that we could live twice as long--though, in reality, it would come to
the same thing. But I would like to live the two lives which I want to
lead, and only do lead in a sort of patchwork-quilt kind of way. I would
like to live a life in which I could wander gipsy-like over the face of
the globe--seeing everything, doing everything, meeting everybody. I
should also like to live a purely vegetable existence in some remote
country village--sleeping away my life in happy domesticity, away from
the crowd, free from care, tranquil, and at peace. I suppose that, even
as dreams, they are only too futile--but they are very pleasant dreams
nevertheless. I know that they _are_ dreams--since I am quite sure that
the reality would be far less satisfactory than it seems in anticipation.
There is "always a fly in the amber" as the saying goes, and my
experience is, that the truth more nearly resembles a great big fly with
a tiny speck of amber sticking somewhere to its back. For in our dream
voyages we overlook the fleas, the mosquitoes, the hunt for lodgings, the
struggle with languages, the hundred-and-one disturbances of the spirit
which are inseparable from real voyages of any kind and bombard our inner
tranquillity at every turn. In the same way, when we gaze at the
peaceful landscape of some hidden-away English countryside, we yearn to
live among such peacefulness, forgetting that, though life in the country
may _look_ peaceful to the stranger's eye, experience teaches us that
gossip and scandal and the continual agitation round and round the
trivial--an agitation so great that the trivial becomes colossal--at last
rob life of anything resembling _dolce far niente_ mid country lanes and
in the shadow of some country church. In fact, it seems to me that the
emotion which we seek--the emotion of strange wonderplaces, the emotion
of utter restfulness which falls upon the soul like a benediction--do
come to us from time to time, but at the most unexpected moments and in
the most unlikely places. They come--and we hug them in our memory like
precious thoughts. And sometimes we try to reproduce them artificially,
only to discover that "never anything twice" is one of the lessons of
life--and quite the last one we ever learn, even if we ever do learn
it--which is doubtful.
_Backward and Forward_
Thus for the most part, things look most beautiful when we anticipate
them, or as we look back upon them in memory over the fireside. For
distance lends enchantment, not only to most views, but also to memories
and love. As, metaphorically, we stand on the Mount of Olives gazing
down at the city of Jerusalem, thinking of all that tiny corner of the
earth has meant to men and women, we forget--as we look back--the beastly
little mosquito which bit us on the nose, the interruption or our
companion who wondered what the stones might tell us if they could only
speak. So (also metaphorically), as we set our faces towards the Holy
City, filled with the anticipation of those sublime thoughts and emotions
which would surge through our souls when we eventually arrived there, we
were happy in our ignorance of the fact that, when we did arrive, we felt
unutterably dirty and our head ached, and the corn on our little toe felt
more like a cancer than a corn! Meanwhile, the emotion of the soul,
which we expected to find upon the Mount of Olives, has sometimes come to
us quite unexpectedly while standing in the middle of Clapham Common in
the moonlight; and that glorious spirit of adventure, which to us means
"travel," we have felt riding on a motor-bike through the New Forest at
nightfall when the forest seemed full of pixies and the fading sunset was
red and grey and golden like the transformation scene of a pantomime.
But alas! the next day we found the forest unromantic, and Clapham Common
looked indescribably common in the morning sunlight. Our mood had
vanished, and although we tried to reproduce the same uplifting emotion
the following evening, we couldn't--we had a headache and the gnats were
about. So, although I often yearn to live _two_ lives--one full of
travel and adventure, and the other peacefully over the fireside mid the
peace and beauty of the country--I am quite sure that, were my wish
granted, I should find both lives just the same mixture of unexpected
happiness and unanticipated disappointment which I find this one to be,
yet still go smiling on. Very rarely the Time and the Place and the
Mood. But when they do happen to come together--well, life is so
wonderful and so beautiful that to throw in the "Loved one" too would
seem like gilding the rose--a heaven worth sacrificing every stolen
happiness in life for.
