For a long time Hans Andersen was ashamed of his Fairy Tales; he was not sure. He was sure of the Fairy Queen, that she was, but he wanted to be very, very sure of his own right to dwell with her; else he was only a fool and his fancies, at whom sensible and practical people had a right to laugh. Things in the true world must not seem foolish in the imagination-world of man. Things that happen in the true world do not show, cannot show, in the other—simply because they are true. If anything shows in the imagination-world that is supposed to be happening in the true world, then it is not really happening there (or rather here); it is only somebody's foolishness. So the proper answer to the question "Where to put fancies?" is "Where they do not show." Come, Hans, soon you shall be on that side of the eye where it's no shame for fancies to show.
4
Stories, no matter what they tell of, must be just a little pleasant. A story must make the best of its material. There is always something wrong with the material of any story (to realize that something is wrong is what starts a story), and the story must make a best of this, better than which it cannot become. There's a best good that a story must be content not to be. Rabelais showed how ridiculous and disgusting it was for people who were far from perfect to have too greedy an appetite for the best. Cervantes showed how sad it was to be too greedy. The Decameron showed that a nibbling appetite was at least on the safe side.
In the Nibelungenlied there is a greedy pursuit of whatever may be had in large quantities of good and evil indiscriminately, as man finds all good and evil in himself. In the Reynard histories there is a smug satisfaction in a middling way between good and evil. In the Ulenspiegel histories there is a smug satisfaction with penury. In the Faustus histories there is a smug hate of starving. In Eastern stories there is a smug starving. In the Gesta Romanorum there is a smug despair. In the Malory histories there is a smug carelessness: a claiming and not claiming. In Wace there is a smug reserve ("Such rhymes are neither bare lies, nor gospel truths"). In Layamon there is a smug confidence in the benevolence of Queen Story ("she shall make my wounds all sound"). In Chrétien de Troyes there is a smug self-protective wit—as if Queen Story were only a flirtatious handmaiden of truth to whom one gave only one's heart (a heart can be easily taken back). It is difficult to avoid smugness in stories. "Ah," says Mr. Story-teller, "this is only a flash in the pan. You should see my real work."
Stories grow into novels; novels are tracts on fate. The un- captured best good becomes merely the rhetorical excuse of the writing: there is no such good, only an impossible possibility with which man teases his eloquence—there is no Queen Story. So at the end of every novel there is silence and exhaustion; it has all been a futile pantomime of exaggerated emotions. And novels become lazier and lazier. The laziness takes hold of stories themselves. They are no longer stories, only 'short stories'. But a story is not lazy; it is sentimental. There is something in the story not clearly rendered, but the confusion is a token of resignation, not laziness; there is no shame of confusion or laying the blame on fate. The confusion is precious: it is the best that can be done in the circumstances.
The eighteenth century tried to kill sentimentality. Too many people had become sentimental. Something goes wrong when too many people become sentimental. With most people it must be a case of not knowing. With a few people only can it be a case of knowing exactly. With just a few people more it can be a case of nearly knowing—a nearly knowing, I mean, as true in its way as knowing; just as Hans Andersen knew as well in his way as one to whom truth must be truth, not merely Queen Story, his beloved. For one who exactly knows there's no end of knowing; one who can no more than nearly know must rest where his mind fails. And this in its way is endless —endless pleasure; it's making the best of things in the circumstances. But most people are all circumstances—and no best whatever to be made out of things, only a passing way of people with circumstances. When too many people practise nearly knowing, then sentimentality is a stale cloud lingering over the truth, and those who exactly know turn away choked, waiting for the cloud to pass. For sentimentality is then not a resignation in knowing as best one can, but an idiotic content in circumstances—a gospel of inferiority by which makeshift truth is all truth for the moment.
The eighteenth century tried to kill sentimentality by suppressing inferiority and starting all over again: this time with a limited number of superior minds, for whom the rest of mankind was not so much a vaguer humanity inarticulately attendant upon their consciousnesses, as the animal man, already prehistoric. The only immediate reality, then, was a superior spirit called 'human reason'. But in making such an absolute distinction between nature and reason—in cutting himself in two and treating the inferior part as an antiquarian subject— the surviving creature became an artificial being; he had no historical actuality because he could not go on. And he could not go on because he had separated himself from the stupid original energy which inspires journeying out, in being the standstill motion of circumstances. He was merely the meaningless product of the arrestation decreed by his superiority: a self-conscious idler.
But the inferior part could not, of course, be so easily turned into a museum-piece. The only result of all this was that a great many sentimentalists strewed the ground—not a bad thing. And then Napoleon rose like a plague of vampires from the graves of the dead sentimentalists, to feed on the blood of the few sentimentalists whom the eighteenth century had only put to sleep. For sentimentality cannot be entirely killed. The few sentimentalists who are not too many wait—until there is going on again, and so following on. For the sentimentalist is one who goes, but not first. There must be those who go first; there can be those who follow. And there must, also, be those who do not go at all—those against whom, as against heavy circumstance, man goes on in spite of himself. And who are those who go first? They are those for whom there's never an end—who go on from one moment in always to another, not content merely to forget themselves, merely to know enough to forget. For those who are content merely to know enough to forget it is enough to see their beloved in the distance (always in the distance) and to say to themselves "In a little while." For those who go first there's a longer while, after the little, of knowing never enough—and, instead of a beloved, always a truer truth.
