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This project introduces and makes freely available a rare and little-known text, The Note Books of a Woman Alone, edited by Mary Geraldine Ostle and first published by J.M. Dent in 1935. The text is a compilation of eight notebooks kept from about 1913 to 1934 by an unmarried woman who earned her living first as a governess, then as a clerk in a London employment agency for domestic workers. The website contains an enhanced electronic edition with searchable, annotated text; dustcover and page images; a new index; a introduction; contemporary reviews; and the original editor’s letters to Virginia Woolf, whose feminism inspired her work. We aim to reach a general readership as well as to foster further scholarly work on the book itself and on early twentieth-century women’s history and labour history.
The electronic edition is based on a copy of the book inscribed by the original editor, M.G. Ostle, and containing emendations in her own hand. These emendations are visible in the page images, and are correspondingly represented in the electronic text. Ostle undertook to annotate the quotations included The Note Books with author’s names, and to identify source texts in her Acknowledgments. We have attempted to confirm the attributions given in Ostle's edition, to supply those that were missing, and to provide titles and publication dates. Ostle notes that she corrected faults of transcription and memory in the quotations; we have not corrected the few that remain, but have noted “approximation.” Attributions that we were unable to confirm we have left unannotated.
I FIRST met Eve Wilson when I went as junior stenographer
to my first, and last,
post at Miss de Burgh's Registry for
governesses, nursery nurses, and superior
maids.
I was young and conceited, and I remember how superior
I felt to all others on the
staff. I knew at once that I had
had a better education than my colleagues, including
Eve.
I knew more of the lives of the employers who came; and,
when necessary, I
was called in to talk to the French and
German governesses when they could not make
themselves
understood.
I thought I was attracted to Eve because she did not do
running repairs in public,
or keep a half-eaten bun with
her handkerchief in her table drawer. I was wrong.
I was attracted by a personality that was strange to me.
I did not know that there
were women who did not seek
love or marriage, and yet who were loving. I did not
know there were women who admired order and routine,
and graceful ways of
living, and yet who lacked the oppor-
tunities to make these qualities a
stepping-stone in a career.
I did not know there were women with an intense burning
sense of the inequalities in the world, and who were unable
to fight, to snatch,
to take
realize how
passive perhaps the best women are in spite of
a love of justice, and a pity for
humanity. I did not
realize how submissive some are to indignities, although
seeing, far more clearly than I did, the injustice of the
world. I did not know
that there were women, poorly
educated, unable to spell without the help of a dictionary,
knowing only their
own language, untravelled, and yet
with a passion for art and literature; who read
and re-read
books from free libraries, and who went without meals to
buy a few
more. I did not know there were women, con-
tent with lazy landladies and cheap
restaurants, if they
were but allowed liberty, after working nine to ten hours,
all day and every day, except for a fortnight's holiday, and
the usual bank
holidays in the year. I did not know that
to them the world was beautiful in a way I
could not see,
unless I was travelling with friends in comfort, and servants
near; a world beautiful to them, although it had given them
nothing, so far as I
could see, but restricted space. And I
never once even dreamed of their fears.
I was the complete snob. I thought that goodness was
of course with a bishop dressed
as such; art belonged to
an academician, with a picture in the Academy; learning to
an Oxford tutor, with an Oxford voice. I had yet to learn
the difference between
the instructed person and the well-
educated one, who made use of every incident,
every book,
every person encountered in her way through life, and who
could
therefore see and think for herself. Education, Eve
would say, was what you gave
yourself. Culture, she argued,
must come out of one's work.
And yet Eve failed. She failed to make a living that
would provide for her old age,
for ill-health, for any com-
forts, for any solid background. She was just a worn-out
woman when she left Miss de Burgh's Agency, and was
unable to find work at
all.
Eve was the second daughter and third child of a family
of four. The two sons went
straight from school into their
father's factory; he was a silk manufacturer, well
respected
in Manchester. He had made his own way, and was proud
of it; was fond
of boasting that he never believed in a
failure, that he always knew what was right,
and had
always done it. He was said to have married above him,
but of that I cannot
speak, though Eve owned that her
mother's relatives would have little to do with
them, and
nothing at all with her. Her mother died when Eve left
her private
school at the age of seventeen. The elder
sister took charge, and Eve went out as a
nursery governess,
getting, she told me, just the right experience for her work
in an agency.
Her sister's marriage coincided with her father's death.
He left everything to the
two sons in the business. I
never understood this, and Eve, apparently, took nothing
from the estate at all. I do not know if it was her own
doing, or the
carelessness of her relatives. Her sister, it
appears, took most of the furniture,
and then went back
to her husband in Scotland. Eve had saved enough to take
a
course in stenography, and at twenty-seven she was in
Miss de Burgh's office earning
thirty shillings a week.
Never, during the twenty-one years that she worked there,
did she get more than three pounds a week. Nor was she
ever absent except for
her fortnight's holiday in the year,
and for the usual bank holidays.
She died nine months after leaving the agency, at the
age of forty-eight or nine.
Miss de Burgh had died a year
before the agency had been made into a limited company,
the chairman of which considered it his duty to dismiss
every employee, with a
month's salary.
To my great surprise, after her death, I had the intimation
of the fact, with eight
fat note books and some books,
sent me by her brother. He assured me that all Eve's
relatives were ready to give his sister a home, and that
they had no
responsibility for her. I assured him (with no
knowledge at all of the circumstances)
that of course Eve
would know this. He is never likely to find this book and,
if
he did, all names are altered.
But it will never cease to be a grief to me that, fathered,
husbanded, and childed as I was, I had taken no care of Eve
when she needed a
friend most. It is of little use to say
that Eve should have made more friends, or
been stronger
minded, or any of the platitudes people use, when they
think you
have failed.
We all failed her, and never saw her fear. I can say
nothing of her family, but I
recognize all through her
note-books Eve's longing for relatives and home, and her
passionate pity for all helpless people.
But, driven back on to herself as she was, she had made
out of her thoughts a
philosophy that really stood by her in
her loneliness and isolation from the better,
more cultured
things of life.
I might almost say she had read as a child does, every-
thing, looking for gold. She
made notes from all sorts of
material; from newspapers, letters, novels,
conversations,
magazines. I knew she always enjoyed poetry; that to
her it was
the best cure for a sick soul. I knew the Bible
was a passionate love of hers; that
she often carried a copy
about with her clad in a ‘jacket’ from a novel, in order,
as she said, that no one in the tram, tube, or train would
ask her to pray; that
she had gone for weeks without any
lunch, in order to pay for this particular edition
of the
Bible.
If Miss Ostle can make a book out of these note-books
that will help others placed
as Eve was, it will be a good
thing. It will certainly not be a book for those who
can get
easily all the physical, mental, and spiritual help they need.
It will
be a book for those, like Eve, who have little time
for reading, who read in a shaky
bus, or hanging from a
strap in the tube, or in a restaurant. There may be no
other Eves, and then this book can get nowhere. But I
think there may be some
who need its mental shelter. For
in it Eve shows, with no reserves, her fears; her
great pity,
which caused her more acute suffering than anything else
in her life; her philosophy. In these busy days no one will
even bother to
laugh, they will drop the book; but maybe
some will find more in it than I, or the
editor, can.
I end with a quotation from one of Eve's favourite books
which describes her
experiences, but does not explain my
perplexity about her life:
‘The prudent man forseeth the evil and hideth himself;
the simple pass on and are punished.’
I HAVE left the title of this book as Evelyn Wilson wrote it
in each of her eight
fat note books. She seems always to
have felt alone, and her notes are all built
round that theme
— that she was not a part of any scheme of life, and must
find her pleasures and consolation alone.
I have tried always to give the right sources, but may
have made mistakes, and in
many cases failed altogether.
Eve did not have many opportunities to buy books, or
even
to borrow books that could be kept any length of time.
So her notes are
sometimes carelessly made, and I have had
to decipher curious marks and notes that I
may have misread.
I have generally omitted her quotations from the classics,
because they are to be
found in other anthologies; but I
have tried to keep those which seem to throw a new
light
on Eve's point of view.
I should have liked to keep the poetry that she seemed
unable to forget —
quotations occur on almost every page —
but difficulties of copyright were too
many, especially as
Eve appears to have agreed with the cask of old newspapers
who told the little goblin, of Hans Andersen's tale, that
poetry was ‘something
that always stands in the corner of
a newspaper, and is sometimes cut out.’ Eve
certainly
cut out the poems, but did not always give the name of the
fortunate
paper, and never the date.
I know the book as a whole appears somewhat amateurish,
even very much so at times,
but it is an account of a woman's
mental life in varying moods, a woman who was an
amateur
about living, more so than most.
I have also retained records of what Eve thought were
her sins, her failures and
(with changed names) her
happinesses. Her comments, too, about life are here;
they illumine the book, and account for the selections,
I think. I cannot
know.
I cannot know. Eve has gone. I might not have known
her even had I met her every
day. For are not all souls,
especially those who pity, unknowable, incalculable,
alone?
I CANNOT think any woman is happier than I am to-night.
I have at last got work which means making my own home
away from the business place. What care I that it is only
thirty shillings a week, that my room will only be a bed
-
sitting room, that baths will be a luxury, that my food will
be bread, eggs, and cheese? It is all going to be my own.
I can change when it is too uncomfortable, and yet not lose
my work. And if the work is lost I have, anyway while
my savings last, a place in which I have the right to
stay, to be able to move about without the criticism of
other people.
I wish I knew if other women feel as I do. I don't think
it is entirely the result of ten years earning my bread, some
-
times with lots of butter, in other people's houses. I think
I have always wanted alone-ness as a drunkard wants drink.
How can I explain to these mothers, these employers of
home-workers, that a room alone, a warmed one to which
the employee can go, is a necessity?
I am now going to deal with employers, but I shall
never make them understand, unless they have been the
worker in another's home. It is a horrid thing to say of
any one, but I can truthfully say that they are not in-
tentionally unkind. They just do not know. They do
not seem able to understand that their house, which to
them is a lovely possession, is a prison to their workers.
It need not be. But I suppose it would be changing
human nature if we asked them to remember that part of
the salary they pay, if it is resident work, is a home. And
a home is a place where your needs are catered for —
just a bit. But these mothers all think that to be in their
house is heaven. They think it, even if unhappily married,
so far as I can see. But the acid test is that no one willingly
takes work in another's house. You can never be really
at home in your employer's house. And if she is all the
time thinking you are too well paid, have too much luxury,
are not sufficiently busy, how much less of a home it is.
It was always the meal-times I hated most, and the few
times I was ill for I had to prove I was ill.
I think now — now that I am released — of those
three houses in which I
worked for nearly ten years al-
together, with some amount of amusement. They, my
employers, were so blind to the real me. Perhaps the
modern young thing — if she ever takes up such work
— manages better, for, as I now realize, I ought to have
thought it out more carefully, and have done anything
else rather than allow such a life for myself. . . .
The first house was a vicarage. They got me very cheaply,
and how I worked! I was so grateful for their attention.
I thought they would be fond of me, but Mrs. Le Marchant
did not care at all. I was young, and she did not find my
manners too bad — though I expect I was very gauche —
and if I could prepare Basil and Sylvia for their cheap
clergy schools, that was all she wanted.
I see now how worried she was about expenses, but I also
see how dishonestly she worked me. I do not remember
ever having an hour to myself, except the conventional
half-day on Sunday, and then she expected me to show up
at their church, and I was too frightened at first not to do it.
And after bathing the children and putting their bedrooms
and the nursery schoolroom to rights, how I hated those
piles and piles of mending that I did by the light of an oil
lamp in that cold schoolroom night after night. I was not
allowed to put on more coal after six o'clock. I shiver
now when I think of that room, and the ice-cold bedroom
that I shared with Sylvia. I have hated the cold ever since.
I never give myself adequate heat without a burst of
gratitude that fate has at last allowed me to choose my own
comforts rather than be obliged to take those based on the
other woman's ideas.
I was too much afraid to suggest or to ask for anything
for myself. What a fool I was. And all for the sake of
forty pounds a year. The only battle I ever had with her
was that my laundry should be paid for. I had not arranged
for this, and began paying for it at the laundry which came
for the heavy things not done at the vicarage. I fought her
when I discovered that a good part of my income would
go in these bills, and reluctantly she allowed the visiting
laundry maid to do
my things with the children's. But
not before she told me that I ought by rights to relieve the
laundry maid of some of the work, and do it myself! But
as I knew nothing of that, even her parsimony did not make
her try me. Everything else I had to do. Dressing, bathing,
undressing, feeding the children; sometimes serving and
often laying the meals.
I often used to think how queer it was that Mrs. Le
Marchant never thought of my position as one that Sylvia
would perhaps occupy. I think Mr. Le Marchant did.
He worried about the future, and sometimes he would give
me the tiny attentions that mean so much to the woman
placed as I was, and ask if I were happy. I never had the
heart to say anything but yes. His little daughter Sylvia
was like him, and I was so sorry to think of her when her
father died and the house had to be left. Sylvia was sent
to an orphanage, and I was told not to write as it would
unsettle her. It was a cruel order. I have still her letter
which says: ‘Do you love me? I love you if you love me or
if you don't.’
The second house was, of course, an improvement,
because I knew better what I wanted. I certainly wanted
luxury. If I had to give up my liberty I thought it fair
that I should have comforts. So very proud was I when I
got a post as governess to John, only child and heir of Lord
and Lady Brakeshire. I was frightened at the big house
and the many servants, but I was determined to keep my
head up, and for the magnificent sum of ninety pounds I
was to be John's guide, philosopher, and friend.
At first the luxury and the easy life did impress and
console me. I started at their London house. We soon
moved down to their country one situated in a huge park,
with a drive of almost three miles. John had a nurse and
nursery maid, so I had no work to do but to teach. I
breakfasted alone in the schoolroom, I lunched with John
downstairs when there were no visitors, and after four
o'clock I saw John no more. My tea was brought to me on
a tray in the schoolroom, and my supper followed about
four hours later. I was as much a prisoner as if I had been
in Holloway, for I knew no one in the village.
The nurses resented me, and as for the servants' manners,
they were unspeakable. My comforts entirely depended
upon the housekeeper. I give one instance. My supper
-
dinner consisted of one tray with an entrée, vegetables, and
sweet, all served at once by the second footman. Down
the passage in the nursery the nurses and Lady Brakeshire's
special maid had a full-course dinner served them every
night by the same man, beginning with soup and ending
with coffee.
The three years at the cold vicarage, where at least I had
been treated as a person, used to seem to me something
almost desirable after I had been six months with the
Brakeshires. I tried in vain to get away, Lady Brakeshire
met all my timid attempts with a brusque: ‘Oh, you must
stay and finish John for his preparatory school.’ I did it,
but those four years of luxury taught me a need I have
never forgotten: my own room, however poor, rather than
someone else's house, however rich.
My last three years were spent with Dr. Brown in a busy
and dirty part of south-east London. I say dirt, because
that is what I chiefly remember about that house. Dr. and
Mrs. Brown were kind. We had fun, and I was allowed to
enter into the life of the house. The three children were
interesting to teach, and although my salary was reduced
from eighty to fifty pounds when the elder ones went to
school, I could not complain legally.
But the dirt! The confusion in the house! Comfortable,
yes, in a fashion, but I had no idea such dirt could be
in homes belonging to educated people. The confusion
that arose when we went away for holidays! I can still
see the taxi-driver's twinkle as I and the odds and ends
followed the Browns' car to the station. I can still recollect
my hopelessness at getting any sort of order in the school-
room. The two servants took the tone of the house,
and though they may have been tidy in their own rooms,
they certainly did the least possible amount of cleaning
downstairs.
Sticky chairs, stained cutlery, dirty plates, drawers full
of rubbish, tumbled beds, untidy clothes! I ought to have
laughed, but it was so tiring.
It was also demoralizing. I could not teach properly in
such a mess. The look of the schoolroom floor was
sufficient to create in me a lazy, what-is-the-use feeling.
School books would either be lost or pulled to pieces; toys,
made or bought by the many admiring relatives, were
destroyed or put out of action.
Everything was chaotic, and I became more and more
inefficient.
I think, also, I became ungracious. I was not altogether
to blame. I went there
feeling I could like the Browns.
Mrs. Brown was kind when she interviewed me,
remembered
to pay my fare, spoke sympathetically about the free times
I should have. I went there more cheerfully than to either
of the other places. But they were too kind to begin
with. They exerted themselves for the first week, and
then forgot the ‘stranger within their gates.’ They
took me for granted, objected to any criticism I felt
needed, and I gradually became more, not less, shy and
awkward.
I realize now that they could not know how unaccustomed
I was to a home. Had I been assured of one of my own in
the background I could have more easily made myself
happy in a lent one. But I craved for continual assurance
that I was needed.
Dirt is not a crime. Dr. Brown had a real love for his
fellow-men, Mrs. Brown had
a great sense of humour, the
children were keen about their work. My bread was not
made bitter as when it came from the Brakeshires, but I was
perhaps the more lonely because always standing just outside
the charmed circle. The family members had the curious
attitude, adopted by all happily married people and their
children, that the stranger cannot be anything else but happy
when looking at them. They never knew how I felt their
combined criticism if I failed them in any way. I was too
isolated, there was no one who could see the life from my
angle. The complete understanding of each other that the
Browns possessed emphasized my homelessness. I thought
more there of my failures at home than anywhere else.
When I left the Browns I knew they would not even do
what John had done — write a letter — nor did they. I was
out of their picture, and dead.
And so I learnt that the one necessity for such as I am in
life is one's own room,
where I may be myself, and neither
apologize for, nor justify, my presence.
I have it at last. Could any woman be happier than I
am to-night?
Faded Woman's Song (Secretum meum mihi). There were years vague of measure, Needless the asking when; No honours, praises, pleasure Reached common maids from men.
And hence no lures bewitched them, No hand was stretched to raise, No gracious gifts enriched them, No voices sang their praise.
Yet an iris at that season Amid the accustomed slight From denseness, dull unreason, Ringed me with living light. Thomas Hardy. Her Apotheosis (1922)
Nay, know ye not, this burden hath always lain On the devious being of woman? Yea, burdens twain— The burden of wild will and the burden of pain. Gilbert Murray, from Euripides. Hippolytus (1902)
If you would know the political and moral condition of a
people, ask as to the position of its women.Unknown. Attributed to Louis-Aimé Martin
The cruelty of her position was so great, its complications
so thorny, if I may express myself so, that a passive attitude
was yet her best refuge—as it had been before her of so
many women. For that sort of inertia in woman is always
enigmatic, and therefore menacing. It makes one pause.
A woman may be a fool, a sleepy fool, an agitated fool, a too
awfully noxious fool, and she may even be simply stupid.
But she is never dense. She's never made of wood through
and through as some men are. There is in woman always,
somewhere, a spring. Whatever men don't know about
women (and it may be a lot or it may be very little) men and
even fathers do know that much. And that is why so
many men are afraid of them.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
And this is the pathos of being a woman. A man can
struggle to get a place for himself or perish. But a woman's
part is passive, say what you like, and shuffle the facts of
the world as you may, hinting at lack of wisdom, of energy,
of courage. As a matter of fact, all women have all that—
of their own kind. But they are not made for attack. Wait
they must. I am speaking here of women who are really
women. And it is no use talking of opportunities either.
I know that some of them do talk of it. But not the
genuine women. Those know better. Nothing can beat a
true woman for a clear vision of reality. . . . They know that
the clamour for opportunities for them to become something
which they cannot be, is as reasonable as if mankind at
large started asking for opportunities of winning immor-
tality in this world, in which death is the very condition of
life. You must understand that I am not talking here of
material existence. That naturally is implied; but you
won't maintain that a woman who, say, enlisted, for
instance (there have been cases), has conquered her place in9
the world. She has only got her living in it, which is quite
meritorious, but not quite the same thing.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
If she were given some sort of footing in this world,
if only no bigger than the palm of my hand, she would
probably learn to keep a better balance.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
Women can't go forth on the high roads and byways
to pick up a living, even when dignity, independence or
existence itself are at stake. . . . I've never seen such a
crushing impression of the miserable dependence of girls, of
women. . . . A young man, any man, could have gone to
break stones on the roads, or something of that kind.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
There is a kind way of assisting our fellow-creatures
which is enough to break their hearts while it saves their
outer envelope. How cold, how infernally cold she must
have felt—unless when she was made to burn with indigna-
tion or shame. Man, we know, cannot live by bread alone,
but hang me if I don't believe that some women could live
by love alone. If there be a flame in human beings fed by
varied ingredients earthly and spiritual which tinge it in
different hues, then I seem to see the colour of theirs. It
is azure.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
The problems of sex are immensely complicated in our
own day by the artificial life which so large a proportion of
us have to live. It is not normal or natural for half the10
marriageable men to be killed or maimed by war. In our
unnatural world many women can never hope to marry or
to have children. Their difficulties and sorrows are quite
as great as those of men who have lost arms and legs or
eyes, and they are all the harder to bear because they are
not spoken of, and, as a rule, gain no sympathy. Moham-
med solved their problem by allowing polygamy, but this
can never be an ideal situation. In our day women can,
in a professional or artistic life, gain much of the happiness
which normal marriage would otherwise aim at supplying,
but we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that they carry,
as the maimed man carries, a very heavy burden so far as
this life goes, and the Christian community, which rightly,
as we believe, condemns polygamy, ought to have for these
silent victims of war the deepest sympathy, and to offer to
them all the help and respect that the maimed man so
readily commands.Yet, we must remember that in every age those who
place Love first—love of ideals, love which will not tolerate
anything but the highest—have constantly had to cut off
the arm and pluck out the eye, to be maimed at the ex-
tremity, so as to be sound at the centre of the being; and
those who to-day would ask us to acquiesce in easy solutions
of those poignant troubles, must remember that the easy
solution only satisfies those who are content not to scale
the heights. To the woman who feels that any man is
better than no man, many simple and easy solutions of her
troubles are open. Let us not condemn her. But such a
view of life is not possible to anyone who is more finely
attuned to noble ideals of life, and for her the solution is
not easy. Life never has been easy to those who seek the
Kingdom of Heaven. The path is always narrow, and few
will find it, but those who try to walk along it do have their
reward. For passion is not love. Love without passion
may be hard, but it is possible, and as it grows, passion in11
its material expression may lose its attractiveness, and a
passion for God may come and take its place, and love may
find itself after all unmaimed.Harold Anson. Thinking Aloud (1929)
An honest visitor came, spoke of her wish to marry;
said many, perhaps most, would
rather rub along with any
man than none at all. She said it meant position and more
chances. To me this is curious and early Victorian. A
woman with brains can
make a livelihood, and ‘marriage
with any one’ could be hell, with children adding
to the
torment. No, what bewilders me is the fact that the bad,
the coarse,
and the cruel can all get out of the lucky bag of
life that priceless treasure:
real genuine love; whether from
man or woman what matters it? They have it, and
why?
Ah! doesn't God even care to distribute that greatest gift
so that those
big enough to hold may have it? But the
very power of love seems to hide from the
lover the un-
worthiness of the object. No wonder I gasp at the pluck
shown by
the lonely woman who stands with her back to
the wall with nothing at all, and
fights, keeping strong for
herself, but tender for the weak.
Be alone, be remote, be away from the world, be desolate.
Then you will be near God.Unknown. Letters from Baron Friedrich von Hügel to a Niece (1928)
The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsus-
tained I am, the more I will respect and rely upon myself.Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre (1847)
There is nothing like malnutrition for producing the
traditional ‘feminine’ delicacy, nor like anaemia for securing
that irresponsibility, instability, and subservience which
are the reputed characteristics of women in low-paid
industries. Further, the equalitarians have observed that
it was only in well-paid processes, where women came into
competition with men, that restrictions have been thought
desirable. Charwomen have no statutory hours for meal-
times. There is no prohibition of night work for domestic
servants. Nurses may lift heavy weights, and working
mothers continue coal-carrying and floor-scrubbing through
pregnancy, till the first pangs of labour, and resume them
as soon as they can put a foot to the ground.Winifred Holtby. Women and a Changing Civilisation (1934)
So many women whose circumstances and temperament
provide them with adequate material for happiness, are
tormented by the current superstition that madness or
bitterness lie in wait for virgins. The mystics were wiser
when they recognized in celibacy not a deprivation but a
power, for those who could win their satisfactions else-
where. All flesh is not the same flesh. There is one glory
of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another
glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another
in glory.If we did not suffer from a lamentable confusion of
thought we should not allow one form of satisfaction to
blind us to all others, and we should permit a more common
and more merciful realization of the fact that in the
twentieth century frustration and spinsterhood need not
be identical.Winifred Holtby. Women and a Changing Civilisation (1934)
Now the identification of frustration with virginity (for
it is commonly though erroneously presumed that all
spinsters are virgins) is a comparatively modern notion.
In polygamous communities unmated women are so
exceptional that they are venerated as priestesses or feared
as warlocks. Pagan African witches and Mahometan Sufi
mystics alike withdraw from the world of human values
into a region of spiritual experience where virginity is
respected as possessing a power denied to ordinary flesh
and blood. The priestesses of Egypt, the vestals of Rome,
the Catholic sisterhoods were set apart from the community.
Their state did not inspire pity; it might be feared, disliked,
or respected; but it was recognized as something positive
—a vocation, not a failure, a chosen peculiarity, not a lack
of natural fulfilment.Winifred Holtby. Women and a Changing Civilisation (1934)
Women as individuals and as a sex are poor. And their
poverty has odd incidental effects upon themselves and upon
their whole position. To be poor in a society founded upon
private property means to be insecure, and insecurity breeds
timidity. The traditional characteristics of the typical
governess, her touchiness, her cringing to authority, her
uncertain temper with domestic servants, her lack of vitality
and charm, are as assuredly the symptoms of poverty as the
traditional good manners of a duke are symptomatic of a
lifetime of inbred self-assurance.Winifred Holtby. Women and a Changing Civilisation (1934)
There is probably no evil under the sun more misery-
provoking than frustration. Never to be used to the full
scope of our ability, never to serve life's purpose, never to
know the rapture of achievement and fulfilment, never to
lie back upon the perfect security of completion, aware that14
no matter what the future brings, we have had our hour
—this is to be deprived of the full stature, the sweetness
and significance of human life.It appears that there are certain experiences which we
must enjoy if we are to feel satisfaction. We are unique
individuals, yet members of a community; a gulf divides
us from our fellows, yet we cannot do without them.
We need intimacy, we need tenderness, we need love.But tenderness is not enough. We must have passion.
We must at least once in life have burned to the white
heat of ecstasy.We must have achievement. We must feel the pleasure
of creation. We are made sufficiently like the image of the
God of Genesis that we require to build a world for our
satisfaction, to rest on the seventh day and know that
it is good.And we need devotion. Whatever spark of divine
discontent has been lit within us, we can know no ultimate
peace unless we have worshipped some purpose larger
than ourselves — God, a cause, a leader, an idea, even
another human person. Without that reverence we walk
crippled, our human stature maimed. We are frustrated. . . .The woman's movement of the past hundred and fifty
years has improved the social and economic status of the
spinster and, in some still limited circles, removed her
moral obligation of virginity. Teachers, doctors, political
organizers, artists, and explorers may deliberately choose
to remain unmarried in order not to be hampered in their
work. In some cases this means that they remain celibate;
since the spread of contraceptive knowledge, it generally
means that they avoid motherhood. But it is impossible,
with any regard for the meaning of the words whatever, to
call such women frustrated; most of them live lives as full,
satisfied, and happy as any human lives can be. Ecstasy,
power, and devotion have enriched them; they have served15
a cause greater than their own personal advantage. They
have contributed something to the world, and known the
satisfaction of creative achievement. It becomes a matter
of secondary importance whether they have also experienced
the enchanting flattery and relief of being loved; the
exquisite intimacy of physical contact, and the extension
of personality which parentage brings with it.There are hideously frustrated lives to-day. Industrial
workers in urban districts repeating monotonous tasks,
eating tasteless and inadequate meals, and coming home
worn out to crowded and insanitary houses, clamorous
and under-nourished and undisciplined children, to wives
prematurely aged and ugly with childbearing and fatigue
—these are frustrated in their needs for power, beauty,
worship, and achievement. The unemployed suffer even
more profoundly.Winifred Holtby. Women and a Changing Civilisation (1934)
One of the least responsible creatures on earth is the
woman who has no child
(through no fault of her own), no
husband (because none sought her), no lover
(because none
came), no vote (because not legalized). The life has great
freedom when you think of it. The man could marry
(dozens of women will have
him), the man has money (easy
to earn it if started rightly), the man has power (as
a rule),
the man is responsible for the world
can be an artist in living, she need not
can watch.
And I think these irresponsibilities are part of her
greatest dangers.
Think of being dependent upon the whims of another for
16
bread! And how can we, the Haves, ever hope to enter
remotely into the inspiring motives of the Have-nots?Alice James. Alice James: Her Brothers: Her Journal (1934)
The Everyday Heroine.
The story-book heroine of popular imagination is pretty,
sympathetic, and impulsive. If she has the added attraction
of youth, and a background of a not too uncomfortable
poverty, she enlists still more sympathy.She does not inspire me with any heroine worship,
however. It is to a different kind of a heroine that I raise
my hat, to the ordinary, unremarkable everyday heroine.
I might call her the strong silent woman. But hers is none
of the glory of the strong silent man. There is nothing
wonderful about the set of her jaw. Neither is she par-
ticularly muscular. It is in tenacity and grit that she equals
her male prototype.Little Mrs. White is a typical example. There are three
sturdy young Whites with robust appetites and generally
increasing needs, and only Mr. White's obstinately thin
pay envelope to cover all expenses. She has to be cook,
laundress, dressmaker, charlady, and nurse in one. She
might be expected, quite reasonably, to have an occasional
‘moan,’ but she never does because she has no time. Then
there is Miss Brown, whose earnings with Messrs. Blank
and Blank substantially swell the family exchequer. For
this reason she plods away quietly at a distasteful job. The
strong hero of fiction, after a day's experience of the firm's
unscrupulous methods of doing business, would be striding
out, leaving Messrs. Blank and Blank seeking cover behind
the telephone.Again, there is Miss Grey, a member of that tragic
community for whom changing conditions have spelt
penury. Her dwindled income provides none of the17
luxuries, barely the necessities of life, but she struggles on
pluckily, allowing few to suspect the really desperate straits
to which she is reduced.She is commonplace; she is uninteresting—and her
number is legion. It is only the phenomenon in which
people are interested. So long as the strong silent man
remains an outstanding figure among his fellows, just so
long shall we continue to sing his praises to the exclusion
of the strong silent woman— the everyday heroine.Joan Drinkwater. The Everyday Heroine (credited in Acknowledgments)
Suffer women once to arrive at an equality with men and
they will, from that moment, become the superiors.Marcus Cato. In Support of the Oppian Law
I speculate much on the unmarried and never-to-be-
married women of the future.There is no more respectable character on this earth than
an unmarried woman who makes her own way through
life, quietly, perseveringly, without support of husband or
brother; and who, having attained the age of forty-five or
upwards, retains in her possession a well-regulated mind,
a disposition to enjoy simple pleasures, and fortitude to
support inevitable pains, sympathetic with the sufferings of
others, and a willingness to relieve want as far as her
means extend.Charlotte Brontë. Letter, appears in The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell (1870)
I read this to-day about Pepys: ‘Then Pepys puts on his
“suit with great skirts,
having not lately worn any other
clothes but them,” and plunges into the exquisite
thrills
and sensations of life.’
I think anxieties about ways and means have robbed me
of thrills that I ought to
have had. I wonder if it was my
fault? Life is to me at times very frightening. I
have
always the feeling of living in a world that belongs to
other people who
must be placated or dodged. But surely
living should be wonderful
Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the
inconvenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power
has fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level
of feminine incompetence as strict as the ability to count
three, and no more, the social lot of women might be
treated with scientific certitude. Meanwhile, the indefinite-
ness remains, and the limits of variation are really much
wider than anyone would imagine from the sameness of
women's coiffure and the favourite love-stories in prose
and verse. Here and there a cygnet is reared uneasily
among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds
the living stream in fellowship with its own oary-footed
kind. Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress
of nothing, whose loving heart-beats and sobs after an
unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among
hindrances, instead of centring in some long-recognizable
deed.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's
miseries is to go and look at their pleasures.George Eliot. Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)
Friendship. Reading
and making notes. Warmth.
Knowing that the agency has helped someone. Hot bath.
Talk and dinner (if both are good). Motoring. Writing
and receiving letters.
Simplifying life.
THE MAID OF ALL WORK SPEAKS:
‘I got to thinking,
that's all. All back doors and slop cans for some —front
doors and canopies for others —no reason—just happening
that way. God couldn't mean it like that. And what
if He did? He was God. I'm me! Little! Weak! I
get so tired. Nobody gets so tired as I do. My floating
kidney. I love to sleep so. It's a sickness. I can't
pull out of it. I ain't strong. I couldn't—I —I ain't
strong and white and all on the inside of me like you!
Lye water hurts my hands. Slops stink. It eats my
heart to have to peep through the door at the good
things of life being gobbled by others that ain't earned
them as much as we have. That's why I'm here.¹ I
thought maybe—God—I thought maybe—
‘Maybe—what?
‘Maybe some of the easiness—was coming to me. . . .
‘Oh, it's all right about being too deep down inside
yourself to mind the scum on your hands. Maybe you can
pull a dead rat out of its hole like you was picking a lily,
I've seen you do it, but I'm one of the human ones. . . .
‘There's nobody to get up and explain for us. The
men don't know. They get all the information from their
women. That gives us a helluva chance, don't it? And
who is to dispute it all? We can't. We ain't got the voice
or the language. Nobody writes pieces or prints articles
about us from our side of the fence. We're not interesting.
Who wants to see a show about a servant? Who hears
anything about us except from what the women who hire
us have to say about us? God help a woman whose¹ A house of ill-fame. 20
reputation depends entirely on what another woman has
to say about her.’Fannie Hurst. Lummox (1923)
Certainly those determining acts of Dorothea's life were
not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young
and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an
imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often
take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of
illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is
so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies
outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity
of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new
Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the
sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their
ardent deeds took shape is for ever gone. But we insignifi-
cant people with our daily words and acts are preparing
the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present
a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose
story we know.Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though
they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that
river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in
channels which had no great name on the earth. But the
effect of her being on those around her was incalculably
diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly
dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill
with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to
the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in
unvisited tombs.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
Of all mental cruelties I think the worst is the man or
woman who, not having
experienced the situation, judges
someone who has failed. To-day I had a brother, rich and
prosperous, refusing
anything but a pittance of a few
shillings a week to his elderly sister. He argued
that he
had made a good thing out of life and that his sister was
lazy. He
took no account that women cannot, unless in
protected positions, make provision
for old age; that men
earn more than the average woman; that the age of his
sister made it difficult to get work; that long years of poor
feeding in
uneasy jobs as companion to old ladies of small
incomes had devitalized his sister.
I felt physically sick
when he left, and I saw him drive off in his car. He has
married, it is true, but is childless. I sensed in him that
man's dislike of
the poor, unspirited, plain woman, and I
hated him. I know I ought to have been
sorry. For what
a chance he was losing; a little kindness to my candidate
and
he would have changed her life of hell into one of
heaven. She wants so little; two
to three pounds a week
would have done it.
The single woman who is absolutely dependent for food,
clothes, and shelter on the life or the whim of another
being is in the worst pass of all. But such women
ought not to exist, and their mere existence is a reproach
to those who had charge of their youth.Unknown. Arnold Bennett, Not for the Young, The Strand Magazine (1923)
She was another illustration of the rule that succeeding
generations of women are seldom marked by cumulative
progress, their advance as girls being lost in their recession
as matrons; so that they move up and down the stream of
intellectual development like flotsam in a tidal estuary.22
And this perhaps not by reason of their faults as individuals,
but of their misfortune as child-rearers.Thomas Hardy. The Well-Beloved (1897)
HEAD MISTRESS
(Old Kent Road District). Why has
Charlie been staying away again?MOTHER.
Husband out of work, one child ill, another
in hospital. Do you know, Miss, I reckon you old maids
have the best of it in this life, once you get over the
disgrace.
The Rooted and the Rootless. Undoubtedly there are two kinds of people: those
rooted to their own fireside, and those who happily wander
from hotel to boarding-house or club or any place that
cannot be called theirs.The people with roots—men and women—cannot be
really happy in any public room. A holiday spent in a
hotel is to them just endurable if they can spend all their
waking time out of doors. Driven indoors by rain or
darkness, they wander restlessly from room to room, unable
to read or write or even to talk for any length of time.
When ordered change of air and scene for illness of body
or mind their sufferings are intensified by the restlessness
caused by their homeless state.Their attitude is more that of the wild animal in his
lair than the possessive human being. Seldom are they
collectors of treasures. It is not the beauty of their house
that draws them home.Why does this feeling of safety and contentment come to
me when surrounded by long familiar things? Why is a
fire on my own hearth all the companionship I need? Why
am I never lonely when alone in this room of mine?23 We people with roots recognize our peculiarities without
being able to explain them. We receive from our friends
their joyful news of sub-let houses and plans for living in
hotels with intense astonishment. As paying guests in
country houses, in seaside hotels, in London boarding-
houses, all over the country they wander without so much
as a storeroom of their own. Far rather, we think, would
we have two rooms in a cottage that are really our own than
attempt to fit into the life of strangers or live in the
characterless rooms of a hotel. Away from permanent
friends, how can they endure it, we wonder.The rootless and the rooted—whose number is the
greater? It is impossible to know. But the misery caused
to the deeply-rooted by uprooting is plain for all to see.
Not only are they frequently forced to take resident posts,
but by being compelled to change their residence with their
work they seldom stay long enough in these makeshift
homes to acquire for them even the sentiment of long
familiarity.It must be this vital need to possess his own home that
keeps the derelict starving in a garret instead of enjoying
the comparative comfort of the workhouse. To those with-
out this instinct he is an enigma, as are all those who are
unable to fit into any house or home but their own.Jocelyn Fane.
I hate Holidays. I have recently surprised all my office colleagues by saying
that I do not want to go away for a holiday.I have planned the management of my little flat in such
a way that all the comforts of home, which are essential
to the worker in the nerve-racking atmosphere of a large
London office, are available there.No holiday which does not provide for more than these
24
essential comforts has the least attraction for me. I cannot
afford that kind of holiday.I am alone in the world, and I belong to the generation
that was smashed in the war. When I have paid the
weekly expenses of my small flat, endowment insurance,
tax, laundry, luncheons, omnibus fares, and certain office
subscriptions, I have less than £1 a week left with which
to pay for clothes (including cleaner's bills), doctors,
dentists, hairdressing, subscriptions to hospitals and other
charities, an occasional theatre, the entertainment of my
friends, Christmas and other presents, and all the expenses
incidental to living in London.A holiday must, therefore, be a third-rate business—
a ‘making-do’ with the inconveniences of cheap hotels.
