Various - "Stories by English Authors: England"

Robert Hichens - "The Woman With The Fan"

William Shakespeare - "The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra"

Kathleen Norris - "The Treasure"

Where No Fear Was: A Book About Fear

A >> Arthur Christopher Benson >> Where No Fear Was: A Book About Fear




In our complicated civilisation it is far more difficult to say
what simplicity of life is. It is certainly not that expensive and
dramatic simplicity which is sometimes contrived by people of
wealth as a pleasant contrast to elaborate living. I remember the
son of a very wealthy man, who had a great mansion in the country
and a large house in London, telling me that his family circle were
never so entirely happy as when they were living at close quarters
in a small Scotch shooting-lodge, where their life was
comparatively rough, and luxuries unattainable. But I gathered that
the main delight of such a period was the sense of laying up a
stock of health and freshness for the more luxurious life which
intervened. The Anglo-Saxon naturally loves a kind of feudal
dignity; he likes a great house, a crowd of servants and
dependants, the impression of power and influence which it all
gives; and the delights of ostentation, of having handsome things
which one does not use and indeed hardly ever sees, of knowing that
others are eating and drinking at one's expense, which is a thing
far removed from hospitality, are dear to the temperament of our
race. We may say at once that this is fatal to any simplicity of
life; it may be that we cannot expect anyone who is born to such
splendours deliberately to forego them; but I am sure of this, that
a rich man, now and here, who spontaneously parted with his wealth,
and lived sparely in a small house, would make perhaps as powerful
an appeal to the imagination of the English world as could well be
made. If a man had a message to deliver, there could be no better
way of emphasizing it. It must not be a mere flight from the
anxiety of worldly life into a more congenial seclusion. It should
be done as Francis of Assisi did it, by continuing to live the life
of the world without any of its normal conveniences. Patent and
visible self-sacrifice, if it be accompanied by a tender love of
humanity, will always be the most impressive attitude in the world.

But if one is not capable of going to such lengths, if indeed one
has nothing that one can resign, how is it possible to practise
simplicity of life? It can be done by limiting one's needs, by
avoiding luxuries, by having nothing in one's house that one cannot
use, by being detached from pretentiousness, by being indifferent
to elaborate comforts. There are people whom I know who do this,
and who, even though they live with some degree of wealth, are yet
themselves obviously independent of comfort to an extraordinary
degree. There is a Puritanical dislike of waste which is a very
different thing, because it often coexists with an extreme
attachment to the particular standard of comfort that the man
himself prefers. I know people who believe that a substantial
midday meal and a high tea are more righteous than a simple midday
meal and a substantial dinner. But the right attitude is one of
unconcern and the absence of uneasy scheming as to the details of
life. There is no reason why people should not form habits, because
method is the primary condition of work; but the moment that habit
becomes tyrannous and elaborate, then the spirit is at once in
bondage to anxiety. The real victory over these little cares is not
for ever to have them on one's mind; or one becomes like the bread-
and-butter fly in Through the Looking-Glass, whose food was weak
tea with cream in it. "But supposing it cannot find any?" said
Alice. "Then it dies," says the gnat, who is acting the part of
interpreter. "But that must happen very often?" said Alice. "It
ALWAYS happens!" says the gnat with sombre emphasis.

Simplicity is, in fact, a difficult thing to lay down rules for,
because the essence of it is that it is free from rules; and those
who talk and think most about it, are often the most uneasy and
complicated natures. But it is certain that if one finds oneself
growing more and more fastidious and particular, more and more
easily disconcerted and put out and hampered by any variation from
the exact scheme of life that one prefers, even if that scheme is
an apparently simple one, it is certain that simplicity is at an
end. The real simplicity is a sense of being at home and at ease in
any company and mode of living, and a quiet equanimity of spirit
which cannot be content to waste time over the arrangements of
life. Sufficient food and exercise and sleep may be postulated; but
these are all to be in the background, and the real occupations of
life are to be work and interests and talk and ideas and natural
relations with others. One knows of houses where some trifling
omission of detail, some failure of service in a meal, will plunge
the hostess into a dumb and incommunicable despair. The slightest
lapse of the conventional order becomes a cloud that intercepts the
sun. But the right attitude to life, if we desire to set ourselves
free from this self-created torment, is a resolute avoidance of
minute preoccupations, a light-hearted journeying, with an amused
tolerance for the incidents of the way. A conventional order of
life is useful only in so far as it removes from the mind the
necessity of detailed planning, and allows it to flow punctually
and mechanically in an ordered course. But if we exalt that order
into something sacred and solemn, then we become pharisaical and
meticulous, and the savour of life is lost.

