many things have beauty, if rightly viewed, and in the determination
to see things in the true light. Thus the soul that desires to see
beauty must begin by believing it to be there, must expect to see it,
must watch for it, must not be discouraged by those who do not see it,
and least of all give heed to those who would forbid one to discern it
except in definite and approved forms. The worst of æsthetic prophets
is that, like the Scribes, they make a fence about the law, and try to
convert the search for principle into the accumulation of detailed
tenets.
Let us then never attempt to limit beauty to definite artistic lines;
that is the mistake of the superstitious formalist who limits divine
influences to certain sanctuaries and fixed ceremonials. The use of
the sanctuary and the ceremonial is only to concentrate at one fiery
point the wide current of impulsive ardour. The true lover of beauty
will await it everywhere, will see it in the town, with its rising
roofs and its bleached and blackened steeples, in the seaport with its
quaint crowded shipping, in the clustered hamlet with its
orchard-closes and high-roofed barns, in the remote country with its
wide fields and its converging lines, in the beating of the sea on
shingle-bank and promontory; and then if he sees it there, he will see
it concentrated and emphasised in pictures of these things, the
beauty of which lies so often in the sense of the loving apprehension
of the mystery of lights and hues; and then he will trace the same
subtle spirit in the forms and gestures and expressions of those among
whom he lives, and will go deeper yet and trace the same spirit in
conduct and behaviour, in the free and gallant handling of life, in
the suppression of mean personal desires, in doing dull and
disagreeable things with a fine end in view, in the noble affection of
the simplest people; until he becomes aware that it is a quality which
runs through everything he sees or hears or feels, and that the
eternal difference is whether one views things dully and stupidly,
regarding the moment hungrily and greedily, as a dog regards a
plateful of food, or whether one looks at it all as a process which
has some fine and distant end in view, and sees that all experience,
whether it be of things tangible and visible, or of things
intellectual and spiritual, is only precious because it carries one
forward, forms, moulds, and changes one with a hope of some high and
pure resurrection out of things base and hurried into things noble and
serene.
The need, the absolute need for all and each of us, is to find
something strong and great to rest and repose upon. Otherwise one
simply falls back on the fact that one exists and on the whole enjoys
existing, while one shuns the pain and darkness of ceasing to exist.
As life goes on, there comes such an impulse to say, "Life is
attractive and might be pleasant, but there is always something
shadowing it, spoiling it, gnawing at it, a worm in the bud, of which
one cannot be rid." And so one sinks into a despairing apathy.
What then is one born for? Just to live and forget, to be hurt and
healed, to be strong and grow weak? That as the spirit falls into
faintness, the body should curdle into worse than dust? To give each a
memory of things sharp and sweet, that no one else remembers, and then
to destroy that?
No, that is not the end! The end is rather to live fully and ardently,
to recognise the indestructibility of the spirit, to strip off from it
all that wounds and disables it, not by drearily toiling against
haunting faults, but by rising as often as we can into serene ardour
and deep hopefulness. That is the principle of beauty, to feel that
there is something transforming and ennobling us, which we can lay
hold of if we wish, and that every time we see the great spirit at
work and clasp it close to our feeble will, we soar a step higher and
see all things with a wider and a clearer vision.
XXVII
LIFE
But in all this, and indeed beyond all this, we must not dare to
forget one thing; that it is life with which we are confronted, and
that our business is to live it, and to live it in our own way; and
here we may thankfully rejoice that there is less and less tendency in
the world for people to dictate modes of life to us; the tyrant and
the despot are not only out of date--they are out of fashion, which is
a far more disabling thing! There is of course a type of person in the
world who loves to call himself robust and even virile--heaven help us
to break down that bestial ideal of manhood!--who is of the stuff that
all bullies have been made since the world began, a compound of
courage, stupidity, and complacency; to whom the word 'living' has no
meaning, unless it implies the disturbing and disquieting of other
people. We are gradually putting him in his right place, and the
kindlier future will have little need of him; because a sense is
gradually shaping itself in the world that life is best lived on
peaceful and orderly lines.
But if the robust _viveur_ is on the wrong tack, so long as he grabs
and uses, and neither gives nor is used, so too the more peaceable and
poetical nature makes a very similar mistake, if his whole heart is
bent upon receiving and enjoying; for he too is filching and conveying
away pleasure out of life, though he may do it more timidly and
unobtrusively. Such a man or woman is apt to make too much out of the
occasions and excitements of life, to over-value the æsthetic kind of
success, which is the delicate impressing of other people, claiming
their admiration and applause, and being ill-content if one is not
noticed and praised. Such an one is apt to overlook the common stuff
and use of life--the toil, the endurance, the discipline of it; to
flutter abroad only on sunshiny days, and to sit sullenly with folded
wing when the sky breaks into rain and chilly winds are blowing. The
man who lives thus, is in danger of over-valuing the raptures and
thrills of life, of being fitful and moody and fretful; what he has to
do is to spread serenity over his days, and above all to be ready to
combine, to minister, to sympathise, to serve. _Joyous Gard_ is a very
perilous place, if we grow too indolent to leave it; the essence of it
is refreshment and not continuance. There are two conditions attached
to the use of it; one is that we should have our own wholesome work in
the world, and the second that we should not grow too wholly absorbed
in labour.
