All Things Considered | Page 9

Industrious
Apprentice rose by virtues few and narrow indeed, but still virtues. But
what shall we say of the gospel preached to the new Industrious
Apprentice; the Apprentice who rises not by his virtues, but avowedly
by his vices?

ON RUNNING AFTER ONE'S HAT
I feel an almost savage envy on hearing that London has been flooded
in my absence, while I am in the mere country. My own Battersea has
been, I understand, particularly favoured as a meeting of the waters.
Battersea was already, as I need hardly say, the most beautiful of
human localities. Now that it has the additional splendour of great
sheets of water, there must be something quite incomparable in the
landscape (or waterscape) of my own romantic town. Battersea must be
a vision of Venice. The boat that brought the meat from the butcher's
must have shot along those lanes of rippling silver with the strange
smoothness of the gondola. The greengrocer who brought cabbages to
the corner of the Latchmere Road must have leant upon the oar with the
unearthly grace of the gondolier. There is nothing so perfectly poetical
as an island; and when a district is flooded it becomes an archipelago.

Some consider such romantic views of flood or fire slightly lacking in
reality. But really this romantic view of such inconveniences is quite as
practical as the other. The true optimist who sees in such things an
opportunity for enjoyment is quite as logical and much more sensible
than the ordinary "Indignant Ratepayer" who sees in them an
opportunity for grumbling. Real pain, as in the case of being burnt at
Smithfield or having a toothache, is a positive thing; it can be
supported, but scarcely enjoyed. But, after all, our toothaches are the
exception, and as for being burnt at Smithfield, it only happens to us at
the very longest intervals. And most of the inconveniences that make
men swear or women cry are really sentimental or imaginative
inconveniences--things altogether of the mind. For instance, we often
hear grown-up people complaining of having to hang about a railway
station and wait for a train. Did you ever hear a small boy complain of
having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train? No; for to
him to be inside a railway station is to be inside a cavern of wonder and
a palace of poetical pleasures. Because to him the red light and the
green light on the signal are like a new sun and a new moon. Because
to him when the wooden arm of the signal falls down suddenly, it is as
if a great king had thrown down his staff as a signal and started a
shrieking tournament of trains. I myself am of little boys' habit in this
matter. They also serve who only stand and wait for the two fifteen.
Their meditations may be full of rich and fruitful things. Many of the
most purple hours of my life have been passed at Clapham Junction,
which is now, I suppose, under water. I have been there in many moods
so fixed and mystical that the water might well have come up to my
waist before I noticed it particularly. But in the case of all such
annoyances, as I have said, everything depends upon the emotional
point of view. You can safely apply the test to almost every one of the
things that are currently talked of as the typical nuisance of daily life.
For instance, there is a current impression that it is unpleasant to have
to run after one's hat. Why should it be unpleasant to the well-ordered
and pious mind? Not merely because it is running, and running
exhausts one. The same people run much faster in games and sports.
The same people run much more eagerly after an uninteresting; little
leather ball than they will after a nice silk hat. There is an idea that it is

humiliating to run after one's hat; and when people say it is humiliating
they mean that it is comic. It certainly is comic; but man is a very
comic creature, and most of the things he does are comic--eating, for
instance. And the most comic things of all are exactly the things that
are most worth doing--such as making love. A man running after a hat
is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a wife.
Now a man could, if he felt rightly in the matter, run after his hat with
the manliest ardour and the most sacred joy. He might regard himself
as a jolly huntsman pursuing a wild animal, for certainly no animal
could be wilder. In fact, I am inclined to believe that hat-hunting on
windy days will be the sport of the upper classes