to limit the hopes and possibilities of others by the little foot-rule
which they have made for themselves. That is a very petty and even a
very wicked thing to do, that old persecuting instinct which says, "I
will make it as unpleasant for you as I can, if you will not consent
at all events to pretend to believe what I think it right to believe."
A man of science does not want to persecute a child who says
petulantly that he will not believe the law of gravity. He merely
smiles and goes on his way. The law of gravity can look after itself!
Persecution is as often as not an attempt to reassure oneself about
one's own beliefs; it is not a sign of an untroubled faith.
We must not allow ourselves to be shaken by any attempt to dictate to
us what we should believe. We need not always protest against it,
unless we feel it a duty to do so; we may simply regard another's
certainties as things which are not and cannot be proved. Argument on
such subjects is merely a waste of time; but at the same time we ought
to recognise the vitality which lies behind such tenacious beliefs,
and be glad that it is there, even if we think it to be mistaken.
And this brings me back to my first point, which is that it is good
for us to try to realise the hidden life of the world, and to rejoice
in it even though it has no truth for us. We must never disbelieve in
life, even though in sickness and sorrow and age it may seem to ebb
from us; and we must try at all costs to recognise it, to sympathise
with it, to put ourselves in touch with it, even though it takes forms
unintelligible and even repugnant to ourselves.
Let me try to translate this into very practical matters. We many of
us find ourselves in a fixed relation to a certain circle of people.
We cannot break with them or abandon them. Perhaps our livelihood
depends upon them, or theirs upon us. Yet we may find them harsh,
unsympathetic, unkind, objectionable. What are we to do? Many people
let the whole tangle go, and just creep along, doing what they do not
like, feeling unappreciated and misunderstood, just hoping to avoid
active collisions and unpleasant scenes. That is a very spiritless
business! What we ought to do is to find points of contact, even at
the cost of some repression of our own views and aims. And we ought
too to nourish a fine life of our own, to look into the lives of other
people, which can be done perhaps best in large books, fine
biographies, great works of imagination and fiction. We must not
drowse and brood in our own sombre corner, when life is flowing free
and full outside, as in some flashing river. However little chance we
may seem to have of _doing_ anything, we can at least determine to
_be_ something; not to let our life be filled, like some base vessel,
with the offscourings and rinsings of other spirits, but to remember
that the water of life is given freely to all who come. That is the
worst of our dull view of the great Gospel of Christ. We think--I do
not say this profanely but seriously--of that water of life as a
series of propositions like the Athanasian Creed!
Christ meant something very different by the water of life. He meant
that the soul that was athirst could receive a draught of a spring of
cool refreshment and living joy. He did not mean a set of doctrines;
doctrines are to life what parchments and title-deeds are to an estate
with woods and waters, fields and gardens, houses and cottages, and
live people moving to and fro. It is of no use to possess the
title-deed if one does not visit one's estate. Doctrines are an
attempt to state, in bare and precise language, ideas and thoughts
dear and fresh to the heart. It is in qualities, hopes, and affections
that we live; and if our eyes are opened, we can see, as my friend
dreamed he saw, the surface of the hard rock full of moving points,
and shimmering with threads of swift life, when the sun has fallen
from the height, and the wind comes cool across the moor from the open
gates of the evening.
XVII
ACCESSIBILITY
I was greatly interested the other day by seeing a photograph, in his
old age, of Henry Phillpotts, the redoubtable Bishop of Exeter, who
lost more money in lawsuits with clergymen than any Bishop, I suppose,
who ever lived. He sate, the old man, in his clumsily fitting gaiters,
bowed or crouched in an arm-chair, reading a letter. His face was
turned to the spectator; with his stiff, upstanding hair, his
out-thrust lip, his corrugated brow, and the deep pouched lines
beneath his eyes, he looked like a terrible old lion, who could no
longer spring, but who had not forgotten how to roar. His face was
full of displeasure and anger. I remembered that a clergyman once told
me how he had been sitting next the Bishop at a dinner of parsons, and
a young curate, sitting on the other side of the Bishop, affronted
him by believing him to be deaf, and by speaking very loudly and
distinctly to him. The Bishop at last turned to him, with a furious
visage, and said, "I would have you to understand, sir, that I am not
deaf!" This disconcerted the young man so much that he could neither
speak nor eat. The old Bishop turned to my friend, and said, in a
heavy tone, "I'm not fit for society!" Indeed he was not, if he could
unchain so fierce a beast on such slight provocation.
