successful artistic temperament is a certain hardness combined with
great superficial sensitiveness. Those who see the artistic nature
swiftly and emotionally affected by a beautiful or a pathetic thing,
who see that a thought, a line of poetry, a bar of music, a sketch,
will evoke a thrill of feeling to which they cannot themselves aspire,
are apt to think that such a spirit is necessarily fair and tender, and
that it possesses unfathomable reserves of noble feeling. This is often
a great mistake; far below the rapid current of changing and glittering
emotion there often lies, in the artistic nature, a reserve, not of
tenderness or depth, but of cold and critical calm. There are very few
people who are highly developed in one faculty who do not pay for it in
some other part of their natures. Below the emotion itself there sits
enthroned a hard intellectual force, a power of appraising quality, a
Rhadamanthine judgment. It is this hardness which has so often made
artists such excellent men of business, so alert to strike favourable
bargains. In those artists whose medium is words this hardness is not
so often detected as it is in the case of other artists, for they have
the power of rhetoric, the power of luxuriously heightening
impressions, indeed of imaginatively simulating a force which is in
reality of a superficial nature. One of the greatest powers of great
artists is that of hinting at an emotion which they have very possibly
never intimately gauged.
I have sometimes thought that this is in all probability the reason why
women, with all their power of swift impression, of subtle intuition,
have so seldom achieved the highest stations in art. It is, I think,
because they seldom or never have that calm, strong egotism at the base
of their natures, which men so constantly have, and which indeed seems
almost a condition of attaining the highest success in art. The male
artist can believe whole-heartedly and with entire absorption in the
value of what he is doing, can realize it as the one end of his being,
the object for which his life was given him. He can believe that all
experience, all relations with others, all emotions, are and must be
subservient to this one aim; they can deepen for him the channels in
which his art flows; they can reveal and illustrate to him the
significance of the world of which he is the interpreter. Such an
aspiration can be a very high and holy thing; it can lead a man to live
purely and laboriously, to make sacrifices, to endure hardness. But the
altar on which the sacrifice is made, stands, when all is said and
done, before the idol of self. With women, though, it is different. The
deepest quality in their hearts is, one may gratefully say, an intense
devotion to others, an unselfishness which is unconscious of itself;
and thus their aim is to help, to encourage, to sympathize; and their
artistic gifts are subordinated to a deeper purpose, the desire of
giving and serving. One with such a passion in the heart is incapable
of believing art to be the deepest thing in the world; it is to such an
one more like the lily which floats upwards, to bloom on the surface of
some dim pool, a thing exquisitely fair and symbolical of mysteries;
but all growing out of the depths of life, and not a thing which is
deeper and truer than life.
It is useless to try to dive deeper than the secrets of personality and
temperament. One must merely be grateful for the beauty which springs
from them. We must reflect that the hard, vigorous, hammered quality,
which is characteristic of the best art, can only be produced, in a
mood of blind and unquestioning faith, by a temperament which believes
that such production is its highest end. But one who stands a little
apart from the artistic world, and yet ardently loves it, can see that,
beautiful as is the dream of the artist, true and pure as his
aspiration is, there is yet a deeper mystery of life still, of which
art is nothing but a symbol and an evidence. Perhaps that very belief
may of itself weaken a man's possibilities in art. But, for myself, I
know that I regard the absorption in art as a terrible and strong
temptation for one whose chief pleasure lies in the delight of
expression, and who seems, in the zest of shaping a melodious sentence
to express as perfectly and lucidly as possible the shape of the
thought within, to touch the highest joy of which the spirit is
capable. A thought, a scene of beauty comes home with an irresistible
sense of power and meaning to the mind or eye; for God to have devised
the pale liquid green of the enamelled evening sky, to have set the
dark forms of trees against it, and to have hung a star in the
thickening gloom--to have done this, and to see that it is good, seems,
in certain moods, to be the dearest work of the Divine mind; and the
desire to express it, to speak simply of the sight, and of the joy that
it arouses, comes upon the mind with a sweet agony; an irresistible
spell; life would seem to have been well spent if one had only caught a
few such imperishable ecstasies, and written them down in a record that
might convey the same joy to others. But behind this rises the deeper
conviction that this is not the end; that there are deeper and sweeter
secrets in the heavenly treasure-house; and then comes in the shadow of
a fear that, in yielding thus delightedly to these imperative joys, one
is blinding the inner eye to the perception of the remoter and more
divine truth. And then at last comes the conviction, in which it is
possible alike to rest and to labour, that it is right to devote one's
time and energy to presenting these rich emotions as perfectly as they
can be presented, so long as one keeps open the further avenues of the
soul, and believes that art is but one of the antechambers through
which one must take one's faithful way, before the doors of the
Presence itself can be flung wide.
