Part 3
Now, since it is human to err, it is always in reference to those things which arouse in us the most human of all our emotions--I mean the emotion of love--that we conceive the deepest of our errors. Suppose we met Euclid on Westminster Bridge, and he took us aside and confessed to us that whilst he regarded parallelograms and rhomboids with an indifference bordering on contempt, for isosceles triangles he cherished a wild romantic devotion. Suppose he asked us to accompany him to the nearest music-shop, and there purchased a guitar in order that he might worthily sing to us the radiant beauty and the radiant goodness of isosceles triangles. As men we should, I hope, respect his enthusiasm, and encourage his enthusiasm, and catch his enthusiasm. But as seekers after truth we should be compelled to regard with a dark suspicion, and to check with the most anxious care, every fact that he told us about isosceles triangles. For adoration involves a glorious obliquity of vision. It involves more than that. We do not say of Love that he is short-sighted. We do not say of Love that he is myopic. We do not say of Love that he is astigmatic. We say quite simply, Love is blind. We might go further and say, Love is deaf. That would be a profound and obvious truth. We might go further still and say, Love is dumb. But that would be a profound and obvious lie. For love is always an extraordinarily fluent talker. Love is a wind-bag, filled with a gusty wind from Heaven.
It is always about the thing that we love most that we talk most. About this thing, therefore, our errors are something more than our deepest errors: they are our most frequent errors. That is why for nearly two thousand years mankind has been more glaringly wrong on the subject of Christmas than on any other subject. If mankind had hated Christmas, he would have understood it from the first. What would have happened then, it is impossible to say. For that which is hated, and therefore is persecuted, and therefore grows brave, lives on for ever, whilst that which is understood dies in the moment of our understanding of it--dies, as it were, in our awful grasp. Between the horns of this eternal dilemma shivers all the mystery of the jolly visible world, and of that still jollier world which is invisible. And it is because Mr. Shaw and the writers of his school cannot, with all their splendid sincerity and, acumen, perceive that he and they and all of us are impaled on those horns as certainly as the sausages I ate for breakfast this morning had been impaled on the cook's toasting-fork--it is for this reason, I say, that Mr. Shaw and his friends seem to me to miss the basic principle that lies at the root of all things human and divine. By the way, not all things that are divine are human. But all things that are human are divine. But to return to Christmas.
I select at random two of the more obvious fallacies that obtain. One is that Christmas should be observed as a time of jubilation. This is (I admit) quite a recent idea. It never entered into the tousled heads of the shepherds by night, when the light of the angel of the Lord shone about them and they arose and went to do homage to the Child. It never entered into the heads of the Three Wise Men. They did not bring their gifts as a joke, but as an awful oblation. It never entered into the heads of the saints and scholars, the poets and painters, of the Middle Ages. Looking back across the years, they saw in that dark and ungarnished manger only a shrinking woman, a brooding man, and a child born to sorrow. The philomaths of the eighteenth century, looking back, saw nothing at all. It is not the least of the glories of the Victorian Era that it rediscovered Christmas. It is not the least of the mistakes of the Victorian Era that it supposed Christmas to be a feast.
The splendour of the saying, "I have piped unto you, and you have not danced; I have wept with you, and you have not mourned" lies in the fact that it might have been uttered with equal truth by any man who had ever piped or wept. There is in the human race some dark spirit of recalcitrance, always pulling us in the direction contrary to that in which we are reasonably expected to go. At a funeral, the slightest thing, not in the least ridiculous at any other time, will convulse us with internal laughter. At a wedding, we hover mysteriously on the brink of tears. So it is with the modern Christmas. I find myself in agreement with the cynics in so far that I admit that Christmas, as now observed, tends to create melancholy. But the reason for this lies solely in our own misconception. Christmas is essentially a _dies iræ_. If the cynics will only make up their minds to treat it as such, even the saddest and most atrabilious of them will acknowledge that he has had a rollicking day.
This brings me to the second fallacy. I refer to the belief that "Christmas comes but once a year." Perhaps it does, according to the calendar--a quaint and interesting compilation, but of little or no practical value to anybody. It is not the calendar, but the Spirit of Man that regulates the recurrence of feasts and fasts. Spiritually, Christmas Day recurs exactly seven times a week. When we have frankly acknowledged this, and acted on this, we shall begin to realise the Day's mystical and terrific beauty. For it is only every-day things that reveal themselves to us in all their wonder and their splendour. A man who happens one day to be knocked down by a motor-bus merely utters a curse and instructs his solicitor, but a man who has been knocked down by a motor-bus every day of the year will have begun to feel that he is taking part in an august and soul-cleansing ritual. He will await the diurnal stroke of fate with the same lowly and pious joy as animated the Hindoos awaiting Juggernaut. His bruises will be decorations, worn with the modest pride of the veteran. He will cry aloud, in the words of the late W.E. Henley, "My head is bloody but unbowed." He will add, "My ribs are broken but unbent."
