Joyous Gard
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Arthur Christopher Benson >> Joyous Gard
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We must provide then, if we can, a certain setting for life, a
sufficiency of work and sustenance, and even leisure; and then we must
give that no further thought. How many men do I not know, whose
thought seems to be "when I have made enough money, when I have found
my place, when I have arranged the apparatus of life about me, then I
will live as I should wish to live." But the stream of desires
broadens and thickens, and the leisure hour never comes!
We must not thus deceive ourselves. What we have to do is to make
life, instantly and without delay, worthy to be lived. We must try to
enjoy all that we have to do, and take care that we do not do what we
do not enjoy, unless the hard task we set ourselves is sure to bring
us something that we really need. It is useless thus to elaborate the
cup of life, if we find when we have made it, that the wine which
should have filled it has long ago evaporated.
Can I say what I believe the wine of life to be? I believe that it is
a certain energy and richness of spirit, in which both mind and heart
find full expression. We ought to rise day by day with a certain zest,
a clear intention, a design to make the most out of every hour; not to
let the busy hours shoulder each other, tread on each other's heels,
but to force every action to give up its strength and sweetness. There
is work to be done, and there are empty hours to be filled as well.
It is happiest of all, for man and woman, if those hours can be
filled, not as a duty but as a pleasure, by pleasing those whom we
love and whose nearness is at once a delight. We ought to make time
for that most of all. And then there ought to be some occupation, not
enforced, to which we naturally wish to return. Exercise, gardening,
handicraft, writing, even if it be only leisurely letters, music,
reading--something to occupy the restless brain and hand; for there is
no doubt that both physically and mentally we are not fit to be
unoccupied.
But most of all, there must be something to quicken, enliven, practise
the soul. We must not force this upon ourselves, or it will be
fruitless and dreary; but neither must we let it lapse out of mere
indolence. We must follow some law of beauty, in whatever way beauty
appeals to us and calls us. We must not think that appeal a selfish
thing, because it is upon that and that alone that our power of
increasing peace and hope and vital energy belongs.
I have a man in mind who has a simple taste for books. He has a
singularly pure and fine power of selecting and loving what is best
in books. There is no self-consciousness about him, no critical
contempt of the fancies of others; but his own love for what is
beautiful is so modest, so perfectly natural and unaffected, that it
is impossible to hear him speak of the things that he loves without a
desire rising up in one's mind to taste a pleasure which brings so
much happiness to the owner. I have often talked with him about books
that I had thought tiresome and dull; but he disentangles so deftly
the underlying idea of the book, the thought that one must be on the
look-out for the motive of the whole, that he has again and again sent
me back to a book which I had thrown aside, with an added interest and
perception. But the really notable thing is the effect on his own
immediate circle. I do not think his family are naturally people of
very high intelligence or ability. But his mind and heart seem to have
permeated theirs, so that I know no group of persons who seem to have
imbibed so simply, without strain or effort, a delight in what is good
and profound. There is no sort of dryness about the atmosphere. It is
not that they keep talk resolutely on their own subjects; it is merely
that their outlook is so fresh and quick that everything seems alive
and significant. One comes away from the house with a horizon
strangely extended, and a sense that the world is full of live ideas
and wonderful affairs.
I despair of describing an effect so subtle, so contagious. It is not
in the least that everything becomes intellectual; that would be a
rueful consequence; there is no parade of knowledge, but knowledge
itself becomes an exciting and entertaining thing, like a varied
landscape. The wonder is, when one is with these people, that one did
not see all the fine things that were staring one in the face all the
time, the clues, the connections, the links. The best of it is that it
is not a transient effect; it is rather like the implanting of a seed
of fire, which spreads and glows, and burns unaided.
It is this sacred fire of which we ought all to be in search. Fire is
surely the most wonderful symbol in the world! We sit in our quiet
rooms, feeling safe, serene, even chilly, yet everywhere about us,
peacefully confined in all our furniture and belongings, is a mass of
inflammability, stored with gases, which at a touch are capable of
leaping into flame. I remember once being in a house in which a pile
of wood in a cellar had caught fire; there was a short delay, while
the hose was got out, and before an aperture into the burning room
could be made. I went into a peaceful dining-room, which was just
above the fire, and it was strangely appalling to see little puffs of
smoke fly off from the kindled floor, while we tore the carpets up and
flew to take the pictures down, and to know the room was all crammed
with vehement cells, ready to burst into vapour at the fierce touch of
the consuming element.
