FLAGELLUM NON APPROQUINABIT TABERNACULO TUO
I SUPPOSE that the reason why in novels the story ends with a marriage is
partly that the excitement of the tale ceases then, and partly also
because of a theory that marriage is an epoch, determining the career of
life after it. The epoch once announced, nothing more need be explained;
everything else follows as a matter of course. These notes of mine are
autobiographical, and not a romance. I have never known much about
epochs. I have had one or two, one specially when I first began to read
and think; but after that, if I have changed, it has been slowly and
imperceptibly. My life, therefore, is totally unfitted to be the basis
of fiction. My return to Ellen, and our subsequent marriage, were only
partially an epoch. A change had come, but it was one which had long
been preparing. Ellen’s experiences had altered her position, and mine
too was altered. She had been driven into religion by trouble, and
knowing nothing of criticism or philosophy, retained the old forms for
her religious feeling. But the very quickness of her emotion caused her
to welcome all new and living modes of expressing it. It is only when
feeling has ceased to accompany a creed that it becomes fixed, and verbal
departures from it are counted heresy. I too cared less for argument,
and it even gave me pleasure to talk in her dialect, so familiar to me,
but for so many years unused.
It was now necessary for me to add to my income. I had nothing upon
which to depend save my newspaper, which was obviously insufficient. At
last, I succeeded in obtaining some clerical employment. For no other
work was I fit, for my training had not been special in any one
direction. My hours were long, from ten in the morning till seven in the
evening, and as I was three miles distant from the office, I was really
away from home for eleven hours every day, excepting on Sundays. I began
to calculate that my life consisted of nothing but the brief spaces
allowed to me for rest, and these brief spaces I could not enjoy because
I dwelt upon their brevity. There was some excuse for me. Never could
there be any duty incumbent upon man much more inhuman and devoid of
interest than my own. How often I thought about my friend Clark, and his
experiences became mine. The whole day I did nothing but write, and what
I wrote called forth no single faculty of the mind. Nobody who has not
tried such an occupation can possibly forecast the strange habits,
humours, fancies, and diseases which after a time it breeds. I was shut
up in a room half below the ground. In this room were three other men
besides myself, two of them between fifty and sixty, and one about three
or four-and-twenty. All four of us kept books or copied letters from ten
to seven, with an interval of three-quarters of an hour for dinner. In
all three of these men, as in the case of Clark’s companions, there had
been developed, partly I suppose by the circumstance of enforced idleness
of brain, the most loathsome tendency to obscenity. This was the one
subject which was common ground, and upon which they could talk. It was
fostered too by a passion for beer, which was supplied by the publican
across the way, who was perpetually travelling to and fro with cans. My
horror when I first found out into what society I was thrust was
unspeakable. There was a clock within a hundred yards of my window which
struck the hours and quarters. How I watched that clock! My spirits
rose or fell with each division of the day. From ten to twelve there was
nothing but gloom. By half-past twelve I began to discern dinner time,
and the prospect was brighter. After dinner there was nothing to be done
but doggedly to endure until five, and at five I was able to see over the
distance from five to seven. My disgust at my companions, however, came
to be mixed with pity. I found none of them cruel, and I received many
little kindnesses from them. I discovered that their trade was largely
answerable for the impurity of thought and speech which so shocked me.
Its monotony compelled some countervailing stimulus, and as they had
never been educated to care for anything in particular, they found the
necessary relief in sensuality. At first they “chaffed” and worried me a
good deal because of my silence, but at last they began to think I was
“religious,” and then they ceased to torment me. I rather encouraged
them in the belief that I had a right to exemption from their
conversation, and I passed, I believe, for a Plymouth brother. The only
thing which they could not comprehend was that I made no attempt to
convert them.
The whole establishment was under the rule of a deputy-manager, who was
the terror of the place. He was tall, thin, and suffered occasionally
from spitting of blood, brought on no doubt from excitement. He was the
strangest mixture of exactitude and passion. He had complete mastery
over every detail of the business, and he never blundered. All his work
was thorough, down to the very bottom, and he had the most intolerant
hatred of everything which was loose and inaccurate. He never passed a
day without flaming out into oaths and curses against his subordinates,
and they could not say in his wildest fury that his ravings were beside
the mark. He was wrong in his treatment of men—utterly wrong—but his
facts were always correct. I never saw anybody hated as he was, and the
hatred against him was the more intense because nobody could convict him
of a mistake. He seemed to enjoy a storm, and knew nothing whatever of
the constraints which with ordinary men prevent abusive and brutal
language to those around them. Some of his clerks suffered greatly from
him, and he almost broke down two or three from the constant nervous
strain upon them produced by fear of his explosions. For my own part,
although I came in for a full share of his temper, I at once made up my
mind as soon as I discovered what he was, not to open my lips to him
except under compulsion. My one object now was to get a living. I
wished also to avoid the self-mortification which must ensue from
altercation. I dreaded, as I have always dreaded beyond what I can tell,
the chaos and wreck which, with me, follows subjugation by anger, and I
held to my resolve under all provocation. It was very difficult, but how
many times I have blessed myself for adhesion to it. Instead of going
home undone with excitement, and trembling with fear of dismissal, I have
walked out of my dungeon having had to bite my lips till the blood came,
but still conqueror, and with peace of mind.
