is our duty rather to have joy to share, and to guard the quality of
it, make it pure and true. We do best if we can so refine our
happiness as to make it a thing which is not dependent upon wealth or
ease; and the more natural our life is, the more can we be of use by
the example which is not self-conscious but contagious, by showing
that joy does not depend upon excitement and stimulus, but upon vivid
using of the very stuff of life.
Where we fail, many of us, is in the elaborateness of our pleasures,
in the fact that we learn to be connoisseurs rather than viveurs, in
losing our taste for the ancient wholesome activities and delights.
I had caught an hour, that very day, to visit the Academy; it was a
doubtful pleasure, though if I could have had the great rooms to
myself it would have been a delightful thing enough; but to be crushed
and elbowed by such numbers of people who seemed intent not on looking
at anything, but on trying to see if they could recognise any of their
friends! It was a curious collection certainly! So many pictures of
old disgraceful men, whose faces seemed like the faces of toads or
magpies; dull, blinking, malign, or with the pert brightness of
acquisition. There were pictures too of human life so-called, silly,
romantic, insincerely posed; some fatuous allegorical things, like
ill-staged melodramas; but the strength of English art came out for
all that in the lovely landscapes, rich fields, summer streams,
far-off woodlands, beating seas; and I felt in looking at it all that
the pictures which moved one most were those which gave one a sudden
hunger for the joy and beauty of earth, not ill-imagined fantastic
places, but scenes that one has looked upon a hundred times with love
and contentment, the corn-field, the mill with its brimming leat, the
bathing-place among quiet pastures, the lake set deep in water-plants,
the old house in the twilight garden--all the things consecrated
throughout long ages by use and life and joy.
And then I strayed into the sculpture gallery; and I cannot describe
the thrill which half a dozen of the busts there gave me--faces into
which the wonder and the love and the pain of life seemed to have
passed, and which gave me a sudden sense of that strange desire to
claim a share in the past and present and future of the form and face
in which one suddenly saw so much to love. One seemed to feel hands
held out; hearts crying for understanding and affection, breath on
one's cheek, words in one's ears; and thus the whole gallery melted
into a great throng of signalling and beckoning presences, the air
dense with the voices of spirits calling to me, pressing upon me;
offering and claiming love, all bound upon one mysterious pilgrimage,
none able to linger or to stay, and yet willing to clasp one close by
the roadside, in wonder at the marvellous inscrutable power behind it
all, which at the same moment seemed to say, "Rest here, love, be
loved, enjoy," and at the same moment cried, "Go forward, experience,
endure, lament, come to an end."
There again opened before one the awful mystery of the beauty and the
grief of life, the double strain which we must somehow learn to
combine, the craving for continuance, side by side with the knowledge
of interruption and silence. If one is real, the other cannot be real!
And I for one have no doubt of which reality I hold to. Death and
silence may deceive us; life and joy cannot. There may be something
hidden beneath the seeming termination of mortal experience; indeed, I
fully believe that there is; but even if it were not so, nothing could
make love and joy unreal, or destroy the consciousness of what says
within us, "This Is I." Our one hope then is not to be deceived or
beguiled or bewildered by the complexity and intricacy of life; the
path of each of us lies clear and direct through the tangle.
And thus, as I have said, our task is not to be defrauded of our
interior peace. No power that we know can do more than dissolve and
transmute our mortal frame; it can melt into the earth, it can be
carried into the depths of the sea, but it cannot be annihilated; and
this is infinitely more true of our spirits; they may undergo a
thousand transformations and transmutations, but they must be
eternally there.
So let us claim our experience bravely and accept it firmly, never
daunted by it, never utterly despairing, leaping back into life and
happiness as swiftly as we can, never doubting that it is assured to
us. The time that we waste is that which is spent in anxious, trivial,
conventional things. We have to bear them in our burdens, many of us,
but do not let us be for ever examining them, weighing them in our
hands, wishing them away, whining over them; we must not let them
beguile us of the better part. If the despairing part of us cries out
that it is frightened, wearied, anxious, we must not heed it; we must
again and again assure ourselves that the peace is there, and that we
miss it by our own fault. Above all let us not make pitiable excuses
for ourselves. We must be like the woman in the parable who, when she
lost the coin, did not sit down to bewail her ill-luck, but swept the
house diligently until she found it. There is no such thing as loss in
the world; what we lose is merely withheld until we have earned the
right to find it again. We must not cultivate repentance, we must not
yield to remorse. The only thing worth having is a wholesome sorrow
for not having done better; but it is ignoble to remember, if our
remembrance has anything hopeless about it; and we do best utterly to
forget our failures and lapses, because of this we may be wholly sure,
that joys are restored to us, that strength returns, and that peace
beyond measure is waiting for us; and not only waiting for us, but as
near us as a closed door in the room in which we sit. We can rise up,
we can turn thither, we can enter if we will and when we will.
