Chapter X: Part 10

The great drawback of the country folk in England (worse here no doubt than in Ireland) is their want of initiative. Centuries of smothered life under the incubus of the Landlord and the Parson have had their inevitable effect. They never _will_ speak their minds, or commit themselves to any action which is not entirely customary and approved by the powers that be. It may be different in other parts of the country, but here the one answer to any question of importance (especially if put by a stranger) is “I don’t know—I don’t know.” So fearful have they been for generations lest their words should be by chance reported in ruling quarters that the habit of concealment has at last got into their blood. One sees from this how paralysing our land system is towards all manhood and resourceful initiative in the country.

Nor is the matter much different in many other lands. When in Sicily (in 1909) we found that among the peasants the children were systematically taught to _lie_, and punished by their parents for truth-speaking. And for a very simple reason. For if a stranger came along and asked questions of a child—“How much land has your father?”—“How many goats does he keep?”—ten to one that stranger was an emissary of the Church (the chief landlord of the old days), or a taxgatherer, and so an emissary of the State; and the truth would mean more rent or more taxes. Thus deceit was the only salvation, and lying the chief foundation of “Morality.” Here in England the parson and the landlord have a similar paralysing influence; and whether they actively and consciously are conspiring against the people, or whether their questionings (as sometimes may happen) are inspired by pure kindness, the result is the same—namely the corruption of the people; and perhaps a worse corruption in the second case than in the first.

Still the new life must come, and has to come, and is coming. Small Holdings—either freehold or with a secure tenancy under a public body—give perhaps the best chance of breeding a spirit of independence in the people. Co-operation trains them in adaptability and resource.

At one time—seeing the waste of energy resulting from the twenty or so small farmers in our valley each making their separate few pats of butter weekly (and bad butter at that!) I got a dozen or more of them together and put the case for co-operative milk-selling before them. They all agreed that it was the right thing to do, that milk-selling paid much better than butter-making and that the cost of transit to town (by motor-car or country cart) could be recouped with profit. We went into the figures and were satisfied. But when it came to actual operations the paralysis of lack of initiative was on them, and no one would stir a finger! If _I_ had arranged a whole scheme and set it in operation I have no doubt they would have fallen in with it. But, as I said, I had my own work to do, and had no intention of giving up a large part of the day to their affairs. The only one who volunteered to do anything practically—and this illustrates the difference between the agricultural and the other workers—was curiously enough a _navvy_. He had only a very small farm which he carried on side by side with his navvy work, but he immediately took practical steps and would I believe have carried a scheme through but for an illness which just then overtook him.

A supply of Small Holdings (holdings say up to thirty acres in size[33]) on a really secure basis would do an immense work in liberating the social life of the rural workers. For the first time in his history one of the most important types of man in the country would be able to hold up his head, face his ‘superiors,’ and give some kind of utterance and expression to his own ideals. At present agricultural life is hugely dull from its mere uniformity and want of variety under the all-pervading foot-rule of the landowner and his faithful servant the parson. A greater supply of small holdings would also, I need hardly say, be valuable from the economic point of view, and the greater variety it would encourage in the culture of the soil.

Of course what we now especially want, and what happily people are beginning to _feel_ the want of, is the establishment of large co-operative farms over the face of the land—somewhat on the model of the Danish farms. When it is remembered what the Danes have done, with an originally quite poor soil, by their organized co-operative methods—how they have renewed the prosperity of their own country and created a new invasion of Britain by their agricultural products—it seems astonishing that we over here still remain in the muddy ruts of our old ways. Supposing for example that by co-operative or governmental purchase, or even (if it can be imagined) by gift from a large landowner, an extensive farm of some two thousand acres were acquired; supposing that suitable portions of the farm were broken up into twenty small holdings of ten or twenty acres each; and that the remaining body of the land were farmed in thorough style under a skilled manager—the workers on the central farm being the small holders themselves, who would thus work partly for themselves on an individualistic basis and partly collectively for wages; supposing that the manager was given by the co-operators a certain amount of authority for the purposes of work and organization, and that on the other hand he was there to _advise_ the small holders to a certain extent as to their work and crops; supposing that he organized co-operative arrangements for the members of the society, both for the purchase of necessary materials and the sale of their products; suppose that a joint council arranged the matters of wages and dividends, and the establishment of creameries, cheese and butter-making apparatus, egg-collecting systems, and so forth; surely it is not very difficult to see that in some such roughly indicated way a great new departure might be made in the agricultural development of the United Kingdom. If a thousandth, if a twenty thousandth part of what is spent in the mad destruction of a great war were spent on some such constructive work, ten times the number of people now employed in agriculture might be placed productively on the land, and the output of wealth and home-grown food (so important to our island) might be enormously increased.