And there are many other stories of the bitter things he said, and how
his displeasure could brood like a cloud over a whole company. He was
a gallant old figure, it is true, very energetic, very able,
determined to do what he thought right, and infinitely courageous. I
mused over the portrait, thought how lifelike and picturesque it was,
and how utterly unlike one's idea of an aged Christian or a chief
shepherd. In his beautiful villa by the sea, with its hanging woods
and gardens, ruling with diligence, he seemed to me more like a
stoical Roman Emperor, or a tempestuous Sadducee, the spirit of the
world incarnate. One wondered what it could have been that had drawn
him to Christ, or what part he would have taken if he had been on the
Sanhedrin that judged Him!
It seems to me that one of the first characteristics which one ought
to do one's best to cast out of one's life is that of formidableness.
Yet to tell a man that he is formidable is not an accusation that is
often resented. He may indulgently deprecate it, but it seems to most
people a sort of testimonial to their force and weight and influence,
a penalty that they have to pay for being effective, a matter of
prestige and honour. Of course, an old, famous, dignified man who has
played a great part on the stage of life must necessarily be
approached by the young with a certain awe. But there is no charm in
the world more beautiful than the charm which can permeate dignity,
give confidence, awake affection, dissipate dread. But if a man of
that sort indulges his moods, says what he thinks bluntly and
fiercely, has no mercy on feebleness or ignorance, he can be a very
dreadful personage indeed!
Accessibility is one of the first of Christian virtues; but it is not
always easy to practise, because a man of force and ability, who is
modest and shy, forgets as life goes on how much more his influence is
felt. He himself does not feel at all different from what he was when
he was young, when he was snubbed and silenced and set down in
argument. Perhaps he feels that the world is a kinder and an easier
place, as he grows into deference and esteem, but it is the surest
sign of a noble and beautiful character if the greater he becomes the
more simple and tender he also becomes.
I was greatly interested the other day in attending a meeting at
which, among other speakers, two well-known men spoke. The first was a
man of great renown and prestige, and he made a very beautiful, lofty,
and tender discourse; but, from some shyness or gravity of nature, he
never smiled nor looked at his audience; and thus, fine though his
speech was, he never got into touch with us at all. The second speech
was far more obvious and commonplace, but the speaker, on beginning,
cast a friendly look round and smiled on the audience; and he did the
same all the time, so that one had at once a friendly sense of contact
and geniality, and I felt that every word was addressed to me
personally. That is what it is to be accessible!
One of the best ways in which we can keep the spirit of poetry--by
which I mean the higher, sweeter, purer influences of thought--alive
in one's heart, is by accessibility--by determining to speak freely of
what one admires and loves, what moves and touches one, what keeps
one's mind upon the inner and finer life. It is not always possible or
indeed convenient for younger people to do this, for reasons which are
not wholly bad reasons. Young people ought not to be too eager to take
the lead in talk, nor ought they to be too openly impatient of the
more sedate and prosaic discourse of their elders; and then, too,
there is a time for all things; one cannot keep the mind always on the
strain; and the best and most beautiful things are apt to come in
glimpses and hints, and are not always arrived at by discussion and
argument.