XXII
EXPERIENCE
It is very strange to contemplate the steady plunge of good advice,
like a cataract of ice-cold water, into the brimming and dancing pool
of youth and life, the maxims of moralists and sages, the epigrams of
cynics, the sermons of priests, the good-humoured warnings of sensible
men, all crying out that nothing is really worth the winning, that
fame brings weariness and anxiety, that love is a fitful fever, that
wealth is a heavy burden, that ambition is a hectic dream; to all of
which ejaculations youth does not listen and cannot listen, but just
goes on its eager way, trying its own experiments, believing in the
delight of triumph and success, determined, at all events, to test all
for itself. All this confession of disillusionment and disappointment
is true, but only partially true. The struggle, the effort, the
perseverance, does bring fine things with it--things finer by far than
the shining crown and the loud trumpets that attend it.
The explanation of it seems to be that men require to be tempted to
effort, by the dream of fame and wealth and leisure and imagined
satisfaction. It is the experience that we need, though we do not know
it; and experience, by itself, seems such a tedious, dowdy, tattered
thing, like a flag burnt by sun, bedraggled by rain, torn by the
onset, that it cannot by itself prove attractive. Men are heavily
preoccupied with ends and aims, and the recognised values of the
objects of desire and hope are often false and distorted values. So
singularly constituted are we, that the hope of idleness is alluring,
and some people are early deceived into habits of idleness, because
they cannot know what it is that lies on the further side of work. Of
course the bodily life has to be supplied, but when a man has all that
he needs--let us say food and drink, a quiet shelter, a garden and a
row of trees, a grassy meadow with a flowing stream, a congenial task,
a household of his own--it seems not enough! Let us suppose all that
granted to a man: he must consider next what kind of life he has
gained; he has the cup in his hands; with what liquor is it to be
filled? That is the point at which the imagination of man seems to
fail; he cannot set himself to vigorous, wholesome life for its own
sake. He has to be ever looking past it and beyond it for something to
yield him an added joy.
Now, what we all have to do, if we can, is to regard life steadily and
generously, to see that life, experience, emotion, are the real gifts;
not things to be hurried through, thrust aside, disregarded, as a man
makes a hasty meal before some occasion that excites him. One must not
use life like the passover feast, to be eaten with loins girded and
staff in hand. It is there to be lived, and what we have to do is to
make the quality of it as fine as we can.
We must provide then, if we can, a certain setting for life, a
sufficiency of work and sustenance, and even leisure; and then we must
give that no further thought. How many men do I not know, whose
thought seems to be "when I have made enough money, when I have found
my place, when I have arranged the apparatus of life about me, then I
will live as I should wish to live." But the stream of desires
broadens and thickens, and the leisure hour never comes!
We must not thus deceive ourselves. What we have to do is to make
life, instantly and without delay, worthy to be lived. We must try to
enjoy all that we have to do, and take care that we do not do what we
do not enjoy, unless the hard task we set ourselves is sure to bring
us something that we really need. It is useless thus to elaborate the
cup of life, if we find when we have made it, that the wine which
should have filled it has long ago evaporated.
Can I say what I believe the wine of life to be? I believe that it is
a certain energy and richness of spirit, in which both mind and heart
find full expression. We ought to rise day by day with a certain zest,
a clear intention, a design to make the most out of every hour; not to
let the busy hours shoulder each other, tread on each other's heels,
but to force every action to give up its strength and sweetness. There
is work to be done, and there are empty hours to be filled as well.
It is happiest of all, for man and woman, if those hours can be
filled, not as a duty but as a pleasure, by pleasing those whom we
love and whose nearness is at once a delight. We ought to make time
for that most of all. And then there ought to be some occupation, not
enforced, to which we naturally wish to return. Exercise, gardening,
handicraft, writing, even if it be only leisurely letters, music,
reading--something to occupy the restless brain and hand; for there is
no doubt that both physically and mentally we are not fit to be
unoccupied.
But most of all, there must be something to quicken, enliven, practise
the soul. We must not force this upon ourselves, or it will be
fruitless and dreary; but neither must we let it lapse out of mere
indolence. We must follow some law of beauty, in whatever way beauty
appeals to us and calls us. We must not think that appeal a selfish
thing, because it is upon that and that alone that our power of
increasing peace and hope and vital energy belongs.