I saw once a vast bonfire of wood kindled on a grassy hill-top; it was
curiously affecting to see the great trunks melt into flame, and the
red cataract pouring so softly, so unapproachably into the air. It is
so with the minds of men; the material is all there, compressed,
welded, inflammable; and if the fire can but leap into our spirits
from some other burning heart, we may be amazed at the prodigal force
and heat that can burst forth, the silent energy, the possibility of
consumption.
I hold it to be of supreme value to each of us to try to introduce
this fire of the heart into our spirits. It is not like mortal fire,
a consuming, dangerous, truculent element. It is rather like the
furnace of the engine, which can convert water into steam--the
softest, feeblest, purest element into irresistible and irrepressible
force. The materials are all at hand in many a spirit that has never
felt the glowing contact; and it is our business first to see that the
elements are there, and then to receive with awe the fiery touch. It
must be restrained, controlled, guarded, that fierce conflagration;
but our joy cannot only consist of pure, clear, lambent, quiescent
elements. It must have a heart of flame.
XXIII
FAITH
We ought to learn to cultivate, train, regulate emotion, just as we
train other faculties. The world has hardly reached this point yet.
First man trains his body that he may be strong, when strength is
supreme. When almost the only argument is force, the man who is drawn
to play a fine part in the world must above everything be strong,
courageous, gallant, so that he may go to combat joyful and serene,
like a man inspired. Then when the world becomes civilised, when
weakness combines against strength, when men do not settle differences
of feeling by combat and war, but by peaceable devices like votes and
arbitrations, the intellect comes to the front, and strength of body
falls into the background as a pleasant enough thing, a matter of
amusement or health, and intellect becomes the dominant force. But we
shall advance beyond even that, and indeed we have begun to advance.
Buddhism and the Stoic philosophy were movements dictated more by
reason than by emotion, which recognised the elements of pain and
sorrow as inseparable from human life, and suggested to man that the
only way to conquer evils such as these was by turning the back upon
them, cultivating indifference to them, and repressing the desires
which issued in disappointment. Christianity was the first attempt of
the human spirit to achieve a nobler conquest still; it taught men to
abandon the idea of conquest altogether; the Christian was meant to
abjure ambition, not to resist oppression, not to meet violence by
violence, but to yield rather than to fight.
The metaphor of the Christian soldier is wholly alien to the spirit of
the Gospel, and the attempt to establish a combative ideal of
Christian life was one of the many concessions that Christianity in
the hands of its later exponents made to the instincts of men. The
conception of the Christian in the Gospel was that of a simple,
uncomplicated, uncalculating being, who was to be so absorbed in
caring for others that the sense of his own rights and desires and
aims was to fall wholly into the background. He is not represented as
meant to have any intellectual, political, or artistic pursuits at
all. He is to accept his place in the world as he finds it; he is to
have no use for money or comforts or accumulated resources. He is not
to scheme for dignity or influence, nor even much to regard earthly
ties. Sorrow, loss, pain, evil, are simply to be as shadows through
which he passes, and if they have any meaning at all for him, they are
to be opportunities for testing the strength of his emotions. But the
whole spirit of the Christian revelation is that no terms should be
made with the world at all. The world must treat the Christian as it
will, and there are to be no reprisals; neither is there the least
touch of opportunism about it. The Christian is not to do the best he
can, but the best; he is frankly to aim at perfection.
How then is this faith to be sustained? It is to be nourished by a
sense of direct and frank converse with a God and Father. The
Christian is never to have any doubt that the intention of the Father
towards him is absolutely, kind and good. He attempts no explanation
of the existence of sin and pain; he simply endures them; and he looks
forward with serene certainty to the continued existence of the soul.
There is no hint given of the conditions under which the soul is to
continue its further life, of its desires or occupations; the
intention obviously is that a Christian should live life freely and
fully; but love, and interest in human relations are to supersede all
other aims and desires.