There is a story of a great artist full of sympathy and kindness, to
whom in a single day three several people came to confide sad troubles
and trials. The artist told the story to his wife in the evening. He
said that he was afraid that the third of the visitors thought him
strangely indifferent and even unkind. "The fact was," he said, "that
my capacity for sympathy was really exhausted. I had suffered so much
from the first two recitals that I could not be sorry any more. I
_said_ I was sorry, and I _was_ sorry far down in my mind, but I could
not _feel_ sorry. I had given all the sympathy I had, and it was no
use going again to the well when there was no more water." This shows
that one cannot command emotion, and that one must not force even
thoughts of beauty upon others. We must bide our time, we must adapt
ourselves, and we must not be instant in season and out of season. Yet
neither must we be wholly at the mercy of moods. In religion, the
theory of liturgical worship is an attempt to realise that we ought to
practise religious emotion with regularity. We do not always feel we
are miserable sinners when we say so, and we sometimes feel that we
are when we do not say it; but it is better to confess what we know to
be true, even if at that moment we do not feel it to be true.
We ought not then always, out of modesty, to abstain from talking
about the things for which we care. A foolish shyness will sometimes
keep two sympathetic people from ever talking freely together of their
real hopes and interests. We are terribly afraid in England of what we
call priggishness. It is on the whole a wholesome tendency, but it is
the result of a lack of flexibility of mind. What we ought to be
afraid of is not seriousness and earnestness, but of solemnity and
pomposity. We ought to be ready to vary our mood swiftly, and even to
see the humorous side of sacred and beautiful things. The
oppressiveness of people who hold a great many things sacred, and
cannot bear that they should be jested about, is very great. There is
nothing that takes all naturalness out of intercourse more quickly
than the habit which some people have of begging that a subject may
not be pursued "because it is one on which I feel very deeply." That
is the essence of priggishness, to feel that our reasons are better,
our motives purer, than the reasons of other people, and that we have
the privilege of setting a standard. Conscious superiority is the note
of the prig; and we have the right to dread it.
But the Gospel again is full of precepts in favour of frankness,
outspokenness, letting light shine out, speaking sincerely; only it
must not be done provokingly, condescendingly, solemnly. It is well
for every one to have a friend or friends with whom he can talk quite
unaffectedly about what he cares for and values; and he ought to be
able to say to such a friend, "I cannot talk about these things now; I
am in a dusty, prosaic, grubby mood, and I want to make mud-pies"; the
point is to be natural, and yet to keep a watch upon nature; not to
force her into cramped postures, and yet not to indulge her in rude,
careless, and vulgar postures. It is a bad sign in friendship, if
intimacy seems to a man to give him the right to be rude, coarse,
boisterous, censorious, if he will. He may sometimes be betrayed into
each and all of these things, and be glad of a safety-valve for his
ill-humours, knowing that he will not be permanently misunderstood by
a sympathetic friend. But there must be a discipline in all these
things, and nature must often give way and be broken in; frankness
must not degenerate into boorishness, and liberty must not be the
power of interfering with the liberty of the friend. One must force
oneself to be courteous, interested, sweet-tempered, when one feels
just the contrary; one must keep in sight the principle, and if
violence must be done, it must not be done to the better nature. Least
of all must one deliberately take up the rôle of exercising influence.
That is a sad snare to many fine natures. One sees a weak, attractive
character, and it seems so tempting to train it up a stick, to fortify
it, to mould it. If one is a professed teacher, one has to try this
sometimes; but even then, the temptation to drive rather than lead
must be strenuously resisted.
I have always a very dark suspicion of people who talk of spheres of
influence, and who enjoy consciously affecting other lives. If this is
done professionally, as a joyful sort of exercise, it is deadly. The
only excuse for it is that one really cares for people and longs to be
of use; one cannot pump one's own tastes and character into others.
The only hope is that they should develop their own qualities. Other
people ought not to be 'problems' to us; they may be mysteries, but
that is quite another thing. To love people, if one can, is the only
way. To find out what is lovable in them and not to try to discover
what is malleable in them is the secret. A wise and witty lady, who
knows that she is tempted to try to direct other lives, told me that
one of her friends once remonstrated with her by saying that she ought
to leave something for God to do!
I know a very terrible and well-meaning person, who once spoke
severely to me for treating a matter with levity. I lost my temper,
and said, "You may make me ashamed of it, if you can, but you shall
not bully me into treating a matter seriously which I think is wholly
absurd." He said, "You do not enough consider the grave issues which
may be involved." I replied that to be for ever considering graver
issues seemed to me to make life stuffy and unwholesome. My censor
sighed and shook his head.
