Chapter IX: Part 9

Having many friends in London, and a good many relations, I naturally, during all the years of my sojourn at Millthorpe, have been in the habit of paying fairly frequent visits to the big city. It is good to have one’s roots in the country, but it is also necessary to have one’s branches in the great towns where one can come into contact with the winds and storms of human life.

A considerable social storm at which I was present was that of the so-called “Bloody Sunday” in November ’87. A socialist meeting had been announced for 3 p.m. in Trafalgar Square, to protest against the Irish policy of the Government, and the authorities (for conscience doth make cowards of us all) probably thinking Socialism a much greater ‘terror’ than it really was, had vetoed the meeting and drawn a ring of police, two deep, all round the interior part of the Square. Of course the Socialists had to make an active protest, if only in order to bring the case into court; and three leading members of the S.D.F.—Hyndman, John Burns and Cunninghame Graham—agreed to march up arm-in-arm and force their way if possible into the charmed circle. Somehow Hyndman was lost in the crowd on the way to the battle, but Graham and Burns pushed their way through, challenged the forces of ‘Law and Order,’ came to blows, and were duly mauled by the police, arrested, and locked up.

I was in the Square at the time, and like most of the crowd there more as a sightseer than anything else. Indeed, though a large crowd it was of a most good-humored and peaceable kind; but the way in which it was ‘worked up,’ provoked and irritated by the authorities, was a caution; and gave me the strongest impression that this was done purposely, with the intention of leading to a collision. If this was not so the only explanation must be that abject _fear_, on the part of the authorities, was the moving cause. As I say, the crowd was a most good-humored, easy-going, smiling crowd; but presently it was transformed. A regiment of mounted police came cantering up. The order had gone forth that we were to be ‘kept moving.’ To keep a crowd moving is I believe a technical term for the process of riding roughshod in all directions, scattering, frightening and batoning the people—the idea no doubt being to prevent the formation of knots or the consolidation of organized bodies among the crowd. In this case there was really no sign of any organized movement on the part of the people against the police, nor had I heard of any plan to that effect, further than the march-up of the three leaders already mentioned. I was standing—with my friend Robert Muirhead, Cambridge mathematician and Smith’s Prizeman, two peaceable enough members of society as may be supposed—on an island-refuge just where the Strand debouches into Trafalgar Square, when we found ourselves violently pushed about by mounted and foot police and told to ‘move on.’ Whether Muirhead did not move on fast enough, or what the trouble was, was never explained; but the next moment I saw him seized by the collar by a mounted man and dragged along, apparently towards a police-station, while a bobby on foot aided in the arrest. I jumped to the rescue and slanged the two constables, for which I got a whack on the cheekbone from a baton (which distressed the more respectable members of my family for some weeks after), but Muirhead was released, and we soon regained our footing on the refuge, from which for some time we watched the police continuing, at considerable risk to life and limb, to circle round and insult the ‘mob.’ I mention these little details just to show the kind of thing that happens. Purely as the result of this ill-timed action there were one or two ugly rushes I believe and a few broken heads; but the damage of ‘Bloody Sunday’ did not after all amount to much.

The case came into Court afterwards, and Burns and Graham were sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment each for “unlawful assembly.” I was asked to give evidence in favour of the defendants, and gladly consented—though I had not much to say, except to testify to the peaceable character of the crowd and the high-handed action of the police. In cross-examination I was asked whether I had not seen any rioting; and when I replied in a very pointed way “Not on the part of the _people_!” a large smile went round the Court, and I was not plied with any more questions.

_MORNING LEADER_ CARTOON, 13 MARCH, 1906.

“If Society people had to make their own clothes there would be some
curious scenes in
the streets, and many would go about attired in simply an Indian
blanket.”—Mr. EDWD.
CARPENTER at the meeting of the Humanitarian League at Essex Hall.

(By courtesy of the _Daily News_.)
]

At an early period of my Millthorpe days (about 1885 I think) two young Cambridge men who had only just taken their degrees, Lowes Dickinson and Roger Fry, came down to see me—two gentle, humorous and charming creatures, who have since made their mark in Literature and Art, and whose friendship has remained with me, I am happy to say, all these years. Dickinson as a writer of pure English is I should say far ahead of any of his contemporaries. In contrast with the Meredithian, Henry Jamesian, Chestertonian, and other literary gymnastics of the day, his style flows along, pellucid with pure grace and purpose, saying exactly what is needed, no more and no less. It has the quality of ‘the absolute in style’—which is very different from, though sometimes mistaken for, absence of style. Nothing could be more charming and to the point than his _Letters of John Chinaman_ (or _From a Chinese Official_) and his _Greek View of Life_. With regard to the former he told me an amusing story about W. J. Bryan, candidate more than once for the Presidency of the United States. Being an American Mr. Bryan, perhaps naturally, did not perceive (the English being so perfect) that no Chinaman could possibly have written the book, and being also somewhat shocked at some of the remarks in it about the common infidelities of matrimonial life in England and America, he quite innocently published an article rebutting these charges and explaining that if the author (the supposed Chinese official) had had the advantage of being brought up in an Anglo-Saxon household he would never have made such mistakes! Dickinson had consequently to write to Mr. Bryan, and, breaking his incognito, to inform him that the author _had_ had the said advantage, and really knew what he was talking about!