About nine years ago—in 1906—I began to pull the farm lads and men together to form a little Club at Millthorpe. For some years we had a difficulty in finding a place for it, and had to be content with a very small room in a cottage. But here came in the advantage of the small holder. A silversmith who lives in the locality—the only man beside myself who has two or three acres of freehold and who is not tied to a landlord—having joined the Club, and seeing our difficulty, offered a fine and large barn belonging to him for our use. If it had not been for him we should have had to go, cap in hand, to some local owner or cleric and could never have developed freely. As it is, the place has been a great success. Managed in an easy-going sort of way by the men themselves (and I am happy to say that my share now of the management is very small) the Club has taken its own lines quite naturally. In order to avoid ill-feeling and competition with the public-house—which is close at hand—we have no drink, except tea and coffee. Whist, lectures, readings, whist drives, dances, socials, billiards, are the chief amusements, and the place serves occasionally for discussion of local affairs. Theatricals, in a small way, now and then. And the balance of our weekly subscriptions goes in winter to a Christmas supper, and in summer to an excursion by rail or brake.

With small people secure in their tenure, such Clubs would grow up pretty abundantly and would become the start-points of co-operative movements, creameries, agricultural Banks, and so forth. The great thing is that they should _not_ be managed by benevolent superiors, for the management of their own concerns is after all the chief and most important item of a people’s education. There is however a place in our countrysides—and a need—for people of a rather wider knowledge and outlook than the general rustics to come and live among them simply as friends (and not as benefactors). People of this kind can certainly contribute _something_—even though their ‘wider knowledge’ be as a rule rather vague and bookish. They have information about what is going on elsewhere, and they often are good at organizing. A new _kind_ of parson, democratic-minded and really in touch with the people, and not attached to any ‘church,’ and a man with a _little_ leisure at his command, might be greatly helpful. Why do not the thousands of young men (or women) who are thus qualified rush in to fill this void?

At one time, as I think I have already mentioned, I was a member of the Parish Council, but the hopelessness of getting any result therefrom, combined with the waste of time connected with it, caused me after a few years to abandon the position. The four or five farmers, all in terror of their landlords, and the parson (bound by golden chains to the Lord of the Manor) formed a solid phalanx against any progressive proposal. Perhaps I ought to have fought things out a little more, but wrangling is an occupation which I detest, and to fight questions to a practical finish always means the expenditure of much time—time which I with my agricultural, literary and other labours could ill afford. The one prevailing idea with the Council was not to spend _any_ money if possible; and even the few shillings necessary for the repair of a small length of public footpath would be debated over with a tenacity and miserliness of outlook which made one despair; while the Vicar (not without laudable presence of mind) would resign himself to slumber in the Chair!

About the only thing of use I was able to do was to save from loss or destruction the Award Book—that is the book which records the enclosure, early last century, of the Common Lands of Holmesfield Parish, and specifies the details of their assignment to the various proprietors then holding land in the parish. And this I only did with difficulty and after the labours of many months. When the Award was completed (in 1820) the said Award Book naturally and rightly was handed over, not to the Church or the Squire, but to one of the Trustees who represented the Parish generally—a farmer, who of course kept the book at his farm under lock and key, but with permission to the parishioners to inspect it at convenient seasons. In course of time the farmer died, and his son following in the same farm, became custodian of the book. Later on and after many years, the son died, and the son’s widow became custodian. By that time most people in the parish had forgotten, or were utterly ignorant of the existence of such a book. It might easily have happened that the widow or _her_ son, migrating to another part of the country, should have taken the book with them among their household goods—in which case it might have been lost for ever to our Parish. Such or something similar _has_ happened frequently of course. It happened to the Minute Book of the Courts Baron of Holmesfield—a manuscript record of the meetings of the said Court all the way from 1588 to 1800, and a most valuable and interesting document. In some unknown way the book disappeared; but by a piece of good luck, it has now come into the possession of the Free Library at Sheffield, where it can easily be inspected, and where it is safer perhaps than it would have been in the village to which it refers.

To return to our Award Book, the Parish Councils Acts very wisely gave all such documents into the custody of the Parish Council to be kept in a Parish room or Chest. But the difficulty was to make our Council take any active interest in the fate of the book. Moreover it possessed no Parish Room or Parish chest, and when the question came before it of having a chest made, even that appeared to some of the members a serious and unnecessary expense. Questions of the dimensions of the chest, the material of which it should be constructed, the number of locks it should carry, the selection of the joiner who should be entrusted with the precious work and so forth, were endlessly debated; the Council meetings took place only at long intervals and it seemed at last as if the chest never _would_ get made. I mention these details merely to show the kind of thing that happens in country villages. Meanwhile the Vicar went to the said widow and (not without remonstrance from her) succeeded in obtaining the Award Book; and placed it in the _Vestry_. A faction then arose in the Council who maintained that the book was quite secure in the Vestry safe; and that no Parish Chest was needed! It had then to be pointed out that the Act did not _allow_ such books to be kept in the Vestry, and that the Council would be responsible if it did not keep the thing in its own custody. And so the game went on. Ultimately after a full year of similar imbecility, the chest really got itself made; the Award Book and some other documents were placed within, and now repose there in waiting for the Day of Judgment. Exhausted by the labours connected with the affair, and hopeless of ever getting any useful activity out of the P.C., I shortly afterwards retired from it.