No great moral leaders and inspirers of men have ever laid stress on
excessive labour. They have accepted work as one of the normal
conditions of life, but their whole effort has been to teach men to
look away from work, to find leisure to be happy and good. There is no
essential merit in work, apart from its necessity. Of course men may
find themselves in positions where it seems hard to avoid a fierce
absorption in work. It is said by legislators that the House of
Commons, for instance, is a place where one can neither work nor rest!
And I have heard busy men in high administrative office, deplore
rhetorically the fact that they have no time to read or think. It is
almost as unwholesome never to read or think as it is to be always
reading and thinking, because the light and the inspiration fade out
of life, and leave one a gaunt and wolfish lobbyist, who goes about
seeking whom he may indoctrinate. But I have little doubt that when
the world is organised on simpler lines, we shall look back to this
era, as an era when men's heads were turned by work, and when more
unnecessary things were made and done and said than has ever been the
case since the world began.
The essence of happy living is never to find life dull, never to feel
the ugly weariness which comes of overstrain; to be fresh, cheerful,
leisurely, sociable, unhurried, well-balanced. It seems to me that it
is impossible to be these things unless we have time to consider life
a little, to deliberate, to select, to abstain. We must not help
ourselves either to work or to joy as if we were helping ourselves to
potatoes! If life ought not to be perpetual drudgery, neither can it
be a perpetual feast. What I believe we ought to aim at is to put
interest and zest into the simplest acts, words, and relations of
life, to discern the quality of work and people alike. We must not
turn our whole minds and hearts to literature or art or work, or even
to religion; but we must go deeper, and look close at life itself,
which these interpret and out of which they flow. For indeed life is
nobler and richer than any one interpretation of it. Let us take for a
moment one of the great interpreters of life, Robert Browning, who was
so intensely interested above all things in personality. The charm of
his writing is that he contrives, by some fine instinct, to get behind
and within the people of whom he writes, sees with their eyes, hears
with their ears, though he speaks with his own lips. But one must
observe that the judgment of none of his characters is a final
judgment; the artist, the lover, the cynic, the charlatan, the sage,
the priest--they none of them provide a solution to life; they set out
on their quest, they make their guesses, they reveal their aims, but
they never penetrate the inner secret. It is all inference and hope;
Browning himself seems to believe in life, not because of the reasons
which his characters give for believing in it, but in spite of all
their reasons. Like little boats, the reasons seem to strand, one by
one, some sooner, some later, on the sands beneath the shallow sea;
and then the great serene large faith of the poet comes flooding in,
and bears them on their way.
It is somewhat thus that we must deal with life; it is no good making
up a philosophy which just keeps us gay when all is serene and
prosperous. Unpleasant, tedious, vexing, humiliating, painful,
shattering things befall us all by the way. That is the test of our
belief in life, if nothing daunts us, if nothing really mars our
serenity of mood.
And so what this little book of mine tries to recommend is that we
should bestir ourselves to design, plan, use, practise life; not drift
helplessly on its current, shouting for joy when all is bright,
helplessly bemoaning ourselves when all is dark; and that we should do
this by guarding ourselves from impulse and whim, by feeding our minds
and hearts on all the great words, high examples, patient endurances,
splendid acts, of those whom we recognise to have been the finer sort
of men. One of the greatest blessings of our time is that we can do
that so easily. In the dullest, most monotonous life we can stay
ourselves upon this heavenly manna, if we have the mind. We need not
feel alone or misunderstood or unappreciated, even if we are
surrounded by harsh, foolish, dry, discontented, mournful persons. The
world is fuller now than it ever was of brave and kindly people who
will help us if we ask for help. Of course if we choose to perish
without a struggle, we can do that. And my last word of advice to
people into whose hands this book may fall, who are suffering from a
sense of dim failure, timid bewilderment, with a vague desire in the
background to make something finer and stronger out of life, is to
turn to some one whom they can trust--not intending to depend
constantly and helplessly upon them--and to get set in the right road.
Of course, as I have said, care and sorrow, heaviness and
sadness--even disillusionment--must come; but the reason of that is
because we must not settle too close to the sweet and kindly earth,
but be ready to unfurl our wings for the passage over sea; and to what
new country of God, what unknown troops and societies of human
spirits, what gracious reality of dwelling-place, of which our beloved
fields and woods and streams are nothing but the gentle and sweet
symbols, our flight may bear us, I cannot tell; but that we are all in
the mind of God, and that we cannot wander beyond the reach of His
hand or the love of His heart, of this I am more sure than I am of
anything else in this world where familiarity and mystery are so
strangely entwined.
End of Project Gutenberg's Joyous Gard, by Arthur Christopher Benson