It has been often said that if the world were to accept the teaching
of the Sermon on the Mount literally, the social fabric of the world
would be dissolved in a month. It is true; but it is not generally
added that it would be because there would be no need of the social
fabric. The reason why the social fabric would be dissolved is because
there would doubtless be a minority which would not accept these
principles, and would seize upon the things which the world agrees to
consider desirable. The Christian majority would become the slaves of
the unchristian minority, and would be at their mercy. Christianity,
in so far as it is a social system at all, is the purest kind of
socialism, a socialism not of compulsion but of disinterestedness. It
is easy, of course, to scoff at the possibility of so far
disintegrating the vast and complex organisation of society, as to
arrange life on the simpler lines; but the fact remains that the very
few people in the world's history, like St. Francis of Assisi, for
instance, who have ever dared to live literally in the Christian
manner, have had an immeasurable effect upon the hearts and
imaginations of the world. The truth is not that life cannot be so
lived, but that humanity dares not take the plunge; and that is what
Christ meant when He said that few would find the narrow way. The
really amazing thing is that such immense numbers of people have
accepted Christianity in the world, and profess themselves Christians
without the slightest doubt of their sincerity, who never regard the
Christian principles at all. The chief aim, it would seem, of the
Church, has been not to preserve the original revelation, but to
accommodate it to human instincts and desires. It seems to me to
resemble the very quaint and simple old Breton legend, which relates
how the Saviour sent the Apostles out to sell stale fish as fresh;
and when they returned unsuccessful, He was angry with them, and
said, "How shall I make you into fishers of men, if you cannot even
persuade simple people to buy stale fish for fresh?" That is a very
trenchant little allegory of ecclesiastical methods! And perhaps it is
even so that it has come to pass that Christianity is in a sense a
failure, or rather an unfulfilled hope, because it has made terms with
the world, has become pompous and respectable and mundane and
influential and combative, and has deliberately exalted civic duty
above love.
It seems to me that it is the business of all serious Christians
deliberately to face this fact; and equally it is not their business
to try to destroy the social organisation of what is miscalled
Christianity. That is as much a part of the world now as the Roman
Empire was a part of the world when Christ came; but we must not
mistake it for Christianity. Christianity is not a doctrine, or an
organisation, or a ceremonial, or a society, but an atmosphere and a
life. The essence of it is to train emotion, to believe and to
practise the belief that all human beings have in them something
interesting, lovable, beautiful, pathetic; and to make the
recognition of that fact, the establishment of simple and kind
relations with every single person with whom one is brought into
contact, the one engrossing aim of life. Thus the essence of
Christianity is in a sense artistic, because it depends upon freely
recognising the beauty both of the natural world and the human spirit.
There are enough hints of this in the Gospel, in the tender
observation of Christ, His love of flowers, birds, children, the fact
that He noted and reproduced in His stories the beauty of the homely
business of life, the processes of husbandry in field and vineyard,
the care of the sheepfold, the movement of the street, the games of
boys and girls, the little festivals of life, the wedding and the
party; all these things appear in His talk, and if more of it were
recorded, there would undoubtedly be more of such things. It is true
that as opposition and strife gathered about Him, there falls a darker
and sadder spirit upon the page, and the anxieties and ambitions of
His followers reflect themselves in the record of denunciations and
censures. But we must not be misled by this into thinking that the
message is thus obscured.