In my own home I do not ‘make-do.’ If I have to ‘make-
do’ on a holiday the benefit is at once wiped out.Again, I hate holidays because I have to spend them alone.
It is easy to say ‘Go with a friend,’ but, although I have
many friends in various parts of the world, there is no
woman available whose unrelieved companionship I could
tolerate for a fortnight.I might be allowed to stay with friends. I know one or
two people who would ‘have me,’ but I should be terribly
at their mercy. They would, as I know from past experi-
ence, arrange my days, and if their ideas did not tally with
mine I could not, with courtesy, complain.As I live in London the alternatives for my holiday are
the seaside or the country.I dislike the ‘balloon man,’ the gaudy beach stalls, the
pierrots, the strolling photographer, other people's children,
and the band on the pier. I am unaware of any other
seaside attractions.The country makes an enormous appeal to me, but country
people bore me. They are inveterate gossips, and the
scandal of the neighbourhood is their sole conversation.25 I should read in the evening by the light of one guttering
candle, whose efficiency would vary inversely with the
violence of the draughts. However hard I tried I should be
unable to interest anybody in my work or in my life.I think a walking tour is the best kind of holiday to
spend alone. You can rest when and where you like.
Your own company is good enough when you are walking
purposefully from one place to another, and a walking pace
enables you to see the beauty of the countryside. But I
should have to carry a knapsack—and that would finish me!Hilda Coe. I Hate Holidays, Daily Express
(credited in Acknowledgments)
The fool knows more in his own house than a wise man
in another's.Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote
One's own smoke is preferable to another's fire.
Spanish Proverb.
Happiness is a fruit which, if it grows not at our own
homes, we need not expect to gather in strangers' gardens.Unknown.
My home is any room across the door of which I can
draw the bolt.
Hannah had the homeless and childless person's dislike
of Christmas.E. H. Young. Miss Mole (1930)
Blessed are those who have the home-longing, for they
shall go home.Unknown.
Christmas, and wonder what it means. Perhaps in another
world just the right
home is waiting for me.
I had once a friend who all her life had toiled and toiled
and made her home in the homes of other people, and yet
had somehow kept a dream alive and warm, the dream of a
tiny flat, of a front door all her own, that should be hers to
pull behind her; hers to open wide to a friend. And one
day, not through any miracle save that greatest of miracles,
dogged hard work and steadfast aim, her dream came true.
Out of the succession of clubs and hostels, of residential
posts and bleak periods as paying guest to impecunious
friends, emerged a tiny flat. True, there were eighty-one
steps to climb before you reached it, but that just made it so
much the nearer heaven when you did arrive at last. True,
that few people would have had the courage to sink quite
five-elevenths of their all in rent; with a weekly wage, and
not one penny-piece besides; but then life was an insecure
affair at best, and what you got from it depended so much
upon what you asked. Yet when I think of ‘home,’ it is to
conjure up a vision of that little flat, created, kept, endowed,
by the enthusiasm of the woman to whom it stood for a
goal, and an achievement; something in short, for which
sacrifice was well worth while.F. V. Hanson. Credited in Acknowledgments
She shall have fruit when the Lord visiteth souls. (Said of the spinster.)
To-day I thought of Jesus' women friends; they were
all unmarried.
And love me as great women can Who have no children at their knees. F. H.J. E. FleckerWe That Were Friends (1911)
An Addition to the Litany. For all inhabitants of great cities, and especially for all
such as dwell in lodgings, boarding-houses, or any other
sordid substitute for home which need or foolishness may
have contrived.We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.
George Gissing. The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903)
It is very fantastical and contradictory in human nature
that men should love themselves above all the rest of the
world, and yet never endure to be with themselves.Abraham Cowley. Of Solitude (1668)
If it is necessary always to have a companion, you have
not complete mastery of yourself.George MacDonald.
The greatest thing of the world is for a man to know how
to be his own.Michel de Montaigne. Of Solitariness
The man who is listless when alone is blind to a free and
inalienable privilege.Anon.
It is the test of maturity of spirit, when an adult can stand
fast without appreciation; a condition, in fact, seldom
attained.Anon.
It is a heart silence to which we must attain: like those
places fathoms deep in the sea, which no storm reaches,
no turmoil disturbs; so the inner chamber of one's being
may be still, whatever the outward conditions.Anon. Lida A. Churchill, The Magic Seven (1901) (approximation)
Loneliness is the certain condition of the helpless man.
Epictetus. Discourses
If he lacked this inner life, it was because, like many
wounded men, he did not desire one. A deep hidden life
always means that a man must confront himself face to face.André Maurois (on Dickens). Translated by Hamish Miles. Dickens (1934)
I doubt whether a person would ever rise to the height of
his capacity without much solitude in his life.E. Green.
This life is nothing else than a process by which the
immortal and divine essence which is the soul is freed from29
this treacherous illusion of the self. . . . Do not look upon
loneliness as a burden. The more remote we are from men
the nearer we are to communion with God.L. Tolstoy.
Happiness in Loneliness. It is grievous how few human beings there are who make
the full use that can be made of the essential loneliness of
all lives. Instead of being recognized for what it is—the
most divine gift of Heaven—this awareness of loneliness
has come to be regarded as something from which we ought
to escape as soon as possible, as something that is at once
culpable and sad—a selfish animal-sensation and meta-
physical horror. It is, on the contrary, the only adequate
refuge from the sufferings of life and the only enduring
ground of all deep happiness. And it is as universal as it is
personal. Boys and girls can enjoy it equally with grown-up
people. Maids and mothers can enjoy it equally with men.
Women, as a matter of fact, do naturally and instinctively
saturate themselves with the subtle intimations of loneliness
a good deal more easily than men. How often, in the faces
of women, both young and old, do we catch the absorbed,
abstracted look of the delicate trance of loneliness!John Cowper Powys. In Defence of Sensuality (1930)
Living Alone. These are the terrible nights of Living Alone, when you
have fever, and sometimes think that your beloved stands
in the doorway to bring you comfort, and sometimes think
you have no beloved, and that there is no one left in all
the world, no word, no warmth, nor ever a kindly candle
to be lighted in that spotted darkness that walls up your hot
sight. Again, on those nights you dream that you have
already done those genial things your body cries for, or30
perhaps That Other has done them. The fire is built and
alight at last, a cup of something cool and beautifully
sour stands ready to hand, you can hear the delicious
rattle of china on a tray in the passage—someone coming
with food you would love to look at, and presently per-
haps to eat—when you feel better. But again and again
your eyes open on the cold dumb darkness, and there is
nothing but the wind and strange sinister emptiness creaking
on the stair.These are the terrible nights of Living Alone, yet no real
lover of that house and of that state would ever exchange
one of those haunted and desert nights for a night spent
watched, in soft warm places.Stella Benson. Living Alone (1919)
The Blessing of a House of One's Own. The chief thing for life is water, and bread, and a garment,
and a house to cover shame. Better is the life of a poor
man under a shelter of logs than sumptuous fare in another
man's house. With little or with much, be well satisfied.
It is a miserable life to go from house to house: and where
thou art a sojourner thou shalt not dare to open thy mouth.
Thou shalt entertain, and give to drink, and have no thanks;
and besides this thou shalt hear bitter words.Come hither, thou sojourner, Furnish a table, And if thou hast aught in thy hand, Feed me with it.
Go forth, thou sojourner, From the face of honour; My brother is come to be my guest; I have need of my house. 31 These things are grievous to a man of understanding—
the upbraiding of house-room, and the reproaching of the
moneylender.Ecclesiasticus.
I wonder if anyone, until she has done it, can really
know the sensations of hunting for a means of livelihood.
I do not mean those happy people set on the right path,
backed by wise and perhaps moneyed relatives; but those
who, not having been guided in the past, have had to find
work—any work—so as to get food and shelter.
It is nonsense to say that work is to be had, and that grit
and willingness is all that is needed. Take Miss Brown who
came to me to-day. She liked little children, there was no
one to warn her that youth soon vanishes. She had work
easily found for her from a six months training school—
all that she could afford—but now at forty-five she is tired.
A home of her own is what she is aching to get. But that
will never be possible now. And each year she is to earn
less and less; she is old, unwanted. Yet she has faithfully
served little children all her life. And her very qualities
have been her undoing. She had the childish idea that
work brought its reward in the shape of provision. But
with the greatest care she has only saved five hundred
pounds for her unwanted old age. The pension is im—
possible for another fifteen years, and what use is it to her
without any home at all? When young, each of these home
workers should be forced to see a film based on the ingrati—
tude of their employers; and given help about making their
own terms for annuities with a reputable insurance society.
Life, when seeking work, is like going down a dark
passage. You cannot come back. The passage has doors
all down each side. I tell my candidates to leave no door
alone, try each, don't force the lock, but if it opens they
must go in just to take a look round. Doors lead to other
rooms sometimes. Often the work that seems all wrong
leads to better things. But the very best people won't
think enough of their own needs, and the selfish never
think of anything else.
Yet, in spite of all, I still hope that these material troubles
help the growth of a soul. I cannot believe that ‘a blind
caprice rules this world.’ It would all be monstrous, a
nightmare. And so I cling to the hope—almost a passionate
belief based on no proof—that luck does not rule. For
‘Luck’ let us read ‘Divinity.’ ‘Divinity that shapes our
ends, rough-hew them how we will’; even if that Divinity
sends some to the Poor Law Institution and others to well-
paid pensioned work or a husband, children, and home.
When a woman gives a reference for another woman she
is also giving one for herself.From memory.
A mouth that belieth destroyeth a soul.
Wisdom.
One of the bravest of my unemployed came in to-day.
She has nothing, no home, no relatives, no money. Yet
she can laugh, and even, when insulted by the coarse,
the thoughtless, and the indifferent, can hold her own.
I suggested that she should go to a society for ladies in
difficulties. She went and was apparently treated with
scant courtesy by the lady-in-charge. I need not describe the
usual official attitude to an out-of-work from an official.
My friend did not say much, but I could see it as so
often it has been described to me: the delay, the stare, the
refusal even to rise when she come
crude questions. Finally, my friend was told that a free
advertisement would be allowed her in a daily paper. She
was told to frame this for herself, told the number of words
she would be allowed, and then dismissed peremptorily.
As she got to the door she was called back. ‘I forgot to ask
if you were certified?’ she was asked. Accustomed as
my friend is to pointless questions this
the moment, until she realized the confusion in the
questioner's mind. ‘No,’ was her answer, ‘and I hope I
never shall be, but I
There is a certain hell—comparable with none—in
seeking work and finding none.Fyodor Dostoevsky
Perhaps it has been too hastily assumed that modern
women only need a training in some kind of work to become
self-supporting for life. Perhaps very often less might be
spent on fitting a girl for a career and more towards assuring
her an income when her strength fails or when she cannot
secure a post.Beatrice Kean Seymour. Interview credited in Acknowledgments
I represent a social necessity so long as your economic
system is such that there is not work for the asking for
every human being—work, mark you, fitted to strength
and ability—so long, on the other hand, as there is such
uncertainty as prevents men from marrying, so long as
there is a leisured class who draw luxury from the labour
of other men; so long will my class ¹ endure.W. L. George. A Bed of Roses (1923)¹ The 'most ancient profession in the world.'
I saw three types of workers to-day.
The first was in an office in the centre of files, papers,
and the apparatus that makes one long for a lonely island
with nothing but breadfruit and water. She was efficient,
practical, and quick. I was dismissed in just under ten
minutes. She was obviously afraid in case I stayed over the
allotted time, but I just managed to do it, though I certainly
did not succeed in getting all I wanted done. I knew she
would put through the business with dispatch if without
imagination. She was earning £500 at least, and received
probably about £350. But it was an amusing life, she had
clerks to do the dull work, and saw plenty of people with
whom she felt she was a power. As for marriage, I expect
she thought she had had a happy escape. I heard her once
say something to that effect. She was beautifully groomed,
and her dress was very practical.
The second type I met as I crossed the Strand that same
day. She was ill-dressed, and looked as if she had never
been able to give her own person a thought. But she carried
a very fat, happy looking baby in her arms, and two other
tiny ones were dragging at her skirts. All four were
laughing, and were on their way to the Embankment
gardens to enjoy themselves, and I think they did. Her
husband was a dustman, and got good pay, she said, and
was so fond of ‘them.’ ‘Them’ were well dressed and
fed; it was herself whom she had forgotten entirely. I
could only hope her daughter, when grown, would dress
and care for her mother who had lost her life in that of
her children.
The third type was in the front row of a troupe of gay
girls and women making a row of roses with their legs
swinging in the air as they lay on their backs with their
heads toward the back of the stage. As the music played
they swung their legs to and fro, making patterns with their
coloured silk-clad legs and feet; with the frills of their
petticoats, or what served as such, helping in the display.
It was marvellously done, and I wondered if the actors
felt the fatigue they did not show. Some apparently get
through it each day, and sometimes twice, with a con-
siderable amount of fatigue, but my friend claimed to be
fresh as possible, and she certainly looked it. I asked her
about chances of employment when this show came to an
end, but she shrugged her shoulders and said: ‘It's the life
I like, and I must take the rough with the smooth.’ She
was quite content, and certainly her needs were small. So
long as she had a roof over her head, and a friend to buy
her the little she could eat, she was content. The friend,
of course, varied, but that was all part of the game. It was
life, and she was tasting it.
Which of these three did I envy? The first seemed to
have lost herself in efficiency, the second for the sake of the
children, and the last for the sake of her body.
In order to seize the opportunity of a lifetime it must be
seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.Supplied by V. H. Friedlaender. Credited in Acknowledgments
A. B. C. says the registry is wrongly managed. That I
make it a clinic, not an agency. I expect she is right, and I
may be cheating Miss de Burgh. But is no one to take the
side against Fate of those who get broken by this life?
Perhaps God is sorry He has given to some of them such a
battle. Perhaps He will say so and give them the sun,
moon, and stars when they get to the other side. Or is
this de-Godding God? Mistakes can happen. These
failures may be just the right sort—for another planet.
Most people seem to be moulding or being moulded.
I want to serve the outcasts who cannot be made to fit in.
I don't want to educate. I can understand because I, too,
am not very good at fitting in. I can see why they fail
without being irritated by them. I do not want to alter
them. I am just sorry that they are not having their share,
that life is too hard. The world is full of busy happy
doctors and nurses and social workers and reformers and
psycho-analysts. But no one can help these ‘outside’
people. God Himself does not help, He will take their
forgiveness. They are not going to get anything out of life.
Cannot I help without bothering about the social, the
medical, the sexual side? I want only to listen and to
take their part.
. . . Even for the squarest peg the right hole may
ultimately be found; seeming unfitness prove to be only
another aspect of a peculiar and special fitness. . . .
Oftentimes, just those mortals who feel cramped and
unsure in the conduct of everyday life, will find themselves
to rights, with astounding ease, in that freer, more spacious
world, where no practical considerations hamper, and where
the creatures that inhabit dance to their tune: the world
where are stored up men's best thoughts, and hopes, and
fancies; where the shadow is the substance, and the multitude
of business pales before the dream.Henry Handel Richardson. The Getting of Wisdom (1910)
Pearl will never be a success; she is too much the artist
to commercialize herself, and not enough of an artist to
dispense with recognition from the world; even if she had
been able to go on with her music, she would only have
gained recognition from the understanding minority. The37
robot majority would have had none of her. The world
doesn't want what it cannot understand, and it has never
understood its artists. If it does not ignore them altogether,
it does the greater evil: takes them up and commercializes
them into success. They are better crucified on the cross
of public contempt, that they may at least save their
souls alive.Ethel Mannin.
Work is activity of any kind. Every man must be left
quite free to choose his own work. No form of compulsion
must be exercised over him. If there is, his work will not
be good for him, will not be good in itself, and will not be
good for others.Oscar Wilde. The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891)
Only the white light of a steady purpose, a deep devotion
or an abiding faith can give an enduring glory to the scheme
of things.Anon.
The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know
how to live to purpose; all other things, to reign, to lay up
treasure, to build are, at most, but little appendices
and props.Michel de Montaigne. Of Experience
If a man or woman gets no culture out of his daily work
there is precious little he can get out of anything else.L. P. Jacks. Credited in Acknowledgments
There is one thing all employed women should be grateful
for if they have it: service under those worthy of their
service. Miss Morris was angry to-day, because Miss Waife
asked her to use a backing-sheet on her typewriter. Miss
Morris went into Miss de Burgh's room, who just laughed
and said: ‘If it upsets your dignity to use a backing-sheet
for goodness' sake don't.’ Miss Morris came back with a
smile, Miss Waife laughed also, and everything went well.
Later, when I asked Miss de Burgh why she had not upheld
Miss Waife, she said: ‘Life is a trying affair, we must try
to keep a sense of proportion; if I lose it, the whole office
will also. Miss Waife rightly saw that the matter was
trifling, but I own I should have been in trouble had Miss
Waife stood on her rights as senior. Bless the child, she
didn't go back on me, and I shall let her know how kind
she has been to me.’
THE ADVISER. Now you will keep straight, won't you? THE GIRL. It all depends on how hungry I get. From a play quoted from hearsay.
still hungrier for other things: mental food, chances of talk,
ease with kindly people. It is a great puzzle to me why
some of us go so hungry all through life; and others get
every chance of food, both physical and mental.
Idleness is as necessary to good work as is activity.
Frank Crane, The Looking Glass (1917)
source.
Like all mentally active men he was capable of a great
deal of loafing and dreaming.Unknown.
To think means to stop speaking and acting.
I think a real advance will be made when we no longer
admire a person who ‘spends’ himself. There is no
beauty in being worn out. Beauty implies a reserve of
power . . . we shall learn that it is ugly to be fussy and
muddle-headed.From a letter.
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed,
and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep
pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a
different drummer. Let him step to the music which he
hears, however measured or far away. It is not important
that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak.H. D. Thoreau. Walden (1854)
It is a vital truth, that work carried beyond the boundary
of the natural strength is the work that makes its mark
in the world.Anon. W. Robertson Nicoll, The Day Book of Claudius Clear (1905)
The child was an artist and must have her way. There
were other people in plenty to carry on the work of the
world, to earn and enjoy its rewards, to suffer its malice
and return its wounds in kind; the small and rare fraternity
to which Deborah belonged, indifferent to gilded lures,40
should be free to go obscurely but ardently about its
business. In the long run, with the strange bedlam always
in process of sorting itself out, as the present day became
history, the poets and the prophets counted for more than
the conquerors.V. Sackville-West. All Passion Spent (1931)
‘Our aesthetic sense would not grow at all if we allowed
all our tastes and preferences to be dictated to us by art
critics or other experts.’ —Said to me by an expert.
His attainments may be small, but his thoughts are great.
I have lost my work. It is three weeks since I knew, but
I did not dare to own to my book that the daily fear has
become a certain fact. Am I now sorry I did not live
the life of a miser on one pound a week—many would
call that affluence—and save, first ten, and then forty,
shillings a week? I had no dependents. I might have
been able to do it. But my rises in salary were so uncertain.
I do not think I should have ever made enough for safety
even had I managed to live in dirt and cold all these years.
Whenever I contemplated it I pushed the idea aside as
impossible.And what now? I don't know. I can only say—weakly
—that I asked very little of life, and that the little has come
in such tiny drops. What did I want? I wanted inde-
pendence, and was prepared to work myself to the last
ounce to get it. And independence was to mean a flat,
with its own front door, some books, and security when old.Perhaps, had I demanded more, I should have got the
41
minimum. But I don't know how to demand in a world
not made for the ‘likes of me.’ Rudyard Kipling says that
the fear of poverty is the worst fear of all. Samuel Butler
says the same. I agree. And being a woman I know more
about it than they ever could.Nevertheless, this acknowledgment from two master
minds consoles me, for my fears have helped me as much as
they have hindered. I found I must be myself if I meant
to control those fears, independent of every one. I found,
if I went to others, either they did not understand, which
frightened me badly; or else they resented being reminded;
or, if understood, I found myself depending too much on
the understanding.And so I was flung back on myself.
I can hear the happily married woman, who has exchanged
a careful father for an affectionate husband, say: ‘Impossible
to live your own life on so little money and no love.’ And
the well-educated man would jeer at my ill-stocked mind
and echo ‘Impossible.’They are wrong.
Because of my fear I was forced to work for food and
shelter. I depended on myself.Because of my fear I have been forced back on to myself
for mental sustenance. I had to be independent of others'
affection or approval. I can remember when I cried for
the shelter of a home, for relatives who would, even if
failing to understand, give me loyalty. There were times
when my mind was so ill equipped that I was hysterical
with fear.I still wonder why I did not have more tools with which
to attack life. Yet I see that my fears carved the way for
me. I have lived my own life, thought my own thoughts,
not those of others, fought my own fears, unhelped except
or those few books I could get.Hence I claim that my life has been worth living.
42 And the future? I dare not think of that to-night.
I will try to sleep. There has been a lovely sunset.
‘We most do own what we own not, But which is free to all. The sunset light upon the sea, A passing strain of melody, Are ours beyond recall.’ Appears in The Mottoes and Commentaries of Friedrich Froebel's Mother Play (1895)
One would need to be a God to know which were failures
and which were successes in this life.From a sermon.
The true waste of life is the power we have not used and
the love we have not given.Mary Boyd. Letters credited in Acknowledgments
To have known the best, and to have known it for the
best, is success in life.C. Mackail. Attributed to John W. Mackay
To have an easy life, to get what you want at once and
to learn nothing; no, I won't be jealous of that. But if I
might have a little more beauty in mine; I do not think
that was asking too much. Cheap lodgings, hard work,
thin-natured, or mentally starved, people: I suppose it was
all I deserved. And a psychologist once told me that we
gravitate to what we want. Perhaps I was fitted for
nothing else. A friend once told me I was getting dull
because I was so often with dull people. Did I have other
chances? Perhaps I did—dreadful thought—and never
knew they were offered to me as a means of escape. To
myself, though, just for once I will say that, when the
chance seemed to be coming there was always someone
crying for help, and I turned back. Very conceited and
egoistic of me to write this. A psychologist would say it
was my excuse for failing. I must leave it on paper, not
in my book. I must destroy it to-morrow.—(Written
one night about two a.m.)
Sing, O barren, Thou that didst not bear; Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, Thou that didst not travail with child!
For more are the children of the desolate than the children
of the married wife, saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of
thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine
habitations; spare not: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen
thy stakes. For thou shalt spread abroad on the right hand
and on the left; and thy seed shall possess the nations, and
make the desolate cities to be inhabited.
Fear not, for thou shall not be ashamed, Neither be thou confounded, for thou shalt not be put
to shame:For thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, And the reproach of thy widowhood shalt thou remember
no more.44 For thy Maker is thine husband; The Lord of Hosts is his name: And the Holy One of Israel is thy redeemer; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
For the Lord hath called thee as a wife forsaken and
grieved in spirit, even a wife of youth, when she is cast off,
saith thy God.
For a small moment have I forsaken thee; But with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment: But with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee:
saith the Lord, thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of
Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah
should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I
would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.
For the mountains shall depart, And the hills be removed; But my kindness shall not depart from thee, Neither shall my covenant of peace be removed:
saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.Isaiah.
IN the ideal world I suppose it will not matter if one has
belongings—relatives or friends—or not. I wonder.
It is an alarming thought that, without some sort of
background, one can be whisked off into the jaws of official-
dom and be lost; unless one has a strong mind. And who
has that when ill and alone? And again, one's work may
not fit one for solving personal problems in the sane manner.
I might—but would I? How do I know what mad thing
I should do if ill and weak and penniless? These questions
have come because of Rachel's difficulties.
Rachel is a nursery nurse, and if you are a real nurse for
little children you have to have some of their characteristics,
otherwise you would not be able to live, play, sleep, eat,
dress with, and for, children every day with perhaps an
hour or two off one day in seven, and then perhaps with few
or no friends to go to for refreshment. This sounds an
alarming description, but it comes near the truth.
Anyway it is what Rachel did for seven years. She was
in charge of two children, both from a month old, and she
was devoted to them. Neither child was perfect at birth;
one suffered with bad eyes, and the other with rickets, and
yet she seemed to have been able to get them to be, at six
and seven respectively, bonny and happy children. And
this without any help from the parents, who were busy
making money, and did not care at all for their daughters
until they woke to find how jolly a possession these children
could be, and how fond these children were of a nurse who
was their all in all.
The result was Rachel crying in the office, out of work,
and two children probably crying at home without her.
She had been given a month's wages instead of notice, and
had been told to slip out while her children were asleep.
Miss de Burgh was away. I thought Rachel was weeping
about work. I assured her she could get work easily with
such a reference—for no parent could say much was wrong
if she had been kept for seven years—and wanted her to
fill in the registry forms. But she wept instead, and I finally
got from her that it was the horror of knowing that her babies
would wake in the night and think she had deserted them.
And again I felt the sick hopelessness that comes when
one feels, almost as if it were tangible and could be touched,
the ruthlessness of the world, and the helplessness of the
'baby' especially. I was to know more before I had
finished with Rachel.
She was in such need of rest that I persuaded her to
go to her sister in the country. It was not the best of
homes for her, Rachel had evidently grown away from
her sister, her only relative. I gathered that she had
learnt better and more delicate ways of living, and that
it was not the nicest house in which Rachel could get
back some sense of proportion. She could not be of any
real importance there. It was a busy house, and there
were growing girls, Rachel's nieces, who looked upon
Rachel as a frump. The sister did not really care, but
thought she gave a good deal if she gave free board and
lodging. I found this out afterwards, not at the time.
Of course, Rachel, with more time on her hands than
she had had for years, developed nervous headaches, and
finally the local doctor got her to attend a hospital for
nervous disorders. I found that a neurologist named
Spencer was head of the department to which Rachel
went three times a week, and he seems to have thought
that Rachel would be a good subject for analysis. The
almoner was capable; she ferreted out all about Rachel,
and took an enormous amount of trouble. I don't re-
member how I came into the story, probably Rachel
spoke of me as her only friend.
Anyway Rachel used to come to me at the office, and I
took her out for meals when I could. I was puzzled to find
that her nervousness seemed a good deal worse each time.
Like all childish people she was very shrewd, and I wished
sometimes that the almoner and doctors—especially the
one who was trying to analyse her—could have heard her
remarks about the visits. ‘He asks me rude questions,’ she
told me. ‘What do you do then?’ asked I. ‘I just look
blank as I did with the children when they were trying to
be rude,’ she told me. ‘They can't go on then.’ I
wondered.
Rachel prattled on: ‘I tell them about you, of course,
when they ask me what friends I have. I like telling
them of you.’ Poor Rachel, and foolish myself; I was yet
to know of the senselessness of telling the official mind
anything that was personal.
The next part of the story was a 'phone message to me at
the office to say that Rachel was distinctly worse, had gone
to the hospital, and had been taken, as there were no beds
in the hospital available, to the workhouse infirmary of that
district. I had been specially informed as her friend, and
was requested not to visit her.
It was late when I got this strange message, but of course
I could not leave Rachel like that. I asked why should
such arbitrary ways have been adopted, and was assured that
every attention had been and should be given her, that she
should wear her own night clothes, and be watched carefully.
But I could not feel at ease. A workhouse was not the place
for a refined and tender-hearted woman, however friendless,
if it were possible to prevent it. An operation I could have
understood, but nervousness was not likely to be cured in
that way. I asked for the name of the specialist, was
reminded that Dr. Spencer was the head of the department,
and that he had recommended the plan. Could I see him?
Yes, and was given his address. I 'phoned and made an
appointment that evening. My feelings were mixed. It
seemed odd that so much attention should be given to
Rachel, and yet so little care of her feelings and probable
reaction to such a place. Yet surely she could not have
gone against her will? I was bewildered, cleared up my
desk and went.
It was wet, but when I got to the specialist's house every-
thing was comfortable: the man who opened the door, the
secretary, who explained that Dr. Spencer would not be
long; the warmth of the waiting-room and the opulence
of the consulting-room when at last I got into it, and the
ease with which the doctor met me. I was probably shabby
and wet, and not at all like the spruce nurses who waited
on him all day. But I made my case out as directly and
quickly as I could. What really was wrong with Rachel,
and why such drastic treatment as a workhouse ward and
no friends to visit her? He, professionally urbane, avoided
all conversational pitfalls. He took my thanks for letting
me see him after office hours as necessary but easily, he
listened without interruption, and when he spoke his words
were few. He thought it necessary for Rachel to pull
herself together, and to do this the, perhaps, slight dis-
comforts of a workhouse ward should be beneficial, and
the fact that her one friend did not come would make her able
to depend on herself. They had examined her with care,
and decided that this was the best treatment. No doubt I
would acquiesce? Here he looked at me with the air of
one who is never challenged as to the correctness of his
opinion.
I looked round the room and I felt his success; I thought
of his wife, his children, his car outside, his servants, his
altogether-comfortableness, and compared it with what I
did not know but could imagine: Rachel in a workhouse
ward on a workhouse bed, with a workhouse supper—
Rachel, who had given her very self to save one child from
blindness and the other from lameness—Rachel, whose
childishness had landed her with people to whom she was
a case—no more.
I faltered out the words: ‘But you cannot expect from
Miss —— from Rachel, the technique in living you have;
you have success'—here he bowed his acknowledgment of
my tribute—'servants, everything; I mean if you were ill it
would be made comfortable, made easy for you to be
nervous.’ The doctor looked surprised; men, such as he,
were not nervous as hysterical nursery governesses were.
I stopped.
‘You will keep away entirely as I suggest,’ he said with
authority. I said ‘Yes,’ and got up. He had the technical
knowledge, surely he must care or he would not have given
me this time, or given Rachel any thought? I stopped on
the doorstep. ‘But if I don't go she will think she is
forsaken, she cannot be left alone entirely, that surely is
not right?’ He waved me on, I was taking up his time,
dinner was ready, dinner, lots of it, with proper equip--
ment, dinner with friends, with his well-cared-for children
waited on, perhaps, by a Rachel in the background. He
could not wait for me. I must do as I was told. I was
nobody. ‘I will see to everything,’ he assured me. I still
stayed; the matter was urgent. Rachel was alone,
frightened, depending on me. ‘But you promise?’ I
urged. ‘You won't let her think I have deserted her?
I am the only friend she has.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered.
‘Believe me I am aware of what I do, it is just these cases
where the friends must be separated, where the friends
do the harm. I have the case in hand.’ And in another
moment I was outside. It was over. I had said I would
leave Rachel in his hands. Surely it must be right. He
could not go to his dinner with any harm in his heart
towards a helpless nurse whose abilities just lay in loving
service, nothing else. I remember that night so well, I
went home to bread and cheese—Mrs. Gibson was cross—
and sweets and coffee and a smoke, and tried to put Rachel
out of my mind.
It was not easy. Twice I had a rambling ill-written letter
addressed from the institution asking me to come, and each
time I wrote promising I would be at the door when she
came out. I felt as if writing to someone in prison, but
my promise was given, and surely I had made it clear that
Dr. Spencer was responsible for so grave a mental operation.
Every one has to let the specialist do his—I was almost
writing ‘worst’—best, unhampered by the ignorant friend
or silly relative. It must be right. I would be sensible.
But I could not be. I could not think in terms of medi-
cine, but in the ordinary terms of humanity. Rachel, who
had not a relative in the world to care for her, was alone, and
alone in a workhouse. I could not leave her. I could,
anyway, take a gift to the place and ask in person how she
was. So, after nearly a fortnight's worry, I bought sweets
and biscuits and a silly novel, and went off to find the place
one Sunday afternoon. I made myself think I was still
acting according to my promise by not seeing her, but
Rachel had spent Christmas in the place, surely it was not
much to allow myself to send her something. I arrived to
find the usual crowd of visitors swarming round an unper-
turbed young porter, who sorted each visitor out with ease,
never for a moment allowing any one of them to take up
too much of his time. I watched as each went in, and saw
that every one carried something, and that none looked able
to buy easily. It was a depressing sight. When the crowd
had gone I went up to ask if my parcel might be taken to
Miss Rachel Howard, and if he would please tell me how
she was. A blank stare met my question. I put it again.
‘Rachel ' Oward? She isn't 'ere.’
‘But she must be, the hospital 'phoned to say she had been
brought here before Christmas, nearly a fortnight ago.’ I was
frightened, but had enough sense not to show anything.
‘Who are you?’ was the next question. ‘Myself’ was
what I wanted to say, but more sense than usual was given
to me that day. I suddenly saw that my official position
would be all that counted.
‘I am an assistant at Miss de Burgh's Registry Office,
and I have had instructions to call about Miss Howard.’
‘Wait a minute. I will look up the case.’
Diving back into his small office he looked up the
‘case’—what a word!—and emerged triumphantly. ‘She
isn't here, she was took off to the workhouse more'n a
week ago. She wasn't ill, not real ill, you understand.
We couldn't keep 'er. She had no friends, so she was took
there. Some trouble, too, I can tell you.’
‘Workhouse?’ I echoed. ‘This is the workhouse.’
‘No, this is the infirmary, the workhouse is—’ and
here he gave me details of the other place half a mile away.
‘Have you any letters for her?’ I asked.
Again he dived back into his office, and said after reference
to his note book: ‘Yes, all sent on to her and this one got
down to me last night, it will be sent all right but I guess
she isn't now able to read them.’ And he showed me one
in my handwriting.
‘Why cannot she read them?’ I asked still dazed by my
knowledge.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, she carried on so about
being took to the House. They always end mental if they
haven't any friends, at least most do, and I 'spects they put
'er into the observation ward, first thing.’
‘Can I go there now?’ I asked.
He looked at the clock behind him in the office. ‘Well,
you must look slippy, but I guess they will let you in if you
comes from an office.’
I turned away.
The streets looked cold and depressing, the people in
them all would appear to be out because they must on some
errand, not for enjoyment. It was cold and getting dark.
But it occurred to me that even the streets would be better
for Rachel than enforced detention in a workhouse obser-
vation ward. I do not remember how I got over that
half-mile. It seemed hours since I left the infirmary, and
found myself again facing officialdom outside the gates of
the workhouse. This time it was an old man who seemed
ready to take pains for me. I was passed from place to
place, in a huge building that seemed all passages and little
offices. I saw no inmates, but only nurses in uniform, and
three porters. Finally, I was shot into a bigger room with
about ten beds not all filled; some of the patients were
sitting in hard chairs by them. I could not see Rachel,
but a nurse sitting at a table in the middle saw my hesitation
and came up to me. Fortunately I could face her and not
let my eyes wander, but no woman in that room was normal,
and all were penniless and alone. I will not describe even
what I did see there while I spoke to the nurse. I know
that were I to spend one night there alone in the grip of an
institution I should never be quite normal again.
The nurse told me Rachel Howard was not there; she
had been for observation, but they had decided that she
was only a pauper case, not ill, and had been sent down to
the feeble-minded division. She called to one of the
patients. ‘Here you, you know the way to Ward H, take
this—’ here she looked at me to decide what designation
would suit me, and decided that ‘lady’ was not correct—
‘this la—wo—visitor down and ask the nurse if she may
see Howard.’
And after waiting ten minutes in one corridor, and again
five minutes in a short passage through which I could see
an enormous room with pillars in the middle and beds
arranged round the pillars, I was at last introduced—I use
the word purposely—to Rachel. Rachel in a stiff cotton
frock, reaching to her feet, and a useless apron and cap.
Totteringly and half supported by a grim-faced nurse she
led me to her bed near the open door. She sank down on
the locker, and I bent over her.
‘It's I, Rachel. Don't you know me?’
The nurse left. No one seemed to be looking. I kissed
her. And she woke,
‘Where am I?’
‘Don't you know?’ I asked. ‘You wrote to me. Didn't
you get my letters?’ She pulled one from her pocket.
‘It's all they will let me keep,’ she said. ‘They have taken
my bag with my money from me.’
‘I can get it back,’ said I, stoutly. ‘But where did you
think you were? You addressed your letters from the
infirmary.’
‘I don't know. They said I was not ill and must go away
in a van. I said I wanted my clothes and would come to
you. But they said I could not dress, but must come out
from bed in a stretcher, and I kicked, yes, I did, I kicked
and fought and I cried. Then they carried me down some
stairs, and I held my bag, and then there was a van and I
cried and said I did not want to go to prison, but they put
me in. The nurses left me, and they were men then, and I
was not strong enough to fight them. And I came away.
Is this prison? They took my bag. I held it as long as I
could. I had a bath, and someone watched me, and said if
I cried any more I should go to prison or to a mad-house.
And they were mad, the other people, and a doctor came and
talked, and said I was not mad, and could come down to
this room, but they are all the same. You cannot leave
here, and I was afraid I should forget your address. My
head hurt me so, and I asked a man who brought the letters
if he would post my letters to you, and he did. I had no
stamps. That was kind of him, wasn't it? But I cried
and cried, and I cannot have my own clothes, and these
hurt my skin.’
Later, that day, and on other days, I stole time from
the office to have interviews. Interviews that led nowhere.
I dared not go back to Dr. Spencer. He appeared to have
no power in the workhouse, and my white-hot indignation
prevented me from approaching him in a suitable spirit.
But I saw nurses; nurses who seemed to have no influence
at all, and yet had the happiness of all the inmates of that
place in their hands. I saw a doctor who flourished a not
too clean and very large handkerchief in my face, and talked
mostly of the difficulty his wife had in getting servants,
and who dismissed ‘Howard's case’ as ‘if not mental now,
would be, sooner or later.’ I tried a guarded letter to
Rachel's sister, and found I could draw no help from her.
Finally I heard of a barrister who took charge of penniless
cases. Again my lunch hours were used, and at last I got
into his office. It is not easy to describe the difference I
felt when in that barrister's office from the other places I
had been in while fighting for Rachel's reason. He was
very quiet, slow in movement and speech. He did not hurry
me. I was breathless and dull and slow. I got out the
facts. His questions were few. I do not remember them.
But to my last waking thought I shall remember the relief
I felt at being with someone with power and who was using
that power to help, not to show his authority; someone who
seemed to have imagination and to know what I was feeling;
who even knew, coward that I am, that I dreaded each visit
to the workhouse. I remember the last thing he said.
‘You fear to go there. You need not. You will only have
to go once more. Do you wonder why they wish to keep
patients there against their will? Have you not found
that it is soothing to your self-respect to show statistics that
you are doing more than you did last year? That is all
there is. The doctor does not have the extra work, but he
can send up good proof why his salary should be raised,
or why he should have another typist. But in this case he
will not be able to add Miss Howard's number to his total.
