Once all men in the world lost their courage and their newness, the world would come to an end. The old Jews said the same: unless in the world there was at least one Jew passionately praying, the race was lost.
So we begin to see where we are. It’s no good leaving everything to fate. Man is an adventurer, and he must never give up the adventure. The venture is the venture: fate is the circumstance around the adventurer. The adventurer at the quick of the venture is the living germ inside the chaos of circumstance. But for the living germ of Noah in his Ark, chaos would have redescended on the world in the waters of the flood. But chaos couldn’t redescend, because Noah was afloat with all the animals.
The same with the Christians when Rome fell. In their little fortified monasteries they defended themselves against howling invasions, being too poor to excite much covetousness. When wolves and bears prowled through the streets of Lyons, and a wild boar was grunting and turning up the pavement of Augustus’s temple, the Christian bishops also roved intently and determinedly, like poor forerunners, along the ruined streets, seeking a congregation. It was the great adventure, and they did not give it up.
But Noah, of course, is always in an unpopular minority. So, of course, were the Christians, when Rome began to fall. The Christians now are in a hopelessly popular majority, so it is their turn to fall.
I know the greatness of Christianity: it is a past greatness. I know that, but for those early Christians, we should never have emerged from the chaos and hopeless disaster of the Dark Ages. If 1 had lived in the year 400, pray God, I should have been a true and passionate Christian. The adventurer.
But now I live in 1984, and the Christian venture is done. The adventure is gone out of Christianity. We must start on a new venture towards God.
THINKING ABOUT ONESELF
After all, we live most of our time alone, and the biggest part of our life is the silent yet busy stream of our private thoughts. We think about ourselves, and about the things that most nearly concern us, during the greater part of the day and night, all our life long. A comparatively small period is really spent in work or actual activity, where we say we “don’t think.” And a certain space is spent in sleep, where we don’t know what we think, but where, in some sense, we keep on thinking. But the bulk of the time we think, or we muse, or we dully brood about ourselves and the things that most nearly concern us.
Perhaps it is a burden, this consciousness. Perhaps we don’t want to think. That is why people devote themselves to hobbies, why men drink and play golf, and women jazz and flirt, and everybody goes to the brainless cinemas: all just to “get away from themselves,” as they say. Oh, forget it! is the grand panacea. “You want to forget yourself,” is the cry. The joy of all existence is supposed to be the “forgetting oneself.”
Well, perhaps it is! and perhaps it isn’t. While a boy is getting “gloriously drunk” in the evening, in the process of forgetting himself, he knows perfectly well all the time that he’ll remember himself next morning quite painfully. The same with the girls who jazz through the gay night. The same even with the crowd that comes out of the cinema. They’ve been forgetting themselves. But if you look at them, it doesn’t seem to have been doing them much good. They look rather like the cat that has swallowed the stuffed canary, and feels the cotton wool on its stomach.
You would think, to hear people talk, that the greatest bugbear you can possibly have is yourself. If you can’t get away from yourself, if you can’t forget yourself, you’re doomed. The mill-stone is round your neck, so you might as well jump in and drown yourself.
It seems curious. Why should I myself be the greatest bugbear to myself? Why should I be so terrified of being in my own company only, as if some skeleton clutched me in its horrid arms, the moment I am alone with myself?
It’s all nonsense. It’s perfectly natural for every man and every woman to think about himself or herself most of the time. What is there to be afraid of? And yet people as a mass are afraid. You’d think everybody had a skeleton in the cupboard of their inside.
Which, of course, they have. I’ve got a skeleton, and so have you. But what’s wrong with him? He’s quite a good solid wholesome skeleton. And what should I do without him? No, no, I’m quite at home with my good and bony skeleton. So if he wants to have a chat with me, let him.
We all seem to be haunted by some spectre of ourselves that we daren’t face. “By jove, that’s me!” And we bolt. “Oh, heaven, there’s an escaped tiger in Piccadilly! Let’s rush up Bond Street!” — ”Look out! There’s a tiger! Make for Maddox Street!” — ”My God, there’s a tiger here too! Let’s get in the underground.” — And underground we go, forgetting that we have to emerge somewhere, and whether it’s Holland Park or the Bank, there’ll be a tiger.