But whether one be of the happy number or not who have the haunting
instinct for some special form of expression, one may learn at all
events to deal with life in an artistic spirit. I do not at all mean by
that that one should learn to overvalue the artistic side of life, to
hold personal emotion to be a finer thing than unselfish usefulness. I
mean rather that one should aim at the perception of quality, the
quality of actions, the quality of thoughts, the quality of character;
that one should not be misled by public opinion, that one should not
consider the value of a man's thoughts to be affected by his social
position; but that one should look out for and appreciate sense,
vigour, faithfulness, kindness, rectitude, and originality, in however
humble a sphere these qualities may be displayed. That one should fight
hard against conventionality, that one should welcome beauty, both the
beauty of natural things, as well as the beauty displayed in sincere
and simple lives in every rank of life. I have heard conventional
professional people, who thought they were giving utterance to manly
and independent sentiments, speak slightingly of dukes and duchesses,
as if the possession of high rank necessarily forfeited all claims to
simplicity and true-heartedness. Such an attitude is as inartistic and
offensive as for a duchess to think that fine courtesy and
consideration could not be found among washerwomen. The truth is that
beauty of character is just as common and just as uncommon among people
of high rank as it is among bagmen; and the only just attitude to adopt
is to approach all persons simply and directly on the grounds of our
common humanity. One who does this will find simplicity, tenderness,
and rectitude among persons of high rank; he will also find
conventionality, meanness, and complacency among them; when he is
brought into contact with bagmen, he will find bagmen of sincerity,
directness, and delicacy, while he will also find pompous, complacent,
and conventional bagmen.
Of course the special circumstances of any life tend to develop certain
innate faults of character into prominence; but it may safely be said
that circumstances never develop a fault that is not naturally there;
and, not to travel far for instances, I will only say that one of the
most unaffected and humble-minded persons I have ever met was a duke,
while one of the proudest and most affected Pharisees I ever
encountered was a servant. It all depends upon a consciousness of
values, a sense of proportion; the only way in which wealth and
poverty, rank and insignificance, can affect a life, is in a certain
degree of personal comfort; and it is one of the most elementary
lessons that one can learn, that it is not either wealth or poverty
that can confer even comfort, but the sound constitution and the
contented mind.
What I would here plead is that the artistic sense, of which I have
spoken, should be deliberately and consciously cultivated. It is not an
easy thing to get rid of conventionality, if one has been brought up on
conventional lines; but I know by personal experience that the mere
desire for simplicity and sincerity can effect something.
All persons engaged in education, whether formally or informally,
whether as professed teachers or parents, ought to regard it as a
sacred duty to cultivate this sense among the objects of their care.
They ought to demand that all people, whether high or low, should be
met with the same simple courtesy and consideration; they ought to
train children both to speak their mind, and also to pay respect to the
opinion of others; they ought not to insist upon obedience, without
giving the reasons why it is desirable and necessary; they ought
resolutely to avoid malicious gossip, but not the interested discussion
of other personalities; they ought to follow, and to give, direct and
simple motives for action, and to learn, if they do not know it, that
it is from this simple and quiet independence of mind that the best
blessings, the best happinesses come; above all, they ought to practise
a real and perceptive sympathy, to allow for differences of character
and taste, not to try so much to form children on the model of their
own characters, as to encourage them to develop on their own lines. To
do this completely needs wisdom, tact, and justice; but nothing can
excuse us from attempting it.
The reason why life is so often made into a dull and dreary business
for ourselves and others, is that we accept some conventional standard
of duty and rectitude, and heavily enforce it; we neglect the interest,
the zest, the beauty of life. In my own career as an educator, I can
truthfully say that when I arrived at some of the perceptions
enunciated above, it made an immense difference to me. I saw that it
was a mistake to coerce, to correct, to enforce; of course such things
have to be done occasionally with wilful and perverse natures; but I
realized, after I had gained some practice in dealing with boys, that
generous and simple praise, outspoken encouragement, admiration,
directness, could win victories that no amount of strictness or
repression could win. I began to see that enthusiasm and interest were
the contagious things, and that it was possible to sympathize genuinely
with tastes which one did not share. Of course there were plenty of
failures on my own part, failures of irritability, stupidity, and
indolence; but I soon realized that these were failures; and, after
all, in education it matters more which way one's face is set than how
fast one proceeds!
I seem, perhaps, to have strayed into the educational point of view;
but it is only an instance of how the artistic method may be applied in
a region which is believed by many to be remote from the region of art.
The principle, after all, is a very clear one; it is that life can be
made with a little effort into a beautiful thing; that the real
ugliness of life consists not in its conditions, not in good or bad
fortune, not in joy or sorrow, not in health or illness, but upon the
perceptive attitude of mind which we can apply to all experiences.
