Virginia Woolf

The Death of the Moth, and other essays

EDITORIAL NOTE
It is ten years since Virginia Woolf published her last volume of collected essays, THE COMMO !E"#E!$
%ECO# %E!IE%& "t the time of her death she 'as already engaged in getting together essays for a further
volume, 'hich she proposed to publish in the autumn of ()*( or the spring Of ()*+& %he also intended to
publish a ne' boo, of short stories, including in it some or all of MO#"- O! T.E%#"-, 'hich has been
long out of print&
%he left behind her a considerable number of essays, s,etches, and short stories, some unpublished and some
previously published in ne'spapers/ there are, indeed, enough to fill three or four volumes& 0or this boo, I have
made a selection from these& %ome of them are no' published for the first time/ others have appeared in THE
TIME% 1ITE!"!- %.221EMET, THE EW %T"TE%M" 3 "TIO, THE -"1E !EVIEW, THE
EW -O!4 HE!"1# T!I5.E, THE "T1"TIC MOTH1-, THE 1I%TEE!, THE EW !E2.51IC,
and 1-%I%T!"T"&
If she had lived, there is no doubt that she 'ould have made large alterations and revisions in nearly all these
essays before allo'ing them to appear in volume form& 4no'ing this, one naturally hesitates to publish them as
they 'ere left& I have decided to do so, first because they seem to me 'orth republishing, and second because at
any rate those 'hich have already appeared in 6ournals have in fact been 'ritten and revised 'ith immense care&
I do not thin, that Virginia Woolf ever contributed any article to any paper 'hich she did not 'rite and re'rite
several times& The follo'ing facts 'ill, perhaps, sho' ho' seriously she too, the art of 'riting even for the
ne'spaper& %hortly before her death she 'rote an article revie'ing a boo,& The author of the boo, subse7uently
'rote to the editor saying that the article 'as so good that he 'ould greatly li,e to have the typescript of it if the
editor 'ould give it to him& The editor for'arded the letter to me, saying that he had not got the typescript and
suggesting that if I could find it, I might send it to the author& I found among my 'ife8s papers the original draft
of the article in her hand'riting and no fe'er than eight or nine complete revisions of it 'hich she had herself
typed out&
early all the longer critical essays included in this volume have been sub6ected by her to this ,ind of revision
before they 'ere originally published& This is, ho'ever, not true of the others, particularly of the first four
essays& These 'ere 'ritten by her, as usual, in hand'riting and 'ere then typed out in rather a rough state& I
have printed them as they stand, e9cept that I have punctuated them and corrected obvious verbal mista,es& I
have not hesitated to do this, since I al'ays revised the M%%& of her boo,s and articles in this 'ay before they
'ere published&
1eonard Woolf&
THE DEATH OF THE MOTH
Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths/ they do not e9cite that pleasant sense of dar, autumn
nights and ivy:blossom 'hich the commonest yello':under'ing asleep in the shado' of the curtain never fails
to rouse in us& They are hybrid creatures, neither gay li,e butterflies nor sombre li,e their o'n species&
evertheless the present specimen, 'ith his narro' hay:coloured 'ings, fringed 'ith a tassel of the same
colour, seemed to be content 'ith life& It 'as a pleasant morning, mid:%eptember, mild, benignant, yet 'ith a
,eener breath than that of the summer months& The plough 'as already scoring the field opposite the 'indo',
and 'here the share had been, the earth 'as pressed flat and gleamed 'ith moisture& %uch vigour came rolling
in from the fields and the do'n beyond that it 'as difficult to ,eep the eyes strictly turned upon the boo,& The
roo,s too 'ere ,eeping one of their annual festivities/ soaring round the tree tops until it loo,ed as if a vast net
'ith thousands of blac, ,nots in it had been cast up into the air/ 'hich, after a fe' moments san, slo'ly do'n
upon the trees until every t'ig seemed to have a ,not at the end of it& Then, suddenly, the net 'ould be thro'n
into the air again in a 'ider circle this time, 'ith the utmost clamour and vociferation, as though to be thro'n
into the air and settle slo'ly do'n upon the tree tops 'ere a tremendously e9citing e9perience&
The same energy 'hich inspired the roo,s, the ploughmen, the horses, and even, it seemed, the lean bare:
bac,ed do'ns, sent the moth fluttering from side to side of his s7uare of the 'indo':pane& One could not help
'atching him& One 'as, indeed, conscious of a 7ueer feeling of pity for him& The possibilities of pleasure
seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth8s part in life, and a day moth8s at
that, appeared a hard fate, and his ;est in en6oying his meagre opportunities to the full, pathetic& He fle'
vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after 'aiting there a second, fle' across to the other& What
remained for him but to fly to a third corner and then to a fourth< That 'as all he could do, in spite of the si;e of
the do'ns, the 'idth of the s,y, the far:off smo,e of houses, and the romantic voice, no' and then, of a
steamer out at sea& What he could do he did& Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the
enormous energy of the 'orld had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body& "s often as he crossed the
pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible& He 'as little or nothing but life&
-et, because he 'as so small, and so simple a form of the energy that 'as rolling in at the open 'indo' and
driving its 'ay through so many narro' and intricate corridors in my o'n brain and in those of other human
beings, there 'as something marvellous as 'ell as pathetic about him& It 'as as if someone had ta,en a tiny
bead of pure life and dec,ing it as lightly as possible 'ith do'n and feathers, had set it dancing and ;ig:
;agging to sho' us the true nature of life& Thus displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it& One is apt
to forget all about life, seeing it humped and bossed and garnished and cumbered so that it has to move 'ith the
greatest circumspection and dignity& "gain, the thought of all that life might have been had he been born in any
other shape caused one to vie' his simple activities 'ith a ,ind of pity&
"fter a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the 'indo' ledge in the sun, and, the 7ueer spectacle
being at an end, I forgot about him& Then, loo,ing up, my eye 'as caught by him& He 'as trying to resume his
dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so a','ard that he could only flutter to the bottom of the 'indo':pane/
and 'hen he tried to fly across it he failed& 5eing intent on other matters I 'atched these futile attempts for a
time 'ithout thin,ing, unconsciously 'aiting for him to resume his flight, as one 'aits for a machine, that has
stopped momentarily, to start again 'ithout considering the reason of its failure& "fter perhaps a seventh
attempt he slipped from the 'ooden ledge and fell, fluttering his 'ings, on to his bac, on the 'indo' sill& The
helplessness of his attitude roused me& It flashed upon me that he 'as in difficulties/ he could no longer raise
himself/ his legs struggled vainly& 5ut, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came
over me that the failure and a','ardness 'ere the approach of death& I laid the pencil do'n again&
The legs agitated themselves once more& I loo,ed as if for the enemy against 'hich he struggled& I loo,ed out of
doors& What had happened there< 2resumably it 'as midday, and 'or, in the fields had stopped& %tillness and
7uiet had replaced the previous animation& The birds had ta,en themselves off to feed in the broo,s& The horses
stood still& -et the po'er 'as there all the same, massed outside indifferent, impersonal, not attending to
anything in particular& %omeho' it 'as opposed to the little hay:coloured moth& It 'as useless to try to do
anything& One could only 'atch the e9traordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom
'hich could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings/
nothing, I ,ne', had any chance against death& evertheless after a pause of e9haustion the legs fluttered again&
It 'as superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righting himself& One8s sympathies, of
course, 'ere all on the side of life& "lso, 'hen there 'as nobody to care or to ,no', this gigantic effort on the
part of an insignificant little moth, against a po'er of such magnitude, to retain 'hat no one else valued or
desired to ,eep, moved one strangely& "gain, someho', one sa' life, a pure bead& I lifted the pencil again,
useless though I ,ne' it to be& 5ut even as I did so, the unmista,able to,ens of death sho'ed themselves& The
body rela9ed, and instantly gre' stiff& The struggle 'as over& The insignificant little creature no' ,ne' death&
"s I loo,ed at the dead moth, this minute 'ayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled
me 'ith 'onder& =ust as life had been strange a fe' minutes before, so death 'as no' as strange& The moth
having righted himself no' lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed& O yes, he seemed to say, death
is stronger than I am&
EVENING OVER !E"# REFLE$TION IN A MOTOR $AR
Evening is ,ind to %usse9, for %usse9 is no longer young, and she is grateful for the veil of evening as an elderly
'oman is glad 'hen a shade is dra'n over a lamp, and only the outline of her face remains& The outline of
%usse9 is still very fine& The cliffs stand out to sea, one behind another& "ll Eastbourne, all 5e9hill, all %t&
1eonards, their parades and their lodging houses, their bead shops and their s'eet shops and their placards and
their invalids and chars:>:bancs, are all obliterated& What remains is 'hat there 'as 'hen William came over
from 0rance ten centuries ago$ a line of cliffs running out to sea& "lso the fields are redeemed& The frec,le of
red villas on the coast is 'ashed over by a thin lucid la,e of bro'n air, in 'hich they and their redness are
dro'ned& It 'as still too early for lamps/ and too early for stars&
5ut, I thought, there is al'ays some sediment of irritation 'hen the moment is as beautiful as it is no'& The
psychologists must e9plain/ one loo,s up, one is overcome by beauty e9travagantly greater than one could
e9pect?there are no' pin, clouds over 5attle/ the fields are mottled, marbled?one8s perceptions blo' out
rapidly li,e air balls e9panded by some rush of air, and then, 'hen all seems blo'n to its fullest and tautest,
'ith beauty and beauty and beauty, a pin pric,s/ it collapses& 5ut 'hat is the pin< %o far as I could tell, the pin
had something to do 'ith one8s o'n impotency& I cannot hold this?I cannot e9press this?I am overcome by it
?I am mastered& %ome'here in that region one8s discontent lay/ and it 'as allied 'ith the idea that one8s
nature demands mastery over all that it receives/ and mastery here meant the po'er to convey 'hat one sa'
no' over %usse9 so that another person could share it& "nd further, there 'as another pric, of the pin$ one 'as
'asting one8s chance/ for beauty spread at one8s right hand, at one8s left/ at one8s bac, too/ it 'as escaping all
the time/ one could only offer a thimble to a torrent that could fill baths, la,es&
5ut relin7uish, I said @it is 'ell ,no'n ho' in circumstances li,e these the self splits up and one self is eager
and dissatisfied and the other stern and philosophicalA, relin7uish these impossible aspirations/ be content 'ith
the vie' in front of us, and believe me 'hen I tell you that it is best to sit and soa,/ to be passive/ to accept/ and
do not bother because nature has given you si9 little poc,et ,nives 'ith 'hich to cut up the body of a 'hale&
While these t'o selves then held a collo7uy about the 'ise course to adopt in the presence of beauty, I @a third
party no' declared itselfA said to myself, ho' happy they 'ere to en6oy so simple an occupation& There they sat
as the car sped along, noticing everything$ a hay stac,/ a rust red roof/ a pond/ an old man coming home 'ith
his sac, on his bac,/ there they sat, matching every colour in the s,y and earth from their colour bo9, rigging up
little models of %usse9 barns and farmhouses in the red light that 'ould serve in the =anuary gloom& 5ut I, being
some'hat different, sat aloof and melancholy& While they are thus busied, I said to myself$ Bone, gone/ over,
over/ past and done 'ith, past and done 'ith& I feel life left behind even as the road is left behind& We have been
over that stretch, and are already forgotten& There, 'indo's 'ere lit by our lamps for a second/ the light is out
no'& Others come behind us&
Then suddenly a fourth self @a self 'hich lies in ambush, apparently dormant, and 6umps upon one una'ares& Its
remar,s are often entirely disconnected 'ith 'hat has been happening, but must be attended to because of their
very abruptnessA said$ C1oo, at that&D It 'as a light/ brilliant, frea,ish/ ine9plicable& 0or a second I 'as unable
to name it& C" starD/ and for that second it held its odd flic,er of une9pectedness and danced and beamed& CI
ta,e your meaning,D I said& C-ou, erratic and impulsive self that you are, feel that the light over the do'ns there
emerging, dangles from the future& 1et us try to understand this& 1et us reason it out& I feel suddenly attached
not to the past but to the future& I thin, of %usse9 in five hundred years to come& I thin, much grossness 'ill
have evaporated& Things 'ill have been scorched up, eliminated& There 'ill be magic gates& #raughts fan:
blo'n by electric po'er 'ill cleanse houses& 1ights intense and firmly directed 'ill go over the earth, doing the
'or,& 1oo, at the moving light in that hill/ it is the headlight of a car& 5y day and by night %usse9 in five
centuries 'ill be full of charming thoughts, 7uic,, effective beams&D
The sun 'as no' lo' beneath the hori;on& #ar,ness spread rapidly& one of my selves could see anything
beyond the tapering light of our headlamps on the hedge& I summoned them together& Co',D I said, Ccomes the
season of ma,ing up our accounts& o' 'e have got to collect ourselves/ 'e have got to be one self& othing is
to be seen any more, e9cept one 'edge of road and ban, 'hich our lights repeat incessantly& We are perfectly
provided for& We are 'armly 'rapped in a rug/ 'e are protected from 'ind and rain& We are alone& o' is the
time of rec,oning& o' I, 'ho preside over the company, am going to arrange in order the trophies 'hich 'e
have all brought in& 1et me see/ there 'as a great deal of beauty brought in to:day$ farmhouses/ cliffs standing
out to sea/ marbled fields/ mottled fields/ red feathered s,ies/ all that& "lso there 'as disappearance and the
death of the individual& The vanishing road and the 'indo' lit for a second and then dar,& "nd then there 'as
the sudden dancing light, that 'as hung in the future& What 'e have made then to:day,D I said, Cis this$ that
beauty/ death of the individual/ and the future& 1oo,, I 'ill ma,e a little figure for your satisfaction/ here he
comes& #oes this little figure advancing through beauty, through death, to the economical, po'erful and
efficient future 'hen houses 'ill be cleansed by a puff of hot 'ind satisfy you< 1oo, at him/ there on my
,nee&D We sat and loo,ed at the figure 'e had made that day& Breat sheer slabs of roc,, tree tufted, surrounded
him& He 'as for a second very, very solemn& Indeed it seemed as if the reality of things 'ere displayed there on
the rug& " violent thrill ran through us/ as if a charge of electricity had entered in to us& We cried out together$
C-es, yes,D as if affirming something, in a moment of recognition&
"nd then the body 'ho had been silent up to no' began its song, almost at first as lo' as the rush of the
'heels$ CEggs and bacon/ toast and tea/ fire and a bath/ fire and a bath/ 6ugged hare,D it 'ent on, Cand red
currant 6elly/ a glass of 'ine 'ith coffee to follo', 'ith coffee to follo'?and then to bed and then to bed&D
COff 'ith you,D I said to my assembled selves& C-our 'or, is done& I dismiss you& Bood:night&D
"nd the rest of the 6ourney 'as performed in the delicious society of my o'n body&
THREE %I$T!RE &'(
E(F Written in =une ()+)&
THE FIRT %I$T!RE
It is impossible that one should not see pictures/ because if my father 'as a blac,smith and yours 'as a peer of
the realm, 'e must needs be pictures to each other& We cannot possibly brea, out of the frame of the picture by
spea,ing natural 'ords& -ou see me leaning against the door of the smithy 'ith a horseshoe in my hand and
you thin, as you go by$ CHo' pictures7ueGD I, seeing you sitting so much at your ease in the car, almost as if
you 'ere going to bo' to the populace, thin, 'hat a picture of old lu9urious aristocratical EnglandG We are
both 7uite 'rong in our 6udgments no doubt, but that is inevitable&
%o no' at the turn of the road I sa' one of these pictures& It might have been called CThe %ailor8s
HomecomingD or some such title& " fine young sailor carrying a bundle/ a girl 'ith her hand on his arm/
neighbours gathering round/ a cottage garden abla;e 'ith flo'ers/ as one passed one read at the bottom of that
picture that the sailor 'as bac, from China, and there 'as a fine spread 'aiting for him in the parlour/ and he
had a present for his young 'ife in his bundle/ and she 'as soon going to bear him their first child& Everything
'as right and good and as it should be, one felt about that picture&
There 'as something 'holesome and satisfactory in the sight of such happiness/ life seemed s'eeter and more
enviable than before&
%o thin,ing I passed them, filling in the picture as fully, as completely as I could, noticing the colour of her
dress, of his eyes, seeing the sandy cat slin,ing round the cottage door&
0or some time the picture floated in my eyes, ma,ing most things appear much brighter, 'armer, and simpler
than usual/ and ma,ing some things appear foolish/ and some things 'rong and some things right, and more full
of meaning than before& "t odd moments during that day and the ne9t the picture returned to one8s mind, and
one thought 'ith envy, but 'ith ,indness, of the happy sailor and his 'ife/ one 'ondered 'hat they 'ere doing,
'hat they 'ere saying no'& The imagination supplied other pictures springing from that first one, a picture of
the sailor cutting fire'ood, dra'ing 'ater/ and they tal,ed about China/ and the girl set his present on the
chimney:piece 'here everyone 'ho came could see it/ and she se'ed at her baby clothes, and all the doors and
'indo's 'ere open into the garden so that the birds 'ere flittering and the bees humming, and !ogers?that
'as his name?could not say ho' much to his li,ing all this 'as after the China seas& "s he smo,ed his pipe,
'ith his foot in the garden&
THE E$OND %I$T!RE
In the middle of the night a loud cry rang through the village& Then there 'as a sound of something scuffling/
and then dead silence& "ll that could be seen out of the 'indo' 'as the branch of lilac tree hanging motionless
and ponderous across the road& It 'as a hot still night& There 'as no moon& The cry made everything seem
ominous& Who had cried< Why had she cried< It 'as a 'oman8s voice, made by some e9tremity of feeling
almost se9less, almost e9pressionless& It 'as as if human nature had cried out against some ini7uity, some
ine9pressible horror& There 'as dead silence& The stars shone perfectly steadily& The fields lay still& The trees
'ere motionless& -et all seemed guilty, convicted, ominous& One felt that something ought to be done& %ome
light ought to appear tossing, moving agitatedly& %omeone ought to come running do'n the road& There should
be lights in the cottage 'indo's& "nd then perhaps another cry, but less se9less, less 'ordless, comforted,
appeased& 5ut no light came& o feet 'ere heard& There 'as no second cry& The first had been s'allo'ed up,
and there 'as dead silence&
One lay in the dar, listening intently& It had been merely a voice& There 'as nothing to connect it 'ith& o
picture of any sort came to interpret it, to ma,e it intelligible to the mind& 5ut as the dar, arose at last all one
sa' 'as an obscure human form, almost 'ithout shape, raising a gigantic arm in vain against some
over'helming ini7uity&
THE THIRD %I$T!RE
The fine 'eather remained unbro,en& Had it not been for that single cry in the night one 'ould have felt that the
earth had put into harbour/ that life had ceased to drive before the 'ind/ that it had reached some 7uiet cove and
there lay anchored, hardly moving, on the 7uiet 'aters& 5ut the sound persisted& Wherever one 'ent, it might be
for a long 'al, up into the hills, something seemed to turn uneasily beneath the surface, ma,ing the peace, the
stability all round one seem a little unreal& There 'ere the sheep clustered on the side of the hill/ the valley
bro,e in long tapering 'aves li,e the fall of smooth 'aters& One came on solitary farmhouses& The puppy rolled
in the yard& The butterflies gambolled over the gorse& "ll 'as as 7uiet, as safe could be& -et, one ,ept thin,ing,
a cry had rent it/ all this beauty had been an accomplice that night/ had consented/ to remain calm, to be still
beautiful/ at any moment it might be sundered again& This goodness, this safety 'ere only on the surface&
"nd then to cheer oneself out of this apprehensive mood one turned to the picture of the sailor8s homecoming&
One sa' it all over again producing various little details?the blue colour of her dress, the shado' that fell from
the yello' flo'ering tree?that one had not used before& %o they had stood at the cottage door, he 'ith his
bundle on his bac,, she 6ust lightly touching his sleeve 'ith her hand& "nd a sandy cat had slun, round the door&
Thus gradually going over the picture in every detail, one persuaded oneself by degrees that it 'as far more
li,ely that this calm and content and good 'ill lay beneath the surface than anything treacherous, sinister& The
sheep gra;ing, the 'aves of the valley, the farmhouse, the puppy, the dancing butterflies 'ere in fact li,e that
all through& "nd so one turned bac, home, 'ith one8s mind fi9ed on the sailor and his 'ife, ma,ing up picture
after picture of them so that one picture after another of happiness and satisfaction might be laid over that
unrest, that hideous cry, until it 'as crushed and silenced by their pressure out of e9istence&
Here at last 'as the village, and the churchyard through 'hich one must pass/ and the usual thought came, as
one entered it, of the peacefulness of the place, 'ith its shady ye's, its rubbed tombstones, its nameless graves&
#eath is cheerful here, one felt& Indeed, loo, at that pictureG " man 'as digging a grave, and children 'ere
picnic,ing at the side of it 'hile he 'or,ed& "s the shovels of yello' earth 'ere thro'n up, the children 'ere
spra'ling about eating bread and 6am and drin,ing mil, out of large mugs& The gravedigger8s 'ife, a fat fair
'oman, had propped herself against a tombstone and spread her apron on the grass by the open grave to serve
as a tea:table& %ome lumps of clay had fallen among the tea things& Who 'as going to be buried, I as,ed& Had
old Mr& #odson died at last< COhG no& It8s for young !ogers, the sailor,D the 'oman ans'ered, staring at me&
CHe died t'o nights ago, of some foreign fever& #idn8t you hear his 'ife<D %he rushed into the road and cried
out& & & & CHere, Tommy, you8re all covered 'ith earthGD
What a picture it madeG
OLD MR) GRE*
There are moments even in England, no', 'hen even the busiest, most contented suddenly let fall 'hat they
hold?it may be the 'ee,8s 'ashing& %heets and py6amas crumble and dissolve in their hands, because, though
they do not state this in so many 'ords, it seems silly to ta,e the 'ashing round to Mrs& 2eel 'hen out there
over the fields over the hills, there is no 'ashing/ no pinning of clothes to lines/ mangling and ironing no 'or,
at all, but boundless rest& %tainless and boundless rest/ space unlimited/ untrodden grass/ 'ild birds flying hills
'hose smooth uprise continue that 'ild flight&
Of all this ho'ever only seven foot by four could be seen from Mrs& Brey8s corner& That 'as the si;e of her
front door 'hich stood 'ide open, though there 'as a fire burning in the grate& The fire loo,ed li,e a small spot
of dusty light feebly trying to escape from the embarrassing pressure of the pouring sunshine&
Mrs& Brey sat on a hard chair in the corner loo,ing?but at 'hat< "pparently at nothing& %he did not change the
focus of her eyes 'hen visitors came in& Her eyes had ceased to focus themselves/ it may be that they had lost
the po'er& They 'ere aged eyes, blue, unspectacled& They could see, but 'ithout loo,ing& %he had never used
her eyes on anything minute and difficult/ merely upon faces, and dishes and fields& "nd no' at the age of
ninety:t'o they sa' nothing but a ;ig;ag of pain 'riggling across the door, pain that t'isted her legs as it
'riggled/ 6er,ed her body to and fro li,e a marionette& Her body 'as 'rapped round the pain as a damp sheet is
folded over a 'ire& The 'ire 'as spasmodically 6er,ed by a cruel invisible hand& %he flung out a foot, a hand&
Then it stopped& %he sat still for a moment&
In that pause she sa' herself in the past at ten, at t'enty, at t'enty:five& %he 'as running in and out of a
cottage 'ith eleven brothers and sisters& The line 6er,ed& %he 'as thro'n for'ard in her chair&
C"ll dead& "ll dead,D she mumbled& CMy brothers and sisters& "nd my husband gone& My daughter too& 5ut I go
on& Every morning I pray Bod to let me pass&D
The morning spread seven foot by four green and sunny& 1i,e a fling of grain the birds settled on the land& %he
'as 6er,ed again by another t'ea, of the tormenting hand&
CI8m an ignorant old 'oman& I can8t read or 'rite, and every morning 'hen I cra'ls do'n stairs, I say I 'ish it
'ere night/ and every night, 'hen I cra'ls up to bed, I say, I 'ish it 'ere day& I8m only an ignorant old 'oman&
5ut I prays to Bod$ H let me pass& I8m an ignorant old 'oman?I can8t read or 'rite&D
%o 'hen the colour 'ent out of the door'ay, she could not see the other page 'hich is then lit up/ or hear the
voices that have argued, sung, tal,ed for hundreds of years&
The 6er,ed limbs 'ere still again&
CThe doctor comes every 'ee,& The parish doctor no'& %ince my daughter 'ent, 'e can8t afford #r& icholls&
5ut he8s a good man& He says he 'onders I don8t go& He says my heart8s nothing but 'ind and 'ater& -et I
don8t seem able to die&D
%o 'e?humanity?insist that the body shall still cling to the 'ire& We put out the eyes and the ears/ but 'e
pinion it there, 'ith a bottle of medicine, a cup of tea, a dying fire, li,e a roo, on a barn door/ but a roo, that
still lives, even 'ith a nail through it&
TREET HA!NTING# A LONDON ADVENT!RE &+(
E+F Written in ()IH&
o one perhaps has ever felt passionately to'ards a lead pencil& 5ut there are circumstances in 'hich it can
become supremely desirable to possess one/ moments 'hen 'e are set upon having an ob6ect, an e9cuse for
'al,ing half across 1ondon bet'een tea and dinner& "s the fo9hunter hunts in order to preserve the breed of
fo9es, and the golfer plays in order that open spaces may be preserved from the builders, so 'hen the desire
comes upon us to go street rambling the pencil does for a prete9t, and getting up 'e say$ C!eally I must buy a
pencil,D as if under cover of this e9cuse 'e could indulge safely in the greatest pleasure of to'n life in 'inter?
rambling the streets of 1ondon&
The hour should be the evening and the season 'inter, for in 'inter the champagne brightness of the air and the
sociability of the streets are grateful& We are not then taunted as in the summer by the longing for shade and
solitude and s'eet airs from the hayfields& The evening hour, too, gives us the irresponsibility 'hich dar,ness
and lamplight besto'& We are no longer 7uite ourselves& "s 'e step out of the house on a fine evening bet'een
four and si9, 'e shed the self our friends ,no' us by and become part of that vast republican army of
anonymous trampers, 'hose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one8s o'n room& 0or there 'e sit
surrounded by ob6ects 'hich perpetually e9press the oddity of our o'n temperaments and enforce the memories
of our o'n e9perience& That bo'l on the mantelpiece, for instance, 'as bought at Mantua on a 'indy day& We
'ere leaving the shop 'hen the sinister old 'oman pluc,ed at our s,irts and said she 'ould find herself
starving one of these days, but, CTa,e itGD she cried, and thrust the blue and 'hite china bo'l into our hands as
if she never 'anted to be reminded of her 7ui9otic generosity& %o, guiltily, but suspecting nevertheless ho'
badly 'e had been fleeced, 'e carried it bac, to the little hotel 'here, in the middle of the night, the inn,eeper
7uarrelled so violently 'ith his 'ife that 'e all leant out into the courtyard to loo,, and sa' the vines laced
about among the pillars and the stars 'hite in the s,y& The moment 'as stabili;ed, stamped li,e a coin indelibly
among a million that slipped by imperceptibly& There, too, 'as the melancholy Englishman, 'ho rose among
the coffee cups and the little iron tables and revealed the secrets of his soul?as travellers do& "ll this?Italy,
the 'indy morning, the vines laced about the pillars, the Englishman and the secrets of his soul?rise up in a
cloud from the china bo'l on the mantelpiece& "nd there, as our eyes fall to the floor, is that bro'n stain on the
carpet& Mr& 1loyd Beorge made that& CThe man8s a devilGD said Mr& Cummings, putting the ,ettle do'n 'ith
'hich he 'as about to fill the teapot so that it burnt a bro'n ring on the carpet&
5ut 'hen the door shuts on us, all that vanishes& The shell:li,e covering 'hich our souls have e9creted to house
themselves, to ma,e for themselves a shape distinct from others, is bro,en, and there is left of all these 'rin,les
and roughnesses a central oyster of perceptiveness, an enormous eye& Ho' beautiful a street is in 'interG It is at
once revealed and obscured& Here vaguely one can trace symmetrical straight avenues of doors and 'indo's/
here under the lamps are floating islands of pale light through 'hich pass 7uic,ly bright men and 'omen, 'ho,
for all their poverty and shabbiness, 'ear a certain loo, of unreality, an air of triumph, as if they had given life
the slip, so that life, deceived of her prey, blunders on 'ithout them& 5ut, after all, 'e are only gliding smoothly
on the surface& The eye is not a miner, not a diver, not a see,er after buried treasure& It floats us smoothly do'n
a stream/ resting, pausing, the brain sleeps perhaps as it loo,s&
Ho' beautiful a 1ondon street is then, 'ith its islands of light, and its long groves of dar,ness, and on one side
of it perhaps some tree:sprin,led, grass:gro'n space 'here night is folding herself to sleep naturally and, as
one passes the iron railing, one hears those little crac,lings and stirrings of leaf and t'ig 'hich seem to suppose
the silence of fields all round them, an o'l hooting, and far a'ay the rattle of a train in the valley& 5ut this is
1ondon, 'e are reminded/ high among the bare trees are hung oblong frames of reddish yello' light?
'indo's/ there are points of brilliance burning steadily li,e lo' stars?lamps/ this empty ground, 'hich holds
the country in it and its peace, is only a 1ondon s7uare, set about by offices and houses 'here at this hour fierce
lights burn over maps, over documents, over des,s 'here cler,s sit turning 'ith 'etted forefinger the files of
endless correspondences/ or more suffusedly the firelight 'avers and the lamplight falls upon the privacy of
some dra'ing:room, its easy chairs, its papers, its china, its inlaid table, and the figure of a 'oman, accurately
measuring out the precise number of spoons of tea 'hich??%he loo,s at the door as if she heard a ring
do'nstairs and somebody as,ing, is she in<
5ut here 'e must stop peremptorily& We are in danger of digging deeper than the eye approves/ 'e are
impeding our passage do'n the smooth stream by catching at some branch or root& "t any moment, the sleeping
army may stir itself and 'a,e in us a thousand violins and trumpets in response/ the army of human beings may
rouse itself and assert all its oddities and sufferings and sordidities& 1et us dally a little longer, be content still
'ith surfaces only?the glossy brilliance of the motor omnibuses/ the carnal splendour of the butchers8 shops
'ith their yello' flan,s and purple stea,s/ the blue and red bunches of flo'ers burning so bravely through the
plate glass of the florists8 'indo's&
0or the eye has this strange property$ it rests only on beauty/ li,e a butterfly it see,s colour and bas,s in
'armth& On a 'inter8s night li,e this, 'hen nature has been at pains to polish and preen herself, it brings bac,
the prettiest trophies, brea,s off little lumps of emerald and coral as if the 'hole earth 'ere made of precious
stone& The thing it cannot do @one is spea,ing of the average unprofessional eyeA is to compose these trophies in
such a 'ay as to bring out the more obscure angles and relationships& Hence after a prolonged diet of this
simple, sugary fare, of beauty pure and uncomposed, 'e become conscious of satiety& We halt at the door of the
boot shop and ma,e some little e9cuse, 'hich has nothing to do 'ith the real reason, for folding up the bright
paraphernalia of the streets and 'ithdra'ing to some dus,ier chamber of the being 'here 'e may as,, as 'e
raise our left foot obediently upon the stand$ CWhat, then, is it li,e to be a d'arf<D
%he came in escorted by t'o 'omen 'ho, being of normal si;e, loo,ed li,e benevolent giants beside her&
%miling at the shop girls, they seemed to be disclaiming any lot in her deformity and assuring her of their
protection& %he 'ore the peevish yet apologetic e9pression usual on the faces of the deformed& %he needed their
,indness, yet she resented it& 5ut 'hen the shop girl had been summoned and the giantesses, smiling
indulgently, had as,ed for shoes for Cthis ladyD and the girl had pushed the little stand in front of her, the d'arf
stuc, her foot out 'ith an impetuosity 'hich seemed to claim all our attention& 1oo, at thatG 1oo, at thatG she
seemed to demand of us all, as she thrust her foot out, for behold it 'as the shapely, perfectly proportioned foot
of a 'ell:gro'n 'oman& It 'as arched/ it 'as aristocratic& Her 'hole manner changed as she loo,ed at it
resting on the stand& %he loo,ed soothed and satisfied& Her manner became full of self:confidence& %he sent for
shoe after shoe/ she tried on pair after pair& %he got up and pirouetted before a glass 'hich reflected the foot
only in yello' shoes, in fa'n shoes, in shoes of li;ard s,in& %he raised her little s,irts and displayed her little
legs& %he 'as thin,ing that, after all, feet are the most important part of the 'hole person/ 'omen, she said to
herself, have been loved for their feet alone& %eeing nothing but her feet, she imagined perhaps that the rest of
her body 'as of a piece 'ith those beautiful feet& %he 'as shabbily dressed, but she 'as ready to lavish any
money upon her shoes& "nd as this 'as the only occasion upon 'hich she 'as hot afraid of being loo,ed at but
positively craved attention, she 'as ready to use any device to prolong the choosing and fitting& 1oo, at my
feet, she seemed to be saying, as she too, a step this 'ay and then a step that 'ay& The shop girl good:
humouredly must have said something flattering, for suddenly her face lit up in ecstasy& 5ut, after all, the
giantesses, benevolent though they 'ere, had their o'n affairs to see to/ she must ma,e up her mind/ she must
decide 'hich to choose& "t length, the pair 'as chosen and, as she 'al,ed out bet'een her guardians, 'ith the
parcel s'inging from her finger, the ecstasy faded, ,no'ledge returned, the old peevishness, the old apology
came bac,, and by the time she had reached the street again she had become a d'arf only&
5ut she had changed the mood/ she had called into being an atmosphere 'hich, as 'e follo'ed her out into the
street, seemed actually to create the humped, the t'isted, the deformed& T'o bearded men, brothers, apparently,
stone:blind, supporting themselves by resting a hand on the head of a small boy bet'een them, marched do'n
the street& On they came 'ith the unyielding yet tremulous tread of the blind, 'hich seems to lend to their
approach something of the terror and inevitability of the fate that has overta,en them& "s they passed, holding
straight on, the little convoy seemed to cleave asunder the passers:by 'ith the momentum of its silence, its
directness, its disaster& Indeed, the d'arf had started a hobbling grotes7ue dance to 'hich everybody in the
street no' conformed$ the stout lady tightly s'athed in shiny seals,in/ the feeble:minded boy suc,ing the silver
,nob of his stic,/ the old man s7uatted on a doorstep as if, suddenly overcome by the absurdity of the human
spectacle, he had sat do'n to loo, at it?all 6oined in the hobble and tap of the d'arf8s dance&
In 'hat crevices and crannies, one might as,, did they lodge, this maimed company of the halt and the blind<
Here, perhaps, in the top rooms of these narro' old houses bet'een Holborn and %oho, 'here people have such
7ueer names, and pursue so many curious trades, are gold beaters, accordion pleaters, cover buttons, or support
life, 'ith even greater fantasticality, upon a traffic in cups 'ithout saucers, china umbrella handles, and highly:
coloured pictures of martyred saints& There they lodge, and it seems as if the lady in the seals,in 6ac,et must
find life tolerable, passing the time of day 'ith the accordion pleater, or the man 'ho covers buttons/ life 'hich
is so fantastic cannot be altogether tragic& They do not grudge us, 'e are musing, our prosperity/ 'hen,
suddenly, turning the corner, 'e come upon a bearded =e', 'ild, hunger:bitten, glaring out of his misery/ or
pass the humped body of an old 'oman flung abandoned on the step of a public building 'ith a cloa, over her
li,e the hasty covering thro'n over a dead horse or don,ey& "t such sights the nerves of the spine seem to stand
erect/ a sudden flare is brandished in our eyes/ a 7uestion is as,ed 'hich is never ans'ered& Often enough these
derelicts choose to lie not a stone8s thro'n from theatres, 'ithin hearing of barrel organs, almost, as night dra's
on, 'ithin touch of the se7uined cloa,s and bright legs of diners and dancers& They lie close to those shop
'indo's 'here commerce offers to a 'orld of old 'omen laid on doorsteps, of blind men, of hobbling d'arfs,
sofas 'hich are supported by the gilt nec,s of proud s'ans/ tables inlaid 'ith bas,ets of many coloured fruit/
sideboards paved 'ith green marble the better to support the 'eight of boars8 heads/ and carpets so softened
'ith age that their carnations have almost vanished in a pale green sea&
2assing, glimpsing, everything seems accidentally but miraculously sprin,led 'ith beauty, as if the tide of trade
'hich deposits its burden so punctually and prosaically upon the shores of O9ford %treet had this night cast up
nothing but treasure& With no thought of buying, the eye is sportive and generous/ it creates/ it adorns/ it
enhances& %tanding out in the street, one may build up all the chambers of an imaginary house and furnish them
at one8s 'ill 'ith sofa, table, carpet& That rug 'ill do for the hall& That alabaster bo'l shall stand on a carved
table in the 'indo'& Our merryma,ing shall be reflected in that thic, round mirror& 5ut, having built and
furnished the house, one is happily under no obligation to possess it/ one can dismantle it in the t'in,ling of an
eye, and build and furnish another house 'ith other chairs and other glasses& Or let us indulge ourselves at the
anti7ue 6e'ellers, among the trays of rings and the hanging nec,laces& 1et us choose those pearls, for e9ample,
and then imagine ho', if 'e put them on, life 'ould be changed& It becomes instantly bet'een t'o and three in
the morning/ the lamps are burning very 'hite in the deserted streets of Mayfair& Only motor:cars are abroad at
this hour, and one has a sense of emptiness, of airiness, of secluded gaiety& Wearing pearls, 'earing sil,, one
steps out on to a balcony 'hich overloo,s the gardens of sleeping Mayfair& There are a fe' lights in the
bedrooms of great peers returned from Court, of sil,:stoc,inged footmen, of do'agers 'ho have pressed the
hands of statesmen& " cat creeps along the garden 'all& 1ove:ma,ing is going on sibilantly, seductively in the
dar,er places of the room behind thic, green curtains& %trolling sedately as if he 'ere promenading a terrace
beneath 'hich the shires and counties of England lie sun:bathed, the aged 2rime Minister recounts to 1ady %o:
and:%o 'ith the curls and the emeralds the true history of some great crisis in the affairs of the land& We seem
to be riding on the top of the highest mast of the tallest ship/ and yet at the same time 'e ,no' that nothing of
this sort matters/ love is not proved thus, nor great achievements completed thus/ so that 'e sport 'ith the
moment and preen our feathers in it lightly, as 'e stand on the balcony 'atching the moonlit cat creep along
2rincess Mary8s garden 'all&
5ut 'hat could be more absurd< It is, in fact, on the stro,e of si9/ it is a 'inter8s evening/ 'e are 'al,ing to the
%trand to buy a pencil& Ho', then, are 'e also on a balcony, 'earing pearls in =une< What could be more
absurd< -et it is nature8s folly, not ours& When she set about her chief masterpiece, the ma,ing of man, she
should have thought of one thing only& Instead, turning her head, loo,ing over her shoulder, into each one of us
she let creep instincts and desires 'hich are utterly at variance 'ith his main being, so that 'e are strea,ed,
variegated, all of a mi9ture/ the colours have run& Is the true self this 'hich stands on the pavement in =anuary,
or that 'hich bends over the balcony in =une< "m I here, or am I there< Or is the true self neither this nor that,
neither here nor there, but something so varied and 'andering that it is only 'hen 'e give the rein to its 'ishes
and let it ta,e its 'ay unimpeded that 'e are indeed ourselves< Circumstances compel unity/ for convenience
sa,e a man must be a 'hole& The good citi;en 'hen he opens his door in the evening must be ban,er, golfer,
husband, father/ not a nomad 'andering the desert, a mystic staring at the s,y, a debauchee in the slums of %an
0rancisco, a soldier heading a revolution, a pariah ho'ling 'ith scepticism and solitude& When he opens his
door, he must run his fingers through his hair and put his umbrella in the stand li,e the rest&
5ut here, none too soon, are the second:hand boo,shops& Here 'e find anchorage in these th'arting currents of
being/ here 'e balance ourselves after the splendours and miseries of the streets& The very sight of the
boo,seller8s 'ife 'ith her foot on the fender, sitting beside a good coal fire, screened from the door, is sobering
and cheerful& %he is never reading, or only the ne'spaper/ her tal,, 'hen it leaves boo,selling, 'hich it does so
gladly, is about hats/ she li,es a hat to be practical, she says, as 'ell as pretty& H no, they don8t live at the shop/
they live in 5ri9ton/ she must have a bit of green to loo, at& In summer a 6ar of flo'ers gro'n in her o'n
garden is stood on the top of some dusty pile to enliven the shop& 5oo,s are every'here/ and al'ays the same
sense of adventure fills us& %econd:hand boo,s are 'ild boo,s, homeless boo,s/ they have come together in
vast floc,s of variegated feather, and have a charm 'hich the domesticated volumes of the library lac,& 5esides,
in this random miscellaneous company 'e may rub against some complete stranger 'ho 'ill, 'ith luc,, turn
into the best friend 'e have in the 'orld& There is al'ays a hope, as 'e reach do'n some grayish:'hite boo,
from an upper shelf, directed by its air of shabbiness and desertion, of meeting here 'ith a man 'ho set out on
horsebac, over a hundred years ago to e9plore the 'oollen mar,et in the Midlands and Wales/ an un,no'n
traveller, 'ho stayed at inns, dran, his pint, noted pretty girls and serious customs, 'rote it all do'n stiffly,
laboriously for sheer love of it @the boo, 'as published at his o'n e9penseA/ 'as infinitely prosy, busy, and
matter:of:fact, and so let flo' in 'ithout his ,no'ing it the very scent of hollyhoc,s and the hay together 'ith
such a portrait of himself as gives him forever a seat in the 'arm corner of the mind8s inglenoo,& One may buy
him for eighteen pence no'& He is mar,ed three and si9pence, but the boo,seller8s 'ife, seeing ho' shabby the
covers are and ho' long the boo, has stood there since it 'as bought at some sale of a gentleman8s library in
%uffol,, 'ill let it go at that&
Thus, glancing round the boo,shop, 'e ma,e other such sudden capricious friendships 'ith the un,no'n and
the vanished 'hose only record is, for e9ample, this little boo, of poems, so fairly printed, so finely engraved,
too, 'ith a portrait of the author& 0or he 'as a poet and dro'ned untimely, and his verse, mild as it is and
formal and sententious, sends forth still a frail fluty sound li,e that of a piano organ played in some bac, street
resignedly by an old Italian organ:grinder in a corduroy 6ac,et& There are travellers, too, ro' upon ro' of them,
still testifying, indomitable spinsters that they 'ere, to the discomforts that they endured and the sunsets they
admired in Breece 'hen Jueen Victoria 'as a girl& " tour in Corn'all 'ith a visit to the tin mines 'as thought
'orthy of voluminous record& 2eople 'ent slo'ly up the !hine and did portraits of each other in Indian in,,
sitting reading on dec, beside a coil of rope/ they measured the pyramids/ 'ere lost to civili;ation for years/
converted negroes in pestilential s'amps& This pac,ing up and going off, e9ploring deserts and catching fevers,
settling in India for a lifetime, penetrating even to China and then returning to lead a parochial life at Edmonton,
tumbles and tosses upon the dusty floor li,e an uneasy sea, so restless the English are, 'ith the 'aves at their
very door& The 'aters of travel and adventure seem to brea, upon little islands of serious effort and lifelong
industry stood in 6agged column upon the floor& In these piles of puce:bound volumes 'ith gilt monograms on
the bac,, thoughtful clergymen e9pound the gospels/ scholars are to be heard 'ith their hammers and their
chisels chipping clear the ancient te9ts of Euripides and "eschylus& Thin,ing, annotating, e9pounding goes on
at a prodigious rate all around us and over everything, li,e a punctual, everlasting tide, 'ashes the ancient sea of
fiction& Innumerable volumes tell ho' "rthur loved 1aura and they 'ere separated and they 'ere unhappy and
then they met and they 'ere happy ever after, as 'as the 'ay 'hen Victoria ruled these islands&
The number of boo,s in the 'orld is infinite, and one is forced to glimpse and nod and move on after a moment
of tal,, a flash of understanding, as, in the street outside, one catches a 'ord in passing and from a chance
phrase fabricates a lifetime& It is about a 'oman called 4ate that they are tal,ing, ho' CI said to her 7uite
straight last night & & & if you don8t thin, I8m 'orth a penny stamp, I said & & &D 5ut 'ho 4ate is, and to 'hat crisis
in their friendship that penny stamp refers, 'e shall never ,no'/ for 4ate sin,s under the 'armth of their
volubility/ and here, at the street corner, another page of the volume of life is laid open by the sight of t'o men
consulting under the lamp:post& They are spelling out the latest 'ire from e'mar,et in the stop press ne's&
#o they thin,, then, that fortune 'ill ever convert their rags into fur and broadcloth, sling them 'ith 'atch:
chains, and plant diamond pins 'here there is no' a ragged open shirt< 5ut the main stream of 'al,ers at this
hour s'eeps too fast to let us as, such 7uestions& They are 'rapt, in this short passage from 'or, to home, in
some narcotic dream, no' that they are free from the des,, and have the fresh air on their chee,s& They put on
those bright clothes 'hich they must hang up and loc, the ,ey upon all the rest of the day, and are great
cric,eters, famous actresses, soldiers 'ho have saved their country at the hour of need& #reaming, gesticulating,
often muttering a fe' 'ords aloud, they s'eep over the %trand and across Waterloo 5ridge 'hence they 'ill be
slung in long rattling trains, to some prim little villa in 5arnes or %urbiton 'here the sight of the cloc, in the
hall and the smell of the supper in the basement puncture the dream&
5ut 'e are come to the %trand no', and as 'e hesitate on the curb, a little rod about the length of one8s finger
begins to lay its bar across the velocity and abundance of life& C!eally I must?really I mustD?that is it&
Without investigating the demand, the mind cringes to the accustomed tyrant& One must, one al'ays must, do
something or other/ it is not allo'ed one simply to en6oy oneself& Was it not for this reason that, some time ago,
'e fabricated the e9cuse, and invented the necessity of buying something< 5ut 'hat 'as it< "h, 'e remember,
it 'as a pencil& 1et us go then and buy this pencil& 5ut 6ust as 'e are turning to obey the command, another self
disputes the right of the tyrant to insist& The usual conflict comes about& %pread out behind the rod of duty 'e
see the 'hole breadth of the river Thames?'ide, mournful, peaceful& "nd 'e see it through the eyes of
somebody 'ho is leaning over the Emban,ment on a summer evening, 'ithout a care in the 'orld& 1et us put
off buying the pencil/ let us go in search of this person?and soon it becomes apparent that this person is
ourselves& 0or if 'e could stand there 'here 'e stood si9 months ago, should 'e not be again as 'e 'ere then
?calm, aloof, content< 1et us try then& 5ut the river is rougher and greyer than 'e remembered& The tide is
running out to sea& It brings do'n 'ith it a tug and t'o barges, 'hose load of stra' is tightly bound do'n
beneath tarpaulin covers& There is, too, close by us, a couple leaning over the balustrade 'ith the curious lac, of
self:consciousness lovers have, as if the importance of the affair they are engaged on claims 'ithout 7uestion
the indulgence of the human race& The sights 'e see and the sounds 'e hear no' have none of the 7uality of the
past/ nor have 'e any share in the serenity of the person 'ho, si9 months ago, stood precisely 'ere 'e stand
no'& His is the happiness of death/ ours the insecurity of life& He has no future/ the future is even no' invading
our peace& It is only 'hen 'e loo, at the past and ta,e from it the element of uncertainty that 'e can en6oy
perfect peace& "s it is, 'e must turn, 'e must cross the %trand again, 'e must find a shop 'here, even at this
hour, they 'ill be ready to sell us a pencil&
It is al'ays an adventure to enter a ne' room for the lives and characters of its o'ners have distilled their
atmosphere into it, and directly 'e enter it 'e breast some ne' 'ave of emotion& Here, 'ithout a doubt, in the
stationer8s shop people had been 7uarrelling& Their anger shot through the air& They both stopped/ the old