From 1885 onwards I lectured pretty frequently in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, Bradford, and so forth—chiefly at first in connection with the various Socialist societies and groups in those places. The subjects treated of were those which are now so well recognized and understood everywhere that there is no need to insist on them, though at that time they were only beginning to appear on the social horizon—the evils of Competition, Adulteration, Falsification of goods, Waste, the scramble for Dividends, the iron Law of Wages, and so forth. Afterwards the lectures branched out a little more widely into literary and philosophical subjects, and with more general audiences.

In 1891, as I have already said, the Humanitarian League was founded. And later on I gave addresses on various occasions in connection with the League’s meetings; one at an early date (about ’92 or ’93) on Vivisection—in conjunction with Edward Maitland; another on the same subject some years later; one in ’97 on the Prisons; one in ’98 on what might be called “Humane Science”; and one in 1906 on “Simplification of Life,” and others. In the last-mentioned lecture I referred to the complexity of life among our well-to-do classes which arises from the fact of their being able to _pay_ servants for doing things for them, and pointed out (supposing the bottom ever fell out of the bucket of modern society, and these people really had to produce their own food, clothing, etc.) how _simple_ their lives would probably become—and how interesting it would be to see them going about barefoot and clothed in flour-sacks, rather than do the hard work of cobbling and tailoring for themselves.

The _Morning Leader_ took the idea up, and brought out a Cartoon illustration of the lecture, showing the London Club men promenading in Hyde Park with only Indian blankets and flour-bags for covering, though still clinging religiously to their old umbrellas and tall hats!

For the Theosophist societies I spoke occasionally, in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, and elsewhere—weaving in some amount of Indian philosophy (the Upanishads, etc.) with talk on social subjects; also for the Ethical societies in much the same way; and for Charles Rowley’s Sunday afternoons at Ancoats, Manchester. In 1905 I took up the question of Small Holdings and the Co-operative Colonization of the Land—a question which had by that time become actual through the Small Holdings Acts of 1892 and 1907, and which will have to be still more seriously considered in the future; and spoke on the subject in Holmesfield and other villages in my neighborhood, as well as in Oxford, Glasgow and other large centres. Joseph Fels was very keen at that time on the subject; and I went with him to view his group of a dozen or so five-acre holdings at Maylands in Essex. Unfortunately the experiment did not turn out a success. He had bought some very heavy clay land at an absurdly low price, £7 an acre, and had spent £20 per acre on it in breaking up and burning the clay and heavily manuring, thus making the real initial cost of the land £27 per acre; and had then planted the ground with fruit-trees and had suitable cottages built on it. Reckoning up the total cost of each holding he offered them at a low rental, some 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. on the capital invested, and took some care besides in the choice of tenants, feeling confident that with proper handling the places would prove remunerative. Unfortunately they did not do so. Probably it had been a mistake to speculate on such extremely poor land as this was to begin with. Anyhow it never yielded the crops expected; and one by one the tenants disheartened abandoned their holdings, and the whole scheme fell to the ground.

Having always a good many friends among the Railway-men I was not unfrequently asked to speak at their clubs and branch meetings. On one occasion in November 1907, in conjunction with George Barnes, C. T. Cramp, Pete Curran and Victor Grayson, I addressed an A.S.R.S. meeting of over three thousand in the Sheffield Corn-Exchange. George Barnes always strikes me as a fine, solid and sensible man; Charlie Cramp the same; and indeed the railway-men generally—perhaps from their close and constant contact with the flow of humanity—have a discernment and reasonableness of outlook which is quite peculiar. Victor Grayson, the course of whose political career was so brief and so meteoric, was a most humorous creature. His fund of anecdotes was inexhaustible, and rarely could a supper party of which he was a member get to bed before three in the morning. On the platform for detailed or constructive argument he was no good, but for criticism of the enemy he was inimitable—the shafts of his wit played like lightning round him, and with his big mouth and flexible upper lip he seemed to be simply browsing off his opponents and eating them up. His disappearance from public life has been quite a loss.

In some ways these large audiences are easier to speak to than small ones. Consciousness of personalities—either one’s own or of members of the audience—disappears; the great broad human interests come forward; finesse and detailed argument are of little account; the reverberation of emotion is great, and that carries the speaker on; but of course much depends on conditions. To hold a large audience in the open air is difficult work, but it is good practice. Concatenation and logical continuity are of no great importance, but every word must be distinct, every phrase must tell, every point be made clear and attractive, else the congregation will evaporate even while you talk to it, and condense again round the nearest coster’s barrow.

In a closed room or hall you have your hearers more at command. They cannot easily escape, and you may become dull without knowing it! But here again much depends on circumstances. I find a room (of the common type) with level floor and high raised platform at one end rather trying. It is difficult to get _at_ an audience so much below you, and as the voice tends to rise the more _distant_ listeners seem unreachable. Worse still is a flat room where you stand on the floor without _any_ platform; for then you cannot see your flock, and you lose all command over it. Personally I like an amphitheatre lecture-hall with rising tiers of seats one behind the other; or best of all an ordinary theatre with pit and galleries, so that from the stage one is nearly on a level with the great bulk of those present. I have spoken (on _The Larger Socialism_ or cognate subjects) to audiences of two thousand or more at various theatres—the ‘Grand,’ Manchester (November 1908 and November 1909), the ‘Prince’s,’ Blackburn (October 1910), the ‘Metropole,’ Glasgow (November 1910), and others, and with a satisfactory sense in general of being able to reach my hearers.

