Arthur Christopher Benson - Escape, and other Essays (with an esssay about Walt Whitman), 1915 by gnosisclassics

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ESCAPE AND OTHER ESSAYS

ESCAPE AND OTHER ESSAYS BY

ARTHUR

CH]p,ISTOPHER BENSON

I love people that leave some tracei of their journey behind them, and I have strength enough to advise you to do so while you can.—Thomas Grat.

i»»>tV**»

NEW YORK THE CENTURY 1915

CO.

XI 2o]^yright, 1915,

The damrnY

Co.

Published, October, 1915

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE

OHAPTEE I II III

ESCAPE

LITEEATtTRE AND LIFE

THE NEW POETS

WALT WHITMAN V CHARM

SUNSET VII THE HOUSE OF PENGEESICK VIII VILLAGES VI

115 129 139

DREAMS X THE VISITANT XI THAT OTHER ONE

XII XIII

153 175 187

SCHOOLDAYS AUTHORSHIP

201

229

HERB MOLY AND HEARTSEASE XV BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH

XIV

253

.279

NOTE I desire to record

obligations to the Editor

of the Ceniwry Magazine, and to the Editor of the

CornhUl Magazine, for their permission to include in this

volume certain essays which appeared

first

in their pages.

A. C. B.

INTRODUCTION

WALKED

Cam

to-day down by the riverside.

a stream

much

wild and romantic scenery

the eyes of our boys,

nearly to a canal in

its

slighted ;

and

that

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

therefore

walk there, "

and the

sure; and

But

it is

a beauti-

ghost will certainly

our loves remain," as Browning

says, both for the sake of old memories

own sweet

love of its

peaceableness,

and for the

I passed out

of the town, out of the straggling suburbs,

from

tall,

delib-

many more famous

more adapted for the ma-

noeuvers of eight-oared boats ful place, I

merit, in

approaches more

straightness

eration of its slow lapse than floods

its chief

The

by the lover of

away

puffing chimneys, and under the clanking

railway bridge; and then at once the scene opens,

wide pasture-lands on either

side,

and rows of old

willows, the gnarled trunks holding

tered rods. rises the

There on the other

their clus-

side of the stream

charming village of Fen Ditton, perched vii

Introduction on a low ridge near the water, with church and vicarage and irregular street, and the

gabled Hall looking over

then, Ijing back,

among

old grange, called Poplar Hall,

ing trees

;

and then a

little

red-

barns and stacks.

its

More and more wiUows, and

little

high-stand-

weir, where the falling

water makes a pleasant sound, and a black-timbered lock, with

another old house near by, a secluded re-

Ely

treat for the bishops of

The bishop came

in medieval times.

by boat, no doubt, and

thither

abode there for a few quiet weeks, when the sun lay hot over the plain; and a

little

further

down

tiny village called Horningsea, with a battlemented

church among orchards and thatched houses, with its

own

disused wharf

the sense of a I

know.

Then

presently

stretches for miles

you can

see,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a place which

gives

bygone age as much as any hamlet interminable

the

and miles

fen

in every direction;

from the high green flood-banks of

the river, the endless lines of watercourses and faroff

clumps of trees leagues away, and perhaps the

great tower of Ely, blue on the horizon, with the vast spacious sky over-arching

a beautiful place in

unbroken

silence, I

its

all.

width,

its

If that

not

greenness, its

do not know what beauty

is!

Introduction Nothing that historians

happened

there.

out of the old lagoon reed-beds

a hardly

and pasture. business,

life

and low-lying

fishes, into

an event has ever

call

a place that has just drifted of the past, the

islands, of

peaceful

less

life

marsh-fowl and life

of cornfield

one goes there except on country

no armies ever marshaled or fought

The sun goes down

in flame

there.

on the far horizon the ;

wild duck fly over and settle in the pools, the flowers rise to life year

slow water-courses

;

by year on the edges of

the calm mystery of

and remembered; but

seen

can be

can hardly be told

in words.

Now

side

side with that I will set another

picture of a different kind.

A The

week or two ago I was traveling up North. stations

we passed through were many of them

full of troops, the trains

diers,

sol-

and very healthy and happy they looked.

was struck by were

were crammed with

civil

their friendliness

;

and modest; they did not behave as

they were in possession of the

suppose they were, but as ix

and kindness they

line, as

actually I

they were ordinary

Introduction travelers,

and anxious not to incommode other peo-

saw

soldiers

old frail

woman

ple.

doing kind

little offices,

helping

carefully out of the train

handing out her baggage, giving chocolates to

and chil-

dren, interesting themselves in their fellow-travel-

At one

ers.

place I saw a proud and anxious

an old

father, himself

jolly

soldier, I think, seeing off

young subaltern to

pressed tears the young ;

and

delight,

the front, with hardly sup-

man was

full

of excitement

but did his best to cheer up the spirits

of " Daddy," as he fondly called him.

proud of our ness

and

I felt very

and kind-

soldiers, their simplicity

real goodness.

was

gla'd to

belong to

the nation which

had bred them, and half forgot the

grim business

on which they were bent.

stopped at a junction. a strange officer,

legs

little

evidently been

was incased

wounded ; one

in a surgical contrivance,

had a bandage round

I caught sight of

There was a young man, an

group.

who had

And here

his head.

sat

of his

and he

on a bench

between two stalwart and cheerful-looking soldiers,

who had

their

arms round him, and were each hold-

ing one of his hands. clearly at

first,

in front of

I could not see the officer

as a third soldier was standing close

him and speaking encouragingly to him,

Introduction him from the

while at the same time he sheltered

But he moved away, and at the same mo-

crowd.

ment the young

drawn and sunken

face,

a brow compressed with

and looked wildly and

pain,

head, displaying a

officer lifted his

round him, with large melancholy

way Then he

terrified

eyes.

began to beat his foot on the ground, and struggled to extricate himself from his companions

;

and

then he buried his head in his chest and sank down It was a sight

an attitude of angry despair.

that I cannot forget.

Just before the train went

carriage,

" That

and as we

off,

officer

said

started,

a sad business there

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

got into to'

me,

a young

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

who was taken prisoner by the Germans one of our best men he escaped, and after endur-

officer

;

ing awful hardships he got into our

lines,

was

wounded, and sent home to hospital but the shock ;

and the anxiety preyed on

his mind,

sanatorium, but I fear there

become, they fear, hopelessly insane sent to a little

chance of his recovery

head as well as the

foot.

;

girl.

devoted to soldiering, and he

charming

and he has

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he

is is

wounded

being

very in the

a wealthy man,

just engaged to a

Introduction

Now

there

a hard and bitter fact of

from the story of the fenland.

different

going to argue about

trace the threads of

back into

or discuss

it,

life,

very

am not

because to

entangles one

life

at once helplessly in a dreadful series of problems

how

namely,

comes to pass that a calamity,

grievous and intolerable beyond all calamities in its

pain and sorrow and waste, a

and dreaded by

all

in every shade of

who

strife

are concerned in

abhorred

it,

fruitful

misery and wretchedness, should

yet have come about so inevitably and relentlessly.

one claims to have desired war

that

it is

;

all alike

plead

in self-defense that they are fighting,

and

maintain that they have labored incessantly for

Yet the great

peace.

mills of fate are turning,

and grinding out death and shame and

Every one

sickens for peace,

of peace

drowned

The

loss.

and yet any proposal

in cries of bitterness

and rage.

wisest spend their time in pointing out the

blessings which the conflict brings.

The mother

hears that the son she parted with in strength and

courage

moldering in an unknown grave, and

chokes her tears down. labor

The

fruit

of years of

consumed, lands are laid desolate, the xii

Introduction weak and innocent are wronged ; yet the great warengine goes thundering and smashing on, leaving

hatred and horror behind

;

and

the while

all

men

pray to a God of mercy and loving-kindness and entreat His blessing on the Is there then, if

work they are doing.

we are confronted with such

problems as these, anything to do except to stay

and

prostrate, like Job, in darkness

enduring the stroke of sorrow?

despair, just

there

any

excuse for bringing before the world at such a time as this, the delightful reveries, the easy happiness,

the gentle schemes of serener and less troubled

days?