_When?_
One of the greatest--perhaps _the_ greatest--problems which parents have
to face is--when to tell their children the truth about sexual life; how
to tell it; how little to tell--how much. And most parents, alas! are
content to drift--to trust to luck! They themselves have got through
fairly well; the probabilities are, then, that their children will get
through fairly well too. So they, metaphorically speaking, fold their
hands and listen, and, when any part of the truth breaks through the
reticence of intimate conversation, they shake their heads solemnly,
strive to look shocked--and often are; or else they make a joke of
it--believing that their children regard the question in the same
reasonable light as they do themselves. But ignorance is never
reasonable, and half ignorance is even more excited. There is a
"mystery" somewhere, and ignorant youth is hot after its solution. And
the "mystery" is solved for them in a dozen ways--all more or less dirty
and untrue. Better far be too frank, so long as your frankness isn't the
frankness of coarse levity, than not to be frank enough. The reticence
of parents towards their children in this matter has turned many a young
life of brilliant promise into a life-long hell. We don't _see_ this
hell for the most part, and, because we don't see it, we fondly believe
that it does not exist--or, if it does exist, that it exists so rarely as
scarcely to demand more than a passing condemnation and a sigh. We hear
a great deal about the Hidden Plague. We hear of the 80,000 cases of
syphilis which are registered every year in the United Kingdom. But we
don't know any individual sufferer--or we _think_ we don't; and so,
although we take the figure as an acknowledged fact, we nevertheless
don't realise it--and in any case, it isn't a nice subject of debate,
and, should the word be even mentioned in the presence of our dear, dear
children, we would ask the speaker to leave the house immediately and
never again return! I, too, was one of these poor fools--although I have
no children to suffer from my foolishness. I knew it was a fact, but
like others I didn't realise that fact--like we didn't realise the horror
and filth and tragedy of war, we who never were "out there"; we who never
"went over the top." But lately I have had to visit a friend in one of
the largest lock hospitals in London. And one day I was obliged to walk
through the waiting-room where the men are forced to sit until they are
summoned to see the doctor. And truly I was appalled! There were
_hundreds of them_ of all ages--from 16 to 60. They were not the serious
cases, of course, and we should pass them in the street without realising
that they were any but physically sound men, often of a very splendid
type. But each one represented a blighted life--a future robbed of
splendid promise, a present of misery and unhappiness stalking through
the world like shame beneath a happy mask. I tell you, it brought the
truth home to me in a way mere figures and statistics could never do. As
I said before, I was appalled: I was also very angry. For I knew that
ignorance was at the bottom of many of these sad tragedies--the criminal
reticence of the people _who know_, too mock-modest to discuss openly a
fact of life which, beyond all other facts of life, should be spoken of
bluntly, honestly, therefore decently and cleanly.
_The Futile Thought_
Too many fond parents like to imagine that their children know nothing at
all of sexual matters--that they are clean and innocent and ignorant, and
that, as long as they can be kept so, they will not run into danger and
disgrace. But no parent really knows how much or how little their
children know of this matter. Children have ears and imagination, and
once they know anything at all--which is at any time from eight years of
age, sometimes, alas! earlier--they should be told everything, not in a
nasty, furtive fashion, glossing over the ugly part and elevating the
decent side until it is out of all proportion to the truth, but quietly,
with dignity, laying stress on the fact that sexual morality is not a
thing of religion and of God, but of self-respect, of care for the coming
generation, and, especially, of that great love which one day will come
into their lives. It should not be called a "sin"; at the same time it
should not be laughed at and made the subject of a whispered jest.
Sexual laxity should be treated in the same way as dishonesty and
untruthfulness--a sin against oneself, against the beauty of one's own
soul, and against those who believe in us and love us and are our world.
Children should be taught to respect the dignity of their own bodies, of
their own minds and soul; not by leaving them in half-ignorance, but by
telling them everything, and telling them it in the right way--which is
the clean and truthful way.