On November 11, 1910, I gave an address to the Literary and Philosophical Society at Greenock on _State-Interference with Industry_, which was repeated afterwards at Cambridge, Oxford, and elsewhere. The subject was much to the fore at that time, and from opposite points of view, owing to prevalent strikes and lock-outs. The Clyde shipping strike was on, and there was a good deal of indignation expressed up and down the country at the conduct of the men in the shipyards, who had refused to take up their tools and go to work again, even after their leaders had counselled and urged them to do so. I was as much in the dark as most others about the cause of this strange refusal—until I reached Greenock; and then I soon heard from various quarters, both of men and masters, the real reason. It was not a question of wages or of hours. Those matters had so far been settled satisfactorily. The real grievance was a personal one. The men had been affronted by the overbearing conduct of the Chairman of the Employers’ Association, the insulting manner in which he had behaved to their representatives, and so forth; and they were not going to put up with this without a protest. They wanted to be treated in a gentlemanly way. It was encouraging and refreshing to find that this was so; and the fact that it was so lets a good deal of light into a frequent cause of labour troubles and dissensions. But of course in this case at Greenock, as in so many others, the Press all over the country had got on the wrong tack, and the public never knew the real rights of the matter.

On October 24, 1908, the Women’s Suffrage party held a great demonstration in Manchester, which like others of their functions was a miracle of organization. There were to be ten platforms, and the mere getting together of ten distinct bodies of processionists at their respective starting-stations in the neighborhood of the Town Hall, and marching them off to the appointed time, was no light matter. However it was done; and with Mrs. Despard walking gallantly at the head, supported by Margaret Ashton, Miss Abadam, Dr. Helen Wilson, Isabella Ford, Mrs. Swanwick, Mrs. K. D. Courtney, Mrs. Billington Greig, Councillor James Johnston, Professor Chapman, Canon Hicks and myself, a solid phalanx nearly a mile long, with bands and banners complete, walked all the way to Alexandra Park, three miles out! The immense crowd which came forth to witness the demonstration, and which lined both sides of the road, did not say much; it did not cheer to any great extent, nor did it scoff; it was simply deeply impressed. A large part of it followed on the route and collected round the ten platforms—about a thousand listeners to each. Each platform dealt with a separate subject—mine, in conjunction with Mrs. Greig and Miss Margaret Robertson, took _Prison Reform_. A cornet finally gave the signal for a joint resolution to be proposed in favour of the Suffrage, which was of course carried by acclamation, and the crowd dispersed.

Mrs. Despard’s work in the two related causes of Women and Labour has been splendid. Her ardour and indomitable resolution, despite the drawback of advancing years, have been almost miraculous, and I always see her in my mind’s eye marching gloriously to some encounter, and resembling the horse (in the words of the book of Job) “who saith among the trumpets Ha! ha! and sniffeth the battle from afar!” It has been an honour and a pleasure to me to speak on many a platform with Mrs. Despard—in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere. In October 1912 I took the chair at a meeting of the Sheffield Women’s Freedom League, when she lectured on the subject of Shelley’s _Prometheus Unbound_. It is characteristic of her that this poem was a favorite of hers from earliest girlhood; and in a sustained address that evening she quoted very large portions of it by heart, holding her audience for nearly two hours in rapt accord and attention. Mrs. Despard was, I need hardly say, like Shelley himself, an ardent vegetarian—though Shelley, owing to circumstances and conditions, often probably found it difficult to live quite up to the mark of his wishes in this respect.

In October 1909 I was honoured by being made President of the Vegetarian Congress at Manchester for that year—notwithstanding my own occasional derelictions from the ideal standard—and I found myself in the chair at an interesting meeting supported by well-known pillars of the movement like Professor J. E. Mayor of Cambridge, Dr. E. A. Axon of Manchester, Dr. Lybeck of Helsingfors, and others. The thing that struck me most about the meeting was the extraordinary number of extremely ancient looking patriarchs present with long white hair and beards; and I very nearly disgraced myself in my opening speech by expressing a doubt whether in view of this result Vegetarianism was a thing really to be desired or recommended! Some kind presiding spirit however saved me from this ineptitude, and I reached the end of my discourse safely and without succumbing to the temptation.

A subject on which I have often spoken—though always with the sense of only touching the fringe of it—is that of the connection between Sun worship and Christianity. The existing books on the subject are quite unsatisfactory, being very limited in their outlook. Some day it will have to be worked out more thoroughly. It is a most interesting subject, but as it involves a good deal of historical and antiquarian information and some technical knowledge of Astronomy besides reference to early sexual rites, it is not a very easy one to put before a general audience. I gave a lecture on it for the Sheffield Ethical Society in December 1908 and for J. R. Campbell’s “Progressive League” at the City Temple in November 1909, as well as in other places; but it really would require a series of lectures for anything like adequate presentment. The _continuity_ of Christianity with the religions of the old world and its ordered evolution from them is the idea which we now require to realize. We have had enough of its portrayal as a miraculous and exceptional stage in human development; and now that the world is coming round again to a concrete appreciation of the value and beauty of actual life, and to a sort of neo-Pagan point of view, it is above all important that we should understand the sources from which Christianity sprang in the past, and what germs of a world-religion it may bear within itself for the future, when it shall have cast off the crude and gothic elements of its mediæval development.