Everything that comes from the hand of God has the quality of which I
am speaking; our business is to try to disentangle it from the
prejudices, the false judgments, the severities, the heavinesses, with
which human nature tends to overlay it. Imagine a man oppressed by all
the ills which humanity can suffer, by shame and disease and failure.
Can it be denied, in the presence of the life of Christ, that it is yet
possible to make out of such a situation a noble and a beautiful thing?
And that is the supreme value of the example of Christ to the world,
that He displayed, if I may so speak, the instinct which I have
described in its absolute perfection. He met all humanity face to face,
with perfect directness, perfect sympathy, perfect perception. He never
ceased to protest, with shame and indignation, against the
unhappinesses which men bring upon themselves, by the yielding to lower
desires, by prejudice, by complacency; but He made allowance for
weakness, and despaired of none; and in the presence of those darker
and sadder afflictions of body and spirit, which it seems that God
permits, if He does not authorize, He bore Himself with dignity,
patience, and confidence; He proved that nothing was unbearable, but
that the human spirit can face the worst calamities with an indomitable
simplicity, which adorns it with an imperishable beauty, and proves it
to be indeed divine.
VIII
EGOTISM
I had an experience the other day, very disagreeable but most
wholesome, which held up for a moment a mirror to my life and
character. I suppose that, at least once in his life, every one has
known what it is, in some corridor or stairway, to see a figure
advancing towards him, and then to discover with a shock of surprise
that he has been advancing to a mirror, and that the stranger is
himself. This happened to me some short while ago, and I was by no
means favourably impressed by what I saw!
Well, the other day I was conducting an argument with an irascible man.
His temper suddenly boiled over, and he said several personal things to
me, of which I did not at once recognize the truth; but I have since
considered the criticisms, and have decided that they are mainly true,
heightened perhaps by a little tinge of temper.
I am sorry my friend said the things, because it is difficult to meet,
on cordial terms, a man whom one knows to hold an unfavourable opinion
of oneself. But in one way I am glad he said them, because I do not
think I could in any other manner have discerned the truth. If a friend
had said them without anger, he would no doubt have so gilded the pill
that it would have seemed rather a precious ornament than a bitter
remedy.
I will not here say in detail what my friend accused me of, but it
amounted to a charge of egotism; and as egotism is a common fault, and
particularly common with lonely and unmarried men, I will make no
excuse for propounding a few considerations on the point, and how it
may perhaps be cured, or, if not cured, at least modified.
I suppose that the egotist is the man who regards the world as a
setting for himself, as opposed to the man who realizes that he is a
small unit in a gigantic system. The characteristic of the egotist is
to consider himself of too great importance, while the danger of the
non-egotist is not sufficiently to realize his significance. Egotism is
the natural temptation of all those whose individuality is strong; the
man of intense desires, of acute perceptions, of vigorous preferences,
of eager temperament, is in danger of trying to construct his life too
sedulously on his own lines; and yet these are the very people who help
other people most, and in whom the hope of the race lies. Meek, humble,
timid persons, who accept things as they are, who tread in beaten
paths, who are easily persuaded, who are cautious, prudent, and
submissive, leave things very much as they find them. I need make no
attempt at indicating the line that such people ought to follow,
because it is, unhappily, certain that they will follow the line of
least resistance, and that they have no more power of initiative than
the bricks of a wall or the waters of a stream. The following
considerations will be addressed to people of a certain vividness of
nature, who have strong impulses, fervent convictions, vigorous
desires. I shall try to suggest a species of discipline that can be
practised by such persons, a line that they can follow, in order that
they may aim at, and perhaps attain, a due subordination and
co-ordination of themselves and their temperaments.
To treat of intellectual egotism first, the danger that besets such
people as I have described is a want of sympathy with other points of
view, and the first thing that such natures must aim at, is the getting
rid of what I will call the sectarian spirit. We ought to realize that
absolute truth is not the property of any creed or school or nation;
the whole lesson of history is the lesson of the danger of affirmation.
The great difference between the modern and the ancient world is the
growth of the scientific spirit, and the meaning and value of evidence.