We cannot coerce any one into anything good. We may salve our own
conscience by trying to do so, we may even level an immediate
difficulty; but a free and generous desire to be different is the only
hope of vital change. The detestable Puritan fibre that exists in many
of us, which is the most utterly unchristian thing I know, tempts us
to feel that no discipline is worth anything unless it is dark and
gloomy; but that is the discipline of the law-court and the prison,
and has never remedied anything since the world began. Wickedness is
nearly always, perhaps always, a moral invalidism, and we shall see
some day that to punish men for crime by being cruel to them is like
condemning a man to the treadmill for having typhoid fever. I can only
say that the more I have known of human beings, and the older I grow,
the more lovable, gentle, sweet-tempered I have found them to be.
The life of Carlyle seems to me to be one of the most terrible and
convincing documents in the world in proof of what I have been saying.
The old man was so bent on battering and bumping people into
righteousness, so in love with spluttering and vituperating and
thundering all over the place, that he missed the truest and sweetest
ministry of love. He broke his wife's heart, and it is idle to pretend
he did not. Mrs. Carlyle was a sharp-edged woman too, and hurt her own
life by her bitter trenchancy. But there was enough true love and
loyalty and chivalry in the pair to furnish out a hundred marriages.
Yet one sees Carlyle stamping and cursing through life, and never
seeing what lay close to his hand. I admire his life not because it
was a triumph, but because it was such a colossal failure, and so
finely atoned for by the noble and great-minded repentance of a man
who recognised at last that it was of no use to begin by trying to be
ruler over ten cities, unless he was first faithful in a few things.
XVIII
SYMPATHY
But there is one thing which we must constantly bear in mind, and
which all enthusiastic people must particularly recollect, namely,
that our delight and interest in life must be large, tolerant, and
sympathetic, and that we must not only admit but welcome an immense
variety of interest. We must above all things be just, and we must be
ready to be both interested and amused by people whom we do not like.
The point is that minds should be fresh and clear, rather than
stagnant and lustreless. Enthusiastic people, who feel very strongly
and eagerly the beauty of one particular kind of delight, are sadly
apt to wish to impose their own preferences upon other minds, and not
to believe in the worth of others' preferences. Thus the men who feel
very ardently the beauty of the Greek Classics are apt to insist that
all boys shall be brought up upon them; and the same thing happens in
other matters. We must not make a moral law out of our own tastes and
preferences, and we must be content that others should feel the appeal
of other sorts of beauty; that was the mistake which dogged the
radiant path of Ruskin from first to last, that he could not bear that
other people should have their own preferences, but considered that
any dissidence from his own standards was of the nature of sin. If we
insist on all agreeing with ourselves it is sterile enough; but if we
begin to call other people hard names, and suspecting or vituperating
their motives for disagreeing with us, we sin both against Love and
Light. It was that spirit which called forth from Christ the sternest
denunciation which ever fell from his lips. The Pharisees tried to
discredit His work by representing Him as in league with the powers of
evil; and this sin, which is the imputing of evil motives to actions
and beliefs that appear to be good, because our own beliefs are too
narrow to include them, is the sin which Christ said could find no
forgiveness.
I had a personal instance of this the other day which illustrates so
clearly what I mean that I will quote it. I wrote a book called _The
Child of the Dawn_, the point of which was to represent, in an
allegory, my sincere belief that the after-life of man must be a life
of effort, and experience, and growth. A lady wrote me a very
discourteous letter to say that she believed the after-life to be one
of Rest, and that she held what she believed to be my view to be
unchristian and untrue. The notion that ardent, loving, eager spirits
should be required to spend eternity in a sort of lazy contentment,
forbidden to stir a finger for love and truth and right, is surely an
insupportable one! What would be the joy of heaven to a soul full of
energy and love, condemned to such luxurious apathy, forced to drowse
through the ages in epicurean ease? If heaven has any meaning at all,
it must satisfy our best and most active aspirations; and a paradise
of utter and eternal indolence would be purgatory or hell to all noble
natures. But this poor creature, tired no doubt by life and its
anxieties, overcome by dreariness and sorrow, was not only desirous of
solitary and profound repose, but determined to impose her own theory
upon all the world as well. I blame no one for desiring rest; but to
wish, as she made no secret that she wished, to crush and confound one
who thought and hoped otherwise, does seem to me a very mean and
wretched point of view. That, alas, is what many people mean when they
say that they _believe_ a thing, namely that they would be personally
annoyed if it turned out to be different from what they hoped.