My friend Edward Lewis, himself a writer on The New Paganism, was in 1912 and 1913 minister of the King’s Weigh House Church, Duke Street, W., and he and R. J. Campbell not unfrequently interchanged pulpits at that time. Lewis persuaded me to speak at his church; and on two occasions (November 1912 and October 1913) I did so. His congregation, largely trained no doubt and educated by his discourses, was an intelligent and sympathetic one, and though I had some misgivings on my first visit in speaking on so abstruse a subject as “The Nature of the Self”—illustrated as it was by numerous quotations from the Upanishads and from _Towards Democracy_—I felt no misgiving on the second occasion, when my subject (similarly illustrated) was “Rest.” These lectures were repeated at the Lyceum (women’s) Club, Piccadilly, at Croydon, Eastbourne and elsewhere; and the fact that audiences like these, of a rather popular character, could listen with deep understanding and sympathy to the unfolding of innermost psychological teachings has convinced me that the germs of a new and democratic religion are only waiting among our mass-peoples for the day and the stimulus which will bring them to birth and development.

Edward Lewis, being vigorous in heart and brain, and a real man, naturally could not continue very long in a profession like “the ministry” which entailed his ascending the pulpit three or four times a week and not only giving ‘edifying’ counsel to his congregation but confining his own life within a corresponding circle of inanity. Such a career would inevitably have sapped and ruined his manhood; and with true instinct he threw up his five or six hundred a year and retired into the wilderness. The members of his congregation were duly shocked and grieved in their different ways, according to the views they took of his lapse or lapses from holiness; but if, as is likely, the quondam Christian minister should become the missionary and apostle of a new and vital Paganism, the world will be very much the gainer.

The War, now going on [1915] is not only acting already very directly on the industrial life of the nations concerned but is pointing pretty clearly towards a remodelling of our general conception of Industry for the future. It is fairly certain that somehow or other the gloomy and depressing wage-slavery of the present day—so intimately bound up with the Commercial régime—will have to give way; and productive work will have to regain the characters of spontaneity and gladness which surely are of the essence of its nature, and which are the necessary roots of all Art and of all Beauty and Joy in life. With that transformation of industry all life will be transformed, and the neo-Pagan ideal will become a thing possible of realization.

For some years, from 1910 onwards I have spoken on this idea—entitling my lectures “Freedom in Industry,” “Beauty in Civic Life” and so forth, and delivering them before various bodies and in various places—as at Caxton Hall, London, for the Humanitarian League; at Crosby Hall, Chelsea, for the University Settlement there; for the Fabian Society at Oxford; for the Arts Club at Leeds; for the Progressive and Town-planning League at Bolton; for the N.U.T. Association at Chesterfield; and for many Adult Schools, I.L.P. Clubs and Ethical and Theosophist societies in different parts of the country.

To produce for Use; that production should really take place for the benefit of the Consumer; to concentrate not on Profit to individuals, but on advantage and gain to the Community; to drop in one inspired moment the whole mad sequence of cut-throat Rivalry, insane Waste, disgusting Fraud, and inane Uselessness, which constitute modern Industry; all this would mean such an enormous liberation of Power, such an incalculable increase in general Wealth, that the spectre of poverty would be exorcised for ever, and the numbing anxiety which weighs so heavily now on the lives of millions would be lifted away like an evil cloud. Joy would descend upon life, and the ordinary occupations would become free, spontaneous and beautiful.

Our powers of production to-day are so immense that even in the midst of the present frightful War we (on this little island) can spare millions of our best men for fighting, and millions more for the work of providing those fighters with engines of death and destruction, and _yet_ with the residue can calmly and easily keep the nation going. What our powers and our achievement might be if once those eight millions or so—whose work is now only destructive—were turned on to the great positive task of social reconstruction and sensible human emancipation, it really passes imagination to conceive. The age-long world-dream of Paradise Regained would at last be within our reach. We can see that the War is even now forcing the modern peoples to take stock of their boasted Civilization, to reckon up the gains to Humanity which it represents—and the losses; to find out and decide in what direction they are really moving, and in what direction they want to move. If an event so great, so colossal, as this does not shatter the old order of profit-grinding and wage-slavery and wake a new ideal of life in the heart of the nations, one would say there is little hope for the world. But surely it will do so.

XV
TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS

Among the many good things in my life which I owe to my books by no means the least has been my introduction through them to dear and valued foreign friends.

One day in March 1901 there called upon me a young Hungarian—Ervin Batthyány by name—a modest, sturdy and almost rustic-looking youth of about twenty-three. He proved to be a member of the well-known Batthyány family, whose influence in Hungarian politics, on the Liberal as well as on the Conservative side, has always been considerable; but he was by no means conservative in his outlook or ultra-aristocratic in his leanings.

It happened at the moment of his appearance that I was doing some gardening and trundling about a wheelbarrow. “Oh,” he said at once, “do let me wheel that barrow for you; I do like so much to do that sort of work, but I have no chance at home—I am so _civilized_ you know.” For a moment I thought he was chaffing; then the next moment I saw he was quite sincere. I believe I let him trundle the barrow for a bit; then we sat down and talked.

