My Autobiography Part 11

CHAPTER IX

A CONFESSION

One confession I have to make, and one for which I can hardly hope for absolution, whether from my friends or from my enemies. I have never done anything; I have never been a doer, a canva.s.ser, a wirepuller, a manager, in the ordinary sense of these words. I have also shrunk from agitation, from clubs and from cliques, even from most respectable a.s.sociations and societies. Many people would call me an idle, useless, and indolent man, and though I have not wasted many hours of my life, I cannot deny the charge that I have neither fought battles, nor helped to conquer new countries, nor joined any syndicate to roll up a fortune. I have been a scholar, a _Stubengelehrter_, and _voila tout_!

Much as I admired Ruskin when I saw him with his spade and wheelbarrow, encouraging and helping his undergraduate friends to make a new road from one village to another, I never myself took to digging, and shovelling, and carting. Nor could I quite agree with him, happy as I always felt in listening to him, when he said: "What we think, or what we know, or what we believe, is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do." My view of life has always been the very opposite! What we do, or what we build up, has always seemed to me of little consequence. Even Nineveh is now a mere desert of sand, and Ruskin's new road also has long since been worn away. The only thing of consequence, to my mind, is what we think, what we know, what we believe! To Ruskin's ears such a sentiment was downright heresy, and I know quite well that it would be condemned as extremely dangerous, if not downright wicked, by most people, particularly in England. My friend, Charles Kingsley, preached muscular Christianity, that is, he was always up and doing. Another old friend of mine, Carlyle, preached all his life that "it was no use talking, if one would not do." There is an old proverb in German, too,

"Die nicht mit thaten, Die nicht mit rathen";

actually denying the right of giving advice to those who had not taken a part in the fight.

However, though I have not been a doer, a _faiseur_, as the French would say, I do not wish to represent myself as a mere idle drone during the long years of my quiet life. Nor did I stand quite alone in looking on a scholar's life-even when I was living in a garret _au cinquieme_-as a paradise on earth. Did not Emerson write, "The scholar is the man of the age"? Did not even Mazzini, who certainly was constantly up and trying to do, did not even he confess that men must die, but that the amount of truth they have discovered does not die with them? And Carlyle? Did he ever try to get into Parliament?

Did he ever accept directorates? Did he join either the Chartists or the Special Constables in Trafalgar Square? As in a concert you want listeners as well as performers, so in public life, those who look on are quite as essential as those who shout and deal heavy blows.

Nature has not endowed everybody with the requisite muscle to be a muscular Christian. But it may be said, that even if Carlyle and Ruskin were absolved from doing muscular work in Trafalgar Square, what excuse could they plead for not walking in procession to Hyde Park, climbing up one of the platforms and haranguing the men and women and children? I suppose they had the feeling which the razor has when it is used for cutting stones: they would feel that it was not exactly their _metier_. Arguing when reason meets reason is most delightful, whether we win or lose; but arguing against unreason, against anything that is by nature thick, dense, impenetrable, irrational, has always seemed to me the most disheartening occupation.

Majorities, mere numerical majorities, by which the world is governed now, strike me as mere brute force, though to argue against them is no doubt as foolish as arguing against a railway train that is going to crush you. Gladstone could harangue mult.i.tudes; so could Disraeli; all honour to them for it. But think of Carlyle or Ruskin doing so!

Stroking the sh.e.l.l of a tortoise, or the cupola of St. Paul's, would have been no more attractive to them than addressing the discontented, when in their hundreds and their thousands they descended into the streets. All I claim is that there must be a division of labour, and as little as Wayland Smith was useless in his smithy, when he hardened the iron in the fire for making swords or horse-shoes, was Carlyle a man that could be spared, while he sat in his study preparing thoughts that would not bend or break.

But I cannot even claim to have been a man of action in the sense in which Carlyle was in England, or Emerson in America. They were men who in their books were constantly teaching and preaching. "Do this!" they said; "Do not do that!" The Jewish prophets did much the same, and they are not considered to have been useless men, though they did not make bricks, or fight battles like Jehu. But the poor _Stubengelehrte_ has not even that comfort. Only now and then he gets some unexpected recognition, as when Lord Derby, then Secretary of State for India, declared that the scholars who had discovered and proved the close relations.h.i.+p between Sanskrit and English, had rendered more valuable service to the Government of India than many a regiment. This may be called a mere a.s.sertion, and it is true that it cannot be proved mathematically, but what could have induced a man like Lord Derby to make such a statement, except the sense of its truth produced on his mind by long experience?

However, I can only speak for myself, and of my idea of work. I felt satisfied when my work led me to a new discovery, whether it was the discovery of a new continent of thought, or of the smallest desert island in the vast ocean of truth. I would gladly go so far as to try to convince my friends by a simple statement of facts. Let them follow the same course and see whether I was right or wrong. But to make propaganda, to attempt to persuade by bringing pressure to bear, to canva.s.s and to organize, to found societies, to start new journals, to call meetings and have them reported in the papers, has always been to me very much against the grain. If we know some truth, what does it matter whether a few millions, more or less, see the truth as we see it? Truth is truth, whether it is accepted now or in millions of years. Truth is in no hurry, at least it always seemed to me so. When face to face with a man, or a body of men, who would not be convinced, I never felt inclined to run my head against a stone wall, or to become an advocate and use the tricks of a lawyer. I have often been blamed for it, I have sometimes even regretted my indolence or my quiet happiness, when I felt that truth was on my side and by my side.

