‘There ! ‘ he said to the soul. ‘Stay there!’
Stay there. Stay in the flesh. Stay in the limbs and lips and in the belly. Stay in the breast and womb. Stay there, Oh, Soul, where you belong.
Stay in the dark limbs of negroes. Stay in the body of the prostitute. Stay in the sick flesh of the syphilitic. Stay in the marsh where the calamus grows. Stay there, Soul, where you belong.
The Open Road. The great home of the Soul is the open road. Not heaven, not paradise. Not ‘above’. Not even ‘within’. The soul is neither ‘above’ nor ‘within’. It is a wayfarer down the open road.
Not by meditating. Not by fasting. Not by exploring heaven after heaven, inwardly, in the manner of the great mystics. Not by exaltation. Not by ecstasy. Not by any of these ways does the soul come into her own.
Only by taking the open road.
Not through charity. Not through sacrifice. Not even through love. Not through good works. Not through these does the soul accomplish herself.
Only through the journey down the open road.
The journey itself, down the open road. Exposed to full contact. On two slow feet. Meeting whatever comes down the open road. In company with those that drift in the same measure along the same way. Towards no goal. Always the open road.
Having no known direction even. Only the soul remaining true to herself in her going.
Meeting all the other wayfarers along the road. And how? How meet them, and how pass ? With sympathy, says Whit- man. Sympathy. He does not say love. He says sympathy. Feeling with. Feel with them as they feel with themselves. Catching the vibration of their soul and flesh as we pass.
It is a new great doctrine. A doctrine of life. A new great morality. A morality of actual living, not of salvation. Europe has never got beyond the morality of salvation. America to this day is deathly sick with saviourism. But Whitman, the greatest and the first and the only American teacher, was no Saviour. His morality was no morality of salvation. His was a morality of the soul living her life, not saving herself. Accepting the contact with other souls along the open way, as they lived their lives. Never trying to save them. As lief try to arrest them and throw them in gaol. The soul living her life along the incarnate mystery of the open road.
This was Whitman. And the true rhythm of the American continent speaking out in him. He is the first white aboriginal.
‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’
‘No,’ said Whitman. ‘Keep out of mansions. A mansion may be heaven on earth, but you might as well be dead. Strictly avoid mansions. The soul is herself when she is going on foot down the open road.’
It is the American heroic message. The soul is not to pile up defences round herself. She is not to withdraw and seek her heavens inwardly, in mystical ecstasies. She is not to cry to some God beyond, for salvation. She is to go down the open road, as the road opens, into the unknown, keeping company with those whose soul draws them near to her, accomplishing nothing save the journey, and the works incident to the journey, in the long life-travel into the unknown, the soul in her subtle sympathies accomplishing herself by the way.
This is Whitman’s essential message. The heroic message of the American future. It is the inspiration of thousands of Americans today, the best souls of today, men and women. And it is a message that only in America can be fully under- stood, finally accepted.
Then Whitman’s mistake. The mistake of his interpretation of his watchword: Sympathy. The mystery of SYMPATHY. He still confounded it with Jesus’ LOVE, and with Paul’s CHARITY. Whitman, like all the rest of us, was at the end of the great emotional highway of Love. And because he couldn’t help himself, he carried on his Open Road as a prolongation of the emotional highway of Love, beyond Calvary. The highway of Love ends at the foot of the Cross. There is no beyond. It was a hopeless attempt to prolong the highway of love.
He didn’t follow his Sympathy. Try as he might, he kept on automatically interpreting it as Love, as Charity. Merging!
This merging, en masse, One Identity, Myself monomania was a carry-over from the old Love idea. It was carrying the idea of Love to its logical physical conclusion. Like Flaubert and the leper. The decree of unqualified Charity, as the soul’s one means of salvation, still in force.
Now Whitman wanted his soul to save itself; he didn’t want to save it. Therefore he did not need the great Christian receipt for saving the soul. He needed to supersede the Christian Charity, the Christian Love, within himself, in order to give his Soul her last freedom. The high-road of Love is no Open Road. It is a narrow, tight way, where the soul walks hemmed in between compulsions.
