted it. It was plain he thought a great deal of Lifeand Habit and had idealised its author, whom he was disappointed tofind so very commonplace a person. Exactly the same thing happenedto me with Erewhon. I was glad to find that Life and Habit had madeso deep an impression at any rate upon one person. 

A Disappointing Person

I suspect I am rather a disappointing person, for every now and thenthere is a fuss and I am to meet some one who would very much like tomake my acquaintance, or some one writes me a letter and says he haslong admired my books, and may he, etc. ? Of course I say "Yes, " butexperience has taught me that it always ends in turning some one whowas more or less inclined to run me into one who considers he has agrievance against me for not being a very different kind of personfrom what I am. These people however (and this happens on an averageonce or twice a year) do not come solely to see me, they generallytell me all about themselves and the impression is left upon me thatthey have really come in order to be praised. I am as civil to themas I know how to be but enthusiastic I never am, for they have neverany of them been nice people, and it is my want of enthusiasm forthemselves as much as anything else which disappoints them. Theyseldom come again. Mr. Alfred Tylor was the only acquaintance I haveever made through being sent for to be looked at, or letting some onecome to look at me, who turned out a valuable ally; but then he sentfor me through mutual friends in the usual way. 

Entertaining Angels

I doubt whether any angel would find me very entertaining. As formyself, if ever I do entertain one it will have to be unawares. Whenpeople entertain others without an introduction they generally turnout more like devils than angels. 

Myself and My Books

The balance against them is now over 350 pounds. How completely theymust have been squashed unless I had had a little money of my own. Is it not likely that many a better writer than I am is squashedthrough want of money? Whatever I do I must not die poor; theseexamples of ill-requited labour are immoral, they discourage theeffort of those who could and would do good things if they did notknow that it would ruin themselves and their families; moreover, theyset people on to pamper a dozen fools for each neglected man ofmerit, out of compunction. Genius, they say, always wears aninvisible cloak; these men wear invisible cloaks--therefore they aregeniuses; and it flatters them to think that they can see more thantheir neighbours. The neglect of one such man as the author ofHudibras is compensated for by the petting of a dozen others whowould be the first to jump upon the author of Hudibras if he were tocome back to life. 

Heaven forbid that I should compare myself to the author of Hudibras, but still, if my books succeed after my death--which they may or maynot, I know nothing about it--any way, if they do succeed, let it beunderstood that they failed during my life for a few very obviousreasons of which I was quite aware, for the effect of which I wasprepared before I wrote my books, and which on consideration I foundinsufficient to deter me. I attacked people who were at onceunscrupulous and powerful, and I made no alliances. I did thisbecause I did not want to be bored and have my time wasted and mypleasures curtailed. I had money enough to live on, and preferredaddressing myself to posterity rather than to any except a very fewof my own contemporaries. Those few I have always kept well in mind. I think of them continually when in doubt about any passage, butbeyond those few I will not go. Posterity will give a man a fairhearing; his own times will not do so if he is attacking vestedinterests, and I have attacked two powerful sets of vested interestsat once. [The Church and Science. ] What is the good of addressingpeople who will not listen? I have addressed the next generation andhave therefore said many things which want time before they becomepalatable. Any man who wishes his work to stand will sacrifice agood deal of his immediate audience for the sake of being attractiveto a much larger number of people later on. He cannot gain thislater audience unless he has been fearless and thorough-going, and ifhe is this he is sure to have to tread on the corns of a great manyof those who live at the same time with him, however little he maywish to do so. He must not expect these people to help him on, norwonder if, for a time, they succeed in snuffing him out. It is partof the swim that it should be so. Only, as one who believes himselfto have practised what he preaches, let me assure any one who hasmoney of his own that to write fearlessly for posterity and not getpaid for it is much better fun than I can imagine its being to writelike, we will say, George Eliot and make a lot of money by it. [1883. ]

Dragons

People say that there are neither dragons to be killed nor distressedmaidens to be rescued nowadays. I do not know, but I think I havedropped across one or two, nor do I feel sure whether the most mortalwounds have been inflicted by the dragons or by myself. 

Trying to Know

There are some things which it is madness not to try to know butwhich it is almost as much madness to try to know. Sometimespublishers, hoping to buy the Holy Ghost with a price, fee a man toread for them and advise them. This is but as the vain tossing ofinsomnia. God will not have any human being know what will sell, norwhen any one is going to die, nor anything about the ultimate, oreven the deeper, springs of growth and action, nor yet such a littlething as whether it is going to rain to-morrow. I do not say thatthe impossibility of being certain about these and similar matterswas designed, but it is as complete as though it had been not onlydesigned but designed exceedingly well. 

Squaring Accounts

We owe past generations not only for the master discoveries of music, science, literature and art--few of which brought profit to those towhom they were revealed--but also for our organism itself which is aninheritance gathered and garnered by those who have gone before us. What money have we paid not for Handel and Shakespeare only but forour eyes and ears?

And so with regard to our contemporaries. A man is sometimes temptedto exclaim that he does not fare well at the hands of his owngeneration; that, although he may play pretty assiduously, he isreceived with more hisses than applause; that the public is hard toplease, slow to praise, and bent on driving as hard a bargain as itcan. This, however, is only what he should expect. No sensible manwill suppose himself to be of so much importance that hiscontemporaries should be at much pains to get at the truth concerninghim. As for my own position, if I say the things I want to saywithout troubling myself about the public, why should I grumble atthe public for not troubling about me? Besides, not being paidmyself, I can in better conscience use the works of others, as Idaily do, without paying for them and without being at the trouble ofpraising or thanking them more than I have a mind to. And, afterall, how can I say I am not paid? In addition to all that I inheritfrom past generations I receive from my own everything that makeslife worth living--London, with its infinite sources of pleasure andamusement, good theatres, concerts, picture galleries, the BritishMuseum Reading-Room, newspapers, a comfortable dwelling, railwaysand, above all, the society of the friends I value. 

Charles Darwin on what Sells a Book

I remember when I was at Down we were talking of what it is thatsells a book. Mr. Darwin said he did not believe it was reviews oradvertisements, but simply "being talked about" that sold a book. 

I believe he is quite right here, but surely a good flaming reviewhelps to get a book talked about. I have often inquired at mypublishers' after a review and I never found one that made anyperceptible increase or decrease of sale, and the same withadvertisements. I think, however, that the review of Erewhon in theSpectator did sell a few copies of Erewhon, but then it was such avery strong one and the anonymousness of the book stimulatedcuriosity. A perception of the value of a review, whether friendlyor hostile, is as old as St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians. {162}

Hoodwinking the Public

Sincerity or honesty is a low and very rudimentary form of virtuethat is only to be found to any considerable extent among theprotozoa. Compare, for example, the integrity, sincerity andabsolute refusal either to deceive or be deceived that exists in thegerm-cells of any individual, with the instinctive aptitude for lyingthat is to be observed in the full-grown man. The full-grown man iscompacted of lies and shams which are to him as the breath of hisnostrils. Whereas the germ-cells will not be humbugged; they willtell the truth as near as they can. They know their ancestors meantwell and will tend to become even more sincere themselves. 

Thus, if a painter has not tried hard to paint well and has triedhard to hoodwink the public, his offspring is not likely to showhereditary aptitude for painting, but is likely to have an improvedpower of hoodwinking the public. So it is with music, literature, science or anything else. The only thing the public can do againstthis is to try hard to develop a hereditary power of not beinghoodwinked. From the small success it has met with hitherto we maythink that the effort on its part can have been neither severe norlong sustained. Indeed, all ages seem to have held that "thepleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat. "

The Public Ear

Those who have squatted upon it may be trusted to keep off othersquatters if they can. The public ear is like the land which looksinfinite but is all parcelled out into fields and private ownerships--barring, of course, highways and commons. So the universe, whichlooks so big, may be supposed as really all parcelled out among thestars that stud it. 

Or the public ear is like a common; there is not much to be got offit, but that little is for the most part grazed down by geese anddonkeys. 

Those who wish to gain the public ear should bear in mind that peopledo not generally want to be made less foolish or less wicked. Whatthey want is to be told that they are not foolish and not wicked. Now it is only a fool or a liar or both who can tell them this; themasses therefore cannot be expected to like any but fools or liars orboth. So when a lady gets photographed, what she wants is not to bemade beautiful but to be told that she is beautiful. 

Secular Thinking

The ages do their thinking much as the individual does. Whenconsidering a difficult question, we think alternately for severalseconds together of details, even the minutest seeming important, andthen of broad general principles, whereupon even large details becomeunimportant; again we have bouts during which rules, logic andtechnicalities engross us, followed by others in which the unwrittenand unwritable common sense of grace defies and over-rides the law. That is to say, we have our inductive fits and our deductive fits, our arrangements according to the letter and according to the spirit, our conclusions drawn from logic secundum artem and from absurdityand the character of the arguer. This heterogeneous mass ofconsiderations forms the mental pabulum with which we feed our minds. How that pabulum becomes amalgamated, reduced to uniformity andturned into the growth of complete opinion we can no more tell thanwe can say when, how and where food becomes flesh and blood. All wecan say is that the miracle, stupendous as it is and involving thestultification of every intelligible principle on which thought andaction are based, is nevertheless worked a thousand times an hour byevery one of us. 

The formation of public opinion is as mysterious as that ofindividual, but, so far as we can form any opinion about that whichforms our opinions in such large measure, the processes appear toresemble one another much as rain drops resemble one another. Thereis essential agreement in spite of essential difference. So thathere, as everywhere else, we no sooner scratch the soil than we comeupon the granite of contradiction in terms and can scratch nofurther. 

As for ourselves, we are passing through an inductive, technical, speculative period and have gone such lengths in this direction thata reaction, during which we shall pass to the other extreme, may beconfidently predicted. 

The Art of Propagating Opinion

He who would propagate an opinion must begin by making sure of hisground and holding it firmly. There is as little use in trying tobreed from weak opinion as from other weak stock, animal orvegetable. 

The more securely a man holds an opinion, the more temperate he canafford to be, and the more temperate he is, the more weight he willcarry with those who are in the long run weightiest. Ideas andopinions, like living organisms, have a normal rate of growth whichcannot be either checked or forced beyond a certain point. They canbe held in check more safely than they can be hurried. They can alsobe killed; and one of the surest ways to kill them is to try to hurrythem. 

The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is it that theholder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance ofconventionalities generally, and that, if possible, he should get thereputation of being well-to-do in the world. 

Arguments are not so good as assertion. Arguments are like fire-armswhich a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him. Indirect assertion, leaving the hearer to point the inference, is, asa rule, to be preferred. The one great argument with most people isthat another should think this or that. The reasons of the beliefare details and, in nine cases out of ten, best omitted as confusingand weakening the general impression. 

Many, if not most, good ideas die young--mainly from neglect on thepart of the parents, but sometimes from over-fondness. Once wellstarted, an opinion had better be left to shift for itself. 

Insist as far as possible on the insignificance of the points ofdifference as compared with the resemblances to opinions generallyaccepted. 

Gladstone as a Financier

I said to my tobacconist that Gladstone was not a financier becausehe bought a lot of china at high prices and it fetched very littlewhen it was sold at Christie's. 

"Did he give high prices?" said the tobacconist. 

"Enormous prices, " said I emphatically. 

Now, to tell the truth, I did not know whether Mr. Gladstone had everbought the china at all, much less what he gave for it, if he did; hemay have had it all left him for aught I knew. But I was going toappeal to my tobacconist by arguments that he could understand, and Icould see he was much impressed. 

Argument

Argument is generally waste of time and trouble. It is better topresent one's opinion and leave it to stick or no as it may happen. If sound, it will probably in the end stick, and the sticking is themain thing. 

Humour

What a frightful thing it would be if true humour were more commonor, rather, more easy to see, for it is more common than those arewho can see it. It would block the way of everything. Perhaps thisis what people rather feel. It would be like Music in the Ode forSt. Cecilia's Day, it would "untune the sky. "

I do not know quite what is meant by untuning the sky and, if I did, I cannot think that there is anything to be particularly gained byhaving the sky untuned; still, if it has got to be untuned at all, Iam sure music is the only thing that can untune it. Rapson, however, whom I used to see in the coin room at the British Museum, told me itshould be "entune the sky" and it sounds as though he were right. 

Myself and "Unconscious Humour"

The phrase "unconscious humour" is the one contribution I have madeto the current literature of the day. I am continually seeingunconscious humour (without quotation marks) alluded to in Timesarticles and other like places, but I never remember to have comeacross it as a synonym for dullness till I wrote Life and Habit. 

My Humour

The thing to say about me just now is that my humour is forced. Thisbegan to reach me in connection with my article "Quis Desiderio . . . ?" [Universal Review, 1888] and is now, [1889] I understand, prettygenerally perceived even by those who had not found it out forthemselves. 

I am not aware of forcing myself to say anything which has not amusedme, which is not apposite and which I do not believe will amuse aneutral reader, but I may very well do so without knowing it. As formy humour, I am like my father and grandfather, both of whom liked agood thing heartily enough if it was told them, but I do not oftensay a good thing myself. Very likely my humour, what little there isof it, is forced enough. I do not care so long as it amuses me and, such as it is, I shall vent it in my own way and at my own time. 

Myself and My Publishers

I see my publishers are bringing out a new magazine with all theusual contributors. Of course they don't ask me to write and thisshows that they do not think my name would help their magazine. This, I imagine, means that Andrew Lang has told them that my humouris forced. I should not myself say that Andrew Lang's humour wouldlose by a little forcing. 

I have seen enough of my publishers to know that they have no ideasof their own about literature save what they can clutch at asbelieving it to be a straight tip from a business point of view. Heaven forbid that I should blame them for doing exactly what Ishould do myself in their place, but, things being as they are, theyare no use to me. They have no confidence in me and they must havethis or they will do nothing for me beyond keeping my books on theirshelves. 

Perhaps it is better that I should not have a chance of becoming ahack-writer, for I should grasp it at once if it were offered me. 

XI--CASH AND CREDIT

The Unseen World

I believe there is an unseen world about which we know nothing asfirmly as any one can believe it. I see things coming up from itinto the visible world and going down again from the seen world tothe unseen. But my unseen world is to be bona fide unseen and, in sofar as I say I know anything about it, I stultify myself. It shouldno more be described than God should be represented in painting orsculpture. It is as the other side of the moon; we know it must bethere but we know also that, in the nature of things, we can neversee it. Sometimes, some trifle of it may sway into sight and outagain, but it is so little that it is not worth counting as havingbeen seen. 

The Kingdom of Heaven

The world admits that there is another world, that there is akingdom, veritable and worth having, which, nevertheless, isinvisible and has nothing to do with any kingdom such as we now see. It agrees that the wisdom of this other kingdom is foolishness hereon earth, while the wisdom of the world is foolishness in the Kingdomof Heaven. In our hearts we know that the Kingdom of Heaven is thehigher of the two and the better worth living and dying for, andthat, if it is to be won, it must be sought steadfastly and insingleness of heart by those who put all else on one side and, shrinking from no sacrifice, are ready to face shame, poverty andtorture here rather than abandon the hope of the prize of their highcalling. Nobody who doubts any of this is worth talking with. 

The question is, where is this Heavenly Kingdom, and what way are weto take to find it? Happily the answer is easy, for we are notlikely to go wrong if in all simplicity, humility and good faith weheartily desire to find it and follow the dictates of ordinarycommon-sense. 

The Philosopher

He should have made many mistakes and been saved often by the skin ofhis teeth, for the skin of one's teeth is the most teaching thingabout one. He should have been, or at any rate believed himself, agreat fool and a great criminal. He should have cut himself adriftfrom society, and yet not be without society. He should have givenup all, even Christ himself, for Christ's sake. He should be abovefear or love or hate, and yet know them extremely well. He shouldhave lost all save a small competence and know what a vantage groundit is to be an outcast. Destruction and Death say they have heardthe fame of Wisdom with their ears, and the philosopher must havebeen close up to these if he too would hear it. 

The Artist and the Shopkeeper

Most artists, whether in religion, music, literature, painting, orwhat not, are shopkeepers in disguise. They hide their shop as muchas they can, and keep pretending that it does not exist, but they areessentially shopkeepers and nothing else. Why do I try to sell mybooks and feel regret at never seeing them pay their expenses if I amnot a shopkeeper? Of course I am, only I keep a bad shop--a shopthat does not pay. 

In like manner, the professed shopkeeper has generally a taint of theartist somewhere about him which he tries to conceal as much as theprofessed artist tries to conceal his shopkeeping. 

The business man and the artist are like matter and mind. We cannever get either pure and without some alloy of the other. 

Art and Trade

People confound literature and article-dealing because the plant inboth cases is similar, but no two things can be more distinct. Neither the question of money nor that of friend or foe can enterinto literature proper. Here, right feeling--or good taste, if thisexpression be preferred--is alone considered. If a bona fide writerthinks a thing wants saying, he will say it as tersely, clearly andelegantly as he can. The question whether it will do him personallygood or harm, or how it will affect this or that friend, never entershis head, or, if it does, it is instantly ordered out again. Theonly personal gratifications allowed him (apart, of course, from suchas are conceded to every one, writer or no) are those of keeping hisgood name spotless among those whose opinion is alone worth havingand of maintaining the highest traditions of a noble calling. If aman lives in fear and trembling lest he should fail in theserespects, if he finds these considerations alone weigh with him, ifhe never writes without thinking how he shall best serve good causesand damage bad ones, then he is a genuine man of letters. If inaddition to this he succeeds in making his manner attractive, he willbecome a classic. He knows this. He knows, although the Greeks intheir mythology forgot to say so, that Conceit was saved to mankindas well as Hope when Pandora clapped the lid on to her box. 

With the article-dealer, on the other hand, money is, and ought tobe, the first consideration. Literature is an art; article-writing, when a man is paid for it, is a trade and none the worse for that;but pot-boilers are one thing and genuine pictures are another. People have indeed been paid for some of the most genuine picturesever painted, and so with music, and so with literature itself--hard-and-fast lines ever cut the fingers of those who draw them--but, as ageneral rule, most lasting art has been poorly paid, so far as moneygoes, till the artist was near the end of his time, and, whethermoney passed or no, we may be sure that it was not thought of. Suchwork is done as a bird sings--for the love of the thing; it ispersevered in as long as body and soul can be kept together, whetherthere be pay or no, and perhaps better if there be no pay. 

Nevertheless, though art disregards money and trade disregards art, the artist may stand not a little trade-alloy and be even toughenedby it, and the tradesmen may be more than half an artist. Art is inthe world but not of it; it lives in a kingdom of its own, governedby laws that none but artists can understand. This, at least, is theideal towards which an artist tends, though we all very well know wenone of us reach it. With the trade it is exactly the reverse; thisworld is, and ought to be, everything, and the invisible world is aslittle to the trade as this visible world is to the artist. 

When I say the artist tends towards such a world, I mean not that hetends consciously and reasoningly but that his instinct to take thisdirection will be too strong to let him take any other. He isincapable of reasoning on the subject; if he could reason he would belost qua artist; for, by every test that reason can apply, those whosell themselves for a price are in the right. The artist is guidedby a faith that for him transcends all reason. Granted that thisfaith has been in great measure founded on reason, that it has grownup along with reason, that if it lose touch with reason it is nolonger faith but madness; granted, again, that reason is in greatmeasure founded on faith, that it has grown up along with faith, thatif it lose touch with faith it is no longer reason but mechanism;granted, therefore, that faith grows with reason as will with power, as demand with supply, as mind with body, each stimulating andaugmenting the other until an invisible, minute nucleus attainscolossal growth--nevertheless the difference between the man of theworld and the man who lives by faith is that the first is drawntowards the one and the second towards the other of two principleswhich, so far as we can see, are co-extensive and co-equal inimportance. 

Money

It is curious that money, which is the most valuable thing in life, exceptis excipiendis, should be the most fatal corrupter of music, literature, painting and all the arts. As soon as any art is pursuedwith a view to money, then farewell, in ninety-nine cases out of ahundred, all hope of genuine good work. If a man has money at hisback, he may touch these things and do something which will live along while, and he may be very happy in doing it; if he has no money, he may do good work, but the chances are he will be killed in doingit and for having done it; or he may make himself happy by doing badwork and getting money out of it, and there is no great harm in this, provided he knows his work is done in this spirit and rates it forits commercial value only. Still, as a rule, a man should not touchany of the arts as a creator unless be has a discreta posizioninabehind him. 

Modern Simony

It is not the dealing in livings but the thinking they can buy theHoly Ghost for money which vulgar rich people indulge in when theydabble in literature, music and painting. 

Nevertheless, on reflection it must be admitted that the Holy Ghostis very hard to come by without money. For the Holy Ghost is onlyanother term for the Fear of the Lord, which is Wisdom. And thoughWisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can it be gotten withoutit. Gold, or the value that is equivalent to gold, lies at the rootof Wisdom, and enters so largely into the very essence of the HolyGhost that "No gold, no Holy Ghost" may pass as an axiom. This isperhaps why it is not easy to buy Wisdom by whatever name it becalled--I mean, because it is almost impossible to sell it. It is avery unmarketable commodity, as those who have received it truly knowto their own great bane and boon. 

My Grandfather and Myself

My grandfather worked very hard all his life, and was making moneyall the time until he became a bishop. I have worked very hard allmy life, but have never been able to earn money. As usefulness isgenerally counted, no one can be more useless. This I believe to belargely due to the public-school and university teaching throughwhich my grandfather made his money. Yes, but then if he is largelyresponsible for that which has made me useless, has he not also leftme the hardly-won money which makes my uselessness sufficientlyagreeable to myself? And would not the poor old gentleman gladlychange lots with me, if he could?

I do not know; but I should be sorry to change lots with him or withany one else, so I need not grumble. I said in Luck or Cunning? thatthe only way (at least I think I said so) in which a teacher canthoroughly imbue an unwilling learner with his own opinions is forthe teacher to eat the pupil up and thus assimilate him--if he can, for it is possible that the pupil may continue to disagree with theteacher. And as a matter of fact, school-masters do live upon theirpupils, and I, as my grandfather's grandson, continue to batten uponold pupil. 

Art and Usefulness

Tedder, the Librarian of the Athenaeum, said to me when I told him (Ihave only seen him twice) what poor success my books had met with:

"Yes, but you have made the great mistake of being useful. "

This, for the moment, displeased me, for I know that I have alwaystried to make my work useful and should not care about doing it atall unless I believed it to subserve use more or less directly. Yetwhen I look at those works which we all hold to be the crowningglories of the world as, for example, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Hamlet, the Messiah, Rembrandt's portraits, or Holbein's, or GiovanniBellini's, the connection between them and use is, to say the leastof it, far from obvious. Music, indeed, can hardly be tortured intobeing useful at all, unless to drown the cries of the wounded inbattle, or to enable people to talk more freely at evening parties. The uses, again, of painting in its highest forms are very doubtful--I mean in any material sense; in its lower forms, when it becomesmore diagrammatic, it is materially useful. Literature may be usefulfrom its lowest forms to nearly its highest, but the highest cannotbe put in harness to any but spiritual uses; and the fact remainsthat the "Hallelujah Chorus, " the speech of Hamlet to the players, Bellini's "Doge" have their only uses in a spiritual world wheretothe word "uses" is as alien as bodily flesh is to a choir of angels. As it is fatal to the highest art that it should have been done formoney, so it seems hardly less fatal that it should be done with aview to those uses that tend towards money. 

And yet, was not the Iliad written mainly with a view to money? Didnot Shakespeare make money by his plays, Handel by his music, and thenoblest painters by their art? True; but in all these cases, I takeit, love of fame and that most potent and, at the same time, unpractical form of it, the lust after fame beyond the grave, was themainspring of the action, the money being but a concomitant accident. Money is like the wind that bloweth whithersoever it listeth, sometimes it chooses to attach itself to high feats of literature andart and music, but more commonly it prefers lower company . . . 

I can continue this note no further, for there is no end to it. Briefly, the world resolves itself into two great classes--those whohold that honour after death is better worth having than any honour aman can get and know anything about, and those who doubt this; to mymind, those who hold it, and hold it firmly, are the only peopleworth thinking about. They will also hold that, important as thephysical world obviously is, the spiritual world, of which we knowlittle beyond its bare existence, is more important still. 

Genius

i

Genius is akin both to madness and inspiration and, as every one isboth more or less inspired and more or less mad, every one has moreor less genius. When, therefore, we speak of genius we do not meanan absolute thing which some men have and others have not, but asmall scale-turning overweight of a something which we all have butwhich we cannot either define or apprehend--the quantum which we allhave being allowed to go without saying. 

This small excess weight has been defined as a supreme capacity fortaking trouble, but he who thus defined it can hardly claim genius inrespect of his own definition--his capacity for taking trouble doesnot seem to have been abnormal. It might be more fitly described asa supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of allkinds and keeping them therein so long as the genius remains. Peoplewho are credited with genius have, indeed, been sometimes verypainstaking, but they would often show more signs of genius if theyhad taken less. "You have taken too much trouble with your opera, "said Handel to Gluck. It is not likely that the "Hailstone Chorus"or Mrs. Quickly cost their creators much pains, indeed, we commonlyfeel the ease with which a difficult feat has been performed to be amore distinctive mark of genius than the fact that the performer tookgreat pains before he could achieve it. Pains can serve genius, oreven mar it, but they cannot make it. 

We can rarely, however, say what pains have or have not been taken inany particular case, for, over and above the spent pains of a man'searly efforts, the force of which may carry him far beyond all traceof themselves, there are the still more remote and invisibleancestral pains, repeated we know not how often or in what fortunatecorrelation with pains taken in some other and unseen direction. This points to the conclusion that, though it is wrong to suppose theessence of genius to lie in a capacity for taking pains, it is rightto hold that it must have been rooted in pains and that it cannothave grown up without them. 

Genius, again, might, perhaps almost as well, be defined as a supremecapacity for saving other people from having to take pains, if thehighest flights of genius did not seem to know nothing about painsone way or the other. What trouble can Hamlet or the Iliad save toany one? Genius can, and does, save it sometimes; the genius ofNewton may have saved a good deal of trouble one way or another, butit has probably engendered as much new as it has saved old. 

This, however, is all a matter of chance, for genius never seems tocare whether it makes the burden or bears it. The only certain thingis that there will be a burden, for the Holy Ghost has ever tendedtowards a breach of the peace, and the New Jerusalem, when it comes, will probably be found so far to resemble the old as to stone itsprophets freely. The world thy world is a jealous world, and thoushalt have none other worlds but it. Genius points to change, andchange is a hankering after another world, so the old world suspectsit. Genius disturbs order, it unsettles mores and hence it isimmoral. On a small scale it is intolerable, but genius will have nosmall scales; it is even more immoral for a man to be too far infront than to lag too far behind. The only absolute morality isabsolute stagnation, but this is unpractical, so a peck of change ispermitted to every one, but it must be a peck only, whereas geniuswould have ever so many sacks full. There is a myth among someEastern nation that at the birth of Genius an unkind fairy marred allthe good gifts of the other fairies by depriving it of the power ofknowing where to stop. 

Nor does genius care more about money than about trouble. It is norespecter of time, trouble, money or persons, the four things roundwhich human affairs turn most persistently. It will not go a hair'sbreadth from its way either to embrace fortune or to avoid her. Itis, like Love, "too young to know the worth of gold. " {176} Itknows, indeed, both love and hate, but not as we know them, for itwill fly for help to its bitterest foe, or attack its dearest friendin the interests of the art it serves. 

Yet this genius, which so despises the world, is the only thing ofwhich the world is permanently enamoured, and the more it flouts theworld, the more the world worships it, when it has once well killedit in the flesh. Who can understand this eternal crossing in loveand contradiction in terms which warps the woof of actions and thingsfrom the atom to the universe? The more a man despises time, trouble, money, persons, place and everything on which the worldinsists as most essential to salvation, the more pious will this sameworld hold him to have been. What a fund of universal unconsciousscepticism must underlie the world's opinions! For we are all alikein our worship of genius that has passed through the fire. Nor canthis universal instinctive consent be explained otherwise than as thewelling up of a spring whose sources lie deep in the conviction thatgreat as this world is, it masks a greater wherein its wisdom isfolly and which we know as blind men know where the sun is shining, certainly, but not distinctly. 

This should in itself be enough to prove that such a world exists, but there is still another proof in the fact that so many come amongus showing instinctive and ineradicable familiarity with a state ofthings which has no counterpart here, and cannot, therefore, havebeen acquired here. From such a world we come, every one of us, butsome seem to have a more living recollection of it than others. Perfect recollection of it no man can have, for to put on flesh is tohave all one's other memories jarred beyond power of consciousrecognition. And genius must put on flesh, for it is only by thehook and crook of taint and flesh that tainted beings like ourselvescan apprehend it, only in and through flesh can it be made manifestto us at all. The flesh and the shop will return no matter with howmany pitchforks we expel them, for we cannot conceivably expel themthoroughly; therefore it is better not to be too hard upon them. Andyet this same flesh cloaks genius at the very time that it revealsit. It seems as though the flesh must have been on and must havegone clean off before genius can be discerned, and also that we muststand a long way from it, for the world grows more and more myopic asit grows older. And this brings another trouble, for by the time theflesh has gone off it enough, and it is far enough away for us to seeit without glasses, the chances are we shall have forgotten its veryexistence and lose the wish to see at the very moment of becomingable to do so. Hence there appears to be no remedy for the oft-repeated complaint that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. How can it be expected to do so? And how can its greatest men beexpected to know more than a very little of the world? At any rate, they seldom do, and it is just because they cannot and do not that, if they ever happen to be found out at all, they are recognised asthe greatest and the world weeps and wrings its hands that it cannotknow more about them. 

Lastly, if genius cannot be bought with money, still less can it sellwhat it produces. The only price that can be paid for genius issuffering, and this is the only wages it can receive. The only workthat has any considerable permanence is written, more or lessconsciously, in the blood of the writer, or in that of his or herforefathers. Genius is like money, or, again, like crime, every onehas a little, if it be only a half-penny, and he can beg or stealthis much if he has not got it; but those who have little are rarelyvery fond of millionaires. People generally like and understand bestthose who are of much about the same social standing and money statusas their own; and so it is for the most part as between those whohave only the average amount of genius and the Homers, Shakespearesand Handels of the race. 

And yet, so paradoxical is everything connected with genius, that italmost seems as though the nearer people stood to one another inrespect either of money or genius, the more jealous they become ofone another. I have read somewhere that Thackeray was one dayflattening his nose against a grocer's window and saw two bags ofsugar, one marked tenpence halfpenny and the other elevenpence (forsugar has come down since Thackeray's time). As he left the windowhe was heard to say, "How they must hate one another!" So it is inthe animal and vegetable worlds. The war of extermination isgenerally fiercest between the most nearly allied species, for thesestand most in one another's light. So here again the same oldparadox and contradiction in terms meets us, like a stone wall, inthe fact that we love best those who are in the main like ourselves, but when they get too like, we hate them, and, at the same time, wehate most those who are unlike ourselves, but if they become unlikeenough, we may often be very fond of them. 

Genius must make those that have it think apart, and to think apartis to take one's view of things instead of being, like Poins, ablessed fellow to think as every man thinks. A man who thinks forhimself knows what others do not, but does not know what others know. Hence the belli causa, for he cannot serve two masters, the God ofhis own inward light and the Mammon of common sense, at one and thesame time. How can a man think apart and not apart? But if he is agenius this is the riddle he must solve. The uncommon sense ofgenius and the common sense of the rest of the world are thus ashusband and wife to one another; they are always quarrelling, andcommon sense, who must be taken to be the husband, always fancieshimself the master--nevertheless genius is generally admitted to bethe better half. 

He who would know more of genius must turn to what he can find in thepoets, or to whatever other sources he may discover, for I can helphim no further. 

ii

The destruction of great works of literature and art is as necessaryfor the continued development of either one or the other as death isfor that of organic life. We fight against it as long as we can, andoften stave it off successfully both for ourselves and others, butthere is nothing so great--not Homer, Shakespeare, Handel, Rembrandt, Giovanni Bellini, De Hooghe, Velasquez and the goodly company ofother great men for whose lives we would gladly give our own--but ithas got to go sooner or later and leave no visible traces, though theinvisible ones endure from everlasting to everlasting. It is idle toregret this for ourselves or others, our effort should tend towardsenjoying and being enjoyed as highly and for as long time as we can, and then chancing the rest. 

iii

Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at thetime. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance notbeing fully recognised for some time. So men of genius always escapetheir own immediate belongings, and indeed generally their own age. 

iv

Dullness is so much stronger than genius because there is so muchmore of it, and it is better organised and more naturally cohesiveinter se. So the arctic volcano can do no thing against arctic ice. 

v

America will have her geniuses, as every other country has, in factshe has already had one in Walt Whitman, but I do not think Americais a good place in which to be a genius. A genius can never expectto have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but Americais about the last place in which life will be endurable at all for aninspired writer of any kind. 

Great Things

All men can do great things, if they know what great things are. Sohard is this last that even where it exists the knowledge is as muchunknown as known to them that have it and is more a leaning upon theLord than a willing of one that willeth. And yet all the leaning onthe Lord in Christendom fails if there be not a will of him thatwilleth to back it up. God and the man are powerless without oneanother. 

Genius and Providence

Among all the evidences for the existence of an overruling Providencethat I can discover, I see none more convincing than the elaborateand for the most part effectual provision that has been made for thesuppression of genius. The more I see of the world, the morenecessary I see it to be that by far the greater part of what iswritten or done should be of so fleeting a character as to takeitself away quickly. That is the advantage in the fact that so muchof our literature is journalism. 

Schools and colleges are not intended to foster genius and to bringit out. Genius is a nuisance, and it is the duty of schools andcolleges to abate it by setting genius-traps in its way. They are asthe artificial obstructions in a hurdle race--tests of skill andendurance, but in themselves useless. Still, so necessary is it thatgenius and originality should be abated that, did not academiesexist, we should have had to invent them. 

The Art of Covery

This is as important and interesting as Dis-covery. Surely the gloryof finally getting rid of and burying a long and troublesome mattershould be as great as that of making an important discovery. Thetrouble is that the coverer is like Samson who perished in the wreckof what he had destroyed; if he gets rid of a thing effectually hegets rid of himself too. 

Wanted

We want a Society for the Suppression of Erudite Research and theDecent Burial of the Past. The ghosts of the dead past want quite asmuch laying as raising. 

Ephemeral and Permanent Success

The supposition that the world is ever in league to put a man down ischildish. Hardly less childish is it for an author to lay the blameon reviewers. A good sturdy author is a match for a hundredreviewers. He, I grant, knows nothing of either literature orscience who does not know that a mot d'ordre given by a few wire-pullers can, for a time, make or mar any man's success. Peopleneither know what it is they like nor do they want to find out, allthey care about is the being supposed to derive their likings fromthe best West-end magazines, so they look to the shop with thelargest plate-glass windows and take what the shop-man gives them. But no amount of plate-glass can carry off more than a certain amountof false pretences, and there is no mot d'ordre that can keep a manpermanently down if he is as intent on winning lasting good name as Ihave been. If I had played for immediate popularity I think I couldhave won it. Having played for lasting credit I doubt not that itwill in the end be given me. A man should not be held to be ill-usedfor not getting what he has not played for. I am not saying that itis better or more honourable to play for lasting than for immediatesuccess. I know which I myself find pleasanter, but that has nothingto do with it. 

It is a nice question whether the light or the heavy armed soldier ofliterature and art is the more useful. I joined the plodders andhave aimed at permanent good name rather than brilliancy. I have nodoubt I did this because instinct told me (for I never thought aboutit) that this would be the easier and less thorny path. I have moreof perseverance than of those, perhaps, even more valuable gifts--facility and readiness of resource. I hate being hurried. MoreoverI am too fond of independence to get on with the leaders ofliterature and science. Independence is essential for permanent butfatal to immediate success. Besides, luck enters much more intoephemeral than into permanent success and I have always distrustedluck. Those who play a waiting game have matters more in their ownhands, time gives them double chances; whereas if success does notcome at once to the ephemerid he misses it altogether. 

I know that the ordinary reviewer who either snarls at my work ormisrepresents it or ignores it or, again, who pats it sub-contemptuously on the back is as honourably and usefully employed asI am. In the kingdom of literature (as I have just been saying inthe Universal Review about Science) there are many mansions and whatis intolerable in one is common form in another. It is a case of thedivision of labour and a man will gravitate towards one class ofworkers or another according as he is built. There is neither highernor lower about it. 

I should like to put it on record that I understand it and am notinclined to regret the arrangements that have made me possible. 

My Birthright

I had to steal my own birthright. I stole it and was bitterlypunished. But I saved my soul alive. 

XII--THE ENFANT TERRIBLE OF LITERATURE

Myself

I am the enfant terrible of literature and science. If I cannot, andI know I cannot, get the literary and scientific big-wigs to give mea shilling, I can, and I know I can, heave bricks into the middle ofthem. 

Blake, Dante, Virgil and Tennyson

Talking it over, we agreed that Blake was no good because he learntItalian at 60 in order to study Dante, and we knew Dante was no goodbecause he was so fond of Virgil, and Virgil was no good becauseTennyson ran him, and as for Tennyson--well, Tennyson goes withoutsaying. 

My Father and Shakespeare

My father is one of the few men I know who say they do not likeShakespeare. I could forgive my father for not liking Shakespeare ifit was only because Shakespeare wrote poetry; but this is not thereason. He dislikes Shakespeare because he finds him so very coarse. He also says he likes Tennyson and this seriously aggravates hisoffence. 

Tennyson

We were saying what a delightful dispensation of providence it wasthat prosperous people will write their memoirs. We hoped Tennysonwas writing his. [1890. ]

P. S. --We think his son has done nearly as well. [1898. ]

Walter Pater and Matthew Arnold

Mr. Walter Pater's style is, to me, like the face of some old womanwho has been to Madame Rachel and had herself enamelled. The bloomis nothing but powder and paint and the odour is cherry-blossom. Mr. Matthew Arnold's odour is as the faint sickliness of hawthorn. 

My Random Passages

At the Century Club a friend very kindly and hesitatingly ventured tosuggest to me that I should get some one to go over my MS. Beforeprinting; a judicious editor, he said, would have prevented me fromprinting many a bit which, it seemed to him, was written toorecklessly and offhand. The fact is that the more reckless andrandom a passage appears to be, the more carefully it has beensubmitted to friends and considered and re-considered; without thesupport of friends I should never have dared to print one half ofwhat I have printed. 

I am not one of those who can repeat the General Confessionunreservedly. I should say rather:

"I have left unsaid much that I am sorry I did not say, but I havesaid little that I am sorry for having said, and I am pretty well onthe whole, thank you. "

Moral Try-Your-Strengths

There are people who, if they only had a slot, might turn a prettypenny as moral try-your-strengths, like those we see in railway-stations for telling people their physical strength when they havedropped a penny in the slot. In a way they have a slot, which istheir mouths, and people drop pennies in by asking them to dinner, and then they try their strength against them and get snubbed; butthis way is roundabout and expensive. We want a good automaticasinometer by which we can tell at a moderate cost how great or howlittle of a fool we are. 

Populus Vult

If people like being deceived--and this can hardly be doubted--therecan rarely have been a time during which they can have had more ofthe wish than now. The literary, scientific and religious worlds viewith one another in trying to gratify the public. 

Men and Monkeys

In his latest article (Feb. 1892) Prof. Garner says that the chatterof monkeys is not meaningless, but that they are conveying ideas toone another. This seems to me hazardous. The monkeys might withequal justice conclude that in our magazine articles, or literary andartistic criticisms, we are not chattering idly but are conveyingideas to one another. 

"One Touch of Nature"

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. " Should it not be"marks, " not "makes"? There is one touch of nature, or naturalfeature, which marks all mankind as of one family. 

P. S. --Surely it should be "of ill-nature. " "One touch of ill-naturemarks--or several touches of ill-nature mark the whole world kin. "

Genuine Feeling

In the Times of to-day, June 4, 1887, there is an obituary notice ofa Rev. Mr. Knight who wrote about 200 songs, among others "She wore awreath of roses. " The Times says that, though these songs have noartistic merit, they are full of genuine feeling, or words to thiseffect; as though a song which was full of genuine feeling could byany possibility be without artistic merit. 

George Meredith

The Times in a leading article says (Jany. 3, 1899) "a talker, " asMr. George Meredith has somewhere said, "involves the existence of atalkee, " or words to this effect. 

I said what comes to the same thing as this in Life and Habit in1877, and I repeated it in the preface to my translation of the Iliadin 1898. I do not believe George Meredith has said anything to thesame effect, but I have read so very little of that writer, and haveso utterly rejected what I did read, that he may well have done sowithout my knowing it. He damned Erewhon, as Chapman and Hall'sreader, in 1871, and, as I am still raw about this after 28 years, (Iam afraid unless I say something more I shall be taken as writingthese words seriously) I prefer to assert that the Times writer wasquoting from my preface to the Iliad, published a few weeks earlier, and fathering the remark on George Meredith. By the way the Timesdid not give so much as a line to my translation in its "Books of theWeek, " though it was duly sent to them. 

Froude and Freeman

I think it was last Saturday (Ap. 9) (at any rate it was a day justthereabouts) the Times had a leader on Froude's appointment as Reg. Prof. Of Mod. Hist. At Oxford. It said Froude was perhaps ourgreatest living master of style, or words to that effect, only that, like Freeman, he was too long: i. E. Only he is an habitual offenderagainst the most fundamental principles of his art. If then Froudeis our greatest master of style, what are the rest of us?

There was a much better article yesterday on Marbot, on which mynamesake A. J. Butler got a dressing for talking rubbish about style. [1892. ]

Style

In this day's Sunday Times there is an article on Mrs. Browning'sletters which begins with some remarks about style. "It isrecorded, " says the writer, "of Plato, that in a rough draft of oneof his Dialogues, found after his death, the first paragraph waswritten in seventy different forms. Wordsworth spared no pains tosharpen and polish to the utmost the gifts with which nature hadendowed him; and Cardinal Newman, one of the greatest masters ofEnglish style, has related in an amusing essay the pains he took toacquire his style. "

I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his styleand was at the same time readable. Plato's having had seventy shiesat one sentence is quite enough to explain to me why I dislike him. A man may, and ought to take a great deal of pains to write clearly, tersely and euphemistically: he will write many a sentence three orfour times over--to do much more than this is worse than notrewriting at all: he will be at great pains to see that he does notrepeat himself, to arrange his matter in the way that shall bestenable the reader to master it, to cut out superfluous words and, even more, to eschew irrelevant matter: but in each case he will bethinking not of his own style but of his reader's convenience. 

Men like Newman and R. L. Stevenson seem to have taken pains toacquire what they called a style as a preliminary measure--assomething that they had to form before their writings could be of anyvalue. I should like to put it on record that I never took thesmallest pains with my style, have never thought about it, and do notknow or want to know whether it is a style at all or whether it isnot, as I believe and hope, just common, simple straightforwardness. I cannot conceive how any man can take thought for his style withoutloss to himself and his readers. 

I have, however, taken all the pains that I had patience to endure inthe improvement of my handwriting (which, by the way, has a constanttendency to resume feral characteristics) and also with my MS. Generally to keep it clean and legible. I am having a great tidyingjust now, in the course of which the MS. Of Erewhon turned up, and Iwas struck with the great difference between it and the MS. Of TheAuthoress of the Odyssey. I have also taken great pains, with whatsuccess I know not, to correct impatience, irritability and otherlike faults in my own character--and this not because I care twostraws about my own character, but because I find the correction ofsuch faults as I have been able to correct makes life easier andsaves me from getting into scrapes, and attaches nice people to memore readily. But I suppose this really is attending to style afterall. [1897. ]

Diderot on Criticism

"Il est si difficile de produire une chose meme mediocre; il est sifacile de sentir la mediocrite. "

I have lately seen this quoted as having been said by Diderot. It iseasy to say we feel the mediocrity when we have heard a good manypeople say that the work is mediocre, but, unless in matters aboutwhich he has been long conversant, no man can easily form anindependent judgment as to whether or not a work is mediocre. I knowthat in the matter of books, painting and music I constantly findmyself unable to form a settled opinion till I have heard what manymen of varied tastes have to say, and have also made myselfacquainted with details about a man's antecedents and ways of lifewhich are generally held to be irrelevant. 

Often, of course, this is unnecessary; a man's character, if he hasleft much work behind him, or if he is not coming before us for thefirst time, is generally easily discovered without extraneous aid. We want no one to give us any clues to the nature of such men asGiovanni Bellini, or De Hooghe. Hogarth's character is written uponhis work so plainly that he who runs may read it, so is Handel's uponhis, so is Purcell's, so is Corelli's, so, indeed, are the charactersof most men; but often where only little work has been left, or wherea work is by a new hand, it is exceedingly difficult "sentir lamediocrite" and, it might be added, "ou meme sentir du tout. "

How many years, I wonder, was it before I learned to dislikeThackeray and Tennyson as cordially as I now do? For how many yearsdid I not almost worship them?

Bunyan and Others

I have been reading The Pilgrim's Progress again--the third part andall--and wish that some one would tell one what to think about it. 