_The London Season_
If only the people who repeat the words of wisdom uttered by philosophers
lived as if they believed them, how much happier the world would be! It
is, however, so much easier to give, or to repeat, advice, than to follow
it, isn't it? Conventionality is far stronger than common sense, and a
fixed habit more powerful than a revolution. Besides, most people
realise that to give advice is a much more impressive ceremony than
merely to receive it. And I think that the majority of people would far
sooner look _impressive_ than be _wise_. The _appearance_ of a thing
sometimes pleases them far more than the thing itself. Besides, to give
advice is a rather pleasant proceeding, and those who habitually indulge
in it seem incapable of discouragement. They will inform the "rolling
stone" that if he continues his unresisting methods he will gather no
moss, but the rolling stone usually continues to roll merrily onward.
They will protest to the ignorant that "to be good is to be happy," but
very few of them will go out of their way to do good, if, by being "bad,"
they can snatch a personal advantage without anybody being any the wiser.
"Life would be endurable if it were not for its pleasures," they declare
in the face of a pile of social invitations. Yet they still endure that
treadmill of entertainments which makes up a London season, only showing
their real feelings by moaning to themselves in the process. They freely
acknowledge that very few of these entertainments really entertain, but
to miss being seen at them would be to risk a disaster which they would
not dare to take. So they go wearily smiling to amusements which don't
amuse, to dances which are too crowded to dance at, to dinner parties at
which they pay in boredom for the food they eat; to "at homes" which are
the most "homeless" things imaginable--travelling here and there, from
one entertainment to another which proves as unutterably dull as the
first one. Not content with these things, they must perforce be seen at
the Opera--although they _hate_ music; visit all the exhibitions of
art--when Maude Goodeman is their favourite painter; talk cleverly of
books which they would never read did not people talk about them, and
generally follow for three long months a time-table of "enjoyment" which
very few of them really enjoy. In the meanwhile, the only affairs which
give them pleasure are the little impromptu ones arranged on the spur of
the moment between friends.
Of course I am not speaking of the débutante. She, "sweet young thing,"
always enjoys any entertainment at which there are plenty of young men
and ices. Nor, judging from observation, do I include among those who
willingly go through the three months' hard labour of a London season
those henna haired ladies--thickening from anno domini--who seem
perfectly happy in the delusion that their juvenile antics are still
deliciously girlish, and whose décolleté dresses would seem to declare to
the world that, though their faces may begin to show the wear and tear of
life, their plump backs don't look a day over twenty-five. The one is so
young that she will enjoy anything which requires the endurance of youth.
The other is of that age which is happy hugging to its bosom the adage
that a woman can't possibly look a day older than champagne makes her
feel.
No, the person whose life of amusement I pity is the person who accepts
invitations because she daren't refuse them. If the world doesn't see
her in all places where she _should be_ seen, the world always presumes
her to be dead--and people would rather die in reality than live to be
forgotten. But what a price they have to pay to keep their memories
green.
No, as I said before, the only entertainments which people really enjoy
are those at which they can be perfectly natural--natural, because they
are perfectly happy. Rarely are they fixed affairs, advertised weeks
beforehand. Mostly are they unpremeditated---delightful little impromptu
amusements made up of people who really desire to meet each other. Large
entertainments are almost invariably dull. Upon them hangs the heavy
atmosphere or a hostess "paying off old debts in _one_." The only really
amusing part of them is to watch the amazement on the faces of one half
of the guests that the other half is there at all! That is invariably
funny. In the big affairs the chef and the champagne are the real hosts
of the evening. If England went "dry," I think the London season would
join the dodo--people couldn't possibly endure it on ginger "pop" and
cider. But champagne and a good chef could, I believe, make even a
Church Congress seem jolly. They only bring an illusion of
happiness--but what's the odds? A London season is but an illusion of
joy after all.
_Christmas_
Christmas comes but once a year--and the cynic cries, "Thank God!" And
so, perhaps, do the very lonely. But then Christmas is not a festival
for either the cynic or the desolate. The cynic is as welcome at the
annual feast of turkey and plum pudding as Mr. "Pussyfoot" would be at a
"beano"; while the lonely--well, one likes to imagine that there are no
lonely ones at Christmas-time; or, if there are--that somebody has asked
them out, or they have toothache and so wouldn't appreciate even the
society of jolly seraphims. Christmas, except to the young, is
essentially a festival of "let's pretend"--let's pretend that we love
everybody, that everybody loves us, that Aunt Maria isn't a prosy old
bore, that Uncle John isn't a profiteer; that everybody has his or her
good points and that all their bad ones are not sticking out, as they
usually appear to us to be, as painfully apparent as those on the back of
a porcupine should you happen to sit down upon one in a bathing costume!