The book which

follows

was the work of

a time which seems divided from the present by a

dark stream of unhappiness.

the eyes of those

Is it right,

an old picture of peace before

decent, to unfold

who have had

Would

and destruction?

to look into chaos

not be braver to burn

the record of the former things that have passed

away?

Yes, I believe that

this,

it is

right and wholesome to

because the most treacherous and cowardly

thing we can do

to disbelieve in xiii

life.

Those old

Introduction dreams and visions were true enough, and they

They

be true again.

represent the real

which we must try to return. build

we were

only overcome

astray.

all

by confessing

which we must

by holding

cannot abolish

;

we can

fast to our belief in

a temptation

to philosophize too

much

the problems in their

all

I do not believe for an instant that

our vision of peace.

falsified

more than

resist,

enough to hold

grasp.

must try to

Very few minds are large enough and

about war.

has

ourselves worsted

labor and order and peace.

clear

dwell in

the conception afresh, not feebly to con-

fess that evil

will

life

ever,

we must emphasize

I regard

it.

war

of pestilence; the best

brood over

it,

war

must cling it,

we must

aS I regard an outbreak

way

to resist

it is

but to practise joy and health.

not to

The

ancient plagues which devastated Europe have not

been overcome by philosophy, but by the upspring-

men to live cleaner and more wholeThat instinct is not created by any

ing desire of

some

lives.

philosophy or persuasion;

and

finds its

way

just arises everywhere

to the light.

brood over the war, to spend our time in

disentangling

its

intricate causes, seems to

xiv

me a

Introduction But a

task for future historians.

lover of peace,

confronted by the hideousness of war, does best to try, if

he can, to make plain what he means by

why he

peace and

peace an indolent

mean hard and lavish console flict

daily work, help,

and

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not

desires

it.

life, lost

mean by

And

effort to

reassure and

I mean, too, a real con-

a conflict where we set the best and

bravest of each nation to spUl each other's blood

but a conflict against crime and disease and ness

and greediness and

cruelty.

fighting to be done; can

our common against

and mutual understanding,

and the

uplift.

I do not

in gentle reveries.

selfish-

we not combine to

foes, instead of

evU?

There

destroy

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

much fight

weakening each other in

war our

finest

parental stock, we waste our labor, we lose our

garnered store; we give every harsh passion a chance to grow.

And

yet there

which I do

fighting for, It

one thing in the present war

heart of hearts feel to be worth

and that

for the hope of liberty.

hard to say what

essence of

it is

liberty

is,

because the

the subjugation of personal inclina-

Introduction

The Germans

tions.

meaning of

the

lies

claim that they alone

But

discipline.

in the fact that the

an example of

to set

the world to choose

not choose

they

it,

but that

;

feel that the

war

Germans are not content

and to

leave

the world will

upon them by

It is this

which makes me

will force

and the sword.

violence

war may be a vast protest of the na-

which have the

tions,

the bitterness of this

attractive virtue, it

know

and that they have arrived

liberty,

spirit of the future in their

hearts, against a theory of life that represents the spirit of the past.

And

I thus, with some seeming

inconsistency, believe that the

the hope of peace at bay. this clearly before

war may represent

If the nations can keep

them, and not be tempted either

into reprisals, or into rewarding themselves spoils of victory, if victory

Germans being

comes

;

if it

by the

ends in the

sincerely convinced that they have

been misled and poisoned by a conception of right

which

both uncivilized and unchristian, then I our sufferings

believe that all

may

not be too great

a price to pay for the future weU-being of the world.

That

is ;

when

all

seems

the largest and brightest hope I

and there are many hours and days

dare to frame

clouded and dim. xvi

Introduction

cannot at this time disengage our thoughts

from the war we cannot and we ought not. ;

less

can we take refuge from

it in idle

Still

dreams of

peace and security but at a time when every paper ;

and book that we

see

from

it,

batants,

and minds for a

we brood over

it.

especially if it is

its suf-

must be men and women who would do

ferings, there

well to turn their hearts

upon

war and

of the

is full

aU apt

it, if

little

away

feed our minds

we are by necessity noncomto turn to a festering horror

which makes us useless and miserable.

Whatever

happens, we must try not to be simply the worse for the war, morbid, hysterical, beggared of faith

and hope, evils

;

horrified with

and I

life.

believe that it is

That

the worst of

wholesome to put as

far as we can our cramped minds in easier postures,

and to

our

let

spirits

know how a dog who comes

fierce

imaginary

and

furious,

perpetually chained be-

and thinks of nothing but

foes, so that the

becomes an enemy.

have a wider range.

most peaceful passer-by

I have

felt,

began, a certain poison in the

since the

air,

war

a tendency

towards suspicion and contentiousness and vague hostility.

must exorcise that xvii

evil spirit if

Introduction can; and I believe

it is

best laid

minds go back to the old peace for a solving that the

coming

may

letting our

little,

new peace which we

shall be of a larger

and

re-

believe is

and nobler quality ; we

thus come to appreciate the happiness which

we enjoyed but had not earned; and lay our plans for earning a

new kind of happiness, the

essence of

which shall be a mutual trust, that desires to give

and share whatever it

and guarding

enjoys, instead of hoarding

it.

A wise and unselfish woman wrote to me the other day

words which

will

long

live in

mind ; she

had sent out one whom she dearly loved to the front,

and she was

as she could. give

way

fighting her fears as gallantly

"Whatever happens we must not

to dread," she wrote.

" It does not do to

dread anything for our own treasures."

That

the time of war,

what

What we must

the secret! is

their sacrifices

not do, in

to indicate to every one else

ought to be; we must just

make our own sacrifices and perhaps the man who loves and values peace most highly does not sacrifice the least. But even he may try to realize that ;

life it,

does not contradict itself ; but that the parts of

whether they be delightful or dreadful, do work

into each other in a marvelous way.

ESCAPE AND OTHER ESSAYS ESCAPE

ESCAPE AND OTHER ESSAYS I

ESCAPE

ALL

the best stories in the world are but one

story in reality

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the story of an escape.

the only thing which interests us

all

times

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how

to escape.

The

all

and at

stories of Joseph,

of Odysseus, of the prodigal son, of the " Pilgrim's

Progress," of the " Ugly Duckling," of Sintram, to

name only a few out

all stories

stories.

of a great number, they are

is the same with all love" The course of true love never can run

of escapes.

smooth," says the old proverb, and love-stories are but tales of a

man

or a woman's escape from

the desert of lovelessness into the citadel of love.

Even

tragedies

those

" CEdipus "

and

" Hamlet " have the same thought in the background.

In the tale of CEdipus, the old blind king

Escape and Other Essays in his tattered robe,

who had committed

in igno-

rance such nameless crimes, leaves his two daugh-

and the attendants standing between the old

ters

and the marble tomb by the sacred

pear-tree

fountain till

;

he says the last faint words of love,

the voice of the

god comes

upon the

thrilling

air:

" CEdipus,

why

delayest thou ?

Then he walks away

at once in silence, leaning

on the arm of Theseus, and when at ers dare to look, they see

last the

Theseus afar

screening his eyes with his hand, as too dreadful for mortal eyes

but CEdipus in

hope and wonder.

him upon

that

off, alone,

some sight

had passed before him

gone, and not with lamentation, but

the peal of ordnance late

watch-

Even when Hamlet is

shot

his escape

the same in

off, it is

dies,

and

to congratu-

from unbearable woe ; and If our eye falls on the

life.

men and women who have died by own hand, how seldom do they speak in the

sad stories of their

scrawled

messages

they

though they were going to It

just the other way.

them as

leave

behind

silence

and nothingness

The unhappy

mothers who, maddened by disaster,

fathers

and

kill their chil-

dren are hoping to escape with those they love best

Escape out of miseries they cannot bear

Lot

together, as

man who

they mean to

The man who

city of the plain.

not the

;

fly

with his daughters from the

fled

slays himself

hates life; he only hates the sor-

row and the shame which make unbearable that which he loves only too

life

migrate to other conditions

he cannot

live so.

well. ;

trying to

he desires to

but

live,

the imagination of

man

that makes him seek death; only the animal endures, but

man

hurries

away

in the

hope of finding

something better. It

is,

however, strange to reflect

imagination

when

beyond him, how

little

how weak man's

comes to deal with what able he

that he desires to do when he has escaped from

The of

life.

unsubstantial heaven of a Buddhist, with

unthinkable Nirvana, all

its

attributes

Mahometan

merely the depriving

the

duU

its

life

sensuality of the

paradise, with its ugly multiplication

of gross delights in light

;

to devise anything

;

the tedious outcries of the saints

which make the medieval scheme of heaven

into one protracted canticle

unattractive,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

these are all deeply

and have no power at

vigorous' spirit.