The English is racy, vigorous and often very beautiful; but thelanguage of any book is nothing except in so far as it reveals thewriter. The words in which a man clothes his thoughts are like allother clothes--the cut raises presumptions about his thoughts, andthese generally turn out to be just, but the words are no more thethoughts than a man's coat is himself. I am not sure, however, thatin Bunyan's case the dress in which he has clothed his ideas does notreveal him more justly than the ideas do. 

The Pilgrim's Progress consists mainly of a series of infamous libelsupon life and things; it is a blasphemy against certain fundamentalideas of right and wrong which our consciences most instinctivelyapprove; its notion of heaven is hardly higher than a transformationscene at Drury Lane; it is essentially infidel. "Hold out to me thechance of a golden crown and harp with freedom from all furtherworries, give me angels to flatter me and fetch and carry for me, andI shall think the game worth playing, notwithstanding the great andhorrible risk of failure; but no crown, no cross for me. Pay me welland I will wait for payment, but if I have to give credit I shallexpect to be paid better in the end. "

There is no conception of the faith that a man should do his dutycheerfully with all his might though, as far as he can see, he willnever be paid directly or indirectly either here or hereafter. Stillless is there any conception that unless a man has this faith he isnot worth thinking about. There is no sense that as we have receivedfreely so we should give freely and be only too thankful that we haveanything to give at all. Furthermore there does not appear to beeven the remotest conception that this honourable, comfortable andsustaining faith is, like all other high faiths, to be brushed asidevery peremptorily at the bidding of common-sense. 

What a pity it is that Christian never met Mr. Common-Sense with hisdaughter, Good-Humour, and her affianced husband, Mr. Hate-Cant; butif he ever saw them in the distance he steered clear of them, probably as feeling that they would be more dangerous than GiantDespair, Vanity Fair and Apollyon all together--for they would havestuck to him if he had let them get in with him. Among other thingsthey would have told him that, if there was any truth in hisopinions, neither man nor woman ought to become a father or mother atall, inasmuch as their doing so would probably entail eternity oftorture on the wretched creature whom they were launching into theworld. Life in this world is risk enough to inflict on anotherperson who has not been consulted in the matter, but death will givequittance in full. To weaken our faith in this sure and certain hopeof peace eternal (except so far as we have so lived as to win life inothers after we are gone) would be a cruel thing, even though theevidence against it were overwhelming, but to rob us of it on noevidence worth a moment's consideration and, apparently, from noother motive than the pecuniary advantage of the robbers themselvesis infamy. For the Churches are but institutions for the saving ofmen's souls from hell. 

This is true enough. Nevertheless it is untrue that in practice anyChristian minister, knowing what he preaches to be both very falseand very cruel, yet insists on it because it is to the advantage ofhis own order. In a way the preachers believe what they preach, butit is as men who have taken a bad 10 pounds note and refuse to lookat the evidence that makes for its badness, though, if the note werenot theirs, they would see at a glance that it was not a good one. For the man in the street it is enough that what the priests teach inrespect of a future state is palpably both cruel and absurd while, atthe same time, they make their living by teaching it and thus preyupon other men's fears of the unknown. If the Churches do not wishto be misunderstood they should not allow themselves to remain insuch an equivocal position. 

But let this pass. Bunyan, we may be sure, took all that he preachedin its most literal interpretation; he could never have made his bookso interesting had he not done so. The interest of it depends almostentirely on the unquestionable good faith of the writer and thestrength of the impulse that compelled him to speak that which waswithin him. He was not writing a book which he might sell, he wasspeaking what was borne in upon him from heaven. The message heuttered was, to my thinking, both low and false, but it was truth oftruths to Bunyan. 

No. This will not do. The Epistles of St. Paul were truth of truthsto Paul, but they do not attract us to the man who wrote them, and, except here and there, they are very uninteresting. Mere strength ofconviction on a writer's part is not enough to make his work takepermanent rank. Yet I know that I could read the whole of ThePilgrim's Progress (except occasional episodical sermons) withoutbeing at all bored by it, whereas, having spent a penny upon Mr. Stead's abridgement of Joseph Andrews, I had to give it up as puttingme out of all patience. I then spent another penny on an abridgementof Gulliver's Travels, and was enchanted by it. What is it thatmakes one book so readable and another so unreadable? Swift, fromall I can make out, was a far more human and genuine person than heis generally represented, but I do not think I should have liked him, whereas Fielding, I am sure, must have been delightful. Why do thefaults of his work overweigh its many great excellences, while theless great excellences of the Voyage to Lilliput outweigh its moreserious defects?

I suppose it is the prolixity of Fielding that fatigues me. Swift isterse, he gets through what he has to say on any matter as quickly ashe can and takes the reader on to the next, whereas Fielding is notonly long, but his length is made still longer by thedisconnectedness of the episodes that appear to have been padded intothe books--episodes that do not help one forward, and are generallyso exaggerated, and often so full of horse-play as to put one out ofconceit with the parts that are really excellent. 

Whatever else Bunyan is he is never long; he takes you quickly onfrom incident to incident and, however little his incidents mayappeal to us, we feel that he is never giving us one that is not bonafide so far as he is concerned. His episodes and incidents areintroduced not because he wants to make his book longer but becausehe cannot be satisfied without these particular ones, even though hemay feel that his book is getting longer than he likes. 

. . . 

And here I must break away from this problem, leaving it unsolved. [1897. ]

Bunyan and the Odyssey

Anything worse than The Pilgrim's Progress in the matter of defianceof literary canons can hardly be conceived. The allegory haltscontinually; it professes to be spiritual, but nothing can be morecarnal than the golden splendour of the eternal city; the view oflife and the world generally is flat blasphemy against the order ofthings with which we are surrounded. Yet, like the Odyssey, whichflatly defies sense and criticism (no, it doesn't; still, it defiesthem a good deal), no one can doubt that it must rank among the verygreatest books that have ever been written. How Odyssean it is inits sincerity and downrightness, as well as in the marvellous beautyof its language, its freedom from all taint of the schools and, notleast, in complete victory of genuine internal zeal over a schemeinitially so faulty as to appear hopeless. 

I read that part where Christian passes the lions which he thoughtwere free but which were really chained and it occurred to me thatall lions are chained until they actually eat us and that, the momentthey do this, they chain themselves up again automatically, as far aswe are concerned. If one dissects this passage it fares as many apassage in the Odyssey does when we dissect it. Christian did not, after all, venture to pass the lions till he was assured that theywere chained. And really it is more excusable to refuse point-blankto pass a couple of lions till one knows whether they are chained ornot--and the poor wicked people seem to have done nothing more thanthis, --than it would be to pass them. Besides, by being told, Christian fights, as it were, with loaded dice. 

Poetry

The greatest poets never write poetry. The Homers and Shakespearesare not the greatest--they are only the greatest that we can know. And so with Handel among musicians. For the highest poetry, whetherin music or literature, is ineffable--it must be felt from one personto another, it cannot be articulated. 

Verse

Versifying is the lowest form of poetry; and the last thing a greatpoet will do in these days is to write verses. 

I have been trying to read Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrecebut cannot get on with them. They teem with fine things, but theyare got-up fine things. I do not know whether this is quite what Imean but, come what may, I find the poems bore me. Were I aschoolmaster I should think I was setting a boy a very severepunishment if I told him to read Venus and Adonis through in threesittings. If, then, the magic of Shakespeare's name, let alone thegreat beauty of occasional passages, cannot reconcile us (for I findmost people of the same mind) to verse, and especially rhymed verseas a medium of sustained expression, what chance has any one else?It seems to me that a sonnet is the utmost length to which a rhymedpoem should extend. 

Verse, Poetry and Prose

The preface to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is verse, but it is notpoetry. The body of the work is poetry, but it is not verse. 

Ancient Work

If a person would understand either the Odyssey or any other ancientwork, he must never look at the dead without seeing the living inthem, nor at the living without thinking of the dead. We are toofond of seeing the ancients as one thing and the moderns as another. 

Nausicaa and Myself

I am elderly, grey-bearded and, according to my clerk, Alfred, disgustingly fat; I wear spectacles and get more and more bronchiticas I grow older. Still no young prince in a fairy story ever foundan invisible princess more effectually hidden behind a hedge ofdullness or more fast asleep than Nausicaa was when I woke her andhailed her as Authoress of the Odyssey. And there was no difficultyabout it either--all one had to do was to go up to the front door andring the bell. 

Telemachus and Nicholas Nickleby

The virtuous young man defending a virtuous mother against a numberof powerful enemies is one of the ignes fatui of literature. Thescheme ought to be very interesting, and often is so, but it alwaysfails as regards the hero who, from Telemachus to Nicholas Nickleby, is always too much of the good young man to please. 

Gadshill and Trapani

While getting our lunch one Sunday at the east end of the long roomin the Sir John Falstaff Inn, Gadshill, we overheard some waterside-looking dwellers in the neighbourhood talking among themselves. Iwrote down the following:-

Bill: Oh, yes. I've got a mate that works in my shop; he's chuckedthe Dining Room because they give him too much to eat. He foundanother place where they gave him four pennyworth of meat and twovegetables and it was quite as much as he could put up with. 

George: You can't kid me, Bill, that they give you too much to eat, but I'll believe it to oblige you, Bill. Shall I see you to-night?

Bill: No, I must go to church. 

George: Well, so must I; I've got to go. 

So at Trapani, I heard two small boys one night on the quay (I amsure I have written this down somewhere, but it is less trouble towrite it again than to hunt for it) singing with all their might, with their arms round one another's necks. I should say they wereabout ten years old, not more. 

I asked Ignazio Giacalone: "What are they singing?"

He replied that it was a favourite song among the popolino of Trapaniabout a girl who did not want to be seen going about with a man. "The people in this place, " says the song, "are very ill-natured, andif they see you and me together, they will talk, " &c. 

I do not say that there was any descent here from Nausicaa's speechto Ulysses, but I felt as though that speech was still in the air. [Od. VI. 273. ]

I reckon Gadshill and Trapani as perhaps the two most classic groundsthat I frequent familiarly, and at each I have seemed to hear echoesof the scenes that have made them famous. Not that what I heard atGadshill is like any particular passage in Shakespeare. 

Waiting to be Hired

At Castelvetrano (about thirty miles from Trapani) I had to start thenext morning at 4 a. M. To see the ruins of Selinunte, and sleptlightly with my window open. About two o'clock I began to hear abuzz of conversation in the piazza outside and it kept me awake, so Igot up to shut the window and see what it was. I found it came froma long knot of men standing about, two deep, but not strictlymarshalled. When I got up at half-past three, it was still dark andthe men were still there, though perhaps not so many. I enquired andfound they were standing to be hired for the day, any one wantinglabourers would come there, engage as many as he wanted and go offwith them, others would come up, and so on till about four o'clock, after which no one would hire, the day being regarded as short inweight after that hour. Being so collected the men gossip over theirown and other people's affairs--wonder who was that fine-lookingstranger going about yesterday with Nausicaa, and so on. [Od. VI. 273. ] This, in fact, is their club and the place where the publicopinion of the district is formed. 

Ilium and Padua

The story of the Trojan horse is more nearly within possibility thanwe should readily suppose. In 1848, during the rebellion of theNorth Italians against the Austrians, eight or nine young men, forwhom the authorities were hunting, hid themselves inside Donatello'swooden horse in the Salone at Padua and lay there for five days, being fed through the trap door on the back of the horse with theconnivance of the custode of the Salone. No doubt they were let outfor a time at night. When pursuit had become less hot, their friendssmuggled them away. One of those who had been shut up was stillliving in 1898 and, on the occasion of the jubilee festivities, wascarried round the town in triumph. 

Eumaeus and Lord Burleigh

The inference which Arthur Platt (Journal of Philology, Vol. 24, No. 47) wishes to draw from Eumaeus being told to bring Ulysses' bow[Greek text] (Od. XXI. 234) suggests to met to me the differencewhich some people in future ages may wish to draw between thecharacter of Lord Burleigh's steps in Tennyson's poem, according ashe was walking up or pacing down. Wherefrom also the critic willargue that the scene of Lord Burleigh's weeping MUST have been on aninclined plane. 

Weeping, weeping late and early, Walking up and pacing down, Deeply mourned the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. 

My Reviewers' Sense of Need

My reviewers felt no sense of need to understand me--if they had theywould have developed the mental organism which would have enabledthem to do so. When the time comes that they want to do so they willthrow out a little mental pseudopodium without much difficulty. Theythrew it out when they wanted to misunderstand me--with a good dealof the pseudo in it, too. 

The Authoress of the Odyssey

The amount of pains which my reviewers have taken to understand thisbook is not so great as to encourage the belief that they wouldunderstand the Odyssey, however much they studied it. Again, thepeople who could read the Odyssey without coming to much the sameconclusions as mine are not likely to admit that they ought to havedone so. 

If a man tells me that a house in which I have long lived isinconvenient, not to say unwholesome, and that I have been verystupid in not finding this out for myself, I should be apt in thefirst instance to tell him that he knew nothing about it, and that Iwas quite comfortable; by and by, I should begin to be aware that Iwas not so comfortable as I thought I was, and in the end I shouldprobably make the suggested alterations in my house if, onreflection, I found them sensibly conceived. But I should kick hardat first. 

Homer and his Commentators

Homeric commentators have been blind so long that nothing will do forthem but Homer must be blind too. They have transferred their ownblindness to the poet. 

The Iliad

In the Iliad, civilisation bursts upon us as a strong stream out of arock. We know that the water has gathered from many a distant veinunderground, but we do not see these. Or it is like the drawing upthe curtain on the opening of a play--the scene is then firstrevealed. 

Glacial Periods of Folly

The moraines left by secular glacial periods of folly stretch outover many a plain of our civilisation. So in the Odyssey, especiallyin the second twelve books, whenever any one eats meat it is called"sacrificing" it, as though we were descended from a race that didnot eat meat. Then it was said that meat might be eaten if one didnot eat the life. What was the life? Clearly the blood, for whenyou stick a pig it lives till the blood is gone. You must sacrificethe blood, therefore, to the gods, but so long as you abstain fromthings strangled and from blood, and so long as you call itsacrificing, you may eat as much meat as you please. 

What a mountain of lies--what a huge geological formation offalsehood, with displacement of all kinds, and strata twisted everyconceivable way, must have accreted before the Odyssey was possible!

Translations from Verse into Prose

Whenever this is attempted, great licence must be allowed to thetranslator in getting rid of all those poetical common forms whichare foreign to the genius of prose. If the work is to be translatedinto prose, let it be into such prose as we write and speak amongourselves. A volume of poetical prose, i. E. Affected prose, hadbetter be in verse outright at once. Poetical prose is nevertolerable for more than a very short bit at a time. And it may bequestioned whether poetry itself is not better kept short in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. 

Translating the Odyssey

If you wish to preserve the spirit of a dead author, you must notskin him, stuff him, and set him up in a case. You must eat him, digest him and let him live in you, with such life as you have, forbetter or worse. The difference between the Andrew Lang manner oftranslating the Odyssey and mine is that between making a mummy and ababy. He tries to preserve a corpse (for the Odyssey is a corpse toall who need Lang's translation), whereas I try to originate a newlife and one that is instinct (as far as I can effect this) with thespirit though not the form of the original. 

They say no woman could possibly have written the Odyssey. To me, onthe other hand, it seems even less possible that a man could havedone so. As for its being by a practised and elderly writer, nothingbut youth and inexperience could produce anything so naive and solovely. That is where the work will suffer by my translation. I ammale, practised and elderly, and the trail of sex, age and experienceis certain to be over my translation. If the poem is ever to be welltranslated, it must be by some high-spirited English girl who hasbeen brought up at Athens and who, therefore, has not been jaded byacademic study of the language. 

A translation is at best a dislocation, a translation from verse toprose is a double dislocation and corresponding further dislocationsare necessary if an effect of deformity is to be avoided. 

The people who, when they read "Athene" translated by "Minerva, "cannot bear in mind that every Athene varies more or less with, andtakes colour from, the country and temperament of the writer who isbeing translated, will not be greatly helped by translating "Athene"and not "Minerva. " Besides many readers would pronounce the word asa dissyllable or an anapaest. 

The Odyssey and a Tomb at Carcassonne

There is a tomb at some place in France, I think at Carcassonne, onwhich there is some sculpture representing the friends and relationsof the deceased in paroxysms of grief with their cheeks all cracked, and crying like Gaudenzio's angels on the Sacro Monte at Varallo-Sesia. Round the corner, however, just out of sight till onesearches, there is a man holding both his sides and splitting withlaughter. In some parts of the Odyssey, especially about Ulysses andPenelope, I fancy that laughing man as being round the corner. [Oct. 1891. ]

Getting it Wrong

Zeffirino Carestia, a sculptor, told me we had a great sculptor inEngland named Simpson. I demurred, and asked about his work. Itseemed he had made a monument to Nelson in Westminster Abbey. Ofcourse I saw he meant Stevens, who had made a monument to Wellingtonin St. Paul's. I cross-questioned him and found I was right. 

Suppose that in some ancient writer I had come upon a similar errorabout which I felt no less certain than I did here, ought I to bedebarred from my conclusion merely by the accident that I have notthe wretched muddler at my elbow and cannot ask him personally?People are always getting things wrong. It is the critic's businessto know how and when to believe on insufficient evidence and to knowhow far to go in the matter of setting people right without going toofar; the question of what is too far and what is sufficient evidencecan only be settled by the higgling and haggling of the literarymarket. 

So I justify my emendation of the "grotta del toro" at Trapani. [TheAuthoress of the Odyssey, Chap. VIII. ] "Il toro macigna un tesoro dioro. " [The bull is grinding a treasure of gold] in the grotto inwhich (for other reasons) I am convinced Ulysses hid the gifts thePhoeacians had given him. And so the grotto is called "La grotta deltoro" [The grotto of the bull]. I make no doubt it was originallycalled "La grotta del tesoro" [The grotto of the treasure], butchildren got it wrong, and corrupted "tesoro" into "toro"; then, itbeing known that the "tesoro" was in it somehow, the "toro" was madeto grind the "tesoro. "

XIII--UNPROFESSIONAL SERMONS

Righteousness

According to Mr. Matthew Arnold, as we find the highest traditions ofgrace, beauty and the heroic virtues among the Greeks and Romans, sowe derive our highest ideal of righteousness from Jewish sources. Righteousness was to the Jew what strength and beauty were to theGreek or fortitude to the Roman. 

This sounds well, but can we think that the Jews taken as a nationwere really more righteous than the Greeks and Romans? Could theyindeed be so if they were less strong, graceful and enduring? Insome respects they may have been--every nation has its strong points--but surely there has been a nearly unanimous verdict for manygenerations that the typical Greek or Roman is a higher, noblerperson than the typical Jew--and this referring not to the modernJew, who may perhaps he held to have been injured by centuries ofoppression, but to the Hebrew of the time of the old prophets and ofthe most prosperous eras in the history of the nation. If three mencould be set before us as the most perfect Greek, Roman and Jewrespectively, and if we could choose which we would have our only sonmost resemble, is it not likely we should find ourselves preferringthe Greek or Roman to the Jew? And does not this involve that wehold the two former to be the more righteous in a broad sense of theword?

I dare not say that we owe no benefits to the Jewish nation, I do notfeel sure whether we do or do not, but I can see no good thing that Ican point to as a notoriously Hebrew contribution to our moral andintellectual well-being as I can point to our law and say that it isRoman, or to our fine arts and say that they are based on what theGreeks and Italians taught us. On the contrary, if asked whatfeature of post-Christian life we had derived most distinctly fromHebrew sources I should say at once "intolerance"--the desire todogmatise about matters whereon the Greek and Roman held certainty tobe at once unimportant and unattainable. This, with all its train ofbloodshed and family disunion, is chargeable to the Jewish ratherthan to any other account. 

There is yet another vice which occurs readily to any one who reckonsup the characteristics which we derive mainly from the Jews; it isone that we call, after a Jewish sect, "Pharisaism. " I do not meanto say that no Greek or Roman was ever a sanctimonious hypocrite, still, sanctimoniousness does not readily enter into our notions ofGreeks and Romans and it does so enter into our notions of the oldHebrews. Of course, we are all of us sanctimonious sometimes; Horacehimself is so when he talks about aurum irrepertum et sic meliussitum, and as for Virgil he was a prig, pure and simple; still, onthe whole, sanctimoniousness was not a Greek and Roman vice and itwas a Hebrew one. True, they stoned their prophets freely; but theseare not the Hebrews to whom Mr. Arnold is referring, they are theones whom it is the custom to leave out of sight and out of mind asfar as possible, so that they should hardly count as Hebrews at all, and none of our characteristics should be ascribed to them. 

Taking their literature I cannot see that it deserves the praisesthat have been lavished upon it. The Song of Solomon and the book ofEsther are the most interesting in the Old Testament, but these arethe very ones that make the smallest pretensions to holiness, andeven these are neither of them of very transcendent merit. Theywould stand no chance of being accepted by Messrs. Cassell and Co. Orby any biblical publisher of the present day. Chatto and Windusmight take the Song of Solomon, but, with this exception, I doubt ifthere is a publisher in London who would give a guinea for the pair. Ecclesiastes contains some fine things but is strongly tinged withpessimism, cynicism and affectation. Some of the Proverbs are good, but not many of them are in common use. Job contains some finepassages, and so do some of the Psalms; but the Psalms generally arepoor and, for the most part, querulous, spiteful and introspectiveinto the bargain. Mudie would not take thirteen copies of the lot ifthey were to appear now for the first time--unless indeed their royalauthorship were to arouse an adventitious interest in them, or unlessthe author were a rich man who played his cards judiciously with thereviewers. As for the prophets--we know what appears to have beenthe opinion formed concerning them by those who should have been bestacquainted with them; I am no judge as to the merits of thecontroversy between them and their fellow-countrymen, but I have readtheir works and am of opinion that they will not hold their ownagainst such masterpieces of modern literature as, we will say, ThePilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels or Tom Jones. "Whether there be prophecies, " exclaims the Apostle, "they shallfail. " On the whole I should say that Isaiah and Jeremiah must beheld to have failed. 

I would join issue with Mr. Matthew Arnold on yet another point. Iunderstand him to imply that righteousness should be a man's highestaim in life. I do not like setting up righteousness, nor yetanything else, as the highest aim in life; a man should have anynumber of little aims about which he should be conscious and forwhich he should have names, but he should have neither name for, norconsciousness concerning the main aim of his life. Whatever we do wemust try and do it rightly--this is obvious--but righteousnessimplies something much more than this: it conveys to our minds notonly the desire to get whatever we have taken in hand as nearly rightas possible, but also the general reference of our lives to thesupposed will of an unseen but supreme power. Granted that there issuch a power, and granted that we should obey its will, we are themore likely to do this the less we concern ourselves about the matterand the more we confine our attention to the things immediately roundabout us which seem, so to speak, entrusted to us as the natural andlegitimate sphere of our activity. I believe a man will get the mostuseful information on these matters from modern European sources;next to these he will get most from Athens and ancient Rome. Mr. Matthew Arnold notwithstanding, I do not think he will get anythingfrom Jerusalem which he will not find better and more easilyelsewhere. [1883. ]

Wisdom

But where shall wisdom be found? (Job xxviii. 12). 

If the writer of these words meant exactly what he said, he had solittle wisdom that he might well seek more. He should have knownthat wisdom spends most of her time crying in the streets and public-houses, and he should have gone thither to look for her. It iswritten:

"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:

"She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of thegates: in the city she uttereth her words" (Prov. I. 20, 21. )

If however he meant rather "Where shall wisdom be regarded?" this, again, is not a very sensible question. People have had wisdombefore them for some time, and they may be presumed to be the bestjudges of their own affairs, yet they do not generally show muchregard for wisdom. We may conclude, therefore, that they have foundher less profitable than by her own estimate she would appear to be. This indeed is what one of the wisest men who ever lived--the authorof the Book of Ecclesiastes--definitely concludes to be the case, when he tells his readers that they had better not overdo eithertheir virtue or their wisdom. They must not, on the other hand, overdo their wickedness nor, presumably, their ignorance, still thewriter evidently thinks that error is safer on the side of too littlethan of too much. {203}

Reflection will show that this must always have been true, and mustalways remain so, for this is the side on which error is both leastdisastrous and offers most place for repentance. He who findshimself inconvenienced by knowing too little can go to the BritishMuseum, or to the Working Men's College, and learn more; but when athing is once well learnt it is even harder to unlearn it than it wasto learn it. Would it be possible to unlearn the art of speech orthe arts of reading and writing even if we wished to do so? Wisdomand knowledge are, like a bad reputation, more easily won than lost;we got on fairly well without knowing that the earth went round thesun; we thought the sun went round the earth until we found it madeus uncomfortable to think so any longer, then we altered our opinion;it was not very easy to alter it, but it was easier than it would beto alter it back again. Vestigia nulla retrorsum; the earth itselfdoes not pursue its course more steadily than mind does when it hasonce committed itself, and if we could see the movements of the starsin slow time we should probably find that there was much more throband tremor in detail than we can take note of. 

How, I wonder, will it be if in our pursuit of knowledge we stumbleupon some awkward fact as disturbing for the human race as an enquiryinto the state of his own finances may sometimes prove to theindividual? The pursuit of knowledge can never be anything but aleap in the dark, and a leap in the dark is a very uncomfortablething. I have sometimes thought that if the human race ever losesits ascendancy it will not be through plague, famine or cataclysm, but by getting to know some little microbe, as it were, of knowledgewhich shall get into its system and breed there till it makes an endof us. {204} It is well, therefore, that there should be asubstratum of mankind who cannot by any inducement be persuaded toknow anything whatever at all, and who are resolutely determined toknow nothing among us but what the parson tells them, and not to betoo sure even about that. 

Whence then cometh wisdom and where is the place of understanding?How does Job solve his problem?

"Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom: and to depart fromevil is understanding. "

The answer is all very well as far as it goes, but it only amounts tosaying that wisdom is wisdom. We know no better what the fear of theLord is than what wisdom is, and we often do not depart from evilsimply because we do not know that what we are cleaving to is evil. 

Loving and Hating

I have often said that there is no true love short of eating andconsequent assimilation; the embryonic processes are but a longcourse of eating and assimilation--the sperm and germ cells, or thetwo elements that go to form the new animal, whatever they should becalled, eat one another up, and then the mother assimilates them, more or less, through mutual inter-feeding and inter-breeding betweenher and them. But the curious point is that the more profound ourlove is the less we are conscious of it as love. True, a nurse tellsher child that she would like to eat it, but this is only anexpression that shows an instinctive recognition of the fact thateating is a mode of, or rather the acme of, love--no nurse loves herchild half well enough to want really to eat it; put to such proof asthis the love of which she is so profoundly, as she imagines, sentient proves to be but skin deep. So with our horses and dogs:we think we dote upon them, but we do not really love them. 

What, on the other hand, can awaken less consciousness of warmaffection than an oyster? Who would press an oyster to his heart, orpat it and want to kiss it? Yet nothing short of its completeabsorption into our own being can in the least satisfy us. No merelysuperficial temporary contact of exterior form to exterior form willserve us. The embrace must be consummate, not achieved by a mockingenvironment of draped and muffled arms that leaves no lasting traceon organisation or consciousness, but by an enfolding within the bareand warm bosom of an open mouth--a grinding out of all differences ofopinion by the sweet persuasion of the jaws, and the eloquence of atongue that now convinces all the more powerfully because it isinarticulate and deals but with the one universal language ofagglutination. Then we become made one with what we love--not heartto heart, but protoplasm to protoplasm, and this is far more to thepurpose. 

The proof of love, then, like that of any other pleasant pudding, isin the eating, and tested by this proof we see that consciousness oflove, like all other consciousness vanishes on becoming intense. While we are yet fully aware of it, we do not love as well as wethink we do. When we really mean business and are hungry withaffection, we do not know that we are in love, but simply go into thelove-shop--for so any eating-house should be more fitly called--askthe price, pay our money down, and love till we can either love orpay no longer. 

And so with hate. When we really hate a thing it makes us sick, andwe use this expression to symbolise the utmost hatred of which ournature is capable; but when we know we hate, our hatred is in realitymild and inoffensive. I, for example, think I hate all those peoplewhose photographs I see in the shop windows, but I am so conscious ofthis that I am convinced, in reality, nothing would please me betterthan to be in the shop windows too. So when I see the universitiesconferring degrees on any one, or the learned societies moulting theyearly medals as peacocks moult their tails, I am so conscious ofdisapproval as to feel sure I should like a degree or a medal too ifthey would only give me one, and hence I conclude that my disapprovalis grounded in nothing more serious than a superficial, transientjealousy. 

The Roman Empire

Nothing will ever die so long as it knows what to do under thecircumstances, in other words so long as it knows its business. TheRoman Empire must have died of inexperience of some kind, I shouldthink most likely it was puzzled to death by the Christian religion. But the question is not so much how the Roman Empire or any othergreat thing came to an end--everything must come to an end some time, it is only scientists who wonder that a state should die--theinteresting question is how did the Romans become so great, underwhat circumstances were they born and bred? We should watchchildhood and schooldays rather than old age and death-beds. 

As I sit writing on the top of a wild-beast pen of the amphitheatreof Aosta I may note, for one thing, that the Romans were notsqueamish, they had no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty toAnimals. Again, their ladies did not write in the newspapers. FancyMiss Cato reviewing Horace! They had no Frances Power Cobbes, no . . . S, no . . . S; yet they seem to have got along quite nicely withoutthese powerful moral engines. The comeliest and most enjoyable racesthat we know of were the ancient Greeks, the Italians and the SouthSea Islanders, and they have none of them been purists. 

Italians and Englishmen

Italians, and perhaps Frenchmen, consider first whether they like orwant to do a thing and then whether, on the whole, it will do themany harm. Englishmen, and perhaps Germans, consider first whetherthey ought to like a thing and often never reach the questionswhether they do like it and whether it will hurt. There is much tobe said for both systems, but I suppose it is best to combine them asfar as possible. 

On Knowing what Gives us Pleasure

i

One can bring no greater reproach against a man than to say that hedoes not set sufficient value upon pleasure, and there is no greatersign of a fool than the thinking that he can tell at once and easilywhat it is that pleases him. To know this is not easy, and how toextend our knowledge of it is the highest and the most neglected ofall arts and branches of education. Indeed, if we could solve thedifficulty of knowing what gives us pleasure, if we could find itssprings, its inception and earliest modus operandi, we should havediscovered the secret of life and development, for the samedifficulty has attended the development of every sense from touchonwards, and no new sense was ever developed without pains. A manhad better stick to known and proved pleasures, but, if he willventure in quest of new ones, he should not do so with a light heart. 

One reason why we find it so hard to know our own likings is becausewe are so little accustomed to try; we have our likings found for usin respect of by far the greater number of the matters that concernus; thus we have grown all our limbs on the strength of the likingsof our ancestors and adopt these without question. 

Another reason is that, except in mere matters of eating anddrinking, people do not realise the importance of finding out what itis that gives them pleasure if, that is to say, they would makethemselves as comfortable here as they reasonably can. Very few, however, seem to care greatly whether they are comfortable or no. There are some men so ignorant and careless of what gives thempleasure that they cannot be said ever to have been really born asliving beings at all. They present some of the phenomena of havingbeen born--they reproduce, in fact, so many of the ideas which weassociate with having been born that it is hard not to think of themas living beings--but in spite of all appearances the central idea iswanting. At least one half of the misery which meets us daily mightbe removed or, at any rate, greatly alleviated, if those who sufferby it would think it worth their while to be at any pains to get ridof it. That they do not so think is proof that they neither know, nor care to know, more than in a very languid way, what it is thatwill relieve them most effectually or, in other words, that the shoedoes not really pinch them so hard as we think it does. For when itreally pinches, as when a man is being flogged, he will seek reliefby any means in his power. So my great namesake said, "Surely thepleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat"; and so, again, Iremember to have seen a poem many years ago in Punch according towhich a certain young lady, being discontented at home, went out intothe world in quest to "Some burden make or burden bear, But which shedid not greatly care--Oh Miseree!" So long as there was discomfortsomewhere it was all right. 

To those, however, who are desirous of knowing what gives thempleasure but do not quite know how to set about it I have no betteradvice to give than that they must take the same pains aboutacquiring this difficult art as about any other, and must acquire itin the same way--that is by attending to one thing at a time and notbeing in too great a hurry. Proficiency is not to be attained here, any more than elsewhere, by short cuts or by getting other people todo work that no other than oneself can do. Above all things it isnecessary here, as in all other branches of study, not to think weknow a thing before we do know it--to make sure of our ground and bequite certain that we really do like a thing before we say we do. When you cannot decide whether you like a thing or not, nothing iseasier than to say so and to hang it up among the uncertainties. Orwhen you know you do not know and are in such doubt as to see nochance of deciding, then you may take one side or the otherprovisionally and throw yourself into it. This will sometimes makeyou uncomfortable, and you will feel you have taken the wrong sideand thus learn that the other was the right one. Sometimes you willfeel you have done right. Any way ere long you will know more aboutit. But there must have been a secret treaty with yourself to theeffect that the decision was provisional only. For, after all, themost important first principle in this matter is the not lightlythinking you know what you like till you have made sure of yourground. I was nearly forty before I felt how stupid it was topretend to know things that I did not know and I still often catchmyself doing so. Not one of my school-masters taught me this, butaltogether otherwise. 

ii

I should like to like Schumann's music better than I do; I dare say Icould make myself like it better if I tried; but I do not like havingto try to make myself like things; I like things that make me likethem at once and no trying at all. 

iii

To know whether you are enjoying a piece of music or not you must seewhether you find yourself looking at the advertisements of Pear'ssoap at the end of the programme. 

De Minimis non Curat Lex

i

Yes, but what is a minimum? Sometimes a maximum is a minimum, andsometimes the other way about. If you know you know, and if youdon't you don't. 

ii

Yes, but what is a minimum? So increased material weight involvesincreased moral weight, but where does there begin to be any weightat all? There is a miracle somewhere. At the point where two verylarge nothings have united to form a very little something. 

iii

There is no such complete assimilation as assimilation of rhythm. Infact it is in assimilation of rhythm that what we see as assimilationconsists. 

When two liquid bodies come together with nearly the same rhythms, as, say, two tumblers of water, differing but very slightly, the twoassimilate rapidly--becoming homogeneous throughout. So with wineand water which assimilate, or at any rate form a new homogeneoussubstance, very rapidly. Not so with oil and water. Still, I shouldlike to know whether it would not be possible to have so much waterand so little oil that the water would in time absorb the oil. 

I have not thought about it, but it seems as though the maxim deminimis non curat lex--the fact that a wrong, a contradiction interms, a violation of all our ordinary canons does not matter andshould be brushed aside--it seems as though this maxim went very lowdown in the scale of nature, as though it were the one principlerendering combination (integration) and, I suppose, dissolution(disintegration) also, possible. For combination of any kindinvolves contradiction in terms; it involves a self-stultification onthe part of one or more things, more or less complete in both ofthem. For one or both cease to be, and to cease to be is tocontradict all one's fundamental axioms or terms. 

And this is always going on in the mental world as much as in thematerial; everything is always changing and stultifying itself moreor less completely. There is no permanence of identity so absolute, either in the physical world, or in our conception of the word"identity, " that it is not crossed with the notion of perpetualchange which, pro tanto, destroys identity. Perfect, absoluteidentity is like perfect, absolute anything--as near an approach tonothing, or nonsense, as our minds can grasp. It is, then, in theessence of our conception of identity that nothing should maintain aperfect identity; there is an element of disintegration in the onlyconception of integration that we can form. 

What is it, then, that makes this conflict not only possible andbearable but even pleasant? What is it that so oils the machinery ofour thoughts that things which would otherwise cause intolerablefriction and heat produce no jar?

Surely it is the principle that a very overwhelming majority ridesrough-shod with impunity over a very small minority; that a drop ofbrandy in a gallon of water is practically no brandy; that a dozenmaniacs among a hundred thousand people produce no unsettling effectupon our minds; that a well-written i will go as an i even though thedot be omitted--it seems to me that it is this principle, which isembodied in de minimis non curat lex, that makes it possible thatthere should be majora and a lex to care about them. This is sayingin another form that association does not stick to the letter of itsbond. 

Saints

Saints are always grumbling because the world will not take them attheir own estimate; so they cry out upon this place and upon that, saying it does not know the things belonging to its peace and that itwill be too late soon and that people will be very sorry then thatthey did not make more of the grumbler, whoever he may be, inasmuchas he will make it hot for them and pay them out generally. 

All this means: "Put me in a better social and financial positionthan I now occupy; give me more of the good things of this life, ifnot actual money yet authority (which is better loved by most menthan even money itself), to reward me because I am to have such anextraordinary good fortune and high position in the world which is tocome. "

When their contemporaries do not see this and tell them that theycannot expect to have it both ways, they lose their tempers, shakethe dust from their feet and go sulking off into the wilderness. 

This is as regards themselves; to their followers they say: "Youmust not expect to be able to make the best of both worlds. Thething is absurd; it cannot be done. You must choose which youprefer, go in for it and leave the other, for you cannot have both. "

When a saint complains that people do not know the things belongingto their peace, what he really means is that they do not sufficientlycare about the things belonging to his own peace. 

Prayer

i

Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days: that I may becertified how long I have to live (Ps. Xxxix. 5). 

Of all prayers this is the insanest. That the one who uttered itshould have made and retained a reputation is a strong argument infavour of his having been surrounded with courtiers. "Lord, let menot know mine end" would be better, only it would be praying for whatGod has already granted us. "Lord, let me know A. B. 's end" would bebad enough. Even though A. B. Were Mr. Gladstone--we might hear hewas not to die yet. "Lord, stop A. B. From knowing my end" would bereasonable, if there were any use in praying that A. B. Might not beable to do what he never can do. Or can the prayer refer to theother end of life? "Lord, let me know my beginning. " This againwould not be always prudent. 

The prayer is a silly piece of petulance and it would have served themaker of it right to have had it granted. "A painful and lingeringdisease followed by death" or "Ninety, a burden to yourself and everyone else"--there is not so much to pick and choose between them. Surely, "I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast hidden mine end fromme" would be better. The sting of death is in foreknowledge of thewhen and the how. 

If again he had prayed that he might be able to make his psalms alittle more lively, and be saved from becoming the bore which he hasbeen to so many generations of sick persons and young children--orthat he might find a publisher for them with greater facility--butthere is no end to it. The prayer he did pray was about the worst hecould have prayed and the psalmist, being the psalmist, naturallyprayed it--unless I have misquoted him. 

ii

Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not withoutuse and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously. Idropped saying mine suddenly once for all without malice prepense, onthe night of the 29th of September, 1859, when I went on board theRoman Emperor to sail for New Zealand. I had said them the nightbefore and doubted not that I was always going to say them as Ialways had done hitherto. That night, I suppose, the sense of changewas so great that it shook them quietly off. I was not then asceptic; I had got as far as disbelief in infant baptism but nofurther. I felt no compunction of conscience, however, about leavingoff my morning and evening prayers--simply I could no longer saythem. 

iii

Lead us not into temptation (Matt. Vi. 13). 

For example; I am crossing from Calais to Dover and there is a well-known popular preacher on board, say Archdeacon Farrar. 

I have my camera in my hand and though the sea is rough the sun isbrilliant. I see the archdeacon come on board at Calais and seathimself upon the upper deck, looking as though he had just steppedout of a band-box. Can I be expected to resist the temptation ofsnapping him? Suppose that in the train for an hour before reachingCalais I had said any number of times, "Lead us not into temptation, "is it likely that the archdeacon would have been made to take someother boat or to stay in Calais, or that I myself, by being delayedon my homeward journey, should have been led into some othertemptation, though perhaps smaller? Had I not better snap him andhave done with it? Is there enough chance of good result to make itworth while to try the experiment? The general consensus of opinionis that there is not. 

And as for praying for strength to resist temptation--granted thatif, when I saw the archdeacon in the band-box stage, I hadimmediately prayed for strength I might have been enabled to put theevil thing from me for a time, how long would this have been likelyto last when I saw his face grow saintlier and saintlier? I am anexcellent sailor myself, but he is not, and when I see him there, hiseyes closed and his head thrown back, like a sleeping St. Joseph in ashovel hat, with a basin beside him, can I expect to be saved fromsnapping him by such a formula as "Deliver us from evil"?

Is it in photographer's nature to do so? When David found himself inthe cave with Saul he cut off one of Saul's coattails; if he had hada camera and there had been enough light he would have photographedhim; but would it have been in flesh and blood for him neither to cutoff his coat-tail nor to snap him?

There is a photographer in every bush, going about like a roaringlion seeking whom he may devour. 

iv

Teach me to live that I may dreadThe grave as little as my bed. 

This is from the evening hymn which all respectable children aretaught. It sounds well, but it is immoral. 

Our own death is a premium which we must pay for the far greaterbenefit we have derived from the fact that so many people have notonly lived but also died before us. For if the old ones had not incourse of time gone there would have been no progress; all ourcivilisation is due to the arrangement whereby no man shall live forever, and to this huge mass of advantage we must each contribute ourmite; that is to say, when our turn comes we too must die. Thehardship is that interested persons should be able to scare us intothinking the change we call death to be the desperate business whichthey make it out to be. There is no hardship in having to sufferthat change. 

Bishop Ken, however, goes too far. Undesirable, of course, deathmust always be to those who are fairly well off, but it isundesirable that any living being should live in habitualindifference to death. The indifference should be kept for worthyoccasions, and even then, though death be gladly faced, it is nothealthy that it should be faced as though it were a mere undressingand going to bed. 

XIV--HIGGLEDY-PIGGLEDY

Preface to Vol. II

On indexing this volume, as with Vols. I and IV which are alreadyindexed and as, no doubt, will be the case with any that I may liveto index later, I am alarmed at the triviality of many of thesenotes, the ineptitude of many and the obvious untenableness of manythat I should have done much better to destroy. 

Elmsley, in one of his letters to Dr. Butler, says that an author isthe worst person to put one of his own works through the press (Lifeof Dr. Butler, I, 88). It seems to me that he is the worst personalso to make selections from his own notes or indeed even, in mycase, to write them. I cannot help it. They grew as, with littledisturbance, they now stand; they are not meant for publication; thebad ones serve as bread for the jam of the good ones; it was lesstrouble to let them go than to think whether they ought not to bedestroyed. The retort, however, is obvious; no thinking should havebeen required in respect of many--a glance should have consigned themto the waste-paper basket. I know it and I know that many a one ofthose who look over these books--for that they will be looked over bynot a few I doubt not--will think me to have been a greater fool thanI probably was. I cannot help it. I have at any rate theconsolation of also knowing that, however much I may have irritated, displeased or disappointed them, they will not be able to tell me so;and I think that, to some, such a record of passing moods andthoughts good, bad and indifferent will be more valuable as throwinglight upon the period to which it relates than it would have been ifit had been edited with greater judgment. 

Besides, Vols. I and IV being already bound, I should not have enoughto form Vols. II and III if I cut out all those that ought to be cutout. [June, 1898. ]

P. S. --If I had re-read my preface to Vol. IV, I need not have writtenthe above. 

Waste-Paper Baskets

Every one should keep a mental waste-paper basket and the older hegrows the more things he will consign to it--torn up to irrecoverabletatters. 

Flies in the Milk-Jug

Saving scraps is like picking flies out of the milk-jug. We do notmind doing this, I suppose, because we feel sure the flies will neverwant to borrow money off us. We do not feel so sure about anythingmuch bigger than a fly. If it were a mouse that had got into themilk-jug, we should call the cat at once. 

My Thoughts

They are like persons met upon a journey; I think them very agreeableat first but soon find, as a rule, that I am tired of them. 

Our Ideas

They are for the most part like bad sixpences and we spend our livesin trying to pass them on one another. 

Cat-Ideas and Mouse-Ideas

We can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep turning upagain and again, and nibble, nibble--no matter how often we drivethem off. The best way to keep them down is to have a few goodstrong cat-ideas which will embrace them and ensure their notreappearing till they do so in another shape. 

Incoherency of New Ideas

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent;all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. Weshould have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely towear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid ofthem the better. 

An Apology for the Devil

It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books. 

Hallelujah

When we exclaim so triumphantly "Hallelujah! for the Lord Godomnipotent reigneth" we only mean that we think no small beer ofourselves, that our God is a much greater God than any one else'sGod, that he was our father's God before us, and that it is allright, respectable and as it should be. 

Hating

It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something. 

Hamlet, Don Quixote, Mr. Pickwick and others

The great characters of fiction live as truly as the memories of deadmen. For the life after death it is not necessary that a man orwoman should have lived. 

Reputation

The evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good deal of theevil that they never did as well. 

Science and Business

The best class of scientific mind is the same as the best class ofbusiness mind. The great desideratum in either case is to know howmuch evidence is enough to warrant action. It is as unbusiness-liketo want too much evidence before buying or selling as to be contentwith too little. The same kind of qualities are wanted in eithercase. The difference is that if the business man makes a mistake, hecommonly has to suffer for it, whereas it is rarely that scientificblundering, so long as it is confined to theory, entails loss on theblunderer. On the contrary it very often brings him fame, money anda pension. Hence the business man, if he is a good one, will takegreater care not to overdo or underdo things than the scientific mancan reasonably be expected to take. 

Scientists

There are two classes, those who want to know and do not care whetherothers think they know or not, and those who do not much care aboutknowing but care very greatly about being reputed as knowing. 

