CARNIVAL

In this world we must either institute conventional forms of expression

or else pretend that we have nothing to express; the choice lies

between a mask and a fig-leaf. Art and discipline render seemly what

would be unseemly without them, but hypocrisy hides it ostentatiously

under something irrelevant, and the fig-leaf is only a more ignominious

mask. For the moment it is certainly easier to suppress the wild

impulses of our nature than to manifest them fitly, at the right times

and with the proper fugitive emphasis; yet in the long run suppression

does not solve the problem, and meantime those maimed expressions

which are allowed are infected with a secret misery and falseness. It

is the charm and safety of virtue that it is more natural than vice,

but many moralists do their best to deprive it of this advantage.

They seem to think it would lose its value if they lost their office.

Their precepts, as distinguished from the spontaneous appreciations

of men, are framed in the interests of utility, and are curiously out

of sympathy with the soul. Precept divides the moral world materially

into right and wrong things; but nothing concrete is right or wrong

intrinsically, and every object or event has both good and bad effects

in the context of nature. Every passion, like life as a whole, has its

feet in one moral climate and its head in another. Existence itself is

not a good, but only an opportunity. Christians thank God for their

creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life, but life

is the condition and source of all evil, and the Indians thank Brahma

or Buddha for lifting them out of it. What metaphysical psychologists

call Will is the great original sin, the unaccountable and irrational

interest which the spirit takes, when it is incarnate, in one thing

happening rather than another; yet this mad interest is the condition

of generosity and of every virtue. Love is a red devil at one end of

its spectrum and an ultra-violet angel at the other end.

Nor is this amphibious moral quality limited to the passions; all facts

and objects in nature can take on opposite moral tints. When abstracted

from our own presence and interests, everything that can be found or

imagined is reduced to a mere essence, an ideal theme picked out of

the infinite, something harmless, marvellous, and pure, like a musical

rhythm or geometrical design. The whole world then becomes a labyrinth

of forms and motions, a castle in the clouds built without labour and

dissolved without tears. The moment the animal will reawakes, however,

these same things acquire a new dimension; they become substantial,

not to be created without effort nor rent without resistance; at the

same time they become objects of desire and fear; we are so engrossed

in existence that every phenomenon becomes questionable and ominous,

and not so much a free gift and manifestation of its own nature as a

piece of good or bad news. We are no longer surprised, as a free spirit

would be, at the extraordinary interest we take in things turning out

one way rather than another. We are caught in the meshes of time and

place and care; and as the things we have set our heart on, whatever

they may be, must pass away in the end, either suddenly or by a gentle

transformation, we cannot take a long view without finding life sad,

and all things tragic. This aspect of vanity and self-annihilation,

which existence wears when we consider its destiny, is not to be denied

or explained away, as is sometimes attempted in cowardly and mincing

philosophies. It is a true aspect of existence in one relation and on

a certain view; but to take this long view of existence, and look down

the avenues of time from the station and with the emotions of some

particular moment, is by no means inevitable, nor is it a fair and

sympathetic way of viewing existence. Things when they are actual do

not lie in that sort of sentimental perspective, but each is centred

in itself; and in this intrinsic aspect existence is nothing tragic

or sad, but rather something joyful, hearty, and merry. A buoyant

and full-blooded soul has quick senses and miscellaneous sympathies:

it changes with the changing world; and when not too much starved or

thwarted by circumstances, it finds all things vivid and comic. Life

is free play fundamentally and would like to be free play altogether.

In youth anything is pleasant to see or to do, so long as it is

spontaneous, and if the conjunction of these things is ridiculous, so

much the better: to be ridiculous is part of the fun.

Existence involves changes and happenings and is comic inherently, like

a pun that begins with one meaning and ends with another. Incongruity

is a consequence of change; and this incongruity becomes especially

conspicuous when, as in the flux of nature, change is going on at

different rates in different strands of being, so that not only does

each thing surprise itself by what it becomes, but it is continually

astonished and disconcerted by what other things have turned into

without its leave. The mishaps, the expedients, the merry solutions of

comedy, in which everybody acknowledges himself beaten and deceived,

yet is the happier for the unexpected posture of affairs, belong to

the very texture of temporal being; and if people repine at these

mishaps, or rebel against these solutions, it is only because their

souls are less plastic and volatile than the general flux of nature.

The individual grows old and lags behind; he remembers his old pain and

resents it when the world is already on a new tack. In the jumble of

existence there must be many a knock and many a grief; people living

at cross purposes cannot be free from malice, and they must needs be

fooled by their pretentious passions. But there is no need of taking

these evils tragically. At bottom they are gratuitous, and might have

been avoided if people had not pledged their hearts to things beyond

their control and had not entrenched themselves in their illusions.

