As I sat in the garden just now, with a writing-pad on my knee and my mind
ranging the heavens above and the earth beneath in search of a subject, my
eye fell on a tragedy in progress at my elbow. A small greenfly had got
entangled in a spider's web, and was fluttering its tiny wings violently to
effect an escape. The filaments of the web were so delicate as to be hardly
visible, but they were not too delicate to bear the spider whom I saw
advancing upon his prey with dreadful menace. I forgot my dislike of
greenflies, and was overcome with a fierce antagonism for the fat fellow
who had the game so entirely in his hands. Here, said I, is the Hun
encompassing the ruin of poor little Belgium. What chance has the weak and
the innocent little creature against the cunning of this rascal, who hangs
out his gossamer traps in the breeze and then lies in hiding until his
victim is enmeshed and helpless? What justice is there in nature that
allows this unequal combat?
By this time the spider had reached the fly and thrown a new filament round
him. Then at frightful speed he raced to the top of his web and disappeared
in the woodwork of the arbour, drawing the new filament tight round the
victim, which continued its flutterings for a little time and then gave up
the ghost. At this moment I was called in to lunch, and at the table I told
the story of the spider and the fly with undisguised hostility to the
spider. "That," said Robert, home from the front--"that is simply a
sentimental point of view. My sympathies as a practical person are all with
the spider. He is the friend of man, the devourer of insects, the scavenger
of the gardens. He helps in the great task of keeping the equilibrium of
nature. Moreover," said he, "I have seen you kill greenflies yourself. You
killed them because you knew they were a nuisance. Why should you object to
the spider doing the same useful work for a living?"
"Ah," said I weakly, "I suppose it is because he does it for a living. Now
I ..." "Now, you," interrupted the other, "do it for a living, too, because
you want your fruit trees to bear fruit, and your roses to thrive, and your
cabbages to prosper. Who more merciless than you on slugs and other pests
that fly or crawl? No, no, we are all out for a living, you as much as the
spider, the spider as much as the fly." "We are all Huns," said I. "What a
detestable world it is." "Not at all," said he. "It's a very jolly world. I
drink to the health of the spider."
"And you have no pity for the fly?" I said. "Not a little bit." he replied.
"I am on the side of right." "Whose side is that?" I asked. "Mine," said
he. "We must all act according to our point of view. That's what the
greenfly does. That's what the spider does. We shall never in this world
get all the points of view in accord. We shall go on scrambling for a
living to the end. Sometimes the greenfly will be on top, sometimes the
spider. Look at that cherry-tree in the orchard. A month ago its branches
were laden with fruit. Now there is not a cherry to be seen. The blackbirds
and the starlings have stripped the tree as clean as a bone. Their point of
view is that the cherries are provided for them, and they are right. They
know nothing of the laws of property which man makes for his own
protection. It's no use going out to them and asking them to look at your
title-deeds, and reminding them of the policeman and the laws against
larceny. Our moral code is for us, not for them.
"We are all creatures of our own point of view," he went on. "Before Jones
next door bought a motor-car he had very bitter feelings about
motorists--used to call them road-hogs, said he would tax these
'land-torpedoes' out of existence, and was full of sympathy and pity for
the poor children coming from school. Now he drives a car as hard as
anybody; blows the hoggiest of horns; and says it's disgraceful the way
parents allow their children to play about in the streets. Nothing has
changed except his point of view. He has shifted round to another position,
and sees things from a new angle of vision. Samuel Butler hit the comedy of
the thing off long ago:--
What makes all doctrine plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was proved true before
Prove false again? Two hundred more."
"Are our points of view then all dictated by our selfish motives as those
of your friend the spider, who has probably by this time gobbled my friend
the greenfly?" "No, I do not say that. I think that, comprehending all our
private points of view, there is an absolute motive running through human
society, call it the world spirit, the mind of the race, or what you will,
that is something greater and better than we. The collective motion of
humanity is, except in very rare cases, nobler than its individual
manifestations. I respond and you respond to an abstract justice, an
abstract righteousness, which is purer and better than anything we are
capable of. We are all at the bottom, I think, better than our actions
paint us, better than our limited points of view permit us to be, and in
our illuminated moments we catch a glimpse of that Jacob's ladder that
Francis Thompson saw, with ascending angels, at Charing Cross. Some one
called Shelley 'an ineffectual angel.' I think most of us are ineffectual
angels. Take this tragedy that is filling the world with horror to-day. We
are fighting like tigers for our own points of view, but in our hearts we
are ashamed of the spectacle, and know that humanity is better than its
deeds. One day, perhaps, the ineffectual angel will find his wings and
outsoar the spider point of view.... And, by the way, suppose we go and
see how the spider is getting on."
We went out into the garden and found the web. But the little green corpse
had gone, and the spider was digesting his meal somewhere out of sight.
_(Note._--This article should be read in connection with that entitled "On
the Downs.")