Whitman wanted to take his Soul down the open road. And he failed in so far as he failed to get out of the old rut of Salvation. He forced his Soul to the edge of a cliff, and he looked down into death. And there he camped, powerless. He had carried out his Sympathy as an extension of Love and Charity. And it had brought him almost to madness and soul- death. It gave him his forced, unhealthy, post-mortem quality.
His message was really the opposite of Henley’s rant:
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
Whitman’s essential message was the Open Road. The leaving of the soul free unto herself, the leaving of his fate to her and to the loom of the open road. Which is the bravest doctrine man has ever proposed to himself.
Alas, he didn’t quite carry it out. He couldn’t quite break the old maddening bond of the love-compulsion; he couldn’t quite get out of the rut of the charity habit - for Love and Charity have degenerated now into habit: a bad habit.
Whitman said Sympathy. If only he had stuck to it! Because Sympathy means feeling with, not feeling for. He kept on having a passionate feeling for the negro slave, or the prostitute, or the syphilitic - which is merging. A sinking of Walt Whitman’s soul in the souls of these others.
He wasn’t keeping to his open road. He was forcing his soul down an old rut. He wasn’t leaving her free. He was forcing her into other people’s circumstances.
Supposing he had felt true sympathy with the negro slave? He would have felt with the negro slave. Sympathy - compassion - which is partaking of the passion which was in the soul of the negro slave.
What was the feeling in the negro’s soul ?
‘Ah, I am a slave! Ah, it is bad to be a slave! I must free myself. My soul will die unless she frees herself. My soul says I must free myself.’
Whitman came along, and saw the slave, and said to himself: ‘That negro slave is a man like myself. We share the same identity. And he is bleeding with wounds. Oh, oh, is it not myself who am also bleeding with wounds ?’
This was not sympathy. It was merging and self-sacrifice. ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens’; ‘Love thy neighboar as thyself’: ‘Whatsoever ye do unto him, ye do unto me.’
If Whitman had truly sympathized, he would have said: ‘That negro slave suffers from slavery. He wants to free himself. His soul wants to free him. He has wounds, but they are the price of freedom. The soul has a long journey from slavery to freedom. If I can help him I will: I will not take over his wounds and his slavery to myself. But I will help him fight the power that enslaves him when he wants to be free, if he wants my help, since I see in his face that he needs to be free. But even when he is free, his soul has many journeys down the open road, before it is a free soul.’
And of the prostitute Whitman would have said:
‘Look at that prostitute! Her nature has turned evil under her mental lust for prostitution. She has lost her soul. She knows it herself. She likes to make men lose their souls. If she tried to make me lose my soul, I would kill her. I wish she may die.’
But of another prostitute he would have said:
‘Lookl She is fascinated by the Priapic mysteries. Look, she will soon be worn to death by the Priapic usage. It is the way of her soul. She wishes it so.’
Of the syphilitic he would say:
‘Look! She wants to infect
all men with syphilis. We ought to kill her.’
And of still another syphilitic:
‘Look! She has a horror of her syphilis. If she looks my way I will help her to get cured.’
This is sympathy. The soul judging for herself, and pre- serving her own integrity.
But when, in Flaubert, the man takes the leper to his naked body; when Bubi de Montparnasse takes the girl because he knows she’s got syphilis; when Whitman embraces an evil prostitute: that is not sympathy. The evil prostitute has no desire to be embraced with love; so if you sympathize with her, you won’t try to embrace her with love. The leper loathes his leprosy, so if you sympathize with him, you’ll loathe it too. The evil woman who wishes to infect all men with her syphilis hates you if you haven’t got syphilis. If you sympathize you’ll feel her hatred, and you’ll hate too, you’ll hate her. Her feeling is hate, and you’ll share it. Only your soul will choose the direction of its own hatred.