Scientific Terminology

This is the Scylla's cave which men of science are preparing forthemselves to be able to pounce out upon us from it, and into whichwe cannot penetrate. 

Scientists and Drapers

Why should the botanist, geologist or other-ist give himself suchairs over the draper's assistant? Is it because he names his plantsor specimens with Latin names and divides them into genera andspecies, whereas the draper does not formulate his classifications, or at any rate only uses his mother tongue when he does? Yet howlike the sub-divisions of textile life are to those of the animal andvegetable kingdoms! A few great families--cotton, linen, hempen, woollen, silk, mohair, alpaca--into what an infinite variety ofgenera and species do not these great families subdivide themselves?And does it take less labour, with less intelligence, to master allthese and to acquire familiarity with their various habits, habitatsand prices than it does to master the details of any other greatbranch of science? I do not know. But when I think of Shoolbred'son the one hand and, say, the ornithological collections of theBritish Museum upon the other, I feel as though it would take me lesstrouble to master the second than the first. 

Men of Science

If they are worthy of the name they are indeed about God's path andabout his bed and spying out all his ways. 

Sparks

Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark mayset all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blazetwenty times over, the world will wag itself right again. 

Dumb-Bells

I regard them with suspicion as academic. 

Purgatory

Time is the only true purgatory. 

Greatness

He is greatest who is most often in men's good thoughts. 

The Vanity of Human Wishes

There is only one thing vainer and that is the having no wishes. 

Jones's Conscience

He said he had not much conscience, and what little he had wasguilty. 

Nihilism

The Nihilists do not believe in nothing; they only believe in nothingthat does not commend itself to themselves; that is, they will notallow that anything may be beyond their comprehension. As theircomprehension is not great their creed is, after all, very nearlynihil. 

On Breaking Habits

To begin knocking off the habit in the evening, then the afternoon aswell and, finally, the morning too is better than to begin cutting itoff in the morning and then go on to the afternoon and evening. Ispeak from experience as regards smoking and can say that when onecomes to within an hour or two of smoke-time one begins to beimpatient for it, whereas there will be no impatience after the timefor knocking off has been confirmed as a habit. 

Dogs

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourselfwith him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a foolof himself too. 

Future and Past

The Will-be and the Has-been touch us more nearly than the Is. So weare more tender towards children and old people than to those who arein the prime of life. 

Nature

As the word is now commonly used it excludes nature's mostinteresting productions--the works of man. Nature is usually takento mean mountains, rivers, clouds and undomesticated animals andplants. I am not indifferent to this half of nature, but itinterests me much less than the other half. 

Lucky and Unlucky

People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they getabsolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and whatthey have been led to expect. 

Definitions

i

As, no matter what cunning system of checks we devise, we must in theend trust some one whom we do not check, but to whom we giveunreserved confidence, so there is a point at which the understandingand mental processes must be taken as understood without furtherquestion or definition in words. And I should say that this pointshould be fixed pretty early in the discussion. 

ii

There is one class of mind that loves to lean on rules anddefinitions, and another that discards them as far as possible. Afaddist will generally ask for a definition of faddism, and one whois not a faddist will be impatient of being asked to give one. 

iii

A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall ofwords. 

iv

Definitions are a kind of scratching and generally leave a sore placemore sore than it was before. 

v

As Love is too young to know what conscience is, so Truth and Geniusare too old to know what definition is. 

Money

It has such an inherent power to run itself clear of taint that humaningenuity cannot devise the means of making it work permanentmischief, any more than means can be found of torturing people beyondwhat they can bear. Even if a man founds a College of TechnicalInstruction, the chances are ten to one that no one will be taughtanything and that it will have been practically left to a number ofexcellent professors who will know very well what to do with it. 

Wit

There is no Professor of Wit at either University. Surely they mightas reasonably have a professor of wit as of poetry. 

Oxford and Cambridge

The dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teachthem anything. 

Cooking

There is a higher average of good cooking at Oxford and Cambridgethan elsewhere. The cooking is better than the curriculum. Butthere is no Chair of Cookery, it is taught by apprenticeship in thekitchens. 

Perseus and St. George

These dragon-slayers did not take lessons in dragon-slaying, nor doleaders of forlorn hopes generally rehearse their parts beforehand. Small things may be rehearsed, but the greatest are always do-or-die, neck-or-nothing matters. 

Specialism and Generalism

Woe to the specialist who is not a pretty fair generalist, and woe tothe generalist who is not also a bit of a specialist. 

Silence and Tact

Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, notsilence. 

Truth-tellers

Professional truth-tellers may be trusted to profess that they aretelling the truth. 

Street Preachers

These are the costermongers and barrow men of the religious world. 

Providence and Othello

Providence, in making the rain fall also upon the sea, was like theman who, when he was to play Othello, must needs black himself allover. 

Providence and Improvidence

i

We should no longer say: Put your trust in Providence, but inImprovidence, for this is what we mean. 

ii

To put one's trust in God is only a longer way of saying that onewill chance it. 

iii

There is nothing so imprudent or so improvident as over-prudence orover-providence. 

Epiphany

If Providence could be seen at all, he would probably turn out to bea very disappointing person--a little wizened old gentleman with acold in his head, a red nose and a comforter round his neck, whistling o'er the furrow'd land or crooning to himself as he goesaimlessly along the streets, poking his way about and loiteringcontinually at shop-windows and second-hand book-stalls. 

Fortune

Like Wisdom, Fortune crieth in the streets, and no man regardeth. There is not an advertisement supplement to the Times--nay, hardly ahalf sheet of newspaper that comes into a house wrapping up this orthat, but it gives information which would make a man's fortune, ifhe could only spot it and detect the one paragraph that would do thisamong the 99 which would wreck him if he had anything to do withthem. 

Gold-Mines

Gold is not found in quartz alone; its richest lodes are in the eyesand ears of the public, but these are harder to work and to prospectthan any quartz vein. 

Things and Purses

Everything is like a purse--there may be money in it, and we cangenerally say by the feel of it whether there is or is not. Sometimes, however, we must turn it inside out before we can be quitesure whether there is anything in it or no. When I have turned aproposition inside out, put it to stand on its head, and shaken it, Ihave often been surprised to find how much came out of it. 

Solomon in all his Glory

But, in the first place, the lilies do toil and spin after their ownfashion, and, in the next, it was not desirable that Solomon shouldbe dressed like a lily of the valley. 

David's Teachers

David said he had more understanding than his teachers. If histeachers were anything like mine this need not imply muchunderstanding on David's part. And if his teachers did not know morethan the Psalms--it is absurd. It is merely swagger, like the GermanEmperor. [1897. ]

S. Michael

He contended with the devil about the body of Moses. Now, I do notbelieve that any reasonable person would contend about the body ofMoses with the devil or with any one else. 

One Form of Failure

From a worldly point of view there is no mistake so great as that ofbeing always right. 

Andromeda

The dragon was never in better health and spirits than on the morningwhen Perseus came down upon him. It is said that Andromeda toldPerseus she had been thinking how remarkably well he was looking. Hehad got up quite in his usual health--and so on. 

When I said this to Ballard [a fellow art-student at Heatherley's]and that other thing which I said about Andromeda in Life and Habit, {225} he remarked that he wished it had been so in the poets. 

I looked at him. "Ballard, " I said, "I also am 'the poets. '"

Self-Confidence

Nothing is ever any good unless it is thwarted with self-distrustthough in the main self-confident. 

Wandering

When the inclination is not obvious, the mind meanders, or maunders, as a stream in a flat meadow. 

Poverty

I shun it because I have found it so apt to become contagious; but Ifancy my constitution is more seasoned against it now than formerly. I hope that what I have gone through may have made me immune. 

Pedals or Drones

The discords of every age are rendered possible by being taken on adrone or pedal of cant, common form and conventionality. This droneis, as it were, the flour and suet of a plum pudding. 

Evasive Nature

She is one long This-way-and-it-isness and, at the same time, That-way-and-it-isn'tness. She flies so like a snipe that she is hard tohit. 

Fashion

Fashion is like God, man cannot see it in its holy of holies andlive. And it is, like God, increate, springing out of nothing, yetthe maker of all things--ever changing yet the same yesterday, to-dayand for ever. 

Doctors and Clergymen

A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power ofhealing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencingconduct. 

God is Love

I dare say. But what a mischievous devil Love is!

Common Chords

If Man is the tonic and God the dominant, the Devil is certainly thesub-dominant and Woman is the relative minor. 

God and the Devil

God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division oflabour. 

Sex

The sexes are the first--or are among the first great experiments inthe social subdivision of labour. 

Women

If you choose to insist on the analogies and points of resemblancebetween men and women, they are so great that the differences seemindeed small. If, on the other hand, you are in a mood foremphasising the points of difference, you can show that men and womenhave hardly anything in common. And so with anything: if a manwants to make a case he can generally find a way of doing so. 

Offers of Marriage

Women sometimes say that they have had no offers, and only wish thatsome one had ever proposed to them. This is not the right way to putit. What they should say is that though, like all women, they havebeen proposing to men all their lives, yet they grieve to rememberthat they have been invariably refused. 

Marriage

i

The question of marriage or non-marriage is only the question ofwhether it is better to be spoiled one way or another. 

ii

In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved. 

iii

Inoculation, or a hair of the dog that is going to bite you--thisprinciple should be introduced in respect of marriage andspeculation. 

Life and Love

To live is like to love--all reason is against it, and all healthyinstinct for it. 

The Basis of Life

We may say what we will, but Life is, au fond, sensual. 

Woman Suffrage

I will vote for it when women have left off making a noise in thereading-room of the British Museum, when they leave off wearing highhead-dresses in the pit of a theatre and when I have seen as many astwelve women in all catch hold of the strap or bar on getting into anomnibus. 

Manners Makyth Man

Yes, but they make woman still more. 

Women and Religion

It has been said that all sensible men are of the same religion andthat no sensible man ever says what that religion is. So allsensible men are of the same opinion about women and no sensible manever says what that opinion is. 

Happiness

Behold and see if there be any happiness like unto the happiness ofthe devils when they found themselves cast out of Mary Magdalene. 

Sorrow within Sorrow

He was in reality damned glad; he told people he was sorry he was notmore sorry, and here began the first genuine sorrow, for he wasreally sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he wasnot more sorry. 

Going Away

I can generally bear the separation, but I don't like the leave-taking. 

XV--TITLES AND SUBJECTS

Titles

A good title should aim at making what follows as far as possiblesuperfluous to those who know anything of the subject. 

"The Ancient Mariner"

This poem would not have taken so well if it had been called "The OldSailor, " so that Wardour Street has its uses. 

For Unwritten Articles, Essays, Stories

The Art of Quarrelling. 

Christian Death-beds. 

The Book of Babes and Sucklings. 

Literary Struldbrugs. 

The Life of the World to Come. 

The Limits of Good Faith. 

Art, Money and Religion. 

The Third Class Excursion Train, or Steam-boat, as the Church of theFuture. 

The Utter Speculation involved in much of the good advice that iscommonly given--as never to sell a reversion, etc. 

Tracts for Children, warning them against the virtues of theirelders. 

Making Ready for Death as a Means of Prolonging Life. An Essayconcerning Human Misunderstanding. So McCulloch [a fellow art-student at Heatherley's, a very fine draughtsman] used to say that hedrew a great many lines and saved the best of them. Illusion, mistake, action taken in the dark--these are among the main sourcesof our progress. 

The Elements of Immorality for the Use of Earnest Schoolmasters. 

Family Prayers: A series of perfectly plain and sensible ones askingfor what people really do want without any kind of humbug. 

A Penitential Psalm as David would have written it if he had beenreading Herbert Spencer. 

A Few Little Crows which I have to pick with various people. 

The Scylla of Atheism and the Charybdis of Christianity. 

The Battle of the Prigs and Blackguards. 

That Good may Come. 

The Marriage of Inconvenience. 

The Judicious Separation. 

Fooling Around. 

Higgledy-Piggledy. 

The Diseases and Ordinary Causes of Mortality among Friendships. 

The finding a lot of old photographs at Herculaneum or Thebes; andthey should turn out to be of no interest. 

On the points of resemblance and difference between the dropping offof leaves from a tree and the dropping off of guests from a dinner ora concert. 

The Sense of Touch: An essay showing that all the senses resolvethemselves ultimately into a sense of touch, and that eating is touchcarried to the bitter end. So there is but one sense--touch--and theamoeba has it. When I look upon the foraminifera I look upon myself. 

The China Shepherdess with Lamb on public-house chimney-pieces inEngland as against the Virgin with Child in Italy. 

For a Medical pamphlet: Cant as a means of Prolonging Life. 

For an Art book: The Complete Pot-boiler; or what to paint and howto paint it, with illustrations reproduced from contemporaryexhibitions and explanatory notes. 

For a Picture: St. Francis preaching to Silenus. Fra Angelico andRubens might collaborate to produce this picture. 

The Happy Mistress. Fifteen mistresses apply for three cooks and themistress who thought herself nobody is chosen by the beautiful andaccomplished cook. 

The Complete Drunkard. He would not give money to sober people, hesaid they would only eat it and send their children to school withit. 

The Contented Porpoise. It knew it was to be stuffed and set up in aglass case after death, and looked forward to this as to a life ofendless happiness. 

The Flying Balance. The ghost of an old cashier haunts a ledger, sothat the books always refuse to balance by the sum of, say, 1 pounds. 15. 11. No matter how many accountants are called in, year afteryear the same error always turns up; sometimes they think they haveit right and it turns out there was a mistake, so the old errorreappears. At last a son and heir is born, and at some festivitiesthe old cashier's name is mentioned with honour. This lays hisghost. Next morning the books are found correct and remain so. 

A Dialogue between Isaac and Ishmael on the night that Isaac camedown from the mountain with his father. The rebellious Ishmael triesto stir up Isaac, and that good young man explains the righteousnessof the transaction--without much effect. 

Bad Habits: on the dropping them gradually, as one leaves offrequiring them, on the evolution principle. 

A Story about a Freethinking Father who has an illegitimate son whichhe considers the proper thing; he finds this son taking to immoralways, e. G. He turns Christian, becomes a clergyman and insists onmarrying. 

For a Ballad: Two sets of rooms in some alms-houses at Cobham nearGravesend have an inscription stating that they belong to "theHundred of Hoo in the Isle of Grain. " These words would make alovely refrain for a ballad. 

A story about a man who suffered from atrophy of the purse, oratrophy of the opinions; but whatever the disease some plausibleLatin, or imitation-Latin name must be found for it and also somecure. 

A Fairy Story modelled on the Ugly Duckling of Hans Andersen about abumptious boy whom all the nice boys hated. He finds out that he wasreally at last caressed by the Huxleys and Tyndalls as one ofthemselves. 

A Collection of the letters of people who have committed suicide; andalso of people who only threaten to do so. The first may be gotabundantly from reports of coroners' inquests, the second would beharder to come by. 

The Structure and Comparative Anatomy of Fads, Fancies and Theories;showing, moreover, that men and women exist only as the organs andtools of the ideas that dominate them; it is the fad that is aloneliving. 

An Astronomical Speculation: Each fixed star has a separate godwhose body is his own particular solar system, and these gods knoweach other, move about among each other as we do, laugh at each otherand criticise one another's work. Write some of their discourseswith and about one another. 

Imaginary Worlds

A world exactly, to the minutest detail, a duplicate of our own, butas we shall be five hundred, or from that to twenty thousand, yearshence. Let there be also another world, a duplicate of what we werefive hundred to twenty thousand years ago. There should be manyworlds of each kind at different dates behind us and ahead of us. 

I send a visitor from a world ahead of us to a world behind us, afterwhich he comes to us, and so we learn what happened in the Homericage. My visitor will not tell me what has happened in his own worldsince the time corresponding to the present moment in our world, because the knowledge of the future would be not only fatal toourselves but would upset the similarity between the two worlds, sothey would be no longer able to refer to us for information on anypoint of history from the moment of the introduction of thedisturbing element. 

When they are in doubt about a point in their past history that wehave not yet reached they make preparation and forecast itsoccurrence in our world as we foretell eclipses and transits ofVenus, and all their most accomplished historians investigate it; butif the conditions for observation have been unfavourable, or if theypostpone consideration of the point till the time of its happeninghere has gone by, then they must wait for many years till the samecombination occurs in some other world. Thus they say, "The nextbeheading of King Charles I will be in Ald. B. X. 231c/d"--orwhatever the name of the star may be--"on such and such a day of suchand such a year, and there will not be another in the lifetime of anyman now living, " or there will, in such and such a star, as the casemay be. 

Communication with a world twenty thousand years ahead of us mightruin the human race as effectually as if we had fallen into the sun. It would be too wide a cross. The people in my supposed world knowthis and if, for any reason, they want to kill a civilisation, stuffit and put it into a museum, they tell it something that is too muchahead of its other ideas, something that travels faster than thought, thus setting an avalanche of new ideas tumbling in upon it andutterly destroying everything. Sometimes they merely introduce alittle poisonous microbe of thought which the cells in the worldwhere it is introduced do not know how to deal with--some such trifleas that two and two make seven, or that you can weigh time in scalesby the pound; a single such microbe of knowledge placed in the brainof a fitting subject would breed like wild fire and kill all thatcame in contact with it. 

And so on. 

An Idyll

I knew a South Italian of the old Greek blood whose sister told himwhen he was a boy that he had eyes like a cow. 

Raging with despair and grief he haunted the fountains and lookedinto the mirror of their waters. "Are my eyes, " he asked himselfwith horror, "are they really like the eyes of a cow?" "Alas!" hewas compelled to answer, "they are only too sadly, sadly like them. "

And he asked those of his playmates whom he best knew and trustedwhether it was indeed true that his eyes were like the eyes of a cow, but he got no comfort from any of them, for they one and all laughedat him and said that they were not only like, but very like. Thengrief consumed his soul, and he could eat no food, till one day theloveliest girl in the place said to him:

"Gaetano, my grandmother is ill and cannot get her firewood; comewith me to the bosco this evening and help me to bring her a load ortwo, will you?"

And he said he would go. 

So when the sun was well down and the cool night air was saunteringunder the chestnuts, the pair sat together cheek to cheek and withtheir arms round each other's waists. 

"O Gaetano, " she exclaimed, "I do love you so very dearly. When youlook at me your eyes are like--they are like the eyes"--here shefaltered a little--"the eyes of a cow. "

Thenceforward he cared not . . . 

And so on. 

A Divorce Novelette

The hero and heroine are engaged against their wishes. They like oneanother very well but each is in love with some one else;nevertheless, under an uncle's will, they forfeit large propertyunless they marry one another, so they get married, making no secretto one another that they dislike it very much. 

On the evening of their wedding day they broach the subject that haslong been nearest to their hearts--the possibility of being divorced. They discuss it tearfully, but the obstacles seem insuperable. Nevertheless they agree that faint heart never yet got rid of fairlady, "None but the brave, " exclaims the husband, "deserve to losethe fair, " and they plight their most solemn vows that they willhenceforth live but for the object of getting divorced from oneanother. 

But the course of true divorce never did run smooth, and the plotturns upon the difficulties that meet them and how they try toovercome them. At one time they seem almost certain of success, butthe cup is dashed from their lips and is farther off than ever. 

At last an opportunity occurs in an unlooked-for manner. They aredivorced and live happily apart ever afterwards. 

The Moral Painter--A Tale of Double Personality

Once upon a time there was a painter who divided his life into twohalves; in the one half he painted pot-boilers for the market, setting every consideration aside except that of doing for hismaster, the public, something for which he could get paid the moneyon which he lived. He was great at floods and never looked at natureexcept in order to see what would make most show with least expense. On the whole he found nothing so cheap to make and easy to sell asveiled heads. 

The other half of his time he studied and painted with the sincerityof Giovanni Bellini, Rembrandt, Holbein or De Hooghe. He was thenhis own master and thought only of doing his work as well as hecould, regardless of whether it would bring him anything but debt andabuse or not. He gave his best without receiving so much as thanks. 

He avoided the temptation of telling either half about the other. 

Two Writers

One left little or nothing about himself and the world complainedthat it was puzzled. Another, mindful of this, left copious detailsabout himself, whereon the world said that it was even more puzzledabout him than about the man who had left nothing, till presently itfound out that it was also bored, and troubled itself no more abouteither. 

The Archbishop of Heligoland

The Archbishop of Heligoland believes his faith, and it makes him sounhappy that he finds it impossible to advise any one to accept it. He summons the Devil, makes a compact with him and is relieved bybeing made to see that there was nothing in it--whereon he is verygood and happy and leads a most beneficent life, but is haunted bythe thought that on his death the Devil will claim his bond. Thisterror grows greater and greater, and he determines to see the Devilagain. 

The upshot of it all is that the Devil turns out to have been Christwho has a dual life and appears sometimes as Christ and sometimes asthe Devil. {235}

XVI--WRITTEN SKETCHES

Literary Sketch-Books

The true writer will stop everywhere and anywhere to put down hisnotes, as the true painter will stop everywhere and anywhere tosketch. 

I do not see why an author should not have a sale of literarysketches, each one short, slight and capable of being framed andglazed in small compass. They would make excellent librarydecorations and ought to fetch as much as an artist's sketches. Theymight be cut up in suitable lots, if the fashion were once set, andmany a man might be making provision for his family at odd times withhis notes as an artist does with his sketches. 

London

If I were asked what part of London I was most identified with afterClifford's Inn itself, I should say Fetter Lane--every part of it. Just by the Record Office is one of the places where I am especiallyprone to get ideas; so also is the other end, about the butcher'sshop near Holborn. The reason in both cases is the same, namely, that I have about had time to settle down to reflection afterleaving, on the one hand, my rooms in Clifford's Inn and, on theother, Jones's rooms in Barnard's Inn where I usually spend theevening. The subject which has occupied my mind during the day beingapproached anew after an interval and a shake, some fresh idea inconnection with it often strikes me. But long before I knew Jones, Fetter Lane was always a street which I was more in than perhaps anyother in London. Leather Lane, the road through Lincoln's Inn Fieldsto the Museum, the Embankment, Fleet Street, the Strand and CharingCross come next. 

A Clifford's Inn Euphemism

People when they want to get rid of their cats, and do not likekilling them, bring them to the garden of Clifford's Inn, drop themthere and go away. In spite of all that is said about cats beingable to find their way so wonderfully, they seldom do find it, andonce in Clifford's Inn the cat generally remains there. Thetechnical word among the laundresses in the inn for this is, "losing"a cat:

"Poor thing, poor thing, " said one old woman to me a few days ago, "it's got no fur on its head at all, and no doubt that's why thepeople she lived with lost her. "

London Trees

They are making a great outcry about the ventilators on the ThamesEmbankment, just as they made a great outcry about the Griffin inFleet Street. [See Alps and Sanctuaries. Introduction. ] They saythe ventilators have spoiled the Thames Embankment. They do notspoil it half so much as the statues do--indeed, I do not see thatthey spoil it at all. The trees that are planted everywhere are, orwill be, a more serious nuisance. Trees are all very well wherethere is plenty of room, otherwise they are a mistake; they keep inthe moisture, exclude light and air, and their roots disturbfoundations; most of our London Squares would look much better if thetrees were thinned. I should like to cut down all the plane trees inthe garden of Clifford's Inn and leave only the others. 

What I Said to the Milkman

One afternoon I heard a knock at the door and found it was themilkman. Mrs. Doncaster [his laundress] was not there, so I took inthe milk myself. The milkman is a very nice man, and, by way ofmaking himself pleasant, said, rather complainingly, that the weatherkept very dry. 

I looked at him significantly and said: "Ah, yes, of course for yourbusiness you must find it very inconvenient, " and laughed. 

He saw he had been caught and laughed too. It was a very old joke, but he had not expected it at that particular moment, and on the topof such an innocent remark. 

The Return of the Jews to Palestine

A man called on me last week and proposed gravely that I should writea book upon an idea which had occurred to a friend of his, a Jewliving in New Bond Street. It was a plan requiring the co-operationof a brilliant writer and that was why he had come to me. If only Iwould help, the return of the Jews to Palestine would be renderedcertain and easy. There was no trouble about the poor Jews, he knewhow he could get them back at any time; the difficulty lay with theRothschilds, the Oppenheims and such; with my assistance, however, the thing could be done. 

I am afraid I was rude enough to decline to go into the scheme on theground that I did not care twopence whether the Rothschilds andOppenheims went back to Palestine or not. This was felt to be anobstacle; but then he began to try and make me care, whereupon, ofcourse, I had to get rid of him. [1883. ]

The Great Bear's Barley-Water

Last night Jones was walking down with me from Staple Inn toClifford's Inn, about 10 o'clock, and we saw the Great Bear standingupright on the tip of his tail which was coming out of a chimney pot. Jones said it wanted attending to. I said:

"Yes, but to attend to it properly we ought to sit up with it allnight, and if the Great Bear thinks that I am going to sit by hisbed-side and give him a spoonful of barley-water every ten minutes, he will find himself much mistaken. " [1892. ]

The Cock Tavern

I went into Fleet Street one Sunday morning last November [1882] withmy camera lucida to see whether I should like to make a sketch of thegap made by the demolition of the Cock Tavern. It was rather pretty, with an old roof or two behind and scaffolding about and torn paperhanging to an exposed party-wall and old fireplaces and so on, but itwas not very much out of the way. Still I would have taken it if ithad not been the Cock. I thought of all the trash that has beenwritten about it and of Tennyson's plump head waiter (who by the wayused to swear that he did not know Tennyson and that Tennyson neverdid resort to the Cock) and I said to myself:

"No--you may go. I will put out no hand to save you. "

Myself in Dowie's Shop

I always buy ready-made boots and insist on taking those which theshopman says are much too large for me. By this means I keep freefrom corns, but I have a great deal of trouble generally with theshopman. I had got on a pair once which I thought would do, and theshopman said for the third or fourth time:

"But really, sir, these boots are much too large for you. " I turnedto him and said rather sternly, "Now, you made that remark before. "

There was nothing in it, but all at once I became aware that I wasbeing watched, and, looking up, saw a middle-aged gentleman eyeingthe whole proceedings with much amusement. He was quite polite buthe was obviously exceedingly amused. I can hardly tell why, nor whyI should put such a trifle down, but somehow or other an impressionwas made upon me by the affair quite out of proportion to thatusually produced by so small a matter. 

My Dentist

Mr. Forsyth had been stopping a tooth for me and then talked alittle, as he generally does, and asked me if I knew a certaindistinguished literary man, or rather journalist. I said No, andthat I did not want to know him. The paper edited by the gentlemanin question was not to my taste. I was a literary Ishmael, andpreferred to remain so. It was my role. 

"It seems to me, " I continued, "that if a man will only be carefulnot to write about things that he does not understand, if he will usethe tooth-pick freely and the spirit twice a day, and come to youagain in October, he will get on very well without knowing any of thebig-wigs. "

"The tooth-pick freely" and "the spirit twice a day" being tags ofMr. Forsyth's, he laughed. 

Furber the Violin-Maker

From what my cousin [Reginald E. Worsley] and Gogin both tell me I amsure that Furber is one of the best men we have. My cousin did notlike to send Hyam to him for a violin: he did not think him worthyto have one. Furber does not want you to buy a violin unless you canappreciate it when you have it. My cousin says of him:

"He is generally a little tight on a Saturday afternoon. He alwaysspeaks the truth, but on Saturday afternoons it comes pouring outmore. "

"His joints [i. E. The joints of the violins he makes] are the closestand neatest that were ever made. "

"He always speaks of the corners of a fiddle; Haweis would call themthe points. Haweis calls it the neck of a fiddle. Furber always thehandle. "

My cousin says he would like to take his violins to bed with him. 

Speaking of Strad violins Furber said: "Rough, rough linings, butthey look as if they grew together. "

One day my cousin called and Furber, on opening the door, beforesaying "How do you do?" or any word of greeting, said very quietly:

"The dog is dead. "

My cousin, having said what he thought sufficient, took up a violinand played a few notes. Furber evidently did not like it. Rose, thedog, was still unburied; she was laid out in that very room. Mycousin stopped. Then Mrs. Furber came in. 

R. E. W. "I am very sorry, Mrs. Furber, to hear about Rose. "

Mrs. F. "Well, yes sir. But I suppose it is all for the best. "

R. E. W. "I am afraid you will miss her a great deal. "

Mrs. F. "No doubt we shall, sir; but you see she is only gone alittle while before us. "

R. E. W. "Oh, Mrs. Furber, I hope a good long while. "

Mrs. F. (brightening). "Well, yes sir, I don't want to go just yet, though Mr. Furber does say it is a happy thing to die. "

My cousin says that Furber hardly knows any one by their real name. He identifies them by some nickname in connection with the fiddlesthey buy from him or get him to repair, or by some personalpeculiarity. 

"There is one man, " said my cousin, "whom he calls 'diaphragm'because he wanted a fiddle made with what he called a diaphragm init. He knows Dando and Carrodus and Jenny Lind, but hardly any oneelse. "

"Who is Dando?" said I. 

"Why, Dando? Not know Dando? He was George the Fourth's musicmaster, and is now one of the oldest members of the profession. "

Window Cleaning in the British Museum Reading-Room

Once a year or so the figures on the Assyrian bas-reliefs breakadrift and may be seen, with their scaling ladders and all, cleaningthe outside of the windows in the dome of the reading-room. It isvery pretty to watch them and they would photograph beautifully. IfI live to see them do it again I must certainly snapshot them. Youcan see them smoking and sparring, and this year they have left alittle hole in the window above the clock. 

The Electric Light in its Infancy

I heard a woman in a 'bus boring her lover about the electric light. She wanted to know this and that, and the poor lover was helpless. Then she said she wanted to know how it was regulated. At last shesettled down by saying that she knew it was in its infancy. The word"infancy" seemed to have a soothing effect upon her, for she said nomore but, leaning her head against her lover's shoulder, composedherself to slumber. 

Fire

I was at one the other night and heard a man say: "That corner stackis alight now quite nicely. " People's sympathies seem generally tobe with the fire so long as no one is in danger of being burned. 

Adam and Eve

A little boy and a little girl were looking at a picture of Adam andEve. 

"Which is Adam and which is Eve?" said one. 

"I do not know, " said the other, "but I could tell if they had theirclothes on. "

Does Mamma Know?

A father was telling his eldest daughter, aged about six, that shehad a little sister, and was explaining to her how nice it all was. The child said it was delightful and added:

"Does Mamma know? Let's go and tell her. "

Mr. Darwin in the Zoological Gardens

Frank Darwin told me his father was once standing near thehippopotamus cage when a little boy and girl, aged four and five, came up. The hippopotamus shut his eyes for a minute. 

"That bird's dead, " said the little girl; "come along. "

Terbourg

Gogin told me that Berg, an impulsive Swede whom he had known inLaurens's studio in Paris and who painted very well, came to Londonand was taken by an artist friend [Henry Scott Tuke, A. R. A. ] to theNational Gallery where he became very enthusiastic about theTerbourgs. They then went for a walk and, in Kensington Gore, nearone of the entrances to Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, there was anold Irish apple-woman sitting with her feet in a basket, smoking apipe and selling oranges. 

"Arranges two a penny, sorr, " said the old woman in a general way. 

And Berg, turning to her and throwing out his hands appealingly, said:

"O, madame, avez-vous vu les Terbourgs? Allez voir les Terbourgs. "

He felt that such a big note had been left out of the life of any onewho had not seen them. 

At Doctors' Commons

A woman once stopped me at the entrance to Doctors' Commons and said:

"If you please, sir, can you tell me--is this the place that I cameto before?"

Not knowing where she had been before I could not tell her. 

The Sack of Khartoum

As I was getting out of a 'bus the conductor said to me in aconfidential tone:

"I say, what does that mean? 'Sack of Khartoum'? What does 'Sack ofKhartoum' mean?"

"It means, " said I, "that they've taken Khartoum and played hell withit all round. "

He understood that and thanked me, whereon we parted. 

Missolonghi

Ballard [a fellow art-student with Butler at Heatherley's] told methat an old governess, some twenty years since, was teaching somegirls modern geography. One of them did not know the nameMissolonghi. The old lady wrung her hands:

"Why, me dear, " she exclaimed, "when I was your age I could neverhear the name mentioned without bursting into tears. "

I should perhaps add that Byron died there. 

Memnon

I saw the driver of the Hampstead 'bus once, near St. Giles's Church--an old, fat, red-faced man sitting bolt upright on the top of his'bus in a driving storm of snow, fast asleep with a huge waterproofover his great-coat which descended with sweeping lines on to atarpaulin. All this rose out of a cloud of steam from the horses. He had a short clay pipe in his mouth but, for the moment, he lookedjust like Memnon. 

Manzi the Model

They had promised him sittings at the Royal Academy and then refusedhim on the ground that his legs were too hairy. He complained toGogin:

"Why, " said he, "I sat at the Slade School for the figure only lastweek, and there were five ladies, but not one of them told me my legswere too hairy. "

A Sailor Boy and Some Chickens

A pretty girl in the train had some chirping chickens about ten days'old in a box labelled "German egg powders. One packet equal to sixeggs. " A sailor boy got in at Basingstoke, a quiet, reserved youth, well behaved and unusually good-looking. By and by the chickens weretaken out of the box and fed with biscuit on the carriage seat. Thisthawed the boy who, though he fought against it for some lime, yielded to irresistible fascination and said:

"What are they?"

"Chickens, " said the girl. 

"Will they grow bigger?"

"Yes. "

Then the boy said with an expression of infinite wonder: "And didyou hatch them from they powders?"

We all laughed till the boy blushed and I was very sorry for him. Ifwe had said they had been hatched from the powders he would havecertainly believed us. 

Gogin, the Japanese Gentleman and the Dead Dog

Gogin was one day going down Cleveland Street and saw an old, lean, careworn man crying over the body of his dog which had been just runover and killed by the old man's own cart. I have no doubt it wasthe dog's fault, for the man was in great distress; as for the dogthere it lay all swelled and livid where the wheel had gone over it, its eyes protruded from their sockets and its tongue lolled out, butit was dead. The old man gazed on it, helplessly weeping, for sometime and then got a large piece of brown paper in which he wrapped upthe body of his favourite; he tied it neatly with a piece of stringand, placing it in his cart, went homeward with a heavy heart. Theday was dull, the gutters were full of cabbage stalks and the airresounded with the cry of costermongers. 

On this a Japanese gentleman, who had watched the scene, lifted uphis voice and made the bystanders a set oration. He was very yellow, had long black hair, gold spectacles and a top hat; he was a typicalJapanese, but he spoke English perfectly. He said the scene they hadall just witnessed was a very sad one and that it ought not to bepassed over entirely without comment. He explained that it was verynice of the good old man to be so sorry about his dog and to be socareful of its remains and that he and all the bystanders mustsympathise with him in his grief, and as the expression of theirsympathy, both with the man and with the poor dog, he had thoughtfit, with all respect, to make them his present speech. 

I have not the man's words but Gogin said they were like a Japanesedrawing, that is to say, wonderfully charming, and showing greatknowledge but not done in the least after the manner in which aEuropean would do them. The bystanders stood open-mouthed and couldmake nothing of it, but they liked it, and the Japanese gentlemanliked addressing them. When he left off and went away they followedhim with their eyes, speechless. 

St. Pancras' Bells

Gogin lives at 164 Euston Road, just opposite St. Pancras Church, andthe bells play doleful hymn tunes opposite his window which worrieshim. My St. Dunstan's bells near Clifford's Inn play doleful hymntunes which enter in at my window; I not only do not dislike them, but rather like them; they are so silly and the bells are out oftune. I never yet was annoyed by either bells or street music exceptwhen a loud piano organ strikes up outside the public-house oppositemy bedroom window after I am in bed and when I am just going tosleep. However, Jones was at Gogin's one summer evening and thebells struck up their dingy old burden as usual. The tonic bell onwhich the tune concluded was the most stuffy and out of tune. Goginsaid it was like the smell of a bug. 

At Eynsford

I saw a man painting there the other day but passed his work withoutlooking at it and sat down to sketch some hundred of yards off. Incourse of time he came strolling round to see what I was doing and I, not knowing but what he might paint much better than I, wasapologetic and said I was not a painter by profession. 

"What are you?" said he. 

I said I was a writer. 

"Dear me, " said he. "Why that's my line--I'm a writer. "

I laughed and said I hoped he made it pay better than I did. He saidit paid very well and asked me where I lived and in whatneighbourhood my connection lay. I said I had no connection but onlywrote books. 

"Oh! I see. You mean you are an author. I'm not an author; Ididn't mean that. I paint people's names up over their shops, andthat's what we call being a writer. There isn't a touch on my workas good as any touch on yours. "

I was gratified by so much modesty and, on my way back to dinner, called to see his work. I am afraid that he was not far wrong--itwas awful. 

Omne ignotum pro magnifico holds with painters perhaps more thanelsewhere; we never see a man sketching, or even carrying a paint-box, without rushing to the conclusion that he can paint very well. There is no cheaper way of getting a reputation than that of goingabout with easel, paint-box, etc. , provided one can ensure one's worknot being seen. And the more traps one carries the cleverer peoplethink one. 

Mrs. Hicks

She and her husband, an old army sergeant who was all through theIndian Mutiny, are two very remarkable people; they keep a public-house where we often get our beer when out for our Sunday walk. Sheowns to sixty-seven, I should think she was a full seventy-five, andher husband, say, sixty-five. She is a tall, raw-boned Gothic womanwith a strong family likeness to the crooked old crusader who lies inthe church transept, and one would expect to find her body scrawledover with dates ranging from 400 years ago to the present time, justas the marble figure itself is. She has a great beard and moustachesand three projecting teeth in her lower jaw but no more in any partof her mouth. She moves slowly and is always a little in liquorbesides being singularly dirty in her person. Her husband is likeunto her. 

For all this they are hard-working industrious people, keep noservant, pay cash for everything, are clearly going up rather thandown in the world and live well. She always shows us what she isgoing to have for dinner and it is excellent--"And I made thestuffing over night and the gravy first thing this morning. " Eachtime we go we find the house a little more done up. She dotes on Mr. Hicks--we never go there without her wedding day being referred to. She has earned her own living ever since she was ten years old, andlived twenty-nine and a half years in the house from which Mr. Hicksmarried her. "I am as happy, " she said, "as the day is long. " Shedearly loves a joke and a little flirtation. I always say somethingperhaps a little impudently broad to her and she likes it extremely. Last time she sailed smilingly out of the room, doubtless to tell Mr. Hicks, and came back still smiling. 

When we come we find her as though she had lien among the pots, butas soon as she has given us our beer, she goes upstairs and puts on acap and a clean apron and washes her face--that is to say, she washesa round piece in the middle of her face, leaving a great glory ofdirt showing all round it. It is plain the pair are respected by themanner in which all who come in treat them. 

Last time we were there she said she hoped she should not die yet. 

"You see, " she said, "I am beginning now to know how to live. "

These were her own words and, considering the circumstances underwhich they were spoken, they are enough to stamp the speaker as aremarkable woman. She has got as much from age and lost as littlefrom youth as woman can well do. Nevertheless, to look at, she islike one of the witches in Macbeth. 

New-Laid Eggs

When I take my Sunday walks in the country, I try to buy a few reallynew-laid eggs warm from the nest. At this time of the year (January)they are very hard to come by, and I have long since invented a sickwife who has implored me to get her a few eggs laid not earlier thanthe self-same morning. Of late, as I am getting older, it has becomemy daughter who has just had a little baby. This will generally drawa new-laid egg, if there is one about the place at all. 

At Harrow Weald it has always been my wife who for years has been agreat sufferer and finds a really new-laid egg the one thing she candigest in the way of solid food. So I turned her on as movingly as Icould not long since, and was at last sold some eggs that were nobetter than common shop eggs, if so good. Next time I went I said mypoor wife had been made seriously ill by them; it was no good tryingto deceive her; she could tell a new-laid egg from a bad one as wellas any woman in London, and she had such a high temper that it wasvery unpleasant for me when she found herself disappointed. 

"Ah! sir, " said the landlady, "but you would not like to lose her. "

"Ma'am, " I replied, "I must not allow my thoughts to wander in thatdirection. But it's no use bringing her stale eggs, anyhow. "

"The Egg that Hen Belonged to"

I got some new-laid eggs a few Sundays ago. The landlady said theywere her own, and talked about them a good deal. 

She pointed to one of them and said:

"Now, would you believe it? The egg that hen belonged to laid 53hens running and never stopped. "

She called the egg a hen and the hen an egg. One would have thoughtshe had been reading Life and Habit [p. 134 and passim]. 

At Englefield Green

As an example of how anything can be made out of anything or donewith anything by those who want to do it (as I said in Life and Habitthat a bullock can take an eyelash out of its eye with its hind-foot--which I saw one of my bullocks in New Zealand do), at the BarleyMow, Englefield Green, they have a picture of a horse and dog talkingto one another, made entirely of butterflies' wings, and very welland spiritedly done too. 

They have another picture, done in the same way, of a greyhoundrunning after a hare, also good but not so good. 

At Abbey Wood

I heard a man say to another: "I went to live there just about thetime that beer came down from 5d. To 4d. A pot. That will give youan idea when it was. "

At Ightham Mote

We took Ightham on one of our Sunday walks about a fortnight ago, andJones and I wanted to go inside over the house. 

My cousin said, "You'd much better not, it will only unsettle yourhistory. "

We felt, however, that we had so little history to unsettle that weleft him outside and went in. 

Dr. Mandell Creighton and Mr. W. S. Rockstro

"The Bishop had been reading Mr. Samuel Butler's enchanting book Alpsand Sanctuaries and determined to visit some of the places theredescribed. We divided our time between the Italian lakes and thelower slopes of the Alps and explored many mountain sanctuaries . . . As a result of this journey the Bishop got to know Mr. S. Butler. Hewrote to tell him the pleasure his books had given us and asked himto visit us. After this he came frequently and the Bishop was muchattracted by his original mind and stores of out-of-the-wayknowledge. " (The Life and Letters of Dr. Mandell Creighton by hisWife, Vol. II, p. 83. )

The first time that Dr. Creighton asked me to come down toPeterborough in 1894 before he became Bishop of London, I was alittle doubtful whether to go or not. As usual, I consulted my goodclerk, Alfred, who said:

"Let me have a look at his letter, sir. " I gave him the letter, andhe said:

"I see, sir, there is a crumb of tobacco in it; I think you may go. "

I went and enjoyed myself very much. I should like to add that thereare very few men who have ever impressed me so profoundly and sofavourably as Dr. Creighton. I have often seen him since, both atPeterborough and at Fulham, and like and admire him most cordially. {251}

I paid my first visit to Peterborough at a time when that learnedmusician and incomparable teacher, Mr. W. S. Rockstro, was giving melessons in medieval counterpoint; so I particularly noticed the musicat divine service. The hymns were very silly, and of the usualGounod-Barnby character. Their numbers were posted up in a frame andI saw there were to be five, so I called the first Farringdon Street, the second King's Cross, the third Gower Street, the fourth PortlandRoad, and the fifth Baker Street, those being stations on my way toRickmansworth, where I frequently go for a walk in the country. 

In his private chapel at night the bishop began his verse of thepsalms always well before we had done the response to the precedingverse. It reminded me of what Rockstro had said a few weeks earlierto the effect that a point of imitation was always more effective ifintroduced before the other voices had finished. I told Rockstroabout it and said that the bishop's instinct had guided himcorrectly--certainly I found his method more satisfactory than if hehad waited till we had finished. Rockstro smiled, and knowing that Iwas at the time forbidden to work, said:

"Satan finds some mischief still for idle brains to do. "

Talking of Rockstro, he scolded me once and said he wondered how Icould have done such a thing as to call Handel "one of the greatestof all musicians, " referring to the great chords in Erewhon. I saidthat if he would look again at the passage he would find I had saidnot that Handel was "one of the greatest" but that he was "thegreatest of all musicians, " on which he apologised. 

Pigs

We often walk from Rickmansworth across Moor Park to Pinner. Ongetting out of Moor Park there is a public-house just to the leftwhere we generally have some shandy-gaff and buy some eggs. Thelandlord had a noble sow which I photographed for him; some monthsafterwards I asked how the sow was. She had been sold. The landlordknew she ought to be killed and made into bacon, but he had beenintimate with her for three years and some one else must eat her, nothe. 

"And what, " said I, "became of her daughter?"

"Oh, we killed her and ate her. You see we had only known hereighteen months. "

I wonder how he settled the exact line beyond which intimacy with apig must not go if the pig is to be eaten. 

Mozart

An old Scotchman at Boulogne was holding forth on the beauties ofMozart, which he exemplified by singing thus:

[Music score which cannot be produced]Deh . . . Vi--e--ni al--la fe . . . Nes--tra

I maliciously assented, but said it was strange how strongly that airalways reminded me of "Voi che sapete. "

Divorce

There was a man in the hotel at Harwich with an ugly disagreeablewoman who I supposed was his wife. I did not care about him, but hebegan to make up to me in the smoking-room. 

"This divorce case, " said he, referring to one that was beingreported in the papers, "doesn't seem to move very fast. "

I put on my sweetest smile and said: "I have not observed it. I amnot married myself, and naturally take less interest in divorce. "

He dropped me. 