It turned out that he was expecting in the following year to come into large landed estates in Hungary; that he had studied and thought about Socialism to some extent; and that among other things he wanted to consult me about the administration of his property when he should have the management of it. It appeared that with the almost feudal system still prevailing in that part, the cottagers and labourers working on such estates were practically attached to the soil and frequently transferred with it from owner to owner; that they were employed by the farm-bailiffs in gangs for the benefit of the estate; that they received next to no monetary wages, but were paid in pork or flour or the poor tenements they inhabited—that is, they were paid by a small share of the wealth they had themselves created; that they had no means of earning anything independently; and that they had little or no education—the schools being all under the thumb of the Catholic priests.

We talked over possible reforms—of a mild kind of course, as anything drastic would be out of the question; and when he went away he said with the same charming simplicity as before “The next time I see you I hope I shall not be so _civilized_.” The next time proved to be some three years later.

He returned to Buda-Pesth shortly after his visit to Millthorpe; and took as it happened a copy of _Towards Democracy_ with him, which he gave to a lady friend there—a certain Madame Nadler—knowing that she was interested and indeed accomplished in English literature. Madame Nadler took warmly to the book, and before long it came about that she and the young Count, who was a frequent visitor at her house, spent a large part of their time together in reading and discussing it—with the not unnatural result that they became warmly interested in each other.

Meanwhile he, the young man, plunged into the administration of his newly acquired estate, and in the course of two or three years made useful changes. He founded an undenominational school, with a workshop for instructing the peasants in various crafts, and a reading-room provided with more or less socialistic literature—an innocent enough proceeding as we should think, but it turned the whole Clerical party against him, and terrified the aristocratic landowners of the neighborhood out of their wits, as with the shadow of a coming revolution! All this, together with his journalistic work in connection with various anti-militarist and Anarchist papers brought him into conflict with his family and the authorities, with the result that a sequestration of his property took place, and for a couple of years he was subject to a good deal of annoyance. During that period, curiously enough, little Millthorpe became the chief means of communication between the two friends—for I was in touch with them both, while their local and more direct letters were liable to be intercepted. They were thus able to concert plans to frustrate the enemy, which they did with such success that at the end of the period mentioned Ervin resumed work on his estates—though not without some risk, as may be imagined, of renewed attacks.

After these events _Towards Democracy_ became more than ever a link between the two friends. They determined to translate the book—not into Hungarian but into German (as being a more widely received language), and they set to work upon it in real earnest. Mme. Nadler’s competence for this labour was quite exceptional. With a great enthusiasm for the book and a quick appreciation of its meanings, she combined a very fine literary sense and aptness of phrase; while Ervin with his rather encyclopædic brain was able to interpret all sorts of references to trades and Nature-processes. In 1906 the translation of Part I was published in Berlin; and Parts II, III and IV followed in separate editions in the three following years, 1907, 1908, and 1909.

But meanwhile (early I think in 1904) Mme. Nadler having decided to give her children the advantage of an English education, and at the same time to save them from the hatefulness of enforced military service, migrated to this country; and so it came to pass that I made the personal acquaintance of this remarkable and beautiful woman—an acquaintance which, I need not say, soon ripened into friendship. Ervin, too, finding his native land not very congenial came over to England; and thus it happened that after the lapse of three years he and I resumed the conversations which we had first begun over the wheelbarrow. I did not notice that he was notably less ‘civilized’ than before, but his experiences had very obviously altered his political and social outlook, and his general views were decidedly more anti-governmental than they had been at the earlier date.

These translations by Madame Nadler were, however, by no means the first to be made into German. In 1901 or so Herr Karl Federn had come over from Vienna and spent a day or two at Millthorpe. In 1902 he placed his translation of _Love’s Coming-of-Age_ with a Leipzig publisher, and the book almost immediately had a good reception. It passed through several editions, and when a few years later, in 1912, the first German Women’s Congress was held in Berlin the book curiously enough became a sort of bone of contention, dividing the advanced party who took it as their text-book, from the more conservative party who anathematized it. In proportion as controversy raged around it the work became more notorious, a cheap edition was printed, and before the Great War broke out some fifty thousand copies had been sold.

LILLY NADLER-NUELLENS WITH HER DAUGHTER.
]

Herr Federn was not very fortunate in his choice of a title. _Wenn die Menschen reif zur Liebe werden_ is only a rather heavy paraphrase of _Love’s Coming-of-Age_, and the text of the book itself suffers from a certain heaviness and diffuseness. Still to Herr Federn himself I feel I owe a considerable debt, not only for introducing my work to the German public, but for the general fidelity of his translations and the loyalty of his dealings on my account with the German publishers. In 1903 he published also in Leipzig his translation of _Civilization: its Cause and Cure_; and in 1905, in Jena, the translation of _The Art of Creation_ (_Die Schöpfung als Kunstwerk_). This last was issued in rather elaborate _format_ by the well-known firm, Eugen Diederichs, but has never reached the circulation of the other two.