The soul is a very perfect judge of her own motions, if your mind doesn’t dictate to her. Because the mind says Charity! Charity! you don’t have to force your soul into kissing lepers or embracing syphilitics. Your lips are the lips of your soul, your body is the body of your soul; your own single, individual soul. That is Whitman’s message. And your soul hates syphilis and leprosy. Because it is a soul, it hates these things, which are against the soul. And therefore to force the body of your soul into contact with uncleanness is a great violation of your soul. The soul wishes to keep clean and whole. The soul’s deepest will is to preserve its own integrity, against the mind and the whole mass of disintegrating forces.
Soul sympathizes with soul. And that which tries to kill my soul, my soul hates. My soul and my body are one. Soul and body wish to keep clean and whole. Only the mind is capable of great perversion. Only the mind tries to drive my soul and body into uncleaness and unwholesomeness.
What my soul loves, I love.
What my soul hates, I hate.
When my soul is stirred with compassion, I am compassionate.
What my soul turns away from, I turn away from.
That is the true interpretation of Whitman’s creed: the true revelation of his Sympathy.
And my soul takes the open road. She meets the souls that are passing, she goes along with the souls that are going her way. And for one and all, she has sympathy. The sympathy of love, the sympathy of hate, the sympathy of simple proximity; all the subtle sympathizings of the incalculable soul, from the bitterest hate to passionate love.
It is not I who guide my soul to heaven. It is I who am guided by my own soul along the open road, where all men tread. Therefore, I must accept her deep motions of love, or hate, or compassion, or dislike, or indifference. And I must go where she takes me, for my feet and my lips and my body are my soul. It is I who must submit to her.
This is Whitman’s message of American democracy.
The true democracy, where soul meets soul, in the open road. Democracy. American democracy where all journey down the open road, and where a soul is known at once in its going. Not by its clothes or appearance. Whitman did away with that. Not by its family name. Not even by its reputation. Whitman and Melville both discounted that. Not by a progression of piety, or by works of Charity. Not by works at all. Not by anything, but just itselœ The soul passing unenhanced, passing on foot and being no more than itself. And recognized, and passed by or greeted according to the soul’s dictate. If it be a great soul, it will be worshipped in the road.
The love of man and woman: a recognition of souls, and a communion of worship. The love of comrades: a recognition of souls, and a communion of worship. Democracy: a recognition of souls, all down the open road, and a great soul seen in its greatness, as it travels on foot among the rest, down the common way of the living. A glad recognition of souls, and a gladder worship of great and greater souls, because they are the only riches.
Love, and Merging, brought Whitman to the Edge of Death! Death! Death!
But the exultance of his message still remains. Purified of MERGING, purified of MYSELF, the exultant message of American Democracy, of souls in the Open Road, full of glad recognition, full of fierce readiness, full of the joy of worship, when one soul sees a greater soul
The only riches, the great souls.
REFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH OF A PORCUPINE AND OTHER ESSAYS
This collection of essays was first published in 1925 and contains works written from 1915–1925. The essays range from short pieces like Love and Life to the lengthy and hard-hitting Education of the People, whilst spanning diverse themes such as religion, politics, eroticism and literature.
CONTENTS
THE CROWN
NOTE TO THE CROWN
I. THE LION AND THE UNICORN WERE FIGHTING FOR THE CROWN
II. THE LION BEAT THE UNICORN AND DROVE HIM OUT OF TOWN
III. THE FLUX OF CORRUPTION
IV. WITHIN THE SEPULCHRE
V. THE NUPTIALS OF DEATH AND THE ATTENDANT VULTURE
VI. TO BE, AND TO BE DIFFERENT
THE NOVEL
HIM WITH HIS TAIL IN HIS MOUTH
BLESSED ARE THE POWERFUL
...LOVE WAS ONCE A LITTLE BOY
REFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH OF A PORCUPINE
ARISTOCRACY
THE CROWN
NOTE TO THE CROWN
The Crown was written in 1915, when the war was already twelve months old, and had gone pretty deep. John Middleton Murry said to me: “Let us do something.”