'oman?they 'ere husband and 'ife evidently?retired to a bac, room/ the old man 'hose rounded forehead
and globular eyes 'ould have loo,ed 'ell on the frontispiece of some Eli;abethan folio, stayed to serve us& C"
pencil, a pencil,D he repeated, Ccertainly, certainly&D He spo,e 'ith the distraction yet effusiveness of one 'hose
emotions have been roused and chec,ed in full flood& He began opening bo9 after bo9 and shutting them again&
He said that it 'as very difficult to find things 'hen they ,ept so many different articles& He launched into a
story about some legal gentleman 'ho had got into deep 'aters o'ing to the conduct of his 'ife& He had ,no'n
him for years/ he had been connected 'ith the Temple for half a century, he said, as if he 'ished his 'ife in the
bac, room to overhear him& He upset a bo9 of rubber bands& "t last, e9asperated by his incompetence, he
pushed the s'ing door open and called out roughly$ CWhere d8you ,eep the pencils<D as if his 'ife had hidden
them& The old lady came in& 1oo,ing at nobody, she put her hand 'ith a fine air of righteous severity upon the
right bo9& There 'ere pencils& Ho' then could he do 'ithout her< Was she not indispensable to him< In order to
,eep them there, standing side by side in forced neutrality, one had to be particular in one8s choice of pencils/
this 'as too soft, that too hard& They stood silently loo,ing on& The longer they stood there, the calmer they
gre'/ their heat 'as going do'n, their anger disappearing& o', 'ithout a 'ord said on either side, the 7uarrel
'as made up& The old man, 'ho 'ould not have disgraced 5en =onson8s title:page, reached the bo9 bac, to its
proper place, bo'ed profoundly his good:night to us, and they disappeared& %he 'ould get out her se'ing/ he
'ould read his ne'spaper/ the canary 'ould scatter them impartially 'ith seed& The 7uarrel 'as over&
In these minutes in 'hich a ghost has been sought for, a 7uarrel composed, and a pencil bought, the streets had
become completely empty& 1ife had 'ithdra'n to the top floor, and lamps 'ere lit& The pavement 'as dry and
hard/ the road 'as of hammered silver& Wal,ing home through the desolation one could tell oneself the story of
the d'arf, of the blind men, of the party in the Mayfair mansion, of the 7uarrel in the stationer8s shop& Into each
of these lives one could penetrate a little 'ay, far enough to give oneself the illusion that one is not tethered to a
single mind, but can put on briefly for a fe' minutes the bodies and minds of others& One could become a
'asher'oman, a publican, a street singer& "nd 'hat greater delight and 'onder can there be than to leave the
straight lines of personality and deviate into those footpaths that lead beneath brambles and thic, tree trun,s
into the heart of the forest 'here live those 'ild beasts, our fello' men<
That is true$ to escape is the greatest of pleasures/ street haunting in 'inter the greatest of adventures& %till as
'e approach our o'n doorstep again, it is comforting to feel the old possessions, the old pre6udices, fold us
round/ and the self, 'hich has been blo'n about at so many street corners, 'hich has battered li,e a moth at the
flame of so many inaccessible lanterns, sheltered and enclosed& Here again is the usual door/ here the chair
turned as 'e left it and the china bo'l and the bro'n ring on the carpet& "nd here?let us e9amine it tenderly,
let us touch it 'ith reverence?is the only spoil 'e have retrieved from all the treasures of the city, a lead
pencil&
,ONE AND WIL-INON
@#ra'n from the MEMOI!% O0 T"TE WI14I%O,* vols&,(K)H&A
Whether =ones should come before Wil,inson or Wil,inson before =ones is not a matter li,ely to agitate many
breasts at the present moment, seeing that more than a hundred and fifty years have rolled over the gentlemen in
7uestion and diminished a lustre 'hich, even in their o'n time, round about the year (KLH, 'as not very bright&
The !ev& #r& Wil,inson might indeed claim precedence by virtue of his office& He 'as His Ma6esty8s Chaplain
of the %avoy and Chaplain also to his late !oyal Highness, 0rederic, 2rince of Wales& 5ut then #r& Wil,inson
'as transported& Captain =ames =ones might assert that, as Captain of His Ma6esty8s third regiment of Buards
'ith a residence by virtue of his office in %avoy %7uare, his social position 'as e7ual to the #octor8s& 5ut
Captain =ones had to seclude himself beyond the reach of the la' at Mortla,e& What, ho'ever, renders these
comparisons peculiarly odious is the fact that the Captain and the #octor 'ere boon companions 'hose tastes
'ere congenial, 'hose incomes 'ere insufficient, 'hose 'ives dran, tea together, and 'hose houses in the
%avoy 'ere not t'o hundred yards apart& #r& Wil,inson, for all his sacred offices @he 'as !ector of Coyty in
Blamorgan, stipendiary curate of Wise in 4ent, and, through 1ord Bal'ay, had the right to Copen plaister:pits
in the honour of 2ontefractDA, 'as a convivial spirit 'ho cut a splendid figure in the pulpit, preached and read
prayers in a voice that 'as clear, strong and sonorous so that many a lady of fashion never Cmissed her pe'
near the pulpit,D and persons of title remembered him many years after misfortune had removed the handsome
preacher from their sight&
Captain =ones shared many of his friend8s 7ualities& He 'as vivacious, 'itty, and generous, 'ell made and
elegant in person and, if he 'as not 7uite as handsome as the doctor, he 'as perhaps rather his superior in
intellect& Compare them as 'e may, ho'ever, there can be little doubt that the gifts and tastes of both gentlemen
'ere better adapted for pleasure than for labour, for society than for solitude, for the ha;ards and pleasures of
the table rather than for the rigours of religion and 'ar& It 'as the gaming:table that seduced Captain =ones, and
here, alas, his gifts and graces stood him in little stead& His affairs became more and more hopelessly
embarrassed, so that shortly, instead of being able to ta,e his 'al,s at large, he 'as forced to limit them to the
precincts of %t& =ames8s, 'here, by ancient prerogative, such unfortunates as he 'ere free from the attentions of
the bailiffs&
To so gregarious a spirit the confinement 'as ir,some& His only resource, indeed, 'as to get into tal, 'ith any
such Cpar,saunterersD as misfortunes li,e his o'n had driven to perambulate the 2ar,, or, 'hen the 'eather
allo'ed, to bas, and loiter and gossip on its benches& "s chance 'ould have it @and the Captain 'as a devotee
of that goddessA he found himself one day resting on the same bench 'ith an elderly gentleman of military
aspect and stern demeanour, 'hose ill:temper the 'it and humour 'hich all allo'ed to Captain =ones
presumably beguiled, so that 'henever the Captain appeared in the 2ar,, the old man sought his company, and
they passed the time until dinner very pleasantly in tal,& On no occasion, ho'ever, did the Beneral?for it
appeared that the name of this morose old man 'as Beneral %,elton?as, Captain =ones to his house/ the
ac7uaintance 'ent no further than the bench in %t& =ames8s 2ar,/ and 'hen, as soon fell out, the Captain8s
difficulties forced him to the greater privacy of a little cabin at Mortla,e, he forgot entirely the military
gentleman 'ho, presumably, still sought an appetite for dinner or some alleviation of his o'n sour mood in
loitering and gossiping 'ith the par,:saunterers of %t& =ames8s&
5ut among the amiable characteristics of Captain =ones 'as a love of 'ife and child, scarcely to be 'ondered
at, indeed, considering his 'ife8s lively and entertaining disposition and the e9traordinary promise of that little
girl 'ho 'as later to become the 'ife of 1ord Corn'allis& "t 'hatever ris, to himself, Captain =ones 'ould
steal bac, to revisit his 'ife and to hear his little girl recite the part of =uliet 'hich, under his teaching, she had
perfectly by heart& On one such secret 6ourney he 'as hurrying to get 'ithin the royal sanctuary of %t& =ames8s
'hen a voice called on him to stop& His fears obsessing him, he hurried the faster, his pursuer close at his heels&
!eali;ing that escape 'as impossible, =ones 'heeled about and facing his pursuer, 'hom he recogni;ed as the
"ttorney 5ro'n, demanded 'hat his enemy 'anted of him& 0ar from being his enemy, said 5ro'n, he 'as the
best friend he had ever had, 'hich he 'ould prove if =ones 'ould accompany him to the first tavern that came
to hand& There, in a private room over a fire, Mr& 5ro'n disclosed the follo'ing astonishing story& "n un,no'n
friend, he said, 'ho had scrutini;ed =ones8s conduct carefully and concluded that his deserts out'eighed his
misdemeanours, 'as prepared to settle all his debts and indeed to put him beyond the reach of such tormentors
in future& "t these 'ords a load 'as lifted from =ones8s heart, and he cried out CBood BodG Who can this
paragon of friendship be<D It 'as none other, said 5ro'n, than Beneral %,elton& Beneral %,elton, the man
'hom he had only met to chat 'ith on a bench in %t& =ames8s 2ar,< =ones as,ed in 'onderment& -es, it 'as the
Beneral, 5ro'n assured him& Then let him hasten to thro' himself in gratitude at his benefactor8s ,neeG ot so
fast, 5ro'n replied/ Beneral %,elton 'ill never spea, to you again& Beneral %,elton died last night&
The e9tent of Captain =ones8s good fortune 'as indeed magnificent& The Beneral had left Captain =ones sole
heir to all his possessions on no other condition than that he should assume the name of %,elton instead of
=ones& Hastening through streets no longer dreadful, since every debt of honour could no' be paid, Captain
=ones brought his 'ife the astonishing ne's of their good fortune, and they promptly set out to vie' that part
'hich lay nearest to hand?the Beneral8s great house in Henrietta %treet& Ba;ing about her, half in dream, half
in earnest, Mrs& =ones Was so overcome 'ith the tumult of her emotions that she could not stay to gather in the
e9tent of her possessions, but ran to 1ittle 5edford %treet, 'here Mrs& Wil,inson 'as then living, to impart her
6oy& Mean'hile, the ne's that Beneral %,elton lay dead in Henrietta %treet 'ithout a son to succeed him spread
abroad, and those 'ho thought themselves his heirs arrived in the house of death to ta,e stoc, of their
inheritance, among them one great and beautiful lady 'hose avarice 'as her undoing, 'hose misfortunes 'ere
e7ual to her sins, 4itty Chudleigh, Countess of 5ristol, #uchess of 4ingston& Miss Chudleigh, as she then called
herself, believed, and 'ho can doubt that 'ith her passionate nature, her lust for 'ealth and property, her pistols
and her parsimony, she believed 'ith vehemence and asserted her belief 'ith arrogance, that all Beneral
%,elton8s property had legally descended to her& 1ater, 'hen the 'ill 'as read and the truth made public that
not only the house in Henrietta %treet, but 2ap Castle in Cumberland and the lands and lead mines pertaining to
it, 'ere left 'ithout e9ception to an un,no'n Captain =ones, she burst out in Cterms e9ceeding all bounds of
delicacy&D %he cried that her relative the Beneral 'as an old fool in his dotage, that =ones and his 'ife 'ere
impudent lo' upstarts beneath her notice, and so flounced into her coach C'ith a scornful 7uality tossD to carry
on that life of deceit and intrigue and ambition 'hich drove her later to 'ander in ignominy, an outcast from her
country&
What remains to be told of the fortunes of Captain =ones can be briefly despatched& Having ne' furnished the
house in Henrietta %treet, the =ones family set out 'hen summer came to visit their estates in Cumberland& The
country 'as so fair, the Castle so stately, the thought that no' all belonged to them so gratifying that their
progress for three 'ee,s 'as one of unmi9ed pleasure and the spot 'here they 'ere no' to live seemed a
paradise& 5ut there 'as an eagerness, an impetuosity about =ames =ones 'hich made him impatient to suffer
even the smiles of fortune passively& He must be active?he must be up and doing& He must be Clet do'n,D for
all his friends could do to dissuade him, to vie' a lead mine& The conse7uences as they foretold 'ere disastrous&
He 'as dra'n up, indeed, but already infected 'ith a deadly sic,ness of 'hich in a fe' days he died, in the
arms of his 'ife, in the midst of that paradise 'hich he had toiled so long to reach and no' 'as to die 'ithout
en6oying&
Mean'hile the Wil,insons?but that name, alas, 'as no longer applicable to them, nor did the #r& and his 'ife
any more inhabit the house in the %avoy?the Wil,insons had suffered more e9tremities at the hands of 0ate
than the =oneses themselves& #r& Wil,inson, it has been said, resembled his friend =ones in the conviviality of
his habits and his inability to ,eep 'ithin the limits of his income& Indeed, his 'ife8s do'ry of t'o thousand
pounds had gone to pay off the debts of his youth& 5ut by 'hat means could he pay off the debts of his middle
age< He 'as no' past fifty, and 'hat 'ith good company and good living, 'as seldom free from duns, and
al'ays pressed for money& %uddenly, from an une9pected 7uarter, help appeared& This 'as none other than the
Marriage "ct, passed in (KLL, 'hich laid it do'n that if any person solemni;ed a marriage 'ithout publishing
the banns, unless a marriage licence had already been obtained, he should be sub6ect to transportation for
fourteen years& #r& Wil,inson, loo,ing at the matter, it is to be feared, from his o'n angle, and 'ith a vie' to
his o'n necessities, argued that as Chaplain of the %avoy, 'hich 'as e9tra:2arochial and !oyal:e9empt, he
could grant licences as usual?a privilege 'hich at once brought him such a glut of business, such a cro'd of
couples 'ishing to be married in a hurry, that the rat:tat:tat never ceased on his street door, and cash flooded
the family e9che7uer so that even his little boy8s poc,ets 'ere lined 'ith gold& The duns 'ere paid/ the table
sumptuously spread& 5ut #r& Wil,inson shared another failing 'ith his friend =ones/ he 'ould not ta,e advice&
His friends 'arned him/ the Bovernment plainly hinted that if he persisted they 'ould be forced to act& %ecure
in 'hat he imagined to be his right, en6oying the prosperity it brought him to the full, the #octor paid no heed&
On Easter #ay he 'as engaged in marrying from eight in the morning till t'elve at night& "t last, one %unday,
the 4ing8s Messengers appeared& The #octor escaped by a secret 'al, over the leads of the %avoy, made his
'ay to the river ban,, 'here he slipped upon some logs and fell, heavy and elderly as he 'as, in the mud/ but
nevertheless got to %omerset stairs, too, a boat, and reached the 4entish shore in safety& Even no' he bra;ened
it out that the la' 'as on his side, and came bac, four 'ee,s later prepared to stand his trial& Once more, for the
last time, company overflo'ed the house in the %avoy/ la'yers abounded, and, as they ate and dran,, assured
#r& Wil,inson that his case 'as already 'on& In =uly (KLM the trial began& 5ut 'hat conclusion could there be<
The crime had been committed and persisted in openly in spite of 'arning& The #octor 'as found guilty and
sentenced to fourteen years8 transportation&
It remained for his friends to fit him out, li,e the gentleman he 'as, for his voyage to "merica& There, they
argued, his gifts of speech and person 'ould ma,e him 'elcome, and later his 'ife and son could 6oin him& To
them he bade fare'ell in the dismal precincts of e'gate in March (KLK& 5ut contrary 'inds beat the ship bac,
to shore/ the gout sei;ed on a body enfeebled by pleasure and adversity/ at 2lymouth #r& Wil,inson 'as
transported finally and for ever& The lead mine undid =ones/ the Marriage "ct 'as the do'nfall of Wil,inson&
5oth no' sleep in peace, =ones in Cumberland, Wil,inson, far from his friend @and if their failings 'ere great,
great too 'ere their gifts and gracesA on the shores of the melancholy "tlantic&
.TWELFTH NIGHT/ AT THE OLD VI$ &0(
EIF Written in ()II&
%ha,espeareans are divided, it is 'ell ,no'n, into three classes/ those 'ho prefer to read %ha,espeare in the
boo,/ those 'ho prefer to see him acted on the stage/ and those 'ho run perpetually from boo, to stage
gathering plunder& Certainly there is a good deal to be said for reading TWE10TH IBHT in the boo, if the
boo, can be read in a garden, 'ith no sound but the thud of an apple falling to the earth, or of the 'ind ruffling
the branches of the trees& 0or one thing there is time?time not only to hear Cthe s'eet sound that breathes upon
a ban, of violetsD but to unfold the implications of that very subtle speech as the #u,e 'inds into the nature of
love& There is time, too, to ma,e a note in the margin/ time to 'onder at 7ueer 6ingles li,e Cthat live in her/
'hen liver, brain, and heartD & & & Cand of a foolish ,night that you brought in one nightD and to as, oneself
'hether it 'as from them that 'as born the lovely, C"nd 'hat should I do in Illyria< My brother he is in
Elysium&D 0or %ha,espeare is 'riting, it seems, not 'ith the 'hole of his mind mobili;ed and under control but
'ith feelers left flying that sort and play 'ith 'ords so that the trail of a chance 'ord is caught and follo'ed
rec,lessly& 0rom the echo of one 'ord is born another 'ord, for 'hich reason, perhaps, the play seems as 'e
read it to tremble perpetually on the brin, of music& They are al'ays calling for songs in TWE10TH IBHT,
CH fello' come, the song 'e had last night&D -et %ha,espeare 'as not so deeply in love 'ith 'ords but that he
could turn and laugh at them& CThey that do dally 'ith 'ords do 7uic,ly ma,e them 'anton&D There is a roar of
laughter and out burst %ir Toby, %ir "ndre', Maria& Words on their lips are things that have meaning/ that rush
and leap out 'ith a 'hole character pac,ed in a little phrase& When %ir "ndre' says CI 'as adored once,D 'e
feel that 'e hold him in the hollo' of our hands/ a novelist 'ould have ta,en three volumes to bring us to that
pitch of intimacy& "nd Viola, Malvolio, Olivia, the #u,e?the mind so brims and spills over 'ith all that 'e
,no' and guess about them as they move in and out among the lights and shado's of the mind8s stage that 'e
as, 'hy should 'e imprison them 'ithin the bodies of real men and 'omen< Why e9change this garden for the
theatre< The ans'er is that %ha,espeare 'rote for the stage and presumably 'ith reason& %ince they are acting
TWE10TH IBHT at the Old Vic, let us compare the t'o versions&
Many apples might fall 'ithout being heard in the Waterloo !oad, and as for the shado's, the electric light has
consumed them all& The first impression upon entering the Old Vic is over'helmingly positive and definite& We
seem to have issued out from the shado's of the garden upon the bridge of the 2arthenon& The metaphor is
mi9ed, but then so is the scenery& The columns of the bridge someho' suggest an "tlantic liner and the austere
splendours of a classical temple in combination& 5ut the body is almost as upsetting as the scenery& The actual
persons of Malvolio, %ir Toby, Olivia and the rest e9pand our visionary characters out of all recognition& "t first
'e are inclined to resent it& -ou are not Malvolio/ or %ir Toby either, 'e 'ant to tell them/ but merely
impostors& We sit gaping at the ruins of the play, at the travesty of the play& "nd then by degrees this same body
or rather all these bodies together, ta,e our play and remodel it bet'een them& The play gains immensely in
robustness, in solidity& The printed 'ord is changed out of all recognition 'hen it is heard by other people& We
'atch it stri,e upon this man or 'oman/ 'e see them laugh or shrug their shoulders, or tum aside to hide their
faces& The 'ord is given a body as 'ell as a soul& Then again as the actors pause, or topple over a barrel, or
stretch their hands out, the flatness of the print is bro,en up as by crevasses or precipices/ all the proportions are
changed& 2erhaps the most impressive effect in the play is achieved by the long pause 'hich %ebastian and
Viola ma,e as they stand loo,ing at each other in a silent ecstasy of recognition& The reader8s eye may have
slipped over that moment entirely& Here 'e are made to pause and thin, about it/ and are reminded that
%ha,espeare 'rote for the body and for the mind simultaneously&
5ut no' that the actors have done their proper 'or, of solidifying and intensifying our impressions, 'e begin
to critici;e them more minutely and to compare their version 'ith our o'n& We ma,e Mr& Juartermaine8s
Malvolio stand beside our Malvolio& "nd to tell the truth, 'herever the fault may lie, they have very little in
common& Mr& Juartermaine8s Malvolio is a splendid gentleman, courteous, considerate, 'ell bred/ a man of
parts and humour 'ho has no 7uarrel 'ith the 'orld& He has never felt a t'inge of vanity or a moment8s envy
in his life& If %ir Toby and Maria fool him he sees through it, 'e may be sure, and only suffers it as a fine
gentleman puts up 'ith the games of foolish children& Our Malvolio, on the other hand, 'as a fantastic comple9
creature, t'itching 'ith vanity, tortured by ambition& There 'as cruelty in his teasing, and a hint of tragedy in
his defeat/ his final threat had a momentary terror in it& 5ut 'hen Mr& Juartermaine says CI8ll be revenged on
the 'hole pac, of you,D 'e feel merely that the po'ers of the la' 'ill be soon and effectively invo,ed& What,
then, becomes of Olivia8s CHe hath been most notoriously abusedD< Then there is Olivia& Madame 1opo,ova
has by nature that rare 7uality 'hich is neither to be had for the as,ing nor to be subdued by the 'ill?the
genius of personality& %he has only to float on to the stage and everything round her suffers, not a sea change,
but a change into light, into gaiety/ the birds sing, the sheep are garlanded, the air rings 'ith melody and human
beings dance to'ards each other on the tips of their toes possessed of an e97uisite friendliness, sympathy and
delight& 5ut our Olivia 'as a stately lady/ of sombre comple9ion, slo' moving, and of fe' sympathies& %he
could not love the #u,e nor change her feeling& Madame 1opo,ova loves everybody& %he is al'ays changing&
Her hands, her face, her feet, the 'hole of her body, are al'ays 7uivering in sympathy 'ith the moment& %he
could ma,e the moment, as she proved 'hen she 'al,ed do'n the stairs 'ith %ebastian, one of intense and
moving beauty/ but she 'as not our Olivia& Compared 'ith her the comic group, %ir Toby, %ir "ndre', Maria,
the fool 'ere more than ordinarily English& Coarse, humorous, robust, they trolled out their 'ords, they rolled
over their barrels/ they acted magnificently& o reader, one may ma,e bold to say, could outpace Miss %eyler8s
Maria, 'ith its 7uic,ness, its inventiveness, its merriment/ nor add anything to the humours of Mr& 1ivesey8s %ir
Toby& "nd Miss 6eans as Viola 'as satisfactory/ and Mr& Hare as "ntonio 'as admirable/ and Mr& Morland8s
clo'n 'as a good clo'n& What, then, 'as lac,ing in the play as a 'hole< 2erhaps that it 'as not a 'hole& The
fault may lie partly 'ith %ha,espeare& It is easier to act his comedy than his poetry, one may suppose, for 'hen
he 'rote as a poet he 'as apt to 'rite too 7uic, for the human tongue& The prodigality of his metaphors can be
flashed over by the eye, but the spea,ing voice falters in the middle& Hence the comedy 'as out of proportion to
the rest& Then, perhaps, the actors 'ere too highly charged 'ith individuality or too incongruously cast& They
bro,e the play up into separate pieces?no' 'e 'ere in the groves of "rcady, no' in some inn at 5lac,friars&
The mind in reading spins a 'eb from scene to scene, compounds a bac,ground from apples falling, and the toll
of a church bell, and an o'l8s fantastic flight 'hich ,eeps the play together& Here that continuity 'as sacrificed&
We left the theatre possessed of many brilliant fragments but 'ithout the sense of all things conspiring and
combining together 'hich may be the satisfying culmination of a less brilliant performance& evertheless, the
play has served its purpose& It has made us compare our Malvolio 'ith Mr& Juartermaine8s/ our Olivia 'ith
Madame 1opo,ova8s/ our reading of the 'hole play 'ith Mr& Buthrie8s/ and since they all differ bac, 'e must
go to %ha,espeare& We must read TWE10TH IBHT again& Mr& Buthrie has made that necessary and 'hetted
our appetite for the CHE!!- O!CH"!#, ME"%.!E 0O! ME"%.!E, and HE!- THE EIBHTH that are
still to come&
MADAME DE 1VIGN1
This great lady, this robust and fertile letter 'riter, 'ho in our age 'ould probably have been one of the great
novelists, ta,es up presumably as much space in the consciousness of living readers as any figure of her
vanished age& 5ut it is more difficult to fi9 that figure 'ithin an outline than so to sum up many of her
contemporaries& That is partly because she created her being, not in plays or poems, but in letters?touch by
touch, 'ith repetitions, amassing daily trifles, 'riting do'n 'hat came into her head as if she 'ere tal,ing&
Thus the fourteen volumes of her letters enclose a vast open space, li,e one of her o'n great 'oods/ the rides
are crisscrossed 'ith the intricate shado's of branches, figures roam do'n the glades, pass from sun to shado',
are lost to sight, appear again, but never sit do'n in fi9ed attitudes to compose a group&
Thus 'e live in her presence, and often fall, as 'ith living people, into unconsciousness& %he goes on tal,ing,
'e half listen& "nd then something she says rouses us& We add it to her character, so that the character gro's
and changes, and she seems li,e a living person, ine9haustible&
This of course is one of the 7ualities that all letter 'riters possess, and she, because of her unconscious
naturalness, her flo' and abundance, possesses it far more than the brilliant Walpole, for e9ample, or the
reserved and self:conscious Bray& 2erhaps in the long run 'e ,no' her more instinctively, more profoundly,
than 'e ,no' them& We sin, deeper do'n into her, and ,no' by instinct rather than by reason ho' she 'ill
feel/ this she 'ill be amused by/ that 'ill ta,e her fancy/ no' she 'ill plunge into melancholy& Her range too is
larger than theirs/ there is more scope and more diversity& Everything seems to yield its 6uice?its fun, its
en6oyment/ or to feed her meditations& %he has a robust appetite/ nothing shoc,s her/ she gets nourishment from
'hatever is set before her& %he is an intellectual, 7uic, to en6oy the 'it of 1a !ochefoucauld, to relish the fine
discrimination of Madame de 1a 0ayette& %he has a natural d'elling place in boo,s, so that =osephus or 2ascal
or the absurd long romances of the time are not read by her so much as embedded in her mind& Their verses,
their stories rise to her lips along 'ith her o'n thoughts& 5ut there is a sensibility in her 'hich intensifies this
great appetite for many things& It is of course sho'n at its most e9treme, its most irrational, in her love for her
daughter& %he loves her as an elderly man loves a young mistress 'ho tortures him& It 'as a passion that 'as
t'isted and morbid/ it caused her many humiliations/ sometimes it made her ashamed of herself& 0or, from the
daughter8s point of vie' it 'as e9hausting, 'as embarrassing to be the ob6ect of such intense emotion/ and she
could not al'ays respond& %he feared that her mother 'as ma,ing her ridiculous in the eyes of her friends& "lso
she felt that she 'as not li,e that& %he 'as different/ colder, more fastidious, less robust& Her mother 'as
ignoring the real daughter in this flood of adoration for a daughter 'ho did not e9ist& %he 'as forced to curb
her/ to assert her o'n identity& It 'as inevitable that Madame de %NvignN, 'ith her e9acerbated sensibility,
should feel hurt&
%ometimes, therefore, Madame de %NvignN 'eeps& The daughter does not love her& That is a thought so bitter,
and a fear so perpetual and so profound, that life loses its savour/ she has recourse to sages, to poets to console
her/ and reflects 'ith sadness upon the vanity of life/ and ho' death 'ill come& Then, too, she is agitated
beyond 'hat is right or reasonable, because a letter has not reached her& Then she ,no's that she has been
absurd/ and reali;es that she is boring her friends 'ith this obsession& What is 'orse, she has bored her
daughter& "nd then 'hen the bitter drop has fallen, up bubbles 7uic,er and 7uic,er the ebullition of that robust
vitality, of that irrepressible 7uic, en6oyment, that natural relish for life, as if she instinctively repaired her
failure by fluttering all her feathers/ by ma,ing every facet glitter& %he sha,es herself out of her glooms/ ma,es
fun of Cles #8Hac7uevillesD/ collects a handful of gossip/ the latest ne's of the 4ing and Madame de
Maintenon/ ho' Charles has fallen in love/ ho' the ridiculous Mademoiselle de 2lessis has been foolish again/
'hen she 'anted a hand,erchief to spit into, the silly 'oman t'ea,ed her nose/ or describes ho' she has been
amusing herself by ama;ing the simple little girl 'ho lives at the end of the par,?la petite personne?'ith
stories of ,ings and countries, of all that great 'orld that she 'ho has lived in the thic, of it ,no's so 'ell& "t
last, comforted, assured for the time being at least of her daughter8s love, she lets herself rela9/ and thro'ing off
all disguises, tells her daughter ho' nothing in the 'orld pleases her so 'ell as solitude& %he is happiest alone in
the country& %he loves rambling alone in her 'oods& %he loves going out by herself at night& %he loves hiding
from callers& %he loves 'al,ing among her trees and musing& %he loves the gardener8s chatter/ she loves
planting& %he loves the gipsy girl 'ho dances, as her o'n daughter used to dance, but not of course so
e97uisitely&
It is natural to use the present tense, because 'e live in her presence& We are very little conscious of a disturbing
medium bet'een us?that she is living, after all, by means of 'ritten 'ords& 5ut no' and then 'ith the sound
of her voice in our ears and its rhythm rising and falling 'ithin us, 'e become a'are, 'ith some sudden phrase,
about spring, about a country neighbour, something struc, off in a flash, that 'e are, of course, being addressed
by one of the great mistresses of the art of speech&
Then 'e listen for a time, consciously& Ho', 'e 'onder, does she contrive to ma,e us follo' every 'ord of the
story of the coo, 'ho ,illed himself because the fish failed to come in time for the royal dinner party/ or the
scene of the hayma,ing/ or the anecdote of the servant 'hom she dismissed in a sudden rage/ ho' does she
achieve this order, this perfection of composition< #id she practise her art< It seems not& #id she tear up and
correct< There is no record of any painsta,ing or effort& %he says again and again that she 'rites her letters as
she spea,s& %he begins one as she sends off another/ there is the page on her des, and she fills it, in the intervals
of all her other avocations& 2eople are interrupting/ servants are coming for orders& %he entertains/ she is at the
bec, and call of her friends& It seems then that she must have been so imbued 'ith good sense, by the age she
lived in, by the company she ,ept?1a !ochefoucauld8s 'isdom, Madame de 1a 0ayette8s conversation, by
hearing no' a play by !acine, by reading Montaigne, !abelais, or 2ascal/ perhaps by sermons, perhaps by
some of those songs that Coulanges 'as al'ays singing?she must have imbibed so much that 'as sane and
'holesome unconsciously that, 'hen she too, up her pen, it follo'ed unconsciously the la's she had learnt by
heart& Marie de !abutin it seems 'as born into a group 'here the elements 'ere so richly and happily mi9ed
that it dre' out her virtue instead of opposing it& %he 'as helped, not th'arted& othing baffled or contracted or
'ithered her& What opposition she encountered 'as only enough to confirm her 6udgment& 0or she 'as highly
conscious of folly, of vice, of pretention& %he 'as a born critic, and a critic 'hose 6udgments 'ere inborn,
unhesitating& %he is al'ays referring her impressions to a standard?hence the incisiveness, the depth and the
comedy that ma,e those spontaneous statements so illuminating& There is nothing naive about her& %he is by no
means a simple spectator& Ma9ims fall from her pen& %he sums up/ she 6udges& 5ut it is done effortlessly& %he
has inherited the standard and accepts it 'ithout effort& %he is heir to a tradition, 'hich stands guardian and
gives proportion& The gaiety, the colour, the chatter, the many movements of the figures in the foreground have
a bac,ground& "t 1es !ochers there is al'ays 2aris and the court/ at 2aris there is 1es !ochers, 'ith its
solitude, its trees, its peasants& "nd behind them all again there is virtue, faith, death itself& 5ut this bac,ground,
'hile it gives its scale to the moment, is so 'ell established that she is secure& %he is free, thus anchored, to
e9plore/ to en6oy/ to plunge this 'ay and that/ to enter 'holeheartedly into the myriad humours, pleasures,
oddities, and savours of her 'ell nourished, prosperous, delightful present moment&
%o she passes 'ith free and stately step from 2aris to 5rittany from 5rittany in her coach and si9 all across
0rance& %he stays 'ith friends on the road/ she is attended by a cheerful company of familiars& Wherever she
alights she attracts at once the love of some boy or girl/ or the e9acting admiration of a man of the 'orld li,e
her disagreeable cousin 5ussy !abutin, 'ho cannot rest under her disapproval, but must be assured of her good
opinion in spite of all his treachery& The famous and the brilliant also 'ish to have her company, for she is part
of their 'orld/ and can ta,e her share in their sophisticated conversations& There is something 'ise and large
and sane about her 'hich dra's the confidences of her o'n son& 0ec,less and impulsive, the prey of his o'n
'ea, and charming nature as he is, Charles nurses her 'ith the utmost patience through her rheumatic fever&
%he laughs at his foibles/ ,no's his failings& %he is tolerant and outspo,en/ nothing need be hidden from her/
she ,no's all that there is to be ,no'n of man and his passions&
%o she ta,es her 'ay through the 'orld, and sends her letters, radiant and glo'ing 'ith all this various traffic
from one end of 0rance to the other, t'ice 'ee,ly& "s the fourteen volumes so spaciously unfold their story of
t'enty years it seems that this 'orld is large enough to enclose everything& Here is the garden that Europe has
been digging for many centuries/ into 'hich so many generations have poured their blood/ here it is at last
fertili;ed, bearing flo'ers& "nd the flo'ers are not those rare and solitary blossoms?great men, 'ith their
poems, and their con7uests& The flo'ers in this garden are a 'hole society of full gro'n men and 'omen from
'hom 'ant and struggle have been removed/ gro'ing together in harmony, each contributing something that
the other lac,s& 5y 'ay of proving it, the letters of Madame de %NvignN are often shared by other pens/ no' her
son ta,es up the pen/ the "bbN adds his paragraph/ even the simple girl?la petite personne?is not afraid to
pipe up on the same page& The month of May, (MKO, at 1es !ochers in 5rittany, thus echoes 'ith different
voices& There are the birds singing/ 2ilois is planting/ Madame de %NvignN roams the 'oods alone/ her daughter
is entertaining politicians in 2rovence/ not very far a'ay Monsieur de !ochefoucauld is engaged in telling the
truth 'ith Madame de 1a 0ayette to prune his 'ords/ !acine is finishing the play 'hich soon they 'ill all be
hearing together/ and discussing after'ards 'ith the 4ing and that lady 'hom in the private language of their
set they call Juanto& The voices mingle/ they are all tal,ing together in the garden in (MKO& 5ut 'hat 'as
happening outside<
THE H!MANE ART &2(
E*F Written in "pril ()*H&
If at this moment there is little chance of re:reading the si9teen volumes of the 2aget Toynbee edition of
Walpole8s letters, 'hile the prospect of possessing the magnificent -ale edition, 'here all the letters are to be
printed 'ith all the ans'ers, becomes remote, this sound and sober biography of Horace Walpole by Mr&
4etton:Cremer may serve at least to inspire some random thoughts about Walpole and the humane art 'hich
o'es its origin to the love of friends&
5ut, according to his latest biographer, Horace Walpole8s letters 'ere inspired not by the love of friends but by
the love of posterity& He had meant to 'rite the history of his o'n times& "fter t'enty years he gave it up, and
decided to 'rite another ,ind of history?a history ostensibly inspired by friends but in fact 'ritten for
posterity& Thus Mann stood for politics/ Bray for literature/ Montagu and 1ady Ossory for society& They 'ere
pegs, not friends, each chosen because he 'as Cparticularly connected & & & 'ith one of the sub6ects about 'hich
he 'ished to enlighten and inform posterity&D 5ut if 'e believe that Horace Walpole 'as a historian in disguise,
'e are denying his peculiar genius as a letter 'riter& The letter 'riter is no surreptitious historian& He is a man
of short range sensibility/ he spea,s not to the public at large but to the individual in private& "ll good letter
'riters feel the drag of the face on the other side of the age and obey it?they ta,e as much as they give& "nd
Horace Walpole 'as no e9ception& There is the correspondence 'ith Cole to prove it& We can see, in Mr&
1e'is8s edition, ho' the Tory parson develops the radical and the free:thin,er in Walpole, ho' the middle:
class professional man brings to the surface the aristocrat and the amateur& If Cole had been nothing but a peg
there 'ould have been none of this echo, none of this mingling of voices& It is true that Walpole had an attitude
and a style, and that his letters have a fine hard gla;e upon them that preserves them, li,e the teeth of 'hich he
'as so proud, from the little dents and rubs of familiarity& "nd of course?did he not insist that his letters must
be ,ept<?he sometimes loo,ed over his page at the distant hori;on, as Madame de %NvignN, 'hom he
'orshipped, did too, and imagined other people in times to come reading him& 5ut that he allo'ed the
featureless face of posterity to stand bet'een him and the very voice and dress of his friends, ho' they loo,ed
and ho' they thought, the letters themselves 'ith their perpetual variety deny& Open them at random& He is
'riting about politics?about Wil,es and Chatham and the signs of coming revolution in 0rance/ but also about
a snuffbo9/ and a red riband/ and about t'o very small blac, dogs& Voices upon the stairs interrupt him/ more
sightseers have come to see Caligula 'ith his silver eyes/ a spar, from the fire has burnt the page he 'as
'riting/ he cannot ,eep the pompous, style any longer, nor mend a careless phrase, and so, fle9ible as an eel, he
'inds from high politics to living faces and the past and its memories??CI tell you 'e should get together,
and comfort ourselves 'ith the brave days that 'e have ,no'n& & & & I 'ished for you/ the same scenes stri,e us
both, and the same ,ind of visions has amused us both ever since 'e 'ere born&D It is not thus that a man 'rites
'hen his correspondent is a peg and he is thin,ing of posterity&
or again 'as he thin,ing of the great public, 'hich, in a very fe' years, 'ould have paid him handsomely for
the brilliant pages that he lavished upon his friends& Was it, then, the gro'th of 'riting as a paid profession, and
the change 'hich that change of focus brought 'ith it that led, in the nineteenth century, to the decline of this
humane art< 0riendship flourished, nor 'as there any lac, of gift& Who could have described a party more
brilliantly than Macaulay or a landscape more e97uisitely than Tennyson< 5ut there, loo,ing them full in the
face 'as the present moment?the great gluttonous public/ and ho' can a 'riter turn at 'ill from that
impersonal stare to the little circle in the fire:lit room< Macaulay, 'riting to his sister, can no more drop his
public manner than an actress can scrub her chee,s clean of paint and ta,e her place naturally at the tea table&
"nd Tennyson 'ith his fear of publicity?CWhile I live the o'ls, 'hen I die the ghoulsD?left nothing more
succulent for the ghoul to feed upon than a handful of dry little notes that anybody could read, or print or put
under glass in a museum& e's and gossip, the stic,s and stra's out of 'hich the old letter 'riter made his
nest, have been snatched a'ay& The 'ireless and the telephone have intervened& The letter 'riter has nothing
no' to build 'ith e9cept 'hat is most private/ and ho' monotonous after a page or t'o the intensity of the very
private becomesG We long that 4eats even should cease to tal, about 0anny, and that Eli;abeth and !obert
5ro'ning should slam the door of the sic, room and ta,e a breath of fresh air in an omnibus& Instead of letters
posterity 'ill have confessions, diaries, noteboo,s, li,e M& Bide8s?hybrid boo,s in 'hich the 'riter tal,s in
the dar, to himself about himself for a generation yet to be born&
Horace Walpole suffered none of these dra'bac,s& If he 'as the greatest of English letter 'riters it 'as not
only than,s to his gifts but to his immense good fortune& He had his places to begin 'ith?an income of P+,LHH
dropped yearly into his mouth from Collectorships and .sherships and 'as s'allo'ed 'ithout a pang& C& & & nor
can I thin, myself,D he 'rote serenely, Cas a placeman a more useless or a less legal engrosser of part of the
'ealth of the nation than deans and prebendariesD?indeed the money 'as 'ell invested& 5ut besides those
places, there 'as the other?his place in the very centre of the audience, facing the stage& There he could sit and
see 'ithout being seen/ contemplate 'ithout being called upon to act& "bove all he 'as blessed in his little
public?a circle that surrounded him 'ith that 'arm climate in 'hich he could live the life of incessant changes
'hich is the breath of a letter 'riter8s e9istence& 5esides the 'it and the anecdote and the brilliant descriptions
of mas7uerades and midnight revelries his friends dre' from him something superficial yet profound,
something changing yet entire?himself shall 'e call it in default of one 'ord for that 'hich friends elicit but
the great public ,ills< 0rom that sprang his immortality& 0or a self that goes on changing is a self that goes on
living& "s an historian he 'ould have stagnated among historians& 5ut as a letter 'riter he buffets his 'ay
among the cro'd, holding out a hand to each generation in turn?laughed at, critici;ed, despised, admired, but
al'ays in touch 'ith the living& When Macaulay met him in October (OII, he struc, that hand a'ay in a burst
of righteous indignation& CHis mind 'as a bundle of inconstant 'hims and affectations& His features 'ere
covered by mas, 'ithin mas,&D His letters, li,e 2"TQ #E 0OIE B!"%, o'ed their e9cellence Cto the diseases
of the 'retched animal 'hich furnishes itD?such 'as Macaulay8s greeting& "nd 'hat greater boon can any
'riter as, than to be trounced by 1ord Macaulay< We ta,e the reputation he has gored, repair it and give it
another spin and another direction?another lease of life& Opinion, as Mr& 4etton:Cremer says, is al'ays
changing about Walpole& CThe present age loo,s upon him 'ith a more friendly eyeD than the last& Is it that the
present age is deafened 'ith boom and blatancy< #oes it hear in Walpole8s lo' tones things that are more
interesting, more penetrating, more true than can be said by the loud spea,ers< Certainly there is something
'onderful to the present age in the sight of a 'hole human being?of a man so blessed that he could unfold
every gift, every foible, 'hose long life spreads li,e a great la,e reflecting houses and friends and 'ars and
snuff bo9es and revolutions and lap dogs, the great and the little, all intermingled, and behind them a stretch of
the serene blue s,y& Cor 'ill EdeathF I thin, see me very un'illing to go 'ith him, though I have no
disappointments, but I came into the 'orld so early, and have seen so much that I am satisfied&D %atisfied 'ith
his life in the flesh, he could be still more satisfied 'ith his life in the spirit& Even no' he is being collected and
pieced together, letter and ans'er, himself and the reflections of himself, so that 'hoever else may die, Horace
Walpole is immortal& Whatever ruin may befall the map of Europe in years to come, there 'ill still be people, it
is consoling to reflect, to hang absorbed over the map of one human face&
TWO ANTI3!ARIE# WAL%OLE AND $OLE
%ince to critici;e the -ale edition of Horace Walpole8s letters to Cole is impossible, for there cannot in the
'hole universe e9ist a single human being 'hose praise or blame of such minute and monumental learning can
be of any value?if such e9ists his ,no'ledge has been tapped already?the only course for the reader is to say
nothing about the learning and the industry, the devotion and the s,ill 'hich have created these t'o huge
volumes, and to record merely such fleeting thoughts as have formed in the mind from a single reading& To
encourage our selves, let us assert, though not 'ith entire confidence, that boo,s after all e9ist to be read?even
the most learned of editors 'ould to some e9tent at least agree 'ith that& 5ut ho', the 7uestion immediately
arises, can 'e read this magnificent instalment?for these are but the first t'o volumes of this edition in 'hich
Mr& 1e'is 'ill give us the complete correspondence?of our old friend Horace Walpole8s letters< Ought not the
presses to have issued in a supplementary poc,et a supplementary pair of eyes< Then, 'ith the usual pair fi9ed
upon the te9t, the additional pair could range the notes, thus s'eeping together into one haul not only 'hat
Horace is saying to Cole and 'hat Cole is saying to Horace, but a multitude of minor men and matters$ for
e9ample, Thomas 0armer, 'ho ran a'ay and left t'o girls 'ith child/ Thomas Wood, 'ho 'as never drun, but
had a bad constitution and 'as therefore left fifty pounds and bed and furniture in Cole8s 'ill/ Cole8s bro,en
leg, ho' it 'as bro,en, and 'hy it 'as badly mended/ 5irch, 'ho had @it is thoughtA an apoplectic fit riding in
the Hampstead !oad, fell from his horse, and died/ Thomas Western @(M)L:(KL*A, 'ho 'as one of the pall:
bearers at the funeral of Cole8s father/ Cole8s niece, the daughter of a 'holesale cheesemonger/ =ohn Woodyer,
a man of placid disposition and great probity/ Mrs& "llen Hop,ins, 'ho 'as born Mary Thornhill/ and, 1ord
Montfort, 'ho?but if 'e 'ant to ,no' more about that nobleman, his lions and tigers and his Chigh:spirited
and riotous behaviour,D 'e must loo, it up for ourselves in the Har'ic,e M%%& in the 5ritish Museum& There
are limits even to Mr& 1e'is&
This little haul, ta,en at random, is enough to sho' ho' great a strain the ne' method of editing lays upon the
eye& 5ut if the brain is at first inclined to 6ib at such perpetual solicitations, and to beg to be allo'ed to read the
te9t in peace, it ad6usts itself by degrees/ grudgingly admits that many of these little facts are to the point/ and
finally becomes not merely a convert but a suppliant?as,s not for less but for more and more and more& Why,
to ta,e one instance only, is not the name of Cole8s temporary coo,8s sister divulged< Thomas Wood 'as his
servant/ Thomas 'as left fifty pounds and allo'ed Cole8s coach to run a'ay/ Thomas8s younger brother =ames,
,no'n as C=em,D ran errands successfully and had a child ready to be s'orn to him/ their sister, Molly, 'as for
one month at least a coo, and helped in the ,itchen& 5ut there 'as another sister and, after learning all about the
Woods, it is positively painful not to ,no' at least her Christian name&
-et it may be as,ed, 'hat has the name of Cole8s coo,8s sister got to do 'ith Horace Walpole< That is a
7uestion 'hich it is impossible to ans'er briefly/ but it is proof of the editor8s triumph, 6ustification of his
system, and a complete vindication of his immense labour that he has convinced us, long before the end, that
someho' or other it all hangs together& The only 'ay to read letters is to read them thus stereoscopically&
Horace is partly Cole/ Cole is partly Horace/ Cole8s coo, is partly Cole/ therefore Horace Walpole is partly
Cole8s coo,8s sister& Horace, the 'hole Horace, is made up of innumerable facts and reflections of facts& Each is
infinitely minute/ yet each is essential to the other& To elicit them and relate them is out of the 7uestion& 1et us,
then, concentrate for a moment upon the t'o main figures, in outline&
We have here, then, in con6unction the Honourable Horace Walpole and the !everend William Cole& 5ut they
'ere t'o very different people& Cole, it is true, had been at Eton 'ith Horace, 'here he 'as called by the
famous Walpole group CTo;hy,D but he 'as not a member of that group, and socially he 'as greatly Walpole8s
inferior& His father 'as a farmer, Horace8s father 'as a 2rime Minister& Cole8s niece 'as the daughter of a
cheesemonger/ Horace8s niece married a 2rince of the 5lood !oyal& 5ut Cole 'as a man of solid good sense
'ho made no bones of this disparity, and, after leaving Eton and Cambridge, he had become, in his 7uiet
fre7uently flooded parsonage, one of the first anti7uaries of the time& It 'as this common passion that brought
the t'o friends together again&
0or some reason, obscurely hidden in the psychology of the human race, the middle years of that eighteenth
century 'hich seems no' a haven of bright calm and serene civili;ation, affected some 'ho actually lived in it
'ith a longing to escape?from its politics, from its 'ars, from its follies, from its drabness and its dullness, to
the superior charms of the Middle "ges& CI & & & hope,D 'rote Cole in (KML, Cby the latter end of the 'ee, to be
among my admired friends of the t'elfth or thirteenth century& Indeed you 6udge very right concerning my
indifference about 'hat is going for'ard in the 'orld, 'here I live in it as though I 'as no 'ay concerned
about it e9cept in paying, 'ith my contemporaries, the usual ta9es and impositions& In good truth I am very
indifferent about my 1ord 5ute or Mr& 2itt, as I have long been convinced and satisfied in my o'n mind that all
oppositions are from the ins and the outs, and that po'er and 'ealth and dignity are the things struggled for, not
the good of the 'hole& & & & I hope 'hat I have said 'ill not be offensive&D Only one 'ee,ly ne'spaper, the
C"M5!I#BE CH!OIC1E, brought him ne's of the present moment& There at 5letchley or at Milton he sat
secluded, 'rapped up from the least draught, for he 'as terribly sub6ect to sore throats/ sometimes issuing forth
to conduct a service, for he 'as, incidentally, a clergyman/ driving occasionally to Cambridge to hobnob 'ith
his cronies/ but al'ays returning 'ith delight to his study, 'here he copied maps, filled in coats of arms, and
pored assiduously over those budgets of old manuscripts 'hich 'ere, as he said, C'ife and childrenD to him&
o' and again, it is true, he loo,ed out of the 'indo' at the antics of his dog, for 'hose future he 'as careful
to provide, or at those guinea fo'l 'hose eggs he begged off Horace?for CI have so fe' amusements and can
see these creatures from my study 'indo' 'hen I can8t stir out of my room&D