Ravens

Mr. Latham, the Master of Jones's College, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, has two ravens named Agrippa and Agrippina. Mr. Latham throwsAgrippa a piece of cheese; Agrippa takes it, hides it carefully andthen goes away contented; but Agrippina has had her eye upon him andimmediately goes and steals it, hiding it somewhere else; Agrippa, however, has always one eye upon Agrippina and no sooner is her backturned than he steals it and buries it anew; then it becomesAgrippina's turn, and thus they pass the time, making believe thatthey want the cheese though neither of them really wants it. One dayAgrippa had a small fight with a spaniel and got rather the worst ofit. He immediately flew at Agrippina and gave her a beating. Jonessaid he could almost hear him say, "It's all your fault. "

Calais to Dover

When I got on board the steamer at Calais I saw Lewis Day, who writesbooks about decoration, and began to talk with him. Also I saw A. B. , Editor of the X. Y. Z. Review. I met him some years ago at PhipsonBeale's, but we do not speak. Recently I wanted him to let me writean article in his review and he would not, so I was spiteful and, when I saw him come on board, said to Day:

"I see we are to have the Editor of the X. Y. Z. On board. "

"Yes, " said Day. 

"He's an owl, " said I sententiously. 

"I wonder, " said Day, "how he got the editorship of his review?"

"Oh, " said I, "I suppose he married some one. "

On this the conversation dropped, and we parted. Later on we metagain and Day said:

"Do you know who that lady was--the one standing at your elbow whenwe were talking just now?"

"No, " said I. 

"That, " he replied, "was Mrs. A. B. "

And it was so. 

Snapshotting a Bishop

I must some day write about how I hunted the late Bishop of Carlislewith my camera, hoping to shoot him when he was sea-sick crossingfrom Calais to Dover, and how St. Somebody protected him and said Imight shoot him when he was well, but not when he was sea-sick. Ishould like to do it in the manner of the Odyssey:

. . . And the steward went round and laid them all on the sofas andbenches and he set a beautiful basin by each, variegated and adornedwith flowers, but it contained no water for washing the hands, andNeptune sent great waves that washed over the eyelet-holes of thecabin. But when it was now the middle of the passage and a greatroaring arose as of beasts in the Zoological Gardens, and theypromised hecatombs to Neptune if he would still the raging of thewaves . . . 

At any rate I shot him and have him in my snap-shot book, but he wasnot sea-sick. [1892. ]

Homer and the Basins

When I returned from Calais last December, after spending Christmasat Boulogne according to my custom, the sea was rough as I crossed toDover and, having a cold upon me, I went down into the second-classcabin, cleared the railway books off one of the tables, spread out mypapers and continued my translation, or rather analysis, of theIliad. Several people of all ages and sexes were on the sofas andthey soon began to be sea-sick. There was no steward, so I got themeach a basin and placed it for them as well as I could; then I satdown again at my table in the middle and went on with my translationwhile they were sick all round me. I had to get the Iliad well intomy head before I began my lecture on The Humour of Homer and I couldnot afford to throw away a couple of hours, but I doubt whether Homerwas ever before translated under such circumstances. [1892. ]

The Channel Passage

How holy people look when they are sea-sick! There was a patientParsee near me who seemed purified once and for ever from all taintof the flesh. Buddha was a low, worldly minded, music-hall comicsinger in comparison. He sat like this for a long time until . . . And he made a noise like cows coming home to be milked on an Aprilevening. 

The Two Barristers at Ypres

When Gogin and I were taking our Easter holiday this year we went, among other places, to Ypres. We put up at the Hotel Tete d'Or andfound it exquisitely clean, comfortable and cheap, with a charmingold-world, last-century feeling. It was Good Friday, and we were todine maigre; this was so clearly de rigueur that we did not ventureeven the feeblest protest. 

When we came down to dinner we were told that there were two othergentlemen, also English, who were to dine with us, and in due coursethey appeared--the one a man verging towards fifty-eight, a kind ofcross between Cardinal Manning and the late Mr. John Parry, the othersome ten years younger, amiable-looking and, I should say, not soshining a light in his own sphere as his companion. These two sat onone side of the table and we opposite them. There was an air aboutthem both which said: "You are not to try to get into conversationwith us; we shall not let you if you do; we dare say you are verygood sort of people, but we have nothing in common; so long as youkeep quiet we will not hurt you; but if you so much as ask us to passthe melted butter we will shoot you. " We saw this and so, during thefirst two courses, talked sotto voce to one another, " and made noattempt to open up communications. 

With the third course, however, there was a new arrival in the personof a portly gentleman of about fifty-five, or from that to sixty, whowas told to sit at the head of the table, and accordingly did so. This gentleman had a decided manner and carried quite as many guns asthe two barristers (for barristers they were) who sat opposite to us. He had rather a red nose, he dined maigre because he had to, but hedid not like it. I do not think he dined maigre often. He hadsomething of the air of a half, if not wholly, broken-down blackguardof a gambler who had seen much but had moved in good society and beenaccustomed to have things more or less his own way. 

This gentleman, who before he went gave us his card, immediatelyopened up conversation both with us and with our neighbours, addressing his remarks alternately and impartially to each. He saidhe was an Italian who had the profoundest admiration for England. Isaid at once -

"Lei non puo amare l'Inghilterra piu che io amo ed ammiro l'Italia. "

The Manning-Parry barrister looked up with an air of slightlyoffended surprise. Conversation was from this point carried onbetween both parties through the Italian who acted, as Gogin saidafterwards, like one of those stones in times of plague on whichpeople from the country put their butter and eggs and people from thetown their money. 

By and by dealings became more direct between us and at last, I knownot how, I found myself in full discussion with the elder barristeras to whether Jean Van Eyck's picture in the National Gallerycommonly called "Portrait of John Arnolfini and his Wife" should notproperly be held to be a portrait of Van Eyck himself (which, by theway, I suppose there is no doubt that it should not, though I havenever gone into the evidence for the present inscription). Then theyspoke of the tricks of light practised by De Hooghe; so we rebelled, and said De Hooghe had no tricks--no one less--and that what theycalled trick was only observation and direct rendering of nature. Then they applauded Tintoretto, and so did we, but still as men whowere bowing the knee to Baal. We put in a word for GaudenzioFerrari, but they had never heard of him. Then they played Raffaelleas a safe card and we said he was a master of line and a faciledecorator, but nothing more. 

On this all the fat was in the fire, for they had invested inRaffaelle as believing him to be the Three per Cents of artisticsecurities. Did I not like the "Madonna di S. Sisto"? I said, "No. "I said the large photo looked well at a distance because the work wasso concealed under a dark and sloppy glaze that any one might seeinto it pretty much what one chose to bring, while the small photolooked well because it had gained so greatly by reduction. I saidthe Child was all very well as a child but a failure as a Christ, asall infant Christs must be to the end of time. I said the Pope andfemale saint, whoever she was, were commonplace, as also the angelsat the bottom. I admitted the beauty of line in the Virgin's draperyand also that the work was an effective piece of decoration, but Isaid it was not inspired by devotional or serious feeling of any kindand for impressiveness could not hold its own with even a veryaverage Madonna by Giovanni Bellini. They appealed to the Italian, but he said there was a great reaction against Raffaelle in Italy nowand that few of the younger men thought of him as their fathers haddone. Gogin, of course, backed me up, so they were in a minority. It was not at all what they expected or were accustomed to. Iyielded wherever I could and never differed without giving a reasonwhich they could understand. They must have seen that there was nomalice prepense, but it always came round to this in the end that wedid not agree with them. 

Then they played Leonardo Da Vinci. I had not intended saying howcordially I dislike him, but presently they became enthusiastic aboutthe head of the Virgin in the "Vierge aux Rochers" in our Gallery. Isaid Leonardo had not succeeded with this head; he had succeeded withthe angel's head lower down to the right (I think) of the picture, but had failed with the Madonna. They did not like my talking aboutLeonardo Da Vinci as now succeeding and now failing, just like otherpeople. I said it was perhaps fortunate that we knew the "LastSupper" only by engravings and might fancy the original to have beenmore full of individuality than the engravings are, and I greatlyquestioned whether I should have liked the work if I had seen it asit was when Leonardo left it. As for his caricatures he should nothave done them, much less preserved them; the fact of his having setstore by them was enough to show that there was a screw loose abouthim somewhere and that he had no sense of humour. Still, I admittedthat I liked him better than I did Michael Angelo. 

Whatever we touched upon the same fatality attended us. Fortunatelyneither evolution nor politics came under discussion, nor yet, happily, music, or they would have praised Beethoven and very likelyMendelssohn too. They did begin to run Nuremberg and it was on thetip of my tongue to say, "Yes, but there's the flavour of Faust andGoethe"; however, I did not. In course of time the seance ended, though not till nearly ten o'clock, and we all went to bed. 

Next morning we saw them at breakfast and they were quite tame. AsGogin said afterwards:

"They came and sat on our fingers and ate crumbs out of our hands. "[1887. ]

At Montreuil-sur-Mer

Jones and I lunched at the Hotel de France where we found everythingvery good. As we were going out, the landlady, getting on towardseighty, with a bookish nose, pale blue eyes and a Giovanni Bellini'sLoredano Loredani kind of expression, came up to us and said, insweetly apologetic accents:-

"Avez-vous donc dejeune a peu pres selon vos idees, Messieurs?"

It would have been too much for her to suppose that she had been ableto give us a repast that had fully realised our ideals, still shehoped that these had been, at any rate, adumbrated in the luncheonshe had provided. Dear old thing: of course they had and a greatdeal more than adumbrated. [26 December, 1901. ]

XVII--MATERIAL FOR A PROJECTED SEQUEL TO ALPS AND SANCTUARIES

Mrs. Dowe on Alps and Sanctuaries

After reading Alps and Sanctuaries Mrs. Dowe said to Ballard: "Youseem to hear him talking to you all the time you are reading. "

I don't think I ever heard a criticism of my books which pleased mebetter, especially as Mrs. Dowe is one of the women I have alwaysliked. 

Not to be Omitted

I must get in about the people one meets. The man who did not likeparrots because they were too intelligent. And the man who told methat Handel's Messiah was "tres chic, " and the smell of the cyclamens"stupendous. " And the man who said it was hard to think the worldwas not more than 6000 years old, and we encouraged him by tellinghim we thought it must be even more than 7000. And the English ladywho said of some one that "being an artist, you know, of course hehad a great deal of poetical feeling. " And the man who was sketchingand said he had a very good eye for colour in the light, but would Ibe good enough to tell him what colour was best for the shadows. 

"An amateur, " he said, "might do very decent things in water-colour, but oils require genius. "

So I said: "What is genius?"

"Millet's picture of the Angelus sold for 700, 000 francs. Now that, "he said, "is genius. "

After which I was very civil to him. 

At Bellinzona a man told me that one of the two towers was built bythe Visconti and the other by Julius Caesar, a hundred years earlier. So, poor old Mrs. Barratt at Langar could conceive no longer timethan a hundred years. The Trojan war did not last ten years, but tenyears was as big a lie as Homer knew. 

We went over the Albula Pass to St. Moritz in two diligences andcould not settle which was tonic and which was dominant; but thecarriage behind us was the relative minor. 

There was a picture in the dining-room but we could not get nearenough to see it; we thought it must be either Christ disputing withthe Doctors or Louis XVI saying farewell to his family--or somethingof that sort. 

The Sacro Monte at Varese

The Sacro Monte is a kind of ecclesiastical Rosherville Gardens, eminently the place to spend a happy day. 

The processions were best at the last part of the ascent; there werepilgrims, all decked out with coloured feathers, and priests andbanners and music and crimson and gold and white and glittering brassagainst the cloudless blue sky. The old priest sat at his openwindow to receive the offerings of the devout as they passed, but hedid not seem to get more than a few bambini modelled in wax. Perhapshe was used to it. And the band played the barocco music on thebarocco little piazza and we were all barocco together. It was asthough the clergymen at Ladywell had given out that, instead ofhaving service as usual, the congregation would go in procession tothe Crystal Palace with all their traps, and that the band had beenpractising "Wait till the clouds roll by" for some time, and onSunday, as a great treat, they should have it. 

The Pope has issued an order saying he will not have masses writtenlike operas. It is no use. The Pope can do much, but he will not beable to get contrapuntal music into Varese. He will not be able toget anything more solemn than La Fille de Madame Angot into Varese. As for fugues--! I would as soon take an English bishop to theSurrey pantomime as to the Sacro Monte on a festa. 

Then the pilgrims went into the shadow of a great rock behind thesanctuary, spread themselves out over the grass and dined. 

The Albergo Grotta Crimea

The entrance to this hotel at Chiavenna is through a covered court-yard; steps lead up to the roof of the court-yard, which is a terracewhere one dines in fine weather. A great tree grows in the court-yard below, its trunk pierces the floor of the terrace, and itsbranches shade the open-air dining-room. The walls of the house arepainted in fresco, with a check pattern like the late Lord Brougham'strousers, and there are also pictures. One represents Mendelssohn. He is not called Mendelssohn, but I knew him by his legs. He is inthe costume of a dandy of some five-and-forty years ago, is smoking acigar and appears to be making an offer of marriage to his cook. {261} Down below is a fresco of a man sitting on a barrel with aglass in his hand. A more absolutely worldly minded, unculturedindividual it would be impossible to conceive. When I saw thesefrescoes I knew I should get along all right and not be over-charged. 

Public Opinion

The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in itsmilk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep acow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered. 

These Notes

I make them under the impression that I may use them in my books, butI never do unless I happen to remember them at the right time. WhenI wrote "Ramblings in Cheapside" [in the Universal Review, reprintedin Essays on Life, Art and Science] the preceding note about PublicOpinion would have come in admirably; it was in my pocket, in mylittle black note-book, but I forgot all about it till I came to postmy pocket-book into my note-book. 

The Wife of Bath

There are Canterbury Pilgrims every Sunday in summer who start fromclose to the old Tabard, only they go by the South-Eastern Railwayand come back the same day for five shillings. And, what is more, they are just the same sort of people. If they do not go toCanterbury they go by the Clacton Belle to Clacton-on-Sea. There isnot a Sunday the whole summer through but you may find all Chaucer'spilgrims, man and woman for man and woman, on board the Lord of theIsles or the Clacton Belle. Why, I have seen the Wife of Bath on theLord of the Isles myself. She was eating her luncheon off an AllySloper's Half-Holiday, which was spread out upon her knees. Whetherit was I who had had too much beer or she I cannot tell, God knoweth;and whether or no I was caught up into Paradise, again I cannot tell;but I certainly did hear unspeakable words which it is not lawful fora man to utter, and that not above fourteen years ago but the verylast Sunday that ever was. The Wife of Bath heard them too, but shenever turned a hair. Luckily I had my detective camera with me, so Isnapped her there and then. She put her hand up to her mouth at thatvery moment and rather spoiled herself, but not much. [1891. ]

Horace at the Post-Office in Rome

When I was in Rome last summer whom should I meet but Horace. 

I did not know him at first, and told him enquiringly that the post-office was in the Piazza Venezia?

He smiled benignly, shrugged his shoulders, said "Prego" and pointedto the post-office itself, which was over the way and, of course, inthe Piazza S. Silvestro. 

Then I knew him. I believe he went straight home and wrote anepistle to Mecaenas, or whatever the man's name was, asking how itcomes about that people who travel hundreds of miles to see thingscan never see what is all the time under their noses. In fact, I sawhim take out his note-book and begin making notes at once. He neednot talk. He was not a good man of business and I do not believe hisbooks sold much better than my own. But this does not matter to himnow, for he has not the faintest idea that he ever wrote any of themand, more likely than not, has never even refreshed his memory byreading them. 

Beethoven at Faido and at Boulogne

I have twice seen people so unmistakably like Beethoven (just asMadame Patey is unmistakably like Handel and only wants dressing incostume to be the image of him not in features only but in figure andair and manner) that I always think of them as Beethoven. 

Once, at Faido in the Val Leventina, in 1876 or 1877, when theengineers were there surveying for the tunnel, there was among them arather fine-looking young German with wild, ginger hair that rang outto the wild sky like the bells in In Memoriam, and a strong EdmundGurney cut, {263} who played Wagner and was great upon the overtureto Lohengrin; as for Handel--he was not worth consideration, etc. Well, this young man rather took a fancy to me and I did not dislikehim, but one day, to tease him, I told him that a littleinsignificant-looking engineer, the most commonplace mortalimaginable, who was sitting at the head of the table, was likeBeethoven. He was very like him indeed, and Muller saw it, smiledand flushed at the same time. He was short, getting on in years andwas a little thick, though not fat. A few days afterwards he wentaway and Muller and I happened to meet his box--an enormous cube of atrunk--coming down the stairs. 

"That's Beethoven's box, " said Muller to me. 

"Oh, " I said, and, looking at it curiously for a moment, askedgravely, "And is he inside it?" It seemed to fit him and tocorrespond so perfectly with him in every way that one felt as thoughif he were not inside it he ought to be. 

The second time was at Boulogne this spring. There were threeGermans at the Hotel de Paris who sat together, went in and outtogether, smoked together and did everything as though they were aunity in trinity and a trinity in unity. We settled that they mustbe the Heckmann Quartet, minus Heckmann: we had not the smallestreason for thinking this but we settled it at once. The middle oneof these was like Beethoven also. On Easter Sunday, after dinner, when he was a little--well, it was after dinner and his hair wentrather mad--Jones said to me:

"Do you see that Beethoven has got into the posthumous quartetstage?" [1885. ]

Silvio

In the autumn of 1884, Butler spent some time at Promontogno andSoglio in the Val Bregaglia, sketching and making notes. Among thechildren of the Italian families in the albergo was Silvio, a boy often or twelve. He knew a little English and was very fond of poetry. He could repeat, "How doth the little buzzy bee. " The poem whichpleased him best, however, was:

Hey diddle diddle, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Cow jumped over the Moon. 

They had nothing, he said, in Italian literature so good as this. Silvio used to talk to Butler while he was sketching. 

"And you shall read Longfellow much in England?"

"No, " I replied, "I don't think we read him very much. "

"But how is that? He is a very pretty poet. "

"Oh yes, but I don't greatly like poetry myself. "

"Why don't you like poetry?"

"You see, poetry resembles metaphysics, one does not mind one's own, but one does not like any one else's. "

"Oh! And what you call metaphysic?"

This was too much. It was like the lady who attributed the declineof the Italian opera to the fact that singers would no longer "podge"their voices. 

"And what, pray, is 'podging'?" enquired my informant of the lady. 

"Why, don't you understand what 'podging' is? Well, I don't knowthat I can exactly tell you, but I am sure Edith and Blanche podgebeautifully. "

However, I said that metaphysics were la filosofia and this quietedhim. He left poetry and turned to prose. 

"Then you shall like much the works of Washington Irving?"

I was grieved to say that I did not; but I dislike Washington Irvingso cordially that I determined to chance another "No. "

"Then you shall like better Fenimore Cooper?"

I was becoming reckless. I could not go on saying "No" after "No, "and yet to ask me to be ever so little enthusiastic about FenimoreCooper was laying a burden upon me heavier than I could bear, so Isaid I did not like him. 

"Oh, I see, " said the boy; "then it is Uncle Tom's Cabin that youshall like?"

Here I gave in. More "Noes" I could not say, so, thinking I might aswell be hung for a sheep as for a mutton chop, I said that I thoughtUncle Tom's Cabin one of the most wonderful and beautiful books thatever were written. 

Having got at a writer whom I admired, he was satisfied, but not forlong. 

"And you think very much of the theories of Darwin in England, do younot?"

I groaned inwardly and said we did. 

"And what are the theories of Darwin?"

Imagine what followed!

After which:

"Why do you not like poetry?--You shall have a very good universityin London?" and so on. 

Sunday Morning at Soglio

The quarantine men sat on the wall, dangling their legs over theparapet and singing the same old tune over and over again and thesame old words over and over again. "Fu tradito, fu tradito da unadonna. " To them it was a holiday. 

Two gnomes came along and looked at me. I asked the first how old itwas; it said fourteen. They both looked about eight. I said thatthe flies and the fowls ought to be put into quarantine, and thegnomes grinned and showed their teeth till the corners of theirmouths met at the backs of their heads. 

The skeleton of a bird was nailed up against a barn, and I said to aman: "Aquila?"

He replied: "Aquila, " and I passed on. 

The village boys came round me and sighed while they watched mesketching. And the women came and exclaimed: "Oh! che testa, chetesta!"

And the bells in the windows of the campanile began, and I turned andlooked up at their beautiful lolling and watched their fitful tumble-aboutiness. They swung open-mouthed like elephants with upliftedtrunks, and I wished I could have fed them with buns. They were notlike English bells, and yet they rang more all 'Inglese than bellsmostly do in Italy--they had got it, but they had not got it right. 

There used to be two crows, and when one disappeared the other cameto the house where it had not been for a month. While I wassketching it played with a woman who was weeding; it got on her backand tried to bite her hat; then it got down and pecked at the nailsin her boots and tried to steal them. It let her catch it, and thenmade a little fuss, but it did not fly away when she let it go, itcontinued playing with her. Then it came to exploit me but would notcome close up. Signor Scartazzini says it will play with all thewomen of the place but not with men or boys, except with him. 

Then there came a monk and passed by me, and I knew I had seen himbefore but could not think where till, of a sudden, it flashed acrossme that he was Valoroso XXIV, King of Paphlagonia, no doubt expiatinghis offences. 

And I watched the ants that were busy near my feet, and listened tothem as they talked about me and discussed whether man has instinct. 

"What is he doing here?" they said; "he wasn't here yesterday. Certainly they have no instinct. They may have a low kind of reason, but nothing approaching to instinct. Some of the London houses showsigns of instinct--Gower Street, for example, does really seem tosuggest instinct; but it is all delusive. It is curious that thesecities of theirs should always exist in places where there are noants. They certainly anthropomorphise too freely. Or is it perhapsthat we formicomorphise more than we should?"

And Silvio came by on his way to church. It was he who taught allthe boys in Soglio to make a noise. Before he came up there was nosound to be heard in the streets, except the fountains and the bells. I asked him whether the curate was good to him. 

"Si, " he replied, "e abbastanza buono. "

I should think Auld Robin Gray was "abbastanza buono" to Mrs. Gray. 

One of the little girls told me that Silvio had so many centesimi andshe had none. I said at once:

"You don't want any centesimi. "

As soon as these words fell from my lips, I knew I must be gettingold. 

And presently the Devil came up to me. He was a nice, clean old man, but he dropped his h's, and that was where he spoiled himself--orperhaps it was just this that threw me off my guard, for I had alwaysheard that the Prince of Darkness was a perfect gentleman. Hewhispered to me that in the winter the monks of St. Bernard sometimessay matins overnight. 

The blue of the mountains looks bluer through the chestnuts thanthrough the pines. The river is snowy against the "Verdi prati eselve amene. " The great fat tobacco plant agrees with itself if notwith us; I never saw any plant look in better health. The briarknows perfectly well what it wants to do and that it does not want tobe disturbed; it knows, in fact, all that it cares to know. Thequestion is how and why it got to care to know just these things andno others. Two cheeky goats came tumbling down upon me and demandedsalt, and the man came from the saw-mill and, with his great brownhands, scooped the mud from the dams of the rills that watered hismeadow, for the hour had come when it was his turn to use the stream. 

There were cow-bells, mountain elder-berries and lots of flowers inthe grass. There was the glacier, the roar of the river and aplaintive little chapel on a green knoll under the great cliff of icewhich cut the sky. There was a fat, crumby woman making hay. Shesaid:

"Buon giorno. "

And the "i o r" of the "giorno" came out like oil and honey. I sawshe wanted a gossip. She and her husband tuned their scythes in two-part, note-against-note counterpoint; but I could hear that it wasshe who was the canto fermo and he who was the counterpoint. Ipeered down over the edge of the steep slippery slope which all hadto be mown from top to bottom; if hay grew on the dome of St. Paul'sthese dreadful traders would gather it in, and presently the autumncrocuses would begin to push up their delicate, naked snouts throughthe closely shaven surface. I expressed my wonder. 

"Siamo esatti, " said the fat, crumby woman. 

For what little things will not people risk their lives? So Smithand I crossed the Rangitata. So Esau sold his birthright. 

It was noon, and I was so sheer above the floor of the valley and thesun was so sheer above me that the chestnuts in the meadow of Bondosquatted upon their own shadows and the gardens were as though thevalley had been paved with bricks of various colours. The old grass-grown road ran below, nearer the river, where many a good man hadgone up and down on his journey to that larger road where the readerand the writer shall alike join him. 

Fascination

I know a man, and one whom people generally call a very clever one, who, when his eye catches mine, if I meet him at an at home or anevening party, beams upon me from afar with the expression of anintellectual rattlesnake on having espied an intellectual rabbit. Through any crowd that man will come sidling towards me, ruthless andirresistible as fate; while I, foreknowing my doom, sidle also him-wards, and flatter myself that no sign of my inward apprehension hasescaped me. 

Supreme Occasions

Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions. I knew ofan old gentleman who insisted on having the original polka played tohim as he lay upon his death-bed. In the only well-authenticatedwords I have ever met with as spoken by a man who knew he was goingto be murdered, there is a commonness which may almost be calledShakespearean. There had been many murders on or near some gold-fields in New Zealand about the years 1863 or 1864, I forget wherebut I think near the Nelson gold-fields, and at last the murdererswere taken. One was allowed to turn Queen's evidence and gave anaccount of the circumstances of each murder. One of the victims, itappeared, on being told they were about to kill him, said:

"If you murder me, I shall be foully murdered. "

Whereupon they murdered him and he was foully murdered. It is amistake to expect people to rise to the occasion unless the occasionis only a little above their ordinary limit. People seldom rise totheir greater occasions, they almost always fall to them. It is onlysupreme men who are supreme at supreme moments. They differ from therest of us in this that, when the moment for rising comes, they riseat once and instinctively. 

The Aurora Borealis

I saw one once in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence off the island ofAnticosti. We were in the middle of it, and seemed to be looking upthrough a great cone of light millions and millions of miles into thesky. Then we saw it farther off and the pillars of fire stalked upand down the face of heaven like one of Handel's great basses. 

In front of my room at Montreal there was a verandah from which arope was stretched across a small yard to a chimney on a stable roofover the way. Clothes were hung to dry on this rope. As I lay inbed of a morning I could see the shadows and reflected lights fromthese clothes moving on the ceiling as the clothes were blown aboutby the wind. The movement of these shadows and reflected lights wasexactly that of the rays of an Aurora Borealis, minus colour. I canconceive no resemblance more perfect. They stalked across theceiling with the same kind of movement absolutely. 

A Tragic Expression

The three occasions when I have seen a really tragic expression upona face were as follows:-

(1) When Mrs. Inglis in my room at Montreal heard my sausagesfrying, as she thought, too furiously in the kitchen, she left mehurriedly with a glance, and the folds of her dress as she swept outof the room were Niobean. 

(2) Once at dinner I sat opposite a certain lady who had a tureen ofsoup before her and also a plate of the same to which she had justhelped herself. There was meat in the soup and I suppose she got abit she did not like; instead of leaving it, she swiftly, stealthily, picked it up from her plate when she thought no one was looking and, with an expression which Mrs. Siddons might have studied for aperformance of Clytemnestra, popped it back into the tureen. 

(3) There was an alarm of fire on an emigrant ship in mid-ocean whenI was going to New Zealand and the women rushed aft with faces as ina Massacre of the Innocents. 

The Wrath to Come

On the Monte Generoso a lady who sat next me at the table-d'hote wascomplaining of a man in the hotel. She said he was a nuisancebecause he practised on the violin. I excused him by saying that Isupposed some one had warned him to fly from the wrath to come, meaning that he had conceptions of an ideal world and was trying toget into it. (I heard a man say something like this many years agoand it stuck by me. )

The Beauties of Nature

A man told me that at some Swiss hotel he had been speakingenthusiastically about the beauty of the scenery to a Frenchman whosaid to him:

"Aimez-vous donc les beautes de la nature? Pour moi je les abborre. "

The Late King Vittorio Emanuele

Cavaliere Negri, at Casale-Monferrato, told me not long since thatwhen he was a child, during the troubles of 1848 and 1849, the Kingwas lunching with his (Cav. Negri's ) father who had provided thebest possible luncheon in honour of his guest. The King said:

"I can eat no such luncheon in times like these--give me somegarlic. "

The garlic being brought, he ate it along with a great hunch ofbread, but would touch nothing else. 

The Bishop of Chichester at Faido

When I was at Faido in the Val Leventina last summer there was a ladythere who remembered me in New Zealand; she had brought her childrento Switzerland for their holiday; good people, all of them. They hadfriends coming to them, a certain canon and his sister, and there wasa talk that the Bishop of Chichester might possibly come too. Incourse of time the canon and his sister came. At first the sister, who was put to sit next me at dinner, was below zero and her brotheropposite was hardly less freezing; but as dinner wore on they thawedand, from regarding me as the monster which in the first instancethey clearly did, began to see that I agreed with them in much morethan they had thought possible. By and by they were reassured, became cordial and proved on acquaintance to be most kind and good. They soon saw that I liked them, and the canon let me take him whereI chose. I took him to the place where the Woodsias grow and wefound some splendid specimens. I took him to Mairengo and showed himthe double chancel. Coming back he said I had promised to show himsome Alternifolium. I stopped him and said:

"Here is some, " for there happened to be a bit in the wall by theside of the path. 

This quite finished the conquest, and before long I was given tounderstand that the bishop really would come and we were to take himpretty near the Woodsias and not tell him, and he was to find themout for himself. I have no doubt that the bishop had meant comingwith the canon, but then the canon had heard from the New Zealandlady that I was there, and this would not do at all for the bishop. Anyhow the canon had better exploit me by going first and seeing howbad I was. So the canon came, said I was all right and in a coupleof days or so the bishop and his daughters arrived. 

The bishop did not speak to me at dinner, but after dinner, in thesalon, he made an advance in the matter of the newspaper and, Ireplying, he began a conversation which lasted the best part of anhour, and during which I trust I behaved discreetly. Then I bade him"Good-night" and left the room. 

Next morning I saw him eating his breakfast and said "Good-morning"to him. He was quite ready to talk. We discussed the WoodsiaIlvensis and agreed that it was a mythical species. It was said inbotany books to grow near Guildford. We dismissed this assertion. But he remarked that it was extraordinary in what odd places wesometimes do find plants; he knew a single plant of AspleniumTrichomanes which had no other within thirty miles of it; it wasgrowing on a tombstone which had come from a long distance and from aTrichomanes country. It almost seemed as if the seeds and germs werealways going about in the air and grew wherever they found a suitableenvironment. I said it was the same with our thoughts; the germs ofall manner of thoughts and ideas are always floating aboutunperceived in our minds and it was astonishing sometimes in whatstrange places they found the soil which enabled them to take rootand grow into perceived thought and action. The bishop looked upfrom his egg and said:

"That is a very striking remark, " and then he went on with his egg asthough if I were going to talk like that he should not play any more. 

Thinking I was not likely to do better than this, I retreatedimmediately and went away down to Claro where there was aconfirmation and so on to Bellinzona. 

In the morning I had asked the waitress how she liked the bishop. 

"Oh! beaucoup, beaucoup, " she exclaimed, "et je trouve son nezvraiment noble. " [1886. ]

At Piora

I am confident that I have written the following note in one or otherof the earlier of these volumes, but I have searched my preciousindexes in vain to find it. No doubt as soon as I have retold thestory I shall stumble upon it. 

One day in the autumn of 1886 I walked up to Piora from Airolo, returning the same day. At Piora I met a very nice quiet man whosename I presently discovered, and who, I have since learned, is awell-known and most liberal employer of labour somewhere in the northof England. He told me that he had been induced to visit Piora by abook which had made a great impression upon him. He could notrecollect its title, but it had made a great impression upon him; noryet could he recollect the author's name, but the book had made agreat impression upon him; he could not remember even what else therewas in the book; the only thing he knew was that it had made a greatimpression upon him. 

This is a good example of what is called a residuary impression. Whether or no I told him that the book which had made such a greatimpression upon him was called Alps and Sanctuaries (see Chap. VI), and that it had been written by the person he was addressing, Icannot tell. It would be very like me to have blurted it all out andgiven him to understand how fortunate he had been in meeting me; thiswould be so fatally like me that the chances are ten to one that Idid it; but I have, thank Heaven, no recollection of sin in thisrespect, and have rather a strong impression that, for once in mylife, I smiled to myself and said nothing. 

At Ferentino

After dinner I ordered a coffee; the landlord, who also had had hisdinner, asked me to be good enough to defer it for another year and Iassented. I then asked him which was the best inn at Segni. Hereplied that it did not matter, that when a man had quattrini onealbergo was as good as another. I said, No; that more depended onwhat kind of blood was running about inside the albergatore than onhow many quattrini the guest had in his pocket. He smiled andoffered me a pinch of the most delicious snuff. His wife came andcleared the table, having done which she shed the water bottle overthe floor to keep the dust down. I am sure she did it all to all theblessed gods that live in heaven, though she did not say so. 

The Imperfect Lady

There was one at a country house in Sicily where I was staying. Shehad been lent to my host for change of air by his friend themarchese. She dined at table with us and we all liked her very much. She was extremely pretty and not less amiable than pretty. In orderto reach the dining-room we had to go through her bedroom as alsothrough my host's. When the monsignore came, she dined with us justthe same, and the old priest evidently did not mind at all. InSicily they do not bring the scent of the incense across the dining-room table. And one would hardly expect the attempt to be made bypeople who use the oath "Santo Diavolo. "

Siena and S. Gimignano

At Siena last spring, prowling round outside the cathedral, we saw anEnglish ecclesiastic in a stringed, sub-shovel hat. He had a younglady with him, presumably a daughter or niece. He eyed us with muchthe same incurious curiosity as that with which we eyed him. Wepassed them and went inside the duomo. How far less impressive isthe interior (indeed I had almost said also the exterior) than thatof San Domenico! Nothing palls so soon as over-ornamentation. 

A few minutes afterwards my Lord and the young lady came in too. Itwas Sunday and mass was being celebrated. The pair passed us and, when they reached the fringe of the kneeling folk, the bishop kneltdown too on the bare floor, kneeling bolt upright from the knees, afew feet in front of where we stood. We saw him and I am sure heknew we were looking at him. The lady seemed to hesitate but, aftera minute or so, she knuckled down by his side and we left themkneeling bolt upright from the knees on the hard floor. 

I always cross myself and genuflect when I go into a Roman Catholicchurch, as a mark of respect, but Jones and Gogin say that any onecan see I am not an old hand at it. How rudimentary is the action ofan old priest! I saw one once at Venice in the dining-room of theHotel la Luna who crossed himself by a rapid motion of his fork justbefore he began to eat, and Miss Bertha Thomas told me she saw anItalian lady at Varallo at the table-d'hote cross herself with herfan. I do not cross myself before eating nor do I think it incumbentupon me to kneel down on the hard floor in church--perhaps because Iam not an English bishop. We were sorry for this one and for hisyoung lady, but it was their own doing. 

We then went into the Libreria to see the frescoes by Pinturicchio--which we did not like--and spent some little time in attending tothem. On leaving we were told to sign our names in a book and didso. As we were going out we met the bishop and his lady coming in;whether they had been kneeling all the time, or whether they had gotup as soon we were gone and had spent the time in looking round Icannot say, but, when they had seen the frescoes, they would be toldto sign their names and, when they signed, they would see ours and, Iflatter myself, know who we were. 

On returning to our hotel we were able to collect enough informationto settle in our own minds which particular bishop he was. 

A day or two later we went to Poggibonsi, which must have been animportant place once; nothing but the walls remain now, the citywithin them having been razed by Charles V. At the station we took acarriage, and our driver, Ulisse Pogni, was a delightful person, second baritone at the Poggibonsi Opera and principal fly-owner ofthe town. He drove us up to S. Gimignano and told us that the peoplestill hold the figures in Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes to be portraitsof themselves and say: "That's me, " and "That's so and so. "

Of course we went to see the frescoes, and as we were coming down themain street, from the Piazza on which the Municipio stands, whoshould be mounting the incline but our bishop and his lady. Themoment he saw us, he looked cross, stood still and began inspectingthe tops of the houses on the other side of the street; so also didthe lady. There was nothing of the smallest interest in these and weneither of us had the smallest doubt that he was embarrassed atmeeting us and was pretending not to notice us. I have seldom seenany like attempt more clumsily and fatuously done. Whether he wassaying to himself, "Good Lord! that wretch will be putting mykneeling down into another Alps and Sanctuaries or Ex Voto"; orwhether it was only that we were a couple of blackguard atheists whocontaminated the air all round us, I cannot tell; but on venturing tolook back a second or two after we had passed them, the bishop andthe lady had got a considerable distance away. 

As we returned our driver took us about 4 kilometres outsidePoggibonsi to San Lucchese, a church of the 12th or 13th century, greatly decayed, but still very beautiful and containing a few naiffrescoes. He told us he had sung the Sanctus here at the festa onthe preceding Sunday. In a room adjoining the church, formerly, wewere told, a refectory, there is a very good fresco representing the"Miraculous Draught of Fishes" by Gerino da Pistoja (I think, but oneforgets these names at once unless one writes them down then andthere). It is dated--I think (again!)--about 1509, betrays theinfluence of Perugino but is more lively and interesting thananything I know by that painter, for I cannot call him master. It isin good preservation and deserves to be better, though perhaps notvery much better, known than it is. Our driver pointed out that thebaskets in which the fishes are being collected are portraits of thebaskets still in use in the neighbourhood. 

After we had returned to London we found, in the Royal AcademyExhibition, a portrait of our bishop which, though not good, wasquite good enough to assure us that we had not been mistaken as tohis diocese. 

The Etruscan Urns at Volterra

As regards the way in which the Etruscan artists kept to a few stocksubjects, this has been so in all times and countries. 

When Christianity convulsed the world and displaced the oldermythology, she did but introduce new subjects of her own, to whichher artists kept as closely as their pagan ancestors had kept totheir heathen gods and goddesses. We now make believe to have freedourselves from these trammels, but the departure is more apparentthan real. Our works of art fall into a few well-marked groups andthe pictures of each group, though differing in detail, present thesame general characters. We have, however, broken much new ground, whereas until the last three or four hundred years it almost seemseither as if artists had thought subject a detail beneath theirnotice, or publics had insisted on being told only what they knewalready. 

The principle of living only to see and to hear some new thing, andthe other principle of avoiding everything with which we are notperfectly familiar are equally old, equally universal, equallyuseful. They are the principles of conservation and accumulation onthe one hand, and of adventure, speculation and progress on theother, each equally indispensable. The money has been, and willprobably always be more persistently in the hands of the first ofthese two groups. But, after all, is not money an art? Nay, is itnot the most difficult on earth and the parent of all? And if lifeis short and art long, is not money still longer? And are not worksof art, for the most part, more or less works of money also? In sofar as a work of art is a work of money, it must not complain ofbeing bound by the laws of money; in so far as it is a work of art, it has nothing to do with money and, again, cannot complain. 

It is a great help to the spectator to know the subject of a pictureand not to be bothered with having to find out all about the story. Subjects should be such as either tell their own story instantly onthe face of them, or things with which all spectators may be supposedfamiliar. It must not be forgotten that a work exposed to publicview is addressed to a great many people and should accordinglyconsider many people rather than one. I saw an English family notlong since looking at a fine collection of the coins of all nations. They hardly pretended even to take a languid interest in the French, German, Dutch and Italian coins, but brightened up at once on beingshown a shilling, a florin and a half-crown. So children do not wantnew stories; they look for old ones. 

"Mamma dear, will you please tell us the story of 'The Three Bears'?"

"No, my love, not to-day, I have told it you very often lately and Iam busy. "

"Very well, Mamma dear, then we will tell you the story of 'The ThreeBears. '"

The Iliad and the Odyssey are only "The Three Bears" upon a largerscale. Just as the life of a man is only the fission of two amoebason a larger scale. Cui non dictus Hylas puer et Latonia Delos? Thatwas no argument against telling it again, but rather for repeatingit. So people look out in the newspapers for what they know ratherthan for what they do not know, and the better they know it the moreinterested they are to see it in print and, as a general rule, unlessthey get what they expect--or think they know already--they areangry. This tendency of our nature culminates in the well-knownlines repeated for ever and ever:

The battle of the NileI was there all the while;I was there all the whileAt the battle of the Nile. The battle of . . . 

And so on ad lib. Even this will please very young children. Asthey grow older they want to hear about nothing but "The ThreeBears. " As they mature still further they want the greater inventionand freer play of fancy manifested by such people as Homer and ourwest-end upholsterers, beyond which there is no liberty, but onlyeccentricity and extravagance. 

So it is with all fashion. Fashions change, but not radically exceptafter convulsion and, even then, the change is more apparent thanreal, the older fashions continually coming back as new ones. 

So it is not only as regards choice of subject but also as regardstreatment of subject within the limits of the work itself, after thesubject is chosen. No matter whether the utterance of a man's innermind is attempted by way of words, painting, or music, the sameprinciple underlies all these three arts and, of course, also thosearts that are akin to them. In each case a man should have but onesubject easily recognisable as the main motive, and in each case hemust develop, treat and illustrate this by means of episodes anddetails that are neither so alien to the subject as to appear luggedin by the heels, nor yet so germane to it as to be identical. Thetreatment grows out of the subject as the family from the parents andthe race from the family--each new-born member being the same and yetnot the same with those that have preceded him. So it is with allthe arts and all the sciences--they flourish best by the addition ofbut little new at a time in comparison with the old. 

And so, lastly, it is with the ars artium itself, that art of artsand science of sciences, that guild of arts and crafts which iscomprised within each one of us, I mean our bodies. In the detailthey are nourished from day to day by food which must not be tooalien from past food or from the body itself, nor yet too germane toeither; and in the gross, that is to say, in the history of thedevelopment of a race or species, the evolution is admittedly for themost part exceedingly gradual, by means of many generations, as itwere, of episodes that are kindred to and yet not identical with thesubject. 

And when we come to think of it, we find in the evolution of bodilyform (which along with modification involves persistence of type) theexplanation why persistence of type in subjects chosen for treatmentin works of art should be so universal. It is because we are soaverse to great changes and at the same time so averse to no changeat all, that we have a bodily form, in the main, persistent and yet, at the same time, capable of modifications. Without a strongaversion to change its habits and, with its habits, the pabulum ofits mind, there would be no fixity of type in any species and, indeed, there would be no life at all, as we are accustomed to thinkof life, for organs would disappear before they could be developed, and to try to build life on such a shifting foundation would be ashopeless as it would be to try and build a material building on anactual quicksand. Hence the habits, cries, abodes, food, hopes andfears of each species (and what are these but the realities of whichhuman arts are as the shadow?) tell the same old tales in the sameold ways from generation to generation, and it is only because theydo so that they appear to us as species at all. 

Returning now to the Etruscan cinerary urns--I have no doubt that, perhaps three or four thousand years hence, a collection of thetombstones from some of our suburban cemeteries will be thoughtexceedingly interesting, but I confess to having found the urns inthe Museum at Volterra a little monotonous and, after looking atabout three urns, I hurried over the remaining 397 as fast as Icould. [1889. ]

The Quick and the Dead

The walls of the houses [in an Italian village] are built of brickand the roofs are covered with stone. They call the stone "vivo. "It is as though they thought bricks were like veal or mutton andstones like bits out of the living calf or sheep. {279}

The Grape-Filter

When the water of a place is bad, it is safest to drink none that hasnot been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tubof malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented. 

Bertoli and his Bees

Giacomo Bertoli of Varallo-Sesia keeps a watch and clock shop in thestreet. He is a cheery little old gentleman, though I do not see whyI should call him old for I doubt his being so old as I am. He and Ihave been very good friends for years and he is always among thefirst to welcome me when I go to Varallo. 

He is one of the most famous bee-masters in Europe. He keeps some ofhis bees during the winter at Camasco not very far from Varallo, others in other places near and moves them up to Alagna, at the headof the Val Sesia, towards the end of May that they may make theirhoney from the spring flowers--and excellent honey they make. 

About a fortnight ago I happened to meet him bringing down ten of hishives. He was walking in front and was immediately followed by twowomen each with crates on their backs, and each carrying five hives. They seemed to me to be ordinary deal boxes, open at the top, butcovered over with gauze which would keep the bees in but not excludeair. I asked him if the bees minded the journey, and he replied thatthey were very angry and had a great deal to say about it; he wassure to be stung when he let them out. He said it was "un lavoroimprobo, " and cost him a great deal of anxiety. 

"The Lost Chord"

It should be "The Lost Progression, " for the young lady was mistakenin supposing she had ever heard any single chord "like the sound of agreat Amen. " Unless we are to suppose that she had already found thechord of C Major for the final syllable of the word and was seekingthe chord for the first syllable; and there she is on the walls of aMilanese restaurant arpeggioing experimental harmonies in a transportof delight to advertise Somebody and Someone's pianos and holding theloud pedal solidly down all the time. Her family had always beenunsympathetic about her music. They said it was like a loose bundleof fire-wood which you never can get across the room without droppingsticks; they said she would have been so much better employed doinganything else. 

Fancy being in the room with her while she was strumming about andhunting after her chord! Fancy being in heaven with her when she hadfound it!