Even the

all

over the

vision of Socrates, the

hope of unrestricted converse with great minds, 5

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Escape and Other Essays a very unsatisfying thought, because little

The

and

which makes

rest,

pain and

life interesting,

hope and satisfac-

relief,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

danger and security,

tion,

yields so

fact, of course, is that it is just the va-

riety of experience toil

material to work upon.

move the idea of

from

vicissitude

life,

comes an indolent and uninspiring the process of change which

we once

re-

all be-

affair.

delightful, the find-

ing out what we can do and what we cannot, going

from ignorance to knowledge, from clumsiness to even our relations with those

skill;

bound up with the

are all

whom we

discoveries

love

we make

about them and the degree in which we can help

them and

What

affect them.

tively dislikes is stationariness

the ;

mind

instinc-

and an existence

which there was nothing to escape from, nothing

more to hope

for, to learn, to desire,

would be

frankly unendurable.

The reason why we dread death It

memory ory

would be

conditions

all

our familiar activi-

have nothing but

to depend upon.

that

because

terrible to

seems to be a suspension of ties.

The only

use of

mem-

distracts us a little from present

they are duU, and

it is

only too true

Escape happy things

that the recollection in sorrow of

torture of the worst kind.

Once when Tennyson was suffering from a dangerous

his

illness,

Tennyson

friend Jowett wrote to

to suggest that the poet

fort in thinking of all the

that

might find com-

good he had done.

But

not the kind of comfort that a sufferer

desires

Lady

we may envy a good man

;

of activity, but

we cannot

his retrospect

really suppose that to

meditate complacently upon what one has been

enabled to do is

the final thought that a

to indulge.

likely

torment himself over

He all

far more likely to

that he might have done.

true, I think, that old

and

pass into a quiet serenity; but

It is

of the old dog if

who

good man

sleeps in the sun,

tired people

the serenity

wags

his tail

invited to bestir himself, but does not leave

his place

;

and

but a

dumb

one reaches that condition,

it is

gratitude at the thought that nothing

expected of the worn-out frame and fa-

tigued mind.

But no

one, I should imagine, really

hopes to step into immortality so tired and worn out that the highest hope that he can frame that he will be let alone forever.

must not

trust the drowsiness of the outworn spirit to frame

Escape and Other Essays the real hopes of humanity.

the next experience ahead of us

believe that

is like

that of the

mariners,

In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which

seemed always afternoon,

then we acquiesce in a dreamless sort of sleep as the best hope of man.

No, we must rather trust the spirit

these are

its all

up with

knit

as I have said.

There

move darkly

well us,

the adventure of escape,

upon the road

wood and keep pace with

in the

to be spurred on

drawn forward by

we must

flee,

will

There

that

we are not

have to

not run to the goal,

with backward glances at

something which threatens

of a

by fear

desire or hope.

keep moving, and at least

presences that do not wish us

;

and the only explanation we can give

we need

of the

something hostile on our

track: the copse that closes in thick with spears

desires

and most vigorous, and

healthiest

us.

an old and strange Eastern allegory

man wandering

in the desert; he

to a grove of trees,

aware that there

draws near

when he suddenly becomes

a lion on his track, hurrying

Escape and bounding along on the scent of

The man

flees

steps.

his

for safety into the grove

;

he sees

there a roughly built water-tank of stone, exca-

vated in the ground, and built up of masonry fringed with plants.

where he

sees a ledge close

on the water

does this, he sees that in the water

lies

much

down

climbs swiftly

as he

;

a great

liz-

ard, with open jaws, watching him with wicked

eyes.

himself

stops short, and he can just support

among

the stones

by holding on

to the

branches of a plant which grows from a ledge

While he thus holds on, with death

above him.

behind him and before, he

and

ering,

branches quiv-

feels the

sees above, out of reach,

two mice, one

black and one white, which are nibbling at the

stems he holds and wiU soon sever them.

waits

despairingly, and while he does so, he sees that there are drops of honey

holds finds

;

he puts his

them very

The mice

on the

leaves

which he

them, licks them

and

off,

sweet.

stand, no doubt, for night

and the honey

possible to taste fore

lips to

the sweetness of

and

relish even

and behind; and

life,

and day,

which

w^en death

it is

be-

true that the utter

jprecariousness of life does not, as a matter of fact,

;

Escape and Other Essays distract us from the pleasure of

even though

it,

the strands to which we hold are slowly parting. It

all,

then,

an adventure and an escape; but

may

even in the worst insecurity, we prised to find that It

it is

somehow

often be sur-

sweet.

not in the least a question of the apparent

and outward adventurousness of

one's

Fool-

life.

and think as though

ish people sometimes write

one could not have had adventures unless one has

hung about at bar-room doors and saloons,

in billiard-

worked one's passage before the mast

a sailing-ship,

dug

for gold

among

the mountains,

explored savage lands, shot strange animals, fared

among deep-drinking and loud-swearing

hardly

men.

It is possible, of course, to

of this kind, and, indeed, I

whose

life

was

have adventures

had a near

fuller of vicissitudes

I have ever known he was a :

sailor,

relative

than any a

clerk,

life

a po-

liceman, a soldier, a clergyman, a farmer, a verger.

But the mere

unsettledness of

was an easy comrade, brave,

suited him: he

reckless,

restless

he did not mind roughness, and the one thing he

could not do was to settle down to anything regular

and

quiet.

did not dislike

when he stood half-naked, 10

life

all,

as he once told

even

me he

Escape did,

on a board slung from the

side of a ship,

dipped up pails of water to swab freezing as he flung all this

variety of

particular from

life

it all;

and

it,

the water

on the timbers.

But with

he did not learn anything he was

much

the same al-

ways, good natured, talkative, childishly absorbed,

not looking backward or forward, and fondest of telling stories with sailors in

inn.

learned

be content in most companies and to fare

roughly

;

but he gained neither wisdom nor humor,

and he was not

home, stick-in-the-mud

But we are not

happy or independent,

either

though he despised with

all

all his

heart the stay-at-

life.

made

like this,

and

possible for a few people to live so

that most people prefer to stay at

the work of the world.

it is

only

by the fact

home and do

cousin was not a

worker, and, indeed, did no work except under compulsion and in order to live ; but such people seem to

belong to an older order, and are more

like children

playing about, and at leisure to play because others

work

feed

and clothe them.

would be a wretched and miserable place

The world if all tried

to live life on those lines. It

would be impossible to me to 11

live so,

though I

Escape and Other Essays man if I had had a more hardship of that kind; but I have

dare say I should be a better little

worked hard

my own

had few hairbreadth troubles

and slow

way, and though I have

escapes, yet I have

anxieties.

had sharp

I have been like the

man in the story, between the lion and the lizard for many months together and I have had more to ;

by temperament and fortune, than my

bear,

rov-

ing cousin ever had to endure; so that because a life

seems both sheltered and prosperous,

not therefore have been without escapes and

its

it,

tion,

into life

and the motives

the more does one perceive that the imagina-

concerning

with hopes of escape from

itself

any conditions which hamper and the dynamic force that

The

need

haunting fears.

