We have been together, you who read this--and to you, whoever you
are, whether pleased or angry, I make a comrade's signal. Who
knows? We might be the very ones to understand each other, if we
met! We have been together, in the shadow of the presences that
make life tolerable; and now we must draw our conclusion and go
our way.
Our conclusion? Ah! that is a hard matter. The world we live in
lends itself better to beginnings than conclusions. Or does anything,
in this terrible flowing tide, even _begin_? End or beginning, we
find ourselves floating upon it--this great tide--and we must do what
we can to get a clear glimpse of the high stars before we sink. I
wonder if, in the midst of the stammered and blurted incoherences,
the lapses and levities, of this quaint book, a sort of "orientation," as
the theologians say now, has emerged at all? I feel, myself, as
though it had, though it is hard enough to put it into words. I seem to
feel that a point of view, not altogether irrelevant in our time, has
projected a certain light upon us, as we advanced together.
Let me try to catch some few filmy threads of this before it vanishes,
even though, like a dream in the waking, its outlines waver and
recede and fade, until it is lost in space. We gather, then, I fancy,
from this kind of hurried passing through enchanted gardens, a sort
of curious unwillingness to let our "fixed convictions" deprive us
any more of the spiritual adventures to which we have a right. We
begin to understand the danger of such convictions, of such opinions,
of such "constructive consistency." We grow prepared to "give
ourselves up" to "yield ourselves willingly," to whatever new
Revelation of the Evasive One chance may throw in our way. It is in
such yieldings, such surprises by the road, such new vistas and
perspectives, that life loves to embody itself. To refuse them is to
turn away from Life and dwell in the kingdom of the shadow.
"Why not?" the Demon who has presided over our wanderings
together seems to whisper--"why not for a little while try the
experiment of having no 'fixed ideas,' no 'inflexible principles,' no
'concentrated aim'? Why not simply react to one mysterious visitor
after another, as they approach us, and caress or hurt us, and go their
way? Why not, for an interlude, be Life's children, instead of her
slaves or her masters, and let Her lead us, the great crafty Mother,
whither she will?"
There will be much less harm done by such an embracing of Fate,
and such a cessation of foolish agitations, than many might suppose.
And more than anything else, this is what our generation requires!
We are over-ridden by theorists and preachers and ethical
water-carriers; we need a little rest--a little yawning and stretching and
"being ourselves"; a little quiet sitting at the feet of the Immortal
Gods. We need to forget to be troubled, for a brief interval, if the
Immortal Gods speak in strange and variable tongues, and offer us
diverse-shaped chalices. Let us drink, dear friends, let us drink, as
the most noble prophetess Bacbuc used to say! There are many
vintages in the kingdom of Beauty; and yet others--God knows!
even outside that. Let us drink, and ask no troublesome questions.
The modern puritan seeks to change the nature of our natural
longing. He tells us that what we need is not less labor but more
labor, not less "concentrated effort," but more "concentrated effort";
not "Heaven," in fact, but "Hell."
I do not know. There is much affectation abroad, and some
hypocrisy. Puritans were ever addicted to hypocrisy. But because of
these "virtuous" prophets of "action," are we to give up our Beatific
Vision? Why not be honest for once, and confess that what Man,
born of Woman, craves for in his heart is a little joy, a little
happiness, a little pleasure, before "he goes hence and is no more
seen"? We know that we know nothing. Why, then, pretend that we
know the importance of being "up and doing"? There may be no
such importance. The common burden of life we have, indeed, all to
bear--and they are not very gracious or lovely souls who seek to put
it off on others--but for this additional burden, this burden of "being
consistent" and having a "strong character," does it seem very wise,
in so brief an interval, to put the stress just there?
Somehow I think a constant dwelling in the company of the "great
masters" leads us to take with a certain "pinch of salt" the strenuous
"duties" which the World's voices make so clamorous! It may be
that our sense of their greatness and remoteness produces a certain
"humility" in us, and a certain mood of "waiting on the Spirit," not
altogether encouraging to what this age, in its fussy worship of
energy, calls "our creative work." Well! There is a place doubtless
for these energetic people, and their strenuous characters, and their
"creative work." But I think there is a place also for those who
cannot rush about the market-place, or climb high Alps, or make
engines spin, or race, with girded loins, after "Truth." I think there is
a place still left for harmless spectators in this Little Theatre of the
Universe, And such spectators will do well if they see to it that
nothing of the fine or the rare or the exquisite escapes them.
Somebody must have the discrimination and the detachment
necessary to do justice to our "creative minds." The worst of it is,
everybody in these days rushes off to "create," and pauses not a
moment to look round to see whether what is being created is worth
creating!
We must return to the great masters; we must return to the things in
life that really matter; and then we shall acquire, perhaps, in our
little way the art of keeping the creators of ugliness at a distance!
Let us at least be honest. The world is a grim game, and we need
sometimes the very courage of Lucifer to hold our enemies back.
But in the chaos of it all, and the madness and frenzy, let us
at least hold fast to that noble daughter of the gods men name
_Imagination._ With that to aid us, we can console ourselves for
many losses, for many defeats. For the life of the Imagination flows
deep and swift, and in its flowing it can bear us to undreamed-of
coasts, where the children of fantasy and the children of irony dance
on--heedless of theory and argument.
The world is deep, as Zarathustra says, and deep is pain; and deeper
than pain is joy. I do not think that they have reached the final clue,
even with their talk of "experience" and "struggle" and the "storming
of the heights." Sometimes it is not from "experience," but from
beyond experience, that the rumour comes. Sometimes it is not from
the "struggle," but from the "rest" after the struggle, that the whisper
is given. Sometimes the voice comes to us, not from the "heights,"
but from the depths.
The truth seems to be that if the clue is to be caught at all, it will be
caught where we least expect it; and, for the catching of it, what we
have to do is not to let our theories, our principles, our convictions,
our opinions, impede our vision--but now and then to lay them aside;
but whether with them or without them, to be _prepared_--for the
Spirit bloweth where it listeth and we cannot tell whence it cometh,
or whither it goeth!