Another stratagem of defence which I adopted at the office was never to
betray to a soul anything about myself. Nobody knew anything about me,
whether I was married or single, where I lived, or what I thought upon a
single subject of any importance. I cut off my office life in this way
from my life at home so completely that I was two selves, and my true
self was not stained by contact with my other self. It was a comfort to
me to think the moment the clock struck seven that my second self died,
and that my first self suffered nothing by having anything to do with it.
I was not the person who sat at the desk downstairs and endured the
abominable talk of his colleagues and the ignominy of serving such a
chief. I knew nothing about him. I was a citizen walking London
streets; I had my opinions upon human beings and books; I was on equal
terms with my friends; I was Ellen’s husband; I was, in short, a man. By
this scrupulous isolation, I preserved myself, and the clerk was not
debarred from the domain of freedom.
It is very terrible to think that the labour by which men are to live
should be of this order. The ideal of labour is that it should be
something in which we can take an interest and even a pride. Immense
masses of it in London are the merest slavery, and it is as mechanical as
the daily journey of the omnibus horse. There is no possibility of
relieving it, and all the ordinary copybook advice of moralists and poets
as to the temper in which we should earn our bread is childish nonsense.
If a man is a painter, or a physician, or a barrister, or even a
tradesman, well and good. The maxims of authors may be of some service
to him, and he may be able to exemplify them; but if he is a copying
clerk they are an insult, and he can do nothing but arch his back to bear
his burden and find some compensation elsewhere. True it is, that
beneficent Nature here, as always, is helpful. Habit, after a while,
mitigated much of the bitterness of destiny. The hard points of the
flint became smoothed and worn away by perpetual tramping over them, so
that they no longer wounded with their original sharpness; and the sole
of the foot was in time provided with a merciful callosity. Then, too,
there was developed an appetite which was voracious for all that was
best. Who shall tell the revulsion on reaching home, which I should
never have known had I lived a life of idleness! Ellen was fond of
hearing me read, and with a little care I was able to select what would
bear reading—dramas, for example. She liked the reading for the
reading’s sake, and she liked to know that what I thought was
communicated to her; that she was not excluded from the sphere in which I
lived. Of the office she never heard a word, and I never would tell her
anything about it; but there was scarcely a single book in my possession
which could be read aloud, that we did not go through together in this
way. I don’t prescribe this kind of life to everybody. Some of my best
friends, I know, would find it intolerable, but it suited us. Philosophy
and religion I did not touch. It was necessary to choose themes with
varying human interest, such as the best works of fiction, a play, or a
poem; and these perhaps, on the whole, did me more good at that time than
speculation. Oh, how many times have I left my office humiliated by some
silently endured outbreak on the part of my master, more galling because
I could not put it aside as altogether gratuitous; and in less than an
hour it was two miles away, and I was myself again. If a man wants to
know what the potency of love is, he must be a menial; he must be
despised. Those who are prosperous and courted cannot understand its
power. Let him come home after he has suffered what is far worse than
hatred—the contempt of a superior, who knows that he can afford to be
contemptuous, seeing that he can replace his slave at a moment’s notice.
Let him be trained by his tyrant to dwell upon the thought that he
belongs to the vast crowd of people in London who are unimportant; almost
useless; to whom it is a charity to offer employment; who are conscious
of possessing no gift which makes them of any value to anybody, and he
will then comprehend the divine efficacy of the affection of that woman
to whom he is dear. God’s mercy be praised ever more for it! I cannot
write poetry, but if I could, no theme would tempt me like that of love
to such a person as I was—not love, as I say again, to the hero, but love
to the Helot. Over and over again, when I have thought about it, I have
felt my poor heart swell with a kind of uncontrollable fervour. I have
often, too, said to myself that this love is no delusion. If we were to
set it down as nothing more than a merciful cheat on the part of the
Creator, however pleasant it might be, it would lose its charm. If I
were to think that my wife’s devotion to me is nothing more than the
simple expression of a necessity to love somebody, that there is nothing
in me which justifies such devotion, I should be miserable. Rather, I
take it, is the love of woman to man a revelation of the relationship in
which God stands to him—of what _ought_ to be, in fact. In the love of a
woman to the man who is of no account God has provided us with a true
testimony of what is in His own heart. I often felt this when looking at
myself and at Ellen. “What is there in me?” I have said, “is she not the
victim of some self-created deception?” and I was wretched till I
considered that in her I saw the Divine Nature itself, and that her
passion was a stream straight from the Highest. The love of woman is, in
other words, a living witness never failing of an actuality in God which
otherwise we should never know. This led me on to connect it with
Christianity; but I am getting incoherent and must stop.