What then we have to do, if we would follow the pure Gospel, is to
lead quiet lives, refresh the spirit of joy within us by feeding our
eyes and minds with the beautiful sounds and sights of nature, the
birds' song, the opening faces of flowers, the spring woods, the
winter sunset; we must enter simply and freely into the life about us,
not seeking to take a lead, to impress our views, to emphasise our own
subjects; we must not get absorbed in toil or business, and still less
in plans and intrigues; we must not protest against these things, but
simply not care for them; we must not be burdensome to others in any
way; we must not be shocked or offended or disgusted, but tolerate,
forgive, welcome, share. We must treat life in an eager, light-hearted
way, not ruefully or drearily or solemnly. The old language in which
the Gospel comes to us, the formality of the antique phrasing, the
natural tendency to make it dignified and hieratic, disguise from us
how utterly natural and simple it all is. I do not think that
reverence and tradition and awe have done us any more grievous injury
than the fact that we have made the Saviour into a figure with whom
frank communication, eager, impulsive talk, would seem to be
impossible. One thinks of Him, from pictures and from books, as grave,
abstracted, chiding, precise, mournfully kind, solemnly considerate. I
believe it in my heart to have been wholly otherwise, and I think of
Him as one with whom any simple and affectionate person, man, woman,
or child, would have been entirely and instantly at ease. Like all
idealistic and poetical natures, he had little use, I think, for
laughter; those who are deeply interested in life and its issues care
more for the beauty than the humour of life. But one sees a flash of
humour here and there, as in the story of the unjust judge, and of the
children in the market-place; and that He was disconcerting or cast a
shadow upon natural talk and merriment I do not for an instant
believe.
And thus I think that the Christian has no right to be ashamed of
light-heartedness; indeed I believe that he ought to cultivate and
feed it in every possible way. He ought to be so unaffected, that he
can change without the least incongruity from laughter to tears,
sympathising with, entering into, developing the moods of those about
him. The moment that the Christian feels himself to be out of place
and affronted by scenes of common resort--the market, the bar, the
smoking-room--that moment his love of humanity fails him. He must be
charming, attractive, genial, everywhere; for the severance of
goodness and charm is a most wretched matter; if he affects his
company at all, it must be as innocent and beautiful girlhood affects
a circle, by its guilelessness, its sweetness, its appeal. I have
known Christians like this, wise, beloved, simple, gentle people,
whose presence did not bring constraint but rather a perfect ease, and
was an evocation of all that was best and finest in those near them. I
am not recommending a kind of silly mildness, interested only in
improving conversation, but rather a zest, a shrewdness, a bonhomie,
not finding natural interests common and unclean, but passionately
devoted to human nature--so impulsive, frail, unequal, irritable,
pleasure-loving, but yet with that generous, sweet, wholesome fibre
below, that seems to be evoked in crisis and trial from the most
apparently worthless human beings. The outcasts of society, the
sinful, the ill-regulated, would never have so congregated about our
Saviour if they had felt Him to be shocked or indignant at sin. What
they must rather have felt was that He understood them, loved them,
desired their love, and drew out all the true and fine and eager and
lovable part of them, because he knew it to be there, wished it to
emerge. "He was such a comfortable person!" as a simple man once said
to me of one of the best of Christians: "if you had gone wrong, he did
not find fault, but tried to see the way out; and if you were in pain
or trouble, he said very little; you only felt it was all right when
he was by."
XXIV
PROGRESS
We must always hopefully and gladly remember that the great movements,
doctrines, thoughts, which have affected the life of the world most
deeply, are those which are most truly based upon the best and truest
needs of humanity. We need never be afraid of a new theory or a new
doctrine, because such things are never imposed upon an unwilling
world, but owe their strength to the closeness with which they
interpret the aims and wants of human beings. Still more hopeful is
the knowledge which one gains from looking back at the history of the
world, that no selfish, cruel, sensual, or wicked interpretation of
life has ever established a vital hold upon men. The selfish and the
cruel elements of humanity have never been able to band themselves
together against the power of good for very long, for the simple
reason that those who are selfish and evil have a natural suspicion of
other selfish and evil people; and no combination of men can ever be
based upon anything but mutual trust and affection. And thus good has
always a power of combination, while evil is naturally solitary and
disjunctive.
Take such an attempt as that of Nietzsche to establish a new theory of
life. His theory of the superman is simply this, that the future of
the world was in the hands of strong, combative, powerful, predatory
people. Those are the supermen, a natural aristocracy of force and
unscrupulousness and vigour. But such individuals carry with them the
seed of their own failure, because even if Nietzsche's view that the
weak and broken elements of humanity were doomed to perish, and ought
even to be helped to perish, were a true view, even if his supermen at
last survived, they must ultimately be matched one against another in
some monstrous and unflinching combat.