Introduction of Foreign Plants

I have brought back this year some mountain auriculas and the seed ofsome salvia and Fusio tiger-lily, and mean to plant the auriculas andto sow the seeds in Epping Forest and elsewhere round about London. I wish people would more generally bring back the seeds of pleasingforeign plants and introduce them broadcast, sowing them by ourwaysides and in our fields, or in whatever situation is most likelyto suit them. It is true, this would puzzle botanists, but there isno reason why botanists should not be puzzled. A botanist is aperson whose aim is to uproot, kill and exterminate every plant thatis at all remarkable for rarity or any special virtue, and the rarerit is the more bitterly he will hunt it down. 

Saint Cosimo and Saint Damiano at Siena

Sano di Pietro shows us a heartless practical joke played by thesetwo very naughty saints, both medical men, who should be uncanonisedimmediately. It seems they laid their heads together and for somereason, best known to themselves, resolved to cut a leg off a deadnegro and put it on to a white man. In the one compartment they areseen in high glee cutting the negro's leg off. In the next they havegone to the white man who is in bed, obviously asleep, and aresubstituting the black leg for his own. Then, no doubt, they willstand behind the door and see what he does when he wakes. They mustbe saints because they have glories on, but it looks as though aglory is not much more to be relied on than a gig as a test ofrespectability. [1889. ]

At Pienza

At Pienza, after having seen the Museum with a custode whom I photoedas being more like death, though in excellent health and spirits, than any one I ever saw, I was taken to the leading college for youngladies, the Conservatorio di S. Carlo, under the direction of Signora(or Signorina, I do not know which) Cesira Carletti, to see thewonderful Viale of the twelfth or thirteenth century given to Pienzaby Pope AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II) and stolen a few yearssince, but recovered. Signora Carletti was copying parts of it inneedlework, nor can I think that the original was ever better thanthe parts which she had already done. The work would take weeks oreven months to examine with any fullness, and volumes to describe. It is as prodigal of labour, design and colour as nature herself is. In fact it is one of those things that nature has a right to do butnot art. It fatigues one to look at it or think upon it and, bathosthough it be to say so, it won the first prize at the Exhibitions ofEcclesiastical Art Work held a few years ago at Rome and at Siena. It has taken Signora Carletti months to do even the little she hasdone, but that little must be seen to be believed, for no words cando justice to it. 

Having seen the Viale, I was shown round the whole establishment, andcan imagine nothing better ordered. I was taken over thedormitories--very nice and comfortable--and, finally, not withoutbeing much abashed, into the room where the young ladies were engagedupon needlework. It reminded me of nothing so much as of theEducation of the Virgin Chapel at Oropa. {282} I was taken to eachyoung lady and did my best to acquit myself properly in praising herbeautiful work but, beautiful as the work of one and all was, itcould not compare with that of Signora Carletti. I asked her if shecould not get some of the young ladies to help her in the lessimportant parts of her work, but she said she preferred doing it allherself. They all looked well and happy and as though they were wellcared for, as I am sure they are. 

Then Signora Carletti took me to the top of the house to show me themeteorological room of which she is superintendent, and which is inconnection with the main meteorological observatory at Rome. Again Ifound everything in admirable order, and left the house not a littlepleased and impressed with everything I had seen. [1889. ]

Homer's Hot and Cold Springs

The following extract is taken from a memorandum Butler made of avisit he paid to Greece and the Troad in the spring of 1895. In theIliad (xxii. 145) Homer mentions hot and cold springs where theTrojan women used to wash their clothes. There are no such springsnear Hissarlik, where they ought to be, but the American Consul atthe Dardanelles told Butler there was something of the kind on MountIda, at the sources of the Scamander, and he determined to see themafter visiting Hissarlik. He was provided with an interpreter, Yakoub, an attendant, Ahmed, an escort of one soldier and a horse. He went first to the Consul's farm at Thymbra, about five miles fromHissarlik, where he spent the night and found it "all very like afirst-class New Zealand sheep-station. " The next day he went toHissarlik and saw no reason for disagreeing with the received opinionthat it is the site of Troy. He then proceeded to Bunarbashi and soto Bairemitch, passing on the way a saw-mill where there was aGovernment official with twenty soldiers under him. This officialwas much interested in the traveller and directed his men to takecarpets and a dish of trout, caught that morning in the Scamander, and carry them up to the hot and cold springs while he himselfaccompanied Butler. So they set off and the official, Ismail, showedhim the way and pointed out the springs, and there is a long noteabout the hot and cold water. 

And now let me return to Ismail Gusbashi, the excellent Turkishofficial who, by the way, was with me during all my examination ofthe springs, and whose assurances of their twofold temperature Ishould have found it impossible to doubt, even though I had notcaught one warmer cupful myself. His men, while we were at thesprings, had spread a large Turkey carpet on the flower-bespangledgrass under the trees, and there were three smaller rugs at three ofthe corners. On these Ismail and Yakoub and I took our places. Theother two were cross-legged, but I reclining anyhow. The sunshimmered through the spring foliage. I saw two hoopoes and manybeautiful birds whose names I knew not. Through the trees I couldsee the snow-fields of Ida far above me, but it was hopeless to thinkof reaching them. The soldiers and Ahmed cooked the trout and theeggs all together; then we had boiled eggs, bread and cheese and, ofcourse, more lamb's liver done on skewers like cats' meat. I atewith my pocket-knife, the others using their fingers in true Homericfashion. 

When we had put from us "the desire of meat and drink, " Ismail beganto talk to me. He said he had now for the first time in his lifefound himself in familiar conversation with Wisdom from the West(that was me), and that, as he greatly doubted whether such anotheropportunity would be ever vouchsafed to him, he should wish toconsult me upon a matter which had greatly exercised him. He was nowfifty years old and had never married. Sometimes he thought he haddone a wise thing, and sometimes it seemed to him that he had beenvery foolish. Would I kindly tell him which it was and advise him asto the future? I said he was addressing one who was in much the samecondition as himself, only that I was some ten years older. We had asaying in England that if a man marries he will regret it, and thatif he does not marry he will regret it. 

"Ah!" said Ismail, who was leaning towards me and trying to catchevery word I spoke, though he could not understand a syllable tillYakoub interpreted my Italian into Turkish. "Ah!" he said, "that isa true word. "

In my younger days, I said (may Heaven forgive me!), I had beenpassionately in love with a most beautiful young lady, but--and heremy voice faltered, and I looked very sad, waiting for Yakoub tointerpret what I had said--but it had been the will of Allah that sheshould marry another gentleman, and this had broken my heart for manyyears. After a time, however, I concluded that these things were allsettled for us by a higher Power. 

"Ah! that is a true word. "

"And so, my dear sir, in your case I should reflect that if Allah"(and I raised my hand to Heaven) "had desired your being married, hewould have signified his will to you in some way that you couldhardly mistake. As he does not appear to have done so, I shouldrecommend you to remain single until you receive some distinctintimation that you are to marry. "

"Ah! that is a true word. "

"Besides, " I continued, "suppose you marry a woman with whom youthink you are in love and then find out, after you have been marriedto her for three months, that you do not like her. This would be avery painful situation. "

"Ah, yes, indeed! that is a true word. "

"And if you had children who were good and dutiful, it would bedelightful; but suppose they turned out disobedient and ungrateful--and I have known many such cases--could anything be more distressingto a parent in his declining years?"

"Ah! that is a true word that you have spoken. "

"We have a great Imaum, " I continued, "in England; he is called theArchbishop of Canterbury and gives answers to people who are in anykind of doubt or difficulty. I knew one gentleman who asked hisadvice upon the very question that you have done me the honour ofpropounding to myself. "

"Ah! and what was his answer?"

"He told him, " said I, "that it was cheaper to buy the milk than tokeep a cow. "

"Ah! ah! that is a most true word. "

Here I closed the conversation, and we began packing up to make astart. When we were about to mount, I said to him, hat in hand:

"Sir, it occurs to me with great sadness that, though you will, nodoubt, often revisit this lovely spot, yet it is most certain that Ishall never do so. Promise me that when you come here you willsometimes think of the stupid old Englishman who has had the pleasureof lunching with you to-day, and I promise that I will often think ofyou when I am at home again in London. "

He was much touched, and we started. After we had gone about a mile, I suddenly missed my knife. I knew I should want it badly many atime before we got to the Dardanelles, and I knew perfectly wellwhere I should find it: so I stopped the cavalcade and said I mustride back for it. I did so, found it immediately and returned. ThenI said to Ismail:

"Sir, I understand now why I was led to leave my knife behind me. Ihad said it was certain I should never see that enchanting spotagain, but I spoke presumptuously, forgetting that if Allah" (and Iraised my hand to Heaven) "willed it I should assuredly do so. I amcorrected, and with great leniency. "

Ismail was much affected. The good fellow immediately took off hiswatch-chain (happily of brass and of no intrinsic value) and gave itme, assuring me that it was given him by a very dear friend, that hehad worn it for many years, and valued it greatly--would I keep it asa memorial of himself? Fortunately I had with me a little silvermatch-box which Alfred had given me and which had my name engraved onit. I gave it to him, but had some difficulty in making him acceptit. Then we rode on till we came to the saw-mills. I ordered twolambs for the ten soldiers who had accompanied us, having understoodfrom Yakoub that this would be an acceptable present. And so Iparted from this most kind and friendly gentleman with every warmexpression of cordiality on both sides. 

I sent him his photograph which I had taken, and I sent his soldierstheir groups also--one for each man--and in due course I received thefollowing letter of thanks. Alas! I have never written in answer. I knew not how to do it. I knew, however, that I could not keep up acorrespondence, even though I wrote once. But few unanswered lettersmore often rise up and smite me. How the Post Office people everread "Bueter, Ciforzin St. " into "Butler, Clifford's Inn" I cannottell. What splendid emendators of a corrupt text they ought to make!But I could almost wish that they had failed, for it has pained menot a little that I have not replied. 

Mr. Samuel Bueter, No. 15 Ciforzin St. London, England. Dardanelles, August 4/95. 

Mr. Samuel. England. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, Many thanks for the phothograph you have send me. It was very kindof you to think of me to send me this token of your remembrance. Icertainly, appreciate it, and shall think of you whenever I look atit. Ah My Dear Brother, it is impossible for me to forget you. Under favorable circumstance I confess I must prefer you. I have agrate desire to have the beautifull chance to meet you. Ah then withthe tears of gladness to be the result of the great love of ourfriendness A my Sir what pen can describe the meeting that shall become with your second visit if it please God. 

It is my pray to Our Lord God to protect you and to keep you glad andhappy for ever. 

Though we are far from each other yet we can speak with letters. 

Thank God to have your love of friendness with me and mine with yournoble person. 

Hopeing to hear from you, Yours truly, ISMAYEL, fromByramich hizar memuerue iuse bashi. 

XVIII--MATERIAL FOR EREWHON REVISITED

Apologise for the names in Erewhon. I was an unpractised writer andhad no idea the names could matter so much. 

Give a map showing the geography of Erewhon in so far as the entranceinto the country goes, and explain somewhere, if possible, aboutButler's stones. 

Up as far as the top of the pass, where the statues are, keeps to theactual geography of the upper Rangitata district except that I havedoubled the gorge. There was no gorge up above my place[Mesopotamia] and I wanted one, so I took the gorge some 10 or adozen miles lower down and repeated it and then came upon my owncountry again, but made it bare of grass and useless instead of (asit actually was) excellent country. Baker and I went up the lastsaddle we tried and thought it was a pass to the West Coast, butfound it looked down on to the headwaters of the Rakaia: however wesaw a true pass opposite, just as I have described in Erewhon, onlythat there were no clouds and we never went straight down as I said Idid, but took two days going round by Lake Heron. And there is nolake at the top of the true pass. This is the pass over which, inconsequence of our report, Whitcombe was sent and got drowned on theother side. We went up to the top of the pass but found it too roughto go down without more help than we had. I rather think I have toldthis in A First Year in Canterbury Settlement, but am so much ashamedof that book that I dare not look to see. I don't mean to say thatthe later books are much better; still they are better. 

They show a lot of stones on the Hokitika pass, so Mr. Slade told me, which they call mine and say I intended them in Erewhon [for thestatues]. I never saw them and knew nothing about them. 

Refer to the agony and settled melancholy with which unborn childrenin the womb regard birth as the extinction of their being, and howsome declare that there is a world beyond the womb and others denythis. "We must all one day be born, " "Birth is certain" and so on, just as we say of death. Birth involves with it an original sin. Itmust be sin, for the wages of sin is death (what else, I should liketo know, is the wages of virtue?) and assuredly the wages of birth isdeath. 

They consider "wilful procreation, " as they call it, much as we domurder and will not allow it to be a moral ailment at all. Sometimesa jury will recommend to mercy and sometimes they bring in a verdictof "justifiable baby-getting, " but they treat these cases as a rulewith great severity. 

Every baby has a month of heaven and a month of hell before birth, sothat it may make its choice with its eyes open. 

The hour of birth should be prayed for in the litany as well as thatof death, and so it would be if we could remember the agony of horrorwhich, no doubt, we felt at birth--surpassing, no doubt, the utmostagony of apprehension that can be felt on death. 

Let automata increase in variety and ingenuity till at last theypresent so many of the phenomena of life that the religious worlddeclares they were designed and created by God as an independentspecies. The scientific world, on the other hand, denies that thereis any design in connection with them, and holds that if any slightvariation happened to arise by which a fortuitous combination ofatoms occurred which was more suitable for advertising purposes (theautomata were chiefly used for advertising) it was seized upon andpreserved by natural selection. 

They have schools where they teach the arts of forgetting and of notseeing. Young ladies are taught the art of proposing. Lists ofsuccessful matches are advertised with the prospectuses of all thegirls' schools. 

They have professors of all the languages of the principal beasts andbirds. I stayed with the Professor of Feline Languages who hadinvented a kind of Ollendorffian system for teaching the Art ofPolite Conversation among cats. 

They have an art-class in which the first thing insisted on is thatthe pupils should know the price of all the leading modern picturesthat have been sold during the last twenty years at Christie's, andthe fluctuations in their values. Give an examination paper on thissubject. The artist being a picture-dealer, the first thing he mustdo is to know how to sell his pictures, and therefore how to adaptthem to the market. What is the use of being able to paint a pictureunless one can sell it when one has painted it?

Add that the secret of the success of modern French art lies in itsrecognition of values. 

Let there be monks who have taken vows of modest competency (about1000 pounds a year, derived from consols), who spurn popularity asmedieval monks spurned money--and with about as much sincerity. Their great object is to try and find out what they like and then getit. They do not live in one building, and there are no vows ofcelibacy, but, in practice, when any member marries he drifts awayfrom the society. They have no profession of faith or articles ofassociation, but, as they who hunted for the Holy Grail, so do thesehunt in all things, whether of art or science, for that whichcommends itself to them as comfortable and worthy to be accepted. Their liberty of thought and speech and their reasonable enjoyment ofthe good things of this life are what they alone live for. 

Let the Erewhonians have Westminster Abbeys of the first, second andthird class, and in one of these let them raise monuments to deadtheories which were once celebrated. 

Let them study those arts whereby the opinions of a minority may bemade to seem those of a majority. 

Introduce an Erewhonian sermon to the effect that if people arewicked they may perhaps have to go to heaven when they die. 

Let them have a Regius Professor of Studied Ambiguity. 

Let the Professor of Worldly Wisdom pluck a man for want ofsufficient vagueness in his saving-clauses paper. 

Another poor fellow may be floored for having written an article on ascientific subject without having made free enough use of the words"patiently" and "carefully, " and for having shown too obvious signsof thinking for himself. 

Let them attach disgrace to any who do not rapidly become obscureafter death. 

Let them have a Professor of Mischief. They found that people alwaysdid harm when they meant well and that all the professorships foundedwith an avowedly laudable object failed, so they aim at mischief inthe hope that they may miss the mark here as when they aimed at whatthey thought advantageous. 

The Professor of Worldly Wisdom plucked a man for buying an egg thathad a date stamped upon it. And another for being too often and tooseriously in the right. And another for telling people what they didnot want to know. He plucked several for insufficient mistrust inprinted matter. It appeared that the Professor had written anarticle teeming with plausible blunders, and had had it inserted in aleading weekly. He then set his paper so that the men were sure totumble into these blunders themselves; then he plucked them. Thisoccasioned a good deal of comment at the time. 

One man who entered for the Chancellor's medal declined to answer anyof the questions set. He said he saw they were intended more to showoff the ingenuity of the examiner than either to assist or test thejudgment of the examined. He observed, moreover, that the view takenof his answers would in great measure depend upon what the examinerhad had for dinner and, since it was not in his power to controlthis, he was not going to waste time where the result was, at best, so much a matter of chance. Briefly, his view of life was that thelonger you lived and the less you thought or talked about it thebetter. He should go pretty straight in the main himself because itsaved trouble on the whole, and he should be guided mainly by a senseof humour in deciding when to deviate from the path of technicalhonesty, and he would take care that his errors, if any, should berather on the side of excess than of asceticism

This man won the Chancellor's medal. 

They have a review class in which the pupils are taught not to mindwhat is written in newspapers. As a natural result they grow up morekeenly sensitive than ever. 

Round the margin of the newspapers sentences are printed cautioningthe readers against believing the criticisms they see, inasmuch aspersonal motives will underlie the greater number. 

They defend the universities and academic bodies on the ground that, but for them, good work would be so universal that the world wouldbecome clogged with masterpieces to an extent that would reduce it toan absurdity. Good sense would rule over all, and merely smart orclever people would be unable to earn a living. 

They assume that truth is best got at by the falling out of thieves. "Well then, there must be thieves, or how can they fall out? Ourbusiness is to produce the raw material from which truth may beelicited. "

"And you succeed, sir, " I replied, "in a way that is beyond allpraise, and it seems as though there would be no limit to the supplyof truth that ought to be available. But, considering the number ofyour thieves, they show less alacrity in flying at each other'sthroats than might have been expected. "

They live their lives backwards, beginning, as old men and women, with little more knowledge of the past than we have of the future, and foreseeing the future about as clearly as we see the past, winding up by entering into the womb as though being buried. Butdelicacy forbids me to pursue this subject further: the upshot isthat it comes to much the same thing, provided one is used to it. 

Paying debts is a luxury which we cannot all of us afford. 

"It is not every one, my dear, who can reach such a counsel ofperfection as murder. "

There was no more space for the chronicles and, what was worse, therewas no more space in which anything could happen at all, the wholeland had become one vast cancerous growth of chronicles, chronicles, chronicles, nothing but chronicles. 

The catalogue of the Browne medals alone will in time come to occupyseveral hundreds of pages in the University Calendar. 

There was a professor who was looked upon as such a valuable manbecause he had done more than any other living person to suppress anykind of originality. 

"It is not our business, " he used to say, "to help students to thinkfor themselves--surely this is the very last thing that one whowishes them well would do by them. Our business to make them thinkas we do, or at any rate as we consider expedient to say we do. "

He was President of the Society for the Suppression of UselessKnowledge and for the Complete Obliteration of the Past. 

They have professional mind-dressers, as we have hair-dressers, andbefore going out to dinner or fashionable At-homes, people go and getthemselves primed with smart sayings or moral reflections accordingto the style which they think will be most becoming to them in thekind of company they expect. 

They deify as God something which I can only translate by a word asunderivable as God--I mean Gumption. But it is part of theirreligion that there should be no temple to Gumption, nor are therepriests or professors of Gumption--Gumption being too ineffable tohit the sense of human definition and analysis. 

They hold that the function of universities is to make learningrepellent and thus to prevent its becoming dangerously common. Andthey discharge this beneficent function all the more efficientlybecause they do it unconsciously and automatically. The professorsthink they are advancing healthy intellectual assimilation anddigestion when they are in reality little better than cancer on thestomach. 

Let them be afflicted by an epidemic of the fear-of-giving-themselves-away disease. Enumerate its symptoms. There is a newdiscovery whereby the invisible rays that emanate from the soul canbe caught and all the details of a man's spiritual nature, hischaracter, disposition, principles, &c. Be photographed on a plate aseasily as his face or the bones of his hands, but no cure for the f. O. G. Th. A. Disease has yet been discovered. 

They have a company for ameliorating the condition of those who arein a future state, and for improving the future state itself. 

People are buried alive for a week before they are married so thattheir offspring may know something about the grave, of which, otherwise, heredity could teach it nothing. 

It has long been held that those constitutions are best which promotemost effectually the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Nowthe greatest number are none too wise and none too honest, and toarrange our systems with a view to the greater happiness of sensiblestraightforward people--indeed to give these people a chance at allif it can be avoided--is to interfere with the greatest happiness ofthe greatest number. Dull, slovenly and arrogant people do not likethose who are quick, painstaking and unassuming; how can we thenconsistently with the first principles of either morality orpolitical economy encourage such people when we can bring sincerityand modesty fairly home to them?

Much we have to tolerate, partly because we cannot always discover intime who are really insincere and who are only masking sincerityunder a garb of flippancy, and partly also because we wish to err onthe side of letting the guilty escape rather than of punishing theinnocent. Thus many people who are perfectly well known to belong tothe straightforward class are allowed to remain at large and may evenbe seen hobnobbing and on the best of possible terms with theguardians of public immorality. We all feel, as indeed has been saidin other nations, that the poor abuses of the time want countenance, and this moreover in the interests of the uses themselves, for thepresence of a small modicum of sincerity acts as a wholesomestimulant and irritant to the prevailing spirit of academicism;moreover, we hold it useful to have a certain number of melancholyexamples whose notorious failure shall serve as a warning to thosewho do not cultivate a power of immoral self-control which shallprevent them from saying, or indeed even thinking, anything thatshall not be to their immediate and palpable advantage with thegreatest number. 

It is a point of good breeding with the Erewhonians to keep theiropinions as far as possible in the background in all cases wherecontroversy is even remotely possible, that is to say wheneverconversation gets beyond the discussion of the weather. It is foundnecessary, however, to recognise some means of ventilating points onwhich differences of opinion may exist, and the convention adopted isthat whenever a man finds occasion to speak strongly he shouldexpress himself by dwelling as forcibly as he can on the views mostopposed to his own; even this, however, is tolerated rather thanapproved, for it is counted the perfection of scholarship and goodbreeding not to express, and much more not even to have a definiteopinion upon any subject whatsoever. 

Thus their "yea" is "nay" and their "nay, " "yea, " but it comes to thesame thing in the end, for it does not matter whether "yea" is called"yea" or "nay" so long as it is understood as "yea. " They go a longway round only to find themselves at the point from which theystarted, but there is no accounting for tastes. With us such tacticsare inconceivable, but so far do the Erewhonians carry them that itis common for them to write whole reviews and articles between thelines of which a practised reader will detect a sense exactlycontrary to that ostensibly put forward; nor is a man held to be morethan a tyro in the arts of polite society unless he instinctivelysuspects a hidden sense in every proposition that meets him. I wasmore than once misled by these plover-like tactics, and on oneoccasion was near getting into a serious scrape. It happened thus:-

A man of venerable aspect was maintaining that pain was a sad thingand should not be permitted under any circumstances. People oughtnot even to be allowed to suffer for the consequences of their ownfolly, and should be punished for it severely if they did. If theycould only be kept from making fools of themselves by the loss offreedom or, if necessary, by some polite and painless method ofextinction--which meant hanging--then they ought to be extinguished. If permanent improvement can only be won through ages of mistake andsuffering, which must be all begun de novo for every freshimprovement, let us be content to forego improvement, and let thosewho suffer their lawless thoughts to stray in this direction beimproved from off the face of the earth as fast as possible. Noremedy can be too drastic for such a disease as the pain felt byanother person. We find we can generally bear the pain ourselveswhen we have to do so, but it is intolerable that we should know itis being borne by any one else. The mere sight of pain unfits peoplefor ordinary life, the wear and tear of which would be very muchreduced if we would be at any trouble to restrain the present almostunbounded licence in the matter of suffering--a licence that peopletake advantage of to make themselves as miserable as they please, without so much as a thought for the feelings of others. Hence, hemaintained, the practice of putting dupes in the same category as thephysically diseased or the unlucky was founded on the eternal andinherent nature of things, and could no more be interfered with thanthe revolution of the earth on its axis. 

He said a good deal more to the same effect, and I was beginning towonder how much longer he would think it necessary to insist on whatwas so obvious, when his hearers began to differ from him. Onedilated on the correlation between pain and pleasure which ensuredthat neither could be extinguished without the extinguishing alongwith it of the other. Another said that throughout the animal andvegetable worlds there was found what might be counted as a system ofrewards and punishments; this, he contended, must cease to exist (andhence virtue must cease) if the pain attaching to misconduct wereless notoriously advertised. Another maintained that the horror sofreely expressed by many at the sight of pain was as much selfish asnot--and so on. 

Let Erewhon be revisited by the son of the original writer--let himhint that his father used to write the advertisements for MotherSeigel's Syrup. He gradually worked his way up to this from being amere writer of penny tracts. [Dec. 1896. ]

On reaching the country he finds that divine honours are being paidhim, churches erected to him, and a copious mythology daily swelling, with accounts of the miracles he had worked and all his sayings anddoings. If any child got hurt he used to kiss the place and it wouldget well at once. 

Everything has been turned topsy-turvy in consequence of his flightin the balloon being ascribed to miraculous agency. 

Among other things, he had maintained that sermons should be alwayspreached by two people, one taking one side and another the opposite, while a third summed up and the congregation decided by a show ofhands. 

This system had been adopted and he goes to hear a sermon On theGrowing Habit of Careful Patient Investigation as EncouragingCasuistry. [October 1897. ]

XIX--TRUTH AND CONVENIENCE

Opposites

You may have all growth or nothing growth, just as you may have allmechanism or nothing mechanism, all chance or nothing chance, but youmust not mix them. Having settled this, you must proceed at once tomix them. 

Two Points of View

Everything must be studied from the point of view of itself, as nearas we can get to this, and from the point of view of its relations, as near as we can get to them. If we try to see it absolutely initself, unalloyed with relations, we shall find, by and by, that wehave, as it were, whittled it away. If we try to see it in itsrelations to the bitter end, we shall find that there is no corner ofthe universe into which it does not enter. Either way the thingeludes us if we try to grasp it with the horny hands of language andconscious thought. Either way we can think it perfectly well--solong as we don't think about thinking about it. The pale cast ofthought sicklies over everything. 

Practically everything should be seen as itself pure and simple, sofar as we can comfortably see it, and at the same time as not itself, so far as we can comfortably see it, and then the two views should becombined, so far as we can comfortably combine them. If we cannotcomfortably combine them, we should think of something else. 

Truth

i

We can neither define what we mean by truth nor be in doubt as to ourmeaning. And this I suppose must be due to the antiquity of theinstinct that, on the whole, directs us towards truth. We cannotself-vivisect ourselves in respect of such a vital function, thoughwe can discharge it normally and easily enough so long as we do notthink about it. 

ii

The pursuit of truth is chimerical. That is why it is so hard to saywhat truth is. There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth;what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of ourideas. 

iii

There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth. 

iv

A. B. Was so impressed with the greatness and certain ultimatevictory of truth that he considered it unnecessary to encourage heror do anything to defend her. 

v

He who can best read men best knows all truth that need concern him;for it is not what the thing is, apart from man's thoughts in respectof it, but how to reach the fairest compromise between men's past andfuture opinions that is the fittest object of consideration; and thiswe get by reading men and women. 

vi

Truth should not be absolutely lost sight of, but it should not betalked about. 

vii

Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fearlest she should catch cold on over-exposure. 

viii

The firmest line that can be drawn upon the smoothest paper has stilljagged edges if seen through a microscope. This does not matteruntil important deductions are made on the supposition that there areno jagged edges. 

ix

Truth should never be allowed to become extreme; otherwise it will beapt to meet and to run into the extreme of falsehood. It should beplayed pretty low down--to the pit and gallery rather than thestalls. Pit-truth is more true to the stalls than stall-truth to thepit. 

x

An absolute lie may live--for it is a true lie, and is saved by beingflecked with a grain of its opposite. Not so absolute truth. 

xi

Whenever we push truth hard she runs to earth in contradiction interms, that is to say, in falsehood. An essential contradiction interms meets us at the end of every enquiry. 

xii

In Alps and Sanctuaries (Chapter V) I implied that I was lying when Itold the novice that Handel was a Catholic. But I was not lying;Handel was a Catholic, and so am I, and so is every well-disposedperson. It shows how careful we ought to be when we lie--we cannever be sure but what we may be speaking the truth. 

xiii

Perhaps a little bit of absolute truth on any one question mightprove a general solvent, and dissipate the universe. 

xiv

Truth generally is kindness, but where the two diverge or collide, kindness should override truth. 

Falsehood

i

Truth consists not in never lying but in knowing when to lie and whennot to do so. De minimis non curat veritas. 

Yes, but what is a minimum? Sometimes a maximum is a minimum andsometimes it is the other way. 

ii

Lying is like borrowing or appropriating in music. It is only agood, sound, truthful person who can lie to any good purpose; if aman is not habitually truthful his very lies will be false to him andbetray him. The converse also is true; if a man is not a good, sound, honest, capable liar there is no truth in him. 

iii

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense toknow how to lie well. 

iv

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy. 

v

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that neverhappened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget. 

vi

Cursed is he that does not know when to shut his mind. An open mindis all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open thatthere is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capableof shutting its doors sometimes, or it may be found a littledraughty. 

vii

He who knows not how to wink knows not how to see; and he who knowsnot how to lie knows not how to speak the truth. So he who cannotsuppress his opinions cannot express them. 

viii

There can no more be a true statement without falsehood distributedthrough it, than a note on a well-tuned piano that is notintentionally and deliberately put out of tune to some extent inorder to have the piano in the most perfect possible tune. Anyperfection of tune as regards one key can only be got at the expenseof all the rest. 

ix

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a personthe compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie tohim. 

x

I seem to see lies crowding and crushing at a narrow gate and workingtheir way in along with truths into the domain of history. 

Nature's Double Falsehood

That one great lie she told about the earth being flat when she knewit was round all the time! And again how she stuck to it that thesun went round us when it was we who were going round the sun! Thisdouble falsehood has irretrievably ruined my confidence in her. There is no lie which she will not tell and stick to like aGladstonian. How plausibly she told her tale, and how many ages wasit before she was so much as suspected! And then when things didbegin to look bad for her, how she brazened it out, and what adesperate business it was to bring her shifts and prevarications tobook!

Convenience

i

We wonder at its being as hard often to discover convenience as it isto discover truth. But surely convenience is truth. 

ii

The use of truth is like the use of words; both truth and wordsdepend greatly upon custom. 

iii

We do with truth much as we do with God. We create it according toour own requirements and then say that it has created us, or requiresthat we shall do or think so and so--whatever we find convenient. 

iv

"What is Truth?" is often asked, as though it were harder to say whattruth is than what anything else is. But what is Justice? What isanything? An eternal contradiction in terms meets us at the end ofevery enquiry. We are not required to know what truth is, but tospeak the truth, and so with justice. 

v

The search after truth is like the search after perpetual motion orthe attempt to square the circle. All we should aim at is the mostconvenient way of looking at a thing--the way that most sensiblepeople are likely to find give them least trouble for some time tocome. It is not true that the sun used to go round the earth untilCopernicus's time, but it is true that until Copernicus's time it wasmost convenient to us to hold this. Still, we had certain ideaswhich could only fit in comfortably with our other ideas when we cameto consider the sun as the centre of the planetary system. 

Obvious convenience often takes a long time before it is fullyrecognised and acted upon, but there will be a nisus towards it aslong and as widely spread as the desire of men to be saved trouble. If truth is not trouble-saving in the long run it is not truth:truth is only that which is most largely and permanently trouble-saving. The ultimate triumph, therefore, of truth rests on a verytangible basis--much more so than when it is made to depend upon thewill of an unseen and unknowable agency. If my views about theOdyssey, for example, will, in the long run, save students fromperplexity, the students will be sure to adopt them, and I have nowish that they should adopt them otherwise. 

It does not matter much what the truth is, but our knowing the truth--that is to say our hitting on the most permanently convenientarrangement of our ideas upon a subject whatever it may be--mattersvery much; at least it matters, or may matter, very much in somerelations. And however little it matters, yet it matters, andhowever much it matters yet it does not matter. In the utmostimportance there is unimportance, and in the utmost unimportancethere is importance. So also it is with certainty, life, matter, necessity, consciousness and, indeed, with everything which can forman object of human sensation at all, or of those after-reasoningswhich spring ultimately from sensations. This is a round-about wayof saying that every question has two sides. 

vi

Our concern is with the views we shall choose to take and to letother people take concerning things, and as to the way of expressingthose views which shall give least trouble. If we express ourselvesin one way we find our ideas in confusion and our action impotent:if in another our ideas cohere harmoniously, and our action isedifying. The convenience of least disturbing vested ideas, and atthe same time rearranging our views in accordance with new facts thatcome to our knowledge, this is our proper care. But it is idle tosay we do not know anything about things--perhaps we do, perhaps wedon't--but we at any rate know what sane people think and are likelyto think about things, and this to all intents and purposes isknowing the things themselves. For the things only are what sensiblepeople agree to say and think they are. 

vii

The arrangement of our ideas is as much a matter of convenience asthe packing of goods in a druggist's or draper's store and leads toexactly the same kind of difficulties in the matter of classifyingthem. We all admit the arbitrariness of classifications in a languidway, but we do not think of it more than we can help--I supposebecause it is so inconvenient to do so. The great advantage ofclassification is to conceal the fact that subdivisions are asarbitrary as they are. 

Classification

There can be no perfect way, for classification presupposes that athing has absolute limits whereas there is nothing that does notpartake of the universal infinity--nothing whose boundaries do notvary. Everything is one thing at one time and in some respects, andanother at other times and in other respects. We want a new mode ofmeasurement altogether; at present we take what gaps we can find, setup milestones, and declare them irremovable. We want a measure whichshall express, or at any rate recognise, the harmonics of resemblancethat lurk even in the most absolute differences and vice versa. 

Attempts at Classification

are like nailing battens of our own flesh and blood upon ourselves asan inclined plane that we may walk up ourselves more easily; and yetit answers very sufficiently. 

A Clergyman's Doubts

Under this heading a correspondence appeared in the Examiner, 15thFebruary to 14th June, 1879. Butler wrote all the letters undervarious signatures except one or perhaps two. His first letterpurported to come from "An Earnest Clergyman" aged forty-five, with awife, five children, a country living worth 400 pounds a year, and ahouse, but no private means. He had ceased to believe in thedoctrines he was called upon to teach. Ought he to continue to leada life that was a lie or ought he to throw up his orders and plungehimself, his wife and children into poverty? The dilemma interestedButler deeply: he might so easily have found himself in it if he hadnot begun to doubt the efficacy of infant baptism when he did. Fifteen letters followed, signed "Cantab, " "Oxoniensis, " and soforth, some recommending one course, some another. One, signed"X. Y. Z. , " included "The Righteous Man" which will be found in thelast group of this volume, headed "Poems. " From the following lettersigned "Ethics" Butler afterwards took two passages (which I haveenclosed, one between single asterisks the other between doubleasterisks), and used them for the "Dissertation on Lying" which is inChapter V of Alps and Sanctuaries. 

To the Editor of the Examiner. 

Sir: I am sorry for your correspondent "An Earnest Clergyman" for, though he may say he has "come to smile at his troubles, " his smileseems to be a grim one. We must all of us eat a peck of moral dirtbefore we die, but some must know more precisely than others whenthey are eating it; some, again, can bolt it without wry faces in oneshape, while they cannot endure even the smell of it in another. "AnEarnest Clergyman" admits that he is in the habit of telling peoplecertain things which he does not believe, but says he has no greatfancy for deceiving himself. "Cantab" must, I fear, deceive himselfbefore he can tolerate the notion of deceiving other people. For myown part I prefer to be deceived by one who does not deceive himselfrather than by one who does, for the first will know better when tostop, and will not commonly deceive me more than he can help. As forthe other--if he does not know how to invest his own thoughts safelyhe will invest mine still worse; he will hold God's most preciousgift of falsehood too cheap; he has come by it too easily; cheaplycome, cheaply go will be his maxim. The good liar should be theconverse of the poet; he should be made, not born. 

It is not loss of confidence in a man's strict adherence to theletter of truth that shakes my confidence in him. I know what I domyself and what I must lose all social elasticity if I were not todo. * Turning for moral guidance to my cousins the lower animals--whose unsophisticated instinct proclaims what God has taught themwith a directness we may sometimes study--I find the plover lyingwhen she reads us truly and, knowing that we shall hit her if wethink her to be down, lures us from her young ones under the fictionof a broken wing. Is God angry, think you, with this prettydeviation from the letter of strict accuracy? or was it not He whowhispered to her to tell the falsehood, to tell it with acircumstance, without conscientious scruples, and not once only butto make a practice of it, so as to be an habitual liar for at leastsix weeks in the year? I imagine so. When I was young I used toread in good books that it was God who taught the bird to make hernest, and, if so, He probably taught each species the other domesticarrangements which should be best suited to it. Or did the nest-building information come from God and was there an Evil One amongthe birds also who taught them to steer clear of pedantry? Thenthere is the spider--an ugly creature, but I suppose God likes it--can anything be meaner than that web which naturalists extol as sucha marvel of Providential ingenuity?

Ingenuity! The word reeks with lying. Once, on a summer afternoon, in a distant country I met one of those orchids whose main ideaconsists in the imitation of a fly; this lie they dispose soplausibly upon their petals that other flies who would steal theirhoney leave them unmolested. Watching intently and keeping verystill, methought I heard this person speaking to the offspring whichshe felt within her though I saw them not. 

"My children, " she exclaimed, "I must soon leave you; think upon thefly, my loved ones; make it look as terrible as possible; cling tothis thought in your passage through life, for it is the one thingneedful; once lose sight of it and you are lost. "

Over and over again she sang this burden in a small, still voice, andso I left her. Then straightway I came upon some butterflies whoseprofession it was to pretend to believe in all manner of vital truthswhich in their inner practice they rejected; thus, pretending to becertain other and hateful butterflies which no bird will eat byreason of their abominable smell, these cunning ones conceal theirown sweetness, live long in the land and see good days. Think ofthat, O Earnest Clergyman, my friend! No. Lying is like Nature, youmay expel her with a fork, but she will always come back again. Lying is like the poor, we must have it always with us. The questionis, How much, when, where, to whom and under what circumstances islying right? For, once admit that a plover may pretend to have abroken wing and yet be without sin if she have pretended well enough, and the thin edge of the wedge has been introduced so that there isno more saying that we must never lie. *

It is not, then, the discovery that a man has the power to lie thatshakes my confidence in him; it is loss of confidence in hismendacity that I find it impossible to get over. I forgive him fortelling me lies, but I cannot forgive him for not telling me the samelies, or nearly so, about the same things. This shows he has aslipshod memory, which is unpardonable, or else that he tells so manylies that he finds it impossible to remember all of them, and this islike having too many of the poor always with us. The plover and thespider have each of them their stock of half a dozen lies or so whichwe may expect them to tell when occasion arises; they are plausibleand consistent, but we know where to have them; otherwise, if theywere liable, like self-deceivers, to spring mines upon us inunexpected places, man would soon make it his business to reformthem--not from within, but from without. 

And now it is time I came to the drift of my letter, which is that if"An Earnest Clergyman" has not cheated himself into thinking he istelling the truth, he will do no great harm by stopping where he is. Do not let him make too much fuss about trifles. The solemnity ofthe truths which he professes to uphold is very doubtful; there is atacit consent that it exists more on paper than in reality. If he isa man of any tact, he can say all he is compelled to say and do allthe Church requires of him--like a gentleman, with neither undueslovenliness nor undue unction--yet it shall be perfectly plain toall his parishioners who are worth considering that he is acting as amouthpiece and that his words are spoken dramatically. As for theunimaginative, they are as children; they cannot and should not betaken into account. Men must live as they must write or act--for acertain average standard which each must guess at for himself as besthe can; those who are above this standard he cannot reach; those, again, who are below it must be so at their own risk. 

Pilate did well when he would not stay for an answer to his question, What is truth? for there is no such thing apart from the sayer andthe sayee. ** There is that irony in nature which brings it to passthat if the sayer be a man with any stuff in him, provided he tellsno lies wittingly to himself and is never unkindly, he may lie andlie and lie all the day long, and he will no more be false to any manthan the sun will shine by night; his lies will become truths as theypass into the hearer's soul. But if a man deceives himself and isunkind, the truth is not in him, it turns to falsehood while yet inhis mouth, like the quails in the wilderness of Sinai. How this isso or why, I know not, but that the Lord hath mercy on whom He willhave mercy and whom He willeth He hardeneth, and that the bad man cando no right and the good no wrong. **

A great French writer has said that the mainspring of our existencedoes not lie in those veins and nerves and arteries which have beendescribed with so much care--these are but its masks and mouthpiecesthrough which it acts but behind which it is for ever hidden; so inlike manner the faiths and formulae of a Church may be as its bonesand animal mechanism, but they are not the life of the Church, whichis something rather that cannot be holden in words, and one shouldknow how to put them off, yet put them off gracefully, if they wishto come too prominently forward. Do not let "An Earnest Clergyman"take things too much au serieux. He seems to be contented where heis; let him take the word of one who is old enough to be his father, that if he has a talent for conscientious scruples he will findplenty of scope for them in other professions as well as in theChurch. I, for aught he knows, may be a doctor and I might tell myown story; or I may be a barrister and have found it my duty to win acase which I thought a very poor one, whereby others, whosecircumstances were sufficiently pitiable, lost their all; yet doctorsand barristers do not write to the newspapers to air their poorconsciences in broad daylight. Why should An Earnest (I hate theword) Clergyman do so? Let me give him a last word or two offatherly advice. 

Men may settle small things for themselves--as what they will havefor dinner or where they will spend the vacation--but the great ones--such as the choice of a profession, of the part of England they willlive in, whether they will marry or no--they had better leave theforce of circumstances to settle for them; if they prefer thephraseology, as I do myself, let them leave these matters to God. When He has arranged things for them, do not let them be in too greata hurry to upset His arrangement in a tiff. If they do not liketheir present and another opening suggests itself easily andnaturally, let them take that as a sign that they make a change;otherwise, let them see to it that they do not leave the frying-panfor the fire. A man, finding himself in the field of a profession, should do as cows do when they are put into a field of grass. Theydo not like any field; they like the open prairie of their ancestors. They walk, however, all round their new abode, surveying the hedgesand gates with much interest. If there is a gap in any hedge theywill commonly go through it at once, otherwise they will resignthemselves contentedly enough to the task of feeding. 

I am, Sir, One who thinks he knows a thing or two about

ETHICS. 

XX--FIRST PRINCIPLES

The Baselessness of Our Ideas

That our ideas are baseless, or rotten at the roots, is what few whostudy them will deny; but they are rotten in the same way as propertyis robbery, and property is robbery in the same way as our ideas arerotten at the roots, that is to say it is a robbery and it is not. No title to property, no idea and no living form (which is theembodiment of idea) is indefeasible if search be made far enough. Granted that our thoughts are baseless, yet they are so in the sameway as the earth itself is both baseless and most firmly based, oragain most stable and yet most in motion. 

Our ideas, or rather, I should say, our realities, are all of themlike our Gods, based on superstitious foundations. If man is amicrocosm then kosmos is a megalanthrope and that is how we come toanthropomorphise the deity. In the eternal pendulum swing of thoughtwe make God in our own image, and then make him make us, and thenfind it out and cry because we have no God and so on, over and overagain as a child has new toys given to it, tires of them, breaks themand is disconsolate till it gets new ones which it will again tire ofand break. If the man who first made God in his own image had been agood model, all might have been well; but he was impressed with anundue sense of his own importance and, as a natural consequence, hehad no sense of humour. Both these imperfections he has fully andfaithfully reproduced in his work and with the result we arefamiliar. All our most solid and tangible realities are but as liesthat we have told too often henceforth to question them. But we haveto question them sometimes. It is not the sun that goes round theworld but we who go round the sun. 

If any one is for examining and making requisitions on title we cansearch too, and can require the title of the state as against anyother state, or against the world at large. But suppose we succeedin this, we must search further still and show by what title mankindhas ousted the lower animals, and by what title we eat them, or theythemselves eat grass or one another. 

See what quicksands we fall into if we wade out too far from theterra firma of common consent! The error springs from supposing thatthere is any absolute right or absolute truth, and also fromsupposing that truth and right are any the less real for being notabsolute but relative. In the complex of human affairs we should aimnot at a supposed absolute standard but at the greatest coming-together-ness or convenience of all our ideas and practices; that isto say, at their most harmonious working with one another. Hitourselves somewhere we are bound to do: no idea will travel farwithout colliding with some other idea. Thus, if we pursue one lineof probable convenience, we find it convenient to see all things asultimately one: that is, if we insist rather on the points ofagreement between things than on those of disagreement. If we insiston the opposite view, namely, on the points of disagreement, we findourselves driven to the conclusion that each atom is an individualentity, and that the unity between even the most united things isapparent only. If we did not unduly insist upon--that is to say, emphasise and exaggerate--the part which concerns us for the time, weshould never get to understand anything; the proper way is toexaggerate first one view and then the other, and then let the twoexaggerations collide, but good-temperedly and according to the lawsof civilised mental warfare. So we see first all things as one, thenall things as many and, in the end, a multitude in unity and a unityin multitude. Care must be taken not to accept ideas which thoughvery agreeable at first disagree with us afterwards, and keep risingon our mental stomachs, as garlic does upon our bodily. 