5ut neither dog nor guinea fo'l seriously distracted him& The hundred and fourteen folio volumes left by him to
the 5ritish Museum testify to his professional industry& "nd it 'as precisely that 7uality?his professional
industry?that brought the t'o so dissimilar men together& 0or Horace Walpole 'as by temperament an
amateur& He 'as not, Cole admitted, Ca true, genuine anti7uaryD/ nor did he thin, himself one& CThen I have a
'ic,ed 7uality in an anti7uary, nay one that annihilates the essence/ that is, I cannot bring myself to a habit of
minute accuracy about very indifferent points,D Horace admitted& C& & & I be7ueath free leave of correction to the
microscopic intellects of my continuators&D 5ut he had 'hat Cole lac,ed?imagination, taste, style, in addition
to a passion for the romantic past, so long as that romantic past 'as also a civili;ed past, for mere Cbumps in the
groundD or Cbarro's and tumuli and !oman campsD bored him to death& "bove all, he had a purse long enough
to give visible and tangible e9pression?in prints, in gates, in Bothic temples, in bo'ers, in old manuscripts, in
a thousand gimcrac,s and Cbrittle transitory relicsD to the smouldering and inarticulate passion that drove the
professional anti7uary to delve li,e some indefatigable mole underground in the dar,ness of the past& Horace
li,ed his brittle relics to be pretty, and to be authentic, and he 'as al'ays eager to be put on the trac, of more&
The greater part of the correspondence thus is concerned 'ith anti7uaries8 gossip/ 'ith parish registers and
cartularies/ 'ith coats of arms and the Christian names of bishops/ 'ith the marriages of ,ings8 daughters/
s,eletons and prints/ old gold rings found in a field/ dates and genealogies/ anti7ue chairs in 0en farmhouses/
bits of stained glass and old "postle spoons& 0or Horace 'as furnishing %tra'berry Hill/ and Cole 'as
prodigiously adept at stuffing it, until there 'as scarcely room to stic, another ,nife or for,, and the gorged
o'ner of all this priceless lumber had to cry out$ CI shudder 'hen the bell rings at the gate& It is as bad as
,eeping an inn&D "ll the 'ee, he 'as plagued 'ith staring cro'ds&
Were this all it 'ould be, and indeed it sometimes is, a little monotonous& 5ut they 'ere t'o very different men&
They struc, une9pected spar,s in one another& Cole8s Walpole 'as not Con'ay8s Walpole/ nor 'as Walpole8s
Cole the good:natured old parson of the diary& Cole, of course, stressed the anti7uary in Walpole/ but he also
brought out very clearly the limits of the anti7uary in Walpole& "gainst Cole8s monolithic passion his o'n
appears frivolous and flimsy& On the other hand, in contrast 'ith Cole8s slo':plodding pen, his o'n sho's its
mettle& He cannot flash, it is true?the sub6ect, say, the names of Ed'ard the 0ourth8s daughters, forbids it?yet
ho' s'eetly English sings on his side of the page, no' in a collo7uialism?Ca more flannel climateD?that Cole
'ould never have ventured/ no' in a strain of natural music?CMethin,s as 'e gro' old, our only business
here is to adorn the graves of our friends or to dig our o'n&D That strain 'as called forth by the death of their
common friend, Thomas Bray& It 'as a death that struc, at Cole8s heart, too, but produced no such echo in that
robust organ& "t the mere threat of Con'ay8s death, Horace 'as all of a t'itter?his nerves 'ere Cso aspen&D It
'as a threat only/ C%till has it operated such a revolution in my mind, as no time, "T M- "BE, can efface& I
have had dreams in 'hich I thought I 'ished for fame?& & & I feel, I feel it 'as confined to the memory of those
I loveD?to 'hich Cole replies$ C0or both your sa,es I hope he 'ill soon get 'ell again& It is a misfortune to
have so much sensibility in one8s nature as you are endued 'ith$ sufficient are one8s o'n distresses 'ithout the
additional encumbrance of those of one8s friends&D
evertheless, Cole 'as by no means 'ithout distresses of his o'n& There 'as that terrible occasion 'hen the
horses ran a'ay and his hat ble' off and he sat 'ith his legs in the air anticipating either death at the tollgate or
a bad cold& Mercifully both 'ere spared him& "gain, he suffered tortures 'hen, sho'ing #r& Bulston his prints,
he begged him, as a matter of form, to ta,e any he li,ed/ 'hereupon Bulston?Cthat "lgerine hogD?filled his
portfolio 'ith the most priceless& It is true that Cole made him pay for them in the end, but it 'as a most
distressing business& "nd then 'hat an agony it 'as 'hen some fello' anti7uaries dined 'ith him, and,
confined 'ith the gout, he had to let them visit his study alone, to find ne9t morning that an octavo volume, and
a borro'ed volume at that, 'as missingG CThe Master is too honourable to ta,e such a step,D but?he had his
suspicions& "nd 'hat 'as he to do< To confess the loss or to conceal it< To conceal it seemed better, and yet, if
the o'ner found out, CI am undone&D Horace 'as all sympathy& He loathed the 'hole tribe of anti7uaries
?Cnums,ullsD he called them mumbling manuscripts 'ith their toothless 6a's& CTheir understandings seem as
much in ruins as the things they describe,D he 'rote& CI love anti7uities, but I scarce ever ,ne' an anti7uary
'ho ,ne' ho' to 'rite upon them&D
He had all the aristocrat8s contempt for the professional drudge, and no desire 'hatsoever to be included among
the sacred band of professional authors& CThey are al'ays in earnest, and thin, their profession serious, and
d'ell upon trifles, and reverence learning,D he snapped out& "nd yet, 'hen 'riting to Cole he could confess
'hat to a man of his o'n class he 'ould have concealed?that he, too, reverenced learning 'hen it 'as real,
and admired no one more than a poet if he 'ere genuine& C" page in a great author humbles me to the dust,D he
'rote& "nd after deriding his contemporaries added, C#on8t thin, me scornful& !ecollect that I have seen 2ope,
and lived 'ith Bray&D
Certainly Cole8s obscure but bul,y form revealed a side of Horace Walpole that 'as lost in the glitter of the
great 'orld& With that solid man of no social gift but prodigious erudition Horace sho'ed himself not an
anti7uary, not a poet, not an historian, but 'hat he 'as?the aristocrat of letters, the born e9pert 'ho ,ne' the
sham intellect from the genuine as surely as the anti7uary ,ne' the fa,ed genealogy from the authentic& When
Horace Walpole praised 2ope and Bray he ,ne' 'hat he 'as saying and meant it/ and his shame at being
hoisted into such high society as theirs rings true& CI ,no' not ho' others feel on such occasions, but if anyone
happens to praise me, all my faults gush into my face, and ma,e me turn my eyes in'ard and out'ard 'ith
horror& What am I but a poor old s,eleton, tottering to'ards the grave, and conscious of ten thousand
'ea,nesses, follies, and 'orseG "nd for talents, 'hat are mine, but trifling and superficial/ and, compared 'ith
those of men of real genius, most diminutiveG & & & #oes it become us, at past threescore each, to be saying fine
things to one another< Consider ho' soon 'e shall both be nothingGD That is a tone of voice that he does not use
in spea,ing?for his 'riting voice 'as a spea,ing voice?to his friends in the great 'orld&
"gain, Cole8s High Church and Tory convictions 'hen they touched a very different vein in Walpole
sometimes caused e9plosions& Once or t'ice the friends almost came to blo's over religion& The Church of
England had a substantial place in Cole8s esteem& 5ut to Walpole, CChurch and presbytery are human nonsense
invented by ,naves to govern fools& ER"1TE# OTIO% O0 CH.!CH M"TTE!% are contradictions in
terms to the lo'liness and humility of the gospel& There is nothing sublime but the #ivinity& othing is sacred
but as His 'or,& " tree or a brute stone is more respectable as such, than a mortal called an archbishop, or an
edifice called a church, 'hich are the puny and perishable productions of men& & & & " Bothic church or convent
fill one 'ith romantic dreams?but for the mysterious, the Church in the abstract, it is a 6argon that means
nothing or a great deal too much, and I re6ect it and its apostles from "thanasius to 5ishop 4eene&D Those 'ere
outspo,en 'ords to a friend 'ho 'ore a blac, coat& -et they 'ere not suffered to brea, up an intimacy of forty
years& Cole, to 'hom Walpole8s little 'ea,nesses 'ere not un,no'n, contented himself by commenting
sardonically at the end of the letter upon the lo'liness and humility of the aristocracy, observed that CMr&
Walpole is pi7ued, I can see, at my reflections on "bbot8s flatteryD/ but in his reply to Mr& Walpole he referred
only to the 'eather, Mr& Tyson, and the gout&
Horace8s politics 'ere e7ually detestable to Cole& He 'as, in 'riting at least, a red:hot republican, the bitter
enemy of all those Tory principles that Cole revered& That, again, 'as a difference that sometimes raised the
temperature of the letters to fever heat?happily for us, for it allo's us, reading over their shoulders, to see
Horace Walpole roused?the dilettante become a man of action, chafing at his o'n inactivity Csitting 'ith one8s
arms foldedD in a chair/ deploring his country8s danger/ remembering that if Cole is a country clergyman, he is a
Walpole/ the son of a 2rime Minister/ that his father8s son might have done more than fill %tra'berry Hill 'ith
Bothic ornaments/ and that his father8s reputation is e9tremely dear to him& "nd yet did not gossip 'hisper that
he 'as not his father8s son, and 'as there not, some'here deep 'ithin him, an uneasy suspicion that there 'as a
blot on his scutcheon, a frea,ish strain in his clear orfol, blood<
Whoever his father may have been, his mother nature had someho' 7ueered the pitch of that very comple9
human being 'ho 'as called Horace Walpole& He 'as not simple/ he 'as not single& "s Cole noted 'ith
anti7uarian particularity, Mr& Walpole8s letter of 0riday, May +(%t, (KM+, 'as sealed 'ith a Cseal of red 'a9, a
cupid 'ith a large mas, of a mon,ey8s face& "n anti7ue& Oval&D The cupid and the mon,ey had each set their
stamp on Horace Walpole8s 'a9& He 'as mischievous and obscene/ he gibbered and moc,ed and pelted the
holy shrines 'ith nutshells& "nd yet 'ith 'hat a grace he did it?'ith 'hat ease and brilliancy and 'itG In
body, too, he 'as a contradiction?lean as a grasshopper, yet tough as steel& He 'as lapped in lu9ury, yet never
'ore a great:coat, ate and dran, as little as a fasting friar, and 'al,ed on 'et grass in slippers& He fribbled
a'ay his time collecting bric:a:brac and drin,ing tea 'ith old ladies/ yet 'rote the best letters in the language
in the midst of the chatter/ ,ne' everyone/ 'ent every'here/ and, as he said, Clived post&D He seemed
sometimes as heartless as a mon,ey/ drove Chatterton, so people said, to suicide, and allo'ed old Madame du
#effand to die alone in despair& "nd yet 'ho but Cupid 'rote 'hen Bray 'as dead, CI treated him insolently/
he loved me and I did not thin, he didD< Or again, COne loves to find people care for one, 'hen they can have
no vie' in itD< 5ut it is futile to ma,e such contradictions clash& There 'ere a thousand subtler impressions
stamped on the 'a9 of Horace Walpole, and it is only posterity, for 'hom he had a great affection, 'ho 'ill be
able, 'hen they have read all that he 'rote to Mann and Con'ay and Bray and the sisters 5erry and Madame
du #effand and a score of others/ and 'hat they 'rote to him/ and the innumerable notes at the bottom of the
page about coo,s and scullions and gardeners and old 'omen in inns?it is only they 'ho 'ill be able, 'hen
Mr& 1e'is has brought his magnificent 'or, to an end, to say 'hat indeed Horace Walpole 'as& Mean'hile,
'e, 'ho only catch a fleeting glimpse and set do'n hastily 'hat 'e ma,e of it, can testify that he is the best
company in the 'orld?the most amusing, the most intriguing?the strangest mi9ture of ape and Cupid that
ever 'as&
THE REV WILLIAM $OLE &4(
ELF Written in ()I+&
A LETTER
My #ear William,
In my opinion you are ,eeping something bac,& 1ast year 'hen you 'ent to 2aris and did not see Madame du
#effand but measured the e9act length of every nose on every tombstone?I can assure you they have gro'n no
longer or shorter since?I 'as annoyed, I admit& 5ut I had the sense to see that, after all, you 'ere alive, and a
clergyman, and from 5letchley?in fact, you 'ere as much out of place in 2aris as a co'slip impaled upon the
diamond horns of a duchess8s tiara& 2ut him bac, in 5letchley, I said, plant him in his o'n soil, let him burble
on in his o'n fashion, and the miracle 'ill happen& The co's 'ill lo'/ the church bells 'ill ring/ all 5letchley
'ill come alive/ and, reading over William8s shoulder, 'e shall see deep, deep into the hearts of Mrs& Willis and
Mr& !obinson&
I regret to tell you that I 'as 'rong& -ou are not a co'slip& -ou do not bloom& The hearts of Mrs& Willis and
Mr& !obinson remain sealed boo,s to us& -ou 'rite =anuary (Mth, (KMM, and it is precisely as if I had 'ritten
=anuary (Mth, ()I+& In other 'ords, you have rubbed all the bloom off t'o hundred years and that is so rare a
feat?it implies something so 7ueer in the 'riter?that I am intrigued and pu;;led and cannot help as,ing you
to enlighten me& "re you simply a bore, William< o that is out of the 7uestion& In the first place, Horace
Walpole did not tolerate bores, or 'rite to them, or go for country 6aunts 'ith them/ in the second, Miss
Waddell loves you& -ou shed all round you, in the eyes of Miss Waddell, that mysterious charm 'hich those 'e
love impart to their meanest belongings& %he loves your parrot/ she commiserates your cat& Every room in your
house is familiar to her& %he ,no's about your Bothic chamber and your neat arched bed/ she ,no's ho' many
steps led up to the pantry and do'n to the summer house/ she ,no's, she approves, ho' you spent every hour
of your day& %he sees the neighbours through the light of your eyes& %he laughs at some/ she li,es others/ she
,no's 'ho 'as fat and 'ho 'as thin, and 'ho told lies, 'ho had a bad leg, and 'ho 'as no better than she
should have been& Mr& and Mrs& 5arton, Thomas Tansley, Mr& and Mrs& 1ord of Mursley, the #iceys, and #r&
2ettingal are all real and alive to her$ so are your roses, your horses, your nectarines and your ,nats&
Would that I could see through her eyesG "las, 'herever I loo, I see blight and milde'& The moss never gro's
upon your 'alls& -our nectarines never ripen& The blac,bird sings, but out of tune& The ,nats?and you say CI
hardly ,no' a place so pestered 'ith that vermin as 5letchleyD?bite, 6ust li,e our gnats& "s for the human
beings they pass through the same disenchantment& ot that I have any fault to find 'ith your friends or 'ith
5letchley either& obody is very good, but then nobody is very bad& Tom sometimes hits a hare, oftener he
misses/ the fish sometimes bite, but not al'ays/ if it free;es it also tha's, and though the harvest 'as not bad it
might have been better& 5ut no', William, confess& We ,no' in our hearts, you and I, that England in the
eighteenth century 'as not li,e this& We ,no' from Woodforde, from Walpole, from Thomas Turner, from
%,inner, from Bray, from 0ielding, from =ane "usten, from scores of memoirs and letters, from a thousand
forgotten stone masons, bric,layers and cabinet ma,ers, from a myriad sources, that I have not learning to name
or space to 7uote, that England 'as a substantial, beautiful country in the eighteenth century/ aristocratic and
common/ hand:made and horse:ploughed/ an eating, drin,ing, bastard:begetting, laughing, cursing, humorous,
eccentric, lovable land& If 'ith your pen in your hand and the dates facing you, =anuary (Mth, (KMM, you see
none of all this, then the fault is yours& %ome spite has dra'n a veil across your eyes& Indeed, there are pouches
under them I could s'ear& -ou slouch as you 'al,& -ou s'itch at thistles half:heartedly 'ith your stic,& -ou
do not much en6oy your food& Bossip has no relish for you& -ou mention the Cscandalous story of Mr& 0elton
Hervey, his t'o daughters and a favourite footmanD and add, CI hope it is not true&D %o do I, but I cannot put
much life into my hoping 'hen you 'ithhold the facts& -ou stop 2ettingal in the middle of his boasting?you
cut him short 'ith a sarcasm?6ust as he 'as proving that the Bree,s li,ed toasted cheese and 'as deriving the
'ord 5ergamy from the "rabic& "s for Madame Beoffrin, you never lose a chance of saying something
disobliging about that lady/ a coffee:pot has only to be reputed 0rench for you to defame it& Then loo, ho'
touchy you are?you grumble, the servants are late 'ith the papers, you complain, Mr& 2itt never than,ed you
for the pigeons @yet Horace Walpole thought you a philosopherA/ then ho' you suspect people8s motives/ ho'
you bid fathers thrash their little boys/ ho' you are sure the servant steals the onions& "ll these are mar,s of a
thin:blooded poverty:stric,en disposition& "nd yet?you are a good man/ you visit the poor/ you bury the
infected/ you have been educated at Cambridge/ you venerate anti7uity& The truth is that you are concealing
something, even from Miss Waddell&
Why, I as,, did you 'rite this diary and loc, it in a chest 'ith iron hoops and insist that no one 'as to read it or
publish it for t'enty years after your death unless it 'ere that you had something on your mind, something that
you 'ished to confess and get rid of< -ou are not one of those people 'ho love life so 'ell that they cherish
even the memory of roast mutton, li,e Woodforde/ you did not hate life so much that you must shrie, out your
curse on it, E,e poor %,inner& -ou 'rite and 'rite, ramblingly, listlessly, li,e a person 'ho is trying to bring
himself to say the thing that 'ill e9plain to himself 'hat is 'rong 'ith himself& "nd you find it very hard& -ou
'ould rather mention anything but that?Miss Chester, I mean, and the boat on the "von& -ou cannot force
yourself to admit that you have ,ept that loc, of hair in your dra'er these thirty years& When Mrs& !obinson,
her daughter, as,ed you for it @March ()th (KMMA you said you could not find it& 5ut you 'ere not easy under
that concealment& -ou did at length go to your private dra'er @ovember +Mth, (KMMA and there it 'as, as you
'ell ,ne'& 5ut even so, 'ith the loc, of hair in your hand, you still see, to put us off the scent& -ou ramble on
about giving Mrs& !obinson a barrel of oysters/ about potted rabbits/ about the 'eather, until suddenly out it
comes, CBave Mrs& !obinson a braided 1oc, of 1ady !obinson8s Mother8s hair @and %ister to Mrs& !obinson of
CransleyA, 'hich I cut off in a 5oat on the !iver "von at 5ath about IH years ago 'hen my %ister =ane and
myself 'ere much ac7uainted 'ith her, then Miss Chester&D There 'e have it& The poisoned tooth is out& -ou
'ere once young and ardent and very much in love& 2assion overcame you& -ou 'ere alone& The 'ind ble' a
loc, of Miss Chester8s hair from beneath her hat& -ou reached for'ard& -ou cut it& "nd then< othing& That is
your tragedy?you yourself failed yourself& -ou thin, of that scene t'enty times a day, I believe, as you
saunter, rather heavily/ along the damp paths at 5letchley& That is the dreary little tune that you hum as you
stoop over your parments measuring noses, deciphering dates?CI failed, failed, failed on the boat on the
"von&D That is 'hy your nectarines are blighted/ and the parrot dies/ and the parlour cat is scalded/ and you
love nobody e9cept, perhaps, your little dun:coloured horse& That is 'hy you Cal'ays had a mind to live retired
in Blamorganshire&D That is 'hy Mr& 2itt never than,ed you for the pigeons& That is 'hy Mr& %tonehe'er
became His Ma6esty8s Historiographer, 'hile you visited paupers in 0enny %tratford& That is 'hy he never
came to see you, and 'hy you observed so bitterly, that Cpeople suffer themselves to forget their old friends
'hen they are surrounded by the great and are got above the 'orld&D -ou see, William, if you hoard a failure, if
you come to grudge even the sun for shining?and that, I thin,, is 'hat you did?fruit does not ripen/ a blight
falls upon parrots and cats/ people 'ould actually rather that you did not give them pigeons&
5ut enough& I may be 'rong& Miss Chester8s hair may have nothing to do 'ith it& "nd Miss Waddell may be
right?every good 7uality of heart and head may be yours& I am sure I hope so& 5ut I beg, William, no' that
you are about to begin a fresh volume, at Cambridge too, 'ith men of character and learning, that you 'ill pull
yourself together& %pea, out& =ustify the faith that Miss Waddell has in you& 0or you are ,eeping one of the
finest scholars of her time shut up in the 5ritish Museum among mummies and policemen and 'et umbrellas&
There must be a trifle of ninety:five volumes more of you in those iron:bound chests& 1ighten her tas,/ relieve
our an9iety, and so add to the gratitude of your obliged obedient servant,
Virginia Woolf&
THE HITORIAN AND .THE GI55ON/ &6(
EMF Written in March ()IK&
C-et, upon the 'hole, the HI%TO!- O0 THE #EC1IE "# 0"11 seems to have struc, root, both at home
and abroad, and may, perhaps, a hundred years hence still continue to be abused&D %o Bibbon 'rote in the calm
confidence of immortality/ and let us confirm him in his o'n opinion of his boo, by sho'ing, in the first place,
that it has one 7uality of permanence?it still e9cites abuse& 0e' people can read the 'hole of the #EC1IE
"# 0"11 'ithout admitting that some chapters have glided a'ay 'ithout leaving a trace/ that many pages
are no more than a concussion of sonorous sounds/ and that innumerable figures have passed across the stage
'ithout printing even their names upon our memories& We seem, for hours on end, mounted on a celestial
roc,ing:horse 'hich, as it gently s'ays up and do'n, remains rooted to a single spot& In the soporific idleness
thus induced 'e recall 'ith regret the vivid partisanship of Macaulay, the fitful and violent poetry of Carlyle&
We suspect that the vast fame 'ith 'hich the great historian is surrounded is one of those vague diffusions of
ac7uiescence 'hich gather 'hen people are too busy, too la;y or too timid to see things for themselves& "nd to
6ustify this suspicion it is easy to gather pomposities of diction?the Church has become Cthe sacred edificeD/
and sentences so stereotyped that they chime li,e bells?Cdestroyed the confidenceD must be follo'ed by Cand
e9cited the resentmentD/ 'hile characters are daubed in 'ith single epithets li,e Cthe viciousD or Cthe virtuous,D
and are so crudely 6ointed that they seem capable only of the e9treme antics of puppets dangling from a string&
It is easy, in short, to suppose that Bibbon o'ed some part of his fame to the gratitude of 6ournalists on 'hom
he besto'ed the gift of a style singularly open to imitation and 'ell adapted to invest little ideas 'ith large
bodies& "nd then 'e turn to the boo, again, and to our ama;ement 'e find that the roc,ing:horse has left the
ground/ 'e are mounted on a 'inged steed/ 'e are s'eeping in 'ide circles through the air and belo' us
Europe unfolds/ the ages change and pass/ a miracle has ta,en place&
5ut miracle is not a 'ord to use in 'riting of Bibbon& If miracle there 'as it lay in the ine9plicable fact 'hich
Bibbon, 'ho seldom stresses a 'ord, himself thought 'orthy of italics$ C& & & I 4OW by e9perience, that from
my early youth I aspired to the character of an historian&D Once that seed 'as planted so mysteriously in the
sic,ly boy 'hose erudition ama;ed his tutor there 'as more of the rational than of the miraculous in the process
by 'hich that gift 'as developed and brought to fruition& othing, in the first place, could have been more
cautious, more deliberate and more far:sighted than Bibbon8s choice of a sub6ect& " historian he had to be/ but
historian of 'hat< The history of the %'iss 'as re6ected/ the history of 0lorence 'as re6ected/ for a long time he
played 'ith the idea of a life of %ir Walter !aleigh& Then that, too, 'as re6ected and for reasons that are
e9tremely illuminating$
& & & I should shrin, 'ith terror from the modern history of England, 'here every character is a problem,
and every reader a friend or an enemy/ 'here a 'riter is supposed to hoist a flag of party, and is devoted to
damnation by the adverse faction& & & & I must embrace a safer and more e9tensive theme&
5ut once found, ho' 'as he to treat the distant, the safe, the e9tensive theme< "n attitude, a style had to be
adopted/ one presumably that generali;ed, since problems of character 'ere to be avoided/ that abolished the
'riter8s personality, since he 'as not dealing 'ith his o'n times and contemporary 7uestions/ that 'as
rhythmical and fluent, rather than abrupt and intense, since vast stretches of time had to be covered, and the
reader carried smoothly through many folios of print&
"t last the problem 'as solved/ the fusion 'as complete/ matter and manner became one/ 'e forget the style,
and are only a'are that 'e are safe in the ,eeping of a great artist& He is able to ma,e us see 'hat he 'ants us
to see and in the right proportions& Here he compresses/ there he e9pands& He transposes, emphasi;es, omits in
the interests of order and drama& The features of the individual faces are singularly conventionali;ed& Here are
none of those violent gestures and unmista,able voices that fill the pages of Carlyle and Macaulay 'ith living
human beings 'ho are related to ourselves& There are no Whigs and Tories here/ no eternal verities and
implacable destinies& Time has cut off those 7uic, reactions that ma,e us love and hate& The innumerable
figures are suffused in the e7ual blue of the far distance& They rise and fall and pass a'ay 'ithout e9citing our
pity or our anger& 5ut if the figures are small, they are innumerable/ if the scene is dim it is vast& "rmies 'heel/
hordes of barbarians are destroyed/ forests are huge and dar,/ processions are splendid/ altars rise and fall/ one
dynasty succeeds another& The richness, the variety of the scene absorb us& He is the most resourceful of
entertainers& Without haste or effort he s'ings his lantern 'here he chooses& If sometimes the si;e of the 'hole
is oppressive, and the unemphatic story monotonous, suddenly in the flash of a phrase a detail is lit up$ 'e see
the mon,s Cin the la;y gloom of their conventsD/ statues become unforgettably Cthat inanimate peopleD/ the Cgilt
and variegated armourD shines out$ the splendid names of ,ings and countries are sonorously intoned/ or the
narrative parts and a scene opens$
5y the order of 2robus, a great 7uantity of large trees, torn up by the roots, 'ere transplanted into the midst
of the circus& The spacious and shady forest 'as immediately filled 'ith a thousand ostriches, a thousand
stags, a thousand fallo' deer, and a thousand 'ild boars/ and all this variety of game 'as abandoned to the
riotous impetuosity of the multitude& & & & The air 'as continually refreshed by the playing of fountains, and
profusely impregnated by the grateful scent of aromatics& In the centre of the edifice, the arena, or stage,
'as stre'ed 'ith the finest sand, and successively assumed the most different forms& "t one moment it
seemed to rise out of the earth, li,e the garden of Hesperides, and 'as after'ards bro,en into the roc,s and
caverns of Thrace& & & &
5ut it is only 'hen 'e come to compress and dismember one of Bibbon8s pictures that 'e reali;e ho' carefully
the parts have been chosen, ho' firmly the sentences, composed after a certain number of turns round the room
and then tested by the ear and only then 'ritten do'n, adhere together&
5ut these are 7ualities, it might be said, that belong to the historical novelist?to %cott or to 0laubert& "nd
Bibbon 'as an historian, so religiously devoted to the truth that he felt an aspersion upon his accuracy as an
aspersion upon his character& 0lights of notes at the bottom of the page chec, his pageants and verify his
characters& Thus they have a different 7uality from scenes and characters composed from a thousand hints and
suggestions in the freedom of the imagination& They are inferior, perhaps, in subtlety and in intensity& On the
other hand, as Bibbon pointed out, CThe Cyropaedia is vague and languid/ the "nabasis circumstantial and
animated& %uch is the eternal difference bet'een fiction and truth&D
The imagination of the novelist must often fail/ but the historian can repose himself upon fact& "nd even if those
facts are sometimes dubious and capable of more than one interpretation, they bring the reason into play and
'iden our range of interest& The vanished generations, invisible separately, have collectively spun round them
intricate la's, erected marvellous structures of ceremony and belief& These can be described, analysed,
recorded& The interest 'ith 'hich 'e follo' him in his patient and impartial e9amination has an e9citement
peculiar to itself& History may be, as he tells us, Clittle more than the register of the crimes, follies, and
misfortunes of man,indD/ but 'e seem, at least, as 'e read him raised above the tumult and the chaos into a
clear and rational air&
The victories and the civili;ation of Constantine no longer influence the state of Europe/ but a considerable
portion of the globe still retains the impression 'hich it received from the conversion of that monarch/ and
the ecclesiastical institutions of his reign are still connected, by an indissoluble chain, 'ith the opinions,
the passions, and the interests of the present generation&
He is not merely a master of the pageant and the story/ he is also the critic and the historian of the mind&
It is here of course that 'e become conscious of the idiosyncrasy and of the limitations of the 'riter& =ust as 'e
,no' that Macaulay 'as a nineteenth:century Whig, and Carlyle a %cottish peasant 'ith the gift of prophecy,
so 'e ,no' that Bibbon 'as rooted in the eighteenth century and indelibly stamped 'ith its character and his
o'n& Bradually, stealthily, 'ith a phrase here, a gibe there, the 'hole solid mass is leavened 'ith the peculiar
7uality of his temperament& %hades of meaning reveal themselves/ the pompous language becomes delicate and
e9act& %ometimes a phrase is turned edge'ise, so that as it slips 'ith the usual suavity into its place it leaves a
scratch& CHe 'as even destitute of a sense of honour, 'hich so fre7uently supplies the sense of public virtue&D
Or the solemn rise and fall of the te9t above is neatly diminished by the demure particularity of a note& CThe
ostrich8s nec, is three feet long, and composed of seventeen vertebrae& %ee 5uffon& Hist& aturelle&D The
infallibility of historians is gravely moc,ed& C& & & their ,no'ledge 'ill appear gradually to increase, as their
means of information must have diminished, a circumstance 'hich fre7uently occurs in historical
dis7uisitions&D Or 'e are urbanely as,ed to reflect ho',
in our present state of e9istence, the body is so inseparably connected 'ith the soul, that it seems to be to
our interest to taste, 'ith innocence and moderation, the en6oyments of 'hich that faithful companion is
susceptible&
The infirmities of that faithful companion provide him 'ith a fund of perpetual amusement& %e9, for some
reason connected, perhaps, 'ith his private life, al'ays e9cites a demure smile$
T'enty:t'o ac,no'ledged concubines, and a library of si9ty:t'o thousand volumes, attested the variety
of his inclinations/ and from the productions 'hich he left behind him, it appears that the former as 'ell as
the latter 'ere designed for use rather than for ostentation&
The change upon such phrases is rung again and again& 0e' virgins or matrons, nuns or mon,s leave his pages
'ith their honour entirely unscathed& 5ut his most insidious raillery, his most relentless reason, are directed, of
course, against the Christian religion&
0anaticism, asceticism, superstition 'ere naturally antipathetic to him& Wherever he found them, in life or in
religion, they roused his contempt and derision& The t'o famous chapters in 'hich he e9amined Cthe H.M"
causes of the progress and establishment of Christianity,D though inspired by the same love of truth 'hich in
other connections e9cited the admiration of scholars, roused great scandal at the time& Even the eighteenth
century, that Cage of light and liberty,D 'as not entirely open to the voice of reason& CHo' many souls have his
'ritings pollutedGD Hannah More e9claimed 'hen she heard of his death& C1ord preserve others from their
contagionGD In such circumstances irony 'as the obvious 'eapon/ the pressure of public opinion forced him to
be covert, not open& "nd irony is a dangerous 'eapon/ it easily becomes sidelong and furtive/ the ironist seems
to be darting a poisoned tongue from a place of concealment& Ho'ever grave and temperate Bibbon8s irony at
its best, ho'ever searching his logic and robust his contempt for the cruelty and intolerance of superstition, 'e
sometimes feel, as he pursues his victim 'ith incessant scorn, that he is a little limited, a little superficial, a little
earthy, a little too positively and imperturbably a man of the eighteenth century and not of our o'n&
5ut then he is Bibbon/ and even historians, as 2rofessor 5ury reminds us, have to be themselves& History Cis in
the last resort somebody8s image of the past, and the image is conditioned by the mind and e9perience of the
person 'ho forms it&D Without his satire, his irreverence, his mi9ture of sedateness and slyness, of ma6esty and
mobility, and above all that belief in reason 'hich pervades the 'hole boo, and gives it unity, an implicit if
unspo,en message, the #EC1IE "# 0"11 'ould be the 'or, of another man& It 'ould be the 'or, indeed
of t'o other men& 0or as 'e read 'e are perpetually creating another boo,, perceiving another figure& The
sublime person of Cthe historianD as the %heffields called him is attended by a companion 'hom they called, as
if he 'ere the solitary specimen of some e9tinct race, Cthe Bibbon&D The Historian and the Bibbon go hand in
hand& 5ut it is not easy to dra' even a thumbnail s,etch of this strange being because the autobiography, or
rather the si9 autobiographies, compose a portrait of such masterly completeness and authority that it defies our
attempts to add to it& "nd yet no autobiography is ever final/ there is al'ays something for the reader to add
from another angle&
There is the body, in the first place?the body 'ith all those little physical peculiarities that the outsider sees
and uses to interpret 'hat lies 'ithin& The body in Bibbon8s case 'as ridiculous?prodigiously fat, enormously
top:heavy, precariously balanced upon little feet upon 'hich he spun round 'ith astonishing alacrity& 1i,e
Boldsmith he over:dressed, and for the same reason perhaps?to supply the dignity 'hich nature denied him&
5ut unli,e Boldsmith, his ugliness caused him no embarrassment or, if so, he had mastered it completely& He
tal,ed incessantly, and in sentences composed as carefully as his 'riting& To the sharp and irreverent eyes of
contemporaries his vanity 'as perceptible and ridiculous/ but it 'as only on the surface& There 'as something
hard and muscular in the obese little body 'hich turned aside the sneers of the fine gentlemen& He had roughed
it, not only in the Hampshire Militia, but among his e7uals& He had supped Cat little tables covered 'ith a
nap,in, in the middle of a coffee room, upon a bit of cold meat or a %and'ich,D 'ith t'enty or thirty of the first
men in the ,ingdom, before he retired to rule supreme over the first families of 1ausanne& It 'as in 1ondon,
among the distractions of society and politics, that he achieved that perfect poise, that perfect balance bet'een
'or,, society and the pleasures of the senses 'hich composed his 'holly satisfactory e9istence& "nd the
balance had not been arrived at 'ithout a struggle& He 'as sic,ly/ he had a spendthrift for a father/ he 'as
e9pelled from O9ford/ his love affair 'as th'arted/ he 'as short of money and had none of the advantages of
birth& 5ut he turned everything to profit& 0rom his lac, of health he learnt the love of boo,s/ from the barrac,
and the guardroom he learnt to understand the common people/ from his e9ile he learnt the smallness of the
English cloister/ and from poverty and obscurity ho' to cultivate the amenities of human intercourse&
"t last it seemed as if life itself 'ere po'erless to unseat this perfect master of her uncertain paces& The final
buffet?the loss of his sinecure?'as turned to supreme advantage/ a perfect house, a perfect friend, a perfect
society at once placed themselves at his service, and 'ithout loss of time or temper Bibbon entered a post:
chaise 'ith Caplin his valet and Muff his dog and bo'led over Westminster 5ridge to finish his history and
en6oy his maturity in circumstances that 'ere ideal&
5ut as 'e run over the familiar picture there is something that eludes us& It may be that 'e have not been able to
find out anything for ourselves& Bibbon has al'ays been before us& His self:,no'ledge 'as consummate/ he
had no illusions either about himself or about his 'or,& He had chosen his part and he played it to perfection&
Even that characteristic attitude, 'ith his snuff:bo9 in his hand and his body stretched out, he had noted
himself, and perhaps he had adopted it as consciously as he observed it& 5ut it is his silence that is most
baffling& Even in the letters, 'here he drops the Historian and shortens himself no' and then to Cthe Bib,D there
are long pauses 'hen nothing is heard even at %heffield 2lace of 'hat is going on in the study at 1ausanne&
The artist after all is a solitary being& T'enty years spent in the society of the #EC1IE "# 0"11 are
t'enty years spent in solitary communion 'ith distant events, 'ith intricate problems of arrangement, 'ith the
minds and bodies of the dead& Much that is important to other people loses its importance/ the perspective is
changed 'hen the eyes are fi9ed not upon the foreground but upon the mountains, not upon a living 'oman but
upon Cmy other 'ife, the #EC1IE "# 0"11 O0 THE !OM" EM2I!E&D "nd it is difficult, after casting
firm sentences that 'ill 'ithstand the tread of time& to say Cin three 'ords, I am alone&D It is only no' and then
that 'e catch a phrase that has not been styli;ed, or see a little picture that he has not been able to include in the
ma6estic design& 0or e9ample, 'hen 1ord %heffield bursts out in his do'nright 'ay, C-ou are a right good
friend & & &,D 'e see the obese little man impetuously and impulsively hoisting himself into a post:chaise and
crossing a Europe ravaged by revolution to comfort a 'ido'er& "nd again 'hen the old stepmother at 5ath
ta,es up her pen and 7uavers out a fe' uncomposed and unliterary sentences 'e see him$
I truely re6oice, 3 congratulate you on your being once more safely arrived in your native Country& I
'ish8d to tell you so yesterday, but the 6oy your letter gave 'ould not suffer my hand to be steady enough
to 'rite& & & & Many has been the disappointments I have borne 'ith fortitude, but the fear of having my last
and only friend torn from me 'as very near overseting my reason& & & & Madame Ely and Mrs& 5onfoy are
here& Mrs& Holroyd has probably told you that Miss Bould is no' Mrs& Hornec,& I 'ish she had been Mrs&
Bibbon & & &
so the old lady rambles on, and for a moment 'e see him as in a crac,ed mirror held in a trembling hand& 0or a
moment, a cloud crosses that august countenance& It 'as true& He had sometimes on returning home in the
evening, sighed for a companion& He had sometimes felt that Cdomestic solitude & & & is a comfortless state&D He
had conceived the romantic idea of adopting and educating a young female relative called Charlotte& 5ut there
'ere difficulties/ the idea 'as abandoned& Then the cloud drifts a'ay/ common sense, indomitable cheerfulness
return/ once more the serene figure of the historian emerges triumphant& He had every reason to be content& The
great building 'as complete/ the mountain 'as off his breast/ the slave 'as freed from the toil of the oar&
"nd he 'as by no means e9hausted& Other tas,s less laborious, perhaps more delightful, lay before him& His
love of literature 'as unsated/ his love of life?of the young, of the innocent, of the gay?'as unblunted& It 'as
the faithful companion, the body, unfortunately, that failed him& 5ut his composure 'as unsha,en& He faced
death 'ith an e7uanimity that spea,s 'ell for Cthe profane virtues of sincerity and moderation&D "nd as he san,
into a sleep that 'as probably eternal, he could remember 'ith satisfaction the vie' across the plain to the
stupendous mountains beyond/ the 'hite acacia that gre' beside the study 'indo', and the great 'or, 'hich,
he 'as not 'rong in thin,ing, 'ill immortali;e his name&
REFLE$TION AT HEFFIELD %LA$E &7(
EKF Written in May ()IK&
The great ponds at %heffield 2lace at the right season of the year are bordered 'ith red, 'hite and purple
reflections, for rhododendrons are massed upon the ban,s and 'hen the 'ind passes over the real flo'ers the
'ater flo'ers sha,e and brea, into each other& 5ut there, in an opening among the trees stands a great fantastic
house, and since it 'as there that =ohn Holroyd, 1ord %heffield, lived, since it 'as there that Bibbon stayed,
another reflection imposes itself upon the 'ater trance& #id the historian himself ever pause here to cast a
phrase, and if so 'hat 'ords 'ould he have found for those same floating flo'ers< Breat lord of language as he
'as, no doubt he filled his mind from the fountain of natural beauty& The e9actions of the #EC1IE "#
0"11 meant, of course, the death and dismissal of many 'ords deserving of immortal life& Order and
seemliness 'ere drastically imposed& It 'as a 7uestion, he reflected, C'hether some flo'ers of fancy, some
grateful errors, have not been eradicated 'ith the 'eeds of pre6udice&D %till his mind 'as a 'hispering gallery
of 'ords/ the famous Cbarefooted friarsD singing vespers may have been a recollection of Marlo'e8s C"nd
duc,e as lo' as any bare:foot 0ryar,D murmuring in the bac,ground& 5e this as it may, to consider 'hat Bibbon
'ould have said had he seen the rhododendrons reflected in the 'ater is an idle e9ercise, for in his day, late in
the eighteenth century, a girl 'ho loo,ed out of the 'indo' of %heffield 2lace sa' not rhododendrons Cbut four
young s'ans & & & no' entirely greyD floating upon the 'ater& Moreover, it is unli,ely that he ever bestirred
himself to 'al, in the grounds& CBib,D that same girl, Maria =osepha Holroyd, remar,ed, Cis a mortal enemy to
any person ta,ing a 'al,, and he is so frigid that he ma,es us sit by a good roasting Christmas fire every
evening&D There he sat in the summer evening tal,ing endlessly, delightfully, in the best of spirits, for no place
'as more li,e home to him than %heffield 2lace, and he loo,ed upon the Holroyds as his o'n flesh and blood&
%een through Maria8s eyes Bibbon?she called him sometimes CBib,D sometimes Cle grand Bibbon,D
sometimes CThe HistorianD?loo,ed different from Bibbon seen by himself& In (K)+ she 'as a girl of t'enty:
one/ he 'as a man of fifty:five& To him she 'as Cthe tall and blooming MariaD/ Cthe soft and stately Maria,D a
niece by adoption, 'hose manners he could correct/ 'hose future he could forecast?CThat establishment must
be splendid/ that life must be happyD/ 'hose style, especially one metaphor about the !hine escaping its ban,s,
he could approve& 5ut to her he 'as often an ob6ect of ridicule/ he 'as so fat/ such a figure of fun C'addling
across the room 'henever she EMadame da %ilvaF appeared, and sitting by her and loo,ing at her, till his round
eyes run do'n 'ith 'aterD/ rather testy too, an old bachelor, 'ho lived li,e cloc,'or, and hated to have his
plans upset/ but at the same time, she had to admit, the most delightful of tal,ers& That summer night he dre'
out the t'o young men 'ho 'ere staying in the house, 0red orth and Mr& #ouglas, and made them far more
entertaining than they 'ould have been 'ithout him& CIt 'as impossible to have selected three 5eau9 'ho could
have been more agreeable, 'hether their conversation 'as trifling or serious,D 'hether they tal,ed about Bree,
and 1atin or turtle soup& 0or that summer Mr& Bibbon 'as CravingD about turtles and 'anted 1ord %heffield to
have one brought from 1ondon& Maria8s ga;e rested upon him 'ith a mi9ture of amusement and respect/ but it
did not rest upon him alone& 0or not only 'ere 0red orth and Mr& #ouglas in the room, and the s'ans on the
pond outside and the 'oods/ but soldiers 'ere tramping past the 2ar, gates/ the 2rince himself 'as holding a
revie'/ they 'ere going over to inspect the camp/ Mr& Bibbon and "unt %erena in the post chaise/ she, if only
her father 'ould let her, on horsebac,& 5ut the sight of her father suggested other cares/ he 'as 'ildly
hospitable/ he had as,ed the 2rince and the #u,e to stay/ and as her mother 'as dead, all the catering, all the
entertaining fell upon her& There 'as too something in her father8s face that made her loo, at Mr& Bibbon as if
for support/ he 'as the only man 'ho could influence her father/ 'ho could bring him to reason/ 'ho could
chec, his e9travagance, restrain & & & 5ut here she paused, for there 'as some 'ea,ness in her father8s character
that could not be put into plain language by a daughter& "t any rate she 'as very glad 'hen he married a second
time Cfor I feel delighted to thin, 'hen sooner or later troubles come, as 'e 'ho ,no' the gentleman must
fear & & &D Whatever frailty of her father8s she hinted at, Mr& Bibbon 'as the only one of his friends 'hose good
sense could restrain him&
The relation bet'een the 2eer and the Historian 'as very singular& They 'ere devoted& 5ut 'hat tie 'as it that
attached the do'nright, self:confident, perhaps loose:living man of the 'orld to the suave, erudite sedentary
historian<?the attraction of opposites perhaps& %heffield, 'ith his finger in every pie, his outright, do'nright
man of:the:'orld8s good sense, supplied the historian 'ith 'hat he must sometimes have needed?someone to
call him Cyou damned beast,D someone to give him a solid footing on English earth& In 2arliament Bibbon 'as
dumb/ in love he 'as ineffective& 5ut his friend Holroyd 'as a member of a do;en committees/ before one 'ife
'as t'o years in the grave he had married another& If it is true that friends are chosen partly in order to live lives
that 'e cannot live in our o'n persons, then 'e can understand 'hy the 2eer and the Historian 'ere devoted/
'hy the great 'riter divested himself of his purple language and 'rote racy collo7uial English to %heffield/
'hy %heffield curbed his e9travagance and restrained his passions in deference to Bibbon/ 'hy Bibbon crossed
Europe, in a post chaise to console %heffield for his 'ife8s death/ and 'hy %heffield, though al'ays busied 'ith
a thousand affairs of his o'n, yet found time to manage Bibbon8s tangled money matters/ and 'as no' indeed
engaged in arranging the business of "unt Hester8s legacy&
Considering Hester Bibbon8s lo' opinion of her nephe' and her o'n convictions it 'as surprising that she had
left him any thing at all& To her Bibbon stood for all those lusts of the flesh, all those vanities of the intellect
'hich many years previously she had renounced& Many years ago, many years before the summer night 'hen
they sat round the fire in the 1ibrary and discussed 1atin and Bree, and turtle soup, Hester Bibbon had put all
such vanities behind her& %he had left 2utney and the paternal house to follo' her brother8s tutor William 1a'
to his home in orthamptonshire& There in the village of 4ing8s Cliffe she lived 'ith him trying to understand
his mystic philosophy, more successfully putting it into practice/ teaching the ignorant/ living frugally/ feeding
beggars, spending her substance on charity& There at last, for she made no haste to 6oin the %aints as her nephe'
observed, at the age of eighty:si9 she lay by 1a'8s side in his grave/ 'hile Mrs& Hutcheson, 'ho had shared his
house but not his love, lay in an inferior position at their feet& Every difference that could divide t'o human
beings seems to have divided the aunt from the nephe'/ and yet they had something in common& The suburban
'orld of 2utney had called her mad because she believed too much/ the learned 'orld of divinity had called
him 'ic,ed because he believed too little& 5oth aunt and nephe' found it impossible to hit off the e9act degree
of scepticism and belief 'hich the 'orld holds reasonable& "nd this very difference perhaps had not been
'ithout its effect upon the nephe'& When he 'as a young man practising the graces 'hich 'ere to conciliate
the 'orld he adored, his eccentric aunt had roused his ridicule& CHer dress and figure e9ceed anything 'e had at
the mas7uerade/ her language and ideas belong to the last century,D he 'rote& In fact, though his urbanity never
deserted him in 'riting to her?he 'as her heir:at:la' 'e are reminded?his comments to others upon the
%aint, the Holy Matron of orthamptonshire, as he called her, 'ere of an acutely ironical ,ind/ nor did he fail to
note maliciously those little frailties?her anger 'hen Mrs& Hutcheson forgot her in her 'ill/ her reprehensible
desire to borro' from a nephe' 'hom she refused to meet?'hich 'ere to him so mar,ed a feature of the
saintly temper, so fre7uent an accompaniment of a mind clouded by enthusiasm& "s Maria Holroyd observed,
and others have observed after her, the great historian had a round mouth but an e9tremely pointed tongue/ and
?'ho ,no's<?it may have been "unt Hester herself 'ho first sharpened that 'eapon& Ed'ard8s father, for
instance, may have tal,ed about William 1a', his tutor?an admirable man of course/ far too great a man, to
have been the tutor of a scatter:brained spendthrift li,e himself/ still William 1a' had made himself very
comfortable at the Bibbon8s house in 2utney, had filled it 'ith his o'n friends/ had allo'ed Hester to fall
passionately in love 'ith him, but had never married her, since marriage 'as against his creed?had only
accepted her devotion and her income, conduct 'hich in another might have been condemned?so he may have
gossiped& 0rom very early days at any rate Ed'ard must have had a private vie' of the eccentricities of the
un'orldly, of the inconsistencies of the devout& "t last, ho'ever, "unt Hester, as her nephe' irreverently
remar,ed, had Cgone to sing Hallelu6ahs&D %he lay 'ith William 1a' in the grave, after a life of 'hat ecstasies,
of 'hat tortures, of 'hat 6ealousies, of 'hat safisfactions 'ho can say< The only fact that 'as certain 'as that
she had left one hundred pounds and an estate at e'haven to her Cpoor though unbelieving nephe'&D C%he
might have done better, she might have done 'orse,D he observed& "nd by an odd coincidence her land lay not
far from the Holroyd property/ 1ord %heffield 'as eager to buy it& He could easily pay for it, he 'as sure, by
cutting do'n some of the timber&
If then 'e accept "unt Hester8s vie', Bibbon 'as a 'orldling, 'allo'ing in the vanities of the flesh, scoffing
at the holiness of the faith& 5ut his other aunt, his mother8s sister, too, a very different vie' of him& To his "unt
4itty he had been ever since he 'as a babe a source of acute an9iety?he 'as so 'ea,ly/ and of intense pride?
