"What in your opinion is the nature of happiness?" asked the Angel
Æthereal, as he finished his second bottle of Bass, in the grounds of
the White City. The dragoman regarded his angel with one eye.
"The question is not simple, sir, though often made the subject of
symposiums in the more intellectual journals. Even now, in the middle of
the twentieth century, some still hold that it is a by-product of fresh
air and good liquor. The Old and Merrie England indubitably procured it
from those elements. Some, again, imagine it to follow from high
thinking and low living, while no mean number believe that it depends on
women."
"Their absence or their presence?" asked the Angel, with interest.
"Some this and others that. But for my part, it is not altogether the
outcome of these causes."
"Is this now a happy land?"
"Sir," returned his dragoman, "all things earthly are comparative."
"Get on with it," said the Angel.
"I will comply," responded his dragoman reproachfully, "if you will
permit me first to draw your third cork. And let me say in passing that
even your present happiness is comparative, or possibly superlative, as
you will know when you have finished this last bottle. It may or may not
be greater; we shall see."
"We shall," said the Angel, resolutely.
"You ask me whether this land is happy; but must we not first decide
what happiness is? And how difficult this will be you shall soon
discover. For example, in the early days of the Great Skirmish,
happiness was reputed non-existent; every family was plunged into
anxiety or mourning; and, though this to my own knowledge was not the
case, such as were not pretended to be. Yet, strange as it may appear,
the shrewd observer of those days was unable to remark any indication of
added gloom. Certain creature comforts, no doubt, were scarce, but there
was no lack of spiritual comfort, which high minds have ever associated
with happiness; nor do I here allude to liquor. What, then, was the
nature of this spiritual comfort, you will certainly be asking. I will
tell you, and in seven words: People forgot themselves and remembered
other people. Until those days it had never been realised what a lot of
medical men could be spared from the civil population; what a number of
clergymen, lawyers, stockbrokers, artists, writers, politicians, and
other persons, whose work in life is to cause people to think about
themselves, never would be missed. Invalids knitted socks and forgot to
be unwell; old gentlemen read the papers and forgot to talk about their
food; people travelled in trains and forgot not to fall into
conversation with each other; merchants became special constables and
forgot to differ about property; the House of Lords remembered its
dignity and forgot its impudence; the House of Commons almost forgot to
chatter. The case of the working man was the most striking of all--he
forgot he was the working man. The very dogs forgot themselves, though
that, to be sure, was no novelty, as the Irish writer demonstrated in
his terrific outburst: 'On my doorstep.' But time went on, and hens in
their turn forgot to lay, ships to return to port, cows to give enough
milk, and Governments to look ahead, till the first flush of
self-forgetfulness which had dyed peoples' cheeks----"
"Died on them," put in the Angel, with a quiet smile.
"You take my meaning, sir," said his dragoman, "though I should not have
worded it so happily. But certainly the return to self began, and
people used to think: 'This war is not so bloody as I thought, for I am
getting better money than I ever did, and the longer it lasts the more I
shall get, and for the sake of this I am prepared to endure much.' The
saying "Beef and beer, for soon you must put up the shutters," became
the motto of all classes. 'If I am to be shot, drowned, bombed, ruined,
or starved to-morrow,' they said, 'I had better eat, drink, marry, and
buy jewelry to-day.' And so they did, in spite of the dreadful efforts
of one bishop and two gentlemen who presided over the important question
of food. They did not, it is true, relax their manual efforts to
accomplish the defeat of their enemies, or 'win the war,' as it was
somewhat loosely called; but they no longer worked with their spirits,
which, with a few exceptions, went to sleep. For, sir, the spirit, like
the body, demands regular repose, and in my opinion is usually the first
of the two to snore. Before the Great Skirmish came at last to its
appointed end the snoring from spirits in this country might have been
heard in the moon. People thought of little but money, revenge, and what
they could get to eat, though the word 'sacrifice' was so accustomed to
their lips that they could no more get it off them than the other forms
of lip-salve, increasingly in vogue. They became very merry. And the
question I would raise is this: By which of these two standards shall we
assess the word 'happiness'? Were these people happy when they mourned
and thought not of self; or when they merried and thought of self all
the time?"
"By the first standard," replied the Angel, with kindling eyes.