In the Spring of 1909 I was at Florence for some weeks; and there—largely through my friend Professor Herron—I came into touch with an interesting circle of young Italian _literati_ and artists; especially interesting to me because they represented a strong reaction away from the very bourgeois and commercialized Italian art-ideals of the later nineteenth century, and towards the ideals of John Ruskin and William Morris—ideals founded on the socialization of human activities and the intimate relationship of all true literary and artistic work to the actual life of the mass-peoples.

The group included such men as Riccardo Nobili, probably the best living exponent of Fourteenth Century Italian art, whose charming little story _A Modern Antique_ delightfully exposes the fakes of Florentine art-dealers and the gorgeous gullibility of American globe-trotters; Roberto Assagioli, the young philosopher, editor of _Psiche_—a psychological Review—and author of an illuminating tract on the Talking Horses of Elberfeldt[28]; Guido Ferrando, author of a couple of tracts on _La Coscienza Universale_ and _La Nuova Psicologia_ (Florence 1908)—who has done me the honour to translate my _Love’s Coming-of-Age_ and my _Art of Creation_ into Italian; Count Auteri, the Sicilian architect and sculptor; Giuseppe Rambelli, the artist, and others.

More or less associated with this group—and on a second visit—I made the acquaintance of Teresina Bagnoli, a gifted young woman who had already been in correspondence with me with regard to a translation of _T. D._ (of which she sent me batches from time to time for criticism and revision). I found her swift and penetrating and original, and verging on Anarchism in her political and philosophic outlook; and I have to thank her for her excellent little volume _Verso la Democrazia_[29] which has brought me into touch with Italian readers in that intimate field.

It is curious, but perhaps not unexpected, that my best translators have been women. To a third lady friend, Mademoiselle Senard, I owe a very excellent version of _Towards Democracy_ into French (Parts III and IV only). After some little preliminary correspondence Mlle. Senard came over from Paris in the summer of 1913 and spent a couple of months in the country in my neighborhood. Sprung from an old-fashioned and rather aristocratic family in Burgundy she had managed at a comparatively early age to emancipate herself from a convent school and education, and by her resolution had almost compelled her parents to find for her a way out into the great world. She had become a perfect linguist in English, German and Italian; and I found her a fine-looking and attractive person of thirty-five or so, always, like a true Frenchwoman, perfectly dressed and _chic_, yet simply dressed and absolutely natural in her conversation and movements. It was a pleasure to spend many a morning or afternoon with her, looking over her translation work or rambling through the garden and the fields.

However well one may know a foreign language it is rarely possible to follow every _nuance_ of meaning or to succeed entirely in avoiding errors; and a foreigner dealing with English has perhaps all the more difficulty in that way on account of the idiomatic and irregular character of our language. I have not always cared so much about the other books, but with _Towards Democracy_ I have been very anxious that the renderings should be faithful; and it has been fortunate for me that in these three cases I have had such very competent translators, and been sufficiently versed myself in the languages concerned to be able to assist them in doubtful places.

Marcelle Senard wrote also a little brochure of her own on _Edward Carpenter et sa Philosophie_,[30] which shows the clearness and penetration of a well-balanced French mind. Then, on the outbreak of the War in 1914 she took up Nursing work, and with extraordinary energy and devotion organized and helped to equip a new Hospital for the Wounded at Nevers, south of Paris, where she remained for a year as Manageress and Secretary, till exhausted with the incessant labour she was at last compelled to relinquish the post.

In connection with French translations I must not forget to mention my friend Paul Le Rouge who is now assistant judge in French Morocco, and who translated and published my _Prisons, Police and Punishment_ in Paris some ten years ago. I am sorry to say I have not found an English judge or police-magistrate who has taken an equal interest in the original book!

Early in 1910 I received one or two letters from a young Japanese illustrating the sad state of commercial slavery and militarism into which Japan had fallen since the Russo-Japanese War. Women and children as well as men were being worked twelve hours or more a day in the factories which were springing up on all sides, and for a miserable pittance; there were no regulations to curb the greed of employers; and any public protest was treated as anti-governmental Socialism, with the result that papers were suppressed in the most arbitrary way, and speakers committed to prison. A Japanese lady, Mme. Fukuda, had been imprisoned for five years for thus voicing the wrongs of the workers; and my correspondent, Sanshiro Ishikawa, was awaiting trial on a similar charge. He had, being a fair English scholar, been interested in my work for some time; and told me (what I had heard before) that a translation of my Civilization book had circulated pretty widely in his country at a quite early date. That translation, however, had gone out of print, and he, Ishikawa, was preparing a new one for the press, when—the Japanese Censor interfered and forbade its publication!

This shows up pretty clearly the state of darkness which had descended on the land of the Rising Sun! It was not of course on account of his interest in my book that he had been arrested, but on account of his general work in the cause of Labour.

The result of his trial was that he was sent to prison for three months, and that on his emergence he had to keep rather quiet on account of the attentions of the Police. He retained however his interest in my writings, made translations of portions of them, and embodied these together with some biographical matter in a book of some three hundred pages beautifully printed in Japanese characters and published in Tokyo in 1912; but of course for the most part a sealed book to me. Some small portions, however, are printed in our language and characters, including a letter from myself written to him while he was in prison—which I may as well reproduce here as it serves to throw light on the situation:—

DEAR FRIEND ISHIKAWA SANSHIRO,

Just a line to cheer you in prison—though you will be nearly coming
out when this reaches you. I received your letter of March 27 with
much pleasure. You were to go to prison next day. They seem to be very
severe and despotic in Japan, when one cannot even publish
_Civilization: its Cause and Cure_ there. But your countrymen are too
sensible to bear this sort of treatment for very long. I suppose it is
_patriotism_ which is so very strong in the nation just now, and which
forms an excuse for anti-socialism. King Edward VII’s death is causing
a great wave of patriotism here; yet the future of mankind is leading
us beyond patriotism to _humanity_.