Nietzsche held that the Christian doctrine of renunciation was but a
translating into terms of a theory the discontent, the disappointment,
the failure of the weak and diseased element of humanity, the slavish
herd. He thought that Christianity was a glorification, a consecration
of man's weakness and not of his strength. But he misjudged it wholly.
It is based in reality upon the noble element in humanity, the power
of love and trust and unselfishness which rises superior to the ills
of life; and the force of Christianity lies in the fact that it
reveals to men the greatness of which they are capable, and the fact
that no squalor or wretchedness of circumstances can bind the thought
of man, if it is set upon what is high and pure. The man or woman who
sees the beauty of inner purity cannot ever be very deeply tainted by
corruption either of body or of soul.
Renunciation is not a wholly passive thing; it is not a mere suspicion
of all that is joyful, a dull abnegation of happiness. It is not that
self-sacrifice means a frame of mind too despondent to enjoy, so
fearful of every kind of pleasure that it has not the heart to take
part in it. It is rather a vigorous discrimination between pleasure
and joy, an austerity which is not deceived by selfish, obvious,
apparent pleasure, but sees what sort of pleasure is innocent,
natural, social, and what sort of pleasure is corroding, barren, and
unreal.
In the Christianity of the Gospel there is very little trace of
asceticism. The delight in life is clearly indicated, and the only
sort of self-denial that is taught is the self-denial that ends in
simplicity of life, and in the joyful and courageous shouldering of
inevitable burdens. Self-denial was not to be practised in a
spiritless and timid way, but rather as a man accepts the fatigues and
dangers of an expedition, in a vigorous and adventurous mood. One does
not think of the men who go on some Arctic exploration, with all the
restrictions of diet that they have to practise, all the uncomfortable
rules of life they have to obey, as renouncing the joys of life; they
do so naturally, in order that they may follow a livelier inspiration.
It is clear from the accounts of primitive Christians that they
impressed their heathen neighbours not as timid, anxious, and
despondent people, but as men and women with some secret overflowing
sense of joy and energy, and with a curious radiance and brightness
about them which was not an affected pose, but the redundant happiness
of those who have some glad knowledge in heart and mind which they
cannot repress.
Let us suppose the case of a man gifted by nature with a great
vitality, with a keen perception of all that is beautiful in life, all
that is humorous, all that is delightful. Imagine him extremely
sensitive to nature, art, human charm, human pleasure, doing
everything with zest, interest, amusement, excitement. Imagine him,
too, deeply sensitive to affection, loving to be loved, grateful,
kindly, fond of children and animals, a fervent lover, a romantic
friend, alive to all fine human qualities. Suppose, too, that he is
ambitious, desirous of fame, liking to play an active part in life,
fond of work, wishing to sway opinion, eager that others should care
for the things for which he cares. Well, he must make a certain
choice, no doubt; he cannot gratify all these things; his ambition may
get in the way of his pleasure, his affections may interrupt his
ambitions. What is his renunciation to be? It obviously will not be an
abnegation of everything. He will not feel himself bound to crush all
enjoyment, to refuse to love and be loved, to enter tamely and
passively into life. He will inevitably choose what is dearest to his
heart, whatever that may be, and he will no doubt instinctively
eliminate from his life the joys which are most clouded by
dissatisfaction. If he sets affection aside for the sake of ambition,
and then finds that the thought of the love he has slighted or
disregarded wounds and pains him, he will retrace his steps; if he
sees that his ambitions leave him no time for his enjoyment of art or
nature, and finds his success embittered by the loss of those other
enjoyments, he will curb his ambition; but in all this he will not act
anxiously and wretchedly. He will be rather like a man who has two
simultaneous pleasures offered him, one of which must exclude the
other. He will not spoil both, but take what he desires most, and
think no more of what he rejects.
The more that such a man loves life, the less is he likely to be
deceived by the shows of life; the more wisely will he judge what part
of it is worth keeping, and the less will he be tempted by anything
which distracts him from life itself. It is fulness of life, after
all, that he is aiming at, and not vacuity; and thus renunciation
becomes not a feeble withdrawal from life, but a vigorous affirmation
of the worth of it.
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