"Happiness is undoubtedly nobility."
"Not so fast, sir," replied his dragoman; "for I have frequently met
with nobility in distress; and, indeed, the more exalted and refined the
mind, the unhappier is frequently the owner thereof, for to him are
visible a thousand cruelties and mean injustices which lower natures do
not perceive."
"Hold!" exclaimed the Angel: "This is blasphemy against Olympus, 'The
Spectator,' and other High-Brows."
"Sir," replied his dragoman gravely, "I am not one of those who accept
gilded doctrines without examination; I read in the Book of Life rather
than in the million tomes written by men to get away from their own
unhappiness."
"I perceive," said the Angel, with a shrewd glance, "that you have
something up your sleeve. Shake it out!"
"My conclusion is this, sir," returned his dragoman, well pleased: "Man
is only happy when he is living at a certain pressure of life to the
square inch; in other words, when he is so absorbed in what he is doing,
making, saying, thinking, or dreaming, that he has lost
self-consciousness. If there be upon him any ill--such as toothache or
moody meditation--so poignant as to prevent him losing himself in the
interest of the moment, then he is not happy. Nor must he merely think
himself absorbed, but actually be so, as are two lovers sitting under
one umbrella, or he who is just making a couplet rhyme."
"Would you say, then," insinuated the Angel, "that a man is happy when
he meets a mad bull in a narrow lane? For there will surely be much
pressure of life to the square inch."
"It does not follow," responded his dragoman; "for at such moments one
is prone to stand apart, pitying himself and reflecting on the
unevenness of fortune. But if he collects himself and meets the occasion
with spirit he will enjoy it until, while sailing over the hedge, he has
leisure to reflect once more. It is clear to me," he proceeded, "that
the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the old fable was not, as has
hitherto been supposed by a puritanical people, the mere knowledge of
sex, but symbolised rather general self-consciousness; for I have little
doubt that Adam and Eve sat together under one umbrella long before
they discovered they had no clothes on. Not until they became
self-conscious about things at large did they become unhappy."
"Love is commonly reputed by some, and power by others, to be the keys
of happiness," said the Angel, regardless of his grammar.
"Duds," broke in his dragoman. "For love and power are only two of the
various paths to absorption, or unconsciousness of self; mere methods by
which men of differing natures succeed in losing their self-consciousness,
for he who, like Saint Francis, loves all creation, has
no time to be conscious of loving himself, and he who rattles the
sword and rules like Bill Kaser, has no time to be conscious that he is
not ruling himself. I do not deny that such men may be happy, but not
because of the love or the power. No, it is because they are loving or
ruling with such intensity that they forget themselves in doing it."
"There is much in what you say," said the Angel thoughtfully. "How do
you apply it to the times and land in which you live?"
"Sir," his dragoman responded, "the Englishman never has been, and is
not now, by any means so unhappy as he looks, for, where you see a
furrow in the brow, or a mouth a little open, it portends absorption
rather than thoughtfulness--unless, indeed, it means adenoids--and is
the mark of a naturally self-forgetful nature; nor should you suppose
that poverty and dirt which abound, as you see, even under the sway of
the Laborious, is necessarily deterrent to the power of living in the
moment; it may even be a symptom of that habit. The unhappy are more
frequently the clean and leisured, especially in times of peace, when
they have little to do save sit under mulberry trees, invest money, pay
their taxes, wash, fly, and think about themselves. Nevertheless, many
of the Laborious also live at half-cock, and cannot be said to have lost
consciousness of self."
"Then democracy is not synonymous with happiness?" asked the Angel.
"Dear sir," replied his dragoman, "I know they said so at the time of
the Great Skirmish. But they said so much that one little one like that
hardly counted. I will let you into a secret. We have not yet achieved
democracy, either here or anywhere else. The old American saying about
it is all very well, but since not one man in ten has any real opinion
of his own on any subject on which he votes, he cannot, with the best
will in the world, put it on record. Not until he learns to have and
record his own real opinion will he truly govern himself for himself,
which is, as you know, the test of true democracy."
"I am getting fuddled," said the Angel. "What is it you want to make you
happy?"