I look for the time when we shall wish one another a Merry Christmas every morning; when roast turkey and plum-pudding shall be the staple of our daily dinner, and the holly shall never be taken down from the walls, and everyone will always be kissing everyone else under the mistletoe. And what is right as regards Christmas is right as regards all other so-called anniversaries. The time will come when we shall dance round the Maypole every morning before breakfast--a meal at which hot-cross buns will be a standing dish--and shall make April fools of one another every day before noon. The profound significance of All Fool's Day--the glorious lesson that we are all fools--is too apt at present to be lost. Nor is justice done to the sublime symbolism of Shrove Tuesday--the day on which all sins are shriven. Every day pancakes shall be eaten, either before or after the plum-pudding. They shall be eaten slowly and sacramentally. They shall be fried over fires tended and kept for ever bright by Vestals. They shall be tossed to the stars.
I shall return to the subject of Christmas next week.
A SEQUELULA TO "THE DYNASTS"[7]
_By_
TH*M*S H*RDY
[Footnote 7: _This has been composed from a scenario thrust on me by some one else. My philosophy of life saves me from sense of responsibility for any of my writings; but I venture to hold myself specially irresponsible for this one._--TH*M*S H*RDY.]
The Void is disclosed. Our own Solar System is visible, distant by some two million miles.
Enter the Ancient Spirit and Chorus of the Years, the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the Spirit Ironic, the Spirit Sinister, Rumours, Spirit-Messengers, and the Recording Angel.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Yonder, that swarm of things insectual_ _Wheeling Nowhither in Particular--_ _What is it?_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_That? Oh that is merely one_ _Of those innumerous congeries_ _Of parasites by which, since time began,_ _Space has been interfested._
SPIRIT SINISTER.
_What a pity_ _We have no means of stamping out these pests!_
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_Nay, but I like to watch them buzzing round,_ _Poor little trumpery ephaeonals!_
CHORUS OF THE PIETIES (aerial music).
_Yes, yes!_ _What matter a few more or less?_ _Here and Nowhere plus_ _Whence and Why makes Thus._ _Let these things be._ _There's room in the world for them and us._
_Nothing is,_ _Out in the vast immensities_ _Where these things flit,_ _Irrequisite_ _In a minor key_ _To the tune of the sempiternal It._
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_The curious thing about them is that some_ _Have lesser parasites adherent to them--_ _Bipedular and quadrupedular_ _Infinitesimals. On close survey_ _You see these movesome. Do you not recall,_ _We once went in a party and beheld_ _All manner of absurd things happening_ _On one of those same--planets, don't you call them?_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (screwing up his eyes at the Solar System).
_One of that very swarm it was, if I mistake not._ _It had a parasite that called itself_ _Napoléon. And lately, I believe,_ _Another parasite has had the impudence_ _To publish an elaborate account_ _Of our (for so we deemed it) private visit._
SPIRIT SINISTER.
_His name?_
RECORDING ANGEL.
_One moment._
(Turns over leaves.)
_Hardy, Mr. Thomas,_ _Novelist. Author of "The Woodlanders,"_ _"Far from the Madding Crowd," "The Trumpet Major,"_ _"Tess of the D'Urbervilles," etcetera,_ _Etcetera. In 1895_ _"Jude the Obscure" was published, and a few_ _Hasty reviewers, having to supply_ _A column for the day of publication,_ _Filled out their space by saying that there were_ _Several passages that might have been_ _Omitted with advantage. Mr. Hardy_ _Saw that if that was so, well then, of course,_ _Obviously the only thing to do_ _Was to write no more novels, and forthwith_ _Applied himself to drama, and to Us._
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_Let us hear what he said about Us._
THE OTHER SPIRITS.
_Let's._
RECORDING ANGEL (raising receiver of aerial telephone).
_3 oh 4 oh oh 3 5, Space.... Hulloa._ _Is that the Superstellar Library?_ _I'm the Recording Angel. Kindly send me_ _By Spirit-Messenger a copy of_ _"The Dynasts" by T. Hardy. Thank you._
A pause. Enter Spirit-Messenger, with copy of "The Dynasts."
_Thanks._
Exit Spirit-Messenger. The Recording Angel reads "The Dynasts" aloud.
Just as the reading draws to a close, enter the Spirit of Mr. Clement Shorter and Chorus of Subtershorters. They are visible as small grey transparencies swiftly interpenetrating the brains of the spatial Spirits.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_It is a book which, once you take it up,_ _You cannot readily lay down._
SPIRIT SINISTER.
_There is_ _Not a dull page in it._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_A bold conception_ _Outcarried with that artistry for which_ _The author's name is guarantee. We have_ _No hesitation in commending to our readers_ _A volume which--_
The Spirit of Mr. Clement Shorter and Chorus of Subtershorters are detected and expelled.