The more one examines of

adventures and

its

child

it is older,

confine us, is

transmuting the world.

forever planning what

do when

it will

and dreams of an irresponsible choice

of food and an unrestrained use of

money

;

the girl

schemes to escape from the constraints of home by

independence or marriage; the professional

man

plans to make a fortune and retire; the mother

dreams ambitious dreams for her children; the politician craves for

power; the writer hopes to 12

;

Escape

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

gain the ear of the world

these are only a few

casual instances of the desire that

freer future out of the limited

That

ent.

always at

us, projecting us into a larger and

work within

and

restricted pres-

the real current of the world, and

though there are sedate people who are contented with

life

as they see

it,

yet in most minds there

a^uttering of littl e tremulous hopes forecastin g

ease a nd freedom

and

as they have

yet

and there are

dispirited people

all

who

but acquiesce in

it,

who have any part

ment are

full

also

many

tired

are not content with life its

dreariness;

in the world's develop-

of schemes for themselves and others

by which the clogging and detaining elements are somehow to be improved away. Sensitive people want to find life more harmonious and beautiful, healthy people desire a more continuous sort of holiday than they can attain, religious people long for a secret ecstasy of peace; there

constant desire at

And

work

is,

in fact, a

to realize perfection.

yet, despite it aU, there is a vast prepon-

derance of evidence which shows us that the at-

tainment of our desired,

little

and that

tented of moods.

dreams

not a thing to be

satisfied desire is the least con-

realize

our program,

Escape and Other Essays succeed,

win

marry the woman we

love,

make a

fortune,

gain power, a whole host of further

leisure,

desires instantly

come

in sight.

I once congratu-

lated a statesman on a triumphant speech.

" Yes," he

" I do not deny that

said,

pleasure to have had for once the exact effect that

one intended to have; but the shadow of

it is

the

fear that having once reached that standard, one

may

not be able to keep

The awful penalty dread of subsequent is

up."

of success is the haunting

failure,

and even sadder

stiU

the fact that in striving eagerly to attain an

end,

we are apt to

lose the sense of the

purpose

This is more drearily true of money than of anything else. I could name several friends of my own who started

which inspired

us.

the pursuit of

in business with the perfectly definite

intention of

they might

might

making a competence

live as

and avowed

in order that

they desired to live; that they

travel, read, write,

enjoy a secure

leisure.

But when they had done exactly what they meant to do, the desires were all atrophied.

not give up their work

;

they

felt it

They could

would be safer

to have a larger margin, they feared they might be

bored, they had

made

friends, 14i

and did not wish to

Escape sever the connection, they

more for

their families

Even

sensibly altered.

must provide a

the whole so they

to escape from something

little

program had

were

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; from

still

in-

planning

some boredom

or anxiety or dread.

And to

yet

realize

seems very

what

difficult for

any person

the philosophical conclusion,

namely, that the work of each of us matters very to the world, but that it matters very

little

to ourselves that

we should have some work

much to do.

seem to be a very feeble-minded race in this

respect, that

we require

and tempted by force

illusions.

and vigor both

had a strong

to be constantly bribed

I have

known men of life who

youth and middle

sense of the value

and

significance of

their

work; as age came upon them, the value of

their

work gradually disappeared; they were de-

ferred to, consulted, outwardly reverenced,

perhaps

all the

and

more scrupulously and compassion-

ately in order that they might not guess the la-

mentable fact that their work was done and that the forces and influences were in younger hands.

But the men themselves never lost the sense of their importance. I knew an octogenarian clergyman who declared once

presence that

was

ridic-

Escape and Other Essays ulous to say that old

men

lost their faculty of deal-

ing with affairs.

" Why," he

said,

few years that I work.

It takes

do;

feel I

old

was only too fact,

used to

man

obviously did not

work consumed

know that less

correct, because it was, as a matter

for-

business.

It seems rather pitiful that able to face the truth,

we should not be

and that we cannot be con-

tent with discerning the principle of

that our

work

trinsic value,

The

it all,

which

given to us to do not for

but because

it is

its in-

good for us to do

it.

secret government of the world seems, in-

deed, to be penetrated it is

time

almost wholly performed by his colleagues,

and nothing was referred to him except purely mal

have really mastered

far less time than

his impression that his

only quite in the last

just promptly and methodically exe-

The

cuted."

as if the

by a good-natured irony;

Power controlling us saw

that, like

we must be tenderly wooed into doing things which we should otherwise neglect, by a sense of high importance, as a kindly father who is doing children,

accounts keeps his children quiet by letting one

hold the blotting-paper and another the ink, so

Escape that they believe that they are helping when they are merely being kept from hindering.

And

this strange sense of escape

and energy seems given us not that

into activity

we may

which drives us

realize

our aims, which turn out hollow and

vapid enough when they are realized, but that we

may

drink deep of experience for the sake of

upon

beneficent effect all

us.

The

its

failure of almost

Utopias and ideal states, designed and planned

by writers and

artists, lies in the absence of all

power to suggest how the happy folk who have conquered

all

the

and

ills

difficulties

life

are to

employ themselves reasonably and eagerly when there ris,

to improve. William MorNews from Nowhere," confessed mouth of one of his characters that

nothing

left

indeed, in his "

through the

there would be hardly enough pleasant work, like

hay-making and bridge-building and carpentering

and paving,

left to

go round and the picture of life ;

which he draws, with shops where you

may

want without having their

rich

its

total lack of privacy, the

ask for anything that you

to pay, the guest-houses, with

straw-colored wine in quaint carafes, the stews

served

gray

earthenware

dishes

streaked with blue, the dancing, the caressing, the

Escape and Other Essays singular absence of

all elderly

women,

strikes

the mind with a quite peculiar sense of boredom

and vacuity, because Morris seems to have ehminated so many sources of human interest, and to

have conformed every one to a type, which

is re-

freshing enough as a contrast, but very tiresome in It will not be enough to have got rid of

the mass.

the combative

and sordid and vulgar elements of

the world unless a very active spirit of some kind

has taken

its place.

Morris himself intended that

art should supply the missing force

a sociable thing ;

it is

;

but art

not

apt to be a lonely aif air, and

few artists have either leisure or inclination to

ad--

mire one another's work. Still

more dreary was the dream of the philoso-

who was asked upon one occasion what would be left for men to do when they had

pher J.

S. Mill,

been perfected on the lines which he desired. replied, after

a long and painful hesitation, that

they might find satisfaction in reading the poems of Wordsworth.

But Wordsworth's poems are

useful in the fact that they supply a refreshing

contrast to the normal thought of the world, and

nothing but the fact that view of

life

many

took a different

was potent enough to produce them.

;

Escape So, for the present at

all events,

we must be con-

tent to feel that our imagination provides us with

a motive rather than with a goal and though

it is

;

very important that we should strive with

might to eliminate the baser elements of

we must be brave and

much

all

our

life,

yet

wise enough to confess

of our best happiness

how

born of the fact

that we have these elements to contend with.

Edward FitzGerald

once said that a fault of

modern writing was that

many good

tried to compress too

things into a page, and aimed too

much

must

at omitting the homelier interspaces.

not try to make our at least

lives into

we must try to do

so,

a perpetual feast but

must be by

conquest rather than by inglorious flight face the fact that the stuff of

and indeed amiss, and happiness

life is

realize, if

;

must^

both homely

can, that our

bound up with energetically trying

to escape from conditions which we cannot avoid.

When we

are

young and

fiery-hearted,

that a tame counsel; but, like

dawns on us the

how

hill

slowly.

^ Not

until

all

we think

great truths,

we begin to ascend

do we grasp how huge, how complicated,

intricate the plain, with all its fields, woods,

hamlets, and streams is;''we are

happy men and

â&#x20AC;˘''

Escape and Other Essays

women

if in

middle age we even faintly grasp that

the actual truth about

life

vastly larger and

than any impatient youthful fancies about

finer

good

have indulged our splen-

did fancies in youth,

only for the delight of

though

are,

learning

it is

how much more

magnificent

the real

design.\

In the " Pilgrim's Progress," at the very outset of the journey. Evangelist asks Christian is

standing

still.

why he

replies:

" Because I know not whither to go." Evangelist, with a certain grimness of humor,

thereupon hands him a parchment poses that

but

all

it will

that

wrath to come Well,

be a

map

One sup-

or a paper of directions,

has written in

it is,

" Fly from the

no longer that of which we are and brimstone, storm and tem-

afraid,

a rain of

pest!

The Power behind

gifts

roll.

than these

fire

;

but we

the world has better

still

can and as fast as we can

have to ;

fly,

where we

and when we have

traversed the dim leagues, and have seen things

wonderful at every turn, and have passed through the bitter flood,

hope

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; no

shall find

guarded

city of

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

at least this

God from which we

Escape shall

go no more out, but another road passing

into wider fields

and dimmer uplands, and

to things

more and more wonderful and strange and unknown.

