fellow-creatures do not merely omit to strike the balance-sheet of
their lives, they omit even the preliminary operation of taking
stock. They go on, and on, and on, buying and selling they know not
what, at unascertained prices, dropping money into the till and taking
it out. They don't know what goods are in the shop, nor what amount is
in the till, but they have a clear impression that the living-room
behind the shop is by no means as luxurious and as well-ventilated as
they would like it to be. And the years pass, and that beautiful
furniture and that system of ventilation are not achieved. And then
one day they die, and friends come to the funeral and remark: "Dear
me! How stuffy this room is, and the shop's practically full of
trash!" Or, some little time before they are dead, they stay later
than usual in the shop one evening, and make up their minds to take
stock and count the till, and the disillusion lays them low, and they
struggle into the living-room and murmur: "I shall never have that
beautiful furniture, and I shall never have that system of
ventilation. If I had known earlier, I would have at least got a few
inexpensive cushions to go on with, and I would have put my fist
through a pane in the window. But it's too late now. I'm used to
Windsor chairs, and I should feel the draught horribly."
If I were a preacher, and if I hadn't got more than enough to do in
minding my own affairs, and if I could look any one in the face and
deny that I too had pursued for nearly forty years the great British
policy of muddling through and hoping for the best--in short, if
things were not what they are, I would hire the Alhambra Theatre or
Exeter Hall of a Sunday night--preferably the Alhambra, because more
people would come to my entertainment--and I would invite all men and
women over twenty-six. I would supply the seething crowd with what
they desired in the way of bodily refreshment (except spirits--I would
draw the line at poisons), and having got them and myself into a nice
amiable expansive frame of mind, I would thus address them--of course
in ringing eloquence that John Bright might have envied:
Men and women (I would say), companions in the universal pastime
of hiding one's head in the sand,--I am about to impart to you the
very essence of human wisdom. It is not abstract. It is a
principle of daily application, affecting the daily round in its
entirety, from the straphanging on the District Railway in the
morning to the straphanging on the District Railway the next
morning. Beware of hope, and beware of ambition! Each is
excellently tonic, like German competition, in moderation. But all
of you are suffering from self-indulgence in the first, and very
many of you are ruining your constitutions with the second. Be it
known unto you, my dear men and women, that existence rightly
considered is a fair compromise between two instincts--the
instinct of hoping one day to live, and the instinct to live here
and now. In most of you the first instinct has simply got the
other by the throat and is throttling it. Prepare to live by all
means, but for heaven's sake do not forget to live. You will never
have a better chance than you have at present. You may think you
will have, but you are mistaken. Pardon this bluntness. Surely you
are not so naive as to imagine that the road on the other side of
that hill there is more beautiful than the piece you are now
traversing! Hopes are never realized; for in the act of
realization they become something else. Ambitions may be attained,
but ambitions attained are rather like burnt coal, ninety per
cent. of the heat generated has gone up the chimney instead of
into the room. Nevertheless, indulge in hopes and ambitions,
which, though deceiving, are agreeable deceptions; let them cheat
you a little, a lot. But do not let them cheat you too much. This
that you are living now is life itself--it is much more life
itself than that which you will be living twenty years hence.
Grasp that truth. Dwell on it. Absorb it. Let it influence your
conduct, to the end that neither the present nor the future be
neglected. You search for happiness? Happiness is chiefly a matter
of temperament. It is exceedingly improbable that you will by
struggling gain more happiness than you already possess. In fine,
settle down at once into _life_. (Loud cheers.)
The cheers would of course be for the refreshments.
There is no doubt that the mass of the audience would consider that I
had missed my vocation, and ought to have been a caterer instead of a
preacher. But, once started, I would not be discouraged. I would keep
on, Sunday night after Sunday night. Our leading advertisers have
richly proved that the public will believe anything if they are told
of it often enough. I would practise iteration, always with
refreshments. In the result, it would dawn upon the corporate mind
that there was some glimmering of sense in my doctrine, and people
would at last begin to perceive the folly of neglecting to savour the
present, the folly of assuming that the future can be essentially
different from the present, the fatuity of dying before they have
begun to live.