My employment now was so incessant, for it was still necessary that I
should write for my newspaper—although my visits to the House of Commons
had perforce ceased—that I had no time for any schemes or dreams such as
those which had tormented me when I had more leisure. In one respect
this was a blessing. Destiny now had prescribed for me. I was no longer
agitated by ignorance of what I ought to do. My present duty was
obviously to get my own living, and having got that, I could do little
besides save continue the Sundays with M’Kay.
We were almost entirely alone. We had no means of making any friends.
We had no money, and no gifts of any kind. We were neither of us witty
nor attractive, but I have often wondered, nevertheless, what it was
which prevented us from obtaining acquaintance with persons who thronged
to houses in which I could see nothing worth a twopenny omnibus fare.
Certain it is, that we went out of our way sometimes to induce people to
call upon us whom we thought we should like; but, if they came once or
twice, they invariably dropped off, and we saw no more of them. This
behaviour was so universal that, without the least affectation, I
acknowledge there must be something repellent in me, but what it is I
cannot tell. That Ellen was the cause of the general aversion, it is
impossible to believe. The only theory I have is, that partly owing to a
constant sense of fatigue, due to imperfect health, and partly to chafing
irritation at mere gossip, although I had no power to think of anything
better, or say anything better myself, I was avoided both by the
commonplace and those who had talent. Commonplace persons avoided me
because I did not chatter, and persons of talent because I stood for
nothing. “There was nothing in me.” We met at M’Kay’s two gentlemen
whom we thought we might invite to our house. One of them was an
antiquarian. He had discovered in an excavation in London some Roman
remains. This had led him on to the study of the position and boundaries
of the Roman city. He had become an authority upon this subject, and had
lectured upon it. He came; but as we were utterly ignorant, and could
not, with all our efforts, manifest any sympathy which he valued at the
worth of a pin, he soon departed, and departed for ever. The second was
a student of Elizabethan literature, and I rashly concluded at once that
he must be most delightful. He likewise came. I showed him my few poor
books, which he condemned, and I found that such observations as I could
make he considered as mere twaddle. I knew nothing, or next to nothing,
about the editions or the curiosities, or the proposed emendations of
obscure passages, and he, too, departed abruptly. I began to think after
he had gone that my study of Shakespeare was mere dilettantism but I
afterwards came to the conclusion that if a man wishes to spoil himself
for Shakespeare, the best thing he can do is to turn Shakespearian
critic.
My worst enemy at this time was ill health, and it was more distressing
than it otherwise would have been, because I had such responsibilities
upon me. When I lived alone I knew that if anything should happen to me
it would be of no particular consequence, but now whenever I felt sick I
was anxious on account of Ellen. What would become of her—this was the
thought which kept me awake night after night when the terrors of
depression were upon me, as they often were. But still, terrors with
growing years had lost their ancient strength. My brain and nerves were
quiet compared with what they were in times gone by, and I had gradually
learned the blessed lesson which is taught by familiarity with sorrow,
that the greater part of what is dreadful in it lies in the imagination.
The true Gorgon head is seldom seen in reality. That it exists I do not
doubt, but it is not so commonly visible as we think. Again, as we get
older we find that all life is given us on conditions of uncertainty, and
yet we walk courageously on. The labourer marries and has children, when
there is nothing but his own strength between him and ruin. A million
chances are encountered every day, and any one of the million accidents
which might happen would cripple him or kill him, and put into the
workhouse those who depend upon him. Yet he treads his path undisturbed.
Life to all of us is a narrow plank placed across a gulf, which yawns on
either side, and if we were perpetually looking down into it we should
fall. So at last, the possibility of disaster ceased to affright me. I
had been brought off safely so many times when destruction seemed
imminent, that I grew hardened, and lay down quietly at night, although
the whim of a madman might to-morrow cast me on the pavement.
Frequently, as I have said, I could not do this, but I strove to do it,
and was able to do it when in health.