But we are not talking now of those who disdain to be gentle with themselves, and ask no gentleness. Perhaps that's too cruel a story for the readers of stories. As a story, that is, it can only be a cruel story. Which is one reason why we must tell of it in quite another way, in what will seem quite another place.
To go back to our story then: we were just saying that Napoleon rose like a plague of vampires from the graves of the dead sentimentalists, to feed on the blood of the few sentimentalists whom the eighteenth century had only put to sleep. Hans Andersen was born against Napoleon: he woke up in time. Queen Victoria, too, was born against Napoleon—or rather against the forced death in which the superior minds of the eighteenth century involved themselves as well as vaguer humanity. "Come," she said, "nobody's dead yet. You must all keep going." And she made the inferior and the superior parts mix and be an honest average fellow. "You can't decide yet," she said, "that you're particularly this, or particularly that: that remains to be seen. Before you come to the last analysis you must get it quite clear what, as a whole, you are to begin with—not what you are as against what you were, but, simply, what you are. The time hasn't come yet for talking about what you were. The important thing is not to be too clever. When people are too clever, they get stuck. And the important thing is to keep going."
There was no danger with Hans Andersen of being too clever. The important thing was to keep going just long enough to reach an end—somewhere else, something else, a life not so hatefully one's own only. Never mind what became of one, never mind if one did not, practically, exist. The important thing was to remember again the something by the forgetting of which one had once existed so greatly. One had had one's fun—and it hadn't been such fun. And th
e journeying out was really a journeying back. To get back again—that was really the fun.
Well, perhaps we are none the wiser for touching on this and that aspect of this and that. We did not set out, after all, to be wise ourselves, but to go along with the wisdom of Hans Andersen as far as it went. For the moment that is surely far enough. Let us see if we understand, at least, where that is taking us. Well, as to that, we can only judge by what seems to be happening, by how we see things perhaps a little differently from how we used to see them when we—when you—were all tumbling wiseheads at school behaving like little gods about to become big ones. Of course we see things a little differently now. Of course we did not turn into big gods, but grew more and more doubtful, even, if we were little ones? That, at any rate, is how the story should go, for nothing new ever happens; it is only that we grow tired and see things a little differently—a little more as they really are. And what is seeing things more as they really are? Well, let us see.
5
First you notice that everything on the earth doesn't stand straight up. You begin to notice more and more things that slant, and you begin to feel quite at a slant yourself. And then you begin to feel quite comfortable like that, as cripples manage to feel quite comfortable; and the other things at a slant begin to look less miserable. The poor daisies are really resigned to being poor daisies; the unhappy old house is not so unhappy as all that; the dead larks are not altogether gruesome; the ridiculous storks are sober fellows after all. Then you think to look up at the moon. Ah, that explains everything! How the moon slants—when you compare it with what seems to stand straight up. But how straight it seems when you compare it with the things that slant: they seem straight, and the moon seems straight—and how everything else slants. That is, everything else disappears, and what's left is quite a little— but how straight up it stands, how much straighter than what used to seem straight up.
What is left is stories. And is nothing left but stories? For the time being that is all we can say. We can't really do anything but finish the stories. And when the stories are finished, what will be left then? While the stories are moving towards their end there is the direction in which they are moving. What are stories, indeed, but a direction away from one place that is also a direction towards another? And the end of stories comes when the direction away from turns entirely into a direction towards: when the direction towards is almost the same as the place towards which it is the direction, because in a little while one is sure to arrive. The direction is, in fact, the same as the place if you think of the place as made up of places. You come to this place or that place and you think of yourself as being in the place; as, when on your travels you cross the border into a new country and come to the first village in the new country, you say, "Ah, now we are in the new country." But there's still all the rest. And the first village is really not very different from the country you have left behind. There's still all the more and more different rest—the heart of it, as they say. When stories end that's what's still left, and for the time being that's all we can say.
But who are the travellers who go further? Why, those who set out first—even before stories began. How shall I explain it? Well, we might say that, actually, it's the earth itself which set out first—the earth that moves. For, actually, there are two earths: the one that moves and the one that hangs behind. The one that hangs back is the one that seems to move round the sun; the moving one is the one that seems to stand still, looking towards the moon. The one that at any moment seems at a stand-still—that's the one on the way to the moon; and the all- year-round one, last year's one—that's the one that hangs back. But not all the things on last year's earth are all over with; some things hung back, went the way of the sun, only because they didn't have the strength to move. They hung back, but how they wished they had the strength to move. And there goes on being always another last year, and another, and always some wishing. And it's the things that wish that have the slant when everything else on last year's earth seems to stand so straight up, and that do not disappear when everything else disappears—because somehow, by a strength that comes of the weakness of wishing, they manage to follow the earth that moves.