And it is quite wonderful how this spirit of good will towards all men
can be self-distilled, as it were! You try to feel it, and, strangely
enough, you do feel it--at least, up to tea time. The public exhibition
of ecstacy you give at receiving a present you don't want seems to come
to you quite easily and naturally on Christmas morning. Even Aunt Maria
can pretend enthusiasm quite convincingly at the gimcrack you have given
her which her artistic soul loathes, the while she furtively examines its
base to discover if peradventure you have forgotten to erase the price.
You yourself declare, while regarding the sixpenny pen-wiper, that it is
not the gift so much as the _thought_ which pleases you, and you can
declare this lie to the satisfaction, not only of yourself, but, more
difficult by far, to the satisfaction of the wealthy donor who gave it to
you because she couldn't think what to give you--and because, as she
piously declares, "Thank God, you have everything you want!" Yes,
indeed, there is something about Yuletide which makes all men benign, and
the joyful hypocrisy of Christmas Eve sounds quite the genuine emotion
when uttered on Christmas Day. I am bound, however, to confess that the
"good will" becomes a trifle strident towards nightfall. Many things
conduce to this. The children are suffering from overfeeding; Mother is
sick of Aunt Maria, her husband's sister; and Father is more than fed up
with the pomposity of Uncle John. There is a general and half-uttered
yearning among everybody to go upstairs and lie down. The jollifications
of the coming evening, when the grown-ups come into their own and the
children are being sick upstairs, presume the necessity for such a
retirement--a kind of regeneration of that charitable energy required for
the festival "jump off." After which the digestive organs begin to
realise what sweated labour means, and Father makes a speech about his
pleasure at seeing so many members of the family present, and Mother
weeps silently for some trouble which always revives over Christmas
dinner and nobody has yet been able to sympathise with, because nobody
has yet known what it is. And, because Christmas night would otherwise
prove somewhat trying even to a family determined to be loving or to die
in the attempt, somebody or other has invented champagne. It is quite
wonderful how the dullest people seem to take unto themselves wings after
the third bottle of Veuve Clicquot has been opened.
So Christmas Day is thus brought to a triumphant conclusion of good will.
And the next morning, of course, is Boxing Day--a most appropriately
named event. Even if fighting isn't strictly legal, backbiting
unfortunately is. Still, the wise relation seeks the frequent seclusion
of his own bedroom during that mostly inglorious day of Christmas
aftermath. You see, there is no knowing what sparks may fly when the
digestions of a devoted family have gone on strike!
Only the children seem to be able to raise the jolly ashes of their dead
selves, phoenix-like from the carcase of the devoured turkey (whose bones
in the morning light of Boxing Day resemble somewhat the Cloth Hall at
Ypres by the end of the war). Even they (bless 'em!) seem able to
recover from the fact that the lovely toys which Uncle John gave them lie
broken at their feet because Uncle John would insist upon playing with
them all by himself. Children can always become philosophers in half a
day. It is their special genius.
Only grown up people have forgotten how to forget. And Christmas,
although the most lovable of all the festivals of the year, is also the
saddest--and the most lonely, alas! There are so many "gaps"--so many
empty places in the heart which the passing of the years will never,
never be able to fill. That is why Mother weeps--it is her privilege.
And, truth to tell, so many people would like to weep too, only they dare
not--they dare not. So they throw themselves into the feverish jollity
which Christmas seems to demand for the sake of the children, and for the
sake of the young people who, because they were so young, will never
realise the aftermath of loneliness which to-day elder people know _meant
war_! So they say to themselves, "Let us eat and drink and appear merry
because to-morrow . . . to-morrow--who knows?--peradventure we may all
meet again!" Thus the true spirit of Christmas is always as a
benediction.
