go patiently and humbly to work again, to face the reasons for failure,
to learn to enjoy work, to banish from the mind the uneasy hope of
personal distinction. We may try to discern the humour of Providence,
because I am as certain as I can be of anything that we are humorously
treated as well as lovingly regarded. Let me relate two small incidents
which did me a great deal of good at a time of self-importance. I was
once asked to give a lecture, and it was widely announced. I saw my own
name in capital letters upon advertisements displayed in the street. On
the evening appointed, I went to the place, and met the chairman of the
meeting and some of the officials in a room adjoining the hall where I
was to speak. We bowed and smiled, paid mutual compliments,
congratulated each other on the importance of the occasion. At last the
chairman consulted his watch and said it was time to be beginning. A
procession was formed, a door was majestically thrown open by an
attendant, and we walked with infinite solemnity on to the platform of
an entirely empty hall, with rows of benches all wholly unfurnished
with guests. I think it was one of the most ludicrous incidents I ever
remember. The courteous confusion of the chairman, the dismay of the
committee, the colossal nature of the fiasco filled me, I am glad to
say, not with mortification, but with an overpowering desire to laugh.
I may add that there had been a mistake about the announcement of the
hour, and ten minutes later a minute audience did arrive, whom I
proceeded to address with such spirit as I could muster; but I have
always been grateful for the humorous nature of the snub administered
to me.
Again on another occasion I had to pay a visit of business to a remote
house in the country. A good-natured friend descanted upon the
excitement it would be to the household to entertain a living author,
and how eagerly my utterances would be listened to. I was received not
only without respect but with obvious boredom. In the course of the
afternoon I discovered that I was supposed to be a solicitor's clerk,
but when a little later it transpired what my real occupations were, I
was not displeased to find that no member of the party had ever heard
of my existence, or was aware that I had ever published a book, and
when I was questioned as to what I had written, no one had ever come
across anything that I had printed, until at last I soared into some
transient distinction by the discovery that my brother was the author
of Dodo.
I cannot help feeling that there is something gently humorous about
this good-humoured indication that the whole civilised world is not
engaged in the pursuit of literature, and that one's claims to
consideration depend upon one's social merits. I do honestly think that
Providence was here deliberately poking fun at me, and showing me that
a habit of presenting one's opinions broadcast to the world does not
necessarily mean that the world is much aware either of oneself or of
one's opinions.
The cure then, it seems to me, for personal ambition, is the humorous
reflection that the stir and hum of one's own particular teetotum is
confined to a very small space and range; and that the witty
description of the Greek politician who was said to be well known
throughout the whole civilised world and at Lampsacus, or of the
philosopher who was announced as the author of many epoch-making
volumes and as the second cousin of the Earl of Cork, represents a very
real truth,--that reputation is not a thing which is worth bothering
one's head about; that if it comes, it is apt to be quite as
inconvenient as it is pleasant, while if one grows to depend upon it,
it is as liable to part with its sparkle as soda-water in an open glass.
And then if one comes to consider the commoner claim, the claim to be
felt and respected and regarded in one's own little circle, it is
wholesome and humiliating to observe how generously and easily that
regard is conceded to affectionateness and kindness, and how little it
is won by any brilliance or sharpness. Of course irritable,
quick-tempered, severe, discontented people can win attention easily
enough, and acquire the kind of consideration which is generally
conceded to anyone who can be unpleasant. How often families and groups
are drilled and cautioned by anxious mothers and sisters not to say or
do anything which will vex so-and-so! Such irritable people get the
rooms and the chairs and the food that they like, and the talk in their
presence is eagerly kept upon subjects on which they can hold forth.
But how little such regard lasts, and how welcome a relief it is, when
one that is thus courted and deferred to is absent! Of course if one is
wholly indifferent whether one is regarded, needed, missed, loved, so
long as one can obtain the obedience and the conveniences one likes,
there is no more to be said. But I often think of that wonderful poem
of Christina Rossetti's about the revenant, the spirit that returns to
the familiar house, and finds himself unregretted:
"'To-morrow' and 'to-day,' they cried;
I was of yesterday!"
One sometimes sees, in the faces of old family servants, in unregarded
elderly relatives, bachelor uncles, maiden aunts, who are entertained
as a duty, or given a home in charity, a very beautiful and tender
look, indescribable in words but unmistakable, when it seems as if
self, and personal claims, and pride, and complacency had really passed
out of the expression, leaving nothing but a hope of being loved, and a
desire to do some humble service.