You will be able to take her out the next time you go.’
‘Can it happen again to her?’ I faltered at the threshold.
‘I think you should, after she has rested, try to show her
that she must take charge of her own affairs more decidedly;
but no doubt you will see how best to help her once you
have her out. You will get her, don't trouble.’
And his words came true.
I was told to fetch Rachel one evening four days later.
I had been to the place the day after my interview with the
barrister, but did not mention anything of my efforts. I
spent the time comforting Rachel, and assuring her that
she would be able to go out soon. She trusted me as if I
were God, and I was shaking each time I left her. Fool
that I am. There is right in the world as well as wrong.
And Rachel seems happy enough now in a houseful of
children, and no one knows but myself, and puzzled Miss de
Burgh, of that dreadful month.
The workhouse authorities actually sent her in a bill of
£3 a week, during her enforced time, but Rachel showed
unusual force, and herself met the guardians, or whatever
they call themselves, and fought for the reduction of the
bill to £1 a week—and won. Later I asked her why she
had given in so easily to the hospital authorities, and she
said: ‘There was nothing else to do. I told them to ask
you, but it was late, and the van was there and all the
doors seemed shut. I thought doctors knew best, and
the almoner said she would tell you.’
I also wrote to Dr. Spencer, but got no satisfaction, as he
merely ‘resented the tone of criticism’ in my letter, and
went on to say that later he would have helped Rachel.
But no help would have been possible had Rachel become
insane.
‘If this is as it ought to be, My God, I leave it unto Thee.’
The Four Aristocracies. Thus saith the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his
wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might,
let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that
glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth
me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness,
judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these
things I delight, saith the Lord.Jeremiah.
Against Gossip. He that is hasty to trust is lightminded; and he that
sinneth shall offend against his own soul. He that maketh
merry in his heart shall be condemned: and he that hateth
talk hath the less wickedness. Never repeat what is told
thee, and thou shalt fare never the worse. Whether it be
of friend or foe, tell it not; and unless it is a sin to thee,
reveal it not: for he hath heard thee, and observed thee, and
when the time cometh he will hate thee. Hast thou heard
a word? Let it die with thee: be of good courage, it will not
burst thee. A fool will travail in pain with a word, as a
woman in labour with a child. As an arrow that sticketh
in the flesh of the thigh, so is a word in a fool's belly.
Reprove a friend: it may be he did it not, and if he did
something, that he may do it no more. Reprove thy
neighbour: it may be he said it not, and if he hath said it,
that he may not say it again. Reprove a friend, for many
times there is slander; and trust not every word. There is58
one that slippeth, and not from the heart; and who is he
that hath not sinned with his tongue? Reprove thy
neighbour before thou threaten him; and give place to the
law of the Most High.Ecclesiasticus.
The old proverb about speech being silvern and silence
golden ought not to be taken too literally. Silence has
been responsible for a multitude of misunderstandings.
It is often the coward's refuge. When there is an awkward
situation to be faced, an obligation that remains undis-
charged, even an invitation you have forgotten to answer,
do not imagine for a moment that you mend matters by
remaining mum. Silence in such circumstances is not
worth a brass farthing, while every frank word you speak
has a value beyond all computation.Anon.
In the thought of him that is at ease there is contempt for
misfortune,It is ready for them whose foot slippeth. Job.
Solon, the wise man of Athens, was asked how crime
could possibly be abolished in any state. ‘It will be
abolished,' said he, 'when those who are not wronged feel
the same indignation as those who are.’
The Two Elections.
‘Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump
to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?’—59 Most often the great serve the weak in this world, the
great, i.e. the spiritual aristocrats. The sons of the morn-
ing have, often and often, to wear the livery and do the
bidding, and endure the tyranny, of the children of darkness.But what we call higher and lower in earthly station and
advantage is an entirely false standard in the things of the
spirit. ‘I am among you,’ said Jesus, ‘as One that serveth.’
Greatness in the kingdom of God is only to be measured
by the power of revealing eternal love; it has little or nothing
to do with where a man stands but with what he is. That
is one thing; another, and even more telling consideration
is this: Let greatness of soul thank God for the high privilege
that belongs to it even when it suffers at the hands of
meanness and blindness. If you would reveal the love of
God, and glorify human life in so doing, you must suffer
soon or late. You are a vessel chosen unto honour; would
you have it otherwise? Take care to be worthy of the
charge. Grace has been withheld from those to whom you
minister in pain and weariness. God has called you to
what you are that you might manifest His love in the
service of those who seem but little worthy of it. Be
humble when you think of it; it would be far harder to be
a vessel unto dishonour, a burden upon human sympathy,
a soul to be ministered unto. And be comforted too; it
will be that the hour must come when outcast Israel, or
prodigal child, or ungrateful friend must see what is now
hidden from them and come home to the heart of the Father.And think of it, you who writhe under the heel of selfish
tyranny whatever form it take. The strong bully, the
grasping cheat, the ruthless enemy, though he be a very
Titan in his mastery of material forces and his power to
hurt, is but a poor blind child.Reserve for him your reverent God has not given him to see what you see.
compassion.
We need not inquire too narrowly why the sight has been
withheld from him with which our common Father has60
gifted you; but of one thing you may be absolutely certain,
and that is that God has given you the high prerogative of
seeing and serving; you are the real master, not this little
one who lords it over you. It is so all the way through.
God does great honour to those upon whom He lays the
cross of Christ. It is possible to decline it, but would you?
Not if you could see with the fuller vision which will come
to all of us when the day breaks and the shadows flee away.R. J. Campbell.
(From a sermon.)Sermon credited in Acknowledgments
Izz Huett would fain have spoken perversely at such a
moment, but the fascination exercised over her rougher
nature by Tess's character compelled her to grace.Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)
Any strength that does not serve weakness is itself
doomed.‘Why should Midas in his palace care for
Tom-all-alone in his cellar?' asks Dickens; and he answers:
'There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of
any pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity
or degradation about him, but shall work its retribution.’
We read the story of strength's oppression of weakness
with pity for the weak. But no cruelty of the mighty
toward the feeble ever worked agony of the feeble any more
certainly than it worked ruin for the strong. No retribu-
tion surpasses the penalties for misused strength.‘WhoAfter Louis XIV
reckless rules, right soon may hope to rue.’
comes Robespierre; after the Tsar comes Lenin; after
industrial despotism comes revolution. Nor is this inevit-
able incidence of penalty upon the strong for any wrong
they do the weak an arbitrary matter. The reason for it is
wrought deeply into the texture of human life. No harm61
can fall on any which does not in the end affect all. No
isolating walls can keep the ills of the weak from reaching
the strong. All ignorance, everywhere, all sin, super-
stition, ill will, disease, and blasting poverty, are now a
peril everywhere. No one is safe till all are safe. No
privilege is secure, till all possess it. No blessing is really
owned until it is universally shared.Unknown. Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Service (1920)
Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care
for himself, for all is but fortune.William Shakespeare. The Tempest
The Masters have said an offence against man is worse
than an offence against God.George Eliot. Daniel Deronda (1876)
There are some emotional states in which creative thought
is impossible, and the chief of these is the sense of helpless
humiliation and anger which is produced in a sensitive
nature by conscious inability to oppose or avoid the
‘insolence of office.’Unknown. Graham Wallas, The Great Society: A Psychological Analysis (1914)
O God, All-pitiful, give me quick imagination that I
err not when I speak with my brother.
If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human
life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the
squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which
lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of
us walk about well wadded with stupidity.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
He listened to those to whom God appeared not to
listen; he wanted to help those who have been put hopelessly
in the wrong.
time I have an interview with an out-of-work.
Pity is a rebel passion. Its hand is against the strong,
against the organized forces of society, against conventional
sanctions and accepted Gods. It is the Kingdom of Heaven
fighting the brute forces of the world.Gilbert Murray. Introduction to The Trojan Women by Euripides (1915)
Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never
to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which
dullness takes the lead in the world?William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair (1848)
To be clever and sensitive and to hurt the foolish and the
63
stolid—wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
Not I, by this heavenly light!From memory. Alice Meynell, The Rhythm of Life: And Other Essays (1905)
The love of liberty is the love of others: the love of power
is the love of ourselves.William Hazlitt. Political Essays (1819)
The greatest wrong to do to others is to goad them into
being less than they need to be.
A Purpose. To respond to the world of nature, seeking from it
simplicity, good sense, and fortitude. To pursue bravely
and gaily the adventure of life, cherishing whatever it holds
of beauty, wonder, and romance; and endeavouring to carry
the chivalrous spirit into daily life.Unknown. Affirmation of the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry (founded 1916)
Between the true saint and the man of the world there
must always be enmity. The man who has the world in his
heart cannot agree with the man who, however humbly,
wants to find out the will of God and do it. To succeed,
very markedly, in the world, to be hail fellow well met with
every one; to be acceptable everywhere, is almost a proof
that a person is not a true follower of Christianity. It is
not plain sailing; the cross must sometimes be heavy, and
the crown of thorns uneasy.A. C. Benson and A. F. W. Tatham. Men of Might: Studies of Great Characters (1899)
Everything one does in the course of life is written
somewhere on the body, in one's eyes or in the lines on
the face.From memory.
All men are brothers, but it is not logical to infer that
all men are the better for each other's society.Unknown. Maurice Hewlitt, Lore of Proserpine (1913)
He was always indulgent to the young, he never attacked
the unassuming, nor meant to terrify the diffident.Fanny Burney on Johnson.
Of all cruel ‘vices’ social ambition is the worst. The
social climber never ceases to be spiritually or intellectually
dishonest.
Being a snob is worse than being a murderer; you can be
cured of being a murderer, but there seems to be no cure
for snobbery.Marjorie Brown. Letter credited in Acknowledgments
I remember the man but of set purpose forget his name.
Herodotus
(when speaking of a shameful act).
Without a regard for things divine, you will fail in
your behaviour towards men.Marcus Aurelius. Meditations
A marred personality will for ever show its scars.
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult
to each other?George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
The more intellectual people are, the more originality
they see in others. To commonplace people all men are
much alike.Blaise Pascal. Pensées (1670)
Every student of human nature must admit that there are
times to demand much, and times to demand little, from
those with whom we are in close intercourse.Anon.
A man shall be known by his look, and one that hath
understanding shall be known by his face, when thou meetest
him; a man's attire, and grinning laughter, and gait, show
what he is.Ecclesiasticus.
There are three sorts of hostesses:
I think my technique as a mother would have been better
than my technique as a daughter, and I am sure I could be
a better hostess than I can ever hope to be a guest.
It is a question whether it is better to be normal and
imperceptive and conventional, or to be abnormal and
intuitive and passionate.Anon.
I must not be settled about anyone. I must be prepared
for them to alter, to be better than they were. If I make
up my mind about someone, I cannot judge and certainly
I cannot help.
He had that lack of tact that made him, when you had
given him a shilling's worth of conversation and confidence,
suppose that you had given half a crown's worth, and that
you would shortly give him five shillings' worth.
I doubt if the harm done by the worship of good form is
generally realized. It is incompatible with tolerance, and
those who are incapable of acquiring it, owing to some
marked originality of intellect or temperament, are made
to suffer very greatly indeed. . . . As a means of keeping
inferiors in their place it is unsurpassed. It produces
inflexibility of temper, and is therefore a means of utilizing
the powerful weapon of taboo in order to crystallize thestatus quo. W. B. Curry. The School and a Changing Civilization (1934)
the worshipper of ‘good form’ is being rude to me, and to
get away in time. It is so hard to believe that someone
means to hurt you until it is over, and then I am thinking
of the right retort on the staircase.
Every human being born into the world has a right to be
treated as a special creation all by himself. Society can
only be said to be truly civilized in proportion as it acts
on this fact.G. S. Lee. The Lost Art of Reading (1902)
If we are to avoid jostling others, it is also necessary that
our aims shall not be too far in advance of those of ordinary
people, for at all times and in all lands it has been the
tendency of the crowd to crucify persons whose love for
their fellows has been on too lofty a plane.Anon. Charles Baudoin, The Power Within Us (1923)
The Virtues were all asked one day to dine in heaven.
Towards the end of the meal the Archangel saw two of
the guests sitting next each other, but not speaking.
‘Is there anything wrong between you?’ he asked. They
made him understand that they had not been introduced,
and did not even know each other's name. ‘I must
apologize,’ said the Archangel. ‘I made sure you had
met before. Let me make you known to each now:
Benevolence and Gratitude.’From memory.
The Woman of the World. A true child of the world is never at a loss for a reply or
at the end of his resources. Life is to him an art, he can
‘take hold,’ he is word perfect. Knowledge of the world
does not make him selfish, it only enables him to be selfish
to some purpose. All men like and admire this knowledge,
this power to adjust oneself . . . yet the most delightful
people are not the most adjustable. . . . Simplicity often
makes people maladroit, yet simple people are often the
saviours of the world, partly because they believe in it, not
having been born to know it. . . . Can we be as wise as
serpents and as harmless as doves? Expediency steps in and
says ‘no.’ The man, knowing the world, knows expediency,
the simple one does not. . . . A woman who knows the
world is never bitter. To know it is to like the world, a
little to look down on it, and occasionally to want to
torment it. She goes armed, and has seldom that hesitation
about inflicting pain that the ‘stranger to the world’ has.
She has a sense of superiority, and is apt to make it felt.
She will impress it with a light caress or a slight wound as
occasion may require. Much is forgiven her, for she bores
no one. She has adaptability, power of observation with
absence of illusions and social presence of mind. The69
worst of knowledge of the world is that it is so completely
satisfying, and those with it are not those who bring about
improvements in the world. They are never ‘strangers’
and ‘sojourners’; they cannot know that ‘things which are
not’ may ‘bring to naught things which are.’ It is, how-
ever, well that so many in this transitory life can make
themselves at home.Unknown. Humble Worldlings, The Spectator (15 April 1916)
Years of homelessness have made me unfit for ordinary
life in a home. The only time I feel the need of a husband
is when I am a guest. Two together are better than one
in a strange house.
There are people who cannot speak because they have
nothing to say, and there are others who cannot speak
because they have too much; and often one sees people being
credited with a reserve which is really no reserve at all, but
a lack of feeling; while others are called shallow because
their feelings are greater than their power of concealment.
We go round with a rag and tin of oil when dealing with
machinery, and we call in trained mechanics to mend it.
How much qualified skill is asked when dealing with that
highly organized delicate mechanism, the human being?
The way in which the desire for power expresses itself
in a man or woman is the supreme test of character.
Your acts show what you want to be, and the way you act
shows what you are.
Nothing throws unkind people so much off their balance as
the impression that you are completely independent of them.
To judge wisely I suppose we must know how things
appear to the unwise.George Eliot. Daniel Deronda (1876)
Many people act in daily life a character not their own,
and the working of their mind is hopelessly vitiated by the
constant effort.Ernest Dimnet. The Art of Thinking (1928)
To do good to the vulgar is to throw water into the sea.
Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote
Gratitude is the memory of the heart. It is a virtue
possessed only by the great mind educated to understand.
To be grateful for benefits received is natural for persons
well born.Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote
A Scrap of Conversation. A. I do envy the power of saying the right thing to
everybody!B. Don't—it's the greatest snare.
A. It prevents many difficulties and embarrassments.
B. Very desirable things.
A. Yes, for those who like to laugh, but not for those
who are laughed at.B. More so; the worst of all misfortunes is to wriggle
too smoothly through life.Eve and Another.
Her only social fault was that she was sometimes a little
fretful; this was the way in which her bruised individuality
asserted itself.Edmund Gosse. Father and Son (1907)
Do not be all sugar, or the world will suck you down.
Persian Proverb. John Ploughman's Talk , C. H. Spurgeon
A spinster is only wanted socially if she can play bridge
or teach children.J. D. Buglass. Conversation credited in Acknowledgments
I had an interesting argument with a woman of the world
last night. From her view I deserve my lack of success;
I deserved that sort of home; I will not learn the rules of
the world as it is and therefore cannot expect better
treatment. Curious!
is cured that way.
When one has no weapons one naturally scratches.
Hence, I will take, without complaint, rudeness from all
my out-of-works.
Judge no one: even the ‘dog in the manger’ may have
been a nervous animal in urgent need of quiet and rest.From memory. James Branch Cabell, The Eagle's Shadow (1904)
He knows nothing who does not mix with the crowd.
Overheard.
Crowds. This passion for crowds is nowhere feasted so full as in
London. The man must have a rare recipe for melancholy
who can be dull in Fleet Street. I am naturally inclined
to hypochondria, but in London it vanishes, like all other
ills. Often when I have felt a weariness or distaste at
home, have I rushed out into her crowded Strand and fed my
humour till tears have wetted my cheek for inutterable
sympathies with the multitudinous moving picture, which
she never fails to present at all hours, like the scenes of a
shifting pantomime.Charles Lamb. The Londoner (1802)
Living and suffering alone makes one very inadequate
when called upon to live the surface social life of a carefree73
person. The difference may be likened to a swim in the
sea compared with a swim in a river. Daily anxieties about
money, or constant physical pain or mental suffering unfits
one for easy light intercourse. I admire those who move
in society easily and appear carefree, but I fancy few lonely
people can do it for any length of time without great fatigue.E. G. Lance. Conversation credited in Acknowledgments
The root idea of aristocracy is that it creates responsi-
bilities. The modern idea is that it divests men of them.Anon.
A gentleman is one who does not take out more than he
puts into life.
She had the essential attributes of a lady—high veracity,
delicate honour in her dealings, deference to others, and
refined personal habits.George Eliot. Silas Marner (1861)
A gentleman is one who is never rude
un intentionally.Overheard.
He was a gentleman, and a gentleman is a man who obeys
strange statutes, not to be found in any moral textbook,
and practises strange virtues, nameless from the beginning
of the world.G. K. Chesterton. Charles II, Varied Types (1903)
It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly
becoming good-looking, comfortably circumstanced, and
for the first time in her life commanding ready money, she
would go and make a fool of herself by dress. But no.
The reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth
did was nowhere more conspicuous than in this question of
clothes. To keep in the rear of opportunity in matters of
indulgence is as valuable a habit as to keep abreast of
opportunity in matters of enterprise. This unsophisticated
girl did it by an innate perceptiveness that was almost
genius. Thus she refrained from bursting out like a water-
flower that spring, and clothing herself in puffings and
knick-knacks, as most of the Casterbridge girls would have
done in her circumstances. Her triumph was tempered
by circumspection; she had still that fieldmouse fear of the
coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common
among the thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty
and oppression.Thomas Hardy. The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
I am sure that nothing has such a decisive influence
upon a man's course as his personal appearance, and not so
much his appearance as his belief in its attractiveness or
unattractiveness.Leo Tolstoy. Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1886)
Let thy mind's sweetness have his operation Upon thy body, clothes, and habitation. George Herbert. The Church Porch (1633)
It is a great pity that women always wear hats, so that
no one can tell whether they are telling the truth or not.Ernest Wild.
Like all people who are entirely real he had an acute
sense of what was out of keeping with him.M. J. H. Skrine. Shepherd Easton's Daughter (1926)
Anthropological knowledge has shown that clothes are
not worn primarily for protection, or for comfort, but for
bracing, stimulation, and a heightened sense of physical
awareness.Gerald Heard. These Hurrying Years; an Historical Outline, 1900-1933 (1934)
In one's contact with the human beings that surround
one it is barbarous to reveal every secret emotion that they
excite—it will only be after long spiritual training that we
acquire the art of feeling towards them as we wish to feel;
but our culture is gravely at fault if we cannot habitually
reassure them. We know well enough how wounding to
our own pride certain brusque rebuffs and certain insensitive
blunderings are; and it reveals us as lacking in the very
rudiments of culture if we cannot at least speak and act
with courtesy and consideration.Such invariable and unwearied courtesy is in an especial
sense due from us to all servants, and to all queer, retiring,
nervous, and unsuccessful people. No one can be regarded
as cultured who does not treat every human being without
a single exception, as of deep and startling interest. To be
treated with courtesy of this habitual sort is the unques-
tioned right of every person belonging to the race ofHomo for everyone of us is a world by himself, mysterious,
sapiens;
and unique.John Cowper Powys. The Meaning of Culture (1930)
Consideration for High and Low. My son, deprive not the poor of his living, and make not
the needy eyes to wait long. Make not a hungry soul
sorrowful; neither provoke a man in his distress. To a
heart that is provoked add not more trouble; and defer
not to give to him that is in need. Reject not a suppliant
in his affliction; and turn not away thy face from a poor
man. Turn not away thine eye from one that asketh of
thee, and give none occasion to a man to curse thee; for if
he curse thee, in the bitterness of his soul, he that made
him will hear his supplication. Get thyself the love of the
congregation, and to a great man bow thy head. Incline
thine ear to a poor man, and answer him with peaceable
words in meekness. Deliver him that is wronged from the
hand of him that wrongeth him; and be not fainthearted
in giving judgment. Be as a father unto the fatherless,
and instead of a husband unto their mother: so shalt thou
be as a son of the Most High, and he shall love thee more
than thy mother doth.Ecclesiasticus.
[
stenographer.
[
the corner.
[
[
wound up.
The beggarly question of parentage — what is it
after all? What does it matter when you come to think of
it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little
ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of
the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive
regard of parents for their own children, and dislike of
other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-
own-soulism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness
at bottom.Thomas Hardy. Jude the Obscure (1895)
Like all who have been previsioned by suffering, she
could, in the words of M. Sully-Prudhomme, hear a penal
sentence in the fiat, ‘You shall be born,’ particularly if
addressed to potential issue of hers.Thomas Hardy. Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
All these young souls were passengers in the Durbeyfield
ship—entirely dependent on the judgment of the two
Durbeyfield adults for their pleasures, their necessities,
their health, even their existence. If the heads of the
Durbeyfield household chose to sail into difficulty, disaster,
starvation, disease, degradation, death, thither were these
half-dozen little captives under hatches compelled to sail
with them—six helpless creatures, who had never been
asked if they wished for life on any terms, much less if
they wished for it on such hard conditions as were involved
in being of the shiftless house of Durbeyfield. Some people84
would like to know whence the poet, whose philosophy
is in these days deemed as profound and trustworthy as his
song is breezy and pure, gets his authority for speaking of
‘Nature's holy plan.’Thomas Hardy. Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
They forgot the rapidity with which development follows
misfortune. . . . There are orphanages for children who
have lost their parents. Oh! why, why, why, are there no
harbours of refuge for grown men who have not yet lost
them? He thought of the bliss of Melchisedek who had
been born an orphan, without father, without mother, and
without descent. . . . He reflected that as he had run his
chance with them for parents, so they must run theirs with
him for a son.Samuel Butler. The Way of All Flesh (1903)
The absence of a genial mental atmosphere is not com-
monly recognized by children who have never known it.
Young people have a marvellous faculty of either dying or
adapting themselves to circumstances. Even if they are
unhappy—very unhappy—it is astonishing how easily they
can be prevented from finding it out, or at any rate from
attributing it to any other cause than their own sinfulness.
. . . The adult carries so many more guns than the child,
the child cannot fight. . . . The adult can keep the dice
and throw both for himself and the child. . . . True, the
child will find out some day, but not until too late to be of
much service to him, or inconvenience to the adult. . . .
Youth is like spring, an overpraised season. . . . Autumn
is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more
than gain in fruits.Samuel Butler. The Way of All Flesh (1903)
Family discord is frequently the indirect expression of a
desire for a perfect understanding.A. White.
The sense of home-corning—that strange passion for a
particular set of inanimate things; or at the most for an
association of ideas—has no parallel in human emotions.Anon. Robert Hugh Benson, By What Authority? (1904)
A critical self-righteous home will send out one son with
the placid (and enraging) attitude, that everything is all
right, and that people's misfortunes are their own fault;
another with a passionate sympathy for lost dogs. One
has absorbed home views, the other has cast them away in
wrath. That is all. One son of a poor, struggling home is
simple in tastes and always ready to lend a hand because he
did so at home and enjoyed it; whilst his brother, resentful
from the first of poverty, sets inordinate value on riches,
and, should he acquire them, exacts the most out of his
subordinates. The marvel in life is that each individual
responds in his own way to his surroundings, but to judge
fairly, it is well to know just what the battle has been.
Has it been a grey battle, in fog and rain, or has it been
sunshine all the way?Gertrude M. N. Ramsay. The Road Home: a Journey of Exploration (1930)
The one, and only, indication God has given us of those
He would desire us to know, is the family to which He
sends us. No parent chooses his, or her, child; no child
chooses his, or her, parents. And the influence of our
relatives on us is so incalculable when we are young, and
so hard to throw off when we are old.
Loyalty to one's family seems impossible to acquire after
youth. Justice in the nursery is the only solution if the
parents want their children to stand by each other later
in life. Why does the successful brother want to forget
the older, plainer, rather helpless spinster sister? Because
he was brought up to consider himself of more consequence
than any sister. Why does the happily married sister laugh
at the younger, self-distrustful brother who has always
found life just a shade too difficult for him? Because he
reminds her of a step-uncle whom she saw despised by
her father.
But the parents never seem able to be just once the family
has passed the ideal state of one-daughter-one-son. After
that, or failing to get those ingredients, there would always
seem to be something in bad taste or lacking in the family
pudding. I never yet met the mother who had not a
favourite daughter if she had more than one, and very few
of the mothers I meet in the office pass the test of equal
fairness to both sexes. Not being a parent perhaps I ought
not to criticize, but I wonder if the parents ever have to
look back, after they are dead, to see how those children,
to whom they gave life, are progressing. It would be a
dreadful sight for some of the parents of the candidates
I interview.
Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young
to hope, to love—and to put its trust inlovelife. Joseph Conrad. Victory (1915)
The schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust more to the school-
master armed with his primer than I do to the soldier in full
military array, for upholding and extending the liberties
of my country.
A strong character may be more powerfully affected by
the pastors and masters of early years than duller brains or
weaker wills: but a strong character can shake off this
influence later with a completeness the feebler never can.Anon.
The infinite trust of the baby, a trust that welcomes all
the world, grows by no natural process to the boy's reserve,
that terrible reserve which sometimes may admit a favoured
one, but seldom any others. Original sin? The sin is born
by the parent's fault: love, not sin, is natural, and one
may do anything with the soft wax of a young child's nature.
Later it has hardened, and mistrust has come. Neglect
has bred an independence full of peril; alone the boy has
been, and he will stand alone.Desmond Coke.
The heaviest load that youth's strange temper has to
bear is a vague sense of injustice.Desmond Coke.
Both of them were able to obey the law which says that
ties of close relationship must be honoured and sustained.Edmund Gosse. Father and Son (1928)
Every child should know it is a treasure.
Rose Graham. Letter credited in Acknowledgments
felt I was wanted.
The ties of blood cannot exist without daily and constant
affection.Guy de Maupassant. "The Will" (1883)
Perhaps the ultimate test of courage arrives only when we
find that, to be true, we shall have to go on, though all
disagree, and many despise. We can do without the
approval of stupid people, or the approval of bad people;
but to turn to one's family in vain, to have no understanding
love on which to lean—that is the hardest and most cruel
of ordeals. Only the very strong can walk that path.
I want her [his little daughter] to have some one marvellous
thing impressed on her memory—some one ineffable recol-
lection of childhood; and it is to be the darkness associated
with shining stars, and a safe feeling that her father took
her out into it. This is to last all through her life till the
great dark comes; so that when it does come it shall be
with an old familiar sense of fatherhood and starlight.William Canton. The Invisible Playmate (1911)
The unspeakable blessedness of having a
home! Much
as my imagination has dwelt upon it for thirty years, I
never knew how deep and exquisite a joy could lie in the
assurance that one is athome for ever. Again and again I
come back upon this thought; nothing but Death can take
me from my abiding place. And Death I would fain learn89
to regard as a friend, who will but intensify the peace I
now relish.George Gissing. The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903)
ungrateful wretch to complain, for I do not live with my
employers, and I am thankful for that every day. But to
know that the room in which I live was my own for ever
while on this earth! I cannot think of any greater cause
for peace than that. I think I could venture out into the
world with so much more ease. No landlady likes you for
ever. They either get familiar, or to think they could make
more money if they made a change.
In a subtle way the planning of the life and the very
house itself, seemed to have behind it an awareness of her
own especial needs; which is, one supposes, what most
people mean when they speak of ‘home.’From memory.
There is not, I believe, one single deformation or deviation
of character but has its beginning in some humiliation.André Gide on Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky (1925)
Some things are little on the outside and rough and
common, but I remember the time when the dust of the
streets was as pleasing as gold to my infant eyes.Thomas Traherne. In the Eyes of a Child
Children of the same family, the same blood, with the
same first associations and habits, have some means of90
enjoyment in their power which no subsequent connections
can supply.Jane Austen. Mansfield Park (1814)
relatives and, alas, find no point of contact.
People talk to you a great deal of your education, but
some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is
perhaps the best education.Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
Some parents are like men who invite their friends to a
feast, and yet leave their children to starve.
O Lord, bitter are the tears of a child: Sweeten them. Deep are the thoughts of a child: Quiet them. Sharp is the grief of a child: Take it from him. Soft is the heart of a child: Do not harden it. From memory. An Craoibhin, The Lost Saint inPoets and Dreamers: Studies and Translations from the Irish by Lady Gregory (1903)
Some children suspect nothing, and reach maturity
with a bandage over their eyes and reason—without sus--
pecting what the under-side of existence means—without
knowing that one must live in a state of continual warfare,
or, at best, of armed peace, with everybody, without ever
imagining that one is always sure to be tricked if one is91
simple, deceived if one is sincere, maltreated if one is kind
and good. Some go to the moment of their death in
this blindness of loyalty, honour, and probity, beings so
thoroughly upright that nothing can open their eyes.
Others, ultimately disabused, yet unable to understand,
are perpetually stumbling here and there, in wild despera-
tion; to die at last in the belief that they have been the
sport of exceptional ill-fortune, and the wretched victims
of unlucky circumstances and of peculiarly evil-hearted men.Guy de Maupassant. Forgiveness (1882)
How common it is to meet with irritable minds that
spring up in opposition to any calm statement of facts with
a sort of instinctive resentment. Such a state of mind may
often be traced to circumstances of early life that called
forth the principle of self-defence, long before reason had
developed. In short, an unhappy childhood.
I am certain of few things in this world, but I do believe,
with passionate sincerity, that what children need above all
things is love, frankly demonstrated love.Owen Rutter. One Fair Daughter (1934)
I do not think I overstate the case, but think I am correct
when I say that I can always tell from a workless or
unhappy woman if hers has been a happy childhood or not.
I am able to encourage those who have known real love,
safe care in their childhood, to trust and to try again. But
for those who have known irritable, uncertain, unloving
care as children I can only weep silently when they show
irritability, distrust, and often violent antagonism when I
try to help.
To know one person who is positively to be trusted, will
do more for a man's moral nature—yes, for his spiritual
nature—than all the sermons he has ever heard or ever
can hear.George MacDonald. Malcolm (1875)
Life in general is trustworthy, but life is to some extent
incalculable. Therefore life is an adventure. If life ceased
to be an adventure, with its necessary accompaniment of
pain, there would be no room for faith, and no use for
anything but science.It is wicked to inspire children with a distrust of life.
They must know that life is safe at bottom; but this they
cannot know, and never to their dying day will know, unless
they know, as children, a safe person as their guardian.From a lecture, quoted from memory.
Lord, give to men who are old and rougher The things that little children suffer, And keep bright and undefiled The young years of the little child. John Masefield. The Everlasting Mercy (1911)
The inner and unconscious ideals of the parents are what
teach the child; their remonstrances, their punishments,
even their bursts of emotion, are to him but thunder and
comedy; what they worship is what he desires and reflects.Henri Frédéric Amiel. Amiel's Journal (1885)
Give a child a knowledge of fear—not the ordinary fears
flesh is heir to, but the fear born out of the knowledge of
the power of evil—and for always he will have, when afraid,
to contend with seven devils worse than the new-comer.
Every fresh fear will bring back the old hideousness, no
matter how much newer and better knowledge the years
may bring.
O friends of mine, if men should mock my name, Say ‘Children loved him,’ Since by that word you will have far removed him From any bitter shame. Unknown. Ivor Gurney, Praise (1917)
What we are able to do for children is measured by the
love we bear them.
In the man whose childhood has known caresses and
kindness there is always a fibre of memory that can be
touched to gentle influences.George Eliot. "Janet's Repentance" (1858)
The most genuine women are old maids and have often
most of the motherly touch.R. L. Stevenson. Virginibis Puerisque, and Other Papers (1881)
women but, nevertheless, there is truth in it. I have had
mothering from the childless, and unselfish care from the
unmarried. I suppose, if married, one must be selfish and
think first, or perhaps all the time, of one's family. And
yet, I think, I should feel still more stricken in the presence
of an unhappy child if I had my own happy ones at home.
It was finely said of a great teacher: ‘He was tender to
dullness as to all forms of poverty.’Anon.
When children laugh they praise the Lord.
Victor Hugo. Anatole France, The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche (1909)
O'erpunished wrong grows right.
Robert Browning. Qtd. in Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher by Sir Henry Jones (1891)
The chief defects in the training of children will always
be caused by lack of imagination as much as by lack of
knowledge. Children can suffer horribly in the hands of
unimaginative adults. . . . The falsehood of the man who
believes that he is telling the truth is nearly always the
worst of falsehoods, for it is the lie in the soul, and that sort
of lie is chiefly to be feared because it is so deceptively
disguised. It lurks in the bosoms of quite respectable and
scrupulous persons. The tragedy of it is that they are so
strictly conscientious and so irredeemably criminal.Unknown.
Nobody's child is everybody's child. But in a perfect
society surely no undesired child would be born. I feel
with passion that I am responsible for these girls who come
to me and own that they have no one behind them at all. I
am a woman, and all women are responsible for all children.
Grown-ups embark on a life of deception with con-
siderable misgiving, and generally fail. But not so children.
A child can hide the most appalling secret without the least
effort, and is practically secure against detection. Parents,
finding that they see through their child in so many places
the child does not know of, seldom realize that, if there is
some point the child really gives his mind to hiding, their
chances are nil.Richard Hughes. A High Wind in Jamaica (1929)
In spring prick a tender leaf on some shrub in the garden,
and until the day it whirls away in autumn it will remain a
pricked leaf, with a little brown mark on it.From memory.
The real influence of school remains when what we have
learnt is forgotten.Anon.
The little cradle of the child is more easily darkened
than the starry heavens of the man.Anon. Qtd. in The Use of Life by John Lubbock (1896)
Hold up thy battered lamp and light the young.
Anon.
Children's Prayers. (1) Make all bad people good, and all the good people nice.
(2) CHILD. God bless Miss Boyd and Miss Norville. MOTHER. And Miss Smith? CHILD. She makes me do hard sums; but, still, God can
please Himself.(3) Bless all those I love, and bless all those whom nobody
loves.Nigel Paton: His Prayer.
All religions which do not treat men, women, and
children as under the tender care of a Being who understands
their natures, who knows all their griefs,who in allowing into consciousness—into intelligence and
them to be born
affection—took on Himself all the duties and obligations,
and more than all, of the best of earthly parents, seem to me
unworthy of the source from which they are pretended
to be derived.Oliver Wendell Holmes. Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 1 (1896)
I have been lucky lately. Geraldine has taken me to
a cinema and to a play. Both have been of enormous
interest because of the difference in the treatment of the
same problem: children.
The cinema described the barren, ugly life of several
hundreds of children of the upper classes herded in a cheap
school. The mistresses, most of them anxious to do
rightly, were completely inadequate when faced with the
misery of a child, who needed love and understanding. I
felt physically sick, but as usual, greatly relieved to see the
trouble so clearly depicted. I had the usual intense satis-
faction, at such a time, hoping perhaps ten per cent of the
audience would understand something better than before,
and do differently. I can never cry at tragedy, either in a
book or on the stage; I am so relieved. For so many will
understand, when it is explained by an artist, that is which
they cannot understand when they meet it in real life.
The other, a play, has been received much more enthu-
siastically, and considered to be a terrible picture of
adolescence. I cannot understand it at all. The so-called
suffering child is a girl in her teens, who bitterly resents her
mother marrying again. Her mother had had to work very
hard all her life, because of a bad husband, to keep the
home going for her own mother and the two children, and
an old servant. The girl in question is surrounded with
love, and even when the mother is marrying again, she has
plenty of love still to give to the two daughters. The
future step-father is gentle, and the doctor is much more
understanding than any doctor I have met in real life. Yet
we were all supposed to weep over the jealousy shown
by this girl.
I suppose there is something terrible in jealousy, but when
you are a millionaire as regards home life and love it seems odd
to be so peculiarly selfish about an adored mother's future.
It reminded me of my own bewilderment about John
Galsworthy's characters: Irene and Fleur. Both these
women had pure gold offered them. Irene scorns, and
will not try to understand, Soames, but being unmarried
perhaps I cannot judge her; as for Fleur, to have had the
devotion of Soames and the love of a man like Michael, would
seem to me, a lodger in life's household, paradise indeed.
WHEN strained beyond my power to endure sensibly the
sight of suffering I often find comfort in Thomas Hardy's
poem of the bedridden peasant calling on his unknowing
God:
The Bedridden Peasant. To an Unknowing God. Much wonder I—here long low-laid— That this dead wall should be Betwixt the Maker and the made, Between Thyself and me!
For, say one puts a child to nurse, He eyes it now and then To know if better it is, or worse, And if it mourn, and when.
But thou, Lord, giv'st us men our day In helpless bondage thus To Time and Chance, and seem'st straightway To think no more of us!
That some disaster cleft Thy scheme And tore us wide apart, So that no cry can cross, I deem; For Thou art mild of heart, 99 And wouldst not shape and shut us in Where voice can not be heard: Plainly Thou meant'st that we should win Thy succour by a word.
Might but Thy sense flash down the skies Like man's from clime to clime, Thou wouldst not let me agonize Through my remaining time;
But, seeing how much Thy creatures bear— Lame, starved, or maimed, or blind— Wouldst heal the ills with quickest care Of me and all my kind.
Then, since Thou mak'st not these things be, But these things dost not know, I'll praise Thee as were shown to me The mercies Thou wouldst show.
One unhappy ill-used child, one blind man unable to
get food, one uneducated person longing for help makes me
dizzy with the badness of a world where there is enough
if we did but co-operate.
We are accepting conditions that should be impossible
for any sane community.