Of course these conditions are not the same in all parishes. Where there are mining or artisan populations there is often a good deal of briskness and movement; but in the agricultural regions and the South of England affairs are somewhat as I have described. The District Councils are a shade better than the Parish Councils; but the membership of them falls largely into the hands of small shopkeepers and a middling class of folk who are very philistine and wanting in æsthetic perception, and as a rule rather ignorant except in matters of business. They make hard and fast rules and regulations—often suggested by the conditions existing in the jerry-built slum-areas of the smaller towns—and by enforcing these regulations in country districts where they are not needed do seriously hamper the expansion of rural life. Such are some of the regulations about the height and cubic space of rooms, which desirable though they be in slum-tenements are quite out of place and the cause of needlessly high rents in country cottages; such also the barring of wooden dwellings, on account of fire, in many rural and even isolated regions where there is no public danger from this cause; and again the vexatious restrictions set upon the use of vans and tents. In these respects the work of the District Councils is really helping towards the increase of an existing evil, the depopulation of the countrysides.

On the other hand the composition of these Councils makes them absurdly deferent to big commercial and aristocratic interests, and the money of the ratepayers gets poured out like water on schemes in which under cover of public works private interests are largely concerned. As I have had occasion to explain in the Fabian Tract above-mentioned—_The Village and the Landlord_—our local District Council, having decided that a reservoir was needed, applied to the then Duke of Rutland for the purchase of a suitable area on the moors above us. The land in question had before 1820 been part of the Common Lands of the parish, and was now, as the ducal private property, paying rates on an _estimated rental_ of less than 2s. 6d. per acre. It could not therefore be supposed to be worth much more than £3 per acre, capital value; and it might _almost_ have been expected that in consideration of the history of the Enclosure transactions, and of the additional fact that the land was wanted for an important public purpose (water supply), the area necessary for the reservoir would have been granted free. Far from that happening, as a matter of fact the amount actually charged was at a rate of about £150 per acre! The sad thing about such a levy on the public purse is not only that the ducal people should have charged it, but that the District Council should have paid it! If the latter had had the gumption to offer a bold resistance, to decide for themselves what was a reasonable payment, and to bring the whole matter before the public, the case for the former would probably have collapsed. But there’s the rub—the want of spirit and pluck in these public bodies; and considering these and similar things one seems to see very plainly that what really matters in the life of a nation is not so much the exact form of its institutions as the general level of education, alertness, and public spirit among its people. With these latter advantages defective institutions may still be made to serve; without them the best will soon become corrupt. It may however be said that some institutions are naturally more favorable than others to the growth of public spirit, and that is a consideration worth remembering.

One of the few native institutions of long standing in this locality is the Well-dressing—which takes place in some of the neighboring villages once a year, during the feast-week of the village, and is accompanied with dancing and other festivities. The village fountain or spring is decorated with flowers—sometimes in quite elaborate and ornamental designs—and the festival evidently dates from very early or pre-Christian times when the divinities of the streams and water-sources were recognized and worshipped. When I first came, in 1883, into these parts, there were along all the lane sides numbers of the most charming stone cisterns and water-troughs bubbling with clean water and overhung with maiden-hair ferns; and it was part of the habits of the country-folk to keep these places in order—a joy to human beings and to animals. Now we have a reservoir as above-mentioned. The Well-dressings truly remain as a yearly function; but the divinities whom they used to celebrate have fled. The cisterns and troughs all over the country are neglected. They are cracked and dried up and full of potsherds and salmon-tins; wayfaring men and animals go thirsty; and the public spirit and service of the water-gods has vanished. We are told that water conducted through miles of iron tubes and lengths of lead piping is much more ‘sanitary’ than the water from field springs and wells. It may be. But I prefer the latter. At one time there were so many cases of lead-poisoning in the Sheffield district, traceable to lead connections, that the matter excited serious attention. It was decided that the trouble was due to a certain acid in the moor water, which dissolved the lead, and consequently large filter-beds charged with chalk and lime were made in connection with the reservoirs, which neutralized the acid. The water was freed from this danger, but it became saturated with lime; and the people died from stone in the bladder instead of lead-poisoning! Personally I would prefer to take my risk of a microbe in a flowing cistern. And with an alert country-population, assisted by an occasional inspector, such a risk would certainly be small.