_The New Year_
There is something "tonic" about the New Year which there isn't about
Christmas, and Birthdays certainly do not possess. After thirty, you
wake up on Christmas morning, look back into the Long Ago, and sigh;
after forty, you wake up on the morning of your birthday, look forward,
and ofttimes despair. But New Year's Day has "buck" in it, and, when
you wake up, you lay down the immediate future with those Good
Intentions which somebody or other once declared paved the way to Hell,
but are nevertheless a most invigorating exercise. Christmas, besides,
has been seized upon by tradesmen and others in whose debt you happen
to be to remind you of the fact. I suppose they hope that the Good
Will of the Season will make you think kindly of their account--which,
in parenthesis, perhaps it might, did not that same Good Will run you
into debt in other directions. As for Birthdays--well, the person who
remembers Birthdays is the person at whose head I should like to hurl
the biggest and heaviest paving-stone with which, as I lie in bed on
New Year's morning, I lay out my way to Hell. No, as I said before,
Christmas Days and Birthdays are failures so far as festivity goes.
The former brings along with it bills and accounts rendered, and you
are fed with rood which immediately overwhelms any feeling of
kindliness you may happen to have in your heart, while the latter is
like a settlement day with Time, and Time certainly lets you have
nothing off your account. But New Year's Day, except in Scotland,
where, I believe, you are expected to go out and get drunk--always an
easy obligation!--brings with it nothing but another year, and
possesses all the "tonic" quality of novelty, besides the promise of a
much happier and luckier one than the Old Year which has just been
scratched off the calendar. It is like an annual Beginning Again, and
beginning again much better. Besides, New Year's Day seems to be an
anniversary which belongs to you alone, as it were. On Christmas Day
you are expected to do things for other people, and you do (usually
just the things they don't want); while on Birthdays people do things
for you (and you wish to Heaven they'd neglect their duty). But New
Year's Day doesn't belong to anybody but yourself, and you prospect the
future with no reference to anybody whomsoever, and, better still, with
no one likely to refer to you. Oh, the New Leaves you are going to
turn! The blots you are going to erase! The copy-books you are going
to keep spotless! The Big Things you are going to do with what remains
of your life, and the big way you are going to do them! Besides, say
what you will, there comes to you on New Year's Day the very first
breath of Spring. The Old Year is dead, and you kick its corpse down
the limbo of the Past and Done-with the while you plan out the New.
So, looking forward in anticipation, you feel "bucked." You aren't
expected to show "good will to all men" after a previous night's
debauch on turkey, plum-pudding, and sweet champagne. Nobody comes
down to breakfast on New Year's morning and weeps because "Dear Uncle
John" was alive (and an unsociable old bore) "this time last year."
Nobody adds to the day's joy by wondering if they will be "alive next
New Year's Day," nor become quite "huffy" if you cheerfully remark that
they very probably _will_. It doesn't invite the melancholy to become
reminiscent, nor the prophet to assume the mantle of Solomon Eagle.
New Year's Day belongs to nobody but yourself, and what you are going
to make of the 365 days which follow it. You regard the date as a kind
of spiritual Spring Cleaning, and to good housewives there is all the
vigorous promise of a Big Achievement even in buying a pot of paint and
shaking out a duster. And, though Fate usually helps to enliven
Christmas-time by arranging a big railway accident or burning a London
store down, and the newspapers, in search of something to frighten us
now that the war is over, by referring to Germany's "hidden army" and
an unprecedentedly colossal strike in the New Year, the human spirit
soars above these things on the First of January, and Hope,
figuratively speaking, buys a "buzzer" and makes high holiday. Who
knows if the New Year may not be your year, your _lucky_ year? And in
this feeling you jump out of bed, clothe yourself in your "Gladdest
Rags," collect your "Goodest" intentions, and sally forth. Nobody
wishes you anything, it's true, but you wish yourself the moon, and in
wishing for it you somehow feel that the New Year will give it to you.
_February_