The Roman Catholics tell me that there is a settling up
finally: I cannot see how that can comfort me for the lack
of payment now. The Christian Scientists tell me that
it is all cured by the power of thought: they do not seem
able to cure the obvious ills in spite of their claim. Other
creeds have their solutions; but nothing big is done. We
put small patches on everywhere, and go on hoping for
better times.
Avarice is the greatest sin just now, and I can under-
stand the temptation. There is no evil that money will
not alleviate. Those with money refuse to subscribe to
this, but I defy them to find me any form of wretchedness
that cannot be relieved by money.
So if I were a big potentate and not a mere moneyless
woman I would attack the question of money.
I would give to every person who came into this world
enough for bed, bread, and a bus ticket. They could be
idle if they wished, but no more than this bare minimum
would be given. Every opportunity to be clean would be
allowed, and no indignity attached to their condition. I
think I could be happy with no work, provided I was able
to go where I wished and learn.
Old age would be provided for by pensions—adequate
for decent living—for women at fifty-five, and for men at
sixty years of age.
Hospitals would be supported properly, but there would
be far fewer diseases, and mental weakness in my world
would be dealt with by euthanasia. If God denies the
person any power to act for himself I do not think it can
be wrong to give that helpless person back to God.
Except for creators, teachers would be regarded as the most
important people in the State. Give us the right teachers, in
the right environment, and half our present troubles would
disappear in three generations. But to belong to the most
respected profession would not mean more, but rather less,
money. No one is to be attracted by the work because of the
pay. Also if one is rich it means a very well formed soul to
be able to withstand the temptations of riches. So I would
guard my teacher from such ills. He would get less pay,
but more power, than any other profession.
Statesmen would come next in the scale of greatness,
and they also would not be paid so well as those doing
monotonous, or less interesting, work.
The other professions would come next in importance.
They provide interests and happinesses that I do not see can
be obtained from delivering milk at five-thirty in the morning,
for instance; so those thinking of the professions also would
have to choose between money or power—not both.
Then I see those engaged in trade—the bulk of the
workers, I suppose. They would get more money, very
much more than the teachers. But their profits would be
regulated. There would be no possibility of an assistant
with barely enough to eat, while the head of the firm made
thousands of pounds in profit. The more important the
commodity the less profit would be possible—if profit at
all was allowed. The luxury trades could make more if
they could, perhaps men and women would not need so
many luxuries then.
Finally, for those engaged in dull or fatiguing work I
would offer more money or fewer hours of work. Liberty
or money: they would have to decide which they would take.
And if they had leisure they would know how to use it,
because their education would have fitted them for living
a life, as well as earning a living.
Not that education would be the same for all. Each
child would receive that for which he was best fitted.
There would be the same standards of cleanliness and speech
for all, so that all could meet each other without embarrass-
ment. Only personal tastes and difference in the mind
would create barriers, the milkman could play bridge with
the chairman of the Milk Supply Company, and I could
meet one of my aristocratic employers for dinner with ease
—if they wanted me, which they would not!
I write for my own amusement. My bed-sitting room
is not too warm; I cannot afford all the gas I want when a
shilling-in-the-slot meter gives so little; my meal to-night
was only a rather tired egg and a shrunken orange—I have
heard this is the typical spinster's meal—for my landlady
is angry that I did not go out this August Bank Holiday.
But I have had a new book and been very contented thinking
of a world as I would like it.
It has been a wasted day, I suppose, waste also of paper.
Hundreds of good and wise men have tried to solve these
problems, and not succeeded.
Yet if we could send, as I have been told we did, fifty
million pounds to Ireland on sweepstakes in one year, and
spend a hundred thousand pounds on the
surely a way might be found? Surely, if we were educated
enough to want to help all the people of every class, this
money could have been deflected and used to put this crazy
world right.
We could start by using it for education.
And then:
We would establish those of kindlier build, In fair Compassions skilled, Men of deep art in life-development; Watchers and warders of thy varied lands, Men surfeited of laying heavy hands Upon the innocent, The mild, the fragile, the obscure content Among the myriads of thy family. Those, too, who love the true, the excellent, And make their daily moves a melody. (Thomas Hardy). The Dynasts (1904)
Gifts. When God perceives a man who would not care To have the gift of tongues or love or healing, A man who has no wish to do or dare, For science no regard, for art no feeling; A man whose soul knows neither heaven nor hell, Whose heart is empty both of milk and honey— When God sees this, He says to Gabriel: ‘Give the poor fellow lots and lots of money.’ V. H. Friedlaender. Credited in Acknowledgments
‘Sir,’ said Johnson, ‘all the arguments which are brought
to represent poverty as no evil, show it to be evidently a
great evil. You never find people labouring to convince
you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful
fortune.’ He knew what he was talking of, that rugged
old master of common sense. Poverty is, of course, a relative
thing; the term has reference, above all, to one's standing
as an intellectual being. If I am to believe the newspapers,
there are title-bearing men and women of England who,
had they an assured income of five and twenty shillings a
week, would have no right to call themselves poor, for their
intellectual needs are those of a stable boy or scullery
wench. Give me the same income and I can live, but I am
poor indeed.You tell me that money cannot buy the things most
precious. Your commonplace proves that you have never104
known the lack of it. When I think of all the sorrow and
barrenness that has been wrought in my life by the want of
a few more pounds a year than I was able to earn, I stand
aghast at money's significance. What kindly joys have I
lost, those simple forms of happiness to which every heart
has claim, because of poverty! Meetings with those I
loved made impossible year after year; sadness, misunder-
standing, nay cruel alienation, arising from inability to do
the things I wished, and which I might have done had a
little money helped me; endless instances of homely
pleasure and contentment curtailed or forbidden by narrow
means. I have lost friends merely though the constraints
of my position; friends I might have made have remained
strangers to me; solitude of the bitter kind, the solitude
which is enforced at times when mind or heart longs for
companionship, often cursed my life solely because I was
poor. I think it would scarce be an exaggeration to say
that there is no moral good which has not to be paid for in
coin of the realm.‘Poverty,’ said Johnson again, ‘is so great an evil and
pregnant with so much temptation, so much misery, that
I cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it.’For my own part I needed no injunction to that effort of
avoidance. Many a London garret knows how I struggled
with the unwelcome chamber-fellow. I marvel she did
not abide with me to the end; it is a sort of inconsequence
in Nature, and sometimes makes me vaguely uneasy through
nights of broken sleep.George Gissing. The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903)
There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety
about one's means of livelihood. I have nothing but
contempt for the people who despise money. They are
hypocrites and fools. Money is like a sixth sense, without105
which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
Without an adequate income half the possibilities of life
are shut off. You will hear people say that poverty is the
best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it
in their flesh.They do not know how mean it makes you. It
exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it
eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks
for but just enough to preserve one's dignity,to work to be generous, frank, and independent.
unhampered,George Gissing. W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915)
Wealth may be the accidental possession of any, but
the Vision of the Invisible is reserved for the Spiritual
Aristocracy of the world.E. Green.
The thoughts of his heart, these are the wealth of a man.
Burmese Saying.
Like all true mystics he was radiantly happy and serene;
rich in the midst of poverty.Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
(of William Blake).Mysticism in English Literature (1913)
A constant rush of thoughts is the only conceivable
prosperity that can come to us.Ralph Waldo Emerson. Inspiration (1876)
Is it not true that the less a person has inside him of
culture and imagination the more he wants outside him of
the upholstery of life?From memory. Elizabeth von Arnim, The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight (1914)
He was rich because he had a love of justice, patience, a
sense of proportion, and imagination.
It is becoming more and more evident that the test of a
man is not how much wealth he is able to acquire, but rather
how little he requires, on which to live a full life. A man's
dependence upon money and possessions is in exact pro-
portion to his poverty of mind and spirit.Overheard.
To be poor takes your pleasures out of the material plane
into the spiritual: and no one who has tasted both can doubt
which are the intenser.Anon.
. . . He had been partly convinced and had spoken
much on behalf of Truth before he was priest there; but
when the priest of that town died he got the parsonage and
choked himself with it.George Fox. A Journal of George Fox (1852)
It seemed to him that nothing but direct physical cold
and hunger, and perhaps not even those, could ever take
from existence its enduring charm.E. H. Young.
She . . . cared little enough for money, but knew its
freeing value for the spirit.E. H. Young. Miss Mole (1931)
Half the world is engaged in helping lame dogs over
stiles, only to be bitten by them, or to find, that in any
case, they are permanently lame, and can advance no
further. Do you, instead, help the finest and swiftest of
the breed to escape from the cages in which the jealous
levelling tendencies of the age confine them. Do not be
misled by the ancient, fallacious argument, that it is your
duty to do the greatest good to the greatest number. In
this world the many will always in the end follow the few.
Preserve this few, who are potentially leaders of the thought
of the world, from that hard worldly pressure, which,
though it may never drive them from their ideals, may
effectually prevent them from putting them into practice.
It is of much greater importance that one man, who is
genuinely capable of original thought, should be given his
opportunity to think in peace, than that a thousand, who
are dull, should be raised to a condition of mediocrity, in
which they wrongly imagine themselves to be his equals.
It is better for the giver, and better for the community, to
spend ten pounds wisely in encouraging a young man of
talent, than to throw a thousand into the coffers of some
great organization that busies itself with barren stricken
territory, where no flowers, except those of compassion, can
ever grow. In the realm of philanthropy you are for ever
throwing good money after bad.Gabriel Hythloday
(Advising a rich man how to spend).
No man has a right to the enjoyment of material good so
long as a single human being suffers for want of daily
bread, or a single mind remains stunted, or a single soul
degraded by the horrible struggle to live.R. J. Campbell. Sermon credited in Acknowledgments
There is only one class in the community that thinks
more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.
The poor can think of nothing else. That is the misery of
being poor. . . . Man reaches his perfection, not through
what he has, not even through what he does, but entirely
through what he is.Oscar Wilde. The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches
cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul there are
infinitely precious things that may not be taken from you.
Try to shape your life that external things will not harm you.Oscar Wilde. The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
When your fortune increases, the columns of your house
appear to be crooked.Armenian Saying.
The saint, the artist, the philosopher, are all—when at
the height of their vision—on the poor man's side.John Cowper Powys. In Defence of Sensuality (1930)
‘Give us to-day the bread of to-morrow’ is an easier
prayer for me than the usual one of ‘Give us this day our
daily bread.’
It is idle to talk of finance as a sordid subject. There is
no truer index of a man's spiritual condition than a list of
the items of his yearly expenditure.T. Raymont. Credited in Acknowledgments
It is possible to be a saint with starvation at the door.
But we also say that it is impossible for one saint who
is living in comfort and security to stand by and watch
another saint slowly starve to death.K. Ashcroft. Credited in Acknowledgments
I was poor myself, and consequently wanted nothing.
Charles Dickens. Bleak House (1853)
Money losses are the hardest to bear of any by those who
are old enough to comprehend them. . . . The strongest
quail before financial ruin, and the better men they are, the
more complete, as a general rule, is their prostration.Samuel Butler. The Way of All Flesh (1903)
Socrates (when he saw great quantities of jewels, furniture,
etc., of great value carried in pomp through the city):‘How many things there are that I do not desire.’
The more a man possesses over and above what he uses
the more careworn he becomes.George Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903)
Lives based on having are less free than lives based either
on doing or on being, and in the interest of action people
subject to spiritual excitements throw away possessions as
so many clogs. Only those who have no private interests
can follow an ideal straight away. Sloth and cowardice
creep in with every dollar or guinea we have to guard.William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Time was when Mrs. Pridholme had known a very
different kind of life from the life that was lived by the
serenely safe and solid Upper Middle Class in the England
of Good Queen Victoria. And Mrs. Pridholme did not
care to be reminded of that fact. A year or two earlier
she had had a sudden and rather disconcerting reminder in
the shape of her sister Rosie, who turned up out of the blue
and had to be helped. Her visit brought back that sense of
insecurity once so familiar before Mary Pordiss, a parlour
maid, had got herself engaged to the magnificent butler,
Mr. Pridholme. Marriage had finally lifted her out of
that world, where, had she not been so fortunate, she
would have found herself, after a long life of ill-paid toil,
with all her natural instincts frustrated in the service of
quite unconsciously cruel employers, an outcast, old, ailing,
homeless, and unwanted. Perhaps if her employers had
had an access of charity she might have been possessed in
her old age of some small sum of money, and have been able
to exchange a life between attics without fireplaces, that
were freezing in winter, and unbearably hot in summer, and
dank basements into which the daylight never penetrated,
for a tiny room in some dreary little street on the Surrey
side of the river. Here she would have died as she was
born, in hopeless and miserable squalor, surrounded by
the clamour and torment of the slums, of unwanted and
starving children, of mothers and fathers who drowned their
misery in gin when they were not out of work, and of girls
who slept in rooms which housed not only their own
numerous brothers and sisters and their parents, but one
or even two other families, and who were taken to task for
their fall from virtue by ladies, rather like Miss Garside,
who came, full of a very beautiful spirit of charity and
Christian helpfulness, but singularly little imagination.No, Mrs. Pridholme was lucky, and she knew it. She
was now part and parcel of a better world which was firmly111
fixed in all its foundations. She had succeeded in plas-
tering over the hole at the bottom through which she had
entered, and she did not care to think of the possibility of
that bottom falling out. However, nothing could alter
the fact that once she had known a life which her mistress,
Mrs. Castleton, could scarcely even have imagined. It
was a life that sharpened one's perception of unpleasant
probabilities.Lance Sieveking. The Woman She Was (1934)
I have no moral right to any money I have not earned.
Living on unearned money is living on the charity of God.
Stella Benson. This is the End (1917) (approximation)
Not by accumulating riches, but by giving away that
which you haveShall you become beautiful; You must undo the wrappings, not case yourself in
fresh ones;Not by multiplying clothes shall you make your body
sound and healthy, but rather by discarding them. . . .For a soldier who is going on a campaign does not seek
what fresh furniture he can carry on his back, but rather
what he can leave behind;Knowing well that every additional thing which he cannot
freely use and handle is an impediment.Edward Carpenter. Towards Democracy (1883)
He violently repudiated the least suggestion that he was
in any way remarkable, and generally evinced that passion112
for the normal, which is often the distinguishing charac-
teristic of those born outside its frontiers. . . . Certain
facts, however, were revealed by his appearance, the most
notable being poverty and loneliness . . . and the havoc
created by these in a sensitive organism.Claude Houghton.
so lonely, so out-of-the-way to be odd. And concerning
the combination of complete loneliness and poverty, I
can understand any length to which such torn minds can
go in their pain.
The man who is broken down by poverty can neither
speak nor act; his tongue is tied, and his feet are chained.Theognis. Appears in Yoritomo-Tashi, Influence: How to Exert It (1915)
Wealth and leisure are wages paid in advance for work
to be done.From memory.
What nonsense it is to think it is easy to be clean; it is
most expensive, and often quite difficult.
The life of simplicity consists in ruthlessly throwing
away rubbish.
The best remark I heard was at the British Museum, where
theCodex Sinaiticus was on view to the public.All sorts of people came to see it: such is the value of
publicity.And all sorts of remarks were made by the queueing
crowds; but the most apposite was that which came from a
man in gaping boots: ‘A hundred thousand quid—cor!’The Daily Herald.
The friendless, like the poor, are always a little suspect,
as if honesty and delicacy were only possible to the privileged
few.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
We differ in what we think funny. At the following
story two people laughed, and I wanted to cry.
When X, a Manchester mechanic, was charged at Willes-
den to-day, with travelling on the L.M.S. railway from
Manchester, without paying his fare, he pleaded that he had
come up to try and see the cup-final. When remanded to
prison for a week, he asked the police: ‘Shall I be able to
hear the result there all right?’ I thought of all the joys
and pleasures and comforts some have, and how this man,
for want of a few shillings, was in prison, and his one
pleasure ruthlessly taken from him.
The fear of the future, of helpless old age, of ill health,
dependence on hard cruel efficiency, these are the things
that make me incapable of enjoyment.
The want of goods is easily repaired; but the poverty of
the soul is irreparable.Michel de Montaigne. Of Managing the Will (approximation)
Poverty indeed
is the strenuous life ̶ without brass bands
or uniforms or hysteric popular applause or lies or circum-
locutions; and when one sees the way in which wealth-
getting enters as an ideal into the very bone and marrow of
our generation, one wonders whether a revival of the belief
that poverty is a worthy religious vocation may not be
‘the transformation of military courage,’ and the spiritual
reform which our time stands most in need of.Among us English-speaking peoples especially do the
praises of poverty need once more to be boldly sung.
We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise
any one who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save
his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and
pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless
and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of
imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could
have meant: the liberation from material attachments, the
unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paying our
way by what we are or do, and not by what we have, the
right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly—
the more athletic trim, in short, the moral fighting shape.
When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men
were never scared in history at material ugliness and
hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be
artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without
a bank account and doomed to manual labour, it is time
for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and
irreligious a state of opinion.William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
I HAVE been cutting into sections my note books, and quite
half of the extracts would appear to come under bewilder-
ment. And then I found a curious connection between
bewilderment and vision. Being bewildered brings you to
vision. I find myself looking at the muddle, and then
feeling straight away that the solution was there also, that
the fact of the muddle meant a cure, an answer, a reason.
I cannot believe that the whole world is in one gigantic
confusion, and that luck is the only god.
There seems too much feeling, too much real emotion
shown by these writers for such waste. Real feeling is a
form of genius.
So I am thrown back to the curious combination of
calling this section ‘Vision
write down the problem, copying some great man's troubled
expression of the bewildered state of his mind, I find some-
thing whispering to me: ‘Go on, copy it; the asking will
bring the solution some time.’
Certainly if I express as clearly as I can a problem, the
answer seems nearer than if I leave a problem as of no
importance.
Directing my mind towards the solution brings a bit of
light, even if a faint one.
From my earliest years it was pain that worried me.
I felt the anxiety, the discomfort, the emotion of those
near me. And, of course, I had my own pain to diagnose.
I remember early in my schoolroom days, before I went to
a boarding school at the age of nine, a nursery governess
waking me at night to confide to me a trouble about some-
thing my father had said to her; I think it was about
inviting her brother to see her, and I remember the anxiety
I felt that she should not feel unwanted in the house, or
unable to do anything she wanted. And, again, I remember
an elderly man coming to the house, asking for my father,
and being roughly turned away by a maid because he looked
like a tramp. I remember also my bewilderment at seeing
a hospital ward, and being told that the patients were very
lucky, and that their dinners were as nice as mine; I
remember thinking that if they were too poor to buy dinners
and were also ill they should have better dinners than mine,
and that anyway no one should call them fortunate people.
I remember growing older and finding, by slow process,
that adults did not always tell the truth, were not always
kind, could make a child's life a burden to her without
any compunction, with sometimes even a certain amount
of pleasure.
It is not necessary for me to remind myself of some
horrors, but I think I had a bit more than most children,
sufficiently to think, even to this day, that childhood is
neither a dignified nor a happy state compared with the
time when one at least has the chance mentally to stand up
for oneself or, failing that, to run away. I never knew, as a
child, of any adult who was wholly to be trusted. My
brothers and sister managed better, judging by the way they
speak now of these days. But
lips have drunk deep of the waters of Hate, Suspicion, and
Despair, all the Love in the world will not wholly take
away that knowledge, though it may turn darkened eyes for
a while to the light, and teach Faith where no Faith was.‘
will think this confession morbid, exaggerated,
or resentful. But that youth made me, Eve Wilson. It
made the being with whom I have to live, so I may as well
understand in what ways she is different from others,
others, I ought to say.
I think I naturally plant fears where others would think
only in terms of a joke, or an adventure or an unusual event.
I know I am likely to think, if I hear a child crying, that
the child is in terror; and such is not
yet I find myself unable to comfort myself in that way,
adults thought the same when I cried as a child. Who can
tell unless there is love near? Who can tell? But I am
sure that I needed more demonstrative love than I had, and
I have found that spoken, safe, steady love seems to do
more for the young, the timid, the unsuccessful, than any
amount of practical advice, or even material help, at times.
Thoughts, words, and
If you think rightly and kindly the human in front of you
feels the goodness and is comforted.
I was obliged, in my reading, to look for assurance that
my pain
and after I found proof that others had felt the same pain,
then I had to look for a reason for my pain.
I do not think I have found the entire reason, or ever
shall, but I have found some vision in the matter. I think
that, though my early years weakened my health and
nerves, my experience has helped me with other frightened
people. I don't think I ever made the mistake of brushing
aside real pain. I have been able to get into touch more
quickly than some do with other troubled frightened
people. I had known so many fears myself about how I
should be received or treated that it was easy for me to
make the atmosphere easier for others. I say this only to
myself, and hope it is not conceited of me.
I am sure that to try to pretend to the sufferer that a
trouble does not exist because it has not been experienced
by oneself is one of the cruellest forms of false consolation.
I soon found that one must acknowledge the pain first and
at once. Excusing the cruel man to the sufferer is of no
use at first. The pain is there, one must attend to that
first. It is unreasonable to expect the sufferer to understand
and forgive the aggressor until his or her wounds have been
recognized and healed, so far as is possible. I remember
to this day, and cannot ever say his name without tears, a
man who stood up for me when I was being hit with scornful
words by my father: ‘Don't speak so of Eve in front of me.’
I ran from the room, and never knew how the matter was
settled. The friend did not come again, but I found it
much easier to forgive my father from that day. I was over
eighteen at the time, but it was the only occasion that I
ever remember when someone stood up for me, taking my
side as the weaker one, and alone. For we were not taught
loyalty to each other in the nursery.
I have of course made terrible and most silly mistakes at
times, crediting to others a wealth of feeling they did not
possess, pitying where it was felt to be an insult, and often
making more of incidents than was sane or just. Also, I am
terribly resentful, which is a great sin, my worst, I think.
And I hate the aggressor still. I have never got to the
heights of being more sorry for the cruel, the powerful, the
masters of their fate, than for their victims. I recognize that
they
the fate of their victims to be good to the cruel; and, to do
them justice, my forgiveness would irritate them very much.
Then what have I got for myself out of this sense of pity?
I think I have, because of my power to feel, more joys than
some would seem to have. I can touch heights that thrill
me just as much as pain can drag me down. Also, and still
more important, the fact that I felt acutely made me seek
for God. Happiness alone might never have done it. Pain
did. I could not bear pain in myself, or see it in others,
without looking for a cause, and looking for that made me
search for God. I have looked for Him in every incident,
every place, and every person. I found no answer why
there should be pain, but I found that the search was the
thing that mattered.
Also my capacity for pain made me angry at times when
nothing else would have stopped cruelty. Happy people
are so ready to say there is no evil. Why cannot we
acknowledge evil as evil? ‘She did not mean to do wrong,’
and ‘He did not know,’ make me tired. Also, ‘There is no
evil’ and ‘Everything is really all right’ make me despair
of ever turning wrongs into rights. And again how I
hate ‘Poverty is one's own fault’ and ‘We all get our deserts.’
Variations on these flat-footed optimistic platitudes are
‘There are compensations for every ill’ and ‘We can get
used to everything in time.’ Nothing is going to be done
for sufferers if we can drug ourselves with such easy lies
that can only comfort cruel men.
I was forced to be glad that I knew pain and could help
in a way that the happy never could.
I know I have often been laughed at, more often laughed
at than agreed with, but if I have helped to stop
if I have made a sufferer understand that I recognize the
pain, then I think it is worth while for me to have these
memories that ‘thick the blood’ when I am tired or
sleepless or out of sorts.
It has not been too easy a life or comfortable But I see
now that that does not matter. The pain made me look
for light, and although I have not found much, I feel I have
been helped to walk along in the dark with a fairly secure
knowledge that light is at the end of the walk. I feel as
if I were near, very near sometimes, to that light.
So I put together my bewildered and my visionary extracts
because they seem to grow together, leading me to the time
when ‘It shall be light.’
Christ the Man. Lord, I say nothing; I profess No faith in Thee, nor Christ Thy Son: Yet no one ever heard me mock A true believing one.
If knowledge is not great enough To give a man believing power, Lord, he must wait in Thy great hand, Till Revelation's hour.
Meanwhile he'll follow Christ, the Man, In that humanity He taught, Which to the poor and the oppressed Gives its best time and thought. William H. Davies.
And a highway shall be there, and a way, And it shall be called the Way of Holiness; The unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. Isaiah.
Struggle with Sin and Error. A Cry. All ye beasts of the field, Come to devour, Yea, all ye beasts in the forest.
The Prophetic Spectator. His watchmen are blind, they are
all without knowledge; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot
bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, the
dogs are greedy, they can never have enough; and these are
shepherds that cannot understand: they have all turned to
their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter.
‘Come ye, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with
strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as this day, a day
great beyond measure.’ The righteous perisheth, and no
man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away,
none considering that the righteous is taken away through
wickedness.Isaiah.
An understanding king is tranquillity to his people. . . .
There is a prize for blameless souls. . . . Alike he taketh
thought for all; but strict is the scrutiny that cometh upon
the powerful.Wisdom.
For who is sure he hath a soule, unlesse It see, and judge, and follow worthinesse, And by deedes praise it? John Donne. An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary (1611)
Whoever comes to me, from whatsoever path—I reach
him. All men are struggling in the various paths which
ultimately lead to me, the Infinite Existence, Intelligence,
Bliss, and Life Eternal.Krishna. Bhagavad Gita
Despair not! Give Me service! Seek To reach Me, worshipping with steadfast will; And if thou canst not worship steadfastly, 122 Work for Me, toil in works pleasing to me! For he that laboureth right for love of Me Shall finally attain. Krishna. Bhagavad Gita
It is He who taketh your souls at night, and knoweth what
ye have gained in the day; then He reviveth you therein
that an appointed time may be fulfilled. Then unto Him
shall ye return: then will He declare unto you what ye
have done.The Koran.
If the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken
of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is
called life, but of eternity.Plato. Phaedo
We must not follow those who advise us, being men, to
think only of human things, and, because of our mortality,
only of mortal and perishable things; but we must, as far
as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve
to live in accordance with that best in us which is divine.Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics
Honour the soul, for each man's soul changes according
to the nature of his deeds—for better, for worse.Plato.
As on a voyage, when your ship has moored off shore, if
you go on land to get fresh water, you may pick up as an
extra on your way a small mussel or a little fish. But you
have to keep your attention fixed on the ship, and turn123
round frequently for fear that the captain should call; and
if he calls, you must give up all these. . . . So it is also in
life. If there be given you, instead of a little fish or a small
mussel, a little wife or a small child, there will be no
objection. But if the Captain calls, give up all that and run
to the ship, without even turning to look back. And if you
are an old man, never even get far away from the ship, for
fear that when He calls you may be missing.Epictetus.
A brave man must expect to be tossed, for he is to steer
his course in the teeth of fortune, and to work against
wind and weather.Seneca. Appears in Seneca's Morals by Sir Roger L'Estrange (1678)
Blame not, in the purity of thy soul, O pious man! . . .
Whether I be virtuous or sinful; go thou thine own way,
for in the end everyone will reap according to the seed he
has sown. Strive not to make me despair, because of my
past, of the compassion of the Eternal. What knowest
thou of who will be accounted good or evil behind the veil?Hafiz.
God is not in a certain place, but wherever anything is
able to come into contact with Him, there He is present.Plotinus.
If we refrain from evil for fear of the pain and remorse
which such becoming worse may bring with it, then also
is the motive pure. But if we refrain through fear of a
punishment which should hurt the body, but not the soul,
or of a punishment which, in another world, should hurt124
the soul, as in this world we may hurt the body, then is the
motive impure. To do good for the hope of cakes and ale
is a poor motive; to refrain from evil for fear of stripes and
weals is a poor motive.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
The ‘divine image’ is another familiar argument for
immortality. If we ‘carry’ within us a ‘spark’ of the
divine ‘fire,’ the ‘spark’ which comes from an eternal
source is deathless like its origin. And the individuality
which it helped to fashion, of which it was the essential
part, may also continue and persist. Some persons feel
that the very power to love, with all the height to which
human love has risen, would seem a mockery if it were
limited to our earthly life. Others, again, are moved by
the immensely wide range of the conviction, in one form
or another, that the ‘soul’ is immortal. Human instinct
—the feeling of some of the wisest and the best of men—
seems to point in the same direction. This feeling is an
‘intuitive perception,’ as some would say, of the great
truth, and the good God cannot have allowed us to be so
utterly and cruelly deceived.Lastly, we will not ignore or reject the simplest reason
of all. Those who sow in sorrow shall at last reap in joy.
Nothing else will fully satisfy our conception of the righteous
and loving God. Because He cares, He will comfort; the
ocean of tears shall at last be dried, and the cry of sorrow
shall at last be stilled.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
It is through suffering and through sorrow that man has
risen, and rises, to the fullness of his spiritual stature. To
use them well, not to be embittered by sorrow or coarsened
by suffering, to become more loving through cruelty and125
more gentle through disappointment . . . these are among
the great and high achievements of the world.C. G. Montefiore. Sermons credited in Acknowledgments
The reward of virtue may be misery, and yet this may be
the highest reward, for it may lead to virtue becoming
still more virtuous. The punishment of sin may be
prosperity, and yet this may be the highest punishment, for
it may lead to sin becoming still more sinful.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
Truth will ultimately appear on the side of the righteous
and vindicate them, however they may have suffered or
been misrepresented.C. G. Montefiore. Sermons credited in Acknowledgments
To him who seeks the right, the right is visible; to him
whose heart is sin-clouded, the law of God will be hidden.C. G. Montefiore. The Bible for Home Reading (1896)
We have a sort of idea that we ought to
praise most the
man who has the fiercest struggle: perhaps so. But that
sort of praise is the praise given to the imperfect. Look at
the highest: look at God. That sort of praise we do not
dream of giving toHim . He is perfectly good without any
struggle at all. The more we become like Him, the more
effortless will become our virtue.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
There are some who with difficulty win their way to the
kingdom of God in a lifetime; there are others who attain
it in an hour.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
Far more difficult to explain, and far more impossible to
conceive (as it seems to me), are goodness and knowledge
without God than evil and suffering with Him. I can have
faith that the good and wise God has His own adequate
solution of evil and suffering, but that a godless world
produced goodness and knowledge, reason and love ̶this
I cannot believe at all.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
The conscience has to be informed; it has to become wise
and delicate. It has to learn to distinguish between what
is really good and what is seemingly good.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
As we do, so and more shall we do. As we
do , so shall weknow . The better wedo , the better we shallunderstand .
The better we understand and know, the better we shall do.
It is a regular circle. Result becomes cause. Narrow
goodness leads to narrow insight. Poor achievements end
in a cheap conscience.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
As regards their duty to their fellow-men, the thought of
God and of what they owe to Him enables men to perform
that duty with singular intensity and fervour. It gives a
courage which rises superior to all disappointments, an
energy which buoys them up against weariness, ingratitude,
and failure. It gives them a perseverance and devotion, a
patience and endurance, which often add a touch of heroism
to commonplace lives. The duty to man becomes not so
much a duty as an offering—the best the giver can offer
—to God, and as an offering the duty is transfigured.God guarantees its value , and in one sense He may be said to127
guarantee its ultimate success. Because Godis , no deed of
rectitude and love can wholly be wasted. This thought has
illumined and strengthened many hard and painful lives.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
For great are Thy judgments and hard to interpret;
therefore souls undisciplined went astray.Wisdom.
Compare Job xxiii, But He knoweth the way that I take.
Problems from the Bible. (1) Amaziah . . . did that which was right in the sight of
the Lord, but not with a perfect heart.2 Chronicles.
(2) Jotham . . . did that which was right in the sight of
the Lord . . . howbeit he entered not into the temple of
the Lord.2 Chronicles.
There is a great difference between one who is ashamed
before his own soul, and one who is only ashamed before
his fellow-men.Talmud.
The more thou searchest, the more thou shalt marvel.
. . . Then I answered and said: How and when shall these
things come to pass? Wherefore are our years few and evil?
And he answered me saying: Do not thou hasten above the128
most Highest: for thy haste is in vain to be above Him,
for thou hast much exceeded.Esdras.
Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; That put darkness for light and light for darkness; That put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Isaiah.
Every wish Is like a prayer . . . with God. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Aurora Leigh (1857)
Prayer is but the desire of the soul. Our imaginations
and desires are, therefore, the greatest realities we have, and
we should look closely to what they are.Caroline F. E. Spurgeon.
(Summarized from William Law.)Mysticism in English Literature (1913)
Prayer for worldly goods is worse than fruitless, but
prayer for strength of soul is that passion of the soul which
catches the gift it seeks.George Meredith. Letter, appears in The Writings and Life of George Meredith by Mary Sturge Gretton (1926)
And:
It is not unreasonable to hold that in matters of moment
to his lasting and highest welfare, man is under Divine
guidance; while in affairs of more indifference he is left
to experience and to whatsoever common sense he may
possess.
prizes of this world, material prosperity, are not, it seems,
in the hands of God at all. I long ago ceased to ask
God for any material good.
Who was the moral man? Still more pertinently, who
was the moral woman? The beauty or ugliness of a
character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims
and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done,
but among things willed.Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)
Whoso opposes ill-will with ill-will can never become
pure. . . . By many deeds, by earnest striving, by self-
discipline and renunciation, make for yourselves, ye wise,
an island that no flood can overwhelm.Buddha.
Mysticism—an endeavour to find God at first hand,
experimentally, in the soul herself, independently of all
historical and philosophical pre-suppositions.Unknown. Attributed to Baron Friedrich von Hügel
For the mystic believes that as the intellect is given us to
apprehend material things, so the spirit is given us to
apprehend spiritual things, and that to disregard the spirit
in spiritual matters, and to trust to reason is as foolish as
if a carpenter, about to begin a piece of work, were
deliberately to reject his keenest and sharpest tool.Caroline F. E. Spurgeon. Mysticism in English Literature (1913)
Thus, the most recent philosophy [i.e. that of Bergson]
throws light on the most ancient mystic teaching, and both
point to the conclusion that our normal waking conscious-
ness is but one special type of many other forms of con-
sciousness, by which we are surrounded, but from which
we are, most of us, physically and psychically screened.
We know that the consciousness of the individual self was
a late development in the race; it is at least possible that
the attainment of the consciousness that this individual self
forms part of a larger Whole, may prove to be yet another
step forward in the evolution of the human spirit. If this
be so, the mystics would appear to be those who, living
with an intensity greater than their fellows, are thus enabled
to catch the first gleams of the realization of a greater self.
In any case, it would seem certain, judging from their
testimony, that it is possible, by applying a certain stimulus,
to gain knowledge of another order of consciousness of a
rare and vivifying quality. Those who have attained to
this knowledge all record that it must be felt to be under-
stood, but that, so far as words are of use, it is ever of the
nature of a reconciliation; of discord blending into harmony,
of difference merging into unity.Caroline F. E. Spurgeon. Mysticism in English Literature (1913)
God Himself is subject to law. There is no question
of God's mercy or of His wrath, for it is an eternal principle
that we can only receive what we are capable of receiving;
and to ask why one person gains no help from the mercy
and goodness of God while another does gain help is ‘like
asking why the refreshing dew of heaven does not do that
to the flint which it does to the vegetable plant.’Caroline F. E. Spurgeon.
(Summarized from William Law.)Mysticism in English Literature (1913)
Wholesome, thank God, we all are, or could be; pious
we nearly all are; but holiness is a rare quality.Maurice Hewlett. Lore of Proserpine (1913)
The passionately religious are a people apart. . . . The
religion of the tolerated religious minority has always been
essentially the same religion.G. Bernard Shaw. Preface to Androcles and the Lion (1912)
What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his
creed, but from the assumption on which he habitually acts.G. Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903)
Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not
desiring it.G. Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903)
We admit that when the divinity we worshipped made
itself visible and comprehensible we crucified it.G. Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903)
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the
unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable
man.G. Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903)
Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but
to their capacity for experience.G. Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903)
In moments of progress the noble succeed, because things
are going their way: in moments of decadence the base
succeed for the same reason.G. Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903)
Those who understand evil pardon it: those who resent
it destroy it.G. Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903)
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
G. Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903)
How to live a truthful life puzzles me very much. Truth
is poison to some people, and it takes two to get it, one to
hear and one to speak. I am supposed by my relatives to
tell lies. I only know that, far back as a child, I confessed
to a lie, after six months' agony, to my father, and from that
day I was labelled a liar. Whereas, never have I been braver
or more earnest about telling the truth. Finally, I have
acted on the idea that there are two kinds of lies:
I got this idea from Plato's
I won't quote.
Truth never comes into the world but as a bastard.
John Milton. The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643)
The idea of truth as an end so precious that it should be
followed at all costs and hazards is the one certain mark
of a divine quality in the human soul.H. A. L. Fisher. The Common Weal (1924)
Great truths are generally bought, not found by chance.
John Milton.
To covet the truth is a distinguished passion.
Unknown. George Santayana, The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy (1911)
Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch
as the sunbeam.Unknown. John Milton, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643)
Truth is tough. It will not break like a bubble at a
touch. Nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football,
and it will be round and full at evening.Unknown. Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
If I act a lie—the real sort, the lie in the soul—I feel I
shall lose that intangible thing, protection from the unseen.
If I lose that, then my luck will go. If I can but be true
to myself my luck may hold out to the end.
When I tell a truth it is not to convince those who do
not know it, but to protect those who do.William Blake. Public Address (1810) (approximation)
A statue called Truth was to be unveiled, but no one could
do it, the cloths refused to be pulled. It was in a vast
cathedral, and after the great people had tried, a mean
man, far off in the crowd, rose and said: ‘Life is hard, death
is cruel, doubt is maddening, but God is Love.’ The
cloths fell and Truth was revealed.Told by Helen Frances Evans. Credited in Acknowledgments
Certainly it is easier to perceive error than to find truth,
for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while
the latter lies in the depths where few are willing to search.Goethe.
All doors will fly open to him who has a mildness more
defiant than mere courage. The whole is unerringly
expressed in one fortunate phrase—he will be always
‘taken in.’ To be taken in everywhere is to see the inside
of everything. It is the hospitality of circumstance.
With torches and trumpets, like a guest, the greenhorn is
taken in by Life. And the sceptic is cast out by it.G. K. Chesterton
(on Mr. Pickwick).Dickens (1906)
A lamp has been invented which is said to detect at once
a false pearl or diamond. What an impossible (I don't
agree) world it would be if all our little insincerities,
cowardices, and deceptions of ourselves and others were to
be similarly revealed. Just imagine talking in the light of
a lamp that showed our real thoughts and feelings. (But
I should like it, it would be restful and speech is so mis-
leading. We need such help.)From memory.
Comments in brackets mine.