LITERATURE AND LIFE

THERE among

may

a tendency, not by any means

the greater writers, but

be called the epigord,

ture, the

how,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

among what

the satellites of litera-

men who would be great

they knew

to speak of the business of writing as

if it

were a sacred mystery, pontifically celebrated, something

remote

and

secret,

which

must

guarded from the vulgar and the profane, and which requires an initiation to comprehend.

ways

feel

I al-

rather suspicious of this attitude;

me something of a pose, adopted in order make other people envious and respectful. It

seems to to is

the same sort of precaution as the " properties "

of the wizard, his crocodile

there

gown and wand,

and the skeleton

in the

the stuffed

comer; for

a great fuss made about locking and dou-

ble-locking a box,

creates

doubt as to whether there

a presumption of

anything particular

;

Escape and Other Essays in

it.

nursery days one of

was fond of locking up box, producing ing into

brothers

his private treasures in a

in public, unfastening

it,

glanc-

with a smUe, and then softly closing

and turning the key

in a

way

calculated to pro-

voke the most intense curiosity as to the contents but upon investigation

proved to contain noth-

ing but the wool of sheep, dried beans, and cases of

exploded cartridges. So, too, I have

known both

who made a mystery out of a holy rapture, as

writers

and

artists

their craft, professed

the business of imagination

and the art of setting things down were processes that could not be explained to ordinary people,

but were the property of a brotherhood.

And

thus grow

up cliques and coteries, of people who, by mutual admiration, try to console one another for the absence of the applause which the world will

not concede them, and to atone for the cold-

ness of the public

by a warmth of intimate proxim-

ity.

This does not in the least apply to groups of people art of

who any

are genuinely and keenly interested in kind,

and form a congenial

circle in

which they discuss frankly and enthusiastically

Literature and Ldfe methods of work, the books, ideas, pictures, and

That

music which interest them.

quite a dif-

ferent thing, a real fortress of enthusiasm in the

midst of Meshech and Kedar. base and morbid

What makes

the desire to exclude for the

sake of exclusion; to indulge in solitary raptures,

hoping to be overheard to keep the ;

upon the public;

upon the

trade

of the eye

tail

to attempt to mystify;

and to

human beknow what is

inquisitive instinct of

ings, the natural desire, that

is,

going on within any group that seems to have exciting business of its own.

The

Preraphaelites, for instance, were a group

and not a

coterie.

and enjoying, in welcoming

kind

that

They were hood, with

mystic

They were engaged

working

in looking out for artistic promise,

and praising any performance of a recognized as " stunning."

Rossetti

sure of their ground. its

initials,

The

brother-

magazine, " The Germ," and

was

all

its

a gigantic game; and they

held together because they were revolutionary in this,

that they wished to slay, as one stabs a ty-

rant, the vulgarized

day.

They did not

tion, of course.

and sentimental art of the effect

anything

a revolu-

was but a ripple on the flowing

Escape and Other Essays stream, and they diverged soon enough, most of

them,

into

definite

tracks

their

The

own.

strength of the movement lay in the fact that they

hungered and thirsted after

clamoring for

art,

beauty, so Mr. Chesterton says, as an ordinary

man

clamors for beer.

But

their

aim was not to

mystify or to enlarge their own consequence, but to

convert the unbeliever, and to produce

fine

things.

There

something in the Anglo-Saxon tempera-

ment which

on the whole unfavorable to move-

ments and groups

;

the great figures of the Vic-

torian time in art and literature have been solitary

men, anarchical as regards tradition, strongly individualistic,

much regard Anglo-Saxon

working on

their

for schools is

own

lines

without

The

conventions.

deferential, but not imitative; he

has a fancy for doing things in his own way.

Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Byron ever four contemporary poets so

one another's work.? Scott

summed up

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; were

there

little afi'ected

Think of the phrase

his artistic creed,

which

saying that

he had succeeded. In so far as he had succeeded, by a " hurried frankness of composition," which

was meant to please young and eager people.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Literature and

Wordsworth had a solemn majesty

true that

Ufe

about his work, practised a sort of priestly function, itors

never

averse

ardent

entertaining

by conducting them about

vis-

grounds, and

his

showing them where certain poems had been engendered. said,

But Wordsworth,

was proud, not vain

hung cloud or the sponsibility,

as FitzGerald truly

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; proud

and desired to be

like the high-

solitary peak. felt

felt his re-

rather than to

be applauded. If one takes the later giants,

Tennyson had a

sense of magnificence, a childlike self-absorption.

said once in the same breath that the desire of

the public to

know

the details of the artist's

life

was the most degrading and debasing curiosity, it

was ripping people up

like pigs,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and

added

with a sigh that he thought that there was a congestion in the world about his

own fame

;

he had

received no complimentary letters for several days.

Browning, on the other hand, kept

and

his raptures

his processes severely to himself.

never

seems to have given the smallest hint as to

how he

was as

conceived a reticent

poem or worked

it out.

about his occupation as a well-bred stock-

broker, and did his best in society to give the im-

Escape and Other Essays pression of a perfectly decorous and conventional

gentleman, telling strings of not very interesting anecdotes,

nary.

and making a great point of being

ordi-

Browning

was

Indeed,

believe

that

haunted by the eighteenth-century idea that there

was something not quite respectable about professional literature,

and

Gray, he wished

that, like

to be considered a private gentleman

When

for his amusement.

who wrote

in later years

he took

a holiday, he went not for secret contemplation, but to recover from social fatigue. really one of the

most mysterious

ture in this respect, because his inner

was so

entirely apart

parties

and afternoon

closure, rolls;

from his outer calls.

Browning

figures in literalife life

of poetry

of dinner-

Inside the sacred in-

the winds of heaven blow, the thunder

he proclaims the supreme worth of human

passion, he dives into the disgraceful secrets of the soul

and then he comes out of

his

study a courte-

ous and very proper gentleman, looking like a

and talking

peared to be as good-humoredly

retired diplomatist,

commercial traveler

intelligent

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a man whose one wish apevery one else

as he conveniently could.

What,

again,

one to make of Dickens, with

Literature and lAfe his love of private theatricals, his florid waistcoats

and watch-chains,

his sentimental radicalism, his

kindly, convivial, gregarious life? his

work

He, again, did

a rapture of solitary creation, and

seemed to have no taste for discussing his ideas or

Then, too, Dickens's later desertion of

methods.

work in favor of public readings and moneymaking is curious to note. He was like Shak-

his

spere in this, that the passion of his later

life

seemed to be to realize an ideal of bourgeois prosDickens seems to have regarded his art

perity.

partly as a means of social reform, and partly as a

The

method of making money.

latter

aim

to a

great extent accounted for by the miserable and humiliating circumstances of his early bit very deep into him.

an end

made

in itself,

his

way

Yet

his art

life,

which

was hardly

but something through which he

to other aims.

Carlyle, again,

was a writer who put ideas

first,

despised his craft except as a means of prophesying, hated literary

men and

coteries, preferred aris-

tocratic society, while at the same time he loved to

say how unutterably tiresome he found

Who many

will

ever understand

why

miles to attend parties

it.

Carlyle trudged

and receptions

Escape and Other Essays Bath House, where the Ashburtons

lived,

or what

I have a belief that

stimulus he discerned in it?

Carlyle felt a quite unconscious pride in the fact that he, the son of a small Scotch farmer, had his

assured and respected place circle,

just as I have very

among a

little

semi-feudal

doubt that his mi-

gration to Craigenputtock was ultimately suggested to him by the pleasure and dignity of being

an undoubted

laird,

and

at least his wife's, lands.

living

among

In saying

his

own, or

do not

this, I

wish to belittle Carlyle, or to accuse him of what

may be called snobbishness. He had no wish to worm himself by slavish deference into the society of the great, but he liked to be able to weilk in and

say his say there, fearing no man;

huge mirror that

reflected his

own

Yet no one ever said harder or

own

his

Charles

fellow-craftsmen.