he 'as such a prodigy& His mother 'as one of those flya'ay 'omen 'ho ma,e great use of their unmarried
sisters, since they are fre7uently in childbed themselves and have an appetite for pleasure 'hen they can escape
the cares of the nursery& %he died, moreover, in her prime/ and 4itty of course too, charge of the only survivor
of all those cradles, nursed him, petted him, and 'as the first to inspire him 'ith that love of pagan literature
'hich 'as to bring the glitter of minarets and the flash of eastern pageantry so splendidly into his sometimes
too pale and pompous prose& It 'as "unt 4itty 'ho, 'ith a prodigality that 'ould have scandali;ed "unt
Hester, flung open the door of that enchanted 'orld?the 'orld of THE C"VE! O0 THE WI#%, of the
2"1"CE O0 0E1ICIT-, of 2ope8s HOME!, and of the "!"5I" IBHT% in 'hich Ed'ard 'as to roam
for ever& CWhere a title attracted my eye, 'ithout fear or a'e I snatched the volume from the shelf/ and Mrs&
2orten, 'ho indulged herself in moral and religious speculations, 'as more prone to encourage& than to chec, a
curiosity above the strength of a boy&D "nd it 'as she 'ho first loosened his lips& CHer indulgent tenderness, the
fran,ness of her temper, and my innate rising curiosity, soon removed all distance bet'een us/ li,e friends of an
e7ual age, 'e freely conversed on every topic, familiar or abstruse&D It 'as she 'ho began the conversation
'hich 'as still continuing in front of the fire in the library that summer night&
What 'ould have happened if the child had fallen into the hands of his other aunt and her companion< %hould
'e have had the #EC1IE "# 0"11 if they had controlled his reading and chec,ed his curiosity, as William
1a' chec,ed all reading and condemned all curiosity< It is an interesting 7uestion& 5ut the effect on the man of
his t'o incompatible aunts developed a conflict in his nature& "unt Hester, from 'hom he e9pected a fortune,
encouraged, it 'ould seem from his letters, a strea, of hypocrisy, a vein of smooth and calculating
conventionality& He sneered to %heffield at her religion/ 'hen she died he hailed her departure 'ith a flippant
6o,e& "unt 4itty on the other hand brought out a strain of piety, of filial devotion& When she died he 'rote, as if
it 'ere she and not the %aint 'ho made him thin, ,indly for a moment of Christianity, CThe immortality of the
soul is on some occasions a very comfortable doctrine&D "nd it 'as she certainly 'ho made him bethin, him
'hen she 'as as,ed to stay at %heffield 2lace, that C"unt 4itty has a secret 'ish to lye in my room/ if it is not
occupied, it might be indulged&D %o 'hile "unt Hester lay 'ith William 1a' in the grave, "unt 4itty hoisted
herself into the great four:poster 'ith the help of the stool 'hich the little man al'ays used, and lay there,
seeing the very cupboards and chairs that her nephe' sa' 'hen he slept there, and the pond perhaps and the
trees out of the 'indo'& The great historian, 'hose ga;e s'ept far hori;ons and surveyed the processions of the
!oman Emperors, could also fi9 them minutely upon a rather tedious old lady and guess her fancy to sleep in a
certain bed& He 'as a strange mi9ture&
Very strange, Maria may have thought as she sat there listening to his tal, 'hile she stitched$ selfish yet tender/
ridiculous but sublime& 2erhaps human nature 'as li,e that?by no means all of a piece/ different at different
moments/ changing, as the furniture changed in the firelight, as the 'aters of the la,e changed 'hen the night
'ind s'ept over them& 5ut it 'as time for bed/ the party bro,e up& Mr& Bibbon, she noted 'ith concern, for she
'as genuinely fond of him, had some difficulty in climbing the stairs& He 'as un'ell/ a slight operation for an
old complaint 'as necessary, and he left them 'ith regret to go to to'n& The operation 'as over/ the ne's 'as
good/ they hoped that he 'ould soon be 'ith them again& Then suddenly bet'een five and si9 of a =anuary
evening an e9press arrived at %heffield 2lace to say that he 'as dangerously ill& 1ord %heffield and his sister
%erena started immediately for 1ondon& It 'as fine, luc,ily, and the moon 'as up& CThe night 'as light as day,D
%erena 'rote to Maria& CThe beauty of it 'as solemn and almost melancholy 'ith our train of ideas, but it
seemed to calm our minds&D They reached Bibbon8s lodging at midnight and Cpoor #ussot came to the door the
picture of despair to tell me HE 'as no more& & & &D He had died that morning/ he 'as already laid in the shell of
his coffin& " fe' days later they brought him bac, to %heffield 2lace/ carried him through the 2ar,, past the
ponds, and laid him under a crimson cloth among the Holroyds in the Mausoleum&
"s for the Csoft and stately MariaD she survived to the year (OMI/ and her granddaughter 4ate, the mother of
5ertrand !ussell, marvelled that an old 'oman of that age should mind dying?an old 'oman 'ho had lived
through the 0rench !evolution, 'ho had entertained Bibbon at %heffield 2lace&
THE MAN AT THE GATE &8(
EOF Written in %eptember ()*H&
The man 'as Coleridge as #e Juincey sa' him, standing in a gate'ay& 0or it is vain to put the single 'ord
Coleridge at the head of a page?Coleridge the innumerable, the mutable, the atmospheric/ Coleridge 'ho is
part of Words'orth, 4eats and %helley/ of his age and of our o'n/ Coleridge 'hose 'ritten 'ords fill hundreds
of pages and overflo' innumerable margins/ 'hose spo,en 'ords still reverberate, so that as 'e enter his radius
he seems not a man, but a s'arm, a cloud, a bu;; of 'ords, darting this 'ay and that, clustering, 7uivering and
hanging suspended& %o little of this can be caught in any reader8s net that it is 'ell before 'e become da;ed in
the labyrinth of 'hat 'e call Coleridge to have a clear picture before us?the picture of a man standing at a
gate$
& & & his person 'as broad and full, and tended even to corpulence, his comple9ion 'as fair & & & his eyes
'ere large and soft in their e9pression/ and it 'as from the peculiar appearance of ha;e or dreaminess
'hich mi9ed 'ith their light, that I recogni;ed my ob6ect&
That 'as in (OHK& Coleridge 'as already incapable of movement& The 4endal blac, drop had robbed him of his
'ill& C-ou bid me rouse myself?go, bid a man paralytic in both arms rub them bris,ly together&D The arms
already hung flabby at his side/ he 'as po'erless to raise them& 5ut the disease 'hich paralysed his 'ill left his
mind unfettered& In proportion as he became incapable of action, he became capable of feeling& "s he stood at
the gate his vast e9panse of being 'as a passive target for innumerable arro's, all of them sharp, many of them
poisoned& To confess, to analyse, to describe 'as the only alleviation of his appalling torture?the prisoner8s
only means of escape&
Thus there shapes itself in the volumes of Coleridge8s letters an immense mass of 7uivering matter, as if the
s'arm had attached itself to a bough and hung there pendent& %entences roll li,e drops do'n a pane, drop
collecting drop, but 'hen they reach the bottom, the pane is smeared& " great novelist, #ic,ens for preference,
could have formed out of this s'arm and diffusion a prodigious, an immortal character& #ic,ens, could he have
been induced to listen, 'ould have noted?perhaps this$
#eeply 'ounded by very disrespectful 'ords used concerning me, and 'hich struggling as I have been
thro8 life, and still maintaining a character and holding connections no 'ay un'orthy of my 0amily
Or again$
The 'orst part of the charges 'ere that I had been imprudent enough and in the second place gross and
indelicate enough to send out a gentleman8s servant in his o'n house to a public house for a bottle of
brandy & & &
Or again$
What 6oy 'ould it not be to you or to me, Miss 5ethamG to meet a Milton in a future state
"nd again, on accepting a loan$
I can barely collect myself sufficiently to convey to you?first, that I receive this proof of your filial
,indness 'ith feelings not un'orthy of the same & & & but that, 'henever @if everA my circumstances shall
improve, you must permit me to remind you that 'hat 'as, and 0O!EVE! under "11 conditions of
fortune 'ill be, 0E1T as a BI0T, has become a 1oan?and lastly, that you must let me have you as a
fre7uent friend on 'hose visits I may rely as often as convenience 'ill permit you & & &
The very voice @drastically cut shortA of Mica'ber himselfG
5ut there is a difference& 0or this Mica'ber ,no's that he is Mica'ber& He holds a loo,ing:glass in his hand&
He is a man of e9aggerated self:consciousness, endo'ed 'ith an astonishing po'er of self:analysis& #ic,ens
'ould need to be doubled 'ith Henry =ames, to be trebled 'ith 2roust, in order to convey the comple9ity and
the conflict of a 2ec,sniff 'ho despises his o'n hypocrisy, of a Mica'ber 'ho is humiliated by his o'n
humiliation& He is so made that he can hear the crepitation of a leaf, and yet remains obtuse to the claims of 'ife
and child& "n unopened letter brings great drops of s'eat to his forehead/ yet to lift a pen and ans'er it is
beyond his po'er& The #ic,ens Coleridge and the Henry =ames Coleridge perpetually tear him asunder& The
one sends out surreptitiously to Mr& #unn the chemist for another bottle of opium/ and the other analyses the
motives that have led to this hypocrisy into an infinity of fine shreds&
Thus often in reading the Cgallop scra'lD of the letters from Highgate in (O+H 'e seem to be reading notes for a
late 'or, by Henry =ames& He is the forerunner of all 'ho have tried to reveal the intricacies, to ta,e the faintest
creases of the human soul& The great sentences poc,eted 'ith parentheses, e9panded 'ith dash after dash, brea,
their 'alls under the strain of including and 7ualifying and suggesting all that Coleridge feels, fears and
glimpses& Often he is proli9 to the verge of incoherence, and his meaning d'indles and fades to a 'isp on the
mind8s hori;on& -et in our tongue:tied age there is a 6oy in this rec,less abandonment to the glory of 'ords&
Ca6oled, caressed, tossed up in handfuls, 'ords yield those flashing phrases that hang li,e ripe fruit in the
many:leaved tree of his immense volubility& C5ro':hanging, shoe:contemplative, %T!"BED/ there is
Ha;litt& Of #r& #ar'in$ CHe 'as li,e a pigeon pic,ing up peas, and after'ards voiding them 'ith e9cremental
additions&D "nything may tumble out of that great ma'/ the subtlest criticism, the 'ildest 6est, the e9act
condition of his intestines& 5ut he uses 'ords most often to e9press the crepitations of his apprehensive
susceptibility& They serve as a smo,e:screen bet'een him and the menace of the real 'orld& The 'ord screen
trembles and shivers& What enemy is approaching< othing visible to the na,ed eye& "nd yet ho' he trembles
and 7uiversG Hartley, Cpoor Hartley & & & in shrin,ing from the momentary pain of telling the plain truth, a truth
not discreditable to him or to me, has several times inflicted an agitating pain and confusionD?by 'hat breach
of morality or dereliction of duty<?Cby bringing up Mr& 5ourton une9pectedly on %undays 'ith the intention
of dining here&D Is that all< "h, but a diseased body feels the stab of anguish if only a corn is trod upon& "nguish
shoots through every fibre of his being& Has he not himself often shrun, from the momentary pain of telling the
plain truth< Why has he no home to offer his son, no table to 'hich Hartley could bring his friends uninvited<
Why does he live a stranger in the house of friends, and be @at presentA unable to discharge his share of the
house,eeping e9penses< The old train of bitter thoughts is set in motion once more& He is one hum and
vibration of painful emotion& "nd then, giving it all the slip, he ta,es refuge in thought and provides Hartley
'ith Cin short, the sum of all my reading and reflections on the vast Wheel of the Mythology of the earliest and
purest Heathenism&D Hartley must feed upon that and ta,e a snac, of cold meat and pic,les at some inn&
1etter:'riting 'as in its 'ay a substitute for opium& In his letters he could persuade others to believe 'hat he
did not altogether believe himself?that he had actually 'ritten the folios, the 7uartos, the octavos that he had
planned& 1etters also relieved him of those perpetually pullulating ideas 'hich, li,e %urinam toads, as he said,
'ere al'ays giving birth to little toads that Cgro' 7uic,ly and dra' off attention from the mother toad&D In
letters thoughts need not be brought to a conclusion& %omebody 'as al'ays interrupting, and then he could
thro' do'n his pen and indulge in 'hat 'as, after all, better than 'riting?the CinseminationD of ideas 'ithout
the intermediary of any gross impediment by 'ord of mouth into the receptive, the ac7uiescent, the entirely
passive ear, say, of Mr& Breen 'ho arrived punctually at three& 1ater, if it 'ere Thursday, in came politicians,
economists, musicians, business men, fine ladies, children?it mattered not 'ho they 'ere so long as he could
tal, and they 'ould listen&
T'o pious "merican editors have collected the comments of this various company,E)F and they are, of course,
various& -et it is the only 'ay of getting at the truth?to have it bro,en into many splinters by many mirrors and
so select& The truth about Coleridge the tal,er seems to have been that he rapt some listeners to the seventh
heaven/ bored others to e9tinction/ and made one foolish girl giggle irrepressibly& In the same 'ay his eyes
'ere bro'n to some, grey to others, and again a very bright blue& 5ut there is one point upon 'hich all 'ho
listened are agreed/ not one of them could remember a single 'ord he said& "ll, ho'ever, 'ith astonishing
unanimity are agreed that it 'as Cli,eD?the 'aves of the ocean, the flo'ing of a mighty river, the splendour of
the "urora 5orealis, the radiance of the Mil,y Way& "lmost all are e7ually agreed that 'aves, river, 5orealis,
and Mil,y Way lac,ed, as 1ady =erningham tersely put it, Cbehind&D 0rom their accounts it is clear that he
avoided contradiction/ detested personality/ cared nothing 'ho you 'ere/ only needed some sound of breathing
or rustle of s,irts to stir his floc,s of dreaming thoughts into motion and light the glitter and magic that lay sun,
in the torpid flesh& Was it the mi9ture of body and mind in his tal, that gave off some hypnotic fume that lulled
the audience into dro'siness< He acted as he tal,ed/ no', if he felt the interest flag, pointing to a picture, or
caressing a child, and then, as the time to ma,e an e9it approached, ma6estically possessed himself of a
bedroom candlestic, and, still discoursing, disappeared& Thus played upon by gesture and voice, bro' and
glittering eye, no one, as Crabb !obinson remar,s, could ta,e a note& It is then in his letters, 'here the body of
the actor 'as suppressed, that 'e have the best record of the siren8s song& There 'e hear the voice that began
tal,ing at the age of t'o?Casty #octor -oungD are his first recorded 'ords/ and 'ent on in barrac,s, on
board ship, in pulpits, in stage coaches?it mattered not 'here he found himself or 'ith 'hom, 4eats it might
be or the ba,er8s boy?on he 'ent, on and on, tal,ing about nightingales, dreams, the 'ill, the volition, the
reason, the understanding, monsters, and mermaids, until a little girl, overcome by the magic of the incantation,
burst into tears 'hen the voice ceased and left her alone in a silent 'orld&
E)F CO1E!I#BE THE T"14E!& Edited by !ichard W& "rmour and !aymond 0& Ho'es&
We too, 'hen the voice stops only half an hour before he passed that =uly day in (OI* into silence, feel bereft&
Is it for hours or for years that this heavily built man standing in a gate has been pouring forth this passionate
solilo7uy, 'hile his Clarge soft eyes 'ith a peculiar e9pression of ha;e or dreaminess mi9ed in their lightD have
been fi9ed upon a far:a'ay vision that filled a very fe' pages 'ith poems in 'hich every 'ord is e9act and
every image as clear as crystal<
ARA $OLERIDGE &'9(
E(HF Written in %eptember ()*H&
Coleridge also left children of his body& One, his daughter, %ara, 'as a continuation of him, not of his flesh
inded, for she 'as minute, aetherial, but of his mind, his temperament& The 'hole of her forty:eight years 'ere
lived in the light of his sunset, so that, li,e other children of great men, she is a che7uered dappled figure flitting
bet'een a vanished radiance and the light of every day& "nd, li,e so many of her father8s 'or,s, %ara Coleridge
remains unfinished& Mr& Briggs E((F has 'ritten her life, e9haustively, sympathetically/ but still & & & dots
intervene& That e9tremely interesting fragment, her autobiography, ends 'ith three ro's of dots after t'enty:si9
pages& %he intended, she says, to end every section 'ith a moral, or a reflection& "nd then Con revie'ing my
earlier childhood I find the predominant reflection& & & &D There she stops& 5ut she said many things in those
t'enty:si9 pages, and Mr& Briggs has added others that tempt us to fill in the dots, though not 'ith the facts that
she might have given us&
E((F CO1E!I#BE 0I11E$ " 5IOB!"2H- O0 %"!" CO1E!I#BE& 5y Earl 1eslie Briggs&
C%end me the very feel of her s'eet 0lesh, the very loo, and motion of that mouth?O, I could drive myself
mad about her,D Coleridge 'rote 'hen she 'as a baby& %he 'as a lovely child, delicate, large:eyed, musing but
active, very still but al'ays in motion, li,e one of her father8s poems& %he remembered ho' he too, her as a
child to stay 'ith the Words'orths at "llan 5an,&
The rough farmhouse life 'as distasteful to her, and to her shame they bathed her in a room 'here men came in
and out& #elicately dressed in lace and muslin, for her father li,ed 'hite for girls, she 'as a contrast to #ora,
'ith her 'ild eyes and floating yello' hair and froc, of deep 2russian blue or purple?for Words'orth li,ed
clothes to be coloured& The visit 'as full of such contrasts and conflicts& Her father cherished her and petted her&
CI slept 'ith him and he 'ould tell me fairy stories 'hen he came to bed at t'elve or one o8cloc,& & & &D Then
her mother, Mrs& Coleridge, arrived, and %ara fle' to that honest, homely, motherly 'oman and C'ished never
to be separated from her&D "t that?the memory 'as still bitter?Cmy father sho'ed displeasure and accused
me of 'ant of affection& I could not understand 'hy& & & & I thin, my father8s motive,D she reflected later, Cmust
have been a 'ish to fasten my affections on him& & & & I slun, a'ay and hid myself in the 'ood behind the
house&D
5ut it 'as her father 'ho, 'hen she lay a'a,e terrified by a horse 'ith eyes of flame, gave her a candle& He,
too, had been afraid of the dar,& With his candle beside her, she lost her fear, and lay a'a,e, listening to the
sound of the river, to the thud of the forge hammer, and to the cries of stray animals in the fields& The sounds
haunted her all her life& o country, no garden, no house ever compared 'ith the 0ells and the horse:shoe la'n
and the room 'ith three 'indo's loo,ing over the la,e to the mountains& %he sat there 'hile her father,
Words'orth and #e Juincey paced up and do'n tal,ing& What they said she could not understand, but she
Cused to note the hand,erchief hanging out of the poc,et and long to clutch it&D When she 'as a child the
hand,erchief vanished and her father 'ith it& "fter that, CI never lived 'ith him for more than a fe' 'ee,s at a
time,D she 'rote& " room at Breta Hall 'as al'ays ,ept ready for him but he never came& Then the brothers,
Hartley and #er'ent, vanished, too/ and Mrs& Coleridge and %ara stayed on 'ith .ncle %outhey, feeling their
dependence and resenting it& C" house of bondage Breta Hall 'as to her,D Hartley 'rote& -et there 'as .ncle
%outhey8s library/ and than,s to that admirable, erudite and indefatigable man, %ara became mistress of si9
languages, translated #obrit;hoffer from the 1atin, to help pay for Hartley8s education, and 7ualified herself,
should the 'orst come, to earn her living& C%hould it be necessary,D Words'orth 'rote, Cshe 'ill be 'ell fitted
to become a governess in a nobleman8s or gentleman8s family& & & & %he is remar,ably clever&D
5ut it 'as her beauty that too, her father by surprise 'hen at last at the age of t'enty she visited him at
Highgate& %he 'as learned he ,ne', and he 'as proud of it/ but he 'as unprepared, Mr& Briggs says, Cfor the
da;;ling vision of loveliness 'hich stepped across the threshold one cold #ecember day&D 2eople rose in a
public hall 'hen she came in& CI have seen Miss Coleridge,D 1amb 'rote, Cand I 'ish I had 6ust such a?
daughter&D #id Coleridge 'ish to ,eep such a daughter< Was a father8s 6ealousy roused in that 'ill:less man of
inordinate susceptibility 'hen %ara met her cousin Henry up at Highgate and almost instantly, but secretly, gave
him her coral nec,lace in e9change for a ring 'ith his hair< What right had a father 'ho could not offer his
daughter even a room to be told of the engagement or to ob6ect to it< He could only 7uiver 'ith innumerable
conflicting sensations at the thought that his nephe', 'hose boo, on the West Indies had impressed him
unfavourably, 'as ta,ing from him the daughter 'ho, li,e Christabel, 'as his masterpiece, but, li,e Christabel,
'as unfinished& "ll he could do 'as to cast his magic spell& He tal,ed& 0or the first time since she 'as a
'oman, %ara heard him tal,& %he could not remember a 'ord of it after'ards& "nd she 'as penitent& It 'as
partly that
my father generally discoursed on such a very e9tensive scale& & & & Henry could sometimes bring him do'n
to narro'er topics, but 'hen alone 'ith me he 'as almost al'ays on the star:paved road, ta,ing in the
'hole heavens in his circuit&
%he 'as a heaven:haunter, too/ but at the moment CI 'as an9ious about my brothers and their prospects?about
Henry8s health, and upon the sub6ect of my engagement generally&D Her father ignored such things& %ara8s mind
'andered&
The young couple, ho'ever, made ample amends for that momentary inattention& They listened to his voice for
the rest of their lives& "t the christening of their first child Coleridge tal,ed for si9 hours 'ithout stopping&
Hard:'or,ed as Henry 'as, and delicate, sociable and pleasure:loving, the spell of .ncle %am 'as on him, and
so long as he lived he helped his 'ife& He annotated, he edited, he set do'n 'hat he could remember of the
'onderful voice& 5ut the main labour fell on %ara& %he made herself, she said, the house,eeper in that littered
palace& %he follo'ed his reading/ verified his 7uotations/ defended his character/ traced notes on innumerable
margins/ ransac,ed bundles/ pieced beginnings together and supplied them not 'ith ends but 'ith
continuations& " 'hole day8s 'or, 'ould result in one erasure& Cab fares to ne'spaper offices mounted/ eyes,
for she could not afford a secretary, felt the strain/ but so long as a page remained obscure, a date doubtful, a
reference unverified, an aspersion not disproved, Cpoor, dear, indefatigable %ara,D as Mrs& Words'orth called
her, 'or,ed on& "nd much of her 'or, 'as done lastingly/ editors still stand on the foundations she truly laid&
Much of it 'as not self:sacrifice, but self:reali;ation& %he found her father, in those blurred pages, as she had
not found him in the flesh/ and she found that he 'as herself& %he did not copy him, she insisted/ she 'as him&
Often she continued his thoughts as if they had been her o'n& #id she not even shuffle a little in her 'al,, as he
did, from side to side< -et though she spent half her time in reflecting that vanished radiance, the other half 'as
spent in the light of common day?at Chester 2lace, !egents 2ar,& Children 'ere born and children died& Her
health bro,e do'n/ she had her father8s legacy of harassed nerves/ and, li,e her farther, had need of opium&
2athetically she 'ished that she could be given Cthree years8 respite from child bearing&D 5ut she 'ished in
vain& Then Henry, 'hose gaiety had so often dragged her from the dar, abyss, died young/ leaving his notes
unfinished, and t'o children also, and very little money, and many apartments in .ncle %am8s great house still
uns'ept&
%he 'or,ed on& In her desolation it 'as her solace, her opium perhaps& CThings of the mind and intellect give
me intense pleasure/ they delight and amuse me as they are in themselves & & & and sometimes I thin,, the result
has been too large, the harvest too abundant, in in'ard satisfaction& This is dangerous& & & &D Thoughts
proliferated& 1i,e her father she had a %urinam toad in her head, breeding other toads& 5ut his 'ere 6e'elled/
hers 'ere plain& %he 'as diffuse, unable to conclude, and 'ithout the magic that does instead of a conclusion&
%he 'ould have li,ed, had she been able to ma,e an end, to have 'ritten?on metaphysics, on theology, some
boo, of criticism& Or again, politics interested her intensely, and Turner8s pictures& 5ut C'hatever sub6ect I
commence, I feel discomfort unless I could pursue it in every direction to the farthest bounds of thought& & & &
This 'as the reason 'hy my father 'rote by snatches& He could not bear to complete incompletely&D %o, boo, in
hand, pen suspended, large eyes filled 'ith a dreamy ha;e, she mused?Cpic,ing flo'ers, and finding nests, and
e9ploring some particular noo,, as I used to be 'hen a child 'al,ing 'ith my .ncle %outhey& & & &D
Then her children interrupted& With her son, the brilliant Herbert, she read, straight through the classics& Were
there not, Mr& =ustice Coleridge ob6ected, passages in "ristophanes that they had better s,ip< 2erhaps& & & & %till,
Herbert too, all the pri;es, 'on all the scholarships, almost drove her to distraction 'ith his horn:playing and,
li,e his father, loved parties& %ara 'ent to balls, and 'atched him dance 'alt; after 'alt;& %he had the old
lovely clothes that Henry had given her altered for her daughter, Edith& %he found herself eating supper t'ice,
she 'as so bored& %he preferred dinner parties 'here she held her o'n 'ith Macaulay, 'ho 'as so li,e her
father in the face, and 'ith Carlyle?C" precious "rch:charlatan,D she called him& The young poets, li,e
"ubrey de Vere, sought her out& %he 'as one of those, he said, C'hose thoughts are gro'ing 'hile they spea,&D
"fter he had gone, her thoughts follo'ed him, in long, long letters, rambling over baptism, regenerations,
metaphysics, theology, and poetry, past, present and to come& "s a critic she never, li,e her father, gra;ed paths
of light/ she 'as a fertili;er, not a creator, a burro'ing, tunnelling reader, thro'ing up molehills as she read her
'ay through #ante, Virgil, "ristophanes, Crasha', =ane "usten, Crabbe, to emerge suddenly, unafraid, in the
very face of 4eats and %helley& C0ain 'ould mine eyes,D she 'rote, Cdiscern the 0uture in the past&D
2ast, present, future dappled her 'ith a strange light& %he 'as mi9ed in herself, still divided, as in the 'ood
behind the house, bet'een t'o loyalties, to the father 'ho told her fairy stories in bed/ and to the mother?
0retti,ins she called her?to 'hom she clung in the flesh& C#ear mother,D she e9claimed, C'hat an honest,
simple, lively minded affectionate 'oman she 'as, ho' free from disguise or artifice& & & &D Why, even her 'ig
?she had cut her hair off as a girl?D 'as as dry and rough and dull as a piece of stubble, and as short and
stumpy&D The 'ig and the bro'?she understood them both& Could she have s,ipped the moral she could have
told us much about that strange marriage& %he meant to 'rite her life& 5ut she 'as interrupted& There 'as a
lump on her breast& Mr& Bilman, consulted, detected cancer& %he did not 'ant to die& %he had not finished
editing her father8s 'or,s, she had not 'ritten her o'n, for she did not li,e to complete incompletely& 5ut she
died at forty:eight, leaving, li,e her father, a blan, page covered 'ith dots, and t'o lines$
0ather, no amaranths e8er shall 'reathe my bro'?