Have a care of resentment, or taking things amiss; a
natural, ready, and most dangerous passion: but be apter
to remit than to resent: it is more Christian and wise. For
as softness often conquers where rough opposition fortifies,
so resentment, seldom having any bounds, makes many
times greater fault than it finds: for some people have135
out-resented their wrong so far, that they made themselves
faultier by it; by which they cancel the debt through a
boundless passion, overthrow their interest and advantage,
and become debtor to the offender.William Penn. Advice of William Penn to His Children (1881)
other side of a great virtue, but for me it is a great sin.
On thinking I have found that I have changed my views
about finding God. I don't want a too-easily-found God.
When (if ever) I find Him, I shall be badly or happily
surprised. I don't want a too-easily-understood God.
I must first be spiritually minded before I can hope to see.
The spiritually minded sometimes do much wrong; they
tell lies; they are afraid; and yet they seem to get nearer
God. They want to find Him. They are always humble.
And a friend says that perhaps God may even grieve over
the lies and their fear, and love them the more.
Hypocrisy, hard-heartedness, and calculating worldliness
are more fatal to the spiritual life than the so-called more
disreputable sins.Unknown. William Ralph Inge
Jesus does not seem to have been much disturbed by
sin except:
But though Charles II thought of all kinds of worship
and Church government as but different fashions of the
same cloak, he was no agnostic. He had large notions of
God's mercy, and could never believe that He would damn
one of His creatures for taking a little irregular pleasure
by the way. Long ago he told his sister that he was one of
those bigots who regarded malice as a much greater sin
than a poor frailty of nature. To design mischief, to be
cruel, to deny compassion, of these at least he had not
been guilty; somehow, he trusted, he would climb up to
heaven's gate.Arthur Bryant. King Charles II (1931)
There are only two sins: laziness and cruelty.
John Ruskin.
(Quoted from memory.)
Are the ‘sins’ that come because of a badly made body
really sins? Surely only the black sins of the soul should
be counted?
It is quite possible to conceive an imaginary society in
which there should be no aggressiveness, but only sympathy
and fairness—any small community of true friends now
realizes such a society. Abstractedly considered, such a
society on a large scale would be the millennium, for every
good thing might be realized there with no expense of
friction. To such a millennial society the saint would be
entirely adapted. His peaceful modes of appeal would be
efficacious over his companions, and there would be no one
extant to take advantage of his non-resistance. The saint
is therefore abstractly a higher type of man than the ‘strong
man,’ because he is adapted to the highest society con-
ceivable, whether that society ever be concretely possible
or not. The strong man would immediately tend by
his presence to make that society deteriorate. It would
become inferior in everything save in a certain kind
of bellicose excitement, dear to men as they now are.
But if we turn from the abstract question to the actual
situation, we find that the individual saint may be well or
ill adapted, according to particular circumstances. There
is, in short, no absoluteness in the excellence of sainthood.
It must be confessed that as far as this world goes, anyone
who makes an out-and-out saint of himself does so at his
peril. If he is not a large enough man he may appear more
insignificant and contemptible, for all his saintship, than
if he had remained a worldling.William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
‘And do you think it is a good thing for a man to be
so defenceless?’SOCRATES. ‘Yes, so long as he has the one defence
that he has never done any wrong to God or men
either by word or deed. What does a man fear who is138
neither an idiot nor a coward? Not dying but doing
wrong.’Plato. Gorgias
stranger in an icy world.
Knowledge can make one very lonely. And when people
think that with words they can make foul things fair I am
lonelier than ever. I want only comfort from those who
To-day I had a most heartless employer and a dishonest
employee. Of the two, of course, I blame the employer
most. If one has more one
such a vicious circle. Each employer, who is bad, makes
trouble that does not cease when the employee leaves; and
each dishonest employee makes conditions worse for the
next helpless employee. All very trite, no doubt, but
bitterly true.
The world fighteth for the righteous.
Wisdom.
Does it?
Hearts unwounded sin again.
my lips when I woke to-day.
When I was helping V. E. with money she was far kinder
to me. Now, when I have only spiritual things to offer,
she misunderstands.
From this I see:
And how can I blame God? He offered me the things
He liked the best and of which He had the most, and I
may have rejected them as A.B.
‘I shall die when I have learnt all my lessons.’ FRIEND. ‘No, you will be put on the staff and left here
for some time yet.’M. Taffs. Conversation credited in Acknowledgments
That there are forces at work which use individuals for
purposes far transcending the purpose of keeping these
individuals alive and prosperous and respectable and safe
and happy in the middle station of life, which is all any
good bourgeois can reasonably require, is established by the
fact that men will, in the pursuit of knowledge and of
social readjustments, for which they will not be a penny the
better, and are indeed often many pence the worse, face
poverty, infamy, exile, imprisonment, dreadful hardship,
and death.G. Bernard Shaw. Saint Joan (1923)
Why should L. P. be big enough to recognize her responsi-
bilities towards her own and (bigger still) to other people's
children, and yet deny God any responsibility at all? I feel
God would far rather hold Hardy's tenet: ‘Thou shouldst
have learnt that NOT TO MIND FOR ME could mean but
NOT TO KNOW.’
That view is less blasphemous. And it
holds out the hope that those who kept gentle in the dark
and in the cold will have, not God's forgiveness, but His
love and thanks for not making bad worse.
Bold is the donkey-driver, O Ka'dee! and bold the
ka'dee who dares say what he will believe, what disbelieve
—not knowing in any wise the mind of Allah—not knowing
in any wise his own heart, and what it shall some day suffer.Quoted by T. Watts-Dunton.
To ask little of anyone and to make a successful fight
against bitterness, if I could but do this—if only I did not
me to help all those in need,’ but one cannot give when
one has nothing.
She—and how many more—might have ironically said
to God with Saint Augustine: ‘Thou hast counselled a
better course than Thou hast permitted.’Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)
Thomas Hardy points out that ‘pessimism’ is an incorrect
term when used for ‘obstinate questionings’ in regard to
the mysteries of the universe; and he has quoted as a
defence a line from one of his own poems:‘If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the
worst.’[“In Tenebris II†(1901)]
‘Oh, I expect you are exaggerating,’ when one is trying to
get relief by telling of pain. For my own part I listen hard
to the complainer. I encourage him to look at, and expect,
the worst before he can find the way to the better. Then I
hope to lead him to believe that: ‘There shall come a time
when it shall be Light, and when man shall awake from his
lofty dreams, and find his dreams still there, and that
nothing has gone save his sleep.’
Unusual beauty of whatever sort frightens the ordinary
man.
The real cause of his (Ruskin's) neglect lies in his
greatness. Most men are born with a spiritual inertia, a
bias in the direction of the average; they find no joy in the
culture of the will, which, after love, is the noblest principle
of the soul; they weave the subtlest of all possible excuses
for the refusal of a great ideal, for they know that if they
should accept it there must follow an entire transformation
of the self. Of this they are afraid, for between the new
day and the old there is a night and a period of solitude, and
they do not remember that‘the soul is its own refuge and
its own witness.’Clifford Bax. Introduction to The Crown of Wild Olive, and the Cestus of Aglaia by John Ruskin (1908)
We all have something, some secret bread of our own soul,
by which we live, that nourishes and sustains us. It may
be a different thing for each man alive.
For my life I can see no difference between the failures
and those who think everything is easy because it has been
easy for them.
A magnanimous soul is always awake.
Unknown. Bertram Dobell, Introduction to The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne (1903)
Thought is more real than action, and spiritual attitude
is more real than thought.Caroline F. E. Spurgeon.
(William Blake's belief.)Mysticism in English Literature (1913)
Greatness in any form of art or energy is the consummation
of incalculable and innumerable repulses. It may be defined
as the power of going on in the teeth of disasters until
disasters are converted into victory. If you are great of
heart, great of soul, and great of will, you cannot be finally
defeated.Unknown.
It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly
taught, and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great
spectacle of life, and never to be liberated from a small
hungry shivering self—never to be fully possessed by the
glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously
transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of a
passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly
and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and
dim-sighted.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
We prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated
choice of good and evil.George Eliot. Romola (1863)
To have the shepherdly genius, to have something of a
true shepherd's eye and hand, is the finest of possessions,
and the more we are able to render our knowledge, our
acquisitions and accomplishments ministerial—ministerial
to some of the deeper needs of men—the greater we are.E. B. Bayley. Samuel Augustus Tipple, Echoes of Spoken Words (1877)
I have been thinking about M. again, and this morning
I suddenly realized what I have often disagreed with you
about: I mean theworthbeauty of a character that is in-
capable of doing wrong because itis good. I have crossed
out ‘worth’ and written ‘beauty’ because I think it is the
better word. I think I would use ‘worth’ (but am not
quite sure) of the man who has fought against fearful odds
and made good; but the charm of a character that is lovely
because it can be no other has suddenly become clear to me.Mary Boyd. Letters credited in Acknowledgments
I saw Mildred last night. I told her of my horror that a
lovely nature like Z's could deteriorate. She said that some
badness in a nature if undetected, disregarded, ignored,
allowed to grow, might bring about a great fall; but that
otherwise God would never let one down after a great fight.
To read a book and see the soul of the author behind the
story: to listen to a melody and know the human emotion
that gave it birth: to see a painting and understand the144
dream that was before the canvas: to be swayed by great
men, yet remember that each one is the son of love and pain:
to feel the Creator in all created things—that is one of the
secrets of life that raises its possessor nearer to the stars.Unknown.
To-day, as in Bethlehem, the bourgeois sits at home and
discusses the census, while shepherds and kings adore in
the stable.Anon. Robert Hugh Benson, Christ in the Church (1910)
Charity is the pardoning of the unpardonable and the
loving of the unlovable.Anon. Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ (1912)
The conventional view ruins more lives than all fanaticisms
put together.Anon. Robert Hugh Benson, The Coward (1912)
Stick to the Ideal and hug the Unexplained. The people
who have solved the Riddle of the Universe at fifteen are
bowled over by the Enigma of their cook at fifty. Plug
your life as full as it can hold with fantasy and fairy-tale,
and thank God that your soul is baulked by the Mysteries
of the Stock Exchange.W. J. Locke. The Beloved Vagabond (1906)
Tolerance is an extremely difficult virtue. More difficult
for some than heroism; more difficult than compassion.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
I have thought a great deal about your remark that you
wish you need not make mistakes. But what would life
be without them? And would such a state make you hard
and unlovable? I will tell you something. I love you
solely because with your many mistakes, you reach to the
stars. The darkest night never put out your stars. I have
not encountered many people who can reach to the stars in
the way you do; and when you go, you have taken me to the
highest heaven I have known.A Letter.
Dejection which becomes habitual is a consumption of
the character.
There seems a great deal of confusion between a creed and
religion. Surely every one must have some sort of religion,
but whether one can circumscribe it with a creed is another
matter. I think one's religion is that which one cares
for most. I think it is the expression of one's soul.
The power to formulate a creed seems to depend on one's
intellect, one's upbringing. Anyway, I don't want a creed
that is gained at no cost to myself and worth nothing
to anyone.
There is no truculence in modern unbelief, it is a matter
of passionate regret. And belief has become a passionate
hope.Anon. Mrs. David G. Ritchie, The New Warden (1918)
Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul, May keep the path but will not reach his goal; While he who walks in love may wander far, Yet God will bring him where the Blessed are. Unknown. Henry Van Dyke, The Story of the Other Wise Man (1895)
Such are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the
character of thy mind; the soul is dyed the colour of its
desires.Marcus Aurelius. Meditations
Maude confided to me to-day that she had wronged a
friend; she confessed to it—a rare action for an adult
although we constantly ask children to do it—but that the
friend had responded only to the length of ‘I forgive,’ but
‘it would never be the same again.’ I was frightened at
such vindictiveness. Surely an acknowledgment of a sin
means that the onlooker
trust that the sin will not be repeated? I own that if there
was no difficulty in forgetting there would be nothing to
forgive. But complete forgiveness is essential after con-
fession; if it is withheld the wrong done is shifted to
the unforgiver; the evil will go on multiplying. And this
reminded me of the almost impossible task of forgiving
when there has been no confession. I am resentful by
nature. And I don't forgive. The only way I get round the
difficulty is by fielding the wrongs done me as a cricketer
fields a ball. I let the wrong hurt me, I own, more
than it should because of my resentment, but I also try to
learn from it and stop the pain going on to others. I do
not seem able for instance to forgive the authorities for my
childhood, but I can try to make life easier for every child
I meet. Meanwhile Maude's late friend is doing Maude
and herself irreparable damage.
The conclusions that we arrive at by means of no tangible
evidence are the most deeply burned in our brains.Anon. Frank Richardson, Love and All About It (1907)
O God! be merciful to the wicked. To the good Thou
hast already been sufficiently merciful in making them good.Overheard.
He [L. P. Jacks] says most people only want to be
comfortable, but, ‘to the faithful good things are promised
in abundance, but always such good things as the valiant
soul finds desirable, and never such as please the coward or
the fool. Life is offered as the certain reward, but always
a life of hard fighting, strenuous labour, cross-bearing, and
pain, with the prospect ahead of approaching night when
no man can work. These are the conditions the faithful
soul must count on and be prepared for, not miserably and
with a downcast heart, but cheerfully as one who sees that
by embracing them he will find the employment his high
nature demands and go on to the fulfilment of his joy.‘A Letter.
There must lie some tender secret not only behind what
seems a deed of unnecessary cruelty, but in the implanting
in us of the instinct to grieve with a miserable indignation
over a thing we cannot cure, and even in the withholding148
from us any hope that might hint at the solution of the
mystery.F. L. Baldwin. Arthur Christopher Benson, The Thread of Gold (1907)
An act in itself may be a beautiful thing, like a picture
or a song. It is the expression of a beautiful soul.From a Lecture.
We are here to grow souls. Some succeed, some kill
theirs. Dare I say this? It is but to myself. If you keep
your soul awake it can take itself to the next place; if you
let it die out I do not see how you can expect to go on any-
where. Your body is dead and rots under the earth, or is
burned in the fire.
‘If I can find out God, then I shall find Him; If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly.’ [Sara Teasdale, The Lamp (1917)]
I think this theory may account for the fact of the love-
ableness of some who sin greatly and others who, although
apparently sinless, seem to have no love; they may not have
souls at all. I may not have one. I may be like the
tadpole who refuses to grow legs and lungs, and so cannot
become a frog.
Those of us who have no souls should, I think, have lots
of this world's pleasures given to them. For ‘No one can
live without delight, which is why he who is deprived of
spiritual delights goes over to carnal delights.’
I think the cleavage runs between those who are hungering
for righteousness, and those who are indifferent. Those who
hunger are at last filled, not because they become good—
they often remain very bad; but I dare to think that they
can recognize goodness when they see it and do not try to
damage or to decry it. They see goodness, as an artist sees
beauty, in most unlikely places.
The idea of some active good within her reach, ‘haunted
her like a passion,’ and another's need having once come to
her as a distinct image, preoccupied her desire with the
yearning to give relief, and made her own ease tasteless.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
To be rightly in love, to explore a new world, to discover
Shakespeare, really discover him for yourself, to find your-
self in the practice of an art, to achieve total absorption
in some purpose, not mean: these are the indefeasible good
things of life, but also they are its incommunicables.C. E. Montague. The Right Place (1924)
The whole duty of art is to listen for the voice of God.
Words may come to you easily, but only because life has
come to you with so much pain. The artist's life is the
harshest that God can give to man. Fortitude is his only
weapon of defence.Hugh Walpole. Fortitude (1913)
Misapprehension is the idle threat with which reformers
are forever surrounded. Misunderstanding is the wage upon
which the real prophet starves and thrives. It is paid him
in proportion to his life's value.George MacDonald. Greville MacDonald, The Child's Inheritance (1910)
The mind of the revolutionary, however wasted its cause,
has kindred with the mind of God. Justice and truth
before all things is the cry of it, and let suffering be a means
rather than a hindrance to the end.E. Temple Thurston. Sally Bishop (1910)
A man was on the seashore seeking a stone which should
turn all things to gold. An iron girdle was round his waist,
and he picked up stones, touched the iron with them, and
anon threw them away. And when evening drew nigh
he looked at his girdle, and it was turned to gold; the stone
had been in his hands. But he had flung it from him.
For when they heard that through their own punishments
the others had been benefited, they felt the Presence of
the Lord.
I strive and strive to make the office staff and the work
happy and easy. And I fail. Do I also fail to understand
God and His efforts to make the world worth while for
His creatures? I am not educated sufficiently and, in the
same way, the clerks do not understand me. This sounds
blasphemous, but it may contain a grain of truth.
Those gifts . . . mightily won:
‘God out of knowledge, and good out of infinite pain,
And sight out of blindness, and purity out of a stain.’
Quoted at a Lecture. Sidney Lanier, "The Marshes of Glynn" (1879)
Let the counsel of thine own heart stand: For there is no
man more faithful unto thee than it; for a man's mind is
sometimes wont to bring him tidings more than seven
watchmen that sit above on a high tower.Ecclesiasticus.
Real signs of compunction, sorrow at sin are very rare.
Joseph Conrad.
If he fail or if he win To no good man is told. G. K. Chesterton. The Ballad of the White Horse (1911)
about success.
Many have learnt that the magnitude of lives is not as to
their external displacements, but as to their subjective ex-
periences. The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller,
more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)
She did not know, poor woman, that the true greatness
wears an invisible cloak, under cover of which it goes in and
out among men without being suspected; if its cloak does
not conceal it from itself always, and from all others for
many years, its greatness will ere long shrink to very
ordinary dimensions. What, then, it may be asked, is the
good of being great? The answer is that you may under-
stand greatness better in others, whether alive or dead, and
hoose better company from these and enjoy and understand152
that company better when you have chosen it—also that
you may be able to give pleasure to the best people and live
in the lives of those who are yet unborn. This, one would
think, was substantial gain enough for greatness without
its wanting to ride rough-shod over us, even when disguised
as humility.Samuel Butler. The Way of All Flesh (1903)
Where a mother has failed, even the Bible may fail.
Hetty read her Bible: but just because its austerer teachings
had been bound too harshly upon her at home she turned by
instinct to the gentler side which reveals Christ's loving-
kindness, His pity, His indulgence.All generous natures lean toward this side, and to their
honour, but at times also to their very great danger. For
the austerity is meant for them who most need it. Also
the austere rules are more definite, which makes them a
surer guide for the soul desiring goodness, but passionately
astray. It spurns them, demanding lovingkindness; and
discovers too late that lovingkindness dictated them.Arthur Quiller-Couch. Hetty Wesley (1903)
There seems reason to fear that human nature does not
alter very fast or very materially. There is less bullying, no
doubt. But do we not select our victims still—those weak
ones of the flock, on whose nature that strange and evil
influence (that dogs the footsteps of the good) has set its
mark, warping and distorting, making them clumsy or
sensitive or timid or fanciful; and marking them out as a
vehicle for our satire?A. C. Benson and A. F. W. Tatham. Men of Might (1921)
When she did not care to see how things really were she
invented an imaginary situation and believed in it. But if,
for example, one were free after death to confess how much
one really knew and understood, but were unwilling to admit
to oneself that one understood, during one's life on earth—
well, that must be like a kind of purgatory. Hell, perhaps,
if one had deliberately chosen to live in one's imagination,
denying absolutely the existence of the truth.Sigrid Undset. Ida Elizabeth (1932)
Ignorance got as far as Heaven's gates, but then took the
wrong turning. I feel sure that we are meant to get
knowledge, and that goodness based on knowledge and
experience is a more useful possession than unenlightened
instinctive goodness, although the last is very attractive to
me, and I find very annoying to most other people.
The things that are for thee gravitate to thee.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Over-Soul (1841)
my living; it has never failed to console me. I do not know
who wrote it, and I am now inclined to think that I shall
have to wait for the next world before I get all the ‘things.’
The Horses of the Sahara. When Ben Dyab was riding away from his enemies he
said to his son: ‘Look round and see what the colour of the
horses of the foremost pursuers is’; and the son looked and
said: ‘They are white.’ Then said his father: ‘Ride in the
sunlight, for they will melt like butter.’ And in an hour154
he said to his son: ‘Look round and see what the colour of
the horses of the foremost pursuers is.’ And his son looked
and said: ‘They are black.’ ‘Then,’ said his father, ‘ride
on the stones, for they are tender-footed as a negress of the
Sudan.’ And in another hour he said to his son: ‘Look
round and see what the colour of the horses of the foremost
pursuers is.’ And the son looked, and said: ‘They are
chestnut.’ ‘Then,’ said his father, ‘ride for your life.’
Note. This is probably an old Sahara story the original
significance of which is lost; but the moralist of later days
—I am not sure about its being in the Talmud—took the
colours to mean respectively, Good Deeds, Bad Deeds, and
a Reputation for Sanctity.A. B.
Yes, one would think that people whose gods are different
would not, and even could not, be jealous. But experience
shows that it does not work that way. Partly, I think, they
don't believe that anyone can have spiritual values instead
of material ones, and so they resent the difference as an
affectation; and partly they do believe it, and so resent the
real superiority that this implies. Gilt can't be expected
to like the neighbourhood of gold, the comparison being
fatal to the gilt. . . . The saint is always stoned. But
what puzzles me about you is that you are not serene in
your knowledge of the rightness of your own values. You
must know that the spirit is all; it is no use worrying over
the people who don't yet know it. The only way to take
such people is the way of ‘They know not what they do.’
After all that is the truth. And some of them may know
one day.
grass is blue to oneself, and every one speaks of it as yellow,
it shakes me and frightens me to hear it always spoken of
as yellow.
It was once announced that the Devil was going out of
business, and would offer all his tools for sale. On the
night of the sale the tools were all laid out in an attractive
array—and a bad looking lot they were: Malice, Hatred,
Envy, Jealousy, Sensuality, and Deceit, with many other
implements, each with its price. Apart from the rest lay a
harmless-looking wedge-shaped tool, much worn and priced
higher than any other tool.Someone asked the Devil what it was. ‘That's
Discouragement.’‘Why have you priced it so high?’
‘Because,’ replied the Devil, ‘it is more useful to me than
any of the other tools. I can pry open and get inside a
man's consciousness with that, when I could not get near
him with any of the others. And once inside I can use him
in whatever way suits me best. It is much worn, because
I use it with nearly every one, and very few know that it
belongs to me.’The Devil's price was high, so high that the tool was
never sold, and he is still using it.Quoted from memory.
His was one of the natures in which conscience gets the
more active when the yoke of life ceases to gall them.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
It always remains true that if we had been greater,
circumstance would have been less strong against us.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
Being funny about things is just as sentimental a way of
escape as any other form of day-dream. To pretend that
the serious crises of our lives are intensely comic isn't either
stoic or heroic; it is simply a cowardly dodging of maturity.Anon.
It is a mark of insincerity of purpose to spend one's time
in looking for the sacred emperor in the low-class teashops.Ernest Bramah. The Wallet of Kai Lung (1900)
Find yourself; and the more there is to find the longer
it takes.V. H. Friedlaender. Credited in Acknowledgments
Oh, for a touch of Ithuriel's spear, the archangel, whose
spear had the magic property of showing every one exactly
and truthfully what he is! I know it would be a dreadful
day, but how much easier it would be to go on afterwards.
Dean Inge suggests that no one need be disturbed at the
disparity between precept and practice. ‘I have dined with
doctors, and done business with moralists, and I know.’From memory.
If only I can see my vices as vices, and not as dressed-up
virtues.
A hungry soul and a bruised heart are objects more pitiful,
I think, than a maimed limb or abject penury. I wish my
mission might be to those who make no sign, yet suffer
most intensely under their cold, impassive faces.These people whose souls sit on the ends of their nerves,
and to whom a cold look or a slighting word is like frost
to the flower—God pity them! This world is a hard
place for natures so fine as theirs. They are like the rare
porcelain out of which beautiful vases are made. The
coarser natures whose nerves, after coming to the surface,
bend back again, can no more comprehend their finely
constituted brethren than I can conceive of a sixth sense.Frances Willard. Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman (1889)
The truth is as you say. But you have a sort of heavenly
truth: and on earth one has sometimes to act by earthly
truth which is lower.
asking for help for an unemployed woman who had done
wrong. I argued that most of us would, if we had our
deserts, be poorer than we are, and that this woman had
paid in full for her wrong-doing, over-paid if one took
note of her present position. And yet I was not allowed
to help because of others served by the same agency.
One piece of constructive sympathetic help outweighs
a score of blunders.Helen M. C. Coutts. Conversation credited in Acknowledgments
We all live for something. The sound of a ball on a bat,
the flash of a rabbit's tail, the shadow of clouds on water;158
and some few the welcoming smile of a friend and some
fewer still the touch of God.Hugh Walpole.
Philip had never had any conceit of himself—that is, he
could not remember that time when he had been satisfied
with what he had done, or pleased with the figure that he
presented. The selfish actions in his life had always arisen
from unselfish motives, because he had been afraid of
hurting or vexing other people, because he thought other
people finer than himself. Even when he burst out in
indignation at something that he felt to be pretentious and
false, he, afterwards, on thinking it over, wondered whether
the man hadn't after all been right ‘from his point of
view.’ It was this ability to see the other person's point
of view that had been, and could always be, the curse of
his life.Such men as Philip are not among the fine creatures of
the world. Very rightly they are despised for their weak-
ness, their lack of resistance, their inability to stand up
for themselves. It is possible, nevertheless, that in heaven
they will find that they, too, have their fine side. And this
possibility of an ultimate divine comprehension irritates,
very naturally, their fellow human beings who resent any
defence of weakness.Hugh Walpole. The Green Mirror (1917)
One man knew the way in the city, but the fools said:
‘Why should we follow one man?’Unknown.
Principles have achieved more victories than horsemen
and chariots.A Sermon. William Miller Paxton
Nothing should be able to harm a man except himself.
Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man
really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him
should be of no importance. . . . To live is the rarest
thing in the world. Most people exist. . . . Have we
ever seen the full expression of a personality? . . . A per-
fect man is one who develops under perfect conditions;
one who is not wounded, or worried, or maimed, or in
danger. Most personalities have been obliged to be rebels.
Half their strength has been wasted in friction . . . and
these battles do not always intensify strength, they often
exaggerate weakness. . . . The note of the perfect per-
sonality is not rebellion but peace.Oscar Wilde. The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
The majority of people get what they want before they
have learnt to desire. It is only the lives of the few which
are taken in hand and so fashioned that there is a waiting
and an attainment at last.Henry Seton Merriman. The Isle of Unrest (1899)
Man's life from without may seem but a rude mound of
mud; there will be some golden chamber at the heart of
it in which he dwells delighted.R. L. Stevenson. The Lantern-Bearers (1888)
Life is too great for us or too petty. It gives us no
tolerable middle way between baseness and greatness.
We must die daily on the levels of ignoble compromise or
perish tragically among the precipices. On the one hand
is a life—unsatisfying and secure, a plane of dulled grati-
fications, mean advantages, petty triumphs, adaptations,
acquiescences and submissions; and on the other a steep160
and terrible climb, set with sharp stones and bramble
thickets and the possibilities of grotesque dislocations,
and the snares of such temptation as comes only to those
whose minds have been quickened by high desire, and the
challenge of insoluble problems and the intimation of
issues so complex and great, demanding such nobility of
purpose, and a steadfastness, alertness and openness of
mind, that they fill the heart of man with despair.H. G. Wells. Marriage (1912)
I divide men into two classes: they are free-thinkers or
they are not free-thinkers. I am not speaking of the
Freethinkers who form a political party in Germany, nor
of the agnostic English Freethinkers, but am using the
word in its simplest meaning. Free-thinkers are those
who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and
without fearing to understand things that clash with their
own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind
is not common, but is essential to right thinking; where
it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.
A man may be a Catholic, a Frenchman, or a capitalist,
and yet be a free-thinker; but if he puts his Catholicism,
his patriotism, or his interest above his reason, and will
not give the latter free play where those subjects are
touched, he is not a free-thinker. His mind is in bondage.Leo Tolstoy.
To help a good man makes him better, but to assist the
bad makes him worse.Beatrice Mary Miller.
It costs something to dream—how much only the
161
dreamers know . Yet to them alone we look for that
mysterious quality we call ‘vision, without which the
people perish.’Anon.
Coming home in the bus I heard a mother describe her
relief at hearing that sleep-walkers practically never hurt
themselves. To be unconscious of evil really would seem
a safeguard. The tragedy seems to be when we see the evil
and are not able to turn it or use the same weapons. Some-
times materialistic things weigh on me till I can't breathe,
sometimes I feel outside them and surrounded by real
love. I expect the love is there, but the inside ring of
materialistic things shuts it out.
You must have something in your life that does not
depend upon anybody else.If you would have your happiness secure, the root of it
must be within yourself.This is not a doctrine of selfishness, but of self-defence.
Much of our happiness is necessarily bound up with
other people; it is the result of our human relationships.
Companionship is that which tempers laughter, play, and
work, and is the essence itself of love.Very many of us never get beyond this range of joy.
We are incapable of any pleasure that is not communal.
We shudder at solitude. We flee from ourself as the prince
of boredom.But those who would be secure against the shocks of
existence, who would feel that they are rooted deep enough
to withstand the blasts of time and circumstance, must
discover themselves.They must have some ultimate resource that the world
cannot touch.162 Some people find this in their vocation. Some in their
avocation. Some discover it in the fruits of their imagina-
tion. Some find it in religion.One thing is sure. The strong soul, the hero for whom
nothing is tragic, the well-poised life which no untoward
event can thrust into panic, is that one who has learned
that the deepest supplies upon which the soul feeds, the
most inexhaustible and wholesome supplies, are those that
lie within himself.In the scorn of the world, in isolation, contempt, and
hunger, he can turn to Fate with a smile and say: ‘I have
meat to eat that ye know not of.’Unknown. Frank Crane, The Ultimate Resource (1919)
For years I have been asking most passionately why I
should suffer from the sins of others. Now I begin to
wonder in a vague way why not. Evidently we must suffer
so long as there is cruelty in the world. We should never
e really happy with so much selfishness, therefore we have
to be sin-bearers. It seems hard on those, like C. E., who
are kind, but I'm seeing my mistake in asking to be free;
so long as we are in such a world we can't be. But why
so many sin-bearers and so few saviours?
The artist kindles the fire, the propagandist puts it out.
St. John Ervine. Review credited in Acknowledgments
The Lord be good to thee and keep thee from thy heart's
desire.
times than I can count.
Hell, is being able to see with clear eyes, it is knowing
all that was possible and all you have missed.Basil King.
Let it be postulated that the phenomenal world, revealed
to us by observation or inference, is but a crucible for the
trial and purification of imperishable souls, and the verdict
of history becomes immaterial. Given some doctrine of
spiritual immortality, bringing new worlds into existence
to balance the old, the ugly face of history may be confronted
with composure. . . .
This brings consolation in sorrow and mitigates the
inevitable, if unspoken, criticism upon the work of the
great Artificer.
We, like sentries, are condemned to stand In starless night, and wait the appointed hour. From memory. John Dryden, Don Sebastian (1690)
When I considered these things in myself, and took
thought in my heart how that in kinship unto Wisdom is
immortality, and in her friendship is good delight, and in
the labours of her hands is wealth that faileth not, and in
assiduous communing with her is understanding, and great
renown in having fellowship with her words, I went about
seeking how to take her unto myself. Now I was a child
of parts, and a good soul fell to my lot; nay, rather, being
good, I came unto a body undefiled.
courage from this.
I have the conviction that behind the world of appearance
lies another and a vaster with a thronging population of
its own—with many populations, indeed, each absorbed in
uttering its being according to its own laws.Maurice Hewlett. Lore of Proserpine (1913)
Who knows what his neighbour sees? Who knows what
his dog? Every species of us walks secret from the others;
every species of us the centre of his universe, its staple of
measure, and its final cause. And if at times one is granted
a peep into new heavens and a new earth, and can get no
more, perhaps the best thing we win from that is the
conviction that we must doubt nothing and wonder at
everything.Maurice Hewlett. Lore of Proserpine (1913)
What if earth Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought? John Milton. Paradise Lost (1667)
Millions walk this earth unseen Both when we wake and when we sleep. John Milton. Paradise Lost (1667)
I find prayer and wine are two avenues through which
I can get out of the body. Wine is quicker, but seems
very irreverent. Prayer, I suppose, is the better way.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles had another method. She
says: ‘I don't know about ghosts, but I do know that our
souls can be made to go outside our bodies when we are
alive. . . . A very easy way to feel 'em go is to lie on the grass
at night and look straight up at some big, bright star; and,
by fixing your mind upon it, you will soon find that you
are hundreds and hundreds o' miles away from your body,
which you don't seem to want at all.’
Euphoria: There are seconds—they come five or six at
a time—when you suddenly feel the presence of the
eternal harmony perfectly attained. It is something not
earthly—I don't mean in the sense that it's heavenly—
but in that sense that man cannot endure it in his earthly
aspect. He must be physically changed or die. This feel-
ing is clear and unmistakable; it's as though you appre-
hend all nature and suddenly say: ‘Yes; that's right.’
God, when He created the world, said at the end of each
day of creation: ‘Yes; it's right, it's good.’ It—it's
not being deeply moved, but simply joy. You don't for-
give anything because there is no more need of forgiveness.
It's not that you love—oh, there's something in it higher
than love—what's most awful is that it's terribly clear
and such joy. If it lasted more than five seconds, the
soul could not endure it and must perish. In those five
seconds I live through a lifetime, and I'd give my whole
life for them, because they are worth it. To endure ten
seconds one must be physically changed.Fyodor Dostoevsky. Demons (1872)
(First translated asThe Possessed , 1916)
then than at any other time.
Women and War. There is this for you to do—English woman—Go forth
amongst your sister women and amongst the rising genera-
tion, and bid them examine their hearts and minds as to
this madness called war, pondering, not merely the horror
and insanity of it, but the causes of it, and what good
came of it at last—for the mass of people. Ally yourself
with those who work for the overthrow of a corrupt
system which sponsors war and finances it and profits by
it. . . . There can only be one just war, and that is war
against the system that makes war. The need is not for
a sentimental pacifism, but for the fighting spirit of revolt.
This alone is positive and constructive. The need is not
for a meek and barren martyrdom, but for an anger that
will set the world ablaze. For a policy not of flabby
non-resistance, but of passionate resistance, not for an
empty glory of nations and empires, but for the freedom
of the great mass of the people, for the return of power
into their hands, that all may have peace and plenty, no
man more privileged than the next, and the menace for
war withdrawn from the world. For war rises out of
economic necessity, not out of the heart of man.Ethel Mannin.
Nemesis. You do not look at the sun and the earth with peace
and friendliness. Now, to an early Greek the earth,
water, and air were full of living eyes. . . . One early
poet says emphatically that the air is so crowded full of
them that there is no room to put in the spike of an ear of
corn without touching one. There is no escape from them.
And it is they who have seen you and dislike you for the
thing you have done. . . . Nemesis is the haunting
impalpable blame of the Earth, the Sun, the Air, the Gods,167
the Leaders. Observe it is not the direct anger of the
injured person: it is the blame of the third person who saw.Unknown. Gilbert Murray, The Rise of the Greek Epic (1934)
Immortality. Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn, We leave the brutal world to take its way, And, Patience! in another life, we say,The world shall be thrust down and we up-borne.
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they, Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day, Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun; And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing—only he, His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life. Matthew Arnold.
Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes
shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding-
place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as
rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see shall not
be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The
heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the
tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.168
The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the
churl said to be bountiful. For the vile person will speak
villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise pro-
faneness, and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty
the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty
to fail. The instruments also of the churl are evil: he
deviseth wicked devices to destroy the meek with lying
words, even when the needy speaketh right. But the
liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall
he stand.Isaiah.
Prelude. The Vagabond was ill. He knew not how to get better,
nor even the name of his disease. He was so ill that many
who, as a rule never looked at him, noticed his appearance,
and tried to advise.Finally, after much suffering, he heard of a Wise Man
who knew most things about illness and, for a price, was
willing to give of his store of information.So off set the Vagabond as soon as he could get the
address, which was easy as the Wise Man was well
advertised.But the way to the house was difficult, for the Vagabond
found that the air in that part of the country affected him
badly, making his disease more acute, much worse than
in his own home. However, he persevered and finally
got to the Wise Man's house.Naturally, he had to wait some time, and in a room the
atmosphere of which made him feel very much worse.
‘Strange,’ though the Vagabond, ‘I should have thought
proximity to the Wise Man would have meant relief.’
At last he was shown into the Wise Man's presence. He
was sitting surrounded by instruments, books, and apparatus
of all sorts and sizes. He did not move, but watched the
Vagabond closely.The Vagabond was too much overawed to speak at first,
170
but when he found that the Wise Man was making no move
he went boldly up to the great seat and said: ‘I want your
help very badly. I have some money, a little, and will
earn more if you will help me to get well. I am unable to
have any happiness at all in my life as things are now.’The Wise Man moved slightly and spoke: ‘You are a
vagabond?’The Vagabond assented. Such was his name and place
in life.‘What is your disease?’
The Vagabond said petulantly: ‘That is what I was
given to understand you would tell me. If you can give
the disease a name it might mean you could cure me.’‘Tell me your symptoms,’ demanded the Wise Man.
‘I have pain here,’ said the Vagabond, indicating a part
of his body on the left, ‘and here,’ he added, placing his
hand on his head.‘When do the attacks come?’
‘After seeing or hearing things,’ said the Vagabond
vaguely.‘What things?’ naturally asked the Wise Man.
‘Bad things,’ said the Vagabond.
‘What is a bad thing?’ asked his adviser.
‘Bad and sad,’ supplemented the Vagabond. ‘The pain is
so acute that, at times, I have to walk only in certain
districts so as to avoid badness and sadness.‘What can you expect?’ asked the Wise Man. ‘You are
a vagabond.’‘It's the others,’ went on the Vagabond, without
heeding. ‘It's the others, especially the children,’ and
he drew his breath in pain. ‘When I see the young—when
I see them—really, sir, I do not know what to do then.’The Wise Man appeared to soften somewhat. ‘Yes,
yes,’ he said. ‘That is a symptom of which I have heard.
I will write you a prescription.’171 He went to the end of the room and wrote hastily, and
without pausing, for some minutes on expensive paper,
printed with his name and many degrees.And the Vagabond waited, doing what he could to hide
his growing discomfort and pain.Later, the Vagabond, after paying much from his small
store of money, and leaving a promise to settle the debt
by a certain date, found himself hurried from the Wise
Man's house with the prescription in his hand. He had
had no opportunity to read it, as he passed quickly through
the crowds gathering round outside, and it was not till
night that he found himself far enough from the place
and easier in body and mind.Only then did he find he had the strength and time to
think of the prescription, and, unfolding it in his little
hut, he read:Easilies, Chemists. For the Vagabond:
- 1. We all have what we want—2 grains.