There are many kinds of certainties. There is the absolute scientific
certainty of such propositions as that two and two make four, and
cannot possibly make five. This is of course only the principle that
two and two CANNOT be said to MAKE four, but that they ARE four, and
that 2 + 2 and 4 are only different ways of describing the same
phenomenon. Then there come the lesser certainties, that is to say, the
certainties that justify practical action. A man who is aware that he
has twenty thousand pounds in the hands of trustees, whose duty it is
to pay him the interest, is justified in spending a certain income; but
he cannot be said to know at any moment that the capital is there,
because the trustees may have absconded with the money, and the man may
not have been informed of the fact. The danger of the egotist is that
he is apt to regard as scientific certainties what are only relative
certainties; and the first step towards the tolerant attitude is to get
rid of these prejudices as far as possible, and to perceive that the
first duty of the philosopher is not to deal in assumptions, but to
realize that other people's regions of what may be called practical
certainties--that is to say, the assurances which justify practical
action--may be both smaller or even larger than his own. The first duty
then of the man of vivid nature is to fight resolutely against the sin
of impatience. He must realize that some people may regard as a
certainty what is to him a questionable opinion, and that his business
is not the destruction of the certainties of others, but the defining
the limits of his own. The sympathy that can be practised
intellectually is the resolute attempt to enter into the position of
others. The temptation to argue with people of convinced views should
be resolutely resisted; argument only strengthens and fortifies the
convictions of opponents, and I can honestly say that I have never yet
met a man of strong intellectual fibre who was ever converted by
argument. Yet I am sure that it is a duty for all of us to aim at a
just appreciation of various points of view, and that we ought to try
to understand others rather than to persuade them.
So far I have been speaking of the intellectual region, and I would sum
it up by saying that I think that the duty of every thoughtful person,
who desires to avoid egotism in the intellectual region, is to
cultivate what may be called the scientific, or even the sceptical
spirit, to weigh evidence, and not to form conclusions without
evidence. Thus one avoids the dangers of egotism best, because egotism
is the frame of mind of the man who says credo quia credo. Whereas the
aim of the philosopher should be to take nothing for granted, and to be
ready to give up personal preferences in the light of truth. In dealing
with others in the intellectual region, the object should be not to
convince, but to get people to state their own views, and to realize
that unless a man converts himself, no one else can; the method
therefore should be not to attack conclusions, but to ask patiently for
the evidence upon which those conclusions are based.
But there is a danger in lingering too long in the intellectual
regions; the other regions of the human spirit may be called the
aesthetic and the mystical regions. To take the aesthetic region next,
the duty of the philosopher is to realize at the outset that the
perception of beauty is essentially an individual thing, and that the
canons of what are called good taste are of all things the most
shifting. In this region the danger of dogmatism is very great, because
the more that a man indulges the rapturous perception of the beauty
that appeals to himself, the more likely he is to believe that there is
no beauty outside of his own perceptions. The duty of a man who wishes
to avoid egotism in this region is to try and recognize faithful
conception and firm execution everywhere; to realize that half, and
more than half, of the beauty of everything is the beauty of age,
remoteness, and association. There is no temptation so strong for the
aesthetic nature, as to deride and contemn the beauty of the art that
we have just outgrown. To take a simple case. The Early Victorian
upholsterers derided the stiffness and austerity of Queen Anne
furniture, and the public genuinely admired the florid and rococo forms
of Early Victorian art. A generation passed, and Early Victorian art
was relentlessly derided, while the Queen Anne was reinstalled. Now
there are signs of a growing tolerance among connoisseurs of the Early
Victorian taste again. The truth is that there is no absolute beauty in
either; that the thing to aim at is progress and development in art,
and that probably the most dangerous and decadent sign of all is the
reverting to the beauty of a previous age rather than striking out a
new line of our own. The aim then of the man who would avoid aesthetic
egotism should be, not to lay down canons of what is or what is not
good art, but to try to recognize, as I have said, faithful conception
and firm execution wherever he can discern it; and, for himself, to
express as vividly as he can his own keenest and acutest perceptions of
beauty. The only beauty that is worth anything, is the beauty perceived
in sincerity, and here again the secret lies in resolutely abstaining
from laying down laws, from judging, from condemning. The victory
always remains with those who admire, rather than with those who
deride, and the power of appreciating is worth any amount of the power
of despising.
And now we pass to the third and most intangible region of the spirit,
the region that I will call the mystical region. This is in a sense
akin to the aesthetic region, because it partly consists in the
appreciation of beauty in ethical things. Here the danger of the vivid
personality is to let his preferences be his guide, and to contemn
certain types of character, certain qualities, certain modes of
thought, certain points of view. Here again one's duty is plain. It is
the resolute avoidance of the critical attitude, the attempt to
disentangle the golden thread, the nobility, the purity, the strength,
the intensity, that may underlie characters and views that do not
superficially appeal to oneself. The philosopher need not seek the
society of uncongenial persons: such a practice is a useless
expenditure of time and energy; but no one can avoid a certain contact
with dissimilar natures, and the aim of the philosopher must be to try
and do sympathetic justice to them, to seek earnestly for points of
contact, rather than to attempt to emphasize differences. For instance,
if the philosopher is thrown into the society of a man who can talk
nothing but motor jargon or golfing shop--I select the instances of the
conversation that is personally to me the dreariest--he need not
attempt to talk of golf or motors, and he is equally bound not to
discourse of his own chosen intellectual interests; but he ought to
endeavour to find a common region, in which he can meet the golfer or
the motorist without mutual dreariness.