V
MARRIAGE
THE DUTY OF IT
Every now and then it becomes necessary to deal faithfully with that
immortal type of person, the praiser of the past at the expense of the
present. I will not quote Horace, as by all the traditions of letters
I ought to do, because Horace, like the incurable trimmer that he was,
"hedged" on this question; and I do not admire him much either. The
praiser of the past has been very rife lately. He has told us that
pauperism and lunacy are mightily increasing, and though the exact
opposite has been proved to be the case and he has apologized, he will
have forgotten the correction in a few months, and will break out
again into renewed lamentation. He has told us that we are physically
deteriorating, and in such awful tones that we have shuddered, and
many of us have believed. And considering that the death-rate is
decreasing, that slums are decreasing, that disease is decreasing,
that the agricultural labourer eats more than ever he did, our
credence does not do much credit to our reasoning powers, does it? Of
course, there is that terrible "influx" into the towns, but I for one
should be much interested to know wherein the existence of the rustic
in times past was healthier than the existence of the town-dwellers of
to-day. The personal appearance of agricultural veterans does not help
me; they resemble starved 'bus-drivers twisted out of shape by
lightning.
But the _piece de resistance_ of the praiser of the past is now
marriage, with discreet hints about the birth-rate. The praiser of the
past is going to have a magnificent time with the subject of marriage.
The first moanings of the tempest have already been heard. Bishops
have looked askance at the birth-rate, and have mentioned their
displeasure. The matter is serious. As the phrase goes, "it strikes at
the root." We are marrying later, my friends. Some of us, in the hurry
and pre-occupation of business, are quite forgetting to marry. It is
the duty of the citizen to marry and have children, and we are
neglecting our duty, we are growing selfish! No longer are produced
the glorious "quiverfuls" of old times! Our fathers married at twenty;
we marry at thirty-five. Why? Because a gross and enervating luxury
has overtaken us. What will become of England if this continues? There
will be no England! Hence we must look to it! And so on, in the same
strain.
I should like to ask all those who have raised and will raise such
outcries. Have you read "X"? Now, the book that I refer to as "X" is a
mysterious work, written rather more than a hundred years ago by an
English curate. It is a classic of English science; indeed, it is one
of the great scientific books of the world. It has immensely
influenced all the scientific thought of the nineteenth century,
especially Darwin's. Mr. H.G. Wells, as cited in "Chambers's
Cyclopaedia of English Literature," describes it as "the most
'shattering' book that ever has or will be written." If I may make a
personal reference, I would say that it affected me more deeply than
any other scientific book that I have read. Although it is perfectly
easy to understand, and free from the slightest technicality, it is
the most misunderstood book in English literature, simply because it
is _not_ read. The current notion about it is utterly false. It might
be a powerful instrument of education, general and sociological, but
publishers will not reprint it--at least, they do not. And yet it is
forty times more interesting and four hundred times more educational
than Gilbert White's remarks on the birds of Selborne. I will leave
you to guess what "X" is, but I do not offer a prize for the solution
of a problem which a vast number of my readers will certainly solve at
once.
If those who are worrying themselves about the change in our system of
marriage would read "X," they would probably cease from worrying. For
they would perceive that they had been putting the cart before the
horse; that they had elevated to the dignity of fundamental principles
certain average rules of conduct which had sprung solely from certain
average instincts in certain average conditions, and that they were
now frightened because, the conditions having changed, the rules of
conduct had changed with them. One of the truths that "X" makes clear
is that conduct conforms to conditions, and not conditions to conduct.
The payment of taxes is a duty which the citizen owes to the state.
Marriage, with the begetting of children, is not a duty which the
citizen owes to the state. Marriage, with its consequences, is a
matter of personal inclination and convenience. It never has been
anything else, and it never will be anything else. How could it be
otherwise? If a man goes against inclination and convenience in a
matter where inclination is "of the essence of the contract," he
merely presents the state with a discontented citizen (if not two) in
exchange for a contented one! The happiness of the state is the sum of
the happiness of all its citizens; to decrease one's own happiness,
then, is a singular way of doing one's duty to the state! Do you
imagine that when people married early and much they did so from a
sense of duty to the state--a sense of duty which our "modern luxury"
has weakened? I imagine they married simply because it suited 'em.