But we are told that public spirit ought to make us join these reservoir schemes; and pressure is put on us by the ‘authorities’ to do so. I do not by any means agree. Though no doubt there are cases in which local storage is advisable or necessary, the unbridled transfer of water over immense distances is attended by serious evils. The beautiful Thirlmere is turned into a mere water-tank in order to supply Manchester; the lovely dales of Derbyshire are disfigured beyond recognition so that they may quench the thirst of Birmingham. In other words, in order to encourage the growth of a hideous and dirty city with an unclean and poverty-stricken population a tract of clean and gracious land a hundred miles off is cleared of _its_ population and also rendered hideous! And all this at a huge and incalculable expense. We do not want these great congested and unhealthy centres, and we do want our streams and springs and the gods who dwell among them. Let the people come out for the water if they want it; but let them come with forethought and reverence.

Another native institution managed, like the well-dressing, by the people themselves is the Ploughing Match. There _is_ a Farmers’ Association which of course ought to be a kind of Trade-union for the promotion and protection of farming interests. Perhaps once it was alive; but now and ever since I have known anything about the matter it has become hopelessly futile and decadent. It has a dinner at some public-house once a year and gets thoroughly drunk—and that is about all it does! But the Ploughing-Match Association, which was originally I suppose an offshoot of the Farmers’ Association, _is_ alive—possibly because it has nothing whatever to do with politics. The farmers and their sons and the small holders (such as there are) join in and organize the affair; and it is a pretty sight to see in two adjacent fields perhaps twenty teams of men or boys with their shining ploughs and their beribboned horses going to and fro each on their appointed strip of land; the turning of the animals at the extremities; the clicks and calls; the marvellous accuracy of the furrows; the groups of critics and the judges. Going among them all one perceives what splendid material there is here among the English countrysides; and also one grieves to think how it is paralysed from development and expansion by our absurd land-system and generally apathetic way of conducting ourselves towards the most important of all industries. We have at Holmesfield the champion ploughman of the neighborhood, who takes the prizes at the village matches for many miles round. He is a great friend of mine. And I am also proud to say that at our Association Committee meetings my professional opinion is sometimes consulted, and I may occasionally be seen amid the fumes of smoke and beer occupying the Chair and keeping a dozen or twenty farmers in order, or bringing them back to the practical point of discussion when (as they generally do) they wander afar from it—a sufficiently humorous situation for a so-called “poet and prophet”!

But the most important village institution after all—and more important perhaps than the Church—is the Public-house. Here is the natural centre of the Village life, and here the village Opinion—if there is any—is collected and consolidated. It is a great pleasure to me to sit occasionally in our “Royal Oak” among the rustics whom I know so well. Their quaint humour, their shrewd judgments, their shy silences, their naughty stories, are a continual recreation. Unfortunately, like so much else in rural life, the Pub. has in general been allowed to go to decay; and instead of being the village meeting-place and centre of sociability it has too often become a mere resort of drink and imbecility. “Tied” to a Brewery, and at an exorbitant rent, the Publican has no alternative but to sell as much as he can of the vile decoction supplied to him. He encourages booze but does not encourage sociable converse. The Brewer rises to wealth and obtains a seat in the House of Lords; the villager sinks slowly but surely poisoned in body and atrophied in mind, and dies in a ditch.

One of the very first things to be done for the restoration of the rural life is the reorganization of the Public-house—or rather its liberation. The clutch of the Brewers upon the drink trade should be cut off decisively and finally. The manufacture of beer ought either to be a State monopoly or it ought to be absolutely free, without licence, and subject only to a severe inspection. There has been a great deal of talk lately about the intemperance of the workers, and the abolition or serious restriction of the drink traffic; but the real root of the evil (certainly as regards beer) is the badness and poisonous character of the liquor supplied. See to it that that is clean and wholesome—that the lager-beers, small beers, teas and temperance drinks are not sophisticated with harmful chemicals—and for the rest leave the houses free. Leave the publican to use his good sense and authority, and make him responsible for not keeping order. If that policy is carried out there will not be much to complain of. The sale of actual _spirits_ in drinking shops is another question, and that might well be restricted or abolished.

The village pub. ought to be a place where pleasant and decent refreshment of various kinds is provided—especially of drink which is a first necessity for tired workers. It ought to be clean and fairly comfortable and provided with games, papers, and similar means of recreation. On the other hand it should have no suspicion of genteel or missionary purpose about it. If the manual worker cannot talk freely and feel himself at home in the place he decidedly will not come to it; and it is certainly better that he should be a bit rough and rowdy than that he should feel that he is being ‘improved.’ What the rural worker wants above all—and what it is very necessary that he should have—is a place where he can be at ease, converse freely, exchange ideas, and _develop out of his own roots_. The town worker has now, in his trade unions, his various clubs and societies, got something of the kind. The rural worker is a poor lost thing; he has no centre of growth. The Church is absolutely of no use to him in that respect; for the Parson practically paralyses his flock. The Chapel is better, for there the Chapel-folk organize themselves and carry out in an authentic way many a little scheme for their own satisfaction or entertainment. The Village Club and the Village Co-operative society are just beginning in many places to show an independent and progressive life; but after all the Village Pub. strikes its roots deepest and widest, and if on a healthy basis is the natural meeting-place where all these other movements germinate and from whence they spring.