I suppose there is no harm in personal canva.s.sing, but as much as I disliked being canva.s.sed, did I feel it degrading to canva.s.s others. I know quite well how often it happened at a meeting when either a measure or a candidate was to be carried, that the voters had evidently been spoken to privately beforehand, had in the conscience of their heart promised their votes. The facts and arguments at the meeting itself might all be on one side, but the majority was in favour of the other. Men whose time was of little value had been round from house to house, a majority had been compacted into an inert unreasoning ma.s.s; and who would feel inclined to use his spade of reason against so much unreason? Some people, more honest than the rest, after the mischief was done, would say, "Why did you not call?

why did you not write letters?" I may be quite wrong, but I can only say that it seemed to me like taking an unfair advantage, unfair to our opponents, and almost insulting to our friends. Still, from a worldly point of view, I was no doubt wrong, and it is certainly true that I was often left in a minority. My friends have told me again and again that if a good measure or a good man is to be carried, good men must do some dirty work. If they cannot do that, they are of no use, and I doubt not that I have often been considered a very useless man by my political and academic friends, because I trusted to reason where there was no reason to trust to. I was asked to write letters, to address and post letters, to promise travelling expenses or even convivial entertainments at Oxford, to get leaders and leaderettes inserted in newspapers. I simply loathed it, and at last declined to do it. If a measure is carried by promise, not by argument, if an election is carried by personal influence, not by reason, what happens is very often the same as what happens when fruit is pulled off a tree before it is ripe. It is expected to ripen by itself, but it never becomes sweet, and often it rots. A premature measure may be carried through the House by a minister with a powerful majority, but it does not acquire vitality and maturity by being carried; it often remains on the Statute-book a dead letter, till in the end it has to be abolished with other rubbish.

However, I have learnt to admire the indefatigable a.s.siduity of men who have slowly and partially secured their converts and their recruits, and thus have carried in the end what they thought right and reasonable. I have seen it particularly at Oxford, where undergraduates were indoctrinated by their tutors, till they had taken their degree and could vote with their betters. I take all the blame and shame upon myself as a useless member of Congregation and Convocation, and of society at large. I was wrong in supposing that the walls of Jericho would fall before the blast of reason, and wrong in abstaining from joining in the braying of rams' horns and the shouts of the people. I was fortunate, however, in counting among my most intimate friends some of the most active and influential reformers in University, Church, and State, and it is quite possible that I may often have influenced them in the hours of sweet converse; nay, that standing in the second rank, I may have helped to load the guns which they fired off with much effect afterwards. I felt that my open partners.h.i.+p might even injure them more than it could help them; for was it not always open to my opponents to say that I was a German, and therefore could not possibly understand purely English questions?

Besides, there is another peculiarity which I have often observed in England. People like to do what has to be done by themselves. It seemed to me sometimes as if I had offended my friends if I did anything by myself, and without consulting them. Besides, my position, even after I had been in England for so many years, was always peculiar; for though I had spent nearly a whole life in the service of my adopted country, though my political allegiance was due and was gladly given to England, still I was, and have always remained, a German.

And next to Germany, which was young and full of ideals when I was young, there came India, and Indian thought which exercised their quieting influence on me. From a very early time I became conscious of the narrow horizon of this life on earth, and the purely phenomenal character of the world in which for a few years we have to live and move and have our being. As students of cla.s.sical and other Oriental history we come to admire the great empires with their palaces and pyramids and temples and capitols. What could have seemed more real, more grand, more likely to impress the young mind than Babylon and Nineveh, Thebes and Alexandria, Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome? And now where are they? The very names of their great rulers and heroes are known to few people only and have to be learnt by heart, without telling us much of those who wore them. Many things for which thousands of human beings were willing to lay down their lives, and actually did lay them down, are to us mere words and dreams, myths, fables, and legends. If ever there was a doer, it was Hercules, and now we are told that he was a mere myth!

If one reads the description of Babylonian and Egyptian campaigns, as recorded on cuneiform cylinders and on the walls of ancient Egyptian temples, the number of people slaughtered seems immense, the issues overwhelming; and yet what has become of it all? The inroads of the Huns, the expeditions of Genghis Khan and Timur, so fully described by historians, shook the whole world to its foundations, and now the sand of the desert disturbed by their armies lies as smooth as ever.

What India teaches us is that in a state advancing towards civilization, there must be always two castes or two cla.s.ses of men, a caste of Brahmans or of thinkers, and a caste of Kshatriyas, who are to fight; possibly other castes also of those who are to work and of those who are to serve. Great wars went on in India, but they were left to be fought by the warriors by profession. The peasants in their villages remained quiet, accepting the consequences, whatever they might be, and the Brahmans lived on, thinking and dreaming in their forests, satisfied to rule after the battle was over.

And what applies to military struggles seems to me to apply to all struggles-political, religious, social, commercial, and even literary. Let those who love to fight, fight; but let others who are fond of quiet work go on undisturbed in their own special callings.

That was, as far as we can see, the old Indian idea, or at all events the ideal which the Brahmans wished to see realized. I do not stand up for utter idleness or sloth, not even for drones, though nature does not seem to condemn even _hoc genus_ altogether. All I plead for, as a scholar and a thinker, is freedom from canva.s.sing, from letter-reading and letter-writing, from committees, deputations, meetings, public dinners, and all the rest. That will sound very selfish to the ears of practical men, and I understand why they should look upon men like myself as hardly worth their salt. But what would they say to one of the greatest fighters in the history of the world? What would they say to Julius Caesar, when he declares that the triumphs and the laurel wreaths of Cicero are as far n.o.bler than those of warriors as it is a greater achievement to extend the boundaries of the Roman intellect than the domains of the Roman people?