They married from sheer selfishness, as all decent people do marry.
And do those who clatter about the duty of marriage kiss the girls of
their hearts with an eye to the general welfare? I can fancy them
saying, "My angel, I love you--from a sense of duty to the state. Let
us rear innumerable progeny--from a sense of duty to the state." How
charmed the girls would be!
If the marrying age changes, if the birth-rate shows a sympathetic
tendency to follow the death-rate (as it must--see "X"), no one need
be alarmed. Elementary principles of right and wrong are not trembling
on their bases. The human conscience is not silenced. The nation is
not going to the dogs. Conduct is adjusting itself to new conditions,
and that is all. We may not be able to see exactly _how_ conditions
are changing; that is a detail; our descendants will see exactly;
meanwhile the change in our conduct affords us some clew. And although
certain nervous persons do get alarmed, and do preach, and do "take
measures," the rest of us may remain placid in the sure faith that
"measures" will avail nothing whatever. If there are two things set
high above legislation, "movements," crusades, and preaching, one is
the marrying age and the other is the birth-rate. For there the
supreme instinct comes along and stamps ruthlessly on all insincere
reasonings and sham altruisms; stamps on everything, in fact, and
blandly remarks: "I shall suit my own convenience, and no one but
Nature herself (with a big, big N) shall talk to _me_. Don't pester me
with Right and Wrong. I _am_ Right and Wrong...." Having thus
attempted to clear the ground a little of fudge, I propose next to
offer a few simple remarks on marriage.
THE ADVENTURE OF IT
Having endeavoured to show that men do not, and should not, marry from
a sense of duty to the state or to mankind, but simply and solely from
an egoistic inclination to marry, I now proceed to the individual case
of the man who is "in a position to marry" and whose affections are
not employed. Of course, if he has fallen in love, unless he happens
to be a person of extremely powerful will, he will not weigh the pros
and cons of marriage; he will merely marry, and forty thousand cons
will not prevent him. And he will be absolutely right and justified,
just as the straw as it rushes down the current is absolutely right
and justified. But the privilege of falling in love is not given to
everybody, and the inestimable privilege of falling deeply in love is
given to few. However, the man whom circumstances permit to marry but
who is not in love, or is only slightly amorous, will still think of
marriage. How will he think of it?
I will tell you. In the first place, if he has reached the age of
thirty unscathed by Aphrodite, he will reflect that that peculiar
feeling of romantic expectation with which he gets up every morning
would cease to exist after marriage--and it is a highly agreeable
feeling! In its stead, in moments of depression, he would have the
feeling of having done something irremediable, of having definitely
closed an avenue for the outlet of his individuality. (Kindly remember
that I am not describing what this human man ought to think. I am
describing what he does think.) In the second place, he will reflect
that, after marriage, he could no longer expect the charming welcomes
which bachelors so often receive from women; he would be "done with"
as a possibility, and he does not relish the prospect of being done
with as a possibility. Such considerations, all connected more or
less with the loss of "freedom" (oh, mysterious and thrilling word!),
will affect his theoretical attitude. And be it known that even the
freedom to be lonely and melancholy is still freedom.
Other ideas will suggest themselves. One morning while brushing his
hair he will see a gray hair, and, however young he may be, the
anticipation of old age will come to him. A solitary old age! A
senility dependent for its social and domestic requirements on
condescending nephews and nieces, or even more distant relations!