Enough that round thy grave they flourish no'&
.NOT ONE OF !/ &'+(
E(+F " revie' of %HE11E-/ HI% 1I0E "# WO!4, by Walter Ed'in 2ec,, October ()+K&
2rofessor 2ec, does not apologi;e for 'riting a ne' life of %helley, nor does he give any reason for doing 'hat
has been so thoroughly done already, nor are the ne' documents that have come into his hands of any great
importance& "nd yet nobody is going to complain that here are t'o more thic,, illustrated, careful and
conscientious volumes devoted to the retelling of a story 'hich everyone ,no's by heart& There are some
stories 'hich have to be retold by each generation, not that 'e have anything ne' to add to them, but because
of some 7ueer 7uality in them 'hich ma,es them not only %helley8s story but our o'n& Eminent and durable
they stand on the s,yline, a mar, past 'hich 'e sail, 'hich moves as 'e move and yet remains the same&
Many such changes of orientation to'ard %helley have been recorded& In his o'n lifetime all e9cept five people
loo,ed upon him, %helley said, Cas a rare prodigy of crime and pollution, 'hose loo, even might infect&D %i9ty
years later he 'as canoni;ed by Ed'ard #o'den& 5y Matthe' "rnold he 'as again reduced to the ordinary
human scale& Ho' many biographers and essayists have since absolved him or sentenced him, it is impossible
to say& "nd no' comes our turn to ma,e up our minds 'hat manner of man %helley 'as/ so that 'e read
2rofessor 2ec,8s volumes, not to find out ne' facts, but to get %helley more sharply outlined against the shifting
image of ourselves&
If such is our purpose, never 'as there a biographer 'ho gave his readers more opportunity to fulfil it than
2rofessor 2ec,& He is singularly dispassionate, and yet not colourless& He has opinions, but he does not obtrude
them& His attitude to %helley is ,ind but not condescending& He does not rhapsodi;e, but at the same time he
does not scold& There are only t'o points 'hich he seems to plead 'ith any personal partiality/ one, that Harriet
'as a much 'ronged 'oman/ the other, that the political importance of %helley8s poetry is not rated sufficiently
high& 2erhaps 'e could spare the careful analysis of so many poems& We scarcely need to ,no' ho' many
times mountains and precipices are mentioned in the course of %helley8s 'or,s& 5ut as a chronicler of great
learning and lucidity, 2rofessor 2ec, is admirable& Here, he seems to say, is all that is actually ,no'n about
%helley8s life& In October he did this in ovember he did that/ no' it 'as that he 'rote this poem it 'as here
that he met that friend& "nd, moulding the enormous mass of the %helley papers 'ith de9terous fingers, he
contrives tactfully to embed dates and facts in feelings, in comments, in 'hat %helley 'rote, in 'hat Mary
'rote, in 'hat other people 'rote about them, so that 'e seem to be breasting the full current of %helley8s life
and get the illusion that 'e are, this time, seeing %helley, not through the rosy glasses or the livid glasses 'hich
sentiment and prudery have fi9ed on our forerunners8 noses, but plainly, as he 'as& In this, of course, 'e are
mista,en/ glasses 'e 'ear, though 'e cannot see them& 5ut the illusion of seeing %helley plain is sufficiently
e9hilarating to tempt us to try to fi9 it 'hile it lasts&
There is an image of %helley8s personal appearance in everybody8s picture gallery& He 'as a lean, large:boned
boy, much frec,led, 'ith big, rather prominent blue eyes& His dress 'as careless, of course, but it 'as
distinguished/ Che 'ore his clothes li,e a gentleman&D He 'as courteous and gentle in manner, but he spo,e in a
shrill, harsh voice and soon rose to the heights of e9citement& obody could overloo, the presence of this
discordant character in the room, and his presence 'as strangely disturbing& It 'as not merely that he might do
something e9treme, he might, someho', ma,e 'hoever 'as there appear absurd& 0rom the earliest days normal
people had noticed his abnormality and had done their best, follo'ing some obscure instinct of self:
preservation, to ma,e %helley either toe the line or else 7uit the society of the respectable& "t Eton they called
him Cmad %helleyD and pelted him 'ith muddy balls& "t O9ford he spilt acid over his tutor8s carpet, Ca ne'
purchase, 'hich he thus completely destroyed,D and for other and more serious differences of opinion he 'as
e9pelled&
"fter that he became the champion of every do'n:trodden cause and person& o' it 'as an emban,ment/ no'
a publisher/ no' the Irish nation/ no' three poor 'eavers condemned for treason/ no' a floc, of neglected
sheep& %pinsters of all sorts 'ho 'ere oppressed or aspiring found in him their leader& The first years of his
youth thus 'ere spent in dropping seditious pamphlets into old 'omen8s hoods/ in shooting scabby sheep to put
them out of their misery/ in raising money/ in 'riting pamphlets/ in ro'ing out to sea and dropping bottles into
the 'ater 'hich 'hen bro,en open by the To'n Cler, of 5arnstable 'ere found to contain a seditious paper,
Cthe contents of 'hich the mayor has not yet been able to ascertain&D In all these 'anderings and peregrinations
he 'as accompanied by a 'oman, or perhaps by t'o 'omen, 'ho either had young children at the breast or
'ere shortly e9pecting to become mothers& "nd one of them, it is said, could not contain her amusement 'hen
she sa' the pamphlet dropped into the old 'oman8s hood, but burst out laughing&
The picture is familiar enough/ the only thing that changes is our attitude to'ard it& %helley, e9citable,
uncompromising, atheistical, thro'ing his pamphlets into the sea in the belief that he is going to reform the
'orld, has become a figure 'hich is half heroic and 'holly delightful& On the other hand, the 'orld that %helley
fought has become ridiculous& %omeho' the untidy, shrill:voiced boy, 'ith his violence and his oddity has
succeeded in ma,ing Eton and O9ford, the English government, the To'n Cler, and Mayor of 5arnstable, the
country gentlemen of %usse9 and innumerable obscure people 'hom 'e might call generically, after Mary8s
censorious friends, the 5ooths and the 5a9ters?%helley has succeeded in ma,ing all these loo, absurd&
5ut, unfortunately, though one may ma,e bodies and institutions loo, absurd, it is e9tremely difficult to ma,e
private men and 'omen loo, anything so simple& Human relationships are too comple9/ human nature is too
subtle& Thus contact 'ith %helley turned Harriet Westbroo,, 'ho should have been the happy mother of a
commonplace family, into a muddled and be'ildered 'oman, 'ho 'anted both to reform the 'orld and yet to
possess a coach and bonnets, and 'as finally dra'n from the %erpentine on a 'inter8s morning, dro'ned in her
despair& "nd Mary and Miss Hitchener, and Bod'in and Claire, and Hogg and Emilia Viviani, and %ophia
%tacey and =ane Williams?there is nothing tragic about them, perhaps/ there is, indeed, much that is ridiculous&
%till, their association 'ith %helley does not lead to any clear and triumphant conclusion& Was he right< Were
they right< The 'hole relationship is muddy and obscure/ it baffles/ it teases&
One is reminded of the private life of another man 'hose po'er of conviction 'as even greater than %helley8s,
and more destructive of normal human happiness& One remembers Tolstoy and his 'ife& The alliance of the
intense belief of genius 'ith the easy:going non:belief or compromise of ordinary humanity must, it seems,
lead to disaster and to disaster of a lingering and petty ,ind in 'hich the 'orst side of both natures is revealed&
5ut 'hile Tolstoy might have 'rought out his philosophy alone or in a monastery, %helley 'as driven by
something yielding and enthusiastic in his temperament to entangle himself 'ith men and 'omen& CI thin, one
is al'ays in love 'ith something or other,D he 'rote& 5ut this Csomething or otherD besides lodging in poetry
and metaphysics and the good of society in general, had its d'elling in the bodies of human beings of the
opposite se9&
He sa' Cthe li,eness of 'hat is perhaps eternalD in the eyes of Mary& Then it vanished, to appear in the eyes of
Emilia/ then there it 'as again manifesting itself indisputably in %ophia %tacey or in =ane Williams& What is the
lover to do 'hen the 'ill o8 the 'isp shifts its 7uarters< One must go on, said %helley, until one is stopped& "nd
'hat is to stop one< ot, if one is %helley, the conventions and superstitions 'hich bind the baser part of
man,ind/ not the 5ooths and the 5a9ters& O9ford might e9pel him, England might e9ile him, but still, in spite of
disaster and derision, he sought the Cli,eness of 'hat is perhaps eternalD/ he 'ent on being in love&
5ut as the ob6ect of his love 'as a hybrid creature, half human, half divine, so the manner of his love partoo, of
the same ambiguous nature& There 'as something inhuman about %helley& Bod'in, in ans'er to %helley8s first
letter, noticed it& He complained of the Cgenerali;ing characterD of %helley8s style, 'hich, he said, had the effect
of ma,ing him Cnot an individual characterD to him& Mary %helley, musing over her life 'hen %helley 'as dead,
e9claimed, CWhat a strange life mine has been& 1ove, youth, fear and fearlessness led me early from the regular
routine of life and I united myself to this being 'ho, not one of .%, though li,e us, 'as pursued by numberless
miseries and annoyances, in all of 'hich I shared&D %helley 'as Cnot one of us&D He 'as, even to his 'ife, a
Cbeing,D some one 'ho came and 'ent li,e a ghost, see,ing the eternal& Of the transitory, he had little notion&
The 6oys and sorro's, from 'hose threads are 'oven the 'arm cocoon of private life in 'hich most men live,
had no hold upon him& " strange formality stiffens his letters/ there is no intimacy in them and no fun&
"t the same time it is perfectly true, and 2rofessor 2ec, does 'ell to emphasi;e the fact, that %helley loved
humanity if he did not love this Harriet or that Mary& " sense of the 'retchedness of human beings burnt in him
as brightly and as persistently as his sense of the divine beauty of nature& He loved the clouds and the mountains
and the rivers more passionately than any other man loved them/ but at the foot of the mountain he al'ays sa'
a ruined cottage/ there 'ere criminals in chains, hoeing up the 'eeds in the pavement of %t& 2eter8s %7uare/
there 'as an old 'oman sha,ing 'ith ague on the ban,s of the lovely Thames& Then he 'ould thrust aside his
'riting, dismiss his dreams and trudge off to physic the poor 'ith medicine or 'ith soup& Inevitably there
collected round him, as time 'ent on, the oddest assortment of pensioners and protNgNs& He too, on himself the
charge of deserted 'omen and other people8s children/ he paid other persons8 debts and planned their 6ourneys
and settled their relationships& The most ethereal of poets 'as the most practical of men&
Hence, says 2rofessor 2ec,, from this union of poetry and humanity springs the true value of %helley8s poetry&
It 'as the poetry of a man 'ho 'as not a Cpure poet,D but a poet 'ith a passion for reforming the 'rongs of
men& Had he lived, he 'ould have reconciled poetry and the statement of Cthe necessity of certain immediate
reforms in politics, society and government&D He died too young to be able to deliver his message/ and the
difficulty of his poetry arises from the fact that the conflict bet'een poetry and politics rages there unresolved&
We may not agree 'ith 2rofessor 2ec,8s definition, yet 'e have only to read %helley again to come up against
the difficulty of 'hich he spea,s& It lies partly in the disconcerting fact that 'e had thought his poetry so good
and 'e find it indeed so poor& Ho' are 'e to account for the fact that 'e remember him as a great poet and find
him on opening his pages a bad one< The e9planation seems to be that he 'as not a Cpure poet&D He did not
concentrate his meaning in a small space/ there is nothing in %helley8s poetry as rich and compact as the odes of
4eats& His taste could be sentimental/ he had all the vices of the album ma,ers/ he 'as unreal, strained, verbose&
The lines 'hich 2rofessor 2ec, 7uotes 'ith admiration$ CBood night< o, loveG The night is ill,D seems to us a
proof of it& 5ut if 'e pass from the lyrics, 'ith all their e97uisite beauty, and read ourselves into one of the
longer poems, E2I2%-CHI#IO or 2!OMETHE.% .5O.#, 'here the faults have space to lose
themselves, 'e again become convinced of his greatness& "nd here again 'e are confronted by a difficulty& 0or
if 'e 'ere as,ed to e9tract the teaching from these poems 'e should be at a loss& We can hardly say 'hat
reform in Cpolitics, society and governmentD they advocate& Their greatness seems to lie in nothing so definite
as a philosophy, in nothing so pure as perfection of e9pression& It lies rather in a state of being& We come
through s,eins of clouds and gusts of 'hirl'ind out into a space of pure calm, of intense and 'indless serenity&
#efensibly or not, 'e ma,e a distinction?THE %4-1"!4, the O#E TO THE WE%T WI# are poems/ the
2!OMETHE.%, the E2I2%-CHI#IO are poetry&
%o if 'e outline our relationship to %helley from the vantage ground Of ()+K 'e shall find that his England is a
barbarous place 'here they imprison 6ournalists for being disrespectful to the 2rince !egent, stand men in
stoc,s for publishing attac,s upon the %criptures, e9ecute 'eavers upon the suspicion of treason, and, 'ithout
giving proof of strict religious belief themselves, e9pel a boy from O9ford for avo'ing his atheism& 2olitically,
then, %helley8s England has already receded, and his fight, valiant though it is, seems to be 'ith monsters 'ho
are a little out of date, and therefore slightly ridiculous& 5ut privately he is much closer to us& 0or alongside the
public battle 'ages, from generation to generation, another fight 'hich is as important as the other, though
much less is said about it& Husband fights 'ith 'ife and son 'ith father& The poor fight the rich and the
employer fights the employed& There is a perpetual effort on the one hand to ma,e all these relationships more
reasonable, less painful and less servile/ on the other, to ,eep them as they are& %helley, both as son and as
husband, fought for reason and freedom in private life, and his e9periments, disastrous as they 'ere in many
'ays, have helped us to greater sincerity and happiness in our o'n conflicts& The %ir Timothys of %usse9 are no
longer so prompt to cut their sons off 'ith a shilling/ the 5ooths and the 5a9ters are no longer 7uite so sure that
an unmarried 'ife is an unmitigated demon& The grasp of convention upon private life is no longer 7uite so
coarse or 7uite so callous because of %helley8s successes and failures&
%o 'e see %helley through our particular pair of spectacles?a shrill, charming, angular boy/ a champion riding
out against the forces of superstition and brutality 'ith heroic courage/ at the same time blind, inconsiderate,
obtuse to other persons8 feelings& !apt in his e9traordinary vision, ascending to the very heights of e9istence, he
seems, as Mary said, Ca being,D Cnot one of us,D but better and higher and aloof and apart& %uddenly there
comes a ,noc, at the door/ the Hunts and seven children are at 1eghorn/ 1ord 5yron has been rude to them/
Hunt is cut to the heart& %helley must be off at once to see that they are comfortable& "nd, rousing himself from
his rapture, %helley goes&
HENR* ,AME# ') WITHIN THE RIM &'0(
E(IF Written in ()()&
It 'ould be easy to 6ustify the suspicion 'hich the sight of WITHI THE !IM aroused, and to ma,e it account
for the tepid and formal respect 'ith 'hich 'e o'n to have approached the boo,& Essays about the 'ar
contributed to albums and boo,s 'ith a charitable ob6ect even by the most distinguished of 'riters bear for the
most part such traces of perfunctory composition, such evidence of genius forcibly harnessed to the 'agon of
philanthropy and sullen and stubborn beneath the lash, that one is inclined for the sa,e of the 'riter to leave
them unread& 5ut 'e should not have said this unless 'e intended immediately and completely to unsay it& The
process of reading these essays 'as a process of recantation& It is possible that the composition of some of them
'as an act of duty, in the sense that the 'riting of a chapter of a novel 'as not an act of duty& 5ut the duty 'as
imposed upon Henry =ames not by the persuasions of a committee nor by the solicitations of friends, but by a
po'er much more commanding and irresistible?a po'er so large and of such immense significance to him that
he scarcely succeeds 'ith all his range of e9pression in saying 'hat it 'as or all that it meant to him& It 'as
5elgium, it 'as 0rance, it 'as above all England and the English tradition, it 'as everything that he had ever
cared for of civili;ation, beauty and art threatened 'ith destruction and arrayed before his imagination in one
figure of tragic appeal&
2erhaps no other elderly man e9isted in "ugust ()(* so 'ell 7ualified to feel imaginatively all that the outbrea,
of 'ar meant as Henry =ames& 0or years he had been appreciating ever more and more finely 'hat he calls Cthe
rare, the sole, the e97uisite EnglandD$ he had relished her discriminatingly as only the alien, bred to different
sounds and sights and circumstances, could relish others so distinct and so delightful in their distinctness&
4no'ing so 'ell 'hat she had given him, he 'as the more tenderly and scrupulously grateful to her for the
very reason that she seemed to him to besto' her gifts half in ignorance of their value& Thus 'hen the ne's
came that England 'as in danger he 'andered in the "ugust sunshine half over'helmed 'ith the vastness of
'hat had happened, rec,oning up his debt, conscious to the verge of agony of the e9tent to 'hich he had
committed his o'n happiness to her, and analysing incessantly and acutely 6ust 'hat it all meant to the 'orld
and to him& "t first, as he o'ned, he had Can elderly dread of a 'aste of emotion & & & my house of the spirit amid
everything around me had become more and more the inhabited, ad6usted, familiar homeD/ but before long he
found himself
building additions and upper storeys, thro'ing out e9tensions and protrusions, indulging even, all
rec,lessly, in gables and pinnacles and battlements?things that had presently transformed the
unpretending place into I scarce ,no' 'hat to call it, a fortress of the faith, a palace of the soul, an
e9travagant, bristling, flag:flying structure 'hich had 7uite as much to do 'ith the air as 'ith the earth&
In a succession of images not to be torn from their conte9t he paints the state of his mind confronted by one
aspect after another of 'hat appeared to him in so many diverse lights of glory and of tragedy& His gesture as of
one shrin,ing from the sight of the distress, combined 'ith an irresistible instinct of pity dra'ing him again and
again to its presence, recalls to the present 'riter his reluctance to ta,e a certain road in !ye because it led past
the 'or,house gates and forced to his notice the dismal line of tramps 'aiting for admittance& 5ut in the case of
the 'ounded and the fugitive his humanity forced him again and again to face the sight, and brought him the
triumphant re'ard of finding that the beauty emerging from such conditions more than matched the s7ualor& C& &
& their presence,D he 'rote of the 'ounded soldier, Cis a blest rene'al of faith&D
" moralist perhaps might ob6ect that terms of beauty and ugliness are not the terms in 'hich to spea, of so vast
a catastrophe, nor should a 'riter e9hibit so ,een a curiosity as to the tremors and vibrations of his o'n spirit in
face of the universal calamity& -et, of all boo,s describing the sights of 'ar and appealing for our pity, this
largely personal account is the one that best sho's the dimensions of the 'hole& It is not merely or even to any
great e9tent that 'e have been stimulated intellectually by the genius of Henry =ames to analyse shades and
subtleties/ but rather that for the first and only time, so far as 'e are a'are, someone has reached an eminence
sufficiently high above the scene to give it its grouping and standing in the universal& !ead, for instance, the
scene of the arrival of the 5elgian refugees by night at !ye, 'hich 'e 'ill not curtail and thus rob of its
completeness& It is precisely the same little scene of refugees hurrying by in silence, save for the cry of a 'oman
carrying her child, 'hich, in its thousand varieties, a thousand pens have depicted during the past four years&
They have done their best, and left us ac,no'ledging their effort, but feeling it to be a ,ind of siege or battering
ram laid to the emotions, 'hich have obstinately refused to yield their fruits& That it is altogether other'ise 'ith
the scene painted for us by Henry =ames might perhaps be credited to his training as a novelist& 5ut 'hen, in his
stately 'ay, diminishing his stature not one 'hit and ma6estically rolling the tide of his prose over the most
roc,y of obstacles, he as,s us for the gift of a motor:car, 'e cannot help feeling that if all philanthropies had
such advocates our poc,ets 'ould never be anything but empty& It is not that our emotions have been harassed
by the sufferings of the individual case& That he can do upon occasion 'ith beautiful effect& 5ut 'hat he does in
this little boo, of less than a hundred and t'enty pages is, so it seems to us, to present the best statement yet
made of the largest point of vie'& He ma,es us understand 'hat civili;ation meant to him and should mean to
us& 0or him it 'as a spirit that overflo'ed the material bounds of countries, but it is in 0rance that he sees it
most plainly personified$
& & & 'hat happens to 0rance happens to all that part of ourselves 'hich 'e are most proud, and most finely
advised, to enlarge and cultivate and consecrate& & & & %he is sole and single in this, that she ta,es charge of
those of the Sinterests8 of man 'hich most dispose him to fraterni;e 'ith himself, to pervade all his
possibilities and to taste all his faculties, and in conse7uence to find and to ma,e the earth a friendlier, an
easier, and especially a more various so6ourn&
If all our counsellors, 'e cannot help e9claiming, had spo,en 'ith that voiceG
HENR* ,AME# +) THE OLD ORDER &'2(
E(*F Written in ()(K&
With this small volume,E(LF 'hich brings us do'n to about the year (OKH, the memories of Henry =ames brea,
off& It is more fitting to say that they brea, off than that they come to an end, for although 'e are a'are that 'e
shall hear his voice no more, there is no hint of e9haustion or of leave:ta,ing/ the tone is as rich and deliberate
as if time 'ere unending and matter infinite/ 'hat 'e have seems to be but the prelude to 'hat 'e are to have,
but a crumb, as he says, of a ban7uet no' forever 'ithheld& %omeone spea,ing once incautiously in his
presence of his CcompletedD 'or,s dre' from him the emphatic assertion that never, never so long as he lived
could there be any tal, of completion/ his 'or, 'ould end only 'ith his life/ and it seems in accord 'ith this
spirit that 'e should feel ourselves pausing, at the end of a paragraph, 'hile in imagination the ne9t great 'ave
of the 'onderful voice curves into fullness&
E(LF THE MI##1E -E"!%& 5y Henry =ames&
"ll great 'riters have, of course, an atmosphere in 'hich they seem most at their ease and at their best/ a mood
of the great general mind 'hich they interpret and indeed almost discover, so that 'e come to read them rather
for that than for any story or character or scene of separate e9cellence& 0or ourselves Henry =ames seems most
entirely in his element, doing that is to say 'hat everything favours his doing, 'hen it is a 7uestion of
recollection& The mello' light 'hich s'ims over the past, the beauty 'hich suffuses even the commonest little
figures of that time, the shado' in 'hich the detail of so many things can be discerned 'hich the glare of day
flattens out, the depth, the richness, the calm, the humour of the 'hole pageant?all this seems to have been his
natural atmosphere and his most abiding mood& It is the atmosphere of all those stories in 'hich aged Europe is
the bac,ground for young "merica& It is the half light in 'hich he sees most, and sees farthest& To "mericans,
indeed, to Henry =ames and to Ha'thorne, 'e o'e the best relish of the past in our literature?not the past of
romance and chivalry, but the immediate past of vanished dignity and faded fashions& The novels teem 'ith it/
but 'onderful as they are, 'e are tempted to say that the memories are yet more 'onderful, in that they are
more e9actly Henry =ames, and give more precisely his tone and his gesture& In them his benignity is 'armer,
his humour richer, his solicitude more e97uisite, his recognition of beauty, fineness, humanity more instant and
direct& He comes to his tas, 'ith an indescribable air of one so charged and laden 'ith precious stuff that he
hardly ,no's ho' to divest himself of it all?'here to find space to set do'n this and that, ho' to resist
altogether the claims of some other gleaming ob6ect in the bac,ground/ appearing so busy, so un'ieldy 'ith
ponderous treasure that his de9terity in disposing of it, his consummate ,no'ledge of ho' best to place each
fragment, afford us the greatest delight that literature has had to offer for many a year& The mere sight is enough
to ma,e anyone 'ho has ever held a pen in his hand consider his art afresh in the light of this e9traordinary
e9ample of it& "nd our pleasure at the mere sight soon merges in the thrill 'ith 'hich 'e recogni;e, if not
directly then by hearsay, the old 'orld of 1ondon:life 'hich he brings out of the shades and sets tenderly and
solidly before us as if his last gift 'ere the most perfect and precious of the treasures hoarded in Cthe scented
chest of our savings&D
"fter the absence from Europe of about nine years 'hich is recorded in OTE% O0 " %O "# 5!OTHE!,
he arrived in 1iverpool on March (st, (OM), and found himself Cin the face of an opportunity that affected me
then and there as the happiest, the most interesting, the most alluring and beguiling that could ever have opened
before a some'hat disabled young man 'ho 'as about to complete his t'enty:si9th year&D He proceeded to
1ondon, and too, up his lodging 'ith a C,ind slim celibate,D a Mr& 1a;arus 0o9?every detail is dear to him?
'ho let out slices of his house in Half Moon %treet to gentlemen lodgers& The 1ondon of that day, as Henry
=ames at once proceeded to ascertain 'ith those ama;ingly delicate and tenacious tentacles of his, 'as an
e9tremely characteristic and uncompromising organism& CThe big broom of changeD had s'ept it hardly at all
since the days of 5yron at least& %he 'as still the Cunaccommodating and unaccommodated city & & & the city too
indifferent, too proud, too una'are, too stupid even if one 'ill, to enter any lists that involved her moving from
her base and that thereby & & & en6oyed the enormous Spull,8 for ma,ing her impression, of ignoring everything
but her o'n perversities and then of driving these home 'ith an emphasis not to be gainsaid&D The young
"merican @Cbrooding monster that I 'as, born to discriminate T TO.T 2!O2O%DA 'as soon brea,fasting 'ith
the gentleman upstairs @Mr& "lbert !utsonA, eating his fried sole and marmalade 'ith other gentlemen from the
Home Office, the 0oreign Office, the House of Commons, 'hose freedom to lounge over that meal impressed
him greatly, and 'hose close 7uestioning as to the composition of Brant8s first Cabinet embarrassed him not a
little& The 'hole scene, 'hich it 'ould be an impiety to dismember further, has the very breath of the age in it&
The 'his,ers, the leisure, the intentness of those gentlemen upon politics, their conviction that the composition
of Cabinets 'as the natural topic for the brea,fast:table, and that a stranger unable, as Henry =ames found
himself, to thro' light upon it 'as Conly not perfectly ridiculous because perfectly insignificantD?all this
provides a picture that many of us 'ill be able to see again as 'e sa' it once perhaps from the perch of an
obliging pair of shoulders&
The main facts about that 1ondon, as all 'itnesses agree in testifying, 'ere its smallness compared 'ith our
city, the limited number of distractions and amusements available, and the conse7uent tendency of all people
'orth ,no'ing to ,no' each other and to form a very accessible and, at the same time, highly enviable society&
Whatever the 7uality that gained you admittance, 'hether it 'as that you had done something or sho'ed
yourself capable of doing something 'orthy of respect, the compliment 'as not an empty one& " young man
coming up to 1ondon might in a fe' months claim to have met Tennyson, 5ro'ning, Matthe' "rnold, Carlyle,
0roude, Beorge Eliot, Herbert %pencer, Hu9ley, and Mill& He had met them/ he had not merely brushed against
them in a cro'd& He had heard them tal,/ he had even offered something of his o'n& The conditions of those
days allo'ed a ,ind of conversation 'hich, so the survivors al'ays maintain, is an art un,no'n in 'hat they
are pleased to call our chaos& What 'ith recurring dinner parties and %unday calls, and country visits lasting far
beyond the 'ee,:ends of our generation, the fabric of friendship 'as solidly built up and carefully preserved&
The tendency perhaps 'as rather to a good fello'ship in 'hich the tal, 'as 'ide:s'eeping, e9tremely 'ell
informed, and impersonal than to the less formal, perhaps more intense and indiscriminate, intimacies of to:
day& We read of little societies of the si9ties, the Cosmopolitan and the Century, meeting on Wednesday and on
%unday evenings to discuss the serious 7uestions of the times, and 'e have the feeling that they could claim a
more representative character than anything of the sort 'e can sho' no'& We are left 'ith the impression that
'hatever 'ent for'ard in those days, either among the statesmen or among the men of letters?and there 'as a
closer connection than there is no'?'as promoted or inspired by the members of this group& .ndoubtedly the
resources of the day?and ho' magnificent they 'ereG?'ere better organi;ed/ and it must occur to every
reader of their memoirs that a reason is to be found in the simplicity 'hich accepted the greatness of certain
names and imposed something li,e order on their immediate neighbourhood& Having cro'ned their ,in they
'orshipped him 'ith the most 'hole:hearted loyalty& Broups of people 'ould come together at 0resh'ater, in
that old garden 'here the houses of Melbury !oad no' stand, or in various 1ondon centres, and live as it seems
to us for months at a time, some of them indeed for the duration of their lives, in the mood of the presiding
genius& Watts and 5urne:=ones in one 7uarter of the to'n, Carlyle in another, Beorge Eliot in a third, almost as
much as Tennyson in his island, imposed their la's upon a circle 'hich had spirit and beauty to recommend it
as 'ell as an uncritical devotion&
Henry =ames, of course, 'as not a person to accept la's or to ma,e one of any circle in a sense 'hich implies
the blunting of the critical po'ers& Happily for us, he came over not only 'ith the hoarded curiosity of years,
but also 'ith the detachment of the stranger and the critical sense of the artist& He 'as immensely appreciative,
but he 'as also immensely observant& Thus it comes about that his fragment revives, indeed stamps afresh, the
great figures of the epoch, and, 'hat is no less important, illumines the lesser figures by 'hom they 'ere
surrounded& othing could be happier than his portrait of Mrs& Breville, C'ith her e97uisite good nature and her
innocent fatuity,D 'ho 'as, of course, very much an individual, but also a type of the enthusiastic sisterhood
'hich, 'ith all its e9travagances and generosities and 'hat 'e might un,indly, but not 'ithout the authority of
Henry =ames, call absurdity, no' seems e9tinct& We shall not spoil the reader8s impression of the superb
passage describing a visit arranged by Mrs& Breville to Beorge Eliot by revealing 'hat happened on that almost
tragic occasion& It is more e9cusable to d'ell for a moment upon the dra'ing:room at Milford Cottage,
the most embo'ered retreat for social innocence that it 'as possible to conceive& & & & The red candles in the
red shades have remained 'ith me, ine9plicably, as a vivid note of this pitch, shedding their rosy light,
'ith the autumn gale, the averted reality, all shut out, upon such felicities of feminine helplessness as I
couldn8t have prefigured in advance, and as e9emplified, for further gathering in, the possibilities of the
old tone&
The dra'n curtains, the Ccopious service,D the second volume of the ne' novel Chalf:uncutD laid ready to hand,
Cthe e97uisite head and incomparable brush of the domesticated collieD?that is the familiar setting& He recalls
the high:handed manner in 'hich these ladies too, their 'ay through life, baffling the very stro,e of age and
disaster 'ith their un7uenchable optimism, ladling out 'ith both hands every sort of gift upon their passage,
and bringing to port in their to' the most incongruous and battered of derelicts& o doubt Ca number of the
sharp truths that one might privately apprehend beat themselves beautifully in vainD against such defences&
Truth, so it seems to us, 'as not so much disregarded as flattered out of countenance by the energy 'ith 'hich
they pursued the beautiful, the noble, the poetic, and ignored the possibility of another side of things& The
e9travagant steps 'hich they 'ould ta,e to snare 'hatever grace or atmosphere they desired at the moment lend
their lives in retrospect a glamour of adventure, aspiration, and triumph such as seems for good or for evil
banished from our conscious and much more critical day& Was a friend ill< " 'all 'ould be ,noc,ed do'n to
admit the morning sun& #id the doctor prescribe fresh mil,< The only perfectly healthy co' in England 'as at
your service& "ll this personal e9uberance Henry =ames brings bac, in the figure of Mrs& Breville, Cfriend of the
super:eminentD and priestess at the different altars& Cannot 'e almost hear the Cpleasant gro'ling note of
TennysonD ans'ering her Cmild e9travagance of homageD 'ith COh, yes, you may do 'hat you li,e?:so long
as you don8t ,iss me before the cabmanGD
"nd then 'ith the entrance of 1ady Waterford, Henry =ames ponders lovingly the 7uality 'hich seems to hang
about those days and people as the very scent of the flo'er?Cthe 7uality of personal beauty, to say nothing of
personal accomplishment as our fathers 'ere appointed to en6oy it& & & & %carce to be sated that form of 'onder,
to my o'n imagination I confess&D Were they as beautiful as 'e li,e to remember them, or 'as it that the 'hole
atmosphere made a beautiful presence, any sort of distinction or eminence indeed, felt in a 'ay no longer so
carefully arranged for, or so un7uestionably accepted< Was it not all a part of the empty 1ondon streets, of the
four:'heelers even, lined 'ith stra', of the stuffy little bo9es of the public dining rooms, of the protectedness,
of the leisure< 5ut if they had merely to stand and be loo,ed at, ho' splendidly they did itG " certain 'idth of
space seems to be a necessary condition for the blooming of such splendid plants as 1ady Waterford, 'ho,
'hen she had da;;led sufficiently 'ith her beauty and presence, had only to ta,e up her brush to be acclaimed
the e7ual of Titian or of Watts&
2ersonality, 'hatever one may mean by it, seems to have been accorded a licence for the e9pression of itself for
'hich 'e can find no parallel in the present day& The gift if you had it 'as encouraged and sheltered beyond the
bounds of 'hat no' seems possible& Tennyson, of course, is the supreme e9ample of 'hat 'e mean, and
happily for us Henry =ames 'as duly ta,en to that shrine and gives 'ith e9traordinary s,ill a ne' version of the
mystery 'hich in our case 'ill supersede the old& CThe fond prefigurements of youthful piety are predestined,
more often than not, I thin,, e9perience interfering, to strange and violent shoc,s& & & & 0ine, fine, fine, could he
only be& & & &D %o he begins, and so continuing for some time leads us up to the pronouncement that CTennyson
'as not Tennysonian&D The air one breathed at "ld'orth 'as one in 'hich nothing but Cthe blest obvious, or at
least the blest outright, could so much as attempt to live & & & & It 'as a large and simple and almost empty
occasion & & & & He struc, me in truth as neither ,no'ing nor communicating ,no'ledge&D He recited
1OC4%1E- H"11 and COh dear, oh dear& & & & I heard him in cool surprise ta,e even more out of his verse than
he had put in&D "nd so by a series of 7ualifications 'hich are all beautifully adapted to sharpen the image
'ithout in the least destroying it, 'e are led to the satisfactory and convincing conclusion, CMy critical reaction
hadn8t in the least invalidated our great man8s being a 5ard?it had in fact made him and left him more a 5ard
than ever&D We see, really for the first time, ho' obvious and simple and almost empty it 'as, ho' Cthe glory
'as 'ithout history,D the poetic character Cmore 'orn than paid for, or at least more saved than spent,D and yet
someho' the great man revives and flourishes in the ne' conditions and da'ns upon us more of a 5ard than 'e
had got into the habit of thin,ing him& The same service of defining, limiting, and restoring to life he performs
as beautifully for the ghost of Beorge Eliot, and proclaims himself, as the faithful 'ill be glad to hear, Ceven a
very #erondist of #erondists&D
"nd thus loo,ing bac, into the past 'hich is all changed and gone @he could mar,, he said, the very hour or the
changeA Henry =ames performs a last act of piety 'hich is supremely characteristic of him& The English 'orld
of that day 'as very clear to him/ it had a fineness and a distinction 'hich he professed half humorously not to
find in our Cvast monotonous mob&D It had given him friendship and opportunity and much else, no doubt, that it
had no consciousness of giving& %uch a gift he of all people could never forget/ and this boo, of memories
sounds to us li,e a superb act of than,sgiving& What could he do to ma,e up for it all, he seems to have as,ed
himself& "nd then 'ith all the creative po'er at his command he summons bac, the past and ma,es us a present
of that& If 'e could have had the choice, that is 'hat 'e should have chosen, not entirely for 'hat it gives us of
the dead, but also for 'hat it gives us of him& Many 'ill hear his voice again in these pages/ they 'ill perceive
once more that solicitude for others, that immense desire to help 'hich had its origin, one might guess, in the
aloofness and loneliness of the artist8s life& It seemed as if he 'ere grateful for the chance of ta,ing part in the
ordinary affairs of the 'orld, of assuring himself that, in spite of his absorption 'ith the fine and remote things
of the imagination, he had not lost touch 'ith human interests& To ac,no'ledge any claim that 'as in the least
connected 'ith the friends or memories of the past gave him, for this reason, a peculiar 6oy/ and 'e can believe
that if he could have chosen, his last 'ords 'ould have been li,e these, 'ords of recollection and of love&
HENR* ,AME# 0) THE LETTER OF HENR* ,AME &'6(
E(MF Written in ()+H&
Who, on stepping from the cathedral dus,, the gro'l and boom of the organ still in the ears, and the eyes still
shaded to observe better 'hatever intricacy of carving or richness of marble may there be concealed, can breast
the stir of the street and instantly and bris,ly sum up and deliver his impressions< Ho' discriminate, ho'
formulate< Ho', Henry =ames may be heard grimly as,ing, dare you pronounce any opinion 'hatever upon
me< In the first place only by ta,ing cover under some such figure as implies that, still da;ed and 'ell:nigh
dro'ned, our gesture at the finish is more one of e9clamation than of interpretation& To soothe and to inspirit
there comes, a moment later, the consciousness that, although in the eyes of Henry =ames our attempt is
foredoomed to failure, nevertheless his blessing is upon it& !ene'al of life, on such terms as 'e can grant it,
upon lips, in minds, here in 1ondon, here among English men and 'omen, 'ould receive from him the most
generous ac,no'ledgment/ and 'ith a royal complacency, he 'ould admit that our activities could hardly be
better employed& or are 'e left to grope 'ithout a guide& It 'ould not be easy to find a difficult tas, better
fulfilled than by Mr& 2ercy 1ubboc, in his introduction and connecting pararaphs&E(KF It seems to us, and this
not only before reading the letters but more emphatically after'ards, that the lines of interpretation he lays
do'n are the true ones& They end?as he is the first to declare?in the heart of dar,ness/ but any understanding
that 'e may have 'on of a difficult problem is at every point fortified and corrected by the help of his
singularly thoughtful and intimate essay& His intervention is al'ays illuminating&
E(KF THE 1ETTE!% O0 HE!- ="ME%& Edited by 2ercy 1ubboc,&
It must be admitted that these remar,s scarcely seem called for by anything specially abstruse in the first fe'
chapters& If ever a young "merican proved himself capable of giving a clear and composed account of his
e9periences in Europe during the seventies of the last century that young "merican 'as Henry =ames& He
recounts his seeings and doings, his dinings out and meetings, his country house visits, li,e a guest too 'ell:
bred to sho' surprise even if he feels it& " Ccosmopolitani;ed "merican,D as he calls himself, 'as far more
li,ely, it appears, to find things flat than to find them surprising/ to sin, into the depths of English civili;ation as
if it 'ere a soft feather bed inducing sleep and 'armth and security rather than shoc,s and sensations& Henry
=ames, of course, 'as much too busy recording impressions to fall asleep/ it only appears that he never did
anything, and never met anyone, in those early days, capable of rousing him beyond the gay and sprightly mood
so easily and amusingly sustained in his letters home& -et he 'ent every'here/ he met everyone, as the
sprin,ling of famous names and great occasions abundantly testify& 1et one fair specimen suffice$
-esterday I dined 'ith 1ord Houghton?'ith Bladstone, Tennyson, #r& %chliemann @the e9cavator of old
Mycenae, 3c&A, and half a do;en other men of Chigh culture&D I sat ne9t but one to the 5ard and heard most
of his tal,, 'hich 'as all about port 'ine and tobacco/ he seems to ,no' much about them, and can drin,
a 'hole bottle of port at a sitting 'ith no incommodity& He is very s'arthy and scraggy, and stri,es one8 at
first as much less handsome than his photos$ but gradually you see that it8s a face of genius& He had I ,no'
not 'hat simplicity, spea,s 'ith a strange rustic accent and seemed altogether li,e a creature of some
primordial English stoc,, a thousand miles a'ay from "merican manufacture& 5ehold me after dinner
conversing affably 'ith Mr& Bladstone:not by my o'n see,ing, but by the almost importunate affection of
1ord H& 5ut I 'as glad of a chance to feel the CpersonalityD of a great political leader?or as B& is no'
thought here even, I thin,, by his partisans, e9:leader& That of Bladstone is very fascinating?his urbanity
e9treme:his eye that of a man of genius?and his apparent self:surrender to 'hat he is tal,ing of 'ithout a
fla'& He made a great impression on me?greater than anyone I have seen here$ though 8tis perhaps o'ing
to my "UVETQ, and unfamiliarity 'ith statesmen& & & &
"nd so to the O9ford and Cambridge boat:race& The impression is 'ell and brightly conveyed/ 'hat 'e miss,
perhaps, is any body of resistance to the impression?any 'arrant for thin,ing that the receiving mind is other
than a stretched 'hite sheet& The best comment upon that comes in his o'n 'ords a fe' pages later& CIt is
something to have learned ho' to 'rite&D If 'e loo, upon many of these early pages as e9periments in the art of
'riting by one 'hose standard of taste e9acts that small things must be done perfectly before big things are
even attempted, 'e shall understand that their perfection is of the ine9pressive ,ind that often precedes a late
maturity& He is saying all that his means allo' him to say& Moreover, he is saying it already, as most good letter
'riters learn to say it, not to an individual but to a chosen assembly& CIt is, indeed, I thin,, the very essence of a
good letter to be sho'n,D he 'rote/ Cit is 'asted if it is ,ept for OE& & & & I give you full leave to read mine
aloud at your soireesGD Therefore, if 'e refrain from 7uotation, it is not that passages of the necessary 7uality
are lac,ing& It is, rather, that 'hile he 'rites charmingly, intelligently and ade7uately of this, that and the other,
'e begin by guessing and end by resenting the fact that his mind is else'here& It is not the dinner parties?a
hundred and seven in one season?nor the ladies and gentlemen, nor even the Tennysons and the Bladstones
that interest him primarily/ the pageant passes before him$ the impressions ceaselessly descend/ and yet as 'e
'atch 'e also 'ait for the clue, the secret of it all& It is, indeed, clear that if he discharged the duties of his
position 'ith every appearance of e7uanimity the choice of the position itself 'as one of momentous
importance, constantly re7uiring e9amination, and, 'ith its promise of different possibilities, harassing his
peace till the end of time& On 'hat spot of the civili;ed globe 'as he to settle< His vibrations and vacillations in
front of that problem suffer much in our report of them, but in the early days the case against "merica 'as
simply that C& & & it ta,es an old civili;ation to set a novelist in motion&D
e9t, Italy presented herself/ but the seductions of Cthe golden climateD 'ere fatal to 'or,& 2aris had obvious
advantages, but the dra'bac,s 'ere e7ually positive?CI have seen almost nothing of the literary fraternity, and
there are fifty reasons 'hy I should not become intimate 'ith them& I don8t li,e their 'ares, and they don8t li,e
any others/ and, besides, they are not "CC.EI11"T%&D 1ondon e9ercised a continuous double pressure of
attraction and repulsion to 'hich finally he succumbed, to the e9tent of ma,ing his head7uarters in the
metropolis 'ithout shutting his eyes to her faults& CI am attracted to 1ondon in spite of the long list of reasons
'hy I should not be/ I thin, it, on the 'hole, the best point of vie' in the 'orld& & & & 5ut the 7uestion is
interminable&D When he 'rote that, he 'as thirty:seven/ a mature age/ an age at 'hich the native gro'ing
confidently in his o'n soil is already putting forth 'hatever flo'er fate ordains and natural conditions allo'&
5ut Henry =ames had neither roots nor soil/ he 'as of the tribe of 'anderers and aliens/ a 'inged visitant,
ceaselessly circling and see,ing, unattached, uncommitted, ranging hither and thither at his o'n free 'ill, and
only at length precariously settling and delicately inserting his proboscis in the thic,set lusty blossoms of the
old garden beds&
Here, then, 'e distinguish one of the strains, al'ays to some e9tent present in the letters before us, from 'hich
they dra' their unli,eness to any others in the language, and, indeed, bring us at times to doubt 'hether they
are Cin the languageD at all& If 1ondon is primarily a point of vie', if the 'hole field of human activity is only a
prospect and a pageant, then 'e cannot help as,ing, as the store of impressions heaps itself up, 'hat is the aim
of the spectator, 'hat is the purpose of his hoard< " spectator, alert, aloof, endlessly interested, endlessly
observant, Henry =ames undoubtedly 'as/ but as obviously, though not so simply, the long dra'n process of
ad6ustment and preparation 'as from first to last controlled and manipulated by a purpose 'hich, as the years
'ent by, only dealt more po'erfully and completely 'ith the treasures of a more comple9 sensibility& -et,
'hen 'e loo, to find the purpose e9pressed, to see the material in the act of transmutation, 'e are met by
silence, 'e are blindly 'aved outside& CTo 'rite a series of good little tales I deem ample 'or, for a life time&
It8s at least a relief to have arranged one8s life time&D The 'ords are youthful, perhaps intentionally light but fe'
and frail as they are, they have almost alone to bear the burden built upon them, to ans'er the 7uestions and
7uiet the suspicions of those 'ho insist that a 'riter must have a mission and proclaim it aloud& %carcely for a
moment does Henry =ames tal, of his 'riting/ never for an instant is the thought of it absent from his mind&
Thus, in the letters to %tevenson abroad 'e hear behind everything else a brooding murmur of ama;ement and
horror at the notion of living 'ith savages& Ho', he seems to be as,ing himself, 'hile on the surface all is
admiration and affection, can he endure it?ho' could I 'rite my boo,s if I lived in %amoa 'ith savages< "ll
refers to his 'riting/ all points in to that preoccupation& 5ut so far as actual statement goes the boo,s might have
sprung as silently and spontaneously as daffodils in spring& o notice is ta,en of their birth& or does it matter
to him 'hat people say& Their remar,s are probably 'ide of the point, or if they have a passing truth they are
uttered in unavoidable ignorance of the fact that each boo, is a step on'ard in a gradual process of evolution,
the plan of 'hich is on'ard only to the author himself& He remains inscrutable& silent, and assured&
Ho', then, are 'e to e9plain the apparent inconsistency of his disappointment 'hen, some years later, the
failure of THE 5O%TOI"% and 2!ICE%% C"%"M"%%IM" brought him face to face 'ith the fact that he
'as not destined to be a popular novelist?