Lamb

His

Or take

was

independence.

fiercer things of

description

as " a pitiful rickety, gasping, stag-

gering, stammering tom-fool "

one

his

not an amiable

account of Wordsworth

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; how

instead of a hand-shake, the poet intrusted him

with " a handful of

and how less

his speech

numb

unresponsive fingers,"

" for prolixity, thinness, end-

dilution " excelled all the other speech that

;

Ldterature and Life

Carlyle had ever heard from mortals.

admit-

Wordsworth was " a genuine man, but intrinsically and extrinsically a small one, let them ted that

sing or say what they will." spised his trade

fact, Carlyle de-

one of the most vivid and voluble

of writers, he derided the desire of self-expression

one of the most continuous and brilliant of talkers,

he praised and upheld the virtue of

action

condemned to twaddle

silence.

spoke and wrote of himself as a would-be

man

and Ruskin ex-

;

pressed very trenchantly what will always be the puzzle of Carlyle's

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

life

that,

Ruskin

said,

he groaned and gasped and lamented over the intolerable burden of his work,

you came to read salient

and

collected,

you found

obviously

yet,

much

patiently

and patently

enjoyed.

the mystery of his lectures.

seem to have been

when

it all alive, full

vivid details, not so

Again there

it,

and that

fiery, eloquent,

They

impressive ha-

rangues; and yet Carlyle describes himself stumbling

the platform,

sleepless,

agitated,

and

drugged, inclined to say that the best thing his audience could do for him would be to cover him

up with an inverted tub while as he left the platform among signs of visible emotion and torrents ;

Escape and Other Essays of applause, he thought, he said, that the idea of

being paid for such stuff made him feel like a

who had been robbing There

man

hen-roosts.

an interesting story of how Tennyson

once stayed with Bradley, when Bradley was head-

master of Marlborough, and said grimly one evening that he envied Bradley, with life

that

all his

heart, his

of hard, fruitful, necessary work, and owned

he sometimes

what, after

amount

to,

did

all,

about his own poetry,

felt

all this

and who was

elaborate versifying

any way the better or

happier for it?

The truth that this

that the

man

of letters forgets

exactly the same thought as that which

haunts the busy

man

after, let us say, a

day of

looking over examination-papers or attending com-

The busy man,

mittees.

reflects

all,

only too apt to say to himself, " Here have I been slaving

away

a stone-breaker, reading endless

scripts, discussing

what on earth

infinity of

the use of

fred Lyall once said that

a hand in big public ture

much

as a

petty details, and

it all?

affairs,

man who had

Yet Sir Al-

man had

once taken

he thought of

litera-

crossed the Atlantic

in a sailing-yacht might think of sculling a boat

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Literature and Life

upon the Thames.

One of the things that moved

Dr. Johnson to a tempest of wrath was when on the death of

Lord

Lichfield, the

Boswell said to him that

Lord Chancellor,

he had taken to the law

as a profession, he might have been

and with the same

lor,

Johnson was ex-

title.

tremely angry, and said that

Lord Chancel-

was unfriendly to

man of such things when it was too One may conclude from such incidents and

remind a

fessions that even letters

late.

con-

some of the most eminent men of

have been haunted by the sense that in

fol-

lowing literature they have not chosen the best part, and that success in public ful

a more use-

life is

thing as well as more glorious.

But one has to ask imaginative

oneself

man means by

success,

that attracts him in the idea of the

more obvious

what exactly an

and what

it is

Putting aside

it.

and material advantages,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a man

wealth, position, influence, reputation,

far-reaching mind and large ideas

haunted by a feeling that life,

may

well be

he had entered public

he might by example, precept, influence, legis-

lation,

have done something to turn his ideas and

schemes

into

some moral or

accomplished facts, have social reform,

have

set

effected

a mark on

Escape and Other Essays history. er's

fame

must be remembered that a great writoften a posthumous growth,

and we

must be very careful not to attribute to a famous author a consciousness in his lifetime of his subsequent, or even of his contemporary, influence. is

undoubtedly true that Ruskin and Carlyle af-

fected the thought of their time to an extraordinary

Ruskin summed up in

degree.

his

teaching an

artistic ideal of the pursuit

and

while Carlyle inculcated a

more combative theory

of active righteousness

But Ruskin's

influence of beauty,

and the hatred of

later years were spent in the

of a profound sense of failure.

cant.

shadow

thought that

the public enjoyed his pretty phrases and derided his ideas in vain,

;

while Carlyle felt that he

and that the world was

had fulminated settling down

more comfortably than ever into the pursuit of bourgeois prosperity and dishonest respectability.

And

yet

if,

on the other hand, one compares the

subsequent fame of men of action with the fame of

men

Who

of letters, the contrast

of the

Who

indeed bewildering.

attaches the smallest idea to the personality

Lord that

Lichfield

whom Dr. Johnson

adores the

memory

envied.''

Wordsworth

knows anything about Lord Goderich, a contem-

Literature and JUfe

The world

porary prime minister?

reads and re-

reads the memoirs of dead poets, goes on pil-

grimage to the tiny cottages where they lived

poverty, cherishes the smallest records and souvenirs of them.

The names

of statesmen and gen-

become dim except to professed historians,

erals

while the memories of great romancers and lyrists,

and even of

lesser writers

still,

go on being revived

What would Keats have thought,

and redecorated.

room

as he lay dying in his high, hot, noisy

Rome,

he had known that a century later every

smallest detail of his

life,

his

most

careless letters,

would be scanned by eager eyes, when few save historians would be able to

name a

single

member

of the cabinet in power at the time of his death?

There

a charming story told by Lord Mor-

how he once met Rossetti in the street at Chelsea when a general parliamentary election was

ley,

going on, and

transpired, after a few remarks,

that Rossetti was not even aware that this was the case.

.When he was informed, he said with some that

other would get

in,

hesitation

very

much

matter.

supposed that

and

that, after

Lord Morley,

dote, said that he himself

one side all, it

did not

telling the anec-

had forgotten which

;

Escape and Other Essays side did get in,

from which he concluded that

had

not very much mattered.

The

truth

that national

life

has to go on,

and that very elaborate arrangements are made by statesmen and politicians for

But

it is in reality

its

administration.

very unimportant.

statesman in the world cannot affect

The very

wisest

much

he can only take advantage of the trend of public If he outruns

opinion.

it,

instantly stranded

and perhaps the most he can do

to foresee

how

people will be thinking some six weeks ahead.

But meanwhile the and to the soul ; he lating; he

writer is

speaking from the soul

suggesting, inspiring, stimu-

presenting thoughts in so beautiful a

form that they become desirable and adorable ; and

what the average man idealist

believes to-day is

what the

has believed half a century before.

must take

his chance of

fame and ;

his best

hope

to eschew rhetoric, which implies the consciousness of opponents and auditors, and just present his

dreams and visions as serenely and beautifully as he can.

The statesman has

compromise, to convert cannot. sacrifice

to argue, to strive, to

he can, to coerce

a dusty encounter, and he must

grace and perhaps truth in the onset.

Literature and Ldfe

may

gain his point, achieve the practicable and

the second best; but he

schemer, and he cannot

an opportunist and a

make

life

into

what he

but only into what he can manage.

wills,

way

course the writer in a

risks

more; he may

reject the homely, useful task, and yet not have

the strength to fruitlessly

and

fit

wings to his visions he ;

die unpraised, with the

may

live

thought that

he has lost two birds in the hand for one which

He may

not even in the bush.

Don

otherwise,

life

well

but he could not choose

and he has paid a heavier price for

his

probably a whoUy false antithesis to speak as a contrast to literature; one

draw

a distinction between eating

What

ing.

;

than many a man has paid for his success.

failure

turn out a mere

Quixote, helmeted with a barber's basin and

tilting against windmills

meant

a rule

might as

and drink-

that

man

devotes himself to imaginative creation, to the perception and expression of beauty, he must be pre-

pared to withdraw from other imagination

precisely the

^The

real fact

stinct

and

a function of

activities. life,

after

But all,

the

and

same holds good of stock-broking. is

that we Anglo-Saxons, by in-

inheritance, think of the acquisition of

Escape and Other Essays property as the most obvious function of

man

long as a

life.

occupied in acquiring property,

we ask no further questions; we take for granted that he

virtuously employed, as long as he breaks

social rules

his

while

he succeeds in getting into

hands an unusual share of the

we think highly of

of the world, ideals

have altered very

and we fulness

still

mark of

the hero.

an occupation

leisure as

him.