One remembers the scene in David Copperfield which makes so fine a
parable of life; how the merry party who were making the best of an
ill-cooked meal, and grilling the chops over the lodging-house
fire, were utterly disconcerted and reduced to miserable dignity by
the entry of the ceremonious servant with his "Pray, permit me,"
and how his decorous management of the cheerful affair cast a gloom
upon the circle which could not even be dispelled when he had
finished his work and left them to themselves.






XVIII

AFFECTION





One of the ways in which our fears have power to wound us most
grievously is through our affections, and here we are confronted
with a real and crucial difficulty. Are we to hold ourselves in, to
check the impulses of affection, to use self-restraint, not
multiply intimacies, not extend sympathies? One sees every now and
then lives which have entwined themselves with every tendril of
passion and love and companionship and service round some one
personality, and have then been bereaved, with the result that the
whole life has been palsied and struck into desolation by the loss.
I am thinking now of two instances which I have known; one was a
wife, who was childless, and whose whole nature, every motive and
every faculty, became centred upon her husband, a man most worthy
of love. He died suddenly, and his wife lost everything at one
blow; not only her lover and comrade, but every occupation as well
which might have helped to distract her, because her whole life had
been entirely devoted to her husband; and even the hours when he
was absent from her had been given to doing anything and everything
that might save him trouble or vexation. She lived on, though she
would willingly have died at any moment, and the whole fabric of
her life was shattered. Again, I think of a devoted daughter who
had done the same office for an old and not very robust father. I
heard her once say that the sorrow of her mother's death had been
almost nullified for her by finding that she could do everything
for and be everything to her father, whom she almost adored. She
had refused an offer of marriage from a man whom she sincerely
loved, that she might not leave her father, and she never even told
her father of the incident, for fear that he might have felt that
he had stood in the way of her happiness. When he died, she too
found herself utterly desolate, without ties and without
occupation, an elderly woman almost without friends or companions.

Ought one to feel that this kind of jealous absorption in a single
individual affection is a mistake? It certainly brought both the
wife and daughter an intense happiness, but in both cases the
relation was so close and so intimate that it tended gradually to
seclude them from all other relations. The husband and the father
were both reserved and shy men, and desired no other companionship.
One can see so easily how it all came about, and what the
inevitable result was bound to be, and yet it would have been
difficult at any point to say what could have been done. Of course
these great absorbed emotions involve large risks; and it may be
doubted whether life can be safely lived on these intensive lines.
These are of course extreme instances, but there are many cases in
the world, and especially in the case of women whose life is
entirely built up on certain emotions like the love and care of
children; and when that is so, a nature becomes liable to the
sharpest incursions of fear. It is of little use arguing such cases
theoretically, because, as the proverb says, as the land lies the
water flows,--and love makes very light of all prudential
considerations.

The difficulty does not arise with large and generous natures which
give love prodigally in many directions, because if one such
relation is broken by death, love can still exercise itself upon
those that remain. It is the fierce and jealous sort of love that
is so hard to deal with, a love that exults in solitariness of
devotion, and cannot bear any intrusion of other relations.

Yet if one believes, as I for one believe, that the secret of the
world is somehow hidden in love, and can be interpreted through
love alone, then one must run the risks of love, and seek for
strength to bear the inevitable suffering which love must bring.