The only thing to do is: “All right! If there’s a tiger, let’s have a look at him.” As everybody knows, all you have to do is to look him firmly in the eye. So with this alter ego, this spectral me that haunts my thoughts.
“I’m a poor young man and nobody loves me,” says the spectre, the tiger. Look him firmly in the eye and reply: “Really! That’s curiqus. In what way are you poor? Are you nothing but poor? Do you want to be loved? How do you want to be loved, and by whom, for example? And why should you be loved?” — Answering these questions is really amusing, far greater fun than running away from yourself and listening-in and being inert.
If the tiger is a tigress, she mews woefully. “I’m such a nice person, and nobody appreciates me. I’m so unhappy!” — Then the really sporting girl looks her tigress in the eye and says: “Oh! What makes you so sure you’re nice? Where are you nice? Are there no other ways of being nice but your way? Perhaps people are pining for a different sort of niceness from your sort. Better do something about it.”
If it’s a young married couple of tigers they wail: “We’re so hard up, and there’s no prospect.” — Then the young he and she, if they’ve any spunk, fix their two tigers. “Prospect! What do you mean by prospect? Sufficient unto the day is the dinner thereof. What is a prospect? Why should we need one? What sort of a one do we need? What’s it all about?”
And answering these questions is fun, fun for a life-time. It’s the essential fun of life, answering the tiger back. Thinking, thinking about oneself and the things that really concern one is the greatest fun of all, especially when, now and then, you feel you’ve really spoken to your skeleton.
RESURRECTION
“Touch me not! I am not yet ascended unto the Father.”
We have all this time been worshipping a dead Christ: or a dying. The Son of Man on the Cross.
Yet we know well enough, the Cross was only the first step into achievement. The second step was into the tomb. And the third step, whither? “I am not yet ascended unto the Father.”
I have just read, for the first time, Tolstoy’s Resurrection. Tolstoy writhed very hard, on the Cross. His Resurrection is the step into the tomb. And the stone was rolled upon him.
Now, as Christians, we have died. The War was the Calvary of all real Christian men. Since the War, it has been the tomb, with no rule at all. As the peasants in Italy used to say — after Christ was put in the tomb — on Good Friday eve: Now we can sin. There is no Lord on earth to see us.
Since the War, the world has been without a Lord. What is the Lord within us, has been walled up in the tomb. But three days have fully passed, and it is time to roll away the stone. It is time for the Lord in us to arise.
With the stigmata healed up, and the eyes full open.
Rise as the Lord. No longer the Man of Sorrows. The Crucified uncrucified. The Crown of Thorns removed, and the tongues of fire round the brows. The Risen Lord.
Man has done his worst, and crucified his God. Men will always crucify their god, given the opportunity. Christ proved that, by giving them the opportunity.
But Christ is not put twice on the Cross. Not a second time. And this is the great point that Tolstoy missed. It seemed to him
, Christ would go on being crucified, everlastingly.
Bad doctrine. As man puts off his clothes when he dies, so the Cross is put off, like a garment. But the Son of Man will not be twice crucified. That, never again.
He is risen. And now beware! Touch me not.
Put away the Cross; it is obsolete. Stare no more after the stigmata. They are more than healed up. The Lord is risen, and ascended unto the Father. There is a new Body, and a new Law.
Christ and the Father are at one again. There is a new law. The Man has disappeared into the God again. The column of fire shoots up from the nadir to the zenith, and there is a new fierce light on our faces.
Men who can rise with the Son of Man, and ascend unto the Father, will see the new day. Many men will perish in the tomb, unable to roll the stone away. But the stone that is rolled away will roll on. It too has a course to run.
Christ has re-entered into the Father, and the pillar of flame shoots up, anew, from the nadir to the zenith. The world and the cosmos stagger to the new axis. There is a new light upon the hills, the valleys groan and are wrenched.