Indeed, our

since barbarous times,

are under the impression that resource-

the

little

and disapproved of

I imagine that

much more

distrusted

America than in England;

but even in England, where the power to be

admired and envied, a man who life as

lives as

idle is

heroic a

can be attained by playing golf and shoot-

ing pheasants rich

goods

divisible

man who

amusement.

more trusted and respected than a

paints or composes music for his

Field sports are intelligible enough;

the pursuit of art requires some explanation,

and

incurs a suspicion of effeminacy or eccentricity.

Only when authorship becomes a source of is it

thoroughly respectable.

profit

had a friend who died not very long ago.

had

in his

tive

work but he was wealthy, and at a compara-

younger days done a

;

little

administra-

Literature and Life tively early

age he abandoned himself to

much

traveled, he read, he went

into society,

When

he enjoyed the company of his friends. died he was spoken of as

make excuses

;

Even

of few people

his closest

necessary to explain and

he was shy, he stammered, he was

not suited to parliamentary

who

an amateur, and praised

as a cricketer of some merit. friends seemed to find

leisure.

who

did so

life;

much

but I can think

for his friends or

so radiated the simplest sort of happiness.

be welcomed by him, to be with him, put a

glow on

life,

because you

felt instinctively

little

that he

was actively enjoying every hour of your company. I thought, I remember, at his death, it

how

hopeless

was to assess a man's virtue and usefulness If he

the terms of his career.

ment, registered a social

functions,

had entered Parliaspent his time in

silent vote,

letter-writing,

lobby-gossip, he

would have been acclaimed as a man of weight and was, though he

had stood by

influence; but as

friends in trouble,

had helped lame dogs over

stiles,

had been the center of good-will and mutual understanding to a dozen groups and circles, it seemed impossible to recognize that he in his generation.

had done anything

not to be claimed that his

Escape and Other Essays was a

life

of persistent benevolence

lived selfishly

or devoted

men who had

energy; but I thought of a dozen

and comfortably, making money and

amassing fortunes, without a touch of real kind-

who would yet

ness or fine tenderness about them,

be held to have done well and to have deserved respect,

And

when compared with

then I perceived

how

this

peace-maker

intolerably false

many

of our cherished ideals are; that apart from lives of pure selfishness and annexation,

many

a pro-

merely

fessed philanthropist or active statesman

following a sterile sort of ambition

it is

;

that

on the whole for so-called public men to

rare

live

for

the sake of the public; while the simple, kindly, uncalculating, friendly attitude to

life is

a real

source of grace and beauty, and leaves behind

a fragrant memory enshrined in a hundred hearts. So, too,

when

comes to what we

call literature.

one supposes that we can do without

its

essence

vivid talk. life,

it is

and

fine,

but the delighted perception of

the ecstasy of taking a

tery, the

it,

but an extension of happy,

hand

in the great

mys-

joy of love and companionship, the wor-

ship of beauty and desire

and energy and memory

taking shape in the most effective form that

man

;

Literature and Ldfe can

There

devise.

real merit in the

accumu-

who do

lation of property; only the people

necessary work of the world, and the people

the

who

increase the joy of the world are worth a moment's

thought, and yet both alike are

little

regarded.

Of course where the weakness of the really lies

that

artistic life

often not taken

it is

up out of

mere communicativeness and happy excitement, as a child

a breathless

tells

tale,

but as a device

for attracting the notice and earning the applause

of the world ; and then self-regarding

it is

activities.

on a par with

But

all

other

taken up

with a desire to give rather than to receive, as an irrepressible sharing of delight, it becomes not a

solemn and dignified

affair,

but just one of the

most beautiful and uncalculating impulses

in the

world.

Then

there falls another shadow across the path

the unhappiest natures I

keen emotion and swift

know are the natures of perception who yet have

not the gift of expressing what they artistic

medium.

these,

alas!

feel in aiiy

who cumber They are

the streets and porticoes of literature.

attracted away from homely

toil

by the

perilous

sweetness of art, and when they attempt to ex-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Escape and Other Essays press their raptures, they have no faculty or

of hand. ous

And

dreariness

these

men and women

fall

knack

with zeal-

or acrid contemptuousness, and

radiate discomfort and uneasiness about them.

A book,"

either

how

said Dr. Johnson, " should show one

to enjoy life or

was ever the function of pungently or justly?

how

to endure

literature expressed

Any man who

endures has a right to speak,

he can.

enjoys or If he can

help others to enjoy or to endure, then he need

never be in any doubt as to his part in

life

;

while

he cannot ecstatically enjoy, he can at least good-

humoredly endure.

THE NEW POETS

Ill

THE NEW POETS

THERE

'S a

dark window

looks out over

narrow

a gable which slip

of garden,

where the almond-trees grow, and to-day the dark window, with

its

bloom, with

lines, had become The almond was in

black casement

suddenly a Japanese panel. its delicious,

pink, geometrical flowers,

not a flower which wins one's love, somehow;

it is

But

it is

not homely or sweet enough for that.

unapproachably pure and beautiful, with a touch of

fanaticism

about

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the

which

fanaticism

comes of stainless strength, as though one woke in the

dawn and found an angel

room:

in one's

he would not quite understand one's troubles

But when

I looked lower down, there

was a

sweeter message stiU, for the mezereon was awake,

with

its

tiny porcelain crimson flowers and

its

mi-

nute leaves of bright green, budding as I think

Aaron's rod must have budded, the very crust of 4.7

Escape and Other Essays the sprig bursting into

little

flames of green

and

red.

I thought at the sight of all this that some

good fortune was about

to befall

me and ;

so it did.

When I .came back there came a friend to see me whom I seldom see and much enjoy seeing. He is young, but he plays a

fine

part in the world, and

he carries about with him two very one

our writers are doing.

whom

the

man from

first

I hear of new and beautiful work; and he

praises it royally, he

declaims like

fine qualities;

a great and generous curiosity about what

in his high, thin voice,

which wavers

And what makes

all this so re-

a dry flame.

freshing

murmurs phrases, he even

that his other great quality

in-

and

in-

tensely critical spirit, which stares closely

tently at work, as though a crystalline lens.

After we had talked a

little,

" Come, praise me some new of the

I said to him: writers,

you herald

dawn You always do that when you come and you must do it now." He smiled !

to see me, secretly,

and drew out a slim volume from

pocket and read

drawn

me some

into saying the

"How

do you

name

find that.?

his

verses; I will not be

of the poet.

" he

said.

;

The New Poets " Oh," I said, " " finest gold? " Yes," he said, "

very good ; but

it is

And he

that."

is it

the

then read

me some more. " Now," I

That seems but

said,

me very

has what

be frank with you.

will

musical and accomplished

the one unpardonable

fault in poetry: it is literary.

has heard and

much sweet and solemn verse, mind murmurs like a harp hung among

read, that poet, so

that his

the trees that are therein; the winds blow into

But

music.

I don't want that

;

song, a spring of living water." tle

I want a fount of

looked a

lit-

vexed at that, and read me a few more pages.

And

then he went on to praise the work of two

or three other writers, and added that he believed there

was going to be a great outburst of poetry

after a long frost.

" Well," I there

that I

said,

" I am sure I hope

so.

And

one thing in the world that I desire,

may

it is

be able to recognize and love the new

voices."

And think.

then I told him a story of which I often

When

I was a

young man, Very much pre-

occupied with Tennyson and

Omar Khayyam and

Escape and Other Essays Swinburne, I went to stay with an elderly business

man, a friend of stout, rubicund

had a voice

and

shrill

family.

was a great

man, very good-natured, and he

like the

cry of an expiring mouse,

were sitting after dinner in

thin.

his big dining-room, several of us, looking out into

a wide, dusty garden, when the talk turned on books, and I suppose I praised Swinburne, for he

asked

And

even the weariest river

Winds somewhere

safe to sea.

heard me attentively enough, and said

pretty good to

poem which

to say some, and I quoted the

;

but then he said that

Byron, and

in his

was

was nothing

squeaky voice he quoted a

quantity of Byron, whose poetry, I

sorry to

say, I regarded as I might regard withered flowers or worse.

they

fell

on to

decisively

Byron

His eyes brimmed with his shirt-front;

tears,

and

and then he said

that there had been no poetry since

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; none

all.