Awful! Unthinkable! And his first movement, especially if he has read
that terrible novel, "_Fort comme la Mort_," of De Maupassant, is to
rush out into the street and propose to the first girl he encounters,
in order to avoid this dreadful nightmare of a solitary old age. But
before he has got as far as the doorstep he reflects further. Suppose
he marries, and after twenty years his wife dies and leaves him a
widower! He will still have a solitary old age, and a vastly more
tragical one than if he had remained single. Marriage is not,
therefore, a sure remedy for a solitary old age; it may intensify the
evil. Children? But suppose he doesn't have any children! Suppose,
there being children, they die--what anguish! Suppose merely that they
are seriously ill and recover--what an ageing experience! Suppose they
prove a disappointment--what endless regret! Suppose they "turn out
badly" (children do)--what shame! Suppose he finally becomes dependent
upon the grudging kindness of an ungrateful child--what a supreme
humiliation! All these things are occurring constantly everywhere.
Suppose his wife, having loved him, ceased to love him, or suppose he
ceased to love his wife! _Ces choses ne se commandent pas_--these
things do not command themselves. Personally, I should estimate that
in not one per cent. even of romantic marriages are the husband and
wife capable of _passion_ for each other after three years. So brief
is the violence of love! In perhaps thirty-three per cent. passion
settles down into a tranquil affection--which is ideal. In fifty per
cent. it sinks into sheer indifference, and one becomes used to one's
wife or one's husband as to one's other habits. And in the remaining
sixteen per cent. it develops into dislike or detestation. Do you
think my percentages are wrong, you who have been married a long time
and know what the world is? Well, you may modify them a little--you
won't want to modify them much.
The risk of finding one's self ultimately among the sixteen per cent.
can be avoided by the simple expedient of not marrying. And by the
same expedient the other risks can be avoided, together with yet
others that I have not mentioned. It is entirely obvious, then (in
fact, I beg pardon for mentioning it), that the attitude towards
marriage of the heart-free bachelor must be at best a highly cautious
attitude. He knows he is already in the frying-pan (none knows
better), but, considering the propinquity of the fire, he doubts
whether he had not better stay where he is. His life will be calmer,
more like that of a hibernating snake; his sensibilities will be
dulled; but the chances of poignant suffering will be very materially
reduced.
So that the bachelor in a position to marry but not in love will
assuredly decide in theory against marriage--that is to say, if he is
timid, if he prefers frying-pans, if he is lacking in initiative, if
he has the soul of a rat, if he wants to live as little as possible,
if he hates his kind, if his egoism is of the miserable sort that
dares not mingle with another's. But if he has been more happily
gifted he will decide that the magnificent adventure is worth plunging
into; the ineradicable and fine gambling instinct in him will urge him
to take, at the first chance, a ticket in the only lottery permitted
by the British Government. Because, after all, the mutual sense of
ownership felt by the normal husband and the normal wife is something
unique, something the like of which cannot be obtained without
marriage. I saw a man and a woman at a sale the other day; I was too
far off to hear them, but I could perceive they were having a most
lively argument--perhaps it was only about initials on pillowcases;
they were _absorbed_ in themselves; the world did not exist for them.
And I thought: "What miraculous exquisite Force is it that brings
together that strange, sombre, laconic organism in a silk hat and a
loose, black overcoat, and that strange, bright, vivacious, querulous,
irrational organism in brilliant fur and feathers?" And when they
moved away the most interesting phenomenon in the universe moved away.
And I thought: "Just as no beer is bad, but some beer is better than
other beer, so no marriage is bad." The chief reward of marriage is
something which marriage is bound to give--companionship whose
mysterious _interestingness_ nothing can stale. A man may hate his
wife so that she can't thread a needle without annoying him, but when
he dies, or she dies, he will say: "Well, _I was interested_." And one
always is. Said a bachelor of forty-six to me the other night:
"Anything is better than the void."
THE TWO WAYS OF IT
Sabine and other summary methods of marrying being now abandoned by
all nice people, there remain two broad general ways. The first is the
English way. We let nature take her course. We give heed to the
heart's cry. When, amid the hazards and accidents of the world, two
souls "find each other," we rejoice. Our instinctive wish is that they
shall marry, if the matter can anyhow be arranged. We frankly
recognise the claim of romance in life, and we are prepared to make
sacrifices to it. We see a young couple at the altar; they are in
love. Good! They are poor. So much the worse! But nevertheless we feel
that love will pull them through. The revolting French system of
bargain and barter is the one thing that we can neither comprehend nor
pardon in the customs of our great neighbours. We endeavour to be
polite about that system; we simply cannot. It shocks our finest,
tenderest feelings. It is so obviously contrary to nature.