XVII
HOW THE WORLD LOOKS AT SEVENTY

I remember having often wondered, in earlier days, what would be the answer to this question. And now I have the privilege of myself standing on the pinnacle of age—and of being in the position where some kind of verdict may be given.

There are two verses about David and Solomon—whose origin I have not been able to trace, but which run as follows:—

King David and King Solomon
Led very merry lives
With many many concubines
And many many wives.

But when old age came on them
With many many qualms,
King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
And David wrote the Psalms.

Perhaps this gives the most general and accepted view on the subject—a view of old age as something a little dull, a little ineffectual, consoling itself with verses and good advice and other second-hand joys. On the whole perhaps a fairly correct view; and yet I cannot but think that it misses something very important, something which in earlier days one does not associate with old age—the sense of adventure. Youth is full of acknowledged adventure; the campaigns of Love and of War are thrilling and absorbing; but youth does not know—or at any rate only faintly surmises—how absorbing may be the great adventure of Death.

On the whole I am struck by the singularly _little_ difference I feel in myself, as I realize it now, from what I was when a boy—say of eighteen or twenty. In the deeps of course. Superficially there are plenty of differences, but they relate mostly to superficial things like success in games, examinations and so forth. I used to go and sit on the beach at Brighton and dream, and now I sit on the shore of human life and dream practically the same dreams. I remember about the time that I mention—or it may have been a trifle later—coming to the distinct conclusion that there were only two things really worth living for—the glory and beauty of Nature, and the glory and beauty of human love and friendship. And to-day I still feel the same. What else indeed _is_ there? All the nonsense about riches, fame, distinction, ease, luxury and so forth—how little does it amount to! It really is not worth wasting time over. These things are so obviously second-hand affairs, useful only and in so far as they may lead to the first two, and short of their doing that liable to become odious and harmful. To become united and in line with the beauty and vitality of Nature (but, Lord help us! we are far enough off from that at present), and to become united with those we love—what other ultimate object in life _is_ there? Surely all these other things—these games and examinations, these churches and chapels, these district councils and money markets, these top-hats and telephones and even the general necessity of earning one’s living—if they are not ultimately for that, _what are they for_?

At any rate that is how I feel about it now. I feel that the object of life at seventy is practically the same as it was at twenty. Only one thing has been added. One thing. Beneath the surface waves and storms of youth, beneath the backward and forward fluctuations, deep down, there has been added the calm of inner realization and union. I know now that these two primordial and foundational things (or perhaps they are one) _are_ there. Our union with Nature and humanity is a _fact_, which—whether we recognize it or not—is at the base of our lives; slumbering, yet ready to wake in our consciousness when the due time arrives.

With this assurance one certainly discovers that life—even in old age—may be delightful. What one loses in the keenness and passion of sensual and external things one gains in the inward world—in calm and strength and the deep certainties of life. One can hardly expect to have it both ways. We may concentrate mainly (though not exclusively) on the outer life, or we may concentrate mainly on the inner life, but hardly on both at the same time. And the latter alternative has its advantages. Socrates, in reply to a friend who condoled with him on the waning of his sexual passion, asked whether he would not consider a man happy who had escaped from the clutches of a fierce tiger. “Certainly I should,” answered the friend. “Then why,” retorted Socrates, “do you not congratulate instead of commiserating _me_?”

I find there are compensations and consolations in old age. People feel kindly towards you—partly because they consider you harmless and not likely to injure them, partly because they are not envious of your condition. They pity you a little in fact—which pleases them and does no harm to you. I find I am a little hard of hearing, and people are good enough—in fact they are compelled—to speak up and speak distinctly. They have the pleasure of helping me over my deafness, and I have the satisfaction of getting them out of their mumbling habits of conversation—a satisfaction so great that were I really not a bit deaf I feel that I should have to pretend to be! As I think I have said before[34] old people and infirm folk and chronic invalids and the like often get needlessly depressed over the impression that they are a burden and an affliction to their friends, whereas in very truth by calling out the sympathies, the energy, the resource and the consideration of those around them they are really conferring the greatest of benefits; and many a household is really supported and held together by the one who to all outward appearance seems to be the most frail and useless member of it. As Lâo-tsze says “The thirty spokes of a carriage-wheel uniting at the nave are made useful by the hole in the centre,[35] where nothing exists,” and “To teach without words and to be useful without action, few among men are capable of this.”

After the fuss and flurry of all the good folk who go about “doing good,” to find that you can perhaps be most useful by being a “hole in the centre” is very refreshing.

Unfortunately the world is very unwilling to allow this privilege, and as a rule in a quite automatic way accords to the aged a good deal of respect and influence, pushing them up into positions of power and notoriety. This is all right if you are quite worthy of it, but dangerous if you are not. And naturally if you _desire_ power (and notoriety) you are not likely to be worthy of it.