I saw it the other day in the face of a little old lady, who lived in
the house of a well-to-do cousin, with rather a bustling and vigorous
family pervading the place. She was a small frail creature, with a
tired worn face, but with no look of fretfulness or discontent. She had
a little attic as a bedroom, and she was not considered in any way. She
effaced herself, ate about as much as a bird would eat, seldom spoke,
uttering little ejaculations of surprise and amusement at what was
said; if there was a place vacant in the carriage, she drove out. If
there was not, she stopped at home. She amused herself by going about
in the village, talking to the old women and the children, who half
loved and half despised her for being so very unimportant, and for
having nothing she could give away. But I do not think the little lady
ever had a thought except of gratitude for her blessings, and
admiration for the robustness and efficiency of her relations. She
claimed nothing from life and expected nothing. It seemed a little
frail and vanquished existence, and there was not an atom of what is
called proper pride about her; but it was fine, for all that! An
infinite sweetness looked out of her eyes; she suffered a good deal,
but never complained. She was glad to live, found the world a beautiful
and interesting place, and never quarrelled with her slender share of
its more potent pleasures. And she will slip silently out of life some
day in her attic room; and be strangely mourned and missed. I do not
consider that a failure in life, and I am not sure that it is not
something much more like a triumph. I know that as I watched her one
evening knitting in the corner, following what was said with intense
enjoyment, uttering her little bird-like cries, I thought how few of
the things that could afflict me had power to wound her, and how little
she had to fear. I do not think she wanted to take flight, but yet I am
sure she had no dread of death; and when she goes thitherward, leaving
the little tired and withered frame behind, it will be just as when the
crested lark springs up from the dust of the roadway, and wings his way
into the heart of the dewy upland.
XVII
SIMPLICITY
If we are to avoid the dark onset of fear, we must at all costs
simplify life, because the more complicated and intricate our life is,
and the more we multiply our defences, the more gates and posterns
there are by which the enemy can creep upon us. Property, comforts,
habits, conveniences, these are the vantage-grounds from which fears
can organise their invasions. The more that we need excitement,
distraction, diversion, the more helpless we become without them. All
this is very clearly recognised and stated in the Gospel. Our Saviour
does not seem to regard the abandonment of wealth as a necessary
condition of the Christian life, but He does very distinctly say that
rich men are beset with great difficulties owing to their wealth, and
He indicates that a man who trusts complacently in his possessions is
tempted into a disastrous security. He speaks of laying up treasure in
heaven as opposed to the treasures which men store up on earth; and He
points out that whenever things are put aside unused, in order that the
owner may comfort himself by the thought that they are there if he
wants them, decay and corruption begin at once to undermine and destroy
them. What exactly the treasure in heaven can be it is hard to define.
It cannot be anything quite so sordid as good deeds done for the sake
of spiritual investment, because our Saviour was very severe on those
who, like the Pharisees, sought to acquire righteousness by
scrupulosity. Nothing that is done just for the sake of one's own
future benefit seems to be regarded in the Gospel as worth doing. The
essence of Christian giving seems to be real giving, and not a sort of
usurious loan. There is of course one very puzzling parable, that of
the unjust steward, who used his last hours in office, before the news
of his dismissal could get abroad, in cheating his master, in order to
win the favour of the debtors by arbitrarily diminishing the amount of
their debts. It seems strange that our Saviour should have drawn a
moral out of so immoral an incident. Perhaps He was using a well-known
story, and even making allowances for the admiration with which in the
East resourcefulness, even of a fraudulent kind, was undoubtedly
regarded. But the principle seems clear enough, that if the Christian
chooses to possess wealth, he runs a great risk, and that it is
therefore wiser to disembarrass oneself of it. Property is regarded in
the Gospel as an undoubtedly dangerous thing; but so far from our Lord
preaching a kind of socialism, and bidding men to co-operate anxiously
for the sake of equalising wealth, He recommends an individualistic
freedom from the burden of wealth altogether. But, as always in the
Gospel, our Lord looks behind practice to motive; and it is clear that
the motive for the abandonment of wealth is not to be a desire to act
with a selfish prudence, in order to lay an obligation upon God to
repay one generously in the future for present sacrifices, but rather
the attainment of an individual liberty, which leaves the spirit free
to deal with the real interests of life. And one must not overlook the
definite promise that if a man seeks virtue first, even at the cost of
earthly possessions and comforts, he will find that they will be added
as well.
Those who would discredit the morality of the Gospel would have one
believe that our Saviour in dealing with shrewd, homely, literal folk
was careful to promise substantial future rewards for any worldly
sacrifices they might make; but not so can I read the Gospel. Our
Saviour does undoubtedly say plainly that we shall find it worth our
while to escape from the burdens and anxieties of wealth, but the
reward promised seems rather to be a lightness and contentment of
spirit, and a freedom from heavy and unnecessary bonds.