I have a man in mind who has a simple taste for books. He has a
singularly pure and fine power of selecting and loving what is best
in books. There is no self-consciousness about him, no critical
contempt of the fancies of others; but his own love for what is
beautiful is so modest, so perfectly natural and unaffected, that it
is impossible to hear him speak of the things that he loves without a
desire rising up in one's mind to taste a pleasure which brings so
much happiness to the owner. I have often talked with him about books
that I had thought tiresome and dull; but he disentangles so deftly
the underlying idea of the book, the thought that one must be on the
look-out for the motive of the whole, that he has again and again sent
me back to a book which I had thrown aside, with an added interest and
perception. But the really notable thing is the effect on his own
immediate circle. I do not think his family are naturally people of
very high intelligence or ability. But his mind and heart seem to have
permeated theirs, so that I know no group of persons who seem to have
imbibed so simply, without strain or effort, a delight in what is good
and profound. There is no sort of dryness about the atmosphere. It is
not that they keep talk resolutely on their own subjects; it is merely
that their outlook is so fresh and quick that everything seems alive
and significant. One comes away from the house with a horizon
strangely extended, and a sense that the world is full of live ideas
and wonderful affairs.
I despair of describing an effect so subtle, so contagious. It is not
in the least that everything becomes intellectual; that would be a
rueful consequence; there is no parade of knowledge, but knowledge
itself becomes an exciting and entertaining thing, like a varied
landscape. The wonder is, when one is with these people, that one did
not see all the fine things that were staring one in the face all the
time, the clues, the connections, the links. The best of it is that it
is not a transient effect; it is rather like the implanting of a seed
of fire, which spreads and glows, and burns unaided.
It is this sacred fire of which we ought all to be in search. Fire is
surely the most wonderful symbol in the world! We sit in our quiet
rooms, feeling safe, serene, even chilly, yet everywhere about us,
peacefully confined in all our furniture and belongings, is a mass of
inflammability, stored with gases, which at a touch are capable of
leaping into flame. I remember once being in a house in which a pile
of wood in a cellar had caught fire; there was a short delay, while
the hose was got out, and before an aperture into the burning room
could be made. I went into a peaceful dining-room, which was just
above the fire, and it was strangely appalling to see little puffs of
smoke fly off from the kindled floor, while we tore the carpets up and
flew to take the pictures down, and to know the room was all crammed
with vehement cells, ready to burst into vapour at the fierce touch of
the consuming element.
I saw once a vast bonfire of wood kindled on a grassy hill-top; it was
curiously affecting to see the great trunks melt into flame, and the
red cataract pouring so softly, so unapproachably into the air. It is
so with the minds of men; the material is all there, compressed,
welded, inflammable; and if the fire can but leap into our spirits
from some other burning heart, we may be amazed at the prodigal force
and heat that can burst forth, the silent energy, the possibility of
consumption.
I hold it to be of supreme value to each of us to try to introduce
this fire of the heart into our spirits. It is not like mortal fire,
a consuming, dangerous, truculent element. It is rather like the
furnace of the engine, which can convert water into steam--the
softest, feeblest, purest element into irresistible and irrepressible
force. The materials are all at hand in many a spirit that has never
felt the glowing contact; and it is our business first to see that the
elements are there, and then to receive with awe the fiery touch. It
must be restrained, controlled, guarded, that fierce conflagration;
but our joy cannot only consist of pure, clear, lambent, quiescent
elements. It must have a heart of flame.
XXIII
FAITH
We ought to learn to cultivate, train, regulate emotion, just as we
train other faculties. The world has hardly reached this point yet.
First man trains his body that he may be strong, when strength is
supreme. When almost the only argument is force, the man who is drawn
to play a fine part in the world must above everything be strong,
courageous, gallant, so that he may go to combat joyful and serene,
like a man inspired. Then when the world becomes civilised, when
weakness combines against strength, when men do not settle differences
of feeling by combat and war, but by peaceable devices like votes and
arbitrations, the intellect comes to the front, and strength of body
falls into the background as a pleasant enough thing, a matter of
amusement or health, and intellect becomes the dominant force. But we
shall advance beyond even that, and indeed we have begun to advance.
Buddhism and the Stoic philosophy were movements dictated more by
reason than by emotion, which recognised the elements of pain and
sorrow as inseparable from human life, and suggested to man that the
only way to conquer evils such as these was by turning the back upon
them, cultivating indifference to them, and repressing the desires
which issued in disappointment. Christianity was the first attempt of
the human spirit to achieve a nobler conquest still; it taught men to
abandon the idea of conquest altogether; the Christian was meant to
abjure ambition, not to resist oppression, not to meet violence by
violence, but to yield rather than to fight.