E. C. (1910), AGE 66.

(_Photo: Elliott & Fry._)
]

On August 29, 1914, being my seventieth birthday, some of my friends were good enough to present me with a congratulatory Address couched in very friendly and affectionate terms. Though I cannot say that I desired the thing beforehand—seeing that there is always something painful in the very idea of being singled out in any such way—yet I must confess that, being done, it was a consolation and a pleasure to me.[36]

There is one thing however that I think I have not sufficiently dwelt on as a valid and permanent object of Life—though perhaps in some subtle way it may be implied in what I have said before. I mean Self-Expression. Constructive expression of oneself is one of the greatest joys, and one of the greatest _needs_ of life; and as long as one’s Life exists—in this or any other sphere—so long I imagine will that need be present, and the joy in its fulfilment. It is a foundation-urge of all Creation. At first sight this seems contrary, and indeed hostile, to the hole-in-the-centre theory; but probably it will be found not to be so. Probably it is only a question of the _depth_ at which the Self is functioning. Near the surface the self is very definite and constructive in _this_ or _that_ direction; it is limited in its aims and operations, and so far its activity seems to be at variance with other aims and operations. At the centre it is neither this nor that, because it is All. It vanishes from sight because it has become the Whole.

Most healthy work is generated from a desire for, or an effort towards, self-expression. If one’s feet suffer from cold and exposure to injury one makes boots to protect and cover them. If boots prove painful and confining one designs sandals in order to free them. Having made these for oneself first, other people desire them and adopt the same devices. One’s work, begun for a private purpose and to satisfy one’s own wants, is continued for public ends and becomes a kind of extended selfishness. It is the same with the institutions of society. Finding that they maim and confine you personally, the best thing you can do is to liberate yourself by reshaping them. In reshaping them you liberate others, and are accounted a reformer and general benefactor. But I imagine that no one is really a useful reformer who does not begin the work from his own private need, since that is the only way in which he can understand the true inwardness of the work to be done. And the accusation of selfishness, which may be preferred against him, saves him from the awful danger of becoming, or posing as, a public benefactor.

It is truly wonderful to see what activity, what enthusiasm, vast numbers of people throw into public work of one kind or another. Let us hope they all do so from the underlying ground of some personal need which makes them unhappy in the existing conditions and impels them for their own personal satisfaction to alter those conditions. If so their work will probably be healthful and successful. It will not wait on results but will bring its own results with it. Still there is a paradox in all such action. I cannot personally be comfortable in a society which makes a fetish, say, of what H. G. Wells calls The Misery of Boots. Therefore I work for a future society where people shall go barefoot or freely wear such footgear as suits them. But by the time such state of society arrives, where shall “I” be? That is the question. What is the good of my working for a state of things which will certainly not come in my lifetime? What is the impelling force which _causes_ me so to work when it would be so much easier not to work, and merely to let things slide? If, as one must suppose, it is something organic in Nature, it must be that I “myself” _will_ be there. I, the superficial one, am working now for the other “I,” the deeper one—who is also really present even at this moment (although he lies low and says nothing about it) and who in due time will consume the fruits which he is now preparing.

I find at the age of seventy that I am getting nearer to that place in the centre where nothing exists and yet all is done—and _that_ I suppose is satisfactory. A very simple round of life contents me. As long as I can have my friend (or friends) and my little corner of Nature, and my little pastime of constructive work, I really do not know what to wish for more. (And surely every one ought to be able to command these.)

We are up—my friend and I—at about 7 a.m. in summer, about 8.0 in winter. In summer a wash and a sunbath on the lawn, for half an hour, are very much in the order of the day. Then, for me, there is my study to tidy up and dust and (in winter) my fire to light; there is the front of the house to sweep, wood to chop, and so forth. George has his kitchen to attend to, coals to get in, the chickens to feed, and preparations to make for the work of the day—baking or washing or whatever it may be. I remember the time when I used to think that to get up early, perhaps by candlelight, go down into a dishevelled sitting-room, clean out the grate and light up the fire would surely be the most dismal of occupations; as a matter of fact I find these little preliminary duties quite interesting. They stir one’s limbs and one’s interest in the world, and help to peel off the thin but clinging veil of sleep.

By 8.30 I find I can settle down to work, either in my study or, if the weather allows, outside in my little veranda or porch. I thus get a couple of hours fairly undisturbed. At 10.30 we have breakfast—or what is called ‘brunch,’ a combination of breakfast and lunch—a good meal of coffee and milk, oatmeal porridge, an omelet, stewed fruit, or similar provender, and which one enjoys all the more for its being the first in the day. Brunch and reading the daily paper occupy an hour; and at 11.30 I am able to start work again and go on to 1.30 or 2.0. I thus get a good four hours or more in the morning for solid literary work, to some extent broken into at times by mere business matters and correspondence, but generally the most satisfactory period of work in the day.