- 2. Every man gets his deserts—4 grains.
- 3. We get accustomed to discomforts, pain, deprivation—
3 1/2 grains.- 4. What we have not had, we do not miss—7 grains.
- 5. Give every man equal chances and in a week they will
be as they were—15 1/2 grains, if the patient can digest it.- 6. If we fail it is our own fault—6 grains.
- 7. Childhood is a very happy period—1 1/2 grains.
- 8. All men are born equal—16 grains.
- 9. Look on the cheerful side of life—5 grains.
- 10. Feeling is a matter of self-control—2 1/4 grains.
The whole to be well mixed with common sense and
insensibility. To be taken three times a day or when the
pain begins. Rest is essential after the medicine is taken
and bright, successful surroundings are desirable.172 Having paid for this, the Vagabond thought he must go
through with the treatment, so he paid more money to
get the prescription made up by Easilies, but he felt no
better, and twice, after taking the medicine, he was very
badly ill.Then came another suggestion, this time offered by a poor
friend who often shared the Vagabond's hut when the
weather had been particularly bad.There was an Old Woman, he was told, who made a
bare living out of selling herbs—‘simples,’ she called them.‘There is nothing to fear about going,’ explained the
friend. ‘She has few patients, will not keep you waiting,
and if you do not like her cures lets you go without anger.’‘Nothing venture, nothing have,’ said the Vagabond,
who, since his visit to the Wise Man, had subsisted very
largely on platitudes. He found they agreed best of any
food taken with the medicines from Easilies, who let him
have a good many very cheaply.So he went to the Old Woman in her tiny house. She
received him very graciously, and he then remembered
that he had heard of her before. He had heard that she
always took sides against Fate when hearing of any one's
troubles, and this had annoyed Fate, who, as everyone
knows, was a very important judge and he had served the
Old Woman very ill in consequence. It was not thought
respectable to fight against Fate.Taken directly to the Old Woman's living-room, the
Vagabond felt no surprise at being asked to share a frugal
meal set on a table at one end of the room. And as he
sat there he felt better than he had done for some time.The Old Woman, like the Wise Man, watched him
closely. Finally, without any questions at all, she gave
her verdict:‘The power to feel intensely.’ She paused, then asked:
‘Do you want a cure?’173 The Vagabond was startled.
‘The Wise Man gave no name to my illness,’ he said,
rather tactlessly. But the Old Woman was quite un-
perturbed.‘I dare say he knew what it was,’ she said, ‘and he sent
you to Easilies, the Chemist.’‘Yes,’ said the Vagabond. ‘I have been taking the
medicine, but it's only made me sick several times.’‘It would cure you in time,’ said the Old Woman.
‘No, surely not,’ argued the Vagabond. ‘I thought it
must be the wrong thing, so I came to you.’The Old Woman nodded. ‘But it cures most,’ she said.
‘Of course, you have to go on with it for a long time, but
I thought it was a fairly certain cure, though a bit difficult
to digest at first. Were you not told to take Success with
it? I have always understood that then it is a certain cure,
if you can get enough of that expensive ingredient.’‘Enough Success?’ asked the Vagabond. ‘Mr. Easilies
said that the Wise Man knows it is hopeless to order such
expensive ingredients for such as myself. I am too poor.
But the Chemist said he had put an extra quantity of
Insensibility which should help. He said he knew the
Wise Man's prescriptions backward and forward.’‘And up to date you are no better?’ persisted the Old
Woman.‘No; worse,’ said the Vagabond dejectedly.
The Old Woman brooded over him sitting with her head
held between her two hands, her elbows resting on the table.The Vagabond ceased eating, looked back, holding him-
self patiently.Then she spoke: ‘Of course, I could cure you.’
‘Then please, oh, please do,’ pleaded the Vagabond.
‘I will work and pay for it, indeed I will. Of course, it
is expensive, but nothing shall rob you of the pay if you
will but cure me quickly.’174 ‘Free,’ said the Old Woman.
The Vagabond did not understand.
She repeated the word ‘Free,’ and sank again into
thought. The Vagabond waited. It was an easy place
in which to wait. His thoughts no longer hurt him,
weighing heavily as in the Wise Man's house. There was
a lightness about the place that communicated itself to
him, and he was at peace.Said the Old Woman suddenly: ‘I suppose Easilies did
not suggest Adventure instead of Success for you?’‘No; what is that? Is it a good substitute?’ asked the
Vagabond.‘Taken in the right spirit,’ she answered. ‘Some think
it is better than Success.I think it is.’‘I am willing to take your advice,’ said the Vagabond
meekly.‘Have you told me all?’ asked the Old Woman looking
at him sternly.‘All that you, or any one, will understand,’ said the
Vagabond with a show of spirit.The Old Woman did not mind.
‘I think you had better tell me more,’ she said.
‘I have tried to cure myself,’ said the Vagabond. ‘But
the doctors do not understand that it is the pain of others that
makes me ill. I can manage my own trials, they are small.’‘I agree,’ said the Old Woman. ‘You are likely to be
thought a fraud with that symptom. It's not a usual
one and often meets with more sneers than sympathy.’She paused again and thought. She was a strange
woman, but the Vagabond was accustomed to strange
helpers and hinderers. Finally, she rose, went, as had the
Wise Man, to a desk and sat writing for a few minutes.Finishing, she crossed the room to the Vagabond, offering
him a cheap piece of paper; written on it was a prescription.‘Will you take it?’ she asked.
175 ‘I will,’ said the Vagabond. The longer he stayed with
the Old Woman the more faith he had in her knowledge.‘Good fortune,’ she said, and turned away.
The Vagabond thanked her, forgot to pay, and went out.
By the light of the moon outside he read:
Vagabond. Hardtruths and Co., Chemists.
To be taken in the spirit of Adventure, in such proportion
as can be digested—10 grains each.
- 1. The most precious of all faculties is the power to
feel intensely.- 2. Are you fit to understand God?
- 3. Do you want an explanation that can be understood
by the vulgar, the lazy, the self-satisfied, the thin-natured?- 4. Don't be afraid of sin.
- 5. Don't nurse your misery.
- 6. Holiness is an infinite compassion for others.
- 7. Remember those, who, ‘sick in body, wretched in
poverty, were yet loved by the gods’; follow them.- 8. Existence is a privilege.
- 9. Are you not able to endure the incomprehensible?
- 10. A coward will never understand the world and its
Maker.
‘It is so,’ said the Vagabond, to the stars as he walked on
through the night, a free and healthy man. And as he
walked he sang:‘God, whom I praise; how could I praise, If such as I might understand, Make out, and reckon on His ways, And bargain for His love, and stand, Paying a price, at His right hand?’ G. W.
Mr. Fearing. As they [Mr. Great-Heart and Mr. Honest] walked on
together, the Guide asked the old gentleman, if he did
not know oneMr. Fearing, that came on pilgrimage out
of his parts?‘Yes; very well,’ said he. ‘He was a man that had the
root of the matter in him; but he was one of the most
troublesome pilgrims that ever I met with in all my days.’GREAT-HEART. I perceive you knew him; for you have
given a very right character of him.HONEST. Knew him! I was a great companion of his:
I was with him to the end; when he first began to think
upon what would come upon us hereafter, I was with him.GREAT-HEART. I was his guide from my master's house
to the gates of the Celestial City.HONEST. Then you knew him to be a troublesome one? GREAT-HEART. I did so, but I could very well bear it;
for men of my calling are oftentimes entrusted with the
conduct of such as he was.HONEST. Why, then, pray let us hear a little of him,
and how he managed himself under your conduct.GREAT-HEART. Why, he was always afraid that he
should come short of whither he had a desire to go.
Everything frightened him that he heard anybody speak of,
if it had but the least appearance of opposition in it. . . .
But when he was come to the entrance of the Valley of177
the Shadow of Death, I thought I should have lost my
man; not for that he had any inclination togo back ; that he
always abhorred; but he was ready to die for fear. ‘Oh!
the hobgoblins will have me, the hobgoblins will have me,’
cried he; and I could not beat him out on 't. He made
such a noise, and such an outcry here, that, had they but
heard him, it was enough to encourage them to come and
fall upon us.
But this I took very great notice of, that this Valley
was as quiet, when we went through it, as ever I knew it
before or since. I suppose those enemies here had now a
special check from our Lord, and a command not to meddle,
until Mr. Fearing had passed over it.
It would be too tedious to tell you of all; we will
therefore only mention a passage or two more. When he
was come to Vanity Fair, I thought he would have fought
with all the men in the Fair; I feared there we should
have been both knocked on the head, so hot was he against
their fooleries. Upon the Enchanted Ground he was very
wakeful. But when he was come to the river where was
no bridge, there again he was in a heavy case. Now, now,
he said, he should be drowned for ever, and so never see
that Face with comfort that he had come so many miles
to behold.
And here also I took notice of what was very remarkable,
the water of that river was lower at this time than ever I saw
it in my life; so he went over at last, not much above wet-
shod. When he was going up to the Gate, Mr. Great-Heart
began to take leave of him, and to wish him a good recep-
tion above; so he said,‘I shall, I shall.’ Then parted we
asunder, and I saw him no more.HONEST. Then it seems he was well at last. GREAT-HEART. Yes, yes, I never had a doubt about him.
He was a man of a choice spirit, only he was always kept178
very low, and that made his life so burdensome to him-
self, and so troublesome to others. He was, above many,
tender of sin; he was so afraid of doing injuries to others,
that he often would deny himself of that which was
lawful, because he would not offend.John Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
Man is an apprentice; Pain is his master. And no one
knows himself until he has suffered.Unknown. Attributed to Alfred de Musset
No great genius was ever without some mixture of mad-
ness, nor can anything grand, or superior to the voice of
common mortals, be spoken except by the agitated soul.Aristotle.
Ah, little do they know, That what to them seemed vice, might be but woe. Byron. Monody on the Death of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan (1816)
Every grief a man endures opens another window on
some beauty or truth in the order of the universe, evolved
out of chaos and old night.
There is an enchanted, hidden spot in the human soul,
fastened with seven locks, which no one, and nothing but
the pick-lock, bitter adversity, can open.Stefan Zeromski. Forebodings, appeared inSelected Polish Tales (1921)
OEDIPUS. I am a thing of God abhorred. CREON. The more, then, will He grant thy prayer. Gilbert Murray.
(from Sophocles.)Oedipus (1911)
The gods do not show their approval by defending their
own from adversity, or by giving them power and prosperity.
The judgment of this world is a lie; its goods, which we
covet, corrupt us; its ills, which break our bodies, set our
souls free.A. C. Bradley. Shakespearean Tragedy (1905)
Only the miserable see miracles. William Shakespeare. King Lear
It may be doubted if a human being saturated with the
joy of life, a perfectly happy person, could create anything
at all. One of the most potent incentives to the creation
of works of art, is grief, sorrow. Grief is a lens of extra-
ordinary power through which we can behold the workings
of our own hearts.William McFee. Credited in Acknowledgments
He was a disturbing man, afflicted, or as it turned out,
gifted, with chronic hyperaesthesia, feeling everything
violently, and expressing his feelings vehemently, and on
occasion volcanically.G. Bernard Shaw. Preface to The Apple Cart (1930)
Happiness is salutary for the body, but sorrow develops
the powers of the spirit.M. Proust. Time Regained (1927)
In moments of exaltation and depression truth stands
out away from us.
All sorrow, except sterile pain, enriches. It is, moreover,
the necessary accompaniment to the adventure of life.Unknown.
Swan-Song of any Pioneers. They reap with singing where through bitter days we sowed
the seed;They eat the bread for which our dearest perished in their
need;They say: ‘Behold our easy, just reward who never went Your unenlightened way to work.’ They reap: we are
content.V. H. Friedlaender. Credited in Acknowledgments
my work.
Physical pain, however great, ends in itself and falls
away like dry husks from the mind, whilst moral discords
and nervous horrors sear the soul.Alice James. Alice James: Her Brothers: Her Journal (1934)
Who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, These thoughts that wander through eternity? John Milton. Paradise Lost (1667)
Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think;
but thousands can think for one who can see. To see
clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one.Anon. John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Vol. 3 (1856)
To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the
only security against feeling too much on any particular
occasion.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
Pain is the constant problem of man, and perhaps more
of women, of unmarried women particularly. Jesus never
made light of pain. He chose pain.T. R. Glover. Credited in Acknowledgments
When she recoiled from cruelty she was trampling evil
underfoot, perhaps more surely than those great divines
who destroyed one another in their zeal for their Maker.Mary Webb. Gone to Earth (1917)
The burden of suffering seems a tombstone hung round
us, while in reality it is only a weight necessary to keep
down the diver while he is collecting pearls.J. P. Richter.
Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours, Weeping and watching for the morrow, He knows you not, ye unseen Powers. Goethe (Carlyle's trans.) Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (trans. 1824)
I should distinguish more carefully the difference between
a God-sent trouble and one made by man. To be alive
at all means the possibility of a God-sent trial. In front
of a man-made trouble I should fight and if I cannot fight
I ought to share the pain. My pain may assist the unseen
watchers. Or is that morbid? Ought I to turn away from
pain I cannot help? Pain increases the spiritual momentum
of the world. Thoroughly healthy people are so often
thoroughly hard people. Those who suffer become
interested in the Unseen, surely an advantage in a life that
so rapidly spills over after the age of forty-five?
Thank the Creator who has given you a lofty heart,
capable of such suffering.Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
Sorrow, being the supreme emotion of which man is
capable, is at once the type and test of all great art.Oscar Wilde. De Profundis (1905)
To those who live largely in the imagination—who create
rather than receive—reassurance, as well as apprehensiveness
and depression, is always at their command.Anon. Robert Hugh Benson, The Coward (1912)
To feel intensely is life, and one can still have happiness
if one can like the likeable things more than one dislikes
the ugly things.Anon.
To Tess, as to not a few million of others, there was
ghastly satire in the poet's lines:
‘Not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory do we come.’
To her and her like, birth itself was an ordeal of degrading
personal compulsion, whose gratuitousness nothing in the
result seemed to justify, and at best could only palliate. . . .
The only exercise that Tess took at this time was after
dark; and it was then, when out in the woods, that she
seemed least solitary. She knew how to hit to a hair's
breadth that moment of evening when the light and the
darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day
and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving
absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being
alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions.
She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be
to shun mankind—or rather that cold accretion called the
world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable,
even pitiable, in its units.Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)
Loss. Not on disaster falls the last despair. The very lips that are of death aware (Defeat refusing) May murmur of a dawn that is to be, And herald for a hope well loved the spring of victory: This is not losing! 184 To doubt: not issues only, but the cause— The thing once numbered with the eternal laws Beyond all choosing!— This is the iron entered in the soul; And to outlive the fire of faith, the passion for the goal, This—this is losing. V. H. Friedlaender. Credited in Acknowledgments
I commit you To the tuition of God. William Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing
With what dread force the conviction would grasp me
that Fate was my permanent foe, never to be conciliated.
I did not, in my heart, arraign the mercy or justice of God
for this. I concluded it to be a part of His great plan
that some must deeply suffer while they live, and I thrilled
in the certainty that of this number I was one.Charlotte Brontë. Villette (1853)
Also, how very wise it is in people placed in an exceptional
position to hold their tongues and not rashly declare how
such positions gall them! The world can understand well
enough the process of perishing for want of food: perhaps
few persons can enter into or follow out that of going
mad from solitary confinement. They see the long-buried
prisoner disinterred, a maniac or an idiot!—how his senses
left him—how his nerves, first inflamed, underwent name-
less agony, and then sunk to palsy—is a subject too intricate
for examination, too abstract for popular comprehension.
Speak of it! you might almost as well stand up in an
European market place, and propound dark sayings in that
language and mood wherein Nebuchadnezzer, the imperial185
hypochondriac, communed with his baffled Chaldeans.
And long, long, may the minds to whom such themes are
no mystery—by whom their bearings are sympathetically
seized—be few in number, and rare of rencounter. Long
may it be generally thought that physical privations alone
merit compassion, and that the rest is a figment. When
the world was younger and haler than now, moral trials
were a deeper mystery still: perhaps in all the land of
Israel there was but one Saul—certainly but one David to
soothe or comprehend him.Charlotte Brontë. Villette (1853)
The difference between her and me might be figured
by that between the stately ship cruising safe on smooth
seas, with its full complement of crew, a captain gay and
brave, and venturous and provident; and the life-boat,
which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old,
dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows
run high in rough weather, when cloud encounters water,
when danger and death divide between them the rule of
the great deep. No, theLouisa Bretton never was out of
harbour on such a night, and in such a scene: her crew
could not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat man
keeps his own counsel, and spins no yarns.Charlotte Brontë. Villette (1853)
It is right to look our life accounts bravely in the face
now and then, and settle them honestly. And he is a poor
self-swindler who lies to himself while he reckons the
items, and sets down under the head—happiness that which
is misery. Call anguish—anguish, and despair—despair;
write both down in strong characters with a resolute pen:
you will the better pay your debt to Doom. Falsify;
insert ‘privilege’ where you should have written ‘pain’;186
and see if your mighty creditor will allow the fraud to
pass, or accept the coin with which you would cheat him.
Offer to the strongest—if the darkest angel of God's host—
water, when he has asked blood—will he take it? Not a
whole pale sea for one red drop.Charlotte Brontë. Villette (1853)
My consolation is, indeed, that God hears many a groan,
and compassionates much grief which man stops his ears
against, or frowns on with impotent contempt. I sayimpotent, for I observe that to such grievances as society
cannot readily cure, it usually forbids utterance, on pain
of its scorn, this scorn being only a sort of tinselled cloak
to its deformed weakness. People hate to be reminded of
ills they are unable or unwilling to remedy; such reminder,
in forcing on them a sense of their own incapacity, or a
more painful sense of an obligation to make some
unpleasant effort, troubles their ease and shakes their
self-complacency. Old maids, like the houseless and
unemployed poor, should not ask for a place and an
occupation in the world: the demand disturbs the happy
and rich, it disturbs parents.Charlotte Brontë. Shirley (1849)
If any reader laughs at, or thinks it is out of date to quote
from, Charlotte Brontë concerning the difficulties of women,
I suggest they beg, borrow or steal one, or all, of the following
books:
Blessed are those who mourn, for their souls shall be
Queens of Consolation.Dante.
Pain will make him wise, ugliness good, bitterness mild,
and sickness strong.J. Roth. Job: The Story of a Simple Man (1930)
It is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering
than with thought.
Does ‘Blessed are they that mourn’ mean blessed are
they that cry for others? In that case, even such as I am
will be comforted.
I have come to the conclusion that many an apparent
insult is but a cry for help. Obviously, if someone pays
me the compliment of coming for assistance and is rude,
when it is admittedly more profitable for them to make a
good impression, it means either my technique is lament-
ably bad or their pain too great for concealment. I own
pain does not work that way with me, but it undoubtedly
does with some.
I think this because of Miss X. who came to me yesterday,
Miss de Burgh being at a committee meeting. I thought
her the most frozen client I had ever interviewed. Appar-
ently there was nothing she was trained to do and very
little that she would try to do. It was obvious she needed
work, her clothes were good but very shabby. And I
was just thinking regretfully of the registration fee which
seemed more likely to come from my pocket than from hers,
when I heard the tinkle of tea cups. I went out and brought
back tea for us both. She thawed.
She told me she had kept her father's house for twenty-
five years, since she was nineteen when her mother died—
I adjusted her age for myself, she had called herself the
usual thirty-nine; her father and she had lived on her
mother's comfortable income; the house, furniture, valu-
able pictures and good jewelry had all belonged to her
mother and all had been left to her father. He had
married again two years ago, but had died soon after,
leaving everything to his second wife, who, in her turn,
was leaving the money and possessions to her niece who
had no connection at all with the original owner. I looked
at Miss X. over my tea-cup and pondered. There was a
woman who had known good care when young, and then
for twenty-five years had known the ease and freedom that
can come from a wealthy father. She was now nearly
fifty and looking for shelter and food. I asked her what
she had done the last two years, and she said she had tried
staying with friends and relatives in turn. ‘But I had not
even pocket money,’ she faltered out, ‘I could not go on.
Besides, lacking everything, somehow . . .’ I understood.
It would surprise a good many self-satisfied hostesses if
they realized that their beautiful homes are not always
happy places for the guest.
What a long way there is between the appearance of a
thing and the reality. To deceive oneself is a happiness
for those who cannot see.
Another true story came to-day where again the appear-
ance is not the reality. Lady Evesham is angry with
Miss Z., who will not go to her as her grandchildren's
holiday governess as in former years. Lady Evesham
wanted to blame me, for Miss Z. ran away and left me to
tell Lady Evesham. Miss Z. had been governess to Lady
Evesham's children in the old days. ‘What's wrong with
her?’ demanded Lady Evesham. ‘She needs the money and
the holiday by the sea will do her good and she knows
I do not like changing governesses.’
Later, when Lady Evesham had gone and Miss Z. had
returned, I repeated this to Miss Z. and asked her why she
would not go. Again I had not looked behind the appear-
ances for the truth.
Miss Z. was kind enough to enlighten me. ‘It's no
holiday for me; I am old. I was worn out last year trying
to keep a check on the children who come back so fit from
those expensive and good schools and so happy to be free.
I cannot keep pace with them. The pound a week and
my fare does not pay for my ill health afterwards. I am
never for a moment alone, not even in my bedroom. I came
back last year so exhausted that my one room still seems
paradise to me when I think of those noisy waves, the
hot sands and that continual walk up and down from the
hotel. Her children were younger than these and they
loved me. These do not care for me, and perhaps it is
my fault.’
I looked at her. She
‘I have a pound a week annuity,’ she explained. ‘I saved
every penny I could. I live near a club for women and a
friend pays the subscription every year. I go there all day
for the fire and light and so manage very well. It is so
peaceful to know that I never need make any more efforts
to please people in their houses.’
I agreed with her and said I would write to Lady
Evesham.
It is wonderful that Miss X. could take such misfortunes
with calm and Miss Z. be so grateful that she had
managed to save enough to give herself a pound a week.
Those who suffer most are those with a sense of justice,
and yet, even more than knowledge, pain is power.
She was acquiring an unerring instinct for suffering in
others, and she had a strong feeling that it is the duty of
the people, whose skeleton is considerate enough to remain
in its cupboard, to be helpful to those whose skeleton
frankly takes its place by the fireside.Anon. Graham Travers, Windyhaugh (1899)
If I were asked to provide a man with the material best
fitted to develop his higher self, I should endow him with
poverty, unrequited love, enemies, and doubts. There are
few who being exempt from these trials accomplish anything
worth doing.Violet Tweedale. Credited in Acknowledgments
We cannot well forget the Hand That holds and pierces us, And will not let us go, However much we strive from under it. M.H. E. Hamilton King.Ugo Bassi's Sermon in the Hospital (1885)
I should think it probable that a large proportion of
‘genius sports’ are likely to come to grief physically and
socially, and that the intensity of feeling, which is one of
the conditions of what is commonly called genius, is
especiallyliable to run into the fixed ideas which are at the
bottom of so much insanity.Unknown. John Ferguson Nesbit, The Insanity of Genius and the General Inequality of Human Faculty (1891)
The world owes much of its progress to many of its
inventors; and the majority of its reforms to the com-
plaints of kickers, the noble discontent of impossible
idealists, persistent visionaries, and unpopular humani-
tarians. You are not likely to set to work making a new
world until you are bitterly and acutely dissatisfied with
the old one.Anon.
To know the reason of things is a poor substitute for
being able to feel them.Enid Samuel. Virginia Woolf, "William Hazlitt"
The Common Reader: Second Series (1932)
I heard to-day of a single woman, charing, very badly,
all day, to keep body and soul together; and failing. At
first I felt the old sick helplessness, and then I found a
reason. I don't feel ill when I find an artist suffering
before he can express himself; so perhaps I might try to
be a bit more hopeful about the charwoman; it is her form
of expression, and shows her pluck; she has nothing else
to express, but she shakes something out and is the better
for it; further on in her life's history, perhaps—
perhaps?
St. Thomas de Villanueva divided those he worked among
into six groups and he placed them in order of importance,
thus:
- 1. The bashful poor.
- 2. Maidens whose need may force them into the path of
temptation and shame.- 3. The poor debtors.
- 4. Orphans and foundlings.
- 5. The sick and infirm.
- 6. Strangers.
He reversed the usual order because he thought the
sick and infirm were so obviously in need, and that orphans
appeal to the hearts of all good people. He had eyes to
search out the claims of the shy and ashamed, of the helpless
maidens and piteous debtors.From a book about saints.
THE FAMOUS WOMAN. But I shan't be happy. HER ADVISER. Surely we should leave something for
the unsuccessful?From a play.
Deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling,
and all truth is a species of revelation.Caroline F. E. Spurgeon. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, qtd. in Mysticism in English Literature (1913)
A sense of life, developed and keen, is better to have,
in my opinion, than the ability to adhere strictly to this
or that ethical code. How many have this sense—this
appreciation of the ‘feel’ of life? It is hard to define it.
. . . It is a sort of acceptance of chaos, of indifference,
of contrasts, without being shrill, or frantic.C. B. Purdom.
Blackness, darkness, and despair; and sorrow blotting out
God's hand; and feebleness sinking without a stay; these
are not failure.James Hinton. The Mystery of Pain: A Book for the Sorrowful (1872)
Credited in Acknowledgments
How can we blame the Levite and Pharisee when they
look at and pass us by on the other side from where we lie
stripped of all courage and wounded in the battle of life?
Have we not also done the same? But what can we say
or do for the Samaritan who comes and, not only heals
us of our fear, but takes us away from it?
His was a spirit that to all Thy poor Was kind as slumber after pain. James Russell Lowell. Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing (1842)
Eager hearts always make mistakes that other people
avoid, but they make the world worth living in.Unknown.
What God has created, God can heal.
C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
I envy you sometimes! I really do. You really are
‘filling up’ the sufferings of Christ—‘who when He
was reviled, reviled not again.’ You accept slander and
cruelty and still go on helping—you don't even get fierce
when you talk about it. Some day you will know it is
worth while to live a crucified life—it is safe, too, and you
are not alone.I. W. Gurnsey. Letter credited in Acknowledgments
If pain went out of life, by the same door would go
courage and many fair things of which pain is the condition.
When we have laid our offering on the altar we must leave
it there, and not want to take it away when the flame of
sacrifice descends.F. Andrews.
world.
There is one unfailing test of real greatness both in
life and literature, and that is depth of feeling.H. A. L. Fisher. Orthodoxy (1922)
In the search for God, there must, and even should be,
periods when we cannot find Him.C. G. Montefiore. Outlines of Liberal Judaism (1912)
The heaviest load in the world is an unforgiving heart.
E. Gibson.
You are ill because you have overworked and exhausted
yourself; and that means you have sacrificed yourself to
an idea; and the time is near at hand when you will give
up life itself to it. What could be better? That is the
goal towards which all divinely endowed, noble natures
strive.Anton Tchekhov. The Black Monk (1894)
In some letters to J. Stuart Mill Carlyle shows a
clear conviction that an author must write the thing that
he feels there is in him to be said, that even if the subject
has wearied him, or even if he has great difficulty over it,
the thing has to be got out, has to be expressed. Also in
complaining of dyspepsia he adds that those who think
deeply and intensely have to pay a physical toll.Supplied by B. E. Ottaway. Letter credited in Acknowledgments
Glory to the man who rather bears a grief corroding in
his breast, than permits it to prowl beyond and to prey
on the tender and compassionate.Walter Savage Landor. Imaginary Conversations, Vol. 1 (1891)
Actually he was tormenting in a flame; and we thought
his contortions ridiculous.Maurice Hewlett. Lore of Proserpine (1913)
She was rather melancholy, but hoped as much as she
could, and when she could not hope did not stand still,
but walked on in the dark. I think when the sun rises
upon them, some people will be astonished to find how far
they have got in the dark.George MacDonald. Paul Faber, Surgeon (1874)
There is a brotherhood of the dissatisfied and the uneasy
and the anxious hearted, and I believe it is they who will
discover the Grail in the end if it's ever going to be
discovered at all.W. Hale White. The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford (1893)
A horse in St. Martin's Lane to-day was being frightened
by the motor cars. The man used a stick. There was a
great crowd. A policeman spoke to the man and showed
him how to manage the horse. Every one sympathized
with the animal.
But I have seen faces of human beings sick with appre-
hension, I have seen the big torturing the weak and no
one cared.
Why should the sufferings of animals always be so quickly
understood by us?
this. I think that the more simple a person is, the more
he will understand the simpler life of an animal. Also
they have complete power over the animal, never over the
person.
‘Blockhead!’ said Don Quixote. ‘Knights-errant are
not bound to inquire whether the fettered and oppressed
are brought to that situation by their own faults and mis-
fortunes. It is their part to assist them under oppression,
and to regard their sufferings, not their crimes.’Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote
Some of our best and wittiest writers to-day have no
197
kind word for a show of tenderness in another, for it seems
to them as odd a demonstration as a crinoline. Compassion,
after all, may not be necessarily a sign of a loose and feeble
mind, but may sometimes come of a deep understanding.Anon.
The desirableness of life is to be measured by the amount
of interest, and not by the amount of ease in it, for the more
ease the more unrest.Anon. George MacDonald, Malcolm (1875)
The man of romance is not he whose existence is diversi-
fied by the greatest possible number of extraordinary
events; but he in whom the simplest occurrences produce
the most sensations.Anon. Edmond Rostand
Qtd. inThe Twymans by Henry Newbolt (1911)
experience for me. As I step into the hot water in my
bath every night I think over my experiences—painful,
evil, pleasant, good, and know that so long as I can think,
I am living; that while I suffer I am learning.
There are only two emotions which are of no use: self-
pity and jealousy.Anon.
'Tis vain to say—her worst of grief is only The common lot, which all the world have known; To her 'tis more, because her heart is lonely, And yet she hath no strength to stand alone. Anon. Hartley Coleridge, “Stanzas†(1851)
appears as "The Solitary-Hearted"
inThe Oxford Book of English Verse (1919)
The sense of pity is the most important element in art.
Gerald Gould. Review credited in Acknowledgments
JUDAS. I am in prison of my pity; the moaning of men
and beasts torments me; the pain is not my own pain
From which I come praying for deliverance.JESUS. To other men I say Be merciful, to you aloneBe cruel. Life is not to be lived without some balance.Robinson Jeffers. Dear Judas (1929)
I know of the torment Judas suffered.
I had a shock to-day. A client greatly resented pity.
Is it true that it is the most contemptible of all the virtues?
That it is a form of contempt? I do not think mine was.
I offered it as a flower, to help her through. I sell pity
as some sell great gifts. It is sometimes all I can offer
in this fight. I, certainly, was not contemptuous. How
could I be
a matter of luck, and I, for one, feel that at any turn of the
road, I might lose my way. Besides, ‘his wounds make me
love him the more.’ What is wrong with that sort of love?
Grieve not because thou understandest not life's mystery;
behind the veil is concealed many a delight. Grieve not;
though the journey of life be bitter and the end unseen,
there is no road which does not lead to an end.Grieve not if for two days the circling sphere revolve
not according to our desires; the wheel of time moveth
not always in one way. . . .199 Take life . . . with a laughing lip, even though with
a bleeding heart; nor even if thou art wounded lament
like a lute.Till thou hast penetrated behind the veil, thou will hear
naught. The ear of the uninitiated cannot receive an
angel's message.Hafiz
Facing Life. If any spirit breathes within this round Uncapable of weighty passion (As from his birth being hugged in the arms And nuzzled 'twixt the breasts of happiness), Who winks and shuts his apprehensions up From common sense of what men were and are; Who would not know what men must be—let such Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows, We shall affright their eyes. But of a breast Nailed to the earth with grief, if any heart Pierced through with anguish pant within this ring, If there be any blood whose heat is choked And stifled with true sense of misery, If aught of these strains fill this consort up Th' arrive most welcome!
This Prologue belongs to the second part of
Antonio and by Marston. Charles Lamb says: ‘It speaks of
Mellida
the tragic note of preparation.’ It reads like an intro-
duction to the drama of life where the mature man must
make up his mind whether he will face the facts of life,
or whether he will not. Are we prepared to keep our eyes,
however ‘affrighted’ upon the ‘black-visaged shows’ which
cross the stage of life. Our moral rank depends largely
upon our decision. According to our choice we become200
captives or free. A captive confined amid pleasant theories
or a citizen of the world, able to go where he chooses,
willing to touch the sharp edge of reality and chance its
wounds. A good many men put mental comfort before
mental liberty. Usually it is the favourites of fortune who
dare not face the harder facts of life.
E.g. It is easy for a successful man to believe that we
all get our deserts. ‘Hugged in the arms of happiness,’
he refuses to see when circumstances trip up the man who
should have run well. Another false theory which hides
an unpleasant truth is that which postulates that everything
is a matter of habit, that nothing hurts much if only the
person is used to it: that poverty and privation, ceaseless
drudgery and care incommode no one who has borne them
long enough. They deny the existence of those the thought
of whom saddens the man who can face the facts, and who
are ‘desperate with too quick a sense of constant infelicity.’
A similar blind can be made out of the strange idea that
in the long run all lots are equal. This theory is in such
plain contradiction of experience that it seems hardly
possible that anyone should take pleasure in laying its
unction to his soul. Yet it is not uncommon to find
someone who believes it. Nothing will argue him out
of his preconceived notion. He falls back on the theory
of compensation, and as compensation comprises every-
thing from money to disposition, it is not easy to contra-
dict him. So he does his sum made up of uncertain items
and proves by it that the world is just.Another very amiable and entirely groundless view often
maintained by those who are afraid to look upon truth is
that nobody means to do wrong. This is a pleasant
imagination which can appeal, one would think, only to
the entirely innocent or the essentially silly. We talk of
‘damning with faint praise.’ We would rank mankind
below the animals rather than convict them of sin.201 No doubt in some sense these ostrich-like happiness-
hunters often attain their end. Yet few who determine
to look at things as they are feel any envy towards them.
Truth it must be admitted is often appalling, but only
those who can endure these shocks obtain glimpses of its
unearthly beauty, or realize at moments that extraordinary
correlation of opposites—of sin to virtue, order to con-
fusion, doubt to faith—which harmonizes in a flash and
for the space of a second the contradictions of the world.Reality has some indescribable value for most of us.
If in the next world a man were asked: ‘What of that
which you saw there below will you keep in memory,
and what will you cast into oblivion?’ a good many ‘black-
visaged shows’ would be retained. Marston invites those
whose souls are already ‘nailed to the earth with grief,’
who feel themselves ‘choked and stifled with the sense of
misery,’ to look fearlessly upon the terrible scenes being
enacted in the world around them. Surely these, at least,
would have a right to seek what consolation they could by
turning their eyes from sad facts as far as is for them pos-
sible. One would say so; and most of us, when we are
called upon to endeavour to ease mental suffering proceed
upon the plan of screening off all of horror which the
sufferer has not yet seen. All the same we believe there
is wisdom of a very deep kind in Marston's words. For
all mental suffering we demand explanation rather than
consolation, or shall we say consolation in explanation?
And at times there are explanations for those brave enough
to face them. Those who turn from tragic truth never
know that there are minds which are a match for fate,
and to whom the explanation is given—‘not,’ as St. Paul
said, ‘in word, but in power.’ They cannot tell us by
argument or persuasion, but their sufferings produce no
impotent rebellion, no confusion of despair—the reason of
what seems to onlookers like the wanton malice of fate, is202
ever present to their souls; not to their minds ̬ if it were,
they might impart the secret, and that is not permitted.
They are the recipients of a divine confidence they cannot
betray, but which for them clears up the mystery of pain,
and transforms a scene of chaotic cruelty into a vision of
the divine order. Such men stand upon the summit of
life. We dare not desire to see the things which they see;
the ascent is too terrible. But those who watch even from
very far off give thanks that the humiliation is taken out
of suffering, and learn, at least, to suspect the divine
origin of the indomitable spirit of man which all the
terrors of time do not avail to quench.From the Spectator. Emma Marie Caillard, Lay Sermons from the Spectator (1909)
Prelude. THE Vagabond was to go shopping. Naturally it was a
great event. You do not shop often, except for the barest
necessities, when you are a day-by-day worker, as the
Vagabond was.He lived always on the margin of necessities.
But this shopping expedition was to be different. It was
an orgy, for a relative, a rich one, had given Vagabond the
money on condition that it was to be spent entirely on
himself. So the Vagabond took a holiday and set off.
It was, indeed, a momentous occasion.The silly fellow did not think first as to what he wanted
or to which shop to go. He wanted to look first and then
to choose. He had none of the sense that tells you to
think out a plan and keep to it so as to spend the least
and acquire the most. He was going to enjoy the loafing
and thinking and looking and final choosing that which
took his fancy.He got first to the food shops, but here he did not
linger. After all, the Vagabond knew that food, once
eaten, is finished and cannot be retasted, nor can it be
kept or hoarded or increased in any way. No; plainly
the food shops must be missed. He passed on.Shops for clothes came next, and here the Vagabond
lingered. Contrary, probably, to your ideas of the Vaga-204
bond, if you saw him as he usually appeared in the Govern-
ment uniform of leather jerkin and corduroy shorts, the
Vagabond had quite good ideas as to what would best
set off his short sturdy figure. He knew, quite and pain-
fully well, the value of first impressions and of the good
introduction a well-cut coat can offer. So he lingered
round the clothing shops with aesthetic appreciation.What should it be? He had enough to buy a fur cloak
which would completely cover his Government uniform,
a desirable thing when dealing with Government officials
and those with pride of office in their manners. Shoes?
These, too, were there in varying sizes and shapes and of
all qualities. He could buy several pairs, and, there being
no Government stock shoes, only overshoes for bad weather,
the Vagabond could buy and wear at once a pair that would
give distinction even to his Government uniform. Yes;
shoes were certainly in the running for purchase, and the
Vagabond looked with distaste at his own worn, shabby
boots. Shoes, fur cloak, what else should he consider?The problem caused the Vagabond so much thought that
he found he had wandered past the food and clothing
department, and was near the picture galleries. When he
found himself there he resolutely turned and went out.
