POTTERISM
A TRAGI-FARCICAL TRACT
BY ROSE MACAULAY
Author of 'What Not,' etc.
1920
TO THE UNSENTIMENTAL PRECISIANS IN THOUGHT, WHO HAVE, ON THIS CONFUSED,
INACCURATE, AND EMOTIONAL PLANET, NO FIT HABITATION
'They contract a Habit of talking loosely and confusedly.'--J. CLARKE.
'My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.... Don't _think_ foolishly.'
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
'On the whole we are
Not intelligent--
No, no, no, not intelligent.'--W.S. GILBERT.
'Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by
day; But it will not rise to the price of a Diamond or Carbuncle, that
sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a Lie doth ever adde
Pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's
mindes Vaine Opinions, Blattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations
as one would, and the like, but it would leave the Mindes of a Number of
Men poore shrunken Things, full of Melancholy and Indisposition and
unpleasing to themselves?'--FRANCIS BACON.
'What is it that smears the windows of the senses? Thought, convention,
self-interest.... We see the narrow world our windows show us not in
itself, but in relation to our own needs, moods, and preferences ... for
the universe of the natural man is strictly egocentric.... Unless we
happen to be artists--and then but rarely--we never know the "thing seen"
in its purity; never from birth to death, look at it with disinterested
eyes.... It is disinterestedness, the saint's and poet's love of things
for their own sakes ... which is the condition of all real knowledge....
When ... the verb "to have" is ejected from the centre of your
consciousness ... your attitude to life will cease to be commercial and
become artistic. Then the guardian at the gate, scrutinising and sorting
the incoming impressions, will no longer ask, "What use is this to
_me?_"... You see things at last as the artist does, for their sake, not
for your own.'--EVELYN UNDERHILL.
CONTENTS
PART I.--TOLD BY R.M.
I. POTTERS
II. ANTI-POTTERS
III. OPPORTUNITY
IV. JANE AND CLARE