There's Little Thumb out for a little corner of Paradise which she can call 'Little Paradise' at the top of her letters— as any of us who live abroad take pleasure in putting strange place-names at the top of the letters we write back to last year's earth. And will she find it? Indeed she will, in a little while, by the wish of all things whose wish she is. And until then she'll write at the top of her letters "As from Little Paradise" —you know how we all take pleasure in writing "As from". Then there's the vain fir-tree, going on from one last year to the next last year, very proud of going on, very proud of standing still. Where's the end of that? Why, the fir-tree withers, and of course stays behind and disappears. But in so far as there's a story to tell, the fir-tree knew that something was wrong; and in so far as it knew that something was wrong, it knew also that something was right. It made the mistake of thinking, while it grumbled, that the something that was right was its own grumbling—a mistake that is very natural with grumblers. Its own grumbling was the something wrong, of course; and how there came to be any question at all of a something right was that Hans Andersen took pity. "Am I," he said, "any clearer in my mind than that? Perhaps not. Poor fir-tree, poor me.
And this is how the fir-tree came to be a story. And this is how there's so much odd baggage taken across the border into the new country. And when the odd traveller with his odd baggage gets across he settles down somewhere and makes a home of it; perhaps it's the odd baggage that makes him feel at home, though it's being across the border that makes him feel happy. He forgets about his old home, but he's not too clear about the place he is in now; he has made him another home—that is to say, for all his wishing he can't get nearer the heart of it. But he's as near as wishing can take him; he's across the border. True, if he could have done better, the border itself would have disappeared. He would not merely have settled down in a new home; he would have gone on into the heart of the new country, never settling down, but learning more and more about it. But this could not be, because it's only a story, and all stories. So must it be with a story, and so must it be with all stories. With a story there can be only an end. It's good when there's an end; but it's better when there's an end and then something more—what comes after an end. And what comes after an end? Why, more and more. But indeed we have no business to be going into that now—or even in a little while.
Come, there's Little Claus as well as Little Thumb to think about. Well, Little Claus is no Little Thumb, as we know. He's a clever tourist, with a talent for making a little money go a long way. That is, he'll cross no borders but have a very good time travelling as far as he can in his own country; and, where the mountain is on one side this country and on one side that, he'll stop short and say to himself, "Well, where's the difference?" And think of all the money he'll save by not crossing over, and think of all the fun he'll have sitting at the top, with his money safe in his pocket, telling the inquisitive ones who don't know where they're going, "Yes, this is the way to the other side." And think how fat his pocket will grow as one by one they say, "Oh, thank you," and timidly offer him a reward for his pains that they hope he won't think too small. And, of course, nothing would be too small for that information, since the inquisitive ones who don't know where they're going can only cross over into nowhere different. Not so with the information that his girl-cousin Little Thumb gives on the other side. For all those who come to the place where she has settled down really know where they are. As they come to where she is, to settle down there too or go on a little, they ask, "This is the other side, isn't it?" But they only say that for the pleasure of saying it, since they really know. And when she answers, "Yes, this is the other side," that's only for the pleasure of saying it. And there's no awkward fumbling in pockets, since the pleasure is equal on both sides.
Well,
there's Little Claus and the merry soldier of the tinder- box and all those clever ones who have their rewards, and then all those inquisitive ones who have their losses. And then there are all those happy ones who have their pleasure. And then there are all the foolish ones—the dancing princesses and the proud princesses and the blustering boors and all the absurd ones from giant to fly: everyone on both this side and that agrees about them. And then there's Little Tuk, with his lesson to learn. Who knows how he'll turn out? Well, since there's a chance the right way for whatever makes at least the beginning of a story, he may as well have his chance; and so Little Tuk knows his lesson next morning; and we'll see. And after next morning? We'll see—in a little while. Who knows? Does anybody know yet? Well, then, on with the book.
King Arthur's Second Coming was only an unfair looking to the end of the book, before the story was done, and then back again, to try what other ending the same story, the same stories, might be taken to: to try if the ending might not be forgiven them, if the book might not go on, eternally, where the ending came, and nothing to mark an ending. And the book goes on, eternally, yes, but only by the closing of it, only by the ending of the stories, all the stories. For what is forgiveness but the will of man to forgive himself? And that is the ending: to learn that he can forgive himself nothing, that if he would go on with the book he must end. And that is the going on after the ending: more and more to learn what heals better than forgiveness. And there are those who deny the ending, who will not be healed: these are the earth which disappears. And there are those who accept the ending: these are the earth which goes on. And of these there are some who are strong in wish only; these must make of the ending both an ending and a going on. These must make a little go a long, long way; these must call the ending, their last moment, a first moment of always, and from this first moment know somewhat all of always, in which any moment is a taste of always as it tastes in every moment.
Progress of Stories Page 28