& & & I am still staggering Ehe 'roteF a good deal under the mysterious and to me ine9plicable in6ury 'rought
?apparently?upon my situation by my t'o last novels, the 5O%TOI"% and the 2!ICE%%, from
'hich I e9pected so much and derived so little& They have reduced the desire, and the demand, for my
productions to ;ero?as I 6udge from the fact that though I have for a good 'hile past been 'riting a
number of good short things, I remain irremediably unpublished&
Compensations at once suggested themselves/ he 'as Creally in better form then everD and found himself
Cholding the Scritical 'orld8 at large in singular contemptD but 'e have Mr& 1ubboc,8s authority for supposing
that it 'as chiefly a desire to retrieve the failure of the novels that led him to strive so strenuously, and in the
end so disastrously, for success upon the stage& %uccess and failure upon the lips of a man 'ho never for a
moment doubted the authenticity of his genius or for a second lo'ered his standard of the artist8s duty have not
their ordinary meaning& 2erhaps 'e may hold that failure in the sense that Henry =ames used it meant, more
than anything, failure on the part of the public to receive& That 'as the public8s fault, but that did not lessen the
catastrophe or ma,e less desirable the vision of an order of things 'here the public gratefully and 'ith
understanding accepts at the artists8 hands 'hat is, after all, the finest essence, transmuted and returned, of the
public itself& When B.- #OMVI11E failed, and Henry =ames for one Cabominable 7uarter of an hourD faced
the Cyelling barbariansD and Clearned 'hat could be the savagery of their disappointment that one 'asn8t
perfectly the %"ME as everything else they had ever seenD he had no doubt of his genius/ but he 'ent home to
reflect$
I have felt for a long time past that I have fallen upon evil days?every sign and symbol of one8s being in
the least 'anted, any'here or by anyone, having so utterly failed& " ne' generation, that I ,no' not, and
mainly pri;e not, has ta,en universal possession&
The public hencefor'ard appeared to him, so far as it appeared at all, a barbarian cro'd incapable of ta,ing in
their rude pa's the beauty and delicacy that he had to offer& More and more 'as he confirmed in his conviction
that an artist can neither live 'ith the public, 'rite for it, nor see, his material in the midst of it& " select group,
representative of civili;ation, had at the same time protested its devotion, but ho' far can one 'rite for a select
group< Is not genius itself restricted, or at least influenced in its very essence by the consciousness that its gifts
are to the fe', its concern 'ith the fe', and its revelation apparent only to scattered enthusiasts 'ho may be the
advance guard of the future or only a little band strayed from the high road and doomed to e9tinction 'hile
civili;ation marches irresistibly else'here< "ll this Henry =ames poised, pondered, and held in debate& o
doubt the influence upon the direction of his 'or, 'as profound& 5ut for all that he 'ent serenely for'ard/
bought a house, bought a type'riter, shut himself up, surrounded himself 'ith furniture of the right period, and
'as able at the critical moment by the timely, though rash, e9penditure of a little capital to ensure that certain
hideous ne' cottages did not deface his point of vie'& One admits to a momentary malice& The seclusion is so
deliberate/ the e9clusion so complete& "ll 'ithin the sanctuary is so prosperous and smooth& o private
responsibilities harassed him/ no public duties claimed him/ his health 'as e9cellent and his income, in spite of
his protests to the contrary, more than ade7uate to his needs& The voice that issued from the hermitage might
'ell spea, calmly, subtly, of e97uisite emotions, and yet no' and then 'e are 'arned by something e9acting
and even acid in its tone that the effects of seclusion are not altogether benign& C-es& Ibsen is ugly, common,
hard, prosaic, bottomlessly bourgeois & & &D C5ut, oh, yes, dear 1ouis, ETE%% O0 THE #8.!5E!VI11E%F is
vile& The pretence of Sse9uality8 is only e7ualled by the absence of it, and the abomination of the language by
the author8s reputation for style&D The lac, of Caesthetic curiosityD in Meredith and his circle 'as highly to be
deplored& The artist in him C'as nothing to the good citi;en and liberali;ed bourgeois&D The 'or,s of Tolstoy
and #ostoevs,y are Cfluid puddingsD and C'hen you as, me if I don8t feel #ostoevs,y8s Smad 6umble, that
flings things do'n in a heap,8 nearer truth and beauty than the pic,ing up and composing that you instance in
%tevenson, I reply 'ith emphasis that I feel nothing of the sort&D It is true that in order to ,eep these points at
their sharpest one has had to brush aside a mass of 7ualification and e9planation 'hich ma,e each the ape9 of a
formidable body of criticism& It is only for a moment that the seclusion seems cloistered, and the feelings of an
artist confounded 'ith those of a dilettante&
-et as that second flits across the mind, 'ith the chill of a shado' brushing the 'aves, 'e reali;e 'hat a
catastrophe for all of us it 'ould have been if the prolonged e9periment, the struggle and the solitude of Henry
=ames8s life had ended in failure& E9cuses could have been found both for him and for us& It is impossible, one
might have said, for the artist not to compromise, or, if he persists in his allegiance, then, almost inevitably, he
must live apart, for ever alien, slo'ly perishing in his isolation& The history of literature is stre'n 'ith e9amples
of both disasters& When, therefore, almost perceptibly at a given moment, late in the story, something yields,
something is overcome, something dar, and dense glo's in splendour, it is as if the beacon flamed bright on the
hilltop/ as if before our eyes the cro'n of long deferred completion and culmination s'ung slo'ly into place&
ot columns but pages, and not pages but chapters, might be filled 'ith comment and attempted analysis of this
late and mighty flo'ering, this vindication, this cro'ded gathering together and superb 'elding into shape of all
the separate strands, alien instincts, irreconcilable desires of the t'ofold nature& 0or, as 'e dimly perceive, here
at last t'o 'arring forces have coalesced/ here, by a prodigious efflort of concentration, the field of human
activity is brought into fresh focus, revealing ne' hori;ons, ne' landmar,s, and ne' lights upon it of right and
'rong&
5ut it is for the reader at leisure to delve in the rich material of the later letters and build up from it the comple9
figure of the artist in his completeness& If 'e choose t'o passages?:one upon conduct, the other upon the gift
of a leather dressing case?to represent Henry =ames in his later mood 'e purposely brush aside a thousand
others 'hich have innumerable good claims to be put in their place&
If there be a 'isdom in not feeling?to the last throb?the great things that happen to us, it is a 'isdom
that I shall never either ,no' or esteem& 1et your soul live?it8s the only life that isn8t on the 'hole a
sell& & & &
That Ethe dressing caseF is the grand fact of the situation?that is the ta'ny lion, portentous creature in my
path& I can8t get past him, I can8t get round him, and on the other hand he stands glaring at me, refusing to
give 'ay and practically bloc,ing all my future& I can8t live 'ith him, you see/ because I can8t live .2 to
him& His claims, his pretensions, his dimensions, his assumptions and consumptions, above all the manner
in 'hich he causes every surrounding ob6ect @on my poor premises or 'ithin my poor rangeA to tell a
dingy, or deplorable tale?all this ma,es him the very scourge of my life, the very blot on my scutcheon&
He doesn8t regild that rusty metal?he simply ta,es up an attitude of gorgeous s'agger, straight in front of
all the rust and the rubbish, 'hich ma,es me loo, as if I had stolen %OME5O#- E1%E8% @regarnished
51"%OA and 'ere trying to palm it off as my o'n& & & & HE I% O.T O0 THE 2ICT.!E?out of MIE/
and behold me condemned to live for ever 'ith that canvas turned to the 'all& #o you ,no' 'hat that
means<
"nd so on and so on& There, portentous and prodigious, 'e hear unmista,ably the voice of Henry =ames& There,
to our thin,ing, 'e have e9ploded in our ears the report of his enormous, sustained, increasing, and
over'helming love of life& It issues from 'hatever tortuous channels and dar, tunnels li,e a flood at its fullest&
There is nothing too little, too large, too remote, too 7ueer for it not to flo' round, float off and ma,e its o'n&
othing in the end has chilled or repressed him/ everything has fed and filled him/ the saturation is complete&
The labours of the morning might be elaborate and austere& There remained an irrepressible fund of vitality
'hich the flying hand at midnight addressed fully and affectionately to friend after friend, each sentence, from
the 'hole fling of his person to the last snap of his fingers, firmly fashioned and thro'ing out at its s'iftest 'ell
nigh incredible felicities of phrase&
The only difficulty, perhaps, 'as to find an envelope that 'ould contain the bul,y product, or any reason, 'hen
t'o sheets 'ere blac,ened, for not filling a third& Truly, 1amb House 'as no sanctuary, but rather a Csmall,
crammed and 'holly unlucrative hotel,D and the hermit no meagre solitary but a tough and even stoical man of
the 'orld, English in his humour, =ohnsonian in his sanity, 'ho lived every second 'ith insatiable gusto and in
the flu9 and fury of his impressions obeyed his o'n in6unction to remain Cas solid and fi9ed and dense as you
can&D 0or to be as subtle as Henry =ames one must also be as robust/ to en6oy his po'er of e97uisite selection
one must have Clived and loved and cursed and floundered and en6oyed and suffered,D and, 'ith the appetite of
a giant, have s'allo'ed the 'hole&
-et, if he shared 'ith magnanimity, if he en6oyed hugely, there remained something incommunicable,
something reserved, as if in the last resort, it 'as not to us that he turned, nor from us that he received, nor into
our hands that he placed his offerings& There they stand, the many boo,s, products of Can ine9haustible
sensibility,D all 'ith the final seal upon them of artistic form, 'hich, as it imposes its stamp, sets apart the
ob6ect thus consecrated and ma,es it no longer part of ourselves& In this impersonality the ma,er himself desired
to share?Cto ta,e it,D as he said, C'holly, e9clusively 'ith the pen @the style, the geniusA and absolutely not at
all 'ith the person,D to be Cthe mas, 'ithout the face,D the alien in our midst, the 'or,er 'ho 'hen his 'or, is
done turns even from that and reserves his confidence for the solitary hour, li,e that at midnight 'hen, alone on
the threshold of creation, Henry =ames spea,s aloud to himself Cand the prospect clears and flushes, and my
poor blest old genius pats me so admirably and lovingly on the bac, that I turn, I scre' round, and bend my lips
to passionately, in my gratitude, ,iss its hands&D %o that is 'hy, perhaps, as life s'ings and clangs, booms and
reverberates, 'e have the sense of an altar of service, of sacrifice, to 'hich, as 'e pass out, 'e bend the ,nee&
GEORGE MOORE
The only criticism 'orth having at present is that 'hich is spo,en, not 'ritten?spo,en over 'ine:glasses and
coffee:cups late at night, flashed out on the spur of the moment by people passing 'ho have not time to finish
their sentences, let alone consider the dues of editors or the feelings of friends& "bout living 'riters these
tal,er8s @it is one of their most engaging peculiaritiesA are al'ays in violent disagreement& Ta,e Beorge Moore,
for e9ample& Beorge Moore is the best living novelist?and the 'orst/ 'rites the most beautiful prose of his
time?and the feeblest/ has a passion for literature 'hich none of those dismal pundits, his contemporaries,
shares/ but ho' 'himsical his 6udgments are, ho' ill:balanced, childish and egotistical, into the bargainG %o
they hammer the horseshoe out/ so the spar,s fly/ and the 'orth of the criticism lies not so much in the accuracy
of each blo' as in the heat it engenders, the sense it ,indles that the matter of Beorge Moore and his 'or,s is of
the highest importance, 'hich, 'ithout 'aiting another instant, 'e must settle for ourselves&
2erhaps it is not accident only, but a vague recollection of dipping and dallying in E%THE! W"TE!%,
EVE1- IE%, THE 1"4E, 'hich ma,es us ta,e do'n in its ne' and stately form H"I1 "#
0"!EWE11 @HeinemannA?the t'o large volumes 'hich Beorge Moore has 'ritten openly and directly about
himself& 0or all his novels are 'ritten, covertly and obli7uely, about himself, so at least memory 'ould
persuade us, and it may help us to understand them if 'e steep ourselves in the pure 'aters 'hich are else'here
tinged 'ith fictitious flavours& 5ut are not all novels about the 'riter8s self, 'e might as,< It is only as he sees
people that 'e can see them/ his fortunes colour and his oddities shape his vision until 'hat 'e see is not the
thing itself, but the thing seen and the seer ine9tricably mi9ed& There are degrees, ho'ever& The great novelist
feels, sees, believes 'ith such intensity of conviction that he hurls his belief outside himself and it flies off and
lives an independent life of its o'n, becomes atasha, 2ierre, 1evin, and is no longer Tolstoy& When, ho'ever,
Mr& Moore creates a atasha she may be charming, foolish, lovely, but her beauty, her folly, her charm are not
hers, but Mr& Moore8s& "ll her 7ualities refer to him& In other 'ords, Mr& Moore is completely lac,ing in
dramatic po'er& On the face of it, E%THE! W"TE!% has all the appearance of a great novel/ it has sincerity,
shapeliness, style/ it has surpassing seriousness and integrity/ but because Mr& Moore has not the strength to
pro6ect Esther from himself its virtues collapse and fall about it li,e a tent 'ith a bro,en pole& There it lies, this
novel 'ithout a heroine, and 'hat remains of it is Beorge Moore himself, a ruin of lovely language and some
e97uisite descriptions of the %usse9 do'ns& 0or the novelist 'ho has no dramatic po'er, no fire of conviction
'ithin, leans upon nature for support/ she lifts him up and enhances his mood 'ithout destroying it&
5ut the defects of a novelist may 'ell be the glories of his brother the autobiographer, and 'e find, to our
delight, that the very 7ualities 'hich 'ea,en Mr& Moore8s novels are the ma,ing of his memoirs& This comple9
character, at once diffident and self:assertive, this sportsman 'ho goes out shooting in ladies8 high:heeled
boots, this amateur 6oc,ey 'ho loves literature beyond the apple of his eye, this amorist 'ho is so innocent, this
sensualist 'ho is so ascetic, this comple9 and uneasy character, in short, 'ith its lac, of starch and pomp and
humbug, its pliability and malice and shre'dness and incompetence, is made of too many incompatible
elements to concentrate into the diamond of a great artist, and is better occupied in e9ploring its o'n vagaries
than in e9plaining those of other people& 0or one thing, Mr& Moore is 'ithout that robust belief in himself 'hich
leads men to prophesy and create& obody 'as ever more diffident& "s a little boy they told him that only an
ugly old 'oman 'ould marry him, and he has never got over it& C0or it is difficult for me to believe any good of
myself& Within the oftentimes bombastic and truculent appearance that I present to the 'orld trembles a heart
shy as a 'ren in the hedgero' or a mouse along the 'ainscoting&D The least noise startles him, and the ordinary
proceedings of man,ind fill him 'ith 'onder and alarm& Their streets have so many names/ their coats have so
many buttons/ the ordinary business of life is altogether beyond him& 5ut 'ith the timidity of the mouse he has
also its gigantic boldness& This mee, grey innocent creature runs right over the lion8s pa's& There is nothing
that Mr& Moore 'ill not say/ by his o'n confession he ought to be e9cluded from every dra'ing:room in %outh
4ensington& If his friends forgive him it is only because to Mr& Moore all things are forgiven& Once 'hen he
'as a child, Cinspired by an uncontrollable desire to brea, the monotony of infancy,D he thre' all his clothes
into a ha'thorn tree and Cran na,ed in front of my nurse or governess screaming 'ith delight at the
embarrassment I 'as causing her&D The habit has remained 'ith him& He loves to ta,e off his clothes and run
screaming 'ith delight at the fuss and blush and embarrassment 'hich he is causing that dear old governess, the
5ritish 2ublic& 5ut the antics of Mr& Moore, though impish and impudent, are, after all, so amusing and so
graceful that the governess, it is said, sometimes hides behind a tree to 'atch& That scream of his, that garrulous
chuc,le as of small birds chattering in a nest, is a merry sound/ and then ho' melodiously he dra's out his long
notes 'hen dus, descends and the stars riseG "l'ays you 'ill find him haunting the evening, 'hen the do'ns
are fading into 'aves of silver and the grey Irish fields are melting into the grey Irish hills& The storm never
brea,s over his head, the thunder never roars in his cars, the rain never drenches him& o/ the 'orst that befalls
him is that Teresa has not filled the Moderator lamp sufficiently full, so that the company 'hich is dining in the
garden under the apple tree must ad6ourn to the dining:room, 'here Mr& Osborne, Mr& Hughes, Mr& 1ong'orth,
Mr& %eumas O8%ullivan, Mr& "t,inson and Mr& -eats are a'aiting them&
"nd then in the dining:room, Mr& Moore sitting do'n and offering a cigar to his friends, ta,es up again the
thread of that interminable discourse, 'hich, if it lapses into the gulfs of reverie for a moment, begins ane'
'herever he finds a bench or chair to sit on or can lin, his arm in a friend8s, or can find even some discreet
sympathetic animal 'ho 'ill only occasionally lift a pa' in silence& He tal,s incessantly about boo,s and
politics/ of the vision that came to him in the Chelsea road/ ho' Mr& Colville bred 5elgian hares on the %usse9
do'ns/ about the death of his cat/ the !oman Catholic religion/ ho' dogma is the death of literature/ ho' the
names of poets determine their poetry/ ho' Mr& -eats is li,e a cro', and he himself has been forced to sit on
the 'indo' sill in his py6amas& One thing follo's another/ out of the, present flo'ers the past/ it is as easy,
inconse7uent, melodious as the smo,e of those fragrant cigars& 5ut as one listens more attentively one perceives
that 'hile each topic floats up as easily as cigar smo,e into the air, the blue 'reaths have a strange fi9ity/ they
do not disperse, they unite/ they build up the airy chambers of a lifetime, and as 'e listen in the Temple
Bardens, in Ebury %treet, in 2aris, in #ublin to Mr& Moore tal,ing, 'e e9plore from start to finish, from those
earliest days in Ireland to these latest in 1ondon, the habitation of his soul&
5ut let us apply Mr& Moore8s o'n test to Mr& Moore8s o'n 'or,& What interests him, he says, is not the three or
four beautiful poems that a man may have 'ritten, but the mind that he brings into the 'orld/ and Cby a mind I
mean a ne' 'ay of feeling and seeing&D When the fierce tide of tal, once more 'ashes the battlements of Mr&
Moore8s achievement let us thro' into mid:stream these remar,s/ not one of his novels is a masterpiece/ they
are sil,en tents 'hich have no poles/ but he has brought a ne' mind into the 'orld/ he has given us a ne' 'ay
of feeling and seeing/ he has devised?very painfully, for he is above all things painsta,ing, e,ing out a delicate
gift laboriously?a means of li7uidating the capricious and volatile essence of himself and decanting it in these
memoirs/ and that, 'hatever the degree, is triumph, achievement, immortality& If, further, 'e try to establish the
degree 'e shall go on to say that no one so inveterately literary is among the great 'riters/ literature has 'ound
itself about him li,e a veil, forbidding him the free use of his limbs/ the phrase comes to him before the
emotion/ but 'e must add that he is nevertheless a born 'riter, a man 'ho detests meals, servants, ease,
respectability or anything that gets bet'een him and his art/ 'ho has ,ept his freedom 'hen most of his
contemporaries have long ago lost theirs/ 'ho is ashamed of nothing but of being ashamed/ 'ho says 'hatever
he has it in his mind to say, and has taught himself an accent, a cadence, indeed a language, for saying it in
'hich, though they are not English, but Irish, 'ill give him his place among the lesser immortals of our tongue&
THE NOVEL OF E) M) FORTER
I
There are many reasons 'hich should prevent one from critici;ing the 'or, of contemporaries& 5esides the
obvious uneasiness?the fear of hurting feelings?there is too the difficulty of being 6ust& Coming out one by
one, their boo,s seem li,e parts of a design 'hich is slo'ly uncovered& Our appreciation may be intense, but
our curiosity is even greater& #oes the ne' fragment add anything to 'hat 'ent before< #oes it carry out our
theory of the author8s talent, or must 'e alter our forecast< %uch 7uestions ruffle 'hat should be the smooth
surface of our criticism and ma,e it full of argument and interrogation& With a novelist li,e Mr& 0orster this is
specially true, for he is in any case an author about 'hom there is considerable disagreement& There is
something baffling and evasive in the very nature of his gifts& %o, remembering that 'e are at best only building
up a theory 'hich may be ,noc,ed do'n in a year or t'o by Mr& 0orster himself, let us ta,e Mr& 0orster8s
novels in the order in 'hich they 'ere 'ritten, and tentatively and cautiously try to ma,e them yield us an
ans'er&
The order in 'hich they 'ere 'ritten is indeed of some importance, for at the outset 'e see that Mr& 0orster is
e9tremely susceptible to the influence of time& He sees his people much at the mercy of those conditions 'hich
change 'ith the years& He is acutely conscious of the bicycle and of the motor car/ of the public school and of
the university/ of the suburb and of the city& The social historian 'ill find his boo,s full of illuminating
information& In ()HL 1ilia learned to bicycle, coasted do'n the High %treet on %unday evening, and fell off at
the turn by the church& 0or this she 'as given a tal,ing to by her brother:in:la' 'hich she remembered to her
dying day& It is on Tuesday that the housemaid cleans out the dra'ing:room at %a'ston& Old maids blo' into
their gloves 'hen they ta,e them off& Mr& 0orster is a novelist, that is to say, 'ho sees his people in close
contact 'ith their surroundings& "nd therefore the colour and constitution of the year ()HL affect him far more
than any year in the calendar could affect the romantic Meredith or the poetic Hardy& 5ut 'e discover as 'e
turn the page that observation is not an end in itself/ it is rather the goad, the gadfly driving Mr& 0orster to
provide a refuge from this misery, an escape from this meanness& Hence 'e arrive at that balance of forces
'hich plays so large a part in the structure of Mr& 0orster8s novels& %a'ston implies Italy/ timidity, 'ildness/
convention, freedom/ unreality, reality& These are the villains and heroes of much of his 'riting& In WHE!E
"BE1% 0E"! TO T!E"# the disease, convention, and the remedy, nature, are provided if anything 'ith too
eager a simplicity, too simple an assurance, but 'ith 'hat a freshness, 'hat a charmG Indeed it 'ould not be
e9cessive if 'e discovered in this slight first novel evidence of po'ers 'hich only needed, one might ha;ard, a
more generous diet to ripen into 'ealth and beauty& T'enty:t'o years might 'ell have ta,en the sting from the
satire and shifted the proportions of the 'hole& 5ut, if that is to some e9tent true, the years have had no po'er to
obliterate the fact that, though Mr& 0orster may be sensitive to the bicycle and the duster, he is also the most
persistent devotee of the soul& 5eneath bicycles and dusters, %a'ston and Italy, 2hilip, Harriet, and Miss
"bbott, there al'ays lies for him?it is this 'hich ma,es him so tolerant a satirist?a burning core& It is the
soul/ it is reality/ it is truth/ it is poetry/ it is love/ it dec,s itself in many shapes, dresses itself in many disguises&
5ut get at it he must/ ,eep from it he cannot& Over bra,es and byres, over dra'ing:room carpets and mahogany
sideboards, he flies in pursuit& aturally the spectacle is sometimes comic, often fatiguing/ but there are
moments?and his first novel provides several instances?'hen he lays his hands on the pri;e&
-et, if 'e as, ourselves upon 'hich occasions this happens and ho', it 'ill seem that those passages 'hich are
least didactic, least conscious of the pursuit of beauty, succeed best in achieving it& When he allo's himself a
holiday?some phrase li,e that comes to our lips/ 'hen he forgets the vision and frolics and sports 'ith the
fact/ 'hen, having planted the apostles of culture in their hotel, he creates airily, 6oyfully, spontaneously, Bino
the dentist8s son sitting in the cafe 'ith his friends, or describes?it is a masterpiece of comedy?the
performance of 1.CI" #I 1"MME!MOO!, it is then that 'e feel that his aim is achieved& =udging, therefore,
on the evidence of this first boo,, 'ith its fantasy, its penetration, its remar,able sense of design, 'e should
have said that once Mr& 0orster had ac7uired freedom, had passed beyond the boundaries of %a'ston, he 'ould
stand firmly on his feet among the descendants of =ane "usten and 2eacoc,& 5ut the second novel, THE
1OBE%T =O.!E-, leaves us baffled and pu;;led& The opposition is still the same$ truth and untruth/
Cambridge and %a'ston/ sincerity and sophistication& 5ut everything is accentuated& He builds his %a'ston of
thic,er bric,s and destroys it 'ith stronger blasts& The contrast bet'een poetry and realism is much more
precipitous& "nd no' 'e see much more clearly to 'hat a tas, his gifts commit him& We see that 'hat might
have been a passing mood is in truth a conviction& He believes that a novel must ta,e sides in the human
conflict& He sees beauty?none more ,eenly/ but beauty imprisoned in a fortress of bric, and mortar 'hence he
must e9tricate her& Hence he is al'ays constrained to build the cage?society in all its intricacy and triviality?
before he can free the prisoner& The omnibus, the villa, the suburban residence, are an essential part of his
design& They are re7uired to imprison and impede the flying flame 'hich is so remorselessly caged behind
them& "t the same time, as 'e read THE 1OBE%T =O.!E- 'e are a'are of a moc,ing spirit of fantasy
'hich flouts his seriousness& o one sei;es more deftly the shades and shado's of the social comedy/ no one
more amusingly hits off the comedy of luncheon and tea party and a game of tennis at the rectory& His old
maids, his clergy, are the most lifeli,e 'e have had since =ane "usten laid do'n the pen& 5ut he has into the
bargain 'hat =ane "usten had not?the impulses of a poet& The neat surface is al'ays being thro'n into
disarray by an outburst of lyric poetry& "gain and again in THE 1OBE%T =O.!E- 'e are delighted by
some e97uisite description of the country/ or some lovely sight?li,e that 'hen !ic,ie and %tephen send the
paper boats burning through the arch?is made visible to us forever& Here, then, is a difficult family of gifts to
persuade to live in harmony together$ satire and sympathy/ fantasy and fact/ poetry and a prim moral sense& o
'onder that 'e are often a'are of contrary currents that run counter to each other and prevent the boo, from
bearing do'n upon us and over'helming us 'ith the authority of a masterpiece& -et if there is one gift more
essential to a novelist than another it is the po'er of combination?the single vision& The success of the
masterpieces seems to lie not so much in their freedom from faults?indeed 'e tolerate the grossest errors in
them all?but in the immense persuasiveness of a mind 'hich has completely mastered its perspective&
II
We loo, then, as time goes on, for signs that Mr& 0orster is committing himself/ that he is allying himself to one
of the t'o great camps to 'hich most novelists belong& %pea,ing roughly, 'e may divide them into the
preachers and the teachers, headed by Tolstoy and #ic,ens, on the one hand, and the pure artists, headed by
=ane "usten and Turgenev, on the other& Mr& 0orster, it seems, has a strong impulse to belong to both camps at
once& He has many of the instincts and aptitudes of the pure artist @to adopt the old classificationA?an e97uisite
prose style, an acute sense of comedy, a po'er of creating characters in a fe' stro,es 'hich live in an
atmosphere of their o'n/ but he is at the same time highly conscious of a message& 5ehind the rainbo' of 'it
and sensibility there is a vision 'hich he is determined that 'e shall see& 5ut his vision is of a peculiar ,ind and
his message of an elusive nature& He has not great interest in institutions& He has none of that 'ide social
curiosity 'hich mar,s the 'or, of Mr& Wells& The divorce la' and the poor la' come in for little of his
attention& His concern is 'ith the private life/ his message is addressed to the soul& CIt is the private life that
holds out the mirror to infinity/ personal intercourse, and that alone, that ever hints at a personality beyond our
daily vision&D Our business is not to build in bric, and mortar, but to dra' together the seen and the unseen& We
must learn to build the Crainbo' bridge that should connect the prose in us 'ith the passion& Without it 'e are
meaningless fragments, half mon,s, half beasts&D This belief that it is the private life that matters, that it is the
soul that is eternal, runs through all his 'riting& It is the conflict bet'een %a'ston and Italy in WHE!E
"BE1% 0E"! TO T!E"#/ bet'een !ic,ie and "gnes in THE 1OBE%T =O.!E-/ bet'een 1ucy and
Cecil in " !OOM WITH " VIEW& It deepens, it becomes more insistent as time passes& It forces him on from
the lighter and more 'himsical short novels past that curious interlude, THE CE1E%TI"1 OMI5.%, to the
t'o large boo,s, HOW"!#% E# and " 2"%%"BE TO I#I", 'hich mar, his prime&
5ut before 'e consider those t'o boo,s let us loo, for a moment at the nature of the problem he sets himself& It
is the soul that matters/ and the soul, as 'e have seen, is caged in a solid villa of red bric, some'here in the
suburbs of 1ondon& It seems, then, that if his boo,s are to succeed in their mission his reality must at certain
points become irradiated/ his bric, must be lit up/ 'e must see the 'hole building saturated 'ith light& We have
at once to believe in the complete reality of the suburb and in the complete reality of the soul& In this
combination of realism and mysticism his closest affinity is, perhaps, 'ith Ibsen& Ibsen has the same realistic
po'er& " room is to him a room, a 'riting table a 'riting table, and a 'aste:paper bas,et a 'aste:paper bas,et&
"t the same time, the paraphernalia of reality have at certain moments to become the veil through 'hich 'e see
infinity& When Ibsen achieves this, as he certainly does, it is not by performing some miraculous con6uring tric,
at the critical moment& He achieves it by putting us into the right mood from the very start and by giving us the
right materials for his purpose& He gives us the effect of ordinary life, as Mr& 0orster does, but he gives it us by
choosing a very fe' facts and those of a highly relevant ,ind& Thus 'hen the moment of illumination comes 'e
accept it implicitly& We are neither roused nor pu;;led/ 'e do not have to as, ourselves, What does this mean<
We feel simply that the thing 'e are loo,ing at is lit up, and its depths revealed& It has not ceased to be itself by
becoming something else&
%omething of the same problem lies before Mr& 0orster?ho' to connect the actual thing 'ith the meaning of
the thing and to carry the reader8s mind across the chasm 'hich divides the t'o 'ithout spilling a single drop of
its belief& "t certain moments on the "rno, in Hertfordshire, in %urrey, beauty leaps from the scabbard, the fire
of truth flames through the crusted earth/ 'e must see the red bric, villa in the suburbs of 1ondon lit up& 5ut it
is in these great scenes 'hich are the 6ustification of the huge elaboration of the realistic novel that 'e are most
a'are of failure& 0or it is here that Mr& 0orster ma,es the change from realism to symbolism/ here that the
ob6ect 'hich has been so uncompromisingly solid becomes, or should become, luminously transparent& He fails,
one is tempted to thin,, chiefly because that admirable gift of his for observation has served him too 'ell& He
has recorded too much and too literally& He has given us an almost photographic picture on one side of the page/
on the other he as,s us to see the same vie' transformed and radiant 'ith eternal fires& The boo,case 'hich
falls upon 1eonard 5ast in HOW"!#% E# should perhaps come do'n upon him 'ith all the dead 'eight of
smo,e:dried culture/ the Marabar caves should appear to us not real caves but, it may be, the soul of India&
Miss Juested should be transformed from an English girl on a picnic to arrogant Europe straying into the heart
of the East and getting lost there& We 7ualify these statements, for indeed 'e are not 7uite sure 'hether 'e have
guessed aright& Instead of getting that sense of instant certainty 'hich 'e get in THE WI1# #.C4 or in THE
M"%TE! 5.I1#E!, 'e are pu;;led, 'orried& What does this mean< 'e as, ourselves& What ought 'e to
understand by this< "nd the hesitation is fatal& 0or 'e doubt both things?the real and the symbolical$ Mrs&
Moore, the nice old lady, and Mrs& Moore, the sibyl& The con6unction of these t'o different realities seems to
cast doubt upon them both& Hence it is that there is so often an ambiguity at the heart of Mr& 0orster8s novels&
We feel that something has failed us at the critical moment/ and instead of seeing, as 'e do in THE M"%TE!
5.I1#E!, one single 'hole 'e see t'o separate parts&
The stories collected under the title of THE CE1E%TI"1 OMI5.% represent, it may be, an attempt on Mr&
0orster8s part to simplify the problem 'hich so often troubles him of connecting the prose and poetry of life&
Here he admits definitely if discreetly the possibility of magic& Omnibuses drive to Heaven/ 2an is heard in the
brush'ood/ girls turn into trees& The stories are e9tremely charming& They release the fantasticality 'hich is
laid under such heavy burdens in the novels& 5ut the vein of fantasy is not deep enough or strong enough to
fight single:handed against those other impulses 'hich are part of his endo'ment& We feel that he is an uneasy
truant in fairyland& 5ehind the hedge he al'ays hears the motor horn and the shuffling feet of tired 'ayfarers,
and soon he must return& One slim volume indeed contains all that he has allo'ed himself of pure fantasy& We
pass from the frea,ish land 'here boys leap into the arms of 2an and girls become trees to the t'o Miss
%chlegels, 'ho have an income of si9 hundred pounds apiece and live in Wic,ham 2lace&
III
Much though 'e may regret the change, 'e cannot doubt that it 'as right& 0or none of the boo,s before
HOW"!#% E# and " 2"%%"BE TO I#I" altogether dre' upon the full range of Mr& 0orster8s po'ers&
With his 7ueer and in some 'ays contradictory assortment of gifts, he needed, it seemed, some sub6ect 'hich
'ould stimulate his highly sensitive and active intelligence, but 'ould not demand the e9tremes of romance or
passion/ a sub6ect 'hich gave him material for criticism, and invited investigation/ a sub6ect 'hich as,ed to be
built up of an enormous number of slight yet precise observations, capable of being tested by an e9tremely
honest yet sympathetic mind/ yet, 'ith all this, a sub6ect 'hich 'hen finally constructed 'ould sho' up against
the torrents of the sunset and the eternities of night 'ith a symbolical significance& In HOW"!#% E# the
lo'er middle, the middle, the upper middle classes of English society are so built up into a complete fabric& It is
an attempt on a larger scale than hitherto, and, if it fails, the si;e of the attempt is largely responsible& Indeed, as
'e thin, bac, over the many pages of this elaborate and highly s,ilful boo,, 'ith its immense technical
accomplishment, and also its penetration, its 'isdom and its beauty, 'e may 'onder in 'hat mood of the
moment 'e can have been prompted to call it a failure& 5y all the rules, still more by the ,een interest 'ith
'hich 'e have read it from start to finish, 'e should have said success& The reason is suggested perhaps by the
manner of one8s praise& Elaboration, s,ill, 'isdom, penetration, beauty?they are all there, but they lac, fusion/
they lac, cohesion/ the boo, as a 'hole lac,s force& %chlegels, Wilco9es, and 5asts, 'ith all that they stand for
of class and environment, emerge 'ith e9traordinary verisimilitude, but the 'hole effect is less satisfying than
that of the much slighter but beautifully harmonious WHE!E "BE1% 0E"! TO T!E"#& "gain 'e have the
sense that there is some perversity in Mr& 0orster8s endo'ment so that his gifts in their variety and number tend
to trip each other up& If he 'ere less scrupulous, less 6ust, less sensitively a'are of the different aspects of every
case, he could, 'e feel, come do'n 'ith greater force on one precise point& "s it is, the strength of his blo' is
dissipated& He is li,e a light sleeper 'ho is al'ays being 'o,en by something in the room& The poet is t'itched
a'ay by the satirist/ the comedian is tapped on the shoulder by the moralist/ he never loses himself or forgets
himself for long in sheer delight in the beauty or the interest of things as they are& 0or this reason the lyrical
passages in his boo,s, often of great beauty in themselves, fail of their due effect in the conte9t& Instead of
flo'ering naturally?as in 2roust, for instance?from an overflo' of interest and beauty in the ob6ect itself, 'e
feel that they have been called into e9istence by some irritation, are the effort of a mind outraged by ugliness to
supplement it 'ith a beauty 'hich, because it originates in protest, has something a little febrile about it&
-et in HOW"!#% E# there are, one feels, in solution all the 7ualities that are needed to ma,e a masterpiece&
The characters are e9tremely real to us& The ordering of the story is masterly& That indefinable but highly
important thing, the atmosphere of the boo,, is alight 'ith intelligence/ not a spec, of humbug, not an atom of
falsity is allo'ed to settle& "nd again, but on a larger battlefield, the struggle goes for'ard 'hich ta,es place in
all Mr& 0orster8s novels?the struggle bet'een the things that matter and the things that do not matter, bet'een
reality and sham, bet'een the truth and the lie& "gain the comedy is e97uisite and the observation faultless& 5ut
again, 6ust as 'e are yielding ourselves to the pleasures of the imagination, a little 6er, rouses us& We are tapped
on the shoulder& We are to notice this, to ta,e heed of that& Margaret or Helen, 'e are made to understand, is not
spea,ing simply as herself/ her 'ords have another and a larger intention& %o, e9erting ourselves to find out the
meaning, 'e step from the enchanted 'orld of imagination, 'here our faculties 'or, freely, to the t'ilight
'orld of theory, 'here only our intellect functions dutifully& %uch moments of disillusionment have the habit of
coming 'hen Mr& 0orster is most in earnest, at the crisis of the boo,, 'here the s'ord falls or the boo,case
drops& They bring, as 'e have noted already, a curious insubstantiality into the Cgreat scenesD and the important
figures& 5ut they absent themselves entirely from the comedy& They ma,e us 'ish, foolishly enough, to dispose
Mr& 0orster8s gifts differently and to restrict him to 'rite comedy only& 0or directly he ceases to feel responsible
for his characters8 behaviour, and forgets that he should solve the problem of the universe, he is the most
diverting of novelists& The admirable Tibby and the e97uisite Mrs& Munt in HOW"!#% E#, though thro'n
in largely to amuse us, bring a breath of fresh air in 'ith them& They inspire us 'ith the into9icating belief that
they are free to 'ander as far from their creator as they choose& Margaret, Helen, 1eonard 5ast, are closely
tethered and vigilantly overloo,ed lest they may ta,e matters into their o'n hands and upset the theory& 5ut
Tibby and Mrs& Munt go 'here they li,e, say 'hat they li,e, do 'hat they li,e& The lesser characters and the
unimportant scenes in Mr& 0orster8s novels thus often remain more vivid than those 'ith 'hich, apparently,
most pain has been ta,en& 5ut it 'ould be un6ust to part from this big, serious, and highly interesting boo,
'ithout recogni;ing that it is an important if unsatisfactory piece of 'or, 'hich may 'ell be the prelude to
something as large but less an9ious&
IV
Many years passed before " 2"%%"BE TO I#I" appeared& Those 'ho hoped that in the interval Mr& 0orster
might have developed his techni7ue so that it yielded rather more easily to the impress of his 'himsical mind
and gave freer outlet to the poetry and fantasy 'hich play about in him 'ere disappointed& The attitude is
precisely the same four:s7uare attitude 'hich 'al,s up to life as if it 'ere a house 'ith a front door, puts its hat
on the table in the hall and proceeds to visit all the rooms in an orderly manner& The house is still the house of
the 5ritish middle classes& 5ut there is a change from HOW"!#% E#& Hitherto Mr& 0orster has been apt to
pervade his boo,s li,e a careful hostess 'ho is an9ious to introduce, to e9plain, to 'arn her guests of a step
here, of a draught there& 5ut here, perhaps in some disillusionment both 'ith his guests and 'ith his house, he
seems to have rela9ed these cares& We are allo'ed to ramble over this e9traordinary continent almost alone& We
notice things, about the country especially, spontaneously, accidentally almost, as if 'e 'ere actually there/ and
no' it 'as the sparro's flying about the pictures that caught our eyes, no' the elephant 'ith the painted
forehead, no' the enormous but badly designed ranges of hills& The people too, particularly the Indians, have
something of the same casual, inevitable 7uality& They are not perhaps 7uite so important as the land, but they
are alive/ they are sensitive& o longer do 'e feel, as 'e used to feel in England, that they 'ill be allo'ed to go
only so far and no further lest they may upset some theory of the author8s& ";i; is a free agent& He is the most
imaginative character that Mr& 0orster has yet created, and recalls Bino the dentist in his first boo,, WHE!E
"BE1% 0E"! TO T!E"#& We may guess indeed that it has helped Mr& 0orster to have put the ocean
bet'een him and %a'ston& It is a relief, for a time, to be beyond the influence of Cambridge& Though it is still a
necessity for him to build a model 'orld 'hich he can submit to delicate and precise criticism, the model is on a
larger scale& The English society, 'ith all its pettiness and its vulgarity and its strea, of heroism, is set against a
bigger and a more sinister bac,ground& "nd though it is still true that there are ambiguities in important places,
moments of imperfect symbolism, a greater accumulation of facts than the imagination is able to deal 'ith, it
seems as if the double vision 'hich troubled us in the earlier boo,s 'as in process of becoming single& The
saturation is much more thorough& Mr& 0orster has almost achieved the great feat of animating this dense,
compact body of observation 'ith a spiritual light& The boo, sho's signs of fatigue and disillusionment/ but it
has chapters of clear and triumphant beauty, and above all it ma,es us 'onder, What 'ill he 'rite ne9t<
MIDDLE5ROW &'8(
E(OF This letter 'as 'ritten, but not sent to The e' %tatesman&
To THE E#ITO! O0 THE CEW %T"TE%M"D
%ir,
Will you allo' me to dra' your attention to the fact that in a revie' of a boo, by me @October A your revie'er
omitted to use the 'ord Highbro'< The revie', save for that omission, gave me so much pleasure that I am
driven to as, you, at the ris, of appearing unduly egotistical, 'hether your revie'er, a man of obvious
intelligence, intended to deny my claim to that title< I say Cclaim,D for surely I may claim that title 'hen a great
critic, 'ho is also a great novelist, a rare and enviable combination, al'ays calls me a highbro' 'hen he
condescends to notice my 'or, in a great ne'spaper/ and, further, al'ays finds space to inform not only
myself, 'ho ,no' it already, but the 'hole 5ritish Empire, 'ho hang on his 'ords, that I live in 5loomsbury<
Is your critic una'are of that fact too< Or does he, for all his intelligence, maintain that it is unnecessary in
revie'ing a boo, to add the postal address of the 'riter<
His ans'er to these 7uestions, though of real value to me, is of no possible interest to the public at large& Of that
I am 'ell a'are& 5ut since larger issues are involved, since the 5attle of the 5ro's troubles, I am told, the
evening air, since the finest minds of our age have lately been engaged in debating, not 'ithout that passion
'hich befits a noble cause, 'hat a highbro' is and 'hat a lo'bro', 'hich is better and 'hich is 'orse, may I
ta,e this opportunity to e9press my opinion and at the same time dra' attention to certain aspects of the
7uestion 'hich seem to me to have been unfortunately overloo,ed<
o' there can be no t'o opinions as to 'hat a highbro' is& He is the man or 'oman of thoroughbred
intelligence 'ho rides his mind at a gallop across country in pursuit of an idea& That is 'hy I have al'ays been
so proud to be called highbro'& That is 'hy, if I could be more of a highbro' I 'ould& I honour and respect
highbro's& %ome of my relations have been highbro's/ and some, but by no means all, of my friends& To be a
highbro', a complete and representative highbro', a highbro' li,e %ha,espeare, #ic,ens, 5yron, %helley,
4eats, Charlotte 5ronte, %cott, =ane "usten, 0laubert, Hardy or Henry =ames?to name a fe' highbro's from
the same profession chosen at random?is of course beyond the 'ildest dreams of my imagination& "nd, though
I 'ould cheerfully lay myself do'n in the dust and ,iss the print of their feet, no person of sense 'ill deny that
this passionate preoccupation of theirs?riding across country in pursuit of ideas?often leads to disaster&
.ndoubtedly, they come fearful croppers& Ta,e %helley?'hat a mess he made of his lifeG "nd 5yron, getting
into bed 'ith first one 'oman and then 'ith another and dying in the mud at Missolonghi& 1oo, at 4eats,
loving poetry and 0anny 5ra'ne so intemperately that he pined and died of consumption at the age of t'enty:
si9& Charlotte 5ronte again?I have beep assured on good authority that Charlotte 5ronte 'as, 'ith the possible
e9ception of Emily, the 'orst governess in the 5ritish Isles& Then there 'as %cott?he 'ent ban,rupt, and left,
together 'ith a fe' magnificent novels, one house, "bbotsford, 'hich is perhaps the ugliest in the 'hole
Empire& 5ut surely these instances are enough?I need not further labour the point that highbro's, for some
reason or another, are 'holly incapable of dealing successfully 'ith 'hat is called real life& That is 'hy, and
here I come to a point that is often surprisingly ignored, they honour so 'holeheartedly and depend so
completely upon those 'ho are called lo'bro's& 5y a lo'bro' is meant of course a man or a 'oman of
thoroughbred vitality 'ho rides his body in pursuit of a living at a gallop across life& That is 'hy I honour and
respect lo'bro's?and I have never ,no'n a highbro' 'ho did not& In so far as I am a highbro' @and my
imperfections in that line are 'ell ,no'n to meA I love lo'bro's/ I study them/ I al'ays sit ne9t the conductor
in an omnibus and try to get him to tell me 'hat it is li,e?being a conductor& In 'hatever company I am I
al'ays try to ,no' 'hat it is li,e?being a conductor, being a 'oman 'ith ten children and thirty:five shillings
a 'ee,, being a stoc,bro,er, being an admiral, being a ban, cler,, being a dressma,er, being a duchess, being a
miner, being a coo,, being a prostitute& "ll that lo'bro's do is of surpassing interest and 'onder to me,
because, in so far as I am a highbro', I cannot do things myself&
This brings me to another point 'hich is also surprisingly overloo,ed& 1o'bro's need highbro's and honour
them 6ust as much as highbro's need lo'bro's and honour them& This too is not a matter that re7uires much
demonstration& -ou have only to stroll along the %trand on a 'et 'inter8s night and 'atch the cro'ds lining up
to get into the movies& These lo'bro's are 'aiting, after the day8s 'or,, in the rain, sometimes for hours, to get
into the cheap seats and sit in hot theatres in order to see 'hat their lives loo, li,e& %ince they are lo'bro's,
engaged magnificently and adventurously in riding full tilt from one end of life to the other in pursuit of a
living, they cannot see themselves doing it& -et nothing interests them more& othing matters to them more& It is
one of the prime necessities of life to them?to be sho'n 'hat life loo,s li,e& "nd the highbro's, of course, are
the only people 'ho can sho' them& %ince they are the only people 'ho do not do things, they are the only
people 'ho can see things being done& This is so?and so it is I am certain/ nevertheless 'e are told?the air
bu;;es 'ith it by night, the press booms 'ith it by day, the very don,eys in the fields do nothing but bray it, the
very curs in the streets do nothing but bar, it?CHighbro's hate lo'bro'sG 1o'bro's hate highbro'sGD?
'hen highbro's need lo'bro's, 'hen lo'bro's need highbro's, 'hen they cannot e9ist apart, 'hen one is
the complement and other side of the otherG Ho' has such a lie come into e9istence< Who has set this malicious
gossip afloat<
There can be no doubt about that either& It is the doing of the middlebro's& They are the people, I confess, that I
seldom regard 'ith entire cordiality& They are the go:bet'eens/ they are the busy:bodies 'ho run from one to
the other 'ith their tittle tattle and ma,e all the mischief?the middlebro's, I repeat& 5ut 'hat, you may as,, is
a middlebro'< "nd that, to tell the truth, is no easy 7uestion to ans'er& They are neither one thing nor the other&
They are not highbro's, 'hose bro's are high/ nor lo'bro's, 'hose bro's are lo'& Their bro's are bet'i9t
and bet'een& They do not live in 5loomsbury 'hich is on high ground/ nor in Chelsea, 'hich is on lo' ground&
%ince they must live some'here presumably, they live perhaps in %outh 4ensington, 'hich is bet'i9t and
bet'een& The middlebro' is the man, or 'oman, of middlebred intelligence 'ho ambles and saunters no' on
this side of the hedge, no' on that, in pursuit of no single ob6ect, neither art itself nor life itself, but both mi9ed
indistinguishably, and rather nastily, 'ith money, fame, po'er, or prestige& The middlebro' curries favour 'ith
both sides e7ually& He goes to the lo'bro's and tells them that 'hile he is not 7uite one of them, he is almost
their friend& e9t moment he rings up the highbro's and as,s them 'ith e7ual geniality 'hether he may not
come to tea& o' there are highbro's?I myself have ,no'n duchesses 'ho 'ere highbro's, also char'omen,
and they have both told me 'ith that vigour of language 'hich so often unites the aristocracy 'ith the 'or,ing
classes, that they 'ould rather sit in the coal cellar, together, than in the dra'ing:room 'ith middlebro's and
pour out tea& I have myself been as,ed?but may I, for the sa,e of brevity, cast this scene 'hich is only partly
fictitious, into the form of fiction<?I myself, then, have been as,ed to come and CseeD them?ho' strange a
passion theirs is for being CseenDG They ring me up, therefore, at about eleven in the morning, and as, me to
come to tea& I go to my 'ardrobe and consider, rather lugubriously, 'hat is the right thing to 'ear< We
highbro's may be smart, or 'e may be shabby/ but 'e never have the right thing to 'ear& I proceed to as, ne9t$
What is the right thing to say< Which is the right ,nife to use< What is the right boo, to praise< "ll these are
things I do not ,no' for myself& We highbro's read 'hat 'e li,e and do 'hat 'e li,e and praise 'hat 'e li,e&
We also ,no' 'hat 'e disli,e?for e9ample, thin bread and butter tea& The difficulty of eating thin bread and
butter in 'hite ,id gloves has al'ays seemed to me one of life8s more insuperable problems& Then I disli,e
bound volumes of the classics behind plate glass& Then I distrust people 'ho call both %ha,espeare and
Words'orth e7ually C5illD?it is a habit moreover that leads to confusion& "nd in the matter of clothes, I li,e
people either to dress very 'ell/ or to dress very badly/ I disli,e the correct thing in clothes& Then there is the
7uestion of games& 5eing a highbro' I do not play them& 5ut I love 'atching people play 'ho have a passion
for games& These middlebro's pat balls about/ they po,e their bats and muff their catches at cric,et& "nd 'hen
poor Middlebro' mounts on horsebac, and that animal brea,s into a canter, to me there is no sadder sight in all
!otten !o'& To put it in a nutshell @in order to get on 'ith the storyA that tea party 'as not 'holly a success,
nor altogether a failure/ for Middlebro', 'ho 'rites, follo'ing me to the door, clapped me bris,ly on the bac,,
and said CI8m sending you my boo,GD @Or did he call it Cstuff<DA "nd his boo, comes?sure enough, though
called, so symbolically, 4EE2"W"-, E4eepa'ay is the name of a preparation used to distract the male dog
from the female at certain seasonsF it comes& "nd I read a page here, and I read a page there @I am brea,fasting,
as usual, in bedA& "nd it is not 'ell 'ritten/ nor is it badly 'ritten& It is not proper, nor is it improper?in short it
is bet'i9t and bet'een& o' if there is any sort of boo, for 'hich I have, perhaps, an imperfect sympathy, it is
the bet'i9t and bet'een& "nd so, though I suffer from the gout of a morning?but if one8s ancestors for t'o or
three centuries have tumbled into bed dead drun, one has deserved a touch of that malady?I rise& I dress& I
proceed 'ea,ly to the 'indo'& I ta,e that boo, in my s'ollen right hand and toss it gently over the hedge into
the field& The hungry sheep?did I remember to say that this part of the story ta,es place in the country<?the
hungry sheep loo, up but are not fed&
5ut to have done 'ith fiction and its tendency to lapse into poetry?I 'ill no' report a perfectly prosaic
conversation in 'ords of one syllable& I often as, my friends the lo'bro's, over our muffins and honey, 'hy it
is that 'hile 'e, the highbro's, never buy a middlebro' boo,, or go to a middlebro' lecture, or read, unless
'e are paid for doing so, a middlebro' revie', they, on the contrary, ta,e these middlebro' activities so
seriously< Why, I as, @not of course on the 'irelessA, are you so damnably modest< #o you thin, that a
description of your lives, as they are, is too sordid and too mean to be beautiful< Is that 'hy you prefer the
middlebro' version of 'hat they have the impudence to call real humanity<?this mi9ture of geniality and
sentiment stuc, together 'ith a stic,y slime of calves:foot 6elly< The truth, if you 'ould only believe it, is
much more beautiful than any lie& Then again, I continue, ho' can you let the middlebro's teach you ho' to
'rite<?you, 'ho 'rite so beautifully 'hen you 'rite naturally, that I 'ould give both my hands to 'rite as
you do?for 'hich reason I never attempt it, but do my best to learn the art of 'riting as a highbro' should&
"nd again, I press on, brandishing a muffin on the point of a tea spoon, ho' dare the middlebro's teach you
ho' to read?%ha,espeare for instance< "ll you have to do is to read him& The Cambridge edition is both good
and cheap& If you find H"M1ET difficult, as, him to tea& He is a highbro'& "s, Ophelia to meet him& %he is a
lo'bro'& Tal, to them, as you tal, to me, and you 'ill ,no' more about %ha,espeare than all the middlebro's
in the 'orld can teach you?I do not thin,, by the 'ay, from certain phrases that %ha,espeare li,ed
middlebro's, or 2ope either&
To all this the lo'bro's reply?but I cannot imitate their style of tal,ing?that they consider themselves to be
common people 'ithout education& It is very ,ind of the middlebro's to try to teach them culture& "nd after all,
the lo'bro's continue, middlebro's, li,e other people, have to ma,e money& There must be money in teaching
and in 'riting boo,s about %ha,espeare& We all have to earn our livings no'adays, my friends the lo'bro's
remind me& I 7uite agree& Even those of us 'hose "unts came a cropper riding in India and left them an annual
income of four hundred and rfifty pounds, no' reduced, than,s to the 'ar and other lu9uries, to little more than
t'o hundred odd, even 'e have to do that& "nd 'e do it, too, by 'riting about anybody 'ho seems amusing?