The tree shivers, and sheds its leaves. Never was the tree so vast in stature and so full of leaves. But the new fire spurts at its roots, the boughs writhe, the twigs crackle from within, and the old leaves fall thick and red to the ground. That is how a new day enters the Tree of Life.
The Cross has taken root again, and is putting forth buds. Its branches sprout out where the nails went in, there is a tuft of sprouts like tongues of flame at the top, where the inscription was. Even consummatum est is dissolved in a rising up.
When Christ rejoins the Father, the Cross is again a Tree, the wheel of fire flares up and spins in the opposite way. And little wheels of fire are seen round the brow of men who have ascended, reascended to the Father. There are kings in the cosmos once more, there are lords among men again.
It is the day of the Risen Lord. Touch me not! I am the Lord Arisen.
Men of the Risen Lord, rise up. The wheel of fire is starting to spin in the opposite way, to throw off the mud of the world. Deep mud is on the staggering wheel, mud of the multitudes. But Christ has rejoined the Father at the axis, the flame of the hub spurts up. The wheel is beginning to turn in the opposite way, and woe to the multitude.
Men of the Risen Lord, the many ways are one. Down the spokes of flame there are many paths which are one way still, to the core of the wheel. Turn round, turn round, away from the mud of the rim to the flame of the core, and walk down the spokes of fire to the Whole, where God is One.
For the multitudes shall be shaken off as a dog shakes off his fleas. And only the risen lords among men shall stand on the wheel and not fall, being fire as the wheel is Fire, facing in to the inordinate Flame.
The Lord is risen. Let us rise as well and be lords. The multitudes rolled the stone upon us. Let us roll it back.
Men in the tomb, rise up, the time is expired. The Lord is risen. Quick! let us follow Him.
The Lord is risen as Lord indeed; let us follow, as lords in deed. The Lord has rejoined the Father, in the flame at the hub of the wheel. Let us look that way, and cry “Behold!” down the spokes of fire. Let us turn our backs on the tomb, and the stone that is rolling upon the multitude. It is more than finished, it is begun again.
The lords are out of prison, with the Risen Lord. Let the multitudes tremble and fall down, as the black stone rolls towards them, back from the mouth of the tomb. Except you died with the Lord, you shall surely die. Except you rise with the Lord and roll the stone from the mouth of the tomb, the stone shall surely crush you. The greater the stone you rolled upon the mouth of the tomb, the greater the destruction overtakes you.
It is not given to you twice, oh multitudes, to put the Lord on the Cross. It was given you once, and once and for all, and now it is more than finished. If you have not died, you shall die. If you cannot rise, you shall fall. If you cannot note the coming day, if you’re blind to the morning star, it is because the shadow of the stone is upon you, rolling down from the mouth of the tomb.
More blessed to give than to receive. So you gave the Judas kiss.
Now it rolls back on you, huge, an increasingly huge black stone, as big as the world, that kiss.
You thought consummation est meant all is over. You were wrong. It means; The step is taken.
Rise, then, men of the Risen Lord, and push back the stone. Who rises with the Risen Lord rises himself as a lord. Come, stand on the spokes of fire, as the wheel begins to revolve. Face inward to the flame of Whole God, that plays upon the zenith. And be lords with the Lord, with bright, and brighter, and brightest, and most-bright faces.
CLIMBING DOWN PISGAH
Sometimes one pulls oneself up short, and asks: “What am I doing this for?” One writes novels, stories, essays: and then suddenly: “What on earth am I doing it for?”
What indeed?
For the sake of humanity?
Pfui! The very words human, humanity, humanism make one sick. For the sake of humanity as such, I wouldn’t lift a little finger, much less write a story.
For the sake of the Spirit?
Tampoco! — But what do we mean by the Spirit? Let us be careful. Do we mean that One Universal Intelligence of which every man has his modicum? Or further, that one Cosmic Soul, or Spirit, of which every individual is a broken fragment, and towards which every individual strives back, to escape the raw edges of his own fragmentariness, and to experience once more the sense of wholeness?