I tried to think about nothing which expressed whatever in the world may
be insoluble or simply tragic. A great change is just beginning to come
over us in this respect. So many books I find are written which aim
merely at new presentation of the hopeless. The contradictions of fate,
the darkness of death, the fleeting of man over this brief stage of
existence, whence we know not, and whither we know not, are favourite
subjects with writers who seem to think that they are profound, because
they can propose questions which cannot be answered. There is really
more strength of mind required for resolving the commonest difficulty
than is necessary for the production of poems on these topics. The
characteristic of so much that is said and written now is melancholy; and
it is melancholy, not because of any deeper acquaintance with the secrets
of man than that which was possessed by our forefathers, but because it
is easy to be melancholy, and the time lacks strength.
As I am now setting down, without much order or connection, the lessons
which I had to learn, I may perhaps be excused if I add one or two
others. I can say of them all, that they are not book lessons. They
have been taught me by my own experience, and as a rule I have always
found that in my own most special perplexities I got but little help from
books or other persons. I had to find out for myself what was for me the
proper way of dealing with them.
My love for Ellen was great, but I discovered that even such love as this
could not be left to itself. It wanted perpetual cherishing. The lamp,
if it was to burn brightly, required daily trimming, for people became
estranged and indifferent, not so much by open quarrel or serious
difference, as by the intervention of trifles which need but the
smallest, although continuous effort for their removal. The true wisdom
is to waste no time over them, but to eject them at once. Love, too,
requires that the two persons who love one another shall constantly
present to one another what is best in them, and to accomplish this,
deliberate purpose, and even struggle, are necessary. If through relapse
into idleness we do not attempt to bring soul and heart into active
communion day by day, what wonder if this once exalted relationship
become vulgar and mean?
I was much overworked. It was not the work itself which was such a
trial, but the time it consumed. At best, I had but a clear space of an
hour, or an hour and a half at home, and to slave merely for this seemed
such a mockery! Day after day sped swiftly by, made up of nothing but
this infernal drudgery, and I said to myself—Is this life? But I made up
my mind that _never would I give myself tongue_. I clapped a muzzle on
my mouth. Had I followed my own natural bent, I should have become
expressive about what I had to endure, but I found that expression reacts
on him who expresses and intensifies what is expressed. If we break out
into rhetoric over a toothache, the pangs are not the easier, but the
worse to be borne.
I naturally contracted a habit of looking forward from the present moment
to one beyond. The whole week seemed to exist for the Sunday. On Monday
morning I began counting the hours till Sunday should arrive. The
consequence was, that when it came, it was not enjoyed properly, and I
wasted it in noting the swiftness of its flight. Oh, how absurd is man!
If we were to reckon up all the moments which we really enjoy for their
own sake, how few should we find them to be! The greatest part, far the
greatest part, of our lives is spent in dreaming over the morrow, and
when it comes, it, too, is consumed in the anticipation of a brighter
morrow, and so the cheat is prolonged, even to the grave. This tendency,
unconquerable though it may appear to be, can to a great extent at any
rate, be overcome by strenuous discipline. I tried to blind myself to
the future, and many and many a time, as I walked along that dreary New
Road or Old St. Pancras Road, have I striven to compel myself not to look
at the image of Hampstead Heath or Regent’s Park, as yet six days in
front of me, but to get what I could out of what was then with me.
The instinct which leads us perpetually to compare what we are with what
we might be is no doubt of enormous value, and is the spring which
prompts all action, but, like every instinct, it is the source of
greatest danger. I remember the day and the very spot on which it
flashed into me, like a sudden burst of the sun’s rays, that I had no
right to this or that—to so much happiness, or even so much virtue. What
title-deeds could I show for such a right? Straightway it seemed as if
the centre of a whole system of dissatisfaction were removed, and as if
the system collapsed. God, creating from His infinite resources a whole
infinitude of beings, had created me with a definite position on the
scale, and that position only could I claim. Cease the trick of
contrast. If I can by any means get myself to consider myself alone
without reference to others, discontent will vanish. I walk this Old St.
Pancras Road on foot—another rides. Keep out of view him who rides and
all persons riding, and I shall not complain that I tramp in the wet. So
also when I think how small and weak I am.
How foolish it is to try and cure by argument what time will cure so
completely and so gently if left to itself. As I get older, the anxiety
to prove myself right if I quarrel dies out. I hold my tongue and time
vindicates me, if it is possible to vindicate me, or convicts me if I am
wrong. Many and many a debate too which I have had with myself alone has
been settled in the same way. The question has been put aside and has
lost its importance. The ancient Church thought, and seriously enough,
no doubt, that all the vital interests of humanity were bound up with the
controversies upon the Divine nature; but the centuries have rolled on,
and who cares for those controversies now. The problems of death and
immortality once upon a time haunted me so that I could hardly sleep for
thinking about them. I cannot tell how, but so it is, that at the
present moment, when I am years nearer the end, they trouble me but very
little. If I could but bury and let rot things which torment me and come
to no settlement—if I could always do this—what a blessing it would be.