enough has been 'ritten about %ha,espeare?%ha,espeare hardly pays& We highbro's, I agree, have to earn our
livings/ but 'hen 'e have earned enough to live on, then 'e live& When the middlebro's, on the contrary, have
earned enough to live on, they go on earning enough to buy?'hat are the things that middlebro's al'ays buy<
Jueen "nne furniture @fa,ed, but none the less e9pensiveA/ first editions of dead 'riters, al'ays the 'orst/
pictures, or reproductions from pictures, by dead painters/ houses in 'hat is called Cthe Beorgian styleD?but
never anything ne', never a picture by a living painter, or a chair by a living carpenter, or boo,s by living
'riters, for to buy living art re7uires living taste& "nd, as that ,ind of art and that ,ind of taste are 'hat
middlebro's call Chighbro',D C5loomsbury,D poor middlebro' spends vast sums on sham anti7ues, and has to
,eep at it scribbling a'ay, year in, year out, 'hile 'e highbro's ring each other up, and are off for a day8s 6aunt
into the country& That is the 'orst of course of living in a set?one li,es being 'ith one8s friends&
Have I then made my point clear, sir, that the true battle in my opinion lies not bet'een highbro' and lo'bro',
but bet'een highbro's and lo'bro's 6oined together in blood brotherhood against the bloodless and pernicious
pest 'ho comes bet'een< If the 5&5&C& stood for anything but the 5et'i9t and 5et'een Company they 'ould
use their control of the air not to stir strife bet'een brothers, but to broadcast the fact that highbro's and
lo'bro's must band together to e9terminate a pest 'hich is the bane of all thin,ing and living& It may be, to
7uote from your advertisement columns, that Cterrifically sensitiveD lady novelists overestimate the dampness
and dinginess of this fungoid gro'th& 5ut all I can say is that 'hen, lapsing into that stream 'hich people call,
so oddly, consciousness, and gathering 'ool from the sheep that have been mentioned above, I ramble round
my garden in the suburbs, middlebro' seems to me to be every'here& CWhat8s that<D I cry& CMiddlebro' on the
cabbages< Middlebro' infecting that poor old sheep< "nd 'hat about the moon<D I loo, up and, behold, the
moon is under eclipse& CMiddlebro' at it againGD I e9claim& CMiddlebro' obscuring, dulling, tarnishing and
coarsening even the silver edge of Heaven8s o'n scythe&D @I Cdra' near to poetry,D see advt&A "nd then my
thoughts, as 0reud assures us thoughts 'ill do, rush @Middlebro'8s saunter and simper, out of respect for the
CensorA to se9, and I as, of the sea:gulls 'ho are crying on desolate sea sands and of the farm hands 'ho are
coming home rather drun, to their 'ives, 'hat 'ill become of us, men and 'omen, if Middl'bro' has his 'ay
'ith us, and there is only a middle se9 but no husbands or 'ives< The ne9t remar, I address 'ith the utmost
humility to the 2rime Minister& CWhat, sir,D I demand, C'ill be the fate of the 5ritish Empire and of our
#ominions "cross the %eas if Middlebro's prevail< Will you not, sir, read a pronouncement of an authoritative
nature from 5roadcasting House<D
%uch are the thoughts, such are the fancies that visit Ccultured invalidish ladies 'ith private meansD @see advt&A
'hen they stroll in their suburban gardens and loo, at the cabbages and at the red bric, villas that have been
built by middlebro's so that middlebro's may loo, at the vie'& %uch are the thoughts Cat once gay and tragic
and deeply feminineD @see advt&A of one 'ho has not yet Cbeen driven out of 5loomsburyD @advt& againA, a place
'here lo'bro's and highbro's live happily together on e7ual terms and priests are not, nor priestesses, and, to
be 7uite fran,, the ad6ective CpriestlyD is neither often heard nor held in high esteem& %uch are the thoughts of
one 'ho 'ill stay in 5loomsbury until the #u,e of 5edford, rightly concerned for the respectability of his
s7uares, raises the rent so high that 5loomsbury is safe for middlebro's to live in& Then she 'ill leave&
May I conclude, as I began, by than,ing your revie'er for his very courteous and interesting revie', but may I
tell him that though he did not, for reasons best ,no'n to himself, call me a highbro', there is no name in the
'orld that I prefer< I as, nothing better than that all revie'ers, for ever, and every'here, should call me a
highbro'& I 'ill do my best to oblige them& If they li,e to add 5loomsbury, W&C&(, that is the correct postal
address, and my telephone number is in the #irectory& 5ut if your revie'er, or any other revie'er, dares hint
that I live in %outh 4ensington, I 'ill sue him for libel& If any human being, man, 'oman, dog, cat or half:
crushed 'orm dares call me Cmiddlebro'D I 'ill ta,e my pen and stab him, dead& -ours etc&,
Virginia Woolf&
THE ART OF 5IOGRA%H*
I
The art of biography, 'e say?:but at once go on to as,, is biography an art< The 7uestion is foolish perhaps,
and ungenerous certainly, considering the ,een pleasure that biographers have given us& 5ut the 7uestion as,s
itself so often that there must be something behind it& There it is, 'henever a ne' biography is opened, casting
its shado' on the page/ and there 'ould seem to be something deadly in that shado', for after all, of the
multitude of lives that are 'ritten, ho' fe' surviveG
5ut the reason for this high death rate, the biographer might argue, is that biography, compared 'ith the arts of
poetry and fiction, is a young art& Interest in our selves and in other people8s selves is a late development of the
human mind& ot until the eighteenth century in England did that curiosity e9press itself in 'riting the lives of
private people& Only in the nineteenth century 'as biography fully gro'n and hugely prolific& If it is true that
there have been only three great biographers?=ohnson, 5os'ell, and 1oc,hart?the reason, he argues, is that
the time 'as short/ and his plea, that the art of biography has had but little time to establish itself and develop
itself, is certainly borne out by the te9tboo,s& Tempting as it is to e9plore the reason?'hy, that is, the self that
'rites a boo, of prose came into being so many centuries after the self that 'rites a poem, 'hy Chaucer
preceded Henry =ames?it is better to leave that insoluble 7uestion unas,ed, and so pass to his ne9t reason for
the lac, of masterpieces& It is that the art of biography is the most restricted of all the arts& He has his proof
ready to hand& Here it is in the preface in 'hich %mith, 'ho has 'ritten the life of =ones, ta,es this opportunity
of than,ing old friends 'ho have lent letters, and Clast but not leastD Mrs& =ones, the 'ido', for that help
C'ithout 'hich,D as he puts it, Cthis biography could not have been 'ritten&D o' the novelist, he points out,
simply says in his fore'ord, CEvery character in this boo, is fictitious&D The novelist is free/ the biographer is
tied&
There, perhaps, 'e come 'ithin hailing distance of that very difficult, again perhaps insoluble, 7uestion$ What
do 'e mean by calling a boo, a 'or, of art< "t any rate, here is a distinction bet'een biography and fiction?a
proof that they differ in the very stuff of 'hich they are made& One is made 'ith the help of friends, of facts/ the
other is created 'ithout any restrictions save those that the artist, for reasons that seem good to him, chooses to
obey& That is a distinction/ and there is good reason to thin, that in the past biographers have found it not& only
a distinction but a very cruel distinction&
The 'ido' and the friends 'ere hard tas,masters& %uppose, for e9ample, that the man of genius 'as immoral,
ill:tempered, and thre' the boots at the maid8s head& The 'ido' 'ould say, C%till I loved him?he 'as the
father of my children/ and the public, 'ho love his boo,s, must on no account be disillusioned& Cover up/
omit&D The biographer obeyed& "nd thus the ma6ority of Victorian biographies are li,e the 'a9 figures no'
preserved in Westminster "bbey, that 'ere carried in funeral processions through the street?effigies that have
only a smooth superficial li,eness to the body in the coffin&
Then, to'ards the end of the nineteenth century, there 'as a change& "gain for reasons not easy to discover,
'ido's became broader:minded, the public ,eener:sighted/ the effigy no longer carried conviction or satisfied
curiosity& The biographer certainly 'on a measure of freedom& "t least he could hint that there 'ere scars and
furro's on the dead man8s face& 0roude8s Carlyle is by no means a 'a9 mas, painted rosy red& "nd follo'ing
0roude there 'as %ir Edmund Bosse, 'ho dared to say that his o'n father 'as a fallible human being& "nd
follo'ing Edmund Bosse in the early years of the present century came 1ytton %trachey&
II
The figure of 1ytton %trachey is so important a figure in the history of biography, that it compels a pause& 0or
his three famous boo,s, EMIET VICTO!I"%, J.EE VICTO!I", and E1IV"5ETH "# E%%ER, are
of a stature to sho' both 'hat biography can do and 'hat biography cannot do& Thus they suggest many
possible ans'ers to the 7uestion 'hether biography is an art, and if not 'hy it fails& 1ytton %trachey came to
birth as an author at a luc,y moment& In ()(O, 'hen he made his first attempt, biography, 'ith its ne' liberties,
'as a form that offered great attractions& To a 'riter li,e himself, 'ho had 'ished to 'rite poetry or plays but
'as doubtful of his creative po'er, biography seemed to offer a promising alternative& 0or at last it 'as possible
to tell the truth about the dead/ and the Victorian age 'as rich in remar,able figures many of 'hom had been
grossly deformed by the effigies that had been plastered over them& To recreate them, to sho' them as they
really 'ere, 'as a tas, that called for gifts analogous to the poet8s or the novelist8s, yet did not as, that
inventive po'er in 'hich he found himself lac,ing&
It 'as 'ell 'orth trying& "nd the anger and the interest that his short studies of Eminent Victorians aroused
sho'ed that he 'as able to ma,e Manning, 0lorence ightingale, Bordon, and the rest live as they had not lived
since they 'ere actually in the flesh& Once more they 'ere the centre of a bu;; of discussion& #id Bordon really
drin,, or 'as that an invention< Had 0lorence ightingale received the Order of Merit in her bedroom or in her
sitting room< He stirred the public, even though a European 'ar 'as raging, to an astonishing interest in such
minute matters& "nger and laughter mi9ed/ and editions multiplied&
5ut these 'ere short studies 'ith something of the over:emphasis and the foreshortening of caricatures& In the
lives of the t'o great Jueens, Eli;abeth and Victoria, he attempted a far more ambitious tas,& 5iography had
never had a fairer chance of sho'ing 'hat it could do& 0or it 'as no' being put to the test by a 'riter 'ho 'as
capable of ma,ing use of all the liberties that biography had 'on$ he 'as fearless/ he had proved his brilliance/
and he had learned his 6ob& The result thro's great light upon the nature of biography& 0or 'ho can doubt after
reading the t'o boo,s again, one after the other, that the Victoria is a triumphant success, and that the
E1IV"5ETH by comparison is a failure< 5ut it seems too, as 'e compare them, that it 'as not 1ytton %trachey
'ho failed/ it 'as the art of biography& In the VICTO!I" he treated biography as a craft/ he submitted to its
limitations& In the E1IV"5ETH he treated biography as an art/ he flouted its limitations&
5ut 'e must go on to as, ho' 'e have come to this conclusion and 'hat reasons support it& In the first place it
is clear that the t'o Jueens present very different problems to their biographer& "bout Jueen Victoria
everything 'as ,no'n& Everything she did, almost everything she thought, 'as a matter of common ,no'ledge&
o one has ever been more closely verified and e9actly authenticated than Jueen Victoria& The biographer
could not invent her, because at every moment some document 'as at hand to chec, his invention& "nd, in
'riting of Victoria, 1ytton %trachey submitted to the conditions& He used to the full the biographer8s po'er of
selection and relation, but he ,ept strictly 'ithin the 'orld of fact& Every statement 'as verified/ every fact 'as
authenticated& "nd the result is a life 'hich, very possibly, 'ill do for the old Jueen 'hat 5os'ell did for the
old dictionary ma,er& In time to come 1ytton %trachey8s Jueen Victoria 'ill be Jueen Victoria, 6ust as
5os'ell8s =ohnson is no' #r& =ohnson& The other versions 'ill fade and disappear& It 'as a prodigious feat, and
no doubt, having accomplished it, the author 'as an9ious to press further& There 'as Jueen Victoria, solid,
real, palpable& 5ut undoubtedly she 'as limited& Could not biography produce something of the intensity of
poetry, something of the e9citement of drama, and yet ,eep also the peculiar virtue that belongs to fact?its
suggestive reality, its o'n proper creativeness<
Jueen Eli;abeth seemed to lend herself perfectly to the e9periment& Very little 'as ,no'n about her& The
society in 'hich she lived 'as so remote that the habits, the motives, and even the actions of the people?of
that age 'ere full of strangeness and obscurity& C5y 'hat art are 'e to 'orm our 'ay into those strange spirits<
those even stranger bodies< The more clearly 'e perceive it, the more remote that singular universe becomes,D
1ytton %trachey remar,ed on one of the first pages& -et there 'as evidently a Ctragic historyD lying dormant,
half revealed, half concealed, in the story of the Jueen and Esse9& Everything seemed to lend itself to the
ma,ing of a boo, that combined the advantages of both 'orlds, that gave the artist freedom to invent, but
helped his invention 'ith the support of facts?a boo, that 'as not only a biography but also a 'or, of art&
evertheless, the combination proved un'or,able/ fact and fiction refused to mi9& Eli;abeth never became real
in the sense that Jueen Victoria had been real, yet she never became fictitious in the sense that Cleopatra or
0alstaff is fictitious& The reason 'ould seem to be that very little 'as ,no'n?he 'as urged to invent/ yet
something 'as ,no'n?his invention 'as chec,ed& The Jueen thus moves in an ambiguous 'orld, bet'een
fact and fiction, neither embodied nor disembodied& There is a sense of vacancy and effort, of a tragedy that has
no crisis, of characters that meet but do not clash&
If this diagnosis is true 'e are forced to say that the trouble lies 'ith biography itself& It imposes conditions, and
those conditions are that it must be based upon fact& "nd by fact in biography 'e mean facts that can be verified
by other people besides the artist& If he invents facts as an artist invents them?facts that no one else can verify
?and tries to combine them 'ith facts of the other sort, they destroy each other&
1ytton %trachey himself seems in the J.EE VICTO!I" to have reali;ed the necessity of this condition, and
to have yielded to it instinctively& CThe first forty:t'o years of the Jueen8s life,D he 'rote, Care illuminated by
a great and varied 7uantity of authentic information& With "lbert8s death a veil descends&D "nd 'hen 'ith
"lbert8s death the veil descended and authentic information failed, he ,ne' that the biographer must follo'
suit& CWe must be content 'ith a brief and summary relation,D he 'rote/ and the last years are briefly disposed
of& 5ut the 'hole of Eli;abeth8s life 'as lived behind a far thic,er veil than the last years of Victoria& "nd yet,
ignoring his o'n admission, he 'ent on to 'rite, not a brief and summary relation, but a 'hole boo, about
those strange spirits and even stranger bodies of 'hom authentic information 'as lac,ing& On his o'n sho'ing,
the attempt 'as doomed to failure&
III
It seems, then, that 'hen the biographer complained that he 'as tied by friends, letters, and documents he 'as
laying his finger upon a necessary element in biography/ and that it is also a necessary limitation& 0or the
invented character lives in a free 'orld 'here the facts are verified by one person only?the artist himself&
Their authenticity lies in the truth of his o'n vision& The 'orld created by that vision is rarer, intenser, and
more 'holly of a piece than the 'orld that is largely made of authentic information supplied by other people&
"nd because of this difference the t'o ,inds of fact 'ill not mi9/ if they touch they destroy each other& o one,
the conclusion seems to be, can ma,e the best of both 'orlds/ you must choose, and you must abide by your
choice&
5ut though the failure of E1IV"5ETH "# E%%ER leads to this conclusion, that failure, because it 'as the
result of a daring e9periment carried out 'ith magnificent s,ill, leads the 'ay to further discoveries& Had he
lived, 1ytton %trachey 'ould no doubt himself have e9plored the vein that he had opened& "s it is, he has
sho'n us the 'ay in 'hich others may advance& The biographer is bound by facts?that is so/ but, if it is so, he
has the right to all the facts that are available& If =ones thre' boots at the maid8s head, had a mistress at
Islington, or 'as found drun, in a ditch after a night8s debauch, he must be free to say so?so far at least as the
la' of libel and human sentiment allo'&
5ut these facts are not li,e the facts of science?once they are discovered, al'ays the same& They are sub6ect to
changes of opinion/ opinions change as the times change& What 'as thought a sin is no' ,no'n, by the light of
facts 'on for us by the psychologists, to be perhaps a misfortune/ perhaps a curiosity/ perhaps neither one nor
the other, but a trifling foible of no great importance one 'ay or the other& The accent on se9 has changed
'ithin living memory& This leads to the destruction of a great deal of dead matter still obscuring the true
features of the human face& Many of the old chapter headings?life at college, marriage, career?are sho'n to
be very arbitrary and artificial distinctions& The real current of the hero8s e9istence too,, very li,ely, a different
course&
Thus the biographer must go ahead of the rest of us, li,e the miner8s canary, testing the atmosphere, detecting
falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions& His sense of truth must he alive and on tiptoe& Then
again, since 'e live in an age 'hen a thousand cameras are pointed, by ne'spapers, letters, and diaries, at every
character from every angle, he must be prepared to admit contradictory versions of the same face& 5iography
'ill enlarge its scope by hanging up loo,ing glasses at odd corners& "nd yet from all this diversity it 'ill bring
out, not a riot of confusion, but a richer unity& "nd again, since so much is ,no'n that used to be un,no'n, the
7uestion no' inevitably as,s itself, 'hether the lives of great men only should be recorded& Is not anyone 'ho
has lived a life, and left a record of that life, 'orthy of biography?the failures as 'ell as the successes, the
humble as 'ell as the illustrious< "nd 'hat is greatness< "nd 'hat smallness< We must revise our standards of
merit and set up ne' heroes for our admiration&
IV
5iography thus is only at the beginning of its career/ it has a long and active life before it, 'e may be sure?a
life full of difficulty, danger, and hard 'or,& evertheless, 'e can also be sure that it is a different life from the
life of poetry and fiction?a life lived at a lo'er degree of tension& "nd for that reason its creations are not
destined for the immortality 'hich the artist no' and then achieves for his creations&
There 'ould seem to be certain proof of that already& Even #r& =ohnson as created by 5os'ell 'ill not live as
long as 0alstaff as created by %ha,espeare& Mica'ber and Miss 5ates 'e may be certain 'ill survive 1oc,hart8s
%ir Walter %cott and 1ytton %trachey8s Jueen Victoria& 0or they are made of more enduring matter& The artist8s
imagination at its most intense fires out 'hat is perishable in fact/ he builds 'ith 'hat is durable/ but the
biographer must accept the perishable, build 'ith it, imbed it in the very fabric of his 'or,& Much 'ill perish/
little 'ill live& "nd thus 'e come to the conclusion, that he is a craftsman, not an artist/ and his 'or, is not a
'or, of art, but something bet'i9t and bet'een&
-et on that lo'er level the 'or, of the blographer is invaluable/ 'e cannot than, him sufficiently for 'hat he
for us& 0or 'e are incapable of living 'holly in the intense 'orld of the imagination& The imagination is a
faculty that soon tires and needs rest and refreshment& 5ut for a tired imagination the proper food is not inferior
poetry or minor fiction?indeed they blunt and debauch it?but sober fact, that Cauthentic informationD from
'hich, as 1ytton %trachey has sho'n us, good biography is made& When and 'here did the real man live/ ho'
did he loo,/ did he 'ear laced boots or elastic:sided/ 'ho 'ere his aunts, and his friends/ ho' did he blo' his
nose 'hom did he love, and ho'/ and 'hen he came to die did he die in his bed li,e a Christian, or & & &
5y telling us the true facts, by sifting the little from the big, and shaping the 'hole so that 'e perceive the
outline, the biographer does more to stimulate the imagination than any poet or novelist save the very greatest&
0or fe' poets and novelists are capable of that high degree of tension 'hich gives us reality& 5ut almost any
biographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection& He can give us
the creative fact/ the fertile fact/ the fact that suggests and engenders& Of this, too, there is certain proof& 0or
ho' often, 'hen a biography is read and tossed aside, some scene remains bright, some figure lives on in the
depths of the mind, and causes us, 'hen 'e read a poem or a novel, to feel a start of recognition, as if 'e
remembered something that 'e had ,no'n before&
$RAFTMANHI% &':(
E()F " broadcast on "pril +Hth, ()IK
The title of this series is CWords 0ail Me,D and this particular tal, is called CCraftsmanship&D We must suppose,
therefore, that the tal,er is meant to discuss the craft of 'ords?the craftsmanship of the 'riter& 5ut there is
something incongruous, unfitting, about the term CcraftsmanshipD 'hen applied to 'ords& The English
dictionary, to 'hich 'e al'ays turn in moments of dilemma, confirms us in our doubts& It says that the 'ord
CcraftD has t'o meanings/ it means in the first place ma,ing useful ob6ects out of solid matter?for e9ample, a
pot, a chair, a table& In the second place, the 'ord CcraftD means ca6olery, cunning, deceit& o' 'e ,no' little
that is certain about 'ords, but this 'e do ,no'?'ords never ma,e anything that is useful/ and 'ords are the
only things that tell the truth and nothing but the truth& Therefore, to tal, of craft in connection 'ith 'ords is to
bring together t'o incongruous ideas, 'hich if they mate can only give birth to some monster fit for a glass case
in a museum& Instantly, therefore, the title of the tal, must be changed, and for it substituted another?"
!amble round Words, perhaps& 0or 'hen you cut off the head of a tal, it behaves li,e a hen that has been
decapitated& It runs round in a circle till it drops dead?so people say 'ho have ,illed hens& "nd that must be
the course, or circle, of this decapitated tal,& 1et us then ta,e for our starting point the statement that 'ords are
not useful& This happily needs little proving, for 'e are all a'are of it& When 'e travel on the Tube, for
e9ample, 'hen 'e 'ait on the platform for a train, there, hung up in front of us, on an illuminated signboard,
are the 'ords C2assing !ussell %7uare&D We loo, at those 'ords/ 'e repeat them/ 'e try to impress that useful
fact upon our minds/ the ne9t train 'ill pass !ussell %7uare& We say over and over again as 'e pace, C2assing
!ussell %7uare, passing !ussell %7uare&D "nd then as 'e say them, the 'ords shuffle and change, and 'e find
ourselves saying, C2assing a'ay saith the 'orld, passing a'ay& & & & The leaves decay and fall, the vapours 'eep
their burthen to the ground& Man comes& & & &D "nd then 'e 'a,e up and find ourselves at 4ing8s Cross&
Ta,e another e9ample& Written up opposite us in the rail'ay carriage are the 'ords$ C#o not lean out of the
'indo'&D "t the first reading the useful meaning, the surface meaning, is conveyed/ but soon, as 'e sit loo,ing
at the 'ords, they shuffle, they change/ and 'e begin saying, CWindo's, yes 'indo's?casements opening on
the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn&D "nd before 'e ,no' 'hat 'e are doing, 'e have leant out of
the 'indo'/ 'e are loo,ing for !uth in tears amid the alien corn& The penalty for that is t'enty pounds or a
bro,en nec,&
This proves, if it needs proving, ho' very little natural gift 'ords have for being useful& If 'e insist on forcing
them against their nature to be useful, 'e see to our cost ho' they mislead us, ho' they fool us, ho' they land
us a crac, on the head& We have been so often fooled in this 'ay by 'ords, they have so often proved that they
hate being useful, that it is their nature not to e9press one simple statement but a thousand possibilities?they
have done this so often that at last, happily, 'e are beginning to face the fact& We are beginning to invent
another language ?a language perfectly and beautifully adapted to e9press useful statements, a language of
signs& There is one great living master of this language to 'hom 'e are all indebted, that anonymous 'riter?
'hether man, 'oman or disembodied spirit nobody ,no's?'ho describes hotels in the Michelin Buide& He
'ants to tell us that one hotel is moderate, another good, and a third the best in the place& Ho' does he do it<
ot 'ith 'ords/ 'ords 'ould at once bring into being shrubberies and billiard tables, men and 'omen, the
moon rising and the long splash of the summer sea?all good things, but all here beside the point& He stic,s to
signs/ one gable/ t'o gables/ three gables& That is all he says and all he needs to say& 5aede,er carries the sign
language still further into the sublime realms of art& When he 'ishes to say that a picture is good, he uses one
star/ if very good, t'o stars/ 'hen, in his opinion, it is a 'or, of transcendent genius, three blac, stars shine on
the page, and that is all& %o 'ith a handful of stars and daggers the 'hole of art criticism, the 'hole of literary
criticism could be reduced to the si;e of a si9penny bit?there are moments 'hen one could 'ish it& 5ut this
suggests that in time to come 'riters 'ill have t'o languages at their service/ one for fact, one for fiction& When
the biographer has to convey a useful and necessary fact, as, for e9ample, that Oliver %mith 'ent to college and
too, a third in the year (O)+, he 'ill say so 'ith a hollo' H on top of the figure five& When the novelist is
forced to inform us that =ohn rang the bell after a pause the door 'as opened by a parlourmaid 'ho said, CMrs&
=ones is not at home,D he 'ill to our great gain and his o'n comfort convey that repulsive statement not in
'ords, but in signs?say, a capital H on top of the figure three& Thus 'e may loo, for'ard to the day 'hen our
biographies and novels 'ill be slim and muscular/ and a rail'ay company that says$ C#o not lean out of the
'indo'D in 'ords 'ill be fined a penalty not e9ceeding five pounds for the improper use of language&
Words, then, are not useful& 1et us no' en7uire into their other 7uality, their positive 7uality, that is, their
po'er to tell the truth& "ccording once more to the dictionary there are at least three ,inds of truth Bod8s or
gospel truth/ literary truth/ and home truth @generally& unflatteringA& 5ut to consider each separately 'ould ta,e
too long& 1et us then simplify and assert that since the only test of truth is length of life, and since 'ords survive
the chops and changes of time longer than any other substance, therefore they are the truest& 5uildings fall/ even
the earth perishes& What 'as yesterday a cornfield is to:day a bungalo'& 5ut 'ords, if properly used, seem able
to live for ever& What, then, 'e may as, ne9t, is the proper use of 'ords< ot, so 'e have said, to ma,e a useful
statement/ for a useful statement is a statement that can mean only one thing& "nd it is the nature of 'ords to
mean many things& Ta,e the simple sentence C2assing !ussell %7uare&D That proved useless because besides the
surface meaning it contained so many sun,en meanings& The 'ord CpassingD suggested the transiency of things,
the passing of time and the changes of human life& Then the 'ord C!ussellD suggested the rustling of leaves and
the s,irt on a polished floor also the ducal house of 5edford and half the history of England& 0inally the 'ord
C%7uareD brings in the sight, the shape of an actual s7uare combined 'ith some visual suggestion of the star,
angularity of stucco& Thus one sentence of the simplest ,ind rouses the imagination, the memory, the eye and
the ear?all combine in reading it&
5ut they combine?they combine unconsciously together& The moment 'e single out and emphasi;e the
suggestions as 'e have done here they become unreal/ and 'e, too, become unreal?specialists, 'ord mongers,
phrase finders, not readers& In reading 'e have to allo' the sun,en meanings to remain sun,en, suggested, not
stated/ lapsing and flo'ing into each other li,e reeds on the bed of a river& 5ut the 'ords in that sentence
2assing !ussell %7uare:are of course very rudimentary 'ords& They sho' no trace of the strange, of the
diabolical po'er 'hich 'ords possess 'hen they are not tapped out by a type'riter but come fresh from a
human brain?the po'er that is to suggest the 'riter/ his character, his appearance, his 'ife, his family, his
house?even the cat on the hearthrug& Why 'ords do this, ho' they do it, ho' to prevent them from doing it
nobody ,no's& They do it 'ithout the 'riter8s 'ill/ often against his 'ill& o 'riter presumably 'ishes to
impose his o'n miserable character, his o'n private secrets and vices upon the reader& 5ut has any 'riter, 'ho
is not a type'riter, succeeded in being 'holly impersonal< "l'ays, inevitably, 'e ,no' them as 'ell as their
boo,s& %uch is the suggestive po'er of 'ords that they 'ill often ma,e a bad boo, into a very lovable human
being, and a good boo, into a man 'hom 'e can hardly tolerate in the room& Even 'ords that are hundreds of
years old have this po'er/ 'hen they are ne' they have it so strongly that they deafen us to the 'riter8s
meaning?it is them 'e see, them 'e hear& That is one reason 'hy our 6udgments of living 'riters are so 'ildly
erratic& Only after the 'riter is dead do his 'ords to some e9tent become disinfected, purified of the accidents
of the living body&
o', this po'er of suggestion is one of the most mysterious properties of 'ords& Everyone 'ho has ever
'ritten a sentence must be conscious or half:conscious of it& Words, English 'ords, are full of echoes, of
memories, of associations?naturally& They have been out and about, on people8s lips, in their houses, in the
streets, in the fields, for so many centuries& "nd that is one of the chief difficulties in 'riting them today?that
they are so stored 'ith meanings, 'ith memories, that they have contracted so many famous marriages& The
splendid 'ord Cincarnadine,D for e9ample?'ho can use it 'ithout remembering also Cmultitudinous seasD< In
the old days, of course, 'hen English 'as a ne' language, 'riters could invent ne' 'ords and use them&
o'adays it is easy enough to invent ne' 'ords?they spring to the lips 'henever 'e see a ne' sight or feel a
ne' sensation?but 'e cannot use them because the language is old& -ou cannot use a brand ne' 'ord in an
old language because of the very obvious yet mysterious fact that a 'ord is not a single and separate entity, but
part of other 'ords& It is not a 'ord indeed until it is part of a sentence& Words belong to each other, although,
of course, only a great 'riter ,no's that the 'ord CincarnadineD belongs to Cmultitudinous seas&D To combine
ne' 'ords 'ith old 'ords is fatal to the constitution of the sentence& In order to use ne' 'ords properly you
'ould have to invent a ne' language/ and that, though no doubt 'e shall come to it, is not at the moment our
business& Our business is to see 'hat 'e can do 'ith the English language as it is& Ho' can 'e combine the old
'ords in ne' orders so that they survive, so that they create beauty, so that they tell the truth< That is the
7uestion&
"nd the person 'ho could ans'er that 7uestion 'ould deserve 'hatever cro'n of glory the 'orld has to offer&
Thin, 'hat it 'ould mean if you could teach, if you could learn, the art of 'riting& Why, every boo,, every
ne'spaper 'ould tell the truth, 'ould create beauty& 5ut there is, it 'ould appear, some obstacle in the 'ay,
some hindrance to the teaching of 'ords& 0or though at this moment at least a hundred professors are lecturing
upon the literature of the past, at least a thousand critics are revie'ing the literature of the present, and hundreds
upon hundreds of young men and 'omen are passing e9aminations in English literature 'ith the utmost credit,
still?do 'e 'rite better, do 'e read better than 'e read and 'rote four hundred years ago 'hen 'e 'ere
unlectured, uncritici;ed, untaught< Is our Beorgian literature a patch on the Eli;abethan< Where then are 'e to
lay the blame< ot on our professors/ not on our revie'ers/ not on our 'riters/ but on 'ords& It is 'ords that are
to blame& They are the 'ildest, freest, most irresponsible, most unteachable of all things& Of course, you can
catch them and sort them and place them in alphabetical order in dictionaries& 5ut 'ords do not live in
dictionaries/ they live in the mind& If you 'ant proof of this, consider ho' often in moments of emotion 'hen
'e most need 'ords 'e find none& -et there is the dictionary/ there at our disposal are some half:a:million
'ords all in alphabetical order& 5ut can 'e use them< o, because 'ords do not live in dictionaries, they live in
the mind& 1oo, again at the dictionary& There beyond a doubt lie plays more splendid than "TO- "#
C1EO2"T!"/ poems more lovely than the O#E TO " IBHTIB"1E/ novels beside 'hich 2!I#E "#
2!E=.#ICE or #"VI# CO22E!0IE1# are the crude bunglings of amateurs& It is only a 7uestion of finding
the right 'ords and putting them in the right order& 5ut 'e cannot do it because they do not live in dictionaries/
they live in the mind& "nd ho' do they live in the mind< Variously and strangely, much as human beings live,
by ranging hither and thither, by falling in love, and mating together& It is true that they are much less bound by
ceremony and convention than 'e are& !oyal 'ords mate 'ith commoners& English 'ords marry 0rench 'ords,
Berman 'ords, Indian 'ords, egro 'ords, if they have a fancy& Indeed, the less 'e en7uire into the past of our
dear Mother English the better it 'ill be for that lady8s reputation& 0or she has gone a:roving, a:roving fair
maid&
Thus to lay do'n any la's for such irreclaimable vagabonds is 'orse than useless& " fe' trifling rules of
grammar and spelling are all the constraint 'e can put on them& "ll 'e can say about them, as 'e peer at them
over the edge of that deep, dar, and only fitfully illuminated cavern in 'hich they live?the mind?all 'e can
say about them is that they seem to li,e people to thin, and to feel before they use them, but to thin, and to feel
not about them, but about something different& They are highly sensitive, easily made self:conscious& They do
not li,e to have their purity or their impurity discussed& If you start a %ociety for 2ure English, they 'ill sho'
their resentment by starting another for impure English?hence the unnatural violence of much modern speech/
it is a protest against the puritans& They are highly democratic, too/ they believe that one 'ord is as good as
another/ uneducated 'ords are as good as educated 'ords, uncultivated 'ords as cultivated 'ords, there are no
ran,s or titles in their society& or do they li,e being lifted out on the point of a pen and e9amined separately&
They hang together, in sentences, in paragraphs, sometimes for 'hole pages at a time& They hate being useful/
they hate ma,ing money/ they hate being lectured about in public& In short, they hate anything that stamps them
'ith one meaning or confines them to one attitude, for it is their nature to change&
2erhaps that is their most stri,ing peculiarity?their need of change& It is because the truth they try to catch is
many:sided, and they convey it by being themselves many:sided, flashing this 'ay, then that& Thus they mean
one thing to one person, another thing to another person/ they are unintelligible to one generation, plain as a
pi,estaff to the ne9t& "nd it is because of this comple9ity that they survive& 2erhaps then one reason 'hy 'e
have no great poet, novelist or critic 'riting to:day is that 'e refuse 'ords their liberty& We pin them do'n to
one meaning, their useful meaning, the meaning 'hich ma,es us catch the train, the meaning 'hich ma,es us
pass the e9amination& "nd 'hen 'ords are pinned do'n they fold their 'ings and die& 0inally, and most
emphatically, 'ords, li,e ourselves, in order to live at their ease, need privacy& .ndoubtedly they li,e us to
thin,, and they li,e us to feel, before 'e use them/ but they also li,e us to pause/ to become unconscious& Our
unconsciousness is their privacy/ our dar,ness is their light& & & & That pause 'as made, that veil of dar,ness 'as
dropped, to tempt 'ords to come together in one of those s'ift marriages 'hich are perfect images and create
everlasting beauty& 5ut no?nothing of that sort is going to happen to:night& The little 'retches are out of
temper/ disobliging/ disobedient/ dumb& What is it that they are muttering< CTime8s upG %ilenceGD
A LETTER TO A *O!NG %OET &+9(
E+HF Written in ()I+&
My #ear =ohn,
#id you ever meet, or 'as he before your day, that old gentleman?I forget his name?'ho used to enliven
conversation, especially at brea,fast 'hen the post came in, by saying that the art of letter:'riting is dead< The
penny post, the old gentleman used to say, has ,illed the art of letter:'riting& obody, he continued, e9amining
an envelope through his eye:glasses, has the time even to cross their t8s& We rush, he 'ent on, spreading his
toast 'ith marmalade, to the telephone& We commit our half:formed thoughts in ungrammatical phrases to the
post card& Bray is dead, he continued/ Horace Walpole is dead/ Madame de %NvignN?she is dead too, I suppose
he 'as about to add, but a fit of cho,ing cut him short, and he had to leave the room before he had time to
condemn all the arts, as his pleasure 'as, to the cemetery& 5ut 'hen the post came in this morning and I opened
your letter stuffed 'ith little blue sheets 'ritten all over in a cramped but not illegible hand?I regret to say,
ho'ever, that several t8s 'ere uncrossed and the grammar of one sentence seems to me dubious?I replied after
all these years to that elderly necrophilist?onsense& The art of letter:'riting has only 6ust come into
e9istence& It is the child of the penny post& "nd there is some truth in that remar,, I thin,& aturally 'hen a
letter cost half a cro'n to send, it had to prove itself a document of some importance/ it 'as read aloud/ it 'as
tied up 'ith green sil,/ after a certain number of years it 'as published for the infinite delectation of posterity&
5ut your letter, on the contrary, 'ill have to be burnt& It only cost three:halfpence to send& Therefore you could
afford to be intimate, irreticent, indiscreet in the e9treme& What you tell me about poor dear C& and his
adventure on the Channel boat is deadly private/ your ribald 6ests at the e9pense of M& 'ould certainly ruin your
friendship if they got about/ I doubt, too, that posterity, unless it is much 7uic,er in the 'it than I e9pect, could
follo' the line of your thought from the roof 'hich lea,s @Csplash, splash, splash into the soap dishDA past Mrs&
Bape, the char'oman, 'hose retort to the greengrocer gives me the ,eenest pleasure, via Miss Curtis and her
odd confidence on the steps of the omnibus/ to %iamese cats @CWrap their noses in an old stoc,ing my "unt says
if they ho'lDA/ so to the value of criticism to a 'riter/ so to #onne/ so to Berard Hop,ins/ so to tombstones/ so
to gold:fish/ and so 'ith a sudden alarming s'oop to C#o 'rite and tell me 'here poetry8s going, or if it8s
dead<D o, your letter, because it is a true letter?one that can neither be read aloud no', nor printed in time to
come?'ill have to be burnt& 2osterity must live upon Walpole and Madame de %NvignN& The great age of
letter:'riting, 'hich is, of course, the present, 'ill leave no letters behind it& "nd in ma,ing my reply there is
only one 7uestion that I can ans'er or attempt to ans'er in public/ about poetry and its death&
5ut before I begin, I must o'n up to those defects, both natural and ac7uired, 'hich, as you 'ill find, distort
and invalidate all that I have to say about poetry& The lac, of a sound university training has al'ays made it
impossible for me to distinguish bet'een an iambic and a dactyl, and if this 'ere not enough to condemn one
for ever, the practice of prose has bred in me, as in most prose 'riters, a foolish 6ealousy, a righteous
indignation?anyho', an emotion 'hich the critic should be 'ithout& 0or ho', 'e despised prose 'riters as,
'hen 'e get together, could one say 'hat one meant and observe the rules of poetry< Conceive dragging in
CbladeD because one had mentioned CmaidD/ and pairing Csorro'D 'ith Cborro'D< !hyme is not only childish,
but dishonest, 'e prose 'riters say& Then 'e go on to say, "nd loo, at their rulesG Ho' easy to be a poetG Ho'
strait the path is for them, and ho' strictG This you must do/ this you must not& I 'ould rather be a child and
'al, in a crocodile do'n a suburban path than 'rite poetry, I have heard prose 'riters say& It must be li,e
ta,ing the veil and entering a religious order?observing the rites and rigours of metre& That e9plains 'hy they
repeat the same thing over and over again& Whereas 'e prose 'riters @I am only telling you the sort of nonsense
prose 'riters tal, 'hen they are aloneA are masters of language, not its slaves/ nobody can teach us/ nobody can
coerce us/ 'e say 'hat 'e mean/ 'e have the 'hole of life for our province& We are the creators, 'e are the
e9plorers& & & & %o 'e run on?nonsensically enough, I must admit&
o' that I have made a clean breast of these deficiencies, let us proceed& 0rom certain phrases in your letter I
gather that you thin, that poetry is in a parlous 'ay, and that your case as a poet in this particular autumn Of
()I( is a great deal harder than %ha,espeare8s, #ryden8s, 2ope8s, or Tennyson8s& In fact it is the hardest case
that has ever been ,no'n& Here you give me an opening, 'hich I am prompt to sei;e, for a little lecture& ever
thin, yourself singular, never thin, your o'n case much harder than other people8s& I admit that the age 'e live
in ma,es this difficult& 0or the first time in history there are readers?a large body of people, occupied in
business, in sport, in nursing their grandfathers, in tying up parcels behind counters?they all read no'/ and
they 'ant to be told ho' to read and 'hat to read/ and their teachers?the revie'ers, the lecturers, the
broadcasters?must in all humanity ma,e reading easy for them/ assure them that literature is violent and
e9citing, full of heroes and villains/ of hostile forces perpetually in conflict/ of fields stre'n 'ith bones/ of
solitary victors riding off on 'hite horses 'rapped in blac, cloa,s to meet their death at the turn of the road& "
pistol shot rings out& CThe age of romance 'as over& The age of realism had begunD?you ,no' the sort of
thing& o' of course 'riters themselves ,no' very 'ell that there is not a 'ord of truth in all this?there are no
battles, and no murders and no defeats and no victories& 5ut as it is of the utmost importance that readers should
be amused, 'riters ac7uiesce& They dress themselves up& They act their parts& One leads/ the other follo's& One
is romantic, the other realist& One is advanced, the other out of date& There is no harm in it, so long as you ta,e it
as a 6o,e, but once you believe in it, once you begin to ta,e yourself seriously as a leader or as a follo'er, as a
modern or as a conservative, then you become a self:conscious, biting, and scratching little animal 'hose 'or,
is not of the slightest value or importance to anybody& Thin, of yourself rather as something much humbler and
less spectacular, but to my mind, far more interesting?a poet in 'hom live all the poets of the past, from 'hom
all poets in time to come 'ill spring& -ou have a touch of Chaucer in you, and something of %ha,espeare/
#ryden, 2ope, Tennyson?to mention only the respectable among your ancestors?stir in your blood and
sometimes move your pen a little to the right or to the left& In short you are an immensely ancient, comple9, and
continuous character, for 'hich reason please treat yourself 'ith respect and thin, t'ice before you dress up as
Buy 0a',es and spring out upon timid old ladies at street corners, threatening death and demanding t'opence:
halfpenny&
Ho'ever, as you say that you are in a fi9 @Cit has never been so hard to 'rite poetry as it is to:day and that
poetry may be, you thin,, at its last gasp in England the novelists are doing all the interesting things no'DA, let
me 'hile a'ay the time before the post goes in imagining your state and in ha;arding one or t'o guesses
'hich, since this is a letter, need not be ta,en too seriously or pressed too far& 1et me try to put myself in your
place/ let me try to imagine, 'ith your letter to help me, 'hat it feels li,e to be a young poet in the autumn of
()I(& @"nd ta,ing my o'n advice, I shall treat you not as one poet in particular, but as several poets in one&A On
the floor of your mind, then?is it not this that ma,es you a poet<?rhythm ,eeps up its perpetual beat&
%ometimes it seems to die do'n to nothing/ it lets you eat, sleep, tal, li,e other people& Then again it s'ells and
rises and attempts to s'eep all the contents of your mind into one dominant dance& To:night is such an
occasion& "lthough you are alone, and have ta,en one boot off and are about to undo the other, you cannot go
on 'ith the process of undressing, but must instantly 'rite at the bidding of the dance& -ou snatch pen and
paper/ you hardly trouble to hold the one or to straighten the other& "nd 'hile you 'rite, 'hile the first stan;as
of the dance are being fastened do'n, I 'ill 'ithdra' a little and loo, out of the 'indo'& " 'oman passes,
then a man/ a car glides to a stop and then?but there is no need to say 'hat I see out of the 'indo', nor indeed
is there time, for I am suddenly recalled from my observations by a cry of rage or despair& -our page is
crumpled in a ball/ your pen stic,s upright by the nib in the carpet& If there 'ere a cat to s'ing or a 'ife to
murder no' 'ould be the time& %o at least I infer from the ferocity of your e9pression& -ou are rasped, 6arred,
thoroughly out of temper& "nd if I am to guess the reason, it is, I should say, that the rhythm 'hich 'as opening
and shutting 'ith a force that sent shoc,s of e9citement from your head to your heels has encountered some
hard and hostile ob6ect upon 'hich it has smashed itself to pieces& %omething has 'or,ed in 'hich cannot be
made into poetry/ some foreign body, angular, sharp:edged, gritty, has refused to 6oin in the dance& Obviously,
suspicion attaches to Mrs& Bape/ she has as,ed you to ma,e a poem of her/ then to Miss Curtis and her
confidences on the omnibus/ then to C&, 'ho has infected you 'ith a 'ish to tell his story?and a very amusing
one it 'as?in verse& 5ut for some reason you cannot do their bidding& Chaucer could/ %ha,espeare could/ so
could Crabbe, 5yron, and perhaps !obert 5ro'ning& 5ut it is October ()I(, and for a long time no' poetry has
shir,ed contact 'ith?'hat shall 'e call it<?%hall 'e shortly and no doubt inaccurately call it life< "nd 'ill
you come to my help by guessing 'hat I mean< Well then, it has left all that to the novelist& Here you see ho'
easy it 'ould be for me to 'rite t'o or three volumes in honour of prose and in moc,ery of verse/ to say ho'
'ide and ample is the domain of the one, ho' starved and stunted the little grove of the other& 5ut it 'ould be
simpler and perhaps fairer to chec, these theories by opening one of the thin boo,s of modern verse that lie on
your table& I open and I find myself instantly confused& Here are the common ob6ects of daily prose?the
bicycle and the omnibus& Obviously the poet is ma,ing his muse face facts& 1isten$
Which of you 'a,ing early and 'atching daybrea,
Will not hasten in heart, handsome, a'are of 'onder
"t light unleashed, advancing/ a leader of movement,
5rea,ing li,e surf on turf on road and roof,
Or chasing shado' on do'ns li,e 'hippet racing,
The stilled stone, halting at eyelash barrier,
Enforcing in face a profile, mar,s of misuse,
5eating impatient and importunate on boudoir shutters
Where the old life is not up yet, 'ith rays
E9ploring through rotting floor a dismantled mill?
The old life never to be born again<
-es, but ho' 'ill he get through 'ith it< I read on and find$
Whistling as he shuts
His door behind him, travelling to 'or, by tube
Or 'al,ing to the par, to it to ease the bo'els,
and read on and find again
"s a boy lately come up from country to to'n
!eturns for the day to his village in ER2E%IVE %HOE%?
and so on again to$
%ee,ing a heaven on earth he chases his shado',
1oses his capital and his nerve in pursuing
What yachtsmen, e9plorers, climbers and 5.BBE!% "!E "0TE!&
These lines and the 'ords I have emphasi;ed are enough to confirm me in part of my guess at least& The poet is
trying to include Mrs& Bape& He is honestly of opinion that she can be brought into poetry and 'ill do very 'ell
there& 2oetry, he feels, 'ill be improved by the actual, the collo7uial& 5ut though I honour him for the attempt, I
doubt that it is 'holly successful& I feel a 6ar& I feel a shoc,& I feel as if I had stubbed my toe on the corner of the
'ardrobe& "m I then, I go on to as,, shoc,ed, prudishly and conventionally, by the 'ords themselves< I thin,
not& The shoc, is literally a shoc,& The poet as I guess has strained himself to include an emotion that is not
domesticated and acclimati;ed to poetry/ the effort has thro'n him off his balance/ he rights himself, as I am
sure I shall find if I turn the page, by a violent recourse to the poetical?he invo,es the moon or the nightingale&
"nyho', the transition is sharp& The poem is crac,ed in the middle& 1oo,, it comes apart in my hands$ here is
reality on one side, here is beauty on the other/ and instead of ac7uiring a 'hole ob6ect rounded and entire, I am
left 'ith bro,en parts in my hands 'hich, since my reason has been roused and my imagination has not been
allo'ed to ta,e entire possession of me, I contemplate coldly, critically, and 'ith distaste&
%uch at least is the hasty analysis I ma,e of my o'n sensations as a reader/ but again I am interrupted& I see that
you have overcome your difficulty, 'hatever it 'as/ the pen is once more in action, and having torn up the first
poem you are at 'or, upon another& o' then if I 'ant to understand your state of mind I must invent another
e9planation to account for this return of fluency& -ou have dismissed, as I suppose, all sorts of things that 'ould
come naturally to your pen if you had been 'riting prose?the char'oman, the omnibus, the incident on the
Channel boat& -our range is restricted?I 6udge from your e9pression?concentrated and intensified& I ha;ard a
guess that you are thin,ing no', not about things in general, but about yourself in particular& There is a fi9ity, a
gloom, yet an inner glo' that seem to hint that you are loo,ing 'ithin and not 'ithout& 5ut in order to
consolidate these flimsy guesses about the meaning of an e9pression on a face, let me open another of the boo,s
on your table and chec, it by 'hat I find there& "gain I open at random and read this$
To penetrate that room is my desire,
The e9treme attic of the mind, that lies
=ust beyond the last bend in the corridor&
Writing I do it& 2hrases, poems are ,eys&
1oving8s another 'ay @but not so sureA&
" fire8s in there, I thin,, there8s truth at last
#eep in a lumber chest& %ometimes I8m near,
5ut draughts puff out the matches, and I8m lost&
%ometimes I8m luc,y, find a ,ey to turn,
Open an inch or t'o?but al'ays then
" bell rings, someone calls, or cries of CfireD
"rrest my hand 'hen nothing8s ,no'n or seen,
"nd running do'n the stairs again I mourn&
and then this$
There is a dar, room,
The loc,ed and shuttered 'omb,
Where negative8s made positive&
"nother dar, room,
The blind and bolted tomb,
Where positives change to negative&
We may not undo that or escape this, 'ho
Have birth and death coiled in our bones,
othing 'e can do
Will s'eeten the real rue,
That 'e begin, and end, 'ith groans&
"nd then this$
ever being, but al'ays at the edge of 5eing
My head, li,e #eath mas,, is brought into the %un&
The shado' pointing finger across chee,,
I move lips for tasting, I move hands for touching,
5ut never am nearer than touching,
Though the spirit leans out'ard for seeing&
Observing rose, gold, eyes, an admired landscape,
My senses record the act of 'ishing
Wishing to be
!ose, gold, landscape or another?