His dragoman sat up: "If I am right," he purred, "in my view that
happiness is absorption, our problem is to direct men's minds to
absorption in right and pleasant things. An American making a corner in
wheat is absorbed and no doubt happy, yet he is an enemy of mankind, for
his activity is destructive. We should seek to give our minds to
creation, to activities good for others as well as for ourselves, to
simplicity, pride in work, and forgetfulness of self in every walk of
life. We should do things for the sheer pleasure of doing them, and not
for what they may or may not be going to bring us in, and be taught
always to give our whole minds to it; in this way only will the edge of
our appetite for existence remain as keen as a razor which is stropped
every morning by one who knows how. On the negative side we should be
brought up to be kind, to be clean, to be moderate, and to love good
music, exercise, and fresh air."
"That sounds a bit of all right," said the Angel. "What measures are
being taken in these directions?"
"It has been my habit, sir, to study the Education Acts of my country
ever since that which was passed at the time of the Great Skirmish; but,
with the exception of exercise, I have not as yet been able to find any
direct allusion to these matters. Nor is this surprising when you
consider that education is popularly supposed to be, not for the
acquisition of happiness, but for the good of trade or the promotion of
acute self-consciousness through what we know as culture. If by any
chance there should arise a President of Education so enlightened as to
share my views, it would be impossible for him to mention the fact for
fear of being sent to Colney Hatch."
"In that case," asked the Angel, "you do not believe in the progress of
your country?"
"Sir," his dragoman replied earnestly, "you have seen this land for
yourself and have heard from me some account of its growth from the days
when you were last on earth, shortly before the Great Skirmish; it will
not have escaped your eagle eye that this considerable event has had
some influence in accelerating the course of its progression; and you
will have noticed how, notwithstanding the most strenuous intentions at
the close of that tragedy, we have yielded to circumstance and in every
direction followed the line of least resistance."
"I have a certain sympathy with that," said the Angel, with a yawn; "it
is so much easier."
"So we have found; and our country has got along, perhaps, as well as
one could have expected, considering what it has had to contend with:
pressure of debt; primrose paths; pelf; party; patrio-Prussianism; the
people; pundits; Puritans; proctors; property; philosophers; the
Pontifical; and progress. I will not disguise from you, however, that we
are far from perfection; and it may be that on your next visit,
thirty-seven years hence, we shall be further. For, however it may be
with angels, sir, with men things do not stand still; and, as I have
tried to make clear to you, in order to advance in body and spirit, it
is necessary to be masters of your environment and discoveries instead
of letting them be masters of you. Wealthy again we may be; healthy and
happy we are not, as yet."
"I have finished my beer," said the Angel Æthereal, with finality, "and
am ready to rise. You have nothing to drink! Let me give you a
testimonial instead!" Pulling a quill from his wing, he dipped it in the
mustard and wrote: "A Dry Dog--No Good For Trade" on his dragoman's
white hat. "I shall now leave the earth," he added.
"I am pleased to hear it," said his dragoman, "for I fancy that the
longer you stay the more vulgar you will become. I have noticed it
growing on you, sir, just as it does on us."
The Angel smiled. "Meet me by sunlight alone," he said, "under the
left-hand lion in Trafalgar Square at this hour of this day, in 1984.
Remember me to the waiter, will you? So long!" And, without pausing for
a reply, he spread his wings, and soared away.
"_L'homme moyen sensuel! Sic itur ad astra!_" murmured his dragoman
enigmatically, and, lifting his eyes, he followed the Angel's flight
into the empyrean.
1917-18.
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
VILLA RUBEIN, and Other Stories
THE ISLAND PHARISEES
THE MAN OF PROPERTY
THE COUNTRY HOUSE
FRATERNITY
THE PATRICIAN
THE DARK FLOWER
THE FREELANDS
BEYOND
FIVE TALES
A COMMENTARY
A MOTLEY
THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY
THE LITTLE MAN, and Other Satires
A SHEAF
ANOTHER SHEAF
PLAYS: FIRST SERIES
_and Separately_
THE SILVER BOX
JOY
STRIFE
PLAYS: SECOND SERIES
_and Separately_
THE ELDEST SON
THE LITTLE DREAM
JUSTICE
PLAYS: THIRD SERIES
_and Separately_
THE FUGITIVE
THE PIGEON
THE MOB