But men and women are very differently made in this respect. Among
innumerable minor differences, certain broad divisions are clear.
Men, in the first place, both by training and temperament, are far
less dependent upon affection than women. Career and occupation
play a much larger part in their thoughts. If one could test and
intercept the secret and unoccupied reveries of men, when the mind
moves idly among the objects which most concern it, it would be
found, I do not doubt, that men's minds occupy themselves much more
about definite and tangible things--their work, their duties, their
ambitions, their amusements--and centre little upon the thought of
other people; an affection, an emotional relation, is much more of
an incident than a settled preoccupation; and then with men there
are two marked types, those who give and lavish affection freely,
who are interested and attracted by others and wish to attach and
secure close friends; and there are others who respond to advances,
yet do not go in search of friendship, but only accept it when it
comes; and the singular thing is that such natures, which are often
cold and self-absorbed, have a power of kindling emotion in others
which men of generous and eager feeling sometimes lack. It is
strange that it should be so, but there is some psychological law
at the back of it; and it is certainly true in my experience that
the men who have been most eagerly sought in friendship have not as
a rule been the most open-hearted and expansive natures. I suppose
that a certain law of pursuit holds good, and that people of self-
contained temperament, with a sort of baffling charm, who are
critical and hard to please, excite a certain ambition in those who
would claim their affection.

Women, I have no doubt, live far more in the thought of others, and
desire their intention; they wish to arrive at mutual understanding
and confidence, to explore personality, to pierce behind the
surface, to establish a definite relation. Yet in the matter of
relations with others, women are often, I believe, less
sentimental, and even less tender-hearted than men, and they have a
far swifter and truer intuition of character. Though the two sexes
can never really understand each other's point of view, because no
imagination can cross the gulf of fundamental difference, yet I am
certain that women understand men far better than men understand
women. The whole range of motives is strangely different, and men
can never grasp the comparative unimportance with which women
regard the question of occupation. Occupation is for men a definite
and isolated part of life, a thing important and absorbing in
itself, quite apart from any motives or reasons. To do something,
to make something, to produce something--that desire is always
there, whatever ebb and flow of emotions there may be; it is an end
in itself with men, and with many women it is not so; for women
mostly regard work as a necessity, but not an interesting
necessity. In a woman's occupation, there is generally someone at
the end of it, for whom and in connection with whom it is done.
This is probably largely the result of training and tradition, and
great changes are now going on in the direction of women finding
occupations for themselves. But take the case of such a profession
as teaching; it is quite possible for a man to be an effective and
competent teacher, without feeling any particular interest in the
temperaments of his pupils, except in so far as they react upon the
work to be done. But a woman can hardly take this impersonal
attitude; and this makes women both more and less effective,
because human beings invariably prefer to be dealt with
dispassionately; and this is as a rule more difficult for women;
and thus in a complicated matter affecting conduct, a woman as a
rule forms a sounder judgment on what has actually occurred than a
man, and is perhaps more likely to take a severe view. The attitude
of a Galileo is often a useful one for a teacher, because boys and
girls ought in matters that concern themselves to learn how to
govern themselves.

Thus in situations involving relation with others women are more
liable to feel anxiety and the pressure of personal responsibility;
and the question is to what extent this ought to be indulged, in
what degree men and women ought to assume the direction of other
lives, and whether it is wholesome for the director to allow a
desire for personal dominance to be substituted for more
spontaneous motives.

It very often happens that the temperaments which most claim help
and support are actuated by the egotistical desire to find
themselves interesting to others, while those who willingly assume
the direction of other lives are attracted more by the sense of
power than by genuine sympathy.

But it is clear that it is in the region of our affections that the
greatest risks of all have to be run. By loving, we render
ourselves liable to the darkest and heaviest fears. Yet here, I
believe, we ought to have no doubt at all; and the man who says to
himself, "I should like to bestow my affection on this person and
on that, but I will keep it in restraint, because I am afraid of
the suffering which it may entail,"--such a man, I say, is very far
from the kingdom of God. Because love is the one quality which, if
it reaches a certain height, can altogether despise and triumph
over fear. When ambition and delight and energy fail, love can
accompany us, with hope and confidence, to the dark gate; and thus
it is the one thing about which we can hardly be mistaken. If love
does not survive death, then life is built upon nothingness, and we
may be glad to get away; but it is more likely that it is the only
thing that does survive.