In our complicated civilisation it is far more difficult to say what
simplicity of life is. It is certainly not that expensive and dramatic
simplicity which is sometimes contrived by people of wealth as a
pleasant contrast to elaborate living. I remember the son of a very
wealthy man, who had a great mansion in the country and a large house
in London, telling me that his family circle were never so entirely
happy as when they were living at close quarters in a small Scotch
shooting-lodge, where their life was comparatively rough, and luxuries
unattainable. But I gathered that the main delight of such a period was
the sense of laying up a stock of health and freshness for the more
luxurious life which intervened. The Anglo-Saxon naturally loves a kind
of feudal dignity; he likes a great house, a crowd of servants and
dependants, the impression of power and influence which it all gives;
and the delights of ostentation, of having handsome things which one
does not use and indeed hardly ever sees, of knowing that others are
eating and drinking at one's expense, which is a thing far removed from
hospitality, are dear to the temperament of our race. We may say at
once that this is fatal to any simplicity of life; it may be that we
cannot expect anyone who is born to such splendours deliberately to
forego them; but I am sure of this, that a rich man, now and here, who
spontaneously parted with his wealth, and lived sparely in a small
house, would make perhaps as powerful an appeal to the imagination of
the English world as could well be made. If a man had a message to
deliver, there could be no better way of emphasizing it. It must not be
a mere flight from the anxiety of worldly life into a more congenial
seclusion. It should be done as Francis of Assisi did it, by continuing
to live the life of the world without any of its normal conveniences.
Patent and visible self-sacrifice, if it be accompanied by a tender
love of humanity, will always be the most impressive attitude in the
world.
But if one is not capable of going to such lengths, if indeed one has
nothing that one can resign, how is it possible to practise simplicity
of life? It can be done by limiting one's needs, by avoiding luxuries,
by having nothing in one's house that one cannot use, by being detached
from pretentiousness, by being indifferent to elaborate comforts. There
are people whom I know who do this, and who, even though they live with
some degree of wealth, are yet themselves obviously independent of
comfort to an extraordinary degree. There is a Puritanical dislike of
waste which is a very different thing, because it often coexists with
an extreme attachment to the particular standard of comfort that the
man himself prefers. I know people who believe that a substantial
midday meal and a high tea are more righteous than a simple midday meal
and a substantial dinner. But the right attitude is one of unconcern
and the absence of uneasy scheming as to the details of life. There is
no reason why people should not form habits, because method is the
primary condition of work; but the moment that habit becomes tyrannous
and elaborate, then the spirit is at once in bondage to anxiety. The
real victory over these little cares is not for ever to have them on
one's mind; or one becomes like the bread-and-butter fly in Through the
Looking-Glass, whose food was weak tea with cream in it. "But supposing
it cannot find any?" said Alice. "Then it dies," says the gnat, who is
acting the part of interpreter. "But that must happen very often?" said
Alice. "It ALWAYS happens!" says the gnat with sombre emphasis.
Simplicity is, in fact, a difficult thing to lay down rules for,
because the essence of it is that it is free from rules; and those who
talk and think most about it, are often the most uneasy and complicated
natures. But it is certain that if one finds oneself growing more and
more fastidious and particular, more and more easily disconcerted and
put out and hampered by any variation from the exact scheme of life
that one prefers, even if that scheme is an apparently simple one, it
is certain that simplicity is at an end. The real simplicity is a sense
of being at home and at ease in any company and mode of living, and a
quiet equanimity of spirit which cannot be content to waste time over
the arrangements of life. Sufficient food and exercise and sleep may be
postulated; but these are all to be in the background, and the real
occupations of life are to be work and interests and talk and ideas and
natural relations with others. One knows of houses where some trifling
omission of detail, some failure of service in a meal, will plunge the
hostess into a dumb and incommunicable despair. The slightest lapse of
the conventional order becomes a cloud that intercepts the sun. But the
right attitude to life, if we desire to set ourselves free from this
self-created torment, is a resolute avoidance of minute preoccupations,
a light-hearted journeying, with an amused tolerance for the incidents
of the way. A conventional order of life is useful only in so far as it
removes from the mind the necessity of detailed planning, and allows it
to flow punctually and mechanically in an ordered course. But if we
exalt that order into something sacred and solemn, then we become
pharisaical and meticulous, and the savour of life is lost.