I cannot write much now, but thought I would send you a few lines. I
believe I did send you my photograph. If it did not reach you let me
know, and I will send another.

With hearty greetings and thanks to you for what you have done in the
great Cause.

Yours very truly,
EDWD. CARPENTER.

_21 May, 1910._

After a time—I hardly know whether on account of troubles in Japan or of attractions towards Europe—Sanshiro determined to come to these Western lands; and one day in the autumn of 1913, as I happened to be in London, he came to call on me there. Anything less dangerous-looking as a revolutionary it would be hard to imagine. Small in stature, timid in manner, and with a very gentle voice, he seemed the embodiment of quietude and sympathy. It was not difficult however in his case, as in that of many Japanese, to discern, beneath that composed exterior, a strong undercurrent of resolution and courage.

He read English with ease, but spoke it rather slowly and with difficulty, was intelligent, and like many Orientals skilful with his fingers and apt at housework. We tried to find him employment and a means of living in our neighborhood or in Sheffield or Manchester, but without success, and after similar efforts in London he migrated to Brussels where he knew of a friend in Paul Reclus, son of Elie and nephew of Elisée Reclus, and where he obtained occupation in decorative painting. This was early in 1914. In August, of course, the War broke out, and a few weeks later the Germans entered Brussels. The Reclus family—before their entry I imagine—retired to Paris; but Sanshiro remained in Brussels—I believe as caretaker of their apartments. It was a somewhat risky position. The Germans drew a cordon round the city, and ruled severely within it. Once or twice only he got messages through to me.

But as the weeks went by he began to feel that he must escape at all costs; and in the end he succeeded in doing so—by representations I believe to the Japanese Government, which led to his liberty being granted in exchange for a German prisoner taken at Kiao-chow; but of this I am not certain. I have not seen him since, but anyhow he got to Liancourt (near Paris) where he now is [1915].

Another Japanese friend, Mr. Saikwa Tomita, the youthful author of _The Matanjitenshô_ or _Psalm of the Last Day_, has translated and published large portions of _Towards Democracy_ in current Japanese magazines, and intends apparently to bring the whole out in book form—as well as versions of _The Art of Creation_ and some of my other works. Speaking (in a letter) of the present War, he says: “Japan is at her crisis as well as Europe is. Here in this country, as you well know, he who is for the lower classes and vagabonds, or who is for [the] cosmopolitanism, is treated by the authorities under the name of ill-fame and has to suffer from a bitter experience.” And Sanshiro Ishikawa above-mentioned speaks likewise: “Is not this a terrible epoch, that the violent force only holds the supreme power in this world, and humanity has no influence, at least in [the] international affairs. The present situation of Japan is in most dangerous step [stage]; many peoples are becoming admirers of militarism. Commercialism is already too powerful; and I feel a duty that I must fight with full-hearted spirit against them.”

Let us pray that these true-hearted fighters for Internationalism may prevail—all over the world, and among all nations!

I am proud to find that among the Bulgarians—who are supposed just now to be our enemies—I have many friends. Messrs. Vaptzaroff and Dosseff, editors of the magazine called _Renaissans_ at Burgas and Tchirpan, published in it shortly before the War various chapters of _Civilization_, including “The Defence of Criminals,” “Custom,” “Modern Science,” etc., and later the whole of that book, and of _England’s Ideal_. With the outbreak of the war however they retired to Maikop in the Kuban Territory (east of the Black Sea), being in touch there with another friend of mine, the Russian novelist and mystic, Ivan Najívin. M. Najívin, who makes his home apparently in the country near Novorossisk on the shores of the Euxine—working there among his bees, and in his vineyard and vegetable garden—has written to me for some years, chiefly about Cosmic Consciousness and Sandals! He is, as may be imagined, particularly interested in the Indian Sannyasis and mystics, and was lately much surprised to find that some of the Russian peasant sects (notably the _Stranniks_) among whom he had lived so long were all the time unbeknown to him holding views and favouring practices very similar to those of the Hindu mystics. “Bientôt je vous écrirai des choses extraordinaires à propos du _gñanam_ et _samadhi_, etc. Tout cela existe parmi le bas peuple et les moines Russes!” (letter of May 1913). He has translated my _Visit to a Gñani_ into Russian under the title _I Am_, also large portions of _Towards Democracy_ and the whole of _Civilization_. Besides M. Najívin I am indebted to M. Sergius Orlovski and M. G. Rapoport and others for introductions to the Russian public.

MARCELLE SENARD.

(_Photo: L. Fréon, Neuilly, Paris._)
]

To my young friend Illit Gröndahl of Kloften, Norway, I owe the circulation of my works in Norway, especially in Bergen. In Amsterdam a translation of _Civilization_ (_De Beschaving: hare oorzaak en hare Genesing_) was issued as long ago as 1899—with Preface by Leo Tolstoy (the same preface which Tolstoy wrote to the chapter on Modern Science[31]); and in the same city a translation of _Love’s Coming-of-Age_ (_Liefde’s Meerderjarigheid_) was issued in 1904.