XIX

SIN





It is every one's duty to take himself seriously--that is the right
mean between taking oneself either solemnly or apologetically. There
is no merit in being apologetic about oneself. One has a right to be
there, wherever one is, a right to an opinion, a right to take some
kind of a hand in whatever is going on; natural tact is the only
thing which can tell us exactly how far those rights extend; but it
is inconvenient to be apologetic, because if one insists on
explaining how one comes to be there, or how one comes to have an
opinion, other people begin to think that one needs explanation and
excuse; but it is even worse to be solemn about oneself, because
English people are very critical in private, though they are
tolerant in public, because they dislike a scene, and have not got
the art of administering the delicate snub which indicates to a man
that his self-confidence is exuberant without humiliating him; when
English people inflict a snub, they do it violently and
emphatically, like Dr. Johnson, and it generally means that they are
relieving themselves of accumulated disapproval. An Englishman is
apt to be deferential, and one of the worst temptations of official
life is the temptation to be solemn. There is an old story about
Scott and Wordsworth, when the latter stayed at Abbotsford; Scott,
during the whole visit, was full of little pleasant and courteous
allusions to Wordsworth's poems; and one of the guests present
records how at the end of the visit not a single word had ever
passed Wordsworth's lips which could have indicated that he knew his
host to have ever written a line of poetry or prose.

I was sitting the other day at a function next a man of some
eminence, and I was really amazed at the way in which he discoursed
of himself and his habits, his diet, his hours of work, and the
blank indifference with which he received similar confidences. He
merely waited till the speaker had finished, and then resumed his
own story.

It is this sort of solemn egotism which makes us overvalue our
anxieties quite out of all proportion to their importance, because
they all appear to us as integral elements of a dignified drama in
which we enact the hero's part. We press far too heavily on the
sense of responsibility; and if we begin by telling boys, as is too
often done in sermons, that whatever they do or say is of far-
reaching consequence, that every lightest word may produce an
effect, that any carelessness of speech or example may have
disastrous effects upon the character of another, we are doing our
best to encourage the self-emphasis which is the very essence of
priggishness.

There is a curious conflict going on at the present time in English
life between light-mindedness and solemnity; there is a great
appetite for living, a love of amusement, a tendency to subordinate
the interests of the future to the pleasure of the moment, and to
think that the one serious evil is boredom; that is a healthy
manifestation enough in its way, because it stands for interest and
delight in life; but there is another strain in our nature, that of
a rather heavy pietism, inherited from our Puritan ancestors. It
must not be forgotten that the Puritan got a good deal of interest
out of his sense of sin; as the old combative elements of feudal
ages disappeared, the soldierly blood retained the fighting
instinct, and turned it into moral regions. The sense of adventure
is impelled to satiate itself, and the Pilgrim's Progress is a
clear enough proof that the old combativeness was all there,
revelling in danger, and exulting in the thought that the human
being was in the midst of foes. Sin represented itself to the
Puritan as a thing out of which he could get a good deal of fun;
not the fun of yielding to it, but the fun of whipping out his
sword and getting in some shrewd blows. When preachers nowadays
lament that we have lost the sense of sin, what they really mean is
that we have lost our combativeness: we no longer believe that we
must treat our foes with open and brutal violence, and we perceive
that such conduct is only pitting one sin against another. There is
no warrant in the Gospel for the combative idea of the Christian
life; all such metaphors and suggestions come from St. Paul and the
Apocalypse. The fact is that the world was not ready for the utter
peaceableness of the Gospel, and it had to be accommodated to the
violence of the world.

Now again the Christian idea is coloured by scientific and medical
knowledge, and sin, instead of an enemy which we must fight, has
become a disease which we must try to cure.

Sins, the ordinary sins of ordinary life, are not as a rule
instincts which are evil in themselves, so much as instincts which
are selfishly pursued to the detriment of others; sin is in its
essence the selfishness which will not cooperate, and which secures
advantages unjustly, without any heed to the disadvantage of
others. SYMPATHETIC IMAGINATION is the real foe of sin, the power
of putting oneself in the place of another; and much of the
sentiment which is so prevalent nowadays is the evidence of the
growth of sympathy.