Imagination

i

Imagination depends mainly upon memory, but there is a smallpercentage of creation of something out of nothing with it. We caninvent a trifle more than can be got at by mere combination ofremembered things. 

ii

When we are impressed by a few only, or perhaps only one of a numberof ideas which are bonded pleasantly together, there is hope; when wesee a good many there is expectation; when we have had so manypresented to us that we have expected confidently and the remainingideas have not turned up, there is disappointment. So the sailorsays in the play:

"Here are my arms, here is my manly bosom, but where's my Mary?"

iii

What tricks imagination plays! Thus, if we expect a person in thestreet we transform a dozen impossible people into him while they arestill too far off to be seen distinctly; and when we expect to hear afootstep on the stairs--as, we will say, the postman's--we hearfootsteps in every sound. Imagination will make us see a billiardhall as likely to travel farther than it will travel, if we hope thatit will do so. It will make us think we feel a train begin to moveas soon as the guard has said "All right, " though the train has notyet begun to move if another train alongside begins to move exactlyat this juncture, there is no man who will not be deceived. And weomit as much as we insert. We often do not notice that a man hasgrown a beard. 

iv

I read once of a man who was cured of a dangerous illness by eatinghis doctor's prescription which he understood was the medicineitself. So William Sefton Moorhouse [in New Zealand] imagined he wasbeing converted to Christianity by reading Burton's Anatomy ofMelancholy, which he had got by mistake for Butler's Analogy, on therecommendation of a friend. But it puzzled him a good deal. 

v

At Ivy Hatch, while we were getting our beer in the inner parlour, there was a confused melee of voices in the bar, amid which Idistinguished a voice saying:

"Imagination will do any bloody thing almost. "

I was writing Life and Habit at the time and was much tempted to putthis passage in. Nothing truer has ever been said about imagination. Then the voice was heard addressing the barman and saying:

"I suppose you wouldn't trust me with a quart of beer, would you?"

Inexperience

Kant says that all our knowledge is founded on experience. But eachnew small increment of knowledge is not so founded, and our wholeknowledge is made up of the accumulation of these small newincrements not one of which is founded upon experience. Ourknowledge, then, is founded not on experience but on inexperience;for where there is no novelty, that is to say no inexperience, thereis no increment in experience. Our knowledge is really founded uponsomething which we do not know, but it is converted into experienceby memory. 

It is like species--we do not know the cause of the variations whoseaccumulation results in species and any explanation which leaves thisout of sight ignores the whole difficulty. We want to know the causeof the effect that inexperience produces on us. 

Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit

We say that everything has a beginning. This is one side of thematter. There is another according to which everything is without abeginning--beginnings, and endings also, being, but as it were, stepscut in a slope of ice without which we could not climb it. They arefor convenience and the hardness of the hearts of men who make anidol of classification, but they do not exist apart from our sense ofour own convenience. 

It was a favourite saying with William Sefton Moorhouse [in NewZealand] that men cannot get rich by swopping knives. Neverthelessnature does seem to go upon this principle. Everybody does eateverybody up. Man eats birds, birds eat worms and worms eat managain. It is a vicious circle, yet, somehow or other, there is anincrement. I begin to doubt the principle ex nihilo nihil fit. 

We very much want a way of getting something out of nothing and backinto it again. Whether or no we ever shall get such a way, we seethe clearly perceptible arising out of and returning into theabsolutely imperceptible and, so far as we are concerned, this ismuch the same thing. To assume an unknowable substratum as thesource from which all things proceed or are evolved is equivalent toassuming that they come up out of nothing; for that which does notexist for us is for us nothing; that which we do not know does notexist qua us, and therefore it does not exist. When I say "we, " Imean mankind generally, for things may exist qua one man and not quaanother. And when I say "nothing" I postulate something of which wehave no experience. 

And yet we cannot say that a thing does not exist till it is known toexist. The planet Neptune existed though, qua us, it did not existbefore Adams and Leverrier discovered it, and we cannot hold that itscontinued non-existence to my laundress and her husband makes it anythe less an entity. We cannot say that it did not exist at all tillit was discovered, that it exists only partially and vaguely to mostof us, that to many it still does not exist at all, that there arefew to whom it even exists in any force or fullness and none who canrealise more than the broad facts of its existence. Neptune has beendisturbing the orbits of the planets nearest to him for morecenturies than we can reckon, and whether or not he is known to havebeen doing so has nothing to do with the matter. If A is robbed, heis robbed, whether he knows it or not. 

In one sense, then, we cannot say that the planet Neptune did notexist till he was discovered, but in another we can and ought to doso. De non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio; aslong, therefore, as Neptune did not appear he did not exist qua us. The only way out of it is through the contradiction in terms ofmaintaining that a thing exists and does not exist at one and thesame time. So A may be both robbed, and not robbed. 

We consider, therefore, that things have assumed their present shapeby course of evolution from a something which, qua us, is a nothing, from a potential something but not an actual, from an actual nothingbut a potential not-nothing, from a nothing which might become asomething to us with any modification on our parts but which, tillsuch modification has arisen, does not exist in relation to us, though very conceivably doing so in relation to other entities. Butthis Protean nothing, capable of appearing as something, is not theabsolute, eternal, unchangeable nothing that we mean when we say exnihilo nihil fit. 

The alternative is that something should not have come out ofnothing, and this is saying that something has always existed. Butthe eternal increateness of matter seems as troublesome to conceiveas its having been created out of nothing. I say "seems, " for I amnot sure how far it really is so. We never saw something come out ofnothing, that is to say, we never saw a beginning of anything exceptas the beginning of a new phase of something pre-existent. We oughttherefore to find the notion of eternal being familiar, it ought tobe the only conception of matter which we are able to form:nevertheless, we are so carried away by being accustomed to seephases have their beginnings and endings that we forget that thematter, of which we see the phase begin and end, did not begin or endwith the phase. 

Eternal matter permeated by eternal mind, matter and mind beingfunctions of one another, is the least uncomfortable way of lookingat the universe; but as it is beyond our comprehension, and cannottherefore be comfortable, sensible persons will not look at theuniverse at all except in such details as may concern them. 

Contradiction in Terms

We pay higher and higher in proportion to the service rendered tillwe get to the highest services, such as becoming a Member ofParliament, and this must not be paid at all. If a man would go yethigher and found a new and permanent system, or create some new ideaor work of art which remains to give delight to ages--he must notonly not be paid, but he will have to pay very heavily out of his ownpocket into the bargain. 

Again, we are to get all men to speak well of us if we can; yet weare to be cursed if all men speak well of us. 

So when the universe has gathered itself into a single ball (which Idon't for a moment believe it ever will, but I don't care) it will nosooner have done so, than the bubble will burst and it will go backto its gases again. 

Contradiction in terms is so omnipresent that we treat it as we treatdeath, or free-will, or fate, or air, or God, or the Devil--takingthese things so much as matters of course that, though they arevisible enough if we choose to see them, we neglect them normallyaltogether, without for a moment intending to deny their existence. This neglect is convenient as preventing repetitions the monotony ofwhich would defeat their own purpose, but people are temptednevertheless to forget the underlying omnipresence in the superficialomniabsence. They forget that its opposite lurks in everything--thatthere are harmonics of God in the Devil and harmonics of the Devil inGod. 

Contradiction in terms is not only to be excused but there can be noproposition which does not more or less involve one. 

It is the fact of there being contradictions in terms, which have tobe smoothed away and fused into harmonious acquiescence with theirsurroundings, that makes life and consciousness possible at all. Unless the unexpected were sprung upon us continually to enliven uswe should pass life, as it were, in sleep. To a living being no "Itis" can be absolute; wherever there is an "Is, " there, among itsharmonics, lurks an "Is not. " When there is absolute absence of "Isnot" the "Is" goes too. And the "Is not" does not go completely tillthe "Is" is gone along with it. Every proposition has got a skeletonin its cupboard. 

Extremes

i

Intuition and evidence seem to have something of the same relationthat faith and reason, luck and cunning, freewill and necessity anddemand and supply have. They grow up hand in hand and no man can saywhich comes first. It is the same with life and death, which lurkone within the other as do rest and unrest, change and persistence, heat and cold, poverty and riches, harmony and counterpoint, nightand day, summer and winter. 

And so with pantheism and atheism; loving everybody is loving nobody, and God everywhere is, practically, God nowhere. I once asked a manif he was a free-thinker; he replied that he did not think he was. And so, I have heard of a man exclaiming "I am an atheist, thankGod!" Those who say there is a God are wrong unless they mean at thesame time that there is no God, and vice versa. The difference isthe same as that between plus nothing and minus nothing, and it ishard to say which we ought to admire and thank most--the first theistor the first atheist. Nevertheless, for many reasons, the plusnothing is to be preferred. 

ii

To be poor is to be contemptible, to be very poor is worse still, andso on; but to be actually at the point of death through poverty is tobe sublime. So "when weakness is utter, honour ceaseth. " [TheRighteous Man, p. 390, post. ]

iii

The meeting of extremes is never clearer than in the case of moraland intellectual strength and weakness. We may say with Hesiod "Howmuch the half is greater than the whole!" or with S. Paul "Mystrength is made perfect in weakness"; they come to much the samething. We all know strength so strong as to be weaker than weaknessand weakness so great as to be stronger than strength. 

iv

The Queen travels as the Countess of Balmoral and would probably bevery glad, if she could, to travel as plain Mrs. Smith. There is agood deal of the Queen lurking in every Mrs. Smith and, conversely, agood deal of Mrs. Smith lurking in every queen. 

Free-Will and Necessity

As I am tidying up, and the following beginning of a paper on theabove subject has been littering about my table since December 1889, which is the date on the top of page i, I will shoot it on to thisdust-heap and bury it out of my sight. It runs:

The difficulty has arisen from our forgetting that contradiction interms lies at the foundation of all our thoughts as a condition andsine qua non of our being able to think at all. We imagine that wemust either have all free-will and no necessity, or all necessity andno free-will, and, it being obvious that our free-will is oftenoverridden by force of circumstances while the evidence thatnecessity is overridden by free-will is harder to find (if indeed itcan be found, for I have not fully considered the matter), mostpeople who theorise upon this question will deny in theory that thereis any free-will at all, though in practice they take care to act asif there was. For if we admit that like causes are followed by likeeffects (and everything that we do is based upon this hypothesis), itfollows that every combination of causes must have some oneconsequent which can alone follow it and which free-will cannottouch. 

(Yes, but it will generally be found that free-will entered into theoriginal combination and the repetition of the combination will notbe exact unless a like free-will is repeated along with all the otherfactors. )

From which it follows that free-will is apparent only, and that, as Isaid years ago in Erewhon, we are not free to choose what seems beston each occasion but bound to do so, being fettered to the freedom ofour wills throughout our lives. 

But to deny free-will is to deny moral responsibility, and we arelanded in absurdity at once--for there is nothing more patent thanthat moral responsibility exists. Nevertheless, at first sight, itwould seem as though we ought not to hang a man for murder if therewas no escape for him but that he must commit one. Of course theanswer to one who makes this objection is that our hanging him is asmuch a matter of necessity as his committing the murder. 

If, again, necessity, as involved in the certainty that likecombinations will be followed by like consequence, is a basis onwhich all our actions are founded, so also is freewill. This isquite as much a sine qua non for action as necessity is; for whowould try to act if he did not think that his trying would influencethe result?

We have therefore two apparently incompatible and mutuallydestructive faiths, each equally and self-evidently demonstrable, each equally necessary for salvation of any kind, and each equallyentering into every thought and action of our whole lives, yetutterly contradictory and irreconcilable. 

Can any dilemma seem more hopeless? It is not a case of being ableto live happily with either were t'other dear charmer away; it isindispensable that we should embrace both, and embrace them withequal cordiality at the same time, though each annihilates the other. It is as though it were indispensable to our existence to be equallydead and equally alive at one and the same moment. 

Here we have an illustration which may help us. For, after all, weare both dead and alive at one and the same moment. There is no lifewithout a taint of death and no death that is not instinct with aresiduum of past life and with germs of the new that is to succeedit. Let those who deny this show us an example of pure life and puredeath. Any one who has considered these matters will know this to beimpossible. And yet in spite of this, the cases where we are indoubt whether a thing is to be more fitly called dead or alive are sofew that they may be disregarded. 

I take it, then, that as, though alive, we are in part dead and, though dead, in part alive, so, though bound by necessity, we are inpart free, and, though free, yet in part bound by necessity. Atleast I can think of no case of such absolute necessity in humanaffairs as that free-will should have no part in it, nor of suchabsolute free-will that no part of the action should be limited andcontrolled by necessity. 

Thus, when a man walks to the gallows, he is under large necessity, yet he retains much small freedom; when pinioned, he is less free, but he can open his eyes and mouth and pray aloud or no as hepleases; even when the drop has fallen, so long as he is "he" at all, he can exercise some, though infinitely small, choice. 

It may be answered that throughout the foregoing chain of actions, the freedom, what little there is of it, is apparent only, and thateven in the small freedoms, which are not so obviously controlled bynecessity, the necessity is still present as effectually as when theman, though apparently free to walk to the gallows, is in realitybound to do so. For in respect of the small details of his manner ofwalking to the gallows, which compulsion does not so glaringly reach, what is it that the man is free to do? He is free to do as he likes, but he is not free to do as he does not like; and a man's likings aredetermined by outside things and by antecedents, pre-natal and post-natal, whose effect is so powerful that the individual who makes thechoice proves to be only the resultant of certain forces which havebeen brought to bear upon him but which are not the man. So that itseems there is no detail, no nook or corner of action, into whichnecessity does not penetrate. 

This seems logical, but it is as logical to follow instinct andcommon sense as to follow logic, and both instinct and common senseassure us that there is no nook or corner of action into which free-will does not penetrate, unless it be those into which mind does notenter at all, as when a man is struck by lightning or is overwhelmedsuddenly by an avalanche. 

Besides, those who maintain that action is bound to follow choice, while choice can only follow opinion as to advantage, neglect thevery considerable number of cases in which opinion as to advantagedoes not exist--when, for instance, a man feels, as we all of ussometimes do, that he is utterly incapable of forming any opinionwhatever as to his most advantageous course. 

But this again is fallacious. For suppose he decides to toss up andbe guided by the result, this is still what he has chosen to do, andhis action, therefore, is following his choice. Or suppose, again, that he remains passive and does nothing--his passivity is hischoice. 

I can see no way out of it unless either frankly to admit thatcontradiction in terms is the bedrock on which all our thoughts anddeeds are founded, and to acquiesce cheerfully in the fact thatwhenever we try to go below the surface of any enquiry we findourselves utterly baffled--or to redefine freedom and necessity, admitting each as a potent factor of the other. And this I do notsee my way to doing. I am therefore necessitated to choose freelythe admission that our understanding can burrow but a very small wayinto the foundations of our beliefs, and can only weaken rather thanstrengthen them by burrowing at all. 

Free-Will otherwise Cunning

The element of free-will, cunning, spontaneity, individuality--soomnipresent, so essential, yet so unreasonable, and so inconsistentwith the other element not less omnipresent and not less essential, Imean necessity, luck, fate--this element of free-will, which comesfrom the unseen kingdom within which the writs of our thoughts runnot, must be carried down to the most tenuous atoms whose action issupposed most purely chemical and mechanical; it can never be held asabsolutely eliminated, for if it be so held, there is no getting itback again, and that it exists, even in the lowest forms of life, cannot be disputed. Its existence is one of the proofs of theexistence of an unseen world, and a means whereby we know the littlethat we do know of that world. 

Necessity otherwise Luck

It is all very well to insist upon the free-will or cunning side ofliving action, more especially now when it has been so persistentlyignored, but though the fortunes of birth and surroundings have allbeen built up by cunning, yet it is by ancestral, vicarious cunning, and this, to each individual, comes to much the same as luck pure andsimple; in fact, luck is seldom seriously intended to mean a totaldenial of cunning, but is for the most part only an expressionwhereby we summarise and express our sense of a cunning too complexand impalpable for conscious following and apprehension. 

When we consider how little we have to do with our parentage, countryand education, or even with our genus and species, how vitally thesethings affect us both in life and death, and how, practically, thecunning in connection with them is so spent as to be no cunning atall, it is plain that the drifts, currents, and storms of what isvirtually luck will be often more than the little helm of cunning cancontrol. And so with death. Nothing can affect us less, but at thesame time nothing can affect us more; and how little can cunning doagainst it? At the best it can only defer it. Cunning is nine-tenths luck, and luck is nine-tenths cunning; but the fact that nine-tenths of cunning is luck leaves still a tenth part unaccounted for. 

Choice

Our choice is apparently most free, and we are least obviously drivento determine our course, in those cases where the future is mostobscure, that is, when the balance of advantage appears mostdoubtful. 

Where we have an opinion that assures us promptly which way thebalance of advantage will incline--whether it be an instinctive, hereditarily acquired opinion or one rapidly and decisively formed asthe result of post-natal experience--then our action is determined atonce by that opinion, and freedom of choice practically vanishes. 

Ego and Non-Ego

You can have all ego, or all non-ego, but in theory you cannot havehalf one and half the other--yet in practice this is exactly what youmust have, for everything is both itself and not itself at one andthe same time. 

A living thing is itself in so far as it has wants and gratifiesthem. It is not itself in so far as it uses itself as a tool for thegratifying of its wants. Thus an amoeba is aware of a piece of meatwhich it wants to eat. It has nothing except its own body to flingat the meat and catch it with. If it had a little hand-net, or evensuch an organ as our own hand, it would use it, but it has only gotitself; so it takes itself by the scruff of its own neck, as it were, and flings itself at the piece of meat, as though it were not itselfbut something which it is using in order to gratify itself. So wemake our own bodies into carriages every time we walk. Our body isour tool-box--and our bodily organs are the simplest tools we cancatch hold of. 

When the amoeba has got the piece of meat and has done digesting it, it leaves off being not itself and becomes itself again. A thing isonly itself when it is doing nothing; as long as it is doingsomething it is its own tool and not itself. 

Or you may have it that everything is itself in respect of thepleasure or pain it is feeling, but not itself in respect of theusing of itself by itself as a tool with which to work its will. Orperhaps we should say that the ego remains always ego in part; itdoes not become all non-ego at one and the same time. We throw ourfist into a man's face as though it were a stick we had picked up tobeat him with. For the moment, our fist is hardly "us, " but itbecomes "us" again as we feel the resistance it encounters from theman's eye. Anyway, we can only chuck about a part of ourselves at atime, we cannot chuck the lot--and yet I do not know this, for we mayjump off the ground and fling ourselves on to a man. 

The fact that both elements are present and are of such nearly equalvalue explains the obstinacy of the conflict between the upholders ofNecessity and Free-Will which, indeed, are only luck and cunningunder other names. 

For, on the one hand, the surroundings so obviously and powerfullymould us, body and soul, and even the little modifying power which atfirst we seem to have is found, on examination, to spring socompletely from surroundings formerly beyond the control of ourancestors, that a logical thinker, who starts with these premises, issoon driven to the total denial of free-will, except, of course, asan illusion; in other words, he perceives the connection between egoand non-ego, tries to disunite them so as to know when he is talkingabout what, and finds to his surprise that he cannot do so withoutviolence to one or both. Being, above all things, a logical thinker, and abhorring the contradiction in terms involved in admittinganything to be both itself and something other than itself at one andthe same time, he makes the manner in which the one is rooted intothe other a pretext for merging the ego, as the less bulky of thetwo, in the non-ego; hence practically he declares the ego to have nofurther existence, except as a mere appendage and adjunct of the non-ego the existence of which he alone recognises (though how he canrecognise it without recognising also that he is recognising it assomething foreign to himself it is not easy to see). As for theaction and interaction that goes on in the non-ego, he refers it tofate, fortune, chance, luck, necessity, immutable law, providence(meaning generally improvidence) or to whatever kindred term he hasmost fancy for. In other words, he is so much impressed with theconnection between luck and cunning, and so anxious to avoidcontradiction in terms, that he tries to abolish cunning, and dwells, as Mr. Darwin did, almost exclusively upon the luck side of thematter. 

Others, on the other hand, find the ego no less striking than theiropponents find the non-ego. Every hour they mould things soconsiderably to their pleasure that, even though they may forargument's sake admit free-will to be an illusion, they say withreason that no reality can be more real than an illusion which is sostrong, so persistent and so universal; this contention, indeed, cannot be disputed except at the cost of invalidating the reality ofall even our most assured convictions. They admit that there is anapparent connection between their ego and non-ego, their necessityand free-will, their luck and cunning; they grant that the differenceis resolvable into a difference of degree and not of kind; but, onthe other hand, they say that in each degree there still lurks alittle kind, and that a difference of many degrees makes a differenceof kind--there being, in fact, no difference between differences ofdegree and those of kind, except that the second are an accumulationof the first. The all-powerfulness of the surroundings is declaredby them to be as completely an illusion, if examined closely, as thepower of the individual was declared to be by their opponents, inasmuch as the antecedents of the non-ego, when examined by them, prove to be not less due to the personal individual elementeverywhere recognisable, than the ego, when examined by theiropponents, proved to be mergeable in the universal. They claim, therefore, to be able to resolve everything into spontaneity andfree-will with no less logical consistency than that with whichfreewill can be resolved into an outcome of necessity. 

Two Incomprehensibles

You may assume life of some kind omnipresent for ever throughoutmatter. This is one way. Another way is to assume an act ofspontaneous generation, i. E. A transition somewhere and somewhen fromabsolutely non-living to absolutely living. You cannot have it bothways. But it seems to me that you must have it both ways. You mustnot begin with life (or potential life) everywhere alone, nor mustyou begin with a single spontaneous generation alone, but you mustcarry your spontaneous generation (or denial of the continuity oflife) down, ad infinitum, just as you must carry your continuity oflife (or denial of spontaneous generation) down ad infinitum and, compatible or incompatible, you must write a scientific AthanasianCreed to comprehend these two incomprehensibles. 

If, then, it is only an escape from one incomprehensible position toanother, cui bono to make a change? Why not stay quietly in theAthanasian Creed as we are? And, after all, the Athanasian Creed islight and comprehensible reading in comparison with much that nowpasses for science. 

I can give no answer to this as regards the unintelligible clauses, for what we come to in the end is just as abhorrent to andinconceivable by reason as what they offer us; but as regards whatmay be called the intelligible parts--that Christ was born of aVirgin, died, rose from the dead--we say that, if it were not for theprestige that belief in these alleged facts has obtained, we shouldrefuse attention to them. Out of respect, however, for the mass ofopinion that accepts them we have looked into the matter with care, and we have found the evidence break down. The same reasoning andcanons of criticism which convince me that Christ was crucifiedconvince me at the same time that he was insufficiently crucified. Ican only accept his death and resurrection at the cost of rejectingeverything that I have been taught to hold most strongly. I can onlyaccept the so-called testimony in support of these alleged facts atthe cost of rejecting, or at any rate invalidating, all the testimonyon which I have based all comfortable assurance of any kindwhatsoever. 

God and the Unknown

God is the unknown, and hence the nothing qua us. He is also theensemble of all we know, and hence the everything qua us. So thatthe most absolute nothing and the most absolute everything areextremes that meet (like all other extremes) in God. 

Men think they mean by God something like what Raffaelle and MichaelAngelo have painted; unless this were so Raffaelle and Michael Angelowould not have painted as they did. But to get at our truer thoughtswe should look at our less conscious and deliberate utterances. Fromthese it has been gathered that God is our expression for all forcesand powers which we do not understand, or with which we areunfamiliar, and for the highest ideal of wisdom, goodness and powerwhich we can conceive, but for nothing else. 

Thus God makes the grass grow because we do not understand how theair and earth and water near a piece of grass are seized by the grassand converted into more grass; but God does not mow the grass andmake hay of it. It is Paul and Apollos who plant and water, but Godwho giveth the increase. We never say that God does anything whichwe can do ourselves, or ask him for anything which we know how to getin any other way. As soon as we understand a thing we remove it fromthe sphere of God's action. 

As long as there is an unknown there will be a God for all practicalpurposes; the name of God has never yet been given to a known thingexcept by way of flattery, as to Roman Emperors, or through theattempt to symbolise the unknown generally, as in fetish worship, andthen the priests had to tell the people that there was something moreabout the fetish than they knew of, or they would soon have ceased tothink of it as God. 

To understand a thing is to feel as though we could stand under oralongside of it in all its parts and form a picture of it in ourminds throughout. We understand how a violin is made if our mindscan follow the manufacture in all its detail and picture it toourselves. If we feel that we can identify ourselves with the steamand machinery of a steam engine, so as to travel in imagination withthe steam through all the pipes and valves, if we can see themovement of each part of the piston, connecting rod, &c. , so as to bementally one with both the steam and the mechanism throughout theirwhole action and construction, then we say we understand the steamengine, and the idea of God never crosses our minds in connectionwith it. 

When we feel that we can neither do a thing ourselves, nor even learnto do it by reason of its intricacy and difficulty, and that no oneelse ever can or will, and yet we see the thing none the less donedaily and hourly all round us, then we are not content to say we donot understand how the thing is done, we go further and ascribe theaction to God. As soon as there is felt to be an unknown andapparently unknowable element, then, but not till then, does the ideaGod present itself to us. So at coroners' inquests juries never saythe deceased died by the visitation of God if they know any of themore proximate causes. 

It is not God, therefore, who sows the corn--we could sow cornourselves, we can see the man with a bag in his hand walking overploughed fields and sowing the corn broadcast--but it is God who madethe man who goes about with the bag, and who makes the corn sprout, for we do not follow the processes that take place here. 

As long as we knew nothing about what caused this or that weather weused to ascribe it to God's direct action and pray him to change itaccording to our wants: now that we know more about the weatherthere is a growing disinclination among clergymen to pray for rain ordry weather, while laymen look to nothing but the barometer. Sopeople do not say God has shown them this or that when they have justseen it in the newspapers; they would only say that God had shown itthem if it had come into their heads suddenly and after they hadtried long and vainly to get at this particular point. 

To lament that we cannot be more conscious of God and understand himbetter is much like lamenting that we are not more conscious of ourcirculation and digestion. Provided we live according to familiarlaws of health, the less we think about circulation and digestion thebetter; and so with the ordinary rules of good conduct, the less wethink about God the better. 

To know God better is only to realise more fully how impossible it isthat we should ever know him at all. I cannot tell which is the morechildish--to deny him, or to attempt to define him. 

Scylla and Charybdis

They are everywhere. Just now coming up Great Russell Street Iloitered outside a print shop. There they were as usual--Hogarth'sIdle and Virtuous Apprentices. The idle apprentice is certainlyScylla, but is not the virtuous apprentice just as much Charybdis?Is he so greatly preferable? Is not the right thing somewherebetween the two? And does not the art of good living consist mainlyin a fine perception of when to edge towards the idle and whentowards the virtuous apprentice?

When John Bunyan (or Richard Baxter, or whoever it was) said "Therewent John Bunyan, but for the grace of God" (or whatever he did say), had he a right to be so cock-sure that the criminal on whom he waslooking was not saying much the same thing as he looked upon JohnBunyan? Does any one who knows me doubt that if I were offered mychoice between a bishopric and a halter, I should choose the halter?I believe half the bishops would choose the halter themselves if theyhad to do it over again. 

Philosophy

As a general rule philosophy is like stirring mud or not letting asleeping dog lie. It is an attempt to deny, circumvent or otherwiseescape from the consequences of the interlacing of the roots ofthings with one another. It professes to appease our ultimate "Why?"though in truth it is generally the solution of a simplex ignotum bya complex ignotius. This, at least, is my experience of everythingthat has been presented to me as philosophy. I have often had my"Why" answered with so much mystifying matter that I have left offpressing it through fatigue. But this is not having my ultimate"Why?" appeased. It is being knocked out of time. 

Philosophy and Equal Temperament

It is with philosophy as with just intonation on a piano, if you geteverything quite straight and on all fours in one department, inperfect tune, it is delightful so long as you keep well in the middleof the key; but as soon as you modulate you find the new key is outof tune and the more remotely you modulate the more out of tune youget. The only way is to distribute your error by equal temperamentand leave common sense to make the correction in philosophy which theear does instantaneously and involuntarily in music. 

Hedging the Cuckoo

People will still keep trying to find some formula that shall hedge-in the cuckoo of mental phenomena to their satisfaction. Half thebooks--nay, all of them that deal with thought and its ways in theacademic spirit--are but so many of these hedges in various stages ofdecay. 

God and Philosophies

All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense; but some aregreater nonsense than others. It is perhaps because God does not setmuch store by or wish to encourage them that he has attached suchvery slender rewards to them. 

Common Sense, Reason and Faith

Reason is not the ultimate test of truth nor is it the court of firstinstance. 

For example: A man questions his own existence; he applies first tothe court of mother-wit and is promptly told that he exists; heappeals next to reason and, after some wrangling, is told that thematter is very doubtful; he proceeds to the equity of that reasonablefaith which inspires and transcends reason, and the judgment of thecourt of first instance is upheld while that of reason is reversed. 

Nevertheless it is folly to appeal from reason to faith unless one ispretty sure of a verdict and, in most cases about which we disputeseriously, reason is as far as we need go. 

The Credit System

The whole world is carried on on the credit system; if every one wereto demand payment in hard cash, there would be universal bankruptcy. We think as we do mainly because other people think so. But if everyone stands on every one else, what does the bottom man stand on?Faith is no foundation, for it rests in the end on reason. Reason isno foundation, for it rests upon faith. 

Argument

We are not won by argument, which is like reading and writing anddisappears when there is need of such vanity, or like colour thatvanishes with too much light or shade, or like sound that becomessilence in the extremes. Argument is useless when there is either noconviction at all or a very strong conviction. It is a means ofconviction and as such belongs to the means of conviction, not to theextremes. We are not won by arguments that we can analyse, but bytone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself. 

Logic and Philosophy

When you have got all the rules and all the lore of philosophy andlogic well into your head, and have spent years in getting tounderstand at any rate what they mean and have them at command, youwill know less for practical purposes than one who has never studiedlogic or philosophy. 

Science

If it tends to thicken the crust of ice on which, as it were, we areskating, it is all right. If it tries to find, or professes to havefound, the solid ground at the bottom of the water, it is all wrong. Our business is with the thickening of this crust by extending ourknowledge downward from above, as ice gets thicker while the frostlasts; we should not try to freeze upwards from the bottom. 

Religion

A religion only means something so certainly posed that nothing canever displace it. It is an attempt to settle first principles soauthoritatively that no one need so much as even think of ever re-opening them for himself or feel any, even the faintest, misgivingupon the matter. It is an attempt to get an irrefragably safeinvestment, and this cannot be got, no matter how low the interest, which in the case of religion is about as low as it can be. 

Any religion that cannot be founded on half a sheet of note-paperwill be bottom-heavy, and this, in a matter so essentially ofsentiment as religion, is as bad as being top-heavy in a materialconstruction. It must of course catch on to reason, but the less itemphasises the fact the better. 

Logic

Logic has no place save with that which can be defined in words. Ithas nothing to do, therefore, with those deeper questions that havegot beyond words and consciousness. To apply logic here is asfatuous as to disregard it in cases where it is applicable. Thedifficulty lies, as it always does, on the border lines between therespective spheres of influence. 

Logic and Faith

Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it. Faith is appealing to the living God, and one may perish by that too, but somehow one would rather perish that way than the other, and onehas got to perish sooner or later. 

Common Sense and Philosophy

The voices of common sense and of high philosophy sometimes cross;but common sense is the unalterable canto fermo and philosophy is thevariable counterpoint. 

First Principles

It is said we can build no superstructure without a foundation ofunshakable principles. There are no such principles. Or, if therebe any, they are beyond our reach--we cannot fathom them; therefore, qua us, they have no existence, for there is no other "is not" thaninconceivableness by ourselves. There is one thing certain, namely, that we can have nothing certain; therefore it is not certain that wecan have nothing certain. We are as men who will insist on lookingover the brink of a precipice; some few can gaze into the abyss belowwithout losing their heads, but most men will grow dizzy and fall. The only thing to do is to glance at the chaos on which our thoughtsare founded, recognise that it is a chaos and that, in the nature ofthings, no theoretically firm ground is even conceivable, and then toturn aside with the disgust, fear and horror of one who has beenlooking into his own entrails. 

Even Euclid cannot lay a demonstrable premise, he requires postulatesand axioms which transcend demonstration and without which he can donothing. His superstructure is demonstration, his ground is faith. And so his ultima ratio is to tell a man that he is a fool by saying"Which is absurd. " If his opponent chooses to hold out in spite ofthis, Euclid can do no more. Faith and authority are as necessaryfor him as for any one else. True, he does not want us to believevery much; his yoke is tolerably easy, and he will not call a man afool until he will have public opinion generally on his side; butnone the less does he begin with dogmatism and end with persecution. 

There is nothing one cannot wrangle about. Sensible people willagree to a middle course founded upon a few general axioms andpropositions about which, right or wrong, they will not think itworth while to wrangle for some time, and those who reject these canbe put into mad-houses. The middle way may be as full of hiddenrocks as the other ways are of manifest ones, but it is thepleasantest while we can keep to it and the dangers, being hidden, are less alarming. 

In practice it is seldom very hard to do one's duty when one knowswhat it is, but it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to find thisout. The difficulty is, however, often reducible into that ofknowing what gives one pleasure, and this, though difficult, is asafer guide and more easily distinguished. In all cases of doubt, the promptings of a kindly disposition are more trustworthy than theconclusions of logic, and sense is better than science. 

Why I should have been at the pains to write such truisms I know not. 

XXI--REBELLIOUSNESS

God and Life

We regard these as two distinct things and say that the first madethe second, much as, till lately, we regarded memory and heredity astwo distinct things having less connection than even that supposed toexist between God and life. Now, however, that we know heredity tobe only a necessary outcome, development and manifestation of memory--so that, given such a faculty as memory, the faculty of heredityfollows as being inherent therein and bound to issue from it--in likemanner presently, instead of seeing life as a thing created by God, we shall see God and life as one thing, there being no life withoutGod nor God without life, where there is life there is God and wherethere is God there is life. 

They say that God is love, but life and love are co-extensive; forhate is but a mode of love, as life and death lurk always in oneanother; and "God is life" is not far off saying "God is love. "Again, they say, "Where there is life there is hope, " but hope is ofthe essence of God, for it is faith and hope that have underlain allevolution. 

God and Flesh

The course of true God never did run smooth. God to be of any usemust be made manifest, and he can only be made manifest in andthrough flesh. And flesh to be of any use (except for eating) mustbe alive, and it can only be alive by being inspired of God. Thetrouble lies in the getting the flesh and the God together in theright proportions. There is lots of God and lots of flesh, but theflesh has always got too much God or too little, and the God hasalways too little flesh or too much. 

Gods and Prophets

It is the manner of gods and prophets to begin: "Thou shalt havenone other God or Prophet but me. " If I were to start as a god or aprophet, I think I should take the line:

"Thou shalt not believe in me. Thou shalt not have me for a god. Thou shalt worship any damned thing thou likest except me. " Thisshould be my first and great commandment, and my second should belike unto it. {333}

Faith and Reason

The instinct towards brushing faith aside and being strictlyreasonable is strong and natural; so also is the instinct towardsbrushing logic and consistency on one side if they becometroublesome, in other words--so is the instinct towards basing actionon a faith which is beyond reason. It is because both instincts areso natural that so many accept and so many reject Catholicism. Thetwo go along for some time as very good friends and then fight;sometimes one beats and sometimes the other, but they always make itup again and jog along as before, for they have a great respect forone another. 

God and the Devil

God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faultsshould be in reasonable proportion. The faults are, indeed, on sucha scale that, when looked at without relation to the merits withwhich they are interwoven, they become so appalling that peopleshrink from ascribing them to the Deity and have invented the Devil, without seeing that there would be more excuse for God's killing theDevil, and so getting rid of evil, than there can be for his failingto be everything that he would like to be. 

For God is not so white as he is painted, and he gets on better withthe Devil than people think. The Devil is too useful for him to wishhim ill and, in like manner, half the Devil's trade would be at anend should any great mishap bring God well down in the world. Forall the mouths they make at one another they play into each other'shands and have got on so well as partners, playing Spenlow andJorkins to one another, for so many years that there seems no reasonwhy they should cease to do so. The conception of them as the oneabsolutely void of evil and the other of good is a vulgar notiontaken from science whose priests have ever sought to get every ideaand every substance pure of all alloy. 

God and the Devil are about as four to three. There is enoughpreponderance of God to make it far safer to be on his side than onthe Devil's, but the excess is not so great as his professionalclaqueurs pretend it is. It is like gambling at Monte Carlo; if youplay long enough you are sure to lose, but now and again you may wina great deal of excellent money if you will only cease playing themoment you have won it. 

Christianity

i

As an instrument of warfare against vice, or as a tool for makingvirtue, Christianity is a mere flint implement. 

ii

Christianity is a woman's religion, invented by women and womanishmen for themselves. The Church's one foundation is not Christ, as iscommonly said, it is woman; and calling the Madonna the Queen ofHeaven is only a poetical way of acknowledging that women are themain support of the priests. 

iii

It is not the church in a village that is the source of the mischief, but the rectory. I would not touch a church from one end of Englandto the other. 

iv

Christianity is only seriously pretended by some among the idle, bourgeois middle-classes. The working classes and the most culturedintelligence of the time reach by short cuts what the highways of ourschools and universities mislead us from by many a winding bout, ifthey do not prevent our ever reaching it. 

v

It is not easy to say which is the more obvious, the antecedentimprobability of the Christian scheme and miracles, or the breakdownof the evidences on which these are supposed to rest. And yetChristianity has overrun the world. 

vi

If there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything to belearned from it, if the whole story is not profitless from first tolast, it comes to this that a man should back his own opinion againstthe world's--and this is a very risky and immoral thing to do, butthe Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. 

vii

Christianity is true in so far as it has fostered beauty and false inso far as it has fostered ugliness. It is therefore not a littletrue and not a little false. 

viii

Christ said he came not to destroy but to fulfil--but he destroyedmore than he fulfilled. Every system that is to live must bothdestroy and fulfil. 

Miracles

They do more to unsettle faith in the existing order than to settleit in any other; similarly, missionaries are more valuable asunderminers of old faiths than as propagators of new. Miracles arenot impossible; nothing is impossible till we have got anincontrovertible first premise. The question is not "Are theChristian miracles possible?" but "Are they convenient? Do they fitcomfortably with our other ideas?"

Wants and Creeds

As in the organic world there is no organ, so in the world of thoughtthere is no thought, which may not be called into existence by longpersistent effort. If a man wants either to believe or disbelievethe Christian miracles he can do so if he tries hard enough; but ifhe does not care whether he believes or disbelieves and simply wantsto find out which side has the best of it, this he will find a moredifficult matter. Nevertheless he will probably be able to do thistoo if he tries. 

Faith

i

The reason why the early Christians held faith in such account wasbecause they felt it to be a feat of such superhuman difficulty. 

ii

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it. 

iii

We are all agreed that too much faith is as bad as too little, andtoo little as bad as too much; but we differ as to what is too muchand what too little. 

iv

It is because both Catholics and myself make faith, not reason, thebasis of our system that I am able to be easy in mind about notbecoming a Catholic. Not that I ever wanted to become a Catholic, but I mean I believe I can beat them with their own weapons. 

v

A man may have faith as a mountain, but he will not be able to say toa grain of mustard seed: "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into thesea"--not at least with any effect upon the mustard seed--unless hegoes the right way to work by putting the mustard seed into hispocket and taking the train to Brighton. 

vi

The just live by faith, but they not infrequently also die by it. 

The Cuckoo and the Moon

The difference between the Christian and the Mahomedan is only as thedifference between one who will turn his money when he first hearsthe cuckoo, but thinks it folly to do so on seeing the new moon, andone who will turn it religiously at the new moon, but will scout thenotion that he need do so on hearing the cuckoo. 

Buddhism

This seems to be a jumble of Christianity and Life and Habit. 

Theist and Atheist

The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God orshall have some other name. 

The Peculiar People

The only people in England who really believe in God are the PeculiarPeople. Perhaps that is why they are called peculiar. See howbelief in an anthropomorphic God divides allegiance and disturbscivil order as soon as it becomes vital. 

Renan

There is an article on him in the Times, April 30, 1883, of the worstTimes kind, and that is saying much. It appears he whines about hislost faith and professes to wish that he could believe as he believedwhen young. No sincere man will regret having attained a truer viewconcerning anything which he has ever believed. And then he talksabout the difficulties of coming to disbelieve the Christian miraclesas though it were a great intellectual feat. This is very childish. I hope no one will say I was sorry when I found out that there was noreason for believing in heaven and hell. My contempt for Renan hasno limits. (Has he an accent to his name? I despise him too much tofind out. )

The Spiritual Treadmill

The Church of England has something in her liturgy of the spiritualtreadmill. It is a very nice treadmill no doubt, but Sunday afterSunday we keep step with the same old "We have left undone that whichwe ought to have done; And we have done those things which we oughtnot to have done" without making any progress. With the Church ofRome, I understand that those whose piety is sufficiently approvedare told they may consider themselves as a finished article and that, except on some few rare festivals, they need no longer keep on goingto church and confessing. The picture is completed and may beframed, glazed and hung up. 

The Dim Religious Light

A light cannot be religious if it is not dim. Religion belongs tothe twilight of our thoughts, just as business of all kinds to theirfull daylight. So a picture which may be impressive while seen in adark light will not hold its own in a bright one. 

The Greeks and Romans did not enquire into the evidences on whichtheir belief that Minerva sprang full-armed from the brain of Jupiterwas based. If they had written books of evidences to show howcertainly it all happened, &c. --well, I suppose if they had had anendowed Church with some considerable prizes, they would have foundmeans to hoodwink the public. 

The Peace that Passeth Understanding

Yes. But as there is a peace more comfortable than anyunderstanding, so also there is an understanding more covetable thanany peace. 

The New Testament

If it is a testamentary disposition at all, it is so drawn that ithas given rise to incessant litigation during the last nearly twothousand years and seems likely to continue doing so for a good manyyears longer. It ought never to have been admitted to probate. Either the testator drew it himself, in which case we have anotherexample of the folly of trying to make one's own will, or if he leftit to the authors of the several books--this is like employing manylawyers to do the work of one. 

Christ and the L. & N. W. Railway

Admitting for the moment that Christ can be said to have died for mein any sense, it is only pretended that he did so in the same sort ofway as the London and North Western Railway was made for me. Grantedthat I am very glad the railway was made and use it when I find itconvenient, I do not suppose that those who projected and made theline allowed me to enter into their thoughts; the debt of mygratitude is divided among so many that the amount due from each oneis practically nil. 

The Jumping Cat

God is only a less jumping kind of jumping cat; and those who worshipGod are still worshippers of the jumping cat all the time. There isno getting away from the jumping cat--if I climb up into heaven, itis there; if I go down to hell, it is there also; if I take the wingsof the morning and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, eventhere, and so on; it is about my path and about my bed and spieth outall my ways. It is the eternal underlying verity or the eternalunderlying lie, as people may choose to call it. 

Personified Science

Science is being daily more and more personified andanthropomorphised into a god. By and by they will say that sciencetook our nature upon him, and sent down his only begotten son, Charles Darwin, or Huxley, into the world so that those who believein him, &c. ; and they will burn people for saying that science, afterall, is only an expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance. 

Science and Theology

We should endow neither; we should treat them as we treatconservatism and liberalism, encouraging both, so that they may keepwatch upon one another, and letting them go in and out of power withthe popular vote concerning them. 

The world is better carried on upon the barrister principle ofspecial pleading upon two sides before an impartial ignoranttribunal, to whom things have got to be explained, than it would beif nobody were to maintain any opinion in which he did not personallybelieve. 

What we want is to reconcile both science and theology with sincerityand good breeding, to make our experts understand that they arenothing if they are not single-minded and urbane. Get them tounderstand this, and there will be no difficulty about reconcilingscience and theology. 

The Church and the Supernatural

If we saw the Church wishing to back out of the supernatural andanxious to explain it away where possible, we would keep ourdisbelief in the supernatural in the background, as far as we could, and would explain away our rejection of the miracles, as far as wasdecent; furthermore we would approximate our language to theirswherever possible, and insist on the points on which we are allagreed, rather than on points of difference; in fact, we would meetthem half way and be only too glad to do it. I maintain that in mybooks I actually do this as much as is possible, but I shall try anddo it still more. As a matter of fact, however, the Church clings tothe miraculous element of Christianity more fondly than ever; sheparades it more and more, and shows no sign of wishing to give upeven the smallest part of it. It is this which makes us despair ofbeing able to do anything with her and feel that either she or wemust go. 

Gratitude and Revenge

Gratitude is as much an evil to be minimised as revenge is. Justice, our law and our law courts are for the taming and regulating ofrevenge. Current prices and markets and commercial regulations arefor the taming of gratitude and its reduction from a public nuisanceto something which shall at least be tolerable. Revenge andgratitude are correlative terms. Our system of commerce is a protestagainst the unbridled licence of gratitude. Gratitude, in fact, likerevenge, is a mistake unless under certain securities. 