The metaphor of the Christian soldier is wholly alien to the spirit of
the Gospel, and the attempt to establish a combative ideal of
Christian life was one of the many concessions that Christianity in
the hands of its later exponents made to the instincts of men. The
conception of the Christian in the Gospel was that of a simple,
uncomplicated, uncalculating being, who was to be so absorbed in
caring for others that the sense of his own rights and desires and
aims was to fall wholly into the background. He is not represented as
meant to have any intellectual, political, or artistic pursuits at
all. He is to accept his place in the world as he finds it; he is to
have no use for money or comforts or accumulated resources. He is not
to scheme for dignity or influence, nor even much to regard earthly
ties. Sorrow, loss, pain, evil, are simply to be as shadows through
which he passes, and if they have any meaning at all for him, they are
to be opportunities for testing the strength of his emotions. But the
whole spirit of the Christian revelation is that no terms should be
made with the world at all. The world must treat the Christian as it
will, and there are to be no reprisals; neither is there the least
touch of opportunism about it. The Christian is not to do the best he
can, but the best; he is frankly to aim at perfection.
How then is this faith to be sustained? It is to be nourished by a
sense of direct and frank converse with a God and Father. The
Christian is never to have any doubt that the intention of the Father
towards him is absolutely, kind and good. He attempts no explanation
of the existence of sin and pain; he simply endures them; and he looks
forward with serene certainty to the continued existence of the soul.
There is no hint given of the conditions under which the soul is to
continue its further life, of its desires or occupations; the
intention obviously is that a Christian should live life freely and
fully; but love, and interest in human relations are to supersede all
other aims and desires.
It has been often said that if the world were to accept the teaching
of the Sermon on the Mount literally, the social fabric of the world
would be dissolved in a month. It is true; but it is not generally
added that it would be because there would be no need of the social
fabric. The reason why the social fabric would be dissolved is because
there would doubtless be a minority which would not accept these
principles, and would seize upon the things which the world agrees to
consider desirable. The Christian majority would become the slaves of
the unchristian minority, and would be at their mercy. Christianity,
in so far as it is a social system at all, is the purest kind of
socialism, a socialism not of compulsion but of disinterestedness. It
is easy, of course, to scoff at the possibility of so far
disintegrating the vast and complex organisation of society, as to
arrange life on the simpler lines; but the fact remains that the very
few people in the world's history, like St. Francis of Assisi, for
instance, who have ever dared to live literally in the Christian
manner, have had an immeasurable effect upon the hearts and
imaginations of the world. The truth is not that life cannot be so
lived, but that humanity dares not take the plunge; and that is what
Christ meant when He said that few would find the narrow way. The
really amazing thing is that such immense numbers of people have
accepted Christianity in the world, and profess themselves Christians
without the slightest doubt of their sincerity, who never regard the
Christian principles at all. The chief aim, it would seem, of the
Church, has been not to preserve the original revelation, but to
accommodate it to human instincts and desires. It seems to me to
resemble the very quaint and simple old Breton legend, which relates
how the Saviour sent the Apostles out to sell stale fish as fresh;
and when they returned unsuccessful, He was angry with them, and
said, "How shall I make you into fishers of men, if you cannot even
persuade simple people to buy stale fish for fresh?" That is a very
trenchant little allegory of ecclesiastical methods! And perhaps it is
even so that it has come to pass that Christianity is in a sense a
failure, or rather an unfulfilled hope, because it has made terms with
the world, has become pompous and respectable and mundane and
influential and combative, and has deliberately exalted civic duty
above love.
It seems to me that it is the business of all serious Christians
deliberately to face this fact; and equally it is not their business
to try to destroy the social organisation of what is miscalled
Christianity. That is as much a part of the world now as the Roman
Empire was a part of the world when Christ came; but we must not
mistake it for Christianity. Christianity is not a doctrine, or an
organisation, or a ceremonial, or a society, but an atmosphere and a
life. The essence of it is to train emotion, to believe and to
practise the belief that all human beings have in them something
interesting, lovable, beautiful, pathetic; and to make the
recognition of that fact, the establishment of simple and kind
relations with every single person with whom one is brought into
contact, the one engrossing aim of life. Thus the essence of
Christianity is in a sense artistic, because it depends upon freely
recognising the beauty both of the natural world and the human spirit.
There are enough hints of this in the Gospel, in the tender
observation of Christ, His love of flowers, birds, children, the fact
that He noted and reproduced in His stories the beauty of the homely
business of life, the processes of husbandry in field and vineyard,
the care of the sheepfold, the movement of the street, the games of
boys and girls, the little festivals of life, the wedding and the
party; all these things appear in His talk, and if more of it were
recorded, there would undoubtedly be more of such things. It is true
that as opposition and strife gathered about Him, there falls a darker
and sadder spirit upon the page, and the anxieties and ambitions of
His followers reflect themselves in the record of denunciations and
censures. But we must not be misled by this into thinking that the
message is thus obscured.