The old theory of sin lands one in a horrible dilemma, because it
implies a treacherous enmity on the part of God, to create man weak
and unstable, and to pit his weakness against tyrannous desires; to
allow his will to do evil to be stronger than his power to do
right, is a satanical device. One must not sacrifice the truth to
the desire for simplicity and effective statement. The truth is
intricate and obscure, and to pretend that it is plain and obvious
is mere hypocrisy. The strength of Calvinism is its horrible
resemblance to a natural inference from the facts of life; but if
any sort of Calvinism is true, then it is a mere insult to the
intelligence to say that God is loving or just. The real basis for
all deep-seated fear about life is the fear that one will not be
dealt with either lovingly or justly. But we have to make a simple
choice as to what we will believe, and the only hope is to believe
that immediate harshness and injustice is not ultimately
inconsistent with Love. No one who knows anything of the world and
of life can pretend to think or say that suffering always results
from, or is at all proportioned to, moral faults; and if we are
tempted to regard all our disasters as penal consequences, then we
are tempted to endure them with gloomy and morbid immobility.

It is far more wholesome and encouraging to look upon many
disasters that befall us as opportunities to show a little spirit,
to evoke the courage which does not come by indolent prosperity, to
increase our sympathy, to enlarge our experience, to make things
clearer to us, to develop our mind and heart, to free us from
material temptations. Past suffering is not always an evil, it is
often an exciting reminiscence. It is good to take life
adventurously, like Odysseus of old. What would one feel about
Odysseus if, instead of contriving a way out of the Cyclops' cave,
he had set himself to consider of what forgotten sin his danger was
the consequence? Suffering and disaster come to us to develop our
inventiveness and our courage, not to daunt and dismay us; and we
ought therefore to approach experience with a sense of humour, if
possible, and with a lively curiosity. I recollect hearing a man
the other day describing an operation to which he had been
subjected. "My word," he said, his eyes sparkling with delight at
the recollection, "that was awful, when I came into the operating-
room, and saw the surgeons in their togs, and the pails and basins
all about, and was invited to step up to the table!" There is
nothing so agreeable as the remembrance of fears through which we
have passed; and we can only learn to despise them by finding out
how unbalanced they were.

I do not mean that fears can ever be pleasant at the time, but we
do them too much honour if we court them and defer to them. However
much we may be tortured by them, there is always something at the
back of our mind which despises our own susceptibility to them; and
it is that deeper instinct which we ought to trust.

But we cannot even begin to trust it, as long as we allow ourselves
to believe pietistically that the Mind of God is set on punishment.
That is the ghastly error which humanity tends to make. It has been
dinned into us, alas, from our early years, and religious
phraseology is constantly polluted by it. Our Saviour lent no
countenance to this at all; He spoke perfectly plainly against the
theory of "judgments." Of course suffering is sometimes a
consequence of sin, but it is not a vindictive punishment; it is
that we may learn our mistake. But we must give up the revengeful
idea of God: that is imported into our scale of values by the
grossest anthropomorphism. Only the weak man, who fears that his
safety will be menaced if he does not make an example, deals in
revenge. He is indignant at anything which mortifies his vanity,
which implies any doubt of his power or any disregard of his
wishes. Revenge is born of terror, and to think of God as
vindictive is to think of Him as subject to fear. Serene and
unquestioned strength can have nothing to do with fear. Milton is
largely responsible for perpetuating this belief. He makes the
Almighty say to the Son--


"Let us advise, and to this hazard draw
With speed what force is left, and all employ
In our defence, lest unawares we lose
This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill."


Milton's idea of the Almighty was frankly that of a Power who had
undertaken more than he could manage, and who had allowed things to
go too far. But it is a puerile conception of God; and to allow
ourselves to think or speak of God as a Power that has to take
precautions, or that has anything to fear from the exercise of
human volition, is to cloud the whole horizon at once.

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