Tennyson was mere word

music. Browning was unintelligible, and so forth.

And

I remember how, with the insolence of youth,

I thought

how

dreadful

was that the old man

The New Poets should have lost

sympathy and judgment;

all

be-

a really important

matter, full of tones and values.

I did not under-

cause poetry then seemed to

stand then, as I understand now, that

but, as the psalm says,

day

what happens when one

another and one night certifieth an-

telleth

other.

know now that

there can be

deceit

about poetry, and that no poet can make you

more than he

feels himself,

ways make another worth of

among

as I

al-

much; and that the

lonely

fields,

So I told

old

might think of a scarecrow

I did not say

folly.

though he cannot

and then I thought of

feels;

mind

left alone, while real

ness.

feel

his art exists only just in so far as he can

say what he friend's

and symbols, and that poetry

question of signals is

all

it is

thing absurd, ragged, and

men went about it,

their busi-

but I thought

my young

friend that story

;

my and

I said:

" I know that loves

and

thing and

does not really matter what one

moved by

is is

as long as one loves some-

moved by

its

beauty.

But,

still,

do not want that to happen to me; I do not want to be like a pebble on the beach,

draws past

to the land.

when the water

want to

feel

and

Escape and Other Essays understand the new signals. In the nursery," I said, " we used to anger our governess when she read us a piece of poetry, by saying to her,

made

up ?

You

But

she would say. '

Who

made

up.?

should say,

I feel

and

now

Who

wrote

it ?

inclined to ask,

I feel, too, like the sign-

who saw a new sign hung up in disgust, That looks as if

painter on his rounds, at an inn,

and said

some one had been doing seems to

me only a very

it himself.'

gifted

Your poet

and accomplished

amateur." " Well," he said rather petulantly, " so,

may

of course; but I don't think that you can hope

you begin by being determined to

to advance, if

disapprove." " No, not that," I said.

many

cases of inferior poets,

" But one knows of

who were taken up

and trumpeted abroad by well-meaning admirers,

whom

one sees

to be so

now

many

to have

had no

significance,

but

blind alleys in the street of art;

they led nowhere; one had just to retrace one's steps, if one explored them.

Indeed," I said, " I

had rather miss a great poet than be misled by a little

one."

" Ah, no," he

said,

" I don't

feel that.

had

The

Neti)

Poets

rather be thrilled and carried away, even if I dis-

covered afterwards that

" If you

great," I said,

;

really great."

not be

I do not

side.

not to be reckoned

it is

What

among

I object to

great and eternal.'

may

this

This touches me with interest

lords of the garden.'

saying, 'This

was not

"I am on your

mind your saying, and delight but

admit that

will freely

I feel that I

should be able to respond to the great poet,

Hashed out among us especially in a time

very

beautiful

haps this time tiful

;

the

your

but he must be great, and

when there verse.

really

suspect

a quantity that

per-

one that will furnish a very beau-

There are many people

anthology.

alive

who have written perhaps half a dozen exquisite lyrics, when the spring and the soaring thought and the vision and the beautiful word conspired together.

But there

large, tender heart at work.

that ; but

there

any great

suddenly

no great, wide,

No, I won't even say spirit

who has

and a supreme word-power as well? there

all

that

I believe that

more poetry, more love of beauty, more

emotion in the world than ever

men and women can't write

;

and a great many

are living their poetry

or sing

it."

who just

;

Escape and Other Essays "

A perverse generation seeking after a sign," he

said rather grimly, "

and

coming except the old

sign, that has been there for

centuries

there

no sign forth-

I don't care," he added, " about the

sign of the thing.

the quality that I want

new poets of whom I have been speaking have got the quality. That is all I ask for." " No," I said, " I want a great deal more than that! Browning gave us the sense of the human heart, bewildered by all the new knowledge, and yet Tennyson passionately desiring. and

these

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

" Poor old Tennyson " he said. !

" That

very ungracious," I

as perverse as I

it,

tears.

fine,

;

rich

all his faults,

homely domestic emotion of the race

and splendid, and because

old-fashioned,

are

and he put into words

poetry of labor, order, and peace.

and

You

I was going to say,

that Tennyson, with

was a great lord of music the

was about Byron when the old

banker quoted him with

and I wiU say

said.

you

call it

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the

was new

seems to you

mere respectability; but

was the marching music of the world, because

he showed men that faith was enlarged and not overturned by science.

These two were great,

because they saw far and wide; they knew by in64.

The New Poets stinct just what the ordinary man was thinking, who yet wished his life to be set to music. These They have little men of yours don't see that.

their

moments of

soming orchard

ecstasy, as full of

all

have, in the blos-

the songs of birds.

And

that will always and forever give us the lyric,

than that

;

you, thousands of people, are feeling

something that makes the brain

The

leap. it is,

mischief

thrill

and the heart

that we don't know what

and I want a great poet to come and

" Ah," he

But I want something more

the skill is there.

said, " I

tell

us."

afraid you want some-

thing ethical, something that

satisfies

the

man

Tennyson who Walked between

And now and

his

But we have done with people

wife and child

then he gravely smiled. all that.

who can express

the

What we want fine,

rare, unusual

thoughts of highly organized creatures, and you

want a poet

to sing of

" Why, yes," I

said,

bread and butter " " I think I agree with Fitz!

Gerald that tea and bread and butter are the only foods worth anything

not do without.

And

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the only things one can-

it is

just the things that one

Escape and Other Essays cannot do without that I want the new great poet to sing of. is

I agree with William Morris that art

the one thing

want, the expression of

all

And

man's joy in his work. retires into ties,

fine

the more that art

nuances and intellectual subtle-

the more that

and mysterious, the

becomes something esoteric

news ?

she replied,

news and new news

want the poets to

only

and that

that

telling,

Tennyson

Christ died for all men.' '

wife,

Mr. Tennyson, there

one piece of news worth

grandly and simply,

it. When What 's the

about

less I care

Tennyson said to the farmer's

Ah, that

And

tell us.

that

said

very

old news and good

exactly what I

a common inherit-

ance, not a refined monopoly, that I claim."

laughed at

" I think that will

this, 's

and said

rather a mid-Victorian view ; I

confute you out

When Tennyson

Tennyson legend.

of the

called Swinburne's verse

poison-

ous honey, brought from France,' Swinburne retorted by speaking of the laureate's domestic treacle.

You

can't have both.

you

like treacle,

you must not clamor for honey." " Yes, I prefer honey," I said, " but you seem to

to be in search of

what I

called literary po-

The New Poets etry.

That

what I am afraid

work of a mind the more that they the

called

strong

generally

the

melodrama

in fact.

Realism

;

I hate what

that seems to

kind

coarsest

we are getting

and valuing ideas

uncommon.

are

poetry

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

now abjuring

life

itself,

and

;

a big dog, but

nose on the scent of something.

more mysterious and prodigious rearranged upon romantic

scrambles

laugh at what you

name

for one of

has got

many

its

much

than

life

means some-

splashes through

through hedges. call ethics,

It is

fail-

Life goes

affair

lines.

thing very vast indeed, though

mud and

has

strong, fuU-blooded,

of mistakes and blunders and

has

felicitous co-

ures and sharp disasters and fears.

shambling along

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

the best sort of realism.

the heroic theory;

incidences, life arranged on ideal lines

life, full

to be

romanticism

thrown over the old conventions, the

eager

I want to have in poetry what

in fiction

gone straight to

want

I don't

of.

fed on words,

but that

You may is

kinds of collisions.

only a It

the fact that we are always colliding with something, always

coming unpleasant croppers, that

the exciting thing.

I want the poet to

what the obscure winged thing ^

it is

tell

that we are fol-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Escape and Other Essays lowing; and to be

made

he can't explain

to feel that

I don't say that all

don't think that

life is

it is;

to me, I

want

worth while following.

it is

poetical material.

but there

a thing called

beauty which seems to me the most maddeningly perfect thing in the world.

dawn,

in the

rolling lines of wood'

gestures

That

and I

I see

everywhere,

in the far-ofF landscape, with all its

people,

and

field,

their

in the faces

a clue, a golden thread, a

shall be

and

words and deeds.