_--we hasten to denounce_ _As giving an entirely false account_ _Of our impressions._
SPIRIT IRONIC.
Hear, _hear_!
SPIRIT SINISTER.
Hear, _hear_!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Hear_!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_Intensive vision has this Mr. Hardy,_ _With a dark skill in weaving word-patterns_ _Of subtle ideographies that mark him_ _A man of genius. So am not I,_ _But a plain Spirit, simple and forthright,_ _With no damned philosophical fal-lals_ _About me. When I visited that planet_ _And watched the animalculae thereon,_ _I never said they were "automata"_ _And "jackaclocks," nor dared describe their deeds_ _As "Life's impulsion by Incognizance."_ _It may be that those mites have no free will,_ _But how should I know? Nay, how Mr. Hardy?_ _We cannot glimpse the origin of things,_ _Cannot conceive a Causeless Cause, albeit_ _Such a Cause must have been, and must be greater_ _Than we whose little wits cannot conceive it._ _"Incognizance"! Why deem incognizant_ _An infinitely higher than ourselves?_ _How dare define its way with us? How know_ _Whether it leaves us free or holds us bond?_
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Allow me to associate myself_ _With every word that's fallen from your lips._ _The author of "The Dynasts" has indeed_ _Misused his undeniably great gifts_ _In striving to belittle things that are_ _Little enough already. I don't say_ _That the phrenetical behaviour_ _Of those aforesaid animalculae_ _Did, while we watched them, seem to indicate_ _Possession of free-will. But, bear in mind,_ _We saw them in peculiar circumstances--_ _At war, blinded with blood and lust and fear._ _Is it not likely that at other times_ _They are quite decent midgets, capable_ _Of thinking for themselves, and also acting_ _Discreetly on their own initiative,_ _Not drilled and herded, yet gregarious--_ _A wise yet frolicsome community?_
SPIRIT IRONIC.
_What are these "other times" though? I had thought_ _Those midgets whiled away the vacuous hours_ _After one war in training for the next._ _And let me add that my contempt for them_ _Is not done justice to by Mr. Hardy._
SPIRIT SINISTER.
_Nor mine. And I have reason to believe_ _Those midgets shone above their average_ _When we inspected them._
A RUMOUR (tactfully intervening).
_Yet have I heard_ _(Though not on very good authority)_ _That once a year they hold a festival_ _And thereat all with one accord unite_ _In brotherly affection and good will._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (to Recording Angel).
_Can you authenticate this Rumour?_
RECORDING ANGEL.
_Such festival they have, and call it "Christmas."_
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Then let us go and reconsider them_ _Next "Christmas."_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (to Recording Angel).
_When is that?_
RECORDING ANGEL (consults terrene calendar).
_This day three weeks._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_On that day we will re-traject ourselves._ _Meanwhile, 'twere well we should be posted up_ _In details of this feast._
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES (to Recording Angel).
_Aye, tell us more._
RECORDING ANGEL.
_I fancy you could best find what you need_ _In the Complete Works of the late Charles Dickens._ _I have them here._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_Read them aloud to us._
The Recording Angel reads aloud the Complete Works of Charles Dickens.
RECORDING ANGEL (closing "Edwin Drood").
_'Tis Christmas Morning._
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_Then must we away._
SEMICHORUS I. OF YEARS (aerial music).
_'Tis time we press on to revisit_ _That dear little planet,_ _To-day of all days to be seen at_ _Its brightest and best._
_Now holly and mistletoe girdle_ _Its halls and its homesteads,_ _And every biped is beaming_ _With peace and good will._
SEMICHORUS II.
_With good will and why not with free will?_ _If clearly the former_ _May nest in those bosoms, then why not_ _The latter as well?_ _Let's lay down no laws to trip up on,_ _Our way is in darkness,_ _And not but by groping unhampered_ _We win to the light._
The Spirit and Chorus of the Years traject themselves, closely followed by the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the Spirits and Choruses Sinister and Ironic, Rumours, Spirit Messengers, and the Recording Angel.
There is the sound of a rushing wind. The Solar System is seen for a few instants growing larger and larger--a whorl of dark, vastening orbs careering round the sun. All but one of these is lost to sight. The convex seas and continents of our planet spring into prominence.
The Spirit of Mr. Hardy is visible as a grey transparency swiftly interpenetrating the brain of the Spirit of the Years, and urging him in a particular direction, to a particular point.
The Aerial Visitants now hover in mid-air on the outskirts of Casterbridge, Wessex, immediately above the County Gaol.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_First let us watch the revelries within_ _This well-kept castle whose great walls connote_ _A home of the pre-eminently blest._
The roof of the gaol becomes transparent, and the whole interior is revealed, like that of a beehive under glass. Warders are marching mechanically round the corridors of white stone, unlocking and clanging open the iron doors of the cells. Out from every door steps a convict, who stands at attention, his face to the wall.