Pictures could be seen. He had traced and gone to every
free picture gallery, and he was of the firm opinion that,
whilst copies of great pictures should be made and sold to
those able to buy, the originals should be where all, rich
and poor, wise and ignorant, could see them. No; pictures
were not to be the temptation. He went on.He found himself in a bookshop. Here he came up
with a start. Books? Yes; it was right and proper that
they should be duplicated. The more they were dis-
tributed the better for all, writers and readers. The
duplicates did not detract from the originals, nay, the
printing and illustrations improved the original manu-205
scripts. New and beautiful editions of old works added to
the riches of the world. Oh, yes, books were the thing.He lingered and read and dawdled and looked till the
light failed, and men began to put up the shutters. And
nothing had been bought. Another holiday would be an
expensive luxury, not to be obtained easily, if at all.
Really, the troubles of affluence were acute. The Vagabond
went home more tired and disturbed than if he had been
working. But he enjoyed his evening meal as he had enjoyed
the change of occupation, and he enjoyed talking over the
great problem with his neighbour who came in, after his
meal had been cleared, to hear what he had bought.‘Nothing at all!’ exclaimed the neighbour. ‘How
foolish. You will have to depend on others to shop for
you now. What did you think of getting?’‘That's just the question,’ answered the Vagabond,
‘I cannot think. Pictures are not for me; music means a
piano or an instrument that I can play and I know no
such instrument; books, there are so many from which to
choose that I lost my chances while reading them.’‘But surely, clothes would have been the ideal thing?’
argued the neighbour. ‘Surely you went to look at them?’‘Clothes?’ questioned the Vagabond. ‘Oh, yes, I went
to look at them, of course. But why do you think they
would have been the ideal thing?’‘Your relatives would prefer that you did them credit
more than anything,’ said the neighbour. ‘What else
shows better in the crowd?’The Vagabond frowned. The neighbour hastened to
make bad worse. ‘You see,’ she said—for, of course, it
was a woman who was speaking on this all-important
matter—‘you have nothing else to commend yourself to
them when you visit them. It's a great house where your
relatives live, and if you can go clothed as they are, they
will respect you.’206 ‘When they ask me on my working days,’ said the
Vagabond, ‘I go in my Government uniform.’‘I know,’ said the neighbour, ‘and very stupid it is
of you. Now that we are on the subject I will tell you
that they object very much to your foolish idea that debts
must be paid before you clothe yourself. Of course, they
are annoyed and do not ask you often, or are ashamed of
you when you go.’‘I know,’ said the Vagabond sadly, ‘I realized it only
last week. I shall not offend again. My great lord did
not tell me of the offence, but his great wife did.’‘Then all the more need,’ said his neighbour triumphantly,
‘that you get the right clothes in which to go when you are
next asked. I expect that is the reason why the great lord
gave you the money.’And so it was decided that the fur cloak should be
bought. But the Vagabond did not feel easy until he had
told all his possessions what the new purchase should be.
He had such few possessions that he had made himself
very intimate with them. They were alive to him in his
little bare Government hut.After the neighbour had gone the Vagabond went the
round of the room telling all his possessions what he was
going to do, and where the fur cloak would live when it was
bought. To his surprise, the old leather jerkin scowled,
his patched boots put out their tongues, his old coverlet
on the bed rolled itself into an untidy heap, the straw-
stuffed pillow sank as if exhausted between the bed and
the wall and could not be pulled up again.Perplexed, almost frightened, the Vagabond turned to
the table. He was beginning the news when he realized
that it was the book on the table that was listening; neither
his chair, nor the table, was taking any interest. It was
his well-marked, well-worn book of verses who took note
of his words.207 These inanimate objects never spoke to the Vagabond,
but he could always feel their answers. The book said:‘Oh, Sir Vagabond'—the book was always courteous to
its owner—'why not another book?’‘That is odd,’ said the Vagabond, ‘you, of all my pos-
sessions in the room, want another of your own kind.
How is that? All the other things here make no attempt
to welcome a fur cloak, the clothes especially object.’‘Very natural,’ said the book. ‘Anything brought here
that is rich and rare will make everything, except myself,
feel and look shabbier than before.’‘But not you?’ asked the Vagabond affectionately.
‘No, not me,’ agreed the book. ‘I cannot say that a
fur cloak will make any difference to me. My life is full
as it is; you read and appreciate me, what more do I want?
Unless, O master, it is another book to share my thoughts
and exchange them. Another book! That, indeed, will
make me even richer than I now am.’The next evening there were two books on the Vaga-
bond's table. In one of them that night the Vagabond read:
‘Poetry keeps open the road from the seen to the unseen.’G. W.
Culture. Culture resembles genius in that it is born with one.
Experience develops the faculties we possess, but adds
little or nothing to temperament. . . . The superficial
mistake mere refinement for culture. . . .Genius, which is nothing but culture made active, has
a habit of revealing itself only to those who are intimate
with its language and gestures. Its votaries know by certain
mysterious and unwritten canons when they are in its
presence. A marked originality of countenance and
contour, which common minds often confound with
eccentricity; a peculiar dream - expression, which the
superficial mistake for stupidity; intermittent flashes of
wit and wisdom, which the ignorant confuse with lack of
stability; a surprising amount of moral courage, shown at
unexpected moments—these are a few of the principal
signs by which superlative minds may be recognized.
This explains the silent attitude of many gifted persons in
the company of strangers. They have learnt the futility
of frank speech on such occasions, and amuse themselves
with talk politely called conversation. . . . Intuitive know-
ledge, coupled with worldly experience, gives a leaning
towards reticence. A certain indifference renders a man of
much intuitive or worldly knowledge silent at the very
moment when superficial wits are the most positive as well as
the most triumphant. . . . Those who possess an intuitive
mind are commonly misunderstood by their relatives and
very often by their friends. . . . Strict conformity to routine209
is one of the surest signs of intellectual mediocrity. The
lower one goes in the scale of fashion the more do people
fear and avoid innovation, knowing that it requires a great
title or great wealth for the successful introduction of new fads
and fashions. The same thing happens in the world of the
intellect. Only broad and independent minds can afford
the luxury of originality. Thus it comes about that society
is divided into two kinds of slaves—those who live in fear
of conventional routine, and those who live in fear of
being thought stupid. A high intellectual development
gives an assurance, a conviction, a mental repose, which
sustains the individual under the most trying circumstances
and most complicated conditions. Culture and personality
are closely related.Francis Grierson. Modern Mysticism and Other Essays (1914)
How one should read a book. Yet who reads to bring about an end, however desirable?
Are there not some pursuits that we practise because they
are good in themselves, and some pleasures that are final?
And is not this among them? I have sometimes dreamt,
at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the
great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to re-
ceive their rewards—their crowns their laurels, their names
carved indelibly upon imperishable marble—the Almighty
will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy
when He sees us coming with our books under our arms:
‘Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give
them here. They have loved reading.’Virginia Woolf. How Should One Read a Book? The Common Reader: Second Series (1932)
THE CALIPH. When did you learn poetry? HASSAN. In that great school, the Market of Baghdad. 210
For thee, Master of the World, poetry is a princely diver-
sion: but for us it was a deliverance from Hell. Allah made
poetry a cheap thing to buy and a simple thing to under-
stand. He gave men dreams by night that they might
learn to dream by day. Men who work hard have special
need of these dreams.J. E. Flecker. Hassan (1922)
If teachers could somehow make ordinary boys and girls
grasp the quite simple fact that, though the world may offer
nothing better than a little money and a great deal of work,
anyone of them can, if he or she will, have a life full
of downright delectable pleasures. If teachers could make
them realize, that the delight of being in a bed-sitting
room, with an alert, well-trained and well-stocked mind,
and a book, is greater than that of owning yachts and race-
horses; and that the thrill of a great picture, or a quartet
by Mozart, is keener (and it is an honest sensualist who
says it) than that of the first sip of a glass of champagne,
if the teachers could do this, the teachers, I think, would
have solved the central problem of humanity. I cannot
solve it. I can but say that the only people who possess
the key to this palace of pleasures, are the people who know
how to value art and thought, for their own sakes, and
knowledge as an instrument of culture.Clive Bell. Civilization (1928)
Almost anything can be accomplished with a child who
has a habit of being eager with books, who respects them
enough, and who respects himself enough, to leave books
alone when he cannot be eager with them. Eagerness in
reading counts as much as it does in living. A live reader
who reads the wrong books is more promising than a dead211
one who reads the right ones. Being alive is the point.
Anything can be done with life. It is the Seed of Infinity.G. S. Lee. The Lost Art of Reading (1903)
Formal training for literature can be of little value:
nor, ultimately, does it matter, for in some curious, secret
manner, literature, as the past constantly shows, has a
habit of claiming her own.Frank Doughty. Credited in Acknowledgments
There is as much possibility in the letters of the alpha-
bet as there is in the notes of music, and so long as genius
endures, we shall never cease to wonder at the miracle of
language.Anon.
There is a distinct analogy between a library and a
garden, for each requires timely and periodical weeding.Anon. Attributed to Sir Herbert Maxwell.
A book may be as great a thing as a battle.
Benjamin Disraeli. Qtd. in Curiosities of Literature by Isaac Disraeli (1859)
Everywhere have I sought peace, and found it nowhere,
save in a corner with a book.Thomas à Kempis.
The best writing comes straight from the heart unchilled
by thought.George Moore.
There was no old age in that man's mind and that's
the secret of story-telling.James Stephens. The Demi-Gods (1914)
Of all men, perhaps, the book-lover needs to be reminded
that man's business here is to know for the sake of living,
not to live for the sake of knowing.Frederic Harrison. The Choice of Books (1886)
In these days of overwrought nerves, it is worth noting
that hardly ever is a suicide a book-lover, or a nervous
breakdown the fate of anyone busy with books.Anon.
A man without a cause for which he fights with every
breath is not the man who ever writes anything worth
reading.Anon.
Your choice of Books Shows your Self As much as your Looks. From a book-marker.
Outside a secondhand bookshop I once saw a bright-eyed
old woman in workhouse bonnet and shawl looking wist-
fully at the trays full of books, until, unable to resist the
temptation, she took one up and began to read, lost to the213
noise of the street or the mud that splashed upon the pave-
ment.I came closer and saw that it was a volume of Pascal's
Pensées, but before I could speak she had placed it back on
the tray and disappeared down a side alley as a man came
out of the shop.‘If she had the money she'd be one of my best customers,’
he said, beginning to rearrange his wares.‘She comes as often as she can get away, and I never
disturb her, but let her read as long as she likes. She must
have spent many an hour here.’From the Daily Herald.
At the ‘Orators' Corner’ in Hyde Park a speaker was
expounding the principles of a religious order.‘As Shakespeare said,’ he proclaimed, ‘“there's a Provi-
dence which shapes our ends—”’‘You're wrong, sir,’ protested a well-dressed man in
the crowd. ‘What Shakespeare said was, “there's adestiny that shapes our ends.”’The orator and his critic faced each other, and it seemed
that an argument might develop: but before either could
speak again an obvious tramp on the fringe of the audience
observed: ‘You are both wrong, my friends. Shakespeare
used neither word. The word he used was “divinity”.’The orator thought for a moment, and then remarked:
‘By Jove, sir, you are right. I acknowledge the error.’The first interrupter added his acknowledgment to that
of the speaker, but by this time the tramp had moved on.From the Daily Herald.
When—— ——(63) was bound over at Manchester
City Police Court yesterday for the theft of books from a214
local store, it was stated that owing to reduced circum-
stances he was unable to satisfy his love of literature.He had formerly been employed by a firm of booksellers,
but was now unemployed. All the books he had taken
were of a classical nature.From the Daily Herald.
A Jacobite who had escaped from the jail in which he
was confined for a hasty trial and certain death was retaken
and duly executed. He was hovering round the place
of his imprisonment with the hope of recovering his
favourite copy of Livy. There is nothing that a book-
lover will not do to secure his treasures.Anon.
A man standing near me at Mudie's counter, where I
was changing books, was eating dry brown bread—evi-
dently his dinner. It made me ashamed of my affluence,
but he had a love for books.
The small room is dear to the scholar for the very reason
that by its narrowness and limitation of space it compels
him to concentration of thought.Quoted from memory. E. M. Martin, Wayside Wisdom (1909)
Books know their own masters, and find themselves in
the right hands, sooner or later.Anon.
Books and friends should be few and good.
Spanish Proverb.
They are printed elsewhere and beautifully bound.
Said by W. Blake when his books were refused.
Go, little book, and greet my friend, Brighten his hours and cheerful solace lend. Then when he lays thee down at last And Finis reads, with thanks for all the past, Whisper to him that his is not your home, And though your owner grants you leave to roam, Still now the hour has struck when, like the tide, You make for home and there once more abide. Anon.
He who doth this booke borrowe, And doth not bring it back, Certes shall he have sorrowe, And comfort he shall lack. Seen in a book.
This book of mine I love to lend To anyone who is my friend. If you're my friend, you sure will see That this, my book, comes home to me. Seen in a book.
Rencontre. She walked to the music of her own mind's making, The tall, spare spinster in the cheap, drab coat, And her pale lips, faintly moving, their divine thirst were
slakingAt the gods' own Hippocrene, where bright bubbles float. 216 As I passed her, in the half-light, on a waft of wind I
caught theWords once shaped by mortals beyond all mortal ken. With Shelley and with Shakespeare she walked, with god-
like Milton,This poorest, palest, shabbiest of the daughters of men.
I looked at the girls, with their silken curls tossing, Their redder lips than nature, their bright eyes of desire. O brief is your springtime (I thought), my blossomy
darlings,But hers the authentic, the undying fire.
And I kissed the nearest blossom (was she Daphne? was
she Chloe?),And as betwixt my fingers her soft curls stirred, My thoughts were far from her, my thoughts were on the
highwayWhere walked the lone, gaunt spinster with the immortal
word.A. V. Stuart.
MY needs are first, money (and only uneducated women
who, like myself, have had to make every penny they spend
will understand this confession); second, friendship; third,
a room which is mine alone; fourth, books; last, some
leisure.
The happiest people, I think, would be those with the
greatest amount of variety in their lives. I should like to
have known poverty, riches; failure, success; solitude,
society; activity, leisure; simple unsophisticated and edu-
cated people. I hate dirt, so I am not nice enough for
the very poor, but, to be thoroughly unhappy, I do not need
misery and dirt so much as to live with snobs who can
appreciate nothing unless the object is hall-marked.
I should like to own that friends come first, but I must
show my selfish self when writing to, or about, that self.
I need money badly because it protects me from cruelty
and because I have tested the hardness of other people's
beds. There is, alas, no trouble that money will not
alleviate. So I must own that money comes first. But
money is only an alleviation, I do not mind that I cannot
have what it will buy. It is my friends who have given
me all the happiness I need.
I woke early to the fact that I had no home, in the sense
I think the word connotes; home should mean, I think, a
place where you are not only taken for granted, but taken in
always, however bad or unsuccessful, and cared for because
you belong there, your needs understood, and met as a
matter of course; and, best of all, protection and loyalty.
I know this means I am feeble, unable easily to stand alone;
but I cry out at times for a place where my failures would
not matter and where my successes would count as nothing,
provided I loved and let myself be loved.
But this was not for me. I was of no consequence to my
father, my brothers forged ahead for money and position,
and Ethel married a rich husband. They all found the
plain spinster daughter and sister very much in the way.
And then they were disloyal in ways I will not think about
even to myself here.
I ought not to complain, for I was taught through my
lack more than had I been wealthy. Homeless people
who came to me at the office knew I was as they were, and
this helped them and me.
It was those friends who let me into their mental life
who gave me most. I can live the other more imaginative
life alone, but mental food must be obtained outside
sometimes.
At the office I met my colleagues on equal terms, a
delightful experience after being a governess; committee
members, proud of their office on committees, but willing
to show appreciation if I could get the right employee;
inspectors of agencies and of health insurance cards, also
proud of power but able to be human; commercial travellers
anxious about their returns; mechanics for telephones,
typewriters, and gas stoves enjoying their machinery;
employers mostly loving only their own homes and all
that was in them; and, best of all, employees, who took
sympathy so greedily. I admit these last took toll of me,
but I was of use to them and that was reward for someone
who had never been wanted in her life before. Of all
those I met Geraldine Waife, a colleague, was the most
valuable. She was always ready for a talk, so easy to get
on with. And when she married, what fun it was to go to
her house and have well-served meals, a theatre for which
one did not wait in the rain, other friends of hers to meet,
and books to borrow.
Then came a change. Geraldine went abroad. I think
she would have understood. She wanted to understand.
Some people don't.
Psychologists say that you have only yourself to blame
if, having thought highly, too highly, of a friend, she or he
drops from that height. I am not able to claim any scien-
tific knowledge of the mind, but my answering question is:
Has not the friend, at some time or another, claimed to
be climbing those particular slopes? A friendship often
starts because one finds another climbing the same way.
I think one may sympathize a little with the sufferer who
finds her friend has never wanted that particular mountain,
or has turned back without giving notice to her fellow-
traveller.
My greatest griefs in life have been losses of friends. When
they failed I felt it must have been something unworthy
in me, for I loved them. And now that I am older, able
to flee to my own tower of refuge in myself, although
worn in the fight for mental as well as physical indepen-
dence, I can see that these losses have often been my
own fault. I did not trust. I do not think I have ever
been able to trust anyone wholly. I was always—when at
all ill—expecting they would let me down. It was the way
mental fatigue always took with me. My friends were
not to blame. How could they know? They felt my
current of uneasiness, it irritated them, unconsciously they
fostered it, and finally some of them would prove it to be
a certainty.
Yet I cannot blame myself entirely. From my youth up
I have suffered from uncertain people. I never knew if
I was to be kissed or whipped, it was mostly the latter.
They were not bad people, but they had little self-control.
It has worked havoc with my outlook on life. It has made
me horridly hasty to think the friend false or faithless, and
has also caused in me a continual ache for a constant demon-
stration that I was safe with my friend. These two char-
acteristics hurt, irritate, tire, and bore those happy people
who are certain of themselves and all about them.
And, again, I lost friends because I had not learned how
to play. Many of my friends had come to me through
Geraldine, and were living easier lives than those I saw at
the office.
The difficulties of the lives of those nurses, maids, and
nursery governesses ate into my soul. I could not forget
how hopelessly insecure those workers were; I could not
prevent myself from seeing the ingratitude of those women
who, having security, used other women, and then threw
them aside. I suppose I was morbid. But I could have cured
my morbidity if I had been allowed to express it, and given
an answer to my questions. No one gave me the answer.
I only found people avoiding me because I had a grievance.
A grievance appears to be something the other man does
not want to know. Yet they had their troubles, I know,
and I ought to have understood, though their troubles
the troubles of affluence. I, a workhouse lodger in life,
and dealing with other workhouse lodgers, became sullen.
It spoilt my enjoyment of everything pleasant if I felt that
the majority of people would never share it. The know-
ledge made me lonely and I was ill at ease with those who
had never suffered, who felt sure of themselves in a pleasant
world. I suppose I should have gone to a convent and
forgotten the outside world. But I wanted freedom, and
of dogma I knew, and know, nothing. I felt inadequate,
queer, cut off from my kind, alone, degraded. I was to
blame. I asked too much; it is only the rare souls who
can understand that which they have not experienced.
But the difficulties passed. I did not regain those friends,
but I made others, perhaps of more value because they
accepted me as I was and did not try to change me. Some
understood my burden of pity. I learned the peace of
being with those entirely sincere and kind, and who had
no social ambitions.
Later came the knowledge of enmity. I had acquired
more pluck, I was older, I began to fight for, instead of
only pitying, my workless people. I made enemies. At
one time Miss de Burgh nearly sent me away. A colleague
at the office made trouble. The employers did not always
amuse and interest me, at times I found myself angry.
The enmity of the world pressed on me. I found myself
unable to deal with the coarse, and I was afraid of vin-
dictiveness and self-seeking, which at one time I had not
seen. My manners deteriorated, and manners are catching.
Miss de Burgh left things to me, but I had no real authority
in the office. And then, quite suddenly, one day I heard
a junior call me ‘old,’ and I found myself frightened. I was
worn out, I was tired, and there was nothing behind me.
Youth had gone. I, too, had no safety. I had had more
fun and freedom in my life than many, but I was also going
to be one of the unemployable.
I expect I was hard and bitter those years. I did not know
that I was being tried, and that I was learning, on the in-
tensive system, vital truths. I still do not know why I had
such a hard schooling. But I got the knowledge and am
the better for it. Unless I am definitely careful of, and
kind to, every human being who passes my way I shall be
cruel to many.
I realized my position late because I had always thought
‘he’ would come back. I see how
ground, with no home, no relatives to claim, it was not
likely. For the time he had wanted me, it was true, but
there were so many of us. Other attractions beckoned and
he responded. I was nobody and soon forgotten.
I fancy modern women may manage better. I do not
know. It was a miracle that I ever met him, for he was not
used to my kind. And it was nothing to wonder about
that he left me when tired of me. I am grateful that I
had him for a time. I think he did get something. Per-
haps I shall meet him again.
My next experience about friends was when I lost my
work a few months ago. I found that if of no use some
leave you at once. I think all my life I have been shirking
this art of depending on oneself for everything: a faith,
a home, and mental food. I think I have learnt it at last.
And when I get work I shall not lean on anyone. I shall
not fail my friends again through peevishness or wanting
them to share my pity or to understand what they have not
experienced. I shall at last be reasonable and try to be
at ease with all classes. I am even conquering my fear of
poverty and cruel people. There is another world behind,
over this. In it I shall find my books and my friends again.
Friendship. Sweet words will multiply a man's friends: and a fair-
speaking tongue will multiply courtesies. Let those that
are at peace with thee be many; but thy counsellors one of
a thousand. If thou wouldest get thee a friend, get him
by proving, and be not in haste to trust him. For there is
a friend that is so for his own occasion, and he will not
continue in the day of thy affliction. And there is a friend
that turneth to enmity; and he will discover strife to thy
reproach. And there is a friend that is a companion at the
table, and he will not continue in the day of thy affliction;
and in thy prosperity he will be as thyself, and will be bold
over thy servants; if thou shalt be brought low, he will be
against thee, and will hide himself from thy face. Separate
thyself from thine enemies; and beware of thy friends.
A faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath found
him hath found a treasure. There is nothing that can be
taken in exchange for a faithful friend; and his excellency
is beyond price. A faithful friend is a medicine of life;
and they that fear the Lord shall find him. He that
feareth the Lord directeth his friendship aright; for as he
is, so is his neighbour also.Ecclesiasticus.
Perfect conduct is a relation between three terms: the
actor, the objects for which he acts, and the recipients of
the action. In order that conduct should be abstractly224
perfect, all three terms, intention, execution, and reception,
should be suited to one another. The best intention will
fail if it either work by false means or address itself to the
wrong recipient. Thus no critic or estimator of the value
of conduct can confine himself to the actor's animus alone,
apart from the other elements of the performance. As
there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those
who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to mag-
nanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly
when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-
constrictors. The saint may simply give the universe into
the hands of the enemy by his trustfulness. He may by
non-resistance cut off his own survival.Herbert Spencer tells us that the perfect man's conduct
will appear perfect only when the environment is perfect:
to no inferior environment is it suitably adapted. We may
paraphrase this by cordially admitting that saintly conduct
would be the most perfect conduct conceivable in an
environment where all were saints already; but by adding
that in an environment where few are saints, and many the
exact reverse of saints, it must be ill adapted. We must
frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense
and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actu-
ally is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance
may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. The
powers of darkness have systematically taken advantage of
them. The whole modern scientific organization of charity
is a consequence of the failure of simply giving alms.
The whole history of constitutional government is a com-
mentary on the excellence of resisting evil, and when one
cheek is smitten, of smiting back and not turning the
other cheek also.William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
A fine nature should have:
Does anyone belittle the great pleasure, not purchasable
with money, of coming in contact with congenial spirits,
of feeling one's way delicately and slowly to a friendship,
realizing that a false step or a rough touch may spoil the
bud? Or of finding in an old friendship new riches and
beauty?M.K. Unknown.
There are natures in which, if they love us, we are con-
scious of having a sort of baptism and consecration:
they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure
belief about us; and our sins become that worst kind of
sacrilege which tears down the invisible altar of trust.
‘If you are not good, none is good’—those little words
may give a terrific meaning to responsibility, may hold a
vitriolic intensity for remorse.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose deep
inflicted lacerations never heal—cutting injuries and insults
of serrated and poison-dripping edge—so, too, there are
consolations of tone too fine for the ear not fondly and
for ever to retain their echo; caressing kindnesses—loved,
lingered over through a whole life, recalled with unfaded
tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed shine,
out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself.Charlotte Brontë. Villette (1853)
complain that life was too hard. I have known the power
of healing that one soul can give another. I am rich for
ever.
She had that particular aptitude for companionship,
that rare touch on life which makes some souls so valuable
to their friends.M.K. Margaret Kennedy.
It is such a happiness when good people get together—
and they always do.Jane Austen. Emma (1815)
Her character is built up of self-restraint and the love
of goodness—qualities that often seem second-rate until
they have a sufficiently great field in which to act.Anon. Gilbert Murray, endnote to The Trojan Women by Euripides (1915) (approximation)
For thou, methinks, of all men wert not born and bred
without the will of the gods.Homer. The Odyssey
Friendship is a thing most necessary to life, since without
friends no one would choose to live, though possessed of all
other advantages.Aristotle. Ethics
One for me means ten thousand if he is the best.
Heraclitus.
Difficult and delicate are the approaches of one soul to
another if anything worth while is to be created.F. Tennyson Jesse. Credited in Acknowledgments
Love, indeed, is an affair of maturity. I don't believe
that a man, in this country, can love before forty or a
woman before thirty-five. They may marry before that
and have children; and they will love their children, but
very rarely each other. I am thinking now of love at its
highest rating, as that passion which is able to lift a man
to the highest flight of which the soul is capable here on
earth—a flight, mind you, which it may take without
love, as the poet's takes it, or the musician's, but which
the ordinary man's can only take by means of love.Maurice Hewlett. Lore of Proserpine (1913)
For the idealist living wholly with people occupied with
the concrete, existence is not merely lonely but fatiguing.
It is as though he or she were for ever talking a foreign
language.L. Falconer.
A friend is a second self.
Erasmus.
Some men and women are for one person only, and some
are for every one.Sheila Kaye-Smith. Credited in Acknowledgments
False greatness is shy and inaccessible. Conscious of its
foible, it hides away, or at least never shows an open face,
letting itself be seen only as much as will make an impres-
sion and save it from being revealed for what it really is,
something mean and small. True greatness is free, gentle,
familiar, unaffected; it can be touched and handled, and
loses nothing when seen at close quarters. The better you
are acquainted with it the more you admire it. It bends,
out of goodness of heart to its inferiors, and returns to its
own level without effort.Quoted by André Gide Jean de la Bruyère, qtd. in Dostoevsky (1925)
He lost, for a few minutes, his own point of view and
looked beyond it at the mystery of personality. In excess
it was a danger, like great beauty or great unscrupulousness;
it was dangerous to its owner and to those it touched, and,
like genius, it could not be crushed out of existence.E. H. Young. William (1925)
Originality is a quality which can never be acquired.
The orginal man is one born nearer to the truth of things
than the rest of us. He sees as the obvious, what to others
is obscure or even invisible. And not only does he see
with his own eyes, but he cannot see otherwise, and for
that reason he is seldom, if ever, conscious of being original.Anon.
No prophet had told him, and he was not prophet enough
to tell himself, that essentially this young wife of his was as
deserving of the praise of King Lemuel as any other woman
endowed with the same dislike of evil, her moral value229
having to be reckoned not by achievement but by tendency . . .
he forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)
Daniel had the stamp of rarity in a subdued fervour of
sympathy, an activity of imagination on behalf of others,
which did not show itself effusively, but was continually
seen in acts of considerateness that struck his companions
as moral eccentricity.George Eliot. Daniel Deronda (1876)
The moment of finding a fellow-creature is often as full
of mingled doubt and exultation as the moment of finding
an idea.George Eliot. Daniel Deronda (1876)
We praise Thee, Lord, for gentle souls who live In love and peace, who bear, with no complaint, All wounds and wrongs, who pity and forgive; Each one of these, Most High, shall be Thy Saint. Unknown. Sophie Jewett, God's Troubadour: The Story of St. Francis of Assisi (1910)
He who has made the acquisition of a judicious and
sympathizing friend may be said to have doubled his
mental resources.From memory. Robert Hall, The Works of the Rev. Robert Hall, Vol. 1 (1832)
A fool sees not the same tree as a wise man sees.
William Blake. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)
We do not often meet, yet day by day My life is sweeter for my thoughts of you. From a Christmas card.
We know that the person the individual thinks he is is
the equivalent of his conscious mind. The man that he
really is is the man his unconscious mind makes him.
The face that he sees when he looks in the glass is the face
that goes with his conscious mood. The face that others
see is the one that fits his unconscious mind.J. Collins. Magazine Insanity (1920)
The question of right is discussed only among equals.
Mankind was still divided into two species: the few
who had 'speculation' in their souls, and the many who
had none.John Galsworthy. The Forsyte Saga (1922)
Real love is so rare that if there is a God of Love surely
He should leave it undisturbed. The world needs it for
seed.
The men and women, though they be poor, ignorant,
blundering, who day by day are quietly setting aside their
own pleasure for the sake of some other person, taste a
sweetness, and get in themselves a growth which makes
the world a sacred place for them.Anon. George Spring Merriam, The Way of Life (1882)
The need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made;
better not to have had thee than thus to want thee.William Shakespeare. The Winter's Tale
Capacity for friendship varies like capacity for love.
Make up your minds to this. Virtue (without which
friendship is impossible) is first, but next to it, and to it
alone, the greatest of all things is friendship.Cicero. Letters
If a man wants to know the potency of love, he must
be a menial; he must be despised. Those who are pros-
perous and courted cannot understand its power.W. Hale White. Mark Rutherford's Deliverance (1885)
Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on
another! Not calculable by algebra, nor deducible by
logic, but mysterious, effectual, mighty.George Eliot. Janet's Repentence, Scenes of Clerical Life (1857)
Yonder, where we shall know each other by sympathy,
we shall be half strangers.Hans Andersen. Charming, What the Moon Saw and Other Tales (1866)
To the bird a nest, to the spider a web, to man friendship.
William Blake. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)
Her face suggested not only health, but happiness—the
sort of happiness one strives after and wins for oneself,
that is the result of character far more than of good fortune,
that only comes to those who have built up their castle
of hope from the ruins which have fallen clattering about
their feet.Beatrice Kean Seymour. Intrusion (1921)
We are assured of at least one immortality—the trace of
our spirit in other men's lives.E. Gibson.
So often we judge unjustly when we judge harshly.
The fret and temper we despise may have rise in the
agony of some great unsuspected self-sacrifice, or in the
endurance of unavowed, almost intolerable pain. Whoso
judges harshly is almost sure to judge amiss.Christina Rossetti. Time Flies: A Reading Diary (1886)
She made the mistake of all tortuous intelligences in
being unable to credit appearances. She thought simpleness
meant a simpleton.Anon.
‘No heart is pure that is not passionate.’ That is why
the lowest circles were kept for the cold-hearted in Dante's
hell.Anon.
The sight of good men to them that are going on
233
pilgrimage, is like to the appearing of the moon and stars
to them that are sailing upon the seas.John Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
There is something about natural goodness so much more
attractive than anything, except the finest and mellowest
phases of the cultural life.John Cowper Powys. In Defence of Sensuality (1930)
The one who loves most has the mastery in the end.
R. L. Stevenson.
The starving are always selfish.
Love and hatred may be blind, but friendship has eyes.
Anon.
That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all is but a worthless thing. James Russell Lowell.
I love you a little more than yesterday and rather less
than I shall to-morrow.From memory.
To be loved by such a person would make me lovely.
From memory.
When we are parted let me lie In some far corner of thy heart. Anon. Charles Hamilton Aide, When We Are Parted
Of love it may be said, the less earthly the less demon-
strative. In its absolutely indestructible form it reaches a
profundity in which all exhibition of itself is painful.Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native (1878)
If, instead of a gem or even a flower, we would cast the
gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that
would be giving as the angels must give.George MacDonald.
Love makes people believe in Immortality, because there
seems not to be room enough in Life for so great a tender-
ness, and it is inconceivable that the most masterful of our
emotions should have no more than the spare moments of
a few years.R. L. Stevenson. Virginibus Puerisque (1881)
Every relationship with another human being is unique
and alone.
Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they that
remove friction, that make the courses of life smooth,
and the intercourses of men gentle!Anon. Attributed to Henry Ward Beecher
The half has never been said of the part played in human
affection by the imperfections in character.Elizabeth Robins. Credited in Acknowledgments
He who would do good to another must do it in Minute
Particulars.William Blake. Jerusalem (1820)
Only a courageous human being is capable of experiencing
real love.
People are certainly medicinal; some are sedatives, some
are tonics, and some are irritants.Overheard.
Help thy brother's boat across, and lo! thine own has
reached the shore.Japanese Proverb.
You can bluff yourself, but you cannot bluff one who
loves you.Anon.
When we are near one who loves us we are not far from
God.Anon. Charles Wagner, The Better Way (1903)
To be loved, this is, after all, the best way of being
useful.French Proverb.
Love may be like a parcel which never reaches the person
for whom it is intended, because it is so badly addressed.Overheard.
One life can create a heaven for many lives.
E. Gibson.
Thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply And weave for God the garment thou see'st Him by. Goethe (Carlyle's trans.). Faust (trans. 1830)
They have known familiar friendship, and they will not
give of their best where friendship becomes casual.Anon. Anonymous, Peace of Mind: Essays and Reflections (1918)
There are passages of affection in our intercourse with
mortal men and women, such as no prophecy had taught us
to expect, which transcend our earthly life, and anticipate
heaven for us.H. D. Thoreau. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1867)
He loved her for that same strange holiness.
Gilbert Murray. Euripides, The Trojan Women (trans. 1915)
There is a rag-and-bone man outside. I send to you the
counterpart of rags and bones in the spiritual universe.
Some day when I am really beautiful and good, I will send
you love, the counterpart of silk and diamonds.
Your absence makes me tired.
And some day in the comfort that is born of souls that
thoroughly know and understand, I shall forget thy thought-
less ways and thee.Anon.
It is he that loves best who is made a slave of, and is,
moreover, forsaken sooner or later.Honoré de Balzac.
hope that it it not true.
A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances
through life he will soon find himself left alone.Samuel Johnson. in Life of Johnson by James Boswell (1755)
It is much less for a man's honour to distrust his friends
than to be deceived by them.François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Maxims
KING SKULE. I must have someone by me who sinks his
own will utterly in mine, who believes in me unflinchingly,
who will cling close to me in good hap and ill, who lives
only to shed light and warmth over my life, and must die
if I fall.JATGEIR. Buy yourself a dog, my lord. Henrik Ibsen. The Pretenders (1864)
Who can know how much of his most inward life is
made up of the thoughts he believes other men to have
about him, until that fabric of opinion is threatened with
ruin?George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
Let me not fail those who trust me when they seem to
need me least.
Happy are the associations that have grown out of a
fault and a forgiveness.Translated by Thornton Wilder from the French.
To speak sober truth, being in love is a very rare experi-
ence, reserved for the finer spirits among us; and even the
poets themselves, in spite of the beauty of their verses,
sometimes write of it without fullness of personal know-
ledge and understanding.Anon.
Where one who is in trouble is left unaided, there passes
an executioner; and where two or three are gathered to-
gethered in unkindness, there is the Inquisition.Anon. Edward Hutton, Cities of Spain (1906)
I have been taught over and over again, that unknown
abysses, into which the sun never shines, lie covered with
commonplace in men and women, and are revealed only by
the rarest opportunity.W. Hale White. The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford (1893)
Let that which is lost be for God.
French Proverb.
To speak well of a worthless man is like speaking ill of
a good man.From memory. Leonardo da Vinci's Notebooks,
trans. Edward M. C. Curdy (1906)
There are natures in this world which, often unconsciously,
seek other natures because of peculiar, irresistible forces
which bring them together, forces which may be evaded
or escaped, but which cannot be denied. Science may
ascribe their being to laws of physics or chemistry or
biology, but it cannot further account for them and their
power. The more imaginative mind may interpret them
less materially; the superstitious see in them the workings
of fate. They may wreck or rebuild, bring remorse and
ruin or the highest happiness according as they are balanced
by caution and understanding; but the wise mind knows
their existence and recognizes their power for what it is.
Such a nature, discovering its complement, sometimes
with fear and misgiving, realizes its fulfilment is at hand.
Two such natures become one as inevitably as two streams
converge in a common valley; and others, looking upon
them, know, either vaguely or surely according as they are
attuned to life, that they hold in common something which
surpasses and transcends friendship or companionship or
even love. For an extraordinary sympathy and under-
standing makes it as it were two parts into a single whole
for ever outdistancing speech, rendering explanations of
thought, or even of behaviour, unnecessary, setting at
naught all practical consideration of this or that by which
most lives are governed.Mary Ellen Chase. Mary Peters (1934)
'Tis easy to be a friend to the prosperous, for it pays;
'tis not hard to be a friend to the poor, for ye get puffed
up by gratitude and have your picture printed standing
in front of a tenement with a scuttle of coal and an orphan
in each hand. But it strains the art of friendship to be a
true friend to a born fool.O. Henry. "Tobin's Palm" (1906)
There are certain persons for whom pure truth is a
poison. Do not make friends with them.
The idealist is always made by life to appear the fool.
Overheard.
I am that I am, and they that level At my abuses reckon up their own. William Shakespeare. Sonnet 121
For the end of one's wanderings is usually a heart that
understands, and some there be who are still toiling on
their journey in search of it.Anon. E. Temple Thurston, The Greatest Wish in the World (1910)
Familiarity breeds blindness, not contempt.
. . . He had that quickness of intuition that so often
comes to those who have sifted themselves to the very
bottom of their souls. If a man has no reserves towards241
himself, he frequently finds that others have no secrets
towards him.Anon.
Do we not shun the street version of a fine melody?—
or shrink from the news that the rarity—some bit of
chiselling or engraving perhaps—which we have dwelt on
even with exultation in the trouble it has cost us to snatch
glimpses of it, is really not an uncommon thing, and may
be obtained as an everyday possession? Our good depends
on the quality and breadth of our emotion; and to Will,
a creature who cared little for what are called the solid
things of life, and greatly for its subtler influences, to have
within him such a feeling as he had towards Dorothea,
was like the inheritance of a fortune.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
Men rarely like such of their fellows as read their inward
nature too clearly and truly.Charlotte Brontë. Shirley (1849)
Learn, that if to thee the meaning Of all other eyes be shown, Fewer eyes can ever front thee That are skilled to read thine own; And that if thy love's deep current Many another's far outflows, Then thy heart must take for ever Less than it bestows. Jean Ingelow. A Mother Showing the Portrait of Her Child (1863)
Try to love souls, you will find them again.