At two or so one goes easy. By the ruse of ‘brunch’ one has avoided that deadly snare, the midday meal. Is it not Thoreau who says that one should pass by the one o’clock dinner “tied to the mast, like Ulysses, and deaf to the voice of the Siren”? Certainly George and I never cease to congratulate ourselves on this arrangement by which the painful density and lethargy of that period is escaped. It seems to place the day in its proper order and perspective; and we only regret that most people owing to professional hours and public duties are not able to conform to it. From 2.0 or 2.30 to 5.0 one can make a change. There are oddments of work to do in the garden, there are little outdoor renewals and repairs round the house, there are visitors and casual guests; at 4.0 or so there is the sociability of afternoon tea. At 5.0 there are letters to get ready for the post, which goes at 6.30. At 7.0 there is supper, which is generally a rather more substantial meal than brunch. Sometimes tea and supper are combined in one intermediate meal, which of course goes by the name of ‘tupper.’ In the evening there are friends to see, books to read, notes to make; there is the public-house, which is an unfailing joy, and the farm-lads’ Club, which is always homely and cheering. What can one wish for more? It is hard to say.

Yet I ought to say—and it would be less than candid not to say—that there have been times all through my life when the necessity of escaping into an altogether bigger world than that provided by my native land has come upon me with a kind of Berserker rage. As I think I have said, I come of Cornish ancestry—and my private opinion is that I was left on the coast of Cornwall some three thousand years ago by a Phœnician trader. At any rate the leaden skies of England, and something (if I may say so) rather grey and leaden about the _people_, have since early days had the effect of making me feel not quite at home in my own country. I longed for more sunshine, and for something corresponding to sunshine in human nature—more gaiety, vivacity of heart and openness to ideas. But everything has its compensation, and the result of being pinned down so much to a limited and local life on the land has been that every three or four years I have been able to ‘stick it’ no longer, and have been compelled in the intervals of my work to make a dash for some warmer and brighter climate. In this way it has come about that I have seen quite a little of other lands—not only of the usual resorts in Switzerland and Italy, but of places like Morocco, Sicily, Corsica, Spain, besides (as already mentioned) the United States and Ceylon and India. Having a talent for economical travel I have been able to do this at singularly small expense. And my knowledge of agriculture and of the working life of the people at home has in such cases opened up a world of interest in the comparison of these with the corresponding things abroad—a world which as a rule is a sealed book to the ordinary tourist. In many cases my companions have themselves been manual workers, and I have found the vivacity of their interest in foreign fields and crops or in town-trades and workshops both encouraging and amazing.

At the age of seventy one does not bother so much about the exceptional feats, about great exploits, the climbing of the highest mountains. The ordinary levels of life seem sufficient. I confess that excessive cleverness and all that sort of thing bores me rather than otherwise. I seem to see in the general average of human life, in the ordinary daily needs, a steady force pushing mankind onwards, or rather, gradually unfolding through mankind—the liberation of a core of goodness and worth which is undeniable, impossible to ignore, and daily coming more and more into evidence. I say this deliberately and with full recognition all the time of the vast masses of cheap and nasty people as well as of cheap and nasty things which are washed up in the ordinary current of this our modern life, and with recognition also of the huge whirlpools of popular madness which occasionally arise, and which accompany crises like that from which we are now suffering [1915]. Perhaps the madness and the blind passion—the loosening of the torrents of hate and revenge, and of the pent-up waters of prejudice and ignorance—are, after all, better than the dreary stagnation of the cheap and nasty. The whole commercial period through which we, here in the West, have been passing for the last hundred years has undoubtedly bred, both in men and goods, a lamentable commonplaceness and cheapness—a low level and a paltry standard of human value. Perhaps even the madness of warfare is better than that.

It is curious that for the last twenty years or more there has been a general feeling—especially among the Socialists and Internationalists of the various countries—that society was approaching a critical period of transformation. It had become obvious that the existing order of things—in Government, Law, Finance, Industry, Commerce, Morality, Religion, the Capitalist Wage system, the Rivalry of nation with nation, the administration and cultivation of the Land, and so forth—could not continue much longer. In each one and all of these matters we have been heading towards an _impasse_, a block, a point at which further progress in the old direction must cease, and a new departure begin. We have seen this; and yet we have been unable to say, for the most part, or even surmise, _how_ the change would come, what catastrophe would upset the balance of our highly artificial Commercial Civilization, or in what way a new order of life, and a more human and rational order, might begin to establish itself. The Catastrophe has come. We are already in the welter of a World-war which in magnitude exceeds anything that has ever occurred in the past, or even been imagined. The nations are in the melting-pot; the institutions of society are threatened in every direction. But at present we are still unable to see the outcome, or even to guess what it will be. The lineaments of the new world are hidden from us. That the outcome will be far, far greater and grander than we now suppose, I do not doubt—also that it will take far longer than we generally think to define itself.