Cant and Hypocrisy

We should organise a legitimate channel for instincts so profound asthese, just as we have found it necessary to do with lust and revengeby the institutions of marriage and the law courts. This is theraison d'etre of the church. You kill a man just as much whether youmurder him or hang him after the formalities of a trial. And so withlust and marriage, mutatis mutandis. So again with the professionsof religion and medicine. You swindle a man as much when you sellhim a drug of whose action you are ignorant, and tell him it willprotect him from disease, as when you give him a bit of bread, whichyou assure him is the body of Jesus Christ, and then send a plateround for a subscription. You swindle him as much by these acts asif you picked his pocket, or obtained money from him under falsepretences in any other way; but you swindle him according to therules and in an authorised way. 

Real Blasphemy

On one of our Sunday walks near London we passed a forlorn anddilapidated Primitive Methodist Chapel. The windows were a good dealbroken and there was a notice up offering 10/--reward to any one whoshould give such information as should lead to the, &c. Cut in stoneover the door was this inscription, and we thought it as good anexample of real blasphemy as we had ever seen:

When God makes up his last accountOf holy children in his mount, 'Twill be an honour to appearAs one new born and nourished here. 

The English Church Abroad

People say you must not try to abolish Christianity until you havesomething better to put in its place. They might as well say we mustnot take away turnpikes and corn laws till we have some otherhindrances to put in their place. Besides no one wants to abolishChristianity--all we want is not to be snubbed and bullied if wereject the miraculous part of it for ourselves. 

At Biella an English clergyman asked if I was a Roman Catholic. Isaid, quite civilly, that I was not a Catholic. 

He replied that he had asked me not if I was a Catholic but if I wasa Roman Catholic. What was I? Was I an Anglican Catholic? So, seeing that he meant to argue, I replied:

"I do not know. I am a Londoner and of the same religion as peoplegenerally are in London. "

This made him angry. He snorted:

"Oh, that's nothing at all;" and almost immediately left the table. 

As much as possible I keep away from English-frequented hotels inItaly and Switzerland because I find that if I do not go to serviceon Sunday I am made uncomfortable. It is this bullying that I wantto do away with. As regards Christianity I should hope and thinkthat I am more Christian than not. 

People ought to be allowed to leave their cards at church, instead ofgoing inside. I have half a mind to try this next time I am in aforeign hotel among English people. 

Drunkenness

When we were at Shrewsbury the other day, coming up the AbbeyForegate, we met a funeral and debated whether or not to take ourhats off. We always do in Italy, that is to say in the country andin villages and small towns, but we have been told that it is not thecustom to do so in large towns and in cities, which raises a questionas to the exact figure that should be reached by the population of aplace before one need not take off one's hat to a funeral in one ofits streets. At Shrewsbury seeing no one doing it we thought itmight look singular and kept ours on. My friend Mr. Phillips, thetailor, was in one carriage, I did not see him, but he saw me andafterwards told me he had pointed me out to a clergyman who was inthe carriage with him. 

"Oh, " said the clergyman, "then that's the man who says England owesall her greatness to intoxication. "

This is rather a free translation of what I did say; but it onlyshows how impossible it is to please those who do not wish to bepleased. Tennyson may talk about the slow sad hours that bring usall things ill and all good things from evil, because this is vagueand indefinite; but I may not say that, in spite of the terribleconsequences of drunkenness, man's intellectual development would nothave reached its present stage without the stimulus of alcohol--whichI believe to be both perfectly true and pretty generally admitted--because this is definite. I do not think I said more than this andam sure that no one can detest drunkenness more than I do. {343} Itseems to me it will be wiser in me not to try to make headway atShrewsbury. 

Hell-Fire

If Vesuvius does not frighten those who live under it, is it likelythat Hell-fire should frighten any reasonable person?

I met a traveller who had returned from Hades where he had conversedwith Tantalus and with others of the shades. They all agreed thatfor the first six, or perhaps twelve, months they disliked theirpunishment very much; but after that, it was like shelling peas on ahot afternoon in July. They began by discovering (no doubt longafter the fact had been apparent enough to every one else) that theyhad not been noticing what they were doing so much as usual, and thatthey had been even thinking of something else. From this moment, theautomatic stage of action having set in, the progress towards alwaysthinking of something else was rapid and they soon forgot that theywere undergoing any punishment. 

Tantalus did get a little something not infrequently; water stuck tothe hairs of his body and he gathered it up in his hand; he also gotmany an apple when the wind was napping as it had to do sometimes. Perhaps he could have done with more, but he got enough to keep himgoing quite comfortably. His sufferings were nothing as comparedwith those of a needy heir to a fortune whose father, or whoever itmay be, catches a dangerous bronchitis every winter but invariablyrecovers and lives to 91, while the heir survives him a month havingbeen worn out with long expectation. 

Sisyphus had never found any pleasure in life comparable to thedelight of seeing his stone bound down-hill, and in so timing itsrush as to inflict the greatest possible scare on any unwary shadewho might be wandering below. He got so great and such variedamusement out of this that his labour had become the automatism ofreflex action--which is, I understand, the name applied by men ofscience to all actions that are done without reflection. He was apompous, ponderous old gentleman, very irritable and always thinkingthat the other shades were laughing at him or trying to takeadvantage of him. There were two, however, whom he hated with a furythat tormented him far more seriously than anything else ever did. The first of these was Archimedes who had instituted a series ofexperiments in regard to various questions connected with mechanicsand had conceived a scheme by which he hoped to utilise the motivepower of the stone for the purpose of lighting Hades withelectricity. The other was Agamemnon, who took good care to keep outof the stone's way when it was more than a quarter of the distance upthe slope, but who delighted in teasing Sisyphus so long as heconsidered it safe to do so. Many of the other shades took dailypleasure in gathering together about stone-time to enjoy the fun andto bet on how far the stone would roll. 

As for Tityus--what is a bird more or less on a body that covers nineacres? He found the vultures a gentle stimulant to the liver withoutwhich it would have become congested. 

Sir Isaac Newton was intensely interested in the hygrometric andbarometric proceedings of the Danaids. 

"At any rate, " said one of them to my informant, "if we really arebeing punished, for goodness' sake don't say anything about it or wemay be put to other work. You see, we must be doing something, andnow we know how to do this, we don't want the bother of learningsomething new. You may be right, but we have not got to make ourliving by it, and what in the name of reason can it matter whetherthe sieves ever get full or not?"

My traveller reported much the same with regard to the eternalhappiness on Mount Olympus. Hercules found Hebe a fool and couldnever get her off his everlasting knee. He would have sold his soulto find another AEgisthus. 

So Jove saw all this and it set him thinking. 

"It seems to me, " said he, "that Olympus and Hades are bothfailures. "

Then he summoned a council and the whole matter was thoroughlydiscussed. In the end Jove abdicated, and the gods came down fromOlympus and assumed mortality. They had some years of very enjoyableBohemian existence going about as a company of strolling players atFrench and Belgian town fairs; after which they died in the usualway, having discovered at last that it does not matter how high up orhow low down you are, that happiness and misery are not absolute butdepend on the direction in which you are tending and consist in aprogression towards better or worse, and that pleasure, like pain andlike everything that grows, holds in perfection but a little moment. 

XXII--RECONCILIATION

Religion

By religion I mean a living sense that man proposes and God disposes, that we must watch and pray that we enter not into temptation, thathe who thinketh he standeth must take heed lest he fall, and thecountless other like elementary maxims which a man must hold as heholds life itself if he is to be a man at all. 

If religion, then, is to be formulated and made tangible to thepeople, it can only be by means of symbols, counters and analogies, more or less misleading, for no man professes to have got to the rootof the matter and to have seen the eternal underlying verity face toface--and even though he could see it he could not grip it and holdit and convey it to another who has not. Therefore either thesefeelings must be left altogether unexpressed and, if unexpressed, then soon undeveloped and atrophied, or they must be expressed by thehelp of images or idols--by the help of something not more actuallytrue than a child's doll is to a child, but yet helpful to ourweakness of understanding, as the doll no doubt gratifies andstimulates the motherly instinct in the child. 

Therefore we ought not to cavil at the visible superstition andabsurdity of much on which religion is made to rest, for the unknowncan never be satisfactorily rendered into the known. To get theknown from the unknown is to get something out of nothing, a thingwhich, though it is being done daily in every fraction of everysecond everywhere, is logically impossible of conception, and we canonly think by logic, for what is not in logic is not in thought. Sothat the attempt to symbolise the unknown is certain to involveinconsistencies and absurdities of all kinds and it is childish tocomplain of their existence unless one is prepared to advocate thestifling of all religious sentiment, and this is like trying tostifle hunger or thirst. To be at all is to be religious more orless. There never was any man who did not feel that behind thisworld and above it and about it there is an unseen world greater andmore incomprehensible than anything he can conceive, and thisfeeling, so profound and so universal, needs expression. Ifexpressed it can only be so by the help of inconsistencies anderrors. These, then, are not to be ordered impatiently out of court;they have grown up as the best guesses at truth that could be made atany given time, but they must become more or less obsolete as ourknowledge of truth is enlarged. Things become known which wereformerly unknown and, though this brings us no nearer to ultimateuniversal truth, yet it shows us that many of our guesses were wrong. Everything that catches on to realism and naturalism as much asChristianity does must be affected by any profound modification inour views of realism and naturalism. 

God and Convenience

I do not know or care whether the expression "God" has scientificaccuracy or no, nor yet whether it has theological value; I knownothing either of one or the other, beyond looking upon therecognised exponents both of science and theology with equaldistrust; but for convenience, I am sure that there is nothing likeit--I mean for convenience of getting quickly at the right or wrongof a matter. While you are fumbling away with your political economyor your biblical precepts to know whether you shall let old Mrs. So-and-so have 5/--or no, another, who has just asked himself whichwould be most well-pleasing in the sight of God, will be told in amoment that he should give her--or not give her--the 5/--. As ageneral rule she had better have the 5/--at once, but sometimes wemust give God to understand that, though we should he very glad to dowhat he would have of us if we reasonably could, yet the present isone of those occasions on which we must decline to do so. 

The World

Even the world, so mondain as it is, still holds instinctively and asa matter of faith unquestionable that those who have died by thealtar are worthier than those who have lived by it, when to die wasduty. 

Blasphemy

I begin to understand now what Christ meant when he said thatblasphemy against the Holy Ghost was unforgiveable, while speakingagainst the Son of Man might be forgiven. He must have meant that aman may be pardoned for being unable to believe in the Christianmythology, but that if he made light of that spirit which the commonconscience of all men, whatever their particular creed, recognises asdivine, there was no hope for him. No more there is. 

Gaining One's Point

It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most incontroversy, but he who has shown the most forbearance and the bettertemper. 

The Voice of Common Sense

It is this, and not the Voice of the Lord, which maketh men to be ofone mind in an house. But then, the Voice of the Lord is the voiceof common sense which is shared by all that is. 

Amendes Honorables

There is hardly an offence so great but if it be frankly apologisedfor it is easily both forgiven and forgotten. There is hardly anoffence so small but it rankles if he who has committed it does notexpress proportionate regret. Expressions of regret help genuineregret and induce amendment of life, much as digging a channel helpswater to flow, though it does not make the water. If a man refusesto make them and habitually indulges his own selfishness at theexpense of what is due to other people, he is no better than adrunkard or a debauchee, and I have no more respect for him than Ihave for the others. 

We all like to forgive, and we all love best not those who offend usleast, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make itmost easy for us to forgive them. 

So a man may lose both his legs and live for years in health if theamputation has been clean and skilful, whereas a pea in his boot mayset up irritation which must last as long as the pea is there and mayin the end kill him. 

Forgiveness and Retribution

It is no part of the bargain that we are never to commit trespasses. The bargain is that if we would be forgiven we must forgive them thattrespass against us. Nor again is it part of the bargain that we areto let a man hob-nob with us when we know him to be a thoroughblackguard, merely on the plea that unless we do so we shall not beforgiving him his trespasses. No hard and fast rule can be laiddown, each case must be settled instinctively as it arises. 

As a sinner I am interested in the principle of forgiveness; assinned against, in that of retribution. I have what is to me aconsiderable vested interest in both these principles, but I shouldsay I had more in forgiveness than in retribution. And so itprobably is with most people or we should have had a clause in theLord's prayer: "And pay out those who have sinned against us as theywhom we have sinned against generally pay us out. "

Inaccuracy

I am not sure that I do not begin to like the correction of amistake, even when it involves my having shown much ignorance andstupidity, as well as I like hitting on a new idea. It does comfortone so to be able to feel sure that one knows how to tumble and howto retreat promptly and without chagrin. Being bowled over ininaccuracy, when I have tried to verify, makes me careful. But if Ihave not tried to verify and then turn out wrong, this, if I find itout, upsets me very much and I pray that I may be found out wheneverI do it. 

Jutland and "Waitee"

I made a mistake in The Authoress of the Odyssey [in a note on p. 31]when I said "Scheria means Jutland--a piece of land jutting out intothe sea. " Jutland means the Land of the Jutes. 

And I made a mistake in Alps and Sanctuaries [Chap. III], speaking ofthe peasants in the Val Leventina knowing English, when I said "OneEnglish word has become universally adopted by the Ticinesithemselves. They say 'Waitee' just as we should say 'Wait' to stopsome one from going away. It is abhorrent to them to end a word witha consonant so they have added 'ee, ' but there can be no doubt aboutthe origin of the word. " The Avvocato Negri of Casale-Monferratosays that they have a word in their dialetto which, if ever written, would appear as "vuaitee, " it means "stop" or "look here, " and isused to attract attention. This, or something like it, no doubt iswhat they really say and has no more to do with waiting than Jutlandhas to do with jutting. 

The Parables

The people do not act reasonably in a single instance. The sower wasa bad sower; the shepherd who left his ninety and nine sheep in thewilderness was a foolish shepherd; the husbandman who would not havehis corn weeded was no farmer--and so on. None of them go nearly onall fours, they halt so much as to have neither literary nor moralvalue to any but slipshod thinkers. 

Granted, but are we not all slipshod thinkers?

The Irreligion of Orthodoxy

We do not fall foul of Christians for their religion, but for what wehold to be their want of religion--for the low views they take of Godand of his glory, and for the unworthiness with which they try toserve him. 

Society and Christianity

The burden of society is really a very light one. She does notrequire us to believe the Christian religion, she has very vagueideas as to what the Christian religion is, much less does sherequire us to practise it. She is quite satisfied if we do notobtrude our disbelief in it in an offensive manner. Surely this isno very grievous burden. 

Sanctified by Faith

No matter how great a fraud a thing may have been or be, if it haspassed through many minds an aroma of life attaches to it and it mustbe handled with a certain reverence. A thing or a thought becomeshallowed if it has been long and strongly believed in, forveneration, after a time, seems to get into the thing venerated. Look at Delphi--fraud of frauds, yet sanctified by centuries of hopeand fear and faith. If greater knowledge shows Christianity to havebeen founded upon error, still greater knowledge shows that it wasaiming at a truth. 

Ourselves and the Clergy

As regards the best of the clergy, whether English or foreign, I feelthat they and we mean in substance the same thing, and that thedifference is only about the way this thing should be put and theevidence on which it should be considered to rest. 

We say that they jeopardise the acceptance of the principles whichthey and we alike cordially regard as fundamental by basing them onassertions which a little investigation shows to be untenable. Theyreply that by declaring the assertions to be untenable we jeopardisethe principles. We answer that this is not so and that moreover wecan find better, safer and more obvious assertions on which to basethem. 

The Rules of Life

Whether it is right to say that one believes in God and Christianitywithout intending what one knows the hearer intends one to intenddepends on how much or how little the hearer can understand. Life isnot an exact science, it is an art. Just as the contention, excellent so far as it goes, that each is to do what is right in hisown eyes leads, when ridden to death, to anarchy and chaos, so thecontention that every one should be either self-effacing or truthfulto the bitter end reduces life to an absurdity. If we seek realrather than technical truth, it is more true to be consideratelyuntruthful within limits than to be inconsiderately truthful withoutthem. What the limits are we generally know but cannot say. 

There is an unbridgeable chasm between thought and words that we mustjump as best we can, and it is just here that the two hitch on to oneanother. The higher rules of life transcend the sphere of language;they cannot be gotten by speech, neither shall logic be weighed forthe price thereof. They have their being in the fear of the Lord andin the departing from evil without even knowing in words what theLord is, nor the fear of the Lord, nor yet evil. 

Common straightforwardness and kindliness are the highest points thatman or woman can reach, but they should no more be made matters ofconversation than should the lowest vices. Extremes meet here aselsewhere and the extremes of vice and virtue are alike common andunmentionable. 

There is nothing for it but a very humble hope that from the GreatUnknown Source our daily insight and daily strength may be given uswith our daily bread. And what is this but Christianity, whether webelieve that Jesus Christ rose from the dead or not? So thatChristianity is like a man's soul--he who finds may lose it and hewho loses may find it. 

If, then, a man may be a Christian while believing himself hostile toall that some consider most essential in Christianity, may he notalso be a free-thinker (in the common use of the word) whilebelieving himself hostile to free-thought?

XXIII--DEATH

Fore-knowledge of Death

No one thinks he will escape death, so there is no disappointmentand, as long as we know neither the when nor the how, the mere factthat we shall one day have to go does not much affect us; we do notcare, even though we know vaguely that we have not long to live. Theserious trouble begins when death becomes definite in time and shape. It is in precise fore-knowledge, rather than in sin, that the stingof death is to be found; and such fore-knowledge is generallywithheld; though, strangely enough, many would have it if they could. 

Continued Identity

I do not doubt that a person who will grow out of me as I now am, butof whom I know nothing now and in whom therefore I can take none butthe vaguest interest, will one day undergo so sudden and complete achange that his friends must notice it and call him dead; but as Ihave no definite ideas concerning this person, not knowing whether hewill be a man of 59 or 79 or any age between these two, so thisperson will, I am sure, have forgotten the very existence of me as Iam at this present moment. If it is said that no matter how wide adifference of condition may exist between myself now and myself atthe moment of death, or how complete the forgetfulness of connectionon either side may be, yet the fact of the one's having grown out ofthe other by an infinite series of gradations makes the secondpersonally identical with the first, then I say that the differencebetween the corpse and the till recently living body is not greatenough, either in respect of material change or of want of memoryconcerning the earlier existence, to bar personal identity andprevent us from seeing the corpse as alive and a continuation of theman from whom it was developed, though having tastes and othercharacteristics very different from those it had while it was a man. 

From this point of view there is no such thing as death--I mean nosuch thing as the death which we have commonly conceived of hitherto. A man is much more alive when he is what we call alive than when heis what we call dead; but no matter how much he is alive, he is stillin part dead, and no matter how much he is dead, he is still in partalive, and his corpse-hood is connected with his living body-hood bygradations which even at the moment of death are ordinarily subtle;and the corpse does not forget the living body more completely thanthe living body has forgotten a thousand or a hundred thousand of itsown previous states; so that we should see the corpse as a person, ofgreatly and abruptly changed habits it is true, but still of habitsof some sort, for hair and nails continue to grow after death, andwith an individuality which is as much identical with that of theperson from whom it has arisen as this person was with himself as anembryo of a week old, or indeed more so. 

If we have identity between the embryo and the octogenarian, we musthave it also between the octogenarian and the corpse, and do awaywith death except as a rather striking change of thought and habit, greater indeed in degree than, but still, in kind, substantially thesame as any of the changes which we have experienced from moment tomoment throughout that fragment of existence which we commonly callour life; so that in sober seriousness there is no such thing asabsolute death, just as there is no such thing as absolute life. 

Either this, or we must keep death at the expense of personalidentity, and deny identity between any two states which presentconsiderable differences and neither of which has any fore-knowledgeof, or recollection of the other. In this case, if there be death atall, it is some one else who dies and not we, because while we arealive we are not dead, and as soon as we are dead we are no longerourselves. 

So that it comes in the end to this, that either there is no suchthing as death at all, or else that, if there is, it is some one elsewho dies and not we. We cannot blow hot and cold with the samebreath. If we would retain personal identity at all, we mustcontinue it beyond what we call death, in which case death ceases tobe what we have hitherto thought it, that is to say, the end of ourbeing. We cannot have both personal identity and death too. 

Complete Death

To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead. This is as old as non omnismoriar and a great deal older, but very few people realise it. 

Life and Death

When I was young I used to think the only certain thing about lifewas that I should one day die. Now I think the only certain thingabout life is that there is no such thing as death. 

The Defeat of Death

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little ashis own death. It is a case in which the going-to-happen-ness of athing is of greater importance than the actual thing itself whichcannot be of importance to the man who dies, for Death cuts his ownthroat in the matter of hurting people. As a bee that can sting oncebut in the stinging dies, so Death is dead to him who is deadalready. While he is shaking his wings, there is brutum fulmen butthe man goes on living, frightened, perhaps, but unhurt; pain andsickness may hurt him but the moment Death strikes him both he andDeath are beyond feeling. It is as though Death were born anew withevery man; the two protect one another so long as they keep oneanother at arm's length, but if they once embrace it is all over withboth. 

The Torture of Death

The fabled pains of Tantalus, Sisyphus and all the rest of them showwhat an instinctive longing there is in all men both for end andendlessness of both good and ill, but as torture they are the merestmockery when compared with the fruitless chase to which poor Deathhas been condemned for ever and ever. Does it not seem as though hetoo must have committed some crime for which his sentence is to befor ever grasping after that which becomes non-existent the moment hegrasps it? But then I suppose it would be with him as with the restof the tortured, he must either die himself, which he has not done, or become used to it and enjoy the frightening as much as thekilling. Any pain through which a man can live at all becomes unfeltas soon as it becomes habitual. Pain consists not in that which isnow endured but in the strong memory of something better that isstill recent. And so, happiness lies in the memory of a recent worseand the expectation of a better that is to come soon. 

Ignorance of Death

i

The fear of death is instinctive because in so many past generationswe have feared it. But how did we come to know what death is so thatwe should fear it? The answer is that we do not know what death isand that this is why we fear it. 

ii

If a man know not life which he hath seen how shall he know deathwhich he hath not seen?

iii

If a man has sent his teeth and his hair and perhaps two or threelimbs to the grave before him, the presumption should be that, as heknows nothing further of these when they have once left him, so willhe know nothing of the rest of him when it too is dead. The wholemay surely be argued from the parts. 

iv

To write about death is to write about that of which we have hadlittle practical experience. We can write about conscious life, butwe have no consciousness of the deaths we daily die. Besides, wecannot eat our cake and have it. We cannot have tabulae rasae andtabulae scriptae at the same time. We cannot be at once dead enoughto be reasonably registered as such, and alive enough to be able totell people all about it. 

v

There will come a supreme moment in which there will be care neitherfor ourselves nor for others, but a complete abandon, a sans souci ofunspeakable indifference, and this moment will never be taken fromus; time cannot rob us of it but, as far as we are concerned, it willlast for ever and ever without flying. So that, even for the mostwretched and most guilty, there is a heaven at last where neithermoth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through norsteal. To himself every one is an immortal: he may know that he isgoing to die, but he can never know that he is dead. 

vi

If life is an illusion, then so is death--the greatest of allillusions. If life must not be taken too seriously--then so neithermust death. 

vii

The dead are often just as living to us as the living are, only wecannot get them to believe it. They can come to us, but till we diewe cannot go to them. To be dead is to be unable to understand thatone is alive. 

Dissolution

Death is the dissolving of a partnership, the partners to whichsurvive and go elsewhere. It is the corruption or breaking up ofthat society which we have called Ourself. The corporation is at anend, both its soul and its body cease as a whole, but the immortalconstituents do not cease and never will. The souls of some mentransmigrate in great part into their children, but there is a largealloy in respect both of body and mind through sexual generation; thesouls of other men migrate into books, pictures, music, or what not;and every one's mind migrates somewhere, whether remembered andadmired or the reverse. The living souls of Handel, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Giovanni Bellini and the other great ones appear and speakto us in their works with less alloy than they could ever speakthrough their children; but men's bodies disappear absolutely ondeath, except they be in some measure preserved in their children andin so far as harmonics of all that has been remain. 

On death we do not lose life, we only lose individuality; we livehenceforth in others not in ourselves. Our mistake has been in notseeing that death is indeed, like birth, a salient feature in thehistory of the individual, but one which wants exploding as the endof the individual, no less than birth wanted exploding as hisbeginning. 

Dying is only a mode of forgetting. We shall see this more easily ifwe consider forgetting to be a mode of dying. So the ancients calledtheir River of Death, Lethe--the River of Forgetfulness. They oughtalso to have called their River of Life, Mnemosyne--the River ofMemory. We should learn to tune death a good deal flatter thanaccording to received notions. 

The Dislike of Death

We cannot like both life and death at once; no one can be expected tolike two such opposite things at the same time; if we like life wemust dislike death, and if we leave off disliking death we shall soondie. Death will always be more avoided than sought; for livinginvolves effort, perceived or unperceived, central or departmental, and this will only be made by those who dislike the consequences ofnot making it more than the trouble of making it. A race, therefore, which is to exist at all must be a death-disliking race, for it isonly at the cost of death that we can rid ourselves of all aversionto the idea of dying, so that the hunt after a philosophy which shallstrip death of his terrors is like trying to find the philosopher'sstone which cannot be found and which, if found, would defeat its ownobject. 

Moreover, as a discovery which should rid us of the fear of deathwould be the vainest, so also it would be the most immoral ofdiscoveries, for the very essence of morality is involved in thedislike (within reasonable limits) of death. Morality aims at amaximum of comfortable life and a minimum of death; if then, aminimum of death and a maximum of life were no longer held worthstriving for, the whole fabric of morality would collapse, as indeedwe have it on record that it is apt to do among classes that from onecause or another have come to live in disregard and expectation ofdeath. 

However much we may abuse death for robbing us of our friends--andthere is no one who is not sooner or later hit hard in this respect--yet time heals these wounds sooner than we like to own; if the heydayof grief does not shortly kill outright, it passes; and I doubtwhether most men, if they were to search their hearts, would not findthat, could they command death for some single occasion, they wouldbe more likely to bid him take than restore. 

Moreover, death does not blight love as the accidents of time andlife do. Even the fondest grow apart if parted; they cannot cometogether again, not in any closeness or for any long time. Can deathdo worse than this?

The memory of a love that has been cut short by death remains stillfragrant though enfeebled, but no recollection of its past can keepsweet a love that has dried up and withered through accidents of timeand life. 

XXIV--THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME

Posthumous Life

i

To try to live in posterity is to be like an actor who leaps over thefootlights and talks to the orchestra. 

ii

He who wants posthumous fame is as one who would entail land, and tieup his money after his death as tightly and for as long a time aspossible. Still we each of us in our own small way try to get whatlittle posthumous fame we can. 

The Test of Faith

Why should we be so avid of honourable and affectionate remembranceafter death? Why should we hold this the one thing worth living ordying for? Why should all that we can know or feel seem but a verylittle thing as compared with that which we never either feel orknow? What a reversal of all the canons of action which commonlyguide mankind is there not here? But however this may be, if we havefaith in the life after death we can have little in that which isbefore it, and if we have faith in this life we can have small faithin any other. 

Nevertheless there is a deeply rooted conviction, even in many ofthose in whom its existence is least apparent, that honourable andaffectionate remembrance after death with a full and certain hopethat it will be ours is the highest prize to which the highestcalling can aspire. Few pass through this world without feeling thevanity of all human ambitions; their faith may fail them here, but itwill not fail them--not for a moment, never--if they possess it asregards posthumous respect and affection. The world may prove hollowbut a well-earned good fame in death will never do so. And all menfeel this whether they admit it to themselves or no. 

Faith in this is easy enough. We are born with it. What is lesseasy is to possess one's soul in peace and not be shaken in faith andbroken in spirit on seeing the way in which men crowd themselves, orare crowded, into honourable remembrance when, if the truthconcerning them were known, no pit of oblivion should be deep enoughfor them. See, again, how many who have richly earned esteem neverget it either before or after death. It is here that faith comes in. To see that the infinite corruptions of this life penetrate into andinfect that which is to come, and yet to hold that even infamy afterdeath, with obscure and penurious life before it, is a prize whichwill bring a man more peace at the last than all the good things ofthis life put together and joined with an immortality as lasting asVirgil's, provided the infamy and failure of the one be unmerited, asalso the success and immortality of the other. Here is the test offaith--will you do your duty with all your might at any cost of goodsor reputation either in this world or beyond the grave? If you will--well, the chances are 100 to 1 that you will become a faddist, avegetarian and a teetotaller. 

And suppose you escape this pit-fall too. Why should you try to beso much better than your neighbours? Who are you to think you may beworthy of so much good fortune? If you do, you may be sure that youdo not deserve it. 

And so on ad infinitum. Let us eat and drink neither forgetting norremembering death unduly. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will havemercy and the less we think about it the better. 

Starting again ad Infinitum

A man from the cradle to the grave is but the embryo of a being thatmay be born into the world of the dead who still live, or that maydie so soon after entering it as to be practically still-born. Thegreater number of the seeds shed, whether by plants or animals, nevergerminate and of those that grow few reach maturity, so the greaternumber of those that reach death are still-born as regards the truestlife of all--I mean the life that is lived after death in thethoughts and actions of posterity. Moreover of those who are borninto and fill great places in this invisible world not one isimmortal. 

We should look on the body as the manifesto of the mind and onposterity as the manifesto of the dead that live after life. Each isthe mechanism whereby the other exists. 

Life, then, is not the having been born--it is rather an effort to beborn. But why should some succeed in attaining to this future lifeand others fail? Why should some be born more than others? Whyshould not some one in a future state taunt Lazarus with having agood time now and tell him it will be the turn of Dives in some otherand more remote hereafter? I must have it that neither are the goodrewarded nor the bad punished in a future state, but every one muststart anew quite irrespective of anything they have done here andmust try his luck again and go on trying it again and again adinfinitum. Some of our lives, then, will be lucky and some unluckyand it will resolve itself into one long eternal life during which weshall change so much that we shall not remember our antecedents veryfar back (any more than we remember having been embryos) nor foreseeour future very much, and during which we shall have our ups anddowns ad infinitum--effecting a transformation scene at once as soonas circumstances become unbearable. 

Nevertheless, some men's work does live longer than others. Someachieve what is very like immortality. Why should they have thispiece of good fortune more than others? The answer is that it wouldbe very unjust if they knew anything about it, or could enjoy it inany way, but they know nothing whatever about it, and you, thecomplainer, do profit by their labour, so that it is really you, thecomplainer, who get the fun, not they, and this should stop yourmouth. The only thing they got was a little hope, which buoyed themup often when there was but little else that could do so. 

Preparation for Death

That there is a life after death is as palpable as that there is alife before death--see the influence that the dead have over us--butthis life is no more eternal than our present life. 

Shakespeare and Homer may live long, but they will die some day, thatis to say, they will become unknown as direct and efficient causes. Even so God himself dies, for to die is to change and to change is todie to what has gone before. If the units change the total must doso also. 

As no one can say which egg or seed shall come to visible life and inits turn leave issue, so no one can say which of the millions of nowvisible lives shall enter into the afterlife on death, and which havebut so little life as practically not to count. For most seeds endas seeds or as food for some alien being, and so with lives, by farthe greater number are sterile, except in so far as they can bedevoured as the food of some stronger life. The Handels andShakespeares are the few seeds that grow--and even these die. 

And the same uncertainty attaches to posthumous life as to pre-lethal. As no one can say how long another shall live, so no one cansay how long or how short a time a reputation shall live. The mostunpromising weakly-looking creatures sometimes live to ninety whilestrong robust men are carried off in their prime. And no one can saywhat a man shall enter into life for having done. Roughly, there isa sort of moral government whereby those who have done the best worklive most enduringly, but it is subject to such exceptions that noone can say whether or no there shall not be an exception in his owncase either in his favour or against him. 

In this uncertainty a young writer had better act as though he had areasonable chance of living, not perhaps very long, but still somelittle while after his death. Let him leave his notes fairly fulland fairly tidy in all respects, without spending too much time aboutthem. If they are wanted, there they are; if not wanted, there is noharm done. He might as well leave them as anything else. But lethim write them in copying ink and have the copies kept in differentplaces. 

The Vates Sacer

Just as the kingdom of heaven cometh not by observation, so neitherdo one's own ideas, nor the good things one hears other people say;they fasten on us when we least want or expect them. It is enough ifthe kingdom of heaven be observed when it does come. 

I do not read much; I look, listen, think and write. My mostintimate friends are men of more insight, quicker wit, more playfulfancy and, in all ways, abler men than I am, but you will find ten ofthem for one of me. I note what they say, think it over, adapt itand give it permanent form. They throw good things off as sparks; Icollect them and turn them into warmth. But I could not do this if Idid not sometimes throw out a spark or two myself. 

Not only would Agamemnon be nothing without the vates sacer but thereare always at least ten good heroes to one good chronicler, just asthere are ten good authors to one good publisher. Bravery, wit andpoetry abound in every village. Look at Mrs. Boss [the original ofMrs. Jupp in The Way of All Flesh] and at Joanna Mills [Life andLetters of Dr. Butler, I, 93]. There is not a village of 500inhabitants in England but has its Mrs. Quickly and its Tom Jones. These good people never understand themselves, they go over their ownheads, they speak in unknown tongues to those around them and theinterpreter is the rarer and more important person. The vates saceris the middleman of mind. 

So rare is he and such spendthrifts are we of good things that peoplenot only will not note what might well be noted but they will noteven keep what others have noted, if they are to be at the pains ofpigeon-holing it. It is less trouble to throw a brilliant letterinto the fire than to put it into such form that it can be safelykept, quickly found and easily read. To this end a letter should begummed, with the help of the edgings of stamps if necessary, to astrip, say an inch and a quarter wide, of stout hand-made paper. Twoor three paper fasteners passed through these strips will bind fiftyor sixty letters together, which, arranged in chronological order, can be quickly found and comfortably read. But how few will be atthe small weekly trouble of clearing up their correspondence andleaving it in manageable shape! If we keep our letters at all wethrow them higgledy-piggledy into a box and have done with them; letsome one else arrange them when the owner is dead. The some one elsecomes and finds the fire an easy method of escaping the onus thrownupon him. So on go letters from Tilbrook, Merian, Marmaduke Lawson{364}--just as we throw our money away if the holding on to itinvolves even very moderate exertion. 

On the other hand, if this instinct towards prodigality were not sogreat, beauty and wit would be smothered under their own selves. Itis through the waste of wit that wit endures, like money, its mainpreciousness lies in its rarity--the more plentiful it is the cheaperdoes it become. 

The Dictionary of National Biography

When I look at the articles on Handel, on Dr. Arnold, or indeed onalmost any one whom I know anything about, I feel that such a work asthe Dictionary of National Biography adds more terror to death thandeath of itself could inspire. That is one reason why I let myselfgo so unreservedly in these notes. If the colours in which I paintmyself fail to please, at any rate I shall have had the laying themon myself. 

The World

The world will, in the end, follow only those who have despised aswell as served it. 

Accumulated Dinners

The world and all that has ever been in it will one day be as muchforgotten as what we ate for dinner forty years ago. Very likely, but the fact that we shall not remember much about a dinner fortyyears hence does not make it less agreeable now, and after all it isonly the accumulation of these forgotten dinners that makes thedinner of forty years hence possible. 

Judging the Dead

The dead should be judged as we judge criminals, impartially, butthey should be allowed the benefit of a doubt. When no doubt existsthey should be hanged out of hand for about a hundred years. Afterthat time they may come down and move about under a cloud. Afterabout 2000 years they may do what they like. If Nero murdered hismother--well, he murdered his mother and there's an end. The moralguilt of an action varies inversely as the squares of its distancesin time and space, social, psychological, physiological ortopographical, from ourselves. Not so its moral merit: this losesno lustre through time and distance. 

Good is like gold, it will not rust or tarnish and it is rare, butthere is some of it everywhere. Evil is like water, it abounds, ischeap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint. 

Myself and My Books

Bodily offspring I do not leave, but mental offspring I do. Well, mybooks do not have to be sent to school and college and then insist ongoing into the Church or take to drinking or marry their mother'smaid. 

My Son

I have often told my son that he must begin by finding me a wife tobecome his mother who shall satisfy both himself and me. But this isonly one of the many rocks on which we have hitherto split. Weshould never have got on together; I should have had to cut him offwith a shilling either for laughing at Homer, or for refusing tolaugh at him, or both, or neither, but still cut him off. So Isettled the matter long ago by turning a deaf ear to hisimportunities and sticking to it that I would not get him at all. Yet his thin ghost visits me at times and, though he knows that it isno use pestering me further, he looks at me so wistfully andreproachfully that I am half-inclined to turn tall, take my chanceabout his mother and ask him to let me get him after all. But Ishould show a clean pair of heels if he said "Yes. "

Besides, he would probably be a girl. 

Obscurity

When I am dead, do not let people say of me that I suffered frommisrepresentation and neglect. I was neglected and misrepresented;very likely not half as much as I supposed but, nevertheless, to someextent neglected and misrepresented. I growl at this sometimes but, if the question were seriously put to me whether I would go on as Iam or become famous in my own lifetime, I have no hesitation aboutwhich I should prefer. I will willingly pay the few hundreds ofpounds which the neglect of my works costs me in order to be letalone and not plagued by the people who would come round me if I wereknown. The probability is that I shall remain after my death asobscure as I am now; if this be so, the obscurity will, no doubt, bemerited, and if not, my books will work not only as well without myhaving been known in my lifetime but a great deal better; my folliesand blunders will the better escape notice to the enhancing of thevalue of anything that may be found in my books. The only two thingsI should greatly care about if I had more money are a few morecountry outings and a little more varied and better cooked food. [1882. ]

P. S. --I have long since obtained everything that a reasonable man canwish for. [1895. ]

Posthumous Honours

I see Cecil Rhodes has just been saying that he was a lucky man, inasmuch as such honours as are now being paid him generally come toa man after his death and not before it. This is all very well for apolitician whose profession immerses him in public life, but theolder I grow the more satisfied I am that there can be no greatermisfortune for a man of letters or of contemplation than to berecognised in his own lifetime. Fortunately the greater man he is, and hence the greater the misfortune he would incur, the lesslikelihood there is that he will incur it. [1897. ]

Posthumous Recognition

Shall I be remembered after death? I sometimes think and hope so. But I trust I may not be found out (if I ever am found out, and if Iought to be found out at all) before my death. It would bother mevery much and I should be much happier and better as I am. [1880. ]

P. S. --This note I leave unaltered. I am glad to see that I had somuch sense thirteen years ago. What I thought then, I think now, only with greater confidence and confirmation. [1893. ]

Analysis of the Sales of My Books

 Copies Cash Cash Total Total Value of Sold Profit Loss Profit loss stockErewhon 3843 62 10 10 -- 69 3 10 -- 6 13 0The Fair 442 -- 41 2 2 -- 27 18 2 13 4 0 HavenLife and 640 -- 4 17 1. 5 7 19 1. 5 -- 12 16 3 HabitEvolution 541 -- 103 11 10 -- 89 13 10 13 18 0 Old & NewUnconscious 272 -- 38 13 5 -- 38 13 5 - MemoryAlps and 332 -- 113 6 4 -- 110 18 4 22 8 0 SanctuariesSelections 120 -- 51 4 10. 5 -- 48 10 10. 5 2 14 0 from Previous WorksLuck or 284 -- 41 6 4 -- 13 18 10 27 7 6 Cunning?Ex Voto 217 -- 147 18 0 -- 111 8 0 36 10 0Life and 201 -- 216 18 0 -- 193 18 0 23 0 0 Letters of Dr. ButlerThe 165 -- 81 1 3 -- 59 10 3 21 11 0 Authoress of the OdysseyThe Iliad 157 -- 89 4 8 -- 77 6 8 11 18 0 in English ProseA Holbein 6 -- 8 1 9 -- 8 1 9 - CardA Book of 0 -- 3 11 9 -- -- 3 11 9 Essays

Totals: Cash profit: 62 10 10 Cash loss: 960 17 6 Total profit: 77 2 11. 5 Total loss: 779 18 1. 5 Value of stock: 195 11 6

To this must be added my book on the Sonnets in respect of which Ihave had no account as yet but am over a hundred pounds out of pocketby it so far--little of which, I fear, is ever likely to come back. 

It will be noted that my public appears to be a declining one; Iattribute this to the long course of practical boycott to which Ihave been subjected for so many years, or, if not boycott, of sneer, snarl and misrepresentation. I cannot help it, nor if the truth wereknown, am I at any pains to try to do so. {369}

Worth Doing

If I deserve to be remembered, it will be not so much for anything Ihave written, or for any new way of looking at old facts which I mayhave suggested, as for having shown that a man of no special ability, with no literary connections, not particularly laborious, fairly, butnot supremely, accurate as far as he goes, and not travelling fareither for his facts or from them, may yet, by being perfectlysquare, sticking to his point, not letting his temper run away withhim, and biding his time, be a match for the most powerful literaryand scientific coterie that England has ever known. 

I hope it may be said of me that I discomfited an unscrupulous, self-seeking clique, and set a more wholesome example myself. To havedone this is the best of all discoveries. 

Doubt and Hope

I will not say that the more than coldness with which my books arereceived does not frighten me and make me distrust myself. It mustdo so. But every now and then I meet with such support as gives mehope again. Still, I know nothing. [1890. ]

Unburying Cities

Of course I am jealous of the eclat that Flinders Petrie, Layard andSchliemann get for having unburied cities, but I do not see why Ineed be; the great thing is to unbury the city, and I believe I haveunburied Scheria as effectually as Schliemann unburied Troy. [TheAuthoress of the Odyssey. ] True, Scheria was above ground all thetime and only wanted a little common sense to find it; neverthelesspeople have had all the facts before them for over 2500 years andhave been looking more or less all the time without finding. I donot see why it is more meritorious to uncover physically with a spadethan spiritually with a little of the very commonest common sense. 

Apologia

i

When I am dead I would rather people thought me better than I wasinstead of worse; but if they think me worse, I cannot help it and, if it matters at all, it will matter more to them than to me. Theone reputation I deprecate is that of having been ill-used. Ideprecate this because it would tend to depress and discourage othersfrom playing the game that I have played. I will therefore forestallmisconception on this head. 

As regards general good-fortune, I am nearly fifty-five years old andfor the last thirty years have never been laid up with illness norhad any physical pain that I can remember, not even toothache. Except sometimes, when a little over-driven, I have had uninterruptedgood health ever since I was about five-and-twenty. 

Of mental suffering I have had my share--as who has not?--but most ofwhat I have suffered has been, though I did not think so at the time, either imaginary, or unnecessary and, so far, it has been soonforgotten. It has been much less than it very easily might have beenif the luck had not now and again gone with me, and probably I havesuffered less than most people, take it all round. Like every oneelse, however, I have the scars of old wounds; very few of thesewounds were caused by anything which was essential in the nature ofthings; most, if not all of them, have been due to faults of heartand head on my own part and on that of others which, one would havethought, might have been easily avoided if in practice it had notturned out otherwise. 

For many years I was in a good deal of money difficulty, but since myfather's death I have had no trouble on this score--greatlyotherwise. Even when things were at their worst, I never missed mytwo months' summer Italian trip since 1876, except one year and thenI went to Mont St. Michel and enjoyed it very much. It was thoseItalian trips that enabled me to weather the storm. At other times Iam engrossed with work that fascinates me. I am surrounded by peopleto whom I am attached and who like me in return so far as I canjudge. In Alfred [his clerk and attendant] I have the best body-guard and the most engaging of any man in London. I live quietly buthappily. And if this is being ill-used I should like to know whatbeing well-used is. 

I do not deny, however, that I have been ill-used. I have been usedabominably. The positive amount of good or ill fortune, however, isnot the test of either the one or the other; the true measure lies inthe relative proportion of each and the way in which they have beendistributed, and by this I claim, after deducting all bad luck, to beleft with a large balance of good. 

Some people think I must be depressed and discouraged because mybooks do not make more noise; but, after all, whether people read mybooks or no is their affair, not mine. I know by my sales that fewread my books. If I write at all, it follows that I want to be readand miss my mark if I am not. So also with Narcissus. Whatever I dofalls dead, and I would rather people let me see that they liked it. To this extent I certainly am disappointed. I am sorry not to havewooed the public more successfully. But I have been told thatwinning and wearing generally take something of the gilt off thewooing, and I am disposed to acquiesce cheerfully in not findingmyself so received as that I need woo no longer. If I were tosucceed I should be bored to death by my success in a fortnight andso, I am convinced, would my friends. Retirement is to me acondition of being able to work at all. I would rather write morebooks and music than spend much time over what I have alreadywritten; nor do I see how I could get retirement if I were not to acertain extent unpopular. 