I am sure that we ought rather to welcome with all our might any
evidence of strength and energy and joy, even if they seem to spring
from principles entirely opposite to our own. The more we know of men
and women, the more we ought to perceive that half the trouble in the
world comes from our calling the same principles by different names.
We are not called upon to give up our own principles, but we must
beware of trying to meddle with the principles of other people.
And therefore we must never be disturbed and still less annoyed by
other people finding fault with our tastes and principles, calling
them fantastic and sentimental, weak and affected, so long as they do
not seek to impose their own beliefs upon us. That they should do so
is of course a mistake; but we must recognise that it comes either
from the stupidity which is the result of a lack of sympathy, or else
from the nobler error of holding an opinion strongly and earnestly. We
must never be betrayed into making the same mistake; we may try to
persuade, and it is better done by example than by argument, but we
must never allow ourselves to scoff and deride, and still less to
abuse and vilify. We must rather do our best to understand the other
point of view, and to acquiesce in the possibility of its being held,
even if we cannot understand it. We must take for granted that every
one whose life shows evidence of energy, unselfishness, joyfulness,
ardour, peacefulness, is truly inspired by the spirit of good. We must
believe that they have a vision of beauty and delight, born of the
spirit. We must rejoice if they are making plain to other minds any
interpretation of life, any enrichment of motive, any protest against
things coarse and low and mean. We may wish--and we may try to
persuade them--that their hopes and aims were wider, more bountiful,
and more inclusive, but if we seek to exclude those hopes and aims,
however inconsistent they may be with our own, that moment the shadow
involves our own hopes, because our desire must be that the world may
somehow become happier, fuller, more joyful, even if it is not on the
lines which we ourselves approve.
I know so many good people who are anxious to increase happiness, but
only on their own conditions; they feel that they estimate exactly
what the quantity and quality of joy ought to be, and they treat the
joy which they do not themselves feel as an offence against truth. It
is from these beliefs, I have often thought, that much of the
unhappiness of family circles arises, the elders not realising how the
world moves on, how new ideas come to the front, how the old hopes
fade or are transmuted. They see their children liking different
thoughts, different occupations, new books, new pleasures; and instead
of trying to enter into these things, to believe in their innocence
and their naturalness, they try to crush and thwart them, with the
result that the boys and girls just hide their feelings and desires,
and if they are not shamed out of them, which sometimes happens, they
hold them secretly and half sullenly, and plan how to escape as soon
as they can from the tender and anxious constraint into a real world
of their own. And the saddest part of all is that the younger
generation learn no experience thus; but when they form a circle of
their own and the same expansion happens, they do as their parents
did, saying to themselves, "My parents lost my confidence by insisting
on what was not really important; but _my_ objections are reasonable
and justifiable, and my children must trust me to know what is right."
We must realise then that elasticity and sympathy are the first of
duties, and that if we embark upon the crusade of joy, we must do it
expecting to find many kinds of joy at work in the world, and some
which we cannot understand. We may of course mistrust destructive joy,
the joy of selfish pleasure, rough combativeness, foolish
wastefulness, ugly riot--all the joys that are evidently dogged by
sorrow and pain; but if we see any joy that leads to self-restraint
and energy and usefulness and activity, we must recognise it as
divine.
We may have then our private fancies, our happy pursuits, our sweet
delights; we may practise them, sure that the best proof of their
energy is that they obviously and plainly increase and multiply our
own happiness. But if we direct others at all, it must be as a
signpost, pointing to a parting of roads and making the choice clear,
and not as a policeman enforcing the majesty of our self-invented
laws.