At a sufficient remove every drama seems pathological and makes much

ado about what to other people is nothing. We are interested in those

vicissitudes, which we might have undergone if placed under the given

circumstances; but we are happy to have escaped them. Thus the universe

changes its hues like the chameleon, not at random but in a fashion

which moral optics can determine, as it appears in one perspective or

another; for everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence,

tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.

Existence is indeed distinguishable from the platonic essences that

are embodied in it precisely by being a conjunction of things mutually

irrelevant, a chapter of accidents, a medley improvised here and now

for no reason, to the exclusion of the myriad other farces which, so

far as their ideal structure is concerned, might have been performed

just as well. This world is contingency and absurdity incarnate, the

oddest of possibilities masquerading momentarily as a fact. Custom

blinds persons who are not naturally speculative to the egregious

character of the actual, because custom assimilates their expectations

to the march of existing things and deadens their power to imagine

anything different. But wherever the routine of a barbaric life is

broken by the least acquaintance with larger ways, the arbitrariness

of the actual begins to be discovered. The traveller will first learn

that his native language is not the only one, nor the best possible,

nor itself constant; then, perhaps, he will understand that the same

is true of his home religion and government. The naturalist will

begin by marvelling at the forms and habits of the lower animals,

while continuing to attribute his own to their obvious propriety;

later the heavens and the earth, and all physical laws, will strike

him as paradoxically arranged and unintelligible; and ultimately the

very elements of existence--time, change, matter, habit, life cooped

in bodies--will reveal themselves to him in their extreme oddity, so

that, unless he has unusual humility and respect for fact, he will

probably declare all these actual things to be impossible and therefore

unreal. The most profound philosophers accordingly deny that any of

those things exist which we find existing, and maintain that the only

reality is changeless, infinite, and indistinguishable into parts; and

I call them the most profound philosophers in spite of this obvious

folly of theirs, because they are led into it by the force of intense

reflection, which discloses to them that what exists is unintelligible

and has no reason for existing; and since their moral and religious

prejudices do not allow them to say that to be irrational and

unintelligible is the character proper to existence, they are driven to

the alternative of saying that existence is illusion and that the only

reality is something beneath or above existence. That real existence

should be radically comic never occurs to these solemn sages; they are

without one ray of humour and are persuaded that the universe too must

be without one. Yet there is a capital joke in their own systems, which

prove that nothing exists so strenuously, that existence laughs aloud

in their vociferations and drowns the argument. Their conviction is

the very ghost which it rises to exorcise; yet the conviction and the

exorcism remain impressive, because they bear witness to the essential

strangeness of existence to the spirit. Like the Ghost in _Hamlet_

this apparition, this unthinkable fact, is terribly disturbing and

emphatic; it cries to us in a hollow voice, "Swear!" and when in an

agony of concern and affection we endeavour to follow it, "Tis here!

'Tis here! Tis gone!" Certainly existence can bewitch us; it can compel

us to cry as well as to laugh; it can hurt, and that is its chief claim

to respect. Its cruelty, however, is as casual as its enchantments;

it is not cruel on purpose but only rough, like thoughtless boys.

Coarseness--and existence is hopelessly coarse--is not an evil unless

we demand refinement. A giggling lass that peeps at us through her

fingers is well enough in her sphere, but we should not have begun by

calling her Dulcinea. Dulcinea is a pure essence, and dwells only in

that realm. Existence should be met on its own terms; we may dance a

round with it, and perhaps steal a kiss; but it tempts only to flout

us, not being dedicated to any constant love. As if to acknowledge

how groundless existence is, everything that arises instantly backs

away, bowing its excuses, and saying, "My mistake!" It suffers from

a sort of original sin or congenital tendency to cease from being.

This is what Heraclitus called [Greek: _Dikè_], or just punishment;

because, as Mephistopheles long afterwards added, _alles was entsteht

ist wert dass es zugrunde geht_--whatsoever arises deserves to perish;

not of course because what arises is not often a charming creation,

but because it has no prerogative to exist not shared by every

Cinderella-like essence that lies eternally neglected in that limbo to

which all things intrinsically belong--the limbo of unheard melodies

and uncreated worlds. For anything to emerge from that twilight region

is inexplicable and comic, like the popping up of Jack-in-the-box; and

the shock will amuse us, if our wits are as nimble as nature and as

quick as time. We too exist; and existence is a joy to the sportive

side of our nature, itself akin to a shower of sparks and a patter of

irrevocable adventures. What indeed could be more exhilarating than

such a rout, if only we are not too exacting, and do not demand of

it irrelevant perfections? The art of life is to keep step with the

celestial orchestra that beats the measure of our career, and gives

the cue for our exits and our entrances. Why should we willingly miss

anything, or precipitate anything, or be angry with folly, or in

despair at any misadventure? In this world there should be none but

gentle tears, and fluttering tip-toe loves. It is a great Carnival, and

amongst these lights and shadows of comedy, these roses and vices of

the playhouse, there is no abiding.

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