It is this feeling on my own part--omnipresent with me when I amdoing my best to please, that is to say, whenever I write--which isthe cause why I do not, as people say, "get on. " If I had greatlycared about getting on I think I could have done so. I think I couldeven now write an anonymous book that would take the public as muchas Erewhon did. Perhaps I could not, but I think I could. Thereason why I do not try is because I like doing other things better. What I most enjoy is running the view of evolution set forth in Lifeand Habit and making things less easy for the hacks of literature andscience; or perhaps even more I enjoy taking snapshots and writingmusic, though aware that I had better not enquire whether this lastis any good or not. In fact there is nothing I do that I do notenjoy so keenly that I cannot tear myself away from it, and peoplewho thus indulge themselves cannot have things both ways. I am sointent upon pleasing myself that I have no time to cater for thepublic. Some of them like things in the same way as I do; that classof people I try to please as well as ever I can. With others I haveno concern, and they know it so they have no concern with me. I donot believe there is any other explanation of my failure to get onthan this, nor do I see that any further explanation is needed. [1890. ]

ii

Two or three people have asked me to return to the subject of mysupposed failure and explain it more fully from my own point of view. I have had the subject on my notes for some time and it has bored meso much that it has had a good deal to do with my not having kept myNote-Books posted recently. 

Briefly, in order to scotch that snake, my failure has not been sogreat as people say it has. I believe my reputation stands well withthe best people. Granted that it makes no noise, but I have not beenwilling to take the pains necessary to achieve what may be calledguinea-pig review success, because, although I have been in financialdifficulties, I did not seriously need success from a money point ofview, and because I hated the kind of people I should have had tocourt and kow-tow to if I went in for that sort of thing. I couldnever have carried it through, even if I had tried, and instinctivelydeclined to try. A man cannot be said to have failed, because he didnot get what he did not try for. What I did try for I believe I havegot as fully as any reasonable man can expect, and I have every hopethat I shall get it still more both so long as I live and after I amdead. 

If, however, people mean that I am to explain how it is I have notmade more noise in spite of my own indolence in matter, the answer isthat those who do not either push the themselves into noise, or givesome one else a substantial interest in pushing them, never do getmade a noise about. How can they? I was too lazy to go about frompublisher to publisher and to decline to publish a book myself if Icould not find some one to speculate in it. I could take any amountof trouble about writing a book but, so long as I could lay my handon the money to bring it out with, I found publishers' antechambersso little to my taste that I soon tired and fell back on the shortand easy method of publishing my book myself. Of course, therefore, it failed to sell. I know more about these things now, and willnever publish a book at my own risk again, or at any rate I will sendsomebody else round the antechambers with it for a good while beforeI pay for publishing it. 

I should have liked notoriety and financial success well enough ifthey could have been had for the asking, but I was not going to takeany trouble about them and, as a natural consequence, I did not getthem. If I had wanted them with the same passionate longing that hasled me to pursue every enquiry that I ever have pursued, I shouldhave got them fast enough. It is very rarely that I have failed toget what I have really tried for and, as a matter of fact, I believeI have been a great deal happier for not trying than I should havebeen if I had had notoriety thrust upon me. 

I confess I should like my books to pay their expenses and put me alittle in pocket besides--because I want to do more for Alfred than Isee my way to doing. As a natural consequence of beginning to care Ihave begun to take pains, and am advising with the Society of Authorsas to what will be my best course. Very likely they can do nothingfor me, but at any rate I shall have tried. 

One reason, and that the chief, why I have made no noise, is nowexplained. It remains to add that from first to last I have beenunorthodox and militant in every book that I have written. I madeenemies of the parsons once for all with my first two books. [Erewhon and The Fair Haven. ] The evolution books made theDarwinians, and through them the scientific world in general, evenmore angry than The Fair Haven had made the clergy so that I had nofriends, for the clerical and scientific people rule the roastbetween them. 

I have chosen the fighting road rather than the hang-on-to-a-great-man road, and what can a man who does this look for except thatpeople should try to silence him in whatever way they think will bemost effectual? In my case they have thought it best to pretend thatI am non-existent. It is no part of my business to complain of myopponents for choosing their own line; my business is to defeat themas best I can upon their own line, and I imagine I shall do mosttowards this by not allowing myself to be made unhappy merely becauseI am not fussed about, and by going on writing more books and addingto my pile. 

My Work

Why should I write about this as though any one will wish to readwhat I write?

People sometimes give me to understand that it is a piece ofridiculous conceit on my part to jot down so many notes about myself, since it implies a confidence that I shall one day be regarded as aninteresting person. I answer that neither I nor they can form anyidea as to whether I shall be wanted when I am gone or no. Thechances are that I shall not. I am quite aware of it. So thechances are that I shall not live to be 85; but I have no right tosettle it so. If I do as Captain Don did [Life of Dr. Butler, I, opening of Chapter VIII], and invest every penny I have in an annuitythat shall terminate when I am 89, who knows but that I may live onto 96, as he did, and have seven years without any income at all? Iprefer the modest insurance of keeping up my notes which others mayburn or no as they please. 

I am not one of those who have travelled along a set road towards anend that I have foreseen and desired to reach. I have made asuccession of jaunts or pleasure trips from meadow to meadow, but nolong journey unless life itself be reckoned so. Nevertheless, I havestrayed into no field in which I have not found a flower that wasworth the finding, I have gone into no public place in which I havenot found sovereigns lying about on the ground which people would notnotice and be at the trouble of picking up. They have been thingswhich any one else has had--or at any rate a very large number ofpeople have had--as good a chance of picking up as I had. My findshave none of them come as the result of research or severe study, though they have generally given me plenty to do in the way ofresearch and study as soon as I had got hold of them. I take it thatthese are the most interesting--or whatever the least offensive wordmay be:

1. The emphasising the analogies between crime and disease. [Erewhon. ]

2. The emphasising also the analogies between the development of theorgans of our bodies and of those which are not incorporate with ourbodies and which we call tools or machines. [Erewhon and Luck orCunning?]

3. The clearing up the history of the events in connection with thedeath, or rather crucifixion, of Jesus Christ; and a reasonableexplanation, first, of the belief on the part of the founders ofChristianity that their master had risen from the dead and, secondly, of what might follow from belief in a single supposed miracle. [TheEvidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, The Fair Haven andErewhon Revisited. ]

4. The perception that personal identity cannot be denied betweenparents and offspring without at the same time denying it as betweenthe different ages (and hence moments) in the life of the individualand, as a corollary on this, the ascription of the phenomena ofheredity to the same source as those of memory. [Life and Habit. ]

5. The tidying up the earlier history of the theory of evolution. [Evolution Old and New. ]

6. The exposure and discomfiture of Charles Darwin and Wallace andtheir followers. [Evolution Old and New, Unconscious Memory, Luck orCunning? and "The Deadlock in Darwinism" in the Universal Reviewrepublished in Essays on Life, Art and Science. ] {376}

7. The perception of the principle that led organic life to split upinto two main divisions, animal and vegetable. [Alps andSanctuaries, close of Chapter XIII: Luck or Cunning?]

8. The perception that, if the kinetic theory is held good, ourthought of a thing, whatever that thing may be, is in reality anexceedingly weak dilution of the actual thing itself. [Stated, butnot fully developed, in Luck or Cunning? Chapter XIX, also in someof the foregoing notes. ]

9. The restitution to Giovanni and Gentile Bellini of theirportraits in the Louvre and the finding of five other portraits ofthese two painters of whom Crowe and Cavalcaselle and Layard maintainthat we have no portrait. [Letters to the Athenaeum, &c. ]

10. The restoration to Holbein of the drawing in the Basel Museumcalled La Danse. [Universal Review, Nov. , 1889. ]

11. The calling attention to Gaudenzio Ferrari and putting himbefore the public with something like the emphasis that he deserves. [Ex Voto. ]

12. The discovery of a life-sized statue of Leonardo da Vinci byGaudenzio Ferrari. [Ex Voto. ]

13. The unearthing of the Flemish sculptor Jean de Wespin (calledTabachetti in Italy) and of Giovanni Antonio Paracca. [Ex Voto. ]

14. The finding out that the Odyssey was written at Trapani, theclearing up of the whole topography of the poem, and thedemonstration, as it seems to me, that the poem was written by awoman and not by a man. Indeed, I may almost claim to havediscovered the Odyssey, so altered does it become when my views of itare adopted. And robbing Homer of the Odyssey has rendered the Iliadfar more intelligible; besides, I have set the example of how heshould be approached. [The Authoress of the Odyssey. ]

15. The attempt to do justice to my grandfather by writing The Lifeand Letters of Dr. Butler for which, however, I had specialfacilities. 

16. In Narcissus and Ulysses I made an attempt, the failure of whichhas yet to be shown, to return to the principles of Handel and takethem up where he left off. 

17. The elucidation of Shakespeare's Sonnets. [Shakespeare'sSonnets Reconsidered. ]

I say nothing here about my novel [The Way of All Flesh] because itcannot be published till after my death; nor about my translations ofthe Iliad and the Odyssey. Nevertheless these three books also werea kind of picking up of sovereigns, for the novel contains records ofthings I saw happening rather than imaginary incidents, and theprinciples on which the translations are made were obvious to any onewilling to take and use them. 

The foregoing is the list of my "mares'-nests, " and it is, I presume, this list which made Mr. Arthur Platt call me the Galileo of Mares'-Nests in his diatribe on my Odyssey theory in the Classical Review. I am not going to argue here that they are all, as I do not doubt, sound; what I want to say is that they are every one of them thingsthat lay on the surface and open to any one else just as much as tome. Not one of them required any profundity of thought or extensiveresearch; they only required that he who approached the varioussubjects with which they have to do should keep his eyes open and tryto put himself in the position of the various people whom theyinvolve. Above all, it was necessary to approach them without anypreconceived theory and to be ready to throw over any conclusion themoment the evidence pointed against it. The reason why I havediscarded so few theories that I have put forward--and at this momentI cannot recollect one from which there has been any serious attemptto dislodge me--is because I never allowed myself to form a theory atall till I found myself driven on to it whether I would or no. Aslong as it was possible to resist I resisted, and only yielded when Icould not think that an intelligent jury under capable guidance wouldgo with me if I resisted longer. I never went in search of any oneof my theories; I never knew what it was going to be till I had foundit; they came and found me, not I them. Such being my ownexperience, I begin to be pretty certain that other people have hadmuch the same and that the soundest theories have come unsought andwithout much effort. 

The conclusion, then, of the whole matter is that scientific andliterary fortunes are, like money fortunes, made more by saving thanin any other way--more through the exercise of the common vulgaressentials, such as sobriety and straightforwardness, than by themore showy enterprises that when they happen to succeed are calledgenius and when they fail, folly. The streets are full of sovereignscrying aloud for some one to come and pick them up, only the thickveil of our own insincerity and conceit hides them from us. He whocan most tear this veil from in front of his eyes will be able to seemost and to walk off with them. 

I should say that the sooner I stop the better. If on my descent tothe nether world I were to be met and welcomed by the shades of thoseto whom I have done a good turn while I was here, I should bereceived by a fairly illustrious crowd. There would be Giovanni andGentile Bellini, Leonardo da Vinci, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Holbein, Tabachetti, Paracca and D'Enrico; the Authoress of the Odyssey wouldcome and Homer with her; Dr. Butler would bring with him the manyforgotten men and women to whom in my memoir I have given fresh life;there would be Buffon, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck; Shakespeare alsowould be there and Handel. I could not wish to find myself in morecongenial company and I shall not take it too much to heart if theshade of Charles Darwin glides gloomily away when it sees me coming. 

XXV--POEMS

Prefatory Note

i. Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus

ii. The Shield of Achilles, with Variations

iii. The Two Deans

iv. On the Italian Priesthood

Butler wrote these four pieces while he was an undergraduate at St. John's College, Cambridge. He kept no copy of any of them, but hisfriend the Rev. Canon Joseph McCormick, D. D. , Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, kept copies in a note-book which he lent me. The onlyone that has appeared in print is "The Shield of Achilles, " whichCanon McCormick sent to The Eagle, the magazine of St. John'sCollege, Cambridge, and it was printed in the number for December1902, about six months after Butler's death. 

"On the Italian Priesthood" is a rendering of the Italian epigramaccompanying it which, with others under the heading "Astuzia, Inganno, " is given in Raccolta di Proverbi Toscani di Giuseppe Giusti(Firenze, 1853). 

v. A Psalm of Montreal

This was written in Canada in 1875. Butler often recited it and gavecopies of it to his friends. Knowing that Mr. Edward Clodd had hadsomething to do with its appearance in the Spectator I wrote askinghim to tell me what he remembered about it. He very kindly replied, 29th October, 1905:

The 'Psalm' was recited to me at the Century Club by Butler. He gaveme a copy of it which I read to the late Chas. Anderson, Vicar of S. John's, Limehouse, who lent it to Matt. Arnold (when inspectingAnderson's Schools) who lent it to Richd. Holt Hutton who, withButler's consent, printed it in the Spectator of 18th May, 1878. "

The "Psalm of Montreal" was included in Selections from PreviousWorks (1884) and in Seven Sonnets, etc. 

vi. The Righteous Man

Butler wrote this in 1876; it has appeared before only in 1879 in theExaminer, where it formed part of the correspondence "A Clergyman'sDoubts" of which the letter signed "Ethics" has already been given inthis volume (see p. 304 ante). "The Righteous Man" was signed"X. Y. Z. " and, in order to connect it with the discussion, Butlerprefaced it with a note comparing it to the last six inches of a lineof railway; there is no part of the road so ugly, so little travelledover, or so useless generally, but it is the end, at any rate, of avery long thing. 

vii. To Critics and Others. 

This was written in 1883 and has not hitherto been published. 

viii. For Narcissus

These are printed for the first time. The pianoforte score ofNarcissus was published in 1888. The poem (A) was written becausethere was some discussion then going on in musical circles aboutadditional accompaniments to the Messiah and we did not want any tobe written for Narcissus. 

The poem (B) shows how Butler originally intended to open Part IIwith a kind of descriptive programme, but he changed his mind and didit differently. 

ix. A Translation Attempted in Consequence of a Challenge

This translation into Homeric verse of a famous passage from MartinChuzzlewit was a by-product of Butler's work on the Odyssey and theIliad. It was published in The Eagle in March, 1894, and wasincluded in Seven Sonnets. 

I asked Butler who had challenged him to attempt the translation andhe replied that he had thought of that and had settled that, if anyone else were to ask the question, he should reply that the challengecame from me. 

x. In Memoriam H. R. F. 

This appears in print now for the first time. Hans Rudolf Faesch, ayoung Swiss from Basel, came to London in the autumn of 1893. Hespent much of his time with us until 14th February, 1895, when heleft for Singapore. We saw him off from Holborn Viaduct Station; hewas not well and it was a stormy night. The next day Butler wrotethis poem and, being persuaded that we should never see Hans Faeschagain, called it an In Memoriam. Hans did not die on the journey, hearrived safely in Singapore and settled in the East where he carriedon business. We exchanged letters with him frequently; he paid twovisits to Europe and we saw him on both occasions. But he did notlive long. He died in the autumn of 1903 at Vien Tiane in the ShanStates, aged 32, having survived Butler by about a year and a half. 

xi. An Academic Exercise

This has never been printed before. It is a Farewell, and that iswhy I have placed it next after the In Memoriam. The contrastbetween the two poems illustrates the contrast pointed out at theclose of the note on "The Dislike of Death" (ante, p. 359):

"The memory of a love that has been cut short by death remains stillfragrant though enfeebled, but no recollection of its past can keepsweet a love that has dried up and withered through accidents of timeand life. "

In the ordinary course Butler would have talked this Sonnet over withme at the time he wrote it, that is in January, 1902; he may evenhave done so, but I think not. From 2nd January, 1902, until late inMarch, when he left London alone for Sicily, I was ill with pneumoniaand remember very little of what happened then. Between his returnin May and his death in June I am sure he did not mention thesubject. Knowing the facts that underlie the preceding poem I cantell why Butler called it an In Memoriam; not knowing the facts thatunderlie this poem I cannot tell why Butler should have called it anAcademic Exercise. It is his last Sonnet and is dated "Sund. Jan. 12th 1902, " within six months of his death, at a time when he wasdepressed physically because his health was failing and mentallybecause he had been "editing his remains, " reading and destroying oldletters and brooding over the past. One of the subjects given in thesection "Titles and Subjects" (ante) is "The diseases and ordinarycauses of mortality among friendships. " I suppose that he foundamong his letters something which awakened memories of a friendshipof his earlier life--a friendship that had suffered from a disease, whether it recovered or died would not affect the sincerity of theemotions experienced by Butler at the time he believed the friendshipto be virtually dead. I suppose the Sonnet to be an In Memoriam uponthe apprehended death of a friendship as the preceding poem is an InMemoriam upon the apprehended death of a friend. 

This may be wrong, but something of the kind seems necessary toexplain why Butler should have called the Sonnet an AcademicExercise. No one who has read Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsideredwill require to be told that he disagreed contemptuously with thosecritics who believe that Shakespeare composed his Sonnets as academicexercises. It is certain that he wrote this, as he wrote his otherSonnets, in imitation of Shakespeare, not merely imitating the formbut approaching the subject in the spirit in which he believedShakespeare to have approached his subject. It follows thereforethat he did not write this sonnet as an academic exercise, had hedone so he would not have been imitating Shakespeare. If we assumethat he was presenting his story as he presented the dialogue in "APsalm of Montreal" in a form "perhaps true, perhaps imaginary, perhaps a little of the one and a little of the other, " it would bequite in the manner of the author of The Fair Haven to burlesque themethods of the critics by ignoring the sincerity of the emotions andfixing on the little bit of inaccuracy in the facts. We may supposehim to be saying out loud to the critics: "You think Shakespeare'sSonnets were composed as academic exercises, do you? Very well then, now what do you make of this?" And adding aside to himself: "Thatwill be good enough for them; they'll swallow anything. "

xii. A Prayer

Extract from Butler's Note-Books under the date of February or March1883:

"'Cleanse thou me from my secret sins. ' I heard a man moralising onthis and shocked him by saying demurely that I did not mind these somuch, if I could get rid of those that were obvious to other people. "

He wrote the sonnet in 1900 or 1901. In the first quatrain "spoken"does not rhyme with "open"; Butler knew this and would not alter itbecause there are similar assonances in Shakespeare, e. G. "open" and"broken" in Sonnet LXI. 

xiii. Karma

I am responsible for grouping these three sonnets under this heading. The second one beginning "What is't to live" appears in Butler'sNote-Book with the remark, "This wants much tinkering, but I cannottinker it"--meaning that he was too much occupied with other things. He left the second line of the third of these sonnets thus:

"Them palpable to touch and view. "

I have "tinkered" it by adding the two syllables "and clear" to makethe line complete. 

In writing this sonnet Butler was no doubt thinking of a note he madein 1891:

"It is often said that there is no bore like a clever bore. Cleverpeople are always bores and always must be. That is, perhaps, whyShakespeare had to leave London--people could not stand him anylonger. "

xiv. The Life after Death

Butler began to write sonnets in 1898 when he was studying those ofShakespeare on which he published a book in the following year. (Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered, &c. ) He had gone to Flushing byhimself and on his return wrote to me:

24 Aug. 1898. "Also at Flushing I wrote one myself, a poor innocentthing, but I was surprised to find how easily it came; if you like itI may write a few more. "

The "poor innocent thing" was the sonnet beginning "Not on sadStygian shore, " the first of those I have grouped under the heading"The Life after Death. " It appears in his notebooks with thisintroductory sentence:

"Having now learned Shakespeare's Sonnets by heart--and there arevery few which I do not find I understand the better for having donethis--on Saturday night last at the Hotel Zeeland at Flushing, finding myself in a meditative mood, I wrote the following with agood deal less trouble than I anticipated when I took pen and paperin hand. I hope I may improve it. "

Of course I liked the sonnet very much and he did write "a few more"--among them the two on Handel which I have put after "Not on sadStygian shore" because he intended that they should follow it. I amsure he would have wished this volume to close with these threesonnets, especially because the last two of them were inspired byHandel, who was never absent from his thoughts for long. Let meconclude these introductory remarks by reproducing a note made in1883:

"Of all dead men Handel has had the largest place in my thoughts. Infact I should say that he and his music have been the central fact inmy life ever since I was old enough to know of the existence ofeither life or music. All day long--whether I am writing or paintingor walking, but always--I have his music in my head; and if I losesight of it and of him for an hour or two, as of course I sometimesdo, this is as much as I do. I believe I am not exaggerating when Isay that I have never been a day since I was 13 without having Handelin my mind many times over. "

i--Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus

And the Johnians practise their tub in the following manner: --Theyselect 8 of the most serviceable freshmen and put these into a boatand to each one of them they give an oar; and, having told them tolook at the backs of the men before them, they make them bend forwardas far as they can and at the same moment, and, having put the end ofthe oar into the water, pull it back again in to them about thebottom of the ribs; and, if any of them does not do this or looksabout him away from the back of the man before him, they curse him inthe most terrible manner, but if he does what he is bidden theyimmediately cry out:

"Well pulled, number so-and-so. "

For they do not call them by their names but by certain numbers, eachman of them having a number allotted to him in accordance with hisplace in the boat, and the first man they call stroke, but the lastman bow; and when they have done this for about 50 miles they comehome again, and the rate they travel at is about 25 miles an hour;and let no one think that this is too great a rate for I could saymany other wonderful things in addition concerning the rowing of theJohnians, but if a man wishes to know these things he must go andexamine them himself. But when they have done they contrive somesuch a device as this, for they make them run many miles along theside of the river in order that they may accustom them to greatfatigue, and many of them, being distressed in this way, fall downand die, but those who survive become very strong and receive giftsof cups from the others; and after the revolution of a year they havegreat races with their boats against those of the surroundingislanders, but the Johnians, both owing to the carefulness of thetraining and a natural disposition for rowing, are always victorious. In this way, then, the Johnians, I say, practise their tub. 

ii--The Shield of Achilles--With Variations

And in it he placed the Fitzwilliam and King's College Chapel and thelofty towered church of the Great Saint Mary, which looketh towardsthe Senate House, and King's Parade and Trumpington Road and the PittPress and the divine opening of the Market Square and the beautifulflowing fountain which formerly Hobson laboured to make with skilfulart; him did his father beget in the many-public-housed Trumpingtonfrom a slavey mother and taught him blameless works; and he, on theother hand, sprang up like a young shoot and many beautifully matchedhorses did he nourish in his stable, which used to convey his richpossessions to London and the various cities of the world; butoftentimes did he let them out to others and whensoever any one wasdesirous of hiring one of the long-tailed horses he took them inorder, so that the labour was equal to all, wherefore do men nowspeak of the choice of the renowned Hobson. And in it he placed theclose of the divine Parker, and many beautiful undergraduates weredelighting their tender minds upon it playing cricket with oneanother; and a match was being played and two umpires werequarrelling with one another; the one saying that the batsman who wasplaying was out and the other declaring with all his might that hewas not; and while they two were contending, reviling one anotherwith abusive language, a ball came and hit one of them on the noseand the blood flowed out in a stream and darkness was covering hiseyes, but the rest were crying out on all sides:

"Shy it up. "

And he could not; him, then, was his companion addressing withscornful words:

"Arnold, why dost thou strive with me since I am much wiser? Did notI see his leg before the wicket and rightly declare him to be out?Thee, then, has Zeus now punished according to thy deserts and I willseek some other umpire of the game equally-participated-in-by-both-sides. "

And in it he placed the Cam and many boats equally rowed on bothsides were going up and down on the bosom of the deep rolling riverand the coxswains were cheering on the men, for they were going toenter the contest of the scratchean fours; and three men were rowingtogether in a boat, strong and stout and determined in their heartsthat they would either first break a blood vessel or earn forthemselves the electroplated-Birmingham-manufactured magnificence ofa pewter to stand on their ball tables in memorial of their strength, and from time to time drink from it the exhilarating streams of beerwhensoever their dear heart should compel them; but the fourth wasweak and unequally matched with the others and the coxswain wasencouraging him and called him by name and spake cheering words:

"Smith, when thou hast begun the contest, be not flurried nor strivetoo hard against thy fate, look at the back of the man before theeand row with as much strength as the Fates spun out for thee on theday when thou fellest between the knees of thy mother, neither losethine oar, but hold it tight with thy hands. "

iii--The Two Deans

Scene: The Court of St. John's College, Cambridge. Enter the twodeans on their way to morning chapel. 

JUNIOR DEAN: Brother, I am much pleased with Samuel Butler, I have observed him mightily of late;Methinks that in his melancholy walkAnd air subdued when'er he meeteth meLurks something more than in most other men. 

SENIOR DEAN: It is a good young man. I do bethink meThat once I walked behind him in the cloister, He saw me not, but whispered to his fellow:"Of all men who do dwell beneath the moonI love and reverence most the senior Dean. "

JUNIOR DEAN: One thing is passing strange, and yet I know notHow to condemn it; but in one plain brief wordHe never comes to Sunday morning chapel. Methinks he teacheth in some Sunday school, Feeding the poor and starveling intellectWith wholesome knowledge, or on the Sabbath mornHe loves the country and the neighbouring spireOf Madingley or Coton, or perchanceAmid some humble poor he spends the dayConversing with them, learning all their cares, Comforting them and easing them in sickness. Oh 'tis a rare young man!

SENIOR DEAN: I will advance him to some public post, He shall be chapel clerk, some day a fellow, Some day perhaps a Dean, but as thou saystHe is indeed an excellent young man -

Enter Butler suddenly without a coat, or anything on his head, rushing through the cloisters, bearing a cup, a bottle of cider, fourlemons, two nutmegs, half a pound of sugar and a nutmeg grater. 

Curtain falls on the confusion of Butler and the horror-strickendismay of the two deans. 

iv--On the Italian Priesthood

(Con arte e con inganno, si vive mezzo l'anno;Con inganno e con arte, si vive l'altra parte. )

In knavish art and gathering gearThey spend the one half of the year;In gathering gear and knavish artThey somehow spend the other part. 

v--A Psalm of Montreal

The City of Montreal is one of the most rising and, in many respects, most agreeable on the American continent, but its inhabitants are asyet too busy with commerce to care greatly about the masterpieces ofold Greek Art. In the Montreal Museum of Natural History I came upontwo plaster casts, one of the Antinous and the other of theDiscobolus--not the good one, but in my poem, of course, I intend thegood one--banished from public view to a room where were all mannerof skins, plants, snakes, insects, etc. , and, in the middle of these, an old man stuffing an owl. 

"Ah, " said I, "so you have some antiques here; why don't you put themwhere people can see them?"

"Well, sir, " answered the custodian, "you see they are rathervulgar. "

He then talked a great deal and said his brother did all Mr. Spurgeon's printing. 

The dialogue--perhaps true, perhaps imaginary, perhaps a little ofthe one and a little of the other--between the writer and this oldman gave rise to the lines that follow:

Stowed away in a Montreal lumber roomThe Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall;Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught, Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth: O God! O Montreal!

Beautiful by night and day, beautiful in summer and winter, Whole or maimed, always and alike beautiful -He preacheth gospel of grace to the skin of owlsAnd to one who seasoneth the skins of Canadian owls: O God! O Montreal!

When I saw him I was wroth and I said, "O Discobolus!Beautiful Discobolus, a Prince both among gods and men!What doest thou here, how camest thou hither, Discobolus, Preaching gospel in vain to the skins of owls?" O God! O Montreal!

And I turned to the man of skins and said unto him, "O thou man ofskins, Wherefore hast thou done thus to shame the beauty of the Discobolus?"But the Lord had hardened the heart of the man of skinsAnd he answered, "My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon. " O God! O Montreal!

"The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar -He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs;I, Sir, am a person of most respectable connectionsMy brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon. " O God! O Montreal!

Then I said, "O brother-in-law to Mr. Spurgeon's haberdasher, Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls, Thou callest trousers 'pants, ' whereas I call them 'trousers, 'Therefore thou art in hell-fire and may the Lord pity thee!" O God! O Montreal!

"Preferrest thou the gospel of Montreal to the gospel of Hellas, The gospel of thy connection with Mr. Spurgeon's haberdashery to thegospel of the Discobolus?"Yet none the less blasphemed he beauty saying, "The Discobolus hathno gospel, But my brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon. " O God! O Montreal!

vi--The Righteous Man

The righteous man will rob none but the defenceless, Whatsoever can reckon with him he will neither plunder nor kill;He will steal an egg from a hen or a lamb from an ewe, For his sheep and his hens cannot reckon with him hereafter -They live not in any odour of defencefulness:Therefore right is with the righteous man, and he taketh advantagerighteously, Praising God and plundering. 

The righteous man will enslave his horse and his dog, Making them serve him for their bare keep and for nothing further, Shooting them, selling them for vivisection when they can no longerprofit him, Backbiting them and beating them if they fail to please him;For his horse and his dog can bring no action for damages, Wherefore, then, should he not enslave them, shoot them, sell themfor vivisection?

But the righteous man will not plunder the defenceful -Not if he be alone and unarmed--for his conscience will smite him;He will not rob a she-bear of her cubs, nor an eagle of her eaglets -Unless he have a rifle to purge him from the fear of sin:Then may he shoot rejoicing in innocency--from ambush or a safedistance;Or he will beguile them, lay poison for them, keep no faith withthem;For what faith is there with that which cannot reckon hereafter, Neither by itself, nor by another, nor by any residuum of illconsequences?Surely, where weakness is utter, honour ceaseth. 

Nay, I will do what is right in the eye of him who can harm me, And not in those of him who cannot call me to account. Therefore yield me up thy pretty wings, O humming-bird!Sing for me in a prison, O lark!Pay me thy rent, O widow! for it is mine. Where there is reckoning there is sin, And where there is no reckoning sin is not. 

vii--To Critics and Others

O Critics, cultured Critics!Who will praise me after I am dead, Who will see in me both more and less than I intended, But who will swear that whatever it was it was all perfectly right:You will think you are better than the people who, when I was alive, swore that whatever I did was wrongAnd damned my books for me as fast as I could write them;But you will not be better, you will be just the same, neither betternor worse, And you will go for some future Butler as your fathers have gone forme. Oh! How I should have hated you!

But you, Nice People!Who will be sick of me because the critics thrust me down yourthroats, But who would take me willingly enough if you were not bored aboutme, Or if you could have the cream of me--and surely this should suffice:Please remember that, if I were living, I should be upon your sideAnd should hate those who imposed me either on myself or others;Therefore, I pray you, neglect me, burlesque me, boil me down, dowhatever you like with me, But do not think that, if I were living, I should not aid and abetyou. There is nothing that even Shakespeare would enjoy more than a goodburlesque of Hamlet. 

viii--For Narcissus

(A)

(To be written in front of the orchestral score. )

May he be damned for evermoreWho tampers with Narcissus' score;May he by poisonous snakes be bittenWho writes more parts than what we've written. We tried to make our music clearFor those who sing and those who hear, Not lost and muddled up and drownedIn over-done orchestral sound;So kindly leave the work aloneOr do it as we want it done. 

(B)

Part II

Symphony

(During which the audience is requested to think as follows:)

An aged lady taken illDesires to reconstruct her will;I see the servants hurrying forThe family solicitor;Post-haste he comes and with him bringsThe usual necessary things. With common form and driving quillHe draws the first part of the will, The more sonorous solemn soundsDenote a hundred thousand pounds, This trifle is the main bequest, Old friends and servants take the rest. 'Tis done! I see her sign her name, I see the attestors do the same. Who is the happy legatee?In the next number you will see. 

ix--A Translation

(Attempted in consequence of a challenge. )

"'Mrs. Harris, ' I says to her, 'dont name the charge, for if I couldafford to lay all my feller creeturs out for nothink I would gladlydo it; sich is the love I bear 'em. But what I always says to themas has the management of matters, Mrs. Harris, '"--here she kept hereye on Mr. Pecksniff--"'be they gents or be they ladies--is, Dont askme whether I wont take none, or whether I will, but leave the bottleon the chimley piece, and let me put my lips to it when I am sodispoged. '" (Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. XIX). 

[Translation in Greek]

x--In Memoriam

Feb. 14th, 1895

To

H. R. F. 

Out, out, out into the night, With the wind bitter North East and the sea rough;You have a racking cough and your lungs are weak, But out, out into the night you go, So guide you and guard you Heaven and fare you well!

We have been three lights to one another and now we are two, For you go far and alone into the darkness;But the light in you was stronger and clearer than ours, For you came straighter from God and, whereas we had learned, You had never forgotten. Three minutes more and thenOut, out into the night you go, So guide you and guard you Heaven and fare you well!

Never a cross look, never a thought, Never a word that had better been left unspoken;We gave you the best we had, such as it was, It pleased you well, for you smiled and nodded your head;And now, out, out into the night you go, So guide you and guard you Heaven and fare you well!

You said we were a little weak that the three of us wept, Are we then weak if we laugh when we are glad?When men are under the knife let them roar as they will, So that they flinch not. Therefore let tears flow on, for so long as we liveNo such second sorrow shall ever draw nigh us, Till one of us two leaves the other aloneAnd goes out, out, out into the night, So guard the one that is left, O God, and fare him well!

Yet for the great bitterness of this griefWe three, you and he and I, May pass into the hearts of like true comrades hereafter, In whom we may weep anew and yet comfort them, As they too pass out, out, out into the night, So guide them and guard them Heaven and fare them well!

. . . 

The minutes have flown and he whom we loved is gone, The like of whom we never again shall see;The wind is heavy with snow and the sea rough, He has a racking cough and his lungs are weak. Hand in hand we watch the train as it glidesOut, out, out into the night. So take him into thy holy keeping, O Lord, And guide him and guard him ever, and fare him well!

xi--An Academic Exercise

We were two lovers standing sadly byWhile our two loves lay dead upon the ground;Each love had striven not to be first to die, But each was gashed with many a cruel wound. Said I: "Your love was false while mine was true. "Aflood with tears he cried: "It was not so, 'Twas your false love my true love falsely slew -For 'twas your love that was the first to go. "Thus did we stand and said no more for shameTill I, seeing his cheek so wan and wet, Sobbed thus: "So be it; my love shall bear the blame;Let us inter them honourably. " And yet I swear by all truth human and divine 'Twas his that in its death throes murdered mine. 

xii--A Prayer

Searcher of souls, you who in heaven abide, To whom the secrets of all hearts are open, Though I do lie to all the world beside, From me to these no falsehood shall be spoken. Cleanse me not, Lord, I say, from secret sinBut from those faults which he who runs can see, 'Tis these that torture me, O Lord, beginWith these and let the hidden vices be;If you must cleanse these too, at any rateDeal with the seen sins first, 'tis only reason, They being so gross, to let the others waitThe leisure of some more convenient season; And cleanse not all even then, leave me a few, I would not be--not quite--so pure as you. 

xiii--Karma

(A)

Who paints a picture, writes a play or bookWhich others read while he's asleep in bedO' the other side of the world--when they o'erlookHis page the sleeper might as well be dead;What knows he of his distant unfelt life?What knows he of the thoughts his thoughts are raising, The life his life is giving, or the strifeConcerning him--some cavilling, some praising?Yet which is most alive, he who's asleepOr his quick spirit in some other place, Or score of other places, that doth keepAttention fixed and sleep from others chase? Which is the "he"--the "he" that sleeps, or "he" That his own "he" can neither feel nor see?

(B)

What is't to live, if not to pull the stringsOf thought that pull those grosser strings wherebyWe pull our limbs to pull material thingsInto such shape as in our thoughts doth lie?Who pulls the strings that pull an agent's hand, The action's counted his, so, we being gone, The deeds that others do by our command, Albeit we know them not, are still our own. He lives who does and he who does still lives, Whether he wots of his own deeds or no. Who knows the beating of his heart, that drivesBlood to each part, or how his limbs did grow? If life be naught but knowing, then each breath We draw unheeded must be reckon'd death. 

(C)

"Men's work we have, " quoth one, "but we want them -Them, palpable to touch and clear to view. "Is it so nothing, then, to have the gemBut we must weep to have the setting too?Body is a chest wherein the tools abideWith which the craftsman works as best he canAnd, as the chest the tools within doth hide, So doth the body crib and hide the man. Nay, though great Shakespeare stood in flesh before us, Should heaven on importunity release him, Is it so certain that he might not bore us, So sure but we ourselves might fail to please him? Who prays to have the moon full soon would pray, Once it were his, to have it taken away. 

xiv--The Life After Death

(A)

[Greek text]

Not on sad Stygian shore, nor in clear sheenOf far Elysian plain, shall we meet thoseAmong the dead whose pupils we have been, Nor those great shades whom we have held as foes;No meadow of asphodel our feet shall tread, Nor shall we look each other in the faceTo love or hate each other being dead, Hoping some praise, or fearing some disgrace. We shall not argue saying "'Twas thus" or "Thus, "Our argument's whole drift we shall forget;Who's right, who's wrong, 'twill be all one to us;We shall not even know that we have met. Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again, Where dead men meet, on lips of living men. 

(B)

HANDEL

There doth great Handel live, imperious still, Invisible and impalpable as air, But forcing flesh and blood to work his willEffectually as though his flesh were there;He who gave eyes to ears and showed in soundAll thoughts and things in earth or heaven above. From fire and hailstones running along the groundTo Galatea grieving for her love;He who could show to all unseeing eyesGlad shepherds watching o'er their flocks by night, Or Iphis angel-wafted to the skies, Or Jordan standing as an heap upright - He'll meet both Jones and me and clap or hiss us Vicariously for having writ Narcissus. 

(C)

HANDEL

Father of my poor music--if such smallOffspring as mine, so born out of due time, So scorn'd, can be called fatherful at all, Or dare to thy high sonship's rank to climb -Best lov'd of all the dead whom I love best, Though I love many another dearly too, You in my heart take rank above the rest;King of those kings that most control me, you, You were about my path, about my bedIn boyhood always and, where'er I be, Whate'er I think or do, you, in my head, Ground-bass to all my thoughts, are still with me; Methinks the very worms will find some strain Of yours still lingering in my wasted brain. 

Footnotes

{16} "The doctrine preached by Weismann was that to start with thebody and inquire how its characters got into the germ was to view thesequence from the wrong end; the proper starting point was the germ, and the real question was not 'How do the characters of the organismget into the germ-cell WHICH IT produces?' but 'How are thecharacters of an organism represented in the germ WHICH PRODUCES IT?'Or, as Samuel Butler has it, the proper statement of the relationbetween successive generations is not to say that a hen producesanother hen through the medium of an egg, but to say that a hen ismerely an egg's way of producing another egg. " Breeding and theMendelian Discovery, by A. D. Darbishire. Cassell & Co. , 1911, p. 187-8. 

"It has, I believe, been often remarked that a hen is only an egg'sway of making another egg. " Life and Habit, Trubner & Co. , 1878, chapter viii, p. 134. 

And compare the idea underlying "The World of the Unborn" in Erewhon. 

{26} The two chapters entitled "The Rights of Animals" and "TheRights of Vegetables" appeared first in the new and revised editionof Erewhon 1901 and form part of the additions referred to in thepreface to that book. 

{30} On the AlpsIt is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, Which some did die to look on: and all this -It wounds thine honour that I speak it now -Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheekSo much as lank'd not. --Ant. & Cleop. , I. Iv. 66-71. 

{31} Walks in the Regions of Science and Faith, by Harvey Goodwin, D. D. , Lord Bishop of Carlisle. John Murray, 1883. 

{32a} This quotation occurs on the title page of Charles Dickens andRochester by Robert Langton. Chapman & Hall, 1880. Reprinted withadditions from the Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, Vol. VI, 1880. But the italics are Butler's. 

{32b} This is Butler's note as he left it. He made it just aboutthe time he hit upon the theory that the Odyssey was written by awoman. If it had caught his eye after that theory had becomeestablished in his mind, he would have edited it so as to avoidspeaking of Homer as the author of the poem. 

{41} Life and Habit is dated 1878, but it actually appeared onButler's birthday, 4th December, 1877. 

{92} The five notes here amalgamated together into "Croesus and hisKitchen-Maid" were to have been part of an article for the UniversalReview, but, before Butler wrote it, the review died. I suppose, butI do not now remember, that the article would have been about Mindand Matter or Organs and Tools, and, possibly, all the concludingnotes of this group, beginning with "Our Cells, " would have beenintroduced as illustrations. 

{106} Cf. The note "Reproduction, " p. 16 ante. 

{107} Evolution Old & New, p. 77. 

{128} Twelve Voluntaries and Fugues for the Organ or Harpsichordwith Rules for Tuning. By the celebrated Mr. Handel. Butler had acopy of this book and gave it to the British Museum (Press Mark, e. 1089). We showed the rules to Rockstro, who said they were veryinteresting and probably authentic; they would tune the instrument inone of the mean tone temperaments. 

{131} Mr. Kemp lived in Barnard's Inn on my staircase. He was inthe box-office at Drury Lane Theatre. See a further note about himon p. 133 post. 

{136} If I remember right, the original Jubilee sixpence had to bealtered because it was so like a half-sovereign that, on beinggilded, it passed as one. 

{147} Raffaelle's picture "The Virgin and child attended by S. Johnthe Baptist and S. Nicholas of Bari" (commonly known as the "Madonnadegli Ansidei"), No. 1171, Room VI in the National Gallery, London, was purchased in 1885. Butler made this note in the same year; herevised the note in 1897 but, owing to changes in the gallery and inthe attributions, I have found it necessary to modernise hisdescriptions of the other pictures with gold thread work so as tomake them agree with the descriptions now (1912) on the picturesthemselves. 

{151} Cf. The passage in Alps and Sanctuaries, chapter XIII, beginning "The question whether it is better to abide quiet and takeadvantages of opportunities that come or to go further afield insearch of them is one of the oldest which living beings have had todeal with. . . . The schism still lasts and has resulted in twogreat sects--animals and plants. "

{153} Prince was my cat when I lived in Barnard's Inn. He used tostray into Mr. Kemp's rooms on my landing (see p. 131 ante). Mrs. Kemp's sister brought her child to see them, and the child, playingwith Prince one day, made a discovery and exclaimed:

"Oh! it's got pins in its toes. "

Butler put this into The Way of all Flesh. 

{162} Philippians i. 15-18:-

Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also ofgood will:

The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to addaffliction to my bonds:

But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of thegospel. 

What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or intruth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and willrejoice. 

{176} Narcissus, "Should Riches mate with Love. "

{235} Butler gave this as a subject to Mr. E. P. Larken who made itinto a short story entitled "The Priest's Bargain, " which appeared inthe Pall Mall Magazine, May, 1897. 

{203} All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is ajust man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wickedman that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. 

Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: whyshouldest thou destroy thyself?

Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thoudie before thy time? (Eccles. Vii. 15, 16, 17). 

{204} Cf. "Imaginary Worlds, " p. 233 post. 

{225} "So, again, it is said that when Andromeda and Perseus hadtravelled but a little way from the rock where Andromeda had so longbeen chained, she began upbraiding him with the loss of her dragonwho, on the whole, she said, had been very good to her. The onlythings we really hate are unfamiliar things. " Life & Habit, Chapterviii, p. 138/9. 

{251} This note is one of those that appeared in the New QuarterlyReview. The Hon. Mrs. Richard Grosvenor did not see it there, but afew years later I lent her my copy. She wrote to me 31 December, 1911. 

"The notes are delightful. By the way I can add to one. When Mr. Butler came to tell me he was going to stay with Dr. Creighton, hetold me that Alfred had decided he might go on finding the littleflake of tobacco in the letter. Then he asked me if I would lend hima prayer-book as he thought the bishop's man ought to find one in hisportmanteau when he unpacked, the visit being from a Saturday toMonday. I fetched one and he said:

"'Is it cut?'"

{261} "Ramblings in Cheapside" in Essays on Life, Art and Science. 

{263} Edmund Gurney, author of The Power of Sound, and Secretary ofthe Society for Psychical Research. 

{279} Cf. Wamba's explanation of the Saxon swine being convertedinto Norman pork on their death. Ivanhoe, Chap. I. 

{282} See "A Medieval Girl School" in Essays on Life, Art & Science. 

{333} "Above all things, let no unwary reader do me the injustice ofbelieving in ME. In that I write at all I am among the damned. Ifhe must believe in anything, let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting of Giovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter ofSt. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians" (Life and Habit, closeof chapter II). 

{343} "No one can hate drunkenness more than I do, but I amconfident the human intellect owes its superiority over that of thelower animals in great measure to the stimulus which alcohol hasgiven to imagination--imagination being little else than another namefor illusion" (Alps and Sanctuaries, chapter III). 

{364} There are letters from these people in The Life and Letters ofDr. Samuel Butler. 

{369} Butler made this note in 1899 before the publication ofShakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered, which was published in the sameyear. The Odyssey Rendered info English Prose appeared in 1900 andErewhon Revisited, the last book published in his lifetime, in 1901. He made no analysis of the sales of these three books, nor of thesales of A First Year in Canterbury Settlement published in 1863, norof his pamphlet The Evidence for the Resurrection, published in 1865. The Way of all Flesh and Essays on Life, Art, and Science were notpublished till after his death. I do not know what he means by ABook of Essays, unless it may be that he incurred an outlay of 3pounds 11s. 9d. In connection with a projected republication of hisarticles in the Universal Review or of some of his Italian articlesabout the Odyssey. 

{376} Butler had two separate grounds of complaint against CharlesDarwin, one scientific, the other personal. With regard to thepersonal quarrel some facts came to light after Butler's death andthe subject is dealt with in a pamphlet entitled Charles Darwin andSamuel Butler: A Step towards Reconciliation, by Henry Festing Jones(A. C. Fifield, 1911).