At a word of command the convicts fall into gangs of twelve, and march down the stone stairs, out into the yard, where they line up against the walls.
Another word of command, and they file mechanically, but not more mechanically than their warders, into the Chapel.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Enough!_
SPIRITS SINISTER AND IRONIC.
_'Tis more than even we can bear._
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Would we had never come!_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_Brother, 'tis well_ _To have faced a truth however hideous,_ _However humbling. Gladly I discipline_ _My pride by taking back those pettish doubts_ _Cast on the soundness of the central thought_ _In Mr. Hardy's drama. He was right._ _Automata these animalculae_ _Are--puppets, pitiable jackaclocks._ _Be't as it may elsewhere, upon this planet_ _There's no free will, only obedience_ _To some blind, deaf, unthinking despotry_ _That justifies the horridest pessimism._ _Frankly acknowledging all this, I beat_ _A quick but not disorderly retreat._
He re-trajects himself into Space, followed closely by his Chorus, and by the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the Spirits Sinister and Ironic with their Choruses, Rumours, Spirit Messengers, and the Recording Angel.
SHAKESPEARE AND CHRISTMAS
_By_
FR*NK H*RR*S
That Shakespeare hated Christmas--hated it with a venom utterly alien to the gentle heart in him--I take to be a proposition that establishes itself automatically. If there is one thing lucid-obvious in the Plays and Sonnets, it is Shakespeare's unconquerable loathing of Christmas. The Professors deny it, however, or deny that it is proven. With these gentlemen I will deal faithfully. I will meet them on their own parched ground, making them fertilise it by shedding there the last drop of the water that flows through their veins.
If you find, in the works of a poet whose instinct is to write about everything under the sun, one obvious theme untouched, or touched hardly at all, then it is at least presumable that there was some good reason for that abstinence. Such a poet was Shakespeare. It was one of the divine frailties of his genius that he must be ever flying off at a tangent from his main theme to unpack his heart in words about some frivolous-small irrelevance that had come into his head. If it could be shown that he never mentioned Christmas, we should have proof presumptive that he consciously avoided doing so. But if the fact is that he did mention it now and again, but in grudging fashion, without one spark of illumination--he, the arch-illuminator of all things--then we have proof positive that he detested it.
I see Dryasdust thumbing his Concordance. Let my memory save him the trouble. I will reel him off the one passage in which Shakespeare spoke of Christmas in words that rise to the level of mediocrity.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
So says Marcellus at Elsinore. This is the best our Shakespeare can vamp up for the birthday of the Man with whom he of all men had the most in common. And Dryasdust, eternally unable to distinguish chalk from cheese, throws up his hands in admiration of the marvellous poetry. If Dryasdust had written it, it would more than pass muster. But as coming from Shakespeare, how feeble-cold--aye, and sulky-sinister! The greatest praiser the world will ever know!--and all he can find in his heart to sing of Christmas is a stringing-together of old women's superstitions! Again and again he has painted Winter for us as it never has been painted since--never by Goethe even, though Goethe in more than one of the _Winter-Lieder_ touched the hem of his garment. There was every external reason why he should sing, as only he could have sung, of Christmas. The Queen set great store by it. She and her courtiers celebrated it year by year with lusty-pious unction. And thus the ineradicable snob in Shakespeare had the most potent of all inducements to honour the feast with the full power that was in him. But he did not, because he would not. What is the key to the enigma?
For many years I hunted it vainly. The second time that I met Carlyle I tried to enlist his sympathy and aid. He sat pensive for a while and then said that it seemed to him "a goose-quest." I replied, "You have always a phrase for everything, Tom, but always the wrong one." He covered his face, and presently, peering at me through his gnarled fingers, said "Mon, ye're recht." I discussed the problem with Renan, with Emerson, with Disraeli, also with Cetewayo--poor Cetewayo, best and bravest of men, but intellectually a Professor, like the rest of them. It was borne in on me that if I were to win to the heart of the mystery I must win alone.
The solution, when suddenly it dawned on me, was so simple-stark that I was ashamed of the ingenious-clever ways I had been following. (I learned then--and perhaps it is the one lesson worth the learning of any man--that truth may be approached only through the logic of the heart. For the heart is eye and ear, and all excellent understanding abides there.) On Christmas Day, assuredly, Anne Hathaway was born.
In what year she was born I do not know nor care. I take it she was not less than thirty-eight when she married Shakespeare. This, however, is sheer conjecture, and in no way important-apt to our inquiry. It is not the year, but the day of the year, that matters. All we need bear in mind is that on Christmas Day that woman was born into the world.