A Miscellany of Men | Page 7

religion, so it
has lit in his hand the only adequate symbol of it: I mean the red flower
called Fire. Fire, the most magic and startling of all material things, is a
thing known only to man and the expression of his sublime externalism.

It embodies all that is human in his hearths and all that is divine on his
altars. It is the most human thing in the world; seen across wastes of
marsh or medleys of forest, it is veritably the purple and golden flag of
the sons of Eve. But there is about this generous and rejoicing thing an
alien and awful quality: the quality of torture. Its presence is life; its
touch is death. Therefore, it is always necessary to have an
intermediary between ourselves and this dreadful deity; to have a priest
to intercede for us with the god of life and death; to send an
ambassador to the fire. That priest is the poker. Made of a material
more merciless and warlike than the other instruments of domesticity,
hammered on the anvil and born itself in the flame, the poker is strong
enough to enter the burning fiery furnace, and, like the holy children,
not be consumed. In this heroic service it is often battered and twisted,
but is the more honourable for it, like any other soldier who has been
under fire.
Now all this may sound very fanciful and mystical, but it is the right
view of pokers, and no one who takes it will ever go in for any wrong
view of pokers, such as using them to beat one's wife or torture one's
children, or even (though that is more excusable) to make a policeman
jump, as the clown does in the pantomime. He who has thus gone back
to the beginning, and seen everything as quaint and new, will always
see things in their right order, the one depending on the other in degree
of purpose and importance: the poker for the fire and the fire for the
man and the man for the glory of God.
This is thinking forwards. Now our modern discussions about
everything, Imperialism, Socialism, or Votes for Women, are all
entangled in an opposite train of thought, which runs as follows:--A
modern intellectual comes in and sees a poker. He is a positivist; he
will not begin with any dogmas about the nature of man, or any
day-dreams about the mystery of fire. He will begin with what he can
see, the poker; and the first thing he sees about the poker is that it is
crooked. He says, "Poor poker; it's crooked." Then he asks how it came
to be crooked; and is told that there is a thing in the world (with which
his temperament has hitherto left him unacquainted)--a thing called fire.
He points out, very kindly and clearly, how silly it is of people, if they

want a straight poker, to put it into a chemical combustion which will
very probably heat and warp it. "Let us abolish fire," he says, "and then
we shall have perfectly straight pokers. Why should you want a fire at
all?" They explain to him that a creature called Man wants a fire,
because he has no fur or feathers. He gazes dreamily at the embers for a
few seconds, and then shakes his head. "I doubt if such an animal is
worth preserving," he says. "He must eventually go under in the cosmic
struggle when pitted against well-armoured and warmly protected
species, who have wings and trunks and spires and scales and horns and
shaggy hair. If Man cannot live without these luxuries, you had better
abolish Man." At this point, as a rule, the crowd is convinced; it heaves
up all its clubs and axes, and abolishes him. At least, one of him.
Before we begin discussing our various new plans for the people's
welfare, let us make a kind of agreement that we will argue in a
straightforward way, and not in a tail-foremost way. The typical
modern movements may be right; but let them be defended because
they are right, not because they are typical modern movements. Let us
begin with the actual woman or man in the street, who is cold; like
mankind before the finding of fire. Do not let us begin with the end of
the last red-hot discussion--like the end of a red hot poker. Imperialism
may be right. But if it is right, it is right because England has some
divine authority like Israel, or some human authority like Rome; not
because we have saddled ourselves with South Africa, and don't know
how to get rid of it. Socialism may be true. But if it is true, it is true
because the tribe or the city