Beneath all the madness of the present conflict—the raging passions, the insane folly, the frantic delusions, the devilish concentration of all the wit and ingenuity of man towards purposes of death and torture, there is, I firmly believe, a method and a meaning. A new life is preparing to show itself—coming to the surface of society, as it were, out of the deeps, showing indeed the strangest and most violent agitation of that surface just before its appearance. Having lived so long as I have done among the downright manual workers of our towns and the agricultural rustics—primitives as they are in many ways and belonging to a period “before civilization”—I do not feel at all alarmed. I know that the lives of these good solid folk, founded as they are upon the primal facts of Nature, will not in any case suffer a very great change. If the whole of our Banking and Financial system collapsed and fell in, if world-wide Commerce came to a standstill, if the Capital necessary for huge armaments and general ironworks was not forthcoming, if Law and Government were paralysed, old-age insurances ceased to be paid, and Landlords were unable to collect their rents—if all this and much more happened, my friend who ploughs the fields near my cottage would go out next morning with his team to his usual work, and scarcely know the difference. _If anything he would decidedly feel more cheerful and hopeful._ Some other friend who forges and tempers table-knives by the score would continue to forge and temper them. The knives would still be wanted, the power to make them would still be there. And if at any point combined labour were needed, as to build a workshop or carry through a steel-making process, the men who do these things now in forced and servile toil under the Capitalist system would do them ten times better and more heartily in free co-operation.

No, if all this jerry-built cheapjack Commercial Civilization collapsed it would not much matter. The longer I live the more I am convinced of its essential pettiness and unimportance. The great foundational types, the real workers of the world—whether in England or Germany or France, or Turkey or Bulgaria or Egypt—will remain, and indeed must remain because the primal facts of Nature, the sun and the earth and the needs of human life, continually generate them. They will remain and, once freed (as one may hope) from the burden of the futile and idiotic superstructure which they have to support, will rise to a far finer standard of being than they can now realize. The cheap and aimless types belonging to the mercantile and middle classes will disappear with the world to which they belong.

Let me say however, for the consolation of some, that it is not necessary to suppose that the transformation of Civilization of which I speak—and which is even now preparing—must necessarily mean that all Law and Government, and world-wide Commerce and Finance and huge organization of Industry, and even present-day Art and Morality and Religion, will collapse and become non-existent. In a sense they will do so, and in a sense they will not. “In the twinkling of an eye they will be changed.” In some sense the outer forms of these things will remain; but the Spirit will be changed; and so greatly changed that their shapes also will be profoundly modified. When Industry exists really for the supply of good and useful things and not for the manufacture of profit; when High Finance is not for gambling, but for the insurance and security of everybody; when Courts of Law are for the uplifting and not for the downcasting of criminals, and so on; then the forms of these institutions will be as different from what they are now as the organs of a Dragonfly are different from those of the Waterbeetle from which it sprang.

But before this great and wonderful Transformation takes place, there must—it is abundantly evident—be great sacrifices. No such huge change could happen without. Some of the functions and activities of the present Society must perish; and with them must perish those who are engaged in these functions. Thousands and millions of individuals must die in the mere effort to create and establish a new collective order. Heroisms, exceeding those of the past, will be needed and will be supplied. We need not fear. We know the great heart of humanity.

It is amazing to see, in the present war, the high spirits, the courage, the devotion, the loyalty to each other of the combatants in each nation; and these things would be utterly unintelligible were it not for the fact that each people (and we need make no exception) thinks and believes in some obscure way that the cause for which it is fighting is a noble and an honorable one. Terrible as war is, and terrible the apparent folly of mankind which allows it to continue, still it is to my mind obvious that those engaged in it could not give their lives, as they so constantly do, not only with conscious devotion to some high purpose, but even with an instinctive exultation and savage joy in the very act of death, if they were not impelled to do so by the insurgence of a greater life within—a life within each one more vivid and even more tremendous than that which he throws away. The willing sacrifice of life, and the ecstasy of it, would be unintelligible if Death did not indeed mean Transformation.

In my little individual way I experience something of the same kind. I feel a curious sense of joy in observing—as at my age one is sometimes compelled to do—the natural and inevitable decadence of some portion of the bodily organism, the failures of sight and hearing, the weakening of muscles, the aberrations even of memory—a curious sense of liberation and of obstacles removed. I acknowledge that the experience—the satisfaction and the queer sense of elation—seems utterly unreasonable, and not to be explained by any of the ordinary theories of life; but it is there, and it may, after all, have some meaning.

APPENDICES

CONGRATULATORY LETTER

(_August 29, 1914_).

In offering you our congratulations on the completion of your seventieth year, we would express to you (and we speak, we are sure, the thoughts of a very large number of other readers and friends) the feelings of admiration and gratitude with which we regard your life-work.