The sense of wholeness! Does one write books in order to give one’s fellow-men a sense of wholeness: first, a oneness with all men, then a oneness with all things, then a oneness with our cosmos, and finally a oneness with the vast invisible universe? Is that it? Is that our achievement and our peace?
Anyhow, it would be a great achievement. And this has been the aim of the great ones. It was the aim of Whitman, for example.
Now it is the aim of the little ones, since the big ones are all gone. Thomas Hardy, a last big one, rings the knell of our Oneness. Virtually, he says; Once you achieve the great identification with the One, whether it be the One Spirit, or the Oversoul, or God, or whatever name you like to give it, you find that this God, this One, this Cosmic Spirit isn’t human at all, hasn’t any human feelings, doesn’t concern itself for a second with the individual, and is, all told, a gigantic cold monster. It is a machine. The moment you attain that sense of Oneness and Wholeness, you become cold, dehumanized, mechanical, and monstrous. The greatest of all illusions is the Infinite of the Spirit.
Whitman really rang the same knell. (I don’t expect anyone to agree with me.)
The sense of wnoleness is a most terrible let-down. The big ones have already decided it. But the little ones, sneakingly too selfish to care, go on sentimentally tinkling away at it.
This we may be sure of: all talk of brotherhood, universal love, sacrifice, and so on, is a sentimental pose for us. We reached the top of Pisgah, and looking down, saw the graveyard of humanity. Those meagre spirits who could never get to the top, and are careful never to try, because it costs too much sweat and a bleeding at the nose, they sit below and still snivellingly invent Pisgah-sights. But strictly, it is all over. The game is up.
The little ones, of course, are writing at so many cents a word — or a line — according to their success. They may say I do the same. Yes, I demand my cents, a Shylock. Nevertheless, if I wrote for cents I should write differently, and with far more “success.”
What, then, does one write for? There must be some imperative.
Probably it is the sense of adventure, to start with. Life is no fun for a man, without an adventure.
The Pisgah-top of spiritual oneness looks down upon a hopeless squalor of industrialism, the huge cemetery of human hopes. This is our Promised Land. “There’s a good time coming, boys, a good time coming.” Well, we’ve rung the bell, and here it is.
Shall we climb hurriedly down from Pisgah, and keep the secret? Mum’s
the word!
This is what our pioneers are boldly doing. We used, as boys, to sing parodies of most of the Sunday-school hymns.
They climbed the steep ascent of heaven
Through peril, toil, and pain:
O God, to us may grace be given
To scramble down again.
This is the grand hymn of the little ones. But it’s harder getting down a height, very often, than getting up. It’s a predicament. Here we are, cowering on the brinks of precipices half-way up, or down, Pisgah. The Pisgah of Oneness, the Oneness of Mankind, the Oneness of Spirit.
Hie, boys, over we go! Pisgah’s a fraud, and the Promised Land is Pittsburgh, the Chosen Few, there are billions of ‘em, and Canaan smells of kerosene. Let’s break our necks if we must, but let’s get down, and look over the brink of some other horizon. We’re like the girl who took the wrong turning: thought it was the right one.
It’s an adventure. And there’s only one left, the venture of consciousness. Curse these ancients, they have said everything for us. Curse these moderns, they have done everything for us. The aeroplane descends and lays her egg-shells of empty tin cans on the top of Everest, in the Ultimate Thule, and all over the North Pole; not to speak of tractors waddling across the inviolate Sahara and over the jags of Arabia Petraea, laying the same addled eggs of our civilization, tin cans, in every camp-nest.
Well then, they can have the round earth. They’ve got it anyhow. And they can have the firmament: they’ve got that too. The moon is a cold egg in the astronomical nest. Heigho! for the world well lost!
That’s the known World, the world of the One Intelligence. That is the Human World! I’m getting out of it. Homo sum. Omnis a me humanum alienum puto.
Of the thing we call human, I’ve had enough. And enough is as good as a feast.
Inside of me, there’s a little demon — maybe he’s a big demon — that says Basta! Basta! to all my oneness. “Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness.” In short, come off the perch, Polly, and look what a mountain of droppings you’ve crouched upon.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 1066