The second is the French way, just alluded to as bargain and barter.
Now, if there is one thing a Frenchman can neither comprehend nor
pardon in the customs of a race so marvellously practical and sagacious
as ourselves, it is the English marriage system. He endeavours to be
polite about it, and he succeeds. But it shocks his finest, tenderest
feelings. He admits that it is in accordance with nature; but he is apt
to argue that the whole progress of civilisation has been the result of
an effort to get away from nature. "What! Leave the most important
relation into which a man can enter to the mercy of chance, when a mere
gesture may arouse passion, or the colour of a corsage induce desire!
No, you English, you who are so self-controlled, you are not going
seriously to defend that! You talk of love as though it lasted for
ever. You talk of sacrificing to love; but what you really sacrifice,
or risk sacrificing, is the whole of the latter part of married
existence for the sake of the first two or three years. Marriage is not
one long honeymoon. We wish it were. When _you_ agree to a marriage you
fix your eyes on the honeymoon. When _we_ agree to a marriage we try to
see it as it will be five or ten years hence. We assert that, in the
average instance, five years after the wedding it doesn't matter
whether or not the parties were in love on the wedding-day. Hence we
will not yield to the gusts of the moment. Your system is, moreover, if
we may be permitted the observation, a premium on improvidence; it is,
to some extent, the result of improvidence. You can marry your
daughters without dowries, and the ability to do so tempts you to
neglect your plain duty to your daughters, and you do not always resist
the temptation. Do your marriages of 'romance' turn out better than our
marriages of prudence, of careful thought, of long foresight? We do not
think they do."
So much for the two ways. Patriotism being the last refuge of a
scoundrel, according to Doctor Johnson, I have no intention of
judging between them, as my heart prompts me to do, lest I should be
accused of it. Nevertheless, I may hint that, while perfectly
convinced by the admirable logic of the French, I am still, with the
charming illogicalness of the English, in favour of romantic marriages
(it being, of course, understood that dowries _ought_ to be far more
plentiful than they are in England). If a Frenchman accuses me of
being ready to risk sacrificing the whole of the latter part of
married life for the sake of the first two or three years, I would
unhesitatingly reply: "Yes, I _am_ ready to risk that sacrifice. I
reckon the first two or three years are worth it." But, then, I am
English, and therefore romantic by nature. Look at London, that city
whose outstanding quality is its romantic quality; and look at the
Englishwomen going their ways in the wonderful streets thereof! Their
very eyes are full of romance. They may, they do, lack _chic_, but
they are heroines of drama. Then look at Paris; there is little
romance in the fine right lines of Paris. Look at the Parisiennes.
They are the most astounding and adorable women yet invented by
nature. But they aren't romantic, you know. They don't know what
romance is. They are so matter-of-fact that when you think of their
matter-of-factness it gives you a shiver in the small of your back.
To return. One may view the two ways in another light. Perhaps the
difference between them is, fundamentally, less a difference between
the ideas of two races than a difference between the ideas of two
"times of life"; and in France the elderly attitude predominates. As
people get on in years, even English people, they are more and more in
favour of the marriage of reason as against the marriage of romance.
Young people, even French people, object strongly to the theory and
practice of the marriage of reason. But with them the unique and
precious ecstasy of youth is not past, whereas their elders have
forgotten its savour. Which is right? No one will ever be able to
decide. But neither the one system nor the other will apply itself
well to all or nearly all cases. There have been thousands of romantic
marriages in England of which it may be said that it would have been
better had the French system been in force to prevent their existence.
And, equally, thousands of possible romantic marriages have been
prevented in France which, had the English system prevailed there,
would have turned out excellently. The prevalence of dowries in
England would not render the English system perfect (for it must be
remembered that money is only one of several ingredients in the French
marriage), but it would considerably improve it. However, we are not a
provident race, and we are not likely to become one. So our young men
must reconcile themselves to the continued absence of dowries.