Claiming fulfilment in the act of loving&
%ince these 7uotations are chosen at random and I have yet found three different poets 'riting about nothing, if
not about the poet himself, I hold that the chances are that you too are engaged in the same occupation& I
conclude that self offers no impediment/ self 6oins in the dance/ self lends itself to the rhythm/ it is apparently
easier to 'rite a poem about oneself than about any other sub6ect& 5ut 'hat does one mean by ConeselfD< ot
the self that Words'orth, 4eats, and %helley have described?not the self that loves a 'oman, or that hates a
tyrant, or that broods over the mystery of the 'orld& o, the self that you are engaged in describing is shut out
from all that& It is a self that sits alone in the room at night 'ith the blinds dra'n& In other 'ords the poet is
much less interested in 'hat 'e have in common than in 'hat he has apart& Hence I suppose the e9treme
difficulty of these poems?and I have to confess that it 'ould floor me completely to say from one reading or
even from t'o or three 'hat these poems mean& The poet is trying honestly and e9actly to describe a 'orld that
has perhaps no e9istence e9cept for one particular person at one particular moment& "nd the more sincere he is
in ,eeping to the precise outline of the roses and cabbages of his private universe, the more he pu;;les us 'ho
have agreed in a la;y spirit of compromise to see roses and cabbages as they are seen, more or less, by the
t'enty:si9 passengers on the outside of an omnibus& He strains to describe/ 'e strain to see/ he flic,ers his
torch/ 'e catch a flying gleam& It is e9citing/ it is stimulating/ but is that a tree, 'e as,, or is it perhaps an old
'oman tying up her shoe in the gutter<
Well, then, if there is any truth in 'hat I am saying?if that is you cannot 'rite about the actual, the collo7uial,
Mrs& Bape or the Channel boat or Miss Curtis on the omnibus, 'ithout straining the machine of poetry, if,
therefore, you are driven to contemplate landscapes and emotions 'ithin and must render visible to the 'orld at
large 'hat you alone can see, then indeed yours is a hard case, and poetry, though still breathing?'itness these
little boo,s?is dra'ing her breath in short, sharp gasps& %till, consider the symptoms& They are not the
symptoms of death in the least& #eath in literature, and I need not tell you ho' often literature has died in this
country or in that, comes gracefully, smoothly, 7uietly& 1ines slip easily do'n the accustomed grooves& The old
designs are copied so glibly that 'e are half inclined to thin, them original, save for that very glibness& 5ut here
the very opposite is happening$ here in my first 7uotation the poet brea,s his machine because he 'ill clog it
'ith ra' fact& In my second, he is unintelligible because of his desperate determination to tell the truth about
himself& Thus I cannot help thin,ing that though you may be right in tal,ing of the difficulty of the time, you
are 'rong to despair&
Is there not, alas, good reason to hope< I say CalasD because then I must give my reasons, 'hich are bound to be
foolish and certain also to cause pain to the large and highly respectable society of necrophils?Mr& 2eabody,
and his li,e?'ho much prefer death to life and are even no' intoning the sacred and comfortable 'ords, 4eats
is dead, %helley is dead, 5yron is dead& 5ut it is late$ necrophily induces slumber/ the old gentlemen have fallen
asleep over their classics, and if 'hat I am about to say ta,es a sanguine tone?and for my part I do not believe
in poets dying/ 4eats, %helley, 5yron are alive here in this room in you and you and you?I can ta,e comfort
from the thought that my hoping 'ill not disturb their snoring& %o to continue?'hy should not poetry, no' that
it has so honestly scraped itself free from certain falsities, the 'rec,age of the great Victorian age, no' that it
has so sincerely gone do'n into the mind of the poet and verified its outlines?a 'or, of renovation that has to
be done from time to time and 'as certainly needed, for bad poetry is almost al'ays the result of forgetting
oneself?all becomes distorted and impure if you lose sight of that central reality?no', I say, that poetry has
done all this, 'hy should it not once more open its eyes, loo, out of the 'indo' and 'rite about other people<
T'o or three hundred years ago you 'ere al'ays 'riting about other people& -our pages 'ere crammed 'ith
characters of the most opposite and various ,inds?Hamlet, Cleopatra, 0alstaff& ot only did 'e go to you for
drama, and for the subtleties of human character, but 'e also 'ent to you, incredible though this no' seems, for
laughter& -ou made us roar 'ith laughter& Then later, not more than a hundred years ago, you 'ere lashing our
follies, trouncing our hypocrisies, and dashing off the most brilliant of satires& -ou 'ere 5yron, remember/ you
'rote #on =uan& -ou 'ere Crabbe also/ you too, the most sordid details of the lives of peasants for your theme&
Clearly therefore you have it in you to deal 'ith a vast variety of sub6ects/ it is only a temporary necessity that
has shut you up in one room, alone, by yourself&
5ut ho' are you going to get out, into the 'orld of other people< That is your problem no', if I may ha;ard a
guess?to find the right relationship, no' that you ,no' yourself, bet'een the self that you ,no' and the 'orld
outside& It is a difficult problem& o living poet has, I thin,, altogether solved it& "nd there are a thousand
voices prophesying despair& %cience, they say, has made poetry impossible/ there is no poetry in motor cars and
'ireless& "nd 'e have no religion& "ll is tumultuous and transitional& Therefore, so people say, there can be no
relation bet'een the poet and the present age& 5ut surely that is nonsense& These accidents are superficial/ they
do not go nearly deep enough to destroy the most profound and primitive of instincts, the instinct of rhythm& "ll
you need no' is to stand at the 'indo' and let your rhythmical sense open and shut, open and shut, boldly and
freely, until one thing melts in another, until the ta9is are dancing 'ith the daffodils, until a 'hole has been
made from all these separate fragments& I am tal,ing nonsense, I ,no'& What I mean is, summon all your
courage, e9ert all your vigilance, invo,e all the gifts that ature has been induced to besto'& Then let your
rhythmical sense 'ind itself in and out among men and 'omen, omnibuses, sparro's?'hatever come along
the street?until it has strung them together in one harmonious 'hole& That perhaps is your tas,?to find the
relation bet'een things that seem incompatible yet have a mysterious affinity, to absorb every e9perience that
comes your 'ay fearlessly and saturate it completely so that your poem is a 'hole, not a fragment/ to re:thin,
human life into poetry and so give us tragedy again and comedy by means of characters not spun out at length
in the novelist8s 'ay, but condensed and synthesised in the poet8s 'ay:that is 'hat 'e loo, to you to do no'&
5ut as I do not ,no' 'hat I mean by rhythm nor 'hat I mean by life, and as most certainly I cannot tell you
'hich ob6ects can properly be combined together in a poem?that is entirely your affair?and as I cannot tell a
dactyl from an iambic, and am therefore unable to say ho' you must modify and e9pand the rites and
ceremonies of your ancient and mysterious art?I 'ill move on to safer ground and turn again to these little
boo,s themselves&
When, then, I return to them I am, as I have admitted, filled, not 'ith forebodings of death, but 'ith hopes for
the future& 5ut one does not al'ays 'ant to be thin,ing of the future, if, as sometimes happens, one is living in
the present& When I read these poems, no', at the present moment, I find myself?reading, you ,no', is rather
li,e opening the door to a horde of rebels 'ho s'arm out attac,ing one in t'enty places at once?hit, roused,
scraped, bared, s'ung through the air, so that life seems to flash by/ then again blinded, ,noc,ed on the head?
all of 'hich are agreeable sensations for a reader @since nothing is more dismal than to open the door and get no
responseA, and all I believe certain proof that this poet is alive and ,ic,ing& "nd yet mingling 'ith these cries of
delight, of 6ubilation, I record also, as I read, the repetition in the bass of one 'ord intoned over and over again
by some malcontent& "t last then, silencing the others, I say to this malcontent, CWell, and 'hat do -O.
'ant<D Whereupon he bursts out, rather to my discomfort, C5eauty&D 1et me repeat, I ta,e no responsibility for
'hat my senses say 'hen I read/ I merely record the fact that there is a malcontent in me 'ho complains that it
seems to him odd, considering that English is a mi9ed language, a rich language/ a language unmatched for its
sound and colour, for its po'er of imagery and suggestion?it seems to him odd that these modern poets should
'rite as if they had neither ears nor eyes, neither soles to their feet nor palms to their hands, but only honest
enterprising boo,:fed brains, uni:se9ual bodies and?but here I interrupted him& 0or 'hen it comes to saying
that a poet should be bise9ual, and that I thin, is 'hat he 'as about to say, even I, 'ho have had no scientific
training 'hatsoever, dra' the line and tell that voice to be silent&
5ut ho' far, if 'e discount these obvious absurdities, do you thin, there is truth in this complaint< 0or my o'n
part no' that I have stopped reading, and can see the poems more or less as a 'hole, I thin, it is true that the
eye and ear are starved of their rights& There is no sense of riches held in reserve behind the admirable
e9actitude of the lines I have 7uoted, as there is, for e9ample, behind the e9actitude of Mr& -eats& The poet
clings to his one 'ord, his only 'ord, as a dro'ning man to a spar& "nd if this is so, I am ready to ha;ard a
reason for it all the more readily because I thin, it bears out 'hat I have 6ust been saying& The art of 'riting,
and that is perhaps 'hat my malcontent means by Cbeauty,D the art of having at one8s bec, and call every 'ord
in the language, of ,no'ing their 'eights, colours, sounds, associations, and thus ma,ing them, as is so
necessary in English, suggest more than they can state, can be learnt of course to some e9tent by reading?it is
impossible to read too much/ but much more drastically and effectively by imagining that one is not oneself but
somebody different& Ho' can you learn to 'rite if you 'rite only about one single person< To ta,e the obvious
e9ample& Can you doubt that the reason 'hy %ha,espeare ,ne' every sound and syllable in the language and
could do precisely 'hat he li,ed 'ith grammar and synta9, 'as that Hamlet, 0alstaff and Cleopatra rushed him
into this ,no'ledge/ that the lords, officers, dependants, murderers and common soldiers of the plays insisted
that he should say e9actly 'hat they felt in the 'ords e9pressing their feelings< It 'as they 'ho taught him to
'rite, not the begetter of the %onnets& %o that if you 'ant to satisfy all those senses that rise in a s'arm
'henever 'e drop a poem among them?the reason, the imagination, the eyes, the ears, the palms of the hands
and the soles of the feet, not to mention a million more that the psychologists have yet to name, you 'ill do 'ell
to embar, upon a long poem in 'hich people as unli,e yourself as possible tal, at the tops of their voices& "nd
for heaven8s sa,e, publish nothing before you are thirty&
That, I am sure, is of very great importance& Most of the faults in the poems I have been reading can be
e9plained, I thin,, by the fact that they have been e9posed to the fierce light of publicity 'hile they 'ere still
too young to stand the strain& It has shrivelled them into a s,eleton austerity, both emotional and verbal, 'hich
should not be characteristic of youth& The poet 'rites very 'ell/ he 'rites for the eye of a severe and intelligent
public/ but ho' much better he 'ould have 'ritten if for ten years he had 'ritten for no eye but his o'nG "fter
all, the years from t'enty to thirty are years @let me refer to your letter againA of emotional e9citement& The rain
dripping, a 'ing flashing, someone passing?the commonest sounds and sights have po'er to fling one, as I
seem to remember, from the heights of rapture to the depths of despair& "nd if the actual life is thus e9treme, the
visionary life should be free to follo'& Write then, no' that you are young, nonsense by the ream& 5e silly, be
sentimental, imitate %helley, imitate %amuel %miles/ give the rein to every impulse/ commit every fault of style,
grammar, taste, and synta9/ pour out/ tumble over/ loose anger, love, satire, in 'hatever 'ords you can catch,
coerce or create, in 'hatever metre, prose, poetry, or gibberish that comes to hand& Thus you 'ill learn to 'rite&
5ut if you publish, your freedom 'ill be chec,ed/ you 'ill be thin,ing 'hat people 'ill say/ you 'ill 'rite for
others 'hen you ought only to be 'riting for yourself& "nd 'hat point can there be in curbing the 'ild torrent
of spontaneous nonsense 'hich is no', for a fe' years only, your divine gift in order to publish prim little
boo,s of e9perimental verses< To ma,e money< That, 'e both ,no', is out of the 7uestion& To get criticism<
5ut you friends 'ill pepper your manuscripts 'ith far more serious and searching criticism than any you 'ill
get from the revie'ers& "s for fame, loo, I implore you at famous people/ see ho' the 'aters of dullness spread
around them as they enter/ observe their pomposity, their prophetic airs/ reflect that the greatest poets 'ere
anonymous/ thin, ho' %ha,espeare cared nothing for fame/ ho' #onne tossed his poems into the 'aste:paper
bas,et/ 'rite an essay giving a single instance of any modern English 'riter 'ho has survived the disciples and
the admirers, the autograph hunters and the intervie'ers, the dinners and the luncheons, the celebrations and the
commemorations 'ith 'hich English society so effectively stops the mouths of its singers and silences their
songs&
5ut enough& I, at any rate, refuse to be necrophilus& %o long as you and you and you, venerable and ancient
representatives of %appho, %ha,espeare, and %helley are aged precisely t'enty:three and propose?H enviable
lotG?to spend the ne9t fifty years of your lives in 'riting poetry, I refuse to thin, that the art is dead& "nd if
ever the temptation to necrophili;e comes over you, be 'arned by the fate of that old gentleman 'hose name I
forget, but I thin, that it 'as 2eabody& In the very act of consigning all the arts to the grave he cho,ed over a
large piece of hot buttered toast and the consolation then offered him that he 'as about to 6oin the elder 2liny in
the shades gave him, I am told, no sort of satisfaction 'hatsoever&
"nd no' for the intimate, the indiscreet, and indeed, the only really interesting parts of this letter& & & &
WH*;
When the first number of 1-%I%T!"T" appeared, I confess that I 'as deeply disappointed& It 'as so 'ell
printed, on such good paper& It loo,ed established, prosperous& "s I turned the pages it seemed to me that
'ealth must have descended upon %omerville, and I 'as about to ans'er the re7uest of the editor for an article
'ith a negative, 'hen I read, greatly to my relief, that one of the 'riters 'as badly dressed, and gathered from
another that the 'omen8s colleges still lac, po'er and prestige& "t this I pluc,ed up heart, and a cro'd of
7uestions that have been pressing to be as,ed rushed to my lips saying$ CHere is our chance&D
I should e9plain that li,e so many people no'adays I am pestered 'ith 7uestions& I find it impossible to 'al,
do'n the street 'ithout stopping, it may be in the middle of the road& to as,$ Why< Churches, public houses,
parliaments, shops, loud spea,ers, motor cars, the drone of an aeroplane in the clouds, and men and 'omen all
inspire 7uestions& -et 'hat is the point of as,ing 7uestions of oneself< They should be as,ed openly in public&
5ut the great obstacle to as,ing 7uestions openly in public is, of course, 'ealth& The little t'isted sign that
comes at the end of a 7uestion has a 'ay of ma,ing the rich 'rithe/ po'er and prestige come do'n upon it 'ith
all their 'eight& Juestions, therefore, being sensitive, impulsive and often foolish, have a 'ay of pic,ing their
as,ing place 'ith care& They shrivel up in an atmosphere of po'er, prosperity, and time:'orn stone& They die
by the do;en on the threshold of great ne'spaper offices& They slin, a'ay to less favoured, less flourishing
7uarters 'here people are poor and therefore have nothing to give, 'here they have no po'er and therefore
have nothing to lose& o' the 7uestions that have been pestering me to as, them decided, 'hether rightly or
'rongly, that they could be as,ed in 1-%I%T!"T"& They said$ CWe do not e9pect you to as, us in??,D here
they named some of our most respectable dailies and 'ee,lies/ Cnor in??,D here they named some of our
most venerable institutions& C5ut, than, HeavenGD they e9claimed, Care not 'omen8s colleges poor and young<
"re they not inventive, adventurous< "re they not out to create a ne'??D
CThe editor forbids feminism,D I interposed severely&
CWhat is feminism<D they screamed 'ith one accord, and as I did not ans'er at once, a ne' 7uestion 'as flung
at me$ C#on8t you thin, it high time that a ne'??D
5ut I stopped them by reminding them that they had only t'o thousand 'ords at their disposal& .pon that, they
'ithdre', consulted together, and finally put for'ard the re7uest that I should introduce one or t'o of them of
the simplest, tamest, and most obvious& 0or e9ample, there is the 7uestion that al'ays bobs up at the beginning
of term 'hen societies issue their invitations and universities open their doors?'hy lecture, 'hy be lectured<
In order to place this 7uestion fairly before you, I 'ill describe, for memory has ,ept the picture bright, one of
those rare but, as Jueen Victoria 'ould have put at, never:to:be:sufficiently:lamented occasions 'hen in
deference to friendship, or in a desperate attempt to ac7uire information about, perhaps, the 0rench !evolution,
it seemed necessary to attend a lecture& The room to begin 'ith had a hybrid loo,?it 'as not for sitting in, nor
yet for eating in& 2erhaps there 'as a map on the 'all/ certainly there 'as a table on a platform, and several
ro's of rather small, rather hard, comfortless little chairs& These 'ere occupied intermittently, as if they
shunned each other8s company, by people of both se9es, and some had noteboo,s and 'ere tapping their
fountain pens, and some had none and ga;ed 'ith the vacancy and placidity of bull frogs at the ceiling& " large
cloc, displayed its cheerless face,?and 'hen the hour struc, in strode a harried:loo,ing man, a man from
'hose face nervousness, vanity, or perhaps the depressing and impossible nature of his tas, had removed all
traces of ordinary humanity& There 'as a momentary stir& He had 'ritten a boo,, and for a moment it is
interesting to see people 'ho have 'ritten boo,s& Everybody ga;ed at him& He 'as bald and not hairy/ had a
mouth and a chin/ in short he 'as a man li,e another, although he had 'ritten a boo,& He cleared his throat and
the lecture began& o' the human voice is an instrument of varied po'er/ it can enchant and it can soothe/ it
can rage and it can despair/ but 'hen it lectures it almost al'ays bores& What he said 'as sensible enough/ there
'as learning in it and argument and reason/ but as the voice 'ent on attention 'andered& The face of the cloc,
seemed abnormally pale/ the hands too suffered from some infirmity& Had they the gout< Were they s'ollen<
They moved so slo'ly& They reminded one of the painful progress of a three:legged fly that has survived the
'inter& Ho' many flies on an average survive the English 'inter, and 'hat 'ould be the thoughts of such an
insect on 'a,ing to find itself being lectured on the 0rench !evolution< The en7uiry 'as fatal& " lin, had been
lost?a paragraph dropped& It 'as useless to as, the lecturer to repeat his 'ords/ on he plodded 'ith dogged
pertinacity& The origin of the 0rench !evolution 'as being sought for?also the thoughts of flies& o' there
came one of those flat stretches of discourse 'hen minute ob6ects can be seen coming for t'o or three miles
ahead& C%,ipGD 'e entreated him?vainly& He did not s,ip& There 'as a 6o,e& Then the voice 'ent on again/
then it seemed that the 'indo's 'anted 'ashing/ then a 'oman snee;ed/ then the voice 7uic,ened/ then there
'as a peroration and then?than, HeavenG?the lecture 'as over&
Why, since life holds only so many hours, 'aste one of them on being lectured< Why, since printing presses
have been invented these many centuries, should he not have printed his lecture instead of spea,ing it< Then, by
the fire in 'inter, or under an apple tree in summer, it could have been read, thought over, discussed/ the
difficult ideas pondered, the argument debated& It could have been thic,ened and stiffened& There 'ould have
been no need of those repetitions and dilutions 'ith 'hich lectures have to be 'atered do'n and brightened up,
so as to attract the attention of a miscellaneous audience too apt to thin, about noses and chins, 'omen snee;ing
and the longevity of flies&
It may be, I told these 7uestions, that there is some reason, imperceptible to outsiders, 'hich ma,es lectures an
essential part of university discipline& 5ut 'hy?here another rushed to the forefront?'hy, if lectures are
necessary as a form of education, should they not be abolished as a form of entertainment< ever does the
crocus flo'er or the beech tree redden but there issues simultaneously from all the universities of England,
%cotland and Ireland a sho'er of notes from desperate secretaries entreating %o:and:so and %o:and:so and %o:
and:so to come do'n and address them upon art or literature or politics or morality?"nd 'hy<
In the old days, 'hen ne'spapers 'ere scarce and carefully lent about from hall to rectory, such laboured
methods of rubbing up minds and imparting ideas 'ere no doubt essential& 5ut no', 'hen every day of the
'ee, scatters our tables 'ith articles and pamphlets in 'hich every shade of opinion is e9pressed, far more
tersely than by 'ord of mouth, 'hy continue an obsolete custom 'hich not merely 'astes time and temper, but
incites the most debased of human passions?vanity, ostentation, self:assertion, and the desire to convert< Why
encourage your elders to turn themselves into prigs and prophets, 'hen they are ordinary men and 'omen<
Why force them to stand on a platform for forty minutes 'hile you reflect upon the colour of their hair and the
longevity of flies< Why not let them tal, to you and listen to you, naturally and happily, on the floor< Why not
create a ne' form of society founded on poverty and e7uality< Why not bring together people of all ages and
both se9es and all shades of fame and obscurity so that they can tal,, 'ithout mounting platforms or reading
papers or 'earing e9pensive clothes or eating e9pensive food< Would not such a society be 'orth, even as a
form of education, all the papers on art and literature that have ever been read since the 'orld began< Why not
abolish prigs and prophets< Why not invent human intercourse< Why not try<
Here, being sic, of the 'ord C'hy,D I 'as about to indulge myself 'ith a fe' reflections of a general nature
upon society as it 'as, as it is, as it might be, 'ith a fe' fancy pictures of Mrs& Thrale entertaining #r& =ohnson,
1ady Holland amusing 1ord Macaulay thro'n in, 'hen such a clamour arose among the 7uestions that I could
hardly hear myself thin,& The cause of the clamour 'as soon apparent& I had incautiously and foolishly used the
'ord Cliterature&D o' if there is one 'ord that e9cites 7uestions and puts them in a fury it is this 'ord
Cliterature&D There they 'ere, screaming and crying, as,ing 7uestions about poetry and fiction and criticism,
each demanding to be heard, each certain that his 'as the only 7uestion that deserved an ans'er& "t last, 'hen
they had destroyed all my fancy pictures of 1ady Holland and #r& =ohnson, one insisted, for he said that foolish
and rash as he might be he 'as less so than the others, that he should be as,ed& "nd his 7uestion 'as, 'hy learn
English literature at universities 'hen you can read it for yourselves in boo,s< 5ut I said that it is foolish to as,
a 7uestion that has already been ans'ered?English literature is, I believe, already taught at the universities&
5esides, if 'e are going to start an argument about it, 'e should need at least t'enty volumes, 'hereas 'e have
only about seven hundred 'ords remaining& %till, as he 'as importunate, I said I 'ould as, the 7uestion and
introduce it to the best of my ability, 'ithout e9pressing any opinion of my o'n, by copying do'n the
follo'ing fragment of dialogue&
The other day I 'ent to call upon a friend of mine 'ho earns her living as a publisher8s reader& The room 'as a
little dar,, it seemed to me, 'hen I 'ent in& -et, as the 'indo' 'as open and it 'as a fine spring day, the
dar,ness must have been spiritual?the effect of some private sorro' I feared& Her first 'ords as I came in
confirmed my fears$
C"las, poor boyGD she e9claimed, tossing the manuscript she 'as reading to the ground 'ith a gesture of
despair& Had some accident happened to one of her relations, I as,ed, motoring or climbing<
CIf you call three hundred pages on the evolution of the Eli;abethan sonnet an accident&D she said&
CIs that all<D I replied 'ith relief&
C"ll<D she retaliated, CIsn8t it enough<D "nd, beginning to pace up and do'n the room she e9claimed$ COnce he
'as a clever boy/ once he 'as 'orth tal,ing to/ once he cared about English literature& 5ut no'??D %he
thre' out her hands as if 'ords failed her?but not at all& There follo'ed such a flood of lamentation and
vituperation?but reflecting ho' hard her life 'as, reading manuscripts day in, day out, I e9cused her?that I
could not follo' the argument& "ll I could gather 'as that this lecturing about English literature?Cif you 'ant
to teach them to read English,D she thre' in, Cteach them to read Bree,D?this passing of e9aminations in
English literature, 'hich led to all this 'riting about English literature, 'as bound in the end to be the death and
burial of English literature& CThe tombstone,D she 'as proceeding, C'ill be a bound volume of??D 'hen I
stopped her and told her not to tal, such nonsense& CThen tell me,D she said, standing over me 'ith her fists
clenched, Cdo they 'rite any better for it< Is poetry better, is fiction better, is criticism better no' that they have
been taught ho' to read English literature<D "s if to ans'er her o'n 7uestion she read a passage from the
manuscript on the floor& C"nd each the spit and image of the otherGD she groaned, lifting it 'earily to its place
'ith the manuscripts on the shelf&
C5ut thin, of all they must ,no',D I tried to argue&
C4no'<D she echoed me& C4no'< What d8you mean by S,no'8<D "s that 'as a difficult 7uestion to ans'er
off:hand, I passed it over by saying$ CWell, at any rate they8ll be able to ma,e their livings and teach other
people&D Whereupon she lost her temper and, sei;ing the unfortunate 'or, upon the Eli;abethan sonnet,
'hi;;ed it across the room& The rest of the visit passed in pic,ing up the fragments of a teapot that had belonged
to her grandmother&
o' of course a do;en other 7uestions clamour to be as,ed about churches and parliaments and public houses
and shops and loudspea,ers and men and 'omen/ but mercifully time is up/ silence falls&
%ROFEION FOR WOMEN &+'(
E+(F " paper read to The Women8s %ervice 1eague&
When your secretary invited me to come here, she told me that your %ociety is concerned 'ith the employment
of 'omen and she suggested that I might tell you something about my o'n professional e9periences& It is true I
am a 'oman/ it is true I am employed/ but 'hat professional e9periences have I had< It is difficult to say& My
profession is literature/ and in that profession there are fe'er e9periences for 'omen than in any other, 'ith the
e9ception of the stage?fe'er, I mean, that are peculiar to 'omen& 0or the road 'as cut many years ago?by
0anny 5urney, by "phra 5ehn, by Harriet Martineau, by =ane "usten, by Beorge Eliot?many famous 'omen,
and many more un,no'n and forgotten, have been before me, ma,ing the path smooth, and regulating my
steps& Thus, 'hen I came to 'rite, there 'ere very fe' material obstacles in my 'ay& Writing 'as a reputable
and harmless occupation& The family peace 'as not bro,en by the scratching of a pen& o demand 'as made
upon the family purse& 0or ten and si9pence one can buy paper enough to 'rite all the plays of %ha,espeare?if
one has a mind that 'ay& 2ianos and models, 2aris, Vienna and 5erlin, masters and mistresses, are not needed
by a 'riter& The cheapness of 'riting paper is, of course, the reason 'hy 'omen have succeeded as 'riters
before they have succeeded in the other professions&
5ut to tell you my story?it is a simple one& -ou have only got to figure to yourselves a girl in a bedroom 'ith
a pen in her hand& %he had only to move that pen from left to right?from ten o8cloc, to one& Then it occurred
to her to do 'hat is simple and cheap enough after all?to slip a fe' of those pages into an envelope, fi9 a
penny stamp in the corner, and drop the envelope into the red bo9 at the corner& It 'as thus that I became a
6ournalist/ and my effort 'as re'arded on the first day of the follo'ing month?a very glorious day it 'as for
me?by a letter from an editor containing a che7ue for one pound ten shillings and si9pence& 5ut to sho' you
ho' little I deserve to be called a professional 'oman, ho' little I ,no' of the struggles and difficulties of such
lives, I have to admit that instead of spending that sum upon bread and butter, rent, shoes and stoc,ings, or
butcher8s bills, I 'ent out and bought a cat?a beautiful cat, a 2ersian cat, 'hich very soon involved me in
bitter disputes 'ith my neighbours&
What could be easier than to 'rite articles and to buy 2ersian cats 'ith the profits< 5ut 'ait a moment& "rticles
have to be about something& Mine, I seem to remember, 'as about a novel by a famous man& "nd 'hile I 'as
'riting this revie', I discovered that if I 'ere going to revie' boo,s I should need to do battle 'ith a certain
phantom& "nd the phantom 'as a 'oman, and 'hen I came to ,no' her better I called her after the heroine of a
famous poem, The "ngel in the House& It 'as she 'ho used to come bet'een me and my paper 'hen I 'as
'riting revie's& It 'as she 'ho bothered me and 'asted my time and so tormented me that at last I ,illed her&
-ou 'ho come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her?you may not ,no' 'hat I
mean by the "ngel in the House& I 'ill describe her as shortly as I can& %he 'as intensely sympathetic& %he 'as
immensely charming& %he 'as utterly unselfish& %he e9celled in the difficult arts of family life& %he sacrificed
herself daily& If there 'as chic,en, she too, the leg/ if there 'as a draught she sat in it?in short she 'as so
constituted that she never had a mind or a 'ish of her o'n, but preferred to sympathi;e al'ays 'ith the minds
and 'ishes of others& "bove all?I need not say it?:she 'as pure& Her purity 'as supposed to be her chief
beauty?her blushes, her great grace& In those days?the last of Jueen Victoria?every house had its "ngel&
"nd 'hen I came to 'rite I encountered her 'ith the very first 'ords& The shado' of her 'ings fell on my
page/ I heard the rustling of her s,irts in the room& #irectly, that is to say, I too, my pen in my hand to revie'
that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and 'hispered$ CMy dear, you are a young 'oman& -ou are
'riting about a boo, that has been 'ritten by a man& 5e sympathetic/ be tender/ flatter/ deceive/ use all the arts
and 'iles of our se9& ever let anybody guess that you have a mind of your o'n& "bove all, be pure&D "nd she
made as if to guide my pen& I no' record the one act for 'hich I ta,e some credit to myself, though the credit
rightly belongs to some e9cellent ancestors of mine 'ho left me a certain sum of money?shall 'e say five
hundred pounds a year<?so that it 'as not necessary for me to depend solely on charm for my living& I turned
upon her and caught her by the throat& I did my best to ,ill her& My e9cuse, if I 'ere to be had up in a court of
la', 'ould be that I acted in self:defence& Had I not ,illed her she 'ould have ,illed me& %he 'ould have
pluc,ed the heart out of my 'riting& 0or, as I found, directly I put pen to paper, you cannot revie' even a novel
'ithout having a mind of your o'n, 'ithout e9pressing 'hat you thin, to be the truth about human relations,
morality, se9& "nd all these 7uestions, according to the "ngel of the House, cannot be dealt 'ith freely and
openly by 'omen/ they must charm, they must conciliate, they must?to put it bluntly?tell lies if they are to
succeed& Thus, 'henever I felt the shado' of her 'ing or the radiance of her halo upon my page, I too, up the
in,pot and flung it at her& %he died hard& Her fictitious nature 'as of great assistance to her& It is far harder to
,ill a phantom than a reality& %he 'as al'ays creeping bac, 'hen I thought I had despatched her& Though I
flatter myself that I ,illed her in the end, the struggle 'as severe/ it too, much time that had better have been
spent upon learning Bree, grammar/ or in roaming the 'orld in search of adventures& 5ut it 'as a real
e9perience/ it 'as an e9perience that 'as bound to befall all 'omen 'riters at that time& 4illing the "ngel in
the House 'as part of the occupation of a 'oman 'riter&
5ut to continue my story& The "ngel 'as dead/ 'hat then remained< -ou may say that 'hat remained 'as a
simple and common ob6ect?a young 'oman in a bedroom 'ith an in,pot& In other 'ords, no' that she had rid
herself of falsehood, that young 'oman had only to be herself& "h, but 'hat is CherselfD< I mean, 'hat is a
'oman< I assure you, I do not ,no'& I do not believe that you ,no'& I do not believe that anybody can ,no'
until she has e9pressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human s,ill& That indeed is one of the
reasons 'hy I have come here out of respect for you, 'ho are in process of sho'ing us by your e9periments
'hat a 'oman is, 'ho are in process Of providing us, by your failures and successes, 'ith that e9tremely
important piece of information&
5ut to continue the story of my professional e9periences& I made one pound ten and si9 by my first revie'/ and
I bought a 2ersian cat 'ith the proceeds& Then I gre' ambitious& " 2ersian cat is all very 'ell, I said/ but a
2ersian cat is not enough& I must have a motor car& "nd it 'as thus that I became a novelist?for it is a very
strange thing that people 'ill give you a motor car if you 'ill tell them a story& It is a still stranger thing that
there is nothing so delightful in the 'orld as telling stories& It is far pleasanter than 'riting revie's of famous
novels& "nd yet, if I am to obey your secretary and tell you my professional e9periences as a novelist, I must tell
you about a very strange e9perience that befell me as a novelist& "nd to understand it you must try first to
imagine a novelist8s state of mind& I hope I am not giving a'ay professional secrets if I say that a novelist8s
chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible& He has to induce in himself a state of perpetual lethargy& He
'ants life to proceed 'ith the utmost 7uiet and regularity& He 'ants to see the same faces, to read the same
boo,s, to do the same things day after day, month after month, 'hile he is 'riting, so that nothing may brea,
the illusion in 'hich he is living?so that nothing may disturb or dis7uiet the mysterious nosings about, feelings
round, darts, dashes and sudden discoveries of that very shy and illusive spirit, the imagination& I suspect that
this state is the same both for men and 'omen& 5e that as it may, I 'ant you to imagine me 'riting a novel in a
state of trance& I 'ant you to figure to yourselves a girl sitting 'ith a pen in her hand, 'hich for minutes, and
indeed for hours, she never dips into the in,pot& The image that comes to my mind 'hen I thin, of this girl is
the image of a fisherman lying sun, in dreams on the verge of a deep la,e 'ith a rod held out over the 'ater&
%he 'as letting her imagination s'eep unchec,ed round every roc, and cranny of the 'orld that lies submerged
in the depths of our unconscious being& o' came the e9perience, the e9perience that I believe to be far
commoner 'ith 'omen 'riters than 'ith men& The line raced through the girl8s fingers& Her imagination had
rushed a'ay& It had sought the pools, the depths, the dar, places 'here the largest fish slumber& "nd then there
'as a smash& There 'as an e9plosion& There 'as foam and confusion& The imagination had dashed itself against
something hard& The girl 'as roused from her dream& %he 'as indeed in a state of the most acute and difficult
distress& To spea, 'ithout figure she had thought of something, something about the body, about the passions
'hich it 'as unfitting for her as a 'oman to say& Men, her reason told her, 'ould be shoc,ed& The
consciousness of?'hat men 'ill say of a 'oman 'ho spea,s the truth about her passions had roused her from
her artist8s state of unconsciousness& %he could 'rite no more& The trance 'as over& Her imagination could
'or, no longer& This I believe to be a very common e9perience 'ith 'omen 'riters?they are impeded by the
e9treme conventionality of the other se9& 0or though men sensibly allo' themselves great freedom in these
respects, I doubt that they reali;e or can control the e9treme severity 'ith 'hich they condemn such freedom in
'omen&
These then 'ere t'o very genuine e9periences of my o'n& These 'ere t'o of the adventures of my
professional life& The first?,illing the "ngel in the House?I thin, I solved& %he died& 5ut the second, telling
the truth about my o'n e9periences as a body, I do not thin, I solved& I doubt that any 'oman has solved it yet&
The obstacles against her are still immensely po'erful?and yet they are very difficult to define& Out'ardly,
'hat is simpler than to 'rite boo,s< Out'ardly, 'hat obstacles are there for a 'oman rather than for a man<
In'ardly, I thin,, the case is very different/ she has still many ghosts to fight, many pre6udices to overcome&
Indeed it 'ill be a long time still, I thin,, before a 'oman can sit do'n to 'rite a boo, 'ithout finding a
phantom to be slain, a roc, to be dashed against& "nd if this is so in literature, the freest of all professions for
'omen, ho' is it in the ne' professions 'hich you are no' for the first time entering<
Those are the 7uestions that I should li,e, had I time, to as, you& "nd indeed, if I have laid stress upon these
professional e9periences of mine, it is because I believe that they are, though in different forms, yours also&
Even 'hen the path is nominally open?'hen there is nothing to prevent a 'oman from being a doctor, a
la'yer, a civil servant?there are many phantoms and obstacles, as I believe, looming in her 'ay& To discuss
and define them is I thin, of great value and importance/ for thus only can the labour be shared, the difficulties
be solved& 5ut besides this, it is necessary also to discuss the ends and the aims for 'hich 'e are fighting, for
'hich 'e are doing battle 'ith these formidable obstacles& Those aims cannot be ta,en for granted/ they must
be perpetually 7uestioned and e9amined& The 'hole position, as I see it?here in this hall surrounded by 'omen
practising for the first time in history I ,no' not ho' many different professions?is one of e9traordinary
interest and importance& -ou have 'on rooms of your o'n in the house hitherto e9clusively o'ned by men&
-ou are able, though not 'ithout great labour and effort, to pay the rent& -ou are earning your five hundred
pounds a year& 5ut this freedom is only a beginning?the room is your o'n, but it is still bare& It has to be
furnished/ it has to be decorated/ it has to be shared& Ho' are you going to furnish it, ho' are you going to
decorate it< With 'hom are you going to share it, and upon 'hat terms< These, I thin, are 7uestions of the
utmost importance and interest& 0or the first time in history you are able to as, them/ for the first time you are
able to decide for yourselves 'hat the ans'ers should be& Willingly 'ould I stay and discuss those 7uestions
and ans'ers?but not to:night& My time is up/ and I must cease&
THO!GHT ON %EA$E IN AN AIR RAID &++(
E++F Written in "ugust ()*H, for an "merican symposium on current matters concerning 'omen&
The Bermans 'ere over this house last night and the night before that& Here they are again& It is a 7ueer
e9perience, lying in the dar, and listening to the ;oom of a hornet 'hich may at any moment sting you to death&
It is a sound that interrupts cool and consecutive thin,ing about peace& -et it is a sound?far more than prayers
and anthems?that should compel one to thin, about peace& .nless 'e can thin, peace into e9istence 'e?:not
this one body in this one bed but millions of bodies yet to be born?'ill lie in the same dar,ness and hear the
same death rattle overhead& 1et us thin, 'hat 'e can do to create the only efficient air:raid shelter 'hile the
guns on the hill go pop pop pop and the searchlights finger the clouds and no' and then, sometimes close at
hand, sometimes far a'ay, a bomb drops&
.p there in the s,y young Englishmen and young Berman men are fighting each other& The defenders are men,
the attac,ers are men& "rms are not given to English'omen either to fight the enemy or to defend herself& %he
must lie 'eaponless to:night& -et if she believes that the fight going on up in the s,y is a fight by the English to
protect freedom, by the Bermans to destroy freedom, she must fight, so far as she can, on the side of the
English& Ho' far can she fight for freedom 'ithout firearms< 5y ma,ing arms, or clothes or food& 5ut there is
another 'ay of fighting for freedom 'ithout arms/ 'e can fight 'ith the mind& We can ma,e ideas that 'ill help
the young Englishman 'ho is fighting up in the s,y to defeat the enemy&
5ut to ma,e ideas effective, 'e must be able to fire them off& We must put them into action& "nd the hornet in
the s,y rouses another hornet in the mind& There 'as one ;ooming in THE TIME% this moming?a 'oman8s
voice saying, CWomen have not a 'ord to say in politics&D There is no 'oman in the Cabinet/ nor in any
responsible post& "ll the idea ma,ers 'ho are in a position to ma,e ideas effective are men& That is a thought
that damps thin,ing, and encourages irresponsibility& Why not bury the head in the pillo', plug the ears, and
cease this futile activity of idea:ma,ing< 5ecause there are other tables besides officer tables and conference
tables& "re 'e not leaving the young Englishman 'ithout a 'eapon that might be of value to him if 'e give up
private thin,ing, tea:table thin,ing, because it seems useless< "re 'e not stressing our disability because our
ability e9poses us perhaps to abuse, perhaps to contempt< CI 'ill not cease from mental fight,D 5la,e 'rote&
Mental fight means thin,ing against the current, not 'ith it&
That current flo's fast and furious& It issues in a spate of 'ords from the loudspea,ers and the politicians&
Every day they tell us that 'e are a free people, fighting to defend freedom& That is the current that has 'hirled
the young airman up into the s,y and ,eeps him circling there among the clouds& #o'n here, 'ith a roof to
cover us and a gas mas, handy, it is our business to puncture gas bags and discover seeds of truth& It is not true
that 'e are free& We are both prisoners to:night?he bo9ed up in his machine 'ith a gun handy/ 'e lying in the
dar, 'ith a gas mas, handy& If 'e 'ere free 'e should be out in the open, dancing, at the play, or sitting at the
'indo' tal,ing together& What is it that prevents us< CHitlerGD the loudspea,ers cry 'ith one voice& Who is
Hitler< What is he< "ggressiveness, tyranny, the insane love of po'er made manifest, they reply& #estroy that,
and you 'ill be free&
The drone of the planes is no' li,e the sa'ing of a branch overhead& !ound and round it goes, sa'ing and
sa'ing at a branch directly above the house& "nother sound begins sa'ing its 'ay in the brain& CWomen of
abilityD?it 'as 1ady "stor spea,ing in THE TIME% this morning?Care held do'n because of a subconscious
Hitlerism in the hearts of men&D Certainly 'e are held do'n& We are e7ually prisoners tonight?the Englishmen
in their planes, the English'omen in their beds& 5ut if he stops to thin, he may be ,illed/ and 'e too& %o let us
thin, for him& 1et us try to drag up into consciousness the subconscious Hitlerism that holds us do'n& It is the
desire for aggression/ the desire to dominate and enslave& Even in the dar,ness 'e can see that made visible&
We can see shop 'indo's bla;ing/ and 'omen ga;ing/ painted 'omen/ dressed:up 'omen/ 'omen 'ith
crimson lips and crimson fingernails& They are slaves 'ho are trying to enslave& If 'e could free ourselves from
slavery 'e should free men from tyranny& Hitlers are bred by slaves&
" bomb drops& "ll the 'indo's rattle& The anti:aircraft guns are getting active& .p there on the hill under a net
tagged 'ith strips of green and bro'n stuff to imitate the hues of autumn leaves, guns are concealed& o' they
all fire at once& On the nine o8cloc, radio 'e shall be told C0orty:four enemy planes 'ere shot do'n during the
night, ten of them by anti:aircraft fire&D "nd one of the terms of peace, the loudspea,ers say, is to be
disarmament& There are to be no more guns, no army, no navy, no air force in the future& o more young men
'ill be trained to fight 'ith arms& That rouses another mind:hornet in the chambers of the brain?another
7uotation& CTo fight against a real enemy, to earn undying honour and glory by shooting total strangers, and to
come home 'ith my breast covered 'ith medals and decorations, that 'as the summit of my hope& & & & It 'as
for this that my 'hole life so far had been dedicated, my education, training, everything& & & &D
Those 'ere the 'ords of a young Englishman 'ho fought in the last 'ar& In the face of them, do the current
thin,ers honestly believe that by 'riting C#isarmamentD on a sheet of paper at a conference table they 'ill have
done all that is needful< Othello8s occupation 'ill be gone/ but he 'ill remain Othello& The young airman up in
the s,y is driven not only by the voices of loudspea,ers/ he is driven by voices in himself?ancient instincts,
instincts fostered and cherished by education and tradition& Is he to be blamed for those instincts< Could 'e
s'itch off the maternal instinct at the command of a table full of politicians< %uppose that imperative among the
peace terms 'as$ CChild:bearing is to be restricted to a very small class of specially selected 'omen,D 'ould
'e submit< %hould 'e not say, CThe maternal instinct is a 'oman8s glory& It 'as for this that my 'hole life has
been dedicated, my education, training, everything& & & &D 5ut if it 'ere necessary& for the sa,e of humanity, for
the peace of the 'orld, that childbearing should be restricted, the maternal instinct subdued, 'omen 'ould
attempt it& Men 'ould help them& They 'ould honour them for their refusal to bear children& They 'ould give
them other openings for their creative po'er& That too must ma,e part of our fight for freedom& We must help
the young Englishmen to root out from themselves the love of medals and decorations& We must create more
honourable activities for those 'ho try to con7uer in themselves their fighting instinct, their subconscious
Hitlerism& We must compensate the man for the loss of his gun&
The sound of sa'ing overhead has increased& "ll the searchlights are erect& They point at a spot e9actly above
this roof& "t any moment a bomb may fall on this very room& One, t'o, three, four, five, si9 & & & the seconds
pass& The bomb did not fall& 5ut during those seconds of suspense all thin,ing stopped& "ll feeling, save one
dull dread, ceased& " nail fi9ed the 'hole being to one hard board& The emotion of fear and of hate is therefore
sterile, unfertile& #irectly that fear passes, the mind reaches out and instinctively revives itself by trying to
create& %ince the room is dar, it can create only from memory& It reaches out to the memory of other "ugusts?
in 5ayreuth, listening to Wagner/ in !ome, 'al,ing over the Campagna/ in 1ondon& 0riends8 voices come bac,&
%craps of poetry return& Each of those thoughts, even in memory, 'as far more positive, reviving, healing and
creative than the dull dread made of fear and hate& Therefore if 'e are to compensate the young man for the loss
of his glory and of his gun, 'e must give him access to the creative feelings& We must ma,e happiness& We
must free him from the machine& We must bring him out of his prison into the open air& 5ut 'hat is the use of
freeing the young Englishman if the young Berman and the young Italian remain slaves<
The searchlights, 'avering across the flat, have pic,ed up the plane no'& 0rom this 'indo' one can see a little
silver insect turning and t'isting in the light& The guns go pop pop pop& Then they cease& 2robably the raider
'as brought do'n behind the hill& One of the pilots landed safe in a field near here the other day& He said to his
captors, spea,ing fairly good English, CHo' glad I am that the fight is overGD Then an Englishman gave him a
cigarette, and an English'oman made him a cup of tea& That 'ould seem to sho' that if you can free the man
from the machine, the seed does not fall upon altogether stony ground& The seed may be fertile&
"t last all the guns have stopped firing& "ll the searchlights have been e9tinguished& The natural dar,ness of a
summer8s night returns& The innocent sounds of the country are heard again& "n apple thuds to the ground& "n
o'l hoots, 'inging its 'ay from tree to tree& "nd some half:forgotten 'ords of an old English 'riter come to
mind$ CThe huntsmen are up in "merica& & & &D 1et us send these fragmentary notes to the huntsmen 'ho are up
in "merica, to the men and 'omen 'hose sleep has not yet been bro,en by machine:gun fire, in the belief that
they 'ill rethin, them generously and charitably, perhaps shape them into something serviceable& "nd no', in
the shado'ed half of the 'orld, to sleep&
THE END