The doing consisted in starting a tiny monthly paper, which blurry called The Signature, and in having weekly meetings somewhere in London — I have now no idea where it was — up a narrow stair-case over a green-grocer’s shop: or a cobbler s shop. The only thing that made any impression on me was the room over the shop, in some old Dickensey part of London, and the old man downstairs.
We scrubbed the room and colour-washed the walls and got a long table and some Windsor chairs from the Caledonian market. And we used to make a good warm fire: it was dark autumn, in that unknown bit of London. Then on Thursday nights we had meetings of about a dozen people. We talked, but there was absolutely nothing in it. And the meetings didn’t last two months.
The Signature was printed by some little Jewish printer away in the east end. We sold it by subscription, half-a- crown for six copies. I don’t know how many subscriptions there were: perhaps fifty. The helpless little brown magazine appeared three times, then we dropped it. The last three of the Crown essays were never printed.
To me the venture meant nothing real: a little escapade. I can’t believe in “doing things” like that. In a great issue like the war, there was nothing to be “done”, in Murry’s sense. There is still nothing to be “done”. Probably not for many, many years will men start to “do” something. And even then, only after they have changed gradually, and deeply.
I knew then, and I know now, it is no use trying to do anything — I speak only for my self — publicly. It is no use trying merely to modify present forms. The whole great form of our era will have to go. And nothing will really send it down but the new shoots of life springing up and slowly bursting the foundations. And one can do nothing, but fight tooth and nail to defend the new shoots of life from being crushed out, and let them grow. We can’t make life. We can but fight for the life that grows in us.
So that, personally, little magazines mean nothing to me: nor groups, nor parties of people. I have no hankering after quick response, nor the effusive, semi-intimate back- chat of literary communion. So it was ridiculous to offer The Crown in a little six-penny pamphlet. I always felt ashamed, at the thought of the few who sent their half- crowns. Happily they were few; and they could read Murry. If one publishes in the ordinary way, people are not asked for their sixpences.
I alter The Crown only a very little. It says what I still believe. But it’s no use for a five minutes’ lunch.
I. THE LION AND THE UNICORN WERE FIGHTING FOR THE CROWN
WHAT is it th
en, that they want, that they are forever rampant and unsatisfied, the king of beasts and the defender of virgins? What is this Crown that hovers between them, unattainable? Does either of them ever hope to get it?
But think of the king of beasts lying serene with the crown on his head! Instantly the unicorn prances from every heart. And at the thought of the lord of chastity with the crown ledged above his golden horn, lying in virgin lustre of sanctity, the lion springs out of his lair in every soul, roaring after his prey.
It is a strange and painful position, the king of beasts and the beast of purity, rampant for ever on either side of the crown. Is it to be so for ever?
Who says lion? — who says unicorn? A lion, a lion!! Hi, a unicorn! Now they are at it, they have forgotten all about the crown. It is a greater thing to have an enemy than to have an object. The lion and the unicorn were fighting, it is no question any more of the crown. We know this, because when the lion beat the unicorn, he did not take the crown and put it on his head, and say, “Now Mr. Purity, I’m king”. He drove the unicorn out of town, expelled him, obliterated him, expurgated him from the memory, exiled him from the kingdom. Instantly the town was all lion, there was no unicorn at all, no scent nor flavour of unicorn.
“Unicorn!” they said in the city. “That is a mythological beast that never existed.”
There was no question any more of rivalry. The unicorn was erased from the annals of fact.
Why did the lion fight the unicorn? Why did the unicorn fight the lion? Why must the one obliterate the other? Was it the raison d’etre of each of them, to obliterate the other?
But think, if the lion really destroyed, killed the unicorn: not merely drove him out of town, but annihilated him! Would not the lion at once expire, as if he had created a vacuum around himself? Is not the unicorn necessary to the very existence of the lion, is not each opposite kept in stable equilibrium by the opposition of the other.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 964