XVI
RURAL CONDITIONS

In contrast with the Artisans and Town-workers whom I had got to know so well, the farm-populations and rustics among whom I found myself embedded when I settled at Millthorpe were decidedly interesting. In the working masses of the towns—at any rate of the Northern towns—what attracted one was the ferment of the New Life coming on: the social dreams of a better future; the efforts to realize such dreams, even in a small way; the push towards independence; the greater alertness and education; the busy hum and activity of Trades Unions and all manner of Labour Associations. What interested me in the country was something quite different. It was in fact the Old Life—the old immemorial rustic existence still going on, still there though giving signs of passing of course. As it happened, I could hardly have found a more old-world, purely agricultural parish, if I had searched for it—certainly not in the North of England—than Holmesfield when I first came there. (Now—oh, irony!—it is already beginning to be civilized!) It was all in the old rural style—the leisurely long day with its varied occupations and interests, the life of the open air and the fields, the cattle and the crops, the barn and the public-house; the absolute acceptance of things as they are, complete non-interest in reform, positive indifference to anything not patently visible to the eye, or to abstractions of any kind. The good folk would talk about a particular field—and really with amazing detail about its history, its climate, its soil, its suitability for such and such crops, and so forth; but if you broached any phase of the Land Question (however really important to them)—their eyes would soon glaze and their conversation revert to their pigs or potatoes.

A few years after my arrival at Millthorpe, having found out some facts about the Commons Enclosures in the neighborhood, I wrote a four-page tract entitled _Our Parish and our Duke_—giving some account of the circumstances under which our common lands were eaten up by our local landlords early last century—and circulated it around. It was printed in the London _Star_ (July 8, 1889) and quoted and commented on in other papers; and it sold and circulated in leaflet form some twenty thousand or more copies; but in the Parish itself it elicited no response! One old farmer whom I knew pretty well said “It’s very well put together, Mister, and it’s just exactly true”—and that was all the backing I got. Probably if there were others that approved they did not dare to say so. The fact that it challenged a Duke gave them pause! The tract, somewhat enlarged and altered and under the title _The Village and the Landlord_, is now published by the Fabian Society (Tract No. 136, 1d.).[32]

Thus, as I think I have said before, on first coming to Millthorpe I experienced a certain sense of isolation among the people there. Whereas in Sheffield and even at little Bradway I was received as a friend and commonly called by my christian name, at Millthorpe I was a stranger—and like all strangers an object of suspicion—and was addressed as “Mister.” It was a curious situation, and I found myself leading a double and divided life. How I came in the end to bridge the gulf and (so far) to overpass it I hardly know; but Time does wonders, and by slow degrees the rustics have accepted me almost as one of themselves and given me, some of them, their warm friendship. I am indeed bound to say that despite the great differences between them and the town-workers, and the greater general intelligence and alertness of the latter, I admire the character of the country-folk most—their extraordinary serenity and good humour, their tenacity, sincerity, and real affectionateness. Even their silent ways—though irritating at times—are a relief from the eternal gabble of the cities. Said a farmer youth to me one day—after we had been listening for some time to the rather cheap talk of an elderly and radical “citizen”—“They do talk, those townsfolk,” he said; and then after a pause—“them as talks so much _they must tell a lot o’ lies_.” And I entirely agreed with him.

Talking about the gulf fixed between the Old and the New, and especially between the mentality of the downright manual worker and that of the artist—at one time we had an artist friend staying with us who was rather down on his luck and making only a poor living. He was working on a landscape picture, and every morning used to sit in one of my fields and close to the wall which divided it from the high-road. An old road-mender (the same who had told me years before how he remembered the Commons “going in” i.e. being enclosed)—a good old man but bowed with age and labour—used to come that way every morning to his work; and every morning, as sure as Fate, made some patronizing remark to the painter, which at last enraged the latter beyond endurance. “That’s a nice pastime for you, young man.” And then the next morning, “I see you’re amusin’ yoursen again, young man”; and so on. (“Pastime, indeed! amusing myself! I wish the old fool had to do it instead of me. But I’ll be even with him yet!”) So the next morning the artist inveigled the old man into conversation, and after submitting meekly to more patronage, said: “Well you see I have to do this for my living.”

“Do it for your livin’, do ye?”

“Yes.”

“Do you sell them paintin’s, then?”

“Of course I do.”

_Old Man_ (a little taken aback): “And how much might you get for a thing like that?”

_Artist_ (stretching a point): “Well I might get ten pounds.”

_Old Man_ (astonished): “Ten pun! well I never!”

_Artist_ (following up): “Or I might get more of course.”

_Old Man_ (thoughtfully and with deep respect): “Ten pun! Well, I never—_and sittin’ down to it too_!”

But Hodge is passing away. The old agricultural population (farmer and labourer) is changing under the pressure of modern life; and soon—for good or evil—will be a thing of the past. The motor-car and the cycle, the telephone and the daily paper, are ploughing up the country districts, torrents of townsfolk pour over the land on holidays, and the seeds of new ideas are being sown. Already I can see, even in this little corner of the land, a new type of native arising.