One remembers the scene in David Copperfield which makes so fine a
parable of life; how the merry party who were making the best of an
ill-cooked meal, and grilling the chops over the lodging-house fire,
were utterly disconcerted and reduced to miserable dignity by the entry
of the ceremonious servant with his "Pray, permit me," and how his
decorous management of the cheerful affair cast a gloom upon the circle
which could not even be dispelled when he had finished his work and
left them to themselves.
XVIII
AFFECTION
One of the ways in which our fears have power to wound us most
grievously is through our affections, and here we are confronted with a
real and crucial difficulty. Are we to hold ourselves in, to check the
impulses of affection, to use self-restraint, not multiply intimacies,
not extend sympathies? One sees every now and then lives which have
entwined themselves with every tendril of passion and love and
companionship and service round some one personality, and have then
been bereaved, with the result that the whole life has been palsied and
struck into desolation by the loss. I am thinking now of two instances
which I have known; one was a wife, who was childless, and whose whole
nature, every motive and every faculty, became centred upon her
husband, a man most worthy of love. He died suddenly, and his wife lost
everything at one blow; not only her lover and comrade, but every
occupation as well which might have helped to distract her, because her
whole life had been entirely devoted to her husband; and even the hours
when he was absent from her had been given to doing anything and
everything that might save him trouble or vexation. She lived on,
though she would willingly have died at any moment, and the whole
fabric of her life was shattered. Again, I think of a devoted daughter
who had done the same office for an old and not very robust father. I
heard her once say that the sorrow of her mother's death had been
almost nullified for her by finding that she could do everything for
and be everything to her father, whom she almost adored. She had
refused an offer of marriage from a man whom she sincerely loved, that
she might not leave her father, and she never even told her father of
the incident, for fear that he might have felt that he had stood in the
way of her happiness. When he died, she too found herself utterly
desolate, without ties and without occupation, an elderly woman almost
without friends or companions.
Ought one to feel that this kind of jealous absorption in a single
individual affection is a mistake? It certainly brought both the wife
and daughter an intense happiness, but in both cases the relation was
so close and so intimate that it tended gradually to seclude them from
all other relations. The husband and the father were both reserved and
shy men, and desired no other companionship. One can see so easily how
it all came about, and what the inevitable result was bound to be, and
yet it would have been difficult at any point to say what could have
been done. Of course these great absorbed emotions involve large risks;
and it may be doubted whether life can be safely lived on these
intensive lines. These are of course extreme instances, but there are
many cases in the world, and especially in the case of women whose life
is entirely built up on certain emotions like the love and care of
children; and when that is so, a nature becomes liable to the sharpest
incursions of fear. It is of little use arguing such cases
theoretically, because, as the proverb says, as the land lies the water
flows,--and love makes very light of all prudential considerations.
The difficulty does not arise with large and generous natures which
give love prodigally in many directions, because if one such relation
is broken by death, love can still exercise itself upon those that
remain. It is the fierce and jealous sort of love that is so hard to
deal with, a love that exults in solitariness of devotion, and cannot
bear any intrusion of other relations.
Yet if one believes, as I for one believe, that the secret of the world
is somehow hidden in love, and can be interpreted through love alone,
then one must run the risks of love, and seek for strength to bear the
inevitable suffering which love must bring.
But men and women are very differently made in this respect. Among
innumerable minor differences, certain broad divisions are clear. Men,
in the first place, both by training and temperament, are far less
dependent upon affection than women. Career and occupation play a much
larger part in their thoughts. If one could test and intercept the
secret and unoccupied reveries of men, when the mind moves idly among
the objects which most concern it, it would be found, I do not doubt,
that men's minds occupy themselves much more about definite and
tangible things--their work, their duties, their ambitions, their
amusements--and centre little upon the thought of other people; an
affection, an emotional relation, is much more of an incident than a
settled preoccupation; and then with men there are two marked types,
those who give and lavish affection freely, who are interested and
attracted by others and wish to attach and secure close friends; and
there are others who respond to advances, yet do not go in search of
friendship, but only accept it when it comes; and the singular thing is
that such natures, which are often cold and self-absorbed, have a power
of kindling emotion in others which men of generous and eager feeling
sometimes lack. It is strange that it should be so, but there is some
psychological law at the back of it; and it is certainly true in my
experience that the men who have been most eagerly sought in friendship
have not as a rule been the most open-hearted and expansive natures. I
suppose that a certain law of pursuit holds good, and that people of
self-contained temperament, with a sort of baffling charm, who are
critical and hard to please, excite a certain ambition in those who
would claim their affection.