Victor Hugo. Les Miserables (1862)
A friend is the one who comes in first when all the
world goes out.Anon.
A friend is someone who knows all about you and yet
likes you.A Schoolboy.
Keep your tents separate And your hearts together. Arab Saying.
I have often noticed what an imperceptible touch, what
a slight shifting in the balance of opposing forces, will
alter the character—some slight depression has been wrought
here, and some slight lift has been given there, and beauty
and order have miraculously emerged from what was
chaotic.W. Hale White. The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford (1893)
He made belief in goodness easier for other men.
From memory.
There are folk who notice nothing. They live side by
side with genius or tragedy as innocent as babies; there are
heaps of people who live on a mountain, a volcano, even,
without knowing it. If the stars of heaven fell and the
moon was turned into blood someone would have to direct243
their attention to it. Perhaps, after all, the most obvious
things are the most difficult to see. We all recognize
Keats now, but suppose he was only the ‘boy next door’
—why should I read his verses?W. N. P. Barbellion. The Journal of a Disappointed Man (1919)
Hungry for affection—and why not? I am trying to
learn to ‘say grace for others dining’; it is not easy.
Look for the superiority of the man who carries right,
the abstract thing, within the envelope of his common
desires.Joseph Conrad. Lord Jim (1900)
The motive for preferring obloquy to self-vindication
is not of the kind to be appreciated by the bully and
his seconders, who will mistake it for weakness and
be encouraged thereby. There are degrees in lying, and the
cruellest of all is the lie which is the bearing of false
witness.Anon.
I once regretted to a friend that I had never understood
the language of worldly-wise people and had made so
many mistakes. She said: ‘Take comfort, had you done
so you would have made them your friends perhaps, but
you would have let slip your own standards; you would
have learnt small verities at the expense of big ones,
and you would have vitiated your own soul.’
How many sympathetic souls can you reckon on in the
world? One in ten, one in a hundred—in a thousand—
in ten thousand? Ah! What a sell these confessions are!
What a horrible sell! You seek sympathy, and all you get
is the most evanescent sense of relief—if you get that
much. For a confession, whatever it may be, stirs the
secret depths of the hearer's character. Often depths that
he himself is but dimly aware of. And so the righteous
triumph secretly, the lucky are amused, the strong are
disgusted, the weak either upset or irritated with you
according to the measure of their sincerity with themselves.
And all of them in their hearts brand you for either mad
or impudent.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
You had to tune her before she was fit to use.
Overheard.
I hate her because her voice sounds as if it never trembled,
and her eyes look as if she never knew what it was to cry.Oliver Wendell Holmes. The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1860)
Persons with weight of character carry, like planets, their
atmospheres along with them in their orbits.Thomas Hardy. Return of the Native (1878)
The true value of souls is in proportion to what they
can admire.Walter Pater. Marius the Epicurean (1885)
A face is an awfu' thing! There's aye something lookin'
oot o't 'at ye canna dae as ye like wi'.George MacDonald.
An interpreter ought always to have stood between her
and the world.Charlotte Brontë.
(Said of Emily Brontë.)Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell (1850)
Of the Inequality amongst Us. Plutarch says somewhere, that he does not find so great
a difference betwixt beast and beast, as he does betwixt
man and man. Which is said in reference to the internal
qualities and perfections of the soul. And, in truth, I
find (according to my poor judgment) so vast a distance
betwixt Epaminondas and some that I know (who are yet
men of common sense), that I could willingly enhance upon
Plutarch, and say, that there is more difference betwixt
such and such a man, than there is betwixt such a man
and such a beast.Michel de Montaigne.
alive by the words and actions of some.
‘Every man is as good as his neighbour.’ If so, no man is
better than the worst, which is nonsense.
Judge not! the workings of his brain And of his heart thou canst not see; What looks to thy dim eyes a stain, In God's pure light may only be 246 A scar brought from some well-won field, Where thou wouldst only faint and yield. Adelaide A. Procter. Judge Not (1858)
In mendicant fashion, we make the goodness of others a
reason for exorbitant demands on them.George Eliot. Daniel Deronda (1876)
It is the tragedy of petty minds that they read smallness
into the finest of actions.Desmond Coke.
A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory, and
very few eyes can see the mystery of his life.John Keats. Letters of John Keats (1925)
A man's nature is best perceived in privateness, for there
is no affection; and in a new case or experience, for there
custom leaveth him.Francis Bacon. The Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral (1597)
He's weak because his imagination paints for him so
clearly the dreadful state of things it would be ‘if affairs
went wrong.’Hugh Walpole. The Green Mirror (1917)
Your sense of loyalty and trust go far beyond the world's
usual amount of these things, and so you trusted blindly247
where another person would have begun to suspect or
doubt.From a letter.
I felt inferior before her. That made me impatient.
Overheard in a train.
Those who soar high are counted tiny by those who
cannot fly.Quoted by Beatrice Mary Miller.
Let who may receive man's triumphs; to whom a soul
can take its defeats, that one has the imprint of Godhead.
He walks near God.Anon.
If you do an injustice to anyone, eventually you will
come to hate him.
In the matter of knowing what gives us pleasure we are
all like wort, and if unaided from without (as yeast in wort)
can only ferment slowly and toilsomely.Samuel Butler. The Way of All Flesh (1903)
All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved
for their imperfections, which are by Divine appointment;
that the law of human life might; be effort, and the law
of human judgment mercy.John Ruskin. The Stones of Venice, Vol. 2 (1853)
By what they said I perceived that he had been a great
warrior, and had fought with and slain him that had the
power of death, but not without great danger to himself,
which made me love him the more.John Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
There are some people from whom we secretly shrink,
whom we would personally avoid, though reason confesses
that they are good people; there are others with faults of
temper, etc., evident enough, beside whom we live content,
as if the air about them did us good.Charlotte Brontë. Villette (1853)
There is a point at which it is right to stop and consider
one's own dignity and self-respect. With X.Y.Z. you didn't
do this, and he hasn't the greatness to understand your
motive.V. H. Friedlaender. Credited in Acknowledgments
Blessed are they who heal us of self-despisings. Of all
services which can be done to man, I know of none more
precious.W. Hale White. The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford (1893)
A mood of wilful depression, bordering upon melan-
cholia, can be perhaps the most trying test to friendship
that exists. To throw life into the balance of chance—
to fling it absolutely away in a moment of heroism for a
friend one loves, is a simple task compared with the un-
wearying patience that is needed to face the lightless gloom
of another's misery. It taints all life, discolours all249
pleasures, tracks one—dogs one, like a shadow on the wall.
Yet Janet passed the test with love the greater, even at the
end of the gauntlet of those three weeks.E. Temple Thurston. Sally Bishop (1910)
If any one soul of us is all the world, this world and the
next, to any other soul, then whoever it may be that thus
loves us, the inadequacy of our return, the hopeless debt
of us, must strike us to our knees with an utter humility.Anon. Hugh Walpole, Fortitude (1913)
The soul of thy brother is a dark forest.
Russian Proverb.
The good Lord's plans are wise, no doubt, But still it's strange to me That sometimes those we like the best Are folk we seldom see. Unknown.
The good generally displeases us when it is beyond our
ken. For goodness has often a protective colouring, hidden
under poverty, humility, and insignificance.Anon. Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1886)
An intellectual bully. Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal
to the head, rather than to the heart, however pallid
and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of
touching a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head
but hit it.G. K. Chesterton. Charles II, Varied Types (1903)
You say people hate you. I guess they do not really
hate you though they may be angry with you. I think251
that people who are prophetsare hated, sometimes, but
they are also loved with more than ordinary affection.From a letter.
You know a lot of our troubles are due to different
pitches of intelligence. We can only do as our reasoning
tells us, and my reasoning power is far, far below yours.
It is like the bird going on singing when we can no longer
hear; its little throat throbs on, but we cannot hear a note.
Our hearing only goes up or down to a certain pitch, and
when a sound is above or below that pitch, we do not hear
it. One person may hear a note or two above or below
another person, because we are not all tuned to the same
pitch. And so it is with intelligence. You take me
further certainly than anyone else does, but I can only
go a little way. I often think your feeling of despair about
people not understanding, is because you go so much further;
therefore you do not realize their limitations; and the
things that to you are clear, are to them real difficulties,
beyond their comprehension.From a letter.
What is the last disappointment? Is it not to be for-
saken by those to whom we have shown our love? Nay,
deeper still, those to whom we have shownour need of
love?To be forsaken by those to whom we have shown kind-
ness, that is a profound sorrow and one which may bring
bitterness and unbelief. But to be forsaken by those
to whom we have confessed our need of their love, our
weakness without their love, our loneliness in ourselves,252
our misgivings over ourselves, in their absence: that is
the sorrow which is bitterer than death.Anon.
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
me! you would play upon me, you would seem to know my
stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you
would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my
compass—and there is much music, excellent voice, in
this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood,
do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?
call me what instrument you will, though you can fret
me, you cannot play upon me.William Shakespeare. Hamlet
I dislike C. E. F.; for she cheapens everything she touches.
You may be sure that a girl so bruised all over
would feel the slightest touch of anything resembling
coldness. She was mistrustful; she could not be otherwise;
for the energy of evil is so much more forcible than the
energy of good that she could not help looking still upon
her abominable governess as an authority. How could one
have expected her to throw off the unholy prestige of that
long domination? She could not help believing what she
had been told; that she was in some mysterious way
odious and unlovable. It was cruelly true—to her. The
oracle of so many years had spoken finally. Only other
people did not find her out at once. I would not go so
far as to say she believed it altogether. That would be
hardly possible. But then, haven't the most flattered,253
the most conceited of us their moments of doubt? Haven't
they? Well, I don't know. There may be lucky beings
in this world unable to believe any evil of themselves.
For my own part I'll tell you that once, many years ago
now, it came to my knowledge that a fellow I had been
mixed up with in a certain transaction—a clever fellow
whom I really despised—was going around telling people
that I was a consummate hypocrite. He could know noth-
ing of it. It suited his humour to say so. I had given him
no ground for that particular calumny. Yet to this day
there are moments when it comes into my mind, and
involuntarily I ask myself: ‘What if it were true?’ It's
absurd, but it has on one or two occasions nearly affected
my conduct. And yet I was not an impressionable ignorant
young girl. I had taken the exact measure of the fellow's
utter worthlessness long before. He had never been for
me a person of prestige and power, like that awful governess
to Flora de Barral. See the might of suggestion? We live
at the mercy of a malevolent word. A sound, a mere
disturbance of the air, sinks into our very soul sometimes.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
Our common fate . . . for where is the man—I mean a
real sentient man—who does not remember vaguely having
been deserted in the fullness of possession by someone
or something more precious than life? . . . our common fate
fastens upon the women with a peculiar cruelty. It does not
punish like a master, but inflicts lingering torment, as if to
gratify a secret, unappeasable spite. One would think that,
appointed to rule on earth, it seeks to revenge itself upon
the beings that come nearest to rising above the trammels
of earthly caution; for it is only women who manage to put
at times into their love an element just palpable enough
to give one a fright—an extra-terrestrial touch. I ask254
myself with wonder—how the world can look to them—
whether it has the shape and substancewe know, the airwe breathe! Sometimes I fancy it must be a region of
unreasonable sublimities seething with the excitement of
their adventurous souls, lighted by the glory of all possible
risks and renunciations.Joseph Conrad. Lord Jim (1900)
You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his
friends.Joseph Conrad. Lord Jim (1900)
If that thou hast a friend of long, Suppose he sumtimes do thee wrong, Oppress him not, but have in mind The kindness that afore hath been. Fifteenth-century drinking-cup inscription.
Let the wise be warned against too great readiness at
explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthen-
ing the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
He spoilt, in different ways, my conception of him.
That's the worst thing anybody can do to one—and the
most inevitable, I suppose.M. R. Larminie. Credited in Acknowledgments
The world's juggernauts aren't men without conscience,
but something much more dangerous, men with consciences
that they can square.Joanna Cannan. Ithuriel's Hour (1932)
I wish you could manage not to blame yourself when
you lose a friend. Very likely the friends you have lost
never needed more than a bit of you; you gave too freely;
they could not see the real you behind your gifts, your
need of them, your love, your sympathy. Very likely the
friends you have lost are very self-sufficient people whose
interests vary year by year or even month by month.
Friendship does not mean to them what it does to you.
You may not have failed them, they may have failed to
understand what it was you had to offer them. You must
remember you think little of yourself and some friends
—and often many relatives—want more show for their
money. They are not bad people, but they want excite-
ment and change and more of this world's show than you
can give them.Mary Boyd. Letters credited in Acknowledgments
For me a broken friendship is the worst form of pain.
He recognizes that he has changed towards me. What at
one time he wanted urgently, he now only wants at odd
times, in small quantities. Why should I be so devastat-
ingly hurt because of my steadfastness and loyalty? He
is in no pain at all. I am faithful and therefore beaten.
We suffer for the attribute that God is said to possess.
Surely faithfulness should bring peace, not this grinding
pain.
Farewell. Out of my life, out of my heart Go—go. I have loved you, for my part, Better than you know. 256 Better than you know, that is all: Yet how amply enough To turn the smooth walks of love's garden rough, Its sweet fruit rotten on the wall. Better—How it burns, how it aches— And for both our sakes. Not to know, not even to know: There's the pearl; there's the trough! And so, Because I have loved you, for my part, Better than you know, Out of my life, out of my heart Go: oh, go. Anon.
Gentleness, modesty, and self-doubt are the things to
give to the gentle and sensitive. To impress the other
type must mean firmness and self-confidence. You are
bullied and insulted the more if you offer doubts of
yourself, or an apology which will be misinterpreted.
Said to me by a friend and copied because I know I need
the advice, although I find it hard to understand.
I have lost a friend. She cares no more for me. It
has even taken me six months to get so far as to put this
on record. I never had a thought against S. I thought
her wise and good and brave. She says I have been selfish
and callous and unseeing. For a time I drew my breath
in pain all day. But I have partly recovered because of wise
remarks made by Edith Page.
It is much better to have a bad man for your enemy
than for your friend.Overheard.
It often happens that those are the best people whose
characters have been most injured by slanderers, as we
usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds
have been pecking at.Alexander Pope. Thoughts on Various Subjects (1737)
I hope for the sort of detachment that can come when
the people in my world have, one after the other, been
tried and found wanting.
It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping
censure, and a weakness to be affected by it. All the
illustrious persons of antiquity, and, indeed, of every age
of the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.J. Addison. Censure (1711)
I'll take your part when you are wrong; I'll fight your battles to the end; I'll listen when you sing a song, And never count your tales too long, Because—you are my friend. Unknown.
People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery
they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbours.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
But no man may deliver his brother nor make agreement
unto God for him.Psalms.
What would separate us spiritually — and, therefore
irrevocably—would be the fact that I failed in my desire
to depend upon myself. . . .It is a lesson which youth is slow to learn, which can
only come to us all by bitter experience. This spiritual
boundary to human endeavour, this inability to help those
who are most worth helping; this indomitable pride which
at once makes a friend what he is, and places us gently on
one side.Anon.
That is a rare and blessed lot which some greatest men
have not attained, to know ourselves guiltless before a
condemning crowd—to be sure, that what we are denounced
for is solely the good in us. The pitiable lot is that of the
man who could not call himself a martyr even though he
were to persuade himself that the men who stoned him
were but ugly passions incarnate—who knows that he is
stoned, not for professing the Right, but for not being
the man he professed to be.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
Wise people when they are in the wrong, always put
themselves right by finding fault with the people against
whom they have sinned; the art of doing this is the most
precious of those usually cultivated by persons who know
how to live. There is no withstanding it; a man in the
right relies easily on his rectitude, and therefore goes about
unarmed. A man in the wrong, knows that he must look
to his weapons; his very weakness is his strength. The one
is never prepared for combat; the other is always ready.
Therefore it is that in this world the man that is in the
wrong almost invariably conquers the man in the right,
and invariably despises him.Anthony Trollope. Barchester Towers (1857)
The Last Word. Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast; Thou thyself must break at last.
Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired; best be still!
They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee? Better men fared thus before thee; Fired their ringing shot and pass'd, Hotly charged and sank at last.
Charge once more, then, and be dumb! Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall. Matthew Arnold.
False friends. Every friend will say, I also am his friend: but there is
a friend, which is only a friend in name. Is there not
a grief in it, even unto death, when a companion and
friend is turned to enmity? O wicked imagination, whence
camest thou rolling in to cover the dry land with deceitful-
ness? There is a companion, which rejoiceth in the glad-
ness of a friend, but in time of affliction will be against
him. There is a companion, which for the belly's sake
laboureth with his friend, in the face of battle will take
up the buckler. Forget not a friend in thy soul; and be
not unmindful of him in thy riches.Ecclesiasticus.
The steadfast friend and the uncertain. Timber girt and bound into a building shall not be
loosed with shaking: so a heart established in due season
on well advised counsel shall not be afraid. A heart settled
upon a thoughtful understanding is as an ornament of
plaister on a polished wall. Pales set on a high place will
not stand against the wind: so a fearful heart in the
imagination of a fool will not stand against any fear. He
that pricketh the eye will make tears to fall; and he that
pricketh the heart maketh it to shew feeling. Whoso
casteth a stone at birds frayeth them away; and he that
upbraideth a friend will dissolve friendship.
If thou hast drawn a sword against a friend, despair not, For there may be a returning; If thou hast opened thy mouth against a friend, fear not, For there may be a reconciling:
Except it be for upbraiding and arrogance, And disclosing of a secret, And a treacherous blow: For these things every friend will flee. 261 Gain trust with thy neighbour in his poverty, that in his
prosperity thou mayest have gladness: abide stedfast unto
him in the time of his affliction, that thou mayest be heir
with him in his inheritance. Before fire is the vapour and
smoke of a furnace; so revilings before bloodshed. I will
not be ashamed to shelter a friend; and I will not hide
myself from his face: and if any evil happen unto me be-
cause of him, everyone that heareth it will beware of him.Ecclesiasticus.
Her Beauty. I HEARD them say: ‘Her hands are hard as stone,’ And I remembered how she laid for me 263 The road to heaven. They said: ‘Her hair is grey.’ Then I remembered how she once had thrown Long plaited strands, like cables, into the sea I battled in—the salt sea of dismay. They said: ‘Her beauty's past.’ And then I wept, That these, who should have been in love adept, Against my fount of beauty should blaspheme, And, hearing a new music, miss the theme. Max Plowman. The Golden Heresy (1914)
To a Young Man. When you are old, you will find God . . . Oh, you are young now, hard and free, And even though God hides behind All other things you ride to find, Your laughter and your kiss—maybe Beyond your vow that you are He (That conquering and gracious new Tall image you have made of you) He is no God that you can find.
He shall come out beyond the shows When Youth, that seems eternal, goes, And face you everlastingly— Only take care for fear He be, When you are old and you must kneel Before some God of flesh and steel (Too old to build your world up-new), The God your hard youth shaped of you. Margaret Widdemer. (1924)
Sailors assert that sometimes, when the sea is greatly
roused, something from out of the midst of night and264
darkness calls them by name. If the infinity of the sea
may call thus, perhaps, when a man is growing old, calls
come to him too, from another infinity, still darker and
more deeply mysterious; and the more he is wearied by life,
the dearer are those calls to him. But to hear them, quiet
is needed.Henry K. Sienkiewicz. Henryk Sienkiewicz, "The Lighthouse Keeper" (1882)
Yes, it is dreadful to think that it is possible to grow
nasty when growing old. I think it may be when we begin
to be tired, and we begin (almost without knowing it) to
pity ourselves. And sometimes we are irked because we
cannot do what we once could; and we are not generous
to those who succeed better. I feel that directly any one
begins to be ungenerous and perhaps a tiny bit glad if
someone fails, or jealous if they succeed, then we begin to
grow ugly. The worst of it is, that it begins in such a very
insidious way, and we are caught before we realize where
we are going.Mary Boyd. Letters credited in Acknowledgments
Middle age may be like the middle page of a newspaper,
nothing more to come but the advertisements.Anon.
In the warfare of the spirit there is no exemption for
persons over fifty. They must stand on guard till the end.Anon.
People grow old only when their hearts wither; so those
whom the gods love die young, with hearts still able to love.
At forty, one stands on the threshold of life, with value
learnt, having thrown away the rubbish.Anon.
There is no old age limit for life planning; even if we
cannot change our career, we can recast our character.E. Marie Albanesi. Credited in Acknowledgments
The middle age of a woman who has been brought up
just to be a woman and nothing else, is a tragedy. It is
as common as the tragedy of poverty. It will last as long
as women shut their youthful eyes to the long future
that awaits them after forty and take no pains to bank
the interests of the mind against this period of sexual
bankruptcy.Unknown.
Saints made perfect forgive such injuries, but not a
wrinkled woman on the rotten side of forty, with no
money or intellect to keep the wine of life from turning
sour in her bottle.Olive Schreiner. Undine (1928)
Some women, many I think, dread looking old. But I
am inclined to think that to have no scars from well fought,
if lost, battles would make a dull face even if still well
preserved. Also old age shows character quicker—for those
who can read—than youthful faces do. And if, as in an
enlarged photograph, there is any vulgarity it cannot be
hidden.
You can never be sorry enough for the girl who suffers
because she feels that life is passing her by and leaving
her nothing.
This age business is silly. Why judge by age at all?
I have known old people at eighteen, and young ones at
eighty. One of the unhappiest verses in the Bible is that
which talks of threescore years and ten. It makes people
feel old before they should. And yet I think there should
be a technique in growing old, as there is in all other
things. Anyway, life sometimes looks very ugly to those
growing old. To be pushed from one's work must be an
ill thing to bear with philosophy. Yet I would fain
get the old ones to see, that to move aside, is both the
better and the more chivalrous thing. Also, to learn to
be content alone with herself, is the only philosophy that
will bring a woman to a peaceful old age.
To one of middle age the countenance was that of a
young man, though a youth might hardly have seen any
necessity for the term of immaturity. But it was really
one of those faces which convey less the idea of so many
years as its age than of so much experience as its store.
The number of their years may have adequately summed up
Jared, Mahalaleel, and the rest of the antediluvians, but
the age of a modern man is to be measured by the intensity
of his history.Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native (1878)
‘And how are we to-day?’
‘Well, have we been a good girl?’ (Especially unnecessary,
when said by a youthful nurse to a woman twice her age).
‘What a nice dinner.’ (Usually said before the cover is
taken from the plate.)
‘Let me make you comfy, dearie.’
‘Turn over like a good boy and go to sleep.’ (Said to a
man of fifty.)
In poverty I lack this world's good; in exile I lack friends;
but in sickness I lack myself.John Donne. Sermon C I (1618)
The body is the mesh of the soul.
Unknown.
At length he was sufficiently recovered to walk to his
grandfather's cottage; but only now for the first time had
he a notion of how far bodily condition can reach in the
oppression and overclouding of the spiritual atmosphere.
‘Gin I be like this,’ he said to himself, ‘what maun the
weather be like aneth yon hump o' the laird!’ Now also
for the first time he understood what Mr. Graham had
meant when he told him that he only was a strong man who
was strong in weakness; he only a brave man who, inhabit-
ing trembling, yet faced his foe; he only a true man who,
tempted by evil, yet abstained.George MacDonald. Malcolm (1875)
Nothing suffered by the body can fail to enrich the
mind—if we choose.
My own experience is that thoroughly healthy people
are often thoroughly hard people. On the other hand,270
I know there is an element of evil in pain, yet I feel con-
vinced that, nevertheless, ‘pain is somehow good.’M. V. Nelson.
I like nobody who sees me when I am ill. It's an
indignity one has to suffer.E. H. Young.
A man's body and his mind, with the utmost reverence
to both I speak it, are exactly like a jerkin and a jerkin's
lining: rumple the one, you rumple the other.Laurence Sterne. Tristram Shandy (1759)
Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and Existence. Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and torture, and the touch of joy. Lord Byron, "The Dream" (1816)
from memory. I put the quotation into my Illness section
because I dream only when ill.
The night-time of the body is the day-time of the soul.
Unknown. Attributed to Iamblichus.
In our waking hours we dwell in one world together;
but when we sleep we turn aside each into a land of his own.Heraclitus.
Sleep holds the password to the strangely defended
bridge-head that divides the countries of the living and
the dead.From memory.
Dreams.
- 1. They supply change and variety without expense.
- 2. They give consolation to the anxious and sorrowful.
- 3. They provide an infallible test of character.
- 4. Occasionally—and chiefly if not exclusively to the
pure of heart—they are sent as warnings or foreshadowings
of future events. As a revelation to the dreamer of his
own weak points, they habitually warn.- 5. They annihilate space and time by admitting us at
once into the presence of the departed and the absent.Unknown.
I think I could manage to get through illness if I could
have the luck of knowing I was in my own bed, in my own
room, served by my own employees, and ruling the doctor
instead of being ruled as someone destitute of any sense.
It all depends on money, unfortunately. If you have none
you must first explain, then prove, you are ill, and after
that you have to be continually drawing on your gratitude
bank, a fatiguing process. However, I think my luck will
hold, I shall go out quickly, out from the dark into the
light. Never can I pray against ‘sudden death,’ and
although I am told it means unprepared death I still refuse
to pray against it. My life as a whole is preparation for
death. At the end I hope I shall realize the futility of
fear, life's examination will be over, preparation cannot
help then.
Psycho-analysts and those who have been analysed are
often very impertinent to other people. A major mental
operation, such as that process is claimed to be, surely
should make the surgeon and patient more, not less, gentle.
But the process devitalizes the soul, it loses its fragrance.
And no analyst seems willing to credit an imaginative
person with any goodness. He is more ready to see the
Caliban than the Christ in the sufferer before him; and
he treats him as one who has lost all claim to dignified
treatment. He cannot explain, he does not recognize the
saint, the sinner, the artist, or the simple.
Many of us looking back through life would say that
the kindest man we have ever known has been a medical
man, or perhaps that surgeon whose fine tact, directed by
deeply-informed perception, has come to us in our need
with a more sublime beneficence than that of miracle-
workers.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
Dr. Lydgate carried to his studies in London, Edinburgh,
and Paris, the conviction that the medical profession as it
might be was the finest in the world; presenting the most
perfect interchange between science and art; offering the
most direct alliance between intellectual conquest and the
social good. Lydgate's nature demanded this combination;
he was an emotional creature, with a flesh-and-blood sense
of fellowship, which withstood all the abstractions of
special study. He cared not only for ‘cases,’ but for John
and Elizabeth, especially Elizabeth.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
This rather abrupt man (Dr. Lydgate) had much tender-
ness in his manners towards women, seeming to have
always present in his imagination the weakness of their
frames, and the delicate poise of their health both in body
and mind.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
There is a great difference between a good doctor and
a bad one, but very little difference between a good doctor
and none at all.Anon.
This is the first time I have died; I want everything to
be done properly.Old lady of seventy-nine.
Where do all those terrible medical students go, and
where do all the nice doctors come from?Overheard.
One of the biggest signs of our lack of civilization is
to be seen in an out-patients' department attached to any
hospital, great or small. I have never taken any patient to
these places without realizing the horrors of giving power
to the ordinary woman or man over another. Even ordinary
courtesies are omitted.
I took a client of ours to a hospital to-day. I hate such
an experience more each time. We got there at five
minutes past ten, and I left with her between half-past
four and five o'clock. Illness unaided and alone would be
far preferable to the contemptuous treatment we had.
I could see nothing of the divine love of healing, only
the horrors of pride of office and love of bullying. I have
also been in workhouses—or Poor Law Institutions, as I
think they are called—and can see nothing of pity or divine
compassion for those broken in a hard fight.
This may be my fault. I know that goodness is easily
hidden and that evil is not so adroit; yet I still feel, with
passion, that only those can be called civilized who re-
member, when speaking to others less fortunate, to be
extra considerate.
What is sickness compared with distemper of mind and
decay of spiritual strength?Isaac Barrow. "Of Contentment" (1685)
I have no creed, no dogma, nothing to help me when I
take the last journey alone.
I have once or twice, foolishly, said to a friend that it
thrilled me to think of the great adventure waiting for me
any day; a journey I could take unimpeded by any luggage,
not even a tooth-brush. I found that the listener either
did not believe me or decided that I was lacking in
imagination, and would be one of the cowards when I
met Death.
I cannot say. I can only claim that to me at present
Death is an ally, it helps me not to tremble at shadows here.
At the end of the journey ‘Death will unload me!’
As I see life now, every birthday eases me a little of this
fear of living that is with me always.
They tell me I shall tremble to think of my sins. They
are so many; I cannot let them trouble me too much.
I have been so confused. I have been punished for what
I thought was right and rewarded for evil. I think the
only sins that will count will be those that have hurt
others, especially those weaker than myself. That will
be hard. But if I am to have that light surely I shall,
at the same time, be allowed light on everything; and to
have answers to my questions will alleviate. I have been
asking questions all my life.
And again they argue that I may sink into nothingness;
and I wonder afresh at the fuss made about a permanent
sleep. ‘That space of time when I shall no longer be
moves me more than these few moments.’
But the chances are that, as I think I have seen, and some-
times heard, the dead near me, I shall meet
kind
known in this life, and if He has no time for me, they will
‘heal me of the wound of living.’
Death. But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them. In the eyes of the foolish
they seem to have died; and their departure was accounted
to be their hurt, and their journeying away from us to be
their ruin; but they are in peace. For even if in the sight
of men they be punished, their hope is full of immortality;
and having borne a little chastening, they shall receive
great good. Because God made trial of them, and found
them worthy of Himself; as gold in the furnace He proved
them, and as a whole burnt offering He accepted them.
And in the time of their visitation they shall shine forth,
and as sparks among stubble they shall run to and fro.
They shall judge nations, and have dominion over peoples;
and the Lord shall reign over them for evermore. They
that trust on Him shall understand truth, and the faithful
shall abide with Him in love: because grace and mercy
are to His chosen.Wisdom.
The words of Rábiá's prayer: All-knowing Lord, Make this world's goods the portion of Thy foes, And Paradise Thy followers' reward; But as for me, remote from these and those, I stand forever free. Losing both worlds, I count the loss as light If but one instant, I may be Thy friend: Content, I take from Thee my beggar's plight— From Thee my true content, wealth without end, Thyself, Thy gift to me. Translation of a poem many centuries old.
Tell thou to my friends, when weeping, They my words decry, Here you find my body sleeping, But it is not I.
Now in life immortal hovering, Far away I roam: This was my house, my covering, 'Tis no more my home.
This was as the cage that bound me; I, the bird, have flown; This was but the shell around me, I, the pearl, am gone.
Over me, as o'er a treasure, Had a spell been cast. God hath spoken at His pleasure, I am free at last. Ahmed el Ghazallah (written when dying).
Some fishes, being told that water was the greatest of
all things, went to inquire about it and how it could be
seen. Until they were caught in a net and removed
from water they could not understand. I think that may
happen to us when we wake in the next world and realize
that we knew of it all the time.
All that the dead hand holds is that which the dead
hand has given.Unknown.
Suicide, I suspect, is very often the outcome of mere
mental weariness—not an act of savage energy, but the
final symptom of complete collapse.Joseph Conrad. Chance (1913)
Time goes, you say? Ah no! Alas, Time stays, we go.Austin Dobson. The Paradox of Time (1886)
It did not occur to him that at the end of life, at the
end of the forest that you can't see for the trees, clear,
irrefutable, stand the two enemies: Man and Death; and
that though you forget it, thinking when's the train?
and shall I sell now? and how awful if all the others are in
dinner jackets! your body doesn't, but knows that to scorn
death is the most true and admirable courage of all.Joanna Cannan.
Up the thronged pathways of the day I creep To the high citadel and tower of sleep. Unknown.
Some of us will have a lot to leave for burial, some ‘big’
ones will leave little.
So he died undesired.
2 Chronicles.
The most terrible comment on a death I have ever read.
When I remember, that a day will come, when I need
no longer be tied to this body, limited, as only a working
spinster on forty-five shillings a week can be limited, to a
set place, the same people; hampered by lack of knowledge;
frustrated by lack of opportunity, then I feel intoxicated
with the joy of knowing that no one can take that day
from me. I shall then know why I had to suffer here.
I shall know what is the Good. I shall be allowed to be
good. I shall understand.
For life is eternal, and love is immortal; and death is
only the horizon, and the horizon is nothing save the
limit of our sight.From memory. Rossiter W. Raymond, Death is Only an Horizon
I read in the paper to-day of the death of an old man, the
first to take advantage of the Old Age Pension. He had
been unable to believe such a bounty and had gone to the
local post office early the first morning the Act had come
into force and waited for the doors to open. I think some
of us will wait outside heaven's gate in as unbelieving a
spirit.
Why be disturbed at the creaking of a door? I, who have
gone through it, look back and see it and you.Unknown.
Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten
them; they can be injured by us, they can be wounded;
they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their281
place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest
relic of their presence.George Eliot. Adam Bede (1859)
When the commonplace ‘We must all die’ transforms
itself suddenly into the acute consciousness ‘I must die—
and soon,’ then death grapples us, and his fingers are cruel;
afterwards, he may come to fold us in his arms as our
mother did, and our last moment of dim earthly discerning
may be like the first.George Eliot. Middlemarch (1874)
There is no such dignity as that of death. In the path
trodden by the noblest of mankind these have followed;
that which of all who live is the utmost thing demanded,
these have achieved. I cannot sorrow for them, but the
thought of their vanished life moves me to a brotherly
tenderness. The dead seem to whisper encouragement to
him whose fate yet lingers: as we are, so shalt thou be;
and behold our quiet!George Gissing. The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903)
I believe in immortality because he is not here.
To walk and talk with the dead who smile and are
silent, andfree , quite finally free.Katherine Mansfield. Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)
Here lie I, Martin Elginbrodde; Hae mercy o' my soul, Lord God; As I wad do, were I Lord God And Ye were Martin Elginbrodde. Quoted by George MacDonald. David Elginbrod (1863)
Rich and famous lady arriving in heaven and being shown
round by St. Peter, sees a very beautiful home prepared for
her coachman and remonstrates at the poor cottage prepared
forher. ST. PETER. I'm sorry, but we did our best with the
material sent up.Supplied by Mary Boyd. Letters credited in Acknowledgments
A murderer, condemned to die, was asked by the chap-
lain to confess. He said: ‘And what about you?’ to the
chaplain, who was ruffled. ‘Well,’ argued the condemned
man, ‘don't you know I shall be meetingyour Governor
in a few minutes?’Told by a clergyman.
When we speak unkindly of the dead they may be sorry,
I do not know. But when we speak truthfully of the bad
things done by them to us, they suffer horribly; and when
we speak of the good they did, it is heaven for them. I do
not know how this can be, but it was shown to me as truth.
ing in this way. I had never thought it for myself, but I
feel instantly that it may be true.
‘If there were no heaven I should love God no less; and
if no hell, no less should I fear Him.’ Many think that
this saying is based upon the vision in which Santa Teresa
beheld an aged woman carrying burning straw in one hand
to destroy heaven, and a vessel of water in the other with
which to put out hell, in order that men might love God
for His own sake alone.
The desire to be with the dying—and some even wish to
be the only one—is curious, the dying may be so near the
place where they will be as gods, and look right through
the deeds of men that it would be immaterial however
much I was shunted or misjudged—they would so soon
understand, I could wait.
One day in every year A hope that is a fear Comes very near.
Once, every year, I say: ‘Less long now the delay Shorter the way.’
Whether for joy or woe I say that this is so I do not know.
Only one thing is clear A hope that is a fear Comes near. Mary Coleridge. One Day in Every Year (1908)
Let me not live . . . After my flame lacks oil. William Shakespeare. All's Well That Ends Well
Death is before me to-day Like restored health to one long ill; Like going into the garden after an illness. Death is before me to-day Like the fragrance of myrrh; Like sitting under a ship's sail on a windy day. Death is before me to-day Like the scent of lotus flowers; Like resting on the roadside to drink deep. Death is before me to-day Like the course of the overwhelming water channel; Like the return of a man from a ship of war to his house. Death is before me to-day Like the clearing of the mist from the sky; Like a man fowling therein towards that of which he
was not aware.Death is before me to-day As a man craves to see his home When he has spent years in captivity. Translated from a poem written about 2000 B.C.
On mourning for the dead. Give not thy heart unto sorrow; put it away, remembering
the last end; forget it not, for there is no returning again;
him thou shalt not profit, and thou wilt hurt thyself.285
Remember the sentence upon him, for so also shall thine
be: yesterday for me and to-day for thee. When the dead
is at rest, let his remembrance rest; and be comforted for
him, when his spirit departeth from him.Ecclesiasticus.
I HAVE had my certificate of release to-night. I saw the
doctor, played the fool, and so got the information I
wanted. I have now to keep in mind and do all he tells
me not to do! I bluffed him very well, I think. Men,
to whom the world as a whole listen respectfully, are easily
flattered; they forget that each person is a different entity.
They think in classes. It was quite easy. I have the
disease mother had. I thought so. I may go out any time.
And my money will last out over the year. That is all
that matters. Because of this money business I have to
say ‘No’ to God. He cannot be more thoughtless, less
understanding than my friends. He must surely under-
stand if I am compelled to hand back to Him this, so-called,
gift of life. To be condemned to live when I lack the means
is senseless. We all have the right to say ‘No’ to senseless
propositions. No adult forces a child, unless the adult
is a beast, into a life that makes that child a savage. If
I fail to get enough to shelter, to clothe, and to feed myself
I become the savage. If God exists He will understand.
If He does not exist, then I go out to sleep and what is
better than sleep when weary? I am but a child in a world
I certainly never made. Conditions are now such that I
am of no more use. Man is immortal till his work is done.
Mine is done. The delicious
is here.
THE editor's task has been difficult. In my ignorance
I thought that to quote from the wise was to pay homage
to the wise. But the wise did not always desire the
homage, and, in some cases, made it too expensive. Also
I have had to exclude many extracts because of the some-
times insurmountable difficulties of assembling author,
title, source, publisher, and, occasionally, the literary
executor, together. I beg for the indulgence of those
whose rights I have overlooked in spite of diligent search.
Is it another delusion of mine to think that some writers
will not be angry if they find some poem, translation, or
aphorism of theirs has been treasured for many years, and
now brought to light, even if their names, or the source,
have been mislaid in the process?
The work has not been uneasy all the way. Some
generous authors not only gave ready consent, but also
encouragement; some even corrected, without anger, Eve's
faulty copies; some supplied missing sources, and gave help
about publishers. Friends also helped with wise advice
and cautions.
I hope these helpers and friends will not object if I give
them a special place here:
To the above acknowledgments I gratefully add the
following names: