If man could will it, it would be cosmic suicide. But the cosmos is not at man’s mercy, and the sun will not perish to please us.
We do not want to perish, either. We have to give up a false position. Let us give up our false position as Christians, as individuals, as democrats. Let us find some conception of ourselves that will allow us to be peaceful and happy, instead of tormented and unhappy.
The Apocalypse shows us what we are resisting, unnaturally. We are unnaturally resisting our connection with the cosmos, with the world, with mankind, with the nation, with the family. All these connections are, in the Apocalypse, anathema, and they are anathema to us. We cannot bear connection. That is our malady. We must break away, and be isolate. We call that being free, being individual. Beyond a certain point, which we have reached, it is suicide. Perhaps we have chosen suicide. Well and good. The Apocalypse too chose suicide, with subsequent self-glorification.
But the Apocalypse shows, by its very resistance, the things that the human heart secretly yearns after. By the very frenzy with which the Apocalypse destroys the sun and the stars, the world, and all kings and all rulers, all scarlet and purple and cinnamon, all harlots, finally all men altogether who are not ‘sealed’, we can see how deeply the apocalyptists are yearning for the sun and the stars and the earth and the waters of the earth, for nobility and lordship and might, and scarlet and gold splendour, for passionate love, and a proper unison with men, apart from this sealing business. What man most passionately wants is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his ‘soul’. Man wants his physical fulfilment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.
So that my individualism is really an illusion. I am a part of the great whole, and I can never escape. But I can deny my connections, break them, and become a fragment. Then I am wretched.
What we want is to destroy our false, inorganic connections, especially those related to money, and re-establish the living organic connections, with the cosmos, the sun and earth, with mankind and nation and family. Start with the sun, and the rest will slowly, slowly happen.
PHOENIX: THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF D. H. LAWRENCE
This collection of non-fiction works was first published in 1936, six years after Lawrence’s death. It contains many articles, reviews and other literary pieces, which were mostly found among the novelist’s possessions in manuscript form. Of particular note are Lawrence’s critical reviews of other novelists, his treatise on education and an incomplete autobiography, located towards the end of the large collection.
The first edition
CONTENTS
NATURE AND POETICAL PIECES
WHISTLING OF BIRDS
ADOLF
REX
PAN IN AMERICA
MAN IS A HUNTER
MERCURY
THE NIGHTINGALE
FLOWERY TUSCANY
THE ELEPHANTS OF DIONYSUS
DAVID
NOTES FOR BIRDS, BEASTS AND FLOWERS
PEOPLES, COUNTRIES, RACES
GERMAN IMPRESSIONS:
CHRISTS IN THE TIROL
AMERICA, LISTEN TO YOUR OWN
INDIANS AND AN ENGLISHMAN
TAOS
AU REVOIR, U. S. A.
A LETTER FROM GERMANY
SEE MEXICO AFTER, BY LUIS Q.
EUROPE V. AMERICA
PARIS LETTER
FIREWORKS IN FLORENCE
GERMANS AND LATINS
NOTTINGHAM AND THE MINING COUNTRYSIDE
NEW MEXICO
LOVE, SEX, MEN, AND WOMEN
LOVE
ALL THREE
MAKING LOVE TO MUSIC
WOMEN ARE SO COCKSURE
PORNOGRAPHY AND OBSCENITY
WE NEED ONE ANOTHER
THE REAL THING
NOBODY LOVES ME
LITERATURE AND ART
PREFACES AND INTRODUCTIONS TO BOOKS
All Things Are Possible, by Leo Shestov
The American Edition of New Poems, by D. H. Lawrence
Mastro-don Gesualdo, by Giovanni Verga
Portrait of Verga from “Verga “ by Giulio Cattaneo
A Bibliography of D. H. Lawrence, by Edward D. McDonald
Max Havelaar, by E. D. Dekker (Multatuli, pseud.)
Cavalleria Rusticana, by Giovanni Verga
The Collected Poems of D. H. Lawrence
Chariot of the Sun, by Harry Crosby
The Mother, by Grazia Deledda
Bottom Dogs, by Edward Dahlberg
The Story of Doctor Manente, by A. F. Grazzini
The Privately Printed Edition of Pansies, by D. H. Lawrence
The Grand Inquisitor, by F. M. Dostoievsky
The Dragon of the Apocalypse, by Frederick Carter
REVIEWS OF BOOKS
Georgian Poetry: 1911-1912
German Books: Thomas Mann
Americans, by Stuart P. Sherman
A Second Contemporary Verse Anthology
Hadrian the Seventh, by Baron Corvo
The Origins of Prohibition, by J. A. Krout
In the American Grain, by William Carlos Williams
Heat, by Isa Glenn
Gifts of Fortune, by H. M. Tomlinson
The World of William Clissold, by H. G. Wells
Said the Fisherman, by Marmaduke Pickthall
Pedro de Valdivia, by R. B. Cunninghame Graham
Nigger Heaven, by Carl Van Vechten; Flight, by Walter White; Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos; In Our Time, by Ernest Hemingway
Solitaria, by V. V. Rozanov
The Peep Show, by Walter Wilkinson
The Social Basis of Consciousness, by Trigant Burrow
The Station: Athos, Treasures and Men, by Robert Byron; England and the Octopus, by Clough Williams-Ellis; Comfortless Memory, by Maurice Baring; Ashenden, by W. Somerset Maugham
Fallen Leaves, by V. V. Rozanov
Art Nonsense and Other Essays, by Eric Gill
STUDY OF THOMAS HARDY
SURGERY FOR THE NOVEL-OR A BOMB
ART AND MORALITY
MORALITY AND THE NOVEL
WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS
JOHN GALSWORTHY
INTRODUCTION TO THESE PAINTINGS
EDUCATION
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
ETHICS, PSYCHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY
THE REALITY OF PEACE
LIFE
DEMOCRACY
THE PROPER STUDY
ON BEING RELIGIOUS
BOOKS
THINKING ABOUT ONESELF
RESURRECTION
CLIMBING DOWN PISGAH
THE DUC DE LAUZUN
THE GOOD MAN
THE NOVEL AND THE FEELINGS
THE INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS V. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
INTRODUCTION TO PICTURES
PERSONALIA AND FRAGMENTS
THE MINER AT HOME
THE FLYING FISH
ACCUMULATED MAIL
THE LATE MR. MAURICE MAGNUS: A LETTER
THE UNDYING MAN
NOAH S FLOOD
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT
NATURE AND POETICAL PIECES
WHISTLING OF BIRDS
The frost held for many weeks, until the birds were dying rapidly. Everywhere in the fields and under the hedges lay the ragged remains of lapwings, starlings, thrushes, redwings, innumerable ragged bloody cloaks of birds, whence the flesh was eaten by invisible beasts of prey.
Then, quite suddenly, one morning, the change came. The wind went to the south, came off the sea warm and soothing. In the afternoon there were little gleams of sunshine, and the doves began, without interval, slowly and awkwardly to coo. The doves were cooing, though with a laboured sound, as if they were still winter- stunned. Nevertheless, all the afternoon they continued their noise, in the mild air, before the frost had thawed off the road. At evening the wind blew gently, still gathering a bruising quality of frost from the hard earth. Then, in the yellow-gleamy sunset, wild birds began to whistle faintly in the blackthorn thickets of the stream-bottom.
It was startling and almost frightening after the heavy silence of frost. How could they sing at once, when the ground was thickly strewn with the torn carcasses of birds? Yet out of the evening came the uncertain, silvery sounds that made one’s soul start alert, almost with fear. How could the little silver bugles sound the rally so swiftly, in the soft air, when the earth was yet bound? Yet the birds continued their whistling, rather dimly and brokenly, but throwing the threads of silver, germinating noise into the air.
It was almost a pain to realize, so swiftly, the new world. Le monde est mort. Vive le monde! But the birds omitted even the first part of the announcement, their cry was only a faint, blind, fecund vive!
There is another world. The winter is gone. There is a new world of spring. The voice of the turtle is heard in the land. But the flesh shrinks from so sudden a transition. Surely the call is premature while the clods are still frozen, and the ground is littered with the remains of wings! Yet we have no choice. In the bottoms of impenetrable blackthorn, each evening and morning now, out flickers a whistling of birds.
Where does it come from, the song? After so long a cruelty, how can they make it up so quickly? But it bubbles through them, they are like little well-heads, little fountain-heads whence the spring trickles and bubbles forth. It is not of their own doing. In their throats the new life distils itself into sound. It is the rising of silvery sap of a new summer, gurgling itself forth.
All the time, whilst the earth lay choked and killed and winter- mortified, the deep undersprings were quiet. They only wait for the ponderous encumbrance of the old order to give way, yield in the thaw, and there they are, a silver realm at once. Under the surge of ruin, unmitigated winter, lies the silver potentiality of all blossom. One day the black tide must spend itself and fade back. Then all-suddenly appears the crocus, hovering triumphant in the rear, and we know the order has changed, there is a new regime, sound of a new vive! vive!
It is no use any more to look at the torn remnants of birds that lie exposed. It is no longer any use remembering the sullen thunder of frost and the intolerable pressure of cold upon us. For whether we will or not, they are gone. The choice is not ours. We may remain wintry and destructive for a little longer, if we wish it, but the winter is gone out of us, and willy-nilly our hearts sing a little at sunset.
Even whilst we stare at the ragged horror of the birds scattered broadcast, part-eaten, the soft, uneven cooing of the pigeon ripples from the outhouses, and there is a faint silver whistling in the bushes come twilight. No matter, we stand and stare at the torn and unsightly ruins of life, we watch the weary, mutilated columns of winter retreating under our eyes. Yet in our ears are the silver vivid bugles of a new creation advancing on us from behind, we hear the rolling of the soft and happy drums of the doves.
We may not choose the world. We have hardly any choice for ourselves. We follow with our eyes the bloody and horrid line of march of extreme winter, as it passes away. But we cannot hold back the spring. We cannot make the birds silent, prevent the bubbling of the wood-pigeons. We cannot stay the fine world of silver- fecund creation from gathering itself and taking place upon us. Whether we will or no, the daphne tree will soon be giving off perfume, the lambs dancing on two feet, the celandines will twinkle all over the ground, there will be a new heaven and new earth.
For it is in us, as well as without us. Those who can may follow the columns of winter in their retreat from the earth. Some of us, we have no choice, the spring is within us, the silver fountain begins to bubble under our breast, there is gladness in spite of ourselves. And on the instant we accept the gladness! The first day of change, out whistles an unusual, interrupted paean, a fragment that will augment itself imperceptibly. And this in spite of the extreme bitterness of the suffering, in spite of the myriads of torn dead.
Such a long, long winter, and the frost only broke yesterday. Yet it seems, already, we cannot remember it. It is strangely remote, like a far-off darkness. It is as unreal as a dream in the night. This is the morning of reality, when we are ourselves. This is natural and real, the glimmering of a new creation that stirs in us and about us. We know there was winter, long, fearful. We know the earth was strangled and mortified, we know the body of life was torn and scattered broadcast. But what is this retrospective knowledge? It is something extraneous to us, extraneous to this that we are now. And what we are, and what, it seems, we always have been, is this quickening lovely silver plasm of pure creativity. All the mortification and tearing, ah yes, it was upon us, encompassing us. It was like a storm or a mist or a falling from a height. It was estrangled upon us, like bats in our hair, driving us mad. But it was never really our innermost self. Within, we were always apart, we were this, this limpid fountain of silver, then quiescent, rising and breaking now into the flowering.
It is strange, the utter incompatibility of death with life. Whilst there is death, life is not to be found. It is all death, one overwhelming flood. And then a new tide rises, and it is all life, a fountain of silvery blissfulness. It is one or the other. We are for life, or we are for death, one or the other, but never in our essence both at once.
Death takes us, and all is torn redness, passing into darkness. Life rises, and we are faint fine jets of silver running out to blossom. All is incompatible with all. There is the silver-speckled, incandescent-lovely thrush, whistling pipingly his first song in the blackthorn thicket. How is he to be connected with the bloody, feathered unsightliness of the thrush-remnants just outside the bushes? There is no connexion. They are not to be referred the one to the other. Where one is, the other is not. In the kingdom of death the silvery song is not. But where there is life, there is no death. No death whatever, only silvery gladness, perfect, the other- world.
The blackbird cannot stop his song, neither can the pigeon. It takes place in him, even though all his race was yesterday destroyed.
He cannot mourn, or be silent, or adhere to the dead. Of the dead he is not, since life has kept him. The dead must bury their dead. Life has now taken hold on him and tossed him into the new ether of a new firmament, where he bursts into song as if he were combustible. What is the past, those others, now he is tossed clean into the new, across the untranslatable difference?
In his song is heard the first brokenness and uncertainty of the transition. The transit from the grip of death into new being is a death from death, in its sheer metempsychosis a dizzy agony. But only for a second, the moment of trajectory, the passage from one state to the other, from the grip of death to the liberty of newness. In a moment he is a kingdom of wonder, singing at the centre of a new creation.
The bird did not hang back. He did not cling to his death and his dead. There is no death, and the dead have buried their dead. Tossed into the
chasm between two worlds, he lifted his wings in dread, and found himself carried on the impulse.
We are lifted to be cast away into the new beginning. Under our hearts the fountain surges, to toss us forth. Who can thwart the impulse that comes upon us? It comes from the unknown upon us, and it behoves us to pass delicately and exquisitely upon the subtle new wind from heaven, conveyed like birds in unreasoning migrations from death to life.
ADOLF
When we were children our father often worked on the night- shift. Once it was spring-time, and he used to arrive home, black and tired, just as we were downstairs in our nightdresses. Then night met morning face to face, and the contact was not always happy. Perhaps it was painful to my father to see us gaily entering upon the day into which he dragged himself soiled and weary. He didn’t like going to bed in the spring morning sunshine.
But sometimes he was happy, because of his long walk through the dewy fields in the first daybreak. He loved the open morning, the crystal and the space, after a night down pit. He watched every bird, every stir in the trembling grass, answered the whinnying of the pewits and tweeted to the wrens. If he could, he also would have whinnied and tweeted and whistled in a native language that was not human. He liked non-human things best.
One sunny morning we were all sitting at table when we heard his heavy slurring walk up the entry. We became uneasy. His was always a disturbing presence, trammelling. He passed the window darkly, and we heard him go into the scullery and put down his tin bottle. But directly he came into the kitchen. We felt at once that he had something to communicate. No one spoke. We watched his black face for a second.
“Give me a drink,” he said.
My mother hastily poured out his tea. He went to pour it out into his saucer. But instead of drinking he suddenly put something on the table among the teacups. A tiny brown rabbit! A small rabbit, a mere morsel, sitting against the bread as still as if it were a made thing.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 993